by Brian Keene
“The Kwan?” I hadn’t heard this part of the story before. “What’s that?”
“Am not sure.” Sondra shrugged. “But is not a what. Is a who. Much mysterious. Much said in whispers. Maybe they are magicians. Is said in my country that they secretly rule the world from their black lodge.”
I frowned. The only black lodge I knew of was the song by Anthrax.
“Black lodge?”
“Is place where magicians go.”
“So this Kwan,” I asked, “they’re like the Illuminati? You believe that shit?”
“I don’t know what is Illuminati,” Sondra said. “Is that to turn on lights?”
“No,” I said, “it’s a group of people who supposedly control the world. They own the politicians and the corporations.”
“They say same thing about the Kwan,” Sondra continued. “Maybe is not true. Maybe is bullshit, as you say, but it is what old man in my town used to tell people. I do not know. Maybe the Kwan is not that. Maybe is something different. But Anna Vyrubova thought Rasputin was part of it. She thought he was something special. Says he can help the boy. So the Tsaritsa sent for him. Rasputin prayed over the boy and Alexei get better. Rasputin tell the Tsar and his family to not let doctors bother the boy. Says he will care for the Tsarevich himself. Then, every time Alexei is hurt and bleeds, the Tsarina called for Rasputin to heal him.”
“And,” I interrupted, “that was how he got in good with the family. But what does any of this have to do with Whitey?”
“Much,” Sondra said. “Has much to do. The Tsar put much trust in Rasputin. He came to live with the family, and watched over them, especially Alexei. They say when the boy was attacked by a swarm of bees, Rasputin yelled at the bees and they fly away and not bother the Tsarevich again. Rasputin had much power. He told fortunes. Saw the future. Held much…what is word? Sway? Held much sway over Tsaritsa Alexandra.”
“What did he yell?” Yul asked. “At the bees? What did he say to make them flee?”
“He say, ‘Sting him and you will die.’”
“And that worked?”
“Are you not listening? He had powers. Some say his powers were from books. Others say from his blood—that he was born with special abilities. Maybe both. Or maybe the Kwan. But however he get powers, many in Russia not like it. They say that Rasputin was no man of God. Was man of Devil, instead. Say his abilities are because he make deal with the Devil. And so they plotted to kill him.”
Her voice got louder as she told the story. I cautioned her to whisper, and to hurry up and get to the point. I’d never heard the bee story, either, but it sounded like folk magic to me. Central Pennsylvania was full of that shit. Even today, in some of the more remote parts of the Appalachians, Dutch and German descendants still use powwow magic and folklore, making medicines and spells from The Long, Lost Friend and other weird books. Rasputin’s incantation over the bees sounded like something straight out of one of those books. I guess I believed in it, too, without really thinking about it much. Things like that were just part of the background for me. But I’d seen folk magic in action once, when I was a little kid. My parents had gone away on vacation together, and I had to stay with my Grandma for a week. While I was there, I came down with pink eye. Scared the hell out of me. I thought I was going blind or something. Instead of taking me to the doctor, my Grandma referred to a little brown book, and followed the instructions. Before dawn, she dug up five dandelion roots and tied them together with a white thread. Then she wrapped these up in a clean dishrag, placed it over my eyes, and chanted something out of the book. Sure enough, the infection was gone the next day.
I never believed in God because I’d never seen him in my life. But I believed in my Grandma and I believed in folk magic and I believed what Sondra was telling us.
“Wouldn’t the Romanovs protect him?” Yul asked. “Sounds like he was pretty important to their family.”
Sondra lowered her voice. “Rasputin’s enemies say he is sex fiend, is Satanist, and is having too much political power over the Tsar. When first World War comes, they say he is spy for Germans. And so, many men get together and try to kill him. First, they invite him to big dinner and then poison him. Put cyanide in cakes and red wine and give to him. There was enough poison to kill ten men, but it not kill Rasputin. He ate the cakes and drank the wine and then asked for more. So the men distract him. When Rasputin was turned away, they shot him in the back. One of the men, Felix Yusupov, checked the body. Rasputin open his eyes, grab Felix by the throat, and say, ‘You bad, bad boy.’ Then he fight back at the men.”
