Verena's Whistle: Varangian Descendants Book I

by K. Panikian

  “What if it surfaces and someone sees it?” Owen asked.

  “Right, so obviously we can’t leave it intact anywhere.” I thought fast. “Okay, let’s wrap it up in the tarps and we’ll burn it in the backyard at the house.”

  Julian stayed with Theo in the car and Owen and I ran for the bukavac’s body. We dragged a tarp over and tossed the head and torso onto it. Then we scrambled around and grabbed the severed legs and tail as well. By the time we had a tidy pile, we were both covered in gross, sticky creature blood. It smelled terrible, like fetid bog water, and now we smelled terrible too. We bundled up the tarp and stuffed it into the cargo area of the SUV.

  I jogged back to the lakeside and scuffed up the blood as much as possible with the snow, but after a minute I realized it was fruitless.

  “Maybe that couple will tell everyone it’s fake blood from the movie,” Owen offered and I hoped so. I had no other ideas.

  Julian drove us out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Theo took shallow breaths next to him and I sat in the backseat, rehashing the whole fight and everything we’d done wrong. I felt sick. Four of us and one bes, and it had almost killed Theo. How would we handle 20? We were in over our heads.

  Dark thoughts circulated in my mind and I stared at my hands, bloody and cold. My whistle hadn’t worked even a little. Was it not an offensive weapon after all? Theo was really hurt. If something happened to him, what would… I stopped that thought.

  Julian pulled into the parking lot of an urgent care center and I looked up, blinking. He turned to me in the back seat and said, “You and Owen stay here. You’re covered in blood. I’ll take him in. Keep your cell on.”

  I nodded at him and he walked around the front of the SUV to help Theo carefully out of passenger side. They walked, gingerly, into the emergency room. I watched until I couldn’t see them anymore and then took a ragged breath. Ugh, that smell permeated the whole SUV, even with the busted out windows.

  My phone rang and I looked down. The farmhouse. Of course.

  I cleared my throat and answered, “Hi, Uncle Alex.”

  “Verena, what happened?

  “We killed the bukavac in the lake. Theo’s hurt, but it’s not serious. Julian just took him to the hospital to get checked.”

  Uncle Alex sighed in relief. “I had a sudden fear in my chest. David was beside himself. I will tell him you are all okay, if a little wounded.”

  I liked that. A little wounded. I felt like I was balancing on a wire, our responsibilities on one side and my love for Theo and Julian on the other. How could we do this again?

  “Yes, just a little wounded,” I confirmed. I passed along a few more updates and then hung up.

  I bent over in the back seat, holding my stomach.

  “Are you hurt?” Owen asked urgently beside me. “I saw it hit you with its tail. Do you need to get checked out too?”

  I turned my head and not my body to answer him. “No, not hurt,” I said dully. “Just scared.”

  “Scared?” he asked. “You were fearless out there.”

  I thought about how to respond. “When it was happening, I wasn’t scared. I just wanted to kill it. It couldn’t survive. It would kill people and feed and kill again.” I paused. “No, I wasn’t scared then.”

  “And now?” Owen asked, his eyes kind and his hand hovered, like he wanted to touch me, but he wasn’t sure if he could.

  I gripped his hand and said, “And now all I can think about is what if.”

  “What if,” Owen mused and suddenly, I wasn’t scared anymore. All I could think about was him, sitting next to me in the back seat of this car, breathing the same air as me, his long fingers stroking mine. I stared at the dark hairs on his forearm, mesmerized.

  “What if,” I whispered again.

  My phone chimed. A message from Julian. “Nothing broken. Will be out soon.” I showed it to Owen and he smiled, letting go of my hand. “That’s good news,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I answered, feeling an immense wave of relief. “That’s good.”

  “You know,” Owen said, “we should grab some first aid stuff while we’re here.”

  “That’s a smart idea,” I answered, and texted Julian.

  “On it,” he answered back.

  I was suddenly exhausted. I leaned my head against my door frame. The cold air from the broken window cooled my flushed face. I watched cars pull in and out of the parking lot. The moon continued to shine brightly down on the snow. Next to me, Owen fiddled with his phone. I closed my eyes.

