The Russian Cage Read online

  “Eli told me to explain to you that he didn’t know what was going to happen to him, but he was afraid that someone was trying to put the whammy on him and Peter and his sisters and mom.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That someone wants to do them in. Discredit them.”

  “I don’t know why anyone would do that.”

  “Eli thinks it’s his older brothers.” She clenched her teeth before she could call me an idiot.

  I gaped at my little sister. “This is the kind of thing you talk about at school?” When I’d been at school, we’d talked about who was sweet on whom, and the price cattle were fetching, and how long it would be before the whole town got electricity. My life was a lot simpler.

  “At our school, anyway.” Felicia looked hard and cold. “Politics. We’ll all serve the tsar in some way. Me and the other bastards keep him alive. The grigoris will keep him safe. Some of us can do both.”

  I didn’t think I’d known the word “politics” when I was eleven. “Wait,” I said, reviewing her words. “Wait. You have magic ability?” Made sense, now that I knew she was three-quarters grigori.

  “You know someone’s been watching us?” Felicia said.

  “Yep, that grigori from the school. The receptionist.”

  “Tom O’Day. He’s from Texoma. You know him?”

  “No.” As far as I knew, grigoris always came from Russian families who’d emigrated with the tsar, or from England, Scotland, or Ireland. “I never knew there was such a thing as a homegrown grigori,” I told Felicia, making myself smile. “Does some grown-up from the school always watch you when you leave the grounds?”

  Felicia nodded, also smiling. “And it’s called the campus. When we go out, we’re usually with a staff grigori. They’re afraid we’ll try something magical when we’re out. And in this instance, they don’t know you.”

  I knew we weren’t sticking to the subject—our watcher—but I couldn’t help but ask, “Are there others besides you? Not full grigori?”

  “A boy older than me. He’s another Rasputin grandkid. A couple of babies, the same.”

  I looked at my sister, thinking a lot of things at the same time. First, my sister was going to be a great grigori. She would be a valuable asset to the tsar. Not only did Felicia have the blood that would keep Tsar Alexei’s illness at bay, but she had magic, too, like Rasputin, our grandfather. Second, Felicia knew this already. Third, I didn’t believe my sister was eleven. She was older.

  Had Felicia ever actually told me she was eleven?

  Tom O’Day had slipped off, I guess to return to the campus. He’d been replaced by a really young grigori gal, probably hadn’t even gotten half her chest tattooed yet. It had taken me a few minutes to notice O’Day, but this replacement was either really poor at tracking or she didn’t care at all that we saw her.

  “We better get up and start walking,” I said. I didn’t want to. I still didn’t know anything. We had to keep on track in our conversation.

  “I guess so.” Felicia stood, looking down at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

  “I got knives,” I said, feeling naked without my guns. “Do you think she can hear what we’re saying?”

  “Her name is Andrea. She fucks anything that has a cock, and I bet she has diseases,” Felicia said.

  My mouth dropped open.

  “Ha! She can’t hear us. She didn’t even twitch.” Felicia grinned.

  Oh, that had been a test for Andrea. Not me. “Tell me, quick as you can, what happened to Eli. We’re running out of time.”

  Finally, Felicia got down to business. She switched to Spanish. I could understand it better than I spoke it. “Eli told me he might not be back for a while. That if I needed help, I should go to Peter. Eli suspected he was about to be arrested. Eli, not Peter.”

  “Did he say why that was going to happen?”

  “Some grigori had brought charges against him about something in Dixie. Some killings.”

  Actually, it was true that killing had taken place, though it wasn’t Eli who’d done all the killing.

  “Why would he kill other grigoris, unless they attacked him?” I pointed out. Same went for me. I didn’t go around shooting people just to see if I could hit the target.

  Felicia shrugged. “I don’t know what the case against him is. The next day, Peter sent me a note to tell me Eli’d been arrested and taken to the main jail. They have special cells for grigoris. Eli had told Peter to be sure I got the news to you.”

