My Path to Magic

Chapter 7

Redstone University occupied two complexes or, as people said, “territories”. The new territory was located on the outskirts of town, across the river, and consisted of a noisy dormitory and laboratories for the Faculty of Alchemy, as large as factories. They say there were greenhouses and stables somewhere behind the dormitory, but I never dealt with that side of the university’s life.

The old territory and the heart of the university was the Redstone School of Magic, the first educational institution to teach dark and white magicians together—the pioneering attempt to reconcile the opposites. The founders of the university discovered a magic formula for the successful preparation of magic art specialists: joint education with ordinary people in some disciplines, like alchemy and pharmaceuticals. Nowadays such arrangement is considered standard, but in the past the innovation was regarded as revolutionary. Since then, the classic “apprenticeship” has fizzled out—graduates of specialized alchemical and magic institutions lagged seriously behind ordinary university graduates in their skills. It was assumed that the joint training allowed ordinary people to actually get acquainted with the logic of magic (an important life experience was presented at the right time in their lives) and helped magicians better integrate into the society. Also, the dark, being in the absolute minority, were unable to bully the white, which was a huge bonus for the latter. The Redstone school quickly grew into a university, regularly supplying society with talented alchemists, the mightiest white magicians, and the strongest combat sorcerers. Soon I will join them. This year, twelve dark students expressed an intention to undergo the Empowerment. If you trust statistics, among them there would be at least one master, a couple of generals, and one genuine archimage.

I sat on the square in front of the faculty building, waiting for my turn to take the Empowerment (that day there were three others scheduled for the ritual) and getting annoyed at mere trifles. My dear Uncle (kick the bucket already, you old goat!) refused to explain the essence of the ritual, despite the whole summer of my practicing with the Source. “If you know it in advance, you will fail it for sure! Just remember: you should refrain from using your power for as long as possible. Got it? For as long as possible!” That was all that I was able to shake out of him. Now my peers were preparing for the most important moment of their lives by fasting and taking special herbs (Uncle forbade me from touching them), while I stupidly sweated in anticipation of troubles.

The shadow of the sundial had crawled to noon when I noticed a guy that was supposed to take the ritual before me. I did not know his name; the dark rarely get to know each other. The newly-made magician threw a gloomy look at me and, without saying anything, disappeared in the direction of the main building.

I was next.

All students learned quickly the place occupied by the Faculty of Dark Magic; this was the area where you’d better not walk in the evening. Beginners often mistook it for a utility structure—against the background of the main building with tall lancet windows and colored tints on precious finish, the three-story box looked weird, resembling the prison on the King’s Island. The university’s authorities regularly considered transferring the faculty to the new territory (the city municipality was all in favor of that idea), but it did not budge; to build such an institution from scratch required a shocking amount of money. The current monstrous building sported a unique magical structure that was capable of retaining and absorbing the fatal consequences of student errors and, in fact, carried that function out regularly. According to the stats, two percent of dark magicians died in the process of learning. But today the townsfolk could rest safely; for the whole week the building was at the juniors’ disposal.

A dark carpet runner was spread in front of the entrance, pennants with the wise sayings of famous combat magicians hung on the walls (could you believe it—combat mages were able to speak eloquently!), and crows, consorts of plagues and wars lined up on the roof, attracted by emanations of magic. In the lobby I was met by the dean and an instructor with two assistants. Representatives of the city authorities—the same goblin-like cop and an unknown dark mage—were silently present as well. Nothing unexpected so far.

“You have finally decided to go through the Empowerment,” Mr. Darkon said, looking a little sad.

I was still pondering that question prior to the incident at the NZAMIPS’ office, but afterwards it became a must-do thing.

“I’m not going to quit alchemy.”

“Everybody says so.”

The instructor politely cleared his throat: “If you are aware of the risks associated with the Empowerment, please sign here!”

That was the disclaimer—the university pledged to do its utmost to ensure the safety of the ritual, but it refused any responsibility for injuries received in the process. On top of that, there was my own written application, a letter from my immediate family (I hadn’t reached twenty-one yet), a health certificate… At one time, just the list of the necessary paperwork was enough to discourage me from becoming a magician. I hated bureaucracy! But I didn’t have a choice and signed the disclaimer without looking.

I was tapped on the shoulder, wished success, and escorted to a large door that was upholstered in black leather. I tried to figure out what would happen next, but the instructor immediately began lecturing me about historical parallels and my responsibility to society, reminding me of the incessant babble of the white kids. I was not in a mood to argue on a day like this and patiently waited until his speech dried out.

Just through the doors the corridor broke off at a spiral staircase that led down to the second underground level. That was quite logical—rituals of this kind had to be conducted in a lab with the highest safety level, and regulations prescribed that such places must be hidden in basements. I had never been there before. My imagination painted a secret temple with torches and pentagrams, but in reality the place turned out to be quite prosaic: the clanking iron staircase ended in a tiny dressing room with a single bench and a coat rack for jackets. There, I was asked to change into the ritual costume (it looked like a black pajamas), and from thereon I continued barefoot, pretending to be a seasoned mage, because a dark magician arriving at the ritual in socks with holes didn’t strike me as comical.

With great effort, the instructor swung open a door made of cast iron (like a vault), but there was no temple behind it—just a small room without sharp corners. Bluish-white lights glared on the walls of polished silver. If there were any magic wards present there, they did not stick out. One of the assistants went ahead of me, the other breathed down my neck from behind, and the instructor showed the way, occasionally tugging me by the sleeve and annoying me greatly.

I hated to be grabbed or pulled!

The door locked behind us with a dull clanking sound that caused my heart to skip a beat anxiously. Why did the door need to be locked?

“This important-for-every-dark-magician day…” the instructor monotonously droned.

He managed to maneuver so masterfully that I noticed our destination at the last moment: it was a short iron table with four leather bracelets.

“Perhaps…”

As though by accident, he took my hand and started pushing me down onto the polished surface. All my instincts howled at once. I rushed to the door but was adroitly intercepted by the second assistant and laid on the damned altar. That it was an altar was as clear as day.

“I have changed my mind! I do not want to go through the ritual!”

“Too late,” the instructor replied after catching his breath, “You’ll leave this room as a dark magician or won’t leave at all.”

“A-ah!”

Damn! The walls were thick there; furthermore, it was the basement. I tried to pull myself together (figuratively speaking, because my hands were fastened behind my head). Today two other students had taken the ritual before me and both were alive and intact; I even saw one of them. Though the color of his face was…”

“What will happen next?”

The assistants tinkered with something in the corner, while the instructor examined me with the look of a professional surgeon.

“You will acquire Power.”

I tried to discern what they were doing, but failed. It drove me crazy.

“There won’t be anything cruel, right? Nothing special?”

The instructor’s eyes met mine, and he declared solemnly: “There will be!”

“You have no right!” I tried to speak decisively, but my voice trembled and broke.

He leaned closer to me and winked conspiratorially: “We do.”

My dear mother! I had fallen into the hands of maniacs. The police persuaded them, and they would kill me right here and now and blame the ritual. What could I do? SOS!

The assistants mounted a few black candles along the altar and lit them, murmuring indistinctly. I started feeling an uncomfortable tingling in my hands and feet.

“The spell is called ‘Odo Aurum’, ” the instructor told me amiably. “It will help you to call your Source as soon as possible. We’ll wait until the spell starts operating.”

I instantly recalled where I had heard that name. The spell was used by inquisitors to increase the sensitivity of their victims to pain, making obtaining any confession trivial. I broke out in cold sweat at the discovery.

Please understand me correctly: I did not hesitate to jump into a fight, and I never worried about skinning my knees. But being tied to the table, helpless…

Wait. Helpless? I was practicing all summer!

“Hey, freak, let off me now, or I’ll slam you with a curse!”

“Try it!” the instructor smirked.

I hesitated for a moment, feeling a disgusting tingling that climbed along my spine, remembering pictures of the injured from the police collection, and fighting with a feeling of mercy and humanism, awakened at the wrong time. Should I try to contain my temper further? No, damn it! With familiar effort, I mentally squeezed my Source and drove the Power outward, trying to crush any malicious magic or, at least, break the damn bracelets. A white shroud flashed before my eyes for a second, and when it had faded, all the unpleasant sensations disappeared at once.

“Not bad. Very good, actually!” the instructor’s voice lost its threatening tone. “Fourth level on your first attempt. Now dismiss the Source!”

I gently released the Source—my feet had already been freed.

“What, is that all?”

“Yes,” the instructor announced cheerfully, “but I have to remind you that you must not disclose to anyone the essence of the ritual. If our actions lose their surprise factor, we would have to go much further, up to the actual harm. Do you understand me?”

At that time I was ready to understand anything in order to cut and run. One of the assistants offered me water and energizers, and another advised me not to hurry, but I brushed off their help and broke through to the door. Already at the exit, I ventured to ask: “Why we are not allowed doing it ourselves?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, a modulating spell is set on the room. It directed the energy of your call and helped create a secure channel for your Power. The first time the control is very important; after the Empowerment had happened, it would be almost impossible to change the characteristics of the Source. Don’t worry! The ritual took place almost without deviations.”

“Deviations?” I instantly tensed up.

“Judging by what I’ve seen, you will show one particular talent.”

“Which one?”

“If you attend your classes regularly, I will tell you at the end of the year.”

What a bastard! It must be a common feature for those who teach dark magic—the ability to drive a student into frenzy. Oh, yeah, I will be attending his lectures! And he will regret that.

That was it—no more secret rituals. Screw that! Having climbed the steep stairs, I literally tumbled out into the hall. I was greeted with ceremonious applause. Quarters smirked brazenly behind the backs of the university authorities. Who let him in on the event for the dark? Dean shook my hand; the instructor slipped me some sort of paper to sign and a numbered token that would be exchanged for a magician’s seal upon graduation. I no longer had to fear wearing the shackles of deliverance.

