Chapter 12 - the Roaring Lion

Broyd stood on the threshold of the restaurant; the chief's gaze burned. The owner and manager eagerly talked about the horrors of the pogrom. Raiden, arms folded across his chest, towered proudly, independently, above the groaning thug, like a hound guarding prey. Three police officers took testimonies from those visitors whom they managed to catch; Detective Gallagher pestered waiters with questions. Brennon sat at the door all this time and tapped his knee with his fist. His active nature could not reconcile with the forced idleness.

"Everything is clear," Brody finally cut short. "Is there a basement?"

The owner of the restaurant nodded fervently.

"Well. We will take it."

"But there are supplies!.." the manager snapped up and withered under the gaze of the police chief.

"Brennon, follow me. You," Broyd jabbed a cane at the butler, "drag this fellow to the basement. Guys, help him."

The butler snorted, grabbed the bandit by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to the door, despising the helping hands that the police held out to him. The remaining victims of the fighting were already taken out as unsuitable for interrogation.

"Sir," Nathan began, feeling that he had to explain himself.

"Silence," Broid interrupted. "In the basement, quickly."

The commissar dutifully trudged along behind the authorities. The authorities on the way pulled out his report from his bosom and began to leaf through. The manager brought the policemen to a spacious basement, opened a small room with shelves full of utensils, and left, carefully rounding the arc of Raiden with his victim. Broyd pulled out a stool and slammed Brennon's report onto a free corner on a shelf.

"So..."

"Sir, it is entirely my fault ..." the Commissar began firmly.

"So," the chief repeated menacingly, "you mean, you are sending the parcels with revelations, and they are trying to bang you right away in a simple and non-sophisticated way. It is unclear, however, from what is in sight of everyone, but, see, this type is in a hurry. The only interesting thing is which of the two."

"The Strangler," Nathan said after a moment of thought.

"Or maybe an unknown magician."

"Well, let's take it and ask," the butler intervened impatiently. Broyd pierced him with a heavy gaze through his pince-nez.

"Longsdale put him to me," Brennon said hastily. "To guard."

"I see that," the chief of police said coldly. "I am not sure what this meant inflicting fatal injuries."

"Oh, come on," Raiden answered lightly, "if I wanted to kill them, I would."

"Where did Longsdale dig this creature at all?" The commissar thought. He, too, in his youth was not a fool to fight, but damn it!

"Well, let's get started," Broyd nodded at the softly groaning thug: "Name, age, address."

"Biiiiitch..." came a barely audible reply. The butler leaned towards the arrested and confidentially said:

"You may not answer, but I cannot vouch for the consequences."

"Why did you attack the police Commissar?" Broyd asked. Raiden took the bandit's hand, and he suddenly yelled so that Nathan soared from his place.

"I do not know! Did not see him! He just came up, and that's it, that's it!"

"Stop it!" The commissar barked. The butler released the hand of the interrogated. Brennon swallowed a pie approaching his throat: a man's palm was charred, a black burn to the very bone repeated the shape of Raiden's fingers. Whining, the bandit curled up.

"That is," Broyd continued, staring calmly at him through his pince-nez, "you claim that you have not seen the one who hired you?"

There was a stifled sob in response.

"Do you have poor eyesight? Selective Deafness? Senile memory lapses?"

"I don't know..." the prisoner whispered. "He just came up, and that's it. How cut off! I don't remember anything, just like this..." he crawled away from Raiden. "Leg, her mother, as they drove in - he found himself..."

"It may be true, sir," Nathan said. "Raiden mentioned some puppeteer, but I myself experienced this too. Hypnosis, or something, this thing..."

The butler grunted at how delicately the commissar lowered the circumstances of his acquaintance with hypnosis, and kicked the man lying in front of him:

"Name, age, address."

"Terry Hill, I live on Raven's side, age - hell knows," the bandit hissed dutifully.

"That's nice," Broid stood up. "I'll send Gallagher here to take further evidence. You," the chief jabbed a finger at the butler, "do not try to be arbitrary."

Raiden raised a cut eyebrow and turned to the commissar. Such selective humility looked more like a mocking mockery.

"Guard," Brennon ordered. "Do not touch if you do not decide to run amok."

