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Vic looked round, trying to get all that surrounded her was real or it was a made-up world where the demon put her into.
Evert thing was in its place. It was all still there. There were piles of pencils and paints, album pages and map papers. Her mother was coughing in the bed behind the wall. Not a hint that the reality was made-up.
‘Is these all real?’ Vic asked in a whisper.
‘The price is the same. When you calm down your passion collywobbles and it stops irritating beneath your stomach, call me and I shall remember you how it could have been, if you had paid.’
Kharon disappeared and Victoria, failed to manage her feelings, burst into crying.
What was she supposed to do? She fell in love with a monster, completely forgotten that it didn’t have any definitions of a human life. The creature, in love to whom the girl was bogged down in, suggested to have a deal and to all horror Victoria got that if she saw him once again, if he touched her once again, and if his velvet voice sounded in her ears again, she wouldn’t be able to say that impossibly sick word “no”. Damn it for a night Kharon would belong to her and only to her. The girl was almost ready to cry “yes”, when an idea came across his mind.
‘I’ve come, mum’ Vic said quietly looking into her mum’s room.
‘Vic? Is that you?’ half-awake Olga Vladimirovna didn’t understand what was going on. ‘What time is it?’
‘It’s early. Sleep. I’m going to bed.’
When Victoria opened her eyes, the day was running under the pressure of the evening. The girl jumped from the bed and went to freshen up, have breakfast and tell her mum what was at the exam and what happened after.
‘What’s your next exam?’
‘That’s all. It was the last one. Then I’ll have a critical design review and voila I am a licentiate and you’ll be happy for me.’
‘When’s the review?’ her mum was drinking coffee.
‘In two weeks and a half. I’m ready for it. That’s not a philosophy.’
‘Fine, then I gotta go to work.’
‘Now?’
‘Sveta’s ill, I’m covering her. And our chief of department is leaving, and his position will be opened. I want to try.’
‘Sure, mum, you’ll get there. Look how many different rewards and recognitions you have. I think you the best resuscitationist!’
‘It’s very cool when you’re supported!’ Olga Vladimirovna kissed her daughter on cheek and went to gather.
Victoria went to her room under colour of preparation to the project review. As soon as the door was closed and her mum left for work, the girl started to make ritual.
She was going to call for Lucifer and went balls to the wall. If Kharon refused then Lucifer would help.
Everything was ready except an agreement and time. The hands of the clock have to point to three am. It was an important condition described in the book. If there was no problem with time, all she needed just to wait, but agreement problems were indeed.
Firstly, Victoria thought of the agreement content. Could it be any legal one? Maybe just a text? Table format? How should it look like?
Secondly, the price. What could she suggest to Lucifer in charge for his services? Victoria couldn’t give her soul. If she gave him her soul it meant she would die and wouldn’t be able to be with Kharon. Then what?
Two questions which the girl was thinking over the whole evening and a half of the night. Finally, she decided to prepare a formless agreement. She just took two pieces of paper and wrote that she would give her voice for Lucifer’s services.
Victoria decided to give her voice to The Lord of Hell. She couldn’t give her ear because she wanted to listen to tender words which Kharon would be whispering to her. To give her eyes was out of the question. Victoria was going crazy just because of looking at the man. She had nothing else of value.
The girl knocked out a simple agreement, pricked her finger and sealed her fingerprint with her blood. She read the text several times, calculated appropriate time to read the spell and three minutes to three am she switched off the light.
There was a burning candle in the middle of the room. There was a pentacle, symbolizing Lucifer and the agreement, enveloped in a thick cloth in the centre of a drawn equilateral cross.
Vic was very nervous, her body became clenched like the universe before big bang, looking forward to meeting the great person. Fear wasn’t far also. To call Lucifer to home and stay calm with no fear would be an impudent lie. If Vic could pretend that Morningstar were her childhood friend, then she couldn’t hide inner panic.
The girl finished reading the spell at three am sharp. She turned around. There was nobody at home. The last candle died out in a second and the room immersed into impenetrable darkness, lightened with barely visible night light from the window.
It was silence.
