Into the Flame

  She spasmed. Coughed. Threw up half the ocean.

  A bullet plunked into the water near them.

  For a brief second, a surge of anger warmed him. Then he glanced up. The Varinskis were still shooting, but the bullets were falling short—because a rip-tide was sweeping them out to sea.

  They were doomed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Varinski home

  In the Ukraine

  ‘‘Get out of the house. Get out now.’’ Vadim Varinski spoke softly, but with an intensity that should have reached every one of his cousins and brothers. ‘‘It’s time.’’

  Of course, some of them didn’t pay attention, didn’t hear, didn’t understand.

  He didn’t care. The ones who were too drunk or too stupid were of no use to him anyway. ‘‘Get out,’’ he repeated, but his voice grew softer.

  ‘‘Let me help you.’’ Georgly stood beside him, taller than Vadim, broader than Vadim, intelligent, resourceful, and, most important, completely and blindly loyal to Vadim. ‘‘You can finish in half the time if I help.’’

  Vadim thought for only a moment, then nodded. ‘‘You take the back. Make sure you cover the exits, and be out in’’—Vadim consulted his watch— ‘‘three minutes.’’

  ‘‘Right.’’ Georgly shoved at Mikhail. ‘‘Get in the bus.’’

  Mikhail was a big, shambling Russian bear of a man, not bright, not handsome, not even completely human—he grew a pelt of black hair down his neck, onto his shoulders, down his arms, and onto the backs of his hands. He shrugged off Georgly’s manhandling, a big grin plastered on his moon face. ‘‘I’ve never ridden on an airplane before. I can’t wait.’’

  ‘‘I can’t wait, either,’’ Vadim said. The faster he could get the job done, the better.

  Over the last few weeks, he’d been slowly moving his men out of the house, out of the country, and placing them in position for the assault on the Wilders. Today, the last plane he’d chartered waited at the airstrip. None of these Varinskis realized it, but when they boarded and flew away, they would never return to the mother country. Vadim had decided it was time to move forward. He’d eliminated the old uncles—only one Varinski over forty remained alive. He’d transferred their assets to a Swiss bank, taking care that he and he alone should know the account codes. And he’d arranged to buy a huge old house in Wyoming that the Varinskis would now call home.

  He himself had a condo in New York City.

  Only one detail was left to clear up.

  Picking up the gas cans, he started into the house.

  The Varinski homestead was entirely made of wood. It was old. It was sagging. It was rotting.

  Gas fumes rose to his nose as he liberally doused the floorboards.

  It was going to go up like a torch.

  He hurried; this job needed to be done quickly, and it needed to be done right. Because right now, Uncle Ivan lay facedown on the floor in the den, snoring loudly, and only one thing could wake him up—if someone tried to remove the bottle of vodka from his fist.

  Vadim had no intention of doing that.

  Only to himself did Vadim admit how much Uncle Ivan, with his gnarled joints and staring white eyes, made his skin crawl. Of course, it wasn’t really Uncle Ivan who disturbed him. It was the thing that dwelled inside Uncle Ivan, watching the Varinski operations through those blind eyes. Only once since Vadim had taken over as leader had the beast taken possession of Uncle Ivan’s body. Only once had Vadim seen Uncle Ivan’s white eyes glow blue, and heard the deep, menacing tones of a devil displeased.

  Because it was the devil. The devil who felt that, because he had granted the pact to the first Konstantine, he had the right to disapprove of Vadim’s plans.

  Vadim didn’t give a shit about that feeble old pact. The pact was disintegrating right before his eyes. Varinski boys grew up to be predators, all right: weasels, snakes, rats. . . . Who was going to hire a fearsome badger as an assassin?

  No one.

  Worse, half the boys were drooling idiots, incapable of scratching their own asses.

  Those were the ones he left in the house to burn and never bother him again.

  If the Evil One imagined that by granting old Konstantinethe pact, he could exact he’d given Vadim a great gift and claim great loyalty, he had another think coming. Vadim had studied American society, studied the organized crime that thrived there, and he was dragging the family into legitimate corruption.

  He didn’t need Lucifer anymore.

  As he made his way back toward the front door, he glanced into the den.