The goblin in the uniform gloomily watched the process of my legalization. I smiled. A smiling dark mage is quite a sight! He couldn’t do me any harm now! Officially, I had just been initiated; to prove the opposite he would have to bring the memory crystal and explain why he had not done that before. This subtle psychological point was taken into account by Uncle Gordon and me. Had the brave cop’s sense of duty prevailed over his selfish interests, we would have found ourselves up a creek without a paddle. But the dark mages are quite selfish and measure others’ corn by their own bushel. In short, we bet on his cowardice and didn’t lose.

The goblin waved at me, calling me over. Others sharply stepped aside.

“How are you,” I welcomed him.

“Fine… Captain Baer.”

With some delay, I realized that the captain was him.

“What can I do for you?” I inquired politely.

“I… would like to offer you an apology.”

“For what?” I replied lively.

“You know!” the captain-goblin cut me off.

I shrugged: “I forgive everyone!”

Goblin looked me up and down, and then pulled out a plain business card with NZAMIPS logo. “If you have a problem,” he nodded meaningfully, “do not hesitate to contact me.”

“Thank you, Officer!” I grinned.

He paused for a moment, thinking (I was prepared to use the instructor as a shield), then nodded and returned to his place.

I looked around, trying to determine what effect I produced on others. They all stared at me somewhat strangely. Assured that there wouldn’t be any speeches given, Quarters took me by the arm and dragged away. I didn’t have the strength to protest. Everyone wanted to lay a hand on me that day…

The assistants with businesslike looks tramped past us—went to search for another victim. At this point I clearly saw why the secret of the famous ritual had remained veiled to date. The thought that every past and current dark magician had been tricked into this, and that every future magician would be, filled my heart with inexpressible satisfaction. You forget your own troubles, enjoying others’ misfortunes. Psychotherapy, damn it!

Quarters wasn’t perceptive enough to understand these subtleties.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “Do you know who he is?”

“Captain Baer.”

“Chief of Redstone’s NZAMIPS! You were rude to the inquisitor!”

I shrugged and said what I thought about Captain Baer, generously employing Krauhard’s folklore and many other slang expressions. Quarters gaped after me, trying to remember the phrase that took his fancy.

“Well, as you wish!” he concluded. “Let’s have beer.” Seeing me tensing up, he generously added, “My treat!”

A dark magician in the police uniform was righteously indignant: “As I said, it was idiocy to go there! A mage from Tangor’s family is not so easy to catch! He went to the Trunk Bay for a reason. It’s Krauhard! They cover for each other, all stand united; there is no tripping him up.”

Conrad Baer listened to him half-heartedly, briskly looking around. They marched to the gates of the university, and the majority of oncoming students abruptly changed course at the sight of the police officers. All were guilty!

“Come on, stop it,” the captain dismissed his subordinate. “The guy worked hard on self-control, found himself a mentor. I think he won’t be trouble.”

“A nonstandard channel of power will manifest itself during his training. Two years of intensive practice, and he will be off his rocker!”

“Hardly,” the captain did not support his coworker. “Larkes examined his crystal, and the configuration was quite stable.”

The magician chuckled, “Sir, I think Coordinator Larkes has his own stake in it.”

“We’ll see!”

A student standing in a group of people that gathered at the university gates suddenly took to flight, having discovered the presence of the police. Captain Baer barely suppressed the desire to pursue the fleeing man. NZAMIPS must strengthen intelligence work at the university! So many cases could be closed at once.

Chapter 8

Believe me, not every magician can become an instructor in combat magic! One must have a special talent to make a gang of young dark beasts nauseate and sweat their guts out. Precisely a gang, because the university’s program did not provide private lessons, and precisely to the point of sickness, because practice with the Source required incredible effort at the beginning. I, thank god, passed that stage. In my case, dearest Uncle Gordon stimulated my brain with pebbles, but a university instructor could not afford to beat up his students; otherwise, he wouldn’t leave the auditorium alive. However, Mr. Rakshat coped with the task well: he cursed like a drill sergeant, thrashed his cane on students’ desks (making a sudden incredible noise over your ear-- it’s an unforgettable feeling), threatened to put you in the shackles, and hoarsely whispered what fate would befall you at the slightest mistake. I admit, I used to have a finger tremor after three hours of such training.

That was why we had so few dark magicians! No one in his right mind would agree to such a travesty—if he had a choice, of course. From this reasoning followed a sad conclusion that all those present, except for me, were insane.

Mr. Rakshat wasn’t particularly spiteful with me, but he did not improve my mood; perhaps, I was the only dark in the university’s history who fell into the autumn depression. My finances were dwindling like golden leaves falling off trees; it didn’t matter how frugal I was; money could not multiply in the absence of income. Add to that the cost of supplies, essential for a novice magician, payment to the “chatterbox”—my answering service, a fine for the violation of municipal bylaws (for drinking with Quarters), and you will understand that I was on the rocks long before the foliage had flown off.

My mulishness did not allow me to ask for help from the family. I had already borrowed from Ron and a few other friends with the promise to pay it back at the end of the month. Students were short of money after summer vacations and lent with reluctance. The day that I went to bed hungry for the first time in my life inevitably came. That fact impressed me deeply. No room left to maneuver; reluctantly, I set a date for an appointment at Gugentsolger’s Bank and tried to figure how much money they would snooker from me. Apparently, I would give them back twice as much as I would borrow.

The first call came at the peak of my desperation.

The “chatterbox” handed me a piece of paper with the address and name of the client.

“I said that your next free day would be Saturday, and they didn’t mind. I don’t know what you’re gonna do, but good luck to you.”

I laid out a course on the map and was making a detailed plan of the campaign all of Friday; a trip through the fields and communication with the client needed to be thoroughly prepared for. That day I ate only two pies stolen from a freshman’s bag (shame on me); hence, I approached the preparation with the uttermost care.

My bitter experience suggested that it was not enough to be a dark magician—you ought to look like one. So when I approached the farm gate, I was dressed in a shiny black raincoat (on a perfectly clear day), official business attire from a rental shop, and wore black dance shoes (brand new; it was a gift from my mother on admission to the university). That was exactly how a classic dark mage should look. One my hand played with a bunch of keys from storage lockers with a shiny nickel-plated pendant shaped like a car, another held a spacious gripsack, borrowed from the university’s amateur theater. Let people think that I came here by car rather than guess that I walked ten miles from the station!

A little girl sat on the grass before the gate and played with a rag doll.

“Good afternoon,” I hissed coldly, “how can I find Mr. Larsen?”

She squeaked and ran away. A minute later a middle-aged gentleman in traditional farmer clothes (plaid shirt, homespun overalls) came out from the house (I suspected an uninitiated white mage in him). He looked at me childishly, with a mixture of fear and admiration. “Wow! A genuine dark magician!”

I smiled sternly and condescendingly, imitating the most hostile teacher from my school, and then demonstrated a silver business card with my initials and indistinct logo (I had a whole five of them with me).

“Have you called our firm?”

“Yes!” he breathed out, stunned.

“‘Neklot & Sons’: we will solve all your problems!” I proudly announced. “I understand that you believe your house is cursed. Can I take a look around?”

“Yes, yes, of course! Will you allow me to take it?” he held out his hand toward my gripsack.

With pleasure, I handed my heavy baggage to him and added strictly: “Be careful with it! Inside are my tools.”

Just one look at the interior of the house was enough to understand—this task was beyond my skill level. The supernatural was certainly present there: all corners were covered with thin black gossamer, visible on the walls in some spots and translucent on the glass. That was phoma, one of the simplest manifestations of the otherworldly, a brainless mold. It was dangerous if it struck roots—in that case it was easier to burn the house than to clean it. Almost no time remained until the moment when all isolated pockets of phoma would merge in a deadly black cocoon.

“Has anyone died already?” I tried to stay as indifferent as possible.

“No, no,” he shook his head.

Well, it would not stand true for long. In any other circumstances, I would have smiled sweetly and buzzed off, but the money wasted on renting the suit was big enough to make me cry. And then, the phoma was primitive; I knew curses to expel it (though I never used them—Chief Harlik taught me the basics, but he was not stupid enough to teach the youngster anything serious).

“Have you seen our price list?” I asked him in order to buy some time and gather my thoughts. “Have a look at it! Your case is number five.”

He took out of my hands a piece of paper filled with letters of elegant gothic font.

“Three hundred crowns?”

I shrugged, rejoicing inside: if he refused, I would retreat without losing face.

“If you are not happy with our prices, I would recommend calling the local ‘cleaning’ service.”

The farmer shook his head: “He had already been here and done nothing. Let it be three hundred! Will you do the job?”

If the local mage had been here and found nothing, he had to be burned—not as a sorcerer, but as a charlatan. So, he will not notice my mistakes and won’t be able to track me down.

Three hundred crowns…

I feigned the most disgusting smile I was capable of.

“Who do you think I am? Our company guarantees the expulsion of any dangerous phenomenon and warrants no otherworldly recurrence. Of course, if you manage to curse your house twice, we won’t be responsible for that.”

He quickly nodded: “I got it! When can you start?”

“I would like to finish everything today—I don’t really want to come this far twice. And fuel is not cheap these days…”

“Good! Is there anything you need?”

I nodded: “Remove all people, pets, and plants from the house. I will start working after the dusk, so you have time. It would be better if you stay overnight at your friends’ place.”

All inhabitants of the house (there were many) sprang into motion. The farmer harnessed two heavy carthorses into a hefty three-axis cart. Then they loaded it with everything they needed for a sleepover. Cats and kittens, puppies and dogs, rubber plants, violets, two boxes with a collection of cacti and a cage of parrots, an aquarium, and what not! A pile of pillows, embroidered by hand; a porcelain set, carefully packed in a basket; bundles of albums with pictures of family and bags of clothes—as if all of them were just waiting to be taken away. Perhaps the people subconsciously sensed the approaching crisis and were glad to get out of there at least for a short time.

Ignoring the hustle and bustle, I watched for the phoma: it was a clear day, and the otherworldly was quiet, but such violent activity would wake it up early.

The sun had not touched the horizon yet when the farmer’s family was ready to leave. The owner came up to me, questioning, “Are you sure…?”

Tell him that I was not?

“Do not worry. Come back after the dawn, check the results, and pay me for the job. You may want to bring along some experts, although I wouldn’t recommend that you rely on the local ‘cleaning’ service.”

