This is a fan translation of School Oversight (Школьный надзор) by Sergei Lukyanenko and Arkady Shushpanov. The novel is a spin-off of the Night Watch series by Sergei Lukyanenko.
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Note: Footnotes can be found at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 3
"Curiouser and curiouser," Zabulon said.
"But it explains a lot," Owl Head said gloomily.
"More specifically, the group is hiding on the territory of the Tsarskoye Selo palace complex, not in the nearby town of Pushkin," Strigal went on. "We've managed to ascertain that definitively. Deinitiation works only on approaches to the Catherine and Alexander parks. This has been tested by, unfortunately, a number of our people."
"How did you find them?" Dunkel continued frowning. "There isn't supposed to be a single Other in that place…"
"That was precisely why we sent someone to check it out. It's took good a hiding place. The agent found nothing but, after returning, went to the on-staff healer—"
"To report his magical impotence," Zabulon chuckled.
"Here's what I refuse to understand," Gesar declared. "Edgar and Konstantin claim that these Dark minors want to ascend by turning Others back into humans. I agree that it makes sense for the Dark ones. But what does the Light girl have to do with it?"
"They can sign a new Treaty between them," Edgar countered. "When they are the only Others left. Vampires will get as much blood as they can drink. Werewolves will have lots of prey. And the Light one will be able to save whomever she wishes."
"Forgive me, but that's a lie," Dmitry said loudly and clearly.
Silence fell, as if he'd just swore in a polite society.
Everyone in the room looked at Dreher.
"I've known these kids for over a year." Now the teacher was speaking in a quieter voice. "They don't want to drink blood or hunt someone. All they ever wanted was to stop being vampires and shifters. They never learned to accept themselves for who they are. If you like, that's the primary miscalculation of our school. Both the teachers and the Inquisition's Overseers."
"Then why not use their own spell on themselves?" Edgar asked. "It would've solved all their problems."
"I don't know," Dmitry admitted honestly. "But has there been a werewolf attack in Pushkin over the past several month? Anyone had their blood drained? Anything of the sort or at least suspicious?"
"Nothing has been recorded," Edgar replied in a displeased tone. "But they could've been going to Saint Petersburg on 'tours'…"
"Why bother if they're already safe?!" Dreher felt himself getting angry. "This means they haven't bitten anyone! Then where do they get their blood?"
"They've robbed the school infirmary," Strigal replied. "We checked."
"You see? They'd rather just steal!"
"Young man!" Dunkel said. His mysterious, almost magical ability to speak without seemingly opening his mouth was entrancing and forced one to be silent better than any magic would. "Your care about your students is commendable. But have some respect. Haven't you been taught the rules? Such meetings are only for Higher Inquisitors, heads of Watches, and persons granted with special authority. You have no right to be here, much less interrupt us!"
"Forgive my audacity, Grandmaster." Dmitry really was feeling something akin to a pang of guilt. And yet something still made him open his mouth. "But I'm not even an Other. At least at the moment."
At the same time, Dreher wondered why Strigal was here. Since when was he a Higher one? Which meant that he was a "person granted with special authority." Just like Maxim.
In the meantime, Owl Head gave the libertine a piercing look. Something indeterminate was reflected deep in those barely blinking eyes. Mages of such level and age typically lacked any conscience, even among the Light ones it died out somewhere around the third century of life. And Ludwig Hieronymus Maria Kühbauer y Carmadon had been a Dark one before joining the Inquisition. And yet Owl Head's silence had a touch of embarrassment to it. It seemed he'd remembered that Dreher was a victim of what could be called a magical terrorist attack. The situation was as if some nobleman was telling an audacious crippled veteran of a military campaign, "How dare you raise you hand on—", and hearing, "Your Excellency, I couldn't possibly have raised my hand, for I have none!" in reply.
Even worse was the fact that Dmitry had himself just now realized what happened to him. It was a bigger change than going from a literature teacher to an Overseer.
The awkwardness was resolved by the one who'd caused the former Other to be present at this august meeting.
"The temporarily reserved Overseer Dreher has been invited by me personally after checking with Edgar," Strigal declared. "He is a key figure in our plan."
"Really?" Dunkel tilted his owlish head sideways and switched his gaze to the former head of the School Oversight.
"Back when he was a schoolteacher, he was the only one to have the trust of Komarov and the Dark ones with him. Moreover, an incident with these students was the reason teacher Dreher had been accepted into the Inquisition. As an exception for his seventh level."
"A gifted young man," Hena noted, his calm making him look like a sleeping cat.
"There were… certain disagreements between us," Strigal went on. "But I have to admit that it was the efforts of teacher Dreher and my replacement Liharev that have resolved a complicated situation with the Dark teenagers in October of last year. I also have to admit that I had warned them of the danger represented by Komarov's gang."
"May I speak?" Dmitry asked after a pause.
"Speak," Carmadon allowed.
