Gerald Grayson and Michelle von Horrowitz
are
[cthulhu’s nephews]
in
episode twenty four
"Gelid Ascent."
"In his mind, nothing could be more delightful than to live in solitude, and enjoy the spectacle of nature, and sometimes read some book or other."
- Nikolai Gogol, “Dead Souls”.
"Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal."
- Mikhail Bulgakov, “The Master and Margarita”.
Permsk. Near Nizhny Novgorod.
Saturday June 6th, 1840.
Denis Taigovich Godunov stirred his borscht around the large pot as the farmhouse door creaked open. He sighed as he looked at the moon. It was already late. The borscht was ready almost an hour ago. Denis had continued to dutifully and despondently stir the meal, watching it gradually thicken beyond its optimum viscosity whilst his partner - business partner, that is - stretched the limits of acceptable punctuality. He’d heard the horse coming up the snaking dirt path that led from their farmhold’s gates to the eastern road, which itself eventually led to the city. The gentle clip-clop of his co-proprietor’s black mare (dubbed Coal for its colour) stirred lingering memories of frustration, which spilled over into indignation during the horse’s noisy restabling, and then anger upon the door’s familiar, mocking creak.
As Rodion Roshawnovich Rachovsky entered the kitchen and placed his heavy, fur coat on the stand in the corner, Denis finally took his pot off the heat. He collected a large, copper ladle from its hook and began to spoon the stew out into two bowls.
"Sorry I’m late," Rodion began, between wheezes. Denis imagined the horse had done most of the work getting him home, but the short walk from the stables to the farmhouse was enough to cause the fat, drunk man’s heart to race. He continued to mutter absent and incomplete thoughts as he took a seat. "Always late, and in a rush. Too many drinks, too many farewells."
"And who was the subject of your drawn-out do svidaniyas tonight, I wonder?" Denis asked, as he sat down opposite Rodion and prepared his first spoonful of borscht, which looked thick and unappetising. His co-proprietor was busy pouring out two healthy measures of red wine.
"An old friend," Rodion allowed. He loosened the buckle on his belt - his rotund belly already hanging liberally over his waistband - before properly addressing his soup. "Someone I haven’t seen for quite some time. Not since my childhood. You might know him. Kirill Manovich Petrov?"
Denis bristled.
"Kirill Manovich Petrov?" he repeated, a slight quiver in his voice.
"Mhmm," Rodion affirmed, absently, whilst chewing his borscht.
"Father from Vladivostok?" Denis continued in his enquiries. "Mother is some kind of foreigner? French, maybe."
"Prussian," the other corrected. "Though you describe the right man. Fine fellow. Hasn’t changed a bit."
Denis set his spoon down next to his bowl.
"There are strange stories about Kirill Manovich Petrov," he muttered, his voice slow but now steady. "I’ve heard the name often recently. It is whispered around the countryside."
"You mean to say an old friend was home and you didn’t think to tell me?" Rodion asked. He grimaced to show his distaste. "This won’t do."
"They call him чёрт," Denis said, simply.
"Well, I wouldn’t go around spreading gossip, or calling him names," Rodion advised. He seemed more interested in finishing his borscht than the countryside’s whispers. "Partly because Kirill Manovich has many friends. Important friends. He’s trusted in Nizhny Novgorod, and even has contacts in Moscow. But mostly because I invited him to supper. He’ll be here any moment."
Denis stiffened. As if on cue, the farmhouse door creaked open again. Initially, Rodion appeared confused, or even amused, by the other’s darkened mood. But, thanks to Denis’ sincerity as well as the slow, plodding rhythm of the visitor’s footsteps, eventually some of the tension began to impose itself on Rodion, too.
His smile faded as the shadow of Kirill Manovich Petrov emerged through the door. When the man himself arrived behind it, a winter wind howled through the pores of the building, blowing out the candles on the table between them. Smoke hissed from their extinguished wicks.
In the doorway, the visitor smiled beneath his bristling moustache. His eyes - keen, piercing and cobalt blue - returned fire and warmth to the room in lieu of candlelight.
"Kirill, please, come in and sit down," Rodion said, as warmly as he could in an attempt to slice through some of the tension. Denis twitched, and then almost recoiled as the visitor stepped over the threshold. His cheeks were rosy and his breathing laboured, suggesting to Denis Taigovich that he’d enjoyed a similar afternoon to his partner. A чёрт was bad enough, he thought to himself. A drunk чёрт was even worse. "I hope the walk was pleasant, even with the wind."
"There’s nothing like the Russian winter," Kirill Manovich said, in a low, firm, and steady voice. He removed his coat and placed it over the back of his chair whilst Rodion poured him a glass of wine. Reluctantly, Denis retrieved another bowl and prepared a third serving of his borscht. "You don’t have to trouble yourself, Denis Taigovich. A glass of wine will do. I rarely eat solid food this late."
"It’s no trouble," Denis answered, although the sharpness in his tone suggested otherwise. The borscht was placed down in front of the visitor, who then proceeded to ready his pipe and, under gentle prompting from Rodion, indulged in the story of his recent travels in the Russian countryside. Denis listened attentively, though his narrowed eyes belied his mistrust. This only gathered when Kirill Manovich’s tale engaged as its principal characters the very neighbours from whom Denis had already heard tell of the visitor’s strange comings and goings. Such was Denis Taigovich’s obvious discontent that here their guest paused in his hitherto free-flowing and unfettered narration.
"Excuse the intermission," he said. His food remained untouched in front of him. "But I feel as though at least one of my hosts is biting his tongue. Are you okay, Denis Taigovich?"
The subject of the question remained silent, playing into the guest’s impression of him.
"My partner has been indulging in rumour and innuendo," Rodion interjected. His delivery was flippant, intending to win the visitor’s trust in the name of masculine comradery.
"Oh?" Kirill Manovich asked, a bushy eyebrow cocked. His smile had developed an edge. He looked only at Denis Taigovich Godunov. "And what do the old wives say about me?"
"That you’ve been visiting farmholds," Denis said, finally finding his voice. "Gespadins Bulgakov and Gogol. And Tarkovsky, Vertov, Eisenstein. Every landowner between here and Nizhny Novgorod. You arrive, drink their wine, and then make strange propositions under the high moon."
The visitor swirled his drink around his glass before taking a long, indulgent sip.
"My friends have good wine," he began. "And they offer it freely. The moon is already high, Denis Taigovich, meaning it is time for strange propositions?"
Rodion Roshawnovich laughed heartily before damming his mouth with a spoonful of borscht. Kirill Manovich continued to glare, a glint in his cobalt blue eyes. Denis Taigovich shuffled uncomfortably in his chair.
"Tell me, friends," Kirill continued, after finishing his wine. Rodion rushed to fill his glass again. "How many serfs did you have working on the farm at the time of the last census?"
"We have eighty eight serfs on the farm," Rodion answered, rather proud of his prompt recall. "According to the count last night."
"Ah, but how many on the last census?" the visitor asked. He took the refilled glass from Rodion and nodded his thanks.
"Ninety six," Rodion said. "But many of these are not the same men and women as work here now."
"So, I am to believe that some of these ninety six have died? At least eight, it would seem."
"More," Denis interjected. "It is hard work. Thirty one of that number have passed during the winter, and another eleven fled east. Many have been replaced. The census is out of date."
"And yet," the visitor began, his tongue sparkling as he attempted to imply his understanding of their plight. "The poor, oft-maligned landowner is still forced to pay taxes and fees on these dead souls, as well as those he has added to his workforce in the meantime?"
"That is the truth of it," Rodion replied, with a regretful shake of the head. Denis was more guarded. He knew of the visitor’s friends in high places and didn’t wish to show distaste for the state.
"So I make it that you are paying taxes and fees on forty two people who are no longer under your employ?" Kirill concluded. Rodion nodded in affirmation of the arithmetic. "Well, my strange propositions to your esteemed neighbours were merely endeavours to assist with that. Not in any official capacity, but rather as a private citizen. Helping my fellow man has become more of a priority as I’ve grown older. Or old."
"Will you bring them back to life?" Denis Taigovich asked, only half in jest. He felt there was black magic in the room and didn’t like the taste of it.
"Unfortunately, this power is beyond me," the visitor said, after a brief chuckle. "I only wish to purchase these dead souls from you. I think a ruble per person would be a fair price."
"You want to buy them?" Denis asked, somewhat aghast. The visitor didn’t flinch. Rodion was busy with the calculations, struggling because of the drink to compute forty two multiplied by one.
