by Jenni Wiltz
“You can trust me, miss.”
“I know I can,” she whispered, feeling the tears catch in her throat. It seemed this boy was the only one she could trust in all of Russia. These sweet, simple souls were the ones who would be hurt most by the Bolsheviks and there was nothing her family could do to stop it. They would never leave this house again; she knew it. She had imagined hundreds of times how it might feel to be shot, stabbed, poisoned, bludgeoned, suffocated or drowned. When it finally happened, it would be a relief.
Filipp sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. She bent in close and brushed her lips against his cheek. “This is for you,” she whispered, slipping a ring from her finger and dropping it into his jacket pocket. “Go with God, Filipp Feodorovich.”
Chapter Eight
July 2012
San Francisco, California
The night was strangely quiet, without the usual cacophony of honks and sirens that came with living near a hospital. Natalie pulled the covers over her head and listened for the wail of the St. Luke’s ambulance. The Mission was filled with people who were broken in some way; she envied the ones the doctors were able to fix.
Beth hadn’t called her since the press conference, held more than two days ago. She still didn’t know if Beth had read her cue cards as Natalie wrote them or winged it to avoid mentioning the tsar’s missing fortune. To top it off, Belial was restless, shuffling his feet and twitching his wings. Something’s going to happen tonight, he said. I don’t think you should sleep.
“I want to sleep,” she grumbled, shoving her head beneath the pillow. “Leave me alone.”
She imagined her sister, breathless and red-faced, trying to read ahead on the cue cards and skip over the part about Marie’s letter and the password. The chancellor would have been there, along with Beth’s department chair. Natalie imagined them shaking their heads at Beth’s disappointing performance. It made her stomach feel like Swiss cheese, eaten through by a metaphysical rat. “Beth, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know why I did it.”
Finally, she heard the St. Luke’s ambulance roar down Valencia. Red and white light spilled through her blinds and she thought about all the reasons people called for help in the middle of the night: gunshot wound, heart attack, trouble breathing. “Save them,” she said. “Please.” It was the closest she could come to a prayer.
Belial fluttered his wings one last time to try and keep her awake. The rippling feathers brushed her brain, delivering stings like jellyfish tentacles. It’s coming, he said.
Let it, she thought, pushing the pain down into the blackest part of her soul. I don’t care anymore.
*
She woke with a hand clamped over her mouth. Her eyes flew open and she struggled, but something held her down. “I won’t hurt you,” a male voice whispered. “But I need you to be quiet. Nod your head if you understand.”
As her eyes adjusted, she saw a pale face, blue eyes, and short, gelled blond hair. A black turtleneck covered his torso and black gloves his hands. He seemed to blend into the air, and she couldn’t see past him or around him.
Belial’s smug voice filtered through the fog in her brain. I told you so.
She nodded, forcing her dry throat to swallow, and the man pulled his hand from her face. “Who are you?” she asked. “What do you want?”
“I need you to come with me now.”
“No.”
“I’m not here to harm you, Miss Brandon. I promise.”
“I have a gun,” she lied.
“So do I.” He smiled and pulled a Walther P99 from his holster.
“Shit.” A wave of panic threatened to sweep her away and she took a deep breath to stay in control. “How do you know my name?”
“Come with me and I’ll tell you.”
“I can’t go anywhere with you. I don’t even know who you are.”
“My name is Constantine.”
“Like the Roman emperor?”
“Like my grandfather.” He pointed the gun at her. “Now get up.”
“No.”
“I don’t want to shoot you, Miss Brandon. Please.”
She looked into his eyes, two right triangles each with an eyelid for a hypotenuse. Their narrow shape made it look like he was squinting, as if he’d grown up shielding his eyes from the sun. “You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t like it,” he agreed, a faint smile curling his lips. “But I’d do it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s not my problem.” He pulled back on the pistol’s slide to chamber a round. “Get out of the bed before I—” He stopped in mid-sentence and swung his gun to the front door.
Belial shifted his feet. You have visitors, little one.
Constantine’s eyes flashed wildly around her apartment and he pointed to the window. “Go. Use the fire escape.”
“Maybe it’s the police,” she said softly.
“The police would have knocked,” he said dryly. “Whoever it is isn’t here to help you. If you come with me, I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you believe me?”
He held the gun lightly in his hands, like someone who’d used it many times before. A keloid scar traced its way across his right thumb, as if someone had tried to cut it off. Natalie realized that whoever he was, he knew how to survive. “Yes,” she said as her front door splintered under a burst of machine gun fire.
Constantine squeezed off four quick rounds as Natalie leapt out of bed. She threw open the window and clambered onto the fire escape with Constantine moving quickly behind her. The metal was cold beneath her bare feet and she hesitated. Constantine picked her up and put her feet on the rickety steel ladder. “Go!” he yelled. “Hurry!”
A bullet shattered her window, raining glass shards over both of them. Natalie swore and scuttled down the ladder. When she reached the last step, she looked down—the ground lay a full six feet beneath her. Broken glass and cigarette butts dotted the cracked sidewalk below. She looked up at Constantine. “I can’t do it!” she cried.
