13th September
Nathan woke up from the rocking and the smell - or rather, from the stink and rocking. This musty bilge stench had been familiar to him since he was eighteen, when recruits were herded like cattle into the holds of the Imperial ships that were to proceed to Mazandran. All these creaks, and rattles, and crackles, and the splash of water, and the dim light of the lamp dangling to the beat of the rocking, and the stale air - everything is like an Imperial frigate, in whose belly Brennon spent the most vile months of his life.
The commissar sat down, groaning, and clutched his head. His thinking mug hurt as if it was about to fall apart. Clutching the skull so as it not to split, Nathan looked around the world with a dull look. The world was limited either by a cage or by a lattice; on the right - a bucket, in front - a door with a lock. The commissar was sitting on a mattress, a rolled-up blanket lay at his feet, at the other end was a pillow, flat as a stone.
F***ing comfort, Brannon thought. Of course, his coat, and waistcoat, and the holster with the revolver, and the scabbard with the akram were removed. The commissar got up and, holding on to the board wall, reached the grate. He looked out (but barely made out the stairs from the hold to the deck in the darkness), turned his head and grabbed the grate. In the next cage Redfern was half-sitting by the mattress, leaning against the wall, stroking the sleeping Margaret's head and shoulders; the girl's hand, bare to the elbow, wrapped around his waist.
"Look," Redfern said tenderly, "she sleeps like a kitten."
For a moment, everything but Peggy was blotted out in front of Nathan. All he saw was a torn off sleeve, bruises on her arm, an abrasion on her cheek, and... and... oh my God! Oh my God!
"Peg!" he wheezed and tore at the bars so that the lock on the grate rattled.
"She's all right," Angel replied. "She wasn't raped."
A little cleared in the commissar's head, and he saw that Peggy was smiling in her sleep. Together with deep relief, he felt envy of serene youth. Only at seventeen can you sleep in a cage, in the hold of a ship, and even smile at the same time.
Redfern struggled to his feet and made his way to the grate.. Brannon finally noticed that he was dead white, thin, and looked ill. The pyromaniac tried not to step on his right leg, and Nathan counted the traces of beatings with an almost mechanically by trained look. Angel leaned on the bars and muttered without looking at the Commissar:
"Sorry. I should have sent her to Blackwhit with you."
"You shouldn't have snatched her from her house," Brannon wanted to say, but restrained himself. And it was so clear that the pyromaniac is quite sincere in his feelings. However, judging by all the previous meetings, deceit and duplicity are the few vices that Redfern was not typical of. In addition, he was already hit hard.
"How are you?"
"Better than I was."
"What did he want from you?"
"Long story," Angel grimaced. "But, in any case, he will not get it from me."
He carefully lowered to the floor, and Brennon sat down too - firstly, he didn't want to look down on Redfern, and secondly, his legs were still buckling because of the damn potion the Mazandranman had stuffed him with.
"He wanted to know about The Process," the pyromaniac said after a pause.
"About what?" the Commissar was surprised. Angel for a long time, intently peering into Nathan's face, as if he wanted to be convinced of what such intimate knowledge could be entrusted to him, and finally said slowly:
"The Process of turning a human into a consultant."
Brannon froze. So he was right! Right! This stuff really exists! And the damn pyromaniac knows about it! Knew all this time and was silent!
"However, you already guessed it already," Redfern added, not taking his probing gaze from the Commissar.
Brannon did not answer, because he could only think about one thing - since The Process is real, then there is someone who selects people for this filth! Someone who is ruling this transformation!
"Is this still going on?" The commissar snapped. The answer startled him::
"No. The Process is no longer being conducted."
"Why?"
"There were too few of them," the pyromaniac shrugged his shoulders. "Extremely low survival rate. So if Mister Ragnihotri hopes to mold an army through The Process, then he is greatly mistaken."
"Mister who?"
"Achari Ragnihotri," Angel replied with deep contempt. "The jester from Dorgern who imagines himself a Mazandranman to the tips of his nails."