"That is my strange proposition," their guest said.
"We have sold serfs before," Rodion began, thoughtfully. Denis couldn’t believe that his partner was considering this macabre offer. "Though, one ruble for men and women that we’ve grown to love over the years doesn’t seem very much. The going rate would be closer to ten rubles per soul."
"The going rate for a living, breathing, working serf, yes," Kirill Manovich allowed. "But these are far from such. I offer one ruble in good faith, toasting the afternoon we’ve spent together, Rodion Roshawnovich, and our previous acquaintance. Some of your neighbours signed these souls over to me free of charge, sensing the good business in getting these useless appendages from their books."
"Even so," Rodion replied, cautiously. He sensed a good deal and had no intention of rushing in. "One ruble for Pyotr the pig-herder and the limp he’s carried around since childhood, or Margarita the cook whose cabbage soup is the finest this side of St. Petersburg, or Nikolai the one-eyed blacksmith… it seems somehow immoral."
"I can see that you are a sentimental man," Kirill said, pleased by this negotiating tactic. "I can go as far as two rubles for each dead soul."
"Чёрт," uttered Denis, halting the negotiations. He had remained mostly silent since the proposition was posed but was unable to hold his tongue any longer.
"I apologise for this outburst," Rodion said, shocked and offended on their guest’s behalf (though, truth be told, most of his indignance stemmed from him sensing eighty four rubles slipping out of grasp). Kirill waved the apology away dismissively.
"I’ve been called worse," he said. "Do we have a deal?"
"And what do you need these dead souls for?" asked Denis, his cutlery clenched in his whitening hands.
"That, I will not tell you," Kirill answered. "My business is my own."
"Чёрт business," remarked Denis.
"I really don’t know what has come over my partner," Rodion continued, whilst reaching for the wine again as a placatory gesture. He would need more than this to placate their guest, though, for a moment later Denis Taigovich rose to his feet and - his knife still in his hand - plunged the blade into the visitor’s chest.
Rodion stood up suddenly, the violent jerk toppling his chair, and let out a pained yelp as if he himself had been poked with the knife. Kirill’s reaction was far more subtle. His smile disappeared and surprise blossomed in his eyes. His wheezing became more pronounced.
"Have you gone mad?!"
"Чёрт," Denis said, simply, with a nod towards the wound. "No blood."
The visitor continued to wheeze. And then, finally, a dark red puddle began to gather around the knife, which still protruded (almost comically) from his chest. The life left his eyes and he fell face-first into his untouched soup.
Moscow.
Tuesday June 6th, 2023.
She remembered the last time that she’d walked around the perimeter of Patriarch’s Pond. The tall buildings - mostly uniform and utterly Slavic (in this uniformity and in most other aspects) - surrounding the water, Michelle, and her companions on all sides hadn’t changed. The war hadn’t really touched the aggressor’s capital. Not yet, anyway. In 2018, her mind was fogged by thoughts of Adrienne and Katya and Jean-Luc. The names were different but the black cloud in her head was the same. She hadn’t read Bulgakov back then and still hadn’t now. Doubted she ever would. The writer hadn’t crossed her mind in the five years between visits to the pond.
Harry was at the edge of the water, feeding the birds with a heel of old bread they’d bought from a nearby bakery. Gerald and Quiet walked either side of her and displayed varying levels of comfort with their surroundings. Gerald was (typically) on edge and glanced warily at almost all passers-by, concerned that their presence here - admittedly illegal - had already been noticed. Quiet, as ever, remained casual. Aloof, almost.
"Of all the places in the world to choose for a vacation," Gerald muttered, his displeasure deliberate and clear. "Which is essentially the choice that Uncle gave you, you chose here? Especially now?"
The question (or series of questions) was delivered with a sense of earnest exasperation. Michelle’s initial response, which amounted to a shrug, didn’t appear to be enough for her partner.
"I’ve got good memories in this city," she elaborated. Gerald afforded her this rare nostalgia, even if he found its target unbecoming. "And I wanted to give Uncle a challenge. Besides, I thought it would be a perfect place to think about the kaiju. And Peacock, too. It’s not like Meltdown is easy to watch here. We might just slip by unnoticed."
"Peacock, right," Gerald replied. He shook his head. Folded his arms. Kicked his feet a little. He’d already voiced his dissent with regards to Michelle’s next scheduled opponent. He sensed repetition would be pointless, and so let his body language say it for him.
"I’d have thought you’d be pleased for a week off," Michelle returned, as they rounded a corner of the pond, passing beneath the shadow of a French-ish restaurant she remembered from five years ago. "We’ve been defending our belts a lot recently."
"Oh, I know," Gerald began. "I’m acutely aware of how often we’ve been defending our belts. But all this talk of the hardest path last week… seems a little cheap to duck a defense this cycle. Especially when Peacock has a partner ready and waiting. Alyster might be a little, well, broken, but this might be just the pick-me-up he needs."
"I think he needs a little more than a pick-me-up. And I’m not sure why you want to give him one. He hates us now, remember? FTN?"
"...’. … ….. …. … … …..”
"Verzeihung," interrupted a voice - low, firm, steady, and with an immaculate German accent - belonging to an old man seated on a bench next to the pond. His smile was kind and his eyes were keen, piercing, and cobalt blue. "Weißt du, wie spät es ist? Ich möchte nicht zu spät kommen."
"He wants to know the time," Michelle said. Gerald showed her his phone, which hurt her eyes to look at as much as the midday sun. She projected her voice to the stranger. "Halb zehn."
"Danke," he replied, whilst tipping his hat. He still smiled brightly beneath his thick, bushy moustache. "Du kommst aus Deutschland?"
"Nein. Ich bin aus den Niederlanden. Meine Freunde sind Amerikaner und…"
Her voice trailed off. She realised she didn’t quite know how to succinctly describe Quiet.
"Ah, American?" the stranger said, in English. "Then you are visitors to Moscow, too. This is my first time, friends. You know, for a very long while, my kind wasn’t particularly welcome in this country. That was some time ago. Still not very welcoming, though."
Michelle and Quiet said nothing, and this pair would’ve gladly continued their stroll at that very moment. Gerald, however, let his pleasant and congenial nature get the better of him.
"And why have you come to Moscow?" he asked. He thought about adding especially at a time like this but worried that it might sound like an accusation.
"I have a show here," the stranger said. "You may have seen the posters. At the Bolshoi. Just one night, but still! Quite the stage! Tomorrow night, if you find yourself at a loose end…"
"What’s the show about?" Gerald enquired.
"My show is about what you might call black magic, as it is considered in mainstream society," the stranger replied. "I give it other names, of course. Nothing so artless. But that should give you a taste of it. ‘A demonstration and exposé’, although I could do without the second part. The theatre manager insisted, so here we are. I’m sure there are still seats, if you’d like to come…"
"I’m sure there still are," Michelle repeated. Gerald shot her an admonishing glare.
"We’ll look into it tonight, if we have time," the Daredevil added. Dreamer couldn’t tell if he was sincere. She concluded he probably was.
"Oh, you won’t have time tonight," the stranger said. He turned his head towards the pond but continued to speak. "Gabriella has already brought the lemons, and Mikhail won’t be around forever."
Gerald glanced at the others, a confused expression decorating his face. Quiet shrugged his shoulders. Michelle pointed towards the gates.
"It was nice to meet the three of you," the stranger continued. "Especially you, Quiet. So close to the end, too. You lose your head tonight, and there’s no coming back from that! The train won’t get to Shchyolkovskaya, and neither will you!"
"What are you talking about?" Gerald returned. He was spooked by the stranger’s use of the masked man’s name. The old man on the bench continued as if oblivious to the Daredevil’s change in tone.
"You remind me of someone, Gerald," he said. "Pontius Pilate. Have you heard of him? I should know: I was there, afterall! When he stood upon his balcony, and considered which man he should pardon in the name of the Republic. Oh, I was there! I know, I know, as sure as my name is Kirill Manovich Petrov."
"Come on, Gerald," Michelle insisted. "Let’s go for a drink."
"What do you think all that was about?" Gerald asked, as the three arrived on the platform. He tried to read the cyrillic on the arched wall beside the tracks, got as far as Ploschad Revol--, and then gave up. "How did he know our names?"
"....... … … …. ……..," Quiet answered.
