15
TURNING
Sasha tossed and turned, the bread and SPAM soup he’d had for dinner squirming in his belly, until he finally flopped over on his back and gave up the pretense of sleep just before dawn. They were in a basement-level bunk room full of cots. Ivan had left the door open a crack, and a sliver of light from the caged bulbs set along the hallway ceiling reached across Sasha’s legs and up the wall. A ribbon of yellow that emanated enough glow by which to see his hands when he held them up in front of his face.
He had beautiful hands, his mother had always said. Long-fingered and light as a thief’s. He could hold a bit of her knitting as easily as his rifle.
His rifle. He missed it. The heft of it in his palms; the sharp smell of cordite cutting above the snow; the warmth of a spent shell against his fingertips when he picked it up and pocketed it. The boy he was now, with knuckles bruised from boxing lessons and a cramping stomach didn’t much resemble that competent hunter from Siberia.
He dropped his hands to his chest and rolled onto his side, squinted through the dark. The others were asleep around him, snoring, breath heavy and labored. All except Monsieur Philippe, whose bed was empty, his blankets folded neatly.
He was off preparing, Sasha guessed. He’d explained the procedure to Sasha…but trying to recall the details now, he found that he couldn’t remember them clearly. Something about being receptive. About letting the power bind to him…
Sasha closed his eyes tight and concentrated on not being sick.
~*~
Katya woke and didn’t know why. Dawn’s first fingers teased at the window glass, a gray puddle of it lying across the floorboards. Her roommate continued to snore; the door was still shut; all was quiet. But her skin crawled and she shivered, snuggled deeper beneath her thin blanket.
She lay awake just long enough to remember a scrap of dream, something frightening and shapeless, the sense of being chased through a dense forest, and then sleep claimed her again.
~*~
Nikita took shorter and shorter drags from his cigarette, drawing it out. The curls of smoke stood out white against the slate gray dawn. The sun was up, but veiled with clouds, the dew lost amid the snowmelt, all of it dazzling and too-bright to his eyes. He squinted.
He heard a door open behind him, and Kolya said, “They’re ready.”
He sucked down the last bit of smoke and flicked the butt out into the mud.
“Did you eat yet?” Kolya asked when he joined him.
“What do you think?”
Kolya muttered something disapproving under his breath.
Soldiers sat at the long mess tables inside, shoveling bread, and sausage, and eggs into their mouths. Nikita wondered, briefly, how many local families went hungry this morning, all their hens and eggs gone to the Red Army. A fleeting thought, and then the dread retook him as they descended the iron staircase to the subbasement where the lab, and Sasha’s fate, awaited.
He’d awakened just after dawn this morning with a hard knot in his stomach. When he’d crept upstairs then, all had been quiet. He’d been smoking longer than he realized, because now the lower levels were buzzing with activity.
In the lab, Dr. Ingraham and a host of lab coat-wearing assistants bustled around the large room, wheeling carts that Nikita guessed held medical equipment: IV drips on poles, stacks of gauze, rolls of bandages. He saw the gleam of a hypodermic needle and then sought out Monsieur Philippe.
The man was without his fur coat at the moment, and looked smaller and frailer than normal – which was considerable already. He had narrow, stooped shoulders, thin arms and legs, and a little pot belly. In trousers and shirt-sleeves, he looked like someone’s grandfather, and nothing like a powerful sorcerer.
He looked up as Nikita approached. “Good morning, Captain. Sleep well?”
“What’s going on?”
Unperturbed, Philippe said, “We’re readying the lab. In a moment, I’ll dismiss Dr. Ingraham and all his silly medical supplies and we’ll begin.”
Nikita felt a cold smile touch his mouth. “You wanted his lab. You got it, and now you’re going to enchant him away.”
Philippe shrugged and folded back his sleeves. “I needed a secure location off the beaten path. Enchanting a few Americans into cooperation is the least of our problems today.”
“So all of this…” He gestured to the bevy of scientific equipment being set up behind them.
