Page 14 of Devil’s Doom (Jaga and the Devil #2)

Chapter fourteen

Law

“It’s the toll,” Lech gasps, his voice taut with pain. “Took all his magic. What do I do? Alina, what do I do?”

I stare at the baby for a moment that seems to last an eternity, but in reality is just a few seconds. He neither moves nor breathes, and that means his life is gone. His soul is gone. There is nothing to do, because he’s dead.

That’s what I’ve been taught, what everyone believes. Breath is life. With the breath gone, life is gone, and nothing can be done.

Yet I know it’s wrong. I died once, I stopped breathing, yet my soul lingered. It lingered long enough for Woland to bring me back.

I might not be a mighty demon or a god, but I am a witch, and I don’t roll over. Not even for death.

“Stay, love,” I murmur to Dar, hoping his soul won’t flee, just like mine didn’t. “Aunty Alina will do something fun. Stay and watch, sweetheart.”

Lech sniffs when I take Dar from him and lay him gently on the floor between us. I put my palm on his chest, covering the entire area easily. I imagine his insides, the tiny but strong heart, two twin lungs, a maze of blood vessels. I hold the image in my head and infuse my palm with magic.

“Stay and watch, baby,” I whisper.

I let the magic flow. I pour it into him, suffusing his empty well like I would an egg, and I bid his heart to beat, his lungs to breathe, his blood to flow. Live, I command. Live and be well. Take this magic and make it yours.

For the longest moment, nothing happens. Desperation tries to take root in my heart, but I bat it aside like I would a pesky fly. No. It will work. It must. All I have space for is hope.

Dar jerks, throwing his tiny arms up. He takes a deep breath and lets out a loud, ear-splitting wail, like a newborn baby, except worse, because he’s already four months old and so much stronger for that.

“There you are.” My voice shakes with relief as I welcome him back into the world.

I look him over, checking his pulse and muscle strength. He seems completely normal, and as I take him into my arms, murmuring softly, he calms down until his sobs become quiet whimpers. I smile, looking up at Lech.

When our eyes meet, the upir’s widen, but not in awe or joy. They widen in a bottomless, horrible terror. He scrambles away from me until the back of his head hits the wall. There he sits, his hands clenched into fists, breathing ragged. He doesn’t blink, as if he’s terrified to lose sight of me even for a moment.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him, confused. “He’s fine, look.”

Lech shakes his head frantically, his skin so pale, his freckles seem much too dark in comparison. He opens his mouth as if to say something but only gulps in a shaky breath, staring at me like I’m some sort of monster.

“Lech, what’s wrong?”

He swallows thickly and finally speaks, his voice hoarse. “What the fuck are you?”

I recoil, shushing the baby on instinct when he whines. Lech’s eyes drop to the boy’s head pressed to my chest and then back up, some of his terror abating, though he’s still wary.

“I’m Alina.” My voice hollows with the lie. “And I promise you, he’s all right. His soul lingered. It’s not… You were probably taught it’s the breath, Perun’s breath that’s life within us, and with it gone, there’s only death, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, the soul stays on, just for a moment. And you can… You can bring them back.”

He shakes his head. “No. You don’t understand. This… They won’t just try you for this. They will annihilate you and everyone you ever touched. Alina, this is… This is beyond heresy. You broke the law.”

I huff with disdain. “The law. Right. Well, nobody has to know, do they?”

Lech suddenly laughs, but his laughter is bitter and hard. He looks at me with tight hostility, and I don’t understand why.

“You asked me to do something!” I hiss, keeping my voice low. “So I did. What else did you expect?”

“Not for you to go breaking the oldest law of creation!” he snaps back. “Alina, this is… It’s worse than black magic! It’s… Not even Weles did it, ever. This is beyond evil. You… I don’t even want to think about what you’ve done to this boy. His fate was to die tonight and become a swallow in the Great Oak, and after that, to come back as another person. But you… You broke his cycle. What will he be now?”

“A boy and then a man,” I say through clenched teeth. “And one day, maybe a hero. Maybe once fate doesn’t control you anymore, you can become anything.”

A shiver goes down my spine when I comprehend the truth of my words. I’m just like Dar. I evaded death twice. I evaded fate, and now I have no destiny to fulfill but for the one I choose myself.

And I am not evil, because I don’t choose it. I choose to be good, at least to those I love.

“Is Rada still asleep?” I ask him, my voice hard.

He flinches, as if he just remembered her. His legs shaking, Lech gets up and peeks inside the room. “Yes. She slept through it.”

“Good. We won’t tell her what happened. As far as she’s concerned, Dar slept through the night in perfect comfort. You know losing him would break her.”