He told the Commissar about everything that had happened. Although Angel was stingy about the details of what Ragnihotri did to him, Margaret's trick, which shocked Nathan to the core, he described with such pride, as if the girl had done a deed worthy of chronicle. However, on reflection, the Commissar also felt that his niece did not shame the family honor. Her mother once knocked out the eye and three teeth of the failed rapist with a stone - and did not look that he was a noble imperial puppy. Peggy had been sleeping the sleep of the righteous the whole time. No one would have suspected cannibalistic tendencies in such a gentle-looking creature.
"We counted on your help," Angel suddenly coldly declared and gave Nathan an irritated look. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I wanted to find you."
"Excellent," the pyromaniac snorted. "Finally, we are happily reunited!"
The Commissar did not like his tone, but since Redfern was looking at Peggy, Nathan said nothing. Angel's face was filled with sullen concern, and Brennon understood him: the girl had nothing to do on the ship among the thugs.
"Can't you take off this thing at all?"
The pyromaniac rubbed the wide black bracelet:
"No. This requires a spell key. Can you persuade Mister Ragnihotri to whisper it in your ear?"
Brannon scratched his beard. Well, let's say this guy wants to get the secret of the process from Redfern; but what does he want with a modest police Commissar?
"I saw mehndi on his arms. Are they protecting him?"
"May be. Probably. Although Margaret was able to harm him, so…" Angel sighed. "I'm not very familiar with Mazandran magic."
"Why?"
"Because I cannot know everything! Nobody can know everything about magic!" Redfern snapped irritably.
"Is it possible to erase them somehow? Or at least scroll a hole in them?"
"These are not just patterns on the body with ocher, they cannot be wiped off with a rag. Although, if you cut out a piece of his skin or, say, chop off his hand..." the pyromaniac pondered. "Margaret bit through his skin, but it's not a fact that the broken integrity will not be restored after a while. Ragnihotri gave the sailor a replacement eyes, so..."
It was evident, however, that the thought about a dismemberment was definitely encouraging Angel. His dark eyes clouded dreamily, a smile of anticipation appeared on his lips, and Brennon thought that kidnapping the pyromaniac was the last mistake Ragnihotri had made in his life.
Margaret stirred, sighed loudly in her sleep, and Angel hurriedly returned to her. Peggy propped herself up on one elbow and rubbed her eyes with a childish fist.
"How are you?" Angel asked. Brannon sighed: no one will be able to persuade Margaret to return home - will she listen when the pyromaniac looks at her so softly and affectionately? She sees him completely different! Even his face changes when he looks at the girl with such a deep, warm, attentive look, which Nathan believed he was not capable of at all.
"I'm okay so far, but you'd be less bouncing on your own leg," Peggy grumbled. "How is it there?"
"It hasn't gone to a better world yet. Your uncle is here, by the way. Came to save."
Brannon snorted. Whenever a shadow of sympathy for the pyromaniac arose in him, he did everything to strangle her in the bud.
"Uncle!" Margaret happily roused. She jumped up and ran to the bars. The commissar looked down in embarrassment: under her blouse, torn to the waist, he could see delicate girlish skin and the gray bodice with buttons. Brennon gently squeezed his niece's hands through the grate, but before he could say a word to the girl, the hatch above the stairs suddenly banged against the deck, and a damp sea wind burst into the hold.
"Margaret!" Angel called. She immediately backed away deeper into the cage.
Five people descended into the hold, followed by a bearded giant and the last - Mr. Ragnihotri in a colorful silk robe over Mazandran fallalery. Casting a quick glance at his fellow prisoners, Brennon was surprised to find that Redfern had dropped his head on Margaret's chest and pressed his hand to his mouth, turning away from the visitors. Really scared?
"Commissar Brannon?" the master of the undead asked in a pleasant baritone, keeping, nevertheless, at a distance. Apparently, he was afraid that biting is a family trait of all Brennons.
