by Dima Zales
The temperature in the room seems to rise a few more degrees. If it weren’t for the humidity, the wood benches might start to spontaneously combust.
With a whoosh, the surrounding vapor gathers in a single spot a few yards away from me.
I wipe another stream of sweat from my eyes in order to see, and by the time I complete the gesture, the vapor is gone.
A man covered only by a small towel around his waist stands in the exact spot where the vapor condensed.
A very impressive man.
Baba Yaga wasn’t kidding. The guy looks as though the heat of the banya has melted away every ounce of fat on his tall body, leaving behind the kind of lean and muscular perfection you only find in Photoshopped magazines. Only those too-perfect pictures don’t typically have the long, tangled blond hair and wild beard that frame the gorgeous features of this specimen.
I’m not a huge fan of the stranded-on-a-deserted-island look, but on him, it’s beyond hot—pun intended.
He meets my gaze.
His eyes are a light shade of gray, almost as though they’re made of vapor.
My heart hammers faster in my chest. Can all this heat give me a heart attack?
It’s possible. There was a warning sign for people with heart conditions in the banya Felix took us to.
Desperate to clear my thoughts, I violently shake my head. Beads of water fly all around me, as though I were a wet dog.
The gesture helps. I’m reminded that it doesn’t matter what the bannik looks like. I wouldn’t let him impregnate me even if he was the god of lust incarnate. He might as well be a necrophiliac, in fact, because if any baby making is going to happen today, it will be over my dead body.
Apparently, I win our little staring contest because he looks down and softly says, “I know you’re angry.”
“You don’t say.” I back away from him toward the door.
“I’ve foreseen your anger.” He walks over to the wooden bench and picks up the cuffs I left there.
“You what?” I take another step back.
“I have the same power as you.” He puts one of the cuffs over his wrist and locks it into place. “I can see the future.”
Is that his plan? To cuff us together?
That’s clever. That way, I’ll be within grabbing—
He puts the second cuff on his other wrist and snaps it shut.
There goes my understanding of his actions. Is he insane? Does he think that if I said no to vanilla sex, I might be more amenable to something kinkier?
Is this a judgement on my Criss Angel-inspired style of dress?
He raises his cuffed hands. “Does this make you feel safer? I want you to feel safe when we’re closer together.”
I take another step back and feel the too-hot wooden door at my shoulder blades. “We’re not getting any closer. Stay where you are.” I take care not to lean against the door lest it burn through my clothes.
“I need you to hurt me,” he says, kneeling on the floor. “In some of my visions, you kick me. In others, you punch—”
“What?” I wipe the river of sweat from my eyes again, beginning to get an inkling of where this is heading.
He’s either about to help me escape, or he needs this intricate setup to get aroused—which would make him the world’s lousiest rapist.
“If you don’t hurt me, Baba Yaga will not believe my story, and the consequences for me will be dire.” A quick flash of thunder shoots from his palms into his eyes, and he looks distant for a moment.
Refocusing, he visibly shudders.
Did he just glean the future?
“What story?” I ask, just to be sure.
“When Innokentiy searched your unconscious body, he missed some cleverly hidden lockpicks. When you entered this room, you used said lockpicks to escape your handcuffs,” he says with the certainty of someone who’s rehearsed a lie to the point of almost believing it himself. “You pretended to comply with Baba Yaga’s instructions until I got close to you—at which point you snapped the handcuffs on me. Once I was helpless, you savagely hit or kicked me, and ran for the door.”
“That’s a decent plan,” I say. “Maybe I should’ve done exactly that.”
“You did,” he says. “In one of the futures I gleaned.”
For the first time, I notice that he’s not sweating at all; despite the heat, his delectable naked torso is impossibly dry. “So.” I clear my newly parched throat. “You are helping me. You want me to escape.”
“Of course.” His back straightens. “I’m not a rapist.”
“It seems that you’re not,” I say cautiously. “But how do you know Baba Yaga isn’t watching us through some hidden camera right now?”
“The heat and humidity,” he says, and the temperature in the room seems to increase again. “I make sure no cameras can survive in this room.”
I slick back my sweaty hair. “If she’s not watching, how can she make sure we don’t lie about sleeping with each other?”
“All she needs is the leverage she holds over us.” He looks around the room, his face darkening. “She’d hold you hostage until a positive pregnancy test—and for nine months after. If you were slow to get pregnant, she would apply pressure… and it would be highly unpleasant.”
My knees feel weak, and I wonder if he’d make the room cooler if I admitted that I’m on the verge of a heat stroke.
“I think it’s time you hurt me.” He looks at me, squaring his shoulders. “Sometimes, waiting for pain is worse than pain itself.”
I stare down at the kneeling bannik.
This could still be a strange trick, but I don’t think so. And if he’s truly trying to help me, the least I can do is be merciful and make this unpleasant part quick.
I rush at him.
His eyes widen.
Using all my momentum, I attempt to kick him in the ribs.
Except I slip on the wet floor, and my leg goes off target.
Instead of his ribs, my steel-toed boot slams into his face.
