by Dark, Masha
The sound of breaking glass came from Stella’s bedroom. Apparently, she had managed to get so wasted that she couldn’t hold on to anything. Of course, she may also have been doing it to spite him. The thirteenth year of their marriage was coming to an end. Stella was thirty-eight. Three years ago their family doctor had diagnosed her with alcoholism. Stella had tried to get treatment, and from time to time she even succeeded in taking herself in hand. She wrote a novel with the pretentious title Harmonia praestabilita – Predefined Harmony. The book was about the life of the modern elite, the wives of millionaires, and not only the legal ones. Published by a notorious Moscow publishing house, this circumlocution on the theme of ‘the rich also cry’ achieved massive sales, almost instantaneously becoming an international bestseller. At least, that’s what the tabloids reported. People longed to know about the suffering beauties of the rich and famous.
But neither the tabloids nor Stella’s new hobby bothered him. Her escape from reality did not last long – half a year after the publication of Harmonia praestabilita, Stella was once again drowning herself in drink. She no longer wanted to write the novel’s sequel. The spark had vanished. When their neighbor in the exclusive community, the renowned film producer Gunnar Otuzan, came to their house and offered to turn the bestseller into a movie, Stella somewhat sluggishly said she would think about it. In the end she did sell the film rights, but since then she had never even asked about the fate of the project.
Stella stared at her husband with clouded eyes. She’d just noticed that he was standing in her doorway.
“What’s with…coming in here…without knocking…mon cheri,” Stella babbled drunkenly.
He carefully pushed the door shut and walked deeper into her bedroom. Stella was lying on her bed dressed only in her underwear. Next to her on the bedside table there was a dish of black caviar. Shards of glass were strewn all over the floor, apparently from a broken wineglass. An overlarge bottle of vodka was wedged between Stella’s thighs.
“Do you know,” began Stella with a thick tongue, “people who live in simple, common apartments…walk to the factory every day at six in the morning …they probably think, ‘I wonder what those rich folks eat? Probably fancy caviar.’”
Stella burst into sobs. For several minutes he stood and watched as she cried, or more accurately, as the alcohol within her cried. Tears flowed abundantly down a face that had lost its looks long ago. Then Stella dried her eyes with a corner of a silk sheet and for greater effect blew her nose on the expensive fabric.
“They don’t know,” he said, suppressing his disgust with difficulty.
“What?” asked Stella. She had already managed to forget what she’d been talking about a minute ago.
“Those who go to the factory at six in the morning,” he said. “They haven’t the slightest clue what caviar tastes like.”
“And they’re happy because of it… Oh, you’re such a bastard,” said Stella and again began to cry, this time mournfully.
Calculating slut, he thought.
On the second floor, Jan could clearly hear his mother’s piteous howling, and she of course knew full well that he could hear her. She was counting on it.
“I advise you to finish that bottle and go to sleep,” he said calmly.
“Drink up and go to sleep, huh? And what’ll you be doing?”
Stella seized the neck of the bottle in her fist and jerked her hand up and down several times in an illustrative gesture.
“Shove it up there yourself,” he sneered. “It will be of more use. Perhaps it’ll calm you.”
“You’re an asshole!” she yelled.
Stella yanked the bottle out from between her thighs and in a flash hurled it at her husband. He ducked. The bottle hit the wall behind him and flew apart into hundreds of glass shards.
“You fucking queer!” Stella added.
He looked at her consideringly. Stella was so close, a mere step away…A mere step and just one motion of his hand were all that separated the woman from a broken neck.
“What are you looking at?” Stella asked, spreading her arms wide. “You want to hit me? You think I’m scared? Let me remind you, mon cheri, that six servants are living in our guest house. How would that be for your PR? They’ll tell everyone about how you beat your own wife at night. All of Stockholm will know tomorrow! Not to mention that you son is sleeping upstairs, and he…”
“Shut up.”
In a flash he found himself on the bed grasping her by the arm. He squeezed so hard that she whined from pain.
“Shut up,” he repeated. “You are not an idiot, Stella. You have a fat, easy life. Just one of your cars costs more than most people earn in their lives. Why would you want to lose all that? Think about it. Buy yourself a publishing house, engage in business. Or just drink yourself under a bit more. You can’t immediately drink yourself to death on the kind of vodka you’re used to guzzling. Live your life however the fuck you want. And let me live my own.”
“Your life?” sneered Stella. She began to sober up. He heard how the thoughts that swarmed in her head were changing from chaotic to ever more perceptive. That was not good. It didn’t enter into his plans at all.
“Your life?” said Stella again. “And what does your life consist of, really? Of machinations with budgetary funds? Or of scorn for me and Jan? Or perhaps of your nighttime excursions?”
He hit her across the face. Stella yelped and fell backwards onto the bed. Blood gushed from her nostrils, bathing the pillow. He inhaled the salty-sweet, dizzying aroma and a shiver of approaching rapture passed over his entire body.
“But do you know what the most horrible thing in our relationship is?” screamed Stella, wiping blood from her face with the back of her hand. “It’s not even that you don’t want me, it’s that I don’t want you! You’re repulsive to me, do you hear? You disgust me!”
