A Life Less Ordinary Read online

  Ivan reached for the chain and suddenly, to his surprise, Yuri perked up, his eyes bright with excitement, the injured nose forgotten. While he should have been relieved that Yuri had stopped fighting him, instead Ivan was unnerved by his half-brother’s sudden eagerness to be off. Yuri heeled like any well trained mutt, his nose as often to the ground as anywhere, but Ivan’s eyes were on the officer heading towards them. He was a tall man wearing insignia that indicated he most likely out ranked everyone in the camp, here was the root of the problem, Ivan knew, and his rage flared at the man’s confident gait. Ivan reached behind his back and turned off the safety on his rifle, noting that Yuri was now cowering behind his legs, whimpering.

  “Oi! Put that dog back in cistern. I will not have anyone handling it but myself or its owner.” The man ordered, and when Ivan made no move to follow that order, the man stepped in very close to him. “Maybe you do not hear so well, so I will repeat myself. Put dog back in cistern and things will not get ugly.”

  “You are man who did this to him?” Ivan asked, a nasty smile spreading across his face as a plan suddenly came to mind.

  “Da, I am, at least, partly. That dog is best bitch in any of ten army camps in this area.” The officer puffed his chest out proudly. “You want play time with it all you have to do is ask, rental fee is cheap, just one thousand per hour. But it is so loved…I cannot let it leave camp, men would be broken hearted. So if you will just return it to cistern…you can do whatever you want to it. With it.”

  “What gives you right to train men to be…bitches…for other soldiers to abuse?” Ivan asked, his tone dangerously quiet as he fought to quell his rising ire. “How do you decide which ones?”

  Mistaking his change in tone for interest, the officer’s face lit up and he explained enthusiastically. “We get good one in here and there, orphans most, some are criminals. Almost always they are…you know…homosexuals. Once we have identified that they are without family…then training commences immediately.”

  “And what,” Ivan asked, in a deceptively casual tone. “What would you do if, by chance, you discovered one of these men actually did have family?”

  “That is not possible. I did search of its records myself, not to mention its owner, man I know very well, assured me of it. This bitch has no family.” The officer’s enthusiasm was quickly turning to anger now “Why do you not return it to cistern and we can discuss discount for services?”

  “Because, foolish man, he does have family. I am his half-brother, and I am here to take him home.” Ivan said, drawing himself up to full height. His aggressive change in stance queued up Yuri’s interest and he heard his feral brother growling behind him. “I am growing tied of this conversation. Yuri…kill.”

  The officer tried to run but before he had gone more than a dozen steps, Yuri took him down and, using his sharp and surprisingly healthy teeth, ripped out the other man’s windpipe. He made to lie down and chew on it, but Ivan tugged him along, and he followed, still holding the windpipe in his teeth.

  “We will need to catch train home, Yuri, then you can…” Ivan left off, not sure he even wanted to begin to contemplate Yuri being a cannibal at that moment. Instead, he picked up his pace, forcing Yuri to trot along behind him. He found the hole he had purposefully cut in the fence around the train yard and pulled Yuri along as the feral man hesitated at the noise and scents around him. More than once he turned back to the camp and whimpered, even trying to pull Ivan with him. Ivan couldn’t believe he was actually trying to return to the place where he had obviously been so cruelly treated.

  Reading the different lights and signs, Ivan selected a train that was Moscow bound. At first he tried to coax Yuri into getting on board, but his feral brother was having none of it. Finally, losing patience, he dragged Yuri into the empty boxcar with the help of the chain. Yuri, once he was on board, seemed perfectly content to lie down in the corner and chew on his prize. Ivan did not attempt to dissuade him, as this was not the time or place to pick such a battle. Reintegration would come later, he knew, though how on earth they would undo this damage he was completely unsure. As he was turning to settle in the other corner of the now slowly moving car, he noticed two eyes peering at him from beneath a pile of rags. Before he could move, Yuri dropped his chew-toy and sprang, landing on the man.

  “Yuri! Nyet!” Ivan shouted and his brother looked back at him, dismayed. “Yuri…go back to toy. Go on…there is good…er…man.”

