And then suddenly – she could hear it. The only sound in that silent place, besides their own footfalls. The ssh-ssh-sshh song of a little stream flowing.
A low, grassy bank, studded with flowers. Birch trees like enchanted sentinels in silver armor. The green scent of firs and pines. And the water, flowing peacefully. And somehow the beauty of it made it all so much worse.
They were on the other side of the stream, sitting against a birch. Alexey was very pale, his eyes were closed, his T-shirt was stained with blood and dirt, there were bruises on his face, his jeans were torn. He was unconscious. But not dead. Propped up, he was held like a shield against the other’s chest. And there was something pressed against his throat. The glint of a wickedly sharp knife ...
“Not a step further. Or he’s dead.” The voice was without inflection of any kind. Familiar yet a stranger’s, it rang in Helen’s ears like something from a terrible nightmare. She knew it spoke the absolute truth. If they made the wrong move that knife would cut Alexey’s throat.
She gathered all her courage and said, as calmly as she could, “It’s okay. I just want to speak to you.”
A silence, then: “Throw away your phone. That’s it. Him, too. And tell him to back off.”
Volkovsky looked at Helen. She nodded. “Please. Do it.”
“Now, Helen. You can move forward a bit. Okay. That’s it. Stop. You wanted to speak to me. So speak.”
Helen looked at the woman across the stream, in whose house she had stayed, whose meals she had shared, who had been a dear family friend. The woman who last night had been so cheerfully arguing the relative merits of Atamanov and Disney. Who this very morning had joked about an ex-biker boyfriend. The woman who’d written that extraordinary book. And Helen knew now why Irina had aged so much. Why she’d looked so gaunt and drained: the terrifying power she had in her was sapping everything that had once made her human. How much ghastly effort it must have been to maintain the facade of what she had once been!
Helen whispered, “Please – please – Irina … let Alexey go. He’s innocent – he’s done nothing –”
“Is that all you have to say? Then you might as well leave.” The eyes went blank. The vicious dark energy was sucking in all the air around them, making Helen feel breathless. “There is no such thing as an innocent Makarov. His great-grandfather was a murderer. His grandfather a torturer. His father a ruthless bastard. His brother a drug-dealer.”
“But he’s not like them, Irina. He’s not.”
When Irina didn’t answer, Helen faltered, the words coming choppily, “At least – let me near him. Please.”
“Why should I?”
She took the plunge. “Because I think – you – you feel nothing for him – but you still care what happens to me. That’s why – why you tried to warn me against him. And it’s why you haven’t been able to bring yourself to kill him yet. Why you hesitate. Because you know I – I love him.”
Irina said, harshly, “He’s much stronger than I thought he was, that’s all. He has a real core of power. Much stronger than his father. He’s resisted me.”
“But he’s weak now and you have a knife. It would be so easy to kill him but you haven’t. And that means –”
“It means only that I want you to understand who he really is,” Irina spat out. “You say he’s not like the others – but ask yourself, why is he so hell-bent on keeping Trinity? He should have closed it down. Trinity’s rotten to the core, riddled with corruption, just like the men who created it. Nothing can make it good. Ha, you believe that shit about reform, don’t you? But that’s not what it’s about. Trinity is about power. It is the very source of his father’s darkest secrets. The secrets, the power he craves for himself. Nothing will get in the way of that. Certainly not you. Between you and Trinity, what do you think he would choose?”
“I would not – I would never try to make him choose.” Helen whispered. “That is not what true love is.”
“Sentimental blindness. He’s already made his choice. If he is still alive, if he has resisted me so fiercely till now, it is for Trinity. Yes, Helen. Don’t shake your head. That is his deepest truth. At first, yes, I thought otherwise. He came here of his own will, because I told him I’d had you abducted. That you were being held here. So I thought that was the core of him. Love. Not a bit of it! For soon I realized it was Trinity he would fight to the death for. Never for you. That is what I wanted to show you. So the scales can drop from your eyes and you can see what he really is. A Makarov above all else, for whom power will always count far, far more than love.”
