David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

Alexei looked at him sidelong. “The guy,” he said, “from the tank?”

Montassini grinned. “You’re back!” he said.

“Yeah,” said Alexei. He stepped inside with the rest of them. Heather stepped into the shadow of the door, just out of sight.

That is a good instinct , whispered Kolyokov. Kilodovich is on a rampage .

“A—” Heather swallowed, and thought the question: A rampage? He’s got a baby in his arms and looks like he’s just about dead.

No , said Kolyokov. He’s doing what he was made to do. But I don’t know that anyone is telling him. This is very dangerous.

Heather moved back further into the shadow. She wasn’t about to question Kolyokov’s assessment any more. After all, the last few times that the baby Vladimir and Alexei had hooked up, things hadn’t exactly gone swimmingly for Heather or the rest of Holden Gibson’s crew.

Alexei and Montassini were talking quietly as they walked into the round room at the base of the tower. The baby Vladimir was peering around with wide, nervous eyes. They passed near them.

So what should we do to ge —

Your mantra , said Kolyokov. Now !

Mi , thought Heather at once. Mi mi mi mi.

Alexei Kilodovich started up the stairs first, while Montassini continued: “He’s upstairs. We got the fucker tied up like nothin’ else. You aren’t gonna fuckin’—”

And that was all Heather heard. Pushed by Fyodor Kolyokov’s hurried urgency, she stepped out the door and into the New Pokrovskoye night.

AmarShadak’s antique submarine broke surface two kilometres off from New Pokrovskoye amid a school of kraken and moon-silvered froth. A trio of Romanians emerged on deck immediately, carrying with them the components of a Zodiac. Two more came out with a machinegun, which they set about assembling on the foredeck. Konstantine Uzimeri remained atop the tower, surveying the horizon with light-enhancing binoculars. Stephen took his own binoculars, and focussed them on the coastline, and the faint glow that rose beyond the jagged rocks.

“You should not go ashore,” said Uzimeri. “You are too weak.”

“Fuck you, Konstantine.” Stephen squinted. Aside from the light, the coast looked utterly barren. He played with the focus — for a moment, he thought he could actually see a structure — a tower, maybe a lighthouse — but then it faded. And the light faded too. “Don’t talk to me about weak. I’m not the one who fell for Babushka’s line.”

“You never had the chance,” said Konstantine. “You are too weak.”

Stephen didn’t bother answering. Instead, he slung the Skorpion machine pistol under his arm and swung himself out onto the ladder. The water was calm, but it was still dizzying making his way down the four-metre conning tower. He shivered. If it was possible, the submarine from outside seemed even narrower, less substantial than it was on the inside. It was slippery and narrow on top — every step to the boat’s prow was like a step along a tightrope. Finally, Stephen set down on the wet decking, crossed his legs, and squinted at the coastline. He left his binoculars around his neck.

It was like seeing Central Park from the Emissary Hotel, looking at New Pokrovskoye. Stephen began to imagine his way through the rock, through the illusion. He slowed his breathing — tried some of the techniques he’d learned in Jersey. And after a while, sure enough — the glow came back. He could even make out the shape of the tower.

And then, bit by bit, more things became visible: smoke coming from some buildings — great stone ramparts going down to the sea. The masts of tall ships. Flickering oil-flames further out, on top of buoys. A glorious hot-air balloon, tethered to the topmost tower of a fantastical palace that looked like it was out of a fairy story.

And a voice, a deep basso, calling out for someone called Natascha.

Stephen shook his head.

Fuck it, he thought. What the hell did a bunch of fortune tellers in New Jersey know about dream-walking anyway?

“Hey!”

Stephen looked over his shoulder. Mrs. Kontos-Wu was maybe a dozen feet behind him. She had changed into the same getup as had Uzimeri: a black sweater, black jeans and high laced boots. Stephen nodded at her.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” she said. “Easiest thing in the world, to slip off the side and fall into the ocean.”

“Okay.” Stephen spun on his ass so he was facing her. “Now I’m not alone.”

“We got another set of messages,” she said, “from the Mystics.”

“Which is?”

“We’re not as done as we thought we were,” she said. “Babushka’s still a threat. Soon, Alexei will confront her. Hopefully, he is strong enough. And there is something else…”

Alexei Kilodovich and Vladimir climbed to the top of the aerie and faced the Koldun, Vasili Borovich. He was tied to a chair, and in rough shape. He regarded Alexei levelly.

“Name the smells,” said Alexei.

“What?”

“That is what you said to me, just days past,” said Alexei. “‘Name the smells.’ As if by doing so I would be welcomed to this magnificent community that you have built here in Canada. It made me very sentimental and trusting to you. And then you fucking set me up for a killing.”

“I had no idea,” said Borovich, “who you were.”

“That,” said Alexei, “is bullshit. You knew me well enough to kill me.” Borovich struggled in his bonds. “Only enough to know that Lena — the

Babushka — wanted you alive. That she had a special purpose for you.”

“Bullshit,” said Alexei.

It is true , said Vladimir. Babushka asked and asked about you. We did not tell her anything.

“Borovich tried to kill you too,” said Alexei.

“The Children?” Borovich looked back and forth between the two of them — and to Montassini, who was standing behind Kilodovich like a mob enforcer. “Yes — again, only because the Babushka wanted them so.”

“This does not cause me to feel better,” said Alexei.

“You don’t know what the Babushka can do when she has everything she wants.”

Alexei shook his head. “Take the world over — live in the backs of the brains of everyone on this planet. Change the names of things to suit her tastes, and live forever.”

Borovich glared at him.

“And you,” said Alexei, “would have stood for it — if she had loved you properly. Yes?”

“Oh God,” said the Koldun.

Alexei felt himself grow before him. His head was scraping the ceiling of this aerie. Robes flowed from him like liquid. And the thing in his belly stirred and reached across the space to Borovich. Vladimir started to snuffle and tear up at the sight of the thing.

“I think,” said Alexei, “you shall be unravelled.”

“What the fuck is goin’ on here?” said Montassini. “You okay, Alex?”

“Oh God,” said Borovich.

And Alexei said, “No. The lie.”

In 1976, Borovich awoke in Toronto. He had connived an assignment here — and it was a poor one. He worked the University of Toronto — pulling students here and there into a suite of rooms he kept in an old house in Parkdale, near the lake, seeing if he could manage the slow technique of remaking them for City 512. He could not, of course, on his own — the techniques were too difficult in those days for one to do alone. But it was rumoured that Lena, who had been there two decades earlier, had perfected a technique. She was gone, but Borovich had convinced certain others that he might continue the work. So he occupied his flat and whiled away the days.