"We’ll mention it to Uncle," Michelle added. She stroked the nose of a bronze dog under one of the platform’s many arches. For luck. It was already discoloured thanks to a million or so others doing the same thing throughout the years. She wondered if it had worked for them. "Hopefully it’s nothing."
"It’s never nothing," Gerald mused, as the timer until the next train ticked down to one minute. He glanced at the name of the terminating station and flinched at the size and state of it. The short lessons he’d had from Michelle during the flight (aboard the Octopi rather than a plane, of course) hadn’t prepared him for this. He shook his head. "Ridiculous language."
Michelle chuckled after following his eyeline. Щёлковская.
"Sound it out," she advised. "Starts with a shch."
"And that’s one letter," Gerald lamented. "Shch --"
"Azbuka will be closed already," a young woman spoke into her phone as she leant over the edge of the platform, looking out for the oncoming train. Michelle could pick her way through most conversational Russian and chose the surrounding small-talk over Gerald’s ongoing lesson. "Don’t worry. Gabrielle already has the lemons."
"Shchyel --"
"You’ll have to go on your own," a middle aged man - large and bearded and pot-bellied in typically Russian fashion, with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth - was admonishing his timid-looking daughter with his back turned to Dreamer. "Mikhail goes to university soon. He won’t be around forever."
"Shchyelkav –"
Quiet gathered his things, preparing to board the train. He avoided bumping into the young woman on her phone, who smiled (despite the mask, which was undoubtedly at least vaguely unsettling) and then removed herself to a quieter spot. He began to pace on the edge, watching for the train that they could now hear.
"Shchyelkavskya!" Gerald announced, with unwarranted triumph. "Was I close?"
"Shchyolkovskaya," Michelle said, but not really to Gerald.
As the train rumbled into the platform, slowing to a halt, a babushka bounded down the adjacent stairs - a toddler-upon-wheels only loosely speaking under her control - and veered wildly around the corner. She had the time. The train was barely in the station. But she didn’t know that. Quiet turned to face her as she skidded down the bottom two steps and lost her footing. She rammed into the masked man with her pram: a comedic spectacle, especially considering - as my dear reader must - the history and reputation of the man sent sprawling by this untimely and thoroughly unbecoming projectile. The pram rolled slowly away from the edge as Quiet unceremoniously tumbled over it, a modern day Anna Karrenina, only with troubles more worthwhile than those of late nineteenth century Russian aristocrats. His head, still masked, was sliced from his shoulders and then booted by the marauding train down the tunnel until it disappeared out of sight.
"Huh."
A few surrounding strangers (and Gerald) began to shriek.
The authorities had already taken the body away before Uncle arrived. As JAY! took over duties consoling Gerald on the platform edge, Michelle returned to Patriarch’s Pond. She found the bench where they’d met the stranger unoccupied. Harry was still feeding the birds.
***
"Yes, Kirill, all things considered tonight was quite perfect," Kirill Manovich declared, to himself and nobody else, as he emerged through the door of his bunker. He hung his hat and coat up on a tall, silver stand, walked past a trio of neatly made beds, and crouched down in front of a small, square filing cabinet. "You couldn't have managed better with a hundred attempts! One-take Kirill… yes, very good!"
Kirill Manovich was, as you might have realised, somewhat prone to talking to himself, especially when the bunker was empty and he was pottering around it. That was indeed the case tonight: he assumed that Aleksandr and the cat were still out causing mischief. So long as they followed his rules, put into place to avoid too much attention being drawn onto them before the time was right, Kirill was happy to let his assistants do as they pleased.
"Well, it's been a long day, Kirill. And, as we've established, a successful one. A veritable host of meddling Nephews, and you hoodwinked the lot of them! I think you've earned a little reward…"
As if he'd convinced himself alongside the flies on the wall (that's you!), Kirill Manovich began to rock the short, cubic cabinet back and forth, gradually dislodging it from its position and moving it to one side. A piece of cardboard was blu-tacked to the wall behind it, which he carefully removed and placed on top of the cabinet. Behind this was a hole and a tunnel: dark, drab, and just about large enough to crawl through.
"Must be careful, though, Kirill. Too much comfort is dangerous. Even if you have finally found him. Can’t get distracted from your real purpose up here. Important!"
With an assertive nod, he removed his shoes and placed them next to the hole in the wall. He stuffed his socks into them, rolled his sleeves up, and climbed in.
"Just fifteen minutes…"
He crawled a few metres into the tunnel, the hard, jagged rocks soon giving way to fine, white sand, through which Kirill Manovich promptly began to fall…
He landed with an unexpected, unprotected, and unenjoyable thud on the hard road. He remained seated upon the cold surface for a moment, regretting his age and the struggles that his old bones now frequently faced. Then, remembering that he only had fifteen minutes to make the most of his time here, he pushed himself up onto his feet.
The first thing that caught his eye were oceans of crops: cornfields stretching on for seemingly kilometres on either side of the road. They were familiar. He was in Maryland, then. The road, though it led from the same starting point to the same unseen end, was now paved with gold slabs. That was new. He spent only a moment considering this peculiarity before beginning on the familiar path towards the setting sun. He brushed the ends of the long, dry, golden crops with his fingertips as he went, staring up at the simple, pastel-coloured buildings set back from the gold road. Their aesthetics were generally pleasing but Kirill noticed that many of the windows were boarded up. In fact, it was a while before he saw anybody else at all. Usually, this place was choked with people asking for help with some menial task or another.
"You lost, friend?"
Silence doesn’t last forever (until it does). After what felt like over half of the time he had in this place, Kirill finally came across a living soul. Or three living souls, to be precise. Standing a few metres away from him was the familiar figure of an Amish man. He was feeding his two horses - Thomas on the left and Harry on the right - with a handful of hay. His other arm was engaged in ruffling the beasts’ manes.
"No," the visitor said. "This is where I expected to be. Here or somewhere like it."
"You expected to be in the middle of nowhere?" Jedidiah asked.
"I’ve been here before," Kirill answered. "Your name is Jedidiah Jerome Jameson."
The Amish man pulled a face that suggested a sudden spasm of thought.
"I’m sorry, I don’t remember you," he said, accepting defeat. "It’s been a while since we’ve had any visitors at all."
"This place is the same, and yet it’s changed a lot, too."
"Well, the road is new," Jedidiah acknowledged. He engaged in a tap-dance on the gold bricks. He had some talent. "And it certainly is a nice road. But there’s no people left to walk on it, except me and my children. Everyone else moved away."
"Klara? Kaleb?" Kirill asked. Jedidah nodded his head. "Even Ray?"
"Well, nobody was left to give Old Ray his pills," Jedidiah explained. "That’s been the way of things around here for a while. First, visitors stopped coming to help the townspeople with their odd jobs, and then the townspeople stopped helping each other. Got to be that everyone was out for number one. They became more concerned about what their neighbour could do for them, as opposed to what they could do for their neighbour. Backwards, really."
"And now you’re here on your own?"
"Well, there’s Margot and Gerard," Jedidiah said, as something resembling a smile returned to his face. "If you stay for dinner you’ll get the chance to meet them."
"Lead the way," Kirill instructed.
Jedidiah did exactly that, taking the visitor to a large, pink house at the end of the gold road. On the way, he engaged in smalltalk about Kaleb’s disappearance. The young man had turned his back on religion, renounced the Goddess, and then walked into the hills. Krystal still returned infrequently, though was changed by her new friends, who were as angry as they were powerful. Old Ray inspired most sadness in the host, and about him Jedidiah would say very little.
In the yard in front of the pink house, two children - Margot and Gerard - were playing capture the flag. It appeared as if they were both on the same team, which was somewhat adorable but unquestionably made the game a little difficult to play. They defended their base - a veritable fortress, no doubt - from nobody and nothing save their own imaginations.
"This is all that's left," Jedidiah announced, wistfully. "We are all that's left. All that hasn't gone or been taken."
"And why is that?" Kirill asked.
"Partly because they're under my protection," the Amish man explained. "And they can look after themselves too, of course. They're young, but this is their home. We don't expect to go anywhere any time soon."
Kirill nodded his head.
"I'll go and heat the food," Jedidiah said. He disappeared inside, taking a stealthy route so as to not disturb the defenders in their makeshift fortress. Kirill remained on the porch, considering the empty town and this relative hive of activity. He turned his mind to kidnapping, and followed his host towards the pink house.
After only a handful of steps, the gold bricks began to ripple beneath his feet. Then, they gave way, and Kirill - yet again - was falling.
