《Midnight Moratorium》
C1 - Werewolf Troubles
They brought in the werewolf in a state that was close to anaphylactic shock. For the less than medically inclined, I will explain; this is an extremely intense allergic reaction, which, if not properly handled on time, will lead to death.
According to the paramedics, two Veelas from the emergency room, which the werewolf had barely reached in time and who, like any other in the territory of ¡®The Midnight Community¡¯, including here at the Crossroads, enjoyed the Status of Inviolable Asylum, the silver bullet had just scratched his shoulder but even that is enough to kill him.Oh,itisamatterofalittlebitmoretime,ofcourse.
Among my many strengths, sadly, I am not an expert in genetics but from scarce memories of the basic course at the Medical Faculty I know, that the hereditary information in werewolf cells are in some weird semi-stable existence and that is the exact reason why they can become wolf or man whenever they wish. Their cells are basically Schr?dinger''s Cat until they decide what form they want to take. Silver is the only known element, which blocks the enzymes that are responsible for these changes, and for that reason, if even one atom from it can bring about such a dire situation in my dear friend convulsing over there, who without adequate treatment will not be long for this world.
As we transferred him from the platform of the flying carpet, at the emergency room, to the stretcher and heading towards the shock room, frantically changing the bandages of the paramedics'' and placing them on the wheel stands, I was able to examine his face. A man of visible age around thirty. Both the wolf and the man could be seen in the rough, angular features, mainly because they were frozen somewhere in the middle of the transformation, and the suffering had sharpened them even further. Rare reddish fur covered with tiny drops of sweat. Foam bubbles bubbling in the corners of his mouth. His chest rose and fell feverishly, his breathing extremely shallow. I placed my hand on his wrist - the pulse was barely palpable, but it was very fast.
My mind quickly repeated the therapeutic algorithm, there would be no time for hesitation in the shock room. The Veela paramedics followed us and kept reporting, so far they had done a good job of injecting an extract extracted from the skin of a salamander, that is stimulating the heart, in combination with a powerful anti-allergic preparation obtained from a special, dry powdered mushroom and finally had included the aforementioned bandages with a hydration solution.
Now it was our turn to take the torch. In the shock room, after the wound was inspected, we would undertake a complete replacement of the werewolf''s blood, because the silver, no matter how small in quantity, was still circulating in it. Then we would continue with heart-strengthening therapy and hydration of his body.
The time required to describe these manipulations was about a minute and a half, but the struggle for the werewolf''s life actually lasted for hours.
The regural heavy night duty at the Crossroads began.
As soon as the paramedics contacted our clinic from the flying carpet travelling here, I had requested a few bags of werewolf blood, absolutely universal and lacking the group differences typical of humans, which was good news. The bad thing, and there always is, was that despite adequate action at the Emergency Room, the werewolf''s chances of survival were fifty-fifty. I knew it from personal experience. Medicine, as someone had said, is a dark matter, and it all depends on the patient''s own strength. I did not doubt my abilities and professional skills, after all I had been working in the clinic for nearly fifteen years and Ihave seen all sorts of things duringthenightshifts.
It was an hour before sunrise when my colleague, toxicologist Roald Foster, sank into the comfortable armchairs on the lounge. Next to us was a soothing murmur of a decorative fountain - an installation, a gift from the famous sculptor Richard, whom we had saved some time ago from a vampire bite. The werewolf''s condition stabilized and after we left him at the intensive care unit, we headed straight here. We lit hand-rolled thin cigarettes, a mixture of faint hallucinogenic hemp and tobacco from the south, and tried to rest our tired bodies, that had spent long hours over the table in the shock room.
The Crossroads, compared to one of the multimillion Cities, may look like a village with about three hundred thousand inhabitants, but for all of us working at the Clinic for Mythological Creatures, the only one of its kind in this city, its scale was enormous.
I sucked out the last bit of the aromatic mixture as I slightly scalded my fingers and crushed the soot in the ceramic ashtray on the table between us.
¡°As far as I understand, another bandit war has begun.¡±
"It wasn''t a question." Colleague Foster, simply said aloud something that was very clear to both of us.
"Ahem," I said. ¡°The Veelas mentioned that several pseudo-vampires on Forty-seventh Street were chasing the werewolf to the Emergency Room. Reinout will not leave it at that. The nights from here on out will be interesting!¡±
It was the werewolf leader, and the pseudo-vampires in question who were the most common human creatures with a blood fetish, killing and sucking this liquid, like the original creatures they imitated, while at the same time warring against them, the werewolves, and all the other gangs of the territory of The Crossroads. Murders, as well as blood consumption, were, of course, outside the law in the Community, but this could hardly stop the most radical members of these groups. The animal equivalent available in hematological shops did not satisfy their appetite, and the ball always returned to our hands, because as healers who took the Human Oath, it was our duty to fight for the life of every being, human or not, who ended up here.
"Excuse me, Roald, I need to file a report for the Guard." I pulled out the standard text sheets and started filling in the blanks.
Patient type: lycanthrope.
Injury type: gunshot - a silver bullet.
Foster, who had also finished smoking his cigarette, stood up and stretched his arms over his head, like a man stretching after sleeping or just cause he is stiff, as was certainly his case.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Have fun writing, Alistair," he grinned over my head.
I don''t know a colleague who likes this kind of paperwork, but it was the usual procedure.
After the paramedics, we had also notified the Guard about the wounded werewolf, and I would pass the completed report to the two sergeants from the Street Patrol, who were currently waiting in front of the recreation area. Another couple was left to guard the corridor in front of the intensive care unit mainly due to pure formality. Our clinic, as well as any health facility in the Community, has the Status of being an Untouchable Asylum and the chances of it being the object of a bandit attack are practically zero.
Ten minutes later, I opened the door and handed the report over to one of the patrol couples.
"Here it is, Sergeant! Everything is described inside, time of the signal, time of admission, type of injury, the resuscitation measures used in the Emergency Room and those in the shock room. If you have any other questions I am at your disposal.¡±
"Thank you, Dr. Chambers!" The guard''s muscles shifted under the elastic navy blue uniform jersey as he took the sheets from me. "That''s all for now."
At that moment, excited shouts were heard from the lobby to our right, and the two sergeants and I started heading there.
I immediately recognized the black-leather clad man, who was leaning against the desk and explaining something to the night dispatcher.
A little behind him, arms folded in that well-known pose ¡®don''t hang out with us, you''ll get in trouble¡¯, stood three giants with abundantly hairy faces, thick beards reaching to the level of their chests, pointed ears and the same black leather garments like those of their chief. Reinout sometimes stopped here when a more important member of his gang was injured. In fact, the leaders of all the gangs in the Crossroads did so, and I knew them all to one, violence was simply an integral part of the city''s night-life. Come to think of it, the Guard''s job was more to protect civilians from bloodthirsty creatures, while conflicts between groups were even viewed favourably, as in this way they exhausted their ¡®sharpened teeth¡¯, if I may use this suitable for vampires, werewolves, and any other gang, comparison.
