Page 13 of When Among Crows
The strzyga narrows her eyes at Dymitr. They’re inky black. Owl eyes.
“What’s in the case?” she asks him.
“A banjo,” he replies. “Do you know how to dance the Krakowiak? I could play for you.”
The strzyga purses her lips, obviously not amused. But she waves them both toward the door. It’s patchy with rust, and it feels hollow when Ala opens it, lighter than it should be.
“Please tell me you don’t actually know that dance,” Ala says to Dymitr.
“Only if you tell me you aren’t actually going to require me to mop up your blood,” he says, raising an eyebrow.
She keeps walking. She can’t tell him that.
Beyond the door is a cramped entryway, blocked off from the factory floor by flimsy temporary walls and a cluttered desk stacked with paper. Ala walks past it, toward the thrum of the music.
“You can’t be serious,” Dymitr says. “You’re really going tofight?”
“How else did you think we were going to get in here?” she says, scowling back at him. “I’m a zmora, and an unimportant one at that. I don’t get regular invitations to this place.”
Past the temporary walls is a wide-open floor. The equipment—to make the containers, Ala assumes—is pushed up against the walls, a tangle of metal ducts and plates and platforms. She assumes this was done by magic, because there are no outlines on the floor to show where the huge pieces of machinery used to go, and not a scrap of material litters the concrete.
In the middle of the floor where the machinery used to be is a boxing ring, square and blue with black ropes, with a cluster of lights hanging overhead to illuminate it. The rest of the room is dim, with rows of seats arranged around the ring and a wet bar along the far wall.
The room is full of creatures. Ala and Dymitr walk past a cluster of strzygi, recognizable by their yellow, glinting eyes; an alkonost, with her wings tucked against her back and her long, straight hair in a braid; a row of banshees, their big, dark eyes alighting on Dymitr right away, like he called them by name; a handful of czorts, their short, stubby horns uncovered. Ala shivers as they walk past a wraith in the form of a ghostly boy with one skeletal hand.
She spots the chalkboard where the fights are listed, and she’s startled to find the word “zmora” at the top. She’s the first fight of the night.
“Shit,” she says. “I have to find the Pitmaster.”
Dymitr is clutching the straps of his guitar case andemitting a faintly sweet smell, like a dusting of powdered sugar. She thinks it’s wariness rather than true fear, and again she wonders at it. She’s never met a mortal who could be in a room of strzygi without swallowing his heartbeat.
She leads the way to a tall woman standing next to the boxing ring. She has dark hair, umber skin, and eyes set a little too close together. Her look of appraisal makes Ala stand up a little straighter.
“I’m the zmora,” she says, nodding toward the board. “First match.”
“Niko said you would surprise me,” the woman says, in the hoarse, dry voice common to strzygi. She narrows her eyes. “He had better be right.”
The woman picks up a clipboard resting on the bench behind her and checks off the square next to the word “zmora”—everyone knows not to give their names here. Ala stares at the word scribbled next to it, the one for her opponent:
STRZYGA (1).
“Shit,” Ala says under her breath, as she steps away from the Pitmaster. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Niko?” Dymitr says, in a low voice. “Did she meanNikodem Kostka?”
“I see my reputation precedes me,” a low, amused voice says from behind them.
4A VALUABLE INGREDIENT
Nikodem Kostka is startling. Of all the strzygi that Dymitr has seen—and he’s seen more in the last five minutes than he had in his entire life up to this point—Nikodem is the one that most closely resembles a bird of prey. His eyes are a luminous bronze, catching the light like a flame is flickering behind them. He looks at Dymitr like he’s spotted a mouse in the grass to hunt.
“Niko,” Ala says, with a nervous smile. “It’s not you I’m fighting, is it?”
“Not tonight,” Niko says. “Who have you brought with you?”
Dymitr wants to back away. Ala’s nostrils flare, the telltale sign that he’s radiating fear strong enough for her to smell, maybe even taste. He’s glad Niko can’t do the same. Strzygi eat anger, not fear—hence the aggression fostered by the boxing club.
“His name is Dymitr,” Ala says.
