Селеста / Сelesta: Глава 6

Chapter 6

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:05

Although Andrew tried to treat the fleeing with philosophical calm, from time to time irritation broke through. Early, too early to leave, nothing is ready yet. The dens they had explored, capable of being a safe shelter for a day's sleep, were too close to the monastery, a new home would have to be searched blindly. More trouble and anguish were caused by hunger: after yesterday's events, both ghouls needed blood. They had no stomach for killing a dog from a neighboring pack: their minds, clouded with pain, had understood the inevitable consequences of such a reckless action, so they had spent half the night hunting. It was easier to deal with one man than with a dozen furious beasts: one of the gang's sentries had seen that for himself.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:07

"It's time to stop killing." Celesta covered the dead man's eyes and turned to Ala... Medea. She, unable to wash properly, soaked a piece of cloth in a puddle and scrubbed her face. "We are not beasts, after all, but men. Even if we were."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:08

"We'll have to go hunting more often."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:09

"So we need to get close to our prey, that's it. Do you know what I want? To find a good lie-in at the port."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:10

"Are you kidding me?" Medea grinned incredulously. "They'll notice us at once."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:10

"The port is not just big - it's huge. Even with the high population density, there are enough ruins in the seaside quarters to hide in. It is impossible to completely control such a large and complex area, no guards can do it! If we don't get cheeky and leave bodies behind, for example by disguising attacks as robbery or drinking the blood of lonely commoners, we can remain undetected for a long time."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:13

"You seriously want to move closer to people," said the beauty grimly.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:15

"Not all at once. First, we have to learn the situation, prepare an intermediate base, stock up on human food... It will take months of work."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:16

"Why do you need human food? We don't need it."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:16

"Food, weapons, and medical supplies are always needed. They'll come in handy. I think..." Celesta paused, then looked at her companion with a thoughtful eye. "Suppose a patrol spotted us. They wouldn't immediately recognize us as ghouls, would they?"

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:17

"They'll come closer and find out."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:18

"How? How are you or I outwardly different from an ordinary human girl?"

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:19

Medea froze agape. Gradually, her face grew understanding, enthusiastic, and childlike, her lips stretched into a wide smile:

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:21

"If we could get normal clothes and control our thirst, we would be indistinguishable from humans! Dark Master, why didn't I think of that before!"

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:22

Andrew mentally noted the exclamation that involuntarily escaped the woman. After all, Carlon had had a great influence on her, even if she tried to deny it. But out loud, he found it necessary to cool her enthusiasm:

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:22

"It's not that simple. If you show yourself on the streets too often, sooner or later someone will be interested in two young and beautiful women. Where they live, whether they have any protectors, what they do at night away from home at all... Don't make big plans - it's easier to withstand their downfall."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:24

"Where did that wisdom come from?" the singer giggled.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:24

"Just common sense. A light dose of paranoia never hurt anyone."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:26

"Sounds like a quote. Did your memory come back to you?"

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:27

Andrew thought for a moment. He was tired of pretending, bored of pretending to be a victim of amnesia. He wanted to share his story with someone. Against the backdrop of the hell going on in Taleya, the introduction of an alien creature should not cause much excitement - there are no reporters here, the secret services, which are everywhere, always and under any government, are busy with more important things. Who the hell needs him? Only Medea. Who trusted him, went up against a scary priest, and pulled him out of some very serious shit. For which the girl well deserved to know the truth. Besides, there was a pragmatic aspect: knowing what to look for, she might well remember something useful. To point out the path leading to the house.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:29

The older woman sensed the awkward pause that had arisen and was now looking at Celesta with surprise. She sighed and "cracked up":

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:30

"Actually, it never disappeared. The memory, I mean. - I just didn't know before, and I don't know how you're going to react to the truth. It's too fantastic, you know, and I don't want to sound crazy."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:32

The story took an unexpectedly long time. Andrew kept stumbling and returning to things that seemed to be already fully described. He had to explain every detail, telling about his world. He deliberately inserted numerous details, wishing, on the one hand, to give the most accurate picture of his past life, on the other, intending to convince Medea: his story is too complicated to be fiction. The man in the woman's body thought, with an inward chuckle, how amusing the situation looked from the outside, remembering his recent floundering. The first night he had thought what was happening to him was the result of an incredibly powerful hypnotist, and thoughts of the illusory nature of his surroundings still haunted him. Perhaps now he was trying to prove the idea of the existence of multiple realities to his imagination? I wonder what the doctor would say if he heard him?

