I’ve brought you God!. Eugene Nomak

the empty holster on her belt.

      – What’s he got there? – Ruta walked over to the dead old man and undid the top button of his shirt. – It’s a stain,» she undid the rest of the buttons.

      The witches saw a white stain on the corpse’s bare chest, about twenty centimeters wide and the same height. It looked like a rider on horseback with a thin spear in his right hand.

      – A knight of some sort,» said Tamura.

      – Don’t touch it,» said Eira. – It looks like some kind of infection. Bring the spectrometer to cell six,» she added into the radio.

      – He did say before he died that he was god-marked, by the way. About a sign of some kind.

      – Quarantine the detained children. Sanitize the room,» Eira continued.

      A gloved nurse entered the cell. The High Witch nodded toward the stain, and the nurse held the spectrometer to it. It emitted a confirmation beep.

      – It’s been sent to the lab,» the nurse said. – They’ll have an answer in a couple minutes.

      For two minutes the women stood in silence waiting for the answer. Because of this awkwardness, the witches were a little nervous and tried not to meet their eyes. Only Tamura smiled broadly, admiring the sight.

      – A witch has been born,» she commented.

      – Praise Odin,» Ruta said casually.

      – There’s a result! – The nurse responded to the spectrometer’s signal.

      – Praise Odin! – Ruta repeated with a relieved exhale.

      – It’s a mutated strain of bubonic skin plague,» said the lab technician.

      The witches looked at each other dumbfounded and rushed for the exit.

      – Wait,» the nurse shouted. – The strain is not contagious.

      – I’ll be praising Odin until tonight,» Ruta said, stopping. – Are you sure it’s not contagious?

      – Give me that! – Eira snatched the spectrometer out of the lab technician’s hands and looked at the monitor. – «The strain is not contagious because it’s completely dead. No colony-forming organisms of the plague bacillus were found.

      – So you’re saying the plague was waiting somewhere for a sick in the head old man to jump on him, draw a knight on his chest, and die? – Tamura asked.

      – Girls, it’s a message! – Ruta said. – It’s obvious! A drawing like that couldn’t have formed on its own.

      – A message to whom? – The black witch persisted. – He was supposed to sit in the bunker for ten days and then blow it up. And who would read the message? Or would he put this sign on the school ceiling with his own ashes?

      – Get on it, huh? – said Eira. – Tamurych, you’re the most logical, the most adequate, and the most expensive for the Coven. Run the connections, who you met, what kind of knight, in general, everything as you like.

      – You couldn’t tell me before? Before I shot him,» she paused and added. – Today, does everyone remember?

      – They do,» Eira replied. – I did another mailing. I might be a little late myself. I’m on the air. I want both of you in my office now. Call Cataleya, too

      ***

      The phone on the High Witch’s desk was crawling with vibrations and bursting with the sounds of an incoming call.

      – Aren’t you going to answer it? – Tamura asked. – A call from Pride. Could it be the Alpha himself calling?

      – I don’t have anything to answer them yet,» Eira said and turned off the ringing tone. She lit a match, lit a cigarette, and exhaled a heavy puff of pink smoke. – Any idea what that was about?

      – I’ll go first, may I? – Ruta asked, glancing questioningly at the dark witch.

      – Of course! – she said. – The young are the way to go! You said something about an alien stagnum.

      – I am the oldest of the witches,“ she began, „and I learned to see stagnum with my eyes a long time ago. Remember when I told you that every stagnum has a color? Not just one color, but a small palette. And the colors in this palette vibrate, passing from one shade to another, with some impermanent frequency. The desires and intentions of man and society are impermanent, and so the vibration appears. The vector of influence on reality also jumps around a bit, like the arrow of a compass. And all this is within the yellow and orange color. Because everyone has the same desires and fears. Everyone wants power, luxury, love, health and not to die of radiation sickness. Even radical religious fanatics don’t have much difference in the color of their stagnum structure. Because we’re all human. We share the same physiology of quantum thinking. As a species. Pure anatomy. Turns out that’s not true.

      – What are you saying? The old man’s stagnum isn’t orange? He’s crazy! What kind of stagnum would a crazy person have?

      – It’s very strong. And it’s black. Yes, yes! It’s black like a space howler. And the best part is, it’s not his stagnum. It’s like someone temporarily gave the old man a new, hitherto unknown, black stagnum.

      – Is that possible? – The High Witch asked. – So he came into contact with a person whose stagnum enriched his own? The messiah?

      – I don’t know. But it would seem so.

      – The origin of the plague knight on the chest of the deceased is an artifact of exposure to an alien stagnum,» the dark witch commented. – Hmmm… that explains it quite well. Shall we turn to the blind witches?

      – You will,» the commander confirmed. – I need this messiah. Alive, if possible. And he’s your passenger now. I understand that the temptation to kill him on the spot you have above the regulations of operative-search activity. But I think the word «national security» still means something to you. – She turned to Ruta. – Want to guess?

      – No!

      – Wow! Why so strict? – Tamura asked.

      – I don’t cast futhark anymore.

      – Why not?

      – Because the last few times I’ve thrown it, it’s been falling like a copycat – the same every time. And every time, it shows the exodus.

      – The Jews out of Egypt? – Tamura asked.

      – My exodus. I don’t know how to interpret it. All I know is that it is not death. The runes refused to tell me anything else. Exodus, every time.

      – Maybe you broke them.

      – Would you stop sneering? – Eira interrupted the dark witch. – What do you think?

      – Can I keep Thomas? – Tamura asked cautiously.

      – What?

      – We have Thomas running on the Coven servers. Nobody uses it anyway. Can I keep him?

      – Thomas? You mean Coven’s voice assistant? It’s available online to any witch at any time. What’s wrong with it? And why are you going off topic?

      – I’d tweak it a bit, customize it, add a backup structure, hot backup on cloud clusters.

      – Aren’t you living a little too frugally, Major Hogan? Do you remember how much that animated face tattoo cost Coven?

      – I did it with Katelea. I never would have gotten it myself.

      – Don’t blame it all on me,» said the extremely beautiful woman sitting in the corner, waving her comb. – My animation is kopechechnaya and changes only the makeup. And