"I'd really like to see you when you're not wearing any mask, boss," I said.
Gesar smiled benignly.
"Tell me one thing at least-was your son an Other?" I asked.
"Or did you make him into an Other? I understand all that stuff about how the secret can't be revealed, it's better for everyone to think…"
Gesar's fist came crashing down onto the table. And Gesar himself half-stood, leaning forward over his desk. "How long are you going to carry on harping on that subject?" he barked. "Yes, Olga and I duped the Inquisition and won the right to remoralize Timur. He would have become a Dark One, and I couldn't have that. Is that clear? Go and report me to the Inquisition if you like. But drop this crazy nonsense."
For a brief moment I felt afraid. But Gesar started striding around his office again and gesticulating energetically, with his feet constantly coming out of his slippers.
"It's impossible to turn a human being into an Other. Impossible. There's no way. Would you like me to tell you the truth about your wife and daughter? Olga intervened in Svetlana's destiny. She used the second half of the Chalk of Destiny for her. But not even the Chalk of Destiny could have transformed your unborn daughter into an Other if she wasn't going to have been born an Other anyway. We only made her even more powerful, gave her absolute Power."
"I know," I said with a nod.
"How?" Gesar asked, astonished.
"Arina gave me a hint."
"She's a smart one." Gesar nodded. And then he immediately lowered his voice again. "That's it. Now you know everything there is to know on the subject. A human being cannot become an Other. By employing the most powerful artifacts it is possible, in the early stages, or even well in advance, to make an Other more or less powerful, or incline him to the Light or the Darkness… Within very narrow limits, Anton. If the boy Igor had not been neutral initially, we wouldn't have been able to erase his initiation to the Darkness. If your daughter had not been meant to be born a Great Enchantress, we could never have made her into the Greatest of the Great. Before the vessel can be filled with Light or Darkness, the vessel has to exist. It depends on us what will be poured into it, but we're not capable of creating the vessel itself. We can only operate with the little things, the very tiniest things. And you imagine it's possible to turn a human being into an Other!"
"Boris Ignatievich," I began, not knowing myself why I used his Russian name, "Forgive me if I'm talking nonsense. But I can't understand how you could have failed to find Timur earlier. He was your son and Olga's. Shouldn't you have been able to sense him? Even from a distance?"
At this point Gesar suddenly wilted. A strange expression of simultaneous guilt and confusion appeared on his face.
"Anton, I may be an old plotter…" He paused. "But do you really think I would allow my own son to grow up in a state orphanage, in poverty and suffering? Do you think I don't long for a little warmth and affection? To feel human? To play with my baby, to go to a soccer match with my little boy, to teach my teenager how to shave, to accept my young man into the Watch? Just name one reason why I would have allowed my son to live and grow old so far away from me? Am I a bad father, a heartless old fogey? Maybe so. But then why did I decide to make him into an Other? Why would I want all that hassle?"
"But why didn't you find him sooner?" I exclaimed.
"Because when he was born he was a perfectly ordinary child. Not a trace of any Other potential."
"It happens," I said doubtfully.
Gesar nodded. "You have doubts? Even I have doubts… I ought to have been able to sense even rudimentary traces of Power in Timur. But there weren't any…"
He spread his arms hopelessly. Then he sat down and muttered, "So don't go putting down any imaginary miracles to me. I can't make Others out of ordinary people." He paused, then suddenly added in a passionate voice. "But you're right. I ought to have sensed him sooner. Okay, sometimes we only realize a stranger is an Other when he's already old. But my own son? The little boy I dandled in my arms, the boy I dreamed of seeing as an Other? I don't know. The initial signs must have been too weak… or else I must have gone crazy…"
"There is another possibility," I said uncertainly.
Gesar looked at me suspiciously and shrugged. "There's always more than one. What do you mean?"
"Someone knows how to transform ordinary people into Others. That someone found Timur and turned him into a potential Other. And after that you sensed him…"
"Olga sensed him," Gesar growled,
"All right, Olga sensed him. And then you swung into action. You thought you were duping the Inquisition and the Dark Ones. But it was you who was being duped."
