Jan hadn’t been able to sleep all night. He’d gotten used to functioning without it, but he was nonetheless annoyed by it’s failure to claim him. The confrontation with Marcel still rattled around in his head, loose of any truly cohesive thoughts outside of lingering anger. He was a lot more angry then he was expecting, and mixed with uncertainty, he had a very toxic brew boiling in his brain. He wasn’t quite fond of it.
He was laying in his childhood bedroom. When they were younger, him and Sebastian used to share a room, but after everything had settled, Sebastian took the master bedroom, and each of the three had their own room upstairs. Not that they were particularly big, but they would easily make do. The old decorations had been taken down-Sebastian said he had needed to after a storm had broken the window, and he hadn’t bothered to put them back up. It was all in storage, so he’d just get it out later.
In truth, he was pretty sure that if he had come home after six years and had been in the same bedroom he’d decorated when he was fourteen, he might have died on the spot, rather then just having a bit of insomnia. He didn’t need anything to make him more frustrated at the moment.
It was well past midnight. Probably only a couple hours until sunrise, he realized, when he needed to meet with Artem. Light flickered in through the long since replaced window, and he didn’t feel like getting up to close it. He wouldn’t be sleeping regardless. He was in a bad state of things. That’s what he kept coming back to, anyways.
He laid there for another few minutes, letting his thoughts stew and shake. Before he decided that he didn’t want to sit around anymore. He pulled himself to his feet, stretching, before looking around the room. Carefully, to avoid making the old floors creak, he crept over to where he’d left his bag against the wall. Opening it, he rifled through, withdrawing his other coat, and a few other items, mostly warmer clothing. It had been cold during the day, but at night, it would be far worse. The last thing he withdrew was the survival knife he’d been carrying since Siberia. It had been one of the few items out of those he’d held on the way out with Anna that he’d kept. One of the only ones worth keeping. It was also the closest thing to a weapon he’d been allowed to keep. No guns for potentially unstable young soldiers who knew too much, he supposed. He stuck it on his belt. Not that he expected to need it, but he’d never felt comfortable walking the streets of Ostoja at night. There were on and off curfews and security measures in place in the small town for a reason. It wasn’t all bullshit posturing. There was something unsafe about these streets, even if no one knew exactly what.
He didn’t want to turn out like his parents, after all. Especially just after getting back. He couldn’t do that to either of his siblings.
Especially knowing that, if he died, Marcel would make sure to slander him into nothing. With how coy he’d acted, and how he’d denied everything, he was sure that it had either already been done, somehow, or he planned to do it now that he was back, to rub it in. He assumed the latter, mostly because Sebastian and Zaneta were talking to him. Which meant Marcel wanted this to hurt.
A pang of several feelings rushed through him. Guilt, anger, and…sadness. He hadn’t wanted things to be this way. He’d only confronted Marcel because he was dodging the point.
He had wanted his friend back.
But it was too late for now.
With a heavy sigh, he checked through the bag for anything else he should bring. His flashlight, tucked onto his belt as well. Nicer gloves then the one Sebastian had left him, no offense to his brother. Finally, he grabbed one of the terrible ration bars he’d tucked away. He was getting hungry.
He stood up. He figured, that if Artem wanted to call him somewhere at the crack of dawn, he could stand to have Jan show up a little bit early. And if he didn’t? He could reprimand him, or something. Jan wasn’t quite sure he cared about any consequences at the moment.
Still being extremely careful not to make noise, Jan opened the door to his room, scanning quickly with his eyes. Sebastian and Zaneta’s doors were both sealed shut, which meant they were probably sound asleep. He’d been worried that Sebastian would be unable to sleep, and would be downstairs, but it seemed like that wasn’t the case. Leaving his door ajar to avoid making any further noise, he slowly, but surely, descended the stairs and reached the ground floor again. He narrowly avoided tripping on a few of Zaneta’s discarded articles, but he made it. From there, being a little less careful given distance, he slipped out the front door, and locked it behind him.
