«The husband's powers?»

«He hasn't any. Neither does his new wife. That's the first thing that was checked.»

«Enemies?»

«Two female ill-wishers at work. Two rejected admirers at work. A school friend who tried to get a fake sick-note six months ago.»

«And?»

«She refused.»

«Well, well. And how much magic have they got?»

«Next to none. Their malevolence quotient is ordinary. They all have only weak magical powers. They couldn't create a vortex like this one.»

«Any patients died? Recently?»

«None.»

«Then where did the curse come from?» I asked myself. Yes, now I could see why the Watch had gotten nowhere with this. Svetlana had turned out to be a goody two-shoes. Five enemies in twenty-five years—that was really something to be proud of.

Olga didn't answer my rhetorical question.

«I've got to go,» I said. I turned toward the windows where I could see the two guards' silhouettes. One of them waved to me. «Olga, how did Ignat try to work this?»

«The standard approach. A meeting in the street, the 'diffident intellectual' line. Coffee in a bar. Conversation. A rapid rise in the mark's attraction. He bought champagne and liqueur; they came here.»

«And after that?»

«The vortex started to grow.»

«And the reason?»

«There was none. She liked Ignat; in fact, she was starting to feel powerfully attracted. But at precisely that moment the vortex started to grow catastrophically fast. Ignat ran through three styles of behavior and managed to get an unambiguous invitation to stay the night. That was when the vortex shifted gear into explosive growth. He was recalled. The vortex stabilized.»

«How was he recalled?»

I was frozen through already, and my boots felt disgustingly damp on my feet. And I still wasn't ready for action.

«The 'sick mother' line. A call to his cell phone, he apologized, promised to call her tomorrow. There were no hitches; the mark didn't get suspicious.»

«And the vortex stabilized?»

Olga didn't answer; she was obviously communicating with the analysts.

«It even shrank a little bit. Three centimeters. But that might just be natural recoil when the energy input's cut off.»

There was something in all this, but I couldn't formulate my vague suspicions clearly.

«Where's her medical practice, Olga?»

«Right here, we're in it. It includes this house. Patients often come to her apartment.»

«Excellent. Then I'll go as a patient.»

«Do you need any help implanting false memories?»

«I'll manage.»

«The boss says okay,» Olga replied after a pause. «Go ahead. Your persona is: Anton Gorodetsky, programmer, unmarried, under observation for three years, diagnosis—stomach ulcer, resident in this building, apartment number sixty-four. It's empty right now; if necessary, we can provide backup on that.»

«Three years is too much for me,» I confessed. «A year. One year, max.»

«Okay.»

I looked at Olga, and she looked at me with those unblinking bird's eyes, and somewhere in there I could still see part of that dirty, aristocratic woman who'd drunk cognac with me in my kitchen.

«Good luck,» she said. «Try to reduce the height of the vortex. Ten meters at least… then I'll risk it.»

The bird flew up into the air and instantly withdrew into the Twilight, down into the very deepest layers.

I sighed and set off toward the entrance of the building. The trunk of the vortex swayed as it tried to touch me. I stretched my hands out, folding them into the Xamadi, the sign of negation.

The vortex shuddered and recoiled. Not really afraid, just playing by the rules. At that size the advancing Inferno should already have developed powers of reason, stopped being a mindless, target-seeking missile, and become a ferocious, experienced kamikaze. I know that sounds odd—an experienced kamikaze—but when it comes to the Darkness, the term's justified. Once it breaks through into the human world, an inferno vortex is doomed, but it's only a single wasp in a huge swarm that dies.

«Your hour hasn't come yet,» I said. The Inferno wasn't about to answer me, but I felt like saying it anyway.

I walked past the stalk. The vortex looked like it was made of blue-black glass that had acquired the flexibility of rubber. Its outer surface was almost motionless, but deep inside, where the dark blue became impenetrable darkness, I could vaguely see a furious spinning motion.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe its hour had come…

The entrance didn't even have a coded lock. Or rather, it had one, but it had been smashed and gutted. That was normal. A little greeting from the Darkness. I'd already stopped paying any attention to its little tricks, even stopped noticing the words and the dirty paw tracks on walls, the broken lamps and the fouled elevators. But now I was wound up tight.

I needn't have asked the address. I could sense the girl—I kept on thinking about her as a girl, even though she'd been married. I knew which way to go; I could even see her apartment, or rather, not see it but perceive it as a whole.

