My dearest Ciera,
If you are reading this, I am dead. I can’t say I’m surprised, although needless to say it wasn’t the outcome I would have wished for. I have left you all the tools to build yourself a new life, including becoming the librarian you dream of being. I hope you will take this chance and grasp it with both hands. You have the potential to be anything or anyone you want.
If I know you—and I think I do—I suspect you will also want to carry on my other legacy. Think long and hard about this before taking up my mantle; it can be a tough and lonely road. One that you have made much easier these last months, for which you have my love and gratitude. If in the end you choose to continue my secret work, you do so with my blessing. If you choose to walk away, you have my blessing for that too.
Be safe, and be happy. But if you have to choose only one, choose the latter. I did, and I have never been sorry.
Peace,
Skye Blue
Ciera had taken the money and rented a tiny hole-in-the-wall apartment, and then gotten her GED so she could take advantage of the scholarship. She’d built herself the life Skye had wanted for her. And she’d continued learning the self-defense moves Skye had started teaching her so she could continue her mentor’s work.
“Wow,” said Kelli. “So your friend was the masked vigilante? A woman?”
Julie Ann snorted. “Don’t you get it, you twit? Your masked superhero is a woman now.” She nodded across the table at Ciera. “And a freaking librarian. Excellent.”
Kelli’s eyes widened. “You’re the vigilante?” she asked Ciera.
“Hey,” Shannon said, “that’s why you know all that kung fu stuff you and that new guy Gregori were showing us at the soup kitchen. Cool.” She suddenly looked thoughtful. “Like, do you think you could teach us some more while we wait for those guys to come back? I know we can’t learn much, but I’d sure rather fight them than stand here and just let them shoot me.”
“Shannon has a point,” Julie Ann agreed. “I mean, what if they just send in one guy, because they think we’re all, like, weak girls? If we all rushed him, maybe we could overpower him.”
Ciera hated to discourage them, especially when they were being so brave. “You know Victor’s not likely to be that stupid,” she said. “And we wouldn’t have much of a chance against a couple of men with guns.”
Kelli stuck out her chin, the very picture of teenage stubbornness. “Yeah, but some chance is better than no chance, isn’t it, Ciera?”
The other two nodded, for once in complete agreement with each other.
Ciera didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or applaud. “You guys rock, you know that?” she said. “Okay, let’s practice a few of the basic disabling moves I taught you.”
“Right,” Julie Ann said, sounding a little bloodthirsty. “Eyes, throat, knees, testicles. Bam. Bam. Bam.” She thrust one hand out into the air. “F-ing bam.”
“F-ing bam it is,” Ciera said, standing up. At least practicing the moves would keep their minds and bodies occupied while they waited. And who knew, maybe they’d get lucky. At the very least, things weren’t going the way Victor had planned. If they were going down, they were going down fighting.
• • •
GREGORI looked around at the shrine hall where the monks gathered daily for meditation and talks by visiting teachers. It was a high-ceilinged rectangular space with white walls and smooth wooden floors covered with bright woven rugs and neat lines of meditation cushions. There was a huge shrine to Buddha at the far end, complete with a large golden statue, flowers, and candles, as well as numerous bowls filled with offerings. The pungent scent of incense swirled through the room and he counted nearly forty monks standing in groups talking quietly among themselves. He hoped it would be enough.
“What is the plan?” he asked Bella. “I assume we have a plan.”
“We have the inkling of a hope of a plan,” she said with a shrug. “But that’s the best we are going to do.”
“So about like usual, then,” Koshka said with a smirk. “Goody. That always works out so well for us.”
Bella stuck her tongue out at the dragon-cat, but otherwise ignored him and kept on talking.
“Khen Rinpoche will lead the monks in a powerful chant called the Mahakala prayer,” she said. “You can chant with them if you want. When the energy builds to its peak, I’ll say the spell for calling elementals that I’ve rewritten to invoke Jarilo instead. Since you’re the only one of us who has actually met him, it would help if you would visualize him as strongly as you can while I’m saying it.” She hesitated.
