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 f**k 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.”
The ruins lay deserted, no movement. A least half a mile separated us from the street and another mile or two of the bridge remained.
Roman pulled the bird staff out of its leather holder. “Where are they coming from?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
Behind us, something clanked against the wood. I whirled. A woman climbed over the edge and rolled onto the bridge coming to a crouch, holding a tactical combat blade. A man pulled himself up behind her.
No physical strain. No fighting, no running…Well, I was screwed.
A dry pop, like glass cracking, punched my eardrums. A cloud of black smoke exploded on the other side of the bridge, cutting us off.
“Teleportation, huh. Okay. I got this,” Roman muttered and dug in the pouches on his belt.
The woman hissed at me, baring fangs.
Okay. Enough of that.
I fired. The bowstring twanged and the arrow sprouted from the woman’s left eye.
The man charged at me.
Arrow, sight, draw, fire, all in the space of a second.
The second shaft sliced through the man’s throat, ripping a satisfying scream. He faltered, stumbled, and pitched over the side.
The black smoke coalesced into a bald man. He wore a strange pleated robe of brick-red fabric and an odd-looking apron. He held a short staff in his hand. Several small clay spheres hung from the staff, suspended by a string like a bunch of grapes. Another wizard. Great.
Roman yanked a pouch off his belt and hurled reddish powder into the air. The tiny dust granules hung, unmoving, shook, turning black, and sprouted wings. A swarm of black flies streamed toward the man.