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Same day. Sorry for the delay, I hate being the person who says they'll update and then takes a week to post one chapter. Agh. Anyway, you've arrived at the big make-or-break one...read away....
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"You mean you didn't have a plan?"
Vlad's disbelieving question came from where he crouched on the safe side of the palace gate---after all, who knew what measures Rasputin had gone to to keep the captives captive? Dimitri was right beside him, and he didn't look amused.
"I'm working on it, okay?"
"I can't believe you don't have a plan."
He gestured to his beggar's clothes and to the evil-drenched palace. "Do I look like a guy who plans things?"
"I mean, you don't just rush into a dangerous situation like this without a plan."
"Will you quit with the plan?"
Dropping the conversation, Dimitri slid over just a little and peered through the wrought-iron gate to the enormous palace on the other side. It looked a lot darker than usual, and it looked as if all the doors and windows had been welded shut. There was no way in or out---no way but one.
He sat back down. "All right, we need a plan."
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None of them had spoken. Nicholas had asked them if anyone had any ideas, and that was five minutes ago, and no one had said a word.
Finally Anastasia lifted her head from the desk. "What about Dimitri?"
The rest of the kids were silent, knowing he'd come running if he only knew. But would it be enough? Alexandra, however, looked doubtful.
"Now, sweetheart, I don't think that's going to happen. He's no match for Rasputin. It would be suicide to even think of going up against that unholy fraud." Her discrimination toward the boy had diminished somewhat, but as much as she prayed to be rescued, she secretly hoped it would be by anyone else.
"We have to hold on to what hope we can," Nicholas reasoned, and tore the Wednesday sheet from the calendar.
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Rasputin looked intently into the orb of green smoke that poured from the reliquary. The sweet little "family" scene he'd just witnessed made his revenge all the more perfect.
"I know your secret, princess," he murmured. "It will be most entertaining to watch you watch him die." The old monk focused all his thoughts on the reliquary. "Show him to me. Show me the boy."
The circle of fog dissipated for a split second, then swirled back to life, this time playing a new image. He saw an older man first, and then the younger one came into view, exactly as he expected.
"Perfect," Rasputin cooed. "So, boy, what do you value more? The princess, or your life? Hurry. The clock is ticking. For both of you."
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"Remember, when I get in there, you stay by the ballroom and whistle if he's coming. Create a distraction if you have to."
Vlad gave Dimitri---who was in the middle of prying open one of his old sneak-out exits in the back paneling---a sour look. "That's the brilliant plan? The man is a...a demon, and you're suggesting I be the lookout."
"Yep. Unless you've got a better idea."
Vlad thought about that, then began to pull at the wall panel in resignation. "Let me help you with that."
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There was nothing to do but wait. Not anymore. Sure, they could have occupied themselves with any number of the amenities in the girls' room, but their concerns went beyond just boredom now. So all they did was wait. Wait to be rescued, or wait for the unthinkable---which, conveniently, nobody thought about. At least out loud.
After a while there was a noise, one that no one could identify. All seven Romanovs looked up---a noise like that in these circumstances could only mean either impending danger or salvation.
It was the latter. At the far end of the room, the family was shocked to see a section of the paneling being cracked from the other side. When the wall opened, their last hope entered the room.
"Dimitri!" Anastasia was the first on her feet. She bounded over to him and threw her arms around him; she would have kissed him, too, but her mother was right there, and she didn't want to kill her. "How did you---"
"I'll explain everything later," Dimitri interrupted, holding up a hand to stop her. "Everybody come with me right now."
"You have my gratitude, son," Nicholas said with a nod, and without hesitation every Romanov headed for the hidden exit.
But as Dimitri helped Tatiana, then Maria into the wall, he heard a long, sharp whistle. He didn't need a sense of direction to know it was coming from the ballroom.
"Hurry! He's coming."
The family doubled their speed, and soon Olga, Alexei, and Anya disappeared safely into the black corridor, though Anya was hesitant to go without him, or her parents. A good shove and a "Go" was quick to change that.
Alexandra had been in frail health, so Dimitri and Nicholas assisted her in bending to fit the small space. Before she followed her children, she turned to Dimitri. "If we live through this, remind me to thank you."
"You can thank me later."
A terrible roar of angered minions was filling the palace---clearly Rasputin was onto them, and was wasting no time on the element of surprise. No, he was coming---and he wanted it known.
Nicholas stepped back. "Go. Hurry."
But Dimitri didn't budge. For the first time in his pathetic servant's life, he stood tall, and looked his Tsar in the eye. "No sir."
Nicholas didn't quite know what to make of this. Still, he wasn't about to let the gesture be in vain. "Thank you," he said before following his family to safety, and he meant it more than he could say. Dimitri went in after him, and quickly pulled the wall back into place.
"Keep going straight until you see an opening," he shouted ahead to Tatiana.
"Where are you going?"
"I've got a stop to make. Don't worry, I can handle it." At that, he took a different tunnel, and ran until he came to yet another secret entrance.
Pushing this wall open, he stuck just his head into the room and looked around. "Vlad!" he whisper-shouted. "Vlad!"