"The spell you're calling Deinitiation has erased my two signs of the Punishing Flame. Despite this, I swore an oath and have no intention of divulging the details. But since there was an investigation and a number of facts are no longer a secret… I also have to admit that whatever caused Artyom and the others' behavior, it was indirectly provoked by the Inquisition."
"Are you accusing us?" Dunkel asked with a note of surprise.
"I'm merely stating a fact. The Deinitiation spell was created during the group's visit to Saint Petersburg, which was set up by the European Bureau."
Kühbauer gave Dreher another piercing stare, as if trying to decide from two opposite reactions: to invoke his authoritative wrath on the depowered Other or to show pity on the wretch, taking into account the consequences of the pedagogical shell shock.
"I think we should leave the question of guilt to the Tribunal," Strigal intervened. "Right now, the question at hand is what to be done about it. What you, Dreher, can do in order to save these… Dead Poets of yours once and for all."
"Describe your plan, Konstantin," Edgar told him.
"I suggest we send teacher Dreher to Tsarskoye Selo in order to have him negotiate with Komarov's group."
"Do you really think that an Other without abilities will be capable of doing more than the Inquisition's battle mages?" Zabulon said, having spent all this time observing the discussion like a spectator in a theater's VIP box.
"That's the point," Strigal replied. "They won't even let an Other with abilities get close to them. But a teacher, basically a man of good will, deinitiated by them, might be able to open a dialog with them. You all saw how teacher Dreher was defending them!"
"Yeah," Gesar said. "How did we miss you, boy? We really needed a teacher for a Great Enchantress!"
"I had a low level," Dreher stated self-critically. "But there is one Fyodor Kozlov who works in our city's Night Watch—"
"Gentlemen, would you mind deciding personnel matters later?" Zabulon asked innocently.
"There are none equal to you when it comes to personnel matters," Gesar echoed venomously.
"I will ask the heads of the Watches to refrain from personal attacks," Edgar intervened.
Dmitry knew that the Inquisitor had been Zabulon's subordinate only a few years ago. It seemed that Edgar was pleased by the illusion that he could give orders to both his former boss and Gesar. At the same time, Edgar was smart and understood how ephemeral his role was.
"So," Strigal raised his voice after waiting for silence and getting the others' attention, "I suggest that teacher Dreher be immediately transported to Pushkin and convince the violators to turn themselves in with our support."
"You mean give them an ultimatum, Konstantine?" one of the inconspicuous grey robes asked; Dreher didn't know him, and he'd been watching the discussion silently the entire meeting.
"No, Leonard," Strigal said. "I can say with complete certainty that they're not going to accept any ultimatums. Dreher's task is to convince them."
Leonard's name was familiar to Dmitry. A second later, Dreher remember where he'd heard it. It was one of the names of the Inquisitors whose used the artifact museum employee as their avatar during their meeting in the Summer Garden.
Then Dmitry spoke, "I'd like to say a word!"
"Speak, teacher," Edgar allowed after picking up Owl Head's slight nod.
Dreher rose.
"May I refuse this… honorable mission?"
"After everything you've seen today?" Strigal narrowed his eyes.
"You're right. Exactly after everything I've seen. And not only today. I've also seen your interrogation methods, moreover, I've learned and even passed tests on them. What will happen to these children if I convince them to give up voluntarily?"
"The Inquisition will take their surrender and confession into account. You've learned our regulations too," Strigal answered.
"Yes, maybe they'll be pardoned. Although the attack on the Watches, even a bloodless one, already calls for the highest punishment. And striking the Inquisition's headquarters does for sure, even if the headquarters were fake. By the way, the regulations say nothing about the age of the accused. Which means them being minors won't be taken into account. Only if they didn't know about the Treaty, but they do…"
"What did you expect? The regulations weren't written in the twentieth or even the nineteenth century. But the Inquisition can set a precedent."
"All right. But what do we have on them now? I haven't seen a single shred of proof that one of the school's students is even involved. The only evidence is Deinitiation. But anyone can use it."
"There is proof, Dreher," Edgar intervened. "It was thoroughly examined before your… appearance. Our people gathered testimony from a number of humans. Several of the students from Komarov's group, including Anna Golubeva, had been seen in both Saint Petersburg and Pushkin. They couldn't have covered all tracks, as that requires a lot of experience. And the girl isn't skilled in entering the Twilight and averting others' eyes."
"Forgive me, I didn't know that. Despite that, from what I understand, at this moment, we don't fully know either the goals of the children or the way they're casting their magic. Deinitiation only works in direct line-of-sight. But the strike on Saint Michael's Castle was conducted straight from Tsarskoye Selo, right?"
"What are you trying to say, Dreher?" Edgar inquired.
"That the regulations require a special investigation in this case. A full memory scan. Emptying out the mind. Even adult mages are unable to handle it. The teenagers won't even have to be consigned to the Twilight after that. This means I'll have to convince several fourteen-year-old boys and a girl to agree to this procedure, won't I?"
For some reason, Dmitry remembered their Deputy Director in Educational Matters, the Cuban Vargas. As he'd told Kozlov last October, "Do you really think the Dark ones will report on their own?" Again, for some reason, he had a feeling that Vargas hadn't been lying when speaking of himself.
