“Katya,” Anya said. “Just get back in your skin, and we’ll take it from there.”
Nik half expected her to tack on, Who you gonna call? Ghost Helpers!
Slowly, Katya seemed to win out over the ghost. Her body became more and more solid as she regained her hold. Lisko sucked in breath after breath. The man was going to have a mean bruise if he survived this battle with a mara.
“That’s good enough. Quick, Katya, take these!” Anya shoved pills into her mouth. Nikolai couldn’t see how many, but he knew what they were—the tranquilizers.
The pregnant woman—and wind nymph, apparently—held a cup from the vanity to Anya’s mouth. “Now sleep.”
Yuchenko inched into the crowded bathroom sideways. “Let me try.” He knelt at Katya’s side and began to whisper in her ear—because he was a nightmare demon, or a ghost whisperer, or something. Nikolai still wasn’t sure he ever should have trusted the cop, but under his efforts, Katya’s stiff body sagged against Lisko.
Yuchenko took hold of her shoulder to turn her onto her back. She’d gone completely limp as he scooped her up like a groom carrying a bride.
A stab of jealousy pained Nikolai to see another man hold her like that, a man women looked at like he was made of chocolate. A man who knew how to help her, when Nik had proven useless in the end.
“Bedroom?” Yuchenko asked.
The jealousy sliced through Nikolai, exposing to himself his well of unacknowledged grief. He gulped down the swelling tide of emotions to speak. “Just across the hall.”
Yuchenko carried her out and, after a glimpse at Lisko to ensure the guy was breathing and that his wife had things under control, Nik followed. Yuchenko was closing the door, like he wanted some privacy with the drugged and unconscious Katya.
Nik put his foot in the door. “I’m coming in.”
“Suit yourself.” Yuchenko showed his palms. “Just keep quiet. I’ve never done this before.”
“What?”
“Gone into a dream to negotiate with a mara.”
“Oh.”
“Well, I’ve gone into Anya’s dream, but I’m usually just trying to get her to wake up with…ideas.” A faint blush painted the cop’s cheeks.
“No ideas for Katya.”
“Whoa.” He held up his palms. “Of course not. I’m a married man. But if this mara is anything like”—he thumbed his chest—“me, I think there is only one way through this.”
“What’s that?”
“Katya is going to have to welcome her, embrace her as part of herself.”
Nikolai glanced at Katya’s face, waxy and pale. “She’s not going to like that.”
“Neither did I in the beginning.” He gestured at the bed. “I need to get close enough to whisper to her.”
Nik didn’t want him on the bed, and Yuchenko probably knew it.
“I’ll bring you a chair,” he growled, already heading for the door.
He returned with the chair and found Yuchenko kneeling at the bedside, stroking one of the purple streaks in Katya’s hair. Surprisingly, the action didn’t inflame Nik’s jealousy—it was clearly nurture without any heat. He leaned against the wall to watch and wait.
Chapter 27
Velvety, dark peace enveloped Katya, like a deep sleep in the most comfortable of beds. Was it Nikolai’s? The question brought a smile to her lips—or did she have lips at the moment? Maybe she was only spirit again, and the smile stretched her soul.
But if she was spirit, where was the mara?
The ghost had tried to kill Lisko, and Katya had fought and just barely won. She wouldn’t be able to keep the fight up for long.
“Katya, can you hear me?” A man’s voice asked the question, and not Nikolai’s.
She was supposed to be letting go of him. She couldn’t ache every time she noticed his absence.
“Who are you?” She tried to open her eyes, but her lids were sticky and dry, like when she’d woken up after the Belovs had drugged her. She squeezed them and tried to blink, hoping to generate some tears.
“My name is Yuchenko.”
“The cop?”
“Yeah.”
She managed to get one eye open and focused it on the young man. “Nikolai is really mad at you.”
He grinned, a charming expression on his boyishly handsome face. “He’ll get over it.”
