Getting changed was a five-minute thing. I pulled my hair into my ponytail, tucked it under my hat, and winked at my reflection. A decent sexless creature. All hidden under a baggy suit. Either a young guy, a girl, or a transvestite with no makeup at all.
That's right. There's nothing to glow at a murder scene.
Mecislav didn't even think about changing. He looked at me from head to toe - and sighed sadly, opening the office door.
- Julia, if you were so excited about expensive clothes and jewelry...
- Ours is not for sale! - I proclaimed it. - Especially for rags with costume jewellery!
- And for something more meaningful? - Vadim was interested. - Apartment, car, villa in Nice, yacht...
- Yeah. A set of dreams of a standard grunt who doesn't even have enough money to make cigarettes.
- It's brutal.
I snorted.
- Brutal? I know someone... okay, my mom knows someone like that... no! She married someone like that. It's the perfect marriage. The wife plows like an ox, runs a business, and the husband lies on the sofa and makes "brilliant" enrichment plans. It usually starts out as, "If I had a million, I'd have it..." or "I have a brilliant idea that we're gonna get rich and obscene..." Ideas are really genius. Like oil production. It's in our town. The only way we can find oil here is to drill a hole in the pipeline.
He doesn't go as a normal worker. Directors, you see, do not appreciate, respect or understand a valuable employee. And anyway, "what's the point of hunching for pennies? ». Only his wife plows. And at home he also listens to reproaches: "I lack the warmth of the family", "You don't spend much time with me" and "All wives sit at home" ... And his dreams are just like that. His yacht, his villa in Cannes... Asshole.
- Get in the car, human rights activist, - Mechislav opened the door in front of me. - If this lady needs one, what will you do now? Not to kill...
- Well, why not?
- By IPF.
I sighed and climbed into another jeep. This time it's poison red for a change. The impression is as if the fire engine had been slightly pressed (slightly).
- Whose nightmare is this?
- My personal," said the driver from the front seat. - It's a good fit to drive all kinds of assholes. - This man... no, obviously wasn't familiar with the werewolf.
- Julia. Leoverenskaya.
- Fluffy, my surname, -Mecislav recommended me.
The vampire sat down in the back seat with me and now he's trying to hug me by the shoulders. I kicked all four of them out. Mecislav won by brute force.
- Fluffy, stop shoving. Ow!
I stopped fucking and started pinching instead. It didn't work out so well. Why? Because you can't just pinch your trained and strong muscles. It's easy to pinch loose and unsporty muscles. And this vampire is like a stone...
- And this is Alexander. The one who found Lavrik, Vadim broke our fight. Mechislav immediately left me to pull up, and I - to buckle and turn around - and we stared at the werewolf.
- Tell us everything in order, - ordered Mechislav.
The werewolf sighed.
- What's there to tell? I took him to a hotel, came back for this producer, had to wait almost an hour...
- So the killer had a...
- About two hours. While I loaded this asshole up, while I drove him... he was drunk as an asshole visiting... sorry, Julia.
- It's okay. Doesn't matter.
You'd think I wouldn't know such words! I'm a biofaculty student! What the fuck! Do you know what aminoacilT-RNASynthesis is?!
- I walked him to his room, he wasn't on his feet, the receptionist was still shouting... Loaded him onto the bed, he woke up and started Dosya demanding, yelled at the whole floor... I wanted to knock him out, but then I decided to hand him over to Dosya, let him babysit.
- Why? - It was a nagging question.
- Why is that? I've had enough of both of them in two days! A fucking pop burp! The star of the toilet! So I found out that Lavric is still missing. Thought I'd look... I found...
- On my head," I couldn't help it.
- Who'd argue. What happened next?
- Then I went downstairs and called Vadim. Waited for backup so I couldn't let anyone in the apartment. And I went where it said. I mean, behind you.
- Good girl," I nodded. - That's just good. Will you write him a bonus, huh?
- Yulia, vampires don't write bonuses.
