he opened the door right away.

She didn't ask who it was; she didn't look through the spyhole; she didn't put on the chain. In Moscow! And at night! Alone in her apartment! The vortex was devouring the final remnants of the girl's caution, the caution that had kept her alive for several days. That was usually the way people died when they had been cursed...

But to look at, Svetlana still seemed normal. Except maybe for the shadows under her eyes, but who knew what kind of a night she'd had? And the way she was dressed¡ªa skirt, a stylish blouse, heels¡ªas if she were expecting someone or was all set to go out.

"Good evening, Svetlana," I said, already noticing a faint gleam of recognition in her eyes. Of course, she had a vague memory of me from the previous day. And I had to exploit that moment when she'd already realized we knew each other but still hadn't remembered from where.

I reached out through the Twilight. Cautiously, because the vortex was hanging right there above the girl's head as if it were tethered to her, and it could react at any second. Cautiously, because I didn't really want to deceive her.

Not even if it was for her own good.

It's only the first time that's interesting and funny. If you still find it amusing after that, the Night Watch is the wrong place for you. It's one thing to shift someone's moral imperatives, especially when it's always toward the Good. It's quite another to interfere with their memory. It's inevitable; it has to be done; it's part of the Treaty; and through the very process of entering and leaving the Twilight we induce a momentary amnesia in the people around us.

But if you ever start to enjoy toying with someone else's memory¡ªit's time you quit the Watch.

"Good evening, Anton." Her voice blurred slightly when I forced her to remember things that had never happened. "What's happened?"

I smiled sourly and slapped myself on the stomach. By now there was a hurricane raging in Svetlana's memory. My control wasn't so great that I could implant a fully structured false memory in her mind. Fortunately, in this case I could just give her a couple of hints, and from then on she deceived herself. She put my image together out of one old acquaintance I happened to resemble and another person she'd known and liked even earlier than that, but not for long, as well as a couple of dozen patients my age and some of her neighbors in the building. I only gave the process a gentle nudge, helping Svetlana toward an integrated image. A good man... a neurasthenic... quite often unwell... flirts a bit, but no more than a bit¡ªvery unsure of himself... lives on the next stairwell.

"You have pain?" She gathered her thoughts. She really was a good doctor, with a real vocation.

"A bit. I had a drink yesterday," I said, trying to look repentant.

"Anton, I warned you... come in..."

I went in and closed the door¡ªthe girl hadn't even bothered about that. While I was taking off my coat, I had a quick look around, in the ordinary world and in the Twilight.

Cheap wallpaper, a tattered rug on the floor, an old pair of boots, a light bulb in a simple glass shade on the ceiling, a radio telephone on the wall¡ªcheap Chinese junk. Modest. Clean. Ordinary. And the important thing here wasn't that the profession of district doctor doesn't pay very well. It was more that she didn't feel any need for comfort. That was bad... very bad.

In the Twilight world the apartment made a slightly better impression. No repulsive plant life, no trace of the Darkness. Apart from the black vortex, of course, just hanging there... I could see the entire thing, from the stalk, swirling around above the girl's head, up to the broad mouth, thirty meters higher.

I followed Svetlana through into the only room. At least things were a bit more cozy in here. The couch had a warm orange glow¡ªnot all of it though, just the spot by the old-fashioned standard lamp. Two walls were covered with single-box bookshelves stacked on top of each other, seven shelves high... Clear enough.

I was beginning to understand her, not just as a professional target and a potential victim of a Dark Magician, not just as the unwitting cause of a catastrophe, but as a person. An introverted, bookish child, with a mass of complexes and her head full of crazy ideals and a childish faith in the beautiful prince who was searching for her and would surely find her. Work as a doctor, a few girlfriends, a few male friends, and a great deal of loneliness. Conscientious work almost in the spirit of a builder of communism, occasional visits to the cafe and occasional loves. And each evening like every other one, on the couch, with a book, with the phone lying beside her, with the television muttering something soapy and comforting.

How many of you there still are, girls and boys of various ages, raised by naive parents in the sixties. How many of you there are, so unhappy, not knowing how to be happy. How I long to take pity on you, how I long to help you. To touch you through the Twilight¡ªgently, with no force at all. To give you just a little confidence in yourself, just a tiny bit of optimism, a gram of willpower, a crumb of irony. To help you, so that you could help others.

But I can't.

Every action taken by Good grants permission for an active response by Evil. The Treaty! The Watches! The balance of peace in the world?

I have to live with it or go crazy, break the law, walk through the crowd handing out unsolicited gifts, changing destinies, wondering which corner I'll turn and find my old friends and eternal enemies, waiting to dispatch me into the Twilight. Forever...

"Anton, how's your mother?"

Ah, yes. As Anton Gorodetsky, the patient, I had an old mother. She had osteochondrosis and a full set of old folks' ailments. She was Svetlana's patient too.

"Not too bad, she's okay. I'm the one who's..."

"Lie down."

I pulled off my shirt and sweater and lay down on the couch. Svetlana squatted down beside me. She ran her warm fingers over my stomach and even palpated my liver.

"Does that hurt?"

"No... not now."

"How much did you drink?"

As I replied to the girl's questions, I looked for the answers in her mind. No need to make it look like I was dying. Yes... I had dull pains, not too sharp... After food... I'd just had a little twinge...

"So far it's just gastritis, Anton..." said Svetlana, taking her hands away. "But that's bad enough, you know that. I'll write you a prescription..."

She got up, walked to the door, and took her purse off the hanger.

All this time I was observing the vortex. There was nothing happening; my arrival hadn't triggered any intensification in the Inferno, but it hadn't done anything to weaken it either...

"Anton ..." I recognized the voice coming through the Twilight as Olga's. "Anton, the vortex has lost three centimeters of height. You must have made a right move somewhere. Think, Anton."

A right move? When? I hadn't done anything except invent a reason to visit!

"Anton, do you have any of your ulcer medicine left?" Svetlana asked, looking across at me from the table. I nodded as I tucked in my shirt.

"Yes, a few capsules."

"When you get home, take one. And buy some more tomorrow. Then take them for two weeks, before sleep."

Svetlana was obviously one of those doctors who believe in pills. That didn't bother me, I believed in them too. All of us¡ªthe Others, that is¡ªhave an irrational awe of science; even in cases when elementary magical influence would do the job, we reach out for the painkillers and the antibiotics.

"Svetlana... I hope you don't mind me asking," I said, looking away guiltily. "Have you got problems of some kind?"

"Where did you get that idea, Anton?" she asked, continuing to write and not even glancing in my direction. But she tensed up.

"Just a feeling. Has someone offended you somehow?"

The girl put down her pen and looked at me with curiosity and gentle sympathy in her eyes.

"No, Anton. There's nothing. I expect it's just the winter. The winter's too long."

She gave a forced smile and the Inferno vortex swayed above her head, shifting its stalk greedily...

"The sky's gray, the world's gray. And I don't feel like doing anything... everything seems meaningless. I'm tired, Anton. It'll pass when spring comes."

"You're depressed, Svetlana," I blurted out before I realized that I'd drawn the diagnosis out of her own memory. But she didn't pay any attention.

"Probably. Never mind, when the sun peeps out... Thanks for feeling concerned, Anton."

This time her smile was more genuine, but it was still pained.

I heard Olga's voice whispering through the Twilight:

"Anton, it's down ten centimeters! The vortex is losing height! The analysts are working on it, Anton. Keep talking to her!"

What was I doing right?

That question was more terrifying than "What am I doing wrong?" Make a mistake, and all you have to do is make a sharp change of approach. But if you've hit the target without knowing how you did it, then you're in a real fix. It's tough being a bad shot who's hit the bull's-eye by chance, struggling to remember how you moved your hands and screwed up your eyes, how much pressure your finger applied to the trigger... and not wanting to believe that the bullet was directed to the target by a random gust of wind.

I caught myself sitting and looking at Svetlana. And she was looking at me. Seriously, without speaking.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, Svetlana, forgive me. I came barging in late in the evening, and now I'm interfering in your private life..."

"That's all right, Anton. Actually, I like it. How would you like some tea?"

"Down twenty centimeters, Anton! Say yes!"

Even those few centimeters skimmed off the height of the vortex were a gift from the gods. They were human lives. Tens or even hundreds of lives snatched away from the inevitable catastrophe. I didn't know how I was doing it, but I was increasing Svetlana's resistance to the Inferno. And the vortex was beginning to melt away.

"Thanks, Svetlana. I'd love some."

The girl got up and went into the kitchen. I followed her. What was going on here?

"Anton, we have a provisional analysis..."

