The Serpent's Curse

by Tony Abbott

  “No, no, of course not,” he said. He resumed his stumbling, four steps behind her. Cassa strode three paces after him, the heavy weapon slung over his shoulder, so primed she could smell the petrol.

  “Once we locate what I have come for, nothing remains,” she said. “Cassa, you will use the torch to end it all. Then we leave.”

  “Indeed,” said Ebner. “And not a moment too soon. We must return to Greywolf. Midnight is barely five hours away.”

  The lengths Galina had to travel to find doctors to supply her the drugs she needed to kill the pain, to repel the black shadow of death into remission. A trail of agony that spanned the world and brought her right back where it began.

  She stopped. Her hand shot up. The door to some machine room or other. There were voices behind it. Voices! She turned to Bartolo Cassa and nodded. He fired three rounds from his automatic. The door bolts exploded.

  And suddenly there was the doctor’s face, more dead than alive.

  “Rubashov!” she gasped despite herself. “So it’s true! You did survive.” Then she saw the children, and she felt a small part of her brain burst. “Here. Always here. This must end. You must end. Cassa, restrain them!” He forced the children against the rear wall of the machine room.

  Turning her attention back to the doctor, she shuddered to see his face so destroyed, as if it were burning still. “We thought you dead, Rubashov.”

  He fixed his ruined eyes on her. “Your scar . . . it is enflamed. You are not well, Galina Krause.”

  She raised a finger to her neck, slowly dropped it to her side. “More so than you, doctor.”

  “True. I am dead,” he replied simply.

  “Then it will not pain you to return to the grave. After you return what you stole four years ago at Greywolf. Give me the head of Serpens.”

  “It died in the fire, too—”

  She pushed the barrel of her pistol just below his breastbone. “Liar! Relics of the Eternity Machine cannot die! Relics can never die!”

  The boy looked surprised. The Kaplans must not have known that the relics were indestructible.

  Aleksandr gazed lidlessly at her. “Perhaps the serpent’s magic rubbed off on me, allowing me to live just long enough . . . to kill you!” He suddenly shrieked like a madman and fell on her, his scalpel thrust like a sword.

  Galina’s gun went off before the blade touched her. The surgeon stopped moving as if he’d hit a wall. His mouth formed a horrible, toothless smile. “Now no one will ever know. . . .” He doubled over, hands clutching his torso, then fell to the floor like a limp towel, motionless.

  She staggered back a step, lowering the bloody gun. “Why did you do that, Doctor? You made me kill you, again. You, who saved me!”

  Shouting something, the Kaplan boy wrenched himself away from Bartolo and jumped at her. With a single blow of the pistol to his shoulder, she leveled him. The girl screamed when he fell like a deadweight. Galina kicked the still form of Aleksandr Rubashov with her leather boot. Nothing. She turned to the girl. Lily. “Where is Serpens? The head and the body. The doctor told you. Where are they?”

  “I don’t know!” the girl said. “He didn’t tell us. He was about to tell us, but you killed him, you witch. Serpens is lost, the whole thing!”

  Galina stepped up to her, shoving her pistol roughly under her chin. It was cold and wet with Aleksandr’s blood, and the girl looked as if she wanted to cry but the tears weren’t there. She was likely too angry to cry. Galina knew such fury.

  “Get that—thing—away from me!” The girl swatted the gun down.

  Galina stepped back, wiping the blood from the gun and her fingers on Rubashov’s threadbare overcoat. “Ebner, Cassa, search for the relic. If it is here, find it!”

  Cassa began turning over the trashed ruins of the room. Ebner did the same, holding a handkerchief over his face like a sissy. In a few seconds, the room that had served as Rubashov’s home for four years was more a shambles than it had been when she entered.

  “It could be anywhere in the mine!” Ebner shrieked. “Galina—”

  There came the high-pitched shriek of sirens, and the thud-thud of machine-gun fire, echoing down through the passages into the mine.

  “Miss Krause,” Cassa said, “if that is the FSB, we must go. There is a back way. Let me finish the children; then we go. The deadline.”

