Shadow WIngs (Skeleton Key)

by JC Andrijeski

  She couldn’t help staring, however, at how good he looked.

  Looking away abruptly when he noticed her stare, she walked back to the couch and sat.

  She’d done her best to make the hotel room comfortable, turning on the heater and switching on a few of the more inviting lamps before turning off the overhead. She found some extra blankets and a few pillows for the couch before setting out the covered plates of food.

  Now she poured herself a half-glass of wine, relaxing into the couch with a sigh. She would leave the mini-fridge vodka and chocolate for later, perhaps.

  For now, she preferred to leave her mind reasonably sharp.

  She was taking the covers off their plates of beef goulash with gravy and potatoes and bread, when the sound of Obnizov’s voice rose from the other side of the couch, near where Raguel now sat beside her.

  She turned to see Raguel bent over the tape recorder.

  He’d turned it on.

  Biting her lip, she considered telling him to wait until they had eaten first. Then, realizing he was probably right not to wait, she turned back to her food after placing the plate covers back on the rolling cart. She started to eat her goulash while the tape recorder continued to spin.

  The first twenty or so minutes was mostly silence.

  That silence was peppered with periodic questions from the homicide detective, Obnizov, but no one else on the tape made a sound. Golunsky himself gave no answer, despite the detective’s threats. Ilana didn’t speak during any of that initial questioning, either.

  She remembered that part of the interview, however.

  Then, out of nowhere, Golunsky began speaking to someone else.

  “Worried about your pet, Raguel...?”

  Golunsky’s words came out loud on the tape, louder than the detective’s had.

  Just like she had in the room that morning, Ilana flinched, right as she was lifting another forkful of the beef goulash to her mouth. Finishing the motion and chewing the piece of meat, she swallowed it, taking another sip of the red wine as she listened to the demon speak.

  It was different hearing it this time, knowing Raguel had heard it, too.

  The two of them ate silently while they listened to the back and forth exchange, the too-long silences as the militia detective tried to get Golunsky to talk to him directly. Ilana found she blushed at some of those parts now as well, knowing the demon had been taunting this man about wanting her sexually.

  If Raguel felt embarrassed by that, she saw no indication on his face.

  Then, the conversation abruptly changed.

  “I found it, my feathery friend,” the demon said, sounding delighted. “As you rightly surmise, I cannot pick it up in this form. Yet it follows me. It follows me, brother. Are you quite sure it is not yours? For I cannot help but wonder if this is so...”

  When Ilana glanced at Raguel, he gave her a grim look.

  “That is when I first saw the key,” he explained.

  Her eyes widened. In everything that happened at the militsiya station and at Kashchenko, she’d completely forgotten about the key they’d found in Gorky Park. Wiping her mouth with a cloth napkin, she got up from the couch as the recorder continued to turn, her goulash still only half-finished. She walked to the closet and opened it, rifling through her coat pockets until she found it. She brought it back to the coffee table, showing it to Raguel.

  “You still cannot see it?”

  He shook his head, frowning. “No. Are you holding it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see only the gaps between your fingers.”

  Nodding, she tossed the key to the glass-topped coffee table, where it made a clinking sound when it landed.

  “Did you hear that?” she said. “When it fell?”

  “Yes.” His frown deepened as he slid his hand over the key where it had fallen. Again, his hand passed through the glass key as though it were not there.

  “Is it there?” he said.

  “Yes.” Incredulity touched her voice. “Your hand passes right through it. I would not have believed it if I did not just see it with my own eyes.”

  “You saw it before,” he reminded her, glancing up.

  “Da. I guess I hoped I imagined it.”

  Both of them glanced at the tape recorder, which now exuded only silence.

  “Do you remember anything of the interview beyond this point?” Raguel watched her spear a piece of beef in the goulash with her fork after she sat back down. “I don’t remember any more. I am thinking I have touched the key by this time, and disappeared out of the room.”

