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  “Well, well,” said Gesar. “Zabulon, you really do keep abreast of the times. Maybe even a step or two ahead of them.”

  “In the twenty-first century you can’t behave the same way as you did in the fifteenth,” said Zabulon, appearing behind us. “Or even in the twentieth. If you like, I can put you in touch with the owner of the building.”

  None of the Dark Ones reacted at all when we appeared; they seemed to have been forewarned. Well, they squinted sideways at us, of course. And some of the cheekiest ones tried to view us through the Twilight. But on the whole there was a vigorous, upbeat working atmosphere in the hall, the kind that’s typical for a publishing house or a firm producing almost any kind of item. “I’m quite satisfied with our building,” said Gesar.

  “Of course, a remarkable underground dungeon, storerooms, an archive . . . everything the way it should be for the Light Ones,” Zabulon murmured. He was still in the same agitated mood. “This way to the conference room, please. As you can see, we have an open-plan concept, open space. It’s good for team spirit, encourages friendly competition on the job. But right now we have to talk in private . . .”

  No, of course I hadn’t been expecting to see them brewing up philters in human skulls and carving up virgins on black-marble tables in the Day Watch office.

  At our place no one goes around with saintly expressions, discussing highly moral topics in sickly sweet voices.

  But this . . . this was so much like a business!

  Now what kind of bee had flown into Zabulon’s bonnet?

  The conference room in the Day Watch offices was splendid: a minimalist interior with walls of dark-gray tropical wood. The immense window-wall with a view of the Moscow River had red velvet curtains. The table was an antique, at least a hundred years old, covered with green baize fabric that had faded with age. The chairs were also “vintage.”

  “You got it from the Kremlin,” said Gesar, sitting at the head of the table without asking if he could. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Of course,” Zabulon admitted, sitting down opposite him.

  Our family somehow naturally found itself between them. I sat closer to Zabulon and Svetlana was closer to Gesar. Nadya ended up between us.

  “Tell us what happened, Anton,” said Gesar.

  I sighed.

  “Can I count on you answering questions frankly? Both of you?”

  “Yes,” Zabulon said immediately. “You can. I’ll tell you everything I know about what’s going on.”

  Gesar frowned, but he nodded.

  “At breakfast, Nadya told me she had three bodyguards. From both of the Watches and the Inquisition. Only, my wife and I couldn’t spot the Inquisitor,” I said. “And when Svetlana was accompanying Nadya to school, she noticed two Dark Ones and a Light One.”

  “You decided it was that female vampire,” said Gesar.

  “Yes, that’s what we decided,” said Svetlana, nodding.

  “After that it’s all very simple,” I went on. “We dashed to the school . . .”

  “Why didn’t you open a portal?” Zabulon asked.

  “Portals are blocked on the territory of the school,” Gesar said morosely. “They’re allowed on the way out, but not going in. I personally removed the block for you and me, Zabulon.”

  “But why didn’t you run through the Twilight?” asked Zabulon, continuing his interrogation. “You would have saved time.”

  “Entry via the Twilight is closed off too,” I said. “The most we could have done was run as far as the school fence. Which is like switching on a siren as you pull up.”

  “Fair enough,” Zabulon agreed.

  “The Inquisitor was lying dead in the yard. We thought the vampire had done it.”

  “How could a vampire have inflicted wounds like that . . .” Gesar muttered. Fortunately, it wasn’t a question. He’d probably decided to put our stupidity down to parental panic.

  “We ran into the school, saw the wounded guard and the sleeping children . . . And dashed upstairs.”

  “That’s enough, we saw everything from then on,” Zabulon said politely.

  What a creep. Our desperate battle had been fought out right in front of his eyes.

  “Nadya, what do you remember?” asked Gesar.

  Nadya sighed.

  “Almost nothing. The lesson was going on. And then . . . there was a burst of Power out in the yard. A very powerful one. I even decided to take cover in a Sphere of Inattention and go out to take a look . . . Oh, Mum, what’s wrong with that? It was a special situation . . .”

  “Carry on,” said Gesar.

