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The owner, having listened to the end of the quatrain, gave the pet such a slap on the head with a request not to write anything else, that the animal slid to the floor and again retreated into the corner. And soon Dan howled, because where the dragon had settled, the creak of a fountain pen was heard again. Despite the owner’s requests, he writes a continuation.
– He’s great, you shouldn’t treat him like that!
«Graphomaniac,» the guy waved his hand. – If I had known about his literary passions, I would never have bought it!
«But he understood that it will take at least another ten years for you to understand,» the master grinned. «You need to go to the lair of this Fifa and… you know… disrupt her plans, because she’s clearly not going to do anything good, especially with the help of a powerful necromancer.» And let this be the best lesson for you, my boy.
How Dan didn’t like the name of this person. Something was wrong in these requests and threats, and the master suspected that he was sending his student to a very dangerous enterprise. But how can he, a necromancer magician, cope with a most likely strong sorceress?
«If you don’t go, I will kick you out of school without a diploma and, believe the old man, I will make sure that you are not given a job anywhere, and your necromantic museum is banned as a business harmful to the safety of the world.»
– Persuaded. Where she lives? – the student asked in a tone full of indifference.
– In Moscow, or something. Or in Paris.
The young magician grimaced with displeasure. Wow spread. And even abroad. He thought that this glamorous individual lived on the other side of Prague, or at least in Karlovy Vary, where he just wanted to go on vacation. But in France. Although, Western Europe is not so bad. In Russia… This is truly dangerous.
From his geography lessons at school, Dan knew very well who populated the second layer of the world in this country. In the cities, no matter what, Europeans have come in large numbers, but in the villages you can’t find a single normal person. The girls are beautiful, but when you get to know them better, they are mermaids or strigas at best. Not like in my native Europe: either a witch or a sorceress. It’s no wonder that the strange Fifa lived in such a country overpopulated with non-humans. But also dangerous. Necromancers, for example, were not born in Russia at all, just like alchemists. No one has yet figured out why. Probably, the nature of his homeland also influences the magician’s gift.
He didn’t want to be distracted by the peculiarities of national magical creatures, and for now he naively assumed: Fifa called him to her place, most likely, to summon some nasty genius from the third layer and subsequently take over the world. But is it really possible that in such a large country as Russia there was not a single Czech, Slovak or Hungarian soul caller? Why wasn’t there such a thing in France, where any European could get there even without a visa? For some reason this escaped Dan’s attention that day.
«Here is the ticket,» the master handed the envelope. – To Moscow. Because, as we found out on the orconet, Fifa writes from Russia. She probably flies to Paris on weekends. You’ll find out, though. Registration in an hour. Hint understood?
«That’s not the right word,» muttered the young necromancer. «But I don’t agree to go to some Fifa who is looking for me without a protector magician.»
The mentor threatened him with his finger:
– If it weren’t for your experiments with all sorts of nurseries, there would be no Fifa, believe me. If you light up, get out on your own. And now… your brilliant dragon will protect you, he is not only capable of iambic and trochee.
– Well, yes, I also know amphibrachs! – the creature blurted out, bouncing on one leg.
Looking guiltily at his feet, Dan took the documents from his mentor.
– If you evade, I’ll report it to the Council myself!
No, he will not hide, cowardice is so vile. The necromancer stared at the mirror and began styling his thin ash-gray hair with gel. Having finished with his hair, he went to the window.
– Free! – he shouted to the poor reformer, snapping his fingers.
A moment later, in the place of the ancient man, only a skeleton dressed in a cassock lay lying, and a couple of seconds later, these remains flashed with a bright purple light and dissolved. After Dan freed the souls of the rulers from the tennis table, and the rats were about to scatter, but the forces of the Kingdom of the Dead overtook them, and the animals dissolved in a purple glow. Now neither the elderly skeleton nor the mice will ever be able to find themselves in this world again.
The young necromancer rolled the landscape from the table into a tube and put it in a corner, from where he kicked out the dragon, who had already written five whole pages of the poem.
The master stood silently at the door and calmly watched his student getting ready.
«I need a battle mage, I need a battle mage, a Russian, a battle mage,» Dan whispered under his breath, as if calling for someone.
«What a stupid necromancer,» the mentor shook his head, «you can call the soul of any battle mage from the Kingdom of the Dead whenever you want.»
«I need a living battle mage with whom I could go through this whole test,» the guy corrected his spell when he blew out the burning candle.
