Anastasia Forever (14 page)

If I live another ten lives, I will never understand women. Or perhaps it's just Tess I'll never understand, and Anne's undying loyalty to her. It is beyond rational comprehension. So I don't even try. I finish my pancakes, down the rest of the coffee in the pot, and wait for Tess to arrive.

“She's worried about me, Ethan. I need to tell her what's going on. Do you really expect me to do all that in one phone call?”

Obviously yes is not the appropriate answer.

“Why put her in danger again?”

Anne scowls. “She's already in danger. Just knowing me puts her there. What would you rather I do? Not tell her and let Viktor or Lily or Baba Yaga attack her or something? You're right. She's not safe with me. But she's in more danger on her own. At least if she's here, we can try to protect her. I couldn't stop Lily from getting in my mother's head, and that was right in my own house. Wards. Protection spells. They only go so far. Plus, let's face it, I…”

Her words trail off. She's staring at the entrance to the restaurant. I follow her gaze.

Tess all but flies into IHOP, Ben behind her. Ben Logan. Anne's lifeguard. Well. This is going to be interesting.

“Shit.” Anne's face blanches.

Tess slides into the booth next to Anne. Ben—understandably—chooses to remain standing.

“Move over, Ethan.” Tess gestures with her hand like I'm a puppy in need of direction. “Go on, Ben. Sit down. Ben gave me a ride because Zach had to—oh wait, I told you that on the phone, right? But anyway, Ben saved the day. Didn't you, Ben?” She smiles widely at Ben, who's still standing at the edge of the booth, clearly weighing his options.

“Ethan.” Tess tucks her blond hair behind her ears and frowns at me. “Let's not have a pissing match. Move over. Ben can't just stand there.”

“Tess.” Anne finds her voice. “Maybe we should—”

“Tess and I went out last night.” Ben nods his head like he's agreeing with something. He cracks his knuckles.

I slide over. “Join us,” I say.

“After she left your house,” Ben goes on, “we went for coffee at Java Joe's.” His neatly groomed brows knit together as he looks at the empty spot on the brown molded-plastic bench. Then his gaze shifts back to Anne and Tess as he folds his tall frame into the booth.

“I was going to tell you,” Tess says. “But it was late and I was exhausted from the whole Russia thing and that third egg roll wasn't sitting well and besides”—she points at me—“Ethan was spending the night and—”

“He spent the night?” Ben directs the question at Anne like I'm not an inch away. I clear my throat. Debate whether it might not be worth it to summon up a little dark magic. What would Viktor do? Invisibly choke the life out of Ben until he fell face forward into Anne's plate?

“Ethan!” Anne snakes a hand to grip my arm. “Play nice.” She shifts her attention to Ben. “And yes, he was at my house. To protect me. Which, okay, didn't exactly happen. But neither did anything else.”

She blushes prettily. But her eyes flash with annoyance, then curiosity. “Are you guys going out now? I mean, besides the coffee?”

Tess looks at Ben. Ben looks at Tess.

“Maybe,” Tess says. “Maybe not. Ben and I have discussed my need to be more choosy with my affections. Are you going to eat that pancake? Do you think we can get more maple syrup? I mean who actually uses those other ones? I don't know why they put them out except maybe for the stoners to stare at the color at three in the morning.”

“Tess,” Anne says slowly. “You came here because I asked you to, remember?”

Tess breaks off a piece of pancake with her fingers and places it into her mouth. She wrinkles her nose. “It's cold.”

“Tess,” Anne says again.

“Tell her,” Ben says. Something's off about his tone.

“You have enough to worry about.” Tess breaks off another bite of pancake, then drops it back on the plate.

My heart shifts rhythm. “Tess. Ben. What's going on?”

“Who else could I call?” Tess says. “Ben's the only other one, you know. He was there with us. Who else can I tell? If I don't tell you, then it has to be Ben.”

“The only one you can tell what?” Anne shifts in her seat. Tess continues to look across the table at me and Ben.

“The goddamn bastard was in her yard watching her window, Anne.” Ben bites off each word.

“Who?” Anne's voice rises. “Who was in your yard, Tess?”

