Night of 4th January
Margaret poked her nose out the door, shivered, and threw a long, warm shawl over her robe. The whole house was fast asleep - two in the morning, the best time to take up protection from the witcher. The girl all day redrawn the sign that the nameless gentleman had left for her, but occasionally was distracted by the business card. Margaret carefully dripped water, milk, and alcohol on her, which she had begged from the housekeeper, heated it over the candle, but the business card stoically kept the secret. By evening, Miss Sheridan was tired of it, and she went to bed so that she would not sleep at night. And now, she was creeping around her own house like a thief in the night, in a dressing gown over a shirt and with a piece of chalk in her pocket.
While she tiptoed over the stairs and crossed the hall, she did not leave the thought that the gentleman simply played a trick on her. After all, if the cursed piece of cardboard is bewitched, how can she even read what is written there?! Although what else to expect from a person who leaves the room through the mirror...
Margaret decided to start with a servant door at the end of the narrow corridor that separated the dining room from the kitchen. The girl knew that there was always a supply of candles and matches in the kitchen, and turned there - she could easily navigate in the house, even in complete darkness, but did not want to witchcraft signs blindly. In total darkness, Margaret groped for a high cupboard to the left of the entrance and gently pulled the door toward herself. In the answer there was a rustle from somewhere in the depths of the kitchen, and Miss Sheridan was numb, sweating, despite the cold. Suddenly this is a witcher?! The rustle repeated closer. Margaret closed the door and pressed her back to the cupboard. Now she heard the floor creaking softly under someone's light steps.
"You should have grabbed something heavier in the closet, you're fool!"
An indistinct murmur came from the darkness, a light flashed in the air and illuminated a pair of large dark eyes, which, with reproach, looked at the owners' daughter.
"It's you again?!" Margaret howled in a stifled whisper. "What are you doing here? Why do you even stagger around our kitchen?!"
"Why are you not sleeping?"
"Why am I not sleeping?! This is my house, I have the right! This is because of you, by the way, with your drawing, so that you..."
"Shhhh!" a warm hand squeezed her mouth. At that very moment Margaret realized that she was only wearing a shirt, a dressing gown and a shawl, and with an indignant mumble she shied away from the gentleman in a corner.
"Get out!" She demanded angrily and wrapped herself in a shawl, like a caterpillar in a cocoon. The light turned on brighter, and the girl, blushing thickly, found that the night guest, unlike her, appeared in full parade, except that without a hat and cane. A bag hung from his shoulder, and the light scattered glare on glass bottles and flasks in cells in a leather belt.
"I don't see anything compromising," the gentleman assured her and put the light on the shelf. Margaret belatedly saw that it was a small round lamp on a stand, but what substance was burning inside, the girl did not understand.
"Why do you wander around the house at night?"
"Why don't I scream louder," Miss Sheridan said irritably. The gentleman raised an eyebrow at her, and her annoyance flared up into fury: "Stop it immediately!"
"What exactly?"
"Stop doing this! I feel like a complete fool!"
"Only feel?"
Margaret gasped in indignation. The gentleman snapped the lid of his pocket watch and looked at the dial. There, instead of hand of a clock, some gears were spinning under the glass, and something blinked red. Miss Sheridan bit her lip, torn between "What is it?" and "Get out of our house!"
"Why did you come?" Margaret finally asked.
"I can leave if the lady insists," he gave her clothes a sarcastic look, and the girl again began to blush. "And leave you alone with the ifrit."
"With whom?!"
"With the ifrit. He knew that you were near the house eighty-six, and tracked you down."
"But why?!"
"To eat."
Margaret suddenly chilled, her knees bent, and she grabbed the cupboard. The gentleman did not take her imperturbable calm gaze from her.
"You're kidding," the girl whispered.
"No."
"But you were there too! Why..."
"It's hard to find me, besides, I live alone, and ifrit needs a lot of food. A lot of people. Of course, I can only take you away, but it seems to me that losing a family will upset you."
Miss Sheridan leaved hold of the cupboard and pressed a trembling hand to her forehead.
"He eats people?!"
"And what else do you think evil spirits eat? Holy Ghost?"
"Don't be sarcastic!" Margaret flushed with anger. "You were not too eager to fight when you met him last time! Oh yes, I forgot - you lured him! So why do you need it now..."
"Should I leave?" The gentleman asked coolly, and the girl felt herself hurt him. After all, if he wanted to feed them to the ifrit, he would hardly have taken such a chance and popped into the house of doomed victims...
