Amanda laughed and followed him out of the room towards the parking lot and her car.
Chapter 41
After a breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns, biscuits, and several cups of coffee, Danny and Amanda left the Early Bird Diner and got back into her rented Toyota Corolla.
“Off to the Archives now?” Danny asked, rubbing his full belly as he fastened his seat belt.
“I was thinking maybe we could make another stop first. I want to take you to the regular public library.”
“Why?”
“Remember I told you about the research I did about Coldfoot and Wiseman? I wanted to show you the materials I found there. I thought it couldn’t hurt to have fresh eyes looking at what I found.”
“Alright.”
“They have a special exhibit there about early Alaskan history. That’s where I found the primary sources about Wiseman.”
“Primary sources?”
“You know, artifacts, original documents, first-hand accounts.” She paused as Danny looked at her with a befuddled expression. “Sorry, librarian talk. There are primary sources and secondary sources.”
Danny searched the recesses of his brain. “I’m sure I’ve heard of that. Sometime in college, no doubt.”
“Probably. Anyway it doesn’t make any difference. I just want to show you the materials.”
They drove along Airport Road and turned onto Harbor Drive. As its name suggested, the road faced the Crescent Harbor, and it was immediately obvious why Sitka had a reputation as both a fishing village and a tourist destination. Danny couldn’t help but be reminded of Lake Shore Drive as Amanda drove alongside the water and finally came to the Kettleson Memorial Library.
Amanda nodded a quick greeting at the librarian at the desk and led Danny back to the Historic Alaska display that filled the back quarter of the library. She pulled two chairs together and sat down to find the materials that had caught her interest.
Danny sat down next to her and sorted through a selection of old books that had been arranged on the table in front of him. A title caught his eye.
He picked up the book, called “A Portrait of Wiseman, Alaska,” and held it up for Amanda to see. “Isn’t Wiseman the town you mentioned? The one with the murders and disappearances?”
“Yeah.”
Danny put the book down on the table and leaned forward to browse through it. “This was written by some guy who was there in the 1930s. I wonder if he wrote anything about our friend.”
Skimming the book, Danny came upon a selection of black & white photographs. A photo of an old cemetery filled with tiny headstones sticking awkwardly out of the frozen ground caught his eye. He brought the photo closer to his eyes and squinted, trying to make out the blurry inscriptions.
“What do you see?” Amanda asked.
Danny shook his head without answering. He wasn’t sure yet. He skimmed through more of the book, keeping his finger on the page with the photograph. Finding what he was looking for, he read quickly through a stilted account of the population of the tiny village.
“Look at this,” he finally said. “According to the book, there were only about 120 people in Wiseman at the time this was written. Mostly white males, miners and trappers, and a handful of white women and children. The rest were native to the area, an Eskimo tribe I guess.”
“So?”
“So look at all the headstones in this cemetery,” Danny said, returning to the photograph. “There’s a hell of a lot of them for that small of a population. And I could make out some of the dates. They’re all from around the same time.”
Amanda grabbed the diary she had found, written by a miner who was terrified of the creature the tribes called the “white-haired monster.”
“This guy wrote about the so-called monster in 1928. He says he knew the monster was killing people in the village, but the rest of the villagers chalked the deaths up to bear attacks. They thought he was crazy.”
“Almost all of these headstones are dated 1927-1929.”
Amanda let out a deep breath. “I’m sure there could be another explanation. I doubt people lived very long in those conditions. The cold alone would do a lot of people in.”
“True enough. But I know you’re thinking the same thing I am. That diary writer wasn’t crazy at all. The monster was Aleksei.”
“I wonder if he’s been in the area ever since.”
Danny put the book back where he had found it. “I doubt it. He couldn’t have opened Snow Creek until much later; the asylum itself wasn’t even built at this time. But if he got a taste of the Arctic and enjoyed it, he could have easily returned.”
Amanda glanced down at the diary in her hand. “This guy writes that most of Wiseman was abandoned by the time he finished this diary. He writes about planning to leave the Arctic and go back to Fairbanks, but that’s where the diary ends.”
“I wonder if the white-haired monster got him before he could carry out his plan to move to Fairbanks. Aleksei probably wiped them all out.”
Amanda shuddered. “God, it’s so awful to imagine.”
“It is. But I think it fits. I think Aleksei came to Wiseman from who knows where and found he liked the Arctic quite a bit.”
Amanda put the diary back in its place in the display rack and glanced up at the clock on the wall in front of her. “We’ve probably been here long enough. We should get over to the Archives so we have enough time to look for Aleksei.”
Danny nodded and stood up from his chair. “Maybe we can find out what he was up to before he became the white-haired monster.”
Chapter 42
Aleksei paced through the trees outside the restaurant, grateful for the infamous Seattle rain. While he knew all about Seattle's reputation for rain, he still couldn't believe his good luck. He had been concerned he'd have to alter his plans and wait until evening to capture Katie and bring her home to Alaska with him. But thanks to the rain, he would now be able to snatch her up as soon as she finished her shift and returned to the car he had watched her park a few hours earlier. He was certain this unexpected dose of good fortune was a sign that he was making the right move in abandoning his quest to replace Natasha. It was fate, and he knew without a doubt that it was finally time to say goodbye to his beloved Natasha and start a new life. Katie was meant to be his Katerina.
