Secondhand Sorcery

Marat was down. Down for the count and then some. Hopefully he wasn’t the only one. Whatever had just happened—maybe it was like what went down in Kuban when Saray was born, but she couldn’t count on that—it might have taken out the Russians’ eyes too. They were probably all blind together. That was some consolation. It wasn’t much.

As for the rest of them, Fatima and Ruslan were still out cold. Nadia was awake, screaming Biblical gibberish like a street-corner lunatic and might pass out at any moment. Now they were surrounded on three sides; Keisha could see where this was going. First things first, get out of the trap. The Knyaz’s car was a clunking armor-plated monster, and couldn’t accelerate worth a damn, but she got it moving back for the open plains.

There was a whole string of suburbs along the Ural River, north of the city. Full of harmless Kazakh people living quiet lives in the middle of nowhere. Right now, with no kitties and no time, she saw them as a big tank of gasoline sitting untended. She turned the behemoth away from the sun and a touch right. In less than a minute she hit another road headed north, and literally stomped on the accelerator, forcing the pedal down to the floor. The engine bellowed, and they surged forward.

Meanwhile, Nadia kept on yelling her war cries, and Ézarine Two threw her concert with airburst bombs or whatever they were on percussion. Hell of a thing to be using near a city. Not like they had much choice. A glance in the rear-view—couldn’t see if Yefimov was following or not, since his familiar didn’t fly. Ardent either kept his distance, or Nadia’s new friend forced him back. One of those two. Keisha was already driving, holding on to her magnolia, and trying to figure out what she was doing. Keeping track of what on earth was going on would be one thing too many.

Turnoff after turnoff streaked by the windows, old untended roads of cracked asphalt leading to nowhere. Here and there she saw smudged remnants of brick wall, or a few rusted girders standing up like signposts. All this had been Guryev, six years back. The new city was still only half the size, and what wasn’t useful for scrap and wasn’t in the way had been left standing.

In another minute they hit the first pristine spot that hadn’t had to be rebuilt from the ashes. Time to ease off the gas. All around them, the tiny town surged into action under Nadia’s valence. Doors flew open and men and women of every age and condition came out, looking pissed. More than half of them were holding knives, two-by-fours, chairs, or whatever else had been at hand. A couple of men met each other as she passed, exchanged insults, and started a fistfight right on the shoulder of the highway.

“Nadia? If we get out of this car, are these people going to try and kill us?” The girl didn’t answer; her shouting had petered off at some point, and she was reduced to panting and punching the seat in front of her. Not long now. But Keisha needed to know. “Nadia! Hey! HEY!” She looked up, bleary-eyed. “What do you want right now?”

“Justice,” she snapped, and went back to punching the seat.

“Fine.” She pulled off the highway to a side street, then into some random person’s driveway. They had a garage, and a neat little fence enclosing a backyard; she veered off the drive and sent the car crashing through the fence. She put it in park next to the back door, then got to work hauling her unconscious passengers out onto the grass. Nadia got out to gawk—so much the better—and to scream objections Keisha couldn’t be bothered to listen to.

She had Marat and Fatima dumped in no time, but Ruslan had got himself wedged, and she was still struggling with him when a man in pajamas came out the back door of the house, hefting a meat cleaver. A gorgeous stained-glass Art Nouveau nude intercepted him, and backhanded the taste out of his mouth before he could even say anything. The knife went flying, and he fell down. The familiar grabbed him and disappeared.

“Thank you, Nadia.” Ruslan flopped onto the grass next to his sister. “Where did you send that guy?”

“Some other house.”

“Is he alive?”

“Probably. Are we going to make a stand here?”

“You are.” She got back in the car and buckled up, briefly wondering if this clunker had airbags. Nothing had happened when they hit the fence, but it was a crappy fence. The car might not have noticed. “Stay here. Defend your family. Stay conscious as long as you can. I’ll be back.”

“What? You’re leaving us?”

“No.” She hesitated, trying to think of words. “I promised I wouldn’t, and I won’t. I mean, I am, but I’m going to … hell. Nadia, there’s only one road here, and they’re going to come after you. I am dead certain of that. They’ll be expecting me to stay with you, no matter what. And that’s why I’m not going to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You want justice. So do I. Do you trust me to deliver it for you?”

