Hour of the Wolf

by Andrius B Tapinas

  The Owl was the scene of a fight every night, and this had already been recognized as a tradition among its raucously carousing guests.

  Ivan reflexively put his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket, where he kept a watch with a gold-plated face and an inscription of his name, but realised what he was about to do and stopped, giving himself a half smile. This watch could have been proudly flourished by the Russian agent Skorokhodov, a holder of a high military rank. But it would have looked distinctly odd in the hands of modest metalworker Vanechka Skorik, and would no doubt have immediately made him conspicuous.

  Skorik had arrived at The Owl much earlier than agreed. He sat slowly sipping his beer, deep in his thoughts.

  The inn was packed with people, and each and every of them was trying to outdo their neighbours when it came to the volume of their cries for beer, but there was no sign of fighting yet. At this favourable time, though a little late, the man Ivan had anxiously been waiting for appeared.

  Steam City accountant Felix Porcijanka stepped through the door of the Owl and hesitated. He looked from side to side, then set off through the crowd. Intent on seeking the person who had caused his visit, he several times collided with the waiters who were dashing around with beer glasses raised above their heads. However, no drink was spilled and no disasters occurred, so he pushed on through the crowd until he finally spotted Ivan. He nodded to him, and a second later made himself comfortable on the chair opposite Skorokhodov.

  “God save us from places like these,” the accountant panted gloomily. “Couldn’t we meet somewhere else? In a more decent quarter than the Troubles?”

  But Ivan was not in the mood to listen to his whining.

  “How about in the eatery of your guild?” he snapped. “You could have introduced me to your colleagues and we could have brought them into this affair. What do you think of such a plan, eh? ” He gave the man an unfriendly look. “Someone who wants to hide a tree grows a forest, and someone who wants to hide among people comes to the Troubles. Do you get it? No one cares about you here and no one knows you,” he added, intentionally keeping the misunderstanding with Icka Lupet to himself.

  Eyes cast down, the newcomer clutched the jug that had been swiftly delivered by a waiter, filled his glass to the brim, and gulped the beer down.

  Ivan surveyed his accomplice from head to toe: he was chubby and had a bushy black moustache; a pocket square was peeping out of his jacket – this fellow was very much out of place at The Owl. Porcijanka came in heavily perfumed, while at the same time perspiring heavily (possibly out of fear), and the fragrance of his perfume blended with the sour stench of his sweat.

  Despite all this, to Skorokhodov, Porcijanka was manna from heaven: by day, he took care of the official accounts of the Mechanics’ Guild, and by night shared his bed with Tomas Ujeiskiy, a financier for the Vilnius Vitamancers. He couldn’t say that finding this valuable person had been easy, but the matter had turned into child’s play in the end. Ivan had deliberately chosen The Iron Owl – the squeamish Felix would no doubt feel intimidated by this hole: the more sluggish his reasoning is and the more worried he is about himself, the fewer problems there will be, Ivan thought.

  Skorokhodov took the jug and filled Porcijanka’s glass, which had only been emptied a moment ago, to the brim.

  “Don’t worry, Felix, all is good,” he comforted the fat man.

  “Really?” Felix asked wearily.

  Ivan nodded.

  “Yes. I have the money here. Besides, I am leaving for Russia tomorrow and you will never see me again, and not a single person will be interested in your bedroom matters anymore. But, Felix...” Skorokhodov’s voice suddenly became cold as steel. “On one condition.”

  The fatty’s eyes bulged out.

  “What is it?” he breathed out.

  “If you don’t have the copies of the drawings with you, complications – will be – unavoidable” – Ivan spoke slowly for emphasis.

  “I have them, I have,” Porcijanka said nodding furiously.

  He put his glass down, and from under the front of his jacket pulled out a wad of papers that had been folded several times. His fingers trembled.

  Skorokhodov put his hand out.

  “Give them to me,” he urged. “Don’t worry, no one is looking at us here.”

  Felix looked around and handed over the drawings.

  Skorokhodov unfolded them and scanned them with his eyes.

