Thaw
by Rez, for Voleuse
"Have you been drinking?" Sydney spoke in the calm voice reserved for dangerous lunatics. She was addressing her father but glaring at Sark over the barrel of the Glock Bristow had tossed her a moment ago. They were all ignoring the body sprawled at her feet.
"Sydney, don't argue. You're obviously an immediate target and--"
"And therefore I should waltz upstairs with Mr. My-Loyalties-Are-Flexible, here? Dad, that's--"
"You need backup; I want answers, and I won't find them here. Michael Vaughn, as you know, is otherwise occupied." Sark was watching Sydney's face; that cut still bled, evidently. Lauren Reed, ethereal in white satin and emeralds, had certainly been keeping her husband busy; there was a forest of mistletoe in the ballroom.
In fact, that probably had a bearing on what Sydney had been doing with a good-looking reptile like Mecklenburg in the first place. Sark crossed his arms and leaned against the back of a leather wing-chair, not bothering to conceal his amusement.
Bristow hadn't troubled to ask him, of course, whether he'd be prepared to mind his nuisance of a daughter for the evening.
"I don't need backup," said Sydney. Sark thought she might actually be grinding her teeth. "Not from him and not--"
"I beg your pardon," he interjected. "I regret that I have a prior engagement for the evening, as well. I merely happened to be nearby when it became clear that Ms. Bristow needed assistance." He glanced down at Sydney's latest victim. "Now if you'll excuse me--"
"Your plans have changed," Bristow snapped. Father and daughter were both glaring at him. They really looked very much alike, he thought. He'd never noticed it till now.
"Forgive me, Agent Bristow, but my employer--"
"Your employer would be fascinated to learn of your recent freelance activities, I'm sure. Concerning the Josephine Metryka, for example."
Christ, the man probably hadn't let anyone finish a sentence in decades. He was too bloody well-informed.
Sark stared at the body on the floor, buying a few more seconds. There was a discreet and familiar tattoo on the outflung right hand. Nearby was the loaded syringe the idiot had dropped when Sark had distracted him--not that Sydney had needed the help; he'd intervened just to annoy her. The bloody Bristows: he should have known better.
"Very well," he said. Some day, probably just before hell froze, he'd find the means to wipe that caustic little smile off Jack Bristow's face. Meanwhile, he'd have to come up with something to explain his sudden absence to San'ko--and Sloane. He sighed. "This way, Ms. Bristow."
"Oh no," said Sydney. "Dad, I'm coming with you. Sark, back the hell up or I'll kill you, too."
"He's not dead," Sark told her.
"No, you're not," said her father.
Sydney tightened her grip on the Glock, preparing to sidestep around Sark but obviously hampered by her dress. She was a shadow to Ms. Reed's brilliance, he thought, her midnight-blue silk velvet gown made high to the neck and long to the wrist. He'd caught a look at the back of the dress, though, in the brief scrum with Mecklenburg. There wasn't any.
Sark let Bristow and his daughter argue for a few more minutes, then intercepted Sydney and took the gun out of her unresisting hand. Jack Bristow's impatient glare suggested he'd waited too long.
"My God, Dad, Interpol reissued the Red Notice on him last month," Sydney said bitterly, not bothering to free her wrist. "I can't even go to a damned Christmas party without committing treason."
"Sydney, just do it," her father said. "His loyalties, as you call them, aren't unstable at all; they're merely obscure." He glanced again at Sark, jerked his head toward the door. "Do you play chess, Mr. Sark?" he asked. They brushed past him and headed across the marble checkerboard of the foyer.
"Not with you," Sark replied sourly, hauling on Sydney's wrist. She'd stopped fighting him for the moment but was clearly prepared to deck him the instant they were alone.
"Good answer," he heard Jack Bristow say. He cursed silently and towed the recalcitrant Ms. Bristow up the stairs.
*
"I want a weapon, a change of clothes, and a vehicle. Something better than that," she snapped at the proffered Glock, and stopped short, stepping into the suite. "Nonprofit, my amnesiac--who the hell does Sloane think he is? The Pope?"
Sark sighed and set the pistol down on the mantelpiece. Could Jack Bristow really blame him for his own daughter's spectacular pigheadedness? Yes, he could. Better oblige the man.
"Cabinet to your right," he told her. "It's unlocked. The dressing room's through the bedroom, BDUs on the left, far wall. They should fit reasonably well. Sloane's reputation, if you can call it that, is intact. This place is one of mine."
Sydney swung to face him, holding an MP5/10. She was too easy.
"A bit overdone, I agree," he confessed. "But the technology's rather nice."
"Is it?" She looked him up and down as though actually seeing him for the first time tonight, a predatory interest cooling the fury in her eyes. "That's rude, Sark," she smiled. She snapped a magazine into the MP5 and let the gun drop suggestively. "About the BDUs, I mean. But that's okay. Why don't we take a look at the technology, instead?"
