Читать книгу Immortal - Tina Bright - Страница 4

Corporate headquarters of INC

"Why did I agree to come here? How did I let you convince me? After what I told you, you were supposed to take me to the nearest mental hospital but not for an interview!" we had been sitting for ten minutes in the reception hall of INC, one of the largest law firms in Boston. My first interview for the position of the Assistant Secretary was to take place in a few minutes. I should have been nervous and repeating the answers to possible questions in my mind but, instead, I recalled everything that happened the night before, trying to find some answer, to justify my condition.

"That's because I know you like the back of my hand! Your hallucinations are a manifestation of fear of a new stage in life! Just think about it, every time you are about to start something new you are completely at a loss, shut down, and distance from others. You see signs everywhere. Like when you joined the team of cheerleaders. You imagined yourself breaking your leg while jumping, had dreams where you go up to the stage naked. You got yourself worked up so much that fell out of the elementary support at the major performance, although you had always done it flawlessly during the practice. You let down the team because of your nerves. I don't really care about this, but you cannot mess it up for yourself right now."

"This time, it's different! My visions are real. I feel something I've never felt before. It's not just nerves before the competition!"

"But entering the university, finding the first job, and moving out is not the same as joining the team of cheerleaders. Thes are much bigger steps. That's why the consequences are more global."

"I wasn't nervous at all!"

"I think its psychological. You are subconsciously afraid of all of this."

"Just admit I'm going crazy! Do you remember what I told you about my great-aunt? This can be genetic."

"Silly you! Your great-aunt had the Alzheimer disease but not schizophrenia. You cannot have it at such a young age. The first signs of the Alzheimer disease show up not earlier than at the middle age. You still have around twenty years until then. But if you are so concerned I can take you to the hospital for examination straight after the interview. Deal?"

I did not get a chance to answer because a tall attractive girl in a suit of olive color and stunning pumps entered the reception hall. She seemed unbelievably tall. And what was she doing there? As for me, she belonged somewhere on the catwalk in Paris.

"Miss Black?" the friendly secretary addressed me.

"Yes?"

"Please, follow me. Mrs. Shaw will interview You now."

I nodded and followed her into a small office with transparent walls. A middle-aged woman with fair hair was typing quickly at the table. She could barely fit in the chair, and her feet in gorgeous shoes did not touch the floor. I was hesitant to go ahead and take a seat opposite her without permission, so I hovered at the door due to indecision.

Mrs. Shaw finished her fascinating task and looked at me.

"Miss Black, right?"

"Yes.

"Please, come in and sit down," she pointed at the chair opposite her.

The chair was comfortable, and the person opposite me boded for the conversation or it only looked that way. The most important thing was not to start seeing things at the most inopportune moment. Mrs. Shaw decided to get down to business without delay.

"Tell me about yourself."

"My name is Darsy Black. I came here from Springfield to study law…"

"No, no!" Mrs. Shaw interrupted me. "I read your CV, and all this is well-written there. I want to hear something that would make me hire an 18-year-old student. In the future, the Assistant Secretary will be able to become a registered partner if she works hard, therefore there are enough applicants for this position even among the graduates. But I'm that kind of a boss who values not the theoretical knowledge but the personality, attitude to life and comfort of mutual work. So, you have three minutes to convince me that I can rely on you, despite your lack of experience and young age."

"Ok!" I nodded. Nobody had prepared me for such an interview. As a rule, the interviewers usually ask about skills, but not about my personality, since this was of the least interest to the employer. "Can you rely on me? Absolutely. I grew up in a poor, large family. I have two younger brothers and a sister. My little brother died of lymphoma five years ago. This loss nearly wrecked my Dad and since then he has not gone outside. Shortly after he had a stroke and became confined to a wheelchair. My Mom works hard to provide us with everything we need. And I had to help her with domestic chores from the age of six because both parents had to work to pay the mortgage. After my brother's death and my father's illness, we had to sell the house and move into the smaller one, and I had to change school. Despite this, I graduated with honors, got a scholarship at Harvard. Now I want to get a job to help my family. I don't have skills or knowledge to compete for the higher position or at least the trainee, but I am sure to be perfect for getting coffee and handling the copy machine. I am quite reserved and discreet, so you can feel free to entrust me with your private matters, and nobody will find out about this…"

"Do you believe in God, Miss Black?" Mrs. Shaw interrupted me.

"This is the only thing I believe in."

It wasn't clear whether Mrs. Shaw was satisfied with this answer or not, but the interview was over. The friendly secretary promised to call me and inform of any decision made by Mrs. Shaw. I left the building of the law firm in much worse condition than the one with which I came there. It was unlikely for me to get this job after this weird two-minute conversation. I could only count on the second and last attempt this year – the position of the cashier at the local supermarket was much more appropriate, given the absence of any experience.

