Chapter 11 Oleg #2
“You pass through the territory of the Kievan Rus.” Oleg used the old name, as his sire had taught him.
“Far greater than what the humans claim. And I am not its leader.” In practice, he was.
He’d been leading his sire’s territory for over two hundred years while Truvor caroused and enjoyed his blood sports in the north.
“The burden of leadership in the Kievan Rus falls to my sire and knyaz, Truvor the Red.”
“Ah yes.” Tenzin leaned forward. “The devoted son, still serving his master.”
“I serve my sire and his empire.”
The Florentine’s eye twitched ever so slightly.
“But is it truly Truvor’s empire anymore?” Tenzin whispered. “There would be less bloodshed and more safety for your territory if he was gone. Isn’t that true?”
It wasn’t… untrue. Human authorities were harder and harder to avoid.
As the humans gained technology, writing, printing, it would become harder and harder to find places where Truvor’s clan could remain isolated.
There were censuses now. Papers that identified who and what was supposed to be in a place.
The human desire for organization rasped against the vampires’ need for secrecy.
But while most immortals could blend into human towns and cities if they moved around enough, Truvor refused.
Oleg’s sire still remembered fondly the days of raiding on the rivers of Europe. He reveled in being the terror of the night, taking whatever he wanted and disappearing onto his boats, which moved with preternatural speed, propelled by water vampires Truvor had stolen and enslaved from the West.
“The modern world is coming,” Tenzin said. “As much as all of us dread it, the age of reason is dawning.”
“Humans will not fear us for long,” the Florentine said. “And if they capture us in our sleeping state, they will dissect us in their laboratories. Watch as we burn in the sun and take notes to be copied and published in their next treatise on the fallacy of monsters.”
Oleg narrowed his eyes on the Florentine. “I know our people need to change.”
“We’ve heard of the monsters who live in the Northern Woods even in Constantinople.” Tenzin leaned back. “I will name a price, and you will meet it. Then you will be the leader in truth and can lead the Kievan Rus into the modern world. If nothing changes, Truvor will see his empire burn.”
“I cannot…” Oleg suddenly felt like a weak newborn. “Truvor is my sire. I cannot—”
“Neither could I.” The Florentine’s eye twitched again. “The bond between sire and offspring is too strong. That is why I made the wise choice to strike a bargain with someone who could.”
Oleg met his cool stare. The vampire’s eyes were the color of iron oxide fired in a kiln, a rich blue green that Oleg’s human mistress would call ocean blue or some nonsense.
“Is he dead?”
The Florentine didn’t ask who Oleg was asking about. He simply nodded.
“And you are free?”
The other fire vampire glanced at Tenzin. “In a way.”
Oleg nodded. Despite the instinctive aggression that burned in his veins, he recognized… something.
Not a kinship. But something.
“I cannot do it myself,” Oleg said quietly. “Not even for the good of our people. But name your price, Khazar. And I will make sure your path is clear.”
“There will be more blood after,” she warned. “We will only take Truvor. Others will scrabble to take his place. The rest is up to you.”
Blue fire rippled softly over Oleg’s hands. “That blood I will shed.”
He flew from Sochi to Odesa via an inconvenient route that was enough to allay government suspicion and keep humans from paying attention to him. When he arrived in Odesa, Mika and Petr were already waiting.
“Do you do this on purpose?” Mika spoke in Old Estonian because Petr was there. “Go and blow things up with your brothers to give me a headache?”
“You cannot get headaches.” Oleg patted Mika’s shoulder when he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Are you jealous? Did you also want to be part of the fun?”
“There aren’t many vampires who can take out an entire manufacturing plant in under ten minutes while leaving a near-pristine perimeter,” Mika said softly. “Ivan is going to know it was Lazlo or Rudov. Or one of the others who are equally powerful, and there aren’t many of the old blood who could—”
“Ivan already knows we are the ones sabotaging him.” Oleg shrugged. “Or he suspects it. It doesn’t matter. He cannot accuse me publicly.”
Petr walked over and put a coat over Oleg’s shoulders. It was raining in Odesa. Then his secretary took the briefcase that the air steward Cesar handed him.
“Thank you, Petr.” Oleg left the coat draped over his shoulders as he walked to the car. “No one would believe I would be willing to lose so much money to undermine my own governor.” He slipped into the waiting sedan, and Mika joined him in the back seat as Petr got in front with the driver.
Mika was still irritated, but Oleg knew he was seeing reason.
“To the house, boss?” his driver, Seban, called from the front of the car.
“Drive me to the office first.”
“Why?” Mika asked.
“Yes, boss.” Seban rolled up the black divider, and the silence was like a blanket over his ears.
Oleg breathed deeply. Then he turned to his spymaster. “The rest of the world and the average soldier in Moscow will soon begin seeing Ivan as not only brutish—which they will put up with if it makes them enough money—but also incompetent. They will not put up with that.”
Mika nodded. “They will be grumbling for a new leader soon.”
“Exactly.” The sedan pulled away from Oleg’s private airstrip, and a few minutes later, it merged onto the pitch-black streets on the outskirts of Odesa.
“And you will do what?” Mika asked. “Give it to them? There are no such things as elections in the Kievan Rus. You’re going to have to kill him.”
“I don’t think so. I can call him to the citadel. Keep him there, and when enough time has passed, I will ask my chosen successor—”
“Ludmila.”
“Dear God, she would hate me forever,” Oleg muttered. “It might be worth it to hear the endless stream of Russian curses she would wish on me and all of my blood, but no, it will not be Ludmila.”
“Oksana then. She has leadership potential and is blood mated to Ludmila. You would have two governors in reality for the price of one in name.”
“No, she’s too young.” He raised a finger. “You are not wrong. Oksana will have her own territory one day—perhaps Rudov’s when he gets tired of governing—but for now she is too young, and she’s not our blood.”
“Lidik is not our blood. I am not your blood.”
“But both of you have been in my druzhina for centuries.” He shrugged. “Don’t be impatient, Mika. Besides, I have a more entertaining job for you.”
“What? Is it something with SMO? Is that why Seban is taking us to the office?”
“Yes.” He smiled internally at the plot he had concocted on the journey from Moldovia. “I need you to arrange a meeting here in Odesa and draw up some contracts.”
Mika was staring out the window as the streetlights grew brighter and brighter. They were getting closer to the city center. “Contracts for what?”
“For everything I want.”