He didn’t notice how the smoke, wriggling like a snake, dissolved in the pink light high above his head. For a long time he thought that what was said was not a spell, but simply an installation before the battle. When he said such words, for some reason he felt better, he felt like someone distant, but at the same time so close, hugged him by the shoulders and whispered in his ear: «I’m with you, I’ve always been there, I loved you.»». Dan had no idea who this voice belonged to. When the noise in his ears subsided, the necromancer forgot to think about the surging vision, and silently left the room.
The master went to the window and sadly watched the student go down to the observation deck. The necromancer stood for a long time against the wall under his window, pressing his forehead against the ivy that entwined the tower in which he had lived for five whole years. It’s hard to say goodbye to something that has become almost dear to you. In the same way, Julius, at fifteen, with tears in his eyes, left home, forever, to Prague Castle, where necromancers are taught and souls are summoned for investigation in the European Court.
Dan still had a lot to learn. He was destined to face more than one danger. A battle mage wouldn’t hurt him. But he didn’t know what happened when he said, before leaving the tower: «I need a living battle mage.» But the power of a brilliant necromancer is often enough not only to summon the dead from their subspace…
Chapter 2. Either a girl, or perhaps a vision
– Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! People, I’m dead! – Alina was lying on the bed, looking at the ceiling. – Such a joke had to happen! I died!
She rolled over onto her stomach and, burying her nose in the pillow, continued to giggle hysterically.
– No, well, you had to be so clever! How I want to tell my friends about this!
Sighing heavily, the girl got out of bed, desperately trying to put on slippers. Oddly enough, two large white plush bunnies completely refused to stay on her feet. They didn’t even budge, contrary to all the wishes of their owner. It’s strange, if they are material, they don’t give in, then on what word of honor does a black leather miniskirt and a green turtleneck stay on her body, why doesn’t the blue denim baseball cap with the Nike emblem fly off her head, why on earth didn’t it remain lying on the bedspread shapeless a bunch of tights?
On the bed. Haha three times! Yes, if everything material had refused to accept her body, then she would not have been lying in bed, but would have found herself under the bed among dust balls and old worn-out shoes, which the girl was always too lazy to throw away.
Alina kicked her slippers, naturally, to no avail, and went to the mirror.
She decided that she had died, her body was probably lying in the refrigerator of the morgue, and this image that she somehow felt… what was it? She died. How did this happen? Why does she believe that what she has experienced is precisely death?
The girl arrived in the morning at the Sibirsky Bereg factory, where she had been working as a technologist for three years. Just think, the whole country ate crackers and beer snacks, the quality of which it controlled. In general, many technologists worked at the factory: two for each workshop. But in the fall, Alina was unlucky: her partner went on maternity leave, and the poor thing had to work for two until a replacement was found.
From birth she had a heart with a defect, that is, with a defect, and the double load did not benefit her health. In winter, the director, however, took pity on the unfortunate Alina who overworked and paid for her to go to a sanatorium for the Christmas holidays. Treatment and rest are wonderful, but when, upon returning, double work fell on her again, all the results of healing baths and procedures went down the drain.
The overworked technologist only dreamed of going on vacation to the Black Sea when she got to leave. It didn’t work out. Alina’s heart couldn’t stand it. It has always malfunctioned until today. There’s nothing you can do if you were born sick.
The last thing the girl remembered when she was conscious was the line for packaging fried kirieski. She stood by the belt and carefully watched as the finished product poured into a large basket, but suddenly her vision grew blurry, she clutched her heart, feeling someone stick a thick stake into her chest and turn it. A gentle male voice muttered in her head; at first she thought it was her brother’s, but he spoke not in Russian, but in some similar language. In Ukrainian, or something. The man repeated the same words. It seemed as if he was calling someone or weaving a spell. And then she saw him, a stranger: a tall, broad-shouldered, blond-haired man in something blue, like a sweatshirt, and tight leather pants, his gaze full of fear: his yellow eyes, distorted with horror, like those of an owl, looking straight at her, the victim. His gaze cannot touch, but at that moment it seemed to the girl that these amber eyes with black pupils see right through her, feel every internal organ, and it is because of this that her arms and legs refuse to move, not the slightest sound comes out of her open mouth, her lungs as if covered in cement, they stop breathing, and only the defective valve in the heart begins to work furiously. The stranger took her hand and whispered: «Calm down’… But the girl was still scared, and… opening her eyes, she found herself at home lying on the bed and for some reason immediately decided that everything that happened to her was death.
Why she thought that is not clear. Death is something that no one can describe. Everyone experiences her, but having met her, no one has ever had the happiness of returning to the living and telling their descendants about everything. Alina didn’t think long. There’s nothing to wiggle around here: a heart rupture, and that’s it, the end of life, and the foreigner in a long blue dress is an ambulance orderly who tried to pump her out. And now her soul, having remembered its last appearance, says goodbye to the house where she lived for almost a quarter of a century. How did the talkers broadcast on the radio? The soul wanders around the home for three days, walks around the world for forty, and then looks for a new body.