“Yeah, sure!” he breathed out and ran to the cart with his family. He was obviously happy with the opportunity to foist his problem off on someone else.

I waited patiently until the creaking of the wheels, the shrill cries of children, and the dog barking subsided. I needed silence to calm down, call the Power, and stop thinking that the work would be simple; overly self-confident dark magicians died young, slowly and painfully. A fight with any, even the most innocuous, otherworldly is a battle for life and death, and let that death not be mine.

I took off and carefully folded my suit, wrapped it in my raincoat, and put it outside the gates, where the precious clothes would be safe. I left dressed in black sports pants, a faded T-shirt, and some rubber boots that I borrowed from the farmer—nothing valuable. If by morning I should turn into a spot of black slime, my financial situation would not be affected. The only cause for concern was mosquitoes. (I hate insects! The first thing I will do when I get back to the university will be to learn a spell that will repel mosquitoes or exterminate them on approach.)

Now it was necessary to set the boundaries of the battle zone. I took out of my gripsack an enchanted compass and a bunch of knitting needles, with pieces of shiny foil screwed to their blunt ends. Ideally, I should have used mirror fragments, but I had not figured out how to drill holes in the glass and did not dare to purchase ready-to-use enhancements—for reasons of conspiracy. Following the compass needle, I walked around the house, marking my way with needles and cursing the damned insects (the ritual didn’t allow hand-waving or accelerating one’s pace), then moved into the house and drew lines with crayons around all windows that were within my reach. The battlefield was set.

Settling in the room that I felt was the center of the phoma’s expansion, I pulled out of my bag a portable altar (a simplified model, designed for students) with an embossed coordinate grid that greatly facilitated the drawing of pentagrams. Charting a ward-off symbol took no more than a minute. Then I chose three candles from the set: red, black, and white (the latter not to be confused with colorless!), and slightly melted and attached them to the surface of the altar. (Tipped over candles caused injuries in dark magicians more frequently than even the otherworldly itself). Then I settled down to wait for night to fall.

The sun had not set completely when the phoma showed signs of awakening to its mysterious non-life. It was big, hungry, and irritated by the lack of conventional food sources. When the clock boomingly struck 11 p.m., I decided to light the first candle.

The flame was tiny but of the white shade that could not be produced by the combustion of any ordinary matter. Only white magicians made that kind of candles and used it to keep off the melancholy that so often beset their delicate souls. I found a better use for those things. Touching the white tongue of the flame with my finger, I ordered: “Flame of the fire, listen to me! What I name, I want to see. Phoma, phoma, phoma!”

The problem of simple spells is not their low efficiency, but the side effects. If the phoma had not been nearby, the temporarily animated candle would have cruelly taken revenge for my audacity: I would have lost my magic power for a few days and hallucinated phomas everywhere. But the supernatural’s presence was assured in that room, so the candle’s spark grew twice in size and flowed upward as a luminous white smoke, outlining the contour of the invisible monster. I kept waiting. After about half an hour, the pattern of infection became clear.

The farmer was lucky—he had left home in time. The otherworldly was almost ripe. Its isolated pockets of mold grew up into thin cilia-tentacles, ready to connect and form a solid body trap. It was foolish of them to let the phoma evolve into its current condition! Those peasants grew fat, became relaxed, and forgot to worry about invisible threats. I should have left everything as it was and let those boobies be eaten.

But three hundred crowns…

The next step would be to entice the undead and seal it off; in this procedure, time was of the essence. I should activate the seal after the entire phoma was within its boundaries, and I could not let the creature just eat the bait and get out. Focusing and alerting the Source, I touched the red candle and ordered: “Flesh, burn!”

In accordance with the theory, the candle emitted an inimitable, unique flavor that attracted the otherworldly to the live beings. The smell of food irresistibly beckoned the brainless thing. The phoma did not possess a real body of weight and volume, and the creature that filled the whole house with its snake shoots instantly shrank to the size of a roll of wool and tightly entangled the bait. At that very moment, when the last smoky process slunk defeated into the boundaries of the pentagram, I grabbed the Source by the scruff and tossed it directly into the black candle.

“Dangemaharus!”

The true meaning of this word had been lost to the dark ages, but it is known that for a simple force attack one could not think of anything better. The black candle exploded into a ball of fuming flame that instantly filled the contour of the pentagram. Among jets of fire, the phoma rushed as chaos of black lines. I squeezed the Source with all my strength, arousing to life the most destructive hypostasis of dark magic—the Infernal Flame. The latter was too strong for the inferior otherworldly, but I hadn’t yet perfected other methods of expelling. The phoma squeaked and vanished in a green flash, no grueling hours-long struggle; I spent more time taming the fire and preventing it from splashing on the floor. I did not know if I killed the being that was not alive to begin with, but the phoma wasn’t there anymore. So, technically, it was dead now.

I spent another hour making sure that no other supernatural beings were left in the house. Along the way, I discovered the source of the phoma—an old, beat-up dresser. I did not know where they found the dresser and why the otherworldly occupied it for such a long time without manifesting itself but I, personally, was not going to buy anything from flea markets anymore. You never know what you will bring home!

While I was cleaning the room, tearing off candle-ends from the altar and wiping magical signs off of windows, dawn was breaking. It did not make sense to go to bed. I fired up the wood stove in the kitchen and made coffee from the farmer’s stock; then I finished the food left over in a pan and disposed of a pastry that had been thoughtlessly abandoned on the table by the owners. Life was getting better; what still remained, however, was to get paid.

The owners arrived at nine in the morning, when the sun was already high. I met them at the door of the house (with the suit, raincoat, and model shoes on and the gripsack in hand), smiled to the farmer, and coldly nodded to his companion, a withered priest of unknown confession (to be honest, I am not religious).

“We have solved your problem. Please inspect the house!”

They came in and, judging by how quickly the farmer’s face brightened up, he sensed that now all was well. The old priest roamed about the rooms for some time, but he was forced to admit that the dwelling was completely safe. Wildly shying, Mr. Larsen handed me a weighty bag of coins.

“You cannot imagine how thankful we are to you! I thought this nightmare would never end.”

Well, in a couple of days their nightmare would have ended anyway, but I wasn’t going to upset the client who paid money. I feigned a dry, cold, very dark magic smile and nodded: “Our staff does not make mistakes! We have recently entered the market in your area and would be grateful if you recommend us to your friends.” I gave shining business cards to both of them. “I ask you for a small favor: please do not give our contact info to the magician who examined your home before me. Dark mages are very sensitive to outsiders in their territory. I fear that he would try to hide his blatant incompetence through an ugly scandal.”

The farmer and the priest nodded so vigorously that I guessed that the local “cleaner” had already managed to manifest his appalling side.

“A word of advice. If you buy second-hand items, soak them in salt water or, depending on the nature of the object, pour rock salt and leave it on for a day. This will help you avoid trouble in the future. Seeing me off is not necessary!”

I moved off, proudly keeping my back straight and not turning around. I walked along the trail that wound through the hills and fields. Next time, I will get a cane and learn how to handle it elegantly. A cane with a knob in the form of a skull.

The trip to the station would have to last a whole day, and I intended to take classes at the university the next morning. The noticeably weightier gripsack didn’t get on my nerves any more, and the thought of three hundred crowns warmed my heart.

My visit to Gugentsolger’s could be postponed for a while.

A black lacquered carriage drawn by a pair of well-fed trotters stopped in front of a large farmhouse. Four children of different ages played inside the gates in the company of a sprightly red dog and a melancholic pony. Two people sat on the box of the carriage, and one more man—a passenger—sprawled on a leather seat and looked bored. The coachman stayed with the horses, and his satellite jumped down from the box and quickly went into the house. This man’s appearance could not generate any sympathy: he was lean and thin-boned by nature, with a puffy face, swollen eyelids, bluish-gray nose and cheeks from a mesh of burst blood vessels. His black coat was quite worn out and shiny on the elbows, and his pants looked chewed and stretched at the knees. The passenger from the leather seat gave him a contemptuous glance, stood up, causing the seat to squeak sadly, and slowly followed the first man. That passenger was tall, dressed in the impeccable suit of a public bureaucrat, and his bearing reminded one of a guard officer; upon his appearance, the red dog hid behind the children’s feet and began growling with displeasure.

The owner of the house wasn’t happy with the arrival of the guests.

“Look, that asshole is back again!” the farmer said through his teeth, watching the approaching people through the slit in the curtains.

“We did not call him!” his wife stepped in.

“That’s right. Take the children out of sight; I’ll meet them.”

Meanwhile, the owner of the coat reached the porch but did not step on it.

“Mr. Larsen!” he called in a quavering falsetto. “Mr. Larsen, may I talk to you for a moment?”

The farmer went out to the porch, staring gloomily at the visitors. His wife slipped behind him, gathered the children in the yard, and took them into the house.

“What is it, Mr. Kugel? We seemed to agree that my house was none of your business.”

“You misunderstood me, Mr. Larsen! I said that I could not help, but today I have brought a colleague of mine who is able to… ”

“We do not need your help!”

“You misunderstood…”

“Do I need to repeat it?”

“I apologize,” the tall gentleman stepped in, pushing hapless Kugel aside, “But if your house does have a supernatural contamination, as it was reported, it is a threat not only to your family, but also to your neighbors. Such beings do not go away; they cannot be ignored. Saving five hundred crowns, you drive them to the stage when they become dangerous to your loved ones, and the house has to be burned down…”

“Don’t you dare come near my house!”

A white magician in a fury was a rare and atypical phenomenon, and the consequences of that could be—oh-ho-ho! The tall gentleman raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

“I beg your pardon! I used an incorrect expression, excuse me! I just want to make sure that the threat does not exist. It is my duty; I must react to the report. I only need to have a look; I won’t give you any trouble!”

The farmer pulled himself together with visible effort.

“You may enter. But I repeat: we do not have any problem, and we do not need your services.”

The tall gentleman went into the house and almost immediately came out. Mr. Kugel still hemmed and hawed at the door: “I don’t understand. I was sure…”

Subtly swinging, the tall gentleman slapped him in the face with such force that the unfortunate guy flew to the ground head over heels.

