14th September
Angel was breathing heavily and shallowly. After swimming in the sea water, his burns looked even worse than before. Alarmed, Peggy hugged him gently. They settled on a cramped couch, tightly pressed against each other - Margaret half-sitting, Redfern - lying, with his head resting on her chest.
"Well," the pyromaniac whispered derisively as Brannon stopped by the couch, "now what? Put me in a cage? I am completely in your power now." He weakly waved his hand in the bracelet. "You can afford anything you want."
The Commissar folded his arms over his chest, glaring at the guy from under his brows. He contrived to annoy Nathan, even arousing his sympathy.
"Why are you always so sure that this is what I will do?"
"Because people do that," Angel said, and closed his eyes. "People always do that. As soon as they sense their power over someone... however, you can see for yourself," he pointed to the burns with a grin.
"Uh-huh, I'll start right now," Brennon muttered; the irritation faded away. The pyromaniac, in the end, suffered more than everyone else. "Why don't you give Ragnihotri a couple of false answers for the sake of alleviating your fate, huh?"
"Because I'm not a whore to give," Redfern snapped. "I never answer if they ask me like that."
"What if he had asked her?" Brannon asked dryly, nodding on Peggy. The girl cringed. She seemed to be thinking about it, too. "Would you have answered if Ragnihotri had questioned her?"
An earthy pallor spread across Angel's face.
"Uncle!.." Margaret exclaimed reproachfully.
"Yes," Redfern said. "I would answer if I could not prevent him. But now you are doing exactly the same thing that he is doing."
The Commissar turned purple with anger. This is just offensive, damn it! However, he suddenly felt acutely that the pyromaniac was right somewhere. Hadn't he defended Margaret — albeit not the way Brennon would, not like anybody else; even if Angel himself was to blame for the fact that she had to go through all this... but isn't Nathan himself now trying to twist his arms, taking advantage of his condition?
"If not for his donkey stubbornness..." it flashed through the commissar's head, but he dismissed the thought.
"Sorry," Brannon said. "I was wrong. I didn't want to hurt. Still, you should have left this young lady at home."
"I should," Angel admitted, barely moving his tongue. "You don't think I thought about it until… until…" He squeezed Margaret's hand. The girl touched his forehead with her hand and frowned.
"You look shitty," the commissar said, bending over and studying the pyromaniac closer. "Valentina will take care of you."
Redfern's eyes widened.
"No!" He cried out furiously. "Do not take care of me! Take this stuff off, and that's enough!" he angrily tore at the bracelet, tried to get up, but Peggy gently held it in place.
"But why?" The Commissar asked in surprise. "Valentina will heal you with one touch, I saw it myself..."
"No!"
"Angel, you're in a fever," Margaret admonished him. "You lost a lot of blood and ate almost nothing. Calm down, please, you're making yourself worse."
"Don't you dare touch me," the pyromaniac whispered, but there was almost no pressure in his voice. "She… she will ruin! Will take away from me..."
Well, you have to watch over so hard the thing that irradiated you from the hole to the other side, Nathan thought, but he kept his thoughts to himself, and said aloud:
"We'll take out blankets and hot drinks. But only Mister Longsdale can remove the bracelet from you. You will have to go to his laboratory."
"Great," Angel managed. His teeth rattled finely with chills. Brannon sighed. It must be hard for Peggy with him.
"Okay. I'll arrange it with Longsdale."
Redfern stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes again. He was completely exhausted, and strangers around clearly annoyed him - his eyes moved restlessly under his eyelids. Margaret pressed closer to him and hugged him tighter, trying to warm him.
"Finally, you'll leave me alone for a minute," the ungrateful son of a bitch muttered wearily. Brannon chuckled and headed for Longsdale, who was examining the sailors with a couple of police officers.
...the Commissar made a lasting impression on his colleagues in the cordon. He did not blame them - he managed to catch a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror: rarely a servant of the law, having gone to a search, returns in such a form as if he was spat out by a sea serpent after trying to chew. Without allowing the police to recover, Brennon immediately sent one man to the department, one to the nearest hospital, and Jen to fetch Longsdale's carriage. Two police officers, together with Nathan, entered the theater and were now finishing up with a survey of the Dorgernians and drawing up a list of names.
"Sorry," Brannon said quietly, stopping next to Gunther.
