David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

“‘This is in good running order, yes?’ she asked as she ran her fingers along the cool iron piping. We had just painted the valves — Soviet Navy standard red and blue — and the place still smelled of it.

“‘Of course,’ I replied. “She is always kept ready to run.”

“‘Does your rescue hatch function?’ she asked.

“‘For what good it would do,’ I replied. You see, Foxtrots are equipped with a special hatch that allows the submarine to dock underwater. All well and good — if there were anything else still in service that used the same couplings. There is not, alas. The Foxtrot went out of service nearly twenty years ago. I explained this to Zhanna, but she waved it away before I could finish.

“‘It functions, though?’

“‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We take good care of her.’

“We spent hours touring the inside of the submarine. She did not speak — for the most part, she simply looked. Very closely, as though she were taking photographs with her eyes. With my assistance, she climbed into one of the torpedo-room bunks, and lay on the thin mattress for nearly a half-hour, before climbing down.

“‘This is familiar,’ she said finally. ‘And good for us. I’m finished for now.’

“We climbed back up through the conning tower, as we had entered. But when we had entered, the pen was all but deserted. Now, it was filled. Every man in Shadak’s armoury was there, standing as though at attention along the edge of the dock. That would have been enough — but it was also the water at the mouth of the cave. Someone had opened the sea gate, and let a half-dozen small boats inside. There were old fishing boats; a little sailboat; a small inboard motor boat. These were filled too — with one or two adults; but for the most part, with children.

“This strangeness snapped me briefly out of my reverie. I demanded to know what was what.

“‘These,’ she said, ‘are some of my family. Not all. There are many, many more, who are to be with Amar Shadak in Belgrade. And we must take this beautiful submarine, to fetch still more. But these are many.’”

As dawn came to the caravansary, Amar Shadak found himself puzzled. He’d expected to see at least one guard at the edge of the pit he’d reserved for Kontos-Wu and that little bastard Stephen. But here he was, standing outside the wide chamber beneath the caravansary’s mosque, and the lights weren’t even on. Someone would be fucking dead in an hour, he thought. Shadak found the switch, rolled his shoulders, and stepped through the archway and down the steps to the oubliette.

“Good morning, my dears,” he said in a pleasant tone, and waited for the satisfying cries from below. He took a breath. Licked his lips. Took another breath.

“Good morning,” he repeated. “Wake up. Amar has come to chat with you.” Shadak’s pleasant smile faltered. He strode over to the edge of the pit and leaned over. He licked his lips, and his mouth went slack. There was no one there.

He thought back to the twisting sands on the floor of a cave, and to the dance in the dust, when the world had betrayed him, his comrades had risen up as with one mind, and he’d fallen into the Black Villa for good.

He turned away.

Rapture , he thought, fucking Rapture all over again .

He turned and stepped out through the crumbled arches of the mosque. The world was dangerous now — ghosts walked here. No, he reminded himself. Not ghosts — the Children.

Across the room, Mrs. Kontos-Wu stirred.

“It’s time,” she said, in a thick Russian accent. “Zhanna?” said Uzimeri.

“What?” said Stephen.

There was no time for an answer. The door crashed open then, and Mrs. Kontos-Wu was on the move.

“Take no chances,” Shadak had said, a moment before, to the three fidgeting guards outside the tower room. “The Rapture has begun again, and it won’t be long before it comes upon us.”

The Rapture. That was what Uzimeri had kept calling it. Shadak knew it by a different name — he’d been fucked by it before. He didn’t know if he could beat it this time. But he took what steps he could.

He gathered his men together in the courtyard, and in the morning glow looked each one in the eye. Sure enough, one in four was not himself. As Shadak spotted one such man, he separated him out — and again and again, until he had determined which one was which.

Then, the en-Raptured ones placed in the midst of a circle, he set the others upon them to first beat them senseless and chain them together behind the main house. It would likely take a short time for the devil children to regain their senses and take possession of someone else.

Or so Shadak hoped. He had not attempted this before.

Once the en-Raptured were safely chained up, Shadak set about interrogating the remainder of his men. What had happened when Ming Lei’s jet had landed on the strip? They had debarked, yes — and the men who were now tied and beaten senseless had taken the prisoners to the mosque. Shadak did not care for that answer, however; his men gave it too quickly and confidently — as though they had not had to think about the question for a second. Shadak swore to himself. The bastard children hadn’t just ensorcelled the men he’d taken care of; they’d buggered with the memories of the rest of them too. They might have even fiddled with Shadak’s mind. Who knew?

Swearing aloud, Shadak then marched his men up to the security room, where a bank of a dozen television monitors gave a view of all parts of the courtyard and many of the rooms. The man on duty there through the night claimed that nothing had happened. But Shadak made him rewind the tapes anyway, to the time of the plane’s arrival.

Ah , he’d said when the time came, here we are .

And the seven of them watched, slack-jawed, as the prisoners moved through the front barbican, first towards the oubliette, and then to the tower — the place where Shadak was keeping Uzimeri. The submarine guy.

Shadak would have liked to head there straight away. But he had dallied a moment too long in the security room, and the little demons had the time to refocus their energies. It pissed Shadak off; he was so absorbed in the video footage that one of them had nearly managed to slip a knife between his ribs before he knew what was happening. Shooting first that one and then the other two was a reaction more in anger than self-defence. And that pissed Shadak off more.

“Okay,” he said, outside the tower room, “now.”

And with that, one of his men swung the great iron bar from the door, while another slammed his boot against the door.

It was amazing, thought Stephen, as Mrs. Kontos-Wu snapped the knee of the first one through the door, the difference between watching the woman at work and being on the receiving end of her peculiar skill-set.

She really was good.

No sooner had the first one fallen down than Mrs. Kontos-Wu rolled over and kicked the door closed against the second and third. As fast as that happened, Stephen rolled over to the fallen rent-a-cop, who was clutching his thigh and whimpering. He had a small Ingram submachine gun on a strap, and Stephen yanked it away from him. He rolled to the side and levelled it at the entryway. The door pushed open again, and as it did, Stephen fired. The sound was deafening — the light from the muzzle flash blinding — and two rent-a-cops fell backwards down the stairs.

Sometimes he had to remind himself: Mrs. Kontos-Wu wasn’t the only one who knew what they were doing. Stephen was no slouch himself.

“Shit!” Uzimeri scrambled back, and pointed at the feet of the now-screaming rent-a-cop who’d been left behind. Stephen looked, and instinctively held his breath.