I thought I glimpsed the white silhouette of a bird through the curtained window¡ªit flitted on along the wall, following Svetlana.

"Ignat followed the usual plan. Compliments, interest, infatuation, love. She liked it, but it made the vortex grow. You're using a different approach¡ªsympathy. Passive sympathy."

No recommendations followed, which meant the analysts hadn't reached any conclusions yet. But at least now I knew what I had to do next: look at her sadly, smile sympathetically, drink tea, and say: "Your eyes look tired, Sveta..."

We'd be talking to each other like friends, right? Of course we would. I was certain of that.

"Anton?"

I'd been staring at her too long. Svetlana was standing by the stove, not moving, holding a kettle with its shiny surface dulled by condensation. She wasn't exactly frightened, that feeling was already beyond her, completely drained out of her by the black vortex. It was more like she was embarrassed.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Yes. It feels awkward, Svetlana. I just turned up in the middle of the night, dumped my problems on you, and now I'm hanging around, waiting for tea..."

"Anton, please stay. You know, I've had such a strange day, and being here alone... Let's call it my fee for the consultation, shall we? That is... you staying for a while and talking to me," she explained hastily.

I nodded. Any word might be a mistake.

"The vortex has shrunk another fifteen centimeters. You've chosen the right tactic, Anton!"

But I hadn't chosen anything, why couldn't those lousy analysts understand that! I'd used the powers of an Other to enter someone else's home; I'd interfered with someone else's memory so I could stay there longer... and now I was just going with the flow.

And hoping the current would bring me out where I needed to be.

"Would you like some jam, Anton?"

"Yes..."

A mad tea party! Move over, Lewis Carroll! The maddest tea parties aren't the ones in the rabbit's burrow, with the Mad Hatter, the Sleepy Dormouse, and the March Hare around the table.

A small kitchen in a small apartment, tea left over from the morning, topped up with boiling water, raspberry jam from a three-liter jar¡ªthis is the stage on which unknown actors play out genuinely mad tea parties. This is the place, the only place where they say the words that they would never say otherwise. This is where they pull nasty little secrets out of the darkness with a conjuror's flourish, where they take the family skeletons out of the closet, where they discover the cyanide sprinkled in the sugar bowl. And you can never find a reason to get up and leave, because every time they pour you more tea, offer you jam, and move the sugar bowl a bit closer...

"Anton, I've known you for a year already..."

A shadow, a brief, perplexed shadow in the girl's eyes. Her memory obligingly fills in the blanks, her memory hands her explanations for why a man as likeable and good as me is still no more than her patient.

"Only from my work, of course, but now... I feel I'd like to talk to you somehow... as a neighbor. As a friend. Is that okay?"

"Of course, Sveta."

A grateful smile. It's not so easy to use the familiar form of my name. From Anton to Antoshka is too big a step.

"Thank you, Anton. You know... I just don't know where I am. For the last three days now."

Of course, it's not so easy to know where you are when you have the sword of Nemesis hanging over you. Blind, furious Nemesis, escaped from the power of the dead gods...

"Today... never mind..."

She wanted to tell me about Ignat. She didn't understand what was happening to her, why a chance encounter had almost gotten all the way to the bed. She felt like she was going insane. Everybody who comes within the Others' sphere of activity has thoughts like that.

"Svetlana, perhaps... perhaps you've fallen out with someone?"

That was a crude move. But I was in a hurry. I didn't even know why myself; so far the vortex was stable, it was even shrinking. But I was in a hurry.

"Why do you think that?"

Svetlana wasn't surprised and she didn't think the question was too personal. I shrugged and tried to explain:

"It often happens to me."

"No, Anton. I haven't fallen out with anyone. I've no one to fall out with, and no reason. It's something inside me..."

That's where you're wrong, girl, I thought. You've no idea how wrong you are. Black vortices the size of the one hanging over you appear only once in every hundred years. And that means someone hates you with the kind of power rarely granted to anyone... even to an Other.

"You probably need a vacation," I suggested. "To get away somewhere... far away to the back of beyond..."

When I said that, I realized there was a solution to the problem after all. Maybe not a complete solution; it would still be fatal for Svetlana. She could go away. Out into the taiga or the tundra, to the North Pole. And then it would happen there¡ªthe volcano would erupt, the asteroid would hit, or the cruise missile with the nuclear warheads would strike. The Inferno would erupt, but Svetlana would be the only one to suffer.

