He was very powerful. After all, he had two hundred years of experience, multiplied by the first level of vampire Power.
And I felt the full brunt of his Power. I stood up on trembling legs that would not obey me. I took an uncertain step forward.
Bruce smiled.
Another vampire once smiled in exactly the same way in a Moscow alleyway when I ran into it, following the boy Egor, who was helplessly following the call...
I put so much Power into my mental attack that if I had used it for a fireball, it would have shot straight through about thirty houses and struck the fortress wall of the old Scottish castle.
Bruce's pupils turned white and blank. The alluring dark tunnel was scorched by a white radiance. Sitting there in front of me, swaying backwards and forwards, was a dried-up old man with a young face. But the skin on his face was starting to peel off, flaking away in little scales, like dandruff.
'Who killed Victor?' I asked. The Power continued to flow through me in a fine stream, twisting into a running knot threaded through the vampire's eyes.
He didn't say anything, just carried on swaying in his chair. Maybe I'd burnt out his brain ... or whatever it was they had instead of a brain. A fine start to the unofficial investigation!
'Do you know who killed Victor?' I asked, reformulating the question.
'No,' Bruce replied quietly.
'Do you have any theories about the matter?'
'Yes... two. A young vampire lost control... Someone from the outside ... a visitor...'
'What else do you know about this killing?'
Silence. As if he was gathering his thoughts before starting a long speech.
'What else do you know that is not known to the staff of the city Watches?'
'Nothing...'
I halted the flow of Power and sank into an armchair.
What should I do now? And what if he submitted a complaint to the Day Watch? An unprovoked attack, interrogation...
For about a minute Bruce carried on swaying in his chair. Then he started, and his eyes acquired a meaningful expression again.
Meaningful and pitiful.
'I beg your pardon, Light One,' he said quietly. 'Please accept my apologies.'
It took me a few seconds to understand.
A vampire Master is not simply the most powerful, cunning, clever bloodsucker. He is also the one who has never known defeat.
A complaint from Bruce would mean serious trouble for me. But for him it would mean loss of status.
And this polite old youth was very vain.
'I accept your apologies, Master,' I replied. 'Let what has happened remain between us.'
Bruce licked his lips. His faced turned pink, recovering its former attractive appearance. His voice became slightly stronger ?he too had realised that it was not in my interest to publicise what had happened.
'But I would ask' he said, putting emphatic, poisonous hatred into that last word, 'that you do not make any more attacks of that kind, Light One. The aggression was unprovoked.'
'You challenged me to a duel.'
'De jure, I did not,' Bruce replied quickly. 'The ritual of chal lenge was not observed.'
'De facto, you did. Are we going to bother the Inquisition with this?'
He blinked. And once again became the hospitable host.
'All right, Light One. Let bygones be bygones...'
Bruce got to his feet and swayed slightly. He walked across to the door. Once outside the room, he turned and declared with evident displeasure:
'My home is your home. This room is your dwelling and I shall not enter it without permission.'
This ancient legend, strangely enough, is quite true. Vampires cannot enter anyone else's home without being invited in. No one knows why that is.
The door closed behind Bruce. I let go of the armrests of my chair ?there were wet marks left on the white satin. Dark marks.
It's bad not to sleep at night. Your nerves start playing tricks.
But now I knew for certain that the Master of Edinburgh's vampires had no information about the murder.
I unpacked my suitcase and hung a white linen suit and two white shirts on hangers. I looked out of the window and shook my head. I took out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt with the inscrip tion 'Night Watch'. A hooligan's joke, of course, but you can see anything at all written on T-shirts nowadays.
Then my eye was caught by a fancy calligraphic text in a frame on the wall. I had already noticed a frame like it downstairs, and another on the staircase. Were they hanging all over the hotel, then? I walked over and was surprised by what I read: