8
EVERY HUNTER WORTH HIS SALT
Nikita’s mother was beautiful. Everyone said so. She was the source of his gray eyes, and his straight, regal nose. She used to wear her coppery-brown hair caught up at the back of her head, and by the end of the day, when it was dark and she finally let herself into the apartment, limp strands had fallen down to frame her face. She always smelled of furniture polish, and strong soap…and of a stranger’s cologne. Some nights there was a button missing from her dress, a torn sleeve, a frayed seam. She would sit under a flickering lamp, bent nearly double, straining to see, and mend her dresses with great care.
He’d never known his father – a factory worker turned soldier who’d been killed by a brick to the head in a street riot. But his mother was a loving, endlessly patient presence in his youth. She kissed his forehead every night before bed, her lips velvet-soft, her breath faintly sour from a rotting back tooth. “Sleep well, my little prince,” she would murmur, with love in her eyes.
He was eleven the night she gave him the bell. Small enough to fold it into his little hand; it was warm from her skin. “Do you know who this belonged to?” she asked, voice strangely urgent. And she told him.
His mother was beautiful. Everyone said so. And no one suspected what she really was underneath.
He had that in common with her.
Sasha tried not to fall asleep, fighting his increasingly-heavy eyelids for long moments. But exhaustion finally won out and his head tipped sideways against the window. His breathing settled into something deep and regular, a rhythm that soothed some of the anxiety racing under Nikita’s skin.
He could seek out the company of his men, but he stayed, content for the moment in the quiet. The train swayed gently and he felt his own eyelids growing weighty, his blinks irregular and farther apart.
The problem, he reflected – well, one of them, anyway – was that Dmitri had been long-legged and blond, too. He’d been broader – he’d had a soldier’s physique – and his eyes had been brown instead of pale blue. His jaw had been squarer and his nose crooked from two different breaks. But Nikita saw hints of his dead best friend in Sasha, and it was unsettling. Seeing the fear in the boy’s eyes while he jutted his chin and tried to be brave sent him spinning back in time, when he and Dima had been reckless, stupid, and feigning bravery to get by. Whatever Philippe had planned for the boy, it was likely to end in death – Nikita didn’t want to care by the time that happened. He didn’t want to feel sick inside.
Sicker than he already did.
He touched the utility pouch on his pants leg where he kept the bell, thinking of the promise he’d made his mother. If he didn’t keep it soon, then all the terrible things he’d done couldn’t be justified as a means to an end – they would just belong to the endless list of Soviet atrocities.
“Nik,” Kolya called, soft, and he stood, grateful for the distraction. “Come and look at this.”
He was at the rear of the car, sitting sideways in a seat on the other side of the aisle, breath fogging the window.
“What?”
“Oh.” Distractedly, without looking, he shoved a satchel across the seat toward him. “I nicked this off the old man. Thought you’d like a look.”
Nikita sat down with an agitated huff and pulled the bag into his lap. Inside was a collection of innocuous things: clean shirts, socks, and shorts; scissors; a bag of jerky that smelled of salt and meat; and a book.
He pulled the book out into the light and turned it over in his hands. The cover was leather, worn smooth and shiny from handle, marred with scrapes and scratches. It was closed with a clasp and a latch that required a key to open. The edges of the pages were yellow, tattered. Old. They smelled of dust when Nikita sniffed at them. He couldn’t find any script, not even along the cracked spine.
“Hmm,” he said, and put it back in the satchel. “What would I want with an old man’s diary?”
Again without looking, Kolya pulled a lockpick from his pocket. “You could open it.”
There was that.
The lockpick wouldn’t work, though.
“Here, let me do it,” Kolya said, impatient in a way that left Nikita biting back a grin. Kolya was loyal and deferential…up to a point. When he knew better than someone, he wasn’t shy about shouldering his way into the situation.
He twisted the pick a dozen different ways, though, tongue pressed into his cheek, and couldn’t spring the lock. “Damn,” he said, giving up. “That should have worked.”
