Across the table, Brandon watched him warily; and when John paid him no heed, Brandon smirked, then made faces, then scratched himself like a baboon.
Reggie shook his head in disgust.
Avni leaned against the wall and grinned.
Genny waited.
John caught sight of Brandon, and scrutinized him for a long, cool moment.
When Brandon realized he’d been caught scratching his crotch, the way he flinched almost started Genny laughing . . . except she wasn’t sure John wasn’t going to flatten him.
“You’re Brandon Lam,” John said. “The one who calls me a yeti.”
Avni let out an explosive laugh that changed to a fit of coughing.
Brandon blanched. He glanced around accusingly, or maybe he was merely looking for escape. He looked back at John. “How do you know that?”
“You haven’t been quiet about it.”
Brandon clearly couldn’t decide what to answer . . . and keep his life.
Lubochka covered her mouth with her hand to hide her grin, and leaned back in her chair to enjoy the show.
“Brandon. Do I look like an abominable snowman?” John asked.
Mesmerized, Brandon shook his head.
“No. I don’t. So I could be unhappy about that kind of slander from a sawed-off shrimp of a guy like you. Couldn’t I?”
“Yes,” Brandon breathed.
“Yes. But I won’t take my revenge. At least—not right away . . .” John’s attention shifted back to his bowl.
Apparently that gave Brandon the courage he needed. “You look different. Did you get a deal on that haircut?”
John lifted his gaze again and observed Brandon with all the fondness of a cowboy boot for a cockroach.
Emboldened, Brandon asked, “Why did you do it? You got a girlfriend? Some hairy, yeti girlfriend you want to impress?”
Genny ducked her head and realized . . . her hands had involuntarily curled, and she held them protectively close to her belly.
What had made John shave his face? Had he picked out his new four-day playmate? Was he stalking a female with the intention of taking her to his cabin and using her to . . . to relieve his masculine desires?
Was that female Genny?
John put down his spoon. “Never doubt the yeti still lurks within, waiting to tear you limb from limb.”
Brandon’s oily amusement vanished.
The Russians in the corner guffawed.
Genny glanced up.
She wanted John to want her. She wanted to kiss him again, to take off her clothes, to press herself against his sculpted body and feel his pecs, his belly, his thighs. She wanted to hold his erection in her hands, measure its length and breadth, put it between her legs and accept him into her body. She wanted to do all those things, and at the same time . . . he was the perfect gentleman, nice and kind, helping her search out the lynx in the area so she could take photos.
Nice. A blah word for what was obviously a blah sentiment . . . for her.
She cringed a little. Was he teaching her, showing her, because he felt sorry for her?
Reggie caught her eye and shook his head in disgust.
Genny blushed. How had he realized what she was thinking?
Then she blushed more. He hadn’t. He was disgusted about Brandon. Of course.
John picked up his spoon again.
Brandon rushed into speech. “These villagers say you’re here because of the crossroads.”
The two Russian men cast evil glances at Brandon.
He continued. “Because you’re some kind of freak that’s attracted to a mystical place that exists somewhere around here.”
John lifted his cold blue eyes to Brandon. He scanned the room, stared hard at the two villagers, who pretended to be blind and deaf to the scene. His gaze drifted over Genny without a sign of recognition. “What’s your question, Brandon? Are you asking if I’m a freak? Or are you asking if I’m here because of a mystical connection to the rasputye?”
John’s mild reaction lent Brandon courage. “I know you’re a freak. I just don’t understand why a decorated American would run away to this particular Russian piss-hole. I mean, if you need some woo-woo to cure whatever’s wrong with you—your PTSD or your crazy fits—Sedona, Arizona, is supposed to be the bellybutton of the world, and it’s one hell of a lot closer to home.”
Unhurriedly John reached out. He gathered a handful of Brandon’s shirt in his fist. He stood, and as he did, he lifted Brandon up and dragged him across the table.
Brandon kicked wildly.
The stew and beer went flying.
John brought him close, so they were face-to-face, eye-to-eye. “I don’t want to cure my crazy fits,” John said with precision. “I feed on them.” Opening his fingers, he dropped Brandon.
Brandon smacked the table, fell off onto the stool, waved his arms to get his balance and lost the battle. The stool skidded out from under him, shot into the air, and he sprawled on his back.
The Russians chortled and slapped their knees.
So did Avni.
John kicked his stool aside, put more money on the table—“For the mess,” he said to Mariana—and walked out the door.
Brandon scrambled to his feet. He glanced toward Genny.
She pretended like she hadn’t noticed any of it.
No one else bothered to pretend, and Genny felt almost, almost, sorry for Brandon again—until he stomped up the stairs, kicking each tread like a boy sent for a time-out.
Genny felt as if she were suffering from a fever.
The other members of the team were wrong. John wasn’t like any modern movie star. The gaunt face, the dark tan, the light blue eyes surrounded by dark lashes: they belonged on a castle wall, a mural full of knights and armored horses, of battle depicted so realistically one could hear the clash of swords and smell the blood spilled on the ground. And the heart of the battle would beat around this man, swinging his flaming sword or a mace with menacing accuracy.
