Red Devil (Dangerous Spirits) (30 page)

Memories, golden-bright and clear as a crisp Siberian day, flood Alexei’s mind. He sees a cart in the dead of winter, a giant tiger, betrayal and salvation in one night, the unworthiness he will spend his life overcoming. There is a sword flash and a pain in his ear, a recurring nightmare of a tiger statue with a sword. Warmth in his heart at the memory of Mariya, the betrayal of her untimely death, the pain again of being left behind. And the years watching his son grow, with pride and hope, at first. Niki’s bright spirit, their joy together, the distance growing between them, the shine in those bright green eyes diminishing. The harsh mantle wrapped around himself after the final betrayal, the final abandonment.

“He left me,” Konstantin says. “He left. I did not drive him away. I was, at the end, the only one worthy of my father, the only one loyal.” But the confidence he bequeathed to Alexei is nowhere in his voice, nowhere in his eyes. He speaks quickly, as though using the sentences like sandbags against a rising flood of uncertainty.

Alexei remains silent. Konstantin leans closer. “Tell me what you know of my Niki,” he says urgently.

The soldier’s eyes stay fixed on his, as Alexei tries to remember everything Sol has told him about Niki. “Your son was good,” he says. “Strong. He helped my friend, and he inspired others.” He pictures the painting, hoping Konstantin can see it, and indeed, the soldier’s eyes widen. “Sol—the wolf you saw—he was so lost, and Niki saved him. Your son led a sad life, but you should not think you failed in raising him.”

His own memories run through his head, shorter: that first time talking to Sol on the bleachers, Sol coming back after Carcy’s visit, the beautiful painting and the artist Niki inspired to create it, Sol telling him Niki’s story, all of it, the sadness and beauty, and he thinks too late that he does not want Konstantin to see the sadness, but it is a part of the story and he cannot help it.

Lines crease around the older fox’s eyes. He withdraws his paw, gently, and now Alexei sees the train through the outlines of the blue military coat. The golden sash is a faded, translucent yellow, but clean of stains. “I wish he had not gone. I wish I had not…” He stops. “Thank you for sharing his story with me. And thank you for sharing yourself.”

The whistle sounds again, but this time it is apologetic, if no less firm. Konstantin rubs a paw across one eye and looks down at Alexei. “I must go. You will not see me again, save perhaps in dreams.”

“Don’t be scary.” Alexei perks his ears up and focuses on Konstantin’s eyes, which remain solid and brown though the fur around them shimmers and the train gleams through it. “In my dreams, I mean.”

That brings a brief smile to the fox’s disappearing lips. “I make no promises,
lisenok
,” he says, and bows. He takes a step back, then turns and boards the train.

Cat makes way for him, and he pauses for a moment to look down as he passes her. The last thing Alexei sees of him is the tail of the sash, trailing over the fox’s tail, as both fade and vanish.

“Thank you.” Alexei smiles at Cat, tears gathering in his eyes as well. “I’m so sorry.”

“We were granted our wish,” she says. “You are living for both of us now. I will see you when the winter is over.”

The ebony car begins to move, silently. He jogs to keep pace. “What wish?” he calls.

“Good-bye, Lexi.” Her eyes sparkle, with love or tears or both. “I will be watching you, too.”

He tries to keep up, but the black train pulls away too quickly. The last he sees of Cat, she is raising a paw and waving. He stands and waves back, and then tears fill his eyes and the grey dust rises over him. He strains to see through it, but it grows thicker and thicker, colder and colder, and with each blink, he finds his eyes harder and harder to open. Then they stay shut, and he panics, pulling himself out of the dream—

Chapter 39

—his eyelids felt stuck. He forced them open with a cry and then shut them immediately against a bright light. A growling moan made its way out of his throat; his ears tried to flatten against a pillow and could not. He lifted a paw to his eyes and smacked his tongue against the sour taste in his mouth. His body ached, but it was warming, as though he’d just come out of a winter day and his mother had lit a fire.

“Hey!” A voice pierced his ears. It took him a moment to recognize Athos. “He’s awake!”

The intrusion of another person on his struggle out of darkness irritated him at first, and then a weight landed on him and strong arms lifted his shoulders from the bed, crushing him in a hug, and Sol’s black fur pressed into his nose, the lupine scent warm and welcome. The wolf’s voice and breath ruffled his cheek fur. “Oh God, Alexei, I was so scared.”

“Wh…what happened?” His dream was fading, but details shone clear in his memory: Konstantin’s paw, the old soldier’s breath and the intense cold, the pieces of his life, and…and Cat.

