The Russian Cage

by Charlaine Harris

  “How else were we to know who to kill?” Felix was exasperated.

  “I should have killed him!” Peter said, all excited. “You should have left it up to me!”

  None of us said anything… because Peter had had enough time to work out what had to be done, and he hadn’t taken action.

  “You got to grow up,” said my sister.

  I think the fact that Felicia, younger and a girl, was telling Peter this just made Peter crazy. Because she was right. He struggled for something to say and then turned away to face the wall. I suspected he was crying, and that wasn’t a bad reaction, as long as he also learned something. It was time to change the subject.

  “Eli also needs to know the tsarina is working on getting him out,” I said. “At least, she says so, sort of. I wish I could talk to the tsar.”

  They all looked at me as if I’d said I wanted to talk to a baboon.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Felix said, giving me the narrow-eyed look he’d give a lunatic. “Alexei makes social appearances like Caroline does, but he seldom leaves the palace unless it’s a state parade or he’s greeting a dignitary from another country, or some such occasion. For one thing, he has bleeds, and then he has to have a transfusion, and healing spells.”

  “I don’t understand his illness.” I waited for Felix to explain.

  “If he falls down and gets a bruise, it swells up because there is a lot of blood in the hurt area,” Felicia said. “All the fluid puts too much pressure on his organs and joints. This causes great pain. If Alexei has a large cut, like the time he slipped on the dock, the bleeding is much worse than on a normal person, and it’s very difficult to stanch the flow.”

  We all looked at her.

  “I’ve witnessed some of this,” Felicia said. “Alexei had fallen down one step, one! And he had a huge bruise on his knee, which was swollen like…” She held her hands apart and curved to indicate a globe about the size of a basketball. Felicia seemed more amazed than sympathetic.

  “That was when they used your blood for the transfusion?” I said.

  Felicia nodded. “And it worked,” she said, not without pride. “With my blood and the healing spells, he was able to sleep without pain, and the next day he could walk.”

  “I hope he thanked you,” I said, and Felicia looked at me funny.

  “It is my job,” she answered. “It’s why I get free schooling and free board.”

  “Sure.” I nodded. But I wasn’t happy. I took a deep breath. “I hope the transfusion didn’t hurt much.”

  “I got a drink afterward that helped ease the ache,” my sister said. Her little face shut tight, like she’d pulled the curtains. “It wasn’t bad.” I wondered if that was really true, because her bony hands were clenched. “Lizbeth, it’s worth it.”

  Guess I had been all clenched up, too, because after she said that, I could feel myself relaxing. I recalled how we’d gotten on this topic. “So who tells the tsar what he should do?” I said.

  “He tells himself.” Peter was stunned by my ignorance. “He is the ruler, and he decides what is right and what is not.”

  That sounded like a real burden.

  “So if getting next to him is close to impossible, Felicia, what are your chances of seeing Grand Duke Alexander?” Felix was putting it on the table.

  In turns, my sister looked surprised, pleased, and cunning.

  “We are scheduled to sing for the men of the court in two days,” Felicia said. “The grand duke is almost always at court occasions, so he can see the tsar and judge how he is doing.”

  “You can tell?” I couldn’t believe the grand duke was that obvious.

  “He’s real polite to the tsar, but he doesn’t talk to him that much,” she said. “Alexander’s got eyes on Alexei the whole time, and we think he’s bribed one of the grigoris who helps with Alexei’s health. Or Alexei’s aide. Or both of them.”

  “I can’t believe you know all this,” I said. The kids at the grigori school knew more than the adults at the court, or at least it seemed that was true to me.

  “We talk, we watch, we listen,” Felicia said. “Grigoris work for the regime in power.”

  I’d never looked at it that way. “No grigoris go into private practice?”

  Peter, Felix, and Felicia all shook their heads. “Grigoris registered with the school are bound to serve in various ways,” Peter said.

  “Are there loose ones?” Felicia’s father—my father—had been such a loose one, in every sense of the word.