I shivered. Whitey had said the same thing to me, back at my apartment. I doubted it was a coincidence.
“Rasputin was still alive. They stab him in stomach and his insides fell out. He had to push them back in. The men beat him badly. Felix strangled him with rope. Hang him from a big tree and his insides fall out again. But Rasputin still alive. He got away and ran. The men shot him three more times. Then they beat him again, tied his hands and feet, put him inside sheet and throw him into the Neva River.”
I shuddered at the image of Rasputin running away, trailing his intestines behind him like he was a fucking zombie or something.
“Jesus,” Yul muttered. “I hope that finally killed him.”
“Three days later, after ice on the river melts, they find Rasputin’s body. Is poisoned, shot four times, strangled, beaten, and stabbed. The authorities did…how you say? Autopsy?”
We nodded.
“They do this. Say the cause of death was by drowning. But they say Rasputin’s hands look like he was alive in the river and trying to claw his way out from under the ice. His fingernails are broken and tips of his fingers are bloody. So he was still alive after all that. Was still alive beneath the ice. Is hard to kill, no?”
“Yeah,” I said, losing my patience. “He was a tough son of a bitch, Sondra, but I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Whitey.”
“Whitey is hard to kill too, no?”
“Sure seems like it.”
“That is because Rasputin is Whitey’s…how you say? Aunt?”
Yul chuckled. “His aunt? You mean he was a hermaphrodite, too?”
“What is that?”
“A he-she,” Yul explained. “A chick with a dick.”
“No,” Sondra said. “Is not that. Rasputin was Whitey’s Aunt.”
“Ancestor,” I guessed. “You mean ancestor, right?”
“Da. To relate. That is word I was thinking of. Related.”
Yul and I stared at her in disbelief.
“Is true,” Sondra insisted. “Whitey is great-grandson of Rasputin, but is…illegitimate? Is that right word?”
“It’s the right word,” Yul said, and then turned to me. “You believe any of this shit, Larry?”
“See?” Sondra pouted. “I say before that you will not believe me. This is why I don’t tell you.”
I didn’t reply. I was too busy thinking about the story. Zakhar Putin, a.k.a. Whitey Putin. Putin—a shortened version of Rasputin. I’d shot the motherfucker twice now, and he was still coming after us, no worse for the wear, far as I knew.
Hard to kill.
It must have run in the family.
Crazy as the whole thing sounded, it made sense to me. What was the alternative? I mean, how else was I supposed to explain all this shit? Sure, maybe you could say that Whitey was on drugs or something. I’ve heard PCP gives you inhuman stamina. The ability to withstand tasers and stuff. Meth-heads can take a lot of pain and keep going. But I’d shot his fucking ear off! Shot him in the shoulder, too. There was no way a normal man would have recovered from those wounds as quickly as Whitey had, even if he was stoned. The blood loss alone should have been enough to put him down.
Yul started to speak, but I interrupted him. I looked Sondra in the eye and said, “Okay, I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do. But let me ask you something? Do you remember back
at my place, when you asked me to kill Whitey?”
She nodded.
“You think maybe you could have told me this then? That information would have been good to have before I tried to do what you fucking asked me to.”
“I am sorry. I was afraid you make fun. You are angry with me now?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not angry. Just frustrated—and a little stunned. Got to admit, this was not what I was expecting to hear.”
“Wait a second,” Yul said. “If this Rasputin guy was a monk, then how did he have any kids? Aren’t monks celibate?”
It was a stupid question. Sondra had already told us that Rasputin was a sex fiend. I started to holler at Yul for not paying attention, but then decided he had a right to be a little out of it. We were all pretty stressed. Wasn’t every day people tried to kill you.