  “But this . . . wave ran through the Twilight,” Nadya said after thinking for a moment. “A wave. Something was moving closer. I couldn’t see it, I only sensed danger. I set up the Sphere, got up, and dashed for the window. I thought I ought to jump out and levitate . . . And that’s all. The next moment Dad woke me up and shouted that Mum needed help.”

  “We’re simply wallowing in information,” Zabulon declared gleefully. “We should celebrate. Does anyone object to coffee? Cigars? Perhaps some cognac?”

  Silence hung in the air for a few seconds. And then Gesar asked:

  “Zabulon, when I called, you weren’t abusing any psychedelic substances, were you?”

  “What?” Zabulon exclaimed, outraged.

  “You weren’t drinking whisky at a tasting in London? Guzzling pills at a party in Thailand? Or sniffing cocaine in Las Vegas?”

  “I was working on some papers,” the Dark One said resentfully. “I’m snowed under with bureaucratic red tape. I’m simply happy to have escaped from that miserable paper shuffling . . . I’m sorry, Gesar, but you’re insulting me!”

  The heads of the Night and Day Watches stared daggers at each other. Both of them were leaving something unsaid. Both of them were being cunning. Both of them were playing the fool—only each in his own way.

  The usual thing, basically.

  “And now I want to hear what you have to say,” I said. “And if I get the impression that you . . . it doesn’t matter which one of you . . . isn’t telling us everything, I’ll take my wife and daughter and clear out of here.”

  “Where to?” Zabulon asked.

  I gave him a broad smile.

  “A place where no one will find us,” Svetlana said in a cool voice. “We’ve had enough, Great Ones. You’ve been toying with us, keeping us in the dark for a long time . . . both of you. Now you’re going to switch on the lights—or we’ll handle our own problems for ourselves.”

  “What happened to the bodyguards?” I asked. “Who is that vampire and why did she come to our rescue? Why were you Great and Wise Ones afraid to show your faces?”

  Gesar and Zabulon looked at each other.

  “Go ahead,” said Gesar. “You’re better at telling the truth.”

  Zabulon nodded. He rested his gaze on Nadya for an instant—as if he was hesitating whether to speak in front of her. But he didn’t try to send her out.

  “We have a crisis, Anton. The most serious crisis for the last two . . . the most serious crisis I can remember, and I can remember a lot of things.”

  “More serious than the Tiger?” I asked doubtfully.

  “An hour ago all the Prophets and all the Higher Seers proclaimed exactly the same prophecy,” said Zabulon.

  “Which Prophets and Seers?” I asked abruptly. “The Dark Ones?”

  “The Dark Ones. The Light Ones. What difference does that make, anyway?” Zabulon asked with an ironic smile.

  “That’s exactly when I called for help . . .” I said, suddenly catching on.

  “No. Slightly earlier. Exactly when the bloody battle began around the school attended by the Absolute Enchantress.”

  “I see,” I said with a nod. “That means when I made my appeal for help, the Light Ones were already trying to make sense of the prophecy. And the Dark Ones too. And the operational HQs were probably working on their own, while Gesar and Zabulon discussed wha
t was happening in private . . . ah, but no. Gesar asked Zabulon where he was . . . What’s the extent of the prophecy? Moscow? The district? The region?” I asked, suddenly transfixed by an ominous presentiment.

  “You weren’t listening properly,” Gesar said abruptly. “And I’ve told you more than once before—forget about that human geography.”

  “All of them, Anton,” said Zabulon. “All the Other Prophets and all the Higher Other Seers. Every single one in the world. It’s a good thing there aren’t many of them.”

  I licked my dry lips. All of us have some prophetic ability. In the crudest form, it’s “calculating a probability,” when even a weak Other (sometimes uninitiated) knows where there’s going to be a traffic jam on the road, or which plane he shouldn’t get on.

  For Higher Others—including even me—it becomes possible to foresee the probability of a certain event. The important thing here is to understand in advance what events have any probability of occurring at all . . .

  Seers see the future constantly. Even when they’re not consciously aware of it. Their world is a shimmering mishmash of the probabilities of human history. In this mishmash Ukraine fights Russia for the Crimea, President Obama converts to Islam, the pope comes out of the closet, and the Netherlands legalizes cannibalism for medical purposes.

