A storm was gathering over Little Whinging. Black clouds swirled in the sky, thunder rumbled and a fierce wind howled.
But there was still no rain. And despite the gusts of the hurricane, the unnatural pre-storm stuffiness remained.
The air was stuffy and electrified - it felt as if the skin was being enveloped in thick fabric, rubbed with an ebony stick! On the one hand - an electric tingling. And on the other - a strange sensation of a thick curtain, which is easy to move aside and...
However, the residents of the sleepy town a few dozen kilometers from London never bothered with such complex associations and reflections about their feelings. And therefore, no one even thought about what would happen after this "and".
But even without such complex reasoning and associations, almost everyone in Little Whinging instinctively sensed a threat looming in the sky. Not a storm, but a threat!
Like a huge abscess that could not explode, splashing out of the body along with pain and blood the poisoning pus - this unborn storm pressed on the brains of the inhabitants of the town, making them twitchy and irritable. Insomnia and nervous breakdowns became faithful companions of almost all the inhabitants of Tisovaya Street - and not only it.
Mrs Figg glanced nervously out of her window at the neighbouring plot, where the boy wizard she had been assigned to watch was calmly trimming the rose bushes in the garden.
To be honest, things got a little easier in Little Whinging after Harry Potter left for Hogwarts. By October, the strange devilry that had been going on in the town, all those creepy whispers and nightmares, had died down, and Alastor and his boys had found no trace of any new dark rituals in the area. By all indications, the mysterious warlock, having failed to get to Potter, had gotten scared by the Auror activity in the area and had slipped away.
But the elderly squib didn't feel any calmer. Alastor also sensed something like that, but he couldn't show up himself or even drive his guys to the Muggle city - even after the summer vigils in Little Whinging, he had more problems with his superiors, from the series of "abuse of authority" and "use of official position". Moody had often gone on about "greenhorn office slobs with pederastic habits" before - that's how he called the officials of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, who supervised the actions of the Aurors and him personally.
What can I say: eleven years have passed since the War! Most of those who took part in it died or emigrated - and even then there were almost no ministerial officials among them. And the current government was strictly peaceful and insisted that the Aurors do what they are paid for with budget money - that is, contain crime, and not chase the ghosts of unknown dark magicians.
So the most Moody could do was to put pressure on someone from the Order of the Phoenix. But most often these were dubious characters, like Mundungus Fletcher - a slippery, nosy guy who was obviously doing semi-criminal business behind the Auror's back and caring first about his own pocket, not the task at hand. They simply had no one else at their disposal.
And so Harry returned from school. And at the same time, a message from Dumbledore arrived. A message that hit Arabella's nerves hard, highlighting and accentuating all her fears and worries, which had subsided before.
Voldemort is back!
Arabella didn't know the details, didn't know how or why - the warning Albus had given her through Snape was enough. The Dark Lord had begun to show himself again. After ten years of silence - again!
But aren't those events of the past and the year before connected to the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Maybe it was one of his followers or secret supporters who performed those rituals? Or an imitator? Or someone else? So many questions - not a single answer! And it's certainly not for her to look for them. Let Dumbledore think - his head is all gray, covered with wisdom and all that!
In any case, she and Moody had expressed their concerns to Albus last summer, and Dumbledore had gently promised to pay attention. "Pay attention," Mordred damn it!
He didn't rush to investigate the places of strange and bloody rituals that Alastor had discovered, he didn't send someone smarter from the Order - no! He just promised to "pay attention".
Moody again swore at Dumbledore's politicking and, for some reason, his prudishness. But he was forced, gritting his teeth, to return to duty. But he swore to Arabella that he would find one of the more intelligent interns and send him as soon as possible.
Mrs. Figg could only sigh and mutter curses - she absolutely and utterly did not understand the reason for such ignoring of their suspicions! Especially against the backdrop of the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
The woman sighed and turned away from the window and returned to the kitchen. It was time to have some tea. Yes, this was definitely the best idea of the day!..
Harry Potter himself, as already mentioned, was currently pruning Aunt Petunia's roses. And yes, he volunteered to do it, which surprised and even scared his aunt!
