Victor Pelevin - The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Apart from that, I realized that I had always done this. The clandestine stream of hypnotic energy that I was broadcasting into the world around me had not changed in such a long time that I had completely stopped being aware of it: it was like what happens to the hum of the fridge - you only notice it when it suddenly stops. I followed the direction of the beam, to see who the suggestion was aimed at - and I realized it was directed . . . at me.

BANG, as they write in the comic books.

My self-control didn’t desert me at that moment. I remained as aware as ever of what was going on - both around me and inside my own mind. One of my internal voices recited in deep bass tones the words that Laertes spoke to Hamlet after the fatal hit with the rapier: ‘In thee there is not half an hour of life . . .’

‘Why half an hour? What kind of poison was it on the rapier?’ another voice enquired.

‘It would be interesting to discuss that with the Shakespeare scholar Shitman,’ a third remarked, ‘only the poor fellow’s no longer with us . . .’

‘Then you’ll get a chance soon enough!’ barked the fourth.

I felt afraid: there’s a popular belief among foxes that before they die, they see the truth, and then all their internal voices start talking at once. Was this really it? No, I thought, any time but now . . . But I didn’t have thirty minutes, like Hamlet. I had thirty seconds at most, and they were quickly running out.

The forest came to an end. The track broke off at its edge, along which, as always, there were women from the local houses strolling with their prams. They spotted me and began squealing and screaming. With a desperate final effort I tore past the strolling women, spotted another track leading back into the forest and swerved on to it.

But my body was already betraying me. I started to feel pain in my palms, stood upright and started running on my hind legs - actually on my only pair of ordinary girl’s legs. Then I trod on an especially prickly pine cone, squealed and fell to my knees.

When they reached me, the militiamen dismounted. One of them took hold of my hair and turned me to face him. His face was suddenly contorted in fury. I recognized him - he was one of the spintrii from the militia station where I had done my ‘working Saturday’. He had recognized me too. We stared into each other’s eyes for a minute. It’s pointless even trying to tell the uninitiated what takes place between a fox and a man at a moment like that. It’s something you have to experience.

‘What a fool I am,’ I thought despairingly, ‘there’s a saying, after all - don’t screw where you live, don’t live where you screw. It’s all my own fault . . .’

‘Got you now, you bitch, haven’t I?’ the militiaman asked.

‘Do you know her?’ the other one asked.

‘I should say so. She worked a subbotnik at our place. I still can’t rid of the herpes on my arse.’

The militiaman demonstrated an inability to understand the link between cause and effect that was exceptional even for his species, but I didn’t find it funny. Everything was happening exactly the same way as that other time, near Melitopol . . . Perhaps I really was still there, and everything else was a just terminal hallucination?

Suddenly there was the deafening roar of a shot somewhere nearby. I looked up.

Alexander was standing on the track in his immaculately ironed grey uniform, with a pistol in his hand and a black bundle under his arm. I hadn’t noticed him appear there or how.

‘Both of you come here,’ he said.

The militiamen walked meekly towards him - like rabbits towards a boa constrictor. One of the horses whinnied nervously and reared up.

‘Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,’ I whispered, ‘he won’t eat you.’

That was actually an assumption on my part: Alexander hadn’t shared his plans with me. When the militiamen got close, he put his gun in its holster and said something in a quiet voice, I thought I heard ‘. . . report on the situation’. First he listened to them, and then he started talking himself. I couldn’t make out any more words, but it was all clear from the gesticulations. First he held out his open right hand, as if he were tossing a small object up and down on his palm. Then he turned it palm-down and made a few circular movements, flattening something invisible. This had the most magical effect on the militiamen - they turned and walked away, forgetting not only about me, but about their horses too.

Alexander looked at me curiously for a few seconds, then walked up and held out the black bundle. It was my dress. There was something wrapped in it. I unfolded it and saw the chicken. It was dead. I felt so sad that tears sprang to my eyes. It wasn’t a question of sentimentality. Not long ago we had been a single whole. And this little death seemed to be half mine.

‘Get dressed,’ said Alexander.

‘Why did you . . .’ I pointed at the chicken.

‘What, was I supposed to let it go?’

I nodded. He spread his arms in bewilderment.

‘Well, in that case I don’t understand anything at all.’

Of course, it was stupid of me to reproach him.

‘No, I’m sorry. Thank you,’ I said. ‘For the dress, and in general.’

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘don’t ever do that again. Ever.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t take offence, but you don’t look very good. I mean, when you turn into . . . I don’t know. Anyway, it’s not your thing.’

‘Why don’t I look good?’

‘You’re pretty mangy. And you could be three hundred years old at least.’

I felt myself turning red.

‘I see. Like a woman driver, is that it? Every second word you speak betrays the repulsive chauvinism of the male . . .’

‘Let’s not have any of that. I’m telling you the truth. Gender has nothing to do with it.’

I got dressed quickly and even managed to tie the cut shoulder strap in a knot above my shoulder.

‘Will you take the chicken?’ he asked.

I shook my head.

‘Then let’s go. The car will be here in a moment. And tomorrow at twelve hundred hours, be ready to leave. We’re flying up north.’

‘What for?’

‘You showed me the way you hunt. Now you can take a look at the way I do it.’

I’d never flown in any planes like the Gulfstream Jet before. I’d never even seen any - life had never taken me to the special airports for the upper rat . I felt nervous because there were so few people in the cabin - as if the safety of a flight depended on the number of passengers.

Maybe that’s true, by the way. After all, everyone has his own guardian angel, and when you get several hundred passengers crammed into an Airbus or a Boeing, if the hordes of invisible winged protectors don’t actually increase the uplift of the plane’s wings, they must at least insure it against falling. Probably that’s why there are more crashes involving the small private flights used by various newsmakers heavily burdened with evil (even if some victims don’t belong to this elite niche, they become newsmakers when they crash).

The passenger cabin was like a smoking room with leather armchairs. Alexander sat beside me. Apart from us, the only person in the cabin was Mikhalich - he’d made himself comfortable in the armchair furthest away and was shuffling through some papers or other. He hardly spoke to Alexander at all - just once he turned to him and asked:

‘Comrade lieutenant general, it says here in a document “Do you know what that means?’

Alexander thought about it.

‘I think that’s from forty kilograms of plastique and upwards. But check it out just to be sure when we get back.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Moscow floated down and away, and then it was hidden by the clouds. Alexander turned away from the window and took out a book.