【SG】短篇故事：无人涉足之处WHERE FEW DARE TO TREAD P6~9

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无人涉足之处WHERE FEW DARE TO TREAD

地球上的每一个暗影狂奔者，都拥有与其他狂奔者一模一样的三件东西，不管她选择承认与否。亚历桑德拉·塞维尔纳亚（Aleksandra Severnaya）博士，毫无疑问地承认了第一个问题——她的出生名——因为它一直出现在她的名片上。直到她从一个不同寻常的波段频道中接到这个奇怪的电话，她才想起另外两个。

每个人，从有罪（SINners）到无罪（SINless），从凡俗到觉醒，他们都有一个母亲。每个人，无论是无家可归的流浪汉还是富甲一方的公司人，他们都有自己的家。这并不一定是一处“夜寐之地”或“安全所在”的家，而是他们来自某个地方。当桑德拉接到这来自另一个半球的陌生电话时，她就想起了她真正的家，她出生的地方。

“萨什卡（Sashka）。”在桑德拉于亚特兰大办公室里播放语音邮件时，打电话对方说道。

只有少数人拥有她的通讯码；更少的人仍然知道她使用的这个名字。不管她多么努力地想忘记，不管从遥远的“矩阵”连接处传来的多少噪音混淆了音频，她叔叔格里高利（Grigoriy）沙哑、口音浓重的声音是不会弄错的。

“你母亲和这里的其他许多人都生病了，”语音邮件继续说道，“医生不确定是怎么回事。她一直在找你。如果你想在她病情恶化之前见到她，我建议你尽快回家。也许——也许，也许你能找出些问题所在。”

还有更多的信息，但桑德拉听到一半就不再听了。她已经十多年没回家，纠其原因便是她想忘掉自己来自哪里。多年来，她在CAS首都的繁忙生活，把她对乌克兰，对普里皮亚特的任何记忆都抛在脑后。但，除非她搞错了，格里高利叔叔在录下这条消息的时候，一直在强忍着不哭。
怎么办？她想。
你想听听我的意见吗？犹大在她脑子里自告奋勇。桑德拉的盟约精魂在附近的星界空间盘旋，在她没有任何指派任务时做任何它想做的事情。她喜欢想象它正坐在办公室角落的椅子上，舔着它巨大的金色爪子，梳理着皮毛和鬃毛，当它具象化时就像现实中的大猫一样。

无论何时都可以，她回答说道，将她星界的目光转向精魂，转向那有着炽热毛色，灵光闪耀着金色、橙色和红色的狮子。

精魂以一种诡异的水平凝视着她。如果你没有抓住机会说再见，我保证你以后会后悔的。我知道你不喜欢回家，但生病的不只是你母亲。在你的经文中说的是什么？“无论你为我的弟兄做过什么，你也为我做过。”就像那样。

桑德拉的目光避开了精魂。

此外，犹大补充说，离开霍特兰大（Hotlanta）一段时间可能会很有趣。

她闭上眼睛，脑海中浮现出十年前最后一次见到母亲和家乡的情景。当神秘的疾病在镇上肆虐时，还有多少人在勉强维持生计？

桑德拉咬着嘴唇摇了摇头。犹大是对的。

去唤醒迈尔斯（Miles），她和精魂说道。告诉他准备一次国际航班。

劇透 -   :

Every shadowrunner on the planet has three things that every other runner has, whether she chooses to acknowledge them or not. Aleksandra Severnaya, ThD, had no problem admitting the first thing—her birth name—because it appeared on her business cards. Not until she received the strange request from unusual channels did she remember the other two.
Everyone, from SINners to SINless, from mundanes to Awakened, has a mother. And everyone, whether a homeless vagrant or well-to-do corp man, has a home. Not necessarily a “where I sleep at night” home or “where I feel safe” home, but somewhere they come from. Once Sandra got a call from an unknown number in the opposite hemisphere, she remembered her real home, the place where she was born.
“Sashka,” the caller had said when Sandra played the voicemail in her Atlanta office.
Only a select few had her commcode; fewer still knew her well enough to use that name. No matter how much she had tried to forget, no matter how much noise from the distant Matrix connection garbled the audio, her Uncle Grigoriy’s husky, accent-laden voice was unmistakable.
“Your mother and many others here have taken ill,” the voicemail continued. “Doctors are not sure what is wrong. She keeps asking for you. If you want to see her before she takes a turn for the worse, I would suggest coming home as soon as possible. Perhaps—perhaps maybe you can find out what is wrong.”
There was more to the message, but Sandra stopped listening about halfway through. She hadn’t been home in more than a decade, mostly because she wanted to forget where she came from. For years, her busy life in the CAS capital pushed any recollections of Pripyat, Ukraine, out of her head. But unless she was mistaken, Uncle Grigoriy had been fighting off a good cry while recording that message.
What to do? she thought.
You want my opinion? Judah volunteered in her head. Sandra’s ally spirit was hovering nearby in astral space, doing whatever it did when she didn’t have any active tasks for it. She liked to imagine it was sitting in the corner chair of her office, licking its giant, golden paws and cleaning its fur and mane like the big cat that it resembled when materialized.
Always, she replied, turning her astral gaze on the spirit, whose fiery, leonine aura blazed with golds and oranges and reds.
The spirit stared right back with an eerily level gaze. If you don’t get a chance to say goodbye, I guarantee you will regret it later. I know you don’t like going back home, but it’s more than just your mother who’s sick. And what is it your scriptures say? “Whatever you’ve done for the least of my brethren, you have done also for me.” Something like that.
Sandra turned away from the spirit.
Plus, Judah added, it might be fun to get away from Hotlanta for awhile.
She closed her eyes and conjured images of her mother and her hometown, as she’d last seen them ten years ago. How many people were barely scratching out a living over there while some mysterious sickness ravaged through the town?
Sandra bit her lip and shook her head. Judah was right.
Go wake up Miles, she told the spirit. And tell him to pack for an international flight.

✖

就世界所关心的来说，桑德拉的精灵助手，迈克尔·“迈尔斯”·道切斯特从德克萨斯A&M&M大学所拿到的“奇术技艺”硕士学位的确符合要求。只有桑德拉和几个导员清楚他的学位是伪造的，但她知道，如果她的助理只有佐治亚理工大学的学士学位，那么那些需要神秘调查服务的客户就不会把她当回事。有传言说，他的绰号来自于他的启蒙考验，他不得不赤脚在莫哈韦沙漠里走了数不清的公里，但事实并非如此。有一次，她让他喝了个酩酊大醉，才知道他之所以被称为“迈尔斯”，是因为儿时的一个恶作剧，其中涉及罗伯特•弗罗斯特（Robert Frost）的一首关于雪的诗。当然，一旦她在博利施皮尔机场（Boryspil Airport）下了弹道导弹式飞机（Semiballistic），整个乌克兰就没有人会问她的助理拥有什么样的魔法学位，或者他的绰号从何而来了。

回到联邦国家，桑德拉会毫不犹豫地分发AR名片——“塞维尔纳亚精神调查:我们知道什么困扰着你”——但在这里，在基辅，一切都感觉不同，一切都是超然的。整个城市的景色都笼罩着一股阴郁的色调之下，仿佛某种无形的暴风吹过，吞噬了所有的生命和色彩的痕迹。这不是她记忆中的乌克兰。她儿时的故乡从来都不是奢华的安乐窝，但看到这样的故乡，她的内心就会被一种不真实的冰冷刺痛。

“真是个垃圾堆，”迈尔斯说，一边心不在焉地搔着他尖尖的耳尖，一边等出租车。“你确定这就是你长大的地方吗?”

我会记错这个地方吗？桑德拉想到。

非也，犹大答道。精魂在星界空间中徘徊着，就像马戏团中，在笼子里徘徊的动物一样。恼怒的喘息声从猫似的鼻孔里冒出来。不只是你。我能感觉到。外面有点不对劲。

桑德拉颤抖了一下。去看看你能找到什么。还有，小心点。

犹大咧嘴一笑，他的星界形体露出锋利的犬齿，除了她，其他任何人都会被吓到。随后精魂消失了。

劇透 -   :

