Unlimited

Darina Grotto, 2017

Summer, 2013. Moscow. Just a young redhead girl. Just an amazing and unusual meeting. The meeting which thwarted plans and dreams of the young redhead girl, Victoria. And totally untypical love that got under the girl’s skin. What if she mustn’t love? Horrifying! What if she mustn’t want? Dangerous! And what if Victoria really wanted to love? How to live when suddenly as if touched with a wand everything became unusual including the redhead girl? In a Moscow beautiful summer, one beautiful day Victoria made a mess of things that led her into apocalyptic troubles.Содержит нецензурную брань.

5

^th

September 2013 (Thursday)

Having successfully completed her plan, Victoria came out of tax agency building. She was going along the street trying not to look at people, being afraid of seeing again empty eyes of lost souls. She was afraid of facing someone supernatural.

Victoria was heading to metro to get to Arbatskaya station where Kharon and she had agreed to meet.

There were different thoughts because of which the girl felt uneasy. Victoria had been already tired of thinking, but her mind kept on its weak-willed terror.

There was music playing in her ears not to listen to the outward things. She didn’t want to listen to anyone not to get crazy completely. She was scared to feel her own mind leaving her body. Vacuum. She could understand nothing but perfectly see her own mind walking without saying goodbye.

What could she do? How was it possible to make her own mind to stay? It was terrible just because of one thought that she was a mindless cretin. A vegetable that was going to be fed on medicine in an asylum.

Victoria was in a good mind nobody had to know of her new ability otherwise an asylum would be exactly for her. Nobody had to know who Kharon was and where he had come from and what had been done for it. Nobody had to know of the meeting with Lucifer…

The girl was walking ahead with no lifting her head up, doing her bag right over her shoulder. She sniffled, tucking her hair behind her ears and talked to herself. She persuaded herself: “let’s keep it in a secret?”, “Sure, we will! It’d have been blindly to blub out about what happened”, “Right, but you had to tell about the killed girl”, “No, no, I’d be put into prison. What would I tell the police? A spirit of the dead girl came up to me, threw me a little bit in the past and I saw the murder in detail? That some psycho cut up carelessly the poor girl like confetti just because he confused her with someone else because his mind dived into madness? What if this madness will come to me? No, none of that happened…”

Victoria dared to look up when she was near the very Arbat and bumped into Kharon with her eyes.

He was standing near the first building, looking up at something there.

He looked like an angel, looking at the heaven which he had been thrown down from for a long time ago. Here he was, wearing the black, having a bunch of bright blood-burgundy roses and a strange smirk, looking at the azure clouds.

The hot sun was gently touching his black shirt, feeding with its unmerciful warmth, tendering his face which was so unscrupulously looking at it and even didn’t narrow his eyes.

The man saw nobody, he was interested in nothing but in the blue height.

Victoria was stock-still and staring the demonic creature of an unbelievable beauty and unusual behaviour.

There was a woman wearing a swinging dress in the wind. It was light turquois colour and shining. The woman passed by Kharon so closed that beneath of her dress grabbed the demon’s legs into its tender embraces. Kharon gave a smiling look at the smoothing dress over his trousers and then at the woman walking away. She looked at him back playfully and disappeared in the underground passage.

Victoria, staying near the passage, was waiting for the fabulous woman to obtain a better view of her. But she didn’t appear like if she disappeared into a thin air.

Suddenly Kharon sharply turned his head in the direction where Victoria was, his frown took her, and he smiled. Victoria smirked, shook her head and went down to the underground passage. She was rushing to her beloved at full speed and even didn’t notice her bump into a man.

What astonishment was when she understood that that man was Kharon who had been staying at the Arbat with no motion for a moment ago.

‘Are you running to me?’ he asked, embracing her.

‘How did you get here?’ Vic closed her eyes, pressing herself to him. ‘People can notice your sudden appearance.’

