by Jenni Wiltz
Ivan Skorokhodov, she thought. The guard Marie fell in love with, the one whose granddaughter swore to a priest that the Grand Duchess intended to send their family the password. It’s all true, she thought. In grasping at her last chance for happiness, she alienated her entire family. What, Natalie wondered, had brought Olga and Marie together to write and smuggle these letters from the Ipatiev House? How did they even broach the topic of releasing the family fortune between them?
She stared at the indecipherable Cyrillic scrawled on each page. Which word was the password? Did they specify a bank or a city? How would the men know where to begin looking for the money? Would it be a race to see who claimed the cache first, or were there different passwords for different accounts? Maybe, she thought, each of the girls had their own account, to dispose of as they pleased. If so, did anyone know the passwords to the other accounts…Anastasia’s or Tatiana’s?
Her fingers began tracing the edges of Olga’s letter. At the top left hand corner, they felt a glob of something that was once gelatinous—a small dab of brown binder’s glue that clung to the paper.
Belial raised his tear-streaked face. What’s that on your finger?
“Glue,” she whispered. A nervous tickle ran up and down her spine.
There wasn’t supposed to be any glue.
By 1918, the family had used up the paper they brought with them into captivity and resorted to re-using scraps or tearing unused pages from old diaries and stitching them together to make new blank notebooks, which they cheerfully presented to each other as Christmas and birthday gifts. Both Nicholas’s diary and Alexis’s diary for 1917 had hand-sewn pages. It was possible the girls had ripped pages from a book they brought with them from Tsarskoe Selo, but those volumes would have been high quality, bound with vellum and also stitched by hand.
“Fuck,” she swore.
That rat bastard Yuri had lied about everything.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
September 1977
San Francisco, California
The boys built the ramp themselves. Grigori knew they were proud of it—he had supplied the wood and the tools, watching as Yuri and his friends occupied the backyard shed until nightfall. In constant use since its completion, the ramp had given rise to the street’s most popular Saturday activity: watching the boys pedal like mad and fly off the ramp, saying a prayer they would land safely.
Grigori knew it was never supposed to have happened like this. Yuri should have been in the capable care of Julia, his mother, and Alexander, his father. But Grigori’s wife, son, and daughter-in-law had all been taken away in a single day. One last-minute trip to Stinson Beach, one misjudged turn on a dark road, and one intoxicated driver hurtling up the road toward them. Everything vanished in a ball of fire and a twisted wreck of metal.
Grigori peeled back the curtain of the living room window and looked for his grandson. He spotted the bright blue bike as it flew up the curve of the ramp, over…no, it can’t be. Grigori squinted to make the image clearer. There was a small boy huddled on the ground beside the ramp, shaking with fear.
Yuri’s bike sailed over the cowering child and landed in the middle of the street. He skidded to a stop in front of three neighborhood boys who clapped and whistled their approval. Yuri slapped their raised hands and whooped in triumph. Then he held out his hand.
All three boys reached into their pockets and pressed a bill into his grandson’s palm. They ignored the sobbing child beside the ramp. “Want me to go again?” Yuri asked.
Grigori couldn’t watch any more. He jogged out of the house and knelt beside the crying boy. “Hush, malchik moy, it’s all right. How old are you?” The boy reached out to Grigori, clasping the older man’s leathery fingers with his baby-soft ones.
“Th—three,” the boy sobbed.
Grigori recognized him, a stepbrother of Yuri’s friend Bobby. Bobby’s father had remarried that summer, bringing his new wife and her two small children into his home. “These boys won’t bother you again,” Grigori said. “Run along home now, son.”
“Yes, sir.” The child scrambled to his feet and hurried down the sidewalk. Grigori strode into the street and picked up the ramp, tossing it onto the lawn. He’d get the axe and chop it up as soon as he dealt with his fifteen-year-old grandson.
“Hey,” one of the other boys called. “Isn’t that your grandpa?”