  Fortunately, the chubby accountant was not aware of this moment being the weakest link in Ivan Skorokhodov’s plan. Felix could have offered the drawings of Zaks shoe polish boxes with the description of the manufacturing process, and the Russian would have never suspected that they were any different from the secret drawings that he had been expecting. He was barely literate but he would never admit it. And certainly not to this pushover scumbag, sitting opposite him.

  Carefully trying not give himself away, Ivan aplied his knowledge of psychology, as he usually did. He raised his eyes from the paper and inquired coldly.

  “Can the Alliance really develop this?”

  Porcijanka couldn’t help chortling.

  “The Alliance? The Rotschilds only pay the bills but everything is developed by the Vitamancers.”

  The Vitamancers... That was another reason why Vanechka Skorik, aka Ivan Skorokhodov, hated Vilnius. Like all free cities of the Alliance, Vilnius was a scheming wasps’ nest where everyone fought for influence and money. Vitamancers, Alchemists, Mechanics, Hypnomantics, Knights of the Cathedral, Vilnius Legion... One could drown in this multitude of parasites.

  Skorokhodov felt Felix look on him and realised he had been silent too long.

  “How many copies are there?” he asked.

  “This is the third. The first is held at the headquarters of Vilnius Vitamancers Lodge; the second by the Vitamancers’ Grand Master in Prague.”

  “Oh is it?” wondered Ivan to himself. “The mysterious invention must be really substantial then. It will keep the Tsar’s engineers busy.”

  He nodded.

  “Fine. The deal is on. You get a thousand roubles and peace of mind. I will be departing tomorrow and no one else will be interested to know who you wiggle your arse at anymore,” he assured with a wry smile.

  “Any guarantees?”

  “A Tsarist military officer’s word of honour. It can’t get any better than that.”

  Skorokhodov took a fabric pouch out from under his jacket, placed it on the table and pushed it toward the accountant. He clutched the pouch and was about to count the money but the Russian stopped him.

  “I wouldn’t do it if I were you,” he said. “People at The Owl can smell a single rouble, never mind a whole pile of these red-cheeked beauties.”

  Felix turned red and hurriedly shove the pouch under his jacket. He then reached for his glass.

  “Another piece of advice,” uttered Skorokhodov, casting a leisurely glance around the room. “You’d better leave with no delay: a fight is about to start.”

  Porcijanka promptly forgot about his beer and jumped up from his chair so high that his head hit against the cast-iron candelabrum hanging above the table. He rushed over to the innkeeper, exchanged a few words, then bolted through the middle of the scrum and out of the Iron Owl.

  Skorokhodov smoothed the creased drawings out with his palm. Of course, it was possible to make sure Felix Porcijanka never left the Troubles. Accidents were part of the daily routine here, and the money would have gone back to the treasury of Intelligence Department Three. But the Department was not facing any financial shortages, and besides, it would be silly to butcher a goose which might still lay one or two golden eggs in future. Skorokhodov would obviously not use Porcijanka’s services ever again, but the porker might come in handy to the agent who would replace Ivan sooner or later.

  Ivan shoved the drawings into the inner pocket of his jacket and inspected the room around him. A petty local thug was amusing himself by pushing some unfortunate
creature around and shouting, “Hey, you know Finka, dontcha?”

  Skorokhodov fished a few grivnas [12]out of his pocket and tossed them on the table to pay for his beer, and then marched decisively toward the door. He had chosen to leave at the right moment – as soon as he closed the door behind him, the inn was engulfed by a veritable dogfight.

  Outside, night had already come. After walking for a while, Skorokhodov stopped and stood contemplating something. To get home he could take one of two routes: past the White Pillars, which would be the longer way, or the short cut through the Cemetery of Cholera Victims.

  “Dear sir, would you be so kind and give a coin to a poor old lady?”

  Skorokhodov was startled by the rasping voice. He hadn’t even noticed the poor creature with a frayed white parasol in her hand approaching him. The old lady’s bright skirts and red cheeks touched with cheap rouge shone through the dark.

