Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

He sat down on the ground, holding his throat with one hand and squeezing his nose shut with the other, his mouth fell open and his eyes started rolling around. And there was blood, blood everywhere!

Senka felt frightened – had he hit him hard enough to kill him then?

He squatted down on his haunches:

‘Hey, Prokha, what’s up, not dying, are you?’

He shook him a bit.

Prokha wheezed: ‘Don’t hit me . . . Don’t hit me any more! Aah, aah, aah!’ He was struggling to catch his breath, but he couldn’t.

Before Prokha could come to his senses, Senka turned the screws hard: ‘Tell me who you’re stooging for, you bastard! Or I’ll give you a smack round the ears that’ll knock your peepers out! Well? It’s the Prince, isn’t it?’

He swung both of his fists back (that was another one of those simple moves – thumping a villain just below both ears at once).

‘No, it’s not the Prince ...’ Prokha fingered his bloody nose. ‘You broke it... You broke the bone . . . Oo-oo-oo!’

‘Who, then? You tell me!’

And Senka thumped him with his fist, smack in the middle of the forehead. It wasn’t a move the sensei had taught him, it just happened all by itself. Senka bruised all his fingers but it had the right effect.

‘No, it’s someone else, more frightening than the Prince, he is,’ Prokha sobbed, shielding himself with his hands.

‘More frightening than the Prince?’ Senka asked, and his voice shook. ‘Who is he?’

‘I don’t know. He’s got a big black beard down to his belly. And black shiny eyes too. I’m afraid of him.’

‘But who is he? Where’s he from?’ Senka was feeling really frightened now. A beard right down to his belly and black eyes. That was terrifying!

Prokha squeezed his nose with his finger and thumb to stop the blood pouring out. He said: ‘I don’d dow where he’s frop, bud if you wand a look, I’ll show you. I’b beetink hib sood. Id the Yerokha basebedt...’

The Yerokha basement again. That damn place. Where the Siniukhins got their throats cut and Senka almost lost his own life.

‘What’s the meeting for?’ Senka asked, still undecided what to do. ‘Are you going to report back about following Death?’

‘That’s right.’

And what does your man with the beard want with her?’

Prokha shrugged and sniffed. His nose had stopped bleeding. That’s none of my business. Well, am I taking you or not?’

‘Yes,’ Senka decided. ‘And you watch out, or I’ll beat you to death with my bare fists. This magician I know taught me how.’

‘He must be quite some teacher, you can thrash anyone you want to now,’ said Prokha, the little brown nose. ‘Don’t you worry about me, Speedy, I’ll do whatever you say. I’m not tired of living yet.’

They walked to the Tatar Tavern, where the way into the Yerokha was. Senka thumped his prisoner in the side a couple of times to keep him frightened and said: ‘Just you try to bolt, and see what happens.’ To tell the truth, Senka was afraid himself – what if Prokha swung round and socked him in the breadbasket? But he needn’t have worried. His new Japanese tricks had made Prokha kowtow something rotten.

‘Nearly there, nearly there,’ Prokha said. ‘Now you’ll see for yourself what kind of man he is. I didn’t want to stooge for him, he puts the fear of God up me. If you could only help me get free of this butcher, Speedy, I’d be really grateful.’

In the basement they made one turn, then another. So now they were no distance at all from the hall with the entrance to the treasure chamber. And the corridor where Senka almost lost his life was pretty close too. Senka remembered that powerful hand tugging his hair and threatening to break his neck and he started trembling all over and stopped dead in his tracks. He’d set out in fine form to unravel the whole case, but his bravado was almost all gone now. Sorry, Erast Petrovich and Masa-san, everyone has his limits.

‘I’m not going any farther . . . You go and meet him . . . You can tell me all about it afterwards.’

‘Ah, come on,’ said Prokha, tugging at his sleeve. ‘We’re almost there. There’s this little cubbyhole, you can hide in there.’

But no way would Senka go any farther. ‘You go without me.’

He tried to turn back, but Prokha held him tight and wouldn’t let go.

Then he flung his arms round Senka’s shoulders and yelled:

‘Here he is, it’s Speedy! I’ve caught him! Run quick!’

The bastard had a tight grip. There was no way Senka could thump him or break free.

And then came the clatter of footsteps in the dark – heavy feet, moving fast.

The sensei had taught him: If a bad man grabs you round the shoulders, don’t try to be clever, just plant your knee in his privates, and if he’s standing so as you can’t swing your knee or reach him with it, then lean as far back as you can and smash your forehead into his nose.

He butted as hard as he could. Once, twice. Like a ram butting a wall.

Prokha yelled (his nose was already broken anyway) and covered his ugly mug with his hands. Senka took off like a shot. And he didn’t have a second to spare – someone managed to grab his collar from behind. The tattered old cloth gave, the rotten threads snapped, and Senka shot off into the darkness, leaving a piece of coarse shirt behind for Prokha’s friend.

He just dashed off without thinking, anything to get away. But when the sound of tramping boots fell behind a bit, it suddenly struck him: where was he running to? The hall with the brick columns was ahead of him now, and after that it was a dead end! Both ways out were cut off – the main one and the Tatar Tavern!

They’d catch him now, trap him in a corner, and that would be the end!

He had only one hope left.

When he reached the hall, Senka made a dash for that special spot. He dragged the two bottom stones out of the entrance to the passage, crept into the gap on his belly, then froze. And he opened his mouth as wide as he could, to keep his breathing quiet.

An echo came drifting under the low vaults as two men ran into the hall – one was heavy and loud, the other was a lot lighter.

‘He can’t go any farther!’ Prokha’s panting voice said. ‘He’s here, the louse. I’ll go along the right wall, you go along the left. We’ll catch him now for sure.’

Senka propped himself up on his elbows to wriggle farther in, but his first movement made the brick dust under his belly rustle. He had to stop, or he’d give himself away, and the treasure too. He had to lie there quietly and pray to God they wouldn’t notice the hole down by the floor. But if they had a lamp with them, then Speedy Senka’s number was up.

Only, to judge from that dry scraping sound he kept hearing, Senka’s pursuers didn’t have any kind of light but matches.

The steps kept getting closer and closer, until they were really close.

Prokha, that was the way he walked.

Suddenly there was a clatter and someone barked out a curse almost right above the spot where Senka was lying.

‘It’s all right, I hit my foot against a stone. It’s fallen out of the wall.’

Any moment now, right now, Prokha was going to bend down and see the hole and the bottoms of two shoes sticking out. Senka got ready to jump up on all fours and dart off along the passage. He couldn’t run very far, but it would put the end off for a while.

But the danger passed. Prokha didn’t spot his hiding place. The darkness had saved Senka, or maybe the Lord God had taken pity on the poor orphan: Ah, sod it, He’d thought, you can live a bit longer, I’ve got plenty of time to collect you.

He heard Prokha’s voice from the far end of the hall: ‘He must have squeezed up against the wall in the corridor, and we ran past him. He’s crafty, that Speedy. Never mind, I’ll find him anyway, don’t you ha ...’