Since We Are Apart

Chapter 7. You Can’t Fool the Heart

There was no more time, no more feelings, no more words. There was only one thing — darkness. Blackness surrounded me on all sides, but despite that, it didn’t frighten me. It didn’t hold me back. It only wrapped me in a light haze. Something told me that if I made a careless move, it would not like that. Like an all-consuming organism, it would start absorbing everything without a trace. But if I played by its rules, then…

Then what? The intuitive understanding didn’t push me away; on the contrary, it grew inside me with a viscous calm. It enveloped me like a cradle with a soft featherbed and carried me far away from here. Only I had forgotten where “here” was, and I couldn’t remember.

Or maybe I didn’t want to remember.

As if overhearing my thoughts, the darkness loosened its embrace. I became a guest who was allowed to be in this space and was inexplicably trusted. The sensation of my own body returned to me, and only then did I feel how cold and damp it was in this place. If my legs hadn’t been floating in weightlessness, I could have guessed I was in a dark basement or a drainage ditch, but there was no stench, no creaking floorboards, no trickling water.

Who am I?

The answer to this silent question came as a brief flash of light in the distance. At first, it seemed like a trick of consciousness: not finding anything to fix my gaze on in the utter darkness, my brain had begun inventing bizarre patterns. But no. Soon another flash appeared, and this time I would have sworn it was a little closer. I wanted to move toward the fleeting glimmer, but I had no idea how. The darkness held me in serene weightlessness, and it was impossible to find any support to push off from. Then I tried to spread my arms to the sides, and for a moment, it seemed like something was holding them back: I could barely move them, but I didn’t give up. I relaxed my wrist for a moment, trying to catch the point where the tension started. Carefully, I twisted my wrist, and although I still saw nothing, it felt as if I sensed something around my skin. Some kind of fabric or something similar in texture. Preparing myself, I tensed my arms strongly and pulled with all my might. My skin immediately burned unpleasantly, but it didn’t last long, and I was able to move more freely in space.

As soon as I tried to spread my arms to the sides again, my palms felt a solid barrier. It was enough to push off from. My body moved forward by inertia. I leaned my torso in the direction of movement, trying to find balance. The pale flicker in the darkness stopped flickering. The light was calling me, and I obediently followed its call. I pushed off again and again, but with each effort, I only got slightly closer.

I don’t know how long this went on. At some point, when vague outlines began to appear in the faint light, the surrounding space filled with sounds. They resembled the quiet crackling I heard every time I pressed the button on the TV remote for a channel with no broadcast.

I pushed off two more times and felt tired for the first time. The human seemed to be returning to me, reclaiming piece by piece of my consciousness from the darkness, and I would be lying to myself if I said I liked it. Non-being attracted me with a peace I had been deprived of lately in real life, but that damn light wouldn’t let me stay. It pulled me irresistibly, like gravity pulling an apple to the ground. If I wanted to resist the almost obsessive urge to see what was on the other side, it probably wouldn’t have worked. Deep inside, I felt something important was happening. Something that couldn’t be missed or ignored.

The point grew larger and larger, gradually stretching taller and turning into something oval-shaped. Soon it looked like a large glowing figure from the inside, which became less bright as I got closer, as if purposely so I could keep watching. The premonition that I had to see something important never left me. There was nothing but light, no matter how hard I tried to look closer. Attempts to make out anything seemed useless, but there were also sounds.

What started as white noise became clearer and clearer. Soon I could distinguish echoes of a familiar voice begging:

“Please, let me go. Please! I haven’t done anything bad to you or your family.”

The three phrases repeated over and over. It could have sounded like a recording if the voice hadn’t grown more plaintive with each repetition. It definitely belonged to a man, but I couldn’t understand why I felt such a sorrowful ache squeezing my heart beneath my ribs. Approaching the light almost fully, I touched it. The veil immediately lifted, and out of surprise, I pulled my hand back, not understanding what had happened. I saw a blurred reflection of my palm on the surface, as if it were mirrored, but at the same time strange. Wrong.

The object resembled a flat oval mirror, human-sized. But it didn’t reflect what was happening in the darkness; rather, it worked like a window into another place. The place from which the voice came.

Listening to myself, I tried to run through the voices of close people in my head, but nothing worked. I distinctly remembered only my father’s timbre, but the one begging clearly wasn’t him. Then why was I so uneasy inside?

I pushed off with my palms one last time, hoping to get through, but I hit the light’s smooth surface like a barrier. How could this be? It was nothing like what I expected.

“Please, no!”

The voice grew even louder. It almost turned into a scream, and it seemed the person on the other side was no longer begging but going mad with despair.

“Please, stop! It hurts! It hurts!”

“Hey! Can you hear me?” I blurted out, and I started pounding on the “glass.”

There was no response. The white noise was joined by the growling roar of a saw.

