Chapter 1 * * *​ Someone must work in the darkness so that others may live in the light​ Richard Yancey "The Monstrumologist"​ * * * It smelled of blood and death. Olga had never seen a dead body, much less smelled one, but for some reason, she knew immediately and unequivocally that only death could smell so horrible. A peculiar, slightly sweet smell with a hint of bitterness. It was not unpleasant at all ... the word "unpleasant" was not appropriate here, because it did not convey the sensation at all. Rather, the smell was utterly alien to the living. Like a common spider to a mammal. The smell evoked an instinctive urge to flee, to hide, to panic in the very core of her soul.​ Olga mumbled unintelligibly, twitched all her limbs at once, slapping her palms on something slimy - it worked unexpectedly. She was able to feel her body, and her other senses returned, first her hearing, then her eyesight.​ So, what is it...? What the hell is going on around here...​ Olga shook her head and rubbed her eyes. It was a very bad idea! Dirty just caused a waterfall of tears. Blinking, she looked at her fingers, trying to figure out where the dirt came from. Oh, shit! Not just dirt, but some kind of sticky sludge with tiny scales, like coagulated blood...​ "Fuck this shit," Olga whispered, forgetting at once that she was a cultured person and an urban person in general, even if in the first generation. The sounded characteristic was surprisingly appropriate because in this case the surrounding landscape was defined that way - and nothing else.​ It looked more like some kind of chapel than anything else. Or a crypt. In general, it was clearly something cult-like, ancient. Nothing modern, no plastic, and not a single square corner. A circular hall about the size of an ordinary playground, either concrete or stone. How many meters, what's the radius of... Fuck knows. The walls converged with a web of ribs, three meters above the floor so that the room seemed to be the interior of some citrus fruit with many slices. The shadows between the ribs were thickened with an abnormal depth, like inkblots.​ And in general, everything here was abnormal.​ On closer inspection, the girl realized that the stone walls were painted from the floor upward, with some nonsense. A mural... No, more like a text, and generously sprinkled over it with red paint. The letters were familiar, almost all of them. It was in Latin, but, like the rest of the room, it had no straight angles. All flowing, depicted in flying strokes with all sorts of swirls. Some of the characters still seemed unfamiliar, but they did not give the impression of being alien inclusions in the text. Just other letters of the same alphabet.​ The floor was very smooth and wet. In the middle of the room was... an altar? Well, some kind of pedestal, more like an altar than anything else. Apparently, something had been lying on it before, and now it was shattered into glass crumbs. There were a lot of crumbs, like diamond dust; at any rate, they reflected the light just as beautifully and brightly.​ Where did the light come from? The hell knows... Olga did not see lamps or anything like it. But the light was coming from somewhere, it was not visible as daylight or even as an old incandescent lamp, but more or less.​ Though it would have been better if there had been no light, for at that moment the girl realized that the walls were not at all covered with paint. And the floor. And all around, including her clothes.​ "Shit! " Olga uttered with genuine sincerity.​ Well, at least it was clear where the nauseating smell came from. But another question arose: what could have caused such an explosion ... by the way, how many victims were there in general?​ Now an uncontrollable wave of nausea swept over Olga. It was as if a flap had been opened in her brain, behind which was full awareness of the insanity of what was happening. The crypt, the symbols, the bloody jelly, and the small - no higher than an ankle - mounds in which fragmented bones, generously mixed with the stuffing of entrails and torn clothes, could be discerned.​ The vomiting was long and agonizing. The worst part was the smell. After another cramp, her lungs greedily sucked in more air, the stench pounded directly into her solar plexus, and the cycle repeated itself, to the splashing of gastric juice from her empty stomach, the stabbing pain in her eyes, and the feeling that her diaphragm was about to rupture.​ ​ "Salva me."​ ​ A man. Hidden in the shadows, motionless. The only more or less intact body within sight. How had she not noticed him before? Olga wiped her mouth with her sleeve, swallowed painfully, trying to switch off from the sensation of dried blood on her palms. She stared into the shadow, overcoming her aching head, the red haze in front of her eyes, and the buzzing in her ears.​ ​ The man was half-lying, half-sitting, leaning against the pilaster. Nearby lay something long, metal, like a gun with a very thick barrel. The gun was damaged, and the barrel was bent at an angle of forty or forty-five degrees; it looked eerie. Who had managed to tear the weapon steel of finger-thick like that?​

