She retraced Julie Ann’s steps a little more slowly, her legs still a bit wobbly. When she got to Victor, she reached one hand into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out a black balaclava. For one more minute, she held on to it tightly, thinking about her friend Skye Blue and all she had learned from her. Then she opened her hand and let it fall onto the body.
She didn’t need it anymore. It was time to let the past go and see what the future held.
• • •
GREGORI drove them back into town, glad to have the larger vehicle. Getting everyone on the motorcycle might have been a stretch for even its magical abilities. The roads were already noticeably clearer, now that the winds had stopped blowing the snow back into the paths the plows carved out, and the skies had ceased their relentless deposits. It would be some time before the city returned to normal, but the worst was finally behind them.
In more ways than one, he thought, glancing over to where Ciera sat in the passenger seat. Her face was pale in the shadowy light that slid through the windows, but a faint smile hovered around her lips and he thought she looked at peace for the first time since he had met her.
He wondered what her life would be like from this point on. Wondered, too, if there was any place for him in it. He knew he wanted there to be, but there were still things he needed to deal with before he could even consider asking her if that was something she wanted too.
At one intersection, they passed a police car heading back the way they had come, lights flashing and sirens on. Other than that, the trip was uneventful. They stopped briefly at Ciera’s apartment long enough for him to wash the blood off and for her to change into clothes that looked a little less gruesome. Or, as Kelli said in a bright tone, like Ciera hadn’t survived the zombie apocalypse. Sometimes he had no idea what those girls were talking about.
It was late by the time they got to the soup kitchen, but there were still a few lights on inside. Gregori was happy to see that the roof appeared intact and nearly free of snow, as did a number of its neighbors. His father and Bella had been busy.
They opened the front door as quietly as they could, trying not to disturb the many sleeping bodies strewn about like tumbled dominoes. Jarilo heard them anyway and tapped Bella on the shoulder. The two of them had been sitting together at one of the few open tables, playing a battered game of Scrabble no doubt liberated from the shelter. Koshka, drowsing at Bella’s feet, opened one eye and then closed it again, catlike in his studied disinterest.
Bella glanced up, her face brightening with relief when she saw them all walk in, safe and sound. She ran on stockinged feet into the kitchen and came back with Elisabeth, whose floury apron, as well as the yeasty aroma that followed her out the swinging door, indicated that she had been getting a head start on the morning’s baking while she waited.
Elisabeth stared at them for a moment and then burst into unexpected tears before she ran over to hug each of the girls in turn and then Ciera, who stifled a wince but hugged the older woman back with equal enthusiasm.
“Oh, thank God, thank God,” Elisabeth said, over and over. “I was sure we’d lost you.” Finally, she took a step back and pasted a shallow imitation of her customary stern expression on top of all that emotion, wiping her eyes on the edge of her apron. “Sorry, sorry. It has just been such a long day. You all disappearing, and then Gregori taking off after you, and so many extra people to feed and put up with us short-handed because of the storm, and then the roof—”
“The roof?” Ciera said, her gaze shooting overhead with alarm. “What’s wrong with the roof?”
Elisabeth’s eyes veered toward Bella and Jarilo, then skittered back again. “Nothing, nothing,” she said. “It turned out to be a false alarm.” She shifted her attention to the three teens. “Have you girls eaten anything today?”
As a unit, they all shook their heads. Elisabeth’s shoulders relaxed, clearly happy to be dealing with something more in her comfort zone. “These folks have been like a herd of hungry wildebeests,” she said, hustling the girls toward the kitchen. “But I set aside a bit of this and that, just in case. I’ve got some meat loaf tucked in the back of the fridge behind the tofu someone donated last week. I figured it would be safe there.”
“Meat loaf,” Shannon muttered grimly. “I hate meat loaf.” But Gregori noticed she moved as fast as the others, protestations aside.
Elisabeth paused in the open doorway to the kitchen and looked back at him and Ciera. “Aren’t you two coming?”
“We’ll be there in a minute, Elisabeth,” Ciera said with a smile. But the smile fell away as soon as the older woman disappeared into the kitchen’s bread-scented depths. “Or will we?” she asked Gregori. “You’re not staying, are you?”
He was not sure how she knew, except that it would appear they knew each other much better than he would have supposed.
“I cannot,” he said with genuine regret. It was hard to believe that he would willingly turn down adventure to stay in a snowbound building filled with snoring (and in most cases, malodorous) bodies, but at the moment, there was no place he would rather be. Alas, his tasks were not yet at an end.
“You’re going back to the monastery,” she stated flatly.
Bella and Jarilo had come over to join them and Bella aimed a basilisk glare in Gregori’s direction.
He held up one hand. “Only long enough to tell the abbot that I will not be continuing with my studies there, and to thank him for his help earlier this evening.”
“Oh,” Ciera said, her expression vacillating between relief and uncertainty. “You’re leaving the monastery?”
“Duh,” said Koshka from under the table without ever opening his eyes.
“You’re going after the man who summoned Morena, aren’t you?” Bella said. It wasn’t really a question.
