Elsewhere
"What the hell have you done to my school?" Gravenberg yelled into the dark, her voice echoing off the narrow tunnels.
As she waited impatiently for a response, she leant against one of the tunnel walls and sucked in deep, ragged breaths. She'd never run as far or as fast as she'd just done for at least a decade and her body revolted at the sudden burst of physical activity. She felt light-headed and her heart pounded painfully in her chest. She fought the urge to clutch at it.
But this had to be dealt with immediately, there was no time to waste. Her school had been transformed into a swamp. Why had Baba Yaga done this? How could she not understand that she was ruining everything?
The response to her yells was the slow rumble of Baba Yaga's footsteps. Even distorted by the constant echoing, they sounded grudging and lethargic. It took longer than usual for the witch to come to her. A hulking figure ambling barely out of the darkness in front of her.
"What have you done?" Gravenberg demanded again. "My school is a disaster. Overrun by your plants, it's flooded, insects everywhere, it's like its been abandoned for years. I can see glimpses of it every time your glamour flickers. Which is all the time now by the way. You said it would work."
"I told you that it would work for the time you said you needed," Baba Yaga spoke and Gravenberg flinched at the harsh, raspy tone. It had been a while since Baba had actually deigned to speak back to her. "A time that passed days ago. That it still works at all is only due to my prodigious power and skill. Gratitude is what you should be delivering to me, not feeble complaints."
"Gratitude? My school is ruined! Kids and staff will be arriving tomorrow morning and when they do, this is all over. I can't cover this up. The. School. Is. A. Swamp. Do you understand that?" She pointed a finger at the witch. "And if it's over for me, it's over for you. I can't deliver any more kids to you when they shut the school down probably forever. And you better hope nobody comes into that shed and finds out about you. Because without me and Corvae, nobody will be protecting it."
Baba Yaga laughed. A long bellow so loud Gravenberg winced as it bounced off the tunnel walls. Fat fingers slapped a round corpulent belly and even in the dark Gravenberg was sure she saw the flesh jiggle disgustingly.
"Do you think me so vulnerable, Gravenberg? That those who enter my domain do so without my knowledge or control? You stand where you are now because I deem it to be so. Because you have my permission. I even nicely keep you dry as you go through the water. Wouldn't want that frail and wrinkled up human body of yours catching a chill, would we?" Baba Yaga clucked her tongue mockingly. "As for those that enter without my permission..." She paused for a moment. "They arrive to much less pleasant circumstances, I assure you."
Gravenberg felt a slight pang of fear but forced it down. She couldn't let this creature intimidate her, not now, when she needed them to understand how precarious their situation was.
"What you've done to the school is unacceptable. You have to-"
"I have to?" Baba Yaga cupped a hand around her ear. "Help an elderly woman out and speak louder please, dearie. I must have misheard, for a second I thought you were telling me I had to do something."
"If you want more kids-"
"I do want more. And as you said, tomorrow I will have many." Baba Yaga's voice took on a singsong quality and she made a walking motion with her fingers. "One by one they'll come through those doors and into my waiting arms. Oh, such a feast I will have. A banquet fit for royalty and an army of slaves to help me prepare it."
"N- no, you can't do it like that. That's way too public. The deal was-"
"The deal was that you would use my gifts to improve your tiny pathetic school and provide me with a constant supply of food. The deal was that you would handle everything. But you have wasted my gifts with your incompetence. My glamour should have given you enough time to clean up the mess from Karnstein's night time visit. But you did not."
"That's not my fault, there were bodies, blood, ghost remains, a destroyed office. How could I clean all that up while also-"
"You were supposed to track down and kill Karnstein and her companion. But you did not."
"How could I know that the Corvae IDSS team would be so worthless? If you'd just listen to me-"
"And now, thanks to your lies. My beloved pet has been killed."
Gravenberg opened her mouth and closed it again. Shocked into silence. The Leshy was dead? On the rare occasions that she'd seen the beast, it had appeared invincible. How could Hollis and Karnstein have killed it?
The first part of Baba Yaga's sentence registered in her mind.
"Wait, lies? What lies? I've never lied-"
Baba Yaga stamped her foot and the ground shook. Her anger echoed around the tunnels.
