Page 3 of Devil’s Doom (Jaga and the Devil #2)
Chapter three
Bottomless
I lurch to the side with a breathless cry, avoiding the boy’s outstretched hands—hands that are now tipped with crimson claws. He misses me by a hair and turns fast to lunge again. Barely slipping out of his reach, I rush ahead, in the direction he came from. Behind me, the child snarls, and I glance back. A mistake. I stumble from shock.
A beautiful, sweet child before, the creature now looks like a beast. Its eyes are dark, its mouth a maw stretching in an ugly grin that reveals black, sharp teeth. Its proportions are off, its movements jerky, until it drops to all fours.
With both hands and legs propelling it toward me, the beast grows faster. I shriek from fear, stumbling ahead in sheer panic. There is something so utterly wrong about a seemingly human child running like that, its ungainly body not made for going on all fours, and yet so much faster this way.
My lungs burn, my muscles protesting the speed, but I don’t dare stop. Even though I have a weapon, I don’t have the courage to fight. My magic was just taken, and I don’t even know what sort of bies it is.
“I could use some protection right now!” I wheeze out, jumping over a half-rotten tree trunk that bars the path.
No swarm of bees descends to stop the bies from hurting me. I stumble against a stone and curse, hot shivers racing down my spine when I hear a vicious snarl at my heels. I risk a quick look back.
The bies is almost on me. The sweet childlike facade is gone, even that lovely golden hair falling away in oily clumps. It's small, beady-eyed, its skin mottled red and purple. It hisses when our eyes lock, and I grit my teeth.
I won’t outrun it. It’s faster than me.
“What are you?” I spit, desperately trying to go faster.
If I am to win this fight, I need an advantage. A brief moment to get in position and aim my blade is probably all I’ll get.
The creature doesn’t answer. I brace myself, flying down the path with desperation until my lungs almost give out. That’s when I stop and turn.
“Strike true,” I grit out, reaching for the dregs of my magic swirling lazily in my marrow. “Through the heart.”
The reluctant, weak threads of magic wrap around my wrist and slip between my fingers desperately clutching my weapon. The bies chuffs in delight, running straight at me. Its legs are no longer human but rather foxlike, with prominent joints that bend the wrong way.
It lands and pushes away from the path in a strong, fluid leap. I focus on aiming as my power tears free, agony in its wake.
My entire body shakes from effort, but my hand on the knife is steady, guided by my magic. When the bies is almost on me, I cut up, the blade sinking into its chest. It goes in easily, right between two ribs.
The bies makes no sound as it lands on the path, completely still. I jump away, leaving my knife embedded deep inside it. Wracked by violent shivers, I fall to my hands and knees, gasping in shallow, hacking breaths.
My chest heaves with the purest agony. There’s a hole inside me, deep and cavernous, and it feels like nothing will ever fill it again. My heart beats in a sputtering rhythm, tapping against my aching ribs.
When the fight against my weakness grows futile, I fall to my side and just lie there, struggling to breathe. I am too weak to open my eyes, and so I hope with all my might the bies is dead. If it somehow survived the stab through the heart, it’s over. It will kill me.
With my last strength, I close my fingers around the pendant on my throat. It’s Woland’s collateral, the deceitful proof of his good will, and my only weapon against him. Filled with his blood, the pendant is my only way of hiding from him. Without it, Woland’s magic will find me at once.
As the world grows dark, consciousness draining from my mind, I promise myself to always keep it on. Even if I’m about to die. I’ll never let the devil find me, so help me Perun and all gods.
I wake up in the middle of the night, shivering from the cold. My coarse dress barely covers me, and my body is sticky with old, cool sweat. I do my best to be strong, and still, a whimper escapes through my clenched teeth when I sit up.
Everything hurts. My chest throbs with raw pain, and my body feels way too heavy for me to move. I swallow and swallow, the bitter taste of old fear sitting deep in my throat.
When I finally gather enough strength to look around, I immediately notice the bies that attacked me. It lies in a lifeless heap in the grass, its body shrunken, black eyes unseeing. I crawl closer, hissing with every agonizing move.
“Poroniec,” I mutter under my breath, taking in the childlike proportions of its body. “Is that what you were?”
I couldn’t think straight in the grip of panic, but now, it’s obvious. A poroniec, a bies made from a baby miscarried in violent circumstances or by an evil mother, shows up in the form of a beautiful child, then attacks when its prey comes close. It drinks mortal blood and eats viscera, preferably female wombs and hearts.
The two best ways to kill it are beheading and a blade through the heart. A poroniec is said to be strong, fast, and almost impossible to avoid. Disguised as a lovely child, the bies has the element of surprise on its side.
