“Yep. The bones are supposed to belong to a Black Serpent Guhd. My dad will shit himself.”
He was a walking encyclopedia of magic expertise. Just what I needed, except the picture of my knife was stuck in a nonfunctioning computer. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen off the desk and sketched the knife one-handed, still holding on to the staff. “Do you know anything about a knife? Looks somewhat like this?”
Roman squinted at my drawing. “Is that a walrus tusk?”
“No.” Obviously my drawing skills were lacking.
“Then no. Not off the top of my head, no. Magic knives aren’t exactly scarce.”
Drat.
“You better let me have that.” Roman reached for the bird staff and I let go. The volhv took it and grinned. “Two staves. It’s like having two women.”
I rolled my eyes. Men.
“Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome. Are you done here? If not, I’ll wait.”
I didn’t find anything useful in the papers. The only thing that had any valuable information was the computer. I crouched down, disconnected the tower, and picked it up. “I’m done.”
Outside, the night was pleasantly warm. We turned the corner and I pulled my hat off. Phew. The night breeze cooled my sweat-dampened hair.
Now I just had to get to the car. Get to the car and hopefully not pass out while I was driving. The exhaustion settled deep into my bones. It felt like I was dragging a cement block chained to my feet with every step and carrying another one in my arms. Look at the big bad shapeshifter. It was good that night had fallen and butterflies fluttered around. If one of them landed on me, it would score a perfect knockout.
Roman walked next to me, his stride brisk, looking fresh as a daisy. A very menacing black daisy.
“I can make it from here,” I told him. I hope.
“Please,” he said, as if I offended him. “I’ll walk you to your car. Streets are not safe at night.”
I shifted the tower in my arms. “You do realize I turn into a monster?”
“When you turn into one, we’ll talk. Right now you’re not a monster. You’re a lady. A very attractive one. And this is a bad neighborhood.”
Heh. Ever the gentleman. “So if someone were to make trouble, would you turn him into a frog?”
“I don’t do frogs. That’s my mother’s thing. The transmogrification never works completely. Changing the shape of something against its will requires a lot of energy, so you change someone into a frog and then it fails and he turns back into a human and comes after you with a gun.”
“Speaking from personal experience?”
“No, but I’ve seen it happen.”
We turned another corner. Roman cleared his throat. “So. You come here often?”
I cracked up.
“I like it when you laugh,” he said. “It’s hot.”
Woo! “Thank you, Mr. Wizard.”
“Oh no, not a wizard.” He shook his head. “Magus maybe. I could live with that, but the proper term is volhv, really. We are priests.”
I ducked through the gap in the ruin and stopped. My Jeep sat on four wooden blocks. Someone had taken my tires. They jacked my Jeep and stole my tires, the rims, and everything.
Screw you, Pucker Alley.
Roman shook his head. “Something tells me this is not a safe neighborhood.”
I exhaled rage through my nose, like a pissed-off bull. It would take me thirty minutes to reach the office at a fast run on a good day. On a bad day like today, I’d be walking for a couple of hours.
“It’s okay.” Roman let out a shrill whistle.
A rapid staccato of hoofbeats approached from a distance. The night parted and an enormous horse trotted toward us. Massive, its coat slick and soft, like midnight sable, the horse approached, pounding the asphalt with every step. She stopped by Roman and nuzzled his shoulder, her long luxurious mane falling in a black wave down one side.
Wow.
Roman shifted his bird staff into the crook of his elbow and petted her nose. “Good girl. See, we can ride.”
“Together on one horse?”
He grinned.
“You’re a dirty volhv,” I told him.
“Okay, okay, I’ll walk.”
“No, it’s your horse. Besides, I’m a big girl. I can make it home on my own.”
“No.” He shook his head. “If you walk away, I’ll just follow you. I’m going to see you home safe.”
His jaw muscles were set, giving his face that telltale stubborn expression. Great. My dark volhv turned out to be a Southern gentleman. I had struck some sort of uniquely male chord in his soul. In his head, abandoning me alone on a night street clearly did not compute.
“There are some women who’d be offended in my place,” I told him. “I’m not helpless and I turn into a monster.”
