Chapter 4: Day at the Museum

Irina seemed happy to have me along.  And by happy, I mean about as happy as a mom whose son just offered to go off to the grocery store to do the errands for her.

The girl put a hand on her hips, putting the bastard sword down on the ground and leaning against it, looking like a fantasy movie poster.  “You know how to fight?”  She said in that thick russian accent.

“I made it here, aren’t I?”

She grunted, jerking her chin in the direction of the ripped seams on my pants.  “Almost didn’t.”

I fought not to grit my teeth.  I don’t buy into that whole traditional gender role thing.  Not really.  But there was something very demasculinizing about the way this beautiful blonde woman was treating me.  Like I was baggage, like she doubted that I could be of help.

Yeah, been there.  Done that.

Most of my life, I was the opposite.  Always harming people, lying to them, tricking them and-

I sighed, focusing on Irina.

Irina was a survivor.  The tengu corpses strewn about this room was proof of that.  There wasn't anyone else here either; which meant she had done this all herself.  I wasn’t an expert at this whole System thing just yet, but I’m not blind.  Irina was off to a better start than I was in the Apocalypse Skill lottery.

Breathing the tension away from my shoulders, I answered, “I don’t know.”

“Then you are useless.  Da?”  She turned, making to leave.

Shit.  She was leaving.  What could I say to get her to stay?  She was so suspicious of my intentions; which was a given based on what I surmised about her.  

‘Quick, Jane.  She’s leaving.’  I thought to myself and just blurted the first thing that came to my mind.

“I won’t leave you.”

She stopped in her tracks.

“I won’t betray you, I won’t leave you behind.  I swear it.”

Slowly, Irina turned around.  “And what do you know about loyalty, little man?”

Technically, without her boots I’d be taller than her.  On a good day, I could pass off as 6’1.  But I bit the retort, sticking to what I knew would convince her.  “I grew up a Carnie.”

Frowning, she said, “I am not familiar with this… Carnie.”

“Circus.  Uh…”  I searched for the word in russian.  “Tsirk.”

“Ah.”  She said as if that explained everything.  “Like a… Theatre Troupe?  Like the Great Bolshoi?  Yes… then perhaps you know something.”

“Still, you not look like one.  You not strong.  You not fast.  You not…”  She waved her hand up and down.  “You not anything.”

“I’m not that kind of performer.”  I fought not to shrivel in on myself.  “I’m… –was– a psychic.  A showman.  Magician.”

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.  “I do not believe you.  Prove.”

If you asked me a day ago, an hour ago even, I would have killed for a chance to impress someone like Irina.  A drop dead gorgeous girl around my age who could probably cause car accidents just by looking in the wrong direction.  But something about the fact that the world was going through a literal apocalypse and that magic and mythical creatures had suddenly become very real made me shy away from the usual sleight of hand tricks.

Old habits die hard, and my hands were already going through the motions –making a coin appear and then disappear.  “Ta-da.”  I said lamely.

Absolute silence.

Heat crept up my face and I wanted to just find a hole, crawl into it and melt.  There was no way anyone would find this remotely entertaining in the current situation.

But, I kid you not, a ghost of a smile graced Irina’s lips.  Not a whole smile, cause that might have made my heart skip a beat.  Instead, it was the way her eyes shifted –the corner of her lips rising ever so slightly.

Houdini, eat your fucking heart out.

“I’m less of a magician and more of a psychic.”  I cleared my throat sheepishly.

Irina’s smile turned into a glare but her heart wasn’t in it.  It was more playful than actually annoyed.  “Anything else?”

“Unless you got another nickel, no.”

And that got an actual laugh out of her.  Short, but real; her laugh was like spring breeze blowing through frozen branches.

“You are silly little man.”

Little by little, she had let down her guard.

“Look,”  I said, letting seriousness creep into my voice.  “I don’t know what’s going on out there and honestly, I have no idea what’s going on here either.  But I do know this; there’s strength in numbers.  And you should know how much loyalty means among people like us.  I think there’s real merit in sticking together.”

“One would say, I do most of helping.  You do most of sticking.”  She said, still unconvinced.  Then added, “People like us?”

