Change - Chapter 4

This is the first book in The Godsverse Chronicles, a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Sadie was a changeling, which made her an excellent thief. She built a good life for herself off her incredible talents. After amassing a small fortune in the criminal underworld, she was ready to retire and live a simple life with her girlfriend.Unfortunately for her, Sadie had a weakness for gobs of money made quickly. So, when a job came along that promised her $250,000 for a few days of work, she couldn’t say no.All she had to do was track down an impossible-to-find dagger before the end of the week and she would be rolling in dough.How hard could it be? Besides, she was the best…but even the best fall down sometimes.Her mission will take her across the Cold War-era world and into the seedy underbelly of the demonic weapons trade. Can she avoid being caught by the most dangerous magical creatures in the world as she tracks her prize, or will she slip up and destroy her perfect little life?Find out in the thrilling prequel novel to Magic, and an exciting introduction to The Godsverse Chronicle universe, in Change.

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The drive from Berlin to Moscow was a little bit shorter than traveling from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City and twice as boring, which was saying something. When I got too tired to drive, I pulled off and found the closest motel I could, and when I was so far from civilization even that wasn’t possible, I slept in my car. It was hard to believe the simple act of driving could tire you out, especially since it was literally just sitting and staring, but I found after eight hours with nothing but klezmer music blaring from the radio, if there was anything at all besides static, I was over it.

 When I finally made it to Moscow, my heart sprang with joy. The Mozhaysky district was on the outskirts of the city, and Alexandr’s bar was circled in red on the map at the center of it. The area was starkly bland, far from the colorful pictures of the Kremlin I usually associated with the Soviet Union.

There was a beige uniformity to the whole city that was covered by a thick layer of snow, which made the area even harder to navigate in my tiny car. Dimitri didn’t tell me what time to find his contact, but when I entered the bar, one set of eyes found me quickly.

“Dimitri?” she said in English.

“Da,” I replied in Russian before changing back to English. “He told me to find his contact here.”

“That would be me,” she replied. Her face was drawn into a perpetual frown, and when she looked at me, it was clear she didn’t like what she saw. “They call me Maksim.”

“Sadie,” I replied. Perhaps I should have used another name, but it wasn’t like my first name gave much away. “Nice to meet you.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” she said in a thick Russian accent. “This is no place for humanity, even in summer. In winter, it is the pits.”

“Then why don’t you leave?” I asked.

“Pfft,” she replied, pushing a beer over to me. “You must be American.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Only Americans have such cavalier attitudes about leaving the place they were born.” She finished her beer and slammed it down. “Come, I will show you the armory where Kirkorov works.”

We didn’t speak much after she got into my car and started to drive. She took us out of the city a little ways and into a wooded forest that gave perfect cover to a massive square building surrounded by barbed wire in the middle of it.

“No satellites to eavesdrop,” Maksim said, pointing to the sky. “Smart.”

“What is this place?” I asked. “Dimitri said they were testing out magical weapons to find a way to destroy the west.” 

“Ya, ya,” she replied. “Just like your government. We are all trying to pull ahead of each other, trying to find ways to kill each other better.”

“When you put it like that, it’s pretty sad, huh?” I said with a sad sigh.

“It is what it is.” She pointed to the far side of the fence. “There is a hole in the fence around the back, behind a dumpster. I know because I made it yesterday. Hard to see and harder to guard. Perfect for one person. Inside, you go to the basement and room 13. It has records of all weapons and their location.” She handed me a piece of paper. “This is the file cabinet you are looking for. I paid good money for that information, so don’t waste it.”

“I won’t, but I’m confused,” I said after pocketing the piece of paper. “Isn’t the dagger inside?”

She shrugged. “Maybe, but sometimes they give out weapons to other countries for testing or as gifts, especially one so small as the knife you seek. If it has no immediate benefits, then maybe it is in Chile, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or with some other despot around the world.”

“Well, let’s hope it’s inside.”

“Do not count on hope. It is for fools.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.” I smiled at her, even though she was nothing but dour to me. “Thank you.”

“Do not thank me until you return.” She looked at me and scowled. “You are walking to your death, and I am simply helping.”

