'Don't waste your time,' I said. 'Let's go.'

Just at that moment a Dark portal opened only two metres away from us.

First a blast of cold chilled me to the bone, and I started thinking fondly of the heat in the human world. Then the moss burst into flames and burned all the way down the street. Naturally Zabulon hadn't set it on fire deliberately, it was just that the opening of the portal had spilled out so much power that the moss couldn't assimilate it all.

'Zabulon,' whispered Alisa.

From out of the paving stones about five metres away a ray of violet light shot up into the sky. The flash blinded me and I automatically squeezed my eyes shut. When I looked in that direction again, there was a bluish-black bubble hanging in the grey mist, with something looking vaguely like a man clambering out of it – bristling with spiny scales. Zabulon had responded to the summons by travelling through the second or third level of the Twilight. The time we were moving in would have seemed as slow there as human time did to us.

I suddenly had the old feeling of powerlessness that I thought I'd come to terms with a long time ago. The powers that Zabulon or Gesar used so casually were so far beyond me that I simply couldn't comprehend them.

'Zabulon!' Still holding her hands behind her back, Alisa raced towards the monstrous creature and pressed herself against it, burying her face in the bristly scales. 'Help me, help me!'

Of course, Zabulon hadn't appeared in demonic form just to make an impression on me. In human form he wouldn't have survived a minute in the deep layers of the Twilight. And he'd probably had to travel for hours, if not days.

The monster cast a baleful glance at me from the narrow slits of its eyes. A long forked tongue slithered out of its mouth and slid across Alisa's head, leaving a trail of white slime on her hair. A scaly hand with long claws took hold of Alisa by the chin and gently lifted up her head. Their eyes met. The exchange of information was brief.

'Little idiot!' the demon roared. The tongue withdrew into its mouth and the jaws clacked shut, just missing it. 'Greedy little idiot!'

Well. So much for my right to a third-degree intervention.

The demon's short tail lashed Alisa across the legs, tearing the silk dress and knocking her to the ground. Its eyes flashed, the witch was enveloped in a blue glow and she froze.

So much for the help Alisa had wanted.

'May I take my prisoner away, Zabulon?' I asked.

The monster stood there, swaying on its crooked paws, with the claws on its toes sliding in and out. Then it took a step and stood between me and the motionless witch.

'I ask you to confirm the legality of the arrest,' I said. 'Otherwise I shall be obliged to summon help.'

The demon began transforming. The proportions of its body changed and its scales disappeared, its tail was drawn back into its body, and its penis stopped looking like a club studded with nails. Finally clothes appeared on Zabulon's body.

'Wait a moment, Anton.'

'What for?'

The Dark Magician's face remained inscrutable. Presumably in his demonic form he felt far more emotions, or at least he didn't feel any need to conceal them.

'I confirm the pledge made by Alisa.'

'What?'

'If this matter is not made official, the Day Watch will accept any magical intervention you make, up to and including the third degree.'

He seemed to be utterly serious.

I swallowed. A promise like that from the head of the Day Watch . . .

'Never trust the Dark Ones.'

'Any intervention up to and including the second degree.'

'Are you that eager to avoid a scandal?' I asked. 'Or do you need her for something?'

A tremor ran across Zabulon's face.

'I need her. I love her.'

'I don't believe you.'

'As the head of the Moscow Day Watch I ask you, watchman Anton, to settle this matter amicably. It is possible, since my ward Alisa Donnikova had not yet caused any significant harm to humans. As compensation for her attempt' – Zabulon emphasised the last word – 'to perform a magical intervention of the third degree, the Day Watch will accept any Light intervention that you may perform up to and including the second degree. I do not ask for this agreement to remain secret. I do not impose any restrictions on your actions. I confirm that for the offence she has committed Day Watch agent Alisa will be severely punished. May the Dark bear witness to my words.'

A faint trembling. A rumbling below ground, the roar of an approaching hurricane. A tiny black ball appeared on Zabulon's open palm, spinning rapidly.

'What do you say?' asked Zabulon.

I ran my tongue over my lips and looked at Alisa's magically frozen body. She was a real bitch, no doubt about it. And I had a personal score to settle with her.

Maybe that was why I didn't feel like settling this business with a compromise. Maybe it had nothing to do with the risks of an agreement with the Dark. Alisa had tried to use the prism of power to extract part of the life energy from humans. That was third- or fourth-degree magic. I'd be able to perform a second-degree intervention, and that was a very big deal. A genuinely massive intervention. A city without a single crime for a whole day. A brilliant and unequivocally good intervention. How many times in the history of the Night Watch had we needed to make a third- or fourth-degree intervention but didn't have the right, and we'd had to just go ahead and risk it, terrified by how the other side might respond?

And now I could have a second-degree intervention for free, or as good as.

'May the Light bear witness to my words,' I said, and held my hand out to Zabulon.

