loppy work!"

I tried to say something, but the next remark stung like a slap to the cheek and shut me up.

"You screwed up!"

"But..."

"Do you at least understand your own mistakes?"

The boss had cooled off a bit, and I took the risk of raising my eyes from the floor and saying cautiously:

"It seems to me..."

I like being in that office. It stirs the kid in me to see all those amusing little trinkets standing on the shelves in the bulletproof glass cupboards, hanging all over the walls, tossed carelessly on the desk, jumbled up with the computer floppies and business papers. Every item there¡ªfrom the old Japanese fan to the jagged piece of metal with a deer welded onto it, the symbol of some auto plant¡ªhad its own history. If you were lucky and the boss was in the mood you could hear some very, very interesting stories.

Only I don't seem to find him in that kind of mood too often.

"Okay." The boss stopped striding round the office, sat down in a leather armchair, and lit up. "Let's hear it."

His voice had turned businesslike, matching his appearance. To the human eye he looked about forty years old, and he belonged to that narrow circle of businessmen that the government likes to rely on so much.

"What do you want to hear?" I asked, at the risk of provoking yet another impartial assessment.

"The mistakes. Your mistakes."

Right then... Okay.

"My first mistake, Boris Ignatievich," I said with a perfectly innocent air, "was that I failed to understand the nature of the mission correctly."

"Oh, really?" the boss replied.

"Well, I assumed my goal was to track down a vampire who had begun actively hunting in Moscow. To track him down and... er... neutralize him."

"Go on, go on..." the boss encouraged me.

"In actual fact the basic purpose of the mission was to determine my suitability for operational activity, for field work. Starting with my incorrect understanding of the mission, that is, following the principle 'separate and protect'..."

The boss sighed and nodded. Anyone who didn't know him too well might even have thought he was ashamed.

"And did you contravene this principle in any way?"

"No, and that's why I botched the mission."

"How did you botch it?"

"Right at the beginning..." I squinted sideways at a stuffed white polar owl standing on a shelf behind the glass. Had it really moved its head? "Right at the beginning I drained the amulet in a futile attempt to neutralize a black vortex..."

Boris Ignatievich frowned. He brushed his hair back with his hand.

"Okay, let's start with that. I've studied the image, and if you haven't touched it up..."

I shook my head indignantly.

"I believe you. Well, a vortex like that can't be removed with an amulet. Do you remember the classification?"

Damn! Why hadn't I flicked through my old notes?

"I'm sure you don't. But it doesn't matter. There is no class for this vortex. There's no way you could possibly have dealt with it..." The boss leaned over across the desk and continued in a mysterious whisper: "... and you know what..."

I was all ears.

"There's no way I could have either, Anton."

This confession was unexpected, and I couldn't think of anything to say. Maybe no one had ever actually said out loud that the boss could do anything, but that was what everyone who worked in the office believed.

"Anton, a vortex as strong as that can be removed only by the person who created it."

"We have to find him..." I said uncertainly. "I feel sorry for the girl..."

"This isn't about her. Not just about her."

"Why?" I blurted out and then hastily corrected myself. "We have to stop the Dark Magician, don't we?"

The boss sighed.

"He might have a license. He might be entitled to cast the curse... This isn't even about the magician. A black vortex as powerful as that... You remember the plane that crashed last winter?"

I shuddered. We had not done anything wrong, but there was a loophole in the law: A pilot who was under a curse had lost control, and his airliner had crashed into a residential area of the city. Hundreds of perfectly innocent lives...

"Vortices like that can't act selectively. The girl's doomed, but it won't just be a brick that accidentally falls off some roof onto her head. More likely a building will explode, there'll be an epidemic, or someone will drop an atom bomb on Moscow by mistake. That's the real problem, Anton."

The boss suddenly swung around and cast a withering glance at the owl. It folded its wings away quickly and the gleam in its glass eyes faded.

"Boris Ignatievich," I said, horrified. "I'm at fault..."