"Teacher Dreher," Edgar spoke slowly and emphatically. While his Russian was impeccable, there now seemed to be an accent in his voice. "If you refuse to follow orders, it will be the subject of a separate proceeding. But that's later. Until then, we have the right to enter your mind and imprint obedience charms."
"Sir, allow me," Strigal asked. "I must object to the use of charms. First, they could be recognized. Without initiation, Dreher will be easy to read. And second, the behavior of the negotiator is not going to be natural. The teacher has to go voluntarily. Otherwise our entire plan is pointless."
"And what am I supposed to tell them?" Dmitry asked bitterly.
"That's for you to figure out. You're the Russian language and literature teacher," Strigal answered. But if you go, then Komarov and the others will have a chance. Any chance. Otherwise… You don't seem to understand yet. The very existence of Others is in peril, Dreher. They've removed magic from the second largest city in Russia. Where and how are they going to strike next? Will they deinitiate the Others of Moscow? Or the entire region? We can't wait. We will be forced to strike preemptively despite the casualties. And there will be many more casualties then the eight minors who know what they're doing. We can get to Komarov and the others from a distance. Like from a plane."
"It'll be within their line-of-sight," Dreher objected, for some reason.
"Then we'll have to strike from the city. It'll take a lot of Power. But there are very few Others here, so we'll need to drain a large number of humans. How many of them won't survive it, dying from a stroke, a heart attack, or just all of a sudden? Probably a lot. Can you live with that, teacher Dreher?"
Dmitry recalled the man that fainted near Palace Bridge when the junior Overseer himself had been taking Power from the crowd.
"Is the Inquisition really going to go for that?" Dmitry asked, already knowing the answer.
"Since the majority of Komarov's group are Dark ones, the attack will be carried out by the Day Watch," Dunkel's calm voice rang out.
Zabulon grimaced but said nothing.
"I'd like to object," came the less calm but more measured voice of the Brightest Gesar. "Consider the possible consequences and the presence of a Light—"
"Denied," Dunkel said. "The Day Watch will be issued an indulgence. In compensation, the Night Watch will be given the right to a number of first-degree Light actions. You can use them to get rid of the consequences, Gesar, and there will still be some left over. Will the Light ones be satisfied with that?"
"No," Gesar grunted. "But if there are no other—"
"We do have another plan, of course," Edgar said. "We're exploring it as well. What we didn't do two years ago during the incident with Saushkin at Baikonur. A strike on Tsarskoye Selo using conventional weapons."
"A nuclear bomb?" Dreher blurted out.
Dmitry clearly pictured a white mushroom cloud over the blue walls of the Catherine Palace. He'd never seen the palace with his own eyes, only in pictures. But that only served to stimulate his imagination even more.
"No, ordinary bombardment will be sufficient. Or a crash of a military aircraft filled with ammunition. It will be written off as a terrorist attack or a disaster."
"So you're going to destroy what even the Nazis couldn't?"
"Wouldn't you agree to blow up the Kremlin if someone who wanted to harm children was sitting inside?"
"Sometimes I think," Dreher chuckled mirthlessly, "that it's true. But I can tolerate it."
"No need to be rude," Strigal entered the conversation again. "You're protecting eight teenagers but are forgetting about all the Other children. What if those eight are the ones who want to do harm? What if they turn all Others into humans?"
"It will be good for some."
"You're right, for some. Nothing bad happened to you personally. Although you didn't feel yourself flawed because of the memory block. Try living for a few years knowing that you used to be a wizard, then you might think differently. But these moral torments aren't the real issue. If I get hit by Deinitiation, then I'll be an ordinary man in his early sixties with a set of age-related diseases. And how many children there are that were literally saved by initiation? Even if it was the bite of a werewolf or a vampire. They were dying slowly and will continue to die slowly. Your students might not know about that, but you as an Inquisitor have studied many such cases. Will you really be able to look all those children in the eye?"
"We don't know their true aims." Dmitry felt his support shaken. Strigal was destroying his mental shield without any magic.
"Then learn them," the former head of the School Oversight said. "Talk to them. Maybe we'll be able to resolve this. Right now, they aren't any different from American schoolkids from the news that have armed themselves to the teeth, barricaded themselves in their school, and are waiting. We only have two options: an assault or negotiations. Maybe they won't let you come close. But you have to at least try."
"Why did they choose Tsarskoye Selo in particular?" Dmitry asked unexpectedly even to himself.
When one gave up, one always began discussing the details.
"It's the oldest imperial residence," Strigal explained. "Coincidentally, it also stands on the site of a large Power release. It's possible the tsar was given the idea by someone informed of that. Besides, there are many discharged artifacts remaining there. They can't be removed unnoticeably since they're works of art."
"When I joined the Moscow Watch," Gesar added, "that place was still called Detskoye Selo." [Footnote 1]
This was also Dmitry's first time in Pushkin. The Inquisitors had sent him straight to the Egyptian Gate. There hadn't been time to prepare. But Strigal installed false memories into Dreher, which created the illusion that the teacher somewhat knew the area. Most importantly, this fake memory served as a navigator that allows him to move through the parks and avoid getting lost in the palaces without a guidebook.
