I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) (6 page)

I crossed the bridge over the Griboedov canal
and there she was, a girl, alone in the night. I appeared to her a
boy similar to her own age. Her brow furrowed; she seemed pensive,
beset by some inner turmoil, her worriment unrelated to my
materialization. A little girl and a little boy on the Lion Bridge
in the dark: was it inevitable that we spoke? Speak we did.

Her name was Elizaveta. She lived with her
grandmother not far from Yusupov Palace. She was then but ten years
of age.

Even then—ten, I remind you—her beauty was a
thing to behold. Her hair, straight, and black as the raven. Her
eyes like green crystals. Their glance inquisitive and searching.
Her’s a pulchritude beyond measure. A beauty of which the greats
would compose sonnets.

We spoke. My apparent age, coupled with my
manner and dress, putting her at ease. We walked through the
theater square and spoke of the Kirov Opera and Ballet Company then
housed at the Mariinskiy Theatre. In those days the streets of
Theater Square were home to beggars and thieves, actors and
artists, ballerinas and musicians. We travelled unmolested, and I
enquired as to her initial forlorn appearance.

She came to answer my query, albeit in an
indirect manner. She spoke of life with her grandmother in the
Sennaya Ploshchad. Her parents—back in Moscow—having sent her to
Piter for an education. She told me her grandparents had met when
they were children, both noble by birth, distant relations of the
Romanovs. Married in the Orthodox Church, for near-on fifty years
her grandparents enjoyed each other’s company as husband and wife
until some miasm took the grandfather away.

Now her grandmother whiled out her days on
the estate, waiting for the time when she would be reunited with
her love. Yet this woman, the grandmother, was no recluse, she
continued to have an active social life, continued to live and
plan—for herself and others. You see, she was no Havisham of
Dickens, a woman whiling out her days bitter and scorned in Satis
House. And Elizaveta was never her Estella. The old woman had
experienced joy in her own life, and sought to foster it in the
lives of others, to whatever degree she could.

You see, the grandmother had found a suitor
for Elizaveta.

Hence, the child’s despair.

That first night I listened. I listened to
what she had to say of her life in Petersburg, of her parents in
Moscow, of her grandparents’ betrothal and her own foredained. The
questions I asked encouraged her to speak at length on our
perambulation through the Ploshchad. By the end of our time
together that first night she was calling me by the diminutive,
Lyonya
, calling me it affectionately. Well into the night I
walked her home and bid her farewell, content that I was leaving
her in higher spirits than when we had first met.

At the gate to her grandmother’s chateau she
thanked me and leaned forward, kissing my check. She said she hoped
to meet me again one night at the Lion’s Bridge and turned onto he
grandmother’s property.

She
kissed
my cheek.

I knew then I would never forget that
kiss.

And I have not.

From that night forward I was smitten. It was
not a physical hunger; I had already eaten that evening. Instead,
she had awakened in me an appetite I had never known. Although I
appeared a child like her, I was already an old soul. I had never
thought to feel for one the way I found myself feeling for her. And
less you chalk my emotions up to some prurient desire, understand
it was more than mere sexual longing.

I was left feeling as though I was on the
cusp of something—something unknown and frightening, yes, but
equally momentous and roseate. To Fritz’s demons’ inquiry,
‘
Do
you
desire
this
once
more
and
innumerable
times
more
?
’
I answer wholeheartedly yes—
Yes
!—oh yes
a thousand times over. To this demon I proclaim truly ‘
You
are
a
god
and
never
have
I
heard
anything
more
divine
.
’
To that demon I say you, sir, are
divine!

So enamored was I immediately following our
dalliance that before I returned to my own home I stopped and fed
once more at the English Quay. A celebration of sorts.

The next night I waited at the Lion’s Bridge,
hoping she would come. And she came. Again we walked and spoke. She
asked me more questions of myself, and I did not lie so much as
choose my answers carefully. She confided the enormous trouble she
would be in if it was discovered she was stealing out of the house
into the night, and I voiced a similar sentiment. Our delinquency
served to bind us further.

