Twilight Watch

"We'll be right there," Gesar said curtly. His cell phone clicked as it folded together. "Anton!"

When I turned back to face Gesar, he was just finishing getting changed. As he ran his hands over his body, the dressing gown and pajamas changed their color and texture and were transformed into a formal gray suit. With a final flourish of his hand, Gesar hung a gray tie around his neck. Already tied in a neat Windsor knot. And none of this was an illusion-Gesar really had created a suit out of his pajamas.

"Anton, we have to take a little journey… to the wicked witch's house."

"Have they caught her?" I asked, trying to make sense of my own feelings. I walked across to Gesar.

"No, worse than that. Yesterday evening while they were searching Arina's home they came across a secret hiding place." Gesar waved his hand and a portal appeared, floating in the air. He added vaguely, "There's already… quite a crowd there. Shall we go?"

"What's in the hiding place?" I exclaimed.

But Gesar's hand was already pushing me into the glowing white oval.

"Brace yourself," was the final word of advice I heard from behind me.

The journey through a portal takes a certain amount of time- seconds, minutes, sometimes even hours. It's not the distance that matters, but the precision of focus. I didn't know who had put up the portal in Arina's house, and I didn't know how long I would be left hanging there in the milky-white void.

A secret hiding place in Arina's house. So what? All the Others created hiding places for magical objects in their apartments.

What could have startled Gesar like that… the boss had definitely looked startled and confused to me-his face had turned far too stony, too calm and composed.

I started imagining all sorts of horrors. For instance, children's bodies in the basement. That would be a good reason for Gesar to panic, when he'd been so certain that Arina would never touch Nadiushka.

No, that was impossible…

And with that thought I tumbled out of the portal-straight into the middle of the small room.

And it really was crowded in there.

"Move aside," Kostya shouted and grabbed me by the arm. I barely had time to take a step before Gesar emerged from the portal.

"Greetings, Great One!" Zabulon said in a surprisingly polite voice, with no trace of his usual sarcasm.

I gazed around. Six Inquisitors I didn't know-wearing cloaks, with the hoods pulled forward over their faces, everything right and proper. Edgar, Zabulon, and Kostya-nothing unexpected there. Svetlana! I looked at her fearfully-but she immediately shook her head reassuringly. That meant Nadia was okay.

"Who is conducting the investigation?" Gesar asked.

"A triumvirate," Edgar replied briskly. "Myself from the Inquisition, Zabulon from the Dark Ones and…" He looked at Svetlana.

"I'll take it," Gesar said with a nod. "Thank you, Svetlana. I'm most grateful."

I didn't need any explanations. Whatever it was that had happened here, Svetlana had been the first Light One to appear- and she had begun to act on behalf of the Night Watch.

You could say she'd gone back to work.

"Shall I paint a picture for you?" Edgar asked.

Gesar nodded.

"And Gorodetsky?" Edgar inquired.

"He's with me."

"That's your right." Edgar nodded to me. "Well then, we have a quite exceptional occurrence here…"

Why was he telling us in words?

I tried to ask Svetlana. I reached out to her with my mind…

And ran into a blank wall.

The Inquisition had blocked off the whole area. That was why they'd called Gesar on his cell, and not contacted him telepathically. Whatever it was that had happened here, it had to be kept secret.

What Edgar said next confirmed what I was thinking.

"Since this event must be kept an absolute secret," he said, "I request everyone present to lower their defenses and prepare to receive the seal of the Avenging Fire."

I glanced sideways at Gesar-he was already unbuttoning his shirt. Zabulon, Svetlana, Kostya, even Edgar himself-they were all disrobing.

I pulled up my polo-neck sweater and resigned myself to what would follow. The Avenging Fire it was, then.

"We here present swear never to divulge to anyone, at any time or in any place, what is revealed to us in the course of the investigation into this event," said Edgar. "I do so swear!"

"I do so swear!" Svetlana said and took hold of my hand.

"I do so swear," I whispered.

"I do so swear… so swear… so swear…" said voices on every side.

"And if I should violate this oath of secrecy-may the hand of the Avenging Fire destroy me," Edgar concluded.

There was blindingly brilliant red flash from his fingers. A flaming imprint of his hand seemed to hover in the air, then it divided into twelve and the blazing palms started drifting toward us, very slowly. And that slow, deliberate movement was the most frightening thing of all.

The first one touched by the hand of the Avenging Fire was Edgar himself. The Inquisitor's face contorted, and several similar crimson handprints showed up for a moment on his skin.

Apparently it was painful…

Gesar and Zabulon bore the touch stoically and, unless my eyes deceived me, the signs on their bodies were already woven into a dense tracery.

One of the Inquisitors squealed.

Apparently it was very painful…

The spell touched me, and I realized I was wrong. It wasn't very painful, it was absolutely unbearable. It felt like I was being branded with a red-hot steel beam, not just branded, but burned right through my body.

When the bloody mist cleared from in front of my eyes, I was surprised to see that I was still standing-unlike two of the Inquisitors.

"And they say giving birth is painful," Svetlana said in a quiet voice as she buttoned up her blouse. "Ha…"

"Allow me to remind you that if the seal is activated, it will be a lot more painful…" Edgar murmured. The Inquisitor had tears in his eyes. "It's for the common good."

"Cut the idle chatter," Zabulon interrupted him. "Since you're in charge now, try to behave appropriately."

That was right-where was Witezslav?

Had he flown back to Prague after all?

"Please follow me," said Edgar, still wincing. He walked toward the wall.

Hiding places can be set up in various ways. From the crudest-the magical camouflage of a safe in a wall-up to a secure vault surrounded by powerful spells in the Twilight.

This hiding place was rather ingenious. When Edgar walked into the wall, a narrow slit that looked too small for a man appeared in front of him for an instant. I immediately recalled this cu

"We won't all fit in," Gesar muttered and squinted at the Inquisitors. "You've already been in there, I believe? Wait here."

Concerned that I might be stopped too, I stepped forward- and the wall obligingly parted in front of me. The defensive spells had already been broken.

The box-room turned out to be not so little after all. It even had a window, made in the same way-from strips "cut" out of the other windows. The view through the window had a truly phantasmagorical appearance: a strip of forest, half a tree, a patch of sky, all jumbled up together in total disorder.

But there was something else in the box-room far more worthy of attention.

A good suit of close-textured gray cloth, a dandyish shirt- white silk with lace at the collar and the cuffs-an elegant necktie in silver-gray with red flecks, and a pair of magnificent black leather shoes with white socks peeping out of them. All these things were lying on the floor in the middle of the box-room. I was sure that inside the suit there had to be silk underwear with hand-embroidered monograms.