Mirror. Once upon a time it reflected her, a tall, thin, not very beautiful girl with an oval face, a narrow nose, and shoulder-length black hair with dyed strands. Now in the mirror one could only see jars of cosmetics, which Alina forgot to close in the morning: she was in a hurry to get to work. It’s strange why the mirror doesn’t reflect the tall, narrow-shouldered Tatar girl? Was she really dead? Is she no longer there? She will never turn on the TV on the opposite wall of the room, and the bed will no longer be useful to her, and in the family photo above her head, her brother will draw with a felt-tip pen exactly the same red cross as above her parents, aunt and grandparents.
Taking a breath, the girl went into her brother’s room. Anyone, he just has to look at her, living, breathing, talking, thinking. Even if she is not able to put on slippers or find her reflection in the mirror.
Afraid of making a lot of noise, Alina crept up to the chair where Kostya was sitting and put her hands on her brother’s shoulders. Wow, mother-of-pearl varnish, on the index finger of the right hand, slightly chipped. This is a small work-related ’injury’ after the girl tested the strength of a closed bag of crackers shortly before her death.
Alina’s twin brother, Kostya, a short, heavy-set brunette, very unlike his sister, by the way, was sitting at the computer, constantly distracted from his work. Typical gamer brother pose, however, this time something was different. In his left hand the guy was holding not a cup of coffee, but a half-drunk bottle of cheap vodka, and next to the keyboard lay three black crackers from the kind his sister had roasted in the oven a couple of days ago. It’s clear and without words – he tried to drown his grief in vodka.
The girl read the text of the message that was written by her own, yes, her brother.
You, friends, are probably waiting for a letter from Alina. Alas, there is no point in doing this. Because she is no longer there. She died. At work. She was very sick, and did not tell anyone about it, did not show her weakness.
Then she was unable to read and grabbed Kostya by the shoulders with both hands and tried to shake and scream: «What are you doing? Here I am! Next to you!» But… he didn’t even feel the touch of her hands?!
– Kostya, what are you writing? – the girl whispered, hopelessly dropping her hands, – I’m alive, Kostya.
But the answer to her was only the lines in the letter.
Now I have no last close person.
– Kostya, how can you?
Why doesn’t he hear? Why is he writing this! And he will also send it over the Internet to all of Alina’s best friends. And none of them will write a single line anymore, they will all suffer and cry for their untimely departed friend. But she is alive! Hello! Maybe we’ll even be able to have some fun when we get out of this strange story with invisibility. What if a magic cap or robe just fell on her at the factory. Everyone thinks she is dead, but she continues to live.
Alina sank to the floor right next to the chair where her brother was sitting and began to cry. But even her sobs were inaccessible to Kostya’s hearing.
Pity, bitterness, hopelessness… all this overwhelmed the girl. Why did fate treat him this way? For what? First the parents, and then she… Although, no, she is alive. Mom and dad aren’t around. They died when Alina and Kostya were nineteen. She remembered that terrible day perfectly… as if in reality, as if it was repeating itself in her memory even now, after the so-called death.
It was summer. Heat. Alina came back from her exam. She was then graduating from food college. Kostya is not a coward, he did not run away from the army, in those years he served Russia somewhere in the Ryazan region. So the girl lived alone with her parents. Having returned from the exam, she lay down on the sofa and fell asleep. A phone call woke her up. She immediately felt that he was not kind. That’s what it turned out to be: they called from the hospital – my father and mother crashed near Berdsk. Since then, she has already lived for four years with her only relative, her brother, earning a living, being in fact the head of the family. True, Kostya himself was also not known as a slob and got a job at the same factory as Alina, as a truck driver, delivering «Kirieshki» throughout Western Siberia.
After the death of her parents, the girl increasingly began to show strange abilities: as if she could see someone else’s future using cards, all the food she prepared had the desired effect, and, oh, horror, she learned to make fire by snapping her fingers. This is how Alina began to do without matches, the quality of which was simply skimped on by manufacturers. True, the girl began to use magic sparks only after the flashing fragment of one such match hit her in her left eye with all the ensuing consequences. And it’s not worth talking about cutlets with love spells and hangover cabbage rolls. And all these miracles are at the behest of the pike, Alinochka’s desire.
Remembering her extraordinary gift, the girl decided to try to set fire to her brother. If she succeeds, she will quickly heal him with the help of her own homemade jelly. But her magic turned out to be invisible, like herself. A fireball the size of a tennis ball flew through Kostya’s chest, and then through the monitor, and then went out completely, hitting the wall.
