Nightfell Games (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 5)

by Thomas K. Carpenter

We met where the creature lay, standing over its fallen body with the flickering candle casting eerie shadows. The stone canoe had broken into four large pieces. Ben checked the creature's pulse.

  "It's dead," he said.

  "What is it?" I asked, though I was already forming opinions. It was the size of a large man, covered in fur, with lanky limbs and claws that looked like they could shred steel armor.

  Ben surprised me with an answer. "It's a hrevanti."

  "Hrevanti?" I tried repeating, though it didn't come out like he said it. Ben had made the word roll off his tongue.

  He took out a handkerchief and dabbed the sweat from his brow. "It, or I can guess, he, came from Otherland."

  "The professor!" I exclaimed, remembering whom we'd come to see.

  Together, we hurried over the debris to the office, finding nothing but a desk stacked with paper next to an alchemical lab. A few beakers lay on the wooden floor in pieces. We found a couple of fresh candles and used them to scour the area for clues to his whereabouts, but came away with nothing.

  "Where can he be?" asked Ben, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

  "You know, before you named it as a creature from Otherland, my first impression was that the professor had been inflicted with lycanthropy," I said.

  "A wolfman?" asked Ben. "No, this is a hrevanti."

  He leaned down, knocked pieces of stone off the body, and lifted the creature's eyelid. He made a knowing nod.

  "Did you see the greenish cat-like eyes?" he asked. "I would know them anywhere."

  "You met these hrevanti in Otherland?" I asked, wishing I knew more about the place that was trying to invade our world. "They seem quite dangerous."

  He shook his head in disbelief. "Actually, they were quite amicable. They are scholars, above all. Scientists and the like. The hrevanti that worked for Perun would put any of our great scientists to shame."

  "How can they do work with such claws?"

  Perun was the god who was supposedly on our side, or at least not trying to invade, unlike his counterpart Veles. Franklin had met Perun and made some deals while he was in Otherland, but mostly the powerful being was staying out of the way, leaving us to do the dirty work.

  "They file them down, I presume. I had no idea they were this long until now," said Ben, frowning.

  "But if they work for Perun, why was this one here?" I asked.

  Ben knocked the stone dust off the hrevanti's chest. "They work for both sides. Just like there are humans on both sides of the conflict here. The professor's note said he had important information for us. I wonder if they found out and sent someone to steal it, or kill him."

  "It would not surprise me," I said. "Maybe it was sent through a portal and it will return at an appointed time and place."

  "Seems plausible," said Ben, nodding in agreement. "If so, the portal will most likely appear before sunrise, maybe even in this room."

  "We can use the time to search for other information. Maybe he left notes pertaining to this situation, or at least the information he planned to tell us," I said, dusting myself off.

  We went through his papers, but found nothing but homework from his students and a few alchemical recipes, nothing out of the ordinary. As I examined the jars and beakers, finding that the glassware had been used recently, I kept glancing at the body, thinking it would rise up and attack, but thankfully, it stayed beneath the shattered stone canoe.

  A few hours later, while Ben was paging through a book he'd found beneath a pile of glass, he asked, "Why would Professor Walker have a stone canoe on his ceiling?"

  I couldn't help but smirk. "I would tell you, but you admonished me for having my nose in those myth books all summer."

  "My humblest apologies, O' Princess," he said, bowing with a flourish.

  "Not half bad," I said. "Except for the princess part."

  "Djata isn't here to say it," said Ben. "He has a way of making it sound like a sailor's insult that I find quite impressive."

  Djata was the African inventor who worked in the Thornveld, the pocket universe Ben had discovered during his adventures in Otherland. Djata's inventions had helped us in our endeavors thus far.

  "I'm glad you think so," I said. "But the stone canoe comes from a story about Hiawatha taking it across the Lake of Life to an island. It reminded me of the River Styx when I read it."

