Rasputin's Prodigy

by Michael Weinberger

  He raised the rifle to look down the sight at the reindeer, taking aim carefully as he had seen the hunters do so many times before. The reindeer was grazing on a small patch of grass that had grown in sporadic mounds wherever the permafrost had thawed and made itself the perfect target. Alexei squeezed the trigger slowly and waited for the rapport of the shot…

  “What are you doing Alexei?”

  A high-pitched singsong voice spoke so close behind him that Alexei nearly jumped out of his skin. Somehow he managed not to pull the trigger as he whirled around and saw the young woman watching him from less than three feet away. Alexei looked back to his prey and saw the reindeer looking directly at him, before it bounded off in the opposite direction and out of sight.

  “Oh that’s just wonderful! Look what you did Maria!”

  Alexei knew the woman well. Maria Rasputin was the youngest of Grigori Rasputin’s children and the only member of Rasputin’s family that had regularly visited her father in St. Petersburg. She was several years older than Alexei and already had the appearance of a beautiful young woman as opposed to a teenage girl.

  “What did I do?” Maria asked slyly.

  “You ruined my shot!” Alexei fumed.

  “So? It’s not like the great Tsarevich is in desperate need of meat or leathers.” She mocked him with a familiarity that few would dare. Alexei may have only been a ten-year-old boy; however, he was also the Tsarevich and, despite his age, when he gave a command only his father the Tsar, his mother the Tsaritsa and his teacher Rasputin were exempt from following it.

  “I needed it,” Alexei whined, “you don’t understand.” Alexei froze; he had almost revealed his secret. Quickly he tried to think of something that would cover what he had just said. “If I go back empty handed I will have no excuse for having left the village or taking the rifle.”

  “You snuck out, why not just sneak back in?”

  Alexei thought for a moment, and then replied, “Sneaking out is easier.”

  Maria laughed at that and Alexei was surprised how much the sound warmed his heart. As a boy of ten he didn’t understand the feelings he had for Maria, but he felt them nonetheless. He found himself unable to keep from smiling whenever she was around. If he was angry or frustrated, and she paid him a visit, all his anger and frustrations would simply melt away. He could only remember laughing out loud at times when Maria had been around. And on those nights when his eyes refused to succumb to sleep all he had to do was think of her and soon he would restfully slumber.

  “Well,” Maria continued when her laughter had finally ceased, “I suppose if you walked back to the village with me I could sneak you back in.”

  Trying to maintain his composure Alexei responded casually, “That could work.”

  The two walked side by side along the frozen bank of the Tura river until they were within one hundred yards of the village.

  “Ok, I think I’d better hide you now before someone notices a pair of people walking back into the village.”

  Despite the cold, Alexei could feel himself start to sweat at the prospect of hiding under her long voluminous coat as she opened the front of the garment for him to hide underneath.

  Alexei awkwardly began to move to her when she said, “Perhaps you should hand me the rifle first?”

  Alexei giggled in a silly way as he handed her the rifle and wrapped his arms around her waist. He could feel how warm her body was as he pressed himself firmly against her.

  “Alexei,” Maria whispered.

  Swooning, Alexei cooed, “Hmm?”

  “You’re squeezing me too tight…can’t breathe.”

  Suddenly realizing that he was clinging voraciously to her, Alexei immediately loosened his grip.

  “Sorry.”

  She smiled at him and chuckled quietly. Alexei smiled back at her and they began their awkward walk back to the village.

  Once back inside the village Maria whispered, “Where did you get the rifle?”

  Alexei’s reply was muffled by the long coat, but was still understandable when he said, “Outside of the blacksmith’s shop.”

  Maria guided the two of them slowly to the blacksmith shop when Alexei suddenly stopped in his tracks. Maria, who had no warning that the boy was about to stop walking, nearly fell over. Gently, Alexei pushed himself away from Maria and revealed himself to any who might be watching.

  Confused, Maria looked at Alexei and was about to ask what he was doing when Alexei said, “Do you feel that?”

  Unlike her father, Maria had only traces of the mystic talents that her father possessed; however, she had heard her father speak of Alexei and his uncanny abilities in mysticism after only minimal training.

  “What is it Alexei?”

  “Something…something dark and taut, like a loaded spring…just waiting…waiting.”

  “Where?” Maria scanned the surrounding area but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  Alexei didn’t reply but he started walking in the direction of the church. Maria didn’t return the rifle to the blacksmith’s shop. Now she checked it to be sure it was loaded and followed behind Alexei scanning the village as she moved. The Tsar’s personal guard bolted to attention the second Alexei came into their view and initially drew their Shashkas in alarm when they saw the woman carrying a rifle behind their charge. When they realized the woman was Maria Rasputin they ran to the Tsarevich in flanking positions with Maria between them for they knew no one was more trusted around the Tsarevich than Maria.

  They were nearly in front of the old church that Rasputin had formerly called his home when the doors of the church began to open. Rasputin and a handful of people walked calmly out and began to descend the steps.

  Suddenly a woman shrieked and charged the church.

