‘Yes, it must be the memories,’ Edgar thought as he lit his cigar. There had been a lot of good things in ordinary human life, after all. Maybe he should play at being human again? Get married, have a family … take thirty years’ leave from the Watch.
He laughed hollowly. That was all nonsense. You couldn’t step into the same river twice. He’d lived as a man, lived as an ordinary Other, and now his place was in the Day Watch. It was all right for Anton, with his unspent passion and fresh, vital emotions, but all that fretting and fussing wouldn’t suit Edgar any longer.
Edgar caught the eye of the young woman sitting bored and alone at the next table. He smiled, and touched her mind with the gentlest of touches.
Not a prostitute, just a young girl out looking for adventure. That was good. He didn’t like professionals. There was nothing they could surprise him with anyway.
He called the waiter over and ordered a bottle of champagne.
CHAPTER 4
THE INQUISITION had not been mean with the detainees. The hotel was a perfectly decent one, and while Anton was not in de luxe accommodation, he had a suite with two good rooms.
Anton hesitated for a second before he approached Igor.
How he had changed.
Igor had always been an operational agent. He’d joined the Watch during the years after the war – there had been a lot of work to do then: on the one hand there was an upsurge of Light emotions, and on the other hand, during the difficult war years all sorts of petty riff-raff had multiplied. And with the general atheistic mood of the country, it wasn’t easy for anybody to accept that he or she was an Other. But it had been easy for Igor to accept his true nature, he had been glad to. He didn’t really see much difference between parachuting in behind the fascist lines to blow up bridges and hunting vampires and werewolves on the streets of Moscow. His power was an honest third grade, unlikely to advance any higher, but even the third grade is fairly substantial, if it’s reinforced with experience, courage and good reactions.
Igor had all of those in abundance. Perhaps he was just a little bit short on experience, but then he had worked in the Watch at a time when you could easily count one year as three. Perhaps he wasn’t as well-read or erudite as Ilya or Garik, and he hadn’t taken part in as many impressive operations as Semyon, but there weren’t many who could match him out in the field. And there was one other thing that Anton had always liked – Igor had stayed young. Not just physically – that was not difficult for a magician of his grade – but in his soul. Who would gladly accompany fifteen-year-old Yulia from the analytical department to some place in Tushino for the launch of the album A Hundred and Fifty Billion Steps by the hot band Tequila Jazz? Who was happy to spend time looking after a teenager riddled with complexes who’d just realised he was an Other? Who would enthusiastically devote five years to extreme parachuting simply in order to verify the theory about the high numbers of Others involved in extreme sports? Who was always first to volunteer to take a colleague’s watch or take on the most tedious assignment (there was no lack of volunteers for the dangerous ones)? Maybe it was a mistake, but for some time already Anton had felt that it was safer to have your back covered by a partner who was reliable and cheerful, rather than powerful and worldly-wise. A powerful and wise partner could always be distracted by a more important job than covering someone else’s back.
But the Other standing in front of Anton now looked neither powerful nor cheerful. Igor had lost a lot of weight, there was a strange dull, hopeless yearning in his eyes. And he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands … sometimes he put them behind his back, sometimes he clasped them together.
‘Anton,’ he said after a long silence. Without a smile, with only the faintest indication that he was glad. ‘Hello, Anton.’
On a sudden impulse, Anton stepped forward and put his arms round Igor. He whispered:
‘Hello … Now what are you doing in such a state?’
Witiezslav, who was standing by the door, said quietly:
‘I shan’t issue any official warnings about associating with detainees, since you’re Light Ones. Shall I wait for you, Gorodetsky?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Anton, stepping back from Igor, but leaving one hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll make my own way back.’
‘Igor Teplov, the session of the Tribunal to consider your case will convene tomorrow evening, at seven o’clock local time. A car will come for you at six-thirty; be ready.’
‘I’ve been ready for a long time,’ Igor said quietly. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘All the best,’ the vampire said politely as he left.
The two Light Ones were left alone together.
‘Do I look terrible?’ Igor asked.
Anton didn’t lie:
‘Worse than that. I’ve seen corpses that looked better. Anybody would think you were being kept on bread and water.’
Igor shook his head seriously.
‘Oh no, I’ve been well-treated.’
There was a hint of irony in his words. As if he was talking about some animal sitting in a cage in a zoo.
‘I’ve got a parcel here for you,’ Anton replied in the same tone, clutching at that hint of life. ‘Is feeding the animals permitted?’
‘Yes,’ Igor said with a nod. ‘I just … I just can’t eat, you know? I can’t read books, I don’t want to get drunk … or see anybody either. I switch on the television and watch it until three in the morning. When I get up I turn it on again. You know, I’ve already pretty much mastered Czech. It’s very easy.’
‘That’s terrible,’ said Anton with a nod. ‘Okay As you can understand, when I left I was given confidential instructions – to give you the will to live again.’
Igor actually smiled.
‘I understand. That’s to be expected … Well, get the stuff out.’
Anton put a thick pile of letters on the table. There was one name on each envelope – the name of the person who had written the letter.
‘These are from all our gang. Olga said you had to read her letter first. But Yulia and Lena said the same thing. So you choose for yourself.’
Igor looked at the letters thoughtfully and nodded.
‘I’ll throw dice. All right, get the rest of it out. I don’t mean the letters.’
Anton smiled as he took a bottle wrapped in paper out of a plastic bag.
‘Smirnov number twenty-one,’ said Igor. ‘Right?’
‘Right.’
‘I knew it. Go on.’
Anton carried on, smiling in embarrassment as he took out a small loaf of Borodinsky black bread, a whole salami, salted cucumbers in a polythene vacuum pack, several purple Yalta onions and a piece of pork fat.
‘Why, you devils,’ said Igor, shaking his head. ‘Everything the way I like it. Semyon told you what to get, did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘The customs officers must have thought you were insane.’
‘I made them look the other way. I’m on official business – so I have the right.’
‘I see. Okay, I’ll just get everything ready. And you can tell me what’s been going on back there. I’ve been kept informed, but it’s better coming from you. About Andrei, Tiger Cub … about that whole damn mess.’
While Igor was making the snacks, rinsing the glasses and drying them carefully and opening the bottle, Anton told him in brief about recent events in Moscow.