After Yekaterina

by K. L. Abrahamson

  One hand was curled close to her chin like a child. Framed by her mane of dark hair, her face held a radiant peace the likes of which he’d never seen. Annushka had always slept with arms and legs flailing, just as she lived her life.

  Sighing at the thought of another night on the floor, he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the peg. He sat down to pull off his boots and then checked the fire, added a log, and straightened. It was while he was wolfing down the cold remains of the delicious beef and potatoes that he realized Maria’s eyes were open. So were Koshka’s. Both sets seemed to study him.

  “Thanks for the food,” he said around another forkful.

  Maria pushed up on one elbow. “So? Have you found out anything?”

  He shrugged and shifted the extra blankets and pillow, which had spent the day in a folded pile on the couch, onto the floor next to the now-ticking woodstove. By the rumble in the chimney, the fire was building in heat. Soon the dacha would be warm and he might stand a chance at sleep.

  “I found this.” He patted the machine he’d placed on his desk.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Damned if I know. A data machine of some kind. I believe Collin Archer had hidden it at the stable where he kept his polo ponies.”

  She sat up farther. “What does it say?”

  He shrugged again. “All the answers to all the questions that have plagued mankind—or nothing at all. I’ve no idea.”

  He hung his holster and weapon off the back of a chair and shucked his shirt and trousers before using the water closet. Then he washed his face in the sink and went to climb between the blankets.

  “Don’t!” In a flash Maria was off the bed and beside him. She caught his wrist and looked up at him. “You’ve had a very long day. You need your bed.”

  She stood too close, her sleep-warmed lavender scent flooding him, her skin golden in the lantern light.

  “I—I will sleep on the couch,” she continued. “It is fine. Definitely long enough for me.”

  She released his arm and scooped up the blankets before smoothing them into a bed on the couch. She plopped down and slid her legs beneath the coverings. “See? It is long enough.” She had to curl her legs up tightly to fit.

  “Get up,” he said. There was no way he would sleep in the bed and leave her contorted on the couch. That wasn’t the way he’d been raised.

  She burrowed into the blankets until he caught her wrist and dragged her up. She staggered against him and he caught her shoulders to steady her.

  Soft—her skin would be soft. He could tell even through the old t-shirt. The flickering lantern light placed a mist in her eyes as she met his gaze. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

  Sweet and soft and filled with longing. When she pulled away she laid her head on his chest. “When you did not come back for so long, I was worried that something had happened to you.”

  His hands came around her back almost as if they belonged to a separate person. Her waist was so trim. Her body warm in his arms. He rested his chin on the top of her head and wondered what he was doing. Blood stirred in his limbs. It was a long time since he had felt like this—alive. Potent.

  “I need to sleep,” he said, but led her to the bed. She climbed in and, after dousing the lantern, he climbed in beside her, pulling her in close. The scent and texture of another living being suddenly important.

  She did not try to turn their arrangement into a sexual encounter. She simply curled into him, as if she’d understood something from the night before.

  He fell asleep almost immediately and was lost in a lavender-scented forest where a chicken-legged house danced in a circle and a wicked, misshapen crone laughed and laughed.

  He woke to the dacha ticking around him. It was still dark outside and by the hush in the air, more snow was falling. He sat up. Something had woken him beyond evil dreams. He slid out of bed to Maria’s protesting murmurs and went to the door. Pulled it slightly open and cold air froze his face. Snow sifted in over his bare feet. It was the predawn darkness, the deepest of the night when the whole world seemed to gather itself in preparation for the leap into day. Usually this far out from the city there was absolute quiet, but the throaty rumble of at least two approaching vehicle engines broke the stillness.

  He closed the door and turned back to the bed. “Get up. You have two minutes to get up and dressed. Move!”

  He pulled on his shirt and trousers, a handmade sweater of thick brown wool Annushka had bought for him years before, and his shoulder holster. Then he pulled on his coat and his old fur hat.

