"Robbed, mean?" Brennon asked. The suspect nodded, sniffed with a broken nose.
"But why did you slash with the ax?"
The criminal spat blood.
"Well, yeah... They shouted a lot."
"And the baby too?"
"I don't know," muttered the failed robber. "Something came over me. Like some mental block. By Jesus, I'm not lying," he crossed himself with his thumb. There was a knock on the interrogation room's door.
"Sir," Kelly called uncertainly, "Mr. Kennedy and this one... are very asking."
"Finish here," the Commissar muttered to Dwyer. The killer stared imploringly at Brennon with his remaining eye, but he slammed the door.
"He'll beat him, sir."
"He won't beat him to death," Brennon dismissed. "The rest will heal by court."
Actually, the neighbors had already treated the killer so that Dwyer had to save the semi-insensitive body rather than detain the offender.
"Here, sir," Kelly thrust the commissar a thin folder. "Sent from the fire department, the report of the chief of the brigade."
"They spent a lot of time," growled Brennon. Above was a short note from the brigade chief apologizing for the delay. Nathan eagerly flipped through the report. He will have time to delve into the details later, now he was only interested in one thing, and he already knew what he would read.
"Cause of fire not established."
Brennon slammed the folder shut and nodded to the on-duty officer. The Commissar did not expect anything else.
Paw was the first to meet him in the morgue. The hound looked at Brennon so sympathetically and even somehow knowingly that the commissar was seized with a bad feeling. Crypt bones were laid out on autopsy tables; Longsdale, crossing his arms over his chest, sat down on the edge of the table near the microscope, Kennedy tapped his pince-nez on a lean pile of scribbled sheets.
"Well?" Muttered Brennon.
"Two news," said the pathologist. "In fact, even three. Where do we start?"
"With the most harmless."
The consultant handed Nathan a tray of plaster casts.
"Damage to the bones. The familiar look?"
"A narrow, double-edged blade," said Brennon, examining the casts. "The dagger? Stylet? Scalpel?"
"Definitely not a scalpel," Kennedy replied authoritatively. "But the thing must be long enough and well-sharpened so that the killer can cut tissue so deep and scratch the bone."
"Well, I'll figure it out. Further."
The old man moved a pile of sheets to the commissar.
"Professor Byrne had recovered enough to dictate a preliminary conclusion on the remains of the crypt, although, of course, we were unable to collect all the bones. The remains belong to eleven children aged nine to twelve years. They were buried in a crypt, in a common grave. After the incident, near the church, we left bones from four skeletons, and that's not completely. It was not possible to establish the cause of death. On those bones that are at our disposal, there are no suspicious traces."
Brennon flipped through the professor's report. It was full of words, the essence of which the commissar could hardly grasp.
"Rewrite it in human language," he put the conclusion to the pathologist. "That's not all?"
The hound with a sigh lowered its face to its paws. Longsdale also sighed and muttered, looking down at the floor:
"You won't like it."
"Well?"
"All the victims died about six to seven years ago. Based on the position of the skeletons in the crypt that Mr. Kennedy described to me, this was not a burial. Someone just dumped the bodies in a niche and closed up the opening."
The commissar threw the report down onto the table, put his hands on the blood groove heavily and stared at the bones from under the brows.
"I'm sorry," the consultant said quietly. "I'm so sorry, Brennon."
"Shut up," Nathan answered without expression. The hound poked his face in the thigh.
"I'll take care of the bones. We will compile a catalog of all the damage and try to find traces of the murder weapon among them..."
"Don't bother," Brennon grumbled. "I know without you, both the cause of death and all their names."
"Where from?" surprised Longsdale. The hound stared at the Commissar as if he had already guessed the answer.
"This is Hilkarn Strangler," Nathan said. "Of the fourteen missing children, only three were found... Three bodies. From February to November of the fifty-sixth year."
Kennedy turned away, put on his pince-nez and plunged into Professor Byrne's report.
"Did you work the case?" Asked the consultant.
"We all worked the case. Including the previous Commissar of the department of high crime," Brennon answered sullenly. "He shot himself in his office on November seventeenth, when the fourteenth body was found."