Aleksei's body tingled as he watched the back door of the restaurant open, and Katie step outside. She was wearing her work uniform of khakis and a navy t-shirt and she smiled at the older man at her side carrying two bags of garbage. Aleksei knew the man was the owner of the restaurant, Katie's grandfather. He also knew this was the last time the man would ever see his granddaughter.
He heard Katie laugh at something her grandfather said and watched her hug him before he disappeared back into the restaurant. Aleksei and Katie were alone in the nearly empty parking lot. If his heart was still beating, he knew he would have felt it beating right out of his chest. He licked his lips and approached Katie's car. He made no sound as he came up to Katie from behind.
“Excuse me,” he said.
Obviously startled, Katie whirled around to face him. He thought he saw a glimmer of recognition on her face. “Yes,” she said, her hand on the open door of her car.
“Do you remember me?” Aleksei asked. He pushed the car door closed, and leaned in towards Katie, his body towering over her 5”4' frame.
Katie tried to swallow her rising fear. She glanced towards the restaurant, willing her grandfather or one of the other employees to come out the back door. “Do you need something?” she asked.
“Just you.”
Katie's eyes widened and she moved away from the car. She turned to run to the restaurant, dropping her purse and phone on the ground next to her car.
Aleksei grabbed her and pulled her back towards him, immediately covering her mouth to silence the scream he knew would be coming next. He pulled Katie into the trees and out of sight of anyone in the restaurant, and turned her face
towards his. He couldn't deny, he relished the terror in her eyes and the tears that had now mixed with the raindrops spattering her face.
“You're coming with me,” he whispered.
Katie tried to shake her head, but Aleksei held her still. He wrapped his arms around her neck, being careful not to break it. Sometimes even now, he forgot his own strength. It was a delicate balance, applying enough pressure to bring on unconsciousness but not enough to bring on suffocation. But he was used to the process by now. And Katie was putty in his hands.
Within seconds, she was unconscious in his arms. Aleksei smiled and lifted her off the ground, tossing her limp body over his shoulder. He had Katie out of Seattle and on the way back to Alaska long before anyone noticed the purse and phone left on the wet concrete of the restaurant parking lot.
Chapter 43
Danny rubbed his eyes and stared at the piles of papers and photos in front of him. The sheer amount of materials in the Russian archives was overwhelming and trying to find something about Aleksei Nechayev was worse than searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. He was frustrated, irritated, and wishing he had a drink.
He glanced over at Amanda, who was poring over a diary written by a WWI Russian soldier and wincing as she tried to make out the Russian scribbles.
“Have you found anything useful at all?” he asked.
“Don't you think I would have told you if I had?”
Danny shook his head. “This is a waste of time.”
“I don't think so.”
“I thought crap like this was supposed to be cataloged? Shouldn't we be able to just search for Nechayev?”
“We should, but the Archives doesn't have enough personnel to catalog and index everything. They try, but they're always behind.” She set the diary aside and picked up a folder stuffed with photographs from the Russian Revolution of 1917. “We're on our own.”
Danny sighed and rolled his chair across the room until he was next to Amanda. He grabbed an envelope containing photographs of WWI soldiers. “I guess I'll browse through these,” he said.
Amanda ignored him and continued to sift through her own stack of photos. Danny opened his envelope, and poured the contents on to the table in front of him. Faded black and white and sepia toned photos scattered, with a few dropping to the floor around his chair.
Looking up from her own work, Amanda frowned at him. “Be careful. These photos are valuable.”
“Spoken like a true librarian.”
“I'd say I'm speaking as a courteous person. The archivists are giving us free rein here. The least we can do is make sure we don't damage their materials.”
“You're right. I'll be more careful.”
Amanda nodded and returned to her photos, as Danny reached down to pick up the pictures he had dropped. He leafed through them, wandering about the serious young men he saw staring back at him. All were wearing the uniform of the Russian Imperial Troops, cloth caps tilted on their heads, loose-fitting tunics, and trousers tucked in boots. In addition, all of them looked much too young to be heading to war. He supposed that was one thing that never changed.
Danny flipped through more photos, and stopped on a shot of the Ninth Army Unit, dated November, 1916. Unlike the photos from the start of the War, these soldiers stared at the camera with eyes haunted by fatigue and hunger. The men were gaunt, and their uniforms hung loosely on their nearly emaciated bodies. Their cloth caps had been replaced by tattered fur hats, and their tunics were now covered with threadbare overcoats. He shook his head, wondering if any of these long-ago soldiers had survived the war.
He was about to place the photo back in the envelope when a soldier standing at the edge of the photo caught his eye. Unlike the majority of his comrades, his head was bare, leaving his obviously blond hair visible. While it was impossible to make out the color of his eyes in the black and white photo, they were clearly unusual, and their gaze pierced the camera lens. The man was significantly taller than any of the men around him, and his face was immediately recognizable to Danny. The man was Aleksei Nechayev.