  A square of sunlight from the east-facing window illuminated Uncle Ivan, still unconscious, unaware of the fate that awaited him. Vadim supposed it was a shame, really—the old guy was going to suffer, while the devil would be in his element.

  Vadim gave the threshold an extra-large splash of gasoline.

  Uncle Ivan snuffled. He lifted his head. ‘‘Who’s there?’’ he snapped.

  Vadim froze.

  The old guy looked around the room as if he could see, and for a moment, Vadim thought his gaze lingered on him, and on the gas can. But when no one answered, Uncle Ivan took a long swallow of vodka, his skinny old Adam’s apple bobbing. He belched, dropped his head back down, and was still.

  Slowly, carefully, Vadim backed away from the den. When he reached the porch, he dumped the last dribble of gasoline around the outside of the den, beneath the windows, and down on the rickety steps. Uncle Ivan would not escape this conflagration.

  Stepping away, Vadim flung a lighted match on the damp wood.

  The house ignited with a whoosh. Greedily, the flames ate the boards. Fire danced under the windows, into the open front door, down the corridor.

  Vadim heard the first shout, and Georgly ran around the corner, his face blackened with soot, his eyebrows burned off. ‘‘You said three minutes.’’ He shook his watch in Vadim’s face. ‘‘Not two minutes and forty seconds. What the hell’s the matter with you? You almost killed me!’’

  ‘‘Oops.’’ Vadim shrugged with patently false innocence. ‘‘My mistake.’’

  Georgly growled, the guttural growl of an angry tiger.

  Vadim turned his head and looked at Georgly. Just looked.

  But Georgly slunk backward.

  Vadim never changed into the predator the pact allowed him to become. He wouldn’t permit the devil to control him, yet he had a gift. He made people afraid. He always had. And that was power.

  ‘‘If you’re going with me, get on the bus,’’ Vadim said.

  ‘‘Of course I’m going with you. I’m your right-hand man. As if I would stay without you!’’ Georgly protested.

  ‘‘I thought you would feel that way.’’ Vadim waved a hand toward the Varinski homestead, engulfed in flames. ‘‘Because what’s going to be left?’’

  Yells and shrieks wafted from inside the house. The Varinski idiots were burning.

  The windows on the bus were all down. His men watched, and even from here, Vadim could hear them muttering, could sense their confusion. Right now, the fear of him hadn’t yet settled in, and some of them wondered if they should mutiny against the man who would burn their home and their brothers.

  ‘‘Get on the bus,’’ Vadim told Georgly. ‘‘Keep the men under control.’’

  Georgly hurried to do as Vadim instructed, then paused. ‘‘When are you coming?’’

  ‘‘I’ll come when I know everything’s been taken care of.’’ Vadim smiled at the smell of burning wool and electrical wire, laughing when the flames reached one of the gas cans he’d stashed and the explosion rocked the ground. As the heat grew more intense, he backed away.

  At last he saw what he’d been looking for. In the window of the den, a blazing male form pranced and whirled, screaming, trying to escape the flames.

  Uncle Ivan.

  Uncle Ivan tried to open the window. The glass exploded, and he screamed again.

  The bus driver, a manservant whom
Vadim had hired to drive them to the airstrip, leaped down the steps to puke.

  The blaze climbed to new heights, licking under the porch roof, bursting through the wood shingles, igniting the huge dead tree in the side yard. Cars that were parked around the house developed blisters in their paint, and the Volvo began to smoke ominously.

  From behind the house, a wild shriek sounded, and a human flame ran toward the creek, igniting the grass as he fled.

  Still in the den, Uncle Ivan careened from one windowto another, screaming wordlessly. He wasn’t a man anymore, merely fuel for the fire.

  Satisfied he had handled the matter, Vadim turned away and walked toward the bus. Stepping on board, he looked around at the faces, some sharp with intelligence, some dull with stupidity, some barely human, some in control of their gifts . . . all watching him with terror and awe.

  Good. He’d accomplished two deeds—he’d rid himself of Uncle Ivan and his devil, and tightened his grip on Varinski power.

  He gestured Georgly out of the front seat.

  Georgly gladly went.

