Secondhand Sorcery

“This still doesn’t solve our main problem,” Maria said as she came out of the bathroom with a towel around her hair. A sizable cloud of steam drifted out before she closed the door again.

“You are my main problem now,” Nadia snipped back—but she kept an eye on the stairs, in case any more of the Scions felt like coming up to check on them.

“What are you talking about? That little scene in the park? I was only bluffing, you know.” Her smile had to be calculated for the absolute maximum level of condescension. “You take everything too seriously.”

There was no point in wasting time on retorts—not when the shower was open now, and a second towel on the rack. But she made sure to bump against Maria’s shoulder, hard, on her way in. A petty little victory was still a victory.

She turned the tap as hot as it would go—then hissed, flinched back, and turned it a little lower after all. It was probably a mistake to leave Maria unsupervised, but now that her stomach was reasonably full and she wasn’t shivering in the wind, her next priority was to become clean, even if the only clothes she had to change back into were too big, donations from a girl a couple of years older than her. Which was itself concerning; why were they being so nice? Christian charity didn’t usually go this far.

Then again, it might not be Christian charity at all. She thought she heard the droning hymns starting up again, but couldn’t be sure over the noise of the blessedly hot water. Certainly she couldn’t make out any words. ‘Anatarkhont’ Pavel had been vague when she asked what his sect actually believed, saying only that the official Church didn’t like them very much and that they had to keep a low profile. As soon as the first few of his parishioners arrived, he’d retreated with them into his closed study, and settled into a long, low conversation.

Every person to come in after had disappeared into the same study—which had to be getting cramped by now—though not before asking Nadia and Maria if there was anything they could do for them. Offering them more of the priest’s food, inviting them to use his shower. As if they really were at home here.

Well, that was their business. Hers was her family, and she couldn’t think of a good way to ask these people to invite in three more beggar-children, one of them obviously ill, all hanging out in a random truck she couldn’t find again. They’d been gone for an awfully long time now, and she didn’t like to think of all the things that might have happened in their absence. If she could only get up the nerve to ask for more food for the road, she might make her way back to the truck, and they could tackle the bigger problem of Ruslan.

She washed the last of the shampoo out of her hair, and with great regret turned off the tap. Maria was waiting for her outside the bathroom. “You took long enough.”

“No longer than you. Are you ready to go?”

“Past ready. I don’t trust these people. Have you noticed the way they look at us?”

“We’re not members of their church, and they are used to being treated with suspicion. Of course they keep their eyes on us.”

“But that’s just it—they don’t look suspicious. They keep making these soppy faces at me when they think I’m not looking.”

“’Soppy’?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. Like big puppies. Or cultists, which they are.”

“We have no idea what they believe,” Nadia said, without conviction. They were very nice people, but also very strange. A little too friendly and cheerful. Nadia herself had accepted their food with some misgivings, in case it was drugged or poisoned. “Anyway, we should go. You had a point about Yuri.”

The prayer meeting, or whatever it was, was finally finished, and about fifteen people were gathered around the priest’s living room while several others made tea and prepared snacks in his kitchen. The latter group looked over as they came off the landing, wearing their new, clean, ridiculously baggy clothes. Father Pavel (what was an ‘Anatarkhont’, anyway?) rose from his sofa to intercept them as they looked around for their jackets.

“Your old clothes are in the wash now,” he told them. “I have a modern dryer, and it will not take long before they are clean and dry.”

The girls exchanged a look; was this a deliberate delay? Maria took the lead. “You have been very kind, but we have friends waiting for us, and they must be worried. We need to leave soon.”

“I’m sure I, or one of my parishioners, can drive you wherever you wish to go.”

“That’s not necessary,” Nadia told him. If all this was a ruse to find out where the others were, she wasn’t falling for it. “We couldn’t put you to that much trouble.”

“What trouble?” he said. “We gather here from all over town; it might take one of us a block or two out of his way, little more. Would you like a little more to eat?”

“We might take something for our friends,” she told him, to put off the subject of rides. “They will be hungry too.”

“Of course,” he said, and hurried off to the kitchen. “We have plenty, and you can take a good supply with you, by car. Far more than you could on foot.”

“He’s being pushy,” Maria muttered in her ear as she stood in the hall, dumbfounded. “We should leave now, and forget the rest of it.”

“You were ready to abandon us because I wouldn’t break into a drugstore, and now you’re freaking out because he’s giving us too much?”

“Why do you keep going on about that? It’s not my fault you’re too gullible. But no, I’d rather not get tied up and have my throat cut to summon whatever insane thing they believe in.”

“Now you’re being stupid,” Nadia scolded, though she wished the scenario wasn’t so easy to picture. She went into the kitchen to see if she could get some more tea; a hot drink would make the outdoors easier to face. The priest was busy stuffing plastic bags full of bread, crackers, cheese, fruit, and whatever else came to hand, but one of his followers got her a cup.

