by Cara Wylde
“I’m not...”
She floated around for a while, acutely aware that she was starting to lose the connection with this place. If she returned to her physical body now, she’d be too exhausted to try again. She needed to find out where she was, or Ravenna was right. She’d go back empty handed. The last thing she wanted was to give Ravenna any kind of satisfaction.
The village seemed small and remote, the people were cheerful and wore colorful clothes, and there was not one household that didn’t own at least a dog and half a dozen cats. Finally, Valentina reached a crossroads, but to her disappointment, she had no idea what the sign said.
“Isn’t this just grand?” Ravenna laughed out loud.
“Shut up! It’s like you want me to fail!”
In her anger and frustration, she started swirling through space and she couldn’t stop it. When she opened her eyes, she was in the hotel room and four gods and one hobgoblin were staring at her breathlessly. The tarot cards were scattered all over the floor.
“Pen and paper,” she said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“What does it mean?”
Valentina had drawn the symbols she’d seen on the road sign, and now they were all staring at them.
“I think it’s Russian.”
Magny sighed. “Good to know. I would’ve never guessed. You have pretty ugly handwriting, did you know that?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not my handwriting! I just draw what I saw.”
“It reads Multa,” Veles said. “It’s a small village in the south of Russia. Old, picturesque... Legend says it’s at the border with Shambala, the mythical kingdom long lost in the East, home of the gods, the shamans, and all the saints.”
Valentina blinked in confusion. “Wow. I learn something new every day. How do you know of Multa?”
Veles smirked. “Do you forget who I am? The Slavic god of magic, the harvest, and the arts. Emphasis on Slavic. I was practically born there!”
Loki grabbed Valentina’s phone and tapped on the Map. “All right, so how do we get there?”
“Hades is not in this dimension,” Val said.
“Wherever he is, let’s get there in our dimension first, and I can track him down and take you to him just like I did with Veles.”
“Give me that.” She took her phone from him. “You don’t know how to use it.”
A quick search revealed it was quite difficult to reach the small Russian village. Not only did she have to take a plane to the nearest airport in the Altai region, but then there was still a 6-hour ride to the village. She wasn’t going to take a cab, was she? And she hated the idea of renting a car, although that seemed to be the most reasonable option.
“Oh, I hate this so much. Hate it!”
Magny poofed himself on her shoulder to see what she was looking at.
“Why does it have to be Multa? An obscure village in the south of Russia... I don’t know the place, it seems to be wild as hell, and let’s not mention the language! If they at least used the Roman alphabet! Ugh!”
“I might be wrong here,” Magny said, “But maybe we should be thankful it’s not China or Japan? The Cyrillic alphabet is one thing. Kanji, though...” He shook his head.
“Gee... thanks for trying to cheer me up.” She smacked him off her shoulder. “You failed.”
Nergal placed his hands on her shoulders and massaged them lightly. Her muscles relaxed under his expert touch.
“Russia, here we come!” Death said. “Come on, sweetpea. The sooner we do this, the faster we get there and then we can come back to civilization.”
Veles huffed. “I’ll have you know that the people of Multa are very civilized and friendly.”
As the four gods started arguing over what civilization meant, Valentina stepped aside and tried to plot the best course to the Russian village. Magny supervised her closely, pointing out that no matter what flight she took, she’d still have to stop in Moscow first. She settled for Munich to Gorno-Altaysk, the capital town of the Altai Republic and the closest airport to Multa, with a 4-hour layover in Moscow. There was no way she could do better.
Once the plane tickets were bought, she kindly invited Veles, Loki, Nergal, and Jove to go back inside their cards, so she could have a quiet meal and some well-deserved sleep. For now, Magny was more company than she could tolerate. And yes, she wanted to have her four gods-turned-lovers around, but the hotel room was small, and they had this tendency to argue all the time, which either drove her mad, or exhausted her to no end. Sleep. She needed sleep. Her flight was the next day, at 5 AM, when it would probably also be the last time she’d hear English spoken all around her. She hoped to the Goddess that her next Ash Gods weren’t isolated somewhere in Papua New Guinea or Antarctica. She literally couldn’t think of places farther away than these ones.