"Of course you are. There's only one redeeming fact, Anton." The boss cleared his throat. "When you gave way to pity, you acted quite correctly. The amulet couldn't completely detach the vortex, but it has postponed the Inferno for a while. And now we have a day to work with... maybe even two. I've always believed that ill-considered but well-intentioned actions do more good than actions that are well-considered but cruel. If you hadn't used the amulet, half of Moscow would already be lying in ruins."

"What are we going to do?"

"Look for the girl. Protect her... as well as we can. We'll be able to destabilize the vortex again once or twice. And in the meantime we'll have to find the magician who cast the curse and make him remove the vortex."

I nodded.

"Everybody will be involved in the search," the boss said casually. "I've recalled all the guys from vacation, Ilya will be back from Ceylon by morning and the others will be here by lunch. The weather's bad in Europe. I've asked our colleagues in the European office to help, but by the time they can disperse the clouds..."

"By morning?" I asked, glancing at my watch. "Another whole day."

"No, this morning," the boss replied, as if unaware of the midday sunshine outside the window. "You'll be searching too. Perhaps you'll get lucky again... Shall we continue with our analysis of your mistakes?"

"Can we afford to waste the time?" I asked timidly.

"Don't worry; it won't be wasted." The boss got up, walked over to the glass cupboard, took out the owl, and set it down on the desk. From close up you could see it really was a stuffed bird, with no more life in it than a fur collar... "Let's move on to the vampires and their victim."

"I lost the girl-vampire. And the guys didn't catch her," I confirmed penitently.

"No complaints there. You fought worthily enough. The point is¡ªthe victim..."

"Sure, the boy kept his memories. But he took off so fast..."

"Anton! Wake up! They hooked the boy with the Call from a distance of several kilometers! When he walked into that alley he ought to have been a helpless puppet! And when the Twilight disappeared, he ought to have fainted! Anton, if he was still able to move after everything that had happened¡ªhe possesses superb magical potential!"

The boss paused.

"I'm an idiot."

"No, but you have been sitting on your backside in the lab far too long. Anton, this boy is potentially more powerful than I am!"

"Oh, come on..."

"Drop the flattery..."

The telephone on the desk rang. It was obviously something urgent; not many people know the boss's direct number. I don't.

"Quiet!" the boss snapped at the innocent phone. It stopped. "Anton, you have to find that young boy. The girl-vampire who got away is not dangerous in herself. Either our guys will find her or an ordinary patrol will pick her up. But if she drinks the boy's blood or, even worse, initiates him... You've no idea what a full-fledged vampire's like. These modern ones are mere mosquitoes compared with some Nosferatu. And with all the airs he put on, he still wasn't one of the best... So the boy must be found, examined, and, if possible, taken into the Watch. We have no right to let him go over to the Dark Side; the balance of power in Moscow would totally collapse."

"Is that an order?"

"Given under license," the boss said darkly. "I have the right to issue that kind of order, you know that."

"Yes, I know," I said quietly. "But where do I begin? That is, which one do I begin with?"

"Whoever you like. I'd say with the girl. But try to find the boy too."

"Shall I go now?"

"Catch up on your sleep first."

"I slept long enough, Boris Ignatievich..."

"I doubt it. I'd recommend an hour at least."

I didn't understand. I'd got up at eleven and dashed straight to the office. I felt perfectly fresh and full of energy.

"Here's someone to help you." The boss flicked the stuffed owl with his finger. The bird stretched out its wings and started screeching indignantly.

I swallowed hard and risked a question:

"Who is it? Or what is it?"

"Why do you need to know?" asked the boss, looking into the owl's eyes.

"To decide whether I want to work with it!"

The owl glared at me and hissed like an enraged cat.

"That's the wrong way of putting it," said the boss, shaking his head. "Will she agree to work with you, that's the real question."

The owl started screeching again.

"Yes," said the boss, talking to the bird now, not to me. "There's a lot of truth in what you say. But who was it that requested a new appeal?"

The bird froze.

"I promise I'll intercede for you. And this time there is a chance."

"Boris Ignatievich, in my opinion..." I began.

"I'm sorry, Anton, that doesn't bother me..." The boss stretched out his arm; the owl took a clumsy stride with its fluffy legs and stood on his open hand. "You don't know just how lucky you are."

I didn't answer that. The boss went across to the window, opened it wide, and stuck his hand out. The owl flapped its wings and went hurtling downward, moving really well for a stuffed dummy.

"Where has... it... gone?"

"To your place. You'll be working as partners..." The boss rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Oh yes! Don't forget, her name's Olga."

"The owl?"

"The owl. Feed her and take care of her and everything will be fine. And now... get a bit of sleep. No need to come into the office when you get up; wait for Olga to arrive and get on with the job. Check out the circle line in the metro, for instance..."

"How can I get back to sleep..." I began. But the world around me was already turning dim, fading away, dissolving. The corner of a pillow jutted painfully into my cheek.

I was lying in my own bed.

My head felt heavy; my eyes were full of sand. My throat felt parched and painful.

"Agh..." I gasped hoarsely, turning over onto my back. Through the heavy curtains I couldn't see whether it was still night or the day was well advanced. I squinted at the clock: The glowing figures showed eight.

It was the first time I'd been granted an audience with the boss in my sleep.

It's not a very pleasant business, especially for the boss¡ªhe must have broken through into my mind.

Time must really be short if he'd decided it was necessary to hold his briefing in the world of dreams. And it had all seemed much more real than I would have expected. The mission analysis, that stupid owl...

The sound of tapping on the window made me start. A rapid, gentle tapping that sounded like claws. I heard a muffled screeching.

But what else was I really expecting?

I jumped up, adjusted my shorts awkwardly, and hurried across to the window. All the garbage that I'd swallowed as part of the preparation for the hunt was still affecting me, and I could distinguish the outlines of objects quite clearly.

I tore the curtains aside and raised the blind.

The owl was sitting on the windowsill, screwing up its eyes¡ªindeed, the sun was already up and the light was too bright for it. From down in the street, of course, it would have been hard to tell what kind of bird had landed on the tenth-floor window. But if the neighbors had happened to glance out, they'd have got a real surprise. A polar owl in the center of Moscow...

"What the hell..." I grunted.

I felt like being more specific. But that was a habit they'd cured me of when I first started working in the Watch. Or rather, I'd cured myself. Once you've seen a couple of Dark twisters above the heads of people you've sworn at, you soon learn to hold your tongue.

The owl was looking at me, waiting.

All the birds nearby went wild. A swarm of sparrows sitting in a tree not far away started chirping crazily. The crows were a bit bolder. They settled on the next-door balcony and the nearest trees and started squawking, every now and then launching off from the branches and circling near the window. Their instincts told them this surprising new neighbor meant trouble.

But the owl didn't react at all. She didn't give a damn about the sparrows, or the crows.

"Just who are you?" I muttered as I threw open the window, ripping off the paper strips glued over the cracks. The boss had really saddled me with this new partner...

The owl flapped its wings once and flew into the room. It landed on the wardrobe and closed its eyes, as though it had always lived here. Maybe it got cold on the way over? But then again, it was a polar owl...

I started closing the window, trying to think what to do now. How would I communicate with her, what would I feed her, and how, in God's name, could this feathered creature possibly help me?

"Is your name Olga?" I asked, when I'd finished with the window. There was a draft from the cracks now, but I could fix that later. "Hey, bird!"

The owl half-opened one eye, taking no more notice of me than of the fussy, chattering sparrows.

I was feeling more awkward with every moment. In the first place I had a partner I couldn't even talk to. And in the second place my partner was a woman!

Even if she were an owl.

Maybe I ought to put my pants on? I wasn't really awake yet, standing there in just my crumpled shorts, I hadn't shaved...

Feeling like a total idiot, I grabbed my clothes and dashed out of the room. I muttered to the owl, "Excuse me, I'll just be a moment."

If this bird really were what I thought it was, I couldn't have made the best of impressions.

