The wagon landed on the outskirts of the city. Redfern helped Margaret down, and while he took out the valise, the girl went up to the horses. Now they looked like a luxurious bay couple, with long, lush manes and tails. One of the horses squinted at Miss Sheridan with a large plum eye, and a silvery-scarlet gleam flickered in it. Margaret backed away. The horse lowered its muzzle and began to calmly chew the snow, crunching sweetly with ice.
"Don't put your hands in!" Angel harshly called out to the girl. "Kelpies are carnivorous."
"Okay," the girl muttered, retreating closer to the mentor. "As you say. Kelpie so kelpie..."
Angel took the valise and offered his hand to Margaret; they moved towards Edmoor along a semi-visible road. Despite the proximity of the city outskirts, there was no light or rustle anywhere. No late passers-by, no drunks strolling down the street looking for a drink, no hounds in the courtyards - no one and nothing. Sagging shutters and open doors have long ceased to protect the houses from rain, snow and wind.
"Edmoor is dying out," Angel said. "People instinctively run from the rift."
The city looked like a ghostly vision: the houses still seemed strong, but they were slowly crumbling from the inside because no one here had locked doors and windows for seven years. The streets are covered in snow, on the rooftops there are big white hats and heavy icicles. It's dark, deserted and gray.
"How did it happen? Didn't those who built the railway understand what they were doing?"
"Greed, Margaret," Angel said. "The Edmoors were right, you can't build a railway here, but who cares when the estimate has already been drawn up, and the money has been invested? Construction began even before the geologists were done with the soil survey, and no one was going to spend extra money laying a loop to go around Edmoor when there is a shorter and cheaper route." The mentor snorted. "The result is obvious."
"They are the pigs,�� Miss Sheridan said. "Did they then sleep well?"
"Yes," Redfern answered grimly, "nothing disturbs the sleep of such people."
They crossed the abandoned neighborhoods one after another, and at first Margaret still noticed signs of repairs on the houses and fences, but the longer they walked, approaching the gap, the more ruins became. Some buildings have turned into piles of broken bricks. They came across more and more often, and it became difficult to walk down the street: every now and then it was necessary to bypass ruins, heaped stones, tumbled down fences, and sometimes - to climb over them. Margaret almost fell several times, stumbling over stones or getting her foot in a deep pothole.
"Can't the Kelpies come close to the rift?" She asked Angel as he helped her overcome a deep rift in the middle of the street.
"No. They smell what is oozing out of there, and will never approach it."
The rusty railway tracks appeared quite unexpectedly. Ahead there was a long narrow gap that swallowed the railroad, trains, and the station. Stakes were driven in around them with ribbons faded to a pale scarlet color. Angel stopped.
"This gap is growing," he said. "It happens sometimes, but I think it's not just natural reasons."
He set the valise down and frowningly stared down at the rift. It was so impenetrable darkness in the rift that it seemed bottomless. Absolute silence reigned all around. Not a single living soul. Margaret clasped her hands in the muff. If something happens, they can't count on help.
"Do you feel it?" Angel asked. The air, frozen in complete immobility, seemed crystal clear and transparent, but it was hard for them to breathe, as if an invisible suspension was penetrating it. Margaret scooped up a handful of snow and threw it towards the rift. The snow settled to the ground slowly, like tea leaves through water. Above the rift itself, the air looked like a transparent lens, through which something almost elusive to the human eye sometimes streamed. The girl took Angel's elbow. The mentor's hand was stiff with exertion.
"You are scared?" Margaret asked quietly.
"Yes," Angel whispered, "very much."
"What should we do?"
"Descend into the rift, get as close to the gap as possible, and take a sample of the magic oozing from there. The closer the better." He lowered his head and muttered under his breath,"I'm a coward, Margaret. I took you with me because I am afraid to go alone. Even standing and looking at it alone..." Angel twitched the corner of his mouth and turned away. The girl hugged his hand.
"And if you take a sample here? Or just at the edge of the rift?"
"It won't fit. We need to sift the one hundred and forty thousand people of Blackwhit, and possibly the neighboring villages as well. Add to this the evil spirits and undead. All these emanations will immediately render a weak sample useless."
Angel squatted down in front of the valise and opened it.
"One will go down into the rift, one will stay at the top to get the first one out," Margaret suggested. "I can be the one to go down."
"Oh no!" Angel snapped, throwing an angry glare at her. "I haven't lost my dignity enough to push you inside yet!"
"Then what will I do?" The girl asked busily to distract him. Angel frowned as he studied two outlandish devices. Finally he held out one to Margaret.
