But Semyon seemed to believe it right away.
A sacrifice provides a massive discharge of energy, especially if it’s the sacrifice of a child; more if it takes place inside a Circle of Power; and even more if it’s performed by an experienced witch. Lena Kireeva was standing inside the Ring, the knife already in her hands and the girl lying on the black table.
If we transferred the liberated Power into Edgar, the Light Ones wouldn’t be able to stand up against it. Of course, they had extreme methods of their own, but did they have the authority to make use of them?
The shape-shifter tigress sprang out into the corridor. She must have been battering the vampire brothers on the balcony and seen what we were preparing to do.
“You can’t stand against us,” Edgar said aloofly. “We’ll take what is ours anyway, and a human child will die.
And you’ll be to blame.”
The Light Ones were dumbfounded. It was hardly surprising: The situation behind this particular conflict didn’t seem particularly important in any way. It wasn’t a matter of states threatening nuclear strikes against each other if their agents were arrested for spying. Others don’t threaten to use first-degree magic in the case of a petty conflict between operational agents.
But the Light Ones were still keeping up the pressure on our magician. They were maintaining the press, if only by inertia, and we had no more Power left to share with Edgar. Olga had gone rigid and lost consciousness, and now she was standing in the ring like a limp wooden puppet. Zhanna was already sinking to her knees, but heroically maintaining a grip with her hands and giving a few final crumbs of energy. Lena’s face contorted in an agonized grimace and she raised the knife above the twitching little girl. She was conscious, otherwise the
discharge of energy would have been reduced, but she was restrained by a spell of silence. My body felt as limp as cotton wool and I was beginning to sway. I wish they’d hurry… I won’t be able to hold out…
“Stop!” shouted Semyon. “We surrender the witch!”
Hold it… hold the Circle. I tried to draw energy out of the surrounding space, out of the little girl who was frightened to death, out of the people walking by a little distance away and diligently paying no attention to what was going on.
It was useless. I’d been completely drained of everything. It was Lemesheva… that was why she was standing there stronger than everyone else, the lousy… We were all going to die here for an old woman no one needed, and she’d be left, that vile creature.
But the Light Ones had already shoved a scruffy, plump woman in a dirty housecoat and torn slippers into Edgar’s arms. She didn’t understand a thing-she was staring all around and trying to cross herself.
“You’ll pay for this” were Semyon’s last words.
Edgar pulled the witch’s arm behind her back with a sharp jerk-he had no time for explanations and no strength left for magic. He dragged her down the staircase.
Hold the Circle…
A sacrifice is an act of such great Power that it is best held in reserve. The right to use it might have been won twenty or thirty years earlier by the cunning use of intrigue and provocation. That was why Kireeva was still standing stony-faced above the little girl, with the knife gleaming in her hand, ready to cut out her heart in a single swift movement, while Deniska monotonously recited the words of the appropriate spells. At any moment we could have received a powerful stream of energy… only it was better to do without it.
Hold the Circle…
My fury was the only thing that saved me. Fury with the entire unsuccessful day, with all the failures of the last year, and with Lemesheva, who clearly knew more than she was saying.
I don’t know where I found those final crumbs of Power, but I did! And I drove them through the limp bodies of Olga and Zhanna, so that Lemesheva could transmit the thin stream of Power to Edgar…
The first to jump into the minibus were the vampire brothers… those damn useless field agents… Then Lena let the little girl go and she went rushing off, howling. Deniska stopped reciting spells, picked up the little table, and tossed it into the back of the minibus. And it was only then that Lemesheva broke the Circle.
Everything was swimming in front of my eyes. For some reason I started coughing as I tried in vain to free my hand from Olga’s rigid fingers.
“Into the bus!” Anna Lemesheva shouted. “Quickly!”
Edgar appeared-at least he looked fairly cheerful. He tossed the witch into the back of the bus and jumped into the seat beside Deniska. Anna Lemesheva dragged Olga into the bus and I helped Zhanna get in-she was in a very bad way, but she was still conscious.
“Who are you? Who are you?” the rescued woman wailed. Lemesheva slapped her across the face with all her might and the witch shut up.