Yuri turned, saw Grigori, and spat into the street. “What the hell do you want?”
Grigori fixed Yuri with the stare his own father Filipp had used whenever he failed to lock the chicken coop at night. “Give me that money,” Grigori said.
Yuri scowled. “What money?”
“The money you just put in your pocket. You’re not to terrorize that poor child anymore, do you understand? All of you.”
The other boys exchanged a wary look and began to back away. “You’re busted,” one of them hissed, picking up his bike and pedaling for home. The two others followed.
“Don’t go with them,” Grigori said.
“I’ll do what I want,” Yuri snapped. He pivoted his bike and put a foot on the pedal. “You’re not my father.”
Grigori gripped Yuri’s arm with all his strength, white knuckles holding the boy in place. “Have I not taught you to protect those younger and weaker than us?”
“Great job,” Yuri said, nodding his head at Grigori’s tight grip. “Now let go.”
“Our family is different. You know this, Yuri.”
Yuri bit his ruddy lip and then shook his head. “God damn it, old man, enough with the sacred-mission bullshit. No one cares. I know I don’t.”
“You don’t mean that,” Grigori said. He set his jaw but on the inside, his heart fell like a stone hurled into a pond. His grandson still pretended to know nothing of war, death, and the Soviet menace. How had he failed to make Yuri understand? “You know about the letters, Yuri, but you do not know what they mean. When I tell you what happened, you will care. You will see we have avoided death only by following the path laid out for us.”
“What about my dad? Did the letters kill him, too?”
“No,” Grigori said softly. “Your father did not know the truth yet. It was a car accident, nothing more.”
Yuri’s lower lip quivered. “He always said you were crazy. You didn’t know that, did you? Every time he came back from your house, he’d shake his head and tell us how batshit crazy his old man was.”
Grigori lowered his head. “Your father and I did not see eye to eye. But he understood our purpose. He was ready to accept it.”
“Well, I’m not! I just want to ride bikes with my friends! None of your stupid shit matters anymore. Just leave me alone!”
Grigori held on, squeezing his grandson’s arm like a ripe fruit. “The day will come when you must decide where you stand. With the evil, or against it.”
“Fuck off, old man.”
Grigori looked into his grandson’s eyes and saw only anger. The boy missed his father, but without an outlet, the grief was eating him alive. He didn’t know how to let go. Grigori mourned Alexander, too, but he never lost sight of his family’s destiny.
He released the boy’s arm and watched Yuri pedal furiously down the block. For the first time, he forced himself to think about what would happen if Yuri could not be trusted. What if, when the time came, Yuri betrayed them?
Perhaps it is time for a test, he thought. He would wait for Yuri to grow up, and he would try to trust his reckless grandson. But not even a blood connection would blind him to the purpose of his sacred task—protecting the Tsar’s secret. There was only one thing he could think of that would test Yuri’s devotion and keep Nicholas’s secret safe.
He left the bike ramp on the lawn and went into the house, wondering where he had put his wife’s old books and calligraphy pens.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
July 2012
San Francisco, California
Natalie pulled the covers over her head and squeezed her
eyes shut. She dreaded telling Constantine and Viktor the truth—they had been sent here for nothing. It was all a hoax. Just thinking about it made her want to cry. The Romanov letters, had they been real, were worth dying for. They’d given her a purpose, which was more than any of her shrinks had been able to do. For one shimmering moment, however brief, she’d known something no one else in the world could know. Now it was gone and she had nothing. She put a hand over her breast, where the velvet pouch lay tucked inside her bra. The family’s possessions were sacred to her and she had no intention of leaving them behind.
Sleep refused to come. Belial was restless, too, drumming his fingers against her brain until it felt like a herd of horses stampeding through her head. Something’s not right, he said. Something’s not right.
