Matabar

Book II. Chapter 26 - Old truth

The twelve translucent shields conjured by Orlovsky’s spell began to spin in front of Ardi. The young man himself, who was frozen knee-deep in a foul, sticky sludge that was doing a poor job of passing itself off as water, watched with a hunter’s stillness as the scene unfolded before him.

The creature was in no hurry to attack them. Not because it didn’t want to—quite the opposite, in fact—but because something… something was happening to it.

“Eternal Angels,” Milar breathed, tracing the holy symbol of the Face of Light over his chest.

Tendrils of dark energy were being drawn from the boy’s body. They were thick and viscous, almost the same consistency as the muck the partners were standing in. They danced like grim plumes around the boy, whose mouth was twisted in a savage, animalistic scream, though not a single sound beyond the gurgle of water broke the cellar’s silence. And in the darkness that Lusha was so desperately trying to claw from his own body, a face grinned at them with long, yellow fangs. It was a stretched, almost human-like visage, but hideous, as if the skin had been peeled away to reveal the muscle or bone beneath. It was bald, with long, pointed ears, a sharp nose, and a chin that was honed to a razor’s edge. Its eyes were like twin drops of filthy water from which a thick, scarlet blood oozed.

And this face seemed to be trying to devour Lusha. It was reaching for him with a hungry maw, licking the boy with a snake’s forked tongue, and choking him with its dark, grasping appendages.

“Ard, do something!” Milar shouted.

The captain was keeping the creature in his sights. He had his revolver in one hand, his unsheathed saber gleaming despite the gloom in the other, but he did not rush to fire.

“I don’t know what to do!” Was all Ardan could shout back.

He truly did not understand what was happening. The creature was clearly one of the Homeless Fae, and yet it didn’t feel like one of them at all.

And then everything froze.

Lusha’s hands were now limp at his sides. His face smoothed over, the mask of genuine terror vanishing as his lips pressed into a thin line. Even his hair, previously disheveled and stuck to his sweaty forehead, settled into the semblance of a tidy coif. His clothes, too, straightened themselves out. A simple shirt, a red cravat, a brown vest. And his eyes were the same color.

Nothing at all like the eyes of the Homeless Fae, which protruded from the right half of the boy’s face. Like a parasite, it emerged from his cheek, forehead, and the top of his head. Perhaps it was an illusion, or perhaps it was a true extension of Lusha’s own flesh.

An unpleasant, grating laugh echoed through the cellar. The Homeless Fae was cackling, dissolving into what was almost hysterics. It was a marvelous and, at the same time, repulsive sight. The left half of the face, which belonged to a perfectly ordinary boy, stared forward with a calm, icy gaze, its lips held in a deathly stillness. All the while, the right half was lost in a frenzy of booming laughter.

“Who are you?” Ardan asked in the Fae tongue, putting the force of his Will into the words. “Name yourself!”

But the only answer he received was more laughter. The same shuffling cackle, hammering against his eardrums with the diligence of a smith’s hammer.

Ardi was taken aback.

“How-”

“Wondering why I won’t answer, even though I am not yet in the Darkness?” The words came through the laughter. “We will come for you, Speaker. For you and the others. No one will stop our harvest!”

Their harvest? The snake-like Homeless Fae the Puppeteers had blown up at Alla-Lisa’s apartment had said the same thing.

But of course, Ard wasn’t given even a moment to ponder this.

Almost mechanically, like a puppet’s limb, the right hand of the stone-faced Lusha rose. He looked as if he were sleeping, but with his eyes open… or rather, his eye… and as his left hand joined it, the water at the boy’s feet began to churn, then shot forward in a dense, tight cord.

Orlovsky’s translucent shields, obeying Ardan’s will, formed a tight cluster of spinning barriers in the cord’s path, but the blow never landed on them.

Milar dove forward and swung his saber. At the same time, a small accumulator on the hilt of his weapon flared to life, and a red glow spread across the blade, taking the shape of a pattern that vaguely resembled a vector in a seal. The edge of the saber vibrated with a scarlet light, and the cord of water was sliced in two, bursting apart in a spray of foul droplets.

Just as quickly, Milar was back behind Ard. He was acting, if Aversky’s teachings were to be believed, strictly by the book, following the rules hammered into the heads of every operative and investigator of the Second Chancery. Specifically, the rules regarding field operations conducted alongside Star Mages.