No, there was nothing fake about this man, nothing modern, nothing weak.
He was the real thing, and only Genny was acute enough to see the truth. Only Genny was smart enough to be afraid.
Genny glanced back at the monitor where the splendid lynx still forbiddingly glared, and now she knew why the snarling cat seemed familiar.
He reminded Genny of John.
Chapter 22
The next morning, when Genny’s phone rang, she was so deeply asleep she tried to turn off the alarm. Only Avni’s indignant, “Come on, Genny,” snapped her out of it.
Genny answered and mumbled, “What?”“Have you talked to him yet?” It was her father. Of course.
“Wait a minute.” Using her cell as a flashlight, she fumbled her way into her parka and stumbled down the stairs.
Where to go?
The bathroom had a door. She could go inside and shut it. So she did. Putting her spine against the wall, she sank down on the floor. “Okay, Father. I talked to him.”
“And?”
“He’s different.”
“What did he say about coming to New York?”
“I haven’t asked him.”
“What is to be gained by delay?” Father snapped.
“His trust,” Genny snapped back.
Father said nothing. Perhaps he was taken aback by her attitude. Perhaps he wanted to make her break and ask pardon.
She didn’t know. She didn’t care.
Finally, grudgingly, he said, “All right. I’ll give you that.”
“Thanks. Now I have a question of my own. Where did the legend originate?” Genny listened while her father tried to decide why she wanted to know, how much truth to tell, what could be gained from a lie.
“What legend?” he asked cautiously.
She didn’t snort. She didn’t dare, or he’d pretend their connection was bad and cut her off and not pick up when she called back. And she needed this information. “The legend. You know, the one you had me recit
ing before I was in kindergarten. The legend of the Chosen Ones.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I think it might be important.” God, if he would only just for once answer a freaking question. “Did it originate here? Around Rasputye?”
“No one knows for sure.”
“But the Gypsy Travel Agency has done studies and . . . ?” She patiently drew him out.
“There’s no telling what those bastards are saying now.” He sounded more than bitter. He was bone-spewing vengeful.
“What was the Gypsy Travel Agency saying when you were there? Where did the legend originate?”
“They believed it originated in central or eastern Europe.” Reluctantly he added, “Perhaps on the Russian steppes.”
Exactly as she had suspected. “So if you looked at a map of the border between Asia and Europe, there’s sort of a bull’s-eye and I’m in the center of the target.”
“Not a bull’s-eye. More of a long crack in the earth where things . . . happen. There used to be this theory . . .” He was getting more eccentric every day.
She no longer worried about John being mad. But should she perhaps worry about her father? “Tell me.”
“They think there’s something there, all along the crossroads.”
“Something? What something?”
“If you look at the old stories, the fairy tales, the ones that have come down through eons and ages, there’s a belief that the crossroads is where the new rules don’t apply.”
“The new rules?” What was he talking about? “Are you talking about the rules that have come into being with the advent of civilization?”
“Exactly. The old rules say that the fairies, the demons, the devil himself wait at the crossroads to trick an unwary traveler, to send them off into the woods where they’ll never be seen again. The crossroads is the place where people fight and people die, and their blood soaks into the earth and the earth laps it up as a sacrifice and the old gods are satisfied.” Her father’s voice became dreamy. “People who believe, go to the crossroads to make deals for beauty or love or talent, and come back changed.”
“So deals made at the crossroads are like the deal Faust made with the devil. Sooner or later, their souls are forfeit.”
“I suppose,” he snapped.
“Did you go to the crossroads? Is your soul forfeit?” She didn’t know what made her blurt forth the question except that . . . except he sounded so odd, as if he had visited those crossroads. Clutching the phone hard, she willed him not to hang up.
He didn’t. Instead, he snapped back, “No. Not my soul. Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Sorry, Father. Please, tell me.”
“So basically Eurasia should be one continent—geographically, it is one continent—but because of the huge cultural divide between Europe and Asia, it’s not. The ancients drew an arbitrary line and said, This is Europe and This is Asia.”
“I thought mountains and rivers made up the division.”
“There are mountains and rivers all over Europe and Asia. Why that line? And why, along that line, did the old, dark legends take form? Vampires, werewolves, Baba Yaga flying on her broomstick, evil mothers who take children into the woods and leave them . . .”
In business school she’d been trained to think that the way of numbers and facts was the only way. She had deplored their rigidity, but right now, as she faced believing the unbelievable, she realized . . . there was comfort in a closed mind. If she were truly unreceptive, she wouldn’t believe any of it.
But now she was awash in myth, and her mind was opened . . . and she didn’t like it one bit. “So the legend of the Chosen Ones is based on reality and the reality happened here, and the Chosen Ones are drawn back here because of . . . the crossroads? There’s something mystical that draws them? That’s why John is here? Because his misfortune made him feel there was nowhere else in the world he could live?”
“You tell me. You’ve talked to him!” Her father’s voice rose in excitement.
