. . . what was the rush? I was sitting in front of the observation services monitor, wasn't I?

I didn't have to search for long.

Timur Borisovich was just getting into the lift, followed by a couple of men with stony faces. Two bodyguards. Or a bodyguard and a driver who doubled up as a second bodyguard.

I switched off the monitor and dashed out into the corridor just in time to bump into the head of security.

'Got what you wanted?' he asked, beaming.

'Uhuh,' I said, nodding on the run.

'Need any help?' he shouted after me eagerly.

I just shook my head.

CHAPTER 6

THE LIFT SEEMED to take an unbearably long time creeping up to the twentieth floor. I managed to think up and reject several plans on the way. It was the bodyguards who complicated the whole business.

I'd have to improvise. And if necessary, breach my disguise a little.

I rang the doorbell for ages, peering into the electronic eye of the 'spy-hole'. Eventually something clicked and a voice from the concealed intercom said:

'Yes?'

'You're flooding me out!' I blurted, trying to sound as agitated as possible. 'The frescoes on my ceiling have run! The water's swilling about in the grand pianos!'

Where the hell did I get those frescoes and pianos?

'What grand pianos?' the voice asked suspiciously.

How was I supposed to know what kinds of grand pianos there are? Black and expensive. Or white and even more expensive . . .

'Viennese pianos! With curvy legs!' I blurted out.

'Not the ones in the bushes then?' the voice asked me with blunt irony.

I looked down at my feet. That damned multiple point lighting . . . there weren't even any proper shadows!

I reached my hand out towards the door and just caught a faint glimpse of a shadow on the pinkish wood bound with armour-plate steel.

And I pulled the shadow towards me.

My hand plunged into the Twilight, and I followed.

The world was transformed, becoming colourless and grey. A dense silence descended, only disturbed by the buzzing of the electronic innards of the 'spy-hole' and the intercom.

I was in the Twilight, that strange world to which only the Others know the way. The world from which our Power is drawn.

I could see the pale shadows of the wary bodyguards through the door, their auras flickering an alarmed crimson colour above their heads. And now I could have reached out with my thoughts, given the order – and they would have opened the door for me.

But I preferred to walk straight through the door.

The security guards were genuinely alarmed – one of them had a pistol in his hand, the other was reaching incredibly slowly for his holster.

I touched the security guards, running my thumb across their solid foreheads. Sleep, sleep, sleep . . .You are very tired. You have to lie down and sleep right now. Sleep for at least an hour. Sleep very soundly. And have pleasant dreams.

One guard went limp immediately, the other resisted for a fraction of a second. I'd have to check him later to see if he was an Other, you could never tell . . .

Then I emerged from the Twilight. The world acquired colour and sped up. I heard music coming from somewhere.

The two guards were slumping like stuffed sacks onto the expensive Persian rug spread out just inside the door.

I managed to catch both of them at once and lay them down fairly gently.

And then I set off towards the sound of a violin playing in a minor key.

Now this apartment had been done up in real style. Everything gleamed and shone, everything had been carefully considered so that it harmonised with the whole. It must have taken a top designer to do all this. The owner hadn't hammered a single nail into any of these walls. He'd probably never even expressed any desire to do so . . . just muttered in approval or dissatisfaction as he looked through the colour sketches, and jabbed his finger at a few of the pictures – then forgotten about the apartment for six months.

It turned out that Timur Borisovich had come to the Assol building to relax for a while in the jacuzzi. And a genuine Jacuzzi at that, not a hydro-massage bath from some other less famous firm. Only his face, so painfully reminiscent of Gesar's, protruded above the frothing surface of the water. An expensive suit was carelessly thrown across the back of a chair – the bathroom was big enough for chairs, a coffee table, a spacious sauna and