"You told me that Karnstein was no longer a vampire!" The harshness of her voice was like nothing Gravenberg had ever heard before. A thousand nails scratching on a chalkboard. "'Karnstein is mortal now', your words. I trusted them to be true. But how else could she have defeated my Leshy than with the power Inanna entrusts to her bloodsucking stooges?"
"No," Gravenberg said, flinching and stepping back. "She's human, I swear. I can show you the video files. I…" She paused, remembering that she doubted the creature had any idea what a video or a file even was. "She is a human, I promise you. If they killed the Leshy, it would have been Hollis that thought of a way. You shouldn't underestimate-"
"I don't care about whoever this Hollis is. Karnstein is Inanna's creature and it is they who concern me." Baba cut the air with a dismissive hand. "I am done with you. Either you are a liar or you are a fool. I care to be allies with neither."
A rush of anger spread through her, overcoming her rising fear. She clenched her fists and stood tall. "I will not be talked down to by some disgusting fat lady that cowers in tiny tunnels underground that smell like shit. I won't be dismissed by a moron who still thinks she's living in the middle ages. You need me and you're going to listen to me!"
Baba Yaga didn't respond at first. Her silence allowing Gravenberg's outburst echo around them.
Gravenberg felt her fingers inch towards the rocks in her pockets. Had she gone too far?
Baba Yaga laughed. Another hearty bellow that threatened to blow out Gravenberg's ears.
"I don't live in these tunnels, Gravenberg." She spread out her arms in a gesture. "This is my pantry. I keep my food here."
Baba Yaga advanced out of the darkness and Gravenberg noticed their predator smile baring dirty yellow teeth. Her finger dived down for her rocks before a force lifted her into the air and threw her against a wall. Without warning, vines wrapped around her, pinning her to the wall and her arms to her sides. She tried to cry out, only for more vines to cover her mouth.
"You were useful for a time and you did show promise, but now I grow bored of you," Baba Yaga said, turning around and ambling back down the tunnel she'd came through. "You're much too old and stringy to be a meal for me. But I have many other pets I need to feed from time to time."
She was falling.
That much she was aware of and not much else. A moment before, she and Laura had waded into the water and now she was falling.
She could see nothing but dark and murky grey around her. Clouds? Was she falling through clouds? Her ears were overwhelmed with the sound of air rushing past her.
Her hand brushed across something soft and familiar she couldn't see. Laura ! Her arm more specifically. She clutched her fingers around it. Wherever they were heading, she didn't want to get separated. She tried to speak but the air was so fast and thick it was like trying to speak underwater.
The grey clouds cleared and she found herself staring at a narrow river she was rapidly falling towards.
Instinctively, she thought to pull Laura towards and above her to take the brunt of the impact. But before she could put that thought into action, they hit the water.
It hurt. It hurt a lot.
It felt like a giant had punched her entire body and the next moment she found herself up against a large tree growing out of the water. She must have blacked out from the shock and pain of the impact. For how long she couldn't be sure.
Blinking rapidly to clear the water from her blurry eyes, she looked around in time to see Laura slowly floating past her face up and unconscious. She shot out a hand and pulled her up against the tree alongside her.
"Laura," she said, tapping her face and shaking her. "Laura, come on."
Laura groaned and her eyes blinked open.
With a sigh of relief, Carmilla pressed her forehead against Laura's chest.
"Had me worried for a second there, Creampuff."
"Now I know how Luke felt when he crashed into Dagobah," Laura said, wincing and looking around her. Carmilla did the same.
Now, this was more like what she'd thought the Okefenokee would be like and closer to the nightmarish bog she and Mattie had suffered through that she'd mentioned to Laura. It was dark. Wherever the sun was in relation to them, it wasn't piercing through the thick grey clouds above. Gnarled and wrinkly trees surrounded them. Their misshapen roots twisting together in knots before diving into the black water. Above her, their branches were much the same.
Nothing stood by itself in this swamp they'd found themselves in. Every branch and root wrapped around another and every plant grew on, under or alongside another plant. To say where one tree or shrub or anything ended and another started seemed impossible. Much of the vegetation was the same strange green colour from the island they'd found the Leshy on. The colour added to the sickly vibe the place had. As if everything was slowly being suffocated in the twisted mass of green.
