Vodník

  “Bah!” Morena waved her hand at the vodník in disgust. “So, Tomas. Your time’s almost up, and I find you here playing with a vodník.”

  “Shouldn’t you be off collecting his cousin?” the vodník asked. I still couldn’t speak. A white speck of something—not light, not solid—left my chest, followed by another, then another, then a flood of them.

  Morena shrugged. “I had a bit of spare time, and I thought I’d check in to see what you were up to. Whether there were any last minute heroics worth watching.” She checked on Lesana, who seemed to be recovering from the teacup spell’s effects. “I must admit you got fairly inventive. If you’d released her soul instead of restoring it, I think you would have filled the contract fairly enough.” She turned back to me. “You came close. Closer than most have come. But in the end it hardly ever works.”

  Lesana spoke up. “Is she here for—”

  “No,” the vodník said. “She isn’t here for anybody. She was just leaving. Just passing through.”

  “You don’t shut up, do you?” Morena said. “I’ll stay as long as I like. I have sixty seconds left before the deal’s over, and if I want to be here, here’s where I’ll be.”

  Whatever was me left my body, and I could see myself, lying there on the floor as a steady flow of white light left my chest and gathered in a ball above my body. I didn’t feel like I was drowning anymore. I didn’t feel . . . anything. The ball started to swirl around, and I grew dizzy. So much for this final plan—it had only been a hunch to begin with.

  The spinning increased, and I was drawn toward the teacup. I came closer and closer, the invisible current increasing as the vodník watched in satisfaction.

  “I’ll take Lesana after you, anyway,” he said, his arms folded and a smirk on his face. “And it’ll be too late for your cousin. This is what you get for getting in my way.”

  Now it was as if I was at the bottom a vortex. The master cup loomed larger than life in front of me, and—

  I felt a prick from where the bite scar on my hand would have been, if I still had a body. My soul paused at the edge of the brim.

  The smirk left the vodník’s face. “Hey. That’s not right,” he said in a flat voice.

  The current reversed, and now I was being drawn back to the scar on my physical body.

  The vodník set the cup down and backed away from it. “Stop. I take it back.”

  With a flash, I was in my body, breathing again. The white lights were streaming back into my chest.

  I stood up and walked over to the master cup, which had begun to shake—first just a tremble, and then more violently. The last white light went back into me, and the master cup jumped into the air with the worst shake of all. I caught it in midair, stared at the vodník, then hurled the cup to the floor.

  It shattered, pieces scattering across the floor.

  Morena and the vodník fell silent.

  The vodník started edging to the exit. “Well, this has been fun, hasn’t it?”

  A light gray mist rose from the remnants of the teacup.

  “Maybe next time we should do a potluck,” the vodník said. “Bring your own beef.” He was halfway to the door now, skirting us and the shelves.

  The gray mist thickened, and from the center of it came the noises of murmuring voices. It sent a tendril out to grab at the vodník, then sent another branch to slip into one of the ordinary teacups.

  The vodník dropped to his knees and crawled over to Morena. “This doesn’t have to be the end now, does it? Just take the souls. All of them. I promise, I’ll never keep another for as long as I live.”

  Morena cackled. “That’s a promise you’ll keep.” She held her scythe out, and some of the mist started heading toward it, as well. The sound of murmuring increased.

  The ordinary teacup exploded, sending china flying. I shielded my eyes with my arm, and when I looked again, two orbs of mist were forming. They worked faster this time. Mist entered cups and exploded them and then reformed and did it again more quickly than I could follow, doubling every time. Was Babka’s soul in there somewhere? The room was filled with the sound of breaking cups and the angry shouts of a disembodied mob. More mist gathered around Morena’s scythe and the vodník’s feet.