"This is a breathing balloon. Clip it to your belt. Then put on the mask, check the connecting and breathing tubes. We cannot breathe air near the rift. It will be difficult for us to speak too, so listen now. We will come to the edge, and I will lower the controlled mechanism with the ampoule. You will have a screen on which we can track the movement of this probe. I will control, you hold the screen. Questions?"
"What if something terrible emerges from the rift or the gap? What will we do?"
"Run," said Angel succinctly and snapped the valise.
They crawled under the ribbon where the embankment had crept into a gentle slope. Angel helped Margaret down and fastened the glass mask at the back of her head, which was tight to her skin, covering her entire face. He pressed a button on the balloon and motioned for the girl to take a deep breath. Then he put on the same mask himself and handed the girl a pair of thick gloves. Finally, they moved along the paths to the rift.
The balloon was quite heavy and interfered with walking, but It also seemed to Margaret that it was because the thick air. It looked clean, but for some reason it was harder to move in it, and the closer to the rift, the worse. Above the rift itself, the air completely became transparent jelly. In addition, their legs were bogged down in the snow, under which stones were constantly coming across, and Miss Sheridan already feared that they would break their limbs before getting to the place.
"How can we escape from here if something happens?"
The rift was a narrow, winding crevice in the ground. Its width, however, was enough to swallow two trains and the station: the buildings slid down when it opened. Angel stopped at the edge, put down his valise, took out a plate of thick blue glass in a wooden frame and handed it to Margaret. Following from the bag something like a metal rat appeared twice the size of a living animal. Redfern inserted the "ampoule" into the grooves on her back - a smoothly cut crystal hollowed out from the inside, flicked a lever on the rat's neck. It came to life, flashed red eyes (three on the muzzle, two near the ampoule and four on the sirloin) and began fingering with her paws in the air. Margaret suppressed a squeal with difficulty. Angel took out a small board, like a slate, with only buttons and levers, and released the rat into the rift. It darted into the impenetrable darkness, and a picture appeared on Margaret's screen. It was conveyed by the eyes of the rat - the view was almost flawless.
"Oh my God!" the girl shuddered, imagining what the surviving passengers, people on the tracks and in buildings, had experienced before they finally died. The broken train still lay below, on its side: a steam locomotive, a scattering of broken glass, coal, crumpled pipes, the wagons were lost in the darkness. Inside and around were the bones of those who could not be reached.
The rat itself was moving in a straight line, but Angel quickly took control of the process. The probe overcame the slope with light jumps, jumped onto a steam locomotive and tittuped deep into the rift. Here and there, Margaret noticed rotting things, half-covered with snow, shards of glass and wreckage. Before reaching the last wagon, the rat jumped to the ground and scurried down the slope, now and then skirting around rubble of stones and bricks or skeletons.
At first everything went smoothly, but the deeper the probe descended, the more noise appeared on the screen. Once he become covered white stripes altogether, and Margaret got scared, thinking that she had accidentally broken him. Nevertheless, the rat moved forward and downward - until finally a crimson light lit up on Angel's board.
"Found it," Margaret read on the lips of her mentor. The rat froze, standing up on its hind legs and moving its head from side to side. Something dark and vague flashed on the edge of visibility; the girl touched Angel with her elbow, the mentor nodded and directed the rat in that direction. Something immediately moved, remaining barely visible. The rat fell to the ground; Angel pressed the blue button on the board. The ampoule on the back of the metal animal lifted up and lit up.
Margaret gripped the screen frame. She could almost physically feel something moving, eluding the probe's many eyes, but steadily approaching. Suddenly a long thin tentacle shot out of the darkness; Angel pulled the lever, and the rat flipped over its head and flew through it. A shred of something cloudy was sucked into the ampoule, and it returned to the nest. The ampoule was sealed with a crystal pin, and it fell inside the probe. Suddenly, the rat flew aside, as if from a kick, and hit the slope. The girl screamed shrilly.
"Run, run, run!" Angel shouted silently. The rat jumped up and, falling on one paw, rushed back in long leaps. Something rushed after, and as Margaret did not try to unfold the screen, it always remained out of sight. The probe was no longer looping - it flew like a bullet in a straight line, jumping over obstacles, but something did not lag behind. A haze began to cover the screen, as if something breathed, emitting fog.
Something overtook the rat already at the train. The blow from the invisible paw was so strong that the probe broke through the wall of the wagon and fell inward. A third of the screen went off immediately. Angel, biting his lip, turned the wheel on the board; the rat got up and, staggering, ducked down, under a pile of things, rotten seat upholstery and crumpled rugs.