This time Stella received a brief, but heavy blow to the head. Then he grabbed her by the hair and pressed her forehead to the headboard of the bed.
“If you so much as squeak, I’ll kill you,” he warned her.
She silently tried to fold herself up, to protect herself from him with arms streaked with her own blood. For good measure he cuffed her yet again.
“Now you will get up, pour yourself a full glass of vodka, drink it all, then go to sleep,” he ordered, carefully enunciating every word. “Do you understand me?”
Stella nodded. There was horror in her eyes. The blood that streamed over her face in some strange way beautified the woman; it added a hint of charm to her face, as well as a hint of the grotesque. She was restraining herself, trying with all her might not to cry out. He also restrained himself, or rather he restrained the animal within himself that was always trying to break free, obstinately desiring to savage…But he mustn’t let it, it still wasn’t time, he needed to wait just a bit longer…
Stella rose from the bed like a sleepwalker and walked over to the bar in the corner. The sound of vodka gurgling into a glass filled the room. Then the character of the sound changed – Stella was pouring the liquid down her throat. Somewhere around halfway through, Stella gagged and spilled the contents of the glass. The fresh smell of alcohol spread through the entire room. But it could no longer overcome the tart, salty-sweet aroma of blood, that aroma that called to him…
“Wipe off the blood,” he commanded, swallowing convulsively.
Stella obeyed. She wiped at the blood with napkins. The aroma did not go away, even though it did disperse a bit.
“Drink another,” he said.
Stella was once again looking at him with dull eyes. The sobriety that had returned for a short while again retreated. Stella obediently filled the glass up to the rim and tossed it back in one draught. This time she did it without spilling a drop.
“Bottoms up,” Stella mumbled inarticulately, and then she belched lustily. She was once again drunk.
Then, staggering, she turned around and lay down without a single sound, c
overing herself up to her chin with a sheet. At roughly the same moment he detected a growing agitation beyond the door. Naturally, Jan had felt the argument and now he longed to find out if something had happened to his beloved mama.
But Stella had already disappeared into a tumultuous dream, as evidenced by her closed, slightly twitching eyelids.
“Good night, dear,” he said and he left the bedroom.
Jan was standing beneath the arch that connected the spacious foyer with the dining room. A large frying pan was in the boy’s hands, and there was a substance of inexplicable origin stuck to the bottom of the pan. It was obviously burnt, judging by the sharp, unpleasant smell.
“What do you want?” he, scowling.
“Blintzes with meat,” replied the boy, nodding towards the pan. “I brought them for mama. She hasn’t eaten anything all day.”
“You know very well that your mama is ill,” he said, trying not to raise his voice. “And right now she isn’t interested in your blintzes.”
“You’re lying,” Jan claimed stubbornly.
“I’m lying?” he said, sneering. “Ah well, come here.”
Jan did not move a muscle.
“Come, come,” he called. “I will show you your mama.”
“You hit her.” Jan was barely holding back tears.
And then it became clear to him why the boy was carrying a frying pan. Jan was dead set on attacking him.
“You are a rat,” continued Jan, squeezing the handle of the frying pan more tightly. “If you hit mama one more time I will kill you.”
A very real, animalistic rage burned in boy’s eyes. This little creature loyally and obsessively loved the human woman that was its mother. In all its twelve years it had walked on two legs, slept at night and not once in its life had it killed. But now it stood there and looked at him with his own savage, burning eyes, in which there was nothing except a single passionate desire – to kill.
He laughed softly. This creature was his son. Everything was as it should be.
“I understand you,” he began, but then he suddenly felt a powerful, interior jolt. The time had come.
“Go to sleep,” he ordered. He knew that his voice would begin to change in a few seconds. “But we will return to this conversation.”
Jan began blinking fearfully. His eyes were once again the eyes of a normal twelve year old child. Turning, Jan swiftly ran up the stairs to the second floor, still holding the frying pan with its burnt blintzes. Soon the boy disappeared from sight.
That’s it, he did not want to, could not delay any longer. Right there in the foyer he ripped the clothes from his body and sprinted from the house into the coolness of the night.
Outside there was not a single light burning – all his orders were followed to the letter, and he had expressly ordered every single light on the entire grounds of his mansion to be turned off at night. The servants, of course, considered this just a strange caprice of a wealthy master. But he was assured that no outsiders would be able to discern his true form in the impenetrable darkness. There were precedents, but those who saw him so would never again have the ability to tell of it.
The prohibition against turning on lights was not the only precautionary measure of his residence. He also had a Sentinel with whom he had reached an agreement. The essence of the agreement boiled down to a mutually advantageous cooperation, a certain symbiosis, a coexistence that was to the benefit of both sides. The Sentinel was the best security known to him. Upon contact with any living creature, his corporeal mantle emitted a certain poison. This poison could penetrate anything, even though the protective layers of specialized clothing; it was mortally dangerous and acted almost instantly. The poison destroyed humans, animals, and birds, but was harmless to him. In exchange he fed the Sentinel. It feasted on human emotions, exclusively negative ones. Terror, hatred, envy, agony – all these were nourishment for the Sentinel, as well as plentiful in his home.
