“He won’t sense that we’re Others and he won’t even see what we really look like,” I reassured him—without telling him that instead of me the vampire would see a skinny young guy with an earring in one ear, and instead of Sasha he would see a dejected girl. A standard sight for this spot—lovers who have fallen out.

“I can sense the girl too,” Sasha said with relief. “There she is, walking along . . . why, she’s almost a child!”

I turned my head slightly. The girl walked past us, gazing blindly straight ahead, and I agreed: “Yes, only fourteen or fifteen. That’s bad. If she was ten . . .”

“What’s bad about it?” Sasha asked in amazement.

Hadn’t he done his lessons? Did he really not remember that licenses were issued . . .

“They’ve disappeared!” Sasha exclaimed excitedly.

I myself saw the vampire, who looked as young as my partner, take a step towards the girl and smile—his fangs had not extended yet, there was just a faint hint . . . and they both disappeared.

“Let’s go,” I said, pitching my cigarette end over the parapet into the water with a snap of my fingers. I sensed my shadow rather than saw it—and stepped into it.

Cold. The usual piercing cold of the Twilight. The world around was veiled in gray and slowed down, sounds became viscous, lingering, and distant. Underfoot there was an uninterrupted covering of blue moss. Our feet sank into it like an expensive carpet.

The vampire was standing a few steps away from us, very young and handsome, aristocratically pale. He was genuinely young, too, not just disguising himself as youthful: he was the real thing—otherwise his Twilight image as an Other would have been quite different.

The vampire was standing there, holding the girl and kissing her on the lips. Kissing, not biting. Out of the corner of his eye he looked at me and at Sasha, who entered the Twilight clumsily behind me.

“Night Watch—everyone leave the Twilight,” I said in a humdrum voice.

I was really hoping that the vampire would expose his fangs and throw himself at me. Or make a run for it. Or start shouting that he hadn’t done anything wrong, he’d only kissed a pretty girl . . .

The vampire stopped kissing the girl and carefully set her aside—she froze like a doll. Then, with a note of resentment in his voice, he asked: “What is the problem here?”

“Anton Gorodetsky, Night Watch of the City of Moscow,” I said, already understanding everything. “Show me your registration.”

“Well, good evening,” the vampire said politely, unbuttoning his shirt, through which I could see the blue lines of a registration mark. “Pleased to meet you, Anton. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Denis Liubimov, vampire, Sixth-Level,” I said, reading from the mark. “You are under arrest for unlicensed contact with a human being.”