“Entirely unnecessary.” Philippe made a face. “Well. I won’t discount the value of science – as it pertains to convincing certain government officials I’m actually creating a weapon. Stalin doesn’t understand magic, you know.”
“Are you going to enchant me out of the room, too?”
“No, Captain.” Philippe gave him a serious look, for once unsmiling. “Sasha is quite fond of you and your men, and I suspect you’ll be helpful. And also.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t ever like to use my magic on you, Nikita.” It was the first time the man had said his name, and it sent ripples of gooseflesh down Nikita’s arms. “I want you to trust me. We are allies in this cause. I want to think of us as friends.”
“Friends?”
“Yes, of course.” He touched Nikita’s arm, briefly, before he walked away. His hand was cold.
~*~
Watching Dr. Ingraham and his associates go blank-faced and leave the room was disturbing. Almost as disturbing as watching a group of soldiers come in and line the front wall.
“What’s this about?” Kolya asked.
“Just a precaution,” Philippe said.
Another soldier led Sasha into the room. A heartbreaking sight.
He was barefoot, clothed in a stiff white hospital gown, young and gangly, and unsure. He’d bathed; he smelled, even from a distance, of harsh soap. His hair was damp and slicked back off his forehead, so there was nothing to shield the tight, terrified set of his face.
He was shaking so hard that he fumbled the process of getting up on the table, and Nikita couldn’t help it – he went to him.
He looked so small in his hospital gown. So pale and washed out, blue highways of veins visible through the thin white skin of his wrists, inner elbows, throat, and eyelids. He swallowed, or tried to, Adam’s apple sticking in his throat. His pupils were terrified pinpricks as he looked up at Nikita.
“What–” he started, and had to wet his lips. “What…”
Nikita laid his hand on his shoulder, the bones sharp against his palm, stark through the thin gown, the thin layer of boyish muscle. “It’s okay,” he said, his own voice tight. But it wasn’t okay at all. “I’ll be right here the whole time.”
Sasha reached for his hand, his grip tight, desperate, fingers clammy. “Please,” he said, and then shut his eyes tight, nostrils flaring as he sucked in a deep breath.
Nikita gripped him back in turn, hard enough to hurt. “Right here,” he repeated.
Movement on the other side of the table drew his eyes: Philippe coming to stand at Sasha’s other shoulder, still wearing that infuriating little smile. In one hand he held the tattered old book Kolya had found in his satchel, unlocked now, open to a point in the middle. A golden key on a chain rested around his neck – the key that unlocked the book, no doubt. “Are you ready, Sasha?”
Sasha kept his eyes shut, but nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Good, good.” Philippe patted his arm and then turned away.
When his back was to them, Sasha cracked his eyes and looked up at Nikita, lips pressed into a thin white line. Asking for more reassurance.
Even if he hadn’t already been on the fast track to hell, Nikita knew that murmuring “it’ll be fine” would send him there with a bullet, all on its own. But that’s what he did, because Sasha needed it.
Philippe called to his assistants: “Bring me the alpha.”
Sasha’s hand spasmed on his wrist.
Nikita glanced over at the empty table, its buffed steel surface gleaming under the lights. His pulse accelerated, from its anxious thump-thump to an irregular patter like raindrops. His breath hitched. Alpha. “What are you talking about?”
Philippe ignored him, holding his book with both hands, watching the door to the lab expectantly.
Sounds of a scuffle out in the hall echoed down the corridor, growing louder.
Nikita looked from Pyotr, to Feliks, to Ivan, to Kolya.
Ivan looked the most alarmed Nikita had ever seen him, hands balled into fists at his sides.
Kolya rested one hand on the butt of his gun.
“You won’t need that,” Philippe said, offhand, without even turning his head. “I can assure you the beast is contained.”
“Beast,” Nikita started, and then the lab assistants brought it into the room.
A massive, shaggy white wolf.
“Shit,” Ivan breathed.
Yeah. Shit.
