I started closing the window, trying to think what to do now. How would I communicate with her, what would I feed her, and how, in God's name, could this feathered creature possibly help me?

«Is your name Olga?» I asked, when I'd finished with the window. There was a draft from the cracks now, but I could fix that later. «Hey, bird!»

The owl half-opened one eye, taking no more notice of me than of the fussy, chattering sparrows.

I was feeling more awkward with every moment. In the first place I had a partner I couldn't even talk to. And in the second place my partner was a woman!

Even if she were an owl.

Maybe I ought to put my pants on? I wasn't really awake yet, standing there in just my crumpled shorts, I hadn't shaved…

Feeling like a total idiot, I grabbed my clothes and dashed out of the room. I muttered to the owl, «Excuse me, I'll just be a moment.»

If this bird really were what I thought it was, I couldn't have made the best of impressions.

What I really wanted was to take a shower, but I couldn't afford to waste that much time. I made do with a shave and sticking my buzzing head under the cold faucet. On the little shelf, between the shampoo and the deodorant, I found some eau de cologne, which I don't normally use.

«Olga?» I called as I stuck my head out into the corridor.

I found the owl in the kitchen, on the refrigerator. Just sitting there looking dead, like a stuffed dummy stuck up there as a joke. Almost the way it had looked on the boss's shelves.

«Are you alive?» I asked.

One amber-yellow eye peered at me.

«All right,» I said, spreading my hands. «Why don't we start from the beginning? I realize I haven't made a very good impression. And I'll be honest about it, I do that all the time.»

The owl was listening.

«I don't know who you are,» I said, straddling a stool and facing the refrigerator. «And you can't tell me either. But I can introduce myself. My name's Anton. Five years ago I discovered that I was one of the Others.»

The owl made a sound that was more like a muffled laugh than anything else.

«Yes,» I agreed. «Only five years ago. That was just the way things went. I had a very high level of resistance. I didn't want to see the Twilight world. So I didn't, until the boss found me.»

The owl seemed to be getting interested.

«He was doing a practical exercise, briefing agents on how to identify secret Others. When he came across me…« I laughed as I remembered. «He broke through my resistance, of course. After that it was very simple… I did the adaptation course and started working in the analytical section… Nothing much really changed in my life. I became one of the Others, but I didn't notice any big difference in my life. The boss wasn't too pleased, but he didn't say anything. I was good at my job, and he had no right to interfere in anything else. But a week ago this vampire maniac turned up in town, and they gave me the job of neutralizing him. Supposedly because all the agents were busy. But really to get me out there in the firing line. Maybe they were right. But during the week another three people were killed. A professional would have caught that vampire duo in a day…«

I really wanted to know what Olga thought about all this. But the owl didn't make a sound.

«What's more important for maintaining the balance?» I asked anyway. «Giving me some operational experience or saving the lives of three innocent people?»

The owl said nothing.

«I couldn't sense the vampires with the usual methods,» I went on. «I had to attune myself to them. I didn't drink human blood though, I made do with pig's blood. And all those drugs… but then, you know all about those anyway…«

When I mentioned the drugs, I got up, opened the little cupboard above the stove, and took out a glass jar with a tight-fitting ground-glass stopper. There was only a little bit of the lumpy brown powder left; it made no sense to hand it back in to the department. I tipped the powder into the sink and rinsed it away—the kitchen was filled with a pungent, dizzying odor. I rinsed out the jar and dropped it into the garbage pail.

«I almost went over the edge,» I said. «I was well on the way. Yesterday morning, on my way back from the hunt… I ran into the little girl from next door. I didn't even dare say hello; my fangs had already sprouted. And last night, when I felt the Call summoning the boy… I almost joined the vampires.»

The owl was looking into my eyes.

«Why do you think the boss gave me the job?»

A stuffed dummy. Clumps of dusty feathers stuffed with cotton wool.

«So I could see things through their eyes?»

The doorbell rang in the hallway. I sighed and shrugged: It was her own fault, after all; anyone would be better to talk to than this boring bird. I flipped the light on as I walked to the door and opened it.

Standing there in the doorway was a vampire.

«Come in, Kostya,» I said, «come in.»

He hesitated at the door, but then came in. He ran his hand through his hair—I noticed that his palms were sweaty and his eyes were restless.

Kostya was only seventeen. He was born a vampire, a perfectly ordinary city vampire. It's really tough: With vampire parents a child has almost no chance of growing up human.

«I've brought back the CDs,» Kostya muttered. «Here.»

