Snowmelt turned the city to slush.
By morning, the white that had softened the night’s chaos was a grey, churned mess along the curbs. The protest clips ran on every channel: grainy footage of candles and chanting, slowed-down shots of tear gas canisters arcing through the air, commentators talking over footage of Mira at the mic, her hair frizzing in the static, her eyes bright with anger.
“They’re replaying you on loop,” Dima said, grim and fascinated, as they huddled around the office computer. “Congratulations. You’re a symbol.”
“I look like I got hit by a bus,” she said, wincing at a still frame of herself mid-sentence, mouth contorted.
“You look real,” he said. “People like that.”
“They also like train wrecks,” she muttered.
Aleksandr watched silently, leaning against the window, arms folded. His reflection didn’t show in the glass, so the image on the screen seemed to exist in isolation: Mira at the gate, a lone figure against a dark background of stone and uniforms.
“It is… effective,” he said finally. “Your… face. There. With… theirs.”
“Theirs?” she asked.
“The… missing,” he said. “The… mourners. You… belong… to their… story… now. Not… just… to your… footnotes.”
She swallowed.
Onscreen, an older woman held up a photo of a man in his forties, smiling awkwardly. Under it, a news chyron read: “WHERE IS SERGEI M.?”
“It’s not… my… story,” she said. “It’s theirs.”
He tilted his head. “It is… both,” he said. “That is… the problem. And the… power.”
Her phone vibrated on the desk.
Yulia.
She snatched it up.
“Alive?” Yulia’s voice crackled. “Not arrested? Not trampled?”
“Mostly,” Mira said. “You?”
“I got knocked down, lost my favorite pen, and my camera smells like gas,” Yulia said. “Best night I’ve had in months.”
“You’re unwell,” Mira said.
“Yes,” Yulia said cheerfully. “Also, they’re already talking about a ‘thorough investigation into protesters’ foreign ties’ on morning shows, so you’ve truly made it.”
“Fantastic,” Mira muttered.
“Listen,” Yulia went on. “We need to meet. Somewhere… boring. I have… things. And I think… they’re going to move sooner than we thought.”
“Who?” Mira asked. “Kalugin? The commission? The vampire council?”
There was a brief, telling pause.
“Yes,” Yulia said. “All of them. Pick a café without character and text me the address.”
***
They chose a chain coffee shop in a mall.
It was anonymous, harshly lit, and smelled of burnt espresso and air freshener. The perfect place to be no one.
Mira sat with her back to a wall, routine now. Aleksandr occupied the chair beside her, a magazine open in front of him, his posture carefully slouched. To anyone watching, he was a bored boyfriend dragged along to another of his girlfriend’s moral crusade meetings.
Yulia arrived ten minutes late, hair tucked under a beanie, oversized coat making her look smaller than usual. She carried a messenger bag that looked like it had been used to smuggle more than just documents.
“You brought your… shadow,” she said, nodding at Aleksandr.
“He casts less than most,” Mira said.
Yulia’s eyes flicked to his face, sharp. “I still don’t know who you are,” she said to him. “And I hate that.”
“That is… healthy,” he said.
She snorted, then pulled a laptop and a folder from her bag.
“Okay,” she said, snapping into business mode. “First: the cannery story is getting traction. Not as much as the ‘tear gas at protest’ clips, but enough. I’ve got more former staff talking. One of them says he saw deliveries at odd hours. Refrigerated trucks. No hospital logos. The paperwork went through a shell company tied to Kalugin’s network.”
“Did he see… any… patients?” Mira asked. “Any… evidence of… experiments?”
“Not directly,” Yulia said. “They kept the interesting stuff two floors up and three doors over. Classic. But he did see… bodies… being moved out. Bags. Not always tagged. Sometimes… burned. And he overheard words like ‘protocol’ and ‘tolerance threshold.’”
Mira’s skin crawled. “We need… something… more concrete,” she said. “Photos. Internal memos. Anything…”
Yulia slid the folder across the table.
