13th November
The night had already thickened to black-ink colour when The Commissar finally decided that was enough for today. Policemen with portraits of the victims spent the third day combing Blackwit with a frequent comb, and from the list of missing persons with difficulty they extracted forty-six victims who fit the description of the faceless dead man.. Brennon ordered to policemen get around relatives and friends of all forty-six missing persons, while Kennedy and Longsdale fiddled with face restoration.
It remained to question the beggars at the cathedral and the inhabitants of the surrounding houses. But this was the next point the commissioner had planned – the number of policemen was not unlimited, and other criminals were not sitting idle either; one knife fights would have been enough for a couple of newspaper columns in small print. However, The Commissar was most concerned about the fact that, on the eve of the festivities, the mayor strictly forbade "spreading frightening rumors among honest citizens!" As if the unknown murderer would confine himself to dishonest ones...
"They weren't even robbed," Brennon thought. Over the years, he has seen all sorts of killers - and lunatics, and maniacs, and sadists - but not one of them could have killed the victim this way, even if he wanted to.
Nathan said goodbye to the attendants and went out on a crystal cold night. It was calm, clear and moonless. A scattering of stars flickered sparkly in the sky. Lifting his head, the commissar stood where he was, sighed, pulled his scarf tighter around him, and started toward the house.
Rocksville Street was deserted. The flag on the town hall hung sadly, the crosses on the cathedral dimly gleamed like tin, the park darkened on the left, and the light in the windows flickered on the right. Near house number eighty-six, Brennon slowed his pace. There were no lights in the house, and it was as dark and silent as before. The mansion was more like a crypt than the abode of the living, and half-forgotten village superstitions arose in Nathan's memory - about nightly blood-sucking creatures and the hell hounds. But since The Commissar could not recall anything about these criminal entities (thirty years have passed, damn it!), he turned away from house and walked along Rocksville Street, ironically, towards the lake.
As luck would have it, there were no cabs nearby, and the frost was getting worse. Brennon raised his coat collar and wrapped his scarf around his ears. His fingers tingled even in his warm gloves. In the clear, frosty air, the light of the lanterns seemed cold, as if breaking through thin ice. There was such silence that a crunch of snow underfoot spread throughout the street. Nathan walked with his head bowed thoughtfully; he liked to walk, but now regretted that he did not wait or look for a cab. Well, at least there was no wind - it would have been bone-chilling all over Rocksville Street. Fortunately, the snow was densely trampled, and there was no need to wander, drowning in viscous porridge.
Brennon put his hands deeper into his pockets, looked around the street again for a cab, but he didn't notice a single one. He bowed his head, hiding his nose in a scarf, and stared at the snow. Near the foundation of the fences, the snow was quietly rustling - with a thin veil it glided along the stones, leaving a white mark on them. Brennan watched it blankly until he realized that it was completely windless.
The Commissar stopped and thoughtlessly looked at the snow haze curling along the ground. It was drawn north to the lake. Brennon came to, automatically squeezed the revolver in his pocket and, almost crying out, drew back his hand - the metal burned him with cold even through his glove. And who to shoot at? The Commissar looked around - the same thing happened on the opposite side of the street. A snowy veil rolled along the fences in waves. The light of the lanterns became pale gold and transparent, and from that the darkness seemed even more impenetrable.
There was something bewitching in that soundless glide. Crystal balls of golden light soared above the street, swaying slightly on lampposts like flowers. Brennon blinked and shook his head. He went to the fence, bent over and plunged his fingers into the waves of snow. At first he felt a faint warmth, then a cold tingling, and then, as soon as an ice wave slid up his arm, something dark, hot and heavy crashed into Brennon.
The Commissar rolled head over heels on the ground. Something snorted in his ear and resolved into the darkness of the alley. Nathan watched it with a stunned look, lowered his eyes, feeling discomfort - and shuddered. The sleeve and glove were covered with a thin but dense snow film.
"What the hell..."
Blowing snow still flowed along the street, but a little further already curled a foot above the ground. The Commissar cursed and somehow scrubbed himself off the sidewalk. His arm was a little numb, but he rubbed the blood away with a vigorous rub and looked around the street with a predatory eye. It was still deserted, and Brennon resolutely moved forward - to the lush puffs of snow, like white smoke. The Commissar did not feel fear - something was hot, which means it was completely alive, made of flesh and blood, and if so...
