‘That’s being checked out,’ Olga replied. ‘So far nothing’s turned up.’
There was no point, it was stupid making wild guesses, people cleverer than I am had already been working on the girl for half a day.
‘What else?’
‘Blood group O. No serious illnesses, occasional mild cardiac arrhythmia. First sexual contact at the age of seventeen, with one of her peers, out of curiosity. She was married four months, has been divorced for two years, relations with her ex-husband have remained equable. No children.’
‘The husband’s powers?’
‘He hasn’t any. Neither does his new wife. That’s the first thing that was checked.’
‘Enemies?’
‘Two female ill-wishers at work. Two rejected admirers at work. A school friend who tried to get a fake sick-note six months ago.’
‘And?’
‘She refused.’
‘Well, well. And how much magic have they got?’
‘Next to none. Their malevolence quotient is ordinary. They all have only weak magical powers. They couldn’t create a vortex like this one.’
‘Any patients died? Recently?’
‘None.’
‘Then where did the curse come from?’ Yes, now I could see why the Watch had got nowhere with this. Svetlana had turned out to be a thoroughgoing goody-two-shoes. Five enemies in twenty-five years – that was something to be proud of.
Olga didn’t answer my rhetorical question.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. I turned towards the windows where I could see the two guards’ silhouettes. One of them waved to me. ‘Olga, how did Ignat try to work this?’
‘The standard approach. A meeting in the street, the “diffident intellectual” line. Coffee in a bar. Conversation. A rapid rise in the mark’s attraction level. He bought champagne and liqueurs, they came here.’
‘And after that?’
‘The vortex started to grow.’
‘And the reason?’
‘There was none. She liked Ignat, in fact she was starting to feel strongly attracted. But at precisely that moment the vortex started to grow catastrophically fast. Ignat ran through three styles of behaviour and managed to get an unambiguous invitation to stay the night. That was when the vortex shifted gear into explosive growth. He was recalled. The vortex stabilised.’
‘How was he recalled?’
I was frozen through already and my boots felt horribly damp on my feet. And I still wasn’t ready.
‘The “sick mother” line. A call to his mobile phone, he apologised, promised to call her tomorrow. There were no hitches, the mark didn’t get suspicious.’
‘And the vortex stabilised?’
Olga didn’t answer, she was obviously communicating with the analysts. Then:
‘It even shrank a little bit. Three centimetres. But that might just be natural recoil when the energy input’s cut off.’
There was something in all this, but I couldn’t formulate my vague suspicions clearly.
‘Where’s her practice, Olga?’
‘Right here, we’re in it. It includes this house. Patients often come to her apartment.’
‘Excellent. Then I’ll go as a patient.’
‘Do you need any help implanting false memories?’
‘I’ll manage.’
‘The boss says okay,’ Olga replied after a pause. ‘Go ahead. Your persona is: Anton Gorodetsky programmer, unmarried, under observation for three years, diagnosis – stomach ulcer, resident in this building, apartment number sixty-four. It’s empty right now, if necessary we can provide backup on that.’
‘Three years is too much for me,’ I confessed. ‘A year. One year, max.’
‘Okay.’
I looked at Olga and she looked at me with those unblinking bird’s eyes, and somewhere in there I could still see part of that dirty, aristocratic woman who’d drunk cognac with me in my kitchen.
‘Good luck,’ she said. ‘Try to reduce the size of the vortex. Ten metres at least … then I’ll risk it.’
The bird flew up into the air and instantly withdrew into the Twilight, down into the very deepest layers.
I sighed and set off towards the building’s entrance. The trunk of the vortex swayed as it tried to touch me. I stretched my hands out, folding them into the Xamadi, the sign of negation.
The vortex shuddered and recoiled. Not really afraid, just playing by the rules. At that size the advancing Inferno should already have developed powers of reason, stopped being a mindless, target-seeking missile and become a ferocious, experienced kamikaze. I know that sounds odd – an experienced kamikaze – but when it comes to the Dark, the term’s justified. Once it breaks through into the human world, an Inferno vortex is doomed, but it’s only a single wasp out of a huge swarm that dies.
‘Your hour hasn’t come yet,’ I said. The Inferno wasn’t about to answer me, but I felt like saying it anyway.
I walked past the stalk. The vortex looked like it was made of blue-black glass that had acquired the flexibility of rubber. Its outer surface was almost motionless, but deep inside, where the dark blue became impenetrable darkness, I could vaguely see a furious spinning motion.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe its hour had come …
The entrance didn’t even have a coded entry system. Or rather, it had one, but it had been smashed and gutted. That was normal. A little greeting from the Dark. I’d already stopped paying any attention to its tracks, even stopped noticing the words and the dirty paw marks on walls, the broken lamps and the fouled lifts. But now I was wound up tight.
I needn’t have asked for the number. I could sense the girl – I kept on thinking about her as a girl, even though she’d been married – I knew which way to go, I could even see her apartment, or rather, not see it, but perceive it as a whole.
The only thing I didn’t understand was how I was going to get rid of that damned twister.
I stopped in front of the door. It was an ordinary one, not metal, very unusual on a first floor, especially in a building where the entrance lock is broken. I gave a deep sigh and rang the bell. Eleven o’clock. A bit late, of course.
I heard steps. There was no sound insulation …
CHAPTER 7
SHE OPENED the door straight away.
She didn’t ask who it was, she didn’t look through the spy-hole, she didn’t put on the chain. In Moscow! And at night! Alone in her apartment! The vortex was devouring the final remnants of the girl’s caution, the caution that had kept her alive for several days. That was usually the way people died when they had been cursed …
But to look at, Svetlana still seemed normal. Except maybe for the shadows under her eyes, but who knew what kind of a night she’d had? And the way she was dressed – a skirt, a smart blouse, shoes – as if she was expecting someone or was all set to go out.
‘Good evening, Svetlana,’ I said, already noticing a faint gleam of recognition in her eyes. Of course, she had a vague memory of me from the previous day. And I had to exploit that moment when she’d already realised we knew each other but still hadn’t remembered from where.
I reached out through the Twilight. Cautiously, because the vortex was hanging right there above the girl’s head as if it was attached to her, and it could react at any second. Cautiously, because I didn’t really want to deceive her.
Not even if it were for her own good.
It’s only the first time that’s interesting and funny. If you still find it amusing after that, the Night Watch is the wrong place for you. It’s one thing to shift someone’s moral imperatives, especially when it’s always towards the Good. It’s quite another to interfere with their memory. It’s inevitable, it has to be done, it’s part of the Treaty, and through the very process of entering and leaving the Twilight we induce a momentary amnesia in the people around us.