What I really wanted was to take a shower, but I couldn't afford to waste that much time. I made do with a shave and sticking my buzzing head under the cold faucet. On the little shelf, between the shampoo and the deodorant, I found some eau de cologne, which I don't normally use.

"Olga?" I called as I stuck my head out into the corridor.

I found the owl in the kitchen, on the refrigerator. Just sitting there looking dead, like a stuffed dummy stuck up there as a joke. Almost the way it had looked on the boss's shelves.

"Are you alive?" I asked.

One amber-yellow eye peered at me.

"All right," I said, spreading my hands. "Why don't we start from the beginning? I realize I haven't made a very good impression. And I'll be honest about it, I do that all the time."

The owl was listening.

"I don't know who you are," I said, straddling a stool and facing the refrigerator. "And you can't tell me either. But I can introduce myself. My name's Anton. Five years ago I discovered that I was one of the Others."

The owl made a sound that was more like a muffled laugh than anything else.

"Yes," I agreed. "Only five years ago. That was just the way things went. I had a very high level of resistance. I didn't want to see the Twilight world. So I didn't, until the boss found me."

The owl seemed to be getting interested.

"He was doing a practical exercise, briefing agents on how to identify secret Others. When he came across me..." I laughed as I remembered. "He broke through my resistance, of course. After that it was very simple... I did the adaptation course and started working in the analytical section... Nothing much really changed in my life. I became one of the Others, but I didn't notice any big difference in my life. The boss wasn't too pleased, but he didn't say anything. I was good at my job, and he had no right to interfere in anything else. But a week ago this vampire maniac turned up in town, and they gave me the job of neutralizing him. Supposedly because all the agents were busy. But really to get me out there in the firing line. Maybe they were right. But during the week another three people were killed. A professional would have caught that vampire duo in a day..."

I really wanted to know what Olga thought about all this. But the owl didn't make a sound.

"What's more important for maintaining the balance?" I asked anyway. "Giving me some operational experience or saving the lives of three innocent people?"

The owl said nothing.

"I couldn't sense the vampires with the usual methods," I went on. "I had to attune myself to them. I didn't drink human blood though, I made do with pig's blood. And all those drugs... but then, you know all about those anyway..."

When I mentioned the drugs, I got up, opened the little cupboard above the stove, and took out a glass jar with a tight-fitting ground-glass stopper. There was only a little bit of the lumpy brown powder left; it made no sense to hand it back in to the department. I tipped the powder into the sink and rinsed it away¡ªthe kitchen was filled with a pungent, dizzying odor. I rinsed out the jar and dropped it into the garbage pail.

"I almost went over the edge," I said. "I was well on the way. Yesterday morning, on my way back from the hunt... I ran into the little girl from next door. I didn't even dare say hello; my fangs had already sprouted. And last night, when I felt the Call summoning the boy... I almost joined the vampires."

The owl was looking into my eyes.

"Why do you think the boss gave me the job?"

A stuffed dummy. Clumps of dusty feathers stuffed with cotton wool.

"So I could see things through their eyes?"

The doorbell rang in the hallway. I sighed and shrugged: It was her own fault, after all; anyone would be better to talk to than this boring bird. I flipped the light on as I walked to the door and opened it.

Standing there in the doorway was a vampire.

"Come in, Kostya," I said, "come in."

He hesitated at the door, but then came in. He ran his hand through his hair¡ªI noticed that his palms were sweaty and his eyes were restless.

Kostya was only seventeen. He was born a vampire, a perfectly ordinary city vampire. It's really tough: With vampire parents a child has almost no chance of growing up human.

"I've brought back the CDs," Kostya muttered. "Here."

I took the pile of compact discs from the boy, not surprised there were so many. I usually had to nag him for ages to bring them back: He was terribly absentminded.

"Did you listen to them all?" I asked. "Did you copy any?"

"Well, um... I'll be going..."

"Wait." I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him into the room. "What's going on?"

He didn't answer.

"You already know?" I asked, beginning to catch on.

