Chapter 13 - the Roaring Lion

At the end of Rosemary Street, a pale glow appeared, reminiscent of the fog. It crawled over the street, gradually gathering in a crimson cloud, in which one streetlight went out after another. Nathan, standing at the gates of the house, discerned dark silhouettes in it. He did not know what the risen dead would look like, and inwardly sluggishly surprised that he did not care at all about the fact of their existence. For the carrion, they moved quite quickly, and even well-coordinated formation, so that the commissar for a moment again felt like a soldier of the Empire. Shaking off an unpleasant memory, Brennon estimated the number of beasts by eye. There were at least three dozen. Embraced by transparent crimson fire, they in complete silence, without a single sound, vigorously trotted along the street to the Sheridan's house; the cadaverous stench finally reached the commissar. He drew his blade, threw off the scabbard and pulled a revolver out of its holster.

A flock of the dead froze fifty yards from the house. The leader craned his neck and sniffed. For some reason, Nathan could not consider them humans, even though they used to be them. The consultant casually mentioned that "ghouls and vampires, fortunately, can be killed by bullets and steel, and it is hoped that the ifritdoes not have enough strength to create a more dangerous undead." From which Brennon concluded that the "more dangerous" undead apparently did not have any flesh into which this steel could be stuck.

"Well, let's begin," the Commissar muttered, and whistled lingeringly. A whistle drifted far above the street. The leader of the dead started up and overcame more than half the distance dividing them in several long jumps. Nathan fired; crimson flames thickened around the walking corpse. The bullet hit him exactly in the head, but instead of smashing the skull, it just threw the carrion back.

The flock stretched a narrow crescent, aimed at the gate. The commissar leaned his back against them and felt a tingling magical current. The leader resiliently jumped to his feet and rushed to the house. The others followed, just as silently and mutely. Brennon fired twice. Raiden entered the case: the bullets on the fly were swept by bright scarlet flame, they hissed through the haze around the dead and knocked out two of them - the leader burned and collapsed; the second dead man caught fire to his left and swept over, breaking the formation.

However, the holes left by the bullets in the fog immediately dragged on, and the dead, although they went around the burning brothers, quickly restored the formation. But as soon as the first of them got to the fence, it girded on a flickering silver strip, from the touch of which the corpses hissed into a handful of dust. The dead recoiled; the attack choked, the back rows mixed with the front ones.

"No, I am the main dish here," the Commissar snapped and fired into the crowd to attract attention. The strip was interrupted only at the gate, leaving the ghouls no other way. They regrouped into a wedge opposite the commissar. From the stink he was already nauseous, and there was nothing to say about the look. The dead pulled their necks forward, but did not rush - it seems that the mind of the ifritwas enough to suspect a catch.

The beasts' eyes burned red, and therefore, in the dark, Nathan saw perfectly where they were looking, and when suddenly the whole flock froze, looking up at the windows of the house, above the gate, something skipped a beat in Brennon's heart.

"Margaret!"

The ifritknew she was there, and came after her, because Margaret, by a wild, unimaginable chance, was near to this second sorcerer; defending her house, he kicked the ifritin the ass, and now evil spirit yearned for revenge. The carrion's pack low, rollingly growled and, like a battering ram, rushed to the gate.

A crown of silver lights flashed above the commissar's head. Nathan, not completely trusting magic, wanted to get by the blade the ghoul that had pulled ahead, but the dead, to his amazement, recoiled with a screech. The others, howling, moved from the right flank to the left, away from the narrow saber.

The silver glow touched the crimson. There was a soft hiss, and the air turned pinkish. Dead men circled on the edge between silver and pink, three yards from the gate. For a moment or two everything froze in equilibrium, and then the pink stripe rapidly expanded and was filled with crimson color. The dead men rushed forward with a growl. Nathan threw up a revolver; suddenly a wall of orange flame flashed around. It flew up to the dark sky, gobbled up a few dead men and danced like a living thing. Raiden jumped off the wall and froze between Brennon and the pack.

"The ifritwon't relax that way," the butler threw back without looking back.

