My Path to Magic

Chapter 25

Snowflakes danced slowly outside: flew to the window, sparkled shortly, and hid in the darkness. I tried to project for a second, to save their flight in my mind, but failed time after time.

“Tangor!”

Yes, yes, I was there. Where could I go now? What madness made me believe the speech of the dark magician and sign the damn contract? It must have been the trauma inflicted by Rustle, and the monster will answer for that! For about a month, I was in blissful ignorance of the trouble that I had gotten myself into—exactly until the moment I finished taking the course of the inhibitors. And then Mr. Satal called me, ordered to take Max out of the “quarantine” vivarium, and explained the content of the contract again.

For example, one of its points was about “training, free of charge”, meaning that in order to withdraw from the course, I would have to pay a lot.

“Tangor, why are you slacking?!”

I had made a mistake: I would rather have gone to jail; they would have treated me with the course of inhibitors anyway. They didn’t have a choice. In the end, to help victims of the supernatural was their duty! And now I was under the contract for five years and, quite likely, I would have to sign it again. Dark magicians always have to work pro bono for the public good. In the sense that society always thinks the dark owe it something.

I could have tried sabotage, but something was telling me that would make things worse.

“I’ve already finished, sir.”

“You will be done when you report on the execution of the job!”

“Sir, I’m done.”

“Good.”

When Satal swears, it’s normal; the foul language in his performance doesn’t need to be taken seriously. When Satal becomes really dangerous, he begins to express himself in exquisitely literary language, with the hard-to-pronounce accent of a noble gentleman that treads his enemy into the dirt with his white gloves on. I had a vague suspicion that because of his high position, the coordinator pinched his dark nature too tightly before strangers, and his thirst for informal communication poured out on me. A sort of manifestation of his trust. What was I supposed to do? I just started taking responsibility for my white family and then turned again to the position of a disciple. Satal perceived my apprenticeship in the most archaic sense of that word (when apprentices endured beatings and washed their master’s socks).

I wondered whether killing the senior coordinator would aggravate my punishment. Even if it would, I didn’t care. The only problem was that I didn’t have confidence in the success of my attempt—that bastard was too good in combat. I decided to act like a genuine assassin—hide my intentions until I could accumulate sufficient power and skills.

“Not bad,” Satal noticed casually, examining my scheme (I spent over two hours on it!). We had not started practical training yet, because, in his opinion, I had to “polish my knowledge of theory”.

“That’s all for today. Dismissed!”

“Excuse me, sir,” I had to be polite, “Christmas holidays are coming. I would like to leave Redstone for two weeks—is this possible?”

He frowned: “Why?”

“I promised my brother that we’d spend winter holidays together. My brother is white.”

That was an important comment: all children would be upset when they are promised something and the promises don’t come true, but a little white would take it hard.

“I got it. Apply in writing!”

In writing?! Wasn’t I a “freelancer”?! What would happen next, then? Likely, he would start sending me on assignments!

I needed to learn how to make undetectable poisons.

“Goodbye, sir,” I was able to leave the room, keeping myself icy calm. I learned how to hide my feelings well!

The empath met me in the hallway, smiling. They must work in tandem.

“Hi, Thomas! How are you doing?”

“All is wonderful, Ms. Kevinahari. I have made great progress!”

For example, I managed to lie while looking straight into the eyes of an empath.

“Yes, dear,” she confirmed. “But if your smile is sincere, the outer corners of your eyes should go slightly down!”

I needed to learn the art of poisons and try it out on her.

The second, “authoritative” floor was quiet and dark. By the end of my classes, most of the staff in the police headquarters was gone; only officers of the night remained along with workaholics that were ready to sit until midnight. That bastard senior coordinator ordered the freelancer to work at least two days a month—that is, whole sixteen hours. Satal was not going to spend his weekends on me. I wouldn’t get credit for my work for him, so I went to NZAMIPS on my more or less free weekday, Wednesday, and worked for four hours until my brains refused to accept any more information.

He should not treat another dark like that!

In return, Satal covered up the killings I had committed and the zombie I created, as well as my vast illegal practice of magic. From the point of view of justice, I was a persistent repeat offender, unworthy of mercy. The coordinator did not know about the rewritten memory crystal yet; collusion between a magician and a representative of the supervisory bodies was regarded as a very serious offense. And there was yet a whole six months until graduation…

The only thing that I stopped worrying about was my acquaintance with Rustle. Long ago, the clever otherworldly wight had found a way to interest itself in the most dangerous of its opponents, the dark magicians. The one who overcame the monster and didn’t lose his mind would get a benefit: knowledge. Given that Rustle’s age was at least ten thousand years, and its infernal body was present everywhere in the world, the prospects this situation opened up for me were exciting. Unfortunately, the statistics of the survivors was approximately one to forty-three: the majority became insane in the first one and a half or two years. No wonder, taking into account how the monster mocked me. The only way to avoid the increase in the number of senseless victims was to hide that interesting benefit of Rustle from the curious mages, and NZAMIPS was doing exactly that via rigid censorship.

In my opinion, the benefit of the long-lived monster was questionable. First, Rustle was illiterate, which meant it wasn’t able to recognize words, letters, and symbols, unless it had dealt with the subject in some way. I could read Uncle’s book, because the monster ate a few people who had read it before and was now capable of precisely reproducing the sensations associated with each word. Second, that freak of nature had no idea what the calendar meant and what the date and time were today or in the past. There was no way to get any details from the monster. Responding to a question, Rustle used to dump a pile of random associations on the inquirer, the validity of which was almost impossible to check, and the monster wanted some interest for its work. I wasn’t going to risk my sanity for such nonsense as some doubtful information from Rustle, and I immediately announced that to all interested persons.

Still at the mercy of gloomy misanthropy, I put a student jacket on top of a standard student suit and pulled down a typical student cap over my ears; it snowed, after all. Even my shoes were standard for a student now. I could, of course, come to NZAMIPS wearing an expensive black suit, but then Satal would certainly mock me. Did I need it? No, not until the poison would be ready.

“What’s up? Is the boss pressing you?” Captain Baer, another workaholic, was coming down from the top floors.

I shrugged uncertainly.

“If you can’t stand him, complain to the empath—she will reprove him.”

The best piece of advice ever.

Having shouldered a typical student bag, I walked to the door, feeling with the soles of my feet the heat of protective spells under the carpet. I ought to think of something neutral—spells like that responded to hostile intent; it would be shameful to get arrested for the intended murder of the senior coordinator before even attempting it. There is a bright side to everything. In the end, I could forget about this nest of vipers until next semester—freedom!

I perked up and went to the tram stop, alone as always. The police headquarters were located in the commercial area and stretched for nearly a block, with one side facing Park Road and the other - Carriage Alley. A few more separate buildings (including the mortuary and a parking garage) were situated in the yard, but the majority of government officials worked till exactly 5:30 p.m. and then instantly disappeared. As the saying goes, only fools and horses work. There were neither pubs nor restaurants nearby, for obvious reasons, and I did not expect any company. Naturally, two men hiding in a gateway caught my eye, at least on a magic level. In one of the strangers I surprisingly recognized Quarters. Interesting: why did the lover of comfort suffer through heavy snow at night? Maybe he was driving a car?

I paused, waiting for the strange couple. Ron’s friend was very short; the back of his head was hardly up to my chin and below Quarters’ shoulder. I held a vulgar joke about bad weather at the tip of my tongue, because the small fry turned blue from the cold (with his body weight he should have given serious consideration to the choice of his clothes), but Ron was not in the mood to listen to new stories and didn’t even say “hello.”

“What are you doing at the police headquarters?” he demanded aggressively.

I raised my eyebrow—it was weird interest on his part, but replied, “I take lessons in combat magic.”

“Give me a break! From whom?”

“From a visiting specialist. Edan Satal, have you heard of him?”

“He’s the senior coordinator of the region!” Shorty sighed.

I wondered how come he knew so much. As for me, I hadn’t been aware of Satal’s rank until Kevinahari enlightened me.

“Well, he is not bad as a combat mage.”

Though he was the worst teacher I ever had.

“You’re lying!” the short guy said flatly. “Did you really come for some stupid magic at this time?! I would have believed it easier had you said that came to have tea there!”

I lost my breath from his statement.

I suffered, and he saw that as a cause for jokes!

My mind still struggled to come up with a killing derogatory response, but the dark nature already started acting; my fist met the offender’s jaw. Of course, I was in no position for a good swing, and my hit spared his nose, but made him fly backward to the ground. That is, onto the pavement; that is, onto the rocks. Only his hat and high collar saved Shorty from instant death.

Again, my reaction overtook my thinking. At least, I was in complete agreement with myself. That’s how a dark magician ought to respond!

Ironically, Quarters hurried to help his fellow.

“What’s wrong with you? What are you doing?” he was outraged.

I shrugged, “What did you expect from me? If he wants to be rude to a dark magician, he should wear a helmet. Anyway, I don’t recommend that you communicate with this goon. He is one of the artisan, obviously.”

“Why did you say that?”

“Because!”

Never before had I witnessed paralysis of the brain in Ron. On the other hand, what should I expect from an ordinary person? Let him kiss his new boyfriend. If he started protesting, I would fight him. Before Ron was able to defeat me, but now Quarters wouldn’t stand a chance; I was taking classes in martial arts and had already achieved some progress. Don’t get me wrong, the inborn skills of the dark were usually enough to live a good life. But Satal had a picture on the wall where he held some shiny thing, wore a wrestling suit, and looked very pleased. That is, had I started a fistfight with him, he would have made mincemeat out of me.

I hate to fear people!

Suddenly Quarters came to senses; he decided not to run up on the cuffs and fully concentrated on the short guy who clapped his eyes in confusion. I turned around and walked to the tram stop, feeling sudden bitterness: when I was beaten up, Ron did not fuss so much.

My nerves became completely shattered. Imagine, I had a desire to go back and explain what was going on. But Rustle reprovingly protested, and a shameful moment of weakness safely passed.

I decided to instill respect in the monster.

I’ve got a box. What an amazing box I have! What a mysterious box! And what’s inside the box? I sensed that the naive creature was sticking its long nose into my thoughts. “And inside the box is… lightning!” Rustle disappeared as if it were blown away by the wind. If the otherworldly doesn’t get brains from birth, then age won’t fix the problem.

I came up to the tram, already feeling heated, angry, and perky.

Ms. Kevinahari was having mint tea in the office of the senior coordinator. From windows she did not see what was happening in the square, but something made her sadly shake head.

“Have you read your student’s file carefully?”

Mr. Satal threw the last papers in the drawers.

“What do you mean?”

“He grew up in a house with a white mage and saw his dark relatives only occasionally. That affected his character.”

“So what?”

“Don’t you push him too hard?”

Satal rolled his eyes up: “What are you talking about? He is dark; if he is not shaken like a pear, he won’t be doing anything!”

“There are other approaches…”

“For other approaches he’s too old! Only in my way can I make something of him.”

“Oh Dan, it seems you will get more than you expect.”

“No problem; I’ll survive,” Satal grinned. “He asked permission to visit relatives on holidays. I will let him go to restore emotional balance.”

The idea of ​​mental equilibrium in a dark magician seemed to amuse the coordinator.

“Let’s hope that their contact doesn’t cause conflicts,” the empath pursed her lips.

Satal, as is always the case with the dark, took into account interests of only one side; how the disturbed combat mage would be perceived by the juvenile white did not bother him.

Chapter 26

Students sat in the last lectures with martyrs’ faces, but the spirit of Christmas holidays was hovering over the university: the white hung in the hallways traditional paper ornaments (very much like real flowers, just not fading), the walls were full of many-colored advertisements for parties, and magicians with artistic inclinations competed in the creation of ice sculptures. I took a hand in the holiday preparations, too - designed a device igniting the lights on the Christmas tree before the Faculty of Combat Magic. One might think that a dark magician and volunteering are incompatible things, but my desire to see how people would gasp with surprise proved irresistible. The Christmas tree was a live spruce; when they started to hang light bulbs on it— God knows; it took me a lot of time to find all of the control circuits. But now the garlands flashed in seven different algorithms, and the dean of the white mages bit his lip with envy.

With great satisfaction I looked at the fiery spirals, waves, and hieroglyphs dancing on the bushy branches. If Quarters had not stopped talking to me, he would have learned that the City Hall paid for the second such device, and it fully compensated me for all expenses related to the project. The trick was that the bulbs were contacting each other by chance for creation of the ornament; the sole task of the decorators was to hang them as tightly as possible. I noticed that some students tried to guess where the ornament would appear the next moment, and what its form and color would be. Useless! The process was controlled by genuine dark magic—spontaneous and unpredictable.

A surprise awaited me directly beneath the Christmas tree. I recognized the recent friend of Quarters by the back—his figure had a very characteristic shape. Once again the dolt wasn’t dressed for the weather and had a freshman as company. The fact that he dealt with freshmen seemed strange; for a beginner, Shorty was a bit old. He looked like a frozen chicken: a white bird with blue legs.

I abruptly changed my course, came closer, and kicked him in the ass with my knee - I had an urge to see what his face turned into after my hit. Shorty turned around, intimidated. Oddly enough, he had no bruises on his face.

“Hi!” I greeted him, smiling very nastily. “How’s your health? Don’t you feel sick? Doesn’t your head spin?”

“No, thanks.”

“That means you aren’t pregnant.”

Gladdening him with the conclusion, I went on my way, whistling.

I wasn’t aware where that fool came from (likely, from the very same Southern Coast where Quarters enjoyed going), but if he didn’t get a scarf at least, he would not last until his return home. However, did I care about his pneumonia? A minute later I forgot about the frozen gnome, but he clearly remembered me. And took measures…

During a break between classes, I sat in the lobby of the lecture building and studied the rarity I recently bought in the bookshop: the work Toxicology by Master Tiranidos. I must say that the last distinguished inquisitor of Ingernika was a pharmacist, and his book could be read as a reference guide for a poisoner. I did not know how he managed to gather such factual material, but I heard that his grateful contemporaries tore him with their bare hands for it. Of course, the master did not describe the methods of poisons’ manufacture, but it wouldn’t take much skill to produce an extract of foxglove. I was reading in excitement about the symptoms of poisoning by toadstool (it seemed to be an almost perfect means, though I did not know where to pick the mushrooms), when Quarters showed up. He approached me indirectly, walking in circles with atypical nervousness for five minutes, looking at me and muttering something. Did he think that the dark magician would not notice him?

“Wow, Ron! Long time no see.”

In fact, for four days. In some way that was a record.

“Hi. You don’t… eh…”

I watched for Quarters, who had lost his tongue. I never thought it could happen to him!

“Do not harass Sam anymore!” Ron blurted out finally.

“Who?”

“The guy who was with me…”

“Oh, that one! You’d better tell me why he brought you to the police headquarters. It was his idea, yeah? As for me, I am not concerned with what you do in the evenings.”

“Why do you ask?” Quarters started getting angry. “It does not matter where we walked.”

“You are saying that you always walk around the police headquarters? Ha!”

Why did Ron bug me about some shabby boy, not even a relative? An incredible guess lit up my mind.

“Are you in love with him?” I shouted.

Quarters clapped his eyes blankly.

“Do not worry, there’s nothing shameful in it. We live in a civilized country…”

Ron’s face became so fearsome that any dark magician would envy him.

“Idiot!” he yelled, turned around, and almost ran toward the door of the auditorium.

Quarters was nervous; his painful reaction to my criticism was typical for this type of relationship. Did I guess right? I observed no such inclinations in him before; however, I didn’t produce the first impression of a felon either. Let them do with each other what they want—they are adults! Already leaving the university, I noticed Sam in the company of some sophomores. What a sociable freak… Shorty glanced at me with some challenge, and I winked conspiratorially in response. It scared him half to death, I thought.

In contrast to Ron, preoccupied with my leisure time, I couldn’t care less about his problems. I had already made arrangements for my vacation with Polak (it was easy); it remained to get permission from NZAMIPS (the most unpleasant part).

The police headquarters before Christmas looked strange. Its hall breathed austerity and almost a void of space; on the desk of the on-duty officer there was a spangled Bonsai Christmas tree in a scale of one to a hundred. Enhanced with white magic, the plant exuded a strong odor of pine needles. On the floor of the superior officers I saw no one, but distinctly heard the clink of glasses. Perhaps, in the wing that housed the offices of inspectors and investigators, the work was still in progress, but I did not go there—why would I want to spoil mood? Seeing people at work awakens unhealthy reflexes in me.

I decided to drop by the captain first to show my report—wanted to make sure that the text was composed correctly. He would advise me instead of mocking. For some unclear reason, the chief of Redstone’s NZAMIPS had his office on the fourth floor - level designated for miscellaneous non-essential staff. There, holiday eve was felt strongly: windows shone with tinsel, and the air was full of the treacherous smells of cucumber salad, freshly baked pastries, and vanilla. To the captain’s office I marched under the interested gazes of lady accountants not overburdened by work (whenever I walked by their office, they were having a tea break). The main thing was to pretend that you were terribly busy; the last time I agreed to try a piece of cake I barely managed to run away. The brutal women, suffering without men, didn’t care whether I was dark or white, or striped; more importantly, I was of age.

The captain took my appearance graciously, removed a cake from his desk, reviewed the text, and tapped his finger on the title of my report.

“Don’t go to Satal; he’s in a terrible mood now.”

“I thought it was the norm for him.”

“You do not know what you are talking about. We have received a petition demanding to find missing Laurent Pierrot.”

“Oh!”

“O-ho-ho! The boss now writes a response that doesn’t contradict the facts and looks true.”

“Damn it!” I said “good bye” to my vacation.

“By the way, I am your boss officially. You work in Redstone’s division.”

“Can I go on holidays?”

