Rise of the Firebird (18 page)

“Look out!” Anya shouted. She broke away from Yvan and started to shove people out of the way. Everyone was clapping and cheering, the trumpets blaring. Hands were raised for beads and no one saw the boy. She ducked under waving arms and ran out onto the street. The boy was dancing like a demented puppet as Anya grabbed him under his arms and carried him across the street. He stared up at her with wide eyes, Yanka’s temporary spell broken.

“Run!” Anya whispered. She looked up as Yanka and her companion appeared in front of her. Anya straightened her back, fists clenched at her side.

“
Vnuchka
, at last, we can talk.”

“You felt you had to kill a child in order to do that?”

“I had to get your attention.”

“Your friend couldn’t introduce herself?” Anya asked as she glared at the woman beside Yanka.

“Veruschka has been waiting patiently for you to return to this slum of a city.”

“She’s been killing people while she’s waited too.” Veruschka smiled cold and sharp.

“Only those who deserve it.”

“So what now, Grandmother? You kill me just as you did Trajan? Go ahead.”

“Don’t be so eager for death, Anyanka, it comes soon enough. I want you alive so you can watch when the world burns.”

“Do you think I’ll let you do that? You think I’m going to stand there and
watch
? You have been sleeping too long, you old…” Yanka’s hand whipped out and grabbed Anya’s throat. Her hand felt strangely insubstantial against Anya’s skin but the pressure was there.

“What makes you think you’ll have the power to stop me?”

“I’m not as powerless as you think and I fucking hate you.”

“Oh? Where was your power when I took Trajan’s heart?”

“Where was yours when you tried to get into my dreams? You aren’t even here right now. Your power is as weak and pathetic as you are.” Yanka’s eyes flared with rage before they went blank. A golden red light flashed brightly through her. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, the illusion shattering as fire tore through it.

As Anya slumped to the ground gasping for air, she saw a glyph drawn on the concrete in blood, as she watched it smouldered into ash. Veruschka yowled as the spell broke and Yvan made to grab her. She lashed out as her hand morphed into a paw, long claws tearing open Yvan’s arm as he tried to block her. Fire exploded from his other hand and Veruschka bolted back into the crowd.

“Fire! Fire! Everybody move!” Anya shouted as people panicked around her. Yvan ran after Veruschka, but by the time Anya caught up, he was holding a bundle of empty clothes.

“She’s gone,” he said as he dropped them. “One minute she was there and the next…”

“She was a fucking cat,” Anya finished.

“Yanka was an illusion. I thought we could’ve had her then.”

“Or she would’ve had us,” muttered Anya. “I didn’t think anyone could use magic over such a long distance. I saw something written on the ground where she had been standing. Maybe…”

“We should ask Aramis, he knows more about her power than anyone else.”

“There you are!” Aleksandra and Mychal appeared from a side street. “There was a huge surge of magic…I thought…”

“You thought right. Yanka decided to say hello.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Only me,” said Yvan as he held up his bloody arm. “I don’t feel…” He stumbled and Anya steadied him.

“Careful, they are deep.”

“It’s not that. They…” Yvan pushed her out of the way and vomited all over the ground.

“Oh shit,” Anya cursed. “Mychal, help me! We need to get him back to the hotel. That bitch, Veruschka, has poisoned him.”

By the time they got him to his room, Yvan was vomiting blood. “Go and find Aramis!” Anya shouted at them as she got Yvan into the bathroom. She helped him out of his ruined shirt and got the extra towels from the cupboard. Yvan screamed as she held his arm under the bathtub tap to try to clean some of the blood away.

“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” Anya said over and over as held a towel over his arm. “Aramis…Aramis will be here soon and he will know…” She grabbed a fresh towel and as she moved the bloody one away, she saw the black worms. They were buried in the wound like sticky maggots.

“What the hell?” She pulled one from his arm and tossed it into the tub where it wriggled. Yvan groaned and slumped heavily on the tiles, his eyes rolling back into his head.

