Читать книгу Bloody Dawn. Daughter of Dawn - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 3

«Why every time when I close my eyes, it seems to me that you betray me, my angel…»

A beautiful statue in the niche, of course, did not answer. He always prayed to her silently. So today he did not say these words out loud, they sounded somewhere deep in the subconscious, but, as before they burned. It was true. Every time he looked at his heavenly patron, for some reason he had come to the thoughts about betrayal.

Beautiful angel affects impassively. Ferdinand always looked at her carefully, from the bottom up, with endless respect, but the heart fluttered. In front of him in the Majestic Cathedral was his only earthly love for many years. She was from stone. The statue always caused a thrill in him. Infinitely beautiful, elegant, deified. Not a young man and not a girl, but feminine it was much more than even painted the imagination. Reviving, this angel could naturally become only a girl.

Ferdinand shook his head, and blond hair slightly lasted the neck. Someone seemed to whispered him on the ears of the upcoming betrayal. What are thin annoying voices!

Obsession, so would it be called by his order. To hear the tempting voices is obsession. He is tempting by the devil. It is better not to believe him. But words in the brain have always sounded like a prophecy.

Just a few words. And they did not have anything to do with the creature which he prayed.

How can an angel betray him? Or how can he himself betray his angel?

«It’s time!» The harsh hand of the mentor laid on his shoulder. Not for the first time he shuddered from its gravity. It was time to accept the honorable purpose. This time he was chosen.. And it was an unheard honor, because the following elections will take place only after a few centuries.

Ferdinand silently nodded. He knew that it was time to go. The moment of initiation has come, but the statue as if did not let him go. He asked permission from her. He needed her blessing and, perhaps, even help. So that his hand does not flinch into a decisive moment. But it seemed to him that the angel whispered «Go! … with my curse!»

How terrifyingly calm was a voice that was echoed in his brain.

Ferdinand could not understand anything. After all, it is assigned a sacred mission. He will be the right hand of God hitting the devil. Is an angel should not encourage him?

But time has already come. It was impossible to postpone longer. Ferdinand went behind the mentor. He had to feel joy and pride, but did not experience any other. Only emptiness. The feeling that everything is already predetermined and his choice will not change anything, pressed by unbearable severity. He felt sentenced, and not chosen.

«This is an evil spirit tempting you,» said his mentor. «This is he suggests his demons to chip different tricks. So you will see the truth as in the mirror curve.»

They all had a worthy answer. The devil tempted the people of the centuries ago and continued to do it now, naturally and the answers to eternal questions remained those themselves. The religion itself was built so that it was impossible to suspect a lie. But some kind of false was. Ferdinand just could not understand what it was.

Some danger hovered inside these walls, and not from the outside. What is a pity, because he is used to that these walls have become sheltered from the wrongness of people. The outside world is full of sins, and here reigned a blessed peace. But the darkness invaded it.

The heads of the Order explained his condition by the fact that he feels the approaching only an emerging danger, with which they were obliged to fight every few centuries. Therefore, chose him. At least, so he was told. Only he suspected another.

Ferdinand was walking through long corridors and felt something like the wings. They spoke, these are pigeons nest under the roof. It was forbidden to drive them from here. White pigeons! But recently Ferdinand remarked several blacks. They looked at him for a long time, and, it seemed, their tiny red eyes silently laugh.

In any case, the birds were very small, and he heard the rustle of some huge wings. More than the wings of eagle. There were the wings with a size as a human body.

As a nobleman he himself hunted on birds with a bow and arrows. Now he was in a cassock, but the vision of hunt, still did not leave him. In these visions, he often pursued a huge bird, and shot a creature similar to a person with huge black wings. The winged creature is dead on the sand. He woke up with the feeling that his hands are in the blood and a greater heaviness was on the heart, than even if he killed an ordinary person.

«Dream is nothing!» the voice of a priest whispered to him through the cover of the end of confessional. Once Ferdinand looked and saw in this end, instead of a wrinkled face of the priest, an elegant face of an angel statue with bleeding eyes. It seemed to him that it was not marble, but alive. And it was not a dream.

«Keep silence, if you think that others will not understand you,» said the beautiful creature. And the words crashed into the brain as the island of blades.

And yet Ferdinand did not have to talk to another about his visions. He just needed to find someone who would understand it. Many honored elders in the monastery listened to him with attention, but could not really explain anything. From him, he was always separated only by common phrases, and in the air remained a feeling of innocence.

After a long conversation, which did not know anything, he had a strange feeling, as if something was hidden from him. It was better to be silent.

