The streets were dark as Anya calmly walked to Legba’s Ladies. The garage had closed for business but Harley and Isabelle were still there drinking beers and arguing.
“Anya? What the hell happened?” Isabelle leapt to her feet.
“Do you know the address of the Darkness headquarters in Moscow?” Anya asked steadily.
“I know of one place I suspected for a long time, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“I need you to send a package to them,” Anya said as she dropped the stained towel on the scratched up coffee table. Harley gagged as bloody claws tumbled from the fabric.
“Anya, what the fuck have you done?” Isabelle stared at her.
“She shouldn’t have touched him,” Anya said as she turned and walked back into the night.
Chapter Twelve - Board Pieces
Look through the mist and see the shadow figures moving. They are setting up a tent of gold and green fabric on top of hill in the centre of seven standing stones. They do not trust each other but they work together to pitch the tent, and set up a long table at which they place two oak chairs, both heavily carved with ancient symbols of power. Furs and finely woven mats are spread on the cold ground and warming braziers are lit. Their task completed, they walk to the second tier of the hill and make separate camps, settling to wait the cold night.
***
Vasya Melenko arrived at the Tor at sundown. It was a part of Faerie and had been a peaceful meeting place for over five hundred years. She walked steadily up the winding hill taking note of how many of the dark ones were on the eastern side of the second tier. Her own Illumination men had camped on the western side and they were watching each other carefully. It was law that no blood be shed at any of the Tor’s tiers, but there was a lot of ways to kill someone without spilling blood.
A flash of red caught her eye and Yanka stepped daintily through the gate and onto the second tier of the Tor in front of her. Vasilli wasn’t with her, which made Vasya uneasy. Yanka waited for her to make the final steps to join her before they ascended to the final tier, the same infuriating smile Vasya remembered fixed firmly on her lips.
“New face, Baba Yaga?” Yanka asked as she pulled her fur trimmed purple cloak around her shoulders.
“The old one was becoming too noticeable.” As Baba Yaga stepped onto the top tier, the glamour fell away. It was one of the reasons why the site was chosen as a meeting ground. It was a magical null area that had once been the very centre of Britain’s power. In the real world, there was a ruin of an old Christian church, but in the Otherworld, granite monoliths in a ring surrounded it.
“Well, at least they got the tent right,” Yanka commented as they stepped into the warmth. She poured herself a goblet of hot-spiced wine and offered one to Baba Yaga. She took it and tried not to look suspicious. Yanka had no power here, same as herself, but she was the only enemy that always surprised her.
“You seem to be awfully calm this evening. I thought you’d be screaming about being asleep for so long.”
“It was a very good move on your behalf, Baba Yaga. I can applaud my enemies victories when they are worthy of it. Besides, it seems I slept through the most boring years. Peace treaties and such nonsense. You needed them to wake me up for you, didn’t you?” Yanka mocked, “You didn’t think the rules through before you cast that spell, did you? Everything froze with that move, and worse, this Illumination you set up made certain you couldn’t interfere. You had to have planned my rescue for a long time; so many puppets, so many strings.”
“It afforded me a few quiet years without you, so it was all worth it. How have you been since waking Yanka? How is the family?” Baba Yaga asked as she sat down at the table. She tried not to smile as Yanka’s lip curled in disgust. She reached into her cloak and tossed a tied handkerchief onto the table. Baba Yaga unwrapped to reveal a gruesome collection of claws.
“My, my, my…someone I know?”
“Veruschka,” Yanka said as she sipped her wine.
“Anya did this to her?” Baba Yaga chuckled. “She certainly has a temper on her. I saw it in her the first time we met. What did the naughty little kotenok do to deserve such a death?”
Yanka huffed, “She marked one of Anya’s friends when he got in the way.”
“She hurt the Prince, didn’t she?” Baba Yaga scratched the side of her bulbous nose with one of the claws.
“Who it was is irrelevant. Perhaps she has a piece of me in her after all.” Yanka pulled a cloth back from the middle of the table to reveal a large wooden board carved with squares and peg holes. Very slowly, she started to arrange her pieces; small carved figures, black with age and blood.
