Natasha's hulking fortress loomed out of the darkness. It straddled the tracks, The armored train drove directly under it. The turrets of the hodgepodge fortress seemed to twist before my eyes, turning to point smaller caliber guns to aim down at the train. I spun and dove for cover under a twisted piece of armor from the inward-bent wall of the train car. The fortress's cannons roared and poured fire down into Rasputin's train. Bullets and shells of various calibers rained into the car around me and sprang off the armor plate inches over my head. I pulled myself in as tight as I could.

A torrent of bullets hailed down. Shards of metal and splinters of armor stung my shoulder and neck and tore rents through my clothing. The shower of fire moved down the train, tearing into each car as we passed beneath the fortress. Then the barrage stopped as suddenly as it had begun as the train passed out from under the fortress. In the sudden silence that followed, the soft click of the train's wheels seemed peaceful.

There was a thump on the deck near me. I looked up. A pair of smallish, leather-booted feet were in my field of view. I crawled out from my armored shelter and looked up into the amused, weathered face of Natasha Popova.

“Oh, were you aboard? You should always be careful which train you take when departing Moscow. You could find yourself in Paris, Vladivostok, or Hell, by mistake." She reached down a hand to help me up. I didn't want to be rude to the ancient witch, so I took it. Her grip was surprisingly strong, and she actually was of assistance as I got to my feet.

She wore a long flowing cloak and an amused expression. "Cheer up, Sergeant. We're almost done here." She looked me up and down. "Were you really taking on Rasputin all on your own? Do you even any weapons?"

“Well, I did bring a lot of guns with me." I pulled the revolver from one pocket and the flask from the other. "But I'm just about out."

She shook her head with amusement. "You always were an odd one. How about I make you a trade? I will take those two and you can have this.” She reached inside her robe and pulled out, to my surprise, a fine Colt 1911 and a spare magazine.

She held them out to me as I gaped. "Where did you find it?”

She smiled enigmatically. "Oh, haven't you heard anything? Finding lost items is one of Baba Yaga's specialties. Here, take it."

I swapped the revolver and flask for the gun and spare magazine. I saw with pleasure it already had one loaded in it, and I confirmed the round in the chamber quickly. Fourteen rounds of .45 ACP. Things were starting to look up.

Natasha looked at me expectantly. "Come on, what are you waiting for? The evil wizard is that way." She pointed past me to the car beyond.

I couldn't think of anything else to do so I turned, pocketed the spare magazine, and started picking my way through the ruined car toward the front of the train. Shards of metal rattled away from my boots and bits of glass crunched under them as I went to the door at the front of the car. This one was a little bent but not so twisted that it wouldn't open, though it only did so grudgingly.

The cannon car beyond seemed intact. Its door was closed. I thought about trying it but didn’t want to waste any bullets on the creatures inside. The ones in the car at the back of the train had seemed content to stay inside and man their guns, so I thought it would be safe to leave them be. I stuffed the 1911 in my pocket beside the magazine. It bulged but just fit and seemed slightly more secure than shoving it in my waistband for what came next.

I jumped up and grabbed the lip of the car and once again climbed up onto the roof. Reaching up to grab the lip of the car, I pulled myself up to scramble onto the roof. This riding on top of trains was becoming a bad habit.

The stroll down the top of the gun car, weaving between the guns, seemed almost peaceful after the earlier frantic battles. My spirits were buoyed, and I felt almost giddy as I leapt off the gun car and onto the back of the tender. Unlike steam trains of earlier generations, the tender was not an open top car full of coal but a fully closed car that was a combination coal bunker and water tank.

I strolled along the top before reaching the engine. It was a big complicated machine, much more impressive than what you saw in western movies. Which made sense because this model of steam engine was decades newer than those. I jumped and caught the edge before swinging down onto the small platform that served instead of stairs beside the control cabin. If Rasputin was on the train, he was most likely in here. He might be back in the gun car, but somehow I doubted it. And if he wasn't here, I could disable the engine and go back to find him.

I drew my .45 and laid my hand on the door handle, feeling almost giddy. Then the door was yanked open by someone inside, and a huge hand reached out and grabbed my face like an NBA star palming a basketball. I was yanked forward off my feet and straight into the control room.

The cab was a mad scientist's wet dream: dials, gauges, knobs, and everywhere the faint hiss of steam or the tick of control counters. I slammed across all of these and went sprawling across the cabin. My gun went clattered to the floor.

Rasputin’s gravelly voice ground from the mouth of the juggernaut. "You worthless vermin. How dare you keep stalking me. I'll crush you like the insect you are." He stepped forward and reached down to grab my shirt front.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I grabbed the thumb of his hand and broke his grip, though it took a serious amount of effort. He sneered and kicked me across the room. I didn't have far to go in such a tiny space before slamming into the door on side of the cab.

I staggered up to my feet as the hulking brute stalked towards me. In that instance, as I lifted my fist and readied myself, I noticed one of the patchwork constructs cowering in the corner. No doubt that was Rasputin's usual train engineer.

The brute reached for me. There was no tactics or elegance in it, just the ponderous inevitability of overwhelming power. I slipped his grasping hand and threw punches to his torso. A right to the ribs, a left to the solar plexus. Two more just below the heart. The monstrosity just sneered at me.

I noticed a swirl of glow drifted past each of the places I had punched in turn. Was that Rasputin's power healing my blows? If so, it hadn't taken much of his energy. This body was damn near indestructible.

