Dangerous Women

by Unknown

  “Impossible,” answered the female voice. “That account has been settled.”

  Etri turned to me and shrugged. “I am sorry.”

  “Wait,” I said. “May I speak to him?”

  “In a moment.”

  We waited. Thomas appeared from the doorway to the bedroom dressed in a black terry-cloth bathrobe. He’d just gotten out of the shower. Thomas was maybe half an inch under six feet tall, and there wasn’t an inch of his body that didn’t scream sex symbol. His eyes were a shade of deep crystalline blue, and his dark hair hung to his wide shoulders. My body did what it always did around him, and started screaming at me to make babies. I ignored it. Mostly.

  “Molly,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  “Nothing a bucket of aspirin won’t help,” I said. “Um. Are you okay?”

  He blinked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I thought … you know. You’d been captured as a spy.”

  “Well, sure,” he said.

  “I thought they would, uh. Make an example of you?”

  He blinked again. “Why would they do that?”

  The door to the bedroom opened again, and a female svartalf appeared. She looked a lot like Etri—tiny and beautiful, though she had long silver hair instead of a cueball. She was wearing what might have been Thomas’s shirt, and it hung down almost to her ankles. She had a decidedly … smug look about her. Behind her, I saw several other sets of wide, dark eyes peer out of the shadowy bedchamber.

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh. You, uh. You made a deal.”

  Thomas smirked. “It’s a tough, dirty job …”

  “And one that is not yet finished,” said the female svartalf. “You are ours until dawn.”

  Thomas looked from me to the bedroom and back and spread his hands. “You know how it is, Molly. Duty calls.”

  “Um,” I said. “What do you want me to tell Justine?”

  Again he gave me a look of near incomprehension. “The truth. What else?”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Justine said as we were walking out. “I was afraid they’d have starved him.”

  I blinked. “Your boyfriend is banging a roomful of elfgirls and you’re happy about it?”

  Justine tilted her head back and laughed. “When you’re in love with an incubus, it changes your viewpoint a little, I think. It isn’t as though this is something new. I know how he feels about me, and he needs to feed to be healthy. So what’s the harm?” She smirked. “And besides. He’s always ready for more.”

  “You’re a very weird person, Justine.”

  Andi snorted, and nudged me with her shoulder in a friendly way. She’d recovered her dress and the shoes she liked. “Look who’s talking.”

  After everyone was safe home, I walked from Waldo’s apartment to the nearest parking garage. I found a dark corner, sat down, and waited. Lea shimmered into being about two hours later and sat down beside me.

  “You tricked me,” I said. “You sent me in there blind.”

  “Indeed. Just as Lara did her brother—except that my agent succeeded where hers failed.”

  “But why? Why send us in there?”

  “The treaty with the Fomor could not be allowed to conclude,” she said. “If one nation agreed to neutrality with them, a dozen more would follow. The Fomor would be able to divide the others and contend with them one by one. The situation was delicate. The presence of active agents was intended to disrupt its equilibrium—to show the Fomor’s true nature in a test of fire.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that?” I asked.

  “Because you would neither have trusted nor believed me, obviously,” she said.

  I frowned at her. “You should have told me anyway.”

  “Do not be ridiculous, child.” Lea sniffed. “There was no time to humor your doubts and suspicions and theories and endless questions. Better to give you a simple prize upon which to focus—Thomas.”

  “How did you know I would find the bomb?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Bomb?” She shook her head. “I did not know what was happening in any specific sense. But the Fomor are betrayers. Ever have they been, ever will they be. The only question is what form their treachery will take. The svartalves had to be shown.”

  “How did you know I would discover it?”

  “I did not,” she said. “But I know your mentor. When it comes to meddling, to unearthing awkward truths, he has taught you exceedingly well.” She smiled. “You have also learned his aptitude for taking orderly situations and reducing them to elemental chaos.”

  “Meaning what?” I demanded.

