2026-08-05 20:07:34Russian Federation, Vladivostok — May 5, 2021
The sun was shining. The grass was green. Spring had finally decided to show some mercy.
It was the sort of beautiful day that automatically improved your mood. Even the depressing sight of a half-collapsed garage cooperative couldn't ruin mine.
Honestly, life wasn't all that bad.
You just had to survive your student years. Get into pathology residency. Earn an actual salary. Somehow make ends meet.
Everyone had rough periods, right?
All I had to do was keep going.
I'd pass the project somehow. Then I'd have a nice, respectable oncology qualification under my belt. Evidence-based medicine was going well too, and I'd even managed to establish a pretty solid relationship with Antonina Vladimirovna.
So, all things considered…
Things were looking up.
Then I noticed the Mercedes. A tall minivan was parked beside the garages. And it was moving. Swaying gently from side to side.
I stared at it.
People had completely lost their minds. They were practically having intercourse in the middle of a residential courtyard now.
Whatever. Their conscience. I had better things to worry about.
I kept crushing the gravel beneath my Dotterpillars. Then the van door opened.
A muscular man stepped out. Casual clothes. Brown checked jacket, unbuttoned. Plain beige trousers.
I looked at him. Then I looked through the open van door.
And my brain stopped.
The entire interior was covered in plastic. Something like that, anyway. But that wasn't the problem.
There was a human body inside. On an autopsy table.
A fucking human body.
What the hell? The man pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
A lighter. Then he noticed me.
Oh, shit.
“Hey, man!” he called. “Come here.”
Yeah. Sure. Absolutely.
There are moments in life when every instinct you have screams the same thing.
Run.
This was one of those moments.
I'd watched enough crime shows to know how this worked.
Deadly Force. Streets of Broken Lights.
Criminals don't leave witnesses. Especially not witnesses who have just looked inside their van and seen a dead body. So I ran.
“Stop!”
The man's voice followed me. Definitely a criminal. Definitely.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
The fence. I jumped.
My backpack caught on a piece of wire sticking out from the top.
“Fuck!”
I yanked as hard as I could.
The strap snapped.
I kept going.
The backpack stayed behind, hanging from the fence like a sacrifice to whatever god was responsible for my terrible decision-making.
I should've been wearing both straps. Then this wouldn't have happened.
Behind me, the man shouted something. I didn't listen. Running had become my entire existence.
Then a dog came flying out of a kennel. Straight at my legs.
“Jesus!”
I jumped over the animal and cleared another fence.
The dog—man's best friend, apparently—was trying very hard to become man's most effective accomplice.
I landed in a freshly plowed vegetable garden. Great. They were going to plant potatoes here.
Running across freshly turned soil was like trying to sprint through wet concrete. Behind me came a startled shout. Then several very enthusiastic curses.
The dog had screwed me over. But apparently it hadn't screwed up the bandit. I'd survive.
And if I did, I'd buy that dog the biggest, tastiest bone I could find. Promise.
I crossed the end of the potato field, climbed over another low fence, and kept running. Through the private sector. Around the houses. Toward the dorm.
I needed to call the police. Immediately.
Otherwise—
My lungs were on fire by the time I reached the dorm.
Exercise had never been my strong suit.
I stumbled inside, hauled myself up to the second floor on legs that felt like they were vibrating, and practically collapsed through the door.
“Oh, Dushevny!”
Kirich was sitting at his laptop, smiling.
“Did you get the toilet paper?”
He'd changed shirts. Good. This one didn't have any Nazi symbols on it.
“Fuck, Kirich…”
I could barely breathe.
“I'm in…”
I swallowed.
“Trouble…”
His smile vanished.
“What happened?”
He spun around in his chair.
“You're red as hell.”
And then I remembered.
The backpack. My backpack. Still hanging on that fence. With the bandit.
“Fuck.”
My stomach dropped.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
My project was in there. All of it.
“Holy shit…”
Garage Cooperative near Okeansky Prospekt
“Check V.D. Alexandrov for me,” Strelnikov said, glancing down at the document in his hand. “And, heh-heh, A.M. Dushny. Also a certain Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor I.A. Ivanov.”
He paused.
“You know Ivanov? Who is he?”
A moment later, his expression changed.
“Ah. So he's the one in charge of the morgue…”
Strelnikov looked toward the man he'd seen earlier.
“Dark-gray T-shirt. Belt like some rocker's belt?”
He listened.
“Older guy. Distinguished-looking?”
Another pause.
“Got it. Got it.”
He tapped the paper with one finger.
“Then check Dushny and Alexandrov for me too. I've got something to discuss with them.”
He listened again.
“Okay. I'll wait.”
The minibus had already left for the port.
There was no time to waste. The organ harvesting had to be stopped, and Nikita's body needed to disappear as quickly as possible.
‘That Nikita bastard had certainly made me drive all over Vladivostok.’
He hadn't been at his apartment. So Yuri had called in the others, and three days later they'd finally found the idiot hiding in a neighboring district. Renting an apartment from a guy who literally goes by “Boss.”
Yuri shook his head. You'd have to be a special kind of moron.
Seven minutes passed.
His phone rang.
“Hello?”
He slid the green call icon across the screen.
“Okay.”
He listened.
“Viktor Dmitrievich Aleksandrov? You're saying he's been reported missing and you're looking for him?”
A pause.
“No. Not our guy.”
He frowned.
“Dushny, then. He lives in the TSMU dormitory?”
Another pause.
“Where's that?”
He thought for a moment.
“Ah. Right. I remember.”
His expression relaxed.
“Okay. I'd appreciate it, Sveta. You know me.”
He listened.
“And if he calls from his own number, hold him there, all right?”
Another pause.
“Okay. Kisses.”
