Patrick Carman - The Black Circle - 39 Clues 05

Dan and Amy had stumbled into a hornet's nest."They're on the move," said the bearded Russian in the front seat."Follow them," ordered Irina.The driver merged into traffic and tracked a blinking dot on his screen.

"He's pretty good on that bike," said the driver, laughing despite the ultra-serious agent sitting in the backseat of his van."I do not pay you for small talk," Irina fired back.

The bearded driver clammed up, and not another word was spoken during the drive through Volgograd. Irina felt the twitch in her eye return, soft at first but growing more violent. Twenty minutes passed before the driver spoke

again."They've stopped. We're near the train station.""Let me out," said Irina. A wad of bills rolled past the driver and landed at his feet."I may need you again," said Irina as she opened the door. "Keep your phone on and don't leave the city."The driver nodded. He leaned down and picked the roll of bills off the floor. When he turned around again, Irina Spasky was gone.* * *

"Are you positive we're going to the right place?" asked Amy."Yup," said Dan. Amy sighed, still not convinced they should have boarded the high-speed train.

But Dan had been adamant about keeping the lead he'd found hidden until they were safely out of town. He was learning to be careful about who might be watching."Let's have a look at it," said Amy.

"You've been holding out on me long enough."Dan pulled the object he'd found in The Motherland Calls out of his front pocket. He glanced both ways down the center aisle of the train, then held it out to Amy.

"You can do the honors," said Dan. "I'm too tired to open it up."Instead, he fished around in the backpack for some chips and pulled out Amy's Russian guidebook."This thing is crushing my snacks.

"He set the book between them, cracked open a bag of pulverized Doritos, and disgusted his sister by tipping his head back and pouring the broken chips into his mouth.

Amy rolled her eyes and got back to the cylinder. It was wrapped in a tremendous amount of twine, so it was awhile before she finally parted the paper and held the secret object in her hand.

It was a tiny statue intricately carved out of a hard orange substance, showing a bearded monk with wild eyes, standing with his arms folded in front of him.

Amy brightened. "I think I know who this is!"

"It's that dude who got us the motorcycle!" said Dan, peering over. He frowned. "Or maybe it's his brother."Amy wasn't sure what to do with the precious carving. She was itching to refer to a certain page in the guidebook, but if she gave the carved monk to Dan, she worried he might drop it.

"Hold this," she said, succumbing to her desire for information. "And be careful. It's fragile."

"Got it covered," said Dan, snatching the carving from her and holding it up to the light."It's almost see-through," he said as Amy riffled through the book. "And there's something hidden inside."

"What?" asked Amy, reaching out for the carving."Whoa, there! Take it easy. This thing is fragile, remember?""What's in there? What do you see?""It's one of those pop-top games. I'm good at these. There's a little shoe, then two letters, a V and an A, then a heart.""Shoevaheart," said Dan. "Is that something you've heard of?" Amy shook her head no, but something about the word tugged at her.

She thought for a minute, but nothing crystallized, so she showed Dan the picture she'd been looking for in the guidebook.

"It's Rasputin," said Amy. "I'm sure of it."Dan looked at the photo, a grainy black-and-white of a man with furious eyes."Boy, these monk people sure get angry," he said. Amy knew he was thinking back to the mob of monks who had chased them in Austria. "Why so sure it's this guy?"

"Rasputin wasn't any ordinary monk. He was said to be almost impossible to kill. Doesn't that sound like something a Cahill would be? Un-killable?"

Dan's eyes widened."Rasputin worked his way into the inner circle of the most powerful Russian families ever: the Romanovs.

They were royalty, like Princess Diana in England.""Keep it coming, but no more princesses. You're starting to bore me."

"Rasputin was a real charmer. He convinced the royal family he had supernatural healing powers, and the evidence seems to suggest that he actually did.""You're kidding," said Dan, looking almost as excited as when he realized his teacher was wearing a toupee.

"He was especially close to the heir to the throne, Alexei, and his sister Anastasia. She was amazing, trust me, but Alexei was constantly sick. He had hemophilia."Dan pulled back. "Isn't that, like, something on your butt?""Gross! Not hemorrhoids, Dan! Hemophilia is a blood disorder.

If Alexei got even the smallest cut, it wouldn't stop bleeding. So imagine like, I don't know... like if you fell off your skateboard and skinned your knee and it just bled and bled and bled until all your blood spilled out."

"Cool!" said Dan."Not cool! If it hadn't been for Rasputin, Alexei would have bled to death before he was ten. But that's not the most interesting part.

There were a lot of nobles who didn't like the power Rasputin had over the royals, so they plotted to kill him."

"Okay, now this is getting good.""Wait until you hear this," said Amy. She scanned the next part of the guidebook and put things into her own words. "On December 16, 1916, Prince Felix Yusupov invited Rasputin to a dinner party.

First he fed Rasputin poisoned wine and cake, but that didn't seem to bother Rasputin at all. Rasputin figured out they were trying to kill him, so he ran for the door. Then Prince Felix shot Rasputin in the back."

"End of Rasputin. Too bad -- I was starting to like the guy."

"Wrong! Rasputin kept on going, right up the stairs and out of the house. The prince's men shot him a few more times in the front yard, but Rasputin wouldn't die. They tied his hands and feet, stuffed him in a bag, and dropped him into an ice hole in a frozen river. And that finally did it. Rasputin suffocated under the ice."

Amy's eyes gleamed and she lowered her voice. "But they say his fingernails were all worn off when they found him, like he tried to claw his way out for a half hour or more before finally giving up."

"That's the best story you've told me in your whole life," said Dan. "I don't even care if it's true or not.""Dan, I think it is true. We of all people should believe it, even if history buffs don't buy it. Rasputin was a Cahill! Maybe we're even from the same branch of the family!"

"Like we could be superheroes!?!" Dan's eyes bugged out."Calm down," said Amy. "We still have to figure out where we're supposed to go in St. Petersburg once we get there."Dan and Amy stopped talking, both lost in thought. And soon they were fighting sleep.

The train had a maddening way of making a tired person even sleepier, the way it rocked and swayed, the clicking noise of the metal wheels on the track. Dan offered one last idea before conking out.

"Maybe we should go where they tried to kill Rasputin."Amy batted that idea away. The carvings inside the figurine didn't match up with anything close to the Yusupov Palace. She stifled a yawn and kept digging, searching her book for anything related to a shoe or a heart.

Her fingers floated up to her neck, and she absently rubbed the pendant on Grace's jade necklace.Grace, what would you have done if you were me? she thought. Amy's eyes pooled with tears as Dan slept and the worries she tried to keep from him flooded in. She looked out across a glowing sunset.

I can't do this alone, she thought, flipping the Rasputin page in the Russian guidebook back and forth. One tear dropped, hitting the paper, and she wiped it away with a finger. Her eyes alighted on a word, and her mind turned it over, not wanting to let it go. And then out of nowhere she understood. It felt like a gift.