The tongue was no longer bloody, only swollen and itched. Margaret, lisping as if at six years old, told Angel about everything that had happened here. He reached for his glasses, but after a minute of exploring the room, he pulled them off his nose in irritation and began to gnaw at the glass's temple.
"Nothing, no trace," he grumbled through the temple. "Why the hell didn't this man get into your thoughts, especially when you refused to give him me? What stopped him?"
"Medallion?" Margaret squeaked timidly.
"Nonsense! The medallion informs me of your condition and location, it does not protect against mind reading. Besides, a maniac would incinerate such a spell like others before." Angel leaned out of the window, examined the bloody snow, snorted and slammed the shutters.
"Is it good that he doesn't read them?"
"It is bad! This is inconsistent! From control to penetration into thoughts, one step, why did not he take it?"
"I wonder why murdered girls are not good for him?" Margaret felt her tongue with the tip of her finger and continued: "Why did he keep killing them?"
"Time, girl, time! Pieces of dead bodies deteriorate, but even if they are preserved, they quickly lose the necessary properties."
"What kind?"
"So that I know," Angel said through set teeth and stared at Margaret with a gaze. "There is something in you that he needs... But what, besides appearance? Does he need you just because of the similarity?"
"Same as me," Miss Sheridan repeated uncertainly. "He said that I am the same as him. Maybe that's why?"
"But this is lunacy! You are completely different, and he should know..." Angel's eyes widened and brightened. "Oh my God! He doesn't know! He's just as ignorant as a savage!"
Redfern darted excitedly around the room and loomed over Margaret, looking her over eagerly. The girl felt uncomfortable.
"What?" She asked defiantly, clutching the armrests. "What are you looking at?"
"We thought of him much better than he really is," Angel said, sat down on the armrest, ran his finger along Miss Sheridan's cheek. "That's why he's so bad at magic! It is easier for him to make a person pull the chain out of the gate, because he does not know spells. Longsdale is right, but he doesn't know how much."
"But what have I to do with it?"
Angel leaned over to the girl and tickled her under the chin. Margaret slapped his hand indignantly.
"I taught you magic. And this unfortunate ignoramus does not even know how much magic there is in this world, in the world where he now lives. He thinks - the devil knows what he thinks about himself, but about you - about you, he thinks that you, too, have become like him, because he saw how you do magic. He does not distinguish magic from the abilities that he received, does not know about witches - and therefore she scared him so much that he ran away. Here's the thing!"
Angel jumped off the armrest, froze in front of the fireplace and whispered:
"But if he does not know all this, then it means that he is of recent manufacture! But how, how? There are no open spontaneous portals near, I know..." he rubbed his forehead with force, turned to Margaret, absently looking at her from under his arm.
"And you?" The girl asked. "Are you old manufacture?"
Angel dropped his hand and stepped back. He suddenly became paler than usual, his lips compressed, his eyes darkened. Margaret rose and took a step towards him.
"Do you think I'm deaf? Or idiot? Or unable to remember more than three words in a row?"
It was rude, and Margaret immediately fell silent, embarrassed. Angel folded his arms over his chest as if he were blocking out from her.
"Do you really think that I would never think about it?" The girl continued softly. "Really, when you told me, didn't expect that I would ask in the end? You've already said so much."
She cautiously took another step and touched Angel's arm. He was silent, looking at her from under his brows.
"You told me that you supply hunting consultants with the tools for their craft. How many years did it take you to learn so many spells, potions, undead and evil spirits? How many years to invent a weapon against them?
"A lot," Angel answered deafly. His gaze grew heavier and more piercing, as if he wanted to get it into Margaret's head.
"A lot," she repeated almost fondly. "But you couldn't do this right from birth, could you? Diapers, nipple, babbling, all that..."
He finally chuckled.
"If you remember the Damn Bald and the plague barracks..."
"I don't remember the barracks.
"...so how old are you?"
"Do you think I counted?"
"I will not be frightened and will not run away," the girl looked at him intently and added: "And I will not tell anyone."
"Yes," Redfern said quietly after a pause, "you don't tell anyone, never, I know."
The girl waited. Angel stared at the wall over her shoulder, and the incredulous, withdrawn expression on his face was gradually replaced by fatigue showing through it. His eyes were completely dark, and at last he grunted:
"Two hundred seventy-six."
Margaret gasped loudly. Redfern chuckled.
"So, it changed me. I was dying when this happened... when the portal opened above me. I think that's why I changed, and not died." He clenched and unclenched his fists several times, ran his hand over his face, neck, chest. "That is, I thought so until this maniac showed up."
