by Chad Huskins
And there was something frighteningly inviting about that mind. It beckoned with a song of total abandon. It told Kaley that all she needed to do was shirk off her heavy, burdensome emotions, and she could live free, too. As free as Spencer. Her heart and mind eventually retaliated, but it was difficult. “You’re wrong,” she told him. “I’m not like you. I’m not a psycho and I don’t kill people for fun like y—”
“Lemme tell ya a little secret, schweetheart,” he said, in a voice like a gangster from a 1950s flick. “Everybody’s got a little psycho in ’em, just waitin’ to get out. It’s just that there’s these little obstacles, these, ah…façades that are in our way, a glitch in our programmin’. Society pushes you this way, pulls you that way. Tells you to act like this or be like that.” He stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Only the strongest overcome social pressures to be this or to be that.”
“And let me guess, you’re one of those strong ones.”
“That’s a bingo, Johnny, tell her what she’s won.” He looked at the large steel door standing in his way. There were three separate locks here, too. Spencer sighed. “Ya can’t just read Zakhar’s mind an’ find out where he hid the goddam keys?”
Kaley thought for a second, but could not detect Zakhar anymore, especially not over the slick, icky feeling that was emanating from the room on the other side of that door. She had been inside there once, but now that she was becoming used to it all, used to this “fourth-dimensional” state of hers, she could see and hear and smell and feel things she hadn’t before.
It was more than just the water trickling down the steps behind her, and the foam frothing at her heels. It was a slinking thing that stunk. The basement and its stairs reeked of such hideous evil she almost vomited. At once, she became disoriented again by the fact that she was both in a staircase in Russia with Spencer Pelletier, and at Cartersville Elementary School stepping through the doorway into Mrs. Cartwright’s first period math class. Kaley took a step down the stairs (found her seat in Mrs. Cartwright’s room), hands moving across the slippery walls (threw her backpack onto the desk and started getting her notebook and pencils out), watching Spencer carefully for any sudden movements (looked at Kalecia Kimbrough sitting behind her, whispering to a boy named Jonathan who sat beside her), and braced herself for what might happen once Spencer met the boy (took her seat and arranged her things on her desk; math book at the center, notebook to the left, pencils at the top in the indented pencil-holder).
The mind and attention were split, yet focused on both worlds. This bifurcation was not something that Nan had ever commented on. God? Emotions? Fear? Love? Angels and demons? The Charm? Oh yes, on these topics Nan had spoken at great length and with the glimmer of experience in her eye. But the splitting of mind and body? Telepresence? Being in two places at once? Nan had had nothing to say on these things.
But Kaley did recall this one little tidbit, though. On her Nan’s porch, during a powerful rain, when Shan had come running in from the storm crying because she’d slipped and fallen in the downpour. “Dry those tears up, now. Dry ’em up,” she said softly, folding Shan into her arms and taking her inside. “Far worse things you gonna see than that, girl. You an’ yo sista both. Far worse things. Things I ain’t even prepared for.”
Did she know? Did she that we would—
“Yo, Earth to Ghost Girl! Can you get into Zakhar’s mind or not?”
“No,” she finally said, snapping out of it. “No, I can’t read the dead man’s mind. It doesn’t work like that. I can’t…I mean, he’s dead. I can’t detect the thoughts of a dead man.”
He sighed again, and took his hairpins and paperclips out from his pocket. “Then get comfy. This could take another minute.”
When the plane touched down, he immediately unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up, much against the direct protests of the lone stewardess. Before they were even taxiing over to the hangar, he had his bags pulled and had pushed past the only other passenger on the plane, and was standing by the door, waiting.
He hadn’t taken a flight directly into Chelyabinsk Airport, that wouldn’t do at all. If his contacts were right, then Moscow Police had already gotten the word out, FSB and Chelyabinsk officials had knowledge of his impending arrival, as well. For this reason, his people had arranged for him to land on a private airstrip just outside of the city.
The doors finally opened, and he stepped directly out into the cold Siberian air. Snow and ice dominated the world. Wind snapped at him as he stepped down the airstairs and onto the concrete floor of the warehouse. The wide bay doors to the hanger were still open, allowing great gales to come sweeping through.
Shcherbakov smiled. Russia was welcoming him home, and it was always good to be home.
He reached into his pocket and took out his ushanka, and pulled it over his head. He reached into another pocket and pulled out a packet of Sobranie cigarettes and the silver bear’s-head lighter his father had given him for his eighteenth birthday. Shcherbakov lit up, inhaled, relished, and blew out a cloud ostentatiously.
The dark-blue Lada Granta was parked just outside those immense bay doors, chains wrapped around its snow tires, engine still running, a man at the wheel and another man standing outside, wearing his own ushanka and a long black wool coat. Vitaly Zverev was exactly how Shcherbakov remembered him, tall and frail-looking, bald, with a face frozen over by a lifetime of sadness. And why not? The cruelties visited on their two families could fill volumes. He approached his cousin and embraced him. No words were spoken. None need be. The trunk was popped open and Shcherbakov tossed his briefcase inside, and then slipped into the car behind the driver’s seat. Zverev got into the front passenger’s side.
A blizzard like nothing he’d seen in a decade saw them off. There was an unbreakable silence in the sedan until they got well away from the little airstrip, all eyes on the lonely roads heading east and west, everyone silently searching for the agents they hoped wouldn’t descend on them. Shcherbakov looked behind him, all around him, even up at those slate skies, barely visible through the dense snowfall. He would not put it past FSB to send their bravest helicopter pilots after him in this weather. They had been humiliated enough by their inability to capture him, and the men and women of FSB were famous for their shortage of playfulness and humor; this wasn’t a game to them, though it occasionally felt that way to him.
The Lada Granta hit the icy road, skidded a little, but the driver corrected. The driver was a large man with a shaved pate, and big, fat ears. Shcherbakov had never met the man before, but if he had to guess, he’d put the driver in Zverev’s bloodline—they were usually tall and wide, with fat ears and wide nostrils, which was what made the lean, gaunt Vitaly Zverev stand out amongst them.
“How was your flight?” Zverev asked casually. No “It’s so good to see you again” or any such pleasantries. Circumstances sometimes kept Shcherbakov away from his home for years, but whenever he returned it felt like he’d never left.
“It was fine,” he said, taking a toke and exhaling gratefully. It helped take the edge off after flying. He hated flying so much.
“Did they give you any trouble at the borders?”
“No. The passports and IDs you sent me all checked out.” He’d had to cross over the border from Slovakia and into Ukraine in order to reach the pilots with their private jet; the only ones willing to fly under radar and with a fake transponder. All for a nice fee, of course. “Which reminds me,” he said. Shcherbakov leaned forward, reached into his back pocket. The packets of fake IDs and passports were handed to Zverev, who took them, vanished them into his wool coat, and then produced a white envelope. Shcherbakov accepted it, browsed its contents.
“Plenty of walking around money,” Zverev said.
“I suppose, then, it’s still not safe to use our accounts?” he asked, skimming through the rubles. He read the lone driver’s license at the back, belonging to one Alexander Kadnikov, with an unsmiling mug shot of Yuri Shcherbakov at the center.<
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“You suppose correctly. I trust you got the call from Igor before leaving Ukraine?”
“I did.” Shcherbakov sighed, put the money away, and pulled off his ushanka. The heat was going on full, and the car was becoming an oven. He unbuttoned his coat to let some air in. “All of it is still a go?”
“Yes.”
Shcherbakov nodded, took another toke. The whole car went silent for the next few kilometers, everyone germinating on various things. He looked out the window and watched cars materialize out of the white curtain of snow, coming from the other direction, then disappear behind them. If it weren’t for the storm, he would be able to see the city of Chelyabinsk, even from this distance.
