The night of 11th September
Victor saw off the last clients and closed the cafe. It was already midnight, but the police officers celebrating Andrew Regan's engagement stayed too long; however, they never gave any trouble, and Victor congratulated the young detective with pleasure. Valentina presented the groom with a honey cake, and her son thought sourly with what charms she had filled him. Many times since he found out about everything, van Allen tried to tell - at least Marion, but could not find the words. "Our mother is not a human at all!", "Dear mother lied and pretended to be all her life, but in fact she is some kind of damn vivene!" Who are they all then?
"And we, mother," he wanted to ask, "are we human? Or not? And we never were?"
"Marion, do not linger, you are tired," Valentina said affectionately. Interestingly, she thinks about the fact that Marion is already nineteen and it's time to look for her a groom, or are such petty worries alien to vivene?
There was a loud knock on the door, and Valentina hurried to open it. Surely she knew in advance who was there - the butler of this strange consultant, what's his name...
And he's strange himself, Victor thought, while Reisen or Raiden took off his hat and coat. Marion, blushing like a rose, brought the butler tea and rabbit pie. Van Allan frowned angrily. He'll see you damned first!
"Marion, go to your place," he said dryly. "I'll finish with the cash box."
His sister threw an indignant glance at him, but Raiden said, marvelously softly:
"Indeed, miss, it's getting late. Thanks for the tea."
Which this guy never touched! During all this time, Victor had never seen the butler eat or drink anything. Maybe they don't need to. Although my mother ate like ordinary people...
"Well?" She asked, sitting down opposite Raiden. "I don't feel anything, neither in the city, nor around."
The butler looked askance at Victor at the cash box.
"Speak, child, he already knows."
Van Allen choked. Child?!
"Baobhan Sith is nowhere to be found," Raiden said. "Other undead or evil spirits too. The commissar's house is clean, the protection is not broken. Either the master of the carrion is hiding, or he is preparing a large dirty trick in another place."
"There is no news from Nathan and the consultant," Valentina thoughtfully put her head on her hand. "I am worried about such a long lull."
"Me too. But until the bastard starts to act, I can't sniff it out. Unless there are instruments in Longsdale's laboratory..." Raiden suddenly fell silent and stared out the window. Valentina stood up, shuddered, and her eyes darkened to a deep blue. Victor almost knocked the inkwell onto the ledger - her face had become so inhuman.
"What is it?" his mother slowly said. Raiden jumped up, sniffed the air like a dog, and rushed to the door. From the street a stomp, shrill screams came and suddenly - a loud sound of broken glass. The lantern in front of the cafe went out. Raiden, cursing, grabbed the table and blocked the door with it.
Victor closed the ledger and walked over to Valentina. They had already heard such sounds - at the very beginning, when no one had yet thought what they meant to Meersand's Catholics. In the night, a crowd moved along Rocksville Street, growing by the second, black silhouettes illuminated by torches. Lights flashed in the windows of the police department. Victor squeezed his mother's hand and stood between her and the window. The doors of the department flung open, and the police rushed to intercept the crowd - only a dozen! Victor's heart skipped a beat. Madmen!
"Hey, what the hell?!" One of them barked: Van Allen recognized Detective Byrne by his voice. "What kind of folk festival is this?!"
"Oh no," Valentina gasped. "Let them go! Hurry!"
The crowd froze for a moment in front of a thin line of policemen.
"Go!" Byrne shouted. Raiden suddenly found himself next to Victor, and the young man shied away from his eyes, burning in the night like crimson coals.
"Do you want me to kill them all?" The butler whispered dully. The crowd let out a fierce, multi-voiced scream, stones, burning brands, bricks, sticks tossed into the air and fell on the police. They darted to the department, the crowd rushed after them with a roar, and Valentina clearly said:
"Protect them."
Raiden turned to the window. His hair was dyed crimson and fluttered like tongues of fire, his skin became amber-transparent - a fiery glow shimmered under it. The butler's eyes flashed, and at the same instant, a flaming wall rose up between the crowd and the department. The fire went up to the second floor; orange light illuminated faces distorted with rage and rushing figures that looked more like devils than normal people. They rushed to the fiery barrier, as if insane, and soon the street was filled with the wild cries of the townspeople, who rolled on the ground, trying to bring down the unquenchable fire.
"Victor, what is it?!"
Van Allen turned around. Marion was standing on the stairs, holding Ellen and Mikhel close. Immanuel, clutching the poker, shielded his sisters and brother. By their faces, Victor realized that they had already recognized this noise - the voice of the mayhems, the memory of which had not been erased for eight years.
