Vodník

by Bryce Moore

  Scared out of my mind, but I didn’t want to admit that to him. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. You were scared, yes?”

  I hesitated, but nodded.

  “And when you think about them now, you feel butterflies. Maybe your hands shake a bit.”

  “I wouldn’t—”

  “Tomas, it’s okay. Listen. When I joust, I feel the same. When something goes wrong at the castle, when I have a confrontation with angry tourists, when I get into fights—always the same. Butterflies, jitters.”

  I blinked. “You?” The man was a mountain, constant as gravity.

  He smiled at me. “Yes. Me. Everyone feels this way. You watch your movies, and you think it is all Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone. No fear. No jitters. But now I will tell you the truth. When you fight in real life, you don’t just fight your opponent. You fight yourself. Your doubts. Your distractions. You get into a fight, and suddenly you are worrying about things you should not worry about. It does not matter how cool you look. How hungry you are. What past history you have with your opponent. You must be focused on winning and winning alone. Much of the time, the victor of a fight is the one who was in the moment the most. The one who ignored everything else.

  “The jitters you feel. The butterflies. That is natural. Humans are programmed to feel this when we get into danger. It is your body’s way of preparing itself. Sending adrenaline and energy to the core muscles. When you feel this, you are not falling apart. You are preparing to win. In this state, my mind thinks better. My reactions improve. Embrace that feeling. Accept it. Look forward to it.”

  He stood up and brushed himself off. “I have to go prepare for my evening shift. Think about what I said. You are improving. Keep up the good work.”

  I stared at the empty joust area after he left, remembering back when I’d first come to the country and seen L’uboš joust. Everything had seemed simpler then. No worries about the Bigot Gang, the vodník, or deals with Death. But I wouldn’t get anywhere whining about it. I had to do something.

  First thing when I got home that evening, I dived into Death in the Modern Day, obsessively reading page after page. Katka was at her place, sleeping off a headache. My parents were out on a date. The apartment was quiet except for a clock ticking on the wall. I sat at the kitchen table, poring over the pages. There had to be something there that would help me or help Katka. Something.

  Anything.

  For once my hard work paid off. I found what was the best lead yet.

  It was in the Magical Powers and Persons section, which detailed the various problems Death could have with mystical interference in the job. (And had little pictures of the reaper guy getting hurt in all sorts of ghastly ways.) A chill went down my back, and I leaned forward to reread the section I’d found.

  Rasputin: One of the most interesting traits humans can develop is the ability to resist magic, although this is even rarer now than it was in the past, since mortals who can interact with mystical creatures are few and far between. From time to time, a human will battle a creature of folklore. Usually, the result is a dead human, but sometimes through these terrible ordeals, something inside a human snaps. We’re not sure exactly what it is or why, but they manage to pull through, almost dying but recovering.

  I swallowed, then flipped through the book to find the right appendix. One sentence leaped out at me: If the scar’s not grisly or noteworthy, it’s not a likely candidate. A Rasputin developed a grotesque scar for each resistance he gained.

  I studied my burned arm. Grisly for sure. Had that been why I hadn’t been burned in the house fire? I had always been so careful to stay away from anything having to do with fire. I knew it was hot—I remembered getting burned when I was five, and all the years of therapy I’d had to go through. The skin grafts. That had been more than enough incentive to stay away from flames. I never even got close enough to feel their heat if I could help it, so how would I know if I was immune?

  I put down the book and grabbed a box of matches. I took them back to my room and sat on my bed, staring at the little red-topped stick. This was silly—I’d get burned.

  But what if I didn’t?

  When you have a phobia, trying to get the courage up to confront it isn’t easily done. The thought of a live flame in my hand was enough to make me sweat. My hand shook so much I couldn’t even get the match to light the first two tries. This was crazy. I didn’t want to intentionally burn myself, did I? According to L’uboš, my body was gearing up for some big-time fighting right then. I had butterflies so bad I felt like I was going to throw up.

  The match hissed to life. The flame was small at first, and I held the stick to the side to let it get more fuel. Once it was big enough, I took a breath, and stuck my finger over the fire, prepared to jerk it back at the first sign of heat.

  But there was no heat.

  Well, maybe some pleasant warmth. But no pain.

  I saw the fire curling around my finger, but it might as well have been air. When I blew the match out and checked my hand, it was untouched. I took the matches and went back to the kitchen.

  To the gas stove.

  With it turned up to high and my hand at the ready, I paused again. It was one thing to try things with a tiny flame, but if I stuck my hand in the burner, I could get seriously hurt. Better to do it slowly.

  I held my hand a foot above the flames. Nothing. Inch by inch, I brought it down until my fingers were in the center of the fire. I might as well have had my hand in some warm water. I went from severe nerves to a rush of excitement.

  My scar took on a whole new meaning. It was no longer a sign of embarrassment, but a signal of rank. I was a Rasputin.

  This was too cool. It felt like I’d found a cheat code for real life. Immunity to fire? How awesome was that?