As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the Master of Thaumaturgical Arts degree that Sandra’s elven assistant Michael “Miles” Dorchester got from Texas A&M&M was on the level. Only Sandra and a few facilitators knew his degree was a forgery, but she knew no one who needed occult investigation services would take her seriously if they knew her assistant only had a bachelor’s from Georgia Tech. The rumor was that his nickname came from his initiatory ordeal, where he had to walk barefoot for untold kilometers out in the Mojave Desert, but this was not actually the case. She once got him drunk enough to learn that he was called “Miles” because of a childhood prank involving some Robert Frost poem about snow. Of course, once she stepped off the semiballistic at Boryspil Airport, no one in the whole Ukraine gave a devil rat’s ass what kind of magical degree her assistant had or where his nickname had come from.
Back in the Confederated States, Sandra would hand out AR business cards at the drop of a hat—”severnaya spiritual investigations: we know what haunts you”—but here, everything felt different and detached, even in Kiev. The whole landscape of the city held a somber tone, as though some kind of intangible storm had blown through and sucked up all traces of life and color. This was not the Ukraine she remembered. Her childhood home had never been the lap of luxury, but seeing it like this pricked her insides with an icy spike of unreality.
“What a dump,” Miles said, absently scratching the tip of his pointed ear as they waited for a taxi. “You sure this is where you grew up?”
Am I remembering this place wrong? Sandra thought.
No, Judah replied. The spirit hovered about in astral space, prowling around like a caged circus animal. Puffs of annoyed breath fumed from its catlike nostrils. It’s not just you. There’s something wrong out there. I can feel it.
Sandra shuddered. Go see what you can find. And be careful.
Judah grinned, his astral form revealing sharp canines that would have frightened just about anyone else but her. Then the spirit vanished.

✖

“请往普里皮亚特（Pripyat）。”桑德拉在下机场后便拦下一辆出租车，用乌克兰语说道。她在美国度过了这么长时间，以至于她不得不故意提醒自己在口音中加入一点方言的味道。

戴着棒球帽的兽人出租车司机脸色苍白，好像她刚要让他开过自己的坟墓一般。“不可能，”他咕噜着的口音可比她的更有说服力，“我可以带你到隔离区的边缘，但如果你想走得更远，只能靠你自己了。”

桑德拉皱了皱眉头，向旁边的迈尔斯瞥了一眼。“普里皮亚特怎么了？”她问出租车司机。

“没有人再去普里皮亚特了。自从疫情爆发以来就没有了。”

格里高利叔叔说有些人生病了，但他的信息听起来不像是一场全面的流行病。新闻媒体从来没有提到过该地区的任何问题。“爆发?爆发什么？”

“你知道的和我一样多。 如果联邦调查局说‘您无法进入禁区’，那么我就无法进入禁区，无论乘客是否付费。 就那么简单。”他在驾驶座上转过身来，好奇地盯着她看，“你为什么要去普里皮亚特？我可以带你去基辅其他很多标志性建筑。”

“我在那里长大的。”她回答。

“我深表同情，”出租车司机说，“现在，除非你想让我带你到城里别的什么地方去，否则就从我的车里滚出去。”

格里高利叔叔的信箱语音在她脑海里回放。她母亲还能活多久？桑德拉清楚，除非她走捷径，否则她可能永远没有机会说再见了。她和迈尔斯可以独自潜入普里皮亚特，但时间已经不多了。载具可以帮助桑德拉加速这段时间。

她在口袋里摸了摸，然后伸手到脖子后面解开项链。“我有一个更好的建议，”她说，“你把我和我的搭档带到普里皮亚特，我会把这条项链给你作为报酬。”加固的金链子上橙金饰物闪闪发光，是东正教十字架，上面有一根较小的横梁，下面有一根倾斜的横梁。十字架的每一毫米上都刻有珐琅的红色西里尔文经文。

出租车司机的眼睛里闪烁着贪婪的光芒，“它值多少钱？“

桑德拉耸耸肩，“我还没做过鉴定，但它是用纯奥利哈钢制作。对合适的买家来说，这种金属本身就值几千里弗尼。”

出租车司机舔了舔嘴角， “你想让我怎么给你通过检疫检查站呢？ 你还有另一个小饰品来贿赂保安吗？“

“要我说我手上还是有几个杀手锏的。”她得意地笑了笑。

兽人上下打量着她，“成。我就要它了。”

桑德拉双手紧握着十字架，在交出十字架之前化解了十字架上的附魔。这条项链只是小小的法术法器——没什么大损失。她总能再做一次，但她不能再给母亲第二次机会，把她从生死的边缘拉回来。

“我叫彼得罗，”司机说。他调整了一下帽子，面对着方向盘，“好吧，在我改变主意之前，我们就这么做。”

劇透 -   :