A few minutes later, the commissar heard the sound of footsteps in the silence. Brannon walked more slowly, and he distinctly heard someone else's footsteps lose their rhythm a second after his own. Nathan cautiously touched the revolver – it still looked like a piece of ice.
The commissar dashed into the alley where the footsteps were coming from, gritted his teeth, and yanked the revolver out of his pocket.
"Stop!!"
He could not to shout so hard - the alley was empty. Brennon quickly swept the muzzle of the Morvaine around the walls of the houses, the roofs, the porches. Nobody. Exhaling frantically through his teeth, Nathan dropped the revolver and began to rub his hand, which was numb from the cold. Footsteps were heard on Rocksville Street.
It was a human. Definitely. Brennon reached into his other pocket and gripped the switchblade. It, too, became colder, but not as much as Morvein. The Commissar snapped the knife. Brennon pressed himself against the wall and let out a strangled gasp - it was piercingly icy. The man on the street coughed softly. The Commissar emerged from the alley and caught only a black silhouette, melted in the night between the two houses. Ahead, the snow swirled, level with the roofs.
It was very cold. The breath turned into vapor and immediately settled on the face and beard with ice crystals. Brennon walked slowly toward the swirling snow. Dark lampposts were barely visible, and pale golden globes of light hovered above them. It was almost painful to breathe from the cold. The Commissar pulled the scarf higher.
Here, residential buildings were interrupted by shops - expensive, with large, icy shiny windows. Brennon, trying to breathe less and shallowly, entered the snow cloud. A veil of tiny, prickly snowflakes hovered in the air and swayed slightly. Looking around, The Commissar moved to the shop windows. On one of them the snow lay in a strange, long tracery - a little diagonally, stretched by the interweaving of white threads. Nathan followed the tracery and saw the continuation in the next shop window. And on one, and another, and further... He followed the pattern until he stopped in front of a shop window covered with a dense layer of snow. Here the air almost rang from the frost. Brennon squinted, stepped toward the window, and suddenly a palmprint appeared on it through the snow.
"What the hell!"
The Commissar staggered back. Snow shot up at his feet and wrapped around his ankles. Brennon cried out in surprise, and, as if in reply, a fire ball broke through the snowy veil with a hiss. It slammed into the window, splashed over it and painted everything in pale scarlet. The snow boiled and scalded Brennon with hot steam. Nathan jumped back, covering his face, and crashed into someone. This someone cried out fiercely and unprintable, threw The Commissar as a rag doll, and threw another ball over his head. It cut through a blanket of snow and exploded somewhere at the north end of Rocksville Street; the patterns in the shop windows flowed down.
Nathan peeled away from the cold wet mud into which the snow had turned, and looked around like madman. The hellish cold disappeared; the blizzard disappeared along with the snowflakes swirling in the air. The pftterns spread in puddles under the windows.
"What the heck?!"
The Commissar found the revolver in the alley. Morvein was frozen into a perfect ice ball.
14th November
Brennon carefully laid the ball on the chief's desk. Broyd looked at the Morvein so piercingly, as if he wanted to glance break the ice.
"And now, sir, I have only one question. How competent is your consultant?"
"I see, you pretty much lost in skepticism, but gained in faith," - Broyd poked the pen into a ball. Over night, the ice did not think to melt.
"I believe what I see," Brennon said calmly, "And what I saw last night is beyond the power of any human being. If someone hadn't started throwing fire, I'd be standing in our backyard right now, wrapped in a layer of ice."
"Do you think that the flamethrower and the killer are two different hum... creatures?"
The Commissar thought for a moment.
"I would not want," he said reluctantly, "to see the streets divided not only by gangs, but also by crazy sorcerers. But still it seems obvious to me that the thug with fire and the thug with ice are two different... thugs."
"Damn it all," Broyd muttered, "The bishop incites the mayor. He again wants to allow festivities on the lake. And this cross..."
"Longsdale said he would find a way to melt the ice. Where is he, by the way?"
