29
WAITING FOR WAR
Waiting for war to happen was a tense, uncomfortable business. A disproportionate amount of sitting offset by high anxiety. For someone else, it might have felt like a much-needed respite, but for Sasha, it felt like imprisonment.
So he trained. He took the wolves out running in the woods. They loped for miles, breathing in soupy summer air, shaking mosquitos off their faces, collapsing in a heap in the grass, panting and relatively happy. He wrestled and sparred with Ivan. Worked on his knife skills with Kolya. Katya took him to the range, and though he was still an accurate marksman, he found that the gun felt heavy and alien in his hands. Animals didn’t use guns; he felt, even after he’d hit five consecutive bullseyes with her Mosin-Nagant, very much like an animal.
He avoided the lab space in the basement of the base. Rasputin lingered down there, a malevolent shadow at the edge of Sasha’s awareness. He felt, every time he was on the stairs, an unwanted urge to go down there, to see him. That little voice calling to him again. Submit.
Dr. Ingraham had been so preoccupied with his new shiny toy – not just a boy who howled, but a real vampire – that Sasha had started to forget that he was something to be poked and prodded until the doctor sent for him.
Rasputin had been awake for three weeks. It was the first time Sasha had set foot in the labs since that first difficult encounter, and his hackles were up, nervous energy making him twitchy as he took a seat on the exam table.
The lab seemed busy, but a normal kind of busy, rather than the frenzied excitement of the day Rasputin woke. Two techs measured out liquids on the far side of the room, consulting clipboards and one another. Dr. Ingraham snapped on a pair of gloves and smiled at Sasha.
Sasha gripped the edge of the table hard, until he felt the thin steel dent beneath his fingertips. “What do you need me for, Doctor?”
“Just a blood sample today,” he said, cheerfully.
“Another one?”
Ingraham made what Sasha thought of as a token sympathetic face as he laid out a tourniquet, needle, and syringe. “I’m afraid the other samples were corrupted by our testing. I’d like a fresh sample for a new test.”
“What sort of test?”
His face lit up, delighted to have been asked. He tied the tourniquet around Sasha’s arm with efficient movements, and said, “I took a sample from you before the procedure, if you’ll recall.” Cold prick of a needle in his arm just minutes before the hot fire of a knife going into his heart. “And when compared with your more recent samples, the increase in red blood cells is remarkable. In short, you have very rich blood, and I think this is a reflection of your new stronger, heartier state as a…”
“Werewolf.”
The doctor blushed. “You’ll forgive; I’m a medical man and I can’t get used to–”
“Saying werewolf? It’s what I am.”
“Yes. Well.” The doctor stuck the needle in Sasha’s arm. “Our Friend,” he started, and Sasha interrupted.
“You’re calling him that now?”
Dr. Ingraham looked startled. “Well, I…”
“It’s what the royal family called him,” Sasha said, careful to keep his face blank. Inside, he was squirming away from the vocabulary.
“Oh. Well.” The doctor shrugged, looking uncomfortable. He stared intently at the syringe in his hand. “Rasputin, if you like. He’s getting stronger every day. Slowly healing. But it’s just that – slow. I have this theory that a dose of your blood – strong werewolf blood – might be the bump he needs to get back on his feet.”
Sasha went cold all over. His voice came out oddly flat. “You want him to…feed from me?”
Dr. Ingraham stepped back so fast he almost pulled the needle from Sasha’s arm. “What? Oh. No. Nothing so base as that. I meant a transfusion. Or he could…” He gulped audibly. “Drink it from a cup.”
“But….”
A lab tech walked up with an empty blood bag, and a length of tubing.
“You want to collect a lot,” Sasha said, heart falling down into his stomach.
“I think you can spare it.” Dr. Ingraham gave him a tight grin.
He knew there was no way out of this, but he hated it.
The bag filled slowly, and by the end, he felt a little lightheaded, but in a manageable way.
“Are you taking it to him now?”
“In a few minutes.”