What had Nikolai said? That the detective was married to Anya, Sonya’s sister. That meant he would be a father soon. She returned the smile with an inexplicable sense he would make a good one, even if he had lied to Nikolai.
Finally, she got her eyes open and looked around. They were in fact surrounded by black, velvety darkness, though they were both mysteriously lit up, as if by invisible stage lights.
“Where are we?”
“A dream place. We tranquilized you so I could talk to you here. I’m a nightmare demon, a zmora, so we’re practically cousins, and I figured this would be the safest—maybe the only place we could talk.”
“Wait, did you say you’re a demon?” And that they were cousins?
He nodded. The tips of his teeth seemed as blunt as a human’s, and his ears were round.
“Am I…?” She touched the shell of her own ears, feeling for the mara’s telltale points.
“No. She’s over there sleeping.” He pointed behind himself, to where the revenge ghost, for once outside of Katya, lay curled up like a baby.
“Oh.” Katya’s hand flew to her mouth. “She looks so peaceful and childlike, not scary at all.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
She glanced at Yuchenko, who proved to be watching her intently. “Why?”
“Because unlike Sonya’s angry ghost, I don’t think we can send her away. I suspect she won’t be conveniently exorcised or forced out with the formula of forgiveness that worked for the Truss women.”
She tried to ignore the lump in her belly. She’d been nearly certain their promise she could live again was too good to be true. “Is there any way to find peace without killing Lisko?”
“I think so, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.” He drew closer and looked down on her with a kind of pity.
She gulped. “What is it?”
“You have to accept her as part of yourself.”
“But she’s not.” She pointed. “See, she’s all the way over there.” And Katya had not given up the hope of finally being free of the ghoul.
Pity shone like a shiny film in his eyes. “Only in your dream, Katya.” He dropped into a cross-legged position on the soft black surface of the dream and twisted his shoelace.
Katya waited for him to continue, but he didn’t say another word, just tilted his head at the mara.
She took a step toward the spirit, her strange face relaxed and almost pretty in sleep. A strange sentiment bubbled up in Katya, like one of her ghostly emotions. It thickened her throat and pressed heavily on her chest. The mara looked so innocent, so vulnerable.
“She only wanted to help you.” Yuchenko’s words pierced the velvet-soft silence of the dream.
“Help? She nearly tore me apart.”
He shook his head. “Only to help you stand up for yourself. To show you your worth.”
She wanted to argue that she didn’t need a mara to defend her. But actually, she wasn’t so sure.
“All right. Maybe,” she grumbled.
“Do you mean it?” A grin lifted the corner of his mouth, and he raised one brow, altogether too charming for such a miserable moment, even as his tone was the very sound of gravity. “Because this is the easy part.”
Easy? Then she didn’t want to think about what would come next. She crouched down next to the mara, whose chest rose and fell as if she breathed, when obviously she didn’t really, any more than Katya did in ghost form.
Was the cop right? Had the mara been part of this journey as much as finding Fedir’s letter or Nikolai’s affection? She repla
yed all the crucial moments, when the ghost had raged inside her, and found Yuchenko spoke the truth.
“Yes, I mean it.” She stroked the mara’s dark, stringy hair. “Thank you.”
The vengeance spirit opened her eyes, as if suddenly woken from a dream. When she saw Katya’s face, she bared her sharp teeth.
“No.” She shrieked, reaching for Katya’s shoulders. “I stay. I want to stay.”
Katya panicked, tried to pull away. She wanted nothing to do with this anger and violence.
The mara pressed her fingers together, tapering her long claws into a sharp point. “Let me in.”
Then she jabbed her hand into Katya’s chest, right where the bullet had entered her body.
Oh God. The pain pulsed through her, so much sharper and intense than Lisko’s shot—quick and fatal. Katya screamed.
“Let me in,” the spirit wailed.
Yuchenko tried to pull the mara away, shouting over her screams. “You need to accept her as a part of yourself. She’s your righteous anger. The self-worth life tried to steal from you.”