  Maria gazed confusedly up at him from the bed. Sleep still half held her.

  He grabbed her and hauled her out of the covers. “There are people coming for us just as they came for Collin. Don’t ask me how I know. Now get dressed.”

  He’d been a damned fool bringing the machine here. Someone at the stable had reported that he was there. Someone had reported he had removed something. Charlotte Newcombe? Richard Spencer? But Spencer had all but handed him the data machine. And they were Anglo-German. Why would they come after him? He needed time to think. Time to assess everything he had learned, but events seemed to conspire against him.

  Maria was up and had her stout trousers and shirt pulled on. She pulled on her coat while he thrust his feet into his boots and tossed hers to her. Yanking open the door and carrying the data machine, he hauled her out into the night and stopped. The engines were closer. Almost to his lane. Dragging Maria behind him he set off for the lane, following the Perseus’s tire prints.

  He just had to pray that the enemy would drive up the lane and make it harder to follow their tracks. In the darkness, it was just possible he and Maria might get away.

  They were halfway down the lane when vehicle engines slowed. His eyes had adjusted to the snow and the night and he could now see shapes and contours. He floundered through snow off of the lane and into the forest and down the hill. Maria came after him. “Who are they?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why are they here?”

  “For you. For me. For us both. They want to tie up loose ends.”

  By the sound, the vehicles had turned into the laneway. If he was lucky they’d drive right to the house and make his and Maria’s tracks less clear.

  Whoever these people were, he’d bet that they wanted to get in, get the job done, and get out. They wouldn’t like having to search. If he and Maria could stay disappeared, they might be safe.

  A glance over his shoulder showed something shiny moving through the trees, though there were no headlights. He waited a moment but a second vehicle didn’t pass up the driveway.They were going for the house but they had stationed one vehicle at his driveway entrance to block escape that way.

  He turned back to his trail and waded through the snow, making a path for Maria. If the men searched, they’d find his and Maria’s trail. And then they would come for them.

  He stopped and pulled Maria in close. “Listen. I have to stop them from finding our trail. Straight through the woods that way,” he pointed. “There is another dacha. It is owned by an old woman who lives there. Her name is Agafya Ryabkov and she is a loner and suspicious. I bring her groceries. Go to her house and explain. She will, hopefully, take you in. Stay there until I come for you.”

  Her eyes caught whatever light there was as she peered up at him. “I’m sorry. I’ve brought you only trouble since I’ve known you.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You’ve brought me—I don’t know what—but I feel—” Like what? A foolish old man? Like he had found an inkling of life again? “I feel like you’ve shaken me out of a long bleak winter.” He caught her shoulders and leaned down to kiss her. Sweet lips again and he realized he was hungry for kisses and so much more. Annushka was the past. Maria might hold the future.

  He pulled back and, praying he wasn’t placing her in more danger, handed her the data machine. He pointed again. “That way. Go. I will try to stop them.”r />
  She looked as if about to protest, but he shoved her in the right direction and then headed uphill, circling back toward the dacha.

  Chapter 11

  The snow thankfully was only part way up his shins in most places and closer in around the trees there was even less. Snow still sifted softly down and masked all sounds. The air smelled of ice and pine pitch as he slid through the night shadows to come at his dacha from the rear.

  They must have arrived by now. Perhaps they’d even discovered that their quarry was gone. If they’d found his and Maria’s trail, the two of them were doomed. Down slope, through the trees, he made out the greater light of the clearing and the dark bulk of his home. Flashes of light against the snow said that someone or someones were searching the area. So they’d been inside and realized they were too late.

  From inside the dacha came a crash as if someone else was relieving their frustration. A snarling yowl expressed Koshka’s opinion. Hopefully the little black cat would get away.

  A door slammed and voices reached him through the trees. The flickering lights of four flashlights fanned out from the house. They’d seen the Perseus. They knew he and Maria were on the run, and on foot.

