The café tried very hard to be charming.
It had lace curtains, chipped saucers that were probably bought distressed, and a chalkboard menu full of ironic quotes about caffeine and revolution. The air smelled of good espresso, over-steeped tea, and too many damp coats.
Mira arrived early anyway.
She chose a table near the back, with a clear view of the door and the big front windows. The radiator under the sill hissed, uneven. Outside, late-morning traffic crawled past in fits.
Aleksandr sat opposite her, coat draped perfectly over his chair despite the cramped space. He fit here about as well as a Rembrandt would fit in a dentist’s waiting room.
“You are… tense,” he observed quietly.
She wrapped both hands around her mug, letting the heat bite into her palms. “We’re about to have coffee with a man who stalks condemned estates for a living. Forgive me for not being zen.”
“He is… a messenger,” Aleksandr said. “Not the… true danger.”
“Messengers can still shoot you,” she said.
He inclined his head. “Then… we do not give him a clean shot.”
He looked infuriatingly calm, long fingers resting lightly on his own cup. He’d insisted on ordering a black coffee, then eyed it with suspicion when it arrived, as if it might lunge at him.
“You don’t have to drink it,” she murmured.
He glanced at the demure swirl of crema. “It is… a prop,” he said. “You said men in cafés with empty hands make others nervous.”
“I said men in cafés who look like they’re there to kill someone make people nervous,” she corrected. “The coffee helps.”
“Then I will… hold it,” he said, wrapping his hand around the cup without lifting it to his mouth.
He looked almost like an ordinary man that way. Almost.
The bell over the café door jangled.
Lebedev walked in.
In daylight and a neutral setting, he was aggressively forgettable: late forties, receding hairline, nondescript dark coat that had cost more than it looked. He scanned the room with casual thoroughness, that particular sweep that tagged exits, cameras, bodies. His gaze slid past Mira and Aleksandr once, then returned.
He smiled.
“Dr. Okonkwo,” he said, threading his way between tables. His voice was smooth, just the right volume for public spaces. “Thank you for agreeing to meet.”
“Mr. Lebedev,” she said, keeping her tone cool. “This is my colleague, Aleks—”
“Alexei,” Aleksandr interjected smoothly in accented, modern Russian. “Pleased to meet you.”
He offered a hand.
Lebedev took it, eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly at the name swap. He squeezed, testing, looking for something—calluses, nervous sweat, a flinch.
Aleksandr gave him nothing but a polite, measured pressure.
“Coffee?” Mira asked.
“I’m on the clock,” Lebedev said. “But I won’t insult you by refusing.”
He ordered an Americano, then sat, placing himself just off-center: not directly opposite either of them, but angled so he could see both and the window.
“I like this place,” he said conversationally, glancing around. “Good baklava. The Wi-Fi password is always something from Mayakovsky. Very… thematic.”
“You strike me as more of a prose man,” Mira said.
He smiled faintly. “We get old enough, we all become prose.”
Aleksandr’s eyes hooded briefly. An inside joke the mortal didn’t know he was making.
Lebedev’s gaze flicked to him. “So,” he said lightly. “You’ve been… busy. Archives. Crypts. Old doorways. You worry my employers.”
“I run a historic preservation nonprofit,” Mira said. “If developers weren’t worried, I’d be bad at my job.”
He tilted his head, conceding the point. “But this is… different. Old noble estates are one thing. But when you start… moving stones… in places other people… prefer remain undisturbed…”
He let the sentence dangle, like bait.
Mira took a sip of coffee to hide her expression. “Are we talking about the crypt, or the ice house?”
Lebedev’s smile thinned. “Ah,” he said. “Straight to it.”
“You weren’t subtle,” she said. “Watching the estate. Calling my office. Let’s not pretend this is about building permits.”
“Very well,” he said. He folded his hands, wedding ring catching the light. “My clients have an interest in ensuring that… old complications… do not derail current projects. You… have uncovered some… delicate materials.”
“You mean the documents,” she said. “The ones that show your clients paid for certain… ‘resolutions’ in the nineties.”
His jaw twitched once. A small, betraying tick.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said smoothly.
“Of course not,” she said. “And even if you did, you’d tell me they’re forged. Or taken out of context. Or the work of a disgruntled former employee.”
He chuckled. “You’ve done this before.”
“Bureaucrats have patterns,” she said. “So do the men who clean up after them.”
He looked at her over the rim of his cup. “Then you also know this: playing with such… papers… is dangerous. For everyone involved.”
“Your concern is touching,” she said dryly.
“It is… practical,” he said. “You are… young. Dedicated. You believe in… fairness. It would be… unfortunate… if you became… collateral.”
“I’m not collateral,” she said. “I’m… an obstacle.”
He nodded slowly. “These are not… men… you should want to be an obstacle to.”
“You think you’re warning me,” she said. “You’re actually confirming I’m poking in the right place.”
His eyes flicked to Aleksandr again. “And you, ‘Alexei’,” he said. “You’ve put yourself… close to the fire.”
“I like… warmth,” Aleksandr said lazily.
Lebedev’s gaze sharpened. “Your accent,” he said. “Old. But not… foreign. Interesting.”
“I read too many… novels,” Aleksandr said without missing a beat.
“Hmm,” Lebedev said.
He let the subject drop—for now.
“I am authorized,” he said, “to make you an offer, Dr. Okonkwo. Concerning the estate. And your… organization.”
Mira’s gut tightened. “Let me guess. A generous ‘donation’ to our work in exchange for us… stepping back.”
“And allowing progress,” he said. “Yes.”
“Progress,” she echoed.
He leaned forward slightly. “You can fight us. Rally students. Chain yourself to the gate when the bulldozers come. Maybe you delay things. A year. Two. In the end… you lose. The house comes down. The paperwork moves forward. Or…”
“Or?” she prompted.
“Or you accept that some… battles… are not worth dying over,” he said. “You leverage your… influence… to secure the preservation of select architectural features. A plaque. An exhibit room in the new development about the ‘history of the site.’”
He smiled. “A nice photo of you at the ribbon cutting. Your name on the donors’ wall. And in return… my clients make a significant contribution to your cause. Enough to fund your little crusades elsewhere for years.”
Mira stared at him.
The worst part was that she’d seen that sort of compromise work. She’d seen colleagues accept similar deals. Buildings saved in part, stories flattened into curatorial text, the ugly edges sanded off for public consumption.
Good work got done with dirty money.
“You really don’t understand me,” she said quietly.
“Enlighten me,” he said.
“You think I care about my name on a wall?” she said. “You think I’m in this for plaques and polite mentions in annual reports? This isn’t about… optics. This is about what that house *means*.”
“And what does it mean?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“A record,” she said. “Of how power moved. Of who paid whom. Of who died and who lived and why. You want to tear it down not because it’s structurally unsound, but because it’s a… witness.”
His expression shuttered a fraction.
“Big words,” he said. “For one building.”
“It’s not just that building,” she said. “But it’s the one in front of me. I can’t save everything. But I can… draw the line here.”
His fingers tapped once on the table. A small, irritated staccato.
“You are… stubborn,” he said.
“She is,” Aleksandr agreed calmly. “It is one of her… more admirable flaws.”
Lebedev’s eyes glinted. “You speak as if you’ve known her… a long time.”
“In some ways,” Aleksandr said, “I have.”
They stared at each other for a moment. A quiet measuring.
Lebedev leaned back, outwardly relaxed again.
“Very well,” he said. “You won’t take the money. You won’t stand aside. In that case, let me give you… another piece of advice, freely.”
“How generous,” Mira said.
“There are… other interests… involved in this matter,” he said. “Not just my employer. Not just the city. Old… interests. Very… traditional… ones.”
“Vampires,” Mira said blandly.
Lebedev’s eyelid twitched.
“We have a name for people who say such things in public,” he said. “Unemployed.”
“You’re the one who brought up ‘old interests,’” she said. “I’m just skipping the euphemisms.”
He studied her.
“You don’t… flinch,” he said.
“At what?” she asked. “The idea that there are men who live off other people’s blood and think the city is their chessboard? I grew up in a country where politicians stole billions meant for hospitals. Vampires aren’t new to me. You’re just… more literal.”
Aleksandr made a low sound in his throat. It might have been approval. Or warning.
Lebedev’s gaze slid to him again, weighing.
“You know, don’t you?” he said quietly. “About them. About… him.” He jerked his chin infinitesimally toward Aleksandr.
Mira said nothing.
Silence, this time, was answer enough.
“Then you know,” Lebedev went on, “that there are… rules. That some… lines… are not crossed. The Morozovs… they crossed them. Repeatedly.”
