Konstantine didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t a neighbor or a friend. Yet he looked familiar, which meant . . . it was likely he was a relative. From the Ukraine. Maybe a brother, or a cousin.
He and Zorana had come to the United States and changed their last name from Varinski to Wilder because they wanted no part of the wickedness that dominated his family. And yet . . . his family had followed them here, and never, ever had it been good news when a Varinski turned up.
He sliced a glance at his youngest son. At Douglas, lost to them for so long and now returned. Douglas was in law enforcement, trusted for his consummate instincts when dealing with criminals.
Douglas had already picked up the signals from the stranger. Now, holding his bottle of vodka, Douglas moved down the table, pouring drinks and seemingly at random pacing toward the man.
“The real world, the world we know, the world of the sun, is nothing but a skin of reality barely holding in the darkness and the evil. Hell is beneath us”—Konstantine stomped his foot on the ground—“and I heard once that the devil’s best trick was to convince us all that he does not exist.”
Father Ambrose lifted his glass. “Hear, hear!”
Konstantine continued. “So when you pray and hope for Aleksandr, pray also for the Chosen Ones. They accepted my grandson and gave him a role to play in this fight.”
Guests were hanging on his every word, clearly confused by the direction of his speech.
Meanwhile, Wilder mothers moved the younger children toward the shelter of the forest.
Zorana came to Konstantine’s side to stand beside him.
His family knew trouble when they saw it.
Konstantine continued to speak, his voice commanding attention, the legend he told almost hypnotic with its dark, primitive rhythm. “Long ago, when the world was young, twins were born, marked by fate. Repulsed, their mother took them into the forest and abandoned them, and in recompense, the good God gave them special gifts. The boy could make fire, and he was rescued by a band of roving Gypsies and lovingly cared for. When the boy grew into a man, he gathered others like him, seven people with gifts who wished to use them for good, and they formed the Chosen Ones.”
The Varinski now openly stared at Konstantine, his eyes black with hate.
“The girl was rescued by a witch, who abused her most horribly. When she grew into a woman, she found she could see the future. She killed the witch as a sacrifice to Satan himself, and then gathered around her seven people with gifts who wished to serve evil, and they formed the Others.”
Konstantine’s guests squirmed in their seats, starting to look uneasy at the turn this celebration had taken.
Konstantine’s sons and grandsons followed Douglas’s silent commands and moved into place around the Varinski.
“Each group of Chosen Ones serves a term of seven years, until a new group takes their place to fight the battle against the Others—and their master, the devil. These Chosen were sabotaged before they started. They came to the battle unprepared and without resources, for evil managed to breach their defenses. Their building, their researchers, their books, and their history were obliterated in one mighty explosion. And all of you must realize”—Konstantine leveled a stern look at his guests—“that the world as we know it is crumbling under the weight of corruption, blackmail, drugs, and vice.”
The Varinski smiled, a wide, ugly, sneering grin.
“We have only a few weeks left before the seven years of these Chosen are up, and when that happens—” Konstantine saw the Varinski lift his hand from under the table. He saw the flash of a metal barrel. He shouted, “Get down!”
As the pistol roared, Konstantine dove sideways, sheltering Zorana with his body, taking her down to the ground.
Chapter 2
Konstantine held Zorana tightly in his arms, terrified that she had been shot, and crawled with her under the table.
Around him he heard guests screaming, benches being overturned.
Feet stampeded past.
“All clear!” Adrik shouted.
“It’s all right, folks; we got him!” Rurik yelled.
A whistle blew, loud and long—Douglas’s police whistle.
At once the crowd quieted.
“Calm down, everyone. We have everything under control. You’re safe,” Jasha said. “Please go ahead and return to your seats. I think we’re all going to need more vodka.”
Nervous laughter.
“Who is he?” someone asked.
“We’re sorry. He’s a cousin. Looks like he went off his meds. It wasn’t a real gun,” Jasha lied with easy charm, soothing their guests. “We’ll handle him. Has anyone seen my parents?”