​The first impression the only living and whole person made was monochrome. He was dressed entirely in black. Not dark gray, not blue, but real charcoal darkness. Black boots on thick soles with many clasps along with the high cuffs. A black raincoat, heavy and "oaky" even in appearance, lying in rough folds. A stand-up collar, like part of a suit of armor, protrudes down to his cheekbones, covering the lower part of his face. The padded gloves are like a real "tactical," only bigger, tougher, and somehow ... more grotesque. The front part of his cloak was charred, hanging down in tatters, and something like a cuirass, nicely dented by hammers, gleamed beneath it. Of course, it was black, too.​ ​ On his belt hung a double pouch of thick leather, one of the compartments letting out a thin tube, like an IV. The tube was stuck in the man's neck with a thick needle, and a yellow light on the pouch flashed alarmingly, just like an LED. There were some symbols on his cloak, silvery-white in color, but they smoothed out in the shadows as if dissolving into it.​ ​ His face was white. Pale, apparently from nature, it was now completely bleached, taking on a strange, eerie hue. A mixture of white and gray. Olga blinked and felt a shiver in her hands and then all over her body. Only now did she realize that the man in the armored cloak was terribly wounded. Olga was lucky to have missed (until this minute, at least) not only the dead but also severe mutilation, so her mind did not first catch the abnormally angled foot ... no, perhaps the knee ... actually the entire left leg from the hip was twisted along its axis from outside to inside, like a plasticine man in the hands of a child. Judging by the pitifully twisted arm and the general obliquity, something hit right in the man's chest, snagging the whole left half. The armor survived, but the force of the impact was too powerful.​ ​ Olga swallowed, trying to understand why the unknown man was still alive. The inner voice shouted that people could not live with such injuries. But the stranger was conscious and was looking at her very intently. John Doe's eyes seemed like bottomless holes in his gray-white face, his dark pupils incredibly dilated with pain but thought and consciousness was pulsing in them.​ ​ "Salva me." The stranger repeated authoritatively.​ ​ It sounded like an order, from a man accustomed to obedience. But it wasn't very impressive, because the "black cloak" inhaled, and he groaned through his teeth at the pain in his ribs, blurring the last word in a long moan. Tiny scarlet drops appeared on his gray lips.​ ​ "Ego Inquisitor sum. Audi me."​ ​ This time he spoke more softly, trying not to disturb the broken body. And he couldn't seem to contain his surprise at Olga's reaction. Or rather, the lack thereof. "Black" looked at the girl. The girl looked at "Black" in silence - "like a sheep at a new gate," if you refer to the rich vocabulary of her stepmother. She did not understand what he was saying. Some of the words seemed familiar, the language - akin to English, which she had learned from her time at the "beauty studio". But the whole thing was completely unintelligible.​ ​ Spanish? No, too chopped and clear phrases. German? Also no, on the contrary, too smooth. Maybe French... And what the hell is a Frenchman doing here?​ ​ "Quis es tu, quid tibi nomen est?" The wounded man made another attempt.​

​Indeed, a Frenchman. But that did not make the situation any clearer.​​ And what's the noise outside...​ God, it's so scary all around.​ ​ Her thoughts were jumbled, clinging to each other, and in the end, none of them made sense. What the hell was going on here? Maybe some terrorists? A silly line from an old movie came to mind: "Saddam Hussein attacked us!"​ ​ No, if they were terrorists, they must have normal weapons and other ammunition. But here the whole environment looked like a set from a high-budget sci-fi movie. This, what's its name... "Dune" from the eighties from some American junkie. Lynch, yes, definitely Lynch. Only without the flip side in the form of plywood, duct tape, and nails sticking out. And the extra with the flick on which he was supposed to write the take's props were missing.​ ​ "Debemus recedere ex …"​ ​ The "Black" seemed to be affected by his wounds. His voice fell silent, his words becoming unintelligible. The gray-white color was gradually giving way to blue-green. Now the unknown man did look more and more like a dead man with each passing second. And he was no longer demanding but begging. As much as he could, he seemed to have learned long ago not to beg for anything. The yellow signal on his pouch turned red.