  Eventually we realized the information the professor had planned to tell us hadn't been written down, so we started cleaning up. We couldn't do anything about the larger pieces of the stone canoe, but the rest of the room we set to order, filling an empty barrel with the broken glass and other detritus to be removed at a later time.

  By the time the horizon was shaded with pinks, I was ready to crawl onto the table and sleep. Even the fear that a portal would open and another hrevanti would come through wasn't enough to keep me awake.

  "I don't think the portal opened here," I said, stifling a yawn.

  Ben nodded. "It could have easily opened in the woods behind this hall, or somewhere further away."

  "What shall we do about this?" I asked, indicating the fallen creature. "The stir we've caused in Philadelphia will be nothing compared to a dead body that looks remarkably like a werewolf."

  "Let's put it in the sarcophagus," said Ben, with his hands on his hips.

  Together, we were able to leverage the body into the wooden coffin, using a couple of crowbars we'd scrounged up. Once it was closed, we wrapped it with wire to keep the body from falling out.

  We'd barely completed our task when a young man with curly brown hair entered, finding us crouched over the sarcophagus. He glanced to us, then the broken canoe, and then to the open door.

  Ben moved first, stepping forward with his hand out. "Greetings, I'm Temple Franklin from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Have you seen the professor?"

  The student blinked hard. "He's not here?"

  "No," said Ben, "and I hate to leave after causing this mess."

  "The stone canoe!" said the student, suddenly glancing to the ceiling.

  "I'm at complete fault for this disaster, darn thing almost killed my assistant when it came down," said Ben, shaking his head sorrowfully. "We need to find the professor, so I can apologize. We're supposed to take this sarcophagus back to Philadelphia and I don't want to do it without talking to him first."

  The student set his books on the nearest table. "I'll run to the faculty quarters right away, Mr. Franklin."

  It didn't take him long to return with another professor.

  "How do you do, Mr. Franklin? I'm Sage Whitecap, head of faculty. I'm a great admirer of your grandfather," said Professor Whitecap.

  "He was a good man, God rest his soul," said Ben, keeping a serious face.

  Whitecap made a sign of the cross. "Can I help you? Atticus said you were looking for Professor Walker?"

  "Was he not in his quarters? Because he wasn't here last night either. I'm afraid we made a mess here. I tried to climb on that table and examine the stone canoe, but the whole thing came down," said Ben.

  "Caleb's usually in his office late into the night," said Professor Whitecap. "It's troubling that he isn't here."

  "We'll wait around until he returns," said Ben. "Is there somewhere we can stay in the meantime?"

  Professor Whitecap put us up in one of the newly constructed student halls. We each had a room and stayed for a couple of days, waiting for Professor Walker. Eventually we realized that he wasn't coming and had probably been kidnapped and taken to Otherland.

  While we waited, Ben arranged for the sarcophagus to be shipped back to Philadelphia and sent to Santiago, his friend who lived in the morgue at the Christ Church Cemetery. Santiago was eminently dangerous, but useful as a practitioner of mortuary arts.

  I was still partially convinced that Professor Walker had developed lycanthropy, but relented when Ben pointed out that the body hadn't turned back to human upon death. To humor me, he said he would have Santiago confirm that it was a hrevan
ti from Otherland.

  Four days later, we left Harvard University to take the train back to Philadelphia. Sitting comfortably in our car, I watched rain cascade down the window as we pulled away from the station.

  Ben had gone to the dining car to talk the porter into an early dinner, while I examined the alchemical papers I'd liberated from the professor's desk.

  I was paging through them when I glanced out the window to see a figure standing in a corn field in the distance. In any other circumstances, I would have thought nothing of it, except that as soon as I laid eyes upon it, a bone-chilling shiver overtook me.

  A crackle of lightning interrupted the glance, and when I looked back to the field, it was empty. Though I would have sworn I hadn't noticed them the first time, the impression that the figure in the field had antlers stayed with me long after.

  Chapter Three

  Returning to Philadelphia brought with it a dreadful tedium. My sequestration in the Thornveld did nothing to dissuade me of the notion that I was a prisoner in my adopted homeland, so a certain froth filled my step when Ben asked me to visit Chloris.