  Galina pulled back from the boy and the girl, who stared icily at her. “Finish them? Yes. I am sick of their faces. These two do not matter. Ebner . . . come. We’ll return after the fire and locate the relic at our leisure. It cannot be destroyed. Cassa, do the deed.”

  Galina stepped backward over the rubble scattered across the floor. Cassa threw the girl roughly into the boy, who was groaning in a heap. Backing toward the door, Cassa flicked a lever on the gun. The barrel flared with tongues of white flame. Training the weapon at a metal cabinet on the nearest wall, he let loose a quick spray. The cabinet burst. The wall exploded in a blaze of fire. The girl screamed. He aimed at the opposite wall.

  “Wade, get up,” the girl said over and over.

  Flames bubbled up one wall and licked the ceiling, spreading to a second wall. Soon the room would be an inferno. He sprayed the third wall—tried to spray it. “Someone has tampered with the gun,” Cassa growled.

  Galina drew her pistol again. She aimed it at the girl, then at the boy. She lowered it. “Leave them,” she said. “Fire will do the rest.”

  Cassa flipped a lever. The flame on the tip of the barrel vanished in a wisp. He moved back and back until he was in the passage outside with Galina and Ebner. The machine room was ablaze. The girl screamed again. Galina pushed her way through the tunnels to the surface.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Greywolf

  It was a battle of black and white. The night was heavy and dark even as the snow increased its fury.

  Becca marched as close to Darrell, Uncle Roald, and the detectives as she could. They’d kept on like that, plunging for hours through drifts and over frozen streams, slipping, cracking their knees, wrenching their wrists, slowing only for moments to catch their breath, no matter how cold or wet they got or how much it hurt.

  They were gaining ground, she was sure of it.

  The steep, then steeper incline told her Greywolf was up there. Another sound was there, too. Howling echoed down through the trees. She didn’t want to believe it was actually wolves. The wolves of Greywolf. But what else could it be—

  Something zipped from left to right across the falling snow.

  A chunk of tree bark flew off to Darrell’s right.

  “Everyone down!” Paul hissed, flattening with Marceline, both raising their pistols.

  Becca dropped hard into the snow behind the stump of a cracked tree, hurting her wounded arm even more. She stifled a cry. Darrell joined his father behind a rock outcropping. She bit her lip to keep from making noise. The wound ached, throbbed. Be still! A spray of gunfire burst among the tree trunks. Paul and Marceline aimed at its source and waited.

  “That was a warning!” a voice shouted. “Keplens, surrender. We have you surrounded.”

  Paul raised himself to his elbows. “No they don’t,” he whispered. “At the first opportunity, go back down the ridge and around.”

  “We’ll cover you,” Marceline added.

  Becca watched both detectives settle into the snow and take coordinated aim into the trees. They nodded silently to her and the others as two bursts of gunfire blasted through the tree cover at them. The detectives returned fire, crisscrossing their shots.

  “Go!” Marceline whispered.

  Darrell crawled on his elbows to Becca. Roald did the same. “Down the ledge,” he whispered, nodding behind her. She turned, her arm wet inside her parka. Her wound was bleeding again. Just move, she told herself. No noise, just move. The gunfire popped and thundered: semiautomatic fire, machine-gun fire, she didn’t know what else.

  She could die. They could all die. But she kept on, elbow
ing down the ledge and away from the firefight, from Paul and Marceline.

  “Behind the ridge,” she said over her shoulder, seeing a path forward. She went first, on her hands and knees initially, then on her feet, running. Darrell was right behind her, Roald last. They were out, away, and heading up again. Seconds stretched to minutes. Longer. The fire was sporadic now.

  Then a noise. A whining engine. A snowmobile was heading to the gun battle.

  Darrell whispered, “Let’s pretend to give up, then steal the snowmobile.”

  “You’re nuts,” Becca hissed.

  “Actually . . . we need speed,” Roald said.

  “What? No!”

  “Only four hours left,” Darrell snapped.

  The snowmobile zipped past a knot of trees, fully visible. Suddenly, Roald stood bolt upright in the snow, his hands raised high. The driver was startled; then he recovered and aimed his pistol, slowing his vehicle.

  “Stand still,” he barked in English. “Both of you!” Darrell reluctantly did as he was told.

