Бесплатный фрагмент - The Unnamed Violin

Deep down, I knew I was not a cat at all, but I had to play the part to stay in her arms a little longer.

— Stella Fracta, Wild and Violent

0. No choice

I tried to fill the void — but I didn’t know how to fill it with joy … So I filled it with pain.

I slid on the black mud, I scraped my palms on the rough ledges of the rocks, trying to catch hold of something … But in the end, everything turned out as I was told.

A loser, a weakling, and a hopeless fool — once I believed that I could be like everyone else — if I tried hard enough. I just wanted — I do want — to be with her. That’s all I need.

Magic Unnamed Violins, fulfilling wishes, showing the truth, have nothing to do with it. Even if I hear music that has not yet been played … Everything has already happened.

Everything is predetermined, everything is predestined, by the rules of the Game, by invariants. We are all cursed — to run forever in an endless cycle of deaths and rebirths around the Fractured Star, in the wheel of samsara, from the merry-go-round of which no one can escape.

I was told I had a Choice.

I have no choice … I have only love — which they call the strong bond that holds the Universe together, another immutable element of the system, the burden of predestiny, the chain and the rope.

I’m really sorry that it all turned out this way. I’m really sorry.

But I still have many tries for a world of verses in the other multiple variants — for these are the rules of the Game.

1. The Violin

In the reflection of the dressing room mirror, there are two figures caught by the light: mine, with my arms folded thoughtfully across my chest, and a man on a stool in the center of the room, with a package on his knees.

Baphomet continued to boast about his new violin, listing the instrument’s features, using terms jarring to the inexperienced ear. I would have been happy for him — if not for the circumstances.

He was almost late for the concert, he missed the rehearsal and sound check, brought some kind of violin, showed up only at the very beginning of the performance, and even with a jacked up face.

“Look at the ribs, the c-bouts, the f-holes,” he continued. “And the plates are made of flame maple — like those on Venetian gondolas!”

“Yeah, Met, I see. Tell me what’s wrong with you. Were you fighting for this violin?”

He burst out laughing, threw his head back, showing an even row of sharp teeth, and then got serious and started to glance around — at the shadows sitting in the corners.

“Well …” he drawled. “Yes.”

“Did you steal it?”

He clutched the silk-wrapped violin to himself — as if it were the greatest treasure. I let out a cry of indignation.

“Victor, don’t talk nonsense,” he narrowed his eyes — as if I had said something stupid. “A violin like that, it’s impossible to steal!”

Baphomet emphasized the end of the phrase with his voice. Damned wordplay — my musicians’ favorite pastime … Sometimes I didn’t get it, and I was tired of trying.

Rare and antique musical instruments are carefully guarded in museums and private collections. I doubt that Met can afford the legendary violins.

I shifted from one foot to the other and kept a pause of disapproving silence. It didn’t work on him.

“Oh really? In this world, you can steal anything if you want,” I shook my head. “So where did you get it from?”

I pointed at the package. I wouldn’t have cared what kind of violin it was or how it ended up in his hands, but he was acting suspicious. He was strange, stranger than usual. If the police came for him, we’d all be face down here.

“An auction of antique instruments. Early eighteenth century, an unregistered example of the highest quality, not the Cremonese School …”

I was a gifted vocalist, I played keyboards and guitar well, but never touched the violins: the sound of bowed stringed instruments caused me auditory discomfort. The voice of the violin is compared to the human voice … A subject for speculation by mystifiers.

“Last documented appearance — in Eastern Europe, everything matches up. This is the very violin, custom-made by the Unnamed Luthier, the violin thought to be lost forever,” Baphomet declared. “The violin of the Architect of this universe, the only one known to have survived, the Unnamed Violin!”

So that’s it! Antique violins worth a fortune are not the worst of it … Met can’t get enough of his Fractured Star sect, can’t get over the legend of some great violin of the Architect of the Universe — which is somehow special, reveals some kind of secrets of creation.

People believe in what they want to believe. Our aliases, demonic entourage, grotesque costumes are part of the stage image, but Baphomet believed in all this nonsense about the Fractured Star, the Mother of Demons, the center of the multi-world Universe, the Game, and the rules … I just played along with my mates, I didn’t get into the essence.

It would be better if the violin remained in oblivion … Several centuries ago, the aristocracy dabbled in the occult, ordered exclusive instruments from luthiers, and now they are in special demand.

“And you decided that you needed it.”

“Of course!” Met did not perceive my remark as irony. “Yes, Victor, I bought it, and it was not easy, believe me, especially because of the psych fanatics who would do anything.”

Is it really worth it?

“For the record, you are no different from them now, the same patient at Kings Park. Legends remain legends, a violin is just a violin — no matter what got into your head. You’ve got a screw loose because of your sect, and the violin’s place is in the Met Fifth Avenue!”

Baphomet blinked and, confused, as if waking up, clasped his hands around the instrument. He was silent.

“Screw it. Why did you fight?”

Met hesitated.

“I was about to come here, it was dark, he jumped out like a jack-in-the-box, out of nowhere, attacked me, gloomy, creepy … The violin thief! But that’s not the point, absolutely not the point! I haven’t told you the most important thing yet! You confused me with your nerdy questions!”

Baphomet theatrically, smiling, hit himself on the forehead. I frowned.

“The last Unnamed Violin belonged to Lord Vladan, that same Count in Eastern Europe — until it was stolen from the castle by a wandering architect. Well, you remember. The violin had not been heard of for two centuries — but recently it was miraculously found in some junk shop, in the clutter of antiques, they contacted an appraiser — and here we go. No one could even imagine! Victor, do you hear me? This is actually your violin too,” he stressed, “that is, the violin of your ancestors, since Count Vladan is your distant relative. I wanted to make a surprise, I rushed here to explain everything … But don’t get your hopes up — I won’t give it to you, because you don’t know how to play.”

Wait! What does this have to do with me? Another legend! I really did have a Count Vladan in my family, and he had some kind of violin …

The magic Unnamed Violin and my ancestors with their family tree — which I don’t even really know.

Freaking sect.

“Victor, are you speechless from joyful amazement?” Met laughed, slyly squinting his cat-like green eyes. “Or are you not happy?”

I hardly put my thoughts into speech.

“What should I be happy about?” I muttered, discontented with the subject. “Violins are your thing. Fine,” I sighed and took a step back, I had lost the desire to continue the conversation. “We’ll wait for you on stage.”

I turned abruptly on my heels and left the room, leaving a satisfied Baphomet alone with that violin.

With my devilish violin.

2. Forget My Name

Good Room nightclub hall in Brooklyn was bright, loud, sweaty, and crowded — just like the seven masked demons always were at their shows. For the third day now, both at rehearsals and tonight, Baphomet had been playing the Unnamed Violin, and I wanted to run out of the room from an inexplicable unease. Only the music held me back, I was drowning in beams of white light, blinded by a stroboscope, driven by the stories on stage.

There was a struggle inside, a torment and a sweet, terrifying pleasure, flashes of images that I couldn’t even describe. It had nothing to do with the acting task … I felt like I was starting to go crazy, like I wasn’t myself while I was on stage.

I asked Kaftz and Belial if anything strange had happened on stage — but the guitarists only praised the play, using the phrase ‘your violin,’ as if, damn it, it was me playing and not Met!

Am I the only one who notices how the instrument affects us?!

Cellist Met Hedman, aka the demon Baphomet, left yet another girlfriend looking around boredly, separated from the major group and sat down next to me, who had settled down at the bar counter. I was trying to get drunk and get over the intrusive violin melody spinning in my head — under the booming beats of rhythmic patterns for dancing sinners, merging into colorful spots with flashes of neon lights.

“Victor, what’s wrong with you? Stop being sad, join us … Look, your fangirls are over there. They’ve asked about you many times. Look at one of them’s ass … Come on, look, she’s waving at you.”

I winced, shaking my head without even turning around: I didn’t need one-time acquaintances. I’ll manage somehow.

“You sang well today,” he chuckled, and I looked up at him sullenly. “Your voices merged into unison.”

He twirled something suspiciously resembling a violin case in his hands at chest level, and I wheezed, “Do you carry this around with you all the time?!”

“Yes,” he answered carelessly, misinterpreting my reaction, “otherwise anything could happen …”

I sighed heavily, leaning my elbows on the counter in resignation, covering my face with the hand. I really wanted Met to leave me alone, I wanted to be alone.

“Everything is clear with you,” he said, as if he had read my thoughts, standing up and stretching in his typical cat-like manner — as much as there was space among the bodies surrounding the bar counter. “Don’t drink too much,” he laughed at last, pushing me in the shoulder. “The whole night is ahead of you.”

Well said … Despite my build, which would require just one cocktail to make me forget my name, I didn’t get drunk for a long time — even if I took everything the bartender had on the shelves.

The idea of forgetting my name seemed very tempting.

3. Black Shadow

It seemed to appear out of nowhere: a black shadow shot up from under my feet, suddenly appearing in front of me. I was drunk and at first I thought this strange dark something was just a hallucination — but the figure moved towards me, and I instinctively recoiled, raising my hand to eye level.

The rope looped around my wrist, pulling me forward, and I fell to my knees, trying to break free. I braced my feet and one hand against the rough surface of the asphalt, I resisted as best I could, grabbing the lasso, and soon sobriety returned to me.

The shadow wanted to pull me into a dark alley? I let the rope lift me, turning my body towards the one who dragged me along the ground like a calf.

I wanted to push him, but I missed. My left limb was still tied up, I only caught him with my right elbow, falling with all my might onto the pavement, sliding on the ground again.

The shadow’s reaction was quick.

He tried to twist my arm, skirting and pulling the lasso. He moved quickly and elusively, I followed him, rising to my feet. I held on to the rope that was squeezing my wrist, I couldn’t see where he was … It was dark, and his eyes were glowing in the darkness — yellow, like a beast’s.

I won’t manage to escape.

“What the hell do you want from me?!”

I screamed into the void — and blindly jumped at him once more.

This time I knocked the shadow off his feet, and we both fell to the ground. I expected a blow as I fell backwards, but he only pinned me to the pavement, throwing me over my side. He rose instantly, yellow eyes flashing in the darkness. He was silent, I thought I had gone deaf, and all I could hear was my own clumsy movements.

I jumped up abruptly, following his example, but my trembling knees failed me, and I lost a precious fraction of a second … A knife flashed before my nose, I didn’t have time to jump back, I just struck with a backhand and almost at random on the wrist, reflexively.

This only works against right-handed people …

I came across the cutting edge, which had become an extension of the stranger’s glove — and the next second I was already turning the blade away from me, squeezing the base of the handle.

The blood pounded in my ears. I could already imagine my body with multiple stab wounds lying in the alley for several days until a couple of hobos found it, already eaten by rats.

The eerie eyes narrowed, something hot was running down my sleeve to the elbow, only later I realized it was blood … I could no longer move, and the stranger squeezed my hand tighter — with the blade cutting into it — around the handle, the knife, and his own hand. The movements of the left hand were still constrained by a thin slippery thread, disappearing into the sleeve of the flowing cloak of shadow.

A mad, desperate idea came to me. I jerked, feeling the knife go deeper into my palm, and my opponent — as I imagined — smiled an invisible smile. I tried to turn around, to kick him … I cut the cord of the noose that had gotten under the blade, and the cut edge of the lasso disappeared.

In a misplaced act of bravado, I tried to hit him, but he dodged. He let go of my hand, and I, realizing promptly that it was time to stand from under, rushed in the opposite direction from him.

The back of the club seemed like a long dark alley, and at the turn I fell again on my hopelessly skinned knees, I was running, I was out of breath. Finding myself on an empty, deserted street in Greenpoint, I looked back, but there was no sinister shadow pursuing me.

Having already slammed the door, finding myself in my Defender, I tried to stop shaking, even out my hoarse breathing, staring at my bloody hands.

What does he want from me? Money, a phone, car keys? With a rope, a knife … He’s not a robber, he looks more like an assassin who got the era wrong or a serial killer from a horror movie.

Feeling like I was about to pass out, I slapped myself across the cheeks.

4. Icy Hands

I didn’t remember how I got home and treated the cut. I woke up in bed with a hangover, my hand hastily covered with a bandage, my shirt unbuttoned and one shoe missing — because I couldn’t unlace it.

The odd incident had no explanation. The stranger in the alley had intended to strangle me, the purple stripe of the hematoma and the swelling on my left wrist were proof of that. It was too late to apply ice … What happened to my right hand under the bandage was anyone’s guess — but it would heal. I’m left-handed anyway.

I tried to get up, tossing and turning on the crumpled sheets in the pose of a dead cockroach, but it didn’t work right away. Finally, I took an upright position and went to the bathroom.

A thin, pale guy with dark circles under his eyes was looking at me sullenly from the reflection in the mirror of the cabinet. On the cheek was a red mark from the corner of the pillow, which I usually don’t lie on, but only prop up with my head.

I turned on the water with disobedient hands and stared at the sink drain, trying to stop the buzzing in my ears. There were few thoughts in my head, and they all sounded like memorized clichés … And I really wanted to lie down and die.

There’s been worse shit — and for some reason I started moping. So what, a fight in an alley! So what, a fight in an alley with an incorporeal black shadow!

I shivered. The shadow wasn’t incorporeal, the shadow had icy hands in gloves. Everyone who repeats the refrain: ‘Victor, your hands are like a dead man’s, cold!’ is probably mistaken.

If I am a dead man, then who is he — this guy with glowing yellow eyes?

I looked up from the rushing water in the sink. My eyes were gray, not yellow … I grinned mirthlessly.

A second later, I was already trying to wipe the dirt off my cheek — wincing and cursing through my teeth of the pain in my limbs. I’ll have to get used to it.

It was uncomfortable to stand in one boot. I struggled to pull off my unlaced Dr Martens, angry that I couldn’t bend over, my knees looked as bad as they felt through the layer of dirt and dried blood over my torn pants. Finally, I managed to get rid of the boot, and, limping awkwardly, I threw it angrily through the doorway somewhere in the direction of the room. It hit the obstacle with a loud, dull thud, but there were no other sounds. I hadn’t broken anything.

I sent the shirt flying like a black blot after the boot. In a thoughtless, sickening stupor, I unzipped my fly and sat down on the edge of the bathtub, my head spinning … I was pulled out of my trance by an extraneous sound, as if not from my lonely reality — a phone ringing, coming from the room.

I lazily pulled my jeans down to my knees and didn’t even think of answering. It was probably the persistent Kaftzefoni — he was the only one of my circle who woke up in the first half of the day.

The phone went silent, I yanked my jeans down from my knees, tearing off layers of skin along with my clothes … Unpleasant. The jaw hurt from clenching my teeth. Damn that guy from the alley!

Once I had finished with all my clothes, freeing myself from the tight pants — not for the first time regretting wearing tight jeans — I climbed into the shower.

To hell with it all — I need to wash myself off from this nasty day.

Leaning my shoulder against the wall, closing my eyes tiredly, I could again hear the sound of the phone through the noise of the water.

5. In Its Place

I wanted to smoke. I rushed around the apartment looking for a pack of cigarettes: keys, money, phone — everything was in place … My habit of emptying the contents of my pockets on the nightstand as soon as I returned home had not let me down, but the cigarettes were nowhere to be found. I was disappointed — but soon my gaze fell upon the pack on the floor between the nightstand and the bed.

Praise be to all the gods, demons, the Fractured Star, whoever.

I took a drag. Everything in its place, a cozy little world. People call it social phobia … I didn’t care what they called it. I didn’t need people.

The part of the world I appear in is just underground, these are masks and roles, the real me, it seems, no one really knows. There are eight million people in New York City, seven billion on the planet … I am lucky that my existence is remembered only when it is necessary to entertain the crowd with music, I am lucky that for some reason I am useful in the business that I do best.

I lay on my back across the bed, my head thrown back, looking at the colorless daytime sky, turned upside down, the gray day with gloomy clouds feebly breaking through the window. I didn’t want to do anything, again this familiar apathy … I can do nothing.

I sat up. The cigarette had long since burned out in my hand, the pain in my wrist was pulsing with heat, the bandage was white on my palm. Indifferently looking around the room, I suddenly remembered the missed phone call. I hobbled to the nightstand.

Two missed calls. From an unknown number.

The thought that this number and the new acquaintance with yellow eyes were somehow connected sent an unpleasant chill down my spine. Nonsense.

My eyes were closing, either from fatigue or boredom. Curled up in a fetal position — as much as my crippled limbs allowed — I fell asleep. Later, I never remembered the missed call or called back.

