The Baba Yaga (14 page)

Jenny, hungry and fractious, dragged her heels and complained. She wanted Monkey. She wanted Daddy. No, she didn’t want Mummy. She was hungry. She was thirsty. She was tired and she wanted Mummy to carry her. She wanted Mummy to carry her
now
. That last came out particularly loud. A few passers-by glanced at them.

“Jenny,
please!
” Maria said, in desperation. She couldn’t risk them attracting any attention. She had no idea whether the people who had come after Kit were anywhere near; had no idea what she was supposed to be watching for. She seized the child’s hand and pulled her away, down a little thoroughfare where she hoped she would be able to calm the little girl enough to go back out in search of something to eat. But Jenny, struggling against her mother’s increasingly forceful attempts to move her, began to sob.

“You need to shut that kid up,” said a voice from further along the corridor. Maria looked up, but the lights ahead were dim and she could only make out shadows. “She’s making too much noise.”

Her daddy is dead!
Maria screamed silently. “She’s tired,” she said, and pulled at Jenny’s hand to hurry her on. The child ground to a dead stop.

“If she’s tired, put her to bed.” Another voice, nearer. “Little brat.”

“She’s tired and she’s hungry. We’re looking for something to eat.”

Someone ahead of her, still shadowed, gave a rasping laugh that turned into a hollow cough. “Everyone’s hungry, sweetheart. Me and my friends here—we’re hungry. But we’re short on money. Fancy buying us dinner?”

“Jenny,” said Maria, in a clear voice. “Come on.”

“No.”

“Jenny, I’m not playing any longer. Come
on!
”

“I
won’t!
” yelled the child, and then the howls started in earnest. The laughter came again, from all sides. Maria heard footsteps moving closer. The lights behind her suddenly went out.
Oh, God,
she thought,
please let us get out of this alive
...

Two dark figures emerged from the shadows, heading towards them. Two men, leering and laughing. One had a little scar cutting his left eyebrow in half. The other was gloved.

“Mummy,” whispered Jenny, “I’m scared. I want to go home.”

Maria felt hot breath on the back of her neck. Someone’s hand was on her shoulder. “Please,” she said. “Please let us go. I swear we’ve got nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing at all? What? You were going to
steal
food?”

“Now that’s terrible, that is. This place isn’t what it was. New people arrive and they bring the place down.”

“Fucking disgrace. Shouldn’t be allowed.”

“No!” cried Maria. “I wouldn’t steal—!”

“No? Not stealing? Then you must have money—or something to sell. Let’s have a look and see what it is.”

Maria, in horror, realized that Jenny was being pulled from her arms.

“
Jenny!
” she shrieked, and tried to hold on—but her assailant was stronger. She could hear her little girl crying, “
Mummy! Mummy!
” but there was nothing she could do—

Suddenly, there was a bright burst of light and a flash of white heat. An energy weapon had been fired, overhead, and with great precision. It didn’t hit anyone, but the force from the blast sent the three assailants flying. Maria, taking her chance, grabbed Jenny’s hand and pulling her to safety.

“Wardle Springer,” said a clear voice from behind them. “Are you preying off young women again? We’ve had words about this in the past.”

One of Maria’s assailants—presumably Springer—stood up again. Maria held Jenny close to her. She supposed she should run—but she wanted to discover the nature of her mystery benefactor.

“
You!
” hissed Springer.

“Always.” And then the lights came on again and Maria could take a good look at her saviour.

She was a tall young woman of beauty and grace. She stood with one hand on her left hip; the other was pointing her energy weapon at the ceiling. “Time to disappear, Springer.” She tilted the weapon slightly. “And take your stooges with you.”

The other two men were still struggling to get to their feet, rubbing their eyes from the weapon’s flare. Maria suppressed an urge to laugh: she doubted it would go down well and it struck her that it would come out sounding hysterical. One of them made a move towards the young woman, who smiled, shook her head, and levelled her weapon again. His friends pulled him back, and all of three of them disappeared off up the corridor into the darkness.

