by Dark, Masha
Vasilisa was silent for several minutes. However, soon curiosity won out over insult and she started speaking to Dalana again.
“Tell me, where were you during the war? I mean – The Great Patriotic War, the Second World War.”
In the United States, Dalana answered.
“I should have known that you hid out in some cushy place. We also holed up. Not in America, but in Ceylon. Actually we crisscrossed the whole world during the Soviet era. We didn’t really get along with the Red-Bellies. Did you hate the USSR too?”
I was and I remain completely indifferent towards the USSR, explained Dalana. It is also a part of Russia’s history, and there’s nothing to be done about that. As for the years of the Second World War, I spent them in the States only because that is where I lived a large part of the twentieth century.
“I guess I’m supposed to think that you don’t meddle in history?” asked Vasilisa pointedly. “Theoretically, you have the power to steer events but you don’t do this because of a principle of non-intervention, right?”
You are wrong to think so. A good many of the Begotten of Old interfere anywhere they can, even where they shouldn’t, Dalana retorted, recalling Star for a moment. It’s different for me; I really prefer not to get mixed up in affairs I don’t have to. And my abilities pale in comparison to the abilities of many others, believe me.
“I believe you,” the girl nodded her head. “I saw what stunts that Gal creature could pull off. And I have a suspicion that he’s not even the most powerful.”
Far from it. But why did you return?
“What do you mean, why?”
Alright, I’ll put the question in another way: why didn’t you stay in Ceylon?
“Oh, that’s what you mean,” said Vasilisa. “We didn’t stay because it was dangerous.”
“So why didn’t you return to Russia?
“Well, it seemed dangerous everywhere!” Vasilisa declared peremptorily. “Both in Europe, and in America… They have, of course, their advantages, but we wanted to be someplace safe and quiet.”
“Of course,” Dalana replied without sarcasm.
Vasilisa only waved her hand in frustration. The discussion had led her to a still more serious topic.
“You know, I sometimes try to put myself in the place of my victims,” she said thoughtfully. “Sometimes I hate humans. Sometimes I pity them. An odd fate, isn’t it? We’ve been outsiders in the human world for so long, but there still isn’t a place for us in the world of the Begotten of Old…”
Suddenly the kitten leaped at Vasilisa with its ears laid back and attacked her calf.
“Be careful!” the girl cried out fearfully.
Don’t worry, it won’t break the skin, Dalana comforted her. Its teeth are still too small.
“Yes, I know – she’s just playing,” Vasilisa grabbed the kitten by the scruff and removed it from her calf. “But she already bites quite well.”
Well, it was born a predator.
Dalana, in the meantime, was slowly coming out of her half-catatonic state.
If he’d drawn blood, it would have transformed him, she proposed to Vasilisa. And then he would always be with you.
“She, not he. There’s no way I’d do that. Let her live her allotted time. Without my intervention,” the girl said, growing noticeably more sullen.
Once again Dalana was surprised by this wise perspective that seemed to be coming from an old creature full of limitless pain. She felt slightly awkward because of her suggestion, so she detached herself from Vasilisa’s mental stream, got to her feet and walked over to the window. The window in the living room looked out onto the street, and Dalana stared intently at the scrap of Stockholm that displayed itself to her.
“Did you always live with your brother and sister?” she asked.
“No, I left them a couple of times…but I always came back.”
“You longed for independence, but eventually you realized that you were not yet mature enough for such a serious step?” said Dalana.
“No, that wasn’t it,” Vasilisa replied. “It was simply that I fell seriously in love twice and, well, my family was against the relationships. Lucinda especially…”
Vasilisa stopped short.
“Were they humans?” asked Dalana.
“The first one was like the rest of us – a transformed vampire. But he quarreled with my family. Lucinda categorically forbid us to meet. I was torn between him and my home, but in the end I chose home… He died a month later. Well, actually he blew himself up. The second time…the second time was almost one hundred years after Egor’s death, in the seventies of the past century. I fell in love again.”
“With a human this time?”
“Yes,” acknowledged Vasilisa. “And this human was ready to repudiate an ordinary life for my sake. Only, Lucinda once again opposed it…”
“Were you unable to resist falling in love with some hereditary hunter of vampires?” asked Dalana, smirking.
“That would have been better,” Vasilisa said biliously. “But no. My second great love was a woman.”
“I see that you don’t take the easy path,” Dalana said.
“Lucinda was horrified,” continued Vasilisa. “You remember how she was about things like this. She wasn’t malicious, just a bit parochial…”
“…and she didn’t partake in fashionable tendencies?”
Dalana smiled slightly.
“What do you mean by fashionable?” wondered Vasilisa. “And tendencies?”
“I have observed humans for a long time” – Dalana’s smile became a bit wider – “and they always find an element of style in homosexual relationships. Humans seem to think that homosexual affairs are so atypical, so vivid, so depraved…especially when they really want to stand out. Vice – it draws attention. And humans above all else are slaves to their vices. You transmogs have simply beaten this cliché to death. A little novelty in one’s life is always enjoyable, especially if you live for a long time. I’m not condemning anyone, but don’t you agree that wealth and long life tend to corrupt?”
