Rasputin's Bastards (54 page)

There was a click, and the door swung open. Dim light — like Christmas lights, or the glow from a dozen nightlights spilled out. The Koldun put a finger to his lips and stepped through.

Gibson followed. He had been near this room during his entire stay here — literally just a few steps away — but he’d never caught more than a glimpse of what was inside, a tantalizing view of pine board, stacks of linen and that low, diffuse light. He stepped through and looked around.

The room was long and low — with a carpeted floor and walls and ceilings made out of slats of stained pine. There was nothing adorning the walls — but along them were lined bunk beds — not dissimilar to the bunks that Gibson kept on his yacht, in the hidden room. Except these were larger — an adult could comfortably sleep in them and they were sealed.

On the side of each bed, there was bolted a sheet of what looked like glass, reinforced with a grid of black wire. The light in this room, Gibson saw, came from inside the bunks, one in each, no brighter than a few watts. Each illuminated a sleeping child. Gibson moved quietly to one and then another. The children looked innocent — like tiny angels — or premature babies who’d been kept a year or ten too long in the incubator.

“Fuck,” he murmured as he stepped back.

“The glass,” whispered the Koldun, “is a two-way mirror. The room itself is soundproofed, and the bunks are soundproofed too. They are not, however, entirely bulletproof.” The Koldun lifted his machine pistol.

“Fuck.” Gibson’s gut was churning at the thought of this thing. He looked at the gun in his hand. He looked at the Koldun, who looked back at him and said levelly, “Come on now, John. They were only ever tools to you. Do you want them to be tools to the Babushka now?”

Gibson looked at the gun in his hand — and back at the Koldun — and then, as a dark blur flew in through the doorway and spun behind the Koldun, his mind was made up for him.

He fired, even as Alexei Kilodovich’s asp came screaming down at the back of the Koldun’s skull.

Bullets tore white pine scars through the ceilings and walls as the machine pistol bucked in Gibson’s grip. It made a half-dozen stars in the soundproofed glass. A light shattered on the far side of the room and a child screamed. Gibson gasped and let go of the trigger. He dropped the gun. The room was still around him — the only sound now the ringing in his ears, and the panicked wail of children.

“Oh fuck I’m sorry,” said Holden Gibson as he stumbled up to the glass nearest him — glass that had three snowflake-shaped bullet holes in it. A child, black-haired and not more than five years old, huddled in the far corner, eyes wide and knees drawn to her chin — staring not at him but at her reflection in the glass. “I’m sorry,” said Gibson as he moved to the next — a bunk where an older child lay still, maybe dead, beneath sheets. The kid wasn’t dead — when Gibson tapped on the glass with a trembling knuckle the kid twitched, and started shaking himself. Just playing possum, thought Gibson. Smart fuckin’ kid.

He made the rounds with similarly cheering results. There were six bunks he’d hit — and none of them had done worse than break glass. It looked as though the worst he’d done to the children was wake them up and scare the living shit out of them. “Thank fuckin’ God,” said Gibson. “Thank fuckin’ God.”

He turned to the centre of the room — to the doorway — and saw that he had something else to be thankful for. The Koldun was gone. The only thing that was left was his machine pistol, which he must have dropped fleeing for cover. The gun, and Alexei Kilodovich, the fucking traitor Russian, who lay now in a tangle. Blood stained the carpet underneath his right shoulder like a spill of cheap wine. Gibson worked his face into a smile.

“Fuckin’ Russkie,” he said. “Now who’s killin’ who? Now — ”

Gibson stopped. Against all reason, the Russian was starting to move.

His face was pale with the loss of blood. His shoulder was soaked in that blood. Nevertheless, Alexei the traitor sat up, and pulled himself to his feet. Gibson held the machine pistol in front of him. He pulled the trigger. But it clicked empty.

Gibson tried to bring back that smile. “Jesus, pal, you don’t look so good.”

Alexei stooped to pick up the asp. He jiggled it in his hand. At first, he was trembling — but as the asp tip oscillated faster, he got that under control. He looked at Gibson with hollow, unfeeling eyes.

