There was a crackling sound, as the flame caught the kerosene and raced across the floor of the sacristy.

Slater could not believe his own eyes.

The old woman herself looked bewildered, but oddly unafraid. Nor did she move to avoid the erupting flame.

“We have to get out!” Kozak shouted, and Slater could hear him fumbling with the crossbar that secured the bishop’s door.

The fire grazed the edge of the canopy, and the dry old fabric went up like a torch. The licking flames snagged the hem of the altar cloths and they, too, ignited, engulfing the sacrarium like a ring of sacred fire. The rubies glowed like coals, the diamonds blazed, the bowl itself blackened and cracked, spilling the gems all over the altar.

“Come on!” Kozak shouted, as Slater heard the crossbar thump onto the floor. The tar was heating up, melting.

But he couldn’t leave the old woman — whoever she was — to die here.

“Now!” the professor shouted, throwing open the bishop’s door. A gust of icy wind roared into the room, as if it had been eagerly awaiting its chance, and before Slater could make a move, the whole sacristy was suddenly aswirl with fire and ash, smoke and snow. The old woman never budged from the dais, and Slater could swear that she even opened her arms to the maelstrom, as if she were welcoming a long-lost lover. He even thought that he heard her calling out a name—“Sergei!”—again and again.

The kerosene around her feet sent tendrils of flame shooting up her body. As her hair exploded in a crackling corona of fire, Slater felt Kozak’s heavy hand on his collar, dragging him out of the church.

Outside, Kozak rolled him onto the ground; he hadn’t even noticed that his pants were smoldering and his boots were sticky with hot tar. Groves appeared and patted him down with handfuls of snow, all the while pushing and pulling them both away from the mounting inferno.

“What’s going on?” a guard shouted, running toward the billowing smoke. It was Rudy, with a rifle that he quickly turned away when he saw who it was. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Rudy looked into the sacristy, just as Slater did, but it was like looking into the belly of a blast furnace. The flames were white-hot now, hissing and spitting, and they had soared up into the onion dome, its holes and cracks making it glow like the candle flame it was meant to represent. The whole church began to collapse in on itself with a thunderous clatter and crash, throwing sparks and streamers of fire into the night. Carried on the wind, they landed on the wooden cover of the old well, the roof beams of the neighboring cabins, the old blacksmith stall.

Coast Guardsmen and men from the work crews were tumbling out of their Quonset huts, pulling on parkas and boots and gloves, shouting and running helter-skelter across the grounds of the colony.

First one structure caught fire, then another, until it was as if the whole stockade was forming a ring of orange flame. Slater and Kozak and Groves scrambled down the hill toward the main gates, colliding with Colonel Waggoner, his coat open, his boots unclasped, his hair wild. He took them all in for a second, but it was enough for Slater to know that he’d figured out who was responsible. Slater’s pants were scorched black and flapping around his legs.

“We’ve got a hose going, Colonel!” a Coast Guardsman hollered to him, but Waggoner looked around at the looming wall of flame and waved the man toward the gates.

“Just get out! Get out now!” He stumbled up the hill a few yards, but the smoke was getting thicker by the minute. “Evacuate!” he shouted to anyone who could still hear him. “Evacuate the colony!”

With the sergeant plowing a path for them, Slater and Kozak joined the others jostling toward the main gates, and by the time they reached the safety of the cliffs and turned around, breathless, to see, the colony was nothing but an immense bonfire, teased by the treacherous winds off the Bering Sea and filling the sky with a cloud of smoke and cinders. Slater could feel the ash settling on his bare head and shoulders.

The church had long since fallen off its foundation, and there was nothing left of it to be seen. Somewhere under the towering pile of burning debris lay the Romanov jewels — and their last rightful owner … the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Of that, Slater was now sure, though no one else but Professor Kozak would ever know, or ever believe, it.

Nor would he ever tell anyone — not even Nika. It was better if the ground was considered barren and sere, better if the last of the Romanovs was allowed to rest in peace, free from ghouls and treasure-hunters like Harley and Charlie Vane. She had waited a very long time for this, and whatever spell had kept her here on this lonely island, long beyond any ordinary human span, Slater hoped that it, too, had been extinguished at last.

Let the bulldozers and the organophosphates, the concrete and the impermeable seal, come, and let the colony be buried forever. Let Anastasia’s grave remain unmarked, undisturbed, unknown.

But not unmourned. From all over the island, the wind carried the baleful howl of the black wolves … a keening that lasted all through the night.

The fire burned until the next morning, and it was only then — though it was still dark out — that the colonel pulled together an exploratory crew to venture back into the smoky grounds and assess the situation.

When Slater volunteered to lead the team, Waggoner glared at him, and spitting his words out like bullets, said, “I should never have let you back on the island.”

And for once, Slater thought he had a point.

Chapter 69

The helicopter didn’t even cut its engines. It simply touched its runners to the ice of the hockey rink, and as soon as the hatch was opened, Slater, Kozak, and Sergeant Groves were virtually ejected from the cabin, along with their backpacks and gear. The professor’s GPR was rolled out of the cargo bay, and a moment later, the propellers, which had never stopped turning, lifted the craft back into the night sky. Slater watched as it headed back toward the devastation on St. Peter’s Island, his heart filled with a sense of deep regret — nothing in his life had ever gone so terribly wrong — mingled with an undeniable relief.

It wasn’t his problem anymore.

The debriefing he had been scheduled to undergo that morning had been canceled due to the conflagration, and Colonel Waggoner had asked him only one question.

“Was the fire deliberate, or accidental, Dr. Slater?”

“Accidental,” Slater replied. What use was there in denying it?

The colonel, whose hands were full as it was, told him he could keep his notes and records, and file a full report from Port Orlov, “or anywhere else you go. Personally, I don’t ever want to lay eyes on you again, and trust me on this, they feel the same way at the AFIP offices in Washington.”

Indeed, he’d been right about that. Frank had made one last call to Dr. Levinson, who’d listened coldly as he gave her an edited account of what had happened at the site — omitting any mention of the gems or, God forbid, their owner — and when he’d stopped to take a breath, she had informed him that Rebekah Vane had also succumbed to the Spanish flu, while being treated at the biohazard facility in Juneau.

“I thought she had been stabilized,” he mumbled.

“So did I,” Dr. Levinson said. “We were both wrong.”

He could hear the disappointment, and even dismissal, in her voice.

“Have there been any other breaches,” he asked, dreading the answer, “or casualties?”

“Not so far. We think we got there in time and established a suitable quarantine zone.” There was a pause on the line. “Needless to say, your report will be classified top secret. You, and the remaining members of your team, are under a strict information embargo.”