Outside the windows of the apartment building, uninteresting to me, a New York anthill was seething, the evening streetlamps lit up in the twilight, inviting the autumn night. I dreamed of yellow eyes and a laughing violin dancing around a gypsy fire.

6. Freaks Me Out

“You used my credit card?”

I was taken aback and just blinked my eyes in confusion.

“Yeah, what’s wrong? You owe me a couple hundred.”

“How— Why are you telling me this only now?”

The club staff rushed past us with a bunch of wires under their arms, and I had to step aside so as not to get in the way as they passed.

I glared at Baphomet. That bastard paid for the violin with my credit card!

“But it’s your violin,” he justified himself.

He didn’t even try to feign remorse — he saw that I wasn’t angry, just confused.

“It’s not my violin,” I said, turning on my heels towards the stage.

I was alarmed by the news, the rage was less than the inexplicable anxiety. Sometimes these demon musicians are so odd …

I looked back at Met, swallowing my unspoken doubts, and just shrugged my shoulders peacefully, “Never mind, it’s time for us to go.”

After the performance, I felt like death warmed over. The audience screamed and applauded, but it seemed to me that I was being driven into a corner, hopelessness was shrinking like a narrow beam of light in which I, like a circus beast, bare my body and soul for everyone to see …

Already in the dressing room I realized that I had simply run away, not paying attention to the enthusiastic roar of the crowd, begging for a continuation, chanting the name of our band, my name. Seeing a dark figure in the reflection behind me, I jumped up like a scalded cat, but was pinned to the stool by a heavy hand.

“Victor, are you sick?”

The demon Kaftzefoni — aka Kaftz, aka Keith Sandström — had crept up unnoticed and was looking at me attentively. The focused expression on his face was rare.

Why did I chicken out? I just need to get some sleep.

“I’m great … Wonderful,” I pursed my lips, not even trying to look convincing.

There is no point in lying to Kaftz. He is not a fool — even if he pretends to be a jester, with his guitar tricks and dances on stage, his nasty and obscene humor.

“Does this violin freak you out?”

He’s right, this violin freaks me out — the problem is definitely with it, nothing else.

I turned around on my stool and found myself face to face with the goat head mask in the musician’s hands, silently laughing at me with its horned muzzle. I looked up at Kaftzefoni, who was looking down at me with a testing gaze. The mask bore an obvious resemblance to him.

Scratching his goateed chin, Kaftz said, “I don’t like your dull appearance.”

“Me too,” I responded with genuine annoyance. “But it really does freak me out!”

Kaftz leaned over, and the goat’s head swung, watching me with its brown eyes. I wanted to flick it on the nose, but I restrained myself.

“I know what to do,” the head said in the voice of Kaftz, who was standing in front of me. “Have you ever seen how to fight fire with fire?”

Burn the violin? I can do that easily!

Unfortunately, it was just a figure of speech. I shook my head, pulling away, already knowing deep down what he was going to make me do. I opened my mouth to protest, but changed my mind.

Yet another cliché … What do I have to lose? Having sat in a cozy little world for too long, sooner or later I will knock over the swing that has stopped rocking, self-sabotage is my middle name.

A few moments later I was already confidently walking out of the dressing room, bypassing the watchful fans of our musical creativity, to join the rest of my mates in demonic guises. Kaftzefoni, carrying a goat-head mask like a ritual bowl, followed me.

7. Unplayed Note

He must have been smiling smugly, nodding to the others that he had inspired me to play the violin. I couldn’t see his face, but I felt six pairs of eyes looking at me expectantly — as if I were going to come up with something brilliant, and it would be the greatest violin concerto.

I just shrugged and walked up to a table in the private room — where outsiders were not allowed during performances — and in a black, slightly open case lay this damn violin. I reached out my hands to the instrument, my skin covered in goosebumps.

To hell with it! I took the violin and bow out of the case, the black silk slipped from under my fingers and fell at my feet.

The violin on the left shoulder, under the chin, the bow in the right hand … This instrument will not produce anything except a squeal and wheeze, I have never touched violins, they have nothing to count on — I even hold my hands anyhow. Four strings, the sound comes from the movement of the bow along them, its body is just a resonator, not a demonic artifact at all …

With the bow raised above the violin, I froze, catching my breath, it became difficult to even think. A strange, familiar — but as if long forgotten — smell from the chinrest of the instrument touched the receptors, the memories awakened by the scent of perfume were ghostly, elusive. As if I was trying to remember a dream — the plots of which are impossible to describe in words.

It was so simple: to make at least some sound … But I resisted. I just stood there and stared with wide-open eyes off into space, the music coming from somewhere far away filled me from within, it flowed into my ears, mixing with the growing hum, covering everything around with a babbling veil. It was hard to breathe, and something heavy was pressing on my chest, but my body was almost ready to start playing. To surrender.

But I resisted.

It is said, musicians have a special sense of time — because they foresee the future through unplayed notes that sound in their heads. To live a whole life, to die a little death through music … Another idealization, romanticization, attributing magic properties to phenomena that do not possess ones.

Emerging from the pool, I discerned the surprised and expectant faces of the demon musicians staring at me. What are they waiting for?

It seemed alive, and its warm body and breathing lines of shiny wood sang a pleasant, alluring melody, audible only to me. They coaxed, they begged me … They called me.

The hand holding the bow almost dropped onto the open string, and an unplayed note was already ringing in my ears … And then a sharp pain pierced my hands, causing me to wake up in an instant.

Yellow eyes flashed before me, dissolving in the black shadow, and I felt a dead cold inside, a cold from which there was no escape. Everything disappeared instantly, and I, feeling the growing pain in my wrists, took a step forward, carefully placed the violin and bow on the table and went out.

Nobody stopped me.

8. Price

When I was fifteen, I already knew for sure that I wanted to become a real musician. Success was heady — even if it was a crowd gathered to listen to a teenager with a guitar on Dam Square next to the Royal Palace in the center of Amsterdam.

By that time I was already playing well. I picked out popular tunes that were on the radio by ear, I could imitate anyone’s voice — and the audience did not mind my unkempt appearance, nor the fact that at some point I could suddenly jump up and run, escaping from the police, who did not always allow street musicians to entertain the crowd.

But I even became friends with some of the patrolmen. True, they always joked that I should put a red street cat on my shoulder and tell everyone that I was a drug addict in rehabilitation.

I never considered myself lucky, but that period was when good fortune was with me — since two strangers gave me a real legendary acoustic Gibson, to replace my old guitar that was out of tune. I almost started squealing with joy, I didn’t really see their faces — I only remember two silhouettes that came up to me while I was sleeping — in the square on Marnixstraat, where there is a monument in the form of a coat, a hat, and a violin case without a person inside.

I woke up, I realized in my sleep that they wouldn’t hurt me, and there was a new guitar already standing by the bench. One had long hair and cat-like green eyes, the other had a bowler hat and a goatee … Later I began to think I had made up their appearance — because no one else like them had ever approached me in the three months that I had been playing that guitar.

Then the envious hobos, whose bread I was taking away by the power of music, broke both my arms at the wrists and almost put the broken guitar on my head.

Then I finally realized that everything has its price — especially success.

The hand was bleeding again. A week had passed since the incident in the alley, the hematoma from the noose had almost healed, the cut palm no longer caused any discomfort … Until tonight.

Why did I listen to Kaftz and pick up this violin!

I was pacing around the empty restroom at the club, I turned on the cold water faucet and put my hand under the icy stream. A crimson puddle spread across the sink, and I pressed my left hand to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

How come is there so much blood …?

My sight was dimmed. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t have the strength to think about it. If I waited, the clouding of my mind would pass.

The main thing is that sympathetic mates don’t show up in the restroom.

I often took advantage of the fact that demons do not ask unnecessary questions and are understanding of my secrecy. Sometimes it seemed to me they took me for someone else … This time, they clearly overestimated my violin skills.

I put the paper towel, which was instantly soaked with blood, to my palm and looked at myself in the mirror. For a moment, it seemed to me my light gray eyes flashed yellow … An overactive imagination and the effect of light.

The theatrical scenery turned out to be too realistic, it was a shame to believe in the mysticism we created with our own hands. The puppet is only playing, it must remember that the stage has an edge, the ceiling overlays the dome of the sky, and the sun above is just lighting fixtures.

I looked around hauntedly as I left the building, hurrying to get home — but naturally there were no shadows or violins even in the darkest corners and nooks.

9. Gray

As soon as the waitress approached me, I asked for an americano and still water. I wasn’t hungry, even though I hadn’t eaten since the day before. The lawyer had called this morning and said something about a will, but I hadn’t listened to the details, as always, with half an ear. I had agreed to meet him at a coffee shop in Midtown, and now I was glancing at the clock while I waited.

I arrived early — but not because I don’t like being late. This way I could enjoy my coffee alone.

The waitress, setting out the cutlery, looked at me oddly from under her lowered eyelashes; I didn’t immediately realize that she was making eyes. In response to her smile, I merely thanked her routinely and looked away.

I took a place with a view towards the entrance out of habit. The bell rang, and Mr. Gray appeared in the door, awkwardly shouldering into the stiffly opened leaf.

“Good morning, Mr. Reichenberg,” he greeted me as he drew level with the table.

“Good morning, Mr. Gray.”

Rex Grayhad been sorting through my paperwork for years — and not just mine; he was the only one who addressed me by my real name. On paper, I was still Victor Myer, with the simple last name assigned to me at the orphanage.

He sat down opposite me, I immediately turned around and found the waitress with my eyes, who was nearby within hearing distance.

“Double espresso, please,” I asked.

I didn’t need to raise my voice, she heard me anyway. My cup of coffee remained untouched at that moment.

“Thank you,” the lawyer replied and put a leather binder on the table, his gaze catching my hands. “You remember.”

I nodded.

“I must know how to appease you so that you don’t torment me with questions for a long time.”

Gray chuckled, still not taking his eyes off my hands lying on the table.

“What happened to your hands?”

“Trifle, not a big deal,” I said casually, trying to answer as naturally as possible. “No harm done.”

Gray sighed. He probably thinks I cut my veins … Or fell off the stage while drunk at a concert.

As soon as he was served coffee, he unzipped the binder with three practiced movements.

I felt the waitress’s gaze on the back of my head.

“I’ve learned that you have acquired an antique musical instrument from the early eighteenth century, and—”

I let out a pained groan, dropping my head onto the outstretched hand, covering my face.

Having interpreted my reaction in his own way, Mr. Gray continued, “… you know that it is my responsibility to keep records of all your financial transactions in order to avoid various incidents. I don’t care what you spend your money on,” he looked me in the eye, trying to understand if I was listening to him. “However, what instrument you purchased specifically puzzled me.”

I raised an eyebrow. Gray was obviously expecting me to comment on his remark … Or maybe he was expecting a different reaction.

I was silent.

“Should I remind you of your family history, Mr. Reichenberg?”

I remember everything without him. But what difference does it make? Is he really going to tell stories about my ancestors’ magic violin?

I pursed my lips.

“I have every reason to believe that the violin—”

“It belonged to Count Vladan, my distant relative from Eastern Europe,” I finished for him, leaning back on the sofa in disappointment.

The lawyer nodded.

“Yes, Mr. Reichenberg. The von Reichenbergs are the only heirs of Count Vladan. The violin is part of your inheritance.”

I slapped my palms on my thighs in frustration, the pain echoing in my hands. A beautiful tale about a rare missing violin — nothing more. Even Baphomet confirmed that he had acquired the instrument to play, not to show tricks!

Fantastic stories have always been made about families with famous last names, titles that have been abolished in modern times without the preposition ‘von.’ Over the past few years, I have been stuffed with this religious nonsense about the Fractured Star Universe, and now this violin of the Architect …

Another legend says that the Count studied alchemy in the castle — should I believe that? If he hadn’t been messing around, the wandering architect visiting his domain wouldn’t have stolen the violin.

“… documents confirming my words, and the purchase will have to be contested. However, this is not just a violin, Mr. Reichenberg, this is a special one — everything that has happened so far matters. Whoever stole the violin was a talented musician, he—”

“Yeah, I know, the violin was magic, and the architect really liked it …” I interrupted Gray and grimaced mockingly. “The architect wanted to become the Architect. I remember this story. As a child, I heard all this more than once.”

The age of fifteen I called childhood.

“Then you must understand, the violin did not fall into your hands just like that! You are the only heir to the instrument. I see that you are skeptical and do not want to hear me, but—”

He suddenly fell silent, looking around cautiously. Leaning forward slightly, the lawyer said in a half-tone quieter voice, “Everything they say about the violin is true. It, like the Star, in each variant of multiverse, allows you to comprehend the Architect’s design, shows invariants — so that the player can know his fate. Count Vladan’s castle was the only place where one can use the violin — because nothing happens in the castle. Since then, your family has owned the violin for centuries, comprehended the rules of the game, and the demons served them …”

Yes, it turns out he is a sectarian! My jaw felt the force of gravity.

“Mr. Gray, I could not expect you to believe in the Fractured Star, you pleasantly surprised me, but let me know why you remind me of this?”

As if regretting his words, the interlocutor quickly zipped the binder.

“This is all nonsense, Mr. Reichenberg. Don’t worry about it. Your purchase of the violin — I insist, purchase — was unnecessary. I will do everything as it should be, the violin is yours by right of inheritance, the transaction will be contested, the money will be returned.”

I wanted to object, but Mr. Gray had already stood up and was extending his hand for a farewell handshake. As soon as he left the café, I downed my long-cold coffee in one gulp and tried to get my thoughts in order.

It was a completely pointless conversation, which brought nothing but new questions.

I did not want to acknowledge the violin as my own. I did not need it, let it serve Baphomet, and let him command the demons, not me.

10. Demons

In the corridor, the two rushed at me: a goat’s head in place of a human’s gave away Kaftz, and his companion turned out to be bassist Belial — with a wolf’s muzzle and ruby eyes sparkling in the semi-darkness — his usual stage image. The masked men thrust a bottle of water into my hands, muttered something indistinctly and hurriedly slipped away in the opposite direction.

No musical event starts on time. Half an hour before the show … The main thing is that they return — and preferably sober.

Mephistopheles — the keyboard player and DJ — was engrossed in reading a novel by a famous author, sitting on a chair with his legs stretched out across the dressing room. He nodded at me absentmindedly, without looking up from the book’s plot, and I stepped over his feet.

In childhood and adolescence, books were almost the only consolation: I swallowed everything that came into my hands from cover to cover — English classics, stupid penny dreadfuls, historical references, and geographical atlases — anything whatsoever. I haven’t read anything for a long time.

A couple of minutes later, rhythm guitarist Asmodeus entered — and, taking his instrument and bear head mask with him, immediately left the room without even saying hello. Mephistopheles did not tear himself away from reading, only turned the page. I suddenly felt envious: I, too, was not averse to escaping from the dull routine.

Before I could sit down on any horizontal surface in the cluttered dressing room, Baphomet and drummer Beelzebub burst through the door, cackle-cackling. Continuing to laugh shrilly at a joke known only to the two of them, they began to walk in circles around the room.

Mephistopheles did not pay attention to their appearance.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, stepping aside and watching them bend down and peer under the chair with the motionless book lover.

“I lost my earpiece—”

Beelzebub laughed as soon as the giggling Met came into his sight.

“I told you: you should always play with a metronome, then the earpiece wouldn’t disappear!” Baphomet croaked, choking with laughter. “When guitarists screw up, their picks disappear too — I swear!”

He knows where the in-ear monitor is. I didn’t share their amusement at the tricks with the disappearance of objects, Baphomet often performed this hocus with everyone except me.

The search was unsuccessful, Beelzebub snorted, picked up the boar’s head standing on a shelf in the corner and headed for the door. Already stretching out his hand to open the door and demonstratively leave, he turned to me.

“Oh, this will come in handy!”

He pointed to the bottle of water in my hands — and a few seconds later he was already pouring the contents onto his shaved head.

When the drummer left the dressing room, returning the half-empty bottle to me, Mephistopheles spoke up, “Demon gentlemen, it’s time for us to go.”

And he, putting on the head-mask of a bald hare, gave us a nod, inviting us to follow him.

I caught Baphomet by the rosin-stained sleeve.

“Did you take the earpiece? When will you stop?”

He tsked disapprovingly, as if I was somehow guilty. I spread my hands, almost spilling the rest of the liquid from the open bottle. Baphomet put the mug of a giant moth-eaten cat on his head and left the room.

