Sleight of Fantasy

by Dima Zales

This time, though, Golem smacks the two dudes on their heads with his giant metallic arms.

  The impact is not as bad as when Vlad did the same thing, but it does the trick: the two men drop to the floor.

  “Vlad, it’s me and Kit,” I shout. “Please don’t shoot!”

  “Sasha?” Vlad looks at me like I’ve sprouted two heads. “Kit?”

  “Watch out!” I yell. “They’re about to attack.”

  Just like they did in the vision, Lucretia, Ariel, and Gaius land as if dropping from the sky.

  Except we changed the future when we arrived here and had Golem kill the goons.

  Changed it for the worse.

  Since Vlad never performed that somersault, he’s standing in a different location from where he was in my vision—and Gaius kicks the shotgun out of Vlad’s hands as he lands.

  The shotgun slides out of reach on the blood-drenched floor.

  “Take him,” Gaius orders Lucretia and Ariel.

  Leading by example, he throws a punch at Vlad’s face.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “Kit, grab Lucretia. I’ll get Ariel,” Felix shrieks in the earpiece as the robot leaps for our roommate.

  Kit sprouts extra height and muscles and jumps at Lucretia.

  Gaius’s punch causes Vlad to fly back a few feet, but he instantly recovers.

  Gaius scowls, then follows Vlad so fast that my eyes have trouble tracking him in the dim, laser-show light.

  Vlad reaches into his jacket and pulls out the grenade.

  Gaius slaps it out of Vlad’s hands.

  The grenade rolls impotently on the floor and stops near the shotgun.

  Was Gaius right when he boasted before? Is he more powerful than Vlad when Rose’s boosts are taken out of the picture?

  Vlad throws a punch at Gaius’s face.

  Gaius ducks the blow, and lands his own in Vlad’s midsection.

  I cringe. If Gaius’s fist hits the firebird egg, they and anyone nearby will go up in blazes.

  Of course, if that grenade had gone off, initiating the gasoline sprinklers, a firebird egg explosion would’ve killed everyone.

  Vlad flies backward again.

  Gaius races after him.

  I raise my gun and shoot where I hope Gaius will be in a moment.

  I hit the disco ball instead of Gaius.

  The two vampires are now standing too closely for me to risk shooting again.

  They exchange more blows.

  “Ariel, I don’t want to hurt you,” Felix says with Golem’s robotic voice to the side of us.

  I spare a glance there.

  The robot is holding Ariel’s hands behind her back, but Ariel is twisting and thrashing as if in an exorcism.

  Lucretia must’ve put up a fight, too. Kit’s mask is in tatters. However, Kit now has Lucretia in a tight, inescapable hug.

  I look back in time to see Gaius punch Vlad so hard the vampire flies back a dozen feet.

  Gaius sprints forward.

  I shoot—and miss the super-fast vampire again.

  Vlad reaches into his coat, pulls out the machete, and swings it at Gaius’s head.

  Gaius catches Vlad’s wrist and performs an Aikido-like maneuver.

  The machete pierces Vlad’s thigh, causing him to grunt in pain.

  I rush toward them. If I shoot point blank, I have a smaller chance of hitting Vlad.

  When I’m a foot away, I raise the gun.

  Gaius must’ve sensed me coming, because he swats me like a fly.

  I feel like a baseball that met Babe Ruth’s bat. My gun flies in one direction, and I fly in the other.

  Something cracks when I slam into a wall, and air vacates my lungs as I slide down the bloody marble.

  My nerve endings go nuclear, and I think I pass out.

  When I come to my senses, all I want to do is lie in a heap and recover, but I can’t.

  Vlad needs me.

  With an effort of will powerful enough to finish two marathons, I crawl into a pushup position.

  This is when I notice where I landed: a few feet from the grenade and the shotgun.

  Through the pain, a desperate outline of a plan forms in my head. Not even a plan, just a thought.

  When Vlad won in my vision, it was under the cover of smoke, and he did it by shooting Gaius in the face. Would the future fall into place if the same variables were in play?

