Pure: Ignis Part 35

"I think you should have dinner with Maksim," I replied.

Chapter 17.

GM did indeed go out to have dinner with Maksim. And once she was gone, I walked back into town to retrieve my bicycle. I had forgotten about it in all the excitement that was attendant on meeting Maksim.

On my way home, I stopped at the small grocery store that GM, the Leshi, and I had stopped at back in October-it was in the little row of shops near the house. I bought a few things there, and then went home and cooked dinner.

After dinner I settled down in my room to wait for night. I sat by the window, watching the sky darken and the stars emerge. I would try Galina's house again after GM went to bed, and I would also go back to the Pure Woods to look for the Leshi.

And if I didn't find Galina or the Leshi, I might find someone else. Vampires and other dark creatures were always more active at night, and since they were after me, I would prefer to meet anything that was stalking me far away from GM. I didn't want anything to happen to her.

GM came home around eight o'clock. I wanted to ask her if she knew where Galina was, but I was afraid to admit to her that I'd gone looking for Galina without her knowledge. I had a feeling that she would disapprove. I also didn't want GM to think I was keeping track of her and Maksim. So I came down to sit with her for a little while, but I didn't ask too many questions. We sat together and gazed at our newly decorated Christmas tree, and GM looked relaxed and happy. I excused myself early and went back up to my room to wait till GM went to sleep.

GM surprised me by retiring early-for her-at around eleven. I waited for about an hour to be sure she was asleep. Then I slipped out of the house to go look for Galina and the Leshi.

The night was cold, but it was no colder than it would have been back in Elspeth's Grove, and I was perfectly comfortable bundled up as I was.

I rode through town and past the Mstislav mansion, which loomed pale and ghostly in the dark. The floodlights that had lit up the house at night when I'd been in Krov back in October had been removed. Krov as a whole was not well lit at night, and the general gloom only added to the air of unreality that surrounded the mansion. Its outline was dim and indistinct-I had the strangest feeling that the house might waver and vanish right in front of me. But I knew that the house was real enough-I had been inside its walls and had been trapped in its crypt. I knew just how solid it was.

The darkness beyond the mansion was solid too. I would have to cross the Wasteland to get to Galina's house, and I had nothing with which to light the way.

I stopped not far from the mansion, and tried to think of where I could get a light at this time of night.

I knew that all the shops were closed. Krov was not the kind of place that had twenty-four hour stores. I figured that I could go back to the house, but I wasn't entirely sure if we had anything I could use there either. GM had brought flashlights on our first trip in October, but I was pretty sure she hadn't brought them with us this time around. The circ.u.mstances of the two trips were very different-the first trip had been panicked, this trip was supposed to be a vacation. And GM's idea of a vacation most definitely did not include wandering around a forest at night with a flashlight.

I glanced back at the Mstislav mansion. Timofei Mstislav's body had recently been stolen from its crypt, and I knew from personal experience that the crypt locked rather solidly. Whoever had broken in must have done a lot of damage, and if someone was still maintaining the mansion, then the crypt might be under repair. Maybe there would be something lying around that I could use as a light.

I did not like the idea of going anywhere near that crypt in the dark, but it seemed like my best option, and the night would certainly not get any easier as it went along. I figured I might as well give the crypt a try.

I rode up the tree-lined drive to the mansion, and then followed the drive around to the back. My memories of the night Odette had led me into the crypt were a little hazy, but I definitely remembered that she had brought me out of a back entrance to get to the crypt.

I left the bike leaning against the mansion itself, and I squinted into the vast lawn that stretched behind it. There were no lights on at the mansion, but there was a little moonlight, and the whiteness of the sprawling building seemed to reflect what little light there was. I could make out several large shapes out on the back lawn.

I knew that none of those shapes could be the crypt-the crypt entrance was actually in the ground like a cellar door. But if the crypt were being repaired, the shapes might belong to the workers-I might find what I needed within them.

I crept forward slowly, lest I stumble into the crypt entrance in the dark. It occurred to me that if the crypt were being worked on, it might have been left open.

And a fall down the stairs could definitely break my neck.

I walked up to the smallest and closest of the shapes. Then I took off my gloves and ran my hands along it-it turned out to be a wooden shed. I tried the door, but it was firmly locked.

I crept toward the next shape until I could touch it-it was another shed, and it was locked too. I crept forward again, and my feet struck something smooth and solid. I crouched down to run my fingers over it-it was a door, lying on its side. I felt a stab of fear run through me as I realized that I had found the crypt-it was indeed open as I had feared. I jumped back quickly.