“What?” Gregori asked.
“I’ve set up an altar with the few things I brought with me that will work with the spell I’m casting: a crystal point, some sage and a few other herbs, and a couple of magical candles already consecrated under the light of a full moon. The abbot is letting me use a bunch of small white candles, which I’ve put in a circle at the front of the room. The altar is inside the circle, which is also where you, Koshka, and I will stand, with a space left for your father if he actually manifests.”
“That sounds good,” Gregori said. “But I have seen you and the other Baba Yagas cast spells many times over the years. You do not need to explain it to me.”
She bit her lip, tossing a stray lock of red hair behind her shoulder. Gregori thought she seemed nervous, but he could not figure out why.
“Just spit it out,” Koshka said. “He’s not a baby. He can take it.”
Gregori raised an eyebrow. “What, exactly, is it I can take?”
“You understand that the only reason this spell will work, if it does, is because of your ties to Jarilo? Whoever summoned Morena had it easy; this is her time of year, when she is most likely to come when she is invoked. But Jarilo—”
“Would normally be asleep during the winter months,” Gregori said, nodding. “Or dead, in whatever state passes for death when you are a god. He will be harder to reach.”
“Exactly. So we need to make the most of the fact that your lifeblood will call to his.” Bella gazed into Sun’s eyes. “It would help if I had some of your blood for the spell. Not much, just a tiny bit to dab on each of the candles. But after what happened with Brenna, I hate to ask. I don’t want to bring up bad memories.”
Gregori did not have the heart to tell her he lived with those memories constantly. The mad witch had bled him and his brothers day after day, using their blood to lend power to the potion she believed would give her immortality. In the end, she had succeeded only in robbing them of theirs. But he could see why another Baba Yaga would hesitate to ask him to provide his blood for a spell, even a benign one.
He bowed to her, hands in front of his heart. “I would trust you with my vital energy any day, Bella. Do not worry. If this is what it takes for your spell to summon Jarilo, I am happy to give you what you need.”
“Told you,” Koshka said as he butted his broad head against Gregori’s leg in a silent show of support. It almost knocked him over, but Gregori appreciated it nonetheless.
The abbot approached them a few minutes later as they stood near the ritual circle.
“I believe we are as ready as we are going to be,” the old man said. “There is talk of power outages across the city, so I suspect that anyone still not back will not be able to return until the morning. Shall we get this under way before our own power goes out?” The lights had been lowered, but the room would be quite dark if they went out altogether, even with the many candles burning in front of the Buddha shrine and in niches set into the walls between hanging tapestries.
“I guess I’m as ready as I’m going to be too,” Bella said, straightening her shoulders. “Let’s get this party started.”
As the room filled with the melodious sound of many low voices chanting in unison, Bella, Gregori, and Koshka stepped inside the ritual circle marked out w
ith thirty-three more white candles, each anointed with a tiny drop of Gregori’s blood. With a gesture, Bella spun in place and all the candles around them burst into flame. One or two of the monks closest to them faltered for a moment, then regained their places in the chant.
Bella knelt in front of her makeshift altar, Koshka standing watchfully by her side. Gregori simply stared straight ahead and chanted along with the rest. As always, when he tried to lose himself in the moment, the visions overtook him. But this time, instead of wasting his energy trying to make them stop, Gregori remembered what the abbot had said and let them flow over him and through him. The music wound around the terrible sights in his mind’s eye like a hauntingly beautiful sound track to the death and destruction he saw there, and slowly the visions began to ebb away. By the time Bella took his hand, he felt almost calm for the first time in a year.
“Now,” she mouthed as the chanting filled the room as if it was reaching for the ceiling. She lit a wand of sage and sweet grass, placing it in a bowl with the crystal and a few other herbs. She had added some of the flowers from the main altar to symbolize Jarilo’s spring aspect and had Gregori write his father’s name on a piece of parchment in Russian. Together, they held the paper over the sage wand so that the heat caused the edges to begin to smolder. As the Cyrillic letters turned brown, she spoke the spell in a calm, even tone that seemed to match the cadence of the chanting behind them.
By the Earth’s budding glory and the sun’s hot fire
The wind from the east and the waters of desire
By the power of growth and abundance of spring
Hear our call as your name we sing
Jarilo, Jarilo, we call out to thee
Come to us now in our moment of need
Bella said the spell three times, her voice growing louder and more forceful, with Gregori joining in on the last two lines each time. He could feel the power building with each repetition, as the hair stood up on the back of his neck and the room seemed to fill with the crackling electricity that preceded a spring thunderstorm. The paper with Jarilo’s name on it burst into flame and they dropped it into the bowl beneath.
A warm wind swirled through the room, causing the candles to flutter and flare, and for a moment the lights blinked off, leaving the space dim and eerily quiet as the monks’ chanting tapered off into silence.
In the middle of the circle, a glow was clearly visible before the lights flickered back on again, and where the glow had been stood a man, at least eight feet tall, muscular, and impossibly handsome. No one could have mistaken him for a mere mortal, even if he hadn’t had cornflower-blue eyes that shone with an unearthly light. His gray-streaked blond hair flowed over his broad shoulders, and he was clad in a green tunic and trousers, with a golden cloak that matched the circlet that crossed his regal brow.
The only thing that marred his grandeur was the confused look on his face.
“WHAT IS THIS?” he thundered. “WHO DARES SUMMON JARILO?”
Gregori cleared his throat, surprised by the welling up of unexpected emotion.
“Hello, Father,” he said, bowing formally. “It is nice to see you again. Welcome to Minnesota.”
CHAPTER 25
ALL the monks had left the room, even the abbot, although he had paused for a moment at the door with an almost wistful look back at the unusual tableau in the middle of his normally uneventful meditation space.
This left Gregori, Bella, and Koshka staring at Jarilo, who stared back. After Gregori’s greeting, no one had said anything while the room slowly emptied out.
Naturally, it was Koshka who broke the awkward silence.
“A witch, a Rider, a dragon, and a god walk into a monastery . . . There’s got to be a good joke in there somewhere,” he said with a snort. “Now that we’ve got him here, is anyone going to talk to the guy?”
Jarilo shook his head, shrinking down to a more normal size now that he knew who had summoned him. “I see you are still hanging around with questionable companions,” the god said to Gregori. “I understand the witch, but a talking cat?”
“He is a Chudo-Yudo,” Bella explained. “He’s with me.”
“Ah.” Jarilo perked up. “You are a Baba Yaga. That explains how you summoned me, at least. I do not believe we have met. You must be new since I last walked the Earth.”
“This is Bella,” Gregori said. “And Koshka. All the Baba Yagas are new since you visited last. It has been a very long time.”
Jarilo glanced around the room, which probably did not look so different from rooms he had been in before, except for the few subtle electric lights. “Has it? It does not seem so long.” He peered at Gregori. “You look somewhat changed, I will admit. How many years has it been?”
“It is less a matter of years than of centuries, Father.”
Jarilo’s eyes widened. “So very long? Is this true?”
Bella nodded.
“I am afraid so,” Gregori said.
“I see. And how fares your mother? Is she well?”
“I have not seen her in centuries either,” Gregori admitted. “After all these years, I doubt she is still alive.”
“Why would she not be?” Jarilo asked, sounding somewhat bemused. “I gave her the gift of immortality when we were together. I felt it a small reward for the gift of a son she gave me. Unless some terrible accident has befallen her, she should be as hale and healthy as ever.”
It was Gregori’s turn to be bewildered. “I thought her long life came from her deep spiritual practices. She has many followers whose lives she has extended for hundreds of years.”
