Chapter 11 Oleg
Oleg
Oleg waited in a forest some distance outside a small town in rural Mordovia.
Lazlo joined him, and they watched as the last trucks pulled away from a ferromanganese processing plant.
Oleg almost felt sorry for the human industrialist who owned the facility, but depending on Ivan for his security arrangements had been a stupid decision.
“It’s a soft target,” Lazlo said. “Well chosen.”
“And the humans are gone?” As much as he wanted to cause harm to Ivan and his organization, there was no reason to harm average humans who were simply working in manufacturing and providing for their families.
“They should be,” Lazlo said.
“Night security?”
“A few guards, but nothing I do should harm them.”
“Good.” Oleg nodded. “Then go to work.”
Lazlo was an earth vampire who had a particular affinity for iron, so destroying a processing plant that was full of the stuff should be no problem.
His brother narrowed his eyes. “Are you doing this because Ivan annoyed your wife?”
Oleg shrugged. “Partly.”
Lazlo was the only one of his brothers Oleg had told about his marriage, and that was solely because Lazlo had once made a vow to execute Tatyana should she kill any humans within Oleg’s empire.
A threat that needed to be lifted, of course, now that Tatyana wasn’t a newborn and was also Oleg’s mate. Oleg trusted that if his wife ever killed a human in the Kievan Rus, she would have a perfectly good reason for it.
“Very well.” Lazlo sat on the ground and began taking off his boots. “So this human pays Ivan for security?”
“Yes.”
Lazlo stood and started walking down the hill, his feet sinking into the ground more and more with each step. “Well, that was stupid.”
“Yes, he will feel quite foolish, I expect.”
A moment later, Lazlo disappeared, and Oleg’s phone buzzed with an incoming call.
“Ah.” He smiled. “Hello, my wife.”
“Did you call me?”
“Yes, I wanted to make sure the workmen arrived to work on your mother’s barn.”
“They did. I’m sure a few of them had questions about the damage, but they didn’t say anything.”
“Good.”
“We could have used Poshani workmen.”
“And have to explain scorched palm prints on the walls?”
There was a long silence, and Oleg took a moment to reminisce and imagine leaving scorched palm prints on his castle walls too. Perhaps he could incorporate them into a mosaic design.
“You’re correct,” she said. “But you did not call to make sure the workmen arrived.”
Oleg noticed one of the metal towers in the processing plant start to tilt.
“Of course I didn’t. I just wanted to hear your voice.” He smiled as the tilt became obvious to human eyes. Lights started to go on around the plant, and perimeter guards started running.
“That’s unexpectedly sweet of you,” Tatyana said. “Are you bored?”
“Not really. Just working on a little project with Lazlo.”
The metal tower collapsed inward, raising a massive cloud of dust and debris that billowed out from the plant as the earth around the structures began to buckle.
“How is Lazlo?”
“He is doing well.” Oleg saw a large berm of earth rising from the rubble as his brother tunneled away from the plant. Enough chaos had been caused. The industrialist would likely lose millions in lost profits and rebuilding. He would also likely have many questions for Ivan.
“I’m going to Budapest tomorrow,” Tatyana said. “Kezia and I have a meeting.”
“Oh?” Tatyana’s relationship with her sister could sometimes be contentious. “How will that be?”
“Good I think.” She sounded optimistic. “It’s about something we’re both very invested in, so I think it will be good.”
“You know, you two are very different, but I think you have very similar values.”
“Values are important.”
Tiny dark outlines ran toward the safety of the main road, and a siren started wailing in the night.
“What’s that?” Tatyana asked. “Oleg, are you in Kyiv?”
“No, no. Not even close. I told you I’m with Lazlo. No need to worry.”
“Is he safe?”
“Always.”
Lazlo emerged from the earth, wiping his hands and his face. He was covered in dust, but he was grinning.
“I should go,” Oleg said. “Call me from Budapest when you arrive.”
“I will. Say hello to Lazlo from me and tell him I haven’t killed anyone yet.”
Oleg smiled. “I will.”
He slid his phone in his pocket. “That was Tatyana. She wanted me to tell you that she has not killed anyone yet.”
Lazlo grinned. “She has a good sense of humor, that one. Of course, she would have to.”
“Because she married me?”
“See how self-aware you have become?” Lazlo wiped his face with a muddy handkerchief. “That is called personal growth. I heard about it on a podcast.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s a shame that you and Tanya could not have a big wedding.”
“Tatyana doesn’t like it when people call her Tanya.”
Lazlo waved a hand carelessly. “She told me I could call her that.”