2nd January
The Commissar reread the report on the poll of residents, mechanically rolling over a heap of papers the amulet against the evil spirits. In the morning they were handed out to all the guys in cordon; Brennon was also left alone - looking like a lump torn from a bird's nest on a leather lace. Longsdale sent a note in the morning, which briefly described the action of the amulet, and Nathan was not happy with it - this toy could not defuse the evil spirits, only "hide the carrier from her instinct and gaze."
"You will have time to run away before you die."
The consultant himself was missing somewhere. However, Nathan had plenty to do without him: there was a knock on the door, and three sturdy police officers, under the guidance of the archivist, brought in a dozen boxes. Each had a tag with a number, an inventory, and a inscription "Hilkarn Strangler."
"It's all?"
"To the last thread," said the archivist. "I hope you return everything as it was."
"Yeah," the Commissar muttered. "Who's the duty man? Let him find me Regan."
For twenty years, Nathan did not understand what prompts innocent inhabitants to hide testimonies from the police with such obstinacy, as if they had family skeletons in a closet. Studying the interrogation protocols most often reminded Brennon of a guessing game with a deaf-mute interlocutor. Surely for two decades, the warm feelings that imperial police instilled in citizens have not weathered?
"Yes, sir?"
"Help me with this," the commissar, without looking, swept his hand around the boxes from the archive. "Have you re-read the testimony?"
"It's empty, sir," the detective shook his head. Nathan looked from a sheet of paper to his subordinate. Interrogation of witnesses was in Regan's wheelhouse - short, blond, well-fed and pink, like a pig, he aroused much more trust among people than older colleagues. And, looking impartially at these colleagues, and at himself, Nathan perfectly understood why.
"It was late at night, sir, on New Year's Eve. At such a time, everyone is sitting at home, hanging garlands and baking cakes, and not wandering the streets in unbelievable frost."
"Judging by the testimony, there were not many people at Vespers. About ten to twelve."
Regan coughed.
"Well, as I was made clear, Father Grace did not use the parishioners' love."
Brennon turned over a few pages.
"A quarrelsome foul shitbag," he quoted thoughtfully. Regan blushed.
"This is Walsh, a former church watchman whom Grace kicked out for drunkenness."
"The rest persons do not shine with delight too. In short, find everyone who came to last Vespers, and find out from them if someone unfamiliar flashed in the church. At the same time, find out if there were any strange habits and penchant for all kinds of otherworldly rubbish behind the pater. Separately, sort through all those who had conflicts with Grace..."
"So that's almost his whole parish, sir."
"What a bright personality. Well, who else is there?"
The dog, as always, came in first and immediately began to sniff the boxes in a businesslike manner. Regan, at the sight of a frowning consultant, furtively crossed himself.
"Go to the chief," the Commissar said displeasedly (in fact, will he give it a rest? It's time to get used to it in a month and a half). "Ask what bigger room I can occupy for all this stuff."
"Yes, sir," Regan sneaked past Longsdale, drawing his sides and stomach in, as if he were afraid to touch even his shadow.
"Is that the one?" The consultant asked, hanging his coat, scarf and hat on a hanger. "Hilkarn Strangler?"
"Yeah. And here I have the first interrogation of witnesses and the report of firefighters. Guess what they have in common?"
Paw glanced inquiringly at the commissar, not tearing his nose from the boxes.
"The word 'nothing,'" Brennon rustled with a report from the firefighter chief. "The cause of the fire has not been established. In the sense that the church was full of rags, wooden benches, candles and oil lamps, but all this is not enough for a fire of such force. And here," the commissar angrily buried in the interrogation of witnesses, "no one saw anything either. True, they will now be going to be interrogated in the second round, but nevertheless, neither an arsonist, nor a killer, nor even a barrel of kerosene... And what do you have?"
"My house was attacked yesterday," Longsdale said.
"Who? This beast?" Nathan asked sharply. The consultant nodded. "But what about your butler?"
"Id est?"
"Was Raiden in the house?"
"No. He just carried the amulets to your duty man."
"So he survived," the Commissar concluded with some relief.
"Why do you care so much?" Longsdale asked in surprise. Brennon stared at him like a louse, and said slowly:
"And you don't care?"
The consultant looked at him bewildered. The hound snorted quietly, annoyed.
"You don't care that your butler could meet a creature for whom to burn a temple - how to spit and grind it? Or is he not burning in the fire?"
"So he met this creature."
