- Lucia leaned over him and, crunching chips, also tried to examine the face in the pendant. He turned back, but the vision had already ended. Then Dave ran headlong out of the room and, meeting one of Daisy's neighbors in the corridor, he asked her:

Where is the pendant Daisy found?

“I don’t know,” the girl replied, puzzled by such an unexpected question. “I remember how she threw it out the window. After this discovery, she became not herself.

Dave ran out of the building like crazy, and Lucia slowly followed him, clicking her heels loudly and passing through the students she met on the way. Going out into the street, the writer immediately went to the alley, which is located under the window of that very room. He went around it up and down, trying to find this strange decoration. Lucia, too, tried to help him, examining the pavement through a huge magnifying glass. Then, realizing that the pendant is not here, Dave stopped and began to reason:

“Three victims… they committed suicide… because of the pendant?.. So the first victim found it… then, realizing that something in her has changed, the victim throws it away in horror… After that, these changes come to an end — the victim kills himself… and the next victim finds the pendant… So the pendant is cursed.

“You think right,” Lucia supported, coming up to him with a large magnifying glass. And when she looked at her husband through a magnifying glass, Dave saw through the glass her demonic appearance. But you don't think fully.

And then she turned her gaze to the other side. Dave followed her gaze, and saw how a fifteen-year-old schoolboy was walking along this alley after classes, and accidentally found a cursed pendant. For some reason, the writer intuitively knew where the boy lives, and immediately went to him, thinking along the way how to end it. Having run into the entrance where he lived, first of all Dave ran into the basement and took a hammer, then went up to the schoolboy, following his visions.

The writer went into a three-room apartment, the door of which was open for some reason. The boy's parents were not at home, and Dave immediately ran into his room without wasting any time. The schoolboy sat in tears on the bed and made a loop from his belt, and the ill-fated pendant lay on the desk. Jenex snatched the belt out of his hands to keep him from killing himself, then slammed the hammer down on the pendant with a flourish. The silver oval crumpled, and the fiery stone fell out of it and rolled in the other direction. After that, the boy, in tears, cursing his life, fell on the bed and covered his head with a pillow. And Dave, knowing that the end was not yet, turned around to break the stone. But he saw before him a pale old woman in a white tattered dress. She appeared from the pendant, and prevented her from approaching the stone in which she was imprisoned. Dave wanted to go through her but the ghost grabbed him by the throat and opened her mouth very wide, right up to her chest. At that moment, the writer looked into her eyes, and saw a part of her life. And Lucia stood by the whole time and watched, crunching popcorn.

— So that's it, — Dave spoke to the ghost while it was trying to suck the energy out of the prisoner. “You lived happily and made people happy, didn’t you, Carolyn?” But when your grandson died, all joy dried up, and you committed suicide, and your soul remained in your pendant. And now you feed on the joy of your victims, and they commit suicide in depression ... And now you are trying to dry me out.

- Hit her in the face with a hammer! - prompted Lucia, watching what was happening, as if watching a movie.

— I want to upset you, — Dave said, feeling that now the ghost would strangle him. “There is nothing edible in me.

Carolyn tightened her grip on the writer's neck, drawing out of him the lust for life. But Dave took a broken silver pendant on the table and hit the ghost with it. Fearing the silver, the old woman disappeared, and this made it possible for him to run up to the stone and smash it with a hammer.

When the boy woke up from the horror he had experienced, there was no one in the room. The ghost disappeared, joy and love for life returned to him. None of the adults and friends believed his story. However, the remaining dent in the table proved that the man with the white hair and red eyes who had saved him from the nightmare existed.

4. Exorcism

Over the next few days, the writer continued to do his job. After all, it was a huge benefit: Lucia received souls that she ate or could make her slaves, and Dave cleared the city of stuck ghosts, saved living people from dead killers, and also extended his life. The previously unrecognized writer has now become a psychic who seeks out blackened souls and sends them to the Underworld. However, he had to work secretly, because not everyone can believe in the existence of other worlds. And yet, thanks to the ability to see everything that is hidden from ordinary eyes, in this short time he saved several martyr souls, sent a couple of evil spirits to be devoured by Lucia. And now Dave and Lucia were walking around the square, looking for a new job.

The square was in the very center of Summertown, and it was very wide. In the center stood a fountain and a monument to the founder of the city, and at the edges were the city hall, a museum, a bank, several cafes so that the atmosphere did not seem too businesslike, and a large gilded cathedral. Dave drank black coffee as usual, walking around the square, because nightmares from Lucia allow him to sleep a couple of hours a day at most. And cheerful Lucia, as usual out of boredom, mocked his imagination. So, for example, it seemed to Dave that instead of water, blood was pouring from the fountain, a terrible old woman was feeding bloody crows with human fingers, although in fact the pigeons were pecking at bread. Lots of creepy dead and ghosts passed by, and Lucia made it hard to tell which ones were real. And when a young woman approached the writer, and, being very close,

"Damn, it's not serious anymore!" - At that moment, the visions ended, and he saw the already familiar square. And Lucia, with a bored face, sat and rocked on a rocking chair made of bones, while throwing knives at birds. “I’m actually trying to find us a suitable target, at least you could help, or something!”

- What does it mean to us? the ghost-demon objected and threw a knife in her husband's face. "Do I need to remind you that there's nothing I can do?"

“Stop whining that you’re a ghost and so on. I already exorcise spirits without you. You're just sitting here, but you can see and hear, and at least tell me what to do.

- Do you want a hint? Lucia crossed her legs, a glass of blood appeared in her hand, and with her other hand she pointed towards the fountain. - Run!

And when Dave looked in that direction, tar was pouring out of the fountain, from which a huge black wolf crawled out. Dave thought that this was just another vision, but when the wolf bared his teeth, growled and was about to attack, he immediately remembered how much he wanted to live, and did not dare to check it for veracity. Therefore, when the wolf ran towards him, Dave, to the sound of the loud laughter of his dead wife, ran in the other direction and ran out onto the road. There he almost got hit by a car: a black Chevrolet was driving out of the parking lot on the square, and stopped, just touching Dave's leg.

“Where the hell are you going like that?! shouted the shocked driver from the window.

Dave walked away so as not to run into problems, and while the car was moving away, he managed to inspect its interior. A young married couple was sitting in the car, and their son, about twelve years old, was in the back seat. In appearance, the boy seemed ordinary, but for some reason the writer could not take his eyes off him. While the car made a circle around the square to enter the track, Jenex watched the boy. Finally, when they arrived at the cathedral, he heard a piercing scream, and saw the child grimacing at the sight of the domes, and then realized that he was being followed, and attacked Dave. From fear, he covered his face with his hands, and when he opened it, the car had already left, and he realized that it was only a ghostly manifestation. But he had never seen such a powerful manifestation, and it became clear that this was the target that the ghost demon pointed to.

— You don't have to thank, — Lucia came up behind, put her elbow on Dave's shoulder, and with the other hand twirled her severed bald head on her finger. “Now come on, honey, let’s catch this little demon.”

But before that, it was necessary to prepare: Dave went into the cathedral and took a Bible, a cross, a few candles there, while no one was looking, then he went to the icon and confessed: