Spring 1994. London, Ministry of Magic.
Al Pym stood in front of the vat with the huge brain floating in it and indifferently peered into the turbid embalming fluid filling it. More precisely, he looked "indifferent" only on the outside. But inside the Department of Mysteries agent, everything was seething and bubbling! Zero—that was the entire result of a three-week investigation into the death of Alastor Moody on the heels. Zero! And it began almost immediately, as information about the place and time of the former Auror's death came from observers—Al Pym, of course, assigned surveillance to his friend. Not to say that it was that tight—a one-eyed paranoid would have noticed something like that. No, rather just observation in case of "what if". And this very "what if" happened. Alastor took off somewhere in the company of a couple of militants of the Order of the Phoenix, and so suddenly that it was possible to establish the direction only after a few hours! When the task force arrived at the scene, the place itself, in fact, was gone. Along with the evidence. Hellfire leaves little behind.
"Run the program again," he sighed tiredly, rubbing his temples.
"Sir, I don't think that..." tried to object a Department employee in a protective beige robe, created by analogy with Muggle chemical protection suits specifically for working with aggressive magical environments. In this case, with MMP. That is, Materialized Mental Projections—that was the name of the giant brains collected in this room.
"I. Said. Run. Another. Mordred. One!" Pym said through clenched teeth.
"Yes, sir," the employee in the protective robe immediately turned to the working altar-terminal. Everyone in the Department knew that it was not worth arguing with Al in such a state, no matter how much they wanted to.
The brain, isolated in a separate aquarium, began to tremble from numerous electric discharges that hit it from special columns along the perimeter of the tank walls. Strange gray scraps began to crawl out of it, more like a half-burnt videotape. The agent again, clenching his teeth, greedily tried to make out at least something among the pictures on this "film"—but in vain.
"Sir, you yourself know: after total damage to brain tissue and especially cleaning the crime scene with spells of the Hellfire level, it is unlikely that it will be possible to restore at least some mental chains," another employee of the Brain Center, in exactly the same closed beige robe with a deep hood and a mask with crystal glasses on his face, said carefully, as if making excuses. "Everything that can be done has been done, but we are not omnipotent," he spread his hands.
Al nodded, closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Still a dead end. The hope of solving the mystery of Alastor Moody's death in one fell swoop had been a complete fiasco. He knew that working for the Aurors and the Department of Mysteries was dangerous. They all knew that when they signed up for it. But every time, when someone he knew "got their way"—that's what they called it—Pym had a strong desire to get completely drunk! And the worst thing is that, statistically, if former Aurors lived to retirement, most of them lived to old age and happily languished surrounded by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There are no former agents of the Department, but former Aurors—very much so! But Alastor was always an exception. He always rushed forward, to the forefront of the attack: to sniff out, track down, eradicate the Darkness in all its manifestations! How many times had Al offered him a job in the Department of Mysteries? Moody would have been a great acquisition for them... And now the one-eyed daredevil is dead. First smeared across the walls in a thin layer by the detonated portal, and what was left was burned by Hellfire. Only the advanced technologies of the Department allowed to reproduce at least some picture of what happened! But the sterile pseudo-brains could not show everything. Only separate scraps.
The agent again glanced sideways at the huge brains floating in formalin and grinned. Employees of other departments of the Ministry, who had a chance to visit the "brain room", as this room was dubbed, sincerely believed that human thoughts were being studied here with the aim of adding intelligence to wizards. Sometimes this room was also called the "mind laboratory". To this, Pym periodically really wanted to note that those who spoke really needed such a laboratory—there was no hint of intelligence in their cranial boxes! However, he pulled himself up each time. What was the point of getting irritated by the stupidity of ordinary people, if he personally put a lot of effort into spreading such tales? As well as tales about a bunch of other laboratories and divisions of the Department of Mysteries?
Already in his office, located at the far end of the labyrinth that was the Department, Al sighed and sank into a chair. Stories, huh? And one of these stories, carefully leaked to the Dark Lord, at one time led to his downfall. As it turned out—not a complete one, but who could have foreseen such phenomenal vitality of this orphanage rat?! Pym suppressed his irritation and again returned his thoughts to a constructive channel. Nothing. The operation was unfrozen, the agents were active—this time there would be no misses! Sybill Trelawney's prophecy was absolutely true, and all they had to do was follow it. In the right way, of course. That is—to guide and help the boy Potter in every possible way in spite of the Dark Lord. So that everything looked from the outside like an epic confrontation between Darkness and Light, while in fact being the subtle work of the special services to eliminate a dangerous arch-terrorist. Well, and to correct their own mistakes, of course. Despite the fact that all the details were taken into account by them then, almost fifteen years ago, unexpected things still surfaced. But the Department will cope—after all, it is not the first time.
A tall, slender man in a grey tweed suit and long brown hair walked into the office. Augustus Rookwood, one of Pym's agents.
"Liquidation to total annihilation of the target, followed by purge with Hellfire," he said instead of greeting. "In the old days, I'd have bet a galleon to a broken knut that Dolohov did it—just like him. Only he's in Azkaban," Rookwood chuckled.
"Need I remind you that you're supposedly in Azkaban too?" Al muttered discontentedly, manually setting out cups and pouring coffee into them—in this part of the Department of Mysteries it was better to refrain from unnecessary magic. The threads of numerous tracking charms, scattered all over Britain, converged here, and sometimes even the Minister didn't know about them, so there was no point in resonating with them without a special reason.