  I crawl over and grab the grenade and the shotgun. Using the shotgun as a crutch, I rise onto wobbly feet.

  Sucking in a breath, I take a shuffling step in the direction of the fighting vampires.

  Then another and another.

  Gaius stole the machete from Vlad and is hacking away.

  Vlad only manages to dodge half of the swings; the rest leave Vlad’s clothes and flesh in tatters.

  There are numerous deadly-for-humans wounds on Vlad’s body.

  I prepare to throw the grenade at them to give Vlad some cover, but then I recall that the smoke leads to gasoline from the sprinklers—which won’t go well if Gaius hits the firebird egg… or if Vlad falls.

  I try to peek into the future to see if using the grenade will be safe, but no luck.

  Either I’m failing to get the needed Headspace focus, or I haven’t recharged my power yet.

  Pocketing the grenade for now, I attempt another step, then another and another.

  Soon, I declare my walking apparatus functional. Here’s to hoping that means nothing major was broken.

  After a dozen more agonizing steps, I get within swatting distance of Gaius again.

  I’m gambling on him being too busy trying to pull out the machete from Vlad’s shoulder.

  Quietly, I aim the shotgun, but then I hesitate.

  A pellet can hit Vlad. Then again, that probably won’t be as bad as getting another blow with that machete.

  Unless a pellet hits the firebird egg. If that happens, all three of us will be burnt toast in an eye blink.

  Oh well. As Felix says, “She who doesn’t risk never gets to drink champagne.”

  Holding my breath, I squeeze the trigger.

  Chapter Fifty

  A gaping hole explodes in the middle of Gaius’s chest.

  Vlad seems fine—if by “fine,” I mean cut up savagely with a machete, but shotgun-pellet free.

  Leaving the weapon in Vlad’s shoulder, Gaius clutches his chest.

  “How is he still standing?” Felix whispers in my earbud.

  With a grunt, Vlad grasps the machete in his shoulder with both hands and rips it out—spewing a fountain of blood.

  Gaius’s eyes widen and he starts to move back, but it’s too late.

  Vlad chops Gaius’s head off.

  The head rolls away as the body drops to the floor, and the Mandate aura disappears.

  Vlad also slumps. There’s a puddle of blood at his feet.

  I hope he stays upright enough to keep that egg in check.

  “You can let me go,” Lucretia says in a hoarse voice. “I’m not following Gaius’s commands any longer.”

  I look back.

  Just like in my vision, Gaius’s death broke the sire bond for Lucretia, but not Ariel’s glamour.

  Kit lets go.

  “I think you broke my ribs,” Lucretia mutters.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Vlad.

  “I’ll survive,” he grits out, blood pouring from his mouth. “I’m not sure I can fight, though.”

  I look at Lucretia. “Can you drag him out?”

  She solemnly nods, and rushes to grab Vlad under his armpits.

  “Kit,” I say. “Help Golem get Ariel out of here while I cover our exit.”

  “If I remember your vision correctly, there are Johnnies in the back,” Felix says. “And Koschei and Baba Yaga.”

  “That’s why I said I’m going to provide cover fire,” I grumble, then shuffle over to get my handgun.

  Kit runs to help Golem.

  A hospital-clad Johnny shows up from the back of the restaurant ju
st as I lift my gun and shoot.

  The Johnny runs for me.

  I clearly missed him.

  I shoot again—and this time, I get the Johnny between those black eyes.

  Another one gets the same treatment, then another.

  Something jerks my head back so suddenly I get whiplash.

  I duck down, leaving my mask in the hand of the Johnny who grabbed me before putting a bullet in his brain.

  “Everyone is outside,” Felix says in my ear. “Lucretia is holding down Ariel, and Kit is giving Vlad blood so he doesn’t die. I’m sending Golem back to help you.”

  “Thanks,” I say as another Johnny leaps down from the dance stage.

  I shoot him also, then wonder if I should toss the smoke grenade to provide myself and the robot with some cover.

