‘I’ll tell Nadya everything,’ I said. ‘She has a right to know. So that no one can try to use her without her knowledge.’
Olga sighed.
‘No one intends to use her. It’s just a precaution. Don’t burden the child with it, let her grow up.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said and closed the window. ‘But all of you really are …’
Olga narrowed her eyes as she looked at me.
‘Really are what? If the leaders of the Watches have arrived at the valid suspicion that the Twilight is an active force, that it possesses will and desires – what would you have us do? The Twilight doesn’t enter into contact with us: its most real manifestation is the Tiger – and he’s not very talkative. So what would you have us do? Rely on its goodwill? But who can say that we understand the good in the same way? Better to have an Other in reserve who can stand up against the Twilight in a crisis. And bear in mind, by the way, that your daughter is effectively under the care and protection of both Watches! She’s a communal weapon!’
‘She’s not a weapon,’ I said wearily. ‘She’s a person.’
‘She’s not an ordinary person, she’s an Other!’
‘All that’s nothing but words, Olga,’ I said, starting to stride round the office. I looked at her and asked: ‘You don’t think that the Twilight really is harmful? That it would be better to destroy it? Maybe I should ask my daughter …’
‘But are you certain that she would survive the Twilight?’ asked Olga. ‘She’s an Absolute Enchantress. All the Power in the world flows through her. Are you sure that Nadya can live at all without it?’
‘Bastards,’ I said. ‘You’re all such bastards …’
Olga simply shrugged, as if to say: Think what you like.
‘Contact the London Day Watch, will you?’ I asked her. ‘They need to visit Erasmus’s house. His will is lying on the kitchen table, in a crocodile-skin briefcase.’
‘Where are you going?’ Olga shouted after me.
‘Home. Consider me on leave.’ As I closed the door, I couldn’t resist adding: ‘Indefinitely’.
CHAPTER 7
ONE BAD THING about an ordinary city flat is that it’s hard to burn a large object in it. Especially if the object’s magical, which means that in order to avoid unpleasant consequences it’s best to burn it with ordinary fire.
Now, if only I’d had a flat with a fireplace in it! Then I’d have tossed the wooden chalice into the blazing heap of wood, closed down the damper of the hearth a bit and watched as the prophecy for which Erasmus had died disappeared for ever.
But just what was this prophecy? And why had Arina and I both got away scot-free with listening to Kesha’s prophecy, which the Tiger had wanted so badly to prevent that he had even spoken in human language? And in any case, it was strange, preposterous: not a prophecy, but an information bulletin – it could have been included in Wikipedia …
I glanced round the balcony. Maybe I could light a little fire here? I could handle the fire brigade if I had to …
But we had a good balcony, glassed-in, with an insulated woodlaminate floor. Svetlana would bite my head off if a burnt spot appeared on that wood. If only there had been some ceramic tiles left over after the renovation work … but we’d used up every last one.
After I’d wasted enough time trying to come up with something, I went back into the flat, through into the kitchen, opened the oven and took out the steel baking tray. That would do the job.
But then, why go back out onto the balcony? Erasmus’s wooden chalice wasn’t very big, it fitted into the oven perfectly.
I held it in my hands again for a moment. It was made very precisely, lovingly. Perhaps not with any special skill, but with genuine care and application.
So there had been two of them. It was a pity to do this, of course. Quite apart from the cunningly concealed magical filling, the chalice was interesting in its own right. An ancient relic …
But the prophecy concealed in the chalices had already killed its owner.
Oh no. Enough sacrifices. Down with prophecies. I put the chalice on the baking tray and went to get a bottle of lighter fluid. (I’d been using those cheap gas lighters for ages, but the bottle had been standing in the cupboard, waiting for its time to come.)
‘May you rest easy in the Twilight, Erasmus,’ I said, dousing the chalice generously with petrol.
The front door slammed.
‘Daddy! I’m home!’ Nadya shouted. ‘Anna Tikhonovna fell ill and let us off the last lesson!’
Sveta had been going to collect Nadya from school that day.
‘Okay,’ I shouted back, squatting down in front of the oven with a box of matches in my hand.
‘I’ve brought visitors.’
‘Yes?’ I asked, looking round.
Nadya appeared in the doorway. Then Kesha appeared awkwardly behind her.
‘Hi, Innokentii,’ I said. For some reason I wasn’t surprised by his visit. ‘How are things?’
‘Fine …’ he said and hesitated, not looking up. ‘The lessons are interesting.’
‘That’s great,’ I said in the vigorous tone that grown-ups use for talking to children.
‘Kesha’s mum is working late,’ Nadya explained. ‘I invited him over to our place. Mummy promised to take him home afterwards.’
‘But where is mummy?’
‘She drove us to the entrance and then went to get some toilet paper,’ Nadya said, with a giggle. There’s an age at which the very words ‘toilet paper’ sound remarkably funny, especially if you say them in front of someone the same age as you.
‘Yes, I forgot to buy any yesterday,’ I said in a repentant voice.
Nadya looked round and shouted into the hallway: ‘No, those are mummy’s slippers, the green ones are for visitors!’
‘Have we got lots of visitors, then?’ I asked, getting up.
‘Not really lots,’ said Nadya, slightly embarrassed. ‘Just Aunty Arina as well. We met her in the entrance. She was coming to see us.’
I took a couple of swift strides and positioned myself between the children and the hallway. My left hand was still holding the box of matches. But the fingers of my right hand were already folded into the Shield sign.
‘Anton,’ Arina shouted from the hallway. ‘Peace, friendship, chewing gum!’
She glanced in cautiously from the corridor.
‘I come in peace!’ she said, smiling broadly. ‘No evil here. You can see that the children are fine!’
Nadya seemed to have realised that she had acted rashly. She didn’t make a sound, but she grabbed hold of Kesha’s hand and dragged him in further behind me.
And I felt a bottomless well of Power seething and brimming over just a metre away from me.
‘Nadya,’ I said in a quiet voice. ‘You know perfectly well that you shouldn’t bring strange … people back home.’
‘But she’s not an ordinary person,’ said Nadya, trying to make excuses. ‘She’s an Other … a Light One.’
‘She used to be a Dark One,’ I said. ‘But that’s not the point: there are some Light Ones who don’t have a single white spot left on them.’
‘Anton, you’re being insulting!’ Arina exclaimed indignantly.
She looked entirely peaceable. A long dress, long hair arranged in a bun, looking like an elderly village school teacher. The large fluffy slippers on her feet completed the picture.
‘What have you come for?’ I asked.
I wasn’t really afraid. Svetlana would arrive in a moment. I was in my own flat – and at home the very walls lend you strength, every Other knows that. And in addition, I had my daughter beside me. Not very skilful, but infinitely powerful. And if she struck out – with anything at all – Arina would go flying out through the wall.