“One of Dagdag’s new developments,” Milar answered the unspoken question. “An artef-”

He was not allowed to finish speaking, just as Ardan was not allowed to think. Accompanied by another fit of demonic cackling, the sleeping Lusha raised both hands, and several cords of water stretched forth from the depths.

Ard, his eyes tracking the attacking “tentacles,” instantly intercepted them with his spell’s translucent discs. Despite being capable of withstanding a shot from a large-caliber revolver, they crumbled to dust the moment the dark appendages touched them. Thankfully, the tendrils themselves had also burst upon contact.

But where Ard’s number of spells and defensive discs was strictly limited by the supply of rays in his Stars and accumulators, the cackling Homeless Fae was clearly under no such constraints. Quite the opposite, in fact…

The fanged maw, now spewing sounds that only vaguely resembled laughter, forced Lusha’s hands to trace jerky, broken patterns in the air, time and again, and with each one he completed, new tendrils burst forth from the dark water.

Milar, seizing an opening, leaned out from behind Ard and squeezed the trigger. Two shots merged into one, and both bullets, with a whistle… slammed into a dense wall of water that rose before the Fae-controlled Lusha. The bullets sank into it and, without ever passing through to the other side, were swallowed by the suddenly-manifested dark and foul-smelling waterfall.

The demon’s cackle only grew louder.

“What the…”

The boy’s fingers bent at unnatural angles once again, and the mass of water that had just served as his protective shroud rushed forward. It sped across the surface of the flooded cellar like a hammer, its “maw” gradually opening to mimic the shape of the Homeless Fae’s face.

The two remaining discs of the shield spell met the impact of the watery wave and, after crumbling to dust, managed only to slow it down, not stop it completely.

Milar dove behind Ardan once more, while the latter, drawing a considerable number of rays from his Stars, envisioned a modified Standard Shield and struck his staff against the ground. Or rather… he tried to.

The creature twisted half of its hideous, skinless face into a smug grin, and several of Lusha’s fingers cracked, bending in half the wrong way around. In that same instant, a whirlpool spun into existence beneath Ardan’s staff. It rose in a vortex and, wrapping itself tightly around the young man’s staff, prevented it from touching the floor.

Milar shouted something unintelligible and tried to shove Ardi aside, but this time, it was not fingers that cracked, but Lusha’s entire arm. The shattered elbow tore through his skin, and the back of the boy’s right hand touched his own right shoulder. Yet the only thing that changed about the possessed boy’s expression was the small tear that rolled down his cheek.

Lusha was still conscious.

He could feel and understand everything.

He just couldn’t do anything about it.

Ardan and Milar were powerless as well. Cords of dark water had wrapped around their legs like tight, unyielding ropes. They were holding them in place, not letting them move a single millimeter, just like with Ard’s staff.

All of this had taken not even a fraction of a second, so the maw was already nearly upon them…

The cellar was damp. But more importantly, it was cold. The cold reigned here, holding court with no challengers, because its older sister, darkness, would at times hastily retreat to the far corners of the flooded room whenever a stray glint of sunlight would reflect off the surface of the putrid water. And that was enough for the cold to claim a throne for itself, albeit a small one, unknown and almost insignificant.

It was also enough for Ardan to hear a sliver of its Name in the cellar’s self-satisfied chill. Ardan reached for it, took it in his “hands,” and, after investing his own Will in the act, breathed that sliver out before him.

A frigid frost escaped his lips, instantly turning the watery wave into a wall of ice. It left behind a sculpture of the twisted maw, its sharp fangs already touching the young man’s face. But the frost did not stop. It went deeper, freezing the writhing tentacles that had bound the partners’ legs and the wizard’s staff.

Ardan managed to drive his staff into the ground at last. Feeling his connection to the sliver of the cellar’s cold Name fade—leaving behind a feeling like he’d just been hit by a truck at full speed—Ardi barely manifested the necessary seal. It flared to life beneath the water, and a modified Ice Spear, spinning so fast that white ribbons of frost appeared in the air, shot forth from the tip of Ardan’s staff.

It pierced the frozen maw, dragging heavy shards of ice along with it, and split the water’s surface as it plunged squarely into the cackling face of the Homeless Fae… and passed straight through, shattering against the brick wall behind Lusha. It sank several centimeters into the wall, then burst into sharp fragments.

Some of them wounded the boy from behind, while others—those that had followed the spear—slashed the boy’s face. The demon screamed in pain.

