by Kat Ross
The man gave a short nod, his eyes on Alexei’s gloves.
Alexei opened the door just as the skies split wide. In one blurring motion, he slammed the heel of his hand into the Oprichnik’s face and yanked the crossbow away. A bolt whistled past his ear. They were shooting from the guardhouse. Alexei dropped to one knee, taking cover behind the open car door. He tore his gloves off and drew deeply. Straight down to the abyss.
It’s the last time. The very last time . . . .
Crimson ley seeped into his palm, sluggish like thick tar. There was no sensation of pain this time. No sensation of anything. He tried to give it purpose, to bend it to his will so he didn’t have to hurt anyone else, but the power simmered in his veins, immobile. Cold sweat broke on his forehead. Something heavy hit him from behind, dragging him down. More bodies piled on.
“Cuff him, you idiots,” someone yelled. “OGD wants him alive.”
His cheek pressed against wet asphalt. Alexei gritted his teeth and managed to free a hand, but nothing happened when he grabbed one of the yellow slickers. He couldn’t think beyond the pain in his head and the fear of ending up back in a cell. Through heavy curtains of rain, the lieutenant strode towards him. He had a bloody nose and looked irate.
“They said you were dangerous, some kind of special forces shit, but I don’t see—” A dark blur streaked through the rain. It hit the lieutenant and carried him to the ground, snarling viciously. The Oprichnik screamed and rolled away, clutching one arm. Alice slowly turned to regard the men who pinned her master. Her head lowered, hackles bristling down her muscular spine. The hound’s eyes reflected the greenish light of the storm. Powerful jaws opened wide, snapping and barking and spraying saliva.
“Saints, what the—”
“It’s a fogging Markhound!”
Alexei managed to roll over and knee someone in the balls. Alice leapt forward. The Oprichniki swiftly abandoned him for the safety of the guardhouse.
Alexei gained his feet and ran through the deluge to the gate. He slammed a palm down on the stelae. The Key Ward had a circle enclosing a Raven just above the words Kilometer Zero.
Just the surface ley. Please, just give me a trickle . . . .
A single Mark lit up. His very first, bestowed when he was nine years old by Bishop Bartolomes. After law school, Alexei had clerked for the judge, a kindly and fair man. The Mark was a simple quill pen on his right forearm. So small he’d almost forgotten about it, overshadowed as it was by the Marks Feizah had given him as a knight.
Blue fire traced the Key Ward. The iron gates swung open. Lines of ley leapt from stelae to stelae along the road to Kvengard, unfurling in a shining ribbon. Alexei jumped into the car. A sharp whistle and Alice manifested in the passenger seat, panting. The smell of wet dog immediately filled the confined space.
He gunned the engine and stuck a hand out the window, waving goodbye as they leapt forward with a squeal of rubber.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The surging whitewater of the Traiana River ran below a narrow suspension bridge joining the Eastern and Southern Curiae. A deep gorge marked the border, with the Fort of Saint Ludolf on the far bank. A wolf banner flew from the garrison’s tower.
Alexei hadn’t passed a single car in five hours. The road cut through dense forest, but it was the only major artery between Novostopol and Kvengard. There should have been a fair amount of traffic.
He’d driven at a steady one-twenty, with a single stop to retrieve a fresh pair of gloves from the trunk, and seen nothing in the mirrors. If he could cross the border, he might stand a chance of actually pulling this off.
Alexei slowed as he approached the fort, an ancient, sprawling structure with meter-thick walls. The road ran straight through it starting at an archway flanked by two squat towers. He’d managed to convey to Alice that she needed to conceal herself. Also that she shouldn’t attack the knights in the garrison, though he wasn’t sure the lesson had been absorbed. The whole drive, she would periodically sniff him and whine. The hound knew something was wrong and it put her on edge.
Cool mountain air hit his face as he got out of the car. The knights of Kvengard wore chainmail hauberks beneath blue and white tabards bearing the Running Wolf. They’d watched him cross the bridge and a group of three rode out to greet him. The mounts had glossy black coats and luminous eyes that shone like a cat’s in the gloaming. They faded to insubstantial shadows when Alexei didn’t look at them directly, but that was typical of all creatures bred with the ley.