- What a bastard. You drink blood, and you drink it for free," I started a scandal. But I did not have time to continue. Here we are.
* * *
It's a normal house. The most ordinary entrance. Unusual is just that this is now a crime scene. Otherwise, it's a standard five-story panel house from the communist era. It's dark in almost every window. There's no one on the benches in the driveway. Not even the drunk couples and the homeless. Amazingly enough, 3:00 in the morning. Or another night?
Two vampires were on duty on the stairs. I said hello, and we walked past. Vadim was a little late.
- No one?
- No one yet.
The smell hit me back on the set. Brutally and brutally. Screwing into my brain. It's like imprinting the scary: "Here is death." It's scary. And irreparable. As long as you live, you can fix anything. Death sums it up.
How does death smell?
I don't remember very well. Father, Grandma... they're long gone. I was just a little girl. Then at the institute, I learned how the morgues smell. Formalin. When I contacted the vampires, I found out how pain smells, how violence smells. But when death came, I was too tired to realize it. And now there were a few scents mixing up on the set. Blood. Metal, thick, a little apple. Raw meat - heavy and some kind of predatory. And - shit. Intestinal contents?
Yeah. There was enough shit in Lavrique.
- Julia! - My subconscious has tricked me. - The dead are either good or nothing!
Yeah, scazzzzzz... Am I sick of not thinking about vampires now? No, whoever's an asshole in life is an asshole even after he dies. And then... Yeltsin. It's a name. Hear that?
О! There he is not long ago dead. I'm riding a minibus, and they're announcing "sad" news. One second and thirty silence. Then there's the reaction:
- That's where the road is, the bastard...
- You should've...
- Goddamn it... - the devils wanted to resort to active homosexuality with the help of various agricultural advisors.
That's right. If they announced that Yeltsin was alive, people would definitely bump him off. And you say the dead are only good... Well, that depends on how dead they are!
- Julia? - Mechislav touched my shoulder and stretched out a large white handkerchief, sharply smelling of perfume. I nodded gratefully and stuck my nose in it. The smell, plus the view... It'll be a lot.
While I was trying to distract myself so that at least I wouldn't throw up right away, Mečislav had already managed to open the apartment door and slide in.
Usual studio apartment. Square hall, hallway leads to kitchen, door to room right in front of the front door. And you can immediately see Lavrika.
He was lying on his back. There was no carpet, and a chalk circle was drawn on the bare floor by the window. There was a triangle in the circle. The laurel was lying clearly in the center. The head was one point of the triangle. The legs were separated to the other two corners. The head is closer to the door, the legs to the window. Throat - slit from ear to ear. Vadim slipped past me and lifted Lavric's head by the hair.
- Cut that bastard from the heart. It's holding on to a thread.
- Did he cut several times - or one? - He took an interest in Mečislav.
- Definitely with one punch. Looks like a short wide knife. It's like a hunting knife.
- And the blade is jagged?
- No.
- And the rest? - I gave the vote.
Mieczysław moved a bit - and now I've seen all of Laurentian. The whole "painting."
- B... - I was only enough for one
word. And there was a reason.
The singer was literally shattered in rags. The rib cage was opened like a slaughterhouse. So the whole liver - liver, kidneys, heart - everything was out. Arms, legs, face - the whole body was covered in scratches... strange sticks, curbs, dots, dots... Most of all it was like repeating the same signs. The runes? Or did it not? There was a system in them. Strange, scary, but a system. And the same signs, only in chalk, were covered in a circle. And at the same time... The space of the triangle remained clear. Who purposely carved these icons on the body of the poor singer - and what did they mean? Yes, the system. But I couldn't find any clear signs! Not a rune, not a hieroglyph, not even a short "X", "U" and something else from higher mathematics... As if someone had done something... Scared some maniac?
А…
- Any of the internal organs missing? - Mechislav asked a question before I even thought about it.
- At first glance, everything seems to be intact. Kidneys, liver, spleen, stomach, lungs, heart... Whoa!
