The Siren's Touch (10 page)

He punched the wall, causing the plaster to crumble off the lath boards behind it.

The investigator shuffled his feet. “I hate it when one of our men turns on his brothers like this. But this doesn’t look good for you. The central station will provide you with a lawyer immediately.”

Ivan nodded, sucking on his knuckles, bleeding from their collision with the wall. As soon as the investigator left, he said, “Let’s go.”

Makar’s apartment was empty—or almost. Clumps of dust, a bent piece of wire, a few scraps of paper, the normal detritus that remained when a person moved out. Ivan strode to the bedroom and cracked the door to the fire escape, as if Boris might just be waiting out there to ambush them. Gregor scanned the main room once more. That’s when he saw it—the queen. His queen. The white one from the chess set his parents had left him, the very set he and Boris had played on over and over again.

A frosty tingle crept up Gregor’s spine. He encased the slim ivory chess piece in his hand and squeezed until it cut into his palm. Underneath it was a note.
“Don’t bother with the necklace. It’s mine.”

Damn it. The bastard had outsmarted them at every turn. He had to pay.

Then another cold jolt shot through him. “Ivan. What if he went back for Elena? We have to go now.”

His brother grunted his assent. They backtracked through the dark, wet city and crammed themselves onto the platform at Dnipro metro station with hundreds of other bodies trying to get out of the rain.

The tall windows of their second-floor apartment glowed golden. When they stomped upstairs and crashed through the door, Elena appeared in her doorway again, eyes rimmed red.

Gregor sucked in a huge, relieved breath.

“Did you find him?” she asked.

“No. He’s gone.”

She nodded and shrank back into the room, carefully closing the door behind her.

Ivan pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and then raked them over his scalp. When he looked down at Gregor, his blue eyes were feral, and Gregor could read his thoughts as if they were spelled out in big block print—there was a loose end they had to take care of, or Ivan would spend a lifetime in prison.

And half a century later, if Dmitri found out what they had done next, he would never come home.

Sonya reached across Dmitri and learned how to work the television control. He slept soundly, if loudly. After hours watching the glowing box, her brain turned mushy. Confusing futuristic objects appeared on the screen, and she was unsure if they were real or fantasy. She shifted under the blankets, trying to find a relaxing position.

Dmitri’s chainsaw-like snoring grated on her. He must not breathe well through his crooked nose.

She turned toward him, then away from him, pressing her biceps into her exposed ear to drown him out. Sometime after dawn, dishes clattered in the kitchen. She wanted to get up and explore, to watch Elena in the kitchen maybe. But she knew in her brand new bones that meant becoming a ghost again.

And the curve of Dmitri’s side tempted her as the perfect place to spend forever. She wanted his touch to be more than friendly, wanted to ignite his passion, but now that she wasn’t a rusalka, she didn’t have that seductive power. Otherwise, she might very well have bent him to her will, and he would have held her, kissed her, taken her breast in his big rough hand and…

The fantasy got away from her. In a rush came the familiar desires for things she’d only ever imagined—a big body moving over and inside of her, a hot mouth covering hers. She grew damp between her legs. It would be wrong to use the rusalka voice on him. He hadn’t wanted her last night, but perhaps in a groggy morning haze he would think she was another woman, the one he’d asked to stay the night.

Or maybe he’d thought she was his girlfriend.

Did he have one? The question proved how little Sonya knew about him, and how little business she had trying to seduce him. She carefully unlaced their fingers. Stirring, he huffed and rolled on his side to face her. Before his still-closed eyes, she ghosted. Thank goodness, it didn’t feel like dying. The weight of her body vanished, along with all her sensations. That pesky need in her pelvis disappeared, along with the heat of blood in her veins and the refreshing air in her lungs.

Her ghost lungs filled with the memory of water again, and she coughed and sputtered, trying to keep quiet until the instinct faded. All at once, something pulled her, as if a strong wind blew her in one direction. Reedy voices whispered, like waves lapping at the shore of her mind.

“Sonya, come to us. We love you. We miss you.”