"Hide!" Victor shouted. "Hurry, all to the basement and..."
A hail of stones smashed the shop window, and in it, as in a frame, a human pack appeared, waving clubs and knives with screams. Marion screamed shrilly. Raiden turned to the rioters. The flame blazed with such force that it instantly devoured all of them, even the screeching of those who burned alive stopped after just a few seconds, and Victor heard short abrupt shots - the police opened fire from the windows of the department. A second flaming wall encircled the cafe. The crowd outside roared, divided, and rushed to the department and the cafe. The people engulfed in fire fell, but the next ones climbed over their bodies, wave after wave.
"Lord!" Victor thought: panic horror again clenched his soul in the fist - now van Allen knew what a mayhem was, and after all, Marion is not eleven years old... God, what will happen to them?!
"Do you have a weapon?" Raiden asked.
"Where from?" Victor responded sorrowfully - perhaps kitchen knives and a skewer. "Immanuel, take them to the basement!"
"And you? Mother!"
Valentina did not answer. She froze in front of the window, putting her hand on Raiden's shoulder. Her face became pale, but shone from within, like a pearl. Victor blinked and staggered back: in just a moment, a tall figure, no less than seven feet, enveloped in a golden halo, appeared in his mother's place. She leaned on the shoulder of the flaming creature, in which there was no longer anything of a human. A deep voice, neither male nor female, easily drowned out the roar of the crowd raging outside:
"Go. Hide them, Victor."
"Mom?" Ellen whispered. "Mommy, is that you?.."
"Well, go!" The fiery creature barked. "Quickly!"
Victor ran up the stairs, grabbed Ellen, squeezed Marion's hand and rushed down to the basement. Immanuel dragged Mikhel after him, who kept looking back at the two creatures that stood between them and the pack of maddened townspeople. Victor locked his brothers and sisters in the basement, rolled a barrel of coffee to the door, gasping for breath from the pounding heart in his throat, another, another; then he rushed to the kitchen, where he grabbed a skewer, and finally froze in place.
Screams. Rumbling stones on the walls. The clink of breaking glass and the crackle of wood. The hissing of flames, the choking smoke of conflagrations and burning human flesh. Then, eight years ago, he did not understand why the Protestant fanatics hadn't come in their house. His brothers and sisters were also hiding in the basement, and he, clutching his father's hunting rifle, sat at the door, barely realizing that he would have to kill while father and mother... father? So he knew? He knew and... but what a difference!
Gritting his teeth, Victor returned to the hall. The hands finally stopped shaking. Something was wrong - not like Meersand. The fanatics, although they were raging, did not rush into the fire like insane, and damn it, why the peaceful townspeople of Blackwhit for no reason...
"Someone cursed them," Vivene said. "I feel the presence of someone else's will."
Victor gave a weak start, and then she added:
"I can go out to them."
"No!" Van Allen almost shouted, but he bit his tongue in time. Vivene stepped over the shattered window and walked through the fire. The crowd suddenly recoiled from her and fell silent, and the townspeople storming the wall of fire in front of the department were distracted. The shooting and screams died down, only the crackle of flames and the groans of the burned and wounded were heard. Through the flames, Victor saw only the shimmering silhouette of vivene - she spread her arms, as if she wanted to hug them all, and suddenly flashed like a star. A dazzling white glow flooded the cafe, the street, the department, and van Allen closed his eyes and shied into the darkest corner, covering his face. A few long seconds of unbearably bright light - and night fell again.
Victor blinked, wiped his watery eyes and went to the window. Raiden sat on the floor, hunched over tiredly. The walls of fire disappeared, people on the street looked around in bewilderment, clearly not understanding how they got there. Valentina stood in the middle of Rocksville Street and frowned at the bodies - dead, dying and wounded. Victor cleared the window frame of shards with a skewer and jumped out into the street.
"You could," he said abruptly. "You could have been there, in Meersand..."
"I can't make people better or worse," Valentina replied, her eyes still deep blue. "I can deliver them from the curse, not from their own feelings and desires." She knelt down and placed her hands on someone's burned body. "Go to The Saint Jacob hospital. We still have a lot to do."
***
Margaret woke up as if from a jolt, sat up in bed and looked around, pressing her hand to her pounding heart. The bedroom was empty, moonlight shining faintly from under the curtains. Something alarming woke her - but what?
Without getting out of bed, she looked around the room. Nothing threatening. Then what ... the girl's gaze fell on the dressing table - a dark crimson light made its way from the jewelry box. Margaret jumped up, threw off the lid, and grabbed a red garnet amulet on a gold chain. The smoothly polished, rectangular stone glowed and became very hot. Its mirrored surface reflected tiny figures darting around the house. Her home!