Instinctively, Helen knew she must not respond. She must not get into direct confrontation. She must not hurl accusations, must not show how deeply she was repulsed by an evil that twisted everything. Because one false move, one word out of place, and Alexey would die. She knew that for certain. She must be one step ahead. She forced herself to say, meekly, sadly, “What you say may be true, but despite it, I can’t stop myself. I can’t stop loving him.”
Irina cried, and for a distressing moment the old, familiar, kindly spirit flashed out, “Hell, I wish you would, Helen. I wish you’d never met him. You shouldn’t have done. And if I’d imagined for one minute that your paths would cross, I’d never have invited you to my place. You must believe that.”
“I do.” A pause. She swallowed, and said, in a small voice, “But I did meet him. And I do love him. And so now …” She took a deep breath. “Please. Just let me come a little closer. I promise I – won’t try anything. If you – if you care for me at all, just let me do this one small thing.”
Irina stared at her. Then she said, “Very well. But only as far as I say.”
Helen took a step forward. Another. Another. She was at the stream. And Irina said, sharply, “That will do.”
So close now, so close, if Helen had stretched as far as she possibly could, she might almost have touched him. She could see the shadow of stubble on his chin, the sweet hollow of his collarbone, the fine golden hairs on his arms, the faint slow flutter of his heart in his chest – it was weak – and weakening by the minute – Oh Alexey. Alexey ...
Part of her wanted to cry, to beg for mercy, to plead for his life. But she knew it would do no good. Irina’s insane hatred of the Makarovs was much stronger than her affection for Helen. Much stronger. She would not give in to pleas for mercy. Not for a Makarov. Especially not for the last of the Makarovs. She saw herself as an avenging angel, as a righteous smiter of evil-doers. So Helen had to try another way. She said, softly, “It must have been terrible, finding out what had been done to your grandfather, to poor Professor Antonov.”
She’d struck the right note. Irina’s eyes lit up. “Oh, he wasn’t my grandfather but my great-uncle. My grandmother’s twin brother. A very great man. I never even knew he existed, until my mother told me on her deathbed. He was the reason we had to flee, she said. He was a scientist but he committed some crime, she didn’t know what, her parents never told her. All she knew was that he was arrested and they’d have been too if they hadn’t escaped. That was the way it was in those days. You suffered and you didn’t even know why.” She paused, then went on, “She’d never tried to find out. But I had to. So I came to Russia. I discovered he’d died in prison. I found out what he’d been accused of. And how his experiment had been terminated by Pyotr Makarov, who had worked side by side with him for months, who had accompanied him when he’d found Baby K and took him from the hunter, who with his men had guarded the site, but who when the order came, carried it out without a shred of mercy or remorse or doubt.” Her face was twisted with bitterness. “At least six or seven children died that day, Helen, including Baby K. The bear was destroyed. The place was burned to the ground. And Anton was arrested, tortured, sent to that Siberian hellhole. He didn’t last six months.” She paused. “I felt so close to poor Anton. So close. I felt like – like he and I were kindred souls, calling to each other across time and death. The horror of his fate, of the f
ate of those children, turned me inside out. Obsessed me. I knew I must do something. But I still thought in the old way. The old timid way. I planned to write a book exposing the whole thing. Make the Makarov descendants suffer shame and exposure insofar as such people can feel it. And celebrate Anton’s life and achievements. But then one day, quite without warning, I was set on the right path.” There was a strange smile on her face. “Do you remember me telling you about seeing the bear in the Karelian forest?”
Just over a week ago, that was – and yet it seemed so far away. If only, Helen thought, if only I could have seen then what lay behind the familiar face – what hideous stranger had taken possession of my mother’s old friend ... But she hadn’t. So she nodded now, helplessly, without speaking.