“Guten tag,” he said to the officer, holding up the cylinder. “I have documents for the Nuncio Morvana.”
“Leave zem here.” His accent was clipped. “A party is going to Kvengard tomorrow. Zey can take it.”
“The Reverend Father expects me to deliver it personally.”
“I have not seen you before. What is your name?” Vat iz your name?
“I’m not with the couriers. I’m one of the new Pontifex’s personal aides.”
The knight’s blue eyes narrowed. “Zis road is closed. Identification, please.”
“If I could just speak with your officer—”
“Identification.“ He held out a gloved hand.
Alexei gave him Misha’s corax. The knight stared at the inscription, brow furrowing. He looked up, his expression unreadable. Alexei wondered if he’d just made a bad mistake. Kvengard maintained neutrality in the war.
“You are a Laqueo.” The officer turned to his knights. “Ey, boys!” He drew a finger across his throat and laughed. They eyed Alexei with new respect. “Our kommandant will want to meet you. He served as an advisor with the Laqueos, back in the day. Perhaps you know him.”
Alexei smiled, inwardly cursing. “Of course.”
They went inside the garrison. The knight brought him to a mess hall where men and women ate at long trestle tables. Tall, pointed windows overlooked the gorge. Kommandant Rademacher sat with a handful of other officers, drinking wine and eating some kind of stew. The hall smelled of cabbage and paprika.
“Mikhail Semyon Bryce, sir. He carries a message for Bishop Morvana.”
Rademacher set his cup down. His shrewd gaze took in Alexei’s scruffy beard and wrinkled exorason. The drone of conversation suddenly got louder. Sweat trickled down Alexei’s spine. He smelled something else under the food. A note of rot and stagnant water.
“Flay me, old friend! Is it really you?” Rademacher’s accent was softer, more fluent.
Alexei held up his palms with a grin. “It’s me.”
Rademacher studied him, gray eyes narrowing slightly. “You look different without a beard.” Alexei tensed. “Even younger and it’s been what, five years?” He chuckled. “Sit down, Captain Bryce. Have some wine.”
Alexei couldn’t refuse. The other officers nodded politely as he took a chair next to the kommandant.
“My condolences for the loss of your Reverend Mother,” Rademacher said, pouring him a cup.
“Thank you.”
“We felt the ley surge,” he said. “All the way out here in the boondocks. A bad flood season, yes?”
Alexei sipped his wine. It tasted peculiar. Flat and almost saline, like the swill that came out of the water purifiers in the Void.
“So you’ve been promoted? Well, you hitched your cart to the right horse, Captain Bryce.” He slurped some stew. “Do you remember the time we had a few days of leave in Nantwich and went to that little hole-in-the wall dive bar down by the docks—”
Alexei smiled at what he hoped were the appropriate points of the story, but it was hard to focus on anything but the small black spiders crawling out of Rademacher’s mouth.
“—and she said, I’ll have to work it out with a paper and pencil, ja?” The table erupted in raucous laughter.
“Those were the days.” Alexei drained his wine in one long gulp.
“Do you ever miss it?” Rademacher asked, brushing at one of the spiders. It skittered away from his gloved hand and crawled into his le
ft nostril. “I mean, we did some things I don’t like to remember, you understand, but I felt alive.” His eyes grew distant. “Not much happens out here, Captain Bryce.”
A sudden sharp scream came from just outside the mess hall. No one reacted. It lengthened, raw and full-throated, then cut off abruptly.
“I don’t miss it,” Alexei said.
“Well, you’ve done well for yourself. An aide to the Pontifex. More wine?” He held up the bottle.
“Not if I’m driving.” Alexei forced himself to meet Rademacher’s eyes. A beetle clung to the left one, six segmented legs braced on the upper and lower lids. “Will you let me through, kommandant?”
Rademacher hesitated. Alexei’s gaze skittered across his neatly parted blond hair, his smooth pink cheeks and fussy mouth. The beetle started to feed.
“It’s my first commission for the Reverend Father.” Was that his own voice, so calm, so steady? “I don’t want to disappoint him.”