Today, he did not need words. It was the night of initiation. The chapel resembled a hall for solemn meetings. Candles, crowd, official clergy robes, a bowl for communities filled with the blood of his fellows. Today it was blood, and not wine. On the ranks was a ritual knife. Each of those present was supposed to make an incision on his wrist and drop into the bowl of their own blood. Thus, they all gave their strength to one vessel. From this vessel is intended to start to someone who is elected to fight evil.

All the assembled should have supported one favorite. He could alone not cope with the mission entrusted to him. So read the sacred prophecy. But why then assign such a responsible task to someone? And rather to him.

Well, everyone dedicated to the Order was obliged to consult that he was on self-sacrifice. Only here to sacrifice themselves they did not want too much. Ferdinand saw how reluctantly they raise the sleeves and bring a knife to the wrist. They did not want to sacrifice even a drop of blood. But it was originally believed that on the altar of struggle against evil they would bring their own life.

The bowl was filled with their blood mixed with consecrated wine, and Ferdinand felt like a dizziness covered him.

Somewhere on the choir were heard the sounds of the anthem of a terrible court.

«And God will put forward his son against the devil…»

Ferdinand nodded to the head of the order. It seems to be to say «Amen», but he forgot… he forgot that he needs to do and say.

The name of order was a palm of god or Order of Dawn. They were called so and so, and the ordinary brothers called the faithful to God. He used to like it, as it sounds. Previously… Now something has become different, as if the winged shadow laid on the altar, and suddenly he was afraid.

Ferdinand bowed his knees before the altar. The bowl with blood has already passed in a circle to the head of the Order, the older Donatello. It was he who had to make the deepest incision and fill to the edges the remainder of the bowl. So he passed his strength and ancient wisdom. Together with blood. Ferdinand was not right to object to it. To his surprise, he did not feel the disgust with the thought of the taste of blood and that he would have to drain the whole glass. Only the feeling of inevitability.

«Every year we are waiting for the appearance of a star, which will indicate the proximity of the execution of the prophecy,» the stern voice of Donatello cut silence. «Every year we live in the thrill before it appears. But when it is done, our Order is waiting for several calm centuries.»

«The devil comes to our world every pointed period,» Donatello nodded on the bas-relief of unusual clock with many circles inside. «Only we know the boundaries of this period, and only as long as we act, the clock closes the circle. The devil is in the circle until we expel it. And while we are, the circle will not interrupt. Satan will not break out. We are elected to fight the main enemy of God, thirsting to break into our world and subordinate it to yourself. You are chosen!»

The old fingers of Donatello touched the chin of Ferdinand to raise. Their eyes met, and the young man flinched. Donatello gave him a sign. Now he had to repeat. And he repeated. Their voices sounded a chorus, uttering the same oath.

«I promise to bring my life to the altar of my creator.»

«I never tell anyone how great my purpose is and how close is the devil to the servants of the Lord.»

«I know that I have to fulfill my destination before the term marked in the last on this day the cycle of prophecy.»

«The clock of the Lord is already hitting and before they come together on the last figure, the devil will be dead… from my hand.»

Did Donatello pronounced these words with the same frightening insensible intonation? Was he in fighting the devil himself? Probably not. After all, he is old, but not dead. And the one who fought with evil in the past his appearance in this world has already dead. After all, it was without a small century ago. Each cycle is a few centuries. It is precisely such intervals (not hours, and the years and centuries) mark the dial of the divine clock.

Lot to fight evil fell a melancholic young man who was used to talking to the statue of angel and dreams that it answers him.

What is evil? What should he fight?

«You’re a palm of god now,» Donatello said.

Ferdinand knew. He nodded.

Behind stood a crowd of his silent fellows. The hand of each was bleeding. And Donatello has already brought the bowl to his lips.

«Are you ready to take the mission entrusted to you?» the last question. It was no longer needed, but such was a tradition. While he will not officially agree, the rite will not be completed.

The golden edge of the bowl was so cold and unpleasant to the touch. He had to drink the blood of his companions and to hope that thus the power of the whole Order to unite in it by one, making it invincible. It was absurd, and yet Ferdinand said, as it was:

«I’m ready!»

And immediately he pierced the feeling that his favorite marble angel looks at him right from this altar, in front, from behind, from a height, from everywhere. It was also absurd, but the angel was not encouraged.

«A traitor!»

He began to be afraid of this word, but it sounded in the head, pronounced by the lips of the angel.

So the angel called him. Why? Because of the blood, which he had to drink? Ferdinand drank, trying not to feel the taste. It was too unpleasant.

«She goes!» said Donatello.

«She?» Ferdinand was amazed, but the cold ritual dagger was already in his hands. He took the mission to himself.