Nikita was still mad…but not yelling mad. He felt foolish, suddenly. Stupid, naïve, and used. “I waste my breath every time I talk to you, don’t I? The plan all along was to utterly ruin that boy, and idiot me has gone along, wanting to believe your promises.”
“No, no. I’m at fault. I haven’t been completely honest about vampire nature.” He made a face, and then walked around and sat at Dr. Ingraham’s desk. “Would you like to sit?”
Nikita folded his arms. “No.” He knew he was being led on. He would listen, because some scrap of what Philippe said might be true, but he wasn’t going to settle in for tea and a pleasant chat.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t match up to the legends. Vampires aren’t harmed by sunlight, nor garlic, nor holy water, nor crosses. They aren’t evil; the church doesn’t repel them. Vampires need blood to survive,” the mage began. “But not in the way they tell it in the stories. They need food, as well. And they don’t have to feed – on blood, that is – every day when they’re healthy.
“But when they’re ailing.” He chewed at the inside of his cheek, considering. “Then they need more. And strong blood, at that.”
“So let me guess,” Nikita said, “Sasha’s got some magic, super strong werewolf blood, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you.”
“You also might be interested to know that Sasha can afford to lose more blood than your average mortal.”
Nikita’s thoughts up to this point had been laser-focused. Now they hiccupped. “Why would I be interested in that?” But he was. He was also starting to expand his bubble of worry beyond Sasha.
Philippe’s mouth turned up a fraction at the corners, a small, unsettling smile. “Did you also know that vampires are strongest when they feed from humans? Oh yes. Pig blood will keep them alive, but human blood is how they thrive. Our Friend will need human blood to get properly back on his feet, and experience tells me he was always hungry for it, even when healthy. Now, he can drain soldiers, or we can supplement him with Sasha’s blood. Sasha who is strong, who can make plenty more blood, who won’t notice the loss of it. Or we can bring him mortals. What do you think, captain?”
Nikita swallowed. “Call the war office. Tell them we want German POWs.”
Philippe’s smile stretched. “I like the way you think. But. With luck, we can get him strong enough that he won’t need to feed often, or deeply. A healthy vampire doesn’t need to drain anyone.”
It was ludicrous. All of it. A horror story told around autumn fireplaces come to life.
But it was real. And it was something he had to weigh carefully.
Fuck.
“I can promise you,” Philippe said, “that Rasputin will never feed from Sasha’s throat. We’ll do it all clinically and professionally. And only while it’s necessary.”
Nikita stared at his boots and didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
~*~
Summer on the steppe was oven-hot, heat mirages dancing out across the brown grass. The mosquitos were thick enough to choke a man at night, this far from the city, and its river breeze. It was no more miserable than Siberia this time of year, but the vistas were different, and Sasha was homesick, sometimes, when he allowed himself a moment to feel a little self-pity.
He went running in the early mornings, when the heat was still muffled by darkness, when the bugs had quieted somewhat. Long, aimless runs, just to move, and hear the wind rushing in his ears, to smell earth and wolf and listen to the happy panting of his pack. Away from the all-too-human base. And Rasputin.
The starets had been awake for six weeks. Sasha went down to the labs every other day to give blood…and to help the man walk the halls, becoming more mobile every day, his wounds fading into barely visible white scars. Rasputin reminisced about the royal family, and talked a lot about God, and heaven, and sin, and the ways he’d tried to “drive out evil” before his attempted assassination.
Attempted. Felix Yusupov would turn over in his grave if he knew that all his many efforts had failed.
Pleasantly winded, long hair still dripping from a drink and a fast dunk of his head in the stream, he walked back to base as the light was turning pink and found Kolya sitting out in the yard, on a bench made of overturned crates and a few fence rails, sharpening his knives. What else.
“Morning,” he grunted, distracted, when Sasha sat down beside him.
“Morning.” Sasha pushed his hands back through his hair, slicking it down against his head, his neck. It was getting too long, well down past his shoulders, but he liked it. It made him feel more like a wild creature than a boy.