  And even far less likely events are also real for Seers.

  The only thing the Seers can’t perceive is the fate of Others. All of us who walk in the Twilight are hidden from them. Our lives and our actions are not so easy to read.

  It’s the Prophets who see us.

  They see absolutely everything. Fortunately not all the time and usually not deliberately. You can’t ask a Prophet to see something specific—the Prophet himself decides (or maybe the Twilight decides for him) what he will see and how he will inform the world.

  “What is foretold?” I asked, not even surprised by the old-fashioned phrase that had flown off my tongue. At that moment it was appropriate.

  “It was not spilled in vain, nor burned to no purpose. The first time has come. The Two shall arise in the flesh and open the doors—” Zabulon suddenly broke off. He looked at me, and in his glance, the glance of an old, pitiless, relentless enemy, I read . . . well, all right, not pity. Commiseration. But a weary kind of commiseration, and for himself too. It was the way the first violin might have looked at the second trombone, standing on the deck of the Titanic as it went down.

  “Three victims, the fourth time . . .” Gesar said dryly, looking at us.

  “Five days are left to the Others,” said Zabulon.

  I sensed Svetlana put her arms around our daughter and hug her close. I didn’t stir a muscle. Somehow I’d lost my fondness for beautiful gestures in recent years. And beautiful words too. And prophecies are always inordinately beautiful.

  “Six days are left to people,” said Gesar.

  “To those who stand in the way, nothing will be left,” Zabulon added.

  And suddenly he smiled his blinding-white smile.

  “The Sixth Watch is dead,” Gesar continued. “The Fifth Power has disappeared. The Fourth has not come in time.”

  “The Third Power does not believe, the Second Power is afraid, the First Power is exhausted,” Zabulon concluded.

  There was silence for several seconds.

  And then Nadya asked: “Did you rehearse that?”

  “What?” Gesar asked, as if he hadn’t heard.

  “You did it so smoothly. One finished and the other started.”

  “It’s a Prophecy, little girl,” said Gesar. “A Prophecy that has just been proclaimed by all the Prophets on earth. I believe your lives are in danger. Yours, your father’s, and your mother’s. You are the three for whom the two have come.”

  “I understood that,” said Nadya. “It’s almost open text . . . for a Prophecy. They’re coming to kill our family. In five days the Others will die. And a day after that—all people will die. Are the days counted from the Prophecy or from when we die?”

  “We haven’t managed to work that out yet,” Zabulon said in an apologetic tone. “Perhaps the countdown has already started, perhaps it was broken off when you survived. All Prophecies are deliberately vague . . .”

  “And that’s why, the moment we started shouting for help, you showed up to observe—but not to help,” Svetlana said in an icy voice. “Wonderful. Gesar, at least you know what I think of you, don’t you?”

  Gesar squirmed on his wide, comfortable chair, looking as if he wanted to start apologizing and roar out some harsh response at the same time.

  “Sveta, stop it,” I told her. “All right. Gesar, Zabulon, we’ve heard you. I accept that there were good reasons for your caution. We’re all going to die, I understand that. Now I’d like to know what you gleaned from observing what was happening, what help you’re prepared to give us, and if there are any materials at all on this subject in the archives of the Watches and the Inquisition.”

  Gesar looked at Zabulon. Zabulon looked at Gesar.

  “Damn and blast . . .” Zabulon suddenly swore, which was completely out of character for him. “Why, you coached him, I’m sure you did . . .”

  “Don’t try to wriggle out of it,” said Gesar.

  Zabulon lowered his hand under the tabletop and brought it back out holding something. His palm was clasped around an old, smoke-blackened pipe, carved of stone or perhaps wood that had long ago turned as hard as stone.

  “Let’s have it, Dark One,” said Gesar.

  Zabulon handed him the pipe without saying a word.

  “So you still say Merlin himself smoked it?” asked Gesar, clearly savoring his moment of triumph. “There wasn’t any tobacco in Europe back then.”

  “You’d be too squeamish to hold it in your hands if I told you what he did smoke,” Zabulon muttered.