That seems to affect Lech like a slap. He looks at me, wide-eyed and silent, until I come over with the baby.

“Look for yourself. Please. He’s fine. He’s warm, he’s breathing—he’s still Dar. We saved her a lot of heartbreak.”

Lech takes the boy gingerly, rocking him in his arms. Dar, already half-asleep, presses his face to the upir’s chest, clutching his shirt in his pudgy fist. Lech shudders once, and when he looks up, his eyes are filled with tears.

“See? He’s all right. Rada never needs to know,” I murmur.

He nods, and I wipe his tear away with a quick touch of my thumb. Lech sniffs, and then he shakes, weeping silently as he does his best not to startle the baby. I take his hand and lead him to my room, sitting him down on my bed. I stroke his head and back, letting him hold Dar until it sinks in. He’s alive. All will be well.

When Lech stops shaking, I swallow thickly and decide to share some of my truth. Not all, but maybe enough so he understands why I did it.

“It’s not true that it never happened before,” I whisper. “The devil did it once, to a mortal woman who died of wounds and heat stroke. It wasn’t so easy with her. He had to remake her because her body was broken. But she lived. He brought her back.”

Lech gives me a long look, his red-rimmed eyes growing sharp. “How do you know this? If he did such a thing, he’d never tell anyone. No one is exempt from the law, not even Perun.”

I snort, remembering another law the gods easily broke—the law against lying with one’s closest kin. Mokosz had sex with her son, Rod, and later gave birth to the three rodzanica sisters.

“I highly doubt that. Gods break their laws all the time, don’t they? The laws are there to keep us in line while they do what they want.”

Lech heaves a sigh, considering me. “I might agree in some cases, but playing with life and death… Alina, it’s dangerous. Also, you haven’t answered my question. How do you know what the devil did?”

“I knew that woman,” I say softly. “Once.”

That doesn’t feel like a lie. The Jaga who died on that field and was brought back in bone-crushing agony is no longer here. Everything that happened later changed me so much.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

“And what happened to her after?” Lech asks, casting a worried glance at Dar. “Did she live a good life?”

What’s one more lie?

“I… Yes, she did. She was fine. He will be fine, too.”

Lech shakes his head, still looking at Dar’s sleeping face like he wants to see through skin and flesh, right to the boy’s soul to make sure he is truly himself.

“But this changes things,” he says quietly. “We’ll have to tell Rada at one point. And I’ll have to protect her—protect you all. You, too. Especially you. Alina, you still don’t get it. You… You can’t walk around doing things like this. Lying to dragons is one thing, but that magic… You need to learn. How to hide, how to lie better , how to actually survive. What laws not to break.”

“Aha. And you know someone in your boat-fixing job that can teach me, is that it?” I ask, trying to inject some levity into the conversation.

“You know very well I don’t fix boats,” Lech says with a snort. “I’ll show you tomorrow. We’ll need to hide, at least until we know more about the consequences. Because there will be many. He might seem normal now, but you changed the threads of fate. This won’t go unnoticed.”

I want to huff impatiently but stop myself. The fact Woland’s resurrection of me didn’t bring down the heavens doesn’t mean Lech isn’t right. And I can think of at least one way this will affect Dar.

“The mark on his forehead,” I say slowly. “The mark the rodzanicas give every newborn child. Does that only happen in the mortal world or here as well?”

Lech murmurs a curse through clenched teeth. “Fuck, you’re right. Yes, every newborn gets a mark. If a rodzanica ever sees him, she will know his fate was tampered with. See? And it’s just one thing you changed that we know of. What about the ones that aren’t common knowledge?”

I hate to admit he’s right. The joy and unbridled power that suffused me after I brought Dar back to life shatter to pieces as I consider an unbearable thought: that by bringing him back, I might have hurt him instead of helped. And yet…

“I don’t regret it,” I say, stubbornly looking into Lech’s blue eyes. “I would do it again. For Rada.”

That seems to soften him. The upir stands up and regards me with tired eyes, finally giving me a weak smile.

“She will thank you when she finds out. And I thank you, too. You are… You’re one of a kind, Alina. No one else would have done this for her. I won’t forget it.”

Before he leaves, he takes a deep breath and looks at me over his shoulder.

“Get up early tomorrow. There is something I need to show you both.”

I nod, my mind already made. I’ll go with them one last time, and after that, I’ll have to disappear from their lives. Tomorrow will be goodbye then.

I leave my curtains open before sleep, and the daylight wakes me up early. Outside, the sky is gray, streets wet, but it’s no longer raining. Perun made his point and punished everyone for the rebel attack. As I watch, a funeral procession passes under my window, a narrow cart holding the body of a kobold followed by a dozen other kobolds and a few chochols.