Vic seemed that an unfeeling wind and some shadows crawled across her room. Steps, a sigh… The girl was turning like a humming top seeking for the invited Lord…
Nobody appeared in ten minutes, in fifteen minutes and even in a half of an hour. Vitoria was alone in her room.
Within three hours, she tried to make the ritual, read the spells with different times and stresses, lighted and extinguished the candles. But nothing happened, nobody appeared. It was about 6 am. Vic was sitting on the floor and looking nowhere. She couldn’t no longer conceal that she was too upset and couldn’t hold back her tears. There was only one question: why didn’t he come? Then another one: what should she do to make him come?
Being depressed, crying, having a devastated hope, Vic was wiping away the pentacle from the floor, cleaning the wax traces, hiding the spell which didn’t work. She didn’t want her mother, holder of Habilitation degree in Medicine, to catch any little hint at something supernatural in her daughter’s room.
At 11 am Vic was awakened by the cell calling: Vasilisa was going to walk over the city and she wasn’t going to walk alone but with Victoria.
However hard the girl tried to refuse to walk, Vasilisa wasn’t going to get back off Vic and she had to agree.
The girl felt terribly bad, slept badly and broken. Only Kharon and all that connected to him lived in her head. Like a zombie, Vic, with half closed eyes, went to the bathroom to freshen up in some way. In a half of an hour Victoria appeared at Tverskaya Street, where Vasilisa had been waiting for her.
‘It’s been a long time and finally we’ve met!’ her friend began to speak loudly. ‘Vic, I’m so happy!’ she started embracing her friend in shock and with no stop to chatter eternally about her doings.
‘How did you pass, Vic? You didn’t tell yet!’
‘I got a good mark. There’s a project review left and I’m ready to work… My life has almost stopped. How’re your exams?’
‘Mine? I’m on thin ice. С is on C and C drives on them. But to tell the truth I don’t care. I want it to finish soon.’ Vasilisa closed her eyes. ‘I’m hungry, let’s go to eat something!’
Victoria shrugged her shoulders. She actually didn’t care where and with whom to go. Vasilisa noticed Vic’s indifference later.
‘Oh, don’t worry about it. He’s not the last man on the earth!’ suddenly Vasilisa said.
Victoria looked at her with blank stare.
‘Whom are you speaking about?’
She knew. Where from? The thoughts were running around in her head, awkwardness was coming closer and her consciousness was getting ashamed.
‘About Daniel, whom else! You’re not yourself after you broke up with him. You’re not that Vic that you were! You were energetic, you laughed and lived and now a pale-faced it is sitting before me. Forget him.’
‘Uh… Daniel has nothing to do with this. I didn’t think of him until you remembered that he actually was.’
‘Say it more often to yourself and you’ll really forget him.’
Victoria took a sigh. How was it possible to speak with people who didn’t hear you? They didn’t want to hear you.
‘Well, it seems you’re right…’ Vic thought of Kharon. ‘Maybe I better let him go.’
‘That’s right! You don’t need him! You’re ok now but you’ve been still moping. Vic, you can’t do this. I know what to love means and how it’s difficult when you’re not loved…’
“If you were, this conversation wouldn’t have taken place now…” Victoria bitterly smiled.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it over. But I haven’t tried all…’
‘What do you mean?’ Vasilisa glanced over her friend in surprise.
At that moment Vic understood that she had put her foot on it.
‘Nothing. What about your new boyfriend?’ to change topic that was Vic thought about.
Fortunately, Vasilisa was so ditz even inconsiderate that’s she quickly switched to a new line of topic, completely having forgotten about her friend.
Victoria didn’t listen to Vasilisa, her attention-getting exclamations and yelling. All she could think was why Lucifer hadn’t come? All had been done correct: agreement in any form, blood, seal, text… What had been wrong?
Vic started suspecting her being normal again. Maybe no Lucifer existed at all? Maybe she made up everything that happened to her?
In the evening, having told her mum a beautiful lie, creating a perfect illusion, Victoria went to her room. The door was locked, and all hell broke loose again: pentacles, candles, spells.
Victoria looked up and down all the books, internet and did everything that was written. But nothing happened. Nobody came. Why? Why not? Kharon did appear immediately even when he hadn’t been waited, he stuck into her heart and then he was sitting there and tearing it from inside. Why didn’t Lucifer come?