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:34

It would be even more interesting if Medea didn't believe him. It would be hilarious. What would he do then?

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:35

Believed. As any resident of the Midlands Empire, magic was an everyday occurrence for the former singer, now raised from the dead and a night hunter. As a child, she listened to fairy tales and fantastic stories that turned out to be embellished truth, her father held the rank of the magician of the third degree and served in the city government, home teachers along with literature, geography, and history taught little Medea the basics of magic and the hierarchy of spirits. She grew up with an awareness of the simple fact that miracles are possible, they just have to be carefully prepared. So, by her standards, the story Celesta told seemed surprising, but not supernatural. What interested her more was something else:

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:36

"Wait..." The woman's wide-open eyes gleamed excitedly. "So you were a male in your world?"

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:37

"Yes. I was."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:38

"And... how are the differences?"

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:38

The frown on her friend's face didn't stop her. The predator had smelled prey, and even Morvan himself could not have saved Celesta from being torn apart at that moment, had he come in all his might.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:40

"I have no idea. The body is different, it's not quite human."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:41

"It's bad," Medea pouted, for a moment transforming herself from a beautiful wiggly girl to a sexy high school girl. That's what Monica Bellucci looked like when she was sixteen, Andrew thought. "The legend of the archer Shanna tells how an evil sorcerer placed her soul in the body of her uncle. After severe trials the sorcerer was killed, Shanna sat on the throne, but at the first opportunity, she regained her original sex. She chose a prettier slave girl and moved into her. When asked why she did so, she replied, "A man does not feel a tenth of the pleasures that a woman is capable of feeling."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:42

"I have no desire to experiment. Not at all."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 10:43

"Well, you should. You should take every opportunity you have, so you don't regret it later. Listen, what's your real name?"

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:01

"Andrew." The girl squinted at the small but well-defined breasts, examined the thin thin arms, smooth skin, moved the tiny graceful feet, ran a strand of long blond hair through the brush, and with a sigh decided. "Call me Celesta, like you used to. Otherwise, I'll go crazy."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:02

The ghouls rarely banded together. There were a total of three groups in the vicinity of Taleya, the monastery group, and two more in different quarters, plus a large number of singles or couples who didn't want to join any of them. No explanation could be found as to why this was the case. Maybe the mental state of the undead was to blame, maybe it was the uneven distribution of potential prey, who knows. A year ago, the Duke's soldiers wiped out the only major colony of ghouls, slaughtering nearly three dozen, and no large alliances had arisen since. And, as the girls estimated, there weren't that many of their kin. The first three months after the Plague was the peak of "resurrection," and then the number of those who returned from the realm of death began to dwindle. Most died in the first nights, some died of starvation, and few survived - the word "life" both considered inappropriate in this case.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:10

For obvious reasons, humans killed ghouls. Who would want to have a blood-sucking monster around, seeing you as a source of sustenance? At the same time, it was human blood that gave them strength and allowed them to stay active for a longer time than animal blood. They had to find a shelter where they could feel safe and at the same time have their prey within reach. And besides, they wanted to be comfortable: they were fed up with asceticism to the end of their lives. But how to find such a place, if every person who notices a ghoul will certainly try to finish him off, or at least inform the guards?

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:15

We had to walk slowly, sometimes going back, checking the cellars for protection from the sun in the process. We spent the day wherever they could, each time doubting whether we would meet the next sunset. More than once our caution saved ours skins, allowing us to spot a threat beforehand. The greatest danger was posed by small groups of armed men. An experienced fighter can handle an undead alone, the speed of reaction and the ability to see in the dark against an experienced swordsman will not help. And masters of the blade was unexpectedly a lot, which had an objective reason: fencing was revered among the nobility, so there was a large enough layer of servants to satisfy this whim of the ruling class. In addition, officers and soldiers, ordinary commoners who wanted to make a career - in a word, there were enough specialists. Girls had no desire to engage them in a fair fight, they attacked only from the back. Fortunately, the night vision allowed me to move silently and appear unexpectedly.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:18

Once we witnessed a real sacrifice. A group of ragamuffins led by a completely insane eunuch - the psycho wore no clothes, which allowed us to see a piquant detail of his anatomy, or rather, its absence - laid out the caught victim on a slab covered with dried up smudges and quickly dismembered it with wild howls. The victim was a man in his forties, and, judging by the smell coming from the improvised altar, he was not the first unfortunate victim to die at the hands of fanatics. The ghouls watched the bloody orgy with disgust and longing. They'd had enough of killing, but the senseless waste of precious blood seemed like a waste.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:25