  Her smile was maddeningly smug. “Meaning that I was confident that whatever happened, it would not include the smooth completion of the treaty.”

  “But you could have done everything I did.”

  “No, child,” Lea said. “The svartalves would never have asked me to be their guest at the reception. They love neatness and order. They would have known my purposes were not orderly ones.”

  “And they didn’t know that about me?”

  “They cannot judge others except by their actions,” Lea said. “Hence their treaty with the Fomor, who had not yet crossed their paths. My actions have shown me to be someone who must be treated with caution. You had … a clean record with them. And you are smoking hot. All is well, your city saved, and now a group of wealthy, skilled, and influential beings owes you a favor.” She paused for a moment and then leaned toward me slightly. “Perhaps some expression of gratitude is in order.”

  “From me, to you?” I asked. “For that?”

  “I think your evening turned out quite well,” Lea said her eyebrows raised. “Goodness, but you are a difficult child. How he manages to endure your insolence I will never know. You probably think you have earned some sort of reward from me.” She rose and turned to go.

  “Wait!” I said suddenly.

  She paused.

  I think my heart had stopped beating. I started shaking, everywhere. “You said that you know Harry. Not knew him. Know. Present tense.”

  “Did I?”

  “You said you don’t know how he manages to put up with me. Manages. Present tense.”

  “Did I?”

  “Auntie,” I asked her, and I could barely whisper. “Auntie … is Harry … is he alive?”

  Lea turned to me very slowly, and her eyes glinted with green, wicked knowledge. “I did not say that he was alive, child. And neither should you. Not yet.”

  I bowed my head and started crying. Or laughing. Or both. I couldn’t tell. Lea didn’t wait around for it. Emotional displays made her uncomfortable.

  Harry. Alive.

  I hadn’t killed him.

  Best reward ever.

  “Thank you, Auntie,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

  Carrie Vaughn

  New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn is the author of a wildly popular series of novels detailing the adventures of Kitty Norville, a radio personality who also happens to be a werewolf and who runs a late-night call-in radio advice show for supernatural creatures. The Kitty books include Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Kitty Goes to Washington, Kitty Takes a Holiday, Kitty and the Silver Bullet, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand, Kitty Raises Hell, Kitty’s House of Horrors, Kitty Goes to War, and Kitty’s Big Trouble. Her other novels include Voices of Dragons, her first venture into young adult territory, and a fantasy, Discord’s Apple. Vaughn’s short work has appeared in Lightspeed, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Subterranean, Inside Straight (a Wild Cards novel), Realms of Fantasy, Jim Baen’s Universe, Paradox, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and elsewhere. Her most recent books include the novels After the Golden Age and Steel; a collection, Straying from the Path; a new Kitty novel, Kitty Steals the Show; and a collection of her Kitty stories, Kitty’s Greatest Hits. Coming up is another new Kitty novel, Kitty Rocks the House. She lives in Colorado.

  In the vivid and compelling story that follows, she takes us to th
e front lines in Russia during the darkest days of World War II for the story of a young woman flying the most dangerous of combat missions, who is determined to do her duty as a soldier and keep flying them, even if it kills her—which it very well might.

  RAISA STEPANOVA

  My Dear Davidya:

  If you are reading this, it means I have died. Most likely been killed fighting in service of the glorious homeland. At least I hope so. I have this terrible nightmare that I am killed, not in the air fighting Fascists, but because a propeller blade falls off just as I am walking under the nose of my Yak and cuts my head off. People would make a good show of pretending to mourn, but they’d be laughing behind my back. My dead back, so I won’t notice, but still, it’s the principle of the thing. There’d certainly be no Hero of the Soviet Union for me, would there? Never mind, we will assume I perished gloriously in battle.

  Please tell all the usual to Mama and Da, that I am happy to give my life in defense of you and them and Nina and the homeland, as we all are, and that if I must die at all I’m very happy to do it while flying. So don’t be sad for me. I love you.