  I rushed over to Katka’s apartment through the night air, cool with the scent of rain. I buzzed her door until she opened up, coming out in the hall to frown at me as I bounded up the stairs. “What is it? I thought I told you I had a—”

  “Check this out,” I said, then walked past her to go to her kitchen. She followed, voicing some confusion and irritation, but all complaints ceased when she saw me shove my hand into the burner.

  She yelped and leaped to hit my hand out of the flame. “Are you crazy?”

  “No,” I said. “Look.” I held my hand in front of her face, and she grabbed it to inspect it more closely.

  “How is this possible?”

  “Magic,” I said, then got her the book to show her the passage.

  When she had read it, we were both silent. A car drove by outside, filling the silence. Finally, Katka asked, “You had to be attacked by fire, it says. Does that mean Ohnica attacked you?”

  I shrugged uncomfortably. It was a possibility I’d been trying to avoid thinking about. We had so few allies right now, I didn’t want to be suspicious of anyone who was helping.

  Or seemed to be.

  “I’m not sure it says that,” I said. “It could mean that any near death experience is enough to trigger this Rasputin effect. Ohnica said she used fire to save me from the vodník.”

  Katka frowned, picking up the book and turning it over in her hand. “Maybe. Do you have other scars?”

  “Nothing on the outside. The doctors noticed I had some scarring on my lungs, though.”

  “Maybe you’re immune to drowning.”

  It was a thought that had occurred to me too. After all, when I’d been pushed into the pool, I hadn’t taken in as much water as I thought I should have. No water, actually. But still . . . “No offense,” I said, “But I’m not going to go try that one right now.” It wasn’t like I could drown “a little.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Katka said. She put the book down. “Still, it would be nice to know.”

  “Especially since I’m going to go visit the vodník.”

  Katka frowned. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

  “It’s much wiser than tryin
g to avoid him. I could be toast if we wait much longer. I’ve only got four days until his deadline’s up. I have to get this over with, one way or another. Our attention needs to be focused on saving you, not split between that and figuring out what to do about the vodník.”

  She paused for a moment, as if debating whether or not to bring something up. “I’ve been thinking,” she said at last. “Every summer, we clean out the well—get all the coins people have thrown into it over the year. It’s scheduled for three days from now, on Tuesday the twenty-sixth. Tuesdays are slow tourism days, usually. I’ll talk to my father and see if I can get him to let you be the one to clean it.”

  I froze. Me? Down an eighty-foot well? “So instead of meeting at the well, I meet him in the well? That’s supposed to be safer . . . how?”

  “Don’t worry. They drain the well, you’ll be in a safety harness, and there will be witnesses. I don’t think the vodník would want too much attention on his home, if that really is where he lives. If we did it another way, you’d be meeting him alone, and he could do whatever he wanted. Besides, it’s right before his deadline. You can’t push it off anymore. This way is better.”

  Better.

  Right.

  I tried to remind myself that this was my idea, and that I had to do it one way or another. But it was one thing to come up with a crazy idea, and quite another to start thinking about how to get that idea done.

  A vodník bite is an alternate method of soul stealing, for when teacups aren’t handy. It’s much more painful, prolonged, and dramatic. First the wound begins to seep water, and then the human suffers dizzy spells which increase until he faints away completely, almost as if he died. If the soul isn’t claimed by the vodník before this happens, the transition either continues, with the human eventually awakening as a water spirit, or subsides, with the human recovering (assuming other humans haven’t buried him first). The healing process can take up to a month. Unfortunately, souls lost in this manner are almost unrecoverable by Death.

  While Katka worked on convincing L’uboš that I was the man for the well cleaning, I tried to figure out how to survive the upcoming confrontation. My uncle’s fight training was great for bullies, but I had a hunch I’d need a bit more firepower to survive the vodník.

  Death in the Modern Day had a huge section on killing things, particularly where it gave tips for Death’s Assassin on how to deal with magical creatures. There was an entry for vodníks, discussing ways they could be dealt with, ranging from a theory about letting them drip to death over three years (while the little cartoon reaper kept watch) to other more outlandish ideas.

  A popular theory states that their biggest weakness lies in their collection of souls. If one can be broken free from a vodník’s hellacious teacup trap, it might in turn be able to free the others, who could then rise up and overwhelm the vodník. Of course, this is pure conjecture, since to date, no one has been able to free a soul from a teacup.

  It went on to list some potions that could be used to provide some protection, but they were simple, three-ingredient things with names like “Viktor’s Fairly Reliable Water Propellant” and “Daniela’s Essence of Salt,” that increased the amount of salt in your sweat. I had been looking for something more like “Tomas’s Vodník-B-Gone Failsafe Water Creature Killer.”

  No dice.

  Still, something was better than nothing. When Katka came by two days later to say she had the well cleaning all set up, I showed her what I had found. Neither of us were too crazy about my options, and Katka did her best to persuade me to give up.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “There must be another way. Going into the vodník’s lair? It’s suicide. I was wrong to even suggest it.”

  “No,” I said. “You were right. If someone . . . drowns . . . in the well, then there will be an investigation. Suspicion. The vodník can’t want that. Besides, maybe I’m immune to water, just like I’m immune to fire. I’ll be fine.”

