Chapter 20 - the Roaring Lion

"This is the Destination," Longsdale ran a finger along the black scorched line. "A spell that allows you to connect the two most similar points in space. But I have not heard that the Destination is used in this way."

"Damn crazy pyromaniac," Brennon said through set teeth. A black twisted body lay in the center of a perfect circle. The ashes and morning snow slightly dusted the corpse and a wreath of elegant symbols scorched on a tree. Kennedy examined the body, the hound sniffed something at the end of the bridge, the witch staggered a little among the bushes.

"It is he?" Brennon asked.

"It is a corpse of a man who, in extremely general terms, matches your description of Jason Moore," Kennedy said querulously. "But it is likely that this is simply poor fellow who not implicated in the case."

"What did he die from?"

The pathologist snorted with all his might:

"In your opinion, can I determine when the corpse is in this state?"

"Was he burned before or after death?"

"We'll find out after the autopsy," Longsdale said. "I'll take samples of his tissue and compare them to Moore's hair."

"You can, despite the fact that he's so... charred?"

The consultant nodded. Kennedy gave him a piercing gaze, as if suspecting a theft from church donation mugs.

"Hey!" Jen called out Commissar. "There are traces of hooves and wheels. There was someone's carriage drawn by one horse. Traces lead to the city."

"Well, at least he doesn't fly through the air," Brennon muttered. "Like a Holy Spirit. What else is there?"

Jen looked at him silently, as if wondering whether to speak. Then she squatted down and motioned the commissar closer. He leaned over and saw in the snow next to the man's footprints the prints of graceful narrow shoes that would not fit any female leg.

"She was with him," Jen said quietly. The commissar clenched his teeth. "I'm sorry, sir."

"Maybe not she."

"Then who? To whom else would he show..."

"Jesus," Brennon hissed. "Don't tell me he showed it to Peg."

"Could not show. At least, there are no signs of vomiting anywhere nearby, so she threw up. But she was here."

"What the hell did he drag the girl here for such a sight?"

Jen shrugged.

"How do we know? Maybe he's crazy. I would not be surprised."

"God," Brennon repeated. "Oh my God!"

The police turned around. The hound left the bridge alone and went to the Commissar, carefully looked into his face.

"Damn," Nathan hissed. The witch looked tiredly at him. "Are you okay?"

"I've had worse," she rose, leaning on the withers of Paw, and put her hands in the pockets of her coat. "I want something..." the girl rummaged in her pocket and handed Brennon a crumpled piece of paper.

"What is it?" the commissar straightened the sheet, but did not catch the meaning of the notes.

"I have a little blood left of this sorcerer. On his clothes. Too little to be tracked down or bewitched him, but it was enough for something else," Jen said frowningly.

"We have stocks of our blood in our laboratory - mine and his." she nodded sharply toward the consultant. "Needed for potions and spells. I decided to check, just in case, well, you never know," the witch bit her lip. "These are relatives."

"Who?"

"They are blood relatives. This pyromaniac, and... and he," Jen jabbed a finger at Longsdale, slouched and turned away. Brennon smoothed a piece of paper, carefully folded it and pulled out a wallet. Took it inside. Unhurried everyday activities always helped to concentrate and calm down. Especially when the news made you want to howl like a wolf at the moon.

"Brothers?" He finally asked. The witch shook her head. "Cousins? Uncle and nephew?"

"Further," Jen said. "This is not a close relationship. I can't understand which one. Common hereditary markers are the same, but they are not so close relatives. I can't tell him," the witch turned away. "I do not know how. How I can say this to him if he... he is so..."

"I'll tell him myself," Brennon slipped his wallet into his bosom and caught a glimpse of the hound was breathing heavily with its teeth bared out. The hair on the scruff of its neck rose, as if it could smell something filthy.

"You gave him your word that you would find out."

"I will find out," Nathan said through gritted teeth. The witch was silent for a moment, staring at him intently.

"I promise that I will defend Margaret," she finally said.

"Why?" Brennon asked when the surprise somewhat released.

"Word for word. Don't you, human, do that?"

"Good," said the Commissar. "And now go home, until you have collapsed directly to the evidence. Sleep it off or whatever you're doing. I'll take a look around."

Jen grunted and strode toward the carriage. Brennon squatted beside the tracks. One chain - from the prints of men's shoes - was repeated twice: from the carriage to the bridge and back. But the girl's tracks were in only one direction - from the bridge to the carriage. This means that either Margaret wove from the air like a fairy - or the Destination delivered her in company with Jason Moore. Because this bastard, this bitch pyromaniac used her as a bait for the Strangler!

