The car was exactly where they’d left it. At first, Aspirin saw the hood and the left-side door with the broken glass and thought that was bad enough. He took a few steps closer and nearly collapsed again.
The trunk was ripped open from the inside, like a tin can, the edges jagged and crumpled.
For two or three minutes Aspirin simply stared at the car. The rain grew stronger.
“Let me go,” Aspirin said finally.
“You shot Mishutka, and I will never forgive you.”
He turned his head and saw the plush teddy bear in her arms, stuffing poked out in a few places.
“I haven’t done anything to hurt you,” Aspirin said. “I only felt sorry for you . . . once. By accident.”
“By accident,” Alyona sounded cold and indifferent. “There is no turning back. Now you will do what I tell you, or you will die.”
“My life is over. I’m already dead.”
“Don’t be such a baby. Drive us home.”
“My home?”
“Our home.”
And he wasn’t quite sure if she meant his and hers, or hers and Mishutka’s.
They got home at half past midnight. Aspirin left the car unattended, which he never, ever allowed himself to do. However, the car—with a ripped-up trunk—held no significant value anymore.
Sveta the concierge opened the door and gasped, flinching. “An accident? An accident, Alexey?”
“Yes,” Aspirin said, covering his face.
“We skidded and smashed into a light pole,” Alyona explained in a clear calm voice.
Once back in the apartment, she placed the gun on the kitchen table.
“Put it away,” she said with disgust.
Aspirin put it in the closet, then locked himself in the bathroom and stared at his reflection for a long time. Four long scratches on his left cheek were bleeding slightly. Another one was on his neck—long, but shallow. The ear was swollen. He had a black eye and a bruise on his shoulder. All this was child’s play compared to the fate of those two thieves.
A voice carried from across the apartment.
“Don’t cry. I know it hurts. But I am with you. Everything is going to be all right.”
He opened the bathroom door.
In the kitchen, Alyona held a needle and thread, the bear nestled in her lap. Alyona concentrated on the stitches like a surgeon, all the while cooing gently, “Just a little while longer. I am doing a good job. You won’t be able to see a thing.”
Aspirin shuddered. He locked the bathroom door again and sat on the edge of the tub.
It didn’t matter who she was, a witch or an alien. It didn’t matter what the bear was—a lycanthrope or a cyborg-transformer. Aspirin had to run, and as fast as he possibly could. But how far he could get—that remained to be seen.
Fifteen minutes later she knocked on the door, and he nearly fell off the tub at the sharp sound.
“What?” Aspirin asked.
“I need to wash up,” Alyona said. “Let me in, please.”
“And if I don’t? Is he going to break down the door?”
“If you don’t let me in, I will have to wash up in the kitchen sink,” Alyona said after a pause. “I don’t need that much from you. Stop flipping out.”
“Am I flipping out?”
Yet he opened the door anyway. Alyona stood in front of him—soaked to the bone, covered with stains, pitiful-looking . . . except for the steely, unforgiving blue eyes. Cradled in her arms, Mishutka stared at Aspirin with plastic eyes. They too seemed unforgiving.
“Wash away,” Aspirin managed through clenched teeth.
Alyona did not respond.
Aspirin found a bottle of Armenian brandy in his bar—a crazy-expensive bottle he had been saving for a special occasion. He opened the bottle and took a big gulp. It did not seem to be enough; he lay down, staining the sheets with the blood that kept oozing from his scratches, and took another sip.
I could take a handful of sleeping pills, chase them down with brandy, and dive into a warm bed, he thought. But he wasn’t yet ready to sleep.
“I hope you get washed away, straight into the gutter,” Aspirin said, listening to the sound of running water. “Just you wait, I might burn the whole place down along with your friend. My apartment is insured, and he is not!”
This thought pleased him, and he laughed, imagining how he would pour gasoline all over his place, flick a lit match and walk away, locking the reinforced door from the outside . . .
. . . and how this door would burst open—from the inside. No, this would never work. He would have to arrange for a