“Deniska, step on it,” I said. As if he needed to be told…
We tore out of the yard with a screech of tires. Edgar was holding his head in his hands and working-correcting the reality lines and clearing the way ahead of us.
“Feeling bad, Aliska?” Lena asked with avid curiosity. I gritted my teeth and shook my head. But Lena complained, “I’m completely exhausted. I’ll have to take some time off.”
The rescued witch whined quietly until she caught my hate-filled glance. Then she immediately fell silent and tried to move back and away from me, but the vampires were sitting there. Battered, bloody, and angry-I thought they’d been sensible enough to try to keep away from the shape-shifter, but each of them had caught one or two blows from her paws.
“And they burnt Vitalik to ashes…” Deniska said gloomily.
“
“He was an idiot, of course, but he was our idiot… Anna Tikhonovna, are you sure this bitch was worth all this bother?”
“The order came from Zabulon,” Lemesheva replied. “He probably knows best.”
“He could have helped us then,” I couldn’t help remarking. “This was a job for his powers, not for ours.”
Anna Lemesheva gave me a curious kind of glance. “I think not. You made a wonderful effort, my girl. Quite marvelous. I didn’t expect you to provide so much Power.”
I barely managed to stop myself from crying like a child. To hide my tears I looked at Olga-she was still unconscious. At least I could take comfort in that-she’d come off far worse than me… I raised myself up with a struggle and slapped Olga on the cheek. No response. I pinched her. She didn’t stir.
Everybody was looking at me curiously. Even the quietly swearing vampires stopped licking their wounds and waited.
“Anna Tikhonovna, couldn’t you help her?” I asked. “She was hurt in the line of duty, and according to instructions…”
“Alisa, my dear, how can I help her?” Lemesheva asked in an affectionate voice. “She’s dead. Since five minutes ago. She miscalculated and drained herself completely”
I pulled my hand away. Olga’s limp body jerked to and fro in the chair and her chin lolled across her chest.
“What, can’t you tell?” Zhanna whispered. “Aliska, what’s wrong with you?”
Telling the living from the dead doesn’t require any spells. It’s elementary Power work. That subtle substance that some call the soul is sensed immediately… if it’s there.
“You gave up too much Power!” said Lena. “Oh, Alisa, you’re completely empty now! For five years-empty. Like Yulia Bryantseva, who drained herself during an operation two years ago, and ever since then she can’t even enter the Twilight!”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” was all I said, trying to keep a calm expression on my face. “According to the instructions, they have to help me restore myself.”
It sounded pitiful.
“Did they help Bryantseva?” Lena asked.
But Anna Lemesheva sighed and said, “Alisa, if only everything had been according to the instructions a year ago, when Zabulon was so fond of you.”
Before I could even think of a reply, the rescued witch suddenly squealed hysterically: “Where are you taking me? Where are you taking me?”
That’s when I lost it. I jumped up and started beating the solitary witch on the face, trying to scratch her as badly as I could. She was so frightened she didn’t even try to resist. I pounded her for about three minutes to the approving cries of the vampire brothers, reproaches from Lemesheva, and encouragement from Lena and Zhanna.
The only one who didn’t say anything was dead Olga, whom I kept stumbling over in the crowded space of the minibus. But I think she would have supported me.
Then I sat down to catch my breath. The old witch was sobbing and feeling her bloodied face. If only they were chasing us! I’d bite into those Light Ones’ throats as hard as any vampire! I’d finish them off without any magic!
But there wasn’t anyone chasing us.
Nobody could have called our return triumphant.
The vampires took Olga’s body and set off with it to our headquarters without saying a word, as if they even understood the full tragedy of the situation. But then why shouldn’t they understand? They had swapped life for non-life, but they could still think and feel, and theoretically they could carry on existing like that for all eternity.
But now Olga was gone forever.
Deniska drove the minibus away to the parking lot. Edgar took the rescued witch firmly by the arm and led her toward the Watch building. She didn’t resist. We brought up the rear of the procession.
