around me turned colored. It was like switching modes in a video camera, when you change from "sepia" or "old movie" to the standard view. The comparison is really quite apt in some ways: The Twilight is an "old movie," a really old one that humankind has managed to forget. It finds it easier to live that way.
I set off toward the steps down into the metro, snarling to my invisible companion on the way:
"And just what have qualifications got to do with it?"
"A high-ranking Watch member is able to foresee the consequences of a compromise. Whether it's no more than just a minor bilateral trade-off and the effects will be self-neutralizing, or a trap, a trick - and you'll lose out."
"I doubt if a seventh-grade intervention's likely to lead to disaster!"
A man walking along beside me glanced at me in surprise. I was just about to tell him something like: "I'm harmless, the non-violent kind of psycho." It's a great way of curing excessive curiosity. But the man had already sped up; he must have come to a similar conclusion himself.
"Anton, you can't anticipate the consequences. You over-reacted to a minor annoyance. Your little piece of magic led to intervention by the Dark Ones. You agreed to a compromise with them. But the saddest thing of all is that there was no need for magical intervention in the first place."
"Okay, okay, I admit it. So now what?"
The bird's voice was sounding more lifelike now, developing more expression.
I supposed it must have been a long time since she'd last spoken.
"Now - nothing. We'll have to hope for the best."
"Are you going to tell the boss what happened?"
"No. At least, not yet. We're partners, after all."
I felt a warm glow in my heart. This sudden improvement in relations with my partner would have made any mistakes worthwhile.
"Thanks. What do you advise?"
"You're doing everything right. Look for the trail."
I'd have preferred rather less predictable advice...
"Let's go."
By two o'clock, as well as the circle line, I'd combed the entire gray line too. Maybe I am a lousy operational agent, but there was no way I could have failed to spot the trail from yesterday, when I'd captured the image myself. The girl with the black vortex spinning over her head hadn't gotten out here. I'd have to go back and start again from the point where we'd met.
At Kurskaya I went up on the escalator and out of the metro and bought a plastic tub of salad and a coffee from a van right there on the street. The very sight of the hamburgers and sausages made me start feeling sick, even though the amount of meat in them was strictly symbolic.
"Will you have something?" I asked my invisible companion.
"No, thank you."
Standing there with the fine snow falling on me, I picked at my Olivier salad with a tiny plastic fork and sipped the hot coffee. A bum who'd been counting on me buying beer, so that he could have the empty bottle, hung about for a bit and then took off into the metro to get warm. Nobody else paid any attention to me. The girl behind the counter served the hungry passersby; faceless streams of people flooded away from the station and back toward it. The salesman at a bookstall was trying wearily and unenthusiastically to foist some book or other on a customer. The customer didn't like the price.
"I must be in a bad mood or something..." I muttered.
"Why?"
"Everything looks dark and gloomy. All the people are lowlifes and idiots; the salad's frozen; my boots feel damp."
The bird on my shoulder gave a derisive screech.
"No, Anton, it's not just your mood. You can sense the approach of the Inferno."
"I'm not noted for being particularly sensitive."
"That's just the point."
I glanced at the station, tried to get a close look at people's faces. Some of them were sensing it too. The ones who stood right on the very boundary line between human being and Other were tense and depressed. They couldn't understand why, so they were compensating by acting cheerful.
"Darkness and Light...What will it be when it happens, Olga?"
"Anything at all. You stalled the time of the eruption, but now when the vortex strikes the consequences will be absolutely catastrophic. That's the effect of delay."
"The boss didn't tell me that."
"Why should he? You did the right thing. Now at least there's a chance."
"Olga, how old are you?" I asked. Between human beings the question might have been taken as an insult. But