Chapter 31
In sixty-nine, Morihei died. And I fell onto my own syringe with the serum prepared for him.
At first, nothing changed, and I thought that the theoretical conclusions about Erskine's serum being useless for mutants were correct.
I even managed to go to my evening training at the waterfall. And that's exactly where it hit me.
It was terrible. Not at all like the time when Schmidt injected me with his formula. No, that time there was just a sharp, blinding pain, and then unconsciousness.
This time... I just felt bad. I had no strength, there was no pain, I barely managed to lift my ribs so my lungs could take in at least a little air. And a discomfort throughout my entire body, incomprehensible, excruciating, unbearable, but not pain. A very strange state, worse than any torture.
The Beast inside was thrashing, it was scared, just like me, but neither its fear nor its rage could help me.
And then I died. For the third time in this life. My heart stopped. I was flying in the starry void again, and it was more pleasant than lying there and enduring the torture of my own body.
But at some point, the void began to acquire a greenish hue. And there was more and more of it. Until it flooded the entire space with an unbearably bright green light.
I threw my eyes open, my heart was beating again. Suo was standing over me with that very bauble from my dreams, and from this bauble poured... No, not poured, a blindingly bright green beam shot out, which, upon reaching my body, absorbed into it like into a sponge...
This went on for a long time, and the strength and intensity of the beam only grew. In the end, Suo was no longer standing on her feet, but fell to her knees.
But everything has a beginning and everything has an end. And the beam, having reached a brightness that my eye could no longer tolerate, disappeared. The bauble closed. And Suo lowered her hands in relief.
"Sleep!" she said, and I fell into a slumber, watching with pleasure through fading consciousness as she stepped into a ring of fire with a piece of the Tibetan sky inside it.
* * *
* * * Flashback.
The first time this happened was back in China. About eight years had passed since I began studying at the monastery. Eeeeight looong years. Veeeery long eight years. Without normal food. Without booze (even if I don't get drunk, the taste, the taste!). Without a normal fight (a sparring match cannot be called that, and I haven't been sent invitations to the Dragon Arena yet, because, as a Master of Okinawan Karate, I vanished without a trace, and I hadn't grown to the level of a Kung Fu Master yet). Without women... Eight years! Eight, bitch, years!!! I wasn't just struggling with rage anymore; I was gnawing on rocks in the evenings (in one place, the monastery wall had already suffered quite a bit from such fits of mine)!!!
That's it! I decided. Enough!
And one warm spring night, having vaulted the wall, I ran away from the monastery.
Except, it's mountains all around. Where the b... Zen, do I find booze, a fight, and women here? Just Zen mountains...
I walked out to the edge of the plateau, sat on a rock, stared at the sky, and howled. Bitterly, desperately, with all proletarian hatred, rage, and pain, with all the longing, just as the gray-maned alpha of the wolf pack I used to run and hunt with in the Canadian forests once taught me to howl. I howled for a long time. I howled drawn-out. I howled with soul.
It got easier. Believe it or not, it got easier. But I still wanted a woman terribly.
I lowered my head from the night luminary, to which I had just sent my "song" flying, and relaxed. Let go of control. Threw the steel gates of my will wide open. Let the Beast out. Gave it complete freedom. After all, there's not a soul around anyway, no one to tear to pieces, and it's unlikely to bang its head against the rocks or throw its chest at the cliff. And if it does—no big deal, I'll survive.
Actually, from this "action," little changed. The only thing was, I started sniffing and listening more actively to the surrounding world. The Beast knows no doubts, simply doesn't. It doesn't think whether to do or not to do, and if to do, then what to do and how... It just does. The Beast wants a female—the Beast looks for a female. It's simple.
And I went. Across the plateau onto which I had climbed after leaving the hospitable walls of the monastery, ran a little-used road-not-a-road, path-not-a-path. The scents from it had almost completely weathered away and washed off by the rains, but some echoes could still be made out. And following these very echoes, crouching to the ground like a dog, I ran. Now I won't undertake to remember with certainty exactly how I ran: on two legs or on four, but it was comfortable for me and I didn't think about my posture. Just ran tracking the scent.
For exactly the same reason, I cannot say how long I ran (simply because I didn't think about it then).
At some point, the trail turned off the beaten (although even this is relative, people hadn't been there for a long time) path somewhere to the side. To where there was nothing at all. Nothing at all. A wall. Stone.
But the Beast knows no doubts. It smells the scent. The scent leads there. There is a wall there. Fuck it. The Beast goes there. Scratches through a meter and a half of stone. And still goes there!
And on the other side... Paradise! A valley with a settlement in the center. There, by all means, there is a tavern!