I gulp deep breaths until my body is steady enough, then grit my teeth and pull out my knife. The blade glistens darkly under the sparse moonlight, and I wipe it on the grass with shaking hands.
So much for the protection promised me by the King of Bees. I scoff under my breath, but it comes out broken and pitiful. I wish I could go home.
The night is dark and cold, the forest around me vast. I was never afraid of the woods after dark, but then, I always had a home to go back to, small and poor as it was. Now, I don’t even have that.
For a ridiculous, painful moment, tears burn my eyes. I growl at myself and wipe them with angry swipes of my knuckles. Crying won’t do me any good, and I’ll have plenty of time to feel sorry for myself when I’m dead.
“Get up. You’re a witch, powerful and strong. You can do it. See? You killed the beast that wanted to eat you. You’re strong. Get up.”
My legs shake when I stand. I take a few steps to the edge of the path, then stumble against something. A sweet scent fills the air, and I lower to my knees to see what it is.
A small cup made of tree bark, filled with honey that now spills out of the overturned dish. I snatch it up with dismay and eat the treat. Then, throwing my dignity aside, I lower my face to the ground and lap at the spilled honey like a dog.
It’s forest honey, dark and redolent of pines and wildflowers. It’s also the best thing I’ve ever tasted, but in my ravenous state, I devour it too quickly. My hunger, instead of being abated, grows into a monster pulsing in my guts.
“A reward for killing the bies?” I mutter bitterly as I head to wash my sticky face. “Keep it next time and kill it yourself.”
At the low river bank, I kneel carefully to wash my face and drink. The water is freezing, but I drink as much as I can hold, breathing shakily through the cold. At least now I know for sure I made the right decision to leave the forest. I am not safe here.
Thirst quenched, I get up and walk, one hand clutching my knife, the other curled around my pendant. It’s reassuring to touch it—a reminder I was strong enough to outwit the devil. Also, idiotic as it sounds, I feel less alone holding it. It’s like a part of him is with me. A weak, conquered part that’s entirely in my power.
As my body screams with pain, my chest still hollow and sick, I amuse myself with the memory of Woland on his knees. He begged me to be his once, though like everything else, it was a trick and a lie.
But he looked good kneeling at my feet. That’s what makes me smile against the pain.
I reach the end of the woods just as the birds wake up and fill the air with a lilting song. It’s still dark, but I know dawn is coming. Ahead, a shallow valley of fields stretches, gray and quiet in the starlight. Beyond the valley a mountain rises, the river circling around it on the left. Dozens of lazy threads of smoke rise over the slope.
I can’t see well from where I stand, but the smoke is proof enough—I finally reached a settlement.
My battered body gives out, so I sit heavily on a wide tree stump and wait, watching Slawa emerge as dawn creeps closer.
At first, I can’t believe the sheer size of the place. The mountain is enormous, its gentle slopes rolling over vast swathes of land. The entire area is densely populated with dwellings. I’m not sure because of the distance, but I think I see cottages, some sitting side by side, others surrounded by small gardens. Higher up, the structures grow bigger, more stone than wood, and at the top, towers of a fortress jut into the gray sky.
I’ve never heard tales of anything like it. The sheer number of people living there is beyond comprehension. I can’t imagine how cramped it must be, but at the same time, I’m glad. It will be easy to get lost among the multitude of people.
Because it’s clear: that’s where I must go. I need to learn the ways of this world, and what better place to get news than a crowded town where people gossip, complain, and quarrel all the time? I’m good at staying out of sight and listening. I did it all my life, always keeping a hand on the pulse of my village so I’d be warned if my people planned to cast me out.
The path widens here, leading from the forest to the mountain in an almost straight line. It cuts through fields of barley or rye, partly harvested. A few trees grow on the balks between the neat rectangles of fields, the borders marked with red ribbons.
Something glitters halfway through the valley, close to the path. It looks like a large pond, perfectly circular. As it gets lighter, I notice the pond is fed by a narrow stream shooting off from the river.
When the sun rises, I take deep breaths, willing my body to go on. I’m shaky, the source of my power in my chest still almost empty. I should eat and sleep, and if I am to enter the settlement, I should probably change my appearance. Woland is powerful and leads an army, if I can believe him. Who knows how many people are looking for me on his orders.
As hunger squeezes my stomach, I look around for something to eat, finding only a gnarled tree heavy with small apples. I eat as many as I can, and it feels like I’m feeding a bottomless hole inside me. I’m not just hungry for food. The space where my magic was is a pit, the lack so visceral, it’s like I’ve become the hunger itself.
And so, I learn another lesson: don’t spend more than you have.
The tree stripped of apples, I set out down the path, looking for anything that might help me disguise myself. Soon, I’ll meet people going out to the fields, since harvest is ongoing, and work probably begins right after dawn.