Sasha hopped off the table. What he wanted to see wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. He didn’t want to be around when his blood crossed the vampire’s tongue.
“Sasha, where are you–” Dr. Ingraham started, but Sasha was already out the door and down the hall.
The door to Rasputin’s room was open, and the starets sat upright in bed, in a loose brown shirt, covers puddled around his waist, drinking tea from a china cup: Sasha could smell it, brewed strong and heavy with jam.
Philippe sat in a chair beside the bed, sipping from his own mug. “Sasha,” he greeted. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “How good to see you, finally.”
It was a dig, and bait. Sasha wasn’t going to take it. His skin tingled and he wanted to flee, but he forced himself to stand upright and say, “Dr. Ingraham wants to try something new.”
Philippe’s sharp look said that he already knew what that something was.
Rasputin looked much improved. The bandage had been removed from his head and the gunshot wound was a faded pink circle, a little scabbed at the edges. His face looked fuller, his skin brighter, his hands less skeletal when he set aside his cup and reached for Sasha with both of them. “Wolf child.” He smiled broadly, eyes crinkling at the corners.
It was such a human thing, those little wrinkles around his eyes. Signs of age and frequent smiling. For a moment, they knocked Sasha off his guard, and then the voice flooded his mind: it was wordless, but it was loud, a howling inside his head like storm winds. It seemed like invisible fingers hooked themselves into his belt and urged him forward, a slow and relentless pull.
“You haven’t visited me,” Rasputin said, and sounded hurt. “We have to talk, you and I, as wolf and master. But you avoid me.”
Sasha trembled, all his muscles clenching against an urge that threatened to take him to his knees. Submit, submit, submit. Not a word, but a hard shove on his shoulders. A craving to obey that ran stronger than food, or sleep, or sex.
He gritted his teeth. “You’re not my master.” His voice came out a rough scrape, all that he could manage with his jaw clenched tight.
Rasputin looked crestfallen.
But Philippe smiled again. “You’ll have to forgive Sasha. He’s very young and has much to learn. He speaks out of turn sometimes.”
Rasputin linked his hands in his lap, expression troubled. “All young ones do. I understand.” His voice was tremulous as a child’s. “Sasha, I’ve been praying for you. Hoping that God will show you your true path.”
It hurt to swallow. Hurt to speak. He curled his hands into fists and stuffed them in his pockets. “The true path with you?”
“Well of course.” Warmth filled his voice. A hint of the smile returned. “Everyone in the world has a place, and yours is here, with us, where you can serve. God wants us all to do our earthly duty, and yours is serving your master. You want to stop the Communists, don’t you?”
“I…” It even hurt to think. “Yes.”
“Of course you do. Come here, my wolf child, so that we can pray together.”
Slowly, impossibly, Sasha took one step forward. And then another. He closed his eyes tight and thought about resisting, but the howling in his head had reached a fever pitch. He heard himself growl, a low and threatening sound, but when he opened his eyes he stood at Rasputin’s bedside.
The starets reached out and took one of Sasha’s hands between both of his. His palms were dry and warm. Not dead. Vampires were not dead creatures. He rubbed at Sasha’s knuckles until his fist relaxed.
“Good,” Rasputin said, humming his approval. “Now let us pray for the wisdom to know what is right, and the strength to achieve victory. And we’ll pray that there will be love between us. God is love, and with love, all things are possible.”
He looked into Sasha’s eyes, his own wide, gray, and glowing. Pain lanced through Sasha’s head but he couldn’t look away.
“You will come to love me,” Rasputin said. “Just as I already love you, my wolf.”
~*~
Afternoon sunlight slanted in through the window, swirling with dust motes. The cot’s frame creaked; it hadn’t been built for two, even when they moved slow.
Nikita sat against the wall, legs out in front of him, and Katya straddled his lap. Let me, she’d whispered, chewing at her lip, pupils blown. She had her hands on his shoulders, nails digging in, and moved in slow, almost-teasing undulations. Rolling her hips, head tipped back, hair loose and blazing with red highlights in the sun.
