by Dima Zales
“You shouldn’t have helped Gaius kill Rose.” Vlad is all but vibrating with rage.
“You talk about vengeance,” Baba Yaga says, but if Vlad realizes she’s quoting The Godfather yet again, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he lifts the machete as though he plans to throw it like a knife.
Baba Yaga raises her arm, parroting Vlad’s movement. Before he can even blink, black energy flows from each of her fingers into his head.
A lot of energy.
The witch seems to age another few decades under the effort of it.
Vlad’s eyes fill up with black energy identical to those of the Johnnies, and the weapon does not leave his hand.
“Good,” Baga Yaga says in a weak voice. “Now let’s use that blade to slice your neck.”
She strains until her face looks pained from the mental effort.
Vlad starts to move like an automaton. He positions the machete at his own throat, then lazily hacks at it.
The neck wound looks grievous.
Vlad falls to his knees.
His blood streams down, mixing with the gasoline.
“Again,” Baba Yaga hisses.
Vlad slices himself one more time, and starts to fall to the marble floor.
Baba Yaga sags in exhaustion.
Vlad’s body hits the floor.
A firebird egg rolls out from under his black leather coat and stops in the puddle of gasoline at Baba Yaga’s feet.
“No,” she gasps, staring down in horror. “Not after—”
The egg cracks open.
The fire blast turns Vlad, Baba Yaga, and the still-struggling Koschei into ash, and the gasoline ignites, spreading flames in a heartbeat.
In moments, the restaurant looks like the Seventh Circle from Dante’s Inferno—
Chapter Forty-Six
I’m back in my cell, covered in a layer of sweat so dense you’d think I was actually in a burning restaurant a moment ago.
Leaping to my feet, I head straight for the monitor keypad device.
The clock shows 1:49.52—the remaining time on my work allotment.
With a trembling finger, I key 911 into the number pad.
The screen blinks red at first; then a videoconference app comes on.
Blinking in confusion, I accept the call.
“You don’t look like you’re having a medical emergency,” Nero growls. “I thought I explained the consequences of—”
“Vlad’s about to die,” I blurt out. “We have to go save him. The fire—”
“Slow down.” Nero gets closer to the camera. “How and why is Vlad going to die this time?”
My voice unnaturally shrill, I tell him what I just foresaw.
“It was sunset when he got to the scene, and the sun sets around six p.m. this time of year.” I wave my phone. “It’s 3:45 right now, and it could take over two hours to get to Brighton Beach at this time of day. We have to—”
“I can’t step foot in Brighton Beach.” A muscle ticks in Nero’s temple. “I’ve told you that.”
“Isn’t the contract only valid while Baba Yaga is alive?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I saw her die in my vision. Can’t you—”
“No. It doesn’t work like that. If anything, that’s an excellent argument against going. Doing so can change the vision and result in Baba Yaga’s survival.”
“But don’t you also have the right to attack her if she goes after me?”
His eyebrows snap together. “She just confirmed that she didn’t try to kill you with that explosion—and she was telling the truth again.”
“That’s bullshit.” I smack the monitor in frustration. “Let’s see how she doesn’t try to kill me when I go there to save Vlad.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Nero reaches for his computer, about to disconnect.
“Wait!” I shout. “Please. I promised Rose I’d take care of Vlad.”
The phrase “take care of Vlad” seems to awaken something dark in Nero’s eyes. Something frightening.
“Don’t you see that this was Vlad’s exact plan?” His tone is sharp enough to cut glass. “He knows Baba Yaga has the power to take someone over. The gasoline in the sprinklers, the smoke grenade, the firebird egg—they’re all part of a suicide mission. Vlad wants to die. Losing someone you love can—”
“Vlad isn’t thinking rationally.”
“Neither are you,” Nero snaps. “Your work allotment is now doubled for today.”
With that, he hangs up.
I bang a fist at the safe-like metal door to no avail.
The clock shows up on the screen again, now showing 9:45.12.
Resisting the urge to punch it, I type in 911 again.
The screen goes red, and the video conference app starts up but instantly disconnects.
Nero doesn’t even pick up to tell me I doubled my “work allotment” again—the clock just shows 15:44.59.
I almost rip the screen off the wall, but I need it.
Since I can’t rely on the bastard’s help, I must figure out the passcode.
Praying to my seer intuition, I type in my best guess: 5317. According to Felix, if you write 5317 on an old-school calculator and turn it upside down, it will read as LIES.
The screen blinks red, and an annoying beeping sounds rings out—but the door stays shut and the clock changes to show 55:44.48.
What?
He did say he’d double my week’s work allotment if I put in the wrong passcode, but I didn’t expect the bastard to do it like this.
My head is ready to explode, and it takes all my willpower to calm myself enough to think.
If my powers don’t serve up a passcode, I’m screwed. Assuming the code is four digits, there are 10,000 possibilities to try. If I enter one per second, it will take 166 minutes to go through them all—or about two hours and forty-two minutes.
