The Romanov Legacy (5 page)

“
Dobryi dyehn
,” Olga replied, smiling in spite of
herself.  On this hot July day, the boy wore a scarf wound twice around
his neck.  “You are dressed for snow, Filipp Feodorovich.”

His eyes remained on the floor.  “Y-yes, your—”

“Olga,” she interrupted.  People who referred to them
by their titles usually earned a beating from the guards.  She glanced
toward the far end of the drawing room where Anastasia and Marie sat on the
floor, playing a card game.  Marie looked up when she felt her gaze and
nodded. 

“Here is the basket, Filipp,” Olga said, putting her Bible
down.  “Please thank the nuns for their kindness.  Their love reminds
us that hope is not lost, as does your kindness in bringing us their gifts.”

“T-thank you,” Filipp mumbled.  He reached out to grab
the handle, and when his hand brushed Olga’s, she gasped. 

“Filipp!  You’re freezing!”

“Y-yes, your—I mean, yes.  I do not feel well. 
Yesterday I was sweating all day, and today I shiver no matter what I put on.”

A knife twisted in her heart as she realized this boy’s
illness was heaven-sent.  “Filipp,” she said softly, coming closer to
him.  “I need your help.  Are you able to do something for me?”

“Of course, your—”

“Good.” Olga smiled, brushing the boy’s floppy hair from his
eyes.  “My sister and I trust in you, Filipp.  You mustn’t let the
soldiers search the basket today.  If they try and take it from you, you
must cough or sneeze and tell them you visited someone in the influenza ward of
the nunnery.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Tell them the person died, and that you are ill, now, too.”

The boy wiped his nose with his hand, and nodded. 

“I have to tell you a secret, Filipp.”  She leaned in
next to him, breathing in the smell of straw and horse that twined itself in
his hair.  “Hidden in this basket are two letters from my sister and I to
our friends outside. We’ve told them a secret in these letters, but we’ve left
out one important part.  I need you to write that part down before you
send these letters.” 

Filipp’s dark eyes shone with excitement and fever. 
“Of course, miss.  What should I write on them?”

Olga whispered in his ear the words that the Tsar, her
father, had made them all swear never to reveal.  They meant nothing to
Filipp.  His eyes looked back at her, unaware and unblinking.  “Is
that all, miss?” he said.

“No, my dear, that is not all.  Once you have done this
for us, you must forget what I have told you, every word of it.”  She bit
her lip; it was very likely the fever would do this for him.  If he spoke
a word of this, his ravings could be blamed on his illness.

“You can trust me, miss.”

“I know I can,” she whispered, feeling the tears catch in
her throat.  It seemed this boy was the only one she could trust in all of
Russia.  These sweet, simple souls were the ones who would be hurt most by
the Bolsheviks and there was nothing her family could do to stop it.  They
would never leave this house again; she knew it.  She had imagined
hundreds of times how it might feel to be shot, stabbed, poisoned, bludgeoned,
suffocated or drowned.  When it finally happened, it would be a relief.

Filipp sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his
hand.  She bent in close and brushed her lips against his cheek. 
“This is for you,” she whispered, slipping a ring from her finger and dropping
it into his jacket pocket.  “Go with God, Filipp Feodorovich.”

July 2012

San Francisco, California

The night was strangely quiet, without the usual cacophony
of honks and sirens that came with living near a hospital.  Natalie pulled
the covers over her head and listened for the wail of the St. Luke’s
ambulance.  The Mission was filled with people who were broken in some
way; she envied the ones the doctors were able to fix.

Beth hadn’t called her since the press conference, held more
than two days ago.  She still didn’t know if Beth had read her cue cards
as Natalie wrote them or winged it to avoid mentioning the tsar’s missing
fortune.  To top it off, Belial was restless, shuffling his feet and
twitching his wings. 
Something’s going to happen tonight
, he
said. 
I don’t think you should sleep.

“I want to sleep,” she grumbled, shoving her head beneath
the pillow.  “Leave me alone.”

She imagined her sister, breathless and red-faced, trying to
read ahead on the cue cards and skip over the part about Marie’s letter and the
password.  The chancellor would have been there, along with Beth’s
department chair.  Natalie imagined them shaking their heads at Beth’s
disappointing performance.  It made her stomach feel like Swiss cheese,
eaten through by a metaphysical rat.
 
