Methodius Buslaev. Third Horseman Of Gloom

“No!” Daph said firmly.

The succubus formed a ring with his fingers and looked at Daphne through the hole. “So be it! I’ll give you some advice!” he said magnanimously. “As much good as free. When the poppy becomes brown or yellow, you’ll still be able to return it to its previous colour, and Methodius’ love together with it. So, interested?”

“How?” Daph asked involuntarily.

Whimper looked around furtively. “It will be sufficient to sprinkle the poppy with something crimson!” he said in a loud whisper.

“Crimson?”

“Precisely, my wussy! Crimson! What can be more crimson than the blood of a mortal? Only the blood of a guard of Light!”

“I won’t kill anyone!” Daph said contemptuously.

“No need to kill anyone. Quite enough blood from your finger. When the poppy becomes red again, pin it on Methodius’ shirt near the collar. No shirt, a T-shirt will do. Well, time for me to go, Light! Smooch-smooch!”

“Smooch-smooch!” Daph repeated, smiling involuntarily.

“Cheer up! Dream of me sometime! Bye, sweetie!” The succubus wriggled his fingers coquettishly.

Daph shuddered. To see a succubus in dreams is a bad sign. Dreams are their element. They drink strength and soul in dreams.

“You dream of me, my sweet!” Daph said, paying him back.

Whimper flinched, as if all his teeth were aching at once. Whoever strikes with some weapon also fears that weapon. Pretty much how gypsies are frightened on hearing the words “I’ll tell your fortune!” uttered with the necessary degree of conviction. The promise to dream of a succubus is more effective than any curses. A succubus, after seeing a guard of Light in his dream, long afterwards will not get out of Tartarus into the human world. Whimper vanished into thin air.

For some time, Daph pensively examined the poppy, nested in her hand. Dispose of it or not? Pulling out the flute, Daph checked the poppy with a short maglody, which would obliterate the flower if it presented direct danger to her. However, the poppy safely survived. It only changed colour, blazing still more brightly.

“Aha! It seems someone loves me! I wonder who? Depressiac?” Daph thought with curiosity, after looking sideways at the cat. Sticking out its terrible violet tongue, the cat licked its hind paw and, if it loved her, then in the background, in extremely unobtrusive mode.

Upon reflection, Daphne did not discard the poppy, just as she did not pin it in the buttonhole. Instead, she did something in between, just shoved it into her pocket. The middle path is always the simplest. It is another matter that it rarely leads to the right direction.

Hunger, driven away for a while by the succubus’ intrusion, again returned and started to cough insistently behind Daph’s back. A growing organism required cement and bricks for further building itself, the beloved.

“Why don’t I visit Eddy Khavron? He works somewhere not far from here!” Daph thought. The map of Moscow, and the motley small fonts on those small alleys that were much shorter than their names, was woven thoroughly in her memory with scuffs on the creases.

However, by the will of fate, the meeting with Eddy Khavron took place much later and entirely not even at Ladyfingers. Meanwhile, one more meeting awaited Daphne.

* * *

Finding her way to Khavron, Daphne began to meander along the alleys. At first, the alleys retained some dignity: they boasted of old homes, cast iron fences of embassies, and idyllic booths with police peak caps dozing in them. But as Daphne moved away from the centre, the alleys became increasingly pitiful. Dumpsters, earlier hidden in the corners, now jumped out right in the eye. Birches, astounded by their own cheerful impudence, stuck here and there out of the cracked walls of homes.

When Daph, bored by the alleys, turned into the courtyards, there was already rubbish everywhere. Abandoned mastodons, with rotting wheels invariably propped up by bricks, were rusting between the gleaming foreign cars. Geraniums peacefully went bald on the windowsills of the ground floors, and only the new drain pipes bragged that, you know, we here in the wilderness, also do not blow our nose into our sleeve. It was difficult to believe that this was the city centre.

Daph crossed two or three more alleys and came out onto a lively street. While she was searching the blue rectangle of a signboard with her eyes, wondering where to go further, gunshots were heard to her right. Depressiac pressed back its ears. While Daph’s imagination was conjuring up all possible criminal and romantic pictures on the theme of dwarves armed to the teeth fleeing a bank with bags of money, a motorcycle, shrouded in bluish smoke, flew up to her. It was its muffler – or rather the lack thereof – producing loud bangs, which Daph had taken for gunshots.

A little before reaching Daph, the motorcycle sneezed hypochondriacally and stopped. A broad-shouldered giant hastily dismounted from the motorcycle. When he swung his leg over, a belt with a buckle shaped like a skeleton’s hand flashed at his waist.

“Hello, Essiorh!” Daphne said, shifting her gaze from the motorcycle to the keeper and from the keeper to the motorcycle. She could not decide whose appearance struck her more strongly. Essiorh likely deserved more attention. On the other hand, she was seeing the motorcycle for the first time.