“Go home for holidays?” the captain asked good-naturedly, putting his seal?? in the upper left corner.

I nodded, “To my brother.”

The captain paused, holding the document in his palm.

“Where does he reside?”

“He is at school in Mihandrov.”

“It’s not our district, is it?”

I nodded, though not quite confidently.

“And not even our region… Don’t go anywhere; wait for me,” Captain Baer grabbed my report from the desk and walked out.

I sat and wrestled with desire to disappear. Curiosity eventually won—I eagerly wanted to know what he was up to. The captain came back in about half an hour; he carried a bunch of sheets and a large paper bag. Judging by the distinct smell of brandy, he had managed to nip somewhere and spent his time well.

“Your vacation is canceled. You’re going on a business trip instead.”

“What?!”

“Here are your travel assignment and the order to Mihandrov’s NZAMIPS. Sign it!”

I looked through the documents suspiciously. “‘To investigate the work of primary and secondary educational institutions’?”

“That’s it. Bear in mind, you owe me a report.”

I groaned.

“Don’t dare say no! Have you thought what would happen to Satal if you mess up there, and your past pops up?”

“I’m not going to mess—”

“Yeah, yeah. With your zombie you also weren’t going to do anything special, as I understand. Either my way or no way; just stay in town.”

For how long will I have to suffer from the moral terror? A normal dark would have rebelled long ago. On the other hand, had I gone to complain to Satal now, he could have beaten me up. What did I want more: to go on vacation or go to the hospital? Sighing, I signed the papers. Meanwhile, the captain emptied the bag.

“This is your temporary identity card—it does not give you any power but discourages others from asking questions. If you show it to any civilian, I will lock you in the basement for a week!”

How strict, my god!

“A traveling kit of a sorcerer: a marker with chalk emulsion, a salt shaker, a compass, mirror taps, a set of candles. You’ll have to replenish everything you’ve used, got it? I give it to you, because it’s in the rules, but I need it back.”

I nodded vigorously; I understood about candles and mirrors, but how could he determine how much of the emulsion remained in the marker?

“A special emergency kit: elixirs. Well, you know that! Blue—inhibitors, green—supporting potions, red—stimulants. If you want to stay alive, do not touch them.”

Hmm. Well put.

“The last one: an emergency call amulet; simply put, a “whistle”. Click here and there, or bite off the nibble here (whatever you are capable of at the moment), and the nearest NZAMIPS division will send a quick response team. Do not even think about testing it—a false alarm will rack up a serious penalty.”

What a pity. It would be fun to check it in action.

“Follow my instructions. If you go looking for trouble, I will turn you in to Satal, and you do what you want with each other!”

It was so cruel of him. Was he always so cold-hearted? He looked like a sweet man.

“That’s all. Happy holidays!”

I briskly picked up my stuff and went out into the hallway. Enough of my bosses. A great deal of work was ahead of me: submit the three theses I finished yesterday, buy gifts for Lyuchik, make arrangements at the junkyard to have the motorcycle guarded, and bathe Max; the zombie would go with me again, and drying out that fur rug takes a long time.

That was another unexpected benefit of good relations with NZAMIPS: devoid of piety toward the undead, the “cleaners” darned Max’s skin, trimmed his nails, and laid on its collar a special spell that compelled fur to grow on the dead body. The advantage was that the gray-red wavy hair hid under itself all of the characteristic features of a zombie, and we got a nice hairy poodle-like shepherd. The disadvantage of that camouflage was the need to regularly comb the long hair, bathe Max in a special preservative mix, and pour the egg protein into his throat (the zombie was not very good at licking and swallowing). I never thought that a zombie-dog would require so much fuss!

Slipping past the lady accountants, I walked down the stairs to the floor of the superiors and crept on tiptoes to the marble staircase that led to the entrance hall. Satal’s office was just a few steps away; I saw his door but passed it unnoticed. It was time to run away, while my favorite teacher was busy with his report!

The senior coordinator came to Baer in the late afternoon, black and as fearsome as an unrested corpse; with somnambulistic precision he found an unfinished bottle of whiskey behind the cabinet and began to pour its contents into a teacup. Angry Satal either forgot that he could just call his subordinate on the phone or decided to walk before he would talk and let his irritation subside.

“Where is this underage fag? He was supposed to come today,” Satal tipped the contents of his cup in his mouth, as into a sink.

Locomotive winced: a drunken dark magician wasn’t exactly what he wanted for Christmas.

“He came to me.”

“Did you let him go?!”

“No, I did not. I sent him on assignment,” Locomotive decided that logical arguments wouldn’t work at this moment.

“Where to?”

“To Mihandrov.”

Satal suspiciously squinted his almost sober eyes. “How do you know about Mihandrov?”

“From the files. He’s got a brother there.”

“Ah!” Satal leaned back in his chair with a pleased countenance, immediately losing his battle fervor.

It was now Baer’s turn to narrow his eyes suspiciously: “Is anything wrong?”

“Nothing,” the magician waved vigorously, almost knocking the empty bottle onto the floor. “I will… no, better you call them tomorrow and alert that our employee is coming. Let them meet him.”

“Is it worth it?” Locomotive hesitated, suspecting some kind of terrible villainy in that.

“Yes, it is!” Satal announced with drunken peremptoriness. “I’ll go to the capital after Christmas. I hope that at least Axel will be on my side. Did he need a magician? We’ve sent the best one!” The coordinator hiccupped loudly and uttered with some effort: “Confidentially.”

Locomotive figured out how much alcohol Satal had taken on per pound of weight and decided that his boss would last for five minutes, but then he would have to drag him to the guardhouse for the night.

“Do you think our guy will cope?”

Satal thoughtfully breathed through his nose. “I cannot deal with the white; they drive me crazy. Is his brother white? Yes! Exactly what we need. If Tangor did not kill his brother growing up, he will handle this.”

Chapter 27

Protected by magic from any weather, the transcontinental express looked as if it had just rolled out of the train depot, as though it hadn’t experienced the snowstorms of continental Ingernika, desert winds blowing over the capital’s neighborhoods, and alternating sun, rain, and frost in between. Against the backdrop of Polisant’s grassy hills, the train looked like a beautiful toy; only tiny human figures, bustling around the sleepers, betrayed its true scale. Hired carriages had already harvested newcomers and driven them through the hills to where the expanse of a great lake sharply glittered. Mihandrov was ready to welcome strangers who tired of snow and cold weather, and the express flew further into the arms of the humid tropics of the Southern Coast.

“Disgrace, what a disgrace!” a well-dressed gentleman lamented; he wore a pin, “Thirty Years in the Police Service,” that he had obviously inherited.

“Do not worry, sir,” a whiskered driver habitually comforted his boss. “It’s not your fault! The station attendant on duty misled you.”

“Ah, Alfred, I could have seen him with my own eyes if I had looked around a little!”

The driver did not argue with that. The only car in all of Mihandrov rolled along the winding streets, cheerfully sneezing. Not too fast though, as Mr. Clarence had to exchange greetings with all the passers, and there were a lot of them on the eve of Christmas.

“Hello, Mr. Luhmann!… Uncle Barry… Aunt Melons… Happy holidays, Mr. Festor!”

Clarence knew half of Mihandrov’s inhabitants from his childhood, and the other half was related to him. If the only town’s policeman had not worn his famous badge, the trip would have ended almost immediately—he would be required to talk with each passer-by.

“It’s already after 2 p.m.,” the driver tried to reason with his superior (as a civilian employee, he wasn’t paid for overtime). “It’s Christmas Eve. Wouldn’t it be better if we search for our guest tomorrow?”

“You do not understand, Alfred! Dark mages are very quick to take offense. We have not met him at the station, and what if he doesn’t get the room because of his dog?”

“I think, sir, a dark magician can stand for himself.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!”

The driver tried to hide his heavy sigh in the background noise of the engine; the car reached the intersection, and he had to deaden the engine: he could not afford to drive the wrong way—turning around on the narrow streets was simply not an option.

“Hello, Aunt Tusho!” Mr. Clarence called to a thin elderly woman in a bonnet with ribbons, mincing along the street with a plump parcel in her hands. “Have you seen a stranger with a dog?”

“Yes, yes!” Mrs. Tusho smiled, delighted by the attention of an important person. “They went to the Mrs. Parker’s B&B.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Clarence kindly smiled, and Alfred pressed the gas pedal right away; he didn’t want to waste half an hour, picking neighbors to pieces with the talkative old woman. Vain efforts! By the time they got out of town and reached the comfortable two-story mansion of Mrs. Parker, the guest was not there.

“The young man checked in and left,” said the landlady, a stout middle-aged woman with sparkles in her hair. “He did not say where to. If I knew it was important…”

“Do not worry, madam, our business can wait till tomorrow!” Alfred resolutely took matters into his own hands. Noticing that his boss was ready to object, he quickly added, “Sir, I think the magician is off on a personal matter, and he’ll not like it if we pursue him.”

“Yes, you are right, my friend,” Mr. Clarence gave up. “Nothing can be done today; we will have to come back tomorrow. Madam Parker, I rely on you! Our guest should not feel uncomfortable.”

“Don’t doubt even for a moment. Happy Christmas!” the hostess smiled coquettishly to Alfred and flew off to her own guests—the eldest son had brought her first grandchild for the holidays.

The boarding school of the town of Mihandrov looked impressive: delicately executed decoration on cast-iron gates (beyond comparison to the modern styles), heavily enchanted oil lamps (rare electric bulbs could shine so brightly), large light buildings, its own marina and park that even Quarters’ uncle could not afford in Redstone. From the gate I saw cobbled walks fleeing into the distance, trees of great girth, a strange grove where flowers and fruits quietly grew side by side, a garden of flower beds where everything (absolutely everything) was in bloom. No comparison with Krauhard… I wondered how Joe was able to send Lyuchik to such a place without recommendation. Or had he managed to get some?

I suddenly discovered that I knew little about my stepfather, even less than I knew about my deceased father. For a dark mage such lack of curiosity was normal; but it started annoying me—when I was ready to ask the right questions, something prevented me from finding the answers. I missed my chance to talk to Chief Harlik, for example…

Deep in thought, I entered the gate and stood still with the silliest look; a leopard ending up in antelope paradise by mistake must feel that way. In the square outside the gate people were bustling (probably getting ready for Christmas), and they were all white, every one: students, their teachers, and those parents who decided to spend holidays with their children at school. In fact, educational institutions were recommended to keep the ratio of mages to ordinary people at fifty-fifty, but either the rest of the pupils left for the holidays, or the administration could not scrape enough ordinary children to follow the correct proportion. One way or another, even the porter meeting the guests in a spangled jacket and a cap with a large pink bow was one of the white. That was crazy…

I must say that I had not thought through the moment of my meeting with Lyuchik. At the university, all white mages were adults, and at home the white were my own family. But a crowd of unfamiliar white kids with an unknown degree of sanity was a different story. How should I conduct myself with them? I felt like falling into hysterics! Having made two deep breaths and filled voice with as much honey as my tin student throat could withstand, I approached the porter: “Hello. How can I find Luciano Tamironi?”

Well, at least I had managed to recall his last name, and only because Joe wrote me letters.

The porter looked at me with a mixture of confusion and suspicion, which usually took place when a guess had not reached one’s consciousness yet but was already scary. Sweet. And I hadn’t done anything yet.

“Thomas!” it was a joyful cry from behind, and at the same moment Lyuchik jumped on my back (he seemed to put on weight).

“Hi, bro!” I said when I managed to regain my balance. “Here I am. Not too late?”

“Right on time! Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.” He already turned to the woozy porter, “This is my brother! He came to stay with me for the holidays.”

And Lyuchik pulled me around to scare people.

“This is Ms. Aster, a teacher of botany. My brother came to me for the holidays! Mr. Tanat, a teacher of math. My brother, for the holidays! My classmates. My brother!”

And wherever we went, a tail of shocked silence waved behind us.

“Listen, what did you tell them about me?”

“That you are the best dark mage in Krauhard!”

Hmm. I hoped nobody would choke at the banquet table. The garden and the guests quickly left behind, but Lyuchik pulled me further: “Now we let the directrix know that you’ve come, and then I’ll show you my room!”

Okay, the guests would have time to recover and decide where to run. Well, did I really care about their heart attacks?

Nevertheless, some incidents did happen. We had been searching for the elusive headmistress for a quarter of an hour already (I suspected that she ran after us, but was one turn behind), when a gray-haired, middle-aged white appeared from the depths of the park. The magician wore a slightly old-fashioned frock coat with a handkerchief in the upper pocket. He plodded, deep in thought, without looking around and, obviously, not in the direction of the Christmas party.

Lyuchik’s behavior changed dramatically: he stopped jumping, ceremoniously took my hand, and muttered in a low voice, “This is our assistant principal, Mr. Fox.”

Well, I could understand his timidity before superiors; even I, a fearless dark magician, committed the same sin, for example, in relation to Satal…

We, as cultured people, approached the gray-haired gentleman and politely greeted him.

“Sir,” Lyuchik showed his best manners, “this is my brother, Thomas. I told you about him. He came to celebrate Christmas with us.”

Mr. Fox allowed himself to notice us. His reaction was strange: when he looked at me, his eyes widened, and his face became contorted by a grimace of almost mystical horror—as if he met a speaking ghoul. Though it lasted only for a moment and was hidden by his curly white beard, I did notice his impression of me. The elderly man looked worse than deceased in coffin.

I even started feeling ashamed.

“Nice to meet you!” I held out my hand, but the teacher looked at it as if it were a live cobra.

Well, that was the first strikeout. I thought that the main problem would be the kids!

But as soon as I started to speak, Mr. Fox came to senses and, with some effort, pulled himself together. In short, he finally shook my outstretched hand.

“Thomas… uh?” he smiled questioningly.

“Tangor! Thomas Tangor,” I tried not to shake his hand too vigorously.

“Luciano…?”

“We have the same mother but different fathers.”

“I see…”

Mr. Fox’s face slowly regained color.

“I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I’m flattered!”

“Have you ever been to Mihandrov before?”

“Alas, no.”

“How do you like our town?”

“It’s pleasantly sweet.”

He stared at me as though he suspected a dirty joke. What did I have to say? “Not a bad village, but not enough brothels?” Wisely deciding to ignore my responses, Mr. Fox finally drew himself up a bit and even assumed a dignified air.

“I suppose you won’t stay for the banquet,” he said in a secular tone.

“What is your problem, a shortage of food?” I asked to clarify.

“Food has nothing to do…”

Ah! He must have seen a lot of drunken dark magicians.

“Do not worry; I’m not inclined to abuse alcohol!”

At least not in his company.

“We will not serve alcohol,” he said with some glee.

“Even better.” I always wanted to know how the white were having fun. “I can tell a few anecdotes.”

“Please don’t,” Mr. Fox was very serious.

“Okay, I won’t,” I said agreeably.

At that moment Lyuchik found a chance to intervene. “Thomas will stay for the party,” he said with some pressure. “I talked about him with Mrs. Hemul, and she didn’t mind.”

“She simply did not believe your brother would come,” Fox smiled indulgently.

He was an atypically nasty white. What else would he say in front of the child?

“Do you possess telepathic abilities?” I asked with awe in my voice, trying to catch his eye (that used to be very unnerving to the white). “Are you so intimate with Mrs. Hemul?”

“Who spreads dirty rumors about me?” a melodious female voice cheerfully sang behind us. The local headmistress was young, pretty, and a white mage at that, as her daisy brooch of rock crystal clearly indicated; the brooch seemed to be a symbol of one of the schools of healers. Judging by her tense look, she was already informed about my visit and came to rescue the situation.

“You see, Mrs. Hemul, Luciano’s half-brother came here for the holidays,” Fox said pointedly.

Why was he talking about me as if I was absent? I firmly took the initiative, moved him aside with my shoulder, and smiled most charmingly: “Thomas Tangor, at your service! Unfortunately, I haven’t been introduced to you. Lyuchik was telling me so much about the school that I could not resist the temptation to view it. I hope I did not cause any problems?”

“Not at all,” she weakly protested, and I grabbed her hand and kissed it.

Mr. Fox almost winced. An old lecher!

“I will go and make arrangements for another seat,” Mrs. Hemul flew off, flushing from embarrassment.

“Are you staying for just one day?” Lyuchik asked cautiously.

“Why?” I was surprised. “I will stay with you for the entire two weeks. You live in a gorgeous climate. I just got off the train; tomorrow I will bring gifts. If you do not like some, you’ll give them to your friends.”

Fox snorted indignantly. What did I say wrong?

We toured the school property, accompanied by the watchful assistant principal: we walked through the garden and greenhouse, looked at the pond and the brook (why did they need that parody of the swamp, when a real lake was a stone’s throw away?), visited ponies in the school’s stables, and sat in Lyuchik’s room. I wished I lived like that… To be honest, that place was worth the money I paid.

The alcohol-free banquet promised by the assistant principal began exactly at a quarter past seven.

Naturally, they didn’t put kids next to me (except Lyuchik), but that was even better: adults had longer hands when you wanted something to be passed over the table. I methodically tried every unfamiliar dish, placing on my brother’s plate the most delicious (in my opinion) pieces. Among the treats, meat was clearly underrepresented but, thinking what could happen if the white kids saw a whole roasted piglet, it was certainly better to stay away from the meat.

Lyuchik didn’t care about the food; he hastened to narrate the events of the past four months in great detail. I nodded as usual and wondered how he managed to remember not only what and where he saw things, but also what he thought about them at that moment. I wish I could dump on someone my own experiences, curse my teacher obscenely, grumble about the blatant monster (Rustle was inaudible today for some reason), and complain about my ruined youth. However, it would be induced psychosis, the dark do not behave like that, and excessive talkativeness for a combat mage is generally considered pathology. Preoccupied with those thoughts, I ate twice as much as usual and almost fell asleep.

