«Yes,» I said. «That's it exactly.»
«Maybe I'm going insane?»
«No.»
«Anton… this wasn't just a chance visit, was it?»
I didn't answer. Olga whispered something and stopped talking. The gigantic vortex rotated slowly above her head.
«No, it wasn't,» I said. «I came to help.»
If the Dark Magician who had cursed her were watching us… That is, if it weren't just an accidental «mother's curse,» but a calculated blow struck by a professional…
We looked at each other without saying anything.
I had the feeling I could almost grasp what was really going on here. The answer was there, right beside me, and all our theories were stupid nonsense; we were following the old rules and maps that the boss had asked me to ditch. But to do that, I needed to think. I had to cut myself off for at least a second from what was going on, stare at a blank wall or a mindless TV screen, and stop feeling torn between the desire to help one small human being and tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Stop swinging one way, then the other, trying to resolve this lousy situation, which would still turn out badly whichever way the cards fell, and the only difference it would make to me was that I would die quickly when the blast of the Inferno flung me into the gray expanses of the Twilight world, or slowly and painfully, kindling the dull flame of self-contempt in my own heart…
«Sveta, I've got to go,» I said.
»Anton !» It wasn't Olga; it was the boss. «Anton …«
He stopped; he couldn't give me any orders; the situation was an ethical impasse. The girl-vampire was obviously sticking to her demands and refusing to negotiate with anyone except me. If he ordered me to stay, the boss would condemn the young hostage to death… He couldn't order me, he couldn't even ask me.
»We're organizing your withdrawal …«
«Better just tell the vampire I'm coming.»
Svetlana reached out and touched my hand:
«Are you going away forever?»
«Just until the morning,» I said.
«I don't want you to go,» she said simply.
«I know.»
«Who are you?»
An express introduction to the mysteries of the universe? The same scene all over again?
«I'll tell you in the morning. Okay?»
»You're out of your mind ,» said the boss's voice.
«Do you really have to go away?»
»Don't say that !» Olga shouted. She'd sensed what I was thinking.
But I said it anyway.
«Sveta, when they suggested you should mutilate yourself to prolong your mother's life, and you refused… You did what was right, what was rational, didn't you? But now you're suffering. And the pain's so bad, it would have been better to act irrationally.»
«If you don't go now, will you suffer?»
«Yes.»
«Then go. Only come back, Anton.»
I got up from the table, leaving my cold tea. The Inferno vortex swayed above us.
«I will, for sure,» I said. «And believe me… The situation isn't hopeless.»
Neither of us said another word. I went out of the apartment and began walking down the stairs. Svetlana closed the door behind me. That silence… That deathly silence; even the dogs had howled themselves out that night.
«Irrational,» I thought, «I'm being irrational. If there's no ethically correct solution, act irrationally. Did someone tell me that? Have I just remembered a line from my old course notes, a phrase from a lecture? Or am I looking for excuses?»
»The vortex …« Olga whispered. Her voice was almost unrecognizable, husky. I wanted to press her head against my shoulder.
I pushed the entrance door open and slipped out onto the icy sidewalk. The white owl circled above my head like a bundle of fluff.
The Inferno vortex had shrunk; it was shorter. Not a lot, relative to its overall height, but enough so that I could see it, maybe one and a half or two meters.
»Did you know that would happen ?» asked the boss.
I looked up at the vortex and shook my head. Just what was going on here? Why had the Inferno reacted by growing larger and stronger when Ignat showed up? Putting people into a mellow state of mind was his specialty. Why had my aimless conversation and unexpected departure made the vortex shrink?
»It's time I fired that group of analysts ,» said the boss. I realized he'd said it to everyone, not just me. «When will we have a working hypothesis for what's going on ?»
A car suddenly appeared from the direction of Zelyony Avenue, catching me in the glare of its headlights. Its tires squealed as it bounced clumsily over the bumps of broken asphalt and stopped beside the entrance. The hot-orange, low-slung, sporty cabriolet looked absurd, surrounded by the prefabricated, multistory blocks of a city where the best way of getting around was still a jeep.
Semyon stuck his head out on the driver's side and nodded:
«Get in. I've been told to drive you like the wind.»
I looked around at Olga and she sensed my glance.
«I've got a job to do here. Go.»
I walked around the car and got into the front. Ilya was sprawled in the back—the boss must have decided the Tiger Cub-Bear double act needed reinforcements.
»Anton ,» said Olga's voice, pursuing me through the Twilight. «Remember… you made a deal today. Don't forget that, not for a single moment …«
I didn't understand at first what she was talking about. The witch from the Day Watch? What did she have to do with anything?
The car jerked, scraping across the hummocks of ice. Semyon swore with relish as he twisted the wheel, and the car began crawling toward the avenue with an indignant roar.
«What half-wit did you get the wheels from?» I asked. «Driving around in this weather…«
Ilya chuckled.
«Shshsh! Boris Ignatievich has lent you his very own car.»
«Are you serious?» I asked, turning to face him. The boss was always delivered to work in his company BMW. I'd never realized he had a yen for impractical luxury…
«It's the truth. Antoshka, how did you manage that?» Ilya nodded in the direction of the vortex hanging above the houses. «I never realized you had powers like that!»
«I never touched it. Just talked to the girl.»
«Talked? You mean you didn't actually fuck her?»
That was Ilya's usual way of talking when he was feeling tense about something. And he had plenty of reasons for feeling tense just then. But it still made me wince. I thought what he said sounded strained… or maybe he just hit a raw nerve.
«No. Ilya, don't talk that way.»
«Sorry,» he said flippantly. «So what did you do?»
«I just talked.»
The car finally hurtled out onto the avenue.
«Hold tight,» said Semyon curtly. I was pressed back in my seat. Ilya lolled about behind me, taking out a cigarette and lighting up.
Twenty seconds later I realized that my last drive had been a walk in the park.
«Semyon, has the probability of an accident been deleted?» I shouted. The car hurtled through the night, as if it were trying to overtake the beams of its own headlights.
«I've been driving for severity years,» Semyon said contemptuously. «I drove trucks on the Road of Life during the Siege of Leningrad!»
There was no reason to doubt what he said, but the thought crossed my mind that those journeys had been less dangerous. He hadn't been moving this fast, and guessing where a bomb's going to fall is no great trick for an Other. There weren't many cars around just then, but there were some; the road was terrible, to put it mildly; and our sports car was never meant for conditions like this…