"Uh-huh," Nathan muttered.
"What brings you to my ship?"
"I came for her," the Commissar jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at his niece. "Give her back - I'll leave."
Ragnihotri cocked his head to one side and considered.
"No," he finally said, "I have no intention of parting with this lovely Fraulein."
"Who are you? I don't mean that circus rags or your true Mazandran spirit."
"Does it matter?" Ragnihotri nodded at the cages, and his men began to unlock the locks.
"From the point of view of the unwashed elders-acharies, who learned the world by collecting ticks and fleas in the forests?" The commissar asked mockingly. "Well, probably not. But I want to know how to address you."
"Achari Ragnihotri," the owner of the ship replied kindly. "And you, I see, have dealt with enlightened teachers."
"I had dealt with their stench. We somehow caught one enlightened one - not only did he gobble, as if not into himself, but also he stank so that the guards almost puked their guts."
Ragnihotri raised his eyebrows.
"Well! I thought you were more inclined to peer into the essence of things."
"I will certainly peer," Brennon assured him as his mercenaries (Dorgern sailors?) jingled keys in the locks. "As soon as you introduce yourself, I'll start right away."
Three sailors cautiously entered the next cage, as if a tiger and a tiger cub were waiting for them there, and not the girl and the tired, emaciated man. Brannon was taken in by two men.
"My name won't tell you anything. It doesn't mean much to me anymore."
"That in vain," the commissar reproached. "We'll find out anyway. We'll make inquiries in Dorgern here and there and find out. We have only three options to check."
A smile crossed Ragnihotri's lips. He released a luminous ball from his palm and led his small herd into the depths of the hold. The commissar and Redfern were led by two sailors, a red-haired man gripped tightly Margaret by her elbow, and the girl clearly did not like his company. Brannon remembered this guy very well and glanced at the pyromaniac. There was no discouragement - Redfern was stern, cold and arrogant, and the Commissar thought that that a little feigned humility would be good for Angel.
The bearded man parted something like a screen that divided the hold into two unequal parts. In the first, Ragnihotri held prisoners, and a heap of chests and boxes was in the second. They were lost in the darkness, and Nathan did not even undertake to count them.
"You would give a great deal, Herr Redfern, to look in them," Ragnihotri purred, stroking the chests. "There's a lot that would change the way you view magic. However, there are some things that are familiar to you.
He opened the box on top of the chest and began to lay out the things Brannon recognized. A long trihedron with a greenish blade and a revolver for bullets against undead were especially striking.
"I got it all together with one of the consultants. The specimen, unfortunately, escaped, but kindly left me these things, which I carefully studied."
"Thief," said Angel, with such contempt that Ragnihotri finally broke down.
"And you never took someone else's!" He hissed. "Especially when you appropriated all the wealth of the Redferns, as soon as they disappeared from the face of the earth!"
But the pyromaniac did not condescend to communicate. He silently stared into the eyes of the undead master with a heavy, piercing gaze from under his brows, and Brennon wanted to kick him. Doesn't even a sense of self-preservation make him pretend to be a broken victim even for a minute?! Even for Margaret's sake! Ragnihotri blinked frequently and looked away.
"Listen," the commissar intervened, "you have your own scores with this guy, but what do you want me for? I want to return the niece he stole, and that's it!"
"What a touching ignorance," Ragnihotri said venomously. "You chatted quite heartily while you were alone. However... you really might not know... I would not be surprised," he turned to Redfern: "So, highly respected sir, will you tell us about The Process? I now have the one you prepared for it, so we can start immediately."
"Wha-at?" Brennon asked syllables. Angel's eyes widened with such amazement that his face lost its arrogant expression. Now only extreme surprise was reflected on it.
"Come on, don't pretend!" Ragnihotri cried impatiently. "You started preparing the Commissar for the mutation process, although he probably didn't even know it. Otherwise, why would you follow him so closely since January?"
Brennon's jaw dropped. Even in a drunken delirium, SUCH thought would not have occurred to him. How can you even think of this?!