The wolves came up to greet Kolya, tongues out. His hands stilled, letting them lick at his fingers, so he wouldn’t cut them with the knife.
Sasha became aware of tension, an uncertain set to Kolya’s always steady shoulders. “What?”
“Rasputin wants to go into the city,” Kolya said, voice casual. “Philippe said the war will be here soon, and he thinks we should take him. Let him get familiar with it, he says.”
Sasha took a breath. And then another. “Well. That was the plan all along.”
“Yep.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I hate him,” Sasha admitted, and Kolya finally dropped the indifferent act and turned to him, knife sliding away into its sheath somewhere.
The Chekist looked at him a long moment, eyes unusually soft. “We were friends when we were boys, you know. All of us. And back then Nik was full of a lot of piss and vinegar. Always on about the empire. Quoting Catherine, and Peter, and Nicholas. Nicholas was his favorite; he was the soft-hearted one, you know.”
Sasha nodded.
“But I think if he’d ever met any of them, he would have been disappointed to find out they were just people, like him, who made bad decisions, and doubted themselves. Who killed, and fucked, and laughed at bad jokes.” He quirked a small, melancholy smile. “He probably would have hated Tsar Nicholas, if he’d known him. The kindest autocrat in the world is still an autocrat. Do you understand?”
“I think so. Yeah.” And he felt a little better.
30
LITTLE LADIES
Stalingrad was a city untouched by the Germans, so far. It sat, proud and whole, on the banks of the Volga, its white buildings reflecting the summer sun across the water, turning its surface to diamonds. The tractor factory worked round the clock, its stacks belching smoke into cloudless, hazy blue steppe sky, and its workers came and went in shifts, faces lined with exhaustion. But it was a city with tidy, bustling houses, where the trees stood intact, where there was still car and truck and foot traffic on the roadways. The promise of war simmered just below the surface, in every nervous dart of a mother’s eyes, in every muffled clang from the factory. But after Leningrad and Moscow, it seemed an exotic land of plenty.
Nikita spotted the anti-tank trenches already being dug on their way in, the barriers that would be dragged across the road. The fresh-faced uniformed soldiers who looked like babies as they unloaded crates of landmines.
War was coming, and the Red Army was trying to pull off another miracle.
The truck from the Institute let them out in the business district, and Nikita hated watching it rumble off and disappear into traffic. Now they were stuck here for the time being. With Rasputin.
They’d dressed him in army greens like Katya’s, short boots and gaiters, and crammed a hat down on his head. A poor disguise, but less conspicuous than what he’d wanted to wear. He’d asked for glossy boots and a Russian shirt like he’d worn in his time, and had grown emotional when they’d told him no. Whether for joy or despair, the man was always near tears.
“Oh,” he said now, turning in a circle, gaze sweeping their surroundings. “I’ve never seen this place. It looks so different.”
“A modern city, to be sure,” Philippe said, and laid what looked like a casual hand on his arm; Nikita saw the mage pinch his shirtsleeve between
thumb and forefinger, a guiding touch like a mother would use with a child who might run off into the street. “Should we find some place to eat?”
Pyotr scouted ahead and found them a quiet corner of a café. Well away from the windows, under a dim lightbulb that needed changing. That put Rasputin in the corner, and the tired-looking waitress didn’t look at him twice when she came to take their order of coffee and whatever sort of spread the kitchen could pull together for such a large group.
“Let’s get some wine,” Rasputin said when she was gone, voice eager. “I haven’t had any since I woke.”
Nikita frowned. “No.”
“But I want some.”
Philippe smiled and patted the back of his hand. “You’re still building your strength back up, Grisha. You probably shouldn’t drink.”
In another situation, Nikita would have found Rasputin’s dramatic frown comical. “Wine can’t hurt me. I’m–”
“Yes, yes, you are,” Philippe said in a rush to keep him from finishing his sentence. His smile was strained. “But still. I’m not sure it would be wise just now.”
