We walked past a cemetery – or at least, what had been a cemetery before the trenches had been dug through it – as we made our way to a nearby building. From the outside, it appeared to be some kind of barracks, but it was padlocked on the outside. That piqued Terry’s interest, so he started to pick it. “I’ve never seen locks like this,” he said. “The inside is more complicated than what I’ve seen before.”
“It’s my world,” I reminded him.
“Right, you people complicate everything.” He focused for a moment. “There. Got it.”
We cautiously opened the door and peered inside. We weren’t prepared for what we found. There were maybe thirty men strapped to their bunks. They looked horrible, as though they had been tortured. And I think the torture had broken their minds, as they were moaning and babbling incoherently.
Terry walked over to a nearby bunk to inspect one of the men. The man screeched and tried to grab him, but Terry dodged back out of the strapped down man. “Too slow!” he said. The man didn’t seem to even notice his words.
Gregor walked over to a particular individual and Burin followed behind him. “You don’t seem to be as far gone as the others,” the fighter said.
“You’re… not with them? I’ve never seen you before,” the man answered.
“With who?” Burin tried to ask in Aquan, which Nebbie translated for me.
“With who?” Gregor asked, this time in Russian. As they talked, I noticed Terry was counting the men in the bunks and had begun setting out bullets for each of them. It was clear he intended to put them out of their misery.
“The Brothers Three,” the man said. “Vile nosferatu. They have kept us here as cattle to slake their thirsts.”
“And what happened to the others?” Gregor indicated the other men around them.
“They’ve been here longer than I. Their minds have been broken by the repeated feedings. Please, I will tell you everything I know. Just help me get out of here. I don’t want to die as fodder for blood sucking vermin.”
Gregor looked dubious. He turned to me and Burin. “Is it safe?” he asked in Taldan. “Is there not a chance he could turn into a vampire himself?”
Burin looked the man over. “He looks fine to me,” he answered.
I thought for a moment about what I’d read in Daddy’s notes. I’d been kinda interested in vampires for a bit when I discovered they were real, and even more interested when I found out a few had been found to still be on Earth. “I don’t think so?” I said, not entirely sure. “I want to say I remember reading that nosferatu don’t have the ability to create spawn. Assuming that he’s correctly identified them, that is. But nosferatu supposedly look really different from other vampires, so it might be hard to mistake them.”
Gregor nodded. “Good enough for me.” He turned back to the man. “What’s your name, friend?”
“Dmitri,” the man answered.
“We’re going to untie you. Don’t make us regret it.”
“Understood,” Dmitri answered. “Thank you.”
“What about the others?” Terry asked. “Can any of them be saved? Or would it be better if I put bullets in each of their heads?”
“I fear they are too far gone,” Dmitri answered. “A quick death would be a mercy.”
“Okay,” Terry said, starting to load his pistol.
“Wait,” I said.
“What?”
“Won’t that be loud? Won’t someone come to investigate?” I was confused that no one had come after us already. It was possible that they hadn’t realized exactly where we were, so I was hesitant to risk letting the others draw attention to our location.
Terry thought about it. “Good point,” he said, holstering his pistol. He pulled out his kukri. “This will be much quieter.” He began to whistle as he cheerily began slashing the throats of the men.
In horror, I grabbed Emily and covered her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch her father happily murder so many men, even if he was technically doing a good deed. The girl struggled at first, curious to see, but ended up giving up fighting.
The men Terry was killing didn’t even react as he cut them down. That’s how far gone they were. I felt nauseous as I watched, and was grateful for the distraction when Emily spoke up. “Miss Lyriana?”
“Yes?” I asked the girl, looking at her and away from the horrible scene.
“Do I have to get shot every time I want to call on Mama?”
I considered what I knew about summoners. “I don’t think so,” I said. “You just need to focus, though it will probably be easier to summon her when you’re scared.”
“Oh, okay.”
Gregor asked Dmitri what he knew about the floating monastery. “I do not know much. You might ask the fairy who lives in the graveyard.”
Gregor nodded. “We’ll do that. It’s on the outskirts of the camp, so we can leave you there.”
