The Altar Of Bones Part 37

THE MAFIYA MAFIYA thug, Grisha, had told her they would be bringing Ry to the meeting place in a separate car, but she didn't believe him, even though the alternative was unbearable. thug, Grisha, had told her they would be bringing Ry to the meeting place in a separate car, but she didn't believe him, even though the alternative was unbearable.

The litany of a prayer ran through her head over and over. Please G.o.d don't let them kill him. Please G.o.d, don't let them kill him... Please G.o.d don't let them kill him. Please G.o.d, don't let them kill him....

After an eternity of driving aimlessly around the city, and then another eternity through a dark, arctic countryside, they turned down a lane that ran alongside a cemetery. The car's headlights picked up crumbling brick walls, then Zoe saw a black Mercedes SUV just like theirs pull out and head down a narrow road that led away from the ruins.

"There, you see," Grisha said. "Vadim and your lover have made it here ahead of us. I told you not to worry."

Zoe said nothing. She was filled with a strange fatalism now, and she pressed her hand against her chest, where beneath her clothes the green skull amulet hung from its silver chain. It would happen now, she thought. Whatever it it was. was.

As they rolled to a stop, Grisha reached out and grabbed Zoe's wrist. Instinctively, she tried to pull away, but his fingers were like a vise, and then she realized he was only snapping handcuffs on her, as they had done with Ry.

He reached across her lap to open the car door. "This is the old Rach'a slaughterhouse," he said, with a strange, secretive smile that made her skin crawl. "You will wait for the pakhan pakhan inside." inside."

Icy snow stung her cheeks as she got out of the car. The cold in the city had been bad enough, but this far out in the country it was a biting, living thing.

Grisha wrapped his meaty hand around her upper arm and half-pushed, half-dragged her toward the ruins, while their car drove off, taking the same side back road as the other SUV.

Zoe had to look down at her feet to keep from slipping on the rutted, icy snow, so it wasn't until they were almost at the gaping, arched doorway that she saw the body.

And the man standing over it with a gun in his hand.

"No!" ZOE SCREAMED, and tried to run, slipping and flailing over the icy snow. Grisha snagged her around the waist, lifting her off the ground, and still she screamed, "No! No! No!" "No! No! No!" and her legs thrashed at the air. and her legs thrashed at the air.

Ry lay on the ground, a pool of blood staining the snow by his head. What she could see of his face looked as cold and white as marble. Already a thin layer of flakes dusted his coat and hair.

Vadim said, "Get her inside, then help me get rid of this dead dolboy'eb dolboy'eb. He's too big for me to drag off by myself." And he gave the body a kick in the side to emphasize his point.

Zoe clawed at the arm that held her and screamed again, and it was as if the scream tore all of her breath out with it. She went limp, and the world around her blurred into a white haze. She was barely aware as Grisha carried her into the ruins.

He flung her into a straight-back wooden chair that sat in front of a gray metal table. He unlocked one of the handcuffs from around her wrist and refastened it to one of a pair of eyebolts embedded into the tabletop.

He started to leave, then turned back. "Life is as cheap as the price of a bullet. Remember that when you talk to the pakhan pakhan."

Zoe barely registered what Grisha said, or that he left her. She couldn't see Ry's body from here, but her mind was filled the image of his blood staining the snow, so bright and red and wet.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there alone. She didn't dare let herself think beyond the need to take one breath and then another and not scream.

The cold penetrated the horror first, then the stink-like cat urine, only worse. The single dim light over the doorway didn't penetrate far into the shrouded, cavernous ruins. She saw old graffiti spray-painted on the crumbling walls and a lot of trash scattered about, but no cats. Someone had pulled a ratty old trailer inside the crumbling walls, and the worst of the smell seemed to be coming from it.

A patiolike extension ran out from the trailer's aluminum roof, sheltering a pair of picnic tables that sagged beneath the weight of dozens of old-fas.h.i.+oned mason jars. Around the tables were piles of rusting cans and hundreds of what, oddly, looked like old coffeemaker filters. Obviously, Zoe thought, the trailer was being used for something, but at the moment all of its windows were dark.

She was alone, handcuffed to a table in the dark and foul-smelling ruins of a slaughterhouse, while Popov's men went off to get rid- Zoe forced herself to breathe, one single breath and then another.

