Anika’s adrenaline was like lava, and the burn in her veins was real, visceral. Containing the eruption bubbling inside her took every bit of her will.
The cook took another step forward, and then began a steady walk, increasing his speed with every pace. He had lowered the knife to his side during this first part of his approach, but when he reached a point only ten paces or so from Anika and Petr, he raised the blade high and started to run.
Chapter 26
TANJA PLACED THE TIP of her index finger on the mouth of the flask and tipped the flagon sideways, moistening her skin with the potion. “Open,” she said.
Garal closed his eyes and opened his mouth, taking in a long breath as if preparing for some kind of meditation. He sat cross-legged on the altar, his back facing the back of the colossal statue that overshadowed the altar room.
He held the head and tail of the serpent tightly in front of him, not yet prepared to trust Tanja entirely, despite her insistence that she meant him no harm.
Tanja pressed her wet fingertip under Garal’s top lip and rubbed the potion over his gum line, moving her finger slowly toward the back of the merchant’s mouth. She held it on his cheek for a beat and, reflexively, Garal raised his tongue to meet her crooked digit, fondling the finger before wrapping his mouth fully around it. He suckled what trace of potion remained into his body, groaning as he took the finger deeper into his throat.
Tanja laughed, gently pulling her finger free. “Easy,” she said, “I’m not sure we know each other quite that well yet.” She could see his body relax for a moment, as if on the verge of sleep, and the head of the snake began to dip to Garal’s lap.
Garal shuddered and opened his eyes wide, regaining his rigid posture and repositioning the bungaru back to a safe level. “I could feel it,” he said, his face a mix of awe and disbelief.
“It’s not ready,” Tanja assured, “but I know you can feel the potential. Soon though. It will be perfect. If you will trust me, I can complete the extraction with little damage to your body.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” Garal replied. “I’ve heard it to be fatal.”
Tanja kept silent for a moment, searching for the proper cadence and look that would pull off the lie. “Fairy tales,” she said, scoffing and waving a hand toward Garal.
“Except for in the story of Marlene,” Garal said casually. “In that story, the bile was spared, and yet the potion was still effective.”
Tanja stared at Garal for a few seconds, processing his words, searching his face for a tell of dishonesty. “What did you say?”
“That is how it was told to me. How the children on the street tell it. That the woman, her source, Anika, she escaped before the final extraction, and yet Marlene was rejuvenated by the potion nevertheless.”
“Rejuvenated?”
“Yes. It’s said that her life—Marlene’s—was not only sustained by Anika’s blood, but reversed, revitalized. This is the newest part of the story that has emerged only recently.”
Tanja was stunned by the merchant’s words. “Why?”
He smiled, bemused. “It is strange that you don’t know this story. It is about you.”
Suddenly it did seem strange to Tanja that her daughter, whom she had seen off to the New Country centuries ago, was now spoken about by people of the Eastern Lands, and yet she knew so little about the tale. But disconnection from the world at large was one of the costs of this existence. She could afford no relationships, and life in the hermitage had rendered her an uninformed pariah. “Me?”
“Not you exactly, but you are one of them. The stories say there are only a handful left in the world, and here you are, living in our village all these years. You must have one of the books then as well, yes? Orphism?”
Tanja rarely thought of her copy of the book any longer, other than when she fantasized about its return to the village. The text had all been memorized long ago, and it was now as much a keepsake as anything, since she had moved on to more experimental versions of the recipe inside. “Why?” she repeated. “Why does the story say she was made younger?”
“They were of the same blood. That was the key. The potion rejuvenates when kin are used in the blending.” Garal looked at Tanja quizzically. “Why else would I have done this to Prisha?”
Tanja was beyond caring about the motives of men, other than to use those motives for her own ends. But it did make sense now, how easily Garal had been swayed to participate in this intrigue. “You are not old,” Tanja noted.
“I am with dropsy. The doctors believe my kidneys are failing. I was hoping...” Garal looked away, as if disgusted with his attempt at rationalization. “Prisha didn’t know. If she had, she wouldn’t have trusted me. She wouldn’t have waited to contact the police.”
Tanja was still absorbing the revelation Garal had told her about Marlene, and she was delayed in processing the words Garal had just spoken. “Dropsy?”
Garal nodded.
“I can’t use a dropsied source in my potion.” Tanja scrunched her eyes and shook her head slowly, confused and sickened. “Your organs are no more useful to me now than those of a cow.”
“It can still work. I’m sure.”
Garal may have been correct in his hope; there was no data as to whether a bit of dropsy had any effect on the potion either way. But Tanja didn’t care. Proof, or at least evidence, of the legend she had heard about her whole life had suddenly reached her ears, and now her aspirations were altered, her plans changed.
Anika. Her kin. Was alive somewhere in the New Country. As were her daughter and son, Gretel and Hansel. And their blood contained the greatest medicine imaginable. This changed everything. It was time to start a new quest, one based not on vengeance, but to create a new blend.
Tanja felt a surge of focus fill her head, and she looked at Garal, studying every cell of his face. She smiled, opening her mouth wide, jutting her large teeth forward, and then shot her hand out and snatched Garal’s left hand.
