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  Noisily blowing the froth off his Klin Gold beer-I'd only ever seen that done in old movies before-Semyon took a mouthful and looked at me amiably. "Let's hear it."

  "You know about the crisis?" I asked, taking the bull by the horns right off.

  "Which crisis is that?" Semyon asked in reply.

  "The one with the anonymous letters."

  Semyon nodded. He even added something. "I've just completed the temporary registration of our visitor from Prague."

  "This is what I think," I said, twirling my beer mug around on the clean tablecloth. "They were sent by an Other."

  "Sure they were." said Semyon. "You drink your beer. If you want, I'll sober you up afterward."

  "You can't, I'm shielded."

  Semyon screwed his eyes up and looked at me. And he agreed that yes, I was shielded and it was beyond his powers to break through a magic-proof shell installed by none other than Gesar himself.

  "Well then," I went on, "if they were sent by an Other, what is he trying to achieve?"

  "The isolation or elimination of his human client," Semyon said calmly. "Evidently he must have rashly promised to make him an Other. So now he's on the hook."

  All my heroic intellectual efforts had been pointless. Without even working on the case, Semyon had figured it all out in his own head.

  "It's a Light Other," I said.

  "Why?" asked Semyon, surprised.

  "A Dark Other has plenty of other ways to go back on a promise."

  Semyon thought for a while, chewed on a fry and said yes, it looked that way. But he wouldn't entirely rule out any involvement by Dark Ones. Because even Dark Ones could swear a rash oath there was no way to get around. For instance, swear on the Darkness, call the primordial Power to bear witness. After that, they couldn't wriggle out of it.

  "Agreed," I said. "But even so, the chances are greater that one of us has slipped up."

  Semyon nodded and said, "Not me."

  I looked away.

  "Don't you get upset," Semyon said in a melancholy voice. "You've got the right idea and you're doing the right thing. We could have slipped up. Even I could have blundered. Thanks for asking me to talk, and not just running to the boss… I give you my word, Light Magician Anton Gorodetsky, that I did not send these letters that concern you and I do not know who sent them."

  "You know, I'm really glad about that," I said honestly.

  "Not nearly as glad as I am," Semyon chuckled. "I'll tell you something, the Other who did this has got some neck. He hasn't just got the Watches involved in this mess, he's dragged the Inquisition into it as well. To do that, you either have to be way out of control or calculate every last little detail. If it's the first, he's done for, but if it's the second, he'll squirm his way out of it. I'd lay two to one he'll squirm his way out."

  "Semyon, so an ordinary human being can be turned into an Other after all?" I asked. Honesty is the best policy.

  "I don't know," said Semyon and shook his head. "I used to believe it was impossible. But if recent events are anything to go by, there's some kind of loophole. Very narrow, pretty nasty, but still a loophole."

  "Why nasty?" I asked, jumping on his words.

  "Because otherwise we would have made use of it. What a coup, for instance, to make the president one of your own. And not just the president, but everyone who has any kind of influence. There'd be an amendment to the Treaty, determining the procedure for initiation, and there'd be the same standoff, only at a new level."

  "But I thought it had been absolutely forbidden," I admitted. "The Higher Others got together and agreed not to disrupt the balance… threatened each other with the ultimate weapon…"

  "With what?" Semyon asked, astonished.

  "You know, the ultimate weapon. Remember, you told me about the incredibly powerful thermonuclear bombs? We have one, the Americans have one… There must be something of the sort in magic too…"

  Semyon started laughing. "What nonsense, Anton! There aren't any bombs like that-it's all fantasy, fairy tales! Learn some physics! There isn't enough heavy water in the oceans for a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction."

  "Then why did you tell me that?"

  "We were spinning all sorts of yarns at the time. I never thought you'd believe it…"

  "Ah, dammit," I muttered and took a mouthful of beer. "And you know, after that I couldn't sleep at night…"

  "There is no ultimate weapon, you can sleep easy," Semyon chortled. "No real one and no magical one. And if we accept that it is possible to initiate ordinary people after all, then the procedure is extremely difficult and disgusting, with unpleasant side effects. In general, no one wants to get their hands dirty. Neither us nor the Dark Ones."

