Damn.
A wooden beam, half burned, collapsed from the ceiling, sending embers swirling into the smoke. Geist coughed, beat at her chest, and then closed her eyes.
It’s too much.
She turned around and dashed through the burning building, careful to avoid the flames. While she was perfectly capable of going through solid material, that didn’t mean she was immune to the heat or destruction of fire. It would catch her, even while incorporeal, and it would burn.
Geist made it out of the building and dropped her invisibility.
“Are you okay?”
She glanced up and found Vergess rushing to her side.
Before he could protest, she grabbed his arm and then pointed to the manse. “There. We need to go back in.” She wheezed for a moment and then forced a deep inhale. “I need to clear things. I can’t make it alone. Come.”
Geist ran through the wall and back into the blood-soaked dining room. Vergess went to the wall, placed his hand on the side, and rotted away the wood with his ruina sorcery. The rapid aging of the wallpaper, support columns, and carpet gave the room a sickly appearance, even beyond the fire and corpses. Vergess stepped through his blackened hole and then motioned to the far door.
Without Battery’s power, Geist couldn’t extend her invisibility and ghosting abilities to another person, which meant she had to guide Vergess through the wreckage. He gritted his teeth and pushed forward, shielding his eyes with one arm. When they made it to a door blocked by flame, he rotted away another hole and stood back.
Someone shouted from deeper inside the building.
Geist pointed, and Vergess understood. They rushed forward—Geist going through the boundaries while Vergess created a new path. The ruina sorcery would eventually come back to bite them as the structure of the house continued to deteriorate, but they needed a way to get people out.
Deep in the back of the house, in a room reserved for private study, Geist found a teenage boy and two children. They were on the floor, the teenager shouting things in Russian between heavy coughing. He kept the kids down, and even though they cried—both no older than five—they didn’t move or run around.
The study wasn’t as bad as the rest of the house. No fires, but smoke had filtered in from under the door. Geist jogged over to the three Russians and knelt down.
“Come,” she said in English.
The teen snapped his head up, his eyes watery and wide. Although he replied in Russian, it was clear he understood a rescue had come. He stood, his legs shaking, and then urged his child wards to their feet.
Geist ushered them across the room. The children—one girl, one boy—trembled and swayed. The little girl fell back to the floor and cried, her face red. Geist scooped her up, held her close, and rushed the three to the door. When the teenager reached for the handle, Geist grabbed his forearm.
“Wait.”
The teen knitted his eyebrows, but did as he was told.
Seconds later, the rotting of Vergess’s ruina sorcery carved a hole through the door. He motioned the teenager out and then picked up the little boy. With the children secure, they ran through the many holes in the walls of House Solovyev. Geist dodged and weaved through the flames, careful to shield the child as much as possible.
The moment they exited the building, Geist took a deep breath of air and slowed her pace. The far side of House Solovyev collapsed in a blaze of embers and flames, sending more smoke into the darkening sky.
Russian citizens pointed from the streets, their rifles ready.
“Vergess,” Geist called out. “Can you take them?”
Citizens fired, and the teenager flinched at the crack of gunshots. He shouted something and grabbed for the children. Vergess took the girl from Geist—one child per arm—and ignored the frantic panic of the teenager.
“I’ll take them out of the district,” he said.
Geist nodded. “I’ll handle the revolutionaries.”
“What about House Lungin?”
“I’ll head there afterward… If there’s anything left, I’ll fight for it.”
Bullets whistled by. Those that hit Vergess tore his clothes but left him unscathed. Those that “hit” Geist went right through her incorporeal form. Vergess grabbed the teen by the hand, keeping himself between him and the angry mob, and then took off for the next estate.
“I’ll find you afterward,” he shouted in German.
Hardened to combat and filled with a lust to destroy those who wanted to take her life, Geist turned her attention to the Bolsheviks. Perhaps they were legitimately upset. Perhaps they had been wronged. But that didn’t matter. They wanted to destroy. Kill. Ruin. And now they had set their sights on innocents.