The body will be burned outside the city. I imagine more than a dozen funerals will be held today. And one of them should be Dar’s.

Gripped by sudden terror that my magic didn’t work, or that fate found a way to take what’s hers, I throw a shawl around my shoulders and run barefoot to Rada’s room. Lech answers my soft knock, already dressed.

“He’s fine,” he says when he sees my anxious expression. “I know how you feel. I check on him every five minutes. Rada says I’m like a mother hen.”

He gives me a weak smile, and I breathe out in relief. “All right. Thank you. If anything is wrong, let me know.”

We go out an hour later, right after breakfast. Rada holds the baby in a shawl I helped her tie around her body, fashioning it into a comfortable sling for the boy. Her hands are free, and she keeps pushing her hair onto her face to hide it. She hasn’t gone out in weeks, and it took Lech some effort to convince her to join us today.

Both of us shake from the cold despite our heavy cloaks. Lech, whose body temperature runs lower than ours, seems comfortable with his sleeves rolled up, revealing muscular, freckled forearms.

“Would you like me to disguise you a little?” I ask Rada. “I can cast an illusion. Make you, well, not exactly ugly, but less luminous.”

“Please, do!” She turns to me, her eyes frantic. “I hate my face. Hate it! Please, make me ugly, Alina. I want to be plainer than you. Oh, just this once!”

I snort with amusement, focusing on making Rada look ordinary. I turn her pale gold hair mousy and flat, her face just a bit out of proportion, her eyes pale blue. She is still herself, but not half as stunning.

“And? Did it work?” she asks excitedly when Lech nods in approval.

“It did,” he says, kissing her cheek. “Let’s go. We have a lot of ground to cover.”

Rada smiles and grabs my hand, and I take a deep breath of the humid autumn air. The touch of her soft, warm hand makes me hurt with longing even though she’s right here with me.

But I’ll be gone soon.

“I’m sorry I told everyone you have the rot,” I murmur when Rada hums a cheerful song, my illusion allowing her to enjoy our walk.

“What? No, don’t be sorry! It was amazing! Gods, the way he ran away—I never saw anything so perfect. I was too scared to enjoy it then, but believe me, right now it’s one of my favorite memories. I think I might actually get the rot for real, you know?”

“Please, don’t,” Lech says drily. “Unless you’d like your body to putrefy from your vagina up, and die in agony. It’s a serious disease.”

He leads us up to the bridge and then along the bank on our side of the river. The further away from the bridge we go, the more deserted the streets are, building fronts growing neglected and off-putting. Some doorways are boarded up with planks. I flinch when I see a rat as big as a chicken skulking in a narrow, dark alley between two houses.

The river is on our right, a mass of gray water at the bottom of the ravine. Soon, we reach a place where narrow stairs cut into the rock lead down to the water level. Lech stops, and for a moment, I’m afraid he will tell us to take those precarious stairs, but instead, he turns to a low, half-collapsed building.

“Stay here.”

His face is tight. I study the building, noticing that despite its dismal looks, the door is solid and shut tight, the windows boarded up with sturdy planks. The front facade is dark gray, mostly uniform. A black mark just above the cobbles of the street catches my eye, and I swallow when I recognize it.

A triangle with horns. The mark of Weles.

Lech knocks on the door in a long, odd sequence, then says something too quietly for me to catch. Inside, bolts and locks slide in a series of clicks, and the door opens. A tall mamuna male with a muscular, bare stomach and tusks in his mouth motions us in, casting a watchful look down the empty street.

“Come on.” Lech takes us both by the hands and leads us inside. We’re barely past the threshold when the door clangs shut.

“What is this place?” Rada asks in a fearful whisper.

“It’s safe. You’ll see.”

The mamuna male ignores us, standing sedately by the door. Still holding both our hands, Lech leads us deeper into the gloomy building. Here and there, a weak candle flames in a sconce in the wall, but most of the rooms are flooded with shadows. The place doesn’t look lived in.

We reach a dark strip of wall, no different from the other parts of the house. Lech stops. His expression is so unlike his usual ironic smirk, it makes my unease grow. I can’t help but think that if Lech is serious, it means things are bad.

“You’re about to enter the best guarded secret of Slawa,” he says. “This is one of few entrances into the tunnels under the city. We will walk a long way, and we might meet other people, but we’ll be safe. Dragons can’t enter.”

“Why have you brought us here?” Rada asks, stroking the back of Dar’s head.

“You’ll see. Trust me.”

