32
SUMMER IN A RIVER CITY
The windows were open, letting in hot, heavy summer air that was so thick it barely ruffled the curtains. Nikita was sweating inside his clothes; he felt it gathering under his arms, trickling in little rivulets down into the waistband of his pants.
It smelled like summer in a river city outside.
Inside, in their cramped rooms, it felt like a campaign tent on the edge of a warzone.
Nikita had a map of the city unrolled across a table, the corners weighted down with empty vodka bottles. He stared at it, and stared at it…and had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, or thinking. He wasn’t a soldier; he was a paid bully. He had no access to military intelligence.
Not yet.
He finally heaved a deep sigh and glanced up at the faces around him, all of them looking to him for guidance. No thanks to his insistence that he be in fucking charge. What an asshole.
“I got a note a few hours ago,” he said, fishing it from his pocket and laying it on top of the map for the others to see. “The major general here wants us to report in. He’s been in contact with Stalin and he wants to formally integrate us into a special unit.”
Everyone stared at it like it might bite.
Kolya finally picked it up. “We knew this was coming.”
“Yeah,” Nikita said.
“Tomorrow.” Kolya glanced up from the note, gaze cautious. “First thing.”
“All of us?” Feliks asked, with a not-so-subtle glance toward Sasha.
Poor Sasha, still eerily vacant-eyed after yesterday’s debacle. All day they’d meant to take him back to the Institute to fetch his wolves, and it kept getting put off.
Now, he smiled a little, forlorn and small-seeming. “I have to go. I’m the point of all this. Or.” He drew his shoulders up a little closer to his ears, gaze on the table. “Rasputin is, I guess.”
As if on cue, the sound of footfalls coming up the stairs reached them.
“That’ll be them,” Nikita said, and registered grim looks all around.
“You think he killed any of them?” Ivan asked, a note of accusation in his voice.
Nikita gave him a flat glance. “I don’t really care at this point.” But he did. It ate at him, like every other damn thing. It was a miracle he had any stomach lining left.
Philippe entered first, as stiff and composed as always, and in waltzed Rasputin behind him, loose-limbed and well-fucked, reeking of sex and alcohol. He tripped on the edge of the rug and laughed to himself, stumbling to a halt just shy of colliding with Philippe.
“Well don’t you two make a classy picture,” Nikita deadpanned.
Philippe managed a tight, quick smile.
Rasputin threw his arms wide, tilted his head back, and laughed up at the ceiling. “My friends! It’s a beautiful night out there, full of beautiful sights. Why do you hide indoors looking at papers?”
“Because some of us have to plan things,” Nikita said. He noticed the way Sasha ducked his head and pressed into Pyotr’s side, and he wanted to take Rasputin by the collar and throw him back down the stairs.
“Hmph.” The starets executed a sloppy gesture of dismissal and fell into a chair, sprawling rather than sitting, head hanging off the back of it. “Do you know what?”
No one answered him.
He went on, unperturbed. “All the great men of history had plans. And look at them. They’re all dead.” He barked a laugh. “It’s better to have faith than plans. God is one thing we can truly rely on. His divine intervention. His grace. His forgiveness.”
“And you need a lot of his forgiveness, huh?” Feliks asked.
Rasputin either didn’t hear him, or ignored him. “Something tells me, captain, that you haven’t prayed enough. Because your plan isn’t possible. You have no army, no resources, and no special powers yourself.”
Nikita clenched his teeth to keep from fidgeting. It was the same thought he had at least once a day, but when he voiced it, his friends – his pack – always told him that it could be done. That they believed in him. They were kind liars, in that respect.
“What you need,” Rasputin said, “is a miracle. As a performer of miracles myself.” He sat up and twisted around to look at Nikita, eyes blazing in the dim room. “I know a little something about performing them.” He held Nikita’s gaze a long, airless moment, then resumed his sprawl. “You were smart to wake me. It’s maybe the smartest thing you’ve done.”
It was silent a beat.
Then Kolya said, “What miracles?”
Rasputin waved a dismissive hand. “What?”
Kolya stepped away from the table and paced slowly across the rug, his gait the rolling, predatory strut of a big cat. His hair kept growing, shaggy curtains that framed his face now. With his shadow climbing the wall behind him, he looked poised, and sinister.