Gesar snorted.
"Just try to accept, for one moment, that a human being can be turned into an Other!" I pleaded with him.
"But why was it done?" Gesar asked. "I'm willing to believe the whole thing, but just show me the reasons for it. To set Olga and me up for a fall? It doesn't look like it. Everything went without a hitch."
"I don't know," I admitted. And as I stood up, I added vindictively, "But if I were you I wouldn't let my guard down, boss. You're used to your own plot being the subtlest. But there's always more than one possibility."
"Smart ass…" Gesar said, frowning. "You get on back to Sveta… hang on."
He put his hand into the pocket of his dressing gown and took out his cell phone. It wasn't ringing, just vibrating nervously.
"Just a moment…" Gesar said, with a nod to me. And then he spoke into the phone, in a different voice: "Yes!"
I considerately moved away toward the cupboards and started studying the magical trinkets. Okay, so little figures of monsters might serve to summon up the real thing. But what did he need a Tatar whip for? Something like Shahab's Lash?
"We'll be right there," Gesar said curtly. His cell phone clicked as it folded together. "Anton!"
When I turned back to face Gesar, he was just finishing getting changed. As he ran his hands over his body, the dressing gown and pajamas changed their color and texture and were transformed into a formal gray suit. With a final flourish of his hand, Gesar hung a gray tie around his neck. Already tied in a neat Windsor knot. And none of this was an illusion-Gesar really had created a suit out of his pajamas.
"Anton, we have to take a little journey… to the wicked witch's house."
"Have they caught her?" I asked, trying to make sense of my own feelings. I walked across to Gesar.
"No, worse than that. Yesterday evening while they were searching Arina's home they came across a secret hiding place." Gesar waved his hand and a portal appeared, floating in the air. He added vaguely, "There's already… quite a crowd there. Shall we go?"
"What's in the hiding place?" I exclaimed.
But Gesar's hand was already pushing me into the glowing white oval.
"Brace yourself," was the final word of advice I heard from behind me.
The journey through a portal takes a certain amount of time- seconds, minutes, sometimes even hours. It's not the distance that matters, but the precision of focus. I didn't know who had put up the portal in Arina's house, and I didn't know how long I would be left hanging there in the milky-white void.
A secret hiding place in Arina's house. So what? All the Others created hiding places for magical objects in their apartments.
What could have startled Gesar like that… the boss had definitely looked startled and confused to me-his face had turned far too stony, too calm and composed.
I started imagining all sorts of horrors. For instance, children's bodies in the basement. That would be a good reason for Gesar to panic, when he'd been so certain that Arina would never touch Nadiushka.
No, that was impossible…
And with that thought I tumbled out of the portal-straight into the middle of the small room.
And it really was crowded in there.
"Move aside," Kostya shouted and grabbed me by the arm. I barely had time to take a step before Gesar emerged from
the portal.
"Greetings, Great One!" Zabulon said in a surprisingly polite voice, with no trace of his usual sarcasm.
I gazed around. Six Inquisitors I didn't know-wearing cloaks, with the hoods pulled forward over their faces, everything right and proper. Edgar, Zabulon, and Kostya-nothing unexpected there. Svetlana! I looked at her fearfully-but she immediately shook her head reassuringly. That meant Nadia was okay.
"Who is conducting the investigation?" Gesar asked.
"A triumvirate," Edgar replied briskly. "Myself from the Inquisition, Zabulon from the Dark Ones and…" He looked at Svetlana.
"I'll take it," Gesar said with a nod. "Thank you, Svetlana. I'm most grateful."
I didn't need any explanations. Whatever it was that had happened here, Svetlana had been the first Light One to appear- and she had begun to act on behalf of the Night Watch.
You could say she'd gone back to work.
"Shall I paint a picture for you?" Edgar asked.
Gesar nodded.
"And Gorodetsky?" Edgar inquired.
"He's with me."
