“I found her outside the entrance to this place, this Road of Bones,” Dimitri explained, still staring at Natasha. “She was frost-bitten. Dying. But beautiful. This was before modern medicine. Before true civilization. She was given no choice. And still she hates me for it. For saving her. I think she is ungrateful, spiteful, and malicious. But she is mine, all the same. Mine to do with as I will.”
“I will not,” Natasha repeated, though she sounded less certain of herself than she had a moment before. “I cannot,” she whispered.
“What is your offer?” Dimitri asked, refusing to look away from the vampire he’d turned.
“Once we have what he wants, and we have traded for our people, we work together. To kill him, once and for all,” Othello said.
Dimitri grunted. “Do you give your word that this was your intention all along? To offer me another chance to kill the conjuror? Can I trust you to do as you say?”
Othello nodded.
“And these ones?” he asked, snapping his fingers.
A partition along the wall I hadn’t noticed slid open, as quiet as automatic doors at a grocery store, and three more vampires stepped into the room, clutching the throats of our skinwalkers. Serge and Felix had bruises on their faces, barely visible in the room’s dim lights. Felicia looked unharmed, but something in her eyes made me think she’d been manhandled just the same.
By the time I turned back to our host, I had my gun out and drawn.
“Let ‘em go,” I warned.
“They are my people, and meant no harm,” Othello said, hurriedly.
Dimitri turned his attention to me, ignoring Othello altogether. “You are very fast, and you look me in the eye without fear. Not a Regular. Not human, I think. But beyond that, I admit I am curious.”
“She’s Fae,” Othello said, and something about the way she said it made the hairs on the back of my neck rise, like she’d spoken a curse of some kind.
“Truly?” Dimitri asked, inching away from me, from the title Othello had bestowed on me, as if the gun were nothing but a toy in comparison. I considered telling him that I’d loaded the gun with silver bullets, guaranteed to cause all kinds of damage no matter how tough he was, but it didn’t look like I’d need to; his expression showed genuine fear already.
“Aye, that’s what I am,” I replied.
Dimitri shook his head over and over again like he was a child and I was insisting Santa Claus didn’t exist. “The Fae do not come to this land.”
I cocked an eyebrow at that. “And why not?”
He glanced at Othello, who looked away. “You did not tell her?” he asked.
“By the time I found out, it was too late,” Othello explained. “Besides, Baba Yaga will not challenge Quinn. She is not that foolish.”
“Baba who?” I asked.
“Do not say her name!” Dimitri hissed. “To say her name is to invite death.”
“She is a witch,” Othello said, turning to me. “Once the most powerful witch in these lands. Many centuries ago, she chased out the Fae, warning them never to set foot among the Slavic people again or risk her wrath. Since then, she has become the focus of our myths and legends. She is our boogeyman.” Othello leaned in to whisper, though I doubted the vampires would have any difficulty hearing, considering what they were. “She also makes a good cup of tea.”
Dimitri now looked at us both like we were insane. But that was good; better than thinking he had us on the ropes. I raised my other hand, steadying the gun by pressing my palm against the butt of the pistol, ignoring the burning sensation in my shoulder from holding it up so long. “Let our people go,” I growled. “Or I’ll say Baba What’s-Its-Name until dawn.”
“Let the others go,” Dimitri demanded. The three vampires released the skinwalkers, all of whom fell to the floor. Felicia hurried over to her brother, who’d winced when he landed, but seemed otherwise unhurt. Serge merely looked up at us, thankful as he rubbed his neck. “We discovered the woman spying on us, then the men,” Dimitri said. “Ordinarily, we would have interrogated them, but I thought the coincidence was too much. Please, no harm was meant. I apologize.”
“Othello?” I turned it into a question.
“We accept your apology,” Othello said. “But we ask that you give us Natasha.”
“No!” Natasha yelled.
“It is a deal,” Dimitri said, talking over her. He leaned forward eagerly. “Provided you give us the chance to take out the conjuror and his men.”