“Maybe I’m afraid and I want company.” He pretended to shiver. “I may need a big strong monster to protect me. You wouldn’t leave a defenseless attractive man out on the streets alone, would you?”
I laughed. “Okay. You win.”
Soon the two staves rested securely in a leather holder attached to the saddle and my tower was packed into a saddlebag. We walked, Roman with his hand on the horse’s black leather reins embroidered with silver thread and I next to him, carrying a compound bow and a quiver of arrows I had gotten out of the car.
“So why the Chernobog?” I asked. “I’m sure Russians have other gods, besides the deity of cold, evil, and death.”
“It’s the family trade. Our pantheon is all about balance. Where there is light, there must be darkness. Life is followed by death and the decay nourishes new life. Belobog, the white god, and Chernobog, they are brother gods, you see. My uncle is a white volhv, one of his sons will likely be a white volhv, too, and our side is the black volhvs. So that’s why I’m Chernobog’s priest.” He turned to me and grinned. “And also for the chicks.”
Ha! “The chicks?”
“Mhm.” He nodded, completely serious. “Women like a man in black.”
I laughed.
“Admit you were impressed,” he said.
I kept laughing.
“A little bit?” He held up his index finger and his thumb about an inch away from each other. “Not even a little bit?”
“I was impressed.”
“See?”
“It’s just you seem really funny and easygoing.”
“I do enough bad shit to keep ten city blocks awake at night wrapped up in nightmares. I don’t need to maintain an image. At least not all the time.” He glanced at me. “I’m really quite a nice fellow in my time off. I even cook.”
The street ended. Below us a vast graveyard of broken buildings stretched, some little more than heaps of concrete dust, some still faintly recognizable as their former selves. The moonlight gleamed on a million shards of glass. Wooden bridges spanned the wreckage. To the left, behind the empty shells of the buildings, turquoise and orange fog rose, like a faint aurora borealis that had fallen from the sky. Unicorn Lane, the place where magic raged and bucked like an infuriated wild horse. We would be keeping clear. Only fools visited the Unicorn when the magic was up.
We started on the long bridge.
“So what about you?” Roman asked. “You seem different.”
“How?”
“You were all clenched up before.” He drew his hand over his face, turning his expression somber. “Very serious. Robot Andrea.”
Robot, huh? I showed him the edge of my teeth. “You liked me anyway.”
“Well, how can you not like this?” He indicated me with his hands. “I’m only a man.”
“You are shameless.”
He grinned. “But no, seriously. Something happened? Or is it just because Katya was there?”
“Katya?”
“Kate. Your friend.”
“Oh. No, it’s not her.” I shrugged. “I spent a long time locking up a part of myself. I thought it was best that I suppress my animal side. You know, the bad part.”
He nodded.
“But it wasn’t bad. Turned out I had been smothering something essential inside myself. Maimed it. I hobbled myself like a prisoner in leg irons and then heroically limped through life. When I think about all of the fun I could’ve had, all the chances I could’ve taken, it makes me a little sick. But now I’m free. Maybe a little too free, but I’m enjoying it.”
“Enjoying is good,” he said.
“You understand about letting go, don’t you?” I asked. He probably didn’t get to let himself off the chain that often either.
His face turned grim. “I let go, lives end. People like me have many names. Volhv, kudesnik, which means ‘magician,’ charodei, which means ‘enchanter,’ but the most common term in history was mudrets. A wise man. People say that wisdom is bought with experience, which is just a polite way of saying that you’ll fuck up a lot, people will get hurt, and your guilt will gnaw on you in your dreams. Well, I’ve earned my wisdom, every drop of it. Let’s talk of something else. Let’s talk of how when we get to your office, you will offer me a cup of tea. You drink tea, right?”
I nodded. Maybe I would offer him a cup of tea. Why not?
“What kind of tea?”
“Earl Grey, if I can get it.”
“You put sugar in it?”
“No.”
He stopped, a shocked expression on his face. “No sugar?”
“No.”
“You have to have sugar. And lemon.”
The night breeze swirled about me and I caught a weak hint of jasmine, followed by the exact same layered scent I’d smelled in Gloria’s office. I notched an arrow and spun, scanning the ruins.
“What is it?”
“We’re about to get jumped.”
“By whom?”
“Venomous people with snake fangs in their heads.”