  The car door opened and a wash of colder air blew in. Theo sat in the front passenger seat and Julian started the car.

  “They wrapped my ribs,” Theo said, “but nothing’s broken. Just a bad bruise.”

  “I picked up a couple of first aid kids from the gift shop,” Julian added.

  I smiled at them, relieved and tired. “Let’s go home.”

  WHEN we got back to the house, Julian helped Theo into his bed and gave him his pain pills. When he came back out of room, his eyes were tired. “I know we need to talk about what happened, but I’m beat up and jet lagged. It can wait until morning.”

  I hugged him tightly and he shut his bedroom door.

  I went into the kitchen and started the electric kettle. I still felt wired and unhappy. I pulled out a mug from the cabinet and Owen walked into the room.

  “Do you want tea?” I asked and at his agreement, I picked up another mug. “It’s peppermint, if that’s okay?” He nodded again and sat on one of the counter stools.

  He was still covered in bukavac blood. I looked down at myself, so was I. It was flaking off my arms, gross. I washed my hands.

  “We need to burn the body,” I said.

  “It can wait for morning,” Owen answered.

  I steeped the tea and then sat beside him. His presence felt restful. He bent his head over his tea and his silky, brown hair fell over his forehead. Geez, silky? I huffed a laugh.

  “Feeling better?” he asked me.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  We sipped our tea.

  Chapter 13

  Ana was frustrated. She was frustrated with her husband, who backed out of their plans to cross-country ski today. She was frustrated with her mother who, when told about Sergei’s change of plans, unloaded a decade’s worth of marital annoyances with her own spouse onto Ana’s shoulders. Finally, she was frustrated with herself. What was she doing, trying to make plans with Sergei during his busy season at work? What was she doing, involving her mother in her problems with Sergei, like she didn’t know how Galina would immediately turn every irritation back onto herself and her own troubles in her second marriage?

  Ana pushed herself up the ski trail, her resentment giving her skis an extra boost.

  “I can’t believe you expect me to….” She thrust her poles into the crusty snow.

  “And then he….” She pushed off, digging her toes into her boots.

  “Why can’t you….” She pressed her knees in and her thighs out, gliding into a V pattern up the hill. Push and glide. Push and glide.

  After a while, the rhythm of her skis drowned out the voices in her head. She started to pay attention to the woods around her. She startled a fox from beneath a snowy log and they stared at each other for a brief moment in time. The fox’s liquid black eyes were onyx jewels in its white face. Ana caught her breath and marveled.

  This was why she was here. To marvel. This was why she wished Sergei could have come with her. He needed more marveling moments in his life. It was hard not to be a nag, but how could he have changed so much? In college, when they’d met, he’d been desperate to spend time with her. Now it took a calendar reminder, a sticky note on his desk, and a phone alarm to get him to meet her for an after-work walk around the neighborhood.

  Ana sighed. She felt too young to feel so old and jaded.

  She reached the summit of the trail and gazed down at the valley below. The river snaked its way through the valley, fro
zen here and flowing there with a sparkle. A metaphor for her life she decided, frozen here and flowing there.

  She planted her poles and pulled off her backpack, grabbing a water bottle and her phone. She took a sip of water and snapped a few pictures. She had no signal but she typed a message to Sergei anyway, knowing it would send as she descended the trail “Wish you were here.”

  She turned her skis and sucked in a breath. There was an animal in her path down the mountain. No, not an animal she decided. A yeti? What? It had shaggy fur that dragged in the snow, and a snout like a cross between a gorilla and a bear. It had horns – horns? – that curled on the top of its head. Ana wondered if she was having a stroke. It stared at her with beady, yellow eyes and then bared its fangs.

  She screamed. She didn’t know why; it felt appropriate. The yeti, or ogre, or blond gorilla, took a step closer. It sniffed and growled, then dropped one of its long arms to paw at the snow.