His father shrugged one massive shoulder. “Certainly her mystical talents would have aided those around her, and she could have taught them much of what she knows, but undoubtedly some of their longevity is due to exposure to Iduyan herself. If one is not born immortal, only a god can confer such a thing.”
He narrowed his eyes, staring hard at Gregori. “Speaking of immortality, what in all the heavens has happened to yours? You are mortal now.” He looked aghast at the prospect. “How is this possible?”
“It is a long story, Father,” Gregori said. “Featuring an insane Baba Yaga, prolonged torture, and a wicked spell gone horribly wrong. There is no point in going into the details, but I am sorry to say, I am a Rider no longer.”
Jarilo’s ruddy skin turned pale. “Dreadful,” he breathed. “I am appalled to hear of it.” He turned to Bella. “I know that the Baba Yagas depend on their Riders. How are you managing with only two?”
“You don’t understand, sir,” Bella said in a low voice. “This horrible thing happened to all the Riders. Mikhail and Alexei lost their immortality too. Barbara was barely able to save their lives using the Water of Life and Death. There are no more Riders.” Unshed tears hung in her eyes, and Koshka rubbed against her leg until she dropped one hand to rest on his furry back.
“I am very sorry, Father,” Gregori said. “I know you created us with the sole purpose of providing help and assistance to the Baba Yagas. We failed you.”
Jarilo took one involuntary step forward, reaching out a hand to his son. “I did no such thing,” he said, his voice booming almost as loudly as when he had first arrived. “I had each of my children because I loved their mothers. Yes, I had you trained to become the Riders, because it seemed a fitting role for the sons of a god.” His tone sank back to something approaching normal. “Also, your brother Alexei was going to tear the land of the gods down to its foundations if I had not found something to keep him entertained. That boy had way too much energy.”
Gregori stared at his father, feeling his own foundations shake to their core. “But you barely paid attention to us when we were young, and as soon as we were old enough to be useful to the Babas, you sent us away for good.”
Jarilo had the grace to look embarrassed, at least as much as a god could. “I confess,
I knew not what to do with you all. Children seemed much easier to cope with in the abstract than once they were running about underfoot. Besides, I am a god. I was busy.”
The lights flickered and Koshka cleared his throat, a noise that sounded a bit like rocks being ground in a blender. “I hate to interrupt this touching reunion, but we kind of have a crisis to deal with here. Maybe the two of you can catch up later, after we stop everything from going to hell?”
Jarilo took a step back. “Yes. Indeed. You summoned me. I assume there was a reason”—he looked stern—“a good reason, for disturbing my sleep.”
“We need your help, Father,” Gregori said, just as happy to change the subject. He walked over to a nearby window and pulled back the long curtain that covered it.
Jarilo stalked over behind him and stared out the window. “You summoned me in the middle of winter?” he bellowed. “What were you thinking?” He peered more deeply out into the night. “That is a truly monstrous storm. Is this normal for . . . Where did you say we were?”
“Minnesota,” Bella said. “And no, it’s not. This storm is a disaster, and not one caused by nature. It is going to produce a lot of damage and almost certainly kill people if we can’t stop it.”
The god turned away and walked back toward Bella as Gregori let the curtain drop. “If the storm is not natural, then who caused it?”
“Morena,” Bella and Gregori said in unison.
“Morena?” Jarilo rolled his eyes. “I should have known. That woman always was a troublemaker.”
“We think someone summoned her and asked her to create the blizzard, but we knew we were not equipped to deal with a goddess,” Bella explained. “Do you think you can stop her? We don’t even know how to find her.”
Jarilo laughed. “That much is simple enough,” he said. He tipped back his head and roared “MORENA!” so loudly that plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling and the floor rolled under their feet. By the time the room had settled, the glowing figure of a woman who had white hair that fell in waves past her ankles and who wore a flowing white ermine-trimmed gown had materialized inside the ritual circle. The glow slowly faded, revealing the woman’s stunning beauty and annoyed expression.
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