"What's that to you?"

"I'm just… curious."

"Check out your archives some time and take a look," Kostya said with a crooked smile. "Is it really that hard?"

Of course, it wasn't that hard. But I'd never looked at Kostya's file. I didn't want to know that…

"Uncle Kostya, give me my hat!" a demanding voice squeaked nearby.

I glanced sideways at the little girl, about four years old, who had come running up to Kostya. So he really had been teasing a child, and he'd stolen her hat…

Kostya obediently removed the panama hat from his head and gave it to the little girl.

"Will you come again tonight?" the little girl asked, glancing at me and pouting. "Will you tell me a story?"

"Uh huh," Kostya said with a nod.

The little girl beamed and ran off to a young woman who was collecting her things together a little distance away. The sand spurted up from under her heels…

"You've lost your mind!" I roared, jumping up. "I'll reduce you to dust right here!"

My expression must have been pretty terrifying. Kostya was quick to answer.

"What is it? What's wrong with you, Anton? She's my great-niece! Her mother's my cousin! They live in Strogino, and I'm staying with them for the time being, so I don't have to drag myself all the way across town."

That brought me up short.

"What, did you think I was sucking her blood?" Kostya asked, still looking at me warily. "Go and check! There aren't any bites. She's my niece, understand? For her sake I'd take out anyone myself."

"Pah!" I said and spat. "What else could I think? 'Will you come again tonight? Will you tell me a story?'…"

"A typical Light One," Kostya said more calmly. "Since I'm a vampire I must be a bastard, right?"

Our fragile truce wasn't exactly over, but it had reverted to the normal state of cold war. Kostya sat there fuming, and I sat there cursing myself for jumping to conclusions. They didn't issue licenses for children under the age of twelve, and Kostya wasn't such a fool as to hunt without a license.

But it had just burst out…

"You've got a little daughter," Kostya said, suddenly catching on. "The same age, right?"

"Younger," I replied. "And prettier."

"Obviously, your own's always prettier," Kostya laughed. "All right, Gorodetsky. I understand. Let's forget it. And thanks for the lead."

"That's okay," I said. "Maybe those security men didn't see anything after all. They'd been drinking vodka or smoking dope…"

"We'll check it out," Kostya said cheerfully. "We'll check everything out."

He rubbed the back of his head with his open hand and stood up.

"Time to go?" I asked.

"It's getting to me," Kostya answered, squinting upward. "I'm disappearing."

And he did just that, disappeared, after first averting the eyes of everyone there. There was just a dim shadow left hanging in the air for a second.

"Show off," I said and turned over on to my stomach.

To be quite honest, I was already feeling hot too. But I decided on principle not to leave with a Dark One.

I still had a few things to think through before I went to the Assol security office.

Witiezslav had done a really good job. When I turned up the head of security broke into a broad, friendly smile.

"Oh, look who's come to see us!" he declared, shoving some papers off to one side. "Tea, coffee?"

"Coffee," I decided.

"Andrei, bring us some coffee," the boss commanded. "And a lemon!"

He reached into the safe and produced a bottle of good Georgian cognac.

The security man who had shown me into the boss's office was a little disconcerted, but he didn't argue.

"Any questions?" the boss asked as he deftly sliced the lemon. "Will you have some cognac, Anton? A good cognac, I promise."

I didn't even know what his name was… I liked the former boss of security better. The way he'd treated me had been sincere.

But the former security boss would never have given me the information I was counting on getting now.

"I need to take a look at the personal files of all the residents," I said. And I added with a smile: "In a building like this you must keep a check on everyone, right?"

"Of course," the boss agreed readily. "Money's all very fine, but there are some serious people intending to live here, and we don't want any thugs or bandits… You want all the personal files?"

"The lot," I said. "For everyone who's bought an apartment here, regardless of whether they've moved in yet or not."

"The files on the real owners or the people the apartments are registered to?" the security boss asked politely.

"The real owners."

The boss nodded and reached into the safe again.

Ten minutes later I was sitting at his desk and leafing through the files-all very neat and not too thick. Out of natural curiosity I started with myself.

"Do you need me here anymore?" the security boss asked.

"No, thanks." I eyed the number of files. "I'll need one hour."

The boss went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

And I got into my reading.

Anton Gorodetsky, it emerged, was married to Svetlana Gorodetskaya and had a two-year-old daughter, Nadezhda Gorodetskaya. Anton Gorodetsky had a little business-a firm trading in milk products. Milk, kefir, pot cheese, and yogurts…

I knew the firm. A standard Night Watch subsidiary that earned money for us. There were about twenty of them around Moscow, and their employees were perfectly ordinary human beings who never suspected where the profits really went.

It was all pretty modest and simple, cute. Like the old promo jingle for milk-On the meadow, on the meadow, who is grazing on the meadow? That's right, Others. Well, I couldn't really deal in vodka, could I?

I set my file aside and started on the other residents.

Naturally, not all the information about the people was there. It couldn't have been. After all, no private security service, even in the most luxurious residential complex, is any match for the KGB.

But I didn't need too much. Basically information about their relatives. In the first instance, their parents.

First I set aside those whose parents were alive and well and put the files on people whose parents were dead in a different pile.

I was particularly interested in anyone who had been raised in a children's home-there were two of those-and anyone with a stroke through the columns headed "Father" or "Mother."

There were eight of those.

I laid these files out in front of me and started studying them closely.

I immediately weeded out one ex-orphanage boy who, to judge from his file, had criminal connections. He had been out of the country for the last year and, despite appeals from the agencies of law enforcement, had no intention of coming back.

Then two from incomplete families were sifted out.

One of them turned out to be a weak Dark Magician known to me from a trivial old case. The Dark Ones were bound to be giving him the tenth degree already. If they hadn't come up with anything, the guy was in the clear.

The other was a rather well-known variety artist who, I happened to know-again quite by chance-had been touring abroad for the last three months: the USA, Germany, Israel. Probably earning money for the finishing work on his apartment.

That left seven. A good number. For the time being I could focus on them.

I opened the files and began reading them closely. Two women, five men… Which of them might be worth considering?

"Roman Lvovich Khlopov, 42, businessman…" The face didn't arouse any associations. Maybe he was the one? Maybe…

"Andrei Ivanovich Komarenko, 31, businessman…" Oh, what a strong-willed expression! And still fairly young… Was it him? Possibly… No, impossible. I set the businessman Komarenko's file aside. A man in his early thirties who donated serious money like that to building churches and was distinguished by "intense religious feeling" wouldn't want to be transformed into an Other.