“Is it poisonous?” Alarm rose in my voice.
“I’ll be fine.” He tried to give us a reassuring nod. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“How about we clean it, at least. I have a medical kit, nothing too fancy, but since I like things sterile…”
Raj’s right eyebrow rose. “You got alcohol?”
“And cute little band-aids with fluffy puppies on them.”
He laughed, his chest shaking.
Tyler looked at me with an amused expression.
“If you feel uncomfortable about germs,” I said as I opened my backpack, “you can always apply the first-aid on your own.”
We setup shop near the entrance to the cave and got Raj squared away. He angled himself away from us as he worked, but he appeared satisfied once the job was done.
Once I packed up my bag, I couldn’t resist asking Tyler about the axe.
“Oh, that’s A Battle Axe in a Box,” he said.
“I’ve never heard of those before.”
“We can’t exactly carry a full-size battle axe around in public. So the dwarves worked with the wizards and they helped us construct these boxes to carry a weapon for emergencies.”
“How neat.” I watched him wipe off the axe and place it back inside its carrying case. That thing took man-portable weaponry to a whole new level.
It was time to go. The light that extended into the cave came from an opening to the outside. Raj helped Tyler move the boulder wedged into place over the opening. Sunlight flooded the room and I rushed outside to get out of the stale air. The sun was low in the sky. Over here in Russia, the day had already passed and the evening would creep up on us soon.
Just a few steps onto the rocky ground and I knew Derbent was the beginning of something wondrous. A pleasant breeze brought scents of a beach not too far from us. The wind whipped my hair into my face, but I didn’t care.
Tyler had already left my side. He’d abandoned his shoes and was already barefoot in the water.
“By Tadth’s left nut, this water is cold.” The dwarf scrambled from the shore back to us.
The breeze turned bitterly cold with the stench of fish, but it was refreshing compared to the cave. It reminded me of visiting the Atlantic Ocean.
“This is the Caspian Sea, right?” I asked.
Raj was in the middle of putting on a fresh pair of gloves. “Yep, isn’t it beautiful? It’s been at least ten years since I’ve walked on this beach.” He glanced at Tyler. “Get your shoes on. We don’t have much time to catch the last train to Mahachkala. It will be packed with workers, so we need to hurry to buy a ticket.”
From the shore, we headed inland past the brick homes of fishermen, craftsmen, and peddlers. Many of them weren’t in the best shape with crumbling brick and rusted tin roofs. The stench of dried fish was just as strong here.
Now that we arrived, suddenly everything inside me froze as I took in the land of my ancestors. The open road into Derbent left a pleasant breeze on my face, yet every step felt like I carried lead in my shoes.
“Keep going, Nat,” Raj said at my side with encouragement.
Nothing I imagined compared to this. Seeing the signs in Russian and Arabic. Smelling the citizens walking down the street. Everything was alarmingly familiar, yet so foreign at the same time.
Interestingly enough, not a single spellcaster was in sight. I scanned the streets ahead and spotted all sorts of fairies, a hobbling brownie in a bright purple coat, and a shape-shifter in broad daylight selling flowers in a basket. That would be unheard of in New York.
“So we’re in the southern part of Russia?” Tyler asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve brushed up on my geography.”
“It’s a part of the Republic of Dagestan. It’s kind of like a country within a country. There are so many things I’d like to show you, like the fortress close to here. It was built long after my altar had been constructed around 900 A.D.” Raj pointed inland where the land jutted up into hilly terrain. In the distance, I spotted a castle-like structure with old crumbling cream-colored bricks. In one blink, I could almost imagine the past, beyond a time even my grandmother had seen, when this place had been used as a stop on the Silk Road.
We weaved through the narrow streets until we came to the main road, by far, a lot more modern with enough space for cars and delivery trucks. Women and children passed us, scarves covering their heads. The children smiled and me, and I couldn’t resist smiling back.
“So do you know who built your altar?” Tyler asked as we walked. He was rather chatty this afternoon.