"I checked it myself: Antonin really is sitting in his solitary confinement at the top of the prison," Augustus shook his head. "So it's definitely not 'my' option," he grinned.
"It was sarcasm," Pym grimaced. "But you're right: it's very clear and clean, albeit somewhat radical work. Russian school," he clarified.
"You said that some second Russian appeared," Rookwood glanced at him. "Moreover, a relative of Antonin."
"Yeah," Al Pym grimaced again. "Only he's a Squib—and that's also verified information."
"He and his partner are working in tandem with Black," Rookwood shook his head. "And who knows where this Squib is from, what kind of training he's had? You know yourself, many pureblood families don't abandon their Squibs, and..."
"I know," Pym interrupted him. "Do you think some relatives of the Dolokhovs from the continent?"
"There are no relatives there," Rookwood grinned. "I heard Antonin's revelations about their family in my time: everyone they more or less recognized after the Revolution migrated to Europe in full force. Maybe someone unaccounted for remained—but they would not have been taught the family secrets and methods. Well, or even a namesake, it was just a coincidence."
"Do you believe in such a coincidence?" Al raised an eyebrow mockingly, bringing the cup to his mouth.
"Of course not," Augustus shrugged calmly. "But you yourself once taught me to voice any, the most implausible versions. As part of a brainstorming session."
At the words "brainstorming", Pym winced: the failure with Mordred's "brains" still caused a burning annoyance. Actually, they returned to where they started the conversation.
"Okay, let's leave the origin of this creepy squib alone for now," he sighed, trying to distract himself from the unpleasant topic. "What about Pettigrew?"
"Agent Wormtail is doing his job properly," Rookwood reported. "The operation to free Crouch Jr. and bring them together as a team will begin soon. Only..."
"Moody is dead," Al finished harshly for him, frowning. "And we need to develop a new scheme of introduction."
"Here's what I wanted to ask, Al," Rookwood began carefully, putting the cup away from himself. "Do we really need this introduction of Death Eaters into Hogwarts?"
"What do you mean?" Pym turned his head to him.
"Look," Augustus sighed. "Our entire scheme with Voldemort and his revival through the old ritual 'Bone-Flesh-Blood' is based, in essence, on the painful symbolism of the Dark Lord. There are more reliable ways to create a new body for a wandering soul."
"More reliable—yes," Al Pym smirked at this. "But we don't need a ritual that is reliable in itself. We need one that Riddle will want to conduct. And which will subsequently help us play the game in the direction we need."
"Yes, yes, the confrontation of 'Light and Darkness', I remember," Rookwood nodded. "But you know perfectly well that the boy is under surveillance. And not only ours."
"This 'surveillance' in no way allows us to track his location," Pym winced at this. "And as far as I understand, this is not only our problem—Dumbledore and his cronies do not particularly control the boy's movements either."
"Even at school?" Rookwood was surprised.
"Yes," the senior agent nodded at this. "All they can do is face-to-face surveillance. In the castle—together with portraits and house elves. Outside—only with the help of house elves. And then only within the framework of magical settlements."
"How come no Death Eaters have kidnapped him yet?" Augustus grinned.
"And who needed him until now?" Pym shrugged in turn. "A media figure, nothing more. A poster for exalted ladies and children. The Boy Who Lived, of course!" he snorted. "Apart from them, only the most grievous Riddle fanatics or Riddle himself could have shown any serious interest—but the former ended up in Azkaban or died, and the Dark Lord himself had been somewhat out of shape for the last decade."
"Malfoy did take him into his hands," Rookwood tried to object, but rather in the role of 'devil's advocate' in this discussion—that is, the side arguing from the opposite side. "But he didn't kidnap him or kill him, did he? He simply drew him into his business. Well, and into politics," Al snorted at this. "It doesn't matter. The boy was hardly in any danger until now."
"Let's assume," Augustus nodded. "But that doesn't change the simple question: why all these complications with the kidnapping in the final of the Triwizard Tournament, via the Goblet of Fire? When you can simply and without fuss get him out of the school at any time?"
"Not simple," Al shook his head. "Hogwarts reliably protects its students—it's not for nothing that they say that anyone can get asylum there. If the castle has recognized its patronage over you, no one will be able to get you out of there. They can kill you inside, but they can't get you out," he clarified with a chuckle.
"Okay, you've got it! I didn't think about that," Rookwood winced. "But in addition to the castle itself, the students also go to Hogsmeade and participate in international tournaments—do you remember that?"
"They have their own security, but that's not the point," Pym waved his hand. "In any case, you're right—for us, it would be easy to just steal him! To guess the moment, to catch him, to track him down... but the scattered Death Eaters and other amateurs will have a hard time."
"And you want to present everything as an operation of the Death Eaters and Riddle personally," nodded Augustus, who himself was a member of the "Walpurgis Knights" and formally sitting in Azkaban for this.
"Yes," grinned the senior agent. "Especially since the psychoportraits of Riddle and the younger Crouch almost perfectly fit this scenario. To believe that the psychopath Barty gave birth to such a schizophrenic plan, smacking of cheap theatrics—is easy peasy. At least the Order of the Phoenix should buy it," he leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee.