Reinout turned to us, as if glancing through the guards, ignoring them, and staring at me with watery blue eyes. He had the gracefully elongated face of an aristocrat, something that did not change significantly even with the fine, rust-pollen fur he was covered with, and a sly, fox-like appearance. If I didn''t know him, I might even be inclined to like him. But I had heard how cruel he could be, and I knew that countless killings of humans and inhuman beings hung on his shoulders that the Guard patrols simply could not prove.
At the Crossroads, The Omerta, or the so-called ¡®Rule of Silence,¡¯ was more than a religion among gang members. Fear, on the other hand, shut the mouths of ordinary people who witnessed cruel excesses, and their only hope was that at some point that they would not find themselves in the place of another victim.
"What''s his condition, Doc?"
"We did what we could, Mr. Reinout. From now on, it''s all in his hands. He is stabilized, his blood has been changed to isolate the silver from his body¡ And yet I am rather optimistic. The wound was a very light scratch.¡±
"The sons of bitches who did this will pay! When you attack someone like me, make sure you kill them, because only a dead werewolf is safe! I heard it was the pseudo-vampires from forty-seven.¡±
¡±Yes, the paramedics from the Emergency Room mentioned that they noticed members of this group chasing the victim. ¡± there was no point in hiding this information, the rumor was already spreading through the dangerous streets of the Crossroads.
I was also expecting Reinout''s next question - this theater acting on my nerves we''ve been playing since the very beginning, its almost a ritual at this point.
"When will I be able to see him, Doctor?"
"I''m afraid that won''t be possible in the next seventy-two hours. We keep your friend in an artificial medication coma to help his body recover.¡±
"I promise that you''ll have a lot of work to do, Dr. Chambers!" The werewolf chief roared and turned toward the exit, the skirts of his leather cloak fluttering beside him. His men followed him.
C2 - Memories
During the morning report in the conference hall of the clinic, we discussed the cases of last night, the therapy of the more complex ones, drank bland coffee, and handed over the shifts in the sectors to our day colleagues.
I decided to walk straight to my house, although with the official flying carpet it would take me no more than a minute. Usually, after such a night I am dead-tired, I throw myself on the carpet and it leaves me in front of my front door in a half-asleep state, in where I can barely hit open the lock, I undress in the hall with the mechanical movements of a sleepwalker and drop my body in the bedroom next to my wife who is a singer in a nightclub and so comes home just before me.
Today, however, I felt unusually energetic, maybe the wonderful summer outside was the reason for that. Like most of the inhabitants of the Crossroads, I am a child of darkness, the regime of the whole city is subject to the rule of "sleep during the day, party at night," and now it was strange to hear the lone noise of footsteps on the stone pavement. The creatures - humans, and non-humans - slept in their cool homes, there were no human-cars or flying carpets going about, I felt like I was alone in the neighbourhood but I liked it.
I stopped at a fountain to soak my lips in water, then took a ¡®Black Oger¡¯ package from my shirt pocket and lit it.
I smoked the cigarette on the lawn in front of my house, extinguished the butt, and tossed it into the metal trash can with a playful gesture. I unlocked the door and walked in, the summer heat of the early morning giving way to the cool caress of the air-conditioned room. I took off my shirt and linen pants, left only in boxer shorts, went to the bathroom to run some water and brush my teeth, then stepped into the reddish darkness of the bedroom.
The heavy curtains that cover the windows and that my wife Lucy is in love with are the colour of fresh blood, and on particularly sunny days like today, the feeling is fantastic. It''s like entering through the entrance of a magical cave.
Lucy lay on one side, her golden hair, now copper, scattered around her body like a carpet of autumn leaves. I stared at her exotic traits, which hinted at the genetic material of her forest ancestors.
In the Community, like most places in the modern world, there are not many forest areas left, but the beauty of the fairies has been inherited in their urban cousins. Perhaps in years to come, this strange and foreign beauty in itself will dissolve into the ordinary, slightly impersonal features of the human majority, but I would like to believe that despite the uncaring logic of genetics, it will still be preserved.
I fell in love with Lucy the moment I saw her on stage at the nightclub. Several professors, luminaries in medicine from the Burg Central, had come to our clinic for an exchange of experience, and after a whole week of hard work, we took them out to relax on Saturday night. I admit that we did in our heads quite decently, we did exactly what the locals call alcohol tourism, we drove into the heart of the city on the street, which has is slang for the name "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and began to alternate restaurants on the left and right, in each we tried to consume maximum amounts of alcohol. It is a well-known fact that doctors know how to drink enormously, and although my colleagues and I did not have titles, we did not yield in ¡®amount of Alcohol consumed¡¯ to the persons from Burg Central in our drunken adventures.
By the time we got to Shelley''s club, I was about to pass out and my throat felt like it was on fire, but one of the professors had just fallen asleep and was hanging on the backs of his two colleagues like a rag.
We drank beer in frost-covered mugs and garnished them with shots with exotic names, when the lighting, already dim, disappeared completely. I remember swearing because I couldn''t aim the drink at my mouth correctly, I ended up spilling some all over myself and even chocked myself and started coughing.
A few coughs later, golden light flooded the stage, young women in top hats, white shirts fastened with red belts, and black trousers came out on either side of her, clutching torches with fiery embers coming out of them, and began to dance all around her and the fire which had appeared in the middle of the stage in a brief moment of darkness. I admit it was quite impressive and enchanting. The fires spread with a soft crack, and sparks danced in the air like fireflies. Girls with white hair, white shirts, and red bow-ties on their white skirts came out to join the others. The air smelled of love or it was the alcohol speaking. Then it was dark again, not as dark due the smouldering torches and fire on the stage, and then she appeared, Lucy, my beautiful Veela with an angelic voice, and the spotlight enveloped her in a cloud of light. A melody pulled from a flute sounded. Her perfect voice sounded throughout the room, her white hands moved in front of her body, and the most amazing dance I had ever seen began. I watched her perform dozens of times after that, but it never managed to feel quite like the first time. I felt the whole barrel of alcohol evaporate from my veins in seconds, and at that moment I achieved absolute sobriety and I realized that I wanted to share my life with her.
The memory invaded my head so vividly that I felt a frantic urge to kiss her. I leaned over her, touched her marble-white cheek with my lips, Lucy muttered something in her sleep, and tried to turn to the other side. I pulled away from her so as not to wake her up completely.
And right then, I was hit with a heavy object on the back of my head, after which I lost consciousness ...
I don''t know how long I spent unconscious, probably a few minutes, but when I struggled to open my eyes and focus, I saw that I was still in the bedroom, but Lucy was gone. My sensations resembled waking up after heavy drinking, and the surgeon inside me unmistakably recognized the symptoms of a concussion. I ran the fingers of my right hand along the back of my skull, but apart from the egg-sized lump, I didn''t feel the blood sticking, which was good news. My head turned out to be hardy enough, a good thing to know if I decide to get hit again.