I brushed past my slip-up, “At the very least, I could help you find them.  I know the layout of this museum.  It’s obvious you’re not from here.”

“Why? Because of my accent?”  She said with a growl.

Holding up my hands placatingly, “No.  Because this section is off-limits.  You obviously wandered in.  That would only happen if you’re running away like me,” I pointed at the small tengus on the ground, “Which is not the case.  Or you had no idea where you’re going.”

Irina glowered but didn’t reply.

Making the first move, I held out a hand.  “I help you find your siblings, you keep me alive till we get out of here.  Deal?”

The russian model looked at my hand then finally gave in, sweeping the blonde locks out of her face.  She took my outstretched hand and shook it.  She had a firm grip and I mostly succeeded in hiding the pain from my face.  “Dah.”  She said again.

“Ok.”  I replied, my heartbeat slowing to a regular pace again.  “Can I ask you something?”

“Ask.”

“The Sword…”  I didn’t know how to phrase this without sounding intrusive.  “It’s…?”

“It is one of my Skills.”  She said proudly, hoisting the sword so that I could get a better look.

The blade was as wide as her waist and I wondered just how strong she had to be to wave it around with one hand.  It had a wicked curved tip, like a butcher’s knife.  It kind of looked like it belonged in the MET, with its worn handle and dull iron sheen.  The only thing that really caught my eye was that the hilt was shaped like a horned demon with its mouth open –the blade jutting straight out of its throat.

“One of your skills?”

“Da.”  She gestured to me.  “You do not have one?  I thought all skills came with a weapon.”

“Jesus.  You make the sword sound like a side of fries in a Happy Meal.”  I quipped before I could stop myself.

She raised an eyebrow at me.  Maybe they don’t have Happy Meals in Russia.

But it was enough for me to put hopes aside of finding a magic sword on the ground.  So I started walking around, eyes careful looking for… for anything really.  Something that I could use.

It didn’t help that I refused to look at the mutilated Tengu corpses.

“You must have a skill.”  Irina followed me, “Surely, those… Tower infants left you with a way to fight.  Else you will-”  She pantomimed cut across her neck with a thumb, her eyes rolling back and tongue lolling out.  She even made the sound effect.  Even through all that, she somehow managed to look pretty.

“My skills are useless in a fight.”

“What is it?”

Irina had a right to know.  She was walking into a gunfight without information on whether her partner had a gun, a grenade or even a pocket knife.  This whole thing was about rescuing her siblings, but we were still traveling together.  I’d be expected to watch her back and she’d watch mine in return.  It was only fair.

But years of being a Psychic who relied on misinformation to get people to trust me kept me from saying too much.  I needed to say just enough.  Just enough to be useful but not enough for her to figure out what I could really do… or lack thereof.

When it came down to it, I couldn’t really see a way that my skills could be of any use in a fight.  Maybe it was meant to give me a measure of peace, Identifying whatever nightmare fuel happened to kill me in the next hour or so.

“I can sense when we’re about to be in danger.”  I said, mixing truth and lie.  “And identify things.”

“Expected worse.”  She answered.

I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not.

“Is that how you know monster name?”  Irina kicked one of the fallen Tengus with her feet.

“No.”  I shook my head, “I knew them by sight.  I read a lot of books as a kid.”

She spread her arms at the Tengu corpses.  “Books?”

“Didn’t have a lot of friends.”  I said, as if that should explain why any elementary schooler was reading esoteric yokai scrolls in a buddhist monastery.

‘A little bit of truth, a little bit of lies.’  I told myself.  It was a nerve wracking moment, standing at the precipice between lie and truth.  Like peering into the canyon, knowing that if the other person garnered even a little bit of suspicion, it would never end.

But my answers satisfied Irina, at least for now.  “This sword is one skill.”  Her tone sounded like a child, bragging to her friend.

“The other?”  I asked immediately.

“I grow stronger while fighting.”

I nodded, pretending to understand what that meant but soon found what I was looking for.

Irina smirked, looking at her Greatsword then at the small dagger in my hands.