After an hour of tossing and turning, she gave up. “Fuck it,” she said as she flung back the covers. If she rummaged through the other bags Viktor had brought back, maybe she’d find more vodka. There was no other way to get Belial to calm down.
She swung her feet off the bed and stopped. Something was wrong. There was a strange noise in the hallway—light footsteps in rapid succession that stopped just outside the door, followed by a series of metallic clicks.
Belial paused. What’s that noise?
She heard a latch click open across the hall, followed by the abrasive whir of an air conditioner. The noise didn’t go away because the door didn’t close.
They were just standing there, waiting.
“Viktor,” she whispered. “Viktor, wake up!”
The first blast shot out the deadbolt and a chunk of the doorframe. A second destroyed the electronic lock. Viktor woke instantly, flailing in the chair and diving for cover.
The intruders kicked in the door and stormed the room, shadowy bodies silhouetted by the hallway’s flickering fluorescent light. Viktor raised his pistol and fired. Constantine, slower to react, sat up in bed and reached for the pistol on the nightstand. He fired and one of the black-clad figures groaned and fell backward. Another one dropped to the floor and crawled on his belly toward her.
Fight him, Belial ordered. I’ll help you.
From the bed, she kicked out at the dark, crouched figure. Her heel caught his face, but he recovered quickly, grabbing her ankle and pulling her to the floor. Her tailbone slammed against the thin carpet and she cried out.
Hit him with the box, Belial directed. It’s useless for anything else.
Her fingers swept beneath the bed, reaching for the box. She swung it against the attacker’s head, but the corroded metal did little damage.
That just made him angry. Perhaps you’d better let me handle this?
Belial gave her no time to respond. He rose to his feet, pressing against her skull with enough force to split it in half. When he spread his wings, her vision went black. She screamed with a rush of pain and fear.
Belial’s energy animated her, moving her body as he willed it. All her senses had gone dark, leaving only a thick blackness and a pulsing electric hum. Her arms and legs carried her toward the attacker instead of away from him. She screamed at Belial to stop, but her voice echoed inside her hollow body.
Belial made a fist and slammed it into the attacker's face. His rage blazes forth like fire and the mountains crumble to dust in his presence! The Lord is good!
Natalie felt a dim ache, centered on her jaw. The attacker had struck back. Instinctively, she told her body to pull away but it did not obey her. Her synapses refused to carry her commands. Belial had turned them all off.
The one who has stolen what was set apart for destruction will himself be burned with fire!
Belial moved her up and down. Sensations reached her in their dimmest form, long after they had actually happened. Something wet blanketed her face and hands. She imagined it was blood.
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone!
Now he was having fun. She felt it. There was something thick and heavy at her feet that did not move.
Then she felt herself being lifted. She squirmed, trying to crawl away from whatever had her in its grip. No, she screamed inside. Belial, let me go!
Suddenly, one voice made its way through the black fog shrouding her head. “Natalie! Natalie, look at me! Are you all right?”
Her body jerked uncontrollably, like falling from a cliff in a dream. The pulsing hum in her brain vanished and her eyelids flew open as she gasped for air. Everything hurt: her hands, her face, her head.
“Are you all right?” Constantine asked. His anxious face hovered next to hers, red-veined eyes wide and unblinking.
“What happened?” The movement of her lips and throat sent waves of pain through her skull and she moaned.
“Vympel. They took Viktor and box. Good God, what did they do to you?” He tilted her head to the side and touched her jaw. Lightning bolts of pain shot out from the place his finger touched.
“It’s nothing. You’re hurt, too.” The dressing taped over his wound was saturated with blood.
“I’ll be fine. Natalie, what happened? You…weren’t yourself.” He dropped her gaze and looked at the floor, as if he were still trying to find an explanation other than the obvious.
“Belial,” she said, holding down a wave of nausea. “It was Belial, not me. I couldn’t control it.” She looked down at her red, scraped knuckles and felt tears gather in her eyes. “I didn’t want to. I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t.”