Rasputin shook Philippe’s hand off his own like it was a fly, and slapped his palm down hard on the table.
Katya jumped.
“You think you’re wiser than me?” Rasputin asked Philippe, angry now, eyes flashing. “Is that it? Do you, who’ve met me only once before, think you know what I should and shouldn’t have?”
There was a more sinister undertone there, too. Rasputin was the vampire. The master. Shouldn’t he be in charge?
Nikita darted a sideways glance to Sasha, who sat white-faced and staring down at his hands, fingers twitching.
“Of course not,” Philippe said, smooth and soothing. “We’ll ask the waitress.”
Rasputin heaved a deep sigh and looked contrite. “I’m sorry, my dear Philippe. I’m still weak, and it makes me grumpy and foolish.”
“That’s quite alright. Miss?” The waitress had returned with cups half-full of coffee. He smiled at her with a play at genuine warmth. “Might we get a bottle of wine?”
She looked surprised – but only a moment. Then a blank sort of calmness came over her. Rasputin stared at her, and Nikita’s skin crawled; which one of them, he wondered, was compelling her at the moment?
“I’ll see if we have any,” she said, and rushed off.
“They won’t have wine,” Feliks said with a snort. “Nobody but Stalin’s got wine these days. It’s just rotgut and vodka.”
“What a shame,” Rasputin said, shaking his head sadly. “A horrible shame. I remember the wine they served at the palace. And in all the glittering cafes of Petrograd!” He tilted his head back and swept his hand through the air, a grand, reminiscing gesture. “Tart, and sweet, and delicious. Always a bottle of wine for Grisha. And these greedy Communists–”
“Hush,” Nikita snapped, and the man looked like he’d been slapped.
“You can’t talk about that in the open,” Philippe said, imploring. “We can’t reveal ourselves, not yet.”
Rasputin glanced at each of them in turn, frowning. “Why not? Why should we hide? We must educate the people about the generosity and plenty of Nicholas’s empire, so that they may join us.”
Ivan clapped a hand to his forehead. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “We’re all going to die.”
“Grisha.” Philippe was still trying to be diplomatic. “This is no longer a country for the espousing of ideas and free discussion.”
“You have to shut up,” Nikita said. He wasn’t going to placate the lunatic. “If we all get thrown in the gulag before the fighting starts, we’re fucked.” And waking the old monster up would have been a massive waste of time and effort.
Rasputin studied him a long moment, face unreadable – save his eyes. Those, Nikita thought, were full of anger.
“You’re a very bitter man, captain,” he said at last. “We will have to pray together, you and I, so that you can welcome God’s wisdom and grace.”
“Sure,” Nikita lied, voice flat. “We’ll have to do that.”
The waitress returned, carrying a dusty bottle of something that was obviously homemade. “This is the best we can do, I’m afraid,” she said, and looked genuinely sorry.
Rasputin beamed at her. “That will be fine, my dear.”
~*~
It wasn’t the same as it had been before. Sasha had long since grown used to the rhythms of their makeshift family. Ivan’s belly laughs and Feliks’s snarky sourness, and Kolya inserting the occasional scathing comment. Pyotr asking lots of questions, and Nikita presiding over them all like a stern but loving big brother. Katya had come in quietly at first, sharp-edged and cautious, but had thawed and shown them her warm side. Philippe was a know-it-all, but the sort of person who could fit in anywhere, conforming to the situation at hand.
It was a conversation.
But Rasputin sucked all the air out of the room.
His thoughts, his wants, lay like a pall over their table, something nearly tangible, almost like smoke. He ate ravenously, and messily, with his hands, spilling crumbs and bits of tinned meat into his beard.
Before they woke him, Nikita had called him a “sex maniac.” So it was no great surprise that – as he gobbled food and slurped coffee, gesticulating with greasy fingers – he started talking about women.
“Women are such wonderful company,” he said, licking crumbs off the web between thumb and forefinger. He turned a messy smile toward Katya, and Sasha, sitting beside her, felt the shudder that moved through her, heard the faint whisper of her clothes as she squirmed in her seat. “They are so much more sensitive than men. Receptive.”
