Chapter 5
Konstantin
In my life, there were a few moments I felt scared of the unknown, but then again, there was only one time where I knew an imminent catastrophe awaited after the discovery of something that should have stayed buried.
Many years ago on that fateful night in Dargaus, a place warned that any man who walked in wouldn’t walk back out.
Claimed as “The City of the Dead” in Russia, the ancient necropolis had only the dead as its residents.
The locals feared going near it.
Yet the greed of man, the inherent selfish need and ambition to own the world, ignored the tales of dead men.
Because we thought we could control fate, but that night we learned no one can.
“Kostya! Do you have eyes on the target?” The heavy timbre of Mikhail’s voice entered my earpiece.
Tentatively, observing the surroundings of the abandoned village. A long valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains, thousands of acres of land covered by falling snow— containing more than one hundred crypts, the place appeared soulless, the tombs the only reminiscence of life.
“Yes, Pahkan,” I confirmed, piercing my gaze through the lens of my AR-47.
The drift of the cold wind carried whispers of the barren place. At least that’s what I heard.
Having another voice in your head was nothing new to me, but in the outside world it was different.
And as a man who didn’t believe in myths or tales, there was some skepticism about these lands. After all, the most telling warnings were those from dead men.
“There’s not a soul in sight.” I repeated, my sight filled with only three figures dressed in black. The Pakhan, The Underboss, The Strategist, and The Enforcer. The only ones Mikhail trusted were commanded to join him in this witch hunt.
“Well, who would even come to hell like this?” Mikhail released a bitter chuckle, scratching his chin with his thumb.
“There are certain psychos…” I began, eying him directly.
He turned his head to me, his tongue edging around his teeth. “Oh please, this isn’t psychotic. If anything, it’s productive therapy, you know, helping the environment or some shit.”
“Since when do you go to therapy?” I questioned the act so unlike him. Ever since we were children, he embraced his dark, ruthless nature and didn’t care who liked him or not. Yet his methodical nature was so uncanny, I didn’t understand it.
Walking up to the grounds first, eying my peripheral surroundings.
“I don’t, but my wife told me doing some extracurricular activities besides killing is helpful to understanding people,” he explained.
As if that was obvious.
The man thought putting men through a round of Russian roulette was enough bonding time to make men be brothers in arms. What a genius. Not.
“Aw,” Sergei mocked a coo. “Your wife! Your pretty little wife!” “I thought you were supposed to be the Pakhan, but it seems the true Pakhan is Selene.”
“Don’t speak her name, you bastard.” Mikhail lowly grunted, a tense edge in his brow.
“Why are you scared she’ll hear us?”
“No,” Mikhail let out a harsh breath, loading his gun as his chest shifted under his all-black camouflage hunting suit.
He walked forward, the snow crunching underneath his same-colored winter boots.
The relationship between the Pakhan and his wife took a surprising turn as they were arranged to marry and forced to hate through multiple attempts of sabotage and pain; now they were stronger than ever as Selene was pregnant with their son.
In all honesty, the man was a kitten now that he found love.
We followed his narrow trail, lingering closer and closer as he began ascending upward to the entrance of a broken crypt on a hill. The walk up felt like gravity was pushing us back down. Yet standing our ground, we kept going forward, pivoting only when our bodies needed to rest.
Mikhail huffed. “Though when she finds out where we are, she’ll kill us all.”
Sergei laughed like a maniac.
The mistimed conversation amused me as I suppressed the smile on my face.
Ah, crazy bastards.
But alas, what more could I ask for?
Then a lethal, calculating voice spoke through the shared line, halting the interaction. “Can we get back to the task at hand? We don’t have time to waste.” Adrian, the man— the flesh bag who was an emotionless sentient being and the brother of Pakhan's wife— commented.
“Alright, buzzkill,” Mikhail sighed, his large tatted shoulders rolling. “Let’s go.” He turned around, yelling out loudly, interfering with the signal of the earpiece as it made a loud shrieking sound akin to nails on a chalkboard that made me want to stab my eardrums.
Not only that, but it pissed off Dya.
The three of us removed the ear piece simultaneously as it hung over my shoulder, Adrian and Sergei cursing underneath their breaths.
