35
THE DEVIL INCARNATE
The snows came in October.
Stalingrad was in ruins.
They were alone, out in the wilderness, an army of nine.
Something was wrong.
Sasha knew it the moment he woke that morning – the scent of frost heavy in his lungs, rolling over beneath his cloak, warm fuzzy bodies of his wolves pressed around him – and cracked his eyes to see two figures sitting as silhouettes against the rising pink sun.
He recognized Philippe’s voice: “It’s time. We’ve waited too long as it is.”
“Agreed,” Rasputin said. “But they’ll never allow it.”
“No. They’ll have to be dealt with.”
Sasha sat up and pushed his hood back. His breath came out in thick, white puffs; it felt like his eyes were freezing in their sockets. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
Both of them turned to look at him over their shoulders, and for a moment, he was struck by how horrible they were. Bearded, and pulsing with energy, radiating a malice so thick it raised a growl in his throat.
But then Philippe smiled at him and Sasha was enveloped in calm. A thick, fluffy, warm sort of calm, like a blanket.
He’d imagined they were horrible, that was all. Some clinging remnant of a bad dream. They were wonderful, and powerful, and he belonged with them. Their wolf.
“Come and sit with us,” Philippe said, and Sasha did.
~*~
His sense of peace pervaded…up to a point. He felt sluggish, unconcerned. Tired and in need of a nap. But something tickled at the back of his mind. An uneasiness that threatened his calm, but which flitted away when he tried to pin it down, like a fly.
The snow was thick and wet, halfway to their knees, and like walking through stew that had been left on the stove too long. Everyone breathed raggedly through their mouths, already tired, and now drained by the effort of slogging through the drifts. Even the wolves seemed sleepy, Sasha noted, their tongues lolling, steps slow and careful as their group picked its way up a short rise and came to a break in the trees.
Again, he was struck by the sense that something was wrong. He was sweaty from exertion, but he shivered as he was hit by the notion that there was something lurking, something dark brewing.
He halted, breathing deep through his mouth and nose, trying to catch the scent of a threat.
A clearing lay stretched before them, smooth and white with virgin snow, the leafless trees standing like black matchsticks at its edges. He saw ravens perched in the trees, heard the squawks and croaks. Overhead, the sky promised more snow, gray with swollen clouds. The wind whipped through the clearing as if through a funnel, tugging at his cloak and the bits of long hair that had slipped out from beneath it.
What was he…
Why was he…
They were on yet another errand to move into German-held territory and pick off units one by one. One of now-dozens of missions just like it. Killing had become commonplace to him; he didn’t flinch when the enemy screamed anymore. So why was he so uneasy now? What flickered at the edges of his consciousness that raised the hairs on the back of his neck?
Pyotr had noticed that he’d fallen behind, and stopped himself, turning around. His long black leather coat and black fur-trimmed hat were dusted with snow. The first new flakes were falling.
“Sasha, are you alright?”
“I…”
Feliks turned. And Kolya. Ivan. Kolya had a hand at his hip, on the hilt of a knife.
Nikita halted, and steadied Katya with a hand on her shoulder. Sasha had been able to scent the baby growing in her womb for a while now, sooner than even Katya had known about it. He was happy for them, and worried. But right now that, and all sentiments, seemed remote.
Something was wrong.
“Sasha,” Nikita said.
The wolves started to whine. The alpha female nosed his hand.
“Something’s not…” he started.
At the head of their procession, now in the middle of the clearing, Rasputin turned to face him, too, as did Philippe at his side. It was in their faces, that wrongness. Rasputin swept his black cloak tighter around his shoulders, and even from a distance, Sasha could feel the relentless heat of his gaze, his gray eyes sparkling like ice.
“…right,” he finished, and the air left his lungs in a puff of vapor.
He could smell it now, that thing he’d been chasing for miles, that thing that wasn’t Germans, or tanks, or gun oil, or corpse flesh.
It was bloodlust. And murder.
“I…”
Pain lanced through his head, a jagged strike that felt like it cleaved his brain in two. His vision went white and he clapped his hands to his head. He heard the animal sound he made as if from a distance, his whole awareness swallowed up by the pain.
Submit, submit, submit.
A vision was given to him, then, one of decadent parlors, palatial estates; of hands stroking his hair and telling him he was a good boy; beautiful women brought to him, the finest foods and wines; a master, a whole order of them, with blood and praise on their lips. A vision of belonging. Of tearing the throats from his friends and being rewarded for it.
The world will be ours, Philippe’s voice said amidst the pain.
And Rasputin: submit, submit, SUBMIT.
