‘As is known, the pentagram is the most widespread and accessible portal between worlds for novices, allowing demons to enter our reality. At the same time, if the creator of a pentagram uses it skilfully, he can control the demons summoned into our world, and they must obey him. Normally, in order to better control a summoned creature, a protective perimeter is drawn around the pentagram, preventing the demon from escaping beyond the ring.
‘It is not known how, exactly, the leaders of the communist movement were able to achieve that which the most powerful black magicians of all ages had sought: establishing links to the demon lords who commanded the obedience of hordes of their lesser brethren. Experts are convinced that the lords themselves, sensing the forthcoming war and the most horrible bloodshed ever in the history of mankind, drew nearer to the boundary between worlds and summoned those who could permit them to collect a harvest of human lives. In exchange, they promised support and protection.
‘The story of how the Bolshevik leadership was funded by German intelligence is true, to be sure, but it would be foolish and superficial to believe that it was only thanks to his foreign partners that V. I. Lenin and his comrades-in-arms were able to tip the scales in their favour. Even then, the future communist leader had protectors who were immeasurably more powerful and wiser than the military intelligence officials in the Kaiser’s Germany.
‘Naturally, the details of the secret compact with the powers of darkness are not accessible to modern researchers. However, their result is clear: after a short time, pentagrams appear on banners, on the headgear of Red Army soldiers, and on the armour of its still sparse military equipment. Each of them opened a gate into our world to a demon protector, who guarded the wearer of the pentagram from external violence. The demons received their pay, as usual, in blood. In the twentieth century alone, according to the most conservative estimates, around thirty million inhabitants of the country were sacrificed.
‘The Compact with the lords of the summoned powers quickly justified itself: the Bolsheviks seized and consolidated power, and although Lenin himself, who had been the intermediary between the two worlds, could not endure and died only fifty-four years after his birth, eaten from within by the fires of hell, his followers unhesitatingly continued his work. Soon after followed the demonization of the entire country. Schoolchildren pinned their first pentagram to their chests. Few know that, from the outset, the ritual of initiation into the Little Octobrists intended the badge’s pin to be used to pierce the child’s skin. The demon of the Little Octobrist “star” would thus taste the blood of its future host, entering into a sacral union with its host once and forever. Growing up and becoming a Pioneer, the child would receive a new pentagram, and a part of the essence of the Compact would be revealed to those experiencing insight: a gold-imprinted portrait of the Leader was wrapped in flames, in which he disappeared. Thus, the rising generation was reminded of the heroic deed of self-sacrifice. After that was the Komsomol, and finally, the way was cleared for the chosen to enter into the priestly caste, the Communist Party.
‘Myriads of summoned spirits protected everyone and everything in the Soviet state: children and adults, buildings and equipment, while the demon lords themselves took up residence in the giant ruby pentagrams on the Kremlin towers, willingly agreeing to confinement for the sake of their increased power. It was precisely from here that invisible lines of force spread over the entire country, holding it back from chaos and collapse, and subordinating its inhabitants to the will of those who occupied the Kremlin. In some sense, the entire Soviet Union was turned into one giant pentagram whose surrounding protective perimeter became its national boundary.’
Artyom tore himself away from the page and looked around. The candle had burned down and had started to smoke. Daniel was sound asleep, with his face turned to the wall. Artyom stretched, and then returned to the book.
‘The supreme test for Soviet power became the clash with National Socialist Germany. Protected by powers no less ancient or powerful than was the Soviet Union, the armour-fettered Teutons were able to penetrate deeply into our country for the second time in a thousand years. This time, their banners were inscribed with a reversed symbol of the sun, light, and prosperity. To this very day, fifty years after the Victory, tanks with pentagrams on their turrets continue in perpetual battle against tanks whose steel bears the swastika, in museum panoramas, on television screens, on sheets of graph paper torn out of school notebooks . . .’
The candle flickered one last time and went out. It was time to go to sleep.
