The short flight ended with a fall into the snow, onto a thin and furiously writhing pyromaniac. Brennon, blinded by light and brilliance, gripped Redfern like a wolfhound; the pyromaniac hissed obscenely and fought back as if the Commissar was about to infringe on his honor.
"Let go of me, you miserable idiot!" Angel finally growled. "She's going to run away because of you!"
"Because of me?!" The commissar gasped in indignation. He finally blinked and took a quick look around. "Where the hell are we?"
"In Edmoor!" the pyromaniac below twitched in protest. On his neck he had an amulet, on his face there were traces of burns from Red's saliva, and in his eyes - a gloomy, concentrated hatred for all humanity. Brannon looked around again. The goddamn woman was nowhere to be found, and something like remorse crept into the commissar's soul. He coughed in embarrassment, got up from Redfern and held out his hand. The pyromaniac moved away and stood up, disdaining the outstretched hand.
"What the f*** have you done?" the commissar chided and picked up the revolver. "Why wasn't I warned?"
"Because you should have shot her in the head," Redfern snapped. "As long as you play wet nurse to them with your mercy, legality and justice... Aha!" He knelt down in front of a chain of narrow footprints in the snow. "There she is."
"Why Edmoor?"
"Because the rift that created her is here," Angel nodded toward the ruins, and the Commissar suddenly realized that a railroad track stretched a couple of yards away. His throat was dry instantly.
"This rift on the other side... it's down there, right?" he faltered.
"Yes," Angel said dryly. "In the split, underground."
He turned his collar up and followed Pauline Defoe's trail.
"Isn't it dangerous?" Brennon asked quickly; the pyromaniac looked at him derisively. "I mean, won't she get stronger when she's around?"
"No. In the vicinity of this rubbish, she will experience only panic horror."
Brennon pondered this, keeping up with the pyromaniac, and found a logical hole:
"Why do you think so? Maybe you are the one experiencing panic about the portal that turned you into... um... hmm. But she may also be delighted."
"No," Angel snapped. "Do not meddle with your wilful ignorance in questions in which you do not understand anything."
"So enlighten me. Illuminate, so to speak, the darkness of ignorance with the light of wisdom and knowledge."
Redfern looked at him sharply.
"Are you quoting Emmerson? Where did you pick that up?"
"I read the book," the commissar snorted. "One, or even two. Or three. Remember the names?"
The pyromaniac paused, considering his answer.
"It's like a magnet," he finally said reluctantly. "Part of it remained inside," he touched his chest with his fingers, "and a large magnet attracts you with irresistible force. But the closer you are, the deeper and stronger your horror, because..." Angel sighed shortly. "You will understand when you are near. And the one who went through the radiation feels it three times more acutely."
"You too?" Brannon asked. The pyromaniac nodded grimly. "You said that a magical current went through her throat, damaging it. And you... you..."
"There are two scars," Angel muttered. "In the lower right abdomen and under the left shoulder blade. But I have no internal injuries left."
"Why?"
"Because."
"You don't know or don't want to talk?"
"Yes."
"Yes, you don't know, or yes, you don't want to?"
"Your choice," Angel hissed, and the Commissar decided to moderate the onslaught. The pyromaniac did not look happy anyway from communication, and he had an amulet protecting from Polina Defoe.
They reached a gentle embankment that separated the railroad tracks from the fields. Here and there were ruins of houses where she could hide, and the woman's footprints led to them. But Angel's gaze was fixed on the ruins of the train station and the hole in the ground. Nathan stood next to him and looked at the hole.
"Is it there?"
"We can't go there," Redfern said. "The air there is poisonous from the breath on the other side."
"Why did you send her here? Why did you follow?"
"Don't be a cretin."
"I understand to kill," Brannon said. "But why here? Why don't you shoot her right at the Sheridan house? Why so many difficulties?"
"Because," Redfern replied curtly, and nodded at the dark figure hobbling in the snow ahead. She crawled down the slope, approaching the remains of the station.