  Alexei cried out, “Maria stop her! Shoot her down!”

  The guards alongside Alexei immediately pulled him aside as Maria raised the rifle and tracked the woman as she ran straight for her father. She squeezed the trigger but the rifle misfired and sent no intercepting shot at her target.

  The woman gripped a long knife and held it at waist level. Rasputin’s eyes went wide with surprise at the sight of the oncoming woman. He didn’t seem to grasp what was happening as the woman moved up the stairs and plunged the knife deep into his abdomen. Maria screamed as Alexei tried to run to his teacher’s side but was restrained by the two huge guards that held him fast. Shock and disbelief seemed to cover Rasputin’s face more than any indication of pain as the woman wrenched the blade to the side, disemboweling the man. Eerily, with his intestines hanging limply from his abdomen, Rasputin remained upright and looked directly at the woman as if simply surprised by her presence.

  “Khionia…why?” was all Rasputin as able to say before he collapsed backward into the arms of the people who had been following behind him.

  The woman was immediately restrained, but she still managed to hold the bloody knife aloft and scream, “My name is Khionia Guseva! And I have killed the antichrist!!!”

  The hysterical assassin was dragged away in one direction while Rasputin was carried in another. Somehow the two enormous bodyguards that had been restraining him were suddenly overpowered by their ten-year-old charge and Alexei sprinted to Rasputin’s side.

  “Father Grigori!” Alexei began to weep and had to shield his eyes from the ghastly vision of the belly wound.

  Rasputin’s hand shot to Alexei’s wrist and Alexei immediately looked at his teacher.

  “Your medicine…” Rasputin gasped. “Bring…me…your…”

  Alexei knew exactly what his teacher and mentor had requested and he ran faster than he had ever run before to retrieve the intricately etched crystal vial with the strange clear liquid inside.

  ***

  After an intensive surgery and an uncertain two-week isolation period, Rasputin had not only survived the assassination attempt but it also appeared as though he was going to fully recover. He had been returned to St. Petersburg and was
housed in the majestic White Palace while being tended to by the Tsar’s best physicians. Alexei and Maria barely left Rasputin’s side during this time and when Rasputin’s eyes finally opened the first thing he saw were the smiling faces of his daughter and his student. Maria carefully wrapped her arms around her father’s neck and held him as Rasputin whispered reassurances lovingly into her ear. After a few minutes Rasputin’s eyes fell once again upon the ten-year-old boy who stood smiling in the far corner of the room.

  Gently Rasputin pulled at his daughter to release her grip from around his neck and said in a thin voice, “Maria, let me speak with Alexei for a moment. Oh, and could you perhaps get me some of whatever the physicians say I can eat?”

  Maria looked at her father in a confused fashion momentarily, then nodded and quietly left the room.

  “Come closer boy,” Rasputin called out to Alexei, who moved to the tall man’s bedside and leaned in close so his teacher would not have to exert himself in order to be heard, “tell me, when did you realize that woman was lying in wait for me?”

  Nervously, Alexei responded, “I only saw her as she charged you.”

  Chuckling, then grunting from the pain that the mild laughter caused, Rasputin gently scolded the Tsarevich, “I did not ask you when you ‘saw’ her. I asked when you realized she was there.”

  Embarrassed and a little guilt ridden Alexei answered, “I sensed something was wrong almost as soon as Maria and I snuck back into the village.”

  “And when…” Rasputin’s words came to an immediate halt, then he blithely repeated what Alexei had said as if considering the words, “…Maria and I snuck back into the village? You mean…my Maria?”

  Alexei couldn’t look at his teacher as he told him about his sneaking out of the village, the reindeer, Maria having come after him and his return hiding under Maria’s long coat. Rasputin raised one hand to his forehead and he massaged his eyes.

  Letting out a deep sigh Rasputin continued, “I see. All right, after you were done disobeying me, your father and your mother by going… anywhere… without your bodyguards, what exactly did you feel when you first sensed the woman?”

  “We were headed to the blacksmith shop to return the rifle I had taken when I felt something…out of place within the village.”

  “AH!” Rasputin seemed excited to hear this, “go on!”

  “It was like a black cloud had descended out of the sky and landed on the ground near the church. It is very hard to describe, but I knew that something was out of place and dangerous, just waiting for the right moment. When the woman charged I knew she was the source.”

  Rasputin stared wide-eyed at the boy. “So strong…so attune. You are truly gifted my boy. Truly gifted indeed.”

  Alexei didn’t really understand that statement, but other questions were nagging at him, “Father Grigori, who was that woman? Why did she attack you?”

  Rasputin merely stared off into the distance as if in a daydream. Then he shook himself and waved a hand in the air dismissively, a gesture he was prone to do more often than not, and said, “Khionia? Oh, she was a dalliance of mine who feels scorned by my recent lack of attention. I will have to discover if her actions were motivated by her own will or that of another, once I am fit enough to do so of course.”

  Confused, Alexei could only reply, “Sir?”

