«You mean the enemies of the whole human race? Demons? Because I wont make peace with people.»
«As, however, they are with you,» he aptly faked.
«I know.» Her own neck suddenly seemed very vulnerable to her, as if it were about to be cut with a blade. «I hate them! Everyone!»
It was worth a drink for it, and she took a long gulp.
«How old are you? Seventeen?»
«Whats the difference?» she felt one hundred percent. Or rather, she felt dead. After the experience, she simply was gone. The shell remained, but it did not have the same feelings. The cheerful young girl no longer existed. In this world, only a beautiful fragile body continued to exist, as empty inside as the statues from the crypt.
Blaise took another sip. The alcohol burned like poison. Like dragon fire. She regretted that, having drunk it, she would not be able to open her lips and breathe a stream of fire into the face of her enemies.
It would be stylish and beautiful. It is a pity that all the witchcraft remained only in the family chronicles of de Rozier. In life, magic, alas, did not exist. Although if you think about it
«Damian,» Blaise called out to him, for the first time using the name that she herself had given him. Well, at least something like that.
«Would you like another bottle?» A voice from the darkness immediately responded.
«Do you have a whole cellar here?»
«Dont look at how wretched this building is. Inside, in the dark, there is much hidden.»
She did not expect, of course, that he would now unfold his palm and sparkle on it gems from the dragon treasure hidden in the basements, although given her current financial condition, that would be pretty good. She, the heiress of the familys immense wealth, was suddenly left penniless. And as soon as she declares the rights to her property, it becomes clear that she survived, and then she will be killed. For sure already. The mysterious friend showed up at the right time. He was a thread of hope in total darkness. Most likely a madman, not a demon. But in his company, the feeling of complete hopelessness suddenly disappeared.
Maybe shes going crazy too. Match him. And psychos, they say, are very attracted to each other. So he began to pester her. He felt that she was as crazy as he was. But still
«Where did you come from?» Blaise flinched as if she were speaking a forbidden question.
«Consider that from heaven. Or from hell.» He was as careless as ever.
Blaise remembered that he had indeed jumped down from somewhere above. Yet the second answer seemed far more truthful.
«And what do you want from me?» this question she asked, probably for the hundredth time.
«What do you want yourself?»
She shrugged her shoulders.
«Dont bother yourself with nonsense,» he suddenly said so calmly, as if the whole world around was nonsense.
«Do you want to light a cigarette?»
In addition to the battered pack of cigarettes, she noticed in his hands something like an old snuffbox or tinderbox, but stubbornly shook her head.
«That wont awaken the dragon inside of you, right?» He grinned guiltily and dismissed both. «Do you feel the strength inside you?»
«Not?» Blaise remembered a painting that once hung on the wall in her room. A samurai woman, very seductive in a greenish-white kimono, with two swords in her hands: a long one and a short one. Around her was an ornament of frothy cherry blossoms, crumbled over her head. Nice picture. So beautiful that, looking at her, you think more about the charm of the warrior, and not about the danger hidden in the blades of her swords, made for battle.
To become like her. The woman from that picture. Blaise stared at the empty wall in front of her, as if the image was still hanging there. She really had seen her before her. It was a hallucination, of course, but beautiful. And in her greenish-white tones were filled with bright red.
Blood! Blaise unfolded her hand. Imagined in it the weight of an ancient sword and the sharpness of the blade. Recently, the blood began to fascinate her. But not so long ago, before the events of that night, when she lost everything, she fainted from one kind of scratch.
Damian was suddenly there in the dark like a ghost. He seemed to have grown out of the ground near her feet, knelt down in front of her, and their faces were almost level. He did not breathe fire, like a dragon, but his breath, however, like his very appearance seemed somehow unnatural to her. This is probably what a modern demon should look like. There seems to be nothing special about him, but in his presence you feel as if you got inside a fire. It burns you all.
«Theres a beast inside everyone, you know,» he whispered confidentially, actually just quoting a phrase from some book about psychology and dreams that Blaise had read a long time ago. «It only takes a little human cruelty to awaken this beast.»