Before turning off the lights and leaving the dressing room, I took my mask out of the drawer.

The seven demons will play again to the devilish accompaniment of the violin.

11. She’s Mine

I dreamed of her dark eyes and pale face. I couldn’t touch her, but she was close, I felt her warm breath. She didn’t say a word, there was no need for it — I could understand without words.

It seemed to me, I always understood her without words.

Her hands reached out to me, her eyes were sad and tender, but it was as if an invisible wall separated us, and we simply weren’t destined to meet. Simply weren’t destined. I understood that.

I tried to persuade myself to be patient, I tried to restrain myself from screaming in despair, I waited for this invisible barrier to disappear and for me to be able to embrace her and inhale the scent of her hair.

For some reason I thought I knew what her hair scented like — bath salts and vanilla, some magic herbs. I waited, looking into her beautiful face, breathing only to await.

Suddenly a black shadow appeared from behind her, eclipsing all the light, and yellow eyes blocked out the world, burning through the darkness. The shadow enveloped her, and long hands in black gloves grabbed her shoulders — as if they wanted to make her a part of themselves. Swirls of darkness, wattling my legs and her legs, like a long and wide cloak flowed around the tall black silhouette.

His yellow eyes narrowed in triumph, and he pulled her toward him, leading her away. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stop him from taking her away from me — my body was frozen in a deathly cold. I called out to her, begging her not to give in to him, but she only looked at me guiltily and took a step back.

The black shadow dragged her further and further. I beat my hands against the invisible barrier, my voice scraping the throat raw, but my heart-rending cries were drowned out by the growing melody of the funeral mass — strange, unfamiliar and at the same time familiar. The more furiously I tried to break the wall, the louder the devilish violin sounded. The shadow laughed at me, and its mocking, evil laughter was painful.

I must stop him … She is mine, mine …!

I caught up with them — they were standing in front of me. His figure — the figure of a black man without a face — towered over us, and her body that he embraced with black tentacles seemed like a fragile porcelain figurine.

I reached out my hands to her — to protect her from this shadow — but they immediately appeared far ahead. He was playing with me, sending one illusion after another. His chilling laughter again cut through the ringing silence.

Turning her face towards him, holding her chin with his long black fingers, he moved closer to her. He knows I can’t get them, he knows, and I’ve lost …

He leaned down to her lips and pressed a kiss to them. A thick shadow enveloped them and everything disappeared.

Waking up from my own scream, I sat up in bed, gasping for air.

12. Autumnal Hopelessness

The yellow and brown clots of oil paint formed uneven, rough layers and flowed down the canvas. I had the impression that I was not in a gallery, but in a public restroom.

I tore myself away from contemplating a painting called ‘Autumnal Hopelessness,’ there was no escape from hopelessness. For some reason I kept wanting to wash my hands, the ‘Art of Despair’ exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Bowery was not what I expected.

My despair is usually black and white … I took two steps back without regret, and the crowd immediately squeezed into my place. Everyone wanted to gawk at the hopelessness, and I was puzzled why people were so similar to swarming flies.

I left the hall hoping I would have better luck in the next room — but there, too, disappointment and the same motifs awaited me. Even the cats — a sure bet — were in shades of brown. It’s a pity that I can’t offer my own version: how the cat, following the leitmotif of the exhibition, went crazy from autumnal hopelessness, confusing the bowl with the litter box!

Maybe I’m just out of touch.

“How did he end up here?”

A voice broke into my thoughts. In a corner of the room, devoid of liveliness, where I had managed to hide to rest from the oppressive topic of hopelessness, there was an interlocutor. Her age varied between fifty and infinity, but she was one of those who wear Prada and look down on the new generation of the bon ton crowd.

“Caught a good wave,” I responded.

And I almost added: ‘From the sewer.’

I didn’t understand contemporary artists, Ned Everglade with his ‘Life Is Pain, and After It Is Death,’ despite the loud title — like all conceptual art — hung on the wall as if out of place.

He was the only one who didn’t give the impression of total hopelessness.

“And that’s why he’s rightfully hanging in the corner,” the woman shook her head.

She said this without regret.

“Is he a copycat?” I guessed.

“Yes, the one who understands what he’s doing.”

“Why?”

She looked up at me — I was a head taller than her.

“The Art of Despair is about the art of selling your pain for money and fame.”

“He doesn’t have any pain.”

“One can fake it.”

“Why not draw cats?”

“Depression is in fashion.”

“Pooping cats.”

“To dilute the oppressive motives. To lighten the atmosphere.”

Thus, with serious faces and stilted epithets, they usually discuss Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’ in the Uffizi … We discussed the copycat in the Bowery gallery — and the creations of his colleagues.

The woman introduced herself as Martha Thompson. She was ironically supporting my taunts as I commented on the objects in the exhibition and suggested ways to arrange them so that the ugliest examples would hang in the dark parts of the room. She listened attentively.

The only valuable thing I noticed was the artist’s works not with visual images, but with texts, sharp and concise phrases. ‘I just wanted to live and do something important,’ in nervous handwriting, with a black spray paint; ‘I can’t make a choice, so I’m just waiting,’ in patient, even letters.

When Mrs. Thompson learned that I was a musician, she clasped her hands approvingly. I never knew how to react in such situations: what we did on stage was not to everyone’s liking, outrageousness was not to the taste of audiences accustomed to evenings of string quartets.

Moreover, she called me a Byronic hero. I didn’t argue.

In the Lower East Side, the autumnal hopelessness of a moist and cool October awaited us. We went outside, the conversations did not end, I invited my interlocutor for coffee.

Martha Thompson didn’t drink coffee, she drank green tea. Martha Thompson turned out to be the owner of a large interior design studio, and she knew some of the artists whose works were exhibited in the gallery personally. As if by chance, she complained that not long ago she had to fire some employees — since they were ineptly copycatting each other.

“I thought you were studying art,” she drawled, hearing that I was neither a student nor an artist. “What do you do besides music?”

I shrugged. I binge-drink, I think, then I try not to think.

“Nothing. I’m boring,” I replied after a pause.

Mrs. Thompson probably expected a different answer.

“You’re not like your peers,” she continued. “You’re twenty-two—”

She remembered my age. She convinced me that not many young people knew about the history of silent films, tenebrism, and decadent poets. I wouldn’t have known either — if not for a coincidence.

I couldn’t shake the thought that she had some plans for me.

“… but you reason like an old man.”

Young people my age smoke weed and hang out in clubs and bars, or, at best, work the cash register at a fast food restaurant … The only difference with me is that I don’t deliver pizza or sell chicken strips.

“I just live in the wrong era,” I blurted out, and I stared gloomily into my cup.

When I looked up, Mrs. Thompson was studying me intently — like paintings in a gallery.

“You remind me of my niece — she looks like she stepped out of a 19th-century sentimental novel. Margaret wants to be an art historian — but with her involvement in the process, she’s more likely to become the curator of the Capponi Library.”

She said something else, described all of Margaret’s virtues to me, and I finally understood.

“Isn’t she a beauty!”

Mrs. Thompson had already pulled her mobile phone out of her clutch and a few moments later turned the photo towards me: a pretty girl with copper-brown hair, a dimpled smile, freckles, a book in her hands … Mrs. Thompson knows what she’s talking about.

“She’s been all in her books since she graduated from university, she doesn’t go anywhere,” Mrs. Thompson continued. “Only to classical music concerts and the theater. I wasn’t like that.”

Margaret is like a flower in their family’s greenhouse.

“If you go on a date with her, I’ll be very grateful.”

I was taken aback.

“I used to think it happens a little differently,” I chuckled. “She doesn’t know me. And you don’t know me at all.”

Mrs. Thompson tilted her head to one side. I would sooner believe that Mrs. Thompson liked me.

“I think you are the hero of her novel.”

I covered my face with my hand. If Margaret is Gretchen, then I am obviously the old fool Faust.

It’s a pity Mrs. Thompson hasn’t heard of the seven demons playing on Halloween night. I doubt Margaret would want a risen corpse or a growling monster — unless she’s into gothic novels.

The image of Margaret as described by Mrs. Thompson appealed to my selective taste, and the phone number so insistently offered I took obediently. I left my number on the copy of her business card, we exchanged contacts and decided to stay in touch.

Already at night, going to bed, I remembered Margaret’s phone number, written on the back of my new acquaintance’s business card. Before my eyes appeared the image of a smiling red-haired girl who dreams of a handsome prince. I am no prince … I found a lighter on the nightstand in the semi-darkness and clicked the shutter, the flame spotlighted the letters of the Martha Thompson design studio logo from the darkness. Soon the sheet of paper was engulfed in red fire.

When my fingers became hot and the fire began to lick my hand, I left the business card to burn out in the ashtray and closed my eyes, leaning back on the pillow, folding my palms on my chest. Through my half-sleep, I heard the impatient cars humming under the windows, the autumn rain dripping in a confused rhythm that only it understood.

I didn’t regret. The art of despair turns into a craft, autumnal hopelessness passes by winter.

I knew that someday it would get easier.

13. Birthday

“Happy birthday!” the hall bellowed.

I almost went deaf from the cacophony of sounds.

Someone was already dragging me to the center, I did not immediately realize that dozens of pairs of eyes were staring at me, that the congratulations were addressed to me.

“Look at him! He forgot it’s his birthday today!” Kaftz laughed, and a murmur of approval went through the club again.

“I really did forget,” I replied, trying to pull my forearm out of the demon’s tenacious grip.

“Not another word. Remember then! Today is your special day!”

…We drank a lot. Friends, club employees, familiar and unfamiliar faces, someone’s touches — friendly, stinging, greedy — to which after a while I had already become accustomed. Demons remade the songs of our repertoire, changing the words, I shrieked with laughter shamelessly, so much so that it seemed a little more — and I would not only lose my voice and go hoarse, but also die of cackling on my twenty-third birthday.

I haven’t had this for a long time … Never had it at all. So that’s what it is — the feeling that I belong somewhere, feeling good somewhere.

Vincent the bartender beat Belial and Kaftz at poker, and then I beat Vincent. It was late night, past midnight, when I decided to crawl out of Good Room into the backyard for some fresh air. Reeking of weed, hookah, booze, and cigarettes, I made my way through the dark corridors of the club, with a mental note of satisfaction that the crowd was finally calming down — and I no longer had to try to be everywhere and with everyone, I could be alone again.

The party was a success. There were no more shouts from different corners, no one was jumping out at me, no one would prevent me from getting to the back way.

I really needed some fresh air.

Leaning my back against the closed door, I greedily gulped in the chill. The night was clear, and the dark sky, sparkling with distant stars, looked like an endless tent.

I wanted to go home — to lie down in bed, to fall into it without undressing, right in my shoes. To collapse and fall asleep, to forget that it was my birthday. I was tired … It was as if I had worked tonight — not for myself, but for others.

I didn’t tell anyone about leaving, I left without saying goodbye.

I couldn’t remember how I got home — with my bad habit of drunk driving — I was unlocking the door, not getting the key into the lock on the first try. Leaning my shoulder against the leaf, I cursed impatiently through my teeth.

At last, I stumbled into the entrance hall, almost knocking over the floor lamp.

Having called the host an idiot who doesn’t know that floor lamps tend to fall over and therefore shouldn’t be placed at the entrance, I remembered that it was me who had put it there … Sighing resignedly, I squatted down to take off my shoes. I was struggling to keep my eyes open, and I couldn’t understand why the boots couldn’t come off by themselves.

I don’t have to take them off.

A sleepy glance fell on the newspapers scattered on the floor — which I had been collecting in a pile and had never been able to throw away. In the morning I had to clean up the mess … For some reason, I began to unlace my boot again.

Out of the darkness, finally, the outlines of objects began to emerge, scattered things — larger than newspapers and papers. I became wary. My intuition was not asleep, anxiety rang in my ears even through the veil of intoxication. I tried to get up, but only leaned on my knee.

“Where is it?”

A strange voice slashed across my exposed nerves. My heart instantly quickened its pace: something was wrong, right under my nose, and I couldn’t see it …

I raised my head sharply, still squatting, leaning my hands on the floor, expecting to see only the windows of the room and the doorway leading from the entrance hall, but in front of me was a black shadow — black, like a gaping void. My throat was seized by an invisible hand of dread, I could not move, my heart was pounding somewhere in my stomach.

I couldn’t even scream to drive away this terrible vision.

But was it a vision?

“Get the hell out of here,” I finally squeezed out.

I saw only a clot of darkness rising in front of me. It seemed incorporeal, but the impression is deceptive …

“Where is it?” he repeated.

I couldn’t tell if his voice was real — it seemed to resound in my head. The voice was strange — contradictorily natural, not fitting the frightening appearance. The shadow column’s yellow, burning eyes lit up.

My palms were sweating. He is a figment of imagination … I had just caught intoxication psychosis. Everything was unreal — as if I had found myself in a terrible dream.

I was very hopeful that I would wake up any minute now and that this monster would not be in front of me. I rose to my feet, fighting the dizziness.

“Tell me, where did you hide it?”

Now his voice was like thunder.

“What ‘it’? I don’t understand …”

Stepping on my own shoelace, I almost fell to the floor without finishing my sentence. My body refused to obey me.

“You don’t deserve it,” he said.

The cloak swayed in the dimness.

“Now get out of my apartment! I don’t believe in monsters — that means they don’t exist!”

“Don’t they?” He burst out laughing, grotesquely, like a theatrical villain, then interrupted himself and said, “For the last time I ask you: where is my violin?”

What? The violin?!

“What the hell kind of violin?!” I squealed, jumping to the side, almost knocking over the floor lamp again.

He narrowed his yellow eyes and began to approach slowly. It was as if he were floating in the air: I did not hear his smooth steps, the black figure glided along the floor. The shadow came close and leaned over me.

He was taller than me, over six feet tall, a black hand with long fingers reached for my throat and I swallowed convulsively. I couldn’t move — I hated myself for it, but there was nothing I could do.

Suddenly he pulled his hand away, and I pressed myself even harder against the wall, feverishly trying to figure out what to do to make this nightmare end. The guest looked at me silently, and his gaze confused my thoughts.

He said something about the violin. Damn it, let him take it — if that’s really the case, and he came for it, then I need to give the instrument to this monster. It’s high time to get rid of this horrible violin — it’s just right for him …

“Take it, I don’t need it …!” I blurted out. “Damn you, you and your violin!”

He looked at me, I thought I saw a crooked smile. I had played with the demons too much.

“Well then, give it to me,” he said and extended his hands with long fingers forward.

Only then did I realize that I didn’t have the violin. Baphomet had it. If I had known, I would have given it to him back then, in the alley … The picture finally came together: he was the one who attacked Met, he wanted to strangle me because he thought I had the violin. He thought Baphomet had bought it for me, the credit card was mine … It was all so simple!

“I’ll give it back to you — I don’t need it,” I said. “But I don’t have it now.”

“You don’t …?” he breathed out, and it seemed to me that this was the first human emotion he had shown.

He was pretending to be a demon, and at first I believed him — but he’s not a demon, he’s just a man.

Just a man who broke into my apartment and threatened me. On my birthday.

“You have one day. Tomorrow I’ll come and take it,” he said in a colorless voice — unexpectedly without a threat.

The black shadow dissolved, stirring the air. A moment later, it was only me who remained in the apartment.

14. Office

The artificial light from the ceiling lamps in the spacious hall was harsh on the eyes. Interns filled out forms on low square sofas opposite the reception desk, the design studio’s HR manager watching over them looked like a security guard. I winced from the buzzing headache of a hangover every time someone raised their voice to ask a stupid question.

“What’s the date today?”

“October twenty-third,” I muttered without turning around, instinctively clutching the violin case to my chest.

I had already managed to stop by the club. I was quietly making my way through the corridors to pick up Baphomet’s violin from the dressing room, and I felt no remorse at all. The bodies left after the party had not even woken up.

If they said it was my violin, then I could do whatever I wanted with it.

“Mr. Myer,” said the girl who approached me, smiling widely — as much as her expressionless face allowed, “Mrs. Thompson is expecting you.”

I got up from the sofa, violin case under my arm, and walked up the hall past the glass panels of the open-plan office in the direction the secretary had indicated. The office was stylish, sleek, without the sense of deathly corporate crampedness. As I passed the statue of a dancing faun, I couldn’t help but chuckle: it reminded me of someone.

“Victor, I’m glad you responded right away,” Mrs. Thompson said immediately after the greeting.

She pointed to a round leather chair opposite. I plopped down into it without hesitation.