I chuckled. “Have a little faith in me, why don’t you?”

She sneered. “Faith is something I have no time for. I will have faith in you if you return. I do not grant it willingly. This is not your Las Vegas, and I am not one of your high rollers.”

I opened the door. “Fair enough.”

“Oh,” Maksim said, reaching into her breast pocket. She handed me a picture. “I don’t know why you needed a full-body image of Kirkorov, but here is one from his KGB dossier. Not a handsome man.”

I slid the picture into my pocket and made my way through the woods, keeping the building on my left. There were patrols of soldiers making their way through the woods, but it was easy enough to dodge them.

I had taken the shape of the smallest child I ever met, and it helped mask my sound and keep me low enough that they couldn’t see me without craning their necks down. They were spread out enough and had their heads stuck up their own asses far enough that, as long as I kept light feet and avoided snapping any twigs, they weren’t much of an issue.

When I made it to the back of the building, I slid down a small embankment and made my way to the fence. It didn’t take me long to find the hole Maksim cut in the wire behind the dumpster, and I slid through it nimbly. This was as far as I could make it as a child who had no business in a secure KGB facility, so I pulled the picture of Kirkorov out of my pocket. Maksim was correct. He wasn’t an attractive man. He was wiry and gaunt, like he hadn’t eaten in a month. Even in a grainy picture, I could tell his face was pasty and sickly.

I wished I had seen him in person so I could make a more convincing visage, but I had to take my own liberties with his hair and eye color. When I molded into him, I gave him a thick hat and coat to cover up as much of him as possible. It was bitterly cold, and everyone else I saw was wrapped tightly, so I figured it wouldn’t be an issue. Without his DNA, I couldn’t construct a speaking voice, so I simply had to grunt and hope for the best.

I finished my transformation and put the picture in the pocket of my newly formed coat. I didn’t like to construct clothing along with a body. That strained me even more, and to make convincing fabric that flowed in the wind took even more effort.

Still, I didn’t have much choice, so I stood and marched toward the front of the building. I passed two guards along the way, who initially eyed me with skepticism, but soon enough simply nodded and saluted solemnly.

The front of the building was unlocked, and I pulled the dark brown doors inside. A woman with a plump face and rosy cheeks waited at the front desk for me behind a glass divider.

“Morning, sir,” she said to me.

I gave her a flaccid wave and continued to the turnstile, which begged for a keycard to spin. I had anticipated this would be the case but hoped my stature in the organization would give me some ability to bypass the requirement.

“Back from lunch already?” she wondered.

“Da, da.”

“Forget your keys, again?” the receptionist mercifully asked.

I cleared my throat. “Da, da.”

“Sometimes, I am amazed you are a spy, comrade.” She shook her head and pushed a button on her desk. A loud buzzer beeped, and the turnstile spun. “Tell Arina I said hi.”

I nodded and continued through the building. I found a set of stairs and took them down to the basement. Every door was numbered with silver block lettering, and I moved past them until I found door thirteen. I pushed it open to find wall-to-wall metal filing cabinets.

I pulled out the piece of paper Maksim gave me and searched the file cabinets until I found one with the same letter and number combination. I yanked on the third drawer as instructed on the sheet of paper and thumbed through until I found a file with the “dagger” written on it in Russian. I dragged out the folder and flipped it open to find a picture of the exact dagger I had been searching for all this bloody long week.

I flipped through, looking for the place it was stored, only to find that it had been moved to a site in Egypt and given to a sheik for safekeeping in exchange for access to oil wells in Saudi Arabia.

Weird. They tested the weapon in every conceivable way and found it had no magical properties that could aid their quest to destroy America. Why is Ollie after this stupid thing so bad, then, if it doesn’t do anything?

“Who are you?” I realized the door was open only too late, and the light shone in on my face. I couldn’t make out the person’s face in the backlighting.

“Comrade Kirkorov,” I replied gruffly.

“That’s impossible,” he said, moving toward me with gun drawn. “Because I am Kirkorov.”

Read the next chapter

This is the first book in The Godsverse Chronicles, a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written.

If you are not a paid member, you can read everything with a 7-day free trial, or give us a one-time tip.