Claws of Mercy

“Let’s say that’s true. But there’s another problem.”

“What is it?”

“Take a look! Look around! What do you see? Beauty mixed with horror.”

“Some like horror and even surrealism, although surrealist art is the world through the eyes of a madman. In surrealist paintings, all the objects are not in their place, so that it gives the impression of absurdity or madness, but some people like it. It’s not without reason that art connoisseurs throng to Salvador Dali’s villa-museum. I’ve been there, by the way, but for some reason I like it better here, I don’t know why.”

“Is it because of it?” The partner nodded at the central pedestal with an unfamiliar, but so attractive name of the deity.

“Yes. It is because of her.”

Ruslan moved forward toward the shimmering statue. Her golden wings fluttered. How like an optical illusion! It was a play of light and shadow. Ruslan reached out his hand to touch the gilded statue and felt only emptiness. There was no statue on the pedestal. But he had just seen it!

Had he imagined it? Ruslan wiped his eyes. The pedestal was still empty. He could have sworn that a minute ago he had seen a golden silhouette with wings on it.

He should get more sleep, and then he wouldn’t have obsessions. Anything can appear to an overworked or tipsy person.

Dima was worried that there were no beer houses in the neighborhood.

“It would probably take half a day to get to the nearest pub!” He lamented.

Ruslan didn’t like the name pub. It was too English, as if it were London, not the distant Moscow suburbs. Nevertheless, the name “pub” could be seen on a pub even in the bedroom neighborhood of Moscow, where Ruslan’s family lived. For some reason, it became fashionable to give the most unattractive-looking establishments foreign names. The service did not improve. And the degree of alcohol was equally high everywhere. Ruslan preferred not to drink at all. That way you would be soberer and spend less money. The museum exposition of the rotunda interested him much more than the presence of drinking establishments in the neighborhood.

“It’s gorgeous here!” He whistled.

“Imagine how much more chic it will be when the building is completed and filled with all the imported curiosities that are still on their way,” Dima’s voice was filled with undisguised envy. He could be understood. Who wouldn’t dream of living in his own palace!

“What a pity that all this luxury will rot here like in a crypt.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Such rarities should be put on public display, not hidden in a private collection,” Ruslan, though he didn’t have the skills of an archeologist, could determine that many of the statues of ancient gods were ancient, hastily restored. They belong in the Hermitage, not in the countryside.

“The public already has the Tretyakov Gallery and the Historical Museum in the center of Moscow,” Dima obligingly reminded him, who himself, if he had ever been to the above-mentioned places, had only been on a forced excursion when he was a schoolboy. He had never visited museums of his own free will. But it didn’t cost him anything to design a blueprint of a museum building.

“It seems that this mansion is being built for the Tsar,” Ruslan whispered to himself, but Dima heard him.

“Why is it?”

“It’s more luxurious than the Hermitage.”

“Well, the Hermitage is old, it’s been standing on the bank of the Neva River for centuries, but here everything is new and will be furnished according to the latest technology.”

“And if you look around, you can rather assume that it will be a temple, not a palace. Look how many gods are around!”

“There were gods and goddesses from all different countries and religions of the world. Only any symbolism related to Christianity was forbidden in the palace, but the owner ordered statues of all the ancient gods. Their names were already carved on the empty pedestals. There were ancient gods, and Egyptian, and Persian, and Indian, and Chinese, and Slavic. All the names belonged to ancient cults. Ruslan studied a little about the culture of the religions of the world.”

“Will the sculptures be made in the ‘art nouveau’ or glamorous style?” He joked. What else would you expect from a cultureless New Russian? People who got rich by chance did not understand museum values.

“No, they were all copies of historical figures.”

Ruslan whistled. It seemed to be the rare case when a rich man could pretend that he was no stranger to history and opera. Probably a concert hall or a private theater, like it was in old Russian estates.

“Do you need a sketch artist?” Ruslan wanted to recommend an acquaintance.

“All the figures have already been made. Some have arrived, others will be delivered soon. So we’ll have to hurry with the completion of the wings.”