Maria turned to her guardian angel. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t arrived when you did—”

“I doubt they’d have killed you,” said the young woman, frankly. “But there would have been bruises and probably some broken bones.” She glanced at the child. “At the very least. And unless you know the right kind of people, it’s hard to find help around here.” She stared at Maria with dark, intelligent eyes. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No.”

“From the Expansion?”

“Yes. Is it that obvious?”

“Well, nobody who knew Shuloma Station or was Reach-born would walk down here with a child and without a weapon. And your clothes.” The woman gave a half-smile. “They’re nice.” With a fluid movement, she holstered the weapon. “I’m Amber, by the way. People round here often need looking after. So I look out for them. I take care of them.” She smiled at Maria: a wide smile of great charm and loveliness. Maria thought she saw gold glint in the half-light. “You seem in trouble. Perhaps I can help take care of you?”

Maria smiled back. She felt dazed.
I seem to have been rescued by a superhero
, she thought. “Yes,” she breathed. “Please. We’re lost—we’re hungry. Please—help us!”

Again came the golden smile. Amber held out her hand. “Then come with me. I’ll take care of you.”

W
ALKER WAS NOT
a religious person. The Bureau was not the kind of place where people troubled themselves too much about guilt, the afterlife, or the eternal verities, and the Expansion, on the whole, didn’t encourage religion as it tended to turn people to radicalism and acts of conscience. Andrei Gusev, while not discouraging religion amongst his protégés, seemed to consider it rather a puzzling personality defect. If any of Walker’s immediate contemporaries held religious beliefs, they had kept it quiet. Kinsella could have been a Buddhist, for all she knew. Probably could have done with some mindfulness training, she thought. He had a tendency to bottle things up. The upshot of all this, however, was that Walker had rarely been inside a place of worship (and, then, only to oversee arrests), so she had no idea whether this tiny cavern tucked behind the noisy bar was par for the course.

Following DeSoto’s advice, they had tried the Crossed Keys first, but the old woman who owned the place—a wizened Gentinian with purplish skin and small tusks emerging from her lower jaw—had sent them next door, saying that not even Heyes was here this early in the day. The entrance to the church had proven slightly difficult to find, being low, and tucked into a narrow access corridor beside the bar. Walker had to bow her head slightly to enter; Failt trotted in behind her. The room beyond was not big, but was dimly lit, and Walker had to peer round to get a sense of the space. Failt sniffed at the air, sending his little tentacles quivering. “Tastes funny. Smells funny, too.”

Carefully, Walker breathed in. The smell was heavy, a little cloying, but spicy and not unpleasant. “It’s called incense,” she said. “The people who pray here use it.”

“Why?”

“I honestly have no idea. I rather like it, though.” She glanced at the child. “Do you not like it, Failt?”

“Not so bad. Tastes of long time passing and being patient. Tastes of centuries.”

Walker smiled. At times, her little stowaway was quite the poet. “Let’s go in and see if there’s anyone here,” she said.

They walked slowly up the aisle towards the altar, passing through the middle of two blocks of wooden chairs, set in rows. As Walker’s eyes adjusted to the low light, she began to pick out more of her surroundings: the metallic walls of the space were covered in hangings, of all things, depicting what Walker assumed were scenes from the Bible. She noticed that they got more and more unpleasant as they progressed: a whipping, a crowning with thorns, a crucifixion. Above the altar, too, hung a wooden crucifix. The simple figure nailed on it was made of dark metal. Nothing valuable, Walker assumed, not a precious metal; surely the door to the church wouldn’t be open in that case, or the crucifix would be long gone. Or perhaps the great cross held some power over people that she couldn’t understand.

The altar was plain: a big wooden table covered with a large cloth woven in a complex pattern of oranges, yellows, and browns. To one side of the altar, on a small table of its own, stood a statue of a woman in a white dress with a blue cloak and bright red lips. Her arms were outstretched, as if she was waiting to embrace someone, and there were wooden flowers in garish colours all around her feet.

In one of the seats at the front, on the left hand side, sat a big woman dressed in black, with a shock of short white hair. Her eyes were closed, her head was tilted back, and she was snoring magnificently. Walker nudged Failt, who whiffled softly with laughter. At the sound, the woman sat up, abruptly. She stared at them, her eyes wide and her face white. “Who the hell are you?”

