by Alma Boykin
After far, far too long, the door of the house flew open and Catherine Mary raced out, pulling a small boy by the hand and holding the baby in the other arm, along with something shiny. A white ball of fur sprinted behind them and Alexi heard someone inside the house yelling very rude things in Russian. He ducked farther behind the shrubbery and ran at a crouch on an intercept course for his family.
They met by the tree where Catherine Mary had stashed the diaper bags and Belle’s sack. He knelt and strapped the panniers to the cat, then picked up a very sleepy, stocky boy and held him close. “Got them, we have a few minutes, and she’s pissed. Both of them are pissed.”
What else was new? “Yeah, and water’s wet. I’ll take Peter.” The boy looked like a darker version of Alexi: stocky but strong and built for manual labor. At least Baba Yaga had not underfed the boy. On the other hand, Alexi thought as they hurried off, he probably did not want to know what she had fed him. The curses grew louder and the adults and the cat started running.
They’d gotten maybe half a kilometer from the Little House on Chicken Feet when the forest closed in and the trail vanished. Catherine Mary said something in Greek that didn’t sound complementary, then turned around, cradling Katie to her chest. She got a very determined look on her face and something told Alexi to back away. His wife’s lips moved silently and Alexi prayed as he held his son. The tops of the trees began to sway and he heard hoofbeats as the Little Humpbacked Horse dove down onto the trail. He wore a saddle with baskets strapped to the sides. “Well met, Ivan son of Ivan, and Ranger.”
“Can you take them?” Alexi demanded.
“Yes, but Baba Yaga’s furious. I’ve never seen her like this.” Alexi tucked Peter and his bag into one basket while Catherine Mary used the diaper bag to cushion the other and make a nest for Katie.
Alexi patted his pocket as Catherine admitted, “Um, I grabbed some things from the house. Gatta insisted.”
“What?” the flop-eared horse asked as he knelt to help Catherine Mary and the cat mount.
“Towel and a mirror.”
“Ah well done, my lady!” Vasili laughed. “We may have a chance to get away.”
“Alex,” Catherine reached for him.
He shook his head. “Go. I have a battle to fight.”
Vasili nodded, making his long ears flop, pivoted on his hind feet, and jumped into the air, running along the tops of the trees. Alexi looked back at the trail just in time to see the ground at his feet turning into mud, then water, He scrambled backwards, tripped on a treeroot and felt cold, wet hands on his throat.
“Miiiinnneeee,” a liquid voice burbled. “You are mine, you evil, heartless man. Mine now, Alex.” Alexi tried to pry the rusalka’s hands off his throat and managed to loosen them enough to breathe, but not much more. Stacie was far stronger as a water ghost than she had been as a mortal woman. “Your woman made me strong, you fool,” she said, as if reading his mind. Madness flashed in her ice blue eyes and one hand released his throat to touch his face, leaving stinging wet tracks. “You are mine as you should have been. You love me, Alex. I know you do. Why didn’t you ever tell me how much you love me?”
Ugh, he’d hated her whining when she was alive and death didn’t make it any better. He didn’t bother answering. Instead he tried to pull his knees up so he could throw her off of him. She flowed way from his kick, re-formed and avoided the blow so he rolled and got both hands on her head, smashing it against the ground. She soaked part-way into the soil and let go of his throat for a moment. That was enough and he rolled the other way, just out of her reach, and got to his feet. A thumping, rushing sound passed overhead and the two looked up as Baba Yaga thundered across the tops of the trees, sparks flying as she gnashed her iron teeth, grey hair streaming and twisting like snakes in the wind, driving her mortar with the pestle and sweeping away any tracks with a broom. Dear Lord be with my family, Alexi thought, crossing himself before turning his attention back to the rusalka.
She smiled, showing lovely white, even, sharp teeth. She’d been attractive in life and now her beauty would have left him dumbstruck if he hadn’t known what she was and what she’d tried to do. Long silvery blue hair cascaded down to her hips, and her face made the most beautiful women in history look plain. Her body, well, Alexi could feel himself responding to her charms and thanked the unknown designer who’d left lots of space in the uniform trousers and made the tunic long enough to cover that area. The rusalka curved in all the right places and her skin looked soft and inviting, not cold and wet like he knew it would be. She reached for him curling her long, pale fingers in a beckoning gesture. “What’s wrong, love? Don’t you want to touch?”
