Читать книгу Legend. Dark kingdoms - Dmitry Nazarov - Страница 4

There was noise in my head, and my eyes, after two days of crying, were covered with a foggy veil. Not even drops helped. Sniffing loudly with a reddened nose, I grabbed the handle of the front door, pulled it towards me and nearly ran into the one I least wanted to see right now.

Pyotr Ivanovich Galkin. A neighbor from the lower floor, and part-time my landlord, to whom I had to pay three months in advance yesterday. And I certainly would have done that, if it weren’t for…

It’s true what they say, trouble doesn’t come alone. I wonder how much more will fall on me?

Hairy arms closed around my waist, enclosing it in a kind of cage. I had to, as if by accident, step on his foot and jump to the side, not sparing the only decent stilettos in my wardrobe.

The neighbor broke into a drunken smile, which made his hypertonic red cheeks almost burgundy, then belched loudly, and the sharp smell of alcohol hit my nose.

– Murashkina, – drawled Pyotr Ivanovich, passing over me with an oily look, from which I immediately shuddered, «and I was waiting for you yesterday. Hic!

Who would doubt that?

– Peter Ivanovich, I was going to pay. I got a job a week ago, even took an advance. But my grandmother… – a lump came to her throat, tears involuntarily welled up in her eyes, – she died the day before yesterday and all the savings went to the funeral.

The neighbor sighed sadly.

It would be incomprehensible to an outside observer whether he was saddened by the death of my grandmother, or by the fact that he would not see money in the near future. And I knew that it was about money, since they had not liked each other for a long time with my grandmother.

Nobody needed his shabby odnushka with prehistoric plumbing, otherwise we would have been kicked out into the street immediately after moving, and so Pyotr Ivanovich had to endure two, according to him, accustomers, from which the cat cried, and the problems were higher than the roof: then the tap on the kitchen leaks, then power outages. In a word, mess!

Scratching his beer belly, he walked around me with a macho gait.

– Where are you coming from so beautiful? Did you go on a date? – it’s always like this with him, Rybkin’s memory, and it’s as if you are talking to a concrete wall. I told him about the death of my grandmother, and he was talking about a date…

All the negativity, all the anger that was seething in me at the injustice of this world, now focused on one particular person.

– I’m coming from the cemetery, Pyotr Ivanovich, – I gritted through my teeth, and he, obviously not expecting such an answer, bulged his small eyes and shook his head.

– It’s a pity for Antonina Matveevna, she was a good grandmother. A quarrelsome little thing, but kind, – and then, as if in jest, he threatened me with his finger, – but you bring this… money today.

– I can’t today. I don’t have money now. Tomorrow at work I will ask for another advance, but they may not give…

I thought he would start screaming, as he usually does, but instead Pyotr Ivanovich stretched out his hand and touched my hair with his greasy calloused fingers.

– Can I visit you today? – one of his eyes twitched, as if from a nervous tic, and it took some time to understand that he was trying to wink at me, – I’ll bring some wine, we’ll sit down… Let’s remember Antonina Matveevna.

– No, – I quickly cried out, and recoiled from him to the side, then added more calmly, – I have business in the evening… important.

My fifty-year-old neighbor, who at his age continued to live with his mother, turned out to be not one of the quick-witted. However, I did not expect.

«Then maybe tomorrow?» Hic!

– And tomorrow I have business, Pyotr Ivanovich, – she breathed out tiredly, looking after the lady with the dog who passed us, «I have business every day. I can’t drink with you. And I will return the money, just give it time.

My words pissed him off. The smile immediately turned into a grin, thick cheeks trembled, and perspiration appeared on his forehead.

– No time for you! If you don’t pay tomorrow night, you can get out on all four sides! I’m not your charity. You have to pay for everything in this life, Murashkina, – having finished speaking, the neighbor turned around and ran to a nearby stall, next to which the same bastard friends were waiting for him. And I remained standing at the entrance, cursing the day when I was born.

A day that began with a funeral could not end well.

By the way, it’s nice to meet you, a promising young accountant, an eternal loser, without relatives, friends, and a penny for the soul of Snezhin Murashkin. Please love and respect.

From childhood, I got used to the fact that life hits me much more painfully than my peers.

At the age of five, she lost her parents, whose lives were destroyed by a fire that broke out in our house. The neighbors saved me, they managed to pump me out, but mom and dad were so unlucky.

After the incident, my grandmother, my mother’s mother, took me to her place, who herself lived on a meager pension, which mostly went to medicines, lived on bread and water. But this woman never lost heart and did not allow me to breed snot.

When my classmates ran on dates, I sat at the textbooks, knowing that if I didn’t get a grant, higher education, with our income, I wouldn’t see my own ears, and then I could safely forget about a bright future.

It is only in fairy tales that poor Cinderellas meet rich princes at balls and live happily ever after with them, but in real life, in order to get to the ball, you have to work hard to the seventh sweat. My grandmother taught me this too.

In general, she was a fighting woman… she was.

Sobbing loudly, I entered the dark entrance, and with bowed head trudged up the stairs. At the very door she stopped, and pulling out the key, she noticed a white envelope lying on the floor.

