Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables (8 page)

“Why are you letting him go?” Vasyl asked.

“I’m not. No one gets out the front door unless I unlock it, so it doesn’t really matter if your Tatar sleeps in my kitchen or weeps in my workroom until I need him.” Baba Yaga dropped the butcher knife on the table again with a clatter. “Nothing in our deal says I can’t give you one last night together, though whether that’s mercy or malice, I’ll let you decide. If you get bored, you can get a head start on tomorrow’s weaving.”

Vasyl started to help Petya up, but he hissed, “Don’t touch me,” and struggled to his feet on his own. Vasyl felt sick inside. Baba Yaga was cruel, indeed.

“We need to help Olena,” Petya whispered. “Get the hell out of here.”

Vasyl righted Broom, his eyes down. It looked as though Baba Yaga had merely knocked the mechanical’s memory wheels askew, and it would take no time at all to reset them. The bend at the top of his staff hadn’t seriously hurt him, either. Vasyl wheeled Broom like a little pushcart ahead of him and followed Petro, who
limped toward the wall and barely paused at the corner to turn the angle and right himself. Behind and above them, Baba Yaga stormed over to her floating forge, muttering and cursing all the while. The workroom door refused to shut for them, so they were forced to leave it open when they went back into the kitchen.

“I
said
you were screwed,” Maroushka said from the table.

Petro stared, and Vasyl made a fast introduction. “We should figure out what to do about Olena.”

“The little girl outside? She’s fine for now. Out there it’s still the same night you boys came in. It took Olena nearly four hours of our time to say the entire password. Tesseract, yeah?”

Petro collapsed onto a bench. His muscles sagged and his head bowed. “Then we have time. A little.”

“Petya.” Vasyl parked Broom and gingerly sat next to the other man. “Petya, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Petro said to his clenched fists. “
Sorry?
”

“For bringing you and Olena into all this.” Vasyl had to force himself to keep talking. “For not listening to you. And for…the other thing.”

“Well,
I’m
intrigued,” Maroushka said.

“You bastard,” Petro whispered in a tone that crushed Vasyl like paper. “How can I believe you did this to me?”

“I’m s—”

In a lightning move, Petro grabbed the front of Vasyl’s shirt and hauled him face-to-face. “If you say you’re sorry again, I will ram your balls up through the roof of your mouth.”

And then he was kissing Vasyl. Vasyl stiffened. Petya was
kissing
him. It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t happen. It was wrong and evil and it was the very thing he had been wanting ever since he had first met Petro all those years ago, the exact thing he had never been able to admit to anyone or to himself, but this terrifying and impossible place allowed the terrifying and impossible to happen. Petya’s mouth was warm on his, and his unshaven cheek rasped against Vasyl’s, and his arms were strong around Vasyl’s neck and back. Vasyl whimpered softly as something broke free inside him and he pressed himself against Petya, held his warm,
hard body against his own. His soul rose and twisted beyond metal walls, and Petya’s rose and twisted with him, trailing like a pair of comets in the sky.

“Why didn’t we ever do that before?” Vasyl asked when they parted.

Petro shook his head. “You know the answer to that.”

There was a pause, and then Vasyl asked, “How long?”

“Always, Vaska. On the first day we met, you listened to me. You made me feel wanted and…special.”

Vasyl closed his eyes for a moment. “All those years wasted.”

“Not wasted.” Petya kissed him again, then pressed his forehead against Vasyl’s. “I wouldn’t have Olena.
We
wouldn’t have Olena.”

“I was so jealous when you married Irina.” Vasyl leaned into him, put his arm around him. It still felt impossible, but Petya was here, solid and real. He smelled faintly of coal smoke and dark bread. “But I kept my mouth shut and smiled at your wedding.”

“Like everyone tells a good friend to do,” Petya agreed. “And then you decided to get married, like everyone tells a man to do.”

“I hate to break a romantic moment,” said Maroushka, “but you guys still have a honking big problem. Once the old lady gets her machinery reset, she’s going to suck Petie-boy’s brains out and put ’em into that old broom—or she’ll eat Vasyl. And probably Olena, too.”

Petya went pale, and resolve filled Vasyl. He got to his feet. “No. We’re ending this. Tonight. Now.”

