Under the table, the Commissar saw a pair of blood-stained nails, tongs, and a small collection of flasks of booze. Blood stains on the floor and table mingled with puddles of stinking swill. Right there next to them are bloody bandages and scraps of a petticoat. The hound sniffed the tongs, nails, petticoat and looked expectantly at the commissar.
"Is that his blood?" Nathan asked. The hound nodded, and Brannon took a deep breath with relief.
"Can you find them?"
Snappish measured him with a glance full of superiority, buried his nose on the floor and headed into the darkness of the hold.
"The trick with the mast - your handiwork?" Brannon asked as Longsdale followed the hound with him. The consultant smiled smugly. "And we will not sink with this trough?"
"We shouldn't, I carefully dosed the force of the impact."
"Why did you do this?"
Longsdale frowned, puzzled.
"Hasn't your memory recovered yet? Looks like I overdid it with enchantments..."
Damn it! With all this bedlam, Brennon completely flew out of his head that the consultant erased his memory, so that Ragnihotri would not extract from it a plan of action, which was what?..
"While you intended to distract the master of the undead," Longsdale reminded delicately, "we stealthily infiltrated the ship on your trail. When an imminent threat arose for you, I saw fit to intervene. As far as I understand, Mister Redfern and Miss Sheridan were held captive by this man."
"He calls himself Ragnihotri," the commissar fluently recounted what he had learned. "Apparently, his people again tried to knock out Redfern everything that he knows about The Process. The pyromaniac does not like to be interrogated, and even by such methods."
The hound sniffed angrily. Brannon remembered the first meeting with Angel in the father Grace's house - the witch complained about the silence of the pyromaniac in exactly the same way as Ragnihotri. Is such resistance to pain also due to radiation?
"Yeah, just go and stand under the radiation of the portal," the commissar thought gloomily.
"Interesting," Longsdale said thoughtfully. "Some time ago one of my Dorgern colleagues disappeared, with whom I wanted to consult on one case. Then I did not attach any importance to this, since we quite often leave for a long time on business."
"But do you understand what this means? The Process of turning human into consultants is real, and if so, then we can find someone who does it, and, maybe, return your memory."
The hound stopped, turned to the Commissar and gazed into his eyes for a long time. Longsdale was bewilderedly silent. Suddenly, the ship jerked sideways and spun so that all three flew into the pile of crates. The consultant managed to shout something out, and only because of this, instead of some broken ribs, Brennon had an abrasion in his cheek when he hit a large chest.
"Are you all right?!" Longsdale shouted.
"Yes! What the hell is this?!"
The ship turned around its axis, and it began to spin faster and faster, like a top. Longsdale raised his hand, covering them all with an invisible shield. Boxes and chests shook under the ropes, the sides squeaked strainedly, screams and stomps could be heard from above.
"This is bad!" The consultant barked in Brennon's ear. "The ship will simply crack now!"
"Can you stop it?!"
"Can! But I have to go upstairs!"
"Go! I'll find Peggy and Redfern! Snappish?!"
Longsdale thought for a moment and exchanged a glance with the hound.
"It can stay," the consultant decided, threw a transparent shield to Nathan and rushed away, almost immediately disappeared into the darkness. Brannon got up, leaning on the hound's withers, covered himself with a weightless shield and also rushed into the darkness, but in the other direction. The damn ship already seemed to him endless, like the Mazandran jungle.
And besides, since Longsdale did not have time to restore his memory, the Commissar had a very vague idea of what was happening on the ship. Beat now against the boxes, now against the chests, he made his way after the hound, envious of the dexterity with which the beast kept on its paws, until finally a faint light appeared in front of him.
It fluttered in time with the ship's rolling motion, and Nathan hurried into the light. The hound lagged behind and was now stamping after him. Brannon climbed over several overturned crates and nearly tripped over Redfern's feet. There was a wild cry of "Stop!", and the commissar, turning, saw Margaret with a revolver. The girl was aiming at his head, her back against the boxes. The lantern was on one of them.
"Peggy!" Brennon choked out. She looked so awful that he couldn't say anything more.
