by Pavel Kornev
The door was locked, but glass windows could hardly be considered a serious barrier to a criminal, who wants to get inside. And they weren't a barrier to me either; I carefully pressed one of the glass panes out, stuck my hand inside and undid the latch. Then I got my Roth–Steyr out of its holster, placed a round in the chamber and stepped quietly in the door.
A whiff of damp immediately hit my face, but here the damp was mixed with the light smoke of a candle and the stench of chronic illness.
Stepping quietly on the dried-out floorboards, I walked into the kitchen and peeked down the corridor. At the far end, I saw the flickering light of a candle flame reflected on the wall. Trying not to make a sound, I headed for the illuminated doorframe and suddenly caught a measured creaking sound.
Skreep-skreep. A moment of silence and again: skreep-skreep.
I stood for a moment, listening to the ringing silence, but still couldn't figure out what could be making the sound. What came to mind was the swinging of a pendulum, but I was able to say for sure that the sound was not the ticking of a clock.
No, it definitely was not ticking.
God knows why, but my back suddenly went damp with cold sweat and I got the desire to carry my legs out of here as quickly as possible. I overcame the momentary weakness, went further and looked into the spacious guest room. On the table there, I saw the uneven flickering flame of a candle.
The source of the incomprehensible scratching was embarrassingly banal. Some sickly man had thrown himself back into a rocking chair and was rocking away with abandon, not paying attention to anything around. His long thin black shadow was clinging to the wall, stretching out under the ceiling and spread-eagled on the wallpaper; the man was rocking in the chair, but the shadow was motionless.
The hair on the back of my head stood on end in horror. I definitely didn’t want to play the hero, intending to slink back outside but, just then, the shadow turned its head and looked at me.
Curse me! That creature saw me!
After that, the shadow stretched out blisteringly fast into the person, and he got up from the rocking chair with an unnaturally viscous motion. I didn't even have time to blink before the person was next to me, holding me by the front of my shirt. He jerked me sharply toward himself like a professional wrestler giving a hip throw. The rocking chair saved me. Its creaky lumber softened the blow, which made slamming into the wall much less painful; I do not know by what miracle, but I didn't even drop my Roth-Steyr and, when the inhabitant of this abandoned manor threw himself at me again, trying to get me by the neck, I met him with a pistol whip. The kilogram of iron hit him in the skull and the frail man was simply knocked off his feet. Now, I was standing over him, so I took a second swing, this time with the butt into his forehead. With a woody clap, the back of the man's head struck the floor. My opponent went limp all at once, like when a mechanical toy breaks.
Bracing my palm on his sunken chest, I drew back the pistol for another strike, but before I could swing it, the shadow crawled back out of the immobilized man's eyes and mouth. It doddered up around me, pulled me with invisible chains and crushed down on me with a wave of exorbitant weariness.
Practically losing my consciousness from the otherworldly impact, I stretched out to grab a pillow that had flown off the rocking chair and used it to cover the strange man's face. After that, I poked the barrel of my Roth-Steyr into the pillow and pulled the trigger.
I heard a weak clap, and smelled the residue of gunpowder. The shell went rolling around the floor-boards. The shadow disappeared without a trace. The man shook. His arms and legs jerked in mortal agony, then he went limp.
Done.
With a morbid groan, I stood to my feet and turned my head, driving away the fog that was overcoming it. And though the pillow may have dulled the sound enough so that neighbors and random passers-by wouldn't have heard the weak clap as a pistol shot, any other inhabitants of this manor were probably not fooled by the trick; I had to hurry.
I clipped on my glasses, which had fallen off when I fell over, pressed my back up against the wall and checked my Roth-Steyr. The pistol was in perfect shape. The immobile titanium slide provided considerable protection from supernatural attacks. Thanks to that, at least I knew that, no matter what kind of shadow beasts were nearby, they wouldn't be able to damage my weapon.
