Chapter 40 #2
"You see," Alexei says, "you are a beautiful thing. At first, when I see you, I am thinking…the Caliburn boys? Have a girlfriend? No. Famously, no.” He laughs.
“But then I think. I realize how stupid I have been. And so I come visit. I bring you the kulichi, just to see when you eat, and…” He smiles. “And I see. You are she. The one.”
As he finishes, a familiar clanking and creaking sound comes from the back of the church. The doors are flung open, and the cart enters—the awful lurching cart with the sickly shell of the archmandrite on it. Even in a distance, his slumped form makes me shiver with revulsion.
"He dies," Moroslav says, nodding at the frail body making its way down the aisle.
"He dies, our archmandrite. Wounded. And yet he malingers.
He will never reach death. We seek what will make him whole again, for when he is healed and he is hale, our land returns to itself.
" He speaks almost dreamily. “Green once again. "
Green. The word sends a shiver down my spine. Viriditas. The life force.
They knew. They must have known. They've known this whole time, maybe.
They were never going to hurt the four fencers.
They wanted me all along.
"For years, we knew how to keep the cycles flowing," Moroslav goes on. "Every spring, perform the rites, and then it falls away. Then the church disbelieves and disavows these things. Foolish folk customs, it calls them. So we separate. Because we know truth—don’t we?”
The three girls giggle again.
“And now," he spreads his arms, "now we see. The Spring Maiden will cure him. And our pure little American friends bring you right here to us." He peers into my eyes. "So perfect. I could not have planned it better."
The cart is getting closer, closer, the wheezing figure drawing nearer, and soon I can see those feverish eyes burning from under the cap. He reaches for me, one spotted hand in a gesture of blessing, mumbles something I can barely hear, let alone understand.
"He says you are the chosen bride," Moroslav translates. "Your death will be his life.”
The three girls yip and scream with delight. They rush off to the sides of the church, gather up more baskets, as the monks wheel the Archimandrite to the side and Moroslav steps to me.
"This is insane," I say in a trembling voice. "This is murder."
"Oh no," he says. "You think I will kill you? Please. You will give yourself. The Spring Maiden dances until she can give no more, and then it is done."
He glances over his shoulder, but first one of the monks steps away from the cart.
Father Maksim, I recognize. He beams at me too, bowing deeply, says something to Moroslav, who nods and gestures for Dasha.
Whatever he said must delight her, because her face completely lights up, and she nods fervently as Father Maksim hands her something.
A small vial, something long and thin, a brush.
Eagerly, she steps before me, her lip caught in her teeth, and presses the brush to my cheek. It feels cold and clotted against my cheek. Sticky.
“Stop!” I yell, as if it makes a difference. “Stop! What are you doing?”
“M?trína kr?v?.” This, from Moroslav, as he peers on with great interest.
I balk. “What?”
A slow smile spreads over Moroslav’s face. “Sanguis maternus, you would call it.”
I translate quickly.
Mother’s blood.
Not…it can’t be.
My mother’s blood.
I gag. Retch, a hard rolling spasm from deep in my gut. My body flings itself forward, violent clutching horror, but something clamps me by the shoulders—two more girls flown to my sides.
“No!” I whip my face back and forth and back and forth, moving moving moving so it can’t get me, it can’t touch me, but a pair of hands seizes my jaw from behind, cold and so tight I can barely breathe, and they paint me.
One cheek, a slow cold circle. Then the other.
My throat burns. My eyes are hot and wet. A sob wrenches out of me, and Dasha seizes me roughly by the chin, holding me firm so she can drag the brush across my lips. Oh god. It's seeping into my mouth. I gag, I want to spit, I want to throw up, but I can't, I can't, I can't.
"She must be the last woman of her blood on earth," Alexei says simply. “
"No," I say. "No, you didn't. You couldn’t...”
I look around desperately at all of them. Dasha's face looming too close, the old women off to the side. The archmand—right, I have to look away. Father Maksim. Maksim.
Max.
The only one of them without a beard. The only one who speaks perfect English. Put him in jeans and a sweater and he could have blended in easily anywhere, anytime—
"You," I gasp. "You killed my mother?"
He bows his head. “Her sacrifice will not be in vain."
Dasha steps away, hands off the vial and brush to one of the old women. Then she and Sveta seize me by the arms, lift me from the throne, and all but shove me towards the center altar.
I'm shaking my head. “No, I won't. I can’t.”
None of them is listening. They pick up their baskets again, singing all the while, their voices ringing out eerily bright and cheerful as they step before me, tossing flower blossoms at my feet.
"Walk," Moroslav commands. "Walk, bride."
I shake my head. I’m sobbing, hiccuping too much.
"Walk!” he cries, and this time lashes out with something. A sword, a blade, fine as a weapon, sharp, that stings the back of my ankle.
"Ah!" I cry in pain and step away from it, planting my foot down barely two inches from where I started.
"Walk!” he roars, and does it again, this time my other foot. It stings badly, and I stumble this time, almost falling with no way to catch myself, my hands still bound. My legs are shaking, my body weak, my mother's blood on my face, the garments heavy and strange on my body.
I take another step. And another. I don’t know what else to do, don't know how long I can walk in this circle, trudging as the singing girls drop flowers and flowers and flowers in my path, as the old women clutch their hands to their foreheads and pray, and as Moroslav watches, his blade in hand.
I don’t know how long it will take me to die.
