Still in the form of a naked human being, the werewolf hurried through the low thickets to the spot where he had left his clothes. Now he would have to hide for many, many days, instead of prowling through the park at night hoping to chance upon a victim. He would have to stay hidden away, waiting for sanctions from the Night Watch, or maybe even from his own side.

His only hope was that this solitary traveler, who had not been afraid to cut across the park in the dark, this strange Other-or someone pretending to be an Other-really had been hurrying to catch a train. That he would catch it and leave the city. And then he wouldn't be able to contact the Night Watch.

Others also know how to hope.

Chapter one.

-?- I ONLY CALMED DOWN COMPLETELY WHEN I COULD RELAX AND LISTEN TO the regular, hammering rhythm of the wheels. Although even then, not completely. How could I possibly feel calm? But at least I had recovered the ability to think coherently.

When that creature in the park broke through the bushes and threw itself at me, I hadn't been afraid. Not at all.

But now I had no i.e. how I had found the right words to say. Afterward I must have surprised plenty of people with the way I staggered across the square in front of the station, past the tight ranks of route taxis parked for the night. It's not easy to walk with a steady stride when your knees are buckling under you.

What the h.e.l.l was all this? The Night Watch... What on earth had I meant by saying that? And that beast with the teeth had immediately started whining and crept back into the bushes...

I took another mouthful of beer and tried once again to make sense of what had happened.

So, first I left the house...

Stop.

I put the bottle down on the little table, feeling confused. I must have looked very stupid at that moment, but there was no one to look at me-I was the only person in the compartment.

Stop.

I suddenly realized I couldn't remember my own house at all.

I couldn't remember a single thing about my past life. My memories began there, in that chilly winter park, just a few seconds before the attack. Everything before that was hidden in a mysterious darkness. Or rather, not even darkness, but a strange, gray shroud-sticky and viscous, almost completely impenetrable. A dense, gray, swirling twilight.

I didn't understand a thing.

I cast a confused and frightened glance around the compartment. It was a perfectly ordinary compartment. A little table, four bunks, brown plastic and maroon imitation leather, with lights occasionally sliding by in the night outside the window. My bag lying on the other bunk...

My bag!

I realized I didn't have the slightest i.e. what was in my bag. It had to be my things, and things can tell you a lot.

Or remind you. For instance, they might remind me why I was going to Moscow. For some reason I felt certain the things could help reawaken my failed memory. I must have read about that somewhere or heard about it from someone.

I suddenly had a better i.e. and reached under my sweater because I realized my pa.s.sport was in the left pocket of my shirt. If I started with my name, then maybe I would remember everything else.

As I looked at the yellowish page, with its dark pattern of fanciful curlicues, my feelings were mixed. I looked at the photograph, at the face that I had probably been used to identifying with my own unique personality for about thirty years-or was this the very first day?

The face was familiar in all its minutest features, from the scar on the cheekbone to the premature hint of gray in the hair. But never mind the face. That wasn't what interested me just at the moment.

The name.

Vitaly Sergeevich Rogoza. Date of birth-September 28, 1965.

Place of birth-the city of Nikolaev.

Turning over the page, I read the same information in Ukrainian and also ascertained that my s.e.x was male and that the pa.s.sport had been issued by an organization with an exceptionally clumsy acronym DO PMC ADIA-the District Office of the People's Munic.i.p.al Council of the Administration of the Department of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The "Family Status" page was an unsullied, virginal blank. I heaved a sigh of relief, or perhaps disappointment.

Then came the eternal burden and curse borne by every ex-Soviet citizen: my residence permit and address.

Apartment 28, 28 Tchaikovsky Street, Nikolaev.

Well, well, there was the number 28 again, twice in a row.

Then the a.s.sociations really began to click-I remembered that my house stood on the corner of Tchaikovksy Street and Young Guard Street, next to School No. 28 (that number yet again!). I remembered everything quite clearly and distinctly, right down to the charred poplar standing under my window-the victim of chemical experiments conducted by the young kid who lived on the floor above me (he had poured all sorts of garbage out the window onto the long-suffering tree). I remembered a drunken party five years ago in the next house, when someone had casually told the neighbor from downstairs what she could do with herself when she complained about the noise. She'd turned out to be Armenian, the wife of some local bigwig, and later an entire mob of those swarthy Armenians had come bursting in and started battering our faces to a pulp. I'd had to clamber out through the little window in the end room, because the main window wouldn't open, and climb down the drainpipe. When they noticed that one of the woeful drunks had disappeared from the blockaded apartment, the Armenians stopped waving their fists about and some kind of agreement was eventually reached with them. I also remembered my bitter disappointment when I asked for a.s.sistance from some close local acquaintances of mine whom I'd often drunk beer with at the kiosks in the district, and not a single one of them came.

I tore myself away from my surprisingly vivid memories.

So I did have a past after all? Or were these merely the forms of memories with nothing real behind them?

I had to try to figure it out.

