YAGA | ✓

EIGHTEEN - PART TWO

WARNING FOR GORE

•••

THE BLOOD had dried, but even so, he knew it was painstakingly recent. Even that, however, as unsettling as it was, didn't compare to the true horror that had swallowed the room, and then spat it out again. Baba Jana's house was the belly of the beast, with pieces of flesh scattered on the floor. Despite the floor being black, Dimitri could still see the ebbing pools of blood, so dense that if he dared look down, he would've been able to see his own reflection in them.

Once, twice, he blinked, trying to vanish the sight away, before realising - had it been a witch, she could've vanished it away, couldn't she? He thought about it for a while, before looking up to meet the cobalt-glass eyes at stared at him from across the room. Nevena's lips curled into a dark smile as he walked towards her, nothing but a long tunic and some stockings to keep her warm. The fire had been put out hours before, judging by the icy cold that had settled in the house. Wind rattled the windows, the only noise apart from heaving breaths, weary in their nature.

He also realised that he was terrified. Had his suspicions been correct, he was facing Yaga's murderer at this very moment.

Nevena, slowly, carefully, took the collar of his shirt, clenching it between her fingertips.

"You know, I wanted this to be nice," she said the last word flatly, pulling the collar tighter.

Then, her face shifted, and the gaping scar was no longer there, replaced with silky skin, impossibly perfect.

Chernobog.

It was the only god that he prayed to nowadays. The saints had forsaken him, and the rest had fallen.

Only the Chernobog understood, only it helped him.

Chernobog, help me.

But even it did not respond.

"That's a pity, now, isn't it?" he responded slowly, doing his best to slip the pistol out of his cloak without her noticing. "What are you, witch?"

Nevena laughed, a brittle sound that held its own kind of enchantment. Her fingers left his collar and instead went to press against the wall, coming off completely masked in blood.

"I am many things, Dimitri. But mostly, dead." She crouched down, trailing her hands in the pool of blood at their feet.

"Monster."

She scoffed. "Not any more than you, my love. It is you, I recall, who saw your fiancée playing with a flower and summoned a crowd to murder her, da?"

Dimitri swallowed. "She was practising witchcraft. As are you. She killed my father. Left my mother to die. My friends. Both of you are monsters and killers."

"And you?"

"I am no killer."

Her bloody hands closed around his throat, face rapidly changing. The face that she now wore was frighteningly identical to Yaga's.

"When I killed her, I wore your face, Dimitri. I dug the knife into her wretched, perfect heart. I watched her wretched, perfect blood spill onto this floor." She nudged the puddle with her foot. "Would it shock you if I told you this was not hers?"

"WHOSE IS IT?" he suddenly roared, seizing Nevena's face and clawing at it. "Who else did you kill? Like a pauper, in this den?" he forced his voice to become calmer, trying to match the cool nonchalance that she spoke with.