Chapter 19 Primer

The man was short, dark, with slender eyes.He was the kind of man any policeman in Moscow would want to suspect and question.His smile—ashamed, flustered; his gaze—innocent, wandering; he wore an old-fashioned dark suit that was barely worn in spite of the scorching heat; tie.In one hand, he held a bulging old leather bag, like the kind of bag that the agronomist and farm chairman of advanced collective farms in old movies walked with, and in the other hand, he held a long bag made of Central Asia. type cantaloupe. The man stepped out of the hard-sleeper car, smiling all the way at the female conductor, his fellow passengers, the porter who pushed him, and the lemonade and cigarette peddler.The man raised his eyes and looked excitedly at the roof of the Kazan railway station.He walked slowly on the platform, pausing every now and then to switch hands so that he could carry the melon more comfortably.He might be thirty, maybe fifty—from the perspective of a European, it is difficult to judge the age of an Asian.

After a while, a young man also came out of the soft sleeper compartment of the "Tashkent-Moscow" train. This train is probably one of the dirtiest and dilapidated trains in the world, and the image of the young man looks completely opposite to that of the train. .He looks Asian, or Uzbek by extension, but he is dressed in typical Muscovite style: shorts, a T-shirt, a pair of sunglasses, a small leather bag and a mobile phone in his waist, and nothing else thing.Not rustic at all.He didn't look around or look for the letter "M" on the subway sign.He gave a quick nod to the conductor and responded with a slight shake of the head to the soliciting taxi driver.He blended into the crowd in three steps at a time and got into the middle of the rushing passengers, with a somewhat unfriendly and repulsive expression on his face.A moment later he was part of the crowd, an inherent and inconspicuous part of it, growing into it, a cell of it, a normal, living cell, which neither Where the white blood cells act as policemen, it does not cause problems in neighboring cells.

A man carrying a cantaloupe and a leather bag passed through the crowd, muttering "I'm sorry" in impure Russian, crouching his neck, and looking around.He walked through the underpass, shaking his head as he walked in the other direction.He stopped next to the less crowded billboard, took out a crumpled piece of paper, hugged the thing in his arms, and concentrated on studying that piece of paper.Judging from the expression on the Asian man's face, he was completely unaware that someone was following him. There were three people standing by the wall of the railway station, which was obviously arranged on purpose.A beautiful girl with bright red hair, tightly wrapped in a silk dress; a punk-looking young guy with strangely lonely and old eyes; and an older man with long hair, Combed very smooth, like a gay.

"Not like it," said the lad with the old man's eyes gloomily, "not at all. I've seen him before, not for long, but . . . " "You don't want to confirm with Jolu again, do you?" the girl asked mockingly, "I saw it, it was him." "Are you responsible?" He didn't express surprise, nor did he want to argue, but just asked. "Yes." The girl didn't take her eyes off the Asian man. "Let's go. Catch in the aisle." Their first few steps were deliberate and uniform, and then they parted, the girl going on and the men going the other way.

The man folded the paper and walked hesitantly toward the passage. The passage was surprisingly empty, which will surprise Muscovites or those who frequent the capital, after all, this is the easiest way to get from the metro to the railway station.But the man didn't pay attention to this.He didn't notice that people stopped behind him as if they had encountered an invisible obstacle, and turned to another passage.As at the other end of the passage and at the station, he hadn't seen it all. A sweet-looking man walked towards him, smiling, followed by a lovely young girl and a guy with earrings in his ears and ripped jeans.

The man keeps going. "Stop, sir," said the charming man, his high-pitched voice matching his appearance, "don't hurry." The Asian smiled and nodded, but did not stop. The seductive man waved his hand, as if drawing a line between himself and this person.The air quivered, and a cold wind blew through the passage.Somewhere on the platform came the cry of a child and the barking of a dog. The man paused and looked ahead thoughtfully.He trumpeted his lips, blew once, and smiled slyly at the man standing before him.There was a crisp sound, as if an invisible piece of glass had been shattered.The face of the charming man was disfigured in pain, and he took a step back.