"Where are we going?" the understanding that we were not going home brought me back to my senses.

"You're the one who insisted on being examined. Or have you already changed your mind?" Jackson asked.

I had not had a hallucination in hours, but it could mean nothing, so I shook my head and we continued our way.

Jackson undertook the talk to the doctor concerning my condition. I partially heard the conversation. Jackson told the story of how I hit my head yesterday and felt bad afterwards. My condition could be hardly described that way, but after that brief conversation, I had the MRI, tomography, general analyses, and a bunch of other procedures. I wondered whether my insurance covered this or I would soon receive a bill for a huge sum that I would not be able to pay.

We were eventually announced the verdict in the late afternoon,

"Miss Black, You are absolutely healthy. We didn't find a hematoma after the hit. There's also no danger of blood clots. I'll prescribe you mild sedatives to reduce your anxiety and vitamins to improve your general health condition.

I was expecting to hear anything, I was ready for any diagnosis but not the one that I was absolutely healthy. I was not all right. That's for sure. The presence of a brain tumor would be the most logical explanation for this condition, but nothing like this was found.

We walked from the hospital to the parking lot in complete silence. Jackson did not even tease me. Suddenly, I felt a terrible pain but it seemed it was not mine. I saw the image of a man whom this pain belonged to. I tripped and fell down. But I didn't feel the hit. It seemed to me that I or the world stopped. The entire situation reminded me of some low-budget blockbuster when everything stopped moving: birds, leaves, people, whirls of garbage, just like it was right now. Hardly had I time to get surprised when a translucent image of a man appeared.

"Hello!" he uttered. His voice sounded like an echo.

"Hello! Who are you? Have you done this?" I waved at the deserted parking lot.

"I have no idea what you are talking about. I thought you would explain to me what was going on…"

But instead, I ran my hand over his silhouette, and it fell through as if it was a hologram.

"What are you doing?"

"I got it! This is someone's joke! You're a hologram. Rosy and Mickey are behind all of this! Those two troublemakers made me think I was going nuts!"

Turning away from the man, I stepped to Jackson who, apparently, was in collusion with my friends. How did they pull this off?

The parking lot got back to normal when I walked away from the hologram.

"You are traitor!" I dropped at Jackson.

"Excuse me?" Jackson began to blink and his eyebrows shot up.

"Did you make all this up to play a trick on me? What a stupid joke! I really thought I was going crazy!"

Jackson took my hands and said in a soothing voice,

"Calm down, babe! Everything will be all right! I don't know what you're talking about, but we will go back home, eat something, get some sleep, and you will be fine tomorrow. I promise!"

"Jackson, can you stop it now? The joke got out of hand!" I was losing my temper. People glanced back at us but I did not care.

"Darsy, what joke are you talking about? Get in the car, please!"

"I'm not going anywhere with you until you confess."

I squeezed Jackson's hand and looked him in the eye.

"Ouch! Darsy, what are you doing?"

I glanced at the hand he was trying to pull out from my grip. It was shrinking as if someone was sucking the blood out of it. I released his hand, wanted to say something, to apologize while Jackson writhed in pain but I could not. Instead, I just ran away. I was racing out myself until my lungs started to burn.

The day was dawning. The streets of Boston were filling with groups of people looking for entertainment. I was wandering through unfamiliar alleys, trying to avoid contact with people. I could not simply comprehend everything that happened a few hours after the party. It could not be just a hallucination, because Jackson got hurt by my touch, and it was already too real.

"I guess it's just a dream! Tomorrow, I'll wake up and everything will be ok. That's right!" only it was a bit hard to believe in, even after the words were spoken aloud.

"Wow, I didn't think it would be a girl!" it was apparently addressed to me, since I was sitting all alone in a dark alley, leaning against a brick wall.

I decided not to comment on the stranger's remark, hoping that he would leave. However, he was purposefully walking towards me. His hands were in his pockets, the movements clearly gave out laziness and relaxation. He was avoiding the lights, so it was impossible to see his appearance. But the one thing that really surprised me was complete silence – one could not hear the sound of his steps or any other sound at all. The entire alley was filled with garbage, broken bottles, packages, but not a single rustle of his movement was heard. And only when the man came closer, it became clear why. The stranger was literally floating in the air three-four inches above the ground.

Is this one of my hallucinations?" the question was rather rhetorical, but the stranger answered.

"Don't be afraid, dear! It'll be over in a minute anyway. I'll take that from you!"

"That?"