As I did so, I stumbled over something solid on the ground and fell on the hard earth. I felt around for what I had tripped over, and my fingers closed around a handle. I was holding a tool that looked something like a pickax. Someone was clearly working to repair the crypt and had left a few things lying around-since the sheds were locked, I would have to go down into the crypt to see if I could find what I needed.

I got to my feet, and I found that I was shaking. I forced myself forward until I could feel the crypt door again, and using the door as a guide, I crept along until my hands reached out and touched only open air.

Unpleasant as it was, I had found the entrance to the crypt.

Before plunging into it, I searched around in front of the entrance, and I found a wheelbarrow, a large stack of square stone blocks, and a big heap of rubble. I also found a table that was laden with tools.

I felt a rush of excitement as my fingers closed around the barrel of a flashlight, but I pushed in the switch and the light failed to come on. I tried it several times, but the batteries were clearly dead. My heart sank.

I kept searching, and I came upon a cardboard box that turned out to be full of wooden matches. I hoped that meant there might be something lying around that needed to be lit.

I continued searching outside the crypt, but I didn't find anything else that might help me.

I would have to search inside the crypt itself.

I walked over to the yawning darkness that was the opening of the crypt, and I stepped shakily over the threshold.

Trailing one hand along the wall as a guide, I walked slowly down the stairs into the crypt, toeing ahead of me with my boots. I knew from my experience with Odette that there was one flight of stairs, and then a brief landing and another flight of stairs. The second flight of stairs led to a long hallway that led first to the crypt itself, and then to the tunnels that reached under the Wasteland. There were no electric lights in the crypt-only cold stone and the Mstislav dead.

I soon descended into complete darkness. I reached the bottom of the first set of stairs and searched the landing. I continued to toe ahead with my feet to investigate, since I couldn't use my eyes. And occasionally, I bent down to examine objects that I stumbled against with my hands. I encountered more tools and a water bottle. Then my boot struck against something that clanked. I picked it up-it felt like a lantern.

I hurried up out of the crypt and discovered that I was indeed carrying a lantern. I quickly grabbed up a handful of the wooden matches, and then I retrieved my bicycle. I moved across the grounds as fast as I could. Once I was clear of the mansion, I would use the lantern and the matches.

But at the moment, I just wanted to get far away from the crypt.

After I reached the road, I glanced back once at the mansion, and I thought I saw a light flicker in one of the windows on the ground floor. Of course, there was nothing strange about that. If someone was having the crypt repaired, then the house was probably still occupied by the family.

All the same, the flicker of light had startled me.

I rode away from the Mstislav mansion until there was just enough light to see by. Then I stopped and lit the lantern, which I had hung from my handlebars.

With the lantern throwing out a small golden arc in front of me, I continued on across the Wasteland. I couldn't see very far ahead, and I feared what I might come upon in the dark. I worried too, that I might go past Galina's house without noticing it.

I strained my eyes into the darkness, trying to catch sight of anything sinister before it could jump out at me, and I listened for any sound of pursuit.

Just as my ride across the Wasteland was beginning to seem endless, I caught sight of the white glow of the Pure Woods up ahead of me. I hurried on to Galina's house, and I unhooked my lantern.

I approached the house cautiously.

The place was dark, and the door was still unlocked. I pushed it open and held the lantern up, illuminating a small portion of the dark hall.

"Galina?" I called.

It was possible that Galina was home but just asleep-it was, after all, after midnight by now-but I hesitated to go in. Something didn't feel right. I gave up on the house and turned toward the Pure Woods.

The trees in the woods gave off a faint phosph.o.r.escent glow, which I remembered was adequate to see by, so I extinguished my lantern and left it near Galina's house. I figured it would be a good idea to conserve fuel, just in case.

I walked in amongst the trees and tried to quiet my mind, tried to sense any spiritual energy that might be around me. But the energy of the woods eluded me, and I began to feel deeply uneasy. It seemed to me that there were eyes upon me, and that at any moment I could be attacked.

I thought then of the clear fire. I had first learned to summon it in these woods-it was an ability I had inherited from my mother. The clear fire had great power over the dark creatures that lived in the Pure Woods-the kost was particularly vulnerable to it.

The clear fire, however, wasn't very effective against vampires, but they didn't like to be around it all the same. If I could summon it, it might help to protect me while I searched for the Leshi.

And I remembered that the clear fire had always given me a profound sense of calm.

I began to walk in the direction of the stone circle where I had first summoned the clear fire. I reached out with my mind as I did so, searching for the fire, searching for its energy.

I sang the melody my mother had taught me, the one that unlocked the spiritual door behind which the clear fire was hidden.

I tried to draw it to me, tried to will it to appear.