“I have something that might interest you.”

At nine in the morning I was awakened by a phone call. After the terrible guest left, I lay down on my bed and instantly fell into a dreamless sleep. Mrs. Thompson said she had an offer for me, asked when I could come to her office to discuss the details … I was not thinking clearly, she took advantage of the moment, I agreed to come over in the afternoon.

I just needed to unwind.

The fourteenth floor of a thirty-five-story office building in Murray Hill looked like a set for a New York office sitcom, but at least it was better than a horror movie set. The dark shadows had receded into the light of day, and the violin on my lap vibrated as if it were alive.

There is nothing supernatural about the night visitor — he did not intend to take my soul or drink my blood, like the city vampire. This magician only wanted to take my violin. And the violin is not alive — it is just a violin.

“I would like to offer you a job.”

I looked up from my hands folded on top of the case, staring at Mrs. Thompson.

“A job?” I asked, confused.

“The vacancy for a digital modeling specialist is open. Work on a computer, in a comfortable office, projects — both from private customers and from large brands and corporations. The designer puts together details, he must be able to see the picture as a whole and impartially.”

I was speechless. She was offering me a job? Mrs. Thompson was offering me a job, a normal office job, a real damn job?

Wow.

“Are you sure?” I finally squeezed out. “You need someone with experience and a portfolio. I cannot do anything.”

“You have ability, Victor. And a fresh perspective,” Mrs. Thompson folded her hands under her chin, examining me carefully. “The rest can be learned.”

I hastened to object, “This will take time.”

“So, do you agree?”

She presented me with a fait accompli. She knows exactly what she’s doing … I shrugged.

“Why not?”

A satisfied smile appeared on Martha Thompson’s face.

If I survive the upcoming meeting with the monster, then there is interesting work ahead. I never thought the office was for me: a day according to the schedule, seagull managers, corporate style and ethics … What if everything is not that bad?

“That’s great. Now, Victor, let’s discuss the details.”

…It was the height of an autumn day. I walked down the stone steps of the entrance staircase overlooking busy Park Avenue, the vistas Mrs. Thompson had outlined a few minutes earlier seemed unreal, not part of my reality, not at all in keeping with the ordinary routine of a young musician drowning in chaos. I walked, clutching the violin to my chest, counting the square blocks of sidewalk, staring at the gray granite beneath my soles.

What will happen after I give him the violin?

If he wanted to kill me, he would have done it long ago. The black shadow knew where I lived and who I was, he was probably following me … But why was he sure that the owner of the violin was me? If he had killed me then, in the alley, how would he have known where the violin was?

When Mrs. Thompson asked about the violin, I felt wary as if being paranoid … She simply asked if I performed with the instrument at concerts, but I answered vaguely: that I did not play often, and that I had little interest in violins.

I walked slowly to the parking lot on the corner where I had left my Defender, weaving through the stream of passers-by, looking absently at my feet. A cool wind got under my turtleneck, and I shivered, clutching the case to my chest.

Suddenly someone pushed me in the left shoulder, I turned around. A girl floated past me, indifferently muttering an apology, without even turning her head.

I didn’t respond — but continued to stand, blocking the way for the other pedestrians, looking back at her.

For some reason my heart was pounding loudly in my throat, and I was blinking frequently, I couldn’t move, I was staring after her. I was ready to bet that she didn’t even notice that she had run into me, she didn’t notice me.

She walked up the stone steps to the entrance of the building I had just left, and I still couldn’t take my eyes off her. My fingers were clutching the violin, my palms were sweating.

She was dressed all in black — like me — with autumn shadows playing across her pale face. Her chestnut hair flowed over her shoulders, and her white hands clutched a folder and laptop tightly to her chest.

She walked into the building and the glass revolving doors closed behind her. I was about to run after her, but then I caught myself.

With some effort, I turned on my heels and walked away, stamping my steps. My thoughts were spinning in my head. Obviously, the stranger couldn’t be going to Mrs. Thompson’s … There are many offices in the business center.

What do I care where she went.

As I climbed into the car, I caught myself smiling a wide, idiot smile.

15. Survive the Dawn

“It’s gone!” Baphomet screamed into the phone. “It’s gone!”

I bit my lip.

“Met, calm down …”

“It’s been stolen!”

“Met, I—”

“Victor, it’s gone! What should we do now?! O my Queen, my Fractured Star!”

He continued to yell, the phone crackling and unable to handle the overtones.

“Baphomet, I have the violin.”

He stopped yelling immediately. After a long period of mutual silence, Met finally asked, “Why did you take it?”

I can’t tell him that I’m being threatened by a psychopath in a black cloak, can I?

“I need it, I’ll tell you everything later.”

I was already uneasy, I felt guilty, but there was no other way out. Otherwise, this monster would simply kill me.

“Have you finally decided?”

I didn’t immediately understand what he was talking about. Decided to try playing the violin …

I had to mumble meaningfully in response; it was hard to lie that I had decided to start learning to play the family heirloom. Life is more important than family heirlooms.

“Stop being hysterical, everything is alright,” I reassured him and said goodbye.

Having hung up, I looked at the clock — 7:30 PM. It will soon be dark.

The violin was lying on the bed, wrapped in black silk, and I took it out of its case to make sure it wouldn’t turn into a rabbit in a magician’s hat.

For some reason, I didn’t want to give it away anymore. Obviously, I didn’t want to give in to this shadow man with burning eyes.

I walked around the room in circles, having smoked half a pack of Richmond, but time dragged on so slowly … One half of me wanted to finally get rid of the violin, to end this nightmare, and the other half wanted to prevent the monster from appearing in my house, to delay the moment as long as possible.

Night unfolded over the city, the streetlamps were lit one after another outside the window. Their yellow balls seemed like huge eyes, staring at me. I closed the curtains, trying to escape from the obsessive associations, I sat in the dark.

I could clearly hear the hum of cars in the parking lot across the street, the sound of water running in the neighbors’ upstairs. I could distinguish many sounds invading the lonely space, but none of them resembled the thunderous rumbles in the strange voice.

Silly theatrical special effects.

It was past midnight when I looked at the clock. The bright screen of my phone illuminated the room, and eerie shadows crawled across the walls and ceiling.

But none of them were as black as his cloak.

Perhaps he had forgotten … I found myself hoping for his forgetfulness.

How many idiots are there he scares to death when paying a visit at night? I’m one such loser. He wanted this violin and no other. He wanted to steal it while I was out — but he was out of luck.

Someone scratched at the window and I jerked on the bed. Laying in wait and holding my breath, I listened to the rhythmic tapping of wings on the glass — it was just an ordinary bat, moth hunter.

My heart began to beat faster from every jarring sound, my hearing became sharper. I peered into the outlines of the furniture and scattered things. I still hadn’t cleaned up the mess made by the uninvited guest.

What the heck was that? He came to my home, threw things around … Where did I get so much junk? Black T-shirts, shirts, and jeans were still lying on the floor.

Only the books remained standing on their shelves untouched: the violinist could not afford to throw around monographs on the history of art and music theory.

I crossed my arms over my chest, grimacing at the darkness, leaning back slightly on the pillows.

I must not fall asleep, or this jackass will surprise me in my sleep, and I will be easy prey. I must fight sleep, I must—

When I decided to look at the clock again, it showed three thirty-eight minutes at night. Or morning, whichever one prefers.

I tossed the phone somewhere into the thrown back blanket. 4 AM — and this bastard still hadn’t deigned to come!

I was annoyed — and, snorting loudly, I turned on my side. Pulling my knees up to my stomach, I hugged myself by the shoulders.

The main thing is to survive the dawn.

16. Alone

I enjoyed my work. Erwin Frei, the head of the digital design team, explained the software tools to me in two days, and then was speechless and barely able to restrain himself from hitting me with a chair. I enjoyed critiquing the projects the layout designers had cooked up that week, without being embarrassed by my own vision — when Frei used them as an example while onboarding me.

It was all new, although not as easy as I had expected.

Frei advised me not to admit that I had no experience. From day one, I was considered an upstart, apparently stirring up an anthill overgrown with moss and mold. I expected that after yet another complaint about me, Mrs. Thompson would fire me before the end of my probation — but she not only approved of unconventional ideas, but also instructed the studio to be more active in helping me.

For some reason she relied on me, I was not only a fresh perspective, but also a catalyst for processes; they were reacting to me — albeit not always in a friendly manner.

So far, only Peter Riedel from the technical writing department has heeded Thompson’s recommendation — with whom we had managed to ridicule several documents with customer requirements. Frei still looked at me with suspicion, even though he liked my dark humor.

During these few days at my new job, I never once thought about the black shadow … He never came for the violin — and that could not but rejoice. What had happened began to seem like just a bad dream.

I could breathe easy again, and when I came home, I would only glance sideways at the violin case, lying alone on the nightstand. It didn’t bother me.

“Victor, tell me about your family: who are they, what do they do?”

Mrs. Thompson, under the pretext of having lunch together, intended to get feedback from me. How parents are connected with adaptation at work, I did not quite understand.

I didn’t answer right away.

“I grew up in an orphanage. In Austria, in Vienna. I know almost nothing about them.”

The woman threw up her hands and gasped, but said nothing, preparing to listen further.

“At the age of eleven I ran away from the orphanage, I was a vagabond. Then, when I was fifteen, my guardian took me in, he is an Englishman — that is why I have British citizenship. It turned out that I am the heir of Austrian bon ton.”

She definitely already knew some of this. For example, that I don’t even have a permanent residency in the States.

“And your guardian?”

“Sir Leigh is a historian and religious scholar, he lives in the London suburbs, writes books, still teaches … He is in good health, and we sometimes call each other. But, you must admit, I am already independent, I do not need a guardian.”

When Sir Leigh took me to his home and told me about my parents, the general information was enough for me — I didn’t even ask questions. It turned out he knew them personally, my mother was a philologist, my father an architect, they both studied music. They died in a car accident when I was a baby, there was a house left of them in Vienna.

“Of course,” Mrs. Thompson replied.

She nodded understandingly, and we didn’t return to this topic again.

In the evening, I came home exhausted but satisfied, I didn’t notice how the day flew by.

I pulled off my turtleneck and went to the bathroom mirror: the same boring mug, protruding collarbones and ribs, muscular relief without the fat layer of a six-foot Byronic hero. Thinness has always raised questions, as a child I was often force-fed … More often than not, the food came out right away.

A freak of nature, a fast metabolism. When I lived with Leigh, I ate enough — but still looked sickly.

It seems like this didn’t happen to me at all, and not even in a past life.

I turned on the shower and the hot water began to slosh against the surface of the tub. Clouds of steam rose up, settling on the cold walls and ceiling, covering with a scattering of tiny droplets.

I myself turned people away from me. I avoided those who looked at appearance and social activity, I deliberately aggravated my status as a hermit, trying to seem even stranger than I really am, I snapped, expecting an attack in advance, ran away first — because I was not strong enough to hit.

I may be a bit of a poser. More often than not, it turned out that I was deliberately trying to be unpopular.

I wore black, closed clothes — it emphasized my pallor even more. In my teenage years of vagabondage, I had no time for piercings and other body modification rebellion; I didn’t have the patience for tattoos at a more conscious age. Until I was twenty, my hair was long, in awkward strands falling on my face, and I hid my transparent gray eyes under my overgrown bangs.

Mrs. Thompson wondered when I was going to ask her niece out on a date. I didn’t have the courage to tell her I had taken unhealthy pleasure in burning her phone card, and so I attributed my leisurely pace to my preoccupation with work.

Hot steam filled the bathroom, the mirror opposite fogged up, I didn’t notice how I fell into my thoughts. It was hot in my clothes, I undressed and climbed under the scalding streams of water. My body resisted. But I can get used to anything.

I stood there for a long time, holding my face up to the small, prickly drops, they burned my skin, I endured. I furiously soaped my hair, driving away uninvited thoughts, squinting so as not to see the hated walls, but the shampoo still got into my eyes, and I snorted and spat.

When I could breathe normally again, I turned off the water.

My hands were still cold.

I stepped over the clothes scattered on the floor, too lazy to dry myself with a towel, walked into the room and with a doomed groan fell face down on the bed.

I was damp and cold, but I couldn’t make myself move. I really wanted to disappear, to fall through the ground.

People call this feeling self-hatred … I clenched my teeth at the thought. Yes, I hated myself, but still, I have no one but myself — I am alone with myself.

Alone. I have always been alone.

17. Dream of Christmas

I dreamed of Christmas — a holiday that all children love so much. At Christmas, they get presents, at Christmas all wishes come true.

I stood in front of a fluffy fir tree, putting sparkling toys on its spreading branches. The tree was so big that I, seven-year-old Victor, couldn’t even reach its top half — the top went up, and there was neither a shining angel nor the Star of Bethlehem on it.

I knew what to do, I dragged a stool nearby and climbed onto it. The whole world became tenfold smaller, and the top of the tree was now within reach. I felt like an adult: I was a tall and brave prince who was about to save the princess locked in a very tall tower …

But instead of a princess, I only had a tall Christmas tree and a box of toys, and that didn’t bother me. What about the creative power of mind and the play of imagination?

I was reaching for the top with all my might, standing on my tiptoes, but it was still far away. I held the star and tilted the tree towards myself, trying to touch the top branch …

“Victor, come get your lunch,” a voice sounded very close, but I, like all children who are too busy playing, decided to pretend that I didn’t hear.

Not a chance — I have the greatest mission, and it is up to me to save the princess. How can I tear myself away from such an important matter for some kind of lunch?

I pretended not to notice my mom’s call — and it was definitely her — and continued to reach for the top, trying to put the star on the tree. I was stubborn, but the tree had a temper too.

The quiet steps stopped behind me, and I knew that now Mom was watching me, and I especially shouldn’t screw up. I tried my best, I stood at attention, and grabbing the tree by the branch, I pulled it towards me. When the toy took its place on the highest part of the tree, I smiled with satisfaction, looking back, turning around at the stool.

Her dark eyes were warm, and she smiled at me. She was young and beautiful, and for some reason it seemed to me that she was the princess I had just saved. I really wanted her to praise me, and I silently pointed to the decorated tree behind me, inviting her to examine the results of my efforts.

“My dear, how beautiful. But don’t pretend you didn’t hear me calling you.”

She didn’t speak to me sternly — she smiled, but for some reason I felt ashamed.

I lowered my head and sighed, stepping down from my stool. When I looked at her again, she was already walking around me to the tree. Her fingers touched the glass Christmas toy on the branch, and she was looking at me.

“We’re having guests tonight,” she said, fluttering her long dark eyelashes.

“Guests?” I asked, surprised.

We haven’t had any guests for a long time, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember who might come to visit us.

“Yes,” Mom agreed, and her gaze ran over my face. “If you don’t want to have lunch, go change.”

I didn’t want to leave the tree — I enjoyed sorting through the colorful decorations in the cardboard box, and besides, I wasn’t finished yet …

Making a pleading expression, I whined, “Mo-o-om, please …”

Somehow I knew it would work, and she ruffled my hair. Her touch sent shivers down my spine. It felt so good that I sighed in disappointment when she pulled her hand away.

“Okay, Victor, but not for long,” and she smiled and left.

…I walk into the living room — I was sure of the direction — and I hear voices. I have a niggle of curiosity: what kind of guests might we have for Christmas? I walk along the corridor in anticipation of the holiday, and the light from the illuminated room through the doorway seems warm and cozy.

I entered. A large hall, filled with candlelight, a grand piano standing to the left, interior items not from the modern era … For some reason I know for sure that in the study of my father, a musician and architect, there are even more curious things, sheet music.

She stands before me, but we are the only two in the room. I move closer, hesitant, and the candle flames cast shadows like black tentacles crawling along the walls. She looks at me.

But now I am not looking up at her: now I am tall and grown up — like a real prince — and her beautiful face is turned towards me. I hold my breath. It seems to me that if I do something wrong, my illusion will dissipate into smoke, crumble to dust, and I only lightly take another step towards her.

My heart is pounding in my throat, my palms are sweating, and I clench my fists — she is so close and yet so far away. I want to ask, ‘Mom, where are our guests?’, but I realize that I don’t care about them anymore.

We don’t need guests — we are good together. We will decorate the tree together every Christmas, and I will give her presents, and she will do the same … I want her to stroke my head again, like then, but I don’t dare ask … I am still afraid that she will leave.

“Victor,” she whispers, a dreamy smile lighting up her young face as her dark eyes look at me.

