Babayaga

was a quick motion and the old woman’s arms flew out. Caught mid-shout, she gargled a scream and fell forward into the dirt.
    Before he could react, Will suddenly felt a great weight pushing him to the ground, as though a sack of potatoes had landed on him. He collapsed beneath the mass of it. Will rolled to the side, desperate to avoid the next blow, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He was literally naked and defenseless. He suspected that the man who had been standing in the doorway had slipped away and had somehow come up behind him. The bullet would come any second. Again, he thought of Zoya. She was silent now, there were no footsteps in the loft, it was all over. He shut his eyes and winced, ready for the end.
    “Hullo, hullo? What have we here?” a voice said.
    Will opened his eyes to see Oliver standing over him, pointing past his shoulder. Will turned and saw another man lying in the dust about ten feet away. The man was also naked, his body curled up against the wall, and he was vomiting violently. Will got up and gave the man a closer look. “I think I know him from someplace.”
    Oliver eyed the two of them. “I certainly hope so.”
    Will felt bruised, probably from the initial fall. He looked around. There was shattered glass and liquid all over the ground from where a hail of bullets had torn through Elga’s collection of concoctions. Brinish and brackish liquids dripped down from the rafters, and the air hung thick with sulfur.
    With his remaining strength, Will scrambled up the ladder to the loft. There he found Zoya lying on the floor, unconscious. He put his ear to her lips and listened for a breath while his hand felt around the top of her chest, desperately hunting for a heartbeat. It was there, faint but present. He looked around the loft; bullet holes riddled the ceiling and the back wall, as poxed as the Milky Way, yet she didn’t seem to have a scratch. He smiled in grateful wonder.
    He found his pants by the pallet’s edge and pulled them on. Then he gently lifted Zoya and heaved her over his shoulder. Stepping with care, he cautiously made his way down the ladder to the barn floor. There he laid her down on the straw-strewn ground. Oliver came up to his side. “How badly is she hurt?”
    “It’s hard to tell,” Will said.
    “Well, there’s no bleeding. Maybe we should just let her rest.”
    Will looked at Oliver. “What the hell are you doing here, anyway? I thought you went back into the city.”
    “Oh, I did go back. I got to my flat and picked up the mail, got a coffee and the paper. I was going to relax a bit, you know, before I went over to the embassy. But then I recalled I still had that item I had forgotten to return to you. The thing nagged at me until finally I figured I should just hand-deliver it to you, didn’t want you worrying about it while you were gone.”
    “The knife?”
    “Yes, see, I thoughtfully put it over there for you,” said Oliver, pointing down at the old woman’s body. Glinting brightly in the light of the day, the long handle stuck out of her back. “According to the official report, you’ll be somewhat of a hero, as it was your knife that took down the assassin of two U.S. agents, a Russian assassin no less.”
    “I don’t know if anyone is going to believe that,” Will said.
    “Well, ballistics don’t lie,” Oliver said. “Just give me a minute to get the right guns into the right dead hands and we should be fine.”
    Will looked over at Mitchell’s body. “You said two people. Where’s the other one?”
    “Over here,” said Oliver, taking Will over to the north side of the barn and pointing down behind a bale of hay. Brandon lay on his back, his eyes looking surprised, the bullet hole in his forehead still leaking a steady wash of blood. “Lucky shot, I’d say.”
    “Yes,” Will agreed, “pretty damn lucky. I thought you meant Bendix.”
    “No, I was coming up the drive and saw him beating a hasty retreat, running away across the field. It seems that’s generally his modus operandi.”
    They heard footsteps coming down the gravel drive and both turned quickly just as the old priest entered the barn. He ignored them, stopping and kneeling on the rough ground beside the old woman. He crossed himself and said a prayer, then he rose and went across to crouch down next to Zoya. He put his hand to her chest and left it there for a few moments. Only then did he look up at the two men. “She needs help.”
    “I