I'm weeping now. An absolute wreck. Uncontrollable. And I look up, to avoid seeing any of them. Up into the face of the Virgin Mary and her icon. Please, I think, please, if you're real, if any of this has ever been real, please—
“Enough.”
The doors crash open, wood splintering and a harsh metallic bang against plaster.
"Let her go."
Four silhouettes against the violet light of dawn.
I make some sound—a scream, a strangled cry, I don't know—and fall to my knees as they rush forward.
Moroslav's face contorts with fury and snaps the blade at my exposed bare feet, slicing me, and yet I barely notice the pain.
Then he sees them—Kingston, Kai, Lanz, Callahan—and shouts something in Russian, harsh and clipped.
From the shadows of the side of the church his team emerges, weapons drawn, frantic.
Free. I have to get free.
Ignoring the pain in my feet, I lean over further, bring my bound wrists to my mouth and tear at the scarf with my teeth—threads ripping and the knot loosening until finally I'm free. I push up to standing, but someone grabs me. Katyenka.
"You must to stay," she says. "You must, Gwenechka.”
"No!”
I rip my arm away and just barely slide out of her grasp when someone grabs her from behind—
Callahan.
"Go, Gwenna!” he cries, his massive form enveloping her tiny one. “Run!”
I nod, scramble, my bleeding feet slipping for purchase on the dried flowers and the worn tiles. I run towards the back of the church, the only way I can think to go, hopefully towards that hidden staircase, but something catches me across the chest.
Sveta, her long arm extended, clotheslines me as I sprint.
I slip and fall—hard, on my wrist and tailbone—and cry out in even as she yanks me to my feet by the front of my dress.
The smile is gone from her face now, replaced with something closer to frenzy.
She's saying something, fast and angry-sounding, and for some reason I try to bargain one last time.
"Please," I say, "please, just—"
It's too late. Something clocks her across the head. A bell guard, I recognize.
It's Kai.
"Fuck you," he says to her, then pivots to look at me. "Gwenna—”
“I’m okay,” I say. “It's okay, just—"
A flash of blade interrupts me, knocking into Kai's weapon and almost throwing it from his hand, but he braces just in time, beats it back, and slashes furiously at the attacker, a burning look in his eye I've never seen before.
"Lanz," Callahan yells, pulling a struggling Katyenka down the center aisle. "Cover her."
I swivel my head across the nave just in time to see Lanz leap, from what seems like fifteen feet away, clearing the altar entirely and landing in a crouch.
"Duck!” he screams.
And I do, moving before I've even registered what he says. He snaps his arm out and the tip of his blade hits something. Someone. A spatter of blood hits the tiles beside me.
I glance up, the blades clashing above me, and decide to crawl, crawl to the side, hope that one of them will follow me and fine me. I can't see them, can't make anything out clearly in the chaos until I'm behind the throne, and I rise, just barely.
Lanz has got a Russian knocked to the ground, a streaming gash pouring from his cheek.
The guy swears mightily and thrusts upward, but Lanz punches with his sword-arm and knocks the blade clean out, sending it skittering across the floor and under the skirts of the terrified-looking women, who run to the edge of the church, away from view.
A few feet away, Callahan has Katyenka and Dasha in a pew, lashing their wrists together with what looks like their hair ribbons, yelling something to Kai, who's just on the other side of the altar, fighting off two at once—shing, shing, crack.
And Kingston. Kingston is taking Moroslav. Kingston’s face is streaming with blood, a big ugly cut above his eyebrow pouring into his eye, as he fights forward, beating ceaselessly at his blade. He cuts over and over, high and fast, forcing Moroslav’s blade up just in time to thrust for his side.
But Moroslav parries. Barely.
The wound is bleeding worse, there’s no way Kingston can see, but it’s like he doesn’t need to.
Moroslav drops his blade, a quick disengage, but Kingston surges, beating it away with a crack of steel on steel, sending Moroslav stumbling back into the grand iconostasis.
It rumbles with the impact, the saints and Virgin shaking, as Kingston closes the distance.
With a tight circle of his blade, he parries away Moroslav’s weapon, goes for a lunge, misses as Moroslav ducks away.
Clang. My gaze snaps across the room—to Kai, smacking away one weapon with his own before slamming the pommel into his attacker’s head.
Lightning-quick, he spins to the second and kicks him, right in the chest, sending him backwards and spinning over a pew, landing somewhere out of sight with a sickening crunch.
I wince, close my eyes. And when I open them—
“No, dorogaya.” Father Maksim’s handsome face looms over me. “You must stay. You must—”
“No!” I spin, both hands up, and shove with everything I have left. Father Maksim stumbles, slides, slips, his foot catching a clump of dried flowers and skating over a pool of blood.
My blood.
It’s like slow motion as he falls, arms reaching for nothing, long black robes billowing. And then, all at once—
CRACK.
His head hits the corner of the altar. Glances off, a sticky red patch clinging behind.
He drops. Motionless.
“No,” I whisper. Hands at my mouth. I only wanted him back, away, away from me—I didn’t mean to—
“King!”
I whirl. It’s Kai, catapulting across the church to where Kingston has Moroslav pinned. Right against the iconostasis.
“No!” I cry, and try to run forward, but someone holds me back. I scream, but—
“Gwenna.” Just Lanz, a slash on his cheek and pain on his face. I breathe out, weak with relief.
Kingston’s blade shrieks against Moroslav’s, sheer force trying to overpower him now, their wrists twisted together. His face is half-red now, his jaw clenched, arm trembling—
Moroslav rockets forward, slamming his head into Kingston’s.
And Kingston falls.