Out of nowhere, Vlad came tearing back into the room as fast as his legs would take him. He almost toppled Dimitri over barreling back into the wall.
"What are you doing?"
"Let's just say getting out of here would be the first idea."
Right on Vlad's heels, it turned out, appeared a cloud of the little green minions, and they did not look happy.
"You were supposed to cause a distraction!"
"This is the distraction!"
Dimitri slammed the wall back into place, and he and Vlad took off down the corridor. At last, they came up on the light at the end of the tunnel, and both of them crashed out into the yard.
The Romanovs were right there waiting, and Nicholas looked down to discover Vlad in an upside-down heap. "Count Vladimir?"
Vlad scrambled to his feet, brushing the dust from his clothes, trying to get even a shred of his dignity back. "Ahem. Your majesties."
"Come on," Dimitri interrupted. "We have to get out of---"
He didn't get to finish that sentence. Above them, a terrible haze was swirling around the palace, and behind them, a chilling voice stopped them cold.
"Going so soon? But the party's just getting started."
Bartok had been on his shoulder up 'till this point, but now he flew off and perched safely on a gargoyle. "You're on your own sir! This can only end in tears!"
The ragged old monk glared his cruel glare at the nine before him. "You think you can escape me?" he challenged. "We'll see about that."
He raised the hand with the reliquary high into the air, the dark creatures within shot in every direction, and before anyone could blink, the gargoyles and statues around the edge of the roof began to move. Like angered lions, they leapt for the ground and stalked in the direction of the royal family.
"Now, Romanovs, you will meet your end," Rasputin cackled, and to top it off, he aimed the reliquary once more. Dimitri fell to his knees, choked by a rope of minions. "You and your loyal servants!"
"No!"
Failure seemed imminent. The Romanovs were surrounded like hunted prey in its last moments; Vlad was pinned to the ground; and for Dimitri, everything was going dark fast. Above them, Bartok couldn't watch.
The Tsar was lost. He couldn't protect his children from this, much as he wished he could. Anastasia could see that just by glancing at them in that slowed-down moment in time, huddled together in a mass of despair.
She wasn't ready to go. Or to watch her family be destroyed, or to lose the one whose pain right now was the number one reason she wanted to kick Rasputin where it counted. She wasn't ready, but there was no way out of this.
Especially if nobody tried.
Time sped back up. Rasputin, it seemed, was finally living the dream. "Long live the Romanovs!" he managed to laugh.
"Right!" He stopped laughing. He looked. "I couldn't have said it better myself!"
Thinking fast, Anastasia picked up a rock from the ground, slightly smaller than a baseball, and threw it as hard as she could, praying to hit her mark. Rasputin watched, horrified, as it smashed into his precious reliquary, shattering it into a cloud of smoke and glass.
"No!"
All around them was dark light and deafening noise. The gargoyles began to crumble into chunks of stone, split apart by rays of orange beaming out from within. The minions from the reliquary swirled into a skyward funnel around Rasputin, and the others could only watch in disbelief as their one enemy screamed his last, writhed and dissolved away. All was calm once more.
When the dust cleared, literally, Anastasia broke away from her shaken but otherwise unharmed family, ran to where Dimitri lay unconscious, and dropped to her knees beside him. The rest of them followed her and stood back with concern, staying silent.
"Dimitri," Anya was saying. "Come on, Dimitri, wake up."
It didn't look like he would. But just as the rest of them began to expect the worst, he coughed. Anya had never been so grateful for a cough in all her life.
With a groan, he started to sit up, and the second he did she sprang forward and threw her arms around his neck.
"Ow ow ow ow ow, let go let go..."
"Sorry." She moved back just as fast.
"What you've done today was very brave," Nicholas said. "You risked your life for us. I couldn't be more grateful."
Alexandra took a tentative step forward. There was something she wanted to ask, and she wasn't so sure how to do it. Maybe starting now, she decided, would be a good time to work on these things. "Why would you do something like that?"
Dimitri was just concentrating on getting up off the ground. He was done pretending to be something he wasn't. "Either I'm in love with your daughter or I really want my job back," he stated, plain and simple.
No one had seen that coming. "What?"
"Yeah, what?" Anya echoed, and then she lowered her voice. "Did you just say what I think you just said?"
"Yeah," he answered, getting to his feet, "I did." He was prepared to be banished if neccesary, to walk out of that yard forever.
Anya stood up too. Suddenly it didn't matter that her whole family was watching them. Her eyes never left his for a second.
"I love you too."
There was only a second more of silence, and then; "Anastasia!"
She whirled around at the sound of her mother's voice, expecting to find her fuming mad, 'how-dare-you,' blah blah blah. Instead, to her surprise---to everyone's surprise---Alexandra was smiling.
"For heaven's sakes, dear, kiss the boy."
This time, the girl was more than happy to follow her mother's orders.
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Phew! That's a lot to happen in one chapter. Finally the psycho's gone, nobody's dead, and at last Alexandra approves. X) But we're not done yet. Two chapters to go. Stay tuned, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!! =)
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