“Who are the members of the Sixth Watch?” I asked. “How can we drive away the Two-in-One? What agreements have the Others broken?”
Pyotr looked at me for a few seconds. Then he started laughing. Quietly, taking pleasure in it. He paused for a moment before asking me a question.
“Watchman, did you know that laughter is your invention? We didn’t know how to laugh.”
“How should I know?” I muttered.
“There were many things the hairless ones brought that I didn’t like,” said Pyotr. “But laughter is good. Laughter bonds and unites. The laughter of one is always the humiliation of another.”
“Who says?” I asked, squinting at the hall. But they were all sitting there quietly. All looking at me and Pyotr. Hmmm. As the children’s rhyme says: “and silence reigned, warmed by the breathing of the audience . . .” It was a pity that vampires’ breath didn’t warm anything.
“Just remember what you’re laughing at,” Pyotr replied with imperturbable confidence. “Laughter—if it’s not physiological—is always humiliation. Humor is nothing more than the humiliation of one man by another. One man laughs at another when he is absurd and ridiculous, when he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Charlie Chaplin is absurd with his cane and his flag at the head of a demonstration. Benny Hill is absurd in his role as a heroic lover. Jim Carey is absurd when he brushes his teeth with a toilet brush. A lover hiding outside the window without his trousers is absurd, a husband who opens a closet, only to discover a lover, and believes that he’s waiting for a bus, is absurd. I like human laughter, it’s what distinguishes man from other cattle. It makes him worse than cattle. The Christian preachers sensed that there was evil in laughter—they were right not to bury comedians in their cemeteries.”
“You’ve given me food for thought,” I confessed after a moment. “But you’re wrong. These are only specific instances. I’ll find an example of a different laughter and different humor.”
“What a shame you won’t have time for that,” said Pyotr. “Put it down to the humor of the situation, in which you’re the one humiliated.”
“Will you risk attacking a Light One? A Night Watchman?” I asked, stealing a quick glance at the other vampires. They weren’t idiots, why would they want a war . . .
But if the Masters did want to object, they lacked the courage to do it.
“You called yourself food when you came in here,” Pyotr replied. “The Inquisition will take our side. And anyway, in two days none of this will matter anymore . . .”
A long way behind me, right up beside the door, a bubble of gum burst with a loud pop. Pyotr looked up at the young vampiress with a stony stare.
“Oh, sorry, I won’t do it again,” Ellie jabbered. “It’s rotten gum, and it caught on my fang, Uncle Pyotr!”
I wiggled my fingers, checking the spells that were hung on them. I had a whole heap of stuff in my arsenal, and at least one of the strikes ought to get through to the ancient monster.
But would I have enough time . . .
Pyotr gave me an ironic, stony stare and I realized that I wouldn’t.
“Don’t forget, I laid Lilith to rest.”
He thought for a moment before he answered.
“I think you’re lying. I think you had help. And that means . . .”
There was another pop from up by the door.
“Nothing to do with me!” Ellie exclaimed resentfully. “I’m not doing anything! I’m not saying a word and I’m not chewing!”
Pyotr breathed in noisily. He frowned.
And at last he got up from the table, flinging it aside. Greta and the handsome youth jumped up—vampires’ reactions are fast, that can’t be denied—and stepped out of the way.
Pyotr stood there, looking up at the door.
The door opened.
A black security guard staggered in slowly and unsteadily. He was holding his Uzi in one hand and pressing his other hand to his throat. He looked for Master Jack, spotted him, and tried to say something.
But his legs buckled and he fell, clattering down the steps, tumbling over and over and banging his head, but clinging stubbornly to his submachine gun.
The security guard landed right at my feet, with his head twisted to one side and almost separated from his body—his neck was sliced right across by a wound so deep it was amazing that he could have stayed standing at all.
One of the girls sitting in the hall sobbed convulsively. Her vampire master wrung her neck in a single movement—as if he had flapped his hand to drive away a fly.
