Rasputin's Bastards (71 page)

“You fuck fellows?” said Petra, a greasy-haired former psychic girl who seemed to be about eleven, as they sat together in the converted map room sipping tea ten hours into their voyage.

“No,” said Stephen, “I’ve got AIDS and I don’t fuck —
fool around
with anybody. We’ve been through this.”

“Zhanna likes you,” said Petra, pressing onward bravely, and Zhanna, briefly the only one in the room more mortified than Stephen, pushed herself further back into the corner. “She has no hope, right?”

“I think Zhanna’s got other things on her mind right now,” said Stephen. Petra stuck her finger up her nose, and Stephen reached over and put his hand on her arm. “Don’t do that,” he said.

“Yes,” said Zhanna, “it is gross,” and she turned to Dmitri — a fat-assed fourteen year old with acne and wide, goggly eyes. “Stop staring,” she said, and he looked away, horrified. Zhanna gave Stephen a pained look. He decided to risk sending another mixed signal and patted her on the hand. Zhanna at least was learning how to deal with people and took it for what it was. She smirked and gestured around her.

“And you wanted to be a psychic,” she said. “Having second thoughts now?”

Stephen shook his head and chuckled. “You guys aren’t really much worse than the New Jersey Spring Psychic Fair.”

“That is bullshit.”

“Hey. I’m trying to be nice.”

“Yes you are.” Zhanna reached over to the little electric samovar and refilled her tea. “You want some?” she asked Stephen.

“Sure.”

Petra got up and excused herself to visit the head.

“Sound of that tea makes me want to piss awful,” she hollered as she slammed the door.

“I got to shit when you’re done in there!” yelled Dmitri with characteristic grace.

They had been drinking a lot of tea since taking off. It was important for the children at least to remain awake for the duration of the trip. Falling asleep would mean the possibility of dream-walking. While it was strictly speaking possible for a Child to sleep and not dream-walk, the temptation was really too great.

And maintaining absolute silence was crucial. That had been the plan — to keep the submarine off-line, and running deep — and distract Babushka and her minions at New Pokrovskoye with the squid attacks that would appear to the dream-walking Babushka as nothing so much as certain and horrific death. Stephen had wanted to go on those. During the briefing before they left, he’d tried again and again to enlist. But Zhanna had made the point that even Stephen’s crude, rudimentary squid-enhanced and oddly anomalous dream-walking wasn’t safe. The whole point of the exercise, she said, was to keep off the Babushka’s radar.

Of course, an equally acute problem was keeping off of real radar — and sonar. And satellites. As long as they stayed mid-Atlantic it was fine — but the final approach to New Pokrovskoye was going to be a bastard. The Canadian Navy patrolled those waters — mostly looking for poachers who were fishing the cod beds. But the submarine would raise questions.

Toward that end, they had enlisted some help — in the form of a school of shrimp that followed in the submarine’s wake. And occasionally, they were visited by one of the Mystics in the form of a squid — who would give them Morse Code messages. The first few were, things like “B-U-C-K-U-P-I-N-T-H-E-R-E-D-O-N-O-T-G-O-T-O-S-L-E-E-P” and “W-E-A-R-E-W-A-T-C-H-I-N-G-Y-O-U-R-B-A-C-K.” The first one of any note happened about five hours in with: “W-E-L-L-T-H-E-R-E-I-T-G-O-E-S” and “P-E-T-R-O-S-K-A-S-T-A-T-I-O-N-I-S-G-O-N-E.”

The last message, which had come just an hour ago, was more encouraging. They’d sat silently, listening to the
pok-pok
-ing on the submarine’s hull, while Pitovovich, who’d been working on the key while Chenko slept, took it down.

Finally, she read over the scratchy P.A. system:

“The way to New Pokrovskoye is clear. We think that we have driven Babushka off. Your reunion is imminent. Kilodovich has done his work. Victory is ours.”

An hour after that, the toilet in the officers’ mess flushed, water clanking its way through the pipes of the old 641, and little Petra stepped out, adjusting her track pants. Dmitri hurried in.

“Are we there yet?” said Petra as she returned to her seat.

“Soon,” said Zhanna. “Soon.”

Alexei Kilodovich’s body was in awful shape. The back hurt and there was a blinding headache, and it had new injuries all over from what Alexei assumed were particularly vicious fights it had fought on someone else’s behalf. The worst of these was his left shoulder. It felt like it was on fire and when he checked it with his good hand he found a thick bandage there. When he poked it, he wanted to scream.

Someone had shot him.

Great.

“I told you to come back, Kilodovich,” said Vladimir. “But I guess you had other things to do.”

Alexei opened his eyes. He was standing in a low, wide room that he’d never seen before. It was a bunk room, obviously, and the Children such as he remembered them were all here. Vladimir sat in a makeshift crib. Alexei glared at him.

“What did you do to me?” he said.

Do you want another apology, Kilodovich
? said Vladimir.
I had hoped to engage your help in rescuing us. But events have taken a turn.

“Yes,” said Alexei. “They have.”

As he scanned the room, it became apparent that Alexei’s body wasn’t the only piece of furniture to take some damage. Bullets had torn ruts in the wood panelling — a couple of lights were dark — there were dark stains on the carpeting here that Alexei assumed was someone’s blood . There had at one point been glass doors on the bunk beds. There still were some, but many of them had been smashed, and now the glass was in neat little piles in the corners of the room.

And as Alexei looked over the damage, he saw that he was also not alone as the sole adult in this room.

Holden Gibson was in one of the bunks — one with glass on it — lashed to the mattress with thin cord. He was staring at the top bunk, his mouth working around his rage.

“Gibson is here,” said Alexei. “How did that — ”

He came here to murder us, said Vladimir. Now he is under the thrall of the Babushka.

“Hah.” Alexei strolled over to the bunk and tapped on the glass. “Hello Holden.”

Gibson turned to the glass. His face pulled into a rictus of anger.

“I’m in fuckin’ communication with the Babushka right now, Russkie. And let me tell you — you’re fucked.”

Alexei shrugged. “I am fucked maybe.” He turned to Vladimir. “Has there been a doctor to see me?”

No. You applied that dressing yourself.

“
You
applied it, you mean.”

Yes. Using your hands, however.

“You think you got her beat — but let me tell you from experience. There’s no beatin’ Babushka. She’ll have the whole fuckin’ world in the Empire of New Pokrovskoye.”

“Is that so? Is she talking to you now?”

“She’s been talkin’ to me off and on since before you were born,” said Gibson. “You can’t stop her.”

“We did, though.”

“Fuck you. You didn’t come close. You made her retreat — twice. But you didn’t come fuckin’ close.” Gibson struggled against the bonds, his eyes rolling to look at the Children. The bunk bed rattled under his struggles, but it held. “You’re all fucked.”

Alexei shook his head. “I was thinking about killing you, you know that?”

Gibson’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. That’s what the Koldun told me.”

“Which was why you tried to kill me. I guess I cannot blame you for that. It still pissed me off though.”

Gibson’s lips went thin and petulant. “So kill me now,” he said. “Fuck you. I’ll just ascend like Babushka.” He gave Alexei a look. “And from what she told me, you could ascend too.”

Alexei looked around. “Me,” he said, “these kids.”

“Right.”

“To be — what? Fuel for the Babushka’s great machine? Amplifiers, so that when she wants to take on more sleepers — or dream-walk — she can do so, without the inconvenience of using her own aging body?”

Gibson was quiet at that.

Alexei felt a welling inside himself — like he wanted to throw up. He thought back to Afghanistan, and the thing he had done to Amar Shadak and Ming Lei and Wali Beg and all the rest — for no better reason than to serve the ambitions of some degenerate dream-walkers who wanted to build an arsenal for themselves, and needed the people to do it.

“You,” said Alexei, “are an evil bastard. I feel no guilt for what I am about to do.”

“Go ahead,” said Gibson. “Like I said — I’ll — ”

“Ascend?” Alexei let himself smile. “No. You won’t. There will be no more of that for you.”

“What — ” Gibson’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I am the destroyer,” said Alexei.

He shut his eyes and took a breath.

Holden Gibson started to twist in his bonds. He looked at a space in the air just above Alexei’s navel. “Hey!” he said. “Fuck! Do up your fuckin’ fly!”

Alexei, eyes still closed, smiled. “That’s not what it is,” he said.

Gibson screamed. “Babushka!” he yelled. “Deliver me!” and “Fuck! It’s got me!”