"Hey!" Hill shouted, crawling with difficulty to the police. "Hey you, don't leave me here! Do not leave me with this! I do not want, I can not, I..."

Broyd slammed the room door and locked it with a key. The manager, neither alive nor dead, pressed into the wall as the police chief and Brennon passed by.

"Sir, do not you think that this method was cool for..."

"I don't think that anyone has the right to set hired killers on my people," said Broyd dryly. "If you still do not realize that they tried to kill you..."

"Well, not the first time."

"But for the first time, this is trying to make a goddamn sorcerer. Are you sure that next time he will not bring down your roof on your head?"

Brennon thought, nipping his beard. The threats were addressed to him with enviable regularity, and in fact the Commissar did not find anything special in the attack of the five bandits. Except for the one who hired them. And whether he hired ...

"He could have been grabbing Grace as well, sir. If we took a pater, then he could not even describe this guy."

"That's right, too," Broyd scratched his sideburns with a glass pince-nez. "It's convenient from which side you look. What will you do?"

"I wonder, why only now?" the Commissar muttered. "How much time has passed, but he only got a grace."

"Maybe he was busy. Never mind. I'm not talking about that, Brennon. What do you intend to do to ensure your safety?"

"Well, hmmm..." Nathan answered thoughtfully. He was now more interested in the idea of how to catch an unknown reptile. And the second, preferably, too. Now, if Longsdale finally figured out the code in the book! You can, of course (need to, the Commissar sighed), to question Margaret, but, firstly, such a cunning type probably corrected her memory, since Longsdale said that this was possible; and secondly - would it endanger the girl? Who knows what a sorcerer will do if he discovers that she is being interrogated...

"I see," Broyd concluded. "I'll talk to a consultant. In the end, this Raiden does a pretty good job. If necessary, we will even pay him for additional services."

Brennon choked indignantly, but his indignation did not spill out, as he saw Longsdale and the extremely gloomy hound in the doorway.

"Well?"

The hound and the consultant appraised the Commissar from head to toe, as if estimating possible damage.

"Hayes breathed in pairs of sleeping pills. Evaporating, it causes a very sound sleep," said Longsdale. "But there is one more thing. He pulled a piece of something like melted glass from his pocket."

"What's that?" Nathan asked; Broyd aimed at a piece of pince-nez.

"This is the stone upon which the spell of flying fire fell. I studied the streets around the department. Rocksville Street is being repaired a little lower. Apparently, the cart with the stone was forgotten for the night, and that's what remained of it."

Brennon whistled longly.

"What do you think?"

"I think," the consultant said dryly, "that half of the Strangler met either the second mage, or the one she was so afraid of. And between them a little clarification of relations happened."

"How do you know?" the police chief Asked. The hound snorted so that Broyd nearly dropped his pince-nez.

"Each spell bears the imprint of the creator, like a handprint. That man," Longsdale tapped a piece of glass with his finger, "I don't know. But I can definitely say that he is not the one who left the castle on the temple and defended the Sheridan's house. His opponent repelled the spell, which means he is also a magician."

"Could he just miss it?"

"No. Flying fire pursues its goal until it overtakes."

"Hmm," Broyd said, "disappointingly. Let's discuss your butler. I am ready to close my eyes to something if he continues to guard the Commissar."

"Close eyes?" Longsdale asked perplexedly.

"Your servant brutally beat four witnesses, they are suspects."

"But if they attacked the Commissar..."

"Yes, but why on earth?" Brennon muttered, twirling a piece of glass. "Why on earth did one rush at the other? What did they not share?"

***

The day turned out to be busy, and the commissar devoted the remainder to the affairs that had accumulated besides the Strangler. Brennon did not like being watched obsessively, and the butler, constantly flashing on the verge of visibility, irritated him more and more every hour. Raiden with surprising dexterity chose such a position that Nathan always saw him, but only out of the corner of his eye. What the witcher himself thought about his transformation into a nanny remained unknown, but Brennon did not like his sly half-smile.

Longsdale industriously searched the entire department, studied with the help of some amulets all the officers from the chief of police to the assistant archivist and came closer to the Commissar with a report closer to the night. He intercepted Nathan on the way from the interrogation room, where he fished out a lover to stand on a stir, where another gang buried the body of a robbed perfume merchant.