I took the pile of compact discs from the boy, not surprised there were so many. I usually had to nag him for ages to bring them back: He was terribly absentminded.

«Did you listen to them all?» I asked. «Did you copy any?»

«Well, um… I'll be going…«

«Wait.» I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him into the room. «What's going on?»

He didn't answer.

«You already know?» I asked, beginning to catch on.

«There aren't many of us, Anton,» said Kostya, looking me in the eye. «When one of us passes away, we sense it immediately.»

«Okay. Take your shoes off; let's go into the kitchen and have a serious talk.»

Kostya didn't argue. But I was desperately trying to figure out what to do. Five years earlier, when I became an Other and the Twilight side of the world was revealed to me, I'd made plenty of surprising discoveries. And one of the most shocking was the fact that a family of vampires was living right over my head.

I remember it clearly. I was on my way home from classes that seemed so ordinary, they reminded me of my old college. Three double class periods, a lecturer, heat that glued the white coats to our bodies—we rented the lecture hall from a medical college. I was fooling around as I walked home, dropping into the Twilight in short bursts—I couldn't manage it for any longer back then. Then I began feeling out the people walking down the street, and at the entrance I ran into my neighbors.

They're really nice people. I wanted to borrow a drill from them once, and Kostya's father, Gennady, a contractor, just came around and had some fun helping out with the concrete walls, demonstrating conclusively that the intelligentsia can't survive without the proletariat…

And now suddenly I could see they weren't human beings at all.

It was terrifying. The brownish-gray auras, the hideous pressure. I stopped dead, staring at them in horror. Polina, Kostya's mother, looked surprised; the boy froze and turned his face away. But the head of the family walked toward me, moving deeper into the Twilight as he came, walking with the elegant stride that only vampires, alive and dead at the same time, have. The Twilight is their natural habitat.

«Hello, Anton,» he said.

The world around me was gray and dead. I'd dived into the Twilight after him without even noticing it.

«I knew you'd cross the barrier some day,» he said. «Everything's okay.»

I took a step back—and Gennady's face quivered.

«Everything's okay,» he said. He opened his shirt and I saw the registration tag, a blue imprint on the gray skin. «We're all registered. Polina! Kostya!»

His wife also crossed into the Twilight and unfastened her blouse. The boy didn't move, and it took a stern glance from his father to get him to show his blue seal.

«I have to check,» I whispered. My passes were clumsy; I lost track twice and had to start again. Finally the seal responded. Permanent registration, no known violations…

«Is everything okay?» asked Gennady. «Can we go now?»

«Don't worry about it. We knew you'd become an Other someday.»

«Go on,» I said. It was against the rules, but that was the last thing I was bothered about.

«Yes…« Gennady paused for a moment before he left the Twilight. «I've been in your home… Anton, I return to you your invitation to enter…«

Everything was just as it should be.

They walked away, and I sat down on a bench, beside an old granny warming herself in the sunshine. I lit a cigarette, trying to sort out my thoughts. The granny looked at me and said:

«Nice people, aren't they, Arkasha?»

She was always getting my name wrong. She only had two or three months left to live, I could see that quite clearly now.

«Not exactly…« I said. I smoked three cigarettes, then trudged off into the house. I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching the gray «vampire's trail» fade away. I'd just learned how to see it that very day…

I moped into the evening. I leafed through my notes, which meant I had to withdraw into the Twilight. For the ordinary world, the pages of those standard exercise books were a pure, unsullied white. I wanted to call our group's supervisor or the boss himself—I was his personal responsibility. But I felt I had to make the decision myself.

When it was dark already I couldn't stand it any longer. I went up to the next floor and rang the bell. When Kostya opened the door, he shuddered. But he actually looked perfectly ordinary, like all of his family…

«Call your folks, will you,» I asked.

«What for?» he muttered.

«I want to invite you all for tea.»

Gennady appeared behind his son's back, appeared out of nowhere; he was far more skillful than me, the newly fledged adept of the Light.

«Are you sure, Anton?» he asked doubtfully. «There's no need. Everything's okay.»

«I'm sure.»

He paused and then shrugged.

«We'll come around tomorrow. If you invite us. Don't rush things.»

By midnight I was feeling absolutely delighted they'd refused. At three I tried to get to sleep, reassured in the knowledge that they couldn't enter my home and never would be able to.

In the morning, still not having slept a wink, I stood at the window, looking out at the city. There weren't many vampires. Very few, in fact. There wasn't another within a radius of two or three kilometers.