There was a rustling then — a rustling of the soul. And then he went quiet — sobbing softly. Several of the Children joined him. Alexei withdrew the tentacle from Holden Gibson’s middle and opened his eyes.

The only sound in the room was the soft clapping of an infant’s hands.

“Why Kilodovich,” said Vladimir. “I am impressed. Clearly you have — ”

“ — unravelled the lie that is my life,” said Alexei, knees cracking as he stepped away from Holden Gibson, suddenly alone in his head once more. “I know. Now come — we have work to do.”

Alexei bent down and lifted Vladimir from his crib. Vladimir looked at Alexei with wide eyes and held up his little hands as if to fend off a blow.
No
! he shrieked with his mind while he wailed with his little mouth.
Do not undo me! I am not ready!

Alexei smiled. “No,” he said. “You are not.”

And with that, he hefted Vladimir against his chest and carried him out of the greenhouse.

“You must show me the others,” said Alexei.

The others. What do you mean, Kilodovich?

“You must show me this Koldun who ordered my death so easily.”

Leo Montassini met Alexei at the main door to the lighthouse. He was holding a rifle, but not like he was seriously going to shoot. Fuck — it was Kilodovich! “How the fuck you doin’?” he demanded.

Alexei looked at him sidelong. “The guy,” he said, “from the tank?”

Montassini grinned. “You’re back!” he said.

“Yeah,” said Alexei. He stepped inside with the rest of them. Heather stepped into the shadow of the door, just out of sight.

That is a good instinct
, whispered Kolyokov.
Kilodovich is on a rampage
.

“A — ” Heather swallowed, and thought the question:
A rampage? He’s got a baby in his arms and looks like he’s just about dead.

No
, said Kolyokov.
He’s doing what he was made to do. But I don’t know that anyone is telling him. This is very dangerous.

Heather moved back further into the shadow. She wasn’t about to question Kolyokov’s assessment any more. After all, the last few times that the baby Vladimir and Alexei had hooked up, things hadn’t exactly gone swimmingly for Heather or the rest of Holden Gibson’s crew.

Alexei and Montassini were talking quietly as they walked into the round room at the base of the tower. The baby Vladimir was peering around with wide, nervous eyes. They passed near them.

So what should we do to ge —

Your mantra
, said Kolyokov.
Now
!

Mi
, thought Heather at once.
Mi mi mi mi.

Alexei Kilodovich started up the stairs first, while Montassini continued: “He’s upstairs. We got the fucker tied up like nothin’ else. You aren’t gonna fuckin’ — ”

And that was all Heather heard. Pushed by Fyodor Kolyokov’s hurried urgency, she stepped out the door and into the New Pokrovskoye night.

AmarShadak’s antique submarine broke surface two kilometres off from New Pokrovskoye amid a school of kraken and moon-silvered froth. A trio of Romanians emerged on deck immediately, carrying with them the components of a Zodiac. Two more came out with a machinegun, which they set about assembling on the foredeck. Konstantine Uzimeri remained atop the tower, surveying the horizon with light-enhancing binoculars. Stephen took his own binoculars, and focussed them on the coastline, and the faint glow that rose beyond the jagged rocks.

“You should not go ashore,” said Uzimeri. “You are too weak.”

“Fuck you, Konstantine.” Stephen squinted. Aside from the light, the coast looked utterly barren. He played with the focus — for a moment, he thought he could actually see a structure — a tower, maybe a lighthouse — but then it faded. And the light faded too. “Don’t talk to me about weak. I’m not the one who fell for Babushka’s line.”

“You never had the chance,” said Konstantine. “You are too weak.”

Stephen didn’t bother answering. Instead, he slung the Skorpion machine pistol under his arm and swung himself out onto the ladder. The water was calm, but it was still dizzying making his way down the four-metre conning tower. He shivered. If it was possible, the submarine from outside seemed even narrower, less substantial than it was on the inside. It was slippery and narrow on top — every step to the boat’s prow was like a step along a tightrope. Finally, Stephen set down on the wet decking, crossed his legs, and squinted at the coastline. He left his binoculars around his neck.

It was like seeing Central Park from the Emissary Hotel, looking at New Pokrovskoye. Stephen began to imagine his way through the rock, through the illusion. He slowed his breathing — tried some of the techniques he’d learned in Jersey. And after a while, sure enough — the glow came back. He could even make out the shape of the tower.