'My esteemed . . . European Inspector . . .' After a brief pause Gesar launched into a speech that was only moderately sarcastic. 'I am no less fascinated by mythology than you are. Among witches, stories about the Fuaran are very widespread, but we know perfectly well that they are no more than an attempt to add lustre to the reputation of their own . . . caste. There are exactly the same kind of folktales in the culture of werewolves, vampires and various kinds of Others who are fated to play a subordinate role in society. But we have a real problem here, and wandering off into the thickets of ancient superstition . . .'
Edgar interrupted him:
'I understand your point of view, Gesar. But the problem is that two hours ago Witiezslav called me on his mobile. While he was checking Arina's things, he stumbled across the secret room. Anyway . . .Witiezslav was very excited. He said the Fuaran was lying in the secret room, that it was genuine. I . . . must confess that I was sceptical. Witiezslav was an excitable character.'
Gesar shook his head doubtfully.
'I didn't come straight away,' Edgar went on. 'Especially since Witiezslav told me he was summoning Inquisition operatives from the security cordon.'
'Was he afraid of something?' Zabulon asked curtly.
'Witiezslav? I don't think so, not anything specific. It's standard procedure when an artefact of such great power is discovered. I completed my round of the security posts and was actually talking to Konstantin when our operatives reported that they had surrounded the house but could not sense Witiezslav's presence. I ordered them to enter – and they reported that there was no one inside. At that point I . . .' Edgar hesitated '. . . felt rather puzzled. Why would Witiezslav hide from his colleagues? I came as quickly as I could, with Kostya. It took us about forty minutes – we didn't want to go through the Twilight because we thought we might need all our Power when we got here – and our agents were unable to put up a reliable portal, there are too many magical artefacts here . . .'
'I see,' said Gesar. 'Go on.'
'There was a cordon round the house and two agents were on guard inside. We entered the secret room together and discovered Witiezslav's remains.'
'How long was Witiezslav left without protection?' Gesar asked, still sounding sceptical, but with a new note of interest in his voice.
'About an hour.'
'And for another forty minutes Inquisitors guarded his remains? There are six of them, third- and fourth-grade.' Gesar frowned. 'A powerful magician could have got through.'
'Unlikely,' said Edgar, shaking his head. 'Yes, they are third-and fourth-grade; Roman is the only one who's just about second-grade, but they're equipped with our guard amulets. Not even a Great One could have got through.'
'Then the killer must have been here before they arrived?'
'Most probably,' Edgar confirmed.
'A magician powerful enough to kill a Higher Vampire swiftly . . .' Gesar shook his head. 'I can only think of one candidate.'
'The witch,' Zabulon muttered. 'If she really did have the Fuaran, she might have come back for it.'
'First she abandoned it, and then came back?' Svetlana exclaimed. I realised she was trying to defend Arina. 'That's not logical!'
'Anton and I pursued her,' Edgar responded ingenuously. 'She fled in a panic. Clearly she didn't make a run for it immediately, as we assumed, but hid somewhere nearby. When Witiezslav found the book she sensed it and became frantic.'
Gesar gave Svetlana and me a dark look, but said nothing.
'Perhaps Witiezslav died without any help?' Svetlana persisted. 'He found the book, tried to work some spell in it . . . and was killed. There have been such cases.'
'Aha,' Zabulon said acidly, 'and in the meantime the book grew legs and ran away.'
'I wouldn't even exclude that possibility,' said Gesar, standing up for Svetlana. 'It could have sprouted legs, and it could have run away.'
Silence fell, and in the silence Zabulon's scoffing laugh sounded especially loud.
'Well, well! So we believe in the Fuaran?'
'I believe that someone killed a Higher Vampire with ease,' said Gesar. 'And that someone is not frightened of the Watches or the Inquisition. That very fact demands speedy and efficient investigation. Don't you agree, colleague?'
Zabulon nodded reluctantly.
'If we accept even for one moment that the Fuaran really was here . . .' Gesar shook his head. 'If all the rumours about this book are true . . .'
Zabulon nodded again.
Both Great Magicians froze, looking at each other. Either they were simply trying to stare each other down or, despite all the defences around them, they were managing somehow to conduct a magical conversation.
I walked over to the vampire's remains and squatted down.
A disagreeable sort. Disagreeable, even for a vampire.
But still one of us.
An Other.