“I am,” Gregori said. “From his description, I am guessing he is part of my mother’s group of followers. I still wish to find her, although I seem to have solved at least some of my issues on my own. But no man can be allowed to call down this kind of destruction without consequence. If he did it once, he might do it again. I cannot allow that.”
“I’m not sure it is your job to deal with this anymore,” Bella said in a soft voice, looking from him to Ciera. “As Baba Yaga, I am more than happy to track down our unknown friend and make sure he is made aware of the serious nature of his crimes.” For a moment, something about the gleam in her eye reminded Gregori rather ominously of the usually more intimidating Barbara.
“I thank you for the offer,” he said, bowing respectfully, “but this is something I need to take care of myself.”
“I believe I will come along as well, if you do not mind,” Jarilo said, surprising him. “It has been many centuries since I have been on the mortal plane during the winter. I had forgotten how beautiful it can be. Besides, I would be pleased to see your mother again. I have very fond memories of her.”
“Not to mention,” Bella said, pointedly mentioning it, “that you said you would enjoy spending time with your son, if you had the opportunity.”
Jarilo looked at the wall over Gregori’s shoulder. “Well, yes, that too.”
Koshka snorted and rose with a stretch, sauntering over to join them. “That’s settled, then. If you don’t mind dropping Bella and me off at the Caves on your way out of town, I’d kind of like to get back home. You have no idea what that scamp Jazz gets up to if I’m not around to keep an eye on her. She has probably eaten all the tuna.”
Bella nodded, then tugged on one of Koshka’s tufted ears to steer him toward the front door. “We’ll wait for you in the car,” she said. Then muttered, “I will never get used to the Ducati being a car now. That’s just wrong.”
This left Gregori and Ciera standing alone in a sea of sleeping bodies, as no doubt Bella had intended it to.
“I am sorry I have to leave,” he said,
taking her hands. “Especially now.”
“You mean because I almost died?” she asked quietly. “Or because I killed the man who abused me?”
Gregori shook his head. “Those things, too, of course. Although I have no doubt you will deal with them as ably as you do everything else.”
Ciera cocked an eyebrow.
“I know you have put some ghosts to rest,” he said, “and are now free to move on with your life. I would like to stay and see which path you choose to take.”
“Curiosity?” she said in a neutral tone. “That’s why you are sorry you have to leave, especially now?”
Gregori sighed and let go of her, lifting his fingers to touch her cheek instead. “I am sorry to leave because I believe we have unfinished business, you and I.” He slid his hand up until it rested behind her head, tangling it in her hair and pulling her closer, then kissing her deeply and passionately.
He kissed her as if the touch of his lips on hers could say all the words he was not yet ready to say out loud, as if it could tell her how cherished she was, how special, how loved.
When he finally pulled away, he could not tell if she had received the message, but her eyes were dark with emotion, and both of them were a little short of breath.
He opened his mouth to say good-bye, but she put a finger over it to stop him.
“Come back to me,” was all she said. “When you can. Come back.”
He nodded, and then turned and left without a backward look, a little afraid that if he saw her lovely face one more time, he would lose the strength to leave at all.
CHAPTER 30
THE drive to Manitoba was mostly silent. By the time Gregori had gotten to the monastery it was well after midnight, so he’d simply packed up his few belongings and left a note on his bed for the abbot. Perhaps he would return some time as a visitor, to sit with the others in the meditation hall, but he knew now that his path lay elsewhere. Just where, however, he still was not certain.
He should have been exhausted by the long day, the stress and worry, and the monumental healing he had done on Ciera, but instead, he felt invigorated. It was as if reconnecting with the universal source had filled his veins with champagne, bubbling up in tiny fragments of joy. Jarilo seemed indefatigable, so they had simply gotten back into the Ducati-turned-Jeep and pointed its nose toward Canada.
Once out of the radius where the blizzard had been centered, the roads were mostly clear and empty, and of course, despite its change in outward appearance, Gregori’s magical steed made much better time than any mundane vehicle could have. The guards at the border let them through without hesitation, no doubt a side benefit from traveling with a god. Sun was not going to complain.
As the late-winter dawn finally broke, they stopped at a diner for food and so Gregori could change the focus of his phoenix feather so it honed in on his mother instead of Ciera. If only he could have changed the focus of his heart as easily.
A couple of times he opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, hardly knowing what to say to this long-lost father who was almost a stranger to him. Jarilo apparently felt the same way, so it was not until the phoenix feather indicated they were nearly at their destination that Jarilo surprised him by saying, out of nowhere, “I like her, you know.”
Gregori steered around a huge pothole that took up almost half the lane of the rutted back road they were currently traveling. They had left anything resembling civilization behind them an hour ago.
“Who?” he asked. “Iduyan?” He could not imagine how that reunion was going to go, assuming that Jarilo was correct in his supposition that she was still alive.
“No,” his father said. “Well, yes, but I was speaking of your lady, Ciera. I was quite impressed with her. She has backbone. Not to mention being very beautiful.”