“Ask and you shall receive,” she said. “Our friend in the records office came through. These are… not supposed to exist.”
Mira opened the folder carefully.
Inside: printouts of emails, screenshots, scanned forms.
One header: KALUGIN BIOTECH – INTERNAL USE ONLY.
She read.
Subject: Subject 17 – Reaction to UV cycle 3 (05:30–07:00)
Findings: Increased dermal resistance observed. Burn threshold raised by approx. 12%. Subject exhibited heightened aggression but remained confined. Recommend escalation to cycle 4 with sedative support.
Her eyes stung.
“Subject 17,” she whispered.
Aleksandr went utterly still beside her.
“Seventeen,” he said quietly. “That is… at least… that many… before him.”
“And this,” Yulia said, tapping another page, “mentions an ‘anomalous sample – Morozov line.’”
Mira’s head snapped up. “What?”
Yulia nodded grimly. “It’s from a few months ago. Around the time you started your… charming campaign to save the estate. Someone flagged a sample as ‘genetically interesting – temporal discrepancy.’”
“Temporal…” Mira began, then her brain caught up. “They got… *his*… blood.”
Aleksandr’s jaw clenched. “From… when,” he said. “How.”
Yulia’s gaze flicked between them. “You want to tell me something?” she asked.
Mira exhaled. “When we found him,” she said quietly, “in the… crypt… there was… blood. Old. On the stone. In the… coffin. Some of it… might have… seeped. Someone… could have… taken… a sample… later. In the ‘90s. Or… recently. If they… knew where to look.”
“Or,” Yulia said, “someone… got… some… more… recently.”
They all thought it. None said it.
“Either way,” Yulia went on, “they’re… trying to use… his… line… to do… something. Whether it’s what you saw in the tank… or something else… I don’t know.”
Mira fought down a wave of nausea.
“We have to… shut it down,” she said.
“No argument,” Yulia said. “But we have to be… strategic. Kalugin’s people are sniffing around my site. They’ve tried phishing my email. Someone followed one of my interns home yesterday. We’re getting… close. Too close. If I push one more piece… they’ll come at me hard.”
“Then don’t… push… alone,” Aleksandr said quietly.
Yulia blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You have… allies,” he said. “Use them. Her.” He nodded at Mira. “Them.” He jerked his chin toward the vague direction of Irina’s presence. “Do not… make yourself… the… only… target.”
She studied him.
“You’re very… invested,” she said.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“You’re not… going to tell me why,” she said.
“No,” he said.
She sighed. “I hate secrets,” she muttered. “Except when they’re mine.”
Mira leaned forward. “What do you need?” she asked. “Specifically. To… feel… less exposed.”
“Diversions,” Yulia said promptly. “Other scandals. Other shiny things. You start a fire over here—” she jerked her chin to the right “—and their PR people will have to split attention. That buys me time to dig deeper on the cannery and the clinics. Also, if you can get someone inside with a camera that doesn’t scream ‘journalist’ from fifty meters…”
She trailed off, looking at Mira appraisingly.
“No,” Mira said immediately.
“I wasn’t going to ask you,” Yulia said. “I like you too much. But you probably know someone,” she added slyly. Her gaze slid to Aleksandr. “Someone who doesn’t show up on footage.”
Mira tensed.
“You can’t… go in there again,” she told him. “Not… like this. Not… with them… aware… we’re watching.”
“I agree,” he said.
It surprised her enough that she stared.
“You… agree,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said. “Once… was… too close. Twice… is… suicide. We need… another… approach.”
“That’s a first,” Yulia muttered. “A man saying ‘no’ to being sent into danger.”
“I have… grown,” he said dryly.
Mira chewed her lower lip.
“If we can’t… get… inside… physically,” she said slowly, “we use… what you already saw. What Kira… saw. The notes. The emails. We build… a picture… strong enough… that any inspector… with half a conscience… has to… act.”
“You assume… they have one,” Yulia said.
