The Twilight Watch (32 page)

'Agreed,' Gesar said after a pause.

'A most astonishing unity of thought between Dark Ones and
Light Ones,' said Edgar. 'You're frightening me, gentlemen.'

'This is no time for disagreements,' Zabulon replied. 'We have
to find the killer and the book.'

They both definitely had their own reasons for protecting Arina.

'Good.' Edgar nodded. 'Let's go back to the beginning. Witiezslav
calls me and tells me about the
Fuaran
. Nobody hears the conversation.'

'All mobile phone calls are monitored and recorded . . .' I put
in.

'What are you suggesting, Anton?' Edgar looked at me ironically.
'That the human secret services are conducting a campaign
against the Others? And when they heard about the book, they
sent an agent here, and he killed a Higher Vampire?'

'Anton might not be that far off the mark,' Gesar said in my
defence. 'You know, Edgar, every year we have to suppress human
activity directed at exposing us. And you know about the special
departments in the secret services . . .'

'We have people in them,' Edgar retorted. 'But even if we assume
that they're searching for Others again, and that there's been a
leak, Witiezslav's death is still a mystery. Not even James Bond
could have crept up on him without being noticed.'

'Who's James Bond?' Zabulon enquired.

'That's another myth,' Gesar laughed. 'Contemporary mythology.
Gentlemen, let us not waste time in idle discussion. The situation
is perfectly clear. Witiezslav was killed by an Other. A powerful
Other. And most likely someone he trusted.'

'He didn't trust anyone, not even me,' muttered Edgar. 'Suspicion
is in a vampire's blood . . . pardon the pun.'

Nobody smiled. Kostya gave Edgar a moody glance, but said
nothing.

'Are you suggesting we should check the memories of everyone
here?' Gesar asked politely.

'Would you agree?' Edgar responded eagerly.

'No,' Gesar snapped. 'I appreciate the work done by the
Inquisition, but there are limits.'

'Then we're stuck.' Edgar shrugged. 'Gentlemen, if you are not
willing to co-operate . . .'

Svetlana cleared her throat delicately and asked:

'May I speak?'

'Yes, yes, of course.' Edgar nodded.

'I think we're on the wrong track,' said Svetlana. 'You have
decided that we need to find the killer, and then we'll find the
book. That's right, only we don't know who the killer is. Why
don't we try to find the
Fuaran
? And then locate the killer through
the book?'

'And how are you going to look for the book, Light One?'
Zabulon asked ironically. 'Send for this James Bond?'

Svetlana reached out her hand and cautiously touched Arina's
note.

'As I understand it, the witch put this note on the book. Perhaps
even between its pages. The two things were in contact for some
period of time, and the book is a very powerful magical object.
If we summon up a simulacrum . . . the way that novice magicians
are taught to do . . .'

She faltered under the gaze of the Higher Magicians and began
to lose her thread. But both Zabulon and Gesar were looking at
her encouragingly.

'Yes, there is magic like that,' Gesar murmured. 'Of course, I
remember . . . they stole my horse once, and I was left with just
the bridle . . .'

He stopped and shot a glance at Zabulon, then suggested in a
friendly tone of voice:

'After you, Dark One. You create the simulacrum!'

'I'd prefer you to do it,' Zabulon replied with equal politeness.
'There'll be no unnecessary suspicion of deception.'

There was something wrong here. But what?

'Well then, as the old saying goes: 'First lash to the informer'!'
Gesar responded cheerfully. Svetlana, your idea is accepted. Go
ahead.'

Svetlana looked at Gesar in embarrassment:

'Boris Ignatievich . . . I'm sorry, these are such simple magical
actions . . . It's such a long time since I performed them. Perhaps
we ought to ask one of the junior magicians?'

So that was it . . . The Great Ones couldn't manage the basic
elements of magic that were taught to beginners. They were
confused and embarrassed – like academics who have been asked
to multiply figures in a long column and write out letters in neat
lines.

'Allow me,' I said. Without waiting for an answer, I reached out
one hand towards the note. I half-closed my eyelids so that the
shadow fell on my eyes and looked at the grey piece of paper
through the Twilight. I imagined the book – a thick volume bound
in human skin, the journal of a witch cursed by humans and
Others alike . . .