“She is not my lady, Father,” Gregori said. Again. “I only just met her. There has not been time to form a deeper connection than friendship, nor am I sure that we will ever do so. It is too soon for me to say where my path will take me, only that it is not what I thought it was until yesterday.”
Jarilo chuckled, a warm sound that made unseasonal buds appear on the gnarled apple trees they were driving past.
“So, you do not agree that she is beautiful? And brave?”
“Of course I do.” And also smart, loyal, determined, and sexy as hell. None of which change anything.
“But she is not your lady.”
“No, Father.” Gregori clenched his jaw. If this was what it was like having a parent around, perhaps he had been better off without one all these years.
His father gazed at him with innocent blue eyes the color of bellflowers. “Interesting, then, that your connection was strong enough that you could use your new gift to find her,” he said, gesturing at the softly glowing phoenix feather Gregori had tucked back onto the dashboard. “Or is it your hypothesis that it would work with anyone? Perhaps we should experiment with a passing stranger.”
Gregori did not bother to respond to his father’s gentle teasing, instead steering into the next pothole rather than around it, and taking a perverse enjoyment from hearing the muffled ow as Jarilo bit his tongue. He was a god, so it healed instantly, but apparently Gregori had made his point, since the trip returned to a more restful silence until they ran out of road and Gregori had to pull the car to a stop at the edge of a snow-covered field.
The feather still glowed a cheery orange, shading to red at its edges. “Apparently, we walk from here,” he said. Jarilo shrugged. So on they went.
An hour later, they followed the feather down a hill that seemed to lead to a dead end. Brambles taller than Gregori’s head blocked any forward movement, and there was no sign that any other human beings had been this way in years. If ever.
“That’s odd,” Gregori said, staring at the phoenix feather, which still seemed to indicate that their goal lay before them. “Maybe there is something wrong with it.”
“Maybe,” his father said, and then waved his hand. The brambles vanished, revealing a well-trodden if narrow trail. “Nice glamour. Your mother has been practicing since last we met.”
They followed the trail into a hidden valley and eventually pulled aside some evergreen branches to see beyond them a small village that looked as though it could have existed for hundreds of years without changing at all. There was no sign of electricity, no satellite towers, no vehicles of any kind except one cart hitched to a patient-looking mule.
There was a sense of peace that hovered over the tiny settlement like an invisible mantle, cloaking the huts in a serene silence rarely found in the outside world. Plumes of smoke drifted up from the chimneys, perfuming the air with the scent of burning wood. From a central building, larger than the rest, the sound of chanting could be heard, more meditative than magical.
“Shangri-la,” Gregori said, suddenly reluctant to trespass on such a tranquil scene.
“So it would seem,” Jarilo said. “And yet if you are correct, it harbors a man who might have killed thousands simply to keep you from walking down that hill.”
His father had a damned good point. Besides, it would be foolish to come this far without taking those last few steps. As difficult as they might be.
When they pushed open the door of the main building, Gregori barely noticed the circle of men and women standing against the outside walls, each holding a lit candle. There was a small fire pit in the middle of the room with flames that burned brightly without seeming to put off any visible smoke; a familiar-looking salamander (of the fire elemental sort) was curled up in the middle as if waiting for him. The last time he had seen it, it had been keeping him company in a solitary hut in the Otherworld. He had no idea how it had made its way here; such was the way of magical creatures.
Despite the many distractions, his eyes were drawn to the figure standing next to the fire pit. A short, slender woman wh
ose dark hair held only a few striking streaks of silver, dressed in simple homespun robes dyed the green of the surrounding forests and tied with a belt made from braided vines that still bore living leaves, she would have caught the gaze of any who entered.
There was something that set her apart from all the rest, although it was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was. Perhaps it was an aura of kindness and wisdom, or the sense that even the very air that surrounded her was grateful to be in her presence. Perhaps it was merely the brightness of her smile when she glanced up at their entrance and recognized Gregori.
“Well, this is a surprise,” she said, crossing the room. Her feet were bare despite the chill. “Gregori, my son, it has been too long.” She caught up his hands and kissed him on either cheek, then looked deeply into his eyes, so much like her own. “Oh dear,” she said, clearly seeing something more than most would. “It would seem that you have a complicated tale to tell, and not a happy one.”
Gregori kissed her in return, then took a step back regretfully. “Most of my story can wait, Mother. But I am glad beyond words to find you still alive and well.”
Laughter glinted in her eyes, like silvery salmon darting through the waters of a deep river. “Why would I not be?”
“Told you,” Jarilo said. He made a grave bow in Iduyan’s direction. “Do I get my cheeks kissed as well, for bringing our son home to you?”
She gazed at him solemnly for a moment, apparently pondering the request. “I do not see why not, although I suspect Gregori brought himself with little help from anyone.” She leaned forward and laid a gentle kiss on Jarilo’s lips instead. “We did raise him to be independent.”
“I hope we are not interrupting anything important,” Gregori said, finally tearing his eyes away from the welcome sight of his mother to try and see if he could spot anyone who seemed particularly unhappy about his sudden appearance. All those gathered there, only about twenty-five or so in number, gave off the same air of calm serenity as Iduyan did.
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