“In that moment, when the bear looked at me,” said Irina, “I felt as though something had shifted – like time and space had cracked open. Oh God, I’d spent my entire career writing about magic, about myth, about the other world – and suddenly there it was, in front of me, real as the bear! It was a thrilling moment that completely changed the course of my life. That night, I had the first of the dreams. I saw Anton beaten – tortured – covered in blood. I had the same dream the following night, and the next and next. It was intensely disturbing. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. So I went to see a psychic in Moscow.”
Helen was shaken, badly, by what Irina had said, for it struck disturbing echoes. The dreams – the sense of the world revealing itself – that was familiar. She fought to keep a grip on herself. She said, “The psychic was Lev Kirov.”
“Ah. You know about him. Yes. Lev Kirov. I never told him who Anton was, only about the dreams. And that was when he told me that the dreams were a symptom, not a cause. That I had a great power within me, a great psychic energy, but that it was blocked. He went on and on then about being careful – not rushing into things – as if I was some kind of naive child, the silly old fool! Because I’d known at once what I must use my power for. I knew Fate had at last let me grasp the sword of justice, and I must not let Anton down. I couldn’t reveal myself till the time was right – but it all worked so well, because no one ever suspected the fussy professor with her endless research on myths.”
Helen said quietly, “You’re like Nina Kulagina, aren’t you? You’ve got a power like hers.”
Irina snorted. “Mine’s much more effective. Her power was crude. Psychic brawn, not brain. Think of throwing a spanner in electric works. Of pulling on a rope till it breaks. That’s what hers was like. And it required immense physical effort. Yes, she could stop a frog’s heart – but a person’s? Never. Certainly not a healthy person, without heart problems. The effort would have killed her as well.”
“Then what – how do you …”
Irina’s face twisted sardonically. “You think I’m stupid enough to tell you so you can use it against me? Don’t push your luck.”
But Helen had stopped listening. For at that moment, Alexey’s eyes opened, and he looked straight at her.
Chapter 40
It was as though time had stopped. Alexey was looking at her – but not seeing her. Staring straight at her, his eyes locked on hers, but there was not the slightest recognition in his expression. Not only was it as though he was looking at her as if she was a stranger, it was worse. Much worse – it was as if there was a stranger looking out from his eyes. A stranger with an alien, empty changeling’s gaze. The gaze of a lost soul, fixed on her.
It was only for a blink of an instant, for now Helen looked at Alexey’s face and saw his eyes were closed. Was she going mad or had she just dreamed what happened? There was a roaring in her ears. A griping pain at her heart, like a hand squeezing, squeezing, harder, harder, an iron band across her chest. She could hardly breathe. Her mind was filled with black mist. For a moment that felt like forever but was actually less than a second, she grasped the full fearsome meaning of Irina’s power – how it was her target’s own psychic energy she used against them, magnified by her own – seeing the deepest dread in their mind and ricocheting it against them, so the shock of it squeezed their heart till the pressure was unbearable, and then –
And then, Helen felt the iron band relaxing, the hand losing its grip, the black mist disappearing. And just like the other day, it was as though a livid flash of lightning had lit up the truth in her mind. She knew whose unquiet, sorcerous spirit reached out to her so fiercely, so desperately through time and space and death to show her the truth. She knew who the terrifying visitation was last night. A lost soul … A lost soul …
It was the wild card no one could possibly have expected, and instinctively she knew it changed everything. She said, very clearly, “You have made a terrible mistake. Alexey doesn’t have a drop of Pyotr Makarov’s blood.”
But Irina laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “You really think something as feeble as this is going to change my –”
“Listen to me. He doesn’t have a drop of Pyotr’s blood because he is not related to him. And not to Pyotr’s wife, either. Because he is the grandson of Mikhail Makarov.”
“What is this nonsense? Mikhail was Pyotr’s son.”
“Not by birth. By adoption.”
“Lies. There’s no record of any such thing.”