"Don't apologize," the boatswain muttered. He looked gloomily at the policemen. "The half-witted bastard has killed more. Now what?"
"We will send you to the hospital, then we will place you in the hotel, and after you give your testimony, we will buy you a train ticket to Breswain or to any port of your choice," Broid, of course, choke on a cigar from such expenses, but what to do...
"Testimony?" Gunther glared at the commissar from under bushy eyebrows. "Well, are you going to catch him?"
"Yes."
The boatswain looked at Brannon for a long time, thoughtfully, and finally said:
"Yeah. You can do this. With him," he jerked his head towards Longsdale, "why not be able to. But the f***ing asshole is unlikely to let himself be hanged."
"We'll see," the Commissar said. The idea of lynching did not tempt him, but he could not imagine how he could have been able to prove in a real court that Roismann, aka Ragnihotri, killed half of the crew and all passengers of the Kaiserstern.
"Well?" He asked Longsdale when he finished examining the sailors.
"They are all human," the consultant said. "They have no connection with Ragnihotri, so they are out of danger. At least for now."
"Okay. Can you rid Redfern and Peg of the bracelets?"
"Hmmm... shouldn't we cure him first?"
"Mister pyromaniac does not want to be treated with us, he wants to go home, and with the bracelet he will not get there."
Longsdale paused and asked cautiously:
"Are you going to take advantage of this situation to bring Miss Sheridan home and send Mr. Redfern to jail?"
"No," Brannon replied distantly. "I don't intend to."
***
It was an early morning; transparent light poured into Longsdale's office through the tall, beautiful windows. The fireplace was blazing hot, and Peggy and Redfern sat in front of it, wrapped in warm blankets. The hound lay at the girl's feet, tapping the carpet with its tail every time she scratched its scruff of its neck with the toe of her boot. The consultant bent over Angel's hand and studied the pattern on the bracelet through a polygonal magnifying glass. If the pyromaniac had strength, he would have sat tense as a string; however, for lack of strength, he confined himself to the suspicious look with which he tirelessly drilled Longsdale.
"Maybe tie him up?" Jen asked quietly.
"Who exactly?"
"Both," the witch replied on reflection. The Commissar chuckled. After a mysterious scene between Longsdale and Redfern on the ship, Brennon did not dare to leave them unattended. Although because of this he had to entrust the sailors from the Kaiserstern to Byrne's care.
Relatives, Brannon thought. He wonder to what extent, since the other one remembers Redfern so well and clearly does not harbor warm feelings for him?
"Is it because of the female?"
"What?" Nathan shuddered.
"Well, they fought over her?" the witch nodded at Margaret.
"God knows them," Brennon growled, not liking the idea.
"You human are strange. All the time you do some kind of crap because of nonsense."
"That is, your, um, young people do not have conflicts over a girl?" the Commissar involuntarily became interested.
"Rarely. If a girl likes two, and two likes her, then they remain the three of them. I don't understand what is stopping you from doing the same."
Brannon choked. It did not even occur to him how different the moral principles of people like Jen could be from human rules.
"Ah... but... but what about the children?"
"What children?"
The Commissar tried to find the words to properly explain this to the girl, but Jen carelessly finished him off with the last shot:
"The leader of the clan decides which woman from which man will become pregnant. Children should be born from the strongest and inherit their best qualities. Don't you do that?"
"No," Nathan said, stunned, and the witch frowned in puzzlement:
"Then why do you marry your daughters to men whom you yourself choose? That is, if the matter is not in the birth of strong offspring, then... then.... what are you so unhappy with then?" Jen stared at Margaret and her pyromaniac uncomprehending. "She found herself a suitable man, what does not suit you?"
The Commissar could list during several hours, but he could not find expressions in which he could explain to the witch that young miss from respectable families in no way should "find" a man for themselves. And such man, God forgive me!
"The bastard, of course," Jen said thoughtfully, "if you look at it at all. But look how he licks her. Healthy, strong, has brains, he isn't weak in magic - the offspring will give a good one. What more do you want?"
"Let's stop," Nathan decided firmly. Although dozens of questions swarmed in his mind - who, in this case, brings up the children? does Jen know her parents? and brothers and sisters? does her mother live with her father or not? and if not, how does Jen feel about her stepfather? or does she have two of them?! or two stepmothers?!
Fortunately, Longsdale was done with the study of the bracelet, and Brennon was relieved to put aside all these wild questions and tackle the urgent problem.