“Pripyat, please,” Sandra said in Ukranian after sliding into the next available airport taxi. She had spent so long in the States that she had to deliberately remind herself to add a little native touch to her accent.
The ball-cap-wearing ork taxi driver turned pale, as though she’d just asked him to drive over his own grave. “Not a chance,” he growled with an accent far more convincing than her own. “I can take you as far as the Exclusion Zone perimeter, but if you want further than that, you’re on your own.”
Sandra frowned and glanced sideways at Miles in the seat next to her. “What’s wrong with Pripyat?” she asked the cabbie.
“No one goes to Pripyat anymore. Not since the outbreak.”
Uncle Grigoriy had said some people were sick, but his message didn’t sound like there was a full-on epidemic going on. And the newsnets never mentioned any problems in the region. “Outbreak? What outbreak?”
“You know as much as I do. If the feds say ‘You can’t enter the Exclusion Zone,’ then I can’t enter the Exclusion Zone, paying passengers or not. Simple as that.” He turned around in the driver’s seat and fixed her with an inquisitive stare. “Why you wanna go to Pripyat anyway? There’s a ton of Kiev landmarks I could take you to instead.”
“I grew up there,” she replied.
“My condolences,” said the cabbie. “Now, unless you want me to take you somewhere else around the city, get the hell out of my cab.”
Uncle Grigoriy’s voicemail replayed in her head. How much longer did her mother have? Sandra knew that unless she took some shortcut, she might never get a chance to say goodbye. She and Miles could probably slip into Pripyat by themselves, but time was running out. Wheels would help speed things up.
She fiddled around in her pockets and then reached at the back of her neck to unclasp her necklace. “I’ve got a better proposition,” she said. “You take me and my partner here to Pripyat, and I’ll give you this necklace as payment.” The shimmering, orange-gold charm on the reinforced golden chain was an Eastern Orthodox cross, with a smaller crossbeam at the top and a slanted cross beam near the bottom. Every millimeter of the cross was inscribed with scripture passages in enameled, red Cyrillic text.
The glint of greed reared its head in the cabbie’s eyes. “How— how much is it worth?”
Sandra shrugged. “I haven’t gotten it appraised, but it’s made out of solid orichalcum. The metal alone should be worth several thousand hryvni to the right buyer.”
The cabbie licked the corner of his lips. “And how do you expect me to get you past the quarantine checkpoint? You got another one of those trinkets to bribe security?”“Let’s say I’ve got a few aces up my sleeve,” she said with a smirk. The ork looked her up and down. “All right. I’ll take it.”
Sandra clasped her hands around the cross to dissolve the enchantment on it before handing it over. The necklace had been a minor spell focus—no big loss, all things told. She could always make another, but she couldn’t make a second chance to bring her mother back from the brink.
“Name’s Petro,” the cabbie said. He readjusted his cap and faced the steering wheel. “Okay, let’s do this before I change my mind.”

✖

早在桑德拉出生的几年前，1986年臭名昭著的核反应堆灾难所造成的切尔诺贝利禁区就被认为是人类可居住的安全地带。从那以后的几年里，切尔诺贝利和普里皮亚特的人口都在缓慢地增加，在禁区反对者已经警告过的情况下，桑德拉和她所有的童年朋友们都在没有任何突变的情况下长大。现在，当彼得罗的出租车驶近禁区边界时，她看到了完全出乎意料的一幕。一间警卫室，配有电子控制的锁链门，通电的剃刀铁丝网围栏，无人机巡逻队在头顶呼啸而过，还有数十名比她在此地见过的任何时候都要专业的武装警卫。

在桑德拉持续的隐形咒和迈尔斯的沉默咒掩护下，出租车紧跟在一辆官方政府卡车的后面，这辆卡车停在了检查站。卡车一通过，彼得罗把住出租车紧随其后，跟着卡车穿过大门，而此时警卫还没来得及把门关上。当安全措施存在时，他们要么不遵守规定，要么松懈；没有人注意到这个把戏，谁也不关心这事儿。

在大门那边，是一片对桑德拉的成长过程中所感受过完全陌生的风景。到处都是灰色——灰色的树干，灰色的大地，灰色的天空，灰色的建筑——仿佛整个物质界都陷入了单色中。

“这一切看起来就像是……都死了。”桑德拉说着打了个寒噤。

“是的。”迈尔斯说道，“有来自犹大的任何消息吗？”

“没有。 他仍在前方侦察，但是——”她慢慢地摇了摇头。“我不喜欢这一点。 这不仅仅是一种流行病。”

“看起来，这简直就像是一个‘倾斜领域’。”迈尔斯说道。他知道这些。他的学士论文就是研究这个问题的。

劇透 -   :