Brennon rose. The hound looked into his eyes, and for some reason Nathan knew that it too understood. The beast's lip lifted, revealing fangs. The commissar nodded to it and headed for the bridge. Paw trotted nearby.

***

As the day wore on, Margaret still felt tired and exhausted. She hardly slept at night, although Angel left her a bottle of sedative. However, the girl considered stunning herself with a potion a humiliating weakness, and almost until dawn she lay and looked out the window. She was not afraid, although, closing her eyes, she again saw the half-burned face of Jason Moore, and this was the most disgusting sight in her life. But that wasn't why sleep didn't come to her.

Looking into the slowly turning gray sky, Margaret thought about how many more such beasts walk around the world. Nobody knows; no one will believe. No one will believe that this is real - the ifrits, spells, rituals, evil spirits and magic. And while no one believes it, these people are protected as securely as ever. Because even if the police understand them by some miracle, no court will ever sentence them for what they are actually doing.

But most often they are not found. Because magic is on their side; and most of all - because no one believes that all this is true.

Margaret fell asleep with bitter disappointment and woke up with this sense. Her day passed in a fog of meaningless actions - the maid, worried by the look of a young lady, immediately agitated her mother, her mother called a doctor who was tired of Margaret worse than Miss Thay, then her father came to see her, then all the brothers took turns, and finally she was left alone in the evening. As if all these chicken chores have some meaning! The only thing that really bothered her was whether her uncle had finally found the corpse of the Strangler; but she could not ask a question, she could not escape from the house, and the longer they all revolved around her, the more this delayed the visit of Angel.

If he comes to her at all. Maybe he had already gone after the next Jason Moore, forgetting about her as an insignificant trifle.

And then she will never see him again.

In the evening, Margaret was finally left alone. She secretly dragged newspapers from the living room and leafed through them by the light of the lamp, sensitively listening to the darkness while waiting for a knock on the dressing room door. Fortunately, the press did not disappoint - all newspapers took almost a third of the front page to screaming headlines, more or less witty, but certainly sensational. All this inspired contempt for humanity rather than faith in the triumph of justice; fresh news supplanted the fire in the church of St. Helena on the last pages, and Margaret hardly found it there. The church collapsed at night, as eyewitnesses reported (and where did they come from in the second hour of the night?!); but did it mean that the ifrit was expelled? Or vice versa? In trying to figure it out, the girl spread the newspapers on the bed in a circle and re-read the notes, sometimes rubbing her sleepy eyes tiredly.

"Margaret..."

Miss Sheridan sprang up like a startled rabbit and scattered the Newspapers with her crinoline. Angel, raising an eyebrow, skeptically followed the flight of the free press.

"Oh my God, couldn't you knock?!" it burst out of Margaret. He grunted. "And if I changed clothes?"

"Aren't you glad to see me?" Angel inquired and sat down on the dressing table, playing with some kind of parcel. "Should I leave?"

"No!"

He carefully looked at the girl. Margaret did not have time to rejoice that in the weak light of the lamp he did not see her gray physiognomy, as Angel asked:

"Did you not sleep?"

"Sleep. It does not matter."

"You did not sleep," he said sternly. "And you didn't drink the potion."

"I don't need sleeping pills," Margaret snapped. "I'm not a hysterical. I read about the church. Do you know what happened with the ifrit?? He... did he leave?"

"Yes."

The girl took a deep breath and sank into a chair, suddenly feeling that she was not just tired, but tired from head to toe and from the ends of her hair to the very bones. Angel handed her a bundle and dripped a dozen drops from a potion bottle into a glass of water.

"What is it?" Margaret asked, looking at the weighty bundle.

"This is for you," Angel said casually, shaking his glass. "This shopkeeper didn't send you a purchase."

"What the purchases..." the girl untied the ribbon. From a bundle to her knees a pair of lace garters, a box with silk stockings, and a cord for a corset slipped. Miss Sheridan blushed from the roots of her hair to her collarbones.

"You! You bought me stockings and... and... how dare you!.. and what's this?"

In fact, stockings and garters could not weigh so much, except that Angel shoved the entire contents of the counter into a "gift". With horror (and relief) remembering that, thank God, she didn't put the panties in the basket, Margaret gutted the bundle inside the bundle and exclaimed in surprise:

"This is a book?!"

"The book," Redfern handed her a glass. "You can read, can't you?"

Miss Sheridan opened the book, read the title and flinched.

"Who wrote it?" She asked.

"I'm."

"But why?" she looked at Angel. For some reason, he stared at the floor, clutching with both hands on the edge of the table. "Why, Angel?"

"To teach."

"Whom to teach? Who will learn "The basics of building spells and sorceries"?"

