Rasputin's Bastards

THE HONEST THIEF

The dreaming war between the Soviet Union and the United States of America was hardly a war at all to hear Fyodor Kolyokov tell it.

“It was more,” said Kolyokov through the lips of Heather, “a series of skirmishes. We had not our heart in it.”

“That so?” said Leo Montassini. He turned back to the view. The two of them — or the three of them, depending on how you looked at it — were holed up at the top of the lighthouse in this fucked-up town. Montassini had managed to hold onto the rifle, and he was using it clock tower style to make sure that the zombies kept clear of the place. It was a pathetic defence — if this Babushka thing wanted to take them out, she had more zombies than Montassini had bullets. But Montassini didn’t feel inclined to follow that line of logic very far. He was in a tower with a rifle, next to a very hot babe who was possessed by an old dead Russian hotel owner who’d finally cheered up enough to start telling him stories about the Cold War, and the zombies weren’t trying to kill him just yet. All of that was fine by Leo Montassini.

“We were unmotivated you see,” said Fyodor Kolyokov. “Why fight at all? Cowardice, for a dream-walker, is a natural state. We live in tanks — in safe cocoons, protected by human puppets. The war required us to actually dream-walk out of body — and attend to other dream-walkers, who had powers the like of which we did not know.”

“Fascinatin’,” said Leo. Kolyokov had been avoiding the subject for hours now. Leo was fine with that. He peered through the glass at the harbour. Another fishing boat was heading out. “When did it happen, this brain war?”

“The early 1970s,” said Kolyokov, then adding — in a voice that, unlike Kolyokov’s, was all-American, “mid-1970s. Please. He’s making this up, you know.”

Leo grinned. “Hey dollface,” he said.

“Hey fuckface,” said Heather sweetly, “did you really just say dollface?” She stepped over to crouch beside Montassini and peered out. “Another boat’s leaving? What’s that — five?”

“Six,” said Montassini. “And I don’t think they’re going out fishing.”

Heather nodded. She put her hand on Montassini’s shoulder, stroking it. “Sorry I called you fuckface,” she said. Leo smirked.

“Don’ mention it,” he said.

“Oh get a room the two of you,” Fyodor Kolyokov interjected, and pulled Heather’s hand away from Montassini’s shoulder. “We don’t have time for that.”

“Well you know, Mr. Kolyokov,” said Leo, “I don’t see much else to do here.” Kolyokov gave Heather’s head a brisk nod and crossed her arms.

“The town is beginning to clear out,” he said with a wistful tone. Then, after a pause that seemed forever:

“We should think about going after Alexei again.”

“We should wait until Vasili Borovich wakes up,” said Heather quickly, and Kolyokov said, “shut up. Vasili’s escaped. We have to get Alexei. And of course—” he paused “—the Children.”

“Ah,” said Leo. “Maybe we should just stay put here, big guy.”

“I’m not sure the Children want to be got,” said Heather and Kolyokov said, “you are not sure of anything,” and then he said he was sorry and Heather said it was all right she understood.

Leo sighed, and turned back to the glass, watching the harbour.

Kolyokov would get them killed if he had his way. They’d barely made it here alive after the first rescue attempt, and it had been a bad time.

There were extenuating circumstances, he supposed: Leo was still groggy from the slap on the head he’d taken from Vasili Borovich’s meat-puppet Oleg, and they didn’t have enough guns, and they also didn’t expect the old bastard and Alexei fucking Kilodovich to turn on them like that — in the middle of a fucking greenhouse. It was a miracle they hadn’t all been shot dead.

Of course, it might have gone better if Leo had gotten some help from the babe that seemed to contain two people inside her. They’d crept up through the greenhouse that night, and things had been going pretty well. The babe had gotten herself a little auto pistol from somewhere. Leo had his rifle. Things were good.

And then, when they saw the first guard — and Leo had been about to shoot — fuck if the babe hadn’t told him to put it down.

“It is Vasili,” she said in that Russian accent of hers.

The guard was not a guard at all. He was an old man — pony-tailed, with a thick beard, and blood caked on the side of his head. He staggered out from behind a row of tomatoes — where from the looks of things he’d been crying.

He looked first at Leo, then at the girl blankly.

She grinned at him.

“Vasili Borovich,” she said. “You are old as me.”

“Wh — ?” The older man frowned, and recognition dawned on him. “You? That cannot be.”

The girl laughed. “It is Fyodor,” she said. “Yes.”

“You are part of this?”

She shook her head. “Lena has cut you loose again — hasn’t she? You are pathetic.”

“Go to hell.”

“I am on my way there.”

“My God,” said Vasili Borovich. “It is you.” He stepped forward — too close to the babe. “You are dream-walking young girls now, hey?”

“It is an agreement we have reached. Unlike what you are doing.”

“I am not doing any of this. I am no longer the Koldun here.”

Leo interrupted them. “Hey,” he said. “Koldun! I heard about—”

They’d looked at him. “Put down the gun,” said the babe. “This is unexpected. Give me a moment.” Then she turned to Borovich and continued the conversation in Russian.

Leo had a moment to sit back and digest the situation. The Koldun! This old bastard was the Koldun — the guy who was supposedly behind the entire Babushka conspiracy — the old bitch’s right-hand man.

And now he was talking in Russian to the woman who was apparently possessed by the ghost of the guy Leo Montassini had, a lifetime ago, been sent to retrieve.

Leo had been around the block a few times — and in the course of circling that block, he’d been in more than one situation where things were closing in on him. If he didn’t have a knack for recognizing those points in his life, he wouldn’t be alive. So Leo Montassini raised up his rifle, stepped back, and cleared his throat.

“Tell me what the fuck’s goin’ on,” he said, “or I shoot both of you an’ get my friend Alexei on my own.”

The two stopped talking. They looked at one another. They looked at Leo, and his rifle.

“This one might do it,” said the babe — or Fyodor Kolyokov.

“Da,” said the Koldun. “He just might.”

“All right,” said Kolyokov in his weird squeaky girl voice, “don’t shoot us. Here’s the situation. Vasili here has just crawled out of the room where the Children are being kept. Alexei Kilodovich is in there. So is Holden Gibson.”

“Who?”

“Holden Gibson.” Now the babe’s voice was her own — it sounded American, maybe from the Midwest. “You know — big bastard. Runs the boat? You know — the boat?”

“I’m sorry,” said Leo. “I thought we were lookin’ for kids.”

“Fuck,” she said. “Didn’t Alexei tell you anything?”

“Heather,” said Kolyokov through the girl’s mouth, “let me handle this,” and she said, “Fuck off,” and he said, “Please,” and she said, “Fine.”

“The Children,” said Kolyokov, “and Alexei are to the west end of the greenhouse in a sealed-in room. When Vasili escaped, he saw Alexei knock Holden Gibson unconscious and take away his gun. Vasili made it out the door.”

“And he hung around here,” said Leo. “Right. And no one came to get him.”

“They are not pursuing,” said the Koldun. “They are all traumatized — from the great wickedness that I nearly perpetrated upon them.”

“Heh?” Leo frowned. “Great wickedness? Wha—”

“Not important,” said Kolyokov. “The main thing is we must see them now before it becomes worse.”

It had become worse anyway. With Vasili Borovich leading them on, they trod down the central path of the greenhouse and to the thick wooden door that led to the dormitories where the Children were being kept. By the time they were there, Leo was wondering at the difficulty they’d had getting this far — and how it would be if the Babushka actually had set her townspeople upon them.

“Right behind here,” whispered the Koldun.

And he’d opened the door —

— and Leo Montassini felt like he’d been kicked in the mouth. His sinuses ached, and his back molars felt like they were going to fly out — and the rifle dropped from his hands, as he was faced with the light, and the words, ringing through his skull:

GET OUT!

The rest of it was the kind of blurry fabrication that recollection becomes when it focuses on a dismal, embarrassing failure. There was a kick, and gunfire, and the stink of an asp that missed Leo’s skull and hit his shoulder (this one he focused on — dodging the zombified Alexei Kilodovich’s swing may have been Leo Montassini’s finest instant in the disastrous melee). Somehow he’d gotten out along with Kolyokov — probably, he was sure, because they’d wanted him to get out. And the three of them had made their way up the hill to the lighthouse.

Kolyokov hadn’t spoken through Heather for about ten hours after that. It was left to Heather to explain to him what had happened — what the attack in fact was.

“It’s like an ice cream headache,” she said. “Vladimir pulled it on us on the boat the first time. It makes you feel like your ears are bleeding, doesn’t it?”

