“You told her,” Kolya had said, and it hadn’t been a question.
“She’d already figured it out.” Which had been only partially a lie.
Kolya snorted. “She’s Red Army, Nik. And a stranger.”
“She’s an orphan. She has nobody but us now.”
Kolya tilted his head. “You think she cares for you so much she would betray her country?”
“The country betrayed her.”
“If you say you trust her, then that’ll have to be good enough for me.” It sounded threatening, though.
Nikita swallowed, throat dry. “I trust her.”
Kolya had stared at him a long moment, then finally nodded and went to find his bedroll.
In the face of the revelation that Rasputin was not only alive, but a vampire, talk of Whites and treason seemed downright mundane.
~*~
Silence reigned for a full minute; Nikita counted it off in his head.
It was Pyotr of all people who broke the silence. “Rasputin’s dead,” he said in a small voice.
“Poisoned, shot, and drowned,” Ivan added, scowling. “No one could survive all that. They did an autopsy after they pulled him out of the river.”
“An ordinary man could not have survived all that, you’re right,” Philippe said, patient. “But Rasputin is no ordinary man, as I’ve told you.”
“The tsarevich,” Kolya said in a strangled voice. “Prince Alexei. He had trouble with bleeding…”
It was silent another beat, as the weight of that fact landed on all of them.
Oh God.
“He saved the little prince’s life on more than one occasion,” Philippe said, still calm and patient, a schoolteacher in front of a room of dim-witted pupils. “The blood of a vampire has amazing restorative and healing properties. When he was grown, Rasputin would have turned Alexei. Willingly,” he added. “He would have been the most powerful tsar this nation had ever seen, able to rule for centuries, strong enough to survive any assassination attempt, guided by the wisdom of all the immortals who came before him.” He sighed. “What a waste. What a beautiful thing wasted.”
“Prince Alexei is dead,” Nikita said, tone cold, though his insides boiled with fear and agitation. “So it looks like we’re short one immortal tsar.”
Philippe turned to him, smile becoming almost smug. “Wait until you meet Our Friend Grigory. You’ve not met anyone wiser, I assure you.”
“Wait.” Sasha, silent until now, frowned and said, “Didn’t the tsar’s own family kill – try to kill – Rasputin?”
“Yeah,” Nikita said, “they did.”
“A well-intentioned, but misguided mistake,” Philippe said. “They thought the tsar’s relationship with Rasputin fueled the revolution–”
“It did,” Nikita said.
“It didn’t matter!” Philippe shouted. Actually shouted. For the first time since meeting the man, Nikita saw his face color with anger, saw his eyes flash, nostrils flaring as he breathed. In an odd way, it was a comfort to see that he was, in some ways at least, human. “The revolution would have happened anyway. And Rasputin could have – if he’d been there…” He sank back down onto his rotted-log seat, shoulders slumping. He was so composed it was easy, sometimes, to forget his age, but he looked it now, hunched and tired.
“You didn’t know him,” he said, quiet and defeated. “You didn’t know any of them. How could you understand?”
“So tell us about it all, goddamn it,” Nikita said. Seeing Philippe like this had taken the edge off his anger, but he was still frustrated to a point of violence.
“Alright.” The old man nodded, and he told them, finally.
~*~
As far as anyone knew, be they generals or common citizens, Philippe Nazier-Vachot left Russia at the tsar’s insistence, settled down quietly somewhere, and then died. Of course, this hadn’t happened. And eventually, when it became clear to him that the royal family was threatened by rumors, a restless population, and the ever-more-daring Bolsheviks, he shaved off his trademark beard, adopted a new set of clothes, and snuck back to the capital to see what he could learn about the unrest.
