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Chapter 2
Оглавление«You’ve heard it?!» asked the frightened girl.
«Yes,» he replied, peering into the darkness of the night.
«What was it?»
«It’s hard to say. I think that, most likely, judging by the size and heavy steps, it was a bear.»
«A bear?!»
«Mm… well… yes… most likely.»
«And now what?»
«Well… calm down. You can see for yourself that he did not even come close to us.»
«Maybe he didn’t see us?»
«Are you kidding? This is the animal! First of all, he heard us much earlier than we heard him. And secondly, he sensed us long before he heard us.
«Why did he leave?»
«This is exactly what you should be happy about. Since he left, it means that he realized that he couldn’t reach us. And now it’s no longer dangerous.»
«Why are you so confident? How do you know everything?»
«Well… hmm… I’ve been coming here every year for ten years in a row. And you’ve only been a couple of times, and even then… you’ve been mostly sitting at home, instead of walking in the forest and talking with the villagers.»
«They are rude, and therefore do not communicate well enough.»
«Ok, what a city-girl you have become, ah! Too touchy! Have you forgotten that you spent your entire childhood here? Rough, aren’t rough, what’s the difference? The main thing is that they know all the signs, and share their experience if you are friends with them…»
* * *
Kanny ran to a large house in a clearing, surrounded on all sides by a solid wall of forest.
He went up to the porch and, reaching out with his paw to the bell, pressed it.
Inside the house sounded a very quiet and completely unmelodious bell. Than he heard footsteps. A man being in his place would not have heard anything, but not Kanny. He have not only heard all these sounds, he also felt the vibration, and caught the smells.
«Master!» thought the werewolf, and whimpered plaintively, not realizing his actions.
«Kanny?» sounded at the door.
«Why does he ask? He sees me through the camera, doesn’t he?» a thought flashed in the back of his mind, but he only whined even more and scratched his claws against the door.
«What are you scratching? Can’t you answer?» the same voice asked irritably.
«After all, he knows that I can’t,» another thought with a bit of irritation flashed somewhere either in his head or in his stomach.
«Ok, wait, I’ll open it now,» the voice said, and the bolt inside creaked.
The door opened slightly, remaining locked with a chain, and a bearded short man in a beige cap peered through the resulting opening. The master’s eyes were small, gray and prickly. He seemed to see through Kanny’s every thought.
Seeing the master, the werewolf lowered his head and, placing it in between his huge paws, prostrated himself in front of the door, barely fitting on the rather spacious porch, expressing complete submission, as dogs do.
«You can get up, I’m opening it,» the bearded man said in his stern manner.
Kanny got up and wagged his tail happily. It was strange for him to smell that the master had a feeling of fear for him, although he suppressed it, since he smelled both.
«How can he be afraid of me? He knows that without him I can’t return to a human?» he thought, as far as one could think in his state.
The chain rattled, the door swung open, and the master ordered sternly:
«Come to the place. You know where. Wait for me there.»
Holding tail between his legs, Kanny darted past the man and went to the door at the end of the corridor. It was unlocked. He pushed her with his head and went into this mysterious, devoid of any glimmer of light room.
However, he did not need light for orientation. His scent told him every detail of what was inside; the dimensions of the room, which was the largest in this house, all its contents, including every piece of furniture, every figurine on the shelves or in specially made niches, every drawing, on the walls, or on the ceiling, or on the floor, and that very image, in the center on which he now had to sit, expecting and wishing with all his being a speedy deliverance from the wolf nature.
* * *
The mosquitoes bit mercilessly. Lera very soon realized that there could be no question of any dream. She was constantly slapping herself on all parts of her body, trying to destroy obsessive insects.
«I wonder how I’ll look like tomorrow morning?»
The brother chuckled.
«I think that after such a night, the morning will seem to you a happy deliverance in any case.»
«Yeah. That’s for sure. How did we get so far?»
«We already discussed it. What’s the use of talking about it now?»
«But after all, it was your duty to put notches on trees?»
«Yeah! And what? I did to a point. And then: „Oh, Andriushka! Look how pretty! Help me collect them soon. Oh, look again! What a clearing!“ Well, I got carried away. Are we going to blame me now?»
«Alright. That’s enough. Oh! How painful! What a bastard! Such a huge bite!»
«That’s so you don’t yell at me.»
«Like I said, that’s enough.»
For a while they sat in silence, and in the darkness only the slapping of the palms on the exposed parts of the body could be heard.
