Note: The original was written in Russian. Like painted art. I don't have translators (AI), so there may be mistakes in the text!

  It was also not possible to adapt everything. But I'm not sure that someone will read it, so everything is in order :)

  An old, partly rusted car wheezed up to a lonely, leaning house on the edge of town. A fine, nasty rain drizzled down, turning the dirt road into a muddy mess. The wipers squeaked as they smeared water across the windshield, behind which two guys were engaged in a tense argument.

  “Liam, I think this is going too far,” Wayne said sharply, nervously fiddling with his seatbelt.

  “Relax,” Liam waved him off, killing the rattling engine. “Pat won’t even notice we ‘borrowed’ his ride. It was just sitting there anyway.”

  “I’m not talking about the car!” Wayne exhaled irritably. “I mean what we’re doing.”

  “We’re earning a living, little Wayne. Come on, let’s go. Put on a serious face.”

  Liam swaggered out of the car, raising the collar of his crumpled jacket against the rain, and decisively strode to the porch. He knocked—three short, confident raps. A moment later, a bolt screeched, and a frail old lady in a faded cardigan appeared in the doorway. She smelled of lavender and old dust.

  “Oh, you must be from the bureau?” she rasped, squinting through thick glasses.

  “The Warner family, at your service,” Liam said with his most charming, professional smile. “You called.”

  “Come in, come in, dears,” the old woman fussily stepped aside, letting them into the living room cluttered with porcelain figurines. “I made cookies with milk for you.”

  “Thanks, ma’am, but we’re on duty,” Liam gently declined as he stepped over the threshold. “In your request, you mentioned feeling a ‘bad energy’ in the living room?”

  “Exactly! It’s a real nuisance. For the past three days, my lower back has been killing me. I can’t sleep.”

  “I see. Classic poltergeist parasite,” Liam nodded wisely.

  He theatrically pulled a crescent moon-shaped amulet—a cheap trinket from a souvenir shop—from his pocket and waved it through the air, frowning as if concentrating deeply. Wayne rolled his eyes behind him.

  “Just as I thought… There is indeed a cluster of heavy energy in your living room. But you’re lucky you called us. This will help you.”

  Liam fished a hastily made voodoo doll out of his inner pocket, woven from straw and thread.

  “Place this charm in the eastern corner of the room and sprinkle ordinary table salt around it. The energy will absorb into the straw.”

  “Oh, my savior!” the old lady exclaimed, flinging her hands up. Tears welled in her eyes. “How much do I owe you, boys?”

  “Considering the complexity of the cleansing… about one hundred fifty dollars,” Liam said without batting an eye.

  “All right, I have a little left from my pension… You’re risking yourselves for a good cause,” she muttered, trembling hands pulling crumpled bills from an old wallet.

  Liam took the money carefully but quickly.

  “No thanks needed. It’s our duty. Call us if the spirits return.”

  He pressed a cheap business card into her hand: “Warner Family Occult Bureau. We solve all paranormal problems.”

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Wayne shot down the porch like a bullet. The brothers climbed back into the cold car. The door slammed with a metallic clang.

  “No, that’s definitely too much!” Wayne exploded as Liam started the engine.

  “Come on, don’t be such a baby,” Liam counted the bills with a smug grin. “Believers have always existed. If it weren’t us, some TV preacher would have sucked that money out of her. At least we’ll be eating something better than instant noodles tonight.”

  “That old lady has Alzheimer’s! We’ve ‘cleansed’ her living room three times this month!”

  “What can you do,” Liam shrugged, hiding the money in his pocket. “Paying believers are getting rare. Let’s get out before she remembers and calls the cops.”

  “My God…” Wayne wearily rubbed his face. “Someday we’ll earn an honest living.”

  The Ford slowly rolled away, leaving behind the leaning house and the trusting old lady, who waved from the window.

  The rain intensified, drumming on the car roof like a handful of tiny stones. The headlights barely picked out the wet asphalt from the darkness. The silence in the cabin was broken by the sharp ringtone of a phone.

  “I told you, taking Pat’s car was a bad idea,” Wayne muttered, glancing at Liam’s phone screen.

  “Relax, Weenie. I’ve got this under control.”

  Liam answered in his signature cheerful tone:

  “The Warner Family Occult Bureau, how may we—”

  “Stop fooling around, bastard! I’m in your contacts!” Pat’s raspy bass voice bellowed from the speaker. “Where’s my car?!”