There were no interesting neighbors at the table. A couple across from me discussed with their child the style of her summer dress (“white lace?” followed by “lace, lace!”), and it was all about the lace for ten minutes in a row. Edan Satal did not seem so vile at all, in comparison. Before I wondered who wrote strange books about talking rabbits, in which all the characters expressed themselves as if they had no brains, but hydraulic brakes instead. Good that alcohol was not served—from the first glass I would have lost control over my tongue, and the sweet children would have learned a lot about human physiology and student life.

Should I flee maybe? I mean finish the trip earlier. I would not stand two weeks in such an environment. But as soon as I recalled that Redstone was now cold, nasty, and snowy, and Quarters had become gay?… the company of the white didn’t seem so bad.

After an unbearably long two hours at the banquet table, the guests were offered a break to warm up and dance. I was as good at dancing as a wild boar in ballet; besides, I ate too much. While pupils and their parents volunteered for an amateur orchestra, I managed to drag my chair to the opposite corner of the dancing hall and settle there in comfort.

I quickly gathered an audience around myself. Such attention did not bother me: the white were like sparrows; the worst they could do would be taking a dump on my head.

“Is it true?” the bravest kid had the courage to ask.

“What exactly?” I asked good-naturedly.

“That you are a dark magician,” he blurted out, looking as if he demanded that I confess to cannibalism.

I experienced a rare attack of good manners: “You needed to say a ‘combat mage’,” I gently reproached the kid. “Yes, I am a combat mage.”

Then came tense silence—I was closely examined to see if I had any unusual parts of the body. I wondered whether those guys had seen even one dark in their life?

“They believe,” Lyuchik remarked caustically, “that a dark mage should be in a sorcerer’s hat with a pikestaff in his hand.”

I rolled my eyes. People, stop it!

“The staff is good only as a bludgeon, and the hat went out of fashion two hundred years ago.”

“Have you seen a monster?” a little girl looking like an angel (big blue eyes, pink cheeks, and two large white bows on thin braids) got courage to ask.

“You mean a supernatural creature? Of course, I have seen them. A lot!”

“No way!” a skinny bespectacled kid objected fiercely, squeezing a teddy bear in his hands.

“It is true!” I recalled Captain Baer’s warning not to show my NZAMIPS card to civilians and showed it to the children. “NZAMIPS. Making the world better is our job! Nothing to worry, kids, Uncle Thomas will not let them hurt you.”

The kids took over the card and began to twirl it, looking admiringly at the iridescent rainbow logo and delicate ornamentation around the enchanted seal. Carefully concealing malevolence, I watched as Mr. Fox on the opposite side of the room tried to convince Mrs. Hemul of something, angrily glancing at me. I was never good at lip-reading, but no skill was required in this case—the young headmistress believed that communication with the benevolent-minded dark mage would benefit their children.

“Like the little ones,” Lyuchik muttered in my ear, and I heartily agreed with him.

All local pupils looked a lot younger than their age. Even my sister Emmy, who had not yet grown out of the childish defects of diction, seemed, by comparison, a model of prudence and common sense. That’s what happens when the white lack breadth of communication! I was determined to help remedy the situation, as much as possible, for the entire two weeks of my stay.

“You are putting the lives of children at risk!”

“You are spouting nonsense,” it wasn’t easy to make a white mage angry, but Mrs. Hemul’s patience was seriously depleted, “Luciano grew up with his dark brother by his side, and the kid has got no health problems.”

“Our children are not ready to meet this sort of people!”

“And that is really bad, Mr. Fox. We must seize this great opportunity! The young man is very well-mannered and well-educated. Acquaintance with him will provide our children with a positive experience.

“Your predecessor had different views on this, Mrs. Hemul.”

“My predecessor quit over a year ago, Mr. Fox, and you know why. We agreed that teaching methods should be changed. You’ve supported the actions of the Board of Trustees. Have you changed your position since then?”

“Take note of my words: this situation will end very badly!”

“It depends on us. I do not understand your position! If you cannot keep your pupils in sight, please say so outright. Ms. Ryman had enough courage to admit her shortcomings. We can apply to the Council for an increase in staff…”

As the door had closed behind the assistant principal, Mrs. Hemul shook her head. For a white, using power isn’t a simple task, but ordinary people as candidates for the position of director were not even discussed by the trustees. Honestly, she did it solely for the sake of children. It was difficult to admit, but they should not live a life sheltered from the rest of the world, and the empaths were completely on her side in that regard.

Chapter 28

Next morning I got up with the first rays of the sun, which was unusual for me on holidays. Kids were sent to bed at exactly 11 p.m. yesterday (it was cruel, in my opinion), and I did not have time to find a place in Mihandrov where a lonely dark magician could have fun. Mrs. Parker, still sleepy, served coffee on the open veranda; Max lay at my feet and successfully imitated a bored dog. It was surprisingly quiet around, as if we were not in town. I could sit forever here in a squeaky rocking chair with a blanket on my shoulders and a cup of coffee in hand. Of course, such happiness could not last for long.

A car of characteristic striped colors with a squealing transmission drove up to my B&B. Why is it like that—an alchemist in a public employ is always a hack. I watched sadly as the driver and the hostess exchanged bows; for some reason I was sure that he didn’t come for her. Indeed, receiving instructions, the newly arrived went to the veranda.

Max stretched and yawned widely; I hoped that the man did not manage to see its mouth in close-up.

“Good morning!” the driver lifted his hat.

“Same to you,” I tried to portray a polite smile. Had they received a complaint from the boarding school on me, or were the local services displaying vigilance?

“We express our deepest apology for yesterday. We intended to meet you, but an unfortunate misunderstanding happened! We are very sorry.”

To meet me? Oh yes, yesterday at the station some clowns jumped around the baggage car, but since I had taken Max inside the sleeper, I didn’t check in my suitcase.

That meant someone from Redstone had called here. Wow, what alertness! NZAMIPS in action.

“No problem,” I shrugged.

He visibly relaxed.

“Mr. Clarence is asking when you can meet him.”

I pondered it for a while. Two hours remained until Mihandrov’s boarding school would open for visitors, and I had absolutely nothing to do.

“Now, let’s go now; give me a second to take the documents!”

He started smiling, and I went to my room to lock up the zombie and pick up the travel papers. Maybe I could persuade the authorities to stamp the documents with both arrival and departure dates at once - it could save me time. I was pleased that Mihandrov’s NZAMIPS was open on holidays at 9 a.m. They really worked hard! By the way, what were they busy with?

For the next half-hour, the driver intently steered the wheel along the narrow streets, cobbled at the time of the Inquisition, while I frowned and tried not to listen to the toil of the badly adjusted engine. I ought to check the car, purely out of compassion—they were just killing it.

The police office in Mihandrov nested in a nice one-story building, sandwiched between a hotel and a bakery. To the left of the entrance door, three doorplates hung, one above the other: the Criminal Police of the Town of Mihandrov, Mihandrov’s Division of NZAMIPS and, for some strange reason, Mihandrov’s Animal Cruelty Prevention. I had wondered how they all could fit there, but when I opened the door, everything fell into place: Lieutenant Rudolph Clarence (according to the plate) sat in a tiny office with one desk, being the sole head of everything, and he was an initiated white mage. Oh my God! What genius decided to put a white mage in charge of NZAMIPS?! It would be curious to learn who worked as “cleaners” here…

I closed eyes and started counting to ten, no, better to twenty. I had a feeling that my bosses had managed to find me a job for all of the holidays.

“So,” I said calmly after a minute, “what kind of problems do we have?”

There were issues in this place—it was quite obvious.

“Eh,” a disoriented lieutenant tried to recall what he was going to start with, and then brightened, “Rudolph Clarence!”

“Thomas Tangor.”

We shook hands. I struggled with a feeling similar to delirium (the white have captured the world; they are everywhere!).

“You cannot imagine how eagerly we have been looking forward to your arrival! We’ve been waiting for you, waiting for quite a while; I went three times to the head office and personally filed requests, but Senior Coordinator Axel does not tolerate…”

I bravely stifled a groan: “Let us first discuss business!”

He readily nodded and stared at me. There was a pause.

“So what exactly has happened?” I could not refrain.

“Wasn’t it explained to you?”

“Let’s pretend that I want to learn everything from the source.”

“It is wise,” he agreed, fidgeted in his chair, and began, “it all started a year ago, after the scandal. NZAMIPS investigated the suicide of a graduate of Mihandrov’s boarding school, and in the course of the examination it became clear that twelve former students committed suicide over the past eight years. Every one of them was a white mage.”

The lieutenant’s voice broke with emotion; my eyebrows went up. The suicide of a white is an extremely rare event. Well, to ruin themselves by drinking, to lose mind was typical of them, but laying hands on yourself had almost never happened before.

“What a nightmare!” Lieutenant Clarence seemed to wince in pain even thinking about those cases. “The former director resigned, a special commission worked on it, but that’s not the end of the story. I participated in the investigation and pointed out that another four children went missing. Of course, those students were rather unsociable, without close relatives and friends, but the white are not inclined to go nowhere! Then I compared these facts with my own experience. You see, Mihandrov is not that small: all the residents know each other, but they are not so close as to watch everyone all the time. So, according to my observation, at least five white mages who lived alone had moved out somewhere for no apparent reason. To their relatives that do not exist, to a town which name no one knows, just on business, and no one ever heard back from them. Two of them left personal items in the apartments, and homeowners still keep their stuff in the event of the owners’ return. Of course, it is my speculation, but all of this seems weird! I applied to the head office with a request to open an investigation, possibly for the presence of supernatural phenomena. Out of my three reports, they responded to one only; I was ordered to wait.”

Naturally! No bodies, no file. It was normal practice, but Lieutenant Clarence looked genuinely distressed.

“They probably have a shortage of staff,” I comforted him (I didn’t tell the man that it was foolish of him to expect help if there was no crime), “especially of the go-getters. In the last four years supernatural activity has increased, but the staff hasn’t; growth has been cut off. At Redstone, things got better only after the ghouls had eaten the former chief of the “cleaners”. I am not kidding.”

“But you’ve come!” Lieutenant Clarence snapped.

Because I didn’t know.

“My brother is a student at your boarding school.”

My Lyuchik lived in the snake’s lair! I had to take him out of here. But where to? Could there be a guarantee that another school would be better? And the chance remained that all the missing people lived happily somewhere on the South Coast… Hmm, alongside the suicides. No worries: I had two weeks to solve the problem and draw conclusions—but time was running out.

“Well, your suspicions are understandable, lieutenant. Though it does not look like the work of the supernatural. It rather reminds me a killer-maniac—we’ll work on that. Do you have any information about the missing people?”

“Of course!” he smiled again. “I have compiled detailed files.”

He took a cardboard box from somewhere under the table and started pulling plump folders out of it.

“Can I take them with me?”

“Yes.”

“Another request: let my involvement in the case remain a secret. Why scare the townsfolk in vain? The presence of a dark magician is a serious challenge to their nerves.”

I didn’t mention that I could be denied access to Lyuchik, too.

“Of course, I understand,” the lieutenant nodded with the look of a habitual conspirator.

“If people ask what I was doing at your office, please tell them that you are keeping an eye on me.”

He nodded, twice as energetically as before. And we parted. Already at the door, I asked the question that was tormenting me: “Tell me please, who works in the ‘cleaning’ department here?”

His eyes became a bit guilty. Oh!

“I understand. Thank you. Goodbye.”

To get out of this madhouse as soon as possible! I took just one folder—no time for more reading. I was curious to see what the police could dig out in principle about a person who did not commit any wrongdoing. The driver, who introduced himself as Alfred, took me back to Mrs. Parker. He could not refrain from standing up for his boss: “Do not think badly about Mr. Clarence, sir; he performs his duties with all diligence. He does a lot for the town.”

“Uh-huh. For example, in the area of animal protection.”

Alfred did not protest loudly but, apparently, he got angry. “Do you really think that if a man is kind, he will not be able to stand firm at the right moment?

I sighed and said frankly: “Lieutenant Clarence, as one of the white, is physically incapable of performing the work he has taken upon his shoulders. Successfully, I mean. You were lucky that nothing happened here! If I were in your shoes, I would buy some brochures on how to avoid the supernatural (Krauhardian NZAMIPS prints a lot of them currently), and rely on myself only. Everyone will be safer that way.”

Alfred stayed silent. I hoped that he would ponder my words, at least.

Half an hour later I was back on the veranda of Mrs. Parker’s mansion, but not in the same state of blissful indifference as before. I got further proof that there was no paradise on earth! I should not show my change of mood to Lyuchik—no need to scare little tykes. I sighed and began to recall some formulas for meditation—I was about to demonstrate wonders of self-control to the world.

Mrs. Hemul watched from the window the second visit of the dark magician, about whom pupils were whispering the entire morning. The awful monster, smiling good-naturedly, helped his brother unwrap the gifts. Given the amount of gifts, it was truly titanic work. Mr. Fox breathed heavily over the directrix’ shoulder, constantly rubbing his palms and making her feel madly nervous. Had Luciano come to the thrilling meeting alone, it would not have attracted so much attention, but the white from Krauhard (a compilation of words that hardly made sense) brought a friend along.

“Petros is not poised to talk to the stranger!” Mr. Fox whispered indignantly in his boss’ ear. “You know how susceptible he is!”

The skinny, sickly boy was thought to be a distant relative of the assistant principal and an object of his constant care.

Mrs. Hemul was inclined to disagree with her colleague: with uncanny insight, for some meager fifteen minutes, the dark managed to ingratiate himself with the child, gave him a bag of candy and a big glass ball with a Christmas unicorn. The beautiful, shimmering iridescent toy totally fascinated the kid. Taking a seat right on the walkway, Petros admired the run of the illusory horse, scooping handfuls of candy from the bag and, without looking, shoving them into his mouth. Before, the painfully shy boy took nothing from strangers! Had it not happened on the territory of the school, right before her eyes, Mrs. Hemul would have been the first to rush and rescue the child from a potential pedophile.

Luciano suddenly discovered that, when unpacked, the gifts occupied twice as much of the space, and the process went in the opposite direction.

Perhaps, if the situation with students had not been so alarming, Mrs. Hemul would have satisfied the request of the assistant principal. But there was something wrong with the school in Mihandrov, and even the best empaths weren’t able to prescribe a medication to it. The director herself left her sons (two wonderful twins) in Artrom when she accepted the job in Mihandrov. For now, the parents of her students still believed the Board of Trustees, but if the alarming events, acknowledged by the commission, didn’t come to a halt within a year, the authorities would close the school. No one wanted to be responsible for the possible death of students—and the oldest educational institution in the district would cease to exist. Less than six months remained until the end of the one-year probation.

But what were they doing wrong? The intuition of a practicing magician, a rather strong one, prompted Mrs. Hemul to think that the answer was closer than they imagined, and the dark stranger was a part of it. He had fumbled with the children for half an hour already, and from a distance it looked like he even enjoyed the kids’ continuous chatter. It was not normal! Neither a harsh word nor an aggressive gesture from him. Indifferent like a cat.

Petros, wanting attention, clutched with his dirty hand the sleeve of the dark’s light jacket. Now the dark would show his true nature… No, he leaned over, listening, and seriously replied. Appealing to both boys, he united them in conversation, and then left kids to talk to each other. A skilful trick! Gesticulating vigorously, Petros dropped the ball. Oh my God! The glass ball bounced harmlessly along the walk—protective magic in action. What foresight… She became uneasy by such mastery of the situation by the dark.

Mrs. Hemul decided: “You are wrong, Mr. Fox!” Noticing the change in her mood, the assistant principal slightly stiffened.

“I think Mr. Tangor’s visit is our best luck this year. Perhaps he is our last chance to improve the situation in the school. We’ve tried everything—except asking the dark for help. If you have a different opinion, please keep it to yourself or appeal directly to the Board of Trustees. While I am the director here, Mr. Tangor will be free to visit the school and communicate with any of our pupils.”

“Petros does not need the intervention of a rude, selfish…”

“Petros seriously lags behind in his development, even if we account for the initiation of his Source. Don’t you agree that it is disturbing when the period of primary fragmentation of consciousness is delayed to ten years! Luciano is the only one with whom Petros communicates regularly, and his brother is the first adult in the presence of whom he doesn’t hide in a shell, like a frightened snail. I advise you to appreciate it.”

Her relations with the assistant principal were spoiled; Mrs. Hemul realized that by how resentfully the man had twitched his chin. People think that hierarchical concerns are the prerogative of the Dark, but the white mages are cut from the same cloth, and sometimes the whites’ blood boils too. Mr. Fox thought of her as an irresponsible greenhorn. Whatever; perhaps, later he would understand her motives, although at his age… doubtful.

Chapter 29

My trip had a chance to become a real resort vacation. I got up at dawn, did some exercises, had lunch, came back to take a nap in the room, and by 10 a.m. went to school to entertain my little white. What could attract an adult dark mage to the white youngsters’ company? One thing: with no effort on my part, they literally hung on my every word, and it was like a balm for my wounded pride. Deceased Uncle Gordon was right when he said that my lust for power was enormous.

Well, of course I thought about our conversation with Lieutenant Rudolph; however, I hoped he did not expect that one dark mage would solve all his problems. In my opinion, it would be much more productive to gather people to scour the neighborhood and the town; perhaps the missing just fell in some pit. Yeah, all nine people… My attempts to sort out the situation looked more like catching a black cat in a dark room. A totally counter-productive activity.