The ringing in my ears started to slightly abate, and I peeled myself from the wall, walking over to the entryway, it's door boarded up from the inside. I didn't go up to the second floor. Instead, I looked under the stairs in search of a way down to the basement.
There I found a small door that was not locked; its opening menaced with an impenetrable blackness, and I had no doubt whatsoever that the thing I was looking for would be waiting for me down there.
Curses!
I hate basements! I just hate them!
I do not suffer from claustrophobia. Being in rooms without doors or windows doesn’t make me particularly uncomfortable. I can walk calmly in the Metro, catacombs, and city sewer system, but basements...
Basements made me overflow with a completely irrational horror. I do not even know why. And how do you fight that which you cannot even begin to understand?
Just ignore it?
Good luck...
My pistol in front of me, I went down the steep stairs with a heavy heart, descending into the darkness. Contrary to my expectations, the air in the basement was dry and warm, and it smelled strongly of unfamiliar incense. And the murk, too, was not at all as hopeless as I had been imagining: the more I went down the rickety steps, the more I saw an uneven illumination coming from up ahead. And, after the semi-dark corridor led me to a room with fabric-draped walls, there was not a trace remaining of the former dim.
Everywhere I looked – on the short little tables, shelves, nightstands, and even on the soil floor – there were candles. The uneven oscillation of their orange flames dispersed the shadows and chased them off into the corners of the room.
The candles were burning everywhere, except in the darkness-immersed partition in the corner farthest from the entrance. And that was no coincidence. There were two crimson candle wicks there giving off little wisps of smoke, either intentionally blown out or accidentally extinguished.
I readjusted my grip on the pistol and switched off the safety. But as soon as I moved, the fabric on the partition burst, ripping into wisps of shadow rushing directly toward me! My Roth-Steyr gave a sharp jerk. The heavy pistol bullet caught the blistering shade, and a stripped-bare woman's body collapsed onto the floor. It rolled a bit, knocked over a few candles, then froze completely motionless among puddles of hardened wax.
Curses!
I moved back, pressed my back against the wall, and only then noticed something resembling an altar at the far wall. It was a vanity with a three-part mirror, and it was covered with a mound of baubles, all of them covered with old wax deposits, as if there had been candles burning in the same place over them for many long months.
My gaze was turned from the motionless body for just a moment, but that was plenty of time for the shot-through girl to turn from her side onto her stomach, pull her arms and legs under herself and start hacking up blood. Her face was pointed at the floor, obscured by long locks of thick black hair, but there could be no doubt that her dark eyes were now greedily drinking in my every move.
"Don't even think about it, Kira," I warned.
"Kira?" Her muffled laughter rang out in reply. The girl shook her head hard, throwing her hair in all directions. After that, she smoothed it back out in one graceful motion and asked: "Do you really think that's my name?"
"I just wanted to warn you not to do anything without thinking it through first," I announced in reply with all the calm I could muster, given the situation at hand.
Between Kira's upturned breasts there was a gaping bullet hole. From it, blood was oozing out onto her stomach, thighs and legs, but the girl didn't seem overly worried by the fatal wound.
&n
bsp; She was smiling. She was smiling at me!
And also the shadow. The very same shadow that had been controlling the frail person in the rocking chair. The shadow was spinning like a top inside Kira, bursting out of her occasionally in blades of transparent flame, spinning with gray whirlpools in bottomless eyes that already looked less than alive.
Such eyes simply could not belong to a person, and that frightened me. The only thing saving me from nervous shaking was the heft of the gun in my hands, but to be perfectly honest, I was shaking at the knees more and more anyway.
I was afraid. And that beast knew it.
"Look who’s talking about doing things without first thinking them through." Kira laughed uncontrollably and suddenly placed two fingers into her shot-through chest. A moment later, the girl pulled her hand from the wound, unclenched it and revealed a warped bullet. "Just a bit of lead and copper..." she said, surprised. "Did you really think that this could stop me?"
Her wound healed over; I gulped fitfully and told her:
"That was the plan, yes." Then I added: "To be perfectly honest, I wasn't planning on taking this to the point of shooting..."
"Smart boy," Kira purred, throwing the bullet over her back in a care-free motion. "You outsmarted me. Who'd have thought! You sniffed me out and wrapped me around your finger. What even made you suspect me?"
"A newspaper. You were in one of the pictures from the conductor's funeral," I said and demanded: "Release Albert! Release him, and we can go our separate ways in peace."
"Release him?" the girl asked in surprise. "Do you think I'm holding him? Do you not think it's rather his covetousness of my body?"
"Let him go and return the class ring," a nervous trembling started coming over me, but it was too late to retreat. "You will not take his soul."
"What makes you think I want his soul?" Kira frowned and whispered: "I need his talent! Talent, fear and despair! The last burst of emotion before stepping over the line. The dying heartbeat..." She stopped for a moment, then said in a normal, slightly bored voice: "But the most important thing, of course, is his talent. And I will take it and keep it safe and sound."
"Return the class ring, beast!"
"His weakness is unforgivable," Kira said as if she hadn't heard me. "A creator does not have the right to be weak. No sentimental stupidities, and no relics or little souvenirs. A true master lives in the present. He burns brightly and never goes out. He is ideal. He is worthy of his muse. All my... attachments..." the girl screwed up her face in disdain, "were to a person carrying a flaw inside. Every one like an apple with a worm. None of them achieved the ideal and none of them could ever achieve it."
"There is no ideal," I reminded her.
"Yes, there is!" Kira exclaimed with unexpected sharpness, even taking a step toward me. "And I will find it! It doesn't matter how long it takes. One day, we will be together!"
Shadows were dancing in the girl's eyes. They were luring me in and trying to get into my head, but I just gripped my pistol tighter.
"You aren't ideal either," the girl noted with what sounded like a bit of pity. "You also have a flaw inside. Why do you never remove your glasses? Are you ashamed of your eyes? Or is that your fetish?"
Kira extended her hand demandingly; I could only chuckle and move the loop of my glasses to the very end of my nose.
"Ah- ha!" the girl whispered, taking a step back involuntarily. "You're illustrious!"
"You've finally figured it out."
"Your talent is stronger than Albert's..."
"Back," I ordered, and the girl moved away. "Another step toward me and I'll shoot."
"Oh, come off it," Kira shrugged her shoulders. "Your talent will be mine, whether you want it or not. Do not be afraid, it will all be over quick..."
I pulled down on the trigger, but it gave way too easily and no shot rang out.
"I'm so weary of these new-fangled toys!" the girl laughed uncontrollably. "Loops, levers... Nothing new since the time of Archimedes. Breaking them is nothing but pleasure, my dear illustrious gentleman..."
My attempt to rack the slide didn't lead to anything good, either. Quite the opposite, in fact. Inside the titanium housing, something began to rattle as if the trigger mechanism had suddenly dissolved into pieces and turned into a useless collection of junk.
"Copper and lead are nothing to me," Kira started smiling. "Not steel, nor even cold iron can help. I will kill you, illustrious sir. I will kill you and drink your talent down, no matter what it is. If you do not resist, I will do it the nice way. You'll enjoy it even..."
A wave of horror rolled over me; I threw my jammed-up Roth-Steyr at her and pulled the three-barreled Cerberus from out of my jacket’s side pocket.
"Another little toy?" Kira snorted disdainfully. "Boys are so predictable..."
I didn't answer, instead simply pulling back on the trigger in silence. A shot clapped out. It started smelling intensely of pyroxyline and ozone.
Kira stared at the hole in her chest in incomprehension. The shadow inside her started twirling in a true hurricane of transparent fire and – clap! clap! – the pistol in my hand gave another two jolts.
Crimson blood started pumping out of the bullet holes. Kira stopped mid-stride and collapsed onto the floor, trying to get up, but it was to no effect.
"What is that?" burst out of her together with the blood gurgling out of her mouth.
