Rasputin's Bastards (45 page)

Hands seven and eight paced back and forth angrily under the whirling light of the setting sun. They spasmed from fists to open palms and back again, slamming themselves into each other with butcher-shop smacks. They pulled on fingers and cracked knuckles, worried at a hangnail and finally yanked it to the quick.

Fucking Russian. He’d been the start of this. Insinuating himself into

Holden Gibson’s crew with that amnesia act. Until he’d shown up, things were going according to the order. Holden Gibson and his crew sailing off to meet a submarine — get those kids he’d been told about. He’d needed those kids. With the Internet, the magazine subscription business was taking a beating. He needed to boost the organization — give it some new blood — some —

— some
talented
blood.

He hadn’t known what that meant, precisely, when the old woman had made him the pitch. The old woman he’d what — met?

He didn’t recall seeing her. Just remembered a funny smell. A voice.

It had been on the telephone. It must have been a phone call.

It did all start with the fucking Russian Alexei. He’d played at amnesiac — and now the opposite was happening to Holden Gibson.

Holden Gibson
. That was his name. It was not, as the voices kept insisting, John Kaye. Who the fuck was John Kaye? Someone who looked like Holden Gibson — that was for sure. Because Holden Gibson had spent his entire lifetime in the United States. He’d spent some time in Mexico, okay — and he did a lot of business in Canada — but that was practically the United States. He’d sure as shit never been to Prague — or Budapest — or a farmhouse in East Germany, and then a cellar, a deep cellar, somewhere in the Urals where the firmament of his talent was cracked and brutalized by his nation’s sworn enemy . . .

Hand seven slammed down on the little card table, knocking over a jug of water. Hand eight twirled a tightly coiled lock of Rasta hair, and pulled it hard.

The firmament of his talent. That was, Holden Gibson admitted to himself, a serious flaw in his John-Kaye-is-someone-else theory. He undeniably possessed this — this
talent
. His crew had become more than loyal since he’d had the memories flood back. He wondered, in retrospect, how much his talent had had to do with his crew’s loyalty over the years. He’d always thought it was just his way with kids — which would certainly explain how the younger ones always seemed more obedient than the older ones, who as Holden Gibson had recently learned, were hatching a conspiracy to murder him. As he sifted through their brains, he found thoughts of murder connected to Holden Gibson in an alarming abundance. Stabbing him — poisoning him — tossing him over the side of the yacht.

And all too often — there was the fucking Russian again.

They attached themselves to Alexei Kilodovich. Wanted Alexei to murder him. Like some kind of fucking saviour. And Alexei wanted to murder him too. He’d tried to two times at least. Possibly more in the past. And now he’d taken Holden Gibson’s gun and gotten Hands Nine and Ten blind drunk, and tied them up — and could be lurking anywhere. With his gun. Waiting to shoot them.

Hands Seven and Eight opened the door. Looked outside. The stars were starting to come out. Out here, they appeared in truly alarming numbers, spread over the sky in a smear of infinity. The lungs belonging to Hands Seven and Eight took a deep breath. It smelled of the sea tonight — and not much more; none of that perfume box of stinks that moved its way around this place. It was also very quiet. All that ears seven and eight could hear was a faint singing — more of that fucking Russian music — coming from the harbour, probably.

Foot seven began to idly tap on the flagstones. Holden Gibson put a stop to it as soon as he noticed.
Fuck
. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
Who’s driving this bitch?
he thought. Holden backed up, and steered Hands Seven and Eight back into the room.

He couldn’t see a thing. The disco ball at the top of the aerie had gone dark, and that did it for the rest of the lighthouse. He reached out to the rest of his eyes, the rest of his hands — and groped in empty darkness.

Where the fuck was everybody?

Holden Gibson took a breath. He was still rusty with his talent — sometimes, he’d lose a crewmember if he wasn’t concentrating; that had happened earlier today, when Alexei the Russian had gotten the jump on him. He groped around now, in a sudden panic over the idea that this was in fact what Alexei had done. Russian bastard.

“Russian fuckin’ bastard!” hollered Holden. He opened the door again, to let some of the starlight in. It did no good. He could see nothing in the room — nothing but the empty chair, and the ropes on the floor. “You fucker! I know you’re in here somewhere!”