"Uncle," Margaret's voice faltered, and she threw herself on his neck. Nathan dropped his shield and hugged her tightly. The girl trembled shallowly and sobbed barely audibly into his shoulder.
"Oh, Peggy, Peggy," Brannon whispered. She was covered in bruises and blood, and she smelled strongly of male sweat. Probably because she was dragging Redfern on her, because if he was wounded ... the Commissar turned to him, not letting go of his niece. The pyromaniac, lying between the boxes, gazed up at them, and Brannon did not like his look either. Redfern's chest and abdomen were covered with long burns that looked more like stripes of ripped skin and burnt meat; the face resembled a skull covered with skin tightly with huge dark holes of the eyes; the bandage on his left palm was soaked in blood, so it was hardly possible to tell whether it was leaking from one wound or from two. Bleeding and other traces of beatings against such a background were barely noticeable.
"What happened to you?"
Redfern's lips curled into a smile that sent a chill down Nathan's spine.
"I killed them all," Angel said almost inaudibly, almost dreamily. "Every single one. They did not touch her," his gaze moved to Margaret and warmed; but the expression on his face was still half-mad. "Every single one. I promised..."
Margaret slipped out of Brennon's embrace and sank down next to Angel, putting her hand to his forehead. The pyromaniac sighed convulsively and closed his eyes. His head bowed to Margaret's hand.
"This is because of the potion," the girl sniffed. "The bearded Mazandranman gave me a potion, and Angel drank it. It helped when he fought them, but now he gets worse and worse. And the blood won't stop!"
The Commissar sat down next to the pyromaniac and carefully took his hand. Blood flowed from two perforated wound covered with bandages and tampons, and Nathan understood what the nails were used for.
"Motherfuckers," definitely, Ragnihotri was voluntarily followed by the choicest individuals.
"We left, but this damn ship is spinning all the time, and when Angel fell..." Margaret swallowed. It is clear that the girl was unable to lift the tall man. "I was looking here for something to stop the bleeding, I found a chest with a weapon, then I heard footsteps and..."
Angel opened his eyes. He looked almost normal now, but deathly tired. Margaret made the mentor comfortable and wiped sweat from his face and neck with a scrap of her sleeve. Angel stirred and stared sharply over Brannon's shoulder. The commissar looked around: the hound was approaching them, staring at Redfern. The beast's fangs bared in a mocking grin. The pyromaniac shrank into the crates, and Brannon felt his hand tremble with tension.
"Snappish," the commissar called out, cursing his stupidity for throwing the shield. The hound trotted slowly towards Redfern. "Snappish, stop."
Angel turned completely gray. Snappish put its paws on his chest, crushed him to the floor with all its weight. Nathan squeezed the hound's scruff with both hands, although he understood that he would not be able to drag the beast away. The hound hovered over the pyromaniac and brought its muzzle to his face, looking into his eyes.
"Red!" Margaret cried suddenly and threw her arms the powerful neck of the hound. "Oh, Red, please! Please help me!"
Snappish turned to the girl and looked at her with a long, sad, not at all hound look. Nathan felt uncomfortable with how human the hound's expression had become when the hound licked Peggy on the cheek, removed its paw and nuzzled into the bandage. Brannon began to unwind it. The more he took off the bandages, the worse the view became. Finally, both wounds opened. Snappish ran his tongue over Angel's palm, and the pyromaniac flinched. Flame flashed in the hound's mouth, licked the nail wounds; Redfern arched convulsively in Margaret's arms, but only let out a short, barely audible groan. Snappish repeated the procedure with the back of his hand and released Angel's hand from his mouth. Both wounds were deeply cauterized. The pyromaniac slumped in Margaret's arms like a rag doll.
"Oh my God ..." Brannon had never seen anyone able to endure something like this almost without screaming. What if he is no longer human at all?!
"Thank you," the girl said quietly to the hound and pressed her lips to Angel's hair. He was shaking; Brannon thought he would have to carry him. It is unlikely that the pyromaniac was so beaten during the fight – it must have been before. Then how did he manage to kill the whole horde of Dorgernian bastards? Was it possible that a couple of sips of some kind of potion put him on his feet so quickly, and then knocked him off just as quickly?