  "And you don't know about any such procedure?" I asked, just to make sure.

  "I don't." Semyon thought for a moment. "No, I definitely don't. Reveal myself to people, give them orders or, say, recruit them as volunteers-I've done it all. But as for turning someone into an Other when you want to-I've never heard of that."

  Another dead end.

  I nodded, gazing gloomily into my beer mug.

  "No need to knock yourself out," Semyon advised me. "There are only two possibilities. This Other is either a fool or he's very cunning. In the first case the Dark Ones or the Inquisitors will find him. In the second case they won't find him, but they will find the human being and teach him not to wish for such strange things. Similar cases have been known…"

  "What am I going to do?" I asked. "I must admit that place is interesting, it's amusing to live there. Especially on expenses…"

  "Then enjoy living there," Semyon said calmly. "Or is your pride offended? Do you want to out-gallop everyone else and find the traitor first?"

  "I don't like leaving things half-done," I admitted.

  Semyon laughed. "All I've been doing for the last hundred years is leaving things half-done… For instance, there was the little business of the hoodoo laid on the prosperous peasant Besputnov's cattle in the Kostroma province. Ah, what a case that was, Anton! A mystery. A tight tangle of intrigue. It was magical all right, but it was all done so cunningly… the hoodoo was applied through a field of hemp."

  "Do cattle actually eat hemp?" I asked, intrigued despite myself.

  "Ah, who'd let them? The peasant Besputnov used to make rope out of that hemp. And he used the rope to lead his cows around. And the hex went through it that way. A cunning hoodoo, slow and thorough. And not a single registered Other for a hundred miles around. I moved into the little village and started searching for the evildoer…"

  "Did they really work that thoroughly back then?" I asked, amazed. "Sending in a watchman for the sake of some peasant and his cattle?"

  Semyon smiled. "I did all sorts of work back then. This peasant's son was an Other, and he asked us to step in to help his father-he almost made himself a noose out of that rope… So anyway, I moved in, all on my own, got myself some property, even started cozying up to a certain little widow lady. But at the same time I was searching, and I realized I was on the trail of an ancient witch, very well disguised, not a member of any Watches and not registered anywhere. It was really fascinating, just imagine. A witch who was two or three hundred years old. She had accumulated as much power as a first-level magician. And there I was playing at Nat Pinkerton… detecting… I felt ashamed somehow to call in the Higher Magicians to help. And gradually, bit by bit, I turned up clues, and put together a list of suspects. One of them was actually the young widow I found so attractive…"

  "Well?" I asked, entranced. Semyon certainly liked to stretch the truth a bit, but this story seemed like the real thing.

  "That's all there is," Semyon sighed. "There was a rebellion in Petrograd. Then the revolution. So you can imagine, there were more important things to deal with than cunning witches. Human blood was flowing in rivers. I was recalled. I wanted to go back and find the old hag, but I never had the time. And then they flooded the entire village and everybody was rese
ttled. Maybe that witch isn't even alive anymore."

  "Frustrating," I said.

  Semyon nodded. "And I've got an entire wagonload of stories like that. So there's no need for you to go working overtime on this one."

  "If you were a Dark One," I admitted, "I'd definitely think you were trying to divert suspicion from yourself."

  Semyon just smiled. "I'm not a Dark One, Anton. As you know perfectly well."

  "And you don't know anything about the initiation of human beings," I sighed. "And I was really hoping…"

  Semyon turned serious. "Anton, let me tell you something. The girl I loved more than anything in the whole world died in nineteen twenty-one. She died of old age."

  I looked at him, but didn't dare risk a smile. Semyon wasn't joking.

