‘I’m not a magician!’
‘I know. You are a nice, red-haired girl, last-year student. You have got a boy whom you don’t love. You live with your mother and that was the reason why you went to the park yesterday…’
‘So does a demon control his presence? If he wants, he comes, if he doesn’t then he won’t come?
‘Absolutely’
‘Why did you come to me again? I told you I don’t agree to the deal’
‘That remains to be seen. Hm, I am glad that you have stopped being afraid of me, finally’
‘Damn it all!’ Vic couldn’t take it anymore, ‘How’s it possible?!’
‘By the way, every time when you say damn it all, a deuce takes three days out of your life. Be careful with what you’re saying, Babe’
She had a lump in the throat again. Deuces? Were they real?
‘You see, Victoria, deuces don’t take the highest hierarchy step of Hell and do thankless job. They have to please themselves at least’
‘Kharon… Honestly I’m out of sorts. It seemed to me just an illusion, a hallucination. It can’t be. There are no demons and deuces! You’re just kidding me’
‘Oh, really? Then I shall show you what an illusion is’
Kharon took her hand and whispered: ‘Close your eyes’. Vic did and silently was sitting with her eyes closed.
There was a noise of wind. The air was warm. Waves were crushing against the rocks. Victoria opened her eyes. A scared scream came out of her because there was a beautiful sheer drop under her feet, the sea was beneath, maybe it was an ocean, crashing against the highest rock bottom on the top of which the girl was staying.
‘Oh my God!’ Vic screamed, staggering and grabbing Kharon, ‘What the hell, Kharon! I’d have fallen down!’
‘Yes, you would, but you didn’t. Do not forget, it is an illusion. Everything you are looking at, doesn’t exist! All of these is my imagination’s projection. These lovely, ominous waves, churly blasts, messing up your hair, seagulls, a heart-rending screaming and floating in the sky do not exist! Give me your hand’
Kharon smiled and jumped down, dragging the shrieking girl. Vic was considerably scared with her fellow-traveller’s actions. She was afraid of falling, tried to realize that everything was an illusion, but her mind refused to believe in it. Everything looked so real and could be felt. What kind of illusion could it be if there was a salty air in her nose and sounds of nature in her ears and bared feet felt exactly sharp stones of the rock…?
Suddenly Victoria felt her feet buried in burning sand like if she had been put on a spit. Having looked around Vic saw a desert flooded with the sunlight.
‘Ah!’ she cried, shifting her feet.
It was hot. Too hot. Victoria burst herself into Kharon’s arms, stepped on his feet.
‘Hm’, he grinned, embracing and supporting the girl. ‘An illusive desert full of mirages, doubled illusion… Let’s go further!’
Milliards of needles pierced her skin, pain locked her body, fading away, fog was before her eyes. She didn’t feel any life. It was cold. An unbearable cold. There was snow, snowdrifts and ices everywhere and no living soul. It was frozen emptiness…
‘I can’t bear it!’ Vic said chattering, ‘Kharon, please…’
Suddenly they turned out to be in the cafе again. There were no unpleasant physical feelings left but only discrete reminiscence.
‘Now, Dear, you understand what an illusion is, don’t you?’ Kharon hugged the girl and smiled.
Victoria looked at him seriously, studying his extra-terrestrial beauty. He smelled of passion, she wanted to embrace him, she wanted him to embrace her. She was drunk with his charming gaze, gentle lips, velvet voice. Victoria was melting near him.
‘I suggest a deal’ she whispered to him, staring into his amber eyes.
‘A deal? I like it’
‘Yes, you, diabolic dregs, are able to do anything according to a deal…’
‘Diabolic dregs?’ Kharon frowned.
Victoria looked at him being seriously afraid of his next actions. She didn’t know what could happen next, what Antarctica he would throw her in. But Vic was insanely interested in how he would react and what he would do.
Kharon kept on frowning, incinerated the girl with the sly look. Finally, he just smiled.
‘What kind of deal?’ he asked.
‘I want to know what women give their lives for. What do you give them in return?’ the girl’s eyes were burning. ‘I can suggest you live a human life’
‘What does that mean?’ Kharon was looking at the girl imperturbably.
‘That means you will understand what to be a human means’
‘Should I be interested in it? What can be interesting about a human life? Instincts and a couple of clever phrases said for the whole life? A couple of love adventures? Crocodile tears?’
‘Well, you will have a chance to find out.’
‘No, Dear. You cannot have a deal in such a way. I named the price and gave you a right to choose. For the thing that you suggest I can give only platonic love. You will be able to feel body physics only after deal is concluded’
‘You’re so stubborn’ Vic smiled.
‘No, that’s not the point. This is a law and I must follow it. I do my job’
‘Even now?’
‘No, we are drinking coffee now not lying in bed’
‘I saw a spell which could tether you to me…’ Vic gave a hint and scarcely smiled.
The demon smiled, too and a burning flame appeared in his eyes. Kharon squeezed her hand and couldn’t take his eyes off her.
‘A spell which can tether me, right?
‘Yeah’ the girl answered shyly.
‘There are no such spells, dear. Everything that you find in books, internet, in manuscripts is just a described collaboration between the human world and ours. If a demon is in love with an earthborn woman then he certainly can be tethered to her. If he is bored and suddenly hears a tethered spell, he can pretend to be tethered just for fun. But when a demon is tired of the game, human dies. Mostly such kind of spells are executed for boredom. Believe me: it is not always possible to get a demon interested in you’
‘Does it mean that I have no chance to get you to experiment?’
‘There is always a chance. Get me. By the way, your preparatory meeting is over in 15 minutes. The professor has been asked the last question’