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&039;Afraid?&039; I asked, glowering at hihtening things&039;

I started walking round him slowly He chuckled and set off in the opposite direction round the sa his eyes off me, as if ere a pair of fencers fro so rey tail hooked over Then we both stopped at the same moment I took a step towards him, put my hands on his shoulder straps, pulled him towards me and, for the first time in our relationship I kissed him on the lips - the way that people kiss

I&039;d never kissed anyone like that before I- arainst teeth I put all my love into an

At first everything looked exactly as usual - Alexander&039;s tail extended (or rather, tumbled) out of his spine, curled over, and an invisible thread of energy stretched between it and his head After that he usually beca rong

He jerked convulsively and fell on his back, as if his tail had suddenly becoan rapidly jerking his ars about in a horrible way (like people with craniocerebral injuries do), and in a few seconds he was transforrel fro He was as big as an Alsatian, but clearly a rel His plebeian proportions betrayed a mixture of numerous different breeds, and his eyes were clear and als who sleep in the entrances of the Metro with the ho was blue-black, in fact purple-black, exactly like Aslan Udoev&039;s beard

Maybe it was the colour,after so diabolical about this dog: thoughts caallows, about demonic possessionI realize that when a creature like hts came to e, but what can I do about it, if that&039;s the way it was But the ined or really did hear froroaned

I was so frightened that I started squealing He jumped away from me, turned towards theOnly then did I recover my wits At that point I&039;d already realized that so terrible had happened to him, some kind of catastrophe, and it was my fault The catastrophe had been caused by my kiss, by that electrical circuit of love that I had closed when I pressed ainst his mouth

I squatted down beside him and put my arms round his neck But he tore himself away, and when I tried to hold him back, he bit me on the hand Not really hard, but it started to bleed in two places I gasped and jerked away He dashed to the door into the other rooainst it and disappeared inside

He didn&039;t come out for an entire hour I realized that he wanted to be left alone and I didn&039;t intrude on his solitude I was terrified, afraid that any moment I would hear a shot (he had once promised to shoot himself for an absolutely trivial reason) But instead of a shot I heard music He&039;d put on &039;I Follow the Sun&039; He listened to the song once, then put it on again His soul was clearly in need of oxygen

I was left there, sitting on the carpet in front of the divan As soon as I calht have happened The first thing I remembered was the deceased Lord Cricket and his lecture about the snake force descending through the tail Naturally, once I heard the word &039;super-olf&039;, I had regarded all his theories as crazy nonsense, a garland of foul-s bubbles in the swamp of profane esotericisht to what his lordship had said

Before his transformation, Alexander had fallen on the floor, just as if soed on his tail Or as if his tail had beco unusual had happened, so to do with his organ of hypnotic suggestion And Lord Cricket had said that the transition from a wolf to what he called the &039;super-olf&039; took place when the kundalini descended to the very tip of the tail And as well as that

This was the most unpleasant part As well as that, he had mentioned an &039;involtation of darkness&039; that was necessary for this to happen, the spiritual influence of a &039;senior demonic entity&039;

Little me?

It was hard to believe it But on the other hand, what the deceased lord had said could well have contained a grain of truth picked up from soatherings and mystical rituals were held in the world - it couldn&039;t all be absolute charlatanis was certain - I had played a fatal part in what had happened Apparently I had been the catalyst for some obscure alche froreat, but it can certainlywas the realization that what had happened was irreversible - a were-creature never s like that I could tell that Alexander would never again be the way he used to be And it wasn&039;t just supposition on my part, I kneith my tail It was as if I&039;d dropped a precious vase that had shattered into a thousand fragain

I plucked up h which he had disappeared and opened it

I&039;d never been in there before What I found behind the door was a s rooht round the walls There was a s the Shocking Blue song again, pro to follow the sun until the end of tied his clothes - now, instead of a general&039;s uniforrey jacket and a black turtleneck I&039;d never seen hi was the elusive change that had taken place in his face - the eyes seeether and faded somehow And their expression had altered too - a new despair, balanced by fury, had appeared in them: I don&039;t think anyone else but me would have been able to separate out these coaze It was him, but not him I felt afraid

&039;Sasha,&039; I called softly

He looked up at me and asked: &039;Do you remember the story about the Little Scarlet Flower?&039;

&039;Yes,&039; I said

&039;I&039;ve only just realized what it really means&039;

&039;What?&039;

&039;Love doesn&039;t transforht I was a prince But it turns outThis is what my soul is like&039;

&039;Don&039;t dare talk like that,&039; I whispered &039;It&039;s not true You didn&039;t understand a thing It has absolutely nothing to do with your soul It&039;sit&039;s like&039;

&039;It&039;s like hatching out fro,&039; he said sadly &039;You can&039;t hatch back into it&039;

He had expressed e really was irreversible I didn&039;t knohat to say I wanted to fall through the floor, then through the ground, and keep going to infinityBut he didn&039;t think it was ht the cause of what had happened lay in hiht

He stood up

&039;Now I&039;ers tenderly over my cheek &039;Come what may We&039;ll see each other in three days&039;

