“In my experience, money and power are very effective buffers against guilty feelings.”
“Not for Lisko,” Yuchenko muttered.
“Of course, I also wish for this outcome on your behalf, and Ms. Dvoynev’s,” Anya said. “Sonya and I like the idea of helping ghosts. Have you seen the American movie Ghostbusters?”
“Yeah.” He had, thanks to Katya.
“We’re thinking of starting a business, like the opposite of Ghostbusters. Ghost Helpers, but obviously we need a catchier name. You’re a writer. Maybe you can help us come up with one.”
“Um…” He really had no idea what to say to that. “So is this your tactic? A quid pro quo? You make Katya real again if I accept this bullshit mea culpa from Lisko and stop hounding him?”
“Nope. No trade,” Yuchenko said. “Your choice is your own. What Katya does is up to her. Also, look at the last paper in the file.”
Nik flipped passed photocopies of checks made out to every single complainant.
To Nikolai Zurkov.
From Dmitri Lisko, CEO of Lisko Enterprises.
Re: Offer of Employment.
Mr. Zurkov, it is my sincerest hope that you will accept this offer. I would like to hire you to be our accountability agent in a position we’re calling Chief Ethical Auditor. Ideally, you will be willing to use your investigative skills to help me bring my company into line with the highest ethical standards. You will be well compensated, although I cannot promise for how long, as your work may bankrupt Lisko Enterprises. If that is the outcome of our collaboration, I plan to live off the largesse of my entrepreneurial wife, and her new business Ghost Helpers.
Chert. They really did need a better name.
“Is this some kind of a joke?”
Yuchenko shook his head. “Nope. When you start taking this ghost stuff seriously, everything seems preposterous. But he’s serious. What do you say?”
“I need to talk to Katya.”
Anya smiled. “I knew it. He loves her. The man always falls in love with the ghost. Ghost Helpers is going to be the most romantic job.”
Nik covered his eyes. He’d somehow landed in an alternate absurdist universe. “Please, stop calling it that. I’ll think of something better.”
Anya offered her husband a hand to high-five. “You were right. I do like him!”
Chapter 25
Hovering just outside the door to the roof, Katya weighed her choices. If she ghosted through it, she might be blown apart. A sort of spiritual suicide.
The mara quaked with fury over the prospect, hissing and making Katya’s ghostly particles boil. And Katya didn’t even know if it would work.
Kill him, avenge yourself.
She looked down at her hands. They were the mara’s long, bony fingers tipped with sharpened claws.
All at once, like a fade-to-black between movie scenes, her awareness dimmed and then brightened.
She found herself in the bathroom, wearing her skin. In the place where Nikolai had sat bleeding so many times, a huge man crouched down like a fall of tumbled boulders. When he looked up at her, his crystal-blue eyes seemed vacant, haunted. That made sense—she’d been doing her damndest to haunt him.
Dmitri Lisko.
Sonya was there too, cradling one hand in another and rubbing her thumb against her palm. “Please don’t hurt him.”
The mara awakened and began shrieking at Katya. She flung around inside her like a bug trapped in a jar. Kill him, avenge yourself.
Katya crossed her arms to contain the tirade. “I gave my word I’d listen.”
“Oh, fuck, Sonya, I can’t do this.” He turned his face away from Katya. “She looks exactly…”
Sonya handed Katya a bathrobe. It must have been Dariya’s, so long its hem dragged on the floor. Katya put it on, tried to focus entirely upon thinking thoughts uncontrolled by the mara.
“Is there some place we can sit?” Sonya leaned out the door and glanced down the hall.
The gun was in the bathroom vanity, so Katya wasn’t inclined to be accommodating. “No. We stay here.”
Wordlessly, the three of them searched each other’s faces.
Sonya broke the silence. “Where do we start?”
“With me,” Lisko said, his head bowed, his forehead cradled in one hand. “There hasn’t been a day since you died when I haven’t regretted it.” Oddly, his failure to look at her added gravity to his words.
She believed him. “Funny, I feel the same way.”