I see my own reflection in her wide-open eyes, I see myself, but for a moment it seems to me that it is not me at the same time.

I reach out to her, and in a second my hands are on her shoulders. I feel the warmth of her body, and I know she is real, she is not going anywhere …

A cold hand touched my cheek, a pleasant warmth spread through my body, descending as a pulling heat into my groin. I press my lips to her fingers and breathe quickly.

I push away the ghost of a feeling that this is wrong. Cold fingers touch the back of my head, my blood boils, I lick my lips and swallow the saliva that fills my mouth. A small tremor of impatience, a dizziness that brings a strange delight …

She pulls me towards her, and I lean in obediently, squeezing her shoulders tightly. I don’t understand what’s happening, and it seems like there’s no one else in the world — just me and her. The desire becomes so unbearable that only then do I realize: I want to sink my lips into her mouth, I want to become a part of her …

I gasp in a final attempt to resist, but I can’t tear my hands away from her shoulders. She runs her fingers through the hair at the back of my head, the electricity running through my body sparking across my palms.

Obsession. She pulls my head back, but then draws me closer to her …

“Victor,” she whispers again, almost demandingly, invitingly, putting the name in my mouth, and I catch her lips with mine.

And there is no one in the world except us, and there is nothing except us, and I surrender myself into her arms, and I become submissive, like a lamb, like an affectionate cat … I can’t breathe, I’m suffocating, but I can’t tear myself away from her — I want her, and she will be mine.

I am spinning in a whirlpool of frenzy, and the fire in my blood is one for both of us, and I can barely hold back a moan, and this bittersweet torment drives me crazy. I can’t stop.

Having finally woken up, I realized that I had come in my sleep. What the—

With my nose buried in the sheets, turned over on my side, I continued to lie on the bed, naked, as I had been when I came out of the shower. I wasn’t cold. The remains of sparks were still roaming in my blood, and my hot, sweaty body didn’t want to believe that this was just a dream.

What a dream!

Good thing it’s a dream.

18. The Mask

The music lifted and plunged into hell, the crowd watched with bated breath every move of the seven demons, every sound made on stage. Halloween night — the eve of All Saints’ Day — gathered three hundred spectators in the nightclub of northern Brooklyn, and we were in the spotlight.

Masks were not only on the performers, the crowd was full of masquerade costumes of ghouls and witches, spiders, bats, and other evil spirits … However, more often than not, one could see guests with their faces somehow covered with cardboard masks — just to pass the dress code — who came to shake their heads to heavy music.

I didn’t care about the hands reaching out to me in ecstasy, I didn’t distinguish the half-covered faces and bodies — I gave myself over to the music, and the crowd in front of me was just a blurry play of colors. It didn’t bother me what was happening behind the stage; what was sounding in my head and in my heart was the only thing that mattered.

When my voice and the violin’s merged in harmony, resounding under the vaults of the hall in the final quint, and the crowd roared with delight, I had not yet fully come to my senses. The world was rocking and floating, sobriety was coming gradually, and I only took a deep breath into my stomach, twirling the cord from the microphone in my hands.

I noticed him too late — a hard look from his yellow eyes scratched my face — and the black shadow standing opposite me at the far end of the room appeared in the light of the spotlights. I felt defenseless, deprived of my shell, completely alone in the merciless glare of the bright lamps directed at me.

The microphone fell out of my hands with a crash onto the floor, but the background humming and noise scratching my ears were drowned out by the applause and shouts … I was already running off the stage, jumping over the scattered rubbish behind the scenes.

I didn’t know what exactly was driving me — whether it was the fear. To hide from the monster — who was chasing me down, breathing down my neck … Once in the dressing room, I turned around to lock the door from the inside, my heart pounding. With disobedient fingers, I snapped the flimsy lock — how naive I was to think that this would protect me!

An old lamp illuminated the square room. The black shadow would not come into the light … But he is not a shadow, he is a man. Just a man.

The main thing is to convince myself of this, and then everything will fall into place. He is not a ghost or a shadow, I just need to kick his ass! Who the hell is he that I, like a coward, should hide from him?!

I stepped back towards the door, and as I reached for the handle, the door swung open. The broken latch flew away, and I jumped to the side.

His yellow, glowing eyes narrowed, he walked slowly and silently, he approached me, and I backed away — to quickly find myself in the area of light.

“Give it back to me,” he said.

A charming voice — with a threat, beautiful and disgusting at the same time.

My butt crashed into the tabletop, the red-hot lampshade rested against my shoulder blade.

“I don’t mind. Go and get it.”

The answer didn’t please the black shadow, a gloved hand slowly reached for my throat, cutting through the circle of light pouring from behind my back. I didn’t have time to pull away, a strong grip was already on my neck, and all I could do was grab onto his hand.

Why can’t I move? Push, kick, hit his ear, anything … A real sleep paralysis.

He had to come closer, he was standing in the white beam of the lamp. The devilish yellow eyes no longer glowed with an evil fire — in the light they turned out to be human, albeit of an unusual, amber color. I peered into his face — and there was something wrong with it …

He wore a white mask depicting his facial features, and at first it seemed to be his face! So familiar in shape that it didn’t even surprise me. I took a shuddering, futile breath. He didn’t loosen his grip, he squeezed my throat even harder, so that I was just gasping for air.

He reached for my face with his other hand. I tried to turn away, I closed my eyes, the steel grip didn’t let me move. I dug my fingers into his icy hand, but only scratched the silk of the glove with my nails. He tore the mask off me — the strings ran through my hair, and the edge scratched my cheek.

“Give. Me. Back. My. Violin,” he said, separating the words with pauses.

The fingers tightened around my throat even more. Well, that’s it, he’s going to strangle me.

Sparks and shadows were already dancing before my eyes, the green specks in his yellow gaze were blurring into a murky spot. The mask he had just torn off me was white on the floor in the shadow of a tall silhouette leaning over me — a silhouette in the black cloak that did not reflect the light.

The mask was similar to mine. The mask was the same … My heart was jumping out of my chest, the booming thumps of blood were ringing in my ears like a heavy alarm. I was suffocating — I understood that, I needed to do something that would make him let go of my neck …

I reached forward blindly, my palm pressing against the tissue of the mask, my fingers sliding under the edge. He jerked away, retreating into the shadows, forgetting about me.

Wheezing and coughing, I slid down the edge of the table to the floor, ignoring the black shadow in the opposite corner. He stood motionless, I just rubbed my neck.

I never wanted to experience that again.

Where’s his noose? He watched silently as I rose to my feet, clutching my throat, swollen as if it belonged to someone else.

“I told you … Go and get it … You fucking asshole,” I croaked in the style of screaming vocalizes, bending down, choking on a cough and the oncoming vomit.

He continued to stare at me from the darkness. He didn’t get it.

“The violin isn’t here! Get out of here!”

Suddenly, the door swung open and Baphomet appeared on the threshold. He measured us with an indifferent look and calmly addressed me, “Victor, if you think that I will fight off a crowd of your fangirls throwing panties at my feet alone, you are mistaken, my friend.”

The shadow standing in the corner chuckled. Met only glanced at him.

He didn’t recognize the stranger? Yellow eyes, black cloak?!

“I understand, of course, that you are busy now, but—”

I wanted to object, but my vocal cords no longer obeyed. I felt even more sick since Met was holding the violin case in his hands.

That damn violin!

Before I could say anything, the black shadow darted towards Baphomet, blocking my view. I expected anything but that Met, seemingly not noticing either the stranger’s reaction or the fact that I was sitting on the floor, clutching my throat, would continue, “You asked me to return it to you now. Enjoy,” he said, leaving the case on the shelf by the door and hastily retreating, slamming the leaf.

I was shocked.

The yellow-eyed stranger, instead of grabbing the violin and disappearing into his underworld, continued to stand with his back to me, looking at the closed door.

Am I missing something?

He turned slowly, and the light fell on his mask again. If I hadn’t been sure that he had pulled my mask off and thrown it aside, I would have thought that was it. I stared at him.

For fuck’s sake, how could Met leave me alone with this monster? Did he really think this monster was a friend who came to visit me after the show?

I stood upright and leaned on the table.

“That’s what you wanted,” I said huntedly, meeting the yellow eyes and nodding towards the violin.

“You stupid boy,” he sighed, shaking his head, “are you afraid of me?”

I laughed hoarsely, wincing in pain. How could it be otherwise?

“I’m wary,” I replied. “Take it and go. Otherwise, I’ll tear your mask away.”

Mask — to remain incognito. The mask has many advantages: one hides his face, one can play someone else’s role, one can be nobody …

He knew it perfectly well.

“You can’t do that,” he said, deliberately indifferently.

Stupid idea … I rushed at him, trying to reach his face, my fingers already touching the white mask, but he threw me away, dodging. From a blow to the jaw, I ended up on the floor.

I couldn’t get up, blood started to spurt down my chin, I covered my mouth with my hand. When I stopped squinting, the black shadow was still there.

The noise in my head was getting louder. How stupid …

Falling into a crimson fog, spreading like a ringing pain in my head, I heard, “You’re just like them.”

Disgust mixed with annoyance.

19. Thirteenth Floor

“Your designer has lost his mind!” I heard through the glass wall of the conference room. “It’s too dark, it’s too empty. Is he stupid, or does he have eyes on his ass?”

Well, here we go again … The restless old man changes his requirements twenty times a day. A wedding for his niece in the style of a fashion house show would turn into a funeral if I listened to his wishes.

“I said I wanted smooth, soft shadows. My God!”

In the conference room Frei took the heat, deciding not to let the old man near me, colleagues in the open-plan office listened attentively to the accusations and whispered. There was already a proposal to send me back to the fight club — to where I was taken from.

I continued to scroll through the photos on my computer, feigning complete indifference.

The fight club comment was apt — I did look like crap: my lip was split, there was a bruise on the right side of my jaw, and I hadn’t been able to shave properly that morning. Luckily, the swelling and pain only made it uncomfortable when I tried to yawn — but I wanted to yawn all the time.

“Victor, want a coffee?”

I looked up from the screen, responding to the voice of Kathy Graham, Mrs. Thompson’s secretary.

I didn’t recognize her at first — and not at once did I understand why. While I was blinking, trying to figure it out, she had sat down on a chair on the opposite side of the desk, trying to get my attention, and was now peering out from behind the monitor separating us.

I nodded absently, trying not to listen to the exclamations behind the wall — Frei had finally told the old man demanding to call Mrs. Thompson to go fuck himself. If this didn’t stop, I was going to get up and throw a chair at someone — the one under Kathy — and start a fight club in the office. And I didn’t care that corporate ethics forbade throwing chairs at coworkers.

“What happened to your face?”

I also wanted to ask what was wrong with her face — since the reason for Kathy’s strange appearance was her makeup. It was an evening one, with black, panda-like eyes — though usually, as far as I remembered, she didn’t even put on mascara.

“I had a fight. Yesterday.”

My brief response apparently did not satisfy her, for she leaned over the pen cups on the desk so that one of them quickly overturned, and gasped, asking, “So what happened?”

An involuntary grin crawled onto my face, my jaw clenched from an unsuccessful attempt to twist my mouth. I didn’t look at the interlocutor, the scattered pencils and pens came into my field of vision, and my hands unwittingly reached out to collect them. When I finished with the office supplies, I noticed the abnormally undone buttons of the secretary’s blouse, and my eyebrows involuntarily crawled up.

She’s really weird. It’s probably her birthday today.

“One guy was wrong,” I muttered, pretending not to notice how she, as if adjusting her jacket, unbuttoned her neckline even further.

Naturally, I didn’t pay any more attention to the cups, which Kathy’s breasts had once again deliberately knocked over — I simply stared at the monitor, pretending to be diligently searching for something. The old man had disappeared from the conference room, and the colleagues were discussing football …

All day Kathy followed me around, offering me coffee every now and then, unbuttoning her blouse even more, and playfully adjusting her hair. It didn’t distract or irritate me, and I quickly stopped paying attention to the strange looks. It was unlikely that she wanted me to congratulate her on her birthday.

She, like other dreamy-minded girls, imagined that if I was so gloomy, thoughtful, and sad — like an enchanted monster from a fairy tale — then I definitely needed to be kissed …

She’s nice, but I didn’t even know what to talk to her about.

After lunch, I was completely lost in my thoughts, returning again and again to the odd recent events. The black shadow took the violin, Baphomet did not yet know he would not play the instrument anymore.

When I explain everything to him, he will understand. Deep down, I was still glad that I got rid of the violin — and I hoped now the black shadow would leave me alone and disappear from my life forever.

The elevator arrived on the first floor, the doors opened and four people, including me, entered the cabin. Riedel asked for the documents to be sent by courier, a large white envelope had already been handed over to the right hands, I stood right by the wall, examining the cracks in the mirror surface of the sides, staring off into space.

The elevator was almost closed when a girl — the same one I had seen at the entrance on my first day at the office — stormed in, squeezing through the doors. I hadn’t yet managed to process it with my head, but my heart had already started beating convulsively in my throat as soon as her silhouette flashed in the doorway.

I instantly felt hot, I didn’t understand what was happening: I was staring at the back of her head and the chestnut hair flowing over her shoulders. The cabin was filled with a barely perceptible scent — sweet perfume, vanilla with oriental notes …

I swallowed nervously, and for some reason I had nowhere to put my hands: I crossed them on my chest, hid them behind my back, shoved them into my jeans pockets … It’s good that she didn’t see me, I shouldn’t show myself to her with such a face.

The stranger stood close, I could see every eyelash, every wrinkle, I was almost looking over her shoulder — but she didn’t pay attention to me, checking her email on her smartphone.

I wanted to touch her, to reach out my hand — and I immediately pulled myself back in horror. What’s wrong with me?!

My thoughts were confused, it seemed to me I had met her somewhere before. Not last time, but a long time ago … I couldn’t recall, but the feeling of déjà vu was intense, I clenched my teeth until my jaw hurt, to stop breathing noisily.

I was afraid that the next moment the elevator would stop, and I would never see her again. I absolutely had to know what floor she would get off on. I didn’t know why — but I had to.

Another story — and the doors opened, the electronic bell rang. Stepping onto the floor, the girl disappeared beyond my field of vision, without turning around.

I overcame the irresistible desire to rush after her. My deep, huffing breath made other people in the cabin look at me quizzically, and I was already smiling stupidly.

I stepped out of the elevator with a spring in my step. The stranger got off on the thirteenth floor.

20. Fight Fire With Fire

Baphomet had not spoken to me for three days, and I did not dare come to the club. I did not want to fall out with him, but how could I do otherwise? Besides, the violin — this damn violin — was mine.

I turned the wheel, hooking a right into the street that led home. The weather was appalling, to match my foul mood, the rain pounding the windshield, leaving streaks that sparkled in the dim light of the streetlamps. It would snow soon — with November snow, the one New Yorkers wouldn’t notice, since it would melt in the morning as if it had never been there.

It would be better if I had never come here, it would be better if none of this had happened. Sometimes it seemed to me I already hated these identical blocks and regular crossroads in Astoria, this seething fashionable Manhattan, these Brooklyn clubs … Gloomy thoughts and premonitions, despondency and autumnal hopelessness — like in the Bowery gallery.

Wherever I went, I felt someone’s gaze on me; a month ago I would have ridiculed my paranoia, but not now.

I had strange dreams. Strange, not scary, pleasant — as colorful erotic visions can be pleasant, which would seem disgusting in daylight.

I dreamed about her — that dark-haired girl. The infatuation was rapidly growing into an obsession, something that had never happened to me before … She was just a stranger — I didn’t even know her.

I didn’t dare to meet her, it would have been inappropriate — especially after such fantasies.

In my dreams we had known each other for a long time, we had lived many lives together. The scenery and eras changed, but she remained the same … As in reality, she could come to me, each time I thought it was not a dream, because here I am — lying in my apartment, on the bed, and the same walls surround us, and the autumn rain knocks on the glass of the curtained window … And when I woke up from my own moan, all wet with sweat, I felt disgusted with myself.

I couldn’t resist the delusion. It was stronger than me.

Damn succubus! The Fractured Star in multiple variants … My demons would laugh if they knew what kind of night visions I had.

If I stop thinking about her constantly, if I forget her, then she will no longer come … She has become an intrusive image, more terrible than a monster with glowing yellow eyes.

I grinned crookedly as I turned the key in the front door. Tonight, I would drink half a bottle of whiskey in one gulp and fall into a dreamless sleep — and neither a beauty nor a black shadow would be able to wake me.