She heard a man curse out in the yard. Grisha? Then the clank of metal slapping against metal. An instant later a bank of electric stadium lights flared on, nearly blinding her.

When the bright spots that danced before her eyes finally faded, she saw Ry standing in the arched doorway.

"What?" came a rich baritone voice from out of the darkness behind her. "You don't believe in miracles?"

A TALL, SILVER-HAIRED TALL, SILVER-HAIRED man in a long sable coat emerged from the shadows, picking his way through the rubble that littered the floor, but Zoe was barely aware of him. Ry was alive, alive, alive.... Blood, too much blood, covered one side of his face, and he swayed on his feet, but he was here, she could see him with her own two eyes. man in a long sable coat emerged from the shadows, picking his way through the rubble that littered the floor, but Zoe was barely aware of him. Ry was alive, alive, alive.... Blood, too much blood, covered one side of his face, and he swayed on his feet, but he was here, she could see him with her own two eyes.

She stared, stiff and unmoving, not daring to believe, not even daring to breathe. If I could touch him If I could touch him, she thought, I would know he was real I would know he was real, and she started to stand up, but the handcuff stopped her, jerking her back down into the chair.

She wondered why he wasn't coming to her, then she realized Vadim was behind him, with his Beretta pointed at the back of Ry's head.

"Ry," she said, her voice breaking over his name. "I thought ..."

"She thought we had killed you," the pakhan pakhan said in English made thick by his accent. "It was a little charade we played, so she would fully grasp, deep in her gut, that you are about as useful to me as a hangnail. And just as easily disposed of." said in English made thick by his accent. "It was a little charade we played, so she would fully grasp, deep in her gut, that you are about as useful to me as a hangnail. And just as easily disposed of."

Grisha came back through the archway just then, and the pakhan pakhan said to him in Russian, "Good. You're still here, as well." He waved his hand at Ry. "Help Vadim handcuff him to the table across from the girl. No need to be gentle if he doesn't cooperate." said to him in Russian, "Good. You're still here, as well." He waved his hand at Ry. "Help Vadim handcuff him to the table across from the girl. No need to be gentle if he doesn't cooperate."

Vadim grabbed Ry by his coat and hauled him to the table. Grisha kicked out a chair for him to sit in, and he sat. Vadim unfastened the cuff that was on his right wrist and refastened it to one of the bolts. Then Grisha backed up a couple of steps, folding his arms across his chest, while Vadim stepped to the side and lit up a cigarette.

Blood was all over Ry's face from a deep gash high on his forehead, his coat dark with it. "You okay?" he asked her softly.

Zoe tried to answer but a sob caught in her throat, so she nodded instead.

"What a touching little reunion this is," the pakhan pakhan said, as he stepped between them. "And how tedious for the rest of us. It hurt, though, didn't it, my dear, when you thought him dead? I want you to remember that feeling. Remember it well." said, as he stepped between them. "And how tedious for the rest of us. It hurt, though, didn't it, my dear, when you thought him dead? I want you to remember that feeling. Remember it well."

He let that sink in while his eyes, sharp and hooded, studied Zoe intently. She stared back, trying not to show her fear of him. He was a Popov all right, for he was the spitting image of the man in the film, who had almost fifty years ago used an umbrella to signal to Ry's father that President Kennedy's limousine was coming into rifle range. He had the same handsome face, with its wide mouth and Slavic cheekbones, the proud nose. The same startling blue eyes beneath thick, rakish eyebrows.

"This moment does have a feel of the inevitable about it, does it not?" he said. "A fate that cannot be denied." He raised a long, fine-boned hand and brushed the back of it once, lightly, across her cheek. "How like my Lena you are. I would know you anywhere."

"You touch me again," Zoe said through clenched teeth, "and I'll bite your hand off."

He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow, as if he were shocked, shocked that she would say such a thing, but he did take a step back, out of reach of her teeth.

"What do you mean by 'my Lena'?" Ry said, and Zoe was relieved to hear the strength in his voice. Then the sense of his question penetrated her brain. How like my Lena you are How like my Lena you are, Popov's son had said. My My Lena. Lena.

But Lena Orlova had been his father's lover, and that was over seventy years ago. Long before this man could possibly have been born.