“Ice cream headache. Nice.” It felt more like a needle in the eye to Leo’s way of thinking. “Who’s Vladimir anyway?”

Heather frowned. “He’s a kid. Like a baby. But he’s not a baby at all.”

“I think he was runnin’ Alexei for a while there.”

“He was.”

“Like the same way that Fyodor Kolyokov is running you.”

She looked at him. “Fyodor Kolyokov,” she said, “is not running me.”

Leo shrugged. “Okay.”

“He’s not. We’ve got an agreement.”

“If you say so.”

“Like,” said Heather, “we take turns. He’s not running me right now.”

“That’s true. Why is that?”

“He’s—” she frowned. “He’s taking a break.”

Leo nodded to Vasili Borovich. They’d tied him to a chair at the tower’s base, but it was really a formality. He was hurt and fucked up and not going anywhere. “Taking a break like him?”

“Look,” said Heather, jabbing her thumb in Vasili Borovich’s direction. “I don’t know about him, but Fyodor Kolyokov’s been through a lot.” She leaned close to Leo. “He’s dead you know.”

“That’s gotta suck.”

“And that’s not the worst of it.”

Leo nodded — encouraging her to talk.

“There’s something with Vladimir,” she said. “Kolyokov tried to talk to him. And that’s when things went to hell. The kid doesn’t trust him.”

“Why’s it important that the kid trust him?”

“Well,” said Heather, “this is going to sound weird.”

“We’re way past weird.”

“I get the sense that Kolyokov just wants to make amends.”

“You get that sense?”

“Stop making fun of me.”

“No. I’m serious. You get that sense? All I know is I step in there and my brain’s torn six ways to Sunday,” said Leo.

Heather laughed. “What the fuck does that mean — ‘six ways to Sunday’?”

“Fuck if I know.”

And they’d sat there, watching Borovich and waiting for Kolyokov to come back to them. It was cold — so what the fuck — Heather sidled up next to Leo, who put his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder and they stared out the aerie.

Borovich looked up at them. “Contact,” he said. “That is important, is it not?”

Leo felt himself bristling. “Nothin’ goin’ on here.”

“You like our lighthouse?” he asked.

“It’s nice,” said Leo. “Don’ know what the fuck it’s doin’ here. No ships come by here do they?”

“It was here when we came,” said Borovich. “When Babushka came here. She’d had it built in the early days. Canadian government money.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he said, “she could.”

“Like the Emissary Hotel,” said Leo, nodding. “A hotel nobody knows about — a lighthouse nobody can see. What is that — some fuckin’ Zen Buddhism thing? Like if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it is there, like, a sound? Or are you just fuckin’ stupid?”

Vasili laughed. “You’ve been thinking of things — haven’t you?”

Heather stirred against him. “Don’t listen to him,” she whispered in his ear, in the familiarly dense Russian accent of the old Hotelier. “Fuck,” said Leo, and pushed her away, as Kolyokov continued through her: “He is an old fool.”

“At least I am not dead like Fyodor Kolyokov apparently is. I am an old fool who still breathes with his own lungs.”

“No,” said Kolyokov, “those are not your lungs. You gave them up to that witch Lena, hey? Idiot. Now look where you are.”

“The foolishness of youth.” Vasili wriggled in his bonds. They’d tied him to a wooden chair with a couple of lengths of rope they’d found lying next to it. “You should let me up, Fyodor.”

“Not yet.” Heather got up. It was amazing how she moved differently depending on who was in the driver’s seat. When it was her, she was lithe and fast like she knew what she had. With Kolyokov, she walked — shuffled really — like an old man. She shuffled over to Vasili Borovich. “Tell me now. You tried to kill Alexei Kilodovich, is that not so?”

Borovich blanched. “How can you know this?”

Kolyokov chuckled. “I have been watching. In this very room — you sent our friend John Kaye to murder Alexei, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Not directly. But you had him send that puppet James. Is that not so?”

“Alexei Kilodovich,” said Vasili, “is the most dangerous thing we made. Babushka has been searching for it — from mind to mind. She asks: Where is Kilodovich. Can you blame me for wishing his death?”

“You play both sides,” said Kolyokov. “A double agent. Is that what I am to believe?”

“Believe what you want.”

“Okay. I believe you are a snake who will do whatever suits you. I leave you tied.”