As it turned out, in Harry's absence, his fat cousin had risked going into the closet under the stairs, looking for those photos with which the young wizard had threatened him and his friends last summer. But he had jumped out of there a couple of seconds later, shedding tears and squealing something about "monsters in the dark"! After Vernon had also run out of there, sweating profusely, blushing and stuttering, the closet under the stairs had been boarded up and subsequently everyone had tried to run past the door into it as quickly as possible!
Of course, the "beloved" uncle tried to attack Harry about this almost right at the station. But when the boy coldly asked if Uncle Vernon really wanted to know what was really in the cupboard under the stairs, he gurgled strangely, but preferred to fall behind. And for the rest of the journey he tried not to look back at the back seat, where his nephew was sitting. Perhaps he just imagined it, but at some point the damn Potter's eyes were suddenly filled with a solid green glow, crossed out by black-crimson holes of vertical pupils...
No, not "possibly"! It just seemed that way. Precisely and definitely!
In short, any questions Harry might have had about what the hell he was doing in the cupboard died before they even began. Vernon didn't even remember his threats last year about magic or any other devilry in the house - both sides chose to ignore each other, to their mutual satisfaction.
Harry himself, entering the cupboard, raised his eyebrows in surprise. Because in his closet there remained a trace of, albeit a tiny, but a rupture in reality, leading straight to the Immaterium! Now, however, this wormhole has completely dissolved, crushed by the barriers that were imposed on this world - but at the very beginning, after his departure for school, there was a real micro-portal to the warp here! The Dursleys had enough.
The boy grinned. Insignificant little people, incapable of comprehending anything more than their tiny, pathetic little world, limited by a disgustingly sterile town, dusty offices and castrated desires! How could they possibly understand the magnificent and boundless power that they were lucky enough to briefly touch?
He sighed and, reaching through the tangle of intertwined stems, deftly cut off a dry branch hiding behind them. When his bare arm accidentally brushed against a few particularly sharp thorns, Harry let out a barely audible sob and bit his tongue from the sharp pain. For some reason, the feeling of the thorns scratching his skin brought the boy an inexplicable wave of pleasure - as if it were not pain at all, but, say, Hermione's nails, which she liked to run over his palms while Harry stroked her hair.
The boy bit his lip and looked thoughtfully at the long bleeding scratches on his forearm. Then he stuck out his tongue, elongated by mutations from Sweet Tooth, and carefully, slowly licked the blood from his skin.
The taste was ordinary, salty, with barely noticeable iron notes - and at the same time it gave off something elusive-sweet, spicy, with the aroma of roses. Although the latter, most likely, was a consequence of the fact that Harry was standing in the thickest thicket of this flower.
"If you wish, I can make it so that you will feel this way all the time," the Sweet Tooth chuckled in the boy's head.
"The smell of roses, their taste, or their thorns?" Harry chuckled.
"All together ," the Slaaneshi exclaimed cheerfully.
"You're just going to make it so I feel all this all the time?" Potter asked, turning back to his gardening.
"Pfft! Of course not!" the demon snorted in response. "I can just add a couple of mutations to you by implanting pink stems into your torso."
"Uh..." Harry couldn't find anything to say. "I guess not. Not yet, at least," he frowned.
"Oh? Well, as you wish ," Sweet Tooth said, slightly disappointed. He - and Harry himself - were bored on this stuffy, stormy morning. They had only volunteered to cut the roses out of boredom and the Slaaneshite's love for these flowers.
And Hermione hadn't answered his letters. Heck, not one of Harry's friends had answered a single letter since the holidays began! And there was so much he wanted to know!
How is Granger progressing with her meditations and work with runes, should she keep it a secret from her parents - after all, it wasn't worth showing off such... specific skills.
How are Ron and Draco doing, and how much they both got into trouble for being friends with each other - these two certainly couldn't help but respond to the mocking tone of Potter's letters!
But it was already the twentieth of July, and there was no answer from any of these three. Which Harry didn't like at all!
