by Masha Dark
So, where could she go without fear of falling into the clutches of the world’s intelligence agencies? Europe should be considered only as a last resort. What else remained? Africa? India? Australia? They were out of the question. Firstly, they were too hot for Dalana’s tastes; secondly, they were too dirty. Thirdly, well, they were just hellish. She couldn’t even guess why any creature would want to live in such places.
Dalana bit her lip. Were there really no more places where she could wait out uncertain times? She supposed the globe was not so enormous, after all. True, there was still Canada, especially French Canada. Or was it Canadian France? Dalana had not yet lived there. Perhaps she should try it.
Someone knocked quietly on the door.
“Pardon me,” Lucinda called through the door, “but Filip has returned. He bought everything you ordered.”
After a detailed inspection, Dalana decided that the purchased items were completely satisfactory. She even condescended to compliment Filip. He nearly went mad from happiness. Then a mental bickering match began between him and Vasilisa. Dalana did not listen attentively, even though she had every reason to believe the affair would end in a physical fray. Fortunately for both of them and also for Lucinda, who was unsuccessfully trying to make peace between the two inflamed combatants, Nicholaus returned. However, that peace did not last long.
“Have you seen our collection of paintings?” asked Prince Nicholaus.
Red-haired, with a hooked nose and a tranquil gaze in his large, grey eyes, he could give anyone a run for their money. He was attractive, like his youngest sister, and about the same height as Dalana. Filip, of course, paled next to him.
“Is there something there worth seeing?” asked Dalana, smiling provocatively.
“Ah, but we should find out, shouldn’t we?” Nicholaus narrowed his eyes slyly and then immediately added, “And we might as well let Filip go, he’s late already, aren’t you, Filip?”
“I’m not really in a hurry,” Filip said, spreading his arms akimbo.
“I was thinking that I might watch some television.” It seems Filip was not ready to cede the field of battle.
Get out of here, I said!
To hell with you!
You should both shut your insignificant traps! Vasilisa’s voice joined the fray from somewhere on the second floor. She’s coming with me.
Fie, it’s disgusting listening to the three of you! Lucinda said angrily from a neighboring room.
So don’t listen, recommended Vasilisa.
Filip and Vasilisa burst into laughter. Even Dalana was slightly amused, more at the fact that these three idiots thought they could divide her amongst themselves, than at anything else.
You are loathsome to me! All three of you!
And Lucinda disengaged from the ethereal ‘conversation’.
Filip scrolled through the channels with a vengeance, apparently hoping to find something that would appeal to their guest, and obviously playing for time.
“What do I care what you do with your free time. I would never begrudge you your precious television,” Nicholaus continued aloud. “Please, have a seat, amuse yourself. Just not too loud, mind. My dear lady, wasn’t I about to show you around our gallery?”
“You and your paintings can go to hell!” yelled Filip; Nickolaus’ comment about the television apparently touched a raw nerve.
He sprang towards Dalana, landing dangerously close to Nicholaus. His eyes burned with a mad fire.
“My Lady! Come with me, I implore you!”
“Go away, I tell you, go!” Nicholaus snarled at Filip, baring his worn-out fangs.
What could be done? Every Begotten of Old possessed a certain magnetism that frequently drove people mad. The myths about succubi and incubi had an entirely real foundation. Also, in Dalana’s homeland there were legends about mu-shubuns – spirits of fantastic beauty – who led humans, men and women, their amorous slaves, to inevitable death.
ENOUGH!
Dalana decided to interfere before this got out of hand. Nicholaus’s powerful arms had already lifted Filip from the floor. He was about to fling Filip, who was balefully gnashing his crooked, yellowed fangs, to the far corner of the drawing room.
“You should be ashamed, Your Highness,” Dalana said scornfully, “to sully your fair hands so.”
“I – I beg your pardon,” bleated Nichlolaus, returning Filip to his original position.
Both hero-lovers seemed to recall who was standing in front of them, and they meekly pulled themselves together. Dalana continued frostily: “I am exceedingly grateful that you are all trying so hard to fill my leisure time, but I have already decided where and with whom I will spend tonight.”
Without bloodbaths, without narcotics, and without drunken teenagers. These are my conditions, added Dalana mentally.
It’s a deal! Vasilisa shouted joyfully in reply.
After a moment Vasilisa appeared on the stairs. Glamorous, with a daring hat on her head, she of all of them least resembled a princess or any other kind of blue blood. But this was more a plus than a minus.
You look amazing.
I tried.
“Unship your oars, boys,” Vasilisa declared victoriously, descending the stairs. “The lady has picked me.”
Nicholaus and Filip glared in unison.
“Let’s go.” She turned to Dalana with a smile. “I will show you a wild time.”