Rademacher smiled. His right eye sparkled with good humor. The other was being slowly devoured. “Naturally, Captain. Our own Reverend Father left it to my discretion, though officially the road is closed in respect for the mourning period.”
Thank all the Saints. “I’d better be on my way then.” The muscles of Alexei’s face rearranged themselves in a broad smile. “Thank you again for your hospitality, kommandant.”
“Anything for an old comrade, ja?”
Rademacher walked him back to the car and raised a hand in farewell. It was a profound relief to put him in the rearview.
Alexei drove slowly through the fort, accelerating once he passed through the second arch. The setting sun cast long shadows through the firs. Mox nox. Soon, nightfall. He switched on the high beams. Alice watched him from the passenger seat with a worried expression.
“Want to drive for a while?” he said. “I feel kind of weird.”
She yawned nervously.
“Here’s something good, little sister,” he said, leaning back against the headrest. “There’s no telephone service beyond the western checkpoint. I think we’re clear for a while.”
He glanced over to find Malach in the passenger seat, a knife sticking out of his stomach. A rising tide of blood filled the footwell.
Alexei blinked rapidly three times and turned back to the road. Kilometer 502 flew past. He was more than halfway there and making good time.
“Miss me?”
Alexei rolled down the window. Cold air rushed inside the car. He fumbled for the knob on the heater.
“I’ve been doing some thinking, priest. Here’s my theory. You’re obsessed with fixing your brother because deep down, you’re secretly glad he Turned and the guilt is eating you up. Mikhail Semyon Bryce, the golden boy! You’re a pale shadow of him, Alyosha.” A mocking laugh. “Only your mother could love a lawyer.”
Alexei braked into a sharp curve. Malach braced a hand on the dashboard.
“You think you’re afraid of ending up Invertido like your brother, but that’s not it. You’re afraid of failing to live up to his memory.”
Alexei looked over at him. “Know what?”
Malach tilted his head.
“I’m an insomniac. I’m used to seeing shit that isn’t there. So go ahead and psychoanalyze me.” He turned back to the road. “Makes the drive less boring.”
He could smell the blood now, like rusting iron. It brought him back to those endless nights in the Void. The interrogations . . . .
“Why do you think they gave you so many Marks, priest? Because you’re tainted. You have a cancer inside that just keeps growing and growing no matter how hard your masters try to cure it. That’s why you can’t sleep.” Malach laughed. “You pray for salvation, but no one’s listening. The shadow will consume you in the end. You tell yourself you only did what you had to, but the laqueus is the real you, Alyosha. Falke knows it. You should have accepted his offer.” He tapped his forehead with a grin. “Free your mind. Accept the truth. We’re the same and there’s no way out but down into the abyss.”
The center line glowed in the high beams, unfurling in a serpentine red ribbon. It bathed Malach’s handsome features in scarlet flame. “Take pains to waken the dead,” he whispered, solemn now. “Dig deep mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so that they reach the dead.”
A quote from the Via Libertas.
Alexei didn’t respond. Malach’s voice hardened. “How about this. When I find them, I’ll make Lezarius break the grid and I’ll give Misha to Beleth. She’ll find good uses for him, I’m sure—”
Alexei reached over and twisted the dagger. Malach’s face melted and became his brother. Not as he was now, but in the prime of life. He wore a full suit of armor, polished to a high gleam. The helm rested in his lap. He smiled, faint lines deepening at the corners of his blue eyes.
“Don’t listen to him, brother. Nihilim lie.”
Alexei gripped the wheel. Not this.
“You’re angry at me,” Misha said. “Of course you are. I betrayed everything I ever taught you. I left you to clean up my mess.”
Alexei checked the power gauge. The battery only had a quarter charge left. Stupid not to plug it in at the garrison. He tried to do the math. Four hundred kilometers divided by sixty . . . or was it the other way around?
“You should have been a rising star in the Curia. Maybe you’d be a nuncio by now. Instead, you wasted the last three years chasing down lunatics in the vain hope of finding Malach. I’m so sorry, Alyosha. Forget about me. I don’t deserve your pity.”