There were, of course, some positive moments in his life during the holidays. For example, moving from his closet to a small room on the second floor. After so many years - an undeniable progress in relations with the Dursleys, that's for sure! True, it was done after an oath that he would remove "that damn thing" from the cupboard under the stairs and that there would be no more of that in their house.
Harry agreed without hesitation, especially since he didn't have to do anything: the breach in reality had long since healed anyway, and erasing the few makeshift runes that were inscribed on the walls of the closet was a matter of a couple of minutes.
Boring! How boring...
"Er... Harry?" Aunt Petunia's hesitant voice came from behind him.
When the piercing green witch eyes fixed on Mrs. Dursley, she flinched slightly and turned pink - a standard female reaction to him these days. And some males too. But still, the aunt found the strength to continue:
"Er... How about taking a little walk, Harry?" she bleated, her eyes darting back and forth to avoid meeting her nephew's gaze. "Like... er, for the rest of the day?"
"Exactly, some business partner of Vernon's is coming to visit them today ," Sweet Tooth said lazily, without much interest. "They'll eat that awful greasy cake, drink tea, and discuss Mordred's drills! Boring..."
For some reason, Harry's spirit advisors, after a year at Hogwarts, really liked expressing themselves in the style of the inhabitants of the wizarding world. All these "Mordreds", "Morgans", "Merlins" and their derivatives sounded, of course, extremely funny, but at the same time - very strange.
But the boy, for the most part, didn't care. After all, he and his companions were the very center of the concept of "strangeness." And it was probably useful to gradually learn to talk and think like a magician - after all, he was now part of their society, their world. It was time to start fitting in.
- Until the evening? - Harry said thoughtfully. After all - why not? There was absolutely nothing to do anyway. Besides, now that three weeks had passed since returning from school, he could devote attention to his... hobbies. - Okay, - he nodded a little more cheerfully. - I'll just change my clothes and pack my backpack.
The aunt let out a sigh of relief: apparently, she was afraid that Harry would refuse. The Dursleys did not want to stir up a scandal - their nephew frightened them too much.
Having changed into simple walking clothes, including a black sweater with a deep hood, and having also packed a backpack with the standard "ritual" set, money and wands just in case, young Potter slipped out of the house without bothering to notify his relatives. Let the Dursleys be nervous, wondering: did he leave or should they expect him to suddenly appear in the living room? In any case, they would not risk going into his room - not after the experience with the cupboard.
The thundering sky seemed to hang over the ground itself, almost brushing the steeple of the town church as Harry passed. The wind blew clouds of dust and rubbish from a nearby bin across the pavements - which looked downright bizarre in the sterile and usually spotless Little Whinging. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, but thick black clouds blocked out the sunlight completely, plunging the land into an unnatural twilight.
"Where are we going?" Harry asked out loud, fortunately the streets were completely empty - the bad weather had driven the residents of Little Whinging into their homes.
"We can take a walk to the town where we've already been," Dobryak answered him this time. "A familiar place, explored, and there's a hospital for the ritual..."
"Tell me straight, rotten thing ," Smart Guy chuckled. "You want to check on your charges, don't you?"
"Wards?" Harry frowned.
"Yes ," the Nurglite agreed easily. "Do you remember what happened on our last visit to South Helens?"
"We got a new victim," Harry answered in his mind, climbing over the fence near the highway. "And we saved two guys from that junkie. We even cured one."
"Exactly ," confirmed Dobryak. "We left our Gift in that town! A small seed of Nurgle's Blessing. Now this seed has sprouted and put out shoots. We should visit it, check: is everything okay with our sprout? Is it warm? Does it have enough food and moisture?"
"We continue to celebrate Gardener's Day ," snorted Sweet Tooth mockingly, who had already thrown off the shackles of boredom a little and was in the mood to joke. "But our smelly friend is right - the town has promise. Why not start with the little people we already know?"
"Indeed, one must start somewhere ," Smarty supported the conversation in a neutral tone. Considering that he usually did not take Dobryak's initiatives very well, this tone was even friendly. "Dive into the warp, student! Listen to its echoes, find the Gift we are talking about!"