  Does that mean I’ll start a fire when I shoot my gun in the resulting gasoline downpour? It wasn’t the case when Vlad shot Gaius in my vision, but he might’ve been lucky that time.

  Then again, Vlad didn’t care if this place burned to the ground with him in it, and I care about that scenario very much.

  If only I could see the future. Then I’d be able to make this decision for sure.

  Taking in a deep breath, I channel all my practice into an overwhelming need to reach Headspace.

  A Johnny breaks my concentration and pays with his life.

  Then another pops up.

  In a lull between the killings, I try focusing again.

  To my shock, it works.

  For the first time ever, I get Headspace access in the middle of a gunfight.

  Floating between the shapes, I catch my metaphysical breath and enjoy not having to defend my life for a moment.

  Though I’m fairly sure that no time passes in the outside world while I’m in Headspace, I still want to get this over with as quickly as I can.

  So, what do I focus on?

  The grenade?

  Thus far, I’ve had better luck targeting visions using people, or when I relied on the default shapes around me.

  I dubiously examine the black, ice-cold, bitter-tasting, pyramid-like snowflakes that surround me.

  The music they play does not bode well for this vision.

  Which is exactly why I should see what future they’d bring.

  Thus decided, I reach out to a single target to save power for later, then let my wisp do what it’s meant to do—and plunge in.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Baba Yaga is standing above a familiar, broken-looking female body sprawled like a corpse at a crime scene. Only the chalk outline is missing.

  There’s a giant iron-cast skillet in Baba Yaga’s hand with blood smeared on it. A welt on the head of the limp body matches that part of the skillet.

  “Thanks to this attack, you voided my contract with Nero,” Baba Yaga says to the body. “Now I can take care of you for good.”

  Though I don’t usually feel emotions in this state, an arctic chill permeates through my bodiless being.

  No wonder that body is familiar.

  It’s mine.

  In fact, I’ve seen myself this way once before—during the fight with Beatrice, after she killed me inside a vision. That time, I was able to prevent that fate by changing the circumstances that led to it.

  Hopefully, I can do the same thing this time around.

  Someone steps on a piece of metal behind Baba Yaga.

  It’s Kit.

  She’s aiming a shotgun at Baba Yaga’s head.

  Before the old witch can turn, Kit presses the trigger.

  The gun clicks futilely—must be jammed or out of bullets.

  “Looks like I get your Council seat, after all.” Baba Yaga spins around to stare at Kit with a carnivorous smile. “I had my people try to shoot you, then blow you up to no avail. Now you come to me voluntarily—and I get to make everything look like a legitimate suicide. How—”

  Without finishing the tirade, Baba Yaga tosses the heavy skillet at Kit’s head.

  Kit must’ve been caught off guard by Baba Yaga’s confession because she doesn’t dodge the projectile, and the skillet smacks her in the head.

  Kit staggers.

  Just like in the vision about Vlad, Baba Yaga lifts her arm.

  Black energy forms on each of her fingertips.

  She seems to age a few decades under the effort before the energy shoots out.

  Only it doesn’t fly at Kit.

  It arcs from Kit to the unmoving Sasha on the floor.

  Why shoot there?

  Then I see it.

  The Jubilee necklace with that giant stone.

  It’s still on my neck, and it absorbs Baba Yaga’s energy—the way a ring Rose once gave me did.

  Of course. This is why Rose asked me to bring it.

  She knew who Koschei works for, and what might happen after her death.

  Leave it to Rose to exact one last revenge from beyond the grave.

  Kit recovers from the hit and smirks, seeing the situation.

  Then she grows and morphs into a drekavac—a nightmarish xenomorph-meets-dementor creature we learned about at the last Orientation.

  “No,” the weakened Baba Yaga pleads. “Just shoot me. Don’t—”

  Drekavac-Kit stalks up to Baba Yaga and reaches out with multiple pustule-infested limbs.

  Baba Yaga’s tortured scream isn’t recognizable as coming from a throat. It sounds more like some hellish string instrument playing a single, glass-shattering note.