- No hearts?
- Got it. But it's... like a mummy.
- What? - I gave it away. And I went ahead.
Oh, I shouldn't have done it again. One look at Lavric's remains was enough. It wasn't as scary as I'd known him in my life. Anyway, I saw it, and I might have met it. And not the blood with the inside. Who do you scare after Hollywood horror stories? I just want to wipe the TV with a rag so I don't get in trouble. The scary thing was that Vadim was clutching in his hand.
Heart. But... what a heart!
I'm a biologist. And if anyone doesn't know, we're going through anatomy. And we dissect animals. And I know perfectly well what human insides look like. And I've even been to the morgue a few times. In a word, it was hard to scare me with such little things. That's when they showed us the freak kids - that is, the embryos in formalin, and they started to tell us that it could be with us... That's where we wanted to wail - and drag every guy through the DNA test. And yet, yet... It wasn't normal! Yes! But it was real! And it's understandable.
But what Vadim was holding in his hand was nothing like it. The grey dried up lump seems to be even a little covered with what!? In the name of all the gods and heroes - with what!? Dust!? Ashes!?
I slowly, unbelieving myself, stretched my hand forward. I don't know what I wanted. Touch Vadim? To the heart? Or just to the wall to find some kind of support in this world? But Vadim decided everything for me. He loosened his fingers, and my heart slipped into my hand.
And the next moment, my fingers got cramped.
The blackness came at me, picked up, and carried me up without listening to screams or objections.
I shouted out, falling through - where? And just as fast as falling, regaining myself. Starting again to see, hear, touch and in general - the fall stopped. But where?
What was that? What's going on? I took a quick look around. And I took a deep breath, relaxed.
It's my clearing.
My home and cozy place with dandelion thickets. The sun plays on the green grass, the pines rustle quietly...
They didn't rustle for long. One second, twenty. And then a sharp gust of wind whipped me on my back like it made me... look? Going?
I obediently took two steps forward in the direction of the wind. And I shrieked outrageously. What impertinence!?
In the center of my beloved glade was formed - a healthy puddle. Although I didn't like it at all.
- Can we get her out of here?
In answer to my timid question, the wind was already whipping around the back of the head, causing it to bend lower. Well, lower, so lower. If you want me to look into the water, I'll look. I just hope there's no crayfish or crabs, or any anacond in the best tradition of horror movies? Is there anything else you want to bite off?
But there was a session of clairvoyance waiting for me to float and crawl together. The puddle turned dark for a couple of seconds, as if someone pulled the blanket, and then the magician ripped it off - and voila! The water became translucent as if it were big glass. And I look through it. And I see the room that I was just in.
Mechislav holding me in his arms and saying something to his subordinate. A stunned Vadim trying to unclench my reduced fingers. I, as a sensitive trembling lady in the arms of a gallant cavalier. And Lavric as a corpse.
The only thing that falls out of the picture is the heart I'm grabbing the bulldog's grip on.
And the whole room, all the objects in it were shimmering with different colors. The room itself - and the furniture in it - was light gray. And I knew it wasn't alive. Furniture made of chipboard, plastic, some kind of chemical stuff. What's inanimate won't give a living aura. A bright red-blue-green halo around Mieczysław mixed with a very similar halo around me. Though the shades were slightly different. Vadim glowed in yellow, orange, purple and green tones. And on the auras of both vampires there was a thin black grid. Like a lot of black snowflakes soldered together.
They're not dead, but they're not alive either. But why haven't I seen this before? You didn't understand? Have you seen auras around vampires that are ordinary, only black? Or is this the only place you can see them? Silence. There isn't? You can see it there, but I don't have the strength?
Silence again?
Then what do I miss? Experience?