Terry finished his grim business. “They’re all dead, but I saw a few gold teeth. Give me a few minutes.”
Annoyed, I took Emily outside. Burin and Dmitri followed me, but Gregor stayed inside to help.
A few minutes later, the two men came outside. “What’s that smell?” Burin asked.
“If Dmitri is wrong, I am not going to risk them rising from their graves to hunt us,” Gregor said. “So I set the building on fire.”
What? “That’s going to draw a lot of attention!” I protested.
“We’re going elsewhere, so it’ll be fine,” Gregor answered with a shrug. “Let us go.” Terry and Burin both nodded at the logic.
What was wrong with these people?
We made our way to the cemetery as quietly as we could. Behind us, the small fire turned into a full blaze as flames engulfed the roof. It wouldn’t be long until someone came to investigate, but maybe it would at least take attention off of where we were and where we were going. But I still would have preferred not drawing any attention at all.
As we entered the cemetery, we found the fairy in question. I’m not sure how to describe her other than to say she was small, with grey skin and large black eyes. Kinda like a one of those grey aliens that were all the rage in popular culture back when I was a kid. They made so many movies about those. I loved them, but I was terrified that they’d come get me and had trouble sleeping for the entire summer when I was eight. At least until I finally said something to my parents and Daddy pointed out that Juiz would never let something like that happen.
Well, okay, that’s not exactly a perfect description. The eyes were smaller, and more round than like almonds. And she had pointed ears, like an elf. And I’ve never heard of a grey alien digging with a shovel.
That shovel attracted Burin’s attention. Strangely for the dwarf, rather than calling out to her, he drew his own shovel and walked over, respectfully tapping her shovel gently with his. “NO!” she said, looking at him. “These are my bones! You find your own!”
“Sorry,” Burin said. “I don’t mean to impose or anything. I just wanted to show my respect to a fellow digger.” Of course, he answered everything she said in Russian by speaking in Aquan, so Nebbie translated it for him. Later, I found time to ask him why he kept trying to speak to everyone in Aquan and he explained. “Well, you see, most of the world is covered in water, so Aquan is the most common language.”
I hate that I can’t fault that logic. It’s the stupidest, most Burin thing I’ve ever heard, but at the same time, it makes a weird kind of sense.
“Yes,” Gregor added. “We’re not interested in bones. Skins, maybe. But not bones.”
“We’ve come to see if you know anything about Rasputin and that ghostly monastery up there,” I said.
“Ras who?” she asked.
“The Man Who Will Not Die,” Gregor said.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Baba Yaga’s son,” Burin suggested and Nebbie translated.
“Oh! The one who seeks to steal Little Grandmother’s throne!” She looked at us suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”
“Please, anything you can tell us might be useful,” I said. “We need Little Grandmother’s help to save an entire world from her daughter’s ambitions, but since she’s in danger, we have to save her first so she can help us.”
She regarded me for a moment. “You truly wish to save Little Grandmother?”
“We need her help,” I said. “I do not know if we would be involved if we didn’t. But there’s no other way, so we must save her.” I had the feeling that honesty was the right path to winning her trust. Fey creatures are capricious, but they always act in their own interests. If she understood that saving Baba Yaga was in our benefit, then she would understand why we could be trusted to do so.
“I see,” she said. “Then you will need to find your way into the church but not a church that lies halfway between this world and the world from which I come.”
“How do we do that?” Terry asked.
“You will need to find a way to deal with the Anchors of the World.”
“The what?” Gregor asked. She shrugged. “Okay, you don’t know the specifics. Is there someone who does?”
“You must seek the one who made them. But that will be difficult.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “The goat has his soul,” she whispered.
Terry threw his arms into the air. “DAMMIT,” he said.
I looked to see if Emily was reacting to the mention of the goat, but she wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she was crouched down by a nearby tombstone, muttering to herself. I strained a bit and I could just barely make out “I’m a princess.” being repeated over and over.
That kid was a little weird.
“We can’t just fly up to it?” Terry was asking the fairy when I turned back.
“It isn’t there, even if you can see it.”
The assassin sighed. “Okay. Fine. Where do we find the goat?”