I put the glass on the floor and was already sitting on the bed, having pulled my jeans down halfway — but suddenly I jumped out of bed. It dawned on me: fight fire with fire!

In an attempt to walk across the room to the nightstand to collect the contents of my pockets, I got tangled up in my own pants, which dangled between my legs like shackles. Soon, I was zipping up my fly.

When I have to take my jeans off again, it’s best to take them off completely.

…The music thundered under the Good Room’s vaults, and I was already regretting that I had given in to the impulse to come to the club. At any moment, someone I knew could notice me, it was wiser to go where no one knew me.

I leaned against the bar, peering over the heads, nodding to the bartender.

“Hey, look, it’s Victor!”

Through the gurgling fry of the band’s vocalist, who usually performed as our opening act, I could already make out voices from behind me. The approaching shrill, drunken girlish laughter foretold that in a few moments I would be joined by lovers of dancing, drinking, and fucking.

Today I am no different from them, I also came to unwind and enjoy my time.

I never remembered their names, they laughed, sharing their impressions of the previous concert, I looked at them without embarrassment — like at goods. One looked like a Barbie doll, made according to a standard pattern, a blonde, who could laugh loudly at dirty jokes and suck well. The second, a brunette, looked like a dead bride from a Burton film. She bared her white teeth behind her cherry lips predatorily, and I would not be surprised if in her bag, in addition to a pack of condoms, there was a strap-on.

Some time later, Barbie, realizing that I had already made my choice and that two girls were too many for me, quietly disappeared, leaving me and my friend alone. She had a pleasant voice, she could keep up a conversation, and even — playfully, not seriously — discussed a recent London theater production in which they staged a ritual of the Fractured Star cult.

It seems to me that everyone around is crazy — either with violins or with the Mother of Demons.

The girl licked her lips, stroked my knee — with a hand with long nails, like the claws with which vampires crawl along the walls — and I still doubted, only treated her to a cocktail. I did not know what still bothered me — everything about her was the way I liked it.

Part of me wanted to go home, part of me was disgusted … We were drunk enough to not notice the hum of voices and the noise of music: we were sitting at the bar, she had beautiful slender legs, for some reason she threw one over my thigh.

I offered her another cocktail, she declined — and rose from her chair, drawing me along with her. I walked backstage, pulling her toward me by the waist with one arm.

She pinned me to the wall, I grinned, running my hands under the top edge of her tight leather corset. Her breasts, half covered by clothing, were soft. She reached out to me with her scarlet mouth, but I stopped her, pressing my index finger to her lips.

I didn’t want her to kiss me.

While she was fiddling with my belt and fly, her long nails tickling my abdomen, I was trying to figure out why I always felt like something was wrong. She was trying to pull my member out of my partially unzipped jeans, I was holding her hair, she was kissing my neck wetly.

The persistent and rough caresses aroused me, but at the same time, I felt uneasy. I peered into the face that once in a while turned to me, and caught myself thinking that I was comparing … Comparing with her.

They were both my type. They had something in common, too much, but not enough to—

We didn’t say a word, and she was already kneeling down, still holding my cock in front of her face.

“I’ll be right back,” I croaked, lifting her from the floor and zipping up my pants right away.

She followed me with a puzzled look.

A moment later, I was already rushing to the exit, cursing myself.

21. Disgust

How could I?! How could this idea even come into my stupid head?! I felt disgusted with myself, I regretted not having crashed my car on the way home.

I barely made it to the toilet without splashing the contents of my stomach all over the entrance hall floor. I was turned inside out, and clutching the edge of the toilet with my hands to keep from sprawling out in a puddle, I howled at the top of my lungs in between the sounds of alien civilizations.

This went on for an excruciatingly long time — and when the incessant urge to vomit finally began to subside, trembling with weakness, I sat down on the floor, leaning my back against the bathtub.

Having caught my breath, I opened my eyes and stared at the lamps in the ceiling, the light was burning, I had to close my eyelids again. My head was still spinning, a feeling of disgust rose in my throat, and I once again crawled to the toilet.

I waited for the torture to end. My abdomen muscles were twisting, my stomach was jumping out through my throat.

When I was able to get into the shower — without undressing, still fully clothed — it got a little easier. I nervously pulled off my wet turtleneck and pants, I shouted curses into the silent void, leaning my hands against the wall. I soaped myself and washed the foam off several times — it seemed that this damn lipstick had eaten into my skin, had been absorbed into my blood like poison, and I would never be able to get rid of it … I no longer felt nauseous, but it was sickening, I hated myself, I hated what I had become.

My eyes stung, either from the soap or from the tears that had come, I was sobbing, I couldn’t stop. I whined, trying again to wash away the invisible prints of hands and lips, I rubbed my face, I scratched my skin to tear off this disgusting mask, I bit my lips until they bled to stop sobbing. I squatted down, hugging myself by the shoulders with my hands.

The thought that I would have stayed with that girl scared me.

Why is everything different in a dream, why does the thought of another one make my chest and stomach tremble, why does this pleasant heaviness in my groin immediately appear? I am already leaning against the shower wall with an odd smile, my hand reaching for my member.

As if she were real.

What am I doing?! A moron who is afraid of his own shadow and jerks off in the shower, fantasizing about a stranger!

I pulled myself out from under the hot stream of water and walked into the room without drying myself, then wrapped myself in the blanket on the bed.

I was shaking, either from weakness or from the cold, but I continued to sit and stare blankly into space. If the monster in the cloak had appeared at that moment, I would have been glad to see him — I would have torn off his mask, scratched out his yellow eyes, strangled him … But a shadow has no body … Which means he won’t be able to get me …

I realized I was falling asleep when a black shadow morphed into me, walked past me into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Wrapping myself tighter in the warm, cozy blanket, I dropped my head onto the pillow and mentally told the shadow to go to hell, and he made a fist and middle finger gesture at me.

22. Day Off

“Victor, are you listening to me?”

Gray looked at me worriedly, I realized that I had missed everything he was saying.

“No, sorry, my mind wandered,” I muttered, shivering.

I was cold all day, the weakness did not go away. Damn hangover.

“Are you alright?”

I shrugged. His questions were no use … My head was splitting, I really wanted to go home, take advantage of the day off before the five-day workweek of an office ant — and go to the store, buy something to eat. Usually my refrigerator is like the cupboard of old Mother Hubbard from the nursery rhyme.

Only then I’m unlikely to come back to life like her dog if I die of hunger.

I glanced thoughtfully at the murky gray sky of the Financial District outside the window, then turned my attention to the lawyer patiently awaiting an answer.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Gray sighed.

“To challenge the auction deal, you’ll need to show the instrument to an independent appraiser — to confirm that it’s the same violin.”

“Why can’t we leave it as is?” I objected. “I don’t care whether it was bought or inherited, it doesn’t matter at all.”

“Mr. Reichenberg, I will take care of this. Your task is to make only one single visit. I will give you the address a little later. It is south Brooklyn, the Coney Island neighborhood.”

Hell, he’s such a pest! I’m not going to visit anyone — especially since I don’t have the violin anymore. Why do I need another trouble?

“I already told you: I don’t need my money back.”

I almost let it slip that I wasn’t even at the auction, and that the sly Hedman was to blame for everything, having put my name on the participants list.

I was shivering, pulling the sleeves of my hoodie down over my wrists and fidgeting in my chair.

“Perhaps there is a reason why you don’t want to show the violin to anyone or claim that you own it?” The lawyer narrowed his eyes.

I shook my head.

“No. I just don’t understand why there’s so much fuss over a stupid violin.”

He leaned back in his chair, reached for a pack of cigarettes, and clicked the lighter — with a picture of a boar hunt in a pattern of white five-petal lilies. I would’ve had a cig too, but my throat was sore, and for some reason I couldn’t even look at the cigarettes.

Gray kept talking about insurance for the instrument, but I wasn’t listening: I was lost in thought again.

At some point I started coughing from the smoke, interrupting the lawyer’s monologue in mid-sentence, said an inarticulate goodbye and hurried away. I was already feeling cold and hot, I was in a lousy state.

On the way home, already in Astoria, I stopped at a grocery store. My hands were reaching for chocolate bars, human food disgusted me as much as cigarettes. I couldn’t cook, so I usually ordered pizza or grabbed Mexican food on the way; less often I bought food that was easy enough to heat up — and I happily forgot about its existence in the refrigerator until the expiration date.

With boxes of ready-made products and chocolates sticking out from under my arm, I was already walking along the stands to the cashier, feeling my strength running out. Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the shoulders from behind, shouting a name in my ear, and in surprise I dropped the groceries on the floor.

Kaftzefoni was smiling from ear to ear — but my hands involuntarily clenched into fists … The customers and cashiers had already noticed us, peering out from their workplaces at the noise, as Sandström, in turn, for some reason held me by the shoulders, not allowing me to move.

“Let go!” I muttered, discontentedly breaking away.

“Glad to see you.”

“Did you miss me?”

Kaftz nodded, opening his arms.

“Of course, you haven’t shown up since that night.”

I have, I responded mentally, taking a step back, but it would have been better if I hadn’t been there …

I bent down and started collecting the groceries, my head buzzing.

“It would have been better if you had helped,” I snorted grouchily.

When the bars and boxes were back in my hands, and Kaftz condescendingly patted the packages with his palm, checking the piled-up structure for strength, one cashier counter became free, and I stomped over there.

Sandström followed, giggling. It seemed to me that everyone in the hall was staring at me when the wallet, not without difficulty extracted from my pocket, fell to the floor with a dull, mocking slap. Kaftz blorted with laughter.

“What the hell are you laughing at?!” I exclaimed with annoyance, bending down to pick up my wallet.

Everyone silently watched me pay, rustling the paper bag, and then silently leaving the store.

“You’re acting strange today,” Kaftz noticed, catching up with me on the entrance staircase.

When I got into the car, I swore I would never go to that store again. Who am I trying to deceive? I’ll forget about it the next day.

23. The Tale of the Monster

She adjusted the blanket on me, intending to say goodnight and leave, but I persistently pulled her sleeve with a silent request to stay. I understood that, already being an adult, I was not supposed to be capricious, but I did not want to sleep.

Using my favorite trick, I whined, “Mo-o-om, please …”

She sighed and sat down on the bed next to me, kissing the top of my head.

“And what do you want? You said yourself, you didn’t like the book about the inventor.”

She smiled, settling down next to my pillow. I turned to her so I could see her pale face, and the light from the nightlight made her black eyelashes even longer.

“Tell me a tale.”

“A tale?” she was amazed and leaned towards me, smiling wider; I smiled unwittingly too. “Well, if you want me to …”

I nodded in agreement, and she ruffled my hair, straightening the blanket that had fallen to the side again.

“Okay, then listen,” she sighed.

For a moment it seemed to me that her beautiful face became sad, but it was only a play of shadows.

I smiled at her, closing my eyes and leaning back on the pillows: if the story was interesting, I would definitely listen to the end. When I couldn’t read yet, she read aloud to me, and no matter how exciting the adventures of the book characters were, I fell asleep almost immediately. I liked listening to her voice, with it, I felt peaceful and good — I could listen to anything.

Sometimes I imagined that my mom was a wizard, and her voice and words were magic spells, because sounds are the same as touches.

She stroked my shoulder, and I watched from under my lowered eyelashes as her hands tucked the blanket, wrapping me in an envelope. I felt warm and cozy, I blissfully closed my eyes, resisting smiling, but my mouth still stretched into a smile. I waited for her to start, but I knew: until she was sure that I was securely wrapped up, there would be no fairy tale.

Finally, she began, “Once upon a time there was a princess …”

I stirred, putting my hands under my head.

“Smart, kind, and beautiful. Like all princesses.”

I was silent, taking in every word.

“The princess had a hobby: collecting rare things from all over the world. In her castle there was a real museum of unusual works of art, music boxes, jewelry. But for every birthday the princess gave herself something special — something that can’t be bought, something that no one else has … She loved to make her dreams become reality.”

“Did she give herself presents?”

I turned over on my back, confused, trying to get out of the blanket.

“Yes,” Mom answered after a moment. “The princess was alone, the only one in her kingdom. She had no one to give her presents.”

I felt sorry for the princess: she was beautiful, smart, but she had neither parents nor friends with whom she could play and walk. How unfair life is, even in fairy tales!

“And on her twentieth birthday, she saw in a dream a beautiful five-petal white lily flower that sang a wonderful song. The princess loved music — she sang beautifully, played musical instruments—”

I interrupted the story again, fidgeting restlessly in the blanket that was immediately thrown over me, “And which ones?”

“The piano, the guitar, and the drums.”

I nodded approvingly, and she continued.

“This flower captured the imagination of the young princess, and she decided to find it at any cost. She got ready for her journey and set out in search of the singing lily. She wandered around the world for a long time, asking everyone about this exotic flower, but everyone she met on the way only shook their heads: no one had ever heard of such a wonder.”

The princess looked for this flower everywhere where human paths passed, she asked the animals in the forest, and the birds in the gardens of paradise, and the mice in the farmers’ fields, and the fish at the bottom of deep lakes, but no one ever knew what kind of marvelous flower could sing wonderful songs.

The night came — one of the many nights and days that the princess spent wandering. She did not know how many months or years had passed since she set out on her journey. She was exhausted, and the flower kept appearing in her dreams, and its song would not give her rest. The princess fell exhausted on the grass in the middle of the dense forest, lost, despairing of finding her way, and cried bitterly … She fell asleep in tears, realizing that she would never find this beautiful flower that sang songs of love and happiness to her every night. Even the wolves, children of the night, their yellow eyes sparkling in the shadows of the forest dark, walked in circles, but did not touch the girl.

The morning greeted her with a scarlet dawn — a new sun entered another day, but the princess was no longer happy with anything, she had lost hope. Her heart grew cold, as if it had died, and she wandered wherever her eyes looked, noticing nothing around her. She passed forests and swamps, endless steppes, and wide meadows … In her ears sounded the voice of the beautiful five-petal white lily, which she would never be able to find.

She herself did not understand how she found herself in a wonderful garden, she did not know how her feet brought her there. Birds of paradise fluttered in the treetops, from the branches of which ripe fruits hung, pulling to the ground, forest animals played games of tag … The princess was hungry, but she did not pick the fruits from the branches — she knew that this garden was someone else’s, she did not need someone else’s.

The midday sun played in the bright green foliage, warming the air, and the princess almost forgot about her sadness. Her heart beat timidly in her chest. She walked through the beautiful garden, inhaling the aromas of grass and flowers, she talked to the animals: little squirrels, little bunnies, little field mice …

But something happened that the princess had not dared to imagine even in her wildest dreams. When she found herself in the center of the garden of paradise, she saw the very lily that she had been dreaming about all this time … Her breath caught, and she, trembling with joy, ran up to the flower and plucked it … It should belong only to her, she had been looking for it for so long … Here it is, the desired and long-awaited one!

“And what happened next …?” My voice broke the silence, I was curious, but for some reason Mom fell silent, she only thoughtfully tugged at the hem of her dress.

She looked at me and then hugged me tightly, and I clung to her, waiting for the continuation of the story about the princess.

“… But suddenly the sky turned black, it seemed that all the suns of the world had disappeared. A voice, inhuman, terrible, like thunder, cut through the air, and a chill gripped the princess’s body. The terrifying voice said: ‘How dare you invade my domain, stupid girl?! How dare you pick my favorite lily?! Now you will never leave this place, you will forever remain my captive!’”

The princess lost consciousness in horror, and the lily fell from her hands.

She woke up in a room that resembled her own castle, and at first she thought it was just a dream — but soon the princess realized what she had done. She was very ashamed of her impudence, but she could do nothing … The room in which the mysterious host had placed her turned out to be a golden cage in the tower of a strange, unfamiliar castle, the door was locked, and there were bars on the windows.

Day and night the princess cried from fear of the unknown, day and night she languished in ignorance, she spent all her time alone. When she woke up, there was delicious food on the table, and when she fell asleep, the empty plates disappeared, only to be filled again the next day. She never saw the owner of the terrifying and terrible voice — he avoided her.

But someone brought her food, someone made sure that she didn’t die of hunger …

The princess was not grieving over her own fate as a captive, she felt guilty before the one who, just like her, loved the lily that she wanted to appropriate for herself.

One morning, a little bird flew into her window. The princess immediately began to question it about the mysterious inhabitant of the castle, but the little bird only said that it was not allowed to fly even close to the princess’s window. Then the princess, claiming that she regretted what she had done, begged to know at least something … And then the little bird told the terrible secret of the castle’s host.