“Sure, yeah, whatever.” Maroushka yawned. “Let me know how that turns out.”

Vasyl opened Broom’s control panel and swiftly pushed the faulty memory wheels back into place, then rooted through cupboards and drawers until he found a wrench with which to straighten Broom’s staff. Noises continued to emerge from the open door to Baba Yaga’s workshop. Vasyl restarted the wheels, and Broom shuddered to life as Vasyl dug the can of paraffin oil from his pack.

“Maroushka,” he said, “you know how to open the front door, don’t you?”

Maroushka eyed the can. “…No.”

Vasyl waggled the can so it sloshed enticingly. “Come on. You’ve been here for decades, haven’t you? Alone and neglected. What do you owe her?”

Maroushka licked her chops. “Look, it’s not that simple. Once you get out, she’ll chase you until the sun burns out. Yeah, the tesseract closes at dawn, real time, and the cottage will go…elsewhere, but it comes back every year, and she’ll be royally pissed. At you.”

Vasyl leaned his fists on the table. His bloodied hand twinged inside its rough bandage. “How will she chase us? In that flying mortar of hers?”

“Duh.”

“Fine.” Vasyl went to the workshop door and peeped in. Baba Yaga was standing at a control panel amid a large group of sharp-legged spiders. She twisted dials, and most of the spiders turned left. About a quarter of them froze and flipped over. Baba Yaga cursed and fiddled with the panel again. Petya came up behind Vasyl and put a hand on his shoulder. For a moment, Vasyl felt the old forbidden yearning. Then he remembered how things had changed and he put his own hand over Petya’s. Despite the difficulty of their situation, Vasyl couldn’t hold back the smile.

“If either of you meat puppets sets foot in there, you’ll set off five kinds of alarms,” Maroushka warned from the table.

“Broom!” Vasyl said, and Broom scuttled forward. “Slip in there and bring me those kegs of fuel by the forge. Don’t let
her
see you.”

Broom saluted and skittered into the room. Vasyl held his breath, waiting for the alarm, but nothing happened. Broom wasn’t alive. His handle bobbed and wove among the tables, just another mechanical going about its business. Baba Yaga’s back was to him, and she didn’t notice when Broom snatched up the kegs, one under each arm, and scampered back to the door. There was another bad moment when Broom crossed the threshold and Vasyl expected an alarm, but everything remained silent.

“Good job, Broom,” Vasyl said. “Put them by the table.”

Broom obeyed, puffing and squeaking. Petya squeezed Vasyl’s hand. “What are they for?”

Vasyl cracked a lid, expecting paraffin oil but getting another, rather dizzying, smell. “Uh-oh. I don’t recognize this.”

“That’s a fractional distillate of petroleum. Makes paraffin oil look like seawater.” Maroushka’s tail scythed back and forth. “I think I have a hard-on.”

“A hard-on? Strange for a female,” Petya observed.

“Strange for a female,”
Maroushka echoed in Petya’s voice.
“You’re hardly one to judge, light-foot.”

Petya balled up massive fists. “Now, look, you rusty little—”

“Be quiet, the both of you.” Vasyl replaced the first keg’s lid. “Maroushka, are you sure Olena is still all right?”

“She’s moved eight inches since the last time you asked,” Maroushka said. “Twice the length of Petro’s—”

“Good, good.” Vasyl straightened. “Look, you
are
going to help us, right?”

Maroushka hesitated and shot a nervous look at the workroom. “I do like you, kid, but—”

“When was the last time she even gave you coal dust, let alone paraffin oil?” Vasyl said. “I’ll even fill you with some of this petrol. You’ll lick my earwax, right?”

Maroushka gave a long, long look at the open workshop door, clearly warring with herself. Thinking. Vasyl held his breath. After an aching moment, she said, “All right. But I was only kidding about the earwax.”

T
he front door was locked with a series of dials and switches that had to be set to particular numbers in a particular order at a particular speed. According to Maroushka, a mistake would send a deadly jolt of electricity through the door and set off a cacophony of alarms as a sort of afterthought. Maroushka told Vasyl how to open them and repeated the sequences several times until Vasyl had them memorized, then went over to Baba Yaga’s loom,
which stood near the open workshop door. Petya kept watch while Broom carried the kegs of petrol.