I land on my butt, my tailbone screaming, but his head crashes into the wooden bench.
Burning my palms on the surrounding wood, I crawl toward him as he groans like a wounded animal, shakily lifting his bound hands to his matted tangle of hair.
His nose doesn’t look broken, but it’s bleeding profusely all over the place, as is the spot where he hit his head.
“This”—he pulls his bloody hands away—“means we’re in one of the more dangerous futures I’ve seen. But there’s still a chance—if you do exactly what I tell you.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, my stomach twisting as I take in all the blood. “I slipped.”
“The more you hurt me, the less Baba Yaga will,” he says, painstakingly gathering himself into a crouch. “Worry more about your injured posterior messing with your ability to sneak around and concentrate.”
He’s right. My tailbone is a literal pain in the butt as I stand up and take a few steps.
“I should be fine,” I say, determined to be stoic.
“Good.” Bleeding all over as though on purpose, he sits up. “We will kick the entry door as hard as we can exactly twenty seconds and two milliseconds after 6:55 p.m.”
“We will?” I look at the door in question, pull out my phone, and wipe the fog from the screen. I’m impressed the thing hasn’t died in the heat. Did Felix boost it with his powers before giving it to me?
Speaking of Felix, I have a bunch of missed calls and worried texts from him. Ignoring it all, I look at the clock.
We’re twenty-five minutes away from the deadline.
“Yes,” he says. “And here is what you will do after that.” He proceeds to tell me his plan—and despite the scorching air, my hands and feet grow icy as I picture the million ways this can go wrong. He must not like the lack of confidence on my face because when he finishes, he says, “Now repeat it all back to me.”
I do.
He corrects a few minor details and goes over the
plan once more before ending with, “If you’re off by a second at any point, it will all be for naught.”
I look at my phone again.
Given that we have plenty of time before the first step of the plan, I ask, “Why are you really helping me?”
He walks over to the bucket with water, takes the wooden ladle, and clumsily dips it in.
“Drink this.” He thrusts the ladle at me. “You’re getting dehydrated.”
I look inside the ladle. By some miracle, he managed not to bleed into the water, so I take a careful sip.
The water is near boiling, yet it’s as refreshing as soda commercials always try to make their products seem.
“You’re dodging my question,” I say after I make a tiny dent in my thirst.
“Our futures are entwined.” He sits down on the nearby bench and smears some blood onto it. “By helping you now, I open a set of possibilities that might lead to my freedom later.”
“Care to elaborate?” I try to take a seat on the bench opposite him—only to jump up in pain. My tailbone is still unhappy, and the wood is too hot to sit on.
“The more I say, the higher the chance you will do something to thwart my visions.” He wipes at the blood running down his chin. “That is just the nature of our powers.”
“Ah.” I pace the length of the parilka. “It’s like when I was dodging threats I saw in my own visions.”
“Exactly.” He moves down the bench, leaving more blood in his wake. “One of the main reasons the future doesn’t always go as seers foresee it is because of the scenario you describe—the seer who saw the vision doesn’t like it and uses his foreknowledge to change his fate.” He looks at the blood streaks, shakes his head minutely, and slides farther down the bench. “The second biggest reason the visions don’t manifest is when another seer comes into the picture and, on rare occasions, when a trickster does.”
The stuff he’s doing with his blood would make an abstractionist painter proud. He really wants Baba Yaga to think he fought for his life.
“A trickster?”
“Yes.” His chiseled jaw tightens. “I don’t hate easily, but I do hate them for this.” He waves his hand around us. “At least I hate one in particular.”
“It was a trickster who got you under Baba Yaga’s thumb?”
“Yes.” The temperature in the room jumps yet again, and his eyes seem ready to spew out vapor. “The trickster mraz’ told Baba Yaga whom to put pressure on, and the old owner sold the banya to her. No doubt the trickster extended probability manipulation to benefit the witch so I’d be blind to the whole scheme.”
“Was it Koschei?” I ask. “Is he a trickster?”
“No,” the bannik says in a calmer tone, and the heat lowers back to simply intolerable. “Koschei is something else entirely. If you don’t mind, I prefer not to even utter the trickster’s name. There are rumors that just thinking or mentioning one of their kind can expose you to bad luck. It could be superstition, but better safe than sorry—given how much luck you’re about to need.”
Oops. Seems tricksters are just like Voldemort. Going forward, I shall rename Murphy’s/Chester’s Law back to just Murphy’s Law—just in case.
But then again, didn’t I just think the name I wasn’t supposed to think?
Does it mean my luck might be worse?
I look at the phone again.
We’re still a few minutes away from my mission impossible, so I say, “Can you teach me a little bit about being a seer in the time we have left?”
“Sure.” His eyes gleam excitedly. “Why don’t we start with what you already know? This way, I can fill in the gaps for you.”
I swiftly tell the bannik everything related to my powers, starting with how good I’ve always been at stock picking and other similar activities. I then explain the TV power boost and the unconscious prophesies that followed, move on to the two unsolicited awake visions, and finish with my recent Headspace experimentation.