These thoughts pleased me so much that I crowded the Beast, reining it in slightly. Its slight displeasure simply wasn't taken into account. I am, of course, tough, but on strength alone, you won't get wine and women. A fight—yes, a fight is possible. But in such a village, what kind of fight is there for me? A slaughter, maybe. But not in the mood for a slaughter.
The mood is for a good portion of roasted meat, wine, and a hot woman. That is, for a tavern! Especially since I didn't forget to grab some cash with me. I'm not a savage, I honestly pay for goodness, hospitality, and pleasures with goodness, hospitality, and ringing coin. Just as for evil, betrayal, perfidy, deceit, and meanness—with death. As they would call someone like me in Russia in the nineties—a proper lad with principles.
In such a cheerful, slightly crazy, and playful mood, I entered the settlement. A strange one, by the way. Only two dozen houses, all stone, solid, no dilapidated or poor ones. No outbuildings, the fields in the valley are not cultivated... But there is a whiff of smoke and a smell of food.
Guided by the tastier smell, I headed towards a building slightly larger and prettier than the rest. The people I met on the way, and there weren't many of them, stopped and followed me with surprised looks. I, however, pleased them with monastic attire, a bald head, and a crazy smirk.
The doors to the building I had chosen were not locked, and untroubled by any doubts, I entered.
The room I found myself in didn't look like a tavern, which is a pity. It would have been easier, but... In a spacious room with a soft floor (right past the threshold I threw off my sandals and remained barefoot), in the center was a large table with some papers on it. By the table stood two people, conversing about something. At my appearance, they stopped their conversation and stared at me just as amazed as the people outside.
I sniffed the air: the smell of food came from the adjacent room. That's where I headed, calmly, purposefully, confidently. This room was separated from the main one by a door. And as soon as I reached out my hand to this door, one of those standing by the table rushed to intercept me. But too late. I had already pushed the door, and it opened. And the brave guy hung on my arm... holding him by the lapels.
Behind the door was a small room, also with a soft floor, by the far wall under the window a sleeping place, in the center a low table, in front of which right on the floor sat a clean-shaven person, in an attire somewhat resembling mine, that is, monastic, but also clearly differing from it.
On the table was FOOD, and the bald person, as all my heightened senses kept telling me, was a WOMAN. Moreover, a young and in her own way very beautiful one.
The guy hanging from my hand was about to say something, but she stopped him with an imperious gesture. I nodded to her, in greeting and simultaneously in agreement with her decision regarding her man, and that it was specifically her man became perfectly obvious from this gesture.
I put the guy back on the floor, smoothed out the clothes rumpled by my paw on him, took a handful of silver coins from my pocket, and put them in the guy's hands.
"Bring food," I accompanied this action with an instruction. "And more of it. And more roasted meat. Do you understand me?" I asked again to make sure the guy understood Chinese. From his face, it was clear that the guy understood.
The woman nodded affirmatively to the guy, and he, making a bewildered face, went to carry out the task assigned.
"Come in," she addressed me in a deep, beautiful voice and made an inviting gesture with her hand. "You made a difficult journey to come to me, so don't stand on the threshold." I didn't make her repeat the invitation twice. I confidently stomped over to her and sat down next to her. On the same side of the table as her.
"Are you a monk?" she asked, casting a glance at my clothes; I nodded and asked her in turn.
"What is your name?"
"Name?" she was surprised.
"Name. What is your name?" I repeated.
"Suo," she answered after a slight hesitation.
"A beautiful name," I brought my face closer to her ear. "Are you married, Suo?" I whispered, tickling her skin with my breath.
"No," she moved slightly away from me. But her breath... Her breathing became more frequent. "Didn't you come to Kamar-Taj for knowledge? Why such questions?"
"I don't know about any Kamar-Tajes, Suo," I raised my hand and gently ran bent fingers over her cheek. "I came to you," I abruptly got closer to her and deeply inhaled the scent of her skin, barely touching the woman's ear with the tip of my nose. "The fragrance of your skin led me in the night like a beacon, Su O," I pronounced her name by syllables, the first syllable into one ear, the second into the other.
"But, aren't you lured by the mysteries of the universe, power over the elements, the Force?..."
"I don't give a damn about all these mysteries, power, the Force... I have enough of my own. I need you," I ran my left palm over her cheek, already much more insistently.
"But you understand that I might be older than I seem, doesn't it bother you..." I interrupted her by putting a finger to her lips. To her lips. You can deceive an ordinary person. You can string them along and play hard to get, feign coldness... But not the Beast. The Beast simply smells her desire, by the changed rhythm of breathing, by the shades of the skin's scent, by the change in body temperature... It doesn't matter, the Beast doesn't analyze, it just smells. And right now I am the Beast. And I—smell it.