The onerous task ahead of him would be his last before a nice, long winter break. Three months. And Shcherbakov needed it. For the last five years he’d been running around frenetically, chasing leaks or tying up loose ends, and all because of those fucking journalists. They had started a snowball rolling, and for a time it had rolled downhill and picked up tremendous speed. Getting them to a private place and silencing them had been difficult enough—they’d both known they were fast becoming targets—but fortunately for Shcherbakov their journalistic hunger got the better of them, and once he waved sufficient bait in front of their noses, it was all over.
Well, not all of it, he thought.
The last five years had been trying. He’d been on cleanup duty, and with the exception of a few private contractors brought in here and there, it had all been left up to him. Too many leaks had been sprung already, and the old man hadn’t wanted to spring any more by using too many untested, untrustworthy sorts to carry out the business of cleaning up. So they called on the shape-shifter, the one most versed in becoming other people and tying off loose ends. The Grey Wolf.
Grey Wolf, he thought, putting his Sobranie between his lips and looking again at the money and fake IDs in his hands. Ridiculous name. But then, he figured he’d earned it. Like the Grey Wolf from Russian folklore who could change shapes, and had helped the Tsar’s youngest son Ivan to steal a Firebird, a bride, and a great horse, all by changing his shape, making threats, and killing without remorse whenever necessary.
Shcherbakov often changed shapes. To do this, he’d needed to become a blank slate. This took time, erasing much of his history from certain archives, and keeping himself away from family get-togethers. He had even had his red bear tattoo removed years ago, so that it wouldn’t be so easy to identify him with other vory. An unthinkable thing for most in the family, but a necessary action if he wanted to be their “Grey Wolf” and do what needed to be done.
Grey Wolf.
The name had other connotations, of course. For the past decade, wolves had become increasingly dangerous and brazen, especially in the Siberian territories. Record losses of livestock, game, and human beings had been reported due to wolf predation, and there was talk of a massive “super pack” of hungry wolves numbering in the 400s, the largest ever heard of, roaming around the remotest parts of Siberia and occasionally attacking small villages. For many Russians in this part of the country, the word wolf had become an insult to aim at someone you despised with the utmost passion. Predator and trickster, murderer and monster.
Some unknown investigator inside Moscow Police had given Shcherbakov the name after backtracking some of the steps he supposed Shcherbakov had taken in order to get into the homes and businesses of his victims.
Some just called him “The Wolf.” The two Amsterdam journalists certainly had. It had been the last words out of Steege’s mouth when he saw what Shcherbakov had done to his partner Heesters.
He removed the cigarette from his lips. The back seat was already filling up with smoke. Nothing smelled better than Sobranie smoke after a long flight. “Who’s first?” he said finally.
Up ahead, a few tall buildings began to emerge, rising like frost giants out of the immense white fog.
“These two,” said Zverev, reaching back and handing him a slip of paper. It was nothing more than two sets of initials and two addresses, scribbled unceremoniously on a newspaper clipping advertising the best cheeses to be had in all Chelyabinsk. “You should start with those two—the second one shouldn’t be too difficult, for obvious reasons—and we’ll find out about the third one.”
“The American?”
Zverev nodded.
“Are we sure it’s him this time?” There had been a false alarm two months ago. An American with a scarred face, somewhat like the injury described in Pelletier’s profile, had turned up in Mexico and Interpol had been right on it. Zverev’s contacts inside the agency had verified it, and wanted Pelletier taken out, if only for the sake of family and reputation. The American could do them no more harm, and it was possible Interpol didn’t have the whole story. Still, regardless of whether or not Spencer Pelletier had been a part of Dmitry Ankundinov’s disgraceful outfit in the U.S.—and even though the families all generally frowned upon or found outright detestable the operation they’d been up to—it was plainly evident that the American had betrayed or killed them, at least most of them, including Yevgeny Tidov, a cousin to Yuri Shcherbakov. The Wolf recalled playing with Tidov as children, and getting into some trouble here and there as teenagers.
