Welcome to Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.

He swam back to consciousness.

The line of fire burned across his belly where the knife had slashed him open.

But Gregory Rasputin's mind was already charging ahead to what came next after the attack,

and who was behind it.

In fact, when he came to, Rasputin told the people around him that he knew who was to

blame, the Mad Monk Ilyador.

After the two men finally severed their friendship, Gregory must have known it was only a matter

of time before one of Ilyador's followers would follow his signature command for violence.

As time would reveal, Rasputin was right.

The woman who had attacked him in the street outside his house was a follower of Ilyador's

violent teachings.

She had even met Rasputin before, when the two teachers were still traveling together.

Now like so many others in Russia, she had come to believe that Rasputin's prophecies

were false, and his spirit was polluted with vile habits and selfish ambitions.

She believed that it was Rasputin who had turned on Ilyador, so she set out to avenge

her chosen leader, with a 15-inch dagger on a white bone handle.

In fact, she had come to see Rasputin as the Antichrist.

She tracked him to Crimea a year earlier, but by the time she arrived, he had already

set out elsewhere again, so she followed him first to St. Petersburg and then on to Siberia.

When she arrived in Pukrovskos, she rented a room and waited until she judged that the

time was right.

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