It's a good thing that solutions like that are as impossible for us as the murder suggested by the Dark Magician.

"What are you thinking, Anton?"

"Sveta, what's happened to you?"

"Too abrupt, Anton! Steer the conversation away from that, Anton!"

"Is it really that obvious?"

"Yes."

Svetlana lowered her eyes. Any moment I was expecting Olga to shout that the black vortex had begun its final, catastrophic spurt of growth, that I'd ruined everything, and now I'd have thousands of human lives on my conscience forever... but Olga didn't say a word.

"I betrayed..."

"What?"

"I betrayed my mother."

She looked at me seriously, not a trace of the disgusting posturing of someone who's pulled some really low-down trick and is boasting about it.

"I don't understand, Sveta..."

"My mother's ill, Anton. Her kidneys. She needs regular dialysis... but that's only a half-measure. Well, anyway, they suggested a transplant to me."

"Why suggest that to you?" I still didn't understand.

"They suggested I should give my mother one kidney. It would almost certainly be accepted; I even had all the tests done... and then I refused. I'm... I'm afraid."

I didn't say anything. Everything was clear now. Something about me must have clicked; something about me had made Svetlana feel she could be totally open with me. So it was her mother.

Her mother!

" Well done, Anton. The guys are already on their way." Olga's voice sounded triumphant. And so it should¡ªwe'd found the Black Magician! "Would you believe it, at first contact nobody felt a thing, they thought there was nothing to her... Well done. Calm her down, Anton, talk to her, comfort her..."

You can't stop your ears in the Twilight. You have to listen when you're spoken to.

"Svetlana, you know no one has the right to demand..."

"Yes, of course. I told my mother, and she told me to forget about it. She said she'd kill herself if I decided to go ahead with it. She said, what difference did it make to her, when she was going to die anyway? And it wasn't worth crippling myself for her. I shouldn't have told her anything. I should have just donated the kidney. She could have found out later, after the operation. You can even give birth with one kidney... there have been cases."

Kidneys. What nonsense. What a petty problem. One hour's work for a genuine White Magician. But we weren't allowed to heal people; every genuine cure gave a Dark Magician a permit to cast a curse or put the evil eye on someone. And it was her mother... her own mother, who had cursed her, in a split-second emotional outburst, without realizing what she was doing, while she was telling her daughter not even to think about having the operation.

And that had set the monstrous black vortex growing.

"I don't know what I ought to do now, Anton. I keep doing stupid things. Today I almost jumped into bed with a stranger." For Svetlana to tell me that must have been almost as difficult as telling me about her mother.

"Sveta, we can work this out," I began. "The important thing is not just to give up, not punish yourself unnecessarily..."

"I told her on purpose, Anton! I knew what she'd say! I wanted to be told not to do it! She ought to have cursed me, the damned old fool!"

Svetlana had no idea how right she was... No one knows what mechanisms are involved here, what goes on in the Twilight, and how being cursed by a stranger is different from being cursed by someone you love, by your son or by your mother. Except that a mother's curse is the most terrible of all.

"Anton, take it easy."

The sound of Olga's voice sobered me up instantly.

"That's too simple, Anton. Have you ever dealt with a mother's curse?"

"No," I said. I said it out loud, answering Svetlana and Olga at the same time.

"I'm to blame," said Svetlana, with a shake of her head. "Thanks, Anton, I'm to blame and no one else."

"I have," the voice said through the Twilight. "Anton, my friend, this looks all wrong! A mother's curse is a blinding black explosion and a large vortex. But it always dissipates in an instant. Almost always."

Maybe so. I didn't argue with her. Olga was a specialist in curses, and she'd seen all sorts of things. Of course, nobody would wish their own child ill... at least, not for long. But there were exceptions.

"Exceptions are possible," Olga agreed. "They'll check her mother out thoroughly now. But... I wouldn't count on this being over soon."

"Svetlana," I asked. "Isn't there any other solution? Some other way to help your mother? Apart from a transplant?"

"No. I'm a doctor, I know. Medicine's not all-powerful."

"What if it wasn't medicine?"

She was puzzled:

"What do you mean, Anton?"

"Alternative medicine," I said. "Folk medicine."

"Anton..."

"I understand, Svetlana; it's hard to believe," I added hastily. "There are so many charlatans, con men, and psychos out there. But is all of it really lies?"