"Well?"
The consultant took up a file with a thin blade made of vibrating red glow. The pyromaniac's hand instinctively clenched into a fist. Longsdale put down what looked like a flashlight with a tiny light at the end.
"First, I'll try to unsolder the pattern. Then I will cut the bracelet. Do you need more pain relievers?" He asked Redfern carefully.
"No," Angel said through set teeth. He drank the previous portion only after Brannon, annoyed by his suspicion, took a sip from the mug.
"Are you sure it will work?"
"We'll see," Longsdale shrugged and raised the flashlight to the pattern.
"He will not grow a new limb to replace the sawn one," Brennon warned the consultant and turned his attention to his niece. "Peggy, how are you?"
"Normal," she replied wearily. "I'm fine."
The witch gave the girl her shirt in exchange for the rags that Margaret's shirt had become. But the girl refused a hot bath and sat in a half-asleep stupor next to Angel.
"They'll have your bedroom and bath ready for you," Brennon suggested again.
"Thank you, I'll wait home."
"At home" - it was hard for Nathan: the realization that her home is now in a different place. "Next to the pyromaniac."
Angel smiled encouragingly at the girl and asked:
"Do you want to visit your relatives?"
"In this form?" Margaret slightly lifted the covers. "Dad's going to have a stroke. And my mother would never let me out of the door again."
"Ah," Angel said with undercurrent satisfaction, and the Commissar didn't like it. "Yes, exactly."
Something clicked in the bracelet, and the consultant drew back the flashlight. A light smoke rose, the smell of a burning wood. Longsdale handed flashlight to Jen, and the girl worked on Margaret's bracelet while the consultant fiddled with the pyromaniac's bracelet.
"So you were his target, then," Brannon began, so as not to waste time.
"Not only," Angel chuckled. "For your sake, he started a whole show in the port. Everything in order to attract your invaluable attention. However, he probably regretted this already."
"Well, really," the commissar muttered: not that he liked the flattery from this guy, it would have been better if he had at least said "thank you", but... it flattered his ego. "He also prepared more than thoroughly for your capture."
"What to do - I am not a ghost and I leave traces by which someone who knows what to look for can find me. This man is by no means the first in my memory, although, in fairness, the previous ones just wanted to rob me."
Brannon did not elaborate on what happened to them.
"I'm sure Roismann will try again," Angel added unexpectedly.
"Do you think he didn't get it the first time that stealing was not good?"
"He's not interested in gold or magic weapons. He wants to get a secret, for which it is not a pity to sell his soul."
Longsdale sawed the bracelet in half and threw them into a box of some kind of jelly-like slurry. Angel twirled his hand.
"I must apologize to you," the consultant said with the same solemn, concentrated seriousness with which he apologized to Brannon. "I hurt you before being treated there on the ship. I shouldn't have done that."
"Yes, you shouldn't," the pyromaniac confirmed coldly. "Take care of Miss Sheridan."
His tone instantly awakened all past suspicions in the Commissar. Redfern definitely didn't like the consultant; he didn't even thank for getting rid of the handcuff.
"I wonder," Brennon said, "why was Roismann so eager to get an answer exactly from you?"
"Probably because I know it," this f***ing bastard replied without even blinking, closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, watching Longsdale's actions over Peggy's hand from under his eyelashes.
"You. Know. It?" The commissar repeated slowly. The witch stared dazedly at the pyromaniac: her mouth parted, her eyes widened. The Commissar had never seen her so amazed.
"And why didn't you tell me anything?" Brennon inquired, heating like a poker in a fireplace.
"Because you didn't ask."
"Oh, so I didn't ask," the commissar rumbled. On the ship, this confession did not arouse such anger in him, because then he was not up to that, but now!
"If you want to know something from me - ask," Redfern spoke with impudent equanimity. "I am not a fan of telepathy and rarely use it. How the hell was I supposed to guess you were interested in this?"
"Sir, let me do telepathy with him," Jen interjected. She, apparently, could hardly control herself at the sight of food and was not averse to improving its quality with the help of beatings.
"Done," Longsdale said, and tossed Peggy's bracelet into the same drawer. On the street, they heard the approaching rumble of wheels and the clatter of hooves, which froze at the consultant's house. The witch darted to the window.
"Sir, this is your sister, her husband and son!"