However, I was not afraid of the maniac—my Lyuchik was clearly not to his taste. But all these suicides…

For nearly a week, every day at 10 a.m. sharp, I came to the gates of the school and stayed put there until 5:30 p.m., even had lunch in the local cafeteria. We did nothing serious: played, walked, jump-roped (why am I even mentioning it?!), and talked. The flip side of the thin spiritual organization of the white was incredible tediousness—they could linger on every emotional experience for weeks, and not in a corner, quietly, but with everyone whom they could draw into conversation. Joe once explained to me that they needed to chatter over and rationalize any strong emotion, either positive or negative; otherwise it would put pressure on the nerves and drive them into the coffin. Lyuchik chattered without stopping, and I habitually nodded and thought about totally unrelated things.

For example, I thought about universal splendor. I ought to have gotten accustomed to the local beauty and returned to the dark mage’s normal cynical and pragmatic mood long ago, but blessed idleness persistently entangled my soul. It was unnatural, like the pleasure from smoking marijuana, a forbidden joy that sooner or later you would have to pay for. When a dark magician experiences discomfort, the rest of the world should stock its amulets.

In a flash of brilliance, I realized I should ask Lyuchik’s opinion about this place.

“You, yourself, do you like it here?”

My younger brother did not babble enthusiastically; instead, he seriously pondered my question (which already said a lot to me), then suddenly replied: “No.”

“No?”

“It’s boring here. And I don’t feel like doing anything.”

That was an answer worthy of a Krauhard’s resident! He was bored and wanted to leave, despite all sorts of eye candy. I appreciated it.

“Then perhaps you’ll go with me to Redstone? We’ll live together; there are also schools for the white in there.”

“What about the others? How about Petros?”

Hmm, Petros. My brother had managed to make a friend, whom, in the beginning, I took for an idiot: the boy a year older than Lyuchik continuously smiled, all the while shifting his beady little eyes and every now and then jumping up and down on the spot. Did he have some sort of tick? The dark mages, if they needed company, choose somebody on equal footing, but the white pick up all sorts of rubbish; it would be simpler to keep a pet for the company. The first time I met him, I could not resist the temptation to laugh at the boy—I reached out and began clapping him on the top of his head, like bouncing a ball. He stopped and somehow shrank. I ought to cheer him up.

“Exercising? Good for you! It’s very good for your health. I was also ordered by the coach to jump-rope, but I don’t know how.”

“Really?” Lyuchik asked suspiciously.

“True!” I replied with some pride.

Not everything I say should be understood literally, but the coach did give me that advice. But who was pulling my tongue? On the same day they found somewhere a long piece of twine and began mocking me, talking in two voices, each on his own subject. I could not say now that I did not care about the coach’s advice—that would have ruined my image. In between we played their favorite game. Guess which one? Me being their horse! And the school had six real ponies at that! By the end of the week I realized that the white kids were not so harmless after all.

Frankly speaking, only the presence of these splinters didn’t allow me to dive into the blissful moronity, because you cannot sleep on a hedgehog. For some reason, probably due to the complete change in my life rhythm, meditation formulas quickly lost their strength, and I was poised for action.

I needed to distract the kids with something else, or they would totally exhaust me.

The problem was that there were no other sources of strong impressions nearby; the white do not create problems for each other. The boarding school reminded me of a dollhouse in which handsome doll-teachers talked about loftiness with younger dolls, but the kids wanted to run and fool around; it’s in human nature to play at that age. And here I was, a typical genius: we should go camping, on foot, preferably with an overnight stay. Thus, children would be busy walking, and I could pretend I was thinking about the work, at least occasionally. What remained was to get permission from the local bosses.

Mrs. Hemul watched with interest as a group of younger pupils (those who spent the Christmas holidays at school) crawled under the green fence (they thought they were invisible), and the dark magician walked directly across the lawn from them, defying paved paths, shameless, as befitted a man of his nature. Passing by the children excitedly rustling branches, he clapped his hands and startled the kids, who poured out of the bushes with shrieks and laughter. Though, they did not run away too far.

It was a new entertainment for the youngsters, to watch the magician. Toys and books and previous play activities had been forgotten. As soon as the familiar figure—hands in the pockets—appeared at the gate, the children were blown away as if by the wind. All poured into the park, hiding in the bushes and peeping at the innocent amusements of Krauhard’s brothers. Not every white mage would tolerate calmly so much attention, but the dark couldn’t care less. He treated them as if he was a farmer and they were the annoying chickens, but children seemed to like his attitude.

And these were their white kids! Charming, cultured kids!

In other circumstances, this situation would be funny, but now it only intensified the anxiety. Children (especially the ones with the Source) can feel when something goes wrong. Deep down, they sensed their hope in that man, like Mrs. Hemul herself; the children suffocated in the school, and they were drawn to him as to an open window. The older ones got used to the school’s spirit and became deaf to the inner voice, and that made them helpless before the obscure threat. Mrs. Hemul saw it quite clearly now. She was thinking of closing the school right away, in the middle of the school year, all the more so because half of the students had already gone home.

The dark ran up the stairs of the administrative building. ‘Mr. Fox is alone in the teaching room at this moment; will they be able to come to an agreement?’ But to intervene immediately meant to damage the dignity of the elderly assistant principal, so Mrs. Hemul patiently waited for ten minutes and then went after the dark.

She caught the guy when he came out of the office, looking quite pleased with himself, with a warm smile and brazen eyes. How could a man with eyes like that deserve children’s trust? Mrs. Hemul felt like a little bird that was about to be caught by a sassy yard cat.

“How are you?” the impudent animal purred.

“Fine, thank you,” she chirped, frightened.

He was gone. Wow, just with a glance he made the respectable teacher lose her balance!

Mr. Fox could stand meetings with the dark much better than her; he just looked a little more pensive than usual.

“I met Mr. Tangor in the corridor,” the directrix began uncertainly, trying to calm her heart.

“Uh-huh. He wants to take children for an overnight trip outside the school.”

“And…?”

“I advised him to take a tent and children’s backpacks; we have some that nobody uses.”

“A wise suggestion.”

Did the assistant principal decide to halt the developing feud?

“Petros visibly perked up,” Mr. Fox said suddenly. The acknowledgment of the obvious seemed to present a problem for him, especially taking into account who was the cause. “You know, yesterday he put a frog in my drawer.”

“Did he?”

“Yes,” the assistant principal smiled helplessly. “Of course, I explained that it was cruel to treat animals like that, and together we carried it back to the park. He said he loved me,” Mrs. Hemul noticed that the teacher’s eyes filled with tears, “and he looked so happy.”

The director approached the coworker and gently touched his shoulder. Every teacher reached the moment when his or her student grew stronger, more independent, estranged, with interests of his own. Sometimes it was difficult to accept.

“Petros is very talented. He will be a great magician, if he decides to go through the initiation, but now he is a little boy. He needs a role model, a guiding star. It seems we are not a good fit to this role.”

Mr. Fox took a deep breath.

“A strong core, balancing the astral plane. I should have guessed myself.”

Mrs. Hemul smiled with relief: “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

Chapter 30

The kids approached the idea of ​​a trip with naive enthusiasm. Lyuchik was too little when Uncle Gordon once dragged me out into nature and promised a walk along the Trail of the Brave, a historical landmark in Krauhard. I distinctly remembered how I cursed my long-legged ancestors. That was the last time Uncle managed to trick me into something like this, and in the absence of a grown-up dark magician a night-time walk around Krauhard was a steep extreme. I reasonably believed that after the trip to the hills the kids would forget about me for a long time. The main thing was not to knock myself out.

I entrusted Lyuchik with packing, as the most reasonable of us, and we left early—to buy some stuff for the trip, especially shoes (the ones that I had were not suitable for a long stroll). I needed to go shopping and at the same time to stop by the animal cruelty prevention office—to return the folder to the lieutenant and to check some of my theories.

The head of everything was available, as expected. On my appearance, he slammed a notebook (either he was reading or writing one) and stood up to greet me.

Instead of shaking hands, I handed him the folder and flopped into the chair for visitors.

“Lieutenant, what is the local situation with criminals?”

He shrugged: “There is no such situation—no crimes.”

“And in the past?”

His gaze became clouded: “My father died in a bank robbery.”

“Hmm. How were the robbers planning to flee?”

“I have no idea.”

But that was an interesting question, given that one could get here only by train. Or did they intend to run away on horseback through the steppe?… With some effort I focused on the case. “Are the crime stats available?”

“Of course!”

He took from the drawer and showed me a folder with annual reports. I rustled through the papers for ten minutes.

“Are the dates of disappearance of the missing white available?”

Clarence took out of his desk a sheet filled with the names.

“Hmm. So ten years ago, after the first disappearance, the crime rate diminished. And then these suicides started.”

The lieutenant nodded in silence.

I rummaged in my memory through mountains of information on general magic, learned at the university. Damn, I was going to be an alchemist! My knowledge of magic theory was limited.

“I give up. I cannot imagine a magical influence that could cause such an effect.”

“I can,” Clarence said quietly.

I suspiciously squinted at the lieutenant: “That is, you did notice a strange magic background in the vicinity of the town? With a palpably depressive effect on the psyche?”

“Anyone who has ever left the town and come back was able to perceive it, but the white can hardly recognize the external source of their bad mood.”

Because we are suggestible, he meant. I banged my fist on the table: “Why didn’t you say so? I have lost so much time!”

“To say what?” the lieutenant snapped. “I have no evidence to prove it but my senses! You got to feel it yourself.”

I closed eyes and began counting. Up to thirty-five.

“So, what is it? Let’s talk straight; we are short on time.”

I felt an urge to beat him when the case would be over.

“In theory, a protective spell exists, a side effect of which is the emotional ‘rollback’ that inhibits aggression,” Clarence explained. He took my rudeness in stride with surprising calm. “Putatively, the spell is deadly, but I cannot imagine a white mage using it on someone other than himself. Furthermore, nine times in a row, to explain all the deaths.”

“I personally met one like this.”

Deceased Laurent had exercised his deadly spell only three times; his colleague was more successful and, obviously, had set a record.

I pondered the lieutenant’s version—the rollback inhibiting aggression, trying to assess the extent of its impact on reality. Never guessed that I would need knowledge of white magic! But the fact that Rustle stayed silent since I came to Mihandrov brought on some bad thoughts: the effect of the spell took away some very important component of the environment.

“Do you know how it could end?”

The lieutenant blinked—he did.

“Then why are you still here?”

“How about responsibility for the town, its residents?”

The white, what one could expect from him! He surely wanted to be a hero, if he was with NZAMIPS.

“Will you confirm my words?” Clarence perked up.

“It’s useless,” I waved, “we have only circumstantial evidence: statistics, our senses; there, real people die every day. Our superiors are morons,” I visualized Satal, “they won’t do anything until it is too late.”

“What about their social responsibility?”

I rolled my eyes. He was just like a naive kid!

“Wake up, man! In Redstone, the “cleaners” didn’t notice three ghouls, each over a century old. Doesn’t it say anything to you?”

“But… what should we do then?”

He started panicking, and not without a reason. For me, the most appropriate solution was to grab Lyuchik with both hands and run. But when it blew up here, Satal would drown me in shit, and Lyuchik wouldn’t be proud of his brother (the town will blow—no need to ask a fortune-teller).

“We will work on that,” I tried to concentrate. I dropped by to check some suspicions and finished by taking obligations on my shoulders! “Perhaps you know the name of the murderer?”

Clarence shook his head. “No. It ought to be someone from the boarding school’s staff, but plenty of people resigned after the scandal, so the guy might not be here any longer.”

Lovely! The culprit ran away, and we had to clean up shit after him.

“It doesn’t matter,” I slapped my knee. “The shield has been accumulating potential for ten years; this we can’t change. We will provoke detente!”

“What?”

“Detente. We need to get some of the “cleaners” in here and make them stay—under any pretext. Then we will educate residents and place ward-off signs around the town. There have been no victims for a whole year; therefore, the shield is about to fall apart, and it will be hot in Mihandrov. The supernatural that the spell drove out of here for ten years will run back at once.”

“Do you think it is time to engage volunteers?”

“It needed to be done yesterday, and tomorrow will be too late. Are you familiar with the theory?”

He silently put a stack of brochures on the table. I leafed through one: the Publishing House of the Trunk Bay. Home, sweet home!

“That will do. Think of a reason; lie, mystify if necessary. You’re a magician after all! I’ll notify my superiors, but it will take time while they come to an agreement… As they say, if you are drowning, you are on your own. It’s sink or swim.”

And we parted at that.

I came back to the B&B in a state of quiet madness. These are my holidays, guys, come on! Of all the options, I chose the shittiest town. If not for the two restless white kids with me, I would have been stuck here, like a fly in honey. Interesting who had advised Joe to send his son to Mihandrov.

Edan Satal was suffering from a hangover after the lengthy holidays, and he preferred to hang out at work, raising suspicion in Baer that the senior coordinator was afraid to scare his family.

Locomotive looked into the swollen eyes of his chief and thought that the common salutation in this case would be a straightforward mockery.

“A telegram from Mihandrov.”

Satal read through a piece of paper with one eye and pushed it away in disgust. “Nothing new!”

The captain was a bit surprised. “A magic phenomenon of such magnitude is a rather alarming sign. It could trigger a serious breakthrough of the supernatural energy…”

The coordinator groped for a mug on the desk with some murky dishwater inside (Baer was not good at potions) and took several big gulps—it helped a bit.

“Axel has got a full desk of such messages; Artrom County is famous for that. Half of them are the repercussions of weather spells; another half is unidentified ancient garbage. The wandering white magic is horrible stuff. Artrom is the place where White Halak stood! Tell him to dig deeper. Axel needs specifics. He asked to solve the problem, not to report it.”

Locomotive neither slammed the door—that would be too petty, nor sent the valuable directions to Mihandrov (Tangor wasn’t a fool; he would figure that out himself). But he forwarded a copy of the telegram to Artrom, just in case. Let them know that the reports were sent not only to them. Last year the amount of observed supernatural phenomena in Redstone increased by three hundred percent (in spite of all magic perimeters and ward-off signs), and Baer did not want to become famous as someone who knew about the impending disaster and did nothing.

Chapter 31

Some twists of fate make even dark mages uncomfortable; at the thought of a curse hanging over Mihandrov my skin began to itch. I almost forgot to buy a backpack but, by some miracle, managed to acquire walking shoes of a disgusting bright orange color. I had to pretend that it was intended like that and bought a shirt of the same horrible color. Now I looked like traffic lights.

Once again I thought over the chance to flee, but I would have to drag Lyuchik overcoming his resistance, and people around could misinterpret that. On the other hand, the safest place is always near a dark magician. And we will let the zombie-dog run ahead of the group; it would be a pleasant surprise for the maniac.

In the evening at the B&B, swearing softly but terribly, I tried to stuff enough grub for three people, socks, blankets, the traveling kit of an exorcist (nowhere without it!), and a canister of drinking water in the backpack. Plus a tent on top of everything… Well, I could leave it out and say that otherwise we wouldn’t gain the experience of real hikers. Sleeping under the sky and stars—a hiker’s dream! The idea of ​​the trip did not seem as smart as before, but it was too late to retreat; moreover, it was vital to me to free up some time, and I did not know how to get it in any other way. I took Uncle Gordon’s beads with a pair of student curses, in case the worst came to worst.

The next morning we left for the trip. I, wise and prudent, with the bamboo handle from a mop (yes—my staff), and the two white kids, hopping with excitement. Well, surely, they would not be skipping for long…

Honestly, I did not plan the route. Judging by Lieutenant Clarence’s map, the area around the lake was quite the same in all directions (except for Mihandrov on the east): hills near the water surrounded by the steppe stretching for seven days of walking. We passed the territory of the school, got out through a fallen section of the fence (supposedly it was the security perimeter), and went on, maintaining a general direction towards the west, to the lake. Vegetation changed quickly and substantially: instead of lush park greenery, we now walked through gullies, dry standing grass, and weeds. It started smelling strangely; even touches of air to the skin felt differently than before. The wildness of the landscape awakened some ancient instinct that caused us to tread carefully and stay quiet; the white were silent, but their excitement sparkled around. New experiences and sensations are good stimuli for a child’s mind!

I tried to keep track of time until we reached the boundary of the notorious defensive circle of the deadly spell (Clarence said it would be impossible to miss it). I wanted to get an idea of how the spell was distributed in the area. It was clear to me that its perimeters followed the signs’ line, but the shields were set differently - along the axes in two directions, as far as the power would allow. In dark magic, the curses that generate shields exist for as long as the energy of the Source is pumped in; that is, only in the presence of a dark magician. In white magic, as I understand, the spells act differently: they create some distortion of the structure of reality, the longevity of which depends not so much on the input energy, but on the resistance of environment (there is not even one formula for that in the dark section of magic foundations). An experienced white magician could make his creation so natural that its influence would last for centuries. However, precisely that feature—the change in the environment—made the results of divination so ambiguous.

I was slowly losing my mind from attempts to sort out the situation. Logically thinking, if there was a shield, then the pentagram that created it should be somewhere in the centre, too. If we found at least some trails of the pentagram, the arrival of the “cleaners” to Mihandrov would be guaranteed. It remained to understand where the middle of that white spell was…

After three hours and two stops for rest, the kids turned visibly sour.

“Hold on, boys, we have just a little bit left until the lake!”

The terrain started to slope, green grass replaced dry weeds, and rabbit burrows began to tuck under the feet—all that was an indication of our proximity to the lake. Therefore, we didn’t need to save water for the tea and could even wash our feet after the walk—very conducive for relaxation. By the time the surface of the lake started shining ahead (they called it a lake? To me it was more like a rain puddle!), the kids were exhausted, and I had to set up our camp alone and in silence. The white fell asleep barely touching the ground.

Well, wasn’t I a genius? No bustling, fussing, or excessive energy. We were going to have dinner, overnight sleep, and slowly go back tomorrow. And I will have a day off with no threat of the jump ropes for me (knock on wood).