From the pa.s.sport I also gleaned the entirely useless piece of information that I had "exercised the right to privatize without payment the following volume of living s.p.a.ce"-the volume was not indicated-"subject to the standard maximum of 24.3 square meters."

And that was all.

I thoughtfully put the doc.u.ment away in my pocket-the same one, on the left side of my chest, and looked hard at the bag. What will you help me remember, my black-and-green traveling companion with the foreign inscription FUJI on your bulging side?

Well, let's hope you'll help me remember at least something...

The zipper opened with a quiet whoosh. I threw back the flap of cloth covering the contents and looked inside.

The polythene bag on the top contained a toothbrush, a tube of Blend-a-Med toothpaste, a pair of cheap disposable razors, and a small, fragrant black bottle that obviously contained eau de cologne.

I put them on the bunk.

In the next plastic bag I discovered a warm wool sweater that was obviously knitted by hand, not on a machine. I set that aside too.

I spent two or three minutes rummaging through the other bags-clean underwear, T-shirts, socks, a warm checkered shirt... Aha, here was something that wasn't clothing.

A small cell phone in a leather case, with an extendable aerial. My memory instantly reacted: When I get to Moscow, I'll have to buy a card...

The charger was there too.

And finally, at the very bottom, one more plastic bag. Filled with some kind of blocks. When I looked inside, I was astounded. This ordinary plastic bag, with its logo half worn away so that it was completely unrecognizable, contained wads of money stacked in two layers. American dollars. Ten wads of hundred-dollar notes. That was a hundred thousand.

My hand automatically reached out for the door and clicked the latch shut.

Jesus, where had I got this from? And how was I going to get such a huge amount of money across the border?

But then, I could probably stick a hundred dollar bill under every customs officer's nose and they'd leave me alone.

The discovery aroused almost no a.s.sociations, apart from the memory of how expensive hotels are in Moscow.

Still in a mild state of shock, I put all the things back in the bag, zipped it shut and pushed it under the bunk. I felt glad there was a second, unopened, bottle of beer standing beside the one I'd already started. I don't know why, but the sedative substance had a distinctly soporific effect on me. I was expecting to spend a long time lying there, listening to the hammering of the wheels, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up my eyes when the bright light suddenly broke in for a few moments, and racking my brains painfully.

Nothing of the sort happened. Before I'd even finished the second bottle of beer, I slumped onto the bunk, still fully dressed, and crashed out on top of the blanket.

Maybe I'd got too close to something taboo in my memories? But how would I know?

I woke up with cold winter sunshine flooding in through the window. The train wasn't moving. I could hear indifferent official voices in the corridor: "Good morning, Russian customs. Are you carrying any arms, narcotics, or hard currency?" The replies sounded less indifferent, but most of them were unintelligible. Then there was a knock at the door. I reached out and opened it.

The customs officer turned out to be a burly, red-faced guy with eyes that were already turning puffy. For some reason, when he spoke to me, he abandoned the standard routine and simply asked me, without any officialese: "What have you got? Get the bag out..."

He looked around the compartment carefully, got up onto the steps, and glanced into the luggage rack just under the ceiling. Then he finally focused his attention on the bag lying all alone in the middle of the bottom bunk.

I lowered the other bunk and sat down without saying anything.

"Open the bag, please," the customs officer demanded.

Can they smell money, or something? I thought sullenly and obediently opened the zipper.

One by one the plastic bags migrated to the bunk. When he reached the bag with the money, the customs officer brightened up noticeably and reached out in a reflex response to slam the door of the compartment.

"Well, well, well..."

I had already prepared myself to listen to a hypocritical tirade about permits and even to read a paragraph from a book-like every written law, this one consisted of perfectly understandable words strung together so that they made absolutely no sense at all. To listen, read, and then ask hopelessly: "How much?"

But instead of that, I mentally reached out my hand toward the customs officer's head, touched his mind, and whispered, "Go now... Go on. Everything's fine here."

The officer's eyes instantly turned as stupid and senseless as the customs regulations. "Yes... have a good journey..."

He swung around stiffly, clicked the lock open and staggered out into the corridor without saying another word.

An obedient wooden puppet with a skillful puppet master pulling his strings.

But since when had I been a skillful puppet master?

The train moved off about ten minutes later, and all that time I was trying to figure out what was happening. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was doing exactly what was needed. First that creature in the park beside the factory, and now this customs officer whose mind had instantly gone blank...

And why, in h.e.l.l's name, was I on my way to Moscow? What was I going to do when I got off the train? Where was I going to go? Somehow I was already beginning to feel certain that everything would be made clear at the right moment-but only at the right moment, not before. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite a hundred percent certain yet.

I slept for most of the day. Maybe it was my body's reaction to all the unexpected answers and new skills. How had I managed to set off the customs officer? I'd reached out to him, felt the dull crimson aura with the shimmering greenish overlay made up of dollar signs... And I'd been able to adjust his desires.

I didn't think people could do that. But what was I, if I wasn't an ordinary human being?

