Page 122 of White Wolf

Sasha leaned down, took the lock in one hand, and ripped it off, bringing a chunk of rotting coffin lid with it.

“Okay then,” Feliks said.

Ivan used the blade of his shovel as a pry bar, put all his bulk and strength behind it. The lid stuck a moment, then gave with a splintering sound, flipping back.

Nikita braced himself for the stink of decomp, but it didn’t come. He didn’t smell anything, not even when he leaned over the grave and breathed deep. A little dust, a little musty wood. But no stink of death.

A human-shaped bundle swaddled in moth-eaten linen lay in the coffin, and somehow that was better than having to see the man’s face.

Sasha let out a rolling, barking snarl that startled Pyotr so bad he fell backward and landed hard in the dirt.

“Aleksander, that’s enough!” Philippe roared.

Silence.

Philippe lifted his head, expression superior. “We don’t havetime. We have to leave, and leave now.”

Sasha stared at him a moment, not blinking, then stepped back from the grave, turning his back to them.

Nikita was very tempted to throw the old fucker down into the coffin.

Instead, he said, “Pyotr, help me get the footlocker.”

Feliks yelped, and Nikita swung his gun toward the shape in the coffin.

“What?”

Feliks’s face had gone from white to gray. He looked sick. His hand hovered over the body’s wrapped shoulder. “It…it’s warm.”

“He is,” Philippe corrected. “And yes, he is, because he’s alive.”

“God,” Ivan said, as he bent to take the figure’s bound feet in his hands. “Holy fucking shit.”

Not holy, Nikita thought. Not in the least.

~*~

It was dark out when they reached the dock, the barge’s lanterns burning through the fog, a welcome sign of escape.

The captain stared at them, goggle-eyed, when they set the footlocker down on the dock.

“Three hours,” Nikita said, grimly triumphant. “As promised. Now get us the fuck out of here.”

The captain looked at the locker. “What’s in there?”

“You don’t want to know.”

The man sighed. “Fair enough. Vanya! Turn us loose, we’re leaving.”

~*~

The fire looked warm and inviting, but Sasha wouldn’t go to it. He felt, with a determination that he knew wasn’t human, that his place was between his pack and the canvas-topped troop transport truck they’d procured, the one in which the footlocker containing Rasputin’s sleeping body rested. He sat on the ground behind the truck, watching his pack as they passed around tins of salted fish, and SPAM, and dried meat, hunks of hard cheese and stale bread. Content, for the moment, to serve as protector and pack alpha.

They hadn’t dared try to find an inn, or even a generous family willing to take them in. Not given how valuable their cargo was. No one could know what they carried, not until they were back in Stalingrad, safe and sound at the Institute, and Rasputin was awake again.

Sasha dreaded that moment with every fiber of his being.

He was still trying to classify what he’d felt when they’d opened the coffin. A surge of revulsion and fear so strong it had turned to anger. He’d wanted to lash out, to feel flesh tear under his fingers, to taste blood in his mouth. Violent impulses that shocked him. And, even worse, an overwhelming urge to duck his head and submit, grovel on his belly, one that felt unnatural and oppressive and just…just…

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