Chapter 17
Oleg
Oleg met with Mika and Ludmila in his office at the palace the following night.
He folded his hands and placed them on the desk. “This cannot continue.”
Mika and Ludmila exchanged a look.
“That is… vague.” Mika frowned. “Does this have something to do with the Kazakh vampires? You came out of that encounter much stronger. The chatter around Moscow is quite good for you.”
“You lit a bunch of shit on fire,” Ludmila muttered. “And scared the shit out of Ivan’s own men. That’s not a bad night.”
“I’m not talking about the Kazakhs.”
The night following Ivan’s attack on the warehouse, Oleg had been in contact with his counterpart in Almaty, the vampire capital of Kazakhstan. Their leader was a newly chosen wind vampire, chief among the clans that ruled the Central Asian nation and its scattered population of immortals.
Since the vampires killed had been from a clan who had not supported the chief’s rise to power, the young vampire had little objection to Oleg’s destruction of their facility which—as Ivan had correctly guessed—was severely underpaying on their promised tribute.
“You’ve actually done them a favor,” Mika said. “Is it the drugs?”
Oleg grunted. Illegal narcotics were an unfortunate reality of human life, and though he avoided involving himself in their trade, he knew that many of Ivan’s lieutenants had side businesses. For the most part, Oleg ignored them.
“I don’t like the drugs,” Oleg said. “They make the humans unproductive. But it’s not the drugs.”
In reality, it had been the disturbing incident of his dream where he had lost control of his fire. Seeing Tatyana’s reaction to it had bothered him, and since putting her in any kind of danger was unacceptable, he had been forced over the past week to involve himself in something he detested.
Introspection.
He’d been dreaming of the time just after Truvor’s death, when blood had spilled for weeks during his rise to power.
Blood sibling after blood sibling had challenged him, and he had killed them all, destroying many of the strongest vampires in their clan, which had solidified his position as knyaz but also weakened Truvor’s empire, leading to nearly a century of instability and conflict during which many good vampires were killed.
“I have been debating whether keeping Ivan in his position will be more harmful to our people than taking him out and elevating another who will govern more effectively.”
“Harmful?” Mika crossed his arms over his chest. “There will be harm either way.”
“You take him out?” Ludmila said. “His sons will push back. People will die. Humans. Vampires. It’s going to happen. You leave him in?” She shrugged. “People will also die. Humans who work for him. Humans caught in the middle. Collateral damage. More drugs. More humans trafficked—”
Oleg snapped at her and pointed. “No. We don’t do slaves. That’s dirty, dirty business. Is Ivan trafficking humans?”
“Ehhh, boss.” Ludmila gave him an even larger shrug. “He’s careful. I don’t see anything direct about it, but it’s a feeling, you know? I feel like that dirty little cult of Truvor is following in his path, you know? Trading in humans, but Ivan’s covering their tracks.”
Mika pursed his lips. “I haven’t heard anything specific, but it would not surprise me. Like Ludmila said, Ivan has cultivated this weird cult around your sire, and we all know what Truvor thought of humans. So human trafficking would hardly be a stretch.”
“So that’s it then.” Oleg nodded. “This must happen sooner than we planned. I don’t have the luxury of a decade to make him irrelevant before I push him to the side and make him disappear.”
There would be violence. There would be bloodshed.
Again.
“Okay, cooool.” Ludmila drew out the word, clapping her hands together in anticipation. “I’ll go ahead and put a bullet through his spine. Do you want it done before or after the wedding? I vote before so—”
“Don’t run away with this.” Mika raised a hand. “We must have a plan first. Moscow needs a successor before we kill Ivan, or there will be chaos.” He narrowed his eyes at Oleg. “You are going to kill him, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Oleg muttered.
“Fuck!” Ludmila let her head fall back. “Please let me kill him. I was this close.” She pinched her fingers together. “I pierced his ear instead of his eye. Say the word—”
“He’s still my blood,” Oleg growled. “And he saved my life.”
“Once.” Mika raised a finger. “One time, and you’ve saved him many times since then. You owe him nothing.”
Wrong.
Oleg owed Ivan for not walking down those stairs in Truvor’s fortress. Ivan had stayed his axe. He’d stayed silent when he knew he could have taken Oleg out with the support of Truvor’s faithful among the old Muscovite guard.
But in the bloody aftermath of their sire’s death, Ivan had stayed his hand.
Ludmila, of all people, saw what Oleg was thinking. “He didn’t challenge you then, but he’s challenging you now. I would have had more respect for his challenge then. Then, it was in the open.”
