how easily the phrase 'lower Dark Ones' slipped off my tongue.

I never used to call them that.

I used to feel sorry for them.

Kostya reacted calmly to the phrase. He really was a Higher Vampire. In control, confident.

'Not many,' he said evasively. 'They're being checked, don't worry. Everybody's being checked. All the lower Others, and even the magicians.'

'Is Zabulon really concerned?' I asked.

'Well, Gesar isn't exactly a model of composure,' Kostya responded. 'Everyone's concerned. You're the only one taking the situation so lightly.'

'I don't see it as a great disaster,' I said. 'There are human beings who know we exist. Not many, but there are some. One more person doesn't change the situation. If he makes a sensation out of this, we'll soon locate him and make him look like some kind of psycho. That sort of thing has already . . .'

'And what if he becomes an Other?' Kostya asked curtly.

'Then there'll be one more Other,' I said and shrugged.

'What if he doesn't become a vampire or a werewolf, but a genuine Other?' Kostya bared his teeth in a smile. 'A genuine Other? Light or Dark . . . that doesn't matter.'

'Then there'll be one more magician,' I said.

Kostya shook his head:

'Listen, Anton, I'm quite fond of you. Even now. But sometimes I'm amazed at how naïve you are.'

Kostya stretched – his arms rapidly sprouting a covering of short fur, his skin turning dark and coarse.

'You deal with the staff,' he said in a shrill, piercing voice. 'If you get wind of anything, call me.'

He turned to me, his face distorted by the transformation, and smiled again:

'You know, Anton, a naïve Light One like you is the only kind a Dark One could ever really be friends with.'

He jumped down, flapping his leathery wings ponderously. The huge bat flew off into the night, a little awkwardly, but quickly enough.

There was a small rectangle of cardboard lying on the outside sill – a business card. I picked it up and read it:

'Konstantin. Research assistant, the Scientific Research Institute for Haemotological Problems.'

And then the phone numbers – work, home, mobile. I actually remembered the home number – Kostya was still living with his parents. Most vampires tend to have pretty strong family ties.

What had he been trying to tell me?

Why all the panic?

I switched on the light, lay down on the mattress and looked at the pale grey rectangles of the windows.

'If he becomes a genuine Other . . .'

How did Others appear in the world? No one knew. 'A random mutation', Las had called it – a perfectly adequate term. You were born a human being, you lived an ordinary life . . . until one of the Others sensed your ability to enter the Twilight and pump power out of it. After that you were 'guided'. Lovingly, carefully coaxed into the required spiritual condition, so that in a moment of powerful emotional agitation you would look at your shadow, and see it in a different way. See it lying there like a black rag, like a curtain you could pull up over yourself and then draw aside to enter another world.

The world of the Others.

The Twilight.

And the state you were in when you first found yourself in the Twilight – joyful and benign or miserable and angry – determined who you would be. What kind of power you would go on to draw from the Twilight . . . the Twilight that drinks power from ordinary people.

'If he becomes a genuine Other . . .'

There was always the possibility of coercive initiation. But only through the loss of true life and transformation into a walking corpse. A human being could become a vampire or a werewolf, and he would be forced to maintain his existence by taking the lives of human beings. So there was a route for the Dark Ones . . . but one that even they weren't particularly fond of.

Only what if it really was possible to become a magician?

What if there was a way for any human being to be transformed into an Other? To acquire long – very long – life and exceptional abilities. There was no doubt many people would want to do it.

And we wouldn't be against it either. There were so many fine people living in the world who were worthy of being Light Others.

Only the Dark Ones would start building up their ranks too . . .

Suddenly it struck me. It was no disaster that someone had revealed our secrets to