That’s assuming I don’t get locked out after too many wrong guesses for security reasons, as with smartphone passcodes.
Either way, Vlad doesn’t have that kind of time.
If only I had reception in this place. Then I’d call Felix, and he would figure out a way to hack this lock.
Thinking of Felix gives me an idea.
Back when we were trying to hack Nero’s computer, Felix had suggested a way to use Headspace to guess a password. At the time, I had no clue how to do what he described, but I might now.
“I’m going to guess the passwords,” I tell myself so confidently that I actually believe it. “I’ll punch in 0001, then 0002, and so on and so forth, until I get to 9999.”
To really seal in the deal, I punch 0001.
It doesn’t work, and I get forty more hours on my allotment clock.
I punch in 0002.
Same result.
Instead of typing in 0003, though, I launch myself into Headspace.
Ignoring the default shapes around me, I focus on my situation in the cell—particularly the password-guessing game that I’ve started.
A cloud of vision-shapes appears in front of me, all as similar to each other as I’ve ever encountered.
If I’m on the right track, these are so alike because the only difference between them is which digit I press into that keypad.
I focus on reaching out with multiple wisps, as I’d done for the Vlad visions. Only this time, it’s not a dozen or so that I need to sprout but ten thousand.
The feeling of getting ripped apart is exponentially stronger as I get pulled into thousands of directions—but then I feel myself in ten thousand places at once and the visions begin.
I type in 0003 into the keypad without success.
I type in 0004 into the keypad without success.
I get visions of myself failing while pressing 0005, then 0006, and on and on, until I get to 7734.
I type in 7735 into the keypad. Green light winks at me, and the cell door unlocks.
I get visions of myself of futilely pressing 7736, then 7737, and on and on, until
I get to 9999 and the visions stop.
I’m back in the room, the metal walls spinning around me as I jump from foot to foot in excitement.
I did it.
I used my power to brute-force the stupid lock.
At least I hope I did.
Index finger trembling, I type in 7735 into the keypad.
Green light winks at me, and the cell door unlocks.
Finally.
Now I just have to get out of the building before Nero can stop me.
Chapter Forty-Seven
I sprint to the elevator as though chased by a team of zombie IRS agents.
The elevator seems to take a thousand frantic heartbeats to get to me, and when I get inside, I stab the ground floor button hard enough to hurt my finger, then bite my nails all the way up.
The doors open.
Nero isn’t there.
Phew.
I sprint out of the elevator and through the lobby.
My coworkers give me confused looks, but no one stops me.
I bump into a woman as I exit the door. She looks familiar, but I pass her too quickly to register where I might know her from.
Spotting an empty yellow cab, I jump in front of it and frantically wave my arms.
The driver stops, rolls down his window, and yells something unintelligible about my sanity.
“I’ll give you two hundred dollars to get me to Brooklyn,” I yell back. “Three hundred if you manage to do it before sunset.”
He unlocks the door for me, and we speed away.
As we turn the corner, I catch a glimpse of Nero running out of the building.
Too late, asshole.
I pull out my phone and dial Felix.
“Sasha,” he says. “How are—”
“No time. Put me on speaker so Kit can hear.”
Felix does as I ask, and I start explaining what happened, lowering my voice to a whisper when I touch on the supernatural bits.
“Did you realize that the password you cracked is another one of those upside-down calculator words?” Felix says when I finish. “It’s SELL—which is so Nero, don’t you think?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “We don’t have time for that. I called because I was hoping you could send your robot to help me. It might be the only way to get to Baba Yaga without getting snared by her mind-control juju.”
“It does sounds like a good use for Golem,” Felix says. “Let me set him up and get ready.”
“Only Golem, not you,” I clarify. “For this to work best, I need you to control it from the safety of our apartment; otherwise, someone can get to you before the robot gets to Baba Yaga.”
I only twist the truth slightly. I also don’t want to expose him to more horrors.
“That makes sense,” Felix says with noticeable relief in his voice.
“What about me?” Kit asks.
“Can Baba Yaga take you over?” I ask.
“Probably,” she says. “But, like Vlad, I would be very difficult for her to control, meaning if she tries, she’d be weakened, which could give you a critical opening.”
“In that case, I’d love it if you volunteered to go,” I say. “But I’d totally understand if you’d rather not risk it.”
“Does this mean we’re friends now?” she asks cheerfully. “I have so much fun hanging out with you and —”
“Yes.” I’m glad Kit can’t see me roll my eyes. “We’re friends without benefits whether you join this mission or not. But if you want to enjoy having me alive as a friend for much longer, please join.”
“Good point,” Kit says. “You do still owe me a vision.”
“Yep,” I say, for once grateful to be owing a favor.
“Okay, then,” Kit says. “I’m in. But keep in mind, I will not kill anyone under the Mandate. Nor can I bring the Enforcers with me, or do anything else in my official capacity as a Councilor.”
Crap.
Baba Yaga, Koschei, and Gaius are all “under the Mandate”—meaning Kit’s hands will be tied.
