"I understand what makes the Night Watch observe the Treaty," said Anton. "We're afraid for people. And I know what motivates the Day Watch-fear for themselves. But what makes you Inquisitors go against your own essential nature?"

Witezslav turned his head and said quietly, "The only thing that restrains you is fear, Anton Gorodetsky. For yourself, or for people-that's not important. But we are restrained by horror. And that is why we observe the Treaty. You have no need to be concerned about the outcome of the trial-there won't be any fixes. If your colleague has not violated the Treaty, he will leave Prague alive and well."

By the evening Edgar had recovered a bit from his annoyance. Maybe he'd been helped by a good dinner in an expensive restaurant with a bottle of vintage Czech wine (well, it wasn't French, or even Spanish, but it certainly wasn't bad). Or maybe the atmosphere of Prague at Christmas had a soothing effect. Naturally, Edgar didn't believe in G.o.d-not many of the Others, especially Dark Ones, suffered from superst.i.tions like that. But he found the festival of Christmas really very enjoyable, and he always tried to celebrate it accordingly.

Maybe it was the influence of memories of his childhood? When he was a simple country boy called Edgar who helped his father on the farm, went to church, and looked forward to every holiday with his heart singing. Or maybe he remembered the 1920s and '30s, when he was already an Other, but not actively involved in the Watch, when he lived in Tallinn, had a good practice as an attorney, a wonderful wife and four little boys... His parents had died long ago, and he had buried his wife. One of his two surviving sons lived in Canada and the other in Parnu, but he hadn't seen them for forty years. It would have been hard for the old men to believe that this youthful, st.u.r.dy man was their father, who had been born in the late nineteenth century.

Yes, it must be the memories, Edgar thought as he lit up his cigar. There had been a lot of good things in ordinary human life, after all. Maybe he should play at being human again? Get married, have a family... take thirty years' leave from the Watch...

He laughed hollowly. That was all nonsense. You couldn't step into the same river twice. He'd lived as a man, lived as an ordinary Other, and now his place was in the Day Watch. It was all right for Anton, with his unspent pa.s.sion and fresh, vital emotions, but all that fretting and fussing wouldn't suit Edgar any longer.

Edgar caught the eye of the young woman sitting, bored and alone, at the next table. He smiled, and touched her mind with the gentlest of touches.

Not a prost.i.tute, just a young girl out looking for adventure. That was good. He didn't like professionals. There was nothing they could surprise him with anyway.

He called the waiter over and ordered a bottle of champagne.

Chapter four.

-?- The Inquisition had not been mean with the detainees. The hotel was a perfectly decent one and, while Igor was not in a deluxe accommodation, he had a suite with two good rooms.

Anton hesitated for a second before he walked toward Igor.

How he had changed...

Igor had always been an operational agent. He'd joined the Watch during the years after the war-there had been a lot of work to do then. On the one hand there was an upsurge of Light emotions, and on the other hand, during the difficult war years all sorts of petty riffraff had multiplied. And with the general atheistic mood in the country, it wasn't easy for anybody to accept that he or she was an Other. But it had been easy for Igor to accept his true nature; he had been glad to. He didn't really see much difference between parachuting in behind the fascist lines to blow up bridges and catching vampires and werewolves on the streets of Moscow. His Power was an honest third level, with little chance of advancing to anything higher, but even the third level is fairly substantial, if it's reinforced with experience, courage, and good reactions.

Igor had all of those in abundance. Perhaps he was just a little bit short on experience, but then he had worked in the Watch at a time when you could easily count one year as three. Perhaps he wasn't as well-read or erudite as Ilya or Garik, and he hadn't taken part in as many impressive operations as Semyon, but there weren't many who could match him out in the field. And there was one other thing that Anton had always liked-Igor had stayed young. Not just physically-that was no problem for a magician of his level-but in his soul. Who was it who would gladly accompany fifteen-year-old Yu-lia from the a.n.a.lytical department to some place in Tushino for the launch of the alb.u.m "A Hundred Fifty Billion Steps" by the fashionable band Tequila Jazz? Who was it who was happy to spend time coping with a teenager riddled with complexes who'd just realized he was an Other? Who would enthusiastically devote five years to extreme parachuting simply in order to verify the theory about the high numbers of Others involved in extreme sports? Who was always first to volunteer to take a colleague's watch or take on the most boring a.s.signment (there was no lack of volunteers for the dangerous ones)? Maybe it was a mistake, but for some time already Anton had felt that it was safer to have your back covered by a partner who was reliable and cheerful, rather than powerful and worldly-wise. A powerful and wise partner could always be distracted by a more important job than covering someone else's back...

But the Other standing in front of Anton now didn't look either powerful or cheerful. Igor had lost a lot of weight.

