'Did they really work that thoroughly back then?' I asked, amazed. 'Sending in a watchman for the sake of some peasant and his cattle?'
Semyon smiled:
'I did all sorts of work back then. This peasant's son was an Other, and he asked us to step in to help his father, who was so depressed he almost made himself a noose out of that rope . . . So I moved in, all on my ownsome, got myself some property, even started cosying up to a certain little widow lady. But at the same time I was searching. And I realised I was on the trail of an ancient witch, very well disguised, not a member of any Watches and not registered anywhere. It was really fascinating. Just imagine: a witch who was two or three hundred years old! She had accumulated as much power as a first-grade magician! And there I was playing at Nat Pinkerton . . . detecting . . . I felt ashamed somehow to call in the Higher Magicians to help. And gradually, bit by bit, I turned up clues, and put together a list of suspects. One of them was actually the attractive young widow . . .'
'Well?' I asked, entranced. Semyon certainly liked to stretch the truth a bit, but this story seemed like the real thing.
'That's all there is,' Semyon sighed. 'There was a rebellion in Petrograd. Then the revolution. So you can imagine, there were more important things to deal with than cunning witches. Human blood was flowing in rivers. I was recalled. I wanted to go back and find the old hag, but I never had the time. And then they flooded the entire village and everybody was resettled. Maybe that witch is dead by now.'
'Frustrating,' I said.
Semyon nodded:
'And I've got an entire wagonload of stories like that. So there's no need for you to go sweating your guts out on this one.'
'If you were a Dark One,' I admitted, 'I'd definitely think you were trying to divert suspicion from yourself.'
Semyon just smiled.
'I'm not a Dark One, Anton. As you know perfectly well.'
'And you don't know anything about the initiation of human beings,' I sighed. 'I was really hoping . . .'
Semyon turned serious.
'Anton, let me tell you something. The girl I loved more than anything in the whole world died in 1921. She died of old age.'
I looked at him, but didn't dare risk a smile. Semyon wasn't joking.
'If I'd known how to make her an Other . . .' Semyon whispered, gazing off into the distance. 'If I'd only known . . . I revealed myself to her as an Other. I did everything for her. She was never ill. At the age of seventy, she looked thirty at the most. Even in hungry Petrograd she never wanted for anything . . . the permits she had used to strike Red Army men dumb . . . I had her credentials signed by Lenin himself. But I couldn't give her my length of life. That's not in our power.' He looked into my eyes sombrely. 'If I'd known how to initiate Lubov Petrovna, I wouldn't have asked anybody's permission. I'd have gone through anything. I'd have dematerialised myself – but I'd have made her into an Other . . .'
Semyon stood up and sighed:
'But now, to be quite honest, it doesn't matter to me. Whether people can be transformed into Others or not simply doesn't concern me. And it shouldn't concern you either. Your wife's an Other. Your daughter's an Other. All that happiness for one person? Gesar himself can't even dream of anything like it.'
He walked out, but I sat at the table for a while longer, finishing my beer. The owner of the café – who was also the waiter, the chef and the barman – never even looked in my direction. When Semyon came in, he had hung a magical screen round the table.
What had I been thinking of, really?
There were two Inquisitors beavering away. The talented vampire Kostya was circling the Assol complex in the form of a bat. They'd figure it out, they were bound to discover who had wanted to become an Other. And they'd either find the individual who had sent the letters, or they wouldn't.
What difference did that make to me?
The woman I loved was an Other. And more than that, she had voluntarily abandoned her work in the Watch, a brilliant career as a Great Enchantress. All