"Just shut up," I said softly and removed my finger from her lips, placing my lips in its place.
She tried to pull away again, but... without conviction. And I followed her. She started to pull away again, I followed. The result was that she tipped backward and ended up covered by my body, and the kiss never broke.
Suo, she melted slowly, but inevitably. The ice and stiffness gradually went away, and she already began to respond to the kiss. Her body warmed up and began to arch under my palms...
Then the door opened and some dead man walking poked his head in. I didn't care which one exactly. I just turned in his direction and roared like a lion roars when attacking. Because I am the Beast! I WILL TEEEEAR YOU APART!!!
At that time, out of the entire variety of Qi control techniques, I had well mastered only body strengthening and attacks. And into my roar, I, without even thinking or hesitating, invested a Qi attack. Plus the fact that the roar itself was a kind of Kiai.
That's why I call the one who poked his head in on us a dead man walking. If he survived, he definitely turned gray. At least the door slammed shut instantly.
Having roared, I turned back to the hotly breathing Suo and continued the interrupted activity with renewed vigor and passion.
We were not interrupted again.
Eight years. Eight years of abstinence. Multiplied by infinite stamina and animal sexual vigor...
I'm sure Suo is an unusual woman. An ordinary one wouldn't have lasted a day. Here, however... Who was trying to "ride" and "wear out" whom! Under the thin crust of ice hid simply a volcano. And if I had abstinence for eight years, then judging by the passion and ardor with which Suo gave herself to me, she had—for about three hundred years!
I stayed in this Kamar... whatever it's called, Taj, for a week. For a week we only took breaks to eat. We fell asleep only on the seventh day, and slept for about fifteen hours, according to my feelings.
I will say one thing, Suo conquered my Beast. Or rather, tamed it. Next to her, I didn't have to exert any effort on self-control, as my whole being fawned upon her and purred. Sometimes literally. And I purr loudly. Suo always found this sound incredibly amusing. She laughed and scratched me behind the ear.
But a week passed, and I silently dressed, then silently kissed Suo, and just as silently left the settlement.
When I returned to the monastery, it turned out that I was absent from it for only one night. This was strange, but... I didn't care.
And a month later I ran away again. And returned in the morning again.
And this repeated time after time. The entrance to the valley was not where it was the last time every time, camouflaged differently every time, but the Beast always found it. Always.
And about a year later, I received an invitation to the Dragon Arena for the first time, already as a Kung Fu Master. And life in the monastery became really good.
* * *
But all good things come to an end someday. My carefree life in Shaolin ended too. I am a long-liver, after all. I outlived all the Masters who were senior to me in position and status. And the new Masters practically forcefully shoved me into the place of the abbot...
I held out for ten years. For ten years I dragged the affairs of the monastery on my back.
That night, in Kamar... whatever the hell it is, I arrived slightly irritated and wound up. Monastery problems, squabbles among the Masters, the antics of students and novices...
And the house where I always came to Suo was crowded this time. And somewhat tense. I barged in, as always, brazenly, practically like into my own home. Shoved some creep. The creep shoved me. I turned around and slugged him in the face. The creep turned out to be a mage, fired a fireball at me. I dodged and tore the creep's head off. Then the creep's buddies rushed in...
A mage is very strong in a battle in an open area. Simply strong and dangerous when fighting from a medium distance, being ready for battle. Incredibly strong and dangerous when fighting on his own territory, in his lair, where every centimeter of everything around is a trap of his or a weapon.
But in a close-quarters scrum, in a foreign house (and the creep with his buddies were clearly strangers here), when they hadn't prepared for battle in advance, with insufficient lighting and limited space... I wouldn't say my hide came out of the fight completely whole, but I killed all four of them.
Then Suo came out of the adjacent room to the noise. And she was angry and wrathful. I reached out to hug her, but she pointed me to the exit. I tried to apologize, but she inflexibly repeated the gesture. I repeated the attempt, but she accompanied the repetition of the gesture with stomping her foot on the floor.
No woman had ever stomped her foot at me yet!!! I growled (with the use of Qi, of course, but not directed, just for a scare), turned around, and left, slamming the door so hard that it flew off its hinges and fell inside.
I didn't return to the monastery. And I left the country soon after.
So that's how it is...
* * *
The first time this happened was in France. At that time I was studying in my first year at the Sorbonne. Even though more than a year had passed since our last meeting, Suo just wouldn't leave my head. She really tamed my Beast, oh she tamed it... Believe it or not, it came to... failures. Upon arriving in the country, I picked up a hooker three times, and three times I just drank tea with her. Not the slightest desire arose to take her, neither physical nor psychological. As if she withered it away, the bald witch... Nothing worked.