"And Snape?" Rookwood asked seemingly neutrally.
Al Pym did not answer for some time. He was thinking.
"You know, at one time it seemed like the perfect alternative to me," he said thoughtfully. "To put pressure on Severus from two sides: directly from us and from the Dark Lord's side. Riddle will start threatening this Tonks of his and blackmailing him. There was no such great leverage before—Merlin himself ordered to use it! At the same time, we offer help and recruit him, thus gaining complete control over the situation at Hogwarts and a new promising employee. But then I rejected this idea."
Rookwood did not interrupt. When Al Pym began to relate the course of his reasoning, it always turned out to be informative. And it clarified the senior agent's position in relation to the situation.
"Severus Snape is a valuable long-term investment," Pym continued. "You can play this card once, use it, threaten loved ones, squeeze him dry—but after that, he is unlikely to cooperate further. He is not the right person. If you overwhelm him, if you hurry, he will develop a strategy of confrontation—it is only a matter of time."
"That is why you are interested in him," commented Augustus.
"Yes," Al grinned. "A very strong personality, especially in the long term. It is stupid to throw away such personnel in the middle of the Game. They are saved for the final battle. However," here he shrugged, "it is still worth contacting him. He, Tonks and Lupin are still continuing to investigate the strange rituals surrounding Harry Potter, right?"
"As far as I know, yes," Rookwood nodded affirmatively. "Moody gave his student all the materials and observations on this matter. There is not much of it, but it is enough to start her own investigation... By the way, about Lupin," he frowned. "Should we leave him in his previous position? Not drown him, as we were going to?"
"What's the point?" Pym chuckled. "Moody is dead, and we simply do not have another candidate for the position of DADA teacher to replace him. And lately he had become a familiar face in Hog—a changeling could be quickly found out. So let the werewolf sit in a lucrative position for now. Get used to, so to speak, good things."
"And he will value this 'good' even more," Rookwood nodded understandingly. "Which will again make him more willing to negotiate. But what about Dumbledore?"
"Now that's another, and not the most compelling, reason not to put too much pressure on the Phoenix men," Al sighed deeply, closing his eyes and massaging his eyelids. "The Director is not the kind of enemy we should mess with. Certainly not now, when we, on the contrary, need his friendship. After all, we have the same goal."
"The old man is not an idiot," Augustus pursed his lips at this. "He probably felt someone's hand in those Halloween events! If he realizes that we were the ones pulling the strings all this time…"
"They are birds of a feather with Riddle," the senior agent chuckled at this. "Relics of a bygone era, echoes of ancient forces. They rely on their strength and Magic much more than on banal logic. Whatever they themselves think."
"And yet..."
"And yet he still hasn't exposed us," Pym snapped. "And he won't. And then, to bring the confrontation to a critical point, to a tragic and heartbreaking finale, where the old sick mentor, at the cost of his life, opens the way forward for the Hero..."
"Ahem! Is Dumbledore sick?" Rookwood raised an eyebrow.
"They are all sick, Augustus," Senior Agent Pym smiled. "Sick of their importance. Their pathos. Their fairy tale!" he snorted. "But any fairy tale has not only significant and pathos-filled heroes—there are also storytellers. Who take the fairy tale narrative wherever they want. Wherever they need it! Do you get it?"
"So we are storytellers?" the fictitious Devourer chuckled.
"To one degree or another. To one degree or another, Augustus..."
June 1994. London, Knockturn Alley.
There were two people in a dark room, furnished with expensive furniture and paneled with wood. One, a wizard in a patched robe, was confusedly crumpling a shabby bowler hat in his hands, shifting from one foot to the other in front of a carved chair on which his interlocutor was sitting.
"You came to me and asked for help," the slightly hoarse, lazy voice of the seated man rang out in the semi-darkness of the room. The light of a cigar he was lighting illuminated his face for a moment—with chiseled features, clean-shaven, somehow thoroughbred. "But you do it without respect. You do not offer friendship. And you do not even call me the Godfather..."
The third person standing behind the partition and watching this scene barely managed to suppress a cough mixed with laughter.
"I'm not sure it was worth letting Black watch The Godfather," the black Sam Dillinger said in a strangled voice—"and it would have been him. Look at this poor poor man," a nod towards the room behind the partition. "He does not even know how to react to the nonsense that Sirius is talking!"
"If you think about it like that, then wizards should not watch movies at all," Andrei Dolokhov, standing next to him, answered evenly. His face did not reflect any emotions—but for him, in principle, this was normal. It was not for nothing that he once went by the call sign Iceberg. "Without fully understanding the meaning, but impressed by new events and concepts, they can begin to apply these concepts in real life. Only, unlike ordinary people, they have more opportunities for this."
Sam just shrugged. And what is there to answer? So far, the effect of watching Muggle movies on Sirius Black did not go beyond the boundaries of phrases that were inserted in an inappropriate way. True, this is more the merit of the two Squibs who controlled his behavior.
Sirius's interlocutor in the adjoining room was one of the representatives of the so-called "magical breeders". Why wizards are so fond of calling ordinary, in essence, professions by special names remained a mystery to the two former secret service agents. After all, in essence, these breeders were ordinary farmers—only they did not grow ordinary crops and livestock, but magical varieties. Apparently, some echo of the times of the formation of the Statute of Secrecy, when wizards sought to separate themselves from the commoners not only in fact, but also culturally. This particular man in a shabby robe came to bow to the mysterious "Mr. Chorney" on a tip from Mundungus Fletcher and complained about the harassment from some "dark magicians" who forced him to sell his farm for a pittance.