Turning from the slow-moving river to her right she noticed a small bank to her left. A tiny crevice of dry land that looked real good right now. She gestured at it to Laura and they waded onto it.
It turned to be more damp than dry, covered in wet dirt and plants. But it was still a lot better than being in the river. They stayed huddled together, shivering from the cold. At least there wasn't a breeze, though the lack of a wind or, as she suddenly noticed, any real sound at all gave the place an eerie stillness.
"Kinda wondering whether we would have been better off where we were," Carmilla said.
"There were zombies where we were," Laura replied through chattering teeth.
"Oh yeah. Good point."
They both sat up on the bank, their hands instinctively finding each other as the did so. In such a threatening place, keeping in physical contact felt good.
"Now to figure out where here is," Carmilla said. "We're not at the school anymore, that's for sure. Are we even in the same country?"
"It didn't feel like that portal in Italy," Laura said.
"Yeah, this was different. Those portals take a few seconds to get you where you're going."
"I remember. And for those few seconds, you're in Willy Wonka's ludicrously out of place for a children's movie creepy tunnel. Not a fan."
"But with this, We just waded in and then we were falling into this place. One step and we were right here."
"Like the Library!" Laura burst out. The glow she only got from working something out on her face. In the dim light, it lit up her face like a light bulb. "That's just how the doors in the Silas Library worked."
"Well sure, but those were completely different. They didn't take you to other places on earth, they took you to…" She trailed off, her thoughts catching up with Laura's.
"Other dimensions," Laura finished for her. "'Two Homes'. One here and one far away. That's what confused us, where was 'here' and where was 'far away?' What if 'here' literally just meant earth? Our dimension? Here."
"And far away…"
"Another dimension. Baba Yaga's dimension I guess." She gestured around them. "This horrible, horrible… horrible place."
She felt a rush of pride. Laura would often play it down, pointing out that she wasn't some scientist or math genius, but her intelligence constantly impressed Carmilla. Not only had she fallen in love with a hero, she'd fallen in love with a smart one too.
"I think you might be right," she said. "But you do realise this means not only are we facing a powerful witch with pretty much no plan. We're facing a powerful witch with no plan in a dimension she literally owns."
Laura paled. "Yeah, well when you put it that way, it kinda sounds really bad."
"Cupcake. It is really bad." Carmilla sighed, standing up and looking for a way to proceed. Which was tough, considering they didn't know anything about where they were, what else was around or what might try to kill them on the way.
"You don't have to tell me," Laura said, her voice growing serious. "It's not just us we have to be worried about."
"I know, I know, we have to find those k-"
"No, I don't mean that. Though, yeah we do. That 'glamour' thing you were talking about? That was still working on the outside. It only broke down when we went inside. What if it's still like that tomorrow? It's a school day tomorrow."
Carmilla cursed under her breath and turned to Laura, understanding what she was getting at immediately.
"They'll be kids streaming in. They won't have any clue that something is off until they walk through those doors."
"And straight into those zombified Corvae goons. And whatever else is now at that school." Laura shook her head and found Carmilla's eyes. "If you'd have asked me before, I'd have been pretty fine with just rescuing these kids and getting out of here. But it's more than that now. We have to find a way to stop this Baba Yaga right now. Before it's too late."
She nodded. There would be hundreds of kids, children, entering the high school tomorrow. All of them walking right into the jaws of Baba Yaga. Even her old vampire self well before meeting Laura would have baulked at such a thing.
As for the person she was now.
"You're right," she said. "We can't let that happen."
Trying to get a move on, she decided to pretend not to notice the warm gaze and smile she could feel Laura direct her way. If she turned to see them, it would be difficult to focus on the task at hand of getting out of here.
A task that seemed pretty challenging from where she was standing. The vegetation on both sides of the river was much too thick to walk through. An impenetrable barrier as impassable as any man-made wall. That left the narrow river, which while slow enough to be easily waded through in either direction, was much too cold for them to travel in for very long. Stopping Baba Yaga would be even harder if they both had hypothermia.
