The gap in the clouds closed up. Anton raised his hand – and then lowered it again.
It would close over anyway.
He walked through into the kitchen, opened a small cupboard and took out a bottle of cognac that had already been started. He glanced round stealthily, poured a little into a paunchy glass and downed it barbarously, in a single gulp.
The bottle gave a despairing sigh. Anton screwed up his eyes and looked at it, trying to determine who had cast that spell.
Svetlana.
Anton poured a second dose, put the sighing bottle away in the cupboard and walked through into the sitting room. He stood in front of a cupboard with glass doors, studying the wooden chalice standing on one of the shelves.
Of course, artefacts of that kind really ought to be kept in the Watch office. But after studying it for a week, none of the analysts had been able to discover how to read the prophecy concealed in the chalice (or even if it was really there) and the apartment of two Higher Others (actually three, if you counted Nadya) was effectively defended against any kind of intrusion.
And so, on Gesar’s suggestion, Erasmus’s chalice had been returned to Gorodetsky. It was returned without enthusiasm – the Inquisition was very displeased that Anton had not tried to summon them to detain Arina. But Gesar had come up with a convincing argument: Erasmus might have tuned the chalice in some way so that the prophecy could only be revealed to Gorodetsky.
Gesar could always come up with a convincing argument if he really wanted to.
Anton looked at the chalice for a while, then opened the cupboard and picked it up. He held it to one ear, then the other. Then he walked into the kitchen, splashed some cognac into the chalice and drank it.
Naturally, the prophecy was not revealed.
‘Daddy?’
Anton was standing by the window with the chalice, lost in thought, and he hadn’t noticed that Nadya had come back from school.
‘What, my love?’
‘Did you …’ Nadya sniffed demonstratively, but she asked diplomatically: ‘Did you part the clouds?’
‘I admit it. Just a little bit.’
‘I noticed.’
Nadya shifted from one foot to the other at the door. She either wanted to ask him about something or she had something to tell him. Anton looked at his daughter and suddenly – completely out of the blue – he realised that his daughter was not completely a child any longer, that she was already treading the mysterious path that leads from childhood to youth, the path on which talking dolls, teddy bears and beloved parents are left behind, abandoned and forgotten …
Nadya had only just stepped onto this path, but there would be no return from it, there could not be …
‘Did you want to ask me something?’ said Anton.
‘Daddy, that chalice thing … I touched it too.’
Anton nodded, realising it wasn’t physical touch that was meant.
‘I think there’s something there. But it’s really well hidden: you can’t get it out, no matter how cunning or strong you are.’
‘If cunning or strength was enough, the Inquisition would already have understood everything,’ Anton said with a nod.
‘I think there’s some very clever release mechanism,’ Nadya went on, brightening up. ‘You have to do something that you would never ever think of. That you wouldn’t ever do. And then the prophecy will be revealed.’
Anton looked at the chalice in his hand.
Then he nodded again.
‘In that case, we’ll probably never find out.’
‘Are you upset?’
‘No,’ said Anton. ‘Not really. That is, not at all.’
CHAPTER 1
HE WAS A fine young man, one of those who had come into the Watch the year before, and was dreaming of becoming a field operative. An honest Fourth-Level, with every chance of advancing further. His name was Alexander – or Sasha – and only recently he had been studying at the Moscow Aviation Institute and dreaming of becoming a space-flight engineer. People like that only became Light Ones, because in 2012 in Russia only a complete child or a holy fool could dream of becoming a cosmonaut.
‘Anton Sergeevich,’ – he was trying hard to speak calmly and collectedly, but there was still a slight tremble in his voice – ‘are you certain they’ll come here?’ I shrugged, took out a pack of cigarettes, lit up and offered one to Sasha, taking no notice of his grimace of disapproval. He started fidgeting, then reached uncertainly for a cigarette.
I pulled the pack away.
‘Don’t. First, never smoke. Second, never do anything that authority figures suggest if you don’t like it. If I jump off the bridge, will you do the same?’
‘If necessary, I will!’ Sasha declared resolutely.
I looked down into the grey water of the river Moscow with the lighted street lamps reflected in it (in Moscow the stars in the sky aren’t often visible). I nodded.
‘That’s always the most important thing, understanding whether it’s necessary or not … Sasha, they’ll come here, because this is where the Call’s directed. When I was a little bit older than you, but probably not any stronger, it was very hard for me even to sense the vampire Call and to follow it. But now I can do a little bit more … and I know that the vampire is walking along the Bersenevskaya Embankment, and the girl is walking along the Prechistenka Embankment. Just recently it has become highly fashionable among vampires to take their victim on a bridge, then throw the body into the water. By the time it’s fished out, no one can tell what the person died of.’
‘Why can’t they tell?’ Sasha asked indignantly. ‘What about the loss of blood? And the marks from the fangs?’
‘Just think about it,’ I said, blowing out a cloud of smoke. ‘You’re a forensic pathologist. They bring you a body fished out of the water, considerably damaged, battered against the riverbank or the supports of a bridge …’
Sasha started turning pale. He was still young. A good lad, but young …
‘Even if you notice that there are small wounds of some kind on the body and there is almost no blood in it, what are you going to think? That there are vampires walking the streets of Moscow? Or that some young fool in love leapt into the water and spiked herself on a piece of metal as she fell?’
‘I would consider all the possibilities,’ Sasha decided.
‘That’s why you’re in the Watch,’ I said.
Sasha paused while he glanced vigilantly to the left and the right. Then he asked timidly: ‘Won’t the church stop them?’
I glanced at the massive, attractively illuminated building and shook my head.
‘Not this one, it won’t stop them. In general vampires aren’t afraid of religion – if they believed in God, they wouldn’t have become vampires. But you’re right in the sense that a genuine church, a shrine, can protect the victim. If it’s close by and the victim believes. Do you understand? It doesn’t frighten the vampire, it protects the victim.’