Sasha clenched his teeth, and shut his eyes, and fell to his knees, face pressed into the snow.
A vision of fangs in his throat, of vampires growing strong off his blood.
He fought it, and the pain was terrible. Someone screamed his name, but he couldn’t respond, couldn’t move. Saliva filled his mouth, and he thought he’d be sick.
A vision of a shaggy white wolf, larger than all the others, leading his pack against black-clad humans who screamed, and fell, and went to bloody ribbons under his fangs. That was wolf-him, he understood.
Submit. Change. Kill.
No, he thought furiously, no, no, no–
A bell started to ring.
“Oh, dear,” a familiar, cultured voice said above him. “You’re not really going to let them get away with this, are you?”
He bit his own tongue and tasted blood. No. No, he was not.
~*~
The bell came to life in Nikita’s pocket, and Rasputin’s gaze snapped around, searching for it.
Dark forces, indeed.
“Captain,” Philippe said, and Nikita felt the first touch of calmness steal over his edges, enchantment trying to quell his mounting panic.
He shook it off with a firm mental shake and drew his gun.
Katya grabbed at her rifle and Nikita stepped between her and the immortals. “No, run,” he told her.
“But–”
“Run, damn it! Get to the trees. They can’t take all of us at once.”
“But, Nik.”
He spared her the briefest glance, saw the anguish in her eyes. “Please.”
She wanted to argue, her jaw set, but she turned and ran, tripping through the deep snow.
Nikita stood in front of her retreat, his gun aimed at the vampire.
Sasha was still on the ground, making a horrible sound, half wolf howl and half human scream.
“Monsieur Philippe.” Nikita couldn’t believe the calmness of his own voice. “Care to explain?”
The mage heaved a deep sigh that sounded truly regretful. “Captain, I’m afraid that our time together has come to an end. You’ve been a wonderful help these past months, but you’ve outlived your usefulness, I’m afraid.”
The worst part was, he wasn’t surprised. He should never have started down this path.
But now here they were.
He sighed, too. Nodded. “Right.” And pulled the trigger.
The bullet didn’t reach its target. Rasputin stepped in front of the mage, and he jerked a little, like he’d been shoved, when the round went into his abdomen.
The shot echoed off the flat plane of snow, on and on, the only sound save Sasha’s whimpering.
Rasputin smiled, and it looked strained, blood bubbling between his teeth. But he was on his feet, unwavering. “Captain,” he said, chuckling, “you’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”
Ivan let out a roar, and charged.
~*~
Katya reached the tree line and turned back, already shrugged her rifle off her back. She heard the yell, and when she put the rifle stock to her shoulder, she saw that it was Ivan, running full-tilt at the vampire.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. They’d all watched Rasputin and Philippe in battle. Ivan had no hope.
She was so clear-headed now, more herself than she had been in weeks. Rasputin was in Sasha’s head, she realized, and it was taking all his mental strength to keep the boy down on the ground and writhing.
Philippe raised his hand, a bright curl of fire unfurling in his palm.
Katya wanted to scream for Ivan to get down.
She lined up her sights and fired.
Philippe threw fire, like he had so many times before, and it hit Ivan like a shove, threw him to the ground, bursting and spreading. The big man screamed.
Katya’s shot went straight through Rasputin’s skull, blood, and brain, and bone flying across the snow.
He fell, limp, and Sasha staggered to his feet, weaving like a drunk.
Nikita turned his gun on Philippe, fired once, twice, three times. The shots didn’t land, pinging off thin air, whizzing off through the trees.
Feliks and Pyotr fell on Ivan, throwing handfuls of snow on him, smothering the flames. He’d stopped screaming, though.
Kolya pulled his two long knives, and even in the snow, he was graceful as the dancer he’d once been as he advanced on the mage.
Philippe kindled another palmful of fire –
And Katya fired again.
He’d been just distracted enough. The bullet caught him in the knee with a bright explosion of blood and tissue.
He yelled and collapsed, landing awkwardly on his good knee. Fire leapt from his hand, and Kolya spun again, dodging, a black wraith against the snow.
Nikita rushed to join him.
Feliks surged to his feet, cursing and spitting, drawing his own gun.
Katya lined up another shot –
And a black shadow landed on the barrel of her rifle. She gasped in surprised and almost dropped the gun.
It was a raven. It cocked its head and croaked at her, completely unafraid.
“Get off!” she hissed, and tried to shake it off.
It croaked again, and flew at her face.
~*~
Sasha was still in pain, but it was manageable now. He had his feet under him, and was moving faster now, regaining strength. He growled, and his wolves answered him, flanking him, all of them moving as a pack.
Kolya danced around fire, knives reflecting the bright light of the flames.