Nadia stared down at her, biting her lip, for a long moment. Keisha looked her right in those ice-blue eyes—trying not to linger on the dark circles around them—until they blinked, and she nodded.

“Good. I love you. Stay here.” The car door slammed shut, and she reversed out of the yard, leaving a bit of her heart behind her.

Nadia’s heavenly choir started its millionth verse as she headed back the way she came. The little town was a mess of brawls now, as its citizens sought out whatever they thought was justice, the quickest way they could get it. She didn’t want to think how they would live with each other once this was over. The best thing she could do for them was to end this quickly.

She didn’t know what kind of traffic this road would get on a normal Sunday morning, but there was none now. She strained her eyes staring at the horizon. Keisha had been reacting all morning; now she would have the initiative. Only for a second, but that might be all she needed.

There. The sparkle of sunlight on metal and glass. Just a speck. She kept on going at normal highway speeds for just a moment longer before stomping on the gas again. Nadia’s song was still plenty loud, and Keisha trusted the familiar would still be up in the sky drawing attention. A beautiful distraction, and it might even drown out the sudden noise of this monster’s engine. The other car was a drab brown sedan, half the size of hers, some crummy Eastern Bloc model she couldn’t even recognize. It wobbled on the road slightly as she approached; apparently she’d caught the driver’s attention.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move near the ground—something bright white. She’d expected it, and kept her eyes on the ugly little car when it swerved aside, thoughtfully presenting her with a broader target. The last thing she saw before impact was the face of a pretty blonde lady with big round-framed glasses, her mouth wide open. Like Nadia’s, her eyes were a brilliant shade of blue.

She hit them slantwise on the engine compartment, just shy of the driver’s side door. The airbag went off in a cloud of white dust, and the sound of destruction drowned out Nadia’s music and everything else as her face hit it, setting off a cascade of pains she’d be feeling for days. She kicked the door open—it took some serious kicking—and rolled out. It wasn’t much of a roll, under the circumstances, and didn’t take her far. She looked up from the grass, and saw what was left of the ugly brown car about thirty feet away, at the end of a long trail of shed parts. It was right-side up now, but judging by the roof it, like Keisha, had been doing some rolling that didn’t turn out well. No sign of Snowdrop yet.

Keisha ran at a crouch to take cover behind her own wreck; Adesina limped out from behind the back of the brown car as if she’d been there the whole time, and peered in through the broken window. The driver was slumped over the wheel. Younger man in the passenger seat looked dead. Back seat had an old man in a ruined suit, his forehead covered in bright red blood. As Adesina focused her eyes on him, he turned to look at her, and one hand went to the inside of his suit jacket—

For a familiar, it was like standing right next to a grenade. Adesina flew into fragments, and it was all Keisha could do to hold on to her magnolia. Snowdrop sprouted up on the far side of the road, arms spread wide. She was fifteen feet tall on top of that long green stalk, with plenty of visibility.

They were back among the grass-covered bones of Guryev. Keisha ran for the closest thing that wasn’t her car—a fireplace and its chimney—ignoring various jabs of pain. Yefimov would be hurting worse. On the other hand, he didn’t have to move … she threw herself into the pitiful shelter of the fireplace, nearly crushing a bird’s nest full of eggs. She popped out the pistol’s magazine, and peeked through the window in the side. Eight rounds, plus one in the chamber.

She slapped it back in, and hightailed it for a melted bus stop, running through a shimmering space in the air before it could harden into glass. The bus stop was just a sagging metal frame, poor cover, but there was nothing better she could get to quickly at her limping run. She hopped her way for it, expecting every second for a million glass shards to drive into her back.

Nadia’s song was still going. It rose to a crescendo now, full of rumbling bass—then abruptly stopped. Keisha threw herself flat just before the blast went off, and a hurricane-force wind swept over her. She looked up and behind her, and saw nothing but leaves and old litter drifting back down to the ground. No glass. Disrupted too early? She’d take it. The chorus started up again, and she pushed herself to her knees with a fresh set of bruises. There were bits of brick buried in the weeds, and her ribs had found every one.

Snowdrop sprouted up beside the bus stop before she could even get started that way again, waving her arms the second they were clear of the ground. Shit. She jinked to her right, towards the car. Yefimov was old, and hurt. If she could just get to him—

Keisha didn’t actually feel the hit. One moment she was moving. The next, she was on her side on the pavement, crying through gritted teeth, feeling like she’d been speared through the heart. Just breathing was agony. She put her hand to the left side of her chest; it came away bloody. Very bloody. She suddenly remembered she’d been holding a gun in that hand. God knew where it went.