  Very Sincerely: Raisa

  “Raisa!” Inna called from outside the dugout. “We’re up! Let’s go!” “Just a minute!” She scribbled a last few lines.

  P.S. My wingman, Inna, will be very upset if I am killed. She’ll think it’s her fault, that she didn’t cover me. (It won’t be true because she’s a very good pilot and wingman.) I think you should make an effort to comfort her at the very first opportunity. She’s a redhead. You’ll like her. Really like her, I mean. I keep a picture of you in our dugout and she thinks you’re handsome. She’ll weep on your shoulder and it will be very romantic, trust me.

  “Raisa!”

  Raisa folded the page into eighths and stuffed it under the blanket on her cot, where it was sure to be found if she didn’t come back. David’s name and regiment were clearly written on the outside, and Inna would know what to do with it. She grabbed her coat and helmet and ran with her wingman to the airfield, where their planes waited.

  The pair of them flew out of Voronezh on a routine patrol and spotted enemy planes even before reaching the front. Raisa breathed slow to keep her heart from racing, letting the calm spread to her hands to steady them, where they rested on the stick.

  “Raisa, you see that? Two o’clock?” Inna’s voice cracked over the radio. She flew behind and to the right—Raisa didn’t have to look to know she was there.

  “Yes.” Raisa squinted through the canopy and counted. More planes, dark spots gliding against a hazy sky, seemed to appear as she did so. They were meant to be patrolling for German reconnaissance planes, which only appeared one or two at a time. This—this was an entire squadron.

  The profile of the planes clarified—twin propellers, topside canopy, long fuselage painted with black crosses. She radioed back to Inna, “Those are Junkers! That’s a bombing run!”

  She counted sixteen bombers—their target could have been any of the dozens of encampments, supply depots, or train stations along this section of the front. They probably weren’t expecting any resistance at all.

  “What do we do?” Inna said.

  This was outside their mission parameters, and they were so far outnumbered as to be ridiculous. On the other hand, what else were they supposed to do? The Germans would have dropped their bombs before the 586th could scramble more fighters.

  “What do you think?” Raisa answered. “We stop them!”

  “With you!”

  Raisa throttled up and pushed forward on the stick. The engine rumbled and shook the canopy around her. The Yak streaked forward, the sky a blur above her. A glance over her shoulder, and she saw Inna’s fighter right behind her.

  She aimed at the middle of the German swarm. Individual bombers became very large very quickly, filling the sky in front of her. She kept on, like an arrow, until she and Inna came within range.

  The bombers scattered, as if they’d been blown apart by a wind. Planes at the edges of the formation peeled off, and ones in the middle climbed and dived at random. Clearly, they hadn’t expected a couple of Russian fighters to shoot at them from nowhere.

  She picked one that had the misfortune to evade right into her path, and focused her sights on it. She fired a series of rounds from the 20mm cannon, missed when the bomber juked out of range. She cursed.

  Rounds blazed above her canopy; a gunner, shooting back. She banked hard, right and up, keeping a watch out for collisions. Dicey, maneuvering with all this traffic. The Yak was fast—she could fly circles around the Junkers and wasn’t terribly worried about getting shot. But she could easily crash into one of them by not paying close enough attention. All she and Inna really had to do was stop the group from reaching its target, but if she could bring down one or two of them in the meantime … One second at a time, that was the only way to handle the situation. Stay alive so she could do some good.

  The enemy gunner fired at her again, then Raisa recognized the sound of another cannon firing. A fireball expanded and burned out at the corner of her vision—a Junker, one of its engines breaking apart. The plane lurched, off balance until it fell in an arc, trailing smoke. It waggled once or twice, the pilot trying to regain control, but then the bomber started spinning and it was all over.

  Inna cried over the radio, “Raisa! I got him, I got him!” It was her first kill in battle.

  “Excellent! Only fifteen more to go!”