Carrying a body along a crowded street in the center of Moscow, close to the walls of the Kremlin, is not the most relaxing of occupations, even with the spell of inattention that Lemesheva had pronounced again. People didn’t look at us, they just quickened their step and walked around the procession. But the Twilight became agitated.
The fabric of existence is woven too fine here. There’s too much blood, too many emotions, the traces of the past are too clearly evident. There are places like that, where the boundary between the human world and the Twilight is almost imperceptible, and the center of Moscow is one of them.
If I’d been in a fit state, I would have seen the surges of Power emerging from the depths of a different reality.
Probably even Zabulon couldn’t explain exactly what stands behind them. All that we could do was pay no attention to the greedy breathing of the Twilight that had sensed the death of a witch in magical combat.
“Faster!” Lemesheva said, and the vampires quickened their stride. The Twilight must have become seriously agitated.
Only I couldn’t tell any longer.
We went in the door that was invisible to human beings, and Lena had to take me and Zhanna through. Our colleagues were already running toward us. The witch, who had started yelling again, was dragged off to the interrogation room on the tenth floor. Olga was handed directly to magicians from the department of healing (without the slightest hope of being able to help, but the fact of death had to be registered). One of the healers on duty examined us carefully. He shook his head disapprovingly as he assessed Zhanna’s condition and frowned when he looked at the battered vampires. But when he turned his attention to me, his face simply froze.
“Is it really that bad?” I asked.
“That’s putting it mildly,” he said without superfluous sentimentality. “Alisa, what were you thinking of when you gave out your Power?”
“I was acting according to instructions,” I answered, feeling my tears welling up again. “Edgar would have been killed-he was up against two second-level magicians!”
The healer nodded. “Very praiseworthy zeal, Alisa. But the price is very high too.”
Edgar was already hurrying toward the elevator, but he stopped and gave me a look of sympathy. Then he came over to me and kissed the palm of my hand. These Baltic types are always making themselves out to be Victorian gentlemen.
“Alisa; my most profound gratitude! I could sense that you were giving everything you had. I was afraid that you would go the same way as Olga.” He turned to the healer. “Karl Lvovich, what can be done for this brave girl?”
“I’m afraid nothing can be done,” the healer said with a shrug. “Alisa was drawing Power from out of her own soul.
It’s like acute dystrophy, if you get my meaning. When the body doesn’t have enough food, it starts digesting itself. It destroys the liver, the muscles, the stomach-anything to maintain the brain until the very last. Our girls found themselves in a similar situation. Zhanna seems to have lost consciousness in time and stopped drawing on her final reserves. Alisa and Olga held out to the end, but Olga’s inner resources were not so great and she died. Alisa survived, but her mental reserves have been totally exhausted.”
Edgar gave a sympathetic nod and everyone else listened to the doctor with interest as he continued with his florid rhetoric. “The special abilities of an Other are similar in some ways to any other energy reaction-take a nuclear reaction, for instance. We maintain our abilities by drawing Power from the world around us, from people and other less complex objects. But in order to begin receiving Power, first you have to invest some of your own-such is the cruel law of nature. And Alisa has practically none of that initial Power left. Simply pumping in Power is no help in this case, just as a piece of heavily salted pork fat or an overcooked, crispy steak won’t save someone who’s starving to death. The body can’t digest that kind of food-in fact, it will kill, not cure. It’s the same thing with Alisa-we could pump energy into her, but she would choke on it.”
“Could you please not talk about me in the third person?” I asked. “And not in that tone of voice!”
“I’m sorry, my girl.” Karl Lvovich sighed. “But what I’m saying is the truth.”
Edgar gently released my hand and said, “Alisa, don’t take it too much to heart. Perhaps the chief will think of something. And by the way, talking about steaks… I’m absolutely ravenous.”
Lemesheva nodded. “Let’s go to some little bistro.”
“Wait for me, okay?” said Zhanna. “I’ll just take a shower, I’m lathered in sweat…”
I didn’t even have enough strength left to feel horrified. I stood there like a fool, listening to their conversation, trying to sense anything at all at the level of an Other. To see my real shadow, to summon the Twilight, to feel the emotional background…