The figure disappeared. Farrokh was alone at his table.
He lifted a glass of whiskey with lemon, Robin’s favorite drink.
“You raised a successor to be proud of. That boy…” Farrokh smiled sadly. “I’d rather not kill him, but… Damn it, Robin, he’s crazy! He’s totally crazy. Only someone that crazy would steal that bloody cat.”
Chapter 37
Under Joe’s intent and somewhat surprised stare, Alex dragged Gribovsky out into the street and lifted his hat in parting.
“Have a good night, Joe.”
“See you, Alex,” the club’s eternal bouncer replied.
Amalgam Street welcomed the battered lieutenant from the super-secret organization and the skinny black wizard carrying him on his back with its usual busy indifference.
Humans and non-humans alike hurried in all directions on their personal business (to restaurants, artistic expositions, interracial swinger parties) or just strolled around. Just like the residents and visitors of Myers City’s bohemian district always did.
No one cared about Alex or Gribovsky.
And so, leaning the guardsman against a green hydrant (for some unknown reason, all the hydrants on Amalgam Street were painted green), Alex wasn’t worried that a well-intentioned passer-by would call the cops or an ambulance. The locals knew better than that.
“Are they coming from the gay club?”
“Probably had a fight.”
“Is he a drug dealer?”
“Oh, I’m out of amestris! Can we go get some?”
“Yeah, once he wakes up.”
“Haha!”
That was the size of the attention the two men garnered.
Alex rummaged through Gribovsky’s pockets for his phone.
“Just…use…yours,” the Polish guardsman groaned, spitting out blood and broken teeth.
“I wasn’t a call bitch in prison. Why become one on the outside?” Alex meant it as a joke, but Gribovsky didn’t seem that amused.
The bloody rags were slippery in Alex’s hands. The pockets wouldn’t open. And when they did, out poured some teeth, bits of glass, and other nastiness.
“Of…fensive?”
“I just hate being available all the ti—…oh, there it is!”
Alex pulled the brand new Apple iPhone out into the light of the neon signs and streetlamps.
“Such a hipster,” he snorted. “What’s your password?”
Gribovsky tried to put his thumb on the screen instead of answering, but that didn’t help—it was broken and covered in blood.
“Four ones.”
“Quite the imagination,” Alex smirked, giving Gribovsky a friendly clap on the shoulder that elicited a groan. “Oh, sorry.”
“Get…lost…Doom.” Gribovsky coughed up blood and rasped (it sounded like a punctured lung). “Dial 117-/-615.”
Doom did just that. After three tones, a voice responded.
“24-hour laundry. Where’s your pickup?”
“Amalgam Street District,” Alex replied, totally unsurprised by the verbal coding. If even the Abyss had branches nicknamed laundries, repair shops, and cleaning services, why shouldn’t the Guards? “214 Plave Street. It’s urgent—the laundry is very messy.”
“Urgent order, 214 Plave Street. Expect a car in three minutes.”
“Say…unacc…ompanied,” Gribovsky coughed.
“Unaccompanied,” Alex repeated into the phone.
“Accepted. Wait there,” the voice on the line said, followed instantly by the dial tone.
Switching off the smartphone screen, Doom dropped it back into Gribovsky’s torn and bloody pocket. How had it not been smashed to pieces? Were all the ads about the new iPhone being shatter-proof true?
“Leave,” Gribovsky spat more blood. “They’ll…ask…questions.”
Alex nodded and stood to leave but stopped to wave a hand and curse.
[ATTENTION! Prohibited spell used: DEAD NECROMANCER SEAL of the Blood, Darkness, and Death School. Mana consumption: N/A.]
The shadows around Gribovsky and the hydrant condensed, turning into a dark, barely transparent, and fanged giant skull. The humans and non-humans walking by recoiled and hastily retreated to the opposite side of the street.
Amalgam Street wasn’t just a bohemian mecca. It was also the heart of Darkness in Myers City.
The Dark Creatures’ organization is best hidden in the most obvious place.
Making sure the defense was strong enough to even hold off an Adept (at least, their first attempt), Doom lurched wearily over to his parked bike.
“Hey, pumpkin?”
Alex looked back.
Gribovsky winked at him with the eye that wasn’t yet black while clumsily retrieving a Skittle with broken fingers and tossing it into his mouth.
“We’re even…for O’Hara.”
“Now we are,” Alex nodded.
Having said that, he rolled on the throttle and galloped his steel horse down the street.
You had to have been an idiot not to guess that it was Gribovsky who’d sent the uniformed fairy to see Alex back then.
He’d wanted to see if Alex could handle it.
But Doom knew how to make people show what they were made of, too.
***
Turning up the collar of her cashmere coat, Mara stood at the entrance to the Schooner Belis.
Despite its close proximity to the university, it wasn’t an especially popular establishment with students. There was a large selection of alcoholic drinks, but very few dining options. And drinking in front of tutors and professors was considered bad form.
(Then why did they still have drinking parties in the dorms? That was a different question.)
In the few weeks she’d spent at the university, Glomebood had only met someone in student uniform at the Schooner once or twice.
“Closed,” she said, reading the sign out loud.
That was odd for a night establishment. Just as weird was the fact that it was empty at that hour.
Only the dim light of the lamps over the bar counter dispersing the caustic semi-darkness hinted that there was someone inside.
Mara pushed open the door. Sure, it was locked, but a plain mechanical lock with a bit of magic wasn’t enough to stop someone from her famous dwarf blacksmith line. It was less about her physical strength and more about the magic she had in her blood. Half her blood, to be precise.
The hall styled to look like a ship’s lower deck was almost empty and almost silent. The floor was washed clean, and the chairs were upturned on the tables. Barely perceptible cigarette smoke and piano music eased through the air.
Across the hall, by the stage with musical instruments covered with a tarp to protect them from dust, stood a grand piano.
It was old and shabby, long unplayed. Visitors put bags on it; waiters used it to hold trays with food and drinks. There were rumors that a couple at some party had fucked long and hard on it for the whole full house to see.
The piano was still there for just one reason: it was too big to be carried out through any of the bar’s doors. (How did it come to be inside then? That was the question.)
An old instrument.
An idle instrument.
Almost forgotten.
But it was polished to a shine and freshly varnished. The lid stood up like a shark’s fin once again, cleaving the cigarette smoke, a glass of whiskey with lemon on the music stand.
Long, elegant fingers fluttered over the keys, making music that was high-pitched and beautiful, fast and slow at times, reminiscent of long-forgotten animated movies from Mara’s early childhood.
Movies about a fluffy magic neighbor, a girl flying a broomstick, a moving castle with a wizard and a fire spirit.
Mara loved those movies.
And she knew the tune.
“Is that Yiruma, If I Could See You Again?” she asked when the last note died away.
Professor Alexander Dumsky, looking neither sober nor fresh, lifted the glass
, dropped his pinky, and dumped the whiskey down his throat.
“Are you that bad at reading, Glomebood?” he asked in his usual voice—a bit of mockery, a ton of pride, and a pinch of arrogance. “The sign plate on the door should say closed. Doesn’t it?”
“I saw a light on inside and came in.”
The professor stood, went over to the counter, and poured himself more whiskey from the bottle. It was less than a quarter full. He had to have been drinking several hours straight.
“You’re going to find yourself in trouble if you keep walking into closed places just because there’s a light on.”
“But I knew you were here.”
“And?” Going back over to the piano, the professor put his fingers on the keys. They looked surprisingly slender and at home there. It was like they were made to play.
“Where did you learn how to play so well?” Mara asked.
The professor froze, his eyes dimming for a moment as he was mentally transported back to some very distant memory.
“So, you broke into the bar to discuss my past with me, Glomebood? That’s definitely not a good way to keep yourself well and healthy.”
“Actually, I came to ask a question.”
“And you asked it. You even got an answer.”
“A different question, I mean.”
“Alas,” the professor said, lifting his glass to her. “Outside of class, I’m only charitable enough to give one answer for free. One per year. So, come back after January 1st. I just can’t promise I won’t have modified my student charity support program by then…”
“Do you always talk this much when you want to hide what you’re actually thinking, Professor?”
Dumsky paused and looked at her.
“I’m really at a loss. Should I be surprised that you’re brave enough to interrupt me or share a funeral agent’s business card with you? With an approach like that, I’m not sure you’ll live to see graduation.”
“You said you’ll help us with the tournament for half the prize money. We’re in. So, I’m here to find out when we start practices.”
With a respectful cough, the professor lifted his glass to her again.
“You asked a question without actually asking it. I see the patient’s more alive than dead.”
“Excuse me?”
“Damn. You’re good at spoiling things—it’s another question!”
“So, when’s practice, Professor?”
Instead of answering, Alexander Dumsky placed his glass back on the music stand and continued playing.
Mara’s words had pulled him back into the past. Just like everything else that evening. Everything reminded him of probably the best time of his life.
The time he’d spent at Follen School.
Chapter 38
The door creaked, unwilling to open. Massive and ponderous, the sunlight glinted on cracked varnish, broken ornaments, and some greasy spots.
The twisted, rusty hinges made opening the door quite the ordeal. Little Alexander used the old reading room as his personal asylum, one only penetrated by the few who dared enter the west wing of the castle.
Yes, the west wing. Just like in the cartoon with the living furniture pieces he’d watched with Robin a short time before.
“There you are, Sasha,” a female voice with a thick eastern European accent said from next to his ear as he sat in a deep, giant armchair upholstered in chintz.
Just like the door, the west wing, and really the whole manor house, the armchair was old, smelling of dust, mold, and cat poop.
The Follen manor had lots of cats.
“Anastasia,” Alexander smiled, closing his textbook and trying to hide it behind his back. That definitely wasn’t enough to escape the Russian witch’s warm, brown eyes.
She was tall, taller than Robin. And beautiful. If Alexander were older, he’d have called her sexy, but in those days he didn’t know much about sex. Actually, all he knew was that it was one of things most frequently bought and sold in High Garden.
She almost never wore dresses, preferring a shabby Star Wars hoodie, threadbare Levi’s jeans, and Converse sneakers. She had only one pair of Converse, but she put in different colored laces every three days.
And is it even worth mentioning that she was dating Robin?
Neither the height difference nor the age gap bothered them.
Robin had turned seventeen the previous week, Alexander’s third at Follen, while Anastasia was coming up on her twenty-second birthday.
That provided an endless supply of jokes for the other students at Follen School of Dark Wizardry and the Forbidden Arts. (That was what Robin called it, a reference to some Hogwarts or other. Alexander had no idea what kind of place that was, though his older friend promised to show him a bunch of movies about a bespectacled wizard the next weekend.) Everyone agreed that Robin and Anastasia had probably come together as the only adults outside Professor Raewsky at the school.
“Why aren’t you playing with the other kids?”
Alexander had laughed at Anastasia’s accent at first. She sounded like a character straight out of an old spy movie. He’d teased her until she poured a bucket of cold water over him.
Unsurprisingly, that had cooled him off.
“Are they hurting cats again?” Dumsky squinted.
“Um…” Anastasia pretended to fall thoughtful. “Patrick and Jessie call it a game. Irma and Ganesh agree with them.”
“Little bastards.” Jumping to his feet, Alexander was about to dash for the door when he literally bumped into Robin.
As always, the latter was wearing a suit, a narrow tie, and a stripeless hat. There was a cigarette in his fingers.
Robin was a heavy smoker.
A very heavy smoker.