"I'm sorry," she muttered. Surprise flashed across the interlocutor's face, which was immediately replaced by hidden satisfaction. "Is he far?"
"We have about an hour."
"What you need?"
"A large room with windows facing the street."
"Come on."
The living room at night seemed like a dark cave. Margaret pounded her teeth against the cold. The gentleman nodded at the curtains, and she began to pull back the heavy cloths while he laid out the contents of the bag on the table.
"Be quiet," the girl said. "We'll wake everyone up."
"No," he studied of a bottle of clear liquid on the lumen. "I added a strong sleeping pill to the carafe with orangeade."
Margaret choked.
"Ah you!.."
"By the way, why aren't you sleeping?"
"Because I don't drink orange." I have urticaria from one of its smells. Why are you pinching my mouth since everyone is sleeping? - Miss Sheridan was angry.
"To silence you."
Margaret gritted her teeth so as not to tell the savior of the family all that a decent girl should not say aloud. He took a long trihedral blade without a scabbard and began to mumble something over him until the blades dimly lit up. The girl almost earned a squint, trying to simultaneously monitor the gentleman and examine the things from the bag, laid out on a tea table. There were really mysterious things! When she discovered what a gentleman was doing with a parquet with a knife, her delight and indignation knew no bounds.
"Mom will kill us!" Margaret whispered admiringly. A scorched arc lay on the parquet in front of the windows. By the ends she rested against some kind of symbols similar to the sun and the moon, and the gentleman, sitting on the floor, applied inscriptions on the one side of the arc and then on the other with the tip of the blade. Parquet where the knife touched it, blackened, as if charred.
"What is it?" Miss Sheridan rubbed a line with her finger. "Oh, warm!"
The gentleman got up, looking with enjoyment at the messed up polished oak.
"Margaret, were you born in this house?"
"Yes," the girl said absently, and screeched loudly when he suddenly snipped off a lock of her hair with a knife.
"So there is a blood connection," the gentleman glanced appraisingly at Margaret and muttered: "Something to keep you busy..."
The girl shifted from foot to foot near the inscriptions. She wanted to simultaneously examine them all in detail and not to lose anything of the actions of the uninvited savior. Meanwhile, the savior started up and poked with a knife toward a bottle of clear liquid.
"Screw the dispenser to it and fill in all the inscriptions, the arc and the symbols."
Margaret took the bottle, and since neither the book, nor the bag with something friable in the role of dispenser were suitable, she reached for a glass device like a watering can with a rubber bulb. There was a screw thread on the neck of the bottle and inside the dispenser, and the girl, with some effort pulling out the cork, began to fasten one to the other. At the same time, she furtively sniffed the contents of the bottle, but it did not smell and looked more like melted jelly than liquid.
"What is it?"
"You better not know."
"Tears of virgins?"
There was a mocking snort in response, Margaret turned around and saw in indignation that the gentleman, instead of being useful, was watching her curiously, twisting the severed curl onto the dagger. All the furniture and the carpet somehow ended up in the corner of the living room.
"You have nothing to do?!"
"Do not smell unfamiliar compositions. Poisonous vapors..."
"You yourself are like poisonous vapors! How do I know that you are not really going to feed us all to the ifrit? You didn't even give your name!"
"Even if I tell you, you still won't believe me," the gentleman said melancholy and drew a large, almost perfect circle on the floor with his dagger. Margaret, sniffing offendedly, took up inscriptions near the window. The light of the lamp was just enough to quite accurately fill the scorched symbols with transparent jelly. Miss Sheridan wanted to touch it, but was afraid that she would be left without a finger, although the temptation was strong.
"Margaret," the stranger called, when the girl straightened up wearily and contemplated the result of her labors. It was even more annoying to see that the gentleman's efforts were limited to a drawn circle, several signs in front of it and a dagger with a strand of hair wrapped around the blade, which he stuck on the floor in the center of the circle.
"Stand here."
"And by no means leave the circle, huh," Margaret said under her breath.
"Yes," said the gentleman stiffly. "By no means."
He took the bag, opened his neck and began to pour silver sand along a circle contour in a thin stream. Margaret wrapped herself in a shawl, trying not to bite her teeth - it was drawing frosty air from the windows, but in the living room it was getting not colder, but darker. Viscous darkness moved to the border of the light from the lamp, even the squares of moonlight on the floor faded.
