"That was… ambiguous ," drawled Smarty as Harry found himself back in his cupboard under the stairs. "So much information, so little data...
There was indeed a lot of information. And on the one hand, a lot of things fell into place: Harry learned who this Nameless One was, about the war with him eleven years ago, about the death of his parents...
He frowned. He had begun to strongly suspect that his mum and dad weren't the losers from the Dursleys' stories even after his first conversations with the four spirits - especially with Kindly. And when the first facts about the existence of magic and wizards with whom his parents were somehow connected were discovered, his suspicions began to turn into certainty!
But what McGonagall told him... He couldn't even imagine it!
His parents were the real heroes of the war, fighting the Nameless One – or Lord Voldemort, as the professor whispered – who thought so highly of them as opponents that he personally came to kill the Potters on that fateful Halloween night in 1981.
At this thought, for some reason, the scar itched again, and Harry thought he heard someone snort contemptuously in his head. But lately, in addition to the clear voices of his new friends, he had been hearing many whispers on the edge of consciousness - this was the effect of his increased openness to the warp. Spirits and small demons hovering in the Immaterium, people's emotions, their superficial or even not yet formed thoughts - all this created a strange background, like interference on a TV. Noise that could drive you mad in a matter of hours! Unless, of course, you have knowledgeable mentors and assistants in your head - and Harry, fortunately, had them.
However, the boy hardly noticed the obvious sarcasm that wafted from the scar - he was too absorbed in the story he had heard.
"And the ice cream was delicious ," the Sweet Tooth drawled, a little out of place. "I'll have to try the wizards' other sweets, too – that was just… just!...
"Magical?" Smart Guy finished mockingly for him.
"Exactly ," the Slaaneshi was not at all embarrassed. "If everything in this magical community of theirs is so amazing and pleasant, then we are in luck!"
"The main thing we found out is that wizards have a positive attitude towards Harry ," said Dobryak. "To be honest, when Professor McGonagall warned us about the popularity of the Boy Who Lived, I thought it would be worse. Crowds of fans, intrusive attention… And there will probably be some ill-wishers. But she very delicately avoided the topic of our identity in the presence of strangers. A good woman."
"So what if they just stared at us a little?" snorted Sweet Tooth. "Especially since thanks to me, Harry looks like a real prince!"
The boy smiled contentedly at these words - he really had begun to pay much more attention to his appearance over the past year. For example, to his hair, which he had let grow almost to his shoulders, making it seem as if a wave of thick, blue-black silk was flowing from his head. His skin had become soft and velvety to the touch, instead of its former sickly pallor, having taken on a more attractive shade of white marble or porcelain. In general, all of Harry's natural beauty, inherited from his parents, seemed to blossom overnight, nurtured under the sensitive guidance of the demon Slaanesh. So Harry, despite his extremely young age, could easily break girls' (and not only) hearts even without using the Love Gaze.
"Extra attention means extra problems ," Dobryak sighed sadly. "We're already forced to put all our business on hold because we've attracted the attention of that crippled wizard, Alastor."
"It wasn't the Boy Who Lived that attracted attention ," Smart Guy thought it necessary to clarify. "It was an unknown dark magician who left traces of a strange ritual and stole cats. Alastor couldn't figure us out - we didn't leave any hints about the sorcerer's identity. "
"How did he even sense anything?" Harry frowned. "You said the local wizards couldn't control the warp?"
"But every one of them is a sleeping psyker ," the spirit countered. "Most of them would have intuitively sensed something if they had come to Little Whinging, much less to the site of the ritual! Even this Figg, who is not a full-fledged witch, senses something. What can I say - even the Muggle neighbors sense it!"
"Besides, there are probably some special artifacts or other methods to see the residual disturbance of magic ," Sweet Tooth added. "Have you seen his eye? He probably didn't put a blue glass piece in his eye socket for aesthetic reasons!"
They were actually able to see the mysterious Alastor in person, having waylaid him in the vicinity of Figg's house. The old man relaxed his surveillance of the surrounding area a little when Harry went into hiding and was inactive for several months, but he began to regularly visit the lonely cat lady with checks. Apparently, Alastor decided that the easiest way to watch for someone who wanted to get close to Potter was near Potter himself. Logically, he could not be refused this.
In appearance, the wizard was approximately as Harry had imagined him from the image that his spirit advisors had shown him. With long gray hair, covered in terrible scars, a one-legged and one-eyed veteran. One eye was black, squinting angrily and cautiously, sometimes sparkling with real madness. The second was clearly a magical prosthesis, which seemed to live its own life, rotating separately from the first.