People bent. Eyes peered beneath the table.
“They’re here!” someone shouted.
Zorana shoved at Konstantine. “Get off of me, you big oaf. You’re so heavy I can’t breathe.”
He gave a sigh of relief. If she was giving him trouble . . . she was fine. Sitting up, he looked down at her, at the smudges of dirt on her face and her angry, snapping dark eyes. “You don’t usually complain when I’m on top of you.”
“You usually offer me a better time than getting shot at.”
“Next time someone aims a gun at you, I’ll whisper love words in your ear before I save you.” He offered his hand.
She took it and sat up. “Good idea. And he was aiming at you.”
“Probably, but these young Varinskis are not necessarily well trained in the art of shooting. When you landed, did you break a hip, woman?” His question was rough; his intent was not. He had been born a Varinski. He was strong, sturdy, long-lived.
Zorana was younger than him, so much younger, but she was fragile, her bones were delicate, and as their age progressed he feared for her more each day.
She knew it, too. She mocked his concern. “I’m fine. You rolled to protect me from the impact.” She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, you old fool.”
“You are the love of my life,” he said.
“I know.” She leaned her head on his chest.
Their adopted daughter, Firebird, crawled under the table with them. “Papa. Mama. You’re okay?” She saw the way they held each other. “Yes. You’re okay.” She patted their shoulders. “You need to come out. Show everyone you’re not hurt. And, Papa, you need to finish your speech.”
Konstantine nodded.
Zorana rose easily. No bones cracked, although she would be incredibly unhappy about the damage done to her clothes. She bought them from Nordstrom, and she took her clothing choices, especially for their picnic, very seriously. Konstantine felt sorry for his stupid Varinski cousin; the idiot had no idea the trouble she would serve up to him.
Konstantine’s knees were not as good as they once were, so he allowed Firebird and Zorana to help him to his feet.
The guests cheered.
A quick glance proved his sons had hustled the Varinski into the house, and Konstantine knew he would be bound and gagged and locked in the root cellar, with one of the boys on guard at all times.
The family would deal with him later.
“What was I saying when we were so rudely interrupted?” Konstantine boomed.
His guests laughed and clapped, reassured by his joke and his family’s apparent insouciance in the face of what looked like a shocking attack. Gradually they returned to their seats and cleaned up their overturned plates, while chattering over the clink of glasses.
When most of their nervous murmurs had died down, the priest spoke in a clear voice. “If you were trying to show us a demonstration of the evil in the world today, Konstantine, you did a good job. Now, why don’t you tell us the rest of the legend about the Chosen Ones?”
Konstantine slowly nodded. “As you request, Father, so I obey.” And once more, he spoke. “In the modern world, the Chosen Ones disguised themselves as the Gypsy Travel Agency, a corporate identity, and that’s when the current problems started. . . .”
Late that night, when the people had all gone, when the children had been put to bed, when the bonfire had burned down to red coals and blue stars peered coldly from the midnight sky, Konstantine caught Zorana’s hand and raised it to his lips. “Are you ready?” he asked her.
“I can’t wait,” she answered.
He knew it was true. When he had met her, she was the wise woman of her tribe, the one to whom visions were given—and she had been only sixteen. Yet her elders were right: Zorana had always been wise, strong, intelligent, and courageous, and she truly anticipated this confrontation with the Varinski kept captive in their cellar.
He nodded to his sons, then warned his family, “Keep to the shadows. He may be here for reconnaissance, and he doesn’t need to see exactly who watches him, and how many.”
These children and grandchildren, he had trained them well. They might wish to be defiant, to challenge the Varinski themselves, but they understood strategy. They had heard the tales of the last Varinski attack; they understood what was at stake.
Only Firebird remained on the periphery of the light. The women congregated at her back, and Zorana went to stand at her side. In this battle, Firebird had suffered the most, and like a bulwark of femininity, the Wilder women supported and protected her . . . for Aleksandr was her son, her firstborn, and every day she cried. Every day she prayed for his safe return.
