Rise of the Firebird (25 page)

“Peace.”

“You will never get it.”

“I know.”

“What is your second option?”

“Stop Yanka and Baba Yaga. Stop the sick games they have played for centuries.”

“There will always be power struggles, Anya.”

“You think I shouldn’t stop them?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Seems to me that you say a lot to say nothing at all.”

“I’m trying to unravel that twisted head of yours. I have to ask what you want so you will figure it out for yourself.”

“I want to be free if not at peace. I want to travel the world and actually get to see it. I have been to three amazing countries and seen nothing of them. I’m like a businessman who travels the world and sees only hotel rooms. Responsibility and revenge keep me looking to destroy Yanka. She’s my blood, and family should always clean up their own messes.”

“It’s very noble of you to say so, but in all honesty, you always have a choice whether or not to do it.”

“I feel like I must atone for it. I see Yvan and I know that Yanka’s hate for him and his family could’ve been the thing that turned her evil. Vasilli was planted in his family, his real brother murdered in revenge. Then Vasilli kills Helena and Yvan and the firebird die and are made into an egg. It hatched when it came into my care, leaving Yvan and the firebird having to learn how to share bodies. It is chaos!”

“Can you not see the calm among the chaos? The perfect order to it?”

“Calm! What calm?”

Eldon pointed at Yvan, “He is the calm. The steadiness in it all. Even with sharing his body and the treachery and murder of his wife, he has been calm for you.”

“That’s just Yvan. He is like that. I had nothing to do with it. Anyway, one of us had to be level headed because it’s never going to be me.”

“Then you’re fortunate enough to have found a man that loves you so dearly.”

“What are you talking about? It is
Yvan
. Yvan loves me like that annoying sister that is always in trouble and dates men that are bad for her. He doesn’t…that’s silly…I mean…” Anya shut up because Eldon was shaking his head.

“I don’t know how you can see so far and be so utterly blind at the same time, but clearly this conversation upsets you, so let’s change the subject. Now, from what you tell me, you use words and the power of the tongue to help channel your magic for larger spells.” His teaching washed over her, banishing all the confusing thoughts and emotions for the time being.

Yvan, for the most part, was happy to be back in Skazki. It was the land of his birth and he would never feel out of place there as he often did in the real world. With each step he took, he could feel that something in Skazki had changed. He struggled to name what was wrong and in the end, the firebird pointed out bluntly,
the birds are gone
. Yvan stopped dead and listened. Anya and Eldon could be heard talking not far behind them but aside from that, the forest was silent.

“Yvan? What is it?” Aramis turned back searching for him.

“There are no birds,” he said. “Even during winter there is always birds. We are coming into the spring and there is only silence.” He gave his bag to Aramis and started to take his coat and boots off. Anya came through the trees as he pulled off his shirt and even at that distance, she started to blush. “You’re never going to get over your problem with nudity, are you?” he called as she turned her back.

“I was raised better, you heathen!” she stated.

Yvan felt the change coming on him as the firebird rose quickly. His vision started to close in as his body shrank and burned hot, the smell of ozone in each flap of his wings. The firebird cried in joy as it rose into the sky. They had learned to share each other’s mind more in bird form and the part that still Yvan exalted in the feeling of flight.

The firebird circled higher over the forest, the wind fanning the flames that crackled red hot. Slowly, they saw the changes in the land. The birds had gone but it looked as if entire herds had been in a mass migration. Below them, the icy mud had been churned with dozens of footprints of animals, humans and other less definable creatures all desperate and on the move. Whole swathes of land had been burned and villages, already so few in Skazki, had been pillaged. They swooped lower and the stench of charred and rotting flesh rose to meet them.

Animals always knew of the safe places to run and hide when a storm was coming. The war that they were so desperately trying to prevent was already beginning.

There was a storm brewing over Budapest. Thunder and lightning split the night sky as the city was battered with a tempest of wind and rain. Everyone was saying the spring storms had come too early, and that it was a bad omen, but it was no freak weather, God’s wrath or global warming.