“I’m talking to you about love,” Vasilisa said irately. “I had a romance, do you understand? It was about emotion, not some desire to shock those around me. And how have you reached these conclusions? Has your long life corrupted you?”
Dalana stretched her back. Each muscle now obeyed her perfectly. She was at full strength now; her internal energy, which humans call chi, was as high as her physical energy. Now she could start shadowing Soigu, especially since time was already pressing. The dinosaur on the television screen had just found the Green Valley, which meant that the touching story was approaching its end. The hour Dalana had spent in rest would earn its keep very soon – this evening.
“You know what?” asked Vasilisa. “I’m beginning to think that I’m a beggar in comparison to you. Does your money really corrupt? What do you spend it on? Or are you just attracted to the process of acquisition, and the question of where to disburse your capital is just secondary?”
There was no reaction from Dalana, so Vasilisa proposed her own answer to the question.
“I guess so. You know that’s genuine miserliness. You think like an American. No doubt you are concerned with investments and you finance all kinds of big projects. Naturally, money should make money, but…”
“But, judging from the fact that you returned to your family’s home, your ‘love story’ ended tragically?” asked Dalana, ignoring Vasilisa’s rant.
“Such is the hand I was dealt,” the transmog said succinctly.
“But I heard you were quite the thing at the casinos,” Dalana said innocently.
“That’s only in the last few years,” the girl exclaimed. “Stop that already, my head’s all messed up.”
“Unfortunately, personal security is more valuable to me than moral-aesthetic considerations,” declared Dalana. “By the way, I wasn’t listening to your thoughts just now.”
Dalana glanced at the cl
ock. It was a little after seven.
“So, I still have some unfinished business today. My instructions are the same as before – don’t stick your head outside, don’t make a noise, and don’t bring homeless tomcats into the apartment.”
“I’ve already learned it all by heart,” Vasilisa said, breaking into a warm grin. “I’ll be good.”
Dalana started for the door.
“Will you be gone long?” the girl asked suddenly. “You can’t imagine how deathly dull it is for me.”
“Well, excuse me,” smirked Dalana. “I didn’t hire myself out as a nanny. Though I do seem to be coddling you quite a bit.”
“At least buy me some clothes,” the transmog begged.
“We’ll see. If I don’t forget,” Dalana replied.
“But really, will you be long?” repeated Vasilisa.
“That depends on many factors. Including the swiftness of the dinner I plan to catch for you. Take care!”
Before Vasilisa could respond, Dalana left the apartment.
Jan blew his nose once more then turned off the television. He sat locked in his room and cried like a little girl over his favorite animated cartoon, The Land Before Time. He’d already seen it many times. Being, of course, completely grown up in his short thirteen years, Jan nonetheless cried his heart out every time the main character of the story, whose name was Littlefoot, grieved over his dead mother. Jan also grieved over his mother – not dead, but slowly killing herself with alcohol and depression. But even more than these, her relationship with her husband, Jan’s father, was killing her. At his best, he mocked and humiliated her, and at his worst he beat her half to death. Or he did what he had done today – he left messages on the answering machine that signified, if you listened between the lines, roughly the following: “I’m getting laid by whores; I might be back in the morning.” When she received such messages, Jan’s mother usually locked herself in her room and did not come out for a few days. But sometimes she went on a drinking binge for weeks on end, and upon the completion of these binges the family doctor would visit their house. Another three days would pass as he brought the patient back from the brink with IV fluids, massages and other procedures. Then the doctor would leave, extremely satisfied with himself, but his mother would loaf around the house in a black mood, which slowly but surely blossomed into a prolonged depression. There were occasions – rare, it’s true, but they happened all the same – when she would experience outbursts of joy. Then she would spend the whole day with Jan. They would drive to the city, go shopping, eat pizza and watch movies. The last time this happened was four months ago. Jan could remember how good the food had been at the Italian restaurant – pizza and medium rare steak – and how gripping the movie had been. He worshiped the superheroes of X-Men. And then that hateful sadist beat mama and everything started all over again.
Jan knew that today his mother would find salvation in cognac and vodka, and that she would dive headfirst into protracted drunken period, which would further undermine her already fragile health. And he knew that he would spend the days and nights sitting in front of the television or in front of his computer, playing tiresome games and watching movies non-stop. Jan hadn’t been able to make any friends since they moved here. He’d had friends where they lived before or, if they weren’t really friends, they were at least kids he could hang out with. Everything was different here. It wasn’t because there were no kids his age here in the community; it was just that the local children preferred to keep themselves aloof from him. Either they sensed that there was something wrong with him, or they wanted to keep their social circle small, avoiding untested newcomers. Of course, it was also possible that they regarded Jan as an ignorant provincial from the back of beyond and thus barred him from their group. Jan did not go to school; tutors came to his home. As for guests, well, they visited infrequently, and when they did visit, they were adults who had come on adult business. They were not interested in befriending a thirteen year old boy.