"There aren't many of us, Anton," said Kostya, looking me in the eye. "When one of us passes away, we sense it immediately."

"Okay. Take your shoes off; let's go into the kitchen and have a serious talk."

Kostya didn't argue. But I was desperately trying to figure out what to do. Five years earlier, when I became an Other and the Twilight side of the world was revealed to me, I'd made plenty of surprising discoveries. And one of the most shocking was the fact that a family of vampires was living right over my head.

I remember it clearly. I was on my way home from classes that seemed so ordinary, they reminded me of my old college. Three double class periods, a lecturer, heat that glued the white coats to our bodies¡ªwe rented the lecture hall from a medical college. I was fooling around as I walked home, dropping into the Twilight in short bursts¡ªI couldn't manage it for any longer back then. Then I began feeling out the people walking down the street, and at the entrance I ran into my neighbors.

They're really nice people. I wanted to borrow a drill from them once, and Kostya's father, Gennady, a contractor, just came around and had some fun helping out with the concrete walls, demonstrating conclusively that the intelligentsia can't survive without the proletariat...

And now suddenly I could see they weren't human beings at all.

It was terrifying. The brownish-gray auras, the hideous pressure. I stopped dead, staring at them in horror. Polina, Kostya's mother, looked surprised; the boy froze and turned his face away. But the head of the family walked toward me, moving deeper into the Twilight as he came, walking with the elegant stride that only vampires, alive and dead at the same time, have. The Twilight is their natural habitat.

"Hello, Anton," he said.

The world around me was gray and dead. I'd dived into the Twilight after him without even noticing it.

"I knew you'd cross the barrier some day," he said. "Everything's okay."

I took a step back¡ªand Gennady's face quivered.

"Everything's okay," he said. He opened his shirt and I saw the registration tag, a blue imprint on the gray skin. "We're all registered. Polina! Kostya!"

His wife also crossed into the Twilight and unfastened her blouse. The boy didn't move, and it took a stern glance from his father to get him to show his blue seal.

"I have to check," I whispered. My passes were clumsy; I lost track twice and had to start again. Finally the seal responded. Permanent registration, no known violations...

"Is everything okay?" asked Gennady. "Can we go now?"

"Don't worry about it. We knew you'd become an Other someday."

"Go on," I said. It was against the rules, but that was the last thing I was bothered about.

"Yes..." Gennady paused for a moment before he left the Twilight. "I've been in your home... Anton, I return to you your invitation to enter..."

Everything was just as it should be.

They walked away, and I sat down on a bench, beside an old granny warming herself in the sunshine. I lit a cigarette, trying to sort out my thoughts. The granny looked at me and said:

"Nice people, aren't they, Arkasha?"

She was always getting my name wrong. She only had two or three months left to live, I could see that quite clearly now.

"Not exactly..." I said. I smoked three cigarettes, then trudged off into the house. I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching the gray "vampire's trail" fade away. I'd just learned how to see it that very day...

I moped into the evening. I leafed through my notes, which meant I had to withdraw into the Twilight. For the ordinary world, the pages of those standard exercise books were a pure, unsullied white. I wanted to call our group's supervisor or the boss himself¡ªI was his personal responsibility. But I felt I had to make the decision myself.

When it was dark already I couldn't stand it any longer. I went up to the next floor and rang the bell. When Kostya opened the door, he shuddered. But he actually looked perfectly ordinary, like all of his family...

"Call your folks, will you," I asked.

"What for?" he muttered.

"I want to invite you all for tea."

Gennady appeared behind his son's back, appeared out of nowhere; he was far more skillful than me, the newly fledged adept of the Light.

"Are you sure, Anton?" he asked doubtfully. "There's no need. Everything's okay."

"I'm sure."

He paused and then shrugged.

"We'll come around tomorrow. If you invite us. Don't rush things."

By midnight I was feeling absolutely delighted they'd refused. At three I tried to get to sleep, reassured in the knowledge that they couldn't enter my home and never would be able to.