On some of the pedestals there were indeed slender figures of Athena, Nemesis and Hecate. The goddess of war was threateningly aiming her spear at those who entered. The three-faced Hecate was conjuring. The Slavic Chernobog squinted menacingly, the leaden face of Loki frightened away with an unpleasant cunning expression, Thanatos was terrifying. The five-headed dragon goddess Takhisis was depicted with one female head and four snake heads. Keto, goddess of sea terrors, crawled across the pedestal dragging a mountain of metal tentacles behind her. Her webbed hands of silvered copper bent over the pedestal and clung to the floor. Ker, the goddess of misfortune, stood between three empty pedestals. Ruslan did not know the Persian gods by name. But the black marble angel made him think of a lie. Was Christian symbolism allowed here?

The suspicion was premature. The black angel was Cupid. Psyche was missing. There was no pedestal for her. The unfinished halls were chaotic. Empty niches were covered with heavy red drapes. Many-armed Indian gods alternated with ancient and Egyptian figures. Ruslan recognized Anubis and Ptah, Seth, Sebek and Kebhut. For some reason a pedestal was prepared for Pharaoh Ehnaton. Did he belong to the pantheon of gods too?

Dima lagged behind, and Ruslan realized that he was lost in the labyrinth of unfinished halls and corridors. From somewhere far away came the clatter of hammers and quiet chants. The radio must be on somewhere.

“It’s a hymn to Aton,” someone whispered behind him.

Ruslan turned around.

A brunette woman stepped down from the pedestal of the goddess Kali, which had recently been empty. Ruslan recognized her immediately. She was the one he had seen at the medical center they had passed. But where had the nurse’s uniform gone? Why was she dressed like an Indian goddess? Her eyes and lips are thickly lined with scarlet. Instead of medical instruments, a gilded sickle gleams in her hand.

A sickle is definitely not an attribute of the goddess Kali. It would be more like a Slavic midwife.

The girl was barefoot. For a second it seemed for some reason that she was treading not on the floor, but on skulls and bones.

“Who are you?” Ruslan felt his lips go numb. Instead of a question, there was only a whisper. He felt as if he were being frozen like a corpse sent to the morgue’s refrigerator.

The girl wasn’t cold, though; there were droplets of sweat on her bronzed skin. On her naked shoulder, a wound glowed. Did the girl herself carelessly hit with a sickle?

“Shall I call an ambulance for you?” It was probably a foolish question to ask a nurse. She could have already taken some painkillers if she’s not paying attention to the wound. And there’s something tearing out of the wound, like some insect living under the skin and pulling the limbs through the edges of the cut.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help, bandages, medication?”

The girl whispered a couple phrases in an unfamiliar language in response and swung the sickle around. He must be imagining things. Ruslan covered his eyes, and when he opened them, he found that the girl in front of him was multi-armed like a goddess. Second and third pairs of hands emerged from the folds of the sari like white insects. A surgical instrument was clutched in each hand. Ruslan barely dodged the scalpel.

“Ah, there you are!” Dima’s voice brought him out of his daze. There was no girl with a sickle. But on Kali’s pedestal was a multi-armed bronze figure. Had she been there a moment before? She looked ominous. As, indeed, it should be. A necklace of skulls around her neck and bronze skulls under her bare feet added to the sinister image. There’s nothing to be surprised about. Kali is the goddess of blood.

“I hope we won’t be sacrificed to her,” Ruslan joked awkwardly, and immediately felt a strange chill as if all of Kali’s bronze hands had closed around his neck.

“Oh, come on! Who does that now? People believe in something like this just for the sake of ticking boxes or to create a museum like this at home.”

“It’s odd that they dragged the sculptures into an unfinished building. Wouldn’t it have been better to wait until the end of construction?”

“Maybe there was nowhere else to store them. Or maybe we are meant to be inspired to be more creative than just building.”

“Or it could also be that they’re all stolen.”

That’s the most obvious suggestion as to why rarities should be hidden.

Matvey Gennadyevich Vereskovsky, Ruslan’s employer and oligarch, knew a lot about expensive things. But did he know about art? In any case, someone among his relatives or his staff had an excellent knowledge of art.