Walker held up her hand placatingly. “A visitor.”

“Well, bully for you.” The woman ran her hand through her shock of thick white hair. “What the hell do you want?”

“I’m looking for Heyes,” Walker said. “Are we in the right place?”

The woman closed her eyes again. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “Thought you’d come about the lighting bills.”

“No, but I have a few questions. Is Heyes here?”

The woman folded her arms and leaned back. “Why?” she said. “What’s your trouble?”

Walker frowned. “Why do you assume we’re in trouble?”

“People don’t come to church unless they’re in trouble. So what’s yours? Apart from the obvious, I mean.”

“Does everyone in this bloody place trade in insults?”

“On Shuloma we trade in anything and everything
except
insults. The insults come for free.” The woman eyed her thoughtfully. “But I wasn’t intending to insult you.”

“Then what the hell did you mean?”

She sat up suddenly—a surprisingly quick movement for someone so bulky. “Forget I said anything. Apologies if you were offended. People tend to come here when they’re in difficulty.”

“I’m not in any difficulty.”

The woman gave a throaty laugh. “You must be the only person on Shuloma who isn’t. I know within the Expansion people live very orderly lives, but it’s more chaotic out here in the Reach.”

“Look, I need information, that’s all. Heyes can help me.” Walker reached into her pocket and drew out a datapin. “I have money,” she said. “I can pay. Local scrip, or Expansion units. Just tell me where to find Heyes.”

The woman nodded at the datapin. “I hope you’ve not been waving that about,” she said. “There are people round here who’d love to get their hands on that.”

“I know how to take care of myself. But do you know where Heyes is? If you don’t—I’ll make a donation to the flowers or something and be on my way.”

Failt tugged at her arm. “Missus,” the child said. “Think we’re here. Think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”

The woman smiled down at the Vetch child. She looked kindly. “That’s right,” she said. She gave Walker a slight, mocking smile. “Apologies. I thought I’d been clear. I’m Heyes.”

“You’re the priest?”

Heyes sighed. “I’m the priest. For my sins. So,” she said, looking at Walker so sharply, so intently, that Walker almost felt her innermost secrets had been scrutinised, “what’s your trouble?”

I
T WAS QUIET
out on the water that afternoon. Andrei Gusev had taken his boat out to his usual spot. Now he sat upon his canvas chair and contemplated the deep green water, the wide blue sky, and the startling beauty of the cityscape ahead. Sitting so quietly, so pensively, rod in hand, he resembled a rather dapper garden gnome—but his brain was ticking over, piecing together all the parts of the puzzle that had presented itself to him since his retirement. Below the surface of the water, dark shapes swirled, and he watched their shapes twist and their tails flick in their beautiful, impenetrable dance. He felt the rod pull: something had bitten—but he ignored the tug on the wire and let it go. Life, he thought, was short, and very few things deserved a second chance.

Rachmaninov’s
Vespers
. That was what one wanted to listen to if one was about to shuffle off. Unadorned beauty. And yet one’s heart was wrung, too. These chants—so lovely, so timeless—they had been the last songs of an entire tradition. Within a matter of months, the churches were closing, the icons smashed, and the music forbidden... To see one’s works become obsolete while one still lived, thought Gusev, surely there was no crueller fate. Perhaps it was better not to outlive one’s enemies. Still, the parting was bittersweet, and one would like to have seen them brought to justice, for their terrible, terrible crimes...

Gusev studied the patterns made by the fish and contemplated the passing of things. Behind him, the boards of the old boat creaked.

His time had come.

“Well,” said Gusev. “Here we are.”

There was no answer.

“One had hoped—” Gusev continued, “one had
hoped
—that this day would never come. One had hoped that there would be a few quiet years, at the very least.” But in his heart he had always known that whatever one’s hopes, in his line of business the reality was that the end would come suddenly, out of the blue. The best one could hope for, really, was that it would not be painful. That someone would show mercy.

Gusev was not expecting that. He felt the slight prick against the back of his neck as one might feel a tick, or the tug of a fish biting suddenly upon the line. With great relief, he realised that it was over and that it wasn’t going to be painful at all. In fact, it was almost what one would call merciful. He almost felt grateful.