“Maybe he cast a spell on it,” Nikita said, only half-joking.
“Maybe so.”
“What are you looking at out the window?”
Kolya shook himself and handed the book back. “Oh. It was wolves.”
A shiver moved like the drag of a fingertip down Nikita’s spine. “Wolves?”
“Yeah. There.” Kolya pointed.
Belly filling with dread, Nikita sat up and leaned over his friend toward the window, squinting against the brightness of sunlight on snow. There were indeed wolves, an entire pack of them, racing along, keeping pace with the train. Gray, and brown, and white, and black, sleek and elongated, tongues lolling, flying across the snow seemingly without effort.
“Jesus,” he breathed, not sure if it was a curse, or a prayer.
“They must smell the blood on the train,” Kolya reasoned. “From when it ran over those people.”
“They must.”
He remembered Monsieur Philippe’s twinkling look. “Have you ever seen a wolf before, Captain Baskin? This will be educational for you.”
Yes, he imagined it would.
~*~
Sasha went on his first hunt when he was five. When he was big enough and his legs were long enough that he didn’t disappear in snow drifts. He followed along inside his father’s wide footsteps, leaping from bootprint to bootprint, hat slipping down over his eyes. The snow was fresh, loose powder, fat flakes that had come down during the night, and the air was humid with the promise of more. It burned his cheeks and made his nose run, but he felt sweat gathering on his skin beneath his clothes. His ears were toasty beneath the flaps of his hat, as were his fingers inside his mittens. Early morning sunlight fell in bold shafts through the evergreen boughs, dazzling searchlights.
Ahead of him, Papa’s breath steamed overhead like a train engine, curling up into the branches in regular puffs. He stood tall and strong despite the weight of the pack and the rifle.
Sasha was already looking forward to lunch: sausages, sharp yellow cheese, his mother’s soft brown bread. Thermoses of beef broth, keeping warm safely in the pack alongside the ammo and Papa’s knives.
They trekked deep into the forest. Until Sasha’s legs were tired. Until he could no longer turn around and see the outskirts of town. A little thrill of fear went through him – but it was tempered by his father’s presence. The knowledge that Papa would never let anything happen to him.
They finally stopped at the top of a rise, beneath an intricate shelter made of interlacing pine branches. Papa scraped a bowl into the snow and laid out an oiled canvas tarp for them to sit on, checked and re-rechecked the rifle with methodical precision.
“Now we wait,” he said, and they waited.
Sasha was tired from walking, and so it was easy to go still and lean against Papa’s side, listening to the twitter of birds and the soft thump of snow sliding off branches. He fell into a drowsy state of half-awareness, pleasantly buried inside his own thoughts. He wondered how long until lunch. Wondered how long until he was strong enough to handle the kick of the rifle. They’d shot at home, Daddy’s strong chest at his back, his arms supporting the gun for him – but he wanted to hunt for himself. Wanted to feel the weight of the gun and stalk his own prey.
He didn’t know how long they sat there, bodies cooling, the forest unfolding around them like a shy flower that had grown used to their presence, before the stag walked into their line of sight.
He was giant to Sasha’s young eyes, a dead branch caught in his rack that he didn’t seem to notice. He walked slowly, one step at a time, bobbing his head and stretching his neck, testing the air with flared nostrils. Sasha didn’t have to ask if they were downwind of the animal – Papa would never make such an amateur mistake.
Papa dropped his chin to the gun stock, closed one eye; his finger caressed the trigger. Sasha saw his chest expand as he took one last deep breath, and held it.
The stag flung up his head, ears swiveling, and let out an explosive snort through his mouth. It was the only warning they got before the shadows around the trees melted down the slope and revealed themselves as wolves.
“Ah,” Papa said, half-startled, half-pleased.
On the walk back, Papa towed the heavy sled, loaded down with the deer, a wolf carcass slung across his shoulders.
Sasha had to carry the rifle.
They stopped often to rest.
“You never kill the alpha,” Papa said. “You always leave him, so he can guide his pack.” A kernel of wisdom Sasha tucked carefully away for future use.