Andrey was already accustomed to the fact that ordinary wizards are very fond of branding any criminal as "dark magicians". But this did not cancel the banality of most crimes. After all, what was happening to this man's farm? Yes, a classic raider takeover. Threats, sabotage, psychological pressure, and hints that all this could be quickly stopped if the business was sold to some "right guys" at a "fair" price. Things had not yet come to a physical raid on the farm—but everything hinted at the nearness of such a denouement.
Dolokhov sighed and, having already habitually suppressed his irritation, moved away from the viewing hole through which they were, in fact, watching what was happening. From experience over the past weeks, he knew that if he watched the wizards' antics for too long, the causeless anger that had been haunting him ever since he picked up the cursed gift of the goblins would come back to haunt him! Or maybe earlier? Dolokhov frowned. And indeed: he had begun to notice uncharacteristic mood swings, especially towards anger and irritation, even before the arrival of the strange parcel from Gringotts. As if hot waves from somewhere outside. As if...
...As if a voice in his head.
He shook his head and resolutely moved away from the negotiating site along the shabby corridor, leaving Sam, who was looking askance at him, to continue watching Black. Sammy, Sammy... That's what a good friend means. He rushed into this British adventure with him, broke all the written and unwritten rules of interaction with these people for his friend, and now he's also worried about his mental health after interacting with the goblin pick. The latter, of course, could be attributed to concern rather about his own health—Andrei, judging by the description, looked like some kind of terrible berserker when he took this weapon in his hands! But Dillinger didn't run away after that scene at the base of the former crime boss. He only clearly and insistently demanded that Dolokhov put that nasty thing away in a distant chest! However, Andrei, after he recovered, came to the same conclusion himself. Something was wrong with his psyche and behavior after appearing in the magical world, and it was not worth aggravating the situation by contact with an obviously dark artifact. Although, I must admit, he really wanted to!
He exhaled loudly, leaning against the wall of the corridor. Whatever had come over him then, when he first and only took that pick in his hands, it had not gone away. The steel will of a man accustomed to strict control of his own emotions allowed him to curb this unhealthy passion, but this did not mean that it had evaporated. Andrey, wincing, felt his neck, which periodically began to ache and burn, as if rubbed by an invisible collar. This unpleasant feeling manifested itself every time magic was performed near him—that is, lately, it almost never left him.
What irritation. What's more, sometimes the irritation flared up into real anger! And also—every time Dolokhov saw a manifestation of magic, especially directly or indirectly aimed at him. He remembered this feeling, there, during the fight with the members of the Order of the Phoenix. He didn't remember all the events and the phrases spoken, but the feelings—every single one! And the main one among them was—evil satisfaction. Satisfaction from the fact that the fucking sorcerers could do nothing with him!
He shook his head again and moved further down the corridor. He had to work. Anyone who thinks that the craft of a secret agent is nothing but beauties, cool cars and endless martinis with vodka (shaken, not stirred) is an idiot who has watched too many James Bond films. The real work of an intelligence operative is, first and foremost, the meticulous collection of information and its analysis. And they had a lot to collect. The "Mr. Chorney" project was pushing its tentacles deeper and deeper into the criminal structures of Knockturn Alley, and this process needed to be tightly controlled. Although, given some... peculiarities of wizarding society, one could say that the two squibs and Sirius Black literally created these very criminal structures. Wizards had not yet come up with the idea of mafia cartels, but individual gangs and agreements between them already existed. And they had to maneuver in this swamp quite carefully.
The target? Former Death Eaters. Former smaller henchmen of the Death Eaters. The prison crowd—and there is one in any society. Any bit of information, any hint about how life and security in Azkaban are organized, its structure and location. Well, and first of all—dirt. On Lucius Malfoy, too...
— Damn it! — Andrey cursed, falling to his knees and clutching his neck, which was shot through with a sharp, burning pain. It felt as if hot barbed wire had been wrapped around his neck, which began to contract, tearing the skin and digging into the back of his head.
"Not that, not that, you're thinking about the wrong thing!!!" — a voice roared in his head. Barking, loud, roaring like the wind in the rocks, it seemed to ram the walls of his skull from the inside. "Rotten multi-move moves, cunning intrigues and small childish steps towards the goal instead of one powerful jump!!!"
Andrey groaned dully, squinting his eyes in a futile attempt to get rid of the voice that was literally grinding his mind. But, like the previous times, it didn't help him much.
"Who are you putting on a comedy for?!" — the voice continued. "For your CIA friend? For fucking Sirius Black?! Why?! You could have done what was needed a long time ago, you have enough strength to take over the local crime community and take what you need by force!!"
He didn't tell Sam anything about his... mental difficulties. Because the voices in his head after contact with the goblins' magical weapons are not the kind of information that should be divulged...
"Yee-e-e..." — as if in response to his thoughts, the voice laughed in its barking manner. "You admit that you don't fully trust the representative of the hostile Office, right? Friendship between secret service agents? Bullshit!"
Dolokhov, breathing deeply, tried to get up, leaning against the shabby wall of the corridor. And trying not to scream—he didn't need to attract attention to himself!
