Page 49 of Spring's Arcana
“You’re saying we’re not human.”I kind of figured that, thanks.
“You bleed when you skin your knee hard enough. You cry when someone tells you no, badzaika.” He shrugged, took another long drag off the cigarette. Twin streams of smoke slid from his high-prowed nose. “I see something good, I take it. I see nice girl, I am nice to her. Human enough.”
That’s pretty reductionist, but okay. “But even if you’re… a power, you can’t travel? Go to different countries?”
“Oh, go anywhere we like, us real ones. But the rubes, they believe in borders. That makes it… complicated.”
“Did your father—”
“Listen to her!” He caw-croaked a laugh, smoke chuffing between his teeth. “Father. Fuck no. I arrived whole,zaika.”
So the “power” thing isn’t handed down? But why did Mom have me, then?“Confusing,” she muttered. If she acted unimpressed, sooner or later he’d continue talking just like any other crank on a city bus given a moment of eye contact. At least the heater worked in thisblack beast. The sky to the west was the gray infinity of snow; behind them a slumberous darkness swallowed New York.
She’d never been this far from the city before.
Dmitri was silent for a few miles. “Eh. Your mama, she never told you? Not any of this?”
“No.” Nat blinked furiously. Her eyes were scratchy, even though she had no tears left. “There were always strange things, growing up. The cats, and… But she thought I was lying, making them up.”No. She just pretended to think that.
Why would a mother,anymother, do that? If she’d meant to protect Nat, she would have… what?
What, precisely, would Mom have done?
Dmitri went quiet again.
Way to kill the conversation, Nat. Great. Nat snuck a glance and found him with both hands on the wheel, knuckles white, staring out the windshield with his chin slightly tucked and his eyebrows drawn together. His hair, no longer slicked back but disarranged from last night’s fight and the morning’s damp snowfall, fell over his eyes. The cigarette was burning down, and he puffed a short breath of smoke from the other side of a clamped-tight mouth.
He looked furious. Nat hurriedly shifted, returning her gaze to the window with her left arm prickling. This was way too confined a space. It paid to remember that he was goddamn dangerous.
Finally, he was finished smoking and tossed the butt through the window’s hungry, parted lips. “We drive for a few hours, then we stop for snack.” No trace of the murderous rage remained; he was back to a drip-dried gangster in a filthy, spattered suit.
The thought that maybe he was just hiding the anger was more terrifying than his lack of impulse controlorthe gun she knew perfectly well he was carrying. “Okay,” Nat said, and wished she had her backpack in the front with her.
Hugging something, anything, would feel like a defense.
POP, SODA
Pennsylvania galloped alongside the car for a while, Dmitri following the road which felt right even if thezaikawas keeping their destination locked up inside her pretty head. Maybe she was even sleeping?
No. Her tension radiated through the entire vehicle.
He liked driving, especially if there was cargo in the trunk to make it worthwhile. It was sometimes pleasant having someone in the passenger seat, even if true speed would make the mortality lingering on the girl rise in rebellion. Dima could smell her shampoo, and an almost-harsh tang of cheap fabric softener. Why the Drozdova would skimp on that he had no idea; what could one of their ilk not afford?
But maybe Maschka had been hoarding for a while. It made sense; the older thezaikagot the more her native country would align to her moods, her wants. Growing into your power wasn’t only a human phenomenon, though generally the transfer happened with the young divinity practicing, flinging around and testing things as kids always did, breaking toys and finding limits.
It boggled the mind that thezaikadidn’t know. How oblivious did you have to be? Then again, she was a good little girl, and what did good little American girls do but listen to their mommies and daddies?
Maschka hadn’t felt like giving the girl a single weapon to keep herself safe with, and would trade a certain bloody gem to Baba in exchange for the beldam looking the other way during consumption. It made a chilling sort of sense, even.
Hiskind of sense.
Had Candy told the girl? Probably not. How did you inform a shivering child that… the very thought filled him with deep hot loathing again. He wasn’t used to the feeling; filth was just a condition, after all.
He sometimes even enjoyed the sludge.
The black car ate miles steadily despite the ice on the road, not nearly as fast as Dimacouldtravel and certainly not in the thiefways. Still, they would comfortably outpace the sharp black shadows ofthose who eatif he kept them moving. Snow swirled in their wake, the very fringe of the storm nipping at their heels, and Baba’s claw-tip touch was in every flake.
So. The old bitch was keeping track. She thought he might eat the girl whole, or prepare her for Maschka’s teeth before his own meal. Between Grandmother and Candy, he was beginning to feel distinctly underappreciated. It wasn’t like either of them forewent any feasts, especially when an enemy crossed their path.