"I don't know where to go from here," she admitted to Laura. "I really don't want to get back into that-"
The ground fell away underneath them. Melting away like it was a drawing someone had taken an eraser to. Caught utterly off guard, they plummeted into the water underneath. Coughing and splashing wildly, Carmilla found herself being pushed by the water back into the river.
A moment ago it had been slow moving, but at a snap of a finger it had speeded up considerably. As soon as the water pushed her into the river, it's strong current dragged her helplessly along. Unable to fight the current at all, she instead found Laura beside her and clutched their arm as hard as she could, desperate not to let them get separated.
Other than that, it was all she could do to try to keep her mouth and nose out of the water enough to breathe. The current buffeted her ruthlessly, one moment she'd be on her back, the next on her side or stomach.
Abruptly, the current stopped. Leaving them floating in a daze and coughing out water.
"You okay?" she managed to gasp out. Shaking her head to try to clear the water from her eyes.
"Yeah," Laura said. "What was that?"
Before she could reply, a voice boomed from afar. It sounded like an old woman's, but impossibly harsh.
"Mircalla Karnstein. Welcome to my home. I am so grateful for your visit. I get so few willing visitors here. And look, you even brought me a meal as a goodwill present. How kind of you."
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold went down her spine. Her and Laura's eyes met for a silent moment.
"Laura," she said, reaching for her.
Before her outstretched hands could reach her, Laura cried out as something sucked her under the water. In a blink she was gone, a few silent ripples in her place.
"No!" Carmilla shouted, splashing her hands where Laura had been in a frantic attempt to find her. The black water revealed nothing under its surface and when she dived under, it may as well have been a void for all she could see.
"Laura!" she shouted again when she resurfaced. Her heart raced, a feeling of cold dread creeping through veins. She was gone and she couldn't find her.
She was gone.
"Oh please. Let's not put on a false show about actually caring about some human pet you brought along. I know from experience that all Inanna's creatures care for nothing but themselves."
"Where have you taken her?" she shouted, her eyes still searching fruitlessly for any sign of Laura.
"My Pantry," the voice said simply. "But I think you have your own problems right now."
Carmilla looked up from the spot where Laura had vanished and saw where the river had taken them.
Before her lay a river bank clear of the gnarled trees that smothered all else the eye could see. Starting from the edge of the river, two parallel rows of burning torches made a path. Her eyes followed it up until it led to a huge hut. The hut sat in the middle of the clearing, its wooden walls sloping inwards and its triangular straw roof reaching up as high the trees. Grey smoke the same colour as the clouds in the sky seeped through the straw, swirling in an ominous cone above the hut before disappearing into the overcast sky.
The torches stopped at the doorway. A large wide open arch with bright orange beyond it. Its shape crooked strangely in such a way that Carmilla couldn't help but see a grimacing open mouth with fire instead of teeth.
The entrance to the lair of Baba Yaga.
"Nice place," she spat out. "Not over the top and self-important at all."
"I'm glad you like it," Baba Yaga's voice boomed out from the hut's entrance. "Why don't you come in and take a closer look?"
Her eyes went back to where Laura had disappeared under the water. "I'm kinda hungry, I'd rather see this pantry of yours."
A cackling laugh floated out from the hut. "The idea that I'd want to eat someone as old and spoiled as you. I'd get more pleasure drinking the pus from a boil."
The water around her displaced violently and two enormous alligators emerged out of the black water. They flanked her, their massive jaws open and barely an arm stretch away.
"It wasn't a request."
The alligators advanced on her, giving her the choice of their teeth or moving towards the hut. Taking one last look at the spot she'd last seen Laura, she chose the latter.
I'll find you. I'll find you. Just hang on until I do.
The alligators followed her up the path. She could hear their footsteps and guttural growls. She kept her eyes on the hut, her mind racing to come up with a plan. Nothing came to mind. The one where she ran up to Baba Yaga and punched her in the face was looking dumber by the moment.
At the hut entrance, the alligators stopped. She glanced back at them to see they'd gone completely still. As if someone had flicked an off switch on them.
When she stepped through the entrance, the first thing she noticed was the skulls.
They lined the walls, stretching up into the ceiling as far as she could make out. Blackened and most far too small for Carmilla to want to think about. She could see them thanks to a number of hanging braziers that lit the room with an orange glow. All the skulls were facing her as she walked in, watching her through empty sockets, cruel grins fixed on their faces.