"You are weak! You have always been weak!!" — the voice in his head spat out without any transition. "You didn't have the balls to die honestly in Afghanistan, as a warrior should! And what did you exchange for your valor and honor? Pathetic bowing and scraping before fat party officials and vile games of spies! You are pathetic…"
"Shut up…" Andrey croaked, straining with all his willpower to reject, to push away this terrible pressure from inside his skull. To suppress it, to drive it back… from wherever it came from.
"You won't be able to shut me up anymore, Andrey Dolokhov!" the voice burst out laughing. "We made a deal, remember? You are still a warrior, even if you are an idiot!!" he roared. "And you know perfectly well that I am right. That WE are right – because you yourself think the same way as I do! You are simply trying to play the game of self-deception again and again!"
At some point, the pain in his neck and head reached its crescendo and... died down. Only the voice barked again:
"We'll come back to this conversation. You can't brush yourself off forever"...
— Yourself? — and didn't notice that Andrey had croaked this phrase out loud. — What we needed was real schizophrenia with talking to yourself...
However, he was no longer sure of anything. After the strange gift from Gringotts arrived, everything became completely confused and at the same time much clearer than it was before! His "swings" of emotions acquired a simply monstrous amplitude at the moment when the damn parcel ended up in his hands. And especially—when he pulled out the damn pickaxe from it! And when he took it in his hands...
... "Kill everyone! Take everything!!!"... Anger. Greed. Envy! All of it. How he had restrained himself from hitting Sam on the head and trying to pick the gold crown out of his mouth, he didn't know. Probably because he was amazed at the very existence of such a desire. But this creepy thirst for blood and gold did not subside. Greed and envy had been pulsating in his brain all that time before their sudden trip to Teddingale, preventing him from thinking. More precisely, it was now that he could more or less put his torn feelings on the shelves. Then he simply could not analyze his feelings coherently... He could not until a certain moment.
"Look at yourself!!" — a thought arose in his brain then. More precisely, at that time he still thought that these were his own furious thoughts. "Again, as before, you go to serve other people's interests. To kill for the sake of despicable wealth or out of envy of the bastards who have it!" — the voice raged. "You don't have to justify yourself to me, why are you actually following Alastor Moody and his lackeys…"
Now Andrey understood that the words of the voice were contradictory from beginning to end. At one moment it accused him of envy and greed, at another it reproached him for excessive obedience. But now it was not important. Because he made a deal with the voice. What was hidden in that pick and what almost managed to enslave him was swept away by a wave of burning rage at the moment when they entered into a fight with Moody. A bloody shroud, a feeling of invulnerability! And a surprised squeal on the edge of consciousness, as if a pig's tail had been pinched. But he paid almost no attention to the latter. Because at that moment he felt free!...
Andrey somehow caught his breath and, as if nothing had happened, shook off the hem of his robe. And then he shook his head slightly and continued on his way. He still had a lot of work to do. He would be distracted by his own mental state and imaginary interlocutors when he reached his goal. When it was all over...
"Oh, no, it won't end!!" the voice barked at the end. "Blargolag didn't get your soul, which means you owe me. And you will repay your debt a hundredfold..."
And, despite his attempts to ignore the voice in his head, Andrey understood: yes, he will repay. He was not going anywhere.
June 1994. Teddingale.
When Donnie Six Pieces coughed hard from the aromatic smoke that filled the room, Lord couldn't help but smile. He had been feeling much better for some time now. Emotions of the people around him, and therefore realized that the doctor was very uneasy. And Lord was glad about this—in the last six months Donnie had become too self-confident. He began to look down on those around him, and sometimes even on his boss. His imaginary "chosenness" was telling—he felt like almost a messiah in the gang, bringing the Word of God to the masses. Lord ignored this behavior for some time...
...And prepared a response. And now the time had come to put Donnie in his place. Let him stink and puff himself up with importance in the Trash Sect, surrounded by the likes of Reverend Andy and his bunch of homeless people! The gang is Lord's territory, and he will not allow anyone to challenge his authority here.
It must be said that it was not only Nurglite Donnie who started coughing in Lord's retinue. A couple of the bulls also began to cough and wheeze as the thick pink smoke filled their lungs. Lord noted distantly that there were strange sparks and glitters in the smoke, as if someone had sprayed glitter into the air. Something synthetic? He chuckled in displeasure: the last thing he needed was for his people to be poisoned by this stuff! However, he hoped that Megan was not so crazy as to spray something really hard or poisonous in her club. Otherwise, he was going to reconsider their agreement about providing premises and protection.
The club was located on the outskirts of Teddingale, in the warehouse district where truckers loaded up. Of course, this was not South Helens, which had a whole separate area where truckers and bikers hung out—Teddingale was a much calmer and more respectable town. But the proximity to one of the highways and the interchange dictated its own conditions, and therefore the germ of what existed in South Helens was present here too.