He was really almost fond of her sometimes.
"If you insist," he said.
*
They set one frame on stationary with Mecklenburg in the camera's footprint, hoping someone, accomplice or employer, might venture in to find him. The ops room was really a walk-in closet with special cooling and ventilation: close quarters, but relatively comfortable.
Sark watched the shadows flicker across Sydney's face as the remaining displays changed. An empty hallway; the ballroom, north end, the orchestra in motion and a waltz through the audio channel: Khatchaturian. The ground-floor bookroom: a couple in passionate embrace, blonde head, white satin. Clear audio there, too.
"You're so organized, Sark," Sydney said. "Weapons here, clothes there, everything in its place." She shoved the MP5 under the console and pushed her chair away from the monitors. Her bare back was straight as a steel rod; the pale skin looked cold.
The velvet wasn't made for sitting. She looked like a cat that's been stroked the wrong way.
"The wine cabinet's through the door and to your right," he said. "But please don't get up."
*
"Who the hell is Josephine Metryka?"
Sark frowned at his wineglass, ignoring the question. Damn Jack Bristow.
"And why the hell did Sloane throw this party anyway? Why in God's name would he want you handling security, and why would the Covenant agree?" Sydney jogged his arm with her elbow. All good questions, none of which he intended to answer.
"Come to think of it," she continued, "why would--" with a deep breath-- "George-Frederick-Henry-Louis-Mecklenburg-Strelitz want to kill me anyway?" She scowled and took another mouthful of wine. That had come out with remarkable clarity in light of the two empty Bordeaux bottles sitting next to the console. He'd forgotten about Sydney's undergraduate credentials.
"Never mind that," he said impatiently. "You saw the tattoo." She looked mystified.
"There's another faction," he explained. "Hereditary." He was speaking perfectly clearly but her stare was blank. "Sydney. It's just the rag-tag and bobtail, at this point: old families, dying traditions. Bloody boring. And anyway, he wasn't trying to kill you."
She looked affronted. "Sark, I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Stop trying to confuse me. And he was too."
A Christmas carol blared from the speakers. Sark keyed the audio switch as though it had threatened him personally.
"No. They don't want you dead. Yet. Forget about that, Sydney." He grabbed her wrist, held up her right hand between them. "Think about this." He pressed the thumb against her palm, wrapping his hand around hers to hold it there.
"If Jack Bristow owes Arvin Sloane--" the smallest finger joined the thumb-- "and Arvin Sloane owes Ushek San'ko, and Ushek San'ko owes Andrian Lazarey--" All her fingers but one were now folded into a fist. He shook the captive hand gently, with its index finger pointing upward.
"--Whom do you suppose is waiting at the end of the daisy chain to collect the accrued value of all those debts from my loving father?"
She wasn't even listening. Nor was the cooling system in this damned hole rated for two people. He'd taken off the dinner jacket, undone the tie, rolled up the sleeves. It wasn't enough. He dropped her hand, poured himself another glass of wine, and one for her. It was the Château Margaux '90 and he'd forgotten how much he liked it.
"Never mind," he said, and drank appreciatively. "Have some more wine. I'm going to change."
He'd only just dropped the shirt on the floor when she appeared at the dressing room door, which he'd neglected to close. He frowned.
"Sydney, if you don't mind..."
"I don't mind at all," she said. "That's definitely where the shirt belongs."
He really didn't have an answer for that. She moved a few steps closer. "Do you know the rule about Christmas, Sark?" she asked. In a gesture that probably hadn't changed since time began, she pulled the clip out of her beautifully arranged hair and let it fall around her face. She held out the clip to him: gilded holly-leaves and something red.
"Sydney?" Christ, Bristow was going to kill them both. Bristow's daughter smiled at him suddenly, the first real smile all night.
"The rule, Sark, is this: Nobody ever gets what they really want--" He reached for the clip and took her hand with it, pulling her forward. "--but everyone gets something." She kissed him meditatively, as though planning an essay on the experience.
"It's been a truly lousy party," she said. "But it's starting to get better."
*
"Tell me again," said Sark, "why you're doing this." Things were becoming more random by the moment and he was breathless, between the wine and the sudden paucity of air. He needed a little space to process things. Sydney stopped what she was doing, which was brushing her mouth along his cheekbone in slow, hypnotic sweeps. She blinked at him, backing up a step.
"Peace on earth?" she said. The words echoed in a drunken wail from one of the open audio channels in the next room. Sloane's wretched party was finally winding down and the diehards, as always, were the least attractive people on the guest-list.
Sark frowned. "Don't be ridiculous," he replied. "What about that poor sod Mecklenburg? You'd have killed him if I hadn't pulled you off his limp and battered body."