Not that Rasputin cared.
“What miracles have you performed?” he asked, drawing up to Rasputin’s chair. “Because I think you’re just bragging.”
“Officer Dyomin–” Philippe started.
“Shut up,” Nikita said.
Rasputin grinned, the kind of lazy, uncoordinated smile that spoke of drinking and fucking. It was a terrible expression on his bearded face, flashing his long yellow teeth. “Don’t the Soviets teach about the empire in schools? I suppose not. But you’re a White. You must know about the miracles I performed on the tsarevich.”
Nikita wanted to dismiss the claim out of hand, but he’d always harbored a secret fascination about Alexei’s ability to overcome so many hemorrhages.
“My poor dear boy,” Rasputin said, voice going thick with emotion. Nikita had never met anyone so easily overcome by his feelings; he was like a Shakespearian stage actor, weeping one moment and laughing deliriously the next. It was tiresome. “He couldn’t even play with his sisters. One fall, one bruise, and the bleeding would start. His arm or his leg would swell. Bloated with blood that had nowhere to go.” He made an expansive gesture, miming the swelling. “None of the palace surgeons could do anything for him – but I could.” And here he sounded satisfied.
A cold, sick dread washed through Nikita. “You drank from him.”
“Of course I did. Was I supposed to let him suffer? How cruel! I fed from his bruises, took away his pain and swelling. The blood had nowhere to go, you see, his little body would have had to work so hard to reabsorb it. So I fed. Carefully. And then afterward I would open my hand.” He ran a too-long fingernail down the opposite palm. “And feed him a little of my blood. It only took a little to help him. To heal him.”
“Vampire blood has incredible restorative properties,” Philippe explained. And then, doubt creeping in: “Grisha, you didn’t turn the boy, did you?”
“I was trying to. Slowly. He would have been the perfect tsar.” He sighed wistfully.
“But he’s dead,” Kolya said, voice a flat contrast to all of Rasputin’s dreamy reminiscing.
“So was I, for a while,” Rasputin said. “But now I’m awake again. Is that not enough of a miracle for you?”
“You’re a vampire. Apparently, that’s normal.”
Rasputin laughed. “Isn’t the existence of vampires a miracle in itself?”
“Or an abomination.”
“Kolya,” Nikita said. “That’s enough.” He sent his friend an apologetic look, and got a snort in response.
“Monsieur Philippe,” he continued, changing course. “We’re expected in front of the major general first thing tomorrow. Something about a specialized unit.”
Philippe looked almost relieved. “Ah, yes, good. Do you hear that, Grisha? You should get some rest.”
Getting the vampire out of his chair and into the bedroom he’d claimed for himself was an ordeal, but then finally the door was shut and they didn’t have to look at him anymore.
“Now,” Nikita said. “It’s getting late, but we’ve got passes. Let’s go get the wolves.”
Sasha perked up, smiling for the first time all day, and Nikita couldn’t help but smile back.
It took them a few minutes to sort things, but ultimately decided that Nikita would take Sasha and Pyotr back to the Institute to fetch the wolves, which left Ivan, Feliks, and Kolya behind to hold down the fort…and, though he wouldn’t admit it to her for fear of offending, to watch after Katya.
“Be safe,” she said, and kissed him, the kind of quick, affectionate kiss that promised more to come.
Monsieur Philippe pulled him aside once the young ones were already out the door, catching him on the staircase landing. “One request, Captain Baskin, if you please.”
Nikita paused with his hand on the bannister.
The mage produced a small package wrapped in brown paper. “Give this to Dr. Ingraham for me, if you would. I think he’ll be disappointed to see us all leave.”
Nikita took it carefully. “What is it?”
Philippe smiled his kindly old man smile. “A token of thanks for his hospitality.”
~*~
Katya was well-acquainted with exhaustion by this point. Aching muscles and neck spasms and eyes full of grit were daily nuisances at this point. But tonight, as evening bled into a steamy dusk, she found that she wasn’t just tired, but sleepy. Terribly so. She swayed in her chair and only realized her eyes were shut when Kolya spoke to her and she opened them again.
“I might as well play cards by myself if you’re going to do that,” he teased, but she saw real concern behind his smile.