– Cool! – Alina smiled to herself. – Invisible fire is an original thing, isn’t it?
Two days ago she would not have started making such jokes, but now she had no time for that. Well, at least someone would have noticed and understood that she was alive, but no: her brother is killed and thinks that she is no longer in the world.
The girl was offended and went into her room through the wall. What’s wrong with that? If slippers do not fit on your feet, then why not overcome fifteen centimeters of concrete rock? She imagined that the wall was parting in front of her, and… she succeeded!
When Alina was five years old, she kept asking her mother: what was there in the thick walls. Mom answered that the brownies lived there, and there was no point in disturbing them. Now, when she grew up, she saw with her own eyes – nothing special: grayness, dust and not a single poltergeist.
It’s good to be dead. From time to time. You go wherever you want. But how terrible it is when no one sees you, and you cannot turn on the light in the room, put on your shoes and simply pick up a telephone receiver or an automatic pencil.
The girl, looking doomedly at the writing utensils, sank into her favorite chair, covered with terracotta leatherette, and lay her head on the glass of the desk. Solid, which means that if she wants objects to be impassable for her incorporeal form, they will become so. It turns out that slippers can be made to fit on your feet.
And then the girl’s gaze stopped on an object that she did not leave on the table when she left for work on the day of her death. No, it wasn’t a deck of cards, or a half-written gel pen, or even a notebook with notes in the «family accounting» style, which she hid in a drawer under lock and key. Alina could not afford this item because of its high cost.
In front of her lay a bright green plane ticket. She looked at him questioningly for a long time, until finally she dared to extend her hand to him and… take it! Strange but true! She managed to hold the ticket in her hands, which, by the way, is heavier than a pen! She forced him to submit to her will! Progress in disembodied life!
Having overcome her shock, the girl finally turned away the cover and looked at her own name printed as a red carbon copy. Airplane ticket from Novosibirsk to Moscow, business class. Someone wealthy was waiting for Alina in the capital. In Sheremetyevo. If this unknown person paid that kind of money and slipped a ticket, then it was necessary. One logical question arose – how to get on the plane if no one sees you with a ticket at check-in.
It’s good that the girl noticed this sign of attention to her person in time. Departure is in three hours. We urgently need to go to the airport. She folded the ticket in half and put it in the back pocket of her skirt, because there was nowhere else to go, because a jacket or jacket would hardly have given in to the girl’s will, which had not yet strengthened after the shock.
There’s nothing you can do – Kostya will have to suffer. He had already realized the fact that his beloved sister was no more. Of course, my brother will be incredibly happy if Alina returns. But how can she establish this? Perhaps the mysterious stranger who placed the ticket on the girl’s table will be able to take her back to the world of the living. Therefore, you need to go towards your destiny and what cannot be avoided.
The girl tried to take something writing to scribble a short note on paper for her twin brother. The pen even obeyed her will, but as soon as she tried to write the first letter, it became clear that she would not succeed. No matter how much she tried to concentrate, the text she had written immediately disappeared from the page. And after the third attempt, instead of her scribbles, a strange note in broken Russian appeared on the paper:
Alina, don’t try to write your brother. Alina reject the first layer. Alina should be on the second layer. Alina should try. I’m waiting for Alina in Moscow. Sheremetyevo. Terminal number two.
What would that mean? The girl stared attentively at the scribbles. Nothing other than fate. You need to go to understand all these first and second layers. Something told her that no one took her life, and what happened to her was not death at all, but, most likely, a banal departure to another world in the best traditions of fantastic fairy tales.
Although she lived in the center of Novosibirsk, it was still far from the airport. The girl, of course, did not want to walk down the street barefoot, so she began to hypnotize the shoes so that they would fit on her feet.
Oddly enough, Alina’s witchcraft abilities, which Alina spent only on everyday fireballs, did not fail, and within ten minutes a satisfied girl, wearing two different shoes, was leaving the entrance of her house. Yes, yes, the shoes that nevertheless obeyed the will of the deceased turned out to be from completely different pairs: the left red sandal with a low heel was put on the right foot, and the right black autumn boot with a five-centimeter stiletto heel was put on the left.
Walking like this turned out to be not very comfortable, but the shoes did not want to come off in order to change places. After the unsuccessful trick, the girl completely refused to wear the jacket, afraid that she would have to walk around the city in fifteen degrees of heat in a sheepskin coat or a down jacket with a rabbit collar.
