Canticum Tenebris (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 2)

by John Triptych

  As the four of them walked out of the president’s cell, they started to make their way back upstairs.

  Pastor Erik shook his head as he led the way for the others. “Stubborn old man, it seems that he’s blind to what’s all around him.”

  “You can say that again,” Governor Mallory said. “What worries me is that the Federal government will try something if they think he’s dead.”

  “Talk to Governor Bierly, see if he can act as a go-between between our country and whoever is in charge of the US right now,” Pastor Erik said to him before turning his head over to General O’Neill’s direction. “How soon can we begin stage one for Operation Valhalla?”

  General O’Neill stopped dead in his tracks. “Operation Valhalla? You want to initiate that now?”

  Pastor Erik crossed his arms as he stopped as well. “Yes, it’s the one thing we can do in case the United States decides to initiate hostilities. Get it started immediately. Put Steve in charge of it.”

  “We’ll get it done, Pastor,” Steve Van Dyke said. “I swear to the almighty God we all worship that I won’t fail.”

  11. The Siberian Break

  Siberia

  It was about an hour after midnight when Ilya Volkhov finally sat up on the bed. He shook the sleep from his eyes and began to slowly and deliberately put his clothes on. When the Spetsnaz abducted him and Tara a few months ago, they only did a cursory search of his clothing and had largely left the bits of raskovnik alone in the pockets of his winter jacket, thinking they were nothing more than just pieces of plant material. Ilya smiled in the twilit darkness as he placed his hands into his coat pocket and pulled out a few clovers of the raskovnik. With the help of Tara and the trickster god, he had found bits of that magical plant in the Otherworld and they used it to defeat the rebirth of an evil god called Okeus by feeding the Native American deity’s larval form with some of the magical herb. What he didn’t tell the general and the other interrogators who questioned him was that this magical plant could open any lock, and reveal the truth behind any secret that a person had hidden away in their minds. Ilya could have escaped months ago, but he waited until he learned that Tara had been kidnapped by an unknown enemy, and that the trickster god was either hurt, or on the loose somewhere in the city. His plan was to escape from the military compound and then hopefully find the talking dog, assuming it was still around. The young boy knew for a fact that the trickster was probably still alive, since ordinary weapons of any kind would not have affected it.

  As he finished putting on his snow boots, Ilya crept up to the front of the door and placed his right ear on it. It was usually at this time the evening guard shift had settled down and the lone guard would usually start to doze off. He had hoped it would be one of the older men who would be assigned for the night since they tended to be more lethargic. The more senior ones would sometimes bring along a small container of homemade vodka that would get them to doze off for a bit. If he could time it properly, he should be able to open the door without alerting the guard and then sneak away before they knew he was gone. With his ear now pressed tightly against the door, Ilya closed his eyes and concentrated on the sounds in the corridor.

  The boy’s smile became a big grin when he predictably heard the snoring of the lone guard outside. Just as he got ready to place some of the bits of the magical plant near the lock on the door however, he soon heard a series of footsteps coming from the other end of the corridor. As his confidence turned into shocked disappointment, Ilya put the raskovnik back into his jacket and listened harder.

  Two pairs of footsteps stopped just outside of the door.

  “Get up, you lazy good for nothing idiot!” someone screamed.

  “I-I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I must have dozed off!”

  “You are a complete imbecile! I should have you arrested for dereliction of duty! Is that what you want?”

  “N-No, sir! I think someone must have drugged my coffee.”

  “Do you think I am stupid? Are you insulting my intelligence now?”

  “No, sir! I-I am just saying that someone else might have—”

  “Shut up! I am assigning these two other privates to assist you and I will come back again sometime this evening. If I see any of you three not at full alert guarding our guest, you will all be arrested, is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir!” all three voices said in unison.

  Ilya’s heart sank as he heard the officer outside curse a few more times before he walked away. As the lieutenant’s footsteps faded into the background, he could hear the three guards murmuring to themselves.

  “Yevgeny, you are so stupid! How could you fall asleep?”

  “Don’t blame me, Vlad, I was cleaning the toilets this morning and I haven’t had any rest for the whole day, then they assigned me for guard duty at the last minute. I haven’t even gotten my coffee ration yet.”

  “You two stop arguing, it’s over now. You know how much of a tough bastard that Lieutenant Guskov can be.”

  “I don’t understand,” the soldier named Yevgeny said. “Why are there three of us assigned for guard duty now?”

  “I heard that the new commander who came in with the convoy, his name is Denikin I believe, is planning to take the kid out of here tomorrow so he ordered the general to triple the guards for the rest of the evening,” the third soldier said.

  “How come he is able to order General Klimov like that? He looked to be nothing more than a colonel to me, that means our commander would outrank him,” Yevgeny said.

  “You really are clueless, Yevgeny. That man Denikin is a deputy director of the FSB and I heard he is a personal favorite of the president. You would be wise never to cross him,” Vlad said.

  Ilya fought the urge to cry. All his previous planning was now pointless. He would have been able to sneak past one sleepy guard but now he was up against three very alert sentinels who would keep themselves awake all night in order not to displease their wary superiors. Even worse was the news that they were taking him away to somewhere unknown and possibly even more secure. He needed to escape right now, but how?

