‘Me and my patriotism…’ Gesar grunted.
‘Well, you could call it that…’ Arina replied sarcastically. ‘What you actually said was: “It’s a savage country, it won’t be any great loss.”’
Zabulon laughed and slapped his hands down on the desk. ‘That’s excellent, Gesar! That’s wonderful! How very like a Light One!’
‘And you—’ Arina began.
‘Stop! I don’t wish to know!’ Zabulon cried. ‘It has no bearing on the business in hand, and I don’t wish to know.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Arina agreed amiably. ‘We purged everything. All the data in the archives. All the records in the chronicles. Nothing was left but the scraps of vampire legends and references in secondary documents that everyone had forgotten about. And then we wiped our own memories clean. We took a very thorough approach.’
‘But why can you remember it?’ Gesar asked.
‘I took a different view from the very start,’ she said. ‘I sensed that neither of the experiments would turn out well. Neither the world war nor the revolution. You can’t coerce human nature like that. And you can’t make good out of evil. No one can manage that.’
‘But you remember!’ Gesar persisted.
‘I kept my memory in a separate place,’ Arina laughed. ‘We witches have an artefact that stores the memories of all the Great-Grandmothers. I didn’t even have to do anything special, so you didn’t spot any cunning on my part. The moment I picked up that artefact, I remembered … And I realised what we had done. But it was too late. All I could do was watch what was happening to Russia. Keep an eye on you idiots. And follow instructions… Until I got too sick of it all.’
Gesar and Zabulon sat there, looking miserable and wretched. The grin of maniacal glee had even disappeared from Zabulon’s face.
And I must say I really enjoyed that.
‘So you know everything, then?’ Olga asked in a businesslike tone. ‘Who the members of the Sixth Watch are and how to defeat the Two-in-One? There’s no point in going over old grudges now.’
‘No, there isn’t,’ Arina concurred. ‘Yes, I know. That’s why I was so distraught… I could see the way everything was going. I was searching for a solution. A way to save myself and all of us, to save the country and the entire human race. But I didn’t find it… Didn’t you ever even wonder why in Russia the subtle world suddenly started warping and cracking? An Inferno breaks through, an Absolute Enchantress is born, the Fuaran is found, the Tiger appears… What do you make of all that? Things come apart when they’re botched.’
‘Well,’ said Gesar, looking at me and Svetlana. Then he averted his gaze. ‘The Absolute Enchantress was my initiative.’
‘Ours,’ Zabulon put in unexpectedly and I looked at him in amazement.
‘Ours,’ Gesar agreed. ‘We saw that the Twilight was unsettled. Certain fragments of knowledge kept resurfacing…’
‘So we carried out certain work,’ said Zabulon. ‘To prepare for the appearance of an Absolute Enchantress. As a weapon against the Twilight.’
‘There was something the Tiger told me before he died,’ I said, staring at Zabulon. ‘He said I was “begotten of the Darkness”. And he told me you would explain what that meant.’
‘Yes, I can explain that,’ Zabulon agreed glibly.
‘Please don’t,’ Gesar said to him. ‘Let’s get on with business.’
‘This has to do with our business,’ I said. ‘Tell me.’
‘You could say it’s all a matter of genetics,’ Zabulon began. ‘Or even—’
‘Don’t,’ said Gesar, raising his voice.
‘Or even eugenics,’ Zabulon continued. ‘The abilities of an Other are not necessarily inherited by offspring, but there is a definite correlation, which is easiest to calculate after several generations. We don’t study the genes, but we calculate the lines of probability.’
Gesar didn’t protest any more. He just sat there, looking at me.
‘The Absolute Enchantress had to be born from two lines,’ said Zabulon, keeping his stare fixed on me. ‘One of them had to be Light – and that was quite easy, there was a very wide choice. The other line had to be Dark, and it had to pass through me. That was mandatory.’
I swallowed the lump that had risen in my throat.
‘But I’m a Light One,’ I said.
‘Boris Ignatievich was convinced that a Light One and Dark One wouldn’t be able to get on together,’ said Zabulon. ‘So he waited for the right moment and initiated you in a Light state of mind. I was very offended by that for a long time and, to be honest, I was angry with you too, although it wasn’t your fault in any way.’
‘My father was an ordinary human being,’ I said firmly. ‘A normal, ordinary human being!’
‘Yes,’ Zabulon agreed readily. ‘It’s an unfortunate fact that children rarely inherit the abilities of Others – they usually skip a generation. Gesar and Olga actually had a candidate of their own, but they managed to lose the boy somehow and only found him again when it was too late. And my last four granddaughters actually have no Other abilities whatsoever. But things went a bit better with my three grandsons – and you were the lucky one.’
‘Dad is your grandson?’ Nadya asked in the silence that had fallen.
Zabulon gave an embarrassed shrug.
‘So that makes me your great-granddaughter?’ Nadya went on.
‘And what about me? Gesar, who are you to me?’ Svetlana exclaimed.
She jumped to her feet and dashed across to Gesar, who pulled back, raising his hands in a gesture of appeasement.
‘Who are you to me? My father? My grandfather? What sort of Bollywood epic is this? Maybe I should start dancing and break into a song about the long-lost daughter who has been found?’
‘You’re not related to me,’ Gesar said in a loud, emphatic voice. ‘There were Light Ones in your family line, you had the potential of a Great Enchantress, and that was enough! Yes, we exploited you, we put you in contact with… suitable candidates. And we wrote Nadezhda’s birth into your destiny! But that’s all. I’m not your relative!’
‘How delighted I am to hear that!’ Svetlana exclaimed and slapped Gesar hard on the cheek.
The Great Light One put his hand to his face and gaped at her in confusion.
‘I’ve been dreaming about doing that for a long time,’ Svetlana declared joyfully.
‘Give him another for me,’ I said.
‘Gladly!’ said Svetlana, and she did. Then she turned to Nadya and said, ‘That’s all. We’re leaving.’
‘It will mean the end of the world, little girl,’ said Arina.
‘I couldn’t give a damn,’ Svetlana replied. ‘Don’t order me around, you old witch. Or are you my mother, or granny, or great-granny?’
‘Now leave me out of that!’ Arina exclaimed, throwing up her hands. ‘All we women are sisters! And no matter what kind of mess the men might make, we have to answer for life, don’t we? And you’re a doctor – you swore the Hippocratic oath.’
‘The Soviet doctor’s oath,’ Svetlana replied morosely. But she sat down again beside Nadya and pulled her daughter close.
‘Everyone calm down,’ Arina continued in a conciliatory tone. ‘This is no reason for a quarrel. As if you didn’t know, Sveta, that you were prepared for Nadya’s birth and led towards it. So what? You have an intelligent, beautiful daughter. Do you really regret that? And you, Anton? This old fogey had a little fling with your grandmother. You can barely even remember her, and did you ever even think about your grandfather? You didn’t care who he was. Well, there he is now, your biological grandfather. It makes no difference to anything.’