Harry leaned against the concrete wall of the underground passage where he was at the time. Closing his eyes, he habitually opened his consciousness to the Immaterium, trying to feel the thread that his spirit-advisers were pointing to.
And there it was. Something warm and sticky and soft and comfortingly disgusting was pulsing south of here, in the direction of South Helens. It was small, if size was a concept in the realms of the warp, but it was clearly visible. And it noticed Harry, too, and responded readily to his attention.
"It's waiting for us," said the boy, opening his eyes and resolutely walking towards the exit of the passage.
He was now much more worried about being seen as they moved, since it was daylight this time. Fortunately, Harry now had an invisibility cloak, so there was no way to see him galloping through the groves and fields along the highway, filled with the power of Khorne.
"I wonder," said Harry, already sitting on the roof of the same building where he had once begun his adventures in South Helens, "but the cloak doesn't block the physical power that Khorne grants?"
"As already stated ," Smarty readily explained, "the mantle blocks the warp from entering from the outside . The four of us are already inside . Understood?"
"Uh-huh," the boy nodded thoughtfully in response, absentmindedly peering out at the streets of the town, which were only slightly more lively than those of Little Whinging. The clouds had moved even lower, ready to burst forth into thunder at any moment.
Checking the warp direction again, Harry resolutely jumped to the next roof, heading roughly in the direction of the alley where he had saved the two pushers last time.
"Somewhere here... Close... Close!" Dobryak wheezed in anticipation.
In the semi-darkness of the gateway, everything was the same as a year ago: garbage containers, running rats, shabby brick walls. This area was not very prosperous in general, judging by the abundance of high-rise buildings*, dirt and neglect. It was hard to believe that just ten miles in one direction from here was the licked Little Whinging, and in the other direction - the beginning of London.
Harry didn't even flinch when a thin, slightly limping figure came out of the darkness to meet him. Its gait was shuffling, its movements jerky. The figure was dressed in a grey sweater stained with something disgusting with a large pocket on the stomach and a deep hood - almost exactly like Potter's own, torn dirty jeans and broken sneakers. In general, if you don't look closely - an ordinary homeless person, of which there are always many on such outskirts.
But there was something about this homeless man that set him apart from the rest. Something that could be smelled even without Harry's abilities! A heavy aura of stench surrounded the man in the sweater. Not the usual smell of unwashed body and fumes that surrounded most homeless people - but a stench !
When the figure came close enough to make out a face, even Harry - who had seen some shit in the last two years - couldn't help but take a step back, grimacing in disgust. Because the man standing before him looked very little like him!
The once black skin on his bald head was now ashen-pale with a greenish tint and interspersed with strange lichen or mold colonies. His nose was almost absent, essentially two holes in the middle of his face, surrounded by an inflamed mess of flesh, pus and snot. Only one eye was visible, a disgusting ball riddled with broken capillaries, dripping mucus and tears. The other eye was covered by a massive tumor that took up half of his forehead.
The mouth of this… creature – it was hard to call it a human anymore – was occupied. And occupied by its own tongue – or rather, a swollen, blue slug that had once been it. How it was even possible to breathe when the tongue occupied almost the entire oral cavity – was unclear. But the creature was breathing. Hoarsely, with wheezing and howling – but somehow it was breathing!
And there were also several unnaturally large green flies flying around him, on whose chitin Harry, with his keen mutated vision, spotted black patterns in the form of a rune of three arrows and three circles. The sign of Nurgle.
The creature glanced at Harry, then turned and hobbled quite briskly into the depths of the gateway.
"Where is he going?" Sweet Tooth asked with disgust. But soon the creature reached the narrow alley between the buildings, onto which the gateway opened, and howled something unintelligible into the darkness.
- Yes, I hear you, I hear you! Look at all the noise you've made, - a grumpy voice came from there. After that, strange slapping and clicking sounds were heard, as if a small animal was approaching them. A cat or a dog...
Or what actually came to them from the darkness.