"Yes, that! Something that Charon has given you."

"WHO?"

Was it my imagination again, or did a goblin-like man, too twisted and thin to look like a man, utter the name of a mythical character? This guy hovered above the ground and had a greenish tinge of skin, his hair was long and swaying in some tact, although there was no wind outside.

"Is this some gang leader? He has a very strange nickname. Anyway, I assure you that I do not know anyone by that name, and he certainly gave me nothing for storage."

The strange creature laughed. Apparently, something I said sounded very funny.

"Do you really want to chat in the last few seconds of your life?" he spoke at last.

"Will you kill me?"

"Sure! I cannot get the power without killing you," the goblin shrugged his shoulders.

"What power? What are you talking about?"

The goblin's eyes narrowed, and he looked suspicious. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and I was horrified. His fingers, fingernails, and hands were not human-like, and they resembled the paws of some dinosaur with long claws.

"Stop talking! Let's get over with it!"

He opened his mouth to reveal a serpentine tongue, and his hands, if one could call it that way, inexorably approached my neck. The shock passed and gave way to such a strong fear that I jumped to my feet and screamed.

"NO!"

A strong, translucent wave of black color pushed the goblin away. He was imprinted in the wall opposite me, in which a wide crack was formed. I looked at my hands, steaming the black smoke.

"It's real!" I heard my own whisper.

"Sure it is! Like what I'm about to do to you!"

The goblin rose and went towards me hissing. I backed away until I felt the wall by my back. It was weird, but I was not afraid anymore. It seemed to me that the goblin would not be able to hurt me. He came up to me for the second time and finally grabbed me by the throat. In return, I wrapped my hands around his hands and slowly relieved myself. The goblin's hands began to shrink like Jackson's hands a few hours ago. The goblin fell to his knees and gasped for air unable to make a sound as I sucked the life out of him. The energy smoothly flowed from him to me, and I felt it. It was better than a thousand doses of espresso or a gallon of energy drinks.

When I felt that I could not stand it anymore, I let go of the goblin, who looked like a dried-up mummy. His body collapsed helplessly at my feet.

"Have I just killed a man?" the question flew into the void.

"Well, first of all, it wasn't a man!" I turned abruptly to the voice. The entire world was chasing me today. And the most insulting thing was that everyone around knew what was going on, except for me. "Secondly, if you don't finish him he will come to life!"

"Oh, I think he's deader than ever!" I shrugged.

"You're wrong!"

I looked towards the new stranger. He was sitting on his haunches on a thin bar of the fence like had no idea of the gravity. His posture was relaxed as if it was the most comfortable chair but not the fence of a thin tube and mesh. The evening light slightly illuminated the guy, who seemed normal only at first glance. On closer examination, his pupils caught my attention. They were glowing. They were incredible – black inside with red glowing halo. The ends of his hair were of similar coloring. It seemed as if his head was burning. White roots were smoothly shifting to bright red ends and barely covering his ears. He had a tattoo on the neck that slightly reached his cheekbones and temples and went deep down under his jumper. He wore black tight jeans and a leather jacket. I would call him incredibly handsome if his whole image was not so frightening with those weird eyes.

"How did you get there?"

He smiled and easily jumped off, landing on his feet as if sailing the distance of three meters.

"You need to finish him off! And do this quickly! Look!"

He pointed to the goblin who was slowly regaining his former shape. I looked at the guy and saw the handle on his belt. Apparently, it was a sword. He reminded me of a knight from the Middle Ages if men wore leather jackets and dyed their hair back then.

"You are the one who has the weapon, so finish him off yourself," I said. I did not want to kill anyone even if it was not a human being at all. When I was a child my mother taught me to have mercy even for the smallest creatures. We caught butterflies, ladybugs and other insects, and then released them. And now I had to kill someone bigger than that.

"I can't! You have to do it on your own."

"Says who? Who said that I have to kill anyone? I'm just a human. I'm eighteen years old, and I don't want to kill anyone. I didn't ask for any of this! Just give me my life back!"

While I was saying all that, the goblin finally came to his senses and rose to his feet. He was about to jump at me. Everything happened in its own way: the black smoke pushed him back, and the goblin's body helplessly hung on a pipe which penetrated his chest. The grey liquid, dripping from the end of the pipe, had nothing to do with human blood.

The goblin breathed his last and froze. Next moment, some dark substance left his body and pierced my chest. I absorbed it. It was a bundle of energy, rebellious and foreign to my body. It raged and tormented me until it found the right place, until it imbued my every cell like it was that first time at the back door of the Royal nightclub.

"What the hell is that?" I flared up. "Who was that? And who are you? If you have no answers to my questions, then tell me who does! Otherwise, I'll kill you!"

