The Romanov Legacy by Jenni Wiltz Page A

full
of people, two of them could remain unseen. 
    That’s what you think, Belial said, stretching his
wings.
    “Good morning to you, too,” she said, rinsing the soap from
her skin.  Behind her eyes, the angel smiled.  Get dressed, little
one.  We have work to do.   
    Constantine had left her a striped oxford blouse, black
skirt suit, and leather pumps.  The skirt fit snugly and the shoes pinched
her toes, but once she put them on, she looked like an average office
worker.  A smaller bag held a conglomeration of drugstore makeup. 
She reached for a black crayon and traced thick circles around her eyes then
smeared her lips with something dark and sticky.
    When she emerged, she saw the table set with a single place:
one plate of scrambled eggs and toast, one cup of coffee, and one paper napkin
folded in half, tucked beneath the plate’s edge.  Constantine stood at the
sink washing an ancient iron skillet, his suit jacket discarded and white
sleeves rolled up to the elbows. 
    “Is this for me?” she asked, pointing at the plate.
    “Hurry, before it gets cold.”
    “Where’s yours?”
    “I already ate.”  He turned his head to smile at
her.  “You look very pretty.”
    “I feel like I have a placenta on my lips.  Why are we
dressed like this?”
    “You’re supposed to be a professor, remember?”  He set
the skillet on a dish towel and came to sit beside her.  “We’re meeting a
man named Voloshin to see what kind of proof he has that the Tsar’s fortune
exists.  He’s the one trying to blackmail the ambassador.”
    She paused, fork halfway to her mouth.  “So I didn’t
make it all up.  This is really happening.”
    “Why would you think it wasn’t real?”
    “Sometimes I get confused between what really happens and
what Belial shows me.”  She set her fork down and picked up the
toast.  “Once when we were little, I watched a dark-haired man kidnap
Beth.  I screamed for someone to chase him and when no one did, I took off
after him.”
    “What happened?”
    “Beth tackled me halfway down the street.  She’d been
standing next to me the whole time.  The neighbors stared and pointed and my
mother never let me play in the front yard again.”
    “Didn’t your parents try and help you?”
    “They tried.”  Images of needles and rosaries and
leather restraints flashed through her mind.  “It just didn’t work.”
    “Where are they now?”
    “Dead.” 
    Good riddance , Belial muttered.  He shifted his
feet and set off a tremor of rolling earthquakes in the back of her
skull.  She ignored them as best she could, scooping up the last bit of
scrambled egg and washing it down with coffee.  “Beth took care of
me.  It was better that way.  Belial hated my parents.”
    “Why?”
    “They did everything they could to kill him.  He and
Beth have a much better working relationship.  Can I ask a question now?”
    “Yes.”  He took her plate and brought it back to the
sink, plunging it into the soapy water. 
    “Where did you learn to speak English so well?”
    “Satellite TV.”
    “Shut up.”
    He smiled, crinkling the skin at the corners of his
eyes.  “The security company I worked for brought in private tutors for
us.  That’s how it all started.”
    “Why did they do that?”
    “If we spoke English, we could masquerade as Red Cross or
USAID workers to get closer to our targets.  Then in Chechnya, we stole
TVs and satellite antennas for our safe houses.  We watched NYPD Blue and The Practice to learn how to interrogate in English.”  
    “How long were you in Chechnya?”
    “Two years.”
    “What did you do there?”
    The smile fell from his face.  “Natalie, stop.  We
need to get ready to go.”  He reached for his suit jacket and slipped it
back on.
    “What did you do?”
    “What do you think?  I killed people.”  
    “You seem awfully pent up about the things you do.”
    “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
    “You just told me—you