In the tavern, despite noon, all hell is let loose; Nathan philosophically thought that the regulars of this establishment work at night, not lowering knife and brass knuckles - when else to relax, if not during the day?
"Aren't you afraid that they will recognize you here?" Jen whispered.
Brennon grunted. He counted on the joy of recognition.
"Don't try to arrange the mass slaughter," he warned the witch sternly, pushing himself to the corner table.
"And not mass?" She licked. "Will you interrogate the pimp? Will you?"
"I still won't let you fry him alive."
"And if not the whole?"
"Take it easy and sit down."
The witch sat down at the table and glanced around the packed room. The inhabitants of the Raven Arc gorged, drank the local swill, shouted (sometimes songs, sometimes in the heat of discussion), a man without legs tormented the violin in the corner, more or less shabby girls screamed here and there, and Nathan was sure that could raking everyone in a jail without even thinking.
"He's not here," Jen said quietly. "Not in this room."
"Sure? Maybe hiding in a corner?"
The witch paused in concentration and shook her head. Brennon stood up, looking for the tavernkeeper in the fumes and smoke. At the counter, he noticed from half a dozen hulks who lazily sipped beer and looked at the customers with an air of proprietorship.
"Security," the Commissar said. Jen nodded. Brennon, of course, did not expect her to faint from a single scent of unwashed bodies, which was condensed to the limit here - however, the witch's equanimity clearly indicated that she was "hunting" in such places for the first time.
"Go," the commissar nodded at the hulks, "say that I need the host."
"So say that?" the girl was surprised.
"Yeah."
She looked at Nathan with such a look, as if doubting that he would survive if she departed even for a minute.
"Stomp," the commissar ordered and laid the cane with a blade on the table. He put one revolver in his pocket, arranged another on his lap, and with his free hand pinched opulent curves of the girl running past with a tray in her hands. The girl screamed shrilly.
"Beer," Brennon said. "And whiskey. A bottle."
As a whisky, they secretly distilled such swill that upon contact with the face it could burn out the eyes. Not to mention a quality blow to the head with a bottle.
The girl accepted the order and disappeared into the crowd. The commissar found Jen and sighed in relief - either from the fact that she was already returning, or from the fact that the two guards stomping behind her were safe and sound.
"Here," the witch said, sat down next to Brennon and looked expectantly at the guards, as if she wondered what they tasted like.
"What do you need?" The first man without ears growl out muffledly. Judging by the scars the imperial executioner cut it for distributing dope.
"Do you know who I am?" Brennon asked.
"Yr," answered the earless man without much joy.
"Where is the host?"
"Busy. What do you need?"
"Hide someone. Not for nothing."
"Who is it?" The earless asked with awakened interest.
"I'll pay by the day. What is the tariff there now?"
The thug scrubbed thoughtfully his scruff of the neck. Under his elbow the peddler girl dived and put a mug of beer, a bottle of muddy moonshine and a glass on the table; along the way, she whispered something to the hulk. Nathan pretended not to notice anything. Jen sniffed the beer contemptuously.
"Not places," the earless one snapped; his chum stewed about from idleness, standing behind the back of his chair, and played with the chopper.
"Why is not?" Brennon said good-naturedly. "Daddy Ames has already scored the entire sewers by the guests?"
The owner of the chopper hung menacingly over the table and sniffed the commissar in the face.
"Put the trinket," Nathan said, "while the balls are intact," he flicked the trigger of the revolver under the tabletop; a dry click made the bandit pull away from the table.
"You..." the earless man indignantly stood up, groping under the hollow hanging ax, which visibly pulled his coat.
"Sit down," Brennon drew his hand from under the table and slightly rested his elbow on its edge for greater accuracy. "And you come for Dad. Leg is here, leg is there."
"Man, you are... there are many of us here, and you are alone."
"You have a very dubious advantage."
The witch stared at the earless and grinned.
"Hey, you..." the guard began, and Nathan picked up the second revolver. The bandit wilted.