The night air was even colder then he’d expected. He was glad for the nicer gloves, as he jammed his hands into his pockets, and stepped down the stairs, and across the yard. The layer of snow was still there, and he noticed a light amount of white descending from the heavens, through the moonlight.
It was nice. But he had places to be. Taking off at a brisk pace, Jan started walking down the fastest route he knew back towards the hostel. Keeping his wits about him, as a bit of silence paranoia crept in at various angles. He regretted coming out here, but not before he’d rounded the street corner. He wasn’t turning back now. He didn’t want to.
He was going to be careful. Him and Sebastian had talked over what happened to their parents a few times. He thought they’d gone on a late night walk, and might’ve fallen into the sea. Jan, for his part, was nowhere near the sea right now.
Somehow, that wasn’t all that reassuring to him at the moment.
Ever since he’d learned about his real assignment after his transfer, he’d wondered if that was what had happened to them. If some blood sucker, or any of the other beings his manual had warned him about had stolen them away instead. Some days, he was convinced he’d come home and find Sebastian and Zaneta gone. Revenge for the sorts of things he’d been doing.
Now that he was home, he wasn’t sure what to think.
He was shaken out of his internal thoughts by movement, ahead of him. Narrow and hard to see in the light of the moon, but he saw distinctly, the signs of people running at the end of the street. And interestingly, they were headed in the same direction Jan was, to the center of town.
It had looked like two people. But then he saw a third, then a fourth. He couldn’t make out details.
What were people doing out here this late? And heading to the center of town, at that?
A faint chill set through him. A feeling of being watched. He made the quick decision that he wasn’t going to go on the fasted available route anymore. Assuming the streets hadn’t changed all that much, and by the two walks he’d taken, they hadn’t, he knew a path that would only be about a ten minute difference. He ducked into a nearby alleyway, and quickened his pace, weaving through residential buildings, and a few of the old shops. He was quickly on the same side of town as the new church, and the hostel. No sign of anymore people.
Or at least, so he’d thought. He did see signs of them, though. In the sky, he occasionally thought he saw shapes. At first, he thought maybe birds. But they were too round for birds. Balloons, maybe, but who released balloons on a snowy night?
He quickened his pace further. Eventually, he began seeing more people moving about. Except these people were short, and half of them were lurched forward like they were slouching. Despite being the size of children, they walked like adults. They were milling about at the end of one street, which got him to turn, and take another detour. His breaths were starting to quicken, each one visible in the cold night air.
He eventually stopped looking at the sky, where different shapes began to move, resembling large kites, or floating banners. He had been told by doctors that if he began seeing things, he should report it…was that what this was? He hoped not.
It was probably some kind of weird, planned event that no one had told him about. His return had distracted them. Obviously. The people here were just going to an event. That’s what it had to be.
He was less then a mile from the hostel, now. And that’s when things got even weirder.
A large section of the street had been cleared of snow. Salt had been arranged in a circle, or it would have to be, for no build up of the snow to be there. And yet, when he got closer, he saw no sign of salt crystals. Instead, he saw faint flecks of black lingering there, like ground up coal had been scattered over it. Sprouting from the circle, he saw multiple sets of footsteps, trekking through the snow that had been laid onto the street since night had fell. Some of them were rather big, and some were very small, like a giant was walking next to a little kid. He frowned, and doubled it as he realized they were ultimately going in the same direction. At this point, his paranoia, and building terror got the better of him. He started running, towards the hostel. A few times, during that half mile of sprinting, he swore he heard skittering-or some other terrible noise, coming from the buildings above him. Darting movement in the skies. Someone staring at him from an alley. He didn’t linger long enough to check, and palmed Anna’s survival knife.
