I woke up twice during the night. Once when one of the Inquisitors came to Edgar to relate that some reports or
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other were missing. The second time when the train stopped in Tambov and Kostya quietly left the compartment.
It was after ten when I got up.
Edgar was drinking tea. Kostya, looking pink and fresh, was chewing a salami sandwich. The pointer was
rotating. No change at all.
I got dressed up there on the bunk and jumped down. I'd found a tiny piece of soap in the bundle of bedclothes,
and that was the only item of personal hygiene I had.
"Here," Kostya muttered, moving a plastic bag over toward me. "I picked up a few things... in Tambov ..."
The bag contained a pack of disposable razors, an aerosol can of Gillette shaving cream, a toothbrush, and a
tube of New Pearl toothpaste.
"I forgot the aftershave," said Kostya. "I didn't think of it."
It wasn't surprising he'd forgotten-vampires and werewolves aren't any too fond of strong smells. Maybe the
supposed effect of garlic, which was really quite harmless to vampires, was linked with the fact that it made it
harder for them to find their prey?
"Thanks," I said. "How much do I owe you?"
Kostya shrugged.
"I've already given him the money," Edgar told me. "You're entitled to expenses too, by the way. Fifty dollars a
day, plus food, on submission of the checks."
"It's a good life in the Inquisition," I quipped. "Any news?"
"Gesar and Zabulon are trying to make sense of Witezslav's remains." That was what he said-"remains"-in a
solemn, official voice. "But it's hard to get much out of them. You know yourself-the older a vampire is, the less
there is left of him after he dies..."
Kostya chewed intently on his sandwich.
"Sure," I agreed. "I'll go take a wash."
Almost everyone in the car was awake already. Only a couple of compartments where the merrymaking had been
a bit too intense were still closed. I waited in the short line and then squeezed into the barracks comfort of the
railway car's privy. Warm water oozed sluggishly out of the iron nipple of the tap. The sheet of polished steel that
took the place of a mirror was unusable, spattered all over with soap. As I brushed my teeth with the hard
Chinese brush, I recalled my nighttime conversation with Sveta.
There was something important in what Svetlana had said. There was-but it had gone unrecognized by both of us.
And I had to understand it.
When I got back to the compartment I was still no closer to the truth, but I did have an idea that I thought might
lead somewhere. My traveling companions had already finished their breakfast and when I closed the door I got
straight to the point.
"Edgar, I've got an idea. On a long stretch your guys unhitch the cars. One by one. To make sure the train
doesn't stop, one of them monitors the driver. We watch the compass. As soon as the car with the book is
unhitched-the pointer will turn toward it."
"And? ..." Edgar asked sourly.
"We get a fix on the book. We know which car it's in. And then we can surround that car and take the
passengers aside with their luggage, one by one. As soon as we find the killer, the pointer will tell us. And that's
it! No more need to destroy the train."
"I thought about that," Edgar said reluctantly. "There's just one argument against it, but it's decisive. The
perpetrator will realize what's happening. And then he'll be able to strike first."
"Get Gesar, Zabulon, Svetlana, and Olga here ... do the Dark Ones have other powerful magicians?" I looked at
Kostya.
"We can find a few," Kostya answered evasively. "But will we have enough Power?"
"To deal with one Other?"
"Not just an Other," Edgar reminded me. "According to the legend, several hundred magicians were assembled to
destroy Fuaran."
"Then we'll assemble them too. The Night Watch has almost two hundred members of staff, and the Day Watch
has just as many. And there are hundreds of reservists. Each side can easily muster a thousand Others."
"Mostly weak, sixth- or seventh-level. We can't get together more than a hundred real magicians, third-level and
up." Edgar spoke so confidently that there was no possible doubt he really had thought through the option of
direct confrontation. "That might be enough-if we back up the Dark and Light Magicians with Inquisitors, use
amulets and combine the two Powers. But it might not be. Then the strongest fighters would be killed and the
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perpetrator will be left with a free hand. Don't you think he might be counting on us taking this very approach?"
I shook my head.
"And another thing I've been thinking about," Edgar said with gloomy satisfaction. "The perpetrator might regard
the train as a trap that will draw together all the powerful magicians in Russia. He could have hung the train from
end to end with spells that we can't sense."
"Then what's the point of all our efforts?" I asked. "What are we doing here? One nuclear bomb-and the problem's
solved."
Edgar nodded. "Yes. It has to be nuclear, to penetrate all the levels of the Twilight. But first we have to make sure
the target won't slip away at the last moment."
"Have you accepted Zabulon's viewpoint then?" I asked.
Edgar sighed. "I've accepted the viewpoint of common sense. An exhaustive search of the train and the use of
massive force is fraught with the danger of magical carnage. And by the way, people would be killed anyway.
Destroy the train ... of course I feel sorry for the people. But at least we'd avoid any global convulsions."
"But if there's still a chance ..." I began.
"There is. That's why I propose to continue with the search," Edgar agreed. "Kostya and I take my young guys
and we comb the whole train-from the back and the front at the same time. We'll use amulets, and in suspicious
cases, we'll try to check the suspect through the Twilight. And you have another word with Las. He's still under
suspicion, after all."
I shrugged. It all sounded too much like playing at searching. In his heart of hearts Edgar had already given up.
"So when's zero hour?" I asked.
"Tomorrow evening," Edgar replied. "When we're passing through the uninhabited area around Semipalatinsk.
They exploded nuclear bombs in that area anyway .. . one more tactical weapon's no great disaster around
there."
"Happy hunting," I said and walked out of the compartment.
It was all obscene. It was all no more than a few lines in the report that Edgar was already preparing to write:
"Despite the efforts made to isolate the perpetrator and locate the Fuaran ..."
There had been a time when I used to find myself thinking the Inquisition was a genuine alternative to the
Watches. After all, what was it we did? We divided people from Others. We made sure that the actions of Others
impacted people as little as possible. Yes, it was practically impossible-some of the Others were parasites by
their very nature. Yes, the contradictions between Light Ones and Dark Ones were so great that conflicts were
inevitable.
But there was still the Inquisition. It stood above the Watches, and it also maintained the balance. It was a third
power and a dividing structure of a higher level. It corrected the mistakes made by the Watches. . .
But things had not turned out like that.
There wasn't any third power. There wasn't and there never had been. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]