Zoe shook her head. Something was wrong here. She looked up into the lean, handsome face. Some wrinkles were around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, and the skin along his jawline sagged a little. His hair was gray but was still thick and full, not even thinning a little at the temples. This man couldn't be older than in his midfifties. But he had called her great-grandmother "my Lena."

And then she remembered what Katya had told Ry's father: She gave it to him to drink, and so he thought he knew all its secrets. He thought he would be able to find it again, but he was wrong, and he's been searching for the altar ever since. Hungering for its power She gave it to him to drink, and so he thought he knew all its secrets. He thought he would be able to find it again, but he was wrong, and he's been searching for the altar ever since. Hungering for its power.

No, it couldn't be true, Zoe thought, yet it also explained so much.

"There never was a son," Ry said. "We're looking at the man himself. Nikolai Popov."

49.

THE PAKAHN PAKAHN lifted his shoulders in an elegant shrug. "Ah, yes, another charade, I'm afraid. But one that became necessary after a time, when all my contemporaries began losing their hair and their teeth and their memories, while I barely seemed to change at all. I was going to start looking younger than their children before long, so I retired from the world for a while, and when I reemerged, it was as the son I never had. For, sadly, although I've had many women in my long, long life, I didn't marry until 1964, when I was well into my sixties. And then, when my wife and I had a child, it was only a daughter." lifted his shoulders in an elegant shrug. "Ah, yes, another charade, I'm afraid. But one that became necessary after a time, when all my contemporaries began losing their hair and their teeth and their memories, while I barely seemed to change at all. I was going to start looking younger than their children before long, so I retired from the world for a while, and when I reemerged, it was as the son I never had. For, sadly, although I've had many women in my long, long life, I didn't marry until 1964, when I was well into my sixties. And then, when my wife and I had a child, it was only a daughter."

"My G.o.d," Zoe said, "just how old are are you?" you?"

A sly, triumphant look came over Popov's face. "In a little over a month I will celebrate my one hundred and twelfth birthday. But then I drank from the altar of bones, so I have many, many more years yet. An eternity perhaps?"

His voice trailed off for a moment, and to Zoe, his eyes seemed to glow as if a fire raged inside him. "The altar is real," he said. "A true fountain of youth, and I am living proof of it."

Ry slouched back in his chair. "Yeah, we can see the bone juice worked on you just fine. You're a hundred and twelve years old and crazy as a loon."

Popov's face hardened, and a killing fury came into his eyes. They'd been speaking all this time in English, but now he said in Russian, "You will hit him, Vadim. Once. Make him feel it."

Vadim took the cigarette out of his mouth, tossed it on the floor, and slammed his fist hard into Ry's face.

Ry's head snapped back, and a film of fresh blood misted the air. He breathed hard for a moment, then shook the hair out of his eyes. He spat out a glob of blood and grinned. "Is that the best you can do?"

Vadim rubbed off the sting on his bunched knuckles. "I know you said only once, Pakhan Pakhan. But I beg permission now to disobey you."

Popov made a tsking noise, shaking his head. "You remind me of your father, Agent O'Malley. He, too, had that tough swagger and the smart mouth. Although now that I remember it better, Mike was not so full of the swagger that night we killed poor Miss Monroe."

"Must've really felt good to be you that night," Ry said. "Killing a woman half your size, and a drugged one at that."

Popov merely smiled. "Did your father ever tell you that we saw her naked t.i.ts? They were all you could ever imagine."

A laugh, half-hysterical, spurted out of Zoe's mouth. "This is insane. You are insane. There, I've said it-so what are you going to do now, have your pet goon give me a smack in the jaw? You killed a president of the United States, you killed Marilyn Monroe. You even killed your own daughter, and, yeah, Katya Orlova was your daughter, and you know it. And why? So you could drink from the altar of bones? But you've already been there, done that. So why would you need more?"

"Because he's still aging," Ry said. "Much more slowly than the rest of us, maybe, but he's still getting old. He looks in the mirror and sees the crow's-feet coming on little by little, the sagging skin, the fading hair, and if he's still getting old, then that means he's dying. And he wants it to stop."