Three toads broke through the fire. A crimson mist enveloped them so tightly that flames fell down from it like water. Raiden cried out fiercely, and the wall of fire became so dense, as if cast from scarlet steel. It cut off the rest of the carrion; Nathan shot two down, and the third slashed with a saber. There was a long scorched wound from the blade, dead flesh crawled from the bones, which turned black and crumbled. However, the Commissar was again surprised that the carrion screamed even before the strike. Slipping in the debris of the brains and flesh of its relatives, Brennon knocked the creature off its feet and chopped it with a blade.

"Plague and hell!" Raid hissed: his breath became heavy and intermittent. "They must burn like matches!"

"Look out!" Nathan snapped. The dead tried to break through a wall of fire, leaning on it in a heap. The butler threw up his hand with a fierce scream, the flame soared higher, wrapped them all around and after a second left the charred bones. However, the wall became transparent from such an effort, and the guy stepped back closer to Brennon. The crimson glow has thickened.

"What scares them so much?" The commissar asked. The blade gleamed green.

"It is not this thing that scares them," Raiden said through gritted teeth, "but the mark on your hand."

Beyond the wall of fire, the pack suddenly burst into a crying howl. A huge flaming hound silently crashed into it like a cannonball, and began to tear the dead into rags, flashing in the thick of the pack here and there. The walking dead huddled together in a dense half-ring, shrouded in a thick crimson haze, and crawled to the gate. The hound silently and violently rushed around the flock, tearing the beasts one at a time, but could not disperse them with their roar: it was impossible to allow them to scatter throughout the quarter. Nathan, Paw, and Raiden must keep them and the ifrithere until Longsdale finishes.

"What will we do with them later?" Nathan thought distantly. The dead again extended their crimson glowed arms through the fire. The commissar demolished by the saber of two or three of the most persistent arms, pulled out a second revolver, and then Raiden suddenly barked:

"To hell with that! Not now!" and flashed like a torch. A sparkling wave rolled down his body, turned into a blazing surf, hit the wall and poured it from bottom to top. It flashed so that the dead men screamed back, carrying away tongues of flame on their bodies; and Brennon froze with a sagging jaw.

"Well?!" the girl sharply asked in a low hoarse voice. "I don't have extra strength for any nonsense!"

Nathan made an unintelligible sound, unworthy of a man, and shied away at the gate. The girl's black eyes narrowed contemptuously.

"Mother of God..." Brennon wheezed, feeling for the first time in his life that he was close to rupture of the heart. The world around him darkened, his head rustled, his legs gave way, like cotton. Even the living dead - even real the the ifrit! - couldn't defeat him on the spot as quickly and successfully as he did... did...

"Do not come!" The commissar howled when she (it?!) stepped toward him.

"Come on, you already knew we existed..." it suddenly broke off the phrase, stared Nathan with a long look and, with an indescribable mixture of mockery, malice and contempt, extended: "Aaah, I seeeeee."

"Stay there!" The Commissar hissed hoarsely, crossing the air with his saber.

"Calm down," she took the blade to the side and said, slowly and separately, like a moron: "I am not turning from a man into a woman and back. I'm not going to turn YOU into a woman. Quiet down already."

"Who are you?" Nathan said unwillingly, when these words more or less penetrated his consciousness, and the gift of coherent speech returned.

"The witch."

"Ah... And this?" the commissar traced round with a revolver an arc near her face and... the rest. There is no breasts, but Adam's apple is not visible...

"Illusion. Have to wear because of narrow-spirited idiots like you."

"You're a woman?" Brennon cut her, in a hurry to resolve the most terrible contradiction. The witch clicked her tongue in exasperation:

"Oh Foremother! Is that all you care about? Well, touch me, if that's so bothering you!"

The fierce and impatient roar of a hound came behind the fire wall. He clearly did not appreciate such a long pause in their actions. The witch darted to the wall. Nathan somehow unhooked from the gate and cautiously approached her.

"What's your name?"

"Jen," she muttered, and the commissar immediately had the feeling that she was lying.

"Not a name, but a hound nick," he grumbled. Jen touched the wall with her finger, and a transparent strip appeared in it.