"Anton, can you show me one person who has cured a really serious illness?" said Svetlana, looking at me ironically. "Not just tell me about him, but show him to me. And his patients too, preferably before and after treatment. Then I'll believe. I'll believe in anything, in psychics, and healers, in White Magicians and Black Magicians..."

I couldn't help squirming on my chair. She had the most absolute proof possible of the existence of "black" magic hanging right there over her head, a textbook case.

"I can show you one," I said. I remembered how they'd brought Danila into the office one time. It was after an ordinary fight¡ªnot absolutely standard, but not too heavy either. He'd just been unlucky. They were detaining a family of werewolves for some petty violation of the Treaty. The werewolves could have given themselves up and nothing more would have come of it than a brief joint investigation by the two Watches.

But the werewolves decided to resist. They probably had an entire trail of bloody crimes behind them that the Night Watch knew nothing about¡ªand now they never would. Danila went in first and got badly mauled. His left lung, his heart, a deep trauma to the liver, one kidney torn right out.

The boss fixed Danila up, with a helping hand from almost everyone in the Watch who had any strength right then. I was standing in the third circle; our job was not so much to provide the boss with energy as to cut out external influences. But sometimes I took a look at Danila. He kept sinking into the Twilight, either on his own or with the boss. Every time he surfaced into reality his wounds were smaller. It was impressive, but not really all that difficult; after all, the wounds were still fresh and they weren't predestined. But I had no doubt that the boss could cure Svetlana's mother. Even if the line of her destiny broke off in the near future, even if she was definitely going to die. She could be cured. Death would simply be due to other causes...

"Anton, aren't you afraid to talk like that?"

I shrugged. Svetlana sighed.

"If you give someone hope, you become responsible, Anton. I don't believe in miracles. But right now I just might. Doesn't that scare you?"

I looked into her eyes.

"No, Svetlana. There are lots of things that scare me. But different things."

"Anton, the vortex is down by twenty centimeters. The boss says to tell you well done."

There was something about her voice I didn't like. A conversation through the Twilight isn't like an ordinary one; you can sense emotions.

"What's happened?" I asked through the dead gray shroud.

"Keep going, Anton."

"What's happened?"

"I wish I could feel so self-assured," said Svetlana. She looked at the window: "Did you hear that? A kind of rustling sound..."

"The wind," I suggested. "Or someone walking by."

"Olga, tell me!"

"Anton, everything's fine with the vortex. It's slowly shrinking. You're increasing her internal resistance somehow. They calculate that by morning the vortex will have shrunk to a theoretically safe size. Then I can get to work."

"Then what's the problem? There is one, Olga, I can sense it!"

She didn't answer.

"Olga, are we partners or not?"

That worked. I couldn't see the white owl, but I knew her eyes had glinted and she'd glanced toward the windows of our field headquarters, into the faces of the boss and the observer from the Dark Ones.

"Anton, there's a problem with the boy."

"With Egor?"

"Anton, what are you thinking about?" Svetlana asked. It was hard work holding simultaneous conversations in the real world and the Twilight one...

"Just wishing I could be in two places at the same time."

"Anton, your mission is far more important."

"Tell me, Olga."

"I don't understand, Anton." That was Svetlana again.

"You know, I've just realized that a friend of mine is in trouble. Big trouble," I said, looking into her eyes.

"The girl-vampire. She's taken the boy."

I didn't feel a thing... No emotions, no pity, no anger, no sadness. I just felt cold and empty inside.

I must have been expecting it. I didn't know why, but I was.

"But Bear and Tiger Cub are there!"

"It just happened."

"And what's happened to him?"

As long as she hadn't initiated him! Death, simple death. Eternal death was more terrible.

"He's alive. She's taken him as a hostage."

"What?"

That had never happened before. It had simply never happened. Taking hostages was a game human beings played.

"The girl-vampire's demanding negotiations. She wants a trial... she's hoping to find some way out."

In my head I gave the vampire ten out of ten for inventiveness. She didn't have a chance of getting away and she'd never had one. But if she could shift all the blame onto her eliminated friend, the one who'd initiated her... I don't know anything, I don't understand a thing. I just got bitten and turned into what I am. I didn't know the rules. I hadn't read the Treaty. I'll be a normal, law-abiding vampire...

"It might even work!" I thought. Especially if Night Watch made a few concessions. And we would... we had no choice. Every human life had to be protected.