“You fainted,” Sol said, “and you were cold…
really
cold.” The wolf’s words faded out of Alexei’s awareness as he struggled to hold on to the memory of Cat, but reality’s assault left his dream even more fragmented. He remembered her looking at him through darkness, being frightened for him—but not for herself. He thought she was at peace.

But that was only a dream.

Meg’s sharp voice pierced the warm shell of Sol’s halting monologue. “I told you he’d wake up.” Alexei shifted and saw her, smiling uncharacteristically as she walked toward Sol’s bed to sit beside Athos.

Sol released Alexei but remained sitting on his bed, and Alexei sat up. “We didn’t know what happened to you,” he said, the stubbornness in his voice telling Alexei that this had been a topic of argument between the wolf and otter. “After Athos banished the ghost—”

“Scared the Russian bum away,” Meg corrected. Athos, next to her, scowled.

“You just collapsed. You were barely breathing.”

“You were in shock.” Meg folded her arms. “He was cutting off your oxygen. You just needed some rest.”

Sol’s head was down, but he was looking at Alexei and his ears were perked. Athos leaned forward, eyes wide and curious. Alexei looked around at all three of them and said, “I—I don’t really remember. I had a dream…”

“What was in the dream?” Athos’s voice sounded high. “Take your time. Try to remember details.”

“There was a train.” Alexei closed his eyes. “And Konstantin was there, and my sister. And I think she saved me from him.”

“That bastard.” Sol’s growl rumbled through the bed.

Alexei curled his tail into himself. “He was very lonely.”

“He drove his own son away!”

“He wanted…” Alexei was not sure what Konstantin wanted. “He had a very hard life.”

“Look, you two.” Meg got up from the bed. “Write your story another time. I’m gonna get something for him to drink. You hungry?”

This was to Alexei, who began to shake his head and then felt a gaping void where his stomach should be. “Yes, thank you.”

Meg left, and Sol reached over to hug Alexei again. The fox returned the embrace, then sat up and followed Athos’s gaze to the doorway. “She does not believe in ghosts,” Alexei said softly, looking up at the painting of Niki and then down at Athos.

The grey fox met Alexei’s eyes and then dropped his head, his tail swatting the bed. “No. I thought she’d keep an open mind, but…”

Sol’s green eyes flashed. “She’s just stubborn. I don’t know what she’s afraid of.”

Alexei shook his head again. It was hard enough sorting out his own life without worrying about Meg’s. “I am glad the two of you believe me,” he said.

“I wish you’d had a better experience.” Sol squeezed his shoulder. “I miss Niki, but I’m really glad I met him. Sounds like his dad wasn’t all that much fun.”

“Well.” Alexei looked up at the picture again. “I would like to have met Niki. But I think I know a little about him, now.”

“We all have the experiences we are meant to have,” Athos pronounced.

“Jesus, give it a rest.” Meg came back in with a small tumbler and handed it to Alexei.

He caught a whiff of the fumes before he reached out, and held up a paw. “No alcohol. Just water.”

“It’ll do you good,” she insisted.

He shook his head, and she retreated. “Fine, fine.”

The three boys sat quietly, and then Alexei said, “May I tell you about the dream?”

They listened with perked ears, respectfully, as he tried to reconstruct the dream from the blurry watercolor details. There was the train, Konstantin leading him onto it, and a moment between them that Alexei didn’t quite remember. And Cat, forbidding Konstantin, saving him. “But he was not evil. Not completely. Perhaps a little bit. He was desperate and lonely.”

“Ghosts are like that,” Athos said. “When they die, they’re trapped at the point of death, and they can’t ever get past it.”

“You have seen a ghost?” Alexei tilted his head as Meg re-entered the room with a glass of water and a stack of buttered toast.

The grey fox scratched behind an ear. “Well, no. But I’ve read a lot about them.”

“Fiction,” Meg said. She put the glass of water on the desk and handed Alexei the plate. “That’s what you told me. You laughed at how gullible people were.”

“Some of those stories…but you were there! You saw it!” He gesticulated in the direction of the front door.

Meg curled fists against her hips and glared at him. “It was dark, it was late, we were all freaked out by that homeless guy, and Alexei’s talk about ghosts just made all of you suggestible.”

Athos stood, and at the severity of his expression, Alexei leaned against Sol. He’d never seen anyone take on Meg like this. “I always kept an open mind, and I thought you would too. We saw the ghost Alexei described disappear, and wound his spirit as it left.”

“He was in shock—”

“It was more than shock!” Athos raised his voice. “Did you feel how cold he was? It was a spiritual death.”

Meg twisted her muzzle up and then looked back at Alexei. “Let’s not have this conversation here, genius,” she said, and then, softer, “Sorry, fox-boy.”

“It is all right.” He lifted a paw. He would have told them to stay, but he wanted to talk to Sol.

