White Wolf

by Lauren Gilley

  Talbot said, “I was just getting to that. Prince Valerian, as I’m sure you know, has a bit of a reputation.”

  “For being a homicidal maniac?”

  The doctor winced again. “And for his psychic abilities. I mentioned side effects? There’s some concern as to those abilities presenting themselves in any test patients. Not to mention his lack of consent presents a bit of an ethical dilemma.”

  “I thought he didn’t put up a fight?”

  “Yes, but…well, he is a prisoner.”

  “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” Fulk muttered.

  “We have every reason to believe, however, that Prince Vlad will be amenable to our research and will help willingly. He might even provide insight into the process.”

  “Every reason to believe?”

  “He preserved the Western world once, my lord. I don’t see why he won’t be willing to do it again.”

  “But you can’t wake him up.”

  “To be fair, we haven’t tried. I wanted to do it the proper way first. Though.” And here his expression changed, some of his star-struck wonder replaced by a sternness he hadn’t shown thus far. “We will wake him up. With or without your help. And if you don’t help. Well. I’m afraid I must warn you that the government funders of this project won’t take kindly to your lack of cooperation.”

  “Ah.” His stomach clenched so tight he thought he might be sick. “So it’s like that, is it?”

  Dr. Talbot nodded, face grave. “I’m sorry, but yes.”

  Fulk wanted to be angry. He wanted to smash the projector and hook his strong fingers into the doctor’s throat, rip out his voice box in a shower of blood and grim satisfaction. He wanted to howl. A deeply sick part of him wanted to go down to subbasement level two and throw the locks on Valerian’s cage; who would notice two wolves slipping out the gate when the antichrist was ripping through the place?

  But a part of him had always known this day would come. He’d been cut loose from the immortal world since 1865, since he turned Anna and fled with her across the Atlantic.

  They had been one-hundred-and-fifty-two blissful years, but he’d always known he would be asked to do his job again.

  He cast a look to his Anna, his heart, and she stared back at him with her jaw kicked up to a stubborn level. We can run, her look said.

  They were strong, and they could live forever, but they weren’t invincible. And if anything happened to her…

  Fulk looked back at the doctor. “You understand that I won’t be able to control him. That’s not how a Familiar works.”

  “I’m not asking for control, my lord. Just the chance to make the world a healthier place.”

  ~*~

  “You don’t have to do this,” Anna whispered into the sensitive skin just below his ear. She stood on her tiptoes, body pressed flush to his. She smelled metallic with fear, though her face was soft and carefully guarded when she pulled back to look at him.

  Fulk knew his smile was sad. “Yes I do, darling.” He kissed her mouth, shutting his eyes a moment, letting the memory of her taste seep into him. In case this went south. In case…

  “My lord?”

  It was that annoying woman Jennifer from the phone before, standing with a lab coat and clipboard, nervously shuffling her feet on the flagstone floor.

  Fulk sighed and rested his forehead against Anna’s. “Wait over there. Please?”

  “Okay.”

  Only when she was back against the wall, in the shadows, did he turn to Jennifer.

  The woman looked properly frightened. “We’re ready,” she said, almost whispering.

  The coffin was old. Old. Well-made, but crude: weathered boards fitted together with nails and craftsmanship. The sort of thing that, if dug up by random graverobbers, would have seemed like nothing more than a simple farmer’s final resting place.

  The stone sarcophagus lay off to the side in pieces; it had been too bulky and heavy even for the new service elevator to handle, and they’d had to jackhammer it to bits in order to get the coffin down here, in subbasement one, set up on two sawhorses beneath an array of operating room chandeliers.

  The coffin was dusty, rotting in places, coated in a thick layer of dust. By contrast, the figure that lay against its moldy satin liner seemed fresh from a bath. He was tall and broad, a true hero for the ages, with heavy shoulders and arms, a tapered waist and muscled legs, his power visible even through the tattered clothes that had left him almost bare. His skin was pale, but smooth, poreless. Shiny dark hair framed his face, long enough to reach his shoulders. He had a harsh, masculine face, Eastern European features, sharp cheekbones. He was a little too thin, from hibernation, but that would change once he was awake…and fed.

  For now, he reclined in peaceful slumber, hands folded over his chest.

  Fulk felt invisible ants crawling up the back of his neck. It was hardwired into his wolf soul to bow his head and submit, no matter how much he’d always hated that.

  “Do you have the book?” Dr. Talbot asked, brightly, unaware that Fulk wrestled with every ounce of his better judgement.

  “What?”

  “The wolf book. Do you still have it?”

  Fulk shook his head, baring his teeth a little. “I sold that eighty years ago. To a Frenchman headed for Moscow.”

  “Shame.”

  “We don’t need the book for that – it’s only if you’re trying to turn a wolf.”

  Dr. Talbot beamed. “That’s helpful to know. Whatever else you need, then, it’s yours. We are very well-stocked.”

  And they were. Beyond the ring of light surrounding the coffin were two teams of medical techs with an assortment of wheeled carts. Gauze, swabs, covered dishes of food. A defibrillator.