"Ah," Redfern said slowly, "finally I understand: you are an idiot."
Ragnihotri's lips tightened and his eyes narrowed viciously.
"Uncle," Peggy whispered just in case, "how are you feeling?"
Nathan felt himself deeply dumbfounded, especially since Ragnihotri, obviously, was firmly convinced that he was right, and Redfern could not dissuade him if he wanted to. On the other hand, thank God that the owner of the creatures did not even know what the pyromaniac really wanted from Brennon. And now the Commissar was more than ever close to agreeing!
However, Ragnihotri's patience was also exhausted. He quickly and abruptly ordered the sailors something in Dorgernian, then added a few words in Mazandrani, and the giant put a heavy paw on the commissar's shoulder. Four sailors dragged Angel and Margaret somewhere deep into the hold. The redhead, clearly disappointed, stayed with Ragnihotri.
"Hey! Where?!" the commissar jerked. "Let the girl go!"
"Come on," the owner of the damn pelvis smoothly purred. "You are my guest, and I will gladly receive you according to all Mazandran customs."
***
They thrown Margaret behind the chests like a cat, and, having rode across the deck, the girl froze in the corner between the side of the ship and the boxes. A sailor with fiery eyes stood over her and mockingly asked in Ilarian:
"Do you like it? Do you want the same?"
Margaret shuddered and shrank back against the crates. The sailor leaned so close to her that the stench of his breath filled her.
"And, maybe, rip out the eyes of your fancy man? Ah? Are you afraid?"
The girl curled her fingers like claws and lunged forward, aiming at his face. The sailor recoiled with an unprintable yell. Margaret hissed loudly and clicked her teeth.
"Bitch is crazy," he muttered and backed away.
Angel was dragged in after. He tried to free himself from the hands of the sailors, Margaret jumped up and rushed to him, but a sailor with orange eyes caught her and pulled her away. The girl twisted until the Dorgernians knocked Angel to the floor; the mentor managed to cover his head and face with his hands. The orange-eyed man slid his hand over Margaret's breasts, ran his fingers into the neckline of the bodice, but she didn't even twitch. Angel was barely visible behind the sailors' legs, and again he was silent.
However, they did not beat him for long. Two sailors brought him to his knees, gripping his arms and shoulders tightly; and Margaret smiled faintly. They were all afraid of him. Until now, even now, exhausted and tired. Angel met her gaze and did not look away as the third sailor removed the scales, a set of weights and measuring instruments from the table between the rows of boxes.
Oh, God, if only it wasn't poison, Miss Sheridan thought. She buried the cone in the loose mattress padding, but whether Angel should have drunk this potion at all... They did not know when and how it would work; therefore, the mentor drank it only when he saw Ragnihotri again.
"Okay, Kohler, come on," one of the sailors said in Ilarian and stared hungrily at Margaret. "Pull a straw or something..."
The orange-eyed sailor flicked the folding knife and pressed the tip under Margaret's eye. The girl shuddered weakly.
"Well," he hissed, "cut one or two out of her? Ah, you bastard?"
"Hey, hey, Kohler!" His friend exclaimed with a laugh. "Wait to cripple her!"
"Oh, well, we can f*** her without eyes," another objected. "Turn her mugs down and big deal!"
Angel was silent, only his nostrils flared like an animal. The giggling guy lifted up Margaret's skirts, and the girl, screeching furiously, kicked him with her heel exactly in his kneecap. There was a crunch, the sailor howled and grabbed his knee, and the knife painfully slashed her cheekbone. Angel broke free, and Koehler shied away from him, covered himself with Margaret, like a shield, yelled, breaking into a falsetto:
"Don't move! Don't move! I'll kill the girl! I'll cut the f***ing whore!"
"Fearfully?" Miss Sheridan whispered, leaning against his shoulder with deceptive tenderness. Something hot ran down her cheek, the knife pressed against her throat, everything inside was constricted with fear, but Margaret felt with her whole body that the sailor was shaking shallowly - and rightly so! Let them be afraid! Let them be as scared as she is!