‘No, they can’t. They are too busy with their life streams where they must dabble. You noticed me at once, didn’t you? I felt your devouring stare at me. How strange it was crawling over my face, shamelessly trying to look under my shirt… Victoria… Your thoughts are luxurious, I’m looking forward to your letting them come out… no, capture the reality.’

The man kissed her. Victoria was melting in his arms, because of his curious kisses, of his words and whispers. She enjoyed every second that Kharon gave her.

‘Let’s have a walk, you’ll tell me how wildly you hated people in queue in the tax agency.’ Kharon slowly took her by the hand and led to the exit out of the passage in the direction of the Arbat. ‘Oh, I’ve forgotten,’ he stopped and stared at the girl at the loss. ‘I saw men give the woman flowers… Is it romanticism?’

Kharon stretched the bunch of flowers to Victoria. Finally, the girl had a chance to examine the flowers and she was shocked with the beauty of their petals. They were really of blood colour like if someone put a brush into a venous stream and then painted the flowers. The tips of the petals were velvet literally. There were specks of dust, weightless but visible ones of endearment which a human could scrutinize. The buds were very thick full of life energy.

‘Kharon,’ Victoria whispered being fascinated, unable to tear herself from the flowers. ‘They’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen such prodigious colour.’

‘That’s ok,’ the demon smiled. ‘These flowers weren’t grown up on the earth.’

‘What do you mean? Are they from Mars?’ Vic asked seriously.

‘Of course, no, they aren’t. I took them from the place, as you like calling it — hell. We have such flowers there. There are no such on the earth and it’s hardly they’re gonna be.’

‘The flowers from hell. Form the demon. Kharon, am I ok?’ the girl confusingly looked at her companion.

‘Absolutely. You believe in my existence, but you don’t believe in the world where I live, and such flowers can be? You’re so strange.’

‘Strange is better than insane. You see, that’s you and you know yourself all your entire life, you’re not surprised with yourself. And I’ve known different things all my life. I’ve been grown up like an atheist for my 20 years as well as sceptic and materialist. I’ve been laughing at others who believe for 20 years. My mother is resuscitation specialist. She will never believe that a dead body has a soul and it goes somewhere to travel. Of course, I feel stupid when you appear.’

‘I always had fun at the way people react to my appearance. I’m something unusual in their lives. But I don’t usually need to prove them anything. It’s different with you… I’m in your world with you, in your life… in reality.’

They were walking along the Stariy Arabat, hands in hands. They were like other millions over the world, they weren’t different. The demon in the shape of a man stayed unnoticed as the girl with her sold soul.

Kharon examined the world having no tiredness. He observed people doing that or this, dressing, combing, what bags and jewellers they had. He had been building the picture, immersing himself into a human life, trying to understand what social cell he needed to get to be comfortable.

Victoria was thinking of his warm hand, his fingers between hers, how pleasantly his thumb was gently and rhythmically touching her index finger and how pleasantly his finger could have been touching her body…

The demon smiled as he heard the girl’s thoughts. He liked the things she imagined, and he looked forward to having all those spilled out of her mind into reality.

‘Kharon,’ suddenly the girl stopped. ‘I gotta tell you something. Yesterday when you left, I saw a girl be killed…’

‘Are you speaking about your vision? I’ve seen everything already through your memories and eyes that happened to you yesterday.’

‘Then you have to know what it was.’

‘It was a vision of a past.’ Kharon shrugged his shoulders.

‘Do you think it’s ok?’ Vic couldn’t understand imperturbable calmness of the man.

‘Yes, it is. I see the same every day.’

‘Kharon,’ Victoria pressed to him, trying to get to his ear. ‘What if I tell you that it is not ok to see any past in vision for people? We can’t see past, present and future… We have no visions.’

‘What if I tell you,’ Kharon stooped to her ear and whispered in the same way as she did, ‘that you can’t know everything that happens to other people? The thing that you think normal or abnormal, happens to you, can happen to others and they’re ok with it.’

