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the pond, frightening the fat, lazy swans and the sly, brazen ducks. From there he saw the male trainee who had thrown the Shock spell fall, and the other trainee, who was making a phone call, take to his heels. Andrei swam to the structure meant for the swans and scrambled up onto the wooden platform. The little house smelled of bird droppings. But the boy still preferred to sit there in the middle of the pond until the operations group arrived. The following day his action was described by Geser as the only correct thing that he could have done in the given situation, and the boy was unofficially requested to think about working in the Watch. As Vadim Dmitrievich had used to say when he was alive: 'Dead heroes serve in a different place.' Considering the nature of the situation, there weren't many casualties. Only the tutor and one of the trainees, a mathematician by education. Perhaps he hadn't had enough time to calculate what kind of opposition an untrained fifth-level magician could offer a Higher Vampire. Or perhaps he simply hadn't bothered to calculate anything. CHAPTER 1 I SAID HELLO to Garik, who was discussing something with a colonel of the militia. The colonel was an ordinary man, but he was involved in our work - he knew something about the Watches and helped us to cover up incidents like this one. The bodies had already been taken away, our specialists had finished fiddling about with auras and traces of magic, and now the forensic experts from the militia had started their work. 'In the Gazelle,' Garik told me, with a nod. I walked across to our operational vehicle and got in. A young lad wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot tea from a mug gave me a frightened look. 'My name's Anton Gorodetsky,' I said. 'You're Andrei, right?' The boy nodded. 'I . . .' the boy began in a remorseful voice. 'I didn't know . . .' 'Calm down. You're not to blame for anything. Nobody could have foreseen the appearance of a wild vampire in the centre of Moscow in broad daylight,' I said. But I thought to myself that if the lad had such a natural ability for reading auras, then this sort of thing ought to have been foreseen. But I didn't want to criticise the dead tutor. Some day this incident would go into the teacher-training manuals, on the pages printed in red to indicate that the knowledge in them had been paid for in blood. 'But I shouldn't have shouted like that,' the boy said. He put down the mug of tea. The blanket slid off his shoulder and I saw a massive bruise on his chest. The vampire had hit him really hard. 'If he hadn't heard me . . .' 'He would still have sensed your fright and confusion. Calm down. The most important thing now is to catch this undead monster.' 'And lay him to rest,' the boy said in a firm voice. 'Right. And lay him to rest. Have you been studying with us for long?' 'Three weeks.' I shook my head. He was a talented young boy, no doubt about it. I just hoped that what had happened wouldn't put him off working in the Watch ... 'Have you been taught how to record auras?' 'No,' the boy admitted. And he shuddered, as if at some unpleasant memory. 'Then describe the vampire as precisely as you can.' The boy hesitated and then said: 'We haven't been taught. But I've tried studying it. It's the fourth paragraph in the textbook . . . recording, copying and transmitting an aura.' 'And you studied the subject?' 'Yes.' 'Can you transmit the vampire's aura to me?' The boy thought for a moment and nodded. Page 97 'I can try' 'Go on. I'm opening myself up.' I closed my eyes and relaxed. Okay, come on, young talent. . . At first there was a faint sensation of warmth - like a hairdryer into my face from a distance. And then I sensed a clumsy, rather confused transmission. I locked onto it and took a close look. The boy was trying with all his might, transmitting the aura again and again. Gradually I began building up a complete picture out of the isolated fragments. Just a little bit more,' I said. 'Repeat that . . .' The coloured threads flared up more brightly and arranged them selves into an intricate pattern. The basic colours, of course, were black and red, non-life and death, the standard vampire aura. In addition to the colour [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |