Cry of the Firebird (The Firebird Fairytales Book 1)

by Amy Kuivalainen

  “Do I look like I would be any trouble? It sounds like the police nationale have got their people mixed up.” She laughed though her heart was hammering in her chest. No one had ever known where she lived except a very select group of hunters. He gave another grunt as a way of saying goodbye and she hurried down the stairs and out into the wet street.

  If there had been people here looking for her they would be watching her right now. She felt the reassuring weight of her guns at her side. She didn’t want to lead them back to Trajan’s so she began to walk calmly along the street. A few moments later as she passed a Sacré Coeur souvenir shop she risked a glance over her shoulder. Two men were following her. Their eyes caught the light of the shop fronts and for a second they flashed gold like an animals. Katya steadied her breathing to keep herself from bolting and giving the game away.

  Anya! Katya reached out trying to link with her mind. Anya! They are following me. I am keeping them away from Trajan’s but I don’t know how many they are. Katya hurried on and hoped Anya would receive her message in time.

  ***

  “Katya! Quick we need to find her,” Anya pushed Trajan away and he placed her on her feet again. “They are after her, Trajan. We need to go now!” Without waiting for a reply she pulled open the door and ran out into the house.

  “Izrayl!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. She didn’t know what room he had taken but she would need his help. Katya needed some serious muscle to back her up.

  “What’s wrong?” he stumbled sleepily into the hallway, buttoning up his jeans.

  “Katya is being attacked. She has left the mansion and is being followed,” she said and grabbed his hand to drag him toward the stairs.

  “We’ll take my car. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She said her flat was in Montmartre somewhere.”

  “I’m coming,” Trajan said as he pulled on his coat.

  “I’m driving,” Izrayl ducked back in his room to get his keys and pull on a black shirt.

  “I don’t want you coming with us. They want you not Katya. You will be playing right into their hands,” Trajan said as he pulled Anya aside.

  “I am your only way to find her. I will stay out of the way. We know I don’t know how to fight,” she replied before she ducked into her room and grabbed her coat and her boots.

  She met them at the elevator just as Izrayl was tucking a gun into the back of his jeans. “That stupid girl! She should have known better than to go out by herself,” he muttered darkly. “If they don’t kick her ass, I will.”

  “Let’s just get her home first,” Trajan replied calmly. “She is a hunter and probably thought she didn’t need help because she can handle herself.”

  “She is like all hunters. Hot headed and reckless.”

  The garage was huge and housed at least twenty cars. Anya didn’t know much about cars so she couldn’t name them but they all looked expensive and fast.

  Izrayl climbed into the driver’s seat of a black muscle car and Trajan took the passenger side, opening the back door for Anya before he climbed in.

  “Put your seat belt on,” he turned to smile at her. “Izrayl likes to drive like a maniac.” Anya clipped the belt around her waist and wondered how the strap of material would go if they actually crashed.

  “We are kind of in a hurry,” Izrayl said as he fired up the engine. He took off up the curving ramp which led out onto the road. The automatic door was already open as he roared out into the street.

  Katya, Anya tried hard to concentrate on connecting with her as the lights flickering past distracted her, Show me where you are.

  Anya! She caught a glimpse of Katya with her knives flashing and for a moment felt the fear run through her as she ran past a brightly lit carousel.

  “She’s running, there’s a carousel-”

  Anya didn’t know anything about Paris to be able to identify where Katya was so she reached out and grabbed Izrayl’s shoulder. Setting her teeth she forced the image of Katya fighting for her life into his mind.

  “Holy shit!” Izrayl swerved but kept the car on the road. “She is running through Square Louise Michel. God damn Darkness is on her trail.” He changed up a gear and the speed dial jumped.

  We’re coming Katya, hold on.

  Izrayl wove through the streets skidding and sliding with a vengeance. Fifteen minutes and many curse words later he slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car. Within a blink he had morphed and was gone.