  “There are,” Felix said. “But in the normal course of things, they don’t last long.”

  I wanted to go home. For a terrible moment, I wanted to ask Felix to take me to the train station. I would board a train to anyplace that wasn’t San Diego. Anyplace out of the Holy Russian Empire.

  But not without freeing Eli.

  “So give Grand Duke Alexander a note, Felicia,” I said, thinking as I spoke. “Tell him you were asked by a lady to deliver it to his hand.”

  “He won’t open it himself, he’s too suspicious,” Felix said.

  “Of course he won’t,” I said. “Unless he gets someone to check it for magic first. Right?”

  Peter nodded.

  “Who’s his favorite grigori?” I looked from Felix to Peter, but it was Felicia who answered.

  “Theodore Bronsky,” she said without hesitation. “He’s a fire wizard. He and Alexander are related somehow.”

  “So what can you do to make this Bronsky misfire?” I looked directly to Felix, because I wanted him to be challenged.

  Felix had opened his mouth to tell me my idea was no good, but he shut it and looked thoughtful. “I could… make him love Felicia, so he would trust anything she handed him. I could make him sick, so Alexander would ask some other grigori to touch the letter. Alexander might open it himself if Bronsky was not on hand… though he hasn’t lived as long as he has by being incautious. Neither has Bronsky.”

  “What if Bronsky was dead?” Peter asked.

  “You’ve sure gotten bloodthirsty.” I couldn’t help but remark on that.

  “I want my brother safe. Alexander might send Bronsky in there to execute all of the jailed grigoris. Since they are in cells and can’t practice their magic, they are ducks in a barrel.”

  Bronsky would have to make sure he went down there alone. No null with him. “Wait… are the grigoris in jail all supporters of the tsar?”

  “No, but they’re all enemies of Alexander. Except Brightwood.”

  My idea underwent some rapid changes.

  “Felix, have I ever told you about when the grigoris in Mexico sent someone who looked like Peter to Eli’s room, so he’d hesitate to kill him?”

  Looked like Peter didn’t know about that, either, from the horror on his face.

  “What happened instead?” Peter stood.

  “Instead, I pulled your brother away just as the man tried to strangle him, and I got strangled instead.” That had been very painful; not my favorite memory. “It was someone who had been spelled to look like you to all of us. Paulina killed him with a candlestick, and your brother threw up.”

  Peter seemed more impressed by this than anything I’d said. “Eli was that upset?”

  “Yes, he was that upset. My point being, some grigori cast that spell on a man… we never did find out who the man was or why they picked him. Anyway, maybe Felix can do the same thing to me, and I can be the jailer they send down to the grigoris. The null.”

  Felix was staring at me. “My point being that the person who was spelled did not live.”

  “Only because Paulina killed him.”

  “And you think none of the grigoris in jail will kill you? They won’t know who you are for critical moments.”

  “I think I can live through a critical moment.” If I sounded snappish, I was.

  Felix scowled at me. “Jane Parvin and Svetlana Ustinova are not followers of Alexander, so maybe you can tell them who you are in time to live. B
ut I warn you, they are very capable.”

  I wasn’t going to lose my temper, though it would have been a relief to let go of it. Felix wasn’t fond of ideas that weren’t his. Or maybe it was just my ideas that set him on edge?

  “The question is, can you?” I said, staying on track. “Can you make me into Louise Hubble, the jailer?”

  Peter looked from one of us to the other, like he was watching us play catch.

  Felix huffed out a sigh. “I’ll go lay eyes on her,” he said. “You won’t sound like her, you know. I can only reproduce the body.”

  The replica of Peter hadn’t spoken, I remembered. In fact, he’d looked unconscious.

  I nodded. “I can make it work,” I said.

  I had to. I’d had it with this city.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After that, Felix was in such a rotten mood that Peter called a cab to take us all back to the Rasputin School, where he and Felicia would go to their dormitories. Like a few local students, Peter split his time between the dormitory and his home, but with his family under such scrutiny and the police in and out, the dormitory was better for him. The lower he lay, the better.