The gentleman took the book and carefully crossed the circle. He opened the bookmarked volume and rested the lower edge of the weighty folio at the elbow.
"Are you going to read to the ifrit out loud?" - the girl asked disappointedly, suppressing chills.
"The spell is long and in the ancient language of the caliphate, and I don't know this dialect so well," he removed the watch from its chain, threw back the lid and put it on the book. A red luminous ball zipped around between the silver gears.
"Margaret," the gentleman said surprisingly softly, took her hand and leaned toward her; dark eyes warmed. "Listen. Blood ties are one of the most powerful things in magic. Focus on how deeply you love this house, everyone who lives here, and don't let the ifrit to distract you."
Miss Sheridan nodded. A bitter smell of smoke crept into the room, and she gripped the gentleman's hand more tightly.
"When you feel too scared," he continued softly, not taking his careful, reassuring look from her, "do not try to run out of the circle. Just hide behind me. Whatever you see, Margaret, whatever you hear..."
"He is here," the girl whispered; her gaze slid over his shoulder to the fence, above which a crimson glow rose. The gentleman jerkily threw a short phrase in a foreign language. Silver sand shot up to the ceiling and turned into a flowing transparent curtain. The inscriptions and the arc on the floor were filled with a glass of deathly luminescence. The snow in the garden boiled, steaming out; a thick gloom in crimson reflections poured over the fence and flowed to the house.
"My God," Margaret breathed and clutched both hands into the hand of a stranger. The lamp on the table blinked and went out, the moonlight on the floor turned pink, reflecting a purple glow. The red ball in the watch sparingly lit the page of the book. Miss Sheridan closed her eyes. The gentleman began to read.
He read so slowly, measuredly and quietly, as if a prayer was only for himself; Margaret's trembling almost completely disappeared under his quiet, muffled voice, and the girl focused on her memories, although the stifling smell of burning became stronger. She was already breaking in her temples, and the air was so bitter...
The gentleman suddenly pressed Margaret to himself. The girl nestled up her temple against his shoulder and again inhaled the strange chemical smell from his coat. This smell was vague, similar to the one that she had remembered since childhood - the smell of water in a bucket in which mother, aunts and grandmother dipped rags to wash away soot and dark spots from walls and floors. Her elder brother, Edwin, ran screeching between buckets, while dad and uncles carried stones, shatters, broken brick, wood fragments in bags... Among all this, you could find a lot of treasures, like a rusty nail or curls from a weather vane, the main thing was make it until the adults come, get away early from breakfast and...
Under the eyelids, a fiery flare broke out, and Margaret clung to the gentleman with a shriek scream. Her house stood, enveloped in flames, shrouded in smoke, and the cries in it were interrupted by the roar of shots. In smoke and fire people rushed about, black from soot, covered in blood glistening in the light of a fire. A young man, barely older than Margaret, leaned out of the open window, threw a gun to his shoulder, and suddenly his head exploded, shattered into pieces, splashing blood on the girl's face, brain and fragments of bones. She staggered back, and someone grabbed her. She rushed with all her might, but the grip was iron.
- Margaret! - he barked into her face. The delusion crumbled like a stained glass window, in a pile of colored glass, and Miss Sheridan felt cold. The silvery sand cast a deathlike gleam on the gentleman's face, his eyes completely black. He held Margaret firmly with both hands; she banged her teeth and buried him in the shoulder. The gentleman flinched all over.
She still felt the pain from the bone fragments that cut through her face and hands, the heat from the hot blood on her skin, and worst of all — her thick scent that soaked her clothes and hair. It mingled with the breath of the ifrit, which scraped into the windows with a thousand black fingers, skinny and long, like spider legs; Margaret saw them, even closing her eyes, and she was sick of fear.
Suddenly the gentleman pressed his cheek to her hair, leaning toward her, and his warm breath tickled her temple.
"Margaret, this is a delusion. This is not even a dream."
He hugged the girl, and she felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders He was real, he smelled of this strange chemistry and a little of sweat; and Margaret snuggled up to him, hiding from the crimson gleams of the burning house.
"He's making a fool of you. Whatever you see is just an illusion. He can only harm you if he enters."
Margaret opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a book on the floor, next to the dagger; a whitish glow shone from beyond the circle. A transparent, shimmering white wall, similar to laminated glass grew from the arc in front of the window. Thin glass curtains floated one on top of another and shimmered with a soft mother-of-pearl shine. Behind the windows, there was a pitch black darkness and almost audibly scratched them with thousands of claws.
