Сергей Биларин – The Spindle of Fate. Defeating the Dark (страница 3)
“It is the best disco in town. I was sure I would find you here,” it seemed as if she kept talking aloud. Or is he able to read her mind?
“It’s all very strange,” Marina thought, “but if Fate decided to rule this way why don’t the three of us keep having fun together? The party is in full swing, spirits are high. They are young; their whole lives are ahead of them. “This night will belong to us,” Marina decided, “we will put off answering questions until the morning.”
“Shall we dance?” this suggestion was accepted with more enthusiasm than was warranted. They plunged into a foot-tapping rhythm and remained happy for a while.
However, this mood didn’t last long. Trying to decide who would take the lady home, the young men had a serious quarrel. Marina vainly tried to make them listen to reason; neither wanted to give up. The quarrel threatened to turn into a fight. The girl didn’t expect to see what happened next.
First complete silence fell. The spotlight, people’s silhouettes, even a moth that was flying by froze for some inexplicable reason. Only at the very far end of her consciousness did Marina notice a guy and a girl keenly observing what was going on. The time stoppage seemed to have no effect on them. They kept exchanging whispers and tried to call a minimum of attention to themselves. The young men were too busy with their quarrel to notice anything around.
“Today is not your day, little angel,” Boris hissed, towering over Poryvayev, his eyes narrow, a fire raging within. “Give up and I won’t take your life.”
“The time has not come yet for Heaven to fall and for me to get out of the way,” Grisha answered him accordingly. His powerfully built figure seemed to be charged by the surrounding energy.
Could it be that she is asleep and seeing all this in her dream? However, then something extraordinarily weird occurred; although how much worse could it get?
Suddenly Marina found herself on a rocky clintLooking down, she was paralyzed with fear. The girl was standing on top of a cliff many kilometers high, at the base of which the endless sea was seething. No, not sea, but rather myriad weird and scary creatures fused into one shapeless mass. It was throbbing and causing an uprush of fear. Emitting on the horizon, the sea of creatures swelled up as a gigantic ugly sprout and started rising up into the air. .
An even more fantastic view was happening in the skies. A cloud of sparkles that proved to be consisting of angels and cherubims kept fusing and breaking apart in an attempt to form something meaningful. At last they have succeeded; Marina gasped. Covering the whole sky and obstructing the view of the clouds, glistening wings stretched; a huge sword held by a gigantic angel fell on the head of a terrible leviathan that jumped out from inside the pile of mutilated bodies.
Shrieks, moans, screams, all merging in one grandiose outcry almost made Marina faint. The pain was intolerable. Still she had time to notice the two frozen silhouettes of her two admirers on a clint a bit above her. Their eyes were closed, either sweat or tears where streaming down their cheeks, in short they were wet as if after a heavy rain.
Suddenly the apparition dissipated. The quiet came back but gave way to loud music. All of them are in the bar again; the idleaudience is dancing around them. The young men were staring around.
“Who cancelled my curse?” Borya shouted, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
“Sorry for interrupting, but it is late and time to go home,” a short slim young man was standing in front of them. He had a black leather collar on. The studs on it were gleaming in tune with the lights in the hall.
“Something’s fishy here,” Grisha said, breathing heavily.
“That’s what I’d say,” Boris agreed and looked at Grisha very attentively. His eyes narrowed. He hissed: “Look, kid, don’t get on my nerves, or you’ll be sorry…” Marina could swear that she saw a forked tongue in Zimin’s mouth.
“We haven’t decided yet who will take Marina home,” Poryvayev muttered. The quarrel that ended abruptly was going to start anew.
“We are all going together to our place,” Kid stressed the word “together”.
“Where is this ‘our place’? ” the blond young man sniffed in disdain.
Marina coughed:
“To my place. This guy is my aunt’s butler. I am staying with her.”
“We’d better go, the ice cream is melting,” Kid smiled and they set off.
***
“What a huge house,” Poryvayev rolled his eyes admiringly. “A whole medieval castle!”
“Is this some kind of joke or do you really live in this museum?” Boris asked when they stopped at the openwork wrought iron gate.