“Of course there wouldn’t be. Pyotr would keep it very quiet, wouldn’t he? Or it might come out that he’d not done his duty, after all. That he’d not killed all those children. That he’d saved one of them, the most beautiful one, for the sake of his childless wife who so longed for a baby of her very own.”
“No – no ...”
“Mikhail was the bear’s son.” She thought of the lonely figure in the dream-woods, of the bear in the night, of Olga Feshina’s vision. She said, “He was the Karelian child. He was Baby K.”
Irina had whitened. “No – it’s not possible.”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Helen’s heart was thumping wildly. Not because of what she was saying, the words were flowing from her like she’d always known them. But because Alexey’s eyes were open – really open this time – and he was looking at her – and seeing her, really seeing her – and in his eyes there was such a depth of love that she knew at once everything Irina claimed about his “deepest truth” was a lie. It was as if new strength was rising in her, she knew the tide was turning at last, they were winning.
“It’s ironic,” she repeated, “because you could say Mikhail grew up to make Anton’s dreams come true. He became the creature of his vision. How proud Anton would have been of him! Other people would have seen a monster – but Anton would have seen that Mikhail was a true shapeshifter, who could put himself in anyone’s skin and look out from anyone’s eyes, and know what drove them, and how to break them. A man truly beyond human, of immense service to the Soviet state.”
Irina whispered, “You can’t know this ... you can’t ...” Her eyes were bleak holes in a death’s head of a face, the knife had dropped from Alexey’s throat, she was trembling. She didn’t even know he was awake, she didn’t see anything beyond the disordered visions in her own mind – everything she thought she knew turned upside-down, everything shattered in the beginnings of a terrible understanding, of a coming, catastrophic defeat.
“Are you willing to take the risk I don’t?” Helen was moving closer. “To become what you most hate, the final destroyer of Anton’s vision?” Another step. One, two more and she’d be there. “It’s over. You must see that.”
But suddenly Irina’s eyes widened and she gave a howl of anguish and reared up, the knife gripped desperately in her hand. She pushed Alexey aside and came at Helen, and she was too close to duck or dodge, she could only throw up one arm in an attempt to protect herself and then it was as if she’d been punched in the forearm, only there was blood there and she knew she’d been stabbed. Irina raised the knife again ...
But Alexey had staggered to his feet and thrown himself at Irina, she swayed but turned snarling on him, the knife in her fist, striking u
p with great force under his ribs. In the next instant the world exploded with noise – yells, screams Helen didn’t even recognize as her own, gunshots. And Irina jerked back and fell without a sound, the back of her head shattered by the bullet, the knife no longer in her hand.
Helen took no notice of the woman’s crumpled body. She crawled to Alexey who was lying on his back with both hands clasped over his left side. His eyes were open but they were shadowed by pain and she saw what he was trying to shield from her – she saw where the knife was – she saw how deep it had gone in – but she couldn’t take in the true meaning of it, not really.
She said, “We have to pull it out we have to –” but she didn’t even know she was speaking, she was on her knees beside him, her head felt light as though it was filled with air. Dimly behind her she heard Volkovsky’s voice. “No, Helen. If you try to pull it out, he will lose too much blood. I have called the ambulance, we must wait till they arrive ...”
She lay by Alexey and took him in her arms so that his head was cradled against her chest but her body was not pressing in any way against his wound. She ignored the pain in her arm, a dull ache though the blood was slowly seeping from it. He was very pale, trembling as though from cold, and she held him tighter, trying to impart as much of her warmth as she could to him.
He whispered, “Helen – I was afraid – that if she knew the real truth – that you are the most important thing in the world to me – she would kill you –”
“I know,” she said, and kissed him. “I know. Don’t speak. Rest, my love.”
“I let her see too much at first – I tried to reach you, to warn you – but it took too much out of me –” His breath was coming hard, he only gasped the words. “All I could do then – make her think she’d got it wrong – that it wasn’t you – oh God, it was so hard, she was so strong – but I did it. But oh how I hated denying you, my love ...”
Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1) Page 33