Free The Necromancer's House by Christopher Buehlman Page B

until it is gone, and a tiny pop is heard.
    The pop of a .22 against his temple; he means to be so poor at the top of that second hill he has no choice but to shoot himself.
    It must be a .22.
    Small-caliber so the bullet goes in, but cannot exit, ricocheting around inside, making cabbage of his brains, destroying all feeling, all memory. Leaving just a small, bleeding hole. People who shoot themselves with powerful guns are selfish, vulgar.
    Bourgeois.
    Someone must clean their brains from the wall.
    Cursing them and scrubbing.
    The gun will be his first purchase upon retiring.
    Until then, he cannot bring himself to spend any more than necessary. He is a miser of the first house, wearing everything out until it simply cannot be used, only buying things that cost so close to nothing they might as well be free.
    But when he turns fifty . . .
    . . . the next time I travel the countryside.
    â€œPerfect, pervert,” he says in thickly accented English.
    The cat yawns, showing fangs that are perhaps the only truly white things in the apartment, and stretches, walking the crooked back of the sofa before sitting imperiously on the arm.
    Now the night breeze, cool for June even here, fingers its way beneath the window, blowing the fly-specked curtains up. The view
en face
consists of yet more ugly block apartments, the lights on in only a few windows, but now these rectangles of light shiver slightly, as though from heat fumes.
    No heat here, though.
    The room gets colder.
    The cat almost hisses, remembers what happened to it the last time it did, and curls itself around its master’s feet, its tail flicking between those heels-up feet and the sooty footprints on the pink flip-flops beneath them.
    Now the man turns in his chair and looks at the window.
    She’s here.
    He looks away quickly.
    His palms grow moist.
    He anticipates the sound just before he hears it.
    The sound of an iron pot scraping against the cheap stucco below the sill, scraping like a rowboat against a pier.
    Baba Yaga riding through the night skies of Kiev, sitting in an iron pot, pushing it with a broom.
    Just like in bedtime fables.
    But she really is outside.
    Some part of her, anyway.
    I’m nine stories up.
    Yuri . . .
    â€œYes, little mother,” he manages, smoking again.
    He is careful not to show his teeth when he speaks.
    Put on your kerchief.
    The cat shivers violently.
    He pulls the sticking drawer out, pulls out a blue terry cloth hand towel. Is repulsed thinking about putting this over his eyes but does so anyway, tilting his head back, holding it in place because God help him if it falls off and he sees her.
    The crunching sound as the iron pot crumbles stucco.
    Is there really a pot, or do I hear one because I expect to?
    A bare foot on his gritty linoleum floor.
    She is in the apartment now, he knows.
    Yuri, you bought the ticket?
    â€œYes. One ticket for Marina Yaganishna, first class. Nizhny to Moscow, Moscow to JFK, JFK to Syracuse.”
    She will not want to sit next to anyone fat.
    â€œI already looked. The seat next to her on the long flight remained unsold, so I moved a skinny man there.”
    Good.
    A long moment passes.
    There’s something you’re not telling me.
    I don’t like that.
    An acrid smell as the cat pisses on the floor.
    â€œSorry, little mother. I . . . There was someone poking around my curtain. In America. Chicago, I think. Magic.”
    Find out who.
    Find out why.
    She comes closer.
    The cat jerks from below the table, sprints for the bedroom, something else moves faster than the cat, which shrieks.
    Yuri dares not look.
    â€œI . . . I was working on this. I wanted to have the answer before I told you.”
    And this is why you spend your time on filth?
    A bony finger ticks on the screen of his computer.
    Hands in horses? You think this is what happens in the country? I can show you what happens in the country, but I think you will not like