Victoria was looking at his amber-brown eyes and getting him right. Kharon tried to explain in a veil way that that hadn’t been the worst thing that could happen to witches. But he didn’t want to tell her who she was. He didn’t want to explain that the dying old woman managed to give Vic her gift under Lucifer’s pressure.

‘Have I calmed you down?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want to see my flat?’ he smiled. ‘I’ve concluded the agreement already… wait… Agreement of accommodation leasing for two years.’

‘What an awkward hint.’ Victoria couldn’t help smiling. ‘Then you ask me for tea?’

‘Yeah, I can. I have tea. And coffee as I remember.’ Kharon was confused.

He was serious and even offended a little bit with the girl’s mocks and he tried not to look at her. Then Victoria understood that “wanna see my flat” meant to see his flat and nothing more. It never occurred him to blow the girl’s mind with the help of such terrible human step to get her into bed.

‘Let’s go.’ Victoria felt stupid again.

How could that be? Even the demon of sex sometimes thought of something else except sex and people were always thinking of it. They also tried to hang their desires on others.

‘Why did you act so strange?’ Kharon asked.

‘Nothing, don’t pay attention to.’ The girl answered by a quick smile.

The demon stopped again and carefully looked at Vic’s face.

‘I’ve been like a young fellow, haven’t I?’ he asked in surprise.

‘Kharon, stop poking into my mind.’ Vic got more ashamed.

‘No, dear, explain it to me!’ he insisted. ‘I’m gonna be on earth for a long time. I have to know all not to look like a young fellow!’

‘Usually when a guy offered a girl to see his apartments, it means that most likely he wants to show only his bed and himself in doing. These are stereotypes. I’ve never met and heard anyone who really wants to show only his flat.’

‘Oh,’ Kharon looked aside. ‘Did you really think that I suggested you get lain? Do I really look like a failure in your opinion?’

He was still smiling, embracing the girl, biting off her parts with his unbelievable eyes. She seemed to be going to blow up because of confusion.

‘Kharon…’

‘What?’

He was looking at the red-haired sun in his arms. Yes, he liked her definitely. He observed her nice smile and her smiling freckles. Her eyes. How much true happiness was there! The ocean of life. The demon heard her heart beating, filling with her beloved man’s energy. Kharon couldn’t believe were people really capable of being in love with someone else so much than themselves?

‘You’ve embarrassed me.’

‘Well here I’ve got some achievement at least! I almost got upset that I’m not your emotional experience.’

‘You know about emotions better than me.’

‘True. But first you have your crazy desire to touch my body, feel my lips on yours and you want me to undo my next button on the shirt, squeeze stronger your hand and all the other things in your heads… and the second thing is your behaviour in reality… you’re like two absolutely different people. You reject me and run away… I’ve started mistrusting my own powers to read correctly your mind. Tell me, dear, do I understand you right? Am I reading your mind correct?’

‘People are looking at us,’ Victoria whispered and didn’t let his hands get through where they wanted to.

Kharon stepped back. Victoria smiled, the passion flame was burning inside her, and the demon couldn’t read it wrong. He perfectly understood everything, but he didn’t understand the girl behave in such a strange way. Now it was people.

‘Why are they looking at us? Don’t they do the same?’ Kharon surprised, having taken the girl’s hand, kept on their way to the Manezhnaya Square.

‘They do. They sometimes do worse things. As a rule, they exculpate themselves, why they can do this and why we can’t.’

‘Do you always eat out of people’s hands?’

‘No. I don’t. I just don’t like people looking at us.’

‘Can you imagine how strong they hate us kissing in such a beautiful evening among the old narrow streets of Moscow? Maybe many of them want to get the same…’

‘Maybe.’ Victoria was adamant. ‘But many of them are looking disapprovingly. This all is so intimate and shouldn’t be observed by unfamiliar faces.’

Kharon stopped again.

‘You surprise me! You, in particular! How now, dear? I don’t understand! How can you speak about shame and confusion when there is so mind-blowing sex in your head that I’ll hardly be able to see it come true?’