The deadly spell, which had cost Ard four rays from his Green Star and cracked one of his accumulators, had done it no harm, but the simple shards that had cut the boy had made the Homeless Fae scream and shriek in agony.

Ardan knew that Milar would realize what was happening.

And he did.

The captain once again emerged from behind his partner and took aim. Only this time, he wasn’t going for the fanged maw, but Lusha’s eye, which was covered in a film of tears.

“No!” Ardi shouted before Milar could squeeze the trigger.

Milar flinched for a moment, and then… he fired. But the Homeless Fae, which was still screaming in pain, had already regained control of the body and the surrounding Ley. Another wave of water swallowed the bullet, not letting it reach its target.

The captain, after casting a rather eloquent glance in Ardi’s direction, silently returned to his position behind him.

“Weakling,” hissed the shuffling voice of the Homeless Fae.

And then a thunderous crack echoed through the cellar. It was as if every joint in the boy’s body had broken at once. Simultaneously, the water around the partners came alive. Dozens of whirlpools spun around their legs, creating more and more dark cords. This time, their tips transformed into long blades by thinning and elongating. Not to mention the second wave that was rushing toward them, once again taking the shape of the Homeless Fae’s maw.

“Likewise,” Ardan replied in the Fae tongue and, turning his staff, struck… not the ground, but a nearby hanging beam.

It was attached to the ceiling, which in turn adjoined the wall, and the wall… was connected to the earth.

The moment he had seen the Homeless Fae, Ardan had realized that it was bound to the cellar. Not entirely, of course, but its powers were. The Homeless Fae clearly possessed a small piece of the Name of this foul water, whatever it was. It seemed like a twisted version of the Name of Thawed Water. And, obviously, it could only wield it while in the midst of its element.

All Ard had needed to do was to calculate the right parameters to modify one of his seals in order to drag the creature to the surface. But that took time. All the time he had just spent exchanging a few spells with the monster.

The Ley surged through the wall, and a seal once again flared at the base of Ardan’s staff. It was a modification of the Ice Wall that created a cylinder under Lusha’s feet, one big enough to lift him above the surface of the dark water.

In that same instant, the tendrils of water, their bladed tips gleaming, disintegrated into a cold spray, and the fanged, watery maw washed over the partners as a wave of putrid filth.

The Fae-controlled Lusha, who was now lying on the meter-and-a-half-high ice cylinder, screamed. His still-childish, high-pitched voice merged with the roar of the Homeless Fae. The boy screamed and cried, twitching in agony. His body was burning. His arms and legs were broken at gruesome, crooked angles. And his spine, which had torn through his stomach, forced the boy to contort himself like a fish caught on a hook.

Blood flowed across the ice.

The boy screamed.

The Homeless Fae laughed.

Ardan and Milar, spitting out the foul water, somehow managed to run to the ice tower.

“It hurts…” One half of the boy’s face cried. “So much…”

“What amusing mortals!” The creature manifesting along the other half cackled. “Rejoice, Speaker, for today…”

“I wanted to…”

“…you get to live a little longer!”

“…go see my sister today… I should have gone… and not…”

They spoke at the same time. The weeping cut into the laughter, creating a sound that was both terrifying and grating to the ears. The sight was so unnatural that the mind refused to perceive it as real. It would instead try to find the trick, anything that would hint at the illusory nature of what was happening, but the facts remained.

Ardan touched the Homeless Fae’s head with his staff, and it howled, and along with it, the boy howled as well. They felt the pain simultaneously. And Ardi, by the Sleeping Spirits, wished that he could end Lusha’s suffering, but he couldn’t…

“Ley-tree… Ley-tree!” The Homeless Fae shrieked.

“Your Name!” Ardan shouted over him. “Three times I will ask, and three times you will hear me! Tell me your Name! Your Name!”

But the Homeless Fae, who, due to not being a demon yet, was still bound to obey the laws of the Fae Queens, only cackled through the waves of pain.

“That won’t work…” The Homeless Fae grinned. “Speaker…”

“It burns!” Lusha moaned. “I’m on fire!”

“It won’t work, mortal!”

“Please! Stop!”

Ardan removed his staff and took several deep breaths. Whatever they had done to the Homeless Fae and Lusha, the Fae that had taken up residence inside the boy seemed to be shielded from the outside world. It was as if part of its essence had been buried inside the human’s own, masking it better than any seal of Star Magic or veil created by the Aean’Hane art.