  Ivan cast a hostile glance at the beggar, who was well known to the locals by the name of ‘The Rose of the Troubles’, and, without a word, set off toward the Cholera Cemetery. The thought that currently preoccupied him most was the need for the quick and safe concealment of the drawings, and for that reason he chose this particular route, which many thought to be rather disagreeable.

  Vilnius had been struck by epidemics more than once. In the 19th century alone the city was ravaged by three, each coming with its own cholera cemetery – three abscesses on the city’s body. The Grim Reaper harvested lives in the thousands, and a booklet published by Dr Stravinsky called How to protect yourself from cholera hadn’t been of much use. Following Vilnius’ breakaway from Russia’s grip and entry into the Alliance, the new local government – Vilnius Council – had embarked on a serious fight against diseases; a fortune was allocated to works on the water supply system, the best foreign experts were called, and Vilnius residents’ hygiene habits were changed. When the epidemics had retreated, one cemetery was razed to the ground and its plot sold to developers, while the second was successfully reclaimed as the site for the Szopen brewery. But the third cemetery – the Cemetery of Cholera Victims, which stretched from the Troubles up to the rough quarter of New World, which housed newcomers, deserters and those searching for a better life, remained. Rumours abounded that the cemetery was haunted, and even in broad daylight people would take a longer route just to avoid it, never mind at night.

  Skorokhodov was not concerned by rumours or tales. He was well familiar with the straightest route across the cemetery, leading from the Troubles to New World, and had even set up his own weapons cache in one of the small graves.

  Ten minutes later Ivan slipped like a ghost through the rusty iron gate of the cemetery and picked his way through the gravestones. Black sky hung above his head. On the mounds loomed rotting wooden crosses with carved numbers, attesting to the lives of the people who had been flung into the mass grave, which would only be revealed in daylight. There were no names or surnames, only numbers. Something shifted and rustled ahead but Skorokhodov didn’t slow down. He knew that these were only willows stroking the taller crosses with their branches in the wind. The crucial thing now was not to lose his barely detectable path in the thick of waist-high stinging nettles, and to avoid falling into a ditch. During the onset of the last epidemics the Tsarist government had burned the dead, but the wind would spread the atrocious smoke over the city, and this way of dealing with the bodies had been challenged by the living. Therefore, they had to go back to the old custom of digging deep trenches and burying the dead in them. People would say that some of the trenches were not graves at all, but that they led to a labyrinth of underground tunnels that went all the way down to the Cathedral.

  When Skorokhodov was half way through to his destination, he saw the blinking lights of New World quarter in the distance.

  Suddenly Ivan stopped and became all ears. What he heard was not the rustling of tree branches. It appeared he was not the only one making his way around the gravestones. The Russian looked around trying to figure out who it might be, while his fingers impulsively clutched on a short but sharp blade that he had concealed at his waist under his jacket. Could it be some show-off from the Troubles, tempted by seemingly easy prey?

  Ivan’s walk turned into a brisk stride. A sixth sense was telling him that the Troubles had prepared him a little farewell present. Another sense was telling him that the little present would be disappointed when it encountered the sharp talons of its prey. Ivan was approaching the end of his sixth decade but his physical energy and dexterity were much superior to those of many youngsters.

  Skorokhodov knew that he would soon come to a ravine that was a perfect spot for setting up an ambush. He slipped through the last sand mounds bearing crosses, managed to avoid falling into a wide ditch, and silently slid down into the ravine, where he pressed his body against its wall. A few moments later he heard heavy footsteps above his head. The sound was somewhat odd but Ivan couldn’t figure out what it reminded him of as it was dulled by the loud chirping of night cicadas. Something was not right. But the Russian had no time to think. He swiftly pulled out his blade and, resting his hand on the edge of the ravine for support, leaped out, hoping to take the enemy by surprise.

  “What is this?” he gaped in astonishment at the glinting eyes boring into his own.

  He staggered, was about to run or scream, to take some action to defend himself, but his legs felt as heavy as if they had been filled with lead.