‘That’s just the point. I want it to come true but when I’m with you face to face but not to be observed by the whole Arbat street.’

‘I got you. Got it.’

They came up to an amazing house architecture of which was different from the modern one. It was a building of Soviet Period, surviving nowadays. Looking at this building, you could hardly say that people lived there.

Kharon greeted the concierge and led the girl inside. The woman looked at Victoria with scrowsy eyes, called her a prostitute to herself. The demon smiled after he had heard the label.

‘On foot a little bit… On the third floor. There’s no lift.’ The demon warned about the forthcoming trip.

‘I can stand it… just three storeys.’ She smiled and went ahead.

Kharon opened the door and let the girl come in.

‘This is my emergency accommodation among the people…’ The man closed the door.

Victoria put off the gymshoes and went into the living room of a huge size. Kharon was following her with keeping his eyes open at her back of the head.

‘Would you like some tea? You asked about it.’

‘Yes, thank you.’ The girl turned to him and creamed in a voice not her own, breaking into a run.

In her fright without seeing a projected wall, the girl flew into it with her forehead. Having fainted she fell flop in the floor and unexpected silence came out.

In surprise Kharon looked the girl lying on the floor, understanding nothing. What could frighten her so much that she wanted to run away?

He put her up and brought to bed. Here she was, unconscious in the night fantasy world. Just a second and Kharon would be there. But Vic was in his bed, defenceless, having a growing up clour on her forehead and with embryonic insanity inside. Her tender shoulder was denuded, there was an expression of fear and desperation on her face.

Kharon brought a wet, cold towel and put it on Vic’s forehead. He hopped her clour was going not to be so big. He was confused with the denude part of her body. Despite of his lust and barely controlled passion Kharon adjusted her tee, having covered the part of nudeness.

He adjusted her pillows and sat into the arm-chair near, looking up at the ceiling. His thoughts brain storm attacked him immediately. He had a woman from the earth, reality and two years vacation. Would he be able to give to that woman all she wanted? Was he capable of that?

Someone cleared his throat in the living room. The demon smiled. He came out of the room, having closed the door behind and at once he found a handsome man at his table.

‘My friend.’ He said and stood up, ‘I wanted to check up on you… To find out whom you’ve brought this bunch of lovely roses to. Is it for Victoria, I hope?’

‘Lucifer, I’m glad to see you in such a good mood. According to the deal I have to make these two years gorgeous and if I am successful, they’re gonna be ideal.’

‘You’re right, yes.’ Lucifer was staying near the window.

‘How’s it going at home?’ Kharon finally got tea. ‘Would you drink something?’

‘Oh, no,’ the man turned to him. ‘I’m on business here. It’s been hampering me in my back two days already. You’re my dearest friend. Be a good soul and look what there’s…’

Lucifer pulled off the shirt and…

Many times, Kharon saw his Lord in such a way but every time his heart got frozen, admire covered his face, barely stand pain was in his eyes.

Lucifer was staying his back to him and there were huge white wings elevated. They were so majestic, powerful and Kharon imagined how much the master of the wings got through while he had coming down, Kharon kneeled more and more before his Lord with his respect and loyalty. You shouldn’t look at the lord’s face nor his eyes but only at his powerful wings. What a snow-white colour they were! In a dull weather, impregnated with melancholy they burnt eyes with their divine whiteness. If the sunrays fell onto the powerful wings any eyes were about to be blind. The flat and white surface reflected the rays, let them travel back to the space, depriving wretched persons from ability of seeing.

Of course, demons were stronger than people, but their eyes were also burnt. The wings had too bright light. It was like a lightning flashed in eyes but didn’t disappear as it had to, and it stayed in the eyes, firmly having covered pupils with its merciless shroud.

There was eye pain pulsing in the head. Lucifer was spreading his wings. Having left his tea Kharon headed to Lucifer through the light, torturing his eyes, to get known what disturbed his Lord.