He appeared three days later

I wasn&039;t expecting hi The knock at the door sounded strangely weak If it had been the militia, the fire inspectors, the public health inspectors, the district architect or any other bearers of the national idea, it wouldn&039;t have sounded like that - I kne people knocked when they ca lady who cleaned the stand She soiven her an electric kettle twice, but she still came anyway - probably out of loneliness

Alexander was standing outside - deathly pale, with blue circles under his eyes and a long scratch on his left cheek He earing a crumpled summer raincoat I could smell alcohol on him - not old, stale fumes, but the way an open bottle of vodka smells I&039;d never known him to drink before

&039;How did you find me?&039; I asked

It would have been hard to think of a more stupid question He didn&039;t even bother to answer

&039;There&039;s no time Can you hide me?&039;

&039;Of course,&039; I said &039;Coood Our people know about it Have you got somewhere else?&039;

&039;Yes I have Come in and we&039;ll talk about it&039;

He shook his head

&039;Let&039;s go right now Another five minutes and it will be too late&039;

I realized the situation was serious

&039;All right,&039; I said &039;Will we be co back here?&039;

&039;Probably not&039;

&039;Then I&039;ll takeAnd my bike Will you come in?&039;

&039;I&039;ll wait here&039;

A fewaway frohanging over htest attempt to help me That wasn&039;t really like him - but I sensed that he could hardly even walk

&039;Will it take er?&039;

&039;About half an hour, if we don&039;t hurry&039;

&039;What sort of place is it?&039;

&039;You&039;ll see&039;

&039;Is it safe?&039;

&039;They don&039;t co him to my own personal bomb shelter

It often happens that preparations e for a different purpose In the eightiesthe Cold War to end in a hot one - there were at least three portents that indicated such a developic reserves of Stalin&039;s time - which were assembled in case there was a third world war - appeared on the shelves in shops (the cans were easily identifiable by the lack of any e of the metal, a thick layer of Vaseline and their completely tasteless, almost colourless contents)

2 the Aan Each word in his na the apocalyptic number of the beast - &039;666&039; - a fact that was frequently mentioned with alarm by the journal Communist, where many architects of the future reforan was pronounced exactly like &039;ray gun&039; - a fact that I noticed ns did not portend war, but the end of the USSR: the upper rat had chickened out, thereby fulfilling the first part of its great geopolitical mission But at that ti about what I would do when it started

These thoughts ledclose to Bitsevsky Park and in its secret depths, criss-crossed with gullies, I often came across concrete pipes, shafts and service ducts It was clear froround structures came from various periods of Soviet power So to do with underground heat pipelines and cables, and so military

Most of them were in open view But one of these boltholes proved suitable for my purposes It was located in ie drinkers or courting couples to use as ato it, and there wasn&039;tthat way This is how it looked: there was a concrete pipe about a ully The bottom of the opposite slope of the ravine was only a few steps away, so it was difficult to spot the pipe froround it branched into two s on the wall, and even a socket for a light bulb hanging on a spike haround power cable running nearby

When I discovered this place, there were no signs of life in it, only garbage left over from the construction work and a rubber boot with a torn top Bit by bit I brought in a lot of canned food, jars of honey, Vietnamese bamboo mats and blankets Only instead of war, perestroika broke out, and I had no more need for a bomb shelter But even so I still used to inspect the place fro of it as my &039;bunker&039;

Of course, all my reserves had rotted, but the spot itself had remained undiscovered: only once in the entire democratic period did a tra along the bottoully in a delirious state and then claive him a rather severe hypnotic session - I&039;s as well as the gully After that I hung a protective talis, since sooner or later you have to pay for s with your own death But in this case the intervention was minimal

When Alexander asked me to hide him, I realized immediately that I couldn&039;t possibly think of any better place than this But getting there turned out not to be so easy - he alking slower and sloith frequent stops to catch his breath

Eventually we reached the gully, which was concealed by a proliferation of hazel bushes and some umbrella-shaped plants with a narew to a monstrous size here, alht be radiation or cheully, bent over and cliht or left?&039;

&039;Left,&039; I said &039;I&039;ll just switch on the light&039;

&039;Oho, so there&039;s even light Real luxury,&039; he muttered

A minute later I helped him take off his raincoat and laid him out on the barey jacket was soaked in blood

&039;There are bullets,&039; he said &039;Two or three Can you get them out?&039;

Fortunately, I&039;d putAnd I had a bit of h the last tio, and it wasn&039;t bullets I removed from a man&039;s body, it was arrowheads But there wasn&039;t really ht,&039; I said &039;Only don&039;t squeal&039;

During the procedure - which proved to be rather long - he didn&039;t le sound After one particularly clumsy turn of my instruht have died But he reached out for his bottle of vodka and took a s Finally it was all over I&039;d really hacked hiot all three lumps of silver out - there were still black hairs embedded in two of them, and I realized he had been shot when he wasI didn&039;t knohat to call his new for to me

&039;That&039;s it,&039; I said &039;Noe have to bandage it up with soo to the che?&039;