Something green burst out of the ground five feet away; she tried to sit up and failed before a gigantic hand took by the waist to lift her up, kicking at the air until the pain from the exertion forced her to stop. Snowdrop’s grip was firm, but surprisingly gentle, as she raised Keisha up to her face, considering her from under her hood. Keisha couldn’t see any eyes, just a shadow above a perfect nose and lips.

Then the music stopped, and Snowdrop let go just before the blast threw Keisha into her. Through her, almost. It was like getting slammed into a giant marshmallow—she was all air and fluff, no bones at all. It still hurt like hell, and Keisha still screamed when they hit the ground together. Snowdrop’s deflated corpse was starting to turn brown as Keisha levered herself back off it. A new Snowdrop was rising up next to the ruined chimney, which was missing its top half now. Was that what had hit her?

Another blast. Keisha landed on her right side with a fresh curse, smacking her head in the process. Somehow, she pushed herself up, and saw rapidly-browning pieces of Snowdrop scattered across the asphalt. A fresh stalk rose across the highway. The music stopped, and Keisha braced herself against the bus stop. Bang. The stalk bent and broke.

Keisha’s whole left side was hot and damp now, her Kazakh dress soaked down past the hip. Not much time left. The brown car was still twenty feet away at least, with no cover to speak of. Nothing to grab hold of. But nowhere else to go. She took a tottering step, then another. Where the hell was her gun? What was she even going to do when she got there?

Another blast threw her on her face. She didn’t quite black out. Couldn’t complain. Snowdrop would kill her even faster without it. She looked up, spotted the car. Got up on hands and knees to crawl, as fast as she could bear. She had a knife in her dress somewhere, maybe. That would do for him.

Another blast. Another fall. Another rise. The car was closer. Her chest hurt a little more. Couldn’t black out yet. Just a little bit farther now. Just remember that it was all going to work out.

Then her foot snagged on something—or maybe nothing—and found she was on her face, and couldn’t quite figure out how to get up again. She was feeling dizzy all of a sudden. And the music had stopped. She braced herself. No blast. But the music didn’t start up again. Well. Damn.

She held on to consciousness with bulldog’s teeth. Raised her head. The brown car was right there. Just a couple of steps. Where was Snowdrop? Hell if she knew. But there was the car’s door. Just had to ease herself up—no, not that way—well! It was a bit of a struggle, wasn’t it? She thought of her magnolia, took a couple of deep breaths. Reached down a hand to push on the spot where it hurt. Hard to stop bleeding while you were running for your life. Didn’t seem fair.

Now she was on her knees. Couldn’t remember how she did it, but she was. Her hand was on the handle. She tugged it open, dragged herself in. The backseat was empty. Nothing there but a bloody mess.

Well. Damn.

The seat was comfortable, though. She had half a mind to stop and rest a bit. Not for long, just a moment. Then she would find … whoever it was. The man. Him. She set herself down against the bloody back seat, trying not to put weight on her left side. It was awkward, and her left hand dangled down. It brushed against something, down there on the floorboard. Cold metal. She smiled, and felt it all over, until she found the lid. It had a pop-top too. Sensible.

It was a bit harder than usual to call Grandmama out. She wouldn’t have come at all, without the kitty. But she came in the end, and Keisha could see through her eyes better than with her own. Most of what she saw was a terrible mess of car parts. But there, on the road, a few feet down the way. There he was, in a bloody tattered suit, propping himself up on his arms and breathing hard. He looked like she felt. Poor old man.

Adesina moved in a little closer, in her usual unhurried way. The old man looked up at her, dripping more blood from the cut in his head. His mouth was open, and he looked confused. His mustache and beard were soaked; he was breathing fast and shallow. Might be bleeding somewhere inside, as well. Maybe he wouldn’t live very long anyway, even without her help.

But there was no sense taking chances.

Keisha could see the light from inside the car. A flash like lightning from heaven. When it was done, a charred corpse lay on the asphalt, little flakes of ash blowing off it in the morning breeze.

The last thing Adesina saw, before Keisha let the darkness take her, was another car coming down the road.