“Amanda,” Danny said. “Look at this.”
Amanda lifted her eyes from her own work, and glanced at Danny. “Look at what?”
“This photo. Do you recognize this guy?” Danny pushed the photo towards her, and pointed to Aleksei.
Amanda picked up the photo and stared at it, her eyes instantly filling with tears. “That's him,” she said. “I know it. It's him.”
“I think so too.”
“He looks the same.”
“Exactly. This is the guy I saw in Coldfoot.”
Amanda's hands started to shake, and she set the photo back on the table. “So he was a WWI soldier?”
Danny leaned back in his chair, causing the wheels to screech on the tile floor. “We probably shouldn't jump to conclusions. Maybe this is his grandfather or some other relative.”
“Are you kidding me? Do we have to go over this again? Come on.”
“Alright, alright. I admit it. I think it's him, too.”
“So he is a vampire. I was right.”
“He's something, that's for sure. He's more than 100 years old and he looks the same as he did in 1916.”
“He's a vampire.”
Danny held up his hands. “Okay.”
The two stared at the photo in silence. Danny felt a return of the same chill he had felt in Coldfoot. If Amanda hadn't been seeing the same thing, he'd swear he was having some sort of hallucination. How could this be the same guy?
“So now what?” he said.
“Now we find out more about this unit. What happened to them in the War. If this was 1916, the start of the Revolution was right around the corner.”
“This is interesting, I'm not gonna deny it. But what the hell does it mean for my case? So we know Aleksei was a Russian soldier. So what? That doesn't help me find Maria.”
“But maybe it will if we can find out when he came here and where he started out. He must have another home here besides Coldfoot where he keeps his women...”
Danny rubbed his eyes again and shook his head. “Okay. It's not like I have anything else to go on. And I'm not wanted back at work anyway.”
Amanda looked over his head at the clock behind him. “Damn,” she said.
“What?”
“The archives is about to close. We need to clean all this up.”
“What? I'm not stopping now, not when we finally got something. I'll flash my badge at them and demand to stay longer.”
“That's not really fair to the employees. And you said yourself, it's not like we're going to find something you can use to nail Aleksei here. We can come back tomorrow bright and early.”
“I guess. We can do some searching for this unit on the Internet. I've got my Macbook back at the hotel.” Danny's face turned red as his stomach growled loudly. “And I guess I could use some dinner, too.”
Amanda smiled. “So could I. I can't believe we've been here all day and I didn't even think about lunch. I know a great place we can go. You can even get some beer.”
“That sounds a lot better than the food.”
The two stood up and hastily arranged the archival materials back into tidy piles, leaving their photo of Aleksei out so they could continue their research in the morning. Amanda grabbed Danny's hand and smiled at him.
“It's amazing to find him, isn't it? After all this time, I know he really is what I said he was.”
Danny tried his best to smile in return. “I'm glad for you. I know it must be satisfying.”
He watched as Amanda nearly skipped out the door ahead of him. He could understand her excitement, but he couldn't share it. He had already known Aleksei was a monster, but he had still hoped for some rational explanation, something that would prove Amanda had been wrong. He knew how to stop a human monster. But a real monster was something all together different. Whatever Aleksei was, Danny had no idea how to stop him.
Chapter 44
Danny bunched up his flat pillows against the headboard of his hotel room bed and sat half up in bed, his back resting against the pillows. He reached his hand out to brush a lock of Amanda's hair out of her eyes, and tucked it behind her ear with his fingers. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she wasn't sleeping. Her mouth curved into a smile as he caressed her cheek.
Danny hadn't planned to bring Amanda back to his hotel room, as he had sworn he would never sleep with a potential witness again, but after the two had finished their dinner at the restaurant Amanda had chosen, it seemed like the logical step. After all, what difference did it make if he slept with a witness again? He'd already crossed that line, so why worry about ethics now? And, what the hell else was there to do in Sitka, Alaska in the dark?
It dawned on him that Amanda was the first woman he'd slept with more than once since Caroline had died. He glanced down at her, and said as much.
“You know something? You're the first woman I've slept with twice since my wife died.”
Amanda opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Really?”
“Yeah. I've stuck to drunken one-night stands.” And not to many of those either, if he was being honest.
“I guess I should take this as a compliment, then.”
“I guess so. Especially since I'm not even drunk.”
Amanda chuckled and rolled over onto her back. “I'm honored.” She exhaled deeply, and stared at the ceiling fan above the bed.
“What are you thinking about?” Danny asked.
“Aleksei.”
“Go figure.”
“Seeing him there in that photo, it's just so bizarre. He looks exactly the same...”
“You're the one who said he was a vampire. I would think you'd be happy it looks like you're right.”
“I guess thinking he's a vampire, and seeing it with my own eyes are two different things. It just gave me the creeps.”
“I can understand that. Everything about him gives me the creeps. And I wasn't even attacked by him.”
Polar (Book 1): Polar Night Page 17