"Longsdale? I don't know, I haven't seen he in the morning. If he's still asleep, I'll let you wake him up."
Brennon grinned.
"Plowed by the sweat of his brow?"
"Well," Broyd said strictly, "yesterday he and Kennedy were busy with reconstruction until late at night."
"And what?"
The chief handed him a drawing.
"Well, at least it looks like a human face," Brennon admitted, "I hand it to the guys over, let them search."
"In total, we have an autopsy of the first unknown victim, the identity of the fourth victim and two unidentified persons in the ice. Go, Brennon, get down to business. Get me something else besides the icy lungs and heart. And do not forget about the cross!"
Easy to say, The Commissar thought. Apparently, the internal organs did not impress the mayor as much as they would like.
However, in the morning so many things fell upon Brennon that he came to his senses only by lunchtime. The townspeople wanted justice and certainly from him. By two o'clock, Nathan managed to jew a piece of bread with ham and a cup of tea; then he remembered about Longsdale. Wrapping the revolver in a handkerchief, Brennon got dressed, warned the attendant and headed for the consultant's house.
The door was not immediately opened to the Commissar. Nathan even thought that he was mistaken of the house, or that the consultant went to hand out visits (or what secular fops were doing there), but then the door opened and a butler appeared on the threshold.
"Good afternoon, sir."
Maybe he's a valet after all, The Commissar thought (the guy was too young for the butler) and said:
"Commissar Brennon, to Mister Longsdale."
"Mister Longsdale is sleeping, sir."
"Sleeping?! At two in the afternoon?!"
"Yes, sir."
"So wake him up! Investigation is not waiting!"
"I can't, sir," the butler said coldly, making it clear that the police department's problems were none of his business.
"Of course you can," Brannon snapped. "We don't play at spillikins, we have four corpses. Quickly, quickly!"
"Sir!" the butler said indignantly. He did not have time to slam the door - The Commissar put a cane between the casement and the jamb and resolutely pressed the door, using the cane as a lever. At the same time, he marveled at how hard it was to overcome the resistance of such a thin guy. f there were no hidden blade in the cane – it would break...
"You have no right!"
"Have, have," Brannon said, squeezing in, "Where's the bedroom?"
Lights were already lit in the black eyes of the young man, when suddenly a dog appeared on the scene. The hound stood on the landing, measured The Commissar with a long, appraising look, and said aloud:
"WOOF."
The floor under Nathan's feet shuddered, the glass in the windows tinkled, the dishes in the cupboard answered them with a plaintive rattle. Brennon's hair stirred under his hat, and he almost flew out of the house, spurred by panic fear. Such horror had never rolled upon him, even when he had run on the attack first time. Hegained consciousness, The Commissar realized that he had pressed his back against the door and grabbed the sword from the cane. The dog looked at him with curiosity and some surprise, bowing his head to one side.
"Please follow me, sir," said the butler. Brennon turned sharply and managed to notice a sarcastic grin on his face.
"Please put your weapons away, sir."
"Yeah," The Commissar answered grimly and glared at this calmly insolent phiz. It was narrow and swarthy, with a thin straight nose, high cheekbones and black eyebrows. The left eyebrow was cut in half. But as soon as the butler turned his back, his face instantly disappeared from Nathan's memory.
"What the hell?!"
The butler climbed the stairs. Following the dog, he leaded Brennon to the bedroom, opened the door and announced:
"Commissar Brennon, sir."
The answer was silence. Blackout curtains were drawn, the bed canopy were lowered. The Commissar coughed, but the butler did not move. Nathan sighed and drew back the canopy.
"Company, get up!!!" The ex-company sergeant barked at the top of his voice. The consultant soared above the bed, as if thrown up by a spring.
"W-w-why are you here like that?.." he stammered, barely landing. "W-w-what are you doing?!"
Brennon pulled a ball from his pocket, yanked the handkerchief from it, and twirled in front of the aquiline nose of consultant upstart. Longsdale rubbed his eyes and crawled onto the pillows above to half-sit. He took an ice ball; The Commissar froze in anticipation. And he was not deceived - Longsdale thoughtfully licked the ball and said:
"Well..."