"Let they in," Longsdale ordered. Jen jumped out the door, and the Commissar fiercely thought that there had been too many uninvited well-wishers lately. Surely one of the police officers recognized Peggy and did not fail to please her unfortunate mother. And the young brat, barely hearing about her family, rushed to Angel, fell to the floor at his feet and grabbed his hand. If she would show such obedience to her parents earlier - then she would not have found herself in such shit!
"Peg!" Brennon snapped.
"Go," Angel said wearily. "It's time for you to be with your family."
Margaret turned so pale that Nathan instantly forgot that he was angry and rushed to her. She didn't look so bad on the ship!
"Peggy!" he grabbed her, but his niece clung to the arm of the chair like a tick, and squeezed out barely audibly:
"I'll never see you again?"
Brennan released her.
"Of course, you'll see," the pyromaniac answered with surprising tenderness, took her face in his hands, "I give you my word!" and pressed his lips tightly to Margaret's forehead. The girl squeezed his wrists and closed her eyes. The commissar left her alone and went to the hound. Snappish snuffled softly, sympathetically, and leaned sideways at his feet.
Martha burst into the living room, followed by Joseph and their eldest son. At the tail of the procession was a witch, overwhelmed by Brennon's rush.
"Peggy!" Martha shouted.
"Mommy," Margaret muttered in a shaky voice. "Dad!.."
With difficulty she unhooked herself from the pyromaniac, got up and almost fell into her mother's arms.
"Oh God, God!" Martha hugged the girl to her chest; The Sheridans huddled around the prodigal daughter. The hound sighed very humanly and lowered his muzzle to his paws, not taking his eyes off the sobbing and crying family. Angel looked at them too, leaned on the armrests, got up and staggered to Brennon.
"Take me to the nearest mirror," Redfern said, and after a pause he added: "Please."
The commissar looked at him in silence until a very pale blush appeared on the pyromaniac's cheekbones.
"Please," Angel repeated, and it was more like a request than an order.
"Why are you not satisfied with the mirrors here?"
"I'm not going to leave clues to anyone who might break into my house.
Edwin Sheridan took Margaret in his arms and carried her out of the living room. Martha followed, forgetting even to thank Longsdale, and debt of courtesy was hastily paid by her husband. The consultant, however, took everything completely unperturbed. Although what may surprise him at all when he engages in such a profession...
The pyromaniac followed Sheridans with his eyes until they disappeared on the stairs - as if they were robbing him of a priceless treasure, and not vice versa; then he went to the door, holding on to the wall. Brannon nodded goodbye to Longsdale, patted the hound on the back of the neck, and caught up with Redfern on the landing. There he took Angel by the elbow. The pyromaniac flinched weakly.
"Walk," the commissar grunted. "I'll make sure you don't break your neck."
"I don't like being forced to request."
"You do not like to thank."
"Is it necessary to express it in words?"
"Uh-huh. Not everyone, you know, has telepathy."
They downed the stairs, then the hall, the path through the garden, and on the street the pyromaniac turned to Valentina's cafe, but passed by and went deeper into the alley between the pharmacy and the bank branch. Nathan immediately understood why: there was a back door to a ready-to-wear shop. Angel muttered a spell, pushed it, and entered. The Commissar still supported him and felt Redfern lean heavier on him.
"You rely too much on this magic of yours," Brannon grumbled. "A good gun, for example, is not bad either."
"I killed Roismann's mercenaries without any magic," the pyromaniac replied with a grin.
"Yeah, but firstly you gulped of some kind of potion."
"You know, I would suggest that you check your statement, for example, in the fencing hall," Angel winced, "but now, I'm afraid I'll have to postpone it."
They passed the back rooms and slowly made their way into the hall, where the sellers, under the supervision of a clerk, were preparing the store for the opening. Redfern entered the dressing room and the Commissar drew the shade. Angel put his hand to the mirror, closed his eyes, and mumbled in Latin. Brannon watched the clerk and the sallers through a crack.
"Done," the pyromaniac said hoarsely. The Commissar turned around. Angel, quite pale, leaned on the frame of the mirror, in which the stars twinkled.
"I am extremely grateful to you," he assured Brannon. - Especially for the help that you will render me now.
Nathan didn't have time to make a sound: the pyromaniac grabbed his hand, pulled him over and fell backwards into the mirror.