“The best cure for tonsillitis is to breathe on a toad,” Eddy Khavron imparted authoritatively. He had already been patiently trying to treat Daph for five minutes. To treat the usual moronoid tonsillitis, which she had inexplicably managed to get. And, as always, it was not possible to determine whether Eddy was joking or telling the truth.
Khavron’s proposal did not inspire Daphne. “I’m already running!” she said. “Then let’s clarify this. Did you eat something very cold?” “No.” “Drink something cold?” “Don’t
think so,” Daph answered with doubt. Khavron shrugged his shoulders. “In order to get tonsillitis in the beginning of July, you have to be a very unlucky person.” “That’s exactly me,” despondently nodded Daph. “Then the old student method: half an aspirin, half a pill for bad luck, and have a good rest till evening. And in the evening boogie down to the disco and sneeze on everyone till your full recovery… Well, I’m gone! Bye to the microbes!” Khavron said and, after waving to Daph, left for Ladyfingers to catch tips by spinning his “witticism”.
After Eddy slammed the door shut, Daph touched the aspirin left on the saucer and screwed up her face. She gave the pill to Depressiac. The infernal cat devoured the whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel. Now, having gobbled up the pill together with the saucer, Depressiac passed its tongue over the triple rows of teeth and settled down to warm itself on the running TV set. Daph leaned back on the pillow and despondently began to examine the wallpaper, covered sometime long ago with drawings by hand and even signed Mithodius. Judging by the nature and quality of the figures, Methodius was to the young Rembrandt, as was going to Venus on foot compared to post chaise.
Daph’s throat smarted. The lymph nodes under her ears were swollen a little. It was painful to swallow. Instantly something started to croak indistinctly in her ears, as if the toad recommended by Khavron was already sitting there, anticipating to be breathed on.
“What has it come to, that I, a guard of Light, can be sick with tonsillitis! For the first time in the history of the universe! Not even enough to have fallen in love, and that’s it…
perfect finish!” Daph thought. She was sad. She grasped Depressiac, put it down roughly on her tummy, and closed her eyes. Depressiac began to purr huskily (the nervous better not hear this). To Daph, and to the cat also, although it possessed much more developed intuition, it remained unnoticed that Eddy’s jacket, negligently thrown onto the back of a chair, somehow blurred and became fuzzy, as if there was a not very clean glass between it and Daphne.
When Daph fell asleep, someone’s shadow slid along the sunlit parquet. A tall narrow-shouldered man appeared in the room. Stooping, he sat on the chair, which until then had seemed empty, and, biting his thumbnail, he stared at Daphne with eyes having bulging veins. The concept of “age” was not retained on his unremarkable face, which slipped from memory like wet soap from a hand. But something stuck in one’s memory all the same. For example, the face was very lively, and the corners of the mouth shuddered now and then as if from a nervous tick — a characteristic very common in werewolves and half-breed werewolves. The stranger’s skin was greyish with large pores. The nose, broken in former days, had a bulge in the upper part, near the eyebrows. On the top of his head was a fairly good bald spot, which made the crown subtly similar to an old billiard ball, on which someone glued sparse ash-grey hair. The same sparse ash-grey hair, but only taking the form of stubbles, dispersed like islets on the face. On his belt, in a metal ring, hung a battle-axe, agreeing poorly with the general appearance of a litigant and pettifogger. The handle of the axe had a tinge of green and the blade had nicks everywhere. As if it was grinning. However, in the magic world only a fool would begin to judge his opponent by external appearance.
Depressiac, which, even in dreams Daph continued to press against herself, opened its eyes and stared watchfully at the stranger. The tail of the cat ending in an indentation was trembling. If not for the overalls, which hindered the movement of the wings, Depressiac would already have slashed the face of the uninvited guest long ago. “Quiet, foolish
animal, don’t wake her! If she reaches out for the flute, I’ll kill her! This way… this way she’ll live for a while…” the stranger whispered with his lips, aiming a thin finger at Daph; a large ring similar to a drop of mercury was quivering on his finger. Depressiac stopped hissing. Either the play of colours of the ring cast a spell on it or wise instinct suggested to it that the grey person was as dangerous and merciless as Mamzelkina after a bad hangover. The cat froze; however, it bared its small sharp teeth. Depressiac was ready to rush to grey-face if he were to take at least one step towards Daph.