Natasha’s screams of outrage were cut off as the shorter of the two bodyguards rose behind her, wrapping one arm around her waist, and the other over her mouth. He dragged her back through the open door, still struggling. It was painful to watch, in a way, but—as I studied the skinwalkers we’d brought into the lion’s den as backup—I realized I didn’t have much sympathy to waste on a vampire.
Any vampire.
“Deal,” Othello said.
I holstered my gun.
Guess I wasn’t going to shoot any fangers tonight, after all.
Lame.
Chapter 18
We met Natasha the next day on the outskirts of Moscow. Well, I say we met her. The truth was one of Dimitri’s daytime servants dropped her off in a large wooden box wrapped in silver chains with a note attached that read: Natasha will be hungry when she wakes up. Play nice. Dimitri. Serge and I helped unload her coffin, which we stored in the back of the military transport vehicle Vitaly had acquired that morning. The truck was a hulking thing with a black canopy that protected us all from the rain but did little else to keep out the elements. Othello and Vitaly took the cab. Othello because she had the map and could read it, Vitaly because only he felt comfortable driving the monstrosity across Siberia.
And Siberia was where we were headed.
Fortunately, it was as much summer here in Russia as it had been back home, which meant my trench coat was enough to keep me warm despite the wind whistling through the holes in the canopy. Unfortunately, Russia was a massive landmass, which meant it would ordinarily take several full days of driving before we reached our destination. The plan was to cut that drive down significantly by using a Gateway every few hours to accelerate the process—any more than that and we might accidentally drive the truck off the edge of a mountain or into a lake. That’s the problem with vast, seemingly unending wilderness: you’ll find hazards everywhere, except on a map.
We’d gotten together enough provisions to feed ourselves for a few days, including rations for when we walked the Road of Bones. We’d also packed munitions, storing the undamaged semi-automatic rifles we’d taken off Rasputin’s men—as well as a slew of odds and ends Othello had lying around from the warehouse—in hidden compartments throughout the vehicle. At the moment, I was sitting on top of an unloaded bazooka. But, if I was being honest with myself, I still wasn’t feeling particularly prepared.
All we knew at this point about the Road of Bones was that everyone—excluding Natasha, who was so frightened of returning they’d had to ship her to us in a locked coffin—who had ever been there had never returned. I wasn’t sure how many had ended up venturing there over the years, but those odds didn’t inspire a ton of confidence.
Thing is, I’d never been scared of much, not even death, but lately I’d begun to reconsider that position. Had I feared more for Dez, I wondered, would I have left her alone knowing there was a hurricane coming? Would I have been more cautious, more prepared? Honestly, I wasn’t sure. But I could see the proverbial writing on the wall; if this was a horror movie, we were somewhere in the middle, being warned by every native not to buy that house, to visit that cemetery, to wander alone into those woods.
Which meant I needed more information.
As a result, when Natasha banged on her coffin that night as the sun fell beneath the horizon, I was ready. I leaned in close, slamming my own fist on the wood hard enough to get her attention. “I’m goin’ to let ye out,” I said. “But if ye do anythin’ stupid, we will k
ill ye. Ye hear me?” I glanced over at Serge, who had one of the semi-automatic rifles aimed at the coffin. He nodded reassuringly, offering that guileless smile I’d come to count on.
“I hear you,” Natasha said, her voice almost too quiet to hear.
I settled back, my own gun drawn now. Felicia unlocked the chains, then let Felix draw them away, tugging on them as much as he could until they fell off entirely with a clang. “Sit up, slowly,” I called.
Natasha did what I said, gently prying open the coffin and sliding the lid off before sitting up. She wore traveling clothes which made her appear more vagabond than vixen: a woolen coat over a hoodie, cargo pants, combat boots. The vampire in the skintight dress had been replaced by someone I think I’d have instinctually liked, had she been human.
“May I?” Natasha asked, gesturing to her messy hair. When I nodded, she reached up and slowly pulled her light brown hair into a loose ponytail, securing it with a black band. She looked me over as she did it. “You are going to freeze to death in minutes if that is all you brought to wear,” she said.
“We’re prepared,” Felix said.
