Almost immediately I heard an unpleasant soft thud: the warlock had fallen off the roof, hitting the tarmac below.
Then the others started to appear. An attractive, black-haired girl with a bruise under her left eye and a broken jaw; an imperturbable, stocky little man; a calm-looking businessman in an oriental robe . . . Bear had already gone. I knew what he'd be doing in his apartment – his 'lair'. Drinking surgical spirit and reading poetry. Probably out loud. And watching the happily babbling TV.
The vampire was there too. She was in really bad shape. She mumbled something, shaking her head and trying to reattach a hand that had been bitten off. The hand was making feeble efforts to grow back. Everything around her was spattered with blood – not hers, of course, it was the blood of her latest victim . . .
'Time to go,' I said, lifting the heavy pistol. My hand trembled treacherously.
The bullet smacked into the dead flesh, and a ragged wound appeared in the girl's side. She groaned and squeezed it shut with her one good hand. The other was dangling on a few threadlike tendons.
'Don't,' Semyon said softly. 'Don't, Anton . . .'
I continued, taking aim at her head. But at that moment a huge black shadow swooped down out of the sky, a bat grown to the size of a condor. It spread its wings, shielding the girl vampire and convulsing as it transformed.
'She's entitled to a trial!'
I couldn't fire at Kostya. I stood there, looking at the young vampire who lived in the apartment above me. The vampire's eyes were trained directly on me. How long had you been sneaking around after me, my friend and enemy? And what for – to save your fellow vampire or to prevent me from taking a step that would make me your mortal enemy?
I shrugged and stuck the pistol into my belt. You were right, Olga. All this equipment is pointless.
'She is,' the boss confirmed. 'Semyon, Tiger Cub, escort her.'
'All right,' said Tiger Cub. She gave me a glance, more of understanding than sympathy, and approached the vampires with a spring in her step.
'Even so, she's for the high jump,' Semyon whispered and followed her.
That was how they left the roof: Kostya carrying the groaning vampire, who had no idea what was going on, with Semyon and Tiger Cub silently walking behind him.
I was left alone with Egor and the boss.
'Son, you do have some powers,' the boss said gently. 'Not great ones, but then most don't even have what you have. I'd be happy for you to be my pupil . . .'
The boy was crying silently, struggling in vain to hold back the tears.
One little seventh-degree intervention, and he'd feel better. He'd understand that to fight the Dark, the Light has to use every possible weapon.
I looked up at the sombre sky and opened my mouth to catch the cold snowflakes. I wanted to freeze. To freeze solid. Not like in the Twilight. To become ice, not fog; not snow, but slush; to freeze, solidify and never melt again . . .
'Egor, come on, I'll see you home,' I offered.
'It's not far, I'll be okay . . .' the kid said,
I went on standing there for a long time, gulping down snow and wind, and I didn't see him leave. I heard the boss ask: 'Will you be able to wake your parents on your own?' but I didn't hear the answer.
'Anton, if it's any comfort to you at all, the boy's aura is the same as it was. Still undetermined.' He put his arm round my shoulders. He looked small now, pitiful, not at all like a well-groomed entrepreneur or a powerful magician. Just a sprightly old man who'd won another short battle in a war that had no end.
'Great.'
That's what I'd really like – to have no aura at all. To make my own destiny.
'Anton, you still have things to do.'
'I know, Boris Ignatievich.'
'Will you be able to explain everything to Svetlana?'
'Yes, I expect so ... I will now.'
'I'm really sorry. But I have to use what I have . . . the people I have. You're linked with her. A standard mystical link, impossible to explain. No one can take your place.'
'I understand.'
The snow was settling on my face, thawing on my eyelashes, melting and running down my cheeks. It felt as if I'd almost managed to freeze solid, but I didn't have the right.
'Remember what I told you? Being with the Light is much tougher than being with the Dark . . .'
'I remember.'
'It will be even tougher for you, Anton. You'll fall in love with her. You'll live with her . . . for a while. Then Svetlana will move on. And you'll see her moving away from you, see her contacts extending into places far higher than you can reach. You'll suffer. But nothing can be done. You play your part at the beginning. That's the way it is with every Great Magician, with every Great Sorceress. They achieve greatness over the bodies of their friends and loved ones. There is no other way.'
'Yes, I understand ... I understand everything . . .'
'Let's go then, Anton.'
I didn't answer.
'Shall we go?'
'Aren't we late already?'
'Not yet. The Light has paths of its own. I'll take you there by the short way, and after that, you follow your own path.'
'Then I'll just stand here for a while,' I said. I closed my eyes so that I could feel the snowflakes landing on my eyelids, so tenderly.
'If you only knew how many times I've stood like that,' said the boss. 'Just like that, looking up into the sky, asking for something . . . Maybe a blessing, maybe a curse.'
I said nothing, I already knew there wouldn't be any answer.
'Anton, I'm frozen,' said the boss. 'I feel cold. As a man. I want to drink a few glasses of vodka and settle down under a warm blanket. And lie there, waiting for you to help Svetlana ... for Olga to deal with the vortex. And then take a holiday. Leave Ilya in charge here, since he's already been inside my skin, and head for Samarkand. Have you ever been to Samarkand?'
