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

rattling breath after rattling breath, and prayed to Mesyats. “Oh, Moon God….”

“Oh, Moon God,” Ana echoed.

A few hours later, when his phone chimed with a message, Sergei smiled and thought again how lucky he was to have such a loving, forgiving partner.

Chapter 14

The morning after the battle at the lake, I woke up slowly and catalogued my aches and pains before I sat up. My sternum ached, where I’d been whacked with the bukavac’s tail. My tailbone ached for the same reason. I looked in the mirror in the hall bathroom and saw a scrape across one cheek too. I wasn’t sure when that happened.

I showered last night after my tea with Owen, but I still felt grimy and covered in arcane blood. I left my clothes soaking in a cold bath overnight and there was a ring of red and black on the tub walls where the water settled. I scooped up the wet clothes, wrapped them in a towel, and walked them quickly down the hall to the laundry room near the kitchen. I dropped them in the washer, added a ton of detergent, and crossed my fingers.

Then I went to scrub the tub and take another shower.

Twenty minutes later I was starving. I got dressed and tiptoed down the hall into the kitchen. I had no idea how long the others would sleep, so I made a whole omelet bar. I chopped red peppers, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, red onions, and some ham; shredded cheese; and pulled out the eggs.

I started sautéing some onions and whisking a few eggs. Theo walked into the kitchen and I turned my burner off and went to hug him. I held him very gently and we stood there for a long moment.

“I’m okay, Very,” he finally said, and stepped back.

My nose was watering a little. I turned away from him to grab a tissue from the counter and when I turned back, I smiled brightly. “I know! Do you want an omelet?”

He nodded and I added more onions to the pan.

“I thought you’d sleep longer,” I told him and I whisked some more eggs into the bowl

“Me too,” he answered. “But I feel wide awake. I was lying in my bed listening and waiting for someone else to be up.”

“Are you in pain?” I asked.

“A little,” he answered. “I took an Ibuprofen when the meds from the hospital wore off, and that seems to be working pretty well.”

The back door in the mudroom opened suddenly and a blast of chilly air blew into the kitchen. Owen tramped into the room, stomping the snow off his shoes. He looked up at us and froze. “Sorry,” he said. “I was trying to be quiet. Did I wake you?” He took off his hat and gloves and hung up his coat.

“No,” I said. “We were both up. I didn’t know anyone else was awake.”

“I was Googling how to burn a body and then I wanted to see if we had the stuff to do it.”

“Do we?” Theo asked.

“Yeah,” Owen answered. He came to sit at the counter. “There’s a fire pit out back with a grate we can put on top like a pyre and a pretty big pile of firewood. We have to keep it going very hot for a long time, at least five hours, otherwise we’ll end up with charred bone, not ash. So, someone will need to be out there, stirring the coals, the whole time. Even then there will probably still be some bone pieces that we’ll need to fish out afterwards and bury or something.”

I grimaced. “Should we wait for tonight? I don’t want any neighbors to pop over and see a slimy crocodile tail on our grill.”

“Might be best,” Owen agreed. “The garage is pretty cold, so it should be okay in there today. I don’t think it’ll start to stink.” He paused and amended, “Stink any worse.”

I wrinkled my nose, remembering.

“Do you want an omelet?” I asked Owen.

“Absolutely,” he answered. He went to the sink and washed his hands and then sat back beside Theo at the counter.

I added a few more eggs to my bowl and more vegetables to my sauté pan. I made Theo’s first, no tomatoes, and then asked Owen what he liked in his eggs. He said everything, just like me, so I made a giant omelet and then just cut it in half for the two of us to split.

We dug in and ate quietly for a couple of minutes. Both men murmured their thanks. Theo’s phone chimed and he looked at the screen.

“Zasha wants to know if we’re still going to the winter festival in Chelyabinsk today.”

“Oh, Zasha wants to know if we are going,” I made my voice sing song-y.

Theo grinned at me and then sobered up. “I don’t know why we would go though. We need to get a handle on the situation at the cave. There’s 20 of them holed up in there and they’re not going to stay holed up for much longer.”

“Why is it again that we can’t just call the authorities?” Owen asked. “Let them toss a few grenades in there and we’re done.”

“Several reasons,” I answered and started ticking off my fingers. “First, what would we tell them? No one would believe us. And if we actually did get the police to send someone up to the cave to investigate, they would assume we were nuts and prepare for wild animals, or some weirdo militia group, to be in there. Not a pile of supernatural creatures that can shoot fire, stomp the ground and cause an earthquake, or blast magical lightning bolts. It would be a slaughter.

“Then, because now the police would believe us, we’d be under suspicion. And we do not want to draw attention to ourselves in this context.” I emphasized the “not.”

“Second,” I continued, “if we assume that at some point we are believed, and the appropriate force is marshaled to attack the besy, it is likely the authorities