The Gathering Storm

I was summoned home the next morning to comfort my mother after the loss of her friend. Maman had taken to bed again. Dr. Kruglevski told me to give her a few drops of the sleeping potion he'd prescribed for me. I asked the doctor if he had seen the princess Cantacuzene's body. "Do you know how she died?" I asked him.



"We have seen far too much death this year," Dr. Kruglevski said, patting me on the shoulder. "It is not good for young girls to dwel on such things."



"But if I'm to be a doctor, I must learn as much as I can about the human body." Even if the princess was not completely human, I thought.



Dr. Kruglevski smiled kindly. "Katerina Alexandrovna, you should focus on taking care of the living. Your mother, for instance." I sighed and nodded.



After the doctor left, I went into Maman's room to check on her. I kissed her forehead, noting it was extremely cool. That was when I realized her respirations were slow and very shallow. I grabbed her wrist. "Maman?" I said, feeling a very faint pulse. "Maman!" I shook her by the shoulders.



"Maman!"



She stirred finally, opening her eyes once and staring at me with a drugged gaze, then rolled over and fell back into her coma.



"Maman!" I was frightened. I picked up the bottle of elixir and read the label. ELECAMPANE AND BELLADONNA, TO PROMOTE DEEP, DREAMLESS



SLEEP. BOTTLED BY DR. BADMAEV, #72 BETOSKY PROSPEKT.



I remembered that Dr. Kruglevski had mentioned using the Tibetan doctor's herbal remedies. I put the bottle in my purse and ran to find my maid. "Anya! I believe Maman has taken too much sleeping medicine.



Make a pot of strong tea!"



We sat Maman up and coaxed her to drink the tea until she was alert.



She seemed annoyed that we had disturbed her rest. Anya promised to stay with my mother while I ran an errand.



When I got into the carriage, I gave the coachman the address for Dr.



Badmaev's office. I had to find out more about the mysterious Tibetan.



The sun was already making the day warm. Soon it would be time for everyone to remove themselves from the city and take up their summer residences in the country. Most of the nobility would follow the imperial family to the Crimea. Papa swore the air was healthier at our summer residence on the Black Sea. But I knew Maman preferred Biarritz, on the coast of France. There the entertainment carried on all year round.



Dr. Badmaev's pharmaceutical shop and clinic was tiny, tucked into a large building on a crowded, dusty street in St. Petersburg.



Inside, I stared at the floor-to-ceiling shelves along one wall, lined with hundreds of bottles of herbal potions.



There was no place to sit except for an old bench, already occupied by a babushka with a dirty child sitting on her lap. The old woman slid over to make room for me. I smiled gratefully. The child cried and clasped the old woman's neck.



"What is wrong with her?" I asked, trying to make conversation.



"She has been bitten by the upyri."



I looked at the little girl, who must not have been any older than four or five. "What is your name?" I asked her. "My name is Katerina Alexandrovna."



The little girl peeked at me from behind the old woman.



"Oxsana Yulievna," she finally said, after deciding I was not going to hurt her.



"Pleased to meet you," I said, smiling.



"Did the upyri bite you as well?" she asked.



I thought of the kisses from Prince Danilo and felt sick to my stomach. I thought of the nightmares about moths I had been having for months. I thought about poor Dariya and her ill ness caused by poison. I shook my head sadly. "I am not sure, Oxsana. Perhaps the doctor can tell me." Soon after, the babushka took Oxsana into the exam room to see the Tibetan. The old woman tried to convince me to go ahead of her, but I refused. I did not want the little girl to wait because of me. It was not long before the babushka and Oxsana left the clinic, the little girl smiling.



Perhaps the doctor did have a cure for vampire bites.



The afternoon sun was beating down through an open window in the doctor's exam room. The infamous Tibetan doctor Pyotr Badmaev was a middle-aged man with a kind face and dark, hypnotic eyes. He looked at me quietly as I entered and sat down in a chair by the window, clutching the bottle of his sleeping potion in my hand. He seemed to be examining me from head to toe without laying a finger on me or asking a single question.



It seemed like forever before he finally spoke. "Can I ask your name, please?" His Russian was perfect.



"Dr. Badmaev, my name is Katerina Alexandrovna of Oldenburg. I am not ill, but I came because Dr. Kruglevski has given my mother a sleeping medicine manufactured by you."



"Oldenburg? Ah, I have met your father. He is a remarkable man."



"Thank you," I said. As a practitioner of Eastern medicine, he surely scorned Western science, did he not? "Do you remember giving this medicine to Dr. Kruglevski?"



He took the bottle from my hand, turning it around. Without a word, he placed the bottle on the counter and sat down in the chair next to me. "Your Highness, I am sorry, but I am afraid I cannot help you. Dr. Kruglevski has been coming to buy my medicines for several years now. I cannot recall when he was here to buy this elixir."



"My mother was very difficult to rouse after taking this. I believe she has taken too much."



"She will be fine." He took my hands in his, turning my palm up to look at the lines. "The sleep potion is very potent and keeps one in a state of healing."



"From what? I did not know she was sick."



"You did not notice? You have the hands of a healer, Katerina Alexandrovna. But you also have the aura of death around you."



"What is wrong with my mother?" I asked. I had not come here to talk about myself.



"Her aura is cloaked in shadow, just as yours is. You are aligned with the Dark Court, are you not?"



I hesitated. I wasn't sure where I belonged. "How can you tell?"



"I can see the forces of light that surround every living being, and your light force is a dark violet."



I wrinkled my nose, pulling my hand out of his. I hated the color purple.



"What does that mean? How can you be certain my mother will be all right?"



The elderly Tibetan laughed. "You who walk the paths of the dead do not believe in the possibility that there are paths of the living as well." I was growing uncomfortable. "Did you cure that little girl? Was she really bitten by the upyri?"



"Yes, and no. It was a veshtiza that bit her. And that is curable with the right antidote." He must have seen the stunned look on my face, because he smiled. "Come, Katerina Alexandrovna. I have something that may be useful to you." He found a brown bottle on the shelf and handed it to me.



"This is an antidote for the poison of a vampire bite."



"How?" I could not believe in folk medicine. I wanted cold facts to back up his claims. I wanted to examine the medicine under a microscope-to identify the herbs and their chemical compounds. "It can't be magic." He shook his head. "Of course not."



"But the vampires cannot be studied in a lab, or dissected by scientists.



How do you know your potion will work?"



The Tibetan smiled. "I know only from firsthand observations. Not all vampires drain one completely of blood. The veshtiza moths only take a tiny bit when they drink. It is their poison that is deadly."



"Poison!" I shivered and thought immediately of the girls at Smolny and the members of the Order. My worst fears about Elena and her sisters were confirmed. Elena was turning into a moth at night and poisoning us while we slept.



"Veshtiza moths are particularly fond of hemlock leaves."



"And the moths inject the poison into whoever they bite?" My mind was reeling.



Dariya



needed



the



Tibetan's



medicine



immediately.



"Frankincense is the antidote for the veshtiza's poison," I deduced in a whisper.



He closed my hand over the bottle. "You come back and visit me, Katerina Alexandrovna. I am sure we have much to discuss."