Kirill Manovich Petrov fell from a moderate height and landed in a dumpster behind a Varenychna No. 1 restaurant in the Kievskaya District of Central Moscow. Fortunately, the series of cushions he'd laid down inside of it and the host of mirroring spells placed upon it provided a comfortable and covert landing. He remained buried within the padding for more than a moment and realised how tired he was.
When he climbed out of the dumpster, he found his assistant and his assistant's assistant waiting for him. The former was Aleksandr Rawrvich Chornny, his shoulders hunched forward, a green leather mask hiding his face and a pair of Kirill's shoes in his hand. The latter was a large white cat.
Aleksandr handed his master his shoes and a pair of socks. Kirill began to put them on.
"I hope you both had a pleasant evening?" he asked. Aleksandr grunted and nodded his head. Kirill sensed his assistant's impatience. "Don't worry. You'll be able to let loose soon enough. Tomorrow's the big day."
Michelle and Gerald arrived a little late to the Varenychna No. 1 in Kievskaya and couldn’t miss the army of Nephews that had descended upon the poor, unsuspecting eatery. They occupied almost the entirety of the restaurant, the other customers obliged to share tables with young wizards, fawns, or anthropomorphic stingrays as they broke their fast. Gerald ordered a plate of potato pancakes (not knowing precisely what they were) and an orange juice. Michelle stuck with a black coffee.
"Ah, Nephews!" Uncle said.
"Больше племянников?!" the waitress exclaimed, exasperated, as she brought over the Connection’s drinks. She shook her head and scurried away to replace Thomas’ empty ice latte.
"We were just talking about your opponents for XXX," Uncle said. He kicked out a pair of chairs he’d saved for the latecomers.
"Don’t you mean opponent?" Michelle asked. She emptied a pair of sugar sachets into her coffee and stirred it lethargically. "Singular?"
"Sure," Uncle replied, offering a wink. "But we were talking about them both: Peacock and Black. I know it’s a singles match for now, but your hubris is renowned, Dreamer! And you wouldn’t want poor GiGi sitting on the sidelines this close to Back in Business, would you?"
"Reduced to a cheerleader," Thomas said, with a rueful shake of his head. Michelle thought this rather unhelpful.
"No sign of Quiet?" she enquired, whilst scanning the room. Uncle, Thomas, and Harry all shrugged simultaneously.
"What is the consensus on FTN?" Gerald interjected. He sipped his juice and winced at the sharpness.
"We don’t use those initials," Uncle responded. His tone was as sharp as the drink. "Unless you’re playfully using them to stand for something else. And that, really, is the crux of what we were talking about: this soft and saft vendetta against the planet’s beloved protagonists. Alyster has always been a lost cause, even if I once shared a tag rope with the moody messiah. Kicking dogs to death is never a good sign. Someone should tell him how dangerous metaphors can be. And how far Boogie Baby has fallen… really makes one stifle a tear."
"You don’t have tear ducts," Harry pointed out.
"I have artificial tear ducts."
"Heaven knows exactly why they hate us all so much," Gerald said, as his ‘pancakes’ arrived. He looked at them in disappointment, especially when the waitress smothered them in dill and placed a pot of mayonnaise next to his bowl.
“I’m sure I could hazard a guess,” OBB said, whilst digging through a stack of bacon rashers that made Dreamer feel somewhat queasy.
"Probably because all of his previous title reigns were ended by the Nephews," Michelle reasoned. "By Uncle, specifically."
"Except for the loser belt," JAY! quipped. The young wizard narrowed his eyes. "No offense, Harry."
"Peacock is a proud man," Dreamer continued, as she sipped her coffee. "Not to mention ambitious. He knows that we’re the biggest threat to the trinket he currently possesses, and we hold another that his greed encourages him to at least try and collect."
"It could’ve all been so different," Uncle lamented. "I almost fear for Boogie Baby: another defeat to the Nephews might just break him, even if it is in a tag match."
"It is not a tag match," Michelle said, forcefully. "Peacock and Black haven’t even come close to earning a title shot. I’m not going to waste my time listing the meagre tag team accomplishments of our world champion and his sellout harpy."
She paused. Silence around this and most of the other tables.
"It is not a tag match," she repeated.
"Not yet," Gerald said, taking his turn to be unhelpful. He’d given up on the artificial juice in favour of water, but even that was too hard for his delicate taste buds. "Even so, we’ve still got XXXI to consider. A big one, considering the circumstances."
He stopped short of saying it, but everyone was thinking the same thing: potentially your last Meltdown. Thomas’ eyes lit up with fiendish delight.
"How so, GiGi?" he asked.
"Well, it’s the go-home, of course," Gerald answered, masking his anxiety well.
"You still want to do another defense?" Michelle sighed, indulging her partner by engaging in the discussion. "Who did you have in mind?"
"Well, I thought we could maybe do something more than a two-on-two," Gerald began. "Maybe a four-way against some of the ‘wronged parties’ - from their perspectives, of course - who want a rematch…"
"I think there’s a lot more than three pairs of those," Michelle said.
"Yes, but eight is quite a nice number for a match, don’t you think?"
"Love it, Nephew!"
"Very thoughtful," Thomas added.
"Classic GiGi," Harry issued a thumbs up to augment his approval.
"Gerald, tulip…"
Michelle was tired. So tired. Gerald’s happy, expectant eyes only amplified her fatigue. She was older than he was, and the wounds - both physical and mental - from their previous spate of battles still lay heavily upon her. The defenses and wins had stacked up, but so had the patchwork of bruises and scars that invariably accompanied them. He wanted more and so did she, but she wasn't sure how long her body and mind could keep this promise.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. Believe me when I say that I'm committed to the hardest path. But I know that you remember how long and how hard we had to fight and claw to even get a shot at our championships. At least Makima and that thing earned their shot."
"I happened to enjoy ‘that thing’," Harry muttered under his breath.
"Real Nephew potential," Thomas added.
"We're in talks."
"But try to remember that this is a vacation," Michelle continued, ignoring the tangent. Gerald held up the local cuisine on the end of his fork and lamented his partner's idea of a holiday destination. "If I have to think about the big tent, it'll be the world champion only, and the mountain that waits beyond. Not hypothetical defenses against teams who are barely teams, or ones we've already beaten."
"That doesn't exclude Mak--" Harry began, perhaps unwisely given the look it drew from Dreamer. Fortunately for the young wizard, Uncle interrupted the conversation's flow and altered its direction.
"That's your friend, isn't it?" he asked, whilst pointing a finger at a small but eye-catchingly colourful poster in the middle of the restaurant's notice board. Michelle and Gerald's eyes followed his direction and instantly recognised the keen, blue eyes and bushy moustache of Kirill Manovich Petrov. Even without the visual aid, his name was printed right alongside it. Uncle read aloud: "'Black Magic: A Display and Exposé."
"Sounds excellent!" Harry declared.
"I don't really want to give custom to the man who killed Quiet," Gerald said. He'd now given up on his potato pancakes as well as the orange juice.
"Not Quiet," Uncle corrected, though he didn't want to delve into the specifics again.
"And he didn't exactly kill him, anyway," Michelle added. "More just predicted his death."
"A subtle distinction," said Gerald, whilst glowering.
"I've had some thoughts on our visitor," Uncle began, thoughtfully. He leant back in his chair and puffed on the end of his vape, which drew a bout of loud and angry barbs in Russian from the waitress. He sheepishly put the device back in his pocket and sipped his elderflower London fog instead. "And it sounds to me as though we're dealing with a chaos devil. Here, they’d call him чёрт. Powerful, but mostly harmless, unless they've found their ‘companion’. They mostly spend their lives - which are eternal - preparing for this meeting, and for most chaos devils it never comes. And even if it does, their companion is invariably mortal, meaning they invariably die. Then, the chaos devil fades away."
"And if they have found their companion?" OBB asked, whilst gulping down the last of his domestic beer. He stared at the bottle approvingly.
"Well, that would be exquisitely poor timing on our part," Uncle mused. "But probably very interesting. Harry, book us some tickets."
The young wizard groaned. Arcane magic, precise spells, and lengthy incantations were fine, but he didn't want to deal with TicketMaster.
***
The smell of bacon and eggs drifted through the bunker as Kirill awoke, stretched, and pulled on his warmest sweater. It was always cold down here, regardless of the fact that summer was announcing its presence up above ground. The clock on the wall reliably informed him that the sun had risen but there were no windows to confirm this.
