Anika Rising (Gretel Book 4)

by Christopher Coleman

  She felt content, and best of all, she wasn’t hungry.

  Chapter 13

  TANJA CAREFULLY CLEANED the wound and then dressed it with a square of clean, white cotton, one of the few that remained in the makeshift medicine cabinet that had been wedged into the far corner of her secret room. If her source’s shoulder lesion didn’t heal completely within the next two or three days, Tanja would be forced to venture back to the markets for more.

  The thought of leaving for another shopping jaunt aggravated her, and not just because of the effort it involved. It was a change in the schedule. Her plans had been made, she had settled into them, and any deviation from that plan would be unnerving.

  As things stood now, she would pick up the venom in ten days, finish concocting the potion, and then slit the throat of the source before heading to the docks, her ramshackle townhome in a blaze behind her. Once at the docks, she would purchase a one-way ticket to the New Country, rejuvenated and ready for the hunt.

  Within two weeks, she would be gone from this wretched place forever.

  But the potion couldn’t be prepared properly if the source became unhealthy, infected, and the fact that her wound wasn’t healing was a sign her immune system was beginning to fail.

  Tanja slid the wall back and went immediately to the kitchen, turning on the burner of the stove before opening the refrigerator door, hoping to find some band of ingredients that she could whip together to try to get the girl strong. She had no antibiotics, as those were somewhat of a luxury in this part of the world, but she had learned of other, more organic methods over her years to stave off infection.

  She had no silver flakes, which would have been her preference, but she did find an old bulb of garlic in the door and a bowl of honey on the bottom shelf that surely hadn’t been moved in at least two years. The garlic didn’t look too promising, as it was shriveled and browned and had likely lost its potency, but the honey, she knew, was magical in its ability to stay unsullied; it was, in many ways, as immortal as she was.

  She pulled both items from the icebox and placed them on the counter to her left, and as she was closing the refrigerator, there was a knock on the front door.

  Tanja froze, afraid even to complete the seal of the refrigerator door. Her eyes blossomed wide as she listened for the sound of voices, but there were none.

  Another rap on the door came several seconds later, followed by, “Hello, ma’am. Are you home? We would like to ask you a few questions. It will only take a minute. We are canvassing the area today. We’re looking for a woman who disappeared from this neighborhood recently. We’re hoping you might have seen something that could help us. The woman, the one who is missing, she lives not far from here.”

  They didn’t sound like the policeman she’d talked to on a few occasions since she’d been in this country, but Tanja supposed they were meant not to sound that way. They took on a more pleasant persona, in the hopes that people would open the door.

  Tanja could ignore them, and then again a third time. But for what purpose? Whoever they were, be they police or some makeshift citizen troop, they would be back. And the more she ignored them, she reasoned, the more suspicious she would appear. She was the crazy old lady on the street, the one with the foreign accent who lived alone. The woman who had been known to talk to children in the streets on occasion, and who was rumored to purchase strange things at the markets. She fit a profile that was at least suspicious, particularly with the recent stories of witches and potions that had reached these shores recently from the New Country.

  And Tanja knew that it was, in large part, her physical appearance that had kept her safe over the last several years. As old and frail as she looked, it would have seemed impossible for her to have kidnapped anyone by force and detained them; and thus, for those few disappearances that had been investigated, she had stayed off the radar.

  The mistake they had made was that she’d taken no one by force (though it would have been easy); she had coaxed and complimented until they walked into her snares willingly.

  “Madam? Please, just a few questions.”

  They knew she was home. They had probably already spoken to her neighbors who told them she almost never left.

  “Yes? Hello?” Tanja replied finally, as if just hearing them for the first time. “I’m sorry, I don’t hear well. I’m coming now.”

  Tanja opened the door, trying to manufacture a look of confusion and fright, one she thought would fit the stereotypical expression of an old lady who was being confronted by police. On the stoop, in a row, were a man and two women. One of the women wore the trappings of a police officer, like the man, and the other was an identical copy of the girl Tanja had bound in the back room.

  Tanja could feel her eyes widen slightly and her throat seize, and she suspected the police officers would have noticed it too.

  “Hello,” Tanja said, “I’m sorry for the fuss and stunned look I must have shown. I don’t recall the last time I’ve had visitors here.”

  The male officer, who was clearly the senior of the two, smiled politely. “It’s fine, ma’am. I’m not sure if you heard what I said behind the door...”

  Tanja shook her head.

  “...but we are looking for a woman who disappeared recently. About a month or so ago. I am Officer Durani and this is Officer Noor.” He pointed with his outstretched hand to the woman beside him. “And this is Jiya.” He nodded past the female officer. “We are looking for her sister.”

  The young girl averted her eyes sheepishly and looked to the stoop, as if embarrassed to be harassing someone over her missing twin.

  “My heavens,” Tanja whispered, perhaps a bit too dramatically for what little she ostensibly knew about the disappearance. “I am so sorry dear.” Tanja looked back to the officer. “How can I help?”