He wanted to have her like this in paint. Or a secret photo kept tucked away in a pocket. Some way to keep this moment with him forever, even once their brief respite was over.
He realized his hands had gone soft, opening at her hips, and Katya stilled a moment, looking down at his face.
“What?”
“It’s fine.” He smoothed his hands down the strong, tensed length of her thighs and back up. Traced inward with his thumbs, through her curls until he found the spot that made her gasp and clench tight around him. Jesus.
He grunted. “I’m alright. Don’t stop.”
Through the haze of arousal, she managed to look doubtful.
He touched her again, teased her where they were joined, and she moaned, just a quiet little throaty sound that pushed everything else from his mind.
She leaned down and kissed him. Warm and wet. A little sloppy as she started to move again, and he lifted his hips to meet her.
He pressed his thumbs into the little hollows above her hipbones and she arched into him, gasping into the kiss. Her breasts soft and heavy where they pressed into his chest.
Sweet torture, and then the release.
Nikita closed his eyes and wrapped both arms around her when he came, panted against her throat. He wanted that brief, blissful moment to last an eternity.
But good things didn’t last, and soon she was sliding off his lap with a regretful sigh and settling in at his side. She pressed her hand over his still-thundering heart, her breath tickling at his armpit.
With his free hand he fumbled two cigarettes from the packet he’d left within easy reach on the bed and lit them both together before he handed her one.
“Hey, Nik,” she said after a moment, voice sex-drowsy.
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever think about after?”
“After?”
“After the war.” Her voice turned wistful. “If there is an after.”
He hadn’t thought about it, because his life had been nothing but a war strategy up to this point. It still was, but now there was a warm and beautiful woman leaning against him, and she was wondering what would come next. And suddenly, he wanted there to be an after. So much it hurt.
A knock sounded at the door, and they both sighed in unison.
“Nik.” Feliks’s voice floated through the door. “Rasputin wants to get out of bed.”
~*~
For the first week, Rasputin had looked like an animated corpse. But now, almost four weeks later, he looked disconcertingly alive. He was alive, Katya amended. The boogeyman from every childhood ghost story, and here he sat on the side of the bed, holding onto Philippe’s shoulder for support, black brows drawn together in concentration.
His voice was stronger, no longer full of dirt and sleep. “Sasha, my wolf child,” he said, and Sasha moved to his other side and took the weight of his hand on his shoulder.
Katya was surprised. So far, Sasha had avoided him altogether, recoiling from the mere mention of the strarets. But now he put a supportive hand on the man’s waist and helped Philippe hoist him upright.
She shared a quick glance with Nikita, who looked troubled.
It took Rasputin a long moment to get his feet under him, but then he grinned, triumphant. “Standing!” he exclaimed, as if it was a magic trick. When you’d been in the ground for that long, she guessed it was, in a way. He laughed. “Oh, I never thought I would…” Tears filled his eyes and he blinked them away, a few escaping down his cheeks. “Thank you, Friend Philippe. Thank you, Sasha.” He looked at them both in turn, grinning and crying. “You’ve saved me.”
Sasha stared at the floor, expressionless.
They took the starets a few turns around the room, and then helped him back to bed. A lab assistant brought lunch, and a mug of steaming red liquid. Sasha blinked a few times as Rasputin raised the cup to his lips, then shook his head, and ducked out of the room.
Katya followed him, and finally caught up with him on the first landing of the stairwell.
“Sasha, wait,” she called, out of breath from trying to keep up with him.
He waited, turning to face her slowly, looking more than a little dazed.
Her pulse kicked up another notch. When she reached him, and put a hand over his on the rail, she found his skin cool and clammy.
“Sasha, what’s wrong?”
He frowned into the middle distance a moment, gaze remote, then blinked, like he had in the room. When his eyes lifted, she saw the first stirrings of panic in them. “I think…Everything got all fuzzy. Like I’m drunk. Or not there. Or.” He wet his lips and sucked in a deep breath. “I think he’s getting to me.”
