Page 85 of Foul Days

“Are you sure? You look terribly nervous.”

Kosara’s fingers gripping the keys trembled so badly, the bedazzled skeleton chimed. Her shadow sickness tickled her collarbones. Every time she shut her eyes, she saw Nevena’s face.

The last time she’d visited the graveyard during the Foul Days had been the last time she’d seen her sister alive and healthy. It had all gone downhill from there.

Kosara gave Asen an encouraging smile. “I’m certain. It will be fine.”

* * *

The graveyard gate loomed tall over Asen and Kosara. From behind wafted the smells of an awakening Chernograd: freshly brewed coffee, warm pastries, and just-lit fireplaces. Ahead, the graveyard had a different scent—wild, green, of moss and centuries-old pines, and magic.

It was cold, but not like the cold in the city which made you crave hot chocolate and turned your cheeks rosy. The cold here was alive. It tore at Kosara’s throat with sharp claws, slithered down her spine like a snake, curled up inside her lungs as if in a burrow.

Kosara pushed the metal door open. Several of its poles were bent where a frenzied upir had tried to walk straight through it. Teeth marks covered the hinges. Kosara gripped one of the silver coins in her pocket so hard, it probably left an impression on her skin.

“So, what’s the plan?” Asen asked.

“No plan,” Kosara said. “We get in, we dig out the compass, we get back out.”

“But what if there’s trouble?”

“We run.”

“I truly believe we should come up with a plan of action. Who’s going to keep watch, who’s going to protect the flank…”

“You do that. Personally, I’m going to run.”

Fresh snow covered the graves, as if the dead slept under white blankets. Here and there, deep holes gaped in the ground. All but the laziest upirs had long ago left their graves.

In between the cracked, moss-covered headstones, one glinted, new and shiny. A bouquet of red roses lay in front of it. Kosara bent down to read the inscription: Damyan Petrov, heart surgeon, his loving wife is heartbroken—

The ground cracked. A blackened hand shot up, reaching for Kosara’s ankle.

Kosara jumped back. “Oh!” She kicked the hand. “You scared the hell out of me!”

The hand hesitated, its fingers waving about, as if asking a question. Kosara dug her heel into its flesh. There was the loud crack of broken bone. The hand quickly limped back under the snow on four fingers.

“Heal that fracture!” Kosara shouted after it.

“He’s a heart surgeon,” Asen said.

“So?”

“He doesn’t heal fractures. You’re looking for an orthopaedist.”

“He’ll be looking for an orthopaedist if he doesn’t stay underground!” she said loudly, to make sure the upir would hear her.

“You said they’d be asleep during the day.”

“They are. This one must’ve just reanimated. Which is pretty lucky, actually.”

“Why?”

“He’s young and inexperienced. He didn’t try to trick us.”

“Trick us? How?”

“Who knows? He could’ve pretended to be a child stuck under the snow. Or he could’ve impersonated someone we know. ‘Asen, my old friend, I haven’t seen you in ages, could you give me a hand to climb out of this grave, old chum?’ They’re great at probing at your mind. This here, however, is a real embarrassment.”

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