The next moment I learned that my attitude towards the children was outrageous. I was sent to help people, but instead I scratched my ass for a week and played the fool. Clearly, the area of distorted reality had been left behind, because Rustle was back. But my personal monster forgot that I couldn’t care less for its opinion. Imagine how comic the situation was: the supernatural creature criticized the dark magician for his sloppiness. Rustle’s anger would have been righteous had I intended to work on holidays. The local NZAMIPS had ten years to sort out the situation, and now what—one poor student ought to work the whole Mihandrov’s division? Ha-ha!

By evening, the kids perked up just enough to eat cereal, watch the sunset, say “Ah!” and get into their sleeping bags. Nice. As a final touch, I put an amulet on Petros’ neck, warding off mosquitoes (otherwise, my white kids would look like leopards by the end of the trip), and crawled under the blanket. Coals smoldered in the neat fire hole, insects avoided flying around me (wise choice on their part), and the zombie-dog guarded us at a distance. I had rarely felt this good.

For the first time I realized that I did not regret becoming a magician. Magic abilities give me certain freedom, confidence in the future. It would be stupid to have Power and deny it, right? Now I could wander the expanses of Ingernika, not fearing loneliness and darkness, and lack of means…

The dissatisfied Rustle cut in again—I was bored without it—and said that all my thoughts were complete crap. In its view, it was time for me to make kids, not to entertain them, and, if I wanted to sleep outside, I should have a cool chick by my side, together in one sleeping bag.

With a surprise, I realized that the otherworldly wight was interested in sex. It missed that feeling, imagine that! Shit! Get out of my mind, you filthy animal!

Rustle maliciously hinted that at such a time and place (at night, at the campfire) I had no reason to show off.

I promised myself that when I came back, I would confess in necromancy and finish my life in the electric chair!

Rustle retreated, hiding in the inaccessible depths of my consciousness and indignantly broadcasting obscene pornographic pictures. Oh my God, where did it pick them up? Quarters was a fan of that stuff, but even he didn’t see such perversion… So many people deathly fear that beast, but all it has on its mind is obscenities! And what shall I do when I really get a girlfriend, have a threesome?

That night in my dream I saw Rustle in the jar. What was interesting: the jar I remembered clearly, but how I put the monster in there I could not recall.

Needless to say that my white kids came back as heroes, tired and happy. They stuffed pockets with all sorts of rubbish (stones, dead beetles, last year’s snake skins), managed to see a real fox and find an eagle feather (I declared it was an eagle). Walking at a slower pace but not stopping for rest, we reached the school before lunch. On the way back I lied with great inspiration about the King’s Island, my work in NZAMIPS, my evil boss—a genuine dark magician (finally I had somebody to complain to!), about my student life in Redstone, and the kids compassionately sighed and asked hundreds of meaningless questions. We made a detour to enter through the main gates; I delivered the children to Mr. Fox and sighed with relief. Now they had a week worth topics for discussion!

“You turned our entire school upside down,” Mrs. Hemul noticed, but she did not look unhappy at that.

More to come!

“You’d better repair the fence at the rear; a few sections were overturned,” I suggested heartily. “You won’t close the perimeter without them.”

She thanked me very seriously. Lyuchik arranged for sort of a meeting at the square (even senior students came for it); Fox dragged Petros off to take a bath; I flirted with the idea of going to bed, but reluctantly went to town—it was time to get down to business that the kids didn’t need to know about. I was going to please Rustle!

Clarence was in the office: the enterprising white magician drew propaganda posters, focusing on illustrations from the Krauhardian brochures. His pictures looked even more fearsome than the originals. I guessed that a man like him wasn’t susceptible to any “rollback”.

“Office, to arms!” I announced from the doorway. “Let’s go gather evidence.”

He began rushing around the office like a frightened rabbit.

“Freeze! Do you have a cart in your possession? We cannot take your vehicle—it would unmask us.”

“My nephew has a two-wheeled gig.”

“It will work! Take it and let’s go.”

The horse is not a car; it takes half an hour to harness it. By the time unhappy Alfred returned with the cart, Clarence had stuffed a whole field lab into his suitcase—from a magnifier to a spirit lamp. The purpose of half the objects in the suitcase remained a mystery to me. We climbed into the seats and pretended that it was casual: I, dirty like a pig after two days of camping, and the distinguished representative of the town’s authorities were going somewhere on business together.

“We need to approach the school from behind, from the direction of the park. Can we?”

“There is no road in that area, but I’ll try.”

A curved dirt walkway barely conquered the hills surrounding the lake, made a steep turn, and disappeared in the middle of the clear steppe; from that point onward our hope was on the strength of the cart axis. The gig jumped on hummocks and wriggled between thickets of thorns, blindly hitting some holes and rocks hidden in the grass. I kept the suitcase on my knees, trying to quench the jolts and shocks—it wasn’t altruism on my side; if not for that job, I would have to handle the horse.

“How far?” Clarence asked, his teeth clattering.

“My mate will meet us.”

“What?”

“Come on, drive!”

The horse sensed the zombie first; it began to snort and jump anxiously from side to side.

“That’s it, we have arrived! Tie up the horse—we’ll walk from here.”

“What’s the matter; can you explain?” the white mage muttered discontentedly after I had returned his suitcase.

I sighed and tried to convey all the brilliant simplicity of my plan to the provincial policeman.

“I will explain it one time only: from the side of the lake, the transition to the ‘rollback’ zone is very sharp; we reached the place of ‘normal appearance’ in three hours. Under the ‘normal appearance’ I mean presence of animals, predatory birds, and blood-sucking insects. From the side of the railroad lane, the transition is almost imperceptible. Believe me. I conclude that a pentagram that generates the shield is somewhere around here.”

“I should have taken more people for the search.” When a white mage starts to snap that means he is extremely irritated.

“Don’t fret, chief! My mate had already looked around.”

Clarence wasn’t convinced.

Max silently came out of the bushes; from the lingering grace of its movements one wanted to turn around and run away. You cannot hide the otherworldly nature! The monster that hid under the disheveled brown hair could not be seen but was felt quite clearly. Dear God, where could it pick so many thorns and spines in its fur? The white squinted warily and started unconsciously rubbing his hands against the jacket’s pocket (perhaps he kept some amulet there). There was no sense in hiding my dog any further. We were in the same boat.

I called Max and presented it to the lieutenant: “Meet my mate.” Clarence leaned over to stroke the dog. “It’s a zombie,” I finished, grabbing the shattered lieutenant by the elbow. “Quiet, quiet! Max is tame.”

Max brushed its bangs to the side and squinted whitish, lifeless eye at Clarence with interest; the head of Mihandrov’s NZAMIPS unsuccessfully tried to calm his heavy breathing. And this man was a salaried “cleaner”?!

“I was aware that all darks were crazy, but not to such a degree!”

“Well,” I was sincerely offended, “my superiors are okay with it.”

“But that creature is a zombie!”

“A silly superstition. A zombie is just a reanimated body, not a genuine supernatural phenomenon. Max is stable, that’s the main thing, and extremely helpful! You will see.”

“You should have warned me,” the gallant officer muttered angrily and pretended that he could walk by himself now.

I shrugged and followed Max; now both of them—the suitcase and the white—were hanging on me.

By the way, Clarence was fundamentally wrong about “taking more people”—the problem was not in the scale of the search. Our enemy was a magician; hence, he was able to hide traces of his activity much more reliably than ordinary people. But not from the zombie—the reanimated corpse always finds another corpse, no matter if it’s enchanted, or sprinkled with an odor-killing potion, or buried masterfully. Where hundreds of chartered detectives would have worked for a month, Max just ran around for half an hour. Now the dog trampled merrily on an unremarkable piece of grass, in the middle of a clear field, where there was absolutely nothing eye-catching.

“We will be digging here,” I concluded with a straight face.

We marked up the plot according to archaeological science and began removing sod gently. The grave was shallow; just twenty inches under the surface my shovel groped a skeleton’s hand.

“There it is…”

I heard only rustling of grass in response —Clarence rushed into the nearest bush, to vomit. The chief of NZAMIPS! What a joke! A quarter of an hour I spent bringing the white to senses, and then he lasted long enough only to make a formal report of the findings and test a couple of standard police spells on it.

“A young man, died three years ago, hard to say any more with certainty. There are traces of some magic; I’ll take its imprint. I need to bring experts to find out more.”

“Too early. For one corpse they will send ordinary criminal experts, but we need “cleaners”. I do not think that the maniac dragged the corpse on his back, and the gig won’t get here. We will search for the pentagram.”

“It’s getting dark,” the lieutenant objected weakly.

“I don’t care! Darkness sharpens the senses.”

We split up and went along an expanding spiral; Max was helping us as well, but I did not rely on it, and this proved to be right. Clarence found the oddity, not by the magic trails, but for a completely idiotic reason; he did not like the bush.

“Mr. Tangor!”

I tried to remember the place where I stopped, gave up, and went to the call.

“Well?”

“Don’t you think they are sort of… wrong?”

“Wrong” was an evergreen shrub with spikes of such size that I got sick from just looking at them.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Too straight. Too dense.”

And that was true—the wild bush looked more like a cropped hedge. It was a typical look for a garden, but completely unnatural in the wilderness. I carefully pulled apart the branches.

“Are we going inside?”

The white looked doubtfully at the prickly hedge.

“You’d better take the suitcase, or we will have to come back for it.”

The bamboo stick I left in the police office would have come in very handy! The combat magicians of the past were experts at this. To say that we got scratched by the spikes was to say nothing: one spike cut through my arm almost to the bone, and I was struck with pure and sincere hatred for the villain who set that all up. Let me get to him: he will be mutilated!

Behind the dense ring of branches the bush sharply cut off, opening up nearly empty space thirteen feet in diameter, without a hint of vegetation. The magic background intensified, and I squatted, studying the dirt.

You would guess that such an impermanent thing as chalk lines would disappear without a trace after the first rain. Perhaps, this is true for the regular chalk, but if magic energy went through the contours of the signs, the traces of whitening would be stronger than after kindling a fire. Nothing would grow in their for a long time. Even if someone put sod on top of a pentagram, it would not change anything; the grass would wither and crumble into fine dust or would be strongly inhibited. In that place the grass dried out, but slowly and in patches, circles and triangles; using a pen knife, I was able to find traces of chalk on the ground. I stood up, looking at the drawing vaguely showing through the turf.

Excellent! It did not matter whether the pentagram was related to the disappearance of people or to a weather spell; we discovered the traces of a ritual, the corpse, and now we could call the combat mages.

“Make a record of it!” I ordered Clarence, smiling predatorily.

The poor lieutenant, looking very much like a ghoul, took the necessary tools out of the suitcase.

On the way back to town I rode the gig myself. The white could not pull himself together. Of course, I was no good as a cart driver, but the horse was eager to reach its home stall, and even if I wanted to I wouldn’t be able to slow it down.

“Call Alfred now; do not wait until morning. Put evidence in the sealed envelope and send it by courier with the highest degree of urgency. I will write a cover letter to scare them. They will be forced to rush here!”

“And then what?”

“Let’s make them search for the remaining eight bodies; it will take no less than a month without Max. During this time we will make noise, find journalists among the tourists or students’ parents, and publish an article in the regional press with ‘artisans’ in every line. The scribblers are so sensitive to that word! We must turn things in such a way that for your ‘cleaners’ catching the perpetrator will be a personal challenge. And let the experts estimate for how long the shield will maintain the created effect. If we are fortunate, you will lose one of your jobs.”

“I do not mind.”

“And if we aren’t, you will have to hire a private combat mage. It’s not cheap, but you cannot leave town without the protection of a dark magician; this is not the case when you can count on luck.”

Chapter 32

The next day I intended to rest and slept until 11 a.m. without any remorse. I deserved it! My vacation turned out to be a real business trip; I worked seven days a week, knocking myself out. Good that at least my hostess was compassionate: if yesterday night, after three hours of combing my zombie’s hair, I couldn’t take a bath (it was after one a.m.), I would have burned all of Mihandrov today. A nervous breakdown wasn’t the exclusive privilege of the white mages!

Dropping by the school just to check, I discovered that my diversion with the trip brought unexpected results: instead of playing pathfinders and building huts, children enthusiastically argued. It looked hilarious in the performance of the white: they stood and talked very quickly all at the same time, perhaps not even catching the meaning of each other’s words. I got so curious that came up closer to listen to them.

“Thomas!” Lyuchik finally noticed me.

I got surrounded by kids with such speed that I even started.

“Tell me, tell me,” Lyuchik was tugging at my sleeve, “why the snake takes off its skin?”

“Because it has always done that,” I shrugged. “Why not?”

“But I do not shed my skin!”

Dear god, was that the reason for their hysterical quarrel? No, I will never get the job of an empath; I cannot grasp such things.

“Bro, in fact, you are shedding constantly, and the snake only once a year. It’s questionable who is better off—you or the snake.”

“Really?” Lyuchik frowned in puzzlement.

“Of course! The snake doesn’t have to wash, and they don’t stink.” If I remembered correctly, the snakes did not have sweat glands.

“But the snake will get cold,” sobbed a girl in bows. “They need clothes.”

I pictured a snake in the coat and gave a raucous neigh. Perhaps it was wildly anti-pedagogical, but I couldn’t stop.

“How about buttons?” I squeezed the question through tears. “How will they zip up buttons?”

The children became puzzled. What bedlam! Of course, I knew the white had a peculiar vision of the world, but not to that extent… I should be lenient and make allowance for age, after all. I tried to formulate my thoughts in a simpler way: “Clothes were invented by people because humans were bald, but the snake and mice do not need coats. In the areas where they live, their skin is exactly what they need. They’re animals! Don’t your teachers tell you anything about animals?”

“The snake is a reptile,” a bespectacled kid with a toy bear corrected politely.

“Good for you! Then you know that the snake is cold-blooded. Why would it need a coat if it is heated from outside?” I ruffled Lyuchik’s hair. “Do not worry! The snake has lived on earth for millions of years, so all that is necessary for their survival they have already acquired.”

“Our teacher told us that some species of snake have become extinct,” the four-eyed kid said.

That was where the problem originated! Quite a bizarre run of associations.

“Animals become extinct because people plough virgin lands and build houses. Animals need wilderness; if we do not interfere with them, they will be all right. Got it?”

Everybody calmed down. Good. I was lucky that the kids didn’t ask the sacred question about a fried piglet; I cannot talk on this topic, but I know a bunch of jokes. Like, once a vegetarian married a butcher’s daughter… ‘Maybe the kids’ moronity was the result of the rollback,’ suddenly came to my mind. On the other hand, teachers also ought to think before they say something. Anything. I fished out my brother from the crowd of pacified whites and took him for a walk to the park, vaguely sensing the lack of something of great importance.

“Where is Petros?”

My brother sighed. “Mr. Fox does not let him out for a walk.”

“How is it possible that he doesn’t let him out?” I was taken aback.

“Mr. Fox said that Petros got sick, but Petros wrote me a note that he wasn’t sick, only his feet hurt a little.”

My God, they were exchanging notes already, teen-conspirators?! Should I have a serious talk with the assistant principal? If I wanted to get that crazy kid under my wing, then yes, I had to immediately rush into a quarrel. But a sudden idea came to my mind: if Petros disappeared from the horizon, it would be much easier to take Lyuchik away from Mihandrov. So I decided to act in a civilized manner.

“Let’s go talk to the headmistress of the school.”

Mrs. Hemul was glad to see me, but she looked tired and agitated. You know, the emotional and physical conditions of a magician are strongly related. As if by magic, a cup of jasmine tea and a basket of fancy cookies appeared on the table (Lyuchik began to dig into them, searching for the sun-shaped ones). She understood the meaning of my question at once, saying, “This is an unfortunate incident, a totally unacceptable situation. Mr. Fox unpleasantly surprised me. To put it bluntly, he reacted very painfully to your visit; however, I was sure that he was coping with his emotions. But it happened so suddenly—and absolutely without a motif! The problem is that Mr. Fox is the legal guardian of Petros; it’s in his power to simply take the boy out of the school and leave. I need time to find Mrs. Kormalis and resolve this issue. Unfortunately, she is not in Mihandrov.”

“Suddenly left the town, am I correct?” an unpleasant ache developed in my stomach.

“Just before the holidays,” Mrs. Hemul nodded. “I’m sure she is about to come back.”

Maybe she will return. I thought that Clarence’s attention to the missing people and the commission’s work calmed down the maniac, but what if they didn’t? Though such complex coincidences just could not happen.

“I am glad that you are not letting the matter slide.”

She became a little confused. “Regarding this, I have a favor to ask from both of you…”

I already knew what she was driving at.

“Mr. Tangor, could I ask you to refrain from visits to the school for some time?”

“What do you think, brother?”

A heavy fight between a few mutually exclusive desires reflected on Lyuchik’s face. “If that is necessary for Petros… But for how long?”

“For a couple of days,” Mrs. Hemul soothed him.

“Please keep in mind that I can stay here only until the end of the holidays,” I warned her.

“Do not worry; the misunderstanding will be resolved very quickly.”

“Good. I’ll call tomorrow then.”

Lyuchik and I finished the tea and said goodbye to Mrs. Hemul.

Lyuchik followed me to the gate; we sat in the park for a bit. I finally came to the conclusion that I would not leave my brother alone with the curse and the nutty teachers at Mihandrov. I didn’t have custody rights, but I was paying for his tuition, and Joe would follow my advice.

“I’m being serious with you; think hard about changing schools. Redstone is a big city with plenty of entertainment and a zoo.”

“What if everywhere is like here?” Lyuchik asked sadly.

“No, there is obviously something wrong with this place.”

“And what do you think is wrong with our school?” Fox turned out to be near.