"Sublime electricity and a full-aluminum jacket," I told her, changing out the spent magazine for a new one.
Infernal creatures and malefics could boast all they wanted of their ancient powers, but they were in no position to compete with progress; mages would never catch up to science.
You made yourself invincible to copper, steel and lead? Great! But what about the aluminum jackets of modern bullets? You taught yourself to put out the spark of a struck capsule and destroy a trigger mechanism? Excellent! But what do you think of these electrically-ignited powder rounds?
You cannot stop science. Science sweeps away everything in its path.
After reloading my Cerberus, I aimed it back at the girl, but I didn't have to shoot: the shadow inside Kira had already been extinguished and was blowing away like dust in the wind. The all-encompassing presence evaporated, and together with it went whatever was stopping this girl from dying. She went limp and just lied there, her face buried lifelessly in a pool of blood on the floor.
Not letting her out of my sight, I picked up my Roth-Steyr and moved back to the vanity. I found Albert's student ring there. It hadn't yet been covered by the streams of wax, so it wasn't hard. I then ran for the exit.
My fear didn't go anywhere. It was simply unbearable to be in this basement.
I found Albert Brandt in the Venetian Doge, a luxurious bordello with an obvious pretense of elegance and respectability. The poet was accompanied by three happy girls and a couple of society dandies of that type of over-aged playboy, who can never seem to burn through their inheritance, even though they spend entire days and nights in a row trying to do just that.
My friend was entertaining his audience with a recitation of his poems; the audience was paying him a strange amount of attention given where they were.
Blow me down! Only Albert could entertain the visitors of a bordello and its whores with a love ballad!
"Leopold! My savior!" The poet turned to me. "You are a genius! You see the very essence of things! I'm feeling a second wind!"
Leaving his drinking companions behind, Brandt walked over to the bar and tossed back the rest of the wine in his glass. He wiped his lips carelessly with his neckerchief and said with unhidden pride:
"I'm back!" and immediately added: "Some wine!"
An obliging drink slinger appeared next to us immediately. He filled Albert's glass and looked at me with anticipation. I waved him off, but the poet was already unstoppable. He demanded:
"Some lemonade for my friend!" Thus also providing unceasing attention to my person from all the respectable an
d not-so-respectable public in the establishment.
But it was good lemonade. I emptied the glass, allowed it to be filled again and asked the poet quietly:
"Where can we talk one-on-one?"
Albert led me to an alcove that was separated from the main room, plopped down on a pillow-covered couch and took a sip from his wine glass. I sat down next to him and drank my lemonade. The cold drink filled my body with a disarming freshness, chasing off my agitation.
"Leo?" Albert shuddered, quite surprised at the drawn-out pause. "You wanted to talk?"
"Yes. Take this," I said, handing the poet his class ring.
"Holy Mother of God!" Albert grew joyful. "You found it? Where'd it end up? Under the vanity?"
"Doesn't matter."
Albert tried to put the class ring on his crooked pinkie, but didn't find too much success in that. He then tried it on his other hand, but that didn't work either, so he pulled a silver watch out of his vest pocket, attached the ill-fated ring to its chain and instantly lost all interest in it.
"I am indebted to you, Leo!" The poet assured me, in any case.
"You could say that," I confirmed and sighed. "By the way, about Kira..."
"Kira?" Albert shuddered. "How do you like her? Great body, no? And so passionate! You don't want to get to know her a bit better? You won't regret it, believe me!"
I just shook my head, not telling him that I had already grown more acquainted with Kira than Albert ever had.
What for? The value of the lost class ring was equivalent to that of the love that suddenly flared up in his heart. Her charms were set alight, but after the death of his "muse," the poet had become himself again: a thrifty, cynical, ladies’ man, immeasurably talented and no less scatterbrained.
"So, what happened with Kira?" Albert asked.
"She doesn't want to embarrass you," I told the poet. "She wants to give you time to come back to your senses."
