from the woods. Droopy seemed to hear the steps and rose up from the trunk. Lord crashed the metal box onto the man's skull.
Droopy collapsed to the ground.
Lord looked down, satisfied that the man was out, then glanced into the trunk. A tiny light illuminated a dead stare from Iosif Maks.
What had Rasputin said?Twelve must die before the resurrection can be complete. Mother of God. Two more just had.
Akilina rushed forward and saw the body.
"Oh no," she muttered. "Both of them?"
"We don't have time for this. Get in our car." He gave her the keys. "But be quiet with the door. Don't crank the engine until I tell you." He handed her the box and took the rifle.
The cemetery was a good fifty yards up the road, the route soft and muddy. Not the easiest terrain to negotiate, especially in the dark. Cro-Magnon and Orleg were probably searching the woods, Droopy sent back to retrieve the other body, an open grave the perfect place to dump it. Lord had even left two shovels for them. It wouldn't be long, though, before they began to miss their associate.
He chambered a round, aimed at the right rear tire of one of the cars, and fired. He quickly chambered another and blew out the front tire of the other car. He then raced to his car and leaped in.
"Go. Now."
Akilina turned the key and slammed the gear into first. Tires spun as she maneuvered the front end left and straightened back out on the narrow road.
She floored the accelerator and they shot off into the dark.
They found the main highway and drove south. An hour passed with both of them quiet, the excitement of the moment ebbing with the realization that two men had just died.
It started to rain. Even the sky seemed to share their sorrow.
"I can't believe this is happening," Lord said, more to himself than to Akilina.
"What Professor Pashenko said must be true."
Not what he wanted to hear. "Pull over. Up there."
There was nothing around but dark fields and dense woods. He hadn't seen a house for miles. No cars had appeared behind them, and they'd passed only three going the opposite direction.
Akilina whipped the wheel left. "What are we doing?"
He reached for the metal box lying in the backseat. "Finding out if this was worth it."
He cradled the muddy box in his lap. The lock had shattered from the shovel blows and the bottom was dented from the blow to Droopy. He wrenched the hasp free, slowly opened the lid, and shone the flashlight inside.
The first thing he saw was the shimmer of gold.
He lifted out the ingot, about the size of a Hershey's chocolate bar. Thirty years underground had not diminished its glimmer. Stamped into the top was a number and the lettersNR , a double-headed eagle between them. The mark of Nicholas II. He'd seen photographs of the symbol many times. The ingot was heavy, perhaps five pounds. Worth right now about thirty thousand dollars, if he correctly recalled the current price of an ounce of gold.
"It's from the royal treasury," he said.
"How do you know?"
"I know."
A small cloth bag that had deteriorated lay beneath. He fingered the outside and determined that it had once been velvet. In the weak beam of the flashlight it appeared a dark blue or maybe purple. He pressed down on the exterior. There was something hard inside, and something smaller. He handed the flashlight to Akilina and used both hands to peel back the rotting cloth.
A gold sheet covered in etched words appeared, as did a brass key. On the key was inscribedC.M.B. 716. The words on the sheet were written in Cyrillic. He read the inscription out loud:
The gold is for your use. Funds may be necessary and your tsar understood his duty. This sheet should also be melted and converted to currency. Use the key to access the next portal. Its location should already be clear. If not, then your path ends here, as it should. Only Hell's Bell can point the way beyond. To the Raven and Eagle, good luck and Godspeed. To any intruder, may the devil be your eternal companion.
"But we don't know where the next portal is," Akilina said.
"Maybe we do."
She stared at him.
He could still hear the words Vassily Maks had screamed before dying.
Russian Hill.
His mind quickly reviewed what he'd read through the years. During the Russian civil war that raged from 1918 to 1920, White Army forces were heavily financed by