Red Devil (Dangerous Spirits) (25 page)

He had planned to say more about leaving the apartment, but Sol and Meg both jumped in at the same time with an emphatic “No!”

“I have to!” Alexei said.

“You belong here.” Sol stabbed a finger down at the table. “I mean, if you wanna go because I yelled at you…well, I said I’m sorry.”

“It is not that.” He breathed in and let the breath out slowly. “Sometimes we must give up something precious for those we love.”

“That’s—it makes sense, but—” Sol shook his head. “You can’t just stop being gay.”

“I can stop behaving gay.”

The room fell so silent that Alexei could hear workers talking on the construction site, where no trucks or cranes were running. “You know,” Sol said, his ears back, “that’s exactly the sort of shit that the VLGA tells cubs not to fall for. The whole ‘deny what you are and act straight.’ That’s probably what he wanted Niki to do. That’s why Niki ran away from him.”

“I am…bound to him,” Alexei said softly. There was a twisted kind of caring in Konstantin’s determination to change Alexei’s life. Alexei’s natural father had wanted his son to be straight so that the town would not ridicule them; Konstantin wanted Alexei to be straight so that his life would have meaning—as Konstantin saw it. “He wants my life to be...”

“What, normal? Screw him,” Sol snapped. “What does it matter to him? He’s just trying to fuck you up the same way he fucked up his own son. We’ll help you fight him.”

“Listen, fox.” Meg leaned toward him. “What Sol’s saying here is that we’d rather have you living with us and trying not to be gay than have you out there on your own. We care about you.”

“But you shouldn’t try to not be gay.” Sol’s voice had a deep growl at the back of it.

Alexei had rarely heard that from him. It reminded him of Sol’s father, but he thought this was not the moment to bring up the comparison. He lay his ears back. “He watches me,” he said.

Silence fell over the table. Athos perked his ears and lifted his nose, while Meg and Sol glanced back and forth to either side. “Like…right now?” Sol said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Does he watch you in the bathroom?” Meg asked. “Because then he’s a pervert.”

“He doesn’t watch me all the time,” Alexei said. “But he knows about Cat’s letter. And he knew when I was on the date with Mike.”

“Jesus,” Sol said under his breath.

“It was the same for you.” Alexei looked up at him.

The black wolf shifted. “That was different,” he said, and looked over at Athos. “It was only once.”

Athos smiled. “All these years of finding nobody who had really seen a ghost, and now two of you.”

“They haven’t really seen a ghost,” Meg snapped.

“I thought you believed.” Sol folded his arms, his tail smacking the cupboard under the sink.

“I believe,” she said, pointing at Alexei, “that foxy here is in a bad way over something he thinks is happening. And I’m happy to help him deal with whatever he thinks is going on. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of having the mystical goddamn universe shoved in my face, it’s that there is always a logical explanation for everything.”

Athos leaned toward her. “But doesn’t the possibility of something supernatural excite you? Just a bit?”

“No,” Meg said. “It makes me fucking worried is what it does. So can we just agree that we’ll stay with Alexei, and if he has an episode of whatever the hell is bothering him, we’ll be there to help him deal with it and objectively tell him that there are no such things as ghosts?”

Sol met Alexei’s eyes, and in the bright green, Alexei saw brotherhood, belief, and trust. For the first time that evening, he managed a small smile. “I would be glad to have your company,” he said, and to himself he added,
until the moment I must leave.

“Right, then,” Meg said, and got up. “I’ve got a ritual we can do. Let’s play Uno and see if this Siberian ghost cares about card games.”

Chapter 30

As Nikolai grew, I watched him, eager to see signs of Mariya in him. His nurse remained with us, luckily, as Mariya’s family did not grow closer to us after the funeral. On one occasion when I sacrificed my dignity and pleaded with Mariya’s mother to come see her grandson, she turned up her nose and hurried away, and her maidservant reprimanded me for bringing up the name of her dearest departed daughter.