“What a knucklehead! Why the hell do you work here? What do they pay you money for? You could not expel a phoma; you needed help, yeah? Had it been the phoma, it wouldn’t have left even the bones of these people, while we were driving here! This was your last day at the office. Gather your stuff; I fire you. Your luck that they found someone smarter than you; otherwise, you would be sentenced to life in the mines. What a muddle head!”

The boss kicked the mage—who was crying in the dust—with the toe of his shoe and strode toward the gates. The coachman did not wait for the latecomer, and Mr. Kugel had to go home on foot.

Chapter 9

My memory saved that winter in torn half remembered fragments, with some episodes looking like they occurred to someone other than me.

Everyone knew that the first six months after the Empowerment was the most difficult period for a dark magician. Searching for equilibrium with the Source, a mage changed internally and externally (I don’t mean growing hooves and horns); this was true for both the dark and the white. Previously, I was amused by the looks of the third-year students, roaming the university with stupid smiles, hopping and skipping, or “saving” autumn leaves from puddles. A magician in the period of temporary insanity was a favorite topic in student jokes. Now I understood that the targets of jokes were only the white mages; no joker (fortunately for him or her) saw the dark ones in that state. Persistent rumors about zombies, circulated by the Faculty of Combat Magic, suddenly made sense.

Future masters and generals headed home from the faculty late at night, in complete darkness, without stooping to offer vulgar wishes of “good night”. That was the way the genuine darks had to behave in their own circle! But my old habits were so strong that I could barely keep myself from giving a parting gesture. One wizard wrote that the dark developed a nasty character as a means of self-preservation—that was the only way to withstand the day-to-day pressure of the hostile Source. I definitely didn’t have enough bitchiness. Perhaps only blind faith in my invincibility protected me from a complete collapse of personality.

Not good to be a dark, grown up among the white.

Leaving the gloomy walls of the faculty, I used to drop into the nearest pub, where I ate, not tasting the food, and drank without getting drunk, and then the pub owner called me a cab. Yes, I could afford a ride, not a walk, to the hostel now! I did not know how other dark students managed to find their way in such condition. The thought that the next day would be entirely devoted to alchemy helped me to sleep without nightmares.

In fact, I could have every other weekday off—the Roland Fund’s awardees were eligible for benefits for the first six months after the Empowerment. But they wouldn’t have done me any good. Had I not alternated magic practice with alchemy courses, I would have lost my mind. After the painful efforts of practicing with the Source, alchemy was like a balm—cool, clear, sincere. Predictability and accurate calculations, beauty of formulas and knowledge of the true essence of things, tamed power of the elements loaded my hands with work and didn’t strain the brain. My admiration for alchemy reached the stage that I shed tears watching the delightful precision of the work of the turret lathe. Quarters sympathetically patted me on the shoulder. Perhaps, other students did not get tired so much, because they were smart enough not to become engaged in illegal practice.

Meanwhile, my underground business gained momentum. I wasn’t greedy, I did not have to advertise at all, but people were calling and calling. My previous clients put a bug in their neighbors’ ears; that system worked especially effectively among rural residents. It just boggled my mind how many terrible secrets were hidden amidst peaceful bucolic landscapes! Phomas, birth curses, water spuns, anchutkas, brownies, quiet plague, and even predatory echoes. It seemed that somebody multiplied the supernatural there. Once or twice a week the answering service received a call from a customer, tearfully pleading to save his or her Uncle Peabody or Aunt Triffani. I mean to save in a literal sense, since not even once I came across a case of primitive psychosis that I used to see so much in Redstone. A couple of times I was called when the clients had a death in the family. It was not about the money any more—I did not have time to spend it. Even if I were a dark magician in the power of three, hard-hearted and tough, I could not fence-sit on a woman, sobbing into the phone, whose son had picked up bone rot at the cemetery. It would be physically impossible, at least for me.

Not good to be a dark, having grown up in a white family.

My “chatter-box”, Ms. Fiberti, responded to my problems with surprising understanding. I obtained a corner in her apartment to keep an escritoire with filing cabinets and workbooks, a rack for my gripsack, and a hanger for my business suit (the suit and the gripsack were my own now). Every evening the hostess made amazingly delicious strawberry tea and allowed me to speak out, and I was immensely grateful to her for that.

I approached the rate of “two calls per weekend”, and geography of my trips became more and more complicated. Leisure time disappeared—I hardly slept enough those days. Long walks and lengthy waiting times for the train turned into a sophisticated form of torture. After falling asleep on the platform and almost freezing to death while waiting for a train, I realized that I needed my own transportation.

I couldn’t choose which one. A horse was no good—I had no place to hold it, and horses would die from such loads. Alas, I wasn’t able to afford a large black limousine with leather seats; the only other option that came to mind was a bicycle. After counting my savings and finding the crazy amount of fifteen hundred crowns, I decided to become more creative in my search - to show off, putting it simply.

The only car dealer I knew was located across the river, just opposite the dormitory, and from a distance it looked like a long shed with a skylight. I didn’t intend to buy anything there—just to get an idea of what was on the market. That place seemed like the right one to start with. I wanted to stretch the nerves of the salespeople, touch and test-drive the machinery, and then buy secondhand through classifieds and hope that I was lucky enough not to get a lemon.

I took a day off from my studies, slipping away from a lecture on magic theory; I didn’t anticipate any problems with that discipline. The sun was shining, light frost hardened the dirt, and a feeling of unexpected freedom intoxicated me as in spring. I wasn’t dressed officially (that business suit and tie were making me sick), and I looked like a funny anomaly strolling among well-dressed crowd. Middle-aged gentlemen, women with children, and old ladies with dogs leisurely sauntered along the promenade. Skinny, cheeky students didn’t belong there.

Was there a festival of some kind that day? Or was it just a popular place?

A lightly renovated barn displayed the proud name of “Plaza”. Most of the visitors, like me, came there just to browse. All of the car models could be viewed right in the hall, without going outside. The sunlight beat through the windows, and the room was surprisingly warm.

Two dozen brand-new cars were lined up against the long wall. Frustration gripped me when I looked at this exhibition of harlequins. Surely, I knew that cars were toys for wealthy townsfolk (rural residents preferred horse-powered carts and carriages, and for seasonal work they used awfully smoking tractors, powered by rapeseed oil), but I had no idea how far it had gone. All cars had been puffed and curved with an abundance of chrome and gold, in cheerful colors, and some came without a top. Just looking at them caused subconscious aversion. In addition, they all had a very low clearance; such toys were of no use in the places where my clients dwelled. A dark magician who had to be pulled out of potholes with a rope would become a disgrace for the whole profession! I felt an unbearable urge to buy a tractor and drive it back and forth all over the “Plaza”.

“Do you have anything military for sale?” without much hope I asked a pimply young guy with the badge of sales consultant. “For rural areas?”

He pursed his lips stiffly.

“We do not sell agricultural machinery!”

Look at that, a self-conceited flea!

“I know where I can buy trucks,” I smiled dryly. “I wonder if there is anything worth viewing at your place.”

“Hello! How are you?” his boss immediately smelled a brewing conflict. The young guy caught his glance and quietly disappeared. “Are you interested in anything special? Not everything that we sell is on display in the hall.”

I sighed. The dark mage profession had its advantages and drawbacks.

“I need an off-road vehicle that I could drive everywhere, small and black.”

“Would you like to browse our catalogs?”

I reluctantly agreed; his suggestion to look at the pictures meant that there were no suitable vehicles on display. The boss took me into his office behind the garage. The place turned out to be quite remarkable; all the walls were plastered with posters bearing images of machinery: engines and steam engines, cars of all makes, racing bolides, squared-off army trucks and tractors—anything that moved without the use of muscle power. A glass cabinet was filled with tiny copies of the most prominent models. I paused at a moped, resembling my own like two peas in a pod, and even blinked with pleasure—the owner had good taste.

“To find what you want,” the salesman said busily, putting thick binders of magazines on the table, “you need to articulate what you want. What you expect your vehicle will do, its operating conditions, fuel, your financial means, all of it. We will get you any model for the right price.”

“I frequently travel to the countryside. There are no roads there, none at all. I need to move quickly. Comfort doesn’t matter. I figured I could buy some used military equipment.”

“It’s feasible,” the salesman nodded, “but the military flogs their vehicles to the ground. You’ll get financially broken fixing their cars, but a brand new unit will cost you a fortune—their machines aren’t in demand among civilians. It ought to be a custom order.”

Shit… what I wanted was quite unique. Nobody, nobody thought of the needs of talented dark magicians, who had to work at the top of their bent! But the merchant already had his eyes fixed on the ceiling, digging hard into his memory; he seemed to be honored to satisfy the exotic request of his customer.

“Come on!” he started up suddenly. “You must see it.”

We left the garage, watched by his staff.

“I think an ethanol engine won’t work for you; it’s difficult to find dry alcohol briquettes in the countryside, and diluted spirit will stall the engine every other kilometer…”

I remembered my own experience with the moped and wholeheartedly agreed with him.

“So, we’re looking for something that works on oil,” he summarized. “Diesels are more complex in operation, but you have some experience, I believe…”

The salesman artfully taxied around the complex in a yellow two-seater car, simultaneously introducing me to the particulars of the automotive industry: “A couple years ago, Domgari Motors promoted cars with diesel engines, but their vehicles did not do well: except for the military, nobody showed any interest in them. Noisy and expensive to maintain, they were difficult to ignite in the cold weather and had really large dimensions. In short, the design was stalled. But the company managed to produce some prototypes…”

A hunting excitement awoke in me. Could it really be true that there was something in this world that could serve me and only me?

We drove into the suburbs, an area of warehouses and workshops.

“That’s it! Our surplus stock.”

Five vehicles were tightly stuffed in a dusty barn: small trucks, limousines with abnormally elongated hoods, and even a mini-bus.

“What’s the catch? Why did nobody buy them?”

“I’ll start them up, and you’ll understand,” he went to search for fuel oil.

I stayed to inspect the collection. All the cars were a bit too big compared to their usual counterparts, and at least three of them had a rather high clearance to fit the definition of an off-road vehicle. Oil was cheaper and more widespread than alcohol; consequently, there would be fewer problems filling up the gas tank. I noticed in one corner a smaller vehicle covered with a dusty tarp. The thing smelled strongly of dark magic.