The road began to descend again, winding through the conifer forest to the rugged, windswept plains below. Kvengard lay at the tip of a peninsula dividing the Northern and Southern Oceans. The sea would not be far off now.
“That day in the basilica? I didn’t care what happened to any of you. I only wanted to kill Malach. I was tired of being his pawn.” Misha laughed hollowly. “But all I do is trade one master for another. First it was Falke. Then the mage. Now I serve a mad Pontifex. A soldier is all I am, Alyosha. All I’ll ever be.”
He started taking his armor off, piece by piece. The breastplate, vambrace and gantlets were adorned with silver embossing and intricate etchings. It had cost a fortune, but their father was happy to pay for it when Mikhail Bryce was promoted to captain. When he was still a source of pride rather than shame. The Raven motif featured prominently, of course, but Misha’s armor also had images of Saint Jule and other icons.
Alexei didn’t want to look, but something compelled him. The images were wrong, all wrong. Instead of kneeling in attitudes of piety, the saints were performing lewd acts upon each other. Misha’s Marks were also different from the ones he remembered. Sinuous animals with golden scales and teeth glistening with venom. Women with pale, bloated faces and staring eyes.
“Stop,” he said brokenly. “Please, stop.”
“What do you think of this one, brother?”
He’d only seen the Nightmark once, when six knights had pinned his brother down and stripped him to confirm the cause of his distress. A blindfolded man with a blade to his throat and a disturbing expression of ecstasy on his face. It was on his chest, inverted, so the blade sliced across his nipples.
“Why?” Alexei demanded. “I didn’t need your help! I can take care of myself. If you’d only believed in me, none of this would have happened, none of it!”
“No. If I hadn’t made the bargain, you would be dead now. We both would be.” Misha’s face turned to the window and the towering dark pines. “Remember when we stole Papa’s keys and took his new convertible for a joy ride? You backed it into the rock wall and we thought he’d kill us, but he just laughed and said he did the same thing when he was a kid.”
Alexei’s eyes burned. The road blurred. “I remember.”
His brother smiled sadly. “Let me go, Alyosha. I don’t belong to you anymore.”
“Yes, you do.” He reached for Misha’s hand. “Don’t be stupid. We’ll always have each other—”
>
Savage barking.
Alexei looked up. He was going too fast, foot pressing the accelerator to the boards, and the car had drifted across the road into the opposite lane. Something crouched there thirty meters ahead. A squat, misshapen shadow in the moonlight. He jerked the wheel hard to the right. The car skidded off the road and down a steep embankment. A feeling of peace came over him as it headed straight for a spruce tree. The next thing he knew, the world flipped over. He floated, weightless, for an endless moment. The seatbelt jerked tight. He smelled burning metal. Heard explosive crunching and scraping above his head. Time sped up in the final seconds and he had the peculiar sensation that the car was stationary and that big tree was speeding towards him.
He must have passed out for a bit because everything blurred until Alice shoved her wet nose in his face. It was very quiet. Alexei’s eyes opened. She barked in his ear and he pushed her away, suddenly hyperalert. He hung suspended upside down in the seatbelt. Cracks webbed the windshield. Every other window was blown out.
Alexei found the release and tried to pop it open. It wouldn’t budge. He remembered that seatbelts don’t release under tension, so he braced a hand on the roof and pushed up to get his weight off the belt while he unlatched it with his free hand. That worked and he eased himself down and crawled out the back window.
His hands shook from adrenaline as he surveyed the wreck. The car had rolled down the embankment and come to rest right in front of the big spruce. If it hadn’t rolled, he would have hit the tree at high speed and not even the seatbelt would have saved him.
Alice had wisely dematerialized when the car went off the road. Now she nudged his leg, gazing up with liquid brown eyes. He dropped a hand to her head, drawing comfort from her warmth and realness. A sudden fear rose that he was imagining her, too, but it was too terrible to contemplate.
“What was that?” he asked softly. “That thing?”
She trotted up the embankment with the slightly hitching gait caused by the scar tissue on her haunch. Alexei followed, stiff but otherwise unhurt. The road was empty in both directions. He watched the Markhound closely, but her hackles were flat, her ears relaxed. She sniffed at a patch of grass on the verge and then peed on it.