“I wasn't sure at first. I'd driven home and parked in the driveway, and I was thinking that maybe I needed a Coke or something. You know Chinese food—you're always dying of thirst for like hours. Not to mention that I practically destroyed my throat screaming while we were hurtling through time. So I'm about to go in the house, but I can't find my key and my parents are still in Napa checking out this winery they've decided to invest in because they think it will ‘bring them closer together.' God knows where Zach is.”

“Tess. Get to the point.” Anne puts her hand on her friend's shoulder.

“I'm getting there. I think the details are important. What I'm telling you is that I wasn't paying attention. But I felt it anyway. This weird goose-bumpy feeling crawled up my arms and neck. Like someone was watching me. But when I looked around—nothing. So I went inside. And that's when I called Ben.”

Ben takes over the story from there. Explains how Tess seemed spooked so he offered to take her for coffee. Dropped her off back home about 11:30. Even came in and checked the house with her. Nothing. Zach had called and was on his way home. So Ben left. And felt the same weird “something” when he went back to his car. Felt it again when he got home. But like Tess, he didn't see anything.

The only thing out of the ordinary was that the door to his house was unlocked, which struck him as strange since his parents are meticulous types. But their car was in the garage and his father was in the den watching television. Nothing amiss as far as Ben could tell. Just a door that someone forgot to lock.

“Here's the thing,” Ben says. The waitress has brought more coffee and two extra mugs, and Ben takes a long sip. “It's taken me a long time to come to grips with all this. And”—he turns to me—“don't think that it makes me your buddy. I still think you're dangerous. I think Anne needs to run from you like she'd run from a virus. But she won't. And I can't force her. I'm her friend, not a cop.

“Like I've told Tess, I tried and tried to convince myself that none of that shit really happened. But I couldn't. It's like falling down the rabbit hole. Once you see this whole other world, you can't go back. So the way I figure, I'm stuck with you. You're a damn douche, but I can't just pretend you're going to disappear out of her life. Or that witches and mermaids and guys who rise from the damn dead don't exist.”

“Your point?” I hold his gaze and wait for the punch line.

“I'm not going anywhere. If you need someone else to battle whatever this is, I'm your guy. I don't think you have a chance in hell of being able to protect these two on your own. Even if Anne has, well, powers. You do, right? God, this whole thing freaks me the hell out. But I watched you, Anne. I saw you put your hand on his heart and make a bullet come out of his chest. You were dead, dude. And she brought you back to life. I have to believe it because that's what I saw.

“And the other guy, Viktor, right? I watched him get shot and rise from the dead all on his own. He was a skeleton when he came out that chicken-leg cabin. Then boom, he's younger. So if Tess says that's who she saw when she looked out her window, then I believe her. Which means I'm stuck. I can't just go home and pretend this isn't real.”

“I did see Viktor,” Tess adds. “He was standing under our spruce tree. You know those wards or whatever you placed around my house? I think they were the only thing keeping him out. But I looked at him from behind my curtain and I just knew that if he wanted to, he could break through. It would be like snapping a twig or something. Then I heard Ben's car in the driveway on the other side of the house. When I looked again, Viktor was gone. But I'm positive it was him. Oh my God, do you think he did something to Zach's car? Maybe that's why it broke. So he'd take mine and I'd be alone in the house. Ben was the surprise. The thing he didn't think would interrupt him. Shit.”

We down some more coffee and discuss it further. Fill Tess and Ben in on everything else that's gone on. Our trip to 1920s London. The body shifting—we keep the details to a minimum, much to Tess's dismay. Tasha's betrayal with Viktor. Even the ballet that we'd gone to—the possible
Giselle
connection to Lily and also Lily's appearance at Anne's house. Anne's father's ultimatum.

In the end, we all agree. The threat is real and imminent and classic Viktor. Keep us all distracted while he gets whatever he wants. How far will he go to keep his immortality? And what will he do if we attempt to stop him? Or, Anne asks, if we don't?

We leave out only one thing. The power that Viktor seems to have shifted to me. Neither Anne nor I mention it. But I can feel it prowling in her thoughts, just as I'm sure she can sense it in mine. But without discussion we seem to be in tacit agreement—this is something for us alone. Especially now with Ben in the mix. So far I'm able to keep it at bay. And when I can't…

“Do you think Viktor really will do something horrible if he gets the chance?” Tess asks. “I guess he already could have, right? So maybe he's not so bad? Or is he just afraid that Anne will sic Baba Yaga on him or something?”