“Ard…” Milar cocked the hammer of his revolver. “Damn it, Ard… The kid is suffering.”

Ardan looked at Lusha’s broken, mangled, mutilated body. An ordinary man, perhaps even an orc or a mutant, would have already died from such wounds, but the emaciated, clearly underfed, fourteen-year-old boy was still breathing.

And there could be only one reason for such an anomaly. A cackling, fanged, foul-smelling reason.

“Shit, Ard!”

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Milar tried to aim his revolver at Lusha, but Ardan grabbed his partner’s arm and moved the gun aside.

“What are you-”

The Homeless Fae fell silent. It fixed its single, watery eye on Ard’s face.

“Go on, Speaker. Try it. Let’s see how much of Aror’s blood is truly in you.”

Ardan ignored the veiled threat of the half-demon.

“We need what this boy knows,” Ardan said numbly, almost syllable by syllable.

“And what are you suggesting?” Milar narrowed his eyes.

Ardan took his father’s knife from his belt and slashed it across his right forearm. His right hand was still holding his staff, just in case.

“If my blood starts to turn dark, shoot,” Ardan said firmly. “I’ll explain everything later.”

Milar frowned, but after a few moments, he nodded.

“What the hell, Magister,” the captain hissed. “Shooting at kids…”

“Not at him, Milar,” Ardan shook his head. “Shoot me.”

“What?!”

“In the leg,” Ard clarified hastily. “If my blood starts to turn dark, shoot me in the thigh.” And, after thinking it over, he added, “The left one.”

“Are you out of your mind?!”

Ardan left the question unanswered. Instead, he took a breath in, a breath out, and then grabbed Lusha’s chin with his left hand and, with a sharp movement, turned it toward him so that he could look into both eyes at once.

The Homeless Fae bared its fangs in a grin, and then fell silent.

To Ardan, it felt as if he were drowning in a foul and sticky, suffocating substance. The air around him became viscous, saturated with the stench of rotten eggs and meat left out too long in the sun. The persistent buzzing of tiny wings vibrated in his ears, and light pricks ran across his skin, as if the tiny legs of an insect were tickling the hairs there.

Ardan was drowning in something thick. Heavy. It seeped into his eyes and ears, trying to push its way through his tightly-clenched teeth to fill his throat with an ammoniacal stench. He tried to grab onto something, anything, but instead of finding a saving grace, he only sank deeper into the murky consciousness of the Homeless Fae.

“Fall asleep, Speaker…” A voice came from afar. “And I will take your Ley and-”

Ardan closed his eyes, cutting off the image of the dirty water. He held his breath, not allowing his lungs to touch the stench. He stopped hearing, feeling; his heart slowed so much that it almost stopped. All that remained was a thought. Not even a thought, but an image.

Like a quiet, icy drip, his homeland sang to him. The high, snow-covered peaks of the Alcade lulled their son. And somewhere among them, in their depths, the roar of a snow leopard battling a mountain storm echoed.

He did everything just as Atta’nha, the Witch of Ice and Snow, had taught him.

***

Milar didn’t even understand what exactly had just happened. Without even bothering to explain what he should do if a shot to the thigh didn’t change the situation, his partner had grabbed the possessed boy by the chin and turned him to face him.

A moment passed, then another… and nothing happened. And then a frosty cloud escaped Ardi’s lips. A very small one. No wider than the steam you breathe out in winter. But due to that small cloud, the water around them instantly froze over, and patterns of frost hastily sketched themselves across the walls. Milar’s teeth chattered, and he shivered from the cold that pierced his body.

The face of the creature, the demon, the Homeless Fae, or whatever it was called, twisted into a grimace of pain, then glazed over, freezing solid. A second later, it cracked and fell apart into several large pieces, revealing…

Milar wanted to look away, but he couldn’t afford to lose track of what was happening. So he stood there and watched as half of Lusha’s head simply vanished, exposing a mutilated brain, part of an eye socket, pieces of his jaw, and a larynx and tongue sliced in two.

“Damn…” Milar breathed out, gripping the frosty handle of his gun tighter. “That’s another round of nightmares, guaranteed.”

The blood on his partner’s forearm showed no sign of darkening. His steady breathing merged with the breathing of Lusha, who had somehow not yet met the Eternal Angels, which indicated that what was happening right now was something normal for Speakers and Aean’Hane, and completely batshit insane for everyone else.

