Chapter 8
Valya
The bastard was haunting her tearoom, his spawn circling her granddaughter like vultures. Suddenly, Samovar seemed forged of crystal, fragile, easy to shatter.
But Valya would not let them threaten her home and the life she had built.
If only this ancient body did not ache so much, she thought. And if only Zina would be strong enough to resist their charms. If only she would listen.
Valya shuddered to recall the hog’s revelation of what was befalling them.
But she had to face it: Her tearoom was infested, the spirit dredged up from his grave by her granddaughter, if she had to guess it, several days ago.
Valya squashed the fear living in her heart, that Zina’s affinity for living auras extended to the dead, to holding séances, to the darkness she had spent her entire life running from. Ever since…
But no, Valya would not think of it. She would tell her granddaughter what was happening and how to protect herself—and Katya.
She could not tell her the rest. It was too horrific, too dangerous.
Besides, it would forever change the way Zina thought of her and Svetlana.
Valya would lose her granddaughter, and she refused to let that happen.
Especially given that a murderer still stalked Paris.
Valya grabbed the jar from the nightstand, its glass cool against her flesh, and thrust her old nose in.
She inhaled deeply of the coffee beans. As usual, their rich, bold aromas centered her.
No, she would not think of it. But she had to get rid of the spirit.
She would not let Zina near the nechistaya sila.
Even if part of her affinity, it was too dangerous and better not practiced at all.
Valya smelled the ghostly bastard, even in her room, even through the thick, noxious air. On the surface, the odor of nothingness. Beneath it, dying autumn leaves, rotting apples, old Petersburg graveyards.
When she was satisfied that her granddaughter was asleep, Valya clambered out of bed, ignoring the complaints of her stiff joints and aching muscles.
She threw on a dressing gown and padded across the darkened room to her dresser.
Its peeling teal paint shone through the blackness.
She thrust one drawer open and fumbled inside for white thread—it had to be white—and several long needles.
She could practically hear her daughter’s teasing laugh. Your superstitions will be the death of you, Valya! In Paris, Svetlana had stopped calling her Mama.
On the landing, all was vibrating darkness, swarming and alive, like a throng of trilling insects over an abandoned platter of sugary sweets long forgotten. Valya grumbled, holding tight to the banister as she made her crawling way down the stairs.
She would ward Samovar from the nechistaya sila. If it failed, she would proceed to other measures. Darker, more unsavory measures.
This time, she managed to suppress her daughter’s imagined laughter.
In the tearoom, Valya lit a candle. The dirty yellow flame cast long, mournful shadows that seemed to drip blood. She shuddered, the memory of real blood flashing into her mind. Puddling, expanding…She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing down the bloody image where it lived very deep inside her.
Valya drew in a rattling, wheezing breath and plopped down at one of the tables.
She placed the candle at her side and took up the thread and needles.
They gleamed ethereal, the silver of moonlight.
She steadied her shaking hands, damn those veiny, withered claws.
It took her countless tries, but she finally succeeded in tying the two needles together in the middle with the thread to form the symbol of the cross.
The candlelight dimmed, sputtering as though drowning.
Suddenly, her hands appeared stained with blood. “With this cross, I protect this home,” Valya spat out, focusing her weak eyes on the cross clutched in her knobby, swollen fingers, ignoring the bloodstains on her flesh.
The glass in the casements started to rattle, the drapery to billow, though she knew all the windows were sealed shut. The candlelight guttered, nearly went out. It was the dead man. Despite herself, Valya’s pulse spiked.
A laugh, belted out of an invisible chest. Then a raspy voice, everywhere and nowhere. That accented Russian. It will not save you, old woman.
It left her feeling glacial, the air blackening, thickening, pressing against her throat as if to suffocate her.
“It won’t save you, either, dead man,” Valya forced out, indignation and rage edging out the very real, very human fear of the dead.
She resumed the chant. It was her prayer, her incantation.
“With this cross, I protect this home from dark forces, the malignant nechistaya sila, evil spirits that mean us harm.”
I only mean you harm.
She looked up, her heart skittering like a trapped hare.
There was no one there. She ignored the voice, letting the swarming take over her ears instead of that man, her downfall—and her daughter’s.
She would not let him be Zina’s. “Crossed spears, all enemies bowed,” Valya chanted more furiously than ever.
“Anyone corrupted by darkness and evil, living or dead, will be blocked by this cross.” She crossed herself three times.
She would visit the cathedral tomorrow morning and pray there, too.
Valya dragged a chair to the front doors and climbed up on her unsteady legs.
She affixed the needle cross on the nail beneath a wooden cross hanging over the doorway.
As soon as the talisman went up, the blood on her hands vanished.
The voice and the swarming faded. The air did not weigh so heavily on her breast, or try to press inside.
She could breathe, smell the fortunes she had seen and told that night, sweet and dry, like pressed flowers in an old book.
The dead man was gone, at least for now, her tearoom once more hers.
Immediately comforted, she clambered down, dragged the chair back to its place, and took up her candle and thread. Then she blundered and creaked her way up the stairs.
Once she was ensconced in her bedroom, and asleep, Valya dreamed of Ivan Morozov.
But the dream always ended the same. Her awake, screaming her old woman’s wail into the tear-soaked pillow, the memories of blood so vivid she smelled its rust and copper and horror.
And she relived it all over again—the moment her life changed into the happy dream, then crashed, dead and bleeding, into a living nightmare.