Gibson raised the machine pistol. It clicked empty again. Kilodovich stepped over the unconscious form of the Koldun. He held the asp to his side, bobbing up and down. The ball on the end of it gleamed in the low light. Blood continued to seep from his shoulder. His lips pulled back from teeth. He seemed almost feral. His feet scraped across the carpet.

Christ. The fucking Russian had wanted to kill him from the get-go. Now it looked like he was going to get his wish. Gibson backed away.

The Russian continued forward. The pain from the wound in his shoulder must have been ferocious. It should have knocked him unconscious. It probably, Gibson realized with a chill, very probably had.

“You’re not Alexei,” he said cagily, “are you?”

Gibson felt the cool smoothness of glass behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. A little kid of no more than three looked back at him with wide eyes.

“Is it you?” he asked. “Nah. Couldn’t be. You’re awake.”

The kid looked away, and Gibson took the cue. The asp made a star in the glass behind where Gibson’s head had been a moment before. When it struck again, Gibson was on the ground and had rolled away. He wasn’t fast — but like many big men, he was faster than his opponents would give him credit for.

He crawled like a panicked crab across the floor to the Koldun’ s machine pistol. Gibson grabbed it, rolled onto his back and aimed it at Alexei.

Or rather, where Alexei had been.

Gibson pulled up the barrel. He would have shot straight into the bunk-bed. Killed the three-year-old, who was staring at him now with wide, knowing eyes.

John
, said a voice in his head.

“Who the fuck is that? Is that you, kid?”

No. It is I
.

“You?”

I
.

Gibson put down the machine pistol because with the way he was shaking, he was afraid the thing would just go off. He knew who
I
was, and he knew it wasn’t the kid behind the glass.

No
. I
was the one who decades ago, invaded the mind of John Kaye — tore its defences to shreds — broke down his identity — and laid the groundwork for the construction of Holden Gibson.

I
was John Kaye’s murderer
.

“You b-ball-bustin’ fuckin’ bitch,” said Gibson. “Wh-where did you put the fuckin’ Russian?”

Gibson felt his chest hitch — felt himself chuckle. Even though he had nothing to chuckle about. It was her chuckling. She continued.

I wish you could tell me
, said Lena.

“Well he was just fuckin’ here.”

No
, she said,
he was not. Alexei Kilodovich has been hiding from me since the dance began. He and — and several others. It does not please me
.

For a moment — just a moment — Gibson felt the world shrink underneath him, the lands crumble, and he felt as though he were sitting on a great desert under scorching sun. A cloud loomed and rolled in the distance — like some cartoon version of Yahweh. Beneath the cloud, a great city of golden towers and spires grew, like the Kingdom of Heaven.

If he had more wit, he’d have found words to mock it — tear it down. But as he looked upon it, he saw that the vision the Babushka had constructed simply dwarfed his own conceits. There was no mocking the divine. Not, he shivered, when it was real.

Gibson shook his head, and the vision disappeared. He was back in the room inside the greenhouse. The Koldun lay beside him. Blood soaked the carpet underneath Gibson’s bare ass.

You should not have awoken
, said Lena.
With that one’s betrayal — I had need of you dreaming, John Kaye. I had need of your dreams
.

“B-ball-bustin’ — ”

Bitch. This is tiresome. This construct of yours — Holden Gibson. How did you come by it? Thumbing through old Mickey Spillane novels
?

Gibson picked up the machine pistol again. “Hey fuck you — ”

Bitch. That is how you deal with the world now. I must say, John, it is scarcely more convincing than your red devil costume. Do you remember that
?

Gibson raised the pistol. “I’m fuckin’ warning you — ”

You’ll shoot. No you won’t. These children are your flesh and blood. You won’t kill them because you haven’t the stomach for that sort of thing. I remember when we finished with you, you were nothing more than a little puddle of flesh. We destroyed you, Fyodor Kolyokov and I. It was very easy. Do you know why
?

He could feel the spring pushing back as his finger rode the trigger like a clutch.

You are
, said Lena, the Babushka,
a fake. Then and now, John. Then and now
.

He let go of the trigger. He put down the gun. He stared down at his bare, pimpled thighs — the blood underneath him. He felt tears well in his eyes and snot thicken in his nose.