"Ah, G.o.d," Popov said on an explosion of breath. He tilted back his head and shut his eyes, then breathed out a hollow laugh. "You couldn't be more wrong. I don't want it for myself. I want it for my grandson. For my Igor, who is dying...."

POPOV MADE A sudden jerking movement and looked away, as if he suddenly realized they could see his pain and might be reveling in it. sudden jerking movement and looked away, as if he suddenly realized they could see his pain and might be reveling in it.

"My daughter married and had a child," he said after a moment, then he paused and his mouth pulled into a wry smile. "My legitimate daughter, I should say.... And she had a child, a son. He is twenty-one now. Twenty-one! And he has alveolar soft-part sarcoma." Another twisted smile. "A mouthful of a disease, is it not? 'A rare and always fatal form of cancer,' the doctors told me that day. I didn't want to believe them."

Popov turned back around, and the desperation on his face now was as disfiguring as scars. "It began with a tumor in his thigh. 'Cut it out,' I told the doctors, 'take the whole leg if you have to, but get it out of him.' In the end, they did take his leg, but the cancer had already metastasized to his lungs and brain. They gave him a year at the most to live. That was eight months ago, and now he swallows OxyContin like breath mints for the pain. He barely weighs a hundred pounds."

"I'm sorry," Zoe said.

"Sorry?" Popov choked over the word. "Your sorry has no place in this. It is too puny. He is my Igor. My Igor Igor, and I love him more than anything on this earth, more than my life. If G.o.d would let me die in his place, I would."

"But you can't die," Ry said, "so you kill for him instead."

"Nothing, no one else matters, but Igor. The altar of bones is the only hope he has left. It has given me a hundred and twelve years so far, and I feel and look like a man of what? Fifty-five? I've never been sick for a day since I drank from it, not even a sniffle. It worked a miracle on me, and it will work a miracle on Igor."

Popov focused on Zoe's face and she saw the hardness and cruelty come over him, like a steel curtain slamming down. "You are going to take me to the altar of bones, and I will use it to save my Igor. Whether you do so willingly or unwillingly-it does not matter."

Zoe felt tears press against her eyes. This story of his Igor slowly dying, the pain she could see in Popov-it all seemed real, but, Remember, trust no one Remember, trust no one, her grandmother had written. No one. Beware the hunters No one. Beware the hunters.

"Why do you need her?" Ry said. "You already tricked your Lena into taking you to it when she was a nurse at Norilsk. You know where it is, so what's been stopping you from going back?"

Popov slashed his hand through the air. "Do you think I haven't haven't been back to that cave dozens of times? An avalanche buried the entrance, and Lena along with it, and it took three days and fifty been back to that cave dozens of times? An avalanche buried the entrance, and Lena along with it, and it took three days and fifty zeks zeks to dig out the snow, but the cavern was still there, behind the frozen waterfall, and the altar made out of human bones was inside, with the spring bubbling away underneath it." to dig out the snow, but the cavern was still there, behind the frozen waterfall, and the altar made out of human bones was inside, with the spring bubbling away underneath it."

He stopped, and a faraway look came into his eyes. "I was out of my head with fever and near death when she brought me to the cave. The altar of bones was in the gruel she fed me, one drop, that's all she needed to save me, but I never saw where she got it from. I thought it had to be the boiling spring-why else would they have built that altar made of human bones on top of it?"

He blew out a ragged laugh. "G.o.d in heaven, I must have carried away dozens of bottles of the noxious stuff. From the spring at first, and then later from a pool that was in the center of the cavern. From the spring and the pool, and every other bit of moisture dripping from the ceiling and oozing out of the walls, and none of it did a thing. I tried it out on the desperately sick and the dying, and afterward they were still sick and still dying. I had a dozen scientists study it and they all told me it was only water. Well, water polluted from the nickel mining, but water nonetheless. And Lena ...?" He snapped his fingers. "Poof. Gone into thin air, from a cave whose only way in or out had been buried for days beneath a mountain of snow."

He braced his fists on the table and brought his face close to Zoe's. "So one thing I do know for a certainty. That altar in your little Keeper cave, the one built above a spring and made of human bones, the one that anyone can see with his own eyes ... that altar is a lie. The real altar of bones is something else, somewhere else, and you are either going to tell me where it is or take me to it. Your choice. But those are the only two choices I am giving you."