"Why are you so busy with him?" Raiden pestering Commissar, following him on the heels. "Three or four fractures, and he would have told you everything from early childhood."

"Well?" Brennon asked the consultant wearily, ignoring the bloodthirsty tastes of his butler.

"All the staff are clean, even Hayes. He was only euthanized. No sign of anyone practicing magic lately."

"Good." Nathan rubbed his eyes and glanced at his watch. Half past eleven, however... "At least he doesn't go here as if to his toilet. What is the evidence?"

Longsdale shook his head.

"He took nothing. I didn't even touch a single one."

The commissar came into his room, sank into a chair and frowned at the thin pile of papers frowning. Paw sat down at the window, laid his face on the windowsill and indulged in contemplation.

"Then what's the point of getting here?"

"None for the Strangler," the consultant agreed. "But for the second magician..."

Brennon closed his eyes.

"Hour by hour is not easier. But why?"

"Why does the second magician do what he does? Do you understand?"

"No," Nathan said after a moment of thought. "I don't understand a damn thing."

"And I," the consultant sighed. "And this is bad, I have to understand them."

"Some type," the commissar said irritably, "cutting circles around the investigation, like a wolf around a calf. What he needs - it is not clear why he grappled with the ifrit - the devil knows why he drove the Strangler..."

"Maybe he didn't drive him away. A chance meeting."

"Anyway, what the hell does the second get in here? Did he go on an excursion? Why didn't he take anything? Longsdale," Nathan suddenly asked, "how many of you are such consultants in general?"

"Not counting me — one hundred twenty-six."

Brennon nearly jumped. He thought there were a dozen at most!

"Would you recognize any of your own? Can our second sorcerer be like you?"

"No, he's not one of us."

"And where do you come from?" Brennon asked. The butler turned sharply to him. The hound stood up, staring at the commissar. Longsdale blinked in surprise.

"Do we take it?"

"Well, someone had to teach you at least the basics, give a book or two, explain what's what. You are somewhere..." Nathan was silent.

After all, someone once made you immortal, he thought.

"I... I don't know...", the consultant replied, lost as a child. "I have always been that way... always able..." he fell silent, looking from Nathan to the hound, as if he did not understand the meaning of the question.

"Well, always - how much?"

Longsdale frowned, head down.

"Probably sixty years old," he finally answered.

"How many?!"

"Or so."

The consultant looked at most thirty-five to thirty-seven. Nathan almost got angry, deciding that they were laughing at him, then he remembered the utburd and a chest open. It didn't beat, the commissar remembered that for sure...

"And the hound? Where did you get Paw?"

"He was always there," Longsdale answered with the same childish confidence.

"But it's a hound!"

"He was always with me."

The Commissar bit his tongue. In fact, given what he saw and what he told about the Raiden hound, why not this creature be immortal?

"But why are you asking?" The consultant asked in perplexity.

"But don't you think about that?"

"No. What for?"

The hound looked at Brennon so closely that he choked on the rest of the questions. In fact, if a person does not understand that in sixty years it would be time to grow old...

Or is it still not a person, the commissar thought. But then who?

They knocked timidly on the door.

"Yeah?"

"Sir, Mr. Van Allen is asking you."

Nathan grabbed his coat and rushed down, instantly forgetting about consultants and all sorts of nonsense. The widow in the last meeting looked so that now he can be afraid of the worst...

"What happened?!" Brennon shouted from the stairs.

"Mother wants to see you, sir," Victor said, visibly agitated.

"Is she worse?"

"Thank God no. Marion and I persuaded her not to go down to the cafe and drink the tinctures prescribed by the doctor. But she doesn't get any better."

The commissar jerkily threw the "I am in a cafe" on duty and rushed to the door. Victor glanced in surprise at Raiden.

"Wait here," Brennon ordered.

"I will take you to the doorstep," the butler said, and the Commissar waved his hand.

"Sir," the young man said quietly, "I know you offered your mother the help of your family... Thank you."

"She refused," Brennon answered gloomily. "But if she changed her mind..."

"Not yet. I wanted to ask, sir..." even in the dark, Nathan noticed that the young man was thickly flushed. "Has your niece, Miss Sheridan, left for a safe place?"

"No," the commissar answered with a grin, "she is still in town."

