I was standing in a forest clearing, or at least a dreamlike impression of one. Ghostly trees were barely visible through the fog all around me. A dark shape loomed to one side of the clearing, but it was too obscured to make out. A small fire burned nearby. A pot hung from sticks over the flames, and a hunched figure leaned over, stirring something inside.

"Am I dead again?" I asked.

The figure looked up, and I was surprised to see it wasn't Baba Yaga. It was Natasha Popova. She looked different. Even in the dark mist and flickering firelight, she looked older. When she spoke, her voice had also aged.

"No, not dead this time."

Well, I guess that's something, I muttered as I stepped closer to the fire. I glanced around. The mist swirled more thickly, but I didn't see anything that had escaped my first impression. Natasha was seated on a log. There was another opposite her by the fire, so I went over and sat.

"I see my mother brought you to this world. Her power still lingers on you, on your soul. I would apologize for that, but….” She trailed off.

I shrugged. “I was dead anyway. Better here than nowhere.”

She gave a snort. "Not nowhere, but whether it would be better or worse than here is more than I can say. However, I still have need of you and like I said, you're not dead yet."

I waited for her to continue. When she didn't immediately, I leaned forward.

"She brought me here to protect Eva, didn't she?"

The old woman shrugged. "Mother never did anything for only one reason. Eva was in danger from two sources. Frankenstein was the least. The other threat is much more dangerous."

"You mean Rasputin?"

She nodded. "Yes. Our ex-husband has become a bit of a problem.”

That surprised me. “Ex-husband? Do you mean Eva’s father or -- yours?" Whatever this weird twisted Baba Yaga magic was, I didn’t want to know details.

The old woman snorted a laugh again. "Neither. I don't normally explain our ways to outsiders, but I suppose I owe you a little. Baba Yaga is more than –" she paused, considering. "More than just an old woman. The one you met is gone now, and her power resides in me."

I felt my mouth drop open, but I held my tongue. What the hell was she talking about?

"Someday the power will reside in my daughter, Eva. But the man Rasputin was a husband to Baba Yaga many years ago, long before the one you met was even born."

I considered this. "So you periodically regenerate?" I thought of a science fiction show from my world.

She shook her head and then stopped and shrugged. "I suppose that's as good an explanation as any, but it's more like passing down a mantle from mother to daughter. With that mantle comes power and some memories. I am not my mother, but I am more than I was."

I waited for her to explain more, but she just left me hanging. Finally realizing she wasn't going to let me in on more of her secrets, I asked, "So, Rasputin?"

She nodded. "Yes. The old man is still a threat. The things he has been dabbling in lately are too much. He's gone too far. For centuries we have kept out of each other's way, crossing paths only occasionally and coming into conflict even less than that. To raise the dead as he has been doing," she shook her head, "it's too much. It's time the old man left this world."

"You say he's been around for centuries? Has he passed down his mantle or whatever you call it to his sons?"

Natasha gave a short bark of a laugh. "Ha! No. What he does isn't so natural as that. Long ago he went one way and I went another. I argued with him, but he wouldn't listen. The methods he uses no one should touch. But until now I left him alone. The damage he did was," she paused, considering, "limited enough that I let him be. But this, this has the potential to wipe out all life in this world if he isn't stopped. He thinks he has it under control, but this isn't a power anyone can control."

"That's all great, but why me?" She cocked an eyebrow in my direction, so I continued. "You have a giant walking fortress, and who knows what arcane magics. All I do is punch things in the face or shoot them in the head. I don't know a damn thing about fighting ancient wizards or whatever he's supposed to be. So why me?”

"Well, first of all, because I can't get near him," Natasha said. "Rasputin rarely leaves his lair. And he has it warded up in such a way that I can't get anywhere near it. And that's not all. Perhaps it will make sense after I explain just what I want you to do."

I listened in silence as she explained.

"And you think this plan will work?" I asked when she had finished.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The old woman shrugged. "It does play to your strengths," she said.

I considered a moment. "It's true, and it's not the stupidest plan I've heard this week. Very well," I stood up from the log.

"Excellent." The old woman's smile had an air of mischievousness that almost made me change my mind. "But before you get started, there's a message I need you to give someone."

I came to chained to a wall. These weren't puny little manacles I could have laughed at, but heavy pieces of industrial steel link draped over and around me and tied to some serious pipe work. I appeared to be in a basement, going by the heavy iron drain pipes I was chained to, which disappeared into the ceiling above. The room was lit by a single dim bulb hanging from a wire.

"Ah, so you're awake." A man stepped into the light. His mustache and chiseled facial features were familiar to me, even though I had never laid eyes on him. Stalin eyed me with an intense scrutiny. I wasn't dead, so that was good, but I didn't hold out much hope that he would keep me that way.

My body felt fresh and new. I glanced at my shoulder where my shirt was torn and saw... unbroken skin.