The animal was alive and awake, thrashing and growling in the assistants’ arms. Its legs were bound tight, his face muzzled.
Sasha lifted his head, hand sliding off Nikita’s. “Oh,” he said, low and broken, impossibly sad.
Nikita hadn’t grown up in the wilderness, but he knew just what Sasha meant: it was wrong to see an animal so strong and graceful bound up in chains. His fur dirty and dull. His gold eyes blazing through the gaps in the muzzle. Nikita had seen wild wolves running alongside the train in Siberia, fleet shadows across the snow. They weren’t meant to be indoors like this, chained and lugged like a prisoner.
“What are you doing?” Nikita demanded as the assistants laid the wolf out on the empty table, pinning it down with elbows and forearms. “Why do you have a wolf? Answer me, damn it!”
Beneath his hand, Sasha was trembling.
Philippe turned to them, sighing, growing impatient. “Captain Baskin, if you could please just stand back and–”
“Answer me.”
Philippe blinked. His face smoothed over. Behind him, the assistants wrestled with the wolf. “Captain,” he said, calm and rational, “did you really think there wasn’t going to be a moment of unpleasantness in this process? You’ve accompanied me from Moscow, to Tomsk, and now to Stalingrad. You’ve gone along more or less cooperatively, but now, at the moment of conception, you want to show your anger? Like a child who finally realizes it’s going to hurt when the doctor resets his broken arm?”
They stared at one another.
“I promise you that Sasha will not be harmed. He will be strong and healthy, and impossibly powerful,” Philippe said. “Or are you worried for the wolf?”
Nikita felt cold sweat gathering behind his ears, sliding down the back of his neck.
Sasha squeezed his wrist, drawing his attention. “It’s okay,” he said, repeating Nikita’s words of moments before. “I’m alright.” He tried to smile.
“Captain Baskin, if you please,” Philippe said.
He swallowed hard, a lump of sickness rising in his throat. “I…”
What would you do to restore the empire? Monsieur Philippe had asked him.
Anything, he’d answered.
He could see that exchange shining in the old man’s eyes, daring him, asking him again. Did you really mean that? Or will you let personal feelings get in the way? Maybe you aren’t much of a White after all…
Nikita pried his fingers loose of Sasha’s shoulder and stepped back, breathing like a winded horse.
Philippe nodded. “Very good.”
Before the madness started, before everything changed forever, Nikita caught one last glance of Sasha’s falsely brave smile and thought this is why men cave to tyrants. To make brave smiles worthwhile.
~*~
Sasha stared at the droning tube lights overhead and tried to focus on the physical sensations of the moment. The cold steel table under his back, the light brush of the cotton gown against his skin. The lingering twinges of soreness in his muscles from play-fighting and exercising. His heart beat too quickly, and he tried to will it to slow, taking deep, albeit shaky breaths.
He tried not to think about the wolf beside him on the table. The alpha. Never take the alpha, Papa had said. But that was hunting, and this was war, and Monsieur Philippe had promised to imbue him with the strength, and speed, and instincts of the creature he’d always respected so much.
He shut his eyes and waited, opened himself, tried to peel back the veil of consciousness and become receptive to the flood of Philippe’s magic.
He startled when he felt a warm hand at the side of his throat; opened his eyes to find the old man smiling down at him. “It’s time to begin. Are you ready?”
Sasha nodded.
Philippe smiled at him. “Good.” His fingers plucked at the shoulder tie of his gown and peeled it down to his waist, leaving his chest bare.
He shivered, goosebumps chasing across his skin.
“You’ll be warmer soon. Stay just like that,” Philippe said, and stepped away.
A low voice began to chant – Philippe’s, he realized – in a language he didn’t recognize. It was smoother and more melodious than Russian. Less guttural, more musical.
The wolf whimpered, its nails clawing at the table with a high screeching sound.