Sydney rolled her eyes. "That creep. He did too want to kill me. I know he did."
Sark leaned back against the door jamb. Why were they still standing in his dressing-room? He'd finished undressing, or almost, and there was no place to set down a wineglass, which was why his was... somewhere else.
"He's a cousin of mine, you know," he remarked. "Great-uncle was Grand Duke something-something ..." The carved moulding was not ideal against his bare skin and--wait. Sydney still had her clothes on. He straightened up. "This is a setup, isn't it?" he said coldly. "Mecklenburg, Lazarey; who's next? What do you do, cut notches into your copy of the Almanach de Gotha?"
"You are not listed in the Almanach de Gotha!"
"Fine, Agent Know-All. Whatever you say."
"And anyway," she argues, "if we'd met a hundred years ago I'd have been with the Bolsheviks, trust me."
Remarkable. She looked as though she expected him to understand that.
"A hundred years ago," he informed her, "you'd have been an unwashed Carpathian bandit who probably couldn't spell her own barbaric name."
"Decadent Romanov scum."
"Ruthenian savage."
In fact, they were both almost as drunk as they appeared. They must be; otherwise they'd have to spend all night on debits and credits: body-counts, bad deeds, and so on, not to mention the parental issues, and they'd never get anywhere.
"We'll never get anywhere," he said, resigned. It seemed worth pointing out.
"Well," said Sydney, her breath tickling his ear, "I've never been here before." He took a deep, desperate breath.
If there's anything that feels almost as good as actual sex, he was learning, it's dark-blue silk velvet against his bare chest. He tipped his head back to avoid moaning outright. Sydney chuckled against his cheekbone. She was doing it again.
"Tell me one more time," she said, "what you're doing here."
Clever. She thought he'd forgotten who was interrogating whom.
"I have a--damn it, Sydney, pay attention. I know why I'm here--" She seemed fascinated with his hair, kept running the palms of her hands up the nape of his neck. "The question is... the question is--"
No good. Between blue velvet and the damned doorframe, she'd found a new variation on torture: hardwood cold and edgy on his bare back; trousers too damned tight. Sydney pulled herself closer, gave her hips a knowing little twist that fit her snugly against his groin. "Mmm?" she said.
"'Mirth Without Mischief,'" he quoted, fighting for breath. "'Give Peace A Chance.' You heard the bloody man." Sloane's welcoming address had been smarmy in English and unbearable in French. "I'm just the bloody chucker-out, Sydney. Hired help, oh God--"
"In your own house, excuse me, villa?" She pulled back, raised a brow, the picture of disapproval. He opened his mouth on something glib about debts, or deals. "Pax Arviniana," she added experimentally, and more or less fell against him, chortling like a bloody schoolgirl.
"Jesus, Sydney." She chuckled again at his involuntary response: hands round her waist, pressure just where it should be, moving low and slow.
"Oh," she said, "who the hell cares, anyway?" She was impatient, suddenly, undoing his trousers. He couldn't help the little moan of relief that escaped him, but then--
"You're barefoot," she said. He must have looked as confused as he felt because she elaborated: "That's... very hot." Seriously, as though he might want to make a note of it. They stared at each other for a moment.
"You're stalling, Agent Bristow," he said finally. The way her mouth quirked up at one corner told him neither one of them was quite far enough gone to ignore the inevitable crosscurrents; there was an unfortunate clarity to the moment. But she shrugged, with that bring-it-on smile that always made him want to bite.
"Only a little," she said, and slid the trousers off his hips. He stepped out of them and shucked the boxers off after, forestalling awkward questions about made-to-measure underclothes. Now they could get out of the damned dressing room. Or maybe not.
She was looking him over slowly and the jolt, when she finally met his eyes again, was quite unexpectedly potent. "Now that," she said, "is really unfair." He smiled, reaching for her. There's a perfectly adequate bed just through the door, only a few meters distant, really...
"I had nothing to do with it," he said into her hair, which smelled like clove and bayberry. "Why do you smell like a Christmas candle?" Then he was back against the wall again and there was nothing but silk velvet and warm Sydney head to foot. Her laugh became a less definable but more expressive sound.
He breathed along the line of one quizzical brow, barely touching; she approved that with another nudge of her hips. He brushed his lips against the corner of her mouth; tried a quick, soft bite along her lower lip. Gave up and pulled her closer, rocking against her. "Your father's going to kill me," he said dreamily. "That's why you're doing this, isn't it? Or your mother," he added. "Let's not forget your mother."
"Sark," she murmured, "I'm going to kill you if you don't shut up and help me out of this dress." She kissed him softly, repeatedly, the sound of her breath and his own heartbeat keeping time to her sweet movement against him. It sounded fine to him.
"I can live with that," he said.
***
December 23, 2003
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