“I’m fine…I just…” She could barely move her mouth to speak she was so sleepy.
“Go get some sleep,” he suggested. “These idiots can keep me company.”
To the sound of grumbled responses from Ivan and Feliks, she yawned, nodded, and got to her feet. She swayed a moment, and had to grab the back of the chair for support.
“Need help?” Kolya asked, half-out of his own chair, hands reaching for her.
She managed a smile. “No. I’m fine.”
Getting into the second bedroom, the one the boys had graciously let her share with Nikita, took a supreme effort. She managed to toe off her boots, and then sank down on top of the covers in her clothes, eyes shut at once.
She slept.
And then she dreamed.
Dreams that were flickers of light, and sensations, a tumble of emotions, but nothing concrete she could stand in and have a look around. They were pleasant, though. She felt warm, and happy, full of a bright, fizzing kind of hope. She felt like someone had pulled her into a loving embrace, soothing hands petting over her hair, and back, and shoulders. Over her hips and down her legs – and then between them. A bold, knowing touch at her sex that sent curls of excitement through her, delicious little shivers.
Nikita, she thought.
But it wasn’t Nikita’s voice that seemed to speak somewhere inside her head. Open yourself to me, it said, a coarse male voice. Familiar. I can please you like he never could.
Yes, she thought.
While a part of her though, Rasputin.
She jolted awake. She lay on her side, just as she’d fallen asleep, but now she was damp all over with sweat. She’d spread her legs, and had a hand between them, touching herself through her heavy wool army trousers. She was wet, pulse throbbing in her sex. Panting into the pillow and wretchedly sensitive. Ready to be fucked.
“Shit,” she murmured, pushing up on one elbow. The room seemed to spin and she groaned as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Ekaterina, that low, rough voice said inside her head again, and she gasped. Open yourself to me. It will be so good for you.
There was a sudden rush of wetness between her legs, a spike of need so intense she gritted her teeth together.
And her stomach rolled so hard she thought she might be sick.
No, she thought wildly. No, no, no.
An image that wasn’t of her own imagining flared to life behind her eyes, two writhing bodies on a rumpled bed.
No, no, no, no, no…
She couldn’t stay here, not in the room right next to him. He was controlling her somehow, and she had to get out.
She staggered to her feet, grasping at the bedstead for support, clothes clinging to her sweaty skin. She felt drunk. Aching, needy, desperate for touch, for relief. And so scared she thought she might swoon. This was twice as terrifying as wrestling with a Nazi intent on killing her, or a Chekist about to rape her; those threats had been external, and this one was coming from inside her.
She stomped into her boots and fled the room. The candles had all been snuffed in the parlor of their suite. The boys were asleep on their pallets, Ivan snoring like a tank engine.
She had reached the doorway when she spotted the dark silhouette at the window. The blackout curtains were drawn, but she could still see him somehow, the shape of his long hair, his narrow, rounded shoulders.
Something inside her tugged, urged her toward him.
She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream and tore away from the invisible grip. No, no, no, she chanted internally, fumbling her way onto the landing. The banister was cool and smooth against her damp palm, and she clung to it. Followed it down, down, around the next landing.
She seemed to run downstairs forever, and then suddenly she hit the bottom, going to her knees on the runner in the first floor hallway.
She stayed there for a long moment, gulping air, fighting the repulsive urge to go back upstairs, to shed her clothes and let that…that creature touch her.
She didn’t notice there was a lamp on in the library until she head the delicate clearing of a throat. Then she startled hard, almost falling on her face, scrambling around to see who was watching her.
It was Monsieur Philippe, and he lifted both hands, palms toward her, to show her he was harmless.
They stared at one another, his gaze shrewd and assessing. He knew, she figured.
But all he said was, “Nightmare, dear?”
Her teeth were chattering. “Y-y-yes.” The worst one of her life.
“You can sit with me for a while if you like,” he offered, and instantly, she felt calmer.
Slowly, she got to her feet. “Yeah. Thanks.”
~*~
Dr. Ingraham was sorry that he wouldn’t get to speak with Philippe or Rasputin again for some time, but seemed more than a little relieved to be rid of the wolves. “They keep howling,” he lamented, watching as Sasha knelt among them and they swarmed over him, yipping and panting and smiling with all their teeth showing.