The semi-basement room, which was reached by a concrete staircase with rickety railings, was filled with thick narcotic smoke. A high vaulted ceiling, small windows under the very ceiling, a bar counter in the back of the room. On the floor there are colorful carpets on which there are low tables surrounded by soft poufs and pillows, all in pink, scarlet and dark purple colors. Near almost every table there is a hookah, and those sitting at them every now and then apply themselves to the mouthpieces, after which they relax back on the pillows. Meditative music, golden trinkets in the oriental style hanging from the ceiling, blissful laughter—in many ways it resembled a den of some hippies straight from the 70s. True, it was much cleaner here. And there were waiters: half-naked guys and girls who served drinks to the guests, renewed hookahs and even happily joined those sitting on the ottomans, sitting on their knees, kissing and allowing themselves to be touched. No, not hippies. More like a private party somewhere in Las Vegas. At least, that was the association Lord had.
And this was only one of the upper rooms. There were others in the basement and in the depths of the building. Much more closed to the general public, and for a much more refined pastime. Megan Cornhill achieved in less than six months what the late Shalom could not achieve in several years. She was able to create a private club for special clients with special needs! And even lure a couple of influential visitors from London into it. If the old Jew hadn't already been dead, he would probably have died of frustration!
Of course, Megan had a much better starting point: Angel was very skilled at using his mystical powers and coordinating the newly formed cults, so that they exchanged information and indirectly helped each other. Lord suspected that this was not the most natural situation, and if there hadn't been that creepy boy over them all, Andy Tetchfield's Trash Cult would hardly have helped the followers of any other deity except their "Lord". But they had an Angel. He, the Lord, had an Angel! And so Andy's connections in London, which he had acquired by healing the big shots there with his "blessings," helped find the first clients for this establishment.
And no: not all of them were some kind of fierce perverts, whose addictions fell under the jurisdiction of criminal law or even psychiatry. It's just that over the past year, during all this hysteria around Sirius Black, many elite establishments in London had reduced their activity. They hadn't closed down completely, no, but the increased vigilance of the police in large cities had made their work somewhat... difficult. And the presence of a fully functioning new club a short distance from the capital had greatly pleased their clients.
The Lord chuckled. It was true: everything is relative! London, the center of big money and even bigger vices, was also the focus of attention of all and sundry law enforcement agencies, society, and the state. And such small towns as South Helens and Teddingale, as a rule, escaped their attention even in the best of times, to say nothing of late? It was not for nothing that Shalom was not particularly eager to enter the capital's expanses, preferring to lure clients from there, but not to meddle in the capital's affairs himself. It was even funny to remember how he himself dreamed of grabbing a piece of the London pie, gaining a foothold there and finally being able to say that he had taken the place he considered worthy. Why? One could settle down quite decently here, in the small towns. And let London itself come here, leaving both the local police and the crime lords who had divided it into pieces at the threshold.
The second hall was almost no different from the first. Only the smoke was thicker and had a different smell, and the bodies on the pillows twitched strangely, as if in ecstasy. The girl leading them gently pushed away several hands reaching for her bare thighs, giggling at the same time. Oddly enough, the stoned guests paid absolutely no attention to Lord and his companions: either the outfit of the waitress leading them, consisting only of a couple of strips of fabric and gold chains, had such an effect on them, or even the clouded consciousness of the drug addicts felt the threat emanating from the striding gangsters.
They entered a corridor, the walls of which were lined with mirrors and decorated with acid stains. Bass was heard from somewhere in front—there, as Lord knew, was the main and official room of the club, with a dance floor and other delights. In the end, this used to be one of Shalom's clubs, slightly remodeled and modernized. The rooms they had passed before were a semi-official part of the new establishment, and the entrance to them was not open to everyone. But their path lies even further. And deeper underground. Where Megan Cornhill had organized some completely illegal entertainment.
At the entrance to the stairs leading down, one of the "bulls" was on duty, allocated for the club's security. In the semi-darkness of the corridor, lit only by neon streaks reflected from numerous mirrors, Lord briefly noted some small details in the guard's appearance. For example, eyes lined with shiny mascara, nails glowing under the neon, an earring in his ear... And only a few months had passed! However, the mafia boss immediately remembered that the same Donnie Six Pieces had managed to recruit several people from the gang into the Trash Sect in just a few weeks, and this in full view of everyone and in the presence of Lord himself. And this guy had been hanging out at the club for the second month already! Again a wave of disgust and bewilderment from behind his back, making Lord grin with satisfaction again. If this irritated Donnie, then he himself was pleased with what he saw. He did not quite understand why he was so happy, but it... excited him?
While they were going down several flights of stairs, he had time to sort himself out: what had excited him so? The Lord did not consider himself a prude, but still, in purely sexual terms, he preferred a certain… traditionality. At least, he was attracted only to women. All these increasingly fashionable "orientations" passed him by—so it was not the sight of a painted "bull" that excited him. What then? The reaction of the escort. Oh, yes! Well, and the fact that all the mysticism and magic that the Angel manipulated worked one hundred percent. He sensed that he could manipulate all this himself. Divide and conquer. Rule! Donny's rotten bastards, blessed by Nurgle, were useful. And the Lord skillfully used this benefit, any advantage, any opportunity that the new Gods gave him! He was not going to miss any of them. He expected even more from the Deity of Megan Cornhill. If even the "bulls" brought up with prison concepts, for whom looking "like a bitch" was worse than death, still succumbed to the influence of Slaanesh, then the rest will be affected too. And there were still two Gods whose influence had yet to be tested. Oh, he would find an approach to anyone!
Human desires and passions had always been the Lord's main tools, his income and source of power. But now this influence was reaching a completely new level. Truly Divine!