“No! No, stop!”

“I’m here! Open up! Stop! You have no right!” My voice broke, and my fists ached from the pain, but I didn’t stop. There was someone behind the mirror desperately needing help, and if I could do anything, it was at least to draw the attacker’s attention to myself.

But I failed. The screams continued. One terrifying sound was joined by others, and the nightmare had no end. I was gasping for breath, barely managing to fill my lungs to scream louder. Hot tears washed over my cheeks in helplessness, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was this person behind the barrier. A person I hadn’t even seen but somehow knew and reached out to with every fiber of my soul.

A silhouette flashed before my eyes. It was as bright as the surrounding space, as if several spotlights had been directed at him. The bulky hood of his cloak covered two-thirds of his face, leaving only his lips visible. As if in autofocus, the image sharpened while I watched the stranger. His mouth twitched in contempt, baring even teeth. My gaze immediately caught a pronounced fang, one I had already noticed on familiar vampires. The stranger must have seen me just as clearly as I saw him. There was no point in screaming anymore. I was waiting for the next move, not knowing what this creature had in mind.

And I wish I hadn’t known.

With a commanding movement, the stranger grabbed the armrest of the high-backed chair, behind which only the crown of someone’s head appeared, and my breath caught as soon as I made out the hair color. On the short sandy-golden waves were bloody streaks.

No, it can’t be.

The stranger was about to fully enjoy my reaction before turning the chair around and revealing who was sitting in it. The snarl changed into a satisfied smile that twisted something inside me. He was feeding on my fear, and once he started his meal, he couldn’t stop. Like a magician during a show, the stranger theatrically swept his hand across the space, as if introducing a new actor, and finally turned the chair. My lips trembled when the suspicion was confirmed.

“Nik.”

The sound of a saw filled my ears, and a wave of pain crashed into my consciousness. I grabbed my head with my hands, trying to cover my ears and escape the maddening trill of metal. I didn’t manage to see anything clearly anymore, shut my eyes, and Darkness seemed to take over once again. It pulled me back with force, away from the disgusting scene. Everything was happening too fast. The mirror kept drifting farther and farther away until it became a small shimmering dot again.

“What are you doing? No!” I screamed, addressing the ephemeral observer who had interfered. “Bring me back! Bring me back!”

“Asya, calm down,” someone shook me by the shoulders. “Listen to my voice. Breathe. Come on: one, two...”

But I didn’t listen. It felt like the Darkness was speaking to me, and after what I had seen, I had to fight no matter what. The treachery with which it lured me into its web no longer had power over me. Serene oblivion was a tempting bargaining chip, but how could I accept it, leaving another to the mercy of who knows what?

My cheek burned from a blow, and my head jerked sharply. The bright light hurt my eyes, but just a moment ago, everything was fine? Instinctively I tried to cover my face, but something prevented me from raising my hand.

“Asya?” a coaxing voice called me again. The speaker gently touched my shoulder. “There, that’s better. Quiet now, dear. Quiet.”

Someone’s fingers stroked my head while the person murmured like a mantra, “Quiet, quiet.” A sharp smell of bleach and an unnatural sour chemical fragrance hit my nose, reminding me of time spent in a hospital ward. Squinting cautiously, I tried to make out something, anything, but my eyes refused to adjust.

“Dad, turn off the light. She can’t even open her eyes.”

There was a click, and the lamp above me immediately went out. I managed to open my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything clearly — everything was blurry. After blinking a few times, the picture started to clear. Now I could distinctly see the surgical round lamp hovering above me. Slightly turning my head, I caught Diana sitting right next to the bed. Meeting my gaze, my classmate gave me a sad smile.

“Well,” I began, but a thousand thorns seemed to pierce my throat, forcing me to speak softer. “What happened? Am I in the hospital?”

“You don’t remember anything, right? You felt bad at school,” Diana said with the movement of a loving mother as she brushed a strand of hair from my face. “Arthur said some nonsense in his usual style, and you got so angry. We were really scared: you jumped on Arthur right in the hallway! Nobody had time to react, and it all happened in front of Dasha and Tanya. Arthur will, of course, erase their memory, but if more people had been around, you wouldn’t have gotten away with it. Stas told us to take you to your father, but even on the way home… I don’t even know how to describe it. Asya, it was like you started transforming. The whole car was filled with a crackling noise, as if bone was breaking in two. You were trembling all over, my God…”

Diana winced and then shook her head, as if trying to forget what she had seen, but the image was firmly imprinted in her mind.

“Daughter,” Dr. Smirnov placed his hand on Di’s shoulder, “these details won’t help Asya now. Go out and freshen up.”

“Dad, but…”

“I have something to discuss with Asya,” he said firmly, responding to Diana’s protest.