“Anyanka is very protective of Yvan and that’s putting it mildly. It would be best if you don’t try to harm him again,” Baba Yaga said as she took up her own pieces.
“He is one of a long line of filthy rapists and murderers. The only thing special about him is the bird inside of him. By all rights, it should have burned its way out by now.”
“I thought it would’ve too, but they have decided to work with each other it would seem.”
“It’s a sinful waste to give such power to an idiot boy no matter how beautiful he is.”
“Your granddaughter is not that shallow.” Yanka took an ancient coin from her bodice. Baba Yaga knew one side was the head of a bear and the other a crow. She flicked the coin in the air and let it fall. It landed with a heavy thump, the crow’s head facing up.
“You get to start,” Yanka tucked the coin away. “And every woman is that shallow.”
“I suppose if you look at the men in her inner circle you could make that assumption even if it is incorrect,” Baba Yaga moved one of her pieces on the board. To the undiscernible eye, it looked like a very old Hnefatafl set, but so far, only two sides had been filled instead of the traditional four. Yanka and she had been playing for as long as they had been enemies and the other two spaces remained empty.
“Stupid Aramis. He is impossible to kill.”
“Try not to sound so jealous that he doesn’t have your back anymore. It took him long enough to realise what a bitch you are.”
“Name calling already, Baba? I haven’t even finished my first glass of wine,” Yanka said as she shifted one of her pieces. “Such a shame it has only ever been us at this table.”
“I don’t think anyone else is stupid enough to try to contend.”
“Ynys Yr Afalon has always made me so melancholy. Morgan would have been a truly fantastic enemy.”
“It’s her fault this place has lost its power,” Baba Yaga grunted.
“It is Merlin’s fault for attacking her here.” Yanka sipped her wine and sat back comfortably to watch Baba Yaga’s move. “I don’t suppose any one has sighted him since I have slept.”
“By the Gods no. I believe he is dead.”
“Or hiding.”
“He is dead. If he were alive, we would know. As a great Power, he would be sitting at the table next to us. It is a good thing he is not.”
“I suppose so, but I can’t help but wonder what his magic would have tasted like,” Yanka licked her lips thoughtfully.
“Your appetite will be your undoing.”
“You can hardly criticise my appetite.” Yanka bit deeply in a grape, as Baba Yaga fought the urge to attack her with the cheese knife. Instead, she took out one of Yanka’s pieces.
“What is it that you want, Yanka? Do you even know anymore?” she asked. She was asking that question to herself more and more.
“Of course I know.”
“Anya is going to try to stop you.”
“Really? She can try all she likes.”
“The Álfr are helping her.”
“Aramis is hardly the Álfr. They won’t lift a finger to interfere. They never have.”
“Søren is very fond of her too.”
“Søren is an instrument and a blunt one at that.” Yanka dismissed him and one of Baba Yaga’s pieces with the
flick of her hand.
“You’re an excellent liar, Yanka, but you should be careful how much you lie to yourself.”
“You are the one that’s wondering what you want. Not I.”
“The times have changed; one has to change with them.”
“Oh yes, Vasya is a sign of that, isn’t she? I bet all those times that are changing don’t stop you from gobbling the occasional child whenever you can,” Yanka paused for a moment, looking pensively at the board. “We are what we are, Baba Yaga, and nothing can change that. Not time. Not stories. Not kings and princes and firebirds.”
“And what about our children? You were the one that was stupid enough to have them. Vasilli and Anya both carry your blood. One is your dog and the other is your enemy. Best be careful that the dog doesn’t turn on you.”
“Dogs are loyal, people are not.”
“Even the loyalist dog will stray if he’s left too long by his master. You were asleep for a very long time and it wasn’t your dog that released you from it.” Something dark shifted under Yanka’s skin like a caged beast waking up.
“Vasilli is mine and no time will separate that.”
“And Anya?” Baba Yaga couldn’t help pushing, delighting that she had rattled Yanka.
