local people well. Nothing suspicious, just ordinary types.'

'So they're outsiders,' Gesar concluded. 'As I understand it, no one has disappeared from the village. Are there any holiday hotels or rest homes nearby?'

'Yes,' I confirmed. 'On the far side of the river, about five kilometres away, there's a Young Pioneers' camp, or whatever it is they call them now . . . I've already checked, everything's in order, the children are all in place. And they wouldn't let them come across the river, it's a military-style camp, very strict. Lights out, reveille, five minutes to dress. Don't worry about that.'

Gesar grunted in dissatisfaction and asked me:

'Do you need any help, Anton?'

I thought about it. It was the most important question that I hadn't been able to answer so far.

'I don't know. It looks as though the witch is more powerful than me. But I'm not going there to kill her . . . and she must sense that.'

Somewhere in Moscow, Gesar pondered something. Then he declared:

'Have Svetlana check the probability lines. If the danger to you is only slight, then try yourself. If it's more than ten or twelve per cent . . . then . . .' He hesitated for a moment, then finished briskly. 'Ilya and Semyon will come. Or Danila and Farid. Three of you will be able to manage.'

I smiled. You're thinking about something else, Gesar. About something completely different. You're hoping that if anything goes wrong, Svetlana will back me up. And then maybe come back to the Night Watch . . .

'And then, you've got Svetlana,' Gesar concluded. 'You understand the whole business. So get on with it and report back as necessary.'

'Yes sir, mon générale,' I rapped.

'In terms of military rank, lieutenant-colonel, my title would be at least generalissimus. Now get on with the job,' Gesar retorted.

I put my phone away and took a minute to classify grades of Power in terms of military ranks. Seventh grade – private . . . sixth – sergeant . . . fifth – lieutenant . . . fourth – captain . . . third – major . . . second – lieutenant-colonel . . . first – colonel.

That was right – if you didn't introduce unnecessary differentiations or divide ranks into junior and senior, then I would be a lieutenant-colonel – and a general would be an ordinary magician beyond classification.

But Gesar was no ordinary magician.

The gate slammed shut and Ludmila Ivanovna came into the garden. My mother-in-law. With Nadiushka skeetering restlessly around her. The moment my daughter was in the garden, she came dashing across to the hammock.

She wasn't initiated, but she could sense her parents. And there were plenty of things she could do that any ordinary two-year-olds couldn't. She wasn't afraid of any animals, and they loved her. Dogs and cats simply fawned on her . . .

And mosquitoes didn't bite her.

'Daddy,' Nadya said, scrambling up on top of me. 'We went for a walk.'

'Hello, Ludmila Ivanovna,' I said to my mother-in-law. Just to be on the safe side. We'd already exchanged greetings that morning.

'Taking a rest?' my mother-in-law asked dubiously.

We got along fine, really. Not like in the old jokes about mothers-in-law. But somehow I had the feeling that she always suspected me of something. Of being an Other, maybe . . . if there was any way she could know about the Others.

'Just a quick one,' I said cheerfully. 'Did you go far, Nadya?'

'Yes, very far.'

'Are you tired?'

'Yes,' Nadya said. 'But Grandma's more tired than me!'

Ludmila Ivanovna stood there for a second, apparently wondering whether a blockhead like me could be trusted with his own daughter. She decided to risk it, and went into the house.

'Where are you going?' Nadiushka asked, clutching my hand tightly.

'Did I say I was going anywhere?' I asked in surprise.

'No, you didn't say . . .' she admitted and ruffled her hair with her hand. 'But you are going?'

'Yes, I am,' I confessed.

That's the way things are, if a child is a potential Other so powerful that she has the ability to foresee the future from birth. A year earlier Nadya had started crying a week before she actually started teething.

'La-la-la . . .' Nadya sang, looking at the fence. 'But the fence needs painting!'

'Did Grandma say that?' I asked.

'Yes. If we had a real man, he'd paint the fence,' Nadiushka repeated laboriously. 'But we haven't got a real man, so Grandma's going to have to paint it.'

I sighed.

Oh these terrible dacha fanatics! When people got old,