Years before Sandra was born, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone created by the infamous nuclear reactor disaster of 1986 had been deemed safe for human habitation. Both Chernobyl and Pripyat had slowly repopulated in the years since, and Sandra and all of her childhood friends had grown up without any trace of mutations that the Exclusion Zone naysayers had warned would happen. Now, as Petro’s taxi approached the Exclusion Zone border, she saw something completely unexpected. A guardhouse with an electronically controlled chain-link gate, electrified razor-wire fences, drone patrols whizzing about overhead, and dozens of armed guards who were more security than she had ever seen in the area.
Under the cover of Sandra’s sustained invisibility spell and Miles’ silence spell, the taxi followed right on the heels of an official government truck that pulled up to the checkpoint. Once the truck cleared, Petro floored the taxi and followed the truck through the gate before the guards could close it. While security was present, they were either unobservant or lax; none of them noticed the maneuver or cared about it.
Beyond the gate, the landscape Sandra had grown up with felt completely foreign to her. Grey everywhere—grey tree trunks, grey earth, grey sky, grey buildings—as though the whole physical plane had been photographed in monochrome.
“Everything looks … dead,” Sandra said with a shiver.
“Yeah,” Miles said. “Anything from ol’ Jude?”
“No. He’s still scouting ahead, but—” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t like this one bit. This is more than an epidemic.”
“Almost looks like an aspected domain,” Miles said. And he would know. His bachelor’s thesis dealt with that very thing.

✖

他们说你不能再回家了，在彼得罗开车经过普里皮亚特时，桑德拉亲眼目睹了这一切。她那曾经的散步之地已成了腐朽的残垣断壁的牺牲品。格里高利叔叔在信中提到，倒塌的篱笆、破旧的建筑和枯萎的植被占据了街道的每一个街区。即使是最糟糕的亚特兰大贫民区看起来也没有这么不舒服。

彼得罗将车子停在一家看起来很古旧的医院前，桑德拉清楚这家医院是她从故乡移民外出之前建的。她看见的少数聚集在一起的员工看起来都病怏怏的——乌黑凹陷的眼睛和苍白潮湿的皮肤。

格里高利在昏暗的接待区等到了她，给她一个热情的熊抱。他那张憔悴的脸看上去和医院的工作人员没什么两样。桑德拉不需要医学学位就知道她的叔叔也受到了感染。

“这里发生了什么？”她问。

“他们说是辐射病，”他咳嗽着说，“但这是不可能的。隔离区几十年来一直没有产生辐射……政府不想引起恐慌，所以我们都被困在了这里，直到他们找到是什么原因让每个人都生了病。

“也许水里有什么东西。”迈尔斯沉思着。

桑德拉快速进入到星界空间，揭示了她的助手是多么的错误——格里高利的灵光混杂着可能是辐射病的黑色和灰色，但它也带有微弱的星界印记，这一点都不正常。她试着灵视这个印记，结果她开始觉得反胃恶心，桑德拉试图抑制呕吐的冲动。

但最终冲动战胜了。所有的一切都呕吐在了迈尔斯加值数千新元的“死亡尖啸”皮靴翼尖上。

“你还好吧，萨什卡？”格里戈里问道。

桑德拉用手背擦了擦嘴。“不，”她说道，“但我想我已经明白为什么每个人都生病了。”

她感到脚下的地板开始晃动，好像附近有人在使劲地迈步。接着，大地剧烈地摇晃起来，几乎把她撞倒在地。迈尔斯踉踉跄跄地跪下；桑德拉则把身体靠在墙上。接着又是一阵震颤。一些令人难以置信的东西正往医院走来。

犹大幽灵般的猫脸唐突出现在她的面前，他赤褐色鬃毛在空中荡漾。格里高利和附近医院的工作人员看到了精魂的显现，不禁倒吸了一口气。“桑迪，迈尔斯，”犹大说，“我们有敌人来了。最好现在就出去，否则它会跟着我进来。”

桑德拉突然进入了工作状态。“叔叔，把这些人关在屋里，确保我妈妈安全！迈尔斯，跟我来！”

在地震之间，她冲出前门迈入到刺骨的白昼中，随后看到的东西让她像是被冷冽的寒气醍醐灌顶一般。一只巨大比任何可以想象到的都要大的狼沿着街道飞奔，在它巨大的爪子下碾过一整辆生了锈的车子。它的毛皮是一团缠结在一起的疥疮和肿胀、变异的脓疱。破碎的獠牙滴着幽灵般的绿色唾液，仿佛这匹狼长期咀嚼过放射性岩石。它的一只眼睛因白内障而变得模糊；另一个则被结痂封闭，玻璃体中的液体倾泻而出。