In the morning, still not having slept a wink, I stood at the window, looking out at the city. There weren't many vampires. Very few, in fact. There wasn't another within a radius of two or three kilometers.

How did it feel to be an outcast? To be punished, not for committing a crime, but for the potential ability to commit it? And how did it feel for them to live... well, not live, some other word was required here... alongside their own guard?

On the way back from classes I bought a cake for tea.

And now here was Kostya, a fine, intelligent young man, a student at the physics faculty of Moscow University, who had the misfortune to have been born a living corpse, sitting beside me and raking the spoon around in the sugar bowl like he was too shy to take any. What could have made him so bashful?

At first he used to come around almost every day. I was his direct opposite; I was on the side of the Light. But I let him into my home, and he didn't have to pretend with me. He could simply sit and talk, or he could plunge into the Twilight and boast about the new abilities he'd developed. "Anton, I actually transformed!"¡ª"And now my fangs have started to grow, r-r-r-r!"

And the strange thing was, it was all quite normal. I laughed as I watched the young vampire's attempts to transform himself into a bat¡ªthat's a trick for a top-flight vampire, but he's not one of them and, may the Light grant, he never will be. Just sometimes I would scold him: "Kostya... you mustn't ever do that. Do you understand?" And that was quite normal too.

"Kostya, I was doing my job."

"You shouldn't have."

"They were breaking the law. Do you understand? Not just our law, mind you. It's not just the Light Ones who have accepted it, all the Others have. That young guy..."

"I knew him," Kostya suddenly said. "He was fun to be around."

Damn.

"Did he suffer?"

"No." I shook my head. "The seal kills instantaneously."

Kostya shuddered and squinted down at his own chest for a second. If you enter the Twilight, you can see the seal even through a vampire's clothes, and if you don't, you'll never find it. I don't think he actually moved across. But how should I know what the seal feels like to a vampire?

"What was I supposed to do?" I asked. "He'd already killed. Killed entirely innocent people, who had absolutely no defenses against him. He initiated a girl... by crude force; she should never have become a vampire. Yesterday he almost killed a boy. Just for the sake of it. Not because he was hungry."

"Do you know what our hunger's like?" Kostya asked after a pause.

He was growing up. Right in front of my eyes...

"Yes. Yesterday I... almost became a vampire."

Just a moment's silence.

"I know. I could feel it... I was hoping."

Hell and damnation! While I was conducting my hunt, they'd been hunting me too. Or rather, lying in ambush for me, hoping the hunter would turn into the hunted beast.

"No," I said. "Sorry, no way."

"Okay, so he was guilty," Kostya went on stubbornly. "But why did you have to kill him? He should have been tried. A tribunal, an attorney, a proper charge, the way the law says things should be done..."

"The law says that human beings must not be involved in our business!" I roared. And for the first time that tone of voice failed to make any impression on Kostya.

"You were a human being for too long!"

"And I don't regret it for a moment!"

"Why did you kill him?"

"If I hadn't, he would have killed me!"

"Initiated you!"

"That's even worse!"

Kostya didn't answer that. He put down his tea and stood up. A perfectly ordinary, rather insolent, and morally pained young man.

Except that he was a vampire.

"Wait." I stepped across to the refrigerator. "Take this; they issued it to me, but I didn't need it."

I pulled out the two-hundred-gram bottles of donor's blood from between the bottles of Borzhomi mineral water.

"No thanks."

"Kostya, I know this is a constant problem for you. It's of no use to me. Take it."

"Are you trying to bribe me?"

I started getting angry.

"Why would I need to bribe you? It's just stupid to throw it out, that's all. It's blood. People gave it to help someone."

Kostya suddenly laughed. He reached out, took one of the bottles, and opened it, tearing off the tinfoil cap with practiced ease. He raised the bottle to his lips, laughed again, and took a swallow.

I'd never seen them feed. And never really wanted to.

"Stop that," I said. "Don't be ridiculous."

Kostya's lips were covered with blood, and there was a fine trickle of it running down his neck. Not just running down, but soaking into the skin.