"Give me the amulet!" Brannon hissed.
"Let's run after her, hand in hand?" Redfern asked sarcastically. "I won't let you in alone, Margarita will scratch out my eyes if even a hair falls from you."
"Really?!" Nathan thought in surprise, not knowing what to marvel more - the tender feelings of his niece, their expression or the way Angel pronounced her name - with a strange, melodious accent. However, the Commissar had already noticed this semblance of an accent, as if the pyromaniac had lived for a long time in another country.
"All right," the pyromaniac suddenly decided and took off the amulet. "Give me a hand. Mind you, I'm a fast runner. Do not try to lag behind!"
He threw the chain around Brennon's wrist, slipped the amulet between their palms, squeezed the commissar's hand tightly, and dashed down with the agility of a deer. Nathan slipped in surprise. The woman must have heard them, but instead of running away, she slowed down and turned around. Brannon couldn't see her face, but he heard a desperate cry.
"Help!"
"Like hell," Redfern hissed. "Don't you dare!"
"What are you up to?" The commissar asked sharply. "What do you want from her?"
"Atonement," the pyromaniac flashed his dark eyes. "Don't you want the same?"
"I do," Brannon said through clenched teeth. "But if you intend to torture her..."
"Why not?" Redfern raised an eyebrow. "An eye for an eye, isn't it? Isn't this justice?"
The distance between them and Mrs. Defoe narrowed. Now Nathan could see the dark bloodstains on the snow that trailed behind her like chain.
"Missis Defoe!" He shouted. "Stop! You are approaching a dangerous place! Stop!"
"I can't!"
Angel pursed his lips. For a moment it seemed to the Commissar that fear flickered on his face. But the pyromaniac opened his coat and removed from his belt a mask with a spray, like the one he had given Brennon at the hospital. Redfern tossed it to Pauline Defoe.
"Put it on!" He ordered. "Otherwise, you will suffocate from the poisonous fumes!"
The woman sobbed loudly and picked up her mask. Putting it on, she continued to hobble towards rift. Brannon pulled a revolver from its holster and aimed.
"Now you finally decided to kill her?"
"No, now I want to shoot her in the leg."
Redfern stopped and grabbed the barrel of the revolver.
"No. She will crawl there anyway."
"We'll drag her away."
"What for?"
The Commissar stared silently at the pyromaniac's face.
"What for?" he repeated. "You have a murder warrant in your pocket. Why don't you want to use it?"
"Because murder is always murder," Nathan said sharply. "How will the police differ from the mob involved in lynching then? Eighteen years ago, things were happening on the streets that people were afraid to leave the house alone. Do you want me to agree to this again? Shoot her because she can be killed, is she a criminal?"
"Help me please!"
"Even so," Angel said unexpectedly softly, "don't you want to try to close the rift on the other side?"
"What?" Nathan was taken aback.
"To close a spontaneous portal, you still need a victim. Voluntary... well, or not entirely voluntary - conscious. And since this lady will die anyway, not to mention the fact that by the totality of her deeds she has long deserved..."
"Oh my God," Brannon managed. The pyromaniac turned to the woman. She no longer walked so much as crawled and approached the border, beyond which the air was covered with a grayish haze.
"Hey you!" Redfern shouted imperiously. "Listen!"
Mrs Defoe turned to them. Angel drew from his belt a long dagger, to the handle of which was a piece of paper rolled into a tube, and threw it at the woman's feet. She fell to her knees, scraped her hands through the snow and somehow picked up her weapon.
"You have a choice," Redfern said. "You take the dagger, go down into the hole, reach the point of breaking, and cast the spell I gave you. You will then enter the gap and kill yourself with the dagger. But if you want to keep it short, the Commissar will shoot you now."
Brannon lowered his revolver. This woman, who killed at least nine girls without any mercy, tormenting Peggy and her family, is a mad necromancer who can hardly be held in prison and stopped the court...
