Batuo has been evolving a long, long time.
“Someone made us, sometime,” he explains. “After countless centuries, through the ages of man, we lost the knowledge of who. In rare periods of enlightenment, some enterprising humans found our discarded bodies, repaired them, and replaced the anima de machina. But the longer we have lain dormant before such crude resurrection, the more our memories fade. And in this way, we have forgotten ourselves.”
Now I recognize this alcove as a Renaissance-era Wunderkammer, a wonder room, once kept by emperors and naturalists, filled with antiquities and treasures and the uncategorizable wonders of the world.
“After all this time,” Batuo continues, “we are unable to re-create the feats of our ancestors. We do not know exactly who made us or when, and, most important—we don’t know how. This is why so many avtomat are asleep in my catacombs. And it is why some others have chosen to hunt their own kind.”
“If you can’t do anything to help, then why would Peter bring me here?” I ask.
Batuo comes around the desk. In the dusty quiet, he extends one finger and presses it against the relic hanging around my neck.
“Because he knows how to save us. We just have to resurrect him.”
My hand finds its familiar spot over the relic and I step back. My eyes can barely focus on the incredible antiquities lining the walls. The violence and secrets and impossible technology are all too much to absorb, too fast.
“Batuo,” I say, “I don’t think I can do this.”
“I think you can, young lady,” he says, eyes sparkling. “You are in possession of a cedalion. Such a thing has never happened. Peter has made you part of his plan and it is no coincidence. You were chosen, June.”
I swallow, words stalling in my throat.
“Chosen? To do what? Have you seen these things fight? There’s no way I can deal with—”
Batuo waves my objections away, shaking his head.
“Your thoughts on the matter are immaterial, my dear. Fate has chosen you to become part of our story. Together, we will find the true vessel for that relic, and do so quickly…before Leizu destroys us all.”
30
INDIA, 1751
Man-eater. The monk cackles at me from the top of the garrison wall, a ribbon of smoke rising idly from his long, elaborate pipe. At my feet, the corpse of the Indian soldier rests against a fallen stone. The young man has dragged himself here on crushed legs, away from the carnage—only to die at my feet in agony.
And this baboon giggles at the sight.
With sudden anger, I bury my fingers in the cool crevice of the wall and haul myself up in a few neat lunges. The monk barely has time to swallow his chuckle before I am upon him, fingers wrapped in his robe, pulling his wide face close to mine. The twinkle does not fade from his blue-gray eyes as I roughly yank him to his feet, turn, and dangle him over the edge of the wall.
“Is it so funny?” I ask him.
The monk twists, wriggling out of my grasp.
Falling in a cloud of swirling robes, he lands back on the parapet, pirouetting away from my swinging fist, fat fingers flashing with gaudy rings and his golden sash cutting the air. With a flourish, he lands and extends one arm in an exaggerated curtsy. As he rises, his other hand plants the long wooden pipe back between his teeth.
“Rude of me,” he apologizes in a chirpy English accent, smiling around the pipe stem. “Terribly rude. Sorry to call you Man-eater. If you told me a proper name, well, I’d be happy to use it.”
Straightening and regaining my stance, I watch him closely. Something about the man strikes me as odd—some off-kilter angle that lingers beneath his skin; a synthetic precision to his movements. I lean forward, training my eyes on him.
“Yes,” he says, beaming. “Of course we’re both the same.”
“You are avtomat,” I say.
The monk’s smiling eyes narrow. His mouth pops open in disbelief.
“I’m not the first you’ve met, am I?”
Somewhere, Elena is haunting a drawing room, safe from this butchery and madness. Her visage slips through my thoughts for an instant, and the observant monk registers something in my locked jaw and impassive features.
“Perhaps not,” he says, pipe clenched in his teeth. He puffs on it, letting his eyes crawl over my face, absorbing any and all information.
“But I’m one of few, I’ll chance,” he adds. “I heard hysterical rumors of a ghost tiger who came in the night. I knew it would be one of us. Our presence does so often precede legend.”
He arches his eyebrows at me.
“Who sent you here, soldier? For whom do you fight?”
“For my sovereign, King George,” I reply.
“Ah,” he replies, unconvinced. “And what Word brings you all the way to India?”
I don’t respond.
“Hm, not a talker,” he says, eyes flickering over me. “I see you’ve found a decent leathersmith. Your face is passable. You aren’t great at remembering to make expressions, but at least you breathe. I can see your vessel was created by a master. And not so long ago.”
“What is long ago,” I ask, “when death does not come for our kind?”
“Long ago?” he asks, lighting the pipe again. “If only you knew, my boy. Long ago is an endless repetition of day and night, humans scurrying through caves to hide from monsters, barbarians fighting one another with sticks and stones. It is the return of the great ice from the north and saber-toothed beasts you wouldn’t believe. Long ago is the dead time before metal or ships or cities.
“Be glad that you know nothing of ‘long ago.’ In that way, you were lucky.”
The monk curls his arms across each other, sulking, puffing on the pipe and grinding his teeth. His muttering sounds both sad and angry. I move to step past him and he pulls his pipe from between his teeth and points the stem at me.
“Aha,” he says. “It is your height, of course, that gives you away. Let me guess. They must have named you Peter.”
Stunned, I do not respond.
“I see I am right. Rumors, rumors. Word spread across Europe of the vampir in Moscow, and of a tall man, a fighter who operated in the night circuits, deep in the oubliettes of the royal household. I can only imagine what you’ve been through, with the tsar’s death. And yet you have not sought out your own kind? Why is that? I wonder.”
“I will not be drawn into your wars,” I say, gritting my teeth. This man already knows too much, and I know nothing of him.
“Ah, Peter.” He sighs, shaking his head at me. “My dear Pyotr.”
The monk paces the parapet, speaking quickly. The ridiculous little silk sandals stay perched on his toes, extravagantly decorated with fish scales and golden trim.
“You’ve come to fight in this backwater war, of all wars?” he asks. “To satisfy your Word, you have found an obscure battle at the end of the earth? And not to exterminate slavers or stop rituals of human sacrifice but to secure favorable terms of trade for the British Empire?”