Ignis (Book 2, Pure Series)

by Mesick, Catherine

  Odette extinguished her candle, and the room was plunged into darkness. In a panic, I stumbled across the room toward the lamp by my bed.

  By the time I had the light on, Odette had gone.

  Chapter 19.

  After Odette left, I tried to force myself to sleep—that was all I could really do—I could hardly tell GM that a vampire had come to visit me.

  So I passed in and out of troubled dreams.

  I knew that I needed to sleep—even though the horror that was Timofei Mstislav was standing outside.

  I needed to have a clear head in the morning.

  The situation I found myself in was getting worse by the moment, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to fight off Timofei on my own. I had only defeated Timofei's father with the help of William and the clear fire—and I didn't have either one of them anymore. And leaving Russia, as Odette had suggested, was not an option. I knew from past experience that Timofei would follow me wherever I went.

  If I were to survive, I would have to have help.

  William, of course, was long gone. Galina and the Leshi had both disappeared. Odette was clearly not inclined to be cooperative. And GM was not equipped to deal with the supernatural.

  I had only one option.

  I would have to seek out the vampire Innokenti.

  I was sure he was dangerous. But he had also told me to return to Russia for my own safety. Perhaps he could help me to ward off Timofei—or at least help me to get GM out of the country unharmed. Odette had said that GM was safe from Timofei, but I was still uneasy about her.

  I didn't want anything to happen to GM because of me.

  So I did the best I could to sleep, and to a certain extent, I succeeded.

  When the first gray light of dawn crept into my room, I decided to give up struggling with my dreams.

  I got out of bed and went to the window. I was just in time to see Timofei turn and shuffle off. It was a terrible sight—the inhuman creature looked even more horrific silhouetted against the rosy rays of the sunrise.

  I watched Timofei until he disappeared, and then I stood listening. The house was quiet, and I figured that GM was still asleep. I decided to go right away to look for Innokenti. Maybe I could catch him before he settled in to sleep for the day—or whatever it was that he did. I also wanted to return the lantern I had taken from the Mstislav crypt—I just wanted to get it out of the house. And finally, I had to retrieve my bicycle from Galina's place—I might need it to get around again.

  I dressed quickly and slipped out of the house with the lantern, leaving GM a note telling her that I had gone for a walk. I would, of course, be gone for more than a little while, and I had a feeling that GM would be angry when time passed and I didn't return. But that couldn't be helped right now.

  I had work to do.

  The morning was cold, and the light was still low—it would be another half-hour before the sun itself peeked over the horizon.

  I hurried to the Mstislav mansion.

  I was loath to enter the crypt again—especially now that I knew that one of its inhabitants had risen once more. It occurred to me that Timofei might be using the crypt as his daytime hiding place, but I quickly discarded the idea. Timofei's body had gone missing, and it could hardly be classified as missing if it returned to the crypt every day. And surely he would want to stay far away from his tomb—a kost could only be laid to rest again by wrestling him back into his grave. I didn't know if a kost hybrid could be defeated the same way, but I imagined it would still be something he feared.

  All the same, I felt my heart hammering as I reached the Mstislav mansion and crept around the massive building to the crypt. The entrance to the crypt yawned open, just as black and forbidding as it had been the night before. I felt a flash of panic, and I considered just dropping the lantern and running off. But I heard footsteps coming toward me over the frost-covered grass, and I knew I had to hide.

  I didn't want to get caught trespassing—especially not at the Mstislav mansion. The only place I could possibly conceal myself was in the crypt.

  I forced myself to step over the threshold and climb down the steps.

  I reached the landing, as I had the night before, and this time, I tripped over some of the tools that the workmen had left lying on the floor. I stumbled back against the wall.

  I waited, frozen, hoping that whoever was outside hadn't heard all the noise I was making.

  The footsteps in the grass approached the crypt, and I held my breath.

  I was sure to be found.

  But the footsteps kept going, and I set the lantern down and crept back up to the entrance of the crypt.

  Very cautiously, I peered out.

  I was just in time to see a familiar figure disappear around the side of the mansion.

  It was Maksim Neverov.

  His presence at the mansion was not that strange—he was, after all, related to the Mstislavs. There was no reason for me to read anything sinister into his being here. He had every right to visit with his family—or to live with them, if that happened to be the case.

  But I had to wonder—had Maksim been in Krov back in October? Had he been in the mansion the night I was lured there by Odette?

  Had he known what Timofei had been up to in the crypt and in the tunnels that stretched under the Wasteland?

  I told myself to forget about it for the moment. I wasn't likely to find out the answers to any of those questions any time soon, and I certainly couldn't ask Maksim about them. In any event, there was no reason for me to suspect Maksim of wrongdoing.

  All the same, I was disturbed to see him at the mansion.

  I waited for a moment, inside the crypt, watching to see if Maksim was really gone. When he did not reappear, I ran as fast as I could across the grounds.

  Then I hurried away from the Mstislav mansion.

  I had discovered that Krov had one bus that made a circuit of the town, and one of the stops was the abandoned monastery at the edge of the Pure Woods. I caught the bus and got off at the monastery. Then I walked toward Galina's house.

