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¡ªtoward 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¡ªwith 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¡ªof its own accord, somehow¡ªI 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, Witez-slav was scowling and baring those teeth. A human wanted to become an Other¡ªhunt 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¡ªit 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,"¡ªhe 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...

No, that was nonsense. Nature would have taken its course. And Kostya would have been given his license.

In any case I had no right to scoff at him. I had one huge advantage¡ªI was alive.

I could approach old people without feeling ashamed. Yes, without any shame¡ªbecause Witezslav hadn't been honest with me. It wasn't fear or revulsion that had made him avoid the old woman.

It was shame.

"Sorry, Kostya," I said and lay down on the sand beside him. "Let's talk."

"It seems to me that the permanent residents at Assol have nothing to do with it," Kostya began gloomily. "The client is one of those who are only there occasionally."

"We'll have to check them all," I said with a phony sigh.

"That's only the start. We have to look for the traitor."

"We are looking."

"I can see the way you're looking... Realized that he's one of yours, have you?"

"How do you make that out?" I protested indignantly. "Some Dark One could quite easily have blundered..."

We discussed the situation for a while. We seemed to have reached the same conclusions simultaneously.

Only now I was just half a step ahead. And I had no intention of helping Kostya out.

"The letter was posted in the heap of letters that builder brought to the post office," said Kostya, not suspecting how cunning I was being. "Nothing could be easier. All those Gas-tarbeiters live in an old school, they use it as a hostel. They put all their letters on the attendant's table on the first floor. In the morning someone goes to the post office and posts them. It would be no problem for an Other to get into the hostel and divert the attendant's attention... or simply wait for him to go to the john. Then drop the letter into the general pile. And there you go! No leads."

"Simple and effective," I agreed.

"In the Light Ones' style," Kostya said with a frown. "Get someone else to do the dirty work for you."

For some reason I didn't take offense. I just smiled mockingly and turned over on to my back, looking up at the sky and the lovely yellow sun.

"Okay, we do the same..." Kostya muttered.

I didn't say anything.

"Come on, tell me, haven't you ever used people for your operations?" Kostya protested indignantly.

"Sometimes. Used, but never put them in danger."

"And in this case the Other hasn't put anyone in danger, only used them," Kostya said off the point, completely forgetting his comment about the "dirty work."

"What I'm wondering is... does it make any sense to follow this trail any further? So far the traitor has covered all his tracks very thoroughly. We'll end up chasing a phantom..."

"They say a couple of days ago two security guards at the Assol complex thought they saw something ghastly in the bushes," I said. "They even opened fire."

Kostya's eyes blazed. "Have you already checked it out?"

"No," I said. "I'm shielded, undercover, there's no way I can."

"Is it okay if I check it out?" Kostya asked eagerly. "Listen, I'll mention that it was you..."

"Go ahead," I said magnanimously.

"Thanks, Anton," said Kostya, breaking into a broad smile and giving me a hefty punch to the shoulder. "You're a decent guy after all. Thanks."

"Do a good job," I couldn't resist saying, "and maybe you'll get another license ahead of the line."

Kostya fell silent and his face turned sour. He stared hard at the river.

"How many people did you kill to become a Higher Vampire?" I asked.

"What's that to you?"

"I'm just... curious."

"Check out your archives some time and take a look," Kostya said with a crooked smile. "Is it really that hard?"

Of course, it wasn't that hard. But I'd never looked at Kostya's file. I didn't want to know that...

"Uncle Kostya, give me my hat!" a demanding voice squeaked nearby.

I glanced sideways at the little girl, about four years old, who had come running up to Kostya. So he really had been teasing a child, and he'd stolen her hat...

Kostya obediently removed the panama hat from his head and gave it to the little girl.

"Will you come again tonight?" the little girl asked, glancing at me and pouting. "Will you tell me a story?"

"Uh huh," Kostya said with a nod.

The little girl beamed and ran off to a young woman who was collecting her things together a little distance away. The sand spurted up from under her heels...

"You've lost your mind!" I roared, jumping up. "I'll reduce you to dust right here!"

