“Very well.” Yaroslav resisted the temptation to rest his hand on the pommel of his own sword. He would not let Kurek see him unsettled. It would only fuel the fear that already burned in the young man’s heart. “We shall walk softly and hold our tongues. I wager it is only a lynx, or something of the sort.”
They walked on in silence, careful to tread gently upon the soft earth beneath their feet. Yaroslav was just about to pronounce Kurek a fool when he heard it.
It was not the rustle of a four-legged creature rattling dead leaves as it moved through the undergrowth, but the distinctive sound of a two-legged being taking a step at a time. Kurek cast a meaningful glance at Yaroslav, but said nothing.
The sound was gone as quickly as it had come. It gave Yaroslav a chill that had little to do with the damp night air. If the sound came from a two-legged creature, it meant a man was following them—one who was taking pains to keep his approach as quiet as possible. Kurek was correct. They were being stalked.
They moved on at a steady pace, the sound growing ever closer. Yaroslav wondered who the man was and what he wanted. What if he had a bow or a crossbow? His back suddenly itched as he thought of his own vulnerability. Perhaps they should get off the path and into the shelter of the forest.
An oak tree, old and imposing, loomed up ahead. Its trunk was larger than Yaroslav and Kurek together could have spanned with their arms. Yaroslav spoke softly from the corner of his mouth.
“Do not let on that we know anything is amiss, but when we reach that oak tree, circle around behind it. I have a bad feeling.” A tightening of his facial features was Kurek’s sole reply, but it was enough to let Yaroslav know that his friend understood.
They did not make it to the oak tree.
Night birds set up a cry of alarm as a figure burst from the shelter of the forest. It was a man, as Yaroslav had thought, but…it wasn’t.
Kurek screamed and fled into the forest on the other side of the path. Yaroslav scarcely had time to draw his sword before the thing was upon him. It was fast. Too fast to be human.
Yaroslav swung his sword, but the thing ducked beneath it and bore him to the ground, snarling with primordial rage. Strong hands clutched his throat, the clawed tips of the beast’s fingers biting deeply into his flesh. He had a brief glimpse of burning eyes, gleaming teeth and a twisted, hairy face before the world went dark.
Chapter 1
Pripyat, Ukraine
“Over here! Quickly!” The first rays of moonlight gleamed in Alexei’s brown eyes and a subdued laugh underpinned his hushed whisper as he beckoned the others to follow. Oleg, his pale skin and silver-blonde hair—“piss in a snow bank,” he called the color—glowing wraithlike, hurried after him. His careless footsteps quickly found one of the many potholes in the untended street, and he went down in a heap.
Hunched down in the shadow of a rusted hulk that had once been a Zhiguli, the old Eastern Bloc’s version of a Fiat, Armina giggled as she watched the scene through her digital video camera. “Get up, Oleg. You’re out there in the middle of the road where anyone can see you.”
“I turned my ankle!” Oleg sat up, scowling at his foot as if it were somehow at fault. “Besides, there’s no one around. They don’t let people tour here anymore. Remember?” He began to unlace his shoe.
“Don’t do that.” Alexei hurried to his friend’s side and hauled him to his feet. “If you’ve turned it badly enough, the ankle will swell and you won’t be able to get your shoe on again.” He hooked his arm around Oleg’s waist and helped him hobble into a pool of darkness by the side of the abandoned police station.
It required a supreme effort of will for Armina to lower her camera and look around before rushing across the street to join her friends. The camera was her life, and viewed through its lens, the world held possibilities that seemed absent when seen with the naked eye.
Her fascination with video had begun innocently enough. She had posted videos online of her talking about her life and her interests. It had been such a thrill to watch her view count climb, and every “thumbs up” or positive comment, even the “UR so hot!” type, energized her and drove her to make and upload another video, and then another. But like with any other addiction, she always hungered for more. Hence, the web-show.
It had been the séance video that did it. She and her friends performed their own séance in an attempt to contact Anastasia, the legendary lost Romanov princess. Armina hadn’t seen, heard or felt a thing, but viewer count went through the roof. Commenters swore they could see a shadow moving in the background, while others heard a whisper. Soon, the video was all over the Web, and she’d even made enough income from sponsor links to buy this new camera, which they would use to film this first-ever webisode of their paranormal investigation show.