  “Where is the jail?”

  “On Folsom, he said.”

  “Does Eli have regular jailers? Or are they grigoris, too?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If there are visiting hours, I could see him.” I closed my eyes for a second.

  “If you just show up at the jail and ask to see Eli, you’ll be marked as an enemy. You won’t be able to do anything else in San Diego. The police or the grigoris will ask you to leave town. And ‘ask’ doesn’t tell the whole story. Not with grigoris. Peter went to see him, but he’s already in their black book.” Felicia didn’t look anything like a child when she told me this.

  “I need to talk to Eli’s mom, in case she knows anything I don’t know. And I need to talk to Peter. He can tell me how the jail’s laid out.”

  “You gonna bust Eli out?” My sister’s new coat of polish had disappeared. She sounded like the Mexican street kid I’d met.

  “I am.” I just didn’t know how yet.

  “You’ll get killed,” Felicia said, and she sounded… resigned.

  “I might.” I couldn’t lie about that. “But I gotta try.”

  “You love him.”

  I glanced away. “Yeah,” I said finally. I tried to look casual.

  Felicia shook her head. “You are so bad at that,” she said.

  A church nearby chimed one o’clock. The school was in sight, but we dawdled.

  “You have to come back, promise?” Felicia said. “You have to come see me again.”

  “I’ll see you as much as I can while I’m in San Diego. Ah… did Eli ask you to tell me to come here?”

  “No. He wouldn’t. He’d be afraid you’d be killed trying to help him. But he wanted me to tell you why he wouldn’t be writing. I knew you’d get the clues. Coming or not coming was up to you.”

  O’Day was back at the reception desk, looking as though he’d never left to follow us. He nodded when we came in.

  I hugged Felicia good-bye under his gaze.

  Young Andrea walked past us and into the back of the building as if she hadn’t ever seen us before. She tossed O’Day a long look. I had a gander at her. Andrea was dressed to draw attention, not a great idea if you were following someone and didn’t want to be noticed.

  Maybe Andrea hadn’t cared if we saw her.

  Or maybe she hadn’t thought we were smart enough to notice.

  I smiled down at Felicia, and she smiled back. It was the same kind of smile.

  “I’ll see you in the next couple of days?” Felicia said, sounding even younger than eleven. How did she do that?

  “You’re why I came to San Diego. Mom wanted me to see how you were doing.” I wanted O’Day to think we shared a mother instead of a Rasputin-related father.

  “Tell Mom I’m well,” Felicia said bravely. “They are nice to me here, and I get to eat, and I have new clothes.”

  “I’m proud of you,” I said honestly, and I hugged her again. “I’ll see you soon. I’m going to do some sightseeing.”

  I patted her shoulder and walked away. I looked back to see her start back down the long dark hall, her shoulders square.

  I wondered how well she’d be able to shoot when I got to teach her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  This was my day for talking and walking. The walking was just fine, with the sun and the mild temperature and the big blue sky, what I could see of it between the buildings. The talking—well, I’d see.

  The walk to the Sa
varov neighborhood was uphill, like so many things in San Diego.

  All I had to occupy my mind was going over what Felicia had told me.

  I’d never met Bogdan and Dagmar, but I hated them already. They were willing to throw their half brothers to the wolves, and their stepmother and stepsisters, too. The two men, who Eli had told me were in their late thirties, had been in on Grand Duke Alexander’s plot with their father. When it had failed, they’d had to grovel their way out of disgrace.

  Also, I didn’t know how much Peter had told his family about that day in Segundo Mexia, when Vladimir had come to kill me and I’d killed him instead.

  When I’d had my fill of worrying about that, it was time to face what I’d done to Felicia. I knew now I’d done her wrong, even if I’d had good and solid reasons to do so. I was sure my sister had been concealing a lot of herself from me.