Oh, yes. I was an Other. I'd told that to the werewolf in the park. And only just that moment did I realize it was a werewolf that had tried to attack me. I remembered his aura, that bright yellow and crimson flame of Desire and Hunger.

I seemed to be gradually clambering up a stairway out of the blackness, out of a blank chasm. The werewolf had been the first step. The customs officer had been the second. I wondered just how long the stairway was, and what would I find up there, at the top? So far there were more questions than answers.

When I finally woke up we had already pa.s.sed Tula. The compartment was still empty, but now I realized that was because it was the way I wanted it. And I realized that I usually got what I wanted in this world.

The platform at Kursk Station in Moscow drifted slowly past the window. I was standing in the compartment, already dressed and packed, waiting for the train to stop. The female announcer's m.u.f.fled voice informed everyone that train number sixty-two had arrived at some platform or other. I was in Moscow, but I still didn't understand what I was doing.

As usual, the most impatient pa.s.sengers had already managed to block the way through. But I could wait, I was in no hurry. After all, I'd be waiting anyway, until my slowly reviving memory prompted me or prodded me, like a muleteer with a stubborn, lazy mule.

The train gave a final jerk and came to a halt. There was a metallic clang in the lobby of the carriage; the line of people instantly started and came to life and spilled out of the carriage little by little. There were the usual exclamations of concern, greetings, attempts to squeeze back into a compartment to get things that couldn't be taken out the first time...

But the confused bustling around the carriage was soon over. The pa.s.sengers had already got out and received their due allocations of kisses and hugs from the people meeting them. Or not, if there was no one there to meet them. There were a few still left, craning their necks as they gazed around the platform, already shivering in the piercing Moscow wind. But the only people left in the carriage were waiting to pick up the usual parcels of food and other things that relatives had sent with the conductor.

I picked up my bag and walked toward the door, still not understanding what I was going to do in the immediate future.

Probably I ought to change some money, I thought. I didn't have a single kopeck of Russian money, only our "independent" Ukrainian currency, which unfortunately wasn't valid here. Just before we reached Moscow I'd prudently slit open one of the wads in the plastic bag and distributed some of the bills around my various pockets. I always did hate billfolds...

What was that thought I'd had? Always... My "always" had only begun last night.

I shuddered reflexively at the cold embrace of winter and strode off along the platform toward the tunnel. Surely there had to be someone changing money at the station?

Rummaging about in my unreliable memory, I managed to establish two things: First, I didn't remember the last time I'd been in Moscow but, second, I had a general i.e. of how the station looked from the inside, where to look for the bureau de change, and how to get into the metro.

The tunnel, the large waiting hall in the bas.e.m.e.nt, the short escalator, the ticket hall-my immediate goal was on the second floor, beside another escalator.

But this currency exchange point looked to have been closed very securely for a very long time. No light showing in any c.h.i.n.k, no essential board with the current exchange rates. All right. Then I had to go to the exit and turn left, toward the ramp sloping down to the Chkalovskaya metro station... and the place I needed would be near there.

A white trading pavilion, a staircase up to the second floor, empty little shop s.p.a.ces flooded with light, a turn...

The security guard glanced up at me quickly and then relaxed when he recognized someone newly arrived in town.

"Go in, there's no one inside," he told me magnanimously.

I carried my bag into a tiny little room, in which the entire furnishings consisted of a rubbish bin in the corner and, of course, a tiny window with one of those little retractable drawers that had always reminded me of an eternally hungry mouth.

Hey, I reminded myself, don't forget just how young your "always" is...

But even so-if I thought like a man who really had lived thirty-five years, surely there must be some reason for it?

All right, we could get to that later.

The hungry mouth instantly devoured five one-hundred-dollar bills and my pa.s.sport. I couldn't see who was concealed there behind the blank part.i.tion, and I wasn't really concerned to get a look at them. All I noticed were the fingers with pearly polish on the nails, which meant it was a woman. The mouth reluctantly slid open and belched out a sizeable heap of one-hundred-ruble bills and several bills of smaller denominations. Even a couple of coins. Without counting the money, I put it into my breast pocket, under my sweater, keeping just the smaller bills and the coins for my trouser pocket. I put my pa.s.sport in my other breast pocket and threw the receipt-a small rectangle of green paper-into the rubbish bin.

Right, now I was someone. Even in this insane city, which was just about the most expensive on the planet. But no... that wasn't right. It had to be almost a year since Moscow had relinquished that dubious t.i.tle.

Outside, winter greeted me again with its ice-laden breath. The wind carried fine hard crumbs, like grains of semolina, a kind of immature hail. I strolled back along the front of the railroad station and then down to where I wanted to be-on the metro circle line.

It felt like I was beginning to remember where I needed to get to. Well, I could enjoy making some progress, even if I didn't enjoy the state of uncertainty. And I could hope that whatever business had brought me to Moscow was entirely good, because somehow I didn't feel I had the Power to serve Evil.