"Margaret..."
Trembling, the girl raised her eyes to the gentleman. He was pale, sweat glistened on his forehead and neck, and wrinkles appeared on his lips and eyes.
"Why is it not trying to enter through the door?" Miss Sheridan asked quietly.
"This is a protective spell. They are like a transparent pan - completely cover the house. To enter, he needs to crack a spell."
"And if we wait until the morning?"
The gentleman shook his head.
"Are you not well?" The girl whispered even quieter. The temples again rustled.
"It's magic, Margaret. She is not taken from nothing. She feeds on human forces, and the more bonfires, the more firewood is needed." He smiled sadly. "That is why in a long confrontation with evil spirits, human has no chance. Evil spirits can wait as long as they want, but a human will run out of forces earlier."
Somebody voice rustled mockingly in Margaret's head, as dry as ash; it was still inaudible, but she already distinguished vague images.
"Why did you come then?" The girl whispered, clinging tightly to the gentleman, as if to elusive reality. He ran a hand over his forehead, erasing sweat, and glanced at the glass curtain.
"One more time, Margaret. One attempt, and if it doesn't work out, I will take you away."
"From home?"
He nodded. Miss Sheridan closed her eyes. The rustle in her head sounded more insistent.
"Think how you love them," the gentleman's voice came from afar, but she still felt his hands on her shoulders and waist and the living human warmth of his body. Through a gray noise Margaret with an effort pulled out a memory - mother, in the halo of a fiery red mane, against a white wall, holds a brush, all in white paint and laughs out loud, and father patiently wipes Eddie's hands, which he dropped to elbows a minute ago into a bucket. Brother squeals and breaks out, and white spots and traces of palms cover the shirt, hair and even the face of his father. Workers knocking hammers upstairs, laying the roof; sunlight shines through the only surviving apple tree like lace.
Mom flashed like a torch. In one moment, the fire swept all over her, burned her long hair and pulled the charred flesh from her bones. The paint on the wall turned in black bubbles and flakes sprinkled on a flaming body. Flames greedily grabbed her father and Eddie and danced on the roof to the wild cries of the workers. The apple tree blazed, the suffocating smell of burnt meat rose, but only when the bones burst with a crash in the fire, Margaret screeched and rushed away.
She screamed and pulled away until a human voice pierced to her through the hiss of fire:
"Margaret! Come on! Quiet!"
At first the girl felt pain from the force with which he squeezed her elbows, realized that she was on her knees, and only then she could distinguish dark eyes burning with fury in a stuffy haze. He rested his knee on the floor at the edge of the circle, preventing Miss Sheridan from slipping out of the line.
"Can I," Margaret breathed, "think how much I hate him?"
The transparent wall in front of the windows trembled finely; thin black fingers crawled through the cracks between the window frames and scratched the glass greedily. The air was hot, as in a stove, and the floor near the arc began to smolder.
"You can," said the gentleman, and for some reason a triumph sounded in his voice. "Just hurry."
It smelled of burning hair - her curl was wrapped around a dagger and flamed. Fire gobbled up a lock of hair in a second; the wall by the window rang plaintively. So blood is the strongest?! Margaret grabbed the blade and squeezed it in her palm.
"You're vile, odious, disgusting beast!" She again heard the voice of the ifrit, and everything in front of her was black with hatred that flared on the verge between fear and anger. No memories, no images, no thoughts, no love - only burning rage, red-hot from pain. "Die in hell!"
The gentleman covered Margaret's hand with his hand and squeezed her palm so tightly around the blade that blood flowed in a stream, filling the grooves between the faces. The girl screamed piercingly and clutched at his shoulder. Transparent scarlet paint flooded the wall. The ifrit roared, slammed against the window, and Margaret, with vengeful, evil joy, gave vent to the roiling anger in her. All her blood boiled and gushed from the veins into an arc and the inscriptions on the floor. The glass wall blazed scarlet and exploded along with the windows. A flurry of splinters swept through the living room and garden. They scattered like a fan, cut out walls, furniture, trees, mowed bushes and curtains and cut into bars the ifrit. The moonlight splashed in the holes in the darkness. Evil spirit, howling hoarsely, spun into the sky like a corkscrew, leaving behind a smoky tail. Cold poured into the room.
"And now," the gentleman said phlegmatically, letting go of the girl's hand, "they all will definitely wake up."