If
my
grandmother
discovers
this
deception
,
Lyonya
,
Elizaveta professed, grasping my hand in her own as a confidant,
she
will
have
us
both
impounded
on
Hare
Island
. She referred
to the fortress of Peter and Paul.
Then
we
shall
consort
with
the
Decembrists
, I replied, evoking her laughter. Again I bid
her farewell outside her grandmother’s, late into the night.

She came the following evening, and that
after that. Together we became well acquainted with Petersburg at
night. The Nevskiy Prospekt was one of our favored strolls. We
passed the Stroganov Palace, one of the oldest buildings on the
prospect, pink and white in the moonlight. The Cathedral of Our
Lady of Kazan, its Corinthian columns forming an arch, its design
drawn from St. Peter’s in Rome. Bartolomeo Rastrrelli’s hand was
evident all along the prospect and throughout the city. Rastrelli,
the Tsarina’s favorite; Rastrelli, an Italian like my master.

My master, Vinci. No word from him in many
years. And he was far from my thoughts. When I was with her, I was
enraptured. When we were apart—in the daylight hours—she was
prominent in my mind. We walked together at night, enjoying each
other’s company. Side by side at first, soon enough hand in
hand.

What a sight we must have made, two minors
out and about in Petersburg after dark. We did our best to avoid
contact or conversation with others, and in this endeavor we were
mostly successful. My presence alone was enough to throw the
curious off. If they looked too hard my return gaze would leave
them blinking, questioning their percipience. Of this, my faculty,
Elizaveta had no clue.

This would be the spring of 1847. Our
meanderings were not confined to the western part of the city. We
wandered Petersburg far and wide, dewey eyed youth excited by the
vastness of the metropolis and each other’s company. Together we
stood in the Palace Square, admiring the bas-reliefs of the
Alexander column, gazing skywards upon the red granite monolith,
near fifty meters in height. We passed the Hermitage and Saint
Isaac’s Cathedral, near completion after almost forty years.

On star-lit nights we looked upon the gilded,
angel-topped cupola of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The
Petropavlovskaya Krepost, where Russian tsars made their final
rest. This would have been twenty years before the anarchist
Kropotkin escaped its walls. Elizaveta spoke enthusiastically of
the canon firing there each noon from the Naryshkin Bastion. I had
to admit to never having witnessed such, steering the conversation
elsewhere. So long as the canon were discharged in the day, I would
never witness such with my own eyes.

We stood on the sandy beaches beneath the
fortress walls, and there it was we kissed. I will not bore you
with the physical details. Some matters are intensely personal, and
revealing them cannot but sully their enchantment.

She spoke of the coming summer and the White
Nights, of the fun we would have when the sun refused to set. On
these occasions I would merely nod, knowing I could not be with her
whence come the season.

Stately palaces and ornate bridges dotted the
city’s southern waterfront. Workers congregated along the quays in
the day, ships putting in at the docks from far off climes. At
night, some of these same workers were often still about, besotted,
their wages exhausted on grog. And thus it came to pass one evening
that my hand was forced and something of my nature revealed to
Elizaveta.

They were drunk and three in number. Neither
my presence nor my gaze proved sufficient to deter them from their
devilry. They appeared from an alley, hounding us with brute
comments. Oh, that their insults had been leveled upon my person
alone; I would have been content to ignore them, and we would have
continued along our way.

However, they chose to insult my adored.

Grown men speaking such vile filth to a girl
but ten years old, as if she were some tawdry dock whore.

I could not control myself.

There are many ways that a man can die; I
will not bore you with the details. Let us just say that,
emboldened by drink, by the specious superiority of their numerical
advantage, by the disparity in our ages, their words gave to deeds
and their attempted deeds brought down on them swift and terrible
repercussions. It was not the first time I had rent limbs from
torsos or torn throats out with my bare hands.

Nor would it be the last.

As they lay dying in the street, broken and
bloodied, I
so
wanted to drink from them.

