A Different Kind of Deadly by Nicole Martinsen Page A

Will situation are
all on you . I can
walk out of this whenever I want."
    "Not helping, Leo."
    "What? I'm just saying I can come out of this
smelling like a rose while you're neck-deep in shit."
    "Leo..."
    Tully clacked his beak together in what I took
for laughter. One look at Leo told me that he was just saying these
things to mess with me.
    "Here we are, boys." Diana held the door open
to a shop. A shrunken head let out a shriek at our
entrance.
    "C-coming!" someone stuttered.
    Leo and I stood awkwardly at the side of the
narrow space, with little room between a long counter, door, and
wall not four steps away.
    A woman emerged from behind a curtain,
shockingly normal in appearance until I noticed she was soaking
wet. Ashy blonde hair stuck to her bluish complexion, and she moved
while making shallow, labored breaths.
    " Diana? " she gasped. The woman
transformed into water, lunged across the counter, and landed again
in her human form. "Oh Diana, it is you!"
    "Jiki!" Diana returned Jiki's enthusiasm with
a hug. "Long time no see."
    "It's been c-c-centuries," Jiki nodded. "What
brings you in today?"
    "Need to get these boys outfitted." Diana
pointed a thumb in our direction. "Sturdy for the big one, light
yet tough for the other."
    "Big one," Leo grumbled.
    " Other, " I agreed.
    Diana placed her hands on her hips in an
unmistakably female gesture.
    We had no right to complain -she had all our
money.
    Jiki looked Leo up and down, but paused when
she began to survey me. Her eyes, milky blue against bloodshot
veins, went wide and still. Whatever she saw she decided to keep to
herself, motioning Leo to the back of the shop.
    "I have two s-s-suits that may work for you,"
she said breathlessly. "C-come with me."
    Leo followed her to the back, leaving Diana
and me to sit at the counter.
    "I have to ask," I started, unable to help
myself. "But what is she?"
    "Jiki is a rusalka."
    "A what? "
    "A rusalka," Diana repeated. "She's the spirit
of a woman who died drowning."
    "Death by drowning can't be that
uncommon," I replied dubiously. "If that's true then why haven't I
heard of rusalka before?"
    "Rusalki."
    "Huh?"
    "Rusalki is plural," Diana corrected me. Her
lips pursed as she gazed on the back door of the shop. "Let me be
specific. Rusalki are spirits of women that have been violently
drowned, and often hold a powerful grudge which allows them to live
as undead in their own right."
    I considered the stuttering, sopping wet woman
from a few minutes ago.
    "Jiki doesn't exactly look
powerful."
    "Neither do you."
    "Fair enough," I conceded. "So how did she
come to run an armor shop?"
    "She's a smith," Diana explained. "There's a
forge in the basement. Jiki is essentially an endless supply of
water, so she's the only one who can cool and temper metal
properly."
    I blinked. "So she's the only smith in
Krisenburg."
    "The only master smith." Her eyes gleamed with
pride. "I can't begin to tell you how many scrapes she got me out
of with the armor she made me back when..."
    The sentence trailed off, falling into silence
along with Diana's expression.
    "Back when you were alive," I finished for
her, and watched as she nodded her affirmation. I shifted my weight
at the counter, mustering my most understanding glance. "Diana, is
it true, what Koronos said at the Harpy Den?"
    "Yes." She said the word so quietly that I had
to strain to pick it up, and even then I wasn't sure if she
actually spoke at all. "I was young, arrogant, and in love
-dangerous qualities in and of themselves, and disastrous
altogether."
    "But it was a mistake."
    "Mistakes don't kill people, Marvin. Murderers
do." Her lips formed such a crestfallen smile that it was a wonder
her face didn't fall apart. "Inval paid for my mistake with his
life."
    "You couldn't have known-"
    "-does it make a difference?" Her voice spiked
with outrage. "Inval is dead. I'm a Doll, and Koronos is somewhere
laughing at all of it."
    "Does it bother you?" I asked. "Being a Doll,
I mean."
    "Bother