  “What in Hell is that…that thing?” an old homeless man appeared from beneath the now-rumpled and bloodied rags. “It…it attacked me. You cannot be in my car, this is my car and I am King here. You must find somewhere else…”

  “Okay, fine, I will just call Yuri back over and he can finish job. Tell me, old man, what do you see him chewing on?” Ivan asked, not bothering to look. It wasn’t so much that he was squeamish from seeing the body part, it was the fact it was a human being eating a human windpipe that turned his stomach.

  “Is that…something’s throat?” The man blanched. Even under the layer of filth Ivan saw him pale, and he knew he’d hit a nerve.

  “Someone’s throat, actually. I allowed him to attack man who did this to him.” Ivan said, then pulled a strip of horsemeat jerky out of his pack. “Keep silent and I will give you all I have when we arrive in Moscow.”

  The man eyed the horsemeat hungrily, then snatched it quickly, his movement bringing another growl from Yuri, who clearly didn’t trust him. “Just keep that…keep him away from me.” And now they were riding the rails, headed back towards Moscow. He wondered how he’d manage to get Yuri back to his papa’s diplomatic residence. In the end, he was forced to call in a favor with his Uncle Oleg, asking that an armored van with blacked-out windows would be left sitting at the train yard unmanned for his use. He knew that his uncle would not ask questions, being a crime lord made him one to understand the necessity of discretion. All Ivan had to do now was work out how to get Yuri into the diplomatic residence without any sort of incident.

  Darkness was beginning to fall on their second day before he realized how exhausted he had become. He pulled two heavy crates away from the wall on their end of the car, then crawled into the space and wrapped up in the oilskin duster. He could hear Yuri whining and pacing, the jingling of the chain, now secured tightly to a steel ring so that his half-brother didn’t attack their companion while Ivan slept. He could smell snow on the air around him as sleep took him surprisingly easy, brought on, he supposed, by the gentle movement of the train and the rhythmic sounds of the rails beneath the boxcar.

  Ivan woke with a start sometime in the night, feeling something nudging against his giant body, which was covered under his warm oilskin duster. Instantly alert to any threat, he spread his nostrils wide and breathed in slowly, trying to scent the source of the physical contact. The scent that assaulted his nose was the pungent, almost sickening smell of Yuri. It appeared he was attempting to get close to Ivan, presumably for warmth, as it had gotten quite frigid in the fast moving train car. Ivan raised his arm, letting in a blast of the Siberian winter chill, and Yuri leapt away, startled and growling.

  “Come, Yuri. Under my coat.” Ivan said, gently and to his surprise, Yuri scurried right to him and curled up in a tight ball against his chest. Ivan sighed and braced himself for the inevitable stench beneath the coat, but he did not complain. Any positive physical contact between himself and Yuri was a bonding experience. As he lay still, his arm fell protectively around Yuri’s shoulders, but there was no complaint given and he breathed a sigh of relief. As he drifted off to sleep, he heard Yuri licking, licking, licking at something and made a mental note to check his brother for injuries the next morning. Soon, he heard soft snoring from the tight ball of bones and skin, and he allowed himself to relax and drift off to sleep. Confident as he was that they were safe, he could never have foreseen what would happen next.

  Chapter 7

  Aleksei froze ten feet from the balcony door and stare
d at the nearly unrecognizable long-bearded face staring back at him. He pinched himself hard, twice, just to be sure he wasn’t dreaming. When it became clear he wasn’t, he walked to the door and reached for it.

  “No! Alex! Don’t let that…that thing in our apartment!” A female voice cried out behind him and he grimaced then turned to face her.

  “Put the phone down, Rosa.” He said to his roommate, his tone soft and reassuring. “It’s okay, he’s…I know him…let’s just leave it at that. Go up to your rooms and lock the door until you hear my door close. Once it has closed, I want you to pack your bags and leave the apartment until I get in contact with you. I will pay to put you up in whatever hotel you choose. Fair enough?”

  “But…he’s…Alex…he looks like a madman…are you quite sure?” She leaned out and looked at Yuri and a quick glance told Aleksei he’d noticed her because he was now pawing silently at the glass, his eyes wild.

