«You'll understand for yourself where the boundary lies»—that's what I'd told Svetlana. Olga had known far better than me where the boundary lies for a long, long time.
I walked along the wall, taking a glance through the concrete at the inclined shaft and the conveyor belts of the escalators. There was a dark spot climbing upward quite rapidly: The magician was in a hurry, running up the steps, but he was still in the human world. Saving his powers. Bring it on, bring it on.
I stopped dead.
There was a small, swirling cloud skimming toward me just above the ground, a clump of mist that had assumed the form of a human figure.
An Other. A former Other.
Maybe it had been one of us. And maybe not. The Dark Ones had to go somewhere when they died. But now it was just a hazy little cloud, an eternal wanderer in the Twilight.
«Peace unto you, fallen one,» I said. «Whoever you may have been.»
The quivering silhouette halted in front of me. A tongue of mist freed itself from its body and extended toward me.
What did it want? The number of times inhabitants of the Twilight had tried to communicate with the living could be counted on the fingers of one hand!
The hand—if it could be called a hand—was trembling. White threads of mist came away from it, dissolving in the Twilight, scattering onto the ground.
«I'm very short of time,» I said. «Fallen one, no matter who you were in life, Dark or Light, peace unto you. What do you want from me?»
A gust of wind seemed to ripple through the coils of white mist. The phantom turned, and the outstretched hand—I no longer had any doubt that it was a hand—pointed through the Twilight toward the northeast. I followed the direction. He was pointing to a needle-slim silhouette glimmering in the sky.
«Yes, the tower, I understand! What does it mean?»
The mist started to blur and dissolve, and a moment later the Twilight around me was as empty as it usually is.
I started to shiver. The dead Other had tried to communicate with me. Was he a friend or an enemy? Had he been advising me or warning me?
There was no way to tell.
I took another look through the walls of the station building—the Dark Magician had almost reached the top of the escalator, but he was still on it. So I had a moment to try to figure out what the phantom had been trying to say. I hadn't been intending to go to the Ostankino television tower; I had a different route in mind, rather risky but innovative. So it didn't make any sense to warn me not to go to the tower.
Maybe I'd been given directions? But by whom? Friend or foe, that was the important question. I couldn't really expect all differences to be wiped out beyond the borders of life. Our dead would not abandon us in battle.
I would have to decide for myself. Only not right now.
I ran toward the entrance of the metro, taking my pistol out of my shoulder holster as I went.
Just in time: The Dark Magician came out of the doors and immediately dived into the Twilight. He made it look easy, but I saw how he managed. The auras of people near him flared up, scattering dark sparks in all directions.
If I'd been in the human world, I'd have seen people's faces distorted by a sudden pain in their hearts or emotional distress—which is far more painful.
The Dark Magician peered around, looking for my trail. He knew how to extract power from people around him, but his general technique wasn't exactly great.
«Take it easy,» I said, pressing the barrel of the pistol against the magician's spine. «Take it easy. You've already found me. And I bet you're thrilled.»
I held his wrist tight with my other hand so that he couldn't make any passes. All these young magicians use a standard set of spells, the simplest and most powerful. And they require the precise coordination of both hands.
The magician's palm was suddenly damp.
«You, you…« he still couldn't believe what had happened. «You're Anton! You're outside the law!»
«Maybe so. But what good will that do you now?»
He turned his head. In the twilight his face was distorted; it had lost that attractive, genial look. He hadn't reached the stage of the complete Twilight makeover, like Zabulon, but even so, his face was no longer human. The jaw hung down too low, the mouth was wide, like a frog's, the eyes were close-set and dull.
«You're a real ugly specimen, my friend,» I said, forcing the gun barrel into his back again. «This is a pistol. It's loaded with silver bullets, although that's not strictly necessary. It'll work just as well in the Twilight world as in the human one—slower, but that won't save you. You'll be able to feel the bullet ripping through the skin and parting the fibers of your muscles, smashing the bone, tearing the nerves apart.»
«You won't do that!»
«Why?»
«Because then there'd be no way you could beat the rap!»
«Is that right? But right now there's still some kind of chance, is there? You know, the urge to squeeze this trigger is getting stronger all the time. Let's go, scumbag.»
I helped the magician along with a few kicks as I led him into the narrow passage between two trading kiosks. The thick growth of blue moss covering their walls started twitching. The Twilight flora was keen to taste our emotions—my fury and his fear—but the mindless plants had a strong instinct of self-preservation.
The Dark Magician had plenty of that too.
«Listen, what do you want from me?» he shouted. «They gave us a briefing and told us to look for you! I was only following orders! I honor the Treaty, watchman!»
«I'm not a watchman any longer!» I said, shoving him against the wall, into the tender embrace of the moss. Let it suck out a little bit of his fear, or we wouldn't be able to have a proper talk. «Who's leading the hunt?»
«The Day Watch?»
«More specifically?»
«The boss, I don't know his name.»
That was almost certainly true. But I knew the name anyway.
«Were you sent to this particular station?»
He hesitated.
«Answer,» I said, aiming the barrel at the magician's stomach.
«Yes.»
«Alone?»
«Yes.»
«That's a lie. But it's not important. What were you ordered to do you once you found me?»
«Observe.»
«Another lie. But an important one this time. Think again and try a different answer.»
The magician didn't say anything. The blue moss must have done too good a job.
I squeezed the trigger and the bullet sang sweetly as it traveled across the meter of space between us. The magician had enough time to see it—his eyes opened wide in terror, which made them look a bit more human—and he jerked away, but too late.
«That's just a flesh wound to begin with,» I said. «Not even fatal.»
He writhed on the ground, pressing his hand against the ragged hole in his stomach. In the Twilight his blood was almost transparent, but maybe that was an optical illusion. Or perhaps it was a just a peculiarity of this magician.
«Answer the question!»
I swept my hand through the air and set the blue moss around us on fire. Enough already, now I was going to capitalize on fear, pain, despair. Enough mercy and compassion, enough polite conversation.
This was the Darkness, after all.
«We were ordered to report in and if possible to kill you.»
«Not detain me? Just kill me?»
«Yes.»
«I'll accept that answer. Your means of communication?»
«By phone, that's all.»
«Let me have it.»
«It's in my pocket.»
«Throw it.»
He reached clumsily into his pocket—the wound wasn't fatal, and the magician's resistance was still high, but the pain he was going through was hellish.
Just the kind he deserved to suffer.