If you turned your back to the monument, you could see a small section of the high wall and the silhouettes of the sharp-pointed towers in the gap between the half-ruined houses. But, as had been explained to Artyom, you couldn’t turn around and look at them. And it was also forbidden to leave the doors with the steps unattended because if something were to happen, you’d have to sound the alarm, but if you so much as peeked - that’s it, you’re done for, and the others suffer, too.
Consequently, Artyom stood still, although the desire to turn around kept eating at him. Meanwhile, he examined the monument, whose bottom had been overgrown with moss. The monument depicted a gloomy old man, sitting in a capacious armchair and leaning on an elbow. Something dripped slowly and thickly from his pitted bronze pupils onto his chest, giving the impression that the monument was crying.
It was unbearable to look at this for very long. So, Artyom went around the statue and attentively looked at the doors. Everything was tranquil, there was complete silence, and there was just the slightest sound of the wind rambling between the picked-over carcasses of buildings. The detachment had departed some time ago, but had not taken Artyom along. They ordered him to stay and stand guard, and if anything happened, to go down into the station and give warning of what happened.
Time passed slowly, and he measured it with steps, which he took around the bottom of the monument: one, two, three . . .
It happened when he got to five hundred: a clatter and growling broke out to his rear, behind his back, where he could not look. Something was nearby, and it could rush at Artyom at any moment. He froze, straining his ears, then dropped to the ground and pressed himself against the base of the statue, holding his weapon ready.
Now it was close at hand, apparently, on the other side of the monument. Artyom distinctly heard its husky animal breathing. Moving around the side of the statue’s base, he gradually moved closer to the sound. He tried to stop his hands from shaking and to keep his sight on the place where the creature would appear.
But the breathing and the sound of steps suddenly began to retreat. But when Artyom looked out from behind the statue to take advantage of the opportunity to fire a burst into the back of his unknown enemy, he immediately forgot about both his enemy and everything else.
The star on the Kremlin tower was clearly visible even from here. The tower itself remained only a vague silhouette in the unsteady light of a partially cloud-covered moon, but the star stood out clearly against the sky, riveting the attention of any who looked at it for a completely understandable reason. It glittered. Not believing his eyes, he took out his field binoculars.
The star burned a fierce bright-red colour, illuminating several metres of the space around it, and when Artyom looked closer, he noticed that its fire was irregular. It was as if a tempest was confined inside the giant ruby; it brightened in fits and starts, as if something inside was flowing, seething, flaring . . . The sight was of fantastic beauty not possible in this world, but it was poorly visible from such a distance. He had to get closer.
Shouldering his weapon, Artyom ran down the stairs, jumped over the cracked asphalt in the street, and stopped at the only corner from where he could see the whole Kremlin wall . . . and the towers. A red star beamed from each one of them. Hardly catching his breath, Artyom again looked through the eyepieces. The stars flared with the same seething irregular glow, and he wanted to look at them forever.
Concentrating on the closest of them, Artyom still admired its fantastic flows, until he suddenly seemed to feel as if he could distinguish the shape of whatever was moving inside, under the crystal surface.
To better make out the strange outlines, he had to get a little closer. Having forgotten about all dangers, he stopped in the middle of the open space and now kept his binoculars glued to his eyes, trying to understand what he had managed to see.
The demon lords, he remembered at last. The marshals of an army of unclean spirits that had been summoned to defend the Soviet state. The country, and the whole world as well, had fallen to pieces, but the pentagrams on the Kremlin towers had remained untouched: the governors who had entered into a compact with the demons were long dead, and there was nobody left to free them . . . Nobody? What about him?
I need to find the gates, he thought. I need to find a way in . . .
‘Get up! You have to go soon.’ Daniel shook him.
Artyom yawned and rubbed his eyes. He had just dreamed something incredibly interesting, but the dream had faded instantly, and he could not recall what he had seen. All of the lights had already been lit in the station, and he could hear the cleaning women sweeping the platform while merrily bantering.
