The Groznyj Grad Living Novel

Peripherally, he was aware of the newcomer to their table. His eyes registered red and black, and bright cropped blond hair. Blue eyes and lithe physicality. A little sullen attitude went with the setting of the tray.

Nika hardly looked up from his tea, only mildly surprised that Ocelot had decided to join them. He did, from time to time, but Liadov expected it had a lot to do with Volgin's mood on any given day.

"Good morning, Major," he said, absently, browsing his notebook. "How's the shooting been?"

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It took a moment before Matvei realised what Liadov meant, and that it was him who was being talked to.

"Oh."

He turned around, and took in the man who had spoken. The serious one that Andrei knew.

"I'm not the Major," Matvei stated, thinking it was a rather unnecessary statement. He was nothing like Ocelot, although he admired him and aspired to be a credit to him.

He supposed at first glance they could be mistaken, but Matvei was smaller, and didn't have an ounce of coldness in his blue eyes.

Some investigator, the cynical part of his mind suggested. This is why Sergei is dead.

He frowned. He knew he was wounded, but if he was going to let out his anger, he would do so constructively.

Impulsively, spurred on by his emotions, he asked the question that he had rolled over in his mind to ask all night long. Something more substantial than reassurances and promises and tidbits of gossip and announcements.

"How close are you to catching the killer?" he said, bluntly.

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Nika looked up, slowly, for the first time upon hearing the voice. A non sequitur to the Major's indeed.

Younger. Even more imprudent, if it were possible.

A frown spread across his features.

"Well," he said. "If it isn't an Ocelette."

While they were technically off-duty, it was not common practice for men of a lesser rank to invite themselves to mess with superior officers, even those of lateral standing.

He glanced at Raikitin, who was smiling tolerantly at the boy.

Nika sighed and pushed back in his chair.

"Which one?" he asked, frankly, zeroing his eyes in pointedly on the young soldier's.

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"The one that left my best friend dead in the showers last night."

It was a hell of a lot more than he had planned on actually saying, but Matvei was stretched pretty damn thin that morning, and it showed.

He met Liadov's gaze, and matched it with his own, albeit his eyes were even more tired than that of the MENTs.

"I'd find him myself, if I could," Matvei said, rather tightly, prodding at his food, disinterested in it. "'Cept Sergei wouldn't have wanted me to. Would want me to stay loyal to Ocelot, not to his body."

Matvei squared his jaw. "But off squad time? If there's anything I can do to catch the bastard, I'll do it. I don't care what it takes."

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"Morning," Ippolit said absently as the newcomer arrived. He was staring down at his food, trying without much real effort to discern what part of an animal it might have come from. It was like finding shapes in the clouds, except more vaguely disquieting.

He looked up belatedly. There was a fog lingering in Ippolit's brain that had less to do with last night's depleted bottle of vodka and more with the dreams it had been meant to kill.

An Ocelot. Not one Rakitin had met. He would have remembered. This one looked even younger than all the rest.

He, however, seemed to know them.

"Your friend," Ippolit said abruptly, without thinking. "I'm sorry."

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"I meant...which killer," Liadov said coolly, crossing his arms. "Some evidence would indicate that the man who killed your friend was not at all the same as the one who killed the mechanic and Molokov. Of course, that's already more information than I should share."

He was all for pleasantry, but occasionally some young idiot with a short fuse and an inflated sense of self made a poor assumption about him based on the fact that they'd never seen the true contents of a velvet glove before.

"Even if we were in a hair's breadth of finding the killer, you wouldn't know about it, because it would compromise the investigation," he added, raising an eyebrow. "The Lt. here is working tirelessly at all hours of the night to come up with leads. Developing new forensic protocols, just for use in this investigation.

He leaned forward, palm on the table.

"I've worked over 300 homicide cases alone butyou tell me what you'd recommend."

Liadov's famously long tolerance had already been frayed by his hypoglycemic episode the night before, and liquor and insomnia had foreshortened the rest.

"Sorry," he muttered to Rakitin. "Maybe you should handle public relations for the day."

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"I understood perfectly," Matvei replied, ignoring the strain of the situation, failing to be intimidated.

It was one of the things he was never very good at, and Major Ocelot shook his head at him in disappointed bemusement that he still jumped at small things - but he wasn't feeling particularly self-aware right then.

He didn't particularly care if he got disciplined. Having Sergei brushed off as one of 300 dead, neatly packaged and written notes, had hit a nerve.

"Maybe you need to learn to listen. Maybe he's just another analysis to you, but Sergei was my friend."

Matvei said it calmly, although he had regained a sudden fascination with his dinner, and a red flush sat at his cheekbones.

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Liadov snorted softly.

"This is what the great Major Ocelot has wrought?" he intoned, with studied incredulity. "An insubordinate passel of ill-bred whelps?"

He narrowed his eyes, taking a sip of his tea.

"Speak to Lieutenant Rakitin, malchik. He's fluent in 20th century unwarranted apologist. I, on the other hand, have no more words for you."

