Into the Flame

  Firebird told Douglas, ‘‘When you meet her, you’ll never believe Ann is our resident computer hacker.’’

  Doug didn’t want to let Firebird go, but the pain of his ribs was growing, his hip was throbbing and bleeding, and for all that he had lost only his little finger, the pain was big. So he let her slide to her feet, and embraced her until he was sure she was steady. ‘‘Are you tired? Do you want me to hold Aleksandr?’’ he asked.

  She looked him over, her gaze lingering not on his nakedness, as he would have wished, but on the gunshot wound to his hip. ‘‘I think I’d better keep him.’’

  Konstantine said, ‘‘I’ve got clothes for all of us hidden in the woods. Jasha! Adrik! Before the help arrives and questions are asked that we cannot answer.’’

  Startled, Doug looked at Firebird.

  ‘‘It’s true,’’ she said. ‘‘Papa has always preached that we should be prepared for any eventuality. There are more than clothes hidden in those woods.’’

  It was less than five minutes later when Konstantine and the two brothers returned, dressed and carrying clothes for Rurik and Doug—clothes Doug discovered fit him very well.

  ‘‘He is built like a Wilder,’’ Konstantine said with satisfaction.

  Karen examined the wounds on Adrik’s face, then made him sit at her feet while she removed splinters of glass. He complained mightily.

  Doug looked meaningfully at Konstantine. Give me a moment with Firebird, he meant. Let me propose.

  ‘‘Come here, lad.’’ Konstantine collected Aleksandr out of Firebird’s arms.

  Aleksandr beamed. ‘‘Grampa is strong.’’

  Konstantine beamed back at the little boy cuddled against his chest. ‘‘Yes, my boy, I can finally hold you as God intended.’’

  Firebird looked her father over, at his stern face, his broad shoulders, his barrel chest. ‘‘Oh, Papa.’’ She clasped her hands together. ‘‘You’re cured.’’

  It was true. The sick man Douglas had spied on through the window had vanished, and in his place stood a mighty warrior.

  ‘‘The pact is broken. I will live to the fullness of my years, long enough to see this little one grow and prosper, and maybe enjoy more grandchildren’’— Konstantine looked his children over with a glint in his eye—‘‘and when I die, I pray I have pleased heaven enough to go there to wait for your mother.’’

  Firebird, Tasya, and Karen burst into tears.

  Zorana covered her mouth to contain her sobs.

  Jasha muttered, ‘‘Silly women.’’

  ‘‘They’re so sentimental,’’ Rurik said.

  Adrik coughed. ‘‘Yeah, it’s embarrassing.’’

  The brothers turned away and rubbed at their eyes.

  For this family, it was as if this miracle among all the others was the greatest.

  Doug envied them that—this closeness to their father, this affection with one another. He didn’t have that yet. But in time, he would.

  Yet mostly he was frustrated, needing to settle things with Firebird now.

  In the distance, a siren sounded. The ambulance? The police? Who knew?

  Without a doubt, someone had heard the gunfire.

  Doug looked back at Firebird and saw Zorana hugging her. He didn’t have much time before the authorities arrived, yet he didn’t know how to separate a mother and her daughter.

  Konstantine looked meaningfully at Doug and wiggled his fingers toward the two women. Go on!

  Doug shrugged helplessly. When it came to this sentimental family stuff, he didn’t know what to say or how to act.

  ‘‘Zorana, come here,’’ Konstantine said in a voice of command.

  ‘‘Of course, husband.’’ Zorana wrapped her arm around Firebird’s waist and brought her to Konstantine. Holding out her arm to Doug, she invited him into her embrace. ‘‘I am so happy. So happy! The children all have met their perfect mates. We are all alive, although we bear our wounds.’’ She touched the bloody stump of Doug’s finger, and cast a worried glance at Tasya. ‘‘We have broken the pact with the devil, fulfilled the prophecies, and my relatives no longer oppose our marriage.’’

  ‘‘That was indeed a concern for me.’’ Konstantine rolled his eyes.

  Zorana smiled at him, a charming, winsome grin. ‘‘When I am content, you are content. Yes?’’

  His stern, broad face softened. ‘‘Most certainly, yes.’’ He looked at his wife, tremulously happy, at Doug, unsure how to proceed, at Firebird, alive. . . .

  The sirens got closer and closer.