“Wait!” He looked to Leo then. “You! Untie me! Tell him!”

Leo sat up. “You tried to kill Alexei?” He went over to Vasili. He leaned over him. Alexei was, after all, Leo Montassini’s soulmate. Or something. “You motherfuck,” he said and clocked him. Vasili Borovich went out like a light.

Leo went back and sat beside Heather. He looked at her and she looked at him. Finally, he said: “Is, uh, Heather in there?”

Heather’s eyes blinked. “She is watching television,” said Kolyokov through her.

“Right.” Leo crossed his arms and looked out the window. “Television.”

“She is a dear child,” said Kolyokov.

“She’s a grown woman.”

“Inside,” said Kolyokov, “she’s a child.”

“You tryin’ to warn me off?”

“It would do no good.”

“Fuckin’ right.”

Kolyokov snorted through Heather’s nostrils. He sidled up close to Leo, who shuddered but didn’t move away.

“Did I ever tell you,” said Kolyokov, “of the time we went to war against the Americans?”

The Imperial Navy of New Pokrovskoye stretched in a line south from the Empire’s main port. The Navy was expecting attack. It had been warned of this through its network of spies — that there would be a lethal strike against New Pokrovskoye and that it would come from the water.

From an old enemy who dwelt in a fabulous city at the bottom of the ocean.

It could come at any time. That was the word from the Admiralty. So the Navy prepared itself.

Fishing boats that had dragged nets behind them to feed the Imperial leadership these many years were mounted with harpoons and guns. Crew were given rifles and submachine guns from a cache in the back of the museum. They lined the edges, peering down — on a silent vigil, watching for the attack from beneath.

Miles Shute, who had once captained the guard of a great, black tower — a hotel in Manhattan — and was now a midshipman on the Aleksandr Shabalin — a forty-three-foot tuna boat — ran his hand over the stubble of hair on his scalp. The rest of the crew here were doing exactly as they were told — just watching down, watching for the thing from below. That was, he understood, how they were raised — how they were made to work.

Miles took a different view toward his servitude.

He had experience watching for attack — it was trained in him as surely as was his life in New Pokrovskoye, his fealty to the Babushka, when he guarded the

Tower in the South in a different life — a different land.

He had hated his old master there — Fyodor Kolyokov, the devil in brine. But he had taught him some things, particularly when it came to standing guard. Anybody could watch for attacks from the front. Miles should be aware of the side, the rear, above. All directions. Leave the obvious weaknesses for others. You — look in unexpected places.

So Miles did. He looked up, at the grey morning sky, with a threat of rain. He looked to the north, where they were coming from — sighting on the diminishing nub of the lighthouse that guided ships to port in New Pokrovskoye. From there? No.

He walked across the pitching deck of the Aleksandr Shabalin, pushing past two of the older hands. One of them — Makar — bore a bandage across his scalp, from a fight last night that he would not speak of in any detail. He stood with Orlovsky, the old man whose daughter had died last night. Both stared to the east, sparing him the barest gaze for not doing likewise.

Miles turned his attention to the west — to the rocky, barren shoreline of this land. They were maybe a half-mile out from a tiny isthmus that pushed into the sea, and it looked deserted, like the virgin country it must have been before the settlers who founded New Pokrovskoye came here, and turned a village into an empire.

It was barren. But as he listened, he could hear echoing from the rocks and the water the hum of a motor. It did not sound like the sort of motor Imperial New Pokrovskoye employed in its navy.

Miles tapped another man he didn’t know well on the shoulder and pointed. That one shrugged him off, so Miles moved along — first one, then another, each ignoring Miles as the motor grew louder. Finally he stopped and looked again — for the craft had rounded the rock and he could see it for what it was: a fast-moving little cabin cruiser. At least, someone had built it to look like a cabin cruiser. It was maybe thirty-five feet — but judging from the speed it moved at, it came with a powerful engine. And that wasn’t the only modification. On its fore deck, where normally one might find a dinghy, there was something else.

It was a deck-mounted machinegun. It looked to Miles like an M2HB. Fifty calibre. A brown tarpaulin flapped around its base in the wind. Miles snatched a pair of binoculars from a mate standing near him. The man swore, but Miles didn’t care. He focussed them on the boat.

“Oh shit,” he said to no one — because no one was listening.

The gun was manned.

And it was swivelling in their direction.