My expression must have been pretty terrifying. Kostya was quick to answer.

"What is it? What's wrong with you, Anton? She's my great-niece! Her mother's my cousin! They live in Strogino, and I'm staying with them for the time being, so I don't have to drag myself all the way across town."

That brought me up short.

"What, did you think I was sucking her blood?" Kostya asked, still looking at me warily. "Go and check! There aren't any bites. She's my niece, understand? For her sake I'd take out anyone myself."

"Pah!" I said and spat. "What else could I think? 'Will you come again tonight? Will you tell me a story?'..."

"A typical Light One," Kostya said more calmly. "Since I'm a vampire I must be a bastard, right?"

Our fragile truce wasn't exactly over, but it had reverted to the normal state of cold war. Kostya sat there fuming, and I sat there cursing myself for jumping to conclusions. They didn't issue licenses for children under the age of twelve, and Kostya wasn't such a fool as to hunt without a license.

But it had just burst out...

"You've got a little daughter," Kostya said, suddenly catching on. "The same age, right?"

"Younger," I replied. "And prettier."

"Obviously, your own's always prettier," Kostya laughed. "All right, Gorodetsky. I understand. Let's forget it. And thanks for the lead."

"That's okay," I said. "Maybe those security men didn't see anything after all. They'd been drinking vodka or smoking dope..."

"We'll check it out," Kostya said cheerfully. "We'll check everything out."

He rubbed the back of his head with his open hand and stood up.

"Time to go?" I asked.

"It's getting to me," Kostya answered, squinting upward. "I'm disappearing."

And he did just that, disappeared, after first averting the eyes of everyone there. There was just a dim shadow left hanging in the air for a second.

"Show off," I said and turned over on to my stomach.

To be quite honest, I was already feeling hot too. But I decided on principle not to leave with a Dark One.

I still had a few things to think through before I went to the Assol security office.

Witiezslav had done a really good job. When I turned up the head of security broke into a broad, friendly smile.

"Oh, look who's come to see us!" he declared, shoving some papers off to one side. "Tea, coffee?"

"Coffee," I decided.

"Andrei, bring us some coffee," the boss commanded. "And a lemon!"

He reached into the safe and produced a bottle of good Georgian cognac.

The security man who had shown me into the boss's office was a little disconcerted, but he didn't argue.

"Any questions?" the boss asked as he deftly sliced the lemon. "Will you have some cognac, Anton? A good cognac, I promise."

I didn't even know what his name was... I liked the former boss of security better. The way he'd treated me had been sincere.

But the former security boss would never have given me the information I was counting on getting now.

"I need to take a look at the personal files of all the residents," I said. And I added with a smile: "In a building like this you must keep a check on everyone, right?"

"Of course," the boss agreed readily. "Money's all very fine, but there are some serious people intending to live here, and we don't want any thugs or bandits... You want all the personal files?"

"The lot," I said. "For everyone who's bought an apartment here, regardless of whether they've moved in yet or not."

"The files on the real owners or the people the apartments are registered to?" the security boss asked politely.

"The real owners."

The boss nodded and reached into the safe again.

Ten minutes later I was sitting at his desk and leafing through the files¡ªall very neat and not too thick. Out of natural curiosity I started with myself.

"Do you need me here anymore?" the security boss asked.

"No, thanks." I eyed the number of files. "I'll need one hour."

The boss went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

And I got into my reading.

Anton Gorodetsky, it emerged, was married to Svetlana Gorodetskaya and had a two-year-old daughter, Nadezhda Gorodetskaya. Anton Gorodetsky had a little business¡ªa firm trading in milk products. Milk, kefir, pot cheese, and yogurts.. .

I knew the firm. A standard Night Watch subsidiary that earned money for us. There were about twenty of them around Moscow, and their employees were perfectly ordinary human beings who never suspected where the profits really went.

It was all pretty modest and simple, cute. Like the old promo jingle for milk¡ªOn the meadow, on the meadow, who is grazing on the meadow? That's right, Others. Well, I couldn't really deal in vodka, could I?