"Dr. Alistair Chambers. For friends, just ¡®Alistair¡¯. Specialties - General Surgery, Comparative Anatomy of Mythological Creatures. Knight of the Human Oath. The latter, of course, is a little joke of mine with which I''m trying to lighten the dreary atmosphere in here¡¡±
The figure who leaned over me as he spoke these words was wrapped in a suit of gleaming reflective foil, and the voice behind the square sun-protecting helmet came out muffled and hoarse like a man with a sore larynx.
I swore in my head. Only one creature could walk in the greatest summer heat, decorated in this absurd way because daylight was detrimental to their skin. A vampire.
The enmity between the human race and vampires dates back to antiquity, but over time, the peaceful members of their race, who preferred to meet their needs only with animal blood, had learned to coexist with humans. By the way, this was the situation as well with other strange creatures, which appeared as a result of various evolutionary branches over the centuries or a product of mutations after the Last War. Information about the settlement of vampires in the Crossroads was found in documents from about five centuries ago, but our knowledge of their physiology began to accumulate only in the last fifty years when scientists from the Burg Parallel Institute were able to isolate the cause of their special condition - a virus. Similar to the Rabies virus responsible for madness in animals.
Vampire populations everywhere were extremely conservative and closed off, I can safely say that in this feature they competed with the most radical religious sects known in the Multi-boreal Community. Before that period, doctors did not even have their permission and, consequently, the right to perform autopsies on their bodies for scientific purposes, so many details about the virus, which they obviously called the V-virus, were still unclear.
I myself am not well acquainted with the subject, in my time at the Faculty of Medicine vampiriology was a new and avant-garde specialty, which was studied for half a semester without even taking an exam in it. I have the most general knowledge, sufficient for my work as a surgeon, the V-virus is neurotropic, localized in the cells of the brain and spinal cord, manipulating the nervous system of the infected and turning him into an aggressive creature with a developing attraction to blood, hematophilia.
It is found mostly in the salivary glands, saliva, and, of course, in the blood, but is also found in some organs such as the kidneys and spleen. The mechanisms are not known, but it leads to extreme degradation of the skin pigment melanin and causes extremely severe secondary albinism, which is the cause of intolerance to sunlight and painful burns of the skin in direct contact with it.
In conclusion, I will mention the most unique property of the V-virus, it somehow slows down the metabolism of the infected organism to an extent that stretches the aging process over time, and life expectancy can reach three hundred years. Compared to the average life expectancy of about seventy years, this was near outright immortality. End of the lecture.
With a heavy sigh, I ask "Where is my wife?"
"Patience, Dr. Chambers! Or just Alistair? Can''t I call you that in the hope that in the short time of our cooperation we will be able to become friends?¡±
I don''t bother to respond to this sarcastic demonstration of superiority. As he has a tight grip over my figurative ¡®balls¡¯. Still there¡¯s a reason humans and non-humans don¡¯t usually hunt doctors.
"My name is Jay, excuse me for the synthetic appearance I present to you, but as you probably guessed it was the only way possible to move during the day. However, the inconvenience of the fridge-suit cannot be avoided because time is pressuring me, Alistair. Now, I will give you a brief run-down of instructions and I promise you that if you follow them strictly, you will forget about your new friend by tomorrow.¡±
The name didn''t mean anything to me. As I have already mentioned, I knew the bandit leaders around, not their entire gangs.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
"One, Fuck you. Two, I want to know where my wife is! I want to make sure she''s safe and then I''ll think about it.¡±
I understood that I am not the one in a favourable position to set conditions at all, but on the other hand, it could hardly get worse if I showed a little backbone.
¡°Alistair, don''t think of yourself as special, you were just our first choice and we can easily replace you! For now, you will have to be satisfied with my honest words that your wife Lucy is fine. And so, in essence, we needed an employee from the clinic for mythological creatures, if possible a doctor¡¡±
Lying in the bedroom, still soaked with the discreet, slightly sweet scent of Lucy''s perfume, I smoked another cigarette while thinking. I repeated the conversation Jay and I had over and over again, trying to find some meaning. The complex combination of all the resources involved in it, the rather unusual movement of the vampires during the day, the kidnapping of my wife and what they made me do tomorrow night, led me to the conclusion that something big was going on in The Crossroads.
"Do you know what this is, Archie?" A glass cylinder appeared in the vampire''s palm, and he held it up to my eyes.
A standard five-milligram vial with the "Ag" symbol engraved on it.
"Of course I know," I said, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt. ¡°My pharmacology exam was a long time ago, but I did take it with honours. The suspension of microscopic silver particles in a liquid medium called silver water has many applications it is used in the treatment of certain skin diseases, conjunctivitis in newborns, and, of course, in burns, with which a vampire should be well acquainted with, right Jay?¡±
¡°Again you try to be witty, but behind those efforts, I can sense your fear!¡±
¡°You should probably fear the guy who saves lives, including probably yours, for dinner.¡± I muttered under my breath but I knew he was right and he knew I knew it.
Lucy was everything to me and the fear I was experiencing right now was driving me crazy! Not afraid that I would lose my own life, I know doubtful cause I truly do like you know, being alive and all, but in the past, my life has often hung in the balance. I was afraid of the insidiousness of the vampire, I did not believe in his honesty, I did not believe that after doing everything he wanted to, he would have left my wife alive. I, of course, do not believe I would let him go either after trying to drag me into a mess. Again, don¡¯t mess with doctors, we can be particularly creative to people we don¡¯t like.
But at the moment someone else was playing the music, and I, clenching my teeth in frustration, had to dance to their tune for now¡
"All right, all right," I groaned amicably, "I admit that I¡¯m a bit nervous and when I am nervous I usually rant a bit, so please proceed.¡±
"That''s what I want, Alistair! We clarified that you are familiar with the contents of the vial, which I did not doubt for a moment and now comes the second question: Do you know who I work for?¡±
And this was also not a challenge for my intellectual abilities.
Every vampire in Crossroads was, in one way or another, associated with Ghamborz, officially the owner of the largest chain of hematological stores, ¡®HematOpolis¡¯, which offers a variety of animal blood in the city, and unofficially a major player in the illegal market of human blood, a business that had given him a pretty decent fortune.
I blinked and remembered a face. One that now appeared before my eyes, weak and ascetic, yellowish like paraffin on a candle, surrounded by straight shiny and black hair descending to my back; eyes, black as a raven''s wing irises; deep furrows, starting on both sides of the humped nose and ending in the corners of the thin raspberry-colored lips; the dazzling white teeth that revealed when he smiled, and he was almost always smiling on his nightly visits to our clinic.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Jay''s finger appeared in front of his sunscreen mask.
"Sh-sh-sh-! You don''t have to say it out loud, you know the name, I''m sure. My master is very saddened by the fact that last night you managed to save the person who arrived at your clinic with a gunshot wound from a silver bullet. My master knows that you are on duty at the clinic again tomorrow night and wants this vial to get inside your patient''s hydration solution system¡¡±
C3 - Outside Help
In the seemingly prosperous, but in fact quite a cruel and hard world of the Community, the cost of living was extremely low.