“The goat is being held by the soldiers in the camp.”
“This sounds like a lantern goat,” Burin noted. “It won’t be an easy foe.” Of course, he was still talking in Aquan, so Nebbie translated. I’d heard about those. They were undead creatures who looked like goats and used the captured souls of mortals to fuel their powers.
“Gregor gets to fight it,” Terry commented.
“No, you will fight it,” Gregor said. “With your bare hands. For training.”
“Bullshit,” Terry answered. Gregor just smiled.
“If we retrieve the soul, we’ll be able to talk to him?” I asked the fairy.
She shook her head. “No, you’ll need his body as well.”
“And where’s that?” Terry asked.
“Not sure,” the fairy shrugged. She sniffed the air. “I think he was near the fire.”
Gregor pointed to the smoke rising from the fire he’d set. “That fire?”
She shook her head. “No. Older fire. The goat started it so it could steal his soul.”
“Just great. Now the goat starts fires,” Terry grumbled. Gregor laughed at that. Terry ignored him and turned to Dmitri. “Where is this camp she’s talking about?”
“On the far side of the compound. A group of Cossack mercenaries is there. Their leader is a headless monster. Be careful of him.”
Gregor flexed his forearm. “We’ve already met. He did not come out the better for the fight.”
“We’ll head through the town and see if we can find signs of a fire,” Burin said, finally speaking Taldan once more. “Thank you, Miss…” he left it hanging.
“You may call me Polina,” the fairy said. “Bring me the goat’s lantern and the body, and I can return the man who made the Anchors of the World to life so you can save Little Grandmother.”
She was going to bring him back? That didn’t bode well, since tombstone fairies could only bring back evil beings. Not that Baba Yaga was a saint either. I guess if saving the world meant working with a few bad guys, the lives saved would be worth it. At least I hoped.
“We’re going, kiddo,” Terry said to Emily.
“Coming,” she said, standing up and running over to us.
As we made our way through the compound or whatever you want to call it, we made a half-assed attempt at stealth. It was obvious they knew we were here, so it’s not like we would benefit from completely hiding our presence. But it would still be best if they didn’t know exactly where we were.
As we passed a building – it looked like a barn or something – we noticed a strong odor. It smelled like, well, I don’t know. Have you ever been around wet cattle? It was kinda like that, only different. It was definitely an animal odor.
Burin went over and opened the door, peering in. “Hello!” he called out guilelessly.
Animal screeches answered him. They sounded similar to the sound of silverback gorillas, maybe? “Screw this,” Terry said, whipping out his rocket launcher and firing into the barn before I could even point out the amount of noise that would make.
Emily similarly jumped into action. “I’m a princess!” she said, her voice filled with determination. “Momma! Help Dad!” she shouted.
The manticore appeared once more and charged into the barn. I looked inside after it and watched as it began tearing into what appeared to be yetis. It was too late to bother with stealth, so I lobbed two fireballs into the barn to help kill the monsters before they could attack the manticore. It – no, she – was still injured, and as an eidolon, if she took too much damage, it was possible that she might drain life force from Emily to sustain herself.
“Behind us!” Gregor called out.
I turned to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, our noise had drawn attention. There was a sickly yellow fog rolling in, and there were signs of movement within the fog. There was something off about the cloud. I could smell it from where I was, but I didn’t make the connection in time. Before I could react, Burin took a deep breath and plunged into the cloud to attack whatever was inside.
Gregor chased after him. “It’s poison!” I called out to him. Worse than poison, actually. It was corrosive mustard gas. If that stuff was around, we were going to need gas masks. Even my lack of breathing wouldn’t quite protect me.
The fighter stopped just outside of the cloud and began punching it. I’m not sure if that’s crazy or not considering what we’ve seen, but it was pretty nuts. What was even crazier was when his fist connected. One blow after another struck the cloud, with a strangely solid impact. Three or four punches later, and the cloud lost cohesion and began to disperse.
“You just punched a mustard gas cloud to death?!” I asked, incredulous.
Terry spun and fired a rocket at the now visible zombies that had been hiding in the cloud. The ones standing right next to Burin and only a few feet from Gregor. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but I knew he wasn’t. He was just acting on instinct.