"And the others?" Margaret asked. He raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Those people who did it all to you. What about them?"
"They tortured you! They left you to die!" She thought furiously.
"No one but me survived."
"Why do you think so?"
"Pure magic sweeps through the body with the force of a thousand lightning, it breaks every nerve, every particle of flesh, and it seems that the blood boils in the veins. If I hadn't been on the verge of dying... I don't really know why, Margaret." He sighed and muttered, "Maybe it's just me..."
"When did it happen?"
"I was forty-three."
Margaret shuddered and threw her arms around him. Dad was forty-two. So few!
"But who did this to you? Why?"
Angel hugged the girl tightly and pressed his cheek to her hair. She didn't have the heart to ask the rest of the questions.
"If, barely opening your eyes," he muttered, "you see a host of hellish creatures bursting out of hell itself, and if that doesn't drive you crazy, and if you can survive, then what will you do then?"
"I don't know," Margaret sniffed. I would have dug an underground shelter, walled up from the inside and for two hundred years was afraid to look outside."
Angel let out a laugh that tickled her ear.
Well, I confess, it was the first desire that I had. I got to the fishing boats by swimming, and, frankly, if not for the wild horror, I would never have succeeded."
"Fishing boats," Margaret perked up her ears. "Did it happen on the island? The coast? What do you mean it's just me?"
"In fact, I counted," Angel whispered, "I counted every year so as not to lose one!"
The girl timidly stroked his chest, feeling the rapid beating of his heart.
"So it's important to find not a maniac," Redfern said, "it is important to find the portal that made him so," He tilted his head, looking into her eyes. "I will have to postpone my promise. First I will interrogate him, and he will show me where he became such an interesting person. And then," Angel finished almost animatedly, "I'll skin him off."
"Okay," Margaret choked out, "whatever you say."
Lord, is he seriously going to?!...
"What do you intend to do?"
"Something," the mentor smiled slyly. He sank into a chair, pulled Margaret behind him and, although the girl, flushing with embarrassment, tried to twist away, grabbed her and sat her on his lap. He was stronger than he seemed, and Miss Sheridan wondered if this was another consequence of the impact. Although he was far from the superhuman strength of a consultant.
"Consultant," Margaret remembered Mr. Longsdale and turned pink again, "but where did he come from? They! There are a lot of them! How did Angel get in touch with them?"
Imagination immediately drew her a powerful secret order of defenders of people from all evil spirits. But then Angel hugged her again, and another, very pleasant feeling supplanted the thought of the order. Nobody hugged her so that she felt in a cozy nest. But, on the other hand, few people could boast of such long arms.
"I need your help now, Margaret. I will search for all the wormholes in the vicinity, but since I am quite far from the laboratory and I have no tools, I will need an additional source of power. Focus on my words and try to breathe in the same rhythm with me."
"And then?"
"You will feel when need to join."
Angel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Under the girl's cheek, his chest rose and fell steadily. Margaret tried to match his breathing and closed her eyes too. As soon as her eyelids were lowered, she was drawn to sleep. She pinched her wrist, and then Angel muttered softly to himself in Elladian. Miss Sheridan's success in this language was limited to the alphabet and a couple of words, so she began to listen to the mentor's voice, not trying to make out the spell itself.
"Witcher, witches," the girl thought enviously. "They can do whatever you want without spells!"
Judging by how long it took for Angel to recite on Caliphatian last time, the ifrit was very patient. Why are people so limited? After all, that is why they summon evil spirits...
"Or because they were scoundrels from birth," Margaret chuckled. No matter how hard she tried, Angel's mumbling lulled her to sleep. The girl struggled with the slumber until he squeezed her shoulder and hissed:
"What are you doing? Relax immediately!"
"Sorry," Margaret whispered, embarrassed. From under her eyelashes, she noticed the annoyed look that Angel gave her, immediately closed her eyes and told herself to relax. Redfern started all over again, with clearly displeased intonations.
This time, since Margaret did not resist, a pleasant doze overtook her almost immediately. Angel's voice came through it, gradually fading into an indistinct rustle. The girl swayed on the waves half asleep, in the same rhythm with the soft beats, in which she did not immediately recognize the beating of his heart. A pearly gray haze rose from the soft, enveloping darkness. Margaret watched sleepily as the image was woven from the translucent overflows. When the picture unfolded in front of her like a silk carpet, it turned out to be a map. There was a deep sigh outside; the heartbeat became more frequent, and the girl was pulled forward and downward. She dived right into the picture.
