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

could see me under the bush, but maybe it could smell me? I wasn’t sure if I could move my crossbow into position and aim before it would be on me, so I stayed perfectly still.

It stared in my direction, its eye glowing red, and bared its teeth again. It let out a sharp, doglike bark and moved one hoof forward when a gunshot echoed along the trail, startling me and it. The psoglav turned its head to follow the noise and another shot rang out. Neither appeared to strike it and it looked back in my direction, confused. I swiftly aimed my crossbow and fired, striking it in the center of its chest.

It whined and human hands reached up to finger the quarrel. It staggered but didn’t go down. I reloaded as quickly as I could, pulling another bolt from my waistband. Before I could fire though, it took a giant leap backward and landed in the snow on the other side of the sled. It started edging toward the forest.

We couldn’t let it go back to the cave and warn the others. I fired again but missed as it ducked behind the snow machine. I whistled a sharp, “Come” at it. Unlike the bukavac by the lake, this monster heard me. It cocked its pointed ears and took a few steps toward me before it froze. I called it again, “Come!”

It started to walk toward me, obviously reluctant. Its hooves dragged in the snow. Its gold spark dimmed in front of me; I was losing it. I drew my nightingale knife from the scabbard hanging from my neck and held it ready in front of my body. I took two more steps toward it and then whistled at the same time that I darted forward. I slashed twice, diagonally across its body. The second strike made contact and I felt the blade bite deep into its chest. It gurgled and fell to its knees. I bent and in a quick movement, gashed its throat open and stepped back, avoiding the bloody spray.

It toppled the rest of the way to the ground, whined, and was still.

I looked up and saw Owen right beside me, also holding his knife at the ready. His gaze was fierce.

“It’s dead,” I said needlessly. My voice shook a little. I was suddenly very dizzy; my legs were shaking. I dropped to my knees in the snow.

Owen dropped beside me. “It’s the adrenaline rush,” he said quietly. “It will pass in a few minutes. Try to take deep breaths.” He rubbed my back in a slow circle and I inhaled as deeply as I could and let it out again. We knelt like this for a while and slowly the blackness receded from my vision; my hands stopped trembling, and I felt my heart rate slow.

Finally, I cleared my throat and said, “I’ve never killed anything before, I guess. That didn’t happen with the bukavac.”

“It’s totally natural,” Owen answered and, after a last brush on the top of my head with his hand, stood. “What do we do with this body? And the blood on the trail?”

I stood as well, “I have an idea.”

I pulled the spare container of diesel from the storage area under the snow machine seat and then dragged the psoglav into the middle of the trail, away from any overhanging branches. I made a slight depression in the snow, like a small bowl, and smoothed the sides into ice. Then I dumped a minute amount of the diesel into the bowl.

I skipped a few steps back and removed my gloves, then lit a spark at the fingertips of my right hand. I sent it to the ice bowl of gasoline and it ignited with soft whomping noise. I whistled the burning fuel into the air and into a ball and then, with a shrill signal, sent it hurtling through the air at the body of the psoglav. The fire covered the body and consumed it.

I watched the psoglav burn in a wave of flames and black smoke, keeping my whistle low and continuous. At one point, I caught a flicker of movement in the branches of the tree opposite me, through the smoke. It looked like a young man. Then an owl. When I looked again though, there was nothing there.

In the end, the fire died out, leaving behind a greasy, charred mess in the snow and a smell of burnt hair in the air. We pushed the ashes to the side of the trail and then buried them under the snow. I dug out the iron teeth and packed them under the seat. Hopefully, by the time anyone found the spot, it would look like someone just set a campfire beside the trail. No bones or bone fragments to be seen.

We kicked snow all over the trail, covering the blood. Whether the besy would be suspicious, if they passed by, was another matter. They would certainly smell the blood and ashes, even if they couldn’t identify them. Would they notice the loss of a psoglav from their ranks? We had no way of knowing.

Finally, we climbed back onto the snow machine to head down the mountain. I was still feeling a little unsteady, so Owen drove. I rested my head against his broad back and closed my eyes. My feet were icicles in my soggy socks.

BACK at the house, we stored the snow machine in the garage and then stripped off our wet gear in the entry. My feet were still very, very cold. The rest of me was chilled as well. I told Owen I was going to take a bath and he suggested the hot tub instead.

I dug my swimsuit out of my suitcase, put it on, and then snagged a couple of towels from the hall closet. I checked my phone and saw that Theo and Julian ended up driving into Chelyabinsk after all. They would bring take-out home for dinner.

I looked out the sliding glass door