I set my file aside and started on the other residents.

Naturally, not all the information about the people was there. It couldn't have been. After all, no private security service, even in the most luxurious residential complex, is any match for the KGB.

But I didn't need too much. Basically information about their relatives. In the first instance, their parents.

First I set aside those whose parents were alive and well and put the files on people whose parents were dead in a different pile.

I was particularly interested in anyone who had been raised in a children's home¡ªthere were two of those¡ªand anyone with a stroke through the columns headed "Father" or "Mother."

There were eight of those.

I laid these files out in front of me and started studying them closely.

I immediately weeded out one ex-orphanage boy who, to judge from his file, had criminal connections. He had been out of the country for the last year and, despite appeals from the agencies of law enforcement, had no intention of coming back.

Then two from incomplete families were sifted out.

One of them turned out to be a weak Dark Magician known to me from a trivial old case. The Dark Ones were bound to be giving him the tenth degree already. If they hadn't come up with anything, the guy was in the clear.

The other was a rather well-known variety artist who, I happened to know¡ªagain quite by chance¡ªhad been touring abroad for the last three months: the USA, Germany, Israel. Probably earning money for the finishing work on his apartment.

That left seven. A good number. For the time being I could focus on them.

I opened the files and began reading them closely. Two women, five men... Which of them might be worth considering?

"Roman Lvovich Khlopov, 42, businessman..." The face didn't arouse any associations. Maybe he was the one? Maybe...

"Andrei Ivanovich Komarenko, 31, businessman..." Oh, what a strong-willed expression! And still fairly young... Was it him? Possibly... No, impossible. I set the businessman Komarenko's file aside. A man in his early thirties who donated serious money like that to building churches and was distinguished by "intense religious feeling" wouldn't want to be transformed into an Other.

"Timur Borisovich Ravenbakh, 61, businessman..." Rather young-looking for his age. And if he met Timur Borisovich, the strong-willed youngster Andrei Ivanovich Komarenko would have lowered his eyes. Even the face was familiar, either from TV, or somewhere else...

I set the file aside. Then my hand started to sweat. A chilly tremor ran down my back.

No, it wasn't from TV, or rather, not only from TV, that I remembered that face...

It couldn't be.

"It can't be!" I said, repeating my thought out loud. I poured myself some cognac and tossed it down. I looked at Timur Borisovich's face¡ªa calm, intelligent, slightly Eastern face.

It couldn't be.

I opened the file and started reading. Born in Tashkent. Father... unknown. Mother... died at the very end of the war, when little Timur was not even five. Raised in a children's home. Graduated from a junior technical college and then a construction institute. Made his career through Komsomol connections. Somehow managed to avoid joining the Party. Founded one of the first construction cooperatives in the USSR, which actually did far more business trading in imported paving stones and plumbing fixtures than constructing buildings. Moved to Moscow... founded a firm... engaged in politics... was never... never a member of... was never employed as... a wife, a divorce, a second wife...

I'd found the human client.

And the most terrible thing about it was that I'd found the renegade Other at the same time.

And that discovery was so unexpected, it felt as if the universe had collapsed around me.

"How could you!" I said reproachfully. "How could you... boss..."

Because if you made Timur Borisovich ten or fifteen years younger, he would have been a dead ringer for Gesar, or Boris Ignatievich as he was known to the world, who sixty years ago had lived in that region... Tashkent, Samarkand, and other parts of Central Asia...

What astonished me most of all was not my boss's transgression. Gesar a criminal? The idea was so incredible, it didn't even provoke any response.

I was shaken by how easily the boss had been caught out.

So sixty years earlier a child had been born to Gesar in distant Uzbekistan. Then Gesar had been offered a job in Moscow. But the child's mother, an ordinary human being, had died in the turmoil of war. And the little human being, whose father was a Great Magician, had ended up in a children's home...

All sorts of things happen. Gesar might not even have known that Timur existed. Or he could have known, but for some reason or other not have played any part in his life. But then the old man had felt a tug at his heartstrings, and he'd met with his son, who was already old, and he'd made a rash promise...

