Chapter Twelve

While I slept, night lightened into dawn. Dawn into day. The glare of the sun was another kind of attack. I had to move or my skin would blister, or I'd die of thirst. My hand was free. I turned my head as much as I could. Eli was crawling over to Paulina. It was time to live. I rolled to one side. If that sounds easy, it wasn't. I rested for a minute, panting, then rolled to my stomach. That was easier. I pushed with my hands and pulled my knees up under me, and that was another step. I gathered up some strength. I pushed again. Well, now I was on my knees only. Halfway standing. I groaned with the pain of movement, which shamed me. I forced my way to my feet. The landscape lurched. I took a couple of steps sideways, but I managed to stay upright, only through fear of having to get up again. I put one foot in front of another. I made it to the tree where Paulina lay. Eli was sitting by her. I wanted to sit down by him, but I wasn't sure I'd get up if I did. I put my hand on his head to let him know I was there. He was staring at her. "Well?" I got tired of waiting. "She's dead." "She gave us the chance we needed," I said, because it was the best thing I could say about Paulina. "I don't know if you were really awake for that." He didn't say anything. "We got to leave," I said, trying to sound gentle. "How? Their car battery died." "How do you think I got here? The car is a little ways away. I'll go get it," I said. "I'll drive it close." "What about all the bodies?" We don't have to do anything with the bodies. They'll be picked bare in two days. "All you care about is Paulina's, right? We can cover her with rocks." On second thought I added, "Maybe." "I'll be better in a minute," he said. I had no answer to that, so I made myself think of where I'd left the car. Once I did that, I could actually see it. I whined to myself. It looked so far. But I had to bring it over, no way around that. At least I didn't have to carry anything. When I reached the Tourer—it was the only thing not worse for wear—I let myself drink as much as I wanted. I felt a lot more human after that. The driver's seat felt good after a night sprawled on the ground. I wasn't real sure I was driving like I ought to, but there was no one to collide with. I made it to the right place and parked the Tourer by the dead car. Well, the car of the dead kidnappers. I almost smiled. When I got out, I found what was left of the two vests. Eli's was ripped, like they'd pulled it off of him, but it was still intact, all the pockets shut. The hem at the back was scorched, because his vest had been by the fire they'd built to burn Paulina's. Her vest was almost completely destroyed. I dragged Eli's over to him. Eli had put three rocks on top of Paulina. He was struggling to place a fourth one. He was moving very slowly and his hands were trembling. I groaned inside myself when I estimated how long this was going to take. "Eli, I don't think Paulina would care about being covered up," I said. "She understood the reality of . . ." "Death," Eli said. He struggled with another rock. "The dead should be covered, to honor them. Paulina was a great wizard." He had that stubborn set to his mouth. "Okay," I said, trying to sound like I thought that was reasonable. Trying not to sound like I was as tired as he was, just about. "I'll finish it," Eli said, and then couldn't pick up another rock. That meant I had to finish it. I tried not to be angry. (What difference did it make? People were always so worried about what happened to the bodies. Why?) I handed Eli a canteen, bared my teeth at him, and set to work. I was real slow, simply because I couldn't go any faster. He was very glad to be reunited with his vest, scorched or not. He was able to help some, after he'd had a big drink. We got it done. I couldn't do anything with the kidnappers' dead car. At least it was slightly off the road, and anyone rounding the curve had a chance to see it. If I couldn't hide the car, there didn't seem to be much point in hiding the grigoris' bodies, assuming I had the strength. I didn't. Besides, I'd left bodies strewn between Segundo Mexia and here, all along the road to Ciudad Juárez. I helped Eli stand. He made his way to the passenger door without a word. I thought of saying something more to him, but I didn't know what it would be. His face looked bare and bleak. He was hard hit, his body and his spirit. I started driving. I didn't know what Russians said on sad occasions, and I didn't care. We had to get away from this spot. We were overdue for more bad luck. I wanted to get out of the area before it caught up with us. After I'd driven for an hour, my brain kicked in. One of us had to think, and it wouldn't be Eli, at least for a while more. The kidnappers might have other people near. At the least, someone was waiting for them to report, either in person or by telegraph or telephone. When that didn't happen, a search would begin. The bodies would be found. If we had bad luck—maybe more accurate to say we had near-miss luck—then the other grigoris were on the spot in El Soldado . . . but if so, why hadn't they joined in the kidnapping? Okay, maybe they weren't close at all. That was great. Unless they were waiting for us in Ciudad Juárez. The bodies and the car would be found. Even if a lucky passerby stole the car, they'd hardly care about the bodies. Maybe I should have thought about Eli's objections to loose bodies with more attention. Once the bodies were found, the search would focus on a tall male grigori and a short female gunnie. For the moment there was daylight and a road and a tank of gas. I had to make