“No, no, no!” Anya sobbed as she knelt over him, “Don’t you fucking dare try to leave me.” Placing her hands over his wound, Anya summoned her power and let it roll out of her. Burning white light poured from her hands and she screamed with effort as she forced it into the wound. The black worms charred as they tried to squirm from him. In her mind, Anya saw the tendrils of poison that had moved through his body. She drew them back out, her magic sucking them to her and burning them as they surfaced. When the last of the blackness faded, Anya saw Veruschka collapse on the floor of a motel, the artificial neon sign out of the window advertising cheap rooms.

“Anya? Anya?” A voice was shouting, calling her back into her body. Aramis stood in the doorway of the bathroom. The glowing light from her hands faded back into her and she moved them from Yvan’s arm. The black worms were gone but the wound was still in need of stitches. She put her head on his chest and heard the deep thrum of his heartbeat.

“Where’s Cerise?” she asked as she sat up. “This needs seeing to.” Anya placed a towel under Yvan’s head.

“What happened? Aleksandra wouldn’t say and…” Anya ignored him, bending over to kiss Yvan softly. She got to her feet, the taste of his blood in her mouth.

“Watch over him, Aramis,” she said, “there’s something I need to do.”

“Anya, you can’t…” he made to reached for her but hesitated when she glared at him.

“
Don’t touch me.
You will stay here and watch over him. Make sure Cerise sees to his wounds.”

“What are you going to do?” he called as she took Yvan’s leather jacket from the chair and put it on, covering the blood on her shirt. Downstairs, she hailed a cab.

“I need to go to a hotel.”

“What’s the name of it, honey?” the cabbie asked.

“I don’t know. It’s about a block from a place called Legba’s Ladies?”

“The garage?”

“Yes, it has a glowing orange sign. That’s all I know.”

“I know it, ma’am, but it’s a total dive. They rent rooms by the hour there. It’s a front for hookers or drug dealers.”

“Take me there.” Anya gave him a hundred dollar bill when they pulled up fifteen minutes later and he took it without question.

Anya walked past the desk clerk and up the stairs covered in dirty grey carpet. Sending out her magic, she felt Veruschka’s mind and followed it like a GPS signal to the third floor. Anya flicked her fingers at the door, buckling it and spraying chips of wood everywhere. She walked into the dark room, her eyes scanning.

“I thought you wouldn’t have it in you to try again today,” Veruschka’s eyes reflected in the light as she moved next to the window. Long claws grew out her fingers like deadly knives. “Nothing to say? How is your little friend?” Anya didn’t reply, standing still. Veruschka pounced, her arms out in front of her. Anya raised a hand and the shifter stopped in the air. She hissed and squirmed but Anya held her aloft. Veruschka tried to shift and yowled in pain.

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” Anya said as she walked towards her.

“Yanka will kill you for your impertinence.”

“She can try, but she won’t hear about it from you.”

“You don’t have it in you to kill me, little witch.”

“If you had harmed anyone else, I might have let you live,” Anya said as she calmly fed more power towards her. Veruschka’s arms and legs stretched out far enough that they cracked. “But you made the biggest and last mistake of your life by laying your filthy claws on him.”

Anya’s power filled Veruschka’s mouth muffling her scream as her limbs were ripped one by one from her body, her head landing on the carpet with a heavy thud. Anya took a tea towel from the kitchen and picked something up from the carpet. As she stepped through the door, she waved her hand and the wood remade itself behind her.

The streets were dark as Anya calmly walked to Legba’s Ladies. The garage had closed for business but Harley and Isabelle were still there drinking beers and arguing.

“Anya? What the hell happened?” Isabelle leapt to her feet.

“Do you know the address of the Darkness headquarters in Moscow?” Anya asked steadily.

“I know of one place I suspected for a long time, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“I need you to send a package to them,” Anya said as she dropped the stained towel on the scratched up coffee table. Harley gagged as bloody claws tumbled from the fabric.

“Anya, what the fuck have you done?” Isabelle stared at her.

“She shouldn’t have touched him,” Anya said as she turned and walked back into the night.

Look through the mist and see the shadow figures moving. They are setting up a tent of gold and green fabric on top of hill in the centre of seven standing stones. They do not trust each other but they work together to pitch the tent, and set up a long table at which they place two oak chairs, both heavily carved with ancient symbols of power. Furs and finely woven mats are spread on the cold ground and warming braziers are lit. Their task completed, they walk to the second tier of the hill and make separate camps, settling to wait the cold night.

