«I betrayed…«

«What?»

«I betrayed my mother.»

She looked at me seriously, not a trace of the disgusting posturing of someone who's pulled some really low-down trick and is boasting about it.

«I don't understand, Sveta…«

«My mother's ill, Anton. Her kidneys. She needs regular dialysis… but that's only a half-measure. Well, anyway, they suggested a transplant to me.»

«Why suggest that to you?» I still didn't understand.

«They suggested I should give my mother one kidney. It would almost certainly be accepted; I even had all the tests done… and then I refused. I'm… I'm afraid.»

I didn't say anything. Everything was clear now. Something about me must have clicked; something about me had made Svetlana feel she could be totally open with me. So it was her mother.

Her mother!

» Well done, Anton. The guys are already on their way .» Olga's voice sounded triumphant. And so it should—we'd found the Black Magician! «Would you believe it, at first contact nobody felt a thing, they thought there was nothing to her… Well done. Calm her down, Anton, talk to her, comfort her …«

You can't stop your ears in the Twilight. You have to listen when you're spoken to.

«Svetlana, you know no one has the right to demand…«

«Yes, of course. I told my mother, and she told me to forget about it. She said she'd kill herself if I decided to go ahead with it. She said, what difference did it make to her, when she was going to die anyway? And it wasn't worth crippling myself for her. I shouldn't have told her anything. I should have just donated the kidney. She could have found out later, after the operation. You can even give birth with one kidney… there have been cases.»

Kidneys. What nonsense. What a petty problem. One hour's work for a genuine White Magician. But we weren't allowed to heal people; every genuine cure gave a Dark Magician a permit to cast a curse or put the evil eye on someone. And it was her mother… her own mother, who had cursed her, in a split-second emotional outburst, without realizing what she was doing, while she was telling her daughter not even to think about having the operation.

And that had set the monstrous black vortex growing.

«I don't know what I ought to do now, Anton. I keep doing stupid things. Today I almost jumped into bed with a stranger.» For Svetlana to tell me that must have been almost as difficult as telling me about her mother.

«Sveta, we can work this out,» I began. «The important thing is not just to give up, not punish yourself unnecessarily…«

«I told her on purpose, Anton! I knew what she'd say! I wanted to be told not to do it! She ought to have cursed me, the damned old fool!»

Svetlana had no idea how right she was… No one knows what mechanisms are involved here, what goes on in the Twilight, and how being cursed by a stranger is different from being cursed by someone you love, by your son or by your mother. Except that a mother's curse is the most terrible of all.

«Anton, take it easy.»

The sound of Olga's voice sobered me up instantly.

«That's too simple, Anton. Have you ever dealt with a mother's curse?»

«No,» I said. I said it out loud, answering Svetlana and Olga at the same time.

«I'm to blame,» said Svetlana, with a shake of her head. «Thanks, Anton, I'm to blame and no one else.»

»I have ,» the voice said through the Twilight. «Anton, my friend, this looks all wrong! A mother's curse is a blinding black explosion and a large vortex. But it always dissipates in an instant. Almost always .»

Maybe so. I didn't argue with her. Olga was a specialist in curses, and she'd seen all sorts of things. Of course, nobody would wish their own child ill… at least, not for long. But there were exceptions.

»Exceptions are possible ,» Olga agreed. «They'll check her mother out thoroughly now. But… I wouldn't count on this being over soon .»

«Svetlana,» I asked. «Isn't there any other solution? Some other way to help your mother? Apart from a transplant?»

«No. I'm a doctor, I know. Medicine's not all-powerful.»

«What if it wasn't medicine?»

She was puzzled:

«What do you mean, Anton?»

«Alternative medicine,» I said. «Folk medicine.»

«Anton…«

«I understand, Svetlana; it's hard to believe,» I added hastily. «There are so many charlatans, con men, and psychos out there. But is all of it really lies?»

«Anton, can you show me one person who has cured a really serious illness?» said Svetlana, looking at me ironically. «Not just tell me about him, but show him to me. And his patients too, preferably before and after treatment. Then I'll believe. I'll believe in anything, in psychics, and healers, in White Magicians and Black Magicians…«

I couldn't help squirming on my chair. She had the most absolute proof possible of the existence of «black» magic hanging right there over her head, a textbook case.

«I can show you one,» I said. I remembered how they'd brought Danila into the office one time. It was after an ordinary fight—not absolutely standard, but not too heavy either. He'd just been unlucky. They were detaining a family of werewolves for some petty violation of the Treaty. The werewolves could have given themselves up and nothing more would have come of it than a brief joint investigation by the two Watches.