  Katya was about to faint with blood loss and exhaustion when the huge black wolf appeared through the trees. They had cornered her up near the monumental fountains and she had been forced to make a stand. The creatures were similar to the those on the train, their fingers morphing into long claws and they were fast.

  Katya screamed as one of her attacker’s long claws ripped through her side. She fired her gun and it clicked; a hollow sound that signalled she had finally used her last bullet. She waited for a killing blow but instead a heavy black wolf knocked her aside. She fell to the ground as Izrayl tore through her attacker’s throat. It still lay gargling as Izrayl padded towards her, his black face shiny with gore.

  “Look out!” she screamed as another pale-faced creature appeared behind him. Izrayl turned a clawed hand was already digging deep into his back. Katya acted quickly, pulling a long knife from the sheath strapped to her thigh. The attacker screamed as the sharp blade sliced through its hand, leaving five bloody fingers and claws embedded deep in Izrayl. The creature cradled its hand and hissed defiantly at her before vanishing into the blackness. Katya stood over Izrayl’s bleeding body, unwilling to lower her guard again.

  “Katya!” Trajan was running towards her.

  “He’s hurt,” she said as she sank to her knees. The last thing she saw was Anya’s pale luminescent face as she ran through the gardens in her pyjamas.

  ***

  A man stood in the distance and watched as the lithe hunter and the wolf were arranged in the back seat of a black car. There was nothing remarkable about him. He was average height with pale hair and eyes. His age could have been anywhere between twenty and forty years old. A crow landed near him and pecked at some rubbish left on the ground. He raised an eyebrow at it but didn’t say a word. He could hear concerned voices floating up to him, nervous tourists and other people passing through the square had heard gun shots and the police had been called. With a tired sigh he made his way down to the fountains to clean up yet another mess.

  ***

  By the time they returned to Trajan’s twenty minutes later the backseat was covered in so much blood Anya thought their passengers must have surely been dead. As they drove back into his garage Cerise was there, wide awake and dressed in medical scrubs. The area behind her had been transformed miraculously into a make-shift hospital. Initially Anya had thought the wall of stainless steel cupboards and drawers were places to keep tools. It kept tools but not for fixing cars. Two of the metal panels had been folded down to make sturdy operating tables. Drawers had been opened to reveal medical instruments and bright lamps had been folded out.

  “Good Lord,” Anya muttered when she saw it. “I see you two have dealt with this before?”

  “More than we would have liked,” Trajan replied. “Open the back doors please Anya.” With the ease of the supernaturally strong Trajan and Cerise carried first Katya and then Izrayl from the car and lay them on the metal tables.

  “Cut her coat and shirt off Anya so I can see what I am dealing with,” Cerise said as she handed her a pair of scissors. “Trajan, try to wake Izrayl up so he can morph back. I’m a nurse not a vet.” Katya didn’t move or protest when Anya started cutting the sleeves of her leather coat. Anya gasped when she pulled back the first layer. Katya’s back was a mass of deep claw marks oozing dark blood.

  “Hurry up Anya, she’s losing a lot of blood,” Cerise prompted and Anya quickly removed Katya’s arsenal of weapons and the tatters of her tee shirt. Now that her back was bare Anya c
ould see the odd symbols tattooed around Katya’s narrow hips and up her back bone, coloured with bruises and old scars.

  “You are going to be okay Katya,” Anya promised.

  “Trajan, she is going to need blood,” Cerise said as her eyes ran over Katya’s wounds.

  “What type?” he asked as he opened a fridge full of bags of blood. Cerise ran her gloved finger over one of Katya’s wounds and put it to her mouth with a thoughtful suck. Her blue eyes flashed black for split second as she said, “AB positive; my favourite.” Anya felt sick in her stomach as Cerise smiled at her. “Don’t worry, I don’t really like living blood and Katya won’t be a corpse for a long time.” Anya looked away just in time to see Izrayl’s body shudder and morph into its human form. Pale, clawed fingers still stuck grotesquely from his bleeding back.