Yet, it would not do for Elizaveta to witness
such.

I turned to her, fearing she had already seen
too much, fearing her delicate temperment would be traumatized by
what she had seen. Imagine then—my pleasant surprise! Like our
first kiss, I will always remember the manner in which Elizaveta
stood there, watching me at that moment. The look in her emerald
green eyes. Neither fear nor shock; instead: wonderment.

She was impressed and buoyed, and she asked
me how I had been able to accomplish what had just been done. I
asked her if she was not afraid of what she had seen, if my actions
had not prejudiced her against me. She assured me she was not, that
in fact she found my actions invigorating. It was apparent from the
way she spoke and looked upon me that she was in awe of my person.
I felt immensely powerful at that moment. I had revealed to her a
part of what I was and she had not flinched, had not run.

She took my hand in her own, my hand stained
with the blood of those hooligans, our palms pressed slickly to
each others’.

That night I took her to my own home. It was
empty in my Master’s absence. We explored its winding halls and
commodious chambers as would adventurers. Decades I had spent in
that house through the years, yet that night I saw it—through her
eyes—as though for the first time. We searched every room and
corridor, from the cellars to the attic, opening each door save
those barred to us.

Who’s
chambers
are
these
,
Lyonya
? Elizaveta enquired outside my master’s
chambers.

My
uncle’s
, I told her.
We
should
not
enter
there
.

I showed her my own rooms, their windows open
to the night. She had no way of knowing how tightly these were
shuttered against the day. The night air cool, the rooms were cold
and I stoked a fire in the hearth. She sat with me before the
flames and we held one another fast until we had warmed. And there,
before the comforting flame, we undressed each other, exploring
more than my house that evening—

“Wait a minute,” Boone interrupted Rainford’s
story again. “Let me get this straight. You were, like, what? A
hundred and seventy five years old at that time?”

“Yes, that would be correct.” Rainford
sounded somewhat cheerful. Boone had been listening after all.
Wells stood with a severe expression on his face, the whip in his
hand.

“And she was—you said ten?
Ten
,
right?”

“She was an old soul, even then. Mature in
both spirit and intellect—”

Boone rolled his eyes in his head at the way
the dark Lord said mature, pronouncing it
mah
-
teur
.

“—her age was a matter of little
consequence.”

“She was ten years old, dude. What part of
this am I supposed to find romantic?” Boone turned his head towards
Pomeroy taking notes. “You find any of this romantic? Cause I sure
don’t.”

Rainford was staring at Boone again. Boone
looked right back at him. “
What
?”

“Let me give it one turn,” Wells had his hand
on the lever that controlled the rack. Rainford waved him off,
relaxing his expression, actually smiling at Boone before
continuing.

Many was the night we would stand at the
river as one, content in each other’s company. At Vasilevskiy
Island, the Neva is divided in two branches. The Malaya Neva flows
north-west; the Bolshaya Neva south-west. One evening that May, the
last of the snow flurries behind us, the promise of spring before
us, Elizaveta spoke to me of her grandmother, of the woman’s plans
for her future.

As I said, the woman had found a suitor.

Elizaveta’s intended was a prig, the scion of
a wealthy family. He was ill mannered and of questionable moral
character, his behaviors excused due to his social standing and
youth. He was older than my Elizaveta by six years, sexually mature
and looking for willing partners upon which to avail himself.

Elizaveta could not stand his presence. Her
grandmother would invite the louse over in the afternoons and leave
them unattended, bidding the servants accord them their privacy,
the old dowager hoping to firm up some bond between the two that
would culminate in matrimony some few years hence. The boy was
boorish and impertinent, a coxcomb to boot. His play on those
afternoons—where he would importune and very often nearly molest
her—crossed every conceivable line of propriety, verging into
sadism and the sexually malapropos. His name—why I remember this is
beyond my ken—was Boris. Elizaveta related these tales to me, and I
quickly had heard enough. There was but one course for beloved
Boris.