Vergess had once said that it was far easier to destroy than create. Geist agreed. She had no love for destructive thugs who thought they could wreck everything around them and consider it a “just cause.” Whatever their grievances, it didn’t require the death of children, the uninvolved, or the passersby.
When Geist entered the crowd, she was invisible. The first man with a rifle, carrying a red scarf, aimed for Vergess. She reached out, thrust an incorporeal hand into the man’s body, and then became solid as she ripped out a chuck of his insides. The gooey—and slick—innards of a human body still sent goosebumps down Geist’s spine every time she gripped them with her fingers, but she had gotten good at pinpointing the most debilitating spots on the human body.
When one man fell, Geist turned to the next. She could waste a whole army of mundane soldiers. They couldn’t deal with her sorcery. They couldn’t harm her. And she gained confidence from knowing she was a god among the terrible revolutionaries.
After she ripped the spleen out of a third man, the crowds began to shout and point. Normally, soldiers panicked after witnessing such terrible things. Geist was invisible, after all. All the Russians saw were men exploding outward with blood and mutilated body parts. Yet the Russians didn’t act like normal soldiers. They pointed and fled, but they kept their guns up and even fired in Geist’s direction, as though they knew magic were involved.
Makes sense, Geist thought with a smile as she attacked the fifth Bolshevik in her path. They must’ve seen something like this before.
It didn’t matter. Even if someone in the crowd knew it was specter sorcery at play, they couldn’t do anything. Geist continued her assault, distracting the crowds and injuring the best riflemen, knowing that Vergess would be long gone.
Once satisfied that Vergess had gotten enough of a head start, Geist broke away from the mob and rushed down the road. She gave House Solovyev one last glance. She hadn’t had enough time to search the place properly. Had there been others? It didn’t matter anymore. One more wall collapsed, sending the whole thing to the ground.
Invisible, incorporeal, and faster than normal men, Geist dashed through the posh estates of Petrograd, not bothering to dodge fences, gates, walls, or buildings. She headed in a direct line for her destination, the sights blurring by her on either side. She knew roughly where the last house was. She just had to get there.
The destruction engulfed the neighborhood as Geist sped through. Men and women, anger in their eyes, lit fire to houses, paintings, tapestries, and landscaping. They chanted things in Russian, but Geist didn’t need to know their language to guess their motives. Tired of the social order and ruling class, the people of Petrograd decided they would burn everything to the ground and start anew.
Just like the Kaiser wanted, Geist mused. That was why he shipped so many troublemakers to the capital. And that’s why the Eyes of the Kaiser are here. They were banking on social unrest so they could seize blood from Russian sorcerers. Not only that, but if the tsar loses power, the Russian Empire will have no choice but to withdraw from the war.
If the Russian Empire fails, Germany and Austria-Hungary won’t have to fight two fronts. They’ll be free to focus on France and Britain.
Lost in her realizations, Geist almost missed her
final destination—House Lungin. She slowed when she came to the iron-wrought fence, her heart stopped for a moment as she gazed through the bars. The house had been ripped apart. Not with fire, but as though the hands of God had reached down and pulled the walls in opposite directions.
What happened here?
The estate had the warmth of a ghost town, devoid of life. Not even the protestors ventured onto the property. They marched around it, their torches and signs far from even the grass of the lawn. When Geist went to ghost through the bars—just to check the wreckage—a sharp pain filled her chest.
She couldn’t bring herself to get any closer. The chill of magic lingered like a barrier.
Is this their sorcery? she wondered. Some sort of protection? But what happened to their house?
It occurred to her they may have already gone. Perhaps the damage was from them activating a powerful barrier of magic in an instant. It wouldn’t surprise Geist if that were the case. The family likely left after that.
For the sake of optimism, I’ll mark them as having escaped on their own.