Of course she did.
Underground explosions came in a series of low-pitched booms as the ground started collapsing in from the ruined plant. In the distance, the sky filled with billowing dust clouds lit by the blue security lights of the crumpling perimeter fence.
“Can you imagine?” Lazlo’s hands framed the glowing destruction. “A royal wedding in the Kievan Rus. There has not been one for centuries.”
“No, and there’s a reason for that.” The last royal wedding had been between him and Luana, and Lazlo was correct. It had been a spectacle.
“Weddings bring people together!” Lazlo said. “They give everyone something to celebrate. And if you do it during the winter, that gives you an excuse for a chaugan match or two.”
Oleg frowned a little bit. “We haven’t played chaugan with all the brothers in a long time.”
“Decades maybe?” Lazlo blew the dust from his nose. “Also, you give very good wedding gifts. I still have that gold drinking goblet.”
“You’re welcome.”
“It lost one of the onyx stones though. I should get it repaired.” Lazlo turned and crossed his arms over his barrel chest, staring at the growing destruction he’d wrought from underground. “This is fun, but do you think we should just kill Ivan? We probably should. It would be quicker.”
“I’m not going to kill another brother,” Oleg said. “I’ll take care of Ivan, but he does not need to die.” Probably.
“You could hire someone.” Lazlo smirked. “It’s not like you haven’t done that before.”
“Assassinate the bastard so he becomes a folk hero among his own men?” Oleg turned and started walking away. “Fuck no. We don’t need another monster being idealized by the young ones. Ivan’s already created his little cult of Truvor in Moscow. We don’t need to add to it.”
Still, Lazlo did have one good point.
Weddings did give people a reason to come together.
Hmm.
Early 1700s
Oleg sat in a Siberian tavern, watching the stinking humans carouse around him. The vampires he was meeting had set the location, so perhaps they enjoyed chaos.
Oleg did not.
He felt the pull of fire in his blood, and the urge to rise, grab the flames from the old hearth, and push them over the dirty human tavern was nearly overwhelming.
This anger lived in him, and it was growing. Every night he was forced to watch the fights. Every night he watched more of his brothers die uselessly.
They were garbage to his sire, humans and immortals captured at his whim, then tossed into rings at night or let loose in a forest for the amusement of the hunt.
Rage burned at the back of his throat as surely as fire itched under his fingertips.
He had belonged to Truvor the Red for over seven hundred years. Seven hundred years of pain and misery and rage. Oleg felt as if his entire body were covered in the blood of innocents.
“Angry.” She slid onto the bench across from him. “You are very angry, Varangian.”
No one had called him that in years. Most of the world had forgotten the northern people he came from. The language he had been born speaking had morphed into different tongues so that the only ones who remembered the words in his dreams were a few of his brothers.
And Truvor the Red.
The assassin was as he remembered her. A tiny, grey-eyed Khazar from the Eastern Steppes, her fangs curling perpetually in her mouth.
Unlike Oleg and most immortals, this one did nothing to hide what she was.
She belonged to the wind; he knew that. She belonged to a warlord sire, had been the commander of his troops for centuries. That much they had in common.
“Why wouldn’t I be angry?” Oleg asked. “I invited you to my home and you prefer to meet here?” He curled his lip. “Does your nose not work?”
She sucked in a breath, her nostrils flaring. “It smells like money to me.”
Another joined her then, a tall, dark-haired Mediterranean vampire. And as soon as he sat down—
“Hssss.” Oleg’s instincts flared to life when he scented the man’s fire. He bared his fangs, uncaring that the humans around him might see.
The other fire vampire curled his lip, but his gaze was even and steady.
“I told you,” the little assassin said. “Angry.” She waved her hand. “Relax, Varangian. He is my partner. Whatever you need done, we will do it.”
The dark-haired man plunked a heavy bag on the table, and gold coins spilled out. “I relieved the duke of his burden, Tenzin.”
“Thank you, Giovanni.”
Oleg looked between them. “You’re thieves?”
“We do many things,” Tenzin said. “It’s not that I need the gold, but why wouldn’t I take it if it’s staring me in the face?”
The strange fire vampire stared at Oleg. “I need the gold.”
Yes, this one did. Despite his preternaturally calm demeanor, Oleg could tell the vampire with the Florentine accent was young and hungry. He carried himself with the arrogance of aristocracy, but he had a dark gleam in his eye.
“A duke is nothing,” Tenzin said. “We sit with the vampire leader of all of Russia, my boy. I’m sure he pays better than a duke.”