The man laughed.

"You're funny as for a human. I must say that it was spectacular. But you got lucky this time. The Markers are fast but weak, so don't get too excited because the next fight may not end so well."

"What next fight?"

"First things first. If you want answers, I'll give them, but you have to go with me," he extended his hand to me, and I skeptically looked at it, as if I was offered a free ticket to hell. "Listen, I don't like this as well! I should have been doing something else, but stuck with you – human. So, how about this? We will help each other, and all this will be over soon!"

"What if I have gone crazy because of stress, and this all is my sick fantasy?"

"That's not true, but you can go crazy if you don't come with me."

"What does it mean?"

"I'll explain everything! Let's go!"

"How do I know you're not like him?" I nodded to the goblin, or the Marker, as this guy called him.

"You have no reason to believe me, but there's no other way. If you leave, then the Force will soon absorb you. It will grow, killing you from the inside. You won't understand what's going on. I'm sure you think you're going crazy, but I can help manage it until the debt is paid and you're released."

"What debt are you talking about? What should I be released from?"

"Come with me!" he persisted. And it was obvious that he was not going to answer my questions.

On the one hand, it was scary, but on the other hand, I did not know what was happening to me, and this man could help me. In any case, living in such a state would be insane. Strangely enough, I was not scared.

We entered some glowing hole. The stranger called it the "portal", but for me, it was more like a long glowing tunnel.

"We use it for instant movement in space. This greatly simplifies our work."

"Ok!" I only managed to utter. Traveling through the portal was like the worst turbulence ever. The stomach was long rolled up to the throat, and lungs were squeezed under the external pressure.

"Time stands still in the portal. It may seem like you've been here for hours when it has really taken you a split second to travel."

"Charming!" I almost didn't hear what the guy was talking about because my ears had already been popped.

"You'll get used to it!"

"WHAT? Get used? To this? Oh! No-no-no!" I agreed to this journey only because I wanted to get rid of obsessive visions and horrible creatures. However, I got the feeling that someone had different plans for me. "I need to get out of here!" I started looking for the way out, but there was none. Everything seemed exactly the same.

"There's no back entrance from here! You can only get to your destination point!" the guy did not even move. He paid zero attention to me, peering into the sparkling material, as if he could see something there.

"What's your name again? You haven't introduced yourself!"

"You can call me Eugene. This nickname is easier than the real name."

"Okay! Listen, Eugene. I guess you have misunderstood me. I just want my life to get back to normal. That's all. I don't want to get used to anything."

"You'll get back to your life as soon as you do what you have to. There's no other option. You can relax now. We are almost there."

"Why don't you fill me in? For example, start with who you are and how you have found me."

"I am the Guardian. I found you on the trail that Charon left when he gave you his Force."

"The Guardian? What do you guard?"

"The Source, the Balance from anything that can harm them – from Gods to demons. It depends on what kind of force wants to influence or use them."

"What Source?" the talking distracted me a bit from the feeling of being like a squeezed ball.

"The Source is the place where the River of Times takes its roots from."

"Is it that River of Times from the myths? Why should one protect the Source?"

"The Source has heavenly power. One drop can extinguish the fire of the Kingdom of Hades or fill the World Ocean. It is the source of life for the Gods of Olympus. If its power is seized with bad intentions, the Balance will be broken, and the Chaos will set in.

"Eugene, do you understand that your explanation only raises more questions?"

He did not answer and just shrugged.

"Get ready! We arrived!"

Next second, the increasing vacuum weakened, as if an inflatable balloon had been pierced with a needle, and it exploded. Change in pressure caused me a headache. My knees buckled and I fell down. It made me so sick that I could go crazy. It took me a few minutes before I was able to breathe normally again. The feeling was as if I had been at the height of several thousand feet under excessive pressure without a pressure suit and an oxygen tank.

Eugene was standing motionless with a bored look on his face.

"Can you help me get up at least?" I asked.

"NO!"

"I see that the Guardians are not familiar with the basic rules of etiquette…" I sighed.

"You are both right and wrong. The Guardians are taken from their families at the age of five. We spend all our time here, training, fighting, learning the martial arts, and studying the details of legendary battles. But when we take up positions, we get acquainted with the human world from afar and certainly watch the people. You are pretty entertaining creatures, I must say. There's so much excessiveness and senselessness in your lives. Rules and etiquette, I believe you call it. Let's look at you, for example. You can easily get up by yourself without help. Men can iron shirts themselves, and women can pull back a chair when they sit at the table. But you persist in portraying the need for these manipulations, wasting your short life's priceless time on it, instead of filling it with something more important."

