Methodius Buslaev. Ticket to Bald Mountain

“Are we letting him in?” Daph asked.

Julitta shook her head slowly. “No.”

“Why?”

“If it’s a moronoid, the rune will stop him. If not, he’ll enter and…” the witch did not finish and waved her hand.

The sound of a door being opened was heard. Apparently, the one who knocked was tired of waiting for the grass to grow.

“No, not a moronoid…” Daph said quietly, observing how Depressiac’s back acquired the resemblance of a question mark and the short leathery nose cut through three deep folds.

Julitta kept silent. Everyone, including Depressiac and Zuduka, attentively listened as someone walked with a shuffling and unsteady gait in reception below. Now he pushed aside a chair, now he opened the door into Ares’ office and glanced casually in it. Now steps approached the inner staircase. The rickety oak rails began to creak. A gurgling cough was heard. It seemed something vile and repugnant was crawling up the stairs from below.

To Methodius’ surprise, it was not Eugeny Moshkin but Chimodanov who first lost his nerves. “Can you draw the rune of invisibility? Do something!” Chimodanov whispered to Daphne.

“It’s useless. He already knows that we’re here,” Daph remarked.

“Who is it?”

“I suspect the new guardian of our Mety! Speak of the devil!” Julitta said sullenly, after crossing her arms on her chest.

Chapter 3

Boy with a Sabre

Irka sat on a bench in that place beyond Tsvetnoy Boulevard where the Moscow avenues turned steeply up and thought about how to deal with her own immortality. The bench was the most uncomfortable. All the boards except two were completely missing, and Irka was constantly falling into the hole, if she, forgetting, leaned back slightly.

Certainly, it was possible to move, but there were already groups sitting on all the neighbouring benches, therefore, it was necessary to either remain on the uncomfortable bench or sacrifice solitude. Irka chose what seemed to her, as a special individual, the lesser of two evils.

And although before her lay a glorious new eternity, almost wrapped in wrapping paper, Irka’s thoughts were the saddest. She thought about Methodius, who loved another, about Granny, and about what Antigonus had said to her in the evening.

“The powers of the valkyries are enormous, or I’m not a vile monster!” he had stated, smugly examining his own reflection in the puddle. “Valkyries can do everything for others, but nothing for themselves. Having once used her abilities for her own interests, a valkyrie will lose them…”

“Just once?” Irka asked again with horror, keeping it in mind.

“Yes, ghastly valkyrie, that’s right. Won’t you comb my terrible sideburns? It’s so disgusting that I always wait for this moment with impatience!” Antigonus asked.

“I can do everything for others and nothing for myself. What would be better to restrain omnipotence? True, I have living legs, flight, and the possibility to run through the forest at night as a white wolf. In essence, it’s already a lot,” Irka reflected.

Suddenly, looking up, she discovered that her solitude was being disrupted. A young person, having broken away from one of the small groups, was hovering around her. Rather likeable, if compared to an Australopithecus[6 - Australopithecus – from Latin australis (southern) and Greek pithekos (ape) – is a genus of hominins that existed millions of years ago and from which modern humans are considered to be descended.] specimen, and slightly older than Irka. He had just finished examining her knees and face, and now first moved away, then approached. On the whole, he behaved like a dog to which meat was thrown directly from a frying pan. It wants to grab it, but fears getting burned.

“Well, earlier nobody cared about me!” Irka thought, perhaps, slightly flattered. She did not like the young person at all, but it was still interesting to listen to him. After all, it was the second time in her life that she was accosted on the street. The first time, two doltish fellows did this at the subway.

Seeing that his presence was noticed, the young person got up the courage and informed Irka that her lace was untied.

“It wasn’t possible to think up something better?” Irka muttered, but still looked down automatically and discovered that her lace was actually untied. “Thanks!” she said.

The pleased young person immediately began to cultivate his success and asked what she thought about love at first sight. Irka said that she thought absolutely nothing about it.

“What music do you prefer?”

Irka, not going into details, assured him that she mostly liked soft music.

The young person, who had already wasted two excellent lines, became shy and hastily resorted to a third, “Are you by chance waiting for me here?”

Irka assured him that he was amazingly shrewd. She was not by chance waiting for him.

“Ahhh!” the young person drawled in confusion. Not knowing what else to say, he informed her that his name was Roma, and asked how old Irka was.

“I’m as old as the world!” Irka said, thinking about the age of the valkyries.

“You tell fairy tales… Then I’m as old as two worlds!” Roma exclaimed.

“Do you have in mind this world and the parallel one? On the whole you look about sixteen…” Irka remarked.

“Seventeen!” Roma corrected resentfully. “And you’re some kind of… you know… not that…”

“Some kind of what?” Irka asked. She was curious to hear something new about herself. After all, the only person you are not capable of assessing sensibly is yourself.

“Well, in short, some kind of not that…”

Irka frowned. “I’m already familiar with this thesis. From here, please, with complex two-part proposals with many secondary terms! And what am I?”

“Well, you say all kinds of words… a brainiac!”

Irka sighed. Alas, this was not news to her. “You guessed it. No point in using a hackneyed cliché. I’m precisely that! And, by the way, if I were you, I’d slip away right now.”

“Why?”

“Because. My older brother is walking towards us!” Irka said, smiling sweetly.

“Yes indeed. And is your grandpa coming towards us by any chance?” Roma mockingly asked.

“Well, as you wish. I warned you,” Irka sighed.

Vaguely sensing something special in her tone, Roma condescendingly turned his head. Behind him, arms crossed on his chest, Essiorh stood and examined him with the dour curiosity of a scientist setting up experiments on guinea pigs. For the first time, the keeper was not in a leather jacket but a white tight-fitting T-shirt, which nicely showed off his sculpted muscles. The belt buckle in the form of a skeleton’s hand gleamed dimly, but meaningfully.

Roma issued a sound that could have been made by a pug, which suddenly discovered that an elephant, having lost patience completely, was running after it with a chainsaw in its trunk. The novice womanizer leaped over the bench with a howl and disappeared into the three and a half trees of the boulevard as successfully as if it was a forest.

Essiorh, it goes without saying, did not pursue him. He looked anxiously at the motorcycle standing at some distance right on the grass of the boulevard and dropped onto the bench next to Irka. “Hello!” he said.

“Hello!” Irka replied.

They had not seen each other for about three weeks. Not since that very night when the keeper had rushed with her on the motorcycle across Moscow. But, in spite of the short duration of their past acquaintance, both now suddenly felt like old friends and were very glad to meet.

“How are you?” Essiorh asked.

“Okay.”