‘Drive out of the yard,’ Edgar said, laughing. ‘I wouldn’t like your bodyguards to notice us … We’d finish them off before they even knew what hit them. But Svetlana’s a different matter, I’m afraid she might prove too hot to handle.’
Gennady scowled again, demonstrating that he had a full set of teeth and that his four canines were larger than the average human size.
‘I’m sure she would,’ I said quite sincerely. I stepped on the gas and drove the car gently out of the parking lot. Maybe I should crash into a lamp-post? No, that wouldn’t catch them out, they were prepared for tricks like that… ‘For Nadya she’d grind you into the dust.’
‘That’s what I think too,’ Edgar said as politely and peaceably as ever. ‘The last thing we need is a rampaging woman on our trail. And whether or not your daughter can get through to the seventh level of the Twilight still remains to be seen. The chances are no better than if we give you a good shaking-up.’
I snorted.
‘I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you there. I can’t do what’s beyond me. I’m a Higher Magician, but not a zero-point one. You have to be Merlin to get through to the seventh level.’
‘I told you we have to take the girl,’ Gennady said in a quiet voice. ‘I told you he couldn’t do it!’
‘Cool it!’ Edgar reassured him. ‘He can. He’s just not motivated enough yet, but we’ll help him, and he’ll manage just fine.’
‘Try it,’ I said. ‘But where should I drive?’
‘Sheremetievo 2, where else?’ Edgar laughed. His invisibility was gradually peeling away and he was appearing by stages, first as a transparent outline, then acquiring colours. Gennady still hadn’t revealed himself and I could only see him in the mirror. ‘I think the quickest way will be round the ring road, right? And try not to waste any time. We have a flight to Edinburgh in an hour – I think we’ll get there before anyone misses you. I don’t really want to waste the last charge in my Minoan Sphere on a portal to Scotland. But bear in mind that if you’re late for the plane, we will go through a portal.’
‘I assume that Arina’s waiting for you in Edinburgh?’ I asked.
‘You just drive,’ laughed Edgar. ‘And in the meantime I’ll explain why you’re going to help us.’
‘Very interesting,’ I said. There was a cold sensation spreading through my chest, but there was no way I was going to show any fear. But what difference did that make? Vampires can sense fear instinctively. It’s hard to shield yourself from their perceptions even with magic.
‘You’re going to do your best for your daughter’s sake, of course,’ said Edgar. ‘For your daughter’s and your wife’s. That wouldn’t work with a Dark One, but it’s just the trick for Light Ones.’
‘You’d never get to my family.’
‘Perhaps I wouldn’t – on my own. Geser and Zabulon would give it everything they’ve got. I counted six bodyguards. How many do you know about? The two young fools on the staircase?’
I didn’t answer.
‘I expect there are at least eight, or even twelve,’ Edgar said thoughtfully. ‘There’s no point in guessing, both the old farts have decided to play safe. But if there was an explosion beside your house – not an ordinary explosion, but a nuclear one – then even any Higher Magicians there would be killed. Hiroshima demonstrated that quite clearly.’
‘You wouldn’t go that far, Edgar,’ I said. ‘You’re a Dark One, but you’re not a psychopath. An atomic bomb in the centre of Moscow? Just to kill my wife and daughter? How many people would be killed? And what if somebody panics and decides it’s a nuclear attack, and it starts a world war?’
‘Right! That’s the most important point.’ Edgar laughed again. ‘Even if Geser senses that something’s wrong and moves your family far away from Moscow, to some secure vault in Ufa, for example, that won’t fundamentally change the situation. Your actions will still decide the fate of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. Not bad bait for a Light One, is it?’
‘Edgar,’ I asked, ‘what’s happened to you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Edgar, with a nervous, unnatural laugh. ‘I’m just fine!’
‘Have you lost someone, Edgar?’
The question was a shot in the dark. But when Edgar didn’t answer, I knew I’d hit the target. That I’d finally begun to understand something about what was going on.
‘My wife,’ he said eventually. ‘Annabel.’
‘You said you were in Crete with her,’ I recalled.
‘I was. Exactly a year ago. We were walking to the beach from the hotel… There was a truck driving past us. The driver lost control and ran into her at eighty kilometres an hour. There was no time for me to do anything.’
‘You loved her,’ I said, amazed.
‘Yes,’ Edgar said, nodding. ‘I loved her. I’m not Zabulon, I can love. Or I could.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Anton,’ Edgar replied in a perfectly normally voice. ‘I know you really mean that. But it still doesn’t change anything … in the way things are between us.’
‘Why did you go against everyone? Why did you involve people?’
‘People? What difference does it make how we use them, Anton? We live off their energy. Why shouldn’t we use them as cannon fodder too? And as for why I went against everyone … that’s the wrong way of putting the question. I’m not against them, I’m for them. For all Others, if you like. Dark Ones and Light Ones. When we achieve our goal, you’ll understand. Even you will understand.’
‘That’s not what we agreed,’ said Gennady
‘I remember what we agreed,’ Edgar snapped. ‘We do what we planned. And then you challenge Anton to fight. That’s right, isn’t it? You wanted an honest duel?’
‘Yes,’ Gennady said rather doubtfully.
‘Well, if you’re so certain that I’ll understand,’ I said as I turned onto the ring road, struggling with the temptation to swing the steering wheel hard and throw the car off the overpass, ‘then you could tell me what it is you’ve planned. And then maybe I’ll help you voluntarily.’
‘I thought about that,’ Edgar said, nodding. ‘From the very beginning, I thought that of all the Light Ones I know you were the sanest. But I happened to find myself working with Gennady here. And he was absolutely against it. He doesn’t like you. And you know why – you killed his son. His wife laid herself to rest because of you. So how could we take you into the Last Watch?’
‘A very romantic name.’
‘That’s Gennady, he’s a great romantic.’ Edgar chuckled. ‘No, we weren’t going to touch you. Revenge is a fine thing, but only if you’ve got nothing else left… but Geser had to go and send you to Edinburgh!’
‘Did you kill Victor because he recognised Gennady?’
‘Yes,’ said Edgar. ‘It was an improvised move. Gennady got nervous: he thought Kostya’s old school friend couldn’t have turned up by accident, that we were being followed. It was a mistake, of course. But we did discover how to open the barrier on the third level. We didn’t have precise information about that before then.’
‘But you did about the golem on the fifth level?’
‘Oh yes!’ said Edgar, laughing again. ‘After Annabel was killed I was transferred to work in the in the secure archive. You know … to settle down and get over my pain in a quiet job … If only you knew, Light One, what they have hidden away in the strong rooms at the Inquisition! I had never even suspected that things like that could be created. I tell you honestly, in the last hundred years, the quality of magic has actually deteriorated. We’ve been spoiled by using human things. But we used to have things that were like telephones and cars and aeroplanes… they weren’t just like them, they were better. We could have founded a civilisation based entirely on magic!’