“Seriously, you fucker!” My voice bit the brutal cold air. “Are you trying to make us deaf?”
He raised an insolent brow as he was obtuse. “What? I didn’t do anything?”
I gawked at him as he remained unfazed.
“Forget about it. Let’s just get what we came for and go.”
Mikhail huffed. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Kostya.”
Rolling my eyes, I moved onward, towards the abandoned, worn crypt. With every passing step, the passage appeared never-ending, time evading us. The snow didn’t help with the travel, as rubble of stones led the uncharted pathway, making it difficult to determine solid ground.
When we finally arrived at the top of the stairs, the dilapidated crypt that appeared small and nothing more at first was a forfeited medieval castle with arched gates.
The ancient structure stood with thick, impenetrable walls with arrow loops embedded in them, towers at each cardinal point and was made of sandstone.
Now that we were here, the castle dominated the landscape, seeming to serve not only as a fortress but something far worse.
Almost to keep enemies from entering but also them from leaving,
“Is it just me, or does this place look bigger than before?” Mikhail questioned, looking around at the premise, which had surely doubled— tripled— quadrupled in size from what we had mapped out.
“I thought I was the only one.” Adrian nodded in agreement, with thin hints of fascination in his voice.
I grunted, and the pit of my stomach churned. Haunted by a subtle inkling of a devastating future, we cannot return from.
“Really?” Sergei lifted his hand to scratch the back of his head. “It looks like the same old shit to me.”
No doubt, he wasn’t a man of his significant intelligence.
“It doesn’t matter. Open the gate.” Mikhail ordered as the three of us glared at one another. A tight line went through his jaw as he pressed the trigger on his gun. “Now, you eddots, before I shoot one of you!”
“Fine,” I reluctantly came forward, extending my gloved hand, my fingers brushing against the rusted gates as a heavy surge of wind rolled in, forcing the gates apart. The thud carried throughout the castle, revealing a Great Hall made of nothing more than stone.
“Good, Kostya!” He walked up from behind me, giving me a pat on the back. While he headed inside, Adrian and Sergei followed. I stood still, staring over my shoulder, on the precipice of no return, as I should have gone with my instinct and dragged them all back out, but I didn’t.
Moving in, we observed the Inner Chamber— a stone court frozen in time with the roof missing as the falling snow fell into the grounds—which now stood as a forbidden sanctum that no living soul could seek and rule.
“And to believe kings used to rule here— look how it is now!” Mikhail gloated, stepping up to the throne in the far end of the room and placing himself upon it.
We split off in each direction, kicking the rubble aside and inspecting any object that could be of use or suspicion.
Yet that was not what I was drawn to. My gaze dropped to my hands, recalling the sensation of the wind, which carried the essence of something mystic.
Drawn to the walls, I pressed my palm against it.
Dragging my hand against the cold stone walls, noticing the brief inscriptions and illustrations engraved.
A language I didn’t understand and images that were hard to decipher.
Almost like hieroglyphics telling a story from a world that was different or, rather, from an ancient time.
I stopped at a column of a pillar as I looked up and noticed a statue of a flying monster hung from the top.
Out of my peripheral at the other end of the room, I saw another, and I turned around and saw it was at all corners.
It seemed like it was meant to scare off intruders, but it wasn't a coincidence. Knowing how deliberate humans are, a symbol wasn’t just a symbol.
An insignia wasn’t just an insignia. A kill wasn’t just a kill.
They were placed there for a purpose.
To guard something.
To carry the secrets of the unknown.
To protect.
But what was it they were trying to protect?
“I found it!” Mikhail announced.
I turned around, watching the prize he had looked for so long. The gem shone brightly, emanating its luminous and illustrious polychromatic light against the angles of his face. Enhancing the greedy tint in his eyes.
Many may wonder, was the purpose of coming here, in the midst of a graveyard, to fetch that damned stone?
And well, the short answer was yes.
We weren’t ones for believing in fairytales or magic or whatever nonsense myths foretold.
However, one couldn’t deny there were things in this world that held no human explanation, and when Selene came to us with the knowledge that behind the facade of the mafia lay something darker and twisted, not just organized crime or bloodshed but creatures that existed that we never thought could, it tested our curiosity.