He shook his head and patted his pocket again. The bottle seemed intact. “No, I don’t. I want you to leave me and my family alone, Stacie. I’m sorry you listened to Chernobog and let him turn you into a water ghost. But I do not want to touch you. I want you to find peace.” Which he did, he truly did. Alexi‘d mourned for her when he’d heard about her suicide in El Dorado Lake, and had prayed for her soul to find rest. “You chose to stalk me, you chose to harass my parents, and you chose to die.”
“No!” The fangs and sharp nails appeared again and her beauty turned hideous. “You killed me, Alex. You drove me mad, promised me that you loved me,” she moved closer and he saw the ground getting soft ahead of her. He backed up and hit a tree. Oops. Now what? “You said you loved me, then you abandoned me, you betrayed me, ruined me.” The whine returned to her voice and he gritted his teeth. “Whyyyy? Why didn’t you keep your promise, Alex? Wasn’t I good enough?” Her lower lip crept out and her eyes got soft, as if she were going to cry. The ground around the tree trembled as the rusalka’s pond swallowed the ground. That was not supposed to happen, Alexi knew. What had Baba Yaga done to the rusalka? Or had the water of life given her the power? Either way, he needed to stop her.
She’d flowed to within a meter or so, just out of touching range. The tree behind him trembled, its roots losing their grip as water replaced soil. Just what he needed, smashed by a tree while being choked by a rusalka. Babushka would kill him, then Ivan and Belle would say “I told you so.” Assuming Catherine Mary didn’t get to him first, if the rusalka left anything.
“Damn it, I need a beer,” he muttered.
She stopped, head tipped to the side, confusion on her delicate, lovely face. “You need a what?”
“A beer. Damn army won’t allow alcohol in Afghanistan. Says it will offend the locals. You have no idea how miserable life without beer is.” As he spoke, Alexi reached into his pocked and eased the water bottle out, loosening the cap by a few threads. “Look. How about I leave, get out of your life, and you and Baba Yaga do what it is you do? No harm, no foul.”
“But you love me!”
“No, I don’t and I never did. Leave me in peace, Stacie, please.” He loosened the cap until only one thread held it on.
“You are mine,” she snarled and lunged for him again. As he dodged, trying to balance while the tree swayed in the liquid ground, he splashed her with the water of death.
Her screams pierced his heart and he wanted to clamp his hands over his ears and look away. She staggered, sinking into her pool, clawing at her face and shoulders where the deadly magic had touched her. Stacie gasped, disappeared, then reappeared. As she weakened, he felt the tree growing steadier and the land firming up again. She’d lost some of that deadly beauty and looked more like the Stacie he’d dated.
Please, he begged silently, forgive me, and forgive yourself so you can go free. Please, Stacie, please God. “I’m leaving. Don’t follow me, for the love of God please don’t try to follow me.”
She hissed again, rising from what remained of the pool of water and reaching for him, black water dripping from her hands, madness in her eyes. Alexi tossed a little more water into her face. He jumped back as she gasped, mouth opening and closing without a sound. Then the rusalka faded and vanished, like water evaporating from the pave
ment in Mogadishu in the dry season. Alexi capped the bottle, now down to a few ounces, and bowed his head, eyes closed, and crossed himself. “God be with you and show you mercy, Stacie.”
He took a deep breath and started trudging through the woods in the direction he’d seen the Little Humpbacked Horse and Baba Yaga traveling. “Well done Alexander Soldier’s Son,” a familiar voice called. Alexi turned as the red mare trotted into view. “Well fought.” Alexi bowed to her. “Come. A greater battle waits.”
Alexi mounted the war saddle, gathered the reins, and shifted with the horse of flame as she leaped into the sky, racing over trees and plains after Baba Yaga and the others. Where were they? Alexi thought he knew the geography of North America pretty well, but he had no idea. Right, he thought, his mind swirling as the adrenaline from the fight wore off. I’m riding a magical horse, the red horse from the Book of Revelation, chasing a monster from Slavic mythology who wants to kill and eat my wife and children. I just killed a water spirit by pouring water on her. And I’m trying to sort out if that’s I-40 under us, except its too green and there are too many trees? I’m losing it. That was, assuming he’d been sane since the afternoon he first crossed paths with Ivan the Purrable and Baba Yaga. Some days he wondered.