The Community traded and did business with everything and anything you could think of, weapons, drugs, human or otherwise flesh for sexual pleasure, human or otherwise flesh to satisfy the needs for consumption and so on.
The city guard, the guardians of law and order, had a purely palliative function everywhere, they could not deal with the crime, or rather, they did not want to destroy the whole business that fed people (and non-people) at all levels of government. and the city guards themselves, as I suppose you already guessed. Everything was structures around crime one way or another.
However, there were the Unwritten Rules of the bandit world, united in something like a Unified Moral Code.
I have already mentioned the Rule of Silence - the Omerta.
Another important rule that I also mentioned at the beginning of my story was the Rule of Untouched Asylum. Religious temples and health facilities had the status of such - from the smallest reception rooms to the largest multidisciplinary hospital in Burg Central. No one, in any way, had the right to encroach on the lives of the beings in them.
Well, with rare exceptions, it has happened that some madman desecrated the Asylum with murder, but then he was killed by all possible means both by the law enforcers and the bandit organisations hunted him down, and made sure his death was horrible.
This is why anyone rarely touches doctors. Well that and it''s unwise to anger the people who can cure you when you''re injured.
Now, I''ve found myself in a difficult situation.
If I didn''t kill the werewolf tomorrow night, I''d reduce Lucy''s chances of surviving, if she is still alive at all.
If I do kill him, even without being caught, it does not change the fact that I would have trampled on the most important principle in the art of medicine - Primum non-nocere! (First do no harm!). I had accepted it as my life credo the moment I decided to break free from the darkness that enveloped my youth and even if I had not always followed it, at least in my civilian life, as a doctor I have always tried to hold true to it. It had been hammered into our heads during our long studies at the medical school. With it began the Humane Oath we took when we graduated. I was going to become a perjurer, and there was still no guarantee that my wife would be left alive.
If I killed him and they caught me, I would be a Defiler of The Asylum. In the worst case, I would be lynched at the entrance of the clinic, in the best case I would have a short trial, the outcome of which is always one, the death penalty.
Lucy, of course, would die too after that¡
So I¡¯m stuck between bad outcome after bad outcome and best case scenario is doing what the vampire said and hoping that he¡¯s honest? Which he most likely is not, which begs the question if Lucy is even still alive?
Well there is one way but the past is better left in the past.
Every doctor will tell you that there are no worse patients than doctors themselves. I am equally irritated when patients do not follow my prescriptions or when my colleagues try to prescribe me treatment.
The summer afternoon was progressing.
The vampire was long gone.
At the same time, I was dying for sleep and I was over-excited in that crazy and exhausting combination that everyone sometimes experiences.
My head kept throbbing with pain, images of my surroundings blurred before my eyes, and there were slight urges to vomit that I managed to hold back. I knew very well what my fellow colleagues would advise me about my condition, complete rest for at least a week, no irritation of the senses, such as reading books or listening to music, no cigarettes, and no alcohol.
That''s what I was thinking too, as I pull on the cigarette in my hands and was preparing to take a hot bath. I had already poured an insane amount of Lucy''s relaxing salts into the water and lit the scented candles around. I was performing the rituals I had always associated with my wife probably because of the dull ache in my heart and I was painfully missing her.
I relaxed my body in the foam, closed my eyes, and thought about what to do next.
Nothing occurred to me. Not a single plan or idea. Annoying.
At least I managed to fall asleep¡
I was awakened by the melody of a small bronze gong hanging on our front door, which someone had struck with the tiny hammer attached to it. Despite the heat, I wrapped myself in a robe as there was no time to dry myself and put on something lighter.
My headache had subsided and I could now feel it as a dull throb in the occipital area around the bump. The double images before my eyes were gone as well so now I could actually see again.
I opened the front door and I was met by a beautiful young woman standing on the stairs. I gave her twenty-one or two years, but in The Community, there is hardly anything more relative than the apparent age.
Her cobweb-coloured hair was pulled back in a tight bun. Her long silver sideburns, descending almost to the corners of her lower jaws, seemed to accentuate her strange beauty.
The black leather corset, fastened at the front with crossed straps, the tight-fitting trousers of the same fabric, and the massive black military boots with metal tops gave her extra Gothic charm. Despite the hellish heat outside, there was no hint of sweat on the exposed parts of her body, which were few.
No doubt, a werewolf, I thought and raised my eyebrows questioningly, but the next moment I realized how stupid I looked with my tousled wet hair and wearing a light blue robe that had yellow ducklings drawn on it.
Don¡¯t blame me! Some time ago I shared one of my meager childhood memories with Lucy, my mother kissing my tiny naked body, which makes me giggle frantically, and then she puts me in a yellow plastic tub half-filled with lukewarm water. Rubber yellow ducklings swimming around me.
At our last wedding anniversary, surprise, surprise, I received the duckling robe.
In the werewolf''s anxious gaze, however, I found no trace of ridicule. She studied me intently, and somehow I felt that even if I had opened the door completely naked, she would not have been impressed. Which is a somewhat disappointing thought.
¡°What would you like?¡± I finally asked.
"That''s not the right question, Dr. Alistair Chambers, the question is do you want to save your wife?"
It was as if they had punched me in the solar plexus - for a moment I was unable to catch my breath, and the dagger of pain pierced my brain.
Then I gathered myself and invited her in with a nervous gesture. It seems as if everyone¡¯s interested in me and my wife today.
¡°On the right is the living room, we can talk there in peace¡±
"We don''t have time, Doctor! I''m afraid that the vampires are not facing the dilemma of whether to leave your wife alive! This kidnapping is no different from any other kidnapping. The relatives collect the amount specified in the negotiation process, they hand it over to the kidnappers, but they never see the victim again. The victim is killed at the very beginning of the negotiations, that''s the easiest way to handle it! The only difference with you is that they are not blackmailing you for money but are making you do something, aren''t they, Doctor?¡±
I gritted my teeth, swallowed the lump that was stuck in my throat and then said,
"Give me five minutes!"
"Get some used clothes for your wife as well," the werewolf called from behind me. "Something that has kept her scent!"
I took off my robe while moving and in three leaps reached the closet in the bedroom, opened it, and frantically rummaged through my side of it. I stopped at a T-shirt and shorts with some grey camouflage motifs. From the laundry tub next to the bathroom, I grabbed Lucy''s tank top that was bunched up in a ball. I returned to the hall, where I put on my comfortable rubber hiking sandals. I locked the front door and turned towards the werewolf.
"I parked behind your house," she said. "I''ll explain everything during the drive. By the way, my name is Tatiana but you can call me Tania.¡±
"You already know mine, so start talking!"
I led her across, through the garden where Lucy grew her multicoloured shrubs with so much care, and we went outside on the street.