The latter was confirmed by the statement of the Smart Guy, who mentioned that it was best for Harry not to do anything strange when he was on the Dursleys' property.
"You haven't learned how to set up decoys and create illusions yet, and I can only influence reality with great difficulty ," he explained. "The two times we were hanging around this Alastor, I did what I could - but he still felt our presence! And imagine what will happen if he sees you with his magic eye while eavesdropping on their conversation or while casting warp magic?"
"Then teach me!" Harry exclaimed. He felt very uncomfortable from the realization that wizards still had the ability to expose his amazing abilities. He really didn't want to lose them, or get into trouble because of them!
"Hmm..." drawled the Smarty. "This isn't the kind of magic that can be done with the meager ingredients you used earlier. More energy is needed ," the demon said with feigned concern. "You'll have to practice, and it's best to develop the skill before Hogwarts - that is, in the remaining incomplete month."
"And how are we going to do that?" Sweet Tooth snorted skeptically. "That bloody Alastor will probably follow us the moment we leave the Dursleys' house!"
"But he doesn't show up at night ," Smarty said suggestively. "He shows up three or four times a week, or when Figg calls. And at night the cat lady sleeps, thinking that Harry is locked in the cupboard by the Dursleys anyway and won't go anywhere."
"Our chance ," Dobryak said with satisfaction. "And then, you see, we'll even get to the hospital..."
"But I'm not sick anymore?" the boy frowned.
"But you'll get sick again someday, won't you?" the spawn of Nurgle asked him. "It's inevitable. And I'm not sure Hogwarts will have the opportunity to use our lovely concoction - so I suggest you take care of protection against cold problems in advance."
Harry just nodded in response, accepting this argument. All that was left was to figure out how an eleven-year-old boy could get somewhere in the middle of the night where he could find the necessary "ingredients" but at the same time be far away from Figg's house? However, this was also quite solvable.
Without pulling the kneazle's guts, the very next night Harry Potter was ready for another sortie to perform the ritual. Only this time, according to the voices in his head, they were not just going to kill an animal. They were going to sacrifice a human!
"Don't worry, Harry ," Kindly's soft voice admonished him. "You know that not all people deserve to live. And with your new powers, finding one won't be difficult - all you need to do is understand that you are doing a good deed!"
"Pull yourself together, brat!" Ruffnut growled at the same time, sensing the shadow of doubt in Harry's thoughts. "This is a test of whether you are worthy of the Gifts of Chaos! The Gifts of Khorne! Determination, drive, fury - that is what must drive you!"
"I can do it," Harry said firmly, frowning. "I can do it!"
"Good ," the Khornate growled with satisfaction. "This is life, lad. Either you grow strong and learn to shed the blood of others - or your own will be shed! Kill or be killed - such is the rule of the battlefield!"
"I'll remember," Potter nodded seriously, after which he adjusted the backpack on his shoulders and left the closet in the usual way.
He got out of the house through a window facing the side opposite Mrs. Figg's property. The neighbor herself was unlikely to be awake, but the kneazles... These clever creatures tripled their vigilance after two kidnappings and began patrolling their mistress's property in groups of two or three. And therefore it was not safe to appear near their territory - but this was not required.
Harry deftly climbed over the fence of their neighbors on the other side - he knew that they did not have any animals in the yard, and therefore no one could smell the boy. Having run into the backyard of someone else's house, he climbed over the fence again - and found himself in a narrow alley between the rows of cottages. There were no streetlights installed here - and why would they be needed here? Only garbage cans and power poles - that's all the entourage.
But Harry didn't need light - he walked, guided by the echoes in the warp and straining all his supernatural senses to understand where to go.
In the boy's mind, who could be so bad as to deserve death? Of course, the Dursleys came to mind first - after a year of dealing with the four demons, this thought was firmly rooted in his brain. But relatives could not be touched - for reasons that had already been understood more than once.
Who then? Piers Polkiss, Dudley's friend and regular participant in the hunt for Harry? Too obvious, and too close - Piers lived literally on the next street. So Smarty talked the boy out of it.
Someone from school? Harry couldn't think of anyone there who had offended him enough to deserve death.
Abstract robbers and other criminals? There simply weren't any in Little Whinging! And if there were, they were very well hidden. The sleepy bourgeois swamp that was the town simply couldn't have been the scene of a crime more serious than the theft of a garden gnome.