  The vodník yelped in surprise, seeming to see what was happening for the first time. All the cups shattered at once, shards flying everywhere, peppering my skin with tiny porcelain bits. Then the mist attacked the vodník. He was surrounded in swirling, glowing vapors, each one distinct and yet part of the greater whole, like a school of fish clumped together. But deadlier. The vodník screamed, and then I couldn’t see him anymore. All was churning mist, and everything got brighter. The muttering of the mob increased, and so did the vodník’s screams.

  Then the screams stopped.

  The mists froze. After several heartbeats, they shot over to Death’s scythe, which devoured them all in an endless stream. All that was left of the vodník was his top hat, sitting in a puddle.

  Morena broke the silence by cackling again. There was no other way to put it. She was beaming at me. She clapped her hands and rubbed them together. “Finally! Well done, Tomas,” she said. “Some minor hiccups, but understandable. Improvisation at the end—I love it! Contract fulfilled. I hope you take the job. It would be a pleasure doing business with you.”

  She disappeared.

  Many have asked if death is just the beginning of something far more wonderful. The answer is simple. Of course! Death is the beginning of a long and beautiful career. What else is there in life?

  Lesana and I stared at each other, then down to the puddle on the floor, then around us at all the treasure. She rushed over to me and hugged me, hard. “Thank you,” she whispered into my ear.

  Suddenly everything felt better. The world was brighter. Katka was going to live, and I was getting hugged by a fully living, breathing, warm-blooded Lesana.

  “Do you think he was telling the truth?” Lesana asked after a mo­ment, separating from me but still holding onto my shoulders.

  “About what?”

  “About being my brother.”

  I thought about it. “I don’t know.” Vodníks were created by drowning children, but . . .

  Lesana didn’t answer that, and I had something more pressing on my mind. “Do you think Katka’s better already?”

  “She’s fine,” a voice said from behind us. Lesana yelped and let go of me, darting her hands behind her back. We turned to see the old candy cane–backed granny, Starenka, hobble into the room. She smiled at us, then cleared a pile of coins off an old throne and sat down. “It’ll take her a bit to come to, but she will. Don’t worry.”

  “Who are you?” Lesana asked.

  “An observer,” the granny said. “And that was some nice creativity at the end there, Tomas.”

  I shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. “I didn’t really know if it would work.”

  “What did you do?” Lesana said.

  “He’s a Rasputin,” Starenka said. “When the vodník bit him, he started taking his soul, and when Tomas overcame that bite, he became immune to the vodník’s soul stealing. It was one magic versus another at the end there, and the Rasputin magic won out. Frankly, I had no idea that would happen. After that, because he’d escaped from the vodník’s teacup, Tomas was able to free the other souls, and they took care of the rest.”

  I hadn’t known, either—I’d just hoped. I looked down at the hat sitting in the puddle, and Starenka followed my gaze.

  “In a way,” she said, “I’m sorry to see him go.”

  “You knew him?” I asked.

  The granny nodded. “He saved my life, once.” She straightened. I don’t mean she sat up straighter; I mean she sat up, removing the candy-cane angle of her back and appearing about a hundred years younger. Her face lost most of the wrinkles, and my jaw dropped. I recognized her. Her face had been in a picture frame on the mantle every day of my life.

  “Babka,” I said.
>
  She smiled at me and bobbed her head. “It’s because of that vodník that much of my life changed from the course it had been heading. Ohnica attacked me back then. I was supposed to be dispatching her in the same way you just took care of the vodník. She surprised me with a last-minute burst of flame right as I’d bound her to her element—a binding you’ve now loosed. That’ll cause trouble, but we can worry about it later. Back then, the vodník exploded a water pipe in the basement to save me. Of course, doing one good deed hardly makes up for all the other people he murdered over the years. But still . . .” She walked over to the hat, picked it up, and put it on one of the shelves, now empty of teacups. “When Ohnica tried to kill you when you were little, he saved you too. Tried to do it by drowning, but he always did have a warped sense of right and wrong.”

  “But why didn’t you go back?” I asked, suddenly feeling guilty somehow, and trying to mask it. “What about L’uboš? My mom?”

