David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

It was an order of magnitude more difficult than talking with Zhanna, who could be one voice across many mouths if she chose. This was a crowd of Zhanna’s, leaping between a crowd of mouths.

“He’s speechless,” said the Romanian.

And then, in a woman’s voice: “It reminds me of Kiev, you know.”

“Reminds you of starvation and cannibalism?”

“No no. You remind me of that, Yorgi. Every chance you get. No. I’m talking about the awakening. The first taste of Discourse.”

“Oh yes. It’s quite a time for everyone. Exhilarating.”

“It can also be pretty frightening, if you are not prepared.”

“Yes. But our young Stephen here is well enough prepared.”

Stephen sat up and looked at the Romanian. It was as though he were looking at five different faces at once — none of them, the narrow-chinned bald man to whom the face properly belonged.

“Why,” he asked, “am I awakening now?”

“Oh. He can talk now.”

“The magic of the moment has worn off.”

“So sad.”

“Why now?” Stephen repeated.

“Simple.”

“You are far enough away from Kolyokov’s influence. So the lock’s off.”

Stephen thought about that. “Are you saying,” he said, “that Kolyokov had locked up my natural dream-walking talent?”

It was something — to see one poor man laugh for five. The Romanian jerked and spasmed and gasped until the Mystics were finished.

“Sorry, Stephen. It’s not as though you’re a great big talent to begin with. That thing we showed you with the squid? Wouldn’t have even gotten you an interview at City 512.”

“If they did interviews.”

“Notice how we're using the flesh here to talk to you.”

“That’s right. You’re not quite up to Discourse.”

“But yes. Fyodor Kolyokov did his very best to hide your limited talent from you.”

“It’s not all bad, though.”

“Yes. It prevented anyone else from dream-walking you.”

“Kept secrets safe.”

“You were your own man. Look at it that way.”

“Don’t be too angry about it.”

“He’s angry. Look.”

“Oh come on, Stephen. It’s not like you were the only one.”

“There was that kid — that Kilodovich.”

“Oh yes. That was a good thing. No one would have argued there.”

“Would have gotten us all shot if they’d found out about that boy.”

Stephen cleared his throat. They all focused the Romanian’s eyes on them.

“If I’m not talented,” he said, “why did you want to see me?”

“We need you.” The Romanian spoke weirdly — his throat stretching and echoing, to accommodate more than one voice. He coughed, and someone held up his hand to wait.

“Swallowed the wrong way,” said someone.

“Why?” asked Stephen.

The Romanian leaned close to him. “We need you,” he whispered. “There’s trouble brewing. We can smell it.”

“You’ve got the children,” said Stephen. “Mrs. Kontos-Wu. The others.”

“They are here. It’s not the same thing as having them.”

“You see, Stephen, it’s become obvious to us that someone else already has a foothold in their minds. Even in the most powerful ones.”

“Really. Who would that be? Babushka ?”

The Romanian nodded.

“Lena.”

“Always was an evil little bitch.”

“Don’t use that word.”

“Evil?”

“You know what word.”

“Yes. Sorry. The point is — it’s a problem.”

“A big problem.”

“It appears as though she is everywhere .”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“THE CISTERN OF BLOOD”

Two hateful fez-sporting villains emerged from around the corner. One of them carried a torch, the pitch at its tip wrapped in an orange tongue of flame. Another carried an immense curved axe. Mrs. Kontos-Wu held her breath — even though she knew that would make no difference as to how well she was hidden, she was sure it was something Becky would do. Becky would also wonder about whether the axe was the same one that the Scarlet Arrow had used to sever the hand that he’d sent to Becky in the post. And she would wonder how it was that the Scarlet Arrow villains could get away with carrying a flaming torch in a sewer without igniting the gasses there and blowing the foundations out from under Istanbul.

That alone might well have been clue enough to allow Becky to credibly rescue her maimed chum Jim from hordes of fanatical be-fezzed Turks and their evil leader.

But Becky was dead. And Mrs. Kontos-Wu frankly didn’t care whether Jim lived or died. She had other things to wonder about.

For instance: just exactly who was the persona behind this Lois character — her old school friend who had steered her so murderously wrong back in New York? It could still be Zhanna — she was unwilling to completely rule that out. She supposed it could also be some remnant of Fyodor Kolyokov. He had left a hidden message in her, after he’d apparently vanquished Lois in the metaphor of the Bishop’s Hall library.

Where, Mrs. Kontos-Wu reminded herself, she’d been reading this very book.

“Come on,” whispered Lois after the two men had passed them. “We must follow them to the Cistern.”

Mrs. Kontos-Wu shrugged. “Whatever,” she said.

“Shh!”

The men turned down another corridor off the main sewer. The girls followed as close as they dared. The tunnel became narrower, its ancient brickwork less coated with slime. The rats were replaced by immense spiders and centipedes and other horrid things that Mrs. Kontos-Wu made a point of not squealing at.

Finally, the light of the villains’ torch was joined by a brighter light, as the tunnel opened up onto a much larger space.

“Now here,” said Lois, “is where we find out what’s happened to Jim. I do hope he’s come to no harm.”

“His fucking hand’s been cut off,” said Mrs. Kontos-Wu. “I think Jim’s come to harm.”

Lois gave her a stern look. “Language,” she warned.

Slowly, the two girls crept up to the light. Lois gasped. In spite of herself, Mrs. Kontos-Wu looked upon the sight before her with interest approaching awe. It could only have been one thing:

The fabled Cistern of Blood…

The tunnel opened out onto a stone ledge exactly halfway up the wall of a great, circular room. Its ceiling was a dome — painted with unrecognizable signs and odd geometries. The centre of the dome was a long tube open to the sky. Water dribbled down lit by the noon-hour sun, and in the distance, Mrs. Kontos-Wu could make out the hubbub of lunchtime traffic in downtown Istanbul.

Halfway round the room, the ledge became stairs that climbed down the other half of the wall, to thing that gave the Cistern its name. The pool was also circular — maybe fifty feet in diameter. It was filled with a thick red liquid that looked like nothing so much as blood.

“The blood of the twentieth century,” said Lois. “Of two world wars — hundreds of civil wars. Blood spilled by the Nazis and their genocidal Holocaust of the Jews, and the gypsies, and the homosexuals, and the mentally challenged… the half-breed “mongrels”… and the sixteen million corpses; our own Josef Stalin, and his twenty million victims. The Balkans. Vietnam.”

Mrs. Kontos-Wu sniffed. “It’s probably just mineral deposits,” she said. She couldn’t be sure about that — it might well have been an actual cistern of blood — but she wasn’t about to let Lois use this stupid image to make her point.