  “Vlad, check our guest and make sure he’s still sleeping,” the third man said.

  At that moment, Ilya curled up just below the door as he heard the metal slot above the doorknob slide open. A ray of yellow light partly illuminated the room as the guard outside looked at the mound of clothes shaped like a person sleeping underneath the thick blanket. For a few seconds Ilya thought that the guard might have seen through the ruse, but then the slot closed shut again and he heard the footsteps walking back over to the guard desk. One soldier telling the others that the boy was fast asleep and there was nothing to worry about.

  Ilya slowly got up and moved silently over to the window. It wasn’t barred but the boy knew it didn’t have to be since the room he was being held in was three stories up and it would be a long way down. As he unlatched the window and pushed the double panes outwards, a chill wind blew into the room. Looking down, he could see the snow in inner courtyard below. If he jumped, he would most certainly kill himself, or at the very least, break every bone in his body the moment he landed on the cobbled stone ground below. As he looked up, Ilya noticed a small ledge just below the overhanging roof above the window. It definitely was too small for him to sit on but there was another, albeit riskier possibility if he dared.

  As he decided right then and there to get on with it, Ilya immediately grabbed the blanket from his bed and began to tie a knot on its ends along with the clothes that he had placed underneath it. Within a few minutes, he had a makeshift rope that wasn’t even close to ten feet long. He would have to time this properly if he was going to pull it off. The risks were immense and if he slipped and fell that would be the end of him. There was a narrow steel divider in the center of the window frame that served as a base for the latches of the window panes, so he tied the end of the improvised rope around it and let the other end fall out of the window. As he down looked below one more tim
e, he could see that the rope wasn’t even halfway down the walls of the building. Ilya grabbed the pile of clothes on this bed and threw them out of the window, making sure that the heap landed in a pile down below. Taking the bits of raskovnik from his pocket, he turned and silently made for the door.

  The solider named Yevgeny frowned as he once again sat down with the other two. He was both scared and ashamed after being caught by the lieutenant for sleeping while on sentry duty and he had the distinct feeling he was in deep trouble. He knew that his country was in a state of emergency and he could be severely punished for incompetence. As he drummed his fingers on the table, he noticed there was a cold draft coming from somewhere.

  Yevgeny looked up. “Did it get cold all of a sudden?”

  The other two privates looked at him. That was when Vlad noticed that the door to the boy’s room was ajar as he got up and pointed at it.

  Yevgeny turned his head, saw the slightly opened door and instantly jumped up and ran towards it. The other two men quickly followed. As all three of them pushed the door open even further and peered inside, they noticed that the windows had been thrown wide open and there was a makeshift rope tied to the divider of the window frame.

  Vlad let out a startled cry. “Oh, he’s escaped!”

  Yevgeny ran over to the window and looked down below. “His rope was too short and it looked like he fell! I think he’s probably dead.”

  The third soldier stood next to Vlad as they all looked down. “The stupid boy, why would he try to escape with only half a rope? That’s at least another thirty feet to the ground. He’s killed himself.”

  As the three guards were arguing as to how he had died, Ilya was in acute pain as he strained to keep himself from falling off the roof. After unlocking the door, he immediately ran over to the window and prepared to grab onto the roof overhang so that he would lift himself up on top of it as soon as the guards were alerted. The moment he heard them shouting an alarm, Ilya immediately grabbed hold of the edge of the roof with his hands and then he tried to pull himself up on top of the overhang. From there, he would wait until the guards would think that he went by way of the makeshift rope and they would therefore run downstairs to the inner courtyard, thereby leaving him free to get back down from the roof and escape. However, it didn’t work out the way he thought it would; just as he launched himself out through the window, his arms buckled from the strain and he ended up just above the protruding niche above the window frame. His body was now wedged sideways and due to the icy sheen on the side of the walls, he was starting to slip.

  Ilya looked down and he could see the three bobbing heads of the guards just inches below his thigh as they kept arguing as to who was responsible for what had happened. The boy’s legs were pushing against the upper part of the frame, while his body was nearly horizontal as his arms held on to the edge of the overhang. The pain was practically unbearable as he hoped that they would not look up and see him. The passing moments seemed like an eternity and Ilya was almost ready to cry out from the agony of keeping himself aloft, but he finally saw that the three guards withdrew their heads from the window and he heard the sounds of their boots as they ran out of the room.

  Now came the hard part. Ilya let out a small whimper as he got ready to push off from the top of the window frame and shift his body so that he could swing himself back into the room. It was going to be a tricky maneuver and if he failed he would probably fall off the roof and plunge down into the cobbled stone ground but now he had no choice. He remembered taking a few gymnastics lessons from a passing instructor in the orphanage; all he needed to do was to shove off with his legs and let go with his arms while turning his torso. As his strength was practically gone, Ilya pushed off with his legs as he quickly shifted his weight and thrust himself back through the window.