The commissar was numb.
"And?" after a pause, he asked.
"Raiden is sure it's the ifrit."
"God," the commissar spat out through his teeth, with all the strength of atheistic contempt. "You are both crazy. So the guy is safe?"
"Physically - yes," Longsdale confirmed. "He won't be able to conjure for some time."
"And your house?" Brennon asked belatedly, immediately realizing that the column of flame would have been visible from the window.
"Anyone who deals with the undead and evil spirits always protects their home. The defense, of course, suffered, but I restored it. Another thing is interesting... What's the first sequence number?" He tapped the wall of one of the boxes. The commissar took an inventory.
"Ub-06021856-1nr-2msx. Do not meddle, here we will not gut them, there will not be enough space. Paw!"
The dog, who had already pushed the lid off with his nose, pulled back his paw and sniffed.
"What are you interested in there?"
"There was an attempt to hack."
Nathan rubbed his temple.
"Could you tell in order, from the beginning through the middle to the end?"
"The warning system is built into the protective domain around the house. As soon as someone tries to get inside, Raiden immediately finds out."
"Why he?"
"Because I can be busy."
"Ghouls at the cemetery," muttered Brennon; no, after all, what did Longsdale do there?
"The ghouls in the cemetery are a direct consequence of the fact that the ifrit came here. As well as the growth of unmotivated cruelty among the living."
The commissar furrowed the brow. The thread of the conversation again went somewhere wrong.
"Leave the ifrit alone. What happened to your damn house?"
"When Raiden examined the gate, he noticed that even before the attack of the ifrit, someone was trying to open the lock. That is why the alert worked. What specific spell the cracker used - we could not establish..."
"For God's sake!" the Commissar howled. "How many of you are there for the district?!"
Longsdale fell silent in surprise. The hound snorted snarky.
"In this damn city one cannot already take a step so as not to run into a sorcerer, a witch or that of yours... What kind of cholera is this?"
"The ifrit does not send illness and pestilence," the consultant replied. "He..."
Regan peered into the office, and the burglary victim docilely fell silently.
"Sir, the chief has given you a room next to his office."
"Good. Whistle a couple of guys, and drag everything there."
Longsdale took off his coat and pulled the closest box toward him.
"You have nothing to do? Isn't evil spirit walking around the city?"
"I will not deal with ifrit alone," said the consultant. Brennon shut up. He somehow did not think that Longsdale has a limit of possibilities.
"But you cannot be killed."
"Depends on the approach to the task," the consultant put one box on the other one, a third on the second and picked up this pyramid, as if they were made of cardboard, not pine. "You cannot kill, but you can destroy it."
"Why can't you be killed?" Brennon asked, building a pyramid for himself. Longsdale glanced at him over the boxes; the bright eyes flashed mockingly.
"What good would I do as a hunter," came a hoarse, harsh voice that Nathan did not recognize, "if I could be killed?"
***
Margaret looked skeptically at the drawing, threw it on the table and leaned back in her chair. She drew well - the teacher in the boarding school praised - but she had already wasted a dozen sheets, but could not accurately reproduce the pattern hidden in the forged lace of the gate. There was no question of leaving the house and seeing: three friends had arrived at her mother, and she sat down with them in the living room. Miss Tay was called there, and the servants received the strictest order not to let Margaret go anywhere. Miss Sheridan locked herself in vexation in the winter garden.
Margaret took the last drawing and absentmindedly looked at the interweaving of lines. So the consultant's servant is a witcher. No wonder, in fact (where did he get normal servants from?), but... Just a week ago, Miss Sheridan would squeal with joy when she knew that witchers really exist; and now she was disappointed. She did not remember his face, but she knew for sure that he was slim, young and rather handsome, and this is not what you expect from a sorcerer. Although he can pretend to be.
"If the butler is a witcher, then who is the master?"
Margaret turned pink and cringed at the same time. The idea that Mr. Longsdale might not be human at all excited and aroused a pleasant chill. Every moment of a short meeting was clearly imprinted in her memory, and Margaret could accurately to the smallest detail describe the consultant, his every movement and every look of bright blue eyes. Suddenly, Miss Sheridan wondered: why does she barely remember what happened between the fall of the carriage into the canal and the meeting with Mr. Longsdale? Is it because of fear? Then why did she remember so distinctly last night? Should a free-flowing (not, rather, crawling) on the street ifrit should cause much greater horror than sitting in a church?