Recalling the injuries on the corpses, the Commissar decided to dismiss this question as interesting, but so far unimportant, and said:
"Peggy and you, Snappish - go find out what's going on upstairs. Don't lean out! Ragnihotri sits very quietly - I want to know why."
"But, uncle, what about Angel..." Margaret began, hugging the pyromaniac to her.
"Don't worry," Redfern said suddenly and distinctly. "I don't think your uncle intends to continue what the Dorgern gentlemen started. Go, Margaret. The hound will protect you from a dozen sailors, which you cannot say about me right now."
"But..."
"Go," Angel said softly. "Nothing will happen to me."
Margaret kissed his forehead, got up and, looking back at her mentor, followed the hound. The pyromaniac followed her with a long look, in which tenderness was mixed with longing and with such surprise, as if he doubted that he could arouse such feelings in a girl.
"She's only seventeen," Brannon reminded sternly, who had no doubts. Trying on how to get Redfern to his feet without much pain, he moved to the other side, threw the pyromaniac's good hand over his shoulder and helped him to stand.
"We need to search the luggage," this guy said, staggering like a drunk. "Ragnihotri must have a rich supply of potions, amulets and weapons here. It will come in handy..."
"Are you iron?" the commissar snapped at him. "I will drag you to the place where you, with your hand and other wrong else, will lie quietly and wait for the doctor, and not get tangled under the feet and faint."
"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" The victim of torture immediately hissed. "You have no right to tell me..."
"People sometimes care about each other. Have you heard of this?"
Angel was silent for a moment; In fairness, there was no need to drag him - he moved his legs on his own, although he did not hold on to them firmly. Not surprising with such a pitching...
"So what's this - a care?" He inquired finally. "Are you saying you care — about me?"
"Not because I like you. Because Peggy will scratch my eyes out if she finds any more bruises on you."
Angel chuckled: he was clearly pleased to hear that, much more pleasant than the Commissar - to say.
Brennon had an ax in one hand, with the other supporting the pyromaniac, so there was nothing to grab onto the boxes, and both of them were shaking from the rocking. Having got out of the maze of boxes, Nathan was annoyed to find that he had taken Angel to a cubbyhole, where he had already left four corpses. However, this time someone living swarmed there. The ship suddenly shook to the side, and the commissar could not stay on his feet. Dropping the ax, he fell on his back, Angel collapsed on top and silently twitched in pain.
"Sorry," Brannon whispered. "How are you?"
The pyromaniac hissed obscenely, stood up, leaning on his good hand, and suddenly froze. Nathan too: the ship was no longer turning. It swayed slightly, but it did not move anywhere. Muffled Dorgern swearing came from the closet. Brannon met Angel's gaze — they both recognized the voice, and a glow of unbridled rage flared in the pyromaniac's eyes.
When he jumped up, the commissar did not even have time to grab him. Redfern rushed to the closet like a tiger to prey, pulling the pistol from his belt as he walked. Brannon, picking up the ax, rushed after him, but too late - a shot rang out. The commissar made a desperate dash, finally found himself in front of the nook with corpses, saw Redfern - and quite alive Leidner, who was backing away from the pyromaniac, clutching his shot arm to his chest. Brannon stopped in surprise. He thought that Angel know where his interests lie...
"You don't know what you're doing at all," the pyromaniac said insinuatingly. "But I will explain to you how a professional differs from an amateur."
Leidner, licking his lips, sidled over to the table. Near it, in a stone ball, the salamanders dozed on the coals. The fire cast red reflections on the walls and people's faces.
"To begin with," Redfern purred, "the victim must be reliably immobilized," and slid to the side, clearing the way to escape. Leidner rushed towards salvation, turning his back to the pyromaniac, and he with smiled break his ridge by two shots. The sailor fell to the floor with a cry.
"Stop it!" Brennon snapped.
"Help!" Leidner howled, finally seeing the Commissar. Angel dropped the pistol, picked up the scoop, and scooped up hot coals from the hearth. He approached Leidner, kicked him onto his back and announced:
"And then you can get down to business."
