There’s no way to describe it except to say it’s Soviet as hell, pure communist-bloc brutalist architecture. The buildings are huge, uniformly gray cubes. Some are perched on concrete legs, some have rows of windows looking out at the night glassy-eyed, but there’s no mistaking any of it.
I’m not surprised that tour guides won’t take tourists here. Besides apparently being dangerous, it’s ugly.
Kostya drives us down a street that dips below, and suddenly we’re next to a channel full of water. There’s no guardrail or anything between us and the canal, and I turn my head so I don’t have to look at it. The buildings here all have loading docks right on this street, at the level of the canal. Each had a streetlight at one time, but most of them are smashed or burned out now.
He lets off the gas and the motorcycle starts slowing. I haven’t seen another person since we entered the gray district, and it’s making me feel uneasy. Finally Kostya brakes, then puts his feet down and walks the bike into a dark, narrow alley between two huge industrial buildings.
When he cuts the engine, there’s near-total silence. Not even the concrete-lined canal behind us makes noise.
“This is where the bars are?” I ask into my intercom.
“Illegal bars have a way of being quiet,” he says.
Slowly, I release Kostya, find the foot rest, get off the bike, and get my helmet off, shaking out my hair and running my fingers through it, wishing I had a hairbrush. Kostya gets his off and runs his hand through his hair once.
“Why’d we park in an alley?” I ask, my voice low, glancing into the pitch blackness beyond us.
“How would it look to have a hundred cars parked outside an abandoned building?” he asks.
Good point.
“Like there was something going on inside,” I say, glancing again at the dark.
“This way,” he says, and puts one hand on my lower back, leading me out of the alley. Between the motorcycle ride, Kostya’s hand on me, and the bad part of town that’s way too quiet, my whole body is on high alert, tense like a tightrope.
Something crunches under my foot, and I look down. It’s a syringe, needle sticking out, and I thank my lucky stars that I wore closed-toe shoes. Not that I haven’t been plenty of places with syringes on the ground.
Kostya’s hand lingers on my back as we walk along the canal on the dark, ugly cement path between the loading docks and the black water. I keep my back straight and walk my best don’t-fuck-with-me walk, but I know full well that if something happens, it’s not going to be me kicking anyone’s ass.
We walk past a few buildings, and then Kostya walks up to one. He reaches up, knocks on a high window, then crosses to a door on the opposite end of the wall and waits.
I look up at him.
“Secret code?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says. “Every good illegal bar needs one.”
After a few more moments, the heavy metal door swings open a few inches and a very suspicious man with a thick beard and long, dark hair peers out and glares at Kostya.
Chapter Fourteen
Kostya
Looks like Viktor’s on the door tonight. We’re not great friends, but I’ve never punched him in the face, so at least he’ll let me in.
Before he does, he takes a good, long look at Hazel. So long I start to tense up, my fist tightening on my helmet in my hand.
“She with you?” he finally asks in Russian.
I just nod.
“What is she?” he asks, still looking at her.
Hazel’s looking at him, her gaze slowly becoming a glare.
“A human woman,” I say, pushing on the door just enough that he notices. “You’re familiar with the species?”
Viktor scowls, but he steps back and lets us in. I keep my hand on Hazel’s back.
The inside is a massive industrial space, filled with thirty-year-old machinery around the outer walls. The makeshift bar is in front of a massive chimney, concrete and metal, that stretches up to a high ceiling. Pipes and catwalks run across it, and under our feet, there’s sawdust on the concrete floor.
Hazel’s taking it all in quickly, her dark eyes narrowing as she looks around.
“Was this really a cannery?” she asks.
“Is that what they told you?” I ask.
Hazel just nods, her eyes up toward the ceiling.
“Not at all,” I say, and then I hear someone shout my name.
I turn, and Niko’s waving at me from a long, beat up metal table.
“That looks like your father’s aide Nikolai,” Hazel says, sounding confused.
“That’s because it is,” I say.
“Someone who works for your father is here?” she asks, sounding suspicious.
I chuckle and lead her over. Niko’s already half-drunk, grinning at me, his arm around his girlfriend Marina. He’s at the table with a few other friends, and they all wave as we walk over.
“You did bring the American girl,” Niko says in Russian. “I thought so.”
Hazel’s eyebrows go up at Amerikanskaya.
“This is Hazel,” I say to the table in English. I know they all speak it perfectly. Niko just wants to rag me about this.
Hazel takes a deep breath, then nods.
“Hello again, Nikolai,” she says.
Niko laughs.
“You can call me Niko when we’re not in the palace,” he says.
Hazel relaxes visibly.
“Thank God,” she says. “I think Svelorian introductions are gonna kill me one of these days.”
I go around the table and everyone introduces themselves: Marina, Niko’s girlfriend, Sergei and Dmitri, who were in the Guard with me, and Dmitri’s girlfriend Sofia.
We sit, putting the motorcycle helmets on the floor behind us. Two dark beers appear in front of us. Niko shouts a toast to pretty girls and dark nights or some nonsense, and we all drink.
“Did Kostya bring you around so we’d impress you with his war stories?” Sergei asks. He’s flushed, his curly brown hair sticking up in every direction.
Hazel laughs.
“Is that why Kostya brought me?” she asks, leaning her chin on her hand and turning toward me, laughter in her eyes.
“If I wanted to impress you with war stories I’d tell them myself,” I say. “These assholes will only tell you about all the times I made everyone get out of bed and into defensive positions in the middle of the night because I heard a squirrel.”
“You know us too well,” says Dmitri.
“True,” I say, and everyone laughs.
I sneak another glance at Hazel. She looks a little confused, still, but she’s laughing along with the group.
“The palace is stuffy and formal,” I say, shrugging. “I thought you might want to escape for a while and go somewhere that you didn’t have to remember your manners.”
“Oh, come on,” she says. “I’m not that bad.”
“She met the king and queen in a sweatshirt and spandex pants,” I tell the group.
Marina just puts her face in her hands, and Niko pats her back.
“I’d just gotten off a thirteen-hour train ride, and I didn’t know I’d be meeting them,” she says, but she’s laughing. “And I never even told you what happened on the train.”