Secondhand Sorcery

The dacha was as secure a location as they could find. It was down a dirt road, its entrance half-obscured by shrubbery, in a neighborhood that consisted entirely of other such summer houses, all deserted and locked up for the winter. Ézarine got them into this one easily enough, late at night when the valence and keystone sequence could be written off as a bizarre nightmare by any people who happened to be in the area.

Like most dachas, it was a small, primitive thing, with no plumbing, and the few electric lights wouldn’t work because the power was shut off. They didn’t want to risk using the wood stove and making smoke, so they wore coats indoors and huddled around the one kerosene lamp for heat. The Crimea had much nicer vacation homes, but those would likely have electronic security systems, or even off-season renters. This was fine. They weren’t planning to stay here long anyway—they couldn’t. From this point on, they would have safety only as long as they kept moving.

Getting here had been easy enough. The Marshall family were wanted as a group of unaccompanied minors traveling together. The obvious solution was to break up and travel in separate cars, escorted by adults—and there were plenty of adults available, even adults who had no idea who they were and had nothing better to do than to come with them. You could find them in decent numbers in any sufficiently large city, sitting on street corners with bowls and signs. They were more than happy to take free food, and to ride in a heated car to another city while wearing a new and comfortable set of clothes.

That got them to the border with Georgia, which they crossed with three bottles of liquor and a few words from Maria. From then on they had only to avoid drawing attention to themselves, bleeding down their resources as they made their way in silence to the target. No theft, no violence, just a bunch of kids driving around in a couple of cars that stayed carefully below the speed limit. Nobody was looking for them this far from Kurdistan. Yet.

But that would end, very soon. Perhaps already, while she shivered and paced in the dusty and broken-down house, thousands of people were realizing that the conflict could not be contained in some expendable foreign country. She didn’t know how she ought to feel about it. On the one hand, it made her anxious to sit and wait without knowing; on the other, she really didn’t want to see what she knew was about to happen.

Back to the map, spread out on the table. The neck of the Crimea, fifty kilometers away, was quite narrow, and so the railroad line bearing cargo down to the peninsula’s ports had to run within sight of the main roads. That line, as far as they knew, was the main artery feeding the Russian occupation of Istanbul. A train went down that line every day, heavily loaded with food and other supplies for Admiral Kozlov’s fleet of transport submarines. Yuri had left more than an hour ago. It wasn’t a complicated operation. He and Shum-Shum would simply run up the highway together, destroying a huge swath of road and train track in minutes. That kind of damage could be repaired, but not quickly.

There were other ways to reach the peninsula, of course. A string of bridges crossed the vile salt swamp of the Syvash, and it was Fatima’s job to destroy those, one after the other. Both arms of the operation would entail considerable casualties, she knew. But that would be true of anything they did. The knyazya would not be considerate enough to keep all their military assets at a safe distance from all civilians.

Ruslan would be no use on either trip, and it would be foolish to risk him. That meant he stayed behind in the dacha. Maria, too, would be totally useless, so she stayed. Nadia might or might not be able to help, but Fatima didn’t trust Maria unsupervised by anyone but Ruslan, so Nadia was left to babysit until both of her siblings came back. Then they would all pack into the cars and hightail it across the Kerch Strait to the east, destroying the last bridge into the peninsula behind them. With any luck, the wreckage would block access to shipping to and from the Sea of Azov, to the northeast.

With even more luck, the area’s oprichnik enforcer would be too slow to react in time, and be trapped in the peninsula behind them. But nobody was counting on that. After today, it would be guerrilla war around the clock. Nadia wasn’t sure she was ready for that, or ever would be. Too late now.

She looked up from the map, and frowned. Ruslan was up in one of the bedrooms, reading, last she checked, and Maria had been in the kitchen eating a pampushka and smoking. Now the kitchen was deserted, the cigarette stubbed out in an empty glass. Where had the girl gone? Nadia didn’t trust her brother’s concubine much further than Fatima did.

She looked outside; the third car was still there, and empty. The basement door was still latched, with no light shining through. Which left upstairs—from which, now that she was listening, she thought she could hear the faintest hint of quiet conversation …

She trod slowly and carefully up the stairs, hardly even breathing. There were in fact voices coming from Ruslan’s hole, his and hers, but the door was thick wood, and shut. All Nadia could make out was the general cadence of Russian. No surprise there; Maria was learning English, but far from fluent. Nadia crept closer, and put her ear to the door, just in time for the conversation to cease. She waited a long time, perhaps thirty seconds, before she heard something again, just a murmur, in a female voice. Too low to catch. Damn it.

Well. She was not going to skulk and hide and wonder. She knocked once, then pushed the door open without waiting for a response. Ruslan looked up with an expression of utter horror, then winced and grunted. Maria was kneeling on the bed behind him, her hands on his shoulders, where her fingers had just dug into suddenly taut muscle. She looked up at Nadia with a slight frown. “What? Has something happened?”

Nadia made a point of looking both of them over before answering. Ruslan was perched on the very edge of the bed, his face flushed a brilliant red, his eyes fixed on the floor. Maria was blithe, her fingers kneading more delicately now but still at work. They were, at least, both fully dressed. “What are you doing?” Nadia asked her.