Aleksandr was preparing breakfast in typically dutiful fashion. Kirill wasn’t hungry but appreciated the smell regardless. He sighed a contented sigh and - being careful not to step on the white cat who was lounging on the floor (something that always confounded Kirill, given that they provided him with a bed fit for a human or a chaos devil) - made his way over to the small, square filing cabinet. He began to rock it back and forth in an effort to move it from the wall.
Aleksandr glared at him accusingly between a series of displeased grunts.
“It’s a big day,” Kirill said, whilst removing the cardboard from the tunnel’s mouth. “A little recreation before we get down to business.”
Aleksandr conceded with a deferential bow. He went back to preparing his breakfast.
“You’ve no time for food, I’m afraid!” Kirill declared, whilst removing his shoes and socks. “You’ll have to meet me on the other side. I don’t want to walk around Moscow barefoot. People would think I’m crazy!”
With that, Kirill Manovich Petrov climbed into the hole in the wall and disappeared. Aleksandr, who had plans of his own that did not include visiting the dumpster behind Varenychna No. 1 in Kievskaya, allowed himself a deep sigh before collecting his coat. The cat was waiting for him by the door.
Kirill’s eyes followed the snaking, gold-bricked path to the horizon, where the Lumiose City skyline - dominated by the Grand Showcase Stadium and Prism Tower - rose like a greedy hand grasping towards the heavens. Behind it, the sun set on a purplish-blue background, the evening song of Kalos Region’s many bird-types the scene’s primary soundtrack.
As he got closer to the city, though, the birds were joined in their symphony by the cheering and jeering of innumerable fans, all marching in their droves towards the already-packed coliseum. Kirill figured he had little choice but to follow them. The billboards lining the path to the stadium and indeed the arena’s outer walls all advertised the Grand Showcase Grand Final, which was apparently taking place today and for which Kirill did not have a ticket.
At least that’s what he thought. As he stuffed his hands into his pockets to brace himself from the evening chill, his right one grasped a small piece of thick cardboard. His eyes read the fine font on the front of it: Grand Final. Admits One. He made his way to the turnstiles.
The stadium was already full by the time Kirill found his seat, which was up in the nosebleeds and unfortunately provided an obscured view of the stage. A chirpy, enthusiastic announcer was welcoming the attendees over the arena PM system. He informed the audience that, from two hundred and fifty six hopeful Poké-tandems, the gruelling tournament had whittled the competitors down to two pairs: Manuel and Ross from the Johto Region, who would be taking on the legendary Jason’s protégés: José and Renji from the Kanto Region.
“Or, that’s how our final would have been contested, if all four finalists were here,” the announcer continued, eliciting bemused muttering from those assembled in the stalls. “Unfortunately, it appears that one of our trainers has had to return to the Kanto Region on urgent family business, meaning José will go it alone against both of Johto Region’s champions!”
This last announcement was made with the expectation of applause or cheering or, well, something, but the reaction in the arena was subdued. Most seemed to think they were being somehow short-changed. The announcer either didn’t realise this or chose to plough on regardless.
“It’s finally here, folks! The 486th Grand Showcase Grand Final! Let’s see who has what it takes to be the next Christopher and take home the Grand Showcase trophy!”
As if on cue, the three trainers emerged onto the sand below. Two of them, Manuel and Ross, from one side of the pit and José from the other. Whilst the Johto pairing spent time posturing and posing for the fans, whipping them up into further frenzy, their lonely opponent marched directly to his area. He clutched a Poké Ball in each hand and waited patiently for his opponents to finish with the pomp and circumstance.
“The format for this final has already been agreed by those competing in the match-up,” the announcer continued. “And we have quite the unique set-up here today: both sets of trainers will be able to release two Pokémon from their teams, who will then compete in a tornado Poké-battle for all the marbles! This is it, Pokémon fans! Let’s see who our hopeful champions have brought with them today!”
As his opponents finally sauntered into their trainers’ area, José threw his two Poké Balls onto the sand. A puff of sand billowed upwards from each of them, clearing to reveal the braced and ready figures of Golem and Pidgey.
“José reveals his hand! He’s a fan of that Golem: dark and brooding and prone to solitude, with stealth and speed and tricks up her sleeve! And I think that’s actually Renji’s Pidgey: the agile bird-type has already reached the experience level required to evolve, but he’s unwilling to do so whilst his true trainer is alway. Treading water in the meantime? Maybe! Let’s see how he responds to José’s commands today…”
Manuel and Ross glanced at José’s chosen Pokémon and then at one another. From Ross’s ball slithered Arbok, whilst Manuel’s Mr. Mime emerged onto the sand dancing.
“Fitting,” José said. Kirill, from his nosebleed seat, was pleased to find that the participants were wearing microphones. “A dancing fool and a hissing snake. Your Pokémon take after their trainers.”
“Hardly,” Ross returned, with a scornful snort. “If that was our game I’d have sent out Dusknoir. Or Annihilape. Obviously.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” José asked, after a chuckle. “Are those even real Pokémon?”
“Enough!” Manuel declared. “It’s time.”
Their time, and also Kirill’s. His fifteen minutes up, the floor began to give way, swallowing him whole and spitting him back out elsewhere.
He landed, as always, amongst the padding he’d carefully arranged in the dumpster behind Varenychna No. 1 in the Kievskaya district. He sighed heavily, cursed his aching bones, and dragged himself out of the bin. Aleksandr and the cat waited for him. The masked man handed over his shoes. He put them on and then brushed the garbage from his tuxedo.
“You have the rest of the day to yourselves,” he said, with a devilish smile.. “Just be at the theatre in time for the show. Looks like I’m ready. I sure hope Moscow is.”
***
Anastasia Zhakarova was coming to the end of her shift when she saw what was, up until that point, the most peculiar sight that she’d ever seen in her admittedly quite unremarkable life. Granted, over the course of the next few hours, this record would be broken a number of times, but for now the scene that occurred towards the end of her shift on this Wednesday evening sat atop that particular list.
Anastasia drove a marshrutka, which was somewhere between a van and a bus. Most of them were old and prone to breakdowns, and such vehicles probably wouldn’t even be deemed road-worthy in the country that you live in, let alone suitable for passenger transit. Her route went from the Krylatskoye Hills to the Bolshoi Theatre, back and forth a total of twelve times per day. It was as she was making her twelfth and final repetition, somewhere near the Kievskaya area, that this peculiar series of events occurred.
First, a man in black, leather clothing and a green mask entered the vehicle, tapped a troika card against the machine, and took a seat. This obviously wasn’t normal: people didn’t usually walk around in masks. But Moscow was becoming stranger and so were its people, Anastasia thought. It wasn’t this customer that gave her such pause. Bundling onto the marshrutka after the masked man was a white Siberian cat, standing on its hind legs and with a small but perfectly proportioned stovepipe hat atop his head. He rudely pushed aside an old woman, shoved a ten ruble note to Anastasia, and then took a seat next to the other.
Ms. Zakharova, usually a consummate if slightly bored professional, sat in the driver’s seat of her bus with her mouth agape. She’d quite forgotten her route and simply stared ahead of herself across the Borodinsky Bridge. Was smoke rising from the Kremlin? It was a day for strange turns, apparently.
She was, perhaps fortunately, not alone. Ivan Denisovich, the old, dishevelled, and cynical conductor with a limp and a lazy eye, noticed the very end of the scene and decided to take decisive action.
“No cats!” Ivan shouted, snapping Anastasia out of her malaise. She watched him proceed to shoo the unwanted guests out of the cart. “Cats aren’t allowed on the bus! You can’t bring that cat on the bus, sir! You’ll have to walk!”
As the masked man and his peculiar feline friend were ushered off the vehicle, Anastasia Zakharova wondered to herself if perhaps Ivan - and the rest of the travellers - had rather missed the point. The fact that a white, bipedal cat had boarded her marshrutka was one thing, but the fact that he intended to pay his fare was quite another!
The lights turned to green. Anastasia drove across the bridge.
***
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kirill Manovich Petrov began, in his steady and commanding voice, after the initial applause within the Bolshoi had died down. He looked out at his audience: smartly dressed and expectant. Some were excited, more were cynical, but all of them had come to see him. “To begin: a gift!”
Above their heads, the huge, invaluable, glass chandelier suddenly folded in on itself. The resulting crunch drew the audience’s gaze upwards, where the glass had shifted into something else entirely. Whatever it was now began to crumble away from the ceiling and cascade onto those gathered below.
