“If you can’t do anything to help, then why would Peter bring me here?” I ask.
Batuo comes around the desk. In the dusty quiet, he extends one finger and presses it against the relic hanging around my neck.
“Because he knows how to save us. We just have to resurrect him.”
My hand finds its familiar spot over the relic and I step back. My eyes can barely focus on the incredible antiquities lining the walls. The violence and secrets and impossible technology are all too much to absorb, too fast.
“Batuo,” I say, “I don’t think I can do this.”
“I think you can, young lady,” he says, eyes sparkling. “You are in possession of a cedalion. Such a thing has never happened. Peter has made you part of his plan and it is no coincidence. You were chosen, June.”
I swallow, words stalling in my throat.
“Chosen? To do what? Have you seen these things fight? There’s no way I can deal with—”
Batuo waves my objections away, shaking his head.
“Your thoughts on the matter are immaterial, my dear. Fate has chosen you to become part of our story. Together, we will find the true vessel for that relic, and do so quickly…before Leizu destroys us all.”
30
INDIA, 1751
Man-eater. The monk cackles at me from the top of the garrison wall, a ribbon of smoke rising idly from his long, elaborate pipe. At my feet, the corpse of the Indian soldier rests against a fallen stone. The young man has dragged himself here on crushed legs, away from the carnage—only to die at my feet in agony.
And this baboon giggles at the sight.
With sudden anger, I bury my fingers in the cool crevice of the wall and haul myself up in a few neat lunges. The monk barely has time to swallow his chuckle before I am upon him, fingers wrapped in his robe, pulling his wide face close to mine. The twinkle does not fade from his blue-gray eyes as I roughly yank him to his feet, turn, and dangle him over the edge of the wall.
“Is it so funny?” I ask him.
The monk twists, wriggling out of my grasp.
Falling in a cloud of swirling robes, he lands back on the parapet, pirouetting away from my swinging fist, fat fingers flashing with gaudy rings and his golden sash cutting the air. With a flourish, he lands and extends one arm in an exaggerated curtsy. As he rises, his other hand plants the long wooden pipe back between his teeth.
“Rude of me,” he apologizes in a chirpy English accent, smiling around the pipe stem. “Terribly rude. Sorry to call you Man-eater. If you told me a proper name, well, I’d be happy to use it.”
Straightening and regaining my stance, I watch him closely. Something about the man strikes me as odd—some off-kilter angle that lingers beneath his skin; a synthetic precision to his movements. I lean forward, training my eyes on him.
“Yes,” he says, beaming. “Of course we’re both the same.”
“You are avtomat,” I say.
The monk’s smiling eyes narrow. His mouth pops open in disbelief.
“I’m not the first you’ve met, am I?”
Somewhere, Elena is haunting a drawing room, safe from this butchery and madness. Her visage slips through my thoughts for an instant, and the observant monk registers something in my locked jaw and impassive features.
“Perhaps not,” he says, pipe clenched in his teeth. He puffs on it, letting his eyes crawl over my face, absorbing any and all information.
“But I’m one of few, I’ll chance,” he adds. “I heard hysterical rumors of a ghost tiger who came in the night. I knew it would be one of us. Our presence does so often precede legend.”
He arches his eyebrows at me.
“Who sent you here, soldier? For whom do you fight?”
“For my sovereign, King George,” I reply.
“Ah,” he replies, unconvinced. “And what Word brings you all the way to India?”
I don’t respond.
“Hm, not a talker,” he says, eyes flickering over me. “I see you’ve found a decent leathersmith. Your face is passable. You aren’t great at remembering to make expressions, but at least you breathe. I can see your vessel was created by a master. And not so long ago.”
“What is long ago,” I ask, “when death does not come for our kind?”
“Long ago?” he asks, lighting the pipe again. “If only you knew, my boy. Long ago is an endless repetition of day and night, humans scurrying through caves to hide from monsters, barbarians fighting one another with sticks and stones. It is the return of the great ice from the north and saber-toothed beasts you wouldn’t believe. Long ago is the dead time before metal or ships or cities.