- Ah! - the creature rejoiced, resembling a pink-yellow bun with a wide toothy mouth and a pair of horns on its head. - Well, hello-hello, my friend. How wonderful, how wonderful that you finally decided to drop in for a visit! - the "bun" smiled broadly. And then he sniffed and smiled even wider - literally from ear to ear. Which, admittedly, he didn't have. - Bah! Who is this with you? Ours are in town!
"It's a Nurgling ," Dobryak said with indescribable tenderness and a soft laugh. "Grandfather's little spawn, as you might guess. Don't be afraid! He's cute, isn't he?"
"He can't hear you?" Harry asked in his mind, looking thoughtfully at the small demon in front of him.
"Unfortunately, no ," the Nurglite sighed. "But I don't need him. He came at your call, not mine, so it's up to you to communicate."
- Uh... - Harry already had a year of experience meeting new people. But meeting a demon he himself had summoned was something he had never encountered before. - Hello?
- A good boy, a polite boy! - the Nurgling clapped his small three-fingered palms. - Oh! But where are our manners? I am Snot. And this, - he clapped the leg of his rotting companion, - is Martin. Forgive him - he is not very talkative, - the little demon giggled. - At first he tried to scream, to call someone for help - Andy and I decided to sew his tongue to his jaw. And then he got inflamed! Who would have thought? - he laughed openly.
It seemed to Harry that Martin glanced reproachfully at Snot. The Nurgling himself noticed this:
- Come on, dude! - he said to his friend. - But what a cool tongue you have now - even bigger than your dick, a-ha-ha!
At the same time, the little demon put his paws behind his head and made several characteristic movements with his hips back and forth, grimacing and laughing.
- Um, - the boy didn't get the joke, sheepishly adjusting his glasses. - My name is Harry. Harry Potter! - he bowed his head. - Nice to meet you, Mr. Snot and... Martin, - he also nodded to the guy in the hoodie.
"Very nice to meet you, my friend, very nice," the Nurgling nodded in response. "Just call me Snot. After all, you summoned me, so all this 'Mister-Schmister' sounds stupid."
"Then just call me Harry… er, Snot," the young wizard smiled in response.
"Dealt with, Harry!" the Nurgling again stretched his mouth, full of needle-like teeth, into a wide smile. "Well, Herr Inspector, will you be inspecting our little farm?" he asked.
- Um... - the boy blinked, not knowing what to answer. - Farm? - he couldn't find a smarter question.
If he was being honest with himself, Harry himself wasn't sure why he'd gone to South Helens. He'd been hoping to get into another adventure, probably something like that skirmish where he'd saved two guys from an armed junkie. One of whom, he realized, had come to meet him in that alley with that bun.
Well, and for another sacrifice to the Gods and Chaos itself, of course - now that almost three weeks had passed since his return, and he was convinced that Moody did not appear on Yew, and Mrs. Figg's cats did not stray far from her house - it was possible to show a little activity.
But what to do now, having met a real demon - which, by the way, Harry himself accidentally summoned - the boy did not know. Apparently, to start with, he should see what kind of "farm" they had here.
- Oh, you'll like it! - the little demon waved his arms joyfully. - Martin, move your stumps! Let Andy greet us properly!
The walk to the aforementioned "farm" turned out to be quite long - they spent half an hour winding through narrow gateways and alleys until they came to something that looked like a mixture of sewage drains and a city dump.
The asphalt at this point ended in a gentle ravine, littered with garbage bags and with wide concrete pipes sticking out of its walls. A small river was visible nearby, into which, apparently, the sewage was poured. To Harry's surprise, upon closer inspection, the piles of tin sheets, slate and some rags turned out to be some kind of makeshift huts or something like that.
There was a movement between them, causing the boy to reflexively reach for the dagger in the transfigured sheath under his jacket - the longer weapon no longer fit in the jacket pocket.
"Calm down, my friend," the Nurgling turned slightly towards him. "Everyone here is ours! The cops are unlikely to come to this area, the locals don't stick their noses in - the only ones left are those Andy gathered into his little flock," the little demon giggled.
- The flock? - Harry frowned. The spirit advisors were silent, preferring to leave the negotiations to their bearer. Only Kindly One hummed some unfamiliar tune. - Like... with the shepherd? - Potter asked the stupid question again.