Gradually the image began taking shape. The book was almost
exactly as I had visualised it, except that the corners of the binding
were protected by triangles of metal. Evidently a later addition –
one of the
Fuaran
s' owners had taken care to preserve it.

'So that's what it's like,' Gesar said with lively interest. 'Well,
there it is . . .'

The magicians rose from their seats and examined the image of
the book – which only Others could see. The note was quivering
gently on the table, as if there was a draught in the room.

'Can we open it?' asked Kostya.

'No, it's only an image, it doesn't contain the essential nature
of the object . . .' Gesar said. 'Go on, Anton. Stabilise it . . . and
invent some kind of tracking mechanism.'

It was hard enough for me to stabilise the image of the book.
And I was definitely not prepared to come up with a tracking
mechanism. Eventually I settled on a grotesque simulacrum of a
compass – it was huge, the size of a dinner plate, with a pointer
swinging on a pin. One end of the pointer glowed more brightly
– the end that was supposed to point towards the
Fuaran
.

'Add more energy,' Gesar said. 'Keep it working for at least a
week . . . you never know.'

I added more energy.

And then, completely exhausted, but pleased with myself, I
relaxed.

We looked at the compass floating in the Twilight. The pointer
was pointing directly at Zabulon.

'Is this a joke, Gorodetsky?' he enquired, getting up and moving
to one side.

The pointer didn't waver.

'Good,' Gesar said, sounding pleased. 'Edgar, get your agents
back in here.'

Edgar walked to the door and called, then returned to the table.

One by one the Inquisitors came in.

The pointer didn't move. It still pointed at empty space.

'
Quod erat demonstrandum
– that's what we needed to prove,'
Edgar said, relieved. 'Nobody here is involved in the theft of the
book.'

'It's trembling,' said Zabulon, looking closely at the compass.

'The pointer's trembling. And since we didn't observe any legs on
the book . . .'

He laughed a wicked, devilish laugh, clapped Edgar on the
shoulder and asked.

'Well then, senior comrade? Do you require any assistance with
the arrest?'

Edgar was also watching the compass carefully. Then he asked:

'Anton, how accurate is the device?'

'Not very, I'm afraid,' I admitted. 'The trace left by the book
was very weak.'

'How accurate?' Edgar repeated.

'To within about a hundred metres,' I suggested. 'Maybe fifty.
If I'm right, when the target's close, the pointer will start to swing
about chaotically. I'm sorry.'

'Don't let it bother you, Anton, you did everything right,' Gesar
said. 'No one could have done better with such a weak trace to
work on. A hundred metres it is . . . can you determine the distance
to the target?'

'Roughly, from how brightly the pointer glows . . . About a
hundred and ten, a hundred and twenty kilometres.'

Gesar frowned.

'The book's already in Moscow. We're wasting time, gentlemen.
Edgar!'

The Inquisitor put one hand in his pocket and took out a small
yellowish-white sphere. It looked like a pool ball, only a little
smaller, and it had incomprehensible pictograms engraved haphazardly
on its surface. Edgar squeezed the sphere tightly in his hand
and concentrated.

A moment later I felt something changing. As if there had been
a shroud hanging in the air – invisible to the eye, but palpable
nonetheless – and now it was disappearing, being sucked into the
small sphere of ivory . . .

'I didn't know the Inquisition still had Minoan spheres,' said
Gesar.

'No comment,' said Edgar. He smiled, pleased at the effect he
had produced. 'That's it, the barrier has been removed. Put up a
portal, Great Ones!'

Of course. A direct portal, without any reference points in place
at 'the other end' was a riddle for Great Ones to solve. Edgar
either couldn't do it, or he was saving his strength . . .

Gesar squinted at Zabulon and asked:

'Do you trust me to do it again?'

Zabulon made a pass with his hand without speaking – and a
gap opened up in mid-air, oozing darkness. Zabulon stepped into
it first, then Gesar, gesturing for us to follow. I picked up Arina's
precious note, together with the invisible magical compass – and
stepped in after Svetlana.