  “You’re going to need some blood,” Fulk said, and watched the techs shrink back. “He’ll be hungry. And disoriented.”

  Someone cursed quietly.

  Dr. Talbot nodded. “Jennifer, four pints, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I need a knife. A sharp one.”

  A sheet-white boy tech approached him cautiously and offered a scalpel.

  Fulk took it from him and paced slowly around the coffin, moving to stand behind the sleeping figure’s head. If he was the sort of person who was easily impressed, who cared about celebrities, he would have been shaking with delight, here in the presence of a true son of Rome. Vampire royalty – figuratively and literally speaking.

  But as it was, he was merely shaking with nerves, sick dread heavy like a stone in his belly.

  He sought Anna’s gaze one more time, the love and softness in her eyes. Her jaw was set, ready for any sort of resultant violence, but her eyes were gentle for him.

  God, he loved her.

  He hoped…

  He took a deep breath. “Be ready,” he said, grimly. And then began the chant. The words themselves weren’t important, not on the grand scale of things, but they were part of the ritual. The Latin felt thick and unwieldy on his tongue – not that the mortals would notice – so long had it been since he’d used it. But the farther he went, the less he tripped. He smelled his own fear; he smelled something ancient wafting up out of the coffin, old stone and melted tallow candles, and blood, blood, blood…

  He lifted his left hand and brought the scalpel down across the palm in a quick slash, blood welling up along his lifeline.

  In English, voice resonating with the deep wolf-growl building in his chest, he said, “Thus I command you to wake, Vladimir.”

  He tipped his hand and poured his wolf blood onto the sleeping monster’s face.

  Vlad’s eyes opened.

  To be continued…

  THE

  SONS OF ROME

  BOOK ONE

  WHITE WOLF

  Sons of Rome Book I

  Lauren Gilley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and events are purely fictional, or, in the instance of real historical figures, are used fi
ctitiously. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without express written permission from the publisher. Plagiarism of this book, or portions of it, will result in legal action.

  WHITE WOLF

  ISBN – 13: 978-1978347113

  Copyright © 2017 by Lauren Gilley

  Cover Image “Artic Wolves Near Water” copyright © actionsports

  Cover Design copyright © 2017 by Lauren Gilley

  HP Press

  Hoofprintpress.blogspot.com

  Lauren Gilley

  “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.

  But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”

  ~Winston Churchill

  “That Philippe is the most shameful occurrence for the

  Imperial family. He is some sort of foreign charlatan,

  hypnotist, magnetizer, and magician presenting himself

  as the possessor of occult powers.”

  ~ Lev Tikhomirov

  “He is hated because we love him…

  Saints are always calumniated.”

  ~Tsarina Alexandra

  “The charm of this man lies in his eyes. There is something in them that draws you in and forces you to submit to his will. There is something psychologically inexplicable in all this.”

  ~Nikolai Solovyov

  rasputnik – reprobate

  rasputnichat – to behave with wanton debauchery

  Rasputa – crossroads; a haunt of evil spirits

  ~

  Starets – a Russian hold man; a spiritual religious leader in the Eastern Orthodox church, not necessarily a priest

  These are the things that we know:

  On December 30th 1916, Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin was murdered by a group of nobles led by Felix Yusupov, husband of the tsar’s niece. His body was found a few days later in the Neva River. He’d been shot in the head at close range, according to autopsy reports.

  ~*~

  In the wee hours of the morning on July 17th 1918, in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia, ex-Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, ex-Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children were roused from sleep and escorted by guards out of the home, across a courtyard, and into a basement. Nicholas carried his ailing son, Alexei, in his arms. In the basement, Bolsheviks read Nicholas his death sentence, and then murdered the entire family.

  ~*~

  In 1924, after the death of Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin became the leader of the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union.

  ~*~

  June 22 1941, the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa, invading the Soviet Union. The Red Army was able to hold Moscow, and the operation failed.

  ~*~

  July 1942, the Nazis bombed the Soviet steppe city of Stalingrad, kicking off one of the longest, bloodiest battles in human history: The Battle of Stalingrad.

  ~*~

  These are the things that we know.

  We also know that amid the bloody chaos of war, individual stories of bravery, and sacrifice, and great loss are often buried amidst the stacks and stacks of battle statistics. Sometimes, in the dry recitation of wins and losses, we forget that men and women lived these wars. They fought and bled and scrapped and killed to stay alive. They saw things. Terrible things. Some more terrible than others.

  This is a war story. Like all war stories, it is a story about men…and monsters.

  Sometimes, the monsters come down on the side of the angels.

  Tread carefully, dear reader.

  PROLOGUE

  1931

  Tomsk, Siberia, USSR

  The man wasn’t supposed to be here. Sasha didn’t know who he was, or where he was actually supposed to be, only that that place wasn’t here.

  Between one blink and the next he appeared in front of Sasha, haloed by the early morning sunlight, sunk up to his calves in the snow, though there were no tracks coming or going in either direction to indicate that he’d walked here. He simply was. Standing there, shaking his head, dazed and bewildered-looking.