If you knew who to ask, you could tap into limitless fonts of gossip, none of it consistent, save in one area. The monarchy was failing. One person would swear that it was because “the fiend” Rasputin had enchanted the tsar and tsarina, that he slept with Alexandra and controlled Nicholas like a puppet. But the next person you met would swear it was because the Bolshevik cause was gaining traction: the proletariat was tired of dying in a monarch’s useless wars. There was a pervading sense that, though Russians had long resisted the royal push to become a more Westernized nation, their country was behind the times. And Nicholas, too tentative, too compassionate, too soft, was arguably the least Russian tsar in all of Romanov history.
Nicholas’s kindness, Philippe realized, his tendency to wait and think things to death, would be his downfall.
It was time to meet the starets who charmed everyone’s wives into bed, who drank wine to excess, and who was holding the nation in rapture.
That meeting happened in the chic salon of monarchist couple General Yevgeny Bogdanovich and his wife. The general was a member of the Council of Ministers, a warden of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and a publisher of a series of monarchist-orthodox publications. He and his wife hosted lavish open breakfasts, always teeming with gossip-hungry guests, a select few of which were invited to stay for dinner…which was when the real juicy tidbits were discussed over too much wine and eight-course meals.
Philippe went to several breakfasts to get the lay of the land, and on the morning when everyone was excitedly discussing Rasputin’s appearance at dinner, he used a little magic to charm his way into an invitation.
The general’s sister, Yulia, a maid-of-honor to the tsarina, was in attendance that night, along with Nicholas’s valet, Nickolai Radtsig. They talked openly of the way the tsar’s minsters argued with him, of the wild, lecherous things that happened at the palace. Philippe watched the glee and malice in their eyes, and he knew they were nothing more than rumors. Humans pumped out a certain sickly stink when they lied like that, and it wouldn’t have taken a bodark to sniff out these liars. People loved scandal; and people loved ruining a ruler…right up until their heads were on the chopping block. These poor idiots hadn’t thought far enough ahead to their own demises yet. Philippe didn’t pity them.
Finally, just before dinner was served, Rasputin arrived.
He showed up red-faced, a little unsteady, and smelling of wine.
And the moment he walked in the door, Philippe knew he was a vampire.
He pulsed with energy, and he was drunk not just on wine, but probably blood, too, his eyes dilated, his smile lazy with pleasure.
He’d looked up, locked gazes with Philippe, and his large, unearthly gray eyes had held a moment’s lucid understanding. Two powerful beings acknowledging one another across a crowded room.
The starets had horrific table manners: shoveling food into his mouth with his hands, smearing grease on his clothes and the table linens, talking with his mouth full and spitting crumbs. And yet he charmed everyone at the table, everyone leaning toward him, listening to his bad poetry. Even the writers who would later claim to have been uncomfortable during the dinner had stars in their eyes; Philippe envied his ability to enchant them so effortlessly – and so many at once!
When they were taking port in the drawing room after dinner, Philippe sidled up to the man – the vampire – and asked, “Do the royal couple know what you are?”
“Of course.” His voice was resonant; he spoke like someone who knew exactly what sort of power he held over others.
“Have you enchanted them?”
Rasputin looked offended. “Why should I? They listen to me. They value me, and what I can offer.” He turned to face Philippe, expression sympathetic. “They were very sorry to lose you, my friend. May I tell them you’re well? I’m sure they’d love to see y
ou.”
“You may tell them, yes, but I can’t risk seeing them. For their own sakes.”
Rasputin sighed and nodded. “You’re a mage. What have you forseen?”
This was the part that pained him. The thing that had brought him back to Russia. “Death stalks the Romanov family. Before tonight, I feared that was you.”
Rasputin smiled, and the chandelier glinted off his yellow fangs. “So long as I’m alive, the royal family have nothing to fear.”
~*~
“You see,” Philippe said sadly. “Rasputin was the only thing standing between the royal family and their demise. If Yusupov hadn’t tried to kill him, he could have prevented the massacre.”
~*~
The day was wasting, the sun climbing higher, starting to feel warm, finally, like true spring.
Nikita had no idea what to say, nor even what to think. He scuffed the toe of his boot through the dirt and tried not to think about his empty, clenching stomach. In all the talking, he’d forgotten to eat breakfast – as usual.