Nikita handed over Philippe’s gift, shook the doctor’s clammy hand, and was glad to be off.
The wolves seemed happy enough to ride in the wide-open back of the lorry, and the humans sat three-across in the cab, Sasha in the middle.
Sasha had become more and more animated the farther away they drew from the city, and by the time they started back, he was his old chatty self.
“Do you think our landlady will mind too much about the wolves?” he asked, voice ringing with boyish excitement.
“If she does, I figure the old man or khlyst can enchant her or whatever it is they do,” Nikita said, and immediately wanted to kick himself when he saw Sasha’s face fall in the glow of the dash lights. “Not that they’ll need to,” he rushed to add. “She seems a reasonable sort.”
“And they’re basically tame now,” Pyotr said, catching on to Sasha’s sudden shift in mood. “They’re amazing. Who could turn away a tame wolf?”
“We’ll tell her they’re special, military-trained guard wolves, keeping her house safe,” Nikita said, nudging Sasha with his elbow.
“Hmm.” Sasha breathed one soft, humorless laugh. “Yeah.”
It was time for a new topic, and fast.
Pyotr to the rescue again. “Do you think I could borrow one? Just for a little while, to impress some of the local girls?”
That startled a genuine laugh out of Sasha, and then the boys settled back into a real conversation, Sasha in light spirits again.
Nikita studied the road ahead and went slow, to keep from jostling the wolves in back, and because he had to, the road illuminated only by the full moon. It was lights-out across the Eastern Front; no one wanted to create a target in case the ever-present threat of German planes finally descended upon them. Tomorrow would bring more duties, more higher-ups to impress, more lies to tell, but for now, he enjoyed a quiet, dark road, and the happy sounds of the young ones talking about unimportant things.
Sasha withdrew into himself again, though, once they reached the city limits, and by the time they were parked in the alley behind the house, he’d gone stiff and silent.
“Sasha.” Nikita shook his shoulder lightly. “Come on inside.”
“Okay,” the boy said, blank-faced and passive.
Nikita shared a worried look with Pyotr, but there wasn’t much they could do…short of driving a stake through Rasputin’s heart.
If that even worked. He was fast learning that all the myths from legends were just that – myths.
The landlady – who Nikita suspected had indeed been magicked, probably by Philippe – had given him a key and said she’d be in bed at eight sharp every night. So when he let them in, he was surprised to see the dim glow of a single oil lamp burning in the room they all referred to as the library, its shelves full of dusty Soviet-approved books no one would have ever wanted to read.
He was flat-out shocked when he saw Katya and Philippe sitting across from one another in a pair of matching, tattered wingback chairs.
Katya was still dressed, unlaced boots lined up on the floor, sitting stiff and prim, staring at a spot on the wall, hands twisted together in her lap.
Nikita was on instant alert. “Katya? What’s wrong?”
When she didn’t respond, he went down on his knees beside the chair. There wasn’t much light, just the single flickering lamp, but there was enough to see that her eyes were dilated.
“I think I’ll take the young ones up and leave you to it,” Philippe said helpfully, getting to his feet with a pop from each knee.
Nikita twisted around. “What’s wrong with her?” She still hadn’t responded, sitting passive beneath his gaze, his touch.
Philippe looked at her a long moment, something like sympathy in his eyes. “I would recommend staying here after we leave, at least for a little while. She’ll need your company, I think, captain.”
“What are you talking about?”
But Philippe didn’t answer. He herded the boys upstairs and left them alone.
The second he was out of sight, Katya slumped forward with a low, pained-sounding groan.
Nikita caught her by the shoulders. “Sweetheart. What is it?”
Her hair was down, and it fell around her face, shielding her. He got the impression she was trying to hide in it. She was trembling all over, shaking under his hands.
He gripped her tighter. “Did he do this to you? Philippe, has he–”
“No,” she gasped, lifting her face, and again he was struck by the size of her pupils. The rosy blush high along her cheekbones. The way her bottom lip was wet and pink, swollen, like she’d been chewing on it. She looked…
“Katya,” he said, and this time he wasn’t just angry, but afraid, too. Afraid of what she might tell him.