“Then, he knew he couldn’t defeat you,” Mika said. “No one could defeat you.”
“Wrong,” Oleg said. “No one is invincible.” He thought about the black walls of his day chamber. “Least of all me.”
Ludmila leaned forward. “Never say that. Not even to us.” She pointed to the door.
“All those people out there? The vampires and especially the humans—all the ones gathered for your big, fancy wedding—they need you to be the baddest, most terrifying monster in this place. Their monster. Because their monster is the one who keeps the other monsters shitting their pants.”
Oleg smiled a little bit. “Remind me not to let you make a toast at the wedding.”
“Fuck no.” Ludmila drew back as if he’d burned her. “And if you expect me to go to this thing, there better be good donors. And a decent chaugan match afterward.”
Chaugan. The corner of Oleg’s mouth turned up. “There are two matches already on the calendar.”
The ancient game played on horseback was the precursor to the humans’ modern polo game, and it was the one pastime that Oleg actually enjoyed with his brothers. Any gathering of the Kievan Rus was incomplete without a chaugan tournament.
Mika murmured, “We could probably wait until after the chaugan matches to kill Ivan.”
Ludmila nodded. “He’s a good striker.”
“Are you actually debating when we should remove one of my governors based on his accuracy with a chaugan mallet?”
Mika and Ludmila clamped their mouths shut.
“He is the best striker in the family,” Oleg muttered. “But that’s not important.”
“Yes, Knyaz,” Mika said.
“Of course, boss.”
“So who do we put Ivan’s place?” Oleg said. “We need someone who can step into the role, who all of Ivan’s assholes respect, and who isn’t part of my druzhina.”
“Why not?” Mika snapped. “The druzhina is loyal to you. We can trust the druzhina.”
“I do not disagree, but remember the very elite and wonderful vampires of Moscow” —Oleg was thinking of Ivan’s entire region— “think they are just a little bit better than the rest of us.”
Ludmila snorted.
“Don’t forget,” Oleg said, “they were my father’s special boys.”
Ludmila nodded. “Make sure it is someone who has a dick.”
One of Mika’s eyebrows shot up. “This is coming from you?”
“You think Ivan’s boys are open-minded?” Ludmila asked.
“If the boss wants stability, he needs someone to herd the sexist donkeys in that city. A vampire…” She spread her hands.
“…with a dick.” She looked at her hands and muttered.
“Maybe a good-sized one, I don’t know. It matters to you guys, right? That kind of thing?”
Oleg couldn’t stop his smirk. “It’s good you amuse me.”
Ludmila flipped him off.
“He should be ambitious,” Mika said, “but not want the empire for himself. Someone strong enough to hold together a huge state and hold the line against the Fire King, who can govern well but who puts the empire above their personal ambition.”
“We need another you,” Ludmila said. “Do you have another one in your treasury somewhere? Because we need another you.”
“We need another you.”
Oleg was still thinking about Ludmila’s statement later that night when he and Tatyana went to a dinner hosted by his brother Pavel, the governor of the North Ingria region and their official host in Saint Petersburg.
Pavel had invited a wide array of humans and vampires from his administration that reflected the mixed history of Ingria. There were Russians, of course, but Finns and Estonians as well.
Pavel had also invited the Scandinavian vampire leader from Sweden, Jetta Ommunsdotter, who rarely attended anything Pavel hosted because she quite frankly hated Oleg.
Tatyana leaned over to Oleg and spoke in a low voice. “Why is that vampire from Sweden glaring at you?”
“That is Jetta. She hates me. She puts up with Pavel, which is one of the reasons that I’ve convinced him to remain governor here, but she hates me.”
She nodded. “I can see that.”
“Do you?”
“Scandinavian culture is usually quite mild, and they don’t care for extreme types of personalities, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes. Are you saying that I’m an extreme person?”
“Oh no, my husband, you are as mild as a summer breeze.” She lifted her glass and sipped the bubbling champagne that had been served with the first course of caviar. “What a mystery that she dislikes you.”
She was doing it on purpose, trying to make him laugh while they were supposed to be playing at being indifferent allies who happened to be getting married to formalize an alliance.
Oleg and Tatyana were sitting at the head of one table with two long tables stretching out from either side in a U shape so all the vampires could see each other clearly and no sudden movements could be hidden.
The formal dining room was paneled by mirrors, another security feature that was quite beautiful combined with all the flickering candles in sconces around the room.