I wave, cradling my ribs.
A stern-looking older cop trots over, hand on his sidearm. Looking past me toward the motel room, he takes my shoulder and pulls me away roughly. The other, younger police officer, pushes past us.
“Come with me, miss.”
Behind me, I hear the other police officer enter the motel room, kicking the door open and shouting commands at Oleg.
“You okay?” asks the cop, yanking open the back door of his patrol car.
I nod, feeling numb. “Fine,” I say.
The cop is looking at me in a fatherly way, probably assuming I’ve been beaten up by my boyfriend. He doesn’t understand. None of them understand the strangeness of what’s happening. All these years, and I never told a single person about the relic. Now I broke my promise.
“Avtomat!” screams Oleg.
The Ukrainian sounds terrified, his screams muffled. He is trying to warn the police of something. Still holding me by the shoulder, the police officer guides me into the backseat of his cruiser.
I sit, looking up at him.
Blue and red lights play over the black leather of his holster and belt. His badge gleams. He is only half paying attention to me, glancing toward the motel room as he talks.
“My name is Officer Honeycutt, ma’am. Is it your nine-one-one call we’re responding to?”
“Y-yes,” I stutter.
“All right. The EMTs are on their way. I’m going to have you sit here for a couple minutes while we sort things out,” he says.
Another hoarse scream. Oleg sounds as if he is struggling. A third cop, a woman, is hustling across the parking lot now, tool belt jiggling, hand on her radio.
Honeycutt looks over his shoulder, then back to me.
“Yell if you need anything,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
I tuck my legs in as he claps the car door shut. Oleg’s screams are faintly audible through a small gap of open window. Honeycutt trots away, leaving me alone in the backseat of the gun-oil-smelling cruiser.
An open Plexiglas divider separates the front and back seats, the gate slid open like a small rectangular window. The radio quietly chatters to itself in the front. A laptop is mounted to the floorboard, covered in Strawberry Shortcake stickers. The photo of a little girl, taped to the dashboard, grins at me.
The key is missing, engine off.
Outside on the curb, a few people have stopped to watch. A skinny guy with glasses and a gray knit cap has his cell phone out, recording the parking lot. Vague shapes flash across the tombstone of light spilling from the open motel door.
Officer Honeycutt trots inside and closes the door behind him.
My breathing is finally returning to normal. Reaching into my shirt, I pull out the relic on its chain. I wrap the small artifact in my palm, leaning my knuckles against the cool window and chewing on my thumb like I have since I was a girl. Every move I make is loud on the cracked vinyl seat covers.
The radio stops chattering and fades into a hiss of soft static.
I rub my fingertips over the designs inscribed on the relic. The geometric curves have always comforted me. Fractal patterns are generated from hard math, but they resolve into organic, natural shapes, like the veins of a leaf or spiraling whorls of a seashell. It reminds me that a simple arithmetic is beneath everything we see—predictable rules that can’t be broken, not by anyone.
Everything will be okay. Maybe.
I hear the faint sound of an engine screaming. Louder. I tuck the necklace and relic back into my shirt.
A low silver motorcycle shrugs over the curb and hurtles into the parking lot. The rider is in black leather motorcycle armor, standing up on the foot pegs, face lost behind the mirrored visor of a helmet. As the motorcycle careens toward the motel door, the man plants both hands on the seat and pushes—launching himself straight up.
Somehow, he lands on his feet, trotting as the motorcycle speeds away.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
The out-of-control motorcycle plows straight through the motel door, smashing it off its hinges. Catching a handlebar, the door frame explodes into splinters of wood and the wide front window dissolves into toothy slivers of glass. I can feel the impact in my chest as the tiny room swallows the speeding hunk of metal and rubber.
The stranger is already crunching over broken glass. He strides right through the gaping, smoking hole where the door was. Inside, the lights blink off.
Oh my god.
I grab the door handle and yank. Nothing happens.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Oh fuck.”
