No question about it, the Astoria was a nice hotel. Mike couldn’t deny he appreciated that. Over the course of his life, he’d stayed at least once in every crappy roadside motel in the Midwest; this was a nice change.

Too bad it was nothing but a gilded veneer over a pile of crap.

Out of habit, Mike reached for his cell phone before he remembered he’d left it packed in his suitcase. Even if there were some way of making it work in Russia, Mike didn’t intend to stay long enough for it to be worth the effort of figuring out.

The hotel had been kind enough to provide English instructions for international phone calls. Mike studied the sheet, then used the desk phone—as opposed to the bedroom phone or the bathroom phone, and just how many phones did any one person need in a hotel room?—to dial home. It only took him two tries.

“Archdiocese of Chicago, Cardinal Novak’s office,” came a brisk, female voice, echoey with distance.

“Carol, it’s Mike Sullivan. Is Stan free?”

“Just a sec, Mike.” There was a pause, the sound of papers rustling. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Russia?”

“Not for long, if I can help it.”

Carol’s snort of laughter cut off and was replaced by a grainy recording of Handel’s Messiah. Only two refrains of “For, unto us a child is born” later, the music cut out and Cardinal Stanley Novak, Archbishop of Chicago, picked up.

“Mike? You there?”

“Yeah.” Mike skipped over any pleasantries, got straight to the point. “This St. Petersburg business—it’s nothing we want to waste our time with. It’s about—hell, I don’t even understand what it’s about, but it doesn’t matter. This team they’ve got—some sensitive girl barely out of diapers and a vampire. These aren’t people the Church wants to be working with.”

Stan should have laughed. The idea of Mike hanging out with a vampire was preposterous. Stan should have agreed it was a good joke and offered to have Carol arrange for Mike’s flight home. Instead, Stan was quiet for long enough Mike thought he’d lost the connection. “Hello?”

“I’m still here.”

Mike’s stomach fell. Stan had been Mike’s direct superior for over ten years now, and they’d been friends for much longer. Mike had heard that particular tone plenty when Stan was about to give Mike an assignment he knew Mike wasn’t going to like.

“What’s going on?” Mike asked.

Another pause, then, “You can’t come home.”

“What are you talking about?” Obedience was one of the virtues Mike had never mastered. “What the hell? I came out here to evaluate the situation, and I’ve evaluated. It’s crap. It’s nothing we should be involved with. It’s a waste of my time.”

“I’m sorry, Mike, but Rome thinks otherwise. I’ve been instructed—this came through channels—my hands are tied. They want a Templar involved.”

“Then you should send someone else. I’m too old to learn to play nice. I’m too old to be babysitting. I’m supposed to be retired, remember?”

“I’m sorry,” Stan repeated. Mike could have cheerfully choked him with his own apology. “But you’re the one they asked for.”

And there it was. “Who asked for? Who’s calling the shots on this?”

“You know if I could tell you, I would.”

Oh, yes, Mike knew. Thirty-plus years in service to the church—Mike knew exactly how it went. “Thanks for nothing, Stan.” He hung up.

This wasn’t the first time Mike had hated an assignment, and while he could hope it was the last—well, he’d thought that before. He was supposed to be done with all this. Which only made it worse.

And long past time for the cigarette he’d used as his excuse for leaving dinner.