After some time, the moon, which had already been risen for a long time, apparently came out from behind a cloud, and in its silver light the surroundings became more or less visible.
«Andryush?»
«A?»
«What if we never find a way home?»
«Oh, come on! Don’t start it again!»
«Ok, well…»
She took a deep breath.
«I’m freezing.»
«Me too. And what?»
«Nothing.»
«It’s not winter. We will endure it.»
Somewhere in the distance, a lone wolf howl sounded.
After some time, another one, but a little higher in tone answered it, cutting through the darkness of the night and running unpleasant goosebumps down the girl’s back.
She looked around, and suddenly it seemed to her…
«Look, Andrey. What is this?»
«What exactly?»
She looked again.
«Over there.»
He turned to where she was pointing.
«Strange. Really. Like something is shining.»
«It does not shine. It burns. It’s clearly a light in the window.»
«Come on!»
«I’m telling you.»
«Do you have better eyesight than me?»»
«I don’t know.»
For some time he carefully looked in that direction, and then abruptly unbuckled his belt and began to descend.
«Andre-ey?!»
«Let’s get down!» he commanded in a tone that brooked no objection.
* * *
The master came inside, and all the images on the walls, on the floor and on the ceiling, as if in response to his presence, immediately came to life, starting to emit a dim phosphorescent light. At the same moment Kanny smelled that familiar bitter smell coming from the drawings.
«Hurry, hurry!» literally shouted his essence, weary from the Spell, although outwardly he did not show his impatience, remaining completely motionless in the center of the pentagram on the floor.
As if not noticing him, the master began to monotonously cast spells, moving from place to place, from figure to figurine, from drawing to drawing, stopping where he needed to perform the rite.
Gradually, Kanny felt a sweet languor slowly seize him, as if someone with an invisible hand hugged him, and then penetrated inside. The reality of what was happening began to slowly slip away from his consciousness, the smells began to dissolve and mix with each other, and the picture of the environment became more and more blurred. For some reason, the master’s words were getting louder, and his voice was getting sharper and rougher, as if everything he said caused him an extreme degree of irritation. From somewhere in the room, other wolf people began to appear, just like Kanny. They bared their teeth at him or maliciously, like hyenas, laughed in his face, splashing on him their saliva.
As usual, the werewolf was terrified with all this, but he knew he had to do his best to remain calm and not react to anything. An unbearable itch filled his whole body, as if every cell of his skin suddenly turned into a separate living being and began to live its own independent life.
«It’s close, it’s close!» this was the last thought in his mind before Kanny, as if in a dream, suddenly saw two teenagers approaching the house and, crying out in unbearable pain, fell unconscious.
* * *
Small, plump, bearded, cut like a hedgehog, with gray prickly piercing eyes, a master, he is Alex, he is Uncle Sasha for some villagers in those very rare cases when he still had to see them, he is a hereditary sorcerer, he is… although his last title, as well as other names, nicknames, ranks and the like, were not intended for a wide range of people – he saw as Kanny fell unconscious with the last spell, and thought:
«Weakling! He again could not withstand it to the end!»
At that moment, the bell rang, and suddenly someone knocked loudly on the door of the house.
The sorcerer even flinched in surprise.
«It’s impossible!» he thought, and with undisguised anger looked at the werewolf, who, at that moment, had already gone through the whole process and acquired a human form, to which the master did not feel anything but contempt. There was not the slightest trace of his former fear, which on an instinctive level aroused in him in front of the huge wolf.
Meanwhile, the knocking on the door continued.
Hurrying out into the corridor, Alex came to the exit and looked through the eyepiece of the surveillance camera to see who dared to disturb him at such a late hour in the middle of the forest. To his surprise, he saw two teenagers near the house, a girl and a guy, looking around in fear.
«Oh! Come on! And what should I do now?» the sorcerer thought irritably.
However, he knew that if he did not open, in their desperate situation, these two would look for a way to get into the house. Therefore, opening the inner door, he rudely asked:
«Who’s there?»
«Praise God!» the girl exclaimed.
«Forgive us, please, we got lost,» the guy said.
«Let us in for the night… please!» the girl asked in a pleading voice, as if she would burst into tears.
«Beasts!» the sorcerer thought angrily, and said out loud as calmly as possible:
«Wait for a moment.»
* * *
There became silence behind the door.
«He is not really pleased with our arrival, judging by his tone,» Andrey remarked.