Geist turned around and ran back through the west hills of Petrograd.
“Geist.”
The word straight to her thoughts almost jarred her out of her specter sorcery.
Blick.
“You need to come back. Defiant came through. He’s found Victory.”
Twenty-Five
American
Geist headed straight for the road back to her squad. Vergess would be there, somewhere, and she was bound to catch up to him. The longer she ran, however, the more she realized just how bad the rioting had become. Men and women threw buckets of oil across lavish buildings and then struck up a match. When soldiers came to stop them, they would either get into a fight or join in the destruction.
Geist had never seen so many people keen on the devastation of their homeland. Had they no love for their country? She shook her head. There was no way to prevent the disaster—it had already started—so she kept her sights set ahead.
I can’t lose focus now.
Geist and Vergess made it back to the dining hall in record time. Geist ghosted through the wall, and Vergess slammed the front door open, busting the wood on the doorframe where the lock had been secure. The others flinched and reached for their weapons, but they held back a moment later.
“You’re back,” Blick said. “Finally.” He hefted his rifle and stomped toward the front door. “We shouldn’t wait a second longer. C’mon, Battery.”
His younger brother jumped to his side with a nod. Together they made it to the busted doorframe and then waited.
Geist dropped her invisibility. “Where are we headed?”
“A place to the north,” Defiant said. He stood from his seat at a long wooden table, dark bags under his eyes. He held his coat tight across his body as icy wind flooded the room. “It isn’t far. I estimate within the boundaries of Petrograd.”
Still within the zone of riots. No matter where they went, they would be hounded by protesting Russians. It would be dangerous, but Geist didn’t want to leave her team any more than she had to. Once she had Victory, she wanted to escape the Russian Empire as fast as possible. But how would they all travel without getting harmed?
“Vergess,” she said. “You take point. If anyone tries to stop us, I want you to stop them.”
He replied with a curt nod.
“Blick, I know you want to get Victory back more than anyone, but I want you to stay in the middle of the group. Keep everyone updated with your telepathy.”
Although it took him a moment longer to reply, Blick did so in similar fashion.
“Battery—you empower me. I’ll protect you and Defiant. Dreamer, you’ll make us look like Bolsheviks. If any Russians try to muscle their way into our group, I’ll rip them apart from the inside out, got it?”
With a plan in place, they left the dining hall and entered the city. The evening sky, blotted out with the smoke of a dozen burning buildings, still sprinkled the city with a flurry of snowflakes. The cold, mixed with the soot, was a terrible combination. Geist coughed as they rushed down the sidewalk, her lungs filled with the debris of House Solovyev.
Defiant and Battery stuck close to her. Dreamer kept watch from the back, Blick jogged in the middle, and Vergess took point. A few Russians attempted to block their path, but Vergess shoved them into the street, practically breaking the arm of one man and busting open the eyebrow of another.
People broke into shops and looted the contents. Geist stepped over the shattered glass and kept Defiant close. Of everyone in her team, he hadn’t been combat trained—and as long as she held into him, she could make him incorporeal as well, all thanks to Battery.
“How did you locate Victory?” she asked as they made their way around the corner of a government building. All the windows had been smashed and the stairs marked with paint.
Defiant leaned on her shoulder. “My uncle’s research. When we developed the GH Gas, he made sure the weapon would seek out magic. We used… techniques… that…”
Geist didn’t need him to finish. She had already experienced the gas firsthand. It did seek out magic. It had slithered toward her in the trenches and chased her out of the OHL. Somehow—some way—it sought blood. But how was it possible? The gas couldn’t have a mind of its own. Could it?
“I used Blick’s and Battery’s blood to find Victory,” Defiant continued, his voice low. “Their blood is similar. It calls to itself. That’s how I know.”
What kind of sinister magic did Defiant work on? Geist couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that he wasn’t telling her the whole story. Like there was some other aspect to the gas too cruel to mention—and that he would somehow reveal that secret if he explained himself.