If nothing else, he didn't need to stop passersby and ask them for directions.
Dreher came out of the portal next to the Pushkin monument. No one noticed the appearance of an additional person from out of thin air. That person looked around and began walking down the street his internal guide marked as Dvortsovaya. He didn't look around much, trusting in his borrowed sense of direction and spending more time listening to himself. Over the entire insane time since the end of the Edgar Allan Poe lesson and the appearance of Strigal in the classroom, Dmitry hadn't been alone even for a moment and therefore couldn't properly think his current predicament. Now he finally had that chance.
To be honest, the teacher turned out to be not ready for the truth. Right now, there were two people inside him trying to come to an agreement on which of them was real: a low-level mage with a removed memory block or a simple teacher who had been dragged into an incredible story.
After all, if those Inquisitors were that good at manipulating the mind, then where was the guarantee that Strigal really had returned his memories instead of charming Dmitry to convince him that he was an Other? What if everything he'd seen was a performance? Both the assault on the castle and the meeting of the Great ones in a conference room over the city. Not even a performance, a skilled hallucination. Brainwashing an ordinary human was an easy task for even a weak mage. There'd been a special course on that in Prague…
Hold on. If Dmitry remembered Prague, then Strigal likely hadn't been lying. He really was Inquisitor Dreher. A cobbler with no shoes…
At that moment, Dmitry realized he that was truly alone. And not just alone, he was virtually helpless. He was used to living with magic. Although, unlike many Others, he almost never used it in his daily life. Dreher was known for his painful properness his entire life. As a boy, Dmitry would thoroughly close faucets, making sure to turn hard, check whether the light was off several times, always remember to unplug the computer. If he had to light up another burner on the stove, he wouldn't strike a new match, he'd pull out an extinguished one from the tin can and light it on the other burner. The same way, as an adult, he didn't waste Power needlessly. Anything that could be done by hand—shutting doors, writing down phone numbers, searching through papers for the needed one—would be. Wherever he could do with simple words, he would convince, sometimes beg.
If Dreher had no idea what the source of his maniacal frugality was, he could easily name the origin of his magical thriftiness — the lecture of that Gorodetsky from Moscow's Night Watch. After learning about the magical temperature and realizing that none of the Power was his. Afterwards, he made some conjectures, recalling the law of conservation of energy. The more Power he, Dreher, had, the less was available to someone else. The Twilight didn't produce Power, it only absorbed it like a sponge, while the mages pinched off a little bit for themselves from all that wealth. And even if the vast majority went to the Twilight, the way the majority of found treasure belonged to the state, that treasure didn't belong to either the Twilight or the mage.
The literature teacher didn't cast spells without a reason, but he could always sense that he had that option on hand. Like having a gun during a riot. Or having an extra bottle of water when crossing a desert.
But now his bottle was empty, and so was his holster. The only thing he'd been given was a company cell phone for emergencies. Maybe it had a few tracking spells on it, not that Dmitry could recognize them anyway. Actually, spells didn't attach well to technology. It was because of the synthetic materials. Iron and wood were one thing, but plastic was out of the question.
Now Dmitry couldn't even go anywhere without a ticket. Well, he'd buy a ticket anyway, but what if it was a holiday or a cleaning day, or if some president was visiting? Was he supposed to call Strigal to complain?
But Dmitry got lucky. They were still letting people into the parks and palaces, even though the signs indicated that the museums would be closing soon. The junior Overseer wasn't in a hurry. After all, he was something like bait.
First he went to the Alexander Park. He looked at the palace colonnade, walked along the pond, stood on a small granite pier across the island with the former home of tsar's children. Something was drawing him there. The building's door had been pointedly boarded up, but when had that ever stopped anyone in the Twilight?
Dreher didn't run into many passerby or tourists, and all of them looked detached and self-absorbed.
As if they'd been enchanted.
Dreher forced himself to leave the pond behind, and he went along the alley towards the Catherine Palace, navigating by the church's golden domes. To the right, across the Cross Canal, towered a mountain covered in old trees. Parnas, the implanted memory told him helpfully. Thanks, Dmitry replied mentally.
The park's beauty was distracting. The green canopies swept the worried from his soul, while the bridges seemed to be saying that anything could be overcome.
The palace gate turned out to be locked. Next to it, across the street, towered a yellow outbuilding, connected by a passage to the white-and-blue residency of emperors. These contrasting colors were what attracted the teacher's attention. Dmitry didn't immediately realize what he was looking at, and then nearly gasped after walking a little farther and reading the sign over the porch.
Shameful, teacher Dreher, he told himself. It didn't matter that it was his first time here.
He was standing in front of the Imperial Lyceum.
Dreher mentally told Strigal to go screw himself for the next forty minutes. Especially since he really was supposed to simply walk around aimlessly. He bought a ticket, put museum slippers that looked like skis over his shoes, and began roaming the enfilades of Pushkin's alma mater.