Examining the powerful spine, smooth roots of the wings, crying, the demon noticed a long feather stuck out, pointed into the waist. Despite its softness and gentleness, it was too hard. If Lucifer hided his wings, the feather stuck into skin, like a dagger, on the right from his vertebral column.

‘A feather! There’s a feather, Lucifer!’ Brushing away his blood tears from his painful and blinded eyes, Kharon whispered. ‘What do I have to do, it’s not come out fully yet.’

‘Tear it out and quickly not to torture your weak eyes.’

Kharon pulled the disturbing feather out, Lucifer smirked and got the shirt from the floor, hiding his wings.

‘I’m sorry I got you blind again, but who would have helped me if it’s not you?’ he smiled, buttoning his shirt.

‘Who?’ the demon surprised. ‘Anyone! A half of the earth population and the whole hell dream to do the same. It’s honour, Lucifer.’

‘Certainly, it is. I have no doubts. The point is that those who know about my wings shining can be counted on my fingers. And there will be never enough specks of dust for fools. They will be gonna be blind, writhing with pain. What do you think it would be an honour for them when their eyes are burnt like with acid?’

Kharon smiled and lowered his head, Lucifer was having fun as usual.

‘What if it’s an honour for them, nevertheless? Would you let them suffer for their entire lives in blindness?’

‘Oh, my friend, do I look like a sadist? There’s always a deal for such cases. Conclude. Take. Disappear. Besides, in two minutes the one opens her eyes who’s in agony when she sees only your face. If you have something to ask, then ask.’

Kharon was looking at the long feather on the floor and he wasn’t smiling anymore. His face became gloomy, enveloped with seriousness.

‘Why did you give her witch abilities?’

‘If I hadn’t then how she would have been supposed to impressed me and called in the end? I can’t allow myself to come to her after all that nonsense she did, having read internet and book ravings. But I hope you bear no grudge against me, right?’

‘No. On the contrary, I’m looking forward to getting trips and diversity. Shall I tell her about her new abilities?’

‘No, my friend, I’d like you to let her have fun, too. I’m sure your mission is gonna be fascinating not only for you. I’m observing your family also. See you.’

Lucifer smiled and disappeared at the very second when Victoria got her lungs full of air, shrugged with terrible memories and opened her eyes.

There was semi-dark in the room. The curtains were closed thickly, and the sun sat behind the house anyway. Victoria was staring at a big wardrobe along the wall. She was staring at the mirror and wasn’t blinking, being afraid of someone coming out of there.

‘Kharon,’ she whispered his name which she believed in.

The girl saw a saviour and defender in the demon. She believed he would never let anyone hurt her.

Vic touched her forehead — there was a wet cold towel fell on the floor. Feeling sickness and headache, Vic sat on the bed, kept on staring at the mirror.

The door hand smoothly went down, her heart squeezed into a fist, and it took her breath away. The girl was waiting for something. Kharon came into the room and Vic threw herself into his arms. She was too weak, and she was about to fall when the man caught her up, looking at her scared eyes and the mask of horror over her face.

‘You’re still weak,’ he whispered, hiding her hair lock came out behind her ear.

‘What was that?’ Victoria asked in a sepulchral voice.

‘What’re you talking about?’

‘About the man.’

Kharon glanced in surprise at the girl, lying in his arms. A suspicious creeped into his mind what a man was there and why the demon didn’t see him. Holding Victoria in his arms Kharon sat down on the big bed, which size was more than standard one. The demon was examining her face in disarray, taking out by atoms threads impregnated with self-reproach, putting on the new feeling. The only thing he didn’t understand was how it was possible to have so extensive range of feelings?

‘With a loop on her neck. He was standing near the table then rapidly headed towards me. I was scared. He had so… empty and lifeless face. Didn’t you see him?’

Kharon nodded his head.

‘Why can I see them? What’s wrong with me? I’m insane, aren’t I? Oh, my dear.’