Oleg isn’t shouting anymore. The motel room has gone totally silent. A haze of white smoke, exhaust probably, is pouring through the jagged remains of the front door.
I see a flash and hear a gunshot.
Even from inside the car, I flinch as the tattered blinds start to dance with more gunshots, flapping through the shattered remains of the front window like tongues over broken teeth. The people on the curb have all run away except for the knit cap guy, still filming with his phone, crouched, the dull blue light of it shining off his slack face—like he’s watching a video game.
More screaming.
Blinds twist and flap as Oleg’s flailing body bursts through the broken window, glass slivers flaying his clothes and skin. The Ukrainian lands in a wet heap on the cracked sidewalk. He lies there, still, face dark with blood.
Then Officer Honeycutt appears, hat knocked off, clutching his side and leaning on the doorframe. Twisting, he spins and falls out of the doorway as a black fist flashes over his head. A chunk of wood spews from the doorframe as the policeman desperately crawls away.
Emerging from smoke and darkness, the stranger reappears.
Honeycutt is on his hands and knees, palms bleeding, scrambling to his feet. His eyes aren’t really seeing. His clenched teeth are bared, lips fluttering as he breathes through his mouth. Keeping low, he staggers toward me.
“Yes,” I’m saying, pushing my lips to the slit of open window. “Yes, come on! Hurry!”
The attacker steps out onto the sidewalk, turns his faceless, helmeted gaze to Oleg. He kneels smoothly beside the broken man. Reaching down, he lifts Oleg’s face up by his hair and speaks to him.
Oleg’s eyes open slowly. He blinks a few times, confused, and then fear erupts onto his face. I can’t hear what they’re saying.
I hook my fingers over the slot at the top in my open window.
“Officer!” I shout. “Over here!”
Dazed, Honeycutt looks over to me. His radio is hanging off his shoulder on its black coil, dancing crazily. Blood is coursing down the side of his face. He stumbles forward and nearly falls, pressing his chest against my car door. I notice a dent in his cheek, the skin puffy where he’s been hit hard by something.
Behind him, the stranger stands. Oleg isn’t moving anymore.
“Please,” I whisper through the crack in the window. “Please hurry. Open the door. Get inside.”
Honeycutt is pawing at the door handle, grunting. His eyes are closed, breath whistling through clenched teeth. Each exhale is spraying a mist of blood and spit over the window. He slips and smears it with his cheek.
He’s trying to pull on the door handle but something is wrong with his hand.
Behind him, a lanky silhouette crosses the abandoned parking lot.
“Hurry. Please,” I beg.
Groaning, the cop manhandles his car keys out of his pocket and pushes them against the bloody car window.
“Here,” he is saying. “Go.”
I jam my fingers out of the top of the cracked window as far as I can. The keys rattle against the glass. Splaying my fingers, I reach for them.
Still too far.
The man in black breaks into a trot.
After three massive strides, he leaps. A concussive thump rocks the cruiser on its suspension as he lands full force against the police officer.
Honeycutt’s face bounces off the glass. My fingers ar
e stretched, wrists pushed painfully through the crack in the window. For an instant, I feel the hard metal of the keys as Honeycutt slides down the side of the car. He collapses on the sidewalk, breathing shallow, eyes closed.
Now the stranger stands before me, expressionless in his mirrored helmet. Up close, I can see the dark streaks of blood and glitter of broken glass clinging to his armor. I can see my own desperate face reflected in his visor.
And I can see the glint of the car keys, hanging from my fingertips.
I sprawl back, falling across the car seat as the stranger sends a gloved fist crunching through the window of the police cruiser. Cubes of safety glass explode into the car, cascading over my face and into my hair. It smells like ozone and plastic, my cheeks stinging from tiny impacts. Wriggling away, I hook my left arm through the open Plexiglas divider separating the back and front seats and pull myself up.
I’ve still got the car keys clenched in my right hand.
“No!” I’m shouting. “Fuck off!”