Victor intermittently sighed and swallowed convulsively several times, as if shoving something thorny into his throat. Raiden grunted loudly, but, fortunately, he fell behind the cafe, leaving his valuable opinion to himself. I wonder if Marta would have considered a suitable party for Peg the son of a prosperous mistress of a bakery and cafe?

It was dark and quiet inside, it smelled like ground coffee, cinnamon and baking. Victor led the Commissar to the second floor, into the living room with a fireplace, cozy bright furniture and a large family portrait. Brennon thought sadly that he was clearly not in the taste of a widow, judging by her late husband — a short and thin gentleman with dark hair and eyes.

"Good night," Valentina van Allen said with a smile, rising to meet the guest and holding out a thin pale hand. Another, she rested on the high arm of the chair. "I'm sorry to have bothered you so late."

Goodnight. How are you feeling?

"Oh, good, thank you," the widow took a small porcelain teapot: Nathan didn't even notice when a tray with cups, cookies and a sugar bowl appeared on the table between the chairs. Mrs van Allen poured him a thick red fragrant drink, diluted with cold water and asked:

"I heard that you almost suffered this afternoon?"

"Who, me?" the Commissar did not understand immediately, once again surprised at the fact that her children speak Riadian with a hissing Meersand accent, and she is completely clean.

"You were attacked..."

"Ah, nonsense. It happens."

Valentina shook her head in concern. Brennon felt himself melting under her gaze, like a piece of sugar in this red broth.

"And the the ifrit? He is still in the city."

"Well..."

"He will not sleep long," said Mrs. Van Allen.

"How do you know?"

"He needs to eat."

"Yes, that's logical."

"Even if he is full," the widow continued quietly, "he will want to find the one who hurt him for the first time."

Brennon looked at her warily.

"Why did you decide so? Do you know the habits of the the ifrit? Just don't say that your husband also had relatives in the Caliphate."

"Where evil spirits appear, there is more undead," Valentina muttered. "The influence of other side..."

Nathan set the cup down on the table.

"Did your husband, a criminal lawyer, also tell you this?"

She didn't answer.

"Valentina, this is not the best way to hide something - to constantly hint to me that you are hiding something."

"I would be glad not to hint to you," the widow said, "but I cannot allow anyone else to suffer."

"It's like it depends on you."

She bit her lip and slowly, choosing the words, she said:

"Now you already know that there are people who know much... more."

Brennon, after all these consultants, butlers, hounds and sorcerers who had bred in the city, was ready to believe anything.

"Are you clairvoyant?" He asked at random.

"...nearly."

"You think... you know that he will crawl out of the den this night?"

"Not himself, but his dead."

"What?!"

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Her face and hands seemed waxy.

"He will raise the dead and follow those who hurt him. To Margaret's house."

Brennon rose and hung over her.

"When?"

Valentina barely lifted her eyelids.

"But what can you do to them?"

"I'll find out? when meet these beasts," the Commissar snapped. "When?"

"This night. More precisely... I don't know..." the widow whispered in a fading voice. "Sorry... it's too cold..."

She lay in a chair, like a rag doll. The commissar carefully lifted the widow's head and brought a cup of broth to her lips. Valentina opened her eyes, and from under the eyelids a darker blue flashed at the commissar. The woman took his hand and suddenly pressed her lips to his palm. Nathan gasped in surprise and burst out. The broth splashed on the widow's dress.

"Go," she said quietly and imperiously. Her eyes darkened like lakes on a pale face, and her hair twinkled like a halo around her head. "The time has come. You have to go."

***

The commissar did not remember very clearly how he ended up on the street. More or less he woke up only when on one side he was whipped by a cold night wind, and on the other, Raiden suddenly appeared and began to sniff Brennon carefully, almost buried his nose in him.

"What the hell?!" Nathan snapped, staggering back. Distrust in half with utter surprise was reflected on the butler's face.

"Commissar," they called out in a whisper from the darkness. Brennon turned abruptly, pulled a revolver from his holster. Two pairs of eyes shone on him - a bright blue above and a golden orange below.

"I told you to prepare a guest room," the consultant said.

"What else..."

"It is not safe for you to return home. Now it's generally unsafe to move around the city."

"What, the dead rebelled?" The commissar muttered, removing his weapon.