"Get Dad in here," the earless man hoarsely ordered, trying to develop a squint in an attempt to look at Jen with one eye and the commissar with the other.
"Well, who was renting Daddy Ames's apartment for the last time?"
"How should I know," the earless man muttered. "Some kind of snout. Half hundred for a week."
"Prices are growing," the commissar reproached. "You don't think about people at all."
"F*** you," the head of the guard answered. The witch glanced quickly toward the counter.
"Oh," she purred, "hey are leading to us, but without daddy."
"How are your capabilities?" Brennon interested, fluently noting that five guards rush to them, like elephants to a watering place. The witch did not answer, only licked her lips in silence. The earless man jerked to the boot knife.
"Quiet," said the Commissar and pushed off the floor. The legs of the chair creaked through a layer of dirt until the back rested against the wall. The earless froze in front of the barrel of the revolver. "Keep them busy."
Jen rested her elbows on the countertop and dropped her chin on her clasped fingers, contemplating the approach of the guards. An almost childish curiosity seized Brennon - after all, she must now do something witchy! At heart, he never got tired of such tricks, and he was already looking forward to it ... Jen grunted, grabbed the bottle and slammed it on the shaven crown of the earless with such force that he toppled to the floor with a chair.
"Oh, I say!" it disappointedly escaped from Brennon. The regulars turned on the noise of the fall; the earless mans' colleagues shouted violently; the witch grabbed the table on the legs, jerked it up and threw it flat on the five guards. There was a momentary lull - even a legless man stopped torturing the violin.
"Hoa, hoods!" The witch shouted loudly. "Bulls in the dump!"
Nathan grabbed the cane, ducked into the joyfully roaring crowd and rushed to the counter, beyond which there was a door. In front of him grew up some bozo with a broken-off bottle neck in his paw. Brennan smacked him with the cane to the gut, hit by the butt of the revolver on the head and pushed aside under the feet of his three convives. The Commissar dodged the second collision and put the revolver in his pocket, so as not to interfere to hit the next regular with a stool. Brennon poked the end of a cane in the stomach the third; the guy folded in half and vomited. In a puddle of vomiting, two more slipped, rushing to the Commissar, and he finally grabbed the bar, jumped over it and broke into the door with a run. It was not locked, and Nathan nearly killed himself on a pot of hot soup carried by a cook in her oven fork. Brennon dodged, performing such a pirouette, as if he had been dancing in ballet since childhood. The cook screeched wildly, dropped the soup and waved her oven fork. To the right in the hallway a broad back of Daddy Ames flashed. Nathan pushed the oven fork and rushed for the fleeing victim.
The corridor ended with a narrow staircase. From it one could get to the back door, but its very end rested in the basement hatch, pressed by log. And there, in the basement, in a corner littered with straw, Daddy Ames kept his main treasure and the key to prosperity: a grate that opened a secret manhole into the old city sewer. Probably, the tavern keeper, having discovered over what place he grabbed the building for himself, nearly drop dead at joy, because in a moment he realized how to use it. A lot of criminals hiding from the police and accomplices, paid the Daddy for the right to wait out in his stinking, but reliable shelter.
Daddy Ames, panting heavily, rolled down the stairs, thundered with keys, opened the hatch, the log away. The commissar jumped down the stairs to a cramped landing, the tavern keeper threw the log at him and burst into the basement. Brennon gasped - he couldn't completely dodge the shell in a cramped corner, and the blow sensibly fell to his side. He grabbed a revolver and jumped into the hatch. Daddy Ames was just raking straw in the corner at the speed of an insane squirrel.
"Hey!" Brennon barked. Ames bounced off the straw and drew a knife.
"Forward," the commissar encouraged, and swung his revolver slightly toward the straw. The host cut a misunderstood face. "Come on quickly!"
"You won't touch me!" Daddy shouted with a squeal. "You have no right!"
"Not to the head," Brennon answered briefly, "but the knee is easy. Or what is dear to you."