"I''ll start by telling you where your wife was taken! The way there is about thirty minutes, and I will use the time to acquaint you with the situation! Have you heard of Belial''s Tooth?¡±
The werewolf asked as I got into the aerate-car next to her. She pushed a button to release the air mixture that circulated in a closed system and that propelled the vehicle''s wheels forward, and it slid down the road.
Having done everything necessary to upset the ecological balance of the Community in the last century, we have been looking for alternative forms of transport for several years. Pneumatic cars proved to be a good option with their environmental friendliness and the relatively high maximum speed they achieved. Flying carpets also moved with a gas mixture, as we sometimes called them but were actually open or closed platforms with balloons attached to them, which traveled through the air and were intended mainly for urban conditions.
"Belial''s tooth?" I repeated. "No, doesn¡¯t remind me of anything."
"I do not doubt it, I heard it for the first time from Dorian last night."
"Dorian? Dorian doesn¡¯t tell me anything either."
"The name of the werewolf you rescued on your night shift. Dorian told me about The Tooth. It turns out that this is one of the most closely guarded secrets of the vampires. According to their legends, Belial is the Arch-vampire, the first vampire in the world, who lived for exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine years and from whom all their clans originate. On the last night of the last year of his life, he pulled out his two canine teeth with his own hands, gave them to his two closest to him in his retinue, and went out to meet the dawn while saying the words, ¡®He who has conquered death once is not afraid to do it again!¡¯"
I shook my head in surprise. Just my luck to get embroiled in something to do with ancient history.
"What have I got to do with all this phantasmagoria?"
"We''ll get there, Doctor," Tania said. "The first of the Teeth is definitely known to be the property of Caligulas Nergal, a vampire chief in Burg Parallel, an informal leader of all vampires in The Community, and, as he himself claims, a direct descendant of one of Belial''s two chosen ones. Traces of the other Tooth were lost centuries ago until a week ago when treasure hunters accidentally found it in the dust at the bottom of an urn, in a vampire tomb here at The Crossroads. Thus it found itself in the hands of Ghamborz. There is no doubt about it, the inscription carved on the airtight box in which it was placed, certifies its origin.¡±
I listened to the werewolf''s monotonous story, hoping for some clarity, but my confusion grew even greater.
¡°Now comes the most interesting part, according to legend, the vampire, who has both Teeth, will gain the absolute power of Belial. True or not, neither Ghamborz nor Nergal will voluntarily part with their artifacts, on the contrary, they will spare no effort and effort to gather the other Teeth in one place, and this can cause inter-clan war!¡±
"I still don''t understand how the wounded werewolf, uh-uh, Dorian, and I ended up at the center of this mess of legends?"
"Let me finish! Half a year ago, at a reception where he was guarded by Chief Reinout''s bodyguard, Dorian met the vampire Neronia, the daughter of Ghamborz, who was also invited.¡±
I frowned. I could imagine nearly everything, but the sight of vampires and werewolves mingling in a noisy crowd with cocktail glasses in hand was a bit too much for me. Am I even expected to remember all of this information? I¡¯m still struggling with remembering who Dorian is!
Tania obviously noticed my grimace because she smiled crookedly.
"Don''t be surprised! Vampires and werewolves have been at war with each other for as long as they can remember, but enmity is enmity, and business interests are quite different. It is often because of them that bandit leaders find themselves at the same secular event. At that time, the girl had just reached the age of majority, and, as usual, her father began to take her with him. I don''t know the exact details, but she managed to turn Dorian''s head. According to him, the other side did not remain indifferent so it was not one-sided.
During these 6 months, the two saw each other several more times, and the feelings intensified more and more.¡±
I couldn''t stand it here anymore and laughed, slightly nervously.
Tania shot me a glance and I noticed flames of anger in her eyes.
"You don''t know Dorian. Despite his physical strength and the temperamental nature of werewolves, he is extremely romantic. In his free time, he reads a lot. He adores the legends of people, especially those that speak of suffering and unhappy love. Tristan and Isolde. Romeo and Juliet. I''m sure he somehow identifies with them. Anyway, Dorian found out about Tooth when he met Neronia last night and finally decided to come and tell me everything. He also told me that Reinout had known about his adventure for some time. Whether Reinout himself noticed the signs of the nascent attraction between him and the vampire, or a colleague of Dorian''s bodyguards betrayed him, it doesn¡¯t matter but surprisingly, when he found out, the chief did not get angry and even encouraged him. He explained to him that there was nothing wrong with his feelings, as he put it, he would combine work with pleasure in order to receive information from the closest in the enemies circle. Because it was rumoured that Ghamborz kept no secrets from only two people in this world, his advisor and Neronia. When I flew into my house, Dorian was going crazy, the inner confrontation between his loyalty to the chief and his feelings for his beloved drove him mad. He realized that the information was too valuable, and if he passed it on to Reinout, he would use it in the most profitable way to destroy his old enemy, whom his daughter still loved dearly. She, he told me, was an extremely modest and conscientious creature, withering in the shadow of her cruel father. Dorian mentioned that Ghamborz had apparently found out about both of them, Neronia had expressed such doubts last night. The attack on him took place a few hours later, and the fact that the vampires are so desperate for his death shows unequivocally the most important thing, Ghamborz has learned that Neronia has betrayed the secret of the Tooth. I can only guess, but knowing the vampire leader''s cunning, those forty-seventh-street mockers got a good amount of money to shut Dorian''s mouth up and take on the wolf gang¡¯s wrath. As you have seen for yourself, Ghamborz does not like to get his hands dirty if he can achieve his goals indirectly. Do you now understand why your patient must die, Dr. Chambers?¡±
Then I asked the question that excited me all day and is probably the most important part of this story, at least to me.
"And why did they stop at me?"
¡°Quite simple! You are the main culprit in the failed assassination attempt. Ghamborz hates things not going the way he wants them to. As long as Dorian has a chance to live, he will be a threat, because no matter how powerful he is here at the Crossroads, he is not yet ready for open conflict with the clans of Caligulas Nergal of Burg Parallel.¡±
"Seriously!? I''m being blamed for doing my job? Doctors save people! Er, werewolves. Really unfair." I ranted, and then after a slight lull in the conversation, decided to ask the second question that was burning me up with curiosity, "And why did Dorian choose you as his mouthpiece?"
Tania pierced me with her golden-brown eyes.
"The answer to that question is very simple, Dr. Chambers, Dorian is my brother!"Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
C4 - Reasons
I tried to reconstruct the features of the wounded werewolf in my mind and found no resemblance to Tania''s looks, which once again meant nothing. Some siblings don''t look alike at all, and in the shock room of the clinic, Dorian was in the middle of a human-wolf transformation that was stopped by silver atoms, making it even harder to make any sort of comparisons. Only after the extraction of his infected blood and its complete replacement, the doctor inside me returned to the operating table, but by then he was already covered from head to toe with resuscitation equipment.
For now, I decided to believe Tania''s words. Although it sounded credible, I did still notice some logical cracks.