  Babka sighed and brushed away some dust from her blouse. “I couldn’t. Your mother didn’t approve of what was happening to me, and L’uboš was already far too obsessed with it. Imagine how he would have turned out if I had stayed? He’s mostly a knight as it is. And there was the danger to worry about. They were only children, and around me, things aren’t safe.”

  “Are you a Rasputin too?”

  “No,” she said. “A different type of magic user, more like your friend there.” She jerked her head toward Lesana. “But you don’t need a lecture now. I’m here on assignment from Morena.”

  “Do you work for her or something?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m Death’s Assassin. Or at least I am for now.”

  Lesana gasped.

  “Think of me like a hit man for Death,” Babka said, then shrugged. “Or hit woman, I suppose. My job was to kill the magical creatures that refused to let Morena win.”

  I remembered that from Death in the Modern Day. “What do you mean, that was your job?” I asked.

  “I mean it’s your job now.”

  I blinked. “Mine?”

  She nodded. “If you’ll take it. If you don’t, I’m stuck with it some more, and I’m worn out. Fresh blood would help the position, and being a Rasputin wouldn’t hurt, either. Not to mention being the first drinker of a virgin spring. Eternal regenerative power will come in very handy in this line of work.”

  So that was how I recovered from those tree branch puncture wounds so fast. In all the rush, I hadn’t had time to think about it too much. “But—but—I can’t. Me? I couldn’t be a hit man. I’ve never killed anything before in my life.”

  Babka sniffed. “What do you call that puddle over there, then?”

  “That was an accident. I just guessed. And I only did it because I had to.”

  “Tomas,” Babka said. “Don’t start getting a guilty conscience. Getting rid of the vodník was your first assignment. He’s been escaping Morena for decades, and this was just the opportunity we needed to take him out, regardless of your history with him.”

  “Assignment?” I said. “What about Katka, then? Was that some sort of—”

  “No. Katka’s death time was real. We didn’t alter that. We just made sure you knew about it so you were properly motivated.”

  “You used me.”

  “Semantics,” Babka said, picking up a painting that looked vaguely like a Van Gogh. “The vodník was a bad egg. It was because of him the whole city of Trenčín won’t go near water. You fixed all that, or did for the most part. I just had to send you a few notes now and then, to keep you on track. You should be proud.”

  It clicked. So that’s who the notes had come from. “A” stood for Alena, Babka’s first name. I was quiet for a while. What do you tell someone when they start prattling off things like that? “What about you?” I said at last. “If I become this Death’s Assassin person, what do you do?”

  She smiled and set the painting down. “I get to go home. Take up my life where I left off. Maybe do some consultation for you on the side, but I’d retire.”

  “And if I don’t take it?”

  “Then I’m stuck,” Babka said. “Somebody’s got to do the job, and if you don’t, then we’ll just have to wait for another candidate before I’m through.”

  My mind was racing. There was just too much to think about at once. “Would I have to go into hiding too?” I asked. The thought of disappearing from the world wasn’t too appealing—not right after I’d just ironed things out in my life.

  “I doubt it,” Babka said and stood. “Not if I’m there to keep you headed in the right direction. And not if you don’t want to, though it might get kind of hairy at times, being Death’s Assassin while you’re still in high school.”

  “What about me?” Lesana said.

  I had completely forgotten about her, and that was saying something. She was standing there with wide eyes, her face pale as snow.

  Babka grunted. “You. You weren’t really foreseen, to tell the truth. But I think something can be arranged, if you don’t mind living with an old lady.”

  “With you?” Lesana asked.

  “Why not? I’ll be needing an apartment, and I’d rather not stay in it alone. I’ve had enough of solitary life for now. A girl your age needs a guardian, especially with boys like Tomas running around.”

  I blushed and was more than a little relieved to notice Lesana blushing too.

  Babka laughed. “Oh, to be young. Don’t worry, I think if Tomas behaves himself, I might approve a little courtship now and then. But we can sort that out later. For now, I think there’s someplace Tomas ought to be.”