Miss Sheridan pondered and admitted to herself with a sigh that while the nameless gentleman was nearby, the ifrit did not look so creepy. And then, with vexation, she thought that a vague, thin stranger confidently pressed a stately and courageous consultant. All day from the morning she could not get the stranger out of her head. Where did he come from? Where disappeared? Why does he know everything about ifrits, witchers, signs? And why, for God's sake, wears magic glasses?!
Margaret frowned. What did he do there, interesting? Really waited for ifrit? But if he knew that this creature would come there, then why, when it appeared, flatly refused to intervene? Had he cold feet? But he did not seem to the girl a coward. It was as if he had some other matter... But which one? What can he do in the night, on the street, waiting for the evil otherworldly spirit? Why wait it at all there?!
A knock on the window came so suddenly and loudly that Margaret bounced in her chair, hit her knee on the countertop and hissed in pain. The knock was repeated, and the girl, feeling the spirit of ferocious ancestors, grabbed a heavy paperweight, jumped up and only then wondered who could knock on the window at a height of a dozen feet from the ground. Once upon a time, floods occurred in Blackwhit due to the spill of Weer, and the basement in the house was built so high that it was only possible to get to the windows of the ground floor using the stairs. But which of the servants will become...
Margaret flushed with anger. It had long seemed to her that the new assistant gardener was looking at her too insolently. She rushed to the window, opened the curtains and recoiled with a squeal. The butler of the consultant leaned on his knee on the window sill from the outside. The window was, of course, closed from the inside, but the very sight of this impudent shocked Miss Sheridan to the core. The impudent gave her a mocking look and snapped a folding knife with a long thin blade. Margaret barely managed to rejoice that the window was locked, and the whole servant would run to the sound of broken glass, as the butler plunged the knife between the window sashes and in a matter of seconds removed the latch.
"Hello to you, sweet child," he said snarky and jumped into the room. The girl shrinked back to the door; however, the severity of the paperweight in her hand gave her confidence.
"How dare you break in here like that?!"
The butler took the drawing from the table, studied it, and looked at Margaret. His eyes were completely, frighteningly black, and the girl could not really see his face. Some kind of elusive impression...
"What did you do near our house?"
"Do not dare to ask me questions!" Margaret hissed. "Or I'll scream!"
"Scream," the witcher willingly allowed. "Do you feel better if we are caught in a compromising position?"
Paint ran into Miss Sheridan's face, and she threw a paperweight at the butler. He caught it on the fly, set it on the table and smiled unkindly.
"If you do not like the place of my walks, then contact the police!"
"Oh no," the butler said lowly. "You were hanging around our house, and this is our matter, not the police. My matter."
He rushed across Margaret, clasped her mouth with his hand and dragged her from the door. The witcher was much stronger than he seemed: he was not so much holding the girl, as squeezed, as in a vice.
"And you were not alone there," he whispered. "Someone else was with you. Or is it you who possess secret knowledge?"
Margaret dug her teeth into his hand. The butler cried out gutturally and laughed, as if it amused him. His fingers squeezed the girl's face with such force that her own teeth dug into her cheeks. He turned Miss Sheridan to face him, and she saw nearby matte black eyes without glint. Sparks of fire flashed in their depths, and Margaret closed her eyes.
"Do not even think about it!" The witcher hissed. "You were protected by his house, but now..."
Something suddenly and loudly clicked in the room.
"Get out, beast."
The vise loosened, and Margaret crawled to the floor. Gasping for breath, she opened her eyes. The butler backed to the window; the muzzle of a revolver was looking into the witcher's forehead.
"I can't burn you now," his consultant's servant hissed. "But I will remember for the future!"
"I know," the nameless gentleman said coldly. "I take a moment."
Around the barrel of his revolver a spiral of strange signs curled. Not chasing or engraving - they protruded from the depths of the metal. The butler, not taking his eyes off the revolver, drew back to the window and jumped into the garden. The gentleman went to the window and slammed the shutters. Margaret, who still had black dots in her eyes, listlessly watched as he put the revolver into a holster, fastened to his thigh, drew a sign on the window with his finger and laid the cane against the table. The girl blinked.