Speaking of sanity . . . a broad expanse of what looked like the Sahara, but with grass on it, appeared in front of them. Alexi leaned over as much as he dared to study the ground. Yes, a swath of what could have been the steppe in a dry year passed under the mare’s hoofs. It extended as far as the edge of the visible world and Alexi wondered. Had they come all the way back to Russia? But no, that didn’t fit. Magic aside, Catherine Mary would have noticed the difference in the woods if they’d been in Europe. The red mare shook her head, sparks scattering from her mane. “What do you see, Alexander?”
“I see a dry plain with short grass, ma’am. No trees, no lakes, nothing wet.” Something new caught his eye and he peered into the distance, wishing he had his field kit and binoculars with him. “Ah, and what looks like rocks. Tall, skinny rocks, ma’am, there at ten o’clock.” The rocks grew more numerous until they stood up like teeth on a comb, or the devil’s own rock garden. The red mare rose higher and her steps slowed a little as they passed over the stony forest. Beyond the rocks, light shone from the ground and Alexi squinted. He patted his pockets and discovered that indeed, he had left a spare pair of el cheapo sunglasses in one pocket and they had survived his fight with the rusalka. He pulled them on and sighed with relief. The glare got worse and all at once the sere brown of the grassland turned into water, glassy, endless blue water as far as he could see. An enormous rushing river gave way to a lake.
“Now I see a sea or a lake, ma’am.”
The horse nodded her head and they trotted a little lower. Alexi thought he caught a glimpse of fish below them, or was it just the red mare’s shadow? No birds troubled the air, and Alexi shivered, waiting for the rusalka to reach for him. He’d avoided ponds and lakes for the past five years and more because of her.
“You need not fear the water spirit, Alexander. You sent her to her reward. She chose her fate, for good or for ill.”
Alexi bowed his head and crossed himself once more. I’m sorry, he thought at his ex’s spirit, wherever it had gone. The sun eased closer to the horizon ahead of them and Alexi began to wish that the horse would run low enough for him to get a drink. He had to laugh. He carried water in a bottle that he didn’t dare touch, and water stretched as far as he could see but he couldn’t reach it. “Water, water everywhere/ and not a drop to drink,” he recited. That was probably the only line anyone ever remembered from Coleridge’s poem. It sure as hell was the only one he remembered, although he could see in his mind’s eye the engraving of the guy with the dead bird hung around his neck from a different part of the epic. Alexi shook, trying to stay awake. He could use a little of the water of life about now. Or an energy drink, although the sugar would probably do bad things to him like it usually did. Yeah, just what he needed: get ready to fight the level boss monster and be hit with the runs. Typical day in the Army.
Something caught his eye and the red horse shifted a little to the north, slowing her steps. Alexi squinted and saw a black spot ahead of them in the sky. The spot grew larger and he saw motion. Someone drove a rounded, paddle or club-like thing down against the air beside a flat-bottomed cylinder or steep-sided bowl that lurched through the soft blue sky. A sheet of white softened the sun, and Alexi wondered if a storm would be blowing through the next day. Now he could see something brushy behind the mortar. “Well done, my lady,” he whispered to the red horse. The mortar began descending and the red horse followed.
They touched ground a hundred yards from the edge of the water. Baba Yaga’s strange vessel sat between him and his family. The Little Humpbacked Horse drooped under a tree in the shade, head hanging at his knees, Catherine Mary holding his head. Baba Yaga advanced toward them.
“No, old witch,” Alexi called, heart starting to race as he dismounted. “Your fight is with me, not them.”
“She stole what is mine,” the hag called back, turning. She bared her iron fangs and crooked gnarled, stick-like fingers.
“Because you took what is ours, hers and mine. Forget the ranger and fight me, if you dare.” He glanced back, but the red mare had retreated, leaving him on his own. Dear God help me, and if not, please, Lord, get Catherine Mary and the children to safety, please. Kyrie Eleison, Christe eleison. Alexi’s mouth went dry as he saw the fiery anger and raw hatred in Baba Yaga’s red eyes. He crossed himself, hand trembling, and crouched, ready to fight.
