Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (best color ereader .TXT) 📗

body was slumped over the door. There was a series of sharp cracks, and the top half of the corpse fell out of the vehicle with a crash.

“That better not start to thaw on those seats,” Ambrose snarled, throwing a scowl toward Milo as he advanced, rifle still at his shoulder. “You better get out of that car right now!”

The officer peeked his head over the edge of the armored door, spotted the rifle, and nearly ducked down, but Ambrose’s venomous warning stopped him.

“Don’t you even!”

So slowly it was almost comical, the officer climbed out of the vehicle with his hands raised, palms open.

“Where were you going?” Milo asked, planting the cane in front of him. “Isn’t Comrade Stalin addressing the troops tonight?”

The officer, standing before them with both hands open, looked odd to Milo. His uniform did not fit him, apparently made for a man who was of a taller, more robust figure than the bookish, round-shouldered creature wearing it. With a broad forehead made even larger by a balding pate and small spectacles on his beady eyes, he seemed more suited to clerking than soldiering. His gray-speckled mustache made a bold play, but it left him as perhaps arch-secretary of the clerks at best.

For all this, when the man spoke, it was in a clear, unshaken voice.

“He sent you to retrieve me then,” the officer said, casting a measuring glance over the trio, his eyes lingering longest on Rihyani. “Koba’s variety of agents is growing more eclectic by the day.”

He paused long enough to eye the marred shoulder of his ill-fitting jacket.

“A little brazen, but your point is made.”

Milo fought to keep the easy manner he’d adopted in the face of having no clue what the man was talking about. Striking a confident swagger, he strolled toward the Rolls-Royce, wearing the half-smile, half-snarl he’d perfected as a criminal youth.

“I think it would be an awful shame if you missed the excitement,” he said, his voice softening to a menacing whisper as he drew up next to the cab. “Supposed to be quite the show.”

The clerk in officer’s clothing lowered his hands centimeter by centimeter even as he glowered at Milo, his mustachioed lips puckered in disapproval.

“First time you see that dwarf crank his damned organ, it’s all very impressive, but after so many times, I’ve lost the stomach for it. I understand why Koba uses the little freak, but I don’t see how it helps anything for me to stay here. In fact, judging from your methods, I imagine you probably understand how it works better than I do, and just so you know, this is him showing off.”

Here he paused and looked at his driver’s split corpse, failing to repress a shiver. Despite this, when he spoke again, his voice was steady as ever.

“But he can have his puppeteer parades because there is business in the north that needs addressing. Yezhov is a useful little animal, but he’s neither an effective commander nor a proficient diplomat, which is why he hasn’t reported since going north. I’m going up there to sort things out before he sets everything north of the Caucasus Mountains on fire.”

Milo’s mind was racing to process everything the man mentioned with the casual assurance of someone in the know. This clerk was someone to Stalin, and important enough that he expected that Stalin’s agents wouldn’t intentionally kill him. Also, the forces they sent to Shatili hadn’t reported, and this fact made Milo smile.

His surprise for the Reds must have worked after all.

“Oh, I don’t imagine you’ll be hearing from Yezhov anytime soon,” Milo said. He didn’t bother to hide his wicked grin.

The man frowned down at Milo and heaved a sigh.

“I suppose it was only a matter of time.” He nodded. “He only needs one poisonous dwarf, and his new one, while more disturbing, is certainly more useful.”

Milo surreptitiously glanced at Rihyani and Ambrose, and their expressions matched his own feelings. This man was painting quite the chilling picture of what it was like to serve in the regime of the Butcher of Petrograd but also assuring that he was going to join Stalin, tied up in the bed of the Rolls Royce.

Milo nodded at Ambrose, who shouldered his rifle and fetched one of the straps of the newly repurposed harness.

“Is that necessary?” the man asked, sounding more irritated than distressed. “You made your point, and I’ll go willingly.”

Milo hopped up onto the running board so he was face to face with the man.

“Trust me, you’ll be thankful for it before the night’s over,” Milo said as he reached inside and tugged the door open and then sprang back onto the street. “Now, if you please?”

In the central plaza of Tiflis, the conscripts had been forced into rough ranks by their captors and now stood shivering with a combination of fear and cold as the night time temperature began to plummet.

A stage had been erected in front of the Parliament building, with a series of amplifiers arranged to blast over the square. A tangle of cables ran to a single microphone at the center of the stage. Behind the stage, a glistening red curtain hung heavily, shielding whoever emerged from the Parliament building from the view of those in the square.

Thus, none but a handful of technicians scurrying about backstage saw the odd coterie that emerged and began the slow walk up the ramp that led from the Parliament building’s steps to the stage. The conscripted men and women in the square hardly noticed the faint hum of the amplifiers coming on as they looked around, calculating. More than one of them had noticed that though they at first seemed surrounded by rifle-toting soldiers, there was only a thin line stretched between their serried ranks. Having had a few minutes in the growing cold to liven their senses, many of them began to cast about, and before long, some were even whispering.

They had their kidnappers ten to one, if not twenty to