'No, this morning,' the boss replied, as if unaware of the midday sunshine outside the window. 'You'll be searching too. Maybe you'll get lucky again . . . Shall we continue with our analysis of your mistakes?'
'Can we afford to waste the time?' I asked timidly.
'Don't worry, it won't be wasted.' The boss got up, walked over to the glass cupboard, took out the owl and set it down on the desk. From close up you could see it really was a stuffed bird, with no more life in it than a fur collar. 'Let's move on to the vampires and their victim.'
'I lost the girl vampire. And the guys didn't catch her,' I confirmed penitently.
'No complaints there. You fought worthily enough. The point is – the victim . . .'
'Sure, the boy still had his memories. But he took off so fast . . .'
'Anton! Wake up! They hooked the boy with the Call from several kilometres away. When he walked into that alley he ought to have been a helpless puppet. And when the Twilight disappeared, he ought to have fainted. Anton, if he was still able to move after everything that had happened, he possesses extraordinary magical potential!'
The boss paused.
'I'm an idiot.'
'No, but you have been sitting on your backside in the lab far too long. Anton, this boy is potentially more powerful than I am!'
'Oh, come on . . .'
'Drop the flattery.'
The telephone on the desk rang. It was obviously something important, as not many people know the boss's direct number. I don't.
'Quiet!' the boss snapped at the phone. It stopped. 'Anton, you have to find that young boy. The girl vampire who got away isn't dangerous in herself. Either our guys will find her or an ordinary patrol will pick her up. But if she drinks the boy's blood or, even worse, initiates him . . . You've no idea what a fully fledged vampire's like. And these modern ones are mere mosquitoes compared with some Nosferatu. And he, with all his airs, he still wasn't one of the worst ... So the boy must be found, examined and, if possible, taken into the Watch. We have no right to let him go over to the Dark Side, the balance of power in Moscow would completely collapse.'
'Is that an order?'
'Given under licence,' the boss said darkly. 'I have the right to issue that kind of order, you know that.'
'Yes, I know,' I said quietly. 'But where do I start? That is, who do I start with?'
'Whoever you like. I'd say with the girl. But try to find the boy too.'
'Shall I go now?
'Catch up on your sleep first.'
'I've slept long enough, Boris Ignatievich.'
'I doubt it. I'd recommend an hour at least.'
I didn't understand. I'd got up at eleven and gone straight to the office, I felt perfectly fresh and full of energy.
'Here's someone to help you.' The boss flicked the stuffed owl with his finger. The bird stretched out its wings and started screeching indignantly.
I swallowed hard and risked a question:
'Who is it? Or what is it?'
'Why do you need to know?' asked the boss, looking into the owl's eyes.
'To decide whether I want to work with it!'
The owl glanced at me and hissed like an enraged cat.
'That's the wrong way of putting it,' said the boss, shaking his head. 'Will she agree to work with you, that's the real question.'
The owl started screeching again.
'Yes,' said the boss, talking to the bird now, not to me. 'There's a lot of truth in what you say. But who was it that requested a new appeal?'
The bird froze.
'I promise I'll intercede for you. And this time there is a chance.'
'Boris Ignatievich, in my opinion—' I began.
'I'm sorry, Anton, that doesn't bother me .. .' The boss stretched out his arm, the owl took a clumsy stride with its fluffy legs and stood on his open hand. 'You don't know just how lucky you are.'
I had no answer to that. The boss went across to the window, opened it wide and stuck his hand out. The owl flapped its wings and went hurtling downward.
'Where has . . . it . . . gone?'
'To your place. You'll be working as partners.' The boss rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'Oh yes! Don't forget, her name's Olga.'
'The owl?'
'The owl. Feed her and take care of her and everything will be fine. And now . . . get a bit of sleep. No need to come into the office when you get up, just wait for Olga to arrive and get on with the job. Check out the circle line on the metro, for one . . .'
'How can I get back to sleep . . .' I began. But the world around me was already turning dim, fading away, dissolving. The corner of a pillow jutted painfully into my cheek.
I was lying in my own bed.
My head felt heavy, my eyes full of sand. My throat was parched and painful.
'Aagh . . .' I gasped hoarsely, turning over on to my back. Through the heavy curtains I couldn't see whether it was still night or whether the day was well advanced. I squinted at the clock: the glowing figures showed eight.
It was the first time I'd been granted an audience with the boss in my sleep.
It's not a very pleasant business, especially for the boss – he must have broken through into my mind.
Time must really be short if he'd decided it was necessary to hold his briefing in the world of dreams. And it had all seemed much more real than I would have expected. The mission analysis, that stupid owl. . .
The sound of tapping on the window made me start. A rapid, gentle tapping that sounded like claws. I heard a muffled screeching.
But what else was I really expecting?