The lower, closed floors of the club were a new building. The brownies sent by the Angel had tried their best—they dug a pit, reinforced it, equipped and decorated it. Moreover, they somehow made it so that only those who had the appropriate access could get in. Well, or those who were led there by the hand. The rest would either run into a dead end, or simply not see the entrance to the stairs—the explanations of the long-eared freaks were confusing to the point of disgrace, but the Lord got the general meaning. He personally had access—he had insisted on it. And the brownie had the appropriate instructions from the Angel, so the damned former copsha did not dare to contradict. Although the Lord saw: she really wanted to.
The dungeon was an even higher room. Rather, a wide hall with columns in some kind of Greek or Egyptian style—to be honest, Lord didn't really understand it. But it looked beautiful, he couldn't deny that. The round hall with columns along the perimeter was faced with pink marble and decorated with mosaics. Where Cornhill got the money for such extravagances, Lord did not know, personally he did not give her a penny for it! However, he suspected that all this luxury was the product of the strange magic of brownies. Well, or was simply stolen from somewhere, he did not care. The main thing—it looked amazing!
Along the walls of the hall, behind the columns, there were wooden boxes, like chaise lounges, covered with blankets and pillows, all in the same oriental style as in the halls above. About ten men and women of different ages and builds were reclining on them, quietly talking and laughing, and half-naked waiters of both sexes, familiar from the smoking rooms, brought them drinks and food on fancy dishes.
Their procession moved from the entrance to the hall immediately to the right, to the far corner, from where there was a beautiful view of the center of the hall. And of the wide stone altar that was located there. In fact, it was just a huge block of pinkish marble. And this, by the way, was the only piece of furniture that Lord knew for sure: it was not created by Angel's elves. Megan ordered it in a completely ordinary way, with delivery to a fictitious address, from where it was transported in a covered truck to its destination. According to the former policewoman, an altar touched by foreign magic would not give the "resonance" needed for "the full sensations." Whatever that meant.
There were three of them in their nook: Lord himself, his new deputy Terry, and a fighter nicknamed Merry. Not a particularly original nickname, it must be said, and neither was the reason to give it to this sullen thug. But subtle humor never really caught on among gangsters. As for the rest of the retinue, the Nurglites led by Six Pieces were banned from this place. Lord had taken him along to "inspect" the club only to annoy him. And because he had volunteered out of stubbornness. Now he, his two rotten hangers-on and five more "bulls" were in the open part of the club, where the disco was blaring.
Lord sat down on the couch and leaned his hands on his cane, the other two sat in squat chairs on either side. About ten minutes later, when a playfully smiling girl brought them drinks and a light snack, the main action began.
"My friends!" a graceful woman with luscious forms, dressed in a light toga, exclaimed in a deep, chest voice as she came out into the middle of the room. If Lord had not been forewarned, he would not have recognized her as the "bulldozer" Megan Cornhill he had met a few months ago. "Today is a great day. A wonderful, magnificent day! The day when you will understand what it means to live." Lord smiled thinly. Not a bad start. "All of you have been chosen. Yes, yes! Chosen to experience something incredible. Something so amazing that your life from this moment on will be divided into 'before' and 'after'!" Megan continued to broadcast, while the smiling waiters carried several braziers on metal tripods into the center. "Today you will experience Pleasure!..."
Music began to play at the edge of hearing, and to the approving exclamations from different ends of the hall, the girls and boys from the service began to bend in time to it. Lord caught his breath. Both the dance and the music were somehow...wrong. He seemed to catch the rhythm and melody, but at the last moment they eluded him! The movements of the young guy closest to their niche were so mesmerizing that Lord realized: he could only tear his eyes away from the muscular body glistening with oil with some difficulty. "What the?!..." he shook his head and turned to his companions. And chuckled. Because if he could tear his eyes away from the writhing man, his henchmen could not.
And when the dancers began to move synchronously in a circle and replace each other in a seductive kaleidoscope, even Lord himself could not tear himself away from this spectacle. At what point the spectators from the boxes began to join the dancers, he did not notice. What's more: before he could even blink, he himself was standing in the middle of the hall, not far from the altar, allowing a couple of practically naked girls to pull off his clothes.
"Their pupils are dilated," he thought distantly. "They're all on drugs." However, this thought flashed and almost immediately slipped away under the influx of sweet dope: Megan's assistants lit the braziers that they had taken out earlier, and a familiar smell filled the room. Angel's Tears—the potion that the hellish boy had given him! Apparently, there was a smoking version of this drug.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lord noticed that a couple of girls and guys with several hands were caressing naked Megan on the altar, and this picture made his heart skip a beat and the insides of his lower abdomen flare with heat. Again, a half-formed thought flashed that he was no longer a teenager in puberty, and especially not a horny pervert, to react so sharply to the sight of a heavy, fleshy woman, rubbed with oil and sucking off another woman! But the thought came and went.
He heard a muffled scream and noticed that one of the guests was already being fucked standing up by two men: one from behind, the other from the front. And the one from the front roughly stuck his hand in the woman's mouth, as if he wanted to massage her tonsils. However, she did not object, squeezing her partner from the front with her legs and rolling her eyes.
The pain came quickly. Like an explosion, like a bright orgasm during the first sex in his life! The lord felt his ear, bitten by one of the girls who undressed him and distantly noted that his hand was covered in blood... And then he seemed to wake up.