"Is that your expert opinion?" Nathan inquired.
"There, on the mantelpiece."
On the mantelpiece, Brennon saw four glasses. In one there was water, in the rest - pieces of ice, in some places - melted.
"I have no samples from the first victim, because it has already thawed. However, a range of samples from the rest suggest that the ice on the first deceased was closest to normal."
The Commissar turned around interestedly.
"And what, the rest are unusual?"
"Take a look at the first glass. There were those pieces that I broke from the ice on the lake. They, as you see, have melted. You can't say that about the other pieces," the consultant handed the ball to the dog, and the hound thoroughly sniffed it. "Raiden, my tea."
"Sorry, sir," the butler answered and disappeared. The Commissar took the glasses (they had labels with numbers) and examined the ice. They did not differ in appearance.
"The difference is not noticeable to the eye," Longsdale continued. "Moreover, the ice from the last deceased melted by a third, but your ball, as you may have noticed, does not melt in your hands."
"And what does it mean?"
The consultant's eyes flashed blue.
"It's improving."
Brennon flinched. Longsdale looked at him point blank, not blinking, from under his brows, and the wings of his nose swelled predatoryly, like a beast. The Commissar would not have recognized him if he had run into him on the street. The corners of Longsdale's lips lifted in a smile, twisted to the left. Nathan involuntarily squeezed the handle of a cane.
"Your tea, sir," the butler announced, thickening out of thin air. The consultant blinked.
"Tea? Ah, tea! Oh, of course..."
He sucked to the cup, and Brennon slowly wiped the sweat from his forehead. Anything to make it tougher! The dog was looking at him carefully; eyes glittered like coals from beneath overhanging eyelids. The Commissar suddenly thought that he was face to face with two people about whom he knew nothing at all, plus a hound that was clearly trained to kill those unwanted.
"All of this," the consultant spoke up as if nothing had happened, "allows us to assume that the ice covering the victims is completely different nature than ordinary. Moreover, this entity is becoming more skillful and stronger."
"That is?.." muttered Nathan; the entity he had just seen occupied him much more. What the hell is this crap?!
"That is, you will not succeed in melting ice in the usual way. But I can melt it."
"And when will you do this?"
"Tonight."
"Why not in the afternoon?"
Longsdale sighed quietly.
"I'm afraid I won't be able to explain in a nutshell the essence of the process."
"Then get up and do something useful. We have the first victim's belongings. You look at them on the subject of any... hmm... rubbish. In addition, something happened on your part tonight."
"As soon as I have breakfast..."
"Do you eat with your ears? Have breakfast and listen. Time is short."
The consultant dutifully sent the butler for scrambled eggs and bacon. Brennon took the chair and began his story. The dog lay between him and Longsdale and lowered his muzzle to his paws, not taking his eyes off the commissar.
Longsdale was not impressed by the story about the fire-spitting man. The Commissar managed to squeeze out of him only the cool "Hmmm..." and a sluggish promise to look for the firespiter. With this, Brennon left the house to wait for the consultant on the street. He joined The Commissar a few minutes later and strode to the department with the dog, carrying a small valise. Nathan followed and felt like an convoy.
"Will you show where you were attacked?" Longsdale asked.
"There, down the street."
The Commissar always wondered how different the city looked at night and day. In the darkness, Rocksville Street looked like an endless cold tunnel of a necropolis, in which breezes were made to the bones; but in the afternoon - it was decent and respectable. Together with the consultant, Brennon again investigated the site of the attack, but they only managed to amuse the passers-by - no trace was left by then.
"What was the handprint?" Longsdale asked, when The Commissar had found the right shop window with some difficulty.
"Human."
"Are you sure?"
"I didn't see it," Nathan admitted, "Although the size seems to be smaller than mine."
"Male or female?"
"I do not know. Let's go to the shop? Here they sell groceries."
"Not worth it," the consultant shook his head, "The owners have nothing to do with this. Unless..." he frowned, "Find out where they get water from."
"From the lake," The Commissar answered a little in surprise, "Everyone takes water from the lake. And what? What's the matter? Do you have a suspect?"
"Not yet. But I have the place. Remember the green slime that covers the ice of Weer from the inside?"