Constantine pulled her into his arms. “Hush, vozlyublennyi. You’re all right. I was afraid they would take you, too, but they gave up once they had Viktor.”
“Why did they take him?”
Constantine’s blue eyes narrowed, taking on a shade of gray she hadn’t seen before. “I don’t know. But we have to get him back. And we have to get out of here before your police show up.”
Three dead bodies lay on the floor, two near the door with bullet wounds and one at the foot of her bed. The man’s face was a pile of red mush. Bile rose in her throat and she felt like she would throw up. Belial, I won’t forgive you for this, she thought. This was you, not me.
Constantine slipped back into his wrinkled, bloodstained shirt and gathered up the rest of the Walgreens bags Viktor had bought. He took her hand and pulled her down the stairwell to the parking lot, populated by less than a dozen cars. The Monte Carlo was untouched.
They got in without speaking. Natalie handed Constantine the screwdriver and Constantine started the car. He revved the engine once then took off down the street, passing an ambulance and police car headed for the motel. Natalie held her breath until they had gone several blocks, toward the freeway entrance. “Where are we going?” she asked.
Constantine’s profile, illuminated in yellow streetlight glare, looked sharper than she remembered it. “I don’t know yet.”
“Are they taking him back to Russia?”
“Maybe. It depends what those letters say.” He made a fist and punched the steering wheel, honking the horn. “I should have copied them. God, I was so stupid.”
“The letters are fake,” she said softly, clenching her folded hands in her lap.
“What?”
“Yuri must have made them himself. That paper didn’t come from the Ipatiev House.”
“How do you know that?”
“They ran out of paper,” she said, feeling a thick sob clog her throat. “They had to recycle or slit blank pages from their books. The real thing would either have a super-straight edge, after being cut with scissors, or a jagged one from being torn out of a hand-sewn binding.”
“So this was all for nothing?”
She felt a tear slide from her left eye to her cheek. “I didn’t want this to happen. I’m sorry.”
His foot pressed the gas pedal to the floor and he merged onto the freeway at a hundred miles an hour. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t sleep so I got up to read the letters. It was already too late. It wouldn’t have c
hanged anything.”
But as soon as she said the words, she knew they were all lies. What if she’d woken the men once she’d made her discovery? What if they’d left immediately? Vympel would have found an empty room.
Belial sighed. It’s true. This is all your fault, little one.
“Haven’t you done enough?” she snapped. She turned in her seat and sifted through the plastic bags. When she found the second bottle of vodka, she opened it and began drinking.
Is this how you thank me for saving your life?
“You killed someone, Belial,” she said. “With my hands. I’m going to drink this whole bottle if that’s what it takes to make you go away.”
Constantine gripped the wheel with angry white knuckles. “He’s talking to you, isn’t he?”
Natalie nodded, helpless, and raised the vodka bottle.
I was going to tell you the truth about those letters, little one. But if you’d rather sulk and drink yourself into a stupor…
Natalie jerked the bottle from her lips, spilling some down her chin. “What truth?”
I thought you wanted me to go away.
“Belial, what truth?”
The Grand Duchesses’ signatures matched. You said it yourself. Under what conditions are a forger’s best works produced?
She thought about it, imagining herself as the forger. Then it hit her. “Belial, you’re kidding, right? You wouldn’t make me think it if it weren’t true, would you?” But he didn’t answer. He simply folded his wings and crouched down beneath them, silent and immobile. “Tell me, you winged asshole!”
“Natalie,” Constantine said. “What the hell’s going on?”
“We still have a chance.” She felt her heart quicken inside her rib cage. “Turn the car around.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
July 2012
Moscow, Russia
The sun had not yet set, but the blue velvet curtains in Prime Minister Maxim Starinov’s office had been drawn for hours. He preferred darkness to light. Light gave hope to people who came to ask him for things, and he wanted them to know that nothing in Russia would help them get what he would not give.