  "If I'd known how to make her an Other…" Semyon whispered, gazing off into the distance. "If I'd only known… I revealed myself to her. I did everything for her. She was never ill. At the age of seventy, she looked thirty at the most. Even in hungry St. Petersburg she never wanted for anything, the permits she had used to strike Red Army men dumb… I had her credentials signed by Lenin himself. But I couldn't give her my length of life. That's not in our power." He looked into my eyes somberly. "If I'd known how to initiate Lubov Petrovna, I wouldn't have asked anybody's permission. I'd have gone through anything. I'd have dematerialized myself-but I'd have made her into an Other…"

  Semyon stood up and sighed. "But now, to be quite honest, it doesn't matter to me. Whether people can be transformed into Others or not simply doesn't concern me. And it shouldn't concern you either. Your wife's an Other. Your daughter's an Other. All that happiness for one person? Gesar himself can't even dream of anything like it."

  He walked out, but I sat on at the table for a while, finishing up my beer. The owner of the cafe-who was also the waiter, and the chef, and the barman-never even looked in my direction. When Semyon came in, he had hung a magical screen around the table.

  What had I been thinking of, really?

  There were two Inquisitors beavering away. The talented vampire Kostya was circling the Assol complex in the form of a bat. They'd figure it out. They were bound to discover who had wanted to become an Other. And they'd either find the individual who had sent the letters, or they wouldn't.

  What difference did that make to me?

  The woman I loved was an Other. And more than that, she had voluntarily abandoned her work in the Watch, a brilliant career as a Great Enchantress. All for an idiot like me, so that I wouldn't get hung up about being stuck forever at my second level of Power…

  And Nadiushka was an Other too. I'd never have to go through the horror of an Other whose child grows up, grows old, and dies. Sooner or later we would reveal Nadienka's true nature to her. She would want to be a Great One, no doubt about it. And she would be the very Greatest. Maybe she would even do something to make this imperfect world a bit better.

  But here I was playing at spies, like a little kid. Worrying myself sick about succeeding in my mission, instead of dropping in on my jolly neighbor in the evening or relaxing-strictly for purposes of camouflage-in the casino.

  I got up, put the money on the table, and walked out. In an hour or two the screen would disperse, the owner of the cafe would see the money and the empty glasses, and remember a couple of ordinary-looking guys drinking beer there.

  Chapter 5

  I SPENT HALF A DAY DOING THINGS THAT WERE STRICTLY OFF-LIMITS AND no use to anyone. The vampire Kostya would probably have pulled a wry face and informed me what he thought of my naivete.

  First I went back to the Assol complex to change into jeans and a simple shirt, and then I set off in the direction of the nearest normal courtyard-toward the dreary, nine-story prefabricated buildings. There, to my delight, I discovered a soccer field, with high-school-age loafers kicking a ball around on it. There were a few young men there as well, in fact. Even though the recently concluded world championship had been, to put it mildly, an inglorious one for our team, it still had a positive effect. In the few surviving courtyards, the competitive spirit that seemed to have been lost was reviving.

  I was put on a team, the side that had only one adult-with an impressive paunch, but extremely agile and frisky. I'm not a very good player, but these guys weren't world championship material either.

  For about an hour I ran around on the dusty, trampled earth, yelling and shooting at the goal made out of rotten wire mesh, even scoring a few times. Once a huge tenth-grade hulk deftly dumped me on the ground and gave me an amiable smile.

  But I didn't take offense or get upset. When the game tailed off-of its own accord, somehow-I went into the nearest shop, bought some mineral water and beer and, for the very youngest soccer players, Baikal soda pop. Of course, they would have preferred Coca-Cola, but it's time we stopped drinking that foreign poison.

  The only thing bothering me was the realization that excessive generosity would arouse all kinds of suspicions, so I had to be moderate in my good deeds.

  After saying goodbye to the players on "my" side and the other, I walked as far as the beach, and really enjoyed a swim in the water that was dirty, but cool. The pompous palace spires of the Assol complex towered up into the sky on one side.

  Well let them… I didn't care.