Behind my back Edgar was burbling something about the need to bring in fresh reinforcements, and how catching Arina had now become a matter of vital importance. The witch was out of luck. An old violation of the Treaty, even on a grand scale, was one thing. Killing an Inquisitor was something else altogether.
All the facts stacked up against her. Who else was powerful enough to take out a Higher Vampire?
But somehow I didn't believe Arina was guilty . . .
For some reason, I didn't find Witiezslav's remains disgusting at all. Obviously there was nothing human left in him, not even a trace of bone. Grey dust, like damp cigarette ash, maintaining its form, but entirely homogeneous in structure. I touched something that looked a bit like a clenched fist, and was not at all surprised when the dust crumbled away, revealing a crumpled piece of paper.
'A note,' I said.
A deathly silence fell. Since there were no objections, I picked up the piece of paper, straightened it out and read it. And only then looked at the magicians.
They all looked so tense, it was as if they were expecting to hear me say: 'Witiezslav wrote down the name of his killer before he died . . . it was you!'
'Witiezslav didn't write this,' I said. 'It's Arina's writing, she wrote an explanatory note . . .'
'Read it out,' Edgar ordered.
'Dear Inquisitors,' I read in a loud voice. 'If you are reading this, it means that you are still pursuing issues from the past. I suggest a peaceful settlement. You get the book you have been looking for. I get a pardon.'
'So you were looking for it then?' Gesar asked in a very calm voice.
'The Inquisition tries to locate all artefacts,' Edgar replied calmly. 'Including those considered mythological.'
'Would she have got her pardon?' Svetlana asked unexpectedly.
Edgar looked at her in annoyance, but he answered:
'If the Fuaran had been lying here? It's not my decision to make, but the answer's probably yes. If it's the genuine Fuaran.'
'I'm inclined to think now that the book is the genuine article . . .' Gesar said in a quiet voice. 'Edgar, I'd like to consult with my colleagues.'
Edgar merely shrugged. The Inquisitor probably wasn't too keen on being left alone with Zabulon and Kostya, but his expression remained unchanged.
Svetlana and I followed Gesar.
The Inquisitors greeted us with suspicious glances, as if they thought we'd killed all the Dark Ones in the secret room. But it didn't bother Gesar.
'We're withdrawing for a conference,' he said casually, heading for the door. The Inquisitors glanced at each other, but they didn't argue – one of them just walked towards the secret room. But we were already out of the witch's house.
It seemed as if morning hadn't arrived yet, here in the dense heart of the forest. All around there was a mysterious semidarkness, like the very first hour of dawn. I glanced up in surprise, and saw that the sky really was unnaturally grey: it was like looking through a pair of dark glasses. Apparently that was the manifestation in our world of the magical defences erected by the Inquisitors.
'Everything's
falling apart . . .' Gesar muttered. 'Things are really bad . . .'
His gaze shifted rapidly from me to Svetlana and back. As if he couldn't decide which of us he needed.
'Was the Fuaran really there?' Svetlana asked.
'It seems so. Evidently the book exists.' Gesar pulled a wry face. 'This is bad, really bad . . .'
'We'll have to find the witch,' said Svetlana. 'If you want . . .'
Gesar shook his head. 'No, I don't want. Arina has to get away.'
'I understand,' I said, taking Svetlana by the hand. 'If they catch Arina, she might confess who that Light One was . . .'
'Arina doesn't know who that Light One was,' said Gesar, interrupting me. 'That Light One came to her in a mask. She can suspect and surmise, she might even be certain – but she doesn't have a single fact. It's something else that's worrying me . . .'
That was when I understood.
'The Fuaran?'
'Yes. That's why I ask you . . .'
Before he could finish, I hurriedly put in:
'We don't know where Arina is. Do we, Sveta?'
Svetlana frowned, but she shook her head in agreement.
'Thank you,' said Gesar. 'That's the first thing. Now for the second. We have to find the Fuaran. At any cost. They'll probably put a search party together. I want Anton to be our representative.'
'I'm more powerful,' Svetlana said quietly.
'That makes no difference at all.' Gesar shook his head. 'Not a scrap. I'll be needing you here, Svetlana.'
'What for?' she asked cautiously.
Gesar hesitated for a second. Then he said:
'To initiate Nadya if we should need to.'
'You're out of your mind,' Svetlana said in an icy voice. 'There's no way she can become an Other at her age and with her Power!'
'It might turn out that we have no other choice,' Gesar muttered. 'Svetlana, it's up to you. All I ask is that you stay with the child.'