Raj smiled. The memory must’ve been a pleasant one for him. “A trader, traveling along the silk road from Barygaza, in what you would now called Baruch, and he delivered goods in Derbent. While he was here, he found an alcove tucked along the rocks. He made a noble sacrifice of two goats and thanked me for his good fortune during his journey.”
“That’s pretty cool, Raj,” I said.
Eventually, we reached the busy train station. A large crowd had gathered here, both in the lines and on the platform. These must’ve been the workers Raj spoke of. As we waited, I learned Raj could speak multiple languages, including Russian. His accent was barely perceptible. Tyler, on the other hand, only knew a handful of expressions—including how to ask for a taxi and where the nearest airport was, the standard vocabulary for traveling models.
I didn’t expect us to make the train with so many people, but, by the time we made it on board, we entered a train filled to capacity.
“How about you two sit near the window and I’ll take the aisle seat?” Tyler offered us a knowing grin.
We settled into the seats for a relatively short two-hour ride to Mahachkala. Compared to Derbent, Mahachkala was far larger with several train tracks instead of one.
It was the trip from Mahachkala to Moscow that was exhausting. As much as we wanted to see Mahachkala, another city off the Caspian Sea, we had another trip to take into Moscow. When we bought the three tickets to Moscow, my stomach dropped out of my gut and rolled away from the ticket booths.
“The trip is 38 hours long?” I gasped. “Isn’t there some kind of magical portal or carpet or phone booth we can jump into and materialize in St. Petersburg?”
Tyler shrugged, not caring. “Apparently not. We get to travel human style.” He wagged his eyebrows as he said “human style.”
“The price for a kupe is more, but it’s the best option for us,” Raj said, offering money to the cashier to pay. I tried to slip some money into his pocket, but he pushed my hand away.
“What’s a kupe?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” Raj led us toward the train platform. “It’s a much better option than the platzkart for you and me. Just trust me.” He sighed as if the next thing he had to tell me pained him. “You should also go to the bathroom before we get on. Freshen up. Maybe even bring your own toilet paper products.”
My mouth formed an “oh.” So there would be very public bathrooms ahead of me for a while.
After we got on the train and passed through a few cars, I got drop-kicked even harder into reality. The platzkart was nothing more than an open dormitory-style room with bunk beds. As we walked down the aisle in the dormitory, we passed the assorted men and women talking, sleeping, and eating. Many folks held hearty conversations in a haze of cigarette smoke not far from a few babies that screamed/cried/babbled while their older siblings fought over God knows what. My loud Russian family gatherings quickly came to mind.
Several languages reached my ears, not only Russian but Arabic and a few I didn’t recognize. One thing became apparent, though. There wasn’t any privacy. None. A goblin, hidden under his glamour, scratched a balding spot on his wart-covered head, while an older man slept on the bench across from him. None of the humans disturbed a brownie, who perched on a high bed and gazed at everyone who passed with malcontent. Normally, brownies stood no taller than most dwarves, but they could be malicious when they wanted to be.
&
nbsp; A grumpy, grizzled conductor showed us where we needed to go after checking our tickets. By the time we reached a door with the number on our ticket, I was quite convinced. Our room was a much better option for supernatural creatures who needed a door with a lock. I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night in the platzkart section with some dude trying something. He’d get the fright of his life after I bit him in the ass.
The kupe wasn’t the biggest space, but it was private with a locked door. From the door to the window, there were four bunks facing the aisle: two on the bottom, which doubled as seats, and two on the top. Against the window, there was a tiny table.
After grabbing some Russian tea, we settled into the bunks. Tyler offered to take one of the bottom ones so Raj and I could sleep on top.
“The bottom ones are used as couches too, so I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable with those,” he said with a grin.
Tyler even helped Raj and I wipe the place down with disinfectant. There was nothing we could do about the bedding though. One whiff told me they had been washed, but not to the degree I would clean them. Raj merely took his place on a bare bench, lay on his back, and closed his eyes. What puzzled me, as I watched him fall asleep, was when he crossed his arms over his chest. So where did the other arms go?