- Logical, right? - Snot chuckled. - About ten people lived here - all down-and-out tramps and homeless people. Well, how could they "live"? - snorted the Nurgling. - Until our Saint Andy found them, their existence could hardly be called life. But Grandfather takes care of everyone! - the little demon raised his finger admonishingly. - And now these guys have found the meaning of life, family and understanding! Isn't that happiness? - with these words the Nurgling stopped at a long "structure" made of tin and slate, leaning against a particularly large pile of garbage and some reinforcement.
"I'd gladly trade my family and understanding for a glass of ice-cold mojito. Well, maybe I'll take a licorice stick as change ," snorted Sweet Tooth, causing Kind to grumble in displeasure.
Harry didn't pay any attention to them. He was already looking around the strange hut with interest.
Barely taller than a grown man, about twenty yards long, this so-called "building" somewhat resembled a church, just as Harry had imagined it from the films he had secretly watched and the books he had read. There were no rows of benches, of course – the room was, God willing, three or four meters wide. But the piles of newspapers, some rags and cardboard thrown here and there made it clear that the "flock" was somehow seated in front of the altar to listen to the preacher.
As for the altar, it also had a place to exist.
"To be honest, baby Jesus didn't look half bad on that cross either," Snot gurgled good-naturedly. "But Andy hid him for a while - didn't want to embarrass the guests of our humble abode and the cops, if they came. And so," the demon approached the altar, turned to the boy and pointed with both paws at what he represented, "ta-da!"
To be honest, Harry had only a vague idea of what a proper temple was like—as already mentioned, the Dursleys didn't take him to church on Sundays. But even he realized that if this shrine had any connection to the Christian God, it was only as a parody of his worship.
The altar of this peculiar temple was a structure made of the same tin sheets, an old chipboard nightstand and a piece of burlap. Above all this towered a tall cross. It seemed to be an ordinary Christian cross, but with a small... addition.
Someone had roughly carved the symbol of Nurgle out of rusty wire and wood and attached it to the center of the cross. It looked, I must say, quite harmonious... and at the same time it evoked a strange, sweet and mesmerizing feeling of blasphemy . Harry even held his breath from this strange and exciting sensation!
- Ah... - the Nurgling sighed loudly, closing his eyes. - Do you smell that aroma?
"Yeah," Harry smiled dreamily. "It's so cool! It's like… like we're doing something we're not supposed to, but have wanted to do for a long time! It's like the police are about to show up and accuse us of something… something bad," Harry couldn't formulate it precisely due to the excess of his feelings. To which Snot only drawled skeptically:
- Well, actually, by "aroma" I meant that the smell of food is coming from the kitchen - dinner is ready! - he snorted. But, seeing Harry's puzzled and even offended look, the little demon smiled broadly again: - Don't be offended, my friend! These are my jokes. But dinner is really ready. What we have, as they say ... - he shrugged. - And don't be shy! When these people got Andy, they had plenty of food - so don't worry, you won't out-eat anyone, he-he.
The kitchen was located behind a tattered curtain to the right of the altar. It was the same area fenced off with bent tin sheets, only with a fire in the middle and a pot above it.
The eaters were already gathering around. As Snot had said, there were about ten of them, of different sexes and ages. All of them were dressed in horribly stinking rags, a couple had ringworm in their hair or ulcers on exposed areas of skin, but Potter had not noticed a single one as horribly disfigured as Martin.
"Each of them carries some kind of illness ," Dobryak thought it necessary to explain in the meantime. "Most of them are physical, and all of them are mental. But Grandfather helps them accept their illness, learn to live with it and rejoice!"
- Oh, Martin! - meanwhile, the Nurgling happily jumped up to the dark-skinned guy standing there, who was looking sadly at some skinny, shabby woman, licking her lips, stirring the brew in the cauldron. - Stop moping already! Do you want me to make you laugh? Did you know that you look like an elephant? - Snot suddenly asked, to the laughter of those around him - they were clearly not at all embarrassed by the fact that a real demon was scurrying among them. - A green elephant. There is even a poem about this:
It's time to sleep, the cricket died,
Kicked the bucket.
