Garik didn’t even say anything. He twirled a small amulet that looked like a cube of ivory in his fingers and glimmers of energy pierced the air. Most likely it was an ordinary magical accumulator.
‘I’m going through and I’m taking what belongs to us,’ said Edgar.
He’s incredibly calm. Maybe he also knows something that I don’t?
The Light Magicians didn’t say a word. But such a piece of obvious stupidity seemed to have put them on their guard. The witch’s fate now depended on who would conduct the investigation. If we could get her, we’d be able to defend her and make her one of us. If the Light Ones got her, then her life was over.
But better her life than all of ours! Two second-grade magicians, a shape-shifter, and another two or three Others in the apartment! They’d crush us!
‘I’m going in,’ Edgar said calmly and took a step forward. The Twilight around him howled as it was filled with power – the magician had set up a defensive screen.
All I remember after that is the battle.
The Light Ones struck as soon as Edgar took that step. Not with deadly spells, but an ordinary ‘press’, trying to force our magician off the staircase. Edgar bent over as if he was walking into a wind and the outline of the vortex of power protecting him became clearly visible. The battle was being waged at the level of pure energy. It was primitive and not at all spectacular. Ah, if only Zabulon had been there instead of Edgar! He’d have swept those upstarts aside in a second, forced them to expend all their energy and tossed them aside, drained of all their powers!
But Edgar was putting up a worthy fight. For about five seconds he moved forward using his own power and even forced the press right back to the door of the apartment. Then I felt the cold in my fingertips.
The magician had started to draw on our power.
I immediately sensed the Light Ones tense as they registered the energy channel between us and Edgar. They didn’t try to disrupt it, a hasty attempt would only have led to Edgar gathering in their energy as well. They simply increased their pressure, counting on their own superiority And I had the impression that the magicians concealed inside the apartment started feeding them with power as well.
For a few moments everything hung in the balance. The current of our combined power had immediately increased Edgar’s pressure, but the Light Ones had their own reserves. The little cube in Ilya’s hand crumbled and scattered across the floor in golden dust and their counterblow pushed Edgar back a metre. Olga began groaning beside me – her basic energy reserves were exhausted, and now she was pumping out the very substance of her power, the deep reserves that can’t be replenished so easily. She didn’t seem to be in very good shape today.
What was Lemesheva hoping for?
There was a noise from behind the Light Ones. The vampire brothers … they must have got in through the balcony.
But the magicians didn’t even seem to notice what was happening. Only the tigress went towards the noise, brushing aside the lightweight furniture in her way and tearing the lino with her claws. And a moment later I heard a pitiful howl from one of the brothers.
Three vampires weren’t really enough for the shape-shifter.
‘Vitaly!’ Lemesheva commanded curtly. The mental command slipped through the Twilight and our werewolf raced towards the entrance of the apartment, throwing off his clothes and changing into a wolf on the way. We carried on feeding Edgar with energy and he started moving forward again, even managing to push Ilya back into the apartment. Then a huge wolf appeared from behind Edgar and rushed forward, paying no attention to the magicians.
It was a good idea. But inside the apartment the appearance of the werewolf was met with a bolt of fire. One of the Light Ones who had been kept in reserve had joined in the struggle. And he’d immediately shown that he was serious.
The werewolf’s thick brown fur burst into flames; he leapt into the air and fell to the floor, thrashing his paws about and rolling over and over, trying to put the flames out. If he had continued the attack, he would have had a chance to get to the magician before he could prepare a second fireball …
But he’d obviously been on watch duty for far too long.
Vitaly kept trying to put out the flames, and new charges kept striking him from out of the darkness. A second, a third, a fourth … Blood spurted and burning lumps of flesh went flying through the air. The wolf howled and fell silent – only its back legs were twitching now, with its tail lying between them, blazing like a firework. It was actually rather beautiful.
The amulet hanging at my chest – a small crystal jug with a drop of red liquid sealed inside it – crunched and shattered into tiny fragments. That was bad. It was a signal that my power was running low and it simultaneously released my final reserve. A drop of the blood of a woman who has died giving birth to an Other is a very powerful source of energy, but even that wouldn’t last for long.
‘Lena!’ Lemesheva commanded.
I felt the wordless command again and Lena left the Circle, moving slowly, like a sleepwalker. My right hand was empty now and the trance receded for a few seconds, before Anna Lemesheva reached out to me. But it was enough time for me to see something standing in the centre of our Circle – a small folding table of black wood, with a narrow blade of burnished steel lying on it. And Lena was already standing by the sandpit, frozen over the playing children as if she were choosing between them …
‘The girl!’ Lemesheva shouted. ‘One girl is more use than a dozen boys!’
Now I understood everything. Apart from one thing, that is. How had Anna Lemesheva been granted the right to a human sacrifice, and why had she decided to waste such tremendous power on saving some ordinary witch?
But then Lemesheva grasped my hand and once again I became a mindless part of the Circle of Power.
Edgar was already squeezed back into the corner of the stairwell – they weren’t just pushing him back now, they were trying to crush him against the wall. He threw up one hand:
‘Stop!’
A terrible pain …
The Circle was draining the very last reserves of energy from me. And Olga wasn’t giving any more at all, she’d been wrung completely dry and she was standing there with us, twitching as if she were holding a bare power cable; Zhanna was groaning quietly too, her head gradually sinking down onto her chest.
‘We have the right to a sacrifice,’ Edgar said coolly ‘If you don’t let her go …’
The Light Ones froze. I saw the way they looked at each other and Garik shook his head.
But Semyon seemed to believe it straight away.
A sacrifice provides a massive discharge of energy. Especially if it’s the sacrifice of a child, and especially if it takes place inside a Circle of Power, and especially if it’s performed by an experienced witch. Lenka Kireeva was already standing inside the Circle, the knife was already in her hands, and the girl was already lying on the black table.
If we poured the power that would be liberated into Edgar, the Light Ones wouldn’t be able to resist it. Of course, they had extreme methods of their own, but did they have the authority to make use of them?
The shape-shifter tigress sprang out into the corridor. She must have been battering the vampire brothers on the balcony and seen what we were preparing to do.
‘You can’t stand against us,’ Edgar said aloofly. ‘We’ll take what is ours anyway, and a human child will die, and you’ll be to blame.’
The Light Ones were dumbfounded. That was hardly surprising: the situation behind this particular conflict didn’t seem especially significant in any way. It wasn’t a matter of superpowers threatening nuclear strikes against each other if their agents were arrested for spying. Others don’t threaten to use first-degree magic in the case of a petty fight between operational agents.