The categorical taboo against walking on his beloved lawn was perceived by the maintenance staff just like the prohibition against illuminating the grounds. True, some people were astonished that this grass was always so impeccably cut since there was no gardener in the household. They were astonished, but readily supplied an answer to their own question – it must be a special kind of grass. Genetic engineering, an exclusive personal commission, a powerful lot of money – whatever. In the final analysis, how was the master’s excess any of their business? The wealthy have their whims. And for them the main thing was that their wages be paid on time. As for Stella and Jan, they had not asked him about anything in a long time.
At a brisk pace, almost a run, he passed by the guest house and in a single, powerful leap, he jumped over the high, blank wall. Just for a moment a large black shadow appeared in the heavens and then it dissolved back into the darkness.
However, human curiosity knew no limits. His rivals in business, his political opponents, journalists, and his neighbors in the housing community asked with envious regularity about his lack of bodyguards, or even security guards. How could he get by without a single bodyguard? In just the past year there had been seventeen attempts on his life. But even more strange was the fact that each time he remained safe and unharmed. How could that be? He always shrugged his shoulders and said he’d been lucky since birth. His health was sound. Plus, he did not drink, he did not smoke, he stayed fit.
He imperceptibly brushed past the guard booth and was outside the boundaries of the development’s territory.
Meanwhile, his appearance changed. The soft, baggy human body, which for the past decade and a half had been serving as refuge for his preternatural essence, gave way to that which was inside. Now he was a head taller in height and wider in the shoulders. His gnarled, muscular legs ended in huge seven-toed paws, and the strong, grey-yellow claws on his deformed toes no longer had anything in common with human nails. The skin on his whole body coarsened and now resembled scales.
The muscles on his torso bulged to such an incredible extent that they would have caused envy in the most prominent and steroid-ridden bodybuilder in the world. His arms, which were also overgrown with muscles, lengthened and ended in paws. His fingers themselves elongated into wickedly curved claws, which could rip his prey in half with one swipe.
Even his penis changed, transforming into a thing of gigantic proportions that now hung down between his scaled thighs like proof of his incontestable and inhuman masculinity.
His face also became different. More accurately, it was no longer a face, but a hairless, almost skeletal muzzle. His dreadful jaws, when opened, displayed two rows of razor sharp fangs. Above, the yellow eyes of a vulture gleamed wickedly and hungrily.
The monstrosity running through the night was the living embodiment of the most macabre human nightmares. The monster savagely snapped its murderous jaws, pulling air in through its nostrils. He was hungry, and he searched the wind for the scent of decent prey.
The man in which the monster lived was called Alexander Soigu. The monster itself had a completely different name, a name that was as ancient and terrible as he himself was.
The nostrils of the fiend inflated as he inhaled. Then he exhaled noisily, not for a moment lessening his pace. He smelled iron and rubber. After several more meters a car appeared. A new sports car stood on the roadside by the entrance to a small copse of trees. The scent of heated flesh hit his nostrils – the humans inside the vehicle were having sex. This meant he would have two victims tonight. The lips of the monster expanded into a mischievous, malformed grin. Well, they’d meet death at the peak of bliss.
2.
Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
Whoever desires peace, let him prepare for war.
Just as Marisa expected, she was awake all night. She understood full well that the likelihood that Volsky’s men would call her in the middle of the night to announce the results of the test was near zero. Yet for all that, she could not fall asleep. In addition her appetite w
as running so wild that at six in the morning she had to run to the supermarket and restock her groceries. At seven a full breakfast was ready: eggs, sausages and a couple of cheese sandwiches. Tucking away at the sunny side-up eggs and thinking about the small, black address book, Marisa turned on the television and saw that one of the channels was showing a beloved Russian film of her youth, Mary Poppins, Goodbye!
“People all around are getting older, but still I do not age,” gaily sang the heroine of the film.
When she was eight Marisa adored this song and always sang along with it, regardless of her complete lack of vocal talent. But this morning she chewed her breakfast with a scowl and thought about how strange that phrase sounded to her right now. ‘Still I do not age’ – how strange! What, was the lady a vampire?
The ringing of the telephone did not startle Marisa at all. She quickly grabbed the phone sitting next to her.
“Hi there. The news I’ve got is going to make you so happy,” Arvid said briskly. “The skin is not human, but calfskin, but that’s not important. There was a ripped-out first page on which someone had written an address. But the writing bled through onto the next page and we can read it. Of course, we had to separate the overwriting from the actual writing on the page – there were a bunch of addresses there – and while we determined which one of them we needed…”
“Get on with it – where are they?” Marisa impatiently interrupted him.
“It’s the suburbs again,” Arvid declared and instantly added: “I bet we’ll find at least two of these fucking vampires there.”
“How do you figure?” asked Marisa, scarcely able to suppress the joyously nervous thrill that rushed through her body. “In theory, the thing could belong to a victim.”
“It could,” agreed Arvid. “They often have fetishists and collectors among them. But not this time.”