Birds called; somewhere water rushed, a light, musical sound that was a creek or stream.
Finally, Sasha got to his feet with the easy, disquieting grace of a thing born in the forest. “We’re going to go and dig up Rasputin, aren’t we? Wake him up. Lead him back to Stalingrad. Win the battle…and then Russia. This is your plan?”
Philippe smiled, pleased. “Why yes, it is. But first I would like for us to conduct a training exercise. To prepare.”
Nikita sighed and heard his brothers do the same.
Katya fingered her rifle absently, compulsively, expression carefully blank, but face white as clean linen.
“Alright,” Sasha said. “Let’s do it.”
22
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
The forest was quiet around him, early enough in the season that the mosquitos were still mostly dormant, the calling birds and the swish of new, budded leaves in the wind the only sounds.
The only sounds obvious to human ears.
For an immortal bodark, there was lots to hear.
Sasha shut his eyes, and listened.
The wind came to him as a complex layering of sighs, and whispers, and squeals.
He heard the droning of flies.
Heard a squirrel’s claws grip tight to the bark of a tree.
Heard the soft, barely-there crunch of a leaf underfoot. A human foot.
He breathed deep and smelled pine sap, leaf mold, the richness of the earth.
The scent of small wild rodents, bird droppings, fresh water.
Smelled the musk of his wolves and, distantly, the unwashed tang of human bodies – the rest of his pack.
He opened his eyes and smiled. “Swing wide,” he told his alpha female.
She snorted and trotted off, taking the rest with her. They would be his backup, but stalking he had to do on his own, to prove that he could.
He had a true mission now. A purpose. It filled him with something almost like joy.
Grinning still, he set off through the trees, as silent as his four-legged wolf family.
~*~
“You’re a crack shot, but you can’t hide to save your life,” Nikita drawled beneath her, and Katya inwardly cursed.
“I don’t think soldiers look for snipers as closely as you look for me,” she shot back, glancing down to him.
He stood with one gloved hand braced on the tree trunk, looking up at her with an expression she was beginning to read as fond.
“You’re ruining the exercise,” she said, tone as flat as she could make it. “We aren’t supposed to be chatting.”
He shrugged. “Who cares? What’s the old man going to do? Set us on fire?”
Which was something he actually could do. She’d seen him light their campfires with little balls of flame in his palms.
Katya shivered. “That’s not funny.”
“No, I guess it isn’t.” He made a face. “I wanted to make sure you’re alright.”
She huffed out a breath that stirred the fine hairs that had slipped from beneath her hat. To think she would wind up feeling exasperated by the kind attentions of a Chekist. Old Her could never have predicted something so crazy.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Nikita continued. “Holy men coming back from the grave. Government coups.” His smile was tense. “I wouldn’t blame you if you were frightened.”
She’d been frightened two nights ago, standing with him in the dark, her face pressed to his coat, wondering if she could work up the courage to kiss him at some point. But now, in her element, perched in a tree with her rifle in her hands, she felt composed and, thanks to his breach of the exercise, irritated.
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” she said, which was only partly a lie.
He lifted his brows. “I’ve seen a lot, and even I wasn’t counting on Rasputin.”
She snorted.
“Okay. Maybe I was a little.”
“You’re a very strange man.”
“Yes, I think that’s been well-established by now–” He cut off, face going white, and that was when Katya heard the sound.
It was tinny, and muffled, but it sounded like the ringing of a bell. A small one, like a little hand bell.
She glanced wildly through the trees around them, toward the clearing that lay just beyond. Was this part of the exercise? Was Monsieur Philippe ringing it?
But, grimly, Nikita said, “It’s mine.”
When she glanced back down, he had a hand over the utility pouch on his pants leg.
“What?”
“The bell. It’s mine.” His lips pressed into a thin line. “Jesus.”
~*~
Sasha jumped over a narrow ditch, trotted up a hill, spun around the trunk of a large pine…and there he was.
