David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

Soon, she would be in a place like he had been — possibly, reduced to her childhood memories of herself. Flesh and touch there would be a construct — a powerful but still incomplete simulacrum. Memory, distinct, sensual memory, might make it better.

Like the others who were drinking in their true heritage here in the museum — Darya was drinking in those sensations of flesh that she might ever be denied. When she propositioned him, she might have thought it was only about sex. But as her explorations continued — even as she pulled back the band of his underwear, and took his member in her fingers — Alexei understood that her needs were more encompassing than that.

Alexei, however, was on the other side of Rapture. And like the vodka and talk that had seduced him in the lighthouse, Darya’s soft touch moved him now. For Alexei, it was not about map-making, as his hand fluttered aside Darya’s skirt, and ran up the smoothness of her thigh. He swallowed, and shut his eyes, and only a part of him remembered where he was — the potential peril he found himself in.

“Nuh,” said Darya at once. She withdrew her fingers.

Alexei opened his eyes.

He withdrew his own hand.

He felt her hands at his shoulders, pushing him back.

He let go entirely, acquiescent and guilty and pissed off all at once. He had never felt more like an awkward, oafish teenager than this day — even, he reflected ruefully, during his adventures in his own history.

“What is it?”

Her eyes were open — in the dim light underneath Babushka’s sarcophagus, they seemed to dance with energy. She looked at Alexei — but she didn’t seem to see him.

“The dance?” he asked. “ Rapture ?”

As if in answer, she rose on her legs and hands, arching her back — and crab-like, scuttled to the edge of the podium. She shifted and bent, her long skirt sweeping across the ground, and like that — she was through.

Shit . She was through. Alexei felt a peculiar sense of defeat. She would go out, and her papa would find her, and then the old man would come after him, an angry parent hunting down the boy who felt up his daughter.

Except that this was not an ordinary father. This was a man who had murdered dozens, in Latin America and Europe and Africa.

Alexei lifted Holden Gibson’s Glock from the floor and held it ready. Well. Darya’s papa the leading citizen of New Pokrovskoye, was not the only one who knew a thing or two about killing.

Ivan Rebroff sang on as Alexei crawled to the edge of the curtain and lifted it. From the sounds of thumping feet, it seemed like there was quite a bit of commotion. But as he lifted it, the last board creaked, and the room fell quiet. He blinked, and moved to another side, and there too — the room seemed empty. At the far end of the hall, he heard the sound of the door shutting.

Alexei waited. He listened. He did this until he felt his legs cramp up. So cautiously, he moved the curtain aside, and crawled out into the empty museum. He felt his knees crack as he climbed to his feet. He held the Glock close to his hip and pressed back against the cool eggshell surface of Babushka’s tank.

Hey , he thought, scanning his gaze beyond the puddles of light from the ceiling — looking for any sign of movement; any sign that anyone might be waiting for him. Darya’s father — one of Holden Gibson’s people. Anybody.

Hey , he thought again. Babushka .

There came no answer.

If there is to be a dance, and everyone is going to Paradise, how is it that poor Alexei is left without a partner ?

Alexei moved around the tank. The fake gemstones glued onto its surface seemed to shimmer under the light. The song dopplered down a half-tone, as though old Rebroff was driving away on the back of a truck. Alexei drew a breath. Even the old killer Darya’s father seemed to have gone. He was alone in this museum. He stuffed the gun back into his waistband.

Alexei stopped at the hatch to the tank. It was still slightly ajar. He pulled it open all the way, and stuck his head into the darkness.

“Babushka!” he spoke into the tank. “Why am I alone here?”

He was met with the barrel of a gun, a touch of ice against the middle of his forehead. The voice that answered him was deep, and it echoed — but not in his head. And not deep like the Babushka voice.

“ Don’ fuckin’ move, ” it said in English. “ You got that ?”

“I got that.”

Alexei did not move.

“ This is a gun that I am pointing at you. You know the word for gun, you fuckin’ Commie? ”

All Alexei’s attention bent and focussed through the lens of the gun pressed against his forehead.

“I do,” said Alexei. “Don’t worry. I am not moving.”

“ Fuckin’ right you’re not. Now you stand right there, and you think very carefully about how you’re going to answer my questions .”

Alexei thought about a lot of things. Mostly, the gun barrel pressed to his forehead, and how the gun and its owner came to be inside the Babushka’s sarcophagus in the New Pokrovskoye Museum of Family History.

“ First question ,” said the gunman. “ Where’s the fuckin’ sea ?”

Alexei swore to himself. Where is the sea ? What kind of question was that? The gunman was obviously out of his mind. He tried the best answer he could think of: “Down the hill. Past the harbour. That’s the ocean.” He shut his eyes, waiting for the bullet. But the gun barrel wavered, drawing a little circle in the sweating skin of his forehead.

“ Fuck. All right. Listen. I’m not talking about that sea. I’m talking about the sea — the sea in the fuckin’ U.F.O .”

“I cannot help you,” said Alexei. “I don’t know where the sea there has gotten to.”

“ Fuck .” The cold circle of gunmetal pulled away from Alexei’s forehead. Alexei let out a long and ragged breath, that apparently he had been holding all this time. Alexei blinked, and watched as a face joined the gun in the little circular hatchway. He recognized it immediately: it was the face of the one man who’d seemed uncomfortable in the tour group.

He looked up at Alexei appraisingly. Alexei looked back at him. They didn’t speak for what felt like a full minute.

“I give up,” he finally said. “No more act. I’m not fuckin’ Sergei.”

“I didn’t think you were,” said Alexei.

“I’m Leo Montassini.”

“All right. I’m Alexei,” said Alexei.

“Alex… Alexei Kilodovich?”

Alexei frowned. The little guy grinned.

“Alexei Kilodovich . No shit. From New York?”

“Do we know each other?”

“Nah. Well. Kind of. I know you. Mr. Bucci said to bring you if we found you, along with the old guy, whatsisname? Fyodor Kolyokov.” Leo Montassini was quiet a moment, like he was doing math in his head. “Well fuck me. I was right to come here! It wasn’t just a bullshit midlife fuckin’ spiritual crisis thing. That’s what I was startin’ to think. Montassini, you’re goin’ all soft and spiritual. Next thing you know, you’ll be carryin’ a fuckin’ crystal around in your shorts and meditatin’ all the time and stoppin’ eatin’ meat. Go to fuckin’ confession, forget about this shit with the sea and the smell and the little fuckin’ voices in your fucked up head. Well fuck me! I was right !”

Montassini was grinning. His gun was dangling. Alexei made no attempt to piece together what this armed lunatic was saying. Instead, he made a couple of quick calculations in his head.

“Shit,” continued Montassini. “Everything makes so much fuckin’ sense. We are fuckin’ soulmates, pal. Fuckin’ soul—”