Smog - Baggage of Enternal Night (18 page)

I scrambled out through the
snowdrift, which became shallower as it sloped down to the door, until I found
the icy footing of the apartment floor. I ran out the doorway into the hall,
and a swirl of flakes billowed after me. A tenant I recognized—Mr. Landis, a
widower from the fifth floor—walked toward me from the elevators, head rocking
side-to-side. He was the oldest person in the building, with a face like a
piece of dried fruit: wrinkled and weathered and colored like something you
would find on a moldy plate. He limped by with a cane, and I prepared to bowl
him over if he reached for me. But Landis just passed and shuffled into Joey’s
room.

I saw his lips move:
vkhodite
.

I ran to the elevators. Again.
I had run more in the past week than I had all the rest of the year added up.
Leave it to a life-threatening horror to give you a real workout. I waited for
the doors to open and felt that music tugging at me. Even with the ear plugs,
it was still working itself into my brain. I didn’t know how much longer I
could fight it. Rasputin’s effect was truly spreading; if sound traveled
outwards in equal radiance, the tenants on the third floor would be just as
brainwashed as those on the fifth. After that it would move to the second and
sixth…There were over a hundred people living in the building and all could
soon become the Mad Monk’s sacrifices.

Once the elevator arrived, I
punched in “six” and rode it to my floor. I bounded out and dashed to my room.
I shouldn’t have expected differently, but was relieved to find everything as I
left it earlier in the day, when accompanied by Yefim and Ray.

The night fell late, and
starlight filtered into the room. The summer temperature sank lower than it had
any right to. It tolled midnight, and I knew not if that had any bearing on
Rasputin’s power, but considered it another poor omen, stacking in his favor
like the fact of the moon being full.

Time, time, time—it was always
against me. Following Murphy’s law of nature: apparently when circumstances are
dire, the clock will move twice as fast. As it was, the limitations of time
already seemed to crop up at the worst of circumstances to interfere with my
intentions. I knew I was running even more on its bad side now and aware that
Rasputin grew stronger, while I deteriorated like decaying leaves.

I had to act fast. I picked up
the book of Rasputin, ready to read like my life depended on it...which it did.
At this point, I didn’t know how much of what had been written was fact or
assumption or bald-faced lie, but I didn’t have the luxury of being finicky. I
had to trust every word and pray the answers popped their heads up to say
howdy
.
There was nothing else to go on.

I opened to the dog-eared page
where I had earlier left off...

Dark whispers
circulated amongst Rasputin’s chief followers of which I was privy. He was said
to have gained access to another realm in which to escape and grow strong, one
which he froze in time, mirroring the Black Forest outside Saint Petersburg
where his rituals were practiced. The Misbegottens gathered every full moon at
midnight to recite Rasputin’s incantations.

His followers
sought life beyond death, a continuation of existence in which they believed. Otherwise,
preached Rasputin, the soul simply winked out like a failed bulb once the body
died. His words were persuasive, nay, magical, and those who listened were
easily converted. I found myself in that belief, though a part of me—a fragment
of mind still filled with the holy spirit—knew that the immortality Rasputin
spoke of was not for all. Rasputin took the souls of his followers for his own
use, so their bodies were nothing but shambling husks submissive to his whim. I
know not how many souls Rasputin required to achieve the perpetuity he sought,
if the number was predetermined or required a steady flow, such as the need for
sustenance once hunger strikes.

If I hadn’t experienced what I
did over the past week, I would’ve thought this book garbage, filled with the
gleeful rantings of a nutcase. Again I was struck by how the perceptions of man
can change so rapidly, so
dramatically
, within such a short period of
time. What else that I believed so fervently was untrue? What else was possible
that I considered absurd? I was prepared to nod my head if someone came up to
me and said they were the demon, Zolga, teleported from a Mars brothel. I
skipped ahead in the book, and what I read next, I almost wished I hadn’t.

In 1915,
Rasputin acquired a gramophone, a model with no identification or
manufacturer’s markings. Though he had written certain words in ink to be
repeated by his followers, the chants were not enough. He said that his
abilities ebbed and flowed like the tides of the Baltic Sea, as those who sang
his name paused during song. The human condition requires respite, which
Rasputin abhorred. The gramophone, however, could play his chants forever.

Somehow,
through magic or trickery, he found a new manner in which to ingurgitate the
life flow of his converts. On special discs that were crafted by a shadow,
Rasputin recorded the voices of his Misbegottens one-by-one. I was present at
such a recording session, and at what horror I witnessed was enough to break
the spell over which Rasputin had chained me. Music played in the air, but as
to its source I saw none. I watched a woman sit upon her knees and chant to him
perhaps a hundred times:

Vkhodite. Vkhodite.
Vkhodite.

Ne
zaderzhivat’sya v kholodnyy i temnyy, ho prisoyedinit’sya ko mne v svet
navsegda.

Vkhodite. Vkhodite.
Vkhodite.

At each
recital of those words, her body paled and faded, ever-so-slightly. But it was
a compound effort, so that over time she literally faded away until there
existed nothing but her voice, playing continually on the gramophone. She had
been ‘recorded’ for all eternity. At that, Rasputin glowed a ruddy hue, such as
one who has imbibed a great deal of red wine on a cold night.

I felt nauseated. A heavy
sickness filled my belly and spread so that every nerve cried out until I thought
I would faint again. I fought to remain conscious. It was the nightmare I had
lived, watching the records take Joey and the others away. Had I known earlier
what I knew now, what could I have done differently? Take the record player
from Joey by force? I thought, somehow, that wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Once Rasputin’s gramophone had been turned on, there was no shutting it off.

But Rasputin was dead...he
hadn’t succeeded in his quest for immortality before. How had he been defeated?