  While I'd been helping Djata, Benjamin Franklin had been busy advising Simon Snyder in his new role as Vice President, especially as word of what had happened to Napoleon's massive army had reached the United States. While there'd been much political maneuvering in the previous years between the Federalists and the Democrat-Republicans, the news that the Russian Empire possessed technology that could wipe out the largest army the world had ever known convinced both parties to put aside their political squabbles.

  When Ben wasn't meeting with members of the American government, he was scribbling letters to friends and allies across the globe. As far as anyone knew, the Russian Empire had been turned into an impenetrable fortress, which might have been acceptable if the invisible wall wasn't growing by a few miles each day.

  No one was able to get into Russian territory, while attacks were launched from the protected areas with ever increasing frequency. Without Napoleon to guide France, the other two members of the Consulate, de Cambacérès and Lebrun, were screaming for support. They were rightfully concerned that France would be swallowed by the newly aggressive Russian Empire.

  Which placed all the more importance on finding a way past the shield. Chloris had been asked by Ben on multiple occasions to find a solution, but she'd supplied no answers, explaining that an answer had to exist and be near enough for her powers to detect it.

  So I was a willing representative to visit Chloris, hoping that she had a solution to our conundrum, despite the difficulties the rusalka and I had had in the past. The trip also got me out from under the disappointed gaze of Djata Mahmud, who just this morning had berated me for spending time reading through Professor Walker's notes rather than helping him.

  The bathing house was a separate building from the main Vice Presidential estate, which until the doppelganger had fired the spectral cannon and destroyed half of it, had been the property of President Washington. Franklin had installed one of his button locks on the door and given myself and Simon the code to enter.

  I left the steam carriage under the pavilion and made my way to the bathing house. Since my likeness remained on wanted posters throughout the city, I used a veiled hat with hanging black lace to hide my face.

  As I punched in the door code, I caught a glimpse of Simon speaking to someone in the garden at the back of the house. He looked like a banker, rather than a rugged frontiersman, in his black coattails and cravat. His mustache had been trimmed to a proper length. Only his hair defied the neat style they'd tried to impose upon him. A wistful smile haunted my lips before I went inside.

  The summer had been pleasant, and early September was not much different, so the humid room wasn't as stifling as I thought it'd be.

  Chloris, who'd been expecting me, floated on her back in the middle of the pool. Her hair was a dark halo around her head, moving like living kelp. Breasts peeked through the water and for a jealous moment, I almost forgot that I wasn't a saggy fifty-eight, but a lean mid-twenties, a product of the life giving powder I had access to as a member of the Transcendent Society.

  "Greetings, Lady Chloris," I said, taking care to point my gaze away from the rusalka. Ally or not, I didn't fully trust her. "Ben sent word that you wanted to see me."

  "Princess Katerina Dashkova," said Chloris as she stood up, water sluicing from her naked body.

  "I am no longer a princess of the Russian Empire," I said. "Katerina will do."

  "Are you not a daughter of nobility? Could you not return to your ancestral lands and claim serfs for yourself?" she asked. "This is who you are, it is your heritage."

  "I have renounced such claims and would not accept them if offered again," I said. "What is the meaning of these questions? Ben said you had word about the Russian shield."

  "Think of these questions as payment for the information," she said, wading through the water towards the edge.

  I grumbled, the earlier buoyancy and foolish optimism lost.

  "Why do you follow him so blindly?" asked Chloris.

  "I do not follow blindly," I said.

  She spat out an exclamation before continuing, "He uses you and you don't even know it."

  I wrinkled my face in her direction, keeping my gaze pointed the other way. "I don't know what you're playing at, but I trust him."

  "You're a fool then. I trusted him and that turned to folly," she said.

  "What happened? I know you once lived in my former home, but then you moved into the Magdelen House," I said, wincing as I mentioned her former home, since my involvement had led to its destruction at the hands of an Empty Man. "For that matter, why do you trust him now?"

