“You mean to lead the ritual, then?” Nadia asked.
“Well, I hardly think it appropriate for a Russki to be leading a ritual designed to halt a CIA operative from carrying out an exfiltration operation.” Alestair snapped the tip of his umbrella against the stone floor. “It’s a matter of propriety.”
Jordan sighed. “I don’t give a shit about your stupid Western propriety. Let’s just get on with it.”
“Wait. I’m here.”
Tanya’s attention snapped to the doorway. Gabe wedged his way past Jordan, his face ruddy, a sheen of perspiration slicking his hair to his brow. The knot in Tanya’s stomach went slack.
The candlelight shimmered as Gabe made his way into the room and spread out an aeronautical map in the center of the circle. Tanya padded toward him and bit her lower lip. The red classified markings on the paper, the hasty pencil scratches copied from encrypted sources . . . She’d just persuaded Gabe to turn over state secrets. She should feel elated. But all she felt instead was the grim weight of the task before them. The more Hosts the Flame collected, the closer they came to realizing their horrible plans.
“Now,” Alestair said, “we were just discussing who ought to be leading us here today.”
Gabe nodded at Alestair, then scanned the gathered crowd. He set his jaw and met Tanya’s gaze. “Maybe Tanya should lead.”
All heads whipped toward her. Tanya’s whole body quivered. Grandfather had never prepared her to do something so massive as this—something so decisive. Ice magic was a subtle nudge here and there, a steady hand guiding one’s path. It was not a fist, decisive and difficult to contest.
But that’s just what they meant to do here.
Tanya let the satchel in her hands sag to the floor with a clank of crystals and stones. Her gaze fell on Nadia, but the woman’s expression offered no comfort. They were close, but they’d never been in the business of comfort. And neither, Tanya supposed, had the Ice.
• • •
Sokolov pondered the board, and Dom wondered if he’d see the trap. Dom had lost the first game, and won the second on a fluke misplay he blamed on Sokolov’s exhaustion, but he’d have liked to win this game on his own merits. Never count on your enemy’s mistake, Grandpa had taught him. Dom wondered, waiting, if he’d ever go back to Florida. Didn’t matter one way or the other. He’d never liked the state much. Everyone had to grow up somewhere—no sense letting nostalgia bog you down.
He thought he’d set the Russian up proper this time, baiting the trap with a knight apparently exposed to Sokolov’s bishop and rook. Dom’s own rook guarded the knight, but Sokolov might accept the trade, maintaining his material lead—if Sokolov didn’t notice that, by moving his rook, he would place himself in check. If Sokolov attacked with the bishop, Dom could take the bishop with his own rook, and then Sokolov’s pinned rook as well; if he tried rook takes knight, the trap wouldn’t spring, but at least Dom would gain tempo.
Sokolov reached for the bishop, and Dom tried not to look as if he cared. The scientist’s fingers closed around the piece, and he twisted it in place. His lips thinned.
Then a fist of wind struck the plane.
• • •
“This is everything we were able to recover,” Nadia said, gesturing to the heap before them. Chunks and hinges of the construct scattered across Gabe’s map, copper wiring and quartz and ashed herbs arranged in a miniature, roughly human shape. Jordan mashed a still-smoldering clump of papers and herbs in her mortar and pestle, then scattered it atop the construct’s remains while Tanya watched.
Tanya’s skin felt too tight for her body. The pulse of the ley lines beat against her like a drum. Already, the energy was pouring into the crystals. Now the task fell to her to bring it to life. Give it direction.
And hope that Gabe’s own elemental—hell, that Gabe himself—would cooperate.
“The map shows the original flight plan the CIA charted for Dominic, but he’ll likely have chosen his own path,” Gabe explained. The words were rushing out of him all at once, as if someone had pulled his plug free. “Still, it’s a good chart of the wind currents. I thought it might—might help us guide the way.”
“It’s good,” Tanya said. “It is a starting point.”
Gabe grimaced, somewhere between smiling at her approval and cringing at it. Tanya supposed it was the best she could hope for from him. “One last thing from the embassy’s trash,” he said. Then pulled a chewed-up stub of a cigar from his pocket and tossed it onto the heap of components. “To help us focus on Dominic.”