  “Else I might end up with Eli,” Peter said, kind of drawing himself up. “Hey, we missed dinner at the school. Can we stop off and eat somewhere?”

  I thought I had enough money on me. Peter asked the cab to let us out three blocks north of the school, at a run-down diner he said served great food. He was wrong, but it was plentiful, cheap, and hot, and I was hungry, so I didn’t mind.

  Peter ate like a wolf, while Felicia ate in a dainty but efficient way. You thought she was just picking at her food, but then it was gone.

  “Why is Felix always so angry with you?” Peter asked. He was mopping the plate with his bread.

  “Felix loves Eli,” I said, tired of pussyfooting around that prickly issue.

  “Oh.” Peter stopped moving for a moment. He put his bread down. “Oh. Okay. But why does that make him angry with you?” He resumed his plate-cleaning project. After a moment, he said, very quietly, “So Eli loves you.”

  There was a long moment of silence as my sister and I dodged each other’s eyes.

  “We’re together when we can be,” I said carefully. “I don’t expect…” But there I had to stop, because I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

  Peter sat up straight. For a moment, he looked like a man. “I should have realized you were together,” he said.

  I had no idea what to say. Nothing would be best.

  “Do you want some pie?” Felicia said, as if no one had spoken for ten minutes.

  “No, thanks.” Peter wiped his mouth and put his napkin beside his plate with the air of someone finishing a routine, no thought involved. He stared blankly across the table at her.

  “I’m full,” I said. “What about you, Felicia?”

  “I could not eat another bite,” Felicia said.

  It had quit raining, and it was dark. The air felt chilly and raw. We walked the three blocks to the school in silence. The front door was locked; we had to ring a doorbell. Tom O’Day answered the door, and I went in and signed Felicia back into the school. Peter was old enough to sign for himself.

  “I’m on my way back to the Balboa Palace, then. Be on your watch.” I hugged my sister, quick and hard.

  They both nodded, Peter without meeting my eyes. “Thanks for the dinner,” he said, his voice even and calm. His hands were clenched into fists.

  “Sure,” I said, and turned to leave. I could not let him see I was sorry for him.

  “Sister, see you soon,” Felicia said softly, and I nodded without turning back. I was anxious to be alone.

  As I made my way back to the hotel, looking around me at every corner, I wondered if the constant humming of my nerves was because of all the grigoris who lived here. San Diego was probably home to the highest population of grigoris ever in one city. The bit of grigori blood in me was responding to that, maybe.

  No wonder I wanted to get out of here. It puzzled me that I’d been with Eli for days without having a problem. So it must be volume, quantity, that made me jangle inside.

  Or maybe someone was trying to spell me.

  I got to my room as quickly as I could. Once there, I took off every stitch I had on. I went over each item of clothing, from boots to jacket, looking at the seams and the pockets and the folds. Nothing. Spells could be cast without a physical object being transferred to the victim, for sure, but I didn’t feel anything but jittery. I looked like myself in the mirror. I took a bath and washed my hair and every other bit of me.

  And still the hum got under my skin. I’d gotten into poison ivy once on one of our trips to New America. It was like the itching from the ivy had gotten inside me.

  Soon. I had to do something soon.

  Felix was in the hotel restaurant the next morning, sitting by the big window where I liked to sit. I didn’t know if I was glad to see him or really fed up with him, or both.

  “I can do the spell,” he said, before I’d had time to pick up my coffee cup.

  I held up my hand. “Just hush for a little,” I said. I’d tossed and turned most of the night, plagued by repeated dreams of the jail blowing up with everyone inside it dead. I was furious with Felicia and her pebble and my own gullibility in passing it to Eli, by the time I staggered down the stairs.

  I’d never had a dream come true, and I didn’t want to start now.

  When I’d ordered food and poured more coffee, I nodded to Felix. His rough dark hair was even more tousled than usual, and his dark eyes were red. He hadn’t gotten much sleep, either. I was even higher on his list of least-favorite people, and that was saying a lot.