There was a strange, dull, hopeless yearning in his eyes. And he didn't seem to know what to do with his hands... sometimes he put them behind his back, sometimes he clasped them together.

"Anton," he said after a long silence. Without a smile, with only the faintest trace of gladness. "h.e.l.lo, Anton."

On a sudden impulse, Anton stepped forward and put his arms around Igor. He whispered: "h.e.l.lo... Now what are you doing in such a state..."

Witezslav, who was standing by the door, said quietly, "I shan't issue any official warnings about a.s.sociating with detainees... since you're Light Ones. Shall I wait for you, Gorodetsky?"

"No, thank you," said Anton, stepping back from Igor, but leaving one hand on his shoulder. "I'll make my own way back."

"Igor Teplov, the session of the Tribunal to consider your case will convene tomorrow evening, at seven o'clock local time. A car will come for you at six thirty; be ready."

"I've been ready for a long time," Igor said quietly. "Don't worry."

"All the best," the vampire said politely as he went out.

The two Light Ones were left alone together.

"Do I look d.a.m.ned awful?" Igor asked.

Anton didn't lie: "Worse than that. I've seen corpses that looked better. Anybody would think you were being kept on bread and water."

Igor shook his head seriously. "Oh no, I've been kept in good conditions."

There was a hint of irony in his words, as if he were talking about some animal sitting in a cage in a zoo.

"I've got a parcel here for you," Anton replied in the same tone of voice, clutching at that weak thread of life. "Is feeding the animals permitted?"

"Yes, it is," Igor said with a nod. "I just... I just can't eat, you know? I can't read books, I don't want to get drunk...

or see anybody either. I switch on the television and watch it until three o'clock in the morning. When I get up I switch it on again. You know, I've already mastered the Czech language. It's very easy to understand."

"That's terrible," said Anton with a nod. "All right. As you can understand, when I left I was given confidential instructions-to give you back the will to live."

Igor actually smiled at that. "I understand. That's to be expected... well, get the things out."

Anton put a thick pile of letters on the table. There was just one name on each envelope-the name of the person who had written the letter.

"These are from all our gang. Olga said you had to read her letter first. But Yulia and Lena said the same thing.

So you choose for yourself..."

Igor looked at the letters thoughtfully and nodded. "I'll throw a dice. All right, get out the rest. I don't mean the letters."

Anton smiled as he took a bottle wrapped in paper out of a plastic bag.

"Smirnoff No. 21," said Igor. "Right?"

"Right."

"I knew it. Carry on."

Anton carried on, smiling in embarra.s.sment as he took out a small loaf of Borodinsky black bread, a stick of salami, salted cuc.u.mbers in a polythene vacuum pack, several purple Yalta onions, and a piece of pork fat.

"Why, you devils," said Igor, shaking his head. "Everything the way I like it. Semyon advised you, did he?"

"Yes."

"The customs officers must have thought you were insane."

"I made them look the other way. I'm on official business-so I have the right."

"I see. Okay, I'll just get everything ready. And you tell me what's been going on back there. I've been kept informed... but it's better coming from you. About Andrei, about Tiger Cub... about that whole d.a.m.n mess."

While Igor was making the snacks, rinsing the gla.s.ses and drying them carefully, and opening the bottle, Anton told him in brief about the recent events in Moscow.

Igor poured vodka into four gla.s.ses without speaking. He covered two with slices of bread, set one in front of Anton, and took the last one himself.

"For the guys," he said. "May the Light show them compa.s.sion. For Tiger Cub... for Andriukha."

They drank without clinking gla.s.ses, and Anton looked at Igor curiously. Igor began coughing and looked at his gla.s.s, perplexed.

"Anton... wait... this vodka's fake!"

"Of course!" Anton confirmed happily. "Absolutely genuine fake vodka-pure alcohol diluted with tap water. I chose it specially. You wouldn't believe how hard it is nowadays to buy fake vodka in the shops!"

"But why?" Igor exclaimed.

"What do you mean, why? Why did I bring you Borodinsky bread? I could have bought a loaf of fresh, tasty black bread in any shop in Prague! And the salami too, and the pork fat. The onions would have been the only problem..."

"So this is a greeting from the motherland, is it?" said Igor, still wincing.

"Precisely."

"Oh no... I want to greet my last morning without a headache," Igor said seriously. He frowned and pa.s.sed his hand above the bottle and the two full gla.s.ses. The liquid glimmered a lemon-yellow color for a moment. Igor explained in a slightly guilty voice: "I'm allowed to use lower magic."

"Then pour another gla.s.s."

"Are you in some kind of a hurry?" Igor asked, squinting at Anton as he poured the transformed vodka.

"No, where would I be going?" Anton replied. "I'd rather sit here with you and have a chat. Do you know why I changed the bottle?"

"So you're the perpetrator?"