She charged him, moving faster than fast, and grabbed his left hand. Her grip burned and he cried out, twisting, trying to break her grip. She threw her other arm around him, as if intending to crush him against her bony chest. Alexi got his right arm free and drew the knife strapped to his leg, slashing at her as he had attacked her boss, Chernobog. Steel had as little effect on her as it had on the underworld spirit, and she laughed, a crackling, booming sound he never wanted to hear again. He kicked at her knee, hard, and connected. She grunted and loosened her grip, allowing him to wrench his left hand loose. He reached for her hair, intending to pull it and twist her head around. Instead the grey strands cut his palms and blood ran as his hand lost feeling. He had to use the knife to cut himself loose as she laughed again, striking sparks from her teeth.
He stabbed for her eyes. She dropped him and he tried to land on his feet. The gravel under his boots shifted and he fell, twisting and rolling to get away. She grabbed one leg and picked him up! A tiny voice whispered that, you know, hand-to-hand combat with a former deity was probably one of the stupider things Alexi had ever tried. Alexi swore at the little voice in Lithuanian and heaved himself up as if he were doing a sit-up in mid-air, jamming the knife into Baba Yaga’s arm. That she felt, but so did he, and she tossed him away. He landed on his side this time, arm numb and knife missing. He got to one knee, then to his feet, gasping for air.
He looked to the left and saw Catherine Mary, tears running down her face as she tried to mount the Little Humpbacked Horse. She mouthed something he couldn’t quite read but could easily guess. He couldn’t feel his right arm, couldn’t move his right hand, his left knee hurt, and the world seemed to be spinning. Alexi turned toward Baba Yaga once more. He’d be damned if he died facing away from her.
Something thumped his left leg. Then it began dragging his pant leg down, like he had too much in his pockets. Alexi risked a glance and saw Byehla Ailuros trying to climb him. She had something jammed under the strap of her little carry bag that interfered with her moving. What? “Mree! MooooOOOwwwww!” she demanded, then hissed.
Alexi reached down and took the thing out from under the strap. The white cat dropped, landing on her feet and running toward the horse as fast as her legs could move. A thrown rock almost caught her and she twisted, tripped, then gained safety.
“Leave my cat alone, bitch,” Alexi snarled. He held
a small plastic bottle, like a baby’s medicine dropper. Why had the cat given him Katie’s earache drops? Or was it? He held the bottle up and saw that just a tiny bit of fluid remained within the dropper portion. Could it be? What was he supposed to do?
Run seemed like a good idea, but too late. Baba Yaga swung the pestle at him like a club and he ducked. It passed close enough to ruffle his regulation quarter-inch hair. The momentum carried her a little too far, allowing him to get a few steps away before she tried again. This time she aimed low and connected. She swept his legs out from under him and he landed on his back. She dropped the pestle and jumped on top of him, driving the air from his lungs. “Now, Alexander Zolnerovich, you are mine,” she hissed, using his true name. Alexi felt his strength drawn out of him and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away from the evil green-yellow light that danced in her eyes.
Alexi kept his hands over his head, trying to open the tiny bottle without dropping it or attracting Baba Yaga’s attention. The world faded to grey as he fought to breathe against the weight crushing his chest. His ribs creaked and red pain wrapped around him. The bottle top opened. Please God, spare my family. Alexi swung his hand up and forward, touching Baba Yaga’s bark-like skin and dropping the liquid onto it.
The world exploded in light and stars and red and yellow and he couldn’t see or breathe or hear as sound roared and shrieked through his ears and head. The black that followed didn’t hurt as much, and Alexi breathed again, or tried to. He hurt from hairline to toes, and it felt like that drunk some of his buddies had gone on one night, after they got back from that mission that never happened in the Horn of Africa. Even his hair had been hung over the next morning. Alexi decided that he felt worse than that, but not nauseated, not yet. I guess I’m not dead, he thought fuzzily. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Captain Miller’s going to kill me, assuming Sergeant Major Young doesn’t pull rank and get to me first.