"God, God!" Margaret whispered with her lips. The rat crept through the wagon, hiding from the gaze of invisible eyes, crawled into the vestibule, moved to another wagon - and at that moment something tore out the wagon of the ground and threw it into the slope. The ground under the girl's feet shook, and Angel, grabbing Margaret's arm, jerked her back. Snow and soil fell from the edge of the fault.
Something oozed from the hole, staining the still air a watercolor gray. In these pale streaks, Margaret discerned movement - shadows and silhouettes of some creatures, as if instead of misty vapors a gap had opened in front of her on the other side. The flow of forms was so mesmerizing that if Redfern had not shaken her, the girl would have stared at them.
"Don't look!" Angel hissed; Margaret looked down at the screen and nudged her mentor with her elbow: the picture returned. Although it twitched and turned two-thirds black, it could be seen that the probe was near one of the vestibule windows. Redfern gripped the board; the rat cheered up, threw away the broken legs, drew in the remaining ones, released the wheels and fell out the window.
The wagon plowed bottom-up the slope. The rat rolled up, hiding behind the wagon. When it was over, the animal hid behind a pile of broken bricks. Something was still there. The rat's eyes focused on the strip of night sky above the edge of the rift. The wheels got stuck in the snow and mud, but the probe crawled steadily upward. The picture was cloudy again from the breath coming from above. Angel groped for the cell in his belt and threw the flask into the rift. Margaret heard the thin sound of broken glass, and immediately the earth was shaken by an explosion. Thick blue smoke billowed from the portal, and a wild, soundless howl passed through veins and nerves. Even Redfern staggered back; Miss Sheridan's knees buckled and she hung on Angel.
When the girl looked at the picture again, the rat was lying on its side, desperately spinning the wheels. Margaret gathered her will into a fist, thrust the screen to the mentor and rushed down into the rift. Because she knew that was exactly what Redfern was going to do, but she didn't have the strength to pull him up. But Angel can pull up her.
The girl's boots slipped over a mixture of snow, mud and something blue, so that she went lying down to the rat. In the smoky air, Margaret felt the throwing of something disembodied and impersonal, and inside everything shrank from animal fear. Instinct told her to run without looking back; the girl clung to the slope, plucked up courage and rushed to the probe. She caught the rat, hugged it to her chest and rushed upstairs, clinging to stones and earth. Something hissed behind her, Margaret was already shaking, but she did not stop. Freeze - and it grab you!
The wave swept through the frozen air, hitting Margaret's back with a heavy breath, touched her, and the girl fell into the snow. Another flask flashed above her head, and Angel appeared above the rift against the sky. He flung down the second flask; both crashed behind Margaret. The muck behind drew back, the air cleared, and the girl rushed up. Angel fell to his knees, holding out his hand - so far away! And so slippery underfoot...
Margaret fell to the ground, half-crawling, half-jerked over the last feet and grabbed Redfern's arm. He pulled the girl up, as if she weighed nothing, and hugged her. As soon as Margaret was in his arms, Angel unfastened the belt with the vials and threw it into the very heart of the turbidity creeping along the train. Miss Sheridan didn't have time to yell when Angel flung her away from the rift and fell on top. The weight of his body pushed the girl into the snow, and then such an explosion crashed that the earthly firmament threw both of them into the air, like on a trampoline, and then began to fall into the rift.
Redfern jumped to his feet, lifted Margaret, and they ran away. The girl was confused in her skirt, but tried her best. There was something terribly going on behind her that miss Sheridan chose not to look back. The rat tickled her with all its wheels, as if alive. If only the ampoule was preserved!
Luckily, Angel did not drag the girl up the embankment. He rushed along the paths past it, drew his dagger, and cut the fence tape as he ran. Breaking out of this border and not slowing down, he pulled off the mask from his face, fished a whistle from his pocket and blew into it. Margaret jumped as she ran at the screeching sound. They rushed (well, he dragged her) somewhere into the fields, stumbling over the rails. A few minutes later the girl had already had nothing to breathe, the corset mercilessly squeezed her chest, her legs began to braid. Above them the familiar scream of a kelpie came, and the carriage swept through the night sky. It took a sharp turn and landed in a field, endless yards away. Angel stopped, Margaret's knees buckled, and then she remembered only how he picked her up in his arms.
The girl was brought to her senses by an impatient, furious kelpie squeal. She reclined in the carriage, still holding the rat in her arms, and Redfern holding the reins. He whipped the kelpies, and the carriage flew up even faster than in Blackwhit lane. As soon as it got off the ground, Angel dropped the reins and tore off the mask from Margaret. Large, blackened eyes flashed before her, and then the thin hard nose suddenly rested against her cheek, and hot lips pressed against her lips. The girl barely dared to move her lips in response to these strange caressing touches; a second later Angel was kissing her face, eyes and hair. Then he pulled her to him, and she felt his faint shiver; the vein often beat on his neck, and Margaret kissed her. Then Angel finally pulled back.