  By the time I reached the house and the bicycle, the sun was shining brightly in the morning sky.

  GM would definitely have begun to wonder what had happened to me.

  I went up to Galina's door and knocked, but as I expected, there was no answer. I tried the door, and it was open as before. I peered in, but the house still appeared to be empty.

  There had been a faint hope in my heart that Galina might have come home in the middle of the night, but I'd known all along that it was highly unlikely.

  I wasn't going to get out of having to find Innokenti that easily.

  I pulled the door closed and stood on the step for a long moment. I didn't really want to find Innokenti, and the truth was, I didn't really know where to start.

  He had come to me for the very first time when I had summoned the clear fire in the Pure Woods—attracted by the clear fire itself. Perhaps he could be attracted by it again.

  I had been standing in a sacred place when I had summoned it, and I figured that that would be the best place to start looking for him. But he would surely be under cover by now. Would he come out of his hiding place during the day to see me?

  I didn't know, but I had to give it a try.

  I made my way through the white trees of the Pure Woods to the circle of small stones where I had first called the clear fire out of its otherworldly hiding place. I stepped into the circle and remembered the feeling of peace and contentment that the clear fire had brought me when I had controlled it.

  I had tried last night to summon the clear fire and failed.

  I would try again now.

  I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind. Softly, I sang to myself the song that would bring the clear fire to me.

  But the clear fire did not appear, and I couldn't recreate the state of mind that had once enabled me to summon it. It was almost as if something were blocking me.

  I figured I woul
d have to be more direct.

  "Innokenti!" I cried. "Innokenti!"

  There was no answer.

  I wandered through the trees, calling for Innokenti, but I didn't see him or anyone else. Eventually, I was forced to give up—this clearly was not the way to find him. Though I didn't like the idea, I knew I would have better luck if I tried looking for him at night—after all that's when the local vampires would most likely be out looking for me.

  I began to walk back toward Galina's house.

  If I was being honest, I had to admit that I was relieved that I hadn't found Innokenti, and I was even more relieved to be able to put off the search for him until later that night.

  Now all I had to do was deal with GM.

  I rode my bicycle back to the house, and as I expected, GM was furious.

  "Where have you been?" GM demanded as I walked in. "You have been gone for hours."

  "I was just riding my bike," I said evasively.

  "You said you were going for a walk," GM said. "I do not mind, of course, if you go for a walk. But you were gone long enough that I feared something had happened to you. And then all of a sudden you are no longer walking—you are riding."

  "I rented a bike yesterday," I said. "I had it with me when I ran into you and Maksim."

  GM looked momentarily stunned. I could see that she was reliving the moment of horror when she realized that her granddaughter had found her with the sweetheart of her youth. She had probably been far too preoccupied with the situation to notice that I'd had a bicycle.

  I continued. "I went to see Galina yesterday, and I accidentally left it at her house." This was true—in my haste to get away from Timofei Mstislav, I had been forced to leave the bicycle behind.

  "I went over to Galina's to retrieve the bike this morning, and I rode it back. Making the trip over there took me a little while."

  This was also true—I just happened to leave out the fact that I'd gone looking in the Pure Woods for a vampire.

  GM seemed mollified. "Well, I suppose you can't leave rental property lying around. It was a good idea for you to retrieve the bike as soon as possible. But you should have mentioned that that's where you were going in your note. I would have worried less."

  "Sorry, GM."

  She was right, of course. Mentioning the bicycle in the note would have given her a good reason for my long absence—I hadn't been thinking clearly.

  And that was due in no small part to my anxiety over Innokenti.

  My stomach twisted itself into knots at the thought of him.

  "What's wrong, Solnyshko?" GM asked. "Are you ill?"

  "No, I'm not ill," I said. I thought back to Galina's empty house. "It's just—Galina wasn't home, and neither was Aleksandr. And then I heard they were missing."

  GM sighed.

  "You knew?" I asked.

  "Galina and I were in contact when we first returned to the U.S. in October," GM said. "And then Galina broke off contact rather abruptly, which was unusual, as she had been quite a voluble correspondent. I suspected that something must have changed for her, so I tried to be noncommittal when you asked if we would see her and Aleksandr. I didn't know if she would see us or not. And then once we arrived here in Krov, I too learned that Galina and Aleksandr had gone missing."

  "Do you know what happened to them?"

  "No," GM said simply.

  "You don't seem very concerned."

  "Katie, my relationship with Galina has always been difficult, and Aleksandr I'm sure, is a nice young man, but it may be for the best that they are out of our lives at the moment."

  "GM, what if something terrible happened to them?" I asked. "What if they're hurt?"

  Or worse, I thought.

  "I do not want any harm to come to Galina or Aleksandr," GM replied. "But look how much simpler things are without them. There hasn't been so much as a whisper about the supernatural since they've been gone—except for that little bit of nonsense about the witch-fire. The atmosphere around here is much healthier without them."

  I supposed from GM's perspective that that was all true. So far, I had been able to keep her out of all the supernatural terrors I had encountered on this trip. In fact, the worst thing that had happened to her was that her granddaughter had met her former fiancé.

