Verena's Whistle: Varangian Descendants Book I by K. Panikian (essential reading txt) 📗

a steep-pitched roof extending nearly to the ground. It had five bedrooms and three baths, a spacious kitchen, and a hot tub on the back deck that looked down onto the Ay River and up onto the snowy slopes of the Urals. When I first saw the view, it caused an audible gasp, it was so beautiful.

I muttered to Theo beside me, “Is this cheating? Are we doing the dangerous adventure wrong? I feel like I’m on vacation.”

Theo laughed and agreed, then he called dibs on the biggest bedroom.

The garage had two snow machines inside and as long as we filled them with gas again before we left, we were allowed to use them. The property backed onto the national park and we’d be able to get to the crater in about an hour and a half, using the ski trails.

We asked the hotel clerk last night if he knew of any houses to rent for the next month and he directed us to his cousin, who was a local real estate agent. The house was on the market but there were unlikely to be any buyers in the winter, so the owner was willing to rent it to us in the meantime. It was so easy it felt like fate.

Now we were on our way back to Zlatoust from Chelyabinsk. The hotel where we stayed our first night had called my cell and said our crate arrived. We picked it up and now I was driving and Theo was on the phone with Julian. I heard a lot of “uh huhs” and “okays.”

When he hung up, he updated me. “Julian’s got the journals. He’s going to email us digital copies and we’re going to split them four ways to read through them as quickly as possible.”

“Four ways?” I asked.

“Yeah, four. He found Irene’s great grandson too, and he’s going to help us.”

I held my questions and let Theo tell me the whole story.

“That’s messed up,” I said at the end. “He knew all about us and we had no idea he existed? There has to be some resentment there.”

“I guess we’ll see. Julian likes him.”

“Julian likes everyone,” I said in an undertone. I was suspicious of this new guy’s motives.

Theo shrugged philosophically. “If we don’t like him when he gets here, we’ll deal with it. But I’m not going to lie; the possibility of bringing firearms into this fight is making me appreciate him already. They’re already on their way anyway. They flew out of Paris last night and they’re about to catch their connection to Chelyabinsk.”

“What?” I grumbled some more. “They get to skip the 35-hour train ride? What gives?”

Theo shrugged.

“What do you need for the circle tonight?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Just some candles. I could use flashlights in a pinch but candles are better for my focus.”

“Let’s make a grocery list then,” I said. “We can stop at the market in Zlatoust after we get the crate into the garage at the house. I’m telling you right now though, I’m not going to be the only one cooking and cleaning.”

We bickered back and forth for the rest of the drive, making lists and arguing about jobs. I knew Julian was a terrible cook, but Theo had some skills. Maybe Theo and I could take turns in the kitchen and let Julian do all the clean-up. We could put the new guy on toilet-scrubbing duty.

THAT night, we snuck back to the crater in the mountains. It had been easy enough to find the right trail and then do the snowshoe trek from where we left the snow machines. There were no new hoofprints, but it was very dark outside the beam of the sleds’ headlights and then our flashlights, so that wasn’t necessarily useful information.

I wore my saber and carried my flashlight in my left hand, ready to pull the sword in an instant. Theo had the sovnya and a backpack with the candles and some extra flashlight batteries.

“I,” I told Theo as we crunched along in the snow, “do not like doing this at night. I feel very vulnerable. Anything could be watching us blunder along. Our flashlights are like beacons.”

“I know,” Theo answered. “But my Sight isn’t warning me of anything tonight, so I think we’re okay.”

That reassurance helped a little. Still, I kept my right hand on the hilt of my sword. I also spent a few minutes trying to decide if it would be better to fight while wearing snowshoes or whether I should take them off. They would seriously hamper my footwork, but more or less than staggering through snow up to my knees if I took them off? If I chose to remove them, how long would it take? Probably I would still be fiddling with the straps while a monster tried to eat my face. Maybe it was better to just keep them on? I shared my circular thoughts with Theo and his opinion was I should just keep the snowshoes on. Easy for him to say, he was carrying a spear.

“Next time, we need to bring the crossbows,” I finally concluded.

When we got to the clearing, Theo set up the candles at the four compass points and I lit them with my spark. I watched from the edge of the crater while he sat down in the snow in the center of the circle and closed his eyes. I turned off my flashlight and waited and fidgeted and waited some more.

Finally, Theo opened his eyes and waved me over. I stood next to him as he walked me through it.

“The meteor struck in the center of the crater, obviously, and created a huge blast of debris, smoke, and water vapor. It took a few minutes before I could see again, even speeding up the time, and then there were at least 20 besy in the clearing, all different kinds. Some looked like they were wearing armor. I definitely saw a handful of todorats. They all seemed very confused.

“There was