"Get up," the gentleman, covered in black dots, appeared beside her and extended a hand to her, on which Margaret hung like a rag. The legs were completely cottony. With a sigh, the stranger bent down, picked her up from the floor, and the girl again caught the strange chemical smell from his clothes.
Is he bathing, perhaps, in some chemicals?
The gentleman carried her to the chair rather than led her to it, put her in it, took a drawing from the table and stared at it with interest. Miss Sheridan raised her eyes to the ceiling. If she knew that these scribbles would cause such a stir, she would burn them!
While the stranger was admiring the future masterpiece, Margaret furtively examined him, since the dots in her eyes thinned. He obviously came not from the street - he did not have a coat or hat (although for some reason there was a cane), he did not have a trace of snow on his trousers and boots. The long frock coat covered the holster on his right thigh. He didn't come to visit like this...
Miss Sheridan looked up. Tall, thin and pale, as if he didn't show his nose for days on the street. The nose, by the way, is large, thin and hooked, no worse than that of the Count Vampire; hair is brown, wavy. His face was bony, thin, his cheekbones protruding above the sunken cheeks, a wrinkle between his thick eyebrows. To determine how old he was, the girl did not succeed - it could be thirty or forty, looking at what angle to look...
"It is impolite to stare," said the stranger. Margaret flushed. He took a red pencil, quickly sketched something over of her drawing, and turned the sheet toward her.
"Do you recognize?"
"Yes."
"But it worked out well for the first time," he remarked; his voice sounded as if he rarely used it - muffley and quietly. He sat on the edge of the table and said:
"Three questions."
"Which ones?" Margaret muttered.
"Ask any."
The girl started up.
"Only three?! I have dozens of them!"
The stranger's dark eyes flashed mockingly. But, thank God, normal, humanly dark. Miss Sheridan was thinking frantically, leaning forward in mental effort.
"Why were you not afraid that the witcher would burn you?"
"He already answered you."
"And I want you to answer," Margaret twisted out. "Suddenly he is lying."
"Yesterday he grappled with the ifrit. It cost him such an effort that for several days he lost the opportunity to conjure. But do not crap."
"Yesterday," Miss Sheridan teased, "someone could have helped him if he hadn't been scared."
"I am not helping witchers."
"And the ifrits?"
In response, he raised an eyebrow, and Margaret flashed again, but already from annoyance:
"How did you know that he ifrit would come there, unless you lured him yourself! You did something with the gate! Maybe you caused the ifrit from... from... where they live!"
"And now I'm looking for a virgin for the sacrifice," said the gentleman, obviously taunting. "True, they should be blond, not smart."
"You did not answer!"
"You should work in the police," the gentleman, bowing his head to one side, examined Margaret with a mixture of interest and surprise, as intently as if trying to make out her thoughts through the skull. The girl cringed. What if he was really looking her thoughts?
"I lured the ifrit to the house," he said suddenly, when Margaret was no longer expecting an answer. She jumped in the chair:
"What for?!"
"To make life easier for them," the gentleman took the cane. "So they finally saw him."
"Who are they?"
"Three questions," he turned the sheet of paper over and on the back quickly, in one motion, drew some symbol. "I advise you to repeat on all doors and windows. The witcher will not leave you alone. This garon will drive him away."
Miss Sheridan took the drawing. It looked like a three-petal flower like an orchid.
"You did not ask how I entered," the gentleman suddenly said in the tone of the examiner.
"Nothing, I will see you come out."
The eyebrow rose again, and Margaret wished she could not reach the paperweight. They talked only for the second time, and the girl already knew exactly which of his habits brought her to white heat.
"Self-confidently," the gentleman said. "And my name doesn't interest you either?"
"As if you would tell me your name," Miss Sheridan muttered. The gentleman gave her such an interested look that she blushed thickly. He stopped in front of a tall mirror (which was supposed to scatter the sun's rays through the winter garden, but in reality it only attracted dust). Margaret made out that he was muttering under his breath, and leaned forward; the gentleman suddenly stepped into the mirror and disappeared. Miss Sheridan Miss Sheridan flew out of her chair with a indignation shout and rushed to the mirror. On the floor in front of it was a rectangle of a business card. Margaret grabbed her and in impotent indignation bit her lip - there was not a word on it.