  To the bus driver, Vadim said, ‘‘Stop puking and drive, or I’ll toss you on top of the pyre.’’

  The ashen-faced man did as he was told, and as they drove away, Vadim glanced one last time at the old homestead.

  Uncle Ivan’s flaming figure had somehow clambered out of the house. Now he stood swaying on the porch as the roof collapsed around him. Nothing about him was recognizable. Nothing at all—except, even from this distance, Vadim could see the freakish blue glow deep in his eyes.

  ‘‘Take that,’’ he muttered, and saluted ironically. Then, pulling his briefcase from beneath the seat, he donned his headphones, plugged in his iPod, closed his eyes, and listened to the Reverend Dean Dowling read his audiobook, Success Through a Better You.

  Vadim failed to notice, far in the back of the bus, the freakish blue glow that flashed in two brown eyes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They were going to die. Firebird knew it. The cliffs were dwindling in the distance. The current moved more and more swiftly. The wind ripped at them, and the surface waves tossed them like driftwood.

  But she laughed anyway.

  She was suffering from hypothermia. She knew that, too. Because otherwise she wouldn’t be giggling like the understudy for a Broadway star who’d fallen ill.

  She wrapped her arms around Douglas’s neck and kicked her feet to help keep them afloat. ‘‘Did you know that people suffering from hypothermia are frequently . . . are frequently . . .’’ She shuddered with the cold and tried to remember what she was saying. ‘‘Did you know that people suffering from hypothermia are frequently irrational and uncoordinated?’’

  The waves rose and fell, huge swells that lifted them into the air, then plunged them underwater.

  Douglas tried to keep her head in the air, but she sputtered and laughed when the icy water struck her in the face. ‘‘I know.’’

  ‘‘You know what?’’

  ‘‘That people suffering from hypothermia are irrational.’’ He was not laughing. In the white moonlight, his face looked as bleak and stony as the cliffs themselves.

  ‘‘Cheer up, darling. We’ll be in China soon.’’ She shuddered again, her teeth chattering so hard they clanked in her mouth. As the spasm eased, she kissed him and sang, ‘‘ ‘I’m gonna get you on a slow boat to China. . . .’ ’’

  Another wave rolled beneath them, lifting them high, then plunging them into the depths.

  She wiped her face, blew salt water out of her nose, and sang louder: ‘‘ ’. . . Get you, um, in my arms evermore. Leave, um, others waitin’ . . .’ ’’ She broke off. ‘‘I can’t remember the words. Do you know the words?’’

  ‘‘No.’’ He leaned his forehead on hers. ‘‘Firebird, I’m sorry.’’

  ‘‘For what?’’ She grinned at him.

  ‘‘It’s my fault you’re going to die.’’

  ‘‘No. Believe me, I know where to place the blame. It’s the Varinskis’ fault.’’ She rode the rising swell, and at the very tip-top, she lifted her fist and shouted, ‘‘You ruthless pricks, I hope you all eat shit!’’

  The sea sucked her down into the depths. Her muscles were cramping, her bones cracking under the influence of the constant, shocking cold. She was an anchor attached to Douglas, one he clutched with all his might.

  This time it took longer to come to the surface, and when she did, she had only one thought in her mind. ‘‘Do you think eat shit is too crude?’’

  ‘‘No. Eat shit is just right.’’

  She felt drunk. She felt silly. But she didn’t feel cold now. In fact, she was feeling warmer.

  Stupid to feel warmer, but she didn’t care. ‘‘You need to let me go, but before you do, I have something very serious to tell you.’’ She wrapped her arms around his neck and frowned at him. ‘‘It’s about who you are. Because if I don’t tell you, and I die, you’ll never know.’’

  ‘‘I’ll never let you go. We’re going to die together.’’

  ‘‘No.’’ She had to concentrate, because she was losing the fight for consciousness. ‘‘Listen. About your family. Listen . . .’’

  A light slipped across the water.

  ‘‘Hey!’’ He jumped in her arms, then shouted again, ‘‘Hey!’’

  She watched the light skitter toward them in a detached sort of amazement. ‘‘I guess that’s it. The light of heaven. But . . . maybe not. Do I qualify for heaven?’’