I understood that they hated this coarse soldier with no proper family, that they blamed me for Mariya’s death and that dear Nikolai was but a reminder to them of the daughter they had lost. Nikolai liked to play at hiding under couches with his tail peeking out, a game in which his nurse or I would catch his tail and he would squeal with delight. On the rare occasions when Mariya’s family could not escape their obligation to visit, Nikolai tried to play with them. But even when he would switch his tail below their seats, begging them to catch it, they remained unmoved. He was a painful reminder, because he was not theirs, but belonged to that same coarse soldier.

And yet Nikolai showed little of his father. He took after his mother, gregarious and happy, always smiling. If I could have changed one thing about him, then, it would have been to share with him my love for the army and the service to Siberia. He attended practices under sufferance when young, with polite restraint when a little older, because he was not allowed to talk to the soldiers during drills. Many of them broke rules to speak to him anyway, he was so difficult to resist, and yet my son far preferred mealtimes, when the soldiers were free to converse. He showed no interest in joining their occupation, but professed to love dancing, and I allowed him to study it, because it had a noble Siberian history, and because his teacher told me he excelled.

He worked hard to make friends with the noble cubs he attended school with, although his relationship to me hurt him in that regard. Only one cub, a bear, became a regular visitor to our house, and he often pulled Nikolai out to the town, to the coffee shops and markets. I could not deny him that pleasure, even as he grew older and began to visit those places by himself.

The friends he brought home were less frequently his age and more often in their later teens, young intellectuals who scorned me with their eyes when Nikolai cautioned them against speaking their true feelings. They were dancers and students and writers, not one of them an honest worker. A builder, a carpenter, those I would have respected. Even a groomer does work with his—or her—paws, where these friends of Nikolai’s sat and drank coffee and vodka and pretended that their dreams were meaningful. They were bad sorts, unreliable and flighty, and I knew they would put him in danger.

What sort of danger, Papa? he asked, and only when he was thirteen did I tell him the story of his blood-related grandparents, of how they too had fallen in with the wrong sorts of people and had dreamed of revolution rather than working to appreciate the land and the Tsar they had. I told him that I had been granted a miraculous chance by Vasily’s benevolent nature, a chance that I was sharing with him, and I pleaded with him not to waste it.

He said that the chance was his to do with as he pleased, and he was trying to improve both our lives. He asked whether my life would not be better if I were allowed to rise to the ranks held only by tigers, or if I were permitted to hold land which now was reserved for the nobles. Many of my peers had purchased a small farm and negotiated with the peasants on it for their income, but I felt that would provide too much distraction, what with worrying over the harvest and traveling to the land. I told Nikolai that the Semenovsky Guards had already improved my life immeasurably. How many people had the chance that Vasily had given me, he asked. How could a just society allow some of its people to know nothing but suffering while others enjoyed the fruits of their labors?

Because, I told him, people are born to their lives, and when people are allowed to choose their destinies, a nation falls into chaos. The Tsar, I told him, is as bound to his life as we are. He shook his head at the mention of the Tsar, and said he was an aristocrat who knew nothing of the real Siberia. At those words, which I knew were not his own but parroted from his friends, I cuffed him as Vasily would have done. Only rather than straightening and accepting his punishment, as I would have, he cowered, and hurt shone out of his bright green eyes.

There was one friend in particular, a bear who recited poetry, and Nikolai was very affectionate with him. He sat close to him in our parlor, often put a paw upon him in laughter or concern, and smiled at the mildest witticism. The poetry rankled me, amateurish and sloppy, and yet Nikolai hung on every word. For my son’s sake, I tolerated this pretentious fool, until one particular evening.

It was summer, and I had returned home from a difficult but honorable week, sent to attend to Nicholas II at the summer palace in relief of the Preobrazhensky Guards, who were being given the time off. I had performed well, but had become disturbed at what I had seen of the Tsarevich. He had gained nothing of the strength or determination of his father and grandfather; rather, he continued to favor his wife’s family, preferring conversation to decision, etiquette to action. The guards I spoke to and the ministers I overheard all said that it was a good thing the Tsar remained in fine health, for Nicholas was coming into his birthright more slowly than anyone had expected. Blame lay with Alexander, for allowing him the space to chart his own course and for not insisting that he become part of the government with his father.

