followed by an aging, seedy-looking army colonel. The colonel's aura was beautiful, a glittering mass of steel-gray and light-blue tones. I thought with weary humor that I could call on him to help. Even these days people like that still believe in the idea of "officer's honor."
Except that any help I could get from the colonel would be about as much use as a fly swatter in an elephant hunt.
I dropped the stupid idea and took another look at the boy, with my eyes closed, scanning his aura.
The result was disheartening.
He was surrounded by a shimmering, semi-transparent glow. Sometimes it was tinged with red, sometimes it was flooded with a dense green, and sometimes it flared up in dark blue tones.
It was a rare case. A destiny still undefined. Undifferentiated potential. This boy could grow up to be a great villain, he could become a good and just person, or he could turn out to be a nobody, an empty space, which is actually what most people in the world are anyway. It was all still ahead of him, as they say. Auras like that are normal for children up to the age of two or three, but they disappear almost completely as people get older.
Now I could see why he was the one the Call was addressed to. There was no denying it - he was a real delicacy.
I felt my mouth starting to fill up with saliva.
This had all been going on for too long, far too long... I looked at the boy, at the thin neck under his scarf, and I cursed my boss and the traditions, and the rituals - everything that went to make up my job. My gums itched; my throat was parched.
Blood has a bitter, salty taste, but this thirst can't be quenched by anything else.
Damn!
The boy hopped off the escalator, ran across the lobby, and out through the glass doors. Just for a moment I felt relieved. I slowed down as I followed him out, and just caught his movement out of the corner of my eye as he ducked down into an underpass. He was already running, physically pulled by the lure of the Call.
Faster!
I ran over to a kiosk and said, trying not to show my teeth:
"The stuff for six rubles, with the ring."
The young guy with a pimply face handed me the quarter-liter bottle with a slow, sluggish movement - like he'd been taking a drop to keep warm on the job. He warned me honestly.
"It's not great vodka. Not gut-rot, of course, it's Dorokhov, but, you know..."
"Got to look after my health, anyway," I rapped. The vodka was obviously fake, but right now that was okay by me. With one hand I tore off the cap with the wire ring attached to it, and with the other I took out my cell phone and switched it to repeat dial. The young salesman's eyes popped out of his head; not many people who can afford a cellular would buy a cheap surrogate vodka. I took a swallow as I walked along - the vodka stank like kerosene and tasted even worse; it was obviously boot-leg liquor, bottled in the back of someone's garage - and ran to the underpass.
"Hello."
Larissa wasn't there anymore. Pavel's usually on duty at night.
"This is Anton. It's somewhere near the Cosmos hotel, in the back alleys. I'm in pursuit."
"You want the team?" The voice was beginning to sound interested.
"Yes. I've already discharged the amulet."
"What happened?"
A street bum bedded down halfway along the underpass reached out a hand as if he were hoping I'd gave him the bottle I'd just started. I ran on past.
"Something else came up... Make it quick, Pavel."
"The guys are already on their way."
I suddenly felt as if a red-hot wire had been stuck through my jaws. Ah, hell and damnation...
"Pasha, I can't answer for myself," I said quickly and broke off contact. I pulled up short, facing a police patrol.
Isn't that always the way? Why do the human guardians of law and order always turn up at the most inappropriate moment?
"Sergeant Kampinsky," a young policeman announced briskly. "Your papers..."
I wondered what they were planning to pin on me. Being drunk in a public place? That was probably it.
I put my hand into my pocket and touched the amulet. Just barely warm. But this wouldn't take a lot.
"I'm not here," I said.
The four eyes that had been probing me in anticipation of easy pickings went blank as the last spark of reason