On noticing this, the man quickly extended his hand, with the palm directed towards Depressiac. The strange liquid ring turned around the finger without any effort. Like mercury, it flowed around the finger in many separate drops. A ruby point detached itself away from the ring and rushed, sliding on invisible gossamer, to the cat. Depressiac darted and stopped dead in its tracks. A hollow void filled its paws. The strong back with lean ligaments supporting the back muscles was numb. The stranger walked to Depressiac, squatted down and, having some fun, ran a finger along its teeth frozen in a grin. Depressiac followed him with its eyes full of hatred. Only the pupils still obeyed it.
Everything else was paralyzed.
“Hello, kitty! Anything you want to say to me? Shake a paw?” Fighting for its life, Depressiac convulsively tried to pull in air. “That means no? Well, it’s probably better this way. Once I killed the likes of you by the hundreds in Tartarus. Simply for amusement. There were creatures a little more terrible: with snake tails, basilisk eyes transforming your heart into crystal splinters, and scores of heads spewing out fire…
Although, I must admit, I much prefer killing hippogriffs, unicorns, and other creations of Light. They writhe so sorrowfully, broadcast pain in such a way that happiness fills my soul. Creations of Gloom are not so interesting in this respect,” he said in a scratchy voice.
Depressiac with effort stirred a front paw. He succeeded in moving it all of a couple of centimetres, but this put the stranger on guard. “Oho! And you’ll quickly be out of the paralyze magic, friend! Creatures much stronger than you could not even move an eyeball the whole night and waited until I killed them… Why is this? Ah, you’re a mongrel! A merging of Light and Gloom occasionally leads to strange results…” The cat managed to turn its head. The jaws with the triangular teeth slammed shut, but, unfortunately, not fast nor strong enough to snap off the insolent finger.
“In five minutes you’ll again be able to bite and scratch. Alas, can’t kill you now. Must hurry!” the stranger muttered unhappily. Thrusting his hand under the raincoat, he extracted a pair of heavy tongs. After putting on thick gloves, with the tongs he carefully lifted up the bronze wings on Daph’s chest. The tongs blazed. The parts that came into contact with the wings glowed. The heat slowly ran along the tongs to the handle. “Pity, can’t cut them off together with the lace. And the lace… hee… together with the head. If the girl is dead, the impression of her wings won’t be of the least use. If the lace suffers, the connection will be destroyed and the impression won’t be worth anything…,” he said hoarsely with disappointment.
Holding the tongs with one hand, with the other he deftly placed a slender scroll on Daphne’s chest and, after straightening it, touched it with the bottom edge of the wings.
A slight, hardly distinguishable ripple passed quickly over the scroll. Smirking, the possessor of the iridescent ring let go of Daphne’s wings and removed the tongs. Then came the turn of the scroll, which set off for his wide sleeve. “Got the impression. With
the girl it seems, that’s it… Although no, one more detail! I’ve successfully managed nevertheless to twist her sap of a keeper round my little finger,” he muttered in a business-like manner.
Grey-face raised his hand to his face and quite softly, as if it was a candle he feared to extinguish, blew on his quivering ring. A small, almost indistinguishable red spark slid through the air to the sleeping Daph and, after touching the lace, on which hung her wings, a barely perceptible knot was frozen on it. “Simply a knot… I don’t think it’ll alert anyone. Certainly, much grief in much knowledge, but I prefer to know everything.
Especially what takes place in Ares’ office… Till we meet, Ares and… Methodius!” he whispered. The stranger rolled up his shadow, exactly like old burlap, traced a circle on the floor, and took a step into it. In the next instant, the charismatic person, appearing from nowhere, departed for nowhere.
After awaking in the morning, Methodius with melancholy recalled that it was Friday
— and such days always happened to be especially troublesome for guards of Gloom.