There were no more than a dozen dead, but the crimson glow enveloped them so tightly that only glowing red eyes could be seen through it. But still it stank hard. The hound did not let the walking carrion to the house and did not allow it to retreat and crawl along the whole street.

"When will Longsdale finish?" Brennon asked.

"I do not know."

"But will you feel?"

"If I feel," Jen said caustically, "the ifritwill be even more so."

The Commissar scratched his beard. While the three of them (he, the hound and ... oh, okay ...) distracted the the ifrit, the consultant had to find out from where does evil spirit control the dead. True, Brennon was afraid that the ifritwould be tired of breaking through the gates with the help of a dead pack, and he would personally appear right in Margaret's room.

The ghouls dispersed around the wall and in a single squall rushed into the fire. The commissar involuntarily recoiled; the witch growled so that he started, and threw up her arms. A scarlet halo flashed around her. Her eyes became amber-gold, flames danced in her hair and hands. The wall broke into cocoons that covered each ghoul. Brennon, involuntarily clenching his saber and revolver, watched the living fire and the dead crimson light fiercely fighting, and could do nothing. The ghouls, engulfed in flames, slowly swung forward, and Jen, trembling, sank to her knee. Her skin was milky white, almost transparent, and a golden light pierced through her, as if the girl herself was turning into fire.

"Pain and suffering," the Commissar recalled; hesitating, he threw the revolver and laid a hand on her shoulder.

He was burned as if he had squeezed hot coals into handfuls. The witch sighed, froze for a moment and rose abruptly, stepped forward to the ghouls, arms outstretched as if for a hug. The flames around the ghouls soared to the sky, and the crimson glow melted in real fire. When it disa down, only heaps of ash remained on the sidewalk.

Jen went out. There was still heat from her when she took the commissar by the sleeve and bent over his burnt palm, whispered, touching the burn with a hot breath. But after a second the pain was dulled, then it was gone, the skin burned to meat began to tighten, and soon nothing was left of the burn.

"I could gobble you," the witch said, a little audibly. Her amber eyes turned black again, her skin a bronze-dark tone. "What for?"

"It was necessary," Brennon shrugged. "For the case."

The hound's angry roar rolled over the street. At a distance, crimson fog rolled in the sky.

"This is the the ifrit!" the witch shouted. "He found John!"

A huge jaw weaved from the mist, a fanged throat opened and rushed along the street. The hound roared and dashed after it. Nathan and Jen made a bolt for him. Houses and fences were lit crimson.

Longsdale was kneeling against the wall, at a dead end behind Farrell's house. Throwing up his arms, he either defended himself against the jaw hanging over him, or vice versa - tried to enchant it. Nathan did not have time to figure it out - the jaw fell on the consultant, instantly swallowing him in crimson fog. The hound spread out in a jump, on the fly turned into a flaming comet and crashed into the fog with his whole body. Not knowing how to really help, Brennon slashed the tail of a crimson cloud with a saber. The Commissar's wrist was almost twisted of the strike back, and the blade burst along its entire length. A trace of Valentina's kiss flashed, and a crimson cloud touched him. With a piercing screech, it soared up into the sky, crumpled into an uneven blot and disappeared into the night.

The hound followed him with a short roar and bent over the owner, while the commissar, stunned by the heat of events, mechanically tried to raise Longsdale. The animal walked across the consultant's face with a wide, like a towel, tongue. The witch fell to her knees on the other side and pressed both palms to his chest over his heart. Longsdale remained as cold and motionless as a corpse.

"What?" Nathan asked hoarsely.

"Home," Jen answered. "He needs to go home."

The consultant's eyes suddenly opened. He stared into the commissar's face with a completely meaningful look, squeezed his hand until the crunch and hissed:

"Tell me who I am."

Longsdale's fingers clenched, his eyes went blank, and he fainted.

***

Angel moved away from the window, sank into a chair and, covering his eyes, began to massage his temple. Margaret handed him a cup of tea.

"Thank you," he said, somewhat slurred.

"You might not have shown yourself to him."

He shook his head, grimaced and sipped his tea.