Constantine stopped several rungs above her. “Just put your hands on the last rung.”
“I can’t!”
He swore in Russian, blue eyes blazing. “There are men with guns coming after us. Are you going to jump or do I have to throw you?”
Go on, jump, Belial urged. I’ll catch you.
“The hell you will,” Natalie hissed. She worked her hands down to the bottom rung until she squatted on it like a frog. In her mind, she visualized a gymnast’s graceful descent from the uneven bars. Then a bullet flew past her ear and she panicked. Her fingers lost their grip and she landed in a heap on the ground like a baby giraffe falling out of the womb.
Constantine jumped and landed gracefully beside her. He reached for her hand and pulled her up. She pressed a hand to her spine, which suddenly felt two inches shorter. “Who are those people? What do they want?”
“You,” he answered. Then his eyes flew wide and he knocked her to the ground. His weight pressed her into the filthy asphalt and she struggled for breathing room until she heard a bullet strike the ground near her feet. Constantine lifted his arm and fired. Natalie heard a grunt and the sound of slack flesh striking pavement.
Constantine’s frame stiffened as he took aim once more. He pulled the trigger but this time, nothing happened. “Bliad,” he swore, tossing the gun away. He jumped to his feet to face their second attacker, advancing on them with a pistol.
Natalie looked up in time to see him bare his teeth and hurl himself at the man with the gun. “No!” she screamed. “What are you doing?”
Belial twitched his wings, agitated. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
Constantine and the attacker formed a tumbleweed of limbs as they struggled for control of the gun. They butted up against the body of the first man Constantine had killed, rolling through a puddle of his blood.
Constantine scooped up a handful of the blood and flung it in the other man�
�s eyes. The attacker cried out and Constantine freed his arm just long enough to punch the man in the ribs. The blow wasn’t strong enough, though—the attacker grabbed Constantine’s free arm and used the awkward balance point to push Constantine onto his back.
Natalie sat up quickly, looking around for help. Her heartbeat echoed inside her skull, quick and light, like the flap of a hummingbird’s wings. I could run, she thought. Just let them kill each other. “Belial, what do I do?”
Deus summus salvator, he answered.
It was the Emperor Constantine’s fourth-century battle cry. “Fuck, I knew you were going to say that.” She gulped and watched Constantine roll the attacker over. He extended the other man’s arm forcefully, slamming his wrist against the pavement to break his grip. Natalie saw her opportunity and crawled closer, reaching for the gun.
The attacker saw her and twisted his wrist so that the muzzle pointed straight at her head.
“Nyet!” Constantine roared, raising his right elbow and smashing it into the man’s nose. Natalie heard the man’s skull splinter with a sharp crack. He howled in pain, blood streaming from his broken appendage. Before she could stop him, Constantine wrenched the gun from the man’s loosened grip and shot him in the head.
Natalie screamed as plum-colored foam and blood spewed from the man’s temple. Lumpy and steaming, it smelled like freshly ground pepper. The scent stung her eyes and made them water. “Jesus,” she whispered.
He isn’t here, little one, Belial said. That’s the problem.
She looked up at Constantine, spattered with blood and standing over the body like a Biblical warrior. “I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?” she said.
Chapter Nine
July 2012
San Francisco, California
Constantine took the dead man’s gun, slid it through his waistband, and moved to retrieve his own, replacing it in his holster. “Get up,” he said. “These men don’t travel in pairs.”
“But they’re dead,” Natalie said, blinking back tears. “Shouldn’t we do something?”
“Like what? Carve a headstone?” He squatted next to one of the bodies and peered at its insignia patch, a sword covered by a blue diamond. “Yebat,” he said. “This man is Vympel.” Then he moved his gaze to her scraped legs. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.” She rubbed her arms to ward off the chill night air. “But it’s cold. I want to go back and get some clothes.”
“It’s not safe. Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her out of the alley toward the street. She followed as quickly as she could, every step jarring her bones. First the fall, then the body slam into the pavement…Belial didn’t appreciate any of it. He let his wings flutter, zinging her brain with white-hot brush strokes of pain. Belial, please, she thought. Not now.
Constantine led her across the street to Valencia, to a blue BMW 325i parked in front of a funeral home. He opened the passenger door first and she winced when the cold leather seats touched her bare thighs.
Without a word, he started the car and headed north. The Elbo Room and Blondie’s had already closed, but people lingered on the sidewalk, smoking and eating thick foil-wrapped burritos. Natalie looked at them longingly. She rarely went to places like that—the small spaces and the noise and the pushy people frightened her. Belial didn’t like them. They don’t understand us, he said. We’re better off without them.
Just the thought of Belial made her head hurt even worse. “I need a drink,” she said.
Constantine gave her a stern look and she blushed.
“It’s medicinal,” she protested. “I’m not a drunk.”
“Is that what they tell you in rehab?”
“I’m serious.”
He pointed over his shoulder. “Check my bag.”
She crawled headfirst into the backseat, digging through a black messenger bag until she found three airplane-sized bottles with unfamiliar Cyrillic labels. One by one, she unscrewed the caps and poured the contents down her throat, swallowing heavily as the liquor torched her tonsils.