“Be glad that you know nothing of ‘long ago.’ In that way, you were lucky.”
The monk curls his arms across each other, sulking, puffing on the pipe and grinding his teeth. His muttering sounds both sad and angry. I move to step past him and he pulls his pipe from between his teeth and points the stem at me.
“Aha,” he says. “It is your height, of course, that gives you away. Let me guess. They must have named you Peter.”
Stunned, I do not respond.
“I see I am right. Rumors, rumors. Word spread across Europe of the vampir in Moscow, and of a tall man, a fighter who operated in the night circuits, deep in the oubliettes of the royal household. I can only imagine what you’ve been through, with the tsar’s death. And yet you have not sought out your own kind? Why is that? I wonder.”
“I will not be drawn into your wars,” I say, gritting my teeth. This man already knows too much, and I know nothing of him.
“Ah, Peter.” He sighs, shaking his head at me. “My dear Pyotr.”
The monk paces the parapet, speaking quickly. The ridiculous little silk sandals stay perched on his toes, extravagantly decorated with fish scales and golden trim.
“You’ve come to fight in this backwater war, of all wars?” he asks. “To satisfy your Word, you have found an obscure battle at the end of the earth? And not to exterminate slavers or stop rituals of human sacrifice but to secure favorable terms of trade for the British Empire?”
I say nothing, my bones aching with unsatisfied pravda. The monk blinks, confused.
“But perhaps you wonder the same thing,” he muses. “Is that where I have found you today? Questioning?”
The monk grins entirely too much. And he moves too quickly for a man of his stature.
Carefully, I circle toward my musket. The flintlock leans against the stucco wall, its bayonet protruding like a broken finger. My left hand settles on the ivory handle of the sheathed khanjali where it traces its familiar line along my thigh.
The monk throws his hands up, laughing gently. “Oh, I certainly don’t wish to engage you, Tsar Peter,” he says. “I represent the Maratha. We are here to stop this siege and rescue your company, of course. That’s why the sahib attacked this morning. It was his last chance before your reinforcements arrived.”
Glancing at the gate, I see the flag of the Maharashtra is being raised. A local army of reinforcements are threading through the city. The monk speaks the truth.
“Peter,” he says, “my name is Batuo. And I am here to set you free.”
31
SEATTLE, PRESENT
The first blow sounds like a knock, the second like a detonation.
Batuo stands without a word, dwarfed by his massive desk. He yanks a red-tasseled spear from its display on the wall, holding it lightly in one hand with surprising familiarity. Darting out of the alcove, he pauses under the sprawl of hanging artificial arms and legs, a chubby silhouette against the candlelight of the cathedral room.
“Protect that relic,” he says to me. “If her servants fail, Leizu will come for you herself.”
Batuo walks away, resolute, the long spear flexing with each stride.
Through the alcove archway, across the marble floor, the metal security door shivers with an impact. A bullet spits through, leaving a spiral of twisted metal like confetti. Batuo drops to his stomac
h and rolls gracefully out of the way as the door’s metal surface erupts into a frenzy of puckered holes and shreds of metal.
Finally, the whole frame collapses in a haze of smoke. Batuo calmly stands back up and dusts off his robe. He retrieves his weapon and faces the door.
The thing that calls itself Talus strides through the doorway like a demon, still wearing torn leather motorcycle armor. He tosses a smoking machine gun to the ground. In his other hand, he carries a short black scabbard with a round hilt protruding.
Protect the relic.
Scrambling, I rush around the alcove, scanning the walls for anything I can use as a weapon. Ancient bows and broadswords aside, I finally settle on something that looks like a bone saw, an electric tool, sterile and white. Clutching the thing in both hands, I depress a button. A shining circular blade on the end sings as it spins up to speed.
This is more my style.
“Herr Talus Silfverström,” calls Batuo from the other room, “I am afraid you are not invited, sir.”