“Five hundred ruble notes,” Uncle said, in the upper grand circle, after catching one of the falling bills and inspecting it. “Not a bad opening gambit.”
“Is it real?” Gerald asked.
“Looks real,” Michelle answered. The same conversation was being replicated in every corner of the auditorium. Down in the stalls, a man on the fourth row felt compelled to confront the source.
“Are you a counterfeiter?” he asked. “What is this? You expect us to believe that this is real?”
“Oh, but it is real!” Kirill answered, more sure of himself than ever. Either side of him, the masked man and the cat waited with their hands behind their backs. “Just like that Rolex you’re wearing, sir.”
“I don’t have a--” the man trailed off as a gold watch unfurled itself into position on his wrist.
“Hey!” came another voice, a few rows further back. “I want a Rolex, too!”
“So be it!” Kirill replied, whilst throwing his arms up into the air. “Rolexes for everybody!”
Uncle noticed that the chaos devil wasn’t being quite truthful in his use of the word ‘everybody’: this kind gift was not extended to him or any of his Nephews.
“Prefer pocket watches, anyway,” Thomas mused.
“You know, a wise friend once told me that I should focus on using time rather than counting it,” Gerald added.
“Are you quoting that exposition machine again?” Harry asked. “It’s over, Gerald. Uncle threw it in the lake.”
Down below, Kirill Manovich Petrov was basking in the adulation of his suddenly adoring audience. Not only had he given them watches, but their suits, dresses, and shoes had been replaced by ones far more expensive and exclusive than those they’d entered in, whilst still matching the individual tastes of each individual member of the audience. He could’ve walked off the stage right there and then and been a hero of the city. Or, at least, this specific, miniscule, and highly affluent subset of the city.
“I should get a pet,” Uncle thought out loud, his eyes regarding the fluffy white cat on the chaos devil’s right.
“You had one,” Thomas replied. “It was a beholder named Reverse-Patches. You loved it.”
“Oh, right,” Uncle remembered. “Wonder what happened to him.”
As Uncle lost himself in his recollections, a third man (and fourth mammal) walked onto the stage. He was less impressively dressed than the other three, in a plain suit that apparently hadn’t undergone the same augmentation as everyone else’s attire. Perhaps this is why he looked so glum.
“I’m not sure this display of trickery and pandering is really appropriate for this esteemed venue,” he said, with his hands on his hips. Unbeknownst to almost everyone assembled in the Bolshoi that night, he was the theatre manager, and couldn’t quite remember why he’d agreed to take this booking in the first place. “But you’re here. And you promised an exposé.”
“I don’t think the audience really cares about the exposé,” Kirill said, sporting a knowing and cunning smile. Indeed, those in the stalls and circles weren’t affording him or the theatre manager any attention whatsoever. They instead busied themselves in inspecting their new fineries and trinkets. “Is anyone interested in the exposé?”
“I’m more interested in what you could do to my apartment!” replied the man on the fourth row who’d first begun the audience participation.
“See?” Kirill Manovich asked the theatre manager, who gave a hmph that suggested he found this whole affair undignified and then left the stage. “Well, I guess it’s time for the second act, folks! Just so happens that this is the final one…”
With that, every chair in the stalls and the first circle spontaneously burst into bright blue flames. The mood in the auditorium, moments ago one of capitalistic jubilation, suddenly turned to confusion, fear, and chaos. Men and women scrambled over their own children in an attempt to get to the nearest exits, which were suddenly guarded by lurching flames in the shape of ferocious, three-headed dogs.
“Well, that escalated quickly,” Uncle quipped. He was still seated in his chair within the grand circle, which was free of fire but was choked by the thick, black smog rising from below.
“Should’ve known it was a trap,” Thomas added. “They look the sort to set traps.”
“Takes a thief to catch a thief,” Harry said.
“They’re escaping through the back,” Michelle pointed out, as the three performers stepped over the corpse they’d made of the theatre manager on their way to leaving the stage. “Guess we ought to follow.”
“Are we not going to help everyone else?” Gerald asked. He waved his arms in the general direction of the surrounding carnage.
“No,” Uncle said, simply. It appeared he was willing to leave it at that, but the Daredevil’s stern glare (not to mention the folding of his arms) insisted on elaboration. “Did you see the ticket prices, GiGi?! These people are filthy rich! Fuck them! They can save themselves! But I think I’m beginning to work out exactly who this dweeb’s ‘companion’ is and… well, it will be better for everyone - rich and poor - if we stamp this shit out right now.”
Gerald sighed. Unfolded his arms.
“After you,” he said.
Whilst most of the Nephews retreated to high vantage points around the area to keep a close watch on proceedings down below, Uncle and the Connection marched towards the huge marble arch (uncapitalised) at the end of Tverskaya Street. Three dark figures, shrouded in shadow, waited for them under the white structure. Foremost amongst them was Kirill Manovich Petrov, who leant on his cane and glared ahead at the oncoming Nephews. Aleksandr the assistant and his white, fluffy cat stood casually at each of the Master’s shoulders.
As Michelle, Gerald, and JAY! passed by, each of the large, angular buildings on either side of them burst into the same blue flame that they’d seen in the theatre. They didn’t know if it was real or one of the conjurer’s illusions. It certainly seemed real inside the Bolshoi. So did the money. And, most importantly, the panic. There was plenty of that out here, too. Droves of people fled the marble arch at the end of Tverskaya, from which every one of them - even the most untrained and ignorant when it came to the arcane arts - sensed a strange, chaotic power. The Nephews walked against the general direction of traffic, arriving beneath the arch’s shadow to confront the devil and his advocates.
“I thought I saw you at the show,” Kirill Manovich said, whilst tipping his hat and bowing slightly in the direction of the newcomers. He spoke to him as if they were old friends. “So far away! You should’ve said you were coming. I could’ve got you better seats.”
“Looked a little warm near the front,” Uncle quipped. “Sometimes it’s best to keep your distance.”
“But only for so long, yes?” Kirill replied. “Couldn’t stay away forever?”
“Can’t leave a chaos devil unchecked to have his way with a city,” Uncle said, nonchalantly. “Even one as reprehensible and dispensable as Moscow.”
“So you’ve worked out what I am?” the old man said, his smile growing beneath his bristling moustache.
“A while ago,” Uncle boasted.
“Our Uncle is very perceptive,” Michelle tickled his ego.
“How close are you?” JAY! asked. “To your companion.”
“Close,” Kirill allowed. “Would you like to see?”
The visitor’s bunker was buried deep underground, and both Uncle and Michelle surmised that it was one of many similar subterranean safehouses left over from the Cold War. Dreamer regarded Uncle’s heightening anxiety in the packed elevator and pitied him. She recognised his pain from the inside of an airplane. The relief washed over him as the rickety elevator doors opened up one more, allowing the four humans, the COSMIC HORROR, and the white cat to enter a cramped and thoroughly unremarkable room. A coat stand, three neatly made beds, and a small, square filing cabinet were the quarters’ only notable items of furniture. Kirill stepped into the center of the room and looked around himself admiringly.
“It’s not much,” he declared. “But it’s home.”
“What’s through there?” Gerald asked, pointing towards a second door. “Bathroom?”
“Afraid not,” the chaos devil answered. “We don’t really have any use for anything like that. That’s my shrine. Aleksandr, if you would.”
The assistant opened up the door. The Nephews stepped through into another small room, but this time they were confronted by a floor-to-ceiling array of screens. Many of them displayed footage from previous FWA events: matches, backstage interviews, video packages, talking heads, and a myriad of other clips played silently on the tower of screens. All of them, though, had in common their primary subject: ‘Disco’s Last Warrior’, Boogie Baby, the FWA World Champion. Chris Peacock.
“This is pretty weird,” Michelle surmised, after finishing a cursory scan of the wall.
“Guess he must’ve known who we were back at the pond,” Gerald concluded.
“I agree with both of you,” Uncle said, leaving the room decisively and returning to the main dormitory. “That’s a pretty weird room you have there. Never met a Peacock superfan before. Takes a particular type, I’m sure.”
“Chris Peacock is the ultimate man,” Kirill Manovich began. Michelle choked back a laugh. Gerald listened curiously. “His flexibility and his adaptability, his willingness to change everything about himself to show character progression… his ruthlessness and his thoughtless ambition… his ability to utilise relationships for gain. There are times when I wonder if he is a separate being, or merely a mortal projection, an extension, of myself.”