The night enveloped the Crossroads as if a giant bat had spread its wings over it. The streetlights flickered like the eyes of giants and scattered a dim light on the roads. The city, relaxing during the hot day, was ready for another night of vice and crime. Until recently empty streets began to fill with life - shops, pubs, clubs and all sorts of attractions opened their doors, hissing air cars and flying carpets started being heard.
We soon left the slums behind and entered the industrial zone.
"We''ll be there in a minute, Doctor!" Tania seemed to have caught the impatience in my mind. "Your wife is being held in one of Ghamborzes''s slaughterhouses, which supplies raw materials to his hematology stores. As I told you, I don''t think they intend to leave her alive, but I hope they haven''t subjected her to the Suction yet.¡±
An icy hand gripped my heart, and the pain in the back of my neck intensified and turned into a fist gripping my two hemispheres. As a doctor, I knew what Suction meant.
The operation is no different from the one we had subjected to the wounded Dorian, except that the medical equipment at the clinic restored the patients'' body fluids synchronously with their retrieval. In the slaughterhouses, the animals'' blood is simply sucked in and mixed with substances that slow down its clotting to reach the market. At the Crossroads, everyone knew that Ghamborzes''s slaughterhouses often included people, but the Guard had no evidence, and the sudden inspections always failed. With his gold, the vampire chief simply bought inside information.
"Wondering how I know?"
¡±Yes.¡± I was wondering this as I tried to stop the bloody images forming in my mind.
"Shortly before sunrise, when I learned of the attack, I went to the clinic to find out about Dorian''s condition. I was informed at the reception that the operation was continuing, and I learned about your name there. Because being at the hospital depressed me, I decided to wait for you in the garden in front of the hospital portal, I was told that you always go out through the main entrance on the way home. I wanted to get first-hand information about how my brother is doing. I witnessed the noisy arrival of Reinout and his men, but I chose not to be seen by them because our chief is not rational in his anger and would ask me questions I knew I didn''t want to answer.¡±
¡°The moment you appeared at the portal, I felt a stirring. I noticed that you were being watched, and in turn, I followed your pursuers, three unliving in day suits. It is not a problem for a wolf to remain unseen when necessary, my eyesight and hearing are well developed. From their conversation, I understood what they would try to make you do. I saw your drugged wife being hauled out and I heard where they were going to take her. I know The Crossroads like I know the nails of my paw, mainly because I make a living as a taxi driver.¡±
The aerate-car slowed down and stopped on a wide flat platform in front of the vague silhouettes of some type of buildings, barns, or something like that. Tania turned off the headlights.
"I''m afraid we''ve been up to here with the vehicle, Doctor! We have to walk to the slaughterhouse, which is located in the next quadrant.¡±
I studied intently her face in the dimness of the blinking inner light.
"I see, so you have other questions?"
"Let''s just say I need one or two more details before embarking on an adventure with an unknown random werewolf."
"Time is running out, Dr. Chambers, but it''s very clear to me that a lack of mutual trust can end up being terrible for both of us. So, I¡¯m listening to you?¡±
"Why didn''t they attack you after Dorian told you about the Tooth, and how much of that secret information is really still secret?"
Tania gave me another crooked smile.
"Neronia told my brother that the fate of the treasure hunters who discovered the artifact was predetermined the moment Ghamborzes read the inscription on the airtight box. As you may have guessed, instead of receiving their pay, they were probably sucked dry in one of the slaughterhouses.¡± Then she paused, probably sensing my unease about the fate of my wife and in an even, neutral tone continued. "Ghamborzes''s three guards, who guarded him during his meeting with the treasure hunters, have also disappeared without a trace. The unliving, of course, likely sensed that something was going on around their chief, but I assure you that only five people knew about Belial''s missing and found Tooth, and six with you - Ghamborzes, his adviser, his daughter Neronia, my brother and me.
At that moment, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head.
"Ghamborzes''s adviser, do you know his name?"
¡°His name is Jay, a largely unknown person in the secular circles, he does not like to advertise himself, but rather prefers to be in the shadow of his chief.¡±
"Jay!" I repeated, and it felt as if I heard his coarse roaring voice coming out from underneath a sun visor again. The matter is really serious if the vampire chief''s adviser himself came to meet me. It¡¯ll also be a pain trying to get any actual revenge.
"The reason they haven''t searched for me so far is that they just haven¡¯t found out about Dorian''s visit. He told me everything after meeting the vampire last night, he had traveled to my home by wandering around several neighbourhoods to get rid of any potential pursuers. The pseudo-vampires from forty-seven spotted him at least an hour after he left my place. I''m beginning to suspect that other gangs have been notified of the reward for his head. Ghamborzes leaves nothing to chance, it''s just that forty-seven got to my brother first!¡±
"And what makes you think that in the time between his visit to your home and the attack on him, Dorian didn''t decide to pass the information on to Reinout?"
¡°That is impossible. During the hot summer days, the werewolf leader stays at Wolf''s Paw, his villa in Oasis Three, the third ennobled area in the desert lands left after the Last War. This is a paradise for the rich and no less than two hundred kilometers from my place. Every forty-eight hours, Reinout''s new security guard travels to there, along with drinks and food that can''t be retrieved on-site in the oasis''s greenhouses.¡±
Come to think of it, I had heard about the ennobled territories, but with the salary of a surgeon at the Clinic for Mythological Creatures, true, even if quite decent for Burg Crossroads, I could hardly afford to buy a property there.
Tania continued after giving me a few seconds to process the flow of information.
"My brother had given up on visiting that day and he had planned to travel to the oasis this morning. Reinout himself, as I understand it, came to your clinic straight from the airport, which precludes the possibility of him seeing Dorian before the assassination attempt.¡±
The missing pieces of the puzzle were being arranged one by one and the picture was beginning to unfold before my eyes.
¡°The main question still remains, Tania. The question I had to ask before I left with you, Why did you decide to help me? It would have been much easier to just neutralize me.¡±
She spoke the next words, the werewolf met my gaze unflinchingly. She was either a very good actress or she really was sincere.
"Dr. Chambers, you forget that I''m Dorian''s sister, where do you think he picked up his romantic nature? I was the one who introduced him to sappy romantic novels and I want to believe in true love! So your story really played my heartstrings and I just couldn¡¯t stay away and not help! I¡¯ll try to protect my brother''s love too, and if you need a more rational reason, I have that as well. Ghamborz''s resources are virtually limitless. Even if I kill you, the vampire leader can easily force another clinic employee to do his dirty work and since I was kind enough to answer all your questions, can I ask you to concentrate on our current task now!¡±
Insane romance werewolves was something I did not expect to meet and then I kind of froze as with graceful movements of her hand, she began to loosen the strings of his leather corset, apparently to take it off.
I did not like the direction this was taking, I¡¯m all up for romantic werewolves helping me but I am currently searching for my missing wife!