But the werewolves decided to resist. They probably had an entire trail of bloody crimes behind them that the Night Watch knew nothing about—and now they never would. Danila went in first and got badly mauled. His left lung, his heart, a deep trauma to the liver, one kidney torn right out.

The boss fixed Danila up, with a helping hand from almost everyone in the Watch who had any strength right then. I was standing in the third circle; our job was not so much to provide the boss with energy as to cut out external influences. But sometimes I took a look at Danila. He kept sinking into the Twilight, either on his own or with the boss. Every time he surfaced into reality his wounds were smaller. It was impressive, but not really all that difficult; after all, the wounds were still fresh and they weren't predestined. But I had no doubt that the boss could cure Svetlana's mother. Even if the line of her destiny broke off in the near future, even if she was definitely going to die. She could be cured. Death would simply be due to other causes…

«Anton, aren't you afraid to talk like that?»

I shrugged. Svetlana sighed.

«If you give someone hope, you become responsible, Anton. I don't believe in miracles. But right now I just might. Doesn't that scare you?»

I looked into her eyes.

«No, Svetlana. There are lots of things that scare me. But different things.»

«Anton, the vortex is down by twenty centimeters. The boss says to tell you well done.»

There was something about her voice I didn't like. A conversation through the Twilight isn't like an ordinary one; you can sense emotions.

»What's happened ?» I asked through the dead gray shroud.

«Keep going, Anton.»

«What's happened?»

«I wish I could feel so self-assured,» said Svetlana. She looked at the window: «Did you hear that? A kind of rustling sound…«

«The wind,» I suggested. «Or someone walking by.»

«Olga, tell me!»

«Anton, everything's fine with the vortex. It's slowly shrinking. You're increasing her internal resistance somehow. They calculate that by morning the vortex will have shrunk to a theoretically safe size. Then I can get to work.»

«Then what's the problem? There is one, Olga, I can sense it!»

She didn't answer.

«Olga, are we partners or not?»

That worked. I couldn't see the white owl, but I knew her eyes had glinted and she'd glanced toward the windows of our field headquarters, into the faces of the boss and the observer from the Dark Ones.

«Anton, there's a problem with the boy.»

«With Egor?»

«Anton, what are you thinking about?» Svetlana asked. It was hard work holding simultaneous conversations in the real world and the Twilight one…

«Just wishing I could be in two places at the same time.»

«Anton, your mission is far more important.»

«Tell me, Olga.»

«I don't understand, Anton.» That was Svetlana again.

«You know, I've just realized that a friend of mine is in trouble. Big trouble,» I said, looking into her eyes.

«The girl-vampire. She's taken the boy.»

I didn't feel a thing… No emotions, no pity, no anger, no sadness. I just felt cold and empty inside.

I must have been expecting it. I didn't know why, but I was.

«But Bear and Tiger Cub are there!»

«It just happened.»

«And what's happened to him?»

As long as she hadn't initiated him! Death, simple death. Eternal death was more terrible.

«He's alive. She's taken him as a hostage.»

«What?»

That had never happened before. It had simply never happened. Taking hostages was a game human beings played.

«The girl-vampire's demanding negotiations. She wants a trial… she's hoping to find some way out.»

In my head I gave the vampire ten out of ten for inventiveness. She didn't have a chance of getting away and she'd never had one. But if she could shift all the blame onto her eliminated friend, the one who'd initiated her… I don't know anything, I don't understand a thing. I just got bitten and turned into what I am. I didn't know the rules. I hadn't read the Treaty. I'll be a normal, law-abiding vampire…

«It might even work!» I thought. Especially if Night Watch made a few concessions. And we would… we had no choice. Every human life had to be protected.

I even went limp in relief. You might say, what was the kid to me, anyway? If he'd drawn the short straw, he could have been the legitimate prey of vampires and werewolves. That's just the way life is. And I'd have walked on by. Never mind the short straw—how many times had Night Watch gotten there too late, how many people had been killed by the Dark Ones… But it was a strange thing. I was already involved in the struggle for him, I'd stepped into the Twilight and spilled blood. And it wasn't all the same to me anymore. Not by a long way…

Conversations in the Twilight move a lot faster than they do in the human world. But I still had to divide myself between Olga and Svetlana.

«Anton, don't bother your head about my problems.»

In spite of everything, I felt like laughing. Right then there were hundreds of heads trying to deal with her problems, and Svetlana had no idea; she knew nothing about it. But it was enough to mention other people's problems, so tiny in comparison with the black inferno vortex, and she immediately started worrying about them.