Chapter 5

FIRST I UNLOCKED THE WOLF’S DOOR, THEN MINE. THE WOLF DARTED into the dark room, turned around, and slammed the door shut with his muzzle. Immediately I heard a damp tearing sound, as if someone was ripping wet foam rubber into pieces. The werewolf had begun transforming back into a human.

I walked into my suite, switched on the light, and closed the door. I put “Shooter I,” still smelling of gunpowder smoke, in the corner. I pulled off my bloody T-shirt and threw it in the rubbish bin. I took a look at myself in the mirror.

A handsome devil. One shoulder caked with blood and a terrible crimson scar where the bullets had entered.

But never mind. The important thing now was to patch up the wound. I’d apply an Avicenna spell now, and by morning there wouldn’t be a single trace left. What was a bullet wound to us magicians? Pah! A mere trifle. But I closed the curtains across the windows anyway and switched off the ceiling light. If I got another bullet in the head, no magic would save me.

I stood under the shower, washing away the sweat and blood and simply luxuriating in the warm streams of water, trying to fit all the pieces together.

The Dungeons of Scotland were an anomalous zone through which Power drained out of our world…to where? To the lower levels of the Twilight, obviously. That was clear enough.

Egor had been invited to Edinburgh as a potential Mirror Magician. That is, as a magician who would take the side of the Night Watch-Foma wouldn’t work against his own interests! And so Foma was afraid of a serious battle in which the Dark Ones would get the upper hand. He was so afraid that he was trying to cover himself in every possible way. And Gesar had apparently sent me to Scotland at his request. That was clear enough too.

But after that, things were a bit less clear!

Victor’s blood had been sucked out; only a vampire, with his throat built like a vacuum pump, could drain a man dry like that in three or four minutes. But the vampire had immediately puked the blood into the trough. Why? Was he not hungry? A vampire is never well enough fed to turn down another helping. Blood is not so much food as energy in the only form that vampires can absorb. A vampire can digest the blood he has drunk in fifteen minutes. Why pour it away? So no one would think it was a vampire? But people don’t believe in vampires anyway, and the form of the wound would make everything clear to the Watch.

Why had the watchman been killed? And in such a cruel manner? Was he getting under somebody’s feet in the Dungeons? There were plenty of ways to put a man out of action without doing him any harm. That Morpheus spell, for instance. The Vampire Call. If it came to it, a blow across the head with a club-cruel, but not fatal! An incomprehensible, unnecessary murder…

And then everything really got tied into knots with the robot shooter! Sometimes we and the Dark Ones do use firearms. It’s particularly common among young Others-a serious faith in heavy pistols, machine guns loaded with silver bullets, powerful grenades. But who could have brought a remote-controlled robot shooter to peaceful Edinburgh? I hadn’t even known that such devices had already gotten past the prototype stage and been put into mass production in China. There was nothing complicated about them, of course-a rotating turret, a TV camera, and a night-vision device. Whoever had set up the robot on my route had been hiding somewhere far away, staring into the screen of a switchboard, twirling a joystick, pressing the Fire button. Any magician-or any vampire-could do it. Or any human being, come to that.

What was going on? Why was there so much aggression directed against me? Attacking a Higher Light One, and a member of the Night Watch, was a very serious step to take. Whoever had taken it must have nothing to lose…

As if someone had read my thoughts, there was a knock at the door. I groaned, closed my bathrobe, and went to open up.

Standing outside on the doorstep was a girl, or a very young woman-she was about fifteen, the age that can be interpreted in different ways. The girl was barefoot, her short black hair glistened, and her black-and-red dressing gown seemed to be the only thing that she was wearing.

“May I come in?” she asked in the voice of an exemplary schoolgirl.

“I ought to have guessed straightaway,” I said. “Yes, come in.”

“And how ought you to have guessed?” the girl asked, lowering her eyes. “By taking a better look at the figurine?”

“I didn’t have a microscope with me. But a male wolf would certainly have pissed on the gun.”

“Oh, how crude you are, and a Light One, too!” the girl said with a frown. She walked over to an armchair, sat down, and crossed her legs. “Not pissed on it, marked it! You don’t mind me coming in? I won’t compromise you?”

“Unfortunately no, my child, you won’t compromise me,” I said, opening the minibar. “Would you like something?”

“Warm milk with honey.”

I nodded. “All right, I’ll just call the restaurant.”

“There isn’t any room service here.”

“They’ll make an exception for me,” I said confidently.

“Never mind, pour me some wine. Red.”

I poured myself a whisky with ice. Then I spotted a fifty-gram bottle of Drambuie and poured that into the whisky. Just what I needed for a sound night’s sleep-a large serving of Rusty Nail. If the girl could do without her milk and honey, that was no reason for me to do without my honeyed whisky…

“So whose tail have you stepped on so hard?” the girl asked. “That’s the first time I’ve seen a robot rod blazing away like that…“

“It isn’t a rod…”

“What’s the difference?” My guest snorted. “I’m a girl. I’m allowed to get it wrong.”

“You’re not a girl, you’re a werewolf.” I looked closely at her face. “And I remember you.”

“You do?” All her bravado suddenly evaporated. “You remember?”

“Of course. Your name’s Galya. Galina Dobronravova. You were the one who noticed the witch Arina when she kidnapped my daughter.”

“You do remember,” the girl said with a smile. “And I thought you must have forgotten a long time ago.”

“No.” I handed her the glass of wine. “Thank you. You really helped a lot that time.”

“You have a fine daughter.” She took a bold gulp of wine and frowned slightly. “And your wife is very beautiful.”

I nodded and asked, “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. Zabulon told me this is a very important assignment. He said I have to help you, even though you’re a Light One. Protect you against everything.”

“But why you?” I asked. “Pardon me for saying so, but you are very young. And you’re only fifth-level.”

“Because I…” Galya hesitated. “Was I some help? Even though I am only fifth-level?”

“Yes, you were.” I downed my cocktail in a single gulp. “I’m sorry, I’m terribly sleepy.”

“So am I. But I feel so afraid in there. It’s all red and black. Can I stay with you?” She looked at me and lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

I put down my glass and nodded.

“Of course. Will the sofa be all right for you? I’ll give you a pillow and a blanket.”

“Light One…” the girl began slowly in an offended voice, but abruptly changed tack. “All right, I’ll leave these heavenly halls and go back to my anteroom to hell. It will probably feel more cheerful in any case!”

She walked proudly out of the room, clutching the glass of wine in her hands. I glanced into her doorway-her suite really was decorated in crimson and black. On the floor I saw tufts of black fur. The girl had transformed so quickly that she hadn’t given her skin time to change completely.

As she closed her door, Galya stuck her tongue out at me.

And after I closed mine, I started laughing quietly.

Acceleration, emancipation, and the sexual revolution! No, I won’t lie, I liked the idea that this girl had fallen for me four years earlier. Or maybe not four years earlier, maybe she had fallen in love afterward. Retrospectively, so to speak, when the flood of hormones brought the time for romantic emotions and vague desires.