Margaret threw on her dressing gown and shot out of the room. The amulet was the key to the protective dome that Redfern surrounded her home with. Miss Sheridan swept across the living room separating their bedrooms, screaming "Angel!" pounded on his door. But he must have fallen fast asleep, tired after a long night, and heard nothing. Margaret stared at the amulet in panic. The pomegranate plate became transparent: people, painted scarlet and therefore similar to demons, rushed to the fence of the house, a dozen hands shook the forged gate.
What happened there?! Why are they storming her house like an enemy fortress? Where are mom, dad, brothers and all the servants?! The girl gripped the amulet and burst into Angel's bedroom. He was sleeping on his side, with his back to her, and she frantically shook him by the shoulder.
"Angel! Wake up!! Angel, for God's sake! Please!"
Redfern shuddered faintly in his sleep, turned suddenly, caught her hand and squeezed it until it hurt, and then let out a muffled sigh:
"Margaret? You?"
The girl twitched mechanically in an attempt to free herself. Angel released her wrist, and it finally dawned on Margaret that his arms and torso were bare, and... and...
"Excuse me, please!" She pleaded in a whisper, bursting with burning paint and crawling away from him on the bed. "But my amulet, which you gave me, which is the key to protect Mom and Dad... it shows..."
"Shows what?" The mentor asked sharply. Margaret helplessly handed him the medallion. Angel glanced at the picture and ordered:
"Turn away."
Miss Sheridan obediently turned away, even moved to the very edge of the bed and covered her eyes with her hands. Amid the confused thoughts of the sudden danger to her family, lightning flashed the terrible conjecture that Angel slept without clothes at all. Oh, if she knew, she would never have dared to break into him in her life!
He rustled with bedclothes, then with some clothes. Margaret sat still. Her heart was beating wildly. Suddenly the defense has weakened? What if these people have already broken into the house? What... what if they are not people at all, but ghouls, whom the master of undead set on her family?!
Angel's hand rested on her shoulder, and the girl raised her head. He was wearing a long robe, trousers, slippers and looked down at her seriously and with concentration.
"Amulet."
Margaret placed it in Angel's hand. The mentor raised the amulet in front of the mirror over the dressing table and muttered an incantation. The mirror flashed red, and a picture appeared in it: a distraught crowd was pressing on the fence and gate. A dome of protective charms flickered over the house, and the spell surrounding the fence shocked people with a magical current. But they all rushed and threw themselves like mad animals, and crushed those who had already fallen, unable to withstand the magical shocks. Dad and Eddie could be seen in the windows with guns. The girl grabbed Angel's hand.
"Remember when I told you about curses?" He asked gloomily.
Miss Sheridan nodded.
"Now you are watching the action of one of them. Someone has cursed the city or the inhabitants. Although why someone? We know perfectly well who."
"But why would the master of the undead do this? What is the use of mom and dad for him?"
"This is the answer to our actions," Angel clicked on the amulet. The image in the mirror went out. "However, it may be a distraction. Or a message to your uncle. Maybe all at the same time."
"But uncle will return to Blackwhit as soon as he finds out..."
"Exactly," Angel said sharply. "And since your uncle will never kill innocent damned philistines, the master can force him to do anything."
"But what should we do?"
"As planned," Redfern handed the locket to the girl. "Find a ship. Find information about the three Kaiser ambassadors. This is much more useful than rushing around among the damned, calling them to order."
"Oh my God," Margaret whispered. "And if they get to mom, dad and brothers?"
"I'll find out if my defenses are breached."
"So what?! Will you have time to help them when these break into the house?"
Angel glanced at her.
"You promised me!" Margaret cried. "You promised to protect them!"
"Yes," the mentor replied dispassionately. "The best we can do to protect them is to break their master's neck."
"And before that? Do you even understand what will happen to them if these freaks get to them?!"
"How you love them," Angel said after a long pause, surprised and quiet. "I wonder why?"
Margaret gasped.
"They are my family!"
What other explanations are needed here?!
"Family," Angel repeated thoughtfully. "When I ran away from mine at seventeen, I wanted to burn them all along with the house. What a joy it would be if the angry crowd tore them to pieces!"
Margaret backed away.
"But you had brothers and sisters, very little ones!"
"Oh, my parent has been producing children nonstop," Angel said with a sneer. "I had a dozen and a half only legitimate siblings, and what can we say about his bastards! He inseminated almost all the girls in the area, he didn't even let my sisters, daughters and nieces pass!.."