By the time they were passing the sign marking Chelyabinsk’s city limits, Shcherbakov had memorized addresses on the paper, beside each of which were the initials of his targets— V.Z.R. and A.R.R.—and then stuffed the paper in his pocket. “These two should be easy enough. But about the American.”
Zverev shrugged, kept his back turned to Shcherbakov, looked out his window. “Our man in Interpol says they don’t have a fix yet, but once they do, he’ll let us know. I’m also coordinating with our people at the Chelyabinsk and Moscow Police Departments.”
“Your man in Interpol confirmed it? Pelletier is here?”
“Yes, cousin.”
“Have all the others been alerted?”
Zverev nodded. “Yes. I’ve called them all—Lapin, Mager, Ogorodnikov, and Likhachyov. All of them. Only Ogorodnikov hasn’t answered, but we’ve sent people out to check on him.”
Shcherbakov took another toke, blew it out slowly. “You have my room ready?” he said.
“Yes, cousin. All your gear is there. Everything has been arranged.”
“It’s enough, yes?”
“Enough to set another example, yes.”
Another example, he thought. Yes, that was another reason he had earned the moniker. This new breed of Siberian wolf was more feral, more fearsome than before, and was reported to sometimes slaughter cattle and wild game without even eating them. A few reports spoke of small children and even one adult slain by the wolves, and never eaten. Like they were sending the message: the wolves are back, we are returned, and these are our territories again. Over 15,000 of them were hunted and killed each year, and on some instinctual level they knew. They knew that if they didn’t send the right message, they might never be left alone.
Grey Wolf. He blew out another cloud of smoke. Yevgeny never called me that. The last time I saw him, he called me cousin. Nothing else. He took another toke. Thinking of Yevgeny and his past brought about strong feelings towards his family. Family is everything, and everything is family. Yevgeny’s father’s words to Shcherbakov when they were boys. Like a “super pack” of wolves, they had to learn to stick together. With Moscow Police, FSB and Interpol encroaching on their territories, hunting them and wiping them out one by one, they had to learn to fight back.
And send messages.
The storm was letting up some. He could see the city of Chelyabinsk a little more clearly now. A few snow-capped skyscrapers, a large snow plow grumbling past them, a pick-up in the flow of traffic, and a large Russian Orthodox church with the onion-shaped dome on top of its cupola.
“Home,” he said, smiling through another billow of smoke. He checked his watch: 5:12 PM. It would be getting dark soon.
Spencer worked in silence this time. Wel
l, mostly silence, anyway. The apparition girl would occasionally mutter something. Once, she said, “Here.” When Spencer turned to ask her why she had said that, the girl only shrugged and whispered, “I’m at school. My teacher’s taking roll call…I…I guess whatever I say here also bleeds over there, and vise versa.” Spencer just shook his head and went back to work.
It was getting difficult to concentrate, though, and he believed it was the girl’s fault. Not because he was annoyed with her presence, though he was, but because something was…sort of…leaking off of her. Kind of like being near a depressed person too often; eventually, the gloom rubbed off on you, too. Only it wasn’t gloom that was rubbing off on Spencer.
A whisper. “…and we’ll get her…” Perhaps just the wind upstairs, coming through the door. Had Kaley forgotten to close it? Wait, of course she didn’t close it, she was an apparition. That was it. The wind. Had to be. Yet an intuitive part of him knew that wasn’t the whole truth, somewhere in his bones he knew it.
The locks on this door were much harder to pick than those of the first. He also didn’t like being this deep inside a stranger’s basement. Though he seriously doubted the girl could devise a clever enough trap to catch him—Little bitch ain’t got that much guile—there was no guarantee that that satyr Zakhar Ogorodnikov hadn’t had something else in mind when he rigged this door, something the little apparition girl would miss.
When he snagged the last tumbler pin, Spencer grunted, “Finally!” He put the lock picks in his pocket. Got his Glock out. Reached for the doorknob.
“Hold on,” Kaley whispered.
Spencer looked back at her. “Now what?”
“You can’t just go in there like that.”