But just like the Russian revolution, Geist had to put it aside. She had one objective: find Victory and escape with her team’s lives intact. Once they were safe, she could examine all the other aspect of the operation.
Two Russians waving red flags stopped and pointed at Vergess. Thanks to Dreamer’s illusions, Vergess looked like any other rioter in the street, but the two men asked something in Russian and Vergess was unable to answer. One withdrew a knife, and Geist was sure he would attack. Instead, the man flipped it around and tossed it over, hilt first. Vergess caught it with ease and then gave a sarcastic salute with the blade. The two men smiled as they continued down the road, the sidewalks and snow spotted with crimson.
A few more blocks and Geist realized they had entered an industrial district. Factories had been burned and bombed. Dozens of people were dead in the snow, most of which looked like police constables. No one had picked up their bodies.
“Vedma!” some Russians chanted. “Vedma! Vedma!”
Although Geist didn’t really know the language, she recognized the word. Witch. She had heard it before, from the Russian immigrants to Austria. They muttered the words around sorcerers, their tone one of disgust.
Across the road, a group of Russians surrounded a teenage girl—herself Russian—and pointed rifles, knives, and pitchforks. The mob chanted and jabbed their weapons at her.
The young teen held a sash in her arms, clutching it tight to her chest. It bore medals from the Russian military and she guarded them from the rioters when they reached out to take it. She screamed at them, tears cascading down her face. Geist couldn’t stand the sight any longer.
She let go of Defiant. “Watch him,” she barked to Dreamer. Then she ran across the road, ghosting through carriages and never slowing.
They wanted to see a witch? Geist would show them a witch.
One man thrust his pitchfork out, his aim for the girl’s arm. Geist appeared in the middle of the crowd, her invisibility flicking away for just a moment as she became corporeal long enough to grab the handle of the tool and push it aside. Everyone’s eyes went wide at the sudden appearance of soldier. Even the girl leaned away, taken aback.
Geist went for the riflemen first. She gou
ged out flesh around their shoulders and arms. A gruesome affair—it left her hand hot and sticky with blood—but it would prevent them from using their weapons. Perhaps permanently.
“Demoh,” one of the rioters shouted.
Geist didn’t need a translation. All she needed was their fear and panic. And when she attacked a man with a knife, while invisible, his leg rupturing as though split open, the crowd fled in every direction. Some men knocked others down in their haste. Then others ran over the ones on the ground, conducting themselves no better than a stampede of wild animals.
In the flight and desperation, Geist grabbed the arm of the girl and ran. The girl didn’t struggle, even when Geist ghosted through a fence and into the safety of a factory that hadn’t been ravaged. Even if the rioters came, the obstacles between them and the girl were enough for the teen to make a getaway.
When Geist let her go, the girl said something in Russian. Unable to reply, Geist nodded and turned back for her squad. The girl touched her shoulder and said something louder. What was she trying to communicate? Geist assumed it was a thank you and forced a second nod.
“I need to go,” she said in English. “Stay safe.”
“American?” the girl asked, her accent thick.
“Yes. American. You should hide.”
She said nothing else.
Geist went invisible and ran back through the fence. Why did the Russians say that word with such confusion? American. There was always a hint of reverence, too. Geist understood, in a way. She had escaped her house and run to the United States, after all. She could have gone to a great many places—France, England, even Germany—but there was a specific reason she chose the United States.
It was a silly reason, and Geist dwelled on it as she rejoined the group. Defiant reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder, his grip shaky, betraying his anxiety. Her mind continued to wander as they broke free of the rioters.
Once, before Geist had joined the military, she had seen a parade through the streets of New York City. Soldiers marched and rode floats. They appeared to be like any other army, from any other nation, going through the motions. But what she saw changed her mind about the United States forever.
A Company of Monsters (The Sorcerers of Verdun Book 2) Page 21