¡±What are you doing?!¡±This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"I may be vain," the werewolf smiled, "but that doesn''t mean I¡¯m stupid! The clothes clinging to my body will at some point prove to be a problem for my transformation. As for nudity, it shouldn''t bother you, you''re a medic after all, and you''ve seen naked women in your practice often enough, haven''t you, Dr. Chambers?¡±
Yea and they¡¯re usually lying on a table being cut open by me but I wisely kept quiet about that particular topic.
The narrow cabin of the aerate-car was not the most convenient place for stripping, but Tania quickly freed herself from her clothes with unnatural grace, and before my eyes were revealed an attractive and rather athletic girl''s body covered with fine gray fur.
She reached across my lap, opened the glove compartment lid, and pulled out two battered pistols with elongated barrels, housed in special holsters with elastic straps protruding from them. She threw me one.
"Can you use that, Doc?"
Of course, I know how.
¡°It¡¯s a gun, it¡¯s not as if we¡¯re performing a brain operation? Cause I¡¯ve done that too and can say that using a gun is way easier.¡± I replied with a predatory smile.
For a moment it was as if I had ridden a time machine and returned to my youth. I''ve played a lot with trinkets like these. I gripped the massive-looking, but the surprisingly light handle, tapering toward its upper end.
Needlers were capricious weapons, the maximum accuracy that could be achieved with them was up to about ten meters. Their ammunition looked like inverted warmers, only their rounded heads were tiny, fragile containers that were about fifteen millimeters in size starting from their sharp tips.
As soon as the tip struck living tissue, the container explodes and its contents, an over-concentrated solution of the chemical allicin extracted from garlic, fall into the wound opening. A cunning and elegant design.
The few micrograms of the allicin substance in the container can disable an average of a seventy-kilogram vampire in about ten seconds.
It has been known since ancient times that garlic and vampires do not mix. More recently, scientists have found that the main culprit causing this is allicin. Probably the reason for the paralytic reactions that took place in the bodies of the defeated vampires were immunologically justified, the exact mechanisms were still being deciphered, but this did not change the fact that iglots are the most effective modern weapon for close combat with these creatures.
I adjusted the elastic strap over my right shoulder and under my left shoulder, leaving the holster with the pistol in my upper back, so it is easy to pull out with my right hand and at the same time did not make it difficult for me to move.
"Doc, take it!" Tania tossed me a metal box with black wax inside. She had drawn narrow oblique lines on herself while I was examining the weapon.
Only now did I notice that the sky was clear and full of stars, and the night was surprisingly bright.
"You''ve thought of everything!" I said and started smearing my face and the exposed parts of my body. "We can start referring to each other as you, right?"
"Don''t forget your wife''s tank top!"
I followed the werewolf, trying to move as quietly as she did. The task was difficult, the sedentary life in the clinic spoke of my attempts, while the creature in front of me was a hunter built by nature. I tried to breathe quietly but evenly, in sync with my steps so as not to get tired.
The industrial quadrant we passed through was completely dilapidated. We crossed a section covered with weedy rails, on which cargo cranes had once moved, and a little further we noticed their sloping silhouettes like those of wounded titans. We slipped into a built-up plot, between low dilapidated buildings, where I lost the number of turns we took.
The adrenaline was already pounding wildly in my ears.
The wild beast of excitement dormant in me for more than twenty years was beginning to wake up. The feeling was both frightening and intoxicating.
C5 - Mummers
The built-up area was soon finished. Before our eyes, a two-lane asphalt road running parallel to the buildings was revealed. To the right, the road was lost behind a bend about fifty meters away, to the left, no more than twenty meters from us, it widened into a parking lot bathed in dim orange light, where tanks with the HematOpolis logo and cattle trucks had stopped. Behind the parking lot, I saw a portal with a glazed security booth, located next to a raised barrier and three lamps mounted on high metal poles. In both directions, a folded sheet metal fence, about two meters high, ran from the gate, apparently circling the entire perimeter of Ghamborz''s slaughterhouse.
"The drivers and workers on the assembly lines inside are human," Tania whispered to me, "I know that for sure because I''ve driven customers here many times for their night shifts. The guards are vampires. We have to cross the road to crawl to the fence and jump over it somewhere higher. I don''t think we will have problems, security measures are routine so I doubt they expect intrusion.¡±
"So nothing hard then," I replied.
We crouched and crossed the road. We found ourselves in a field consisting of unsupported chaos of alternating cracked concrete islands and low thorny bushes, and this turned our crawling into a unique ¡®pleasure¡¯. I managed to turn the nail on my right index finger inside out and had at least a million thorns stuck in my palms. The werewolf gracefully slid in front of me and did not seem to be facing the same issues as me.
After what seemed like an eternity, we managed to reach the slaughterhouse fence. By that point, I was breathing like a broken aerate-car. Tania jumped effortlessly up to the fence, pulled herself upwards using her arms, and moved easily on to the other side. I tried to repeat her performance with varying degrees of success, the jump and the grip turned out crooked, but as I attempted to pull myself upwards, I scratched about with my legs pointlessly for a bit, and finally, after a lot of effort, I managed to jump over the fence.
In the distance, I saw a complex of buildings oriented radially around one with significantly larger dimensions.
"It has assembly lines with suction devices," Tania explained pointing to the big building. "The workers call her the Leech. The animals - birds, sheep, cattle, everything you can think of, except pigs, the unliving ones are disgusted by them, are herded there from Ghamborz''s farms and are separated in their respective booths with either the guillotines, the snorkels and¡¡±
The werewolf stopped, obviously feeling that this outflow of information was completely unnecessary, and would have just upset me even more.
"I doubt they took your wife to the Leech, Doc. Too many eyes, too many awkward questions. I guess they''re in one of the surrounding buildings, either service room, warehouse, or something similar. My instinct tells me that somewhere there is a blood suction device installed for drying out people more discreetly.¡±
I gritted my teeth and nodded
"Let''s go find Lucy!"
A person born on the street like me is intimately familiar with violence.
Burg Central, Burg Parallel, Burg Crossroads, so many Burgs - different names, different populations, different geographical locations, proximity to a mountain, a small or a large body of water, a difference in everything, but in reality they are all the same.
Under the guise of the apparent well-being of a consumer society, horrific crime flourished in every corner of the Community. Large gangster organizations, all sorts of smaller factions of werewolves, vampires, and humans, no different from wild beasts, were constantly at war over the redistribution of market territory for flesh, blood, drugs, weapons, and any immorality that can be turned into money.
I became a member of the Mummers of Parallel at the age of eleven. For an orphan like me, raised in shelters, this was the only viable choice unless you want to be a blood bag. You join the gangster organization and they become your family, they feed you, protect you, and you thank them by working for them.
At the age of eleven, I committed my first murder. Then, until I was twenty-two, I took many more lives numerous times, but it was the first murder that played a decisive role in my future, and the memory of it never faded.