“No.” Katya clawed and kicked, fought off the bloodthirsty spirit with all her strength. But still the mara gripped her throat, trying to push her way back into Katya through the burning, tearing bullet wound.
“If you don’t let her in, she won’t let you forgive Dmitri.”
“She’s”—Katya rasped—“a monster.”
“Accept her and live again. For Zurkov.”
The mara stilled and angled her face to meet Katya’s gaze. “No. Live for yourself.”
Katya nodded. Yes. The mara was right about that. Over the spirit’s bony shoulder, Yuchenko watched.
“Forever?” Katya asked.
He shrugged. “You’ll learn to live with her. In fact, you might even like being a nightmare. I have a lot of fun playing around in Anya’s dreams.”
“Yes. Fun.” The mara nodded, so simple and fierce, like a half-feral child.
Katya blushed at the reminder of that first night with Nikolai.
Yuchenko’s eyes moved as he studied her, surely not missing the heat in her cheeks. “Zurkov is waiting for you. He wants you to come back, to be with him.”
“No. He doesn’t want that.”
A single laugh burst from Yuchenko. “I’m sure he told himself that, but any idiot can see how he feels about you. If you’re around for good, there’s no way he’ll let you go.”
She steeled herself against the hope his words stirred up. One thing at a time. Life first, and if that stayed on the table, she would hope for Nikolai.
The mara shifted slightly, straightening her spine. “We fight for him. We deserve him.”
That’s right. They did deserve him. Hadn’t he said so himself?
A buzzing energy ignited inside Katya, like the beginning of a vengeful fury, but it lengthened her spine and lingered, a low burn in her belly, a smoldering furnace. After a long moment’s concentration on the sensation, she found it wasn’t anger, but strength.
She took the mara’s hand. “Will you stay with me, if I forgive Lisko?”
The mara cracked a sharp-toothed grin and flung herself at Katya. Before she could even flinch, the ghost was inside her again, but this time it felt different, no longer like a stranger occupied her, like she belonged there.
“Ready?” Yuchenko asked.
She nodded, that feeling of strength growing in her by the second.
The cop snapped his fingers, and she found herself blinking awake under the scrutiny of an entire audience. Of its own accord, her gaze found Nikolai’s blue eyes, crinkled at the corners with a relieved smile.
Something felt different about being the recipient of that smile. For the first time, it resonated in her like she actually deserved to be the object of his affection, his desire, and if Yuchenko was right, maybe even love.
“Hi,” he said, as if they were the only people in the room.
But they weren’t. She scooted herself up to sitting, leaning against the headboard. With effort, she broke their stare to scan the room—Sonya was anxious, Lisko, red-necked and stoic, Yuchenko wearing an open and warm expression, and Anya with brows lifted in unabashed curiosity. She backtracked to Yuchenko and mouthed a thank you to him, then angled her shoulders at Lisko.
He raised his chin, braced for whatever was coming at him.
“I accept your apology and forgive you.”
Over that crooked nose of his, the man’s ice-blue eyes widened just as a grin split open his face. “Truly?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” He fell to his knees at her side and pushed his forehead into her hands.
The touch, the odd gestures—they flooded her with compassion for him. He’d managed what Fedir hadn’t—to redeem himself—and she couldn’t help but admire him for it.
And that was it. Nothing else seemed to change.
Under five watchful observers, she waited for some sensation to arise in her body, but nothing seemed to happen.
“Is that it? Is she alive now?” Nikolai asked.
“I don’t know.” Anya’s perplexity creased her brow. “We may just have to wait until the blood offering runs its course.”
Nikolai took her hand, the one Lisko did not hold.
“Katya,” Dmitri said, “check the scar on your chest.”
“Hold on.” Slowly, as if cell by cell, the sensations in her body were changing. A weight settled over and through her, a firmer fastening to the earth, a deeper connection to all the parts of herself, including that fierce mara who now lived inside her.
She was alive. A lump of giddy joy rose up in her throat. Never in eleven months of death had she allowed herself to hope for this outcome, and yet it had come to pass. A tumult of emotions coursed through her.