  A blade as sharp as a scalpel slashed his neck. With his eyes bulging out at the attacker, Ivan grasped his throat with both hands, as if trying to stop his blood gushing out; blackness closed in around him and he collapsed to the ground.

  Vanechka Skorik had never wanted to go home as much as he did now, but his wish was never to come true.

  When a lonely creature with a wheelbarrow shuffled across the Cholera Cemetery half an hour later, the mystical attacker was gone. The creature cast a disdainful glance at the corpse and, although the sight was not particularly pleasant, relieved the body of its possessions with no further emotion. Later, two more creatures crept up to the dead body and, keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings, hastily patted the poor man’s pockets, but they were too late.

  Chapter III

  Vilnius, late afternoon

  21 04 1905

  The late afternoon in April happened to be especially bright and pleasant. The departments, lecture halls and workshops of Vilnius University Dominium had been abandoned a while ago as students rushed out to bathe in the warmth of the spring.

  In the noisy quarter of Mirth City, which was situated on the other bank of the Vilnele River, innkeepers were rolling beer barrels out of their cellars and hastily putting out tables, which were immediately surrounded by clusters of people.

  In the Jewish quarter of the Blots, children were hopping alongside the old, long-bearded Jew Efraim – a Vilnius storyteller and a master of fables – and mewling like kittens begging him to tell them a funny story. Efraim only smiled and shook his head. This respectable elder had a small hut in the Blots, where he mended shoes in the evenings.

  In the Old Town, in Cathedral Square, a circus tent had been erected. Vilnius residents stood crammed against one another in a long queue, waiting eagerly for tickets for the evening performance; they chatted among themselves, sharing the latest gossip about the Summit – an Alliance event of the utmost importance. Someone from the crowd would occasionally wave to the nimble Jewish vendors manoeuvring around on unicycles with large baskets filled with boiled sweets, sausage sandwiches, fried potatoes and the favourite of Vilnius citizens – coldcans; the same ones that the tabloid The Truth of Vilnius had once called “The greatest invention of the Alliance and University Dominium Alchemists of all times”. The cans were the size of a cup and contained steam-cooled beer. The owners of the kiosks at the edge of the square, offering kefir[13] and fruit, had no reason to be too happy.

  Suddenly a flock of men dressed in black emerged from behind t
he Cathedral. The Cathedral Square crowd went quiet and their faces darkened – as if the good mood had been swept away by a gust of wind. They were the Knights of the Cathedral – religious fanatics and the heavy fist of the Church. Twelve men advanced in a formation of three files, their feet pounding the pavement in military style, while the wind flapped their long black robes, which almost touched the ground. The knights’ heads were bald and each had a large white cross hanging from his neck. The formation was headed by a stalwart knight with a large beak-like nose – it was the austere prelate Masalskis, the Spiritual Councillor of Vilnius Council. His eyes scanned from side to side as if searching for his prey. The people in the square quickly lowered their eyes, pretending to be amused by the cobble stones. The Jews on unicycles dispersed immediately.

  “Alcohol is a sin!” the prelate yelled without breaking his stride. His sharp voice resonated across the square like a toll of a copper bell. “And consuming alcohol in a sacred place is also a crime.”

  Coldcans were promptly concealed in pockets. And only two men in blue uniforms standing close to the circus tent continued to stare at prelate Masalskis boldly.

  “Hey, baldies, watch where you are going, don’t step on the grass!” shouted one of them. “That will certainly be a crime and you’ll get arrested.”

  The discord between the Vilnius Legion and the Knights of the Cathedral was old and never-ending.

  The Prelate pretended not to have seen or heard the Legionnaires, so a clash was avoided. The White Crosses marched across the square and continued in the direction of St Ann’s Church. Nevertheless, it later became clear that the Legionnaires had enraged the leader of the Knights of the Cathedral after all, when the formation blocked the way for the Number 2 street trolley. The trolley driver in a leather helmet got very annoyed by the long wait and pulled the cord of the steam whistle so hard that its deep sound drowned out the Cathedral bell tower clock, which had just started chiming six. But the whistle soon ran out of steam and the tolls of the bells reigned over the streets of the Old Town again.