She obediently got up and left the room, casting me an apologetic glance as she went. Only now did I notice that in the middle of the room, which looked more like a museum hall, stood a hospital couch, on which I lay, along with medical equipment. To my left was a stand with devices that periodically emitted quiet beeps. From my right hand extended a transparent tube leading to a glass flask on a holder. Drops of clear liquid slowly fell into the dispenser.

“What are you giving me?” I managed to ask as my eyes scanned the room and I noticed a mirror. It was the same oval shape as in the dream.

“This is saline,” Dr. Smirnov sat down on the chair freed by Diana, and I felt uneasy being alone with him. “When Diana brought you in, I gave you a sedative. It acted quickly, and soon we transferred you here. Sorry, I didn’t even have time to change after it happened, and then I was afraid to leave you alone.”

He shrugged, pointing to himself, and only then did I notice Vladimir was in regular clothes: jeans, a blue V-neck sweater slightly darker than the jeans. No hint of the usual hospital uniform with which I associated the elder Smirnov.

“Usually Stanislav or Maxim help me,” Vladimir’s eyes widened momentarily as if suddenly remembering something. “But it seems today I managed on my own.”

His lips stretched into a polite smile. He patiently waited, looking straight at me, but there was no warmth or care in his gaze like I saw from Diana or Stas. Dr. Smirnov looked friendly, but a chill radiated from him. It was hard to tell whether Vladimir was truly wearing a mask or if my mind, shaken by the vision, was planting a seed of suspicion. Such a strange and dark nightmare — no horror movie could match the feeling. I wished I could forget it like a bad dream, never remember again, but the mirror in the room troubled me. It pulled me in, inviting me to touch it, to check if the familiar Darkness was already on the other side. To confirm that everything that had happened was just a product of my mind. Then I saw in the reflection a working chair covered in expensive leather. The moment I noticed it, something inside snapped. There are no such coincidences. The mind could not have painted an image it did not know with such precision. No. Something was wrong here. I had never been in this room before, so how could I know what Dr. Smirnov’s chair looked like?

My thoughts were interrupted by a muffled hum and a strange sound that resembled a human scream underwater. Muted, barely audible. At least, that’s how victim screams were voiced in movies. I stared at Vladimir, waiting for an explanation, but he only gently stroked my palm, and I had to force myself not to pull away. Whether distrust was caused by my mind playing tricks or not, I couldn’t reveal myself easily until I understood what was really happening.

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

“Does this sedative you gave me cause visions?”

“Hallucinations, vivid dreams, anxiety, depression, dizziness, vomiting, arrhythmia, bowel disorders, diarrhea — quite a lengthy list, like all drugs of this kind.”

I was stunned by what I heard. What did it mean? Why could medicines meant to help cause new symptoms instead of solving old ones? Righteous anger and a flood of questions rushed through my mind, but out loud I asked only the main one:

“Then why did you give it to me?!”

“I’m afraid if we had delayed, you would have already transformed into a wolf. Your brother is very tied to his emotional state with the approach of the full moon. As far as I know, werewolves learn to better control their feelings and monitor urges as they age. You should talk to your father about this. Konstantin has personal experience with this, unlike me.”

It took a moment to grasp what I’d just heard.

“Wait. You mean I can transform at any time?”

Vladimir raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“What did you expect? Thought that like in movies, when the moon brightens in the sky, all lycanthropes immediately start tearing their clothes and turning into beasts?”

“I think Dad already explained that it doesn’t work like that,” I said quietly, feeling heat rush to my cheeks from embarrassment. And those stereotypes were so sticky! Finding parallels in real life — with movies!

“Alas, Asya. If I know anything about your brother, it’s about the unpredictability of these entities. Just take how differently lycans connect to their ancestral spirit!”

His tone sounded like a poorly concealed mockery. It must be easy, when you’re well over a couple hundred years old, to sneer at ignorance of fundamental truths hidden from most.

“I never asked, but how many werewolves have you met?”

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, as if the answer was hiding there:

“Counting you — seven. I studied only four of them.”

“You’re studying me too?”

“Of course. How else? You agreed to hospital procedures yourself to try to control the beast,” he leaned closer and said confidentially, “I can’t help if I don’t know what the problem is. The thing is, vampires have certain behavior patterns regarding transformation or, like Diana and Stas, birth — species traits are common. Unless somewhere in their lineage there’s witch blood, like with Arthur and the twins. You probably noticed: they’re not quite ordinary vampires.”

“I didn’t really have a chance to figure out who’s a normal vampire and who isn’t.”

Vladimir waved his hand.

“They themselves don’t really understand how their gift works. They’ve learned to use the minimum and are content. Only Maxim tries to expand the limits, to truly understand the boundaries of his abilities,” a shadow of approval flickered on the doctor’s face but was quickly replaced by disappointment. “Viola and Arthur don’t care about that. They fulfill their duty for the family’s sake and are satisfied. Love, you see...”