Her voice came out low and throaty. The voice she used right in his ear when he was inside her. “I had a dream, and when I woke up, I was – God, Nik, I know how he does it. Rasputin. With the women. He makes them want it.”
Cold terror washed through him. “Jesus. Did he touch you? Did he - ? I’ll kill him, I swear–” He started to stand, and she grabbed his shirtfront and pulled him back, nearly on top of her. He had to grab at the arms of the chair to keep from falling.
“He didn’t – it was only in my mind, he – I ran down here, and.” She was panting. “Philippe helped keep me calm. But.” Her nails felt sharp even through the shirt, trying to bite into his skin. “Nik, I’m scared.” Her voice wavered. Tears filled her eyes.
He tried for a moment, poised over her, not to be jealous. Jealous of a damn vampire. He really tried. But he knew he sounded jealous – and scared, and furious – when he said, “You want him?”
She made a frustrated sound. “No. He made me want. In general. And I want you.”
“Damn him.”
“Nik. He’s inside my head. Fuck me so I don’t have to think about him. Please.”
He couldn’t be in your head if I put a bullet in his, he thought. But she was reeling, and clinging to him. And vulnerable. And she was asking him.
“Yeah, baby.” He cupped her face in both hands, thumbed away the tear tracks on her cheeks. “Okay, yeah.”
She grabbed him by the back of the neck and tugged his head down. The kiss was a collision. Bruising, teeth crashing together. She made a hungry sound against his mouth and he was lost to it.
He knew they should have tried to find a bed, a solid door to hide behind, some scrap of privacy. But she bit his lip and he tasted blood, and all worry faded. She wanted him, needed him, and she could have him. He wouldn’t ever refuse her.
She tackled him to the rug, assaulting him with kisses. They tore at their clothes, awkward and gasping. Katya bit at his throat, raked her nails down his chest. When he got her pants off, he found her hot, and swollen and dripping wet between her legs.
He rolled them, braced above her, and she was chanting “please, please” when he sank inside her without any preamble.
No foreplay, no grace. Just desperate fucking on the carpet.
Her need was infectious. He left hand-shaped bruises on her hips, sucked love bites into her neck, and the whole time she asked for “more,” scoring his back and shoulders with her nails.
The sound of their ragged breathing echoed off the bookshelves. Faster, faster, faster –
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think when he came. A sweeping tide of sensation that left him hollow and weak as a kitten.
He must have rolled off of her, because when awareness returned he was on his back, staring up at the ceiling, her sweat-damp face pressed into his throat.
She sniffled, and he realized she was crying.
He lifted one heavy hand and cupped the back of her head, pulled her in tight to his side. “God, did I hurt you?”
“No,” she said, and choked back a tiny, pained cry.
Nikita shifted onto his side and gathered her close in both arms, trying to catch her eye. She stared at his chest, her hand splayed over his heart. There was blood under her nails.
“Katya.”
“You didn’t hurt me. You did exactly what I wanted you to.” She lifted her other hand and dashed at her eyes. “Nik, I’m sorry. He – he–”
“Shh, no. I’m sorry.” When she tucked her face into his throat, he stroked her hair, the trembling line of her shoulder. He didn’t know how to comfort her, and he felt helpless. Helpless, and, as always now, guilty. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “If I hadn’t asked you to come with us, you wouldn’t be here now. With him.”
“You stupid man,” she said with a deep, watery sigh. “I’m upset. He made me want him. So yes, I’m upset. But I love you, you idiot. You didn’t really think I was going to let you go off and try to save Russia without me, did you?”
He wanted to cry, but he wanted to smile, too, so that’s what he did. “I’m still sorry,” he murmured.
“Stop thinking you can control everything. You can’t.”
They lay there a moment, sweat cooling, little chills creeping over them.
“How are you feeling?” he finally asked.
“Can we go for a walk?”
“Absolutely.”
They got up slowly, wincing, realized just how badly they’d savaged one another in their passion. Their clothes were sticky with dried sweat, but they pulled them on anyway and slipped out the back door, into a muggy night that smelled of river water, and a day’s worth of lingering smoke from the tractor factory.
They walked slowly down the alley, toward the main road. Nikita thought maybe they should have been worried about being set upon, but he knew they’d left the scariest thing in this whole city behind in the house. He took Katya’s hand and she laced their fingers together. He traced the gun calluses on her palm with his thumb.
