David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

Heather felt herself beginning to cry. A part of her wondered why this was so. What had she really to be sad or upset about, talking to this old zombie about two groups of people — one who walked in their dreams, the other who just seemed to sleep all the time? It was obviously bullshit.

Wasn’t it?

Kolyokov put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re working it out now, aren’t you? The fact that you may not be the person you thought you were. It is common to cry out when such a realization comes upon you.”

“What do you mean, ‘such a realization’?”

Kolyokov knelt in front of her.

“Such a realization,” he said softly, “that you are a sleeper and not a dream-walker. And because of that, you are even more powerless than this metaphoric little girl they’ve stuffed you inside.

“You are as powerless,” he said, in a tone like he was intending the words to be kind, “as a sock puppet.”

The sun never set at the Transcendental Meditation camp. It was always afternoon here — sometimes cloudy, sometimes bright and sunny — but the sun always sat above the tree line on the far side of the lake. Heather lay curled on the dock with her eyes shut against it. Kolyokov sat beside her.

“We could do this forever, you know,” he said.

“Forever?”

“This place seems safe,” he said. “We have been here for ten hours by my accounting — and no one has come for me.”

“Would someone come for you?”

“The creature you call Babushka. I think. If she knew that I lived — yes.”

Heather opened her eyes. Squinted up at the zombie. His flesh was getting some of its colour back now, and the lake-water bloat was melting from him. White hair tufted up from his shoulder blades like wisps of lake mist. He squinted at the sun.

“Who’s Babushka, anyway?”

“Her name,” said Kolyokov, “is not important. It used to be Lena. But I don’t think she uses it any more. She’s past that — or she believes that she is which is the same thing here. But she’s very powerful. And she wants to become more so. That is why she seized the children. That is why she put you here.”

“Oh no,” said Heather. “Babushka didn’t put me here.”

“Really, now?” said Kolyokov. “Then who did put you here, if not her?”

That one was easy. “Holden Gibson,” she said. “The old fucking bastard.”

Kolyokov frowned. “Holden Gibson,” he said, then shook his head. “No. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Heather lay quietly for a moment. She thought about Babushka — and how according to old Kolyokov, she’d used to be called Lena. An idea came to her.

“He might have had a different name,” she said. “Before.”

Kolyokov looked at her with raised eyebrows. His face was almost living now.

“What was the name?” he said.

“Kaye,” said Heather. “The Koldun guy — he called him John Kaye.”

Colour flushed back into Fyodor Kolyokov’s face, and he leaped to his feet with uncharacteristic agility. “Kaye?” he said, hauling Heather up too. “Are you certain?”

Heather nodded — flinching back at the zombie’s sudden intensity. “Um — pretty certain,” she said.

Kolyokov said something in Russian, and started up the dock. “John Kaye,” he said. “After all these years. He should be dead — we thought he was dead… . But… It begins to make sense now. Yes…”

“Hey!” shouted Heather. “Where are you going?”

“You’d better join me,” he said. “We’ve got dark work ahead of us.”

“ Dark work?” Heather rolled her eyes.

“Yes.” Kolyokov turned. He seemed to have grown a little bigger — and the sunlight, the way it reflected in his eyes, made it seem as though they burned inside with their own light. “We have to get out of this metaphor of ours once and for all.”

“Oh great,” said Heather. She started up the cliff. “Okay. I’ll kill myself first, and you follow.”

“No. It’s not ourselves who must die. Tonight,” he said, stomping up the hill, “we must murder this Hippie Pete of yours. That is the thing that will break this place’s hold on you.”

Murdering Hippie Pete. It was, of course, a brilliant idea. Something that Heather was a little disgusted with herself for not having considered before.

Kolyokov stopped. “You are not squeamish — are you my dear?”

“Squeamish?” Heather ran to catch up with the old zombie. “Fuck no! How’re we gonna do it? There’s no guns here, but I know where the power tools are! Can I help? Can I?”

Kolyokov laughed and patted Heather on the top of the head.

“You are,” he said, glancing back at the horizon as he spoke, “a delightful child. Truly. I wish I had ten thousand of you.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Heather could see flashes of what looked like lightning in the gathering clouds beyond the far treetops. That was fine with her. Whatever storm the sky could let loose on their heads would be nothing compared to the shitstorm of trouble she and her zombie pal Fyodor Kolyokov would let loose on Hippie Pete when they found him.

There were five guys in the Emissary’s lobby when Amar Shadak arrived. They wore track pants and jackets and expensive running shoes with squishy balloons in the heels that were supposed to make high-impact athletics easier on the ankles. The balloons were wasted on these guys. For one thing, there were at least twice as many chins as guys here. For another, when they talked, they made a wheezing fat man sound. And finally, two of them were smoking, in defiance of what Shadak understood to be a rigidly enforced anti-smoking law in the new mayor’s New York City.

But smoking and morbid obesity would have been the least of their concerns if a New York policeman were to stop them on the street. All of them, Shadak expected, were packing guns.

“Hey,” said one of them as Shadak set his bag down. “We’re closed for business, buddy. New fuckin’ management — you got it?”

“I am here to see my friend Gepetto,” said Shadak pleasantly. “I have an appointment.”

“Do you now?”

“I am Amar,” said Shadak. “I called ahead last night.”

“Amar,” said another one of the guys. “From Istanbul, right?”

“That’s right.” This one was taller than his friends, with greying hair. He looked Shadak in the eye. “They said a guy from Istanbul would be showing up here this morning. Guess you’re him.”

“That’s right.” Shadak smiled.

“You just fly in? Shoulda called from the airport. We woulda sent a car.”

“Under the circumstances,” said Shadak, “it was better I take a taxicab.”

The grey-haired guy nodded. He didn’t take his eyes off Shadak. “Sometimes that’s better,” he said.

“Don’t know who you can trust these days,” said the smaller man. He looked over to grey-hair. “Isn’t that right, Jack?”

Grey-haired Jack nodded. But he didn’t take his eyes off Shadak. His eyes scanned down his torso — probably, Shadak thought, checking him out for weapons. He didn’t blame him. Jack was one of Gepetto Bucci’s boys — and the whole gang of them had just discovered the biggest mystery of their lives here: a ghost hotel. Lights on, sheets turned. But empty. Whole staff gone AWOL. Not a guest in the place.

Shadak remembered the argument he’d had with old Bucci, when he’d first asked him to send someone over to the Emissary Hotel on Broadway:

“What the fuck you want to go to a fuckin’ dry cleaner’s for?”

“It’s not a dry cleaner’s. I need you to go to the 14th floor of the Emissary and find an old Russian named Kolyokov. I think maybe he is gone. If he is — I want you to bring some people to me.”