A hand caught my collar and lifted me off my feet. Its left arm swung back, aiming a blow at my midsection. Then it hammered forward as inevitable as an avalanche. There was no art or quickness in his blows. I got the feeling Rasputin, who was puppet mastering the body now, had no real martial abilities. But he didn’t need them with a body built like that and a magic that made it even more indestructible.

My abs were rock hard. I would bet anyone could swing a 2x4 like a baseball bat and break it over them without knocking me out of breath. But this blow hit like the proverbial train. My body flew back and my shirt was ripped from his grasp, tearing it wide as I flew back into the door again. I could feel the metal buckle under my weight. Thankfully, I didn't get thrown through it completely. As I slid to the floor again, my eyes landed on my 1911 sitting between two pipes. I lunged forward, reaching for it desperately. A titanic kick caught me across the hips and slammed me into the boiler.

It was Impossible to dodge in such a tiny space but the kick landed too late. I already had my gun. I brought it around, aiming for his kneecap, but he kicked me again as I fired and my shot went through his calf. Maybe the original minds that controlled these bodies could ignore pain, but Rasputin didn’t. He roared and kicked at me again, but his boot slid under my body and slammed into the metal boiler beyond.

Then I was scrambling to my feet. He threw a clumsy blow at me, which I tried to block one-handed, but it still knocked me against the back of the train car. I barely kept my grip on my gun. There was no room to aim. I merely tucked the pistol tight against the side of my body and aimed from the hip.

I fired again and again and dumped all six remaining rounds into his body. He jerked and grunted but still grabbed me by the shirt. I tried to swing the empty pistol at his head but missed. Everything was just too cramped here. My elbow hit something metal and my forearm smacked into his shoulder, making my blow useless. He swung me to the side to bang painfully into the control valves and dials.

My flailing left hand landed on a knob and suddenly I felt a blinding headache that had nothing to do with Rasputin's blows. This was an Luhansk type 460 locomotive manufactured in 1912. I knew all the valves and every gauge and I knew just how to operate it.

The desire to stop the train welled up from the back of my mind and half a dozen ways to do that popped into my head. I could turn that knob over there and wait half an hour. I could pull those two levers and stop within two miles. Sequences of controls that would bring the train to a stop flashed before my eyes, but only one caught my attention. I started to grin as the sudden idea hit me. And then the window and door frame hit my back, shattering and bending. Stars danced before my eyes as my head embedded itself in the sheet metal. I staggered forward.

Rasputin hissed, "You have reached your stop. It's time to get off my train."

I shifted my .45 to my left hand and palmed the magazine from my right pocket. The mag slapped home with a snap and the slide chunked back in place as I released it. Rasputin reached for me with one hand while covering his face with the other to protect from my bullets, but I didn't aim at him.

Boom, boom, boom. Three shots went into the pipe below one particular gauge. The glass over the dial shattered and the needle was blown off.

Rasputin grabbed me and yanked me close. “You missed!” he growled at my face.

With my left hand I reached over and turned a particular knob half a turn. I resisted the urge to tell him ‘no, I didn't’, but I didn't want to give away my surprise.

Then he threw me straight through the door of the cabin. The bent metal door and I flew away into the night. Trees, branches, and gravel tore at me as I tumbled over and over and over. I finally slid to a stop, a mass of bruises and contusions, but somehow still intact. The train rumbled past and disappeared into the darkness.

I lay there a long moment.

Footsteps crunched nearby. I looked up.

Natasha stood over me in the sliver of moonlight shining through the clouds.

"If this is really your favorite gun, you sure keep losing it a lot." She held my 1911 out. I staggered to my feet and then took it. I snapped on the safety and thrust it in my pocket. There were only a few shots left, but at this point it didn't matter. She waved her hands in the air. "I rather expected you to do something more flashy. I am almost disappointed, Sergeant Golem.”

I grinned. "Wait for it."

The night detonated.

The blast wave knocked me off my feet and a burning heat washed over us. Debris rained down all around us in the darkness. Bits of metal and broken tree branches, gravel and railroad ties all pulverized into tiny fragments fell, some bouncing off my head and shoulders. I didn't care.

"Ah, that was satisfying," I said.

"That was more like your style,” Natasha conceded.

"It's too bad he'll just come back. He will, won't he?" I looked at her questioningly. "He can just come back?"

She shrugged. "Probably. I mean, if his spirit leaked out of that phylactery, it would probably be able to float off to some other soul anchor he had planted somewhere.” She lifted a small palm-sized shape and waved it in the air. The tiny lid clanked as the empty flask I’d traded her earlier dangled to one side. “That is, unless of course someone found some holy water and pored it into an exploding steam engine.

I gaped at her. "You didn't!"

She smiled back. "Let's just say I had a small suspicion of your methods.”

A relief like I'd never known washed through me, and my knees went suddenly weak. They buckled and I collapsed to sit on my butt in the damp dirt beside the railroad tracks. I chuckled, and then I laughed out loud, long and hard.

The pent-up stress of all the danger I had been through since coming to this world washed through me and out in a cleansing wave as I laughed and laughed. Natasha stood by with a grandmotherly smile until I finally ran out of steam.

"Well," she said at last, "I think my work here is done. Your ride will be along shortly, so I'll leave you. Until next time," she said as she turned away, "if there is one."

Then with a swirl of her cloak she was gone into the darkness.