“When you…out of nowhere. And all the blood…Christ. I was drunk for a month after it happened.”
His misery, his regret, it all registered in her gut as heartfelt. But that wasn’t a surprise. She’d seen it on his face the night she died, had felt it in the nightmare she’d stoked in him.
“It doesn’t matter.” She spoke with the mara’s siren voice, seductively demanding. “It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry, or if you wish it had never happened, or if you hate yourself for doing it. Justice is justice. A life for a life. Otherwise, I’m trapped forever. Only your death can spare me.”
“No. That’s not the only way,” Sonya said.
Katya’s body burned with the sensation of spiritual claws trying to slice their way out of her body to savage Lisko. The pain turned the siren’s song to a guttural rasp. “What do you mean?”
“As I said when I visited with my sister, I was once a ghost craving revenge against Dima, because his father murdered me, and he bore the blood debt.”
The explanation taxed Katya’s brain, shredded as it was by the mara’s shrieks and claws. “Your ghost wanted you to kill the son of your murderer?”
“A life for a life.” He rumbled the words without lifting his head from where it hung from his massively broad shoulders. The cynical tone reminded her painfully of Nikolai. If she and the mara succeeded, she would never see him again. It was a painful outcome to hope for.
“But that’s not fair. And it’s not the same. You did actually kill me.” The mara stilled enough for Katya to think. “And you have to pay, or else I pay for every second of eternity.”
“Your ghost—the mara—she wants you to think that,” Sonya said. “But it’s not true. Perhaps it was easier for me to see because I already knew Dima, already loved him.”
“How could you love a murderer?”
“Because he’d already changed. After you died, he nearly poisoned himself with vodka. He hated himself for being involved with anything that would get an innocent like you killed. He’d resolved to get out of the business. And I fell in love with a man trying to redeem himself.”
The note in Fedir’s boyish handwriting stole over her mind. Even if Katya had known about Fedir’s goal of redemption, she wouldn’t have loved him. Her heart belonged to a man who insisted on living so far into the snowy side of the black-and-white border he had trouble seeing the gray area between. She loved a hero.
But this woman Sonya loved her antihero, and if Katya killed him, she would break her heart. Katya’s conscience demanded she be certain before she could make a decision like that.
At her hesitation, the mara screeched. The ghost flung herself against Katya’s interior walls, sent her careening across the bathroom. She almost toppled her over. Katya caught herself on the sink counter and slid down to sit on the floor directly opposite Lisko.
The bonus was now the weapon was in reach.
“So you’re a murderer with a conscience.” Katya’s words raked over her voice box, the mara trying to keep them from escaping. “If you’re so honorable, how did you end up a hit man?”
He raised his head, his haunted blue eyes piercing her with a shard of death’s cold. “It seemed like I had no choice. My dad was a dirty cop. Went to prison for it. Drank himself to death when he got out. I’d been a boxer. People said I’d be the next heavyweight champion, but I lost a big fight. After, the docs told me my brain wouldn’t survive another blow to my head.”<
br />
Images from his dreams filled her mind, as if this snippet of story was the narration she’d needed to make sense of his torment. Then the mara blurred them, dimmed them, tried to hide his memories from Katya’s inner eye. But the ghost had brought them to her in the first place, and they were indelibly marked in Katya’s memory.
“I’d have followed in dear old dad’s footsteps, but my uncle swept in, promised me the high life, promised me I could help make our name into something great. And I swear, we had a code, Katya.” His gravelly voice broke. “I clung to my honor. The people we did business with knew the rules. Your man broke them, and if you let someone get away with that, everything falls apart. What killed me was you—jumping in there like that, sacrificing yourself for that piece of shit.”
A blast of the mara’s power burst from Katya. It shattered the glass door of the shower stall like a spider web.
As if someone had hit pause on a movie, the three of them watched it in perfect stillness. Katya sensed the shift, heard the creaking the second before the shards came apart in a downfall of clouded glass.