“Oh, that!” the salesman approached me unnoticed. “A perfect beast. See for yourself.”

I pulled off the tarp. There was a motorcycle under it, so hefty that I dropped my jaw.

“A pitiful dead-end design,” the guy shook his head in sincere sorrow. “It’s not just the size. The engine is operated by dark magic; a single failure, and it would be cheaper to throw it away than to fix it. You know how expensive dark mages’ services are!”

I knew, because I provided those services myself.

“May I test-drive it?”

The salesman smiled: “Go ahead!”

The unit had been conserved skillfully; one could just wipe the dust off and fill the tank to drive it. Dark magic that gave the engine a kind of pseudo-life ate half of the oil in the tank at once and contentedly rumbled. My God, it was a mechanical zombie!

“Don’t go to town,” the guy asked.

I nodded and pulled the starter. The engine didn’t clatter, it roared. The motorcycle vibrated impatiently, almost jumping under my hand. I grinned, then turned on the gas and rolled out of the hangar.

The effect was stunning! Quietly talking salespeople turned their heads toward me in shock, sleepy technicians dropped their tools, and drivers of heavy trucks frantically clanged to the steering wheels, preparing to tame their raging beasts.

I toured around the hangar, creating terrified screams and unhealthy excitement.

This monster was capable of killing a white mage by its mere appearance—all the more so by the sound of it. Therefore, I could not ride it around the town; the last thing I needed would be fines for violation of road safety regulations. I would have to rent a garage somewhere on the outskirts of town to keep that monster… because I had made my choice.

The salesman welcomed my return with a mixture of irritation and excitement on his face.

“Hey, man! How much does it cost?” I shouted, bellowing over the roar of the engine.

“Four thousand!” he shouted in reply. “But you could buy it with a two-year installment plan!”

“I’ll take it!”

That was how I became the owner of the most monstrous vehicle in the whole Ingernika.

The motorcycle became the breath of air, the fresh stream that allowed me to get out of the stupor caused by the Empowerment; the vehicle merged my old and current lives—the awakened Power and the acquired freedom. I think I was the last student in our group to recover. Seeing me brisk and angry, Mr. Rakshat sighed with relief and began drilling us with renewed energy—there should be no dropouts in our group anymore.

My monstrous machine (prudently dyed black by the manufacturer) settled in a shed at a junkyard (the yardman owed me). The convenience was many-sided: first, no one could see it; second, no one could hear it; and finally, it was cheap. The junkyard dwellers would not dare steal from a dark magician, even under the death penalty; they were very superstitious people. So it all worked out splendidly, except for the yard’s stench. The roar of the rumbling engine didn’t let me fully enjoy my night rides—anybody could track my routes just by the sound. It did not help to keep the secrecy of my trips (remember, remember NZAMIPS!). Since buying another vehicle was out of the question, I had to modify the vehicle. I was an alchemist, after all! Though, my gut feeling was telling me that alchemy alone wouldn’t be enough.

The motorcycle was an advanced model that used a spell to operate the engine: it was a brilliant solution that relieved the owner of problems with the ignition and idling. The design fell short of perfect just a little bit. The solution came to me on the way to Redstone from a client’s: it was getting dark, but the headlight refused to light up—the spell that controlled the engine decided to ignore the dynamo-machine. The spell just disliked the dynamo! The engine heated up like a stove, but it could not incandesce one little steel hair in the bulb—the spell was rejecting intermediates, the wires and coils. The problem was fundamental: the dark spell was not an alchemical structure, created by a sorcerer once and for all; the spell existed as an equilibrium of flows, in constant movement, pseudo-alive. The engine was like an organism with its own rhythm, but it perceived the dynamo as an alien structure with a wholly different logic of being; the stronger body cast off the foreign one. They had to be designed as two separate modules, independent of each other, but coming in contact through a simple material buffer. Thinking about the design of the lighting block, I inevitably came to the issue of energy source. And then it hit me: aalternating current!

I made the alchemical parts of the new design in the workshop myself. As for the magic components, I hesitated for a while, but didn’t dare draw a pentagram in the garage. I asked Mr. Rakshat for a spot in the lab. The instructor was clearly impressed by the extent of my responsibility; he gave me the place and even advised periodically.

“I do not know why you need this amulet,” he hinted pointedly.

“Oh,” I brightened up, “it would be a revolution in the mufflers!” Let him suffer from curiosity.

I called Quarters to come and appreciate my exceptional skill and unique talent. By that time the device had already been installed and field tested twice—riding the motorcycle felt much more comfortable now.

Quarters respectfully looked around my machine.

“Cool bike! Does it run fast?”

I brushed him aside: “You’ve got that wrong. Look at this. Better - listen!”

I turned the starter, and the ground trembled.

“Wow!” Quarters shook his head, unaccustomed to my vehicle.

I grinned and turned an invisible lever on the panel. The roar was cut off immediately, transforming instead into a deep growl, and the headlight mounted on the handlebars beamed rays of blinding light.

“Wow!” Quarters’ eyes were glued to my motorcycle. “How are you doing that?”

“Dark magic.”

Quarters raised an eyebrow.

“Well, how do I explain it to you… the movement of pistons creates a light wave instead of sound.”

“Apply for a patent!”

“What?” I did not understand.

“This. Needs. To be. Patented,” he repeated slowly. “The first person to see it will instantly steal it.”

“Come on…” I did not want to get involved in such an enterprise. I do not like bureaucracy.

Quarters instantly caught my mood: “Do you want me to attend to it? We’ll split the profits 50/50.”

“Agreed!”

Half is better than nothing, right? Quarters was more knowledgeable about such things, his dad was wealthy, and instinct for money was hard-coded into my friend’s genes, he believed. Well, we’ll see about that.

My life was filled with colors again: money (lots of it), a fury of battles with monsters from the other world, the taste of victory, and the realization that I was a “genius” (according to Quarters). What else does a dark magician need to be happy? A silly question: of course, the news that NZAMIPS was shut down! And Captain Baer hung up.

Chapter 10

The window in Conrad Baer’s office looked to the west: the setting sun was peeping through. An old tree protected the room from direct sunlight in the summer, but now its leafless branches only introduced chaos, casting a net of weird shadows on the wall. However, the owner of the office wasn’t going to draw the blinds—he preferred to add some anxiety to the atmosphere. Having climbed to the rank of captain, the policeman nicknamed Locomotive willy-nilly learned some professional tricks.

The senior regional coordinator arrived from Ho-Carg at Redstone; another one, not Larkes, whom Locomotive more or less got used to. Larkes had been moved into another position, and nobody knew whether it was a promotion or the former boss was sent to a distant place like the King’s Island as a “cleaner”. The new coordinator, as rumored, possessed dark power at the master’s level; he was young and pathologically active. Having arrived in town on the five p.m. express, he requested an urgent meeting in one hour. The captain did not invite to the meeting any of his own mages, but he dressed in the highest level safety suit (just in case) and replaced his secretary with an agile guy from the guard (there was no reason to risk the life of a mother of three kids). The senior analyst, the head of the investigation group, and the on-duty patrol officer were called to the meeting as well.

It remained to be seen what the new boss had in mind.

The senior coordinator (young, perhaps too immature) appeared at the meeting together with a youthful woman, carefully maintaining distance between them. She had an inconspicuous appearance, with clothing that was strongly reminiscent of an archive servant, but an amazingly penetrating green-eyed gaze unmasked her. Locomotive displayed a blank face; his entire look lent to that. It was not his first meeting with a white empath; he guessed that this girl was a walking X-ray.

The coordinator’s move went down the drain: Conrad Baer was not the son of a glazier. But the question remained: what caused a dark magician to work in cahoots with a white? Strange winds must be blowing at the top…

“Senior Coordinator Mr. Satal. Ms. Kevinahari,” the captain introduced the newcomers. “Mr. Vosker, Inspector Shtoss, Lieutenant Hamirson. May we help you with anything?”

The coordinator looked around the room with evident displeasure. Having plenty of experience dealing with dark mages (they accounted for a quarter of his staff), the captain had arranged the furniture in his office in such a way that the visitor from the capital would not be able to take the place of the office’s owner. Baer did not care how weird the arrangement looked. If he did not stop the instinctive proclivities of the coordinator from the very beginning, he would have to quarrel with the dark all the way, figuring out which one of the two was the boss.

The guest hesitated for a few seconds but did not wade through the bottleneck of chairs. His companion smiled faintly and sat in a chair pre-arranged for her.

“The reason for our visit is the alarming news from the suburbs of Redstone.”

“…And management decided to satisfy our request for more staff?” Baer continued for him.

Mr. Satal angrily shrugged: “It’s about outrageous lawlessness in Redstone County!”

The coordinator said the magic word “county”, and the captain relaxed a little: formally, his mandate ended at the town’s boundaries, and the county office had not reported any problems lately.

“Could you provide more detail?”

It was a tricky question, because Locomotive recalled outright dozens of incidents in the county office that could be characterized as malfeasance, but he did not want to ruin the career of the chief of the county’s “cleaners”; the old man deserved his honorable retirement.

“A case of illegal practice. Five episodes minimum!”

The captain instantly caught what was going on. No, he did not have his own agents outside the town, but a large part of the Baer family lived in remote rural areas. Regular visits by his cousins ​​and aunts were enough to keep up with all the gossip. It did not make sense to deny the facts, and the captain allowed himself to correct the coordinator cautiously: “Probably, closer to two dozen cases.”

Mr. Satal crept: “Do you know what’s going on?”

“Only rumors, sir. The ssuburbs are outside my jurisdiction.”

For some time, the coordinator contemplated what was said, and Locomotive waited patiently to continue. He was surprised at the speed with which the news reached the capitol; generally, their superiors used to respond to the most urgent requests in a year, maybe a year and a half. The impression was that the couriers met in the middle or that a spy worked somewhere in the neighborhood, and his information went to the authorities directly.

“What exactly do you know?” Ms. Kevinahari finally gave tongue.