I even went limp in relief. You might say, what was the kid to me, anyway? If he'd drawn the short straw, he could have been the legitimate prey of vampires and werewolves. That's just the way life is. And I'd have walked on by. Never mind the short straw¡ªhow many times had Night Watch gotten there too late, how many people had been killed by the Dark Ones... But it was a strange thing. I was already involved in the struggle for him, I'd stepped into the Twilight and spilled blood. And it wasn't all the same to me anymore. Not by a long way...

Conversations in the Twilight move a lot faster than they do in the human world. But I still had to divide myself between Olga and Svetlana.

"Anton, don't bother your head about my problems."

In spite of everything, I felt like laughing. Right then there were hundreds of heads trying to deal with her problems, and Svetlana had no idea; she knew nothing about it. But it was enough to mention other people's problems, so tiny in comparison with the black inferno vortex, and she immediately started worrying about them.

"You know," I said, "there's a law called the law of paired events. You have problems, but I wasn't talking about them. There's someone else who has really big problems. His own personal problems. But that doesn't make them any easier."

She understood. I liked the fact that she wasn't embarrassed, either. She just added:

"My problems are personal too."

"Not entirely," I said. "At least, I don't think so."

"And that other person¡ªcan you help him?"

"Someone else will help him," I said.

"Are you sure? Thanks for listening to me, but it's impossible to help me. It's just my dumb destiny, I guess."

"Is she throwing me out?" I asked through the Twilight. I didn't want to touch her mind right then.

"No," Olga replied. "No... Anton, she can feel it."

Did she really have some Other powers? Or was it just a freak upsurge, triggered by the Inferno?

"What can she feel?"

"That you're needed at the other place."

"Why me?"

"That crazy bloodsucking bitch is demanding you for the negotiations. The one who killed her partner."

That really made me feel sick. We'd done an elective on anti-terrorist tactics, more so that we could avoid having to use our powers as Others if we got caught up in human disputes than for any real requirements of the job. We'd covered terrorist psychology, and in those terms, the vampire was acting perfectly logically. I was the first Watch agent she had ever come across. I'd killed her mentor and wounded her. For her the image of her enemy was concentrated in me.

"How long has she been asking for me?"

"About ten minutes."

I looked into Svetlana's eyes. Dry, calm, not a single tear. The hardest thing of all is when pain is hidden behind a mask of calm.

"Sveta, would you mind if I went now?"

She shrugged.

"This is all so stupid..." I said. "It seems to me that you need help right now. At least someone who can listen to you. Or is willing to sit beside you and drink cold tea."

A faint smile and a barely perceptible nod.

"But you're right... there is someone else who needs help."

"Anton, you're strange."

I shook my head:

"Not strange. Very strange."

"I have this feeling... I've known you for a long time, but it's like we'd never met before. And then¡ªit's like you're talking to me and someone else at the same time."

"Yes," I said. "That's it exactly."

"Maybe I'm going insane?"

"No."

"Anton... this wasn't just a chance visit, was it?"

I didn't answer. Olga whispered something and stopped talking. The gigantic vortex rotated slowly above her head.

"No, it wasn't," I said. "I came to help."

If the Dark Magician who had cursed her were watching us... That is, if it weren't just an accidental "mother's curse," but a calculated blow struck by a professional...

We looked at each other without saying anything.

I had the feeling I could almost grasp what was really going on here. The answer was there, right beside me, and all our theories were stupid nonsense; we were following the old rules and maps that the boss had asked me to ditch. But to do that, I needed to think. I had to cut myself off for at least a second from what was going on, stare at a blank wall or a mindless TV screen, and stop feeling torn between the desire to help one small human being and tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Stop swinging one way, then the other, trying to resolve this lousy situation, which would still turn out badly whichever way the cards fell, and the only difference it would make to me was that I would die quickly when the blast of the Inferno flung me into the gray expanses of the Twilight world, or slowly and painfully, kindling the dull flame of self-contempt in my own heart...

"Sveta, I've got to go," I said.

"Anton!" It wasn't Olga; it was the boss. "Anton ..."

He stopped; he couldn't give me any orders; the situation was an ethical impasse. The girl-vampire was obviously sticking to her demands and refusing to negotiate with anyone except me. If he ordered me to stay, the boss would condemn the young hostage to death... He couldn't order me, he couldn't even ask me.

"We're organizing your withdrawal..."