“Kit can still help out with the Johnnies and the other goons,” Felix says. “I think it’s still worth your while to take her.”
“I agree,” I say. “Our main goal is to get Vlad, Lucretia, and Ariel out alive. Revenge is an optional gravy.”
“Fluffster wants to add something,” Felix says. “He says, ‘Don’t you dare die.’”
“Tell him I’ll do my best,” I say. “Now, to save time, can Kit and Golem meet me on Broadway? This way, my cab can pick them up without turning onto our street.”
“No problem,” Kit and Felix say in unison.
“Okay, hurry,” I say. “We’ll be there soon.”
They hang up, and I watch the cab navigate the rush-hour traffic with nervous anticipation.
To stay sane, I spend a few minutes doing meditative breathing; then, when I’m calmer, I try to get into Headspace.
It doesn’t work, which I guess makes sense.
Though the visions that helped me hack the passcode were short, there were ten thousand of them, so it’s feasible I ran out of juice.
If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to recharge by the time we arrive at our destination. And if there’s one kind of seer experience I could use more of, it would have to be power management.
I see my friends standing on the corner from a block away.
“Pull over next to that lady in a ninja outfit,” I say to the driver, pointing at Kit as we get closer. “The one next to a robot.”
Shrugging, the cab driver pulls up where I requested.
Jaded New Yorkers don’t seem to care about a metallic creature getting itself into a cab, but a few tourists gawk at Golem in fascination.
The driver cares even less than the city natives. He simply presses on the gas, and we screech forward.
Belatedly, it occurs to me that I should’ve asked Kit to bring my Focusall, in case my powers came back in time.
Oh well, I guess I’ll have to rely on my training.
“Put this in your ear.” Kit hands me a familiar-looking earbud.
“Figured we’d communicate the same way as during Ariel’s rescue,” Felix’s voice says from inside the earbud. “Tap the earbud to mute it, or tap it again to speak—or you can just speak to Golem. I’m using his eyes and ears as my own.”
“Sounds good,” I say to Golem. “You’d make a fortune if you could manufacture robots like this for the general public.”
“You need to have my technomancer powers to control Golem at the moment,” Felix says disappointedly. “But maybe I could make something everyone can use someday.”
“I tried calling and texting Vlad to stop him from going into that restaurant,” Kit says. “No luck.”
“Oh, I’m glad you did that.” I redden. “I was in such a rush I forgot to try such a simple solution.”
“I doubt he would listen anyway,” Felix says through the buds.
My phone rings.
It’s Nero.
I click “Ignore.”
A notification about a voicemail pops up, then a text message.
Surprise, surprise. It’s a combination of threats and pleas.
Nero doesn’t want me to go to Brighton Beach.
I don’t return the call or the text.
I’ll deal with my boss if I survive.
“I almost forgot.” Kit hands me an energy bar and a bottle of water. “Fluffster was worried you might not have eaten.”
“Fluffster was right,” I say and attack the sustenance with enthusiasm.
Eating and drinking keeps me busy half of the way. The second half, I spend attempting to reach Headspace, over and over—without any success.
At 6:04 p.m., we turn onto Brighton Beach and park.
“We better hurry,” Kit says, throwing cash at the driver as she exits the vehicle.
The robot and I rush out after Kit.
The sun is already setting.
“Put this on.” Kit hands me a black mask and puts one on hers
elf at the same time. “No Enforcers to wipe memories after we’re done, so we have to worry about witnesses.”
Feeling like a robber from a heist movie, I put on the itchy mask and sprint for the chicken-leg-adorned entrance of the Izbushka restaurant.
Kit and Golem follow close behind.
The two burly bouncers are on the ground already, sleeping.
“Shit,” Kit says, catching up with me. “We may already be too late.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Pulling out my gun, I rush inside.
“The t.A.T.u song is still blasting through the speakers,” Felix says in the earbud. “That tells me you’re not that late.”
I take in the place.
Felix is right.
We arrived early enough.
Vlad is standing in the middle of the room with a shotgun and an Uzi in his hands.
“Don’t move,” Felix says in my earpiece needlessly. “We know he’s going to be fine, but if you get into the line of fire, you can die.”
As though to highlight Felix’s words, Vlad sprays out bullets at the nearest goons, just like he did in my vision.
The goons fall, bleeding all over the glossy floors.
Desperate screams ring out, and we dodge the staff stampede as best we can.
Just like before, the surviving gangsters reach for their guns.
Vlad sends another burst of bullets at them, as predicted.
Most fall, but a few manage to fire at Vlad—and one bullet tears into his shoulder again.
Oblivious to the wound, Vlad keeps shooting until his Uzi runs out of bullets.
“Now we run,” I say and launch into a sprint, jumping over the bleeding bodies in my way.
Vlad throws the empty gun at the nearest goon, caving in his skull, like before.
Both Kit and I look down when Vlad lifts his sunglasses and orders everyone in the range of his weaponized gaze to sleep.
All but two goons fall.