the most of those things. I hoped I never forgot how bad it was to be without them. I went a little slower than I wanted, mindful I wasn't exactly myself—and neither was the Tourer, after my drive in the dark. Nothing seemed to be too banged or loosened to work, so far. If we weren't ambushed and/or killed, we would reach Ciudad Juárez late this morning. And there we would find—maybe—the brother of Oleg Karkarov, and his daughter (or niece), too. It was great to have everything pinned down, all right. After a while I had to think of something to say to Eli. I knew he was suffering, and my own was recent enough to make it fresh in my mind. "What was Paulina to you?" I asked, and he startled. "Was she your teacher, or your lover, or . . . ?" He looked surprised. "Paulina was my sister," he said. "I didn't know. I'm really sorry, Eli." I felt really confused. The accents? Peter was her brother, too? "Are your parents still living?" He looked even more confused than I was, for a second. "Not by the same parents," he explained. "She was my sister in the service of the emperor. She was already a . . . tested wizard when I came into training. So we lived in the same building for a time." "With your mom and dad?" "We don't stay with our parents after it's noticed we have power," he said. "Why not?" "We have to be trained," he explained. "We have to concentrate. There's a chance we could harm our families, by accident, or even on purpose . . . at least, the more volatile of the candidates." I was almost too tired to be shocked, but not quite. "So you get taken away from your folks." "Yes, put in the school in San Diego," he said. "That's where my brother Peter is now. At least . . . I think so." "Real brother or magical brother?" "Both. Peter turned out to have the talent, like me." Every answer led to another question. "You have more brothers?" "Two older half brothers, and two sisters who are younger." "What do you do for the emperor?" "We cast spells of protection and we defend. There is always a bodyguard detail with him, and we get detailed to the care of the grand duchesses, too, wherever they may be. Those of us who have the gift of healing, we're near the tsar. We are there when he receives the transfusions, to make sure it's painless and that his body accepts the blood of another of the chosen." I'd heard of blood transfusions. I'd never gotten one, or seen one, and I was glad of that. "It can't be just any blood, you're saying. It has to be special blood." I'd always thought that blood was the same, no matter whom it came from. Now I was about to find out why that wasn't so. Finally. "We've talked about Rasputin." I nodded. "The holy man. Who wasn't exactly a priest. He helped keep Alexei alive when Alexei had the bleeding sickness." Eli said, "It wasn't just Rasputin's prayers that have kept Alexei alive, but his blood. It worked fine until Rasputin died, a month ago." "I can't believe Rasputin lasted this long. That's a very long life." I spoke slowly, trying to understand. From Eli's expression this was really big information. "We kept the starets, the holy man, alive by magic," Eli said. "Difficult magic. Dark magic." This memory looked like a very unhappy one. "So, okay . . . you need more blood for Alexei, and maybe the baby to come, if it's a boy. You have to have blood like Rasputin's. But how do you know what to look for? Why do you think a child of Oleg Karkarov's has the right blood?" "Rasputin was not a very moral holy man," Eli said. "He was married, and had children by his wife. But aside from his marriage . . ." When I understood what Eli meant, I was shocked. "He had affairs with other women?" Eli nodded, not meeting my eyes. "Even calling the encounters 'affairs' is elevating them." The other shoe dropped. Took me long enough. "And so he had other children?" Eli nodded again. "So we're tracking those children to see if their blood has the same properties." "What happened to his kids with his wife?" "Only one of them made it out of Russia with him. The rest were hunted down and executed." "And how many bastards are there?" "At least four." "You've got 'em?" "One of those died too early to beget any children himself, but the others did not. As you are well aware, Oleg Karkarov died last year. Rasputin's illegitimate daughter, Irina, died a year before that, of the influenza. Irina's male child is tubercular, her girl is a whore who has syphilis, so their blood is no good. Who knows what the tsar could contract from them? Another team is tracking a second Rasputin daughter in Poland. Paulina and I were sent to follow the trail of Oleg Karkarov. Since Oleg had some degree of magical ability, we had high hopes that his blood would be suitable. But of course . . ." "You're hoping Sergei is his full brother." "If he is, and the girl child is Sergei's, we would have a much better chance of keeping everyone alive. If Sergei has a different mother or father, the child has to be Oleg's for her blood to be useful. We know Oleg had the gift." I'd been right to keep my mouth shut. I liked my blood right where it was, in my own body. Unmixed with anyone else's. Time to move on in the conversation. "You got any ideas about how to find this Sergei Karkarov once we get to Juárez?" "Paulina was better at searching spells," Eli said, sounding tired and way older than I knew he must be. "There are ways I can try." I sighed, but I tried to keep it quiet. Eli dozed some, drank some more of the water we'd gotten at Ciudad Azul, and ate a scrap or two, which was about all we had left to eat. I wasn't hungry, and he needed it more. I hadn't lost someone really close to me.