Scowling at her, I tested the weight.  It was heavier than I was used to.  But it’s not like I’d ever held weapons before.  This was the first time I was holding something that wasn’t a kitchen knife or a pocket knife used for camping.  But I needed this dagger.  I needed it to…

To do what exactly?

Looking around at the Tengu parts, I was once again reminded of the receptionist and the Tsutsugamushi crawling all over her.  The memory returned, unbidden.

– a set of pincers plucking out her eyeball, all the sinews still attached to the back of the skull cavity and dripping with gooey sticky liquid–

I groaned, a sickening weight settling in the pit of my stomach.

“Ah, you stay behind me.”  She wrinkled her nose, turning away.  “But not too close, Da?”  

“Funny.”  I wiped the last of the stomach-acid from my mouth.

“Funny american man.”  She said, shaking her head.  “Come, we find the way out now.”

“Not that way.”  I pointed at the door I just came from.  “Too many Tsutsugamushi.  We need to stick close to places with windows.”

“Windows?”

“They’ll avoid sunlight.”  I replied, “Any ideas where your siblings might be?”

“Mmm.  Natalia wanted to see guns.  Lev followed.”

An idea came to me.  Why hadn’t I thought of it before?  “You want to try calling them?”

“Nyet.”  She took out her phone, tapping the dreaded black screen.  “Dead.”

“Crap.  Let me try mine.”  Mine was also dead.

“Perhaps EMP.  Perhaps attack on Internet.  Does not change anything.  I must find my siblings.”Irina started walking in a random direction again.

“Wait.”  I grabbed her by the wrist.

Then Irina Kristoff turned around and looked.

Just looked.

There are girls who don’t need to say anything to lower the room’s temperature by a couple of degrees.

Irina Kristoff was one of them.

I immediately let go of her wrist, eyeing the rather large sword in her other hand.  I coughed, “Sorry.  But you don’t even know where they are.”

“Better than standing around.”

“Just let me-”  I knew Irina was the type to act rather than talk.  Normally, I wouldn’t have made such basic mistakes like engaging someone like her with conversation but I was still frazzled from this whole experience.  Doing what I should have done the first time, I took out the brochure from my back pocket.

“A map.”  She said, grabbing the other end.

“The MET is the size of a couple of city blocks.  But luckily, there aren’t a lot of gun exhibits.”  I pointed at the section I was looking for.  “There.  Firearms Exhibit, right near the Victorian Era and Eastern European Calvaries.  Now we should walk like this, right next to the windows.”  I traced a path with my finger.

Irina muttered something in Russian.

“What was that?”  I asked.

“Something my father used to say.”  Irina answered, “Hard to find in your language.  It is not the size of gun, but the man you shoot.  Something like it.”

 “Thanks?”

“Nyet, you are… useful.  Smart.  I misjudge you.”

“I, on the other hand, judged you correctly.”  I looked rather pointedly at all the ichor on her.

She elbowed me in the ribs and walked ahead of me while I doubled over, groaning.

Then we stopped talking.

I chanced a look outside the window.

The first thing I noticed was the smoke.  A few years ago, there had been a huge forest fire in Canada and the smoke had blown over to the skylines of New York and the surrounding areas.  That’s what it reminded me of.  Angry black smoke drifted lazily, billowing upwards from dozens of buildings.  The iconic skyscrapers still stood but they seemed impossibly lonely against the scarlet red hue of the skyline.

It wasn’t just what I saw either.  I think in my conversation with Irina, my mind had subconsciously blocked out the noise.  But now that I was looking out the window…

Dozens, hundreds of car alarms were blaring at once, like someone took the brass section of the orchestra and crushed them together into one pulpy ball of meat.  The museum’s walls were thick and usually, it was usually pretty quiet.  But when you walked around the museum, there was a sense of belonging.  Like being part of a pack, the inquisitive thoughts and questions of intellectual minds all floating together to form a silent presence that pushed against our humans senses –that we were not alone.

Except for the countless distant screaming coming from outside, I heard nothing.

Irina finally took a breath and time started once more.  She looked at me.

“Ready?”  She asked.

I gulped, tasting bile, nervousness and fear settling in all at once.

“Da.”