Page 42 of Cry of the Firebird

"Don't listen to her, Trajan. Nerds are hot," Anya said with a wink.

"Thank you, Anya," he replied, swatting Cerise's hand away.

After hours of walking, they stopped for a quick drink of water and a rest while Izrayl backtracked to make sure they weren't followed.

Anya risked a glance at her hand, and a cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck. The scars were looking redder, with smaller tentacles of purple spreading from them like veins.

Izrayl burst through the trees and shook his head, a low growl rolling through his body. "Vasilli has found the house."

"Is Vischtan with him?" Yvan asked.

Izrayl shook his big head before taking off through the trees. He had been circling their general vicinity all morning, keeping a lookout for Vasilli or anything else that could hinder them.

"Are you okay, honey?" Cerise asked Anya. "You are looking pale."

"It's nothing. I'm more worried about you trying to make your way through the forest with those boots on," Anya tried to joke.

Cerise was wearing impossibly high-heeled boots that came up past her knees. She looked like a gorgeously impractical femme fatale.

Cerise raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry about my boots. I've had loads of practice walking in them. Just worry about yourself."

Anya pulled her hair back in a high ponytail to get it off her sweating neck. Her hand stung, and she tried not to wince as she fastened her hair tie.

They started moving again, heading southeast as the drum had instructed. Anya kept thinking about the symbols the runestone had landed on. Bird, crosses, woman. Bird, crosses, woman. It rolled around and around her head like a mantra to distract her from the ache spreading up her arm.

The next time she fell, Anya didn't have anyone there to catch her, and her world flooded with darkness.

Vasilli had foundthe house and where Vischto met his end. He wanted to destroy it, rip it apart with his magic like he had with Anya's farm. He couldn't afford the massive loss of power, not when he was gaining on them.

Anya had fallen for a child's trick in the dream, and now he had planted his own unique way of tracking her deep in her flesh. The thorns would fester deep in her body, spreading through her, paralyzing her. It would damage her enough to make her compliant.

Ladislav was becoming impatient, so Vasilli needed to collect her and get back to Russia. If he offered up the girl, maybe Ladislav would be too distracted to worry about what Vasilli was doing with the firebird. All he needed was time and a human sacrifice to tear the magic from the bird forever. Then there would be no more following orders from petty sorcerers like Ladislav.

Vasilli pulled off his heavy coat and the shirt he wore underneath. Tattooed on his muscled abdomen was a vicious black dragon. He hadn't wanted to release this pet. It would be useful in the fight against Ladislav when it finally came to ahead, but sacrifices had to be made.

Clearing his mind, Vasilli took his knife, cut his palm, and smeared the blood over the tattoo.

"Rise and waken dark slave,

Break free from bonds of magic and flesh,

I call you forth, I call you out,

Slave of mine, caught by my hand,

Rise from your trappings of blood and bone,

Take form and shape,

Rise and waken,

I call you to do your Master's bidding."

Dark magic poured through his body, filling the tattoo with magic. Vasilli shouted in pain, and the creature pulled itself from his skin, flopping bloody as a newborn onto the ground. It started to cry as it stretched its wings and grew to the size of a horse before it turned to Vasilli and lowered itself in a bow.

"How may I serve, Master?" its voice rasped through a mouth of venomous fangs.

"Find the girl and my brother and bring them to me. Slaughter whatever gets in your way," Vasilli commanded, holding the bleeding wound in his side.

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