The girl put her cold palms on the warm, bristled cheeks of the silent man. She tried to feel every inch of his fabulous face, convincing herself of her more or less sane mind. Feeling his warmth running through her hands frozen with fear, she perceived it shoot at her capillaries, waking them up from sudden winter sleep, immersing them into a wonderful autumn evening. Vic touched his lips with hers. She closed her eyes. Here his warmth was…the fire which she had been looking for to get warm, understand that she was alive. No madness was left. Life was in full swing.

Kharon didn’t move but voluptuously answered the girl’s kiss. No, he didn’t turn into a sanctimonious person, he just fought and subdued his crazy feelings, he mocked his burning passion and desire to grab the ginger puny girl and despite of anything to demonstrate his many-thousand-year experience, do something unusual and unbelievable in the middle of human abyss of ordinary and banality.

But Kharon didn’t touch the girl with his fingertips. He was capable of waiting.

Victoria was getting deeper into the kiss, thinking that she was about to get her mind back but in fact she didn’t notice her losing her mind. The demon’s sensual lips played tricks with her mind. Her disobedient hands lasciviously and awkwardly tried to unbutton his shirt to touch his “divine” body. She wanted so much to feel a life streaming through his muscles into the black soul.

‘No, no, no… If you don’t stop me then I must do it…’ she whispered, embracing hard the petrified man.

‘Do you know how much strengths I need not to fall upon you and get known what to rape means by my own? I know only too well that you’re not gonna let me go further than your childish kisses. Tell me, by the way, why?

‘Ah…’

‘Wait, I’ll do it myself. Romanticism, right?’ he gave her a poisonous frowned look, buttoning his shirt. ‘We’re studying what romanticism means. I remember, dear, I really do.’

Kharon got up from the bed and added lighter, adjusting his hair and collar. Victoria closed her eyes and fell on the bed.

‘I’m so stupid…’ she said quiet.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘No, Kharon. There’s something wrong with me. If I’m not insane then I’m stupid.’

‘Your tea got cold, dear. Let me do a new one for you and you’ll say me your thoughts and sufferings as regards what exactly deprived you from saying “yes” to me. You did really want to say it. I heard you begging your stubbornness and it repeated about romanticism. You’ll say me in detail what I should be ready for while I’m advance studying the XXI century romanticism.’

Victoria hardly didn’t laugh when she was on the bed. She couldn’t still get over and understand that with no difficulty the demon penetrated her mind and absorbed all her thoughts and after it he threw them like lances into the girl hinting at “Look what your naughty mind was thinking of while your body was so irreproachable”.

‘You’re insufferable. Stop getting into my mind.’

‘Alas, dear, it’s impossible. I can hear your thoughts as clear as your voice.’

‘How can you distinguish them?’

‘Like linguists… by the con-text.’ Kharon smiled. ‘Moreover, if I took everything that you think, like a sign to act, we’d have already had something that could be described in more than a book. And some of your thoughts, I’m certainly sure, you’d never ask to release. Unfortunately…’

Vic sat on the edge of the bed, trying to understand how she felt. She seemed to have come to herself, but the memories of that man didn’t live her alone. Through the laughing and enjoyment, she was sending away the bad vision. Her all efforts were futile.

As soon as they came back to the kitchen, Victoria understood the man go nowhere.

‘Kharon’ Vic whispered, grabbed his hand.

He stared at the girl: she was pale, her eyes scared, her hands were shaking. Kharon unwittingly thought that the girl was about to faint with fear. To be on the safe side he embraced her.

Victoria was staring at a point not moving and breathing. Her fingers squeezed the man’s hand seeking for defence and support. Her fingers were so cold and tenacious. Her heart was beating in a crazy way, her chest heaved pushing out the air. The girl was looking at him whom Kharon didn’t see.

‘Is he here?’ the demon asked the girl in a low voice.

She nodded silently, being unable to tear herself away from the spirit.

‘What’s he doing?’

‘Looking. Pointing at his neck…’ Vic held back tears.

‘What does it mean?’ Kharon glanced at the girl carefully.