He reached the lot the hostel was located next to. Quickly, he saw that something was very distinctly wrong. The windows were shattered, and the door was ajar, allowing the cold to rush in, the wind moving the door back and forth and back and forth. No lights on inside either. Jan rushed in, quickly. Seeing something out of the corner of his eye, as he did. Two people, who had been ducked behind some of the cars on the street. No one he recognized in the limited light. One of them, freakishly tall and thin, and with too long of arms that ended in wicked claws. The other, who looked completely average, wore a business suit and had slightly ruffled hair as the only odd part of his look.
The one with long arms sprinted after. The one in the suit rummaged around in his pockets, and despite it not being there a moment ago, produced a…gun? No. A crossbow fit for someones hand. Jan doubled his pace, and dove into the door of the hostel, whipping around and kicking the door shut in the long armed one’s face. He heard the sound of what could only be a crossbow bolt striking the door, with a resounding thud. Heart pounding, he sprang to his feet, locking the door, and moving one of the benches in the area up against it. Scratching and pounding-he’d bought himself maybe a minute. He hurried to the next room, where he knew Artem to be. He had to warn him. He seemed to be well trained-the two of them together would surely be able to deal with the two outside.
When he got there, what he saw made his heart sink.
Artem had been pushed against the opposite wall. Blood seeped between his teeth and lips, and bruises dotted his face. His cheek was swollen, his nose was broken, and one of his arms looked like they’d been straight up shattered. A gun laid at his feet, and someone had their own foot on it. He was slumped, but breathing.
Jan stood in the entrance of the not quite empty room. Three people stood in there, with a fourth looking like they’d been shot, laying on the ground.
Two of them looked nearly identical. Short and stubby covered in what seemed to be cloaks of snow. They were almost like tiny snowmen, wearing ratty cloaks of leaves and sticks. One of them, which was turned to face Jan, had eyes that looked like they were made from discarded coins, and in it’s hand, brandished a large stick with a rock tied to the end. Or large for a creature like it. It would be about the size of a child’s baseball bat.
The other was different. A man, he was pretty sure, with skin that looked sick or ill somehow, given it’s discoloration to appear purple and dark blue. At first, Jan thought maybe frostbite, but that thought was dashed when he realized that the colors blended, and knotted…and his skin was a lot more mobile then someone with frostbite. He was moving his fingers. Other then the skin condition, the man had a rats nest of black hair, that settled in a mop over his shoulders. Jan was pretty sure he saw sticks and twigs nestled in there, along with what might be spiderwebs. He wore cloths that looked a couple centuries out of date, like he just walked off of a serf’s farm. In his hands, two objects-a wooden club with a metal handle, and a small and thin blade, dripping with blood.
The discolored man turned over towards Jan. Beneath the mop of hair, he smiled with yellowed teeth.
“You must be the soldier boy come home. Mr. Man in Black here was being awfully cagey about where you were…but you saved us the trouble. Thanks a million, kid! I’ll make it a quick.”
The man spoke Polish, but with an inscrutable accent. Jan frowned, unfurling the blade of the survival knife. He heard the pounding at the door. He didn’t have long. Even still, three on one was terrible odds. But if he could get to Artem’s gun…he took a step forward, slowly.
“What kind of freak are you, exactly? You’re not a bloodsucker, otherwise you’d be gouging. Some kind of sorcerer? I didn’t realize magic made you ugly.”
Jan prodded at him. One of the things his manual advised, was if your prey acted like a human, chances were, you could get them talking. He was betting the snowmen were listening to his beck and call, since they hadn’t moved yet. And one of their own was melting on the floor nearby.
“Oooh. You’ve got a mouth on you! But no, incorrect guesses on both accounts. You Soviet inquisitors are really as dumb as they come.”
He gave an even wider grin. Jan swore he saw something crawling in his mouth.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter. Why do you care about me? I’m not with the division anymore.”
Jan said, with a bit of a glare. He was awfully close now. The discolored man’s eyes followed him.
“You and Mr. Black Suit here know a bit too much. About a few too many things…so, the Prince wants you gone. Simple as.”
Prince?
“Prince. Not even good enough to work for a proper King?”