​ ​ The noise, that buzzing in my ears again, like an apiary or the rumble of the surf... She have to look outside somehow, call for help. Although the poor guy can't be helped, that's for sure.​ ​ "Redeant in ambobus necabo." Man in black exhaled and stared at Olga with dim eyes. He seemed to have exhausted his stock of eloquence and prepared for the worst.​ ​ What the girl wanted more than anything was to say "go fuck yourself" and get the hell out of here. Her head was hurting more and more, her diaphragm was hurting, her eyes were hurting... everything was hurting. And in the ears, it was humming. Three things stopped Olga. First, she saw nothing that could be considered a way out. Nothing at all. Secondly, a man was dying in front of her, and Olga, of course, liked to brag about cynicism - who in her youth avoided it? - but not so much as to leave a helpless person to die on. Third ...​ ​ She didn't have time to think about that. The girl finally realized that the hum in her ears was not an illusion, but a real sound coming through the walls. And then she realized what the sound most likely resembled.​ ​ In old books such a situation was usually described in some colorful way - "blood froze in the veins" and all that. Olga was always genuinely amused by the archaic turns of "old times". Only not now, because she felt exactly as described. It was as if all her blood had frozen at once, freezing her body with unspeakable terror.​ ​ She realized what that sound was coming from outside.​ ​ Run, she must run!​ ​ Olga fumbled, frantically and haphazardly, slipping on the smooth floor, well smeared with blood and some other gooey shit.​ ​ Run, run, run!​ ​ Away from the terrifying howl of thousands of throats that raged, approaching, somewhere behind the thick walls. Of course, the girl had heard what the shrieks of many people sounded like, thanks to YouTube and the cinema. But here ... if someone now asked a calm, detached question - and what, in fact, is wrong? - Olga would hardly be able to answer. It was just ... her ears told her two completely objective facts. The first was that some crazy crowd of people was shouting outside. The second was that normal people couldn't make such demonic cries. They couldn't, that's all. The howling, even muffled by the barrier, penetrated somewhere deep into her consciousness, awakened the atavistic fear of the naked ape of the horrors of a world plunged into darkness.​ ​ Only run!​ ​ But where to?​ ​ Olga clenched her fists and looked around in panic. She rushed to the nearest wall and pounded on it, smashing her fists against the sharp edges.​ ​ "Let me out!" She yelled, frantically thinking that all this mincemeat had somehow gotten in here. And if they got in, there must be a way out!​ ​ "Let me out!"​ ​ And she was answered. Olga stepped back, feeling the wall vibrate as if many hands were pounding on it at once from the other side. Whoever it was, he, or rather they, intended to breakthrough. And maybe they will succeed. The girl covered herself with her hands as if trying to ward off the outside threat, feeling powerless despair, and apathetic.​ ​ No way out.​ ​ Now, just a minute... That grim man in the bdsm cape who was about to give his soul to God? Olga looked at the still alive crippled. Surprisingly, he responded with a hazy but still meaningful look. He, too, seemed to be feeling the disposition.​ ​ "Let me out!" Asked the girl, trying to wipe her soiled face with her sleeve. She thought for a few moments and then added, as clearly and legibly as possible. "Save me. Please. Help."​ ​ "You're going to die anyway, so at least help me one last time," she added in a whisper, not fearing that he would understand. The Russian language was unfamiliar to the crooked-legged man.​ ​ "Salva me."​ ​ Well, he's said that before. And what would that mean?​ ​ "An asshole/" The girl said passionately, fighting the urge to punch her interlocutor right in the forehead.​ Salva me. "Me" it's understandable. But "salve"... Maybe "help". In such an environment, there's nothing else to say. Again, it sounds like "save," "save me," "salve me".​ ​ "An asshole." She repeated, understanding, in her mind, that it sounded unfair. But everything around her was so ugly, and it must have been someone's fault.​ ​ And what can I do for you?​ ​ She stepped toward the wounded man. Up close, he reeked of burning clothes and burnt plastic. Probably from the melted armor, which had taken on a volley of unknown shit, though it failed to protect its owner completely. Olga knelt next to the sufferer.