Sasha tried to stay receptive, tried to keep his mind blank. But like always, he got caught in a loop of how is this real, how, how, how. It didn’t seem possible. He was here, and there was a wolf, and–
A loud, high squeal shattered any pretend peace he’d cultivated. His eyes popped open. “What–”
Monsieur Philippe stood above him, a six-inch bloody knife in one hand. “Hold very still, Sasha.” He brought the knife down in a rapid flash, right at Sasha’s heart.
~*~
Over the shoulders of the soldiers holding him back, Nikita saw the bright crimson glint of blood on the knife before the old man drove it into Sasha’s heart. He lunged against the arms and rifles pressing him to the wall, the fingers digging cruelly into his arms and shoulders and hips. The soldiers, silent sentries up to this point, had swarmed them when Philippe started chanting. Watching the man stab the wolf through the heart had been unpleasant, yes. But watching him move toward Sasha…unthinkable.
He heard the soft meaty thunk of the knife going in – a sound he knew well. Heard Sasha’s startled yell. His scream. His gasp. His wet, dying wheeze.
He’d promised to keep that boy safe, even though he knew he couldn’t, and now Philippe had killed him.
“Let go of me, fuckers!” Ivan roared. He batted at the soldiers like they were flies, sending them stumbling, scrambling. They wouldn’t be able to hold him back for long.
A grunt that sounded like Kolya signaled another fight.
“Hey!” Feliks shouted.
Nikita struggled too, but he was beyond speech. Shock had turned to fury, had turned to grief, had hardened into one single purpose: kill the old man. He couldn’t waste any energy on screaming; every cell in his body was dedicated to getting loose and getting to Philippe.
He drove his elbow into a soldier’s face. Caught another in the chin with the heel of his hand. When one tried to grab his wrist, he kicked him in the balls. Quarters were too close for any finesse, so he shoved and pawed and gouged at eyes, ducking away from hands, dodging the butt of a rifle aimed at his head.
He chopped a solider that was just a boy in the windpipe with the side of his hand, and spun around him. Then he was free. He didn’t waste a moment marveling that he’d actually slipped loose of them, just charged.
Philippe still held the hilt of the knife, it’s length buried in Sasha’s chest, blood dripping down Philippe’s sleeve onto the floor, the red of it obscenely bright. He turned slowly, not at all alarmed that Nikita was about to tackle him. He lifted his free hand. Nikita had a moment to notice the smear of blood on the old man’s palm–
Before a hot ball of fire roared to life between them.
He couldn’t elbow and punch his way through fire, it turned out.
The sudden, vicious heat of it blasted him back, a hot gust of wind that sent him sprawling back on his ass. He choked on it, that heat, coughing and sputtering, shielding his face where the skin felt immediately tender, like fresh sunburn. Tears filled his eyes and he shut them, briefly, trying to regain his feet.
“Jesus,” someone swore behind him.
A big hand caught him in the armpit – Ivan – and hauled him upright, the other tugging his shirt straight, checking for burns. “Alright, Nik?”
“Yeah.” He was panting, his heart racing. He cracked his eyes open and saw that the flame had receded into a pulsing ball, warm and crackling like a campfire, hanging in the air between them and Philippe.
“Honestly,” the old man said, heaving a put-upon sigh. “If you’d just wait, you’d see that he’s fine.”
Nikita shook off Ivan’s grip and took a step forward.
The fire expanded.
Behind them, the soldiers edged forward, but they were afraid of the flame, too, and they didn’t come close enough to touch him.
Philippe’s smile was cruel. “What do you think you’re going to do, Captain Baskin? What will burning yourself to cinders accomplish?”
“If it means I can choke you to death, it’ll be worth it.”
“Ah, well–”
Someone moaned, low and pained.
“Oh.” Philippe smiled and turned to Sasha’s body – Sasha’s moving body. His head rolled on the steel table, and Nikita’s pulse leapt. “He’s perfectly alright, Captain, go and see for yourself.” The old man took a step back, taking his hovering ball of fire with him, leaving the path clear to the table.
