Dusk in Kalevia: Chapter 6

It was time. As Kaija leaned against the wall beside the rubbish bins, her heart refused to calm, and her limbs tingled with the strain of sustained anxiety.

It was the first day she’d been back to the city since the episode with The Boy–she’d abandoned work, and her apartment was off-limits, despite the key in her coat pocket–and now everything about the place seemed sinister and alarming. Portents of doom hung on every street sign, the judging eyes of every passerby offering fantasies of her imminent demise. As she prepared for a decision that would remove her last bastion of security in the entire world, she pondered how she’d come to such an act of betrayal.

Vesa.

Why was she doing this for him? By all rights she knew she should hate him for his deception, for the time she had wasted worrying about his imagined peril–for who and what he was. She couldn’t believe how drastically she’d misread the situation, but how could she have even begun to guess at his identity? Most of the high officials were notoriously private; it had been a great effort on the part of the Forest Clan to piece together any information about Vesa, save his parentage. The politburo elite understood that by keeping their families out of the limelight, they could keep them safe, anticipating plots against their loved ones. Pretty smart of them, she thought, considering the current situation.

What mysterious circumstances had led to the Chairman’s son running off into the arms of a rebel, anyway? Espionage? It was implausible that someone in his position would be called on to conduct an undercover operation himself–and on so minor a target. Maybe she was just one in a long line of experiments with the proletariat, tidily forgotten as he fell back into the normalcy of daily life.

No. That wasn’t Vesa–it couldn’t be. Years of detecting the warning signs of the vicious and insincere had made Kaija canny to false displays of good will. She was angry that he’d hidden his despicable origins from her, but she couldn’t discount the sincerity she’d seen in his eyes. Vesa–whoever he was, wherever he came from–believed he was her friend. She trusted her instincts, and they were leading her to biggest gamble of her short life.

Her allies had tracked the car’s daily route, analyzed Vesa’s routine. They had built the plan in anticipation for this moment, and now she was going to ruin it all. If she dashed in front of Vesa’s driver and flagged him down before he turned the next corner, he would avoid passing the spot where a stolen car was waiting to tail him, and the whole thing would be off.

She would probably get arrested. Even if she didn’t, if the others saw her, her life was forfeit. All she could hope for now was that she was right about Vesa, and that as she protected him, he would shield her in return.

She drew a breath; a sedan was approaching, too sleek and elegant to be one of the squat Soviet lemons that roamed the streets of Kalevia. A little diplomatic flag mounted on the fender rippled as the car slowed for a stop sign. She knew from Klaus’s description that this was the car that contained their victim.

Here goes, she thought. She took a few steps out into the light.

A hand yanked her back. She nearly fainted.

“Kai!” a male voice hissed.

She was spun around to face Tomi, one of the twin brothers. Panic strained his face at her sudden divergence from the plan. “What are you doing, idiot?!”

She forced a defense up her throat. “Keeping watch–”

His grip dug painfully into her shoulders. “You’re not even supposed to be here,” he said, and then looked up, clicked his tongue in disgust. “Just stay back, eh? Perkele.”

As the car drove by, she could barely make out Vesa’s face in profile, leaning close against the tinted glass, oblivious to her existence. When the car stopped at the next light, she saw the stolen blue Zaporozhets pull out behind it, and her heart fell like a stone.

The light turned green and Tomi nodded with satisfaction as the cars drove away. He turned to Kaija with a look of triumph on his face.

“They’re set. Come on, Kai.”

Not knowing what else to do, she followed him to the delivery truck parked around the corner. It was the second vehicle into which they would swap their hard-won prisoner if all went according to plan. She fell into the passenger seat, trying to hide the fact that her hands were shaking.

It was all over. The fire was lit, and now it would keep burning until it consumed them all.

**

In a dark pantomime of a chauffeur, Demyan opened the car door for Vesa. He knew that the men at State Security would balk if they saw their infamous minder, the very soul of the KGB Sword and Shield, adopting such servile behavior–but Demyan was determined to curry favor with the Chairman’s wayward son.

His act was for naught. Refusing to even look at his new handler, Vesa brushed past him and sat stiffly in the back seat, a statue in a freshly pressed school uniform.

