A moment later Victoria slumped onto the floor. She didn’t crumble to dust as an older vampire would have done, her body still hadn’t lived out its time yet. But the force that replaces life in vampires, drawn over the years from human beings, had dissolved irretrievably into the Twilight. The room had became a little bit colder. Ilya frowned and dispatched the body into the Twilight with another restrained gesture.
For ever.
Thus is the verdict of the Others applied.
‘Case number two. The killing of an uninitiated Other by a Dark Other, a shape-shifter. Bring in the guilty party.’
Questions. Answers. A brief consultation by the Inquisitors.
‘Oksana Dashchiuk, Dark Other, registered in Moscow, is adjudged not guilty of premeditated murder; her actions are categorised as self-defence. But she is found guilty of using excessive force to defend herself and therefore deprived of her licence to hunt for a period of ten years. In the event of a repeat offence or any violation of the fifth level or above, she shall be subject to immediate dematerialisation. Are there any objections or proposed amendments to the verdict from the Watches?’
Ilya looked at Gesar and rose to his feet again.
‘We have objections. There was no actual threat to the life of this Other. There was no need to kill the man. We demand that she be deprived of her licence for a period of fifty years.’
‘Thirty,’ replied Maxim, as if he’d been expecting this demand. As in fact he had been.
‘Forty,’ Gesar said in a cold voice, without getting up. ‘Shall I present all the necessary grounds?’
‘Forty,’ Maxim agreed. He looked at the Dark Ones, but they said nothing, believing that the shape-shifter’s fate wasn’t worth arguing about.
‘Release the prisoner from custody.’
The door opened in front of the pale, frightened girl and she ran out happily, still unaware that she might as well have been sentenced to execution. Forty years is a very long time for a shape-shifter who can only draw power from human lives. Long enough for her to grow decrepit and maybe even die, without any way of opposing the implacable advance of age.
‘Case number three. An attack on a Dark Other by members of the Night Watch. Since the victim is not present, the court judges it appropriate to cross-examine the surviving guilty parties and the head of the Night Watch, who permitted the unsanctioned use of force against a Dark Other. All protests from the side of the Light Ones are rejected in advance.’
Gesar frowned. Zabulon permitted himself a restrained smile.
Svetlana Nazarova, Light Enchantress, glanced at her watch in concern. She was feeling nervous because the Light Magician Anton Gorodetsky was late.
‘Might it not be more expedient to establish the reasons for the absence of three individuals who were invited to attend?’ Gesar asked cautiously, involuntarily adopting the judges’ official style of speech. ‘I assure you that I am not trying to play for time. I am alarmed by the absence both of a member of the Night Watch and of one of the greatest troublemakers of these recent weeks.’
The Inquisitors exchanged glances, as if they were silently taking an official decision.
‘The Inquisition has no objection,’ Maxim said dispassionately. ‘Permission is granted for the necessary magical intervention.’
The Inquisition observers’ robes swayed as they moved their protective amulets. Maybe that was why they wore the robes, so that no one could see how they used the amulets and exactly what kind of amulets they had? The Inquisition has its own methods, its own laws and its own weapons.
An observation sphere suddenly appeared in midair. Grey haze, streaked with wavy lines. Most of them disappeared, leaving only three.
Three threads of fate that had recently crossed at a single point. One thread was faded and barely glowing at all. An Other was hurt …
‘That’s Shagron,’ said Edgar, who had now relinquished the responsibilities of deputy-chief of the Dark Ones. ‘That’s Shagron!’
The two other threads separated, but they were about to cross again at any moment – right outside the university building.
A clash. Another clash between Dark Ones and Light Ones. But so far with no fatalities.
‘The Night Watch requests the Inquisition to intervene!’ Gesar barked. ‘Maxim, Oscar, Raoul – they’ll kill each other!’
A woman stood up beside the head of the Night Watch – it was the Light Other Olga, who had only recently reacquired her abilities as an enchantress, and a very powerful one, which meant that she had lost her right to a surname, but not yet acquired the right to a Twilight name. She touched Gesar’s elbow and looked at the judges inquiringly.
Svetlana had turned pale and her face looked as if it was made of wax.
The Dark Ones said nothing. Zabulon scratched the tip of his nose thoughtfully.
‘The Tribunal forbids any intervention,’ one of the judges announced dryly.
‘Why?’ Svetlana asked helplessly. She tried to get up out of her wicker armchair, but she didn’t have the strength. The physical strength. But Svetlana’s real strength, the magical power of an Other, began circling around her in a dense spiral.
Just like people, when Others are angry, or in extreme situations, they are often stronger than when they’re calm.
‘Why?’ Svetlana’s voice rang out insistently. ‘Everywhere this Dark One has appeared, Others or people have died. He’s a killer! Are you going to allow him to carry on killing?’
The judge remained imperturbable.
‘While he has been in Moscow the Dark One Vitaly Rogoza has not once violated a single stipulation of the Treaty and he has not once exceeded the limits of permissible force to defend himself He has nothing to answer to the Inquisition for. We have no grounds to intervene.’
‘When the grounds appear, it will be too late!’ Gesar said harshly.
The Inquisitor merely shrugged.
‘He’s going to take revenge for Shagron,’ one of the Light Ones said quietly and coughed.
Two magicians – a Light One and a Dark One – were approaching the entrance to the Moscow University building, and as the distance between them melted away, everyone at the Tribunal felt more and more certain that only one of them would make it up into the turret.
But who would it be?
I don’t know why, but I got out of the car about three hundred metres from the entrance to the university building. I could see spots of colour, rays of light and three-dimensional figures flickering above the building; I could sense that a power I didn’t understand was restraining ordinary higher magic, not allowing it to be used. And I sensed that up there at the very top, just where the sharp steeple of the Moscow skyscraper began, there was a light grey cloud gradually swelling, and it reminded of a time-bomb.
I looked round as I set off along the pavement. In theory I ought to have been hurrying, but I walked at a medium pace. That must have been the way I was supposed to do it.
Just don’t ask who had decided that.
My minidisc player was oozing out another tune: I didn’t like it, so I found the skip button by touch and pressed it. What would it be this time?
Picnic and their song ‘Hieroglyph’. That would do – a leisurely melody for someone who is already late anyway and whose only option now is to focus his mind and acquire the all-embracing, imperturbable calm of the Eastern sages.