Page 130 of White Wolf

Sasha took a deep breath, visibly shaking, and stepped up to the head of the table. Philippe handed him the knife and he studied its blade a moment, light glinting down its length, before he drew it down the center of his left palm, blood welling in its wake. He didn’t flinch or hiss; tipped his hand over the slumbering vampire’s face. Thin trickles of red ran down his palm. Dripped, dripped, dripped. Onto Rasputin’s exposed, yellow teeth.

There was something obscene about it, the shocking, unexpected intimacy of fresh blood.

Sasha began the invocation to wake, slow and stumbling at first, unsure, but relaxing into it as he went. His Latin had a distinct Russian accent, but Philippe had said that wouldn’t matter. It was the words themselves, and, most important, the blood. The wolf blood.

Finally, in forceful Russian: “Thus I command you to wake, Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin.”

A last runnel of blood sluiced from Sasha’s palm, a grisly splatter across Rasputin’s face.

And his eyes opened.

They were huge, and gray, and wild. The hypnotic eyes that all his devoted female followers had spoken of, filled now with confusion and terror.

Nikita was overcome with a sudden, intense revulsion. He hated this man – thiscreature. The ruin of the Romanovs. The laughingstock of a nation perched on the eve of revolution.

Alive and in the flesh.

Their only hope for a White revolution of their own.

Thestaretsopened his mouth on a gasp, the sound ancient and dusty. He wheezed and hissed. Licked the blood from his lips, eyes sliding left and right. He attempted to turn his head, and let out a hoarse shout, face screwing up with pain. His moan raised all the hairs on Nikita’s arms, sent hard chills skating down his back.

Sasha looked horrified. He took a few quick steps back, pulling his injured hand into his chest, smearing blood on his shirt.

Rasputin tried to speak, but the words were garbled. He sounded like his throat was full of grave dirt.

Nikita cast a glance to his right, and saw his brothers and Katya all in similar states of shock and disgust, eyes huge in pale faces.

Dr. Ingraham breathed something in English that might have been a prayer or a curse. He was openly gaping.

Philippe was the one who stepped forward, rather than away, face radiant with something that looked, sickeningly, like love. “I’m here, Grisha, I’m here.” He put a hand on Rasputin’s shoulder and smiled down at him. “It’s me, Philippe.”

Rasputin moaned again.

“Dr. Ingraham, the blood, please.”

“Oh! Right!” The doctor rushed to the door and put his head out into the hall, fired off rapid orders to his assistants.

Two assistants used a rolling cart to push the door wider, wheeling in stoppered glass bottles of blood.

Dr. Ingraham seemed electrified, bustling to the counter along the wall, pouring blood into a tin mug.

Philippe took it from him and wedged his free arm beneath Rasputin’s head, lifting him. Thestaretsgave a wordless shout of pain, eyes rolling.

“Here, this will help. Fresh and warm,” Philippe murmured, bringing the mug to his lips.

Nikita realized he couldn’t watch. He turned his head away, and his gaze landed on Sasha.

Sasha, who’d performed a miracle, who now sat slumped against the wall, cradling his injured hand, eyes wide and frightened – ignored by all the excited people rushing to tend to the newly-awakestarets.

Nikita went to Sasha. Knelt at his side, blocking his view of what was happening on the table. “Sasha.” He pushed his damp hair off his forehead, thumbed at skin that was cold and clammy. “Sashka. You okay?”

His teeth were chattering, and now that Nikita was close, he could hear that he was whinin, softly, a lupine sound. He didn’t answer, instead brought his hand to his mouth and tried to lick the wound.

“No, no. Here.” Nikita caught his wrist and pulled his last, grimy handkerchief from his pocket, pressed it into Sasha’s bloody palm. “Let me get something–”

Katya knelt beside him, with a handful of clean gauze and cotton batting. Roll of bandages. A swab damp with what Nikita could smell was alcohol.

“Hello, sweet boy. Can I see?” she asked, smiling at Sasha.

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