"It's yours, Jayonna," said the girl standing behind the Asian, "but you really shouldn't be in a hurry right now." "I'm in a hurry, oh, I'm in a hurry," said the man quickly, and he glanced back over his shoulder. "Would you like some cantaloupe, beauty?" The girl smiled and looked at the Asian carefully.She suggested: "Come with us, Dad? Go to the small teahouse, eat your cantaloupe, and drink some tea. We've been waiting for you for a long time, so it's not good to leave right away." There was a look of intense thought on the man's face.Then he nodded and said:

"Let's go, let's go." He knocked down the seductive man with his first step, and at this moment there seemed to be an invisible shield moving in front of the Asian man, a wall—it was not made of material materials, but mostly made of strong winds One wall: the long-haired man is dragged to the ground and rolled, his long hair flying to and fro, his eyes wide open, and a hoarse cry coming from his throat. The punk boy waved his hand - the red light flashed towards the Asian.The light was dazzling as soon as it was out of the hand, but it began to dim halfway, and when it flew to the back of the Asian, it was no longer bright, leaving only a barely visible twilight.

"Oh-yo-oh." The man didn't stop.He shrugged like an annoying fly on his back. "Alyssa!" cried the boy, without stopping his useless activity.His fingers were trembling slightly, rubbing the air, rubbing the red light from the air, and throwing them at the Asian. "Alyssa!" The girl looked down at the Asian man who was leaving, said something softly, and wiped the dress with one hand—a thin transparent prism appeared inexplicably in the palm of her hand.The Asian quickened his pace, scurrying from side to side, lowering his head ridiculously.The soft-looking man was still rolling in front of him, but he had stopped shouting.His face was bloodied and his hands and feet were broken, as if he had not rolled three meters on flat ground, but on a rocky desert, perhaps by a great hurricane, perhaps chained to a The galloping horse was dragged three kilometers behind.

The girl looks at the Asian through a prism. The Asian slowed down first, then groaned, and let go of his hands—the cantaloupe fell to the marble floor with a "slap", and the leather bag fell limply and heavily. "Ooo," cried the one the girl called "Jeonna," "ooo-yo." He fell limply, curled up into a ball.His cheeks were sunken, his cheekbones protruded, and his hands were thinner and loose like an old man, with blue veins protruding.The black hair hadn't turned white, but it was thinning with a layer of gray dust.The air around him trembled—an invisible, rushing stream of scorching heat poured in Alyssa's direction.

"It's not mine. From now on, it will all belong to me." The girl whispered, "Everything that belongs to you belongs to me." The girl's face flushed suddenly, so fast, just like the man shriveled up.She clicked her mouth and made a hoarse and strange sound softly.The punk boy frowned, and put down his hands—the last red light fell on the ground, and all the stones on the ground turned black. "Too easy," he said, "too easy." "The boss is very dissatisfied," said the girl, hiding the prism in the folds of her dress.She smiled.Her face glowed with that vigor and energy that women sometimes show after crazy sex. "It's easy, but our Korenka is out of luck." The punk boy nodded, looking at the motionless long-haired corpse.There was no sympathy in his cloudy eyes, but no pleasure either. "Indeed it is," he said.Then he walked towards the shriveled corpse with firm steps.He stroked the corpse with the palm of his hand—the corpse fell into a pile of ashes.Next, the lad turned the smashed cantaloupe into a gooey jam. "The purse," said the girl, "check the purse." The lad waved his hand—the old faux leather was split.The leather bag was opened like a pearl shell opened under the knife of an intrepid diver.However, judging from the young man's eyes, there was no expected pearl inside.There are only two sets of washed underwear, a cheap cotton sweater, a white shirt, a pair of rubber shoes in a plastic bag, a cup of Korean instant noodles, and a glasses case. The young man cast a few more spells, the cup containing the instant noodles was broken, the clothes were torn, and the glasses case bounced off.He cursed. "He's useless, Alyssa! Absolutely useless." A look of surprise slowly appeared on the witch's face. "Stacek, you know, this is Jeonna... The courier can't entrust the goods to anyone!" "It turns out he can." The young man turned the ashes of the Asian man with his foot. "Didn't I tell you in advance, Alyssa? The Lightbringer can do anything. You are responsible for that. I may be just a low-powered magician Master. But I have more—fifty years more experience than you have." Alyssa nodded.The look of panic had disappeared from her eyes.Her hand reached inside the dress again, exploring the prism. "Yes," she agreed softly, "you're right, Stacek. But in another half century we'll be neck and neck in experience." The punk boy laughed, crouched next to the long-haired corpse, and quickly rummaged through his pockets. "Are you so sure?" "I'm sure. You shouldn't be so opinionated, Stasik. You know, I suggested checking the other passengers, too." It was too late for the young man to turn around, life had already started to leave his body in dozens of invisible hot wires.