  The officer shrugged. “We’re just asking people in the neighborhood if they may have seen Prisha—that is her name. Any time over the last month or so. She is Jiya’s twin. They look as identical as I have ever seen sisters look.”

  Tanja held her face still, not sure what reaction this revelation should elicit. “How would I know then if I just haven’t seen Jiya?” Shut up, she thought. You don’t have to be clever just to boast.

  The male officer cocked his head slightly. “Have you seen Jiya recently?”

  Tanja opened her eyes wide, sympathetically, and then felt the glisten of tears coat her eyeballs. She willed the moisture from her ducts further until one escaped down the middle of her left cheek.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t even remember any of the names you’ve just told me. I...” she swallowed and took a deep breath. “I forget so many things now. I’m sorry.”

  The source’s twin—who Tanja remembered very well was called Jiya—spoke. “I am very sorry to have upset you Ms. And I am sorry for your condition. I know it well. It has plagued my family too. My father has been consumed by it for over two years now. He is quite ill. No longer able to function much at all.”

  Tanja smiled weakly, signaling appreciation for the attempt at empathy. “I am sorry to hear about your father.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I wonder how he can function in the central markets with such a condition.”

  The two officers looked at each other and then over to Jiya.

  “He no longer works in the markets, Ms., but he used to. He used to be quite prominent there.” The pace of Jiya’s sentences increased. “Why did you think he worked in the central markets? Do you know him? Do you know my father?”

  “What?” Tanja began to shake now, desperate to cover up her grave error. She’d slipped—badly—it was the kind of mistake that she would have scoffed at had she heard it told in a story. If she hadn’t been a suspect in the disappearance of this girl’s sister a minute ago, she almost certainly was now.

  “You asked how he could have worked in the central markets.”

 
“What is your name, ma’am?” Officer Noor, the female officer, asked, disrupting any further attempts by Tanja to demonstrate her mental incapacities.

  “I...why do you want to know that?”

  “Please ma’am, just answer the question.”

  “It’s um...I don’t...”

  Tanja placed her hands flat against her face and began sobbing into them, muffling the sounds only slightly. She waited for one of the three people at her door to say something, if not in consolation, at least words to indicate they would give her some time, perhaps come back later when she was more composed. But no one made a sound.

  Tanja finally lowered her hands and immediately noted that the expressions of the officers had not changed. Jiya had returned her gaze to the pavement below, but the sheepishness in her expression had disappeared and was replaced by something closer to indignation.

  “May we come in, ma’am?” Officer Durani asked. “And have a look around your residence?”

  Tanja could sense the tension of the officers’ facial muscles and the slight change in their body angles, which were now in a position slightly sideways and straddled. There was nothing left to be done in terms of deterrence. She had become sloppy, cocky, and was now only a word or two away from arrest. If she agreed to the search, everything was over. Once the officers passed through the front threshold, they wouldn’t leave until they found the girl. And it wouldn’t take long. Her source would hear them from behind the wall and would immediately begin to scream, and within seconds, Tanja would be face down on the floor of her living room.

  But Tanja knew of her rights. She had been in this land far longer than any of the people standing before her had been alive. They had no right to enter her home without a search warrant, and as this was just a canvass, they wouldn’t be able to produce one of those for at least another three or four days. This was the Eastern Lands, after all, and everything here, court matters included, moved like a glacier.

  She narrowed her eyes at the male officer and flattened her distressed lips into a cold flatness. “No,” she said. “You may not.”

  The officer held Tanja’s stare for longer than she would have thought possible, and then nodded, looking over at his partner before returning his eyes back to Tanja. “We will likely be back before the day is done. I would suggest you not go too far.”

  Tanja bowed a half-nod. “Good bye, Officers Durani and Noor,” she said, mocking them by her power of recall, showing that it was still fully intact. “And good luck finding Prisha, Jiya. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for her.”

  Jiya looked at Tanja, a combination of fear and surprise in her eyes. Tanja smiled at her, wide and full, showing the full breadth of her mouth and the jagged teeth bursting within.

  Jiya covered her mouth with both hands and gagged. She looked towards the officers in a panic, but they were as transfixed as Jiya. The girl backed slowly off the stoop, her fingers now pressed against her lips, and shuffled rearward to the splintered road before turning and breaking into a full dash away from the house.

  Tanja noted that Officer Noor had averted her eyes for just a moment at first, but the older Durani kept his head and eyes stern.

  “If there’s nothing else then,” Tanja said, “I’ll be saying goodbye.”

  She closed the door and stood motionless for a beat, and then put her eye to the peephole, watching the officers linger for a moment before finally retreating. Officer Durani looked back at her house one last time and scribbled a final note on his pad.

  She was done here. The risks had now become critical. The officers wouldn’t be back today, and probably not for a few days after. But they would come eventually. She would give herself the remainder of the week and then set out for the docks. She didn’t know the ship schedules, but if she had to wait a few days at the harbor until the right liner was leaving, then that is what she would do.

  But there was still some final business to attend to here. She had come too far with this batch to simply discard it, and she had no intention of foregoing the bungaru venom. It was the ingredient of the future, the portion of the recipe that now rendered her magical elixir palatable and ready in weeks instead of months.