He still owned the hat they’d made of that wolf pelt; he’d brought it with him on his doomed trip to Stalingrad.
He woke with the taste of winter air in his mouth, the scent of the hunt in his nose. He blinked against sunlight and the dream memories faded into harsh reality. He hadn’t fallen asleep in his own bed under the eaves of the two-story wooden house, but in a train bound for Moscow, the wheels clacking ceaselessly across the rails.
He rubbed the last gritty bits of sleep from his eyes and sat up straighter, taking stock of the situation. He was alone for the moment, but he could hear voices down the aisle. Low murmurs. Laughter.
His stomach growled and he wished he’d eaten his mother’s stew before he left.
He wished he was home.
He wished he’d been brave enough to fight these men rather than let them take him away with them.
But then what? a voice in the back of his mind asked. Ivan would have caved his face in with one punch, and then the others would have killed his parents. At least now, this way, they were safe, no matter what happened to him.
His stomach growled again, more insistent.
Monsieur Philippe had warned him about the men. And the captain had warned him about the old man.
Maybe they’d kill each other and he could slip off.
In any event, he couldn’t very well starve.
With a sigh, he got to his feet and went to investigate.
Everyone save the captain and Monsieur Philippe were crammed into a single compartment, talking and noisily eating.
Sasha paused and hung back, uncertain. He was starving, suddenly, but he didn’t know if they’d...
“Ah,” Ivan said, noticing him. He grinned with his mouth full. “Come here, wolf pup, and eat something. You’re too skinny.”
That settled that, then.
He went to perch sideways on the first seat of the compartment opposite them, feet planted in the aisle, and reached for the food the big man passed to him. A generous heel of bread, wedge of hard cheese, and half a sausage.
Sasha stared at them in his hands a moment, thinking of following Papa through the forest, their lunch packed away in the rucksack.
A lump formed in his throat.
“It’s good,” one of the men – the one with the too-long dark hair and black eyes – said. “You should eat. Before Ivan eats it straight out of your hands.”
“Hey!” Ivan protested.
Sasha chased away thoughts of home and broke off the point of the cheese wedge. Hard and salty. Good, as promised.
~*~
Every hunter worth his salt could read a landscape, so Sasha set out to do just that as he ate and listened to the Chekists. Whatever evil they’d inflicted upon the world, he was stuck with them for the moment, and he wanted to know them. To know a man was to discern his weaknesses.
Also, he was curious.
There was Ivan, yes. And next to him was Feliks, who ate all of his bread, and then all of his cheese, and then all of his sausage. “Best for last,” he explained when Pyotr asked him.
And Pyotr was young, golden-blond, on the small side, sweet-faced. Ivan leaned over and whispered to Sasha that he was “the little brother,” whatever that meant.
Kolya was the spooky one who looked like he could see straight through to your soul.
They were rough and crass, cursing and shoving one another. But there were signs of deep affection, too – in the way Feliks reached to tipped Pyotr’s hat back and flicked him on the end of the nose, grinning. In the way Kolya sliced his cheese in half with a wicked length of knife and tossed it into Ivan’s lap, calling the man a “bottomless pit.”
Even monsters had brothers, Sasha supposed. Warm friendships.
Ivan threw his head back and yelled, “Nikita! Come eat!”
Nikita?
The captain stood up several rows ahead of them. So that was his name: Nikita.
“Not hungry,” he called back in a more reasonable tone.
Kolya snorted. “What did we talk about on the way?”
“Your insubordination?” the captain suggested.
Ivan burst into a loud, braying laugh. “Don’t hurt his feelings,” he told Kolya in a stage whisper. “Not in front of guests.”
“Fuck you,” Kolya shot back, evenly, eyes never leaving the knife he was wiping with a cloth.
The captain sat back down, disappearing from sight.
“Old man!” Ivan shouted. “Do you want food?”
“Monsieur Philippe,” Pyotr corrected.