“Christ,” Constantine said, pulling her back into the front seat. “Leave some for the rest of us.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s the only thing that keeps Belial quiet.”
“What are you talking about?”
It was too much to try to explain when her head was already pounding. “Nothing. Never mind. Who were those men?”
The BMW neared Duboce, on the eastern edge of the Castro. Here, too, the street teemed with partygoers. Two drunk men wove their way down the sidewalk, arms entwined, singing “Wonderwall” at the top of their lungs. Constantine made a right turn away from them, onto Market headed toward Civic Center. “They were Vympel. Special forces for anti-terrorism and sabotage.”
“I’m not a terrorist.”
“I can see that.”
“Why couldn’t they?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they want from me?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want from me?”
Constantine accelerated, speeding past Van Ness. “I need your help.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s the truth.” He reached up to adjust the rearview mirror as they shot past the Warfield. A bright flash of light hit the glass and reflected into her eyes. “Get down,” he said. “They found us.”
Natalie scrunched down in her seat as Constantine lowered his window and pulled the gun from his waistband. “What are you doing?” she cried.
“Hold on!” He pulled the emergency brake and jerked the wheel, sliding across Market Street toward Montgomery. As the car tracked perpendicular to the four-lane street, Constantine shot at the car behind them. Natalie heard glass shatter and tires squeal, and put her hands over her ears.
Constantine zoomed up Montgomery opposite the one-way flow of traffic. He swerved to the right to dodge a honking cab and Natalie’s head bounced against the glove box. She groaned and popped up in time to see the car plow toward a “No Parking” sign. “Where are you going?” she shrieked.
Before he could answer, a bullet shattered the back window. Natalie screamed and ducked back beneath the glove box while Constantine shot back. She felt the car lurch to the left and tried to place their movement on a mental map. Columbus, she thought, as the smell of garlic began to fill the air and car bounced over deeper-than-usual potholes.
Every jolt made Belial bounce and inky tentacles of pain began to creep out from under the shadow of the vodka. Between the pain in her head and Constantine’s frantic turns, she lost track of their location. Her stomach roiled in revolt with every swerve. By the time the car dropped back to a legal speed, she felt the contents of her last meal rising through her esophagus. “You can sit up now,” Constantine said finally. “We lost them.”
“Good timing. I’m about to lose my dinner, too.” She leaned her head onto the cool window glass and breathed deeply the way Beth had taught her, in through her nose and out through her mouth.
Constantine turned right onto Vallejo and snaked through a small labyrinth of one-way streets. The last ended in a dirty cul-de-sac surrounded with peeling gray row houses. He put the car in the garage belonging to the smallest house.
Sagging power lines criss-crossed the sky above like loosely woven cambric. Broken glass and piles of burned garbage littered the stoop. The windows and doors were covered by rotting metal bars. Half the porch floorboards and even more of the roof appeared to be missing. “This is the safe house,” Constantine said. “We stay here tonight.”
Natalie gulped and followed him up to a tiny wooden door in the left side of the building, an old tradesman’s entrance. The flimsy lock yielded to his pressure and he hurried her inside. They shuffled down a hallway and then he flicked a switch. A dim bulb crackled to life, unfettered by a housing or shade, and illuminated a rectangular room with a small galley kitchen and a door that presumably led to a bathroom.
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Two twin beds covered in rotting green chenille jutted out from the far wall. Matching curtains hid the lower halves of two small windows while spider webs obscured the rest. A rounded refrigerator and Depression-era stove kept company with a rusted dining set upholstered in peeling vinyl. The walls were a grimy shade of beige, somewhere between old lace and used teabag. Everywhere Natalie looked, she saw upturned cockroaches in various states of decay.
Constantine hurried through the room, checking the door and window locks. “I wish I had someplace better for you. Our prime minister revoked the agency’s permission for action services, so whatever we keep abroad has to be unnoticed and undesirable.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I just need to lie down.” She sank onto one of the beds and a mushroom cloud of dust enveloped her. Belial fluttered his wings as if he could sweep it all away. The pain of it tore through her temples and she gasped helplessly.
Constantine dropped his bag and hurried to her side. “What is it? What’s wrong?
“Nothing,” she lied, forcing a smile as she sat upright. “Everything’s fine. I just want to know what’s going on.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to rest first? You don’t look well.”
Natalie gritted her teeth. “I’ve been chased out of my apartment, shot at, and nearly killed. The least you could do is tell me why.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m sorry. My name is Constantine Dashkov. I work for the Public Security Intelligence Bureau of the Russian Federation.”
“What the hell does that have to do with me?”
“You have information we need.”
“I don’t have shit. I thought I told you that already.”
“Please, Professor Brandon,” he said, holding up his palms as if he were surrendering. “This will be much easier for both of us if you just cooperate.”
Natalie looked up sharply, clasping the bedspread until her knuckles shone white. Behind her eyes, Belial’s shoulders began to shake and it took her a moment to realize he was laughing. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck, fuck fuck.”