Tanya nodded her approval. She linked hands with Nadia, who linked with Alestair, who linked with Jordan. Then she held her hand out toward Gabe.
“Once we join hands,” Tanya told him, “you can’t let go.”
• • •
Chess pieces scattered. Dom slid, rolled, and rose into a fighting crouch, hand to his knife. Sokolov sprawled on the floor among rolling bishops.
Dom staggered toward the Host, kicking pawns out from underfoot. Sokolov caught his wrist, levered himself upright. The man didn’t look hurt. Dom helped him to a seat and strapped him in. “How about a little warning next time?” he shouted up to the pilot.
“Turbulence.” The pilot sounded tense. “Weather’s getting strange up here. Sudden clouds, weren’t on any of the forecasts.”
“Strange how?” No answer. Sokolov reached for Dom’s jacket, but Dom stepped back. ”It’s fine. You’ll be fine. We got this under control.” He smiled. Sokolov did not seem to calm.
The airplane jerked again. The Russian cried out. Fuck it. Dom ran for the cockpit.
• • •
Gabe stared at Tanya’s outstretched hand.
Incense clogged his lungs, and the shadows of Jordan’s basement wadded thick and cloying as wet cotton around him. He swam, or drowned, in the dimness. The construct twitched in the circle, a spidery Tinkertoy twist of broken metal. He wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t what Gabe Pritchard did. He served his country. He fought. He killed. He betrayed, sometimes. But this—this was Cairo and worse.
He had to stop Dom. He couldn’t, without Tanya’s help. All the other screwing around with Ice and Flame, that had all been spy work, or close to it. This was something different. He glanced to Jordan for help, but Jordan’s eyes were closed. She was part of this ceremony, now. This ritual. They needed him.
Tanya’s hand glowed in the dark.
• • •
Dom barreled into the cockpit. “What the hell is going—” The sky silenced him.
Black clouds—not gray, but the color of volcanic ash—boiled up against either side of the plane; ahead, they bubbled into new, twisted curves, spitting out columns of smoke. Weird, sick, green-and-purple lightning crackled from their depths. The plane was flying into a sky like a closed fist.
The pilot was talking. “—never seen anything like—”
Neither had Dom, but he recognized it all the same. This wasn’t weather. This was a weapon.
“Turn around,” he said.
The pilot twisted the yoke. The plane rattled, but didn’t turn. ”It’s not responding.”
Sparks played over the instrument panel.
“Get down,” Dom said. He felt—nothing. Wooden. Locked inside himself, frozen in the face of the sky.
“It’s fine. We can weather it. The plane’s insulated.”
“Get down, dammit!” There was the anger, there was the sweat. “Low as you can go.”
Sokolov babbled in Russian, some kind of prayer Dom couldn’t follow through the engine noise.
“Down!”
• • •
“Gabriel.” Tanya’s voice sounded so childish to her ears. No, not childish—exposed. There were no more games or roles or covers to maintain. She hated it.
But if her most honest self was what she needed to convince Gabe Pritchard to help, then that was what she’d be.
Gabe looked at her as he sucked in an incense-choked breath. Orang
e sparks danced in the gleam of his eyes. “I . . .”
The construct—what was left of it—surged to life with a rattle of quartz and wire. And those crystal eyes—those orbs which had hunted for a Host, a very specific Host—began to glow.
Gabe’s fingers laced in Tanya’s.
• • •
“—down, God damn it, get us down, get—”
And then there was light.
• • •
The construct hung in the center of the circle of people with the limpness of a marionette. Only there was no hand holding it up—just their chanting. Tanya didn’t need to be told the words or the language; she felt them, strumming inside her like a chord, and all she needed was to open her mouth and let them pour out.
Gabe’s hand was like fire against hers, searing away dead skin, spreading through her limbs and on to Nadia on her other side. His elemental tasted of metal and intoxication, like a thick, silvery alcohol in her blood. It oozed, quicksilver, through her senses, plating her words in mercury.