  Four against one. Not great, but they would be blinded by their lights and he—was not. That had to be worth something. That and the fact they had yet to discover his and Maria’s trail. He hoped.

  Loosing his weapon in his holster, he slid closer to the clearing as the men struggled through the deeper snow in the open. Their breath made huge clouds as they puffed through drifts.

  The closest man’s flashlight tracked back and forth across the snow. Kazakov stayed immobile in a stand of trees and let the man blunder closer. He was tall and lean and by his stance, experienced with weapons. He gripped a pistol in the hand not holding the flashlight. The tracker entered the trees and came even with Kazakov’s hiding place but still didn’t see him. Then his flashlight found the deep trench of Kazakov’s footprints. He stopped, inspecting the trail, and Kazakov stepped out from the trees. The man had time to look up as Kazakov clocked him on the temple with his pistol. He went down, heavily and hard, and Kazakov relieved him of his weapon.

  Three to one. Better odds, but still not good.

  He used the man’s belt to bind his hands to a tree, checked his face with the flashlight, and stopped. Sergei Alenin from the squad. What the hell?

  Kazakov flicked off the light and looked back at the cabin. Was Rostoff there? It was almost a sure thing that Antonov, Alenin’s partner, was. He thought of Antonov’s suggestion that Kazakov should change and felt sick to his stomach.

  The fact it was Kazakov’s brother officers meant so many things that he could not fathom. Right now, all he could concern himself with was living through the night. He straightened and set off following another bobbing light.

  This one was down lower, on the north side of the dacha. Kazakov wallowed through the snow, trying to stay silent, but he found himself puffing, his breath great gouts of steam. He had to be careful. If it was Antonov, the burly detective was powerful—a man you wanted at your back in a fight. He was also deadly accurate with his weapon, scoring top of the heap in their annual weapons qualifying. Incapacitating Antonov’s partner would only make him angry, but surely Antonov and Kazakov’s history together had to mean something. If Antonov was his enemy, would he have tried to warn Kazakov off at the office?

  A lesser man might not—but Antonov—he would try to do the right thing first.

  Kazakov eased carefully through the trees. Their branches were heavy with snow. If he knocked one, the snow would cascade down, alerting the searcher to his presence.

  The man was searching the snow along the tree line, but just as Kazakov came even with him, he straightened. “Sergei! I don’t think they came this way. I’m not finding any sign.”

  Antonov. Kazakov held his breath. The detective’s voice carried, his short, hulking form visible through the trees.

  “Sergei?”

  Antonov turned uphill, in the direction Kazakov had come. “Sergei!”

  He stopped and listened, then swore under his breath. His hand snaked inside his coat and came out armed with a pistol. Then he turned and cautiously followed the tree edge around the dacha. He’d find his friend’s tracks soon enough and now he was on watch. That would make Kazakov’s task more difficult.

  Kazakov turned back the way he’d come, following his path back through the snow and praying he could beat Antonov back to Alenin’s body. But the snow was still heavy and now he was going uphill and his path was longer than Antonov’s because it wound back through the trees.

  The bobbing flashlight Kazakov had been tracking suddenly dropped to the ground. Although there was no outcry—Antonov was far to cagey to alert an adversary to his whereabouts—Kazakov knew that he had lost the race.

  He crept forward. By the glow, Antonov had set the flashlight down in the snow and was on his knees examining his partner. If he was doing that, there was a good chance that he had holstered his weapon. From behind, and with an element of surprise and his greater height, Kazakov could probably take him. Silence was certainly better than using his weapon; the gunshot would bring everyone running.

  One step forward. Another. Kazakov edged behind Antonov as he checked Alenin’s pulse and released his bonds.

  Bent under branches, Kazakov gathered himself to leap. The snow shifted under him, sending him sideways against a branch. The frozen tree limb cracked like a gunshot.

  Kazakov threw himself. Antonov leapt up, whirled, fumbling for his weapon.