“I assume… some… of them… are… afraid… of… being… the ones… left holding… the bag… when this… blows up,” Mira said. “Self-preservation… can look… a lot like ethics… from the right angle.”
Yulia’s mouth twitched. “You’re cynical,” she said. “I approve.”
They mapped out a rough plan: staggered releases, anonymous tips to certain international watchdogs, a leaked letter from a fictitious “concerned employee” to the health ministry. Nothing that screamed “vampire,” everything that screamed “lawsuit.”
As they talked, a message from Irina slid into Mira’s phone.
— We move on the cannery in three nights. Be ready.
Mira’s heart thudded.
She showed the screen to Aleksandr under the table.
His eyes darkened.
Yulia watched their silent exchange, suspicion flickering across her face.
“You two are hiding something huge from me,” she said. “And I hate it. But I also… somehow… trust you. Which I hate more.”
Mira managed a strained smile. “Welcome to my world,” she said.
Yulia snorted. “Fine,” she said. “Keep your… gothic secrets. Just… don’t die. I have enough martyrs.”
“We’ll… do our best,” Mira said.
“Do better,” Yulia said, packing up her folder. “My articles read better with sources who can still answer follow-up questions.”
***
That night, Kira came to the apartment again.
She brought cheap pastries dusted with powdered sugar and a bottle of something that claimed to be wine and smelled like regret.
“Fancy,” Mira said, setting the box on the table.
Kira shrugged. “You asked for… sugar,” she said. “This… is… sugar… with… some… flour… around it.”
Aleksandr eyed the pastries with suspicion. “They look… like… clouds,” he said.
“Sugar bombs,” Mira corrected. “Perfect.”
They sat around the table, the worst of the papers shoved aside, the cheap bottle open. Kira poured a little into each glass, wrinkling her nose.
“You don’t… drink,” Mira said, remembering.
“Not… for… effect,” Kira said. “But… sometimes… for… nostalgia.”
They clinked glasses.
“To… terrible decisions,” Kira said.
“To making them… on purpose,” Mira added.
Aleksandr raised his glass with resigned amusement. “To… being… outvoted,” he said.
They drank.
The wine was as bad as promised. Kira grinned at Mira’s grimace.
“See?” she said. “Regret. In a bottle.”
“Let’s… do this… before… I change my mind,” Mira said, setting her glass down.
They moved to the living room.
This time, they’d thought it through.
Pillows on the floor. A blanket. A bowl of sugar cubes and some fruit juice for the inevitable crash. Damp towels in case anyone bled more than expected.
“I hate that this is becoming… a thing,” Mira muttered, settling cross-legged.
“Ritual helps,” Aleksandr said, kneeling opposite her. “It… makes… the chaos… feel… contained.”
Kira sat to the side, close enough to reach, far enough not to crowd.
“Ready?” she asked.
“No,” Mira said. “But… do it anyway.”
Kira took Mira’s hand, palm up.
Her skin was cold, but not as cold as Aleksandr’s. There was a faint tremor in it that might have been nerves.
“You sure?” Kira asked quietly, searching her face.
“Yes,” Mira said. “Show me.”
Kira nodded.
She bit her own fingertip, sharp and quick. Dark blood welled.
“Open,” she said.
Mira did.
Kira let a single drop fall onto Mira’s tongue.
It tasted different than Aleksandr’s. Sharper. Smokier. There was a metallic core, yes, but wrapped in something like salt and ash and the memory of cigarettes in stairwells.
“Breathe,” Aleksandr murmured.
Mira did.
The room blurred. The taste swelled. The thread tightened.
Then she was *there.*
***
Cold.
Not city winter cold. Not drafty-apartment cold.
Siberia cold.
It seeped through walls, through bones, icy fingers in every crack. The air tasted of iron and metal and the faint tang of something chemical trying and failing to cover the scent of bodies.
She—no, Kira—was shackled to a bed. Metal cuffs bit into her wrists and ankles. Thin fabric clung to her, hospital-white and useless against the chill.
Men moved around the room in lab coats, breath puffing in the air.