Katya covered her head as Sonya gasped. When she looked up, Lisko had slivers of glass on his shoulders, but he hadn’t moved. Her personal anger coalesced with the mara’s. Who was he to judge another man working to become better?
“Fedir loved me. And he stole that money so we could leave, start over. He wanted to redeem himself too.”
Lisko didn’t flinch. “He chose a damn stupid way to do it.”
“I know.” Unbidden, laughter burst from her. Crazy, maniacal laughter. In the end, that had been his downfall. “Why did he have to be so stupid?”
The husband and wife looked at each other, clearly confused as body-shaking guffaws wracked Katya. Like she and the mara were having a good laugh over their year-long misunderstanding of each other. And when the laughter subsided, the ghost’s words sounded, crystalline. It’s almost over. Kill Lisko, avenge yourself.
“I’ve spent all this time wanting you to pay for what you did to Fedir, when really, I should have been angry for myself. I’d gotten free of my parents, someone loved me. My life had just begun, and you cut it short.”
“And for that, your ghost rightly wants me to pay.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw muscles bunching, his nostrils flaring.
When he opened his eyes and held her gaze, Katya sensed he’d deliberately angled away from his wife.
“I can’t live like this. If you cannot bring yourself to forgive me, I will lay down my life so you can have peace.”
The mara went perfectly still and calm. Her hissing YES resonated through Katya.
“Dima!” Sonya flew to him, grabbed his hand, tried to haul him up, though he was nearly twice as big as her. “You promised me. Get up. Damn it, get up. We’re leaving.”
They must have discussed this, agreed he wouldn’t offer himself as a sacrifice. And now he wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t meet Sonya’s eye. Finally, she gave up tugging at him and collapsed atop him, putting her body between him and Katya like a shield, just as Katya had for Fedir. Sobs shook Sonya, similar to and yet dissonant with the hysterical laughter that had taken hold of Katya.
Katya pitied her, a sympathetic pain squeezing her heart, even as the bitter taste of envy rose up in her throat. They had each other, a life together, something Katya would never have with a man she truly loved. Because Lisko had taken every opportunity from her.
Then the woman’s spine went stiff and she jerked herself upright, turning to Katya. “If the mara taught you your life was worthwhile, wouldn’t it be even better to live again?”
Live again.
Was this some kind of trick? A ploy to persuade her to absolve him and then leave her here alone for eternity.
Where would she go? Her eyes volleyed around the bathroom, to the two toothbrushes, two hand towels, Nikolai’s razor. He wouldn’t want her here. He was just buying time until Dariya outgrew her need for him.
But still, maybe even without Nikolai, she would like to live again.
No! This time, instead of resonating with Katya’s emotions, the mara’s cry clashed with her inner organs. The ghost twisted her insides, tangled her guts. She pulled, pulled, as if trying to yank Katya’s soul right from her body.
“Have mercy on Dima,” Sonya begged. “Forgive him and live again.”
Katya couldn’t think, couldn’t begin to imagine if she wanted that. The mara was killing her all over again. The icy grip of death seized her once more.
“What if she’s not the same as you were?” Lisko asked his wife. “With the blood and the nightmares—what if it doesn’t work?”
Katya’s pain stopped. The sensation of cold ceased.
“It has to work,” Sonya said, turning toward Katya. She blinked. “Oh! Where did she go?”
Lisko’s gaze never lost focus. “She’s still there, she’s just gone ghost, the pointy-eared one with too much eye makeup who’s been haunting my dreams. No offense, Katya, but I like you better as a blonde.”
The ghoul bared her sharp teeth and hissed at him.
Without the overwhelming sensations of the mara trying to destroy her human body, Katya could think again. The problem was, mind clear, she still had no idea what to do.
Nikolai had told her to love herself, and the mara demanded this man pay for her life. But wouldn’t the best thing she could do for herself be to live again? Or was that like making a bargain with the devil? Like Nikolai’s ex tempting him into violating his morals?