To her chagrin, insomnia hit her hard, and she only caught three hours or sleep. She stared at the ceiling for most of the night, thinking about the ingredients for the exorcism. By the time the plane took off from Munich, she was fast asleep in her first-class seat. Magny was disappointed at first, then he figured out he didn’t need Valentina to order him champagne. He could poof himself glass after glass as long as he made sure no one actually saw the glasses. When they finally landed in Moscow, he struggled to wake her up. She moved through the airport like a zombie, stopped for coffee and a doughnut, then slept all the way to the next Russian airport. Magny figured it was a good thing she could sleep, since staying awake meant obsessing over the spell she couldn’t perform and the car she needed to rent. She hated driving in the US, and now she had to drive in Russia! If that wasn’t the definition of hell...
It was a good thing there was no way she could get lost in the Gorno-Altaysk Airport, seeing how it was so small.
“What the hell am I supposed to do now? Cast a spell to find the closest car rental?”
Valentina sat on a bench and reached for her tarot deck. She felt so alone, and Magny poofing himself everywhere, curious about the people and the shops, didn’t help. She pulled out the Magician, the Hanged Man, the Emperor, and Death, and hoped that no one was paying attention to her. Anyway, she bet no one understood what she was saying. They didn’t seem to speak English here.
“I’m exhausted,” she told them in a whisper. “And I have a 6-hour drive through the Altai ahead. Maybe I should get a hotel and stop for the time being. Get some real sleep. I’m so stressed!” She rubbed her temples and groaned. “Guys, this is more than I can take.”
“No, it’s not,” Veles said. “If you don’t understand the language, I can help you.”
“It’s not that...”
“You don’t want to rent a car,” Loki said.
“Ugh! I hate it. I’m not a great driver, and driving a different car all the time...” She sighed. “Piper was so good at it.”
“A witch who can’t drive,” Jove chuckled.
“Shut up,” she pouted. “I can drive. I just don’t particularly enjoy it.”
Inside the Death card, Nergal pushed himself away from the motorcycle he was leaning on. Megaera shined brightly in the scorching sun. The painter of souls had painted the card in the traditional way – a skeleton in a black armor, on a white horse. When Nergal took his rightful place as Death, the armor turned into his signature leather outfit, and the horse became his motorcycle, Megaera. Needless to say, he didn’t look like a skeleton at all.
“If you find some place safe where no one can see you or hear you, then I might have a solution for you,” he said, a mysterious grin playing on his lips.
Valentina cocked an eyebrow. “What solution?”
“You’ll see. Go find a deserted alley or something.”
She sighed, grabbed her luggage, and motioned for Magny to take his place on her shoulder. As usual, the hobgoblin made himself comfortable, hiding underneath the cozy hood and holding on to Val’s thick braid. Which she hated but had sadly gotten used to. Sh
e exited the airport and looked around. Gorno-Altaysk seemed to be a neat town, albeit a bit gray and sad. A mix of four-story blocks of flats, country houses, old and new buildings alike, small shops, and not a single word written in the Roman alphabet. For the first time, Valentina truly felt like she’d landed on a foreign planet. She orientated herself as best as she could and found a narrow alley that led to a park and seemed to be empty. She doubted she needed more time. She pulled out the Death card.
“Now what?”
“Do your summoning thing. But not on me. On Megaera.”
“What?!” She almost dropped Nergal. “I’m not riding your bike. Not without you.”
“Six hours riding behind me? Trust me, you don’t want that. Hell! I don’t want that. Don’t worry, it will be fine.”
“I don’t know how to ride a damn bike,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Well, you see, sweetpea... You don’t have to.” He laughed, looking very pleased with himself. “You’re already wearing my cloak, and from what I can see, she likes you.”
Valentina looked at the black cloak covering her shoulders, back and sides.
