Page 4 of One For my Enemy

“Understandably, our dealers wish to partake at times, so to protect them, we give them a charm they wear in secret. Of course, you likely wouldn’t know that,” Marya remarked, still narrating something with a relevance Lev failed to grasp. “Trade secret, isn’t it? That it’s quite dangerous to try to sell our products without our express permission, I mean. Wouldn’t want someone to know that in advance, obviously, or our system would very well collapse.”

Dimitri coughed again, the reverberation of it still silent. Steadily, blood began to pour freely from his nose, dripping into his hands and coating them in a viscous, muddied scarlet that may well have been streaked with black. He sputtered without a sound, struggling to keep fluid from dripping into his throat while his chest wrenched with coughs.

“We have a number of informants, you know. They’re very clever, and very well-concealed. Unfortunately, according to one of them,someone,” Marya murmured, “has been selling our intoxicants. Buying them from us, actually, and then turning around to sell them at nearly quadruple the price. Who would do that, I wonder, Dima?”

Dimitri choked out a word that might have been Marya’s name, falling forward on his hands and knees and colliding with the floor. He convulsed once, then twice, hitting his head on the corner of the table and stumbling, and Lev called out to his brother with dismay, the sound of it still lost to the effects of Marya’s spell. She was the better witch, by far; their father had always said so, speaking of Marya Antonova even from her youth as if she were some sort of Old World demon, the kind of villainess children were warned to look for in the dark. Still, Lev rushed forward, panicked, only to feel his brother Roman’s iron grip at the back of his collar, pinning him in place as Dimitri struggled to rise and collapsed forward again, blood pooling beneath his cheek where he’d fallen to the floor.

“This hurts me, Dima, it really does,” Marya said. “I really did think we were friends, you know. I certainly thought you could be trusted. You were always so upstanding when we were children—and yes, true, a lot can happen in a decade, but still, I really never thought we’d be…here.” She sighed, shaking her head. “It pains me, truly, as much as it pains you. Though perhaps that’s insensitive of me,” she said softly, watching Dimitri gasp for air; her gaze never dropped, not even when he began to jerk in violent tremors. “Since it does seem to be paining you a great deal.”

Lev felt his brother’s name tear from his lungs again, the pain of it scratching at his throat until finally, finally, Dimitri fell rigidly still. By then, the whole scene was like a portrait, gruesomely Baroque; from the crumpled malformation of his torso, one of Dimitri’s arms was left outstretched, his fingers unfurled towards Marya’s feet.

“Well,” exhaled Marya, rising from the chair. “I suppose that’s that. Ivan, my coat, please?”

At last, with their brother’s orders fulfilled, Roman released Lev, who in turn flung himself towards Dimitri. Roman looked on, helpless and tensed, as Lev checked for a pulse, frantically layering spells to keep what was left of his brother’s blood unspilled, to compel his princely lungs to motion. Dimitri’s breathing was shallow, the effort of his chest rapidly fading, and in a moment of hopelessness, Lev looked blearily up at Marya, who was pulling on a pair of black leather gloves.

“Why?” he choked out, abandoning the effort of forethought. He hadn’t even bothered with surprise that his voice had finally been granted to him, and she, similarly, spared none at the question, carefully removing a smudge from her oversized sunglasses before replacing them on her face.

“Tell Koschei that Baba Yaga sends her love,” she said simply.

Translation:Your move.

Then Marya Antonova turned, beckoning Ivan along with her, and let the door slam in her wake.

I. 2

(What People Can See.)

“Alexandra Ant- ah, sorry, Anto-no-va?”

“Hi, that’s me,” Sasha said quickly, raising her hand in the air. “It’s An-to-nova. I go by Sasha.”

“Ah, okay, cool,” the T.A. said, obviously failing to commit it to memory. “You’ll be with, um.” He skimmed the list in his hand. “Eric Taylor, John Anderson, and Nirav, uh—”

“Vemulakonda,” someone a row down from Sasha’s supplied coolly.

“Yes, that,” the T.A. agreed. “Right, so, if you guys just want to circle up and sort it out, you’ve got about ten minutes left of class. I’ll be here if you have any questions,” he added loudly, though by then his voice had been drowned out by the sounds of students shifting around in their seats, haphazardly rearranging.

“Hey,” Sasha said, nodding as the other student with the unpronounceable name made his way towards her. He wore his black hair in a dramatic wave up from his forehead, the ends of it feathered like a raven’s wing. “Nirav, right?”

“Right, and you’re Sasha,” Nirav replied. “I like it.Sa-sha,” he repeated emphatically, baring his teeth a little as he lolled it around on his tongue. “Good name.”

“Thanks. Solid branding,” she offered wryly, and he chuckled, gesturing over her shoulder to nod as the two others from their group approached.

“Eric,” offered one, extending a hand. He had his blond hair parted cleanly, as impeccably polished as his dark blue v-neck sweater. “This is John,” he added, gesturing beside him to the quiet, dark-skinned student who generally sat some rows behind her. “So, should we plan to meet up and go over the details?”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Eric seemed to consider himself the leader. “I could do noon tomorrow at Bobst,” Sasha suggested, naming the library. “Or, if you guys were up for coffee tomorrow afternoon, I only have class at two, and th-”

“How about a drink instead?” Eric interrupted, speaking almost exclusively to John and Nirav. “Tonight, at Misfit? We can go over the business plan and then work on splitting up the roles.”

“A bar?” Sasha asked doubtfully, feeling her expression stiffen as Nirav and John made tentative noises of agreement. “Don’t you think that’s a little—”

“Brilliant?” Eric prompted, grinning at her. He might have been handsome, she thought, if he wasn’t so ruthlessly irritating; as it was, she had to stifle a general need to shove him down several rows of the theater-style chairs. “What do you guys think, maybe around eight this evening?”

Sasha cleared her throat, dismayed. “Look, I really don’t think—”

“Eight works for me,” John interrupted, glancing down at his watch. “Sorry, have to run, got class—”

“Me too,” contributed Nirav, shifting his backpack to both shoulders and giving Sasha an apologetic glance that only frustrated her further. “Cool, see you guys at eight, then—”

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