“Castle? Museum?” Puzzled, Marina studied the mansion. It was nothing but a typical two-storey building; there were lots of this kind in this little resort town. She turned round towards Kid and asked:
“Maybe there’s something wrong with my eyes, but are we in the right place?”
Kid hurried to calm her down:
“It’s all right. It is our home. Welcome!”
When Marina passed the gate, he looked at Marina’s companions, made a grimace, and teased them:
“Castle! Museum! Scared the gal! She knows nothing!”
Indeed, how could she, the most ordinary 16-year old girl, know that this house is older than the entire town, that it is five stories high, and that it does look like a knight’s castle? She could not see the gargoyles on the downspouts rapaciously bearing their teeth into darkness.
A few minutes later, Marina cozily settled down in an armchair with a cup of hot chocolate in her hand. She asked thoughtfully looking in front of her:
“Guys, do you feel someone else’s presence in the house? As if somebody else is around here not hurrying to come in sight?”
Kid, making the table, was about to drop the ice-cream bowl he was holding. Borya looked at him expressively and slowly said:
“Rather no, than yes. I feel just pleasantly tired. I feel like reading a good book before I go to bed.”
“The library is upstairs,” Kid announced.
“What are your plans for tomorrow?” Grisha asked when Boris went upstairs.
“I wish I knew,” Marina said wistfully. “We’ll see tomorrow. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Yes. Let’s go to the beach, have a swim, sunbathe, pick up shells, you know…”
“Oh, I found one today, a bonny thing, strange.”
Boris climbed the stairs and looked around. With a gimlet eye he noticed an amazingly shaped shell on a carved little table next to a mirror. His eyes lit up. He triumphantly came up to it, a smile playing on his face. As his fingers lightly touched the shell, his face suddenly fell and his smile faded. But just as quickly it returned, even brighter, and his eyes narrowed cunningly. He shouted:
“Marina! I have spotted a wonderful seashell – up here. How about giving it to me as a gift?”
Hearing these words, Poryvayev grew pale, sprang up to his feet, waved his hands as if trying to prevent her from answering. However, the young girl as if not noticing his odd behavior, said loudly:
“Take it! My pleasure!”
Grisha dashed upstairs. He ran up to the little table where the spindle-shaped shell was lying. He looked at it and muttered:
“Is that it? That exact thing?”
Boris viewed an answer redundant. Grisha took a combat position, put his hands in front of him and started muttering something. Zimin raised his hands above his head as if stretching. He was waiting for a severe magical blow ready to deflect it. However, Poryvayev hesitated and stood still. The demon wanted to attack first, but gave it another thought. They both froze like flies in amber. Kid slowly entered the room.
“I am the warden of this house,” he said calmly. “The house does not want you to feud in it. You are welcome to do so outside. However, inside you suppress your ambitions and live in peace.”
“Then have him give me this thing,” Grisha whispered loudly.
“I will give it to you only if my room is across the hall from Marina’s.” Poryvayev looked pleadingly at Kid.
“Good,” a mysterious force let them go. The warden left the room. Grisha snatched the shell:
“You’re a dope,” he said abruptly to Zimin and raised the shell over his head as if it were a trophy.
“So are you,” Zimin shot back.
Poryvayev suddenly went limp and he slumped to the floor like a marionette whose strings had just been cut. Grinning, Zimin looked down at the body then turned away and began to examine the spines of the books.
***
When the angel, his eyes crazy with happiness, returned to the heavenly kingdom, his big brothers immediately paid attention to the demon’s odd behavior. Then they confirmed that that shell was indeed the artifact, something like a cell phone. However, Marina had already used the Spindle of Fate tuning it to her frequency. For this reason, the shell itself was nothing more than a bonny thing, nice looking but, nevertheless, useless. As for the angel, he had to go back right away to find a solution to that problem. Joking, his good-natured big brothers bade him farewell and saw him off back to our world.
***
Poryvayev sat down, palpated his head, found a large bruise at the back, and winced. He didn’t catch up Zimin before he reached the door.