  “All right, old man, don’t get your panties in a twist. We’re on the move. We’ll return your junk intact soon.”

  “Move it before I report it stolen!”

  Liam slammed the phone onto the dashboard in annoyance.

  “Damn, what a prick. No respect for small business.”

  Almost immediately, the phone rang again. Liam grabbed it irritably, ready to tell Pat exactly what he thought, but paused. The number was unknown.

  “What now?” he barked into the phone.

  A thin, trembling voice came on the line after a second of silence:

  “Is this… the Warner family?”

  Liam straightened instantly. His cynicism vanished, replaced by alert focus. Wayne looked at him questioningly.

  “Yes, that’s us. Do you have a problem?”

  “Yes…” the girl sobbed. In the background, there was a dull banging and an incoherent growl. “I think my father is possessed by a demon. Please help… I’m really scared. I… I sent coordinates via SMS.”

  The line went dead.

  A heavy silence filled the cabin, broken only by the squeak of the wipers.

  “All right. We’re coming,” Liam said softly, already glancing at the GPS.

  “Hey, Liam… we actually got a real job?” Wayne asked uncertainly.

  “Let me guess,” Liam smirked crookedly, sharply turning at an intersection. “Unpaid again?”

  “You’re sharp. Judging by the address, it’s the slums near the old factory. Probably another drunk catching delirium tremens. Time to cleanse some karma, Weenie. And save a kid from abuse while we’re at it.”

  “Maybe stop calling me ‘little’? I’m only a year younger.”

  “We’ll see about your behavior,” Liam smirked, pressing the accelerator. The Ford, growling through its busted muffler, tore through the rain.

  They stopped in front of a two-story abandoned house with boarded-up windows. The paint peeled from the walls; the porch had rotted. Inside, no lights were on, but faint crying could be heard from deep within.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “We’re here,” Liam stated grimly, stepping into the icy downpour.

  Wayne pulled a heavy police flashlight and a short shotgun from the trunk, checking the ammo.

  They approached the door. Liam tried the handle—it was locked. He knocked, loud and insistent. The only response was the noise of the rain.

  Then a piercing scream of a girl and the sound of shattering glass came from inside.

  “All right, on three,” Liam muttered, stepping back.

  The brothers stood shoulder to shoulder.

  “One. Two. THREE!”

  A double stomp landed precisely on the lock. The rotten wood splintered, and the door fell off its hinges with a crash, raising a cloud of dust into the dark corridor.

  A sour smell of alcohol, urine, and dampness hit them.

  They burst into the kitchen. In the dim light of a streetlamp filtering through the cracks, Liam saw a horrifying scene. A large, unshaven man with wild eyes pressed a little girl in a dirty dress against the wall, trying to force whiskey from the bottle into her mouth. He muttered some nonsense about “cleansing.”

  Liam didn’t waste words. He lunged forward like a dog unleashed from a chain, crashing into the man. He flew into a pile of trash bags, hitting the brick wall with his head, going limp. The bottle rolled across the floor, spilling cheap booze. A painting of chaos.

  “Are you okay?” Liam panted, kneeling in front of the trembling girl.

  “It’s… it’s not him…” she whispered, smearing tears across her soot-stained face.

  “What?”

  Liam didn’t have time to turn. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a blurred movement. In the next moment, the world exploded in a flash of pain. A heavy wooden stool crashed down on his head. Liam fell onto the filthy tiles, ears ringing.

  Above him, a second man swayed. Thin, sinewy, with a murky, glazed gaze.

  “Who’s this, sweetheart?” he croaked unnaturally calm. “Your friends? Daddy won’t hurt you… come to me.”

  The girl burst into tears again, curling into a ball.

  At that moment, Wayne appeared in the doorway. Seeing his brother on the floor, he threw down the flashlight.

  “You want to play this game together, bastard!” Wayne shouted.

  He grabbed the second stool and swung it with all his might, smashing the attacker in the face.

  A wet, disgusting crunch echoed. The man collapsed on his back. Dark fluid began spreading rapidly across the moldy tile under his head.

  Wayne froze, breathing heavily. The stool slipped from his hands.

  “Damn… I think I overdid it,” he said, his voice trembling. He had just killed someone.

  He ran to Liam:

  “Get up! Liam! Wake up! Some drunk hit you!”

  Liam groaned, opening his eyes and holding his bloodied head.

  “Lucky the drunk can’t fight properly…” he winced, trying to focus. “Could have been worse.”