“I think,” I say slowly, “that we can safely assume that he is not afraid of us. Not even of Baba Yaga. He never has been, remember? He's the man who found a way to compel a legendary witch. I doubt his time with her was pleasant, but afraid of her? I highly doubt it.”

“Here's what I want to know.” Ben drums his fingers on the table. “What's the dude want? And don't tell me the obvious. Of course he wants to live forever. Isn't that what the bad guy always wants? World domination. Eternal life. Both. We all watched those Indiana Jones movies. Holy ark, holy grail, whatever. It all amounts to the same load of crap.

“So Viktor's twist is he used his half sister Anastasia to get his wish. And made you”—he jerks his chin in my general direction—“immortal along with him. Which, let's face it, he probably expected that you'd be totally fine with. If I were an evil mastermind, I'd be looking for the stupidest minions I could find. The ones who didn't want to complain. Again, nothing new there. Even Julius Caesar surrounded himself with idiots. Or at least that's what he figured until they offed him.”

Ben, it seems, has more layers than I'd anticipated. And, unless I'm mistaken, has used his knowledge of both cinema and history to call me a fool.

“So maybe what we saw in the past was really true,” Tess says. “He's older than you, right, Ethan? And we already know that he wanted revenge on Tsar Nicholas. Wanted him to acknowledge to everyone that Viktor was his son. Even Professor Olensky never really thought about why the Brotherhood existed. He just bought into what the legends said—that it developed as this secret-society thing to protect the Romanovs. And Viktor was the bad guy who corrupted the system to get back at his dad. But maybe it wasn't exactly like that. Maybe the Brotherhood was always a cover-up for what Viktor had planned for years. Maybe right from the start he was looking for people who he could use.”

The image of my father lying dead in the field, that of my mother and sister murdered in our house, come to me again, as they have so many times over so many years. To believe that their deaths weren't just random violence is a step I'm not ready to take.

Anne rests her hand over mine. Squeezes. “All that doesn't matter, though. I mean not really. True or not—it's old news. He did it. I stopped him. And now I have to stop him again. I don't think anything else is relevant.”

“Maybe,” Ben says, “I'm your fresh set of eyes here, Anne. I'm not invested in this like the rest of you. But you know how I love movies. And like I said, every movie with a bad guy, well, you have to know his motivation to figure the rest out. Unless it's one of those ones where the bad guy figures he's so invincible that he tells the good guy everything just before he attempts to kill him. I hate those.”

The restaurant has begun to fill with the breakfast crowd. Our waitress trudges to the table, hands me the check, and informs us that her shift is ending. Her subtle way of saying it's time to give up the booth.

“What about that Koschei story?” Anne stretches, rolls her shoulders. She leans her elbows on the table. “You never did tell me the rest of it, remember?” She rests her gaze on Tess and then Ben. “When I was stuck in Tasha's body, she and Viktor talked about Koschei the Deathless. She was like, ‘Hey, that's just a story,' but he was all ‘Hey, it's more than that.'”

“Of course he'd think that,” I say. “It's what he aspires to. Koschei is from Slavic folklore. He found a way not to die. As Ben would say, stories are full of people who try to trick Fate. In the stories, Koschei always gets caught. Someone figures out how to kill him. Surely Viktor doesn't want that. And mentioning it to Tasha—it's clear now that he was manipulating her beyond what she may have wanted from him. The name ‘Koschei' would scare her. Like Baba Yaga, it's a story, but not a pleasant one. Tasha already believed that he could harness enough magic to give her immortality. So why not pump up the fear by implying that he was as strong as a legendary immortal?”

“Oh, goody.” Tess slumps in her seat. “More crazy stories. And here I thought we were maybe on the verge of figuring out something. Do you know it's getting light outside? What time is it, anyway? Maybe we need to just get out of here. This booth is pretty small, you know. I love breakfast food as much as the next person, but we can't sit at IHOP forever. Although it's better than being home and freaking out.”