He was silent, stubbornly staring at the floor, as if Margaret had interrogated him.

"Do you think Jason Moore is the only one?" finally Redfern threw through gritted teeth.

"No, I don't think so. I think... I've been lying and thinking almost all night..." the girl faltered, and Angel suddenly leaned forward, grabbed her hand and exhaled passionately:

"You thought! Tell me what you thought, Margaret? Tell me about what! Tell me!"

"How many more they are there," Miss Sheridan answered, a little audibly. Redfern looked into her face so eagerly, so demandingly, that in his voice she heard almost a plea. "Tell me!" it reflected in his eyes, large, dark, hot, as if glowing.

"They walk the streets among us," Margaret continued quietly. "And we do not know. And no one will prove, no one will find them, because no one believes."

"Oh, if you only knew how many of them!" Angel whispered. "How many of these creatures roam the world! And as if there were few of those that already existed, every brainless bastard who, as he thinks, got to omnipotence... every half-witted bastard... every scum is gnawing its way to the other side to bring in more! Because they want power, strength, youth, the devil knows what else, they want to kill, they want to get everything - and with impunity! But there will be no impunity," Angel hissed. "No, never again!"

He was breathing heavily, the alae of his nose were inflating, like a beast of prey, and, clinging to the armrests of a chair, he hung over Margaret and exhaled:

"Because I will find a way to burn them to ashes! Each of them! Each of the critters that they release! Each... each..." he gasped and fell silent, dropping his eyes, finally looking away from Margaret a fanatically burning look.

"But you are alone," the girl affectionately touched his hand; she felt that he was trembling slightly. "You and another consultant."

"I won't be alone anymore," Angel said through set teeth. "Do you really think that the consultant exists in the singular?"

"There are many of those?" Margaret gasped.

"A lot. But not enough. We need not single hunters, but a system. People, who prepared, armed, trained to act in units, cohesively, like a small army. Here's what you need," Redfern finally took a breath; scarlet spots were still glowing on his cheekbones, but the fire in his eyes was already extinguished. At least Margaret no longer felt like she was alone with a tiger. She also smelled a delicate grassy odor and immediately discovered the cause in the form of a glass of potion tipped over onto the carpet.

"You know, in my opinion, it won't hurt you either," the girl nodded at the glass. Angel grinned uncalmly; Miss Sheridan still felt that faint nervous shiver runs through him. He sat down on the carpet at Margaret's feet and clasped his hands around his knees, resting his chin on them, frowning at the window.

"You still cannot create such army alone."

"I'm not going to," Redfern squinted at her. "I'm not good for that. Spells, sorcery, potions, books, research - oh yes, but people... no! Annoying. Therefore," he concluded with almost childlike immediate liveliness, "I need your uncle."

"What?!"

"Your uncle. He is quite suitable. More precisely, he is so far the only one who comes up almost completely."

"And I," Margaret said dryly, "is needed only to get closer to him."

"Why do you think so?" Angel asked with genuine surprise. He threw back his head, looking at Miss Sheridan, like a cat, from the bottom up, but with a sense of his own superiority. "Have I told you that?"

"Well, would you admit it?"

Angel let out a short laugh.

"I don't give out spell books to the first comer. Stockings, however, too."

Margaret turned pink again and ran her hand over the rough cover with no name or author name.

"Will you leave it to me?" She asked timidly. "Really?"

"I'll leave it," Redfern closed his eyelids, studying the girl from under his eyelashes. "But I will strictly ask, keep in mind."

Margaret froze for a moment in surprise, and when the meaning of these words reached her, she blurted out:

"So will I see you again?"

Angel's dark eyes sparkled with pleasure.

"It will not do without it," he picked up the glass, rose and handed it to Miss Sheridan: "And do not forget the decoction."

Margaret reached for a glass. Redfern caught her hand and pressed his lips warmly against it. He did not take his burning eyes from her until the girl tried to free her hand. Angel freed it and, without saying goodbye, disappeared into the dressing room. Margaret was left alone, convincing herself that there was still more care in this look than all the rest - strange feelings that were still unknown to her.

10th January

Nathan stretched out his legs to the fireplace (without looking at what was exactly burning there), took a cup of tea, and sighed with satisfaction. The check, which he carefully put away in his billfold, pleasantly warmed his pocket, although Broyd wrote the prize to the guys from his own wallet. On Monday morning, Brannon planed a visit to the Bank, and before leaving, posted on the door a schedule of two-day vacations for everyone who was in the cordon.

The hound crawled closer to the fire. Even such a beast, lying like pretzel on the carpet, looked more comfortable than threatening. Jen put a tray of sandwiches and donuts on the table, flicked her finger on the teapot, warming the tea, and went out.