The desire is there, desire in general, a need for a woman, but it's impossible to satisfy it. Everything is wrong: the voice is wrong, the way she moves is wrong, the smell is wrong... It's wrong!
I raged terribly then. Drank heavily, used all possible drugs (some even kicked in for about five minutes), walked into the forest at night, sailed out to sea on a yacht, trained until I was senseless, until madness...
Then Nicole appeared in my life, it got a little easier... Just a little bit. At least I quit drugs and alcohol, so as not to set a bad example. But the Beast still yearned and howled at the moon at night.
And then one day this happened.
I was sitting sleeplessly in an armchair in my room, in my house, staring with unseeing eyes at the wall. At an empty bare wall. Like that, in that position, I probably fell asleep. Because suddenly the wall lit up with a ring of fire, inside of which shone the night sky of Tibet and distant mountain peaks could be seen.
And straight from this ring, Suo stepped onto the floor of my room.
She managed to take three steps.
"Vic, I..." she started to say, but I was already in front of her. A centimeter in front of her.
"Just shut up, woman!" I growled softly and menacingly, putting a finger to her lips. "Shut up, and enjoy," the next moment I was already greedily kissing MY WOMAN.
I loved her endlessly long and passionately.
At the end, we lay together on the bed, and Suo slowly ran her fingers through the hair on my chest.
"What a good dream," I said, kissing her on the top of her head.
"A dream..." she started. Looked at me strangely and said. "Indeed, a dream. Let it be a dream. Sleep!" and I began to sink into a slumber. Strange: to fall asleep in a dream. But, before I fell into a drowsy stupor completely, I saw Suo pick up some bauble shaped like an eye. And then there was a ring of fire again, into which my woman walked away.
It seemed a week had passed, even seemed to have seen the sun rise and set outside the window more than once or twice...
But I woke up in the exact same armchair in which I had fallen asleep. After only an hour.
Nothing in the room reminded me or hinted that this might not have been a dream: all things remained in their exact places, the bed was uncreased. Only the scent of her body seemed to hover in the air...
I took that wall apart stone by stone.
And then built it up again.
Enrolled in a painting course.
And painted my dream. Over the entire wall. And now from my wall, a bald woman in clothes resembling Tibetan monastic attire steps out of a ring of fire.
And this dream visited me more than once after that. Not twice and not ten times. And it was more real than reality itself. And it always began and ended with a ring of fire, through which Suo came at the beginning and left at the end.
Also, she wanted to tell me something in these dreams. But never had the time. And over time she got used to it and stopped trying, accepting the fact that nothing would come of it anyway. The Beast no longer raged and howled at the moon. I wouldn't say it became calm, but again, everything is known by comparison.
Since then, in every house of mine where I happened to live for more than a month, I chose a wall. And painted my dream. Each time more beautifully than before, because from dream to dream, Suo's clothes changed. She didn't appear in the same one twice. And my mastery in painting grew.
It was amusing to watch in the dreams how Suo, having stepped out of the wall, then examines this wall with interest, shaking her head, before I gathered her into an embrace...
Erskine tried for a very long time (all six years we were neighbors) to find out from me who was painted on the wall of our room. But I only ever remained silent and smiled at that.
Erik never entered my room in our house once. Just as I never entered his. It wasn't such a taboo, but we respected each other's personal space.
True, there was one thing I lied to him about. I didn't go to Holland to the prostitutes, as I told him, so he wouldn't tag along. Nothing worked out for me with them, so I didn't even try anymore. Simply, I didn't want him to know about the Dragon Arena. He doesn't have a Healing Factor, after all, and the opponents there can be... You could easily lose an arm or a leg. Or a head. I, on the other hand, simply couldn't do without those fights anymore. Whether I was beaten or did the beating myself, it didn't matter. I lacked that intensity, that passion, that adrenaline and excitement that came only in a fair fight with an equal or stronger opponent. Not with an enemy. An enemy is killed at any time, in any place, and in any way, without any pleasure, simply doing a job. But with an opponent, you can fight fairly. An opponent can be spared. You can turn your back to him after a victory...
In Japan, the dreams stopped coming for some reason. Not immediately, but gradually. The last time I dreamed of Suo was in sixty-three.
That was the very year I tracked down and killed Bolivar Trask (you don't think I forgot who caused the deaths of so many mutants in the canon?). In the most ordinary and human way—I shot him with a pistol in his own house, staging a robbery (and there was plenty to take from him! My stash in France was greatly replenished).
The Beast was nervous and raging again, but the practices of Aikido and Misogi were amazingly effective, helping me cope with myself from day to day. From year to year. With the longing that had settled in back in the thirties. With the thought that Suo could already have died of old age, and dreams are only dreams... They prove nothing, just like their absence.
* * * End of flashback.