David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

One of the rent-a-cops had managed to drop something before they’d left: a small cylindrical canister, that was spewing what Stephen hoped was only tear gas.

Stephen lunged for it. Smoke was pouring out of the thing like a burst steam pipe, and as he put his hands around it, Stephen felt his eyes begin to tear and sting.

“The window!” said Uzimeri. “Ah! It hurts!”

It did hurt. Stephen could barely see, but he could still make out the glowing rectangle of the open window here in the tower. He flung the canister toward it.

And swore, as he heard the tink! tink! thunk !, of the metal impacting too low, and landing on the wooden floor of the tower room.

Uzimeri screamed and coughed as the gas welled up around him. Stephen found himself doubled over. His lungs demanded that he inhale, but he knew better than to give in. They’d be completely at Shadak’s mercy if he did.

If they weren’t already. The rent-a-cop who’d survived was making strangled bubbling noises now; who knew what had happened to Mrs. Kontos-Wu; and he and Uzimeri were blind and choking in this room. The next round of rent-a-cops, on the other hand, would have gas masks. And he didn’t think they’d be gentle.

“I’m going to fucking skin that bitch,” said Shadak, standing outside at the tower’s base and watching the tear gas drift northward in the morning light. He was standing alongside just three of his men now.

Three were in the tower. Maybe they were dead. Maybe they were en-Raptured. Either way, it was a problem. The three men beside him were scared shitless; he could hear them muttering among themselves, about sieges and traps and ghosts that walked here among the living. Superstitious cowards, he thought. Even given the comforting plume of tear gas coming out of the arrow-slit, the likelihood that Kontos-Wu and the boy were clutching their throats like a pair of G-8 protesters — storming the room would be out of the question with these cowards at his side.

There was only one thing to do.

“Watch here,” said Shadak, and pointed at the tower. The three men nodded gratefully. After having seen what they’d seen inside the tower, watching from a safe distance was about their speed. “I’ll be back with reinforcements.”

And with that, keys jingling in his pocket, Shadak circled around the house to where he’d chained up the en-Raptured guards. They were still there, of course; Shadak’s chains were well-made and his locks first rate. He knelt down, and looked into one man’s eye after another. Finally, he stood, and addressed them all:

“Does anyone know why they are here?” he bellowed. They stared back like beaten dogs. “No? Good. I will unchain you now. We have work to do in the north tower.”

“The north tower?” said one. “What’s there?”

“What have we done to anger you?” said another. “We thought you had been invaded,” said a third.

“I am sorry!” shouted a fourth, thumping his chest as a chain came loose. “Whatever it is we have done, I for one am sorry for it and shall not do it again!” Shadak smiled as he worked the locks. They had no idea, of course. Their puppet-masters had fled, and these men were fresh to the day. Reborn.

And that was what Shadak needed now — fresh troops, with no idea what they were getting themselves into.

Stephen coughed as the poison air finally made its way into his lungs. He felt like he wanted to throw up, or to die, or to throw up and then die. He let the Ingram down into his lap. He didn’t want his finger anywhere near the trigger with the way the gas was working on him.

Stupid, stupid. He should have thrown the canister out the door and down the stairs. It was a bigger target and it was closer. If he’d been thinking — not letting this Uzimeri character make his decisions for him — that’s what he would have done.

Why the hell had Kolyokov trusted anything to him? Stephen was mystified. The only thing Stephen had managed to do was set them all up for a slow and painful death at the hands of a psychotic Turkish gangster.

Stephen coughed, and bent closer around the Ingram. When he felt the hand on his shoulder, he shook it off.

“F-F-F—” He coughed. “f-uck off.”

The hand returned. This time it held tight on his upper arm, and pulled. “Up.”

It was Mrs. Kontos-Wu.

Stephen stumbled upright. He held the Ingram by the stock. He was all but blind. Mrs. Kontos-Wu dragged him a few steps toward the window. He could feel her bending down to Uzimeri.

“And you,” she said. “Get up.”

How the hell could she even move in this miasma, let alone speak? Stephen could barely keep his balance. From the sounds of his protests, Uzimeri was in no better shape.

Yet within a few seconds, they were all shuffling across the room to the still-open door. Mrs. Kontos-Wu paused over the corpses of the two rent-a-cops outside to retrieve their weapons, then led the three of them down the stairs.

“Careful,” she said. “The stairs here are old and they are not too regular. Don’t want to fall.”

“N-no,” said Stephen. The air was clearing as they made their way down, and he was starting to feel better. Not better to the point where he could see straight and the rivers of snot running out of his nose had slowed any. Not better to the point where he could breathe without coughing.

But he was feeling well enough to realize that Mrs. Kontos-Wu wasn’t speaking in her normal voice. It was that heavily accented Russian voice.

The one he’d first heard her use at the Emissary, where she’d returned after apparently having been drowned by Amar Shadak’s smelly, diesel-powered Foxtrot submarine. The one that Konstantine Uzimeri had appeared to recognize just now, as belonging to —

“Z-Zhanna?” said Stephen.

“That is right, little one,” said Mrs. Kontos-Wu. “The very Zhanna that poor Konstantine here has been telling you about all night. It was a good telling, Konstantine.”

“Praise—” a cough “—praise to Zhanna,” said Uzimeri.

“Stop it,” said Zhanna/Mrs. Kontos-Wu. “This religion of yours is very foolish, Konstantine.”

“Forgive me,” said Uzimeri.

They reached a landing near the bottom. Stephen was able to stand straight on his own now, and he could even see a little, enough to judge the round chamber at the tower’s base to be empty.

“Where are they?” said Stephen.

“Outside,” replied Zhanna/Mrs. Kontos-Wu, a little contempt sneaking into her voice. “They won’t come in again soon. They’re getting to be like Konstantine here — superstitious.”

“Forgive me,” said Uzimeri.

“But—” Mrs. Kontos-Wu’s grip on Stephen’s arm slackened for an instant “—but they’re not above shooting us as we come out the door. Stay here. I won’t be long.”

“Where are you going?”

Mrs. Kontos-Wu’s hand slipped from his arm. Reflexively, Stephen grabbed at her and it was a good thing he did. Mrs. Kontos-Wu’s knees had buckled, and in another instant she would have tumbled down the stairs. As he held her in his arms, she began to cough.

Outside, Stephen could hear another kind of coughing: of small-arms fire. Taking Mrs. Kontos-Wu’s slack form in his arms, he pressed back against the wall, and waited for it to end.

“I will fucking skin her alive,” Shadak vowed under his breath.

He was pressed against the wall of the caravansary’s main house as he said it. He and four others had pulled back just in time to avoid the hail of bullets that had mowed down the remaining three of his makeshift squad. But it wasn’t too late to see that the ones firing were his other three men, whom he’d left to watch the tower.

Shadak knew what had happened as fast as the firing had begun; those dream-walking little bastards had gotten into his men, and driven the cowardice right out of them.