  Doug could almost see Konstantine making an executive decision.

  Konstantine lifted his chest, squared his shoulders, and used the voice radio deejays used to announce a new, improved deodorant. ‘‘We are a family united by pain and sorrow, victory and joy.’’

  ‘‘Papa really is better.’’ Jasha slid down a tree trunk and onto the ground. ‘‘He’s making a speech.’’

  Rurik and Adrik grinned and groaned.

  Konstantine rolled on without paying his disrespectful children heed. ‘‘We have endured pain, separation, and despair. But now . . . now we celebrate! Our sons are all returned, and our daughters are fertile. We will rebuild our home in these wonderful United States of America, and we will live in prosperity!’’

  ‘‘Fertile?’’ Karen blinked in amazement. ‘‘Fertile?’’

  Tasya started giggling and didn’t stop.

  Doug suspected the morphine might still be working on her.

  ‘‘Now Zorana and I are pleased to announce that our daughter, Firebird, will marry our son Douglas—’’

  Tasya giggled louder. ‘‘He left off two words— or else.’’

  ‘‘—and they will live happily ever after.’’ He looked from Doug, horrified and immobile, to Firebird, quiet and enigmatic. ‘‘I speak the truth, do I not?’’

  Firebird considered Doug for a long moment. Then she nodded. ‘‘Of course, Papa. It shall be as you wish. Douglas and I will marry and give Aleksandr the mama and papa that he deserves.’’

  Chapter Forty-one

  ‘‘Did you see that the only newspaper that got the story right was the National Enquirer?’’ Adrik rooted through the pile of newspapers on the table in the kitchen in the house Konstantine had rented.

  ‘‘I thought they said we were attacked by aliens.’’ Karen looked up from the Seattle Examiner.

  ‘‘No, that was the Star,’’ Rurik corrected. ‘‘The National Enquirer said we were attacked by Varinskis, a well-known and ancient assassination cult that wanted to kill us because we attempted to destroy the devil’s hold over their leader.’’

  Adrik smirked. ‘‘They also said the thing that made us fight back was when the Varinskis hired aliens to impregnate Jasha.’’

  Slowly, Jasha turned away from the counter and the pastrami sandwich he was assembling.

  ‘‘Like we would care if aliens impregnated Jasha,’’ Adrik finished.

  The laughter in the kitchen started slowly and grew.

  Jasha flexed his hands and leaped at Adrik.

  The two of them hit the floor, wrestling like two idiots.

  Aleksandr sat in a high chair and banged the tray with delight.

  ‘‘It’s been a long time since Adrik disappeared, and when he came back, everything turned grim pretty quickly.’’ Today was Douglas’s first day out of the hospital, and Firebird was trying to bring him up-to-date with his new family—give him brief rundowns on their characters, tell him a bit about what they’d been like growing up, point out their foibles and their strengths. ‘‘They’re fighting, but it’s not serious. They’re merely blowing off steam.’’

  Douglas nodded.

  Konstantine scooted his chair away from his wrestling sons, ignoring them as if they were two exuberant puppies. ‘‘The news station said we’d been attacked by a right-wing group because we were successful Russian immigrants.’’

  Jackson Sonnet puffed out his chest. ‘‘I gave them that angle.
’’

  ‘‘Good one, Dad.’’ Karen gave him the thumbs-up. ‘‘As disinformation goes, that’s the most believable.’’

  ‘‘Oh, yeah? Wait until Jasha has that baby.’’ Rurik ducked when Jasha threw a butter knife and knocked his coffee cup over.

  ‘‘All right!’’ Zorana threw a kitchen towel to Rurik. ‘‘Mop that up! Jasha, Adrik, that is enough!’’

  Rurik mopped. Jasha and Adrik sat up.

  ‘‘Our neighbors donated or loaned us everything in this house, and I do not want you boys breaking things.’’ She pointed. ‘‘Adrik and Jasha, sit up and stop behaving like hoodlums. Douglas’’—she came over and kissed him on the forehead—‘‘you sit here and be a good example for your brothers.’’ She returned to assembling the ingredients for shchi.

  ‘‘Suckup,’’ Jasha said out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘‘Screwup,’’ Douglas answered.

  This house was twice as big as their family home in the valley, but the kitchen had the same crowded, convivial atmosphere.