Ames licked his lips and sidled up to a pile of straw. A stink oozed from under it, indestructible even in the sewers, which had not been used for decades. Outside the door, quick easy steps were heard. Daddy cheered up.
"Help!" He screeched, and threw himself on his face. "He-e-e..."
"Who is castrated?" The witch interested, jumping down to the basement. There was a flush on her cheeks and a satisfied smile on her lips. Ames threw the knife at the girl. Jen caught and threw it back.
"Well," Brennon said reproachfully: the knife nailed Daddy's palm against the wall and entered deep, almost at the hilt. The host let out a desperate cry.
"Shut him up," Nathan ordered and kicked the straw away by his leg. Right under the hatch began a ladder; beneath it were rusted staples. Ames let out a hoarse squeal that turned into a gasping wheeze and finally died away. Brennon turned around: Jen freed the ends of the apron, which she strangled the tavern keeper, and the fat body flopped to the floor. She tore off a piece of the dirty rag that Ames used instead of the apron, shut his mouth and tied his hands with his own belt. She carefully took the knife to herself.
"What you see?" Nathan asked.
The witch squinted at the stinking hole and confidentially said:
"Down there is the floor."
"Then let's go."
She jumped down first, landed with the noiselessness of a cat, lifted her head and shone her orange-burning eyes.
"Well?" Jen hurried him. "This bastard is here."
In the vaulted corridor it was not only pitchy dark, but it smelled so that Brennon did not want to breathe in a couple of minutes. The witch graciously created a ball of fire and handed it to the Commissar. The path trampled into a layer of long-term shit clearly indicated where Daddy Ames took his guests.
"The guy took desperate measures," the commissar snuffled out through the glove.
"Yep. I dare to offer you a bath in our house, sir."
"Bath? In the winter?"
"Well, I wouldn't go back to work if I were you," Jen grunted.
"I wonder what scared him so much," Brennon muttered: he would have definitely chosen a painful death between the gallows and the sewers.
Ahead the door with a slatted window appeared. Daddy Ames invested in his company: installed doors, lamps in the closets and equipped sunbeds. Peering through the window, the Commissar found what he was looking for: Andrew Half Fist was lying on a mattress in the corner, staring stupidly at a dim lamp and mumbled under his nose of a prayer, clenching his rosary in his fists. The cross on them was clinking faintly on the floor.
Wow, Nathan thought. The pimp lost half his palm in one of the street battles, and the nickname of Half Fist was a respectful tribute to his ferocity. When did he manage to get to such a miserable state?
"The lock," Brennon ordered the witch. She drew a finger around the lock, pushed it, and it fell inside from a scorched tree. The commissar opened the door.
"You!�� He snapped shortly. Andrew Half Fist cried out loud and literally tried to climb the wall.
"No!" a cry echoed boomy down the corridor. "No! Get out! Out! Out! I won't take a step from here! No!"
"Why?" Jen grunted. "Cease to love with fresh air?"
Nathan came in, holding a revolver ready. The pimp crouched in a corner.
"Calm down," Brennon said. "Nobody drags you upstairs."
"Really?" The witch whispered. "Why did we come then?"
Andrew crawled away from the commissar.
"I will not go! I'd rather die here!"
"As you please," the Commissar kindly permitted. "We talk for a while - and enjoy the healing aroma as much as you like."
"I will not say," Andrew whispered: a grayish pallor filled his face; he reeked of sweat, his hands were shaking finely. Brennon studied him intently, recalling the long train of beatings, rape and threats that followed this tough.
"Who did you meet, Andrew?" The commissar asked. Half Fist swallowed frantically and rummaged across the floor in search of a jug. Brennon shoved it by his foot closer to the pimp. He crawled to the floor, sucked on a drink and drank as long as if the jug was bottomless.
"This," Andrew finally stupidly muttered.
"This?"
"It is not a human," the pimp said. "It walks among people, the spawn of the devil, and I saw him!"
"How? When?"
Andrew shook his head.
