Billi caught her breath. The air trembled as though the Earth itself were sighing. Ivan came next to her. His face was open with wonder as he gazed at the ancient artwork surrounding them. He touched the head of one of the bulls, tracing the curve of its horn with his fingertips.
Olga entered, and they followed. Billi gasped at the size of the innermost chamber. The entire Temple Church could have fit in here without touching the top or sides. The roof formed a high dome, and around the widest part ran a deep ledge decorated by huge crystalline formations that glowed deep ocher. Thirty-foot-long stalactites dripped water into sparkling pools.
Olga led them down the ledge to the largest pool, and they stopped at its edge. Thick columns of the same glowing crystal formed a forest of stone where the Polenitsy lurked. The walls were decorated with paintings and carvings of flying reptiles, man-beasts, huge monsters with wings and claws and humans with the heads of animals. The walls were marked with grooves where the wolves had sharpened their claws.
“Babushka,” repeated Olga.
Something moved through the crystal labyrinth. Clack clack clack went a staff of bone. Bare feet with leathery soles shuffled along the stone. The Polenitsy hissed and went to their knees.
Red shoved Ivan down onto his knees, and he stifled a cry. Billi knelt unbidden; it just seemed right. She was in the presence of the goddess. Only Vasilisa and Olga remained standing.
Invisible waves of energy rippled across the vast chamber, and each one shook Billi to the core. She put her hands into the water, but fought to keep her head up. The weight of the goddess’s presence was overwhelming.
This was why man feared the dark. From the earliest times he’d known that something wild lurked just outside the flickering flames of his cave, with the beasts and the monsters. The Dark Goddess.
She shuffled into the faint candlelight, and the shadows deepened around her. She walked hunchbacked, but even so was thirteen feet tall. Rags covered her skeletal frame-animal skins and ancient furs. Insects scuttled in her floor-length white hair, which formed a veil over her face. Only the eyes peered out. Black, shiny, ancient. Her nails-long, curved daggers-clicked against her bone staff.
“Come, MY little OnE.”
Vasilisa hesitated and glanced back at Billi. But Billi couldn’t help her. Vasilisa crossed the pool to take the withered hand of the ancient witch.
Baba Yaga drew Vasilisa into her arms and laughed. It sounded like the crackling of dry sticks on a fire, or of river water battering against rocks and cliffs. It rose, and now it was a bonfire, piled high and blazing.
34
BILLI ENTWINED HER FINGERS WITH IVAN’S, HOLDING tightly to stop herself from shaking. Baba Yaga shuffled through the pool and peered at them.
“WhO Are you, DAughterrr?” she asked. There were ten thousand voices on her tongue. With Billi’s acute hearing she could differentiate some. Men, women, children. Some were nearly articulate, while others screamed incoherently. All Baba Yaga’s victims. No wonder Vasilisa was terrified, standing in the clutches of the witch.
“Billi.” Her own voice cracked with fear. She cleared her throat and tried again, pushing some courage into her lungs. It wasn’t easy. “Billi SanGreal.”
“A wolf-killer,” added Svetlana.
Baba Yaga’s breath rolled like an icy wind over Billi’s face. Her talonlike nails click click clicked, and Billi was painfully aware of how any one of them could rip clean through her chest and out the other side. Ivan rose and took a step forward. His face was a mask of fear, but he stared at the Dark Goddess, determined and defiant.
“She did it to save me,” he said.
Baba Yaga’s attention snapped toward him, and she stroked his throat with her cold nails.
Red spoke. “They are to be punished, Great Mother. They killed Silver Paws, an elder.” She glanced back at Billi, smiling. “Give me the honor, I beg you.”
“Babushka, she is my friend,” said Vasilisa, her small voice ringing through the cave. She looked up desperately at the old witch.
“We’re here for the girl,” said Ivan. “Let us take her, and there will be no more trouble. It will be better for you.”
Billi looked at Ivan, shocked. What the hell was he talking about?
“There are hundreds of Bogatyrs on their way,” said Ivan. “And Templars. With swords, axes, and guns. You will be destroyed.”
It was one hell of a bluff, but Billi remembered the mural Koshchey had shown her back at the Ministry, and his tales about how the Bogatyrs of old had fought Baba Yaga before and driven her into the forests. If there was any fear in that black heart, maybe the memory of the Bogatyrs would reach it.
But if the old woman felt any trepidation, she did not show it. She swayed, her white hair trailing back and forth, and the twigs and bones knotted into the strands rattled and clattered together. She idly tapped her staff as she held Vasilisa.
“Man iZz a DEStroyer.” She tugged a small bone in her wiry hair, a curiously childish action. “BuT so Izz Nature.” Baba Yaga looked at Billi, and there was a gentleness, a pity in her stony eyes. “I gave BirtH to Maan, I DElivereD hIM to the World, OUT of his Fear and OUT of the DARKnez.” She glanced at Ivan. “HIzz time iz OVER, Billi SANgreal. It is the way of THINGZZ.”
“You can’t just wipe out mankind,” said Ivan. “It’s not for you to decide the fate of an entire species.”
“Is that not what you do? How many species, races, too, have become extinct because of you?” snapped Olga. “Mankind is a plague. Look at you. You rape and pillage, you suck the Earth dry and kill all your kindred. What species has prospered under man’s dominion? Not one. This Earth is not yours. Its bounty was to be shared by all, not devoured by one species who claimed it as their god-given right.” She spat at his feet. “Dominion over land and sea. You sought to enslave nature. You have poisoned the very air you breathe.”
“So your answer is annihilation?” said Billi.
“Nature always wins,” said Olga. “With the blight of man gone, nature will reassert itself. The Earth will be reborn. It always has and always will.”
“The Law, Great Mother. What of the Law?” Red stepped closer to Baba Yaga. She pointed again to Billi and Ivan, more desperately this time. “She is a wolf-killer, and the Law demands her life.”
“The Law, YEzzz.” Baba Yaga pointed at Billi. “She IZZ Like yoU, SvetLANA. No Wonder yOU Hate herr.” She looked Billi up and down, with no more interest than she’d look at a strange insect-curious for a moment. “YeZZ, Kill Zem bOtH.”
Billi gasped. She backed away, knowing it was useless. Ivan scraped up his crutch. Heart banging away, Billi turned slowly, her fists ready. The Polenitsy blocked the only exit.
“Great Mother, I ask a boon!” Olga’s plea stopped the Polenitsy in their tracks.
The old witch raised her head, the noise of her teeth grinding echoed within the limestone chamber and it made the hairs rise up on the back of Billi’s neck.
Olga lowered her gaze respectfully. “She has been blessed by the bite of Silver Paws. The change is upon her. She will be one of the Polenitsy by tomorrow.”
Baba Yaga pointed her claw at Ivan. “AnD ze Man-ChilD, wHatt of him?”
“He is Tsarevich Ivan Alexeivich Romanov.”
“RoMannoFF?”
Ivan gulped as the witch stepped up to him, so close they were almost nose to nose. Her throat rattled with a laugh.
“WElcomme, romaNOFF.” The old crone’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “The blood of MaNy princeZZ and kingzz run in the veinZZ of the PoLenitsee. He wOULD make a FINE consort, do you not tHiNk, SVetlana?”
Svetlana hissed. “I think we should kill them now.” The old crone glided next to Billi. She took hold of her chin and turned her face toward hers.