“I must say, I’m extremely impressed,” he says when I stop talking. “You’ve made many years’ worth of progress in a short time. You might well be on your way to becoming one of the most powerful seers.”
“That’s great, but how do I take it to the next level?” I walk to the bucket and use the ladle to get myself another scorching drink.
“Keep practicing. And try to understand what really brings on Headspace—because it’s not meditation as you seem to think.” He crosses his legs as though planning to meditate. “Not really.”
“It’s not? Then what is it?”
“Focus.” He closes his eyes, his expression serene. “Meditation is one path to it, as is spending time in the banya, or climbing mountains, or rigorous sport conditioning—just to name a few options. The key is that you empty your mind and focus in just the right way.”
As though to illustrate his point, lighting dances on his palms, then shoots toward his eyes but stops before reaching its destination.
Wow.
I wipe a new rivulet of sweat and try to imagine using the banya as a way to reach Headspace.
It could work. Not in my current adrenaline-pumped state perhaps, but normally, when it’s used as intended. In fact, when Felix showcased the banya in Manhattan and had us do the whole hot-room, cold-dip routine, my mind did clear admirably—
“Eventually, reaching Headspace will get easier and easier, and you’ll be able to do it without any aid,” the bannik says as lighting appears on his palms once more.
Show-off.
“For now, I can’t reach Headspace even with meditation,” I complain.
“Right.” He opens his eyes and swings his legs down. “You should be careful with vision length going forward. Longer visions indeed drain your powers.”
“I saw a vision that lasted many hours. How long will it take me to recuperate?”
“Depends on your power.” He gingerly stands up and takes a careful step toward the door. “The recovery time improves as you get more control over your abilities—so you can expect the wait time to be less and less as you practice. For now, I’d make your visions short.”
“Assuming I survive long enough to practice,” I grumble and look at the clock on my phone. “It’s almost time.”
“Indeed.” He walks toward the door, and I follow.
He stands in an exaggerated kicking pose, and I do my best to mimic the strange posture.
“In three, two,” I whisper. “One.”
Moving like mirror images, we kick the door.
Chapter Nineteen
My foot bellows in pain from the impact.
The cops on TV shows make this look too easy.
The door doesn’t break or fly off its hinges, but there is a thud of a body hitting the tiled floor outside.
“Go.” Yaroslav drags the body of the unconscious admiral into the room. “Keep an eye on the time and do exactly what I said.”
“Thank you.” As though possessed by an evil spirit, I lean in and peck him on the cheek.
He stares at me like I kicked him in the face again.
“It’s time,” I say and jump over the body as I bolt from the room.
The air-conditioned air outside the parilka is the most refreshing thing I’ve ever experienced. Behind me is the thud of Yaroslav kicking the admiral in the head to make sure he doesn’t come to his senses anytime soon.
I rush down the corridor and stop next to the wooden door of a parilka with a window.
Plastering myself against the edge of the door, I attempt to even out my breathing.
There are vague muscular shadows in the vapor inside the room, but I hope they won’t see me.
Four more seconds like this.
An armed guard rounds the corner.
He’s about to turn my way.
Did I already mess up the bannik’s vision by thinking about Chester (and thus courting bad luck)? In a moment, the guard will see me standing here like an idiot, and after that, Baba Yaga will no longer play Mrs.
Nice Witch.
The door next to me opens at the exact moment it’s supposed to, blocking me from the guard’s view.
I allow myself a quiet sigh of relief.
“S lyohkim parom,” the guard says to the guy opening the door.
According to Yaroslav, that means “with a light steam”—a traditional banya greeting that roughly translates to “hope you had a great time at the banya.”
I look at my phone and swiftly walk sideways with my back pressed against the wall, heading away from the speakers.
The guy who exited the door expresses gratitude to the guard in a deep voice.
Someone from inside the parilka complains in Russian about something. Maybe about the door being open and the heat getting out?
I move faster, glance at my phone, and leap for the next corner.
If I’m off by even a second, the guard will spot me.
Given the lack of shouts, I assume he doesn’t.
I don’t have time to congratulate myself, though, because I have to implement the next step of the plan—disguise.
Walking as softly as I can, I approach a shower stall.
The shower is running, as Yaroslav said it would be, and I hear a deep voice humming some Russian song over the running water.
The large bathrobe Yaroslav mentioned is on the wooden hook, as is the towel.
Shoving aside concerns about hygiene, I grab the robe and put it on over my sweat-dampened clothes.
The guy must be a giant because the thing covers me to my feet.
I then grab the damp towel and wrap it around my head.
I count two seconds in that spot and run for the door at the end of the corridor.
There’s a bucket of water with a broom-like bunch of birch tree branches soaking.
I grab the bunch, inhale as much of the cool air as I can, and enter the parilka, just as a guard turns the corner and sees my back entering the room.
He doesn’t raise an alarm.
The disguise must’ve worked.
A large hairy guy is lying face down in the distant corner of the room. He says something in Russian. According to Yarolsav, he just said, “Please add some heat.”
I grab a nearby ladle, dip it into a water bucket, and pour water into a stove-like contraption nearby.