  “Katka?” I asked.

  Babka nodded. “She’ll be waking up soon. You should be there.”

  “Can you, like, magic us there or something?” I asked.

  “You know,” Babka said, “that’s the problem with you kids today. You’re all so lazy. You left your car up by the castle gate. We can drive, as long as Ajax didn’t squish it.”

  I don’t know how we would have gotten out of the well if it weren’t for Babka. She led us out through the passages, all of which were now clear of water, though the magic torches still burned. “The vodník had to force water to come here,” Babka explained. “With him gone, it’ll dry out quickly.”

  At the door to the complex we paused. The water had receded to just below the edge of the door, and without its presence, I had no idea how we’d get out of the well.

  “Not to worry,” Babka said. She leaned out of the door and felt around on the well wall for a moment before she scraped away a chunk of dripping algae. “There are handholds. I’ll go first.”

  “Handholds” was putting it liberally. A more accurate description would be “slick death traps.” The climb was long and there were a few times when I was sure I’d fall back down, but somehow we made it. Babka helped Lesana and me get out once we reached the top. She was pretty spry for someone who had been masquerading as a candy cane–backed granny.

  “What about the vodník’s tunnels?” I asked. “All that treasure.”

  “It’s not going anywhere,” Babka said. “Maybe mention it to L’uboš—I’m sure he’ll figure out something to do with it all. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the town does when they find out a Rom has fallen into that much treasure. I always hated how mean my countrymen were to my husband.” I hadn’t really thought about the position that Babka had put herself in by marrying a Roma man. It only increased my admiration of her, and it made me wonder what sort of man my grandpa had been.

  Ajax hadn’t squished the car, although there were deep scratches on either side from where I’d scraped against the gate on the way in. I opened the driver’s door to get behind the wheel, but my grandmother stopped me.

  “Do you have a license?”

  I stopped. “Well . . . no.”

  “Didn’t think so,” she said. “I’ll drive.”

  We all piled in, and Babka revved the engine and raced down the castle ro
ad in reverse. The tires screeched when she whipped the car around at the bottom of the hill and shifted back to drive. She drove like a maniac, weaving from lane to lane and taking turns so tightly I worried we’d tip over. All the while, she had a grin on her face as wide as a half moon.

  “I love cars,” she said after she noticed my white-knuckle grip on the door handle. “I never got one when I was your age, and the ones they have today handle so much better than those Communist ones.”

  By the time we got to the hospital, I thought our tires might have melted. Babka pulled up to the front door. “Okay,” she said. “Here’s your stop.”

  “You’re not going to come in?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I think there’s been enough excitement for one day. I can get caught up with my children when it’s not so hectic, and we can explain Lesana later too.”

  Maybe she had a point. I looked over to Lesana. “You’ll be okay?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Go see your family.”

  Finding Katka’s room this time wasn’t nearly as difficult as it had been last night. Had it really only been last night I was here? I walked down the hall at first, then broke into a run. I needed to see Katka—know she was okay.

  As I approached the room, I was alarmed to see a swarm of nurses and doctors milling around. Had something gone wrong? I elbowed my way through the crowd.

  “—don’t understand it,” a doctor was saying.

  I heard L’uboš’s voice. “You don’t need to.”

  At last I emerged into the room. Katka was sitting up, her eyes alert and bright. They’d rolled the other patients out, probably to let them avoid all the commotion. I was also relieved to see my dad standing by the bed. No paralysis—not even a sling or a neck brace. Only some bruises. L’uboš ran over and hugged me so hard I thought my eyeballs would pop out. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  I would have said something in response, but I couldn’t breathe. He let me go and then bellowed for all the hospital staff to leave the room. They didn’t want to, but when L’uboš starts yelling he can move things by his voice alone. In no time, it was down to just family. I finally reached Katka’s side and leaned over to give her a hug.