‘What’s going to happen to it?’ Tolik asked with a shrug. ‘We’ll have to phone the boss after all. Or will we be able to handle this on our own?’
He was obviously feeling uncomfortable. Tolik had been in charge of the IT department for more than a year now, since Anton had moved to operational work. But no member of the Night Watch has the right to let his qualifications slip – and the time had come round for Tolik’s regular month of field duty. And on his very first day there was an unpleasant incident like this.
‘We’ll probably have to tell him,’ Anton decided.
‘Then there’s no point in putting it off.’ Tolik sighed.
Tiger Cub eagerly held out her mobile. But before Tolik could even touch it the phone started chirping the tune of ‘Midnight in Moscow’.
Anton was about to take the phone, but he held back. You never know … It was obviously one of their own calling, but he couldn’t sense the tense, nervous energy of a work-related call. Maybe it was simply some member of the Watch calling Tiger Cub? Everybody had a personal life, even members of the Watch.
Tiger Cub took the call. Most of the time she just listened, and once she said: ‘I don’t know’.
‘It’s Garik,’ she explained in a voice filled with quiet alarm. ‘Andriukha’s disappeared.’
‘Tiunnikov?’
‘Yes. Garik thought he was with us.’
‘The last time I saw him was this afternoon,’ Tolik told her. ‘He was planning to go and catch up on his sleep.’
‘His phone’s not answering. Garik can’t sense him either – and he’s Andriukha’s mentor.’
Anton turned towards Tiger Cub:
‘After Saturday he was like a man possessed. What did that Dark One say to him in the alley?’
Tiger Cub shrugged:
‘Nothing special, I’ve told you a hundred times already. He called him a detective. But Andriukha really had screwed up – it was obvious straight away that the Dark One was no vampire. I explained that to him myself.’
‘He doesn’t have to be a vampire,’ Tolik declared in a bored, didactic voice. ‘This Dark One could quite easily be behind the whole bloody mess. It goes without saying that his organisational talents are clearly above average!’
‘One of Zabulon’s pawns,’ Anton mused. ‘Yes, it’s possible. Perfectly possible.’
‘Aim a bit higher. Not a pawn, not even a knight or a rook. A bishop. A serious piece. Maybe even a queen.’
‘Tolik, don’t exaggerate. Without Zabulon there’s no way the Dark Ones can match us. And Zabulon’s not in Moscow.’
‘That’s what the Dark Ones say. But who knows what the truth is …’
‘Zabulon hasn’t shown his face much at all recently,’ Anton put in.
‘That’s just it. He’s been keeping quiet, planning an operation … The lousy thing is that I can’t imagine what its objectives are. What do we have so far? Two suspicious killings, with absolutely no idea of how they’re connected.’
‘If they are connected at all,’ said Anton, but even he didn’t seem to believe it.
‘No, say what you like, but they’re connected,’ Tolik insisted stubbornly. ‘I can sense it. And the connection is that magician from out of town.’
‘Why bother thinking about it?’ Tiger Cub asked. ‘Since Svetlana appeared we’ve had a substantial advantage. The Dark Ones have yielded one position after another – remember how the boss put pressure on Zabulon at the last round of negotiations? And Zabulon gave way – what other choice did he really have? It looks as if the Dark Ones have launched an operation to restore the balance. But the timing’s terrible – just before Clean Week.’
‘For the Dark Ones that’s the best possible time,’ Anton growled. ‘They know we won’t start anything serious without a good reason. But so far there doesn’t seem to be any reason.’
‘Be careful what you say,’ Tolik told him in a pained voice.
The Zhiguli flew on along Leningradsky Prospect, overtaking the advancing dawn.
They drove the rest of the way to the office without saying another word. Either no one wanted to predict the worst, or they all felt they were in for something serious.
Garik was standing at the entrance, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. And Ilya was there beside him, short of sleep and squinting out from behind his spectacles.
‘Right,’ Tolik said cheerlessly. ‘Brace yourselves.’
Ilya and Garik quickly got into the car, squeezing Tiger Cub from both sides, and Anton immediately realised why they’d got in like that and what the pale, furious and therefore very restrained Garik would say next.
‘The Cosmos hotel. Andriukha’s dead, guys.’
Tolik slammed the accelerator to the floor, but even the most powerful car isn’t fast enough to overtake death. Tiger Cub jerked feebly, squeezed tight between her friends, and then froze.
‘How did it happen?’ Anton asked dully.
‘That Dark One – Vitaly Rogoza – just phoned. He said he’d found the body of an Other in his room.’
‘I’ll personally bite his throat out,’ Tiger Cub vowed hoarsely. ‘And don’t you try to stop me!’
‘I phoned Bear just in case,’ Ilya said in a very neutral tone. ‘I think he’s already at the Cosmos.’
Anton had the idea that his colleagues had understood everything in advance and come to terms with the fact that a fight was inevitable. He stroked the pistol in the holster under his armpit – the weapon that had never once been any real use to him.
I had a nagging feeling that the events of the night were still far from over. I felt I was just beginning to be able to foresee the immediate future. Not in detail, far from it in fact – more as a tangled ball of threads of probability. But I had begun to sense where the thickest strands were leading.
Alarm, trouble, disaster, danger – that was what the night had in store for me. At first I thought I would wait for the Dark Ones downstairs, beside their BMW outside the entrance, but then I realised I shouldn’t do that. I shouldn’t enlighten them as to … well, as to my total ignorance. Let them think that I really was playing a game. The head of the Day Watch was out of town, and the Others didn’t seem to be any competition for me.
But just who was I? Wasn’t I aiming too high? Was Moscow so short of powerful magicians? Even if they didn’t work in the Watches? I couldn’t keep being led on up the steps for ever, could I? – There are no infinite stairways. Some way would be found to keep me in check – the Moscow magicians had plenty of experience, many of them an entire century’s worth. And I didn’t really know what I could do and what I couldn’t. I was still an unknown quantity. And how did I know my power wouldn’t evaporate just as miraculously as it had appeared?
So you take your time, Vitalik, don’t try to force things. Better think about what bad things this fading night could bring you. And better not drag things out, lengthen that stride.
I walked quickly as far as Sholkovskoe Chaussee, darted into an underpass and then started hitching a lift on the opposite side of the road.
What I like about Moscow is that even in the dead of night or early in the morning, all you have to do is raise your hand and a car will immediately pull in at the kerb. In Nikolaev you can stand there for half an hour and no one will even think of stopping. But here everything is decided by money. Everyone needs it.
‘The Exhibition of Economic Achievements, fifty roubles.’ The standard rate.
I got into the sporty Volkswagen and set off towards problems that I could almost feel already.