Page 150 of White Wolf

Rasputin threw his arms wide, tilted his head back, and laughed up at the ceiling. “My friends! It’s a beautiful night out there, full of beautiful sights. Why do you hide indoors looking at papers?”

“Because some of us have to plan things,” Nikita said. He noticed the way Sasha ducked his head and pressed into Pyotr’s side, and he wanted to take Rasputin by the collar and throw him back down the stairs.

“Hmph.” Thestaretsexecuted a sloppy gesture of dismissal and fell into a chair, sprawling rather than sitting, head hanging off the back of it. “Do you know what?”

No one answered him.

He went on, unperturbed. “All the great men of history hadplans. And look at them. They’re all dead.” He barked a laugh. “It’s better to have faith than plans. God is one thing we can truly rely on. His divine intervention. His grace. His forgiveness.”

“And you need a lot of his forgiveness, huh?” Feliks asked.

Rasputin either didn’t hear him, or ignored him. “Something tells me, captain, that you haven’t prayed enough. Because yourplanisn’t possible. You have no army, no resources, and no special powers yourself.”

Nikita clenched his teeth to keep from fidgeting. It was the same thought he had at least once a day, but when he voiced it, his friends – his pack – always told him that it could be done. That they believed in him. They were kind liars, in that respect.

“What you need,” Rasputin said, “is a miracle. As a performer of miracles myself.” He sat up and twisted around to look at Nikita, eyes blazing in the dim room. “I know a little something about performing them.” He held Nikita’s gaze a long, airless moment, then resumed his sprawl. “You were smart to wake me. It’s maybe the smartest thing you’ve done.”

It was silent a beat.

Then Kolya said, “What miracles?”

Rasputin waved a dismissive hand. “What?”

Kolya stepped away from the table and paced slowly across the rug, his gait the rolling, predatory strut of a big cat. His hair kept growing, shaggy curtains that framed his face now. With his shadow climbing the wall behind him, he looked poised, and sinister.

Not that Rasputin cared.

“What miracles have you performed?” he asked, drawing up to Rasputin’s chair. “Because I think you’re just bragging.”

“Officer Dyomin–” Philippe started.

“Shut up,” Nikita said.

Rasputin grinned, the kind of lazy, uncoordinated smile that spoke of drinking and fucking. It was a terrible expression on his bearded face, flashing his long yellow teeth. “Don’t the Soviets teach about the empire in schools? I suppose not. But you’re a White. You must know about the miracles I performed on the tsarevich.”

Nikita wanted to dismiss the claim out of hand, but he’d always harbored a secret fascination about Alexei’s ability to overcome so many hemorrhages.

“My poor dear boy,” Rasputin said, voice going thick with emotion. Nikita had never met anyone so easily overcome by his feelings; he was like a Shakespearian stage actor, weeping one moment and laughing deliriously the next. It was tiresome. “He couldn’t even play with his sisters. One fall, one bruise, and the bleeding would start. His arm or his leg would swell. Bloated with blood that had nowhere to go.” He made an expansive gesture, miming the swelling. “None of the palace surgeons could do anything for him – but I could.” And here he sounded satisfied.

A cold, sick dread washed through Nikita. “You drank from him.”

“Of course I did. Was I supposed to let him suffer? How cruel! I fed from his bruises, took away his pain and swelling. The blood had nowhere to go, you see, his little body would have had to work so hard to reabsorb it. So I fed. Carefully. And then afterward I would open my hand.” He ran a too-long fingernail down the opposite palm. “And feed him a little of my blood. It only took a little to help him. To heal him.”

“Vampire blood has incredible restorative properties,” Philippe explained. And then, doubt creeping in: “Grisha, you didn’t turn the boy, did you?”

“I was trying to. Slowly. He would have been the perfect tsar.” He sighed wistfully.

“But he’s dead,” Kolya said, voice a flat contrast to all of Rasputin’s dreamy reminiscing.

“So was I, for a while,” Rasputin said. “But now I’m awake again. Is that not enough of a miracle for you?”

“You’re a vampire. Apparently, that’s normal.”

Rasputin laughed. “Isn’t the existence of vampires a miracle in itself?”

“Or an abomination.”

“Kolya,” Nikita said. “That’s enough.” He sent his friend an apologetic look, and got a snort in response.

---