Into the Flame (21 page)
She barely twitched; the spark of life was almost gone, vanquished by the bone-biting cold and her lack of air.
Working blind, he ran his hands up her until he came to her head. Seaweed. Giant kelp wrapped itself around her, holding her prisoner, stealing her life. A sticky blade had insinuated itself in her hair. A rubbery strand grasped her around the neck. There by her throat, the strange glow pulsed, then faded, like some indicator of her life force.
No. He wouldn’t allow her to go.
Frantically, he ripped at the seaweed, fighting the currents, the blistering iciness.
A huge swell lifted him out of the water.
The kelp held her without mercy, uncaring.
He held the seaweed, caught his breath, and dove down again, fumbling with the knife he carried at his belt. His fingers were clumsy, his skin burning, his nerves frozen.
He wouldn’t go up again without her. If he couldn’t free her, they would die together.
Desperately, he hacked at her hair, at the seaweed that carelessly tangled the seaborne beacon and Firebird’s throat in its cruel, inhuman grasp.
Another wave caught him. He held tightly to her— and with the strength of that mighty current, she was free.
Hanging her over his shoulder, he shot to the surface.
Gasping, he held her against his body and pressed on her chest.
Nothing.
He did it again.
Come on, princess. Come on!
Come on, princess. Come on!
She spasmed. Coughed. Threw up half the ocean.
A bullet plunked into the water near them.
For a brief second, a surge of anger warmed him. Then he glanced up. The Varinskis were still shooting, but the bullets were falling short—because a rip-tide was sweeping them out to sea.
They were doomed.
Chapter Eighteen
The Varinski home
In the
Ukraine
In the
Ukraine
‘‘Get out of the house. Get out now.’’ Vadim Varinski spoke softly, but with an intensity that should have reached every one of his cousins and brothers. ‘‘It’s time.’’
Of course, some of them didn’t pay attention, didn’t hear, didn’t understand.
He didn’t care. The ones who were too drunk or too stupid were of no use to him anyway. ‘‘Get out,’’ he repeated, but his voice grew softer.
‘‘Let me help you.’’ Georgly stood beside him, taller than Vadim, broader than Vadim, intelligent, resourceful, and, most important, completely and blindly loyal to Vadim. ‘‘You can finish in half the time if I help.’’
Vadim thought for only a moment, then nodded. ‘‘You take the back. Make sure you cover the exits, and be out in’’—Vadim consulted his watch— ‘‘three minutes.’’
‘‘Right.’’ Georgly shoved at Mikhail. ‘‘Get in the bus.’’
Mikhail was a big, shambling Russian bear of a man, not bright, not handsome, not even completely human—he grew a pelt of black hair down his neck, onto his shoulders, down his arms, and onto the backs of his hands. He shrugged off Georgly’s manhandling, a big grin plastered on his moon face. ‘‘I’ve never ridden on an airplane before. I can’t wait.’’
‘‘I can’t wait, either,’’ Vadim said. The faster he could get the job done, the better.
Over the last few weeks, he’d been slowly moving his men out of the house, out of the country, and placing them in position for the assault on the Wilders. Today, the last plane he’d chartered waited at the airstrip. None of these Varinskis realized it, but when they boarded and flew away, they would never return to the mother country. Vadim had decided it was time to move forward. He’d eliminated the old uncles—only one Varinski over forty remained alive. He’d transferred their assets to a Swiss bank, taking care that he and he alone should know the account codes. And he’d arranged to buy a huge old house in
Wyoming
that the Varinskis would now call home.
Wyoming
that the Varinskis would now call home.
He himself had a condo in
New York City
.
New York City
.
Only one detail was left to clear up.
Picking up the gas cans, he started into the house.
The Varinski homestead was entirely made of wood. It was old. It was sagging. It was rotting.
Gas fumes rose to his nose as he liberally doused the floorboards.
It was going to go up like a torch.
He hurried; this job needed to be done quickly, and it needed to be done right. Because right now, Uncle Ivan lay facedown on the floor in the den, snoring loudly, and only one thing could wake him up—if someone tried to remove the bottle of vodka from his fist.
Vadim had no intention of doing that.
Only to himself did Vadim admit how much Uncle Ivan, with his gnarled joints and staring white eyes, made his skin crawl. Of course, it wasn’t really Uncle Ivan who disturbed him. It was the thing that dwelled inside Uncle Ivan, watching the Varinski operations through those blind eyes. Only once since Vadim had taken over as leader had the beast taken possession of Uncle Ivan’s body. Only once had Vadim seen Uncle Ivan’s white eyes glow blue, and heard the deep, menacing tones of a devil displeased.
Because it
was
the devil. The devil who felt that, because he had granted the pact to the first Konstantine, he had the right to disapprove of Vadim’s plans.
was
the devil. The devil who felt that, because he had granted the pact to the first Konstantine, he had the right to disapprove of Vadim’s plans.
Vadim didn’t give a shit about that feeble old pact. The pact was disintegrating right before his eyes. Varinski boys grew up to be predators, all right: weasels, snakes, rats. . . . Who was going to hire a fearsome badger as an assassin?
No one.
Worse, half the boys were drooling idiots, incapable of scratching their own asses.
Those were the ones he left in the house to burn and never bother him again.
If the Evil One imagined that by granting old Konstantinethe pact, he could exact he’d given Vadim a great gift and claim great loyalty, he had another think coming. Vadim had studied American society, studied the organized crime that thrived there, and he was dragging the family into legitimate corruption.