Sasha wanted to squirm too, and to pull Katya behind him and bare his teeth at the starets. He could smell the heat and fresh-sweat smell of lust rolling off the man, an acrid stink that expanded every time his eyes landed on Katya. He wanted her. And why not? She was beautiful and young. But she was one of them, and Nikita’s lover, and there was no hint of affection or respect in Rasputin’s light eyes.
“So many are brought into temptation,” Rasputin went on. “They can’t help it; it’s in their nature. I always took it upon myself to pray with them, and drive the sin from their hearts.”
“And their bodies,” Feliks muttered.
“What?”
“Do we have to keep talking about God?” Ivan asked. His face flushed dark with unhappiness. “I don’t like to mix prayer and pussy. Bad combination in my book.”
Feliks snorted into his coffee.
Rasputin turned to Ivan. “Pleasure isn’t a sin,” he said, seriously. “God didn’t put us here so that we could only toil and suffer.”
Feliks swept a hand over top of his head in an unmistakable gesture that Rasputin, ironically, missed.
Sasha wanted to crawl under the table. He didn’t have his wolves with him, and the hot-blooded want pouring off Rasputin made him want to claw at his own skin.
Submit, submit. Always in the back of his head.
Rasputin swilled rotgut like it was expensive champagne, and he ate great handfuls of food, but Sasha could still scent his hunger. Blood-hunger. Sex-hunger.
He pulled in tight, shoulders jacked up around his ears, and failed to suppress a whimper.
“Sasha,” Katya whispered beside him. She put a soothing hand on the back of his head. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure he would be again, unless something happened to Rasputin.
God, that was a horrible thought for him to have. They needed the vampire now.
But.
But…
“Ivan,” Nikita said. “You made arrangements?”
“Yeah.”
“Time to go, then.”
“You know,” Rasputin said. His voice was beginning to sound slurred. He’d had the whole bottle by now. “It would be nice to–”
“Already taken care of,” Nikita said darkly.
~*~
Ivan had sco
uted yesterday and procured them a set of rooms in a house owned by the sort of landlady who would turn the other way, and engaged some entertainment for the afternoon.
The rooms were a little shabby, but clean and neat. The hardwood floors gleamed in the afternoon sunlight that filtered through the curtains. There was a living room with a sofa, two chairs, and well-trod braided rugs. Two bedrooms and a bathroom with a claw-foot tub. It seemed luxurious after the base.
Four bottles of vodka sat on a side table.
Four prostitutes sat on the sofa, already half-undressed and smiling as they entered.
“Oh,” Katya said, quiet and startled.
Nikita darted a glance her way and saw that her cheeks were pinking. He settled his arm around her waist, briefly, patted her hip. “I thought we’d go for a walk.”
She looked relieved when she turned to face him.
“Would that be alright?” he asked.
“Yes.” She smiled a little.
“The boys have earned a little fun.” Before the fighting started.
She nodded. “They have.”
“I saw some books downstairs in the parlor,” Philippe said. “I wonder if the landlady might let me look through them.” He left them with a thin smile.
“Ladies,” Ivan greeted, beaming at the prostitutes with that cheeky, little-boy smile that made women fall at the big man’s feet.
Pyotr was blushing furiously, but Nikita saw the eager way he eyed the slim, young woman with the pale hair and small breasts.
Only Sasha looked stricken.
Nikita touched his shoulder. “Come with us,” he said. “We’re walking down to the river.”
Sasha managed a halfhearted smile. But before he could respond, Rasputin turned to face them.
“Nonsense. The wolf child will stay with me. Hasn’t he ‘earned a little fun’ too?”
Nikita ignored him. “Sasha?”
“I…” Sasha started to frown, and then the unhappiness slowly smoothed away. He looked resolute, like he was going into battle. “I’ll stay.”
White Wolf (Sons of Rome Book 1) Page 38