But ten miles down the highway there was a major transport hub, with a bunch of eateries and pubs for truckers and bikers, a couple of clubs and even, it seemed, one hotel - Harry knew this from Uncle Vernon, who complained every now and then about the slow trucks that constantly created traffic jams at the entrance to London. That's where, according to the inner voices, the boy needed to go.
There was still the problem of distance, but then Zabiyaka came into play.
"Feel the power of Khorne, boy!" he laughed hoarsely. "Yeah!" Ruffnut growled. "Let the blood flow! Let the might of the Blood God fill you and carry you!"
Harry swallowed, but still with trembling hands he took his enchanted dagger from his jeans pocket and with force drew the blade across his palm, drawing blood. The dagger was immediately enveloped in a crimson glow emanating from the terrible runes engraved on its blade - the warp stirred, trying to break through into material space, drawn by the smell of fresh blood! But four spirits controlled the process, not allowing the hungry creatures of the Immaterium to pounce on the boy's mind.
And Harry felt something burning, cutting and painful pouring through the wound instead of the blood flowing out. His muscles twisted sharply, and he groaned dully, biting his lip. The skin on his limbs stretched, the veins cracked, and the muscles swelled unnaturally, as if someone had pumped boiling water into them.
"Now, go! Run!" Ruffnut yelled at him. And Harry ran!
At first he did not believe that his legs, twisted with cruel pain, would want to listen to him - but then he realized with surprise that they not only listened, but more than that - they carried him along the highway at incredible speed!
True, soon they had to turn slightly to the side, rushing straight through the fields and rare groves - cars drove along the highway even at night, and the sight of a small boy rushing along the road at incredible speed would certainly have surprised their drivers at the very least. Fortunately, for Harry Potter, who had suddenly acquired enormous power, this was not a problem.
He made huge leaps, covering fifteen meters in one step, bouncing from tree to tree, breaking branches and leaving strange smoking dents and scratches on the trunks - and hardly slowed down the pace of his advance.
He covered ten miles in a little over seven minutes, and then a blaze of signs appeared before him. The very first one read: "Welcome to South Helens."
Without slowing down, Harry took a running leap, clinging to the roof of a three-story brick building at the entrance to the city in a dizzying flight.
- Wow! - the boy exhaled in admiration when his limbs returned to their normal form and stopped emitting strange smoke - this was how the warp magic manifested itself. - Yes, I'm just like Spider-Man! Like a real superhero!
"It does look like it ," Sweet Tooth laughed merrily. "All that's left is to find and punish the villains!" he proclaimed with comic pathos.
"We'll find them ," Ruffnut growled in anticipation. "We'll find them and finish them off!"
Harry didn't bother to clarify that Spider-Man had never killed anyone, not even villains. He hadn't even gutted half-intelligent cats alive, but Harry had already done that. So the comparison with the comic book character was only relevant in terms of Harry's amazing abilities. And even then, it was conditional.
Harry looked around the town that lay spread out in the darkness, practically adjacent to London itself... and didn't know what to do next.
"Uh… Where should we go now?" he asked uncertainly.
"Meditation, Harry, meditation ," Smarty chuckled. "If you don't know what to do, ask Chaos. He'll give you the answers to all your questions!"
The boy nodded in agreement and sat down right on the parapet of the building, dangling his legs over the edge. Taking a few deep breaths, he opened his mind, allowing the visions of the warp to penetrate his mind…
So far, his success in navigating the Great Ether was not particularly noticeable. He could hear or see something specific only after a couple of hours of long and thoughtful meditation, going through various visions and whispers - and only if it concerned him specifically, and not, say, the Dursleys or, even more so, one of the neighbors. Predicting the future froze at a bar of one and a half minutes - outside this period of time, the threads of probabilities began to crumble, escaping Harry's perception, not wanting to obey - he simply did not have enough concentration and strength.
The exceptions were some particularly bright, exciting feelings or painful moments in the lives of those around you.
For example, the wave of despair and grief that spread from the house of Mrs. Grey, an elderly woman who lived across the road from the Dursleys, when she learned that her son had been killed in a car accident. The rest of Privet Drive did not hear the news until the following day, whereas Harry had known all the details from Mrs. Grey herself the day before, when her emotions had exploded, shaking the warp and briefly opening her mind to the young wizard.