The only thing I didn't understand was how I was going to get rid of that damned twister…

I stopped in front of the door. It was an ordinary one, not metal, very unusual on the first floor, especially in a building where the lock at the entrance is broken. I gave a deep sigh and rang the bell. Eleven o'clock. A bit late, of course.

I heard steps. There was no sound insulation…

She opened the door right away.

She didn't ask who it was; she didn't look through the spyhole; she didn't put on the chain. In Moscow! And at night! Alone in her apartment! The vortex was devouring the final remnants of the girl's caution, the caution that had kept her alive for several days. That was usually the way people died when they had been cursed…

But to look at, Svetlana still seemed normal. Except maybe for the shadows under her eyes, but who knew what kind of a night she'd had? And the way she was dressed—a skirt, a stylish blouse, heels—as if she were expecting someone or was all set to go out.

«Good evening, Svetlana,» I said, already noticing a faint gleam of recognition in her eyes. Of course, she had a vague memory of me from the previous day. And I had to exploit that moment when she'd already realized we knew each other but still hadn't remembered from where.

I reached out through the Twilight. Cautiously, because the vortex was hanging right there above the girl's head as if it were tethered to her, and it could react at any second. Cautiously, because I didn't really want to deceive her.

Not even if it was for her own good.

It's only the first time that's interesting and funny. If you still find it amusing after that, the Night Watch is the wrong place for you. It's one thing to shift someone's moral imperatives, especially when it's always toward the Good. It's quite another to interfere with their memory. It's inevitable; it has to be done; it's part of the Treaty; and through the very process of entering and leaving the Twilight we induce a momentary amnesia in the people around us.

But if you ever start to enjoy toying with someone else's memory—it's time you quit the Watch.

«Good evening, Anton.» Her voice blurred slightly when I forced her to remember things that had never happened. «What's happened?»

I smiled sourly and slapped myself on the stomach. By now there was a hurricane raging in Svetlana's memory. My control wasn't so great that I could implant a fully structured false memory in her mind. Fortunately, in this case I could just give her a couple of hints, and from then on she deceived herself. She put my image together out of one old acquaintance I happened to resemble and another person she'd known and liked even earlier than that, but not for long, as well as a couple of dozen patients my age and some of her neighbors in the building. I only gave the process a gentle nudge, helping Svetlana toward an integrated image. A good man… a neurasthenic… quite often unwell… flirts a bit, but no more than a bit—very unsure of himself… lives on the next stairwell.

«You have pain?» She gathered her thoughts. She really was a good doctor, with a real vocation.

«A bit. I had a drink yesterday,» I said, trying to look repentant.

«Anton, I warned you… come in…«

I went in and closed the door—the girl hadn't even bothered about that. While I was taking off my coat, I had a quick look around, in the ordinary world and in the Twilight.

Cheap wallpaper, a tattered rug on the floor, an old pair of boots, a light bulb in a simple glass shade on the ceiling, a radio telephone on the wall—cheap Chinese junk. Modest. Clean. Ordinary. And the important thing here wasn't that the profession of district doctor doesn't pay very well. It was more that she didn't feel any need for comfort. That was bad… very bad.

In the Twilight world the apartment made a slightly better impression. No repulsive plant life, no trace of the Darkness. Apart from the black vortex, of course, just hanging there… I could see the entire thing, from the stalk, swirling around above the girl's head, up to the broad mouth, thirty meters higher.

I followed Svetlana through into the only room. At least things were a bit more cozy in here. The couch had a warm orange glow—not all of it though, just the spot by the old-fashioned standard lamp. Two walls were covered with single-box bookshelves stacked on top of each other, seven shelves high… Clear enough.

I was beginning to understand her, not just as a professional target and a potential victim of a Dark Magician, not just as the unwitting cause of a catastrophe, but as a person. An introverted, bookish child, with a mass of complexes and her head full of crazy ideals and a childish faith in the beautiful prince who was searching for her and would surely find her. Work as a doctor, a few girlfriends, a few male friends, and a great deal of loneliness. Conscientious work almost in the spirit of a builder of communism, occasional visits to the cafe and occasional loves. And each evening like every other one, on the couch, with a book, with the phone lying beside her, with the television muttering something soapy and comforting.

How many of you there still are, girls and boys of various ages, raised by naive parents in the sixties. How many of you there are, so unhappy, not knowing how to be happy. How I long to take pity on you, how I long to help you. To touch you through the Twilight—gently, with no force at all. To give you just a little confidence in yourself, just a tiny bit of optimism, a gram of willpower, a crumb of irony. To help you, so that you could help others.