As I walked, I began to feel calmer-I sensed something soft and soothing in the night, like a song I couldn't hear, but could only feel. I had a.s.sumed when my visions left me that my connection to the clear fire had been severed too. But perhaps I had been wrong. Perhaps I could find it again.

I followed the softness on the air, concentrating on it. Soon, I spied a glow up ahead.

I hurried toward it.

As I drew near the glow, I saw that it was emanating from a figure that was tall and starkly white-it looked very much like the figure of a man. As I watched, the man began to sink into the ground, disappearing inch by inch. I ran forward, trying to catch him before he disappeared completely.

The man's head sank into the ground and vanished just as I reached the spot where he had stood only a moment before. I was surprised to see that a wide swath of snow now stretched in front of me. I kneeled beside it and brushed the snow away with my fingers. The snow was cold, but something underneath it was even colder.

Soon I could see that there was ice under the snow, and something white gleamed at me from beneath the ice. I kept sc.r.a.ping the snow away, and before long, I found myself staring at a figure that was entirely buried in the ice-it was the man I had seen emerging from the cave in Elspeth's Grove and the face I had seen in the icon in Moscow. It was the Werdulac-dressed in his tattered clothes, his skin an unnatural, glowing white, his hair matted, his eyes closed.

His face was mesmerizing, and I found myself unable to look away. As I continued to stare at the Werdulac, his eyes opened.

His eyes were a solid blue-gray with no pupil, as if he were some kind of sightless deep-sea creature, and as I gazed into them, I felt myself falling forward. I crashed through the ice, and I began to plummet through empty s.p.a.ce. I could no longer see the Werdulac-everything was black. I continued to fall. I no longer knew where I was, and I reached out blindly, grasping for something to break my fall.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head.

My eyes flew open.

I was still in the Pure Woods. I had left the patch of snow and ice far behind and had apparently been walking through the woods with my eyes closed.

Had I been in a trance? I tried to remember what I had been doing exactly.

I had a vague memory of a song-something that had tried to lead me on-just like in Elspeth's Grove.

I caught sight then of a flicker of flame in amongst the trees ahead of me. The flickering was faint, and as I watched, it disappeared. A moment later, I glimpsed it again-and then a thin ribbon of smoke pa.s.sed in front of it and it vanished once again.

I wondered if the flickering could be the witch-fire.

I hurried toward it.

As soon as I saw the source of the flickering, I skidded to a halt, my feet slipping on the forest floor.

There was a small clearing just in front of me. In the center was a pit with a small fire-it was far too small, in fact, to have generated the types of blazes that GM and I had seen earlier. The fire before me was obviously not witch-fire.

But that was not what had given me pause. Swirling slowly around the fire was smoke-smoke of a kind that I had seen before. It was writhing and twisting, turning in on itself in tormented shapes. It was black where it touched the light and white where it touched the darkness. It was the distinctive smoke trail that was generated by a kost-a trail that only I could see.

And lying in front of the fire was a body in a shroud.

The smoke was twisting around the body.

I was clearly looking at an active kost.

All around the fire were figures swathed in furs, their faces hidden by hoods. They were whispering-a sinister, ugly sound. I'd heard whispering like it once before-back in the cave in Elspeth's Grove when Gleb and Timofei had hidden there.

As I watched, the smoke twisted faster and faster, and then rose up in a ghostly column toward the dark sky.

The figure in the shroud twitched.

Then it sat up.

The shroud fell away to reveal a face I knew all too well.

It was Timofei Mstislav.

His face was handsome as it had been in life, but now his skin was the horrible bleached-bone white of the dead. He opened his eyes, and I saw green flame blazing in them-the same green flame I'd seen burning in the eyes of his father.

Those eyes, full of malice, full of hatred, shifted.

And looked right into mine.

Before I could react, one of the figures surrounding the fire surged forward and latched onto Timofei's neck.

The figure appeared to be biting him.

The other figures surged forward next, shielding Timofei from my view, and the air was torn by his screams.

I did react then-stumbling backwards and running through the trees. I had no thought in my mind other than getting away from the horror behind me as fast as I could.

I ran back to Galina's house and grabbed up the lantern, which I lit with shaking fingers. I looked around frantically for the bicycle, but I couldn't see it.

So I ran.

I ran away from the house and the Pure Woods. I ran along the dark, deserted road that cut across the vast and empty Wasteland. I ran until my lungs burned and my sides were sore.

The only sound I could hear was my own ragged breathing, which sounded dangerously, unnaturally loud in the quiet.

Something made me glance over my shoulder, and I saw a white figure behind me, following me.

A cold wave of fear washed over me.

I ran harder, but when I looked over my shoulder, the white figure was even closer.

I felt tears stinging my eyes.

The white figure was going to catch me.