‘Give the analysts a kick up the backside,’ Edgar ordered one of his subordinates. ‘I want to find out what’s going on finally.’
I glanced at him, and Edgar realised I was coming round.
‘Talk to me!’ he said.
‘A Call!’ I said hoarsely and started to cough. I tried to take a sip of coffee, burned myself and hissed in pain. ‘A Call,’ I said when I could talk again. ‘They caught me while I was sleeping.’
‘A Call?’ Shagron echoed in surprise. He was sitting in an armchair like mine at the next desk. ‘The Light Ones haven’t used one for about thirty years.’
‘They caught you with a Call in the Day Watch building?’ Edgar asked suspiciously. ‘That’s really something! And you mean no one else noticed anything?’
‘No. It was a very subtle Call, aimed with masterly precision and camouflaged as natural background noise from the residential floors.’
‘And you submitted to it?’
‘Of course not.’ I made another attempt to take a sip of coffee, this time successfully. ‘But I decided to investigate what the Light Ones were up to.’
‘And you didn’t tell anyone?’ Edgar was balancing halfway between disbelief and annoyance. ‘That was a crazy risk.’
‘If I’d gone trailing after the Call with backup, they’d have sensed it in a moment,’ I explained. ‘No, I had to go alone and without cover. So I did. They tried to grab me on Strastnoi Boulevard and I had to fight them off. I knocked the tigress down two or three times and tried to persuade her to stop, and it was only after that I hit her really hard.’
Edgar stared at me without blinking.
‘You’re a dark horse, Vitaly,’ he said.
‘Yes, Dark,’ I confirmed happily. ‘They don’t come any Darker.’
‘Are you a magician beyond classification?’ he asked.
‘Alas, no,’ I said, spreading my hands – but slowly, so as not to spill the coffee. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have let Gesar go.’
Edgar drummed his fingers on the desk, glancing sideways impatiently at the door.
‘What are those analysts up to?’ he muttered.
The door opened and a brisk middle-aged woman, a witch, appeared in the doorway, along with two men, both magicians.
‘Hello, Anna Tikhonovna,’ Shagron greeted her hastily. He ought to have been more powerful than the witch, but he seemed to be afraid of her. And he was right, of course. A witch’s power is somewhat different from a magician’s. And a witch can easily screw things up even for a very powerful magician.
Edgar just nodded.
‘Is this him?’ one of the magicians asked, looking at me.
‘Yes, Yura.’
Yura was an old and powerful magician, I realised that straight away. I also realised that Yura wasn’t his real name. Magicians like that keep their real names hidden so incredibly deep, there’s no way you can ever uncover them.
And that’s as it should be. If you’re really following the path of freedom.
‘Have a seat, Anna Tikhonovna,’ said Shagron, giving up his armchair and going across to join the magicians, who had occupied the broad windowledge.
‘Edgar,’ said the witch. ‘The Light Ones went for broke. They haven’t pulled anything this wild since forty-nine. They must have really serious reason to violate the Treaty!’
Edgar shrugged and explained curtly:
‘Fáfnir’s Talon.’
‘But we haven’t got it,’ the witch declared emphatically, looking round significantly at everyone there. ‘Or have we? Shagron?’
Shagron quickly shook his head. It looked to me as if he’d had a few run-ins with the witch and not come out of them well. She was a pretty powerful witch.
‘Kolya?’
The second magician who had come in replied in a calm voice:
‘No, and it’s by no means clear that we want it.’
‘I’m not asking you,’ the witch barked at Edgar and Yura. And then for the first time she glanced at me.
‘Anna Tikhonovna,’ I said with feeling. ‘I only learned that the Talon exists today, and I’ve been asleep for most of the time since then.’
‘Why are you in Moscow?’ she asked sternly.
‘I don’t know that myself. Something urged me, told me to come, and so I did. And I was barely off the train before I got caught up in that business with the vampire. Off the boat and into the party, as they say.’
‘If I understand anything about any of this,’ the magician Yura put in, ‘then this is predestination. That would explain everything – the increased powers, the missing Talon, and the way the Light Ones acted. They’re simply trying to eliminate him, or at least isolate him, before he can get his hands on the Talon. Because afterwards it will be too late.’
‘But why didn’t they bring in their enchantress?’ Edgar asked, beginning to draw out his vowels slightly again. It seemed his accent only appeared at moments of agitation, when he was concentrating on something apart from what he was saying.
‘And even Gesar only intervened at the critical moment,’ Shagron remarked. ‘And then all he did was cover their retreat.’
‘Who knows?’ The witch cast another piercing glance at me. ‘Maybe they simply can’t keep up with him?’
‘My name’s Vitaly,’ I told her. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
After all, who likes to hear himself referred to as ‘him’ all the time?
The others simply seemed to ignore what I’d said.
Yura looked into my eyes and instantly probed me. I didn’t bother to screen myself – but why not?
‘Good first grade,’ he declared. ‘With some gaps, though. Only yesterday I would have been delighted by the appearance of a magician like this among us.’
‘But today it upsets you, does it?’ the witch snorted.
‘Today I’m not drawing any conclusions. The Light Ones have cut loose, and we’ve been left on our own, without Zabulon. Gesar, plus that enchantress, plus Olga, even if she doesn’t have her full powers, and then Igor, Ilya, Garik, Semyon … We can’t match them.’
‘But we have the Talon and this … Vitaly,’ the witch countered. ‘And then Zabulon has a habit of appearing right at the crucial moment.’
‘We don’t have the Talon,’ Yura remarked. ‘And what guarantee is there that we will have? In any case, Kolya’s absolutely right: what would we do with the Talon? Of course, I understand, it possesses ancient, mighty power. But if we don’t think carefully before we let it loose … We can’t afford to mess this up.’
‘Well, we’ll try hard not to,’ the witch said condescendingly. ‘Edgar, what have the analysts got?’
As if in response, there was a knock at the door and Hellemar, the lord of the laptops, appeared.
‘Got it!’ he said triumphantly. ‘Vnukovo airport! Flight fifteen zero zero from Odessa. It was delayed twice by bad weather and has only just taken off. It will land in an hour and twenty minutes. The Talon’s on board.’
‘Right,’ said Edgar, leaping to his feet. ‘Set up field HQ at the airport. Monitor the weather. Cut off the Light Ones. And they can go whistle for an observer.’
‘Chief,’ Hellemar said with a sour expression, ‘the Light Ones have already set up their field HQ at Vnukovo fifteen minutes ago. Better bear that in mind.’