The touch of the hand was half-real, like in a dream. Angel's breath stirred a silky haze. He dragged her along. Multilayered pictures floated towards them. The girl recognized the outlines of rivers, cities and mountains, but could not remember their names. They glided past, barely touching her mind; suddenly the warmth of the hand that was gripping Margaret's hand began to intensify. Hot breath burned Miss Sheridan's face, her heartbeats pounded in her ears, and Margaret's hand began to merge with Angel's. Her fingers grew into Redfern's, her breath became his breath, and her heart beat in his chest.
"Don't be afraid," he whispered in her confused mind, "it won't be long."
The map was roused and rushed swiftly towards them. Margaret took her breath away with delight - from a set of vague translucent pictures, the map turned into bright, lively and moving canvases. Flying through them, the girl heard snatches of conversations in cities, the sound of water in rivers, the lapping of lake waves and the hum of mountain winds. And sometimes, now in front, now to the side, the sun sparkled on the sea waves.
"Oh, Margaret," she heard in her head, "you're just a volcano! But don't be afraid, I won't exploit you for too long."
Margaret blushed. A gentle touch of consciousness was too much... intimate.
"But it is empty here," his disappointment echoed over the girl's embarrassment and drowned out her own feelings, "no traces of a spontaneous portal... Except to get further away. But how did the maniac get here? If the portal opened far away, then..."
Such a hurricane of colorful thoughts, half-thoughts and barely outlined images flashed through Margaret's mind that it took her breath away. Watching how Angel thinks was... dizzying, and her own (very meager, as it turned out) mind almost burst from strain.
"How do you even live with such a blizzard in your head?!"
A bright flash bloomed before her eyes.
"It is clear that damn all is unclear," Angel said; on the background irritation bubbled mixed with hunting excitement, "let's try to get further away. Be patient a little longer. At the same time, try to remember everything you've heard about the recent disasters with a large number of victims."
The map rushed to meet them again, only now they rushed through it with such speed that the images merged into spots of color. Margaret felt sick.
"Now!" Angel whispered feverishly. "Now, now, one more minute!"
Something dark flashed through the heap of bright spots. The girl noticed a rip in color out of the corner of her eye and poked Angel. He swiftly turned and rushed to the dark spot like a cat to a mouse. Suddenly the gap widened and deepened, instantly turning into a funnel. Something that had no name in Margaret's world was twisting and turning inside her. The black hole, opening a yawn as deep as an abyss, rushed toward them. Angel recoiled.
Margaret's consciousness exploded with pain, and a memory opened up in front of her: a huge sparkling funnel full of shadows, wild animal horror, then - a hellish fire bursting from within, blindness split by a white flash, and even deeper - again pain, physical, in a tortured body, fear, someone's pleading voice, an agonizing desire to die so that everything would finally end, and suddenly - the face of a person, distorted by fierce joy, and a blow in the eye with a peg.
With a scream, Margaret pulled out of the vision, jumped to her feet and dashed into a corner. With difficulty catching her breath, she leaned against the fireplace to stay on her feet. Angel lay in a chair, dull white, his head thrown back as if unconscious, and a vein often beat in his neck. He gripped the armrest with one hand, the other dangled to the floor, and his fingers clenched and unclenched convulsively.
"Angel?" The girl called hoarsely. He didn't answer. Margaret ran to the chair and touched Angel's forehead. He was covered in hot sweat; the eyes under the eyelids moved quickly.
"Oh my God!"
What if it's not allowed? A shiver went through the girl. What if she can't break out like that, and he was left there alone? What if he won't get out?! Margaret darted to the window, opened the shutter and wet her handkerchief in the snow. Returning to the chair, she sat down on the armrest, rested Angel's head on her chest and, holding him with one hand, gently wiped his face and neck with a handkerchief. Redfern sighed weakly and buried himself in her like a child in a stuffed animal.
"Angel," the girl called softly. He didn't respond, didn't even move. Margaret bit her lip. She knew what she saw, even if it was in reverse order. She leaned back in the chair, made Angel comfortable, and stroked his hair. Why does he still remember all this? After all, so many years have passed! Or is it something that Angel found in his vision? Or maybe it was her fault - he was telling her about the past, suddenly because of her he remembered again that the last thing he saw in that life was the face of his tormentor?
But who was it? Why did he (or they) do this to Angel?
Margaret sat on the armrest for a long time, not moving, so as not to disturb him, until her side and leg were numb; fingered Angel's thick wavy hair and thought. Finally, he moved weakly, took a deep breath - and tried to burrow into her chest, like a pillow.
"Hey," Margaret called softly. Angel's eyelashes lifted heavily, and dark eyes gleamed beneath them. He looked at her not very consciously, as if half asleep.
"Drink?" Margaret asked. He blinked and muttered:
"What nice hills..."