Buried deep in swathes of red Egyptian cotton, Silvian was feeding. Her name was Sasha of the burning black eyes and burgundy hair. Silvian knew that the Illumination or the Darkness would come for him soon and as a result, Budapest was having the largest storm season in the past three hundred years.

“
O Doamne
,” Sasha was gasping as the orgasm exploded inside of her. The surge of sexual energy rolled through her and into Silvian. Above them, the thunder struck loud enough to make the priceless art works on the walls shudder and bounce on their hooks.

An hour later, the storm had subsided to a sulking simmer as Silvian, still crackling with energy, put Sasha into a taxi. She wouldn’t remember him or the house, but she would wake in the morning with the wet and lingering ache of the best sex dream she’d ever had.

Humming a tune that hadn’t been heard allowed in over two thousand years, Silvian strolled back to his office. The mystery that was Vasya Melenko had been consuming him for days. Earlier that night, he had begun to download CCTV camera surveillance from all around London. After pouring himself a glass of red wine, he started to skim through the footage.

Four hours and two bottles later, Silvian pressed pause. He had been looking intently around Hyde Park, a place where a strong gate was maintained by the Illumination. He rewound the footage and watched it again, but there was no mistaking what he had seen. An old woman had stepped through the gates, appearing under an oak tree. A moment later, the old woman had changed. A woman in her late thirties, dressed in a dark tweed suit now stood in her place. Silvian picked up his phone and dialled a number.

“Silvian?” a husky voice answered.

“Darling, Cerise, how are you?”

“Oh, you know me, trying to stay out of trouble.”

“Having much success?”

“None whatsoever,” she chuckled. “What has happened?”

“Pour yourself a drink, my darling
keres,
and I shall tell you a story you will not believe.”

“I have a bourbon poured and at the ready, so tell away.”

“There once was a hoary old witch who lived in a bone house on chicken legs.”

“Baba Yaga?”

“Vasya Melenko.” Silvian heard Cerise cough as she inhaled her drink. When the coughing stopped, the cursing started.

“Silvian, please tell me that you’re getting your chocolate Persian ass on a plane and coming here.”

“Oh, I don’t know, the New World has always seemed rather bothersome. I will try to find out some more. Quite frankly, I’m still smarting that I worked all those years for Baba Yaga and was too stupid to realise.”

“They will come for you.”

“No doubt. I’ve been snooping in their dirty laundry.”

“I know how much you love women to beg, so I won’t give you the satisfaction, but do be careful, won’t you? I might get curious and want to know what it’s like to fuck a Lilu one day and it would be a terrible bother if I had to try to find another because you were stupid enough to get captured.”

“You wouldn’t try to rescue me? I feel so used.”

“Please be careful.”

“You too. Will you get the message to Søren for me? We had a misunderstanding back in the Middle Ages and I don’t think he likes me very much anymore.”

“Did you hit on him?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Ouch, he doesn’t seem to like anyone very much, but I will certainly do my best. You take care now.”

“You too, I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.” Silvian kissed the phone and hung up.

Over the following days, Silvian began to research Baba Yaga and her leadership of the Illumination. The more he searched, the more paranoid he became. His security systems were on twenty-four hours and cameras had been installed in all of the surrounding streets. If a bird nested two blocks away, Silvian would know. He’d also spent considerable time organising the private transport of his most valuable and magical artefacts to his private residence in Israel that not even Aramis knew about. If he were attacked, he wouldn’t risk them getting their hands on his treasures.

All were sent except a very old camphor wood box. Very carefully, he chanted the old words, unlocking the engraved spells one at a time until they unravelled like ribbons. Inside the box was a folded bolt of red silk and one of white. He had met a beautiful Chinese sorceress in the twelfth century who had woven them as a present for him after he had saved her from a snake demon. He still remembered the smell of the jasmine flowers she had threaded into her braid of silky black hair.