2
September 2013 (Monday)
The days went by as weeks and months did. Victoria got her project review with an excellent mark and felt down completely in seeking for Lucifer. She looked very bad, she ate almost nothing, just drank, mostly strong coffee. Her eye pits were almost seen, coloured in black by weakness. Her red hair, her flecks once having resemblance to the Sun and giving warmth to others died out and grew dim.
For a long time, Victoria hadn’t slept well. She spent most of her nights for seeking for Lucifer. She tried to get him in any way and that was possible only at nights as all spells talked over.
In the mornings Vic had to pretend to be a healthy, sane person. Her mother was prudish and if she noticed that her daughter wasn’t sure in her own mental health, she would treat her.
Of course, at times when her mum was at work, Vic was sound asleep, setting up, but it wasn’t enough anyway.
In addition, she had to look for a job, to pretend that she was looking for it. Moreover, she had to pretend to live and rejoice that fact. To tell the truth when passion and love settled in heart and soul, the desire for living became almost impossible. Everything that had been done, heard and looked, turned into one continuous suffering.
‘Hi, Vic. Being up long?’ mother’s call was sometimes worse than fire.
‘An hour ago. Eating now. What’s the emergency?’ Vic asked, chewing a miserable cucumber.
‘I’ve forgotten papers on the table. See them? Can I ask you to bring it to me at work? I need them.’
‘Mum…’ Vic sighed.
Vic had planned her day different. She was going to some book stalls near the MRHW. She had no time to rush over hospitals.
‘What mum?’ a severe voice asked. ‘You have no interviews for today. I need those papers.’
‘Fine. Fine! I’m there in an hour and a half.’
‘I’m in resuscitation department. Running the operation room.’
‘Ok, I got it. Order the pass for me.’
‘Already done. I’m waiting.’
Hating the whole world and most of all her mother forgetfulness, Victoria went to the hospital.
Vic hated hospitals and never understood how people could work there. The place was full of pain and desperation. People cried and begged there. A believe in supernatural was born and doctors’ help was forgotten instead. Too much suffering and worries. Her heart hurt too much looking at what was going on there.
Vic was going along the resuscitation department and there were ten or fifteen meters left to get the staffroom, when she heard a weak sound, a voice asking for something unintelligibly.
The girl turned to the open ward and from the first bed something strong got her by the hand. That was an old lady who had a healthy man grasp. Victoria was nervous, trying to free her hand, but the woman was holding it fast. Her whitish eyes, having no life in, pierced into the girl’s face.
‘You will take it. I chose you.’ The crone wheezed in a sepulchral whisper and squeezed her hand stronger, no matter stronger seemed impossible.
‘What’re you talking about? Let me go!’ Victoria was almost fighting with a “weak and ill” old lady.
The crone answered nothing. She lay back on the pillows, closed her eyes, kept on holding the hand.
‘You will take it…’ she repeated again and finally left the numb hand.
The old woman looked peacefully like if she had been sleeping and dreaming of something beautiful.
“Crazy bitch”, Victoria thought and ran out of the ward and made a little distance she turned out in the staffroom.
‘You’re fast’ her mum looked out of the case. ‘Vic, I’m really sorry but I gotta go, I have a planned surgery now. Leave the papers on the table, will you?’
‘No problem.’ The girl sighed in replay.
‘No offence?’ the woman stopped in the doorframe and looked at her daughter. ‘What’s up with you? Are you ill?’
‘No, I’m fine. I’m tired…a little.’
‘Damn it! The most terrible sound for any resuscitationist!’
They both heard an argute sound line, affronting the ear. Olga Vladimirovna jumped out of the staffroom, Victoria followed her.
In the same ward the peacefully sleeping old lady’s heart stopped beating and the apparatus rang about it through the whole department, calling for the doctors to resuscitate.
‘Defibrillator, epinephrine…’ the doctors cries, nurses were rushing near, answering all the orders.
Victoria leaned on the wall, looked and worried about the poor old lady.
‘Time of death is 7 past 7…’ she heard the sentence after that you exactly understood the deepest and, perhaps, the most heartless meaning of the phrase “that’s all”.