“And your clients?” Aleksandr asked softly. “They did not?”
Lebedev’s mouth thinned. “I am not… at liberty… to discuss my clients’… dietary habits.”
“Is that what you call… murder… now?” Aleksandr asked.
A flash of genuine anger crossed Lebedev’s face, there and gone.
“You think you’re… different,” he said. “Because you read poetry and agonize over ethics. In the end, you all feed. Someone always pays the bill.”
“And you,” Aleksandr said, “are the waiter.”
A small, brittle silence.
Lebedev’s hands were very steady when he lifted his cup again.
“I did not come here to debate… metaphysics,” he said. “I came to warn you. There are… elders… who will not appreciate what you are doing. Who consider the Morozov matter… closed.”
“Then they should have… locked their ice house better,” Mira said.
His eyes flashed. “You are playing a very dangerous game, Dr. Okonkwo.”
“So are you,” she said. “The difference is, I’m not getting paid.”
He laughed once, unexpectedly. “You’re very… refreshing.”
“That’s one word for it,” she said.
He set his cup down carefully.
“This is your last chance,” he said. “Step back. Let us… handle this. You can even… claim victory. Say you ‘negotiated’ for the preservation of some token elements. You get your story. My clients get their project. Everyone lives.”
Mira thought of the crypt. Of the ice house. Of the letter in Elizaveta’s sharp hand. Of the boys in the tunnel. Of Aleksandr on her couch, lying very still with his eyes open, listening to her heart.
“No,” she said.
Lebedev’s expression didn’t change, but something—tension, perhaps—dropped out of it.
“I see,” he said.
He stood. Smoothed his coat.
“Then I suppose,” he said, “we will… see what happens next.”
He laid enough cash on the table to cover his drink, nodded once to each of them, and walked out.
The bell jangled cheerfully behind him.
Mira released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“Well,” she said. “That went… not well.”
“For him,” Aleksandr said. “Perhaps.”
She gave him a sharp look. “You saw that line he was walking. He’s not just a corporate fixer. He’s… connected. To… them.”
“Yes,” Aleksandr said.
“You recognized… something,” she pressed.
He stared at the door Lebedev had used.
“He smells of… old blood… and new money,” he said. “He is… human. But… he has… tasted our games. Long enough to think he knows… all the rules.”
“And he doesn’t?” she asked.
“No one does,” he said softly. “Not even… them.”
He turned to her.
“You did… well,” he said.
She snorted. “He just threatened me three different ways and walked out confident he still has the upper hand.”
“And yet,” Aleksandr said, “he… warned you. Truly. About… others. He did not have to do that.”
“You think that was kindness?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Pragmatism. He… does not want them… angry. Nor you… dead. Yet.”
“Charming,” she said.
“You impressed him,” Aleksandr added. “That is… useful.”
She grimaced. “I don’t want to impress him. Or his boss. Or any of their pet vampires.”
“You may not have a choice,” he said. “You have… entered their sight. They will… watch.”
She rubbed her temples. “I need more coffee.”
“I still have mine,” he said.
She looked at his untouched cup. “Do you… even like it?”
He considered. Lifted it. Took a sip.
His face did something complicated.
“It is… bitter,” he said. “But… interesting.”
“Like you,” she said under her breath.
His eyes flicked to hers, sharp.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Come on. Dima’s going to want a debrief. And Yulia… probably already knows we met him.”
“She will be… writing,” Aleksandr said.
“Good,” Mira said. “Let’s give her something worth printing.”
They left the café.
Across the street, a car that looked like any other pulled away from the curb a few seconds later.
In the back seat, Lebedev watched them in the side mirror. His expression was thoughtful. Troubled.
“Stubborn girl,” he muttered.
Beside him, a man in a charcoal suit—slicker, colder—scrolling through something on his phone, glanced up.
“She refused?” he asked.
“Of course she refused,” Lebedev said. “She thinks she’s… principled.”
The man’s mouth curled faintly. “Kalugin will not be pleased.”
“Kalugin can learn to live with disappointment,” Lebedev said, a little too quickly. “The elders won’t.”
The man’s eyes hardened. “We made an agreement,” he said. “The Morozov matter is… closed.”
Lebedev thought of Aleksandr’s face in the half-light of the café, the way his eyes had held a century of contradiction.
“Tell that,” he said quietly, “to the one who just woke up.”
***