“He wasn’t an actual monk,” I told him, “and Rasputin made no secret of being married—or of having other women. He slept around while he was traveling through Greece and Jerusalem. Had a different woman in each port, you know what I’m saying? He had a legitimate daughter, I think, and it’s rumored that he had a whole bunch more illegitimate kids, too. Makes sense. If he slept around that much, then he probably has more bastards than anyone knows about. Guy was a player. Supposedly, he even banged the Tsar’s wife.”
Sondra nodded. “That is what people say in Russia.”
“Shit,” I said, “if I remember correctly, doesn’t Rasputin means licentious in Russian. I think our teacher told us that.”
Yul frowned. “What’s licentious?”
“It means he liked to fuck a lot. Like Jes—”
I paused. I’d wanted to say ‘Like Jesse’, but I couldn’t get the words out. There was a lump in my throat. My eyes burned. Yul hung his head and sniffed. I felt like the world’s biggest asshole. Jesse was dead, and it was all my fault, and here I was using him as the punch-line to some stupid-ass joke less than a few hours after his death.
Sondra must have sensed the tension in the room, because she spoke up quickly.
“Is not what it means in Russian. Is not ‘horny’. Rasputin is from ‘rasputye’ which means ‘place of crossroads. A place where paths meet. A maze. What do you call? Lab…?”
“Labyrinth,” I said. “It’s called a labyrinth.”
“That is what Rasputin means. A labyrinth.”
“You ask me,” Yul said, “it means bad motherfucker. I mean, if this Whitey guy is like his great granddad, then how do we stop him? How do we kill someone that can’t frigging die?”
“He’s not invulnerable,” I said. “He can feel pain. And fear. You guys heard him screaming when I shot him. And Rasputin died, eventually. So we just need to kill Whitey hard enough to do the job once and for all. Make sure there isn’t anything left of him to get back up and come after us again.”
“But how?” Yul asked again.
“I don’t know,” I whispered, “but we’d better figure something out fast.”
“Why?”
“Listen.”
Hammering sounds echoed across the warehouse. Somebody was battering the boarded up windows.
“Oh, shit.” Yul’s face paled. “We are so fucked.”
For once, he was right.
fifteen
The pounding got louder and more insistent. It was the sound of somebody having a really bad day and ready to take their frustrations out on other people.
“What do we do?” Yul cried. “It’s him!”
“Maybe not,” I said, peering out from behind the boxes. “It could be the cops. Or some homeless guy. We don’t—”
A loud crash cut me off. It sounded like the plywood I’d leaned against the broken outside window had just fallen to the floor, along with the wooden crates I’d used to hold it in place. Then there was silence.
We stared at each other, eyes wide. Sondra and Yul tensed, holding their breath. I looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing except for some wooden skids and a tangle of plastic shipping bands and metal strapping, all cut or broken. The skids were out of reach. If I went for one and managed to pry a length of wood free, I’d be out in the open with no cover. That was no good. I could strangle Whitey with one of the shipping bands, or maybe cut his throat if I could find a metal one that was sharp enough—and if I could get close enough to him. Related to Rasputin or not, I was willing to bet that he’d find it hard to survive a slit throat. True, it was a slim chance that I’d get close enough to pull it off, but the 9mm was useless without ammo, except for maybe as a club. Sure. That was it! I could brain him with the butt of the pistol—and then he could shoot me in the face. There was no doubt in my mind that Whitey still had bullets left in his gun. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would leave home without them.
Still tensed, Yul leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “That doesn’t sound like the cops, Larry.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, for one thing, they’d shout ‘Freeze, this is the police!’ or ‘Throw down your weapons’. I’m not hearing that.”
As if to prove Yul’s point, Whitey’s voice boomed across the empty warehouse.
“Come out, come out, little mice. You have been very bad, and it is time to put an end to this. I have other things to do today.”
Sondra reached out and squeezed my hand. I tried to smile at her in reassurance, and instead, I ended up trembling.
“Mr. Gibson,” Whitey called, “I know you are hiding in here. I have a proposition for you. If you turn over the girl, I will allow you and your friend to leave unharmed. The police will be here soon, I think. You can end this whole thing now. Just give me the girl.”