Even that was unnerving; the lady’s gaze did seem to linger on her a bit longer and more often than necessary, and not in the way you’d expect someone to look at some rag-bag their pastor scraped off the sidewalk for pity. The woman should have either been watching her like a hungry cat to be sure she didn’t steal anything, or giving her pamphlets and trying to save her soul. Or else studiously ignoring her. Instead it was as if she couldn’t help staring.

Suddenly the front door slammed open behind her; Nadia yelped, dropped her tea, and took cover behind the refrigerator. Peering around its corner she saw two people, a short, dark-haired woman and an intimidatingly large and brawny man, step inside. They hadn’t bothered to close the door, and the wind set the woman’s long black coat flapping around her legs as she looked over the kitchen and living room. “Who is in charge here?” she said.

The priest dropped his bags on the counter and ran over to speak with her. He spoke softly but urgently, and Nadia caught nothing but his introducing himself and the fierce cadence of the woman’s reply. The man behind her said nothing, and presently shut his eyes. It fell to one of the parishioners to squeeze in behind him and finally shut the door; he appeared not to notice, and might have fallen asleep on his feet.

As for Maria, she was already edging slowly down the hall, her eyes on the door connecting the living room to the priest’s small backyard. It seemed like a good idea, though Nadia couldn’t guess how she was going to use it inconspicuously. As nonchalantly as she could Nadia reached out and grabbed a couple of the plastic bags full of food, then sidled towards the same door. Annoyingly, half the eyes in the room were still on her, and not on the rude little woman and her pet giant who’d just crashed their cult meeting.

Said little woman then shoved the priest out of her way and stomped down the hall to confront Maria. She pulled a small metal object out of her coat and brandished it at the girl. “Do you recognize this?”

Maria, clearly at a loss, glanced back at Nadia, who tried not to meet her gaze, before looking back down at whatever-it-was. “It’s a kind of flute?” she guessed.

The little woman tch’ed and pushed past her without another word, her eyes fixing on Nadia instead. “What about you?” she said, holding it up.

She looked at it. It did indeed resemble a small wind instrument, but with too many fussy little keys and valves. Not quite the same as Keisha’s ‘piccolo,’ but close enough. “It is a versatile resonant impulse launcher,” she said, giving the last four words in English. She already had her wall up and ready to go, if she needed to hurt this woman to get away.

The woman nodded, her jaw clenching as she looked Nadia over. “You know it has been illegal to possess this device for the past four and a half years?”

“No. But I can believe it.”

“It is. Punishable by summary execution.” She tucked it away in her coat. “You are Nadezhda Voronina Marshall?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Je m’apelle Therese Bechard,” the woman said, stepping closer to get into Nadia’s personal space. As she was quite short and Nadia tall for her age, they were nearly at eye level, but her raw anger made it intimidating. “The man behind me is Aare, and you are wasting valuable time. I have just shown you, as well as I can, that I am not an agent of the Russian state. Where are the others?”

“This young lady came in with her,” Father Pavel offered, putting a hand on Maria’s shoulder. Maria shook it off at once.

“Fatima, is it?” The woman wheeled around. “Are you playing stupid?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maria replied, stuffing her hands in her pockets.

“You would both be dead now if not for our intervention. Do you have any idea how much money—and blood! So much blood!—we have spent to keep the Lamprey from devouring you and your family? How much we have lost to save you from your own bungling?”

Maria shrugged. “How much? And what is a lamprey? A kind of fish, isn’t it?”

Nadia waved a hand to get the woman’s attention. “I don’t understand either. Could you please tell us who you are and what you are doing here?”

The woman’s lips were very thin now, her dark eyes hard. “Yesterday you and your family executed a mad, ambitious plan to sabotage Russian operations in the Crimea, brilliantly deciding to leave an isolated twenty-kilometer bridge as your last and only way off the peninsula before you came blundering into this region. At least one of you was injured in the process, possibly more. Possibly the two of you are the last survivors of your family, though I do not think so.

“My colleagues and I, who have been working discreetly and professionally to undermine the regime in this region for several years, were forced to expend most of our assets to distract the state security apparatus from hunting you down and killing you. My husband was among the dead, less than twenty-four hours ago.” Her eyes were bright, the voice tight, but the tears did not spill and she did not stop talking. “It is now only a matter of time before the Lamprey regroups and kills the lot of you, thereby wasting everything we did. Unless you very quickly develop some sense.”

“The Lamprey is the local oprichnik?”

“Yes. Very dangerous.”

“As dangerous as the man we killed yesterday?”

“You didn’t kill him. All our sources agree: the oprichnik for the Crimea was badly injured, but survives as of last night.”