​ ​ "Who the hell are you..."​ ​ The man in black didn't seem to understand a word, but he caught the emotional context. He slowly raised his right hand, put his palm to his heart, and, writhing in pain, said something separately. What it was, Olga could barely make out; it was too short and slurred, all consonants. "Korupmnt" some kind of... Corruptor in the local language?​ ​ "Is he an Armenian?" She thought aloud. "No, you'll be a "Kryp". You're so creepy anyway."​ ​ In fact, the wounded man was not very scary. Nor was he old. If you wiped away the mask of misery and the splatter of coagulated blood from his face, the poor man could have been about thirty years old, maybe even less.​ Realizing he'd been renamed, Kryp mouthed again. Through strength and pain, he mumbled slowly:​ "Et ego coriarius. Quaestiones."​ "WTF" Olga muttered, touching his tattered cloak. "What to do with you?"​ ​ The wounded man was breathing heavily, with a wheezing sound that seemed to burst from the very depths of his lungs. Olga distinctly realized that minutes remained for Kryp. It was unclear what power was still keeping him on this side of life, but its effect was ending​ ​ "Damn it," the hairdresser said with passion and tried to pull open the flaps of the black cloak. The thick layered fabric turned out to be exactly as it looked from the outside - stiff and badly bendable. Olga searched for anything resembling a first-aid kit and found none. Only a strange, palm-sized badge on a thick chain. The badge was marked with an engraving, either a letter or a symbol that looked like a letter. A cross with small sidebars or a Latin "I" crossed by two or three horizontal lines. And the classic "Totenkopf" on the intersection.​ ​ Fucking Nazi. And nothing that looks like a first-aid kit. Only an empty leather holster, sewn with rough stitching, it seems, by hand. Not even a knife.​ ​ "First-aid kit!" The girl shouted in despair and then realized that those outsides could hear her. It occurred to her that, insofar as their howls were unlike human voices, they must have been unlike ordinary people. At least they were hammering with inhuman strength.​ ​ "Do you have something at least? A syringe tube, some other shit?"​ ​ Kryp keeps silent. He seems to have fainted.​ ​ Olga stopped, despair overwhelming her. A man was dying in front of her, and she was powerless. She had already forgotten how she was ready to leave the unfortunate man right there.​ ​ Ahh... In a good book, she would surely have the knowledge she needed. Let's say a paramedical course under her belt. Or at least a relative in medicine, a parent, or better yet, a grandfather. And one would be able to recall old wise advice, just on the topic of the day. But Olga had no medical relatives, and the ones she did have... in general, relatives were the last thing a girl would think of well, especially at a time like this.​ ​ "What should I do with you..." She whispered, feeling the tears stinging her inflamed eyes. The incredible stress and stench made her want to vomit again. And that light bulb seemed to be beeping, but it was so thin and disgusting that it cut through the outside noise.​ ​ Olga squirmed, folded almost in half like a folding knife. She wanted to close her eyes and ears, not to think about anything, to forget that it was all mincemeat and satanism and fucked up. The light bulb was still...​ ​ Lightbulb. Red. It beeps.​ ​ With trembling fingers, Olga touched the belt case, which looked like a pouch from an album about the armament of German nazist infantrymen. It was double, stiff, and seemed to be sewn from the same leather as the holster. The red bulb... it used to be yellow. And what was the tube? Olga looked closely at the "IV tube ", which seemed to be a real IV tube, only of a darker material and something more "glassy". It had been stuck into Kryp's neck, in the area of the carotid artery, roughly, hard, so that the blood protruded. Hmm... if he's right-handed, he must have poked himself with it, upward and downward, at such an angle.​ ​ Interesting...​ ​ Olga returned to the pouch, tried to open it. The clasp turned out to be stiff. She broke a couple of fingernails.​ ​ "Fuck." She cursed. She tried not to think about how much it cost, even at a discount at her local salon. Of course, it was silly, to say the least, to think about such trivial things now, but such simple, down-to-earth thoughts somehow tied her to reality. Because everything around her, visible and audible, simply could not exist. Olga felt the patina of city life flying off her like a leaf in the wind, revealing the old girl, the tenacious village animal, who does not think too much, but survives. And only then worries, maybe.