  Kazakov slammed into Antonov’s side, grabbing for the pistol. It went off and the sound burned a hole in the silence. Something hot slammed through his side, stealing his breath and his limbs went weak.

  The pistol swung toward him again. He slammed his fist into Antonov’s face. The pistol wavered and he grabbed its hot metal. Grabbed Antonov’s thick gun hand, jerked and twisted, and felt-heard something break. Antonov roared.

  Tearing the pistol from Antonov’s hand, Kazakov tossed it away. He slammed his fist into Antonov’s face again. Again. Again. Antonov slumped under him and went still. Panting, Kazakov stood over him.

  Shouts came from downhill. Two flashlights bobbed up the lane. Kazakov stepped free of Antonov’s body, turned, and ran.

  Into the trees, his breath burning his lungs and something burning his side. The night was very cold and he knew he needed help but there was none to be had. They’d mount a search for him, so he had to keep going. It would work in his favor, actually. It would lure them away from Maria and Agafya Ryabkov’s dacha. He headed farther uphill toward the mountains.

  It was the pain that finally stopped him—that and the now knee-deep snow. He doubled over beside a tree where a large eagle owl sat in a crook of a branch. The bird took flight silently as he tried to listen to the pursuit over his ragged gasps for breath. Night was lifting its dark wings from the sky, leaving only the feathers of darkness under the trees.

  His breath steamed around him. Steam came off his side and a crust of frozen red had formed down the side of his coat. He unbuttoned the coat to inspect the damage and inhaled the reek of iron.

  Blood and sweat soaked his sweater and the top of his trousers. When he shifted, more blood seeped out of a deep hole in his side. His shirt and sweater were packed into it. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it other than seek help.

  Or get caught. He legs felt weak enough that he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep going.

  His breath slowed and he focused on listening. The wind rustled in the tree tops and sent snow sliding and thumping down from branches. Above him the eagle owl cried, but otherwise there was only the sound of his heartbeat and of blood pounding in his ears.

  In this silence, he would hear any pursuers’ voices. Had they actually given up? Not particularly efficient of them.

  But then maybe they thought he’d die out of here of his wounds. Or maybe they ha
dn’t come for him...

  Maria.

  Swearing, he started down the hill, following his blood-spotted trail back the way he’d come. The breeze picked up, sifting snow off the trees down over his head and shoulders, freezing his face and dusting his clothing. He finally reached the spot where the pursuit had apparently stopped. Three men had been here, by the different treads on the boots. Most likely two who he had seen around the dacha and another from the second vehicle. They had either decided he wasn’t worth the effort to pursue further or something had drawn them back.

  And if there had been four men in the first vehicle, he doubted that there was only one in the second.

  He reached the dacha when it was still early morning.The weak winter sun angled across the snow revealing the pattern of many footprints. There were no strange vehicles present and no sign of his attackers. The Perseus was still there, but someone had stabbed both front tires. It wasn’t going anywhere soon.

  There was no smoke from the dacha’s chimney, but that didn’t mean no one was waiting. Carefully, he approached from the rear past the Perseus. There were no windows here for anyone to see him. Close by the walls he stopped to listen, but there were none of the soft thumps and bumps that came with footfall in the dacha. Perhaps it was uninhabited, or perhaps whoever waited was perfectly quiet. It was possible, if an unusual skill.

  From the rear of the house he skirted down the side to one of the windows that flanked the front door. He eased up on the first step and leaned up to peer through the window corner—pulled back.

  From what he could see, no one was there. He pulled out his pistol and peered around the clearing. If someone was here, surely they would have finished him off by now. He crept up the stairs and yanked open the door. Then sidestepped inside to keep his profile small. No one was there.

  The place had been tossed, all his evidence torn from the wall. The photocopy of Yekaterina lay on the floor beneath the woodstove. He had to believe the rest of his evidence was burned. From the darkness under the bed came a plaintive mew and Koshka pushed a black nose out to him.