They left quickly, both scowling, and they’d barely closed the door to Meg’s room before their raised voices came through the wall.

“Wow.” Sol stared out the doorway. “I wonder how much Meg can hear of us in here.”

Alexei laid a paw on Sol’s arm. “Thank you,” he said. “For believing me, and trying to save me.”

“Oh.” Sol flattened his ears. “I mean, yeah. It was just, you know, I wasn’t going to let him just take you. And thank you for saving me from him, too.”

“And…” Alexei swallowed. “I am sorry. For yelling at you, and for doing all of this in the first place. And for taking your picture without your permission.” He held up a paw as Sol started to talk. “I do not think I understood what Niki meant to you, though you told me. When you compared your loss to losing Cat…”

“It’s not the same.” Sol cut in quickly. “I know. I’m sorry. It was all I could think of. I didn’t even really know my cousin that well.”

“You should not be sorry for the life you lived,” Alexei said, and he found a smile coming easily to his muzzle. “I can’t understand it, as you can’t understand mine. But we can try. I want to try harder.”

“Me too.”

“People, even the people close to you…” Alexei thought of his anger at Sol, thought about Konstantin’s anger toward Niki, thought of his family. “They can only be what they are, not what you want them to be.”

“I guess Konstantin wanted you—and Niki—to be straight.” Sol frowned, and his eyes flashed green.

“Yes. But also, he wanted us to be his sons. And for a short time, I wanted him to be my father. When we are afraid, uncertain, we want someone to tell us everything will be fine. And a good father knows when to rule, and when to let go. It is a hard thing to know.” Alexei met the wolf’s green eyes. “I told you about my father, I think.”

“A little. I didn’t want to press.”

“Konstantin would be an improvement.”

Sol was quiet, and then he took the fox’s paw in his. “I’m really sorry about your sister. I can’t even imagine.”

“Thank you.” The aching sadness of the previous days—had it been only three days?—had not dulled, but he had found that remembering love and life made it hurt just a little less. “I think she would want me to live my life and be happy.”

“So, uh.” Sol flicked his ears. “You’re not moving out?”

Alexei tilted his muzzle and then remembered his decisions, the phone call to Liza, the arguments with Meg and Sol. “No,” he said. “I do not think that would be good for me.”

“Good.” Sol squeezed his paw and then let it go. “I know I gotta go off to college in September, but I want us to stay friends. I think if you and Meg stay together when I go, it’ll be easier. I’ll come back and see you guys.”

September seemed so far off as to be nearly irrelevant. “I am sure we will stay friends.” Alexei smiled. “How many other people have seen ghosts of old Siberian foxes?”

Sol grinned, and his tail thwapped the bed. “I want to hear more about what you remember. Sometime.”

“Some of it was scary.” Alexei still remembered the terrifying parts, Konstantin’s coat and the tiger and the decaying building. “But not all of it.”

Sol leaned forward and brushed his nose past Alexei. “Get some rest. You wanna maybe go to a movie? My treat.”

“Maybe this evening.” The fox curled his tail back and forth. “I have to think about some things. What to do about soccer, and the visa.”

“Oh, shit, right,” Sol said. “Look, I can talk to Kendall if you want, get him to call his friend—”

“No.” Alexei cut him off. “Perhaps…next year.” The future was barely a glimmer to him, but it was a glimmer nonetheless. He did not know where he would be in two months, when Sol went to college, much less next summer. But at least he felt he would be somewhere, a place where he belonged.

“You know, Kendall
can
be kind of a jerk.” Sol said it without prompting.

“Really.” Alexei wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“Yeah, I know, I know.” Sol laid his ears back. “But he can be really nice, too. He was concerned about me and making the transition to college and all.”

“Did he offer to come with you?”

Alexei’d meant it jokingly, but when Sol ducked his head, the fox’s fur prickled. “He sorta hinted he could move around maybe…”

“What a…” He could only think of words in Siberian.

“He’s a guy.” Sol leaned against Alexei. “He’s got issues, yeah, but he’s just a guy. He’s not my best friend.”

Alexei started to reply and then couldn’t form words. He wrapped an arm around Sol and hugged him, and breathed in the comforting scent. The room felt quiet; Meg and Athos’s argument had died down and so, for the moment, had the traffic noises outside. Alexei closed his eyes, enjoying the peaceful stillness that enfolded him and Sol.

They remained like that until Sol broke the silence. “So what are you going to do about the visa?”

“I have not even been thinking about it.”

“When do you have to do something by?”

Alexei tried to remember. “I don’t know. End of the summer, I suppose.”

“Liza will help.”

“I don’t want to think about it, not right now.”

Sol hugged him again. “I understand,” he said, and Alexei knew that he really did, and Alexei loved him for it.