‘What the hell do I know!’ she sobbed. ‘It hurts so much inside me. My heart hurts. It’s empty and broken. I’ve been betrayed by someone. It’s exquisite pain, suffocative and pressing. I’m at the end of my teether. I can’t bear to live…’ Victoria closed her eyes. ‘A girl. She is very beautiful. Big light-blue eyes… like a doll’s ones. She’s happy and loves her life. Love. My heart’s full of love for this girl. My heart beats only because her heart does. I can breathe only because she does. How gentle and tender she is…’

‘Vic…’ the demon whispered, understanding nothing.

The girl hanged in his hands like a deflated balloon. Her eyes were closed, her lips were dry and a silent mask of desperation and sufferable pain on her face.

‘Victoria,’ Kharon called louder. ‘Stay with me… Hey…’

‘That morning, I’m coming into the flat. She’s with him. She is with him. In my bed. Pain. It hurts. Emptiness. Sufferings… She left me for him. A loop on my neck…I don’t feel pain anymore. There’s no desperation. There’s still emptiness… and peregrinations.’

Victoria opened her eyes. Tears were running down her cheeks like hails, her eyes were washy and lifeless.

‘Hey, dear…What’s wrong?’ Kharon touched her forehead.

‘I don’t know, Kharon…’ the girl looked up at him, weary.

He took her up at his arms and sat down on the wide windowsill, being worried that she would faint.

‘I’m sick. I have no strength to move, breathe. I’ve got such a feeling as if I went through an awful lot.’

‘I’ve lived with you all your emotions you got through. With you I’ve got through and felt it… But I don’t understand what it was. I feel almost the same every time when I see past of a person. But I don’t know what it was with you.’

‘I saw his past. By his eyes. He hanged himself because of her. Can you believe?’ Vic looked at the demon. ‘Kharon, can you believe how much he loved her and what she did? Poor guy. How much it hurt him… Why can’t you see him? You’re…very powerful.’

‘I work with people. With women. I don’t need to see the dead, stuck between two worlds. Lucifer can see all of them, but he doesn’t pay attention. He absolutely knows who of them are alive and who aren’t.’

‘Why can I see them? Is it because of the deal?’

‘I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t understand how it works and what benefits people can have while they contact to the dead. What’s he doing now?’

‘He’s gone. He showed that he hanged himself in your bathroom and disappeared… Jesus I can’t live here knowing what happened here.’

The demon frowned, got gloomy like a thundercloud, pursed his mouth and shook his head.

‘Why are you looking at me like this?’

‘Don’t speak his name in my presence.’

‘Whose name?’ the girl was surprised.

‘His one.’

Victoria was looking at her beloved man with her blank eyes, trying to understand him a bit. Maybe he went crazy? Could demons be crazy?

‘Sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re speaking about.’ Victoria embraced him, pressed her forehead against his chest.

Kharon took a sigh and glanced at the street.

‘Stay with me.’ He asked quietly.

‘Here?’ Victoria doubtingly exclaimed in surprise.

‘Yes…’

‘There’s a dead man with the loop on his neck here…’

‘You’re with me, remember?’ he kissed her cheek. ‘He’s not a threat to you while you’re with me. I’ll be with you everywhere. Stay with me today.’

The lifted her eyes at him and realized that no matter how scared she was in that flat, she was unable to decline his ask. Her tongue didn’t obey her. It couldn’t say “no” anymore.

‘I know and hear you making yourself decline my ask. But you can’t. You can’t. Don’t tease yourself nor me. Here’s the phone, call your mum, tell a story that Vasilisa and you’re at her place… Tell her…’

Victoria did everything that Kharon told and under the weight of his kisses she didn’t make neither head nor tail of what was going on. The demon didn’t leave her alone for a single moment.

‘What’s that?’ Victoria jumped down from the windowsill, after she had noticed something bright and shining under the table.

‘Where?’ Kharon followed her with his eyes.

