Episode 2 #4
Rei tilted his head back, opening his throat, and worked it around the gun. His body bucked, all air cut off, but he stayed, obedient to the end, hands gripping his own thighs, not even reaching for Sevastyan. His eyes fluttered, signaling his consciousness slipping away.
Sevastyan drew the gun out from between Rei’s teeth and released his chin. Rei folded over, catching himself on his hands, struggling to breathe quietly, tears running from his eyes, his chest heaving. Drool and salt water sparkled on the glass tile.
Sevastyan straightened up, looking at the directors. He pointed the gun at the ceiling and clicked the safety back on.
“Replace that,” Sevastyan said.
Yekta spoke. “How long did that take?”
“When Master Alexi trusts you, you might get an answer to that question,” Sevastyan said. Yes, remember, you are not the only power. Bai Hui, with his own pass to Alexi’s parties, knew better than Ruel or Yekta what Rei actually was: a passport they couldn’t replace with cash.
Yekta made a hissing sound of disappointment, then laughed. “Tell Master Alexi his student gives convincing performances.”
“As long as you think they’re performances,” Sevastyan told her, “you’ll never have an answer.”
On the floor, Rei’s body was quickly coming back under control, the spasms in his chest growing smaller.
“You are free to go,” Bai Hui said, speaking for the first time in many minutes. “Your property is no threat to the mission.”
Sevastyan gave Bai Hui a curt nod. He would have to make a note to tell Alexi of Bai Hui’s intercession.
Sevastyan clicked his fingers, turning and walking toward the door. Rei stood and followed him from the room.
In the hall where they had left their coats, Sevastyan grabbed Rei by the throat and tilted his head up, turning his face one way and then the other. “Knees. Open your mouth.”
Rei obeyed. Sevastyan pointed the light from his phone into Rei’s throat. He was red from use but there was almost no blood. He patted Rei’s cheek and put his phone away. “Can you speak?”
“Yes, Master.” Rei whispered, and broke into coughs. He went down on his hands and knees, his body jerking as he tried to suppress them.
Sevastyan reached for their coats, dressing himself first and pushing Rei’s on him as Rei managed to regain his feet.
“Will you be staying for luncheon?” one of the young women in the red dresses inquired.
“No.” Sevastyan tilted his head in her direction. “Please give my apologies to the cook. We have a flight to catch.”
She curtsied and backed away.
Sevastyan shoved his hands in his pockets and strode away. Rei fell into step just behind him, still in Sevastyan’s peripheral vision.
At least traveling in the United States would offer more privacy. Here there was not even a bathroom or a corner where he could offer Rei a moment of touch or care.
Damn the Merchari. Damn them all.
Rei
Rei embraced his silence as he followed Sevastyan back out to the cold, into the jeep, and then the waiting plane.
Sevastyan spoke only the necessities with the driver and the pilot.
Rei sank lower and lower into the dark, distant place in his mind.
His throat burned. His body was trying to shake with the aftershocks of adrenaline.
He folded himself into the seat and buckled in, his hands moving without conscious thought.
As long as they were in Merchari space, Sevastyan was forbidden to him.
If they had been with Alexi, he could have supplicated his Master for praise, comfort, or discipline, but the Merchari were barbarians.
If he had been alone with Sevastyan, he could have shattered and cried.
Survival required he do neither.
He found the silence in his bones and inhabited it, eyes fixed unseeing on his hands in his lap. And somehow, as the plane roared over the cold waters of Lake Baikal, he disappeared even to himself.
Sevastyan
The flight from Irkutsk to Kazan was over eight hours, even with a direct, private charter.
At the airport, Sevastyan sent their luggage ahead for the flight to Moscow, which would connect with the flight to Berlin that evening.
With the eight hour time-zone difference between Sakhalin Oblast and Kazan, it was still mid-afternoon when they left the airport.
Rei remained deep in his silence, his behavior flawless but without life.
There was no space to check on him. Sevastyan had to trust the deep well of Rei’s strength. Any deviation would raise questions.
At the curb outside the airport, Sevastyan flagged down a taxi and held open the back door, motioning Rei to get in before him. Rei ducked under his arm and slid across the back seat. He carried Sevastyan’s bag. “Krk Piramida,” he grunted at the driver.