  The funniest thing of all, I realized, was that in my place any Dark Magician could have done exactly the same thing. Not one of the really young ones still into pleasures that had been out of reach before, like fresh oysters and expensive prostitutes. But a Dark One who had already lived a bit and come to understand that everything in the world was nothing but vanity, the vanity of vanities, in fact.

  And he would have scampered around that little soccer field, yelling and kicking the ball, and hissing at the teenagers' clumsy attempts to swear: "Hey, watch your lip, kid!" Afterward he would have gone to the beach, and splashed about in the muddy water, and laid on the grass, looking up at the sky…

  Where was it, that dividing line? Okay, with the lower Dark Ones, everything was clear. They were non-life. They had to kill in order to survive. And there was nothing any verbal gymnastics could do about that. They were evil.

  But where was the real boundary?

  And why was it sometimes ready to disappear? For instance, at a moment when the only problem was one single human being who wanted to become an Other? Just one, that was all! But just look at the resources that had been thrown into the search. Dark Ones, Light Ones, the Inquisition… And I wasn't the only one working on this business, I was just a pawn who had been advanced, carrying out local reconnaissance work. Gesar was wrinkling his forehead, Zabulon was knitting his brows, Witezslav was scowling and baring those teeth. A human wanted to become an Other-hunt him down, get him!

  But who wouldn't want it?

  Not the eternal hunger of the vampires, not the insane fits of the werewolves, but the full, complete life of a magician. With everything that ordinary people had.

  Only better.

  You're not afraid anyone will steal the expensive music system out of your car when you leave it unwatched.

  You don't get sick with flu, and if you come down with some vile incurable disease, the Dark Sorcerers or the Light Healers are at your service.

  You don't wonder how you're going to survive until payday.

  You don't feel afraid of dark streets at night or drunken bums.

  You're not even afraid of the militia.

  You're certain your child will get home safely from school and not run into some crazy maniac in the front hallway…

  Yes, of course, that was where the real problem lay. Your nearest and dearest were safe, they were even excluded from the vampire lottery. Only you couldn't save them from old age and death.

  But after all, that was still a long way off. Somewhere way off in the future, far ahead.

  On the whole it was far more pleasant to be an Other.

  And then again, you wouldn't gain anything if you refused initiation,
even your human relatives would be right to call you a fool. After all, if you became an Other, you'd be able to help them out. Like that story of Semyon's… someone put a hex on a peasant's cows, and his Other son had an investigator sent in to help him. Blood was thicker than water, after all; your own flesh and blood was dearest. There was nothing to be done…

  I jerked upright as if I'd been electrified. I jumped to my feet and stared up at the Assol complex.

  What reason could a Light Magician have for making a rash promise to do absolutely anything?

  There was only one reason!

  That was it, the lead!

  "Have you come up with something, Anton?" a voice asked behind my back.

  I turned around and looked into the black lenses of Kostya's glasses. He was wearing just bathing trunks, the appropriate attire for the beach, apart from the child's white panama hat perched on the back of his head like a skullcap (no doubt he'd taken it away from some little toddler without any qualms of conscience) and the dark glasses.

  "Finding the sun hot?" I asked spitefully.

  "It's oppressive. Hanging up there in the sky like a flatiron… Why, aren't you feeling hot?"

  "Sure," I admitted. "But it's a different kind of heat."

  "Can we manage without the sarcasm?" Kostya asked. He sat down on the sand and fastidiously tossed aside a cigarette butt from near his feet. "I only go swimming at night now. But this time I came… to have a word with you."

  I felt ashamed. The person sitting in front of me was a moody young man-it made no difference that he was undead. And I still remembered the gloomy teenager hovering uncertainly at the door of my apartment. "You shouldn't invite me in, I'm a vampire, I could come in the night and bite you…"

  And that boy had held out for a pretty long time. He'd drunk pig's blood and donor's blood. He'd dreamed of becoming alive again. "Like Pinocchio,"-he must have read Collodi or seen the movie AI, but anyway he'd found the right comparison.

  If only Gesar hadn't detailed me to hunt vampires…