  "I don't trust him," she said. "I have a mutually beneficial agreement. You should consider the same."

  "You talk about trust, but why should I trust you? You descended from Otherland, after all," I said.

  Chloris splashed water onto the edge. "You're one to talk. You were born in Russia, yet you side with America. I was born in this world, despite my heritage. I have no ties to Otherland."

  I turned away, crossing my arms. I wasn't sure how this had devolved so quickly, or why. I'd come in a good mood, ready to progress in our fight against Russia, only to end up in a petty argument.

  In a quiet voice, I asked, "Why are we talking about this? I thought you had information for me."

  "I do," said Chloris, still fraught with tension, then she spoke again, this time softer. "I do. Or I should say, I know how to find the answers you seek."

  "Then why the confrontation?" I asked.

  As Chloris spoke, I wanted to rage against her words and say she was trying to manipulate me, but her tone was so forthright and honest that it was hard not to take it as the truth.

  "There was a time I adored Benjamin Franklin and would have done anything for him. He built me that home, and that bath, that glorious bath, that soothed my ancestral desires. He would come to me often, asking for the locations of people or items. I gave him the answers willingly, without hesitation, as he'd provided a home that was worth more than any petty jewels.

  "Then one day, he showed up at my door looking haggard and grim-faced, his vest torn. He demanded information about a rough woman who lived in the seedier part of Philadelphia. I'd never heard him so angry and I refused to supply him with information on instinct alone.

  "He screamed at me, his hair falling in his face, and I knew him then for a madman. He kept demanding the woman's location, saying it was imperative that he find her. But I saw in his gaze a murderous intent that I'd never seen before. His fingernails were already caked with dried mud and what appeared to be blood. So I refused him and he stormed out, expelling me from the house for my rebuff," she said, the pain of memory evident in her wounded voice.

  "Did you ever learn why he wanted to find this woman?" I asked hesitantly.

  "I never found out why, but I found out what he did with her and only because it wa
s in the Pennsylvania Chronicle two days later," said Chloris.

  "What did he do?"

  "She was found dead, floating in the Delaware River," said Chloris. "I've never trusted him since."

  The silence was a vise around my chest. I didn't want to believe Chloris, but the story fit the circumstances of their parting, even if the description didn't fit the character of the Ben Franklin I knew.

  "What was her name?" I asked.

  "Estelle Carriager," said Chloris.

  "I don't believe it," I said, mostly to myself. "There has to be another explanation."

  "You're a fool if you don't heed my words," said Chloris. "But as you said, you came here to learn about the shield."

  "What say you of it?" I asked tepidly.

  Chloris held her arm out to me. Water dripped from the length of her slender limb.

  "Strip and join me in the water," she said.

  Ice formed in my chest. "I'll do nothing of the sort. Tell me what you know from where you are."

  "I know nothing," said Chloris. "And that is the problem. Whatever answers exist in the world are too far away or too vague for me to find them. My abilities have limitations."

  "Then why do you need me in the water?"

  "Can you find the answer using your prophecies?" she asked, the smirk evident in her tone.

  The bitter taste of disappointment flooded onto my tongue. "I've tried, but it's like trying to catch fish with spoons. I lack the knowledge necessary to navigate my way through them. I might as well be reading a foreign language that has no cipher."

  "Then you see the problem," said Chloris. "Neither of us can find the answer, but maybe together we can discover it."

  "But why do you need me in the water?" I asked.

  "My powers are strongest when submerged and being wet shouldn't hinder yours, so naturally, you should join me," said Chloris.

  "Why do I have to be naked?" I asked, not because I was modest, but because it made me feel vulnerable.

  "You don't," said Chloris, "but I assumed you wouldn't want to return home in wet clothes."

  I sighed and reluctantly began to undress. Chloris politely turned her back while my fingers nimbly released the buttons on my cream blouse. Before long, I was poised to slip into the water, toes pointed downward.