"Where did you get her from?" The Commissar finally asked.

"I owe the head of her clan," Longsdale explained vaguely. "She asked me to look after Jen."

Brennon reflected on what witches put into the concept of "look after." The consultant bended the brows, and Nathan recognized this expression on his face - he often observed such a mix of confusion, fear and misunderstanding among men who suddenly had to take care of young women relatives.

"She relies too much on brute force," Longsdale muttered. "I want her to learn the subtle art of managing her own gift, but... I still don't really understand how to do this."

"Have you told her about this?"

"Not. She must herself understand and strive..."

"Why on earth? She can alone lower the crime rate in the whole quarter, and with the help of one poker. So why the hell should she strive for your subtle art?"

"Probably," Longsdale answered upset. "But in five years we have nevertheless advanced... a little."

"Yeah. At least, she doesn't kill people without asking permission," the Commissar grunted. "Isn't her family worried about what could happen to Jen, given what you do? This is dangerous".

"Dangerous?" Longsdale asked in surprise. "But if she does not learn to fight and possess her gift, she will not even be able to choose a man for herself, not to mention other rights in the clan."

For a moment, Brennon tried to imagine a man capable of such a feat - but here his imagination was powerless. The hound snorted and slapped its tail on his leg.

"Listen," the Commissar asked, "do you remember what you asked me to do?"

Longsdale's eyebrows converged over the bridge of her nose:

"I asked you?"

"At night," Nathan recalled, carefully watching his reaction. "When we set a trap for the ifrit."

"I don't remember," a shadow of anxiety flickered on the consultant's face. "What did I ask for?"

"Tell me who I am," Brennon said. "That's what you asked for, literally."

The hound stared at the owner. Longsdale froze in his chair, as if intense thoughts paralyzed him.

"But why did I ask you about this?" finally he say unwillingly.

"Do you know who you are?"

"John Longsdale," an automatic reply followed immediately. "The hunter of evil spirits and undead."

"Who you are?" Brennon repeated persistently. "Where are you from? Who are your parents? Do you have any brothers and sisters? Friends? The house you grew up in? Memories?"

The consultant looked at him, lost.

"I don't know," he whispered after a long silence. "I do not remember. And why..." he fell silent again. The hound sat up, not taking its eyes off him. "Why are they needed," the consultant said, a little audibly.

"Well, you never know. Who knows why they are needed. But everyone has them, even homeless orphans have memories of who they are."

"I am John Longsdale," the consultant repeated, "hunter of the undead and the evil spirits."

"And who made you like that?" Brennon asked sharply. Longsdale blinked.

"Made? That is, how... made?.."

"You said you had been hunting for sixty years. Take a look at yourself! You are barely thirty-five."

The hunter stared at his hands.

"Yes," he said in surprise. "Really. But why?.."

"Because sometimes - rarely! - you remember. Remember yourself, the one you once were, but these moments are so short that you barely have time to say a word. But at one of these moments you asked me for help, and so now I ask you again - do you want to know who you are?"

"I am John Longsdale," the consultant stupidly repeated, "a hunter of the undead and evil spirits."

Nathan felt uneasy. He had never experienced anything like this, sitting across from a seemingly living, thinking being. Longsdale looked through him with a meaningless, glazed look, a mechanism of flesh and blood, in which the rewinding ended. The hound lowered its muzzle and poked its nose into a hand hanging from the armrest. Brennon stood up and touched the consultant's shoulder:

"John," he called softly. The hunter blinked slowly and looked up at the commissar.

"Your witch did a little research," Nathan said. "We had at our disposal some of the blood of the sorcerer who got into Grace's house."

"You call him a pyromaniac," Longsdale nodded.

"This is your relative."

The consultant so flinched that the Commissar automatically squeezed his shoulder.

"In what sense is a relative?"

"In direct. Although he is not your brother, cousin, or, God forbid, uncle, your relationship does not cause Jen doubts."

This time, Longsdale was silent for a long. He stared into the fireplace over the hound's head and ran his fingers over the arm of the chair. Nathan compared him to a pyromaniac. Nothing in common in the physique (he seemed like a splinter against a mighty consultant), but something similar was in the shape of a high forehead, square jaw, and eye shape.

"Or it seems to me," Brennon thought, and then Longsdale suddenly abruptly threw:

"Yes."

"What mean "yes"?"

"Find him," the consultant said between teeth. "Tell me ..." His face suddenly distorted painfully. He squeezed the armrests of the chair so that they crumpled like cardboard; saliva appeared in the corners of his mouth, and Longsdale hissed heavily: "Tell me who I am."

THE END

But to be continued…