In that shivery post-coital state after a good orgasm, tired, sick of all the talk of war and plans and monsters, he didn’t stop to question the words that built on his tongue. He let them out. “Will you marry me?”
She barked a surprised laugh and knocked their shoulders together. “Where would we find a priest to marry us?” she asked, like she thought he was teasing.
He halted, and their linked hands forced her to also. “I’m serious.”
She studied his face in the full moon a moment, expression going from amused, to confused, to dumbfounded. “Nik…”
“But maybe you don’t want to.”
“No! No, I do. It’s just.” She squeezed his hand. “When?”
He hadn’t thought this through. At all. He shrugged. “We can say I do now, and make it official later. After.”
After the war.
After this nightmare was over.
She grabbed his other hand with hers, a slow smile dawning. “Alright.”
“Alright?”
“I do.”
His heart leapt. “I do, too.”
~*~
It was almost midnight, and Dr. Ingraham’s vision was blurry. He sighed and sat back in his chair, massaging his tired eyes. He was working himself to exhaustion every day, clumsy with fatigue each morning, drinking unsugared tea cup after cup until he nearly gagged on the stuff. But there was just so much research to conduct. He’d never dreamed, back in the early days of his thesis, when his classmates were laughing him out of every toom, that he’d have an opportunity like this one. A mage, and wolf, and a vampire. The vampire Rasputin.
He was giddy at all times. It was the thing that kept him drinking gross tea and pushing past the eye strain. The keys to human immune system response and longevity were locked in these creatures’ blood; all he had to do was find a way to use them.
He rubbed his eyes until he saw starbursts behind his lids, then put his hands in his lap and opened his eyes. Light spots danced across his office a long moment. When they cleared, his gaze landed on the paper-wrapped package Philippe had sent.
“Oh,” he said, excited all over again. He’d been crushed to learn that he wouldn’t be able to examine them again for a while, but the gift had softened the blow.
He grabbed it up and fumbled the paper away, breathing rapidly through his mouth. He felt like he had as a boy at Christmas time, tearing into presents under the tree with his brothers.
Inside the wrapping he found a small stoppered vial of dark liquid – blood! – and a note written in Monsieur Philippe’s graceful hand, in English.
Dear Dr. Ingraham,
Our strange band of misfits has arrived safely in Stalingrad proper and we’re settling into our rooms. It’s a shame your facility isn’t here so that, for one, you could enjoy a relatively clean, unscathed city, and for two, so that we might see one another again. But, I think you well know by now that we won’t speak again for some time.
Given that, I think it only fair that I finally answer your question. When I told you about our plans to wake Rasputin, you asked, me, “What will a Russia led by Rasputin look like? He was an advisor to the tsar, but not a tsar himself.”
Yes, this is true. He has no ability to lead and would make a most terrible tsar. The truth of the matter is, there’s no hope for the empire. It’s been dead a long time and will stay dead.
The Russian empire, anyway.
Russia is merely a stepping stone for a global movement I wish to initiate. You see, I’m afraid I’m quite ambitious. If, through virtue of being a mage, I’m to be the left hand of a powerful being, I wish to belong to the MOST powerful being. That would be a very ancient lord who slumbers still. Rasputin is to play an integral part in my campaign to wake him – I need the help of a powerful and persuasive vampire, you see.
The time of human rule is at an end. As it should be.
Enclosed you will find a vial of my own blood.
Handle it carefully.
Best wishes,
Your Friend Philippe
Dr. Ingraham read the letter a second and third time, uncomprehending.
“What?” he said aloud.
The paper burst into flame.
“Ah!” Ingraham dropped it to his desk, but not before it singed his fingers. It landed on his blotter and curled up like an autumn leaf, the fire snuffing out almost as soon as it started, the letter crumbling to black ash. “What–”
The little vial of blood started to vibrate. Hard. It rattled against the desk. Jumped and shook. And it…yes, the contents seemed brighter. Like there was a light inside the tiny bottle. A light growing brighter, paler, expanding. It –
It shattered with a terrible booming sound, and the whole office was on fire.
Oh God, I’m burning alive, Dr. Ingraham thought, and he was.