When I spot a big walnut tree close to the pond, I head there, careful to stick to the balks. Where I’m going, the fields are mostly harvested, only hard stalks of rye sticking out of the soil in uneven clumps. I should be alone here.
In Slawa’s crystal air, everything seems to be closer than it is. It’s noon by the time I reach the pond, parched and exhausted. I go to the stream and drink, eyeing the utterly still surface of the round pond. There are no reeds, no water plants, nothing. Just the black water that seems to watch me back as I examine it with dread.
A memory of a tale flickers in my mind. Magical creatures are said to live in bodies of water like this one, and so I drink quickly and step back, getting busy gathering walnuts, most of them still in their green, fleshy shells.
The only warning I get is a faint splash behind me. And then, a voice calls out, throaty and very deep. It sounds masculine and definitely not mortal.
“What’s this? A maiden, just in time for breakfast? The gods are kind today!”
I whip around, walnuts scattering from my hands. Right in the middle of the pond is a bald head covered by slick gray skin, the nose wide and flat. Two big red eyes watch me with amusement, the being’s thin lips stretched in a smile that reveals narrow, sharp teeth, very yellow against the glistening gray of his face.
“Who are you?” I ask, my heart hammering with fear.
I’ve put my knife down to free my hands. I snatch it up so fast, I get dizzy from the sharp movement. Even as I grip the handle, I know I’m too weak to fight.
“Oh, are you new here?” he replies with a question, the water rippling gently around him, though he doesn’t seem to move. “That’s delightful! I love showing the young ones the ropes. What’s your name, maiden?”
The water ripples again. It seems he’s closer, and I swallow convulsively. What might he be? Not a vodnik, since they are said to be covered in scales, just like rusalkas in their true form. Who else might live in a pond and get excited to see a lonely woman?
“You’re an utopek.” I narrow my eyes at him, taking in the wide, confident grin in his ugly face. “What do you want from me?”
He cocks his head to the side, his smile shrinking a bit. “Want? Nothing. Need? A little trade. Tell you what, maiden. You came out of the forest alive, meaning you have enough magic in those bones to survive. Give me some, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know about this world.”
“No.”
I don’t have enough to share, and even if I did, I don’t trust him. Utopeks are supposed to be crafty, and the only sure way to get one to serve you is to catch him and lock in a cage for a few days so he dries completely. Only when he’s desperate for water will he do your bidding.
The creature rears back, looking wounded. “No? Just like that—no? Girly, if you don’t want to share that juice, you won’t live long here. We trade everything for magic. Look, it’s easy. Just take something that can be eaten, like those nuts you have there, and put your magic in. In the city, they use eggs, but I’m not picky.”
I consider him and finally shrug, giving up. I do need help, that’s for sure. And if he’s telling the truth, I need to learn how to imbue food with magic so I can trade.
“I don’t have enough right now. Would you be willing to wait?” I ask through gritted teeth, clutching my knife.
The utopek throws his head back and laughs, the sound loud and croaky. I huff with impatience, watching him warily. He’s close to the bank now, but only his head sticks out. I wonder how deep the pond is. It should be shallower so close to the shore, yet water still covers him up to his neck.
“You don’t have enough?” he asks, still laughing. “Girly, then you’ll be dead when the toll comes! It will be here any moment, I can tell. Hey, maybe I could lend you some magic! Just enough so you’ll survive.”
“What’s the toll?”
He pulls a slimy, gray hand out of the water and wags his finger. Delicate gray webs stretch between his digits. He seems to have more knuckles than me, his fingers long and spindly.
“No answers without payment. Hm, let's see. What can I get for helping you? Ugh, you’re so bony.”
He looks me up and down with clear distaste, and I clench my teeth.
“You know, I usually go for plumper girls.” The utopek continues his perusal of my body, unaware how much his rude words enrage me. “I like a nice pair of tits and something to hold on to, you understand? I don’t want to waste my magic on this shriveled cunt. But tell you what, you’ve got a nice mouth. Can you suck a cock?”
My nostrils flare when I breathe out with force.
“Insult me one more time and you won’t have a cock to suck,” I spit through my teeth, raising my knife so he gets my meaning.
He cackles, his red eyes glittering shrewdly. “By all means. Hop in and punish me. I’m right here, girly.”
Indeed, he is right there. His body still submerged, he leans both forearms on the wet grass of the shore, seeming completely relaxed. I finally understand.
“It’s a bottomless pond,” I mutter under my breath. “The kind for drowning people. I’m not going in. Goodbye.”
I take a step back. The utopek loses his smile, giving me an ugly scowl instead. The world grows quiet, the grasses around me flattening as colors bleach from the sky. I just see his grin return when agony tears through me, cutting me off at the knees. I tumble into the grass, seeing black.