Methodius Buslaev. Third Horseman Of Gloom. Дмитрий ЕмецЧитать онлайн книгу.
been quiet for a long time, but Irka, with some real, natural intuition, sensed that this was a false silence. There, in the dark, unlit kitchen, someone was lurking, someone completely real. She started to phone her grandma on the cell phone, but Granny did not answer. Her workshop was in a semi-basement with such thick walls that a cell phone only picked up when she by chance appeared near the window.
After deciding that the most reasonable thing would be to go to the neighbours, Irka began to quickly turn the wheels of her wheelchair, but the monitor continuously flared up, spitting out new lines.
Anika-voin: Hey, what’s with you? Freaked out?
Miu-miu: Where did she go?
Anika-voin: What if they really attacked her? Call the cops?
Miu-miu: Aha! We’ll call and say, “At user Rikka’s, IP address unknown, someone is moaning in the kitchen! When we suggested that the dude had a chainsaw, she called us ‘idiots’ and slipped off somewhere.” And we’ll introduce ourselves: Anika-voin and Miu-miu.
Anika-voin: You blockhead! (takes a machine gun and shoots).
Miu-miu: blocks with a frying pan.
Anika voin: bullet will pierce frying pan.
Miu-miu: Fig. See what frying pan.
Irka hurriedly moved the levers, setting the wheels in motion. The wheelchair went in the gloom of the hallway almost noiselessly, but it seemed to Irka that her heartbeats were giving her away – resonant, chaotic, as if a leather-covered tambourine was located inside. She had already guessed the entrance door, which was darker than the walls. Open the lock, then the latch, push the door forward – by no means hard enough that it would hit the wall – and leave carefully. Insert the key outside, turn it once, and then whoever was in the kitchen would not be able to follow her. She would be out of danger and reach the neighbours.
True, the most fearful was ahead: from the kitchen to the door was a short hallway, about three or four steps, no more. And the door could be seen perfectly from the kitchen. One hope was the gloom. If the eyes of the one who had climbed into the kitchen from the brighter street had not gotten accustomed to the darkness, she would have a chance.
Let us repeat once more: lock, latch, pull out the key, leave, insert the key outside, clo…
However, before the chain was completed, the world faltered. Her palm missed the lever, only stumbling everywhere on the rubber elasticity of the tire, and in the next moment, the warm linoleum struck Irka’s cheek. Irka lay, perplexedly contemplating the overturned world. Her head was buzzing. She realized too late that she had caught the edge of the shoe rack, which she usually went around diligently. The darkness had turned from a friend into an enemy.
Understanding that the noise had hopelessly given her away, Irka hurriedly crawled and dragged the wheelchair behind her like the shell of a snail. Her useless traitorous foot – how Irka hated it at this moment! – it goes without saying, had landed between the spokes.
The shoe rack, having managed to conspire with the wheelchair, swayed. Winter boots, tucked away for the summer, bounced merrily. The material world took offence at once and rose up against Irka. This looked tragicomic, at the intersection of gothic and ordinary everyday farce.
A light suddenly blazed in the kitchen. It bore little resemblance to electric light. Bluish, persistent, much brighter, it broke out and illuminated the hallway. Irka’s eyes started to hurt and tear up. The world dazzled with the strips of the painted walls (Granny hated wallpaper) and blinked with the frivolous vases on the wooden shelves.
“Well! Really!” Irka thought, realizing that, lying, still chained to the wheelchair, she would never reach the lock.
After raising herself on her hands, she peered anxiously into the illuminated kitchen, expecting to see a stocky male figure with a crowbar, a flashlight, and a large bag. For some reason, that was how she imagined an apartment thief. But reality shook more than any naive fantasy.
A white she-wolf lay by the table among the broken crockery. The side of the beast directed to Irka was covered with blood. The wolf studied Irka without rage. Sorrow froze in the eyes of the beast.
“Hello! Ah… ah… and I’m crawling here!” Irka said for some reason.
The wolf’s upper lip lifted, baring long yellowish fangs. Blood continued to flow from the wound. It ran along the wet fur in large drops.
“Are you hurt? You poor thing!” Irka said, wondering where the wolf could have been wounded.
Had it cut itself jumping through the kitchen window? But the kitchen window appeared intact. Where could the wolf have come from at all, and even an albino, in the city, on the second floor, with the glass intact? But this was all secondary. Many things are more useful when taken for granted.
Feeling sorry for the beast, Irka tried to crawl up to it, pulling her disobedient body with her hands. She did not think about the frightened, suffering wolf charging. Too much intelligence was in the sad eyes of the beast. When, after jerking up its muzzle, the wolf howled, its howl, low and intermittent, immediately stopped and resembled human speech. As if the wolf wanted to utter something, but, not getting an answer, realized the futility of its undertaking. It tried to get up, but it was unable to. The hind legs of the beast never came off the floor, and it collapsed heavily with its chest onto the linoleum.
They lay this way on the floor for a long time. Two cripples – human and beast— equally helpless. Except that helplessness was familiar to Irka, but the wolf was apparently meeting it for the first time. Irka said some friendly, disjointed and not very coherent words, but the wolf first growled softly, then looked at her expectantly.
Finally, after twisting, Irka successfully freed her foot and escaped from the wheelchair. Without the wheelchair, Irka dragged her disobedient body along the linoleum much faster. The wolf watched her with understanding, not trying to move from the spot. Occasionally it turned its head and licked its wound. However, it was too deep, and the beast only irritated it with its tongue.
“Don’t touch it! We need to seal it up or to call the vet, if only those fools won’t induce sleep in you. Wait, I just… Darn, I won’t reach the table,” Irka muttered, hoping to calm the wolf with the sound of her voice.
Irka had almost crawled to the table when the strange bluish light dimmed, coiled with a mysterious image like a spiral, and enveloped the wolf. The wolf howled, and its howl, growing fainter every moment, was the howl of death. It placed its snout on its paws, continuing to look at Irka. The howl turned into a wheeze and died away. Its eyes became dull and glazed over.
It seemed to Irka that she was delirious. The body of the dead wolf changed. The matted fur with spots of blood more resembled feathers. The snout with bared fangs changed into a white bird’s head with a beak. And here in the middle of the kitchen, a swan was flapping a broken wing, making an effort to take off. The kitchen was tight for the huge bird. The healthy wing touched the table. Finally, exhausted, the swan stopped flapping and, stretching out its neck, issued a throaty, sorrowful sound. This again resembled speech.
“I don’t understand!” Irka said helplessly.
She no longer crawled closer – and froze about a metre or two from the swan, sensing that this was still not the end of the transformation. And she was not mistaken. Suddenly the body of the swan quivered, losing its outlines. Silvery sparks scorched Irka’s face. To save her eyes, she covered them with her hands. When, squinting, she dared to peek, she saw a young woman in a long white robe, half-sitting on the floor. Her collar bone had been fragmented by a terrible blow. The woman was bleeding.
Addressing Irka, she uttered something hoarsely. Irka shook her head, showing that she did not understand. Mild annoyance distorted the truly classically beautiful face of the woman.
“Don’t be afraid of me! I’m a swan maiden,” she repeated in Russian. Her voice sounded throaty and aloof. There was in it something of the howl of the wolf and of the trumpeting of the swan.
“A swan maiden?” Irka asked.
“At times,