Miss Sheridan flushed thickly. Angel pressed his cheek to the " hills", closed his eyes sweetly and grabbed Margaret by the waist in a businesslike manner. After a second or two, he shuddered violently, opened his eyes and recoiled, almost falling out of the chair.
"Oh my God!" it burst out from him. "It is you!"
"Of course, it's me. Who else? Angel, please forgive me!"
"Ah?" the mentor asked uncomprehendingly.
"It's me! If I hadn't left you there!.."
"Ah!" Angel answered already more confident. "N-nothing... nothing to worry about... If you had stayed there, God knows what else you would have seen."
"Why did these people torture you so?" Margaret wanted to ask, but instead she said:
"Did you recognize the place?"
Angel rubbed his eyes. The mentor looked no good, but Margaret noticed that annoyance and shame were mixed with fatigue - he looked sideways at her as if he wanted to erase from her memory even a hint of his unworthy weakness.
"The Edmoor disaster. You must remember, it was not that long ago."
Miss Sheridan frowned.
"I do not remember. But I may not know. From ten to sixteen years old I was in a girls' boarding school. Therefore..."
"Boarding school?" Redfern asked in surprise. "Is this an almshouse? But you are rich and not an orphan?"
"No. The boarding school is a place where girls from good families receive a decent upbringing and education."
"A monastery, or what? In any case, there education is not worth a damn," Angel said. "Even I knew about the Edmoor crash, although I lived in another country then. This caused a stir even on the Continent, and pretty much shook the stock of the rail companies."
"I still don't understand..."
"The train wreck in Edmoor," Angel narrowed his sparkling eyes at her. "Seven years ago. Thousands of victims. This is what we need."
***
The delight with which the witch turned the door into smoking embers made Nathan worry about the fate of the maniac after meeting an ardent girl. Therefore, the Commissar warned:
"If you see the asshole, knock he out, but don't touch."
Jen licked her lips carnivore and dived into the darkness.
"Do you need light?" the witch asked from the darkness and before Nathan answered, threw him a fireball. Longsdale and the hound disappeared into the night, in order to block the escape route for the maniac. Brennon drove the ball higher and stepped over the threshold.
This is a house, the commissar immediately realized: a narrow corridor led into the kitchen and the cold storage room. Jen had already opened the doors and looked around both rooms. The third door was marked with a luminous circular sign.
"He's not that talentless," the witch said. "A protective sign against outsiders."
Both rooms, the kitchen and the closet, were empty. No sign of habitation - it looks like the house was used as a warehouse, or a laboratory, or a hideout, but definitely not for living. So the lair is somewhere else...
"It's cold," Jen said. "You feel? He chilled the house."
The Commissar nodded: the dry air made the house feel colder than outside. All the conditions for the dead... so why are they not good for him? There was not a sound in the house, and, on reflection, Nathan indicated the door to the witch:
"Break it."
The girl understood him in her own way: she stared at the sign, which made it tremble, flow, and disappear with a loud pop in a flash of fire. The door was crumbled into a pile of ash, and from the opening pulled dead and for some reason - paint.
"It," Jen whispered. Nathan pulled a scarf over his nose: he read somewhere that you can be poisoned to death, breathing in cadaveric fumes. The commissar nodded to the girl and crept up to the opening on the left wall, while the witch crept up on the right. They looked inside at the same time.
"Empty," Jen said disappointedly. "There aren't even traps. Even the most worthless trap!"
Brannon entered and beckoned the fireball behind him. Light illuminated the clean-swept plank floor, whitewashed walls, and heavy beams on the ceiling. The Commissar squatted down and ran his fingers over the indentations in the floor.
"There was a large, heavy table. Hooks are screwed into the beams. Someone has tidied up here thoroughly. Is the maniac still here?"
Jen opened her mouth to answer, when suddenly there was a fierce roar outside, a flame blazed out, illuminating through the door and the wall, a fountain of chips and stone chips splashed out. Brannon barely had time to grab the witch by the scruff of her neck and dash into the corner. The hound burst into the room, blazing with fire - its mouth is open, a tongue of flame flutters inside, eyes burn, claws gnash on the floor. The monster froze in front of the commissar, sucked in air noisily, and uttered an embarrassed "Fuf!" and went out, returning to its normal houndgy appearance.
"This brute has escaped!" Longsdale growled. He emerged from the darkness behind the hound, breathing heavily and sparkling eyes. "The filthy creature managed to wipe its tracks!"
The Commissar got up from the floor, held out his hand to the witch and scowled at the consultant. He himself looked like a maniac who had reached his victims. If the other spent most of the time in this state...