  Sasha stumbled to a halt, tipped his head back, strangely without fear, and stared at him.

  He wore his blond hair long, down well past his shoulders, gleaming gold and faintly rippled at the ends. His hair alone – clean and regal and uncovered by a hat of any kind – would be enough to indicate he didn’t belong, but his clothes furthered the impression. They were the kind of clothes that Sasha had only seen in the illustrated books his mother read to him – clothes like a prince in a fairy story would wear. Cream breeches and knee-high boots, and a long, red coat with golden embroidery and buttons.

  Nobody in Siberia ever dressed like that.

  The man looked around, at the trees, the snow, the sunlight sparkling off it, and finally, when he’d run out of other things to see, looked at Sasha. He asked a question in a language Sasha didn’t understand.

  “I’m sorry,” Sasha said. A small voice in the back of his mind wondered why he wasn’t frightened, but he couldn’t bring himself to be. Nothing about the man seemed threatening. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  The man’s golden brows lifted. “You speak Russian?” he asked in flawless, though accented Russian. “Where are we? St. Petersburg?”

  “No, sir. In Tomsk.”

  “Ah. Siberia.” He looked disappointed. Sighing up toward the sky, he muttered, “What the hell am I doing in Siberia of all places?”

  Sasha had no idea what to make of that. “How did you get here?” he asked. And then, because it had to be true, even though there were no more princes in Russia: “Are you a prince?”

  The man smiled, and his teeth were very white, and the eye teeth, especially, were very sharp. “I am, yes.” He crouched down so that he was on a level with Sasha; his eyes were sky-colored. “And who might you be?”

  It wasn’t right to give his name out to strangers, but this stranger was a prince! Even Mama would have been impressed with him, with his clean white hands and his long pale hair. “Sasha,” he said, without hesitation.

  “Short for Aleksander, I imagine?”

  “Aleksander Ivanovich Kashnikov. Your majesty,” he tacked on, pleased with his own manners.

  The prince laughed, low and musical. “Well, Aleksander Kashnikov,” he said, voice dropping, like he was about to share a secret. “Seeing as how we’re all alone out here in the Siberian wilderness, I think you must be the person I was supposed to find. I want to tell you something, alright? And I want you to remember it.”

  Sasha nodded.

  “Don’t try to fight fire with fire,” he whispered. He leaned in close, but Sasha couldn’t feel his breath, nor smell the oil in his hair. “You’ve got to rip its fucking heart out and bleed it dry.”

  “What,” Sasha started, gathering breath.

  But the prince winked at him and then was gone.

  No footprints, no sound, no nothing. Only gone.

  “Sasha!” his mother called.

  “Coming.”

  ~*~

  Undisclosed Location, USSR

  “Militsa! Stana! My dears, I’m thrilled to see you, but you shouldn’t have come all this way.”

  Militsa waved away the protest as she bustled her way through the door, her sister on her heels. “What else do we have to do now that we’re in hiding? Being on the lam is so terribly dull.”

  “I don’t know how you’ve stood it, Philippe,” Stana said, swooping in to kiss him on both cheeks. She and her sister were both aging gracefully, their usual all black ensembles somehow suiting them, as always, and he knew a moment’s interest when he smelled her perfume and felt the softness of her cheek against his own. But he pushed the thought away. The pleasures of the flesh held little joy for him anymore.

  “Yes, it must be ghastly,” Militsa said, kissing him also. And then both sisters stepped out of the entryway and into his parlor without waiting for an invitation.

  Philippe hung up their cloaks and followed.

  “This is w
onderful,” Stana said as she looked around the room. “It suits you.”

  “It’s tolerable,” he said, but really he was quite fond of his little retreat.

  Years before, when the tsar explained that he must leave the capital, he’d bestowed upon Philippe a very generous monetary settlement. “To ensure your health and safety,” he’d said. Philippe had been forced to leave behind the gilt, Italianate architecture of the capital, and lived now in a wooden house in the more traditional Russian style. He’d brought his favorite capital finery with him, though. Heavy velvet drapes framed the windows, plush Oriental rugs covered the floors. His furniture was French, and decadent, silks and damasks and polished cherry wood.

  Everything was arranged around a round, black-draped table at the middle of the room. In its center rested three black pillar candles, a bowl of pig’s blood, a slate, and a length of chalk. He’d lit incense before their arrival and its smell filled the room, thick and spicy.

  Philippe went to the sideboard and poured all three of them a generous glass of madeira.

  “Ooh,” Militsa said with delight when he handed one to her. “Where did you get this?”

  Their usual luxuries were hard to come by these days. Philippe had no doubt Stalin’s dinner table groaned beneath the strain of wine bottles, but the Russian people were lucky to have a little vodka now and then.

  “I’ve been saving it for just such an occasion. Enjoy it, my dears.”

  They both drank deep, and took a turn around the room, admiring his collection of oddities. They spent a long moment peering at the preserved ostrich that stood in one corner.