“Katya?” Nikolai squeezed her hand.
She lifted up the sheets and peeked beneath. The puckered pink scar was gone. She looked up, glancing around the room. “It worked.”
She patted Dmitri’s head. He rose up, slow and unsteady, like a fallen giant reorienting, and focused across the bed, leveling that unsettlingly clear gaze at Nikolai.
“Yuchenko gave you the file?” Nearly being strangled had turned Lisko’s voice even more low and rough than when he’d arrived.
Nikolai nodded, licking his lips in a gesture of uncertainty she’d never once seen on his determined face.
Her belly sunk. “What file?”
“Lisko Enterprises has accepted legal responsibility for failure to monitor the radiation. They’re paying out billions to the victims.”
A bubble of joy worked its way up her throat, spreading her face into an unnaturally wide smile. She was suddenly very proud of Lisko.
“And there was a job offer in there,” the CEO said. “Come work for me. Help me clean up the company. Make all our past wrongs right.”
Nikolai glanced between them—her, Lisko, back to her.
Silent, everyone waited for his response. He seemed to go gray, his lips pressed tightly. The shake of his head began slowly, like a tremor, and clearly only Katya noticed it.
She already knew what he would say when he finally spoke. “I can’t work for you.”
Lines creased Lisko’s face, as a similar disappointment carved deep into her hopes. Nikolai’s refusal was not just a rejection of Dmitri, but on some level, of her mercy for the man.
His black-and-white vision, his journalistic objectivity, his obsession to destroy the bad guy in order to change the world—she understood his choice all too well.
And worse, she understood what it meant for her. He would continue being Batman, all alone with his mission, trying to keep Dariya at arm’s length.
She took her hand from his, and he let it go without even a squeeze.
Deep in Katya’s belly, an unfamiliar confidence bloomed, and the mara’s words came back to her. We will fight for him. We deserve him. They would. They did.
But she knew him and knew that he needed time.
Anya frowned at the separation, looked at her husband. “I don’t understand.”
Sonya was watching Nikolai. “We’ll explain later.”
“Katya, do you want to come home with us?” Anya asked. “We have a spare room that’s only halfway converted into a nursery.”
Yuchenko smiled at her, his nod reiterating his wife’s invitation. Maybe it was the whole nightmare thing, but she felt as if she’d known him a long time, like he really was a cousin.
“Yes, thank you.” She almost offered to assemble nursery furniture, but that same novel feeling reminded her she didn’t always have to make herself useful to be welcome. “I would like that very much.”
Chest and chin high, Yuchenko turned to Nikolai, who suddenly looked small compared to the other men. “You’ve got my number.”
“Yeah,” Nikolai said. He didn’t look at Katya again.
* * * *
Nik couldn’t look at Katya, and Sonya Lisko was eyeing him strangely, like she could see right through him.
This cozy scene around the bed—it was like sharing a Christmas dinner with his old swim coach, like suddenly they were all supposed to be one happy family.
Katya had made some kind of peace with her mara, and also with the man who’d been their mutual enemy.
She’d done it to live again, and he couldn’t blame her, but he couldn’t join her, either.
His hands shook, and he needed to do something, anything. He marched out of his room, went to the kitchen, shook coffee grounds into a filter, poured water, and turned the pot on. When he turned around, the other men had come into the living room.
“She’s changing her clothes,” Yuchenko answered a question no one had asked. “Anya brought her some things to wear.”
“Optimistic, your wife.”
Yuchenko shrugged, but his grin was full of pride. A pretty and impressive woman, a baby on the way. The cop had everything to be proud of. But if Nik had those things, he would live in perpetual fear of losing them. That, or stay on the culture desk forever.
Or make a deal with the devil.
Lisko had gone to stand by the dining room table, drumming thick-knuckled fingers on the file folder he’d sent—just an inch and a half worth of paper, but so much money changing hands. Money that did not change the past or bring back loved ones, even if it scrubbed the man’s conscience.
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