"If I hadn't seemed to him, your uncle's ingenious plan would have burst like a soap bubble. The ifritseeks me, not you, and came here for me."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"What?" Redfern asked with a grin.

"That he will hunt you down and eat you."

"You should not do such things if you are afraid of it."

The girl drew the curtain, sat down on the armrest and touched Angel's temple with her fingers. He shuddered slightly and moved away.

"Can I?" Miss Sheridan asked. "I will not make you worse."

He looked thoughtfully at Margaret over the cup.

"Is it decent for a young lady?"

"If you are caught in my bedroom, it is unlikely that such a trifle will excite anyone," she grunted. Angel leaned back in his chair, and Margaret carefully began to rub his temples, as her grandmother taught her. He blinked blissfully, crawled down lower in the chair and muttered:

"What an interesting person your uncle is. He is not afraid of them."

"Well, the Brennons are not cowardly at all."

"And the plan was good... He, however, was mistaken in who exactly is the the ifritinterested in, but this is only from ignorance, and ignorance can be corrected, hmm."

"Do you want to consult him?"

"No," answered Angel. "One consultant is enough. Better I will teach him..." He fell silent and again clung to tea, like a sufferer in the desert.

"Still pour?" Margaret asked, but he protestingly grunted and pressed the back of his neck with her hand. The girl put up with the role of the pillow, because the moment was too convenient for interrogation.

"Why are you doing all this?"

Angel raised an eyebrow inquiringly over the edge of the cup. Margaret suppressed a surge of irritation.

"It's hard for you. You said that you are not a sorcerer and not like Mister Longsdale, whoever he is. So why do you even risk yourself? It doesn't seem like you enjoy it."

"True, it doesn't enjoy," Angel put the cup on the table and looked at the girl from under half-opened eyelids. "Does it give you pleasure to think that evil spirits and undead freely walk among people? Not only that - some people are also ready to screw holes in our world to drag more different beasts from other side?"

"No. But what can you do them alone?"

"Besides me, there are also consultant hunters."

"But you are not one of them."

"No."

"So you once removed your dagger, your revolver, and, I think, at least a hundred books with all sorts of magical wisdom, from the corpse of such a hunter," Margaret remarked sarcastically. Angel closed his eyes and smiled mockingly. "Well, did you removed it or not?"

"No," dark eyes flashed mischievously at the girl from under the eyelashes. "These are my personal dagger and revolver. And in my library there are more than a hundred books."

Miss Sheridan thought for a moment. He watched her as if he could read minds, and now he was waiting for the right guess to come over the girl.

"But why are you hiding from Longsdale if you do the same? Moreover, he said that..." she bit her lip, trying to figure out what this strange phrase meant, dropped by a consultant in response to an uncle's question. "He said he knew you, but he couldn't remember."

"What?" Angel asked piercingly, straightening up sharply in his chair. His eyes suddenly flashed, his lips tightened in a hard line, the wings of his nose fluttered. Margaret flinched in surprise.

"Well, yes, he said so when my uncle asked if he could determine by the print..."

"Damn hound!" Redfern hissed, got up, abruptly said: "Your protection against the ifritis in place. I worked enough on it so that even this beast could not immediately break it."

"Thank you," Margaret said with a chill. "I hope it's not that you and Mister Longsdale are blood enemies, and now you have the urge to challenge him to a duel?"

"Hold your tongue, girl."

"Good advice. Especially when you consider that the Longsdale butler will not remain silent forever about how he met you in my winter garden."

Angel, who had already opened the dressing room's door, stopped at the doorway and stared at Miss Sheridan with a strange mix of threat, surprise, and annoyance.

"Are you threatening me?" He finally asked incredulously.

"No," Margaret answered sharply, "but sooner or later the butler will tell Longsdale about you, if he hasn't already, and he can share it with my uncle, and then he will come to me and make an interrogation."

Redfern stepped back from the door, but not to the dressing room, but back to the girl.

"Have you really thought about this just now?" Miss Sheridan got up and, a little trembling, stared into his face; now she was afraid of him for the first time. "Well, you erase my memory and run away? You will be able to, I have no doubt."