Really
?

Holden Gibson stopped. Listened — tried to place the location of the voice. It was male, and sounded Russian.

Somewhere? Do you think you can be more specific, Mr. Kaye
?

Holden Gibson turned quickly. The voice had seemed to come from right behind him. Definitely Russian. “Fuck you, Alexei,” he said. “I’m not lettin’ you fuck me twice.”

The voice chuckled — still behind him. It was joined by another voice — a little girl sound, that Holden Gibson recognized somehow. She laughed. And she started to say something. Something that Holden also recognized.

Mi
, she said.
Mi mi mi mi
.

Now
, said the Russian voice.
Out, old man. Heather wants her body back
.

And Holden Gibson felt a sharp pain on the back of his head that felt remarkably like the flat of a shovel-blade. The last thing he heard before consciousness returned and Hands Seven and Eight drifted further from his reach, was the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw starting up — and the giggling of the little girl — of Heather — as she struggled to maintain the mantra.

Mi. Mi mi mi mi
, she sang, as the chainsaw bit into bone.

Darya didn’t make love to him, so much as she mapped him. Whispering repeated thanks, she ran her hands through Alexei’s hair, over the stubble on his chin; across this lips and around the mysterious whorls and turns of his ears. She traced the tendons in his neck — up one side, down the other — and paused when she reached the scar that ran a jagged line over his back.

As her hands moved down his torso to his belt Alexei gently pulled out the gun from his waistband and set it aside. He thought he apprehended what it was she was doing.

Soon, she would be in a place like he had been — possibly, reduced to her childhood memories of herself. Flesh and touch there would be a construct — a powerful but still incomplete simulacrum. Memory, distinct, sensual memory, might make it better.

Like the others who were drinking in their true heritage here in the museum — Darya was drinking in those sensations of flesh that she might ever be denied. When she propositioned him, she might have thought it was only about sex. But as her explorations continued — even as she pulled back the band of his underwear, and took his member in her fingers — Alexei understood that her needs were more encompassing than that.

Alexei, however, was on the other side of Rapture. And like the vodka and talk that had seduced him in the lighthouse, Darya’s soft touch moved him now. For Alexei, it was not about map-making, as his hand fluttered aside Darya’s skirt, and ran up the smoothness of her thigh. He swallowed, and shut his eyes, and only a part of him remembered where he was — the potential peril he found himself in.

“Nuh,” said Darya at once. She withdrew her fingers.

Alexei opened his eyes.

He withdrew his own hand.

He felt her hands at his shoulders, pushing him back.

He let go entirely, acquiescent and guilty and pissed off all at once. He had never felt more like an awkward, oafish teenager than this day — even, he reflected ruefully, during his adventures in his own history.

“What is it?”

Her eyes were open — in the dim light underneath Babushka’s sarcophagus, they seemed to dance with energy. She looked at Alexei — but she didn’t seem to see him.

“The dance?” he asked. “
Rapture
?”

As if in answer, she rose on her legs and hands, arching her back — and crab-like, scuttled to the edge of the podium. She shifted and bent, her long skirt sweeping across the ground, and like that — she was through.

Shit
. She was through. Alexei felt a peculiar sense of defeat. She would go out, and her papa would find her, and then the old man would come after him, an angry parent hunting down the boy who felt up his daughter.

Except that this was not an ordinary father. This was a man who had murdered dozens, in Latin America and Europe and Africa.

Alexei lifted Holden Gibson’s Glock from the floor and held it ready. Well. Darya’s papa the leading citizen of New Pokrovskoye, was not the only one who knew a thing or two about killing.

Ivan Rebroff sang on as Alexei crawled to the edge of the curtain and lifted it. From the sounds of thumping feet, it seemed like there was quite a bit of commotion. But as he lifted it, the last board creaked, and the room fell quiet. He blinked, and moved to another side, and there too — the room seemed empty. At the far end of the hall, he heard the sound of the door shutting.

Alexei waited. He listened. He did this until he felt his legs cramp up. So cautiously, he moved the curtain aside, and crawled out into the empty museum. He felt his knees crack as he climbed to his feet. He held the Glock close to his hip and pressed back against the cool eggshell surface of Babushka’s tank.