He suddenly fell silent, staring at Margaret as if only now he understood what he was saying to whom. The girl went numb, cold from head to toe. Angel averted his eyes and said:
"Sorry."
"But this... how is it?" Margaret forced out. "It's impossible! How... how is he..."
"This is not what you want to talk about your family, right? Not that you are ready to find out sitting by the fireplace in the evening and listening to family stories. I had nephews who were half-brothers to me, and brothers whom my sisters gave birth to from our father."
"Oh... oh, God..." Margaret muttered. "Angel... forgive me, please, I... I didn't know..."
"I didn't want you to know either," he glanced at the girl sullenly. "Would you stay with me if you knew?"
"Yes! What do you have to do with the fact that your father..." She could not finish.
"Oh, come on. I felt in my own skin how our family temper," he venomously highlighted this word, "is inherited by my brothers. You would have thought, without fail, what I inherited from this..." Angel rubbed his face with his hands and wearily finished: "Go, get dressed. Write to your uncle. It's time to get busy with the ship."
Margaret silently walked out. This was the first time she had seen such an expression on Angel, a mixture of anger, frustration and shame. And she realized that he did not want to share these feelings with anyone.
***
Wielding a razor, the Commissar pondered who in the RSD should he turn to. After a sound sleep, his head cleared up, and while shaving, he wondered what could be told and in what way to present it. The goal is to extract from the RSD investigators as much information as possible about the frigate, the Kaiser envoys and the progress of the investigation. Moreover, in the depths of his soul, Nathan still hoped that at least some of the sailors and passengers had survived. And to save them, you need to hurry up until the master of the undead feeds them to his pets.
Brannon wiped off his razor and took up a pair of scissors to trim his moustache and beard, when the mirror went cloudy. The commissar threw away the scissors, grabbed a razor with one hand, an akram with the other, and jumped to the door. He was already accustomed to the fact that vile creatures can crawl out of any crevice at any moment, and regretted that he had left a revolver loaded with archangels under his pillow. However, nothing came out of the mirror. The glass became unnaturally transparent, and Mrs. van Allen appeared in it.
"Oh, Nathan, it's good that you are finally here!" She exclaimed with relief. "The consultant left Jen your room numbers, but we could not find you!"
The Commissar dropped the akram on the towels, shoved the razor in there, and hastily smoothed his hair, trying to give his mug a more or less decent expression.
"Good morning, ma'am. We had to work at night. Something happened?"
"Yes. There were riots in the city at night," the widow answered. "Someone cursed the townspeople, and they..."
"Cursed?!"
"Yes. They attacked my cafe, department and... and your sister's house," she added hesitantly. "Fortunately, mister Redfern has taken care of reliable protection..."
"Attacked?!" Nathan roared.
"Miss Sheridan's family was not hurt, although they had to endure some very unpleasant ones..."
"I return immediately!"
"No!" Valentina cried. "Nathan, no way! I am sure the curse is the work of this master of the undead you spoke of!"
"Whose else," the commissar hissed. "So we got to his bottom… sorry ma'am, close enough for him to play a new trump card immediately."
"Moreover, you need to stay in Breswain and keep looking. What if he's luring you into the trap he's set up here in Blackwhit?"
"So you, damn it, think that I will sit out in safety while the maddened townspeople destroy your house, Martha's house and... how many victims?"
"There are quite a few among the attackers," Valentina sighed. "Jen defended the cafe and the department, and as you can imagine, she doesn't value human lives too much to care if the damned survive. The Sheridan family escaped with a severe fright, but the crowd could not break through mister Redfern's protective barrier. The policemen... none of them seems to have been hurt except mister Byrne. He is now at Saint Jacob hospital with a concussion."
"I'll be back in an hour or two," Brannon said. "Valentina, I hope you and your children are okay too?"
"Yes. Unlike the Meersand fanatics, these people were under the influence of a curse that I managed to break."
"How are you feeling?" Nathan asked, looking around the widow with anxiety and tenderness. She looked unharmed and healthy.
"Oh, I'm not in any danger. I will now go to the hospital, there are many victims who can still be helped. Victor and Jen will meet you here."
"And Victor - he..."
Valentina just sighed and shook her head. Brannon chuckled: the truth was hard for young van Allen.
"Okay, I'll be there soon. Maybe Longsdale will come back with me. In Breswain, I guess we have nothing else to find. We were on the trail," the Commissar briefly described the investigation to the widow. "If we're right, there's a ship full of undead prowling around the shores of the Riada, but we don't know where. Redfern is looking for it."
"Do you trust him?"
"As if I have a choice," Brannon growled.