It was the first time I'd ever called on the primordial powers to witness anything. I only knew it didn't require any special incantations. And there was no real guarantee that the Light would deign to become involved in our affairs.

A petal of white flame flared up on my open palm.

Zabulon flinched, but he didn't take his hand away. We sealed the agreement with a handshake, the Dark and the Light coming together. I felt a stab of pain, like a blunt needle piercing my flesh.

'The agreement is sealed,' said the Dark Magician.

He frowned too. He had also felt the pain.

'Do you hope to gain some advantage from this?' I asked.

'Of course. I always hope to gain some advantage from everything. And I usually do.'

At least Zabulon wasn't obviously delighted with the deal we'd made. Whatever he might be hoping for as a result of our agreement, he wasn't completely certain of success.

'I've found out what the courier brought to Moscow from the east and why.'

Zabulon smiled gently.

'Excellent. I find the situation trying, and it is a great relief to know that now my concern will be shared by others.'

'Zabulon, has there ever been a single case when the Night Watch and the Day Watch collaborated? Genuine collaboration, not just catching violators and psychopaths?'

'No. In any collaboration one side or the other would be the loser.'

'I'll bear that in mind.'

'You do that.'

We even bowed politely to each other. As if we weren't two magicians on opposite sides, an adept of the Light and a servant of the Dark, but two acquaintances who got on perfectly well.

Then Zabulon returned to Alisa's motionless body, lifted it easily and threw it across his shoulder. I was expecting him to withdraw from the Twilight, but instead the Dark Ones' leader gave me a condescending smile and stepped into the portal. It remained visible for a moment, and then began to fade. I was going a different way.

It was only then that I realised how tired I felt. The Twilight likes it when we enter it, and it likes it even more when we're agitated. The Twilight's insatiable, glad to take on anyone.

I chose a spot where there weren't many people and tore myself out of my shadow.

The eyes of the people walking by swung away as usual. You meet us so often during the day, you humans . . . Light Ones and Dark Ones, magicians and werewolves, witches and healers. You look at us, but you're not allowed to see us. May it always be that way.

We can live for hundreds and thousands of years. We're very hard to kill. And for us the problems that make up human life are no more than a schoolboy's distress at his bad handwriting.

But there's a downside to everything. I'd gladly trade places with you humans. Take this ability to see the shadow and enter the Twilight. Take the protection of the Watch and the ability to influence people's minds.

Give me back the peace of mind that I have lost for ever.

Someone jostled me to get me out of the way. A tough-looking man with a shaved head, a mobile at his belt and a gold chain round his neck. He looked me up and down disdainfully, muttered something through his teeth and headed on down the street. The girlfriend clinging to his arm made a rather unsuccessful attempt to imitate his glance, the kind that petty gangsters use for jerks who are a soft touch.

I laughed out loud. Yes, I probably looked a sight! Standing stock still in the middle of the street, apparently gawping at a stand covered with ugly bronze figurines, wooden matryoshka dolls with politicians' faces and fake Khokhloma painted boxes.

I had the right to shake up the entire street. To perform a mass remoralisation – then the man with the shaven head would take a job as an orderly in a mental hospital and his girlfriend would head for the train station to go to see the old mother she'd managed to forget, somewhere out in the sticks.

I wanted to do Good – my hands were just itching to do it!

And that was why I mustn't.

The heart might be pure and the hands might be hot, but the head still had to be cool.

I was an ordinary, rank-and-file Other. I didn't have the power granted to Gesar or Zabulon, and I never would have. Maybe that was why I took a different view of what was happening. And I couldn't even use this unexpected gift – the right to use Light magic. That would be joining in the game that was being played out above my head.

My only chance was to drop out of the game.

And take Svetlana with me.

And in the process ruin the operation the Night Watch had been preparing for so long. To stop being a field agent of the Watch. Become an ordinary Light Magician, using mere crumbs of my powers. That was the best case, of course – in the worst case scenario it was the eternal Twilight for me.

Today, today at midnight.

Where? And who? Whose Book of Destiny would the sorceress open? Olga had said they'd been planning the operation for twelve years. Twelve years spent searching for a Great Sorceress who could use the little piece of chalk that had been kept safe all that time.

But wait!

I could have howled at my own stupidity. Higher magicians plan many moves ahead. There are no accidents in their games. There are queens and there are pawns. But there are no superfluous pieces.

Egor!

The boy who had almost become a victim of illegal hunting. Who'd entered the Twilight in a state of mind that had nudged him towards the Dark Side. The boy whose destiny was still not determined, whose aura still had all the colours of a child's. A unique case. I'd been stunned when I saw him for the first time.

I'd been stunned, and then had forgotten. The moment I discovered that the kid's powers had been artificially increased by the boss – to mislead the Dark Ones and allow Egor to offer at least some resistance to the vampires.