Everyone looked at the door.
A slim, girlish figure appeared in the opening.
The one I had known as Helen Killoran walked into the auditorium, sucking on one bloody finger. She knocked on the door jamb with her left hand and took the finger out of her mouth.
“Knock, knock,” she said.
She was a vampire. Now, when my brain wasn’t clouded, I could see that quite clearly. And I could see that she was nothing like the Irishwoman who had once sorted out the mess in our archive. The illusions lay on her in layers, and beneath the illusions there was nonhuman flesh.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out whose flesh it was.
“Who are you?” Pyotr asked.
Now it was absolutely clear that he was the most important one here.
“I’m a messenger,” the vampiress replied.
Pyotr chewed on his lips. I sensed that he wanted to ask “From whom?” But he asked a different question.
“What do you want, messenger?”
“The Master of Masters,” the vampiress replied. “And I think that’s you.”
I tensed up in anticipation.
“No,” Pyotr replied. “I have no time for squabbling and brawling. Certainly, I do give advice to others and guide our young to the best of my ability. But I am not the Master of Masters and I have no intention of becoming him.”
He was afraid!
This beast, who was older than human time itself, was afraid!
Maybe he could see something that I couldn’t?
“That’s very inconvenient and it will cost me extra time,” the vampiress replied, strolling down the steps.
“There’s nothing to be done about it,” Pyotr replied coolly. “We have democracy here. No supreme rulers.”
“It’s a pity,” the vampiress said. “A great pity that you didn’t become the Master of Masters. It would have been simpler. And tidier. But perhaps I’ll still take your blood anyway.”
“If you can,” said Pyotr.
“If I can,” the vampiress agreed.
“That won’t make you the Master of Masters!” Ellie suddenly shouted out from the back row.
“I know that, little girl,” said the vampiress, nodding without looking around. “But I have a plan. I always have a backup plan. There was only one time I didn’t.”
She suddenly looked at me and spoke sadly.
“Sorry, Gorodetsky. You won’t like this. But it has to be done.”
There was something about those words. Something familiar . . .
“Yes, he really is completely out of place after all . . .” Pyotr said thoughtfully.
A moment later I went flying headfirst onto the bench in the third row. The vampires sitting there barely managed to dodge in time. In their place, I couldn’t possibly have done that. Just as I failed to spot Pyotr’s blow, which flung me dozens of yards through the air and smashed the stout wooden desktop with my head.
I was only saved by the defensive spells that were triggered—specifically by the Crystal Shield, a spell that young Others often disdain . . .
I clambered out of the heap of wreckage, feeling slightly stunned. The bench and the desktop had been reduced to planks of wood. That primeval bastard had ruined an antique—this auditorium must have been brought all the way from Oxford.
I got up, tugged a splinter out of my hand automatically, and stared in confusion at a teenage boy lying among the wreckage in a
spreading pool of blood. The kid’s body was shuddering in rapid convulsions; he was dying. His throat had been ripped out.
What was this . . . Had I caught him in passing? But I couldn’t have.
The vampire with whom the teenager had come to the gathering was squatting down beside the body and gazing at it with a sadness that was obviously sincere. Then he heaved a deep sigh, lowered his head, and started lapping up the blood from the wound.
I felt sick. Perhaps for a vampire this was a perfectly natural and rational way to say farewell to someone who meant something to him.
But I wasn’t a vampire.
I looked around, trying to gather my wits. There was a ringing sound in my ears and everything seemed slightly hazy somehow, out of focus.
But then, compared to what was going on around me, that was a minor detail.
All the humans who had been in the hall were dead. I saw mutilated bodies that only a moment ago were young, beautiful, and full of life. In a mere few seconds they had all been killed—their throats had been slashed open, their hearts had been ripped out, their arms and legs had been torn off. Everything around me was awash with blood. And the vampires were lapping up the blood as if they had lost their wits, or bunching together in small groups, obviously ready to fight anyone and everyone. To my amazement, I saw that one of these groups involved Ekaterina, Ellie, and Olga.