The bear fell down dead.
Only the elephant didn't die!
He rotted and wheezed, but he lived.
I sold my soul to Nurgle...
Martin mumbled something and pointed at the bubbling cauldron to the friendly laughter of those present. The guy clearly wanted to eat, but Harry couldn't even imagine how he would do it with his tongue.
By the way, the boy noticed curious glances from people sitting around the fire, who were waiting with different bowls in their hands for dinner to be ready. Well, of course: a clean, pretty boy in good clothes - and in this kingdom of dirt and hopelessness! Of course, everyone was wondering what he was doing here?
Potter chuckled and walked over to a rickety old stool in the corner with a rusty basin on it, taking a bowl and spoon from there. Relatively clean. Very relatively.
And about ten minutes later, when the same woman who was cooking a strange-looking soup in a cauldron began to slowly pour it into bowls, voices were heard from the entrance to the "temple".
- ...Listen, Reverend! - Harry heard a female, but rather rough voice, which was heard almost from the entrance to the sanctuary. Mutations from the Smarty, enhancing hearing, allowed him to hear the approaching two people before everyone else by almost a minute. - This "garbage sect" of yours, of course, gave a chance and hope to many inhabitants here. But, damn it! Unsanitary conditions, untested food, cold in the end - you could have brought them to one of the hostels of the city, or even London!
"Officer…" a young and surprisingly clear voice chimed in wearily, as if joining a long-begun and not yet finished dispute. "Tell me: are you on duty now?"
"No," the invisible woman clearly pursed her lips in irritation and frowned.
"So, if anything happens, I can call you Miss Cornhill?" the "Reverend" said, slightly sarcastically.
"You can call me Megan - I've told you that many times," the woman replied sullenly. "And I'm here as a volunteer, not a police officer."
"Spend your free time being one of the homeless, the sick and the poor? Commendable," a male voice said softly.
"I'm not trying to 'become one of them'!" the woman protested, so loudly that even those who didn't have Harry's hearing could hear her hiss. "If you think I'm just looking for informants for work or something like that!..
- Megan, - the man "smiled" slightly, judging by his voice, saying the woman's name in the same soft and kind voice that Dobryak usually spoke. - I can clearly see that you are sincerely concerned about us. And this is not self-interest, not a desire to use my people to obtain information or in any other capacity. You want to help. But you do not understand us! - he clearly shook his head. - You are trying to help where help is not needed.
"Mr. Thatchfield!" this "off-duty policewoman" began, but was corrected:
- Andy. If I'm allowed to call you by your name.
"Andy," Megan accepted this address. "You understand that you, your assistant, and several other people from your flock are very ill! You need to be hospitalized and treated, otherwise!..
"Otherwise what?" the mysterious "Reverend Andy" interrupted the woman gently. "Die? No, Officer Cornhill..."
"Megan," the woman corrected him irritably.
"Megan," Andy obediently corrected himself again. "Well, I hasten to assure you, Megan: we will never die!"
- Reverend, - the woman sighed tiredly and even irritably. - You have no idea how many times I have heard such words from representatives of various religious sects and cults! But please, allow my doctor friend to at least examine the children! This is…
"Look, officer," the reverend interrupted her again. "What do you see?"
At this point, Harry, unable to bear it any longer, walked up to the curtain that separated the "kitchen" from the "temple" and carefully peered out from behind it. Behind him, the inhabitants of this place continued to go about their business - they did not hear Andy and Megan's not particularly loud conversation.
"A strange crucifix, which you apparently made a symbol of your faith," the woman said carefully.
When Harry saw her, he suddenly thought that she was clearly not a model of beauty. At least, not in the conventional sense.
A face with chiselled features and a heavy chin, hair cut to a short hedgehog. Broad, almost masculine shoulders, powerful arms, but an impressive high bust and wide hips. Stocky, short, dressed in a checkered shirt, jeans, high boots and a leather jacket - she gave the impression of a kind of fighter, a militant feminist or just a man with boobs. This is how Sweet Tooth commented on her appearance with a strange, voluptuous laugh.