  Writhing and twitching so hard she probably tears her own ligaments, the old witch collapses on the ground.

  Kit looms over her victim.

  A horrific-looking tongue slowly snakes out of the drekavac’s maw.

  Wherever the thing licks Baba Yaga’s skin, it melts away as though it never existed, leaving behind raw meat.

  “Getting killed by a drekavac is the worst fate that can befall anyone,” Dr. Hekima had said, and clearly, he hadn’t exaggerated.

  If I had a body, I’d be vomiting.

  On the third lick, Baba Yaga’s throat produces one last agonized scream; then she slumps, blissfully dead.

  Kit turns herself into an orc, kicks Baba Yaga’s remains to the side, and walks up to my unmoving body.

  Carefully picking me up, the orc strides toward the restaurant exit.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  I’m thrust back into the reality of the gunfight, and now that I have a body, I have to breathe deeply in order not to throw up from what I just saw.

  What Kit did to Baba Yaga in that vision is going to haunt me more than Bentley’s burned body—and I didn’t think that was possible.

  Speaking of poor Bentley: it seems the car bomb that killed him was aimed at Kit, not me. Same goes for that attack in the bathroom—Gaius was helping Baba Yaga when he lured Kit to the hotel with the promise of sex. That’s why Baba Yaga was able to honestly tell Nero she wasn’t trying to kill me. It was true. I just happened to be near Kit when Baba Yaga struck.

  If I hadn’t been so self-centered, I would’ve guessed it earlier.

  The more I think about the recent events, the more I realize Baba Yaga deserves the fate she got in the vision.

  She killed Rose. She killed Kevin and Bentley. In the vision, she even got to me—or will.

  Yeah.

  Will.

  Maybe my top priority should be preventing myself from ending up as that unmoving body?

  But how? I didn’t see what led up to it, so I need more data.

  Trying to go back into Headspace fails.

  Either I’m too stressed out after what I saw, or I don’t have enough juice.

  A Johnny jumps out from the back of the restaurant, and I put a bullet in his head on autopilot.

  Another one leaps out, and I shoot him too.

  “I saw the most horrible vision,” I say for Felix’s benefit. “I need to do something to prevent it, but—”

  I don’t finish my sentence because I see him.

 
Koschei.

  He’s holding the knife, and his green eyes gleam with deadly determination as he leaps for me.

  I shoot him in the head.

  The gun clicks empty.

  I raise the shotgun, but it’s too late.

  Koschei smacks it out of my hands, then tosses me at the nearest wall like a Frisbee.

  I hit the wall with my injured back and slide to the floor, again.

  My consciousness flees.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  I blink my eyes open to the sight of Koschei’s knife arcing at my chest.

  This is it.

  I’m done for.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  A metallic arm grabs Koschei’s wrist before he can finish the stabbing motion, and a giant metal fist smacks into his jaw with an audible crack.

  Koschei flies back.

  Golem leaps at him.

  Koschei slices at Golem’s torso with the knife, leaving a deep groove in the metal and breaking off the blade.

  He then tosses the remnants of the knife at the robot. The impact dents the metal carapace with a clank; then the pieces drop to the floor.

  Golem kicks Koschei in the shin.

  There’s a sound of a bone cracking.

  Golem kicks the same spot again.

  Koschei’s leg snaps, a jagged piece of bone sticking out as he falls.

  The robot stomps on him so hard that a few of its leg bolts fly in different directions.

  Hissing in pain, Koschei nevertheless tries to catch the metal foot.

  Golem kicks his head like a soccer ball.

  Koschei dies, but instantly resurrects and punches the robot in the midsection.

  Metal bends and bone breaks.

  I inhale a deep breath and nearly pass out from the pain.

  My ribs might be broken.

  Possibly other things too.

  Gritting my teeth, I roll over and begin to crawl for the shotgun.

  The sounds of metal and bone clashing grow louder and more disturbing.

  It sounds like Koschei is breaking himself apart over and over to win.

  I spare a quick glance back and see Koschei rip out Golem’s right leg.