Page 2 of To Clutch a Razor (Curse Bearer #2)

A FAMILY MEAL

When Dymitr was a child, he often waited in the weapons room for his uncle to come back from a hunt.

Always his uncle, not his parents—because his mother, Marzena, liked to greet with admonishments, and his father, ? ukasz, was unpredictable, at turns either kind or vicious.

Uncle Filip, though, was ruddy-cheeked and sly; he took coins out of Elza’s ears and taught Dymitr how to whistle with a piece of grass between his thumbs, and when Dymitr’s older brother teased him for being too sensitive, too soft, Filip called him off.

So Dymitr would sit on the stone bench at the edge of the weapons room, his legs swinging, and wait for Filip to return.

When he did, Filip’s hands were always bloody, and his face was always smeared with dirt.

He would offer Dymitr things piece by piece to be returned to their places: spare knives that hadn’t been used in the hunt, and the armored vest, and his heavy boots, which always needed to be cleaned.

He didn’t talk much, after, but Dymitr didn’t mind the quiet.

And he didn’t mind scrubbing Filip’s boots, either.

Most of the time, the bone sword was sheathed by the time a Knight came home, so Dymitr’s first glimpse of one came when he was ten years old, and Filip turned away from him to change his shirt.

Filip went out on missions often, which meant he drew his sword often, so it was close to the surface of his skin.

So close that Dymitr could see every ridge of the golden hilt, and every centimeter of the bone blade, standing out from Filip’s back.

It was an honor to become a Knight. Not everyone in the family did.

Not everyone had the constitution for it, as his grandmother liked to say.

And the people of the village—the ones who were in the know—treated Knights like royalty.

Knights always got to go to the front of the line at the butcher shop, always got extra cakes at the bakery.

Even the unruly teenagers who played soccer in the field behind the old factory went silent and still at the sight of them.

Knights were like old heroes of legend come to life.

So the sword, such an integral part of becoming a Knight, should have left Dymitr awestruck.

Instead, he shuddered at the sight of it bulging from Filip’s shoulders like a tumor.

He wanted to look away from it, but he couldn’t stop staring until Filip put a clean shirt on to cover it.

Then Filip turned around and looked at Dymitr standing there with bloody boots in hand.

“You haven’t seen one before?” he asked.

Dymitr swallowed. He felt nauseated. “Not up close.”

Filip clicked his tongue, disapproving. “Your parents have been neglecting your education.” He sat on the stone bench next to the door. “Come. Ask your questions.”

Curiosity wasn’t always rewarded in Dymitr’s family, so the invitation to ask whatever questions he liked was a rare one. He stood in front of his uncle, his fingers twisted together in front of him.

“Does it hurt to draw it?”

“Yes,” Filip said steadily.

He had a thick beard, gray in places, and neatly trimmed. There was a scar through his left eyebrow—a big, crooked one that made his skin pucker and ripple.

“Does it hurt to sheathe it?”

“Yes.”

“Then why…” Dymitr furrowed his brow. “Why not just leave it here in the weapons room, then collect it next time you go out on a mission?”

“Well, for one thing, it tugs at you when you’re separated from it, so you can always find it.

Annoying. And for another…” He shrugs. “It’s good to always have a weapon with you.

Monsters don’t only attack when we hunt them.

They can creep into our houses, slip into our bedrooms while we sleep.

Infest our bodies and minds, feed on our blood.

The sword is with me always, so I’m never defenseless against them. ”

No one ever softened things for Dymitr, or any of the children in the family. Monsters were everywhere, pain was inevitable, and only the strong could survive both.

“The sword is a tool,” Filip said. “But it’s also a treasure—because it’s hard won, understand?”

Dymitr never had much. Not because his family couldn’t afford it, but because they didn’t believe in certain indulgences.

Nothing without purpose: a child’s bow-and-arrow set, for learning archery; a chessboard, for learning strategy; a survival kit, for learning to be resourceful.

He and his brother and Elza had a fort in the woods, built from fallen logs, where they went to start small fires and set traps and identify mushrooms. They had tournaments with the rest of the cousins that were half playful, half serious.

They quizzed each other with questions that sounded like the first parts of jokes, but weren’t.

What is most commonly misidentified as a strzyga?