He was silent, and Margaret in fear expected what he would do. Although she did not know what scared her more: that he really would harm her, or that she would not see him again. But his answer struck her in place:

"Sorry," Angel said, took her hand and touched his lips. Margaret sighed frantically and blushed: he did it completely different from the rest of the gentlemen. It was a lot more a kiss than a duty of courtesy or an apology.

"I should have thought about this, Margaret," he shook his head contritely, "As I understand it, the views of relatives on the secret visits of strangers to the girls have not changed?"

"No," Miss Sheridan answered, a little dumbfounded. "But I'll come up with something. In the end, I pretend I don't remember anything."

"You won't succeed. The consultant will immediately understand whether somebody erased your memory or not, and he can make you tell the truth."

"Oh! But why do not you want to seem to them, explain everything..."

"Because," Redfern replied softly, but inflexibly, "I always remain in the shadows, and they should not remember me."

"Why?"

"Because hunters... consultants must act independently, get used to the fact that they are loners, that there is no place to wait for help. Except from each other."

"But what does this have to do with the fact that they don't have to remember you?" Margaret frowned: she did not see the logic in it. "Why don't you want to help them?"

"I help," Angel said quietly, looking at her so intently, as if he was making some important decision: he squeezed the girl's hand, bowed low to her, and she was again thrown into the paint. He was so close that she could see how his eyes darkened due to dilated pupils. "I create everything for them."

"In what sense is everything?" Margaret stunned.

"Everything," Redfern answered simply: "Weapons, amulets, garons, spells. Everything."

***

The commissar sat in the cold, dark living room, thinking and waiting. There was not a single light in the house and no sound was heard.

From the very beginning, from the very first meeting, everything didn't just say - it shouted in a voice that he was not a human, but Brennon bravely closed his eyes and plugged his ears, looked for explanations to strange things in usual reasons - you never know what you will learn for the sake of hunting the undead. He did not ask questions because he did not want to know - and even when he finally wanted to, he asked the wrong question.

It does not matter who taught the consultant everything that he knows; It's important who made him that way.

Sixty years, Brennon thought, and he cannot die.

Anyone would remember that... although the Commissar immediately wondered if Longsdale had lost his memory after the transformation. Quite possibly. But still, Nathan could hardly imagine that someone would voluntarily want to become such a beast. And the one who wants to make himself a monster - certainly will not fight to the death with evil spirits for people who do not even know about its existence. Or will it? Maybe this is self-sacrifice? Or the punishment for some sin? To fight and die - how many times in sixty years? And how many more times, because ahead is endless life.

"But why? What makes him?"

Why go to death again and again, even knowing that you cannot die? Is there really a man in the world capable of this of his own free will?

"...but who made him like that?"

Brennon had a chill. Why did this someone sentence Longsdale to such a fate? How serious is the crime to commit in order to...

... although, perhaps, the matter is not a crime at all. But the commissar refused to understand that there was someone in the world who could turn a living human into a monster for the sake of... really for the sake of fighting other monsters? But what needs to be done with a human to get such a creature?!

Nathan raised his head - he was no longer alone. The hound stood at the doorstep, hesitantly stepped over from one paw to another and came up. He sat down in front of the commissar, not taking his flickering eyes from him, and lowered his face to the arm of the chair. Brennon timidly touched the thick red mane. For some reason, it never occurred to him that this hound could be patted by the ears, stroked, or scratched by a nape. Although the hound's tail swayed back and forth in response to a touch, Nathan removed his hand.

"How is it, buddy?"

The hound shrugged completely humanly. Brennon leaned lower, looking into orange eyes. He did not know how the animal made him understand the expression of his face; it would seem that behind such thick hair and heavy flews he should not be visible at all. He had never seen this creature so close, and now, peering into his eyes, he clearly felt that there was someone else inside. Someone whose gaze makes the hound's eyes so intelligent; someone staring at the Commissar in response.

"I will find out," Nathan said quietly to the hound, "I will find out who he is."

The hound's eyes flashed knowingly.

"I will find out who made him like that," the commissar continued, "and I will find this man... I will find, even if it is not a human at all."