Only Lisko didn’t seem so much like the devil after all. Maybe there was another way to find out. “Were you serious, in the press conference when you said the company would accept liability for the radiation poisoning?”
A crash sounded in another part of the apartment. A door colliding with a wall maybe.
“Katya!” It was Nikolai’s voice.
No! This wasn’t supposed to happen. What if she still had to kill Lisko? She couldn’t let Nikolai be a part of something like that.
“Katya!”
Sonya cracked the door. “We’re all in here.”
Seconds later, he appeared in the doorframe, that rebellious lock of hair falling into his face. His gaze traveled from Sonya to Dmitri and his handsome face crumpled.
“Am I too late? Has she already gone?”
“No, she’s turned ghost. I can see her.” Dmitri waved in Katya’s direction.
Nikolai’s handsome features sagged. “Thank God.”
His visible relief did funny, buzzing things to Katya’s ghostly particles. He didn’t want her to disappear, not without saying good-bye. Was it possible he would want her to stay around, maybe go out on a few dates, investigate their sans-siren chemistry?
The mara used the wandering thoughts to her advantage, and flung Katya at Dmitri. Her spectral form collided with the big man. The ghost’s hands went up to his throat, squeezing.
He began to cough, spluttering.
“Dima, what is it?”
“Mara,” he choked out.
Katya’s ghostly form, possessed as it was by the spirit of revenge, proved impossibly strong. Her will was a tiny whisper in their shared mind, nothing compared to the nightmare’s shrill cry. Die. Die. Die.
Chapter 26
Nikolai’s brain was spinning in circles. His enemy sat on the floor of the bathroom next to a pool of his own blood—an offering to the mara for the life he’d taken. Then suddenly, Lisko was choking, coughing, turning red, then purple.
The ghost was attacking him.
No matter how much Nik hated the man, the sight of his discolored face was no comfort. Chert. He didn’t want this. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he hated Lisko anymore. Though he also wasn’t sure he could forgive the son of a bitch, much less work for him.
“Katya, stop. There’s news. Breathe, resist her.”
A gasp filled the room—Lisko managing to get a lungful of air for himself.
The lit
tle ghost was so strong, and a pang of pride plucked at his heart.
The woman, Sonya, nodded vehemently. “Good! Katya, keep breathing. It will help your human nature prevail.” Her words were composed, but her voice was shrill.
“Why’s she a ghost?” Nikolai demanded. “Your blood is right there—didn’t it work?”
Lisko tried to speak, but the mara still had hold of him. He seemed able to suck down only the occasional rasping breath.
“She materialized.” Sonya’s halting speech revealed she was suppressing sobs. “We talked for a while. I think Katya was considering living again.”
Nikolai’s heart throbbed in a confused rhythm of hope and panic. Could she really? She’d already felt some compassion for the man after getting inside his dreams. If she knew what was in the folder Nik held, she probably wouldn’t hesitate to pardon him, if a second chance at life was on the table.
“But then—it seemed like the mara dragged her back in the spirit world.”
Dmitri gurgled, his heels kicking against the tile floor.
“Oh, please, Katya, stop it!” Sonya pleaded, her hands flapping helplessly, with nowhere to go, nothing to do.
“Give her more blood.” At some point, Anya had entered the tiny bathroom. She stood at the medicine cabinet, holding up one of Dariya’s orange bottles. “I have an idea. Get her back into her body.”
But the thrashing Dmitri was in no condition to give more blood. If they tried to cut him, they’d likely sever an artery.
Nik shoved Anya aside and dug out his razor blade from under the sink, then he fell to his knees next to his enemy and sliced across the middle of his inner forearm. His blood poured out instantly, mixing with Lisko’s.
“Oh!” Sonya said.
Nik glanced at Dmitri, only to see Katya flicker.
“Fight the mara!” Anya shouted.
“I’m trying,” Katya said, her voice coming from somewhere far away.
Nik’s blood flowed, a thick rivulet. As much as she needed to cling to this world. He grew lightheaded, woozy.
“Fight for yourself,” Sonya cried. “For the chance to live.”
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