The three Nephews stared at their host in silence. They found themselves unable to formulate a response. It should go without saying that the very same traits that this devil lauded were those that made him weak and spineless and cowardly in their eyes.
“He’s my companion,” the visitor added, proudly.
“How can you be sure?” Uncle asked.
“My shrine is only half of it,” the chaos devil answered. “I have other windows into his mind. More direct routes. Aleksandr…”
Once more, the masked assistant spurred into action at his Master’s command. He rocked the small, metallic filing cabinet back and forth until it came away from the wall. They felt the tunnel’s power more keenly without the obstruction. Uncle, almost hypnotised by the strange quality of it, walked towards the hole in the wall and stared into the darkness.
“Is this a Malkovich Portal?” he asked. The old devil nodded.
“A Malkovich Portal?” Gerald repeated.
“Like John Malkovich?” Michelle queried.
“There’s thousands of them dotted around the world,” Uncle began. “They can be trained on a particular target if you know how, and they’ll stay on that person until they stop breathing. Then it returns to dormancy.”
“Excellent,” Gerald said. “But what does it do?”
“Oh, I always forgot how little you both still know,” Uncle replied. “A Malkovich Portal allows you to visit another human’s subconscious, usually for around fifteen minutes.”
“So it is like John Malkovich.”
“Yes, except it’s for voyages into the subconscious only,” the COSMIC HORROR explained. “That means dreams, Dreamer.”
“Not just dreams,” Kirill interjected. JAY!, caught up in a tailwind of exposition, has almost forgotten that the devil and his assistants were there. “Daydreams, hopes, fantasies, fears, flashbacks, hallucinations… the subconscious is a vast place. Would you like to take a trip? I’ve calibrated it for three. Means you’ll only have five minutes, but that should give you a little flavour. Just take your shoes off, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Almost before Kirill Manovich had finished the invitation, Uncle was climbing through the mouth of the tunnel. He disappeared, his boots thrust back through the opening without a further word. Gerald and Michelle followed him with a lot more trepidation.
They crawled hand over foot across jagged rocks, which soon turned into thin, white sand. It felt soft and comforting as they fell through it…
“Where are we?” Gerald asked, as he picked himself up from the hard earth on which he’d landed, next to Dreamer and Uncle.
“And how the fuck did we get here?” Michelle asked. She brushed the sand from her tracksuit and then reached into her pocket, pleased to find that her cigarettes had made the jump with her. She placed one between her lips and lit the end of it. “Small mercies…”
Uncle halted any further questions by lifting a finger to his mouth, insisting upon his Nephews’ silence. The cause of this soon became clear, a pair of voices audible somewhere beneath their position. The trio crawled to a nearby cliff edge, realising in the process that they had somehow found their way to the very top of a tall mountain. A few metres below them on a narrow plateau stood a pair of travellers inspecting a map.
“It’s got to be this way, mate,” the slightly more imposing of the two - garbed all in black, tunic and cloak and mask - insisted, as he prodded the piece of parchment with his index finger. “I know I’ve been wrong before, but this is the way. Trust me, Christopher.”
“We’ve just come from Saxet City, Alyster,” the other man, wearing a flamboyant jumpsuit and with a thick mustache in need of combing sitting on his upper lip, replied. “Look, there’s the Nola Desert. That’s the big yellow bit. Then that mass of buildings is the city, where we’ve just been. This hill is The Pass. That’s where we are now. It’s this way to the Eagle Kingdom.”
The extravagantly dressed traveller marched on without waiting for a response. Alyster folded the map up and placed it in his pocket before following. The two of them began to carefully pick a way down the mountain.
“Do any of those place names mean anything to you?” Gerald asked, hopefully.
“It’s not the geography of any planet I know,” Uncle replied. “And I know a fair few. If our devil friend is to be believed, we’re in Boogie Baby’s subconscious.”
“And you think he’s to be believed?” Michelle asked. Uncle shrugged. “Shall we go? Might as well follow.”
JAY! seemed to agree, but their momentum was quickly stayed by the arrival of a third figure on the plateau. This one paused as he reached the lip that the other two had just climbed down from. He turned around and looked directly at the Nephews.
“You are new to this place,” he said. “I don’t know any of your faces, from my travels or from the fire.”
“What is this place?” Gerald asked. Uncle winced and rolled his eyes. Perhaps he thought the traveller might forget they were there if they stayed still for long enough. “And who are you?”
“This is Fantasia,” he answered. “And I am the Watcher. The Exiled One.”
“Of course,” Michelle said. It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Why is Christopher walking away from you? He doesn’t even seem to know you’re here.”
“Well, I’ve mostly been a supporting player thus far,” the Watcher explained, after a sigh that belied his disappointment. “Little bit of an afterthought, to tell you the truth. But that’s to be expected. Alyster’s meant to be his tag team partner and he didn’t even show up until after level two. Our protagonist’s a tad self-absorbed.”
“Level two?” Gerald queried.
“Level one was Daniel the Great in the Nola Desert,” said the Exiled One. “Then there was Johann Sommer in Saxet City. That was level two. I’m not sure what level three is going to be.”
“Oh,” concluded the Watcher. “I guess level three is going to be a pink octopus in the sky.”
“I think it’s starting,” Michelle said. She nodded at an ominous, dark cloud rolling over the lowland plains, across which two figures - the intrepid travellers - meandered quickly. As quickly as they could travel on foot, that is, but nowhere near quickly enough.
Most of the clouds broke into a vicious, lashing rain, but the one that followed the travellers burst apart to reveal a colossal cephalopod, its tentacles reaching out of the sky and groping towards the journeyers. They pulled out their weapons, but they were clumsy and unused to each other, falling over one another's feet and stepping on each other’s attacks. The ground around them split open in a wide circle, the earth caving in on itself and innumerable soldiers in bright pink armour climbing up onto the remaining platform.
“Octillian the Dread,” the Watcher announced.
“Considering the man hates us so much,” Michelle started, as the gigantic octopus lashed out at the two travellers with his vile tentacles. “His mind looks an awful lot like one of our adventures…”
“You’d be surprised by how many do,” Uncle pointed out. The ground beneath them began to rumble.
“Earthquake?” Gerald asked.
“I don’t think so,” Michelle said. “Five minutes, the man said. I think it’s ending.”
Down on the lowlands, the octopus hoisted the masked man off the ground by his ankle, swinging him around and battering him against a nearby cluster of rocks. Christopher stumbled backwards, swinging his longsword, unaware of the pink army gradually encroaching around him, his focus absorbed by the floating leviathan.
“Fool,” Michelle said. “He’s going to die here. He is drowning in hopes to cover himself in empty glory with a meaningless gauntlet, whilst his true enemy watches on from the hills.”
“There is still time for him yet,” the Watcher said. “The road to the Eagle Kingdom is long, and --"
“Don’t say it…”
“-- winding, with many lessons to be learned along the way.”
Michelle sighed. Beneath them, the mountain ripped apart, and once again they found there was no ground beneath their feet.
The three Nephews didn’t know that they were in a dumpster behind Varenychna No. 1 in the Kievskaya District. They only knew that wherever they were wasn’t nearly large enough to house all three of them. Michelle was the most uncomfortable with the close proximity in which she found herself in with her partners, and as a result was the first to climb out. Waiting for them in the surrounding courtyard were Kirill Manovich, Aleksandr Rawrvich, and the white cat.
“You didn’t bring our shoes,” Michelle said.
“I don’t think you’ll be needing them,” Kirill answered. He hadn’t lost his smile. Uncle and Gerald clambered out of the dumpster and took up position on either side of her.
“Not bad,” Uncle gave his review. “Pretty powerful system. What powers the A.I.?”
The devil smiled. He didn’t intend on answering this question. He instead began on a tangent of his own.
“I’m sure you know of the long and often lonely life that one of my kind is doomed to lead,” he began. “Until I found Aleksandr, I was utterly alone, with nothing but my plots to keep me sane. This purpose is what kept me going. I knew that, one day, I would find my companion, and that preparations must be made. Their mind would match my own, and together we’d live out the same dreams. A city might fall under my hand alone, but for the world? For that, we’ll need an army…”
“Peacock’s a douche,” Gerald interjected. “But what makes you think he’s interested in world domination?”
“Have you seen him?!” the visitor replied. “Heard the things the man says?!”