"Yes, it was me. Semyon brought the real thing. But I wanted to remind you that a beautiful bottle doesn't always contain good stuff."

Igor sighed and his face went dark: "Gorodetsky... don't moralize with me. I was in the Watch before you were even born. I understand everything. But it's my own fault, and I'll take my punishment."

"No, you don't understand a thing," Anton shouted angrily. "You adopt this grand pose of yours: 'It's my fault, I'll take what's coming to me,"" he said, mimicking Igor. "But what are we supposed to do? Especially now, without Tiger Cub and Andrei? You know that Gesar's decided to give the girls who do the programming intensive training?"

"Oh, come on, Anton! There aren't any irreplaceable Others. The Moscow Watch has hundreds of magicians and enchantresses in its reserve!"

"Yes, of course. And if we whistle, they'll come running. Leave their families, drop their jobs and their usual concerns. They'll take up arms, of course they will. If the active members of the Watch have disgraced themselves and given up..."

Igor sighed and began speaking abruptly and energetically, almost like the old operational agent: "Anton, I understand all this. You're a bright guy, and you're doing the right thing now by making me angry. You're trying to inspire me with the will to live. You're trying to persuade me to fight... But understand one thing-I really don't want to fight! I really think I am guilty. I really have decided to... withdraw. Into nothingness, into the Twilight."

"Why, Igor? I understand that anyone's death is always a tragedy, especially if it's your fault, but you couldn't have foreseen..."

Igor looked up at him with eyes full of pain and shook his head. "No, Antoshka. It's you who doesn't understand a single thing. Do you think I'm punishing myself because that kid drowned? No."

Anton picked up his gla.s.s and drained it in a single gulp.

"I feel sorry for the boy," Igor went on. "Very sorry. But I've seen all sorts of things in my time... there have been times before when people died. And it was my fault. Children, women, old men. Have you ever, for instance, had to decide who to run to first, who to save-an uninitiated Other or an ordinary person? I have. Have you ever had to draw all the Power from a crowd-drain it completely? Knowing there's a ninety percent probability two people in the crowd won't be able to bear it and they'll kill themselves? I have."

"I've had to do a few things too, Igor."

"Yes, I understand. That hurricane... Then why are you talking such nonsense? Can't you believe it's not all about that unfortunate kid? That I fell in love with a Dark One?"

"I can't," said Anton. "I just can't! Gesar said that too, but..."

"You'd better believe Gesar," Igor said with a bitter smile. "I love her, Anton. I still love her, even now. And I'll go on loving her-that's the real tragedy."

He picked up his gla.s.s.

"Thanks at least for not setting a gla.s.s out for her on the table..." Anton could feel the fury beginning to seethe inside him. "Thanks..."

He broke off and followed Igor's glance to the gla.s.s-fronted cupboard, where there was a gla.s.s half-filled with vodka and covered with a stale piece of bread standing among the other gla.s.ses.

"You've lost your mind," Anton muttered. "Completely lost your mind! Remember, Igor-she's a witch!"

"She was a witch," Igor agreed with a faint, sad smile.

"She provoked you... okay, she didn't enchant you, but she still made you fall in love with her."

"No. She fell in love herself. And she didn't have the slightest i.e. who I was."

"Okay. Let's accept that, you ought to know. But even so, it was provocation. By Zabulon, who knew everything that was happening..."

Igor nodded. "Yes, very probably. I've thought about that a lot, Anton. That fight in Butovo was obviously prepared well in advance by the Dark Ones. At the very highest level, just Zabulon and another one or two Dark Ones.

Lemesheva probably knew. Edgar and the witches didn't."

He didn't even think it worth mentioning the vampires and shape-shifters.

"Well, if you agree..." Anton began.

"Wait. Yes, it was a deliberately planned operation. One of Zabulon's intrigues. And a successful one..." Igor lowered his head. "Only what difference does that make to the way I feel about Alisa?"

Anton felt like swearing angrily. So he did, and then he said, "Igor, you've looked at Alisa Donnikova's file. You must have looked at it!"

"Yes."

"So you must understand how much blood she has on her hands! How much evil she has done? I've clashed with her myself several times! She's been responsible for ruining our operations, she... she served Zabulon loyally..."

"You forgot to add that she was Zabulon's broad," Igor said in a dull, lifeless voice. "That the head of Moscow's Dark Ones enjoyed having s.e.x with her in his Twilight form, that she took part in covens when there were human sacrifices and in group orgies. Why don't you say it? Say it, I know it all anyway. Gesar gave me the full file... he tried really hard. I know all that."

"And you still love her?" Anton asked incredulously.

Igor raised his head, and they looked into each other's eyes. Then Igor reached out and gently touched Anton's hand. "Don't be angry with me, brother Light One. Don't despise me. And if you can't understand, you'd better go.