“Maybe I really should check into a mental hospital,” Milar mused to himself.

***

Ardi was standing in the middle of a room. The very same room where he and Milar had, just a few minutes (though it felt like hours) ago, discussed Lusha’s connection to the Crimson Lady.

Only everything looked a little blurry, hazy, veiled in a sort of mist. It was like looking through the whitish smoke of a campfire at what was happening on the other side of said fire.

Sounds came from a distance, and Ardi himself couldn’t even move a finger. After all, this wasn’t reality, just the memories of a tormented consciousness.

Lusha’s consciousness, to be precise.

What Ardi was doing right now, forcing his way into someone else’s mind like this, did not come without a price. Not for the Speaker, of course, but for the one whose mind had been invaded so deeply. Ardi, after sweeping aside the Homeless Fae’s attempts to devour him, had literally torn down the walls and barriers of Lusha’s consciousness that had defended it from the outside world.

In Atta’nha’s books and scrolls, it was said that humans and Firstborn subjected to this method of “learning the truth” either went mad or, even more often, turned into drooling vegetables.

But Lusha already had one foot on the path of the Eternal Angels. The Face of Light was waiting for his child. And so Ardi probably wasn’t doing anything wrong… or was he just trying to convince himself of that?

It didn’t matter.

Thoughts for tomorrow…

He watched what was happening intently.

Outside the window, it was raining. This was a rain well known to Ard: a damp, chilling rain that always tried to creep under your collar, the rain of an autumn in the Metropolis. Unpleasant and sharp.

The silhouette of a young man was watching it. Ardi didn’t so much recognize him as guess who was standing before him. Though he couldn’t make out the face, he was sure it was Andrew. A man Ardan hadn’t thought about in three seasons.

“She’s getting worse.” Ardi had to make an effort not to drown in someone else’s consciousness because it wasn’t his hands that were moving now. And it wasn’t his voice or his lips that had spoken those words.

It wasn’t him, but Lusha, who was sitting on the edge of the bed and stroking his sister’s hair. Ardi couldn’t see her. Lusha was looking at his brother.

“Everything will be alright, kiddo,” Andrew moved away from the window and ruffled his brother’s hair. All brothers probably did that… “Remember what I told you about that woman in the mask?”

“I don’t like that story, Andrew…” The boy resolutely pushed his brother’s hand away.

“Lusha, don’t be such a coward,” Andrew was probably smiling—it was hard to tell through the haze. “Everything will be fine. I’ve already made a copy of the key for the Guild’s archive. I’ll grab an old blueprint and give it to the orcs. Nothing major.”

“To the orcs?” Lusha asked again.

“Yes,” Andrew nodded.

“Only to them?”

“Of course!” Andrew exclaimed indignantly. “Or do you think I’d believe that lady who claimed that the blueprint can also be sold to the Dandy’s thugs? Ha! Let her find another naive fool who wants to cheat the Six!”

Ardan forced everything to a standstill with an effort of will. He stopped the flow of Lusha’s consciousness, and then, with another effort, rewound it a few moments. He muted all other sounds. Made all the other images disappear. All that remained was the beat of Andrew’s heart and his breathing.

A steady rhythm. And measured breaths.

Andrew wasn’t lying.

He was telling the truth! He wasn’t going to deceive Arkar!

But then how…

“Look further,” the boy’s familiar voice reached Ardi’s consciousness.

“Are you here?” He asked the darkness.

“Yes… maybe… I don’t know… Look further…”

***

Lusha was stroking his little sister’s hair. She had grown so thin that her cheeks were sunken down to her teeth, which her thinned out lips could no longer cover. She was barely breathing, pausing now and then, frightening the boy with the thought that the Eternal Angels were already calling for her. But after a moment, she would start breathing again.

Lusha checked if there was enough medicine in the IV and if the nutrient solution was sufficient. He was spending all the money he earned at the port to buy the necessary vials from the pharmacy.

Andrew’s money, however, they were saving for treatment at a sanatorium. On the Dancing Peninsula. By the shore of the Bright Lake. A place where it was almost spring all year round, and where wild grapes and apricots grew. Lusha remembered that his sister, before she’d fallen ill, had loved apricots.

The door burst open.

Andrew flew into the room. He was disheveled and… angry. Lusha was surprised. In all these years, he had never seen Andrew angry. He always smiled and never missed an opportunity to joke in order to lift his brother’s and sister’s spirits.

