Page 38 of White Wolf

“I don’t know.” In a smaller voice: “I think we have to try, even if it doesn’t.”

Sasha nodded. He understood. Russia wasn’t Russia anymore. Its people lived in squalor…and fear. Despair.

“Go back to bed,” Nikita said, gently, like he was talking to a child.

“Okay.”

“Sasha,” he said, just as Sasha was about to leave the room. His eyes glittered in the dimness. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it was you.”

~*~

Nikita smoked two hand-rolled cigarettes by the window, leaning low so he could feel the bitter cold of the night air against his face, hoping it would chase away the lingering haze of the vodka. But his brain felt like mud, too heavy for his head. All his thoughts were toxic.

Monsieur Philippe in the flesh. Unquestionable proof of magic. It was too much to think about this late – maybe at all.

He flicked the butt out the window and then closed it. Walked on silent feet back to his bedroom.

He paused a moment in the doorway when he heard the unmistakable sound of someone breathing. For a heartbeat, half-drunk and too exhausted to think properly, he was convinced the past few weeks had been a bad dream. That when he flopped down onto his bed, Dmitri would grumble from the other one: “Stop being so loud.” That the springs would squeak as he rolled over and put his back to Nikita, and that the morning would bring his cheerful best friend shaking him awake by the shoulders and announcing that he’d slipped out early before dawn and that they had (relatively) fresh fish for breakfast.

But it was just a heartbeat, and then Nikita saw the way the moonlight fell on the body in the far bed, the way it was too small and slender, curled up tight into a ball. Heard the way the breaths were too light and shallow.

It was Pyotr, and not his best friend.

Nikita folded his clothes up neatly and set them on the military-issue foot locker at the end of his bed. Crawled between the sheets and stretched out on his back, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling.

Sleep came slowly.

~*~

The thing was, they were the good guys. Good guys only pretending to be bad. And the good guys weren’t supposed to die until the end.

Every time he thought about the village, about what had happened to Dmitri, he questioned their goodness just a little more.

Monsieur Philippe was right: it was time.

10

A SPECIAL SORT OF VOLUNTEER

“But my clothes are warmer than this,” Sasha protested. They were nicer, too, but he didn’t voice that. Homespun and not much to look at, but much more durable than the cheap factory-made shirt Feliks was trying to shove into his hands.

Feliks made an exasperated sound in his throat. “They make you look like–”

“I’m from Siberia?”

“Ugh.” Feliks grimaced and threw the shirt in his face – but Sasha saw the edges of a smile tweaking his mouth. “I liked it better when you were afraid of us. Nikita,” he said when his captain walked into the room, “tell this man he looks like my grandmother in that sweater.”

Nikita was dressed and immaculate, the cheap factory clothes looking tailor-made to fit. Who knew – maybe the Cheka were given custom uniforms. A row of water droplets stood out dark on his pressed collar where his slicked-back, bath-damp hair had dripped at the ends.

He paused in the process of buttoning his cuffs and regarded the two of them. “Let him wear his clothes,” he said, and Feliks groaned again. “They know he’s from Siberia; what’s there to hide? Might as well look authentic. Besides, his will be warmer.”

Sasha smiled.

“Here, though.” Nikita finished the last button and stepped in close to him, a movement that seemed both unexpected and potentially sinister. He smelled of harsh chemical soap. He reached with both hands – clammy and cold from bathing – and scraped his damp fingers back through Sasha’s hair, pushing it into some semblance of order. “Hmm,” he murmured, frowning to himself, fingertips dragging against Sasha’s scalp in a way that felt shockingly intimate. “We don’t have time to cut it. Shame.”

When he stepped back, surveying his work, Sasha reached to tuck a stubborn lock behind his ear. “I like it longer.” His voice came out small. “It keeps my head warm.”

Feliks snorted a laugh.

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