He put on his dark glasses and shuffled off to wash up, having tossed over his shoulder a not-very-clean towel his host had given him. The toilets were located at the same end as the bronze panel, and the line of people waiting to get in was not short. Having got in line, continuing to yawn, Artyom tried to recall at least some of the images from his dream.
The line stopped moving forward, for some reason, and the people in it started to murmur loudly. Attempting to understand what was the matter, Artyom looked around. All eyes were fixed on a bolted iron door. It was now open, and a tall man stood in the frame. Seeing him, Artyom, too, forgot why he was standing there.
It was a stalker.
He had imagined them to look exactly like this, both from his stepfather’s stories and the rumours gleaned from itinerant merchants. The stalker wore a stained protective suit, scorched in places, and a long, heavy body armour vest. His shoulders were broad; a light machine gun was casually slung over the right one, while a gleaming, oily belt of ammunition hung like a baldric from the left. He wore rough, laced boots with the pants legs tucked into the top, and there was a large canvas rucksack on his back.
The stalker took off his round special forces helmet, pulled off the rubber face piece of his gas mask, and stood there, flushed and wet, talking to the post commander about something. He was no longer young. Artyom saw grey stubble on his cheeks and chin, and silvery strands in his short black hair. Yet the man radiated power and confidence; he was completely at ease and collected, as if even here, in a quiet and cheerful station, he was ready to meet danger at any moment and not let it catch him unawares.
By now, only Artyom continued to unceremoniously examine the arrival. The people behind him in line first tried to urge him forward, and then simply started to walk around him.
‘Artyom! What’s the delay? You’ll be late if you don’t watch out!’ Daniel came up to him.
Hearing his name, the stalker turned towards Artyom, looked at him intently, and suddenly took a broad step toward him.
‘You from
VDNKh?’
he asked, in a deep resonant voice.
Artyom nodded silently, and felt his knees start to shake.
‘You the one looking for Melnik?’ the stalker continued.
Artyom nodded once more.
‘I’m Melnik. You have something for me?’ The stalker looked Artyom in the eye.
Artyom hastily groped around his neck for the cord with the cylindrical case that it now felt odd to part with, as if with a talisman, and extended it to the stalker.
The stalker pulled off his leather gloves, opened the cover and carefully shook something out of the capsule into his palm. It was a small scrap of paper. A note.
‘Come with me. I couldn’t make it yesterday. Sorry. The call came when we were already on our way to the surface.’
Having said a quick goodbye and thanks to Daniel, Artyom hurried after Melnik, up the escalators that led to the passage to Arbatskaya.
‘Is there any news from Hunter?’ he asked, awkwardly, barely keeping up with the long-striding stalker.
‘Haven’t heard a thing from him. I fear you’ll have to ask your dark ones about him now,’ said Melnik, looking back over his shoulder at Artyom. ‘On the other hand, you could say there’s too much news from
VDNKh.’
Artyom felt his heart start beating more forcefully.
‘What news?’ he asked, trying to suppress his worry.
‘Not much good,’ said the stalker, dryly. ‘The dark ones went on the offensive again. There was a heavy battle a week ago. Five people were killed. And it seems there are even more dark ones there now. People are starting to flee that station of yours. They can’t stand the horror, they say. So, Hunter was right when he told me something sinister was hidden there. He felt it.’
‘Who died, do you know?’ asked Artyom, frightened, trying to recollect who was supposed to stand duty that day, a week ago? What day was today? Was it Zhenka? Andrey? Please don’t let it be Zhenka . . .
‘I wouldn’t know. It’s not enough the undead are worming their way in there, but some kind of devilment is coming out of the tunnels around Prospect Mir, too. People lose their memory, and several people died along the tracks.’
‘What’s to be done?’
‘There’s a Council meeting today. The Brahmin elders and generals will have their say, but I doubt they’ll be able to help your station with anything. They barely defend Polis itself, and then only because nobody dares make a serious attempt on it.’