The Gathering Storm

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

It was getting close to dark, and my parents were planning to attend a dinner party at Miechen's that evening. I was supposed to go with them, but pleaded a headache and begged to stay home. Maman told Anya and Lyudmila to have a sandwich and tea sent up to my room.
I asked Anya to let me sleep through the night undisturbed so my head would feel better in the morning.
As soon as everyone left, I dressed quickly in one of my plainest brown dresses. I wrapped my head with a black woolen scarf, grabbed my warmest, fur-lined black cloak, and quietly slipped out of the house. It was a short walk to Vorontsov Palace. I wanted to know what was happening at the Order. I spoke the Egyptian magic words, veiling myself in my own shadow. Once again, I felt the darkness closing in around me, but I knew to expect it this time. I took a few deep breaths and hurried down the street.
I was freezing by the time I reached the palace, but I tried not to let my teeth chatter too loudly. In shadow, I easily slipped past the guards, who were very much awake and heavily armed this time. Several members of the Order had gathered in the Great Hall before the portrait of Tsar Pavel. I could hear anxiety and fear in their voices. There were whisperings about an old curse on the Order. The youngest pages were not present. They had been sent to bed.
General Tcherevine led the assembled men, reminding them that they had pledged their lives to serve the tsar as well as Mother Russia. That they had made this pledge before God. He did not discuss what had prompted the gathering. I moved through the crowd cloaked in shadow, trying to pick up some conversation from the nervous soldiers.
"Did you see him?"
"Count Orlov did. Said it was Demidov, all right. He looked a little pale, but he knew it was him."
"And he attacked him?"
"Yes. Said he tried to bite him."
I felt a little weak but leaned up against a wall to breathe. Prince Demidov had returned from the dead now too? Was that what had happened to all the stolen bodies? They had all been members of the Order. Was someone making revenants out of them? It would have taken a powerful necromancer to perform such black magic. The only other necromancer I knew of was the vampire princess from the House of Bessaraba. What in the holy name of God was Princess Cantacuzene doing?
It was several hours before midnight, but I wondered if the ghost of the tsar would speak to the men. I hoped they knew what they were going after.
There was a stir of murmurings as a small band of men pushed through the crowd and reached the front of the room. "Make way for His Imperial Highness Grand Duke George Alexandrovich," someone said.
The grand duke looked tired but grimly determined. He wasn't addressing the crowd but stood off to the side of the general, listening to what the older, wiry-haired man had to say. I stayed far away. I did not want the grand duke's faerie eyes to see me under my sheult spell.
General Tcherevine nodded and then spoke to his regiments:
"Unfortunately, I have just received confirmation on the attack on Count Orlov," he began. "The doctors are working on him as quickly as possible but say he has lost an enormous amount of blood. It does not look well for him. His family is being notified as we speak."
"How are we to fight this monster?" someone asked.
"Fire will kill it," the grand duke said. "As will decapitation. Or preferably both."
Why had Demidov attacked a former comrade in arms? Bitten him, no less. Count Chermenensky was not running around St. Petersburg biting people, was he? No one had seen him in several weeks, but I feared the worst. I had to sneak closer and hear what the grand duke was saying.
"Search the woods behind Smolny, as well as the Tauride Palace," the grand duke was telling the other men. "As soon as this monster is caught, his body must be brought to the Koldun."
"He has to have been called forth by a powerful necromancer," General Tcherevine said. "Who is the prince's master?"
"Or mistress," the grand duke said grimly. He suspected Princess Cantacuzene, just as I did.
The crowd stirred as a messenger arrived. They had cornered the undead Prince Demidov in a small abandoned building along the river.
Close to the Field of Mars. I swallowed hard, thinking how near my home this monster was.
"Commander Oldenburg has his men in position, sir," the messenger said.
"Very good." The general nodded. "We shal join him immediately. Men!" Petya. He was in the building with that monster. If anything happened to my brother, it would devastate my mother. And my father. I huddled against the wall, trying not to sob out loud.
The grand duke brushed past me on his way out with the members of the Order. I held my breath, but he stopped, as if he could sense my presence.
He frowned, shook his head, and continued on.
I stayed hidden until the last man left the Great Hall. Then I was alone with the giant portrait of Tsar Pavel. His eyes seemed to find me, even though I was cloaked in the shadows. I wondered if I should speak to him again and ask more questions about the bogatyr. The ghost had said that becoming the bogatyr was not pleasant. But who else would be able to fight an army of undead soldiers running amok in St. Petersburg?
An army of undead. That was a chilling thought. Princess Cantacuzene was creating such an army out of the tsar's own elite knight-commanders.
Just like the Dekebristi in 1825. I couldn't fathom why she needed this army. Or whom she was planning to attack.