The assistant principal looked cheerful—no doubts tortured him. He seemed to be in a hurry to push me out of the gate. He hung over Lyuchik in such a manner that I could hardly restrain myself from hitting him with a curse. Watch out, Mr. Fox!

I shrugged indifferently. “For example—you. A normal teacher would not lie right in the students’ faces.”

He was taken aback. “I’ve never…”

“To Milos the day before yesterday? Why did you lie to him that his cat would be with him forever? As if you do not know that animals and humans have different life span!”

He was surprised; maybe he thought that I was blind and deaf to everything around me.

“Would you have had me say that his pet would die in his hands?” Fox softly smiled having recovered from the surprise.

“You should have said that the kitten was not invented for his entertainment. The kitten wants to walk on roofs, make love with she-cats, and piss to mark its territory. Wanting from the kitten something that does not conform to its nature is selfishness, and to demand its immortality is pure necromancy. Do you expect to raise a necromancer from Milos?”

Fox went pale. “The zombie is more up your alley,” he almost hissed.

I did not argue: “Yes, I make them, but I can destroy them. But Milos will manage only the first part, at best. What will the guy do when he realizes that the animated corpse is not his pet?”

I sensed growing attention on me with all my skin; I was looked at from all sides, and I felt like making a speech. “The world must be loved for what it is; we must not pick out the most delicious parts of it, like raisins from a bread loaf. Not all of what we like is good, and not everything that hurts us is evil. Among your pupils there are girls—how will you explain to them what childbirth is?”

He even turned green at that.

“Don’t you like babies?” I purred softly. “Don’t you know where they come from?”

Fox turned and fled. I showed him us—the dark! All the white minnows in the park ran to the side with a soft shur-shur-shur. I beat Fox with means specific to the white—I gave a different explanation—and now kids would not calm down until they determined which of us was right. Poor teachers! To be honest, the phrase about the bread loaf was prepared ahead of time; I came up with it when tried to get rid of the nightmares caused by visions of White Halak.

The dark, having nightmares! If I said that to anybody, I would be laughed at.

“If you decide to stay here,” I told Lyuchik, “never trust to what that guy says. He is crazy!”

“I thought so too,” the kid nodded very seriously, “but I do not know why.”

God knows how sick I was of their gooing!

“Don’t be puzzled about ‘why’,” I chuckled. “Teachers must understand more than students, not just talk convincingly. He is a theoretician on life, damn it.”

So, I finally got two days off. Now I had plenty of time to wander around and visit Mihandrov’s barely any sightseeing spots. Still, the town itself was quite interesting. It was in the condition of “antiquity without decrepitude”. I didn’t mean miserable huts hanging onto each other in clusters. This condition is laid with the first stone of the foundation, ripens for centuries, and is lost if the ancient brew is diluted with even a drop of contemporary design. So, Mihandrov was soaked in the antiquity so strongly that its age was nearly impossible to determine. I was sure that the town was like that before the deadly spell, and it would maintain the same appearance many, many years later: white walls, slate roofs, low stone fences—like the pictures of ancient towns in school textbooks.

Vines did not grow in the neighborhood of Mihandrov (Alfred had said something to that effect, but I did not save it in my memory); however, there was a man living on the lakefront who regularly supplied the town with fresh beer. I knew the road to his pub, a stylish basement with huge barrels, wooden tables, and indispensable bundles of garlic. Compared to the best Redstone restaurants, it differed only by the absence of a fireplace (the latter was not needed here) and by a shorter menu list (mostly fish was present). I seriously considered buying a house in Mihandrov, although it will be scorching heat here in the middle of summer…

I know it sounds selfish, but I vitally needed a break in communication with the white. In the end, a mage’s physical state depends on the condition of his soul, and my contacts with the white drove me crazy lately. Besides, the “cleaners” from Artrom were expected to come to town any minute now, and a sharp transition to communication with the combat mages could be harmful to my health. Who would need me then as a cripple?

I did not manage to get drunk on light beer, and stronger drinks were unavailable in Mihandrov at all. I was too lazy to drag to the train station for liquor and went back to the mansion to swing in a wicker chair, take a nap, and think how nasty Satal felt in Redstone now (it was freezing cold there). Clarence didn’t bother me. Twilight began to darken, dinner was getting closer, and the smell of fried fish wafted from the windows of the kitchen. Fish was everywhere in Mihandrov.

And then it struck.

No, there was no sound; it just felt as if a big toothy saw touched the nerves of Max and me. The dog that had been soaking in a tub with some preservative since morning howled hoarsely. I told it to shut up and stay in the bath, clicked the “whistle” in my pocket, and ran to pick up my traveling kit. The unforgettable feeling that mauled my nerves could mean only one thing: the supernatural was hovering nearby.

With the staff and the suitcase in hands (just like in a fairy tale), I rushed to where my intuition strictly forbade me to go. In a hurry, I burst straight in, cutting corners on the slopes where one wrong move would make you fly headfirst to the lake below. Yet I was glad that I wasn’t running in the direction of the school. Somewhere halfway up hill, I caught up with Fox, who wheezed on the rise. I wondered where the man was going to. Pulling up my socks, I overtook him, and while the white climbed the slope, I made a loop and broke into the overgrown park from the other side (first!). There it was! A large open space covered before with grass and bushes was now filled with ash-gray dust.

“Witch’s baldness!” Fox breathed out, having made his way up through the thickets of the wild rose.

I wondered how come he knew what that was. Witch’s baldness was a rare type of supernatural phenomenon, surprisingly difficult to get rid of: the source of the supernatural was deep underground. That is, a normal pentagram won’t decimate the bald unless you draw it after removing the top five feet of dirt, standing right in the centre of contamination. I had to move backwards - the border of the baldness shifted significantly closer to me.

“I have never seen them growing so quickly!” I gasped in shock.

“What should we do?” Fox screamed in panic.

That was a good demonstration of his self-control.

“I will take care of it, and you run and tell people to get out of their homes. They are too close!”

“Close” was not the right word: roofs were already visible at the bottom of the hill slope. They were within a stone’s throw! The NZAMIPS’ “whistle” was of no use—they were too far to help. Alfred, sent as a courier to Artrom, wouldn’t be able to come back earlier than in twenty-four hours, and I didn’t need another white here. The lieutenant would be a burden.

The bad news was that I could not kill such a huge otherworldly creature alone, and at the speed it grew (thirty feet in diameter for half an hour that we took to reach the place) very soon the power of the combat mages of the whole Ingernika wouldn’t be enough to cope with it. When the “cleaners” arrived at the place (if they hurried up), only one remedy would be left: the armory curse. It required five to seven victims - people who did not manage to get away from Mihandrov in time. Theoretically, one experienced dark mage would be enough to kill the supernatural with the armory curse. But I wasn’t taught at the university on how to perform it.

I wasn’t taught…

And then I thanked all the gods for putting in my way that loathsome creature, Edan Satal. No, he did not teach me the deadly curses—he was not suicidal—but he set my teeth on edge with all sorts of high-level shields and barriers. I recalled what I needed; however, my knowledge was purely theoretical. But when had it stopped me before? After assessing the growth rate of the witch’s baldness, I breathed out a fire weaving that burned down bushes in a sixty-foot radius, took a marker out of the bag, and began to draw. That would be a perimeter, a simple ward-off perimeter, only turned inside out: it would keep the creature inside.

There was no time to measure out the sectors; I had to act by eyeballing it. As a result, instead of the minimal twelve signs per perimeter, I drew eleven. I hoped it would work anyway! The marker ran out before the last couple of lines were drawn—it was not meant for spells of that size—and I didn’t have time to look for a replacement. No more than half a meter remained between the baldness and the line. Simple chalk was no good for such a surface, and to redraw the pentagram on a larger scale was meaningless. A perimeter of such size could not be activated. This was the end, not for me, but for most of the townsfolk for sure. Such a crowd of people would not be able to leave the town quickly.

I threw off the empty marker tube and screamed hoarsely, like an animal.

“This? This?” someone poked me in the back.

That was Lieutenant Clarence, white as chalk, with the exact same bag as mine and with the same token from the sorcerer’s traveling kit. My God, what did he need it for?

I snatched from his hand the white tube and finished drawing in feverish haste.

“I-isabertana dar-ram!”

A wave of power from the Source, zonked from such treatment, swept through the line of signs, activating the spell—akin to what Uncle Gordon used to scare mice. Smaller in size, but with a higher price tag. The toothed crown of the three-dimensional perimeter soared above the ground and struck inward.

I had done what I could. If this failed, I would have to grab Lyuchik and run away. I heard a thump behind my back—Clarence fainted. Of course, he was drenched in my power! I looked—the witch’s baldness stopped growing and even slightly leaned back from the burning line of signs—then I heaved the brave warrior on my shoulder and carried him to the road, bypassing the baldness.

Fox was waiting next to a striped police car; hence, he had not warned the residents of nearby houses. What a jerk! Well, at least he didn’t run away.

“What’s the situation?”

“I have locked the witch’s baldness by a reverse perimeter; meanwhile, it’s holding up, but I can’t do any more alone. We have already called the ‘cleaners’; they should be here soon. Can you drive? Go to the train station and wait! Bring Clarence to life and let him call the ‘cleaners’ and prepare for evacuation in the event of the armory curse. I will stay here and maintain the perimeter.”

For a white mage, Fox recovered very quickly, but he couldn’t steel himself to follow my orders.

“Why?” he demanded explanation.

I thought his question referred to the strange supernatural entity.

“Your town’s suburbs are absolutely sterile—I mean, relative to dark magic. No disturbances, no complex flows. If an otherworldly creature comes into such environment, it begins to develop explosively. Have you ever heard of Nintark? Here you go! Something similar happened there. When you meet our team of mages, tell them about this; the ‘cleaners’ are not that bright and may not guess themselves.”

It seemed he did not accept my answer. He wanted to say something but refrained, nodded, and finally left, and I went back to the baldness—to terrorize my Source and pour power into the perimeter. The waiting promised to be long.

The chalk marks were ill-suited for the long-term divination, and my asymmetrical, unbalanced perimeter powered out like a leaky tub. I had to update the curse virtually every fifteen minutes, to sit to the side and keep watching. How inopportune was that beer! It was getting dark and cold. A perked-up Clarence returned to me with blankets and sweet juice: a magician’s first aid. I sent him for an alarm clock; I feared to death that I would miss the baldness’ growth. The moon slowly drifted over the lake and down the hills, the east brightened, and it started smelling of trouble.

No, I wasn’t tired; it just became awfully difficult to concentrate on the perimeter and even to remember to watch it. My thoughts ran like mercury balls; clearly, if the ‘cleaners’ did not arrive by the early morning express, I would have to flee. It would be even wiser to take the very same express myself, but that sound idea came into my head too late.

When I heard the familiar screech of Mihandrov’s police car’s transmission, I mistook it for the sound of the silly alarm clock. I would need to ask Clarence… But instead of the lieutenant some absolutely unfamiliar people came out of the bushes, and, judging by the fact that their very appearance aroused my irritation, at least one of them was a dark magician.

“Shit…!” a burly fellow with a crew-cut in a dark red field uniform expressed what they were thinking as they approached. With such a face he could only be the commander. “Sergeant Claymore,” he introduced himself, shook hands, and jerked me, forcing to stand up. “Your work?”

To tell him it was not mine? Maybe he saw some other dark magicians here?

“Squalor,” a thin sharp-nosed nerd with a goat-like squint muttered through his clenched teeth. Either he needed glasses, or he hadn’t been beaten by the dark for very long.

“Stop talking!” the sergeant barked, the sharp-nosed shut up, and even I no longer wanted to object. “Remove the unauthorized persons. Where is Rispin?”

Another dark, younger, burst through the bushes with two huge trunks. Well, it looked like they were itching to climb the hill, but to go through the wicket—no way! Was there some hidden sense in that? I wasn’t going to wait until they pushed me out and began a slow descent to the road. The trio left an elephant trail behind. At the bottom of the hill, Clarence gently helped me get into the back seat of his limousine; alas, he did not have a second blanket for me.

“What’s going on there?” the lieutenant asked tensely.

I tried to shrug. My brains thawed slowly from the stress; I wanted neither to speak nor to think.

“Will they cope?” Clarence worried.

How should I know?

“You’d better U-turn your car right here,” I advised him, “driving in reverse isn’t speedy.”

There were no streetlights in Mihandrov, so nights were very much like in Krauhard here: dark and misty. The lake breathed out fog, and a rather chilly breeze came out of the steppe; the sun rose fast, and day started instantly. I slept peacefully under Clarence’s jacket for an hour and a half and was awakened by a strike of lightning, typical for the expelling curse. It blew off so strongly that the car bounced. The lieutenant ruthlessly pulled the improvised blanket off me. The sky was already bright.

The sergeant climbed down the slope, swearing, along with the sharp-nosed assistant with my staff in his hands! Their younger colleague, named Rispin, showed prudence and went through the gate—an extra one hundred meters, but much more convenient.

“In my twenty years of experience I haven’t seen such a hefty creature before,” the sharp-nosed guy said, trying to push me out of the car, but I tenaciously clung to the seat. Clarence’s cabriolet was not designed for five, but it was not my problem. Let them sit on each other’s knees!

“Gorchik, as you were!” the weary sergeant ordered and decisively took a seat beside the driver.

Rispin pushed on Gorchik with his hip, the compacted people compressed to the limit. And we were off. Personally, I was happy at how everything turned out; I even began to doze off again, and only Gorchik, sandwiched in from both sides, angrily sniffed and almost pinched us in annoyance.

“Drop me off at the school,” I asked Clarence.

“No need to,” the lieutenant advised. “Yesterday I warned Mrs. Hemul; it’s all under control. And the perimeter is working; the gates will stay locked until 11 a.m.”

I asked about the time—there was more than an hour before the school’s opening—and I had to agree: showing up looking like I had a sleepover in the bushes would discredit the image I had created. And to stay awake for another two hours was beyond my strength.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the office at seventeen hundred!” the sergeant shouted at our parting.

“It won’t work,” I warned him honestly. I would be sleeping, no matter what.

“Well,” he displayed some compassion, “then tomorrow at ten hundred—no excuses!”

And they drove off. With a short delay, I began to feel resentful. Geez, he wasn’t even my commander! And he wasn’t at home! What right did the guy have to order me? But, on second thought, I decided that to learn about the plans of the long-awaited “cleaners” was absolutely necessary; hence, I had to go. But I would stop their every attempt to benefit at my expense! If the dark mages cut their way to higher status, they become absolutely unbearable.

In the mansion, the tender-hearted Mrs. Parker released Max from the bathroom. Either she was a secret necromancer or believed that the dark magician’s dog had the right to be strange, one way or another. Mrs. Parker recognized in the preservative solution a remedy against fleas, and she washed and brushed Max’s coat with a special homemade lotion that kept its hair not just shiny, but also tangle-free. With the thought that I ought to get the magic recipe from her, I fell into bed and slept for almost twenty-four hours.

Mrs. Hemul watched the assistant principal walking around his office, and tried not to display her concern. Mr. Fox no longer cast even a shadow of sympathy—rather, he frightened her. Where did he hide such a chasm of complexes and prejudices, and why hadn’t she noticed them before? All his quirks and reservations from the last six months now acquired a much more sinister meaning.

“It’s the dark mage’s fault!” Mr. Fox insisted feverishly. “Our troubles started after his arrival.”

Long ago, at the time of the Inquisition, it was proved that the occurrence of supernatural phenomena did not depend on the will of the dark, but on the properties of the environment. The arsenal of dark magicians has plenty of abominations, but guests from the other world are not part of it. But Fox rejected the truisms straightaway, and to reach out to his common sense was getting more and more difficult.

“Even if it is so, would you prefer that the breakthrough occur in his absence? We had lived for ten years without any supernatural manifestation; it was too long even for the capital.”

“Who told you that?” Mr. Fox frowned in annoyance.

“Lieutenant Clarence came to see us yesterday. We talked.”

It was the young policeman, pale from shock, who told her about the need to lock the ward-off perimeter—not the experienced assistant principal, too busy buying train tickets to carve out a minute and call to warn her. In the morning the whole school had seen an ugly scandal: Fox yelled at her for not unlocking the gate for him to leave. The assistant principal did not accept the directrix’ explanation that, if she unlocked the perimeter, they wouldn’t be able to repeat the reactivation sooner than in four hours - he needed to go. Mrs. Hemul cowardly regretted that she hadn’t let Petros out of the gate with suitcase earlier. They would have already been freed from the presence of Fox, who created problems for everyone, but the assistant principal hadn’t informed her about his intention to take Petros out of the school, either.

“You have to forbid unauthorized persons from accessing the school territory!”

“No, I don’t. I have invited experts from NZAMIPS to check the ward-off perimeter. After repairing the fence, some signs need to be replaced. In addition, I will arrange for a safety lecture. Do you think Mr. Tangor will agree to help?”

“It’s irresponsible!”

“Irresponsible to repair the perimeter?”

“That insolent dark…”

“Saved Mihandrov. Did you want to say that?”

The mention of the young dark magician produced a strange reaction in Mr. Fox: he winced, grimaced, and began to shake his head. The white in general tolerate stress poorly, but that show looked more like a nervous breakdown. How else could one explain that, in rushing to save one child, he had forgotten about the fate of a hundred others?

“Nobody asked him about that!”

“Exactly. He showed concern for others, voluntarily and knowingly. His behavior must become a model for us.”

“Do you blame me for something?”

“Yes, I do. Your duty as a teacher is to take care of the children. What have you done for that?”

“You are too young, girl; you still have much to learn. There are times in life when we must act decisively to save at least somebody. You’ll lose plenty of people before it settles in your pretty little head!”