I swallow a frustrated groan. I never trusted Lech completely because of his secrets, and the underground maze he wants us to enter feels like a trap. And yet, I know he loves Rada and cares about me. Of this I’m certain, and so I tuck my fears away.

Besides, it’s not like Woland and his army can afford to stay in the city, underground or not. If there is any danger, I can deal with it. As long as it’s not him.

Lech isn’t done. He smiles reassuringly and produces a small box, inside of which is a wooden object with a smooth handle. When he turns it in his fingers, I see the symbol of Weles carved out so it protrudes above the flat base. After this comes a small pot of red coloring.

“Only those wearing this sign made with a sanctioned stamp can enter. The sign will fade immediately. No one will see it on your skin, but the walls will know.”

Rada offers him her arm, and he presses the stamp to her skin. She raises her eyebrows, and I watch it suspiciously. This, I didn’t sign up for.

Lech puts one on Dar, too, and like he said, the symbols vanish at once, leaving behind just a faint echo of magic. When he turns to me, I fold my arms.

“I need to know what kind of magic I’m putting on,” I say, more harshly than I intend.

He rolls his eyes. “Do you, now? I just explained. Believe me, darling, after yesterday you don’t have much ground to stand on.” When I bristle, his expression softens. He takes my hand. “I’m offering you safety, and I really want you to come with us. We will hide here for a time. If you don’t come, we won’t see you, and both Rada and I will miss you. Please.”

I hike up my sleeve and give him my forearm, my heart stuttering. Lech’s words undo me more than he can know. He and Rada are my first magical friends, and yes, I will follow them despite my fear and misgivings.

“Brave girl,” he says with a smirk, pressing the stamp into my skin.

The symbol of Weles gleams red and then sinks in with a small tingle. It’s done. When I look up from my now clear forearm, I startle, noticing a narrow door in the wall. It wasn’t there before.

“Come on. Be careful on the stairs.”

Lech opens the door, revealing a winding staircase that leads into the cellar, and I understand. The house is just a front. Whatever we came for is down there.

The stamp allows me to see the door. This is really well hidden, and a flicker of hope mixed with dread lights my chest. Living in Slawa, I am the most free I’ve ever been, but being subject to the dragons’ terror is a horrible strain.

The promise of safety beckons.

Lech goes first, Rada second, and I behind her.

We descend the stairs for a very long time. Magical light orbs float under the ceiling here and there, giving just enough light to let us see a few steps ahead. The air smells of mildew and gets cooler as we go deeper, though not as cold as outside.

The walls grow furry, covered with a black, fuzzy substance that Lech murmurs is harmless mold.

I stumble against an uneven stair and have to catch the wall to keep my balance. It doesn’t feel like fur, but a springy sort of spiderweb. I shake it from my fingers with disgust and keep going.

“Halfway there,” Lech promises.

By the time we reach the end of the stairs and a heavy, metal door on the bottom, Rada breathes hard, her legs shaking from effort. I’m a little better but still winded. I tried to count the steps, but stopped after I got to eight hundred.

Lech knocks in the same pattern he used upstairs. The door swings away, and we go into a well lit cavern. The ceiling is far up, supported by pillars hewn from rock. The space is evenly laid out, the walls and floor smooth. It’s not a natural cave. Someone built this place with a lot of thought and effort.

Tables line the walls, benches scattered here and there. A wide, perfect circle is drawn in the middle of the cavern, a red-haired wila wearing a skimpy dress standing there, her arms stretched out, as if in a dance pose. The golden orbs crowd around her, lighting her well.

A few people mill around, a chochol, a few upirs, and a wrinkled, wide-mouthed woman with completely white eyes I recognize as a strzyga. She turns her eyes on us when we enter. Her unseeing gaze lingers on Rada, and she grins, smacking her lips. Her gums are black, teeth sharp. Her hair is silver, arranged around her head in a crown of braids.

“I see Lech brought us fresh food,” she says with an ugly cackle.

Rada presses close to me, shaking from exhaustion and fear. I put my arm around her, assessing the strzyga. I remember they are rare and powerful, but not as powerful as me. If she comes any closer, I’ll teach her a lesson.

“Leave her alone,” Lech snaps, lunging at the strzyga with his fangs bared. She holds her ground. “One more word, and I’ll end you.”

She gives him a mocking grin. “Boy, you don’t make the rules here. I’m hungry and I haven’t had baby stew in years.”

Lech hisses at her, then turns to us. “She’s joking. Or trying to. She’s not very good at humor, as you can see.”

“I want to go home,” Rada whispers, pressing her face into my hair.

The strzyga turns to her, snorting with derision.

“Lover boy didn’t tell you? Sweetheart, this is your home now. You know our secret. That means you must stay.”