‘Surely you wouldn’t have done anything else?’ I added, realising that no one would dare object to that. All of them had wanted to touch the artefact … to draw power from it.
And all of them had been afraid of the consequences of doing so.
‘Why don’t we go back to the office?’ the magician Yura growled. ‘Instead of standing around in the wind like the three poplars on Plushchikha Street in that old film.’
That made sense – I was beginning to shiver again, and it would have been unforgivably stupid to waste the power that I’d stored up.
With Edgar’s support, Yura called up an economical portal, and two minutes later the entire Watch had divided into groups and taken the lift up to the office. I couldn’t help remarking that my portal would have been more stable and would have worked for longer. Apparently I’d taken another step up the stairway to nowhere when I parted with Fáfnir’s Talon. And apparently I was now more powerful than everyone else there, all of them together. But I was still as inexperienced and naïve as ever, and I still had to learn the most important thing of all – how to use my power appropriately.
The technicians, led by the unsleeping Hellemar, were hard at work on their HQ laptops. When on earth did these young guys ever rest? Or was it just that they all looked alike?
‘What’s going on, Hellemar?’ Edgar asked.
‘The Light Ones are withdrawing their outposts,’ the werewolf reported cheerfully. ‘One after another. Not just changing them, but removing them completely. And they’ve lifted the cordons at the entrances to the city and the railway stations.’
‘They’ve calmed down,’ sighed Anna Tikhonovna.
‘Of course they’ve calmed down,’ Yura snapped. ‘The Talon’s gone now. They’ve probably already transferred it to Berne. In fact I’d bet on it.’
He was right. A few seconds earlier I’d sensed the source of my power suddenly disappear into the Twilight and move somewhere far, far away. I wondered if I was fated ever to hold it in my hands again, just one more time … I had no idea.
‘For the life of me, I don’t understand why all this fuss over the Talon started in the first place. What were the Regin Brothers trying to achieve? Why didn’t they let us know what they were doing? It’s all some crazy nonsense, absolute nonsense.’
‘And what makes you so sure the Regin Brothers didn’t achieve their goal?’ I asked innocently.
They looked at me as if I was a child who’d asked an awkward question in adult company.
‘You have a different opinion?’ Yura enquired cautiously exchanging a quick glance with Edgar.
‘Yes,’ I said honestly. ‘Only don’t ask me about the details – I don’t know them anyway. There was a serious imbalance of power developing in Moscow in the Light Ones’ favour. So serious that all Europe was beginning to feel concerned. Measures were taken. The Regin Brothers’ escapade is one piece of a jigsaw that will eventually add up to a new equilibrium.’
‘And your appearance is another piece of the jigsaw?’ Edgar surmised.
‘Obviously.’
‘And Zabulon’s absence from Moscow?’
‘Probably.’
The Dark Ones looked at each other, wondering.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Anna Tikhonovna drawled, displeased. ‘It all looks pretty strange. If we had the Talon, we’d soon have the Light Ones in a tight corner.’
‘But would we be able to keep it under control?’ Yura remarked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘In any case,’ said Edgar, after thinking for a while, ‘we still have the right to demand satisfaction from the Light Ones. There were several serious interventions committed. What they’ve done over the last two days goes way beyond the recent killings. Tiunnikov’s death should really be classed as an accident, and if Gesar tries to dispute that, the Tribunal will soon demolish his case. And the vampire poacher and the shape-shifting whore aren’t such very serious violations, only sixth-level, or fifth at most. They were acting independently, the Day Watch had nothing to do with it. Now we have the right to demand several second-degree interventions at least. That’s what I think. So all in all the Day Watch has still come out on top from everything that’s happened. Even without the chief and his powers.’
‘Better hold the fanfares for a while,’ Yura remarked sceptically. ‘Wait and see.’
Edgar shrugged and spread his arms in the gesture of a man sticking to his guns. He really believed what he’d just said. And he had a point.
There’s no way of knowing how the argument would have ended. The mobile on Edgar’s belt trilled and everyone automatically turned towards him.
It could have been a private call, or a call from the technical section. But the Others gathered in the office were pretty powerful. Almost all of them were capable of calculating probabilities and the consequences of simple events.
This call had a dense central thread that was clearly visible. A thread connecting it to events of the greatest importance.
Edgar put the phone to his ear and listened for a while.
‘Show him through,’ he said, then ended the call and put the mobile back on his belt. ‘An Inquisitor,’ he said with a stony expression. ‘With an official announcement.’
Less than thirty seconds later the warlock from the duty watch opened the door to the Day Watch main office. And a second after that the impassive Inquisitor called Maxim strode in through the doorway.
‘In the name of the Treaty,’ he declared – there was absolutely no emotion or colour in his voice, his tone was strictly neutral. And it would have been foolish to suspect an Inquisitor of sympathising with one side or the other – ‘tomorrow at dawn there will be an extended session of the local board of the Tribunal, under the patronage of the Inquisition. The subject is a number of actions taken by Light Others and a number of actions taken by Dark Others that are incompatible with the stipulations of the Treaty. Attendance is compulsory for all who have been informed. If anyone who has been informed fails to attend or arrives late, it will be regarded as an act incompatible with the stipulations of the Treaty. Until the session begins all magical interventions at the fifth level of power and above are prohibited. May equilibrium triumph.’
When finishing this pronouncement, the Inquisitor turned unhurriedly and walked out to the lifts in the lobby.
The warlock cast a fleeting glance at his superiors and closed the door behind him. He obviously regarded it as his duty to show the Inquisitor out.
The office was quiet for a while, even the technicians and their laptops had fallen silent.
‘Just like in forty-nine,’ Anna Tikhonovna remarked quietly. ‘Exactly the same.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ the magician Yura said in a low voice. ‘Let’s hope so, Anna Tikhonovna. Let’s hope very hard.’
CHAPTER 5
EVERYBODY GETS the feeling sometimes that what is happening just at the moment has already happened before. There’s even a special term for it, déjà vu, a kind of false memory.
Others have it too.
Night Watch agent Anton Gorodetsky was standing in front of the door of his apartment and struggling with his memories. He had hovered in front of this open door in exactly the same way before, wondering who could have got inside. And when he went inside that time, he’d discovered that his uninvited guest was his sworn enemy, the chief of the Day Watch, known to the Light Ones as Zabulon.
‘Déjà vu,’ Anton whispered and stepped inside the door. The defence system again remained silent, but there was definitely a visitor in the room. Who was it this time?