Her canines were snow-white. Apparently, this was a manifestation of relative youth coupled with noble birth.
CHAPTER TWO
1.
If we do not know life, how can we know death?
Confucius
After two hours, Marisa did not know what to do with herself.
The imposing hospital structure, dubbed ‘the home away from home’ by the agents of CRUSS’s Homicide Division, as well as the entire staff of the Coalition, was located in Vallingby and consisted of five concourses with ten floors each.
Victims of highly contagious diseases were usually admitted in concourse D. Not even relatives were allowed to visit such patients. So Marisa was forced to wait in a tiny cafe near the hospital. Her watch showed that it was just after five o’clock; by this time Marisa had already managed to drink a gallon of espresso and to smoke a pack of cigarettes. She and Ruslan had started smoking when they were fourteen. It was a common addiction of orphanage children. When they were accepted into the academy, the youngsters had to give up nicotine. A heavy smoker, Goldberg nonetheless kept strict watch: he didn’t even want his kids to use nicotine gum. All the agents of his department regularly had to take a special test to tell if they had been smoking. Two thirds of the agents smoked like chimneys regardless of Goldberg’s interdiction, but strangely they managed to pass the test without consequence to their careers.
Marisa was not usually one of those, but today was a special case. Marisa was sure that Papa would forgive her.
Ruslan had collapsed in a heap immediately after they let that beast escape. The ambulance arrived quickly, but by that time Rus’s condition was already extremely serious. Marisa watched as his body was covered in horrifying blisters, which grew and bulged, and then burst with a disgustingly putrid sound. The smell that they produced was also putrid. Marisa was sure that these symptoms were the result of being burned by some acid and she racked her brains trying to think of when exactly the vampire had had time to throw it at Ruslan. It must have been when they fell into that strange stupor.
It was also odd that when the doctors arrived, they instantly got hold of an epidemiologist, and then they prohibited Marisa from riding in the same vehicle as Ruslan. She was brought separately to an infirmary where she was required to give blood and then wash herself with a nasty antiseptic concoction. The surprising thing was that none of these doctors bothered to explain what all the fuss was about. Physically, Marisa felt excellent, but she was going out of her mind with worry over Ruslan. The CRUSS medics and the doctors from the hospital would not tell her anyt
hing. Marisa tried all the methods she knew for getting information: she was rude and threatening; she pleaded and invoked the Swedish Constitution; she even tried to play the pity card. It was useless. Even the invocation of the Statutes and Codes of CRUSS did not help. They dismissed Marisa, but again they did not explain why.
And now here she was, sitting in a café, drinking coffee that was quickly becoming disgusting and smoking like a chimney. Lighting the last cigarette in the pack, Marisa saw Goldberg. He walked over to her table; Papa’s appearance did not bode well.
“Hello,” said Goldberg wearily when he reached her table. “How are you?”
“Let’s see…. I’m smoking.” Marisa couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Goldberg just raised his arms helplessly and flopped down into a nearby chair.
“Have you eaten anything today?” he asked and then turned to the waitress, “Miss, a pork chop with vegetables, if you don’t mind.”
“Papa,” Marisa said sharply, more sharply than she should. “The devil take your pork chop and the devil take your vegetables. What’s going on with Ruslan?”
And, not giving Goldberg a moment of respite, she continued: “Why did they hide him away in concourse D? Do they think his boils are a symptom of avian flu?”
Goldberg remained silent, and Marisa continued to pepper him with questions.
“Have they managed to do anything besides give him an enema and draw blood? It’s a simple burn – that beast probably poured acid on him! Or maybe she has venomous saliva? Like a snake.”
“I read your account,” Goldberg said. “You maintained that neither of you were in physical contact with the objective.”
“I wasn’t, but Rus might have been. Maybe I simply didn’t see it. By the way, why did they keep me in the infirmary for so long?”
“Listen to me,” said Goldberg quietly. “Ruslan had smallpox.”
“Smallpox?” Marisa repeated dazedly. “Who gets smallpox nowadays? And how could he possibly have caught it in two minutes? Did that bitch infect him?”
All at once Marisa caught Goldberg’s look and she paused.
“Papa…why did you say had?”
Goldberg suddenly put his rough palm on Marisa’s hand.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Goldberg said sadly. “But half an hour ago…Ruslan didn’t make it. Toxic shock syndrome. His heart gave out.”
Marisa felt as if someone had pulled the floor out from under her feet. No, it couldn’t be. She’d heard wrong.
“Alexander Goldberg,” Marisa tried to speak as calmly as possible, “tell me once more, what’s wrong with Ruslan?”
“I’m so sorry,” Goldberg simply repeated.
Marisa sprang up from her seat.
“Where are you going?” asked Papa, quickly grabbing Marisa by her wrist. He tried to get her back into her seat, but she jerked her elbow away.