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"Major Ocelot has nothing to do with this," Matvei answered, eyes narrowed, riled at the insult on Ocelot's behalf.

He shrugged, and turned back to his food. He was suddenly looking forward to afternoon target practice, even if he got ragged on endlessly for his aim.

"And I thought you were a friend of Andrei's, and might give a shit."

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Rakitin glanced at Nika. Hung over or not, there was no reason to throw salt in the wound of a potential source.

Suggesting Polya as the one of them who dealt with the living. Oh, that was not a good sign.

It had been a bad night for all involved.

Considerably so for Liadov, if he was irked by an angry youth. The Ocelot hadn't tried to bite either of them. Ippolit considered that a sign of goodwill.

As the boy took on a reddish tinge, he resembled a small arctic fox baring its teeth. Ippolit felt an old compunction to grasp the boy carefully by the back of the neck, tag his ear, and release him back into the wild.

"Do you have something to tell us?" Rakitin said, leaning forward slightly.

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krasnogorje.livejournal.com

Several soldiers from the flame patrol sat bristling, two tables away, angry and seething about being forced away from their usual table by the investigators.

Angry, except Iapetus, who was casually indifferent as usual, and tending to his plate of food.

Two had set watching through the course of their meal, more concerned with Liadov than the food on their plates. Twice, Phobos had pilfered from Deimos’ tray without notice.

Io nudged his dark haired comrade when he saw that Nika was on the move. “Now?”

“Not now.” the other replied, skewering a potato with bitter malice. “Too many witnesses. It will go nice and slow. Plenty of time for suffering.”

At the end of the table, Iapetus glared at the pair. “You have no idea what sort of hell the Fury will bring down upon you if you harm that Operativnik.”

Deimos only shrugged, flashing a sadistic, feral smile to Nika as he passed.

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Liadov was not impressed with this particular member of Ocelot's entourage. Anyone who had lived in the Soviet Union should have had the common sense not to insult a senior officer, much less the temerity to antagonize the Internal Service.

On top of it all, he noted that self-righteous, primly sanctimonious look on Rakitin's face again. Rakitin didn't get why he was irked at the unlikely intrusion of an unknown Junior Lieutenant with poor impulse control.

It was enough.

He stood up, buttoning his coat.

"I'm leaving," he gritted out, softly, "before someone gets sent to Magadan."

He looked at Rakitin, setting his cap on his head.

"I don't savor being sassed by collicky infants who can't separate duty from personal life, but you seem game enough to humor this unprofessionalism. Have fun licking his pussy."

With that he turned and left, boot strikes reverberating on the linotile.

His head was throbbing, and so was his clenched fist, driven deep into his pocket, concealed from view.

He'd been too nice.

Too easy going.

But that was easily rectified.

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Well, that was odd, Rakitin thought as Liadov stormed off.

Apparently there'd been something he was expected to do, and he hadn't done it. Ah well. It wasn't unusual. All you could was stand back and let them do whatever it was they wanted. There was no reason for it to sting.

"If you've got something to say," Rakitin said to the Ocelot boy, his voice cool and dry, "now's the time to say it."

Human company had abruptly lost its dubious charms altogether. In any case, the pair of crickets he'd found just outside the mess hall were wriggling around in his pocket, and he wanted to deposit them in the drawer in his quarters before returning to the lab.

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"I wish I did," Matvei answered miserably, in a voice that was considerably calmer, glaring at the retreating back of the source of his ire.

"If I'd any idea who did it to him, I'd give him to you personally, in a cardboard box."

Matvei was feeling exceptionally reckless that morning.

He leaned across the table towards Rakitin, his eyes deadly serious. "If you find out anything - anything at all - let me know. I want to help. I don't want to have to see any more people who matter to me die."

He paused. "My specialty is silence. And I'm easily concealed. I can get anywhere on Groznyj Grad for you."

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"Right," Rakitin said dully, unsurprised.

Looked like Liadov's instincts were right.

Useless, useless, useless.

"Your heart's in the right place," Rakitin said, and he would know, "but a vigilante isn't going to do anyone any good."

He shoved his tray away. He had no appetite, and the crickets were restless. Maybe the little crunchy brown things were relatives.

"You've lost someone. Cherish the people you have. Mourn. You've got a lot of life ahead of you, if you don't waste it doing something stupid like hunting him on your own. Get on with it."

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Matvei bit his tongue, hard.

The pair of them didn't give a crap who lived or died. Probably looked better on their records if they solved a mass homicide as opposed to a singular murder. More promotions and badges and stupid baubles.

Charushkin got up and left the mess hall, fuming, returning to the barracks. His room was now lonely and quiet; he could think there.

And maybe no one would hear him cry, just a little, whilst he worked out what to do next.

I'm not going to mourn, he told himself furiously.

It was amazing how the the subconscious could dissent, and it took a few hours for Matvei to realise that.

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