Nikita sprinted across the clearing, running for the wounded mage.
Two things happened at once:
Rasputin sat up.
And the ravens dove from the trees and attacked them.
~*~
Nikita was three strides away when Kolya slipped a knife into Philippe’s belly.
The mage roared…and burst into flames.
The fire flared up hot and bright, pushing Nikita back.
Kolya yelled and staggered back…and he was on fire, too.
But unlike Philippe, he screamed and shrank from it. While the mage stood, impossibly, unscathed within the fire. Not consumed by it, but held within it, protected.
Nikita raised his gun though he feared it was useless, and black birds swept in front of him. Descended on him, beat at his face with their wings, scratched at him with their talons.
It was the ravens. Philippe was controlling the ravens.
He shielded his face with his arm. Tried to.
Someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
The birds lifted away, and he faced Rasputin.
The vampire stood upright, trembling, the side of his skull an exploded ruin where Katya’s shot had exited. Nikita could see his brain. Blood oozed down the side of his face, clotting his beard.
“Look at me,” he rasped.
His eyes took hold of Nikita’s, held them open, pinned him in place.
Yes, this was nice. Just standing here. That was fine.
Rasputin’s hands were very warm as they gripped his neck, tilted his head.
His fangs didn’t even hurt when they pierced his throat.
~*~
Everyone was on fire. Everyone was dying.
Ravens clawed at his face.
Sasha had never been so angry. It was no longer anger – it was a fundamental kind of rage that was a part of him, something instinctual that tugged hard at his insides.
He, he, he, he…
“Shift, you idiot,” Val said beside him, and suddenly he knew.
He was a werewolf, yes. And what good was a werewolf in the shape of a man?
He let the rage fill him, boiling up, rushing into all his corners, through the secret pathways of his darkest veins. It hurt, for a moment, a sweet agony, a fierce ripping apart. And then everything was sharp, and bright, and intense. And he had paws, and jaws, and he was furious, and he was strong.
He snarled and ran past the burning, twisting, dying bodies of his friends, his brothers, the smell of magic and hate strong in his nose. His wolves ran with him.
Monsieur Philippe raised a flaming torch of a hand, tried to repel him with his mind.
But Sasha was beyond that. He was himself again, maybe for the first time, and he leapt at the man who’d started all this.
They attacked as a pack. Sasha heard the yelps of his wolves, felt their pain, smelled their blood…but he felt their determination, too. The fire scorched him, but he pressed in anyway. Closed his jaws around fire, sank his fangs into flesh.
It seemed an eternity, but finally he tasted blood, and he tore out the old man’s throat.
The fire went out with a sucking sound, and Philippe lay dead in the snow, blood splashed in wide arcs.
The ravens flew off, his hold on them broken.
In the silence, Sasha looked, and found his pack dead. Killed by fire, by magic.
Animal grief welled within him.
And then he saw Rasputin.
The starets stood holding someone as tenderly as he would a lover, cradling his skull, face pressed into his throat. A figure utterly still, black coat flapping around him. A black fur-trimmed hat lay behind him in the snow, where it had been knocked off.
Nikita. Cold, heartbeat slow and fading.
And Rasputin, hot and pulsing with new power, the bones cracking and popping as the hole in his skull started to repair itself.
The vampire lifted his head, mouth steaming, blood running down his chin. He sighed with deep pleasure, smacked his lips, licked them. Then he opened his hands and Nikita fell back across the snow, limp as a doll, gray-faced. Drained.
Sasha growled, and pounced.
The blood had given Rasputin strength, but hatred, Sasha found out, was stronger.
They toppled to the snow, and though Rasputin flashed his awful silver eyes, Sasha was self-possessed now. A wolf without a pack, without a master, without second thought.
Blood hot and copper on his tongue, electric vampire taste. He tore out his throat. Opened his belly with his fangs. Savaged him until he lay twitching and moaning.
It would take decades underground and weeks of strong blood to heal those wounds.
It would…
And suddenly Sasha was human-shaped again, kneeling in the snow, shivering beneath his white pelt cloak, sobbing and choking and retching.
“Oh, God, oh God…”
Slowly, gracefully, Val knelt opposite him. He was clean and unmarked, not really here at all, and so unaffected by the battle. “Do you remember what I told you, Sasha? A long time ago?”
“I…”
Val sighed, patient. “About cutting the heart out?”
“Oh.” So that’s what he’d been talking about.
His gaze moved over the bloody, moaning shape that had once been Rasputin, and he shuddered.
And then he remembered Nikita.