Now
, said Lena, the Babushka,
there is nothing for you. Nothing for you but to be absorbed. It is time for you to join me as I spread across the world — and consume it, yes?

“I don’t think,” said Holden aloud, “that my joining you would be an equal partnership.”

Shh
, said Babushka.
It is never an equal partnership in love
.

What the fuck
? thought Holden.

Vasili Borovich could never accept that. He was too hungry in the beginning — and that hunger made a weakling of him. It put him in my thrall. That made him a useful ally for many years. But that, I know now, is also why he betrayed me
.

Ah.
Holden nodded.
So this whole fuckin’ thing is what — a lover’s quarrel
?

We were not lovers for a very long time — not, truly, since before you and I met
.

Holden was about to say — to think — something else. But something was happening in the air in front of him. A figure was forming — a young woman, wearing a hooded cloak covering all but her cheeks, her red, red lips. She wore dark, form-fitting pants. Holden Gibson whistled — remembering now, seeing the figure a lifetime ago on a blasted plain of ice.

He could see how this Babushka could keep a guy like Vasili Borovich on a string all these years. It wouldn’t be that difficult.

Babushka’s mouth spread in a small, teasing grin.

Join with me
, she said.
Spread with me. Come with me across the ocean and beneath the waves. We shall wipe the world clean of the Vasili Boroviches, and make all of the minds of men and women minds of ours. Sit at my knee, John Kaye. It need not be equal to be a joyous thing
.

Gibson thought about an answer, thought about the prospect of doing this, at the knee of this magnificent creature. Thought about spreading across the world.

Sure
, he said,
on one condition
.

Yes
?

But he hadn’t the chance to name it. The asp tore down on the back of his neck and in a brief flowering of light he was unconscious.

The Empire of New Pokrovskoye danced in frenetic celebration for hours, reeling and pumping at the old songs — marvelling at the beauty of this land. They had arrived in this place, this grand consensus at last. Had it once been a fishing village? Well hadn’t Rome once been a swamp — London an old provincial outpost of that — New York City, a clutch of tribes conquered by London? New Pokrovskoye was no more a fishing village now than any of those places were a picture of their humble beginnings.

New Pokrovskoye was a beginning of a new empire that would erase the rest more thoroughly than before. The sky was a great pink canvas, bejewelled by strange constellations now visible through Babushka’s stretching mantle. It stretched as she expanded — over the sea, across the lands, and south along the jagged coastline. Easy to imagine her overtaking the world in this way. She had everything she needed to do so, surely.

Almost everything she needed. There was still rage in her belly — for while she inhabited ten thousand minds, and was prodigious at that — there were six billion others in the world that she could not touch. Six billion whose dreams were their own and whose minds were closed.

It must be driving her mad, thought Fyodor Kolyokov as he let the blinds close and turned back to Heather; mad to be denied the key to those minds, while its vessel lay so near.

“Now?” said the girl, and Kolyokov smiled. “Now,” he said.

Leo Montassini hurt all over. His stomach hurt — his ribs hurt — his balls ached. He hurt enough that it caused him to wonder just what he was doing alive. The last he’d remembered, he was on the receiving end of a beating from that little fucking fisherman — and he wasn’t doing too well. He’d blacked out. He should have been dead.

He blinked and sat up. He was lying some distance from the entrance to the greenhouse where all this had happened — but not that far. He could see the flickering greenish light behind the girl who was leaning over him.

The girl who was leaning over him. Leo blinked.

“Who the fuck are you?” The girl was kind of a looker, Leo had to admit. She was blonde, which was how Leo liked them, and tight. She probably worked out. Leo liked that too. He smiled at her.

The girl smiled back and extended a hand.

“I am Fyodor Kolyokov,” she said in a thick Russian accent, and brushed aside a lock of rasta hair from her eye to look more closely at him. “I recognize you. Are you not one of Gepetto Bucci’s
capo
s? Not the funny one, surely?”

“I am quartermaster of the Imperial New Pokrovskoye Tea Company,” explained the little man one more time. “Now let me go or there will be trouble.”