And that was certainly amazing!

Gesar had been scheming for hundreds, thousands of years. Every single word he spoke was carefully weighed. And then he pulled a stroke like this?

Incredible.

But a fact.

You didn't have to be an expert in physiognomy to recognize Timur Borisovich and Boris Ignatievich as close relatives. Even if I didn't say anything, the Dark Ones would make the same discovery. Or the Inquisition would. They'd put the screws on the elderly businessman... but, no, why bother with the screws? We weren't vicious racketeers. We were Others. Witezslav would look into his eyes, or Zabulon would click his fingers, and Timur Borisovich would spill out the whole story as if he were at confession.

And what would happen to Gesar?

I thought about it. Well... if he admitted that he did send the letter... then there hadn't been any evil intent on his part.. . and in general he had the right to reveal himself to a human being.

I spent a little while running through the points of the Treaty in my mind, the amendments and refinements, the precedents and exceptions, the references and footnotes...

The result was pretty amusing.

Gesar would be punished, but not very severely. The maximum penalty would be an official rebuke from the European Office of the Night Watch. And something menacing, but almost meaningless, from the Inquisition. Gesar wouldn't even lose his job.

Only...

I imagined what merriment there would be in the Day Watch. How Zabulon would grin. How sincerely Dark Ones would start to inquire after Gesar's family affairs and send greetings to his little human son.

Of course, after living the number of years that Gesar had, anyone would grow a thick skin and learn how to shrug off ridicule.

But I wouldn't have liked to be in his place right then.

And then our guys wouldn't go easy on the irony either. No, no one would actually reproach Gesar with committing a blunder. Or badmouth him behind his back either.

But there would be smirks. And bemused head-shaking. And whispers¡ª"the Great One's getting old after all, getting old..."

I didn't have any puppyish adoration or admiration left for Gesar. Our views differed on so many things. And there were some things I still couldn't forgive him for...

But to pull a dumb stunt like this.

"What on earth were you thinking of, Great One?" I said. I put all the files back in the open safe and poured myself another glass of cognac.

Could I help Gesar?

How?

Get to Timur Borisovich first?

And then what? Cast a spell of silence on him? They'd remove it; someone would be found who could.

What if I forced the businessman to leave Russia? To go on the run, as if all the city's criminal groups and agencies of law enforcement were after him?

It would serve him right. Let him spend the rest of his life hunting seals or knocking coconuts off palm trees! So he wanted to be the Empress of the Sea...

I picked up the phone and entered the number of our office's exchange. Entered the additional digits, and was put straight through to the IT lab.

"Yes?" the phone asked in Tolik's voice.

"Tolik, run a check on someone for me. Quick."

"Tell me the name and I'll run it," Tolik answered, unsurprised at my request.

I listed everything I'd found out about Timur Borisovich.

"Ha! So what else do you need apart from that?" Tolya asked in surprise. "Which side he sleeps on, or the last time he visited the dentist?"

"Where he is right now," I said dourly.

Tolik laughed, but I heard the brisk rattle of a keyboard at the other end of the line.

"He has a cell phone," I said just in case.

"Don't teach your grandmother... He even has two cells... And they're both... they're... Right, just a moment, I'll superimpose the map..."

I waited.

"At the Assol residential complex. And not even the CIA could tell you more precisely than that¡ªthe positioning isn't accurate enough."

"I owe you a bottle," I said, and hung up. Jumped to my feet. But then... what was the rush? I was sitting in front of the observation services monitor, wasn't I?

I didn't have to search for long.

Timur Borisovich was just getting into the elevator, followed by a couple of guys with stony faces. Two bodyguards. Or a bodyguard and a driver who doubled up as a second bodyguard.

I switched off the monitor and jumped to my feet, then dashed out into the corridor just in time to run into the head of security.

"Got what you wanted?" he asked, beaming.

"Uh huh," I said, nodding on the run.

"Need any help?" the head of security shouted after me eagerly.

I just shook my head.

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