  “Be a dear and pull those out for me Trajan,” Cerise instructed. Trajan did as he was asked and gripped the first finger. Anya swayed and was about to faint when the elevator dinged and Yvan stepped out. “Perfect timing, Yvan. Take Anya upstairs she is about to pass out.” Anya’s knees were squishy and when she started to rock Yvan’s strong hands caught her.

  “Come shalosť let’s get you upstairs.” He gently lifted her and carried to the elevator. Yvan had only just managed her to her bathroom when she threw up all over herself and the arm steadying her.

  “Shit,” she muttered as she stuck her head in the toilet. “I thought I had a stronger stomach than that. I’m sorry.”

  “I am sure I will live,” Yvan said as he calmly washed his arm in the sink. He wet a washer and placed it on the back of her neck. “Would you like to tell me what has happened while I have been sleeping?”

  “Let me get cleaned up first,” she said and waved him out. She looked at the mess all over the bathroom and was mortified Yvan had witnessed it. She shed her ruined clothes and rinsed them in the sink before she climbed into the shower to wash the sour smell from her skin. She had stitched up wounds on animals before without a blink but stitching up wounded friends was completely different.

  Anya emerged a short time later wrapped tightly in a robe. Yvan was coming in through the door with two steaming cups of coffee.

  “I thought you would need something and I don’t think vodka will be your friend,” he said as he handed her a cup.

  “Thank you,” Anya said and sipped the scalding liquid. “I think I have had enough vodka for one night. It’s probably why I couldn’t keep my stomach under control.” She settled herself on one of the small couches in the room and began to tell him about the night’s excitement.

  “It worries me that the Darkness was waiting for her,” Yvan said. “And these creatures, I wonder what they are? They don’t sound like anything I have encountered before even in Skazki.”

  “Whatever they are their bodies are littering the park right now thanks to Katya and Izrayl.”

  “The bodies will be removed swiftly. The wounded one would have reported back to them by now,” he sighed. He looked uncomfortable for a moment before asking, “So Trajan and you are a couple now?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Anya replied feeling more awkward than he looked. “I wouldn’t know what to call it at this stage.”

  “I see.”

  “Are you angry with me?” Anya wondered why she felt the need to ask.

  “No, I’m not. Should I be?”

  “No! It’s just…never mind. I thought you would lecture me, warn me against it.”

  “I am not your father, Anya. I won’t try to make decisions for you but I will be there if and when you make the wrong ones.”

  “Prince Yvan, my hero,” Anya teased and was rewarded with one of his rare smiles.

  “We all need rescuing sometimes Anyanka.”

  ***

  Katya woke as the sun was rising. She had been placed back in the bed she had vacated the night before. Izrayl was sleeping on a lounge not far from her with his chest wrapped tightly in bandages. He looked tired and his long hair was a mass of tangles. She tried to remember what had happened the night before. She remembered fighting and Izrayl knocking her out of the way but everything else was a blur. As if he sensed her watching him he opened his amber eyes.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “How long have you been awake?”

  “About five seconds. You look like crap.”

  “That’s because I had my ass kicked and I have been keeping an eye on you so I haven’t slept much.”

  “No, I mean in general,” she said.

  “You’re lying,” Izrayl replied. “So much for gratitude. Be careful not to move.”

  “Why?” she asked and moved. Pain shot through her and she cursed.

  “I warned you. Don’t move. You will bust stitches.” He propped a cushion under his head. “I hope you don’t mind but Cerise put me in here to sleep. Easier to check on us both at once.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “This is the first time you have been conscious since you cut the hand off that thing in the square. I woke up when they were pulling its claws out of my back.”

  “That sounds like great timing,” Katya said as she took a sip of the water beside her bed. Someone had arranged brightly coloured tablets on her nightstand. Katya took them all and hoped they were painkillers.

  “Great timing. You never told me you had tattoos.” Katya had to struggle to keep herself from choking on the water in her mouth.