  She shook her head, swallowing the mouthful of beef. “No. My memory tells me the interview ended... that Golunsky refused to speak.”

  Even as she said it, the silence was broken, making both of them jump.

  Golunsky’s voice rose on the tape, louder than before.

  “You are too late,” The voice was cold, threatening, nearly unrecognizable. “It is too late to stop the future, podonok militsiya pig... it is too late...”

  From the tone of voice, he might have been a different person. This new person was no less disturbing than the old Golunsky had been, but he was definitely more aggressive.

  Then another voice rose.

  Clinical. Military-sounding.

  Definitely female.

  “We are too late?” Ilana’s voice said. “Too late for what? What is coming, comrade?”

  Ilana stared at the recorder, more shocked by hearing her own voice than she was hearing Golunsky speak words she didn’t remember him saying. She froze as she stared at the recorder, so stunned she almost didn’t hear his answer.

  “Why are you asking me?” This new, harder-edged Golunsky laughed, a cold, cruel-sounding laugh. “You know more about this than I do... ‘comrade.’ ”

  “What does that mean?” Ilana’s own voice again, jarring.

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Let us pretend that I don’t,” Ilana’s voice said. “Are you saying more deaths are coming? That you are working with others?”

  “Da, da... of course I am working with others! America is the future! You know this! Soviet Russia is going the way of the dinosaurs... as you told me yourself...”

  Ilana felt her skin grow cold.

  “Americans?” that other Ilana snapped, disgust audible in her voice. “What Americans? Who are you working with? Or is this just some attempt to pin the murder of innocent children on someone else? To make it part of some wider, delusional cause?”

  The demon laughed, and there was a hard sound, a clink of metal. Ilana recognized it as the sound of Obnizov kicking the prisoner’s chair.

  “Answer the question, you scum!” the detective growled. “Give us names. Or I will bring in those who would get the information out of you the hard way!”

  The demon let out another derisive laugh. “Do your worst, comrade. Do you think I care? Do you think I do not know I am dead, either way? What do you think you can do to me now? If I am rescued from this, it will not be by Soviet scum. If I am rescued from this, it will be by those who lead the free world, not the world wrapped in communist chains...”

  “So you are a capitalist now?” Obnizov mocked, his voice louder from being nearer to the microphone. “Is that it? You are hoping to go to America? Maybe piss on the Statue of Liberty? Is that it, Golunsky?”

  The demon laughed again, its voice holding disbelief.

  “You say that like I should be ashamed of such a thing...” The contempt in his voice grew more biting. “...like going to America would be some kind of curse. Are you really so stupid? Why do you think our best athletes and artists have to be guarded by KGB for every second they set foot in another country? Why do you think the military builds walls to keep its own people inside? Why do you think so many are shot on the wall, trying to escape? Is it because it is better here? Because the West is so terrible?”

  The demon let out another derisive laugh.

  “...You are
a fool. No wonder she despises you,” it finished coldly.

  The other Ilana spoke up, anger in her voice. “Are you saying you were asked to do this? By someone from America? Why? What is their goal?”

  Golunsky only laughed.

  “You would ally against your own people?” Obnizov growled. “And just how does that work exactly, ‘comrade’? Please enlighten us.”

  “My people? What makes you think they are mine?”

  “So you are American, is that it?” Obnizov sneered. “And this is the work of the great America? Raping and butchering children? This is the goodness the West brings us?”

  Golunsky’s voice changed once again. It grew sharper than it had been, more intelligent-sounding. Less randomly crazy-sounding, despite his actual words.

  “I guess we will see, won’t we?” he said. “Everything is set in motion now. It is time to make way for a new world. A world where we face the truth. That communism is a dangerous dream and a failure, and its time is over...”

  Something in the words rang of truth.

  Truth mixed with lies, perhaps, but truth nonetheless.