“He is tense,” Maria said, as if that explained it all. “He needs to relax.”

“He is always tense,” Nadia told her, “and it has not killed him yet. And it doesn’t look like you’re helping.”

“I’m not finished yet,” she pointed out, and moved outward to Ruslan’s deltoids. The boy’s face was pale and determined now, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down convulsively. Like a soldier in the trenches, preparing to go up and over.

“I don’t think Yuri would approve of this.”

“Is that so?” A faint, insolent smile on her face.

“Yes. In fact, I think you have done enough. If you relax him any more, his heart will give out. I think we should talk, the two of us. Alone.” Ruslan’s face melted into a pathetic smile, and he flicked a furtive glance of gratitude her way.

“If you insist,” Maria said, and let go. She got up from the bed, patting Ruslan on the shoulder in passing. The boy flinched at the contact, but his eyes watched her. Nadia grabbed Maria’s arm and hauled her out onto the landing, shutting the door firmly behind her. “You don’t need to yank like that, you know.”

Nadia’s only reply was a brusque and silent wave towards the stairs. She didn’t say a word until they were both down in the kitchen, where the cigarette smoke still lingered. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Having a very boring conversation, I think. I see that you are afraid. It is bad that I am sleeping with your brother, but now you think I might sleep with someone else and that is worse. Is that it?”

“I don’t even know why you’re here with us in the first place.”

“Not to sleep with Ruslan, I can tell you that. I doubt he’d last a—“

“Don’t evade the question. Why are you here?”

Maria’s whole face dripped with irony and contempt. “When I had such a wonderful life before, driving back and forth through the desert? This life is more entertaining, and maybe more profitable. I don’t know yet. We will see.”

“We’re not in this for profit.”

“You are not in this for profit. But you are not in charge. Not all the time. I wanted to go to Iraq, you know. Maybe that will still happen. Or maybe there is something just as good here, another way for the Karimi family to gain. I will not mind if there is not. I am sixteen, and half my memories are in cars in the middle of nowhere.”

“Fine. But keep your hands off of Ruslan.”

“Or what?” The edge of her mouth twitched up. “You will tell Yuri? He will only be upset that he could not see Ruslan’s face while I did it.”

She was probably right, damn her. “You know, I could kill you. Very easily.”

“But you won’t. You are a good girl, and it’s very important for you to think you are better than the rest of us. Also it would make more problems with Yuri than you already have, and you don’t want that. Anyway, you are not in charge and I have no reason to listen to you.” She looked up into Nadia’s face. “Are we done now? Is there anything else?”

Before Nadia could answer, they heard the sound of an engine. Fatima’s car was rumbling down the rutted driveway at nerve-wracking speed. She hesitated, and looked at Maria, whose eyebrows lifted in challenge. Well?

Nadia pushed herself off the kitchen counter to meet her sister at the door. One look at her face as she got out of the car convinced Nadia not to say anything; Fatima was still hung over from Mister Higgins, and they didn’t need her blowing up the dacha, or just trying to gouge Maria’s eyes out with her fingernails. They were still on a time crunch.

“The bridges are down,” Fatima announced. “It wasn’t hard. No cops or anything, and I don’t think anybody was paying attention to the way I went. Now what’s keeping shithead? He should have been back first.”

“He hasn’t reported any delays.”

“Got distracted by something shiny,” Fatima said with disgust. “Any of those donut things left? Might as well eat while we’re waiting.” Maria tossed her the greasy paper bag of pampushky from the counter. “Thanks.” She stuffed one in her mouth, and said around a mouthful of fried dough, “Rus hiding out upstairs?”

“Relaxing in his room,” Maria said carelessly, and fished out a pampushka for herself. Neither girl appeared to notice Nadia’s death glare.

They waited for a long time—long enough for Nadia to grudgingly let go of her anger long enough to sit down and fish the last ice-cold, slightly stale pastry out of the bag. It would have been better with coffee. Ruslan came down a bit later, skirting Maria like a snake in the grass, and got a soda and some chips out of their diminishing snack bag on the kitchen floor. He went over to the couch to eat them.

“Seriously, where the hell is he?” Fatima demanded, a few minutes later. “Did he get lost? All he had to do was drive down the damn highway and burn it behind him. Straight shot.”

“I don’t know,” Nadia said mechanically. She started to reach for her phone for the time, then remembered she’d smashed it and thrown it away, same as the others. They had only one phone now, left in the car by one of the terrorists they’d plundered before the prison raid. Nobody would try to track them through that.

Another fifteen minutes passed before they heard another engine rumbling, and jumped to their feet. Yuri’s truck—naturally he’d picked the biggest, though his feet could hardly reach the pedals—came sauntering insolently down the drive, in no apparent hurry. All four of them were out the door and headed for the other trucks before he pulled up to the dacha. The oprichnik was probably getting the news of their attack now, and preparing countermeasures. They needed to get out of the Crimea fast.