"Excuse me," the girl whispered, touching his sideburns, short and curly like a lamb's fur, with timid tenderness, "but I would not have pulled you out of there."
"I had to go alone," he said. "I chickened out. My heart almost burst with fear, as soon as I saw the rift. I'm afraid... still..."
"So what?" Margaret said softly. "Aren't you human? Who said you shouldn't be afraid of anything?"
Angel averted his eyes. His gaze fell on the rat. He turned off the probe and put it in the pie basket.
"How long have you been using it?" Margaret asked, crawling deeper under the bearskin. The mentor coughed, shifted, and reluctantly squeezed out:
"Well, I tested this experimental sample in my wine cellar."
...luckily Miss Sheridan had no words.
26th February
Brennon looked around all the guilty with a heavy look and summed up:
"So she ran away."
Valentina lowered her eyes.
"With the pyromaniac!"
Jen sighed.
"And with the direct participation of this fellow."
Victor was sullenly silent. The Commissar glanced at his watch. At half past three in the morning, all the customers had already dispersed to their homes. And the girl was still gone.
"It's me," the witch muttered in repentance. "I ruined everything! I could not leave her. But someone knew that I would definitely come if vivene called," Jen drilled young van Allen with a hostile gaze.
"Victor, how could you," Valentina reproached.
"It's not for you to tell me what I can and what cannot," the young man said abruptly. A pale flush appeared on the widow's cheeks. "Even he knew! Everyone knew - but not me! None of us!"
"Wheesh," the commissar said. With all his desire, he could not now be imbued with sympathy for the unfortunate young man. Not until the half-witted girl is home.
If she ever gets there, Brannon thought grimly. Perhaps the pyromaniac had run out of patience, and he finally took Peggy to his "safe" place.
"I tried to track them down," Jen said; of all those involved, she looked the most guilty and did her best to make up for her failure. "They took off from an alley two blocks from here. There is a dead end..."
"Took off?!"
Victor van Allen looked up and finally turned pale.
"H-how?" He murmured. "Where took off?"
"Into the air, you idiot!" the witch snorted. "Sir, this critter harnessed a kelpies to his carriage. He's more dangerous than I thought."
"Who are they," Brennon inquired, breathing for half a minute to calm himself, "are these kelpies of yours?"
"Water horses," Valentina said. "Ummm... hmmm... you call them water spirits. Every river, lake, stream..."
"Savvy," Brennon cut her off and immediately caught the contradiction: "Why the hell can water spirits fly?!"
"But I can, too," Mrs. van Allen said, barely audible. The commissar sank into a chair, exhausted. A weaker man would already be struggling in violent hysteria. Actually, now it seemed to Nathan that the most normal creatures in his environment were Longsdale and his hound.
"Not in winter, of course," the widow sighed and admitted: "In winter, the creatures like me generally sleep."
"Creatures like you!" Victor blew a fuse. "Excellent! Tell me about creatures like of you! What else are you doing?! Drag peoples to you? Making slaves by them?! What for? Why did you need it?!"
His outpouring was interrupted by a resounding clout from the witch.
"You should honor her and be afraid!" Jen hissed and immediately added: "Sorry, vivene."
"Well, calm down!" Brennon barked, got up, took Valentina's arm and sat down in a chair. "So. Try to focus and find Peggy. Maybe he hid her somewhere nearby. Jen, search her room. Shake each rag. And you, whiffet..."
Valentina's eyes widened; outside the windows, howling, whistling and screeching the carriage, drawn by a pair of long, silvery, writhing creatures, rushed past. It landed, took a dashing turn in front of the porch, splashing snow, and stopped at the entrance. The door flew open, the pyromaniac, plague on him, jumped briskly to the ground, and held out his hand to Miss Sheridan. Victor rushed to open the doors.
The Commissar had a lot of boiling over his soul (it would have been enough for several hours of continuous monologue), but as soon as his niece, leaning on Redfern's hand, stepped into the cafe, all the words flew out of Nathan's head except:
"God, Peggy, what's wrong with you?!"
The girl looked like she had been rolling continuously for a couple of hours on the bottom of the dirtiest Blackwhit ditch. Redfern didn't look any better, but after all, he is a crazy pyromaniac, he can. But Peg?!
"Oh, uncle, I'm fine, don't worry," this! this! girl cooed, while Brannon feverishly felt her for wounds and fractures. "Although a bath will not hurt, of course."