‘There…’

Vic pulled the long feather from under the table and occultly looked at it with the finding. The eyes hurt so much, the feather reflected bright-blinding light. Victoria screwed up her eyes, wiped them, but continued looking at the piece of unheard pureness.

‘Don’t look…’ the demon stopped speaking seeing Victoria carefully and pretentiously examining Lucifer’s part.

The girl pressed the feather to herself, closed her eyes and sat down on the floor. That’s all. All hell broke loose. Close-ups were flickering before her eyes. Time was running, pictures were flying, memories were going…

Beauty. Light. Tenderness. The soul is happy. Respect. Charming love. Obedience. Taste of rivalry, bitterness and insult. He’s not been understood. By no one. Falling. Long, heavy, insufferable falling. Everything is falling down quickly. An unheard speed. The light swoops down. Collision. Pain. Ground opened wide because of the collision, letting the light inside. It didn’t fade away but flared up, getting into the depths, lightening them. Stop. No awareness. Insult. Despair. Betray. Hatred. Exaltation. Subordinates and army. Admission of lordliness. Overall love. Respect. Pedestal. Equality… Indifference.

Kharon was listening with no moving. Victoria was sitting on the floor with half-closed eyes, firmly pressed the feather to herself.

‘This is the part of Lucifer…’ she whispered when she opened her eyes. ‘He lost it in the people world. He had to take it but forgot.’

‘You saw the history in pictures. You saw those things that even I didn’t see… Thank to you I’ve done it now… But no people can see it.’

Kharon stopped speaking. He didn’t want to tell that no one could live in a usual way having such knowledges. You would need to pretend a mentally deficient to get rid of other or to keep your mouth closed. To be silent all your life.

The demons weren’t a great expert of human lives but even he clearly understood that no good would go if Olga Vladimirovna heard Lucifer’s story which had passed through her daughter’s mind.

‘I wanna keep it.’ Victoria ordered, getting up from her knees. ‘Lucifer was here. When?’

‘Victoria. No…’

The girl smiled and reproachfully shook her head. She was fun with uncovered lie of the man.

‘I didn’t know that such thing could happen.’ The girl said, touching the feather, trying to look through her screwed up eyes. ‘I’ll keep it, Kharon. And…I’m not asking any permission. It’s out of the question.’

The demon was at his loss: he had never seen the same. Certainly, for all his centuries-long existence he had deals with witches. They called him into their beds. They knew what to wait and never objected to him. Some of them tried to do magic on him but they died. Their graceful self-confidence destroyed their lives.

But Victoria was different. The demon liked the girl. He liked her embarrassed inapproachability, her filthy mind, easy acts and golden smile, her hard temper and childish naiveté.

Kharon waited for Victoria to find out what abilities she had. He was interested in what the girl would do and think, if she would try to do another stupid thing.

Her fingers, soft and gently were touching Lucifer’s feather, transporting all the feelings and painful memories into her soul. They hid. They didn’t want to be discovered. They fussed and swarmed around like gnat-warms. But it was enough for Victoria as well as for Kharon.

The girl completely forgot about the spirit with the loop on its neck, recalling Lucifer’s pictures, his burgundy eyes and fir scent. Because of understating his life, a pity and sorrow woke up for the Lord of hell. What a man with a loop?

That night Kharon and Victoria slept together. On the big bed. It was their first night.

She dreamt about a thick stand of fir trees and a huge eagle-owl which hooted so loud, looking at the world with its big yellow eyes. Half asleep Victoria felt unbelievable peacefulness and calmness. Her beloved man’s warm hands were touching her relaxed body all the night. It was the first time for the long time when Victoria was really relaxed.

That night Kharon covered her body with light kisses. Every inch was enveloped with miracle caress. It was the first time when he felt everything in a different way because his life wasn’t in a dream. He liked so much that new, improved feeling. The girl’s answer was not tricked by a dessert of dream but deliberated.

That night they had nothing between them. Victoria kept on insisting on romanticism and flourished time of court. Kharon was amazed. All what he could do with this woman of the Planet Earth, was to be amazed.