  She snatched her ski poles and held them in front of her, tips out. The monster approached, its heavy feet sinking in the snow. Ana felt a moment of despair. She reached deep into her subconscious, to her last memory of her grandmother. She lay on her deathbed, drawing rattling breath after rattling breath, and prayed to Mesyats. “Oh, Moon God….”

  “Oh, Moon God,” Ana echoed.

  A few hours later, when his phone chimed with a message, Sergei smiled and thought again how lucky he was to have such a loving, forgiving partner.

  Chapter 14

  The morning after the battle at the lake, I woke up slowly and catalogued my aches and pains before I sat up. My sternum ached, where I’d been whacked with the bukavac’s tail. My tailbone ached for the same reason. I looked in the mirror in the hall bathroom and saw a scrape across one cheek too. I wasn’t sure when that happened.

  I showered last night after my tea with Owen, but I still felt grimy and covered in arcane blood. I left my clothes soaking in a cold bath overnight and there was a ring of red and black on the tub walls where the water settled. I scooped up the wet clothes, wrapped them in a towel, and walked them quickly down the hall to the laundry room near the kitchen. I dropped them in the washer, added a ton of detergent, and crossed my fingers.

  Then I went to scrub the tub and take another shower.

  Twenty minutes later I was starving. I got dressed and tiptoed down the hall into the kitchen. I had no idea how long the others would sleep, so I made a whole omelet bar. I chopped red peppers, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, red onions, and some ham; shredded cheese; and pulled out the eggs.

  I started sautéing some onions and whisking a few eggs. Theo walked into the kitchen and I turned my burner off and went to hug him. I held him very gently and we stood there for a long moment.

  “I’m okay, Very,” he finally said, and stepped back.

  My nose was watering a little. I turned away from him to grab a tissue from the counter and when I turned back, I smiled brightly. “I know! Do you want an omelet?”

  He nodded and I added more onions to the pan.

  “I thought you’d sleep longer,” I told him and I whisked some more eggs into the bowl

  “Me too,” he answered. “But I feel wide awake. I was lying in my bed listening and waiting for someone else to be up.”

  “Are you in pain?” I asked.

  “A little,” he answered. “I took an Ibuprofen when the meds from the hospital wore off, and that seems to be working pretty well.”

  The back door in the mudroom opened suddenly and a blast of chilly air blew into the kitchen. Owen tramped into the room, stomping the snow off his shoes. He looked up at us and froze. “Sorry,” he said. “I was trying to be quiet. Did I wake you?” He took off his hat and gloves and hung up his coat.

  “No,” I said. “We were both up. I didn’t know anyone else was awake.”

  “I was Googling how to burn a body and then I wanted to see if we had the stuff to do it.”

  “Do we?” Theo asked.

  “Yeah,” Owen answered. He came to sit at the counter. “There’s a fire pit out back with a grate we can put on top like a pyre and a pretty big pile of firewood. We have to keep it going very hot for a long time, at least five hours, otherwise we’ll end up with charred bone, not ash. So, someone will need to be out there, stirring the coals, the whole time. Even then there will probably still be some bone pieces that we’ll need to fish out afterwards and bury or something.”

  I grimaced. “Should we wait for tonight? I don’t want any neighbors to pop over and see a slimy crocodile tail on our grill.”

  “Might be best,” Owen agreed. “The garage is pretty cold, so it should be okay in there today. I don’t think it’ll start to stink.” He paused and amended, “Stink any worse.”

  I wrinkled my nose, remembering.

  “Do you want an omelet?” I asked Owen.

  “Absolutely,” he answered. He went to the sink and washed his hands and then sat back beside Theo at the counter.

  I added a few more eggs to my bowl and more vegetables to my sauté pan. I made Theo’s first, no tomatoes, and then asked Owen what he liked in his eggs. He said everything, just like me, so I made a giant omelet and then just cut it in half for the two of us to split.

  We dug in and ate quietly for a couple of minutes. Both men murmured their thanks. Theo’s phone chimed and he looked at the screen.

  “Zasha wants to know if we’re still going to the winter festival in Chelyabinsk today.”

  “Oh, Zasha wants to know if we are going,” I made my voice sing song-y.