“Fuck!” Andrew swore, which he also never did. “Where… where…”

He fumbled through the drawers, tossing their few contents out.

“Andrew, you-”

“Shut up! Shut your mouth, you pathetic bastard!” Andrew roared in a voice that wasn’t his own. Grabbing a knife, he pointed it at Lusha, who had curled into a ball. “I’ll cut you, you blood of an ape! I…”

Andrew turned pale. He dropped the knife and, rushing to his brother, hugged him tightly.

“Sorry… Sorry, Lusha… Sorry… That… wasn’t me… It’s just…” Andrew’s voice returned to its former familiar and caring, gentle tone. “I need a cigarette.”

“A cigarette? But you don’t smoke?”

Lusha was pushed away so hard that he almost fell off the bed.

“Shut up! Ape blood!” Andrew started shouting again. “You stink! Everything here stinks!”

And, after grabbing a pack of cigarettes that Lusha was sometimes treated to at the port (he traded them with the factory workers for the scraps from the production line that they took home with them), Andrew flew out into the street.

***

“Y’see, kid, things are such a mess right now…” Something huge, with tusks and fangs, placed a slightly brownish hand on his shoulder.

Lusha had lived on the streets long enough that even if he didn’t know the Overseer of the Orcish Jackets by sight, he still understood who was sitting next to him.

“Andrew couldn’t have…” Lusha desperately shook his head from side to side, as if trying to ward off everything he had just heard. He was acting as if, by not believing what was being said, not letting it near his faltering heart, everything the orc had told him would turn out to be just a fabrication.

Some stupid, absurd lie.

Or maybe a dream.

Yes, yes.

Of course.

A bad dream.

A nightmare.

“Andrew couldn’t have cheated you, Mr. Arkar!” Lusha tried to jump to his feet, but the huge hand pinned him to the bed. “You can ask anyone! Even Drunken Jack! Even Limping Borka! Even the Crimson Lady! Everyone on the street knows that Andrew was honest! He always kept his word! He would never have cheated you!”

Arkar sighed and rose to his feet. He was so huge that he seemed like a living, moving building.

“Greed sometimes changes people, kid,” the orc nodded, and a few more orcs entered the room. They were even bigger and of a slightly different skin tone. “I also remember Andrew as a straight… a good kid, I mean. That’s why we hashed out a deal with him… made an agreement, I mean. So, I can either give you his share, or arrange a place for your little sister in the Sisters of Light shelter. You were saving your dosh… money, I mean, for that, right?”

Lusha could only manage a choked nod.

“Decide, then.”

The boy looked up at one of the city’s top gangsters.

“You promise?”

“You have the word of the Orcish Jackets, Lusha,” Arkar replied, his voice stern and cold.

***

Lusha was standing by the fire escape of an old factory building where, as all of the Tend and Tendari knew, the Crimson Lady’s brothel was located. It wasn’t some cheap cathouse where your nose would fall off—or an organ below the belt would—after a visit, but an expensive brothel. An hour with a girl there could cost as much as three, or even four and a half exes.

Andrew, of course, hadn’t had that kind of money. But one day, on his way home, he’d helped a girl pick up her scarf. She was already bending down herself and… their eyes met.

Lusha remembered this story.

His brother had told him about it.

Andrew had fallen in love at first sight. And she… they both hadn’t known what she’d felt. But Astasya had never refused Andrew a walk and, a couple of times, had invited him over. His brother had claimed that they’d just drunk tea and talked, but he would always come back too happy and too late for that.

He and Lusha had dreamed that they could cure their sister, and then save enough money to buy Astasya’s contract from the Crimson Lady. She never let her girls go just like that and made them sign work contracts with huge penalties.

According to the documents, they worked as cleaners, and a few bribed judges were always ready to impose fines on the runaways. The guards didn’t interfere. Why? Because they were also paid. Some with money, others with visits to the brothel.

But they would definitely succeed. They would take their sister away and then run away with Astasya.

It was her that Lusha was waiting for now.

He was hiding among the trash cans and boxes. He watched the door carefully, trying not to be seen. He was good at hiding.

Andrew couldn’t have… he couldn’t have done that… He would never… The relentless thought was beating against the walls of his head.

Finally, she came out. She was tall, with long legs, a tiny waist, and a face with a sharp chin, a low forehead, and a braid so thick it could be mistaken for a horse’s tail.