  He wasn’t paying any attention. He just kept shouting, ‘‘Hey!’’ and waving an arm.

  ‘‘I’m not really a Wilder, so I do. Except I haven’t lived an exemplary life, so maybe not. It depends on how strict the angel Gabriel is about the rules. . . .’’

  Another light joined the first. The two lights got brighter.

  Angels started shouting.

  She looked up as they grabbed her under the arms and dragged her onto the boat, and she sang, ‘‘ ‘I dreamed last night I was on the boat to heaven, and a great big wave came and washed me overboard. . . .’ ’’

  The light shone right in her face.

  Douglas was speaking, wrapping her in a blanket. She couldn’t feel it—she was too cold—and when he tried to talk to her, she sang louder, then broke off to say, ‘‘I’ll bet you didn’t know I played the lead in Guys and Dolls in high school.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t,’’ he admitted.

  ‘‘I can’t sing.’’ Her head flopped to one side.

  ‘‘I do know that.’’

  She felt a vague indignation, but then the shivering started, racking her bones.

  She deserved the pain. ‘‘I should have told you. . . . Listen to me, Douglas. I should have told you. I almost didn’t get the chance. We almost died, and you would have never known. . . .’’

  He wasn’t paying attention. He was listening to the angels, listening with an attitude of concern, then anger.

  The angels were talking among themselves in low tones, and she shouted, ‘‘A little louder, boys, I can’t understand you.’’

  Douglas stood with his hands on his hips. He still wore his uniform, he was dripping and shivering— ‘‘Handsome as sin,’’ she said—and he talked back to the angels. He was loud enough, but it still sounded like gibberish to her.

  Or—she tilted her head—was it Russian? Her parentsspoke Russian. She spoke a little. ‘‘Zdravstvuite,’’ she said.

  The angels fell silent. The angels stared at her. Stared with their eyes bugging out of their heads.

  The boat rocked.

  The wind whistled.

  One angel reached down toward her throat.

  Douglas caught his hand and spoke sharply.

  Suddenly, the angels scurried to tend their sails. The captain’s strong voice lifted. He shouted orders.

  Then the boat took on a life of its own, catching the wind, the waves, the tides, and moved toward a destination she couldn’t imagine.

  For one moment, h
er judgment returned. She was alive. Not on a boat to heaven. She knew how close she’d come to death, how close she still was—and she realized that Douglas must be in the same shape she was, yet he stood over her, protecting her.

  ‘‘Douglas, please.’’ She lifted the edge of the blanket. ‘‘Come to bed with me. You know you want to.’’

  Nervous male laughter swept the boat.

  She’d been too loud. She had no control.

  Tears filled her eyes.

  Douglas knelt beside her. ‘‘Don’t worry. I’ve got a bigger body mass, I had less wine, and the cold affected me less.’’ He pressed his hand on her forehead. ‘‘Go to sleep. I’ll take care of you.’’

  ‘‘But who will take care of you?’’ She lifted her violently shaking hand and touched his face. ‘‘I promise . . . promise to live so I can take you . . . to your mother.’’

  Chapter Twenty

  Firebird woke.

  It was morning.

  Or something.

  She could see light behind her closed lids. But her eyeballs hurt, so she didn’t open them.

  Her bad ankle hurt, too. Everything hurt, but her ankle especially. It was cocked sideways. And she couldn’t move it. Because when she tried, that really hurt. Finally, in profound irritation, she reached down to pick up her leg and found something in the way. Blankets.

  Irritation turned to rage. Viciously she ripped the covers aside. Which made her twisted ankle straighten. Which caused so much pain she shouted, ‘‘Goddamn son of a bitch.’’ And at last, she opened her eyes.

  She was in Douglas’s bedroom. He stood over her. For a moment, memories merged; dinner at Mario’s had never happened, and she was facing Douglas again for the first time after the passionate interlude on this very bed.

  Then she saw the way he looked, like a man who had been to hell and back, and the evening at Mario’s and in the ocean, with all its confessions and its horrors, tumbled into place.

  ‘‘You’re better.’’ He pulled the covers all the way to the foot of the bed.

  She wore an old-fashioned flannel nightgown, long-sleeved and buttoned all the way up to her throat.