"I do not want!"
She was still backing toward the rift. Redfern and the Commissar followed - now they could easily catch up with her, but something held Nathan in place. Maybe the memory of dead girls with their faces crumbled into porridge, or of Danny, cut up with a book knife - or the bitter knowledge that the Commissar hid deep in his soul: justice is impossible for everyone. And those who died do not care, and the fairest court is only revenge, sometimes comforting the living.
"I don't want to go there!"
"Don't go," Redfern shrugged. "Commissar, are you ready or should I fry her?"
"Try it - and go behind her," Nathan said through set teeth and stepped to Pauline Defoe. "Go!"
"There? No!" her face glistened with tears, like glass.
"Go," Brennon repeated, and raised the revolver, aiming at her forehead. "For Noel's sake — and everyone else. How many were there? Nine? Or more?"
"I do not remember..."
"You cannot deceive us," Redfern said. "Having descended into the rift, you will not get out alive. But you can either get on the other side - and I'm not sure if you want to - or slam the door behind you."
It became more difficult to breathe. The gray haze billowing in the air was already close, and Brennon felt a vile, sticky sensation creeping into his heart and mind - a stringy fear, despair, powerlessness.
"Stop," Angel squeezed his hand tighter. "We can't go any further."
Pauline Defoe dragged herself to the border between clean air and smoky air and looked back at them. What Brannon saw in her eyes was no longer horror or despair.
"Oh please..." she crossed the border.
"Are you sure it will work?" The Commissar asked.
"I do not know. I have never tried it yet."
The woman turned away. Her steps quickened, as if the rift was pulling her on a rope; but Brannon noticed that she was unwinding the string on the handle. Stumbling, she almost ran down and unrolled a piece of paper as she walked. There was a red trail behind Mrs Defoe. Having reached the edge of the cliff, she slid down and disappeared from sight.
"Where is your portal?" The Commissar asked. The pyromaniac's hand twitched in his.
"What makes you think that I will tell you?" Redfern hissed.
"Are you afraid that I will throw you there?" Brannon asked. "You've told me enough to track down this place anyway. Probably not right tomorrow, but I can. What language did you speak for so long instead of your native?"
"In Ilarian," the pyromaniac muttered. "You don't have to work too much. It was Liganta, an island off the coast of Farenza."
The commissar recorded the unfamiliar words in his memory. Why didn't the pyromaniac sit there? Benefit the locals...
"Why Margaret? Why do you need it?"
Angel sighed sadly.
"You can't stand in silence, can you?"
Brannon could, but he wasn't going to:
"Well, here you were irradiated with magic from the portal, and you, as an impressionable person, decided to fight evil spirits and undead. You contacted consultants, built factories for the production of potions and amulets. But why don't you calm down? Are consultants, no matter how many there are, doing so badly at their job?"
"And also," Redfern said menacingly, "I've learned many spells, wrote many myself, and one of them causes irreversible paralysis of the vocal cords. Read out?"
"We bet the bullet is faster?" Nathan asked good-naturedly, putting the revolver to the side of his interlocutor.
"There are few consultants," the pyromaniac replied after a long silence. "To become one of them, as you probably already guessed, is very difficult. Many do not survive at the transition stage. Now, as far as I know, there are no more than one hundred twenty-seven consultants."
"Total?!" the commissar choked. He thought there were a thousand of them on the continent alone!
"Total," Redfern confirmed grimly. "Therefore, we need an organization of people selected, specially trained, possessing the necessary skills, provided with bases, weapons and equipment..."
"Wait, wait," Brennon interrupted, realizing that the pyromaniac had moved on to his favorite topic and would not shut up himself. "But all these bases, weapons and all that will not arise from the air!"
"Yes. Therefore, it had to spend a lot of time and effort to prepare all this."
"Whom to spend?"
"Me."
The commissar died down. It just didn't fit in his head that one person... well, not one, at least he hired a team of builders, but... but the fact itself!
