Page 7 of The Scribe (Irin Chronicles 1)

“Or tea,” another voice added in the same thick Russian accent. If Maxim was upstairs, so was his cousin, Leo. “Gallons of tea.”

“Oceans of it.”

“If only the Bosphorus flowed with vodka.”

“We should get the brothers in Odessa working on that…”

Damien walked into the kitchen, glancing upward as the cousins continued to rib each other. “Drink water. You’re not used to the heat yet.”

Malachi grimaced. “I’ll be fine. I was born here.”

The watcher pulled a bottle of water from a cupboard and threw it toward him, the tattoos on his bare arms rippling as he threw the plastic bottle. “But you haven’t lived here for hundreds of years. The city has grown, and that makes it hotter.”

“Anthropogenic heat,” said Rhys, walking into the kitchen from the library and holding his hand out to Damien for another bottle of water. The pale man had been sweating nonstop for three days—not surprising considering the air conditioner had broken around that time. His dark brown hair was plastered to his forehead, and his normally pale skin was flushed. “Human activity produces heat. More humans. More heat. Not to mention climate change. Bloody humans and their automobiles will kill us all.”

Damien and Malachi exchanged amused glances. The cranky British scholar was constantly nostalgic for preindustrial times.

“Heat can’t kill us, Rhys!” Leo called from above.

“But your whining is doing a fairly good job of torture,” Maxim added. “Is whining a violation of the Geneva Convention?”

“Does the Geneva Convention apply to us?”

“Ask Rhys. He knows everything.”

The scholar’s face only grew redder. “Maybe if I wasn’t the only one working—”

“Stop.” One quiet word from Damien was all it took. The three men fell silent, even the ones on the second floor, who could hear their watcher’s voice from a distance.

Damien was of average height and weight. His face could make humans stop and stare, or he could blend into a crowd, based solely on his demeanor. The only remarkable thing about him was the intricate tattoos he had inked all over his arms. Malachi knew the work covered most of the man’s legs as well, though he kept them carefully covered. Malachi glanced down at his own markings. Four hundred years of scribing himself still hadn’t left him half as covered as Damien. Who knew how old the man was?

Damien continued in a low voice, “Leo, did you call the man to repair the air conditioner?”

A thundering set of footsteps came down the stairs and the hall. The man they belonged to stopped in the door, filling it with his massive frame. “They said they will come tomorrow. Beginning of the summer means lots of work. They’re busy.” Sweat dotted a pale forehead topped by a thatch of sandy-blond hair. Maxim followed Leo, a mirror of his cousin. The two were inseparable, cousins being as rare as siblings in their race. Their mothers had been twin sisters, and the men looked like twins themselves. Even their tattoos were almost identical, though their personalities couldn’t have been more opposite.

“So no air-conditioning until tomorrow?” Rhys asked.

Damien shrugged. “Sleep on the roof. There are beds up there and the breeze will be better when the sun goes down.”

For some reason, Malachi’s thoughts flicked to the woman slipping into the wooden house near Aya Sofia. The house had a plain street view, a classic Ottoman; it was probably cool and shaded in the interior. There might have been a courtyard. And air-conditioning.

“I should have kept following the woman,” he muttered.

Damien’s ears caught it. “What woman? Why were you following her? You know you’re not allowed to—”

“Do I look like a foolish boy?” He glared at the man. “There was a woman at the spice market. She’d caught the attention of a Grigori soldier. I was watching him, and he was watching her.”

All amusement fled the group. Each man knew the danger of a Grigori attack.

Maxim asked, “Did you kill him before he got to her?”

Rhys offered a bloodthirsty smile, forgetting his misery in the contemplation of Grigori death. “Set his soul free to be judged, brother? I wish I could have helped.”

“I didn’t. I’m being cautious, remember?” He aimed a pointed look at Damien. “Besides, his behavior was… odd. I wanted to ask you about it.”

Damien narrowed his eyes. “Odd how?”

“He was hunting her, but he wasn’t. He never approached her. Never tried to charm her. He was actually trying to remain unnoticed.”

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