  So it wasn’t the house that created the ambience. It was the people, and Firebird wanted Douglas to love them as much as she did.

  But since they’d brought him home from the hospital, Douglas had been quiet. He’d been quiet in the hospital, too, but she’d put that down to pain, healing, and dealing with his really pissed supervisor about the wrecked patrol car. Now she realized that Douglas had been uncommunicative ever since her father had announced their wedding.

  Perhaps marriage wasn’t what Douglas had intended.

  Adrik sighed mightily. ‘‘I confess, I’m bummed. Even if I swore off turning into a panther, it was so cool to know I could.’’

  ‘‘You’re married,’’ Karen said pertly. ‘‘You don’t need to be out catting around, anyway.’’

  The guys groaned.

  ‘‘And Rurik shouldn’t be flying the coop.’’ Tasya smirked at her husband, the former hawk.

  ‘‘Jasha had better not be running with the wolves.’’ Ann started giggling and couldn’t stop.

  Everyone turned to look at Firebird. She sighed heavily. ‘‘All right. I’ll say it. Now that he has me, Douglas has no business going out and chasing pussy.’’ She glanced to see if she’d made Douglas laugh.

  She hadn’t.

  If he had a sense of humor, he hid it well.

  ‘‘What? Does everyone think I am so old and unappealing I am unable to turn into a wolf and chase women?’’ Konstantine looked reproachfully at Zorana.

  ‘‘No, Konstantine.’’ She patted him fondly. ‘‘But everyone knows I keep you on a tight leash.’’

  ‘‘Come here, woman.’’ He caught her waist and reeled her in. ‘‘For that pun, you shall pay the price.’’ He pulled her across his lap and kissed her while she struggled . . . but not too hard.

  ‘‘Would you two stop with the kissing? At least in front of us?’’ Rurik covered his eyes.

  ‘‘Haven’t you ever seen your papa kiss your mama before?’’ Konstantine sat Zorana up.

  ‘‘Yes, but not all the time,’’ Jasha said. ‘‘You’re scarring us for life!’’

  ‘‘Humping like bunnies,’’ Aleksandr said helpfully.

  The family dissolved into laughter.

  ‘‘Where did he learn that?’’ Firebird asked.

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’ Konstantine shrugged. ‘‘Children. They pick up the oddest phrases.’’

  ‘‘You are bad, Konstantine.’’ Zorana returned to the stove.

  ‘‘That is not what you said last night,’’ he answered.

  ‘‘No, Papa, no!’’ Adrik covered his ears. ‘‘I beg you, stop!’’

  ‘‘Even after Papa got sick, he would chase Mama around the kitchen, dragging his oxygen tank and IV tubes,’’ Firebird told Douglas softly. ‘‘He adores her.’’

  Douglas nodded.

  ‘‘What I want to know is how the Star knew that Firebird was in the house when it caught on fire.’’ Tasya sat with her leg bandaged and straight out on the bench. ‘‘Who saw that? Who sold them the story?’’

  ‘‘One of the Varinskis wasn’t as dead as we wanted to believe. Or someone from the town heard the noise and was watching.’’ Ann looked from one to the other. ‘‘We vanquished one battalion of the devil’s army. Let us not believe we vanquished the devil himself.’’

  The cheery kitchen grew quiet and bleak.

  Then Jasha said, ‘‘When she’s right, she’s right. And she tells me she’s right all the time.’’ He cowered when she punched his shoulder, then stole a kiss.

  ‘‘What I like is the sidebar about Miss Joyce.’’ Rurik snapped one of the papers back and placed it on the table. ‘‘According to the National Enquirer, she is the first provable case of a human being spontaneously combusting.’’

  ‘‘They say she did make it back to the house, so technically I didn’t kill her by leaving her in the sun. Too bad.’’ Zorana slammed through the kitchen drawers. ‘‘I know Sharon brought me a slotted spoon. Where do you suppose I put it?’’

  Karen got up to help her look. ‘‘Apparently it wasn’t the sun that was frying Miss Joyce. It was the devil’s own frying pan.’’

  ‘‘Served her right,’’ Ann said.

  Everyone looked at Ann in bewilderment.

  ‘‘She’s usually the nice one,’’ Firebird explained to Douglas. ‘‘But she does have a thing about justice.’’

  ‘‘When I think that she stole an infant and abandoned him to die . . .’’ Ann clenched her fists.