  When I reached Hickory Street, I was glad I could stop thinking about our rambling conversation. There was a grocery store on the corner, and it was doing a brisk walk-in business. After that, the street was all homes.

  I’d thought the Savarovs would have some kind of mansion, but Hickory Street was lined with large houses. They’d be ranked mansions in Segundo Mexia but not here. The yards weren’t huge, but everything was very carefully tended and fenced in—not with any chicken wire, of course, but wrought iron or brick or stucco walls topped with spikes. No outhouses in the back. All these places had inside bathrooms, I was sure. There were telephone wires and electric wires strung all over. One house had a fountain in the front.

  Water was so precious in Segundo Mexia that a fountain as yard decoration was the most extravagant thing I could imagine.

  The Savarov house was three stories tall, white-painted wood with dark red shutters. There was a brick driveway running under the double gate, and it widened into a parking area at the front door. A narrower extension went straight behind the house, where I caught a glimpse of a garage in the corner of the backyard. I bet there was a back entrance in the fence there, too.

  But all this study was just to dodge the moment. I couldn’t do that anymore.

  My boots sounded loud on the brick driveway. Of course there were steps, and of course there was a roofed porch. Big urns full of plants surrounded the door. San Diego was sure a flowery place.

  I’d gone past a big car parked in the driveway. Looked like the Savarovs already had company. I rang the doorbell before I could talk myself out of it.

  A woman answered. She was wearing a black dress under a white apron, and her graying brown hair was all gathered up in a thing that looked like a little fishing net. “Can I help you?” she asked. She had a heavy Russian accent. Eli’s was not nearly so strong.

  A chandelier hung over the center of the entrance hall, which was tiled in black and white. I could see a big stairway to the left side of the hall.

  “I’m Lizbeth Rose. I’d like to speak to Eli’s mother, please.”

  I’d shocked her. I could tell by the way she stared at me.

  “You are a friend of Prince Savarov’s?” she said, as if she could scarcely believe my words.

  “I am.” When she didn’t move, I looked at her real steady.

  After a long pause, the woman said, “She has other guests at the moment. If you will wait here.” She stood aside to let me in, and she pointed to a chair against the wall. “Here,” she said, and it was more of an order. And she vanished, but not far enough. She was standing by the doorway on the other side of the hall, and she was listening to the conversation taking place in the room.

  I was real surprised. This was bad behavior, for sure. I found I could hear the voices, too. One was a mature woman’s. I figured she had to be Eli’s mom… since the other two voices were men’s, also sounded adult, and also sounded unhappy.

  “We have made you a cordial offer,” one of the men said. “Magda and I would be happy to have you in our home.”

  “What do you propose we do with this house?” the woman said. I could tell she was hanging on to her manners by a thread.

  “We could sell it. Or we could all live in it,” said the original voice.

  So he was trying to tell her that she could be a roomer in her own home. What a tempting offer.

  “No, thank you,” said the woman. “I think we would be too crowded. Peter and the girls and I are quite happy here.”

  “It’s a large, expensive house.”

  “Luckily, your father left me enough money to make that possible.”

  Good for her, I thought, and liked her already.

  “We could provide protection for you,” said another man.

  “Dagmar, the only protection I need is from your treason,” Eli’s mom said.

  “If you cling to Alexei, you will go under,” said Dagmar.

  “If you think our father, your husband, was wrong in his allegiance to Alexander…” said the other man. This was clearly meant to be a threat.

  “I think I have made it clear I do think he was wrong, and he may have cost my children their livelihood and their reputations,” Eli’s mom said.

  I have to admit, this was more than I expected from a first visit to Eli’s home. I had only hoped to make it into the house.

  While Eli’s half brothers argued with his mother, I looked around me. I could see a piano through the double doorway, though the people talking were out of my sight. There was a dark red rug with a golden pattern. A bookcase. The end of a sofa. To the left of my chair was the doorway to a smaller room, which seemed to be an office or a library, judging by the shiny desk and the bookcases.

