James Baldwin - Burn Artist

After four hours of unquiet sleep and a day spent making talismans, I got my best suit together and stocked up on caffeine. I was well and truly buzzed by the time Vassily and I arrived, fashionably late and without a hair out of place. We had to line up for a minute while the doorman checked off names, and before we went in, I pulled Vassily aside and pressed a silver Hand of Fatima pendant into his palm.

“Eh?” He looked down at it. “What’s this?”

“To stop you from gaining a curse mark, if Kovacs decides to target you.” I folded his fingers around it, and held them until I felt him grasp it properly. “I have one for Rodya as well, but… you should keep this discreet. Under your clothes, and don’t tell anyone. If I were prudent, I’d have made one for Lev or Nicolai instead. As far as they know, I only created the one for Rodion.”

Vassily glanced toward the door as we shuffled forward a few steps. “I don’t want to shit on your ability or anything, but it uh… this kind of jewelry didn’t work real well for Slava.”

“He already had the curse,” I said. “It was like giving a man a shield after he’d been stabbed. This will stop the curse from gaining a foothold.”

“Makes sense. Prevention’s better than cure, right?” Vassily’s lips quirked at the corners. He obligingly passed the braided red string over his head and tucked it and the talisman under his shirt. “You need blood for this?”

“No. I already have some of yours stored, and I bound the original amulet to my own blood. These two pendants are linked to me, so that they draw off my power in the event of an incident. It will allow me to track where the spell is coming from. I’m wearing the one I gave to Slava, so I’m trusting my own life to these as well.”

“You don’t have to explain it any, Lexi. I believe you if you say it’ll work. I know you watch out for me.” Vassily clapped my shoulder. “You’re a good friend. You know that?”

I blinked. “What?”

“You are. You’re… I just realized I never really said it out loud.” Vassily laughed a short, awkward laugh. “I mean, you always look out for me and everything, and I’m this giant man-child, basically, so…”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I replied. “Don’t be an idiot. Being your friend is not a burden.”

Vassily’s face suffused with a vivid smile. “Can’t you just take a compliment for once in your life?”

I glanced at his eyes, saw that he was looking at me, and dropped my gaze to his shoes instead. He laughed, whapped me between the shoulders again, and then led me toward the doorman and his clipboard.

We entered a crowded party in full swing, a cacophony of lop-sided noise that made my burst eardrum throb painfully. Even with the summer heat, the crowd was made up almost entirely of leather jackets, suits and black tracksuits. The Brighton Beach Organizatsiya was here, all fifty-odd men save for a few apologies. Many of our associates – the Sixers who helped us with everything from medical care to accountancy and industrial cleaning – were accounted for, as was the waterfront arm of the Organizatsiya, the managers of AEROMOR and the Red Hook Maritime Union. They’d brought their family and friends, along with at least fifteen made men from two different Mafia families. Security was intense, though discreet. Here and there, I saw the half-hidden muzzle of a H&K glint under the edge of a suit jacket.

“Ho! Our Magus and our Little Snake! Been a while since I saw you boys somewhere other than Sirens, haha. How's it goin’ in the office?” The manager of AEROMOR and Kommandant of Red Hook, Vanya Kazupov, was an obese, beaky-nosed and abrasive man. He wobbled his way across to us as we cleared the gauntlet of dark-suited bodyguards and enforcers, hand extended. Vassily pulled his gloves off, but I kept mine on as we all shook politely and kissed cheeks. I grimaced as I almost touched his sweaty skin and pulled away as quickly as politeness allowed for. He reeked of liquor.

“It'll be a whole lot better once Alexi's done the paperwork tomorrow.” Vassily forced a smile as he lay a hand on my arm. “So, where's the boss at?”

“Rodya? Where do you think?” Vanya laughed at himself again, a sound that never failed to set my teeth on edge. “He's in that room with the bear and the decorations… there's games at the bar going on.”

“Games? Fuck yes. Come on, Lexi, let's go kick ass at poker.” The reassuring weight left, and Vassily began to weave through the crowd. People moved for him in a way they never did for me, and I gave Vanya a stiff, rueful little nod as I trailed off down the empty path that my far taller, far more charismatic friend left in his wake.

I couldn't deny it… I was dispirited. My self-esteem had taken a hit after the previous night, and now that we were here, it was impossible to shrug off the pall as we passed knots of chatting, laughing people. The room was rich with the smell of food. As Vassily stopped to talk, I snagged canapes off a passing tray and set about relieving my depression with little bites of thick bacon and mustard cream on crunchy toast.

Rodion was going to find out that I’d fucked up somehow, somewhen. It would be better if I told him first, but as we passed the gift table and drew up to the ring of laughing, chattering people, it occurred to me through the sleep-deprived fugue that it was probably better that I didn’t mention it tonight. It was bad luck to talk about negative things at a party, and how much less impressed would he be if I ruined his birthday with bad news? If nothing else, that excuse would give me time to think of a better way of framing my report.

My decision was uncertain, at first, but rapidly cemented as we pushed upstairs and found Rodion playing poker with Nicolai, Semyon, and Grigori. Our Avtoritet looked happy and lively, sitting next to my father at the table. Grigori seemed practically jocular, but he looked up at me and his eyes darkened, it was very clear that our spat the night before was still playing on his mind.

“Vasya!” Rodion stood to greet him as we closed in on the table. “My main man! That painting is amazing… I could hardly believe my eyes!”

“I saw it, and knew it was yours.” Vassily kissed cheeks and shook hands easily. “You know, I didn’t even know that James Dean painted anything before I went looking for memorabilia.”

“Yeah, he was real talented.” Rodion’s turned wistful, an odd expression on a man with a face as bullish as his. “He did all kinds of shit. Painting, racing, drawing…”

Rodion’s amulet was burning a hole in my pocket, but I waited without interrupting while Vassily got him talking. Watching him at parties was like watching a dolphin sport in the ocean. He was a natural in places like this. I was not. People had too many moving parts that were confusing at best and obnoxious at worst.

“- Alexi brought you something, too. Alexi?”

I started out of my rumination at the sound of my name to find Vassily paused, eyebrows arched, and Rodion and looking at me inquisitively.

“Oh, yes.” Belatedly, I fished around for the amulet and pulled it out. “I didn’t wrap it, Avtoritet, because you I thought you’d want it immediately. It will protect you from gaining the curse. It should also be marked with some of your blood.”

“You don’t say?” Rodion handled the hand of Fatima pendant the way someone might handle a live grenade. “Thanks. You got the knife on you?”

Of course I had the knife. I drew the little obsidian blade, and motioned for his wrist. Rodion didn’t hesitate to give it to me, and I drew barely a drop of blood that I discreetly scraped on the surface of the amulet. As I did, I felt it flare to life, stirring the pendant that pressed in against my chest. My confidence lifted a little.