About 200 meters from the laboratory, something strange began to happen to him, even though he was awake, he was having nightmares. Terrible pictures of hitherto unknown monsters began to appear before his inner eyes, and he was forced to stop, because he simply could not continue on his way. He clenched his fists and clenched his teeth, telling himself that this was just an illusion, when suddenly, in an instant, the strange obsession and feeling of fear were gone, and he felt a huge relief.
«Apparently, the master saw me and turned off the screen,» he thought, and rushed to the house on a run. Once at the front door, he stopped and waited for further orders. After a couple of minutes, the guard Alex opened the door and went out to meet him. Kanny took a step back and bowed low before his master.
«You were experimenting, weren’t you? All the sensors started to go crazy while you were walking here. Why did you have to get so close? Didn’t you feel the field?» the sorcerer asked sternly, although there was no accusation in his voice.
«I felt it, sir. I felt it very much. But I wanted to test how long an ordinary person can withstand it and fight the fear.»
«Well, 200 meters, as a rule, is the limit. Further madness is already possible. So, you took a chance, baby».
He liked it when the owner called him that. But for some reason he did not like the nickname Kanny, given by the magician Tennius. It seemed somehow humiliating, although he was used to it.
«Come in,» the master ordered. «Let’s discuss some details and learn how to dress.»
«Dress?» the werewolf thought in bewilderment, but did not ask unnecessary questions.
Chapter 6
After a hypnosis session and despite all the arguments of Peter, his superior chief, Colonel Morozov, ordered the children to be returned to the village. He said that the microchip, although worthy of attention, was not enough to seriously establish the idea that they were abducted. Either the hypnotist was not very experienced, or the session was not very noticeable, but the attempt to return their memories did not work. Andrey remembered that they were climbing a tree, and Lera remembered that they saw a certain light in the distance, and that they descended from the tree to reach it. Nothing that would explain how they got the chip, or how they got to the edge of the field.
Colonel Morozov didn’t give them a helicopter for the second time, saying that the situation was not weighty enough, and for such a trifle it was a luxury. Therefore, Peter had to take the children home in his car, after listening to his boss give a tirade in a raised voice that he used his official position, and occupied such serious equipment, for the wrong purposes. Peter was so much irritated by the conversation, that few times he caught himself on the fact that out of annoyance and misunderstanding of the Colonel he pressed the accelerator pedal, and he did not realize how fast his Audi Q7 was rushing. He set a buzzer for himself at 150 km/h so that an unpleasant squeak would remind him of the danger that driving at high-speed carried. With such a car as his Audi, Peter did not feel any difference in speed between 110 km/h and 170 km/h. The buzzer kept beeping, but Peter, immersed in thought, did not pay any attention to the beep-sound until his brother and sister reminded him to slow down. The feeling of annoyance changed to a feeling of anxiety, which in turn manifested itself to love and concern for his beloved younger brother and even more ardently and tenderly to his beloved younger sister, but since his initial feelings were not manifested by clear revealed evidence or argument, he could only obey the order.
If he had such an opportunity, he probably would not have taken them back to the village, but rather would have left them in the city. But he did not have sufficient reasons for such an action even to himself. Should he take them home? At home were his wife and two small children, a son, three years old, and his little sister, only seven months old. Besides the concern of their age he was aware that she was sick. He didn’t have enough room for Andrey and Lera. Of course, it would be possible to place his brother in the kitchen, and his sister in the nursery, and to take the baby to their bed with her mother, but… he still had no serious evidence that his siblings could actually be hunted. And even if he explained his actions to his wife, how long would it probably take to prove the correctness of his assumptions and the validity of his intuitions? The only course was to wait, and out of suspense and uncertainty, Peter again pressed the acceleration pedal with annoyance, overestimating the speed limit of 150 km / h that he had set for himself. When the buzzer squealed once again and squeaked for a long time, Peter came out of his state of thought, and noticed that his brother and sister had fallen asleep, because of how difficult their last few days had been.
«Yeah, now I’m the only one who can watch the speed,» he thought. «These two have fallen soundly asleep, and there is no one to tell me when I exceed the speed limit.»
At that moment the phone rang. Glancing at the display, Peter saw that his neighbor Veniamin, the most experienced hunter in the village, was calling. He answered the phone and switched on the loud-speaker.
«Hello, Uncle Venya. Why are you calling?»
«Hello, dear! I’ve been calling you all day long. Where have you disappeared to?»
«I was working. in the office, but what do you need me for? Is there something serious?»
«Well, I really think so. I need to tell you something about your brother and sister. There, after all, here’s what happened…»
Veniamin began the story by telling all the things that he had already told Maryana and Lyudmila, although in amore brief version. His hoarse voice woke Andrey, and hearing that it was about Lera and him, he began to listen carefully. At some point, he pushed Lera.
Waking up, she looked around in bewilderment and said determinedly, «What’s happened?»
«Shh,» Andrey shewed her by gesture to keep silent. «Listen, little sister. This is about us.»
For a while, all three listened attentively to the hunter. When the story came to a huge wolf and a certain aircraft, Lera, widened her eyes, looked at her brother and said, «Is this really about us?»
«Yes, yes, listen. Uncle Venya is not Baron Munchausen. He does not lie.»
Lera was really scared, and, looking around, she suddenly screamed loudly at the limit of her vocal cords, «Oh, someone is following our car!» It was so unexpected that both brothers flinched.
«What are you squealing about, little sister?» Peter asked with genuine concern in his voice.
«I saw that someone was running after us,» Lera repeated in a breaking voice through involuntary crying. It was clear that she was really scared.
«Come on, it seemed to you,» Andrey tried to give his voice as much ease and calm as possible. He looked through the rear window at the road and saw only the blackness of the forest.
«No-no, I definitely saw some kind of a huge shadow,» Lera answered with horror in her voice through nervous crying.
«Fear has big eyes?» Peter asked jokingly to reassure his sister, but nevertheless began to look more often in the rear-view mirror.
For a while he saw nothing but the dark, indistinct outlines of the thicket that surrounded them. However, at some point it seemed to him that something big was moving behind the car in huge leaps, and even in the dim light of the taillights, when he slowed down a little in the turn of the road, two huge phosphorescent eyes flashed. At the same moment, Lera squealed so that both Peter and Andrey had a chill on their skin.
«Be quiet!» Peter shouted at her in annoyance.
«I definitely saw it! There are two huge eyes,» the girl cried out through hysterical sobs.
Peter was not yet completely sure that he, and his sister had not imagined it. Yet from the story that Uncle Venya told, and the uncomfortable feeling of the forest darkness surrounding them, he also felt uneasy. He pressed on the gas, once