Babayaga

this indulgence. Zoya knew that Elga was not, by nature, merciful. But they had crisscrossed the borders of countless countries in the span of more than two centuries. They had ridden in private locomotive cars to aid in the looting of conquered cities, and they had trailed dying asses in retreating caravans, trudging past corpses through snowbound passes. There had been exotic palaces, expansive suites, and countless garbage pits where they were forced to dig for mildewed scraps of sustenance. They had been through enough together that she was sure she should be granted this small, last request.
    But she wasn’t certain, for who could comprehend what went on in Elga’s mind? Zoya had no idea what madness was driving the old woman to this bloody deed now. Zoya suspected that it was the accumulation of all the many ages, now balled up like sewage debris jammed in a dam’s drain. But it really did not matter. What mattered was getting to the kitchen. What mattered was Elga’s answer.
    “Knife light, knife light, knife light…”
    “Fine,” the old woman grunted, warily watching Zoya for a trick, but still confident, like a knowing spider eyeing the struggling fly stuck in her web, “you can have some water.”
    “Thank you, Elga.” She got up and walked over to the kitchenette. The rat was her only option. Elga and the girl were steeled with charms, ready to withstand her attacks. But if she could find a way to break their concentration and distract them from the spell … “You know, on the metro tonight I was thinking about those saltpeter collectors back in Kiev, the two who came to dig out the cellar.” Her eyes desperately scanned the counter and the shelves. There it was, an answer to her prayers: the cleaver was lying on the drying rack, right next to the glasses. It could not have been better placed. “Do you remember them? They were a funny pair: one was a dwarf, the other was so tall he had to duck to get in the doorway…”
    In one complete and dexterous motion, she spun, releasing her left hand full of nothing toward the girl on the chair and, following that feint in perfect succession, she grabbed the cleaver, spun, and released a whirl of steel across the room, splitting Max’s skull right between the eyes, spattering the rat’s blood and brains against the wall.
    “Knife—”
    At the sight of the rodent’s sudden explosion, the young girl screamed. Zoya hissed and held out her hand, sending a concussion of air toward the child that knocked her into the doorframe. Elga was hissing now too, with the loud sound of a fat steam pipe bursting, and Zoya ducked to escape the condensed balls of electricity coming at her. Two windowpanes shattered, spraying glass everywhere. She saw Elga pinching her fingers together. Zoya grabbed the cutting board off the counter, holding it up to block the shocks. The lightning blasted the board to smoking splinters. Knowing what was coming next, Zoya quickly looked for another shield. If she rolled she could duck behind the girl, now curled up in a screaming ball of panic with her hands over her ears. But Zoya had no doubt that Elga would take them both out, the little girl was a small price to pay. There was no defense in sight. The old woman’s face was drained of all color, her eyes bloodshot and bulging, her hair shot out frazzled and wild from her skull, the final spell forming on her lips, when, for a fraction of a second, she paused, looking over as the front door creaked and a curious Will poked his head in.
    “Hello? What the—?”
    His entrance had distracted Elga long enough for Zoya to leap across the floor, landing hard on the old woman’s body. Without the slightest pause she immediately began striking the old woman’s face with her fists. After less than a minute of this, Will pulled her off.
    “We have to go!” said Zoya, stumbling to her feet.
    Will looked around, taking in the bloodied rat with a meat cleaver solidly wedged in its skull, the small child balled up and crying in the corner, the unconscious, battered old woman sprawled out, nearly dead, before them, and the chicken pecking at smoky wood scraps that covered the floor. “There is a reasonable explanation for all this, right?” he said.
    “No,” a nearly unconscious and reeling Zoya said, grabbing his hand with the last of her strength and pulling him out of the apartment.
    X

    As soon as they were in a taxi Zoya grabbed him and held him close. She was whispering some