Chapter Text
- Alnazar, - Julian sighed languidly, cutting through the corpse's skin with a sharp scalpel. The movement of his hand was careless: no need to be ceremonious with a corpse long dead from a deadly disease.
- You've been repeating that word for the last two hours. I'm not at all interested in who, or what, your “Alnazar” is. Get a grip and get to work, Dr. Devorak, - the man with the fake horns on his head looked comical until he swung a knife, stained with plague blood, threateningly near Julian's throat.
The tool left a thin streak across the doctor's neck, but he didn't flinch. He smeared the drops of blood around his neck in a familiar motion and continued to wail:
- They're lucky to put me with such a dry man, - he was more careful this time, not damaging important organs and carefully separating tissues from each other. - Though who else did I expect to see in a slaughterhouse?
- You, - the second healer revealed his piranha grin as friendly as possible. - If you weren't too secretive, you'd be the second most bloodthirsty man in our land.
Devorak grinned in response, but then grimaced again, pulling back from his work:
- Third, absolutely. If you recognized Alnazar, you'd still be fighting over the honorary position. But I'm afraid you won't...
Julian's tongue was already itching, and he didn't know how to make his colleague listen to him without standing with a scalpel at his throat.
- One more word out of your filthy mouth, and I really won't recognize you,” the medic's words didn't inspire anything good, since he decided to break away from his work and pierce him with a blank stare of red eyes. Still, for now, he wasn't reaching for the forceps, which meant Devorak (and his nails) had nothing to fear.
- Valdemar, isn't it more fun to work with background noise? - The grown man whimpered like a child and started to study the corpse again, you see, I can really combine labor with idle talk.
- Your regeneration is remarkable, but you are not immortal, Dr. Devorak, mind you.
- If you want to kill me, at least I'll die on the same day as him,” Julian holds out the scalpel to his colleague, followed by the thud of the instrument hitting the dirt floor. The patient, even though he's dead, will have to die a second time, but from tetanus.
- Go ahead, - Valdemar said in a completely unemotional tone.
Devorak looked up at him in surprise, his eyebrows furrowed, making a couple of wrinkles appear on his forehead - the only thing left of his first youth was his gleeful attitude and bitter memories.
- Just like that? And you're not even going to threaten to kill me, or gut me, or put me in a torture chamber by the scruff of my neck, or anything like that?
- Thank you for bringing up the torture chamber, Doctor. I'd love to hear your story between the screams of pain and the pathetic sobs, - Valdemar reached for the bunch of keys on his belt. No matter how busy he was, he couldn't deny himself the pleasure of violence when the opportunity arose.
- I'll try to avoid leading questions from now on. Before you change your mind, - Julian picked up the scalpel from the floor and looked at Valdemar. He wasn't interested in listening to his chatter, as he always was, but the doctor was sure that his colleague was the only one in this town who wouldn't gossip. And even if he wanted to, anyone would be repulsed by the ombré of corpse odor and rot that surrounded the healer with a green haze visible to the eye.