Having run up to Daphne, the keeper looked around in bewilderment. His huge hands were clenched into fists. But, alas, there was no one to fight with at all. Unless it was with the drain pipe plastered with ads, but it could perfectly fight back, falling on his head.

“Where?” Essiorh shouted.

“Where what?” Daph did not understand.

“The enemies! I felt that danger threatened you and hotfooted it here at once. Unfortunately, my motorcycle stalled on the way.”

Daph hunched down, examining what Essiorh called a motorcycle. “Mmm-yes,” she said. “Would never have thought that it’s possible to knock together from old scrap such a wonderful wheelbarrow for transporting junk! It’s another joke of the drunk Kulibin!”[4 - Ivan Petrovich Kulibin (1735–1818) was a Russian mechanic and inventor. He had a special interest in the clock mechanism. In 1791, he built a push-cycle cart using a flywheel, a brake, a gearbox, and a roller bearing.]

“This is not a wheelbarrow!” Essiorh was offended. “The bike is outstanding! It’s based on the Ural,[5 - The Ural motorcycle is manufactured by IMZ-Ural, Irbit Motorcycle Factory, a Russian maker of the heavy sidecar motorcycle. The first prototype M-72 was built in 1941, modelled after the late-1930s BMW R71 sidecar motorbike. It was the bike suitable for the Red Army during WWII. A modern day Ural can come with or without a sidecar.] but the rest is solid improvisation. The frame, for example, is welded to a Zhiguli wheel. I invested a little money here, but a love of railway cars. Only love has a value in determining the true value of objects. Pity the battery just died! I removed the muffler myself.”

“Aha, it happens. Eddy Khavron recently also removed the door from the washer. He had to reach for something from the top shelf and thought of getting up with a foot on the door. Now they do laundry at the neighbour’s. They pay her with produce: a potato for each pillowcase. Socks go under an individual rate,” Daph remarked peacefully, patting the bike seat.

Essiorh turned red. Daph thought that if someone hit upon the idea of touching his forehead with an unlit cigarette, it would flare up by itself. “I ACTUALLY removed the muffler myself,” Essiorh said, glowing with anger.

“Okay, okay. Am I arguing? Depressiac, Uncle Essiorh unscrewed this muffler himself! With his own hands! He likes to ride on the motorcycle so that everyone thinks that the city is a war zone. Oh, oh, oh! Depressiac, help! Uncle Essiorh will now unscrew my head! I’ll be the first guard of Light in the world finished off by his keeper!”

Recollecting himself, Essiorh took a step back and stared at his hands with horror. “Ahem. It seems I overreacted! So, what’s up with you? Where’s the scoundrel, or scoundrels, that attacked you?” he asked in a dispirited voice.

“The scoundrels left, after presenting a flower to me!” Daph explained, showing Essiorh the poppy.

He took it, examined it critically, twirled it in his fingers and, after shrugging his shoulders, handed it to Daphne. The poppy remained red.

“I must admit, I expected something different,” said Essiorh.

“What precisely? And why you did say ‘scoundrels’? It was indeed just one succubus. I’d have handled him myself,” asked Daph.

“One succubus? Really? Are you sure?” Essiorh elaborated incredulously.

“Yes. I count to one very well. Haven’t been wrong once yet,” Daphne bragged.

Essiorh went to his motorcycle and ran his big hands along his face, just attempting to bring his thoughts in order. When he took away his hands, traces of machine oil remained on his face. “Well, I don’t know, I don’t know! I had an insight – it’s a special feeling, accessible only to a keeper – that mortal danger threatens you. Could there be someone else still hiding next to the succubus? Maybe the succubus was simply distracting you? Huh?”

Daphne honestly tried to recollect, but failed to remember anything. “Who knows? Possibly. I checked the succubus with a rune, he was clean. But I didn’t scan anymore… Somehow didn’t guess!” she acknowledged.

“Here you see!” Essiorh said, aiming a finger threateningly like a pistol at her. “Oh, heavens, what a hick I have to deal with! They almost nailed her and she blinked and missed everything!”

“Okay, okay. No need to mix me up with ashes! Less than removing the mufflers! If you would have been next to me and all that! Whom are you guarding after all? Me or your tricycle?” Daph snapped. The keeper was silent in shame. The reproach was justified.

“Essiorh! Another question. Do you have any money?” Daphne continued.

The keeper looked at her indignantly. “What kind of question is that? Of course not. Since when do they issue an allowance to those appearing from the Transparent Spheres? Why do you need money?”

“I want to eat. It’s simply scary. My body has decided to grow. Now and then it seems to me that I would even eat Depressiac, if I had the appropriate sauce,” Daph acknowledged. Two red eyes stared at her with reproach. “Be still, nightmare of a practicing vet! No offence! It was just a figure of speech,” Daph assured it.

The keeper pondered, contemplating the front wheel of his motorcycle.

Daphne had the suspicion that he was not quite thinking of lofty matters. “Hey!” she reminded him. “The child is starving!”