The vampire beside me finished lapping up the teenage boy’s blood. He stroked the boy’s head and cast an indifferent glance at me . . .
And then he hurtled down onto the stage in a single bound.
There was a fight raging there. A whirling vortex of vampires, a bundle of intertwined bodies and glinting fangs, with brief flashes of arms and legs.
Pyotr wasn’t involved in the fracas; he was standing a short distance away, gazing intently at the free-for-all. Greta and the handsome young guy had left the stage and made themselves scarce a long time ago. Ah, but no . . . the handsome young guy suddenly stood up in the center of the amphitheater, holding the body of a young girl in his arms. He looked at her for a second, then gently set her down and darted straight into the bloody battle like an arrow.
I suddenly understood what had happened.
Our mysterious ally among the vampires—if she could be called an ally—was pursuing the position of Master of Masters. In the only possible way that she could.
She had killed all the humans in the hall. And it was unlikely that any of them were food. They were the vampires’ lovers, male or female, their surrogate children and their genuine descendants, their great-great-grandchildren. People who were genuinely dear to the bloodsuckers.
Yes, strange as that might sound, genuinely dear.
She had killed the people—and the vampires had rushed to avenge them. And now, in this bloody, pitiless battle, she was earning herself the right to be a member of the Sixth Watch.
I jumped up on the desktop, ran along it to the aisle leading downward, jumped down, and walked toward the fighting vampires. I stopped when I caught Pyotr’s expression.
We looked at each other over the tangle of fighting vampires.
Skirmishes started breaking out in the hall too, but they were short-lived and not fatal. Apparently, those who made no claim to the throne were taking advantage of the situation and trying to settle their scores with each other. But if anyone was killed, they were only isolated cases—the fights died down as instantaneously as they flared up.
And then the swirling melee on the stage started contracting. Fine gray ash started flying out of it in all directions. As the vampires, one by one, were reduced to dust, the battle only intensified even more. Perhaps because it was the weakest who had been killed first?
Pyotr’s deep-set Neanderthal eyes bored into me malignly. Keeping my eyes fixed on him, I leaned down and took the automatic pistol out of the hands of the dead security guard. No one likes a hail of lead, not even vampires. And in this weapon the bullets easily could be enhanced with spells.
Pyotr bared his teeth balefully.
A vampire came flying out of the heap that had shrunk a lot at this stage—the same vampire who had lapped up blood beside me. He was clutching his head tight in both hands, as if he had a ferocious headache. Everyone in the hall went quiet, looking at him, but the fight—there were only two combatants still in it now—continued in total silence.
The vampire stared at me with insane eyes—and I saw that they were squinting in opposite directions. Then he took his hands away.
His head fell apart into two halves, as if it had been sliced through with a sword. He stood there for a moment while the monstrous processes of his body tried to heal even this wound.
Then the split head started smoking, giving off gray ash, and the vampire collapsed.
An instant later the final vampire still fighting the uninvited guest exploded and crumbled into dust.
The fake Killoran stood on the stage and looked around at the Masters. Apart from her torn clothes, she was uninjured, which wasn’t really surprising for a vampire. Anything that doesn’t kill them immediately heals very rapidly.
The vampiress reached out her clasped hand and opened it. Ash fell out of it in a thin trickle. Had she torn the heart out of that vampire, then? His main heart and his supplementary one?
“I assume authority over you, by the right of Blood and Power,” the vampiress said. “Are there any who will dispute my word?”
I looked at Pyotr.
Come on now, my friend, I thought. Come on, Ancient One. Dispute it. Somehow I have no doubt that you’ll be torn to ribbons!
Unfortunately, Pyotr had no doubt about that either.
“The Master of Masters has come,” he said, bowing his head. “Word, Power and Blood . . .”
