Remember the touch
of Ilmarinen’s hammer.
Remember coals.
Burning heat
of Forge’s Fire.”
“Rise and remember,
release your brother.
The one that tamed you
into shape and into form.
Release his fury
The heat of his anger.”
“Remember Mother’s Milk
That made you on Ukko’s knee.
Return to earth now,
Flow like Mother’s milk,
Into cold dark earth.”
“Free Brother Fire from
Cruel cold grasp.
Let his anger flow out
Onto those that bind me!”
Flames hot and blinding burst from Anya’s hands before spreading down her body. The iron manacles melted like plastic and dripped onto the ground. Anya was aware of Völundr shouting but she couldn’t make out the noise over the roaring in her ears. He ran for the door but Anya held out a hand and the door swung shut and locked.
“You should have let him go,” Anya said. The guard bashed against the door beside Völundr, trying to find a way out. Völundr had begun working spells against her but they were bee stings against her skin. The fire poured out of her setting the laboratory ablaze. Her hands stretched out towards the two struggling men who started screaming as they began to burn inside. With Vischto it had been instantaneous but Anya wanted them to suffer. She stepped over them as they squirmed and opened the door. The walls caught fire where she walked and she opened the door where the Ovinnik was being held.
“Yanka’s blood.” Its eyes were wide in its shrunken face. Anya gripped his chains and they melted beneath her hands. She touched his face and smiled. The Ovinnik smiled back as the fire ignited him and he started to laugh with glee. “Go through the house and do your work,” Anya said calmly. “If you find others set them free.” It ran from the room screaming and laughing, leaving trails of fire wherever it went. Anya went to Trajan and punched a wall through the invisible force holding him. Völundr’s circle shattered beneath her touch. The flames along her skin were fading now but she could still feel the power riding her.
“Trajan?” She rolled him over.
“Don’t look at me Anya. I am too weak to shield-” He turned his misshapen face from her.
“Take what you need Trajan.”
“No! I will kill you.”
“It’s freely given. You can’t control it anyway. So take it.” The silvery smoke-like substance was already seeping out of her skin and rushing into him. She sagged against him as the power slowly retreated. Trajan’s skin was just starting to change when she lost consciousness.
Trajan let Anya go, horrified at what he had done. The house was burning around him.
“Trajan!” Hamish appeared through the flaming door. “I found him!” Cerise appeared after him.
“Trajan what have you done?” she screamed as she pulled Anya from his arms and lifted her up. Hamish’s heavy coat dropped over Trajan’s naked body and he was hauled to his feet. Völundr’s body twisted in the corner. Trajan could still feel the life in him fighting. He leant over and placed a hand on the terrified face. “I am going to send you somewhere very special for what you have done,” Trajan said and Völundr’s ruined mouth screamed as his soul was torn from his body.
“No time!” Hamish shouted and tossed Trajan over his shoulder. Hamish carried him through the burning house and outside. Izrayl and Yvan were helping to put Anya in the back seat of Cerise’s car. Yvan climbed in after and held Anya tightly to him. Trajan looked back at the burning house and could feel all the souls that had died in there. Spreading his arms out, he pulled all of them to him.
“Trajan,” Cerise was beside him. “Trajan don’t take them, it will destroy you from the inside.” He ignored her until there was nothing left.
“I have no intention of keeping them; I just don’t want them left to wander this plane.” For the first time since Ilya had saved him Trajan opened the unseen door separating reality from the spirit world. Cerise stumbled away and yelled at the others to keep back. Focussing on the soul energy inside of him Trajan released it, sending all the souls the Darkness had killed into the Underworld. Völundr’s he kept until last. With an old efficiency Trajan opened another gate leading to the Hell realms. Summoning Völundr’s soul he sent it howling into the abyss. He shut the gates quickly, closing the invisible doors in the fabric of reality until he was standing in the wet, dark streets of Paris. He turned around just as Izrayl’s heavy fist connected with his face, knocking him out cold.
