"A purely Russian approach-solving a problem with a glass of vodka," Gesar said morosely. "What for? Why did you provoke him? He's not a novice. It must have been obvious you couldn't handle him. Was I supposed to present Svetlana with your remains afterward?"

"I got carried away myself," I admitted. "It was all just too unexpected. And then when Kostya started saying 'Come with me, I don't want to hurt anyone'…"

"He doesn't want to hurt anyone," Gesar said bitterly. "A vampire reformer. A progressive lord of the world…"

"Gesar, we have to decide what to do," Zabulon said quietly. "I can have the fighters from the military airport scrambled."

Neither magician spoke for a while.

I imagined jet fighters screeching through the sky in pursuit of a bat, blazing away at it with their cannons and firing their rockets…

A phantasmagorical vision.

"Helicopters then…" Gesar said thoughtfully. "No. That's nonsense, Zabulon. He'll just brush any humans aside."

"A bomb after all, then?" Zabulon asked curiously.

"No!" Gesar shook his head. "No. Not here. And it's too late for that… he's on the alert. We have to strike at him with magic."

Zabulon nodded. Then he suddenly started giggling quietly.

"What's this?" Gesar asked.

"All my life…" said Zabulon. "Would you believe it, my old enemy? All my life I've dreamed of working in harness with you! Well now I really am… from hatred to love…"

"You really are an absolute goon," Gesar said in a quiet voice.

"We're all a bit touched in the head," Zabulon giggled. "Well then? You and me? Or shall we bring in our colleagues? They can pump in Power, and we can be the spearhead, striking the blow."

Gesar shook his head. "No, Zabulon. We shouldn't go near Konstantin. I have a different suggestion…"

He looked at me.

I felt at the broken stump of a tooth with my tongue. That was a real drag…

"I'm ready, Gesar."

"Yes, there's a chance," Zabulon said, with a nod of approval. "Since Kostya still allows sentimental considerations to influence him… the only thing is, will you be able to strike at him, Anton?"

I didn't answer immediately. I had to think about it seriously.

There was no question of an arrest. I'd have to strike swiftly and surely and kill him. Become the spearhead, the focus of the Power that would be pumped into me by Gesar, Zabulon, Edgar… and maybe other magicians as well. Sure, I was less experienced than the Great Ones. But there was a chance I could get close to Kostya without a fight

On account of those "sentimental considerations."

The alternative was simple-the Great Ones would gather all their Power into a single fist. Even Nadya's Power would be required-and Gesar would demand that Svetlana initiate our daughter…

There was no alternative.

"I'll kill Kostya," I said.

"Wrong," Gesar said in a low voice. "Say it right, watchman!"

"I'll subdue the vampire," I whispered.

Gesar nodded.

"And don't get all introspective about it, Gorodetsky," Zabulon added. "None of your intellectual sniveling. That nice boy Kostya doesn't exist any more. And he never did. Maybe he hasn't killed anybody for blood, but he's still a vampire. Non-life."

Gesar nodded in support.

I closed my eyes for a moment.

Non-life.

He was lacking that thing that we simply call a soul.

A certain vital component that even we Others can't define. From early in his childhood-thanks to his parents. As the boy grew up, the doctor in the local clinic had listened to his heart and admired his robust health. He had turned from a boy into a man, and no girl had ever said his lips were cold when she kissed them. He could have had children-perfectly ordinary children with a perfectly ordinary human woman.

But it was all non-life. It was all borrowed and stolen-and when Kostya died, his body would instantly crumble to dust… because it had already been dead for a long, long time.

We're all condemned to death from the moment we're born.

But at least we can live until we die.

"Leave me alone with Anton," Gesar said. "I'll try to prepare him."

I heard Zabulon and Edgar stand up. They went out into the corridor. There was a rustling sound-Gesar had evidently shielded us against observation. And then he asked, "Are you suffering?"

"No." I shook my head without opening my eyes. "I'm thinking. Kostya tried not to behave like a vampire, after all…"

"And what conclusions have you reached?"

"He won't be able to hold on." I opened my eyes and looked at Gesar. "He won't be able to hold on, he'll lose control. He's managed to subdue the physiological need for living blood, but as for all the rest… he's non-life among the living and that's a torment to him. Sooner or later Kostya will lose control."

Gesar waited.

"He's already lost control," I said. "When he killed Witezslav and the Inquisitors… one of the Inquisitors was a Light One, right?"

Gesar nodded.

"I'll do the right thing," I promised. "I feel sorry for Kostya, but there's nothing to be done."

"I have faith in you, Anton," Gesar said. "And now tell me what you really wanted to ask."

"What keeps you in the Night Watch, boss?" I asked.

Gesar smiled.

"When you get right down to it, we're all tarred with the same brush," I said. "We don't fight the Dark Ones, we fight the ones that even the Dark Ones reject-the psychopaths, the maniacs, the lawless ones. For obvious reasons there are more of them among the vampires and the werewolves. The Dark Ones do the same… the Day Watch hunts the Light Ones who want to do good to everyone all at once… basically the ones who might reveal our existence to human beings. The Inquisition supposedly stands above the fray, but what it actually does is make sure the Watches don't take their functions seriously. Make sure the Dark Ones don't attempt to gain formal control over the human world and the Light Ones don't try to wipe out the Dark Ones completely… Gesar, the Night Watch and the Day Watch are just two halves of a single whole."

Gesar just looked at me for a while without saying anything.

"Were things… deliberately arranged that way?" I asked. Then I answered my own question. "Yes, probably. The young ones, the newly initiated Others, might not have accepted a single Watch for Light Ones and Dark Ones: I can't do that-go out on patrol with a vampire! I would have been outraged myself… And so two Watches were set up, the lower ranks hunt each other fervently, the leaders plot and scheme-out of sheer boredom-just to keep up appearances. But it's a joint leadership."

Gesar sighed and took out a cigar. He cut its tip off and lit it.

"And like a fool," I muttered, keeping my eyes on Gesar, "I always used to wonder how we managed to survive at all. The watches of Samara, of Novogorod Veliky, of little Kireevsky village in the Tomsk region. All supposedly independent. But basically, when there's any kind of problem, they come running to us, to Moscow… Okay, so the arrangement's not de jure, it's all de facto-but the Moscow Watch runs all the Watches in Russia."

"And in three of the newly independent states…" Gesar muttered. He blew out a stream of smoke and the smoke gathered together into a dense cloud in midair, instead of dispersing throughout the compartment.

"All right, what comes next?" I asked. "How do the independent Watches of Russia and, say, Lithuania, interact? Or Russia, Lithuania, the USA, and Uganda? In the human world what happens is clear enough: whoever has the biggest stick and the thickest purse calls the tune. But the Russian Watches are stronger than the American ones! I even think…"

"The strongest Watch is the French one," Gesar said in a bored voice. "Strong, but extremely lazy. An amazing phenomenon. We can't understand what the reason is-it can't just be a matter of consuming massive quantities of dry wine and oysters…"