Natasha flinched, then turned slightly, spotting the two skinwalkers in the back of the truck for the first time. She relaxed. “No, you are not prepared. Nothing you have brought with you will prepare you for the Road of Bones.”
I hunched forward, gun still in my hand, but otherwise relaxed. “That’s what I want to ask ye about,” I said. “I want to know everythin’ ye can tell me about where we’re goin’ before we get there. And,” I added, raising a finger, “if ye do, I promise to give ye one of these.” I popped open a cooler and lifted a plastic bag full of blood, one of several we’d bought off an enterprising nurse at one of the local hospitals.
Just because I disliked vampires didn’t mean I didn’t know how to keep them happy.
Natasha’s eyes slid from the bag to me. “I will tell you everything I know, but not for the blood. I will do it under the condition that you consider turning back.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’d rather starve than do this.” I made it a statement.
Natasha nodded, and I saw the skinwalkers exchange worried glances. I agreed with them. In all my life, I’d never seen a vampire turn down blood. Despite what Hollywood wanted you to think, vampires—like most people—rarely had moral qualms when it came to sustenance and how they got it. Unlike human beings, who could sustain themselves on plants or animal byproducts, vampires who rejected their basic instinct to feed for ethical reasons often ended up dead.
Not from malnutrition, but from insanity.
Don’t believe me? Consider a human being, but then take away food, water, sunlight, and basically every vitamin they need to survive, and what do you end up with? A shattered thing, willing to do whatever it takes to survive. Hell, I’d seen junkies I trusted more than a vampire who’d gone cold turkey for a few days.
I tossed Natasha the bag. “I’ll consider it, but drink up anyway.”
A ghost story I thought I could handle.
A jonesing vampire? Hard pass.
Chapter 19
Once Natasha had her fill, she tossed the empty bag aside and settled back into her coffin, lips crimson in the deepening twilight. I gestured to Serge, who flicked a switch, brightening the truck bed with the light from a battery-powered lamp. Natasha grunted. “That we did not have when my people and I walked the Road of Bones. When night fell, we tried to make fire, to make camp. But the fire would not come.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Centuries ago. After the good Ivan, but before the bad.”
I nodded as if that made sense, then waved at her to carry on.
“We did not mean to cross. Back then there were wild places. Places you knew not to go. But it was a bad winter, and we needed food. So, we wandered further from our homes, hoping to find it. We failed.”
“Where’s the entrance?” I asked.
“You will not find it on your maps, although the Kolyma Highway will bring you close. Though they overlap, the Road of Bones—as the highway is known today—is but an echo of what we found.”
I frowned, glancing past Natasha to Felicia. “What’s she talkin’ about?”
“There is a highway in Siberia known as the Road of Bones,” Felicia explained. “Thousands of laborers died during its construction, and many believe their bones are part of the highway’s foundation.”
“Hence the name,” Felix added.
“The highway was built long after, and the name is much older,” Natasha countered. “The name is older than I am. Older than Dimitri, who is one of the original Bogatyr who founded Moscow.”
I raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t interrupt; sometimes you simply have to roll with the shit vampires say, even if it makes you want to go fact-checking on Wikipedia. I’d ask Othello what the hell a Bogatyr was later. Or maybe Eve, when this was all said and done; I’d managed to sneak in a quick conversation with her before we’d headed into the club. She’d been mildly pleased to find out I was alive. Or at least I thought she’d been pleased. It was hard to tell what the sapling was feeling one way or the other, most days.
“We did not even notice we had walked into another world until we saw the dead men,” Natasha was explaining. “Soldiers and slaves and monsters covered in ice. We walked for three days and three nights, once we knew there was no fire and no food to be found. Many died or were lost in the snow, until—on the third night—I saw that I was the only one left. My brother had fallen ill on the first night and died. I searched for his body. I wanted to die by his side. But I did not find him. Instead, I found the way out. And that is when Dimitri found me.”
I frowned. “Is that all?”
The twins glanced up at me, mouths agape as if I’d spit on her.