"That's your right." Edgar nodded to me. "Well then, we have a quite exceptional occurrence here…"
Why was he telling us in words?
I tried to ask Svetlana. I reached out to her with my mind…
And ran into a blank wall.
The Inquisition had blocked off the whole area. That was why they'd called Gesar on his cell, and not contacted him telepathically. Whatever it was that had happened here, it had to be kept secret.
What Edgar said next confirmed what I was thinking.
"Since this event must be kept an absolute secret," he said, "I request everyone present to lower their defenses and prepare to receive the seal of the Avenging Fire."
I glanced sideways at Gesar-he was already unbuttoning his shirt. Zabulon, Svetlana, Kostya, even Edgar himself-they were all disrobing.
I pulled up my polo-neck sweater and resigned myself to what would follow. The Avenging Fire it was, then.
"We here present swear never to divulge to anyone, at any time or in any place, what is revealed to us in the course of the investigation into this event," said Edgar. "I do so swear!"
"I do so swear!" Svetlana said and took hold of my hand.
"I do so swear," I whispered.
"I do so swear… so swear… so swear…" said voices on every side.
"And if I should violate this oath of secrecy-may the hand of the Avenging Fire destroy me," Edgar concluded.
There was blindingly brilliant red flash from his fingers. A flaming imprint of his hand seemed to hover in the air, then it divided into twelve and the blazing palms started drifting toward us, very slowly. And that slow, deliberate movement was the most frightening thing of all.
The first one touched by the hand of the Avenging Fire was Edgar himself. The Inquisitor's face contorted, and several similar crimson handprints showed up for a moment on his skin.
Apparently it was painful…
Gesar and Zabulon bore the touch stoically and, unless my eyes deceived me, the signs on their bodies were already woven into a dense tracery.
One of the Inquisitors squealed.
Apparently it was very painful…
The spell touched me, and I realized I was wrong. It wasn't very painful, it was absolutely unbearable. It felt like I was being branded with a red-hot steel beam, not just branded, but burned right through my body.
When the bloody mist cleared from in front of my eyes, I was surprised to see that I was still standing-unlike two of the Inquisitors.
"And they say giving birth is painful," Svetlana said in a quiet voice as she buttoned up her blouse. "Ha…"
"Allow me to remind you that if the seal is activated, it will be a lot more painful…" Edgar murmured. The Inquisitor had tears in his eyes. "It's for the common good."
"Cut the idle chatter," Zabulon interrupted him. "Since you're in charge now, try to behave appropriately."
That was right-where was Witezslav?
Had he flown back to Prague after all?
"Please follow me," said Edgar, still wincing. He walked toward the wall.
Hiding places can be set up in various ways. From the crudest-the magical camouflage of a safe in a wall-up to a secure vault surrounded by powerful spells in the Twilight.
This hiding place was rather ingenious. When Edgar walked into the wall, a narrow slit that looked too small for a man appeared in front of him for an instant. I immediately recalled this cunning and complicated method, a combination of magical illusion and the magic of displacement. Little sections of space-narrow strips along the wall-are gathered from within a contained space and magically combined into a single "box-room." It's a tricky business and rather dangerous, but Edgar walked into the secret space quite calmly.
"We won't all fit in," Gesar muttered and squinted at the Inquisitors. "You've already been in there, I believe? Wait here."
Concerned that I might be stopped too, I stepped forward- and the wall obligingly parted in front of me. The defensive spells had already been broken.
The box-room turned out to be not so little after all. It even had a window, made in the same way-from strips "cut" out of the other windows. The view through the window had a truly phantasmagorical appearance: a strip of forest, half a tree, a patch of sky, all jumbled up together in total disorder.
But there was something else in the box-room far more worthy of attention.
A good suit of close-textured gray cloth, a dandyish shirt- white silk with lace at the collar and the cuffs-an elegant necktie in silver-gray with red flecks, and a pair of magnificent black leather shoes with white socks peeping out of them. All these things were lying on the floor in the middle of the box-room. I was sure that inside the suit there had to be silk underwear with hand-embroidered monograms.
