2026-08-05 20:11:04Vladivostok, Kosmonavtov Street, Building 78 — Same Time
“What kind of idiot leaves the keys in the ignition?”
Yuri was furious.
“Bibikov, you fucking moron!”
“Yura, everyone knows it's our car,” Artyom protested. “Nobody would dare steal it.”
“Blah-blah-blah…”
Yuri barely listened.
While they'd been waiting for the car, they'd been watching Dushny's movements.
Dushny.
What a ridiculous surname. Yuri could already imagine the nickname the guy must have had among his classmates.
Dushnoy. Dushila.
Something along those lines. But none of that mattered now. Dushny had reached Fort No. 1.
And he'd stayed there.
Yuri looked up as a black Land Cruiser pulled into view.
“Okay.”
He straightened. “Everybody move.”
Fort No. 1
“What is this place?”
I stared through the windshield.
The concrete structure that supposedly passed for Fort No. 1 looked abandoned. No guards. No tourists. No lights.
Nothing.
I drove onto the grounds without any trouble and parked in what looked like a makeshift parking area.
“This is Fort No. 1,” Virgo explained. “It's also known as Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich's Fort.”
“Okay…”
I looked around.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Where exactly am I? And why am I here?”
“Wait here for a while.”
Virgo’s voice was calm.
“Then the people chasing you won't be your problem anymore.”
That sounded ominously final.
“Now get out.”
“What?”
“Go down the stairs. Then find the ammunition storage.”
I stared at the entrance.
“That's assuming I know where it is.”
I got out anyway.
The stairs led underground. I descended and immediately found myself surrounded by darkness.
It was already night outside.
Down here, it felt like I'd stepped into a concrete tomb.
No windows. No lights. Nothing but damp air and blackness.
I didn't like it. Not one bit.
I switched on my phone's flashlight and started down a long corridor. The beam caught rusty doorways as I passed.
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The air smelled damp and ancient.
I'd never really cared about Vladivostok's historical sights. Apparently, I was getting the full experience now. Although I seriously doubted this place offered guided tours.
“Welcome to Fort No. 1,” the guide would say. “Please mind the mold. Don't touch anything. And if you hear screaming, that's probably normal.”
The fort had once been built to defend Vladivostok from a Japanese invasion. Now its military purpose was long gone.
It had been abandoned to rot, becoming a playground for treasure hunters, history buffs, and people who enjoyed crawling around old ruins for reasons I couldn't understand.
My flashlight swept across the wall.
Then stopped.
A faded inscription.
AMMUNITION STORAGE.
There had obviously been a proper sign there once. Someone had apparently decided the sign would make a nice souvenir. All that remained was the words, sprayed in red paint.
My phone rang.
The old Nokia 7337 ringtone echoed horribly through the empty corridor. I nearly jumped.
I answered.
“The storage room is right in front of me,” I told Virgo.
I looked around.
“Now what?”
Silence.
“Where do I go?”
“You're already there.”
Something felt wrong. Very wrong. I heard her voice through the phone. But I also heard it behind me.
“You're already there.”
My blood ran cold.
I started turning.
Then the flashlight went out instantly.
The corridor disappeared into absolute darkness.
Fort No. 1 — Forty-Seven Minutes Later
They stood beside Dushny's abandoned BMW and tried to figure out what the hell he was thinking.
If Yuri had been in Dushny's position, he wouldn't have stopped anywhere.
He certainly wouldn't have parked in the middle of nowhere and practically announced, Come get me.
And he would have gotten rid of the GLONASS tracker immediately.
The kid clearly had no idea how to evade anyone.
He'd be finished soon.
“Maybe he's trying to play Rambo?” Bibikov suggested.
“What?”
Strelnikov looked at him.
“Rambo.”
“I know who Rambo is.”
Artyom gestured toward the fort.
“Maybe he figured out we were tracking the car. So he deliberately picked an isolated place where nobody would hear anything.”
Yuri stared at him.
“So we walk into the bunker, and he picks us off one at a time.”
“Something like that.”
Yuri grinned.
“You've been watching too many movies.”
He looked toward the entrance.
“Actually, this place being deserted is perfect for us. Nobody's going to hear anything.”
He checked his Saiga-12K.
“Grab your guns.”
Artyom and Igor did so.
“And stay together,” Yuri added. “If we split up, that idiot might actually have a chance.”
With the Saiga-12K in his hands, Strelnikov led the way into Fort No. 1.
The place was miserable.
Dark.
Damp.
Dead quiet.
If Yuri had been forced to describe it in one word, he'd have gone with sinister.
Something about the place felt wrong.
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.
The walls were wet.
The air probably reeked of mold, although Yuri couldn't smell much anymore. A bad case of the flu had damaged his sense of smell years ago.
Which was actually useful in his line of work.
When you spent your days cutting up corpses, there were certain smells you were better off not noticing.
His boots slapped against the concrete.
Not exactly stealthy.
But Yuri wasn't worried.
Anyone rushing him in this darkness was going to get a face full of buckshot.
Still…
Something bothered him.
Something's wrong.
Then he heard a strange wheezing sound behind him.
Yuri spun.
Igor was clutching his throat.
Blood sprayed between his fingers.
His lime-green shirt was turning red.
“What—”
Artyom spun around and immediately opened fire.
The AKS-74U erupted into the darkness.
The gunshot was deafening in the confined corridor.
Yuri’s ears rang.
He instinctively opened his mouth, trying to equalize the pressure.
“Stop!”
Artyom turned toward him.
“What?”
Something moved in the darkness.
A flash.
And Bibikov's head simply—
disappeared.
Yuri’s brain took a second to process what his eyes were seeing.
Then instinct took over.
He raised the Saiga and fired.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Nothing.