Chapter Twenty- Six -Aftermath
“How is she?” Trajan asked as he entered Anya’s rooms late afternoon the following day. She still hadn’t woken. He had come around from Izrayl’s punch disoriented and raving. Cerise had calmed him and told him what happened. He could barely remember anything about the last twenty hours.
“You had opened a gateway to fucking Hell Trajan,” she stopped and forced herself to calm down, chain smoking worse than ever. “Could you imagine what would happen to this world if you had left it open? If something had tried to get through?” He couldn’t believe he had done it either. He remembered being angry, Anya burning and then nothing.
“I am very sorry Cerise,” he had mumbled like a scolded child.
“I am just happy you are both alive. We have to make preparations to get out of Paris. Once the Darkness find out what happened we will all be fucked.”
“Völundr said he hadn’t told Vasilli he had Anya. He was using her first to get at me.”
“Who the hell is Völundr?” she asked as she lit another cigarette. He had told her everything he could remember but now he just wanted to see Anya. Katya was standing guard.
“Go away Trajan,” she said, pointing her gun at him.
“Katya please. I am myself again,” he held his hands up.
“And what kind of comfort is that? I saw what you did yesterday.” Her gun was shaking a little.
“Katya I am still the same… person you knew yesterday. Do you think Izrayl would’ve brought me back here if I wasn’t? Do you think Yvan would’ve let me in the house?” Katya lowered her gun slowly but didn’t holster it.
“I would still be careful of Yvan if I were you,” she warned. “You can have ten minutes. I will be right outside the door.”
“I understand.”
“I hope you do.” She walked out leaving him to sit by Anya’s bed. Anya still wore the filthy pyjamas splattered with blood and ash. He couldn’t recall much but he would never forget the pure fury on her face or the way she melted the iron holding her.
Anya seemed to have a natural affinity with fire which made Trajan think perhaps that was the reason why her touch woke the firebird from its long sleep. Whatever the reason she had used it to save him, not the other way around like it should have been. And now she had seen his true form, or as much as one could on this plane of existence. She had touched him and offered her life’s energy to help him. He wondered if she would live to regret it. He already regretted taking it. She twitched roughly in her sleep, bringing Trajan out of his thoughts.
“No, no-” she whispered before lashing out at the sheets.
“Anya? Wake up darling, you are having a night terror,” Trajan said softly and reached for her hand. Her eyes snapped open, saw him leaning over her and she screamed. “Anya, it’s okay,” he said urgently as she struggled to get out of the sheets, backing away from him in terror. She managed to free herself on the other side of the bed and ran for the door.
“What the hell?” Katya appeared just as Anya knocked her over and ran down the hall. Trajan went over and helped Katya to her feet. Her jade eyes were full of shock. “What did you do?”
Anya barged into Yvan’s rooms and finding them empty she ran for his bathroom. She slammed the door behind her and turned the lock. She jumped in fright when she caught her reflection in the corner of her ey
e and thought someone was in there with her. She looked filthy and terrified. The horror of the dream was slowly fading and her mind began to waken.
Shaking and crying she tore at her dirty clothes in frustration. She managed to turn on the shower taps before her knees gave out and she crumpled on the tiles. The sobs came out in heavy painful gasps as she pulled her knees up to her chest and started to rock.
“Anya?” a voice called from the other side of the door. It burst open and Yvan’s dark head appeared around the shower door. Through the fall of water she saw the concern on his face. He turned and shut the bathroom door again. “Do you want to come out of there?” he asked gently.
“I c-can’t m-move,” she managed, shivering badly. Yvan kicked off his shoes, turned the water hotter and sat down beside her fully clothed. He draped an arm around her and she collapsed into him.