Burin just took the explosion, and the zombie next to him died in a puff of gas that seared his skin.
A few moments later, the zombies were destroyed and I turned my attention back to the barn. Emily had walked inside and was gently holding the manticore, who was glaring at everyone outside, coiled and ready to strike if any of us tried to approach her daughter.
“Play her song, Papa,” Emily said to Terry. “It should calm her down.”
“Okay,” Terry said nervously, putting away his rocket launcher and pulling out his guitar. He strummed several notes, and my jaw hit the floor.
“What’s wrong?” Burin asked me.
“I know that song,” I said. It was one of Daddy’s favorites.
Terry was nervous and hit a wrong note, causing the manticore to growl, startling him and causing him to lose his concentration. It was obvious. He was terrified that the woman he loved was right there and he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to talk to her. I pulled out my phone. “Cortana,” I said. “Play the instrumental of ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ by Bon Jovi.”
The music began to play and the manticore began swaying slightly to the music. Her body, which had been tensed and ready to strike, began to relax as she listened. But most notably, her eyes stopped glowing, revealing the deep hazel hidden below the light. She blinked and looked at her daughter.
“See, Momma,” Emily said. “They’re okay.” She reached out and touched the manticore, unconsciously casting a spell as she did so. The manticore’s shape warped and twisted, becoming the naked form of an incredibly beautiful woman. I was instantly turned on by the sight of her.
And she was WAY out of Terry’s league. I’m not sure if I’d say she or I were more attractive, but it was close. If I weren’t married, I’d definitely be trying to seduce her. Hell, I was wondering if Greta would be up for some extra company as it was.
She looked directly at us, shock in her eyes. “Terry?” she asked.
“Persephone…” he breathed, his voice quavering as he spoke.
Before she could respond, Emily smiled and fainted. Gregor was there in an instant, catching her before she fell. She had overexerted herself using magic she was unfamiliar with. And as Emily lost consciousness, Persephone disappeared.
Gregor brought Emily over to Terry. “Here,” he said. “I must see what furs in there I can salvage. Most of them are burned.” He seemed pretty annoyed by that, glaring at both of us as Terry took the girl from him.
“Are you okay?” I asked Terry as Burin went to help Gregor.
“I will be,” he said. “Somehow you’ve given them both back to me. Thank you.”
“Terry, there’s something I need to tell you…”
“What is it?” he asked.
I tried to steel myself to tell him about the possibility that Persephone was a demon, but I just couldn’t do it. I chickened out. “There is no way you deserved to marry a girl that hot,” I finally said.
“I know that better than most,” he said, laughing.
Gregor returned a few moments later, he was covered in blood. “You don’t normally get that messy skinning,” I pointed out.
“One of the beasts was with child,” he said. “I wanted to see if it was formed enough to have a skin.” He frowned. “It was not.”
Right. Wordlessly, I quickly cast a spell to clean him off. Burin returned
As we continued on, we heard a sound from a nearby building and went in to investigate. Inside, we encountered a kyton – creatures from the realm of shadows who believe pleasure and pain to be two halves of a glorious whole, making them natural sadomasochists – who had skinned nearly a dozen men and strung them up all over the room. I was really glad Emily wasn’t awake to see that. She spent the entire time we were in the building asleep just inside the door.
He wanted to make us his next victims, so we killed him first. Then we discovered that the men he’d been playing with were still alive, and even further beyond saving than the victims of the nosferatu had been. So we quickly killed them, to end their suffering.
We were just about to leave when the other three suddenly stopped. “What is it?” I asked.
Gregor held a finger to his lips, but Burin called out. “Hello?” he said, looking at a freestanding closet at the far side of the room. I thought I heard a muffled sound from within. Terry aimed his gun while Gregor and Burin cleared the debris away from the front of the closet’s door. Then Gregor swiftly pulled the door open, revealing the contents.
There were two people inside, a young woman of about sixteen or so dressed in a ruined lacy dress, and a boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen dressed in a child sized military dress uniform. I gasped when I saw them. I knew those faces.
Daddy was going to flip when I told him about this.