Next, she noticed the intense heat. It felt like walking into a sauna, the cold she felt outside immediately forgotten. A haze blurred her vision and caused her eyes to water. A large cauldron in the middle of the room appeared to be the main source, steam rose from the bubbling liquid inside it in a constant stream up into the ceiling and through the straw.
Passed the cauldron, Carmilla could see steps leading up to a big chair on a raised platform. A large figure sat on it, obscured by the cauldron's steam. She moved to the side of the cauldron to see them better.
Baba Yaga sat in the chair like it was a throne. Her legs spread out and her flabby arms relaxing on the armrests. The prominent hunch in her back forced her head to lean outwards, her long crooked nose hanging over a round belly so fat that it billowed out from the collection of brown rags she'd clothed herself in. Black beady eyes, small for her round pudgy face, watched her as she moved. A malicious glint clear in them.
Carmilla had never seen the witch in person before, but she had no doubts that it was her.
The witch was massive, larger than any person she'd ever met before. Amazon woman had been freakishly tall and Gustav might as well have been half giant but Baba Yaga dwarfed them both. A body as wide as it was tall. A sheen of sweat could be seen anywhere that wasn't covered in rags. Combined with the colour of her skin, pallid and grey, it made her look like some kind amphibian. A colossal toad that had decided to walk upright on land.
"I thought she'd forgotten me. Your Master," Baba Yaga said from the chair and Carmilla winced at her voice's harshness. "Or is it 'Mother'? I vaguely remember her having her pet monsters call her that. So like a God, to use words for family to describe her possessions."
"Moth- Inanna? She's not my 'master'. Not for a long time."
"Oh please!" Baba Yaga lifted up a hand and rested her chin on the back of it. Her mouth curled into a smile that showed rotten, yellowed teeth. "I can smell her within you. You might have somehow convinced imbeciles like Gravenberg that you've left Inanna's service. That you're just a regular human being. Pah! " She spat a dark glob that flew across the room and landed in the cauldron. "If you were either of those things you'd be dead. Inanna suffers no traitors."
"Inanna isn't here anymore."
"Ooh, that I know!" Baba shifted in her seat energetically and pointed at Carmilla with the hand she'd been resting on. "I felt her go." Her crooked smile widened and her eyes glinted. "The Queen Bitch is gone. But she didn't leave completely did she? I think not. I think she's left you here. Maybe that Afrikanna too. She's drifted up to the heavens beyond but her foul stooges still remain to carry out her bidding, don't they? Don't they!"
More globs spewed from her mouth and her eyes widened manically. The fat finger she had pointed at Carmilla shook.
She thinks I'm still a vampire. Carmilla realised. And more than that, still her mother's pawn. She bit down on the urge to argue the point. Could she use this to her advantage? Was the only reason Baba Yaga hadn't tried to kill her yet that she thought Carmilla more dangerous than she really was?
Affecting an air of confidence, she loosened up her muscles and started pacing around the hut languidly. Until she had something better, pretending to still be the three centuries old vampire felt like her best option.
"And now, the moment I pop my head out from under the ground, you show up. An assassin Inanna has sent to end me," Baba Yaga said.
"You were hiding from Mother," Carmilla said. Her words following along as her mind worked. "You left Europe, your home and came here. Mattie said she and a witch crossed paths but then Mother intervened. Was that you? Was that why you ran and hid?"
Baba Yaga snorted. "That squabble with your vampire brethren meant little. Inanna already disliked me. Said I drew too much attention. That people like us were better off in a world where humans didn't think we existed. And I was jeopardising that." She shrugged and the chair groaned plaintively. "Never made any sense to me. Humans can't be in fear and awe of us if they don't know who we are. Since they first started coming down from the trees humans have served and revered me. I see no reason why that should change."
Carmilla gave her a dubious look as she stopped pacing and folded her arms. "'People like us.' What, are you a God too?"
That drew a cackle. And as Baba Yaga laughed, the black skulls laughed with her in a chorus of rattling teeth that reverberated around the hut.
"I am Baba Yaga," she said simply after the rattling stopped.