During the
last eighteen months of Rasputin’s life, several assassination attempts were
made on him, including stabbings, explosives, and gassings. He survived them
all. Finally, on December 29, 1916, a group of nobles conspired together that
Rasputin must be destroyed, lest all their own lives and families fall victim
to his corrupted persuasions. Led by Prince Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri
Pavlovich, Rasputin was invited to a ceremony and served cakes and red wine
laced with “enough cyanide to kill ten men.” Reportedly, he was not affected.
Prince Yusupov drew a revolver and shot Rasputin in the back. Bolstered by
Yusupov’s act, other conspirators also drew and shot Rasputin until “no less
than eight bullets were fired into his torso.” Reportedly, he still was not
affected and strangled Yusupov to death.

I thought sarcastically,
isn’t
that keen
. Of course the Mad Monk was invulnerable to most methods normally
used to overcome a man. I continued:

Fortunately,
Pavlovich had apparently studied Rasputin and previously unearthed a weakness.
He drew a club carved from limestone and beat Rasputin to the ground, until the
others could subdue and bind his limbs. He was gagged and wrapped in a carpet
and then thrown off a bridge into the icy Neva River. Rasputin was conscious
and struggling to the end. His body was recovered three days later, and the
official autopsy declared the sole cause of death as drowning.

I approached
Pavlovich some years later and inquired discreetly as to the club. ‘Calcium
carbonate,’ he replied. It is the most abundant mineral found in water.
Calcium, in composite, forms limestone. Though not lethal, it was an infirmity
to Rasputin, an indicator of his true vulnerability:

Drowning.

I remembered reading earlier:
Rasputin’s
siblings died by drowning-effects, and he nearly drowned himself. After his
rescue is when he began to portray indications of supernatural powers.

Water, somehow, intertwined
with his life, and drowning was apparently the one weakness of the Mad Monk
since his childhood. But how could I drown him on the fourth floor of an
apartment building?

Or, perhaps, the key wasn’t in
Rasputin himself…

I needed tools and weapons, and
I looked around my apartment. I’d never felt more vindicated of my baggage
winnings than at that very moment. Anything I needed to defeat Rasputin, I knew
was at hand, as if I’d been subconsciously stockpiling all these years in an
effort to protect Les Deux Oies. There simply wasn’t anything I
didn’t
have. The challenge, of course, would be in actually locating such items stored
amidst the towers of castoffs.

I began searching. I was
shivering cold and getting colder still, so the first item of business was to
change out of my dinner suit and into warmer clothes: two layers of pants,
several wool flannels, a sailor’s peacoat, and boots. I thought of the locker I
had, filled with equipment that once belonged to an Everest mountaineer.

Snowshoes.
I rummaged
through the piles and came out with a used pair made from wood and bound in
rawhide. If Joey’s brainwashed neighbors still sat around the fire in drifts of
snow, I could at least now easily outmaneuver them. I slung the shoes over my
shoulder. The locker was also crammed with pick axes, compasses, goggles,
stakes, and other unfamiliar gear that smelled of mildew and old age. A leather
bag of powdered chalk hung jammed into a corner; I hesitated, then tied it to
my belt by its drawstring.

I saw my prized conquistador’s
sword and pistol hanging on hooks above a pile of bags filled with cushions and
linen. The pistol wouldn’t be of any use, but whoever owned the sword before me
had kept it oiled and sharp and in otherwise exquisite condition. I lifted it,
and the sword felt good in my hand. It looked to be as lethal as anything else
in the room, so I hooked the scabbard to my belt opposite the chalk bag, hoping
I wouldn’t need to use it.

What else…
I wished the
original plan had gone through, and I headed to the room alongside Ray, armed
with guns. Not that I was a sharpshooter, but I’d hunted a bit as a kid in
Kentucky and would have preferred going into any conflict holding a Colt .45 or
Browning. As to what else I could use for a weapon, my eyes scanned the room
and landed on a Louisville slugger baseball bat. As good as the sword had felt
in my hand, the bat felt
natural
. I’d swung a bat a thousand times for
every instance I’d touched a sword.

I realized how ridiculous I
must have looked: a baseball-playing conquistador dressed to hike in the snow.
But everything had a purpose. I thought of also bringing the book with me but
realized there would be no time to read as I ventured downstairs. I was already
heavily burdened, and anything else would be detrimental, adding to my load. I
was never a quick student but hoped I remembered, and
understood
, everything
I’d read in its pages.

I felt as prepared as I could
be given the circumstances. I considered that, should the first part of my plan
inexplicably succeed, I’d need an escape from Les Deux Oies as quick as
possible. Of course I remembered the Crestline was out of commission, and
escaping quick wouldn’t happen without the participation of someone else. It
was late in the night…who could I beseech to act as a getaway driver? Who,
besides
Gail, as I didn’t want to involve her further? Could I call John at Ray’s shop
again? He was supposed to be there all night, but could I convince him of what
had occurred? He’d think I was in my room gettin’ plastered.

I pulled out the ear plugs and
tried John. After thirty rings, I hung up. I called Vic, though I knew he went
to bed at dusk. No answer. I even rang up my bookie. No dice. I considered just
calling a cabbie, but decided how ridiculously unreliable they were; even more
so than me.

There really wasn’t much of
another option available. Either I tried to hotfoot it out of here for ten
miles on my tired dogs, or I got a car ride from Gail.

I reluctantly called her, and
Gail answered on the first ring.

“Hello?” she said.

“It’s me.”

“Is it over? Are you all
right?”

“No, dear, not quite.” I wanted
to say,
it’s worse
. Instead I kept my tone even without letting the
fears slip through. “It’ll be over soon. I do need a favor, though.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to drive me away
from the apartments.”

“You just need a ride? That’s
all?”