A quiet creak came from behind the door, and Vladimir’s jaw clenched.

“If you want to hear what we’re talking about so badly — come in, and don’t try to deceive me. You know, Diana, what happens to those who misbehave.”

Diana returned with a guilty look and obediently stood by the wall, hiding her hands behind her back. She didn’t look at me or the doctor, and I thought how hard it must be for the Smirnovs with such a strict father. Compared to him, Kostya seemed like a good-natured retriever.

“Where was I? Ah, yes. If the kids had shown even a little interest, like Maxim, and allowed themselves to be studied — what a breakthrough humanity would have!”

“Which is why you,” I had to clear my throat before saying as neutrally as possible, “studied Nik’s mother?”

“Of course. And if she hadn’t run away, I would have been able to help her sooner or later. But what’s done is done. Time can’t be turned back. She made her choice.”

“But then it turns out you could have helped Nikita all this time but didn’t.”

“Nikita was born, not turned by a lesser vampire. That’s the big difference between our species, Asya. He inherited the gift not from his mother but probably from his father. But who that vampire was remains a big question even for someone close to the ancient circle. You can’t change the nature of a bloodsucker given by nature. At least not yet. Nik, as you may have noticed, wasn’t eager to fall into my hands after the Halloween night encounter. And I don’t blame the boy. His mother did everything to make Nikita’s life hell on Earth: from supplying him with her blood to terrible stories.”

“It sounds like you’re not the villain here, although Galina turned because of you. Your blood doomed her to become what you call lesser vampires.”

Dr. Smirnov turned a dial on the IV, stopping the flow.

“I’m a researcher who made decisions to help the majority at the cost of one life, and unfortunately, I haven’t succeeded much. Can wanting to solve a problem that tormented many be considered evil? What do you think?”

“I think you had no right to make that choice for her.”

Vladimir shrugged slightly and turned with interest to his daughter, as if checking her reaction.

“Diana would agree with you. Right, daughter?”

Only silence answered.

“I’m not looking for excuses or redemption. When I find a cure for vampires too, no one will care how many suffered for the sake of the goal.”

I clung to that saving clarification, wondering whether it was Vladimir’s manner of speech or a secret hidden between the words that I so desperately needed.

“For vampires too? You mean you have already found a cure for someone else?”

His Adam’s apple moved involuntarily, though the doctor tried not to change his expression. I saw how hard it was for him not to twitch a muscle. My lips involuntarily curved into a smile, anticipating the answer.

“Yes, Asya,” the doctor clapped his hands on his knees and stood up. “I’m starting to understand how to stop lycanthropy.”

I looked at him questioningly, hardly believing my luck. The fleeting hope died when bitterness filled my mouth: something was wrong.

“Then why are you delaying? Adjust the treatment you’re already giving me.”

“Asya,” he sighed deeply, “it’s not that simple.”

“If it’s not simple, then why the hell did you even say it? Why give false hope?”

“You talk about lycanthropy as a disease.”

I snorted indignantly and gestured at the objects around me in the room.

“If it’s not a disease, then why are we talking about treatment here, in a dubious hospital ward?”

The anger was rising again, and Dr. Smirnov noticed it too. He quickly stood up and went to the metal cart with wide shelves, which were filled with all sorts of medical devices and instruments whose names I didn’t know. I leaned forward, wanting to see what Vladimir was doing, but he blocked my view with his back and quickly commanded his daughter:

“Diana, hand me the vial from the second shelf,” the doctor nodded toward something behind the bed. “The leftmost one.”

The door creaked open.

“With the seal or without?”

“Is one of them opened?” Vladimir looked surprised, but only for a moment. Catching my gaze, Smirnov hurried.

“Sealed.”

Diana obediently brought her father a small vial with a liquid that at first seemed clear to me, but as soon as the light touched it, a familiar pearly shimmer flashed. I heard how gently the needle pierced the rubber stopper and how faintly the liquid hummed as it was drawn into the syringe. How strange. Over the past few days, my hearing had caught many sounds, but such tiny ones—this was the first time. It was amazing how certain sounds stood out only in fragments. It seemed only those connected with the syringe had grown louder. Voices, footsteps, floor creaks remained the same volume, and I didn’t understand when I had gotten used to it. Something important had switched inside me since I woke up. But how?

“Don’t let him inject you with that crap,” whispered a voice, neither from inside nor outside. Startled, I jumped, but neither Diana nor Vladimir seemed to hear the stranger’s voice. I watched the doctor’s back cautiously, wondering what Smirnov was filling the syringe with, when suddenly I noticed a strange play of light behind him. The shadow didn’t match the outline of a human body and was darker than it should be—an unnatural, almost black color, even though the room was well lit.