  Oh, perfect.

  The driver reached for his radio transmitter. Becca knew it was up to her. Something was up to her. The radio crackled. That was the moment. She jumped to her feet, making sure she registered on the periphery of his vision. She dived down again. It was enough of a distraction. The driver swiveled his head, not his gun, and Darrell and his stepfather flew like ghosts and pushed him off the snowmobile. He hit the ground hard, his gun sinking into the snow. Roald pressed his Taser on the man’s neck. It was a low charge. The man continued to grapple with Roald. Darrell pounded his fists on the man’s arm. The man jerked his hands loose of them.

  The snowmobile rolled, then stopped, still idling. Becca went to it immediately and searched the compartment under the saddle—for what, she wasn’t sure. Roald and Darrell wrestled the half-aware driver facedown in the snow and pinned his arms behind him.

  “We need to tie him up or something—” Darrell started.

  “Wire!” Becca said. “I found wire.”

  “Take off his coat first,” Roald said. “I’ll wear it.”

  “Why?” asked Darrell.

  “If we’re spotted, they’ll think I’m him. It’ll buy us time, at least.”

  “Good idea,” said Becca. She knelt next to Darrell and removed the driver’s parka, while Roald undid the man’s ammunition belt, bound his hands with the wire, jerked him to his feet. He twisted the wire once around a tree before securing it. Darrell stuffed the man’s mouth with his own scarf and tied the excess around his head.

  The gunfire behind them continued unevenly. Becca knew they had to make the most of the distraction Paul and Marceline were risking their lives to create. After slipping the driver’s parka on himself, Roald dug into the snow for the dropped pistol, holstered it in the ammo belt, and tied the belt around his waist.

  “Dad . . . ,” Darrell said. “Really?”

  “Just in case.”

  Becca watched Roald gaze through the trees up the hill. The fortress still wasn’t visible. But now they had the snowmobile. He pulled the parka hood low. “Let’s move it.”

  The firefight was moving too, down the hill and away. Paul and Marceline were in retreat, drawing the Brotherhood away from them. Roald got on the snowmobile, with Darrell behind him and Becca on the back. They had to squeeze, but it felt so good to be sitting on something softer than stone.

  “You safe back there?” Darrell asked over his shoulder.

  “Maybe.”

  She clutched the sides of the seat, and Roald twisted the grips on the handlebars. The gunfire started up again, furiously this time but still farther away. Without a pause, the snowmobile lurched forward up the treacherous rise to Greywolf.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Vorkuta

  When Wade struck the floor, he was sure he cracked his skull. His forehead thundered. His temples burned. His eyeballs ached and saw double when he tried to blink them into focus. Galina was nowhere. The freezing air had turned viciously hot. The room was on fire.

  “Lily? Lily!” he cried.

  “Help Alek,” she coughed.

  The doctor moaned and rolled over. “Friends . . .”

  Flames had blackened two walls and were scorching the third. Wade scrambled over on his hands and knees. If Galina had shot Aleksandr in the arm or leg, there might have been a way to stop the bleeding. But the wound was just under his sternum, in the stomach, and his ratty clothes were soaked. Aleksandr would bleed to death all too soon.

  “How do we get out of here?” Lily asked, searching everywhere.

  “There is a passage behind the gas canisters,” Aleksandr groaned, his face strangely peaceful. “Do not worry; the canisters are empty.” He pointed to the back corner.

  “We’ll make it out.” Wade coughed.

  “You, perhaps—”

  “All of us.”

  Together, Lily and Wade rolled the canisters aside and crawled through a low passage into another room, dragging Alek between them.

  “There.” Alek nodded at a padlocked exit door. “Try to open that. I must tell you about the relic. There may be no time, later.”

  Wade wrenched the leg off a metal chair. He battered the lock. “What did Galina mean that the relics can’t die?”

  Aleksandr coughed for a full half minute. “Simply that Copernicus himself tried to destroy them but could not.”

  “Then where is Serpens now?” he asked for the third time.

  “Have I told you that there is a morgue at Greywolf?”