"Yes."
"These are seaweed whipped in puree. Something or, in our case, someone whipped them like cream, with such force that they rose to the surface, and there they stuck to the ice."
Brennon tingled his beard in puzzlement.
"Well, what do you suggest? Break all the ice on Weer? From our shore you cannot see the opposite! It has an area of twenty-five square miles. How do you imagine that?"
Lonsdale was silent, frowning. Below, at the edge of the shop window, a piece of the frosty pattern remained. The consultant took out a magnifying glass and leaned towards it. Behind Brennon there was a clatter of hooves and a rustle of wheels in the snow. The Commissar turned around: at the shop the carriage stopped, from which an elegant girl in a gray skirt and gray coat, with a basket in her hands, got out. The girl went to the shop and began thoughtfully recounting the bundles in the basket, as if she was not sure of their quantity. Nathan hesitated, coughed loudly and called:
"Peggy!"
The girl raised her head holding the brim of her hat to keep the sun out of her eyes.
"Uncle!" she squealed joyfully, dropped the basket into the snow and rush to embrace the commissar's neck. He bravely withstood the blow and carefully hugged her waist.
It remained a mystery to Nathan why such a child was born to his sister and her husband, who was outwardly unremarkable persons. The face of her mother, Mrs. Sheridan, looked like a horse, her father resembled a bricks, the production of which made a fortune; their daughter looked like a fairy. Slightly above average height, thin, white-skinned, with lush brown curls and huge eyes the color of black amber, Margaret was the envy of her peers. By the time she was seventeen, she had a delicate oval face, a thin nose, a cherry-shaped mouth, and so many suitors that their list could pass for a census of the male population between the ages of twenty and forty.
"What are you doing here?" Miss Sheridan asked.
"I'm working. And you?"
"I buy presents for Independence Day."
"Already?"
The girl looked disapprovingly at the commissioner:
"I have a lot of cousins and cousins. And it's time for you to think about it, too!"
Brennon grunted embarrassedly. He had a total of eight married brothers and married sisters, so the number of nephews could not be reasonably accounted for.
"Well, when I'm a little free..."
Margaret leaned over to pick up the basket and gave a little gasp.
"Doggie! Uncle, is that your doggie?"
Brennon looked around for a doggie, but found only the huge red hound nearby, which was staring at Margaret, like at the piece of tenderloin.
"It's not a doggie, Peggy. This is Mister Longsdale's dog. Mister Longsdale, Police Department Consultant. Miss Sheridan, my niece."
The consultant raised his eyes for a moment from the bottom edge of the shop window, which he studied while squatting, and returned to the subject of the study. Margaret flushed indignantly - she was used to a different reaction to her appearance.
"Good afternoon, sir," she said through gritted teeth. The dog took upon itself the duty of courtesy - he came up, waved his tail twice and sniffed the edge of her crinoline.
"What a big and beautiful one!" Margaret admired. "Can I pet him?"
"No!" the commissar howled, instantly imagining what would be left of his niece after the attack of a big, well-trained dog.
"But why? Sir, can I pet your dog?"
The consultant stared silently at the girl, as if she had just woken him. The dog sat down in front of Margaret and held out its paw.
"Hello, Mister Hound," Miss Sheridan said gravely, respectfully, and ceremoniously shook its mighty paw; it barely fit in her two palms. The dog sniffed the girl's hands and carefully licked. "What is your name, mister?"
"What is your dog's name?" The Commissar translated Longsdale.
"Name? Named?.. No named," he muttered.
"So you are nameless, mate," Brennon said thoughtfully; Margaret enthusiastically scratched the beast's neck and back, the beast was thrilled. Longsdale jerked at the hem of Nathan's coat:
"In what direction was the tracery going?"
The Commissar waved his hand.
"From there to here."
Longsdale stood up and looked into the distance.
"To the lake," Brennon added.
"I will take the ice from the pattern to the laboratory. Breaking ice on the Weer is a dangerous idea. Something that try to get out of it outward, most likely, achieves this. The question is, what is it?"
"Sir! Sir!"
Brennon turned around. The young man on duty was running toward him as fast as he could.
"Sir! The first victim was identified!"