Mrs. Hemul smiled - a healer specializing in disaster medicine learns of inevitable casualties in the first place. Five years of experience, and no one better than she could walk the fine line between dead and barely alive, which would also die if left without help. She remembered the terrible fire at the Hotel “Palladium”, a train crash near Turik, hundreds of smaller incidents; only the birth of her twins made her change the career path. But she never treated people like lifeless flesh, even if they had only fifteen minutes left to live. It seemed that Mr. Fox conceitedly considered as “inevitable victims” the entire boarding school.

“Have I missed something? Someone has died?”

It seemed he did not understand the meaning of her words.

“Mihandrov needs a dark magician. I was right, and you were mistaken.”

Mr. Fox broke into an incomprehensible monologue about purity of thought and harmony of being. Interesting that yesterday he didn’t even intend to call and warn her; on the contrary, if he could, he would have left without saying a word. Mrs. Hemul felt nauseous at the sound of his voice, but she patiently listened, occasionally pointing out errors in his reasoning. A white experiences unbearable difficulty trying to insist on something, unless he is obsessed. She wanted to calm down the tension, forgive his sins, and send him off, but it was better to let him make noise in her office than run around the school scaring students and staff.

She needed to get rid of that man, quickly and under any pretext. Unfortunately, having learned that NZAMIPS experts had eliminated the urgent threat, the assistant principal abruptly changed his mind and came into her office with strange fabrications about the inevitable evil. He seemed confident that it was Mrs. Hemul who ought to behave differently. Oh, yes! On the director’s desk there was already a report, demanding rather than requesting the Board of Trustees to fire the inadequate assistant principal. In a few minutes a courier, called for that purpose, would take it to Artrom. It would be even better to talk to the trustees personally, but Mrs. Hemul could not leave the school while Fox was there. Her intuition literally screamed for caution in dealing with the mage-practitioner. She was doing that for the sake of the children, and the assistant principal wouldn’t get young Petros either, even if Mrs. Kormalis wouldn’t return home at all.

Chapter 33

I entered Mihandrov’s office of NZAMIPS at half past nine as a civilized looking person. To be honest, I wanted to speak to the lieutenant, but the tiny room was already occupied by dark mages.

Gorchik sported a bruised face. If he had found such trouble in such a quiet town as Mihandrov in one day, he was a real combat mage! From Mrs. Parker (with whom we got along very well now), I knew that the incident occurred in the same local pub closing after the sunset. The visiting dark (with an exceptionally subtle body) quarreled with the owner, who had a surprisingly melancholic personality, and the former was thrown out to cool down outside. Gorchik was about to employ combat magic on the full-body brewer, but he was stopped by the other “cleaners” in time. I think the fear that they would have to stay sober until the end of the trip if the brewer was hurt stimulated them much more than the prospect of the shackles of deliverance on their mate. Now, a bitter wrinkle lay above the brow of the unfortunate magician; he was figuring out a way of getting into the pub again without losing his dignity.

There were not enough chairs, so Lieutenant Clarence was standing—not a very advantageous position psychologically. I carefully removed the flower pots from the windowsill and motioned him to sit beside me.

“Okay,” the sergeant fidgeted, trying to settle comfortably on a hard office chair, “let’s introduce each other.”

I secretly poked the lieutenant with a finger and waited for a continuation. The “cleaner” did not notice the purposeful pause and introduced himself first: “Master Sergeant Otto Claymore, my assistants—Philip Gorchik, Keane Rispin, of the Rapid Response Team, Polisant Regional Office.”

“Aren’t you from Artrom?” I clarified. It was important.

“Civilian mages are in Artrom, but we’re from Polisant,” Gorchik grinned contentedly.

Obviously, it was some local twist, but their regional coordinator was still Axel.

“Thomas Tangor,” I humbly introduced myself, “an out-of-staff employee.”

“What’s that?” the sergeant did not understand.

“It means I work two days a month.”

The “cleaners” stayed silent for a while, trying to comprehend such blatant injustice.

“Clever,” the master sergeant commented, “I hope what we saw was not an example of your work?”

I shrugged and didn’t stoop to meaningless excuses: he grasped the situation without my help, and I let him leave his gibes to himself. Sergeant Claymore finally started feeling tension and sat down a bit straighter. “I understand the case could be closed now.”

It was very typical: they had just arrived and already intended to leave. And they would leave, if we gave them at least half a chance to throw their work on the other people’s shoulders.

“Have you already found all the missing people?”

“Finding the corpses is just a matter of time. The combat group isn’t needed for that.”

“Excuse me, how has your assignment been formulated?”

“Never mind. We have expelled the otherworldly.”

“What does the supernatural have to do with it? I don’t care about the supernatural. You will be accountable for the artisans, not for the supernatural.”

“Are you being rude?”

“Yes!”

Sergeant Claymore got behind Clarence’s desk quite voluntarily; now, the same desk restricted him from coming and taking me by the shirt. Also, I was sitting in such a way that all three “cleaners” were before me, and the door was right beside me. It wasn’t very conducive to the development of a conflict; however, the sergeant tried. He got up, and I did too. He defiantly stared at me; in return he got exactly the same challenging look from me. We were of the same height, and that greatly simplified the matter.

What happened further concerned only the dark; we disputed the question of whose will was primary—whose was poised to cause the enemy more problems and to make it through to the end. Strictly speaking, the majority of the dark are interested in just that, not in the nonsense about the law and the order. The sergeant saw the white lieutenant and, obviously, thought that the latter wouldn’t be able to reprove him. He decided that they had done enough. But now Mihandrov was my town, and for my own territory I would tear anyone to pieces. Gorchik restlessly fidgeted in his chair, but I was confident that I could awaken my Source more quickly than he his. Do not tell me about arrogance! That kid did not see anything worse than the witch’s baldness, but I had overcome three mature ghouls! I would even set my zombie-dog on them. There were eight corpses—and there would be eleven.

And Claymore faltered. He did not want to challenge his scope of duty, but to retreat in front of his subordinates meant to lose his indisputable authority. It would be bad for the discipline. Evidently, the sergeant was looking for a way out of the conflict. His posture and body language—one shoulder slightly forward, as if taking a bow, head low, gaze on the enemy, but askance. Okay, sergeant! I closed my eyelids, breaking resistance, and Claymore immediately took advantage of me. “Hey, kid, relax! We will find that scum, clean up the neighborhood, and then will do what our superiors will order. We are soldiers.”

I nodded, accepting the new terms. The sergeant was absolutely right; they didn’t have a reason to go against the order. Hence, we would continue working together; I had a lot of interesting ideas in this regard.

The “cleaners” dragged themselves in single file to the door, looking at me warily. I poked Clarence with a finger again. I hoped he would not apologize! That would spoil the whole disposition—as long as they considered themselves on foreign soil, they would not be tempted to do a shitty job.

“Keep quiet, take your seat,” I whispered to the lieutenant as soon as the door closed behind Rispin.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, while I pondered whether Gorchik had eavesdropped on us. Maybe I should check it out? My conflicts with the other darks had never reached that stage before, and the encounter with Mr. Satal was lost from the start.

The lieutenant broke the silence first: “That was outrageous!”

“What was outrageous?” I did not understand.

“All of that!”

“That they wanted you to sign the claims rejection?” I guessed.

“Exactly!”

The poor fellow felt abused.

“Hey Rudy, have you had any dark among your acquaintances?”

He shrugged uncertainly.

“I see. Remember (better write it down): the first thing a dark magician does when he receives an assignment is an attempt to get rid of it. To frighten him or appeal to his sense of duty would be useless, but to indicate the possible consequences of underperformance with an emphasis on personal responsibility is a must.”

The lieutenant frowned. What a naive kid!

“Do not look at me. I grew up among the white; consider me a cripple. The real dark behaves exactly the way I described. Judge for yourself: why would they want to clear up mess that wasn’t their fault?”

“But… what can we do now?”

“Let’s follow the plan as before; now you know why the plan was like that. Your senior coordinator remains our goal, so look out for journalists. Ask the directrix of the school for help; she seems to be smart. And forget about these guys: as long as they know they are being watched, they will do their job in the best possible way. Do not flirt with them, or they will instantly make you do their job.”

Poor old Clarence rubbed his eyes in confusion, trying to make his brain understand my logic. I think the white are unable to grasp the subtleties of the dark character, though empaths seem to cope with that somehow.

“I’m stunned,” he concluded finally. “I took a course on dark magicians—even attended a workshop. Nothing like reality.”

“Theory without practice is dead! Go back to work.”

Striped police ribbon carved out from the monotonous landscape a large rectangle, inside of which the grass was either mowed short or burnt out to the roots. A convenient wide passage was cut through dense thickets of thorns. The three combat mages were busy, each one doing the work that suited him best.

Rispin rustled through the brush in the location of the secret burial. The exhumed corpse had been thoroughly examined, described, and its parts wrapped in packing paper. He was an experienced criminalist, able to make the dead speak without the aid of necromancy. The credit for his hire by NZAMIPS, and not by the criminal police, should be given solely to Coordinator Axel; NZAMIPS doubled his pay.

Sergeant Claymore plotted on a sheet of paper a detailed plan of the crime scene, concurrently sketching a draft of his future report. His subordinates flocked to him with their findings.

“He was right, that kid,” Gorchik came out of the bushes in overalls and goggles, the lenses of which made his face look like a fish tank. Needless to say, the dark did not like wearing glasses.

“What, someone called Rustle?”

Gorchik winced: naming the only monster that was more or less responsive to the call of the otherworldly liquidators was considered bad taste among combat mages.

“Shield, modified to specifically kill the white Source.”

Claymore raised his eyebrow. An interesting picture! The dark Source could exist for some time outside the body, but the white one was not receptive to the fixation on the pump-sign. There was a time when inquisitors could induce spontaneous manifestations of white magic, but the consequences of that were so horrendous…

“It does not look like they tried to exorcise the possessed here.”

“No, it doesn’t,” confirmed Gorchik. “The victim followed the killer to this place without any resistance, voluntarily called his or her Source during the ritual, and was murdered then. This requires either utmost dedication or an extreme amount of credibility to the murderer.”

“Given the age of the victim,” the sergeant nodded to the lovingly-wrapped remains, “one does not exclude the other.”

“That means that our scum is a highly respected person. A man like this you won’t approach without an order.”

Claymore frowned. “Shit! It increasingly looks like the artisans. I hoped they weren’t involved—so many years have passed, and Axel watches the white community thoroughly.”

“The place already smelled bad a year ago, but the empaths decided that there was a collective magic resonance. I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of those nerds now!”

The dark mages exchanged malevolent grins.

“What, are you done?” Rispin broke away from the excavation.

“How about you?” the sergeant looked at his watch.

The forensics expert shrugged. “Nothing. The scoundrel works exceptionally accurately. The bones are not damaged; apparently, the victim died from a puncture to the soft tissue. I can’t say anything more specific; the spell, accelerating decay, was applied. If the murders started ten years ago, it would be extremely difficult to find all the victims. The imprints of their auras will be hard to identify.”

“I’m in a better situation!” Gorchik boasted. “There are some fragments suitable for identification, but they won’t tell the overall picture.”

“Shit,” the sergeant spoke out. Hence, they couldn’t find the murderer with magic. They would have to use good old police methods. “Can we identify the victim?”

“Yes.”

“Compose his or her portrait, and we’ll show it at school. He was young, so he must be one of theirs. We are done for today. Tomorrow we’ll start to look for the rest. Can any of you ride a horse?”

For an urban dark, the idea of getting on a horse seemed unnatural.

“I see,” the sergeant sighed, “that means we’ll walk.”

Rispin muttered under his breath something dirty that rhymed well with “Tangor.” The sergeant himself could hardly refrain from swearing. No, in his mind he certainly understood the importance of catching the killer and the significance of their mission, but in his heart… Claymore wished with all his heart that the underage parasite would die in agony, infected with shingles. Well, he must have tried hard to find such a vile job for the three respected magicians! The sergeant did not doubt the success of the investigation—no villain escaped their team—but at the thought of how much time they would spend searching for the other corpses, he wanted to get drunk.

Chapter 34

A call from the school caught me lying under the car: I finally got into that squeaky vehicle! Of course, Alfred didn’t let me work on the car right away; it was preceded by a thoughtful conversation about the benefits of front-wheel drive, the quality of local ethanol fuel, and the prospects of oil engines. Of course, he was not a professional alchemist and could not resist my obsessive charisma. I approached the adjustment of the carburetor with the piety that some people begin a prayer with, but then things got livelier. I started to feel great peace and happiness. The design of the machinery, clear and functional, was such a contrast to the intricacies of human existence that I sensed tears welling in my eyes. I officiated over the brake actuator (a critical part of cross-country driving) when I was interrupted.

Clarence came up, reporting, “Mrs. Hemul called and begged you to come to school. She seemed to sense that someone at the school cast spells this morning, and it highly disturbed her.”

I almost threw a wrench at him. Could I have some personal time off? Which of us was the town’s sheriff? Who was the head of Mihandrov’s NZAMIPS? A unit of combat mages was grazing in the town, but he called for help a poor student on a business trip, a student who didn’t even have a degree in magic!

But Lyuchik was at the school. I sighed and went to wash my hands off grease.

On the way to the school I was planning to tell the directrix all I thought of her. She hadn’t known the words I was about to say! I had called her yesterday, but she discouraged me from coming, hinting that she did not want to provoke Fox. And now everything seemed okay with her “boyfriend”. Just when I was finally back to doing interesting things, he was readying his excuses! I hated that!

My self-control thinned completely. Now I understood why Coordinator Axel did not want to send his people here; Claymore with his mates would lynch him after such a trip. Satal would neigh at me when I came back “well-rested”. However, I was ready to solve the problem with Satal in three hours. Very interesting grass grew on the flowerbeds at the school; the master of poisons, Tiranidos, would hang himself in envy. A full herbarium from “Toxicology”, no doubt. I have to admit, Milky Widow blooms beautifully and looks great in the ridges, but, in my opinion, the gardener should think a bit more on his selection of species before planting them. There were children all around! I already dried out enough plants to fill half of my suitcase with interesting roots and flowers, and the thought of Satal’s surprise when he learned what he was dying from brought my good mood back.

Do not believe the intuition of practicing magicians, no matter what people say about it. My gaze caught a narrow leaf with a distinctive silky sheen, because all the time I was searching for something like that. Not trusting my luck, I picked up the leaf and began looking around in search of the rest of the plant. Alas! Nothing like that grew on the nearby lawns, and a measly half a gram serving was obviously not enough for my goal. I was about to search the silage pit with the mowed grass. But the path where I found the treasure led to the back kitchen door instead of a park or a greenhouse. The cooks were busy with all their might and main: lunchtime was fast approaching. Not feeling any unrest in my soul, I mentally connected these three concepts: grass, food, poison. I shook the grass off my hands and wanted to go further on my business, but then a sense of duty prevailed. Perhaps that was nonsense, but the maniac that killed nine people was still at the school, and the artisans are like maniacs, in my opinion…

Clicking the “whistle” in my pocket (do not sleep, shitheads, do not sleep!), I burst into the kitchen door with a businesslike air, ignoring the blank stares and surprised faces; my eyes were fixed on the tables, and I did find on one of them the remains of the sliced ​​green.

“Where is the rest?” I asked stupidly, thinking that I could still use some of the grass, perhaps.

The chef began to breathe air into his chest to make a perturbed retort, but my stupor was over; I pulled out my temporary certificate and jabbed it in his face. “The combat operation of NZAMIPS. This herb is poisonous. Where did you put it?”

Frightened eyes shifted toward a large soup pot.

I tossed a chromatic curse in the pot, which stained the contents with a threatening scarlet color (harmless, but impressive).

“Who brought this stuff here? Name!”

They did not know, could not recall, and became horrified with it. It was a typical reaction to the masking spell.

“All kitchen supplies (all, got it?) are arrested until the experts’ arrival. I hope no one tasted it? It is deadly poisonous.”

A portly cook got very pale and gripped her chest.

“Wash out your stomach, quickly! And pray that the poison hasn’t been inside long enough to absorb into the blood.”

I waited until all the cooks left the kitchen and tied the door handles for safety with a cord I had found right there.

“What is happening here?”

It was the directrix. I gave her the damned leaf; she frowned, trying to identify it. Mrs. Hemul seemed not to know much about poisons.

“It is Opal Buttercup. Someone brought it in the kitchen and made sure that the plant got into the soup.”

She still did not understand.

“Did you hear about the potion of Red King? Opal Buttercup, the main component, is harmless, but after the heat treatment it is transformed into a lethal poison—the antidote to which does not exist.”

By the way, the growing of that plant without a license was punishable by three years in prison.

Mrs. Hemul became very pale. “Who could have done…”

“I do not know, but I’ve got one person in mind, who has some explaining to do. Come on!”

The rapid response team was still responding. I suspected that the “cleaners” went to Clarence to get his car (the one that Alfred and I had dismantled) and now they were giving him a “concert”. Poor people of Mihandrov!

“But who could…” Mrs. Hemul was stuck.

The white cannot tolerate stress well, and they take a long time to respond to threats. They try to understand the reasons, but the dark do not need reasoning; they just get hit in the face and move on.

“There is only one employee at the school who has worked here for over ten years. I’m not saying he’s guilty; I mean he should give us an account of his today’s activities.”

Some understanding glimmered in the eyes of the headmistress.

Five minutes later we stood before the assistant principal’s office. I knocked, pulled the handle—it was locked.

“Perhaps he is gone,” Mrs. Hemul suggested.

I looked through the keyhole—the key was inserted from the inside! Indeed he left!

“Step aside!” I was not going to ask permission.