"We got the particle from the portal," Redfern said smugly. "Miss Sheridan assisted me."
"What she does?"
"Her maiden honor has not suffered," the pyromaniac assured the Commissar mockingly, and measured first young van Allen with a long appraising gaze, then his mother. Valentina looked at him, too, not quite the way she looked at Longsdale, but no less intently. Suddenly the grin disappeared from Redfern's lips, and he made a deep bow to the widow.
"Let me break his bones," Jen whispered.
"Oh yes," the pyromaniac said, "you like to break bones, I remember. So, Commissar, will you thank me again in this unforgettable manner?"
"Peg, go to your place," Nathan said through set teeth.
"Well really!" the impudent girl answered. "It all concerns me too. After all, now I don't have to turn into a maniac's bait again."
"We can find him," Redfern said as Victor helped Margaret take off her coat and to sat down in a chair close to the fire. "It will take time to assemble the amulet. Are you sure this is where Miss Sheridan is safe?"
"As long as you don't try to kidnap her," Nathan said tartly. The pyromaniac raised his eyebrow.
"Kidnap? Why do I need to kidnap her?"
The urge to punch him in the face became so unbearable that Brennon clenched his fists to a crunch. Valentina gently touched his arm, soothing. Victor brought Margaret the cup of tea, and the girl gave him a gentle, captivating smile, but as soon as he turned away, she cast a sly glance at Redfern over the cup. The pyromaniac answered her with a complacent grin. Nathan's calmness vanished in an instant.
"Sir, Mister Longsdale can assemble the amulet too," the witch said.
"Of the same quality as the one that protected your office from me?" Redfern refined. "Stop worrying so much, I carefully monitor the moral character of my apprentice. Young man, give me a coffee. Without milk, with sugar, ginger and cinnamon."
Nathan said nothing. So it sounded - apprentice. My. Damn him, it's true! And how to keep her if she managed to escape to this "mentor" from under the supervision of the witch and Valentina herself? How to explain to еру brainless girl how it will end sooner or later? Late! It will be too late when the pyromaniac kicks her pregnant out the door!
"Commissar," Valentina said softly, "a few words."
Nathan reluctantly followed her into the cubbyhole between the counter, the stairs and the kitchen door. From there, he saw van Allen bringing coffee to the pyromaniac, Peggy, who was delighted to devour the peanut cake, and Jen, who kept her eyes on them. Redfern behaved rather arrogantly, but the Commissar sensed in his gut that the tough was tense and alert. He was clearly uncomfortable among human, unhuman and in general - in sight, in society.
"Listen, Nathan," the widow began, "you are harassing yourself, and it prevents you from thinking clearly. She is still as innocent as a child, and this man has not touched her."
"Uh-huh," Brannon growled. "Until. And then he will touch."
"So what? Girls always leave the family for another man, from generation to generation."
"They go to another family," Nathan said sharply, "to their legal husband. I do not want and will not allow my Peg to become one of those who were seduced and thrown out into the street with a present in the hem of some scum."
"But why do you think he will do that?"
"Because they always do that. They love to love, but they do not intend to raise bastards. Hildur Lindquist," Brennon said through clenched teeth. "I have seen hundreds of such girls. Not all of them were alive when we met."
"Has this man done anything wrong to Margaret?" Mrs. van Allen asked. "If you think about it, Nathan, you yourself will remember."
"Aha," the commissar answered bitterly, "look what he makes of her! Was she like that?"
"Who knows. You can't raise a cat from a mouse, no matter how hard you try. Maybe you just didn't want to notice."
"Maybe. But this does not mean that I will leave her to be devoured by this lover of fresh virgins."
Valentina sighed heavily.
"Has he ever given you a reason to think so?"
"He only does what he gives. He's been hanging around Margaret for three months now and..."
"If they see each other all the time, then what prevented him from seducing your niece?"
"How do I know," the commissar muttered: he had no answer to that. "Maybe he has this... infirmity."
"Well, why are you worried then?"
"What if he gets cured?"
Valentina took his hand. Nathan paused in annoyance. You can't just watch the stupid girl about to ruin her life!
"They really were near the portal," Valentina frowned, "but there is still another trace on him."
"Another trace?" Brannon wondered. "What is the trace?"
"Another print. It was a long time ago, but I still feel it. It's imprinted on your pyromaniac so deeply..."
"Portal trace?" Nathan asked in bewilderment, and then it dawned on him: "I mean, ANOTHER portal?!"
"Long ago," Valentina said quietly, "a long time ago. He did not lie to you about the spontaneous portals and that a human can survive their impact. He had experienced it himself."