  The source.

  Tanja was now armed with new information now about her. Not much, but enough to be useful. She had lied to Tanja about her father working in the markets. And it was a lie that had tripped up Tanja and nearly cost her her freedom.

  For that lie, the source would help Tanja out of this conundrum. And if she couldn’t, she would pay.

  Chapter 14

  ANIKA WAS NOW WITHIN a mile of the Urbanlands city limit, but she could smell her imminent arrival two miles earlier. And it wasn’t just the garbage and filth of the factories that was the indicator—she could smell that several miles back, as, she was told, could everyone who entered the Urbanlands—it was the people.

  There were so many people.

  She hadn’t fed since the young officer behind Pavel Delov’s cabin, but despite the time that had passed and the effort she had exerted, her hunger continued to stay at bay. It was a good sign, she knew, and one that suggested the voice at the warehouse was being truthful. Her craving was subsiding.

  Anika hadn’t even considered using Randall for sustenance. Even if she had been in the throes of thirsting, the driver’s blood smelled rancid, diseased, and polluted with chemicals and alcohol. But more than that, she didn’t want him to be rendered useful in any way. She wanted his death to be as dreadful and unimportant as the life he seemed to have led.

  Anika continued walking the shoulder until she arrived at an exit sign with a diagonal arrow pointing right, and the word “Urbanlands” beneath it. She followed the curve of the exit road for another half-mile until she was off the vast nothingness of the Interways and in a more municipal setting, with homes and businesses scattered about. In the distance was an array of lights fanning off into the distance.

  She followed the lights, passing several deserted buildings that sat on the fringes of the exit, until eventually she came to a river and the abutment of an arch bridge. Anika saw a stairway and ascended it, and then began walking across the bridge on a walkway built for pedestrian crossings. The walkway struck Anika as luxurious, amazed that there was a population large enough to warrant its own special crossing just for strollers.

  Anika reached the crown of the bridge when something in the distance, just to her right, caught her eye. She turned quickly and was instantly met by a large billboard that had been positioned atop an old warehouse. On the billboard was the painting of a sprawling gothic building and two young adults who both wore smiles of satisfaction. Next to the picture were the words “University of the Urbanlands. Learn to Live.”

  Anika put a fist to her mouth, stifling any sounds of excitement that might erupt involuntarily. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The billboard didn’t mean she was at her destination, not quite, but she was obviously getting close and was headed in the right direction.

  Anika tallied the billboard as an omen and a triumph, and the fact that she had reached this far in her journey was an achievement. But from here she still didn’t know how to get to the campus or the surrounding housing complexes of the university. She would find it eventually, she assumed, but she would rather not spend the next day and a half wandering the streets like a vagrant. The Urbanlands wasn’t the largest city in the New Country, but it was big enough.

  She walked down the haunch that formed the far side of the bridge, and there she saw another, more specific sign that read: “Welcome to the Urbanlands.”

  She had officially made it. Finally.

  She let the tips of her fingers slide across the city limit sign as she stepped off the abutment, and then, intuitively, headed into a city park that had been constructed at the border along the river. In the moonlight, Anika could see a small strip of sandy beach stretching for about twenty-five yards along the water. Anika strolled down to the water’s edge and then stood for a mo
ment, clearing her head as she stared back across the water, her eyes focusing on the road from which she had just come.

  She reflected on the last couple of days and on her journey from the Back Country. There had been one casualty along the way: Randall. Of course, that was one more than Anika would have preferred, but unlike with the young officer, Randall’s death was an inconvenience, not a tragedy. The truth was, his death was a net gain for the Northlands.

  As she eased her mind, the knowledge that she was in the Urbanlands finally set in fully to Anika’s mind. There were people everywhere here. She was surrounded on all sides by them.

  But there were none here in the park.

  A wave of suspicion suddenly washed over Anika, paranoia that she was being watched. She looked around, expecting to see a System officer perhaps, his gun pointed directly between her eyes.

  Instead, she saw a sign posted on the side of the bridge warning that the park closed everyday at sundown. There was no one in park because it was closed.

  Anika took a deep breath and tried to relax again, inhaling the multitude of smells coming from the river, which she guessed was the Dreta. Anika noted the odor had a familiar resemblance to the lake behind the Morgan property, and a pang of wistfulness struck her.

  She did miss her home, and Gretel and Hansel, of course, but there was also a growing exhilaration in Anika as she stood alone on this bank in the Urbanlands. She was suddenly flooded with memories of the Old World and the Koudeheuval Mountains, of Noah and Oskar and of her dire journey to the lost village of the Aulwurm elders.

  Anika slowed her breathing, trying to lower her heartbeat, and as she went to take in another gulp of air, she heard a grunting sound coming from somewhere behind her, maybe twenty or thirty feet away. Anika pivoted toward the sound, which seemed to be coming from a small building on the border of the park.

  “Hello?” Anika said sternly, having already narrowed her gaze as she walked purposefully toward the sound.