“Maybe that’s enough for today?” Mom suddenly said, looking at me questioningly.

Her last sentence didn’t fit with the narrative. I even had to make an effort to emerge from the fairytale world with the princess and the scary voice that imprisoned her in a golden cage.

I shook my head, showing with my whole appearance that I was not going to sleep at all, and the story really interested me.

“Please … I’ll never sleep without knowing what happened to the princess.”

I made a pleading face, and she kissed my forehead.

“My dear, it’s a long story.”

“That’s good,” I muttered, settling on my other side, burying my nose in her shoulder.

“… The master of the castle turned out to be a musician who had spent his entire long life alone. He had built his castle himself, and he had taught the five-petal white lily to sing with the power of his mastery. Worldly destinies did not concern him — he was far from the ordinary vanity of human lives. People did not understand him, and he did not try to understand them either. He despised them for their insensitivity and bad taste, he despised them for what they—”

The princess could not understand why there was no kindred spirit who could understand the genius hermit: he was talented, smart, and probably handsome … The princess immediately asked about the stranger’s appearance, and the little bird looked around in fear. Seeing the sparkle in the young princess’s eyes, it answered: ‘He can never be like other people. Everyone who has ever seen him died of horror. You are the only one who survived meeting him … Because you have not seen him.’

The little bird had barely finished speaking when a roar was heard behind the door of the princess’s room — and the walls shook from the terrible sound. The little bird quickly flew away … But there was more than just rage in that cry — there was pain and despair in it.

The princess was frightened, but immediately understood that the stranger would not harm her. Whoever this mysterious inhabitant of the castle was, he would not hurt her. If he wanted to, he would have done it long ago … If she herself would not provoke him.

She had a plan: to pretend to be asleep and see who was bringing her food — what to do, such is the curious nature of a woman. That same night, when the door to the room opened, the princess could not distinguish anyone’s footsteps, could not see anything except complete darkness. She sat up in amazement — and at that very moment something stirred the air, as if by the wind, a black shadow slipped through the doorway, and the doors closed again with a lock.

The night visitor did not utter a word, but the princess knew that it was the master of the castle.

The next night, the princess again intended to lie in wait for the stranger, pretending to be asleep, but in the morning she suddenly discovered that the door to the room was not locked. She went wandering along the corridors, she liked everything in his house, she did not count the minutes and hours of the walk — and did not even remember that there was a world beyond the castle walls, and did not think about escaping. Then she found herself in the library.

The princess loved to read, she decided to collect books for her room. On the large oak table lay ancient manuscripts and treatises, and the princess knew their language.

They spoke of a curse that befell the master of the castle. He was an ugly monster, made by the creator for the shining star, the center of the universe, as a creator without a human form, but with a human soul. Until the end of his days, he was forced to drag out his existence in solitude … So that’s what the little bird was talking about!

Someone’s strong hands grabbed her and dragged her out of the library, a terrible voice screamed at her, scolded her for daring to leave the tower, shook her like a rag doll, but she looked with wide-open eyes at—

“The monster? Was it scary?” I whispered, instinctively pressing closer to Mom.

It seemed to me that all the shadows of the universe now surrounded us in the room, and the dim light of the nightlight did not dispel the thickening obscurity.

“No, dear, she did not see the monster …”

“How so?”

But she only sighed, hugging me tighter, continuing, “… The princess saw nothing — they were standing in the dark, and the shadow hid the one who was in front of her. She could only see his amber eyes. And that saved her then.”

He locked her in the tower room again, carefully checking all the locks, and she fell on her bed and burst into tears. She could not believe his cruel fate, the curse that could not be broken.

But the monster didn’t know that the princess had read the book.

“Mom …”

It seemed to me that she was crying, and I raised myself up on my elbows in fear to meet her gaze, but when she looked at me, there were no tears in her eyes.

But she was sad — like that unhappy princess from the tale.

“Mom, did she stay to live in the castle with the monster? Why didn’t she run away?” I asked after a pause.

“Why would she run away?”

“Well, but …” I was puzzled why she didn’t understand — it was so obvious. “But he’s a monster. How can you know that there’s a monster roaming around somewhere, and even keeping you locked up, and still go to the library as if nothing had happened?”

She laughed quietly, patting my shoulder.

“He didn’t hurt her … It’s all her fault, she wanted to steal the lily from him. Isn’t that right?”

I nodded gloomily, still not understanding anything.

“But why did he keep her? He could have eaten her, cooked her, I don’t know … Why would he need her?”

Mom now didn’t hide her condescending but kind laughter. Leaning her forehead against mine, she said, “My sweet, he simply fell in love with her.”

“Fell in love?” I gasped in surprise. “Can monsters really love?”

“Of course they can … They love much more than people, they put everything they have into this feeling, because they know that this love is all they have, one and for life.”

I hemmed disbelievingly, but was in no hurry to free myself from her embrace.

“But wait, does he really think that she can love him too? He is—”

She looked at me strangely — straight in the eye — but I just squirmed in the blanket in bewilderment.

“He is what?”

“A monster.”

Her gaze fell somewhere on my knees bent under the blanket. When she looked at me again, I was overcome by the feeling that I had said something wrong.

“What do you think, one can’t love a monster?”

But I said the truth! One can’t love a monster — and everyone knows it! A monster is a monster, and nothing can be done about it …

I felt uneasy under Mom’s watchful gaze, but I still hadn’t got this strange thing about love.

When she spoke again, her voice had softened, “Victor, when you grow up, you’ll understand … There are things that can’t be judged by their appearance alone — by the shell they’re enclosed in. You can’t look at the wrapper and not see the contents.”

I wanted to say something in my own defense, but she didn’t let me object.

“Do you want to know what happened next?”

I nodded slowly — I really did, but I wasn’t sure that I comprehend everything completely. What a strange tale …

I allowed myself to be wrapped in a blanket and peacefully closed my eyes, feeling the arms hugging my shoulders.

“… The monster made sure that the princess did not leave the room anymore. She had to think he was not nearby, and sometimes it seemed to her that he really was not there — and it was just an endless dream.”

The white lily no longer sang to her in her dreams. Life seemed to have left the princess, because she felt lonely … without him.

If the princess had managed to read those ancient scripts to the end before the monster found her in the library, she would have learned that the curse could be broken … But she couldn’t know that — she already knew more than she was supposed to.

The days dragged on endlessly, and the nights even longer. The princess tried as best she could not to fall asleep, to at least catch a glimpse of a shadow creeping towards her in the night, to at least once feel the pleasant breath of wind from a black cloak … But she did not remember how she fell asleep, and when she woke up, she saw a fresh breakfast on the nightstand.

One night, the cunning princess decided to sleep next to the door, expecting that as soon as the master of the castle appeared in her room, she would immediately wake up and talk to him. She just wanted to apologize for her behavior — and nothing more.

Everything turned out as she had designed: he had not expected that, having entered the room as a silent shadow, he would stumble over the snoring princess. Before he could figure out anything, she woke up and spoke to him. She tried very hard not to frighten or anger him. She asked him to let her out of the room at least occasionally and promised that she would not try to escape.

Luck was definitely on her side: after a week, the monster sometimes opened the door to the room, then he began to come to her and bring books, a little later they began to talk about these books. The princess liked to talk to him, he no longer avoided her — she even sometimes thought that he smiled at her witty jokes. As before, the princess could not see him — he was always hidden by a shadow.

And she never once remembered that he was the monster.

Days and months flew by … The garden of paradise had already faded, and the bright leaves had turned yellow, then fallen, the earth was covered with a white blanket, and it came off with time. Spring was opening the first buds on the renewed trees in the garden, the princess was looking out the window. She did not dream of seeing the spring sun again — she was ready to marry the darkness, if only— If only to stay with him.

She thought that she had long ago become boring to him — sometimes it seemed to her he would gladly throw her out of his castle, but the word given once on that summer day in the garden held him. She felt how tense he was sometimes when talking to her, and how he wanted to run away as soon as possible, just not to see her … She was offended that she did not interest him at all.

One night at dinner — for they dined together every night, with a long, gloomy dining table between them — the princess asked him to sing to her. She knew the voice she had come to love, the voice of the five-petal white lily that sang to her in her dreams, was his voice.

He refused. He explained that he was simply not in the mood, and that he would definitely sing to her some other time, but the princess realized that he was lying.

The princess thought he simply didn’t love her.

She, choking from her tears, told him everything she had thought about on dark nights, languishing alone in her tower … She screamed that one cannot always live the way he lived, fearing the light only because the light sometimes burns.

She confessed her love to him, and he stood there, not saying a word.

‘No, you can’t love me,’ he finally muttered.

It was as if he didn’t hear her. He looked at her, she begged him to let her stay with him. Suddenly he came up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and his amber eyes were glowing, but she wasn’t afraid. He wanted to scare her, but the princess wasn’t afraid of the monster.

‘Now I’ll prove to you that you’re lying to yourself,’ he whispered and stepped into the light.

“Oh,” I blurted out, and I realized that I had been clutching the blanket tightly, waiting for the end of the story.

My legs twitched involuntarily in an attempt to escape, but in Mom’s arms I was not afraid of any monsters.

In response to my silent question, she only smiled softly.

“… The princess, as before, did not see a monster in him. Everything we have imagined for ourselves — true and untrue — is stored in our heads. Vision is selective, and we see what we want to see. The princess did not want to see a monster in him — and she didn’t … You just have to want it.”

“But the curse is now broken? The princess fell in love with the monster — he became a man?”

Mom sighed, pressing her nose somewhere on the top of my head.

“Does it matter? She loves him even as he is … No, the curse never went away, and he remained … the monster. But for her, he was the most beautiful man in the world, because when you love, you don’t sight anything except what you want to sight,” she paused for a moment, weighing her words. “Yes, Victor, fairy tales don’t always have an obvious ending — and not necessarily with wonders. Isn’t it enough that they met and were happy?”

24. Being Sick Is Bad

I woke up from the alarm clock in a cold sweat. The glowing rectangle of the phone was tearing at the opposite side of the bed, I was reaching out to touch it. My body wouldn’t obey, I was trying to dig the phone out from under the sheets — just to make it fall silent.

Finally, I turned off the alarm, threw the device aside — and it was lost again somewhere in the blanket.

The sleep retreated, but an unnatural heaviness remained, it was difficult to breathe and swallow, my throat was swollen. My head was splitting, my bones were aching, and I only groaned, burying my nose in the damp pillow. I pulled my knees to my chest, covered myself with a blanket, it was sometimes cold, sometimes hot.

I drank whiskey last night, but I couldn’t remember how much. Now I felt lousy — but not because of a hangover.

Being sick is bad, I concluded mentally, coughing.

In my first year of vagabondage in Vienna, I tried, it seems, all the options for sleeping — from huts and abandoned buildings to a cardboard box. I chilled all parts of the body possible, I spent about a week in delirium, which seemed like an eternity, a real journey to hell — with nine circles, like Dante. I sincerely thought that I would die and not survive the winter … Only a couple of years later I learned that the bad trip with hallucinations had a name — pneumonia, and that hobos survive alone much less often than in groups — since a warm body nearby at least warms up somehow.

I didn’t remember names and nicknames, I was rarely used as a warm body, but over the course of a year I learned where and how often shelters and meals were organized for the homeless, and where one could warm up next to a burning barrel on which someone was roasting a stinky rat.

I have only heard scary stories about cannibalism. No one has ever been eaten in my presence — only beaten or fucked. I ran fast, even when my bladder was full and it was painful to defecate because of the cold.

There were moments when I regretted running away — and bit my fists to keep from screaming from the despair rising from my empty stomach to my throat like phantom vomit. I ran away because I couldn’t stand the harassment of teenage bullies, more often — of defenseless little ones, less often — of me; I didn’t understand the strange logic of caretakers who refused to make complete human beings out of children, and not aggressive but submissive zombies.

They needed us to go for walks on schedule and finish our lunch to the last crumb, to be quiet on command, like trained dogs — and, if necessary, to get loose from the chain, so that we could then get a knock on our backs.

We were not tortured or beaten, no one cared about us. We were left to our own devices.

When children were sick, they were disliked by the caretakers for being a nuisance, and by the children for keeping them from sleeping by coughing at night. Those who were sent to the infirmary — when they were really bad — were said to never return, and terrifying stories of their appendix getting removed right in our nurse’s office were told about them. I was afraid that my appendix would become inflamed — since I believed it wasn’t my appendix that was being removed, but half my intestines and something else on top.

I dreamed of running away for as long as I could remember. I never entertained the idea of being adopted, because every day we were told, ‘Who needs you, you snot-nosed brat? Even your own mother abandoned you.’ I dreamed that once I left the orphanage, I would instantly be free — and my own boss.

I was naive. It seems that the hardest thing for me in adult life was not fighting off street thugs and hiding from the police and social services, but taking responsibility for myself.

I didn’t want to go anywhere, I kept staring at the dark ceiling. Outside the windows, the dim sky was already beginning to clear, but I couldn’t see it — the thick curtains hid the morning light from me. I realized with disappointment that I had played enough — and I was not at all eager to return to the office.

I dialed the office number with some difficulty and, holding the receiver to my ear, listened to the long, sharp beeps. Calling the reception was easier than looking for someone’s contacts and texting in chats.

The office plankton enthusiastically discussed gossip, TV series, football, and love affairs, they imitated authorities, hated each other and at the same time grinned in a welcoming smile. I kept to myself, only occasionally exchanging phrases in the kitchen with Riedel, who gave me recommendations on each dish from the vending machine, and Frei sighed sympathetically when I was once called a Satanist — because he, too, was called a Satanist.

Secretary Kathy, fortunately, left me alone.

I was tormented by thirst, but I could not bring myself to get out of bed. I began to feel sleepy.

“Martha Thompson Design Studio, good morning.”

“Kathy, hi, it’s Victor.”

“Victor!”

“I’m sick, I won’t come today.”

“What happened?”

An alarmed voice slashed across my eardrums, I pulled the phone away from my ear.

“I’ll be fine tomorrow, so don’t let them get their hopes up …”

My throat was sore, as if I’d eaten sharp river sand. I swallowed.

“Let me come to you?”

“No, it’s not necessary. Thank you. See you tomorrow, Kathy,” I hastened to reply and hung up.

There was no reason for her to come, besides, I looked pathetic.

Why can’t I control objects with my mind? I sighed resignedly, closed my eyes, ready to do anything for a sip of water. I hoped that I would be able to fall asleep again, and then the thirst would subside. I fell into oblivion, but woke up from a sore throat and an annoying cough.

The room was dark, I didn’t know how much time had passed since the alarm went off. It seemed like a week had passed since I’d been in bed, unable to get up or even go to the bathroom. I threw off the damp sheets, trying unsuccessfully to lie down comfortably, so that nothing would hurt or ache.

For some reason I wanted to cry, I clenched my teeth until my jaw hurt, and my mouth tasted salty of blood from my bitten lips.

In strange visions myself and the black shadow were mixed, I saw with his yellow eyes through the darkness, I could hear what others were not allowed to hear … Then I returned to the room, to the bed, all wet with sweat, without the strength to get up.

For some reason, I suddenly remembered Kaftzefoni I had met the day before, he was acting as if nothing had happened. The musicians obviously didn’t suspect anything, according to their version, I simply went to the dressing room earlier than usual, and then quietly left the club and went home — so that no one would see my broken face. No one could know what happened then — not even Baphomet, who saw Mr. Mask.

Didn’t they sense something was wrong, didn’t they notice something strange? If Baphomet didn’t recognize my yellow-eyed stranger as the violin thief, then it must have been someone else?

This can’t be! Mr. Mask is the only contender for the role of the villain, ready to get the violin at any cost.

I still had no idea how I would explain the disappearance of the instrument.

Turning over onto my stomach, I weakly punched the pillow. I wanted to pull off the T-shirt that was stuck to my body, but at first I only jerked irritably in the sheets. After a while, I finally threw the T-shirt aside and covered my head with my hands.

I curled up in a fetal position to keep warm, I didn’t have the strength to pull the blanket up.

“Mom …” I muttered through my sleep for some reason. “Please.”

25. Concert Is Tomorrow

By evening I felt better. When I washed my face, the same green-faced scrawny guy was looking at me from the mirror above the sink, and I made a fist-and-finger gesture at him. A real Little Raccoon and a pool — but he, unlike me, had made friends with his reflection.

I was sitting on the toilet, naked, shirtless, with my pants down to the floor, rubbing my face with my hands to stop nodding off, struggling to keep my eyes open, I regretted getting out of bed. I didn’t want to do anything.