“Ready?” Vasyl mouthed at the cat.

Maroushka gave a distinctly nonfeline wave of her paw and Vasyl set the dials and switches by the door to the first sequence. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. He forced his hand not to shake. One wrong turn—

The first of the three heavy bolts slid back with a heart-stopping
thud
that echoed through the kitchen. Petya’s face paled.

“What was that?” Baba Yaga demanded from the workshop.

But Maroushka was already working at the loom. She pushed on the warp beam, jumped down on the treadles, then leaped back up to the beam. The loom banged and thumped. This only made the tangled threads worse, but that wasn’t the point.

“I am starting your weaving, Grandmother,”
Maroushka said in Vasyl’s voice.
“Just as you said.”

No response from the workshop. Vasyl traded nervous looks with Petya and went on to the second sequence, and the third. As each bolt clunked aside, Baba Yaga shouted for an explanation, and again Maroushka said “he” was weaving.

The door was now unlocked. Petya took Vasyl’s hand. The smith’s palm was warm and calloused. Petya said, “Go!”

Vasyl shoved the door open. An immediate alarm screeched. The trio didn’t take time to listen. They bolted out the opening and down the steps into cold air. Olena was standing at the bone gate.

“Papa!” she cried. “Uncle Vaska!”

Vasyl had never been so glad to see her. Petro ran forward and snatched her up. Vasyl and Broom dashed after. The noisome, moonlit courtyard with its dead windows and uneven cobblestones seemed absurdly normal after all those days inside Baba Yaga’s hut.

The moment the two men reached Olena, Baba Yaga herself appeared in the doorway holding a trembling Maroushka by the scruff of the neck.

“Traitor!” she screeched, though whether she meant Vasyl or Maroushka, Vasyl couldn’t tell. “I’ll devour you alive!”

Olena screamed. Maroushka twisted in Baba Yaga’s grip and sank her brass teeth into the witch’s arm. Baba Yaga shook her arm with a howl, and somehow Maroushka managed to leap up and attach herself to Baba Yaga’s face. More outraged howls.

“Run!” Vasyl said.

They fled through the dark streets, following Broom’s blue eye lights. Petya continued to carry Olena, whose little face was tight. “I was worried,” she said. “And I followed you, even though I was scared.”

“You did a good thing, my Olenka,” Petya panted. “You saved us all.”

They turned down another alley. “Can’t she follow us in her flying mortar?” Olena asked.

“We stole the fuel,” Vasyl replied tightly. “But we’re not safe yet. She’ll—”

“Behind us!” Petya cried.

Baba Yaga was, indeed, coming behind them, running like a demon scarecrow, her long legs eating up the distance between them. Her iron teeth gnashed and blood ran from a dozen cuts on her face. Olena whimpered.

“Broom!” Vasyl cried. “Break the kegs!”

The kegs shattered like eggs in Broom’s arms, and a river of petrol cascaded down the cobblestones toward Baba Yaga. From his pack Vasyl drew the knife he had taken from Baba Yaga’s kitchen and stabbed at the stones. Sparks flew, and the petrol ignited. Fire roared. Heat sucked the air from Vasyl’s lungs and singed his eyebrows. Baba Yaga leaped back from the yellow flames.

“Go!” Vasyl gave Petya a shove, and they ran again, with Broom lighting the way. They reached a deserted crossroad and sprinted over it. In the distance, a bell struck five o’clock. Still an hour until dawn, when the tesseract would close. Vasyl gave himself a final look at Petya, knowing what he had to do.

“That fire won’t stop her for long,” Petya panted.

“I know.” Vasyl halted, as did Broom.

Petya ran a few more steps before he noticed he had lost Vasyl. He spun and shifted Olena to his other arm. “What are you doing?”

“We can’t outrun her,” Vasyl said softly, “and she said it was you or me. You have to think of Olena, so—”

“No!” Petya set Olena down and grabbed Vasyl by both shoulders. “That isn’t a choice, Vaska. It’s foolishness.”

Vasyl merely shook his head, unable to meet Petya’s dark eyes. “I’ve been a fool all my life, Petya. Especially when it comes to you.”