Threads of gold spun from the chanters’ mouths. Stitched themselves around the hovering construct, its quartz joints, crystal eyes, even the nub of cigar. A fierce wind circled them, picking up speed. Whipping at their clothes and hair. Pressing in on them in the eye of the storm.
The construct rose higher as the wind howled against the chamber’s roof. Its limbs twitched and fought; its crystal eyes rotated, giving the impression of a spooked horse.
Gabe’s hand became Tanya’s and his elemental became all of them, knitting a fine web of magic over everything. Two ley lines and an elemental to power the spell—Tanya wondered, dimly, if that raw energy might tear her apart. Too late. She was mercury and air, quartz and crystal and ash, she was the pinprick on the map that linked all these things together and the cool Alpine air on the other side. She could almost see it, in the gaps between her words—the aluminum frame of the plane. The chess pieces flying around in its cabin. And then the sudden crush of pressure as the storm converged—
• • •
The world whirled, and returned. Some small, feverish beast screamed in Dom’s ears. He was Dom, still. He was alive. Spinning, collapsed against the instrument panel, but alive.
He blinked tears from his eyes, and pushed himself upright. The pilot slumped against his harness, neck broken. Vomit and spit and blood leaked from his mouth. Poor bastard must have bitten through his tongue, along with everything else.
“Fuck,” Dom said, but he couldn’t hear his own voice.
Clouds swirled and burned outside the plane. He didn’t look into them. He didn’t want to see the things he knew were there. This storm wasn’t natural. The goddamn Ice again. Pushing. Always pushing. Jealous fuckers. They’d called things in the night, monsters in the storm, great quivering snakes of shadow in the sky.
And the plane was going down.
Dom shoved the dead pilot off his yoke. His stomach lurched as he moved. The plane swirled. God damn it, God damn it. He tugged the yoke, twisted—no control at all. Couldn’t even guide the spin. Stalled. He risked a glance out the window, fine so long as he didn’t stare into the clouds: The plane was miles up and falling fast, nose to ground, rolling on its axis.
No way to save the plane, not now. Fine. Fine. Repeat that enough times and you’ll convince yourself it’s . . . What’s done’s done. Get a parachute.
He felt curiously weightless as he climbed onto the back of the pilot’s chair, jumped, then caught the cockpit doorframe and pulled himself up, legs flailing. He panted and surged onto the bulkhead, collapsed. Seconds left, if that.
The parachutes hung toward the rear of the aircraft, near the seats. To reach them he’d have to climb straight up, fifteen feet in this whirling coffin. He couldn’t make it in time. The plane would pancake into Ass-End, West Germany, with him inside.
Then the emergency exit door behind him blew. He heard that, even over the small, high screaming of the beast. Don’t give up. Turn. Sokolov stood by the open door, parachute on his back, tensing. Of course. He’d been strapped in, near the parachutes. He wouldn’t have blacked out. Plenty of time to grab a chute and go.
The Flame needed this poor bastard: a perfect Host, tractable, timid. They knew Dom’s flight path, they’d be along before the CIA could mobilize the local authorities.
Your duty’s clear. Be the pawn. Sacrifice yourself.
But Sokolov trembled at the door. Dom had seen it before: afraid to jump, even if staying meant death.
Dom forced himself to his feet, worked his way along the bulkhead to Sokolov, wrapped one arm around his shoulders, and slit the old man’s throat with his knife.
Blood sprayed across Dom’s hands and shirt. It burned. Magic? Guilt? No time to worry. Sokolov gaped at him with both mouths. Dom tore off the old man’s parachute, adjusted the straps, and dove out into the magic-mad sky.
• • •
Something had changed around Tanya. With a blink, she realized it was the room. It was crooked. No—she was. Her cheek throbbed something fierce where it rested on the cold concrete floor. A thousand specks stung her face; when she wiped at it, her hand came away with powderized stone and blood.
“Tanya.” Gabe was crouched over her, nudging her shoulder. Sweat crept down his temples.
Everything was brighter now, but hadn’t the candles gone out? She tried to glance around for the light source. It hurt her eyes too much to move them. She squeezed them shut with a groan.
“Tanya.” Nadia, now. “Tanushka. Otveti mne.”