  “What do we do now?!” Wayne panicked, pointing to the lifeless body. “Call child services? But how do we explain a corpse in the kitchen?! They’ll lock us up!”

  “Calm down,” Liam sat, leaning against a cabinet. Head splitting. “Get some ice from the fridge if it works. I’ll talk to the girl.”

  Wayne nodded and ran deeper into the house. Liam turned to the girl:

  “Hey, don’t be scared. The one who attacked me… do you know him?”

  “His friend…” she whispered, not taking her eyes off the pool of blood. “My dad’s drinking buddy. They drank together.”

  “Right. Your dad’s buddies are lousy, kid,” Liam tried to smile reassuringly, though it came off eerie.

  Pale Wayne returned, holding a frozen piece of meat in a bag:

  “There’s no ice, found only this. Put it on it.”

  Liam took the cold package, but Wayne froze. His eyes widened in terror.

  “Did I see that?” Wayne whispered, lifting the shotgun.

  Liam slowly turned.

  The “corpse” with the broken skull was rising. Its movements were jerky, twitching, like a puppet with tangled strings. But the scariest thing was its face: the man’s eyes were no longer murky. His pupils pulsed with a deep, infernal red light, as if coals had been ignited inside his skull.

  “I told you, sweetheart… Daddy will protect you,” the being rasped in a double, vibrating voice.

  The girl suddenly stopped crying. Her face went blank. She stepped toward the monster—not hugging it, but dissolving into its body like mist woven from gray fog. The illusion lifted.

  “Hey, Wayne…” Liam’s voice dropped. A cold sweat ran down his spine. “People don’t get up after injuries like that. And children don’t just vanish… What the hell did we just find?”

  The creature let out a deafening, resonating roar and lunged at them faster than humanly possible.

  “Not just alive! Faster! To the car, now!” Liam yelled.

  Wayne didn’t argue. He smashed the remaining kitchen window with the shotgun and vaulted into the wet bushes. Liam covered the retreat.

  “Well, freak, shall we dance?” he shouted, retreating.

  The monster grabbed a heavy oak table with one hand and hurled it at Liam. He barely dove under the windowsill. The table shattered against the wall.

  “Seems you don’t like dancing,” Liam exhaled.

  The creature was suddenly right there. Cold, hard fingers clamped around Liam’s throat, pinning him to the wall. His legs left the floor. His vision darkened.

  “Bitch… stubborn…” he hissed, feeling cartilage crunch.

  He found a kitchen knife among the debris, long blade. Swinging, he plunged it deep into the monster’s clavicle.

  The creature didn’t even flinch. Red eyes stared indifferently at Liam.

  “What are you even?!” the boy croaked in despair.

  BOOM!

  A deafening crash tore through the cramped kitchen. The door frame splintered. Wayne, standing outside, fired the shotgun point-blank through the broken window. The buckshot tore off half the monster’s chest.

  The creature twitched convulsively, fingers releasing Liam’s throat. He collapsed onto the floor, gasping.

  The monster recoiled, emitting an unnaturally high, almost ultrasonic howl that shattered the remaining glass.

  The body trembled, rippled, and rapidly disintegrated before the brothers’ eyes. Blood, flesh, clothing—all crumbled into gray ash on the dirty floor.

  “Let’s get the hell outta here!” Liam coughed, crawling through the window into the mud.

  They leapt into the car. Liam jumped behind the wheel, turning the key. The starter whined plaintively. The Ford sneezed, jerked, and stalled.

  “Damn! Come on, start, you piece of crap!” Liam yelled, hitting the wheel.

  Then the street was flooded with red-and-blue lights. Three police cars tore around the corner, slicing through the rain. Sirens wailed.

  A tall officer stepped out of one car, hand on his holster, flashlight aimed directly at Liam’s face.

  “Cut the non-existent engine. Hands on the dash. Let’s go to the station.”

  Time lost all meaning. In a small, suffocating interrogation room smelling of bleach and stale sweat, it was stifling.

  A gloomy detective sat across from the brothers, leafing through an empty folder.

  “All right, guys,” he began in a dull voice. “I understand it’s Friday. You probably got loaded or took something heavy. Who was driving?”

  “We didn’t drink!” Wayne objected. “There was a monster! It disintegrated! And the girl vanished!”