He didn’t need Lucifer anymore.
As he made his way back toward the front door, he glanced into the den.
A square of sunlight from the east-facing window illuminated Uncle Ivan, still unconscious, unaware of the fate that awaited him. Vadim supposed it was a shame, really—the old guy was going to suffer, while the devil would be in his element.
Vadim gave the threshold an extra-large splash of gasoline.
Uncle Ivan snuffled. He lifted his head. ‘‘Who’s there?’’ he snapped.
Vadim froze.
The old guy looked around the room as if he could see, and for a moment, Vadim thought his gaze lingered on him, and on the gas can. But when no one answered, Uncle Ivan took a long swallow of vodka, his skinny old Adam’s apple bobbing. He belched, dropped his head back down, and was still.
Slowly, carefully, Vadim backed away from the den. When he reached the porch, he dumped the last dribble of gasoline around the outside of the den, beneath the windows, and down on the rickety steps. Uncle Ivan would not escape this conflagration.
Stepping away, Vadim flung a lighted match on the damp wood.
The house ignited with a whoosh. Greedily, the flames ate the boards. Fire danced under the windows, into the open front door, down the corridor.
Vadim heard the first shout, and Georgly ran around the corner, his face blackened with soot, his eyebrows burned off. ‘‘You said three minutes.’’ He shook his watch in Vadim’s face. ‘‘Not two minutes and forty seconds. What the hell’s the matter with you? You almost killed me!’’
‘‘Oops.’’ Vadim shrugged with patently false innocence. ‘‘My mistake.’’
Georgly growled, the guttural growl of an angry tiger.
Vadim turned his head and looked at Georgly. Just looked.
But Georgly slunk backward.
Vadim never changed into the predator the pact allowed him to become. He wouldn’t permit the devil to control him, yet he had a gift. He made people afraid. He always had. And that was power.
‘‘If you’re going with me, get on the bus,’’ Vadim said.
‘‘Of course I’m going with you. I’m your right-hand man. As if I would stay without you!’’ Georgly protested.
‘‘I thought you would feel that way.’’ Vadim waved a hand toward the Varinski homestead, engulfed in flames. ‘‘Because what’s going to be left?’’
Yells and shrieks wafted from inside the house. The Varinski idiots were burning.
The windows on the bus were all down. His men watched, and even from here, Vadim could hear them muttering, could sense their confusion. Right now, the fear of him hadn’t yet settled in, and some of them wondered if they should mutiny against the man who would burn their home and their brothers.
‘‘Get on the bus,’’ Vadim told Georgly. ‘‘Keep the men under control.’’
Georgly hurried to do as Vadim instructed, then paused. ‘‘When are you coming?’’
‘‘I’ll come when I know everything’s been taken care of.’’ Vadim smiled at the smell of burning wool and electrical wire, laughing when the flames reached one of the gas cans he’d stashed and the explosion rocked the ground. As the heat grew more intense, he backed away.
At last he saw what he’d been looking for. In the window of the den, a blazing male form pranced and whirled, screaming, trying to escape the flames.
Uncle Ivan.
Uncle Ivan tried to open the window. The glass exploded, and he screamed again.
The bus driver, a manservant whom Vadim had hired to drive them to the airstrip, leaped down the steps to puke.
The blaze climbed to new heights, licking under the porch roof, bursting through the wood shingles, igniting the huge dead tree in the side yard. Cars that were parked around the house developed blisters in their paint, and the Volvo began to smoke ominously.
From behind the house, a wild shriek sounded, and a human flame ran toward the creek, igniting the grass as he fled.
Still in the den, Uncle Ivan careened from one windowto another, screaming wordlessly. He wasn’t a man anymore, merely fuel for the fire.
Satisfied he had handled the matter, Vadim turned away and walked toward the bus. Stepping on board, he looked around at the faces, some sharp with intelligence, some dull with stupidity, some barely human, some in control of their gifts . . . all watching him with terror and awe.
Good.
He’d accomplished two deeds—he’d rid himself of Uncle Ivan and his devil, and tightened his grip on Varinski power.
He’d accomplished two deeds—he’d rid himself of Uncle Ivan and his devil, and tightened his grip on Varinski power.
He gestured Georgly out of the front seat.
Georgly gladly went.
To the bus driver, Vadim said, ‘‘Stop puking and drive, or I’ll toss you on top of the pyre.’’
The ashen-faced man did as he was told, and as they drove away, Vadim glanced one last time at the old homestead.
Uncle Ivan’s flaming figure had somehow clambered out of the house. Now he stood swaying on the porch as the roof collapsed around him. Nothing about him was recognizable. Nothing at all—except, even from this distance, Vadim could see the freakish blue glow deep in his eyes.
‘‘Take that,’’ he muttered, and saluted ironically. Then, pulling his briefcase from beneath the seat, he donned his headphones, plugged in his iPod, closed his eyes, and listened to the Reverend Dean Dowling read his audiobook,
Success Through a Better You
.
Success Through a Better You
.
Vadim failed to notice, far in the back of the bus, the freakish blue glow that flashed in two brown eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
They were going to die. Firebird knew it. The cliffs were dwindling in the distance. The current moved more and more swiftly. The wind ripped at them, and the surface waves tossed them like driftwood.
But she laughed anyway.
She was suffering from hypothermia. She knew that, too. Because otherwise she wouldn’t be giggling like the understudy for a Broadway star who’d fallen ill.
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