When I returned home, wishing only to see my son and embrace him, I found him on a chaise with his head on the thigh of the bear, who was writing in a notebook. At my appearance, Nikolai did not look up, but the bear did, and regarded me with a smirk. He proceeded to recite a poem that mocked the guard, mocked the Tsar, and held them up as outdated puppets in a show with no audience.

I did not let him finish, but told Nikolai to escort him from our house. When my son sat up, looking mutinous, I promised to evict this bear by force if necessary. Niki pleaded his case, saying it would do me good to hear what he said, but I told him I had heard enough.

That night, I told him he was no longer to visit the coffee houses, but that he would attend me at the Guards and train to be a soldier himself. He had enough strength not to cry; if he had, I might have relented, or I might have cuffed him harder for his weakness. But had I thought then what I suspected later, that he went to hide his sorrows in the self-styled poet’s arms…I might have locked him in his room and never let him out, not even to become a soldier.

Chapter 31

He stands in front of a decrepit, empty house on a street down which ragged grey leaves blow in the cold wind. The houses to either side are smaller, the ruin more complete in them, as though decay had whetted its appetite on smaller meals and was only now beginning to tackle the main course.

A central arch rises three stories in the center of the house facing him, white stone against the ochre of the walls. It is merely decorative, as the wall continues both inside the arch and out, but it is imposing nonetheless. White trim defines the large windows inside the arch as well as the smaller ones outside it. To the right of the arch, the house rises two more stories to a pointed roof, and on the right corner a circular tower room ends in a sharp green point. To the left of the arch rise two more stories in a large block beneath two chimneys, one of which has mostly crumbled.

Only half the windows are intact. The roof on the left hand side of the house is missing so many of its pure black shingles that the few remaining ones appear to be a blight on the underlying wood. And in front of Alexei, the door hangs from its top hinge, askew in the frame. Beyond it, the darkness smells of rot and mold.

But it is the decoration on the door that freezes him, holds him in place in the chill wind as leaves rattle around his ankles. Carved into the dark wood is a relief of a tiger, and though the pose is different, Alexei knows that it is the tiger whose statue chased him around the courtyard in his last dream.

This time, it does not move. He is afraid to run lest it chase him; he is afraid to approach lest it come to life and pounce. His tail wraps around his legs and he tightens his arms around his chest, rocking back and forth.

The relief becomes the focus of his attention, so much so that he does not see at first the shape behind the door. Then Konstantin steps in front of the relief, appearing to materialize out of it, and Alexei is badly startled, enough that he jumps and his dream-tail bristles out behind him.

I have found your Chichikov,
the older fox says, advancing on Alexei.

Alexei’s heart pounds from the initial surprise, but it does not calm down. He has the sense that the tiger is waiting behind Konstantin or inside him.
I know,
he says
. He called Cat. He will be rescuing her.

The skies overhead thicken with clouds, darkening as Konstantin’s expression does
. I did not tell him to call her,
he says.
He is not a good person.

Not good?
A gust of leaves blow against Alexei’s muzzle. He flinches.
How, not good? You promised to help her.

Not this way. He has…
The fox pauses
. Bad thoughts. Harmful thoughts.

Is he going to hurt her?
Alexei finds his footing, takes a step forward. His body thrums with the rage he felt at Kendall, a thousand times fiercer.
You have to protect her.

This Chichikov takes laudanum, or some such. He does not dream. I cannot reach him. I can see the thoughts in his head like scum on the water, but it is frozen; I cannot step inside.

You promised!

Alexei runs forward two steps and raises a fist before the fox, intending to strike the bright gold sash that hangs loose, the spotless red collar. Konstantin glowers down and the world darkens further.
You will not strike me,
he says
. It is not your place.