  “Raisa Ivanovna, you’re terrible.”

  The battle seemed to drag, but surely only seconds had passed since they scattered the formation. They couldn’t engage for much longer before they’d run out of ammunition, not to mention fuel. The last few shots had to count, then she and Inna ought to run. After those last few shots, of course.

  Raisa caught another target and banked hard to follow it. The bomber climbed, but it was slow, and she was right on it. By now her nerves were singing and instinct guided her more than reason. She squeezed hard on the trigger before the enemy was fully in her crosshairs, but it worked, because the Junker slid into the line of fire just as her shots reached it. She put holes across its wings and across its engine, which sparked and began pouring smoke. The plane could not survive, and sure enough, the nose tipped forward, the whole thing falling out of control.

  Inna cheered for her over the radio, but Raisa was already hunting her next target. So many to choose from. The two fighters were surrounded, and Raisa should have been frightened, but she could only think about shooting the next bomber. And the next.

  The Junkers struggled to return to formation. The loose, straggling collection had dropped five hundred meters from its original altitude. If the fighters could force down the entire squadron, what a prize that would be! But no, they were running, veering hard from the fighters, struggling to escape.

  Bombs fell from the lead plane’s belly, and the others followed suit. The bombs detonated on empty forest, their balloons of smoke rising harmlessly. They’d scared the bombers into dropping their loads early.

  Raisa smiled at the image.

  With nothing left in their bomb bays and no reason to continue, the Junkers peeled off and circled back to the west. Lighter and faster now, they’d be more difficult for the fighters to catch. But they wouldn’t be killing any Russians today, either.

  Raisa radioed, “Inna, let’s get out of here.”

  “Got it.”

  With Inna back on her wing, she turned her Yak to the east, and home.

  “That makes three confirmed kills total, Stepanova. Two more, and you’ll be an ace.”

  Raisa was grinning so hard, she squinted. “We could hardly miss, with so many targets to pick from,” she said. Inna rolled her eyes a little, but was also beaming. She’d bagged her first kill, and though she was doing a very good job of trying to act humble and dignified now, right after they’d landed and parked she’d run screaming up to Raisa and knocked her over with a big hug. Lots of dead Germans and
they’d both walked away from the battle. They couldn’t have been much more successful than that.

  Commander Gridnev, a serious young man with a face like a bear, was reviewing a typed piece of paper at his desk in the largest dugout at the 101st Division’s airfield. “The squadron’s target was a rail station. A battalion of infantry was there, waiting for transport. They’d have been killed. You saved a lot of lives.”

  Even better. Tremendous. Maybe Davidya had been there and she’d saved him. She could brag about it in her next letter.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Good work, girls. Dismissed.”

  Out of the commander’s office, they ran back home, stumbling in their oversized men’s flight suits and jackets and laughing.

  A dozen women shared the dugout, which if you squinted in dim light seemed almost homelike, with wrought iron cots, wool bedding, whitewashed walls, and wooden tables with a few vases of wildflowers someone had picked for decorations. The things always wilted quickly—no sunlight reached inside. After a year of this—moving from base to base, from better conditions to worse and back again—they’d gotten used to the bugs and rats and rattling of distant bombing. You learned to pay attention to and enjoy the wilted wildflowers, or you went mad.

  Though that happened sometimes, too.

  The second best thing about being a pilot (the first being the flying itself) was the better housing and rations. And the vodka allotment for flying combat missions. Inna and Raisa pulled chairs up close to the stove to drive away the last of the chill from flying at altitude and tapped their glasses together in a toast.

  “To victory,” Inna said, because it was tradition and brought luck.

  “To flying,” Raisa said, because she meant it.

  At dinner—runny stew and stale bread cooked over the stove—Raisa awaited the praise of her comrades and was ready to bask in their admiration—two more kills and she’d be an ace; who was a better fighter pilot, or a better shot, than she? But it didn’t happen quite like that.