  I heard voices upstairs, though I couldn’t make out the words. I turned my hat in my hands and studied my feet, wishing I were anywhere else in the world.

  I heard some shifting-around sounds. The voices got louder. The three in the parlor had gotten up, and the visitors were heading to the front door. The maid vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving me sitting in the entrance hall all by myself.

  The men were clearly brothers; they were both in their late thirties, with dark hair and stocky builds. One was taller than the other, his eyes were colder, and his jaw was more aggressive. I was willing to bet this was Bogdan, who had appeased the tsar with a valuable gift upon the death of Vladimir. Bogdan had also written the tsar a letter renouncing all his father’s doings.

  So Bogdan was a big liar, as was his younger brother Dagmar. They were both looking at me with great displeasure. They were not impressed with what they saw.

  Eli’s mother stood in the doorway of the parlor, looking a bit younger than her stepsons. Veronika had light brown hair like Eli. And greenish eyes. She was slim as a reed, and had a very straight back. At the moment, she was surprised to see anyone in her home, and she was as little pleased as her stepsons.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I had another guest,” she told me. And she said it politely enough. “Bogdan, Dagmar, good-bye. Say hello to your wives from me.”

  The two made grunty noises, and left.

  The maid appeared again. “This is Miss Rose, Mrs. Savarov. She is an acquaintance of Mr. Eli. She says.”

  “You know my son, Miss Rose?”

  I stood to face her. “I do.”

  “Then you know he is not here.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you going to tell me you are with child? Ask for money?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ll excuse you for saying that because I know you must be worried about Eli.”

  She blinked, took a deep breath. “I’ll start over. My name is Veronika Savarov.”

  “I’m Lizbeth Rose. I’m from Texoma, a little town called Segundo Mexia.”

  “And you’ve come on the long journey here… why?”

  “Because I want to find out what’s happened to Eli and see if I can get him out of trouble. Or at least out of jail.”

  Veronika Savarov kind of gasped. “You know where he is?”

  She was horrified that an outsider knew the family secret, at least
that was the way I read it. “I got a letter from my sister. She’s at the Rasputin School. She knows Peter and Eli,” I explained.

  “And you came all this way from Texoma?”

  “Fast as I could.”

  Veronika Savarov seemed to stand a little straighter. “Then I expect we need to sit down and have something to drink.”

  So that was what we did.

  Eli’s mom gestured me into the parlor, and she rang a bell. The maid returned, casting dark little looks at me every other second, and Veronika sent her to get Eli’s sisters and me some tea. The sisters crept into the room like they were haunting their own home.

  The sisters didn’t look as much like him as I’d expected. One looked to be about seventeen and told me her name was Lada (“but here I am called Lucy”). The other girl, Alyona, was maybe fifteen and told me she was called Alice. They seemed young for their ages—or maybe I was old for mine.

  Lucy had had her hair bobbed, but Alice still wore hers down her back. They were both taller than me, and their hair was a darker brown than their mom’s. Lucy had a heavy jaw and wide cheekbones, but she had a steady, sensible way about her. Alice looked kind of skittish.

  “How do you know Eli?” Veronika was trying to act like this was a regular social visit. She was pouring me tea and sitting in a social way, her knees together and angled toward the side, her back straight.

  I knew Eli every way a woman could know a man, but I said, “We’ve worked together. I’ve been his protection on a couple of jobs.”

  “Protection?” Veronika looked puzzled.

  “I’m a gunnie.”

  The three women glanced at one another in a puzzled way.

  “I’m a hired gun,” I explained. “I usually work with a crew. We guard cargo of all kinds until it gets where it’s going.”

  Lucy’s face lit up, Alice looked scared, and Mrs. Savarov looked shocked. But then she smiled. “Eli’s spoken of you,” she said. “You went with him to Dixie. And Mexico?”