Only yesterday, Thursday, he, remembering, cheerlessly thought that much fuss of the silliest kind would be in store the next day. Expecting nothing good, he set out for the office, at the entrance of which already crowded a line of succubae. They were dull in the company of succubae like themselves. They flattered no one, they flirted with no one, their sweaty palms nervously squeezing the papers for extension of terrestrial registrations.
When Methodius forced his way through, the succubae strove to grab him by a sleeve, entreating to admit them without waiting in line. One succubus, an unpleasant saucy character with a short crew cut of lightened hair, hung onto Met’s neck and began to lisp.
Knowing that there was no other way to get rid of him, Methodius said to him in a wooden voice, “No can do, mister! Lux in tenebris! Deo juvante!” and acquired heavenly delight watching how the insolent person was blown away and soaked by a fetid puddle in a crack in the asphalt. After some time the succubus returned already from another crack, dull, dispirited, and began humbly to beg forgiveness. In this case he voluntarily and with all his might “begged pardon” against the wall of the house. The remaining succubae, seeing what fate befell their comrade, rushed with a squeak in different directions, and then Methodius was already going along the wide corridor. Daph had taught him the expressions of Light, which he recently used. He heard how she once successfully uttered them, completely driving off an agent pestering her. Now Methodius feared that he and Daph would really get it from Ares, if the succubae snitched. And they would definitely do this, if they knew how to push their snouts into the boss’s office.
Julitta herself would not blurt out anything. To repeat complaints was not her style.
Methodius went in, after looking sideways at the rune. Julitta was not alone in reception. Beside her sat Mamzelkina, repairing goose feathers using a rusty but sharp little knife. No one knew how to do this with such perfection as Aida Plakhovna. She literally felt each feather and cut it into a shape essential to it. “It’s not, you’ll be kind enough to see, a great achievement. Approximately the same motion as separating eidos from the body!” she benevolently explained. “Hello!” Buslaev greeted them. “Oh Methodius, my pet! And you’re here, darling! A hundred graves, a hundred corpses! A meeting of all the fallen!” she greeted Buslaev. “Indeed better ‘a hundred summers, a hundred winters’,” Julitta corrected her. “Well, my dear, in a hundred years there will be more graves,” affectionately answered Mamzelkina.
Julitta wrote something with black villainous blood on a parchment. This blood, in contrast to blood of Earth donors, used for routine records, could not be bought at the Durnev’s, but was specially delivered from Gehenna fire for filling in papers going to the Chancellery to the hunchback Ligul.
Julitta raised her head and looked at Methodius. “Aida Plakhovna, is it me or is our lady-killer in a good mood? Why would that be?” Mamzelkina grinned in understanding,
“Our ace is clearly naughty. Here he drives away succubae with expressions of Light, you understand…” Methodius looked sideways with alarm at the door of Ares’ office. Aida already knew. That means the chief was possibly up to date too. “Expressions of Light?
But they wouldn’t work for me. Useless to say it without eidos,” Julitta said not without melancholy. “But someone else’s eide? You have them in your darc? Really they don’t…” Met started. Julitta swung the silver icicle on her chest. “What do you mean someone else’s? They give me strength for magic, no more. Hundreds of others’ eide won’t replace one of your own. Otherwise, guards of Gloom wouldn’t be so embittered,”
she said quietly. Mamzelkina stopped repairing feathers and looked attentively at Julitta,
‘Somehow today you’re not quite up to it! Look out, someone will hear,” she warned.
“I’m switched off,” said Julitta and again buried herself in the papers.
“Why have you become sad, dear?” “Just now I recalled something. Somehow I met a youth. A chocolate youth — naturally chocolate. The fingers are chocolate, hair, ears, hands, legs — everything is entirely of chocolate. Such a soul, such a heart, such a mind
— simply darn so! And also pure chocolate! And before our date they ate his head, can you imagine?” “Such things happen. We have tough ones. And who’s the youth, an agent, perhaps?” Mamzelkina asked suspiciously. “No, not an agent. Ancestral curse.”
“Ah-h-h! I sympathize…” Aida Plakhovna drawled.