He said smoking used to take the edge off the hunger when he was begging for food in the High Garden streets. Alexander didn’t believe that. How could smoke replace food? Robin was presumably just making up excuses for his bad habit.
“Looking like a bad boy again.” Robin ruffled Alexander’s hair. “If you stay like that, you won’t lose your innocence until you turn as old as the main character from the movie we watched yesterday.”
“Forty years is a pittance for a true wizard.”
“Pittance? If you keep using words like that, you’re going to die a virgin.”
Dumsky pushed Robin’s hands away and took another step toward the dark corridor flanked by suits of armor. Its walls were hung with tapestries and paintings, its floor covered with once-thick carpet long worn out.
“One against four, Alex?” Robin inhaled and blew smoke out of his nose. “Anastasia and I spent two days nursing you back to health last time.”
“They’re hurting cats!”
“Oh Loki, god of the dark arts,” Robin said with an eyeroll. “Why did you endow this wonder kid with such a great love for those flea carriers?”
“They’re soft and fluffy.” Alex frowned. “And they don’t have fleas. They don’t run away when I come to pet them, either.”
“They don’t,” Anastasia smiled, coming up from behind him. “Sometimes it’s scary how this seven-year-old’s—”
“I’m almost eight!”
“This almost-eight-year-old’s,” the Russian witch corrected herself with the same smile on her lips and deep in her eyes, “body is shared by a black magic genius and…a boy of eight.”
“A boy in the shiny black armor of a dark knight,” Robin added. “Fear him! He’s the terror that flaps in the night, the—”
“That’s not from Duck Tales,” Dumsky interrupted. “I Googled it. It’s Darkwing Duck. A separate series.”
“You don’t know anything.” Robin poked Alex’s forehead with a finger. He always did that when he wanted to explain something but didn’t have the words. “Well, do you remember what I taught you?”
“First, watch my feet. Second, don’t let anyone get behind me. Third, use mana sparingly so I still have some in reserve after the fi
ght. Fourth—”
Robin’s hand flashed in front of Alex’s eyes.
“What’s this?”
“A notebook.”
“I can see that. What are you using it for?”
“Writing down your lessons.”
“Damn it! Damn it, you fucking…”
The rest of Robin’s cursing was drowned out by Anastasia’s ringing laughter.
“I’m going to start calling you Sheldon Cooper.” Embracing him from behind, she started to squeeze slightly.
“Stop…cuddling…me,” Doom said, barely getting the words out.
“Well, wifey, it’s time to let our son go fight his battle.”
“I’m not your wifey,” Anastasia shot back, sticking her tongue out at him. “And I’m not letting my son go.”
“If you’re not my wifey, then was he born in sin?”
“No. He’s just not yours.”
“Oh Loki. Why? Why did you punish me with a non-wife who cheats on me?! The only good thing is that you had such a cute wonder kid. Here, let me hug him, too.”
“You’re strangling me!” Trapped between their bodies, Alexander got away. He dusted off the sweater that fell nearly to his heels and completely covered his sliced jeans and plain sneakers. “And I’m not your son!”
“How awful.”
“You heard that, too, dear? Our son abandoned us!”
“Oh dear. I don’t know where we went wrong as parents.”
“A couple of idiots,” Alexander said through gritted teeth before realizing that no one was blocking his way anymore and dashing off into the corridor.
“Come back with your shield or on it, my boy!” Robin shouted after him.
***
Putting one chair on the floor and sitting down on it, Mara listened to her professor and supervisor play. So absorbed. So obsessed. And so painful. His fingers fluttered easily over the keys, touching them briefly and lightly, but…
But still she had the impression that Professor Dumsky was playing more on broken glass than on a piano, each touch bringing with it unbearable pain.
Pain that was mental, not physical.
It was as if the broken shards of glass were cutting straight through to his heart.
All that dulled the pain were the cigarette in his mouth and the glass of whiskey.
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