'Don't worry about that,' Svetlana snapped. 'I won't take my eyes off her.'
'That's fine, then.' Gesar smiled and walked towards the door. 'Do come and join us, our Council at Fili is about to start.'
The moment the door closed behind him, Svetlana swung round to face me and demanded:
'Do you understand any of this?'
I nodded, and replied:
'Gesar was unable to find his own son. He really was just an ordinary human being. He only became an Other just recently.'
'Arina?'
'Looks like it. She emerged from hibernation and took a look around. Found out who was at the top . . .'
'And used the Fuaran to give Gesar a little secret present? She turned his son into an Other?' Svetlana shook her head. 'It makes no sense, why would she do that? They're not that close, surely?'
'But now Gesar will do everything possible to make sure they don't find Arina. She took out an insurance policy'
Svetlana screwed up her eyes and nodded.
'But listen, what about the Day Watch . . .'
'How do we know what she did for Zabulon?' I shrugged. 'Somehow I get the feeling the Day Watch won't go to any great lengths in looking for the witch either.'
'What a cunning old hag!' Svetlana said, without malice. 'I was wrong to think so little of witches. Did you understand that about Nadya?'
'No.'
What Gesar had said made simply no sense. Sometimes Other children were initiated at the age of five or six, but never any earlier than that. A child who has acquired the abilities of an Other but is unable to control them properly is a walking bomb. Especially an Other as powerful as Nadiushka. Even Gesar himself would be unable to stop our little girl if she got overexcited and started using her Power.
No, I had no idea what Gesar had meant.
'I'll pull his legs off and put them where his arms used to be,' Svetlana promised in a perfectly calm voice, 'if he even hints that we have to initiate Nadya. All right, shall we go?'
We linked arms – really wanting to feel close to each other at that moment – and went back into the house.
The Inquisitors whom chance had chosen to involve in the secret had been put back in the security cordon round the house, and the other six of us were sitting round the table.
Gesar was drinking tea that he'd made himself, by taking the witch's brew and adding herbs from her abundant reserves. I took a cup too. The tea smelled of mint and juniper, it was bitter and spicy, but bracing. No one else was tempted to drink it – Svetlana politely took a sip and put her cup down.
The note was lying on the table.
'Twenty-two or twenty-three hours ago,' said Zabulon, looking at the piece of paper. 'She wrote the note before your visit, Inquisitor.'
Edgar nodded and added reluctantly:
'Possibly . . . or just possibly, during our visit. It was hard for us, pursuing her in the depths of the Twilight – she would have had quite enough time to gather her wits and write a note.'
'Then we have no grounds for suspecting the witch,' Zabulon muttered. 'She left the book in order to buy off her pursuers. She had no reason to come back for it and kill the Inquisitor.'
'Agreed,' Gesar said after a pause.
'A most astonishing unity of thought between Dark Ones and Light Ones,' said Edgar. 'You're frightening me, gentlemen.'
'This is no time for disagreements,' Zabulon replied. 'We have to find the killer and the book.'
They both definitely had their own reasons for protecting Arina.
'Good.' Edgar nodded. 'Let's go back to the beginning. Witiezslav calls me and tells me about the Fuaran. Nobody hears the conversation.'
'All mobile phone calls are monitored and recorded . . .' I put in.
'What are you suggesting, Anton?' Edgar looked at me ironically. 'That the human secret services are conducting a campaign against the Others? And when they heard about the book, they sent an agent here, and he killed a Higher Vampire?'
'Anton might not be that far off the mark,' Gesar said in my defence. 'You know, Edgar, every year we have to suppress human activity directed at exposing us. And you know about the special departments in the secret services . . .'
'We have people in them,' Edgar retorted. 'But even if we assume that they're searching for Others again, and that there's been a leak, Witiezslav's death is still a mystery. Not even James Bond could have crept up on him without being noticed.'
'Who's James Bond?' Zabulon enquired.
'That's another myth,' Gesar laughed. 'Contemporary mythology. Gentlemen, let us not waste time in idle discussion. The situation is perfectly clear. Witiezslav was killed by an Other. A powerful Other. And most likely someone he trusted.'
'He didn't trust anyone, not even me,' muttered Edgar. 'Suspicion is in a vampire's blood . . . pardon the pun.'
Nobody smiled. Kostya gave Edgar a moody glance, but said nothing.