be thrown off balance by an opportunity like this.'
'It would throw anyone at all off balance,' I said.
We looked at each in alarm. It was good that now we were guarded round the clock. It was bad that our potential enemies were three Higher Ones.
'I'll put up a few more protective spells for the night,' said Svetlana. 'Don't think me a coward.'
'The Crown of All Things can be reached by force,' I said. 'By breaking through to the seventh level of the Twilight. But I couldn't do it. Probably Nadya could. If only I knew how to get through by using my wits ... by cunning. I'd use that artefact myself. There'd be about the same number of Light and Dark magicians down there ?we'd manage.'
'And what if we're wrong, and it's nothing but a bomb that will destroy the world?'
'That's why I prefer not even to think about how to reach the artefact. I'll leave that headache to Geser and Zabulon.'
'Let's go to bed and sleep on it,' Svetlana said. 'Tomorrow's a new day.'
But we didn't go to bed straight away. First Svetlana put up several new protective spells around the apartment, and then I did the same.
Part Three CHAPTER 3
THE MORNING TURNED out so fresh and clear that all of the previous days doom and gloom seemed to have evaporated into thin air. Nadya meekly ate the rice porridge that she didn't like, and Svetlana didn't say a word when I casually told her that I was thinking of going to work early. But she did suggest that I should come back home early too, so that all of us could go to watch some family movie that her friends had told her was really great. I imagined the Dark Ones who were guarding Nadya being forced to watch a romantic fairy tale in which, naturally, good defeats evil, and I smiled.
'Definitely. I just want to find out how things are going. Maybe there's been some kind of breakthrough.'
'They would have called you,' said Svetlana, scattering my idle dreams like smoke.
But that didn't spoil my mood. I got ready quickly and grabbed my suitcase full of papers (oh, yes, even Light Magicians have to do their paperwork), then kissed my daughter and my wife and walked out of the apartment.
On the next floor down Roma, an amiable young lummox who had been working in our Watch for about two years, was making lively conversation with a thin, pretty young woman, one of the Dark Ones that Zabulon had assigned to guard us.
I greeted them both and walked on, shaking my head.
That was the way romances with unhappy endings got started. The way it had happened with Alisa and Igor...
The weather was so good that for a second I hesitated, standing outside the door of the building and wondering if I ought to walk to the metro. On the other hand, I really didn't want to go into the metro at all. Those hot trains, those jostling crowds ?the rush hour in Moscow ends at somewhere around midnight.
No, the car would be better. Svetlana wasn't planning on going anywhere. And if I checked the probability lines, I could skip past the traffic jams and be at work in just twenty minutes.
I removed the protective spells that wouldn't have done me any harm but would have made sensitive drivers give my car a wide berth. I got into the driving seat, turned the key in the ignition and closed my eyes to check the best route for me to drive. The result was rather discouraging. For some reason all the probabil ities were centred on Sheremetievo Airport, which was crazy since I had no intention of going there!
I felt something fluffy twine round my neck, and an amiable voice with a slight drawl asked:
'Does the king have a long journey to make today?'
I looked in the rear-view mirror and didn't like what I saw.
I didn't see Edgar. But I did see the thing that he had thrown round my neck ?a silvery strip of fur. It didn't look much like a decorative neckpiece, there was something predatory about it... as if there were lots of tiny teeth hidden under that grey fur.
And I also saw Gennady Saushkin, sitting on the right side of the back seat. The vampire's face was composed and impassive.
'What's on your mind, Edgar?' I asked.
'That's none of your business,' Edgar replied, with an ominous laugh. 'Don't even think of withdrawing into the Twilight and don't try