Nikita’s legs were so unsteady that Ivan had to help him, but he made it to the table, to Sasha’s side.
His eyes went to the knife first. Sunk to the hilt in the tender young muscle of his chest, crimson pearls of blood running down his side, sliding down the grooves of his ribs. And somehow, impossibly, he was breathing, his chest rising and falling.
Pull it out, pull it out, pull it out, a voice chanted in the back of Nikita’s mind. A base instinct to remove the thing that had hurt him. But he knew that it was a miracle he was still alive, the pressure of the blade the only thing that kept his heart working. If he pulled it out, Sasha would hemorrhage to death.
Sasha’s head rolled toward them, his mouth slack and full of blood. He moaned again, louder this time, gritted his blood-slick teeth and hissed.
Shit. Oh shit, oh shit.
Nikita’s hands hovered over him, useless. He would die anyway, wouldn’t he? Yes. Maybe it was a mercy to pull it out, help him go quick. Once blood flooded his chest cavity, he would stop feeling pain.
Nikita wrapped a shaking hand around the hilt of the knife and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Go on, Captain,” Philippe said. “It has to come out.”
Well.
He did it slowly, though, dimly aware of Ivan’s steadying hand on his shoulder. Slow, slow, slow, fresh trickles of blood pouring across the boy’s chest.
Nikita’s throat was too tight to swallow. He wasn’t in the business of removing knives from people, and it was terrible. He wanted to scream.
“What the…what the fuck?” Ivan whispered beside him.
The knife was almost free now, just another half inch to go, all of it grisly red and shiny. It was…
Oh.
The wound was closing. The bleeding had slowed – was slowing further. Gone thick and clotted in the well of the wound – a wound that was shrinking shut by the second. Smaller, smaller, smaller…
Nikita’s hand went limp, and the knife clattered to the floor at his feet. “What…?” he started, too shocked to form a proper question.
Just. What.
The heat left the room with a quiet snuffing sound, and then Philippe drew up on the opposite side of the table, sans fire. He was beaming. “Look. It’s closing perfectly. It won’t be long now. Give him a minute.”
“A minute to what?” Ivan asked.
Philippe didn’t answer.
The wound shrank, and shrank. And then, with a little pop, it was gone. Just a clean, smooth stretch of skin with a perimeter of drying blood.
Sasha pulled in a deep breath and let it out on a moan. A moan that turned into a growl. A low, deep, inhuman growl that raised every tiny hair on the back of Nikita’s neck.
“You might want to step back,” Philippe said, doing so himself. “This next part can get a little…volatile.”
Sasha’s eyes snapped open. They were still blue, but they were glowing, his pupils tall, narrow slits. He growled again, lips skinning back off his teeth, and the sound echoed through the room, bounced off the walls. He sounded exactly like…like a…like a wolf.
Magic, the old man had said.
No shit.
Sasha jackknifed upright, and then leapt into a crouch on top of the table, balanced on the balls of his feet, hands held out before him, fingers curled into claws. His sweat-damp hair fell over his face and he shook it back, scanning the room with his new strange, brighter eyes. His face was the same – except nothing about his expression was human.
If he hadn’t been holding onto the table, Nikita reflected, he might have fallen down.
Sasha breathed in deep through his nose and mouth, and then his head snapped in their direction. His gaze held no recognition, only animal wariness.
Nikita held his breath. The room was silent save the fast rhythm of Sasha’s panted breath.
One of the soldiers said, “Oh my God,” and everything went to shit.
Sasha sprang off the table, right at the cluster of soldiers, all of whom shouted and scattered. He landed on his hands and feet, crouched low, growling in that inhuman, wolfish way again. He lifted his head, following them with his eyes, and lunged again.
The sight of his second attack snapped Nikita out of his daze and into action. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend this, but there would be time for that later. Right now, he had to get control of the situation.
“Secure the door,” he told Ivan as he shook loose of his hold. “I don’t want him getting out.”
Ivan’s jaw worked, wanting to say something. But he nodded and moved to do as ordered.