'No.'
'It's no great shakes, to be honest. Especially nowadays. There's not much good there, except memories . . . But they're enough for me.'
'Let's go, Boris Ignatievich.'
I wiped the snow off my face.
There was someone waiting for me.
And that's the only thing that stops us freezing solid.
Story Two
AMONG HIS
OWN KIND
PROLOGUE
HIS NAME was Maxim.
Not such a very unusual name, but not ordinary either, not a Sergei, Andrei or Dmitry. A name with a fine Russian ring to it, even if its roots did go back to the Greeks and the Varangians, maybe even the Scythians.
He was happy enough with his appearance. Not the cloying good looks of an actor from a TV serial, but not a dull, everyday face either. A handsome man, he stood out in a crowd. And he'd built his body too, but without overdoing it – no bulging veins, no obsessive daily workouts at the gym.
He was happy with his job as auditor for a major foreign firm, one that was profitable – he could afford to indulge his tastes, and he didn't need to concern himself with protection rackets.
It was all as if one day his guardian angel had simply decided: 'You shall be a bit better than the rest.' Only a bit, but still better. And that suited Maxim just fine. Why try to scramble higher up the ladder and fritter his life away on wanting a car with all the extras, an entree to the high life or an apartment with an extra room . . . what for? He enjoyed life for its own sake, not for the material things he could squeeze out of it. Life was the exact opposite of money, which in itself meant nothing.
Of course, Maxim had never thought about this quite so clearly. One of the quirks of people who've managed to find a place in life that suits them perfectly is that they simply believe that's the way things ought to be. Everything just works out the way it ought to. And if someone feels short-changed by life, then he has only himself to blame. He must have been lazy and stupid. Or else he rated himself too highly and tried to 'get above himself.
Maxim was fond of that phrase: 'getting above yourself. It put everything into perspective. For instance, it explained why his intelligent and beautiful sister was throwing her life away on an alcoholic husband in Tambov. She'd gone off looking for someone with better prospects . . . and just look what she'd found. Or take his old school friend who'd been lying in a hospital ward for over a month now. He'd wanted to expand his business, and he had. He was lucky still to be alive, lucky his competitors happened to be so relatively restrained . . . the market in non-ferrous metals had been carved up a long time ago.
There was only one aspect of life in which Maxim could imagine the idea of 'getting above yourself applying to him, and it was such a very strange and complicated aspect that he preferred not even to think about it. It was much easier not to think, simply to accept the weird thing that sometimes happened to him in spring, occasionally in the autumn and only very, very rarely at the height of summer, when the oppressive heat became totally unbearable, emptying his head of all logic and caution, including even those vague doubts about his psychological balance . . . Maxim didn't worry that he was in any way schizophrenic, though. He'd read books and consulted specialists. . . only, of course, without going into all the details.
No, he was normal enough. Obviously some things in life simply defied reason and couldn't be judged by the usual norms. The idea that he might be 'getting above himself bothered him. But was that really what he was doing?
Maxim was sitting in his car, a neat, well-cared-for Toyota, with the engine running quietly. It wasn't the most expensive of cars and it didn't have all the fancy trimmings, but it was still way better than most on the road in Moscow. In the dim light of early morning, no one could have made out his face behind the steering wheel, even from just a few steps away. He'd spent the whole night like that, listening to the gentle purring sound of the engine, chilled through but determined not to turn the heater on. As usual at such times, he didn't feel like sleeping. Or smoking. He didn't feel like doing anything at all, it felt good just to sit there without moving, like a shadow in the car, parked at the kerb, waiting. The only thing that troubled him was that his wife would think he'd been with a lover. How could he prove to her that he didn't have a full-time lover and his strayings were no more than fleeting affairs at work and occasional professional services when he travelled on business . . . and he hadn't even paid for those with their family's money, they'd been provided by clients. He couldn't have refused, they'd have been offended. Or decided he was gay and offered him boys the next time . . .
The luminous green figures on the clock flickered and changed: five in the morning. Any moment now the road-sweepers would come creeping out to work. This was an old district, upmarket, they were very careful to keep things clean around here. It was a good thing it wasn't raining or snowing either, the lousy winter was over, dead and gone, and now spring was here, bringing with it its own problems, including the temptation to 'get above himself . . .
One of the doors of a nearby building slammed. The girl who had come out stopped as she adjusted her handbag on her shoulder, about ten metres away from the car. They were ill-designed, the buildings round here, with no courtyards, inconvenient to work in and probably to live in as well: what was their smart reputation worth if the plumbing was dodgy and the metre-thick walls covered with mildew – and there were probably ghosts around as well . . .
Maxim smiled gently as he climbed out of his car. His body obeyed him without reluctance, his muscles hadn't cramped up during the night; if anything, they felt stronger than ever. And that was a sign.
But seriously, he wondered, do ghosts really exist?
'Galina!' he called.