"Not yet," Longsdale answered in amazement, "but they are gathering. How do you know?"

The hound lifted its face to the windows above the sign and expressively sniffed. The consultant looked there, and Raiden also decided to contribute:

"It smells of enchanted herbs. To whom did he go there and who gave them to him?"

"Brennon, have you known Missis Van Allen for a long time?" Longsdale asked.

"For a long time," the Commissar muttered, having already decided to deal with the secrets of the widow himself even after the ifrit.

"Amazing woman," the consultant said thoughtfully. "Every evening in this institution is a real full house since the the ifrit appeared in the city."

The hound lifted its face to the moonless sky and sniffed. From the evening the clouds covered the sky so thoroughly that now it seemed like a layer of cotton wool rolled over the city.

"I think we have a ton of other things than Missis Van Allen's personality," Nathan remarked dryly.

"Right. Raiden, take the Commissar to the house and..."

"Damn Hell, I will sit in your house! If the ifrit and his dead are dragged to my sister again, then I will meet him there with you."

"Where did you get that particular thing about your sister?"

"She told him," Raiden interjected again. "I give a tooth, this baker is that pie with a secret!"

"Nathan, you don't know a single spell," Longsdale hurriedly climbed between the Commissar and the butler.

"So give me a weapon! The unknown sorcerer, too, by the way, is a man, but managed to give this creature such a way that she was afraid for two days to get out of her hole. Why am I worse?"

"At least the fact that he probably studied for a long time..."

"Look!" Raiden suddenly exclaimed and touched Brennon's hand where the widow's lips touched her. There was a white mark on the skin, and the consultant stared at him so closely that Nathan felt uneasy. The butler glared at the cafe's windows as if they had awakened some insane hope in him.

"Woof!" suddenly the hound said, crouched to the ground, bared his fangs. "Woof!"

"Well, let it be," the consultant suddenly decided. "Raiden, bring us the weapons. Come on. We will have time to overtake them."

***

Rosemary Street was quiet and silent - at half past one this respectable quarter was already asleep, and not a single window shone in the night. Round lanterns ran into the distance, illuminating the corners of houses and dark roofs, but the alleys between the fences were drowned in the shade. A scattering of silver lights flashed above the elegant wrought-iron gates and the fence around the Sheridan's house. Longsdale looked around the creation of his hands and nodded with satisfaction. The hound carefully sniffed the fence, and the Commissar thought inappropriately that he had never seen this hound throwing pillars or bushes. In the pair of holsters that the butler handed to Nathan were two revolvers of the brand unknown to the commissar. Around each long muzzle, some inscription coiled in a spiral. Brennon replaced the cane with a long and narrow slanting blade with a hilt that tightly protects the hand.

"Bring them out?" Nathan nodded to the house. Longsdale shook his head.

"Useless. If we do not fight back, then they still can not escape. None of this quarter can escape."

"Optimistic," Brennon glanced back at the neighboring houses. It was too late to rush to the cemetery to give battle to the dead: as Longsdale said, the the ifrit had already taken his modest army to the streets, but as long as he had a definite goal, he himself would not allow the dead to crawl throughout the city. And then, when he reaches this goal...

"Are they capable of meaningful actions?" Nathan asked.

"As long as the the ifrit controls them, they will only carry out his orders. Otherwise, it all depends on what undead he turned them into. The vampires, say, are reasonably intelligent, but the ghouls are completely brainless.

"What do you intend to do? If you break the connection between them and the the ifrit, then, as I understand it, they will scatter all over Blackwhit."

Longsdale vaguely rumbled.

"And I do not like our position," the commissar continued, "in the middle of the street, no cover. Can we use the element of surprise or do they smell us?"

"They smell you," the butler said caustically, "you are their food. Do not get into your own business. For sixty years, Mister Longsdale..."

"I know how many there are," the consultant said, "but they also know that I'm here. But there are some masking charms... that will help for a while."

Brennon scratched the whiskers.

"I don't want Rosemary Street to be flooded again, thank God, this is not a civil war. Therefore, I think it is necessary to divide."

Raiden had already opened his mouth to criticize, but the consultant gestured for him to shut up. The butler pursed his lips resentfully. The hound was carefully looking at the Commissar.

"What are you offering?" Longsdale asked.