  “That’s because my tattoos are none of your damn business,” she said once she had swallowed. Izrayl just grinned which made her even more self-conscious. “Thank you for coming to my rescue,” she continued after a while. “I would be food for crows by now.”

  “You didn’t really need saving. There was a pile of dead before I even got there. You just needed help towards the end. I’ve never seen a woman able to fight like that.”

  “I will take that as a compliment.”

  “Good. You should sleep now.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “I wasn’t but you just took two lots of pain killers and sleeping tablets. You are going to be-” But Katya was already asleep.

  Chapter Twenty - Crows

  Vasilli passed through the glimmering lights that took him from Skazki into Sokolniki Park. The Guardian of the Gate watched him closely with his falcon eyes but did not stop him from entering. Due to its location and the labyrinth built around it, the Sokolniki Park was the strongest gate in all of Russia and was under constant guard. It was no coincidence that Alexei Mikhailovich had loved hunting here so much or that his son Petyr had put so much effort into maintaining it.

  Vasilli breathed in the cold air and let his body re-adjust to the real worlds rhythms. There was magic still there but it was buried deep in the earth and the sub-conscious of the humans living there. Ladislav and the Darkness would change that.

  There were places in Moscow where mortals did not enter. More than the dark touched them and people knew instinctively to turn and walk away. One of these places was a grand townhouse. It had been the main Russian base of the Darkness for over four hundred years. Vasilli could feel the power pulsing silently from it long before he could see it. A homeless babushka sat on the steps leading down to the lower basements of the building.

  “Vasilli, Vasilli, what took you so long, chernyĭ syn of mine?” she asked in heavy Russian.

  “Hello Zhenechka, are you going to let me pass tonight?” She didn’t look it but was one of the most powerful Shamanitsas in all of Europe. She kept guard at the head quarters’ entrance with fierce diligence. The last policeman who had tried to move her along had been turned into a rat and squashed under her heavy boot.

  “Of course Vas’ka you know you are a favourite of mine.” Zhenechka pinched his bearded cheek and Vasilli felt the burning power under her wrinkled hands “Be patient tonight eh? There has not been good news received. Ladislav is not happy.”

  Vasilli moved down the stairs and unlocked the door with a
brief touch of his hand. Usually he would have cleaned up before going to see the master but if Ladislav was already in a bad mood he wouldn’t like to be kept waiting. Moments later Vasilli sat opposite Ladislav at a highly polished ebony table.

  Ladislav was one of the strongest black magic users to ever have been born outside of Skazki. In the older times of Russia he had been worshipped as a dark god and the blood sacrifices done in his name had granted him immortality. The men in his command still murmured the old ritual line before they killed in his name and he grew stronger every day because of it.

  Ladislav had long steel grey hair worn in a thick braid interwoven with secret spells. It had been said that the ones who could weave intricate braids could read the wearers fate within its twisted strands. Within Ladislav’s braid were smaller tighter plaits, sometimes woven with coloured threads and these were the ones that held his spells. Vasilli had often wondered if the secret of Ladislav’s power was, like Samson, held within his hair. And what would happen if he shaved it off. Ladislav had a long but well-trimmed moustache and ice blue eyes.

  “It is good to see you Vasilli despite your recent failings,” Ladislav said finally. “We have both underestimated Anyanka. Our spies in recent years have failed terribly in noticing what she was capable of.”

  “I was in her house and even I did not see. She barely had any magic about her; the little I detected had not even been encouraged or developed. As to my recent failings she had a lot of help. Baba Yaga detained me and there was a Rom witch as well.”

  “We know about that tribe. We sent a force to capture one of their hunters in Anyanka’s confidence. Nearly the entire force has been wiped out.” A small domovoi dashed into the room with a chilled decanter of vodka and two cups. He placed it on the table between them and with a short bow vanished once more.

  “Who did you send to get her?” Vasilli poured a glass of the vodka for Ladislav before he took one for himself. The icy cold liquid froze his throat before it burned comfortably in his stomach.