To Sasha’s surprise, he glanced up and found Kolya watching him, hands moving deftly to polish the knife. In a low voice: “He lets himself get too hungry. It’s not good for him. He passes out sometimes.”
“Oh,” Sasha said, not knowing what else to say.
“He never listens to me.” His brows lifted, expression strangely pointed.
Sasha sucked at his lip and looked down at the remains of his meal in his lap. He’d eaten all of the sausage, too hungry to pass up the fatty meat. But there was bread left, and a chunk of cheese. What was Kolya saying? That he should try to get the man to eat? His captor?
The idea was ludicrous.
And yet.
He stood just as Philippe arrived.
“Young Sasha,” he greeted, beaming. “You look well-rested.”
The old man smiled so much. He shouldn’t fault him for it, but he felt too off-balance to deal with it at the moment.
“Excuse me,” he said, ducking around him and heading toward the front of the car.
The captain was reading, a newspaper open on his lap, eyes tracking quickly across the page.
Sasha eased down into the seat across from him, clearing his throat quietly, politely.
The captain held up a finger. Wait. Read a few moments more and then lifted his head. His gaze moved up and down the length of Sasha before settling on his face. “They’re poor company, I know. A bunch of animals.” But it was said with affection.
Sasha bit his lip, uncertain. Now that he was here, sitting across from him, he felt foolish. Why would he make an overture of kindness to any of these men?
And yet he found himself offering the food out on a flat palm, as if feeding a carrot to a horse.
The captain’s brows went up. “What?”
“Kolya said…” Sasha hated the way his voice came out small and squeaky. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Kolya said you needed to eat. Or else you’d faint.”
The captain shot a dirty look over his shoulder that Kolya of course couldn’t see, muttering to himself. It sounded like asshole to Sasha. “I’m fine,” he groused. But then, softening. “But thank you.”
“I’m not hungry anymore.” Sasha gave his hand a little wave, repeating the offer.
The captain frowned. “You’re young and thin. You should eat.”
“I can’t eat anymore. Please.”
The captain – Nikita, Sasha reminded himself – cocked his head, frown becoming thoughtful. “Nervous stomach?”
“A little.”
A beat passed. Then Nikita – it was easier to think of him by his name, to know he was a man and not a weapon – leaned forward and took the bit of bread from Sasha’s palm, the tips of his fingers smooth and hard with old calluses. He nodded his thanks and broke it in half, took a tentative bite with a wince. Like a man eating through a wave of sickness, Sasha thought, as opposed to the other men’s enthusiastic chomping.
He took another bite and gestured toward the paper he’d set aside on the seat. “Have you seen? They’re saying the Germans are on the run.”
Sasha shook his head, glad for the hair that fell in his eyes, wishing it was longer to cover the blush he felt coming up in his cheeks. “I don’t really keep up with the news,” he admitted.
“I didn’t think so. Well.” Another bite of bread, this one seeming easier. He leaned back in the seat and folded his free arm across his middle. “You heard about Moscow?”
Vaguely. The news had come on the train, two days late and doubtless contorted from numerous tellings. “You beat them back?” Sasha asked.
Another nod. “Not me, no, but the Red Army. Yeah. It was a long, bloody battle, but the Germans had to retreat. And now the papers are all full of headlines about how the Nazis are on the run.”
Sasha watched him, waiting.
“They’re regrouping,” Nikita continued. “They’ll hit us again. And that’s where this weapon of his comes in.” He said the word as if it left a foul taste in his mouth.
He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. His voice went low, a barely-audible whisper. “The Führer is obsessed with the occult. All that black magic shit. I think Stalin’s started to become obsessed too.”
That wasn’t what Sasha had expected. “What?”
Nikita shrugged and leaned back. “Intuition. This old man isn’t who he claims to be.” His hand made an impulsive grab for the utility pocket on the leg of his pants, then moved away, fast, like it had burned him.
“What – what does he claim?”
He smirked. “That he isn’t a dead man.”
Wordlessly, Sasha offered up the hunk of cheese.
Nikita plucked it up without reservation this time. “Thanks.”