"You sound like you have no rules!" I teased him.

"We have them. Though, they are not made for influencing someone or to live up to boundaries created by yourself but to protect what provides life to all creation. People make rules out of boredom. You are a parasitic species that multiply and make no sense of their existence. Even your inventions, which seem to be great, are only meant to let you spend your meaningless life in comfort."

"Yeah… Look, I'm not eager to be here either."

At this point, I no longer wanted to continue the conversation with this guy. He behaved very rudely, not hesitating to humiliate the person upon whom something depended. He was clearly annoyed by my presence and that he had to take care of me instead of his great mission! He may be from a superior race, but obviously not the best one. I was not treated this way even in junior high when I was covered in pimples and weighed, probably, a ton! At this moment, more than anything else I wanted to get over everything as soon as possible, go back home to cuddle with Jackson, unless he had already run off to a far end of the country, and fall asleep without dreaming.

As we walked, I was able to see the surroundings. Moving here, I somehow imagined a dark hole, in which I would be tormented to extract that something from inside of me, but I found myself in a real palace instead. I had never seen anything like this before, even in documentaries on TV. The ceiling was ten meters high. The halls were of a vast area. The mighty columns held an incredibly beautiful arch. I looked up to the ceiling, and it suddenly seemed to me that I was looking at the sky, because the picture was moving, though it was much closer than the sky should be.

Eyes could not catch where this hall ended and where another one began. People, or rather creatures that looked like them but in a different way, were walking around. I knew right away that they were the Guardians. They had the same sheath on their belts as Eugene had, and their hair shimmered in different shades matching the weird eyes. Some of them were fighting. It was difficult to call it "training", as everyone was making shrill warlike cries, beating at full strength, and some were even injured. Certainly, these guys had a serious attitude to their job!

Finally, we turned the corner and found ourselves in a small room. There was nothing but a table in the room, at which a man was sitting, reading the manuscript.

In a few minutes, I regretted that I did not bring a notebook and a pen, because it was impossible to fit in my head all the raising questions. The new ones kept coming, and the old ones kept disappearing.

"Eugene?" the man at the table was surprised in earnest. "What are you doing here? Why did you bring a human here?"

I smiled, secretly hoping that Eugene would get a good scolding.

"Tol, with all due respect, I would not be able to tell her everything she needs to know and explain the rules. That's why I brought her here. I'd like you to help. Moreover, we also need a place to train. The streets of Boston are not meant for it!"

"Look, he's not that silly! He knows the name of the city!" I said sarcastically.

The man at the table, whom I had not been introduced to, but apparently his name was Tol, stood up and approached me. He offered his hand and said,

"My name is Tol! I am the Commander of the Guardians! You have nothing to fear. You're safe here"

"What is the "Commander"?"

"That means I'm in charge here."

We shook hands, and I couldn't resist remarking,

"So, not everyone's a savage like this one over here, right?"

Tol laughed. He looked like he was in his early thirties. A small spot of black hair, which could barely be called a beard, made him look older, and one could think that he was forty already. His eyes were purple-rimmed of a completely unusual color. He was slightly taller than Eugene and seemed to be very intelligent. All the Guardians whom I saw in the hall, including these two, were overly muscled, like weightlifters and sprinters.

"Tol had been living with people for many years. He studied them and looked after the demigod, who managed to fall in love with a mortal," it was said with particular disgust.

"Eugene is still young. He has not come into contact with people of this century. And I had the privilege to live in human society for a few decades of the last century when people were a bit different. I'm not thrilled with what you're turning life into, but it's your choice and I respect that. The younger Guardians are much more categorical about your race…"

"I've already figured that out. Wait a minute. Did you say "the last century"? How old are you then?"

"I'm a little over 400 years old."

"Wow! Are you immortal like vampires? To be honest, I did not really believe in the supernatural until this day. And now everything looks like a dream, but if it's real then it's amazing that you can live for so long! And there's so much to learn!"

"We're not immortal! But we live several times longer than people. Vampires don't live as long as they do on TV."

"Are they real too?"

"Sure! How else would you know about them? But they are simple parasites that are even lower in the hierarchy than people."

"It's nice to hear we're not at the bottom!"

Tol and I laughed, and only Eugene pursed his lips in dissatisfaction. It was amazing how beautiful he was on the outside and how absolutely disgusting he was on the inside. I wish I met someone else as the first person of this world.

"Can we stop wasting time and tell her everything?" the guy clearly wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible. It would be better if he went about his business and left us alone.

"Yes!" Tol coughed. He put his hands behind his back and pondered. "What do you know from Greek myths?" he started from afar.