  Gesar chuckled and put the pipe into his jacket pocket.

  “So this whole business was just a charade?” Svetlana asked in a tense voice.

  “No,” Gesar answered. “It’s the honest truth. But I still took the risk of placing a bet that neither Anton nor you nor Nadya would panic. Merlin’s own pipe is just too desirable a prize. Even if there are only five days left to own it.”

  CHAPTER 4

  THE WORST THING OF ALL WAS THAT NEITHER GESAR NOR Zabulon had noticed anything special about the Other traitors.

  It was definitely them—the Light Magician Denis and the Dark Magician Alexei. At least, their auras had remained the same. And even the level of their Power hadn’t changed—to a casual outside observer. Third Level for Denis and Fourth Level for Alexei.

  But nonetheless the energy they wielded was so immense that the Great Ones had preferred to avoid giving battle.

  “I would class them as Higher Others,” said Gesar. “Not from their auras, but from the power of their spells.”

  “And the spells themselves are most unusual,” Zabulon added. “I’ve never come across anything like them before.”

  “Maybe they camouflaged themselves?” Svetlana suggested.

  Gesar gave her a heavy, querulous look.

  “Perhaps. Only you see, Sveta . . . You couldn’t camouflage yourself from me. Just as I couldn’t camouflage myself from you. Nadenka, now—she could. Camouflage can only work for a more powerful Other.”

  “So are they ‘Zero’ Others then?” Nadya asked. “Like me?”

  “Well, what did you feel?” Gesar asked her.

  “I couldn’t make out who they were at all,” Nadya confessed. “Just power coming closer. And a sense of danger. Like a tsunami.”

  “Like the Tiger?” Zabulon suddenly asked.

  Nadya shook her head vigorously.

  “No, I could hardly even see the Tiger. Only . . . a kind of rippling . . .” She wiggled her fingers in the air. “If I looked really hard.”

  (That’s the trouble with these descriptions of the indescribable. Nadya was only three years old when she baffled me by saying: “The second layer of
the Twilight is salty!”)

  “Then it’s not the Twilight,” said Zabulon. “Well, most likely not.”

  “Someone unknown to us wants to kill us for reasons also unknown to us,” I said. “Wonderful. And the greatest magicians in Russia can’t understand a thing. And what about the vampire?”

  “Vampiress,” Gesar corrected me. “Unfortunately, Anton, it was a Higher Vampiress in attack mode. Trying to get a good look at her is like trying to count the beats of a hummingbird’s wings as it hovers over a flower bud.”

  Zabulon turned toward Gesar in surprise. He took a cigar (already lit) out of his jacket pocket, took a draw on it, and then said, “My dear enemy. Today is an amazing day. Tell me, have you never thought of writing poetry?”

  “What are you talking about?” Gesar asked in astonishment. “Small hummingbirds flap their wings up to a hundred times a second, which exceeds the physiological capacity of human vision to follow. A vampire in attack mode reaches a speed of a hundred and fifty to a hundred and eighty miles an hour, which over short distances makes him impossible to see clearly. I think I defined the situation very precisely and appropriately.”

  “Ah,” said Zabulon. “I see. Let it go, I was imagining things . . . Yes, Anton, your boss is right. It was a Higher Vampiress. It wasn’t feasible to get a good look at her.”

  “There’s no proof of it, but applying Occam’s Razor, it’s obviously the same one,” Gesar added.

  “What do you mean the ‘same one’?” Zabulon said.

  “It’s not that important,” Gesar said dismissively. “A few days ago we had a series of . . . incidents. Anton was handling it.”

  “A series of incidents with a vampire?” said Zabulon, raising an eyebrow. “And you didn’t register a protest? Curious.”

  “It’s not important, not important,” Gesar repeated in a voice so false that a child wouldn’t have believed him. “Apparently the vampiress has decided to defend Anton, hoping for leniency . . . I’ll make sure to keep you informed.”

  Zabulon chuckled. I had no doubt that now the entire Day Watch would go dashing out to search for the vampiress. And it looked as if that was exactly what Gesar had been trying to achieve.