“What?” Garal was momentarily stunned.
With her second hand, Anika grabbed the body of the bungaru, just below where Garal’s hand held the snake at the base of its neck and fangs.
“No,” Garal said. “No, it can work. It can still work.”
“Then let me try,” Tanja replied, her eyes wide and shifting, madness boiling beneath them. “Give me the snake.” A stream of saliva dripped from her upper teeth.
Garal swallowed, and with a final pleading look, he released the head, but continued holding the serpent by the tail.
“Let it go.”
Garal released the tail, and it was only Tanja who held the snake now, dangling the five-foot reptile as it swung aggressively sideways, twisting its body in a blind mixture of escape and attack.
She brought the serpent to her face now, an inch away, and the krait stuck its tongue to the tip of her nose, tickling it with the fork. She locked in on the snake’s pupils, searching the onyx, lifeless marbles. “Do you see?” she asked, not taking her gaze away from the bungaru. “Do you see it?”
“See what?” Garal asked.
Tanja slowly moved her hand toward Garal, holding the scaly diamond skull in front of his face. “Study its eyes and you will see it.”
Garal looked at the black pools of the eyeballs, and within seconds, he was spellbound. “I do see it,” he said, his voice distant and wispy. “Thank you.”
Tanja smiled. “Thank you, Garal. Thank you.”
With the skill of an expert fencer, Tanja thrust the snake’s head toward Garal’s throat, pressing on the skull by the serpent’s ears, aggravating its temper and priming its venom.
The snake’s fangs sank deeply into Garal’s neck, and within seconds the poison was ravaging his bloodstream. He convulsed for a moment, and Tanja laid him down on the altar, laughing hysterically as the pain and paralysis set in, and finally the last spewing coughs before death.
She placed the krait on the ground at the base of the altar, and th
e snake slithered away to the far wall of the temple and then out to the forest, and Tanja followed it, watching it until it disappeared in the camouflage of the trees. She looked at the flask in her hand and then twisted off the cap and poured it into the red dirt.
It was time to leave for the docks, and then off to the New Country.
It was time to find her family.
Chapter 27
THE COOK, NOW WITHIN arm’s reach of Anika, swung the blade like a squash racket, hoping to stripe the thin metal across her face or neck, perhaps catching the jugular and killing her in seconds.
Anika dropped the rope to the deck and dodged the knife easily, tilting her body slightly to her left, bobbing her head back as the knife swooshed by short and to the side of her chin, missing it by at least a foot.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” she said as the cook stumbled past her, crashing into the guardrail and nearly toppling over the side of the ship. Anika took several steps forward now, essentially switching positions with the assailant.
The cook leaned over the railing, staring down at the dark, purple water for a beat before pushing himself off, grunting as he turned, holding the knife high again, poised for a second attack.
“You had better make this count, cook,” Anika said, “because the deal I offered to you earlier is now off the table. I die or you do, that’s the only way this ends.” She clenched her jaw. “And I don’t die.”
The cook was devoid of all cockiness now, his swagger having been transmuted into aggravation, rage, and fury.
Anika studied the man, detecting the inhalation through his nostrils and gradual lean of his back against the railing. She rotated her body a quarter turn, loosening her fingers and shoulders in the process, making sure her muscles were limber and prepared for the impending attack. She felt unstoppable, invincible, and she regretted now that the cook hadn’t taken her offer, as he was all but dead where he stood.
The cook’s pupil’s dilated, and then he shot his body forward like a missile, the knife the warhead. But Anika knew by the shift of his eyes and twitch of his neck how he would come, speed and direction, knife positioning, and she had calculated her counter before the cook made a step.
He was halfway to Anika, and just as she unsheathed her fangs from the depths of her mouth, ready to disarm the cook and then sink them into his throat, he stopped suddenly, as if grabbed from behind by some invisible force.
Anika watched the cook fall face first to the deck, his eyes terrified, confused. He looked down to his legs and Anika followed his eyes, and there at his right ankle, was the rope that was around Petr’s leg earlier, and Petr standing above it. He leaned down and began knotting the rope furiously, tying it over and over again.
The cook made a move to stop him, but Anika was upon the man in an instant, one foot on top of his hand, forcing him to drop the knife, the other wedged between the deck and his neck, ready to crush his spine, if necessary.
Petr walked behind the cook and grabbed him by the back collar of his shirt, forcing the man to his feet.
The cook staggered up, all the while keeping his eyes on Anika. His breathing was labored as he smiled and said, “I guess you were wrong, madam buccaneer, about my dying fate. You and I may have the same instincts—that is, to kill our enemies—but not everyone does.” He looked at Petr. “Isn’t that right, boy?”
Petr stepped in front of the cook and stared up at him, holding his gaze with the fearlessness of a badger. He shook his head once and said, “No, it isn’t.”
Petr grabbed the cook at the middle of his chest, gripping the dirty white lapels of his jacket into his fists. And then, as if launching a bobsled, Petr ran toward the guardrail, the cook still in his clutches, now backpedalling, horrified, staring over his shoulder as they approached the rear of the ship.