~*~
At first he was very cold, but he was beginning to be warm again. The cold was the blood loss, he figured, and the new warmth was because the blood loss was killing him.
Nikita was too tired to question these rational thoughts. He supposed everyone thought those sorts of things when they were about to die. When the world went gray, and you couldn’t move your limbs, and you acknowledged that you’d lost. That it had all been for naught.
In that moment, though he’d spent his life working to restore the empire, he found he didn’t care about it at all now. Now he thought about the child that would grow up without a father – if Katya was still alive. He thought about how he’d failed his brothers, all of them. About how he deserved this. How he hadn’t just died at the hands of a monster, but was one himself, too.
It was very quiet now. He thought he might sleep.
But then…
The earth was shaking. Or he was. Or…
Warm hands on his face, his neck. A shadow floated over his face. Someone was speaking…
“Nik! Nikita! Nik!”
Oh, bless him, it was Sasha. He smelled like blood, and wolf musk. His voice was choked, like he was crying.
“Nik…” A sniffle. A hand across his forehead, pushing his hair back. “I’m going to save you.” Determined, firm. And then Sasha moved away.
Nikita tried to say something to him, but he couldn’t. Everything was gray, gray, gray. So tired…so…
The hands again, so careful on his face. And then warm breath against his mouth. And then lips. A kiss. Something wet, and hot, and slick. A tongue pushed into his mouth, and he tasted the hot, salty, coppery tang of blood. Blood in his mouth, filling it. Sliding from another mouth and into his.
Sasha’s voice, thick with…with blood. “Swallow that.”
He did.
~*~
Rasputin was still alive, his wounds still pumping blood, and Sasha carried it to Nikita, fed it to him, as fast and as easy as he could think to do it – in his mouth. Mouthful after mouthful. Until Nikita’s color started to come back.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked imploringly to Val. “Is it enough? To turn him?” Because that, he’d realized, was the only way to keep him alive. The exchange of blood between vampire and human was half-done; if Sasha could complete it, Nikita would live. And his wolves were dead, Ivan was dead, Kolya and Feliks too, their bodies black and twisted on the snow. He wouldn’t lose Nikita. He wouldn’t.
“It might be enough,” Val said, considering. He glanced over at Rasputin. “But there’s one way to be sure. Kill two birds with one stone – pardon the expression.”
Whatever it took. Whatever, he didn’t care.
Sasha nodded, and walked back to the vampire to claw out his heart. He would feed it to Nikita, bite by bite, until he was alive, and the monster Rasputin was finally dead.
~*~
Nikita woke with a pounding heart, and the taste of blood in his mouth. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was sitting upright, propped against something. There was a fire burning in the clearing.
Shit, he had to –
“Easy,” a familiar voice said, and a hand landed on his shoulder, pushed him back down.
He turned his head and found Sasha, mouth caked with drying blood, face lined with thin little scratches. He was gray-faced, and hollow-eyed, but he quirked a smile. There was blood on his white cloak, in the ends of his hair. Finger-shaped smudges of it on his throat and collarbones.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
He felt…well, fine, actually. Better than he should have.
He flexed his hands, wiggled his toes inside his boots. He was tired, but nothing hurt.
He clapped a hand to his neck, and instead of a raw bloody wound felt two small scabs, well on their way to healed.
His gaze went out to the fire. “Who is that?”
“Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin,” Sasha said. He sounded tired, and older. World-weary in a way he never had before. “He’s really dead this time. I’ll scatter the ashes when he’s done burning.”
Nikita looked at the boy again, searched his face. “Did I dream it?” But the taste of blood told him no, he hadn’t.
Sasha’s expression seemed to cave in, chin quivering a little. “Everyone’s dead, except...” He gestured off to his right, and that’s when Nikita saw two huddled shapes sitting against a tree trunk, pale and big-eyed, staring at him with disbelief…and fear.
Katya and Pyotr.
“Oh God.” His heart lurched. “Sweetheart…”
She shrank back, clutching at Pyotr’s arm.
“They’re shaken up,” Sasha said. “They’re more afraid of me than you, I think. I…I shifted.”
“How?”
“I just did. I had to.”
Nikita swallowed. His throat was beginning to ache. His eyes burned. “Sasha.” He fixed him with a look. “What happened to me?”
Sasha looked pained. He put a blood-smeared hand over top of Nikita’s, and squeezed. “Rasputin nearly drained you. I…Nik, I’m sorry, I turned you.”
“I’m a vampire.” A slow, creeping numbness began to overtake him.
“Yes.”
The wind sighed through the trees, spattering the trunks with snowflakes. Overhead, the ravens cackled to themselves.
Two monsters studied one another, and for them, the war was over.