What beggars can't be: take 2

So while sabredude merrily chops up Fat Ivan's gang to a background choir of growling flamethrowers, we all give our best impression of not-being-there. Turns out some of us are better equipped for that, so Lex and me we get to run away until we are brave enough to look back and see if sabredude still follows. Nika and Nat they run a bit, and then do a nifty now-you-see-me-now-you-don't-voodoo-trick, which helps them to hide from sabredude but in no way helps me find them. Because, you know, invisibility does have his negative points. Anastas... Well, nobody really knows where he went, and I doubt he knows himself. He lives in a previous century after all; half of what he says doesn't make any sense at all.

Anyways, I find Nika and Nat pretty much by following sabredude (nu ti dajosh! 8-] ), and before that potentially lethal situation can get out of hand, I am (like Nika and Nat were before) saved by a perfect stranger.

Now, before I continue, I ask you to take a moment and contemplate that last phrase. And then to think back to how my fellows in fate and me ended up with Fat Ivan in the first place. Beggars can't be choosers, but I'm sort of starting to see a trend here even if daybreak is still hours away...

The flamethrower-toting and sabre-swishing maniacs leave, and not soon after we find ourselves in an unmodded beige Lada (because, you know, some cool cats are too hip to drive proper cars in Moscow), which trunk Anastas conveniently mistook for a man-sized steam trunk (and man-sized hiding place), putputting towards the home of our saviour, Boris Brodsky, who would be a poster boy for oldskool Russian Jews, if it were not for us meeting him while he was painting occult looking symbols on his bare chest and the walls of a dingy little room in some forlorn hangar. In blood. Some of those symbols looked great for tats, though. But like so many things, that's where being undead sucks(*).

Luckily for us, Boris turns out to be pretty much okay. He talks a lot, but mainly to explain to us how things work in Moscow. And the first thing we learn is: sabredude, name of Arkar Skolovich, is the primogen of the real Brudya (take note of the missing capital, this can become confusing quite fast), who needed to clean up the Real Brudya before Ivan and friends made too big a mess by upsetting our food-stock, which in turn would upset the Voivode since he runs the whole wool-over-the-eyes gimmick on the herd, and then the real Brudya would be in trouble.

So, in short, we get to keep our heads low for a while, buy supplies, find a place to live, and spend a couple of days trying to explain the difference between a cell phone and a torchlight to Anastas, and other such fun.


(*) on a side note: in the hole in Anapa where I was getting my ticket to Moscow, I heard that there are vampires who can make tattoos stick to undead skin, a little nugget of information that leaves me torn, because tats are cool, but I'm not so sure about vampires that can mould undead flesh...

Next: Why being undead sucks