Hey
, he thought, scanning his gaze beyond the puddles of light from the ceiling — looking for any sign of movement; any sign that anyone might be waiting for him. Darya’s father — one of Holden Gibson’s people. Anybody.

Hey
, he thought again.
Babushka
.

There came no answer.

If there is to be a dance, and everyone is going to Paradise, how is it that poor Alexei is left without a partner
?

Alexei moved around the tank. The fake gemstones glued onto its surface seemed to shimmer under the light. The song dopplered down a half-tone, as though old Rebroff was driving away on the back of a truck. Alexei drew a breath. Even the old killer Darya’s father seemed to have gone. He was alone in this museum. He stuffed the gun back into his waistband.

Alexei stopped at the hatch to the tank. It was still slightly ajar. He pulled it open all the way, and stuck his head into the darkness.

“Babushka!” he spoke into the tank. “Why am I alone here?”

He was met with the barrel of a gun, a touch of ice against the middle of his forehead. The voice that answered him was deep, and it echoed — but not in his head. And not deep like the Babushka voice.

“
Don’ fuckin’ move,
” it said in English. “
You got that
?”

“I got that.”

Alexei did not move.

“
This is a gun that I am pointing at you. You know the word for
gun,
you fuckin’ Commie?
”

All Alexei’s attention bent and focussed through the lens of the gun pressed against his forehead.

“I do,” said Alexei. “Don’t worry. I am not moving.”

“
Fuckin’ right you’re not. Now you stand right there, and you think very carefully about how you’re going to answer my questions
.”

Alexei thought about a lot of things. Mostly, the gun barrel pressed to his forehead, and how the gun and its owner came to be inside the Babushka’s sarcophagus in the New Pokrovskoye Museum of Family History.

“
First question
,” said the gunman. “
Where’s the fuckin’ sea
?”

Alexei swore to himself.
Where is the sea
? What kind of question was that? The gunman was obviously out of his mind. He tried the best answer he could think of: “Down the hill. Past the harbour. That’s the ocean.” He shut his eyes, waiting for the bullet. But the gun barrel wavered, drawing a little circle in the sweating skin of his forehead.

“
Fuck. All right. Listen. I’m not talking about that sea. I’m talking about
the sea —
the sea in the fuckin’ U.F.O
.”

“I cannot help you,” said Alexei. “I don’t know where the sea there has gotten to.”

“
Fuck
.” The cold circle of gunmetal pulled away from Alexei’s forehead. Alexei let out a long and ragged breath, that apparently he had been holding all this time. Alexei blinked, and watched as a face joined the gun in the little circular hatchway. He recognized it immediately: it was the face of the one man who’d seemed uncomfortable in the tour group.

He looked up at Alexei appraisingly. Alexei looked back at him. They didn’t speak for what felt like a full minute.

“I give up,” he finally said. “No more act. I’m not fuckin’ Sergei.”

“I didn’t think you were,” said Alexei.

“I’m Leo Montassini.”

“All right. I’m Alexei,” said Alexei.

“Alex . . . Alexei Kilodovich?”

Alexei frowned. The little guy grinned.

“Alexei
Kilodovich
. No shit. From New York?”

“Do we know each other?”

“Nah. Well. Kind of. I know you. Mr. Bucci said to bring you if we found you, along with the old guy, whatsisname? Fyodor Kolyokov.” Leo Montassini was quiet a moment, like he was doing math in his head. “Well fuck me. I was right to come here! It wasn’t just a bullshit midlife fuckin’ spiritual crisis thing. That’s what I was startin’ to think. Montassini, you’re goin’ all soft and spiritual. Next thing you know, you’ll be carryin’ a fuckin’ crystal around in your shorts and meditatin’ all the time and stoppin’ eatin’ meat. Go to fuckin’ confession, forget about this shit with the sea and the smell and the little fuckin’ voices in your fucked up head. Well fuck me! I was
right
!”

Montassini was grinning. His gun was dangling. Alexei made no attempt to piece together what this armed lunatic was saying. Instead, he made a couple of quick calculations in his head.