“That sounds pretty reasonable,” Yul muttered. “I vote we do what he says.”
Incredulous, I glared at him. I couldn’t tell if Yul was joking or not. His expression was serious.
“Shut up,” I warned him. “This ain’t no fucking democracy. Sondra’s not going anywhere. And keep quiet.”
Footsteps drew closer; hard-soled dress shoes on concrete. Whitey whistled a mournful tune that I didn’t recognize. The sound chilled me.
“Ah, what is this?” He wasn’t shouting anymore. He was close enough for us to hear without difficulty. “Perhaps you are hiding down in the dark basement? Cowering like little rats. No, probably not. Sondra doesn’t like the dark, do you my dear? Brings back bad memories, does it not?”
Sondra pressed up against me, tightening her grip on my hand. Slowly, I reached out and grabbed a jagged piece of metal strapping. It was about seven inches long and the edge was sharp and pointed. I pressed it against the ball of my thumb and winced. It left an indentation—not sharp enough to draw blood, but jagged enough to part flesh if I pushed. It would have to do. Better than nothing, at least.
Yul started mouthing the Lord’s Prayer. His eyes were shut tight, and his face was even paler than before. The color had drained away, and every freckle and pimple stood out in sharp contrast. There was a tiny scar on the tip of his nose where Webster had scratched him a year ago. The blemish had faded over time, enough that I’d completely forgotten about it, but now I saw it clearly. I let Yul pray. It certainly couldn’t hurt. If I had believed in God, maybe I would have joined in with him and we could have had a little prayer circle right there behind the boxes, all of us holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ and letting the power of Christ prevent Whitey’s bullets from reaching us. Praise His name. The power of prayer and all that bullshit. But I knew better. There was no God. Life had proven that to me a long time ago. This moment—being trapped in an abandoned warehouse with a runaway stripper, my last living friend, and a murderous, invincible Russian mobster—was just confirmation of the fact. If God existed, then the motherfucker smoked crack on a regular basis.
“I am getting closer,” Whitey called. His sing-song voice echoed, bouncing off the walls. He was near. In the room with us. Squinting, I peered through the cracks between the boxes and saw a flash of movement. Sondra
squeezed my hand hard enough to make me wince.
Yul’s silent prayer ceased. He opened his eyes and tears ran down his face.
“I know you are here,” Whitey said. “I can sense you, Sondra. Sense the baby. There is nowhere you can hide. Not while you are carrying my child. You know how this will end. How it must end.”
Sondra jerked her hand away from mine and put it protectively over her belly. I felt like somebody had just punched me in the gut. His baby? Whitey was the father. My first reaction was shock, but within seconds, anger overrode all of my other emotions. Anger at Sondra for lying to me when she’d said that she didn’t know who the father was, and anger at Whitey for wanting to abort his own child. Somehow, that seemed even more heinous than before. He had to be lying. Trying to get us to give away our position.
“I am sorry,” Sondra mouthed. There were tears in her eyes.
Before I could respond, Yul stood up. His knee joints popped, startling me. I grabbed his pants leg but it was too late. He yanked away from me.
“Mr. W-Whitey, sir? M-my name is Yul Lee. I don’t want any t-trouble.”
There was a brief pause, and then Whitey said, “Where are you, Mr. Yul. Behind those boxes, I suppose?”
“Y-yes sir. But like I said, I d-don’t want any trouble. I’m…I’m not p-part of this.”
“Yul!” I pinched his leg. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Without looking down, he waved me away. Then he took a hesitant step forward, pushing a box out of his way so that Whitey could see his face.
“I just want to go home, sir. My girlfriend, Kim, she’ll be waiting for me. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve been thinking about asking her to marry me. So, I just want to see her. I’m sorry about everything, but you’ve got to understand, I’m innocent. I wasn’t involved. These guys kidnapped me.”
“Kidnapped you? That wasn’t very nice, now was it? There’s no reason to treat a friend that way.”
“Oh, I-I’m not their f-friend…”
“Yul,” I growled, “you son of a bitch.”