Sneaking a glance at his charge in the rearview mirror, Demyan mulled over the teenager’s variable moods–they seemed to shift as quickly as spring winds on the Baltic Sea. Today the kid brought his own personal storm with him, nurturing a tempest of dark melancholia. Without saying a word, he adopted a combination of the dignified mourning of a martyr and the hauteur of a prince, staring soulfully into space while ignoring any effort on the part of those around him to engage.

It was infuriating.

Carry on with your little huff, Demyan thought, sorely tempted to unleash his powers. If I wanted, I could destroy you without lifting a finger.

The fantasy of bringing Vesa to heel relieved some of his irritation, and he calmed himself, maintaining a firm grip on the shadows that roiled inside him.

Guarding the boy was not going to be an easy job if he remained in such low spirits, especially since Demyan was prone to provoking fits of depression in those around him. He was not here to manipulate Vesa–to torment, terrify, or otherwise infringe upon his wellbeing. On the contrary, he had sworn to himself that no harm would befall the boy–especially not before Demyan was able to tease out the puzzle foretold in the stars–and to that effect he was willing to tamp down his inner monster and endure adolescent petulance. Demyan leaned back into the leather upholstery of the driver’s seat, briefly wondering if the window glass was bulletproof.

As they drove through the winding streets, the fog of angst made it difficult for Demyan to concentrate. He wondered what exactly had compelled Vesa to run off in the first place, and what had happened during his brief adventure. With disaster waiting in the wings, Demyan needed information and he needed it fast.

No one needed to know. The way she had overpowered him, the muscles tensing beneath the skin of her arms; her voice, soft and low, carrying him off to sleep. They were his secrets, meant for him and him alone. He had to carry the memory of that night, taking it out like a precious talisman to gaze at in the long, gloomy years ahead, because he would never see her again.

Demyan raised his eyebrows. So it was a girl, then, who had shaken Vesa so thoroughly. Was she one of the star-crossed lovers, the symbol of the bear from the prophecy? He needed to prompt the boy into revealing more.

“So, back to school.”

Vesa looked up sharply from the window, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.

Demyan pressed on. “Looking forward to seeing your friends again?”

“Yeah, sure, I guess.”

“What about Bear?” Demyan asked, going for it. Sometimes people responded to the direct approach. Element of surprise and all that.

“Who the hell is Bear?”

“Don’t you have any friends with a nickname like Bear? I could have sworn…”

“Jumalauta...” Vesa cursed under his breath. “What are you talking about?”

He’d been too bold. Vesa’s name had been a clue, but perhaps his counterpart was different. Demyan couldn’t tell from the glimpses of Vesa’s memory alone, but it seemed likely that this mystery girl was important. If she was the bear foretold in the stars, he needed to find her without delay.

He realized Vesa was looking at him funny.

“Who even are you, anyway?” the boy finally asked.

“Your bodyguard, for the moment.”

“Mika was my bodyguard. You’re just…” Vesa narrowed his eyes.

“Did I forget to introduce myself?” Demyan grinned over his shoulder. “Demyan Chernyshev.”

The light turned red. As Demyan stared out the window at the car that had edged up beside them, trying to think of the best approach to the problem of Vesa, he felt a creeping unease worm its way into his thoughts. Something was off, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

That blue car.

A jolt of panic raced up the back of his neck. It had been following them for most of the drive. He had seen it in the rearview mirror, but his focus had been on Vesa’s mind–and all the time it had been right there, waiting…

He reached for his pistol as the passenger door of the car burst open.

He heard Vesa shout in alarm, and his brain screamed Drive! but there was no time; in the dreamlike blur of movement that followed, he saw nothing but the barrel of the Sten submachine gun pointing down at him.

It was louder than expected–fireworks at close range, and the crack of ordinary window glass. The bullets tore through him, through his hand as it closed on the grip of his Makarov, through his chest and his shoulder. He tried to call out to Vesa, but found he could no longer breathe.

It was too late; he was frozen, pinned to the seat by white-hot daggers, burning from the inside out. He could feel himself going down, his heart’s dam breached, his human aspect draining in a hot stream down the front of his suit.

As his vision vanished down a dark tunnel, the last thing he saw was a writhing Vesa being dragged from the car, a gag forced between his lips and a sack pulled over his head.

Proceed to Chapter 6, page 3–>