Or he can only yell to me in a fit of rage, Nathan thought. The other, sniffing like a hound, inspected the room; then he suddenly blinked, ran his hand over his eyes, and already the consultant was staring at Brannon. Even the witch shivered.
"I'll go crazy with you myself," Brannon muttered. "When did you lose him?"
The witch was silent in concentration. The hound began to sniff the floor, moving in a circle. Longsdale came in at last and studied the walls.
"I can't catch it," Jen said suddenly. "I don't even know when I lost it! Sorry..."
Brannon sighed. Everything was going too well.
"But did you smell he while we were driving? This is his house, isn't it?"
The hound nodded without taking his nose off the floor.
"Traces of necromancy are evident," Longsdale ran the flat of the trihedron along the walls. "It's paint."
"Where?"
Nathan walked over and almost stepped on a spot of white paint on the floor. Perfectly fresh.
"The walls were doused with white paint. It's barely starting to dry." The consultant dabbed a finger on the wall. The hound scrabbled at the long scratches in the floor.
"He couldn't have carried it all away on his own," the Commissar sacrificed the handkerchief and wiped off the paint next to the consultant's fingerprint. In the plaster beneath it, a piece of some kind of ornament carved with a thin blade was exposed.
"There's a village nearby," Jen said. "Surely he easily found draft power. Damn it! Looks like I can smell him only when he does his own magic! As soon as he left his slaves, I lost him!"
"This is necromantic garons," Longsdale said. He mumbled something under his breath, ran his hand over the wall, and the paint fell in flakes to the floor. "Have you noticed? The room has been brought to a perfect square." The consultant pushed a fireball with his dagger against the opposite wall. "See? These are boards. The wall was recently put up, and all the windows were covered with boards. Hermetic cube. I am sure that we will also find garons on the ceiling and floor."
"What is it for?"
"To preserve body. Or bodies."
"And the spell of Margaret?" Brennon suddenly remembered. "Does it still follow the maniac?"
"Well... probably yes. We can try." Longsdale put his hand on the hound's head. "If he did not fly away through the air, then we will take the trail of the spell and catch up with him. But what will you do next?"
"I'll catch up and find out," Nathan said not very confidently.
"And if he captures you?"
"Then hit me in the head with something harder. Damn it!" the Commissar looked around the room with a heavy look. "There is still a mountain of evidence! If you could be separated from your hound..."
Longsdale shuddered all over.
"I can stay," Jen suggested.
"No. You are the only one he cannot capture. In addition, our horses are already tired, the second race is too much for them."
"But I don't need a horse to catch him," the witch's eyes flashed red. "Would you like me to take care of him, sir?"
Nathan paced the room from end to end. Most of all, he feared that the maniac would return for Margaret. Especially if this parasite could not keep what he cut girls for, and Peg was his only chance... for what? What is he doing all this for?
"Okay. Follow the maniac, just remember that we need him alive."
Jen grunted ominously and slipped out the door.
"What do you think he was doing here?"
"Kept the body."
"One?"
"Well... judging by the fact that there are only four marks from the table legs, then yes. A table this size will not fit two bodies at once."
"But what did the maniac do to him?"
"Assembled," Longsdale muttered. "Garons on the walls maintain an optimal body storage environment. But even so, it seems, he was unable to preserve the corpse for his purpose."
«Интересно, для чего?» - сказал Бреннон сквозь зубы. Собака смутно пожала плечами. "Ладно. Давайте посмотрим на двор.
Собака нашла обугленный стол, расколотый на куски. Либо маньяк так спешил уйти, что не наблюдал за огнем, либо влажный воздух и снег сделали свое дело - но обломки не сгорели дотла. Железные крепления для рук, ног и шеи были едва повреждены. Рядом с ним лежали остатки небольшого ��толика на колесах, и от огня возник такой запах, что Лонгсдейл оттолкнул комиссара в сторону и сказал:
«Он сжег здесь свои зелья. Отойди, дышать опасно.
Натан потер свои храмы и тупо пробормотал:
«Вы можете отправить какое-нибудь сообщение Бирну? Пусть они св��рнутся.
Лонгсдейл кивнул, присел на корточки и на мгновение опрокинул кинжал в камин. Собака понюхала угли, презирая ядовитые пары.
«Вот инструменты. Хирургическое, в основном.
«Итак, это была его лаборатория. ��осмотри��е на следы вокруг. Их явно покинуло не один человек ».
«Как вы думаете, сообщники?»
«Я думаю, что мы должны опросить жителей деревни. Если маньяк завербовал в нем своих помощников, то, боюсь, жителей стало на два-три меньше ».