«It doesn’t matter, as long as he lets us in,» Lera answered, chilly rubbing her cold shoulders.
«I think he will, but… I don’t really like all this.»
«Come on. It’s better than spending the night in a tree anyway.»
«It’s clear. But where is he from? I didn’t hear anything from any of the villagers that there was a forester’s house here, they crawled all the way across here. Moreover, it is quite large, not just a hut, but a whole cottage. How in the world did he get such a house like this unnoticed?»
«Maybe we’ve gone so far that it’s not their territory anymore?»
«Hmm, I don’t think so. We need to ask Uncle Venya. He is an experienced hunter. He spent all his life here and should know everything. He certainly explored every single place in the district. If, of course, we stay alive.»
«What are you talking about?» with fear asked Lera.
«Yes, be quiet,» her brother snapped. «I hope this isn’t the damned place he once talked about.»
«What place?»
«Doesn’t matter. One day I’ll tell you, but now… whatever may happen let it happen. It is strange that no light can be seen in the windows. How then did we see the illuminated window? I saw it clearly.»
«Maybe he turned it off?»
«I thought so too, but now, in theory, he should have turned it on again, but look, there is no light.»
«Yes, indeed. It’s strange.»
«I also thought that the moon could be reflected in the window, but no, all the windows are tightly closed with wooden shutters.»
«Perhaps he closed them before we arrived.»
«I don’t know, Lera, I don’t know. I have some bad feelings. I’m already seriously thinking that maybe we’d be better off staying in the tree.»
«Yeah, ok, stop it. Everything will be fine.»
«Let’s see. Now there is nowhere to go. We do not come back, do we?»
* * *
Alex entered the kitchen, took a mug, poured cold water into it, and going into the room where the ceremony was performed, he approached a naked man lying in the middle of the room and splashed him with cold water in his face.
The werewolf woke up and jumped to his feet, showing bewilderment with his whole appearance. However, although he was pitiful, and even more so, in his naked form, it was impossible not to notice that he was perfectly built and obviously very well developed and strong physically. His muscles played under smooth skin, under which not a single gram of excess fat was visible.
«Follow me,» the master ordered authoritatively, glancing at his muscular body with an envious look.
Silently following him, Kanny approached the front door.
«Look!» the sorcerer ordered, pointing to the screen.
«Who are these?» with fear asked werewolf.
«That’s what I wanted to ask you,» Alex said with a promising threat in his voice.
«I… d… don’t know,» Kanny began to stutter, but when he stumbled upon the host’s cruel, boring gaze, he broke off and, lowering his head, fell silent.
«Do not lie! How is it that these two are still alive and ended up here?» the sorcerer lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and then sharply and demandingly shouted: «Answer me!»
Startled, Kanny muttered plaintively:
«They… they climbed the tree. I couldn’t get them there. They got lost and… climbed up to spend the night. They fastened their belts to it, and… I p-passed them, and… th-thought that… I can’t get there, but… there’s not enough time, and they won’t come down anyway and… they won’t find the house… and… ran here.»
The sorcerer swung his hand, and Kanny shuddered and drew his head into his shoulders in fright. However, the master did not beat him, but only asked with displeasure:
«Did they see you?»
«No. I… think n-no.»
«Do you think or are you sure?» the master almost shouted.
Startled, Kanny still quite firmly answered:
«I’m sure.»
«You know that only at this time of day do I turn off the field so that you can freely enter the house. And you know that people are less sensitive to it than you are, and can come much closer. That is why at night time I demand that you destroy those who at this time may be nearby. I was sure that if there were any in the area, you would finish them off. And… Now what?!»
«Didn’t you turn on the field after you let me in?» Kanny asked with the intonation of a small perplexed child.
The sorcerer, out of annoyance, swung his hand at him again and at that moment thought: «By the way, it’s strange, I did turn it on.»
The werewolf reflexively pulled his head into his shoulders, but the master suddenly went limp and asked more calmly:
«Now what do you want me to do with them?»
Shrugging his shoulders, the werewolf, though very timidly, dared to answer:
«Only you give orders here, Master.»
After a moment of silence, considering his words, Alex shook his head and said:
«Okay, now get dressed, go to your place and wait there so that there is not a sound from you. And I will deal with these two.»
Kanny nodded and quickly walked away, and the sorcerer, having opened the inner door, began to slowly open the locks of the outer, deliberately stretching the time.