  Probably.

  While brushing my teeth the day before the well cleaning, I paused to consider the sink. I’d tried the water vision trick numerous times, hoping to get some more information I could use for the upcoming confrontation. It had never worked, but once more couldn’t hurt. I filled up the sink and dunked my head.

  Wind and light.

  I was dressed like a monk: brown robes, rope for a belt. The whole getup. I was climbing down some stairs that were lit by torches, and I was sweating. Not sweating in an “I’m hot” sort of way, but more in the “I hope I don’t get killed by something nasty” vein. Much more panicked and much less whiny.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I was met by vaulted ceilings, stone boxes with statues lying on top of them, and enough atmosphere to satisfy the biggest horror-movie junkie. I was in a crypt. The air was damp and musty, and the torches bathed everything in a hellish light. Really, I could think of few places I’d less rather be.

  Except maybe down an eighty-foot well.

  Part of the crypt had been walled off recently: there was a wall with clean mortar and evidence of construction around it. That was where I was heading, my knees trembling and my hands clenching something that felt like tool handles.

  I paused a couple of times to check around me. Nothing overtly dangerous. No demons. No lurking zombies. Then I was at the wall. I swallowed, raised my hammer and chisel and started carving something into the wall.

  With each stroke of the hammer, rock flew back into the air, sometimes hitting me in the face. I narrowed my eyes to protect them. Dust filled the air, getting into my nose and mouth. It tasted like hard water. I kept carving, though I had to keep wiping my palms on my robe, trying to keep the sweat off and my grip firm.

  As soon as I started to make the lower part of the L, I was sure of it, and starting on the E confirmed my belief. So Lesana had really died in my previous vision? That didn’t seem possible. Had it been from the vodník’s bite?

  I paused in my work and looked around again, then shook my head and readied my hammer and chisel. Two pounds later, I heard something, or thought I did, at least.

  Another pause. I strained my ears for any sound. All that came back was the crackling of the torches and a faint breeze from behind me. Just as I was getting ready for another pound, it came again, faintly from behind the wall.

  “Help.”

  I fainted.

  And found myself with my head buried in water. I panicked, forgetting for a moment where I was. Then it came back, and I lifted my head out of the sink, shuddering and shaken.

  “L’uboš,” I said. I toweled off my face and went straight to my uncle’s apartment, going outside in my pajamas. I buzzed his intercom until he let me in.

  When I met him at his door, his hair was all over the place, and his eyes had trouble focusing. “What is it?”

  I walked past him into his apartment and into his living room. “I need to know something,” I said.

  He followed me after a moment, closing the door behind him and stumbling to the couch. “Couldn’t it have waited until the afternoon? I worked all last night.”

  “Do you know legends about Trenčín?”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Katka says you study legends and myths and stuff. Have you ever heard one about a girl getting buried alive?”

  L’uboš sat up, ran his fingers through his hair and beard, and leaned forward. “Why?”

  I stared at him. “Is there that kind of a legend then?”

  A pause, then he nodded. “But after I tell you, we must discuss this.”

  “Deal.”

  He sighed. “Actually, there’s a very specific story. It is supposed to have happened in 1796. A girl—the daughter of an earl . . . Andricky—fell in love with a man her father did not like. When her father found out, he went into a rage and swore he’d rather see her dead than married and penniless. She dropped dead at his feet. A doctor came, examined her. Dead. No question of it, but her body didn’t stiffen. Didn’t lose c
olor. Many people did not think she was really dead. So instead of burying her, they laid her out in a crypt. Still her body didn’t decompose. Finally, they chose to wall her into the crypt where she lay. Days later, when a man came to carve her name into the wall, he thought he heard something, and fainted. Others came back, but no one heard anything.”

  L’uboš spread his hands wide. “So that is the story. Now what do you know?”

  “The girl wanted to marry a Rom, and the man who came to carve her name—he was a monk,” I said. “And he heard her call out for help.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I saw it. I was there.”

  My uncle breathed out and sat back. “How?”

  I told him all about the visions with the water, and about my conversations with Ohnica and Lesana. He listened with a straight face, not interrupting me. When I was done, he puffed his cheeks and blew out through his teeth. “Very bad. Very bad.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He leaned forward again. “I told your mother it was a bad idea for you to come back. Your father was at least open to the idea, but your mother has never believed. She refuses to.”

  “Believed what?”

  “Your stories. The experiences you had when you were little. Something tried to kill you then. I told them to take you away and not bring you back. But when you grew up normal, and nothing had happened for so long, and with the fire . . . your father was able to convince your mother to bring you again. And now this. Morena appearing to you. Visions. A water ghost. Very bad. This is just like—” He cut himself off, then shook his head. “Very bad.”

  “Just like with Babka?” I asked, wondering if I’d finally find out more. But L’uboš ignored my question.

  This wasn’t going like I wanted it to. It was supposed to be L’uboš comforting me and telling me how to fix things, not talking doom and gloom, and he didn’t even know about the vodník. I considered telling him, but that might lead the conversation toward Katka’s problem, and I didn’t want to betray her trust.