Margaret woke up. The stranger devoured with his eyes at her - not just with interest, but with such eager curiosity, as if he had set up an experiment and now with impatience wants results, although there was something alarmed in his eyes. But then he jumped to his feet, fished out a handkerchief from his pocket and quickly wrapped the girl's palm.
"Squeeze!"
Margaret clenched a fist and cried out in pain. The gentleman pulled a blade from the floor and casually shuffled his foot along the sandy edge of the circle. The silver pillar immediately crumbled and scattered like a star across the floor, and Miss Sheridan finally looked around.
"Oh my God!!"
What would be left of both of them, if not for this sand flask?!
"Quickly!" The gentleman raised voice at her, throwing a knife, a book, a sand bag, a bottle and a lamp into his bag. From above, door slamming, frightened exclamations, and hurriedly rushing steps came.
"There!" Margaret decided, rose and swayed. Her head was spinning, glass snapped beneath her feet. The gentleman caught the girl, hesitated a second and grabbed her in his arms. Miss Sheridan twitched in surprise.
"Where?" He breathed in her ear.
"The door to the left between the sideboards," Margaret answered strangled, thickly pouring paint from how firmly she nestled up to him. He rushed to the exit. The glass cracked from below, and the girl involuntarily pressed her legs. She pushed the door with her good hand, and they both ducked into total darkness. The gentleman put the girl on the floor.
"To here!" Margaret hissed, grabbed his coat and dragged him along. Cold was drawn across the floor from under the door to the living room. Someone was already rushing there and inaudible shouting something. Miss Sheridan ran to a bend in a narrow corridor, groped for the doors and opened it.
"Inside!"
The gentleman pushed her into the closet first and slammed the door. A second later, a lamp lit in his hand again. He put it on a shelf with dried mushrooms, took Margaret by the wrist and unfolded a handkerchief swollen with blood.
"Fearfully?" asked the gentleman with a grin, fingering the cells on his belt with his long fingers.
"I see my blood every month," thought Margaret and shook her head. Her interlocutor gave a short laugh.
"You hate very good. Bright and tasteful."
He pushed a clear liquid bottle out of the cell, sprayed it onto a handkerchief and wiped the cuts. The girl bit her lip. The palm was pinched mercilessly.
"What prevented you from taking my blood right away?"
"What if you fainted."
"Well really!"
"And besides," the gentleman almost purred, "how would I know what you are capable of. It was interesting to me..."
"We could all die here, and you were interested?! You experimented with me while..."
"…what will you get to and where is your limit," he raised her hand to his lips and whispered hastily over the cuts. Margaret was breathing intermittently. It suddenly occurred to her that he had come here not at all in order to save them all. If he would like to protect - he would say right away that he needed for this, but did not arrange this circus. Think about how you love them! Ugh!!
"Why do you need this? I don't even know your name, and you only see me for the third time! You could have died here if it weren't for..." the girl fell silent. She, too, was not sure in that: despite the pale appearance, the gentleman was running and holding on very vigorously.
Dark eyes flashed mockingly, but he did not answer. Margaret first felt pain in her palm, oozing blood, and breathing tickling her skin; then the pain subsided, the blood coagulated, and the gentleman again pulled the cuts with his handkerchief.
"Change the bandage when you get to your bedroom."
"What is your name?"
He grunted and blew on the lamp. The light turned off.
"What is your name?!" Margaret hissed, blocking the exit.
"What do you need it for? Will you mention it in prayers?"
"Just say your damn name!"
In the darkness he were silent, sighed and finally admitted with obvious reluctance:
"Angel."
"Angel - and all?" Margaret did not believe. "A man cannot be called simply by Angel!"
"Redfern," the gentleman said after a long pause. This last name didn't tell her anything. However, he could have lied so that she would stop pestering him with questions; but at the same time the girl caught a certain wariness in his voice.
"Is the interrogation over?" The savior inquired mockingly.
"The ifrit will not return?" Margaret asked with stammering. "Did you kill him?"
"Me? You flatter me. Ifrit cannot be killed. We just drove him away. But he will not come here."
"Where did he go?"
"He went to dinner in another place," he pushed the girl away from the doors, opened one and looked out carefully.
"Will you follow him?" Miss Sheridan asked, concerned.
"Me? Why on earth?"
"But you came here to drive him away!"
"No," he slipped into the corridor, looked around, and turned to Margaret. "I came to find out what you are really capable of."