But I didn't really feel any desire to root about in the clothes of Higher Vampire Witezslav. The homogenous gray dust that filled the suit and had spilled out around it was all that remained of the inspector from the European Office of the Inquisition.
When Svetlana walked through into the box-room behind me, she gave a quiet gasp and grabbed hold of my hand. Gesar gave a quiet groan. Zabulon sighed-and it even sounded sincere.
When Kostya came in last, he didn't make a sound. He just stood there as if he were in a trance, gazing at the pitiful remains of his fellow vampire.
"As you, of course, understand," Edgar began quietly, "what has happened is appalling enough in itself. A Higher Vampire has been killed. Killed quickly and with no signs of a struggle. I would assume that this is beyond even the powers of the respected Higher Magicians here present."
"The Higher Magicians here present are not stupid enough to attack an agent of the Inquisition," Gesar commented in a grave voice. "However, if the Inquisition insists on verification…"
Edgar shook his head. "No. I called you here precisely because I do not suspect you. I think it makes sense to ask your advice before I inform the European Office. After all, this is the territory of the Moscow Watches."
Zabulon squatted down by the remains, scooped up a little of the dust in his hand, sniffed it and-I think-even touched his tongue to it. He stood up with a sigh and muttered:
"Witezslav… I can't imagine who could have destroyed him. I would… I would have thought not twice, but three times before entering into combat with him. And you, colleague?"
He looked at Gesar. Gesar took his time answering, surveying the dust with the enthusiasm of a young naturalist.
"Gesar?" Zabulon asked again.
"Yes, yes…" Gesar nodded. "I could have done it. We had actually had… certain disagreements. But to do it so swiftly… and so neatly…" Gesar shrugged and spread his hands. "No, I couldn't have managed that. Alas. It even makes me feel rather envious."
"The seal," I reminded him cautiously. "At temporary registration they apply a seal to vampires…"
Edgar looked at me as if I'd said somethin
g really stupid: "But not to agents of the Inquisition."
"And not to Higher Vampires!" Kostya added defiantly. "The seal is only applied to petty riffraff who can't control themselves, novice vampires and werewolves."
"In fact, I've been meaning for a long time to raise the matter of removing these discriminatory restrictions," Zabulon put in. "The seal should not be applied to vampires and werewolves from the second level upward, or better still-from the third…"
"Why don't we do away with mutual registration at the place of residence as well?" Gesar asked sarcastically.
"Stop this argument!" Edgar said with an unexpected note of authority in his voice. "Gorodetsky's ignorance is no excuse for holding a debate. And apart from that… The termination of the vampire Witezslav's existence is not the most terrible thing about all this."
"What could be more terrible than an Other who kills Higher Others so effortlessly?" asked Zabulon.
"A book," Edgar replied laconically. "The Fuaran. The reason he was killed."
Chapter 2
Zabulon grinned. He clearly didn't believe a single word of what Edgar had just said.
And Gesar seemed to be really furious. It was hardly surprising. First I'd nettled him with the Fuaran, and now an Inquisitor was doing the same.
"My esteemed… European Inspector…" After a brief pause the boss launched into an address that was only moderately sarcastic. "I am no less fascinated by mythology than you are. Among witches, stories about the Fuaran are very widespread, but we know perfectly well that they are no more than an attempt to add luster to the reputation of their own… caste. There are precisely similar folktales in the culture of werewolves, vampires, and various kinds of Others who are fated to play a subordinate role in society. But we have a real problem here, and wandering off into the thickets of ancient superstition…"
Edgar interrupted him. "I understand your point of view, Gesar. But the problem is that two hours ago Witezslav called me on his cell phone. While he was checking Arina's things, he stumbled across the secret room. Anyway… Witezslav was very excited. He said the Fuaran was lying in the secret room. That it was genuine. I… must confess that I was skeptical. Witezslav was an excitable character."
Twilight Watch Page 27