Two sailors tied Angel up again and dragged him to the table. Near it on low tripod the stone hemisphere stood, in which burning salamanders played with coals, a poker and tongs. Nearby a bucket of coal was with a scoop stuck in it. Miss Sheridan involuntarily kept her eyes on this ridiculous picture.
"Ragnihotri was right," the lime sailor muttered. "First we need to calm this asshole down, and then we need to take on the girl."
They set Angel on a chair. Kohler pulled the girl closer to the table and barked hoarsely:
"Look, bitch! And you, freak, remember - we'll repeat everything on her, what we will do with you!"
"It's high time," the limped man muttered, turning over the tongs and the poker in the salamanders' nest. "She is sick all over her head!"
"Let we tie her up and that's it," his comrade said. "Hey, let's start with the woman, well?"
"Ragnihotri did not order," Kohler pricked Margaret with the knife in the hole between the collarbones. "First this one."
Margaret swallowed. Angel stared at her in silence. His dark eyes reflected the light of a lantern swinging in time with the progress of the ship.
"Understood me?!" suddenly Kohler barked, and the girl jerked in surprise. "We do with her everything that we do with you!"
"As if you can think of something that they haven't done to me yet," Angel said indifferently. Margaret's heart skipped a beat. Really again?! Again, because of her, he will have to!.. Why, why does he not say anything about this damned process, at least to stall for time, to survive, because Ragnihotri will not make it right on the ship!
"Angel!.."
"Scared, scum? Kohler asked scoffingly. "Do you understand what it smells like? Only it's too late!"
"Maybe you say something?" Another sailor asked Redfern insinuatingly. "At least for the sake of the girl?"
Angel did not answer, his eyes fixed on Margaret.
"What, will you be silent?"
"He will," Margaret suddenly realized. He will never tell them anything. Not a word, not a sound, not even for his own salvation. But why?!
The sailors tore Redfern's shirt, and while the two pressed him against the back of the chair, the limping sailor forced the red-hot end of the poker flat in his chest. There was a hiss, Margaret convulsively inhaled the smell of burnt meat and cried out:
"No!"
Angel was silent, only the back of the chair snapped as he squeezed into it.
"It's better to burn the girl from the back," one of the sailors said good-naturedly. "I want rumple her boobs."
"Schmalz, more!" Koehler shouted. The lame man, cursing, rubbed his knee, turned the poker over and pressed it below the first burn. Margaret sobbed faintly and hung on Kohler's arm.
"Why are you silent?" The lame man asked. "Tell me something."
"Fool!" Margaret thought in despair, but for some reason - also with infinite tenderness. He will never yield to them, idiot, insane Redfern, and therefore they are still afraid of him - Koehler flinched every time Angel looked at her. He sensed, dog, who should be afraid of!
"Come on, speak already! Well?!"
The skin hissed again under the hot metal. Margaret twitched. And for her sake?! What if, for her sake, they forced Angel to finally speak to them?! She stared at him pleadingly: he was reclining in a chair, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and breathing heavily. A sailor loomed over him with a burning poker.
"Well! Say something! Stop being silent!"
He pressed the poker to Angel's ribs and swore furiously. Redfern opened his eyes, looked at Schmalz and bared his teeth.
"Son of a bitch!" he growled and pressed the poker across the burns on his chest. Angel let out a long sibilant sigh. "Heck! Already cooled down!"
"Give it here," Kohler suddenly demanded. He closed the knife, put it in his pocket, and took the poker. Margaret quietly took a deep breath and gradually shifted her weight to her right leg to kick him with her left.
"Look," Koehler said threateningly and lifted the poker to Margaret's chest. The girl was bathed in heat, and she closed her eyes. "Look, I warned!"
"Oh my God!!!"
"Bastard! Hold him, hold! F***, he's gonna break out right now!"