Damn, twenty-five. How could I forget? Now unpaid bills have been added to my troubles.

Wearily, she rested her forehead against the door and banged her fist on the wall a couple of times. There was no more strength to cry or get angry. A sharp apathy rolled over, a harbinger of an impending depression. In a good way, something had to be done about it, but I had no idea what it was.

It got worse in my apartment. Everything here reminded me of grandma: our photos with her, an untied sock, a dressing gown on the back of a chair, an unfinished book on the table with a bookmark inside…

If I hadn’t cried all the tears for these two days without a trace, now I would have fallen again on her bed, squeezing her pillow in a soundless cry.

Why did she leave so early? I’m not ready yet…and probably never will be.

And tomorrow was another busy day. I’ll have to go to the management right in the morning and beg for an additional advance. If a miracle does happen, and it will be given, I will not receive money next month, which means a new problem – what will I live on?

I had no relatives to borrow from them until the next salary, close friends and a beloved boyfriend, too.

A terrible thought flashed through that perhaps it was necessary to agree to Pyotr Ivanovich’s proposal for a joint evening, but I immediately shuddered with disgust and nausea came up to my throat.

No, death is better.

Just in case, I took a backpack and left some things there. Suddenly, tomorrow evening, you will have to urgently make legs from here. Galkin will definitely not give me time to get ready.

At that moment, a deadly fatigue, which had been accumulating all these days, fell upon me. Taking an envelope with bills in my hands and a calculator to calculate the total amount of the debt, I settled on the sofa, placing my backpack with the collected things under my head. But I didn’t even have time to open the envelope, starting to fall into a dream.

On the periphery of consciousness, the thought swirled that with all these worries, I forgot to take off my shoes, falling asleep in my shoes.

***

Kingdom of the Four Moons, Sor City

– Hey, you swindler, get up! Get drunk and lie here, as if at home on the bed, – a strong kick on the back literally pulled me out of the arms of Morpheus, forcing me to scream from the pain tearing the insides, – get out, come on.

Opening my eyes, I tried to focus my gaze on the old woman with huge ears staring at me point-blank. She was as tall as a five-year-old child, but, judging by the poke she gave me, she had unmeasured strength.

– Woman, what do you allow yourself? I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

– Look, the noble one has found out, – let me, – she mimicked me, clearly intending to reward me with another savory kick, «I sell oritia seeds here, this is my point, and I regularly pay for her, and you are lying here half-naked, scaring away buyers. Go sleep at old Effna’s girls’ house. That’s where you belong.

Not understanding a word of what she was trying to convey to me, I began to look around.

The place where I was now was reminiscent of a square from films about the Middle Ages: the paving stones on which I was sitting, carts arranged in a ring, with horses harnessed to them, women arguing about something with each other in long dresses and with something similar to the caps on their heads, the men standing next to them, all matching gray burlap trousers and long shirts.

What the hell is going on here?

Rising abruptly, I grabbed my backpack from the ground with one hand, while the other was still clutching the calculator with which I fell asleep.

The brain began to frantically search for an explanation for the incomprehensible situation, while the heart threatened to burst out of the chest, and the lungs categorically did not have enough oxygen.

An attack of sleepwalking! Bingo! This is it!

Grandma said that after the death of my parents, I walked around the apartment several times in my sleep, called them, and she covered my shoulders with a warm blanket and put me back to sleep.

This time there was no one to put me down.

It turns out that I somehow opened the front door, went out into the street, and got well… and by the way, where am I?

Maybe this is some closed part of the city, where historical films are being shot now? Or in general, did you please the role players?

Adjusting my skirt and blouse, I was about to ask the same old woman who almost beat off my internal organs, how best to get to Zvezdnaya Street, but at that moment, where people were crowding, loud cries were heard:

– Witch! Kill her!

– She will curse us, kill us, burn us!

– Burn the witch! Burn!

Was, was not! When will I get to the real shooting? We need to see what’s going on there.

So without asking anything from the woman, I rushed into the thick of the crowd. I pushed forward and saw a young girl pressed against the wall, my age, in the same long dress as the women around, but with her head uncovered. Her long curly red hair was blowing in the breeze, and genuine horror froze in her gray eyes.

Two people with torches in their hands were advancing on her. One brought fire to her skirt, and I was amazed at the realism of the special effects.

The skirt flared up like a match, and no matter how hard the girl tried to bring down the flame, nothing came out of her. She cried so naturally and asked to feel sorry for her that I immediately began to mentally sort out the actresses I knew. Such talent should already be on the big screen.

The girl, meanwhile, fell to her knees. The flame seemed to have subsided, but now the men, sparing no effort, began to jump around her and kick where they had to. Raising her head, she turned in my direction, and I, from my place, could see the blood flowing down my chin.

It was then in my mind that it clicked that something was wrong.

Not caring about the consequences, I rushed to her aid with a loud cry. The first man who fell under the arm received a strong blow with a calculator on the head, staggered and fell to his knees, but I didn’t get to his friend.

Something blunt hit the back of my head, and everything swam before my eyes. Consciousness slowly rolled away into the darkness.