"But it's a lifetime," Nathan whispered.
"Yes."
All his life, the commissar thought, looking in disbelief at the hook-nosed profile, spend all his life around these creatures, studying them one after another...
No wonder Angel is weird; it's a wonder he didn't go completely crazy...
This time Nathan was silent for a long time, and when he finally matured to the question of where did these consultants come from, a dull blow was suddenly heard underground, and a column of dark smoke rose from the rift. Redfern recoiled with an exclamation of "Yes! It's begun!" The ground shook beneath their feet, and Brannon shied away. Last thing that he wants it was to be right in the center of events! The blows from the ground followed one after another; the ruins of the station shook and began to crumble into the rift like a house of cards. The pyromaniac frantically began to unwind the chain of the amulet.
"What are you doing?!"
"You can't leave a particle from there here!"
The commissar finally unclenched his hand (he was already afraid that he would merge with the pyromaniac, like a twin brother). Angel tossed the amulet into the thick of the smoke, shouting "Motus!" The boat, flashing a green spark, disappeared into the thick clouds emanating from the rift. The next tremor threw the men into the snow. At the same time, a humming whistle was heard, and not the earth, but the air itself, was humming. Brannon propped himself up on his elbows and exhaled.
"Holy shit..."
The air whistled and hummed was sucked into the rift, from which an incessant rumble came. The earth, the ruins of houses and the remnants of the rail, flowed inward like sand in an hourglass. However, at the same time, the air around the rift was clearing before their eyes, although the rift itself was still spitting smoke clots. They flew up fifty yards up and immediately pulled back.
"Can you imagine what's going on inside?!" Redfern shouted.
"Well then!"
Suddenly another thought struck Brannon, and he grabbed the pyromaniac by the shoulder.
"And she?!"
"Which she?"
"Pauline Defoe!"
"Ah! She's already dead," Angel said indifferently. "Well, at least she died usefully."
Brannon said nothing. Was such a life worth this death? A warrant crunched in his pocket. Still need to sign... The formal permission for the execution could not give him an answer to the question whether he had the right to choose such an end for her instead of a bullet in the forehead. Even for the sake of those girls whose names he didn't even know to remember now.
Angel's cold hand suddenly squeezed his arm. Nathan averted his eyes from the rumbling and whistling funnel.
"It is necessary," Redfern whispered; his dark gaze grew warmer for a moment. - You know it will get better.
"Uh-huh," Brennon said. "A little bit of evil to do more good. Well, I remember."
He also remembered those who fiercely defended this principle, kindling a fire of terror so that "the evil empire would shudder!" Only the wrong ones shuddered for some reason.
The rift shook one last time, as if the ground had been convulsed, a funnel was drawn in with a howling whistle, curving like a snake, another underground shock was heard - and everything was quiet.
Redfern got up and shook off the snow. There was a fragile, uncertain silence all around. Brannon got up too and looked around. The hole in the ground has not gone anywhere. And he view around was still far from ideal...
"So, now it's... clean, or what?"
"It's better not to build here for the next hundred and fifty years," Angel turned and walked off into the fields along the railway track.
"Hey... where?!" Brannon caught up with him and blurted out, "How do we get out of here now? Where the devil is taking you, you have to go to people!"
"Go wherever you want," Redfern said. "Personally, I am fed up with your company and do not intend to share the saddle with you."
"What other saddle?"
A long glowing shadow appeared over the dark crest of the forest. She flew confidently against the wind, heading towards Edmoor.
"Kelpie," Pegg's mentor said coldly. "She won't go near the gap, so I'll walk a quarter of a mile," he measured the commissar with a sidelong glance and muttered: "Okay, so be it. Just for Margaret's sake. If you vomit, I'll dump it right there. I'll drive the horse!"
"Well and good," Brennon said, stunned. Climb this creature on its back?!
"I hope," the pyromaniac emphasized, "that you are able to at least walk in silence."