In silence, Jasha and Rurik, Adrik and Douglas dragged the Varinski from the root cellar and brought him to face the family tribunal.
The Varinski was tall, but bulky, with broad shoulders and too much weight around his middle. Konstantine judged him to be about forty, at that age when men realized they were no longer the strongest, the youngest, the best. That meant he remembered the days when the Varinskis were at the top of the food chain, when a male lived for that moment he reached puberty and became a predator that would hunt and kill and earn a fortune for his cruelty.
Karen and Anne placed logs on the coals, and eager flames licked them to life.
Konstantine could have turned on the outdoor electric lights, but some scenes played better with the proper atmosphere.
Adrik and Douglas shoved the man into a sitting position on a log set close to the fire. Rurik and Jasha removed his gag and the ropes that bound him.
“You know,” Konstantine said kindly, “I recognize you.”
“You do not!” The Varinski half rose.
Rurik and Douglas slammed him back down.
“I do,” Konstantine assured him. “You’re a brother. A cousin. A Varinski.”
“Yes,” the Varinski muttered. “I’m—”
Konstantine held up his hand. “Don’t tell me your name. It’s not important. You’re not important. If I were guessing, that’s why you tried to shoot me.”
The Varinski snarled.
“Fearsome.” Rurik’s Tasya stood in the shadows, but her tone mocked and taunted.
The Varinski snarled again, then let his defiance fade to silence.
Konstantine let that silence drag on, until the Varinski shifted uncomfortably, as if ants had invaded both the log and his hefty butt. “Compared to me and my sons, you are young. I think . . . yes, I definitely think my boys and I broke our pact with the devil before you reached puberty.”
The Varinski looked aside. “Yes.”
“So what you’ve been all your life is a pathetic loser who talked about the good old days without experiencing them,” Jasha said.
The Varinski swung to face him, lips curled back, dark eyes cruel with resentment.
Jasha leaned toward him, hypnotizing him with his gaze. “I was a wolf, running free in the forest.”
Rurik fed more logs onto the coals, and when the flames lit the night sky, he said, “I was a hawk, alive on the wind.”
Adrik stood just out of sight of the fire’s light. “I was a panther, black as the night.”
Douglas watched his wife, their Firebird, slim and still, her eyes fixed on the Varinski. “I was a cougar, gleaming golden as I hunted my prey.”
“Well . . . aren’t you just lucky,” the Varinski sneered. “You ruined it for the rest of us.”
“Yes. We did,” Konstantine said.
The Varinski turned on him like a snake about to strike. “The apocalypse is coming, and because of you, Konstantine, we Varinskis are nothing. We are no one. Of no more use to the devil than the man on the street. In this battle, we should be commanding Satan’s forces, and we are mere . . . men.” The Varinski choked up, showing his grief like a little girl. “I want to see with the eyes of an eagle and hunt with the cruel intent of a panther. I want to serve at the master’s right hand, and foul the world with vice. Instead, I am reduced to shooting my enemies rather than ripping out their throats with my teeth.”
“You cannot rip out your enemies’ throats with your teeth?” Firebird said flatly. “That is a shame.”
The Varinski turned from the scorn of the men to the supposed weakness of the women.
Obviously he knew nothing of the Wilder women.
In a tone of command, he said, “I know who you are, Firebird Wilder, so don’t make fun of me. It is your son who most betrayed our loyalty to the devil. It is your son who tried to be something, one of the Chosen Ones. And where is he now? Vanished. Dead.”
Zorana caught Firebird as she lunged at him. She held Firebird as she fought to kill him. “Listen to me, child of my heart. Listen to me.” Zorana patted Firebird’s hair. “He’s not dead. Aleksandr is not dead. He’s buried alive, but he will rise again.”
Everyone froze. Everyone turned to face her.