  I just hoped I could continue to keep her safely out of everything that was going on.

  GM's cell phone rang, and she quickly answered it.

  "Yes, yes, she's here now, Maksim. Thank you for looking. No, I think I'd better not. I don't know about tomorrow. I'm sorry. But I thank you for your concern."

  GM ended the call and looked up at me apologetically. "I called Maksim when I thought you had gone missing. Good man that he is, he went out looking for you."

  I could hear GM's fondness for Maksim in her voice, and I felt the stirrings of conscience.

  I didn't want to tell her what I'd found out about Maksim's family ties last night, but I felt like I had to. If there was any chance that he could be dangerous, as Odette had suggested, she had to know.

  "GM," I began, "I heard yesterday that Maksim was related to the Mstislav family on his mother's side." I paused. "And then, this morning I saw him walking on the grounds of the Mstislav mansion."

  GM looked amused. "I know about his mother, Solnyshko. I did meet him long before you were born. And I am not surprised to hear that he was over at the mansion. Since the horrible things Timofei did there, Maksim has been called in by other members of the family to go over both the mansion and Timofei's finances to make sure that there are no more terrible secrets he hid away."

  She ran a hand over my hair. "Not all the Mstislavs are bad people, though I can understand why you might think so. And I don't blame you for the way you feel. That's another reason why I didn't want you to meet Maksim. I didn't want his family associations to cause you any distress."

  I was greatly relieved—I had really liked Maksim, and I didn't want to be suspicious of him.

  GM began to steer me toward the kitchen that she had recently stocked.

  "Now, I have a feeling that you did not eat anything before you left," she said. "I insist that you eat something now."

  Once in the kitchen, GM pushed me into a chair and began to bustle around.

  As she started to pour out cereal, GM's brief phone conversation with Maksim came back to me. "GM, did Maksim want to meet up with you today?"

  "Yes—we had planned to have lunch together, but now it is out of the question."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Don't be silly," GM said.

  "Why is it silly?" I asked. "I'm not ill. I'm not hurt. I just went to get my bicycle, and now I'm home again. You shouldn't change your plans because of me."

  "You pointed out that Maksim was a Mstislav yourself," GM said. "So how can I see him now?"

  "I don't dislike Maksim," I said. "In fact, I like him a lot. It's just that someone told me he was a Mstislav and that you should be careful. I was just worried about you."

  "You are sweet to be worried about me."

  "GM, I'm glad to find out Maksim is not dangerous and that all Mstislavs are not evil."

  "That is a good lesson," she said.

  "GM, I don't want you to ruin your life because of me. I've seen how happy Maksim makes you."

  GM set a bowl and a glass in front of me.

  "Eat your cereal. Drink your juice."

  "I will eat if you agree to have lunch with Maksim."

  GM and I stared at each other for a long moment.

  Eventually, GM smiled and threw up her hands.

  "All right, Solnyshko. I will have lunch with Maksim."

  I picked up my spoon and took a bite of the cereal.

  GM gave me an appraising glance.

  "It's a funny thing," she said. "It turns out you are more stubborn than I suspected."

  I had to smile then too.

  That afternoon, GM went out to lunch with Maksim, and I went out on my bicycle again—this time to buy GM a
Christmas present.

  I had to pass the hours until the time came for me to go out looking for Innokenti, and I figured I might as well do something pleasant.

  Back in October, Odette had used a shopping spree as a cover for her need to rest during the day. But she actually had gone shopping—she just hadn't spent as much time doing it as she had pretended. Odette had purchased a lot of beautiful things, and I had wondered where she had found them. I knew about the little row of shops not far from our house, but there was no place there that carried the kinds of expensive things that Odette had brought home. I decided to find out where she had gone shopping.

  As I rode up to the Mstislav mansion, I passed a group of girls who were laden with shopping bags—they had obviously just been doing some holiday shopping of their own. I stopped and asked them where they had done their shopping, and they gave me directions.

  As I well knew, there was a road that ran past the Mstislav mansion to the west—that was the road I had been on a number of memorable times already. It ran past the Wasteland and the monastery. But I learned from the girls that there was another, smaller road that ran past the Mstislav mansion to the east. If I followed that road, which was really more of a dirt path at first, I would eventually come upon a paved road that led to the shops.

  I thanked the girls and rode on.

  I found the dirt path and followed it past a rather precipitous drop that fell away steeply from the south side of the path—the girls had told me it was known as Mara's Drop. There was no guardrail, and I couldn't help but think that a spill on this path could produce a very unpleasant fall.

  Eventually, I left Mara's Drop behind, and the path turned into a wide, paved road. The road led me to a small cluster of high-end shops, and beyond the shops I could make out the roofs of a community of large houses. From what I could see, none of the houses could rival the Mstislav mansion, but they looked impressive nonetheless. I remembered that Odette had once told me that her parents had lived in a big, impressive house. I wondered if I was looking at the community where that house had been.

  I turned my attention toward the shops, and I quickly discovered that they were out of my price range. I wandered amongst the shops, feeling discouraged, until I discovered a small antiques shop that seemed more down-to-earth. I went inside.