They spoke Russian, but the cadence was clipped, clinical.
“…Subject K-3…”
“…pre-administration at 0900…”
“…note the regenerative response…”
A needle slid into the crook of her arm.
Kira’s heart—Mira’s heart in the vision—raced.
“You… do not… need… to narrate,” Aleksandr’s voice murmured faintly, distant. “Just… feel… enough…”
Too late.
The drug burned. It was like fire in her veins, but a cold fire, numbing and searing at once. Her vision blurred.
“Monitor,” someone said. “Record the time to… response.”
Light crashed.
Sunlight.
Real, unfiltered, pouring through a suddenly unshuttered window directly onto her exposed skin.
Pain.
Like nothing Mira had ever known, even in the borrowed scraps from Aleksandr. Every cell screamed. Her skin didn’t just burn; it *rebelled.* Her body tried to flee itself.
She heard a sound and realized it was her own voice, ragged, inhuman.
“Note: Subject K-3 exhibits extreme photosensitivity at baseline,” a calm voice said, as if commenting on the weather. “No measurable improvement after serum B.”
The shutters slid closed with a metal clank.
The pain receded. Slowly. Too slowly.
Mira wanted to vomit.
Kira gasped, chest heaving, tears mixing with the faint smoke that rose from her skin.
“Sedate,” someone said.
A prick. Darkness.
Time fractured.
Scenes stuttered past.
Being forced to drink blood laced with chemicals that made her limbs heavy and her mind foggy. Needles. UV lamps. Cold baths. Being dunked into water so frigid it felt like knives, then dragged out and exposed to light again, as if they were trying to find a combination that made her both invulnerable and obedient.
“Imagine,” Kira’s voice whispered somewhere in it, raw and bitter. “They wanted… us… to be… *soldiers.*”
Mira saw glimpses of documents: stamped with Soviet seals, marked “Secret,” full of phrases like “combat applications” and “enhanced resilience.”
She saw other subjects.
Some looked like Kira; some older, some barely more than kids. Some didn’t scream anymore.
She saw one taken away and not returned. The emptiness on the bed where he’d been hurt more than the needles.
She saw men in uniforms arguing with men in coats. Money changed hands in thick envelopes.
She saw a night.
An alarm blaring faintly in the distance. Boots running in corridors. The lab coats moving more quickly, packing files into boxes, wheeling gurneys toward a freight elevator.
“Orders from Moscow,” someone hissed. “Shut it down. Now.”
“What about the subjects?” another asked.
“Priorities,” the first snapped. “Data first.”
Fire.
Not the slow, candle burn of religious icon corners, but roaring explosions. Someone—maybe the guards, maybe the scientists, maybe a third party—had decided that the easiest way to erase evidence was to incinerate it.
Smoke poured under the lab door.
Kira’s chains were still on.
She coughed, lungs filling with heat and ash.
She thought, with wild, bitter clarity: *This is it. Not a stake. Not the sun. A bureaucrat’s match.*
The door crashed open.
Not men in coats.
A woman.
Thin. Hard-eyed. Hair hacked short.
Irina.
Even younger than now—but not *human-young.* Her eyes held decades.
She snapped Kira’s cuffs with inhuman ease, metal shrieking.
“Up,” Irina said. “Now.”
Kira’s legs didn’t work. Irina hauled her over one shoulder as if she were laundry.
Smoke. Shouting. The crackle of fire eating paper and plaster and potentially years of “data.”
“Others—” Kira croaked, reaching weakly toward the other beds.
“Too late,” Irina said, voice like flint. “I can carry one. You’re the one Elizaveta… insisted on.”
The name pierced the haze.
*Elizaveta.*
Kira tried to fight her.
“Leave me,” she gasped. “Take him—” She gestured at a young boy on the next bed, eyes half-open, skin blistering. “He’s… just… a child—”
“He is… nothing… to her,” Irina snapped. “You… are… leverage.”
Mira’s stomach twisted.
They plunged through corridors half-collapsed, half-burning. Men shouted. Someone fired a gun. It barely registered.