A light breeze gently stroked the hair. The trees grumbled approvingly. I see. No question about it! I am not Nicholas II. So let's study. Active! The trouble is that Mechislav couldn't teach me almost anything. The magic of a vampire just didn't work for me. The call of animals, the same tigers, he managed without difficulty. And me... When I tried to call even the most ordinary cat, he wanted to sneeze at me. And at the same time, manipulating the aura of werewolves made it easier and easier for me. And to remove some damage, and to close the ability to transform, and vice versa, to strengthen it so that the pattern burst - and the werewolf spilled at my desire - it was given to me easily. But then again, I had to do mine, not what Mechislav taught me. What was right for me. Accordingly, the vampire could not do it. And after five or six scandals, we decided to limit ourselves to theory. And the practice? What about practice? I made fun of Valentine and Lenka for a while, I worked with Nastia, and I stopped there.
A sharp gust of wind was like the back of the head. Anyway, he pushed me into a puddle. Stop thinking, watch this!
And I looked where I didn't want to go. The singer. And I couldn't help but wonder.
- What!?
Lavrenty Leninovich Gulkin was absolutely empty. In general. No aura. Not even the grey halo that surrounds the dead for three days. Even that wasn't there. It's as if someone sucked him dry.
But how?! And the heart?
The gray lump in my hand wasn't just empty. If I may say so, it was just a negative sign. It wasn't empty, it wasn't even empty. Like a mummy in a museum - if that was ever human, it's just organic now. It's not like we read the aura of peat or peat. Just the aura of plants.
The mother... the plant on her tail...
It's not like that!!!
It could have been if Lavric had died fifty years ago. Or a hundred and fifty years ago! And at the same time he managed to decompose and feed the worms. But during the day he was still alive! And even at night. How could that be?
The trees rumbled, and I realized that I was talking out loud. It wasn't enough yet! In this place where every word has power... Prove later through a spiritual dish that I am not a camel...
The puddle of water faded again for a moment, and I saw it.
Empty space. A ball of light shaking in it, shimmering with different colors. And I know it's an imitation of an aura. On some subconscious level, like it happens in a dream. Then a kind of textbook magician appears next to me, wearing a black hoodie and a magic wand. He begins to wave the wand, then he pushes it into the aura - and the aura begins to fade, fade out, and then disappears altogether. The shell remains as empty as Laurentian's heart. But the wand in the wizard's hands shines with different colours. He
wavers it and a huge ball of fire comes off the tip.
The puddle is going out.
I sighed, and I stretched out right next to the puddles.
- Thank you for the training show for the underdogs.
The trees made a good-natured noise and a little snide. Like, "you're welcome..." I couldn't help it:
- Can I see what's going on around my carcass? Isn't that curious?
And I rolled over my stomach with my neck stretched out.
The puddle was obediently lit up. Mecislav was saying something to Vadim. He was making excuses. No change.
- Am I that little here?
A gentle breeze whirled the ripples in a puddle. And I only saw the gray water surface again. I got up, reached out, and smiled at the forest. All this piece of the world. It's so good that this place exists.
- Thank you. Should I go now?
The wind blew my hair like a wink.
"It's time, it's time. But you come again, they'll be waiting for you..."
And the next moment, I felt... flying? Like I was dumped in my body in a high-speed elevator.
* * *
Mecislav was angry. Although what do you mean, anger? It's kind of dry and short. The vampire was furious. In a frenzy. And a step away from tearing his assistant's head off.
It was Vadim's fault that he lowered his eyes and tried to unclench Julie's fingers, intentionally closing around the grey nasty lump, once the heart of a popular singer. And he kept silent.
It's for the best. Mieczysław was barely held back, so as not to go from the verbal raznost to the physical break of a subordinate into several hundred pieces. Only the helpless Julino's body in his arms was stopped. Although the carcass could be added to the sofa...
- What did you think!? My head!? I sincerely doubt that your empty pumpkin is capable of giving birth to a single healthy thought! Why did you give her that crap!? You know her power is unpredictable! And Julia herself can't control it at all! Giving her a magic object is like throwing sodium in water. And wait for something to happen! And even more so, something so unknown!!! Dummy!!!
Ring of Madness Page 149