My place is with my sister. You betrayed us!

I did not!
The dream-voice echoes in Alexei’s head so hard he thinks it will burst open. He clutches his temples and staggers back.

Konstantin follows him, shadow growing. The wind howls, the clouds descend. The top of the house is no longer visible. A low growl comes from the wood as the wind batters it, pushing at the heavy door.
I am trying to help
you.
You have no understanding of family, of what it means to be loyal to someone. You will do your sister more good by learning to respect your family than by infecting her with your scorn.

My father was a drunk!
Alexei shouts back at Konstantin
. My mother vicious and cruel!

And you never thought to ask why. You never thought you could help them.

He repeats what Rozalina told him once, so long ago.
It is not my job to help them!

Shadow-fingers reach down to his shoulders, grasping them with cold ice. They do not feel like real fingers, but more like the ghost-sword of the tiger statue. Konstantin’s broad muzzle looms inches from his.
When Nicholas was growing, he disappointed his father on many occasions. He was not strong, forceful; he was weak and would sooner sit at court with his mother’s relatives than learn to rule the country. Alexander allowed this because he loved his son, because he did not see it as betrayal. I did not see it. None of Siberia saw it until Nicholas became the Tsar
.

Alexei raises his arms to try to break the shadow-fox’s hold, but he has only enough strength to twist his shoulders back and forth.
And what did you do? Did you follow him anyway? Your beloved Tsar?
He intends the words to be a taunt, but they falter in the face of the stormclouds.

Yes!
Konstantin’s eyes, dark and haunted, bore into Alexei’s until the young fox feels their chill in his heart.
Because the tsars had taken me in, and they were my family. I owed them my loyalty and I gave them all of it. It did not matter that they were not what I wanted them to be, what Siberia needed them to be. I stood by them. I did not flee to Lutèce, as many of the aristocracy did later.

You should have
, Alexei says because he is thinking it, and in this dream the line between thought and speech is blurred.
You should have saved yourself
.

What good is it to save myself if my world is gone? What is my life worth if I have abandoned those who needed me?

I
needed you! You betrayed me,
Alexei says
, and I will have no more to do with you. My friend will banish you and then I will live the way I want to.

The old fox thrusts his muzzle forward, teeth bared.
You will not leave me
, he says, and his eyes, now the color of dried blood, fix Alexei and he cannot look away. The fingers holding his shoulders seem to be boring into them; ice crystallizes in his muscles, growing a lattice around his heart. Behind Konstantin, clouds have enveloped the house, and not just hidden it from view; it is the clouds that eat away at the buildings. As their tendrils snake around the turret, it crumbles, sending bricks to the ground in a muffled clatter. Grey mist steals over the roof, dissolving the last remaining shingles.

Alexei is dragged forward, toward shadow-Konstantin, and the gold sash falls aside, and the coat hangs open, and inside it there is nothing—no, wait, there is the same grey mist as the clouds. He tries to dig in his heels, but there is no purchase.

You cannot make me come with you!
he yells.
My sister needs me!

The icy fingers pull. Alexei’s resistance falters. Konstantin says,
She is beyond your help. Come,
lisenok
.

That is more chilling than the ice in his chest, the cold breath on his whiskers. But Alexei feels the ghost’s insistence, and he knows he cannot resist for much longer.
I am not your son! I am not Niki!

He shouts it desperately, because his paws are beginning to go numb, and the flaps of the coat hang around his nose, and the scent he breathes is old earth, old blood, old sorrow. What will happen if he is drawn into the coat he does not know, and does not wish to discover.

But it is Konstantin’s turn to falter. He breathes a word across Alexei’s ears:
Nikolai…
His breath is warmer, or perhaps Alexei’s ears are colder. But the pull stops, and Alexei wrenches his shoulders to one side, losing his balance, but Konstantin’s arm is there to catch him, and it is warm and solid and real—