  The ensuing maneuver worked as the boy was able to land his feet at the bottom of the window frame, but Ilya arched his torso too soon, and his forehead hit the top part of the windowsill. The ensuing pain on his brow and the subsequent flashes of light in his eyes was intense as he almost fell backwards, but he was able to bend his knees and push off one more time as he dived back into the room. For the next few seconds, he just lay there, writhing in pain from both his arms and from where the window had connected to his forehead. When his vision finally cleared, he heard the alarms go off all over the base. Ilya rapidly got up and ran out of the room.

  As he dashed across the corridor and made a quick turn, Ilya collided with Private Anosov as the latter was just about to see what had happened after the alert sounded. The boy’s momentum pushed Anosov so hard he almost fell, but he was able to maintain his balance as he rapidly placed one foot back to absorb the inertia. Ilya tried to push past him but Anosov grabbed onto the boy’s left elbow and wouldn’t let go.

  Ilya cried out in pain and frustration. “You’ve got to let me go! I can save Russia if you let me go!”

  Anosov placed a hand over the boy’s mouth to stop him from screaming. “Ilya, I believe you. I want to get you out but you have to trust me.”

  Ilya immediately stopped struggling. “Why would you want to help me?”

  “Because I know you are the one hope our country has,” Anosov said. “But you must do as I say. If you keep going through this corridor, they will catch you and put you back in your room.”

  “What do I do then?”

  “Follow me.”

  Anosov led the boy down the stairs to the floor just below them as they noticed a squad of soldiers making their way up. The two of them ran into an adjoining corridor and then stopped in front of a door labeled Supply. That was when they both heard the sound of footsteps coming down the passageway.

  As he pulled out a set of keys from his pocket, Anosov had to carefully pick through them as he barely remembered which key it was.

  Ilya kept alternately looking down the corridor as well as the door leading to the stairwell. “Hurry up,” he whispered.

  Anosov finally found the correct key for the door as he placed it in the lock and got it open, just as the sound of footsteps were around the corner. He pushed the boy through the slightly opened door and locked it just as two fully-armed Alpha Group commandos ran into the corridor.

  One of the Spetsnaz commandos ran up to him. “What are you doing there, Private?”

  Anosov stood up straight and saluted him. “I was about to go into this room to get some supplies when the alarm sounded, sir.”

  “Did you see a little boy in this corridor at all?”

  “No, sir. There’s nobody here at this time of the evening.”

  The two commandos didn’t seem convinced. “Open the door,” the other one said.

  “Yes, sir,” Anosov said as he turned and used the keys a second time to open the door.

  Both Spetsnaz commandos quickly pushed past him and turned on the lights as they walked into the area. The supply room had very tight spaces, and they could see that boxes as well as shelves were stacked from floor to ceiling. One of the commandos started making his way around the gaps to make sure no one was hiding there. Anosov held his breath as he hoped the boy was doing his best to hide from these special forces operators.

  Ilya was wedged in between two stacks of boxes as the commando came close to him. The boy was able to evade him the first time, slipping quietly to his right while the commando was looking the other way and then he quickly dashed into another gap, but now he had reached a dead end as there were tall stacks of papers on all three sides.

  Just as the commando was about to turn into the last space, the Spetsnaz soldier was instantly startled by a loud caw coming from where the window was. As the commando instantly reacted by aiming his rifle at where the sound was coming from, he saw the black raven perched beside the cracked windowsill. The Spetsnaz had thought about shooting the bird for making him jumpy, but decided against it at the last minute as he made his way out of the room.

  Anosov waited until both commandos had gone through the s
tairwell door and had closed it behind them before unlocking the office supply room once more. Ilya poked his head out as he once again noticed the coast was clear, but Anosov pushed him back into the interior of the room.

  The boy was angry. “What are you doing?”

  Anosov just shook his head. “Better for you to stay in there for now, I will get you out in a few hours, so just stay hidden in there, okay?”

  Ilya frowned but he realized it was a good idea. “Fine then, don’t be too long.”

  As Anosov locked him inside once more, Ilya wedged himself behind a stack of boxes and sat down. He noticed that two of his fingernails were cracked and bleeding as he felt the bump on his forehead. Other than the bruises, he was otherwise okay.

  About an hour later, Anosov came back just outside the door as he wheeled a laundry cart. Unlocking the office door one more time, he motioned to Ilya to get into the cart. As the boy buried himself between heaps of dirty blankets and clothes, Anosov took the service elevator down as he pushed the cart out past through the preliminary checkpoints and they soon made it to the outer barracks. From there it was just a matter of passing through the final sentries to head over to the laundry area, which was just outside of the base.

  When the cart was finally stopped just outside of the front entrance to the laundry room, Ilya pushed his way past the soiled fabrics as he peered through the slightly open top of the cart. From the looks of things, it was early morning and he could see the steam coming from the nearby chimneys. Anosov gave him a piece of paper containing an address where he could hole up and rest before attempting to make his way out of the city.

  The boy finally pushed himself out of the laundry cart, and then ran across another street. Before jumping into an alleyway, he noticed a passing car nearby. Once the main street was quiet again, he buttoned up his winter jacket and then started moving along the sidewalk. The address that Private Anosov had given him was past the river, and he needed to find a way to cross its icy waters without detection.