Chapter 23
"My heart is not at ease, Victor," Abraham told me, pouring whiskey into a clear glass. "Tomorrow... Tomorrow will be the experiment. Everything is ready, everything has been checked dozens of times..."
"Are you afraid?" I asked, examining the glass in my hands. The amber liquid beautifully refracted the light of the bulb burning on the ceiling.
"Not for the experiment," he chuckled. "For some reason, I am calm about Steve. I can't understand why... I'm afraid for myself!" He threw his head up and looked at me. I could not withstand his gaze and lowered my eyes to the table. I had nothing to say. Tomorrow he will be killed and I will not prevent it. A vile feeling.
"Ah..." he waved his free hand, then knocked back the glass. "I will leave the formula to you!" he said decisively, putting the glass on the table. "Don't argue! I have decided so," his tone was unyielding, and his gaze sober.
I sighed, took a pen out of my pocket, and pulled a napkin towards me. Then, also silently, I scribbled about a dozen and a half symbols on it and pushed it to Erskine.
He carefully read what was written, then threw a dumbfounded look at me.
"From where?!" he had only one question. "I never told anyone..."
"We have the same education, Abraham. Even if I look stupid."
"You only look stupid..." he replied quietly. "I forgot about that, forgive me..."
"Reagents, Abraham," I decided to tell him the method.
"Reagents?" he didn't understand.
"Reagents. You ordered reagents in the proportions you needed. Catalysts, reactants, equipment. Calculating the reactions, having such data, is a task for a fifth-year student, Abraham."
"So, they also..."
"No. They did not."
"Why?" Erskine was surprised.
"I am your assistant. The main and indispensable one. You made all the orders through me," I smirked at him.
"Meaning?"
"I ordered and filled out requests not for what you ordered. You received what you needed. But they delivered so many things that even a chemistry genius would break his head."
"But what if..."
"It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room..."
"...especially if it's not there," he finished my sentence, already beginning to guess.
"Exactly. Half of what you needed, I procured personally. Without any requests. The most important, key reagents did not go through a single piece of paper. Don't worry. And the equipment... Same thing with it. The key apparatuses have been destroyed. Everything that is in the laboratories is a decoration."
"Yes... You are amazing, Victor," Erskine sighed. "I was right to call exactly you to be my assistant," he poured whiskey into his glass again, peering at the formulas. "You have a couple of inaccuracies here," he noted. "Nothing serious, but the process slows down," having said this, he made a few corrections on the napkin. I pulled it towards me. Read it, memorized it. Nodded. Then shoved the napkin into my mouth, chewed it, and washed it down with whiskey.
Erskine laughed and gave a thumbs up.
* * *
I stood next to the old man's bed. Getting here was very difficult. So much so that I had to surpass myself, turn inside out, spend a week just on the infiltration. But here I am. By the bed of the old man who will die in two years.
Small, weak, tired... pitiful. While he sleeps. But one must be extremely careful. It's like defusing a sophisticated bomb. One mistake and that's it...
A quick, precise movement, and, without having time to wake up, the old man loses consciousness. The line between the two states is thin. But significant.
I take out a syringe with a bluish liquid inside and begin the injections. Quickly, precisely, neatly.
Then I take a piece of paper from the table and write with a pen lying right next to it.
"If you don't build communism, it means it's impossible to build. Be healthy, Comrade Stalin!" Such a short note. No signature, no drawn badge. Nothing. Two sentences. All that I wanted to tell him.
And now the way back. No less difficult. I can't get caught. I can't leave traces. Nothing is allowed. Only to evaporate like the morning mist, because when this glorious grandfather wakes up, heads will roll. And I don't want to be under this headfall at all.
But what is done once is easier the second time.
* * *
The town of Villars-sur-Ollon, which became a shelter for the Lehnsherr brothers, was peacefully beautiful. But terribly boring.
Erik liked it here. Me, seemingly too. At least three years flew by unnoticed here. He went to school, socialized with peers, did sculpture and painting (the local school psychologist advised it). In a word—rested his soul from the experienced horrors.
He even slowly started hitting puberty, hormones taking their toll. But his consciousness was already significantly older than his body. So he didn't do any special stupidities. Just growled at me a couple of times. I growled back. Literally. He apologized, me too. Conflict resolved. Ultimately, no one forces him to be with me: the guy is old enough, smart, documents are not a problem, money too (for the sake of training, he sometimes went to the mountains, where he collected gold and silver with his power, tried to feel veins and metal inclusions at the maximum distance from himself).
But I, as an "older brother," was not demanding either. Didn't shout, didn't pester with instructions and advice... without asking. Taught hand-to-hand combat. Without fanaticism, just to maintain a good physical shape, harmonious development, and beauty of the body. He won't need it in battle.
As for me... I drew, took walks and jogs, did hang gliding, played the violin, trained, and meditated on high mountain plateaus. Tried to sort things out with my Beast. One time is an accident. Two is a coincidence. Three is a pattern.
But my acquired paranoia considered two to be enough.
