The Mist and the Lightning. Part 17. Ви Корс

hope the black people don’t know about it.

      “Blacks think that you are my lover, whom I torture and keep in slavery.”

      “Yes, everything is very confusing and I don't like it. One thing falls on another, these rumors around us…”

      “Eh, no one really cares, Nik. Only Zagpeace digs under us, the main thing is that Peace doesn’t learn about us, and that’s it.”

      “Peace is the one who knows,” said Nik and looked at Kors very seriously, and, as it seemed to him, a little guilty.

      “WHAT?!”

      “He guesses, or rather, he is sure of it, but so far he keeps it to himself.”

      “Who had told him ?! Unclean ones?”

      Nikto shook his head.

      “No, of course, the unclean ones will never say anything to people.”

      “Who then?”

      “He guessed it himself. We are still alike, but he is attentive. Nobody saw your Iness, but everyone sees me next to you all the time. You shouldn't have brought me to them, but I shouldn’t have listened to you and took off the mask.”

      Kors covered his face with his hands.

      “And he realized that you are my son, and thinks that I am fucking my own son?”

      “Yes,” Nik nodded, “that’s exactly what he thinks.”

      “And how does he imagine it? Does he think I'm completely finished?! That I made my own son a slave and fuck him?! Is he nuts in his fantasies?”

      “He thinks that your wife Iness was your white slave, and an incomplete half-blood child from a white slave – he is like trash, not important for a true black, he believes that you don’t hold me for a man. Usually, such children are simply drowned, like kittens, after birth. And that’s why you treat me this way, even though I'm your son.”

      “Tell him that you are a Demon!”

      “I can’t. Zagpeace hates everything Leonardo does, all these rituals, witchcraft and appeal to Demons. He hates Demons. He won’t help us, but on the contrary will interfere. It will get worse!”

      “Much worse! Oh-oh-oh, fuck! What to do?”

      “Nothing!”

      “It’s good for you to say so, you are poor and unfortunate, you are my victim. And I am a monster, a filthy pervert! He'll put me in jail for rituals with Leonardo, for Kamiel Varah and for incest!”

      Kors walked around the room from corner to corner:

      “And you were silent! You didn’t tell me anything!”

      “I knew that you would start to get nervous from scratch.”

      “From scratch?!”

      “Nothing will happen, Zagpeace won’t do anything to you and won’t put you anywhere!”

      “Are you sure?”

      “Yes. And now he has no time for us at all, he is looking for those reds who held him captive.”

      Kors shook his head.

      “If I ask you not to communicate with black people, not to talk to Zagpeace anymore, if I ask you not to approach people and not talk to them, will you do it for me?”

      “Yes. I promised you this even earlier.”

      “And you haven’t forgotten your promise?”

      “No, Vitor, I haven’t forgotten.”

      “Are you with me? Tell me? Are you with me?!”

      “Yes.”

      “Say: “Yes, father. I promise you not to get close to people.”

      “Yes, father, I promise.”

      “I promise you…”

      “I promise you.”

      “Not to get close to people.”

      “Not to get close to people.”

      And Kors, in a joyful fit, hugged him:

      “Just you and me, without unnecessary people, right?”

      “Yes.”

      Kors gently kissed him on the cheek, on his own letter, then pulled back:

      “It’s almost worn out,” there was some regret in his voice, and Nikto noticed it. He took a pencil from his jacket pocket and handed it to Kors:

      “Here it is. Do as you want.”

      Kors took a pencil, he heard that Nik in his thoughts quickly thought: “Or do you want to cut your letter with a knife on the back of my head?” Kors froze for a moment, but decided to pretend he didn’t understand.

      With a rod soaked in black dye, he renewed his letter. He circled the lines thicker and smoother. The letter “V” stood out brightly on his Nik’s cheek again, and Kors was overwhelmed with emotions, and he understood that they were base and wrong, and that he was feeding Demon with them, and now he was feeding him much more satisfying than with meat before, but Kors couldn’t do anything with himself.

      “Let’s go,” said Vitor Kors to Nikto.

      “Where?”

      “To the doctor.”

      “What for?”

      “The reds have good medicines, let him give some to you.”

      “Vitor, I don't want to.”

      “But you need drugs, Nik, and preferably of the Upper.”

      “Can you go to him without me?”

      “What nonsense?”

      “Well, okay, let me go with you and wait for you behind the door.”

      “Nik, don't talk nonsense! What a slavish habit of always waiting behind the door? You will just come with me to the doctor’s office, and let him help you.”

      “He’s red, I'm not sure he wants to help me.”

      “First of all, he heals people, he took an oath and is obliged to help!”

      “But not people like me.”

      “I love that you keep away from people and don’t trust them, but you don’t have to be completely wild, Nik. Let’s go, why are you against it? Everything is alright. I’m with you, my dear.”

      Nik, head down dejectedly, trailed behind the confidently walking Kors, he turned to him:

      “Why do you remember now how I took you to dinner with the blacks? These are completely different cases. Don’t compare the noble blacks and the common red healer.”

      “He's not common, he is Kudmer’s personal doctor.”.

      “And it is very good! It means that he has good expensive drugs. Reds take tattoos and scars calmly, have you seen their teeth? What are you afraid of?”

      “Yes, but the red ones treat black water very badly, he will refuse to treat me.”

      “What do you mean refuse? Let him try! Then I'll make him do it.”

      “Vitor,