“I think I can guess why he needed the cloak,” Foma said gloomily, glancing at the blood-spattered floor. “He must have gotten blood on himself… Send me his image, Anton.”

I closed my eyes and tried to remember the Frenchman as clearly as possible. Then I sent the mental picture to Lermont.

“Aha,” said the Scot. “Excellent. I’ll check all our files.”

“Perhaps we ought to inform the Inquisition?” I asked.

Lermont shook his head. “No, not yet. The events have not exceeded the limits of a crime committed by a solitary Dark One. The Day Watch of Edinburgh has not lodged any protests. We’ll manage without the Inquisition, Anton. For as long as we can.”

I didn’t argue. There’s not much fun in calling the Inquisition in to help.

“Is my help still required here?”

“No-go and get some sleep,” said Lermont. “We won’t inform the police; this is purely our business. My lads will try to find some clues, and I’ll start checking the Higher Others.”

He grunted as he bent down over the severed head, as if he was hoping to spot some kind of clue carelessly left by the criminal. Lermont could do to lose that belly, I thought as I watched his exertions.

“Foma,” I asked in a quiet voice. “What is there in here, in the Dungeons of Scotland?”

“Eh?” he asked without even turning around.

“What are the Dark Ones looking for here?”

“It’s a tourist attraction, Mr. Gorodetsky,” Foma said coolly. “Just that, and nothing more.”

“Well, all right,” I said, and left.

The killer had not needed to come back. If he had left any clues, they would already have been found-both the ordinary ones and the magic ones.

But he had come back and killed again. In order to anger the Night Watch even more? Nonsense. In order to put pressure on Lermont? Total nonsense.

So there was something he hadn’t managed to do the first time around. And so he had to come back again.

What could Lermont be hiding? This place wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed. I knew that much. For example, the blue moss didn’t grow here. That was already a significant anomaly. The structure of the Twilight is heterogeneous. For instance, in some places it is harder to enter than in others. I had even heard about zones where it is quite impossible to enter the Twilight. But the blue moss was a universal parasite…

I walked about a hundred meters away from the place and looked through the Twilight.

Aha!

Where I was standing, the moss was flourishing. There were thick garlands of it outside the pubs and cafes. It was thicker on the houses where people lived and thinner on the offices and shops. And there was more moss on the crossroads, where drivers get nervous.

All perfectly normal.

But when I looked toward the bridge, the closer to the entrance to the Dungeons, the more blue moss there was! It was drawn in that direction… And no wonder! The moss got thicker and thicker and then suddenly, ten meters from the doors, it started to dry up, as if it had hit some invisible boundary line.

Strange. If there was some environmental factor that was harmful to the moss, it ought to have made it fade out gradually. This had to be something else…

I reached out one hand to the closest colony of moss-a luxuriant blue clump on the asphalt. I said, “Burn!”

The Power flowed through me, only I held back the pressure. The moss didn’t burn up immediately. It swelled up and started growing, trying to process this free dose of energy. But the Power increased, and the moss couldn’t cope. It started turning gray and drying up…and finally burst into flames.

Now I could see it. When you know exactly what to look for, everything becomes extremely clear.

The Power scattered through space, the vital energy given out by human beings, drained into the Twilight unevenly. Yes, it constantly seeped through the fabric of the universe, down to the first level, the second, the third…but somewhere in the region of the Dungeons there was a gaping hole-and there was a constant stream of Power gushing down into it. As if someone had cut a hole in a piece of cloth through which water normally filtered slowly…

Too much food for a brainless parasite. The moss crept toward the tourist attraction, attracted by both the stream of Power and the emotions of the frightened customers. It crept up close-and then dried up.

I thought I could understand why Foma Lermont had chosen this precise spot to open his attraction. All this energy flowing into one place had to be concealed from rank-and-file Others. The excessive free Power here could be attributed to tipsy tourists, frightened children, the endless carnival that was Edinburgh…

I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Foma had put a lot of effort into popularizing Edinburgh for just one reason: to conceal this spot.

Even Light Ones sometimes have dark secrets. It can’t be helped.

I walked slowly uphill along one of the streets leading to the Royal Mile. It wasn’t a very touristy kind of street. Dark, with the only light coming from windows. All the shops on it were closed. But I expected it to lead straight to my hotel. I was feeling desperately sleepy. Maybe I ought to take a taxi after all? But it was only a ten-minute walk…

I turned on to a narrow street between the houses and found myself standing in something between a small square and a large courtyard. I walked over to a small monument, only one meter high, in the roadway. There was a bronze parrot sitting on a stone chalice with a thin stream of water flowing from it. It was either an undersized street fountain or an oversized drinking fountain. Using my cigarette lighter to examine the plaque below the parrot, I learned that this fountain had been erected by the inhabitants of the city in memory of a beloved parrot who had died of pneumonia at a very advanced age.

Then suddenly something clicked behind me and I felt a powerful jolt in my shoulder. So powerful that I had to take several steps forward to avoid falling facedown in the chalice of water.

Something hot trickled down my back.

What the hell?

There was another click and something ricocheted loudly off the bronze bird. The hot bullet hissed as it fell into the water, finally convincing me that I had almost been killed beside the parrot fountain.

Someone was shooting at me!

At me, an Other!

A Higher Magician, who could destroy palaces and raise up cities with a wave of my hand!

Well, all right, the cities are a bit of an exaggeration…breaking down is always easier than raising up.

Squirming in my hiding place behind the fountain, I looked hard into the darkness. No one. OK, how about through the Twilight?

The result astounded me.

The shots had clearly come from the side street next to the one that had led me to the fountain. But I couldn’t see anyone, either human or Other!

At least it was only a flesh wound. The bullet had passed straight through the soft tissues. I had stopped the bleeding in a reflex response, within a second. After that I recalled a couple of good healing spells to knit the damaged muscles back together.

Another shot. The bullet passed over the top of my head and a wave of heat tousled my hair. The soft sound suggested that the gun must have a silencer. The fact that I hadn’t been killed yet suggested that the shooter was firing from a pistol, and firing very well, or from a sniper’s rifle, and extremely badly.

But why couldn’t I see the gunman?

I waved my hand and spread a five-minute Morpheus spell over the entire street. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, I spread it across all the windows. And the roofs of the buildings, and the nearby side streets. Morpheus is a gentle sleep-inducing spell; it gives a man about five seconds before it puts him out altogether. If he’s standing, he can sit down; mothers holding children can put them down; drivers can slow down. There wouldn’t be any casualties. Or probably not.