My kick broke off the lock along with part of the doorpost (I was not that strong, it was just a good curse), and we entered. Quite a large room: two tables, bookcases, chairs and a sofa, comfortable and modest, unlike our dean’s office or Satal’s. A completely dead Mr. Fox (face up) and Petros (in an unknown condition—face planted) lay on the worn carpet in the center of the room. I didn’t think that my talk with Fox would turn out like that.

“Oh my lord!” Mrs. Hemul rushed to the child first. “How do you feel, my dear?”

The kid was breathing—that was a good sign. While she lamented, professionally checking his pulse and pupils, I feverishly looked around the room for the cause of death. No bloody knife, no empty glasses, no smoking censers could be seen, but there was surely something that killed the big guy and nearly killed the boy! Some black fragments crunched under my foot—that was my ward-off amulet. The realization dawned on me like lightning.

“It’s magic! Mr. Fox has a spell on him. Find out which ritual he had used!”

Mrs. Hemul indignantly shook her head. “Fox was a white mage!”

“Was” was the appropriate word choice.

“I do not care who he was! Look for it, or let me do it.”

“You are mistaken,” she murmured through her tears, but the brooch on her jacket began to glow, “you are deeply mistaken. You just cannot imagine how wrong your idea of ​​white magic is…”

Sergeant Claymore (no, he didn’t break in - it would be unprofessional) cautiously peered through the door. Ensuring that there was no need to fight anyone right now, he came in, forcing me to make room for him. He nodded to Fox: “Your work?”

“No, he did it himself. Have you searched the kitchen?”

He chuckled. “It’s not just a kitchen, it’s a necromancer’s dream—one could murder a whole army. We’ll have to throw out all the contents and re-floor the room. As I see, the suspect kicked the bucket?”

“To hell with him!” I did not care that we had spoiled Artrom’s crime statistics.

“This face looks familiar,” the “cleaner” said thoughtfully, “though not from that angle.”

Surely Fox developed his skills somewhere. I shrugged and attempted to leave the room.

“I’ll be waiting for you at the office at nineteen hundred,” the sergeant said to my back.

I nodded silently and went off to look for Lyuchik.

The square in front of the main entrance was crowded with frightened white kids. The teachers tried to calm the pupils, the staff and cooks were whispering—huddling at the fountain—and Gorchik grimly guarded them all. Lyuchik sat next to him on a bench with a very serious look, and I could see that he was there for a reason.

On seeing me, people became agitated.

“Stay still!” Gorchik barked.

“He says please to stay where you are, for the sake of your safety,” my brother perked up.

Ah, he had latched onto the “cleaner” as an interpreter! Gorchik looked at me with grim doom; I smiled back without any sympathy.

I had some business to Lyuchik.

“Hey, they aren’t serving lunch today. Let’s go find something to eat in town?”

“Can we take Petros?”

At that moment, I realized that the kids should not know the details. “He will be fine; Mrs. Hemul is with him now.”

The kids put their necks out to listen to our talk; someone could not resist saying, “What happened? What’s going on?”

I cleared my throat diplomatically. “I cannot violate the confidentiality of the investigation. You’d better direct your questions to Sergeant Claymore; he is the boss. I am sure he wouldn’t mind holding a press conference.” I knew that one mention of the press conference would stall his brains. “I can only say that the danger is over, but the school is poised for change.”

“We’ve been experiencing an entire year of ‘changes’, ” one of the teachers muttered.

“You are mistaken; nothing has changed since the commission’s work. But there will be changes now, and I’m sure, for the better.”

That was it. If they had any brains, they would understand the hint, and if not, it would be better for them to keep the state of blissful ignorance.

Lyuchik didn’t go with me; he decided to stay with the white to support them morally. I made sure the “cleaners” understood the simple idea that Lyuchik was my brother and then portrayed myself as a battle-worn warrior and went off. I could no longer look at the white and the “cleaners” together! I came back to the garage and worked on the famous Mihandrov car until evening. I enjoyed the work as a cat delights in valerian, and I was late for a meeting with Claymore by half an hour.

By the time I arrived, the atmosphere at NZAMIPS had reached a fever pitch. Lieutenant Clarence was nowhere to be seen: he had either fled or gone to work with the townsfolk. It was twilight already: they could kill me and secretly throw in the lake.

“So, the press conference, you said?” the sergeant roared in place of a greeting.

It was my turn to stand awkwardly and look askance—I wasn’t going to fight with him over nothing!

“I did not want to bypass the senior officer.”

He pondered it and decided to forgive me. “Judging by the imprint of the aura, that corpse was Fox’s work,” the sergeant magnanimously told me. “Why we don’t record imprints of the white magicians, too?!”

He was very cheerful; hence, they found a reason to flee from here.

“It’s unfair,” I agreed.

“Let’s drink to this!”

Bottles of fresh beer and a bag of lovingly-packed snacks appeared from under the table, and my account of events gradually melded into the booze on the occasion of the successful completion of the case. It was the first time I shared a table with a company of combat mages, and their nasty reputation was not confirmed. Normal men, not any worse than Quarters! We knocked back, sang a few songs from the army’s repertoire; Rispin told a few fresh anecdotes, Gorchik started to squint with both eyes, the beer was over, and we parted peacefully. They went to their hotel, and I - to Mrs. Parker’s mansion. The naive sergeant could afford to sleep tight, but I had to get up at dawn tomorrow: a brain-twisting intrigue, spun by me with an eye on the coordinator, entered its final stage.

An encoded telegram bearing the name of Satal came at the last moment; the senior coordinator intended to leave Redstone for the capital and was nervous and swore all morning. Sparing the nerves of his subordinates, Captain Baer personally delivered the telegram to the boss—a half-sheet of text; obviously, the sender didn’t try to save money on the letters. As soon as the coordinator read it through, his face brightened, and lips twisted in an arrogant smirk.

“That’s another story! A priest that was making human sacrifices got caught and decimated in Mihandrov. The central database identified him as Sigismund Salaris, an artisan; he was wanted for fifteen years.”

The captain gasped: “The same Salaris? Nintark’s confessor?”

“Yeah,” Satal good-naturedly allowed his subordinate to read the telegram. “By the way, your Larkes swore that he saw him dead.”

“Why is he mine?” Locomotive was offended.

“He ruled here all this time, the talentless parasite let business slide!” the dark mage became a bit gloomy. “They will say that it’s Axel who caught the artisan.”

“Not a big deal,” Locomotive comforted his boss, “you have caught two artisans.”

“True, but no one believes that they were the artisans,” Satal objected reasonably. “However, I am sure that the center of their interest is not Polisant. The death of the living legend of the cult will make them more active,” the senior coordinator rubbed his palms in anticipation, “now they’ll come to us in flocks!”

Locomotive pictured artisans thronging to Redstone and shivered. God save us, no!

Chapter 35

The rambling holidays were finally over; my ill-fated trip had come to an end. I could stay for a couple more days (nobody would kill me for that), but then I would have to attend the funeral of Mr. Fox. That was Mrs. Hemul’s idea—the deceased assistant principal should not remain in the memory of the children as an evil person.

“Anyway, he was their teacher; they learned a lot from him. You cannot say to a child, ‘Remember this and do not remember that.’ The children must realize the ambiguity of his personality themselves, separate in their minds the right and the wrong. I know you see this as over-complacency, but his death closes all accounts, and we need forgiveness for ourselves in order to live on.”

Well, maybe for the white it is so, but I could not picture myself grieving about artisans—even after a liter of beer.

And yet, Mrs. Hemul wanted to know the results of the investigation, because the achievement of clarity is a fundamental feature of the white; they physically cannot disregard or forget something important. The wise directrix chose the easiest way to reach her goal; she invited all interested parties to dinner at that same pub, at her own expense. Claymore’s eagles came in full strength. I did not want to go, honestly; I was too proud for that. But I was asked by Clarence to be there. Max came with me: I had already introduced it to the “cleaners”, and an extra set of teeth during the meeting would be helpful.

The sergeant expounded readily and in detail the results of the investigation, half of which was done by someone else. The main achievement of the “cleaner” was identification of Fox—the nice nelly—which provided an objective basis for my fanatical ravings about the artisans (I was very grateful to him for that). “By joining the artisans’ cult, he took the alias Sigismund Salaris, under which he became famous, in some way. He was the mastermind behind the branch of the cult that decided to openly challenge the authorities and establish a community in Nintark. Of course, later he was considered dead and was searched for without passion, but all the time he was hiding here.”

Mrs. Hemul took the news of the artisans with amazing composure, having practiced for years approaching horrific news with a stone face. I wondered what she was before she came to Mihandrov.

“I confess I always perceived the artisans as mentally ill, but now I see that my ideas were too primitive. Fox talked sensibly and consistently, but he was able to do absolutely unthinkable things at the same time. And most importantly: why? For what purpose?”

“‘Why’ is clear,” I could not refrain, “he wanted to protect bigger things by sacrificing the smaller ones, so to speak.”

“To protect them from whom?”

I had my thoughts on this topic, though to voice them in their entirety meant to reveal my sources. Did I need it? In abbreviated form, my speculation looked like this: “Do you know that Petros’ father - Fox’s relative - was killed during an armed bank robbery?”

Clarence slightly frowned.

“Yeah, yeah, that same robbery! Three months before the birth of his first and last child, among other things. The first victim had gone missing a few days after the incident. You can rummage through the archives—a lot of strange things happened at that time. I do not know what Fox was trying to fight off with that shield, but he obviously liked the effect and, grieving and weeping, began to let his pupils die under the knife. Of course, he selected those whose death would affect as few people as possible. Orphans, in short.”

The sergeant nodded: “A typical artisan’s logic.”

“But the children! Why did he try to poison them?”

“That is clear, too. What the otherworldly phenomenon was Fox knew well, I suppose, from his experience in Nintark. He lost control of the situation: his followers were killing themselves, but the shield did not hold for long, human sacrifices were required more and more frequently, but the school’s leadership had changed, control had tightened. The white tolerate stress poorly! Eventually I showed up and started spoiling his flock, planting a bit of common sense into the children, and I helped Petros in a way he could not. Where you saw hope, he saw only depravity and degradation. Mourning and weeping again, he decided to save everyone from a collision with the real world—to put them to sleep like terminally ill pets, purely out of compassion.”

“All of them come to this, sooner or later,” Claymore growled. “This is the only logical conclusion of their philosophy.”

“You’d better cheer up,” I suggested, “that everything ended so well.”

“Well?” the directrix did not understand.

“Uh-huh. The children are alive, and Fox’s suffering has ended. Just think what would have happened if he had been jailed!”

“Execution by burning has not been abolished yet,” Gorchik commented to the point.

“A scandal will start again,” Mrs. Hemul sighed.

“It’s in your favor! The situation is critical: if NZAMIPS does not send a regular team to Mihandrov, all of Fox’s fears will be realized. In addition, we must knock some sense into the heads of the townsfolk. You need help of empaths and additional funding, but under the current circumstances you will get these either after a massacre or in the wake of a public scandal. In your shoes, I would cooperate with the town authorities and pursue a preemptive tactic. The best treatment is prevention!”

Mrs. Hemul slowly nodded. “I see your point.”

“I don’t think that I’ll sign it,” the sergeant growled. “So far, all this talk about the shield is your personal opinion. As for the dark magic background around the town—maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not, I’m no expert, I won’t lie. The town has a NZAMIPS representative,” he nodded at Clarence, “we have liquidated the phenomenon, the killer is found, the report is sent out; now we are waiting for the order. What they say, we’ll do. Address your complaints to the coordinator.”

Clarence was silent, although he clenched his jaw so hard that his cheeks became white. I only shrugged melancholically: “Well, Mr. Axel is not suicidal and understands that if he loses the town after two warnings, the official investigation, and his subordinates’ report, the shackles of deliverance will be a lucky escape. The moon will be the only place for him to emigrate to.”

“Who is going to tell him about this?” Claymore chuckled.

I kindly smiled to the sergeant.

“You, and you have already told him.”

He didn’t get it, and I explained: “You sent off your report to the authorities yesterday, didn’t you? Right when I was there. Likely, you didn’t count pages before putting them in an envelope.”

“Right, but how…”

At that moment Max sent him a contented canine grin. It wasn’t difficult for the zombie-dog to jump into the window of the second floor, was it?

Sergeant Claymore quickly put two and two together.

“You fag!” the sergeant exclaimed.

I pretended that it was about my zombie.

“What does it mean?” Rispin got frightened. “We’re stuck here?”

“We’ll see,” the sergeant sullenly broke him off.

Mrs. Hemul hid a contented smile behind a cup—a white mage was not supposed to rejoice at other people’s misfortune.

Luckily, I did not have to experience the anger of the combat mages on myself; that evening I left Mihandrov. Without Lyuchik. Mrs. Hemul tried to convince me fervently and at length that all would be well at the school from now on; Petros would be taken care of even if they didn’t find Mrs. Kormalis. For my brother, it would be very important to see a happy ending of the story and the triumph of justice. I thought about it and backed off; after all, it wasn’t such a joy to coddle a white youngster. I was doubtful, though, regarding the triumph of justice.

I didn’t take Lyuchik to the station. My zombie-dog waited for me there under the supervision of Mrs. Parker. What if the kids would want to cuddle him? The lieutenant personally gave me a lift in the car that now moved without squeaks or squeals, but with a soft predatory murmur. Gorchik and Rispin were in the back seat (surely they were going to the train station for vodka). The sergeant apparently still hung on the phone, trying to catch his report before it would reach the desk of Senior Coordinator Axel. Good luck to him! I was interested in nobody and nothing anymore, except for the train and the departure horn.

My escort barely lifted my luggage onto the steps of the sleeper, Mrs. Parker waved, and the combat mages burst into indistinct cries and vigorous gestures. Assholes… After saluting everybody, I followed to my compartment, longingly poised for the conductor’s usual show: “Please put your animal in a cage.” All conductors are terribly predictable: no matter how much you pay for the ticket, they still try to lock your dog in the baggage car. Why would I buy the second ticket, if I intended to follow their advice?

The conductor rolled my suitcase into the compartment and broke into a saccharine, idiotic smile. “Let’s put your dog in a doggy house!”

I looked at him as if he were a birdbrain. His face maintained a strange expression for a couple of seconds, and then he turned a bit pale. “Excuse me, sir! I beg your pardon! The white usually travel with pets, and I decided that you were…

Oops!

The question of placing Max in the cage was no longer debated.

In the state of quiet madness, I locked myself in the compartment and started biting my nails.

What was going on? People had started taking me for a white! What a shame… I was lucky that none of my friends witnessed that. I would hardly ever come back to Mihandrov.

I must urgently undertake something to improve my image: the first thing in Redstone I would have a good fight with Quarters. Also, I could catch Sam (if he wasn’t in bed with the flu) and cram in feathers behind his collar. Oh! I could also piss on the steps of the police headquarters. Will they identify me by a puddle of urine?

The platform and my escort left behind; Rustle gently tossed in my head, trying to figure out what I had been busy with in its absence. My life was slowly getting back to normal. In the suitcase I carried five kilos of dried fish and two dozen bags of wax paper with quite harmful ingredients: souvenirs from Mihandrov.

One more thing hid inside the suitcase: a letter from the deceased artisan. The next day after the death of Fox, I received a mail with no return address, no note inside, but the sender’s identity could not be doubted. At the top of the weighty package there were yellowed newspaper clippings a decade old with reports of strange events (the mass death of bees, the disappearance of gerbils, the rabies of horses) and an article about a bank robbery committed with extreme cruelty. Do you remember that story with the robbery in Mihandrov? I wondered how they were going to slip away. They weren’t: two farmers shot their families and continued having fun in town, imitating the characters of a then recently acclaimed thriller. The locations of the incidents from the clippings fell on the map along a straight line, accurately pointing to Mihandrov. I do not know; maybe in his shoes, I would not stand it either.

Why did he not turn in his allegations to NZAMIPS? Perhaps his habit of conspiracy let him down, or Fox, like myself, was confronted with incapacity of the local authorities. And you know, I couldn’t care less about his circumstances, especially because he did not want to discuss them with the investigators of the robbery. I have never encountered a situation that could not be turned around in the direction a trained magician wanted. From the perspective of the dark, the artisan just lost his battle again (once in Nintark, the second time in Mihandrov), and if anybody wants understanding and sympathy, go to an empath.

Gorchik looked at the departing train with a characteristic goat squint. The dark magician was habitually outraged. “He could have finished the job, that hack! His zombie marked only six graves, and where can we find two more?”

“I wonder which group he belongs to?” Rispin was thoughtful. “I had never met him before. I would like to have a better look at his zombie…”

“No problem, we’ll meet him in the office! Axel must be happy this time.”

Lieutenant Clarence decided to demonstrate his knowledge of the situation (he was tired of the boorish guests, treating him as a speechless vegetable). “He’s from Redstone.”

Gorchik turned to him, surprised, as if a zucchini had started speaking. “What does Redstone have to do with us?”

“He came from Redstone,” the lieutenant explained patiently, already regretting that he had gotten into the conversation.

“What the hell did he do there?” Rispin wondered.

“I do not know,” the white tried to look independent, “but his traveling document was issued by Redstone’s division.”

For some time they stayed silent.

“Why was he sent in?” Gorchik cautiously clarified.

“To study the work of educational institutions. I’m not kidding! It said so in his papers.”

Lieutenant Clarence could not decipher the expression that showed up on the faces of the combat mages.

“Hmm,” Rispin summed up, “we won’t get our bonuses again.”

“Why? Witch’s baldness has been cleaned out well!” Gorchik got angry, but his colleague looked askance at him with compassion, and the former was forced to face the truth. “Well, at least the boss will not beat us this time.”

Lieutenant Clarence tried to keep a straight face and vowed to himself never to deal with that nutty company again. Let them do with each other what they wanted!