There was some kind of terrible bacchanalia all around! Bloody, monstrous and... yes, perhaps scary. Some guy in his thirties was lying on the floor with his belly ripped open and smiling. Damn it, he was SMILING while one of the waiters was slowly winding his intestines around his elbow, and his partner was jumping on the dick of the man being gutted alive! Moans of pain and lust, laughter and screams were heard all around! The cacophony merged with a terrible melody, which not only did not die down, but also increased in volume.
The lord took a step back and his gaze fell on another scene: the woman who had just been fucked by two men was already being fucked by four at once! Vagina, ass, mouth—well, you couldn't surprise a seasoned bandit like that. But the fourth was fucking her in the wound where her throat had been cut! And the woman somehow remained not only alive, but also conscious. She wheezed, drooled and bled, but she lived. And it even felt like she was still getting some creepy pleasure from what was happening!
Finally, the Lord leaned his back against the bed in the nook that had been assigned to the three of them. He began looking for his people with his eyes… And, unfortunately, he found them. Merry was one of those who was fucking the chick with her throat cut. Under the mass of bodies that covered the unfortunate woman, it was no longer clear where he was personally fucking her, but the Lord would have preferred not to know. And Terry… Terry was lying and drooling happily on the altar, and the ministers were chaining him to the marble tabletop with gilded shackles.
— When you told me to bring those I don't mind, you didn't say it would be… like this, — he turned to Megan, who was breathing heavily and covered in blood and sweat and had been standing next to him for almost a minute.
— Slaanesh is pleased with your sacrifice, Lord, — the woman sang and took a few steps in his direction, swaying her wide hips. — And you? Are you ready to give yourself to She-Who-Thirsts?
He slowly turned to the former policewoman, who leaned against his shoulder and invitingly brought her face close to his. Having measured her with a cold gaze, he jerked his hand, freeing himself.
— If I have brought the main victim to your — he looked around at what was happening — celebration of life, then I hope that I will get the maximum return from it!
— Of course, my Lord! — Megan giggled playfully. However, something like annoyance flashed in her eyes for a moment. The Lord noted that her pupils were also dilated. "Let's get to the main course!" she waved her hand.
The tone of the music changed, but the terrible orgy seemed to have only increased its tempo! Somewhere, in a fit of passion, one of the guests was already devouring his partner right during sex, someone with maniacal laughter cut off his fingers—no one seemed to be paying attention to the center of the room. Megan took Lord by the arm and led him to the altar. There stood Richard: a straw-haired giant, one of Cornhill's lovers and henchmen. He stood slightly bowed and held a gilded dish in front of him. The dish, on which rested a curved dagger.
"Do you want Slaanesh to mark you, oh Lord?" Megan asked mockingly, not particularly loudly, but somehow drowning out the noise reigning in the hall. "Then you must bring Her your own sacrifice!"
They held out the dagger to him and… And he took it. And almost immediately understood WHAT he needed to do. "Sorry, Terry, nothing personal," he chuckled at the end, almost certain that Terry, intoxicated by the Tears of the Angel and the emanations of the altar, had not even heard him. And then the Lord plunged the curved blade into his assistant's throat.
Terry's body jerked terribly, he wheezed and arched! Blood poured from his mouth and throat—an unnatural pink color, glowing and emanating a purple mist. The Lord did not pay attention to this oddity—he was trying to keep the dagger in the wound. He felt that this was extremely important! The Lord's own body was shaking with convulsions, as if he had stuck his fingers into a socket: some kind of energy was coming from Terry's slit throat, simultaneously collecting streams of power from the entire hall. From each of today's victims! And when the Lord already thought that he would not be able to hold the dagger in his hands... it was all over. The body under the dagger flared purple for the last time and began to dry up.
— What? — he breathed out. — And this is all...?
He did not have time to finish. The body, which had shriveled up, suddenly exploded in a stream of blood and shreds, throwing the Lord and Megan away from the altar. Everyone who was still conscious and continued to furiously copulate and torment each other, screamed and collapsed to the floor. The hall was plunged into silence.
The Lord raised his head and tried to focus his gaze on the altar. On which something was clearly happening. The blood that covered the marble slab bulged and emitted black, stinking smoke. The smoke gathered into a thick column, higher and higher, and the blood flew up after it. They mixed and thickened until they formed a tall, graceful figure with pink skin, a pair of disproportionate horns on its head, six breasts, hooves instead of feet, and ugly claws in place of hands. The Daemonette of Slaanesh had answered the call.
The gaze of her anthracite-black eyes caught the Lord's stunned gaze, and the terrible mug, reminiscent of both a porcelain doll and a dinosaur's snout, bared its teeth in a toothy smile.
"AM I NOT A LOVELY THING?" she asked in a vibrating voice that went straight to the liver.
"TELL ME THAT I AM A LOVELY THING!"
— Ha... ha-ha-ha!! — the Lord laughed hysterically. But he didn't believe it until the end. He didn't think it was all serious. Until the very last moment! And here it is... the moment of truth!
— SO I'M A LOVELY ONE?! — the demonette creaked again, threateningly tilting her horned head to the side.
— Yes! — the Lord exhaled, laughing hysterically again. — You are definitely a LOVELY ONE!
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