With the weighty saw in both hands, I creep under the archway and along the outer wall of the cathedral-like room, circling toward where Peter lies unconscious on the surgery machine. My vision throbs with the beat of my heart as I try to breathe quietly and force myself to move slowly.
“I do not need your medical attention, Batuo,” says Talus. “You have given harbor to our enemies. Our pact is void.”
Batuo has planted his feet and taken a wide stance, leaning on his back foot. He lifts his left knee and angles the spear down like a scorpion’s stinger. The monk looks perfectly lethal—except for the ridiculous basketball sneakers on his feet.
Talus circles carefully. His face is patched up, long blond hair hanging over the worst of the damage, but I can see ragged gashes where my shotgun pellets penetrated his skin earlier. His upper lip is twisted into a permanent sneer.
“There are so few of us now,” says Talus. “I admire that you’ve made it this far. But the time has come…your anima is due.”
With a flick of his wrist, Talus draws the short, stocky sword and tosses the wooden scabbard to the ground. It’s a Roman gladius, the round pommel polished, blade oiled. The antique has been maintained as a fighting weapon, but the blade is nearly black under a patina of time.
“I respectfully disagree,” says Batuo, shifting slightly, causing the red tassel to swing hypnotically from the tip of his spear. Talus changes direction in response to the small movement, circling the other way.
“You are an old dog with old tricks,” says Talus. “The last Shaolin soldier monks died out centuries ago. Elderly people practice your miraculous forms in the park. It isn’t even a true martial—”
Sensing some near imperceptible flicker in Batuo’s stance, Talus spins away as the nurse robot charges from the shadows, lunging at him in stumbling jerks. The robot was waiting for Batuo to maneuver Talus into place before it attacked.
Far too slowly.
Reversing the blade, Talus steps back and buries his sword in the hard plastic carapace of the machine. Savagely, he twists the blade with both hands. Sneering at Batuo, Talus withdraws the blade slowly and lets the robot drop in a heap.
“Worth a try,” says Batuo, stepping forward.
While they are distracted, I slide around a pillar and trot over to the low white surgical table where Peter’s body is resting. The bone saw is heavy in my sweating hands. Heavy, and probably useless.
“Peter,” I whisper, kneeling beside him. Batuo said he had some power left. I can only hope he hears me.
In the middle of the vast room, Talus and Batuo have fallen into a blur of movement. Batuo is a flurry of brown robes, twisting and spinning, the precariously long bamboo spear flicking out like a snake’s tongue. Talus advances relentlessly, jerking his body through short, vicious feints and dodges, hacking at the spear.
Almost dancing, his movements economical and beautiful, Batuo lands the butt of the spear across Talus’s midsection. Staggered, the next blow nearly takes off the blond man’s head, but he raises both forearms in time to catch the spinning shaft. A crack like a lightning strike echoes into the candlelit heights.
“Listen,” I whisper to Peter’s body, “I think I understand what you want me to do. And if I had five years and a laboratory full of people smarter than me, maybe I could figure out how this relic works.”
Talus is up, blade whirling, a smaller knife in his other hand. Ribbon slices of Batuo’s robes are curling through the air as he dodges. Each fighter is predicting the moves of the other, lending a lilting delay to their feints and counterfeints.
“But I can’t do this,” I continue. “I’m not like you. I’m not as strong.”
The spear absorbs an impact, splintering and shattering into two pieces. Batuo spins away with a hitch in his step, one hand clasped to his side. Under his flayed robes, I can see the structure of his rib cage.
“You always were very quick,” says Batuo through gritted teeth. “As a praetorian you were unstoppable.”
The short gladius flickers out again, gleaming blackly, like a poisoned fang. Batuo retreats to the arched door of the alcove, beneath a butcher’s shop of hanging arms and legs. Talus follows without hesitation.
“This is yours, okay?” I whisper to Peter.
Sliding the necklace over my head, I hold the relic that my grandfather gave me in both hands, one last time. I press the crescent of metal into Peter’s limp hand and close his fingers over it. He looks like a man, but Peter is a machine. The avtomat operate by their own rules, and I can’t survive in this brutal world of theirs.