Or the bright and sweet languor that emanated from Mrs. Dalyngham's house when her husband was away on a business trip and her neighbors' daughter dropped in for a visit. Harry had walked past and nearly tripped over the images of two naked female bodies writhing in each other's arms in a hot, sweaty act that made the boy blush to the tips of his ears and hurry away, accompanied by Sweet Tooth's giggles about "when you grow up you'll appreciate it!"
True, there weren't many such moments in the measured and sleepy Little Whinging - its inhabitants for the most part led a measured and completely ordinary life. A life that always irritated Harry!
Returning to the inability to see anything in the Immaterium beyond such highlights, everything changed when the Smart One was there, helping and guiding the boy. But for the most part, the servant of Tzeentch insisted that Harry do everything himself - after all, what kind of education was it if the teacher was constantly telling the student how to solve a problem?
But now, to even begin learning the necessary skill, a push was needed, a catalyst! That is, a victim. And so, without any unnecessary questions or requests, Smarty shared his power with the carrier in order to find this victim - now was not the time for pedagogical techniques.
Potter's mind exploded into a bright kaleidoscope of images and sounds, as if someone had turned up the volume on a radio, making the whispers of many voices louder and more insistent. Sitting on the edge of the roof, Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reaching out to them, trying to make out something.
And after about ten minutes he heard what he wanted.
"There!" Harry said at the same time as four voices in his head and jumped up.
Ruffnut growled, and the boy's limbs were once again enveloped in the crimson-black smoke of the warp, filling with unnatural strength. He took a running start and pushed off the edge of the roof, leaping onto the next building and running on, trying to avoid the brightly lit signs and streets.
Fortunately, there was not much to run for - just a couple of minutes later, in one of the dark alleys ahead, a shot was fired and a loud scream was heard.
"Holy shit!" cried a skinny dark-skinned kid standing in the alley, looking in horror at the pool of blood spreading across the asphalt. "You just fucking killed Andy! Bitch, do you even realize what's going to happen now?!"
"Shut up!" the guy's interlocutor screamed hysterically, threatening him with a gun. This character was white-skinned, painfully thin, unshaven and very pale, dressed in some kind of terrible rags. "Shut your mouth, you black-assed bitch, and give me the damn coke before I shoot your curly head off!"
Harry watched the scene unfold from the parapet of another house that overlooked the ill-fated alley, and could see the scene unfolding in detail.
The third participant in the action, lying in a pool of his own blood, was either seriously wounded or completely dead. He was white, like the shaggy guy with the gun, but, unlike him, he was dressed much more decently - like his black friend. Long blond hair, a short beard, stained with blood flowing from the mouth - that's all that could be seen.
"Your mother, your mother!" the black man wailed, his eyes darting from side to side. Whatever this "coke" was, he desperately did not want to give it up. But the guy also did not want to be shot, like his friend - and therefore his face reflected a serious struggle!
"How much longer, motherfucker, do I have to wait?!" the unshaven man got angry and fired one shot at the feet of the black boy.
- Your mother! - he repeated, sobbing, but still reached into the large pocket of his sweatshirt, taking out a small bag of some white powder and throwing it to the unshaven man. - You, your mother, understand what Lord will do to you when he finds out that you stole his goods, huh? - he made a desperate attempt to get through to the clearly inadequate attacker. But it seemed that the latter no longer cared - he looked at the bag with a half-mad smile and muttered:
- Coke... So much coke!... It's enough for me for a week!...
Harry, realizing that the robber was about to escape, decided to act!
Pulling the hood of his sweatshirt down lower, he released the fingers of his hands that had been holding onto the parapet and dropped! Landing spectacularly right in the path of the criminal trying to escape, he slowly straightened up.
Both the robber and his victim looked with equally wide eyes at the thin figure in jeans and a baggy dark sweatshirt with a hood covering the top of her face, who had just jumped off the roof and stood frozen in front of them.
"Your m-m-m…" the black guy cursed once again, unable to say anything else.
"The devil!" the unshaven robber suddenly squealed, pointing the gun at Harry and firing two shots...
And falling unconscious, not having time to make a third one, Potter flew up to his victim with a sharp movement and knocked him out.
After which he froze, not knowing what to do next!
"Witness!" Smarty hissed in his head, turning his attention to the robbery victim. "He needs to be removed!"
"Kill, kill!" Zabiyaka raged, though much more quietly than usual – after all, all these jumps and somersaults had exhausted the demon considerably.