He hung up.
Svetlana was a police dispatcher and one of Yuri's more trusted contacts. Calling her merely a police dispatcher didn't really do her justice. She was, unofficially, the Business's representative inside the police department. The higher-ups had been on the Boss's payroll—or at least in his good graces—for long enough that everyone understood how things worked.
Svetlana had access to the system. She could pull information on almost anyone.
And if necessary, she could make someone disappear from the system just as easily.
The dog that had attacked Yuri earlier had gotten a fist in the face and retreated. Unfortunately, it had gotten one good bite in first. Right through his ankle.
Yuri grimaced, opened his contacts, and found the number he needed.
“Hello, Artyom.”
The call connected. An emotionless voice answered.
“Yes?”
“Take Igor and go to the address I'm sending you through Telegram.”
He glanced at the screen.
“You'll find a sixth-year student there. Anatoly Maximovich Dushny.”
He paused.
“Just pick him up quietly and bring him to the port. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I'll send the address now.”
Yuri ended the call.
That student wasn't going anywhere. Everyone made mistakes eventually.
Some people just made theirs sooner than others.
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CHAPTER 61
The local schools of necromancy knew this perfectly well. The problem was that such a setup was ridiculously expensive, so they couldn't exactly use it as their standard operating procedure.Instead, they'd developed cheaper alternatives. Less effective, perhaps. But much more affordable.My situation was different. My life literally depended on this corpse. I wasn't going to cut corners.Once the graphite rods were installed—with several expressive but very quiet curses along the way—I mounted the accumulator, connected everything, and began the reverse assembly.The sawed-open sternum was a different problem. I had to think about that one. Eventually, I came up with a system that allowed relatively quick access using bronze bolts and plates.If I ever needed to reach the accumulator or the dead heart, I could simply undo the bolts and open the chest again. Sewing human flesh wasn't the same as sewing cloth. You actually needed to know what you were doing.When everything was finally
CHAPTER 60
Holy shit.Something clicked inside Gennady. It was as if someone had suddenly flipped a switch.The corpse opened its eyes.“Hello, friend…”I gave him an uncertain smile.“I'm pretty sure you're not particularly happy to see me, but we're going to be working together for a while.”Gena didn't answer. Not only because he couldn't. He didn't want to talk.“Get into the harness. We're leaving.”I gave him the command.Gena said nothing. But he stood up and walked toward the sled. Despite my concerns, he understood the instruction perfectly and correctly slipped into the sled harness.I stared at the undead man.Volobuyev Gennady AnatolyevichLevel: 10That was disappointingly uninformative. Maybe there was more information somewhere in the menu? There hadn't been anything useful when I'd raised the rat, but a rat was a
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 59 (15)It might look like I had made the decision to experiment on this dead kid rather easily, especially since he hadn't done anything wrong.The truth was, I'd spent a long time fighting myself over it.The Anatoly from my old world had been locked in a brutal argument with the Anatoly I had become.A doctor's ethics. Basic human morality. The simple, instinctive fear of what would happen if I crossed certain lines.All of it stood against what I was doing now.But in the end, that other Anatoly—the one who wanted to get out of this miserable situation alive and in one piece—had won.So I would raise as many corpses as necessary.I would kill anyone who tried to threaten my way of life or take what was mine.I'd cross that line again.I'd rethink my values again.I'd force myself to understand things I hadn't understood before.
CHAPTER 58
At a certain stage, nigredo became extremely chemically reactive, which meant the material used to handle it had to meet certain requirements. The spoon would eventually be ruined, just like the pot, but there was no avoiding it.I could have used gold, of course.Unfortunately, I didn't exactly have a collection of precious ritual utensils lying around.Silver, incidentally, was forbidden.For some reason, silver was deadly to undead, and nigredo prepared in a silver container simply didn't work once it entered an undead bloodstream.Apparently, the roots of this phenomenon came from the same place as the old vampire fear of silver.Well, vampires were undead too, so I suppose it made sense.I left the nigredo to mature and went back to stitching the blood vessels.The cat had been busy working on his own ritual circle the entire time.“Can't I come with you?” I asked.“I wouldn't recommend it,&
CHAPTER 57
“What do I do with the corpse?” I asked.“Cast the spells the way the book says.” Vopros barely glanced up. “The important thing is to preserve the head.”He remained completely focused, using the claw of his right paw to make tiny adjustments to one of the concentrators inside the ritual circle.I’d accumulated quite a collection of spell diagrams while studying the specialized literature, and I’d painstakingly memorized them.So the first thing I did was cast Dead Stasis on the corpse’s head.The spell temporarily halted the decomposition of the brain.Technically, it was already too late to save him. The kid was well and truly dead, and irreversible processes had already begun in his brain.But I still needed to preserve whatever was left.I pressed my index fingers against the dead boy’s temples, moving the other fingers through a complicated seque
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 56 (14)For another hour or so, someone continued eating. Eventually, the sounds faded. Then came the footsteps retreating across the sand.“He’s gone,” Vopros said.“What the hell was that?”“Another living person came to the ruins,” the cat replied. “Unfortunately, he ran into a corpse.”He paused.“Not an ordinary corpse, though. From what I heard, the dead man stabbed his victim with something sharp and then ate him. That’s about it.”“Is that normal around here?”“You still haven’t figured that out?” Vopros asked in return.Yeah. I probably should have figured it out a long time ago.“But I’ve never heard of corpses using weapons.” I shook my head.“The Red Moon raises all kinds of people,” Vopros began explaining. “Some spent their entire lives as farmers. Others were craftsmen. Some were warriors. If the last group is thrown into the portal while their bodies are still relatively intact, they retain some of their skills when they’re raised.”He gave me a meaningful look
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