Page 30 of White Wolf

Sasha watched him, waiting.

“They’re regrouping,” Nikita continued. “They’ll hit us again. And that’s where thisweaponof his comes in.” He said the word as if it left a foul taste in his mouth.

He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. His voice went low, a barely-audible whisper. “The Führer is obsessed with the occult. All that black magic shit. I think Stalin’s started to become obsessed too.”

Thatwasn’t what Sasha had expected. “What?”

Nikita shrugged and leaned back. “Intuition. This old man isn’t who he claims to be.” His hand made an impulsive grab for the utility pocket on the leg of his pants, then moved away, fast, like it had burned him.

“What – what does he claim?”

He smirked. “That he isn’t a dead man.”

Wordlessly, Sasha offered up the hunk of cheese.

Nikita plucked it up without reservation this time. “Thanks.”

9

I CAN HANDLE THE COLD

Their train pulled into the Yaroslavsky Station after eight p.m. Nikita wasn’t sure he’d ever been so glad to see the lights of Moscow. In the dark, he couldn’t see the anti-tank trenches, the chewed-up mud that had been assaulted by German panzers…and then had frozen in stiff peaks. The capital was encircled by signs of battle, a ring of devastation that went on and on out of sight.

But in the dark, all he could see were the lights of the city, amazingly untouched, victorious over the Wehrmacht. The train slid through the war wounds in the dark, and into the station.

Nikita stood up and shrugged into his coat, settled his hat on his head.

Sasha scrambled to do the same.

“This is the coldest winter on record here,” Nikita warned him. “Make sure you’re buttoned up.”

“I can handle the cold, sir.”

Damn it, Nikita was starting to like the kid. He could have blamed it on proximity – trapped in a train for thirty-six hours could make for strange bonds. But really, he knew that he found the boy’s peasant stubbornness charming. It was true what they said about Siberians possessing their own brand of snobbery: they weren’t used to answering to anyone besides their mothers and wives, and they chafed beneath the yoke of Moscow’s caste system.

At least Sasha did. He was scared, and he was deferential because of it, but during the length of the journey Nikita had watched him unwind bit by bit. There was still something of a cornered animal in his eyes, but he’d smiled a time or two. Had laughed, once, because it was impossible to keep a straight face around Ivan sometimes.

So he liked him. And he probably wasn’t going to live very long.

The brakes squealed and the train gave a quiet lurch as it slowed…slowed…stopped with one last hiss and shriek.

Sasha’s eyes darted toward the window, wild and white-rimmed.

“Welcome to the capital,” Nikita said, voice colder than he’d intended. He was angry, he realized, because he didn’t like to like people. It made it difficult to do his job properly.

And what job is that?his mother’s voice asked in the back of his mind. The bell felt like a grenade in his pocket.

“Boss, you coming?” Feliks called from farther down the car.

“Yeah!” He put a hand on Sasha’s shoulder and steered the kid ahead of him. “Come on. Do you have everything?”

“Yeah.” He was distracted, craning to look out the windows as they walked down the aisle.

Nikita noticed with a moment of disquiet that the boy was a shade taller than him.

Not that he planned to come to blows with him.

He neverplannedthat sort of thing.

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