"Do you find the way we feed ourselves disagreeable?"

"Yes."

"So you find me disagreeable as well? All of us?"

I shook my head. We'd never talked about this before. It had been easier that way.

"Kostya, in order to live, you need blood. And, sometimes at least, human blood."

"We don't live."

"I meant in the more general sense. In order to move, think, speak, dream."

"What do you care about a vampire's dreams?"

"Listen, son. There are plenty of people living in the world who need regular blood transfusions. There are at least as many of them as there are of you. And then there are all the emergencies. That's why people give blood, that's why it's such an honorable and respected thing to do... I know about your kind's contributions to the development of medicine and the way you promoted the giving of blood. Kostya, if someone needs blood in order to live... to exist¡ªthat's no big deal. And whether it goes in through the veins or the stomach is irrelevant too. The important thing is how you get hold of it."

"Empty words," Kostya snorted. I got the feeling he'd crossed over into the Twilight for an instant and then popped straight back out. The boy was growing up, all right. And he was getting really strong.

"You showed the way you really feel about us yesterday."

"You're wrong."

"Ah, drop it..." He put the bottle down, then changed his mind and turned it upside down over the sink. "We don't need your..."

I heard a hoot behind me and swung around. I'd completely forgotten about the owl, but now it had turned its head toward Kostya and spread its wings.

"Agh..." he said. "Agh..."

The owl folded its wings and closed its eyes.

"Olga, we're talking," I growled. "Just give us a moment..."

The bird didn't respond. Kostya glanced from me to the owl and back again. Then he sat down and folded his hands on his knees.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked.

"Can I go now?"

He wasn't just surprised or frightened; he was in shock.

"Okay. But take this, will you..."

Kostya began hastily grabbing up the bottles and putting them in his pockets.

"Take a plastic bag, you idiot! What if there's someone in the hallway?"

The vampire obediently packed all the bottles into a plastic bag bearing the noble inscription "For the resurrection of Russian culture!" He gave the owl a sideways glance, went out into the hallway, and began hastily putting on his shoes.

"Come around again," I said. "I'm not your enemy. Not until you cross that line, I'm not."

He nodded and shot out of my apartment like a bullet. I shrugged and closed the door, then went back into the kitchen and looked at the owl.

"Well? What happened there?"

It was impossible to read anything in those amber-yellow eyes. I threw my hands up.

"How can we work together? Eh? How are we going to collaborate? Do you have any way of communicating? I'm trying to be frank with you, do you hear me? A frank conversation!"

I didn't shift all the way into the Twilight, just reached in there with my thoughts. It's not good to trust anyone you don't know like that, but the boss wouldn't have given me a partner I couldn't trust, would he?

No answer. Even if Olga could communicate telepathically, she wasn't going to.

"What shall we do? We need to look for that girl. Will you accept her image?"

No reply. I sighed and tossed the scrap of my memory at the bird anyway.

The owl stretched its wings and soared across onto my shoulder.

"Ah, so we do hear when we're spoken to? But we don't condescend to reply. All right, have it your own way. What shall I do?"

She still wouldn't speak.

In fact, I knew what to do. There was no hope of success, but that was a different matter.

"And how am I going to wander around the streets with you sitting on my shoulder?"

A mocking glance, definitely mocking. And the bird on my shoulder shifted into the Twilight.

So that was it. An invisible observer. And no ordinary observer¡ªKostya's reaction to the owl had been very instructive. Apparently I'd been given a partner that the powers of Darkness knew better than the rank-and-file servants of the Light did.

"Agreed," I said cheerfully. "I'll just grab a bite to eat, okay?"

I took out some yogurt and poured a glass of orange juice. The very thought of what I'd been feeding myself with for the last week¡ªhalf-raw steaks and meat juices that were not much different from blood¡ªmade me feel sick.

"Maybe you'd like a bit of meat?"

The owl turned away.

"Have it your own way," I said. "No doubt when you get hungry you'll find some way to communicate."