“Don’t you try to stop me,” snapped Marisa. “I want to see my friend and I will see him and I don’t give a shit about state secrets.”
“Don’t be in such a rush,” said Goldberg mournfully. “You have no idea what kind of sight awaits you.”
“I want to see my friend,” Marisa repeated.
For several tense moments they drilled holes in each other with their eyes. The elderly man and the young woman. The ex-teacher and the ex-student. The superior and the subordinate. He had experience and she had youth, and therein lay their strength…and their weakness. Finally, he yielded.
“Go,” Goldberg said in a tired voice. “I’ll order them to let you pass.”
As far as Marisa Sukhostat, Special Agent of the Homicide Division of the Coalition could remember, she had never cried. Not even when she was in a lot of pain. When she was five, her cheek had been cut and three of her teeth knocked out by a bully. The insult of being beaten had overwhelmed the pain, even though he had been twice Marisa’s age. The event took place in the cellar of the orphanage where the young people struggled for position among themselves by stealing tins of caviar from the food store. Not black caviar, and not even red caviar. Squash caviar. Marisa was quick on her feet, but her agility lost to brute physical strength. The children stood and watched as Sery grabbed Marisa by the hair and pushed her face into the dirty, concrete floor. But she did not cry – she withstood the humiliation, gritting her remaining teeth and swallowing saliva salty with blood. And after a minute a black-browed boy burst into the cellar with the hilt of a shovel in his hands and hit Sery on the back as hard as he could. Sery let out a piecing howl and dropped to his knees, freeing Marisa.
“Let’s get out of here!” said the boy. As Marisa got up, he took her by the hand and dragged her towards the exit. “Make way, you sons of bitches!” he screamed at the children who were trying to block their path.
Apparently, the shovel hilt in his hand dispelled their doubts, and none of Sery’s gang dared to hinder the escapees.
It was Marisa and Ruslan’s first meeting. From that time forward, they were always together. He was a part of her life, and she was a part of his. In their virtues and shortcomings, their advantages and disadvantages, they complemented each other. Marisa was a brilliant student, Ruslan often received D’s. In the end, this disparity cost them both: him because he copied from her, her because she allowed him to copy.
Later, when they were at the Academy, things changed somewhat: he stopped copying completely and eventually received a commission; she, no longer guilty of any infractions, traveled to the US and Europe a few times to acquire experience and exchange expertise with foreign students. The first time they were separated was before the boom of cheap texting. It was the internet that saved them. Every day, Marisa received two short, awkward emails from Ruslan. She sent back two of her own – much longer. They missed each other greatly, even if they never admitted to it openly.
There was also rivalry between them. After the Academy, when they came to work in Goldberg’s department, Marisa and Ruslan burned brightly on the job, completely giving themselves over to their labor of love. Ruslan had received optimal physical training, and he emerged victorious from any scuffle without having recourse to the handle of a shovel. However, Marisa also improved herself every day. She studied languages and the occult sciences, investigated the theoretical aspects of world religions and read a lot of literature, from belles-lettres to the classics. Ruslan was ready and willing to kill time by tailing some follower of a voodoo cult around the clock, but he had difficulty reading translations of the reports of his colleagues in the US, which Marisa could recite from memory. As a result, the victor’s laurels almost always fell to Marisa. Ruslan, of course, suffered because of it, but he never showed any evidence of doing so. And in truth, he was happy for her because their juvenile rivalry paled in comparison to the earnest affection they felt for each other.
Marisa walked up to the glass isolation chamber where Ruslan lay.
Many things had happened in her life to make her feel pain or sadness. But life in an orphanage had hardened Marisa. Later, she knew that she had a friend who would always come to her aid in her hour of need.
But then…Marisa saw him. More accurately, what was left of him. Marisa fell to her knees and wailed. Without tears and without sound. She beat her fists against the glass, knowing full well that it was reinforced and that nothing would break it, and she shook with silent sobs.
Frightened nurses ran up to her and Marisa begged them to open the door and let her into the chamber, although she also knew full well that no one would. After a short while a doctor appeared and ordered that Marisa be given a sedative. Two massive orderlies took her by the arms and led her away from the chamber where the thing that had been her best and only friend now lay.
“Ruslan,” said Marisa, and the tears gushed from her eyes. For the first time in her life she cried for real, gulping down streams of her own tears…
When Marisa came back to her senses, she discovered that she was sitting on a cot in the department head’s office. T
he personnel had tactfully decided to leave the young woman alone with her pain. Beyond the window it was already dark. Marisa felt dead tired, exhausted to the bone. There were also some strange sensations in the region of the back pocket of her trousers. A moment later, Marisa realized that this was her blackberry trying to get her attention, desperately vibrating. A new email.