«And then?» she already knew the answer, read it in the same book, but she was curious how Damian would formulate the thought. His answer was unexpected.
«Then there will be chaos.»
Internal evil
The beautiful girl was gone. Neil Jaudet woke up feeling a strange disappointment. That night, even the usual narcotics, which had previously caused pleasant hallucinations, did not help. Blaise disappeared from his visions. Maybe because she was dead.
This means that his problem is also dead.
If there are no more heirs from the de Rozier family, then their entire industrial empire goes to business partners. These are the conditions. He will receive the lions share. Those who helped him will move away from everything a little bit. From capital, from real estate. Everything except the old family crypt was stipulated in the will. And where this crypt, in fact, no one knew. Perhaps it was long gone. If you believe the family records, then it has existed for centuries. And since then a lot has happened. Wars, revolutions, fires, including several fatal fires, which were listed in de Roziers personal chronicles. World history was made every day, its events could have buried the crypt under the rubble of buildings destroyed during the bombing and bygone eras long ago. He has nothing to worry about.
True, other members of his council felt somewhat differently. But isnt he the head of the council? This means that the final word will always remain with him.
Of course, now there was much in common between them. More than ten deaths at once. Blaises father, her family, her brother, even a close friend, who happened to be there that night when it was decided to remove the competitors. Preparations for this took a long time, but Rosier turned out to be somehow impenetrable. Dont do anything against them, but some forces seem to have established some kind of immunity around the members of this family. However, using a knife, this illusion was broken.
Blaise! She herself was like a knife. Heve been cutting his thoughts with a knife since he grew up. It is strange that now, at the moment of his triumph, he thought not about having finally removed his sworn enemy, but about his daughter. Blaise! Doesnt that name mean «blade»? She was the blade. Cold, silent, beautiful. He wanted one of her, like many. Before killing her, he wanted to enjoy her. Just one time. Before a beautiful body becomes a corpse.
But who would then dare to kill her? So beautiful! At the decisive moment, he thought about this, and oddly enough, instead of using her, he raised a knife to her face. It was only necessary to make a couple of hand movements to make beauty disappear. He would have done it, but something happened that deeply shocked him.
He didnt want to remember. He didnt believe in the supernatural. The book on summoning demons, which the accomplices strongly advised him to hide, remained on the table. Having performed a ritual yesterday and not having summoned anyone except a gust of wind that extinguished the candles, he became convinced that otherworldly forces simply do not exist. And to hell with the family tales that Rosier were sorcerers, like everyone who ever collaborated with them, including his family. Including even those who later took up holy orders, like his friend Alistair. They argued that this did not help them, but only sharpened their perception of otherworldly evil even more. Aloud he did not say anything to them about this, but mentally laughed at them. Personally, he himself considered both religion and divination to be nonsense. Yesterdays experience helped him to be convinced of this to the end. The demon did not respond. The very demon he summoned to forget about Blaise. It was better to spend on a good dose of narcotic powder than on candles for the ritual.
After that, however, he had a very strange dream. But arent dreams a kind of illusion? In this dream, Blaise was alive and winged like statues from her familys legendary crypt, and she held a blade in her hand. She sat in the pose of a marble angel on his grave, embittered and beautiful. Bloody tears flowed from her eyes, and her eyes glittered with such hatred. Nemesis, not Blaise.
His grave? He rubbed his eyes wearily. Dream the same! The crumpled bed in front of him has almost become a grave since the devil grew up. Then his bed became empty forever. He could not share it with anyone else. Because Blaise existed. A girl thirty years younger than him, looking like an angel sculpture from a crypt. And what was so sexy about her? She hasnt even grown to the end yet. And it will never grow up. He didnt want to kill her. But she was dead.
The huge house with many bedrooms, rooms and servants was still completely asleep in the hour before dawn. Even the gardeners in the park below will be a long way off. But someone has already turned on the TV in the next room, opposite his office. Neil got up reluctantly and walked over there. There is no one around. The doors were bolted, but the screen glowed ghostly. The news bulletin was just broadcast. Pretty female reporter talked excitedly about the fire and disfigured bodies. It seems that she has never seen anything like that in her career, as, indeed, did everyone else who arrived at the scene. Neil recognized the facade of the gloomy building, even though it was completely burned. The de Rozier estate was not burned for the first time in the history of their family, but the reporter, of course, did not know about it. She was in a hurry to talk about terrible injuries, about mutilated corpses, and about one young body, on which a huge statue fell, as if embracing it. Angel statue.
