‘Yes.’
The witch had no time to ask any more questions. We’d arrived.
‘Alita,’ Edgar said in a deep, hollow voice, ‘you can pester our guest later. First go and report to Anna Tikhonovna.’
Alita nodded enthusiastically and then turned to me:
‘Can I come round and see you for coffee? In about an hour?’
‘Yes, okay,’ I agreed. ‘Only I haven’t got any coffee.’
‘I’ll bring some,’ the pretty witch promised. And she set off for the office.
She didn’t ask where I was staying. Which meant she already knew.
For a few seconds I watched the witch from behind. Her stylish silver jacket, the kind that mountain skiers and tourists wear (I was immediately reminded of my acquaintances from the forest) was decorated in bright colours, a cartoon of a girl with big eyes and her foot thrust out in a kick, with the caption ‘Battle Angel Alita’. The drawing and the caption were partly covered by the witch’s long hair, which was hanging down over the jacket.
Edgar also looked as Alita walked away There was plenty to look at, despite the winter outfit.
‘She’ll come,’ Edgar said thoughtfully. ‘She’s already asked about you.’
I shrugged.
‘The Tribunal’s tomorrow,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘What should I do? Skip it? Go with everyone else?’
‘Go with everyone else, of course. You’re a witness.’ Edgar looked around. ‘Would you come into the office for a moment?’
‘All right.’
Somehow I was quite sure this office had never been used to run things by the actual head of the Day Watch. It was more likely Edgar’s office or the office of one of the other senior Dark Ones. I slumped gratefully into an armchair, noting to myself that it was far more comfortable than the sagging seats on the metro. Edgar took an already opened bottle of cognac out from somewhere under the desk.
‘Shall we have a shot?’ he suggested.
‘Sure.’
Who would want to refuse old Koktebel?
‘I’m glad you’ve come back,’ said Edgar, pouring the cognac. ‘Otherwise we would have had to go looking for you.’
‘In order to agree our tactics and strategy at tomorrow’s session of the Tribunal?’ I asked, guessing.
‘Exactly.’
It was good cognac. Smooth and aromatic. Maybe it wasn’t the most famous and prestigious brand (which one is, anyway?), but I really liked it.
‘I won’t even ask any more why you behave so strangely. To be quite honest, I’ve been instructed not to. From up there.’ Edgar raised his eyes expressively to the ceiling. ‘And I’m not going to try to figure out who you really are, either. For the same reason. All I want to ask is: Are you on our side? Are you with the Day Watch? With the Dark Ones? Can we count on you as one of ours tomorrow?’
‘Definitely,’ I said, without even pausing for thought. Then I made it even clearer: ‘And that’s the answer to all your questions.’
‘That’s good,’ Edgar said with a rather weary sigh and drained his balloon glass in one gulp.
I didn’t think he believed me.
We finished the cognac in silence. Edgar didn’t find it necessary to advise me on how to behave at the following day’s session of the Tribunal. He had clearly decided that I’d behave however I wanted to anyway. And he was absolutely right.
I spent the night with Alita. Over coffee – the young witch had even managed to get hold of that long-forgotten brand Casa Grande – we settled down in the armchairs and talked, about everything and nothing. It was a long time since I’d had such a good time, just sitting and chatting. About music, which I turned out to know quite a lot about. And literature, which I knew rather less about. And films, which I knew absolutely nothing about. Every now and then, Alita tried to get me to talk about myself and my powers, but she did this so artlessly that I never even suspected she could have been sent by the vigilant Anna Tikhonovna.
An hour before dawn there was a knock at the door.
‘It’s open,’ I shouted.
Edgar and Anna Tikhonovna came in.
‘Are you ready?’ Edgar asked.
‘Always prepared, like a young pioneer,’ I assured him. ‘Are we moving out in close formation? In armoured vehicles or in marching order?’
‘Don’t play the clown,’ said Anna Tikhonovna, pursing her lips and giving Alita a severe look. Alita gazed back innocently.
‘All right, I won’t,’ I promised. ‘Where are we going? I don’t even know.’
In fact, I had no doubt that the reliable internal guide buried somewhere in the depths of my mind would tell me where we were going and which direction to follow. But I asked anyway.
‘The main building of Moscow University,’ Edgar told me. ‘Up in the tower. Shagron’s waiting downstairs with his car, you can go with him.’
‘Okay I’ll go with him.’
‘Good luck,’ said Alita, heading for the door. ‘I’ll call round tomorrow, okay Vitaly?’
‘No,’ I said gloomily. ‘You won’t.’
I knew for certain that I was right. But as yet I didn’t understand why.
Alita shrugged and walked away. Anna Tikhonovna slipped out after her. Hmm … Maybe the old hag had sent the girl after all? But then she’d decided to do her own thing and not tried to get anything out of me. If I was right, I had to feel sorry for Alita. Anna Tikhonovna would extract her very soul, squeeze it out and hang it up to dry. She’d regret she’d ever been born.
I reached for my mobile and dialled Shagron’s number, too fast even to be surprised that I knew it.
‘Shagron? This is your guest from the south. Can you give me a lift? Uhuh, I’m on my way.’
‘Okay I’ll get going too,’ said Edgar. ‘Don’t hang about. The Inquistion gets very touchy when someone’s late.’
I put my coat on, locked my door and went down in the lift. The vampires on watch looked at me a lot more calmly this time – either their immediate superiors had had a quiet word with them, or they’d realised the truth for themselves. But then, what was the truth? It refused to reveal itself even to me. There were only sudden, brief glimpses of one piece of the mosaic when the curtain was raised for an instant only for it to descend again, and that impenetrable, misty shroud to obscure my sight.
Shagron’s BMW was snorting out exhaust fumes about twenty metres away, right under the ‘No stopping’ sign. I got in on Shagron’s right:
‘Good morning.’
‘I hope it’s a good one,’ Shagron barked. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Yes, if we’re not waiting for anyone else, let’s go.’
Shagron slid into the dense stream of traffic without saying another word.
Driving round snow-covered Moscow in the rush-hour is a unique experience. Occasionally Shagron used the Twilight to calm the over-aggressive drivers around us. Otherwise they would have been cutting in front of us, forcing us over into the next lane and squeezing us out of the gaps that suddenly opened up. I put my safety belt on just in case. Shagron muttered something with his teeth clenched. He was probably swearing.
After my sleepless night it was almost impossible for me not to yearn to doze blissfully off, which was just what these top-end German car seats wanted me to do. And if I’d tried listening to music, I’d definitely have been lulled asleep. But I didn’t feel like listening to music just then, so I remained in this world, filled with the roar of dozens of engines, the quiet hum of the air-conditioning, the shrill honking of car horns and the swish of dirty-grey slush under our mudguards.
If we’d gone by metro, we would have got there a lot sooner. But as it was, half an hour later we were still crawling along a jam-packed Ostozhenka Street towards Vernadsky Prospect. The traffic jam was getting bigger, sprouting a tail that reached back towards the centre of Moscow.