“What? How?”
“He’s getting stronger. And. Dr. Ingraham fed him some of my blood.”
“What?”
Footsteps coming up behind her heralded Nikita’s arrival. “What what?”
Katya kept her hand on Sasha’s as she turned to face Nikita. “Dr. Ingraham is giving Rasputin Sasha’s blood to drink.”
Nikita’s reaction was immediate, and, to be honest, frightening. In a heartbeat, her lover’s face transformed into an angular, murderous mask, eyes flat and slate-colored. “What the fuck? He is?” He turned to Sasha. “You let him?”
Sasha shrugged and looked like he tried to crawl down into his shirt collar. “What was I supposed to do?”
Nikita’s jaw clenched tight, tendons leaping in his throat. “Stay with him,” he said. “I’m going to have a word.”
“Nik, no,” Sasha said, sad and worried, looking like the puppy Ivan always called him.
“Stay with him,” he repeated, and marched back down the stairs.
Katya drew Sasha’s arm through hers and urged him the other way, up toward the main floor, and daylight. “Let’s go visit the wolves,” she suggested.
Sasha whined, but followed along.
~*~
The door to Dr. Ingraham’s office stood ajar, but Nikita kicked it anyway, gratified by the way it slammed back against the wall, and the way the doctor nearly fell out of his chair. A pen went flying, and papers slid off the desk to land with a puff and a swirl, like kicked leaves.
Nikita didn’t give him a chance to recover. “You’re giving that monster Sasha’s blood? Why in the fuck would you do that?” If he was shouting, he didn’t care.
“I – I–” Ingraham stuttered.
“Captain Baskin,” Philippe snapped. “Is there a reason you’re verbally assaulting the doctor?”
Nikita whirled to face him, realizing belatedly that he’d raised his fists, poised for a fight.
The mage gave him a mild look. “Really?”
Nikita forced his hands back to his sides, but he couldn’t temper the fury in his voice. “I’m fucking sick of you,” he snarled. “Everything Sasha gives, you take more. Every time you say you won’t hurt him, you do, and feed us all a buncha bullshit about what has to happen. This is it. This is the last goddamn straw–”
“Dr. Ingraham,” Philippe said. “Would you give us a moment, please?”
The doctor couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. He tripped on his way out, nearly fell, and snatched the door shut behind him.
When he was gone, Philippe’s calm façade dropped…and gave way to gray-faced exhaustion.
Nikita was expecting a fight, and wasn’t prepared for the worn-out gaze that met his. His anger couldn’t help but cool.
“Go on,” he said with a deep sigh. “Tell me about your last straw.”
Nikita was still mad…but not yelling mad. He felt foolish, suddenly. Stupid, naïve, and used. “I waste my breath every time I talk to you, don’t I? The plan all along was to utterly ruin that boy, and idiot me has gone along, wanting to believe your promises.”
“No, no. I’m at fault. I haven’t been completely honest about vampire nature.” He made a face, and then walked around and sat at Dr. Ingraham’s desk. “Would you like to sit?”
Nikita folded his arms. “No.” He knew he was being led on. He would listen, because some scrap of what Philippe said might be true, but he wasn’t going to settle in for tea and a pleasant chat.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t match up to the legends. Vampires aren’t harmed by sunlight, nor garlic, nor holy water, nor crosses. They aren’t evil; the church doesn’t repel them. Vampires need blood to survive,” the mage began. “But not in the way they tell it in the stories. They need food, as well. And they don’t have to feed – on blood, that is – every day when they’re healthy.
“But when they’re ailing.” He chewed at the inside of his cheek, considering. “Then they need more. And strong blood, at that.”
“So let me guess,” Nikita said, “Sasha’s got some magic, super strong werewolf blood, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you.”
“You also might be interested to know that Sasha can afford to lose more blood than your average mortal.”
Nikita’s thoughts up to this point had been laser-focused. Now they hiccupped. “Why would I be interested in that?” But he was. He was also starting to expand his bubble of worry beyond Sasha.