The Beast was still sleeping. The devoured mind of the telepath gave an effect significantly greater than the mind of the mage. This allowed me to practice Qi techniques and hone them without a serious internal fight. It was pleasant. A feeling of peace and unity with the world. Quiet. Tranquility.
But three years passed. Erik turned eighteen. He finished high school. The time came to think about the "later."
So we sat on the veranda of the house in wicker chairs, enjoying the landscape. Thinking.
"Vic, I'm thinking of going to university," he started the conversation.
"Which one? Local? French, German? British? Soviet? American?" I voiced the options.
"I don't know," he sighed. "Can I even get in there?"
"Nothing is impossible," I remarked profoundly.
"And which one is better?" he pondered.
"It's not bad everywhere. Hard to say where it's better."
"And you, what are you thinking of doing?"
"I don't know. Probably also go somewhere to study. It's a bit boring here. Not even a decent brothel. Have to go to Holland."
"And you're fine with these..." he grimaced. "Prostitutes?"
"Why are they worse?" I replied, settling more comfortably in the chair. "With my lifespan, serious relationships are painful."
"Have you had serious relationships?" he became interested.
"I have," I sighed. "How could I not?"
"Will you tell me?" Erik stared at me with interest. Issues of relations between the sexes interested him very much, like any normal sexually mature eighteen-year-old guy. And, not even so much the physiological side (I threw enough specialized medical literature on the topic at him when he was fifteen to have an idea about the issue. Especially about the dangers and undesirable consequences of carelessness. Plus, Germany was nearby with its actively developing porn industry prompted by Hitler. I showed him several movies on a film projector. With detailed medical commentary of the process and explanations of some nuances using cases from my extensive personal practice of what was happening on the screen, using a pointer to designate the described zones and places. I hope no questions arise as to how I got them? Considering my constant connection with the criminal world), as the emotional one. Of course, he read romance novels, and he had personal experience of feelings about a cute girl in a parallel class. But he wanted to hear a story about "this" from the lips of his "older brother," usually unfeeling and cynical.
"It was a long time ago," I sighed again. These memories still caused pain, although a loooot of water had flown under the bridge since then. But still. "In Siam. I was learning Muay Boran there from a Master. I performed in fights. For money. And somehow I ended up with a large sum on my hands," the money, true, wasn't from bets that time. I robbed a pirate gang then. A lucky one. So the huge dough was really burning a hole in my pocket. But I'm a crappy storyteller as it is, and I certainly wasn't going to insert such details into my narrative. No need. "And I went to an expensive brothel. There they were just putting the virginity of several slaves up for auction. So I bought myself the first night of one of them."
"How is that? Slave? Brothel? Virginity for auction?" I understand it sounds wild to him. After all, he's originally from civilized Germany. Even though he caught the prime of fascism, he was too young to understand and see such things.
"In Asia of that time, slavery was a common thing. Like in Europe and America, for that matter," I explained. "Brothels sometimes bought out beautiful slaves. And there a night with a virgin costs an order of magnitude more than with a regular whore. So they hold an auction for who will pay more."
"Savagery," Erik looked away from me. I just shrugged. Other times, other customs.
"She was a European. A blonde. A French viscountess. Annita d'Jerden. From a ship boarded by pirates. I bought her first night at first. Then the possessive desire to own her solely flared up. Plus I had money. I bought her completely. She stayed to live in the same place, in the brothel, but I was her only client. Something like that," I fell silent.
"And what happened next?" Erik hurried me.
"I got attached to her. That's what happened next," I sighed heavily. Picked up a glass of juice from the table (so as not to set a bad example for Erik, I excluded any alcohol from my consumption. And not only when I was at home, but also when I went anywhere. It doesn't make me hot or cold from this poison. But he has a young, growing body, and has no healing factor) and took a sip from it. "I even thought about dropping everything and taking her to France, home to her parents..."
"And what happened?"
"I didn't take her. In a couple of years, she completely crushed that brothel under herself. Became a 'madam' there first, and then the owner. She sicked me on those who pressured her."
"What do you mean 'sicked'?" Erik was surprised. "You're not a dog."
"Women..." I smiled mirthlessly. "We are all like little dogs to them when they become dear to us. And at that time it was easier than easy to sick me on someone. I was ready to snap at the slightest provocation anyway. Just point out the target."
"I see," Erik pondered. "I haven't noticed any particular quick temper or aggressiveness in you."
"Seventy years in a monastery. I learned to cope with myself. Though not completely."
"Seventy years?" he stared at me. "I've been meaning to ask for a long time, but somehow it never came up. How old are you anyway, Vic?"
"How old?" I thought. "It's 1947 now. I was born around 1762. That makes one hundred and eighty-five years."
"And when did you meet Annita?" Erik already began to suspect what the catch was.
"Around 1787, I think."
He's generally a smart guy. He guessed what happened to Annita. It wasn't hard to guess that a normal person wouldn't live a hundred and eighty years. He didn't ask unnecessary questions or rub salt in the wound.
"Annita, Viscountess d'Jerden. When I was studying at the Sorbonne in France, I dug through the archives. There is no such surname in France. And never was. She was no viscountess. Just a girl who wanted to seem more significant than she was. So that's how it is," I added after a short silence.