There was nobody there.
“What the f—”
Something slammed into the back of his head.
Hard.
Not hard enough to knock him out.
Yuri staggered forward, spun, and caught the next strike on the shotgun's fore-end.
A wooden club.
He stepped backward, brought the Saiga up, and fired at the figure.
The pellets tore into the man's body.
The robed idiot wearing a silver elephant mask collapsed in a mess of blood and shredded fabric.
Yuri barely had time to process what he'd just seen.
His instincts told him to turn.
He did.
Too late.
Something hit him in the side of the head.
It felt like Mike Tyson had personally decided to introduce himself.
The world went black.
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CHAPTER 99
The cultists listened attentively, even taking notes. With new spells in such short supply, apparently even this piece of necromantic nastiness qualified as a revelation.It did make me wonder, though.If necro-energy-based magic worked perfectly well in my original world, had various occult nutjobs throughout history ever used it?Take Count Cagliostro and the Count of Saint-Germain. They might have been confidence tricksters, but it was also possible they'd picked up a few tricks in some ancient ruins in Egypt or Italy.No. In Cagliostro's case, we knew for a fact that he was a cunning adventurer who didn't know a damn thing. Saint-Germain was much the same.But the druids? That was a different story.Even the ancient Romans, who knew a thing or two about torture and execution, spoke of druidic sacrifices with disgust and revulsion. The druids had slaughtered people with enthusiasm and flair, doing it on a massive scale and for practically any reason.Maybe they'd genuinely known so
CHAPTER 98
We had more spells than an idiot had candy wrappers. Why was she being so stingy with them? These morons were doomed anyway. We could practically give them the location of the Holy Grail and it wouldn't make much difference!The goods we'd ordered were stacked in crates right inside the ritual circle.Now that was a laboratory in the making.With accurate scales and proper glassware, I'd be able to measure my ingredients precisely and get closer to creating albedo than anyone else in this world.But it was too early to count my chickens.The cult of morons had assembled in full force inside the artillery tower.Present were the Maiden, Lion, Ram, and Behemoth.Cat, Dog, Bull, and Goat were supposed to be there as well, but something had happened to them…Oh, right! They'd committed suicide after their encounter with Fate.Good riddance.“Mai apse pel karata hun, daanav!” the Maiden bellowed.Bull had previously been responsible for conducting the rituals, but he'd gone off to the Land
CHAPTER 97
Russian Federation, Vladivostok, Fort No. 1 — June 20, 2021“Anyone here?” I called as I climbed down from the table.Being inside the doll was a very strange experience. I could still feel my body back in the world where I currently lived, but now there were the sensations of the doll as well—dull and cold. It was like keeping your feet in a basin of cold water for five minutes. At first, it was uncomfortable, but eventually you got used to it.Except this time, it was my entire body.The first time had felt different.“Lord Ayyubid?” someone called from the next room.As always, I was back at Fort No. 1, the place where I'd left my original world.We needed to start moving our operations elsewhere, little by little. The cops might be many things, but stupid wasn't necessarily one of them.Sure, there were plenty of useless uniformed officers. They'd been recruiting some of those guys through job advertisements since the early 2000s, after all. But investigators were different. They
CHAPTER 96
“Don’t buy that bread,” Astrid said, indicating a stall with a glance. “I’ve heard a lot about Rhomaioi bread, and that one is bottom of the barrel.”I examined the stall she’d pointed out. The loaves were round, like large country bread, but without any of the fancy decorative touches I was used to. Each had a simple cross-shaped cut on top. Their color was an unhealthy-looking gray, and some were burnt in places.I wouldn’t have bought that stuff either.“Let’s get ours from that stall instead,” Astrid said, pointing to the neighboring vendor.The loaves there were the same shape, but they looked much more like proper bread to me. They had golden-brown crusts and, generally speaking, looked a lot closer to what I considered edible.“How much?” I asked.“One keration per loaf,” the seller replied.And what the hell was a keration?At this rate, figuring out the Byzantine monetary system was going to give me a brain aneurysm.“That’s half a miliarisium,” Astrid helpfully explained.“G
CHAPTER 95
And now, standing in the middle of this square, I was looking at people who needed nothing more than accordions in their hands to complete the childhood image burned into my brain.They were speaking a language I couldn't understand. Old Russian, perhaps, or something along those lines.“Who are these people?” I asked the necromancer walking beside me.“Venedi...” Astrid replied uncertainly. “Or Antes. Or Sclaveni. I couldn't tell you for sure. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about different peoples.”All right, time to dredge up those school history lessons.I'd definitely heard of the Venedi. The Antes? No fucking clue.But Sclaveni sounded almost identical to Slavs.That's it! They were Slavs.Not necessarily Russians, though. There had always been a hell of a lot of Slavs on this planet. Poles were Slavs, for instance. So were Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks.Culturally, however, they might as well have been Greeks as far as I was concerned.There was no point look
CHAPTER 94
On the other hand, I could buy slaves and then effectively set them free, hoping they'd choose to keep working for me.But that was idiotic for an entirely different reason. It wouldn't solve the problem of slavery, and once freed, those people would have little reason to keep busting their backs for my benefit. Most would probably head straight back to wherever they'd been taken from.On the first bus out.Well, there wouldn't actually be any buses, but you get the idea.Anyway, I'd made up my mind. For now, we'd manage without slaves or servants. Once I'd repaired the house and got everything in order, we'd hire a couple of cooks and housekeepers to prepare meals and keep the place clean.There was a mountain of work ahead of me, and I couldn't afford to waste my time cooking and scrubbing floors.I also had plans for a radical overhaul of the heating system, provided I could find the right materials at the market. Fireplaces were horribly inefficient, and having one in nearly every
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