“He’s been very kind.”
“He’s interested in you!”
“Not interested. Not like that.” She was the one interested. She was obsessed. “I’ll let you know when I’ve talked to him about New York. Until then, Father, don’t call me. I’ll call you.” And she hung up.
She looked at the phone.
Never in her life had she imagined she’d have the guts to hang up on her father. Ever since Kevin Valente had lost his job, he’d dominated her life, her thoughts, her ambitions. She’d been afraid of him, afraid he’d walk away as her mother had walked away.
But since she’d arrived in Russia, her soul had blossomed. She sensed the forest; she became a part of its darkness. She had seen the eagles and flown on the wings of wind. She had been sister to the father and mother lynx, guardian to the babies. She had found John; she’d tasted his torment, his desire, his being.
She thought—she hoped—she could make a difference to him. With him.
Maybe this place was magic. Maybe the crossroads did exist here.
A duct connected the bathroom to the closet where Brandon slept, and there he grimaced in agony.
Genny hadn’t been out hunting lynx every night. She hadn’t been taking wildlife photos because she cared. She’d been out there because she had the hots for the yeti. While Brandon slept, she’d been sneaking out to screw the stupid, hairy, muscle-bound yeti.She had been lying to Brandon. Every minute of every day, she had been lying to him.
Oh, sure, he hadn’t told her how much he loved her. But he’d made it clear. She had known what he meant. Hadn’t he been the one to warn her about the yeti? Hadn’t he been the one who noticed that bruise on her cheek? The bruise the yeti had given her! Yet still she sneaked around at night like a slut.
What was it with girls? He had money. He had education. He had family. Not that his father ever thought anything Brandon did was worth a damn, but that didn’t matter. When Brandon said he was one of the Lams of San Francisco, he got respect.
He had a great body. He knew that, because he worked it with weights and trainers until he was toned as any of the giants that towered over him at the gym.
Yet whenever he got involved, the girl always betrayed him. And this thing with Genny . . . this was worse than any other time before.
Because he loved Genny. He would always love her. Genny was the light in his dark, miserable, loser of a life.
He would make her pay—
A hand fell on his shoulder.
He jumped, turned, stared.
“What a disappointment Genny has turned out to be. Hasn’t she?” His friend stood there, understanding his pain as no one else could.
“She’s a thief. She stole my glory. She’s a whore. She ignored my love.”
“Yes, but there are ways to deal with thieves and whores.” His friend put an arm around his shoulders and drew him close. “Would you like me to tell you how?”
Chapter 23
As he had done every night for the past week, John walked through the dark woods to Genny’s side.
Wherever she was, he knew the way that led to her. She pulled him like a magnet. She changed the texture of the forest. She gave new air for him to breathe.She had kissed him. Without urging, without a sign of revulsion, she had kissed him.
She didn’t realize what she’d done.
For two years, no human had initiated contact with him. Not to shake his hand, not to slap his back, not to slap his face.
The women he had collected had wanted him for only one thing—for the pleasure he could give them. They had been greedy, and that was fine with him. Because he hadn’t been interested in tenderness. He hadn’t been interested in love. He hadn’t been interested in communication. Lust had been enough. Except for his occasional forays into Rasputye for supplies and to pick up his mail, he had been completely isolated. He had been satisfied to be a wild man. A yeti. He’d worn skins of animals he had killed, eaten berries and nuts,
lived in a hut dug into the hill, and figured this was his penance.
Then . . . without any provocation, Genny had touched him.
He hadn’t misread her intention. It hadn’t been a particularly sexual kiss—at least not on her part.
But for him it had been a miracle.
He touched his naked chin.
Now look at him. He’d cleaned himself up and come courting like a boy.
Genny had lured him back to civilization.
It was odd to be so intent on gently wooing this woman. Although she was twenty-four years old with a graduate degree and, apparently, a prick for a father, she seemed innocent and untouched. She wasn’t stupid about people—she seemed to have a good grip on reality—yet she believed in the intrinsic goodness of mankind. In all of his life, he had never believed in goodness, yet everything about her seemed genuine. It was as if she’d been sent for him, to break him of the morass of agony that had trapped his soul.
For the first time since he’d lost Sun Hee, he believed he could survive the agony of living alone in a world that considered him . . . what was it Brandon Lam called him? A freak.
John laughed softly.
Ah, what Brandon didn’t realize was that there were freaks everywhere he looked. This was the rasputye, and not just any rasputye. This was the rasputye, and the rasputye attracted freaks. John didn’t always recognize them, but they were here. People like—
Something cold brushed his mind. Something evil slithered through his consciousness.
Lifting his nose, he sniffed the air. Turned his head back and forth. Listened to the trees talk.
Danger stalked the woods.
Brandon was in the woods.
Genny was in danger.
John ran, trusting to his senses to guide him.
He’d provoked the stupid young man, taunting him, then humiliating him.
Would Brandon take his revenge on Genny?
As John got to the edge of the forest outside of the village, he was panting, gasping with effort and anxiety.
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