The captain shrugged: “Rumor is that any otherworldly problem could be solved without calling the “cleaners”. Inexpensive, fast, with a warranty.”

Not to mention that the unknown dark magician was polite and gave a discount to families with children.

“Nobody questions him about his certification and license,” the captain sighed.

“Do you consider it normal?”

Locomotive shrugged again: “Someone has to do the job!”

Locomotive did not want to inform on the county’s “cleaning” service or, rather, did not want to risk his life; the guests would leave, and he would stay. He knew firsthand the heart of the problem: townsfolk, faced with the boorishness of the county’s “cleaners”, often sent their complaints to the captain, and he and old Yudter, the chief of the “cleaners”, had to actually use their authority a few times to make the mages move their butts. At least a little bit. Alas, military status allowed the Division of the Supernatural Phenomena Liquidation (the official name of the “cleaning” service) to ignore opinions of the chief of the civil division of Redstone’s NZAMIPS. The “cleaners” paid him no mind, regularly and with pleasure.

“In some sense, you’re right,” Mr. Satal suddenly confessed. “All who approached the mage-infractor had direct or covert written rejections from the county’s “cleaners”. My team of internal investigators is working there now, and I guarantee that heads will roll. What an almshouse here, at taxpayers’ expense!”

That was the answer: the capitol authorities intended to instill the fear of superiors into the “cleaners” and stumbled upon the dubious magician right away. Locomotive remembered the ugly face of Colonel Grokk and cheered—the chief of the “cleaners” was cruising for a bruising!

Mr. Satal switched to a business-like tone again: “I hope I do not need to explain what our duty is?”

“To give this guy a medal?” the captain suggested.

“To give, but not a medal!” the coordinator exploded. “This man has gone crazy with greed: he conducts expulsion rituals at five-six day intervals. He is leaving no time for basic recovery. We must stop him before he destroys himself and others!”

Locomotive nodded sadly. Dark mages are essentially all the same: loosen the reins a bit, and they over-speed. It would be strange if a crook poking under the nose of the county’s “cleaners” were any different.

“Do we have any complaints?”

Mr. Satal’s face literally blackened; the captain even got frightened. A nutty boss was the last thing they needed here…

“We will act preemptively,” Ms. Kevinahari quickly interposed. “No use waiting for the situation to end in disaster.”

Locomotive nodded readily—let it be preemptive. He was not in the mood to test the reliability of his safety suit.

“We received neither complaints,” the coordinator pulled himself together, “nor certified testimonies. One might as well start a conspiracy case!”

Baer imagined peasants that suffered a great deal from the cleaners’ meanness “greeting” NZAMIPS agents, and he silently sympathized with the coordinator: his people, carrying out their duty, felt spit at up and down. It remained to be seen how they intended to look for the mage, with no statement or witness testimony…

“We don’t have an imprint of his aura,” Ms. Kevinahari added to the conversation. “He uses a portable altar and the most basic spells and always thoroughly destroys all traces of divination. Even if we get a search warrant, unlikely we will find any specific proof.”

“The prudent son of a bitch,” Mr. Satal sighed.

“By the way, he is a good psychologist, too,” the empath seemed to be amused by the difficulties before her colleagues. “For a dark, it is a very rare skill! Nobody saw him without a black coat, leather shoes, a handbag and, more recently, a cane. These flashy attributes of the profession attract all the attention: the witnesses who agreed to speak with us cannot describe his facial features or even his hair color.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t operate alone?” Locomotive suggested cautiously.

“Can you picture a cohesive team of dark magicians?” the coordinator hummed. “No, his style is too unique, precisely because of his elusiveness. The guy works not only with magic, but with people as well: he says what they want to hear, does what they expect from him. He is so convincing in this role that even the white don’t feel false; on the contrary, they would rather not trust the police. You have no idea how difficult it is for a dark to achieve this!”

Captain Baer had some ideas.

“That is,” he concluded, “you can only catch him red-handed.”

“That’s it. The county’s office is now trying to find his contacts.”

Locomotive figured that Mr. Satal would wait for a long time for the results from his old friend Yudter: the chief of the county’s “cleaners”, being a seasoned pro, didn’t fear resignation and criticized the politics of the capitol’s authorities, using foul language. He would need to talk to the old man in person; acting together, they would be able to prevent the bloody denouement of the story. The captain didn’t doubt for a moment that the end would be bloody. After the mage’s arrest he would petition the court to mitigate the punishment and, perhaps, even offer the enterprising guy a full-time position at NZAMIPS. But he had to be found first.

“Have you already got some details?” the captain asked.

Ms. Kevinahari took the floor again: “We were able to establish that our smart guy uses public transit for traveling; the analysis showed that the starting point of his routes was, most likely, Redstone. In addition, we noticed certain periodicity in his actions; for example, he never goes to clients on Wednesday. We may, of course, suggest some sort of superstition, but most likely he is engaged in some legitimate work at this time.”

Redstone! That’s why they came to him. Locomotive tried to figure out which one of his charges could have gotten involved in this venture and shook his head: “Redstone is a big town; there are a lot of dark magicians here. Furthermore, there’s the university. This guy just needs to change clothes to mix with townsfolk.”

Mr. Satal reluctantly nodded: “We have a chance to track him down at the station—a man in a black coat, with a cane and handbag should be eye-catching.”

“How many people do you intend to involve in surveillance?” Captain Baer said half-heartedly, weighing his resources.

“Two!” Ms. Kevinahari calmed him down. “It would look strange if I wait at the station alone, without a companion.”

In a quarter of an hour they had created a plan for the operation. Locomotive admitted that an ambush with the empath’s participation was the surest means of solving the problem. The coordinator himself wasn’t going to take part in the ambush, but he couldn’t wait—his eyes thirsted for action. Captain Baer hoped that Mr. Satal would direct his energy at the county’s “cleaning” service. The guard on duty, who replaced the captain’s secretary, called the garage for a car. The fierce coordinator and his empath were shown out to the hotel.

When thick cabinet doors closed behind the visitors, Mr. Vosker loudly gasped; the senior analyst of Redstone’s NZAMIPS was a nervous man that grew pale simply upon hearing the words “dark magician”. Meeting with the new boss made the poor man lose heart.

Inspector Shtoss cleared his throat: “Hmm, a very energetic man.”

Captain Baer just smiled: “He is exactly what is needed to whip Colonel Grokk into shape. Listen,” he turned to Hamirson, and the lieutenant melancholically raised his eyebrow, “Do not do any favors for the county’s “cleaners”, and order your people the same. Everything should go through me! All inquiries should bear signatures, all papers—endorsements. The same applies to the rest of you.”

His subordinates nodded with understanding.

“Grokk will twitch now like a man hanged on a rope; I hope he won’t drag us with him!”

In the evening the NZAMIPS’ office was empty and quiet. Mr. Satal marched proudly to the exit door, glancing disapprovingly at tubs of ficus plants and flowerpots; his empath kept an impenetrable silence. The coordinator broke their quiescence first: “What a sleazebag,” he said through his teeth. “How did he manage to become an officer with such a mug?”

Ms. Kevinahari smiled slyly, but her voice was serious and reserved: “Conrad Baer has been with NZAMIPS longer than I’ve been alive, achieved a perfect career record, liquidated an incident in Nintark, and was awarded a medal twice. A skilled and responsible manager.”

“How does his current behavior fit with the massacre in Nintark?” the coordinator snorted.

“He showed no enthusiasm today,” the empath admitted, “but I cannot say that he does not understand the problem. Rather, the captain chooses the lesser evil. Obviously, the situation with the supernatural is so serious that he is willing to pay for twenty successful expulsions with lives of the mage and those nearby.”

“What a bastard.”

“He is cynical,” the empath agreed, “tends to manipulate others, but he is dedicated to his job. He will go after our guy.”

“He wouldn’t dare not to.”

“I would like to point out to you that any reference to the ‘cleaners’ causes inadequate reaction in all respondents.”

“You bet!” Mr. Satal almost spat in a fit of temper. “I’ll be damned if any of those scams remain in the service!”

“The capitol is partially guilty,” Ms. Kevinahari recalled. “We should have foreseen that ten years of peace would badly impact the team that was made up entirely of dark magicians.”

“They had enough fun for the last three years, the frequency of manifestations has been quite high.”

The empath did not argue. Mr. Satal paused on the porch steps, intently eyeing the street, as if expecting to see the man wearing a black coat and a cane.

“I haven’t been here since the day of my graduation,” he said quietly. “Nothing has changed. The province, what else can I say?!”

“Would you like to change anything?” Ms. Kevinahari moved her head.

The senior coordinator paused before replying. A tram rolled along the neighboring street, banging and clanging; soft music was heard from the pub on the corner. Second-shift NZAMIPS’ staff was leaving the office with relief, excitedly discussing something—it was Friday.

“No, I wouldn’t,” the magician said very seriously.

They did not discuss this question further.

Chapter 11

“An incredible monster—huge, black, and one-eyed—raced down the road, frantically snarling. Blinded by the light of the evil pupil, a child stood stock-still, barely seeing a brave knight that sat on the back of the monster and firmly held the creature by the horns. Having noticed the boy, the beast reared; then, tamed by a firm hand, the beast obediently froze after roaring one last time.

‘I am a dark magician. Who called me?’ a stentorian voice resounded.

‘There are… dead… many…”

‘Show me!’ a fearless magician commanded sternly, grabbing his crosier with right hand and a magic valise with left.

The boy seemed to hear the magician mutter under his breath something like, ‘Every time in deep shit’ but, obviously, it was a sound hallucination.”

I could not read further. Ms. Fiberti was crying from laughter.

“Who wrote this… such…” I had many epithets for the content of the article in The Western Herald, but they were all quite obscene.

“What do you want, Thomas? Not every day a dark magician can stop an army of ghosts!”

“What crosier, damn it? I had a cane, a walking stick! I thought it would be handy to cope with furious dogs.”

“A cane and a crosier are similar things. Oblong…”

“How about the valise? Where did they take the valise from?”

“The magic valise,” Ms. Fiberti giggled again.

“Other magicians will be reading that! The dark ones! I look like a complete idiot in there!”