“Beth, I’m sorry,” she
whispered.  “I don’t know why I did it.”

Finally, she heard the St. Luke’s ambulance roar down
Valencia.  Red and white light spilled through her blinds and she thought
about all the reasons people called for help in the middle of the night: 
gunshot wound, heart attack, trouble breathing.  “Save them,” she
said.  “Please.”  It was the closest she could come to a prayer.

Belial fluttered his wings one last time to try and keep her
awake.  The rippling feathers brushed her brain, delivering stings like
jellyfish tentacles. 
It’s coming
, he said.

Let it
, she thought, pushing the pain down into the
blackest part of her soul. 
I don’t care anymore.

*

She woke with a hand clamped over her mouth.  Her eyes
flew open and she struggled, but something held her down.  “I won’t hurt
you,” a male voice whispered.  “But I need you to be quiet.  Nod your
head if you understand.”

As her eyes adjusted, she saw a pale face, blue eyes, and
short, gelled blond hair.  A black turtleneck covered his torso and black
gloves his hands.  He seemed to blend into the air, and she couldn’t see
past him or around him.    

Belial’s smug voice filtered through the fog in her brain.
 I told you so.

She nodded, forcing her dry throat to swallow, and the man
pulled his hand from her face.  “Who are you?” she asked.  “What do
you want?”

“I need you to come with me now.” 

“No.”

“I’m not here to harm you, Miss Brandon.  I promise.”

“I have a gun,” she lied.

“So do I.”  He smiled and pulled a Walther P99 from his
holster. 

“Shit.”  A wave of panic threatened to sweep her away
and she took a deep breath to stay in control.  “How do you know my name?”

“Come with me and I’ll tell you.”

“I can’t go anywhere with you.  I don’t even know who
you are.”

“My name is Constantine.”

“Like the Roman emperor?”

“Like my grandfather.”  He pointed the gun at
her.  “Now get up.”

“No.”

“I don’t want to shoot you, Miss Brandon. 
Please.” 

She looked into his eyes, two right triangles each with an
eyelid for a hypotenuse.  Their narrow shape made it look like he was
squinting, as if he’d grown up shielding his eyes from the sun.  “You
wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t like it,” he agreed, a faint smile curling his
lips.  “But I’d do it.” 

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s not my problem.”  He pulled back on the
pistol’s slide to chamber a round.  “Get out of the bed before I—” 
He stopped in mid-sentence and swung his gun to the front door.

Belial shifted his feet. 
You have visitors, little
one.

Constantine’s eyes flashed wildly around her apartment and
he pointed to the window.  “Go.  Use the fire escape.”

“Maybe it’s the police,” she said softly. 

“The police would have knocked,” he said dryly. 
“Whoever it is isn’t here to help you.  If you come with me, I promise I
won’t let anything happen to you.  Do you believe me?”

He held the gun lightly in his hands, like someone who’d
used it many times before.  A keloid scar traced its way across his right
thumb, as if someone had tried to cut it off.  Natalie realized that
whoever he was, he knew how to survive.  “Yes,” she said as her front door
splintered under a burst of machine gun fire.

Constantine squeezed off four quick rounds as Natalie leapt
out of bed.  She threw open the window and clambered onto the fire escape
with Constantine moving quickly behind her.  The metal was cold beneath
her bare feet and she hesitated.  Constantine picked her up and put her
feet on the rickety steel ladder.  “Go!” he yelled.  “Hurry!”

A bullet shattered her window, raining glass shards over
both of them.  Natalie swore and scuttled down the ladder.  When she
reached the last step, she looked down—the ground lay a full six feet beneath
her.  Broken glass and cigarette butts dotted the cracked sidewalk below. 
She looked up at Constantine.  “I can’t do it!” she cried.

Constantine stopped several rungs above her.  “Just put
your hands on the last rung.”

“I can’t!”

He swore in Russian, blue eyes blazing.  “There are men
with guns coming after us.  Are you going to jump or do I have to throw
you?”

Go on, jump
, Belial urged. 
I’ll catch you.