  “I am. He—hopefully—won’t hurt me. But I fear he will attack you, so it’s best you are behind locked doors and safe. I will call you when it is okay to return, as I said. And Rosa…no police. I cannot make that clear enough, you must not call the police. He will panic and things will get messy. Understand?” Aleksei nodded and Rosa nodded back, then, giving Yuri one more glance with her lovely golden eyes, she turned and bounded back up the stairs. Her departure brought an instant howl of disapproval from Yuri. “Shut up, fool. I do not want police here.” Aleksei snapped the door open and Yuri shot inside, skidding to a halt on the hardwood floor, breathing heavily and sniffing the air for Rosa’s scent. “Hey! Yuri! Nyet, woman is hands off. You hear me?”

  Yuri looked at him insolently, then bounded off for the kitchen, Aleksei following him at a run, turning on the light in time to see Yuri circling on hands and feet in front of the fridge. Clearly they hadn’t done much to cure him of his dog-like tendencies at the American institution. Aleksei sighed and opened the door to the appliance, but it was very nearly empty, only some soy-milk and spicy tofu he kept around for emergencies. One sniff of it brought a colossal sneeze from Yuri, and Aleksei tossed the now-ruined tofu in the garbage. “I will have to order food, we do not usually cook since we eat at hospital for free.”

  None of this explanation mattered, he knew, and he saw Yuri eyeing the garbage where he’d thrown the tofu. “Nyet, you do not go into garbage cans in my house, understand?” His jaw dropped when Yuri nodded, then shrugged and headed back into the living room, sniffing the floor where Rosa had been standing. “Sex and food really is all that matters to you, isn’t it?” Aleksei muttered, this time in English, and to his surprise, Yuri looked at him and whimpered, plaintively. “Come upstairs to my rooms, let us get you bath, hm?”

  Yuri bounded up the stairs, hesitated at Rosa’s door and for an instant Aleksei thought he might disturb the Spanish doctor, but the moment passed and he went into through the door to the left, instead. He hesitated, once inside, then followed Aleksei into the bathroom and watched with silent interest as Aleksei prepared his grooming tools for the long job ahead.

  The doctor looked at the matted mass of waist-long black hair and shook his head sadly. “That hair is going to have to come off, Yuri.” He said and saw Yuri’s hands fly to his head immediately, his eyes widening comically. “Not all of it, I think, but there is no way I can even begin to comb that massive matting in back. These,” he picked up the silver barber’s scissors gifted him by an old lover, and held them up, “are scissors. I am going to cut your hair, but you must be very still, these are sharp and I do not wish to hurt you, understand?”

  Yuri nodded, then turned his back and plopped down on the bathroom rug, waiting patiently for Aleksei to begin. Aleksei’s nose wrinkled with disgust as he sat down behind Yuri on his knees so that he was a little higher up, making his job easier. He sheared through the mats with the sharp implement as gently as he could, but even so he earned himself a growl of reproach a time or two when he pulled too hard. Soon, all that was left was a rather uneven hairstyle that left Aleksei scratching his own head contemplatively. He snapped his fingers, finally and grabbed the clippers, shaving off the sides of Yuri’s hair but leaving the top long, always a good style cut to have, in his opinion.

  Next, he turned on the water in his rarely-used bathtub, as he preferred showers, and let it heat up and run, pouring a healthy dose of his own expensive bath soap in so that there were bubbles. In his reduced mental state, Yuri was beside himself with excitement so that he tried to jump into the water still wearing the filthy pants he’d presumably had on since leaving, or rather escaping the asylum. Aleksei stopped him, gently, and indicated he wanted Yuri to disrobe, but Yuri motioned to him and otherwise refused. “Nyet, I have had more baths this week than I think you have had in years. You go ahead.”

  Eventually, his excitement over the bubbles won out and Yuri obeyed, removing the filthy clothes and jumping into the tub as if it were a swimming pool, sending water and suds flying everywhere. The problem was, once he’d gotten in the water, he seemed to have forgotten what to do next. Aleksei closed his eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh, then picked up a washcloth and started washing off Yuri’s face, surprised at how, despite the nasty, long beard, just washing the dirt off made him look so much younger.