What do you call a banshee in Germany? In what country can you find an oni?

He was used to his most valuable possessions having purpose. And that purpose was always related to monsters.

“How…” Dymitr was almost afraid of the question, but he asked it anyway. “How are they made?”

“We do it in here,” Filip said, gesturing to the weapons room before them.

“You’ll lie on a table, face down. There will be four Knights with you.

One will be your mentor, when you get one.

One will speak the words of the ritual. And the other two…

” He looked at Dymitr, assessing. “The other two will hold you down.”

Dymitr’s mouth went dry.

“Your mentor will take their own blade and cut into your back. Right down the center.”

Dymitr imagined it like carving a chicken: his skin crispy beneath the blade, clear juices bubbling up from that first cut. He shuddered.

Filip continued, “Then they’ll cut into themselves, and let their blood spill into the wound.

The words of the ritual are spoken, and then…

” He swallowed hard. “It will hurt. It will feel like every bone in your body is breaking. It will feel like a thousand deaths. You’ll pass out.

But then, when you wake… you’ll be twice as powerful as before. ”

Filip reached out and put his hand on Dymitr’s head. He gave him a serious look.

“Don’t fear pain, Dymek,” he said. “Fear… losing your purpose, losing your family, losing yourself. Those things are worse than pain.”

Dymitr chose this coffee shop because it has two exits.

Well, and because the baristas are good at latte art.

There’s one, Zuri, who always draws something special for him.

Most of the time, she just makes beautiful patterns, but once it was a swan, once it was a seahorse, once a four-leaf clover.

Her cheek dimples when she smiles. And she’s always stressed, which he’s now realizing is a source of appeal… given that he now eats fear.

He sits by the window, equidistant from each exit, and waits for John to arrive.

There are American families of Knights, of course.

One for each region. Like the country itself, their traditions are cobbled together from other places, a patchwork-quilt version of Knighthood that Dymitr’s family always liked to sneer at…

despite the fact that they themselves had pieced their practices together from Polish tradition and Kashubian and Jewish, from Orthodoxy and Catholicism and paganism.

The hypocrisy stands out to Dymitr now, though it never did before.

John is slim and blond and walks with forearm crutches.

His skin is a few shades darker than Dymitr’s, like he recently spent some time in the sun.

When he spots Dymitr sitting by the window, he grins, and Dymitr has to wonder how John identified him so quickly.

The coffee shop is crowded with stressed-out students hunched over their laptops, spandex-clad yoga students with mats tucked under their table, and two older men playing cards.

“Process of elimination,” John says, like he heard Dymitr’s thoughts. Once he’s seated, he leans the crutches up against the window. “You must be Dymitr.”

He makes the name sound clumsy. He offers Dymitr his hand, and Dymitr shakes it.

He’s tense, even though John never became a Knight, so he can’t use magic to see what Dymitr really is.

From what he’s heard, John makes up for his lack of magic in other ways.

He’s adept at following digital footprints—increasingly important these days—and has a knack for spotting things others don’t.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Dymitr says.

“I’m glad our schedules overlapped. I’m only here for a couple days. Have you tried a hot dog yet? I’m told I need to surrender to the full cadre of toppings, but I’m suspicious of the neon-green relish.”

Dymitr was already aware that John talked a lot, but hearing it in person is another thing entirely.

“I haven’t, no,” Dymitr says.

“You Eastern Europeans always have this aura of profound gloom, you know that?” John waves at Dymitr’s face. “Or maybe Americans are just obnoxiously chipper. That world-famous optimism, right? Not so much to be optimistic about these days, of course—”

Though Dymitr didn’t ask, John launches into a summary of the situation across the Midwest. The region is spotted with so-called monstervilles—small towns full of creatures of all varieties who realized they could band together to keep themselves safe.

And that’s not even accounting for the new influx of things from all around the world.

“Not just your old-world standards anymore,” John says, with an exaggerated wince.

“The world is the same age no matter where you go,” Dymitr replies. “Just because it’s new to you doesn’t mean it’s new.”

John blinks at him, like Dymitr was just spouting philosophy instead of a simple fact.

“Suppose you’re right about that,” he says with a shrug. “Now what was it you wanted to meet about? Something about… swords ?”