"Hey!" the commissar took a step towards Redfern; he raised a burning, half-mad look at him and said coldly:
"He tried to rape her."
"I didn't touch her!" Leidner wheezed; his eyes were completely white with fear. "Take it away! Take it away!"
The pyromaniac pressed his knee to his throat, and the sailor opened his mouth wide, gasping for air. "Peggy!" Brannon gripped the handle of the ax - Peggy, all bruised and abraded, Peggy, surrounded by these brutes, fragile, defenseless - and missed the moment when Redfern poured coals into the sailor's mouth. Leidner howled deafly. The pyromaniac shoved the coals with the handle of the scoop into his throat and pressed down his jaw with his knee, clenching victim's teeth. The sailor thrashed under him, banging his head on the floor; Brannon woke up.
"Enough!" He grabbed Redfern by his shoulder and threw him away from Leidner. He was still breathing and shaking shallowly.
"Do you really feel sorry for him?" The pyromaniac hissed. "He should have seen it through so that you..."
"Uncle! Angel!" Margaret voice came. "Where are you? We are here..."
"Peg, stay away!" the commissar shouted, but too late: the girl emerged from the darkness, saw Leidner and recoiled with a strangled cry, her hand over her mouth. Angel's face changed, and he darted towards her.
"Margaret!" He caught her hand. "This is Leidner! You understand? Margaret, you remember I promised!"
He stared at her hungrily and pleadingly at the same time. "Look!" Nathan read in his gaze. "Look, I did it for you! You're happy? Are you happy, aren't you?"
"Margaret, I promised you, and he paid for it, you remember... you..."
Are you glad? Nathan thought bitterly. Margaret, trembling, peered at the sailor - and recognized him. Nathan could tell by the way her expression changed. Disgust and horror were gone, as if recognition had washed them away in an instant; she slightly pushed Angel aside to give Leidner a long appraising glance - the sailor no longer shook, only made faint bubbling sounds.
"Margaret…" the pyromaniac whispered. She finally averted her eyes from the sailor and pressed a hand to Redfern's sunken cheek.
"Oh, Angel," Margaret said tenderly, he smiled weakly and leaned against the wall: the outburst of rage faded, taking away the last of his strength. "You are completely tired. Come on, I found a place where you can rest."
She threw his good hand over her shoulder. Angel leaned heavily on the girl. He was sweating as if from a fever,and his ribs were shaking, pulling at the burned skin.
"What's upstairs?" Brennon asked dryly.
"Ragnihotri has escaped," Margaret answered. "The problems remain. Finish him off and get on deck - Mister Longsdale and the witch are waiting for you."
"Finish off?" The commissar asked coldly, although something clenched in his heart. "Do you insist?"
Margaret snorted derisively.
"Do you think I'll forgive him in the name of mercy and compassion?"
"No," Brannon said, "I don't think so."
***
The Commissar took a deep breath of the damp, cold air. After the musty hold, Nathan found it intoxicatingly fresh. As if he had escaped from a suffocating dream - not a nightmare, but a sticky semi-delusional vision, after which the real world, for all its ugliness, looks like a damn cute place.
"What do we have here?" Brannon asked. A piercing wind whistled over deck, and clouds were gathering in the sky, the sight of which Nathan did not like. The ship rattled strainedly, as if it was about to fall to pieces and was choosing the right moment.
"Ragnihotri has escaped," Longsdale said; the hound sat guiltily at his feet. "We were fighting, and he tried some brahminical trick with subduing charms with me, but to no avail."
"So, in frustration, he jumped overboard?" The commissar asked gloomily. Jen was nowhere to be seen, and he was alarmed: the devil knows who the witch was incinerating at this minute... and whether she had drowned, having burst out after a fight with the serpent.
"Well... yes," Longsdale admitted.
"What "yes"?"
"He jumped."
Brannon choked. The sea overboard could only make a suicidal person think of swimming.
"What for?" He asked pernickety, and out of the corner of his eye noticed a group of sailors crowding around a gray-haired man who threw an ax to him. Brannon was still clutching the weapon in his hand.
"To escape. He saddled the serpent, detached the ship and..."