John and I, also an orphan, were the pair of boys for everything and any type of work, were currently working for an arms dealer and a gatherer, Antim, very low in the Mummer''s hierarchy. This is the point in any gangster organisation you start from the lowest rung, a boy for everything, and then climb the stairs of power one by one. You have to be gifted with incredible abilities or be incredibly lucky to jump over several stairs at once, but as it turned out a little later, in one night I managed to rise to the highest heights. To this day, I can''t answer if it was thanks to luck or due to innate talent, but from the perspective gained by the advancement of the years, I am more then certain that it was a unique combination of both that allowed me to obtain the power an orphan seeks.
We carried out small orders for Antim, most often we delivered packages with insignificant amounts of money from one place to another, in some rare moments we happened to deliver a cheap gun to a person, and then there were no happier kids than us in the whole universe. When that happened, we took turns to wear the gun, occasionally alternating. Pavel and I were brothers in all but blood.
One specific night, the low-class needle gun we wore, with only six "cloves" as we used to call the ammunition I mentioned, fell on me. I tucked it into my shorts in front, and it formed a bulge under my shirt. Its visibility made me feel proud as I walked down the night street. I had the feeling that everyone - the miserable rodent-looking drug dealer, who was feverishly looking straight up, the prostitutes in multi-coloured latex boots and short miniskirts, scurrying on both sidewalks and shouting at passing aerate-cars and flying carpets. The shopkeepers, who had taken their goods to open stalls in front of their shops - all were beneath me and all knew the indisputable fact that I was armed and dangerous.
Paul, understandably, had sulked with his had down next to me, just as I had done when it was his turn to carry the weapon. Inflated with arrogance like a peacock, I fantasized that Antim, standing in front of the betting shop where he ran his small business and from which I had come out a minute ago with a needle, was watching me smoke his hallucinogenic cigar and wonder how lucky he was to have such a badass type in his ranks.
Vampires lined the street across from us. Two, tall, identical in their black silk cloaks, with elongated pale yellowish faces and long straight hair falling over their shoulders. Their movements were as graceful as those of a cat, and at the same moment, the thought dawned on me that this is exactly what tough guys should look like. It was as if cold, darkness, and death blew through their eyes. We passed each other and Pavel and I turned to follow them with our eyes, the view was so magnetic.
They headed to the betting shop of Antim, who had not yet noticed them, engaged in a conversation with one of his employees, who was smoking next to him. On the move, they pulled out long, slightly curved, thin swords. Antim reacted to the sound of the silver serpent-like blades slipping from the scabbard, his eyes wide with surprise, the cigar slipped from his fingers, pounded on the sidewalk and scattered a cloud of silver dust, and a second later his head separated from his neck followed. wide-eyed, thumped beside the dust. A fountain of blood flooded a smoking employee. He opened his mouth to start screaming, but his head followed that of Antim.
Without thinking about my actions, with the ingrained memories of a trained fighter, which I could not explain, I took the needle-guns out of my pants, clocked the fuse on the move and headed for Antim''s assassins.
Antim was a father, a mother, a brother, and the organization that gave me bread and shelter.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The first vampire turned his head towards me, likely heard my footsteps, gritted his teeth, and then bared his canine teeth in a grimace that said, "Boy, get lost!". When he saw the snotty boy walking towards him, unable to comprehend the information that the boy was clutching one of the few weapons of this world capable of wounding it. The needle pierced his left eye. The container exploded in his eyeball with a chewing sound, the vampire screamed in agony and landed stiffly like a plank on the sidewalk next to the two severed heads. The second vampire jumped and sprinted down the road, trying to escape the deadly gun, but my hand followed him without fear, the needle whistled, and a thin metal rod protruded from his neck. A new scream of agony and another body-thud hit the ground.
I tossed the needles carelessly as I approached them. The processes of paralysis developed with astonishing speed, this fact was commented on a lot and it was concluded that the reason for this was the hits at points close to the brain. The two unliving were struggling to catch their breath, their breathing muscles were already failing. I bent down and raised the sword that the first vampire had dropped. Then I bent down again to give them eternal peace.
I tried to clear my mind of the bloody pictures that always swirled in the back when I¡¯m angry. I stared inwards at myself, and under the mask of the glossy successful surgeon, modeled for years, beneath the layers of fake make-up, it hid the one whose name once made people and non-humans tremble in Burg Parallel.
"Ah, Damn it. Seems like I¡¯ll have to re-introduce myself to this part of life." I thought as I crawled after the werewolf and realized that regardless of Lucy''s fate, I had already made my choice, I would kill anyone involved in this and enjoy it.
Needless to say, I was angry at the moment, I felt like a red-hot ball of rage, and the apathy that kept me going for hours after talking to Jay, and during the trip with Tania let go. Still, I can¡¯t lose control of my emotions otherwise, I wouldn''t be of use in saving my beloved, if she was still alive, of course. I¡¯d prefer if my only option is to end in a chaotic and spectacular death, and although at the age of thirty-five I had probably lived about half my life, I didn''t want to waste the rest of it right in Ghamborz''s disgusting slaughterhouse!
Well, I can¡¯t die before I have revenge.
After moving through the industrial zone, which the experience can be briefly described in two words: silent agony, infiltrating the inner perimeter seemed to me as light and pleasant as a Veela''s song. There were no thorny bushes or all sorts of obstacles made of building materials and abandoned machinery, but a rather well-kept, low-mown grass area with asphalt in-between.
We approached the first buildings of the complex a one-story bungalow made of concrete and glass, some insulated, others connected by sheds and tunnels. Windows reflected light here and there and was a good starting point for the search.
The slaughterhouse was oriented sideways to where we were at the moment, not very tall, around a five-story monolithic building, but with a length lost in the distance and the dim light seeping through the small windows at regular intervals on the top floor. I felt that its area is quite large and it seemed like a waste of resources. There was the whistling and creaking of equipment inside, but it was deafened by the maddening rattling of the huge ventilation fans mounted along the walls outside.
The monotonous noise bothered me, it dulled my hearing, which was perhaps a night saboteur''s most important sense, but as Tania noted, the vampires could have hardly expected such a quick response, if any response all, which meant that their precautions should be just the routine ones.
I gestured to her and crouched down as we began our tour.
All the lighted bungalows we peeked into turned out to be standardly furnished with two bunk beds and high wooden lockers lined up next to each other. The situation was very similar to that of barracks, but the men lying on the beds with smoking cigarettes rolling dice in the narrow spaces between the towers or playing cards in a carriage around the lockers did not have the tight-fitting appearance of professional soldiers. The thick beards of some of them and their hair of varying lengths, shaped into a variety of hairstyles, made it clear that they were just slaughterhouse workers resting between shifts. In the dark rooms, where we did not forget to check, we could see the silhouettes of sleeping people.
There was no traffic outside the bungalows. I mentally thanked the hellish heat of the day, which turned into a stifling night, for forcing people to keep the doors tightly closed everywhere so as not to lose the cool comfort created by the air conditioners that were fitted in all the buildings in the complex.
There was no denying that Ghamborz, although the nastiest bloodthirsty asshole in the Crossroads, took good care of his human resources.