"Days... weeks... I don't remember. We stood in Garland Square, me and my chicks. I checked how they toil and moil there, and this... this came out of the darkness!"
"No wonder," Jen remarked, "it was most likely a deep evening."
The commissar shushed her. Andrew's gaze slipped away and the pimp mumbled prayers. A dirty prayer book was lying near the mattress.
"Out of the darkness," Brennon repeated. "And what this was?"
"The devilish creature in a human form!" Half Fist shouted. He hit on his head several times with his palms. "Here, here..." he muttered. "His voice is here, and pulls with it into nethermost fire!"
"Still there?" the Commissar specified. Andrew's eyes flashed cunningly.
"Nooo," he said. "I cheated! I left! Under the thickness of the earth he cannot find me!"
"He, therefore, talked with you."
"No, no," Andrew crawled to the prayer book and began feverishly, randomly flipping back and forth. "The voice sounded in our souls... and he said "Fear!" ...and he said, "Follow me!"
He hit himself on the head again.
"Here, here! You will follow me and she will! You will follow me and I will!"
"What for? Jen whispered. "The park keeper killed the whore."
"And we went," Andrew muttered, flipping the prayer book back and forth, "and went and went until saw the gates! And he told me to open them! And I opened!" Half Fist raised his hands, covered with half-healed bruises and wounds; some have already festered. "And opening the gate... opening... opening..."
His voice turned into a indistinct muttering. Andrew leaned over the prayer book and began to swing from side to side.
"The main gates of the park are locked with chains," Brennon quietly explained to the witch. "But I don't understand why the sorcerer did not use the spell... And then what? What happened next?"
"He called, and the man came," Andrew answered dimly. "And he led us into the forest. And he ordered her to die, and she died," something meaningful finally appeared in his eyes. "And then his power over me weakened, and I... I..." He clenched his fists, winced in pain and looked at his hands. "And I got out of there. Ran until I..." the pimp nodded at the door. "Almost died in the cold. But here he won't find me, no, no, he won't find me!" He giggled.
"Okay, man, calm down and relax," the witch said, squatted down in front of him and looked into his eyes. Half Fist jumped into a corner and screamed; however, his cry died out right away, and he obediently stared at Jen. Brennon walked through the closet. The only surviving witness that he managed to find, was crazy and also did not remember half of what the Commissar needed. Excellent result.
«Спросите, как выглядел этот голос», - нахмурился Натан.
«Помни его лицо», - сказала девушка.
«У него нет лица», - ответил Эндрю без выражения и провел пальцем по лицу: «Там было пятно, и его голос был здесь, здесь!» Он снова ударил себя по лбу.
«А кроме лица? Что у него было кроме его лица? Что вы видели?"
«Тонкий», - ответил сутенер после долгой паузы; Бреннон дернулся. «Низко, он был ниже плеча Пэтти. Где Патти? Она моя, она была со мной! Куда..."
«Шуш», сказала ведьма. «Забудь о Пэтти».
Комиссар упал духом. Глупая надежда, что это пироманьяк, сразу же вымерла. Этот зверь б��л худой, но очень высокий, не уступавший по росту самому Бреннону.
«Руки», - пробормотал Эндрю внезапно, почти слышно. «Руки ... маленькие руки ... такие маленькие ...»
... когда они наконец вышли из люка, комиссар обнаружил, что папа Эймс пришел в себя. Хозяин хрипло напрягся, одновременно пытаясь выплюнуть кляп, порвать ремень, которым были связаны его руки, и катиться к двери. Бреннон остановился над ним, вытащил свой кошелек �� бросил пятьдесят носов под нос Эймса. Папа перестал извиваться и с любопытством покосился на деньги.
«Защити его, как зеницу ока», - приказал комиссар. «Здесь на неделю. Если ты потеряешь этого парня - попрощайся со своим яблоком, подкованный?
Эймс кивнул так горячо, что чуть не подавился кляпом.
«Давай», сказал Бреннон ведьме. «Мы здесь закончили».