Jan goaded, taking a step. He was right behind one of the snow creatures now.
“If only you knew, inquisitor. Now, let me take your head, and we can all move on with ou-“
Jan dove. Driving the knife forward, he ducked and flicked his hand upwards, burying the blade in the man’s stomach. Landing on the ground with a thud, he lunged forward with one arm, grabbing Artem’s pistol, firing it into one of the snow creatures. The other, ran forward, but Jan managed to catch the bat, struggling with it for a moment.
In the meantime, the discolored man howled, stumbling backwards, tearing the survival knife free. A sticky substance closer in color and consistency to tree sap then blood, coming free of the wound. He wound back his hand, with the smaller knife. Jan moved, just as the knife clipped him across the side. A stinging pain. But he was used to it. He kicked the snow creature backwards, and stood to his feet, leveling the gun at the man.
“We’re done. You’re giving my answers, or I’m blowing your brains out.”
The man stopped his howling, righting himself. He still had the club, and gripped it tightly. The snow creature was starting to stand. Jan flicked one eye to it.
“And call off your little beast.”
The discolored man made a gesture, the snow creature waddling over to his side…a glare forming beneath the nest of hair.
“How do you know a bullet will even do the trick, inquisitor. I’ll walk that off like it’s nothing, then bash your skull into a nice, fine pulp.”
Jan kept his grip on the pistol. For whatever reason, it wasn’t a Control. Which made this harder, but he’d live, somehow. He was confident in his aim, specialty weapon or no. He’d been better then most, on the training range, his supposed natural talent being what got him slotted into the division to begin with. The discolored man did have something resembling a point. He wasn’t sure this would do the trick, but…
“Then why am I still alive.” Jan replied to the discolored man, flatly. Keeping his grip and aim firm.
“Because getting shot hurts, you stupid child. What do you want to know, anyways? A dead man can have all the secrets he pleases.”
The pained expression turned to a pain grin, which was a little bit unsettling. But all the same, Jan held firm.
“What are you?” He asked, with a pointed glance.
“Sorcerer wasn’t entirely wrong. I’ve taken a dip in realms beyond our own. A bit of flavor of other worlds and other things, chaotic beasts and resplendent beauties. They hurt. But they give power. And, it ensures that I’m far from human.”
“Quaint. And which realm makes you bulletproof.” Jan said, sternly.
The discolored man chucked, canting his head in Jan’s direction.
“I could take you there for a visit, if you lower the gun. I could do a lot for you, actually. I could drag you before the Prince, you could make your case, and-“
Jan shook his head violently, with vitriol.
“Why would I care about what this Prince thinks. Besides. That’s definitely a trap.” He said this with confidence. The discolored man’s expression fell for a moment…before upturning into a grin again.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’d much rather measure the dent in your skull!”
He lunged. Jan fired. A chunk of the man’s shoulder splattered out in a burst of blue, purple and sickly yellow, decorating the ground. The club went up, and Jan narrowly ducked. In the discolored man’s other hand, however, was something-a nail?
The small spike settled deep into Jan’s left arm. His right held the gun. He turned it back around, and fire into the discolored man, point blank, this time tearing a hole in his gut. He kicked at the snow creature, which was starting to get close, but the little bastard was ready this time, and ducked, swinging his rock-on-a-stick into Jan’s side with a heavy sound. Jan was sent reeling. The discolored man was quick to recover, gritting his teeth through the pain this time, and held out a hand, clenching a fist. The spike flew free of Jan, causing his blood to fly out, and the wound to sting more. It settled back in the discolored man’s waiting hand. He grinned.
Jan turned the gun around, just as the snow creature hit him again. He pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide. He hit the ground, and the smaller one waddled closer, raising up the mallet, only for Jan to stick the gun in it’s face, and blow whatever approximated brains out.