“Anya will fall in line or be crushed under my feet. What makes her my kin is so watered down it can barely be called blood.”
“She reminds me of Ilya. Fierce and…”
“Mad. It happens sometimes when the magic presents itself. I should’ve put him down like a failed experiment. Anya doesn’t seem to be much more stable than he was.”
“Anya has calming influences that Ilya did not. She has people to teach her to control her power.”
“And we are back to the Prince again! Do you want me to have him killed? Is that why you are painting him as such a threat to me?”
Baba Yaga picked up a piece and studied it carefully, “What makes you think you could kill him? You saw what happened to Veruschka and she was more than capable.”
“I know you think so highly of Anya and all, but what makes you think she won’t see you as the enemy once I am gone?” Yanka commented once servants had brought them a simple dinner of roast meats, vegetables, baked brown bread and cheeses.
“I’ve thought about it, but unlike you, I haven’t killed one of her closest friends and tried to kill the person she loves most in all the worlds. I haven’t been as stupid as you.”
“I killed the thanatos because she loved him.”
“Not like she loves the Prince. She doesn’t even realise it either. They are both idiots and yet it was the touch of her power that woke him.”
“You talk too much about them. They aren’t important.”
“Maybe not, but I find it interesting and you should know better than any of us that when you have lived as long as we have, it takes a great deal to interest us.”
“Sleep a few centuries,” suggested Yanka as she frowned at her pieces remaining on the board. “You wake up and everything is new and different again. The world you left behind is long gone, and yet, I’m struggling to see if all the change is a good thing or not. Remember when they used to fear us? Remember the respect? Now my name is not even remembered. At least they still have stories about you.”
“And you think that it’s an accident none of your stories survived?” Baba Yaga cackled. “Any storytellers of note are mine. Even the Grimms were mine!” She slapped her wrinkled hand triumphantly on the table.
“Those German school boys aren’t a victory,” Yanka rolled her eyes. “We shall see what stories the world remembers when I rule the world.” Yanka took two pieces of Baba Yaga’s remaining six. Baba Yaga stopped gloating and swore filthily.
“You’d best remember to keep your rheumy eyes on the game, old woman. Otherwise, you won’t have anything left.” Baba Yaga opened her mouth to curse her again when the ground shifted under them. It wasn’t a quake but a shuddering in their reality.
“What was that?” Yanka had gone white, gripping the arms of her chair. “I swear if you even attempt to break this sacred treaty land, I will…”
“Shut up, girl, that wasn’t anything to do with me,” Baba Yaga snapped, her black eyes burning as they darted around for the threat. A warm heat moved like a spirit through the tent causing the sides to billow and flap.
“Look!” Baba Yaga jolted back from the table, knocking the heavy chair to the ground. On the usually blank side of the game board there now stood shining new pieces of pale bone.
“This cannot be,” Yanka whispered. “It has only ever been us. I forgot the pieces start out white…” she reached to touch one and as her slender fingers wrapped around one she began to screech in pain. She let it go quickly, white burns crossing her skin. She clutched her hand out of surprise rather than pain. “Yebat, “she muttered as she showed Baba Yaga.
“Idiot, you know better than to touch someone else’s pieces.”
“Who do you think they belong to?”
“You know who.”
“Anya doesn’t have the power to be given a place at the game.”
“Clearly she does!”
“Then where is she?”
“She doesn’t know she has a place,” Baba Yaga said thoughtfully.
“Don’t you dare tell her,” Yanka threatened.
“It won’t change anything. She still will have a place at the table and the game cannot be played for two when it is set for three.”
“So what now? We stalemate?” Yanka’s voice rose shrilly. “Curse that fucking girl and her fucking mother that my descendant’s seed spilled inside of her!”
“Still think she is not a threat?” Baba Yaga asked placidly and quickly stepped aside as Yanka threw a pitcher of wine at her. “Stop acting like a child. You were the one that made this happen.”
“How? You cannot blame me for the blood that is inside of her.”