  The detective sighed heavily:

  “We conducted a full search. There were no men, no girl, no corpses or blood in that abandoned house. Just a pile of ash, a broken table, and a smashed window. Your car and shotgun are being confiscated as evidence of illegal entry and shooting within city limits. You can try to speak with our senior consultant when he arrives, but honestly, it won’t help you. That’s it. You have the right to remain silent. Take them to the holding cell.”

  Two officers roughly lifted the brothers and led them down a long corridor to a temporary holding cell. The iron door slammed shut.

  They sat on the hard bench, staring silently at the opposite wall.

  “Damn, Wayne… maybe we really inhaled something in that house?” Liam whispered, rubbing the bruises on his neck. “Hallucinations for two?”

  “I don’t know, Liam. But the pain in my hands is real. How do we explain this to Pat? He’ll kill us for the car.”

  “Damn,” Liam threw his head back against the concrete wall. “The old man will skin us alive. We have to wait for this ‘senior.’ Maybe we can negotiate.”

  “You can’t even negotiate with waitresses when you skimp on tips,” Wayne scoffed despite the situation. “How will you sweet-talk the police? Sprinkle salt in the corners?”

  “Shut up, kid,” Liam snapped, exhausted.

  Hours passed. The monotony was broken by the measured click of heels on tile. The cell door opened.

  A man appeared in the doorway. He looked no older than twenty-five. Short, neat haircut, calm, penetrating eyes. From under the sleeve of a simple wool sweater under a stylish coat, a black crescent moon tattoo was visible on his right wrist—the same kind Liam had used to scare the old lady in the morning.

  He held a paper cup with steaming coffee. He radiated terrifying calm, completely out of place in the filthy setting.

  “Seems our ‘senior’ has arrived,” Liam grumbled, not rising from the bench.

  The man stopped at the grate, sipped his coffee leisurely, and said in a calm, sea-still voice:

  “I’ve reviewed the patrol report and your test results. Can you guarantee that everything you said about the ‘monster and ash’ is one hundred percent true?”

  Liam shot to his feet, approaching the grate:

  “This some new police trick? Good cop, weird cop? We’re not going to a mental hospital. We were defending ourselves.”

  “You can think of it that way,” the man replied indifferently. “But if you want to leave this cell before dawn, it’s better to be completely honest. With me.”

  Liam’s mind raced. No alcohol or drugs were found in their blood. The house was empty. Denying their words now would pin false statements on them.

  He lifted his chin and looked the stranger straight in the eyes:

  “Yes. It’s true. The creature turned to ash.”

  The man nodded slowly, as if expecting that answer.

  “What now?” Liam snarled. “Send us to the loony bin to swallow pills and drool? Screw that, nerd.”

  The officer didn’t react to the insult. He sipped his coffee, enjoying the aroma, then quietly said:

  “Listen, this is no longer a police matter. I can offer two paths. First: I take personal control of you. Help you deal with the world you accidentally stumbled into today, but in return—you work for me. Second: you go against me. And stay here.”

  Liam, already on edge, snapped. He punched the grate.

  “Get lost, psycho! You think you can blackmail us? You have bags under your eyes the size of suitcases—how do you even stay upright? Maybe you’re high in that fancy coat of yours?”

  The officer’s face twitched into a barely perceptible, cold smile:

  “Rude to interrupt elders, Liam. Your youthful maximalism is amusing. But I have ways to press you.”

  “Surprise me,” the boy growled through clenched teeth.

  “Fine,” the man’s voice lowered, sounding even more dangerous. “Would you say the same to Mrs. Hudson? That old lady with Alzheimer’s you sold a straw doll to for a hundred fifty bucks this morning? Or perhaps another couple dozen trusting elders whose names are in my tablet? I have enough material for fraud charges to put you both away for five years. The choice is yours.”

  He paused, letting the information sink in.

  “But for now… you interest me. You have decent survival instincts. I’m Yuri. For the especially daring, just call me Yurochka.”

  Liam went pale. He slowly stepped back from the grate and whispered to Wayne:

  “He’s really crazy… How does he know about the old lady? And his name… not American. Russian mafia?”

  Yuri, standing on the other side of the grate, sipping coffee, calmly added:

  “Actually, I have excellent hearing. I hear absolutely everything. And no, I’m not mafia.”

  “WHAT?!” the brothers screamed in unison, jumping back from the bars.

  Yuri carefully set the empty cup on the windowsill.

  “Let’s start our real introduction tomorrow. For now—sleep, boys. It’s been a long day.”

  He turned and vanished into the corridor shadows as quietly as he had appeared.