“Don’t worry; they haven’t mentioned your name. Imagine what people will say about ‘cleaners’ after that!”

I pictured how tough combat mages from the “cleaning” service would be reading that nonsense… and neighed like a horse for ten minutes, unable to stop.

Although the situation did not seem quite so funny last week.

That day started badly: the route I planned out on the map did not match what was in the area. One of the selected roads simply didn’t exist; the other one ended in a ruined bridge. There were no people coming from the opposite direction; in short, all of the attributes of a “bad place” were present. Mindful of how bold travelers end their life, I did not try to go straight through the low ground, overgrown with rotten wood and, making a huge roundabout, approached the target of my trip from the diametrically opposite side. With a powerful engine and new tires, I reached the place long before the onset of darkness. And why my motorcycle always has a headlight on, you already know.

I drove along a broken dirt road in the late afternoon, seeing the property on the hill exactly as described by the caller, and I was happy that I didn’t have to spend the night in the field. Suddenly, a kid jumped on the road out of nowhere. A motorcycle is not a limousine; I could pass a pedestrian even on a very narrow road, but it was a risky move on the boy’s part, anyway. I stopped and counted to ten. What would have happened if I had touched the kid with the shields? They stuck out for half a meter from the base and could hit hard. After some thought, I decided that the boy was sent to meet me and asked him: “Have you called a dark mage?”

The boy was pale, shaking; his shirt and pants were ripped with blood spots in front and on the back. Furthermore, one was struck with the impression that his clothes were torn with teeth. This misfortune looked at me and murmured: “Dead, dead, they’re all dead!”

I thought some kids had been hit by a spell while playing. Familiar story - pitiful, but nothing could be done. I grabbed my gripsack and cane (the latter because there were always dogs on bigger farms) and pulled the string, converting my jacket into the coat—a typical military clothes’ modification.

“Well, show the way,” I told the kid calmly.

As far as I remember, I even took the time to apply the cleansing spell to my clothes. The owner of the estate was an ambitious man from a big city; you could not come in dirty shoes to a guy like that!

Why should I be nervous? I did not know at that time that zombies had been slaughtering the inhabitants of the estate for three generations in a row, and the day before a “cleaner” came in and awakened all the nonlife around. I walked to the house and suddenly noticed three ghouls, approaching me from the opposite direction. They were typical fully matured undead, dripping with green juice, a head taller than any man, with claws and fangs of the size that no living being could possess in principle. Moreover, they were moving despite the day time, very quickly, and I had neither a drafted pentagram ready, nor a flame-thrower in hand.

Students learned combat curses only in their senior year, at the very end of their studies, as juniors, we practiced how to call and hold basic spells, but the deadly threat fantastically sped up my learning process. Since the case with Rustle in the Prison Bay I knew how the combat curse should look (from the view of an objective observer). Terrified, I squeezed out of myself some quivering form, crumpled it into a sort of Shadow Sickle, and crying: “Hishu hara!” tossed it into the ghouls.

Naturally, my curse did not incinerate them, but I managed to delay the zombies; in some places, where my weaving touched the monsters, their bodies were severed into long, stirring rag-like tentacles. Not that it hurt them; rather, they were puzzled. While they were deciding whether to fix themselves or stay cut up as they were, I grabbed the kid under my arm (all this time he was hiding behind my back) and ran away.

Students of Redstone University maintain good physiques!

I hid behind a shed and recalled that ghouls only pursued objects visible to them (they were unable to keep images in their memory long enough). I paused to take a breath and realized that I missed something: there were four ghouls, not three—the fourth being a dog, raised from the dead.

A quite fresh corpse. It stood and watched.

When the creature was alive, it was a big, prick-eared dog of the kind farmers of the valley liked to keep. The invasion of the supernatural had already changed the dog: its bones and muscles stretched, its skin burst in some places, and teeth protruded from its mouth. Naturally, the otherworldly that had animated the dog did not want to cripple it; the supernatural just did not know—could not know—how to create a truly living thing. The deviations were not strong yet—little time had passed since the death of the dog. At the whim of the supernatural, a wave of pseudo-life touched not only the body, but also the brain of the animal (it doesn’t happen often). The animal even slightly wagged its tail. While alive, the creature must have been very kind. Now, it probably started feeling urge to tear and gulp living flesh to satisfy its hunger. The dog used to take food from people’s hands, and it wasn’t so crazy yet as to hunt them down.

The fourth ghoul waited for me to feed it.

I had two options. I could smash its skull with my cane and move on, forever remembering the glance of the deceived dog that remained so faithful to people, even while dead. Or I could complete the process, correct the errors committed by the supernatural, and turn it into a genuine zombie that would not eat flesh and blood, but would require revivifying spells regularly. Had anyone found me doing something like that, I would have been burned alive.

Not good to be a dark magician that grew up among the white.

I called the dog by quietly whistling, let it sniff my palm, and put my hand on its back. Completion of the transformation was surprisingly easy: the life meridians had not cooled down in the body yet. I passed the spell over them. The dog liked the actions that I made; it wagged its tail and tried to lick my face.

So, the three ghouls left on the agenda, but I couldn’t perform the same trick with them—they were transformed long ago and irreversibly. I turned to the kid, who watched my actions with intense interest. The boy was so exhausted by fear that he wouldn’t run from me, even if he wanted to.

“Pull yourself together, man! I need to know what happened, or they will eat us here.”

Experience with my stepfather and younger white brother helped me to get out all the details I needed without beating the unfortunate kid. Things couldn’t be worse: his parents bought the estate six months ago, after something bad had happened to the former owners. Almost immediately they applied to the local “cleaning” service, but the bastard cleaners put them on a waitlist, not even bothering to find out the reason for the complaint. Two weeks ago, a representative of “Totars Energy” was supposed to pay them a visit to give a quote for hook-up to the power supply network, but the guy didn’t show up; later the company declared his disappearance. The police didn’t demonstrate any enthusiasm in searching for him; the new owners of the estate learned from the officers that people disappeared from that place regularly throughout the past one hundred years. The kid’s father’s patience had exhausted, he called me, and we agreed to meet.

But yesterday the long-awaited “cleaner” with a team of assistants and police officers finally visited the farm. I did not know what this parody on the dark troopers was trying to accomplish; they decided that the poor tradesman was killed either by one of his own, or by a tramp, or by the farmer. These psychos didn’t bother to evacuate the family; instead, they rushed to the woods that I had bypassed. Two local policemen flatly refused to participate in the suicidal event. Thanks to those two, there were still people alive at the estate: when ghuls and ghouls, new and old, came to the front from the forest, the brave rural boys met them with heavy fire. Alas, bullets (any bullets) could not stop three ghouls, each a century old. Only dark magic was effective against such creatures, and the senior “cleaner” returned from the forest as one of the zombies.

It would be best to pick up the boy and run away, but, according to the kid, his family was still hiding in the house, along with the two courageous policemen and an assistant to the “cleaner”, who had not gone to the woods. As soon as the sun dropped behind the horizon, the zombies would become stronger and more resolute; they were not stupid, just their mind, affected by the supernatural, manifested itself erratically and unpredictably. People’s lives depended on whether I could resolve the situation before the nightfall.

The zombie-dog whined and rubbed my knee.

“Now, kid, I need your help. Do you know your neighborhood well?”

He nodded.

“Is there flat ground, roughly the size of a croquet field, nearby?”

He thought and shook his head.

“Any spot, more or less level? I need to draw a pentagram.”

He nodded and walked me around the house. The zombie-dog disappeared in the bushes, but I didn’t worry about it. The level ground was a barnyard, overgrown with weeds. Without complex preparation I could only use a patch of a hundred square feet in size. There was no way that I could seal all three ghouls at the same time.

“Listen, does your father keep spirits here?”

Oil was not well suited for cremation, but the spirit would do the job just fine. The boy pointed toward the house.

“Excellent. Now climb the tree and look sharp! If anything moves, knock, whistle, or shout to me.”

I hoisted him onto the lower branch. At least, one of us would stay safe now.

Drawing a pentagram proved easy, but the next step—lighting a black candle—I postponed: before commencing, I had to find some weapon. In the driveway, I stumbled upon a phaeton without horses and an army truck with a canvas top; the team of the “cleaner” must have arrived in them at the manor. A fresh ghul was sitting motionlessly in the cab of the truck. I carefully climbed into the truck’s body. They ought to bring some weapons with them! I managed to find a flare-gun (an exotic and funny device) and a pack of flares. There was also a spare canister of oil; all the rest the policemen had carried away. I took the flare-gun and slowly spilled oil all over the truck, then soaked a piece of cloth in the fuel, turning it into a great wick. To attack the three mature ghouls with one flare-gun would be stupid, so I had to go around the perimeter of the house in hopes of finding something else. Fortunately for me, the owner kept a barrel of spirits that leaked slightly, and I managed to find it by smell in the barn. It was getting dark outside with almost no time left until sunset. I made three trips, filling large buckets with alcohol and placing them along the path to the barnyard. Then I loaded the pistol, said a prayer, and hit the truck with a flare.

The fresh ghul, not quite used to the role of a zombie, panicked and forgot how to open the cabin door. It cried almost like a man and burned for a long time.

The three mature ghouls emerged rapidly. Had I not strained all my senses, I wouldn’t have gotten away from them. Only on the second attempt did I manage to pour over the most active zombie with spirit. Rushing into the barnyard, I set fire to it with the pistol. The zombie caught fire unexpectedly well and burned brightly, with fountains of sparks (which was very handy, because in the darkness I could miss my own pentagram). There was no time left for any mistakes: the other two zombies attacked me practically together. I lit a black candle and stood behind the pentagram so that the drawing separated me from the undead. The second one was moving directly over the pentacle.

“Dangemaharus!”

And I shut the trap. A dense column of fire filled the pentagram. When the flame had subsided, the zombie disappeared without a trace. And the black candle went with it. It burned down at once, and the pentagram became useless. The last ghoul was safe and sound: it was too far away, and the flame did not touch it. I turned around and ran to the tree, knowing that I wouldn’t get there in time.