Neil noticed that the caryatids at the entrance were intact. Its strange. They had to burn. He remembered that they were not there when he left. Maybe it seemed to him?
The reporters annoying voice began to sound like a buzz. She kept talking about the young mans body, which the doctors cannot free from the embrace of the statue that had fallen on him, because two bodies: a dead human and a half-destroyed marble one seemed to have grown together. She tried to explain this with fire and fire, and much more. It was assumed that some dangerous infection had settled in the building, and now no one would be allowed there. Its for the best. Neil flinched when the report touched the found female bodies, so mutilated they could not be identified. Someone completely cut off their faces. He wonder who? Who finished that night what he could not? Alistair? Hugh? George? Angelo? Thomas? He went over in his mind had all his friends. Everyone who was now generalized by one secret. But couldnt find the answer. They all acted in concert with him. How could he overlook something?
In the field of the cell there were female bodies under the covers, which were taken out of the crumbling house. Neil wondered which of them belonged to Blaise during his lifetime. Perhaps, it is worth finding out to which morgue they will be taken and going there It is strange who whispered this thought to him. Does he really think so? Is this really what he really wants? Go and kiss her mutilated body with his lips in the last kiss, as Alistair advises the parishioners to kiss the shrines in which he himself does not believe.
How could he think that? But the thought was already firmly stuck in the brain. Let Blaise forgive him. But did he do it alone? And if he had another chance, he would have pity on her? Of course not.
Neil was always devoid of any sentimentality. What is done is done. And if he was given a choice, he would repeat everything. No fear, no conscience, no regrets.
He turned off the TV, not wanting to hear more about the events, and went to his office. Its time to throw away the candles and hide the book away. However, someone has already done it for him. There were no candles. Bunches of rare herbs for the ceremony too. Only the book remained on the table, still open, but without the page needed for the ritual. It was torn out, leaving only a charred, scorched spine. Who dared?
Neil was about to call some of the servants, dont care if you have to wake them up. Let them give a report. Who was here yesterday? But then another strange thing struck him. There was something lying next to the book. He did not immediately recognize this object, although it had previously belonged to him. Just yesterday. But today it was broken. The handle has disappeared somewhere. There was only a broken blade, on its edge the chipped places resembled serifs. Seven. He ran his finger over them and counted again. After all, there were seven of them yesterday, when they were deciding other peoples destinies. In his mind, he repeated the names of his friends. Serif for everyone. What does it mean?
Destiny? Nonsense. Of course, it was unpleasant for him that this particular knife broke. It was valuable, not only for its value, but also for the fact that it represented the historical heritage of its family. A knife that kills evil spirits. Now a broken knife with a broken blade. The same knife he brought to Blaises face yesterday.
Blaze means blade. The blade that will cut him. But the blade in front of him had already been cut by itself.
The art of fighting
Just a stick in her hands. Long and lightweight. The same as his. At first, Blaise thought Damian was joking about her. But his face was serious and in the semi-darkness it seemed somehow unusually focused. They walked in circles in some gloomy room, like an empty hall, and no one dared to strike first.
«Is it so difficult to fight someone with whom you could make love instead?» as if his eyes were mocking.
He probably would like something different now. His coldness was only external, behind it could be a fire. But she felt cold in the literal sense of the word. It was as if she had been frozen, and she became like a statue.
«Stronger hand, but not too strong,» he quietly admonished. «Imagine that the weapon is a part of you, whatever it is.»
«I cant,» she meant that she couldnt do what she personally thought was absurd, but he understood her in his own way.
«You can do anything, you just need to want.»
And again a moment of silence. They looked at each other, as if asking prices. Blaise did not slow down in a circle. They walked here like animals in a cage. And each either did not dare to attack first, or gave the other the opportunity to assess the situation.