Just to be on the safe side, I scanned the boy's aura. A little human being. A good little human being, and I wanted to believe he would grow up into a good adult. Not the slightest sign of any Other potential. And no traces of magical influence.

But then, if Svetlana hadn't spotted anything, what could I expect, with my second-level abilities…

"And then the wolf laughed out loud!" Romka exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in glee.

"Weren't you frightened?" I asked.

To my surprise, Romka thought about that for a long time.

Then he said, "Yes, I was. I'm little, and the wolf was big. And I didn't have a stick-where would I get a stick from in the forest? And then I stopped being afraid."

"So you're not afraid of the wolf now?" I asked. After an adventure like that, any normal child would have developed a stammer, but Romka had lost his.

"Not a bit," said the boy. "Oh, now you've gotten me lost! What part did I get to?"

"The part where the wolf laughed," I said with a smile.

"Just exactly like a man," said Romka.

So that was it. It was a long time since I'd had any dealings with werewolves. Especially werewolves as brazen as this… hunting children, only a hundred kilometers from Moscow. Had they been counting on the fact that there was no Night Watch in the little village? But then, the district office checked every case when someone went missing. They had a very skillful, specialized magician for that. From the normal human viewpoint what he did was pure charlatanism-he looked at photographs, and then either put them aside or phoned the operations office and said in an embarrassed voice, "I think I've got something here… I'm not quite sure what…"

And then we would have swung into action, driven out into the country, found the signs… and the signs would have been terrible, but we were used to that. Then the werewolves would probably have resisted arrest. And someone-it could easily have been me-would have waved his hand. Then a jangling gray haze would have gone creeping through the Twilight…

We rarely took that kind alive. But this time I really wanted to.

"And what I think as well," Romka said thoughtfully, "is that the wolf said something. I think so, I think so… Only he didn't talk. I know wolves don't talk, do they? But I dream that he did talk."

"And what did he say?" I asked cautiously.

"Go away, witch!" Romka said, trying in vain to imitate a hoarse bass voice.

Right. I could already issue the warrant for a search. Or at least request help from Moscow. It was a werewolf, no doubt about it. But fortunately for the little kids, there was a witch there too.

A powerful witch.

Very powerful.

She hadn't just driven away the werewolf-she'd tidied up the kids' memories without leaving any trace. Only she hadn't gone in deep. She hadn't expected there would be a vigilant watchman in the village… The boy didn't remember anything when he was awake, but in his dream-there it was. "Go away, witch!"

How very interesting.

"Thank you, Romka." I held out my hand to him. "I'll go to the forest and take a look."

"But aren't you afraid? Have you got a gun?" Romka asked eagerly.

"Yes."

"Show it to me."

"It's at home," Anna Viktorovna said strictly. "And guns aren't toys for children."

Romka sighed and asked plaintively, "Only don't shoot the cubs, all right? Better bring me one and I'll train it as a dog. Or two-one for me, one for Ksyusha!"

"Roman." Anna Viktorovna snapped in a voice of iron.

I found Ksyusha at the pond, as her mother had said I would. A flock of little girls was sunbathing beside a pack of little boys, and the gibes were flying thick in both directions. The male sun-bathers were old enough not to pull the girls' braids anymore, but they still didn't understand what girls were any good for.

When I turned up everyone stopped talking and stared at me warily. I hadn't put in an appearance in the village before.

"Oksana?" I asked the little girl I thought I'd seen in the street with Romka.

The very serious girl in a dark blue swimsuit looked at me, nodded, and said politely, "Hi… hello."

"Hello. I'm Anton, Svetlana Nazarova's husband. Do you know her?" I asked.

"What's your daughter's name?" Oksana asked suspiciously.

"Nadya."

"Yes, I know," Oksana said with a nod and got up off the sand. "You want to talk about the wolves, right?"

I smiled. "That's right."

Oksana glanced at the boys. The boys, not the girls.

"Uh huh, that's Nadya's dad," said a freckle-faced kid who was somehow obviously from the village. "My dad's fixing your car right now."

He looked around proudly at his friends.

"We can talk here," I said to reassure the children. It was terrible, of course, that at that age normal kids living in families were already in the habit of being so cautious.

But it was better that they were.

"We went for a walk in the forest," Oksana began, standing at attention in front of me. I thought for a moment and sat down on the sand-then the girl sat down too. Anna Viktorovna certainly knew how to bring up her children. "It was my fault we got lost…"

One of the village kids giggled. But quietly. After the business with the wolves Oksana was probably the most popular girl with the boys in the junior grades.

In principle Oksana didn't tell me anything new. And there were no traces of magic on her either. Only the mention of a bookcase "with old books" made me prick up my ears.

"Do you remember what they were called?" I asked.

Oksana shook her head.

"Try to remember," I asked her. I looked down at my feet- at my long, irregular shadow.

The shadow obediently rose up to meet me.

And the cool, gray Twilight accepted me.

It's always a pleasure to look at kids from the Twilight.

Even the most intimidated and unhappy of them still have auras without any of the malice and bitterness that grown-ups are shrouded in.

I mentally apologized to the kids-after all, they hadn't asked me to do what I was going to do. I ran the lightest possible, imperceptible touch across them. Just to remove the drops of evil that had already been poured onto them.

And then I stroked Oksana's hair and whispered, "Remember, little girl…"

No, I wouldn't be able to remove the block put in place by the witch if she was more powerful than me, or at least equal in power. But fortunately for me, the witch had been very gentle with their minds.

I emerged from the Twilight and the air hit me like a blast from a stove. The summer had really turned out hot.

"I remember!" Oksana said triumphantly. "One book was called Aliada Ansata."

I frowned.

That book wasn't a herbarium… or at least it wasn't an ordinary witch's herbarium-it was particularly heinous. It even had a few vile uses for dandelions.

"And Kassagar Garsarra," said Oksana.

Some of the children giggled, but uncertainly.

"How was it written?" I asked. "In Latin letters? You know, like English?"

"No, in Russian," Oksana said. "In really funny, old letters."

I'd never heard of a Russian translation of that manuscript, which was extremely rare, even among the Dark Ones. It couldn't be printed-the magic of the spells would be erased. It could only be copied out by hand. And only in blood. Not the blood of a virgin or innocent victims-those were erroneous beliefs introduced later, and modern copies like that were no use at all. The Kassagar Garsarra was still believed only to exist in Arabic, Spanish, Latin, and Old German. A magician who rewrote the book had to use his own blood-a separate jab for every spell. And it was a thick book…

And Power was lost with the blood.

It was enough to make me feel proud of Russian witches for producing even one fanatic like that.