The artificial memories weren't giving him any hints now. He also got the feeling that they had been… scraped away, maybe, in this spot. But Dmitry had plenty of his own. Here was the hall where "the aged Derzhavin noticed us" [Footnote 2], here was the lecture room with a large board, then he went upstairs to the students' dorms. He thought he remembered Pushkin living next door to Pushchin… [Footnote 3] Yep. Their rooms are so tiny, our students live in a palace in comparison with that golden youth.
Just then, at the most inopportune moment, Dmitry heard the Call. An ordinary vampire Call, which was used to attract a victim, whether one had a license or not.
Dreher hurriedly came downstairs, nearly leaving the lyceum in the museum slippers. The Call clearly indicated where to go.
Who could that be? Either Artyom or Anatoly. For some reason, Dmitry decided that it had to be Komarov. He could recognize the Call but not fight it. Just then, Dreher was simply a well-informed human. Maybe that was what the Dead Poets had been counting on. When and how had they learned it? Neither of them had hunted yet, as they refused to bite humans on principle.
Then again, Artyom could've learned from his mother, who called to donors to give blood.
Red brick crumbs, which had been scattered on the ground in front of palaces for centuries. crunched under his feet. The teacher walked past the front of the Catherine Palace, not even turning to look at it, rounded the majestic Cameron Gallery, reached the ramp built to allow the aging empress to descend to her favorite park.
The Call was growing stronger, echoing in his cranium, like a living sweet treble of a young Robertino Loretti.
From the ramp, Dmitry took the alley onto a spacious stone terrace filled with statues. He thought he remembered that it was called the Granite Terrace. From the terrace, he could observe the view onto the flower beds and the lake with the Chesme Column.
There was no one on the terrace. Only a raven hiding in the canopy of the nearby tree cawed.
Great, just what I need… a nevermorian, Dreher said mentally before chuckling at his own insult for the bird.
And yet the Call ceased.
"Hello, Mr. Dreher," Anna Golubeva said.
She was standing on the terrace next to Dmitry, as if she'd been walking with him all this time. In fact, she probably had done it. In the Twilight.
"Hi!" Artyom Komarov appeared nearby.
He heard a few more greetings, as if Dmitry had climbed up to the school observatory with the Dead Poets sitting around the telescope.
The Granite Terrace, deceptively empty only moments prior, was suddenly filled with people. Teenagers.
Anatoly Klyushkin was sitting on a balustrade. Karen Sargsyan was leaning his back against the railing, his arms crossed and his long thin fingers gripping his shoulders. At the moment, he looked like an actor playing Pushkin on a natural set. But Dmitry remembered another actor, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and thought that, with fingers like that, he ought to have become a vampire, not a werewolf. The Twilight moved in mysterious ways.
Stas Alekseenko was perched next to the statue of a woman bent over a bowl.
The only ones missing were Gogi Bureyev and the Danilov twins.
"Greetings, lady and gentlemen!" Dreher replied to them. "But this is unfair!"
"What is?" Anna gave him a confused look.
The male Poets' facial expressions didn't change.
"To pull me out in the middle of a tour. It was my first time at the Lyceum. I've been dreaming about visiting it. Told you about it but never been."
"We thought that you were inside too long…" the girl said, as if making excuses.
"So you were watching me?"
Anna looked embarrassed.
"We had to, Mr. Dreher," Anatoly Klyushkin called out, swaying his legs. "Who knows what could've happened to you?"
"Thanks for the concern," Dreher replied with a touch of sarcasm. "But I'm the Overseer here. Well, I was. And so was the school."
The Dark ones didn't so much as move. But Golubeva wasn't Dark.
"Sorry," the girl said simply. "It was necessary. It's not forever."
"Stas suggested to bring you outside first," Artyom Komarov informed him.
"Much obliged," Dreher said. "Didn't expect that, Stas. Honestly."
Alekseyenko looked down.
"I was the one who said not to," Anna said with some effort. "It was better for everyone that way."
"A Light decision," Dmitry replied.
"We'll put everything back!" the girl said. "Everything's going to be even better than before. You just need to wait a little…"
"Don't worry about that. No one there remembers anything. The Inquisition made sure of that. They're even wondering whether they even ought to re-initiate everyone."
"We'll initiate everyone," the girl declared firmly and repeated, "We'll put everything back."
"What are you doing here?" Dmitry asked directly.
"Mr. Dreher," Artyom began, "why do you remember everything? And how did you find us?"
"My superiors sent me," Dreher replied.
"I see," Komarov said.
"What do you see? If I could've, I would've come myself. Do you know what 'responsibility' is?"
"But you said you wanted to see the Lyceum," Klyushkin narrowed his eyes slyly.
"It's not like there are signs here where to look for you. Maybe that's where you've been living. Karen sleeping on Küchelbecker's bunk [Footnote 4], you're on someone else's…"
"That's not where we live," Anna said. "Some of us are in the children's home on the island, some in the palace. But we're cleaning up after ourselves!"