Unlike a machine, I bleed.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” I whisper. “You chose the wrong person.”
Gripping the bone saw in my hands, I take a last glance at my relic and tense to run. But the artifact is glowing now, energized by the electrical field of the machine. A hazy symbol is emerging, the white outline of a water droplet stained with a black eye. It’s so familiar…I try to place where I’ve seen it before—
Talus screams.
At the mouth of the alcove, Batuo and Talus stand under what look like tree branches blowing in a nonexistent wind, falling, crashing down. The writhing canopy of limbs are animating all at once, wriggling off their hooks in a squirming, clawing mass.
Talus fights desperately, overwhelmed by the gruesome waterfall of limbs.
Using the distraction, Batuo charges out and lands a kick just as Talus swings again, blindly. Knocked onto his back, Talus disappears under a swarm of scratching, kicking limbs. Batuo doubles over, hurt badly, both hands pressed to the tear in his side, trying and failing to keep his wound closed.
That was it. Batuo’s last trick. And it wasn’t enough.
Now, I’m trotting around the surgical station, heading for the demolished door. Behind me, the silver rings that circle the white table are humming. I cradle the bone saw against my chest and accelerate to a crouched sprint.
Across the room, Talus shakes off a blanket of quivering, grasping arms and legs. Eyes leveled on Batuo, he raises the gladius. One, two, three…and Talus leaps over the carpet of limbs, sword poised above his head. The monk is trying to spin away as the blade slices cleanly through his right arm. The severed limb falls to join the others. The next blow takes his leg off at the thigh, and then I don’t know what’s happening because I can’t bear to watch.
As I reach the demolished metal door, I stop. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up. Hearing nothing, I turn to look back.
Talus stands over Batuo’s dismembered corpse, watching me, smiling with a torn upper lip.
32
INDIA, 1757
Over the next year I think often of the Indian boy, bleeding to death at the foot of a stucco wall. In my memory, his face is impossibly young, legs trampled, blood leaking into hard furrows of dried mud carved by last winter’s artillery barrages. I try to imagine the forces of destiny, great and small, that brought him to his end there and I wonder whe
ther there was truly justice served in his death to foreign invaders, on his own soil.
The monk follows me, chattering constantly.
I agree with Batuo that a single man is short-lived, largely ignorant of the past and future, and can be trusted to make a selfish decision if no eyes are upon him. But he urges me to consider them in their multitude—in the incredible profusion of human cities and nations and languages and cultures. He claims that a precious thing emerges from that scratching, clawing horde: the thing they call civilization.
With proper culture, Batuo argues that men can be forged into something greater.
We continue the campaign across India with John Company. Our commander drives our forces against the remaining nawabs without fear or mercy. And as I am swept along, going through the motions of fighting, I find that each new engagement means less and less.
“Are you ready to leave?” Batuo asks, reappearing in the front ranks after an absence of a month.
“No,” I say.
“Stubborn,” is his usual reply.
Across the rich flank of India, I loot exotic artifacts and send them home to Elena. Cloistered on our new estate, she seems to be in high spirits. She reports the servants are dutiful in obeying her, especially via the official letters of instruction she forges in my name, under my seal. She sends me playful demands for esoteric Eastern artifacts and books, which I try to acquire. I sense Elena has found some grand intellectual quest to pursue and I am glad for it.
On the side, I receive an occasional letter from the butler, outlining the state of things and especially Elena’s activities. But as the months accumulate, letters from the estate stop reaching me. I assume that my frequent identity changes have finally made it too difficult. The bodies of my fellow soldiers provide a carousel of different personas, and though it feels macabre to stalk the battlefield like a parasite, I make a habit of taking new names.
The monk is irritating enough; I do not intend to advertise my existence to any other avtomat.
Batuo’s agenda is curious, impossible for me to guess. Once, while wandering in an imperial courtyard, the monk noticed me marveling at the golden sculpture of a peculiar fat man who sits cross-legged. I struggled to lift the valuable Buddha for packing, and Batuo scowled, taking offense.