Konstantine’s heart clenched. He remembered the last time, many years ago, that a prophecy had seized her. She had been right, right about everything, and in the end all had been well. But oh, what a price they had paid in blood and tears. . . .
“Truly, Mama?” Douglas asked. “You know this?”
Zorana, too, stood frozen, her dark eyes wide and surprised. “Yes,” she said slowly. “He’s still alive, but smothered beneath a great weight and much guilt.”
Firebird clung to Zorana. “Mama, don’t lie to me. The son I cradled in my arms, the boy I saw grow into a fine man . . . is he well?”
“He is. I’m not wrong.” Zorana stroked Firebird’s hair again, but she gazed far beyond the circle of light. “But he is in danger. Such danger. They watch for him, wait for him. They hunger for him, need him to complete their foul scheme.”
“Who are they?” Anne asked.
“Are they the Others?” Tasya asked.
“The Others . . . yes.” Zorana’s eyes half closed, and she took a long breath. “Yes, I smell the taint of the Others. I smell them and the rot that rises from the very roots of their being. . . .”
The Varinski had never seen anything like Zorana in the throes of a prophecy. He had perhaps imagined the world of the spirit, where evil and good fought for the souls of men, but he had never witnessed it.
He tried to bolt.
Konstantine caught him, threw him to the ground, planted his big foot into the middle of the Varinski’s back, and said, “Adrik. Rurik. Take our guest out to an island in the Sound. Leave him there like the stray dog he is. He’ll find his way back . . . but not soon.” His sons did as they were told, roughly grabbing the Varinski from the dirt and pushing him out the door ahead of them.
Konstantine turned his attention back to Zorana.
“There’s something else. I hear the echo of another prophecy . . .” Zorana’s voice became deep, and bleak, and as distant as the stars that twinkled in the dark skies above. . . . “‘Rising on the ashes of the Gypsy Travel Agency is a new power in a new building. Unless this hope takes wing, this power and this building will grow to reach the stars, and cast their shadow over the whole earth, and evil shall rule.’”
“What does that mean?” Douglas asked.
“It’s a prophecy.” Jasha remembered the first time. “We’ll find out when it’s time, and no sooner.”
> Firebird’s first clean burst of hope faded. “But I don’t believe it. If Aleksandr were alive, he would tell us. He would not let us suffer.”
Douglas caught her in his arms and held her. She closed her eyes and dropped her head onto his chest.
“Perhaps he can’t,” Douglas said.
“And you, my daughter, you underestimate the power of guilt.” Konstantine had killed in his day. He had been the embodiment of evil. He had repented . . . yet he still carried a burden on his soul. “Our Aleksandr was raised to be a man of honor. You raised him to be a man of honor. If the Others captured him, tortured him, and he gave in . . . he would never forgive himself. If he is alive . . . someday we will know it.” He gazed at Zorana, watching the power of the prophecy leave her, seeing once more the burden of worry oppress her.
Yet the foresight compelled Zorana to say one more thing. “Yes, we will someday know what tore his soul from his body and left him the empty, seeking shell that I sense. But not this day. Not today.”
Chapter 3
Deep Beneath the City of New York
Present Day
Charisma Fangorn was so busy shaking the heavy plastic grip on her flashlight, trying to eke another minute’s worth of illumination out of the wavering bulb, she never noticed the abrupt drop-off—until she stepped out into nothingness.
Her flashlight went flying, a brief glow of light that twirled away from the hot, close air of the tunnel and into the void. Then the glass shattered, plunging Charisma into bleak darkness. She landed on her feet, on the sharp stone edge of . . . somewhere. Her foot slipped off. She fell again. Landed on her hands and knees, irretrievably off balance. On a stair. Stone stairs. She tumbled, curled into the fetal position, protecting her head with her arms, hitting each step, bruising each rib, her hips, her knees, her elbows. She hit bottom face-first, felt her chin split and her eye blacken, and something snapped in her shoulder.
Pain crashed through her, overwhelming her.