"Why have you come, Mr. Dreher?" Karen asked, apparently hurt by the comparison to Küchelbecker.
"Haven't you figured it out? I want to bring you back to the school. I'm still an Overseer. Although it's not going to be easy after everything you've done. Was Saint Michael's Castle your doing?"
"You don't know anything—" Artyom began.
"Do you know that the Dark ones who were storming it took hostages for sacrifice?" Dreher was intentionally staring at Golubeva instead of Artyom's eyes. Then he did finally switch his gaze to Komarov. "The hostages were rescued, and those holding them were wiped out. There were probably vampires among them, Artyom. They'd probably attracted the humans to the castle with the Call."
"Don't, Mr. Dreher," Artyom answered calmly. "We understand everything. There won't be any more vampires or werewolves. We're not vampires anymore either. You'll see after your initiation."
"My initiation?"
"We'll return all your abilities, if you like."
"You've taken them away from everyone who came before me."
"They deserved it!" Anatoly Klyushkin exclaimed form the balustrade.
"You're not like them," Anna said.
"I don't want to disappoint you, but I am. I'm an Inquisitor. I was sent to talk you into surrendering. Do you want to know who sent me? Konstantin Strigal. Remember him?"
Dmitry saw Alekseyenko grimace. He couldn't forget that name.
"So he's the one we're supposed to surrender to?" Artyom asked.
Of course they all knew.
"He's in charge of the operation. Listen, in case you haven't figured it out, playtime is over. Others are already dying. I'll be honest, I have no pity for those by the castle, it was their own fault. But I don't want any of you getting hurt… even though you are idiots."
"Nothing's going to happen to us," Artyom said. "No one can come in here."
"Uh-huh, of course not! They're not even going to try. You think that if you can hit Saint Petersburg from Pushkin, they can't do the same from there? This isn't the Watches, it's the Inquisition! They don't need any licenses, they're the ones issuing them. Up to and including bombing."
"This be a landmark!" Anatoly Klyushkin said airily.
"Minus a grade point for a grammar error," Dreher replied.
"Might as well just give me a stake. An aspen one!"
"And an 'F' in Other History. This had already been a landmark in '41. It was still nearly destroyed."
"That was the Nazis," Anatoly kept going. "We've read about it, the Inquisition had a Tribunal after the Nuremberg Trials."
Dmitry was mentally pleased by the Dead Poets' knowledge, even the phrase "We're read about it."
But he said something different, "Then you should read more carefully! If not for the Inquisition, no German soldier would've ever set foot in here. Who do you think sanctioned the social experiment that led to the appearance of the Nazi Party? The Inquisition always has resources to stop something. Or not to."
In fact, no one would've taught them that. It was only something future Watchmen and cadets in Prague learned. A standard scenario, frequently repeated since the late nineteenth century. The Light ones try to fix humanity. The Inquisition allows it, already knowing what's going to happen. The Light ones reap the bitter fruit, the Dark ones rub their hands in pleasure and reap the sweet fruit. Until next time.
"They'll stop you at any cost if they deem it necessary," the teacher finished. "Even if that cost is the destruction of an entire city."
"They're bastards!" Anatoly said with feeling.
"They're simply Others, not human."
"Mr. Dreher," Artyom Komarov began speaking again calmly. "Have you come to save us?"
"Uh-huh, without any abilities," Dreher answered. "The great savior from the Inquisition."
"You had so many tracking spells on you, you looked like a Christmas tree," Karen said. "We wiped them all off."
Dmitry mentally thanked Strigal in words that wouldn't pass censorship. Then again, a number of gray robes had been moving around him before his departure.
"I don't know what to do with you," Dreher admitted honestly. "I'm just tired of constantly shielding you!"
"You don't need to shield us anymore," Artyom answered. "We can take care of ourselves. We can bring your abilities back, just tell them not to come in. Or don't even bother telling."
"I'm not sure I want to be an Other again. Until you tell me what you're planning. If you want, you can place the sign of the Punishing Flame on me. I can teach you how."
"No way!" Anna exhaled, having shifted away from the teacher during the conversation and moved closed to Artyom. "No signs of the Flame!"
Dmitry felt another prickle of shame.
In the meantime, Anna exchanged glances with Komarov and again looked at her former teacher.
"All right," the girl said.
"Did you recreate the Fuaran again?"
"No." Anna shook her head. A small, elegant bag was hanging on the Light girl's shoulder. Probably created with her "malaria" rather than bought, it looked suspiciously expensive. Golubeva produced a disheveled notebook from the bag. The statue of the Bronze Horseman was on the cover. "I don't need the book anymore. I have an excellent memory and remember the spell. I also remembered the real Fuaran spell later too."
They'd done the right thing by wiping off all the tracking spells, Dreher was pleased mentally. He could only hope the Inquisition didn't have its own satellite with a magic ball inside, which would allow them to read lips from space. Then again, a magic ball wouldn't have worked on a satellite. That had been proven by the vampire Kostya Saushkin, the first to try to make humanity happy with the Fuaran book.