Night came quickly as the train rocked us into slumber. Tyler left one of the smaller lights on and he read for a bit of time. I, on the other hand, couldn’t find sleep. What was Thorn doing right now? Were my parents freaking out? Would I come home to Aggie lining up to kick my ass?
I turned on my phone, but turned it back off just as quickly. I had no reception to check for messages.
Up in my bunk, with only my coat as my blanket, I drifted off, only to wake up again and again.
When the sounds of someone stirring underneath me made me twitch, I brushed it off and turned over on my side toward the aisle, only to notice that Raj was on the top bunk and Tyler was fast asleep with his book over his face below him.
So who the hell is under me?
The sounds of the intruder snoring floated up to me. Should I wake Raj and Tyler? Would the intruder hear me and attack us? I glanced at the door. It was locked as we had left it.
Slowly, as to not make too much noise, I angled myself over the edge and peeked. It was now or never, if it were truly a threat, it would have eaten us already. Something slept all right on the bottom bunk.
Our new roommate was sprawled on the bunk with one of the blankets provided on the train. His hairy limbs were too long for the blue blanket. His dark red hair partially obscured his face, but revealed a single eye where there should have been two. How the hell did a cyclops get in here after we’d locked the door?
I checked again. A cyclops in his underwear and nothing else.
Since I was checking him out, of course, the guy had to scratch his junk and then snort in his sleep.
I about tossed my cookies in my bunk.
I reached into my pocket and found an old receipt from the coffee I’d bought before I got to Raj’s house. I slowly balled it up and threw it at Raj. The piece of paper bounced off his head. He looked over at me, irritated, until he noticed I was pointing downward.
The look on his face switched from perturbed to horrified. Raj took the balled up receipt and threw it at Tyler.
The dwarf didn’t move at all. Raj reached into his pocket and pulled out something I couldn’t make out. But when he dropped it on Tyler’s stomach, that got him moving. He rose to shout at Raj, but stopped cold when he spotted our new roommate.
He mouthed to me, “You know him?”
I shook my head. Raj shrugged his shoulders.
Tyler looked as though he was about to tap the cyclops’s shoulder, but thought better of it and sat down on his bed. We were like that for a while until I dozed off. I wasn’t sure if Raj or Tyler stayed awake the whole time. What I did notice when I woke up was that our poor dwarf friend fell asleep with his axe in his lap.
What was even more peculiar was that by the time we woke up, the cyclops was gone. The only evidence of his presence had been a musky scent and a folded up blanket. We shoved it under the couch.
After such a long trip, we finally reached Moskva Kazanskaia station. I was in Moscow. Just thinking that made me catch my breath. For years, I thought I would’ve made a trip like this with my parents and younger brother. You know, the family vacation where you seek out your roots and learn more about yourself? That kind of thing. What I didn’t expect was for a train ride to remind me of how much I loved to be Russian. Each time the train stopped for about twenty minutes or so, we ended up in someplace new. There were old ladies waiting for passengers with hot, homemade food. The scent from piping hot pirozkis and fruit fresh from trees snatched me from the train every single time. This was the trip of a lifetime, but it also reminded me of one thing I still hated about myself: how much I hated to be filthy, to taste filth, to smell filth, and, if it were possible, to hear it, too.
I went nearly forty-eight hours without a shower.
The restless wolf in me could shake it off, but the human side picked at me at every opportunity.
In Moscow, no one voted down taking a shower before we got on the final leg of our trip, a ride on the famous Red Arrow Train to St. Petersburg. And after our surprise guest during the ride from Mahachkala, we bought four tickets instead of three to make sure we didn’t have any uninvited guests.
The ride was uneventful, maybe due to the fact that Tyler slept against the door, axe in hand. He had three cups of tea and snored like the best of them.
We had come so far, yet my journey wasn’t even close to completion.
Chapter 7
We made it.