Yuri’s door popped open, and he hopped down to the ground, with the smile Nadia recognized at once as portending complete and final disaster. He had not just gone off-task this time; no, he had gone off-task and was proud of it. She flinched at the sight of that grin, and the way he flung his arms out in welcome did nothing to reassure her. “Your boy is back from kicking ass!” he crowed.

“Great,” Fatima said. “Now get back in the damn truck and turn it around.”

“Sure. In just a second. I’ve got a little surprise for my sister first. It’s almost her birthday, remember? Barely two weeks left!”

“If you went shopping on the way back, boy, I am going to whoop—“

“It wasn’t exactly shopping,” Yuri replied slyly. “It was just a little opportunity that came up, so I snagged it.”

Nadia sighed. “Yuri, just let us know what you’ve done this time so we can get started repairing the damage.”

“Oh, I caused plenty of damage. About twenty klicks. But this isn’t damage. Might even save lives.” He ducked back into the truck and said in Russian, “Okay, you can come on out, honey. It’s all right, they won’t hurt you.” Several seconds passed, and he pulled his head back out to say, “Sorry, I guess we’re feeling a little shy here. Can’t really blame her. C’mere, dammit!”

“Yuri,” Ruslan said, “we don’t have time for … oh my god!”

Fatima slapped her forehead. “Of course. You’re getting yourself a damn harem. How thoughtful. Happy birthday, sis.”

Yuri had dragged a girl about their own age, pale and blonde and plainly terrified, in a conservative brown dress with a white collar and apron over it. It looked like the uniform Nadia had worn for school back in Guryev. “Her name’s Polina. Polina, this is my family.” The girl’s eyes wobbled over them, taking them in. Nadia thought she might be hyperventilating. She spared a glance for Maria, but the girl looked more amused than anything else.

Whatever this was, it was better to get it over with. “Explain, Yuri. Now.”

“Ran into her at the last station on the line, just as I was winding down. I think she was headed back to boarding school or something. Had a couple of dudes in suits, and they drew on me, but I managed to plug ‘em both before the halo really wore off.”

“Oh, fuck me!” Fatima said, grabbing her hair through her headscarf.

“So then she starts screaming about how her dad is the military commander of Sevastopol or whatever, and I say cool, hop in! Had to persuade her a bit, but she listened, didn’t you, cutie?” He pinched her cheek, and she shrieked.

Nadia felt like shrieking too. “A hostage? You’re taking hostages? You didn’t … you didn’t even consult us about this? Damn you, Yuri!”

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Try to see the big picture here, sis. She had a backpack with some paper in it, so I had her write a note saying that we’d give her back as soon as the Erbals were set free. And that we’d mail Daddy her fingers if they messed with us. Oh, and then I had her take a selfie with my piece in her face, and set the phone down on it for a paperweight. I figure that ought to do it.”

She felt something building up inside her as he bragged, a feeling like hot bile churning up her throat. Her hands clenched at her side. His voice faded in her hearing, and the bare bushes and gravel of the drab little driveway dissolved into a blur as her eyes focused on his smug little face. This was it, she thought. This was what would finally drive her to murder. It had been a long time coming.

But she was only starting to think about going for his throat when a dark mass lunged across her field of view and knocked Yuri to the ground. Polina pressed herself back against the car; Nadia assumed she made some kind of noise as well, but it was lost against the incoherent scream of rage coming from the thing on top of Yuri. It took her a moment to look around and realize that it was Ruslan, and that he was punching her brother repeatedly in the face.

Looking back on that moment later, it was unclear to Nadia whether she was just too startled to intervene sooner, or if she hadn’t wanted to. Either way, Ruslan got a fair number of hits in on Yuri, who massed about half his weight, before Fatima stepped in. Long enough that his scream had resolved into distinct chunks of profanity and perfectly fair accusations of selfishness and stupidity. Fatima had to work at it to drag him off, and Maria wound up stepping in to help, followed by Nadia when that didn’t do it either. Even with three of them, it was hard.

Yuri was a groaning, bloody mess on the driveway; his girlfriend bent over to hoist him to his feet while Fatima talked Ruslan down again. That left Nadia to try and calm down the girl Polina, who still looked very close to passing out. She managed to get her back into the car seat and secured with the seatbelt, then turned back to hear Fatima explaining to Ruslan that he should leave the repeated face-punches to other people, whose knuckles could be more easily healed.

“Now we have to stop and release her somewhere,” Nadia started, but Fatima interrupted at once.

“No way. There’s going to be mad heat already without her squealing on us. Which she will, the second we let her go.”

Nadia began to marshal her counter-arguments, and realized she had none. Of course the girl would sound the alarm. Why wouldn’t she? Nadia certainly would, in her place. They could only take Polina with them. And they had to move now; the oprichnik would be twice as angry when he heard.

Yuri had recovered enough to start shouting insults at Ruslan, but Maria was already shoving him into the passenger seat of his truck, and he didn’t seem to have the strength to resist. Nadia looked at Fatima, who shrugged helplessly with half her body while the other half kept holding back the panting Ruslan. “From now on,” she said, “he’s escorted on every mission. That’s all I got, right now.”

“Agreed,” Nadia said as she headed for Fatima’s SUV. The sooner they left, the better her chances of living to see her thirteenth birthday for real.