"Why are you… deinitiating everyone?"
"My dad's a surgeon," Artyom said. "He said that sometimes a broken bone doesn't mend right. Then you have to break and mend it again."
"So far you've only been breaking."
"Mending takes time," Komarov smiled.
His teeth were perfectly smooth. Then again, Dmitry had never seen Artyom's vampire fangs, not counting the fangs of his Twilight double.
"What's going to happen once the mending is done?"
"You should ask what isn't going to happen."
"All right, I am."
"There aren't going to be any vampires and werewolves. Lower and Higher Others. Dark and Light ones. There will just be Others. Other humans."
"Keep dreaming…" Dmitry said.
"It's not just a dream anymore," Artyom smiled again. "If you could look through the Twilight, you'd see. We're not vampires and werewolves anymore. We're mages now."
"We can do it now!" Anna began speaking quickly. "We tested it on ourselves at first. We remove the consequences of initiation, then initiate again."
"But vampires have no natural magical abilities. They don't have an Other's aura at all!"
"So? Fuaran can turn even an ordinary human into an Other!"
Idiot, Dreher congratulated himself mentally. Then he asked, "What about the Call? If you're not vampires, where did it come from?"
"I still remember how to do it," Artyom replied. "It just like riding a bike. Even if you then start flying an airplane, you don't forget how to turn the pedals."
He was right, Dreher decided wearily. But, as usual, he said something else, "Just like the bike was Dark, so is the airplane…"
"Not true," Artyom said. "We don't have a color anymore. We're not Dark or Light. We're like you."
"You couldn't stay human?" Dreher asked caustically. "To live without magic?"
"Then we wouldn't be able to change anything, Mr. Dreher," the girl answered instead of Artyom. "You're the one who told us about the Inquisitors, that they're Others, not humans. Well, we need everyone to remember what it's like to be human."
It was a beautiful idea, Dmitry thought. Just like any utopia. To force them to remember their human past: Dunkel, Hena, Edgar, Strigal, Zabulon… even Alexander. Except there was a vast distance between a life without magic and a human life.
"And how would you achieve that?" Dmitry began speaking as if in a classroom.
He didn't add that most of the Dead Poets had become Others at a very young age and couldn't possibly know what it was like to "be human."
"You see, humans are freer than Others," Karen answered for everyone.
"An interesting idea," Dreher replied.
"A human can act like a Dark one or a Light one," Anna said. "They always choose what to do, how to do it, and for whom. It's different for the Others. They make their choice only once. Whichever side of the bed you enter the Twilight from is what you'll be. Either a Dark one or a Light one."
"We've already talked about that. No one really knows how the Light and the Darkness are chosen. The first entrance into the Twilight is just the final step of one's inner path."
"Yes, we've talked about that, Mr. Dreher," Karen said. "You know we didn't even enter the Twilight on our own. All of us were bitten by our parents, except for Anna."
"It doesn't matter who bit whom!" Golubeva intervened again heatedly. "What matters is that you can't change anything afterwards. You'll spend the rest of your life as either a Dark or a Light one. How many Others changed their 'color' over the centuries? Almost none. How many wanted to?"
"I'm sorry to disappoint, but also almost none," Dmitry replied. "Anyone who wanted to became an Inquisitor."
"As if your Inquisition accepts everyone," Artyom countered. "Like we don't know that you're the first seventh level to be accepted in three hundred years. And even then it was because of us…"
The little brat was right again, Dreher agreed internally.
"The Others are the same as humans," Komarov went on. "Except it's all about the level instead of money. Whoever has the higher level has the authority. And if you don't have enough Power, if you're an ordinary vampire or even a fortune teller, the Inquisition doesn't want you. Go register in the Watch, wait for your license, and sit on your ass."
Not exactly, Dmitry thought. The strongest mage wasn't necessarily the best leader. That was why there were at least two Light ones in Moscow stronger than Gesar. As for who was in charge of the Inquisition, that was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. No, this required experience, skill, likely even a calling.
But he didn't argue, instead asking, "Do you think if you erase the difference between the Dark and Light ones, it's going to solve all the problems? If you say that we're like humans, then we'll find something to disagree about. Like the level you're talking about. All humans can't be rich, and all mages can't be Higher ones. They'll start a fight over Fuaran to make the wars of the Others before the Grand Treaty look like a scuffle in a sandbox."
"Except humans don't have blacks and whites anymore," Anna answered in Artyom's stead. Then she hurried to correct herselv, "I mean there's no discrimination. You can't even use the n-word or say 'whites only'. You also can't despise the poor."
"Openly…" Dmitry pointed out.
"Well, sure, there are morons everywhere, but the important part is that it's shameful to do that."
"Humans are in the twenty-first century," Artyom Komarov said. "But we're still living in the Middle Ages. "So let everything be like with the humans. Everything."
"The Light and the Darkness exist," Dmitry replied, not finding anything else to say. "Whether we want them to or not. They can be called to in their pure form."