How unusual it turns out to be, to be out of this world and walk through the city. The sensations are completely indescribable – the wind passes through you, and you absorb its chill with every internal organ: your heart, liver, lungs… You can never feel this in the normal state of a living person. The rustling of leaves now caresses not only the ear, but the whole body, but this makes it restless and uncomfortable. Probably, in winter the organs also freeze, Alina thought.
The girl easily jumped into the minibus moving at full speed. It must be so interesting to live among those who don’t notice you. People are sitting in armchairs, looking out the windows, admiring the same cityscapes for the hundredth time, and she stands right in front of them, straightening her skirt, as if someone would examine the color of an invisible woman’s underwear. She was about to put her hand in her pocket to get the money for the fare, but then she realized: after all, now she is a hare in law! An idiot’s dream come true!
But invisible ones can also cause her legs to become numb, especially when she is wearing shoes with different heels. All she could think about was how to conjure the same shoes that were put on correctly. The girl could barely wait until she was able to get out of the minibus. The legs, although deprived of the opportunity to be visible to everyone, refused to obey and constantly ached. Pain is good, they hurt, that means they exist.
Alina stood in front of the entrance to the airport and wondered how she would be allowed on the plane with an invisible ticket. And anyway, where is the logic of the inviter? If she can walk through a wall, then she can find herself on a plane without an expensive ticket. Why spend so much money? Or did the caller buy it while she was alive, that is, visible?
She took the ticket out of her pocket and walked up to the metal detector at the entrance and began to carefully examine what was printed on the document for a living person named Alinka.
– Why do I need him? – the girl muttered under her breath. – For what?
And she suddenly realized that she wanted to become visible again. Something seemed to click at the girl’s temples; the surroundings lost their color for a moment, but soon the whole range of bright colors returned to their proper places.
– The hares are on their way to the zoo! – the old man laughed, coming up to her from behind. – And you can’t go anywhere without a ticket!
His appearance seemed unusual and somehow familiar to the girl, as if the intellectual, dressed in a strange fashion: in a long red coat and a wide-brimmed hat, was a character in a popular film. It looks strange for modern life, and does not fit into the monotonous crowd at all. But the suit is not everything. The old man smiled and bared his long fangs, which is why the girl just squeezed out:
– A vampire?
«Yes,» he smiled.
Alina shook her head and stared at the old man again. He saw her! Those red eyes, from under those yellow round glasses. He stood two meters from her and could easily touch her by taking two or three steps towards her. Realizing this turned out to be more difficult than believing in grandfather’s vampirism. It seems like nothing happened. Just now no living creature could see Alina, and suddenly a suspicious person appeared. Grandfather’s glasses aren’t magic! People walked around the vampire and the young lady standing opposite each other. But at the airport, nothing seemed to have changed, but the girl felt that something was wrong in Tolmachevo.
Alina did not know the Novosibirsk airport at all. She and her relatives couldn’t afford plane tickets. But that’s not even the point: for example, the policeman at the metal detector, after she wanted to become visible and her grandfather noticed her, for some reason he turned green and stopped looking like a person. «Goblin,» she thought for some reason.
«You pass, madam,» the vampire nodded towards the metal detector.
– Can you see me? – Alina finally asked the question that most worried her.
The girl examined the elderly man even more carefully: he was at least five hundred years old. Although, no, this is too harshly said, they don’t live that long, but one hundred and fifty is quite possible!
– Come on, come in, battle magician, don’t torment the old vampire!
After this phrase, she stepped back and almost tripped out of the blue, but grabbed the metal detector stand in time. Not only did this, so to speak, honest vampire somehow know her status (although she never considered herself a battle mage), but he was not going to bite and drink liters of blood from her young body. Alina took a deep breath and walked under the arch.
Marriage…
«Welcome, combatant,» the goblin policeman suddenly said to her, saluting.
If only all law enforcement officers were so polite, it doesn’t matter that they are green and pimply, and, in addition, they are non-humans.
And then it dawned on the girl that the gates at the airport were not intended to look for bombs and other terrorist problems, but to scan the passenger’s status. On the goblin’s monitor Alin’s name was shining, and next to it was a «battle magician».
Surprised, as it turned out, the sorceress moved out of the way and looked at how the status of the old man following her was determined. After him, two alchemist girls, three demons, a chimera man and several sorcerers passed under the scanner. They look like ordinary people, but in reality they all have paranormal abilities.
Alina did not observe further. And so it is clear – she is in Novosibirsk, which was suddenly inhabited by magical creatures, the city was transformed, and again took her into his life, made her visible, began to reckon with the presence of her body. But life turned out to be completely different, fabulous, the kind she dreamed of while reading science fiction novels.