Philippe’s mouth turned up a fraction at the corners, a small, unsettling smile. “Did you also know that vampires are strongest when they feed from humans? Oh yes. Pig blood will keep them alive, but human blood is how they thrive. Our Friend will need human blood to get properly back on his feet, and experience tells me he was always hungry for it, even when healthy. Now, he can drain soldiers, or we can supplement him with Sasha’s blood. Sasha who is strong, who can make plenty more blood, who won’t notice the loss of it. Or we can bring him mortals. What do you think, captain?”
Nikita swallowed. “Call the war office. Tell them we want German POWs.”
Philippe’s smile stretched. “I like the way you think. But. With luck, we can get him strong enough that he won’t need to feed often, or deeply. A healthy vampire doesn’t need to drain anyone.”
It was ludicrous. All of it. A horror story told around autumn fireplaces come to life.
But it was real. And it was something he had to weigh carefully.
Fuck.
“I can promise you,” Philippe said, “that Rasputin will never feed from Sasha’s throat. We’ll do it all clinically and professionally. And only while it’s necessary.”
Nikita stared at his boots and didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
~*~
Summer on the steppe was oven-hot, heat mirages dancing out across the brown grass. The mosquitos were thick enough to choke a man at night, this far from the city, and its river breeze. It was no more miserable than Siberia this time of year, but the vistas were different, and Sasha was homesick, sometimes, when he allowed himself a moment to feel a little self-pity.
He went running in the early mornings, when the heat was still muffled by darkness, when the bugs had quieted somewhat. Long, aimless runs, just to move, and hear the wind rushing in his ears, to smell earth and wolf and listen to the happy panting of his pack. Away from the all-too-human base. And Rasputin.
The starets had been awake for six weeks. Sasha went down to the labs every other day to give blood…and to help the man walk the halls, becoming more mobile every day, his wounds fading into barely visible white scars. Rasputin reminisced about the royal family, and talked a lot about God, and heaven, and sin, and the ways he’d tried to “drive out evil” before his attempted assassination.
Attempted. Felix Yusupov would turn over in his grave if he knew that all his many efforts had failed.
Pleasantly winded, long hair still dripping from a drink and a fast dunk of his head in the stream, he walked back to base as the light was turning pink and found Kolya sitting out in the yard, on a bench made of overturned crates and a few fence rails, sharpening his knives. What else.
“Morning,” he grunted, distracted, when Sasha sat down beside him.
“Morning.” Sasha pushed his hands back through his hair, slicking it down against his head, his neck. It was getting too long, well down past his shoulders, but he liked it. It made him feel more like a wild creature than a boy.
The wolves came up to greet Kolya, tongues out. His hands stilled, letting them lick at his fingers, so he wouldn’t cut them with the knife.
Sasha became aware of tension, an uncertain set to Kolya’s always steady shoulders. “What?”
“Rasputin wants to go into the city,” Kolya said, voice casual. “Philippe said the war will be here soon, and he thinks we should take him. Let him get familiar with it, he says.”
Sasha took a breath. And then another. “Well. That was the plan all along.”
“Yep.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I hate him,” Sasha admitted, and Kolya finally dropped the indifferent act and turned to him, knife sliding away into its sheath somewhere.
The Chekist looked at him a long moment, eyes unusually soft. “We were friends when we were boys, you know. All of us. And back then Nik was full of a lot of piss and vinegar. Always on about the empire. Quoting Catherine, and Peter, and Nicholas. Nicholas was his favorite; he was the soft-hearted one, you know.”
Sasha nodded.
“But I think if he’d ever met any of them, he would have been disappointed to find out they were just people, like him, who made bad decisions, and doubted themselves. Who killed, and fucked, and laughed at bad jokes.” He quirked a small, melancholy smile. “He probably would have hated Tsar Nicholas, if he’d known him. The kindest autocrat in the world is still an autocrat. Do you understand?”
“I think so. Yeah.” And he felt a little better.