Harry didn't quite understand what the Slaaneshi was hinting at, but he decided that he rather liked this woman than not. Especially since she clearly wanted to understand and help this Andy's flock - that is, as Dobryak suggested, Harry's own people! Even if it was wrong, in the opinion of the... reverend himself.
The latter was very similar to his charges. Long, shaggy, greasy hair. Bags under the eyes, unhealthily pale skin with a green tint, which had once been simply white - but this man was not at all repulsive! On the contrary - there was something about him that exuded a certain attraction, charisma... spirituality.
This Andy was dressed in a greasy black cassock with an unexpectedly white priestly collar.
"A crucifixion, yes," Andy continued his conversation with the policewoman. "And despite the fact that the figure was removed for… um, reconstruction," he lied slightly. "You know who was crucified on that cross, right?"
"The savior of humanity," Megan frowned, not understanding where her interlocutor was leading her.
- Exactly! - Andy smiled broadly, showing yellow-black shards of teeth, from the sight of which the same policewoman preferred to turn away. - The savior! Ours. These people, - he waved towards the entrance to the kitchen. - He saved them. Saved us all! Saved from the hardships and suffering of this world!
"But they continue to suffer…" Megan said, uncomprehendingly, but was interrupted:
- Really? - the reverend smiled mockingly. - You have been here many times - has anyone, including me, looked like they were suffering?
The strange female cop was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts. Then, with a heavy sigh, she said:
- Listen to me, Reverend, - she said tensely, as if dropping something heavy. - Of course, I'm not on duty here. Moreover, my superiors frankly don't give a damn about this neighborhood in general, or your little cult in particular! But! - Megan bared her teeth harshly. - I can see that these people, - she waved her hand around the surrounding area, - are being brainwashed. You, or someone above you - I don't care! It's Lord, or some other drug dealer - I'll find out who it is! - Megan bared her teeth angrily, leaning towards Andy.
"Oh," Andy smiled indulgently, not reacting at all to the off-duty policewoman's threats. "You don't have to look, Megan. He's already here!"
At this, the reverend turned towards the entrance to the kitchen, where Harry was standing, no longer hiding.
"Hello, Angel," Andy bowed respectfully. "We've been waiting for you..."
- Kid, what are you doing here? - Megan interrupted him, accompanied by the disgruntled cries of Dobryak in Harry's head. - You're clearly not one of this crowd, - she frowned. - So. Andy? - She turned ominously to the mysteriously smiling "reverend". - What the hell is this?! Cultivating infection on your own and other people's bodies, deliberate unsanitary conditions, even brainwashing - that's one thing! But this is clearly not your shitty "flock"! This guy, if not from the City, is certainly not from your slums. And how are you going to explain this to me?! Good God, this is!..
"Ma'am, before you jump to the wrong conclusion, let me explain," Harry smiled widely, almost like Snot who had suddenly disappeared, and turned on the Love Stare at full blast!
As expected, this Megan immediately forgot what she had just been talking about. The Good Guy, of course, began to openly swear in the background, and Andy frowned in confusion - but Harry didn't care. He was trying to use the power that the Indivisible gave him, and now he chose the Sweet Tooth as his tool.
And the mannish lady police officer, sobbing like a girl, grabbed her crotch and sank to her knees, shaking slightly. Her flushed face could not turn away from the smugly grinning Harry Potter - the wizard who had found a hole in the mind of the man standing before him!
- You have restrained yourself enough, Megan, - Potter smiled, watching as a whole puddle of her secretions flowed between the woman's trembling legs. - All your life you thought that no man would even look at you, and the pinnacle of relationships between people is a boring legal marriage. But not all men are like that! - Here Harry stuck out his unnaturally long tongue again. - Many will like you, I have no doubt. But the main thing - here the boy's eyes were filled with a solid emerald glow, and his pupils became crimson-yellow. - The main thing is that you should try with girls first. Well then, - he smiled again. - Advice from an Angel!
After that, he suddenly threw out his hand, touching Megan's forehead and knocking her out.
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