Kolya still had his hand on his gun. “Should I…?”
“No.”
The soldiers, all green boys, abandoned all decorum and stumbled over one another, pushing and shoving to get away. It wasn’t that Sasha was big – because he wasn’t – or that he cut an imposing figure. But his eyes were glowing. He was growling. And the way he held himself spooked something primal and protective inside Nikita. The soldiers were feeling it too, obviously, that sense of wrong, and danger, and run. And they were running, several of them shouting indignantly and clawing at Ivan’s great paw hands as he heaved the door shut and flipped the lock.
Sasha wasn’t actually chasing anyone, Nikita realized, watching as the boy snarled and snapped at the legs of one soldier – only to surge past him, diving under a wall-mounted metal shelf, drawing himself up with his knees tucked beneath his chin. Hiding.
He was frightened. Of course.
Nikita looked to Monsieur Philippe, who stood with his hands folded in front of him, watching the chaos with a mild expression. “Care to explain yourself?” Nikita had no idea where he found the energy to be wry; it was just his default setting at this point.
Philippe didn’t answer.
Some of the panicked soldiers started to realize they weren’t being pursued and subsided, hissing questions to each other, picking up toppled hats and rifles.
It was a miracle, Nikita reflected, no one had shot at Sasha in the turmoil.
“Holy shit,” Pyotr whispered.
Nikita said, “Monsieur Philippe,” in a voice that demanded an answer.
“I think,” the Frenchman said, “it would be best if someone with whom he is close approached first.”
Well, alright then.
“Nik,” Kolya protested.
He made a staying motion with one hand. “It’ll be alright.” Or he might get torn to bits. Who knew. Sasha might turn into an actual wolf. Anything, it seemed, was possible at the moment.
He approached slowly, one deliberate step after the next, arms held down at his sides, empty palms facing Sasha. I’m unarmed, I won’t hurt you he tried to project. And also you know me, you know me.
Sasha squeezed back against the concrete wall, fingers curled tight in the loose fabric of the gown pooling around his hips. Every muscle, tendon, and vein stood out in stark relief beneath his skin. His face was blank, nothing but blue eyes and bloody teeth, not an ounce of recognition or humanity.
Nikita stopped just out of reach and sank down onto his haunches. He tried to smile. “Hello, Sasha.”
A low growl echoed along the floor; he felt it more than heard it. But Sasha wiggled back, tried to get deeper beneath the shelf. Not a threat, but a plea. Go away. Leave me alone. In a back corner of his mind, behind the protective layers of order and authority, Nikita felt something break.
“What did he do to you?” he whispered. “Are you still in there, Sasha? It’s Nikita. Do you know me?” Not knowing what else to do, he extended the backs of his fingers for inspection, like he would when meeting a strange dog for the first time.
Sasha growled again, but his head lifted a fraction and his nostrils flared. Scenting, Nikita thought. Just like a canine.
“It’s okay. Come on.”
No one else in the room was speaking. He couldn’t even hear them shifting on their feet.
“Come on, Sasha. It’s me.”
Sasha stopped growling. Some of his tension seemed to ease, his knees gapping apart so his face peeped through them.
Nikita dared to inch a little closer.
Sasha leaned toward him, still testing the air with his nose. And then slowly, slowly, he uncoiled and shifted forward. Close. Closer.
Nikita felt a single, tooth-chattering lick of fear when Sasha leaned in and smelled the back of his hand like some strange animal thing instead of the boy he’d just been comforting on the table minutes before. He felt the hot, wet dart of Sasha’s tongue on his knuckles.
And then Sasha heaved a deep sigh and he went boneless. “Nikita,” he said, voice full of relief and checked tears. He slumped to the floor and crawled the last distance, curling up at Nikita’s side, head tipping to rest on his shoulder, letting Nikita support his weight.
Nikita sat very still, his heart pounding.
Sasha breathed a warm sigh against his neck, shut his eyes, and passed out.