"Yes," he said. "We had an old Frankenstein machine laying around, and it healed you up nicely. I didn't want you to bleed to death before you answered my questions."

"Thank you," I said.

His eyebrows raised the tiniest fraction. "Very un-golem-like. I have heard a great deal about you. I would love to ask you many questions, but I haven't the time, and honestly," he shrugged. "I'm not that interested in golems in general. They are a tool of the ruling class to further oppress the workers."

"Do you really believe that stuff?"

His face flashed from surprise to anger. "Of course I do, or I wouldn't have said it. Don't disrespect me, Golem. I have fought and killed for my cause. I wouldn't hesitate to destroy the likes of you. Your life hangs by a thread and depends on your answers to my questions."

The heavy chains clanked as I tried to shrug. “Okay, ask away.”

“Why did you kill Comrade Lenin?”

I opened my mouth with a flippant response on my tongue, but then thought better of it. He had an intensity of expression that made it difficult to defy him. It was easy to see how this man had held the fate of millions in his hands. I closed my mouth and considered while he continued to stare. At last, I spoke. "I am different than other golems. You may believe me or not as you like, but I was not always in this body. My mind or soul, whatever you call it, was brought here from somewhere far away. I woke up in this body on the slab of a Frankenstein machine."

His brows drew together, but he was still listening.

"I come from a world both different but very similar to this one. There was a Lenin in my world, and he led a great rebellion in Russia. Your movement. Communists. In my world, your naïve economic ideology was responsible for the death and enslavement of millions. It started in Russia and blighted a huge part of the world."

"If they were as bad at economics as you claim, how were they able to blight half the world?"

I shrugged. "Beats me, I'm not an economist. I think it was momentum after the Second World War."

"Second World War?" Stalin's eyebrows raised.

"Yes, the Russians banded together to fight off the Germans at great cost. Doing so cemented the people behind your communist ideology. Personally, I think momentum from that event kept them going for decades beyond when they would have run out of steam."

Stalin shrugged. "It's possible. A great enemy does wonders to focus people's will, but why should I believe any of this tripe? You say this war was costly, but you say Russia prevailed. All of life and all of history is a struggle of ideologies. If communism prevailed in this world war, as you call it, then that proves their ideological superiority."

"By that thinking," I countered, "their downfall proves the superiority of capitalism."

"Capitalism?" Stalin burst out. "And pray, what country of capitalists eventually defeats us in your little fantasy?"

"The United States of America."

Stalin burst out laughing. It sounded genuine. "That bunch of pathetic isolationists! Why, Russia could wipe out their entire army with one charge of our Cossack divisions. Their military might is pathetic. They're still crowing about defeating the Spanish, whose crumbling empire was a joke."

I frowned but didn't have an immediate rejoinder. If America hadn't participated in World War One in this world, he was probably right. The United States Army had been incredibly small and poorly equipped at the beginning of the conflict. They hadn't been much better twenty-five years later when World War Two was looming. It hadn't been the American way back then to keep much of a standing army during peacetime. I didn't know much about European history, but American military history was a different matter. Even before joining up I’d been a military history buff.

"If you think your pathetic tale can make us rethink our ideology on the cusp of revolution, you're as mad as your stories. Nothing will make us stop in our crusade to throw off the bourgeoisie oppression.”

“Look, I'm not saying you don't have it bad. I'm only saying you're throwing off one oppressor to embrace another.”

“It is not a single oppressor that keeps us crushed under heel. It's the entire bourgeoisie class."

It made sense that he would think that way, since Tsar Alexander was such a puppet. And of course, it was straight communist party line ideology. "That may be true," I said, "but what you'll replace them with is a single oppressor, and that oppressor is you."

Stalin frowned. "Explain."

"It's simple. You are in charge of the reins of this communist party, and you, in my world, ruled Russia with an iron fist for decades. The death of tens of millions are on your shoulders."

"Really, I was the strong man of Russia?" The thought seemed to amuse him.

I nodded. "Yes, after Lenin died."

"He died in your world too?"

I smiled. "All men die.”

“True. I was the strong man during this world war of which you speak?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"And these tens of millions you say rest on my shoulders. How many of those were casualties of war?"

"It was a costly war," I said, frowning, "but the deaths you caused went far beyond what was necessary."

"Necessary," he scoffed. "What would you know about necessary? One last thing before I kill you. Did these deaths, did this sacrifice, did they leave Russia strong?"

I hesitated before answering. "Yes, yes they did."

Stalin's smile, the tight-lipped, emotionless expression. "Then they were worth it."

The iron clad certainty in his voice made my blood run cold. This man was as cold and determined as history made out to be. He was almost done with me and my life hung by a thread.

Comrade Stalin said, “We've established you’re deranged, defective, or quite sane but from a world in the thrall of a totally corrupt ideology." He shrugged. "Which all amounts to the same thing. Fortunately for you, I have use for you. Now, before I bring in my other guests, I have one final thing to say. Q, 7, Nightingale. W, G, Ocean."