  “As a result of my relationship with your mother and father, I have made many political enemies. I don’t believe Khionia is someone who would have concocted this assassination on her own and, although she may felt scorned enough to have wished my death, I don’t believe she would have carried it out the way she did without someone influencing her to action.”

  “Do you want me to have Father arrest someone?” Alexei asked, genuinely eager to help.

  Again Rasputin chuckled, and paid for it in pain moments later, “No Alexei, well not yet anyway.” Rasputin grew quiet before he continued, “Do you understand what you experienced in the village?”

  “No sir,” Alexei admitted.

  “I have been teaching you many, many things Alexei; however, everything I have taught you has always been about one thing…perception. How you perceive the world and interrelate to its mysteries is what it means to be a mystic. This sensitivity that you uniquely possess, it can serve you in many ways; however, I do not know if it is completely natural or if I somehow influenced it by the curative I give you for your hemophilia.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You are special Alexei. What it means to study mysticism and develop the perception as I have taught you for all of these years is vastly different for someone like you as compared to the rest of us. The most powerful mystics develop unique sensitivities to their environment and develop awareness’s and abilities that go beyond those of simple logic and circumstance.”

  Alexei didn’t understand and it must have shown on his face as Rasputin chided, “Not to worry my boy, experience will be your teacher after I have gone. I have seen to it.”

  “What do you mean Father Grigori? You are going to recover from your wound. The physicians all have said as much.”

  “This time my boy, this time.”

  Alexei was nonplussed, “and when you recover we shall ferret out those individuals who would do you harm and they shall be arrested.”

  Rasputin’s smile was so radiant that it almost seemed as though the room grew brighter.

  “Of course Alexei, of course. Now could you send my daughter back in? I wish to speak with her and then get some rest.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Unseen by Alexei as he turned to walk out of the room, Rasputin’s face twisted into an insane mask filled with rage and fear. Alexei closed the door behind him and Rasputin spoke out loud as if someone was still in the room.

  “Horror awaits us all, my dear ones. All the people of Russia shall feel the terrors and the sadistic tortures that should only be reserved for those in the deepest bowels of hell.”

  Rasputin could hear the footsteps of his daughter outside his door and his features eased into sorrow, “and judgment day is closing in on some of us faster than others.”

  Chapter 7

  One of the things that had always amazed me about Chris was his apparent ability to forego the normal need for sleep. While the rest of the group returned to their makeshift beds, Chris just typed away on the computer, gathering as much information as he could on Nazran. I think it was guilt that eventually made me give up on trying to get back to sleep, so I tried to sit with Chris as he worked.

  I must have nodded off because one moment I was listening to the rhythmic tapping of the laptop keys, and in the next I was being gently lowered to the floor. I tried to shake the sleep out of my head when Chris' voice echoed lightly in my ears.

  “You need to lie down before you fall out of the chair. I'll wake you when I find something.”

  I don't know how long I was out, but when I awoke I could hear muffled voices discussing something close by. My body was extra stiff from having slept on the concrete floor and the multiple pops that my joints made as I stretched were loud enough to alert the others in the room that I was trying to go about getting up.

  When my eyes cleared I could see Chris smiling at me, “You should really do some yoga for those creaking joints old man.”

  I glared at him indignantly, “Have you found something?”

  “Yep, but maybe you'd like to get into 'downward dog' position for a bit first?”

  I rubbed my eyes as I could hear Chris and Larson, who turned out to be the other person in the room, chuckling at my pain.

  “I hate you both,” I growled, “now help me up and show me what you learned.”

  Larson extended a hand and pulled me to my feet as Chris typed away on the laptop. I moved into a position where I could see what was on the screen and recognized the image of a satellite photo zooming in on a cityscape. The sun had set long before and the lights of the city now illuminated the city of Nazran like a pale Christm
as tree.

  “So what am I looking at?” I asked as Chris stood up to show me what he had done.

  “Welcome to beautiful downtown Nazran,” Chris said with a flourish of his arms and heavy sarcasm in his voice. “A more beauteous shit-hole you simply could not find on earth.”

  I looked up from the screen, “That bad?”

  Chris blew out a whistle, “I watched three assaults in the last hour. The place seems to be completely lawless, despite the presence of what appears to be a city security force, as well as regular soldiers.”

  I turned back to the laptop screen as Chris continued, “It's like they have everything they need to maintain some form of order, but no one is interested in doing anything.”

  “You have any idea what's happening, Major?” I asked Larson.

  “Best guess is that the local law enforcement has been given a very specific task in their security duties, probably with explicit instructions to ignore anything and everything else.”

  “And they can get away with this, why?”

  Larson shrugged his shoulders, “When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of their satellite countries, or territories, suddenly needed to fend for themselves without the money, or the means to accumulate the money they needed in order to become self-sufficient. There were immediate petitions to possess these new territories by the people residing with the borders, but that was mostly their pride and greed, without them having any real idea of how to govern. Nazran is just one city inside the territory of the Republic of Ingushetia, but if you try to find out what they do in Nazran, you'll end up just shaking your head in frustration. It is almost as though the one hundred and fifty thousand plus people living there simply don't do anything except officially maintain the town as a town.”