Six feet from the edge, Petr released the man, allowing the cook’s momentum to carry him the remaining few steps to the edge. The cook slammed his back against the railing, and his body tipped backwards, leaving him horizontal across the guardrail for a full two seconds before a nuance in the twist of his body or a fraction of a turn in the movement of the ship sent him over, the rope around his ankle trailing behind.
Anika heard the splash and ran to the back rail, looking over to see the rope trailing taut, indicating the cook was still attached. He bobbed his head up once, his body still submerged, but it quickly dropped back under.
Anika looked over at Petr. “I thought no killing.”
Petr shrugged.
“I know I’ve violated the rule, several times over now, but I didn’t want this for you.”
“He’s alive,” Petr replied. “Look at him.”
The cook had managed to grab the rope at his ankles, and he was now attempting to hold his head up above the boat’s wake.
“He’ll last only minutes attached to the boat.”
“It’s the same thing he was going to do to me,” Petr snapped. “And he was going to enjoy it.”
Anika stayed quiet, knowing she was in no position to advise or judge. She was a murderer now, no different than an animal, and it was for this reason she felt compelled to counsel Petr. She only wanted—needed—him to maintain his humanity, for the sake of both of them.
“But you’re right, Anika.”
Anika looked over at Petr, who was still staring down at the body being dragged behind the container ship.
“I can’t resort to the same torture. How does that make me any different?”
Anika sighed and nodded, and then watched in horror as Petr raised the butcher’s knife, twisting it slightly, the metal reflecting the sun’s rays at Anika, winking at her, as if letting her in on the joke.
With one swipe of the sharp blade across the tight, twisted hemp, the rope snapped with a pop, sending the loose cord to the sea below. Anika put a hand to her mouth as she watched the tether drift impotently to the water, marooning it with the cook of the ESC Mongkut, who would be sinking beneath the surface within the hour, or perhaps taken by sharks before then.
Petr stood watching the cook drift from their sight, and then he spit once over the side before turning and walking toward midship. “I assume you left the master alive,” he said, his voice now commanding and with purpose.
Anika followed Petr, nodding at the question. “I’ve not been to the bridge. I don’t know if the officers are aware yet about the rest of their crew.”
“Let’s pay them a visit then. If we can reach them before they discover a problem, we can keep them off the radio and us on track for the Eastern Lands. We’re close Anika. We’re going to make it.
Chapter 28
“GET OUT OF HERE! THIS isn’t a hotel! You can’t sleep here!”
Tanja opened her eyes and was staring at a thin, frail-looking man whose skin looked as leathery and beaten as an old saddle. The backlight of the sun illuminated him like the subject of a Rebirth-era portrait, though with none of the youth and beauty common to those paintings. He was wretched, and looked old enough to be Tanja’s father.
Tanja touched the back of her head lightly against the eastern wall of a squatty brick building and sighed. She acclimated to her surroundings quickly, feeling the cold pavement of the dockyard beneath her, smelling the pungent odor of fish and salt and oil in the air. She had made the voyage here yesterday, walking quickly through the night, covering at least fifty miles, maybe more, and when she finally arrived at the docks, it was at the point of exhaustion.
She had chosen the maintenance building for her sleeping quarters, largely for its positioning away from the robust shipyard activities and unlikelihood of human interaction. On this last point, she had obviously misjudged.
“Vagrants,” the man continued, “I’m sick of it.”
Tanja cocked her head and batted her eyelids. “Vagrants?”
“Vagrants. Job seekers. You’re all the same to me. There is no loitering here, and no work.” The dock worker scrutinized Tanja for a moment. “Especially not fo
r decrepit old women.” He chuckled. “What would you do here?”
Tanja sighed and lowered her head, as if about to fall asleep once again, and then, with movements more akin to experts of the martial arts, hopped to her feet, spreading her arms wide like a spider as she landed in a crouched stance. With equal speed, she stood tall, her oversized robe flapping behind her, making the fluttering sound of a bat.
The old man gasped, his face now bloodless and panicky, unable to comprehend how this woman before him, whom he had just suggested was too feeble for basic work, had just moved like an assassin.
“I’m no vagrant,” Tanja said, “and I’ve no desire to work alongside the weakest sperm of humanity, present company included. I am, however, looking for a ship that will take me to the New Country.”
Tanja wasn’t quite sure how sea travel worked these days; it had been two hundred years since she’d been on the oceans. But the boats still came and went from the docks, she knew that much, so the docks were where she came.
The man swallowed. “You’re in the shipyards, ma’am. The docks are across the bridge, bay side. It’s two, two and half miles from here across that bridge.” He pointed to a narrow suspension bridge in the distance.
“When do the ships leave?”
The man shrugged. “I work in the shipyards,” he stammered, the sheen of fear returning to his face, as if his lack of knowledge about shipping schedules might trigger another spasm from Tanja.
Tanja let her stare linger and then turned in the direction of the bridge and began walking. Fewer than ten paces in, she heard the dock worker open the door to the maintenance house and quickly close it behind him. She wanted to get to the docks as quickly as possible, but her intuition told her to wait, to check back on the man who had just fled to the building. And one thing she never ignored, not for centuries now, was her intuition.
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