“The Master of Masters,” all the vampires who were still alive repeated. I looked and found Jack, Greta, Ekaterina, and Ellie among them.
Olga was there too, of course. Staring intently at the fake Killoran.
“These people,” the vampiress said, nodding toward me, “are my guests. Answer all their questions, give them every possible assistance, and do not harm them. Power and Blood.”
“Power and Blood,” the vampires echoed. I paid special attention to Pyotr—he repeated it too.
The old skunk certainly was a survivor!
“Wait!” I shouted to the new Mistress of Masters. “Answer me this . . .”
“I shall return when the hour comes, Anton,” the vampiress replied. “When the Others gather together. But in the meantime . . . think. Decide what answer you will give.”
“Then ask the question!” I shouted.
Killoran raised her eyebrows quizzically.
“Where will you stand when the hour comes? Among the six or in front of the six? That’s the question.”
And she disappeared.
I wasn’t trying to hide any longer. I looked through the Twilight and tried to sense her, using every means that could.
There was nothing. There was no one. The vampiress had completely disappeared, but I couldn’t see any traces left by a portal either.
“I don’t understand,” said Olga, walking up to me. “I don’t know any ways to disappear like that, and I thought I knew everything.”
Meanwhile the remnants of the vampires’ forces—security guards, human acolytes, and weak vampires—had all come running and gathered in the hall.
“Who is going to answer my questions?” I asked.
“I can!” Ellie responded with the air of a diligent schoolgirl. “But if you want the answers to more questions, then it’s Pyotr.”
I nodded to Pyotr, who was about to vanish into the crowd of vampires.
“Hey, shaggy. Get over here!”
“As the guest of the Master of Masters wishes,” Pyotr replied, breaking into a broad smile. “Most willingly and with the greatest of pleasure!”
“I never thought I’d say this; I’m generally in favor of preserving endangered species,” Olga said in di
sgust. “But it’s probably a good thing they died out.”
PART THREE
MANDATORY MEASURES
CHAPTER 1
GESAR LOOKED TIRED AND SHORT OF SLEEP, AS DID I. TAKING part in a witches’ Sabbath was probably just as stressful as visiting a vampires’ convention.
“I asked Hena what the Neanderthals were like,” Gesar growled, striding around his study. “He’s probably the only Other we have who was around when they were.”
“And what did he say?” I asked. The shape-shifter Inquisitor wasn’t very talkative, but when he did speak, you could rely on what he said. He once told someone he had lived in a time before lies were invented.
“Hena said that basically they were almost like people,” Gesar told me. “Only very large boned and very woolly. He used to cough up hairballs for weeks afterward.”
“Hairballs?” I asked, puzzled.
“It’s obvious you’re not a cat lover, Anton,” Olga sighed. “That’s very enlightening, Gesar, but what about Pyotr? Did Hena know about him? And did Neanderthals often become Others anyway?”
“He didn’t know about Pyotr. Neanderthals sometimes became vampires and shape-shifters, but he couldn’t recall a single case of one becoming a magician. Hena believes their mode of thinking was very concrete. They could understand how Power was transmitted through blood or meat, but they couldn’t control subtle energies.”
I nodded. That sounded believable.
“But then they gradually became extinct,” Gesar continued. “Most of them were eaten. Of course, they themselves had no objection to eating human flesh, like everyone else in those times. But first, they didn’t have any magicians. And second, they were less aggressive.”
“Then Pyotr isn’t typically representative of his species,” I said morosely. “He seemed aggressive and bloodthirsty to me. Although . . . when your evolutionary branch has been totally wiped out, literally gobbled up . . . that’s not likely to fill you with the spirit of loving-kindness.”
“Hena was reluctant to speak about the subject,” said Gesar. “I think he feels very awkward. He was actively involved in thinning out the population of Neanderthals. Despite those hairballs. And I got the impression that he had Neanderthals in his family. Either his mother or his grandmother.”
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