“I think you might be overestimating the man’s ambition…”
“If my companion doesn’t want to lead this revolution, I will lead it in his name!” Kirill answered, his ire and his voice both raised. He made an attempt to level his tone before continuing. “I have come too far and suffered for too long for this plan to break down now. You know, there was once a time when I intended to raise an army of dead souls in the Russian countryside? A ludicrous plan, looking back. The impetuousness of youth…”
The visitor chuckled to himself as he indulged in this nostalgia. The Nephews glanced at one another uncomfortably.
“And then there were the mercenaries… the crooked rogue nations… I even heard that there were a great number of Peacock ‘splices’ wandering the globe aimlessly that I thought might be rather poetic, but I wasn’t the only one looking for them. But now? The perfect solution! And it’s fallen right into my lap!”
“Oh?” Gerald asked, with a cocked eyebrow. Uncle sensed where the devil was going and groaned.
“He means us,” the COSMIC HORROR muttered.
“An army of Nephews, bent to my will! The irony! Your mortal nemesis taking the role of leader, a title you were too craven to assume yourself.”
A short silence followed. JAY! considered explaining that Peacock was far from his nemesis but didn’t think it worth the effort. Gerald’s heavy breathing echoed around the courtyard. The tension was finally cut when Michelle burst out into unexpected laughter. Uncle swiftly followed suit. For a moment, the Daredevil glared at them in indignation, but when he noticed the effect it was having on the visitor he couldn’t help but join in.
“Take me seriously!”
The barked command doubled Uncle over in unbridled, uncontrollable glee. Gerald attempted to stifle his own mirth but succeeded only in squeezing his laughter into a series of squeaks and cackles. Michelle wiped away a tear, emerging as the only one of the trio capable of intelligible speech.
“Excuse us, but maybe Boogie Baby is your ‘companion’, after all. Whatever that is. You’re a lot alike. I guess that’s deliberate. But, despite the ridiculousness of it all, this whole affair hasn’t been a complete waste of time. You’ve shown us a lot. Mostly, I think we’ve learned why Chris Peacock and Alyster Black have made hatred of us the entire identity of their tag team experiment. There came a point when Chris realised he couldn’t beat us doing his own thing. Fear is contagious, and since then their acts have turned to mimicry. Pale imitations, though. Their dreams are less vibrant and less exciting than ours.”
It seemed that Uncle and Gerald were finally gathering themselves together. The fire returned to Kirill’s tone, emboldened by the lifting of this barrage of mockery.
“You’ll be laughing from the other side of your face when I finally meet him!” he declared. He was the only being in the courtyard who appeared confident in his words, including his assistant and their cat. “When I’m whole!”
“Must pain you to hear him talking like this about another,” Michelle said, to Aleksandr. The masked man shuffled uncomfortably.
“Sort of perfect,” Gerald added. “No matter how close Chris Peacock gets to another, there will always be a man he cares about more.”
“Chris Peacock himself,” Uncle answered the riddle.
“Aleksandr, isn’t it?” Michelle enquired. Kirill Manovich didn’t enjoy being ignored. It had been so long since anyone had pretended he wasn’t there, especially in favour of his brow-beaten assistant. “I’m sure you know all about your Master’s companion. It’s your job to know, after all. And that knowledge doubtlessly extends to his companion’s companion. Alyster Black only still exists to further Chris Peacock’s own vain aspirations. He has lost his fight and his individuality, and is now more of a tool than a person. Tell me, tulip, what did you used to do, before you met your Master? What did you used to be?”
“I was theoretical physicist at Moscow State University,” Aleksandr answered, slowly and with a quivering voice. Even Kirill seemed surprised that the masked man was capable of speech. “I had fiance. Her name was Volka Krashnikova. She was everything.”
“And then you lost her?” the Daredevil asked. Something about the masked man’s discomfort led the young man to go further with his prognoses. “You blame yourself, don’t you?”
“That’s natural,” Michelle continued. She’d been in that position a hundred times or more. “It’s also natural to feel you have to prove yourself. To show the world that you’re not as selfish as your previous actions suggest. But giving yourself up entirely is not the answer. The power you have now is only a projection of your Master’s.”
“But without that I’ll have nothing,” Aleksandr said.
“Maybe that’s better,” reasoned Gerald. “Better to disappear proudly than… well, whatever this is.”
“Silence!” Kirill commanded. Uncle was quick to stifle another bout of laughter that threatened to overcome him. “Very well: if the Nephews won’t join me willingly, I’ll cut off the head of their current pseudo-leadership and assume command by force. Prepare to fight!”
Uncle raised a finger to his chin, approximating Rodin’s the Thinker as he considered the чёрт’s proposal.
“No,” he said, finally and simply.
“No?” Kirill replied.
“No,” Uncle repeated. “You’ve talked a lot of balderdash over the past few hours, чёрт, but you did hint at one truth. And that’s when you called us an army.”
“Because unfortunately for everyone that isn’t a Nephew,” Michelle picked up the thread. “There are just so many of us.”
“Difficult to keep track of us all,” Gerald added. “Do svidaniya, Kirill Manovich.”
Uncle lifted his hand and clicked his fingers. As if prompted by this action, the three Nephews disintegrated before the devil’s eyes. The visitor stared at the empty space where they’d just stood with his mouth slightly agape.
The courtyard felt silent with only three souls left in it. That number quickly became two when the cat removed his stovepipe, flicked it delicately into the nearby dumpster, and darted away up an alleyway.
“Stupid cat,” Kirill said. The words turned out to be his last, uttered only a handful of seconds before a pink, chiral blast engulfed the courtyard, the Master, his assistant, and much of the Varenychna No. 1.
***
Uncle sat at the command station on the Bridge, Gerald and Michelle at either shoulder. A host of Nephews were busy performing their individual functions in the running of the ship, or in some cases relaxing between adventures. Thomas West was consumed in his work, attempting to descramble the mysterious signal from the Moonolith that they’d recorded last month. Harry was adding to the captain’s records with a detailed retelling of their travails behind the Iron Curtain, as he put it. Blazed and Depressed were conceptualising a play with a chaos devil as its primary antagonist whilst passing a water bong back and forth between them. Sting Ray monitored the approach of a Dreadnoct, the biological signatures on board revealing its cargo to be the Maid of Death, ÑŒ-I, and Kha’’rina Halruzh, back from their own side-hustle preparing a report on the potential terraforming of Venus. The Niece lounged on the pink, L-shaped sofa beneath the huge, front window of the Octopi, dreaming of a command of her own. Or at least a singles match on FWA television. Marcus and Micah pitched pennies at the bridge’s door. OBB and Stop Sign #3 relaxed whilst playing cards, the former with a bottle of Baltika lager and the latter with a few lines of cocaine racked up on a travel mirror.
“Everyone here and ready?” Uncle asked, after SS10K announced that the Dreadnoct had docked in the lower pod bay.
“Just waiting on Quiet, still,” Michelle said.
“No, he’s on-board,” Uncle announced. Gerald’s face flashed with anger at not being told earlier before settling on relief. “Was in his quarters, last time I checked his tracking device.”
“You’re tracking us?” Michelle asked.
“Be glad I am!” Uncle said. “We wouldn’t have got out of that tight pinch back there if I wasn’t.”
“Didn’t really feel that tight,” Gerald argued.
“Tight-ish,” Uncle conceded. “Not in his quarters now, though…”
The bridge doors slid open and Quiet walked in. They recognised his mask, his trench coat, and his tracksuit, but a pair of unfamiliar ballet shoes adorned her feet. Her, because the human inside these garments was a completely different one than they’d last seen in Ploshchad Revolyutsii. Her head was fastened onto her shoulders, for one thing.
Gerald, a look of slight and vague concern decorating his face, turned towards Michelle.
“You ready?” he asked.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s do it: Peacock and Black, both of them. And then whatever you want the week after. A four-way, if your heart is set on it.”
“I was thinking maybe a tag team Steel Roulette,” Gerald mused. “Or even a bounty?”
Michelle smiled. She admired the ambition.
“Whatever it is, it’s going to take more than a basic acronym to kill a Nephew. Any of us.”
“A nice sentiment,” Uncle added, overhearing the pair. “But not strictly true. We actually die quite often. There’s a whole graveyard of us at the Europa base where --"
“Not helpful, Uncle,” Gerald interrupted. “It’s almost Thursday already. Shall we go back to Earth?”
“We’ve been on Earth this whole time,” Michelle said.
“Well, sort of…”
