Page 95 of White Wolf

Kolya had stared at him a long moment, then finally nodded and went to find his bedroll.

In the face of the revelation that Rasputin was not only alive, but a vampire, talk of Whites and treason seemed downright mundane.

~*~

Silence reigned for a full minute; Nikita counted it off in his head.

It was Pyotr of all people who broke the silence. “Rasputin’s dead,” he said in a small voice.

“Poisoned, shot, and drowned,” Ivan added, scowling. “No one could survive all that. They did an autopsy after they pulled him out of the river.”

“An ordinary man could not have survived all that, you’re right,” Philippe said, patient. “But Rasputin is no ordinary man, as I’ve told you.”

“The tsarevich,” Kolya said in a strangled voice. “Prince Alexei. He had trouble with bleeding…”

It was silent another beat, as the weight of that fact landed on all of them.

Oh God.

“He saved the little prince’s life on more than one occasion,” Philippe said, still calm and patient, a schoolteacher in front of a room of dim-witted pupils. “The blood of a vampire has amazing restorative and healing properties. When he was grown, Rasputin would have turned Alexei. Willingly,” he added. “He would have been the most powerful tsar this nation had ever seen, able to rule for centuries, strong enough to survive any assassination attempt, guided by the wisdom of all the immortals who came before him.” He sighed. “What a waste. What a beautiful thingwasted.”

“Prince Alexei is dead,” Nikita said, tone cold, though his insides boiled with fear and agitation. “So it looks like we’re short one immortal tsar.”

Philippe turned to him, smile becoming almost smug. “Wait until you meet Our Friend Grigory. You’ve not met anyone wiser, I assure you.”

“Wait.” Sasha, silent until now, frowned and said, “Didn’t the tsar’s own family kill –tryto kill – Rasputin?”

“Yeah,” Nikita said, “they did.”

“A well-intentioned, but misguided mistake,” Philippe said. “They thought the tsar’s relationship with Rasputin fueled the revolution–”

“It did,” Nikita said.

“It didn’t matter!” Philippe shouted. Actually shouted. For the first time since meeting the man, Nikita saw his face color with anger, saw his eyes flash, nostrils flaring as he breathed. In an odd way, it was a comfort to see that he was, in some ways at least, human. “The revolution would have happened anyway. And Rasputin could have – if he’d been there…” He sank back down onto his rotted-log seat, shoulders slumping. He was so composed it was easy, sometimes, to forget his age, but he looked it now, hunched and tired.

“You didn’t know him,” he said, quiet and defeated. “You didn’t know any of them. How could you understand?”

“So tell us about it all, goddamn it,” Nikita said. Seeing Philippe like this had taken the edge off his anger, but he was still frustrated to a point of violence.

“Alright.” The old man nodded, and he told them, finally.

~*~

As far as anyone knew, be they generals or common citizens, Philippe Nazier-Vachot left Russia at the tsar’s insistence, settled down quietly somewhere, and then died. Of course, this hadn’t happened. And eventually, when it became clear to him that the royal family was threatened by rumors, a restless population, and the ever-more-daring Bolsheviks, he shaved off his trademark beard, adopted a new set of clothes, and snuck back to the capital to see what he could learn about the unrest.

If you knew who to ask, you could tap into limitless fonts of gossip, none of it consistent, save in one area. The monarchy was failing. One person would swear that it was because “the fiend” Rasputin had enchanted the tsar and tsarina, that he slept with Alexandra and controlled Nicholas like a puppet. But the next person you met would swear it was because the Bolshevik cause was gaining traction: the proletariat was tired of dying in a monarch’s useless wars. There was a pervading sense that, though Russians had long resisted the royal push to become a more Westernized nation, their country was behind the times. And Nicholas, too tentative, too compassionate, toosoft, was arguably the least Russian tsar in all of Romanov history.

Nicholas’s kindness, Philippe realized, his tendency to wait and think things to death, would be his downfall.

It was time to meet thestaretswho charmed everyone’s wives into bed, who drank wine to excess, and who was holding the nation in rapture.

That meeting happened in the chic salon of monarchist couple General Yevgeny Bogdanovich and his wife. The general was a member of the Council of Ministers, a warden of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and a publisher of a series of monarchist-orthodox publications. He and his wife hosted lavish open breakfasts, always teeming with gossip-hungry guests, a select few of which were invited to stay for dinner…which was when the real juicy tidbits were discussed over too much wine and eight-course meals.

Philippe went to several breakfasts to get the lay of the land, and on the morning when everyone was excitedly discussing Rasputin’s appearance at dinner, he used a little magic to charm his way into an invitation.

The general’s sister, Yulia, a maid-of-honor to the tsarina, was in attendance that night, along with Nicholas’s valet, Nickolai Radtsig. They talked openly of the way the tsar’s minsters argued with him, of the wild, lecherous things that happened at the palace. Philippe watched the glee and malice in their eyes, and he knew they were nothing more than rumors. Humans pumped out a certain sickly stink when they lied like that, and it wouldn’t have taken a bodark to sniff out these liars. People loved scandal; and people loved ruining a ruler…right up until their heads were on the chopping block. These poor idiots hadn’t thought far enough ahead to their own demises yet. Philippe didn’t pity them.

Finally, just before dinner was served, Rasputin arrived.

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