“The hell you will,” Natalie hissed.  She worked her
hands down to the bottom rung until she squatted on it like a frog.  In
her mind, she visualized a gymnast’s graceful descent from the uneven
bars.  Then a bullet flew past her ear and she panicked.  Her fingers
lost their grip and she landed in a heap on the ground like a baby giraffe
falling out of the womb. 

Constantine jumped and landed gracefully beside her. 
He reached for her hand and pulled her up.  She pressed a hand to her
spine, which suddenly felt two inches shorter.  “Who are those
people?  What do they want?” 

“You,” he answered.  Then his eyes flew wide and he
knocked her to the ground.  His weight pressed her into the filthy asphalt
and she struggled for breathing room until she heard a bullet strike the ground
near her feet.  Constantine lifted his arm and fired.  Natalie heard
a grunt and the sound of slack flesh striking pavement. 

Constantine’s frame stiffened as he took aim once
more.  He pulled the trigger but this time, nothing happened.  “
Bliad
,”
he swore, tossing the gun away.  He jumped to his feet to face their
second attacker, advancing on them with a pistol. 

Natalie looked up in time to see him bare his teeth and hurl
himself at the man with the gun.  “No!” she screamed.  “What are you
doing?”

Belial twitched his wings, agitated. 
It wasn’t
supposed to happen like this.
 

Constantine and the attacker formed a tumbleweed of limbs as
they struggled for control of the gun.  They butted up against the body of
the first man Constantine had killed, rolling through a puddle of his
blood. 

Constantine scooped up a handful of the blood and flung it
in the other man’s eyes.  The attacker cried out and Constantine freed his
arm just long enough to punch the man in the ribs. The blow wasn’t strong
enough, though—the attacker grabbed Constantine’s free arm and used the awkward
balance point to push Constantine onto his back. 

Natalie sat up quickly, looking around for help.  Her
heartbeat echoed inside her skull, quick and light, like the flap of a
hummingbird’s wings. 
I could run
, she thought. 
Just let
them kill each other
.  “Belial, what do I do?”

Deus summus salvator
, he answered.

It was the Emperor Constantine’s fourth-century battle cry.
 “Fuck, I knew you were going to say that.”  She gulped and watched
Constantine roll the attacker over.  He extended the other man’s arm
forcefully, slamming his wrist against the pavement to break his grip. 
Natalie saw her opportunity and crawled closer, reaching for the gun.

The attacker saw her and twisted his wrist so that the
muzzle pointed straight at her head.

“
Nyet
!” Constantine roared, raising his right elbow
and smashing it into the man’s nose.  Natalie heard the man’s skull
splinter with a sharp crack.  He howled in pain, blood streaming from his
broken appendage.  Before she could stop him, Constantine wrenched the gun
from the man’s loosened grip and shot him in the head.

Natalie screamed as plum-colored foam and blood spewed from
the man’s temple.  Lumpy and steaming, it smelled like freshly ground
pepper.  The scent stung her eyes and made them water.  “Jesus,” she
whispered. 

He isn’t here, little one
, Belial said. 
That’s
the problem.

She looked up at Constantine, spattered with blood and
standing over the body like a Biblical warrior.  “I’m in big trouble,
aren’t I?” she said.

July 2012

San Francisco, California

Constantine took the dead man’s gun, slid it through his
waistband, and moved to retrieve his own, replacing it in his holster. 
“Get up,” he said.  “These men don’t travel in pairs.”

“But they’re dead,” Natalie said, blinking back tears. 
“Shouldn’t we do something?”

“Like what?  Carve a headstone?”  He squatted next
to one of the bodies and peered at its insignia patch, a sword covered by a
blue diamond.  “
Yebat
,” he said.  “This man is Vympel.”
 Then he moved his gaze to her scraped legs.  “Can you walk?” 

“Yes.”  She rubbed her arms to ward off the chill night
air.  “But it’s cold.  I want to go back and get some clothes.”

“It’s not safe.  Come on.”  He took her hand and
pulled her out of the alley toward the street.  She followed as quickly as
she could, every step jarring her bones.  First the fall, then the body
slam into the pavement…Belial didn’t appreciate any of it.  He let his
wings flutter, zinging her brain with white-hot brush strokes of pain. 
Belial,
please
, she thought.  
Not now.