"Didn't even shit at last? This beast can smash half a ship with one blow of its tail, but Ragnihotri just took it and swam away? Where the hell could he possibly be riding the serpent?"
"I don't know," the consultant said, upset. "I should have gone after him, but I cannot leave you on the ship in the midst of such a situation." He looked emphatically at the clouds. "I sent Jen in pursuit, but I'm afraid she will have to return. The sea is not a very friendly element to her, especially in a storm."
"How is she?" Nathan muttered, not sure if he was asking about her health or how many more victims she'd mowed down.
"The serpent did not harm her."
"And she harm it?"
The consultant shrugged vaguely. A gray-haired sailor, surrounded by a tight crowd of companions in misfortune, went resolutely towards Brennon.
"Klaus Gunther," he said abruptly and handed Nathan a jacket, which the commissar pulled on with gratitude. "Boatswain of "Kaiserstern"."
"Commissar Brannon, the Homicide and Major Crimes Division, Riada Police. This is our consultant, Mister Longsdale."
Gunther gave Longsdale a hard, suspicious look, and Brannon could not blame him. After all that they have experienced, nothing surprising.
"Do you have such persons in your police?" the boatswain asked incredulously. "Is this your own, grrmm, zauberer?"
"Uh-huh," the commissar decided. The cracked mast tilted with a screech, from which the whole ship creaked. Longsdale raised his hand and muttered an incantation. Mast fell into place, but the sailors drew back from the consultant; Gunther glanced at him with dislike. And it became clear to Brannon that they would not go far with such a mast.
"Where are we? Is the ship badly damaged?"
"We went to Dessenberg. But the ship will not stand the road there." He nodded to the mast. "We can turn back if we're lucky."
"Why - if we're lucky?"
Gunther pointed a finger at the clouds swirling to the horizon:
"See? We will walk into the heart of the storm if we move to your shore."
The Commissar did not like the prospects. The sailors looked at him like they were waiting for a solution to the problem - and for some reason from him.
"The filthy nit does dirt on us," the boatswain muttered. "Such storms do not happen in these waters in mid-September."
Brannon rubbed his beard and finally decided:
"Send your men to inspect the ship. I'll find out what Mister Longsdale can do with the mast. Oh, and one more thing: Mister Leidner is in the hold. If he's still alive, place him somewhere."
"Leidner," the sailor repeated slowly, adding a long, spiteful phrase in Dorgernian; the sailors supported him with a roar of consent. "If he dies - it serves him right!"
"Was he a member of your crew before he defected to Ragnihotri?"
Gunther nodded.
"Who is this Ragnihotri?"
"Doctor Johann Roismann," the boatswain spat contemptuously overboard. "The f***ing professor. He finished off the secretary of the minister, the police officer, the captain, and took up the passengers. Nobody survived. Son of a bitch."
"There was a Mazandranman with him. Where is he?"
"The savage has not been seen since his master jumped overboard."
Longsdale was studying the cracked mast thoughtfully as Brennon approached him. The hound sniffed at the base of the mast and shook his head sadly at the sight of the commissar.
"Why did you do that at all?" Nathan asked grumpily.
"I wanted to divert his attention."
"You succeded. By the way, our Mazandranman in spirit is Doctor Johann Roismann. He killed the passengers, his companions and finished off the captain of the Kaiserstern. And now he is riding the serpent into his lair while we are stuck on a collapsing trough."
"I think the safest thing to do is to remove this mast," Longsdale said.
"And then? A storm is coming. We must get out of this trough."
The consultant looked at the heavy black clouds. The wind was getting stronger, and the ship rocked more and more.
"If I knew exactly how many people are on board, where we are and what is the distance to the coast, I could use some kind of teleportation spell."
Brannon frowned.
"Wait. Roismann somehow transported his vampires to Blackwhit. Why don't we use his way?"
"If they walked along a mirrored path, then the entry point must be fixed."
"But we're not moving anywhere. I suggest we search Roismann's cabins. We have clearly more chances to survive if we walk the path."
Lightning flashed in the sky. Longsdale gazed uneasily into the clouds. The hound sucked in air.
"Good," the consultant decided. "Tell the boatswain about it. Let him count the people."