“It’s a sad story,” I said, waving away their shocked expressions. “But I was expectin’ somethin’ worse. Ye act like it was the scariest place in the world, when all it sounds like to me is one of those dangerous places adrenaline junkies like to visit.”
“Everyone I knew or cared for died a horrible death inside that other world,” Natasha said, her eyes haunted. “If Dimitri had not found me, they would have had to cut off my right leg, my left foot, and most of my fingers to save me.” She met my gaze and—despite the fact that she couldn’t control me—I felt the urge to look away. “Which parts of your body are you willing to live without? Or worse, would you trade your soul?”
I thought about it, then holstered my gun. “Ye said ye lost everyone ye cared about back then?” I asked.
Natasha’s eyes narrowed, but she jerked her head in a curt nod. “Da.”
“Well, Rasputin has taken most of the people I care about and won’t give ‘em back unless I do this. So, aye, I’m willin’ to trade a few t’ings.” I raised a cautionary finger. “And, if ye don’t do everythin’ we tell ye, that’ll include your life, as well. Do we understand one another?”
Natasha sucked her teeth, running a pink tongue across her fangs. “Da, I understand.”
“Good, now lay back down. We’ll wake ye up when the show’s about to start,” I said. I nodded to the twins, who moved to replace the coffin lid and chains. Natasha opened her mouth as if to argue, but Serge’s not-so-subtle cough made her reconsider. She laid back without complaint, watching the barrel of his gun the whole time.
“Sweet dreams,” I said.
“Idi nahui,” Natasha muttered, disappearing from sight beneath the wooden lid.
I reached out and knocked on the cab from our side until Othello rolled down her window and called back to me. “What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
“What does idi nahui mean?” I called.
“What?” she yelled, sounding concerned.
I repeated the words, and Vitaly’s laughter was loud enough to be heard over the roaring engine. Othello joined him, and I could tell from Felix and Felicia’s amused reaction that they knew, too.
“Basically, it means go fuck yourself,” Othello called, finally.
I pursed my lips.
Of course it did.
Chapter 20
We pulled into Oymyakon beneath a bright summer sky in the late afternoon, sore and tired from the drive and a night of shoddy, broken sleep. The town was a quiet one, a population of maybe five hundred people in total, with buildings spread unnecessarily wide, as if the only exercise residents got was walking to and from neighboring dwellings. No one came out to stare at us when we arrived, which I found odd; towns this small tend to react when strangers arrive. Typically, the natives fell into two camps: those who shut and locked their doors, and those who actively sought out news from the outside world. Which meant either Oymyakon got enough tourism for some reason that strangers weren’t a novelty, or something was wrong.
Turned out it was the latter.
“Soldiers,” Serge explained, after returning from the central market with two fistfuls of fish as long as my arm and twice as thick. I didn’t bother asking him about the fish, though I was tempted to give him shit for the smell. Not that it would have mattered; Serge wore the sort of smile doped-up people wear when their high crests over them like a wave, the kind my particular brand of caustic humor couldn’t touch. I realized that, for some reason, Serge looked remarkably relaxed here, and I wondered for the first time where the skinwalker was really from. He’d insisted on a Czech background when we first met, but—considering he’d been trying to gain my sympathy at the time—I couldn’t know if that was the truth. In fact, now that I’d seen more of Russia, I realized Serge’s general swarthiness, not to mention his hairiness, could be attributed to the Mongolian blood that trickled through Russia’s veins—remnants of Genghis Khan and his Golden Horde’s vast influence. Which meant maybe, just maybe, Serge was home.
“Where are they?” Vitaly asked, half his body swallowed by the truck’s engine, the hood propped up with a length of two-by-four he’d fetched from the cab. I wasn’t sure what Vitaly was fiddling with, but then I doubted I’d have much insight even had he told me; I knew jack shit about vehicles this size. Hell, if the ride couldn’t set off radar equipment when it blew by, I wasn’t the least bit interested.
Moscow Mule: Phantom Queen Book 5 - A Temple Verse Series (The Phantom Queen Diaries) Page 9