"I told you, I just felt like it," Las sighed.

"You just felt like it, and that's all?"

"Well… I'm sitting there, not bothering anyone, changing the strings on my guitar. Somebody got a wrong number, they were looking for some Kazakh… I can't even remember the name. I hung up and started wondering how many Kazakhs there were living in Moscow. And right then I had just two strings on my guitar, like a dombra. I tightened them up and started strumming. It was strange. There was even a kind of melody… sort of haunting, alluring. And I just thought- why don't I go to Kazakhstan?"

"A melody?" I asked.

"Uh huh. Sort of alluring, calling to me. The steppes, kumis, all that stuff…"

Could it really have been Witezslav? Magic is usually imperceptible to an ordinary person. But vampires' magic is something halfway between genuine magic and very powerful hypnosis. It requires a glance, a sound, a touch-some kind of contact, even the very tiniest, between vampire and human being. And it leaves a trace-the sensation of a glance, a sound, a touch…

Had the old vampire duped us all?

"Anton," Las said thoughtfully. "You don't really trade in milk products."

I didn't answer.

"If I'd done anything that would interest the FSB, I'd be pissing myself," Las went on. "Only I get the feeling this is something that would frighten the FSB."

"Let's not get into that, okay?" I suggested. "It would be best that way."

"Uh huh," Las agreed promptly. "Right. So what should I do-get off at Saratov?"

"Get off and make straight for home," I said, nodding as I stood up. "Thanks for the cognac."

"Yes sir," said Las. "Always glad to be of help."

I couldn't tell if he was clowning about or not. Evidently that way of speaking just comes naturally to some people.

After a fairly solemn handshake with Las, I went out into the corridor and set off toward our car.

So it was Witezslav then? What a cute trickster… A tried and tested agent of the Inquisition.

I was bursting with excitement. Obviously, having become unimaginably powerful, Witezslav was capable of disguising himself as absolutely anyone. Even that two-year-old boy peeping cautiously out of his compartment. Even that fat girl with the huge, vulgar gold earrings. Even that conductor who fawned on Edgar-and why not?

Even Edgar or Kostya…

I stopped, gazing at the Inquisitor and the vampire standing in the corridor outside the door of our compartment. What if…

No, stop, this is insanity. Everything is possible, but not everything happens. I'm me, Edgar's Edgar, Witezslav's Witezslav. Otherwise it's just not possible to do anything.

"I have some information," I said, standing between Kostya and Edgar.

"Well?" Edgar asked with a nod.

"Las was influenced by a vampire. He remembers… something like music luring him into the journey."

"How poetic," Edgar snorted, but he wasn't smiling. He nodded approvingly. "Music? That certainly sounds like bloodsu-… Sorry, Kostya. Like vampires."

"You could use the correct term: Like hemoglobin-dependent Others," Kostya smiled with just his lips.

"Hemoglobin's got nothing to do with it, as you know," Edgar snapped. "Well then. It's a lead." He suddenly smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. "You never give up. Well, now the train has a chance. Wait for me here."

Edgar moved off quickly down the corridor. I thought he was on the way to his troops, but Edgar went into the captain's compartment and closed the door.

"What scheme has he come up with now?" asked Kostya.

"How should I know?" I glanced sideways at him. "Maybe there are some special spells for detecting vampires?"

"No," Kostya snapped. "It's exactly the same as for all the Others. If Witezslav's hiding among the humans you can't winkle him out with any spells. It's all so stupid…"

He was feeling nervous now-and I could understand him. After all, it's tough being a member of the most despised minority in the world of Others-and to have to hunt down one of your own fellows. He once told me-when I was a young, stupid, bold vampire hunter, "There aren't many of us. When someone departs, we sense it immediately."

"Kostya, did you sense Witezslav's death?"

"How do you mean, Anton?"

"You once told me you can sense the death of… your own kind."

"We sense it if the vampire's registered. When it's the registration seal that kills him, the recoil is agony for everyone for miles around. Witezslav didn't have any seal."

"But Edgar's obviously come up with something," I muttered. "Some special kind of Inquisitor's trick, maybe?"

"Probably." Kostya frowned. "Why is it like that, Anton? Why are we the only ones who are always persecuted… even by our own side? The Dark Magicians kill us too!"

Suddenly he was speaking to me the way he used to. Like when he was still an innocent vampire-boy… but then, what kind of innocence could a vampire have? It was terrible, it used to tear me apart-those cursed questions and that cursed predestination. And now I was hearing it from someone who had already crossed the line. Who had started to hunt and kill…

"You kill… for food," I said.

"And killing for power, for money, for amusement-is that nobler?" Kostya asked bitterly. He turned toward me and looked into my eyes. "Why do you talk to me so… squeamishly? We used to be friends. What happened?"

"You became a Higher Vampire."

"And so what?"

"I know how your kind become Higher Vampires, Kostya."

He looked into my eyes for a few seconds. And then he started to smile. With that special vampire smile, as if there are no fangs in his mouth yet, but you can already feel them on your throat.

"Ah yes… Drink the blood of young virgins and children, kill them… The old, classical recipe. That's how dear old Witezslav became a Higher One… You mean you never once looked in my file?"

"No," I replied.

He actually went limp. And his smile became pitiful and confused.

"Not even just once?"

"No," I said, already beginning to realize I'd made a mistake somewhere along the line.

Kostya made a clumsy gesture with his hands and started talking in nothing but conjunctions, interjections, and pronouns: "Why that… it's… look… but you… and I… yes… and you…"

"I don't like looking in a friend's file," I said, and added awkwardly, "not even a former friend's."

"And I thought you'd looked at it," said Kostya. "Right. This is the twenty-first century, Anton. Look…" He reached into his jacket pocket and took out his flask. "A concentrate of donor's blood. Twelve people give blood-and there's no need to kill anyone. Of course, hemoglobin has nothing to do with it! The emotions a person feels when he gives blood are far more important. You can't imagine how many people are mortally afraid, but they still go to the doctor and give blood for members of their family. My own personal formula… 'Saushkins's prescription.' Only it's usually called 'Saushkin's cocktail.' That must be in the file."

He looked at me triumphantly… and he probably couldn't understand why I wasn't smiling. Why I didn't mumble guiltily, "Kostya, forgive me, I thought you were a low son of a bitch and a murderer… but you're an honorable vampire, a good vampire, a modern vampire…"

Yes, that's what he was. Honorable, good, and modern. He hadn't wasted his time in the Hematological Research Institute.

Only why had he told me about the formula? About the blood from twelve people?

I knew why. How could I have known what was in the Fuaran? How could I have known that the spell required precisely the blood of twelve people?

Witezslav didn't have the blood of twelve people with him. He couldn't have worked the spell in the Fuaran and increased his powers.

But Kostya had had his flask.

"Anton, what's wrong with you?" Kostya asked. "Why don't you say something?"