The black arm retreats through a fist-size hole in the glass. The leather glove is torn. I glimpse sea-serpent ridges of bright knuckles, flashing at me like polished brass. The sight sparks a memory. Something familiar.
Those shining ridges remind me of gilded medieval gauntlets. A second skin of burnished brass, worn by sixteenth-century knights to intimidate and inflict injury. But who the fuck wears gauntlets?
Leather jacket creaking, the wordless man leans over to look inside. Watching his silver-faced helmet through the fractured car window, taking panicked breaths, it strikes me how still he is—like he isn’t even breathing.
Distantly, I hear sirens. The helmet rises as the man scans the parking lot suspiciously. It’s the moment I need.
Clutching the car keys to my chest, over the relic that hangs around my neck, I pull up with my left arm and shove myself through the square hole in the Plexiglas divider. Wriggling, bucking my hips, I let the hard plastic scrape over my breasts and ribs. The cruiser shivers as the arm jams back through the broken window, reaching for me. Knuckles rap against my shins. Fingers close over my foot.
I’m screaming now, incomprehensible words, kicking and pushing.
My heel slips from the stranger’s crushing grasp as I slither into the front seat, immediately smashing my forehead against the sticker-covered laptop mounted between the seats. Diving into the driver’s-side floorboard, my legs fall across the passenger seat. The steering wheel looms over me.
I reach up and fumble the key into the ignition.
Cranking it, I hear the engine start.
Wham.
Something big rocks the side of the cruiser. Scrambling, I turn over until I’m right side up in the driver’s seat, car bouncing crazily on its suspension.
Wham.
Briefly, I consider making a run for it out the driver’s-side door. But with that monster stalking outside, I decide against it.
So I pop the car into drive.
The stranger hits the car again, sending it up on two wheels—and this time he keeps pushing. I fall against the driver’s-side door, hanging from the steering wheel. The car is nearly tipped over—the horizon tilting crazily as I jam the accelerator.
In a wobbling fishtail, the cruiser lurches forward on two wheels and squeals across the parking lot. The horizon levels as the car falls back onto all four tires. On impact, my teeth clack together, my vision blurring. I hear the back window shatter.
Hanging on to the steering wheel with both hands, I mash the accelerator pedal into the floorboard with both feet. The rearview mirror pops off the windshield, leaving a thumbprint-size smudge on the glass. Cubes of blue-white glass waterfall from my hair into my lap and raw panic races through my limbs.
Go, go, go.
I barely notice the guy in the gray knit cap, jumping out of my way as the car squeals across the empty parking lot on a wobbly tire. The suspension bottoms out as I pop the curb and swerve onto a deserted two-lane highway. As I pass by, I see knit cap guy has still got his phone out, a square of blue light, blurring as he gestures frantically at me.
But I’m safe on the road now, speeding through the twilight.
I will myself to ease up on the accelerator. The cruiser sends silent pings of light off a wall of trees that hug the winding highway. I’m wondering how to use the cruiser’s radio when a thought intrudes.
Something bothers me about the kid in the knit cap. He wasn’t gesturing at me angrily. There was panic on his face—a warning.
Slowly, still coasting, I crane my neck around.
A silhouette made of black leather fills the backseat. The stranger is sitting quietly, out of place in a full motorcycle helmet. A moan forms deep in my chest as he reaches up with both gloved hands and deliberately tugs off his chin strap.
My foot off the accelerator, the cruiser slows.
I can’t make myself look away.
Long fingers lift the scratched-up helmet. Silver-blond hair spills out over the man’s shoulders. Delicate features appear on skin so pale it’s nearly translucent. His cheekbones are high and arrogant below sapphire eyes, teeth as white as bathroom tile. His skin is too perfect, without wrinkles or blemishes—a flawless beauty that gives him the appearance of a doll come to life.
Seeing my reaction, the thing stretches its grotesquely perfect face into the shape of an amused smile. “Hello, June,” he says.