"But... but I can't!" Harry's thoughts raced. "We just saved him!"
"He's right ," Dobryak suddenly supported the boy. "What was the point of interfering then, if we were planning to kill everyone? Especially since I've always believed in a second chance for every lost soul ," he almost sang. "Maybe if we help him one more time, he'll be useful to us?"
"Hmm ," Smart Man breathed out doubtfully. "He'll tell everyone about us!"
"Pfft! Who?" Sweet Tooth intervened. "The local pushers and other drug addicts? That's who no one will believe!"
"Hm ," Smarty said, more mockingly than anything else, which gave Harry the impression that he had foreseen the course of this discussion in advance. "Indeed, the tales of one small pusher and... his friend ," a glance at the long-haired boy's prostrate body, "would mean little, even if they did tell someone. But they won't."
"I have no doubt that you have already thought about how you will convince these two," Dobryak answered bitterly.
"Not me. Harry ," replied Smarty.
"Me?!" the boy was surprised, standing in a kind of stupor all this time - although during this conversation, God willing, only one second had passed. Accelerated thinking had already begun to activate itself at critical moments - like this one, for example.
"And you plan to use our power and skills for the rest of your life without trying to learn on your own?" the demon snorted contemptuously. "Go ahead! Think of something to convince this man to cooperate."
Harry, as usual, divided his thoughts into several streams, trying to find a solution. There were no hints from the four spirits - they were clearly waiting for his own solution...
The solution was suddenly suggested by the rescued man himself.
- Damn! Andy! - he rushed to his partner, who was lying on the ground, obviously a pusher like himself. - We need to call an ambulance! Although, damn it, what am I even talking about? - the black guy was talking to himself, almost crying. - The cops will get us right away! Damn, damn, damn!
"Can we help his friend?" Harry suddenly asked, coming out of his stupor. "Good man, you can..."
"If others don't mind," the named spirit responded.
"Why would they be against it?" Potter asked in surprise.
"Because if I help these two poor boys, they will become my, ahem... intermediaries. They will hear my call and the call of Nurgle himself! I will become stronger, I will gain the first followers in your world - and the rest will have to wait for some time...
"I don't mind ," Smart Guy suddenly interrupted him, causing Kind Guy to cautiously fall silent.
"Oh! Wow!" Sweet Tooth said in surprise. "If the follower of the Schemer is ready to give up the advantage to the Nurglite, there is some kind of cunning plan behind this!" he snorted mischievously. "But this will definitely be interesting - I am also for it!"
"Go to hell, C'tan!" was all Ruffnut could spit out tiredly, currently recuperating. He clearly wasn't particularly aware of what was happening right now - Harry was even worried about his health, if one could talk about spirits in such a way.
"That's great ," Goody-goody boomed good-naturedly. "My boy, you took one of our jars, right?"
"Got it," Harry nodded, pulling his backpack off his shoulder and rummaging through its interior in search of the potion jar—he carried one with him just in case he ever needed to perform his own ritual with it.
"Good ," the Nurglite approved. "Now do as I say – and remember!"...
- Hey, kid, what's wrong?!... - the rescued pusher, who was in a state of disarray, didn't immediately understand what was happening, but Harry simply and without fuss turned his comrade's body over and lifted his T-shirt in one movement, revealing a puny little body with protruding ribs. And a disgusting-looking wound in the stomach.
"I can help," Potter explained to the black man. "Your friend will die if we don't save him right now!"
"Who the hell are you?!" the guy exclaimed in amazement, looking at Harry's manipulations, but he didn't even try to stop him, although a knife flashed in the boy's hand.
Having made the first cut and soaked the knife with someone else's blood, Harry, repeating the voice of the Good Man in his head, began to chant the spell. And, despite the fact that these words were pronounced in a breaking child's voice, the space seemed to tremble from these terrible sounds!
"Ah!... Oh!…" was all the pusher who was still standing on his feet could croak out, covering his ears with his hands and shaking his head – the ritual performed by Harry had opened the door to the warp well enough that its echoes easily penetrated the head of even a nearby Muggle.
The long-haired boy lying in front of him wheezed and gurgled with his blood-filled throat, arching his back. Harry's dagger carefully traced a strange symbol right on the skin around the wound: three circles, forming something like an inverted triangle, with three arrows between them, pointing in three different directions - the symbol of Nurgle!