"Then let an Other choose who to call to whenever they enter the Twilight each time."
They might not be married yet, but they were certainly in sync already, Dreher thought. Romantic relations between the Dark and the Light ones didn't end well, even though there were new Romeos and Juliets to be found almost every year. But these seemed to have found a solution.
He imagined magical political correctness. When vampires would be called "hemodependent", werewolves would be "prone to spontaneous transformation", while witches and sorcerers would become "subject matter mages". They'd impose some kind of magical tax on superior abilities, resulting in the Higher ones becoming donors to the weak magicians. The Watches would unite and start tracking Other serial killers, and instead of the Treaty there would be some Mage Code.
Who would win out from erasing the differences between the Light and the Dark ones? Probably the Light ones, strangely enough. Total freedom also requires total responsibility, which had always been only on the Light side. There was a lot more forbidden than permitted in the human society. The Dark ones would have to look for ways, try to fight for their rights. They'd manage to take some, lobby for something else. Just like now some minor drugs were permitted in certain places but dealing in heroin was against the law. It still happened, of course, but underground.
Those who enjoyed drinking blood would still want to, even when it wouldn't be necessary anymore. Human found it just as difficult to overcome their nature as vampires did.
"It's not going to work," Dmitry said. "It's not enough to erase an Other's 'color'. You'll also need to destroy the difference between Others and humans. This is where no Fuaran or Anti-Fuaran is going to help you. We divide ourselves into Light and Dark others because of the humans. And no matter how we treat them, those humans will treat us a lot worse. They only like reading about wizards. Maybe to also go to weak mages to get love potions and Tarot readings."
"You're a pessimist," Anna stated.
"When was the last time you've seen crime films? Why do gangs fight one another when they could unite against the police? No, at best, they declare a truce and split the city up into areas of influence. In a way, we're like two gangs. One some of us are noble robbers, while others not so much. Meanwhile, the Inquisition are the thieves in charge. But all of us, from the viewpoint of humans, are robbers. They're not going to accept us among them. Just like the Inquisition doesn't accept weak mages."
Dreher caught himself riling up, as if he was trying to prove something to himself instead of his former students.
"Who decided that we aren't human?" Anna said just as emotionally. "We can have kids with them. Even vampires! There are many different humans, some are born without legs, arms, or even with two heads. But somehow they're still human, and we're not. So what if our magical temperature is lower?! Artyom once told me that some humans live their entire lives with a body temperature that's below 36.6 Celsius…"
"Hypothyroidism," Komarov confirmed with an authoritative look.
"And criminals are all around normal humans," Dreher picked up. "With a normal temperature, mind you. They can even be better in some things than ordinary citizens. But they're still criminals. And so are we. We take what doesn't belong to us without asking. But the Light ones believe that they have to pay for it, and the Dark ones don't. Erase the difference between them, and they'll still be doomed to constantly choose whether to pay or not. Then it'll definitely be like with the humans: the minority will pay voluntarily, the majority won't and come up with a million excuses. How is that going to be different from what's happening now?"
"All right," Artyom agreed suddenly. "Maybe it won't work. But then at least everyone is going to have a chance. Let the weak Others choose once more who they want to be. They still only have a binary choice: either the Light or the Darkness. Let them choose something Other too."
"Even if that's the case," Dmitry felt tired, "what are you going to do? You won't go into space. If you get on an airplane, they'll shoot it down, there's no doubt about that. So what if you hit all of Saint Petersburg? What then?"
"They didn't tell you?" Artyom looked genuinely surprised.
"Tell me what?"
"About Tsarskoye Selo."
"They told me you were here."
"And that's it?"
The Poets exchanged meaningful glances.
"There's an unusually high Power release here," Dmitry recalled. "But I can't feel anything anyway."
"I see," Artyom said. "I guess we'll have to initiate you after all."
"Why not simply tell me?"
"It'll take too long, and you're not going to believe us anyway. Anna," Komarov turned to Golubeva, "do you still have any blood left from the cocktail?"
"Uh-huh." Anna reached into her bag.
"I'll initiate, then you read…"
"Hey," Dmitry called out, "does anyone care what I think?"
Karen Sargsyan smiled. Anatoly Klyushkin crossed his legs. Alekseyenko also climbed onto the balustrade and made himself comfortable.
"Don't be afraid." Komarov was already sliding to Dreher. "Look at your shadow. See it?"
Dmitry felt that he didn't want to resist. Yet again someone was performing a magic ritual on him without his agreement.
Artyom took him by the hand and turned him away from the sun. Dreher saw their shadows.
The silhouettes on the reddish ground suddenly began to rise. The way a rake rose when one stepped on it.
Footnotes
1) Russian for Children's Village. It was called this way between 1918 and 1937.
2) This is from Alexander Pushkin's novel Eugene Onegin.
3) Ivan Pushchin was a Russian civil servant who participated in the Decembrist Revolt in 1825.
4) Wilhelm Ludwig von Küchelbecker was a Russian-German poet, who participated in the Decembrist Revolt in 1825.