Another unpleasant thing was the competitors. This was not about Carlon and his followers, though Celeste had not forgotten about them either. The kinsmen, irritated by the presence of intruders in their territory, were unwilling to help in the search for a new lair. Frankly, they did not respond well to contact - much easier to communicate with ordinary people (victims) who, after a promise to save lives, blurted out everything. If they didn't go into a stupor from fear. Once lucky: the captured old man agreed to take them on a safe route between the burrows of the five mutated monsters, in exchange for asking for help in a fight with a hostile gang. The ghouls killed the four bandits, fulfilling the deal, and wouldn't touch the human family - moreover, they gave him almost all the loot. Such a pragmatic-minded individual might come in handy in the future...

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:29

The city was astonishingly large. Medea told me that Duke Parvat the Second had once forbidden the construction of buildings taller than the central tower of his castle, and since then the ban had been invariably enforced. As a result, Taleya grew expansively, while property prices in the center of the city never dropped from their exorbitant heights. It took an entire week just to get away from the monastery, whose proximity unnerved Medea, and they made their map along the way. They marked mutants, kinsmen, large gangs, water sources, ruins of libraries - in short, anything that might be of interest and use. It took another week to find a shelter, which in the end was chosen an abandoned sewer. To be more precise, what was the correct name for a one-story building with huge locks on the doors and a single window on the roof, the girls did not know, so they simply called it "home".

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:31

The attic with all sorts of junk was of no use in functional terms, although the stuff scattered there was worth poking around in. Andrew also intended to board up the window. He was deterred by his reluctance to change the exterior of the building. What if the locals would pay attention and come in to check who lived there? For the same reason, the massive door on the first floor was barricaded from the inside, littering the small anteroom with heavy blocks. Eventually, they hoped to install metal bars on the attic window from the inside.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:48

So the living quarters were the two rooms downstairs, which housed the meager belongings of the two new settlers. There was not enough light there even for the sensitive eyes of the ghouls, so they had to find, or rather steal, a small oil lamp. The floor was covered with a strange dark material that bounced underfoot, and the furniture was a cupboard, a relatively complete table, three chairs upholstered in tatters, and a bucket of water in the corner. That was all the furnishings. Medea wished for a mattress: for now, she had to sleep on a pile of rags in the corner. The closet held the treasures she had found - books, the few working appliances, jewelry, and clothes.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 11:56

The only entrance, apart from the window, was the basement manhole to the sewer. On the concrete floor near the covered hole were an oversized booty and a large barrel of water, drawn from the nearby river. In the sewer itself, there was no water left long ago, the accumulated dirt dried up and turned to stone. The occasional rain moistened the surface and hardly penetrated down to the ground. Everything will change when winter comes: then stormy waters will clear the debris from the underground. In some places, the ground had sagged and the passages were blocked, but there were still enough passageways through which the girls reached the surface at night.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 12:05

Of course, traces remained - there was enough dust, so we had to set some primitive traps in "their" section of the dungeon. Their effectiveness was questionable, but they could buy us some time if we needed it. They kept a wet rag in the house because of the dust, and they did not want to dirty the place. It cost them both an enormous effort to make the house look habitable, to shovel out piles of garbage secretly, but now they were proud of the work they had done.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 12:08

"Look." A piece of something that looked like plastic served to explain Celesta's words. "The guards patrol the borders of three sectors: the Golden Quarter, the central part of the port, and the food stores. Regularly they clear the roads between them - it's easy to see them there, too. We are equidistant from the port and the warehouses, in the territory of Black Mash's unit. A bandit like everyone else here, but a lucky one. Luckily for us, the people are a little slack and risk moving in small groups or singly, the more so since both Mash and the guards control the area thoroughly. And, mind you, there have been no rumors of ghouls for two weeks: they think we're just common burglars."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 12:10

"It's just for the time being." Medea was in the mood to argue. "There are more soldiers here than there are fleas on a dog."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 12:12

"That's right. That's why we have to find a hiding place close to the port and move there for a while. We should hide where they're not looking."

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 12:13

"We just got the house in order," sighed the beautiful woman. The topic had been discussed more than once, but the woman still hadn't accepted the need to leave her cozy little nest.

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 12:14

Celesta ignored her arguments:

Camrad_RIP 04.01.22 в 12:17