I jumped up, awkwardly adjusted my shorts and hurried over to the window. All the garbage that I'd swallowed as part of the preparation for the hunt was still affecting me, and I could distinguish the outlines of objects quite clearly.
I tore the curtains aside and raised the blind.
The owl was sitting on the windowsill. From down in the street, of course, it would have been hard to tell what kind of bird had landed on the tenth-floor window. But if the neighbours had happened to glance out, they'd have got a real surprise. A snowy owl in the heart of Moscow . . .
'What the hell. . .' I muttered.
I felt like being more specific. But that was a habit they'd cured me of when I first started working for the Watch. Or rather, I'd cured myself. Once you've seen a couple of Dark twisters above the heads of people you've cursed at, you soon learn to hold your tongue.
The owl was looking at me. Waiting.
All the other birds around were going wild. A swarm of sparrows sitting in a tree not far away started chirping crazily. The crows were a bit bolder. They settled on the next-door balcony and on the nearest trees and started cawing, every now and then launching off from the branches and circling near the window. Their instincts told them this surprising new neighbour meant trouble.
But the owl didn't react at all. She couldn't give a damn about the sparrows, or the crows.
'Just who are you?' I said as I threw open the window, ripping away the paper strips glued over the cracks. The boss really had lumbered me with this new partner . . .
The owl flapped its wings once and flew into the room. It landed on the wardrobe and closed its eyes. As if it had always lived here. Maybe it had got cold on the way over. But then it was a snowy owl . . .
I started to close the window, trying to think what to do next. How would I communicate with her, what would I feed her and how could this feathered creature possibly help me?
'Is your name Olga?' I asked, when I'd finished with the window. There was a draught from the cracks now, but I could fix that later. 'Hey, bird!'
The owl half opened one eye, taking no more notice of me than of the fussy, chattering sparrows.
I was feeling more awkward with every moment. In the first place I had a partner I couldn't even talk to. And in the second place my partner was a woman.
Even if she was an owl.
Maybe I ought to put my trousers on. I wasn't really awake yet, standing there in just my crumpled shorts, I hadn't shaved . . .
Feeling like a total idiot, I grabbed my clothes and hurried from the room. The phrase I muttered to the owl as I left added a finishing touch: 'Excuse me, I'll just be a moment.'
If this bird really was what I thought it was, I couldn't have made the best impression.
What I really wanted was to take a shower, but I couldn't afford to waste that much time. I made do with a shave and sticking my buzzing head under the cold tap. On the shelf, between the shampoo and the deodorant, I found some eau de cologne, which I don't normally use.
'Olga?' I called as I stuck my head out into the corridor.
I found the owl in the kitchen, on the fridge. Just sitting there looking dead, like a stuffed dummy stuck up there as a joke. Almost the way it had looked on the boss's shelves.
'Are you alive? I asked.
One amber-yellow eye peered at me.
'All right,' I said, spreading my hands. 'Why don't we start from the beginning? I realise I haven't come across very well. And I'll be honest about it, I do that all the time.'
The owl was listening.
'I don't know who you are,' I said, straddling a stool and facing the fridge. 'And you can't tell me either. But I can introduce myself. My name's Anton. Five years ago I discovered that I was one of the Others.'
The owl made a sound that was more like a muffled laugh than anything else.
'Yes,' I agreed. 'Only five years ago. That was just the way things went. I had a very high level of resistance. I didn't want to see the Twilight world. So I didn't. Until the boss found me.'
The owl seemed to be getting interested.
'He was doing a practical exercise, briefing agents on how to identify secret Others. When he came across me . . .' I laughed as I remembered. 'He broke through my resistance, of course. After that it was very simple ... I did the adaptation course and started working in the analytical section . . . Nothing in my life really changed that much. I became one of the Others, but it was like I hadn't really noticed. The boss wasn't too pleased, but he didn't say anything. I was good at my job, and he had no right to interfere in anything else. But a week ago this vampire maniac turned up in town, and they gave me the job of neutralising him. Supposedly because all the agents were busy. But really to get me out there in the firing line. Maybe they were right. But during the week another three people were killed. A professional would have caught that couple in a day . . .'
I really wanted to know what Olga thought about all this. But the owl didn't make a sound.
'What's more important for maintaining the balance?' I asked anyway. 'Giving me some operational experience or saving the lives of three innocent people?'
The owl said nothing.
'I couldn't sense the vampires with the usual methods,' I went on. 'I had to attune myself to them. I didn't drink human blood, though, I made do with pig's blood. And all those drugs . . . but then, you know all about those, I expect . . .'
When I mentioned the drugs I got up, opened the little cupboard above the cooker and took out a glass jar with a tight-fitting ground-glass stopper. There was only a little bit of the lumpy brown powder left, it made no sense to hand it back in to the department. I tipped the powder into the sink and rinsed it away – the kitchen was filled with a pungent, dizzying odour. I rinsed out the jar and dropped it into the rubbish bin.