  She glanced at Raguel, remembering what he’d said about the old gulags under Stalin, about how the demon likely wanted the exact opposite of what it was saying right now. Did he wish to make the USSR so hate the idea of change that they would return to those dark days?

  The angel didn’t return her gaze, but continued to stare down at the tape recorder, a look of frustration on his handsome face. She saw him glance at where the key sat on the coffee table. She could tell by the way he squinted, looking at several different spots on the table, that he still could not see it. She could almost feel what he was thinking.

  He wanted to be an angel again.

  He thought he could do something about this, if only he were an angel again. In this form, he felt stripped of his power.

  She only turned away from him when her own voice rose once more.

  “We need names, Golunsky. Who are you working with? Who else is a part of this conspiracy? Are there Americans here now? In Moscow?”

  The demon laughed louder.

  “And again I say... why don’t you tell me, Party comrade Kopovich? My lovely, sexy Ilana... why don’t you tell both of us the answer to that question?”

  Hearing the demon’s words, Ilana felt her skin grow cold.

  The demon called her by name.

  She’d never been introduced to Golunsky. Not by Obnizov. Not by anyone.

  She’d certainly never told him her name herself.

  Remembering what Karkoff said to her on the phone, how strange Obnizov had been to her ever since they left the interview, she felt that fear and dread in her chest worsen, even as she took another hard swig of the wine.

  Karkoff had said they would pick up Obnizov. No doubt, the homicide detective had voiced his suspicions about Ilana to the KGB already. He would tell them about the writing in the cell, about Raguel being with her that day. They would assume the writing was about her, that Raguel was her accomplice, perhaps an American spy.

  If they investigated Raguel’s identification papers, they would realize they were fake. They would discover he didn’t work where those papers said he worked. They would discover he didn’t live where those papers said he lived either... and eventually they would realize that Raguel wasn’t a Soviet citizen at all.

  They likely wouldn’t believe he also wasn’t a citizen of Earth.

  No, they would think he was a foreigner, here to bring down the Soviet Motherland.

  Thinking all this, Ilana glanced at Raguel.

  She took another swallow of wine, then set down the glass, pouring more of the bottle into it. Sipping the wine, she stared at the glass key and frowned, looking over at the angel.

  “I guess he has both of us out of the way now, eh, comrade?” she said.

  Raguel didn’t answer.

  She saw him glance back in the direction of the key, however, that frustration once more tightening his features.

  SHADOW WINGS

  “WHAT DOES IT mean?” She focused back on Raguel when the silence stretched. “What is the point of these murders? Are they really just to implicate you and me?”

  They’d listened to the tape from beginning to end twice by then.

  After the demon practically fingered Ilana herself as a part of his conspiracy, he refused to speak. The remainder of the tape was Ilana and Obnizov peppering him with questions, both of them sounding increasingly angry when the demon refused to answer.

  Ilana knew her anger and fear would be heard differently however, depending on who was listening to the tape.

  “...Is there anything to what he said?” she pressed, when Raguel didn’t speak. “About Americans being involved? Or is that all just bullshit, too?” Feeling increasingly angry and helpless, she said, “Karkoff said they would pick up Obnizov today. I do not know what he said to the KGB and others... and they likely have him in custody still, so I can’t even ask him. He’ll have told them about the writing in the cell... and about you.”

  Raguel sighed, threading his fingers together where he leaned over his own thighs.

  “Yes,” he said only.

  “Yes, what? You think this is all just to implicate us?”

  Again, his eyes shifted towards the surface of the coffee table.

  The same part of the table where Ilana saw a glass key.

  “I do not know,” he said only.

  Ilana frowned, wanting to yell at him for some reason. “So what do we do?”

  He met her gaze. “I don’t know, Ilana.”

  Exhaling in frustration, she took another swallow of wine as she paced back and forth in front of the couch. She’d drank most of the whole bottle of wine by herself.

  So much for keeping her mind sharp.