  Theo grinned at me and then sobered up. “I don’t know why we would go though. We need to get a handle on the situation at the cave. There’s 20 of them holed up in there and they’re not going to stay holed up for much longer.”

  “Why is it again that we can’t just call the authorities?” Owen asked. “Let them toss a few grenades in there and we’re done.”

  “Several reasons,” I answered and started ticking off my fingers. “First, what would we tell them? No one would believe us. And if we actually did get the police to send someone up to the cave to investigate, they would assume we were nuts and prepare for wild animals, or some weirdo militia group, to be in there. Not a pile of supernatural creatures that can shoot fire, stomp the ground and cause an earthquake, or blast magical lightning bolts. It would be a slaughter.

  “Then, because now the police would believe us, we’d be under suspicion. And we do not want to draw attention to ourselves in this context.” I emphasized the “not.”

  “Second,” I continued, “if we assume that at some point we are believed, and the appropriate force is marshaled to attack the besy, it is likely the authorities will try and capture them alive. We’ve all seen that movie. The supposed good guys start studying the monsters, experimenting, et cetera, and pretty soon you’ve got an end-of-the-world scenario with out-of-control hybrid beast armies.

  “And third…” I stopped. “Actually, I don’t have a third. I think those two covered it.”

  “Yeah, hard to top hybrid beast armies,” Owen agreed. He cocked his head, “I’m not trying to play Devil’s advocate here, but what if we fail? Then your nightmare scenarios come true anyway.”

  “So, we don’t fail,” I said firmly.

  “I kind of like the grenade idea,” Theo added. “I mean, not actual grenades, because I don’t think they would be powerful enough, but something similar we could blast them with from a distance.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “We need to start concentrating on those journals. Irene fought these things for more than fifty years; there have to be ideas we can use.”

  I turned to Theo, “And I still think it’s a good idea to meet with Zasha. You can find out if anything weird is happening at the crater.”

  “Why don’t we split up,” Owen said. “You two go to the fair and talk to Zasha. You can swing by the lake too, and make sure the police aren’t flipping out over the bukavac blood in the snow. Julian and I will read the journals
and get the pyre set up for the bonfire.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?” Julian asked as he walked into the kitchen, looking freshly showered. “Ooo, omelets. Do I get one?”

  I let Theo and Owen update him on the plan and went back to the stove. When I served the omelet a few minutes later I gave Julian a pointed look. “Last one to the kitchen means you’re on clean-up duty.”

  “You got it,” he answered and dug in.

  “Julian and I will take care of dinner tonight too,” Owen added, “since you’ll be driving around all day.”

  Theo and I blinked at Owen. Julian put his hands up in the air, palms out, and told him, “Sorry, man. You do not want my help in the kitchen. I’ll do clean-up again. I’ll clean up every night.”

  I laughed and nudged Theo. “Remember that time he switched the cilantro and the parsley in the scampi and didn’t even notice? Or when he put the frozen pizza in the oven with the cardboard still underneath?”

  Theo laughed too. “That was my first time using a fire extinguisher. It was a thrill.”

  “And remember—” I stopped as Julian put his hand over my mouth.

  AN hour later Theo and I were on our way back to Chelyabinsk.

  “This still feels kind of frivolous,” Theo said. I was driving; the scenery whizzing past was starting become familiar. There went my favorite goat farm.

  “She’s our best resource for the crater site during the daylight,” I said. “If the scientists are noting anything weird, compared to other impact sites, that’s good for us to know. Or if they’ve seen strange animal tracks.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.” Theo brightened.

  The Chelyabinsk winter fair was in the park in the center of the city. We parked in a lot a few blocks away and joined the streams of people heading in that direction. Zasha said to meet her by the Maslenitsas scarecrows, the straw effigies that would be burned to say goodbye to winter and welcome spring.

  There were giant ice sculptures right inside the park entrance. I ogled a huge bear, up on its hind legs, and then an ice palace, complete with onion domes; Theo liked the hockey player bent over his stick, his face frozen with determination. We followed along the different rows of tents, checking out crafts for sale and art on display.