Then it was time for the potion. Dobryak said not to waste the whole jar - just a few drops. But that was enough: the carved sign flashed a putrid green light for a moment, as if confirming the success of the manipulations.
The spell ended and Harry blinked his eyes in confusion - the wound still hadn't closed!
"Did I… Did I do something wrong?!" he exclaimed in panic.
"No, that's right," Dobryak explained softly. "Just the usual magical gibberish isn't enough! The spell only opened a channel between you and the great Nergal's plane - now you need to pray, asking for his mercy."
- Uh... Pray? - the boy stalled, not knowing what to say or do. As already mentioned, he had no idea about prayers or any other quasi-religious side of life - and so he had to improvise. - U... respected grandfather! - Harry began awkwardly. - Grandfather Nurgle, - he clarified so that there were no omissions. - This man is badly injured! And I... I mean him, - he clarified, receiving a small mental poke from Smarty. - This man urgently needs help! Could you help and cure him? You are kind and help those who are sick and suffering, right? He... - again a small piece of advice, this time from Kindly. - He really wants to live! - a panicked look at the boy groaning at his feet. - And he wants to accept your Gift!
For a while nothing happened. And then the symbol around the wound on the long-haired man's stomach darkened strangely and then glowed green again, and the wounded man himself suddenly opened his eyes and groaned.
- Mom... - he almost burst into tears. - I don't want to die! No, not like this!...
The warp stirred around them - and the long-haired one muttered something, periodically sobbing and laughing hysterically, as if he was communicating with someone invisible. And Harry even suspected with whom! No wonder the voice of the Good Man disappeared from his own consciousness, it was clearly now talking to the boy at their feet.
And finally, the wound on the long-haired man's stomach began to close with fresh skin right before his eyes, leaving slightly sloppy marks where Harry's knife had passed.
"Your mother…" someone croaked almost next to Harry's ear.
He turned around abruptly and met the absolutely stunned eyes of a black guy - the wounded man's partner.
"A miracle... A fucking miracle!" the black man muttered again and fell to his knees. "Are you some fucking saint?" he asked.
"Just having fun," Sweet Tooth commented mockingly on this phrase in Harry's head.
"I… No," the boy pulled his head into his shoulders. "Well, I just… I saw that you were having problems and… well," he finished awkwardly, trying to pull the hood down over his eyes. "Uh… I guess I'll go," he said.
- Wait, kid! - the black man seemed to come to his senses. - You're some kind of... superhero? Like Spider-Man or that... Doctor Strange? Wait!...
But he looked around in amazement and realized that there was no longer any strange kid nearby. Just like the carcass of that stinking junkie who almost finished off Andy.
Almost finished me off...
"Your mother, Andy, dude - how are you?!" the black pusher jumped up to his friend.
- Martin, why are you screaming like a victim? - the black man's long-haired friend groaned with displeasure. - Motherfucker, motherfucker! Damn, I feel like we got high on "gloomy" yesterday and washed it down with moonshine. What just happened?
- Are you serious, you don't remember?! - the one named Martin was amazed. - There was something like that...
After his partner's confused story, long-haired Andy blinked and frowned for a while. Then he said:
- I remember talking to someone. Someone... kind. And good, - he sniffed somewhat unseemly. - And then he suddenly - and took away all the pain. Imagine - all that there was!
"Do you think it was God?" the black Martin said, his eyes wide.
"I don't know," Andy shook his head. "Probably. Yeah, most likely," he nodded firmly. "And that kid in the hood? Are you sure you saw him?"
- What are you talking about?! He prayed to someone over you, and you were healed right before our eyes!
Andy sniffed again, then stood up resolutely and picked up the bag of coke from the asphalt.
"Let's give this crap to the Lord and quit this fucking job!" he said decisively. "And let's go to Reverend Archie and apologize for breaking his fence. Ask to preach, maybe..."
- Why the hell? - the black man didn't understand.
"Don't you get it?" Andy snorted back. "This wasn't an ordinary kid. This was an angel of God, man!"
- Oh, really?! - Martin didn't believe it.
- You said yourself that he prayed - and healed a fatal wound! - Andy nodded confidently. - And he appeared literally falling from the sky! And then he disappeared, taking that homeless guy with him - probably to the Judgment of God! - the longer he spoke, the more firmly the long-haired man spoke. - It all fits together, dude!...
All the time Andy was talking, he was unconsciously touching his stomach with a dreamy look. In which the bullet fired by the drug addict who had attacked them remained...