Page 5 of The Salt-Black Tree
What else could she do? It was, she decided, as she slumped trembling in the comforting, cradling passenger seat of a fast, shiny black car, well past time to find out.
Especially if the big motorcycle-horse was, as she tried not to suspect, telling the truth.
WORSE IN THE WORLD
A winter night moved westward, its white-furred coat swirling. The wind, hurling itself across rolling prairie, sensed Wyoming’s endless grass sea and urged its snow-hooves faster. A low-slung black car, its silver hood ornament swollen-shouldered now and its eyes bearing glitters like diamond chips to match the glare of headlights, ate up the road miles while the snowstorm sharpened its claws, descending upon a tide of shadowy scavengers, scattering them in every direction.
California,little Drozdova said, and after an afternoon of vicious combat Dima was in a fine mood. The only thing better would have been lifting a small article the damn cowboy wouldn’t miss for a while, but for once Konets was willing to forego the pleasure. He smoked slowly, drawing the incense-fume deep into his lungs while two fingers rested on the steering yoke’s figure-eight, the road’s dips and slight rises passing underneath tires that, while not flaming, glowed with an edge of dull lava-red.
The cloying deathbreath tang of mortality was fading rapidly from the girl in the passenger seat. They could drive a little faster now, though he wouldn’t take her through the thiefways. Those grim, shadowed places with their low crimson glow weren’t for the likes of her, Konets knew.
Not unless there was no other choice.
Instead of mortal camouflage, Nat Drozdova now smelled ofcrushed grass, warm freshness, and a thin white ribbon of jasmine. The edge of horse and exhaust from Ranger’s fastest, most feared mount added to the perfume, as well as a veneer of desert spice and the flat iron scent of a deep well with liquid gleaming at the bottom—a drink fit to gripe a mortal dying of thirst, or anyone else stupid enough to take a mouthful.
She hugged that schoolgirl backpack like it was her only possession in the wide, wide world. Perhaps it was, though of course one of their kind could travel as lightly as they wished.
And of course as she strengthened, Maria Drozdova waned. That was another reason not to take his personal roads through the country he had adopted at such a high, glittering, bloody price, his secret ways through the warp and weft of the world. Every divinity had their own means and methods of travel; Maria should have taught her child how to access spring’s soft green country.
He didn’t think she had, though.
Finally, as they glided through the dark, cutting across the leading edge of a snowstorm’s fury, hiszaika’s shivers eased. So did her deathgrip on the black backpack. There was something in there, but it didn’t throb or cry out to him with a particular clamoring voice. No, it just made his palms itch and his fingers tingle, so he took another deep drag, letting the calming bite of smoke fill his throat—and the rest of him.
Now Maria’s plan was much clearer. Not only had she hidden a bloody fist-sized gem somewhere only she or her daughter could reach, but she had also sown arcana in certain locations. A fresh new native-born incarnation would manifest their own, of course, but not until she reached full strength. Having the old ones hidden in continental taproots—where the concentration of numinous force would mask and preserve even items of great power, places even Konets might not be able to steal from without a great deal of painstaking effort—would slow the incarnation process a great deal, and now that he’d spent some timewith a littledevotchkaraised to believe she was a mortal rube instead of a divinity, Dima was forced to admit the bare truth of what everyone suspected.
Maria Drozdova had indeed been planning a very particular kind of theft. Trading what she’d initially stolen to Baba was one way to make the old woman overlook the brazen, carnivorous act—not the only way, but one that stood a good chance of working.
Dmitri Konets had planned some complex, long-running games in his time, but this was something else. “You want smoke?”
As soon as he said it, he regretted opening his mouth. The girl shook her head, staring out the windshield like she expected the mouthless hungry things to appear in front of them, inky cutouts against headlight shine.
She had no faith in him atall. It shouldn’t have stung, for after all a thief was a thief, and he should know.
“No.” It sounded like her throat was dry; little Drozdova coughed slightly. The cordial he’d forced between her unwilling lips would have made a mortal thief lucky for years, granting health and strength far beyond their ken; to a fellow divinity, it was like a mouthful of Dima’s own blood willingly shed. A powerful draft indeed, and her oblivious to its potency, let alone implications. “Dmitri?”
He made a short, irritated noise.
“Thank you.” Now she looked at him, her face bathed in dashboard glow. “For… for fighting them off.”
The freeway hummed below, the wind howled on either side—oh, it was a hungry, hungry night, and thoughthose who eatwere fearsome things what rode the snow-brooms was even worse. Hair unbound, greenish-pale raddled body bare, trailing darkness and ice in her wake, Winter roamed the prairie.
Even the mouthless shadows would flee her approach.
Baba called the girlgranddaughter;little wonder she liked tender little Nat better than her mother. Dima was forced toadmit he agreed with the old beldam about something, a bitter realization indeed. “I told old lady I keep you safe and sound.” He checked the rearview, unnecessarily—any mortal out tonight would be lumbering behind a snowplow or feeling their way from one mile marker to the next.
“Because you want your heart back.” There was a catch in the words. Even a brave little girl had her limits.
“Don’t worry,zaika moya.” Dima quelled the urge to shift in the driver’s seat. His eyes narrowed slightly, and when he exhaled, heavy perfumed smoke crept towards the cracked-open window before being sucked out into the slipstream. He could be polite, he decided. She might still dislike the pleasant, drugging fumes. “We have long way to go. Try to rest.”
“Oh, sure. Because riding a murderous not-horse and finding out shadow-monsters are real is so restful.” Irritation flashed in her tone, a breath of ozone warning on a mild spring day. “Is there anything thatdoesn’twant to eat me?”
Oh, you don’t like being beautiful, little girl?Women, never satisfied with anything. “At the moment, Dima is more interested in burger.” They could probably reach Nell Bonney’s place with little trouble, and she was always open on nights like this. “You like fries? I know a place—”
“I shouldn’t have asked you.” A disdainful turning away, all that sunny regard gone—well, the weather changed quick in springtime. Both here and in the old country.
“Those who eattake everything they can,devotchka. Like Ranger’s little horsey, like everyone else.”Like your dear mamma,he wanted to add, but she wouldn’t believe even the strictest truth if it dropped from his lips. Nobody trusted a thief, even one with a habit of telling some truth.
Honesty was the best misdirection of all. It often pleased him to wield it like one of his little friends, gleaming blades and bone or black handles distracting the prey before the bladesbit deep, remaining pristine no matter how much gore was splashed.