桑德拉毫不怀疑狼还能看见她。在星界空间上，精魂和它的外表一样扭曲。它散发出令人眼花缭乱的褐色、灰色和黑色的旋涡，使她想再次呕吐。一个闪烁的星界链接将精魂与附近的召唤者连接起来。

这种病态和变异的精魂肯定由一个毒魔法师召唤，这是理智的法师们不敢涉足的领域。桑德拉以前也遇到过毒精魂，但从未遇到过这种，从未遇到过如此强大的精魂，它的放射性能量灵光污染了整个大地。仅仅是在肉界里看着精魂，就使她膝盖发软——而且，再一次地反胃。但是她没有时间恶心了。
她剧烈地咳嗽着，捏紧了拳头。她的手上开始流着鲜血。

“迈尔斯！”她尖声道，“是咒术师！把咒术师干掉！”

“收到了！”

她的助手跑到街上，以避开即将到来的怪物，但它太快了。狼精魂向前冲去，把迈尔斯甩到一边。它巨大的爪子重重地拍在他身上，徒留一只皮靴落在他原来站着的地方。迈尔斯撞到了最近的一幢大楼侧面，摔倒在地再也没有爬起来。他灵光的色彩鲜艳意味着他还活着——至少现在还活着——但他帮不了她了。

混凝土碎片随着从附近建筑走出来的怪物的每一脚步嘎吱作响。桑德拉准备了尽可能多的咒语来阻止这个怪物，但是它离她太近了。火球几乎没有烧焦突变的兽皮。其他魔法的干扰似乎只会激怒它。它矗立在她的上方。有毒废液从它的牙齿上滴下来。它站立着，下颚喷出一股热气，夹杂着金属燃烧的臭味。

一股巨大的法力流涌上她的指尖。还没等这只毒狼把她咬成两半，桑德拉就准备用足以使她丧失行动能力或杀死她的咒语把它炸飞。她宁愿魔法杀死自己，也不要被如此扭曲的生物杀死。

不知从何处冒出来的一团红色的金光冲响了狼的身体，把那只野兽压在街对面的建筑物上。当砖头和灰尘落下来的时候，桑德拉看见一只和狼一样大的巨狮正在与精魂搏斗。犹大用后腿直立起来，用两只爪子猛击恶狼。她那具象化了的盟友狮子开口，发出一阵憎恨的咆哮声。

迟做总比不做好，犹大说道。至少那个毒咒术师暂时不会给我们带来任何麻烦。

桑德拉散去她的法术。她只能敬畏地看着犹大一次一击地把这个毒精魂撕成碎片。但他也付出了代价。狮子身上的皮毛大片脱落。在他的脸上和皮肤上形成了畸形的肿瘤。

带血的咳嗽折磨着桑德拉。她头晕目眩，双膝跪倒在地，视线无法集中。她知道辐射很快就会要了她的命。

驱逐它，桑迪！犹大在她的脑海里吼叫着。现在！这是我们唯一的机会！

桑德拉单膝支撑着身体，将注意力转移到星界空间上，集中在连接狼精魂和它那无能的咒术师的千丝万缕上。她想象着自己用一把完全是风做成的剑划破绳索。它们之间的联系滑腻无比。仅仅只是掠过它们，就让桑德拉又一次清空了她的胃；血和胆汁溅满了人行道。在她头昏眼花的时候，一种欣快感和一种令人作呕的感觉混杂在一起。肮脏中夹杂着令人厌烦的、令人陶醉的臭味。

来吧，那头狼直接对着她的脑袋说话。你很清楚自己也想尝尝这堕落的滋味。

她几乎睁不开眼睛。她的四肢比集装箱还重。为了给自己争取更多的时间，她放弃了注定要死去的肉体，从肉体的束缚中解脱出来。无论发生什么事，她都不能让这个怪物毁掉她的母亲和她的故乡。

见鬼去吧！她控制着精魂。用她最后的意志力，她的星界形态粉碎了灵魂和咒术师之间的纽带。

狼痛苦的嚎叫回荡在整个星界。没有任何东西能将它锚固在物质层面上，因此，精魂消失了，去了它称之为故乡的任何扭曲的泛位面。

当她坐在自己的肉体旁边时，犹大的星界形体也靠近了她。他的灵光很虚弱，还夹杂着棕色和黑色的旋涡，但他最终会康复的。而她自己的身体却不会，只是因为严重的辐射中毒而血淋淋伤累累。