10
SAINT PETERSBURG, 1725
My world ends in the predawn light of February 8, 1725. In a final moment, the great bellows of Peter’s lungs push the last breath past his lips. His massive head is tilted on the pillow, eyes closed, a relieved expression on his face for the first time I can remember.
He hid the illness. Our emperor hid the illness until it was too late.
Elena and I did not arrive in time. The empress was already beside him, in her nightgown. Watching her rise from Peter’s bedside, I sense she has already maneuvered into position. A handful of her guards have accompanied her into the room, armed and clad in full armor. Outside the bedroom window, I hear the hoarse shouts of the imperial guard regiments, echoing against the stone courtyard. They have already been summoned to the capital and massed near the palace.
Over his chest, Peter holds a piece of parchment on which he has scrawled “I leave all to—”
He never finished the sentence. I am not sure the emperor truly believed he was capable of dying, having never failed at anything in life.
I put a hand protectively over Elena’s shoulder. Together, we served the great man. Yet we never contemplated owing allegiance to this woman.
Catherine looks up from the corpse. She has one palm over Peter’s still chest. Her hair is wet with tears, the brown locks hanging limply over Peter’s face. Under sharp black eyebrows, her face buckles with anguish and anger.
“You…abominations,” she says. “Did you know he was sick? Did you say nothing?”
“No, Empress,” I say, my deep voice thrumming from the cavern of my chest. “I am the Word.”
“Pravda? You are not pravda, you poor thing. You are a blasphemy. Peter was deceived into calling you an eternal tsar. Tricked by that scheming mechanician.”
I tap Elena on the shoulder and she understands immediately. Find Favo. The girl scurries toward the door.
“Stop her!” shouts Catherine, climbing over Peter’s body. “Don’t let either of them leave.”
At the door, one of the guards snatches Elena by the hair. Her wig comes off, and she struggles as he grabs hold of her with both hands. I cannot act outside my honor, and the guards serve royal blood. My duty is to the emperor, and in his absence, the empress. I can only watch as the man gathers the small machine into a bear hug and pins her thrashing against his armored cuirass.
The shouts of the guard regiments are growing louder outside.
“Do you hear that?” asks Catherine. She is smiling at me, her small canines flashing. “My guard has rallied to me. Peter wished for me to
succeed him. His wife. Not you. Not a soulless version of himself.”
I hear a crack as something snaps inside Elena. She is not struggling as hard now. Her cloak is pulled up around her face and her thin brass legs are swinging, kicking uselessly, wooden heels scraping against the floor. I feel a sweep of anger and sadness inside my chest.
My sister.
Nothing I can do is within pravda. For I am the Word. And I will be broken before the Word is.
“Please,” I say to the empress.
“Our father is dead,” shout the guard who are mobbed outside, faint voices booming from the palace walls. “But our mother lives.”
Catherine smiles wider.
Elena’s whalebone ribs are snapping. Gears are grinding against bone and wood. The girl whimpers, and I know she may only have moments left before the damage is irreparable.
Pravda.
“How will you honor us?” I ask Catherine. “Will you obey Peter’s wishes?”
Catherine slips a strap of her falling nightgown back over her shoulder with one thumb, climbing off her husband’s bed. She strides to me and stops only when her anger-pinched face is inches below mine. Wild dark hair stripes her forehead and her nostrils quiver with each breath.
“Honor you?” asks Catherine. “I am not even sorry for you. You must be destroyed—”
A stated intention to break pravda is enough.
I step back and reach out with my right arm, gauntleted knuckles crunching into the face of the guardsman who holds Elena. The flimsy nose squashes beneath my fist and his head knocks against the wall. Elena lands scrambling on the ground as the man crumples, unconscious. I can already feel my sister tugging at my cloak.
“What!?” shouts Catherine. “What have you done?”
Our father is dead.
Catherine is too close to me. I could kill her with a swipe of my hand. She knows this. The other guardsmen in the room watch us closely, hands on hilts. Four of them, ringing the walls. I hear the slow grind of a blade leaving its sheath and I shake my head. The sound stops and they wait for my move.
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