Vasya Melenko arrived at the Tor at sundown. It was a part of Faerie and had been a peaceful meeting place for over five hundred years. She walked steadily up the winding hill taking note of how many of the dark ones were on the eastern side of the second tier. Her own Illumination men had camped on the western side and they were watching each other carefully. It was law that no blood be shed at any of the Tor’s tiers, but there was a lot of ways to kill someone without spilling blood.

A flash of red caught her eye and Yanka stepped daintily through the gate and onto the second tier of the Tor in front of her. Vasilli wasn’t with her, which made Vasya uneasy. Yanka waited for her to make the final steps to join her before they ascended to the final tier, the same infuriating smile Vasya remembered fixed firmly on her lips.

“New face, Baba Yaga?” Yanka asked as she pulled her fur trimmed purple cloak around her shoulders.

“The old one was becoming too noticeable.” As Baba Yaga stepped onto the top tier, the glamour fell away. It was one of the reasons why the site was chosen as a meeting ground. It was a magical null area that had once been the very centre of Britain’s power. In the real world, there was a ruin of an old Christian church, but in the Otherworld, granite monoliths in a ring surrounded it.

“Well, at least they got the tent right,” Yanka commented as they stepped into the warmth. She poured herself a goblet of hot-spiced wine and offered one to Baba Yaga. She took it and tried not to look suspicious. Yanka had no power here, same as herself, but she was the only enemy that always surprised her.

“You seem to be awfully calm this evening. I thought you’d be screaming about being asleep for so long.”

“It was a very good move on your behalf, Baba Yaga. I can applaud my enemies victories when they are worthy of it. Besides, it seems I slept through the most boring years. Peace treaties and such nonsense. You needed them to wake me up for you, didn’t you?” Yanka mocked, “You didn’t think the rules through before you cast that spell, did you? Everything froze with that move, and worse, this Illumination you set up made certain you couldn’t interfere. You had to have planned my rescue for a long time; so many puppets, so many strings.”

“It afforded me a few quiet years without you, so it was all worth it. How have you been since waking Yanka? How is the family?” Baba Yaga asked as she sat down at the table. She tried not to smile as Yanka’s lip curled in disgust. She reached into her cloak and tossed a tied handkerchief onto the table. Baba Yaga unwrapped to reveal a gruesome collection of claws.

“My, my, my…someone I know?”

“Veruschka,” Yanka said as she sipped her wine.

“
Anya
did this to her?” Baba Yaga chuckled. “She certainly has a temper on her. I saw it in her the first time we met. What did the naughty little
kotenok
do to deserve such a death?”

Yanka huffed, “She marked one of Anya’s friends when he got in the way.”

“She hurt the Prince, didn’t she?” Baba Yaga scratched the side of her bulbous nose with one of the claws.

“Who it was is irrelevant. Perhaps she has a piece of me in her after all.” Yanka pulled a cloth back from the middle of the table to reveal a large wooden board carved with squares and peg holes. Very slowly, she started to arrange her pieces; small carved figures, black with age and blood.

“Anyanka is very protective of Yvan and that’s putting it mildly. It would be best if you don’t try to harm him again,” Baba Yaga said as she took up her own pieces.

“He is one of a long line of filthy rapists and murderers. The only thing special about him is the bird inside of him. By all rights, it should have burned its way out by now.”

“I thought it would’ve too, but they have decided to work with each other it would seem.”

“It’s a sinful waste to give such power to an idiot boy no matter how beautiful he is.”

“Your granddaughter is not that shallow.” Yanka took an ancient coin from her bodice. Baba Yaga knew one side was the head of a bear and the other a crow. She flicked the coin in the air and let it fall. It landed with a heavy thump, the crow’s head facing up.

“You get to start,” Yanka tucked the coin away. “And every woman is that shallow.”

“I suppose if you look at the men in her inner circle you could make that assumption even if it is incorrect,” Baba Yaga moved one of her pieces on the board. To the undiscernible eye, it looked like a very old
Hnefatafl
set, but so far, only two sides had been filled instead of the traditional four. Yanka and she had been playing for as long as they had been enemies and the other two spaces remained empty.