into the two shot-glasses. He raised his own:

'To our journey!'

'To our journey,' I repeated.

The armagnac was soft, fragrant and sweetish, like warm grape juice. It went down easily, without even inspiring the idea of some kind of snack to go with it, and then somewhere deep inside it exploded – humanely and precisely enough to make any American missile jealous.

'Wonderful stuff,' Las commented, breathing out. 'But very high in sugar, I'm telling you! That's why I like the Armenian cognacs – the sugar content right down at the minimum, but the full flavour's all still there . . . Let's have another.'

The glasses were filled a second time. Las looked at me expectantly.

'Here's to health?' I suggested uncertainly.

'To health,' Las agreed. He drank and then sniffed at the handkerchief. He looked out the window, shuddered and muttered: 'That's some stuff . . . it doesn't mess around.'

'What's wrong?'

'You'll never believe it, but I thought I just saw a bat fly past the train!' Las exclaimed. 'Huge, the size of a sheepdog. Br-rr-rr . . .'

I realised I'd have to give Kostya a couple of words of friendly advice. Out loud I just joked:

'It probably wasn't a bat, more likely a squirrel.'

'A flying squirrel,' Las said mournfully. 'God help us all . . . No, honestly, a huge bat!'

'Maybe it was just flying very close to the glass?' I suggested. 'And you only caught a glimpse of it, so you couldn't judge how far away it was – so you thought it was bigger than it really was.'

'Maybe so . . .' Las said thoughtfully. 'But what was it doing here? Why would it want to fly alongside the train?'

'That's elementary,' I said, taking the broken flask and pouring us a third glass. 'A train moves at such great speed that it creates a shield of air in front of it. The shield stuns mosquitoes and butterflies and all sorts of other flying creatures and tosses them into turbulent streams of air running along both sides of the train. So at night bats like to fly alongside a moving train and eat the stunned flies.'

Las thought about it. He asked:

'Then why don't birds fly around moving trains in the daytime?'

'Well, that's elementary too!' I said, handing him his glass. 'Birds are much more stupid than mammals. Bats have already guessed how to use trains to get food, but birds haven't figured it out yet. In a hundred or two hundred years the birds will discover how to exploit trains too.'

'How come I didn't realise all that for myself?' Las asked in amazement. 'It's really all so simple. Okay, then . . .here's to common sense!'

We drank.

'Animals are amazing,' Las said profoundly. 'Cleverer than Darwin thought. I used to have . . .'

I never got to hear what it was Las used to have – a dog, a hamster or a fish in an aquarium. He glanced out of the window again and turned green.

'It's there again . . . the bat!'

'Catching the mosquitoes,' I reminded him.

'What mosquitoes? It swerved round a lamp-post like it wasn't even there! The size of a sheepdog, I tell you!'

Las stood up and resolutely pulled the blind down. He said in a determined voice:

'To hell with it . . . I knew I shouldn't be reading Stephen King just before bed . . .The size of that bat! Like a pterodactyl. It could catch owls and eagles, not mosquitoes!'

That freak Kostya! I realised that in his animal form a vampire, like a werewolf, became completely brainless and had little control over his own actions. He was probably getting a kick out of hurtling along beside the train in the night, glancing into the windows, taking a breather on the lamp-posts. But he should at least take basic precautions.

'It's a mutation,' Las mused. 'Nuclear tests, leaks from reactors, electromagnetic waves, mobile phones . . . and we just carry on laughing at it all, think it's all science fiction. And the gutter press keeps feeding us lies. So who can I tell – they'll just think I was drunk or I'm lying!'

He opened his bottle of cognac with a determined expression and asked:

'What do you think of the supernatural?'

'I respect it,' I said with dignity.

'Me too,' Las admitted. 'Now I do. I never even thought about it before . . .' He cast a wary glance at the blind over the window. 'You live all those years, and then somewhere out in the Pskov peat bogs you