​ ​ "Okay, this is more or less understandable." She muttered, looking at the two cylindrical things that showed up from under the pouch lid. They looked like enlarged batteries or beer cans. Each had a connector on the lid and a light bulb that looked like an LED. One blinked red through a slot in the pouch and reached out as a drip to Kryp's neck.​ ​ "Shall we take a risk?" Olga asked herself and looked at the man. He was half-lounging, half-sitting motionless, looking through the girl with an unseeing gaze. Several pink bubbles swelled on his blue lips.​ ​ Olga tried to unscrew the adapter that connects the dropper to the jar. Fortunately, it wasn't screwed all the way in, so she realized almost immediately that the thread is not clockwise, but the other way around. So she had to twist from left to right. It worked. The jar hissed softly, and the red light died. Olga exhaled, tried to calm the trembling in her fingers. She thought that, from the sanitary point of view, this was not even a dump, but a complete toilet, so that if Kryp survives now (and he certainly does not), he will die of contamination later.​ ​ "And toping with moonshine." Olga quoted her half-brother (may he die) as she screwed the adapter cup into the second "battery". It went through easily. And nothing happened.​ ​ Olga quietly jerked the tube, tapped the jar, looked for some hidden switch or at least a button. Nothing.​ ​ "A miracle of fucking technology..."​ ​ She tried another twist, the cylinder turned a quarter-turn forcefully, very stiffly, and something clicked in the jar as if a diaphragm inside had been punctured. A green light flashed. If you put your fingers to the jar, you could feel the slightest vibration, as if a silent motor was running inside. Nothing could be seen through the dark drip, but the girl was sure that some kind of substance was flowing through it, flowing into an artery. Maybe even with air bubbles.​ ​ Damn, she hadn't thought of that. On the other hand, it was too late. And even if she had, what could she do?​ ​ Olga sat and waited in silence. Outside there was howling, raging, and pounding. The sound seemed very muffled as if it was coming through a meter or two of concrete. And that made it all the more frightening. If you could hear it even here, what was going on outside?​ ​ Kryp woke up suddenly as if he had awakened from a deep sleep. He sighed heavily, coughed up blood, looked at Olga quite sensibly. He squinted his eyes down, touched the battery with careful, light strokes.​

​"Tibi gratias ago." He whispered.​ ​ "You're welcome, anytime," the girl giggled nervously. "Now get our asses out of here..."​ ​ It sounded so cheesy that it made her teeth cramp, but the mind brought up on modern mass media, gave out the usual pattern. Good thing Kryp didn't understand a word of it, except for the general message.​ ​ The rumbling outside, meanwhile, increased, and crumbs were sprinkled on the walls in some places. The first cracks, barely visible at first, crunched. It was not known how many destroyers were outside, or what they were using, but it was clear that the unknown intends to dismantle the crypt, and they would probably succeed.​ ​ "Exitus est ex loci iste, ostendo vobis." Kryp said through the pain. He thought for a few seconds and pointed his finger at Olga's pants. She stared at him incomprehensibly. He, gritting his teeth in pain and anger, slowly stretched out his hand and touched the belt buckle.​ ​ Olga opened her mouth to say clearly and distinctly what she thought of the fucking erotomaniac, who had watched all sorts of "Shades". She stopped herself and closed her mouth, realizing what Kryp wanted. She undid the metal buckle with the embossed crocodile on it and took out her belt. She helped the wounded man roll it in half. Kryp was now able to use his left hand as well, but more slowly and less well than with his more or less intact right hand. He shoved the leather band into his mouth, bit down hard, and pointed silently to the opposite wall. Beads of sweat broke out on Kryp's forehead, his pupils dilated even more in anticipation of the inevitable.​ The blows came more and more frequently from the outside, and crumbs, not dust, were falling from the vaulted ceiling.​ ​ "And he said, 'Let's go,'" Olga said and grasped the high collar of the cloak tightly.​ ​ Kryp muttered something, but all that came through his clenched teeth and belt was an inaudible "boo-boo-boo".​ Olga wanted to say something else like "this is going to hurt," but she realized that she was only dragging out the time that was almost gone. She pulled silently, trying to make it smooth and neat. Of course, it didn't work. It was a rough tug, and Kryp howled muffledly and fearfully, rolling his eyes, his hands twitching in uncontrollable convulsions. Olga kept pulling, unable even to swear, wishing that it would all be over somehow.​ * * *​