Zoe's eyes were steady on his face. "You can give me a hundred choices and it wouldn't matter. I don't know where it is. Maybe my grandmother Katya knew, but you hunted her down for most of her life and then you killed her before she had a chance to tell me."

"Yes, you are right. I hunted her for years, but she was like her mother, Lena-good at escaping from seemingly impossible traps. When my agents found her little girl, Anna Larina, in an orphanage in Ohio, I was sure I had her then, that she would not stay away from the child forever, but I was wrong. All those years I watched and waited for her to seek out the daughter she'd abandoned, and to meet you, her granddaughter, but she never did. So wary, she was, and so clever, until the end when the cancer got her and she grew careless. Or perhaps merely desperate to pa.s.s her knowledge on to the next Keeper before she died."

He stared at Zoe hard for a moment longer, then straightened, shaking his head. "That is why I think you are lying to me. Playing me, as you Americans say. You are the Keeper now, and you know where the altar is, because the Keeper always knows where it is."

He turned away, as if dismissing her, and Vadim, who'd understood nothing of the English words, must have taken this as his cue because he straightened and said, "Now, Pakhan Pakhan?"

"Yes."

"What?" Zoe cried. She tried to get up again, but the handcuff still held her fast to the eyebolt in the table. "What are you going to do? Don't hit him again. Please."

"She's begging you not to hit him, Vadim," Popov said in Russian to his enforcer, and the two men shared a laugh.

RY WATCHED AS Vadim lit up a fresh cigarette, drawing on it deeply, seeming to relish the burn of the smoke as it went down his throat, and Ry felt that first lick of fear because he knew what was coming. Vadim lit up a fresh cigarette, drawing on it deeply, seeming to relish the burn of the smoke as it went down his throat, and Ry felt that first lick of fear because he knew what was coming.

He also knew he could take it because he'd lived through much worse. But Zoe-he could tell by her face that she had no real idea of what was happening, and he ached for her because he knew she would blame herself afterward.

Vadim laid his Bic down on the table, took a couple more deep drags off the cigarette, then stared at its glowing red tip and smiled.

"Hold him down."

Ry heard a step behind him, and Zoe shouting, "No, don't," "No, don't," but it all happened so fast. A thick, heavy hand gripped the back of his head, pulling it back, exposing his neck, and an instant later he felt the burning cigarette sear like the fire of a thousand suns into the right side of his throat. but it all happened so fast. A thick, heavy hand gripped the back of his head, pulling it back, exposing his neck, and an instant later he felt the burning cigarette sear like the fire of a thousand suns into the right side of his throat.

He trapped the yell of agony that rose up inside of him through a sheer force of will. Jesus G.o.d, it hurt Jesus G.o.d, it hurt. He could smell his own skin sizzling.

Through the pain shrieking in his head, he heard Zoe screaming, and the rattle of her handcuff as she tried to pull it out of the table with brute force. Then he thought it must be over, because Zoe stopped screaming and Popov's face appeared before his watery vision.

"My great-granddaughter seems to be in some considerable distress, Agent O'Malley. She must truly be quite fond of you."

Ry fought to get his breathing back under control. He was bathed in a cold sweat and he wanted to puke. The ravaged nerves in his neck had been shocked into silence for the moment, but he knew the pain would come back any second now, and with a vengeance.

"You want her to make something up just to get you to stop?" Ry said. "Listen to me, she doesn't know where it is."

"I think she does. And after we have hurt you enough, she will tell me."

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake sake," Zoe shouted. Such pure female exasperation was in her voice, both men stopped glaring at each other to look at her.

Her face was wet with tears, but fury was in her eyes, and Ry loved her for it. "For someone who's supposed to be a hundred and twelve, you sure haven't evolved much," she said to Popov with the best sneer that Ry had ever seen on any mouth, and he loved her even more. "Do you get your jollies off of torture?"

Popov looked taken aback, then his lips twitched, as if he were genuinely amused. "A small jolly perhaps. But then Vadim can do much worse damage than a cigarette burn or two. Much, much worse. He does this thing with a pair of bolt clippers.... But if you tell me now how to find the altar, it won't have to come to that."

"I don't know know how to find it-" how to find it-"