The grizzled man behind the wheel of the taxi bobbed his head, not bothering to even glance in the rearview mirror to greet his passengers.
The Krk Piramida wasn’t his destination, but it was close enough to where he was going.
Shaped like a dissected and restacked pyramid, it was the foremost concert venue in Kazan.
Sevastyan watched the city flow by without truly taking it in.
He’d seen Kazan enough. It was a city with its own beauty, and they were heading into sections of the most aesthetically built-up area.
It was impossible to forget where he was.
Damn Anton for insisting on taking up residence in one of the last places Sevastyan ever wanted to be. He let his eyes drift toward Rei under the guise of watching the passing landscape.
It was dangerous for both of them. All of Russia was dangerous. Or perhaps just anywhere Raska and the rest of the Merchari could reach. Especially today, with Rei struggling. Seeing Alexi in the morning would be good for both of them.
Ellisandre had chosen well, all those years ago: a path of such ferocity that those still living had simply prayed to be forgotten.
How long can we do this? How much more would this path take from their souls? Whatever kind of mangled remnants would either of them had left?
It was time to end all of this, to destroy the directors, to raze the Yadro to the ground and below. And for the first time in years, there was hope of a key to such a path.
At the Krk Piramida, Sevastyan exited first, holding the door until Rei was clear, then shutting it behind them both.
He put a hand on Rei’s back, ushering him toward the venue.
In the parking area, a van turned on and rolled forward.
The side door opened. Sevastyan approached, hand on the gun in his coat.
There was no one inside the van other than the driver. “Sevastyan Antonovich?”
Sevastyan inclined his head. “My mother wants roses.”
The driver rolled his head on his shoulders, stretching as if he had been waiting a while. “Roses are out of season, but dahlias can be found.”
Sevastyan snorted. “Skip the flowers, then.” He twitched fingers toward Rei and climbed in after him.
The driver moved the van into traffic without asking directions.
They didn’t go far, only up the hill, past the Kul Sharif Mosque and into a well-appointed residential district.
The car pulled through a private gate, rolling to a stop inside.
A small courtyard served several apartment building entrances, all of them clean and in good repair.
Expensive. Sevastyan let himself out. The snow had been swept from the driveway and parking spaces but it was piled deep along the fence and the blue walls of the building.
White trim traced out Tartar mosaic patterns over the blue paint.
He couldn’t forget where he was. If it hadn’t been tied to so much of his damnation, it could have been beautiful.
Sevastyan checked the uppermost button on his coat and strode forward to the familiar door.
It opened a few moments after his knock. Anton stood on the other side. He wore a house coat and slippers. His gray hair was long, as if he’d missed a hair cut or two, and his face had the frown lines of someone who rarely smiled and whose skin had given up on being firm in his despondency.
“Come in, come in.”
Sevastyan grunted. He motioned Rei to enter first.
Anton stepped back, scowling. “You brought him?”
“I’m seeing Alexi in Berlin.” Sevastyan met his father’s look with one of sincere disinterest. Let the man protest.
Anton switched from Russian to German. “You know I don’t like you bringing him around.”
You might be able to hide from what we do, but I can’t. Sevastyan shot his father a disgusted look.
Anton grunted, displeased, and shuffled back. Rei moved forward on Sevastyan’s almost invisible signal, and Anton locked the door behind them. He edged around Rei, careful to not brush up against him in the narrow entry, then led the way up a steep staircase to a living area on the second floor.
It was even less clean than it had been the last time Sevastyan had visited.
The space smelled vaguely of pipe tobacco, upholstered chairs that needed airing out, and old papers.
There was a spinet piano in the corner piled high with books and more than one abandoned cup of tea.
Most of the books were on chemistry. If nothing else, Anton was keeping up with his cover as a science professor.
Or rather, keeping up with his chemistry assignments from the Merchari.
Sevastyan waited until Anton took his seat in his regular comfy chair.
The seat itself and the area around it looked like he had been living in it more than not.
Sevastyan lowered himself carefully to the couch, putting himself in line of sight of the door, his father, and the window.
He gestured to the floor for Rei. Lint roller after this, Sevastyan made a mental note.
The floor was sorely in need of a vacuum.