对不起，犹大一边说，一边用嘴巴摩擦着她的星界肩膀。我希望有办法治好你。

在星界形体中，她发现哭泣是不可能的。帮我留意一下迈尔斯，好吗？她说。他是个傻瓜，但他本性善良。

让我陪着你，直到你走好吗？狮子问道。

随着她的肉体接近死亡——或者逐渐消失，尽管她很清楚这一切——桑德拉感觉到她的星界形体已经开始消散了。去追捕那个咒术师，她说。这是我的请求。

犹大点了点头。桑迪，待我之恩，永无忘怀。

她说不出话来，只是微笑着走进了医院。她的星界形体从一个房间漂流到另一个房间，搜寻着。即使分开了这么多年，当她发现自己的母亲灵光时，她仍然能认出它。就像她自己的一样，它很微弱，但是阿内塔·塞维尔纳亚（Aneta Severnaya）是一名战士，现在辐射源消失了，她和所有这些辐射患者也必然会康复。

桑德拉甚至没有力量再显形。相反，她坐在床边，抚摸着母亲越来越亮的灵光。

再见，母亲，她的星界形体低语道。这是她最后所剩下的一切。

✖

劇透 -   :

They say you can’t go home again, and Sandra saw the truth of this firsthand as Petro drove through Pripyat. Her old stomping grounds had fallen victim to the ravages of decay. Collapsed fences, dilapidated buildings, and wilting vegetation ruled each block of the street Uncle Grigoriy’s message had mentioned. Not even the worst Atlanta ghetto looked this bad.
Petro parked in front of an ancient-looking hospital that Sandra knew had been built before she emigrated from the country. The few staff she saw milling about were green around the gills—dark, sunken eyes and pale, clammy skin.
Grigoriy was waiting for her in the somber reception area and gave her a fierce bear hug. His haggard face looked no different than those of the hospital staff. Sandra didn’t need a degree in medicine to know her uncle had also contracted the contagion.
“What happened here?” she asked.
“They say it’s radiation sickness,” he said, coughing. “But that’s impossible. The Exclusion Zone has been radiation free for decades. Government doesn’t want to cause a panic, so we’re all stuck here until they find out what’s making everybody sick.”
“Something in the water, maybe,” Miles mused.
Sandra’s quick dip into astral space revealed how wrong her assistant was. Grigoriy’s aura was muddled with blacks and greys of what was likely radiation sickness, but it carried a faint astral signature too, which was not at all normal. Trying to assense the signature set her stomach doing backflips, and she suppressed the urge to throw up.
But the urge won. All over Miles’ thousand-nuyen deathrattle-leather wingtips.
“You all right, Sashka?” Grigoriy asked.
Sandra wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “No,” she said. “But I think I know why everyone’s sick.”
She felt the floor wiggle underfoot, as though someone heavy was walking too hard nearby. Then the ground shook beneath her, hard, nearly knocking her to the ground. Miles stumbled to his knees; Sandra braced herself against the wall. Another tremor followed it, then another. Something of incredible mass was heading toward the hospital.
Judah’s ghostly feline face suddenly appeared in front of her, his auburn mane rippling in the air. Grigoriy and the nearby hospital staff gasped at the manifested spirit. “Sandy, Miles,” Judah said, “we’ve got incoming. Better get outside now, or it’s going to follow me in here.”
Sandra snapped into operating mode. “Uncle, keep these people inside and make sure my mother is safe! Miles, follow me!”
Between earthquakes, she burst through the front doors into stark daylight and saw something that turned her blood to ice. A massive wolf, larger than anything imaginable, loped down the street, crushing—no, rusting—whole cars beneath its massive paws. Its hide was a knotted tangle of mange and bloated, mutated pustules. Chipped and broken fangs dripped a ghostly green saliva, as though the wolf had been chewing radioactive rocks. One of its eyes was ghosted over with a cataract; the other was crusted closed and leaking vitreous fluid.
Sandra had no doubts the wolf could still see her. On the astral, the spirit was just as twisted as its exterior. Its aura radiated a dizzying swirl of browns, greys, and blacks that made her want to throw up again. A shimmering astral tendril connected the spirit to its nearby summoner.
This diseased and mutated spirit had to have been summoned by a toxic magician, a path few sane magicians dared to tread. Sandra had faced a toxic spirit before, but never one like this, never one so powerful that its radioactive energy aura had polluted the whole landscape. Just looking at the spirit in meat space made her feel weak in the knees—and, once again, in the stomach. But she had no time for nausea.
She coughed hard into a fist. Her hand came away bloody.
“Miles!” she shouted. “The summoner! Take out the summoner!”
“On it!”
Her assistant ran down the street to avoid the incoming monstrosity, but it was too fast. The wolf spirit lunged forward and swatted Miles aside. Its giant paw struck him so hard that one of his wingtips was left where he’d been standing. Miles hit the side of the nearest building, fell down, and didn’t rise. The vibrant colors of his aura meant he was still alive—for now—but he wouldn’t be able to help her.