Despite the difference in external appearances, inside the portal
was exactly the same. Milky-white mist, a sensation of rapid movement,
total loss of any sense of time. I tried to concentrate – soon
we would find ourselves near the criminal who had killed a Higher
Vampire. Of course, we had Gesar and Zabulon leading us; Svetlana
was just as powerful, if less experienced; Kostya was young, but
he was still a Higher Vampire; and there was Edgar and his team
with their pockets full of Inquisitors' artefacts. Even so, the fight
could turn out to be deadly dangerous.

But a moment later I realised there wasn't going to be any fight.

At least, not straight away.

We were standing on a platform at Moscow's Kazan railway
station. There was no one very close to us – people sense when
a portal is opening nearby and spontaneously move out of the
way. But we were surrounded by the kind of crush that even in
Moscow you can only find at a railway station in summer. People
walking to their suburban trains, people getting off trains and
carting baggage along, people smoking in front of the mechanical
noticeboards, waiting for their train to be announced, people
drinking beer and lemonade, eating those monstrous railway station
pies and bread wraps with suspicious fillings. There were probably
at least two or three thousand people within a hundred-metre
radius of us.

I looked at the spectral compass – the pointer was spinning lazily.

'We need Cinderella here,' said Zabulon, gazing around. 'We
have to find a poppy seed in a sack of millet.'

One by one the Inquisitors appeared beside us. The expression
of readiness for fierce battle on Edgar's face was suddenly replaced
by confusion.

'He's trying to hide,' said Zabulon. 'Excellent, excellent . . .'

But he didn't look too happy either.

An agitated woman pushed a trolley full of striped canvas
bags up to our group. Her red, sweating face was set in an expression
of firm determination that could only be mustered by a
Russian woman who works as a 'shuttle trader' importing goods
by train to feed her idle, useless husband and three or four children.

'Haven't announced the Ulyanovsk train yet, have they?' she
asked.

Svetlana closed her eyes for a moment and replied:

'It will arrive at platform one in six minutes and leave with a
delay of three minutes.'

'Thank you,' the woman said, not surprised in the least by such
a precise answer. She set off for platform one.

'That's all very nice, Svetlana,' Gesar muttered. 'But what suggestions
do you have concerning the search for the book?'

Svetlana just shrugged.

The café was as cosy and clean as a railway station café could be.
Maybe because it was in such a strange place – in the basement,
beside the baggage rooms. The countless station bums obviously
didn't show their faces here – the owners had cured them of that
habit. There was a middle-aged Russian woman standing behind
the counter, and the food was carried out from the kitchen by
taciturn, polite Caucasian men.

A strange place.

I took two glasses of dry wine from a three-litre box for Svetlana
and myself. It was surprisingly cheap and also – to my great amazement
– pretty good. I went back to the table where we were sitting.

'It's still here,' said Svetlana, nodding at Arina's note. The pointer
in the compass was spinning idly.

'Maybe the book's hidden in the baggage rooms?' I suggested.

Svetlana took a sip of her wine and nodded, either in agreement
with my suggestion or in approval of the Krasnodar Merlot.

'Is something bothering you?' I asked cautiously.

'Why the station?' Svetlana asked in return.

'To make a getaway. To hide. The thief must have realised he'd
be followed.'

'The airport. A plane. Any plane,' Svetlana replied laconically,
taking small sips of her wine.

I shrugged.

It really was strange. Once he had the
Fuaran
, the renegade Other,
whoever he might be, either could have tried either to hide or
make a run for it. He'd chosen the second option. But why a train?
A train as a means of escape – in the twenty-first century?

'Maybe he's afraid of flying?' Svetlana suggested.

I just snorted. Of course, even an Other didn't have much
chance of surviving a plane crash. But even the very weakest Other
was capable of examining the lines of probability for the next
three or four hours and figuring out if there was any danger of
a plane crashing.

And Witiezslav's killer was anything but weak.

'He needs to get somewhere the planes don't go,' I suggested.

'But he could at least have flown out of Moscow to shake off
the pursuit.'

'No,' I said, enjoying the feeling of putting Svetlana right. 'That
wouldn't be any good. We would have identified the thief 's approximate
location, worked out which plane he'd taken, questioned
the passengers, taken information from the surveillance cameras at
the airport and discovered his identity. Then Gesar or Zabulon
would have opened a portal . . . they could open one to any place
he happened to go. And we'd all be right back where we are now.
Except that we'd know what our enemy looks like.'