The situation was saved by the zombie-dog, clinging to the loins of the undead with a belly growl. How could I not believe in good deeds?! I climbed to the tree and together with the kid watched as the dog tore the ghoul; the two deserved each other. I thought hard what to do next: the sun was about to set, and I did not want to find out what that third ghoul was capable of at night.

“Will you save my mother?” the boy asked cautiously.

“Of course!” I habitually lied. “Let Max wear the ghoul down a bit.”

The zombie-dog excitedly attacked the ghoul.

“Max?” the boy repeated doubtfully. “Actually, its name is Archie.”

“I hate to tell you, kid, but your Archie has died. It’s Max now. And if anyone notices Max, the ‘cleaners’ will kill me.”

“Why?” he did not understand.

“Why did they let all these people die?” I asked reasonably. “Because they are not capable of controlling the supernatural creatures! They can decimate them one way or another, but to control—no chance.”

“What about you?”

Should I tell him that I was doing this for the first time in my life?

“Sure, I can. I am the most powerful necromancer in Ingernika! Secret knowledge is transferred in our family from father to son for a thousand years. Naturally, we use it solely to protect people from the supernatural.”

I thought for a while. It was vital to take Max away from that place: the zombie-dog served as proof of my crime; no one should see it. Also, I needed to convince the boy to keep silence.

“Listen, let’s make a deal. Give Max to me! I’m going to take good care of the dog. It has a real talent for hunting ghouls; it would be shameful to bury Max in the ground!”

The boy hesitated.

“In order to ‘live’, it must be constantly fed with dark magic, and you are short of it in this place. Without a necromantic ritual it would stay ‘alive’ only until the next full moon.”

The position of the celestial bodies had no significance whatsoever, but the phrase sounded meaningful.

“Okay,” the kid decided, “I’ll tell Max to go with you.”

“Thanks, man! You’ll see, your dog will become a hero.”

That was dependent on the condition that we stay alive until the dawn. Meanwhile, the prospects of that were dim.

The zombies fought at the far end of the barnyard in the dilapidated stables. The dog successfully limited the mobility of the ghoul, and that gave me some room for maneuver. I had one more bucket of spirit and the flare pistol that was buried somewhere in the weeds. I waited until the ghoul turned its back to the tree and smiled at the boy: “Well, I am going! Wish me luck.”

Now the flare-gun was within my reach, but the bullets got lost somewhere; just one remained that I managed to drive into the trunk. The bucket leaked, a little more than half left inside. I hoped that would be enough. Having approached the fighting zombies, I managed to pour the spirit over the ghoul. The monster attacked me, but the dog hung on it as a wriggling and snarling anchor. I retreated to the tree and ordered: “Max, to me!” and fired a flare point-blank at the ghoul.

It burned to death, but not instantaneously. For a couple more minutes the zombie was running after me in the yard in the agony of death. When it was all over, I gratefully patted the dog’s ears.

“Good for you, doggie! We made it.”

“Do not come down!” I told the boy. “I need to check if there are some other zombies here. Until I get back, do not dare go down to the ground.”

The boy nodded. It is in silly fairy tales that people do everything the wrong way round, but in reality, when they find themselves face-to-face with death, they become placid and obedient.

We reconnoitered together, the beast and the dark mage. The zombie-dog trotted briskly ahead, carefully sniffing. I was sure that it would notice a ghoul before me. The truck had already burned down, twilight passed into the night, but it was quiet and calm—the kind of silence that suggested the danger had passed. I made a torch out of the materials at hand because I had no idea where to look for the lamp. The owners were quite wealthy; they even had their own electric generator (fueled by oil, not by alcohol). It wasn’t running—they forgot or hadn’t wanted to turn it on. I checked the contacts and pushed the switch—it worked. The yard became lit with light bulbs, but the house was dark. It was not a good sign.

I told the dog: “Bring me my gripsack!” and cautiously came closer to the house to peer through the windows. I found the cane under my feet—I had almost forgotten about it.

A minute later I heard panting—the zombie-dog brought me my bag. I began to like the beast.

“Hide!” I ordered. “People should not see you. Meet me at the motorcycle.”

It disappeared into the darkness.

First, I lit a candle, but it attracted no zombies; only the dog ​​rustled and breathed noisily in the bushes. Then I walked around the house calling: “Is anybody alive?”

About fifteen minutes later a pale spot flashed in the second floor’s window.

“Who’s there?” a voice shuddered.

“Have you called a dark mage?”

“Beware of the zombies!”

“They are in the past. Do you remember how many of them were there?”

A movement in the window, and another voice answered me.

“Twelve men had gone into the forest. Then I saw seven zombies come back, but we were able to decimate one or two of them.”

“How many were the old ones?”

“Three.”

“Then the worst that is left is a couple of zombies straight from the tin, lurking in the corners. We can look for them in the morning. Is there light in the house?”

“Have you indeed killed three ghouls?”

Judging by his knowledge of terminology, it was one of the “cleaners”. The ghul relates to the ghoul as a lap-dog to a wolfhound. The ghuls that are many years old are called ghouls; years of being undead give them strength. I restrained myself from displaying a contemptuous smirk; the “cleaner” would not see it anyway.

“Yes! And without much effort. Plus one of the young zombies in the truck. But I had a problem with reagents—I did not expect to meet an army of zombies. Who was the idiot that raised them?”

He stayed silent in response; the “cleaner” did not want to acknowledge his folly but could not refute my words.

“Okay, never mind. Stay where you are now. I’ll take the boy to the nearest farm and come back in the morning. We will talk about my fee.”

“Is Mihas alive?” it was a troubled woman’s voice.

“Yes. Are you his mother?”

“Mihas! I must see him!”

I heard a noise that sounded like strife. Oh-ho… I’d better run from here and let them sow their wild oats by the morning.

“In short, we’ll take the road to the east.”

“Mihas!”

I had to take the kid to the house and let her cry it out. The boy was surprisingly quiet and very seriously tried to persuade his mother to wait until the morning. When we left, she was still sobbing.

“Is she from the white?” I asked, turning my motorcycle around.

“No. My grandfather is a white.”

“I see. A family trait!”

“What is the family trait?” the boy felt hurt.

“Weak nerves.”

Receiving my command, the motorcycle’s magic breathed fire into the cylinders and spun the shaft; the engine roared, and a dazzling cone from the headlight punctured the darkness.

“Hold on tight!” I ordered pulling the strings of the coat, and we moved east, followed by the quick shadow of the zombie-dog.

I didn’t return to the farm; my suspicions were correct and freedom was more important than money. It seemed unwise to allow the “cleaners” to see my face: they could quickly take me to NZAMIPS. I explained to the boy that all the zombies were gone from the farm, and the police would investigate the case. I reminded him not to tell anyone about the dog.

“…Unless asked directly with no other option; outright lying is not good.”

He nodded in accord.

The owners of the neighboring farm, alarmed by news of the ghouls’ attack and reassured that everything would be fine from now on, agreed to take care of the kid and let the police know about the incident. Halfway to the highway, I saw from a distance a column of military trucks with the NZAMIPS logo, stirring dust from the opposite direction. I cheerfully turned into the bushes—did not want to renew acquaintance with my “beloved captain.”

A day later, back at home, browsing through the headlines of the morning papers, I realized what had happened. It turned out that one of the policemen did break alive through that same cursed forest and managed to call for backup. A regiment of NZAMIPS’ troopers drove there all night because the three active ghouls were horribly dangerous (originally there were four, but one of the killed “cleaners” managed to sell his life dear). The military convoy was pursued by a pack of journalists, willing to risk their lives for an opportunity to observe the fight. I saw a few of them thumbing a lift on the roadside, but intuition prompted me not to stop. Well, they were in the right place, and no ghouls—not even a poor ghul—were there. All were decimated.

It was then that the folktale of the “dark knight on a horned monster” was born.

Mass media went on and on, relishing the story of a private magician that successfully replaced a battalion of “cleaners”. More sensible people questioned how the ghouls could hide for so many years in the heart of a densely populated land, repeatedly attacking unsuspecting villagers. Casualties of “cleaners” and policemen (the ghouls had eaten the big boss) added savor to the story. The chief of the regional NZAMIPS’ office gave an interview, in which he regretted what had happened and remorsed, regretted and remorsed, and swore on his life that everything would be fine in the county from now on.

It was then that I became a wanted criminal. Initially, NZAMIPS’ officials hinted at a reward for the “knight” for saving people, and then they publicly offered me to come and get it (did they think I was an idiot?). Finally, a reward was promised for information about me (well, go interrogate the ghouls!). Ms. Fiberti, my “answering service”, was visited by some guests, but she was a willful woman and chased them all out. Emotions gradually quieted, but it was clear even to journalists that the dark magician, practicing for almost a year in the county, was from Redstone.

The day after the incident, I left the university after the second lecture reporting myself sick, and went to my “answering service”. There I was handed a new issue of The Western Herald.

“Ms. Fiberti, we need to talk seriously.”

She knowingly nodded: “Do you want to shut down the business?”

“After what happened, NZAMIPS will comb the entire county. I do not want trouble.”

She sighed, “I’m sorry that it’s over; I liked working with you. May I,” she adjusted her glasses in embarrassment, “write a book about you?”

“A book?”

“A novel. Naturally, I’ll change your name.”

“Do you think it would be interesting to anybody?”

“I believe so.”

“Fine!” I generously agreed. “Just let me browse through it when you finish. I don’t want to look like a complete idiot.”

Ms. Fiberti made me tea; I packed up the filing cabinet and neatly folded my business suit.

“Will you have problems because of me?”

She grinned: “If anything, I will say that I rented out a room with the phone and did not know who lived there.”

So we parted.

I wrapped my black gripsack in a white towel and went to the junkyard, where my horned monster slept peacefully under the protection of the zombie-dog. If someone stumbled into those two, the gripsack would be my smallest concern. How could I manage to get into such a mess? I thought I didn’t do really bad things… at least I did not plan… most importantly, everyone was happy, and then suddenly—hop—I was a danger to society (according to NZAMIPS). It was time to stop illegal activity. I vowed to myself to find Captain Baer’s business card in the pockets of my old pants, frame it, and hang over my desk as a constant reminder to stay away from adventures.