Jan, although he considered himself independent and self-sufficient, still suffered from the lack of companionship. So he devised imaginary friends for himself. He watched movies and he fantasized. He often conversed with the characters, now with ET from the eponymous film by Steven Spielberg, now with Wolverine from his beloved X-Men, now with the robo-boy David from A.I. They were all his best friends and they all lived right in his room. Jan also liked a movie about a dwarf named Simon. This valiant little fellow was also his friend and at the end of the film, when Simon died from pneumonia, Jan wept bitterly. So bitterly that he was even a bit ashamed of his tears. But fortunately his father had still never seen him cry.
Right now Jan was crying as well. And he was gnashing his teeth through his tears, for he realized that he lacked the strength to help himself, his mother, or poor Simon, his fictional friend, who he yearned for with the desperation of a starving man. All his abilities were useless. There was a phrase that Simon repeated throughout the film: God has a plan for everyone. So Jan was sitting there thinking about what plan God might have specifically for him, Jan Soigu. He was troubled by the thought that this might be part of the plan – sitting in a locked room and sniffling. But what then was the use of all this telepathy?
The thought that he was one of them, one of the X-Men, had dawned on Jan scarcely more than a year ago when suddenly he had heard what the new chauffer was thinking about his mother. Truthfully, he had only heard the general tone of man’s thoughts, but it was enough to know that he was a repulsive orangutan who dared to lust after this perfect woman.
That evening Jan scratched the fender of his father’s Mercedes and smashed one of the headlights. His father dismissed the chauffer and Jan realized that he was an X-Man, and that his power had already manifested in the gift of telepathy. Perhaps he had other powers as well, but Jan still hadn’t discovered them. He also realized that his father was an X-Man too. It was a horrible twist of fate that he had inherited the mutation that allowed him to eavesdrop on the secrets hidden in others’ minds not from his mother, but from that beast. True, for the time being he could scarcely do even this, but every day his gift grew and strengthened. The main thing was that he already heard. He heard fragments of his mother’s thoughts in the bedroom on the first floor. She was unhappy – but Jan was even more unhappy. He caught bits of what a servant was thinking about as she circulated through the house. He also heard that filth that lived beyond the walls of the house, inside the lawn, which it was forbidden to step upon. He heard echoes of the thoughts of the people from the special services with the silly name of ‘Cross’. He was aware that his father was under suspicion and that this suspicion was directly related to those disfigured corpses that every busybody in the community had been gossiping about for more than a year. Of course, the ‘crosses’ knew a lot more about these bodies than the inhabitants of the community did. But Jan guessed that his father knew even more.
Unfortunately, Jan could not hear his thoughts. No matter how hard he tried. And there was no way to defend his own stray thoughts. Jan was an open book for his father, as were all the others who lived in their home, whereas the elder Soigu’s mind remained tightly closed at all times.
But Jan had long suspected that his father’s inhuman abilities went far beyond listening in on others’ minds. His cruelty, his nighttime absences, that creature in the lawn, various media reports and the suspicion of the ‘crosses’ – all this was forged into one invisible and dreadful chain. A chain that probably stretched as far back as Novosibirsk. Regrettably, Jan did not know how he fit into this chain, which link he was. He regretted even more that the ‘crosses’ had to wind down their activity and leave. But really, what else could they do? His father could buy anyone. Buy or just compel. And he’d done it again, the reptile. Just when the ‘crosses’ had managed to ferret out something they thought was truly significant. It was not less significant for Jan. When he realized that the crosses had finally found some evidence he had felt such joy tha
t he nearly missed sensing another X-Man who also seemed interested in his father. This unknown mutant was far stronger than him, so he dodged away from Jan almost instantly. But still, Jan had heard him.
All at once, recalling the sensation of contact with the consciousness of the stranger, Jan stopped sniveling. Self-reliance and confidence – qualities that Jan lacked – fanned out from the thoughts of the X-Man. Jan felt like this X-Man could become a beloved and faithful friend, and he would no longer have to exist in the contrived little world inside his head.
However, this X-Man had disappeared somewhere, the ‘crosses’ had yielded and packed up their things, and his mother was once again plastered. It was beyond the abilities of a thirteen year old boy to change any of this, even if he did have superpowers.
Jan turned on the television, sensing that in a moment he would once again burst into tears. Just like a girl. He was a feeble, cowardly, weak-willed clump of snot. That last time he couldn’t even hit his father with the frying pan. And he wouldn’t be able to the next time. All he could do was to sit and squeeze out snot.
On the television a mawkish Adonis from asserted that only real men used Bluebeard’s Revenge shaving cream. Squinting dramatically at the camera, the pretty man shaved the thickly lathered bristles from his chin with a rehearsed movement.
And Jan suddenly realized that in the current situation he did have the power to change something.
2.
Qui prior est tempore, potiot est jure.
He who is first in time has the strongest claim in law.
Flipping her hair onto her head with her hands, the girl turned her back to him, clearly displaying her best side. Her neck was beautiful, but not perfect. Better than Stella’s, but worse than that little baby doll’s from the ‘Crapolition of Special Services’. Oh, how those jokers whined when they received orders to pack up their gear and clear out. The Coalition of Mother-fucking Redesigned United Special Services! Who had come up with such an acronym? Filthy little humans.
