|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Author: AnnaK Story: All Things Rating: Young Teens Status: WIP Warning: Charater Deaths Reviews: 1 Words: 7,703
Behold the Image sit, and ride Upon his brazen horse astride! A. S. Pushkin, The Bronze Horseman Had Olga Myshkina been standing in precisely the same spot two centuries earlier, she would have been knee-deep in green mud and battling mosquitoes. Even now, for all its regal beauty and glorious architecture, Petersburg was not a particularly easy city to live in. Nature, it seemed, had never forgiven Peter the Great for daring to build an empire’s capital on a festering swamp, and sought revenge in the form of floods, disease, and a peculiar kind of cold that worst afflicted the throat, where each breath of December air lodged like a thousand shards of glass. Hunger was the most recent of these plagues; Olga noted, not without a grim sense of Russian irony, that the starved corpses had a heroic way of draping themselves at the base of the famous bronze monument to Peter the Great. Olga herself was in no danger of starving. Hard times were good times for psychics, and though only a mediocre clairvoyant, she sensed a visit from a powerful client today. She scurried along the Angliiskaya Embankment rather more quickly than usual that morning and reached the door of her tiny shop several minutes before eight o’clock. She had just swept the table clean of spiders and smoothed her long silver hair when there came a sharp knock on the door. ‘Vkhodi—’ The word died on her lips as she recognised the thin, dark figure on her doorstep. A series of broken syllables seemed to tumble from her mouth against her will. ‘I-izvinite, ya…ya ne—’ He held up a bony hand. ‘Zamolchites’, starukha. U menya vremeni nyet.’ Enough, old woman. I don’t have the time. The man’s Caucasian accent was unmistakeable. Olga stared. Though she had never met this man, she knew him instantly—there was not a wizard in Russia who would not have done. She remained rooted to the spot for a moment, her tiny mouth ajar, then grabbed a shimmering orb from the cupboard and sat down at the newly spiderless table. She tried to ignore the man’s heavy gaze. With her thin, hunched frame, long nose, and beady eyes, Olga knew she must appear wholly insignificant. Why would he choose to come h— The Georgian cleared his throat. ‘Ladno,’ Olga murmured, tracing a circular pattern on the crystal ball with her long fingers. ‘Chto vas ozhidaet?’ What future awaits you? It was a well-practised phrase, but today her voice squeaked oddly. There was a flash of gold in the crystal ball. ‘Lev,’ she said as the figure swirled into focus. A lion. No—several lions, moving about the circumference of the ball. It looked to be a migration of some sort. ‘L’vy…idut….’ But the hooded man had stopped listening. Olga had to strain to make out his words: ‘Lev—Leviny!’ A cold laugh poured through the Georgian’s narrow nostrils. The sound made Olga shiver, and she could not help but wonder why he had mentioned the Levins, the best-known wizard family in Petersburg. She was grateful, however, that he had not asked her to interpret the symbols, for then she would have been lost indeed. The lions vanished, and a terrible image rose to the surface. Four bodies aflame! Olga gasped; the sharp intake of that frigid, crystalline air made her choke and sputter. ‘Mertvye, kakie mertvye!’ Deaths, such deaths! The man’s eyes glowed red, and at that moment Olga would not have been surprised to see a forked tongue dash out from his mouth. He said nothing, but leaned closer to the ball. Olga, too, peered into the sphere once again, her large, round ears flushing crimson. One final image emerged—a wooden door held shut by a rather formidable-looking lock. A strange, faint sound seemed to come from the ball. It resembled a heartbeat, and crescendoed until the man rose abruptly. Olga averted her eyes from his horrifying face; the crystal ball now clearly showed the image of a red-eyed snake devouring an old grey mouse. The Georgian muttered something and swept out of the shop, taking pains to step over the motionless body of the psychic as he exited. * * * Even the decidedly self-possessed Eugene Calvus could not look without horror on the little piles of ash that had once been the members of the Levin family. It was Eugene’s job to investigate and prepare a report on the events of 6th December, and his second task of the day seemed every bit as bad as the first. Eugene had spent the morning examining the body of Zviadi Dzhugashvili, whom all of Petersburg knew simply as The Georgian. It was such a strange story. It was clear that Dzhugashvili had killed the Levins in their flat on the night of December the 6th. His motive was straightforward enough—he had been the leader of a militant Caucasian group whose aim was to overthrow the Russian Ministry for its recent annexation of the rebel Georgian province of Abkhazia. The Levins represented the most obvious and formidable threat to the cause. Dzhugashvili’s own death was more puzzling, however. A Squib called Gremin had taken credit for the murder, but this was an obvious fabrication, as the Georgian’s body had been covered with the traces of a potent magic Eugene had never encountered before. Eugene was left at a frustrating impasse: it was doubtful that anyone in Petersburg other than the Levins could have cast such a spell against the most feared Dark wizard in recent memory, but Dzhugashvili had conveniently murdered all the Levins before meeting his own end. How, then, had the Dark Lord been defeated? Eugene frowned. It would not be easy to identify the Levins from the ashes. There were four piles in total — three near the back of the room and one further down the corridor, in front of an open door. Eugene turned to Grimstock, his sour-faced assistant, and Daria, the translator assigned to him by the Volsheburo, the Russian Ministry. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I think we may need to make use of the Acclaro charm. Are you familiar with that, Daria Mikhailovna?’ ‘Da, though I have not performed it in many years.’ ‘A rare charm,’ explained Eugene to Grimstock, ‘that produces a sort of spectral image of a person’s true physical appearance. Very useful when one is dealing with a criminal Metamorphmagus, as you can imagine. It becomes increasingly less reliable after death, but as it has been only a few days since the Levins were…’ he swallowed, ‘…killed, I think we may still be able to see something. I confess I’m a bit rusty at it myself, but perhaps if you and I cast the charm together, Daria Mikhailovna….’ Eugene and Daria gathered round the first pile. ‘Right, then,’ Eugene sighed. ‘On the count of three—’ ‘Acclaro!’ they shouted in unison. The ashes trembled, and a wispy grey figure struggled to push itself out from them. Once free, it hovered several inches above the floor. Though the figure was hazy, Eugene could make out the features of an old woman. ‘Sofia Levina, the matriarch, I believe,’ said Eugene. Daria nodded in confirmation. ‘Grimstock, please make a note of that.’ From the next pile of ashes rose the form of a young man. ‘Mitya Levin,’ said Daria in her guttural Petersburg accent. ‘He was Head Boy at the Stolichnaya Wizarding Institute two years ago.’ Eugene winced at the sight of the next figure. It was a face he had seen countless times in the Daily Prophet: Konstantin Levin, who had comprised half of the most famous Auror team in Europe. The fourth mound of ashes, then, must contain the remains of Konstantin’s partner and wife, Ekaterina. Sure enough, from the pile at the end of the corridor came the grey figure of a slender young woman, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. ‘Da, that is Katya,’ said Daria. The three were silent for a moment, and even the stony Grimstock looked genuinely morose. Eugene stared into the large, sad eyes of Ekaterina Levina as her ghostly form sank into the ashes once more. ‘Well,’ he said softly, ‘that is all of them. He was certainly thorough, this Dzhu—this Georgian fellow.’ ‘Nyet, Mr Calvus,’ said Daria, her expression suddenly perplexed. ‘Katya and Kostya had a little daughter. Tanya was her name, I think—Tatiana. I saw them together this summer in Letnii Park.’ Grimstock flipped through his notes. ‘I have no record of that. Sofia, Konstantin, Ekaterina, and Dmitri are the only Levins registered by the Volsheb—’ ‘Tanya was not of age,’ said Daria. ‘She looked six years old, maybe seven. The Volsheburo does not register wizards until they enter school.’ ‘Very well,’ said Eugene. ‘I’m sure her ashes can’t have got far.’ But a fifth mound of ash was not to be found; in fact, the trio could find no sign that a child had ever lived in the Levins’ flat. After nearly four hours of fruitless searching, Grimstock had become very cross indeed. ‘You were probably mistaken,’ he barked at Daria. ‘Perhaps you saw another child with Konstantin and Ekaterina, perhaps the daughter of one of their friends….’ ‘No,’ she retorted, ‘the girl looked just like Katya. The same dark eyes.’ Eugene felt that it was pointless to continue the investigation further that night, and sent Grimstock and Daria home. He magically locked the door of the Levins’ flat and set off in the direction of his hotel, stopping along the way for a newspaper and a bottle of vodka. The skinny boy behind the desk in the hotel foyer looked up as Eugene walked in. ‘Mr Calvus,’ said the boy in very slow English, ‘the Premier of the Volsheburo sends to you this—this—’ he struggled to find the English word before resorting to Russian, ‘—soobschenie.’ Eugene took the envelope and thanked the boy, substituting his own poor Russian for the boy’s broken English: ‘Spasibo bolshoi.’ He climbed the stairs to his room and opened the letter. 8th December Dear Sir or Madam: I have learnt that the Volsheburo has sought the assistance of the British Ministry of Magic in the investigation of the Levin case. I write to inform you of a strange incident that occurred here at the Stolichnaya Wizarding Institute regarding Ekaterina and Konstantin Levin’s daughter, Tatiana. Stolichnaya, like many wizarding schools around the world, keeps a master list of all students who will be invited to attend in the future. Upon hearing the news of the Levins’ deaths yesterday, I inspected the list and was shocked to find the name of Tatiana Levina still upon it. The list, you see, has been bewitched to remove instantly the names of those students who are rendered unable to attend due to death or madness. However, the name of Tatiana Konstantinovna Levina remained on the Stolichnaya list until this afternoon, at which time it erased itself before my very eyes. I am at a loss as to what this might signify. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any assistance in your investigation of this tragic occurrence. I shall leave this letter in the hands of Andrei Andreevich Bolkonsky, Premier of the Volsheburo, in the hope that he will forward it to the appropriate party. Sincerely, Fyodor Vladimirovich Lensky Eugene put down the letter and rubbed his temples. This case was turning into a regular headache. It would be disastrous to his career if he were unable to find Tatiana, for this was likely to be the most important assignment he would ever be given. National Ministries normally conducted large investigations like these on their own, with some amount of secrecy. The Volsheburo, however, was at present so overwhelmed with the escalating civil unrest among both wizards and Muggles in addition to the ongoing fallout from the Crimea that it had enlisted the help of the Ministry of Magic and paid several thousand galleons for the service. ‘See to it, Mr Calvus, that you do not embarrass Britain,’ the Minister for Magic had admonished Eugene the morning he left for Russia. Eugene reviewed the facts of the case in his mind. The girl had to be dead, he concluded. There could be no other explanation for the disappearance of her name from the Stolichnaya list. But why had her name taken so long to fade, and where was the body? He poured himself a glass of vodka and opened his newspaper, desperate to take his mind off the missing girl. He leafed through page after page of Russian gibberish until his eye alighted to a familiar face. He deciphered the caption under the photograph with difficulty. ‘Nicolas Flamel,’ it began. The next word required the use of a dictionary: ‘missing since the evening of 6th December….’ Disgusted, Eugene threw the newspaper aside. The last thing he wanted to read about was another disappearance. He poured himself a second glass of vodka. Granted, Butterbeer tasted much better, but the vodka was not completely unpleasant. Quite the contrary, actually, thought Eugene, his insides beginning to feel intoxicatingly warm…. Two hours later, Eugene stumbled outside for some air. His clumsy feet led him to Ulitsa Chaikovskogo, where a group of boisterous and strangely dressed people had gathered in the street. Eugene approached a woman in a vile turquoise robe to find out what had happened. ‘Chto sluchilos’?’ he slurred. 'Gruzin pogib!’ The Georgian was defeated, she shouted happily. The Georgian. Eugene knew he had heard that name before, but at present his mind came only in bits and pieces. ‘Who killed—erm, that’s English—kto yemu—no, it’s yevo, isn’t it. Kto yevo ubil?’ ‘Tanya Levina.’ His memory returned in a flood. He was standing in the Levins’ street, in front of the Levins’ flat, and all around him people were telling stories about how a seven-year-old girl had defeated the Dark Lord Zviadi Dzhugashvili. ‘Ona mertva! Ona umerla!’ She is dead, she died, he screamed, but his voice was lost as a firecracker exploded overhead. Eugene ran down to the river and along the embankment. He could still hear the voices of the revellers. He tripped over his feet and nearly fell, but caught himself on an iron railing. He pressed his stomach to the rail, looking over the icy expanse of the Neva and feeling quite ill. He turned around; before him towered a bronze god on horseback, who commanded the river Neva with an outstretched arm and who looked down on Eugene and the petty corpses at his feet with a twisted, knowing smile. Eugene attempted to reproach the giant for his heartlessness, but his tongue was thick and the words came out like sausage links. He ran at the monument, kicking its granite base, but Peter the Great did not flinch. Suddenly there was a sharp pain in the back of his head. They took his wallet and his overcoat and, sniggering, merged again with the velvet night. Eugene got up after several minutes and trudged back to his hotel, his head pounding all the way. He sank into bed and began to fall into a deep sleep. But the shards of a strange song permeated his consciousness. Ochi chernye, ochi strastnye, Ochi zhguchie i prekrasnye…Though Eugene’s Russian was poor, he could certainly guess the occasion for this particular song. Just that afternoon, Daria had spoken about Tanya Levina’s ochi chernye—dark eyes. He leaned out his window and shook his fist at the crowd of drunken young men below. ‘She’s dead, she’s dead!’ he screamed, his words unslurred. And Tatiana was dead—she had to be. Eugene finished his report in a scrawling, uneven hand. Gremin had killed Dzhugashvili and little Tanya had died with her family. He would leave Petersburg first thing the next morning. But Tatiana Levina would haunt him for the rest of his life. A/N: Many thanks to Happydog. Also, please note that the word ‘Caucasian’ as used here refers to a place—the area between the Black and Caspian Seas comprising Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan—not a race. Thanks for reading!
|