Margaret opened her eyes. Angel was thrown onto the table, and two sailors pinned his hands to the tabletop while Schmalz, whimpering, cradled his dislocated wrist.
"No," his friend said thoughtfully, "we must finish with this first. Or at least tie him up, or something..."
"Give me the nails," Kohler ordered, licking his lips. He was now pointing the poker at Redfern, and it was slightly trembling in his hand. "Becker, quickly!"
The sailor cautiously released Redfern and pulled out a box from under the table, from which he put out a handful of nails and a hammer. Margaret cringed.
Don't! He won't say anything anyway!
...he has such beautiful hands, don't touch him!..
Angel looked at her intently. He was very pale, but bright spots of blush appeared on his cheekbones, his eyes shone unnaturally, his pupils dilated, absorbing the iris. Margaret froze.
"Don't pin me," the sailor muttered, who was pressing Redfern's left hand to the table. Becker tried it on once or twice and in three strokes hammered a nail into Angel's palm. Blood splattered.
"Are you silent again?" Kohler asked after a short pause. "Right now, we'll pin you up and we'll take care of the girl. The second!"
The sailor cautiously removed his palms from Redfern's hand and leaned on his shoulders. Angel's fingers trembled finely, but the only sound in the silence, apart from the crackling fire, was the hammer banging on the second nail.
"Should I drive in the third nail or what?" Becker asked. "There is still a place."
"You absolutely do not know how to do it," Angel said suddenly; even Margaret jumped in surprise, and the Dorgernians stared at the victim in amazement. "Take a corkscrew and screw it into the knuckle."
"What?" Becker asked dully as the others digested the advice. "Which knuckle?"
"In any knuckle on the finger," Angel willingly explained, jerked his hand together with the nails off the table and stuck the nails in the eyes of the sailor who was holding him. The sailor screamed, Redfern hit him with his whole body and threw him onto a stone sphere with burning salamanders. With a wild squeal, Margaret slammed Kohler into the shin with her heel, pulled free and, like a cat, threw herself on Becker's back. With one hand, she blindly grabbed his face, the other at his throat, and her squeal suddenly turned into a low, hoarse growl through her teeth. The desperate screams of the sailor, who were bitten by the salamanders, only spurred her on. So they tortured him! Let them all die!!
Becker, screaming in pain and waving his hammer stupidly, spun in place, preventing Kohler from grabbing Margaret. His nose crunched under her hand, and the girl pressed with all her might. Schmalz rushed at Angel, knocked him down, but Redfern grabbed the red-hot tongs and drove them into the enemy's throat. The blow was so strong that the larynx broke through. Then Margaret did not see - Becker finally threw her off his back. The girl rolled head over heels on the floor, grabbed the poker that Kohler had dropped, and slammed the red-hot end into the sailor's groin. Dorgernian let out such an inhuman howl that Margaret darted into the corner on all fours, not releasing the poker. Becker dropped the hammer, fall to his knees, and bent over with a piercing whine.
A scorched and blinded sailor, covered with salamanders, rolled on the floor, howling. Kohler grappled with Angel. He twisted Redfern's good arm, trying to simultaneously reach his throat and knock him down again. Angel, hissing through clenched teeth, suddenly fell to his knees, and Kohler lost his balance in surprise. To stay on his feet, he had to cling to the boxes. Margaret dropped the poker, grabbed the hammer, and threw it at him.
She missed, but Kohler was distracted, and Angel, ripping apart his hand with nails, broke free. Without getting up from his knees, he grabbed the hammer and smashed both knees to Kohler. The sailor fell to the floor with a cry, and Angel broke his skull. Blood mixed with brain and shards of bone spattered onto the side of the ship.
Redfern got up and finished off Becker with a few blows. The salamanders swarmed greedily in the insides of the blinded sailor, quickly devouring the victim. In the silence that followed, Angel stared at Margaret with huge eyes burning like coals, and said in a hollow voice:
"I promised," and collapsed to the floor.