“You are okay, I have you,” he whispered and gently stroked her hair. “Do you want to tell me about it?” Slowly the whole confused story tumbled out of her; the Shishiga and her peeling bloody skin, the Ovinnik, the crow slaves and Völundr’s terrible experiments. She told him about Trajan and of his true form. Yvan held her tighter when she spoke about the huge amount of power that had ridden her. She couldn’t remember anything after she started to give Trajan her energy except for the horrifying night terrors of Hell and distorted crow slaves, Völundr screaming in the darkness. When Trajan had woken her all she could see was his Thanatos form looming over her.
“Anya, I want you take a deep breath for me,” Yvan instructed once her story had turned into a ramble of words and images. She took three big deliberate breaths.
“Now listen carefully,” he continued. “I think the heavy drugs Völundr was injecting you with are slowly wearing off. You are coming down from a long high so you need to try and relax. I am not going anywhere. You are safe. Vasilli and Ladislav weren’t even aware that you were captured. That gives us a few days of grace and by the time they realise what has happened we will be long gone. They aren’t ever going to get their hands on you again shalosť.” Anya gripped him tighter. Her whole world was turning upside down again but Yvan was solid; the rock, the only thing keeping her from getting swept away in the madness.
“You want to know something?” she asked shakily. “I met another two fairy tale creatures when I was captive. I am here with you, a wonderful cursed fairytale Prince from Skazki. It’s like I am trapped in a fairytale of my own. But this fairytale isn’t going to have a happy ending is it?”
“One thing I have learnt in my life is that we can never predict the future with certainty. You have been given a massive gift and you have been using it for good. You have given a Shishiga and an Ovinnik a much happier ending than they thought possible. They will spread the word about you and when the time comes you will have more allies than you can imagine. You will not be fighting alone. Don’t pretend there is only death and sorrow in your future because it will not always be so.”
“What will happen now?”
“I think the first thing is for you to get out of the shower. Then food and then you need to talk to the others about what happened. They were all very afraid for you. The Twins picked up on your magical signature so we could find you and Trajan.” Anya flinched when he mentioned Trajan. She had screamed in his face.
“Can you do me a favour?”
“Anything.”
“Can you go and talk to Trajan? He is going to think I am afraid of him. I was screaming because of the dream and-”
“And coming down off drugs probably made the nightmares and the world in general terrifying. I will tell him.” Yvan stood up and climbed out of the shower. He unfolded a massive towel and held it out for her. He looked away discreetly as she stood, turned off the taps and stepped into it. He wrapped it around her like a little child and dried her face with a corner.
“There we are; I knew my little Anya was in there somewhere.” She smiled up at him.
“Thank you for everything Yvan. You always know the right thing to say.” As he stepped back for a moment Anya saw the firebird blazing under his skin. She jumped away in shock.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think I am still high. I can see through you, I can see the firebird! He’s so beautiful.” She reached out her hand to touch him before quickly pulling it back.
“Go and get dressed, you need food,” he said with a smile. “And I need to change too. Unless you have conquered your fear of nudity you had best go.” Anya blushed and headed for the door. “I didn’t think so,” Yvan called.
Yvan dressed in clean jeans and pulled on a tee shirt. Shirts that didn’t require lacing or buttoning were something he enjoyed about the real world. He found Trajan in the library with Hamish and Izrayl. He had a whiskey by his elbow and had his head in his hands.
“Wouldn’t have been you,” Izrayl was saying to him.
Trajan looked up as Yvan interrupted them. “I just rescued Anya from my shower. She is coming down off the drugs and is hallucinating. She said she could see the firebird under my skin, she could see right through me. She was dreaming and she panicked when you woke her Trajan, that’s all. She’s embarrassed.”
“See? Told you not to beat yourself up,” Hamish said, the big Australian slapping Trajan on the back so hard it brought tears to his eyes.
“What do you mean you rescued her from the shower? You went in there when she was naked?” Trajan demanded as a dark look settled in his eyes.