Chips of concrete rattled free from nearby buildings with each of the monster’s steps. Sandra readied as many spells as she could to try stopping this monstrosity, but it was too close. Fireballs barely singed the mutated hide. Other magical distractions only seemed to anger it. It stood above her. Toxic waste dripped from its teeth. Its waiting jaws exuded a storm of heated air laced with the stink of burning metal.
A massive current of mana flooded to her fingertips. Before the toxic wolf could bite her in two, Sandra was ready to blast it with a spell powerful enough to incapacitate or kill her. Better her own magic kill her than something so twisted.
As if from nowhere, a reddish-gold blur slammed into the wolf’s side and crushed the beast against the building across the street. When the bricks and dust settled, Sandra saw a gargantuan lion the same size as the wolf grappling with the spirit. Judah reared back on his hind legs and swatted at the wolf with both paws. Her materialized ally’s mouth was open in a snarling rictus of hatred.
Better late than never, Judah said. At least that toxic summoner won’t be causing us any problems for awhile.
Sandra let her spell fizzle. She could only watch in awe, spellbound as Judah ripped the toxic spirit apart, one swipe at a time. But he was paying the price. Huge patches of the lion’s coat were falling out. Misshapen tumors formed across his face and hide.
Another bloody cough wracked Sandra. Dizziness swept over her, and she fell down to her knees, unable to focus her vision. She knew the radiation was quickly killing her.
Banish it, Sandy! Judah shouted in her brain. Now! It’s our only chance!
Sandra propped herself up on one knee and shifted her focus to the astral plane to home in on the gossamer tendrils connecting the wolf spirit to its incapacitated summoner. She envisioned herself slashing through the cords with a sword made solely out of wind. The strands were slick and oily. Just grazing them made Sandra empty her stomach again; blood and bile splattered the pavement. In her lightheadedness, a sense of euphoria mixed with a sickening sensation. Vileness mixed with a cloying, heady stench.
Come now, the wolf spoke directly into her head. You know you want a little taste of corruption.
She could barely keep her eyes open. Her limbs felt heavier than shipping containers. To buy herself more time, she abandoned her doomed meat body and freed herself from fleshly constraints. No matter what happened, she couldn’t let this monster destroy her mother or her home.
Go to Hell! she commanded the spirit. With the last of her willpower, her astral form shattered the bond between spirit and summoner.
The wolf’s tortured howl reverberated throughout astral space. With nothing to anchor it to the physical plane, the spirit vanished and departed for whatever twisted metaplane it called home.
Judah’s astral form drew up alongside hers as she sat down next to her meat body. His aura was weak and tainted with strands of brown and black, but he would eventually recover. Her own body, bruised and bloody from severe radiation poisoning, would not.
I’m sorry, Judah said, rubbing his muzzle against her astral shoulder. I wish there was a way to fix you.
In astral form, she found it impossible to cry. Keep an eye on Miles for me, will you? she said. He’s an idiot, but he means well. Shall I stay with you until you go? the lion asked.
With her meat body close to death—or already gone, for all she knew—Sandra felt her astral form already beginning to slip away. Go chase down that summoner, she said. There’s something I have to do.
Judah nodded. You’ve been good to me, Sandy. I won’t forget you.
At a loss for words, she merely smiled and wandered off into the hospital. Her astral form drifted from room to room, searching. Even after all these years apart, she still recognized her mother’s aura when she found it. It was faint, just like her own, but Aneta Severnaya was a fighter, and now that the source of radiation was gone, she and all of these radiation sufferers would likely recover.
Sandra didn’t even have the strength to manifest. Instead she sat by the bedside and touched her mother’s aura, which was strengthening by the moment.
Goodbye, Mother, her astral form whispered. It was all she had left.