PROLOGUE
1931
Tomsk, Siberia, USSR
The man wasn’t supposed to be here. Sasha didn’t know who he was, or where he was actually supposed to be, only that that place wasn’t here.
Between one blink and the next he appeared in front of Sasha, haloed by the early morning sunlight, sunk up to his calves in the snow, though there were no tracks coming or going in either direction to indicate that he’d walked here. He simply was. Standing there, shaking his head, dazed and bewildered-looking.
Sasha stumbled to a halt, tipped his head back, strangely without fear, and stared at him.
He wore his blond hair long, down well past his shoulders, gleaming gold and faintly rippled at the ends. His hair alone – clean and regal and uncovered by a hat of any kind – would be enough to indicate he didn’t belong, but his clothes furthered the impression. They were the kind of clothes that Sasha had only seen in the illustrated books his mother read to him – clothes like a prince in a fairy story would wear. Cream breeches and knee-high boots, and a long, red coat with golden embroidery and buttons.
Nobody in Siberia ever dressed like that.
The man looked around, at the trees, the snow, the sunlight sparkling off it, and finally, when he’d run out of other things to see, looked at Sasha. He asked a question in a language Sasha didn’t understand.
“I’m sorry,” Sasha said. A small voice in the back of his mind wondered why he wasn’t frightened, but he couldn’t bring himself to be. Nothing about the man seemed threatening. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
The man’s golden brows lifted. “You speak Russian?” he asked in flawless, though accented Russian. “Where are we? St. Petersburg?”
“No, sir. In Tomsk.”
“Ah. Siberia.” He looked disappointed. Sighing up toward the sky, he muttered, “What the hell am I doing in Siberia of all places?”
Sasha had no idea what to make of that. “How did you get here?” he asked. And then, because it had to be true, even though there were no more princes in Russia: “Are you a prince?”
The man smiled, and his teeth were very white, and the eye teeth, especially, were very sharp. “I am, yes.” He crouched down so that he was on a level with Sasha; his eyes were sky-colored. “And who might you be?”
It wasn’t right to give his name out to strangers, but this stranger was a prince! Even Mama would have been impressed with him, with his clean white hands and his long pale hair. “Sasha,” he said, without hesitation.
“Short for Aleksander, I imagine?”
“Aleksander Ivanovich Kashnikov. Your majesty,” he tacked on, pleased with his own manners.
The prince laughed, low and musical. “Well, Aleksander Kashnikov,” he said, voice dropping, like he was about to share a secret. “Seeing as how we’re all alone out here in the Siberian wilderness, I think you must be the person I was supposed to find. I want to tell you something, alright? And I want you to remember it.”
Sasha nodded.
“Don’t try to fight fire with fire,” he whispered. He leaned in close, but Sasha couldn’t feel his breath, nor smell the oil in his hair. “You’ve got to rip its fucking heart out and bleed it dry.”
“What,” Sasha started, gathering breath.
But the prince winked at him and then was gone.
No footprints, no sound, no nothing. Only gone.
“Sasha!” his mother called.
“Coming.”
~*~
Undisclosed Location, USSR
“Militsa! Stana! My dears, I’m thrilled to see you, but you shouldn’t have come all this way.”
Militsa waved away the protest as she bustled her way through the door, her sister on her heels. “What else do we have to do now that we’re in hiding? Being on the lam is so terribly dull.”
“I don’t know how you’ve stood it, Philippe,” Stana said, swooping in to kiss him on both cheeks. She and her sister were both aging gracefully, their usual all black ensembles somehow suiting them, as always, and he knew a moment’s interest when he smelled her perfume and felt the softness of her cheek against his own. But he pushed the thought away. The pleasures of the flesh held little joy for him anymore.
“Yes, it must be ghastly,” Militsa said, kissing him also. And then both sisters stepped out of the entryway and into his parlor without waiting for an invitation.
Philippe hung up their cloaks and followed.
“This is wonderful,” Stana said as she looked around the room. “It suits you.”
“It’s tolerable,” he said, but really he was quite fond of his little retreat.
Years before, when the tsar explained that he must leave the capital, he’d bestowed upon Philippe a very generous monetary settlement. “To ensure your health and safety,” he’d said. Philippe had been forced to leave behind the gilt, Italianate architecture of the capital, and lived now in a wooden house in the more traditional Russian style. He’d brought his favorite capital finery with him, though. Heavy velvet drapes framed the windows, plush Oriental rugs covered the floors. His furniture was French, and decadent, silks and damasks and polished cherry wood.
Everything was arranged around a round, black-draped table at the middle of the room. In its center rested three black pillar candles, a bowl of pig’s blood, a slate, and a length of chalk. He’d lit incense before their arrival and its smell filled the room, thick and spicy.
Philippe went to the sideboard and poured all three of them a generous glass of madeira.
“Ooh,” Militsa said with delight when he handed one to her. “Where did you get this?”
Their usual luxuries were hard to come by these days. Philippe had no doubt Stalin’s dinner table groaned beneath the strain of wine bottles, but the Russian people were lucky to have a little vodka now and then.
“I’ve been saving it for just such an occasion. Enjoy it, my dears.”
They both drank deep, and took a turn around the room, admiring his collection of oddities. They spent a long moment peering at the preserved ostrich that stood in one corner.
Finally, Philippe cleared his throat and said, “Ladies, shall we begin?”
“Yes, let’s,” Militsa said. She and her sister joined him at the table, and he seated them carefully, pulling out their chairs for them.
Once they were all settled – after much rustling of black skirts – he lit the candles and set the bowl of blood in front of him. Then they joined hands across the table, and he began the séance.
There were plenty of fortune tellers and circus-trained liars who began with invocations to the spirits. But Philippe, having spoken to actual spirits before, didn’t believe in wasting time like that.
He closed his eyes and relaxed his internal shields, felt the hum and flow of magic fill him. Made himself receptive…and. There. Right on the edges of his consciousness. An entity.
He thought of a welcome, of warmth. “Won’t you come and introduce yourself, friend?” he asked.
“Oh, I’ll come,” a man’s voice said out loud in the room, and Philippe’s eyes snapped open. “But I reserve the right to withhold an introduction.”
Militsa and Stana had heard him too, heads whipping toward the sound, mouths falling open.
It was no shimmering apparition that stood on the other side of the table. No floating object or inexplicable cold patch. This was the most perfect astral projection Philippe had ever seen.
The projection seemed solid and present. Tall, slender, with long pale hair arranged in the style of an old-fashioned warrior. He wore red velvet with intricate gold stitching, polished knee boots. There were hints of his father and brother in his prominent bone structure, but overall he had the ethereal beauty of his Nordic mother.
Philippe knew who he was; he was a legend, one he hadn’t expected to see face-to-face.
“Christ,” he gasped.
The visitor grinned, flashing his fangs. “Close, but not quite, I’m afraid.”
“Good God,” Militsa croaked.
The apparition sighed. “Well, this is bothersome.”
“Don’t listen to him, Philippe,” Stana said, urgently. “He’s a liar, everyone knows it. Send him back.”
“How rude. I was invited, wasn’t I?”
Philippe swallowed with difficulty. “Not exactly, no.”
The apparition cocked his hips and folded his arms, the picture of impatience. “You’re conducting a séance, old man. Yes? Because you needed a name for your great Russian savior?”
“How do you know that?” Militsa demanded, shock giving way to her usual anger.
But Philippe said, “Yes, I do.”
The apparition looked smug. “You’re going to want to write this down.”