Silvian unrolled the white fabric first until it was spread out over the polished floor. He flicked his hands upwards as he whispered a spell. The silk rippled into the air silently, curling and twisting before hanging itself on an empty wall. Silvian did the same with the red silk until they were hanging neatly side by side. Black lines started to spread over the silk, quick slashes of calligraphy drawn by an invisible hand. A map of the real world slowly took shape on the white silk while the red was a map of the Otherworld. Silvian had been very specific in his spell that it would only create Skazki. If left undirected, the map was a constant shuddering mess of lines and waves. The world of stories moved and twisted constantly and even the best spell would never be able to map it. Skazki was a mess. Ink spots marked burnt places and there were streaks of black lines where armies had been marching. The real world was churning in Russia, parts of America, China, and the Middle East. Silvian was bending closer to examine London when his security systems started to scream. Silvian ran to his screens that were flashing with the people swarming his house like black flies.

“Well, Vasilli, looks like you were smart enough to bring it back up this time,” Silvian muttered. He typed in some codes, activating his destruction commands for his computers and servers in Budapest. Beneath him, he heard his front door being blown in. He unbuttoned his clothes, letting them fall to the floor. Whispering a command, the maps on the walls wrapped around him and melted into his body like a tattoo. He took two scimitars down from where they hung on the wall. His study door was kicked open. The men in black body armour halted, their guns lowered.

Silvian started to laugh, “Don’t act like you haven’t seen a man naked holding swords before.”

“Sir, we found the target and are moving in to restrain him,” one said into his radio.

“Idiots,” Silvian said and shed his human form. Men fell screaming as the black cloud moved through the house, two silver swords flying through the air. Silvian burst through a window and moved into the night sky. Bolts of lightning began to hit his beautiful house over and over until it burst into flame.

It had been a long day at Legba’s Ladies. Two of their mechanics had been off sick and Fox’s head was splitting from the hours she had spent on the phone.

“We’re going to get a storm,” Harley commented as she watched clouds build.

“It’s been hot enough,” grumbled Fox. It wasn’t even summer and the humidity was rising higher every day. Fox got two beers from the fridge and walked over to the tall garage door where she was watching the sky.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Harley.

“I don’t know. Something about this storm, I can feel it building…”

“I’ve felt it in the back of my head all damn day,” Fox opened the beer and threw the top into the dumpster on the other side of the car park.

“Not that sort of pressure, I feel it under my skin like power.”

“The Council?”

“They wouldn’t be that stupid after Katrina.”

A red Porsche squealed around the corner and into their street before drifting into the car park. Cerise stepped out in twelve-inch heels and a red sundress.

“Lordy, she knows how to make an entrance,” Fox grinned. “Bit of retail therapy?”

“It’s my grieving process,” Cerise shrugged, “and I can’t be waiting for a cab to turn up every time I need to go anywhere. What’s wrong, Harley?”

“The weather,” she murmured as she downed a mouthful of beer.

Cerise looked up at the rapidly building clouds and frowned. The sky was becoming blacker and blacker by the second. They stood transfixed as clouds rolled together with uncanny speed. All three jumped when the first clap of thunder pounded over the garage. Without any warning, the sky opened and rain pelted the steaming asphalt. Lightning streaked overhead and the thunder boomed. Through the heavy rain, a man formed from cloud and mist.

“What the hell…” Harley gasped. The man stood up, brown, naked and armed. Red and white fabric flowed out of his body, wrapping around him in sodden sheets. He walked toward them, his long black hair slicking down over him.

“You’re never going to believe the night I have had,” he said, his voice still holding a roll of thunder.

“Oh, Silvian, I thought I told you to be careful,” Cerise said, hands on her hips. She squealed as he grabbed her in a wet hug, swords in his hands locking behind her as he kissed her lips in greeting.

“Silvian!” Harley exclaimed. “Like
the
Silvian? From Budapest?”

“They one and only,” he grinned, “and who are you?”

“This is Harley and Fox, but you can think of them as ‘off limits and under the pain of excruciating death’,” Cerise said, smacking him playfully in the side of his head as she stepped out of the circle of his arms.