Lusha, no longer able to wait, ran up to her.

“Astasya!” He shouted.

And the girl… The girl looked at him the way passersby in the central districts, where Lusha sometimes went to get medicine for his sister, usually looked at him. The same way they looked at trash blown out of a can by the wind. With disdain, a desire to leave quickly, and a slight doubt about whether to clean it up themselves or avoid getting dirty.

“Astasya-”

“Get lost, you hobo,” was all she hissed and walked past him.

Lusha had never spoken to Astasya before and didn’t know if she was behaving normally right now or if, like with Andrew, something was wrong with her.

He grabbed her by the strap of her bag.

“Dammit!” She shouted. “Let go or I’ll call the guards, and you’ll end up like your brother!”

“So you know… You know he was killed…”

“Of course I know,” the girl snorted and snatched her bag from his hand.

“But you two were-”

“We were what?” She cut him off sharply. “We were fucking? Believe me, you wretch, I don’t spread my legs for just a thank you and a coffee with some flowers.”

“But Andrew-”

“The time I spent with him was paid for. Paid well. And I did my job well. Andrew was satisfied,” she pulled an expensive cigarette case from her bag and lit up. “His dick was so-so, he was better with his tongue. Talked a lot, though. About some kind of love. He spouted all sorts of nonsense. We should have just fucked.”

Lusha could feel with some sixth sense that Astasya was telling the truth.

“Who? Who paid you?”

Astasya laughed. Unpleasantly. Haughtily. Her laughter made it so that Lusha felt even more pathetic and even dirtier than he already was.

“As if I’d ever tell you, you beggar. I still want to live a little longer in this fucking world.”

She turned and walked toward the tram stop.

Lusha, coming to his senses, overtook her and blocked her way.

“You’re taking a risk here, I really will call-”

“I’ll pay!” Lusha interrupted her. “I’ll pay you! Just tell me who gave you the money for Andrew.”

“You? Pay me?” Astasya laughed again and suddenly stopped short. “Although… You were saving up for that sick girl… Alright. Seventy-five exes and I’ll tell you.”

Lusha felt like someone big, even bigger than Arkar, had suddenly clapped their hands over his ears.

“But I don’t have that kind of money…”

“Well, when you get it, come back. Now get lost and don’t show up with empty pockets again, or I swear on the grave of my rapist bastard of a father, I’ll tell the Lady everything.”

***

Lusha opened the jar and counted the bills and coins. For almost a year, he had been saving, doing any odd jobs he could find at the factories and stealing food so as not to spend money on it. He had also bent his back at the port and… sometimes, he’d just stolen things. Mostly stuff that could be sold immediately.

He got lucky more often than not, but since he had never ended up behind bars, then…

There were exactly seventy-five exes in the jar.

For a second, his conscience urged him to send part of this money to his sister and go after her on the train himself, while the other part…

No. He couldn’t. He couldn’t leave the Metropolis without finding out what had happened to Andrew. Why his brother hadn’t come back that evening. What it all meant… He had to get to the bottom of it!

After closing the jar, the boy ran out into the street and rushed headlong toward the brothel. Today, after eight months, he would finally find out everything and…

***

Pain. There was only pain. It was burning his body, then plunging it into a deep cold. He was drowning and falling at the same time. His bones were cracking, his skin bubbling from the boiling water poured over it. His lips tore from screaming, his teeth broke against each other. He writhed. He screamed. He tried to break free, but he couldn’t.

Something dull and hard was hitting his ribs, knocking the air out of his lungs.

Something sharp was cutting his flesh, running its blade over his open eyes and tearing his eyeballs open while he was still alive. They were pulling out his hair. They were breaking his fingers.

There was only pain.

And nothing but pain.

***

Ardan was standing in a cemetery. He was watching a boy who was bent over a fresh grave, where a wooden triangle stood instead of a headstone.

Everything around them was drowning in brown, viscous mud. And the sky was covered with an impenetrable factory smog.

This was not a memory.

More like a fantasy.

“I didn’t make it,” the boy whispered, placing a white lily on the grave. “I was too late. Someone caught me, and then… I don’t remember much. I only remember that it hurt. For a long time. A very long time. And when I opened my eyes again, I saw you. You have a very beautiful hat, Mr. Wizard. I wanted one too.”