They burst into the icy night, the heat of the burning building at their backs like a second sun.
Snow fell, hissing as it hit the flames.
Irina dumped Kira into the back of a waiting truck.
“Drive,” she told the pale man at the wheel.
He did.
Kira lay there, shaking, watching the lab—her prison, her torture chamber—shrink in the back window.
It collapsed inward with a roar.
Files. Data. Bodies.
Gone.
“What about the others?” Kira whispered.
Irina didn’t look at her. “Collateral,” she said.
“Like us,” Kira said bitterly.
Irina’s jaw clenched. “Like… everyone,” she said.
The scene blurred.
Mira was back on the floor of her apartment, gasping, fingers clutching at the pillow.
Aleksandr’s hands hovered near her, not quite touching, as if afraid she’d shatter.
Kira sat slumped against the sofa, eyes dark, jaw tight.
“Fuck,” Mire croaked. “Fuck.”
Kira huffed a humorless laugh. “You… have a… limited… vocabulary,” she said hoarsely.
“It’s… sufficient,” Mira said.
Her throat burned. She reached blindly for the glass of water Aleksandr pressed into her hand and drank, the coolness shocking.
“You saw,” Kira said.
“Yes,” Mira managed. “Enough.”
“Do you understand… now,” Kira asked quietly, “why we… burned… some… things? Why… Irina… made… bargains… you… find… ugly.”
Mira’s mind replayed the fire. The chain. The boy on the bed.
“Yes,” she said, voice raw. “I… understand. I… don’t… agree… with… every… choice. But I… understand.”
Kira’s shoulders loosened a fraction.
“Good,” she said. “Then when we… decide… what to do… with Kalugin’s… toys… you… won’t… ask… us… to… leave… everyone… alive.”
Mira closed her eyes briefly.
“No,” she said. “I… won’t.”
Silence pulsed between them.
“You… risked… much… to show… her,” Aleksandr said to Kira quietly. “Thank you.”
Kira shrugged one shoulder. “We… all… risk… something,” she said. “She… does. Too much. I… can do… this.”
She stood, wobbling only slightly.
“Eat… sugar,” she told Mira gruffly. “Or you’ll… crash… and Irina will… call me… irresponsible.”
Mira managed a shaky smile. “Yes, mom,” she muttered.
Kira snorted and disappeared into the kitchen in search of the pastries.
Aleksandr shifted closer to Mira on the floor.
“Are you… with me,” he asked softly. “Here. Now.”
She looked up at him.
“Yes,” she said. “Unfortunately.”
He half-smiled. “You keep… doing this,” he said. “Taking… our… worst… nights… into… your… head. Why?”
“Because someone… has to… remember,” she whispered. “And… because… I’d rather… carry… the weight… with you… than… leave you… alone with it.”
His throat worked.
“I have… never… had… that,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“Someone… who… *chooses*… to… share… the… worst,” he said. “Not… for… power. Not… for… curiosity. For… me.”
Her chest ached.
“Get used to it,” she said, voice wobbling. “You’re… stuck… with me.”
He reached out, cupped her face, and kissed her.
It was not gentle.
It was not polite.
It was a clash of teeth and breath and the metallic ghost of other people’s blood still on her tongue. It was desperate and angry and grounding all at once.
She kissed him back, fingers fisting in his shirt, needing the anchor, needing him here, *now*, not in some burning lab or stone coffin.
His hands slid into her hair, holding her in place, not trapping, just *there.*
When they broke apart, both breathing harder, tears had slid down her temples without her noticing.
He wiped one away with his thumb.
“You… are… terrifying,” he said softly.
“You’re… welcome,” she said, voice thick.
Kira reappeared in the doorway with a pastry in hand, took one look at them, and smirked.
“Good,” she said. “You’re… learning… to use… each other… for something… other than… pain.”
“Progress,” Aleksandr muttered.
They ate sugary clouds and drank bad wine and, for a precious hour, let the ghosts wait outside.
***