Chapter 75
***
"Natasha — the ventilation!" I snapped the order before the people standing behind the door had fully processed what had happened. I pointed at the square ventilation opening near the ceiling, covered by a decorative plastic grille. The killer's scent led there. Barely perceptible, but unmistakable.
The opening was narrow — even at a glance, only a child could have squeezed through it. Or a mutant with a very particular set of abilities.
Natasha didn't ask for clarification. She broke into a sprint immediately — running. I was certain she understood exactly what I meant and had headed for the main shafts. The odds weren't high that the killer would exit the same way they'd come in, but the probability wasn't zero. Either way, that route had to be traced.
"You." My finger shifted to one of the bodyguards. "Forensic experts and an operations team — now!" He was moving before he'd consciously decided to. And then he didn't stop, having recognized on his own that the order made sense.
"You." The finger moved to another guard. "Lock down the building. Immediately. Cordon it off and detain everyone currently inside. Everyone." He nodded and broke into a run.
"You." I turned to the Rector. "Seal off the library. Contain the information leak. Calm the students. No panic." He nodded and ran too.
"The rest of you — ten steps back. Don't approach. Stay where you are. Wait for the operations team. No talking to each other. No passing objects between you. No closer than a meter to anyone." I swept a glare over the remaining people, then pointed at the third bodyguard. "Keep them in line," I said, with weight. He gave a solemn, meaningful nod, then turned to face the shuffling, shifting crowd with a stern authority all his own.
The moment everyone's attention was elsewhere, I jumped to Kamar-Taj. Directly into Suo's working hall — the room where she normally holds her lessons.
Suo was there. She was sitting at the table, watching me. There was every impression that she had known I was coming. More than that — that she had been waiting.
Her arms were folded across her chest. The expression on her face, in her eyes, declared that she was prepared for a long argument and would not move an inch from her position. I know her well enough in that regard. I've had ample time to study her.
On the table in front of her, but closer to my side of it, lay the Eye of Agamotto. And not a single student in sight — which was itself unusual for this time of day.
"Suo…" I took a step forward, beginning to speak. She cut me off with a raised hand.
"Do it yourself," she said flatly, and her hand lowered to point at the pendant lying on the table. Or was it an amulet? Though, Zen, what possible difference did it make what the artifact was called.
"But—"
"No," she said, cutting me off again, and refolded her arms across her chest.
"Rraur!!" I snarled, instead of saying aloud the word "witch" that was straining at that moment to escape my lips. But she was, after all, my witch. One thing was clear: she would not back down. Arguing, threatening, asking, pleading, forcing her by hand — useless. And time was passing.
I grabbed the Eye and jumped back to the university library's reading room.
Back in seventy-eight, during the nuclear war ordeal — the one that, mercifully, never came to pass — the theoretical portion of my training had included Suo walking me through this trinket in meticulous detail. How to use it. Which configurations of figures, in what sequence. How to make a puncture, and from which Dimension. In this case, of course, the "Dimension" was the Stone itself, seated inside the artifact. The artifact served as both a safeguard and an interface, making the Stone's capabilities accessible.
She had even made me read the Book of Cagliostro. Not just read it — read it carefully, and then examined me on it afterward. She made me reconstruct the weave structures from memory on paper — the ones used in various actions and rituals, all the way up to summoning Dormammu. As if she knew, Zen, that it would be needed. Though — why "as if"? Of course she knew. With that device, she can "see probabilities" — something she does on a constant basis, as her work protecting our Dimension demands.
Hm. What a menace. I'd thought, in my naivety back then, that with my little gambit — bringing in Xavier — I had outplayed her. Naïve Canadian boy. But here it was, as it turned out — an elegant, multi-move play. I probably couldn't have pulled that off. Wouldn't have had the patience… or would I? Hm.
Didn't matter.
I cleared my head of everything extraneous. I put the pendant around my neck — or amulet? Whatever.
I focused on it and on the required figure-configurations for its activation. Create: an act of will, spatial imagination, visualization… Puncture! Slightly more powerful than needed, but within tolerance. Feeding power into the visualized circuit — there, it's running.
Under the gaze of Natasha's eyes — round with shock, having returned empty-handed — a powered weave materialized around my outstretched hand, glowing green.
Right. A sweep of the hand to the side — the Eye opens. A soft click informed me the operation had succeeded. Next: direct the Eye's "cone of sight" onto the target, adjust the focus until both the subject and the surrounding area were fully within the cone. Done.
Formation, visualization, puncture, power feed into a new control circuit — there. Circuit ready. Weave ready. Artifact active. Now calibration of the control effect.
No more than ten minutes had passed since the death. So I set one minute as the grid step. Done.
I swept my hand slowly from right to left, counting off the minutes, rewinding time for the subject.
The eyes of Natasha and the handful of other witnesses grew wider and wider, threatening to slide entirely free of their sockets — the eyelids no longer able to hold them, stretched as they were. The blood beneath the body began to flow backward. The pool shrank and drew itself back into the flesh. The body rose. The head leapt to its proper place and reattached.
*Did it work?* The thought flashed through my mind.
And then the world froze. Instantly, entirely. And no — this wasn't a freeze frame, or rather, not my freeze frame — because standing beside the risen Stalin was a figure in dark clothing. A female figure.
And I understood that I had walked into it again.
*Damn magic!* As if last time hadn't been enough — getting reassembled piece by piece out in a desert. And now here we were: sign here and acknowledge receipt. A personal visitation from Marvel's personification of Death.
"Ze-e-e-e-e-en," I exhaled slowly, lowering my arm — around which the circuits and constructs showed no intention of fading.
***
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