  “Ilana.” When she didn’t look over, Raguel raised his voice, but kept it patient. “Ilana... there is nothing more we can do tonight. You must stop.”

  She barely heard him.

  After another minute of pacing and thinking, she shrugged.

  “I do not even know his political beliefs,” she said, as much to herself as to him. “Karkoff and I did not talk politics. Not in relation to anything other than what I needed to know to complete my assignments. I always thought he was fairly moderate, for KGB.” She stopped pacing briefly, looking at Raguel. “Most in KGB who are his age and who have attained his rank are more bullish in their stances.”

  Raguel nodded.

  He patted the couch next to him then, his eyes more serious.

  Exhaling in frustration, she realized he was right. She needed to calm down.

  Sitting next to him heavily on the couch, she exhaled again.

  He shifted closer to her, studying her face. Using one hand, he stroked the long, dirty-blond hair off her cheek. She didn’t move away or try to avoid his touch, but she flinched, more from the current of tension still vibrating her skin.

  “I’m okay,” she said, looking at him. She stroked the hand he had on her face, trying to reassure him. “It’s okay, Raguel. I’m okay.”

  “When did you last sleep, Ilana?”

  She shook her head, averting her gaze from his. “I cannot sleep now.”

  She started to take another drink of wine, but he plucked the glass from her hand, turning his body to set it on the glass coffee table behind him, and out of her reach. They had already wheeled the cart with their mostly-empty plates out into the hallway.

  “You cannot continue to do this, either,” he said, softer.

  Sighing, she looked up at him. “Please. I need to think about this.”

  “You are not thinking, you are worrying.” He studied her gaze, his gray eyes as still as a windless sky. “We have no new information, Ilana,” he said gently.

  He was right. Her mind stubbornly refused to let it go, however. “Are you thinking this has to do with the Americans? About them wanting to put more weapons in Germany? Do the children have anything to do
with this at all?”

  Stroking her hair, he her gaze. “I do not know. What do you think, Ilana?”

  Sighing, she looked at the glass key on the table, then back up at him.

  “I am thinking you are wishing you are an angel again,” she said. “I am thinking I can’t help you anymore, comrade... that my usefulness is at an end.”

  Nodding, he laid a hand on her thigh, rubbing it slowly.

  Swallowing, she turned once more, meeting his gaze. He continued to massage her leg while he studied her expression.

  “Being an angel would make some things easier,” he conceded. His voice remained calm, gentle. “It may not seem obvious to you, but I could protect you from there, Ilana. I could influence those who would hunt you, at least, while I looked for whoever is behind this.” He glanced back at that spot on the coffee table that held the key. “I feel... helpless here. It is difficult, I admit. But I am very glad to be here with you.”

  She nodded, exhaling again.

  She thought about answering him in some way, then didn’t.

  “I think this will happen soon, whatever it is,” Raguel added. “They got me out of the way. Now you are out of the way, as well. And Karkoff is clearly converted. Knowingly or not, he is working for whoever the demon is possessing now. Whether the children have anything to do with that directly, I don’t know. But I suspect not.”

  Thinking about this, she found herself nodding, her jaw firm.

  It felt true. All of what he said felt true. The children weren’t a part of this, not really. It was just horror. Misdirection. A way to set her up. A way to set both of them up.

  And it worked.

  She nodded, feeling defeated. “Yes.”

  “We cannot do any more tonight, Ilana.”

  She nodded to that, too, turning her head to look at him once more. She really was exhausted. She also knew she would not sleep. Not right away, anyway. Not now.

  He returned her gaze, silent.

  After a few more seconds passed, she nodded again. Then she rose from the couch, moving out from under his hand. She felt his eyes on her as she walked over to the bed. She stared at the phone, a part of her wanting to call Obnizov... Karkoff... even Uri. Some part of her wanted to yell at someone, to vent her anger and frustration at someone as she felt her life crumbling down around her. Less than twenty-four hours had passed.