“It’s a she?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not alive. But I like to think of it as a she. Like my bike, you know? Anyway, my point is that the two are connected. As long as you wear the cloak, you can ride the bike, too.”
She blinked in confusion and surprise. How many other secrets were her gods keeping from her? At every turn, they seemed to have an ace up their sleeve. Or cloak.
“Is this like some Matrix kind of thing? I get a bike riding course downloaded into my brain?”
Nergal didn’t look impressed with her analogy. “No. It’s not Matrix.”
She dragged in a breath. “I don’t know, Nergal. This doesn’t sound like a good plan.”
“Trust me, it is. Just get Megaera out of the card, get up on it, and you’ll know what to do. She will know what to do, actually. You’ll just have to hold on tight and let your body move the way she leads.”
“This is insane.”
“Aren’t you curious, though?”
“About what?”
“To see if you can do it.”
Was he challenging her? Riding a motorcycle in the south of Russia wasn’t exactly on her bucket list. She could live without it.
“Come on, sweetpea. It will be great! You won’t have to do a thing. Megaera will take good care of you, I promise.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t believe it, but she was starting to give in. Why not? She wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this one.
“Megaera is very fast, too. It won’t take you six hours to get to the village. Five, at most. She’s not a regular bike, remember?” He winked at her. “She’s my bike.”
“How is riding Death’s bike a good idea? In what universe?” She mumbled under her breath, but she was already about sixty percent convinced she wanted to do it. “What do you say, Magny? You in?”
The hobgoblin poofed himself on top of her trolley, arms crossed over his round chest.
“I say it’s the craziest idea anyone could have come up with, even Death. What about your things?” He poofed himself back on her shoulder to give Nergal a murderous look. “Can Megaera carry her two bags, too?”
The blond god laughed. “That’s where you come in. You can poof yourself wherever you want as long as you know where the place is. And you can take things with you, too. So, be a lamb and take Valentina’s luggage to Multa, will you? Explore the place, see what’s what.”
“You’re treating me like an errand hobgoblin again,” he mumbled, displeased.
“Magny, if only you could take me too...”
“I can’t. I can’t take people with me. Just objects. But I bet your Ash Gods can!” He pointed at Nergal. “Kali kidnapped you through some sort of space vortex. I bet any one of them can do the same. I mean, not kidnap you... transport you from one place to another.”
Valentina cocked an eyebrow. She hadn’t thought about that. She turned to Nergal, a questioning look in her blue eyes.
“Well?”
Nergal chuckled nervously. “Yeah, the hobgoblin is right. But no, we won’t intervene. Sweetpea, you’re a witch. You’re a Keeper of the Spades, and you’re stronger and more resourceful than you think. Hell! You could probably fly there if you put your mind to it!”
“Very few witches can fly...”
“So what? Oh, you think you’re like all the other witches. Normal... How cute.”
She furrowed her brows. “Are you mocking me?”
“Never!” He laughed. “I’m just saying... There’s more to you than you allow yourself to see.”
“I can float, but I get tired pretty quickly.”
“No, I’m talking about flying. Flying so high in the sky that when people see you, they think you’re a bird or something.”
“That’s just... not possible. I haven’t even read of any witch in history who was capable of doing that.”
Nergal crossed his arms over his chest. He was losing his patience.
Valentina dragged in a breath, sighed, looked around her for a few long minutes, then finally nodded, as if she’d just had a conversation with herself in her head and had come to a conclusion.
“Okay, let’s do this. Magny, you’re in charge of my stuff. I’m going to...” She swallowed heavily. “I’m going to summon Death’s bike and see you in the village in... five hours?”
Magny threw his hands in the air. There was no use arguing with her now that she’d made up her mind. He still thought this was the stupidest idea in the world, but he didn’t have a say in it, did he? Apparently, Nergal was trying to teach her something. Something along the lines that she was capable of anything, even of riding a motorbike when she had never ridden one before. Whatever. He had better things to do. He grabbed Val’s handbag and her trolley and closed his eyes. In a few seconds, he’d be in the village, and he hoped to God – although he wasn’t sure which god, since all the ones he’d met lately were legit crazy, – that there was something fun to do or see there. A small Russian village... Well, he guessed it could have been worse. Poof.
