. . .'

'Then she doesn't know it,' I put in.

'And she told me I intended to have you killed! That I was hatching a highly complicated plot for your physical elimination!'

I looked into Gesar's eyes for a second. Then I laughed.

'You think it's funny?' Gesar asked in a pained voice. 'You really think so?'

'Gesar . . .' I said, struggling to suppress my laughter. 'I'm sorry. May I speak frankly?'

'By all means . . .'

'You are the greatest schemer I know. Worse than Zabulon. Compared to you, Machiavelli was a mere pup . . .'

'Don't be so quick to underestimate Machiavelli,' Gesar growled. 'I get the idea, I'm a schemer. And?'

'And I'm sure you have no intention of having me killed. In a crisis, perhaps, you might sacrifice me. In order to save a commensurately greater number of people or Light Others. But not that way . . . by planning . . . and intriguing . . . I don't believe it.'

'Thanks, I'm glad to hear it,' Gesar said with a nod. I couldn't tell if I'd nettled him or not. 'Then what on earth has Svetlana got into her head? I'm sorry, Anton . . .' Gesar suddenly hesitated and even looked away. But he finished what he was saying: 'Are you expecting a child? Another one?'

I choked and shook my head:

'No . . . at least, I don't think so . . . no, she would have told me!'

'Women sometimes go a bit crazy when they're expecting a child,' Gesar growled and started fingering his glass beads again. 'They start seeing danger everywhere – for the child, for their husband, for themselves . . . Or maybe now she has . . .' But then the Great Magician got really embarrassed and stopped himself short 'That's rubbish . . . forget it. Why don't you pay your wife a visit in the country, play with your daughter, drink some milk fresh from the cow . . .'

'My holiday ends tomorrow,' I reminded him. There was something not right here. 'And I thought the idea was that I was going to work today.'

Gesar stared hard at me:

'Anton, forget about work. Svetlana shouted at me for fifteen minutes. If she was a Dark One, there'd be an Inferno vortex hanging over my head right now! That's it, work's cancelled. I'm extending your holiday for a week – go to the country to see your wife.'

In the Moscow department of the Watch we have a saying: 'There are three things a Light Other can't do: organise his own personal life, achieve worldwide peace and happiness, and get time off from Gesar'.

To be honest, I was quite happy with my personal life, and now I'd been given an extra week of holiday.

So maybe worldwide peace and happiness were only just around the corner?

'Aren't you pleased?' Gesar asked.

'Yes,' I admitted. No, I wasn't inspired by the prospect of weeding the vegetable beds under the watchful eye of my mother-in-law. But Sveta and Nadya would be there. Nadya, Nadyenka, Nadiushka. My little two-year-old miracle. A lovely little human being . . . Potentially an Other of immense power. An enchantress so very Great that Gesar himself couldn't hold a candle to her. I imagined the Great Light Magician Gesar standing there holding a candle, so that little Nadya could play with her toys, and grinned.

'Call into the accounts office, they'll issue you a bonus . . .' Gesar continued, not suspecting the humiliation I was subjecting him to in my mind. 'Think up the citation for yourself. Something like . . . for many years of conscientious service . . .'

'Gesar, what kind of job was it?' I asked.

He stopped talking and tried to drill right through me with his gaze. When he got nowhere, he said:

'When I tell you everything, you will phone Svetlana. From here. And you'll ask her if you should agree or not. Okay? And you tell her about the extra holiday too.'

'What's happened?'

Instead of replying, Gesar pulled open the drawer of his desk, took out a black leather folder and held it out to me. The folder had a distinct aura of magic – powerful, dangerous battle magic.

'Don't worry, open it, you've been granted access,' Gesar murmured.

I opened the folder – at that point any unauthorised Other or human being would have been reduced to a handful of ash. Inside the folder was a letter. Just one single envelope.

The address of our office was written in newsprint, carefully