The man stood with his hands folded neatly together, pale hair hanging straight down both shoulders, fine and shiny as spun gold. He had the face of an angel, and the rich dark-red velvet coat of a prince in a painting.
“Are you a prince?” Sasha had asked, when he was just a boy, and the knowledge slammed into him suddenly, solid as a fist, bringing him to a halt. This was the same man he’d seen years before, down to the gold buttons on his coat and the half-amused curl of his lips.
“Hello,” the prince said, once again in his perfect, but strangely-accented Russian. “It’s Sasha, isn’t it?”
Sasha opened his mouth and breathed in deeply, searching for scent, a taste, something. But all he smelled was the forest. The prince had no scent whatsoever.
He smirked. “Ah. You can’t smell me, can you?”
“How–” Sasha started.
“I’m not really here, you see.” He extended one pale, long-fingered hand, palm-up, in invitation.
Sasha studied it a long moment, wary. If he’d had a scruff like his wolves, it would have been standing on end. Thinking of his wolf pack, he wished now that he hadn’t sent them off in another direction.
The prince sighed. “Come on. I can’t hurt you.”
Slowly, Sasha reached forward and laid his palm in the prince’s. Tried to, at least. His hand passed right through the other’s, the seemingly-solid image of it giving way to vapor.
Sasha gasped.
“Not really here, I told you,” the prince said, pulling his solid-again hand back and refolding it with the other.
“What are you…what?”
The prince sighed. “Tell me you at least remember me.”
Sasha nodded. It would be hard to forget someone like this, clean and gleaming, dressed in rich finery the likes of which hadn’t been seen around here in Sasha’s lifetime. “You’re a prince, you said.”
“Very good.” His smile seemed mocking. “And you, it would appear, went and got yourself turned into a wolf.”
“I’m a wolf,” Sasha confirmed, feeling guarded.
The prince rolled his eyes. “Fine. Act secretive if you want to. It’s not as if this is the only means by which to entertain myself.�
�� He glanced off to the left and said something sharp in another language. Sasha thought it might be English. But there was no one else there.
“Who are you talking to?”
“One of my delightfully stupid jailers. Neanderthals, the lot of them. You’d think,” he grumbled, “if you were going to lock a man up for centuries, you might at least offer him a little reading material.” He turned and shouted something into the empty forest, face harsh with anger.
“Um…your majesty? Are you–”
“I’m not insane, no. It’s a projection – no time to explain.” He waved at Sasha, a fast leave off motion. “Here. Sit down. I have something to tell you.”
Curious, wary, confused, Sasha eased down to the ground, sitting cross-legged, watching the way the – projection? – prince followed suit across from him, elegant even while seated on pine needles.
“Let me guess,” the prince began once they were settled. His expression was caught somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “You’re traveling in the company of Monsieur Philippe, a most charming Frenchman with ties to the late tsar and tsarina.”
Sasha blinked at him. “Um…yes. How did you know?”
Another wave. Don’t worry about that. “He’s probably given you the whole patriotic speech, hasn’t he? About bringing back the empire, and destroying Communism? Overthrowing Stalin in a rain of bullets and the glorious screams of your enemies.”
“He didn’t put it quite like that. But. Yes. More or less.”
The prince snorted. “It’s all a bunch of bullshit.”
“Says the projection.”
The prince grinned, his very-sharp eye teeth flashing in the sun. Sasha remembered those teeth, and felt his imaginary hackles rise in response. “You catch on fast.”
Sasha snorted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Nikita would have given a little wave and said “get on with it.”
The prince rolled his eyes skyward. “I’m not lying to you, projection or not. Your mission is doomed, Sasha, it always has been. Whites, Communists, Mother Russia – none of that matters to our esteemed Monsieur Philippe. He wants only to be the left hand of the devil, so that he can rule in a hellish court of his own design.”
White Wolf (Sons of Rome Book 1) Page 27