Behind the woman’s back, Maria looked indignant—she’d shot the man herself—but didn’t speak up. Nadia was having trouble absorbing all this at once, but the woman wasn’t giving her time to think. “You know what Yuri can do, don’t you?”

“I have made myself very familiar with all four of you.”

“Then you know you will probably die, and get a lot of other people killed, if you do anything to threaten or frighten him. The longer I go without seeing him, the more likely he is to conclude we are hurt or in trouble, and do something impulsive. If you don’t let us go, there will be trouble.”

“Let you go? Idiot child, I am trying to save your life! If we had not alerted these people—if that man had not been in position to retrieve you when Aare detected your activity two hours ago—you would be running through the streets with dogs on your trail. Literal dogs. I hear you left two cars full of luggage at the bridge, including dirty clothing.”

“Dogs?” The night of that terrible first mission, sneaking through the ruins of Galata to cross over into Fatih, came back to her. “They brought trackers here?”

She nodded. “I saw several teams on our way over. The Lamprey is taking this very seriously.”

If there were dogs out now, would they be able to smell Yuri, Fatima, or Ruslan through the closed car windows? Assuming they were still there after all this time. God knew they were all smelly enough to track. Which meant it was time to decide, fast. “What was your name again?”

“I am Therese, and this is Aare,” she repeated with exaggerated patience. Aare still looked to be sleeping on his feet. “You are Nadia, and that is Fatima? Leaving the two boys to account for. You threatened me with Yuri, so Ruslan was injured. The healer, naturally.”

“That is Maria,” Nadia corrected. There seemed little point in lying, and besides, it was pleasant to see her face contort with fury. “She is a friend of Yuri’s who helps us out.”

Therese looked the girl over. “You trust her?”

“No, not at all. But she is with us for the moment.”

Therese shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Where are the other three? This place isn’t safe; the authorities know all about the Scions, even if they weren’t taking them very seriously until now. We need to move you to a more sheltered location.”

Nadia swallowed. This was it. If they had a better option, she wasn’t seeing it. “We left the others behind a store. I think it sold used clothing. I’m not sure if I can find the way back—do you know this town?”

“Of course not.” Therese grimaced, her eyes squeezing shut. “Do you have any way of contacting them?”

“No. Phones could be tracked.”

Therese stamped her foot. “How are you even still alive? You—the priest!”

“Anatarkhont Pavel,” he primly reminded her.

“I don’t care! Which of your people know this town best? Do any of them frequent used clothing stores? Yes? Anyone?” An elderly lady raised her hand. “Good. You will lead the way with that girl and Aare. I will follow with Nadia in a separate car.” She clapped her hands. “Now, move!”

They were on the road inside of a minute, Anatarkhont Pavel stuffing his bags into their hands before Therese chivied them out the door. “Do you trust all those people?” she asked as Therese turned the ignition. “They all heard everything we said.”

“Possibly one is a spy, but I doubt it. They would not bother with keeping spies in a little place like this. The Scions are a joke.” She drummed her hands on the wheel as she waited for the old lady to back her car onto the road. “I don’t trust your friend, either. I only trust you a little more. We sacrifice security for speed.”

“What are you doing with those people, anyway?”

“We have been bankrolling that miserable little cult for years now.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“NATO. Not much, a half-million euros a year. Enough for them to outcompete the other local lunatics, and plant a mission in every town within five hundred kilometers of Krasnodar. Even some minor officials belong to the Scions now. Including a few of their clairvoyants.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know all about it,” Therese said, aggressively tailing the other car. “Pe—my late husband handled our interactions with them. He liked to talk.” Her voice caught on the last word, and she took several deep breaths before continuing. “But, in essence, they believe you are God.”

“What?”

She laughed and slapped the dashboard. “Yes. They think emissants come from heaven, or hell, or somewhere, to bring the apocalypse. All emissants, you see—not just the government’s. When the Lamprey’s government tried to crack down on them, it convinced them that she was one of the evil ones. Which makes you the solution, doesn’t it?”

“They … want the end of the world?”

“No. They want to be special. They want to escape from their boring lives, and for everything they do to mean something, even if it means disbelieving everything they can see or feel for themselves, and thinking the whole physical world is evil. They are fanatics—but useful fanatics. We get a tremendous amount of information from them. And, of course, they were ready and willing to welcome you. Damn it!” She pressed the horn. “Putain de merde! Does she not understand the concept of ‘hurry’?”

The lead car’s brake lights flashed, and it crawled to a stop at the side of the road. The passenger door opened to disgorge the hulking Aare, who stood up and pointed somewhere behind them. His eyes were shut.

“Oh, no,” Therese moaned. Nadia didn’t need to ask what she meant, or even turn around to look. Now that she was paying attention, she could hear (faintly, as from a great distance) a very familiar, odious, repetitive tune playing. Like something from a carnival ride.