The Last Romanov (Under Editing)

The Lair

"So, let me get this straight," Sasha said, more than a little unimpressed. "Your lair – the lair where you plan on overthrowing the Russian government – is in the bottom of a church?"

"A cathedral," Artturi corrected as the car drove up to their final destination. "Big difference. It's also, in the basement, not the bottom. The bottom would be... the bottom. Of the foundation. And stop rolling your eyes, before they fall right out of your head."

Sasha didn't stop rolling his eyes. Frankly, he didn't see much of a difference: call it what you would, a church was a church. And that one wasn't even a nice church. The place looked decrepit, on the verge of falling apart, from the looks of it. Whether or not that was because there wasn't a single source of light anywhere near the church, he couldn't be sure. In fact... he wasn't even sure that their headlights were on, now that he thought about it.

He looked up at Artturi, nervous. Afraid to even ask. "Artturi, are the headlights turned on?"

"Nope." Artturi didn't even hesitate. "It's a little too dangerous for us to have the headlights on: they'd be able to find us easier than a stray dog can find a bone with meat left on it if we turned them on."

"And... the lights don't work," Arkadiy said. "In fact, I don't know that the lights in this car have ever worked. How has it taken this long for you to figure it out?"

Artturi didn't say anything for a few seconds. "...huh. I... guess that explains a lot."

Huh? Artturi had just figured out that the lights on that car weren't functioning, and all he had to say about it was huh?!

"Damn it, Artturi: you're the only one who knows how to drive out of all of us," Nadya said. She was looking just as frightened Sasha was at that revelation, though it was kind of hard to tell without any lights on anywhere. "You're going to get someone killed doing that!"

Thank God, Nadya was willing to yell at him over that: Sasha didn't know if it was because of the fact that he was bleeding out from his knee from Anastasia's bullet, but he didn't really have the energy to chastise Artturi at that point.

"No, I won't," Artturi said with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "I'm a good drivers: only bad drivers kill people." He looked back at the people in the back seat. "Speaking of driving, Sasha: don't suppose you know how to do it, do you? We could always use more people who can-"

"Eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel!" Nadya snapped.

Artturi snorted as he drove up to the church and parked in front of it. "Relax, Nadya: it's not a big deal."

"Slipping on ice and falling on your ass isn't a big deal," Nikola said. It was the most the kid had said since they'd left the prison, the poor bastard. Sasha was almost positive that he'd seen some unspeakable things in there, or maybe had some awful horror inflicted on him while he was in there. "Crashing the car because you can't see, getting people hurt, and possibly getting killed is a really big deal."

"Especially when it's right by the lair," Arkadiy chimed in as Artturi parked. "You don't think they'd search every building on this street for the drivers of this car filled with illegal shit? Including the church?"

"We're here, aren't we?" Artturi asked. "Besides: stop acting all smart, over there. I'm not the one who fell through ice on the Neva just to get a hat. In spring. When it was obvious that the ice was too thin to hold that fat ass of yours."

Arkadiy gave a one-fingered salute to that, to which Artturi just laughed.

They all piled out of the car, Arkadiy helping Sasha walk, and walked up to the church doors.