"Please," he begged. There was a plaintive note to his voice, one that startled me. It twisted my heart. It reminded me too much of the living Dimitri, the one who wasn't a monster. The one who'd cared for me and loved me, who'd believed in me and made love to me. This Dimitri, the one who was none of those things, took two careful steps forward, then stopped again. "We need to be together."
"Why?" I asked softly. The word was carried away on the wind, but he heard.
"Because I want you."
I gave him a sad smile, wondering if we'd meet again in the land of the dead. "Wrong answer," I told him.
I let go.
And he was right there, sprinting out to me with that insane Strigoi speed as I started to fall. He reached out and caught one of my arms, dragging me back onto the railing. Well, half-dragging. Only part of me made it over; the rest still hung out over the river.
"Stop fighting me!" he said, trying to pull on the arm he held.
He was in a precarious position himself, straddling the rail as he tried to lean over far enough to get me and actually hold onto me.
"Let go of me!" I yelled back.
But he was too strong and managed to haul most of me over the rail, enough so that I wasn't in total danger of falling again.
See, here's the thing. In that moment before I let go, I really had been contemplating my death. I'd come to terms with it and accepted it. I also, however, had known Dimitri might do something exactly like this. He was just that fast and that good. That was why I was holding my stake in the hand that was dangling free.
I looked him in the eye. "I will always love you."
Then I plunged the stake into his chest.
It wasn't as precise a blow as I would have liked, not with the skilled way he was dodging. I struggled to get the stake in deep enough to his heart, unsure if I could do it from this angle. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one.
"That's what I was supposed to say..." he gasped out.
Those were his last words.
His failed attempt to dodge the stake had made him lose his balance on the edge. The stake's magic made the rest easy, stunning him and his reflexes.
Dimitri fell.
He nearly took me with him, and I just barely managed to break free of him and cling to the railing. He dropped down into the darkness-down, down into the blackness of the Ob. A moment later he disappeared from sight.
I stared down after him, wondering if I would see him in the water if I squinted hard enough. But I didn't. The river was too dark and too far away.
Clouds moved back over the moon, and darkness fell over everything again. For a moment, staring down and realizing what I'd just done, I wanted to throw myself in after him, because surely there was no way I could go on living now.
You have to. My inner voice was much calmer and more confident than it should have been. The old Dimitri would want you to live. If you really loved him, then you have to go on.
With a shaking breath, I climbed over the rail and stood back on the bridge, surprisingly grateful for its security. I didn't know how I would go on living, but I knew that I wanted to. I wasn't going to feel fully safe until I was on solid ground, and with my body falling apart, I began to cross the bridge one step at a time. When I was on the other side, I had a choice. Follow the river or the road? They veered off from each other slightly, but both headed roughly in the direction of the city's lights. I opted for the road. I didn't want to be anywhere near the river. I would not think about what had just happened. I couldn't think about it. My brain refused. Worry about staying alive first. Then worry about how you're going to live.
The road, while clearly rural, was flat and packed and made for easy walking-for anyone else. A light rain began falling, which just added insult to injury. I kept wanting to sit and rest, to curl up in a ball and think of nothing else. No, no, no. The light. I had to go toward the light. That almost made me laugh out loud. It was funny, really. Like I was someone having a near-death experience. Then I did laugh. This whole night had been full of near-death experiences. This was the least of them.
It was also the last, and as much as I longed for the city, it was too far away. I'm not sure how long I walked before I finally had to stop and sit.
Just a minute, I decided. I'd rest for a minute and then keep moving. I had to keep moving. If by some crazy chance I'd missed his heart, Dimitri could be climbing out of the river at any moment. Or other surviving Strigoi could be coming after me from the manor.
But I didn't get up in a minute. I think I may have slept, and I honestly don't know how long I'd been sitting there when headlights suddenly spurred me to alertness. A car slowed down and came to a stop. I managed to get to my feet, bracing myself.
No Strigoi got out. Instead, an old human man did. He peered at me and said something in Russian. I shook my head and backed up a step. He leaned into the car and said something, and a moment later, an older woman joined him. She looked at me and her eyes widened, face compassionate. She said something gentle-sounding and held out her hand to me, cautious in the way one would be when approaching a feral animal. I stared at her for several heavy seconds and then pointed at the purple horizon.
"Novosibirsk," I said.
She followed my gesture and nodded. "Novosibirsk." She pointed to me and then to the car. "Novosibirsk."
I hesitated a little longer and then let her lead me into the backseat. She took off her coat and laid it over me, and I noticed then that I was soaked from the rain. I had to be a mess after everything I'd been through tonight. It was a wonder they'd even stopped. The old man began driving again, and it occurred to me I could have just gotten in a car with serial killers. But then, how would that be any different from the rest of my night?
The mental and physical pain were starting to drag me under, and with my last effort, I wet my lips and choked out another gem from my Russian vocabulary.
"Pazvaneet?"
The woman looked back at me in surprise. I wasn't sure if I had the word right. I might have just asked for a pay phone instead of a cell phone-or maybe I'd asked for a giraffe-but hopefully the message came through regardless. A moment later, she reached into her purse and handed me a cell phone. Even in Siberia, everyone was wired. With shaking hands, I dialed the number I now had memorized. A female voice answered.
"Allo."
"Sydney? This is Rose..."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I didn't recognize the guy Sydney sent to meet us when we reached Novosibirsk, but he had the same golden tattoo that she did. He was sandy-haired and in his thirties-and human, of course. He looked competent and trustworthy, and as I leaned against the car, he laughed and spoke to the elderly couple like they'd been best friends forever. There was a professional and reassuring air about him, and soon they were smiling too. I'm not sure what he told them, maybe that I was his wayward daughter or something, but they apparently felt good enough to leave me in his hands. I supposed with their jobs, the Alchemist charm in action.
When the old man and woman drove off, his demeanor shifted slightly. He didn't seem as cold as Sydney initially had, but there was no laughing or joking with me. He'd become distinctly businesslike, and I couldn't help but think of the stories of men in black, the people who cleaned up after extraterrestrial encounters in order to keep the world ignorant of the truth.
"Can you walk?" he asked, eyeing me up and down.
"Unclear at this time," I replied.
It turned out I could, just not very well. With his help, I eventually ended up at a town house over in a residential part of the city. I was bleary-eyed and barely able to stay on my feet by that point. There were other people there, but none of them registered. The only thing that mattered was the bedroom someone took me to. I mustered enough strength at that point to break free of the arm supporting me and do a face-plant right in the middle of the bed. I fell asleep instantly.
I awoke to bright sunshine filling my room and voices speaking in hushed tones. Considering everything that I'd been through, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Dimitri, Tatiana, or even Dr. Olendzki from the Academy there. Instead, it was Abe's bearded face that looked down at me, the light making all of his jewelry gleam.
For a moment, his face blurred, and all I saw was dark, dark water-water that threatened to wash me away. Dimitri's last words echoed in my head: That's what I was supposed to say... He'd understood that I wanted to hear that he loved me. What would have happened if we'd had a few moments more? Would he have said those words? Would he have meant them? And would it have mattered?