“And you, Methodius, all the same be more careful with expressions of Light. It’s not so bad with Ares, but here if they find out in Tartarus, Gloom forbid… Oh, what’ll begin then! Then they’ll send me to snip-snip you!” “Well, so they’ll find out some time in Tartarus, but the succubae, if I indulge them, they’ll be sitting on my neck right now,”
said Methodius and, after opening the reception door, shouted: “Start moving, citizens, one at a time! Don’t crowd! Shove in two mugs, both exit, fast! Wel-l, miserable, toddle along!”
Aida Plakhovna, after dropping the little knife, clasped her hands. “Nice smile, Met!
I’ve only seen the like once, with young Ladik, when he managed to hack his first coffin using a hatchet! How pleased Ladik was, how he laughed, how he clapped!” “Who’s this Ladik?” Methodius jealously asked. “You really weren’t acquainted? Ah, yes, I forgot…
Count Vladislav Dracula, ruler of Transylvania. Often I had to be at his place on… eh-eh… official business… One of his relatives lives here in Moscow, looks smack like him, but not in spirit! A man with no scope, petty! And you smile, little friend, you smile!
Don’t pay attention to an old woman!” Mamzelkina must have been looking into a crystal ball. Methodius’ mood was surprisingly good. Could it be that today he had already involuntarily thought of Daph three times? Right away, he wanted to phone her at his home in order to hear her voice. But should he dial from the residence of Gloom?
A bowlegged succubus entered first, stretched out his moist palm with a rumpled report, froze, and stared perplexedly at Buslaev. Methodius thought better of it. Not enough that this succubus would now blurt out something about Methodius’ mood, but especially as, judging by the face, he was getting ready to do it. He would even become
Daph — this was simple for succubae. “What are you blinking your eyes for, fat-face?
Quickly fill out the form, sign, and get out!” Methodius raised his voice, hurriedly sending the succubus packing.
“Whoa, Aida Plakhovna, did you see that? A simple mortal treating spirits of Gloom so caddishly? And please note that he’s so at home he doesn’t notice this outrage!” Julitta giggled. “One of two things: it’s either a good or a very bad sign. Seems to me our boy can surprise us greatly soon,” Mamzelkina said quietly into emptiness, continuing to repair the feathers.
Methodius froze. He had heard that Aida Plakhovna was given the gift of foresight and therefore her prophecies often came true. The only question here: were these words a prophecy? There was no time for him to ponder this: the next stretched-out face had already pushed through the door. “Next! Smartly, comrades! One foot here, the other in the coffin!” he bellowed, borrowing one of Julitta’s usual little jokes.
After the succubae began the line of agents, with Tukhlomon among them, appearing, as usual, last. After receiving an extension of registration, Tukhlomon glanced at Methodius with such a caustic expression that Buslaev was ready to guarantee:
Tukhlomon had already dashed off to Ligul to denounce him. “Be happy, Mr. Sovereign of Gloom! Peace to your home! To your own apartment, so to speak. Don’t be sick!” he said ambiguously on farewell.
When the agents had finally disbanded, along came a whole crowd of sectarians recently crawled into Russia through all sorts of cracks. Ligul willingly used these people for pre-sale preparation of eide, as he expressed it. They paid off the preachers with fruits of the charismatic trees: as these people had long since agreed to sell their eide, it was necessary to attract them with something. With the sectarian preachers — since this was a new and important direction of work — Julitta and Ares personally checked them out, and even Aida Mamzelkina joined in on a voluntary basis. Methodius, as a newbie, was not allowed contact with these characters. But even though Buslaev kept himself totally on the side, almost hiding behind the fountain, the preachers all but contrived to slip to him a little colour brochure with a call to confess. Alongside that, their greedy paws also stretched out to his eidos.
Towards the evening came the time for those on leases, attempting to prolong the lease term of eide. They calculated correctly in the chief Chancellery of Tartarus: the new work
Towards the evening came the time for those on leases, attempting to prolong the lease term of eide. They calculated correctly in the chief Chancellery of Tartarus: the new work