  ‘‘Ann was an orphan, too, abandoned at birth,’’ Firebird told Douglas. ‘‘I think you two have a lot in common.’’

  ‘‘You, also,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Yes. You’re right.’’ Firebird didn’t want to think about it, but somewhere out there, she had parents. Now she would have to decide—search for her biological family, or let them go. She looked around the kitchen at the family she had here, and remembered that her parents had abandoned her. She suspected she would not bother to search.

  ‘‘Miss Joyce could have used our Firebird’s way with the flames.’’ Zorana forgot the spoon and faced Firebird. ‘‘Still I don’t understand how you did, but I am so grateful that you did.’’

  In the five days since the battle, the family had faced many challenges: reporters, police investigators, doctors, hospitals, stitches, and bullet extractions . . . and even now, Firebird felt odd about her miraculous escape from the fire.

  All her life, she’d been breathtakingly normal in a family of extraordinary people. Now she had walked through the fire, and they all stared as if she were the miracle.

  ‘‘Miss Joyce called you one of the abandoned ones.’’ The frying pan drooped in Zorana’s hand. ‘‘I thought she meant an abandoned infant. I wonder if there’s more to it than that?’’

  ‘‘There is with Ann,’’ Jasha said. ‘‘No one knows how, but she has a mark on her back, and in the right circumstances, she has powers.’’

  ‘‘Not any I can control.’’ Ann shook her head at Jasha.

  Firebird rubbed the spot on her back that had burned, still burned, when she caught sight of Douglas. He watched with an intensity and an emotion that she couldn’t read. Hastily she took her hand away and stared at him, wanting to know what he thought, what he intended.

  ‘‘I have to go lie down.’’ Douglas stood and walked out of the kitchen.

  Firebird excused herself and followed.

  Jackson sighed mightily. ‘‘I hate to say it. I’ve had more fun in the last couple of weeks with you folks than in my whole life put together. But I got a business to run. After breakfast, I gotta go.’’

  ‘‘We hate to lose you.’’ Konstantine reached over and shook Jackson’s hand. ‘‘But we understand.’’

  ‘‘You’ll come back and visit,’’ Zorana said. ‘‘Every year we celebrate the Fourth of July, and Firebird’s birthday, and now Douglas’s, with a picnic and many friends. You are always invite
d.’’

  ‘‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’’ Jackson smiled genially.

  Jasha’s sigh matched Jackson’s. ‘‘Ann and I are like Jackson. Now that the crisis is over, Ann and I need to get back to the winery.’’

  ‘‘Tasya and I have got an archeological site that made us an offer.’’ Rurik rubbed his hands in delight. ‘‘They want us to make one of those docudramas about the dig, and now . . . well, we’re going to take it.’’

  ‘‘It’ll be good to get back to a dig,’’ Tasya said.

  ‘‘When you’re better,’’ Zorana said warningly.

  ‘‘I am better.’’ Tasya’s smile tilted a little off center. ‘‘I think we were given one gift for winning the battle. The Wilder blood still heals.’’

  ‘‘I thought that, too. I’ve been popping stitches all day!’’ Adrik turned to his parents. ‘‘I’ve got a video game to market, and I think Karen is itchy to get back to her spa and see how much damage the Varinskis did. So . . .’’

  Konstantine turned to Zorana. ‘‘What do you think, my love? Will we be able to live alone?’’

  ‘‘Let me think.’’ She put a finger to her cheek and smiled. ‘‘Yes!’’

  Jasha looked toward the bedrooms. ‘‘What do you suppose is happening with Doug and Firebird?’’

  ‘‘She followed him so they could communicate,’’ Ann answered.

  ‘‘That poor son of a bitch.’’ Aleksandr shook his head sadly.

  Everyone stared at the little boy in the high chair.

  ‘‘That’s it.’’ Zorana glowered around the kitchen at her children, all hiding their faces and muffling their snorts. ‘‘There will be no more swearing in this house. And you!’’ She slapped her hand down on Konstantine’s shoulder. ‘‘You—you may not speak at all!’’

  Chapter Forty-two

  Firebird followed Douglas to his bedroom.

  He was straightening up, making the bed . . . getting ready to go.

  She leaned against the door frame, hoping she looked casual rather than lost. ‘‘Douglas, what’s wrong?’’