A picture of her parents took shape—her mother tall and sweet-faced, the same height as her husband, her hair coiled in a thick bun, with stray curls framing her face. And her father, lanky, glasses sliding down his nose, barely aware of his surroundings. They stood before the storefront, a hundred square panes of glass, so tedious to clean, and a maroon sign jutting into the street, with gold letters that read
Adolphus Truss, Jeweler.

The memory fizzled out. The beckoning continued.

“Finish it, Sonya, and come to us.”

When the shaking started, she curled her now-incorporeal fingers into fists. She wanted to go. As much as her living body had wanted to curl up with Dmitri, her ghostly one wanted to answer their call, to finish with its task and settle forever into whatever afterlife awaited her.

More dishes banged in the kitchen, and Sonya floated to the door, hoping Elena would provide a distraction.

Phooey.

How could she open it? Flying through the wood panel did not appeal, but she’d go stir crazy trapped in this room another minute. She floated back to Dmitri, his face soft in sleep, his full lips parted. Even in her ghost form, she wanted to taste them, to feel them on her neck. But he’d made it clear he didn’t want her.

She spooled up all her energy and flung herself at the door. It tickled where it passed through her. Then, with a pop, she appeared on the other side, the slippery connections that held her together grew fragile and loose, but after a moment, they tightened, coalescing into her ghost body again.

Phew.

She bobbed down the hall toward the noisy kitchen.

When she entered the wide-open room, Elena looked up as if she sensed something, but her glossy head shook and she went back to work, pulling plates from some steaming cave under the counter and placing them on their shelves. Invisible, Sonya observed the older woman’s efficient movements, first stacking the dishes and then lifting them. Her posture was straight, her grooming impeccable and her face placid.

If Sonya hadn’t snooped through the impersonal home so thoroughly, she wouldn’t have sensed the woman’s sadness. She glanced around the living room. Even the arrangement of the objects, shelved by function or color, belied little attachment to them. In contrast, Mama’s shelves had been miniature altars, devoted to the people, the events, the places that had made up their lives.

“Sonya, come to us. We love you. We miss you.”

They were in many ways strangers, but she missed them too. Deeper down than knowing or understanding, she longed for them with a fierceness that began to vibrate in her ghost belly.

Glasses clattered on the countertop.

“Hello, Sonya,” Elena said.

Relieved for the distraction, Sonya swished over to her and brushed a single finger across the back of the woman’s hand where it pressed into the countertop.

“Good morning.” The woman grinned.

Sonya tapped her three times on the hand to repeat the greeting, and Elena shivered.

“Sorry, dear. No offense, but it is rather unpleasant. If only we could find another way.”

Sonya had given that very thing some thought. After all, she knew Morse code. She concentrated on a painted bowl resting on the counter with a tiny spoon lying inside it—the one that had held caviar last night. She sent a tentative wave of energy toward it. Nothing. She called up a little of her fury and tried again. The spoon rattled, toppling the dish.

“Careful, please. I’d rather not lose any more of my antiques.”

She surveyed the kitchen for another idea. Last night, she’d rattled the cabinets. But could she concentrate enough to tap out a message for Elena without the angry power overwhelming her? She eyed the spoon again. It trembled in the bowl without control.

“Good Lord, Sonya. Is it some kind of complex code? That will never work. Try this—one tap for no, two taps for yes.”

It was all the direction she needed. Sharpening her gaze on the cupboard over the sink, she summoned a burst of anger and the cabinet door tapped twice. She tried again. Controlling the power took immense concentration, and sometimes the tap became an incessant rattle.

Finally, she mastered it, finding that her pretend ghost breaths helped her focus the energy. Elena clapped, laughing in pleasure. “Amazing. Amazing. You’re getting better at it every time. Here’s a question for you. Did you sleep?”

One tap—no.

“Did Dmitri?”

Two taps. Quick pause. Two more. Yes,
yes
.

Elena snorted. “The boy snores like a diesel generator. I could hear him in my room.”

Two more taps.

Elena looked around room, obviously uncertain where Sonya hovered even though she was only a few feet away. She filled the silence.

“Did you remember anything more?”