When I pulled on my jeans and trudged into the kitchen, I found not only the chocolate bars I’d bought on the table, but also boxes of ready-made food — which were supposed to go into the refrigerator. The containers with their sad contents went into the trash can.

I turned on the kettle and sat down on the stool. Overcoming the desire to fall with my heavy head on the tabletop, I looked at my hands lying on my knees, listened to the measured gurgle of the boiling water. The scar on my right wrist, reaching almost to the middle of the palm, was almost unnoticeable …

The enchanted violin of the Architect! Nonsense.

The kettle boiled, emitting hot steam from its nose. I stood up and began mindlessly pouring water into a mug. I realized something was wrong when my hand involuntarily jerked away from the boiling water, which was already pouring out of the mug onto the table.

I slammed the kettle down on the countertop, rushed to the sink, and stuck my fingers under the cold water. I was getting sleepy again, and I leaned my hip on the countertop to keep from falling to the floor. I swung my hand thoughtfully, splashing everything around me, and fell into a trance, staring off into space. The icy water was soothing, and I kept my hands under the faucet …

Only when my head was under the stream, I suddenly came to senses, gasping for air. Not understanding what was happening, I jumped back.

I finally woke up.

As if through the thick walls, the sound of the phone was coming. I grabbed a kitchen towel and went into the room.

I looked at the screen, wiping my hair: it was Baphomet. Water was running down my spine into my pants, I picked up the phone.

“Hey, Victor,” he greeted me carefreely. “You’ve become quite impudent, don’t you think?”

I was confused.

“What’s the matter?”

Met laughed.

“The concert is tomorrow, and you haven’t come to the rehearsal even once. Is the Austrian count really so busy that he forgot about us?”

“Concert? What concert?”

I couldn’t figure it out.

“Met …?” I called out, confused.

“Dummy, I told you, the festival was moved to tomorrow. Did you forget? You’ve been strange lately … Come early so you can make it — we’ll discuss everything. At least don’t forget to take the violin.”

Before I could object, he had already hung up. How could I sing like this? And the violin … I had to tell him everything now! I sighed resignedly and threw the phone on the bed. Then I continued drying myself.

I have been with the demons for a year — since last fall. I tried to find something to do in New York related to music, I tried myself in different musical genres — to please those who listened to me in Manhattan speakeasies and basements of Queens and Brooklyn — but they responded more to appearance and presentation, and not to complexity and skill. No one needed experiments, I was asked to avoid academic tediousness, to sing softer, to look ‘sweeter,’ and I, on the contrary, wanted to develop in extreme vocals … I did not fit in with musical bands that performed metal, organized slam dancing at concerts — for them, I was too calm and melancholic.

Until I met the demons.

I was zipping up my guitar case at the bar counter and was about to leave the nightclub, as usual, without even approaching the manager to collect my ridiculous wages for the shift, when a man in a checkered jacket approached me.

“Can you do any hard stuff?”

I looked up at him, I didn’t even try to smile. There was a fascinated expression on his goatee-bearded face.

“I can,” I responded.

“I’m Kaftz.”

He extended his hand, I shook his palm.

“Victor.”

“I know.”

I assumed he would offer me a job at another club or bar, and I waited for him to continue.

“We need a vocalist, you have a special voice.”

Special, yeah.

“Like a chainsaw,” I couldn’t help myself.

Kaftz — I didn’t show that I was surprised by his name, which was obviously not his real one — was odd — I felt it in my gut, but, contrary to my premonition, I had no intention of running away.

“Something like that,” he laughed. “An angel and a demon and a cat in March. Do you write your own music?”

The guitar was already on my shoulder, I nodded. The next day I came to Good Room, I was met by a man named Baphomet, he, like Kaftz, talked to me as if he knew me — in a folksy and friendly way.

For the first time, I didn’t have to prove anything, I didn’t try to seem better — to be liked. They simply said that I was the one they had been looking for, for a long time.

I had an easy time with them, all six of them were jackasses — especially Kaftzefoni and Baphomet. They enthusiastically learned my musical compositions, they gave me the idea for the mask — noticing that I was overreacting to the attention directed at me.

They said, with a mask everything would be different — because in a mask I could be someone else … And that the feeling that I was selling myself would go away.

It didn’t go away — but the demons never heard from me about it.

I threw the towel on the floor and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I needed to get up and eat something, but apathy again entangled me with the tentacles of helplessness.

I still felt like something was wrong. They hadn’t heard from me in so long, and yet Met was talking to me like we’d just seen each other yesterday …

I coughed and rolled over, pulling the crumpled blanket up. The phone was stuck somewhere under my ribs, I pulled it out, threw it aside without looking, and closed my eyes, dreaming of falling asleep. Let it be excruciatingly sweet, like those same dreams; let it be terrible, and let all the monsters of the universe attack me …

I don’t care.

I’m so tired of all of it. So tired.

26. I Lied

Someone had punctured all four of my tires and I had to get on the subway to make it to the club. I didn’t go to work again, I had given myself another day off without regret, knowing full well Mrs. Thompson wouldn’t tolerate it. I looked gloomily at my feet, making my way through the stream of people entering the New York subway at the 30th Avenue station.

First, I had to go back home from the parking lot to get my coat. The rumble of the trains was so loud that it laid my ears, it seemed like I had been in the subway for a long time, like in a past life. An uncompromising monster train, air currents circulating through the tunnels, outstripping the machine, a predictable change of scenery …

The subway was as dirty as before. Household garbage was white on the line, and rats often ran from corner to corner along the passageway, even at daytime, completely unfazed by the flow of people.

The subterranean is both chaotic and indifferent. At the same time every day, passengers wait for the train on the platform, get in the car, take the same seat, show no interest in anything around them, stare at their phone, tablet, or computer, and meeting a stranger’s gaze is like death to them.

I would prefer that no one stared at me.

I admitted to myself that I was uncomfortable — and I was constantly expecting a trick, every passing glance made me want to fall through the ground, I wanted to jump out of the car, never to return to a crowd of people. In the reflection in the glass of the subway car — as if an unfamiliar face; every transition between stations — a flow in the herd, a feeling of being an imposter, who is visible from afar, and at any moment someone will scream and start pointing a finger at me.

I haven’t been stealing wallets for a long time, I haven’t been a shaggy teen in a worn-out sweatshirt and holey sneakers who snuck into the subway to warm up for a long time.

I rode the escalator up and wondered what was wrong with me. I spent the wait at the Nassau Avenue light, as well as the walk to Good Room, in existential thoughts. A few minutes later, I was already entering the club, greeting everyone I met along the way.

Once I was in my place, I forgot about my troubles. It was time to quit working for Mrs. Thompson — offices are not my thing.

The demons were already rehearsing in the hall, the lighting designer was randomly starting up the equipment, testing the spotlights and strobes, Kaftzefoni and Belial nodded to me from the stage. I asked Mephistopheles what the plan was for today.

“It’s good you came earlier for this once. At least we’ll have time to warn you—” he began.

But Kaftsefoni interrupted him, “Don’t listen to him. Changes in the track list shouldn’t scare you, should they? Today, we need to burn this place to hell!”

I cringed.

“Fix your face! A figure of speech.”

The festival was non-commercial, phantasmagoric, and underground; demons playing metalcore were supposed to open it. In all the organizational talk, I never managed to find a moment to tell Baphomet about the strange events forced me to give the violin to a black, yellow-eyed monster.

“Victor, haven’t you forgotten anything? We’re waiting for an explanation.”

Do they know?!

“What are you talking about?”

I blinked innocently, all determination and intention disappeared in an instant. We were standing near the stage in the main hall, the demons were looking at me attentively, I crossed my arms on my chest.

“When I saw you, you just waved me off and said you would tell me everything later. Well, ‘later’ has come. Tell me.”

He’s not talking about the violin … When did I see him? What did I promise to tell him?

“When?”

I shrugged. How odd … Let them tell me themselves.

“Are you messing with me?”

Wincing with feigned insult, Baphomet leaned his cello against the chair and took a step toward me.

I remained silent.

“Come on, the day before yesterday, Victor, the day before yesterday — you passed me by on your way to the dressing room, and I wanted to scare you, I jumped out of the darkness, but you noticed me and turned around. Remember?”

Not like that. The day before yesterday I was at home, I didn’t go anywhere after the grocery store.

“I get it: this is some kind of joke, right? I bought it, you won,” I tried to smile, but their puzzled faces contradicted the guess. “No, that didn’t happen! I wasn’t here the day before yesterday, Kaftz, you remember, the day before yesterday we met in the store, and I said that—”

“Yes, I remember. But it was after, late at night—”

“What happened? Met, I don’t understand what you’re talking about!”

Kaftz frowned in disbelief, scratched his chin and said, “Victor, why are you acting up, Met saw you, I saw you …”

“Yeah, man, you just told me to go fuck myself, aggressively, like something had gotten into you. Why do you deny the obvious?”

“Who — me? That’s bullshit!”

I jumped up to Baphomet, but Belial, who had been standing to the side, pulled me away.

“Enough, everyone, calm down!” he barked.

Even if I assume that I got drunk, went to a club and for some reason didn’t remember it, the picture seemed implausible.

“Can you just explain?!” I exclaimed, freeing myself from Belial’s hands. “Go on!”

The six demons looked at each other. Finally, Asmodeus turned to Kaftz and Baphomet, “Are you sure it was him?”

Indeed! I couldn’t have been here the day before yesterday, there was no way!

“Of course,” Met chuckled, “I talked to him, and he said, ‘Get lost, Hedman, I don’t have time for your demonic nonsense,’ and ran off.”

He waved his hand in my direction, I gasped for air.

“No, it’s—” I began.

“Yeah, and I saw you,” confirmed Beelzebub, “you were standing by the utility room, Victor was out of sorts!”

“No, that didn’t happen …”

“Yeah, the bastard didn’t even want to hear me out: I told him about the festival, and he turned around and left!”

“Lord …”

“And he waved his cloak so showily,” Kaftzefoni continued discontentedly. “Like a fucking magician! Victor, where did you get such a cloak?”

“What cloak?! What the hell kind of cloak?!”

“You mean you weren’t there?” Baphomet narrowed his eyes. “And your mask — what do you think, who else wears your white mask besides you, Victor?”

There could only be one person in that damn mask … I couldn’t answer — I couldn’t breathe.

He was here, he was walking along the corridors, and they mistook him … They mistook him for me!

How dare he show up here, and even pretend to be me?! I’ll kill him, I’ll make a new mask out of him if I run into him again — and I’ll burn his violin! Why did he come back, what does he want from me? I gave him back his violin, I did everything as he asked …

“I remembered,” I muttered in a low voice. “I wasn’t myself, guys, my bad.”

Everyone stared at me — but after a few moments the tension eased, as if I had cast a magic spell. A minute later we were back to the interrupted rehearsal. No one asked about the violin even once.

They were just waiting for me to agree with them.

I felt uneasy. I lied to them. Why did I hide the truth that I was being stalked by a psychopath in a black cloak, why did I continue to pretend that everything was okay?

The rehearsal distracted me from my obsessive thoughts. It doesn’t matter now, everything is as usual now …

I reassured myself that while I was with the demons, the black shadow would not come near me — but deep down I longed to meet him.

27. Three Kinds of Shadows

“Back in the late 17th century, Filippo Baldinucci in his ‘Tuscan Vocabulary of Drawing Art’ drew attention to shadows — as a special narrative tool in fine art,” the lecturer spoke from the podium. “A shadow is an unlit part of the surface of a solid object, located on the other side from the illuminated one. In the language of painters, a shadow means a dark-colored area that gradually turns into a light area, giving the object volume.”

I looked at the ceiling of the Hall of the Five Hundred — a room on the ground floor of the Palazzo Vecchio, the largest civil assembly hall in the world — one hundred and seventy feet long, seventy feet wide, and fifty-nine feet high … I remembered the numbers unintentionally, I was just curious to know which palace Sir Leigh would visit next during his trip to Florence.

I was seventeen, he tried to give me everything and even more. He always took me with him on business trips, I absorbed knowledge like a sponge, I tried to catch up, everything was new to me.

Renaissance architecture evoked mixed feelings in me, including an inexplicable dread, even more existential than Gothic and Gothic Revival. I couldn’t wrap my head around how many decades of human lives and tireless labor each painted stone had absorbed. Every object that caught my eye was a work of art.

Frescoes and marble statues — recounting the history of the Florentines and the Medici family — surrounded the three hundred-plus spectators in the Old Palace on an August evening who had come to hear some kind of doctor and art historian, the curator of the Capponi Library. His speech — a fascinating journey into the plots of Renaissance paintings — was about shadows — which the average viewer usually doesn’t pay attention to.

“There are three kinds of shadow — body shadow, half-shadow, and cast shadow,” the speaker switched the slide with an imperceptible movement. “Body shadow is a shadow on an object itself. Let’s look at a sphere: on one side it will have light, and this light will gradually become darker as the shape bends and will move into an unlit area, which is called the shadow.”

Sir Leigh kept his eyes on the lecturer on the podium, his young assistant Remy looked boredly at the audience in the Hall of the Five Hundred, fidgeting in his chair, propping up the row in front with his knees, and I tried to even breathe quietly — so as not to incur the wrath of the shadows lurking on the frescoes and behind the statues — of which, it seemed to me, there were not three kinds, but even more.

The bow tie — like the formal black suit and white shirt — seemed separate from me, even though they had been custom-made in advance, especially for the evening. After the event, Sir Leigh would, as usual, chat with historians, art historians, and representatives of local bon ton, and his assistant and I would go for ice cream.

Then Sir Leigh will scold us, since finding ice cream and getting back on time is not an easy task.

“Half-shadow is called the area between light and shadow, passing through which light turns into shadow, following the change in the shape of the object. A cast shadow is a shadow that an object casts on the ground or another surface.”

I could distinguish people by their shadows, their steps, their voices, their narrative style. Before going to Florence, I had read about a dozen books about the artists on display at the Uffizi — so that I could play a game with myself: guessing not only the artist — as soon as I entered the room — but also the title. With a strange, almost obsessive zeal, I asked Sir Leigh about Caravaggio, about the differences between chiaroscuro — with its spatial fullness and nuances of halftones of varying degrees of darkness — and the exposed figures of tenebrism against the gaping blackness of the background.

Sir Leigh then said that without a shadow, man has no place in the material world — and those who claim they have no shadow are lying.

“We can only see what already exists in our consciousness, we demonstrate miracles of observation when we are shown what exactly is worth paying attention to … And today I am your guide to the world of shadows.”

The doctor on the stage bowed briefly. He had a special cast shadow — very similar to Sir Leigh’s. Remy’s shadow sometimes resembled Sir Leigh’s, too — but only sometimes.

I never found an answer why.

28. Just Like Them

The boy won’t suspect anything — he’s curious, but he’s a coward. If he thinks he’s too smart, he’ll be another cadaver in my collection. But for now, he’s another walking dead …

He’s odd. His voice amazed me. All of him sings … No one can sing like that, except me. I was wrong.

Dark Heavens, I was wrong, this can’t be.

He keeps catching my eye, he reminds me of myself … An empty-headed doll, fascinated by the occult. In the company of these clown-demons — a real menagerie! Music for sectarians — just think how they could even come up with such a thing!

This is all not serious — just another shocking show.

I think we are alike. It’s a coincidence. It was a coincidence — that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If he knew me, I would think he was copycatting me, he dresses all in black, he is tall, thin, and pale. In a mask.

Maybe it was the menagerie that put him up to this? Definitely, it was all the demons. Another mockery.

I saw his eyes. Something stopped me then, I don’t know myself, I am already confused … How he gets scared! The illusionist’s cloak and the reflections of light in the pupils are enough — and he already believes that I am a ghost! Isn’t he a fool?

I should have killed him — not just scared him with tricks. There would have been no point in that — but there is no point in anything anymore.

He can’t play the violin — I knew that right away. Why does he need the violin? Maybe he’s just scared, maybe his demon friends are just using him — because he’s a dumbass. Like a piece of meat on a platter, bait for a hungry crowd.

I still can’t help but think that we have a lot in common. I’ve always despised those who imitate me. Dark Heavens, when I heard him, I thought I was hearing myself from the outside.

He is odd. He is undoubtedly capable — and he wastes his talent on some nonsense! I never took students, they were all unworthy, they were all talentless … For the first time, I suddenly thought that he could become my student.

To pass on what I know — so that the legacy lives on.