When the witch said nothing more, Carmilla continued her train of thought. "So you and Mother had a fight and you ran. Hid in your swamp for years. But now with Mother gone, you're going right back to enslaving people and eating their children? You know some people use their downtime to contemplate their life choices, maybe realise how much of a dick move that is."
She recognised the words coming out of her mouth as Laura's. Without Laura beside her, she'd started cracking the dumb jokes that they'd usually be making.
Baba Yaga tilted her head sideways. "You're different than I expected. Not like Inanna or her other daughter at all. Such righteousness from a pet monster Inanna has sent to murder me."
"Maybe she had a point. Did you ever stop to think about what happens when people realise you exist and what you're doing?"
Baba Yaga rose from the chair. The wood underneath her creaked and how the steps suffered her weight as she ambled down them without shattering Carmilla had no idea.
"I am not concerned in the slightest about humans and their pathetic steel and arrows."
Something clicked in Carmilla's mind. Steel and arrows?
"Wait. Just how long have you been hiding here exactly?"
"Too long!" Baba Yaga spat as she reached the bottom of the steps and then let out a frustrated roar. The skulls rattled with her again, as if she were the composer of the creepiest concert of all time.
She ambled quickly, far more quickly than Carmilla would have believed her capable, to her cauldron and took a large ladle from the ground to stir it. After a moment she lifted some of the liquid out, a hideous black goop that smelled like death.
As Baba Yaga stirred, Carmilla thought to use the opportunity to look around, to find a weapon even. But while the witch focused on the cauldron, the skulls watched her closely. A thousand pairs of eyes alert for any wrong moves on her part.
Baba Yaga let the black goop drop back into the cauldron before throwing the ladle violently to the ground. It hit the side of metal pot on the way down with a heavy clang.
"Empty. For so long it's been empty. I have had to sit here with no food, no sustenance. Even the few scraps Gravenberg has thrown my way I've had to use to feed my spells rather than myself."
"Yeah, I can tell. You're just wasting away," Carmilla said in a drawl.
"But no longer. Tomorrow, I will finally break my fast with the biggest feast I've ever had. Finally, I will have what I once had before your Master ruined me. My pantry will be full, I will have an army of servants to do my bidding, I will transform that grey cement monstrosity into a home worthy of one such as me. And once more the world will remember who I am. Baba Yaga! And with that remembrance will come the fear and awe that I am owed!"
She breathed heavily after her wild rant. She put a hand on her knee to steady herself, before speaking again.
"Well, maybe tomorrow. According to Gravenberg, that's when they'll all come again. Apparently, it's a 'Weekend'? What even is that? I have no idea. What's important is that they'll come soon enough."
"Yeah, what would happen 'soon enough' is your new home getting bombed out of existence once everyone works out that a real-life evil witch lives there, you idiot." Carmilla shook her head. "But by then you'd have killed and eaten God knows how many kids and I'm not going to let that happen. Bring Laura back, let go of the kids you're keeping here and crawl back into your little hole. Or else."
Baba Yaga's brow furrowed, her eyes narrowing.
"You weren't lying earlier after all, are you? You care about those kids and the girl you brought with you. Inanna would care nothing for either, so why should you? Unless…" She trailed off, tapping her chin with a fat finger. "Was Gravenberg telling me the truth? That you turned your back on Inanna for some girl? That you two are the reason she's gone?" Baba Yaga's mouth curved into a smile that showed teeth.
"She also said you aren't a vampire anymore. And if that is true, I have no need to continue this conversation. There's no reason I shouldn't just kill you, here and now."
Carmilla felt a thrill of fear as her one defence melted away.
"Are you really about to get into a fight with a vampire on the word of someone like Gravenberg?" she asked, desperately trying to sound confident.
"She was right about everything else it seems. I did find it strange, the way you choked for breath while in my river and that you sweat like a pig in my hut. Since when do dead things need to breathe or sweat?"
Without thinking her hand went up to her cheek and immediately felt a wetness there. Her eyes met with the witch's and she knew her deception was over.
Another cackle, another chorus of rattling and Baba Yaga advanced upon her.
"Gravenberg said you and the blonde girl are lovers, yes? Rejoice then, for you'll be together forever. I promise that when I'm done with the pair of you, I'll find your skulls a spot on my walls side by side."