A few sigils and a chant, and Nergal’s motorcycle materialized before her, in the middle of the alley. She looked around and sighed in relief when she saw she was still alone. Carefully, she mounted it, afraid of what would happen next. She wasn’t even sure where to place her feet and how to hold her arms. With one foot on the ground, she kept the bike upright. It was heavy as hell, and the last thing she needed was to fall with Megaera on top of her. But none of that happened. It was as if the bike didn’t even need Valentina to stay upright. It hummed loudly, and Valentina blushed to the tips of her ears. In the all-encompassing silence, it felt like the sound of the engine could raise the dead. She gulped and leaned forward, trying to send her thoughts to the bike. Nergal hadn’t exactly told her how it would all work, but she had a feeling that was the way to go. Mind-bike connection.
“Not bad,” Ravenna said. She sounded impressed. “If only you could see yourself. You look pretty badass right now.”
Valentina chuckled reluctantly. She didn’t know about badass. She barely had time to put on her helmet that Megaera shot down the alley, rounded the park, and eased onto the main street smoothly and effortlessly. It was incredible, but the motorcycle was, indeed, driving itself. Val hadn’t even set her GPS. Her phone was in her backpack, which she always kept on herself, but she was sure she wouldn’t need it, anyway. Megaera knew where they were headed, and she was going to get her there on the fastest route.
Riding a bike without actually having to do anything proved to be fun and exhilarating. Valentina’s fear subsided, her body learned how to lean and move with the bike, and she now had time to look around at the towns and villages she passed through, at the long highway ahead, at the mountains rising toward the sky all around her, and at the wild rabbits Megaera had to avoid from time
to time. It was amazing! For the first time in what felt like forever, she felt free. For a couple of hours, she didn’t have to worry about a thing, she didn’t have to interact with anyone, not even with Magny. And it felt liberating! On the highway, the bike caught speed, making Valentina’s cloak whoosh behind her. She almost felt the urge to let go and lift her hands in the air, but she fought it. A magic cloak and a magic bike didn’t mean that she couldn’t die.
The sun sinking behind the Altai mountains in a flurry of red, gold and orange was a sight to behold. Val willed Megaera to stop at the nearest gas station so she could drink in the majestic view, and spent ten minutes in pure awe at the beautiful shades nature drew on the sky and all over the generous canvases of the mountains, woods and valleys. A quick snack and a bottle of water were enough to get her through the last stretch of the journey, and since Magaera didn’t need any fuel, Valentina was on the road once again. Briefly, she wondered on what the bike ran. Seeing how it was Death’s motorcycle, maybe on the tears of those doomed to spend eternity in the Underworld? She made a mental note to ask Nergal the first chance she got.
When the village of Multa appeared on the road signs, Val’s heart started beating faster. She was close. She guessed it was Multa because she remembered the letters she’d scribbled herself after she’d returned from her astral trip. Soon, Megaera was raising the dust on an old country road, drawing the attention of the people working in their gardens and yards, standing by the fence to chat with their neighbors, or going to the local bar for a drink.
“Find Magny,” Valentina directed her thoughts to Megaera. The motorbike took a right down a narrow road, then a left, and finally went straight toward the woods at the edge of the village. She stopped when she reached a crossroads. Valentina got off and smiled when she saw it was the exact same spot she’d been to in her etheric body. She’d made it. It was getting darker, the moon was rising, and stars started peppering the blue sky, but at least she had made it. Magny poked his head from behind a tree.
“Finally! I was bored out of my mind. There’s nothing to see here. I looked for Shambala, but I’m starting to think Veles doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There’s no Shambala here. Just a few hundred people tending to their sheep and goats, carving stone and wood all day, or weaving and jabbering endlessly.” He scrunched up his nose. “And the whole place smells of manure.”