“Trajan, cut it out,” Izrayl growled and pointed to the decorative house plants that started to shrivel and die. Trajan shook himself, the dark look passed and Yvan’s heart beat slowed back to a normal rate. He pretended not to be worried as he poured himself vodka from the crystal decanter. He took a long sip before he said, “She was dreaming of Hell when you woke her. She could hear Völundr screaming.”
“Did you tell her what I did?”
“No, that’s something you can explain to her. You had best do it soon.” Trajan nodded his head sadly.
“Shit happens, Trajan. Gotta move on from it. Anya is a cool chick, she will get it. Hell after what she just went through with that little Swedish prick she will probably praise you for it.” Hamish lifted his rum with a mock salute before downing it.
Anya came in about half an hour later in a green sweater that matched her eyes and a pair of jeans. Yvan was relieved that she wasn’t looking so distraught though the bruises on her face made him want to take her in his arms and hold her. Isabelle, Katya, Cerise and the Twins had arrived earlier. Katya had the foresight to order some take out because everyone was too tired and heart sore to cook. The Twins gave Anya a small vial of fluid to drink, which she swallowed quickly and hugged them both before sitting next to Trajan. He put an arm around her shoulder and as she cuddled into him the heavy tension in the room lifted.
“We need to start a twenty-four hour guard over the house,” said Isabelle, her plate of pasta balancing easily on her knees. “Just until we can get out of Paris. If we are lucky it will take them a week before they become worried enough about their colleagues to send someone. I have a friend who is watching the lines of communication. The technical kind that is. Still, it’s better than nothing.”
“Chayton and I have cast some protections around the grounds already in case they send something magical after us,” Honaw said, his deep voice held an American accent which had a smoky quality. A whiskey voice, Yvan had heard Katya refer to it as.
“I want to be gone within the week. I don’t want to stay in Paris,” Anya said softly as if to herself. Trajan’s arm tightened around her. She smiled up at him but everyone could see it was bravado.
She needs to face that fear in her. She is brave, it won’t take her long,Yvan commented to the firebird.
Remember the witch’s words. She will need you most of all. Be her hero.
I will never forget that.
Anya and Trajan walked up the large sweeping staircase and back to his wing of the
house. Just for once, Anya wasn’t nervous. She sat down on one of the deep cream-coloured couches and watched him move about the dark room, turning on the beautiful stained glass lamps and lighting the small fireplace. There was an engraved plate at the back of it of a figure holding a spear that looked ancient Greek in origin. Like everything in the house, effortlessly elegant. Trajan fitted in perfectly with his manners and habit of dressing in ties and waistcoats. On anyone else they would have looked like a uniform but on him they looked comfortable and casual. The fire caught, the warm glow highlighting his impossibly shiny chestnut curls.
“What?” he asked.
“I was just wondering if I was still high,” she said as she pulled her feet up. “You are just so beautiful.”
“Yes, you definitely must still be suffering under the effects of that poison.” He smiled just in the corner of his mouth but Anya spotted it before it disappeared. “Can I get you anything?”
“Don’t fuss, I am fine.” He sat down beside her. He looked more nervous than she had ever seen him. A sinking feeling washed through her. He was gearing up for the ‘talk’; the kind that would result in her crying into her pillow. He had finally come to his senses and realised their attraction was a farce. She had been expecting it. She had probably turned him off beyond words after she had set the building they were in on fire. Before she came into his life he hadn’t been kidnapped and tortured. He took her pale hand in his and stroked her fingers lightly.
“Yvan told me about your nightmares.”
“I am sorry for screaming in your face. I didn’t-” He waved her apology away.
“It’s nothing. That’s not what I want to talk to you about. I should be the one asking forgiveness. I believe I may have unintentionally given you the nightmares.”
“What are you talking about?” Anya tried hard not to show her surprise and fear as Trajan spoke of opening the doors of reality and what he had done to Völundr’s soul in revenge. By the end he was on his knees in front of her almost begging forgiveness.
Cry of the Firebird (The Firebird Fairytales Book 1) Page 29