The face. It wasn’t a face it was a mask. A cold, rubbery mask made of her own skin…muscles. Repulsive. And it scared again. Victoria fell and Kharon hardly had time to catch the girl not to let her fall. He held her, the book and got through everything inside that Victoria felt.

‘What’s it, dear?’ coming aside from people, Kharon tried to find out what was going on.

The girl mumbled something unclear and incomprehensible in return. Suddenly a smell of illness clogged his nostrils. Why? Why did that young girl, who absolutely had been healthy until now, had an illness? If it had a smell it meant something serious not just ARVI…

‘I feel ache in my heart… Pain and fear. What am I supposed to do? Vic!’ Kharon called the girl. ‘Don’t close your eyes, can you hear me? It’s too dangerous! Don’t close your eyes!’

People turned, stared, were curious, someone disapproved, others had pity and wanted to help but hesitated, some just looked away.

Kharon fell on the nearest bench, holding the sick girl. The book fell near on the dirty and trampled road. Victoria couldn’t say a single word, the man was sitting near, understood nothing and what he had to do. But he clearly understood that it shouldn’t have been what was going on to Victoria. That wasn’t neither her illness nor her disease.

Her head was lying on his knees. Her eyes were closed. No moves. The breathing was quiet. The inner pain kept on its attacking. The man was stroking over her cheek, looking at her face, at her red hair awry over his knees. Her quiet but heavy sighs sounded like moans of a drug addict who was getting through terrible withdrawals. He didn’t know what to do that he could call an ambulance, to find a doctor. He didn’t know. He was just sitting and trying to calm down and taking pity on the girl.

More than an hour had passed. Then Victoria went silent. The moans suddenly ceased. The attempts to move were gone. Silence. The sepulchral silence. Something gave a shiver in the chest of the demon, it pricked in his heart more likely. It was unpleasantly and unexpectedly. The thing that had pricked him in the heart made the man bended over her face to understand if actually she breathed and her heart beat.

Hardly had he bended over her as Vic opened her eyes. Her eyes were wide-opened. She had a scared and understanding nothing stare. She didn’t still move. The demon looked at her eyes, but Victoria seemed not to see him. She just gazed at the sky covered with the black veil.

‘Hey, dear?’ Kharon called her quiet.

The silence was the answer. Victoria didn’t hear his voice. She could hear nothing at all. She just gazed at the sky. There was the same silence but more ominous. These eyes of olive colour scared him more than when they had been closed. Then she started speaking. It was as sudden as she seemed to have been numb and speechless before.

‘It’s been a sort of horror…’ she whispered getting up from the knees of the demon who understood nothing.

He was confused. Kharon had clearly felt the smell of some incurable malady. That was Victoria who smelled of it and no one else. He had heard her heart lose the beat, running down, by whisper counting the last beats and speeding up with scream “I won’t give up”. He had heard her breath come faster but weak and hopeless. But now the absolutely healthy girl, active and strong, was sitting near him. No malady threatened her now.

‘What’s going on? What’s it with me, Kharon?’ she asked the man, carefully studying his face.

‘You won’t believe, dear, but I was about to ask you the same question.’

The girl turned away and stared at the puddle, at the dirty reflection of the evening clear sky. She was thinking. She did it so aloud that the demon could hear her for several minutes and that’s why he didn’t stop her, hopping that Victoria would be describing in her mind what an attack had happened to her. Maybe she had some malady which nobody knew of… But it couldn’t be like that. The demon started to bring himself over. He was able to expose any disease faster than any doctor with the best instruments in the world.

‘I’m freaky fed up with all this bullshit!’ Vic exclaimed, raising up from the bench. ‘Let’s go to a pub?’

‘Couples of questions.’ Kharon slowly got up as if he was afraid of something and came up to the girl. ‘What is it you’re fed up with? What a pub? Do you think you’re alright?’

‘Kharon,’ Vic smiled, ‘I’m sure it’s doing of damned spirits! They periodically show me their experiences making me experience it with them again… Oh, my God, I’m speaking about it to you… Now you’re gonna think that I’m crazy. Well what can I do then? Sooner or later you’d know about it.’

Victoria got carried away. She didn’t want to tell the demon about her still existed visions, but her tongue didn’t obey her. It wanted to tell everything. It’d been tried to hide and be silent! It wanted to cry out about all those horrors which had happened to the girl.

‘It’s ok. You see I’m of good cheer and feel well. It was just another spirit… The problem is that I’m fed up with them. Terribly fed up! Maybe do you know any medicine for them? What can I do that they stop coming to me? I can’t bear to see them all, their empty eyes and mouths with moving lips. I’m fed up with feeling their emotions, crying with them, getting rid of the lost feeling, looking at their life memories which I don’t know nothing about! I’m not into it! I don’t want to!’

The girl sank back on the bench and started crying, having put her face into her hands. The demon said nothing pretending to be sad, looking at the building in front of him.

‘What about a pub?’ Vic continued, sobbing. ‘there’s a pub not far from here. It’ll help me to distract myself and forget my problems. I just wanna drink! Do you drink? About if I’m ok – actually, I’m not sure. That’s why I need to get to a pub.’

‘Do I drink?’ Kharon distracted, having looked at the sky. ‘What am I supposed to drink? Coffee? I like coffee.’

‘No, my love,’ Victoria jumped up from the bench. ‘I’m speaking about alcohol!’

‘Alcohol?’ the man asked looking at the puzzled face of the girl. ‘Ok then. Let’s go to a pub. What does pub mean?’

‘This is the place which has no difference with a café. Have you never been in pubs? Are you kidding?’

‘Maybe I have. I rarely look at the titles.’

‘Well, what about bars? Clubs?’

‘I’ve been in a bar.’

‘Perfect. So, there’s nothing new about pubs for you then. Let’s go!’ Victoria took his hand and went ahead.

Kharon followed her. He had still a slight misunderstanding. It could happen to demons that managed to get involved with witches. Ten minutes before the girl, confidently and cheerfully marched before him, pulling him along strongly, had been lying on the bench and Kharon could bet that he had heard her heart stop beating. Now she was rushing forward like a locomotive with unbelievable traction. She looked like she hadn’t had any disease attack and it had just seemed to the demon to have happened.

The faded light was in a crowded place enveloped with unobtrusive music. They hardly managed to find a free table. Fortunately, the reservation was cancelled at the same second when Kharon asked about free tables.

The man looked around and yes, definitely he had been in such kind of places. What the hell difference was how to name it pubs or bars if people did the same things there especially on Fridays and weekends.

Kharon noticed people in Moscow liked having relax on Friday evenings. People got kinder, more smiled, more friendly for a while. Some fights happened at nights and some of them the demon had watched, having fun or being bored.

Despite the traditional vivacity over Moscow Kharon liked being in public places. He had always been into publicity. He was glad that Victoria changed her rules and principles to spend cosy Friday at home, saying that she needed no one and nothing else.