  “Yes, Alek, you did,” said Wade. Was the man losing his mind? Losing his blood and his mind? Then it struck him with the power of Galina’s punch. “Are you saying you hid the Serpens head in the morgue at Greywolf? That it never left?”

  Aleksandr gasped. “I did! It never left! It lies bathed in the blood of the dead. The body, however . . .” With difficulty, he lifted up his right pant leg. The leg itself was burned and scarred as badly as his face and neck, but there was something else, too. A section of several square inches of scarred skin covered his calf. It was sewn on one side with haphazard stiches like those on the Frankenstein monster.

  “It looks as if you operated on your—” Lily started.

  Aleksandr nodded once. “There was no place closer to me than myself.”

  Using a shard of glass, Aleksandr laboriously slashed away at the stitched skin. It bled little because of the thick scarring. Slowly he pried the wound open. From it, he withdrew a small white capsule, two or so inches long. He wiped it clean and pulled it apart, then tilted the open capsule into his palm.

  “Knowing I could no longer protect the relic my father found in the ruins of Königsberg, I sent it to a friend of mine. An Egyptologist in Moscow. He perished last year. Even so, Serpens remains safe. Once, I dared to ask where he hid it. He did not respond until on his deathbed. Then he sent me this. Along with the Magister’s own words. You will be happy to hear that the twisted path of the Serpens body ends with this clue. Now I give it to you.” He pulled a rolled strip of paper from the capsule and passed it to Wade, breathing out a long, ragged breath.

  On the paper was a square box drawn in ink as red as blood. Filling the inside of the box was a large upside-down V with a sequence of numbers running up the left side to the top and three question marks running down the right side.

  “What does it mean?” Wade asked. “You said he was your friend in Moscow?”

  “I never knew the significance. My friend told me just this: no matter how many codes are devised, this will override them all. What that means, I do not know. But if you wish to locate the body of Serpens, this is nearly all the help I can give.”

  “What were Copernicus’s words that your friend told you?” Lily asked.

  “‘Puteshestvye do kontsa morya dlinoy,’” he whispered. “Which means ‘the journey to the end of the sea is long.’”

  “Boris told us that!” said Lily. “What does it mean?”

  Aleksa
ndr seemed relieved, as if released of a great burden. “It is a quotation we Guardians have always known. As Nicolaus’s journey was long in the hiding of the relics, the Guardians’ journey is just as long. You will find Serpens soon, but your journey will continue!” Then he began coughing, and his breathing grew rapid, shallow, and labored.

  Wade hacked once more at the lock. It broke off. He whipped the door open to find a clear passage, but opening the door sucked the fire into the room.

  “Up! Out!” Aleksandr choked. “You cannot die like this!” When he lifted himself up from the floor, he bled freely. Yet he managed to push Wade and Lily ahead of him through the door, into room after room, then hung between them, huffing, “This way . . . no, there! That tunnel! Up. Up! You must find the relic before Galina. You must!”

  Wade’s legs felt like lead. The fire burst into the passages behind them faster than they could run. Aleksandr grew suddenly heavy. Was he dead? “Lily . . .”

  Tears cut through the grime on her cheeks. “I feel cold air. That way. That way!”

  Together, they pulled Alek up a narrow side passage. There was cold air, streaming in on them. A ceiling beam crashed down across the passage. Then two more. They were trapped. A voice shouted from the other side of the fallen beams. No, it was the roar of the fire. No, a voice. A call from so far away that Wade wasn’t sure he even heard it. Lily’s fingers tightened on his wrist. She stopped her breath to listen.

  There was a crash, and the voice yelled, “Stand away. Get back!”

  Lily pulled Wade flat with Aleksandr behind the fallen beams as the wall burst in at them. Voices came clearer now, even above the screams of the fire. Terence stumbled in with a stream of Russian police behind him. Wade could tell from their uniforms and the expression on Terence’s face that they were real police, not Brotherhood. They threw fire cloaks on the children and Aleksandr.

  “Out of here!” Terence cried. “Hurry up!”

  And they were running, Terence and the police carrying the limp form of Aleksandr from the burning mine. They tore up a last set of broken metal steps and fell onto the frozen ground as the mine threw up a howling gust of flame.