  Chapter 8

  Dmitri groaned and sat up, rubbing the back of his head, which was still pounding as an after effect of the paralytic he had been dosed with. The first thing he noticed was that the truck had stopped, or rather, he couldn’t feel any forward motion in the trailer. Second, the rear door was slightly ajar, presumably an indication to him that he was now free to go. But, he thought to himself, go where? The air coming in through the open door was freezing, and he pulled gloves out of his uniform cargo pocket and slipped his hands into them.

  He checked the dial on his watch as he donned the gloves and muttered a curse under his breath, his now-elevated heart rate making is head pound all the harder. Three days he’d been shut in this trailer, three days with no relief from the headache, no bathroom save a bucket he’d found and had to secure to prevent it tipping over. No shower, no hot food…nothing but misery. For three fucking days.

  He had found a stash of bottled water, Ivan had kindly taken all of the vodka. Not that Dmitri had expected him to share. He’d also found some military-style ready-to-eat meals that had all of the good stuff scavenged out. Also thanks to Ivan, who no doubt wanted him weakened for some reason, and probably not a good one, he thought. He snorted and shook his head as he glanced back at the forlorn little camp bed he’d spent most of his time lying on. It had been damned uncomfortable for his six and an half foot frame. How Ivan managed it, at nearly eight feet, he had no idea.

  Walking cautiously and surprisingly softly for a man of his height and build, Dmitri approached the door, hoping to catch a driver unawares. If he could commandeer the truck he could make it to civilization in a couple of days’ time and head for London, where he now knew for sure he’d find his prey. After taking a deep breath, he kicked the door open with as much force as he could muster, then stared out at the bleak, unforgiving landscape of the Siberian tundra in dismay.

  “Burn in Hell, Ivan Kirill Korzhakov!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. He didn’t have to look beyond where he was standing to know the trailer had been dropped here intentionally. There was no truck attached, he’d been left here to freeze to death. But his ire was so great he wasn’t about to give in easily. He found Ivan’s old field pack, left by a secondary door that led out the side of the trailer though it was locked securely in place. Inside he was surprised to find even more supplies and, to his shock, his pistol and ammunition. “Who is fool now, Ivan? You just gave man who means to kill you weapon to do it.”

  When the phone rang, he was so startled he actually fell backwards from his crouching position to his butt, which was slightly sore still, from the fall he’d taken thanks to the drug. He did not speak when he pressed talk, then speaker, only listened first.

>   “Did you sleep well, angel?” Ivan asked, in a mock-sweetheart voice, enraging Dmitri so that he nearly threw the phone, even carrying through with the gesture. “Nyet? I would not be breaking phone…is only means of communication between you and outside world. With that phone you might…call in helicopter or military convoy to pick you up…” Dmitri looked around surreptitiously, wondering how on earth Ivan had known he had almost smashed the expensive satellite phone against the wall of the trailer.

  “What do you want, Ivan.” It wasn’t a question, and they both knew it. He wanted Ivan to get past the point of making fun and lay down his demands, which would be hard to swallow. That, at least, Dmitri saw coming miles away.

  “Oh, are you in hurry? Looks to me like you have nowhere on Earth to go.” Ivan said, then abruptly dropped the sweetheart-mock for his sternest businesslike manner. “Leave Yuri alone. Promise you will not kill him and I will call in lift for you that can get there much faster than military. Refuse…and I will sever satellite com-link and leave you to die in frozen wasteland.”

  “Yuri has nothing to fear from me…for now. I have new target.” Dmitri said and Ivan let out a shout of laughter, clearly understanding precisely what his half-brother meant. “Is good that you can find humor when you are afraid.”

  “Afraid? Of you? Man who could not sneak up on his own shadow?” Dmitri’s free hand tightened into a fist as Ivan roared with mirth. Suddenly, he stopped. “Come and get me, Dmitri. I would not have it any other way. Particularly if it keeps you away from Yuri.”