The discolored man took advantage of the momentary split in attention to point both of the items in his hand at Jan. Speaking something in a language Jan didn’t know nor understand, all of the snow creatures around the area began to stir, and shift, and start to stand. In response, Jan spun the gun around, and shot the discolored man again. He reeled, but it was like the bullets grew less and less effective…and once again, Jan was outnumbered. He pulled the trigger again, as they began to get up, and the discolored man sprayed more of his strange blood everywhere.
He pulled the trigger again, and only heard a click. Artem must have used most of the bullets trying to fend them off.
The discolored man let out a wicked sounding laugh, as he gestured at Jan with his club.
“What did I tell you, Inquisitor! Hurts like a bitch, but I’m still standing! And you, I think, are going to die nice and messy. It’ll make me feel better, after all that. Kill him!”
The snow creatures waddled forward, as the discolored man meandered. Jan focused. He could probably disarm one, but he’d get hit trying. And if he really got the upper hand, the not-sorcerer was a lot faster then he looked and could probably stop meandering to put Jan down properly. His best shot was jumping over the small ones, and trying to tackle the magic man. If he could get the club from him, or something, maybe he could do some real damage.
It was during this split second contemplation that he realized something odd.
The two he’d seen outside hadn’t burst in. The door wasn’t being shaken off the hinges, and the hostel, besides the altercation, was quiet.
Had the other two creatures given up, or…?
A crossbow bolt slammed into the discolored man’s back.
He whirled around. Jan kicked one of the snow creatures down, and grabbed the stick with a mighty tug. He got hit in the side, and smacked the one which smacked him twice as hard. It was gonna leave a bruise, but still. The smaller ones were recovering more quickly…he looked to where the bolt had come from.
Standing just outside the doorway was a woman. Jan hadn’t heard her footsteps, nor see here until a moment before. Evidently, by the discolored man’s surprise, he hadn’t either. This woman in question had golden brown skin, with a few wrinkles and other signs of age-desaturation in her fairly long hair being one of them. She had sharp brown eyes, and was wearing what could only be described as a mix of a hiker’s outfit and tactical gear. In one hand, she held the hand crossbow, which despite having just been fired, had a bolt loaded in it. It was the same one as the man outside had held. In her other hand, was an object that looked like a severed head. Specifically, the severed head of the spindly man Jan had seen outside.
“And what in the thousand realms are you?” The discolored man said, reaching for the bolt. The woman cut him off. The three snow creatures continued to try and get at Jan, but he was fending them off well enough. Whatever was keeping them going, made them more sluggish.
“I wouldn’t pull that out, if I were you.”
The woman spoke perfect Polish. Which Jan hadn’t expected. Her voice was stern, and carried with it not a shred of weakness.
“Fuck you! What’d you do to Steffen and Blyod!”
“The two outside? They were being rather rude to a woman looking for her lodgings. So I got them out of my way. I hadn’t realized your Prince allowed such…uncouth conduct from their subjects.”
She held the head up.
“Ha! I’ll show you uncouth. I’m gonna turn you into a wall decoration!”
The discolored man lunged, and in the same step, tore the bolt free. Or put his hand on it, and pulled, anyways.
The woman simply frowned.
“I warned you.”
He pulled the bolt free, but it wasn’t alone. Attached at the end, and caving in the rest of the cavity along with it, was a very bloated, ugly, and barely functional appearing heart. Ribs, more of that sickly yellow blood, and other organs spilled out, as the chest cavity came unwound.
The three snow creatures collapsed. The woman stepped over the gurgling discolored man, and looked at Jan, who had stumbled back against the wall.
“Don’t mind me, young man. I’m just here for my bag.”
She said, reaching for the bag at the end of the bed. Jan realized he recognized her, having been sleeping in the hostel that morning.
“…Wait. Wait.” Jan said, raising a hand, the woman stopping to look at him.
“Can we-” He heaved a little. “-Talk about that, for a second?”
She paused. A faint smile creased her face.
“Will you drop the goblin weapon?”
Jan dropped the stick.
Kindling And Miscellany 