St. Petersburg, a Tsar’s modern city, lay before us. A massive city that beckoned me to spend a real vacation here. We took the Frunzensko-Primorskaya subway line from the train station into the northern part of the city. In the distance, I spotted the Bolshaya Neva River. There was a great deal of new growth and construction in the Primorskiy rayon, one of the districts in the city, but the touches of old St. Petersburg were still here in the grand, gray stone architecture. In many ways, this place felt like New York City, where you could stand at one corner and see a Japanese sushi bar on one side of the street and a modern Russian grocery store on the other side.
The whole city waited for us, yet my friends were already planning their escape.
“I’m definitely flying back home,” Raj declared. “And I hate to breathe the air in airplanes.”
“I’m flying back, too.” Tyler sighed. “We need to get you some altars in England, Spain, and Greece. That should cast a nice and wide net.”
“If you accomplish that, I’ll take you anywhere you want, friend,” Raj said.
“Where do we go now?” Tyler asked me.
That was the million dollar question. Was I ready to meet my family?
At least, I’d made it to St. Petersburg. Thorn was gonna kill me for this one. Tracking me, though, would be next to impossible. The man was legendary for tracking me down. In the past, I’d gone out on my own to set things right, and he’d spot me in the brush like a leopard wearing a bright orange cap with flashing lights. There was no way he’d find me by scent after going through Raj’s altar.
So I hoped.
“I have family in town who can take care of me until I reach Tamara’s. They live in the apartment block across the way.” I tried to smile at them. “I don’t know why you guys are still following me. Don’t worry. Go to the airport and book a flight home.”
Raj flashed a look to Tyler, one I recognized, since Aggie gave it to me all the damn time. Yeah, right.
“Okay, how about this compromise?” I offered as we began to walk toward the buildings where my cousin Yuri lived. “We go to my cousin’s apartment, and from there, you can return home.”
Raj frowned. “And how do you plan to reach Tamara’s home from there?”
I grinned. “I’ll figure it out
. It shouldn’t be that far if I find a ride or something through family. With some research, I learned Tamara is staying on a farm not far from a town north of here called Vyborg.”
“How far?”
Boy, these two were nosy, but they meant well. And I couldn’t deny their friendship.
“A good distance,” I admitted, “but the Lasovskayas take care of their own. Once I make contact with them, I’ll figure out a way to barter with them so they can give me a ride.”
From the corner, we walked a few blocks down a wide three-lane road until we came to a concrete village of stone and brick. Tall apartment buildings extended into the sky, but it was home for many. Little kids circled us, pointing to Tyler and calling him Brad Pitt.
“What are they saying?” Tyler asked.
“They’re asking if you’re Brad Pitt.” I laughed. “Can I say yes?”
“Let’s not.” He shook his head, but I could tell he appreciated the attention.
We had yet to see a dwarf around here and I doubt we would. This area wasn’t popular with the dwarves with such a high werewolf population. We tended to be territorial, and fighting between werewolves and dwarves were rare but happened once in a while. My uncle Boris always used to say, “Them dwarves couldn’t dig their way out of a losing card game. If you can’t scratch my hide while you’re busy digging for gold, you’re not worth much to me while hunting for women.”
Go get ‘em, Uncle Boris. Their women aren’t exactly hunting for you either, pal.
The signs for the building weren’t familiar. They used strange signs and you had to walk around the buildings until you found the right one. No rhyme or reason existed. Or even a complex map. Good ‘ole apartment living.
The apartment where my cousin Yuri used to live wasn’t too bad on the inside. Yuri didn’t live here anymore, by the way. It was a long story but, basically, my cousin managed to weasel his way into hooking up with a succubus from my therapy group. Weird as hell, but you find love in the most unexpected places.
The rickety elevator took us up twelve floors before we reached a hallway leading to my cousin’s apartment at the far end. The whole place stunk of werewolves. Not that my people smelled or anything, but when we lived in clusters close together like this, something happened that’s rather hard to describe to humans. Have you ever smelled a house with a large dog population? Yeah, that smell where underneath all the cleaning chemicals and fine perfumes, lingered the scent of animal. In this case, enough werewolves had marked their territory here to create a billboard a mile high. Not that anyone took a real piss, but it was close enough.
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