Ardan approached him. He wanted to say something. Anything. But he didn’t know what he could possibly offer him. How did one comfort a dying child…

“Will you help me?” Lusha looked at him and… it was as if he could suddenly see everything at once.

All of Ardan’s thoughts. All his worries. His entire past and present.

Their minds were connected by a strong thread, and like any such thread, it went both ways.

“Will you help me, Mr. Wizard?” He repeated the question.

“Did you find out what happened to Andrew?”

Lusha shook his head.

“No, Mr. Wizard…” The boy suddenly looked worried. “Save my sister. Help me save my sister.”

“Is she in danger?”

“The ones who hurt me will want to find her. She’s suitable for their plans as well. Please help her. And help all the others too.”

“All the others?” Everything around them was gradually blurring. “Who are all the others, Lusha? Who should I help?”

“The children. The other children. Help them too, please. So we won’t be in pain anymore.”

The boy’s silhouette began to recede.

“Do you promise that you’ll help, Mr. Wizard?” He asked again, but from a distance.

“Yes,” was all Ardan could answer. “I swear it on my hat.”

Lusha smiled. Brightly and warmly. The way only a child could smile.

“Good, Mr. Wizard. If you swear on your hat, then I believe you.” Suddenly, Lusha turned and looked somewhere ahead of him. His face smoothed over, and the signs of anxiety and fear disappeared from it. “They are so beautiful, Mr. Wizard.”

“Who?”

“The angels.”

***

Ardan blinked. Before him lay the lifeless, mangled body of a boy. His single, sightless eye was staring at Ardan’s face.

“Partner?” Milar asked hesitantly.

The young man raised a hand to his face and ran it over his cheek. A scarlet smear was left behind on his fingertips. The strain had burst some of his blood vessels. That sounded much simpler and more likely than a bloody tear.

“Things are really not as we thought, Milar,” Ardan said, handing his staff to his partner and lifting the dead body into his arms.

At that moment, he didn’t care that he would get blood on himself and have to throw out another suit.

He wanted to carry it himself to… where? He didn’t know. For now, the car would do.

Milar followed.

“We need to find out if a worker named Astasya has gone missing from the Crimson Lady’s place. Or if she’s missing in general.”

“The kid was connected to her? To some woman named Astasya?”

“Yes,” Ardan confirmed. “It’s all a bit complicated, I’ll tell you on the way.”

They were gradually making their way up the half-ruined staircase leading out of the cellar.

“We need to get the kid to Rovnev,” Milar said suddenly in a commanding tone. “We might learn something else.”

The captain knew. He knew for sure that Ardan didn’t want to hand Lusha’s body over to Alice, who would cut it into dozens of small pieces and examine each one under a microscope.

He didn’t want to.

But it had to be done.

It was the job.

“Yes,” was all Ardan replied. “We’ll take him.”

Milar seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Well, at least we dealt with the demon.”

Ardan, nudging the door open with his back—a door that had miraculously not fallen apart from the damp, mold and rot—looked at the captain and said dryly.

“That wasn’t a demon, Milar. Just a tiny Homeless Fae.”

Milar’s eyes widened in surprise, but Ardi didn’t see it as he had already resumed walking.

“It wasn’t a demon?”

“No. We’ll probably meet the demon later.”

“Well, I’ll be a…”

Milar didn’t finish that sentence. He’d done enough swearing for one day. He still had to kiss his wife and children with that mouth.

And so, holding his partner’s staff, he followed after him. And for a moment, a fleeting instant, his hand instinctively twitched toward his holster. It had seemed to him, most likely due to the interplay of light and shadow, like the cellar’s darkness had stirred behind Ard. It was as if, like a mythical cloak, it had tried to settle on his shoulders, but then, after being frightened away, it had receded back into the cellar. It was as if something had prevented it from touching the young man.

“And he walked through fields of blood, and from his shoulders flowed darkness and death,” the pompous lines from a children’s horror story about the Dark Lord came to mind for some reason.

“We’ll find them, Milar,” a muffled, growling voice sounded. “We’ll find them all. Every single one.”

The corporal didn’t specify who he was going to find. It was clear enough. It was just that Milar didn’t much like the feeling that he wasn’t walking behind a man, but a predator on the prowl.

“Dammit. He’s not even a human anyway,” Milar reminded himself and, holding the staff a bit awkwardly, took out a cigarette. “What a fucking day, by the Eternal Angels…”