“She’s fine.” Jordan’s voice, smoky and cracked. “Nothing a shot of vodka can’t fix.”
Tanya rolled onto her stomach and forced herself into a crouch. Gabe’s hand on her shoulder fell away as he scrambled back from her.
Tanya rocked onto her heels, still curled in a ball, and forced herself to open her eyes once more.
What was left of the map smoldered in the center of the ritual floor. And on top of it—she squinted. The construct. Lifeless and shattered beyond repair.
Tanya swallowed down the lump in her throat. Her mouth still tasted of toxic metal. “Maksim Sokolov is dead.”
• • •
Zerena tapped away the ash from her cigarette and pressed the transmit button on the radio with one lacquered fingernail. “Wraith requesting status update.”
“Nothing to report, Wraith.” The American voice on the other end was taut. “I’ll have to go dark soon.”
“Nothing?” Karel snapped, hovering over Zerena’s shoulder. “They should have landed two hours ago!”
Zerena regarded him with narrowed eyes as she took a sip of her bourbon.
“This is unacceptable. Your contact at the air base is lying to us.” Karel shoved his hands into his pockets. “He is leading you on. They want the Host for themselves.”
“My contact and his Flame sponsor are not . . . pleasant men,” Zerena conceded. She wrinkled her nose, remembering Dominic and his awful cigars. “But they are loyal to our cause.”
“How can you know? Honestly. How can you be sure? With you and Sasha constantly stabbing each other in the back, and then that disaster in Cairo—we’re falling to shit.” Karel shoved his hands into his hair and left them there. “It’s unacceptable, Zerena. At this rate, the bloody Ice will acquire more Hosts than we will.”
“They did not capture the Host,” Zerena said. “I am confident of that.”
“Does it matter, at this stage? They’ve captured many more. We’re falling behind.”
“But they have no courage to kill them.” Zerena smiled. “To kill a Host is to lose the elemental—set it free into the world once more. Then it must find a newborn Host. It could latch onto anyone, and we’d have to find them anew. But look, Karel, at the favor they have done us. With their cowardice, their reluctance to kill, they have instead collected all of these Hosts for us, their elementals neatly contained.”
“Collected,” Karel echoed. “You are certain.”
; “Reasonably.” Zerena stared at the ash collecting on her cigarette and tapped it away again. “I am quite certain who does know for sure.”
Karel exhaled loudly. “And I don’t suppose you’ll be sharing that information with me anytime soon.”
“Of course not. Look what happens when I do.” She pressed the transmit button once more. “Wraith going dark. Report any further information through the usual channels.”
“Copy.”
She switched the radio off with a snap, then looked back at Karel. His rumpled suit, his stubble, the oily tint to his face. Such disarray, over one little piece of a much larger machine.
“Make sure you hide that radio somewhere less obvious this time,” Zerena told him. “Even I can’t control when the StB will conduct searches.”
Karel shot her a withering stare. “Yes, well, what can you control these days?”
Zerena’s fingers were around his throat in a flash. Ruby lacquer pressing into fishbelly-pale flesh. Karel’s lips pulled back, swollen and slimy, to reveal mossy teeth.
Somewhere in the room around them, a flame crackled, hungry.
“Stay out of my way.” Zerena’s Czech turned into a hiss. “Soon, I’ll have more Hosts than your tiny mind will even know what to do with.”
Karel’s muscles slackened, though only by a fraction. “I know precisely what to do with them.”
Zerena tilted her head to one side, arching one brow. “Then you’d better start finding me acceptable vessels.”
She released him and spun on her heel to fetch her jacket from its hook.
Karel rubbed at his throat, watching her, something like fear or irritation dancing across his features. “From the ashes,” he whispered.
“From the ashes,” Zerena echoed. “Very soon.”
And then she was gone.
4.
An unseasonable warmth held Prague in a gentle embrace. Tanya shucked off her jacket and paused on the Charles Bridge, watching the workers pass her by, as a soft orange sunset spread like egg yolk in the west. Exhaustion pulled at her bones, but it was a good exhaustion. The weight of a job well done. The weight of being alive.
The Witch Who Came in From the Cold - Season One Volume Two Page 22