“It wasn’t that…You woke something in her. You killed the thanatos, you maimed Aramis and now most stupidly of all, you almost killed the Hero. I told you she would kill you for hurting Yvan. She will kill anyone that stands in her way to get to you.”
“I get the idea. What do we do about this?”
“We go home. The game is done for the night.”
In the mist of the early morning, the servants carefully packed the game board into its chest, the pieces staying firmly attached in their positions. They carried it down to the borders of the Tor where the dead zone and the live one met. As the sun rose, magic crackled in the air, the bystanders kept a safe distance from the two Powers. Baba Yaga and Yanka cut their palms and held them dripping over the chest, knowing that the moves on the game were being played out in both of the worlds.
***
Vasilli paced and drank heavily from the bottle of vodka that hung in his hand. Yanka was going to see Baba Yaga at Ynys Yr Afalon and it annoyed him that he couldn’t be a part of that. Yanka assured him that Baba Yaga wouldn’t attempt anything but that’s not what bothered him. Vasilli wanted to see the game. It was rumoured to have been made by Merlin himself and Vasilli wanted nothing more than to have a taste of the power that could achieve such a marvel. He wanted to see the old magic, study how it worked, how it could be manipulated. Instead, he was left on Vasilyevsky Island to deal with Ladislav and his pathetic followers.
He stopped pacing, put the bottle down and started to laugh under his breath. He shouldn’t be feeling left behind. Yanka had handed him his revenge wrapped in a bow. For over a hundred years, he’d tolerated Ladislav. He’d never known the full extent of Vasilli’s power, so he had treated him like his underling.
Such ruses were no longer necessary now that Yanka had returned. She would put order back into the world and the ragtag group of miscreants that now filled the ranks of the Darkness would be culled. Vasilli would be the one standing at Yanka’s side when she took over the worlds, a highly honoured prince. Lately, however, he’d not been placing too much stock in Yanka’s pla
ns. She had the power but lacked a certain amount of vision. The cat and mouse game she played with Baba Yaga had picked up right where it left off. Yanka needed Vasilli. He would suggest the vision and she would acknowledge his good judgement. He didn’t trust her, but it worked because she didn’t trust him either.
“Prince Vasilli?” a beautiful girl interrupted his thoughts. She had very pale skin and thick red hair that made men and women alike envious. Her eyes were black, the only sign of her night hag blood.
“What is it, Mia?”
“Prince Ladislav is here to see you.”
“Is Ragana with him?”
“Preening like the rotting old whore that she is.” Vasilli smiled and she blushed at the attention. She turned to leave, a sly smile tweaking her red painted lips.
“Mia?”
“Yes? Was there something else you wanted?” He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up onto the polished oak desk. His hands ran up her stockinged legs until they came to her garter straps. He gripped them and pulled her roughly against him.
She gasped as Vasilli grabbed her throat tightly, tilting her head back. He crushed his mouth against hers, bruising her tender lips. A groan purred in the back of her throat but he didn’t stop. Her power, young and fresh, flashed through his body as he pulled it from her. She wasn’t even aware that he was doing it, she was so untrained, so distracted. He needed the extra charge when he faced Ladislav and she was pliable in his roaming hands. He stopped taking her magic as he moved his mouth from hers, taking his fingers from the inside of her moist lace underwear.
“Come, we had best not keep our guests waiting.”
When Yanka arrived at dawn, there was a silence hanging in the walls of her mansion. She could smell blood and magic in the air. She opened the doors to her large meeting hall and started to laugh. Blood in every shade and colour was splashed against the polished marble. Body parts of various creatures, human shaped and otherwise littered the tables and floor. Vasilli stood alone on the dais steps, the suit he wore drenched in blood. He was humming with power, so much so that Yanka took the time to admire his huge magical aura. He’d sucked the power from them and all of that magic was trying desperately to condense itself in and around him. Vasilli looked up as she waded through the gore, clapping her long white hands, the hem of her fur coat trailing through the mire.
Rise of the Firebird Page 15