Jasper Kent - Thirteen Years Later

‘Quite right,’ said Kyesha. ‘But I think it is enough for one evening.’ He stood. ‘Goodnight, Aleksei Ivanovich, Dmitry Alekseevich. We shall meet once more in Moscow. I will see you then.’

With that, he was gone.

Aleksei took the two fingers back out of his pocket and began to examine them, but his thoughts were interrupted by Dmitry. ‘What do you suppose he meant by “in Moscow”?’

‘I imagine he thinks that what he tells me tomorrow will be so fascinating that I’ll be tempted away to some other place – somewhere I will be much more vulnerable.’

‘But you wouldn’t be foolish enough to do that.’

Aleksei looked over to the doorway through which the voordalak had so recently departed. ‘If I choose to leave Moscow then I shall be able to do so in complete safety, secure in the knowledge that Kyesha will never leave the city.’

‘How so?’

‘Because tomorrow, Mitka, we’ll have help.’

ALEKSEI RECOGNIZED CAPTAIN OBUKHOV, WHOM HE’D SPOKEN to at the club near Lubyanka, and a few of the other men who faced him in a small street to the east of Theatre Square. They were all members of the Northern Society, all dressed in civvies, all younger than its average membership, eager to see some action rather than sit around and debate the new order that was to come after the death of the tsar. Dmitry had done the work of recruiting them – in fact, most of the evening’s plan had come from him. Aleksei had only made slight modifications, and as he had described each one, he could see the sneer in Dmitry’s eyes at the very idea of such caution. But Aleksei knew far better than Dmitry the risks involved, and Dmitry seemed to accept this. Even if he didn’t, Aleksei was Dmitry’s father, and his superior officer, and something in that mix made Dmitry acquiesce.

The one thing they were in agreement on was the one that would put these young men into the greatest danger. They both knew they could not even think of using the word voordalak during any briefing. Many soldiers had in their time willingly followed insane commanders, but there were different strains of insanity; some could raise an army large enough to conquer Europe, others only laughter. Thus they had remained silent on the matter. Even so, it was a cruel mission to be sent in pursuit of a vampire in the belief that it was a man. The simple soldier’s faith in the steel of a blade or the lead of a bullet would quickly prove to be his undoing. And there were no rational pretexts that could be devised to insist that a man must be beheaded or stabbed in the heart with a blade of wood. Even men whose grandmothers had not been so well versed – and so forthcoming – in their folklore as Aleksei’s would listen to the words ‘wooden stake’ and hear only ‘voordalak’.

And so Aleksei had altered Dmitry’s plan to come up with the safest and surest he could muster. In his final briefing, he emphasized the points he had added to the strategy, afraid that Dmitry might have avoided pressing them home, not out of disobedience, merely youthful over-exuberance.

‘Do not approach him,’ he said in a low voice as the group huddled round him. ‘We know he’s extremely dangerous – he’s killed six men already.’ The body count had mounted during the week. Aleksei had no idea if the blame for all could be laid at Kyesha’s feet, nor did he care. Even if the creature had exercised utter self-control for all his time in Moscow, he had managed to live for at least fifteen years as a vampire. The total number of deaths – wherever the bodies lay – must have been far greater. ‘But it’s not the risk to us I’m concerned about.’ Aleksei knew that all these men would only rise to a challenge; he needed a better reason to keep them away from Kyesha. ‘We believe he is working with somebody else; someone who rarely goes out into the streets with him but who is the political force behind these murders – perhaps an enemy of Russia, perhaps a member of our own government.’ It was ironic that these revolutionaries were such patriots. A foreign invader stirred their passion to just the same extent as did their perceived enemy within. ‘Finding the mastermind is far more important than the mere capture of his henchman.’

‘But if we capture him we’ll make him talk.’ It was Obukhov who spoke. ‘Ten minutes is all it will take.’

Aleksei felt both amused and sickened. If time had been less precious he would have asked Obukhov how long he thought he himself would last under interrogation. The answer would most likely have been for ever – days, certainly. Perhaps Obukhov could stand torture that long, but then why did he believe that he would be so much better a torturer, and his subject so much less of a man, that the outcome would be any different if the roles were reversed? But a less philosophical response was more appropriate.

‘No,’ he said. ‘There are too many risks. You can’t guarantee to capture a man alive – not a man like this – and if you tried you’d be compromised. More than that, we can’t be sure he’d talk, and even if he did, ten minutes could be plenty of time for the real enemy to get wind of it and be out of the city. We do this my way, OK?’

Obukhov glanced from side to side at his comrades, to see if he would gain any support from them, but received no encouragement. ‘OK,’ he said to Aleksei, with some semblance of conviction.

‘So we follow him. He has a hideout somewhere in the city. He’ll go there once he’s finished with me. You track him to wherever he ends up. Then you get word back to me or Lieutenant Danilov.’ Aleksei felt a quiet rush of pride as he described his son in this official fashion. ‘Work in pairs so one of you can wait while the other brings the message. If he enters a building for a while and leaves again, keep following till his final destination.’ And don’t take a peek at the bloody mess he’s left inside. Aleksei did not give voice to this last thought.

‘Why is it that he’s meeting you anyway, sir?’ Aleksei did not know the name of the man who had asked. It was an astute question.

‘I can’t tell you. Suffice to say that he believes me to be someone rather different from who I actually am.’ A bit of intrigue should keep them quiet. It seemed to stave off any more questions.

‘You’ve all got his description, and you know that, when he speaks to me, I’ll give you the signal. He may speak to Lieutenant Danilov, but the plan will be the same. Any questions?’

He looked around them, but no questions came. Despite his rank, the responsibility of command had not been a frequent feature of Aleksei’s career. He’d shouted orders on the battlefield often enough, but usually this was no more than being a link in a chain, not true authority. As a spy, he was most effective alone, or as a member of a team who knew one another to be equals. Tonight, he reminded himself of Vadim, whose attempts at issuing orders had often fallen on the deaf ears of Aleksei and the others. Aleksei was now two years older than Vadim had been when he died, engaged, just as they would be tonight, in a vampire hunt through the streets of Moscow.

Aleksei stepped back from the conspiratorial huddle. ‘Let’s go then,’ he said. He headed down the street, before turning right towards the theatre. Dmitry kept pace with him. The others dispersed in various directions. They knew not to approach the Bolshoi as a mob; they would be easily spotted. Even so, Aleksei could only hope that Kyesha would be too suspicious of him and Dmitry to be on the lookout for so many associates. He hoped also that everyone would stick to his plan. If they did, it would be easy. The news would come that Kyesha had made his way to some address – most likely just before dawn. Aleksei and Dmitry would send the other soldiers away. They would be disappointed not to be in on the arrest, but they wouldn’t ask questions. Then it would be a familiar trip down into a darkened cellar. If it could be done with sunlight, that would be better, but he already had a new wooden sword whittled for the occasion.