Below us, in the cold, dirty water of the river Moscow, there was a barely audible splash.
Sasha stared at me, glassy-eyed.
‘Remember, I told you the important thing is to understand whether it’s necessary to jump or not?’ I asked. Sasha didn’t answer.
‘Well, that’s the entire problem here,’ I explained. I spat the cigarette over the parapet – and jumped after it.
The river struck my legs like repulsive, heavy meat jelly that instantly liquefied, turning into icy autumnal water. I went right under, opened my eyes and looked at the lights shining through the water. If I didn’t look too hard, I could have taken them for stars …
The girl’s body was slowly sinking quite near me. I had already made two broad strokes when the sound of a sharp blow struck my ears – another body had hit the water.
‘Are you stupid?’ I asked, once I was sure that Sasha had stopped coughing up water. ‘Why did you jump, if you can’t swim?’
‘But you, you said …’ he groaned, sitting up.
‘What did I say?’
‘That you … have to …’
‘That you always have to understand what you’re doing,’ I reminded him pitilessly. ‘You’re a Magician. An Other. A Light One. So you should be especially ashamed of being a fool!’
I had dragged Sasha and the girl through the water against the current and out onto the bank at a spot where there weren’t many people – thankfully, the abilities of an Other allowed me to perform tricks like that. We were sitting on the dirty embankment, beside the car park in front of the monstrously ugly statue of Columbus, to which Peter the Great’s head had been attached. Peter-Christopher gazed contemptuously over our heads into his own bronze-yellow distance.
‘The girl …’ Sasha groaned.
‘Lying over there,’ I said, nodding in her direction. ‘I dragged you both out. Thanks, you were a great help …’
‘Is she alive?’ Sasha asked hopefully.
‘She’s not dead,’ I said, after glancing at her aura.
‘What?’ exclaimed Sasha, finally sitting up properly and looking round. ‘That bastard—’
‘Could have finished her off completely. But I managed to nettle him, with your help. So she isn’t dead – she’ll be a vampire.’
A sombre-faced pair walked by – a solid-looking man in a suit and tie and an even more sturdily built man with a bull-neck, wearing a suit slightly too large for him. I automatically extended the Sphere of Inattention to cover the poor girl, but even so the owner of the powerful neck turned his head and slipped his hand in under the flap of his jacket. Good bodyguards are like that – they can sense us Others …
‘What shall we do?’ asked Sasha.
‘First, get dry,’ I said. ‘Do you remember the spells? Well done! Second, get up, it’s dirty and cold here, we’re still young men, we don’t want prostate problems. Third, I’ll go home, get washed and sleep.’
‘What about me?’ Sasha asked in a quiet voice.
‘You’ll stay here and wait for the girl to come round. Call the Day Watch … say “Situation six, no complications.” If you don’t remember the number or you’re too squeamish to talk with Dark Ones – ask our operations officer. Is your mobile okay?’
‘It’s protected …’
‘Smart boy. Before the Dark Ones arrive – and they won’t hurry – have a talk with the girl. Explain that she has been bitten by a vampire, that now she will also become – essentially she already has become – a vampire. Well, all the rights and obligations … You hand her over to the Dark Ones, and they’ll find a teacher for her. That Denis, for instance. That’s all, after that your work’s over.’
I got up and shook myself down. My clothing gave off clouds of steam that smelled of rotting wood and oil. It was a good job I was wearing my windcheater: you couldn’t clean a good suit after the river Moscow’s water, not even with magic …
The Mercedes with the boss and his bodyguard in it was already trundling out of the car park. I raised my hand, transmitting a light command. Remoralisation or the Breath of Teresa wouldn’t do the trick here.
The Mercedes braked gently to a halt. I opened the back door: the owner of the car was sitting beside the driver in that manner that nouveau-riche second-raters have.
‘Drive along the embankment for the time being,’ I ordered the bodyguard. And before I slammed the door, I shouted to Sasha: ‘Oh, by the way, you passed the practical exam. You can take tomorrow to recover – in situations like this I usually get drunk, but you can think up something of your own. And the day after tomorrow, report to the operations section. You’re hired.’
On that day Gesar had been in an elated mood since the morning. At the briefing meeting he smiled, told an irrelevant joke that was funny but rather crude, unexpectedly increased the science department’s budget for the next quarter, gave Olga Ignat’s playful little hug when she was simply walking by and approved Ignat’s business trip to Lvov ‘for an exchange of experience’, although everybody knew perfectly well that Ignat was from Lvov and he simply wanted to visit his relatives and friends.
My account of Alexander’s practical exam was also received favourably. The only question was one that I was expecting.
‘And are you sure it wouldn’t have been better for the girl to die than become undead?’ the boss asked, toying with his ballpoint pen.
‘No, I’m not,’ I replied honestly. ‘But I didn’t have a chance to ask her, and I didn’t want to decide for her. At the end of the day, she has enough time with a relatively healthy psyche before she is totally transformed. If she should choose differently … And then, it was extremely useful for Alexander to realise that our actions don’t always produce the desired result. I’m sure he got the point.’
‘Convincing,’ Gesar said, nodding, and signed the order for Alexander’s enrolment as a full-time member of staff with a flourish.
Basically, it was a day when you could get Gesar to okay anything, or almost anything. And I tried to take advantage of that when I stayed behind after the gathering started to disperse.
‘Questions, Anton?’
‘Yes, I have one. About Erasmus.’
‘Have you guessed how to reveal his prophecy?’ Gesar asked.
‘Not yet, although I’ve had one inkling of an idea. But everything here’s so interconnected … Boris Ignatievich, tell me, that bonsai you sent him – can you tell me what magic is concealed in it?’
‘No,’ Gesar snapped.
Well, it was worth a try …
‘I wouldn’t bother my head about the old prophecy,’ Gesar continued, without looking at me. ‘It either went off and was never realised, or it all happened ages ago. But finding out what the boy wanted to tell us, now that really would be interesting.’
‘Arina twisted me round her little finger,’ I said, repenting for my sins, and not for the first time. ‘But even I’m not certain that there was anything on that flash stick …’
‘Remember the unwritten law that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong – there was something there, all right …’ Gesar sighed and closed his laptop. ‘Sit down, Anton. Let’s talk. I understand what’s bothering you.’
‘Arina’s prophecy,’ I admitted. ‘Or rather, her friend’s … What if she’s right and the prophecy does come true?’
Gesar shrugged.
‘Maybe she’s right, and the prophecy will come true. Maybe it already did, despite all her cunning tricks – the Germans occupied Little Russia, the Japanese invaded Siberia, they hanged Bolsheviks …’