One tap—no. Two taps—yes. One tap—no.

Then Sonya’s power began to frazzle, sending off ghost sparks.

Elena waited. “Hmmm. I think that must mean not much.” She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, one finger and thumb clasping her chin. “Last night, I pulled a few books from the library. It’s a modest collection, and every story I found had different lore about rusalki. Some described the blood debt. There was one new detail, a bit worrisome…”

Two taps.

“According to that legend, a rusalka’s term is the length of her natural human life had she lived. She has the years remaining before her natural death to attain revenge and move on to the afterlife.”

Sonya heard loud and clear that Elena was leaving something out. She replied with two more taps—yes?

“Or she goes…” The small woman twisted her hand on her wrist in a gesture that was anything but comforting. “She loses hold of her soul, and becomes a poltergeist of sorts. Violent and insatiable.”

That explained the frightening loosey-goosey sensation that had panicked Sonya before—as if her ghostly connections were disintegrating and she might simply dissolve into nothing—or worse, become something else.

“I suspect the shaking is a symptom.”

One tap.

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid so.”

One tap.

“I know. You only came out of the teapot for the first time yesterday, after some forty-odd years, already practically out of time. I wondered the same thing. I can only assume you needed a champion and Dmitri freed you somehow. He needs you as much as you need him.”

Bright lights shone down on the ring, a stained and threadbare canvas stretched over its platform. The taut ropes were intact, binding Dmitri in that safest of places—the only one where he allowed his rage to escape. Alone inside, he propped himself against the corner post and waited.

He’d faced many opponents in this dream ring, the arena for his subconscious battles. Who would it be this time?

In the surreal way of dreams, the crowd was invisible, hidden by virtue of a shadowy contrast with the glaring lights. But their deafening roar assaulted his brain, making it throb against his skull.

When Ivan ascended onto the platform, he towered over his son as if Dmitri were a boy of eight or nine. Only an adult-sized Dmitri and the ring were true to scale, making Ivan a giant, lumbering across the canvas at nearly eight and a half feet. He didn’t stand on ceremony either. Never had. No referee declared the start of the match before the blows began to rain down. Bones cracked, blood splattered across the already filthy canvas. Pain didn’t penetrate the dream. Fear did. It became the voice of the crowd, promising that this time Ivan would kill him. His heart spasmed, threatening to give up the fight, and his arms fell.

With his defenses down, Ivan’s fist landed, breaking Dmitri’s teeth and pressing into his mouth. He raked his tongue across the jagged stumps of his teeth and gagged on the salty iron of his own blood. The next punch exploded against his ear, shattering the drum and sending him to the pad, where he closed his eyes and surrendered to blackness.

When he awoke, the pain did too. Aches covered his body like a close-fitting garment. He drew his arm around his waist, only to realize it had been gripped by Gregor—a giant like Ivan. Now though, the dreamscape was Gregor-sized. Glancing down at his trousers and small black leather shoes, Dmitri discovered he was only a boy, standing hand in hand with his uncle. The surroundings barreled toward him, all 360 degrees of world coming into focus with a jarring snap.

Snow blanketed the Lukyanivska neighborhood, whitewashing the city grime. A gunmetal-gray sky loomed low, churning with clouds. Bare-branched trees reached like slender women with their arms lifted, their human shape both mournful and angry.

Apartment buildings lined the street, their tan brick faces and rows of windows offering an orderly pattern for Dmitri’s eyes to trace over and over again. Thirty-six windows in that one. Fifty-four in that one.

“Do you have any questions for me?” his uncle asked, his speech as careful and proper as always.

Dmitri didn’t want to raise his eyes in the direction of the elephant called Lukyanivska Prison. He kicked at a pile of sooty snow. “How long was he in there?”

“Eleven years.”

“Did you visit?”

“He was not permitted visitors.”

“What did he do, Uncle?”

Gregor’s face twisted in a rare display of anger. “He did some bad, stupid things. We both did, with our friend Boris Makar. Only Boris was angry at your father, and so he made sure Ivan went to prison for all our crimes.”

Dmitri had heard the name before in Ivan’s hazy rantings.