"Better just tell the vampire I'm coming."

Svetlana reached out and touched my hand:

"Are you going away forever?"

"Just until the morning," I said.

"I don't want you to go," she said simply.

"I know."

"Who are you?"

An express introduction to the mysteries of the universe? The same scene all over again?

"I'll tell you in the morning. Okay?"

"You're out of your mind," said the boss's voice.

"Do you really have to go away?"

"Don't say that!" Olga shouted. She'd sensed what I was thinking.

But I said it anyway.

"Sveta, when they suggested you should mutilate yourself to prolong your mother's life, and you refused... You did what was right, what was rational, didn't you? But now you're suffering. And the pain's so bad, it would have been better to act irrationally."

"If you don't go now, will you suffer?"

"Yes."

"Then go. Only come back, Anton."

I got up from the table, leaving my cold tea. The Inferno vortex swayed above us.

"I will, for sure," I said. "And believe me... The situation isn't hopeless."

Neither of us said another word. I went out of the apartment and began walking down the stairs. Svetlana closed the door behind me. That silence... That deathly silence; even the dogs had howled themselves out that night.

"Irrational," I thought, "I'm being irrational. If there's no ethically correct solution, act irrationally. Did someone tell me that? Have I just remembered a line from my old course notes, a phrase from a lecture? Or am I looking for excuses?"

"The vortex ..." Olga whispered. Her voice was almost unrecognizable, husky. I wanted to press her head against my shoulder.

I pushed the entrance door open and slipped out onto the icy sidewalk. The white owl circled above my head like a bundle of fluff.

The Inferno vortex had shrunk; it was shorter. Not a lot, relative to its overall height, but enough so that I could see it, maybe one and a half or two meters.

"Did you know that would happen?" asked the boss.

I looked up at the vortex and shook my head. Just what was going on here? Why had the Inferno reacted by growing larger and stronger when Ignat showed up? Putting people into a mellow state of mind was his specialty. Why had my aimless conversation and unexpected departure made the vortex shrink?

"It's time I fired that group of analysts," said the boss. I realized he'd said it to everyone, not just me. "When will we have a working hypothesis for what's going on?"

A car suddenly appeared from the direction of Zelyony Avenue, catching me in the glare of its headlights. Its tires squealed as it bounced clumsily over the bumps of broken asphalt and stopped beside the entrance. The hot-orange, low-slung, sporty cabriolet looked absurd, surrounded by the prefabricated, multistory blocks of a city where the best way of getting around was still a jeep.

Semyon stuck his head out on the driver's side and nodded:

"Get in. I've been told to drive you like the wind."

I looked around at Olga and she sensed my glance.

"I've got a job to do here. Go."

I walked around the car and got into the front. Ilya was sprawled in the back¡ªthe boss must have decided the Tiger Cub-Bear double act needed reinforcements.

"Anton," said Olga's voice, pursuing me through the Twilight. "Remember... you made a deal today. Don't forget that, not for a single moment..."

I didn't understand at first what she was talking about. The witch from the Day Watch? What did she have to do with anything?

The car jerked, scraping across the hummocks of ice. Semyon swore with relish as he twisted the wheel, and the car began crawling toward the avenue with an indignant roar.

"What half-wit did you get the wheels from?" I asked. "Driving around in this weather..."

Ilya chuckled.

"Shshsh! Boris Ignatievich has lent you his very own car."

"Are you serious?" I asked, turning to face him. The boss was always delivered to work in his company BMW. I'd never realized he had a yen for impractical luxury...

"It's the truth. Antoshka, how did you manage that?" Ilya nodded in the direction of the vortex hanging above the houses. "I never realized you had powers like that!"

"I never touched it. Just talked to the girl."

"Talked? You mean you didn't actually fuck her?"

That was Ilya's usual way of talking when he was feeling tense about something. And he had plenty of reasons for feeling tense just then. But it still made me wince. I thought what he said sounded strained... or maybe he just hit a raw nerve.

"No. Ilya, don't talk that way."

"Sorry," he said flippantly. "So what did you do?"

"I just talked."

The car finally hurtled out onto the avenue.

"Hold tight," said Semyon curtly. I was pressed back in my seat. Ilya lolled about behind me, taking out a cigarette and lighting up.

Twenty seconds later I realized that my last drive had been a walk in the park.

"Semyon, has the probability of an accident been deleted?" I shouted. The car hurtled through the night, as if it were trying to overtake the beams of its own headlights.