  “I have done research on the spell,” he said, real low. “I think I can do it.”

  I glared right back at him. I couldn’t think of anything to say besides “Thinking isn’t good enough.”

  “It’s very difficult. I don’t know who laid the spell on the man who looked like Peter. That’s unfortunate, because I would be glad to talk to him. Or her. How long did the spell last?”

  “Until a little bit after he died. Say about five minutes after we found him.”

  “Tell me the whole story.”

  “It’s not one of my favorite memories,” I said.

  “Do you want Eli free or not?”

  So I relived the night in the hotel in Paloma again. I could feel the pain in my neck, the certainty that I was about to die. The crunch sound when Paulina brought down the candlestick on the phantom’s head.

  “It was someone who knows Peter well,” Felix muttered, after I’d finished. “Had to be, to create such a good likeness.”

  “Probably a teacher at the school, then,” I said. Seemed reasonable to me.

  Felix sort of jumped, and glared at me even harder. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it makes sense,” I said. “Of all the grigoris Peter knows, those are the ones who see him most often.”

  Felix gave me silence for a few more moments. He was still glaring, but kind of over my shoulder. Not at me, but at his own thoughts.

  “So what do you have to do?” I said, finally.

  “I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

  Couldn’t seem to stand my company anymore, which was mutual.

  I was glad to get my oatmeal and fruit. As I ate, I watched the people out on the street, which was about my favorite thing to do in San Diego. Until I saw Lucy Savarov. It was lucky I’d already paid my bill, because I was on my feet in a flash, in time to meet her coming into the lobby. She was standing just inside the doors, looking around her with some curiosity.

  “Lucy,” I said, slowing down to a walk.

  Lucy looked very young that morning, because she was excited at her own daring. “I took the streetcar and found you,” she said, very whispery, because it had been such a bold thing to do. For her.

  “What are you doing here by yourself?” Felix snapped, popping up like a jack-in-
the-box.

  Lucy jumped. “Oh, Felix, you scared me!” she said, slapping at his arm. Like a playful child.

  To my surprise, Felix’s face softened into a smile. “The last thing I wanted to do,” he said. “But I’m startled at seeing you alone.” And displeased.

  “She managed to get here just fine,” I said. “Lucy, let’s go sit over here, and you can tell us why you’ve come. I was just about to have a conference with Felix about Eli’s situation.”

  There was a tight cluster of three chairs in one corner of the lobby, a fair distance from the others, and we settled there.

  “How are things at your house?” Felix asked.

  That wouldn’t have been my lead question, but I waited for the answer.

  “The police have absolved us of any wrongdoing,” Lucy said. “And they seem to believe that Natalya and that disgusting man did kill each other.” She reached over to pat my hand, very gently, as if killing the two had put me in need of consolation.

  “That’s good,” I said, trying not to sound like I was agitating to move on.

  “I wish I had been there to kill them for you,” Felix said.

  Now was when he’d picked to woo Lucy? Now?

  “Because they deserved it,” Felix added. He looked savage enough to do it on the spot.

  If only I hadn’t done it first. Ohhh. Felix had more than one reason to put me in the coal bin.

  “Thank you, Felix,” Lucy said with some dignity. “You’re a true friend to our family.”

  “That is my deepest hope,” Felix said.

  I had a hard time keeping my face still, but I managed. We needed to get to the important stuff.

  “Peter came to the house early this morning,” Lucy said, and alarms went off in my head. “He mentioned a plan you have for getting Eli out of jail. Are you so convinced that the tsar will do nothing?”

  If I could have caught hold of Peter at that moment, I would have shaken him like a dog shakes small prey. Felix’s expression told me he felt the same.

  “We just don’t know,” I said. And I leaned in closer and spoke very quietly. “What we do know is that the great-uncle”—I didn’t want to say the name out loud—“is willing to kill your whole family, and if nothing is done soon, that may happen.”