"I've been driving for severity years," Semyon said contemptuously. "I drove trucks on the Road of Life during the Siege of Leningrad!"

There was no reason to doubt what he said, but the thought crossed my mind that those journeys had been less dangerous. He hadn't been moving this fast, and guessing where a bomb's going to fall is no great trick for an Other. There weren't many cars around just then, but there were some; the road was terrible, to put it mildly; and our sports car was never meant for conditions like this...

"Ilya, what happened over there," I asked, trying to tear my eyes away from a truck dodging out of our path. "Have you been posted on that?"

"You mean with the vampire and the kid?"

"Yes."

"We did something stupid, that's what happened," said Ilya, and then he swore. "Maybe not really all that stupid... We'd done everything right. Tiger Cub and Bear introduced themselves to the kid's parents as their favorite distant relatives."

"We're from the Urals?" I asked, thinking of our course on social contacts and different ways of getting to know people.

"Yes. Everything was going fine. The table was set, the drink was flowing, they were gorging on Urals delicacies... from the nearest supermarket..."

I remembered Bear's heavy bag.

"They were really having a great time." That note in Ilya's voice didn't sound like envy, more like enthusiastic approval of his colleagues. "Everything was just hunky-dory. The kid sat with them some of the time; some of the time he was in his room... How could they know he was already able to enter the Twilight?"

I felt a cold shudder.

Well, how could they have known?

I hadn't told them. And I hadn't told the boss. Or anyone. I'd been satisfied with pulling the kid out of the Twilight and sacrificing a little drop of my own blood. A hero. The solitary warrior in the field.

Ilya went on, not suspecting a thing.

"The vampire hooked him with the Call. Very neatly too; the guys didn't feel a thing. And firmly... the kid never even peeped. He entered the Twilight and climbed up onto the roof."

"How?"

"Over the balconies. He only had to climb up three floors. The vampire was already waiting for him. And she knew the boy was under guard¡ªthe moment she grabbed him, she revealed herself. Now the parents are sound asleep and the vampire's standing there with her arms around the kid, while Tiger Cub and Bear are going out of their minds."

I didn't say anything. I didn't have anything to say.

"Our stupid mistake," Ilya concluded. "And a combination of unforeseen circumstances with fatal consequences. Nobody had even initiated the kid... How could anyone know he could enter the Twilight?"

"I knew."

Maybe it was my memories that did it, or maybe I was just frightened by our terrible speed as the car raced along the highway, but I looked into the Twilight.

People are so lucky that they can't see this¡ªever! And so unlucky that they will never be able to see it!

A high, gray sky, where there have never been any stars, a sky as glutinous as milk jelly, glowing with a ghastly, wan light. The outlines of everything have softened and dissolved¡ªthe buildings, covered with a carpet of blue moss, and the trees, with branches that sway regardless of which way the wind's blowing, and the streetlamps, with the twilight birds circling above them, barely moving their short wings. The cars coming toward you move really slowly, the people walking along the street are hardly even moving their feet. Everything seen through a gray light filter, everything heard through plugs of cotton wool in your ears. A silent, black and white movie, an eerie, elegant director's cut. The world from which we draw our strength. The world that drinks our life. The Twilight. Whoever you really are when you enter it, that's who you are when you come out. The gray gloom will dissolve the shell that has been growing over you all your life, extract the tiny core that people call the soul and test its quality.

And that's when you'll feel yourself crunching in the jaws of the Twilight; you'll feel the chilly, piercing wind, as corrosive as snake venom... and you'll become one of the Others.

And choose which side to take.

"Is the boy still in the Twilight?" I asked.

"They're all in the Twilight..." said Ilya, diving in there after me. "Anton, why didn't you tell them?"

"It never occurred to me. I didn't think it was that important. I'm not a field operative, Ilya."

He shook his head.

We find it impossible, or almost impossible, to reproach each other, especially when someone's really messed up. There's no need; our punishment is always there, all around us. The Twilight gives us more strength than human beings can ever have; it gives us a life that is almost immortal in human terms. And it also takes it all away when the time comes.

In one sense we all live on borrowed time. Not just the vampires and werewolves who have to kill in order to prolong their strange existence. The Dark Ones can't afford to do good. And we can't afford the opposite.

"If I don't pull this off..." I didn't finish. Everything was already clear anyway.