Story Three
ANOTHER POWER
Prologue
YUKHA MUSTAJOKI FLAGGED DOWN THE CAR¡ªHE WAS THE SENIOR MEM-
ber of their little group now. Yari Kuusinen and Raivo Nikkilya squeezed into the backseat of the old Zhiguli without speaking as Yukha took the seat in front.
"Take us to She-re-me-tie-vo," he said, speaking with emphatic clarity. Strangely enough, Russian had been the language of Mustajoki's childhood, although he'd managed to forget most of it afterward. But then he'd always had a talent for languages, and now he lived near the Russian border and made regular drinking trips to St. Petersburg. The others preferred the ferry to Sweden¡ªon the overnight trip you could get really drunk on hard liquor bought in the duty-free shop, sleep it off during the day (who needed Stockholm, anyway?), and then indulge your expensive pleasure again on the way back. But Mus-tajoki had stubbornly kept on traveling to St. Petersburg. "Drive quick-ly and care-ful-ly," he said.
The driver drove. Quickly and carefully. Taking foreigners to the airport was a sheer delight for him. An out-of-work engineer making a living as a freelance taxi driver didn't often land a plum job like this. Especially at a time like this, just before the New Year, when the year 2000 was coming up and everybody was out working away, trying to make sure there'd be food for the festive table and good presents for the family.
The three Others sitting silently in the car weren't listening to the driver's thoughts, although they could have, of course.
After they'd already passed the Ring Road, Yukha turned to his comrades and said, "Are we really leaving then, brothers?"
Yari and Raivo nodded sympathetically. It really was hard to believe that it was all over¡ªall the interrogations by the Night Watch, the visits by somber members of the Inquisition staff, the vigorous efforts of the Day Watch's adroit female vampire advocate, who was as well known among human beings as she was among Others.
They'd broken free. Broken free, been released from this terrible, cold, inhospitable city of Moscow, although they couldn't go home just yet: They were on their way to Prague, to where the Inquisition's European office had just relocated. But they had been released. With their rights restricted, with the obligation to register when they arrived anywhere, but even so...
"Poor Ollikainen..." Raivo sighed. "He was so fond of Czech beer. He used to say Lapin Kulta was the best beer in the world. He'll never drink beer again..."
"We'll drink a mug of beer for him," Yari suggested.
"Three mugs," Yukha added. "He was the most worthy of the Regin Brothers."
"And what about us?" Yari asked after a moment's thought.
"We are worthy too," Yukha agreed. "We did our duty."
For some reason when he said this all three of them lowered their eyes.
The small sect of Dark Others that called itself the Regin Brothers had existed in Helsinki for almost five hundred years. They were among the small number of Others who had not officially accepted the Treaty, but since they never committed any serious violations of its provisions, the Watches turned a blind eye to this. The Light Ones even seemed to be quite glad that twenty or thirty Dark Ones occupied themselves with harmless rituals, chanting, and archaeological explorations. The Dark Ones had made a couple of attempts to involve the Regin Brothers in the work of the Day Watch, but then they just gave up on them.
Until only recently Yukha, Yari, Raivo, and their friend who had been killed, Pasi Ollikainen, had regarded their involvement in the sect as a kind of curious, even amusing game. Their grandfathers and great-grandfathers had spent their entire lives as members of the sect, and their children would be Regin Brothers too... Their adopted children, that is. An Other is rarely fortunate enough to have a child who is also born with the abilities of an Other. That's only the norm for the lower Dark Ones, the vampires and shape-shifters...
It wasn't at all easy for the magicians of the small Finnish sect. They had to scout around the world, searching for Other children they could adopt, educate, and introduce to the great cause of service to Fafnir. As a rule, these children were found in the more underdeveloped and exotic countries.
Raivo, for instance, came from Burkina Faso. The little boy with the bulging eyes, legs bandy from rickets, and a swollen, flabby stomach had been bought from his poor parents for fourteen dollars. He had been cured of his illness, educated, and taught Finnish. And now, no one looking at this handsome, well-built young black guy ever could have guessed how strange his destiny was.
Yari had been found in the slums of Macao. At the age of four, with the help of his magical abilities, he was already a remarkably successful thief, which was how he was discovered by his future adoptive parents. They hadn't even had to pay anything for him. Yari hadn't grown very tall, but the Regin Brothers had been delighted with his sharp, tenacious mind and natural talent for magic.
Then there was Yukha, from Russia. Or rather, from somewhere in the south of Ukraine. He had suffered from wanderlust since he was a child, and at the age of seven he had traveled right across the country by jumping freight trains and hitchhiking, then crossed the border on foot, and one day he'd knocked on the door of the small townhouse owned by the Mustajokis, devoted members of the sect. There was no way that could be explained except by magical predestination.
By a wicked irony of fate, only the deceased Ollikainen had been a genuine Finnish boy.
The driver had never had such a strange group of passengers before¡ªa young white guy with Ukrainian facial features, a tall guy with skin as black as pitch, and a short Asiatic with slanting eyes. And all three of them were speaking Finnish, or maybe Swedish, absolutely fluently. But then, you saw all sorts of things nowadays...
The first thing the Brothers did at the airport was study the timetable, but even here Russia's muddleheaded cunning had a little snag in store for them: The flight to Prague turned out to have been postponed for the fourth time. True, there was another flight to Duisburg with a stopover in Prague. But the transit flight wasn't in the timetable, of course, while the plane to Madrid, also with a stopover in Prague, left at a very inconvenient time, and they had to redraw their plans right there at the ticket office. This reduced a burly young guy in a track suit, wearing a gold chain as thick as a finger and clutching a cell phone in his massive hairy hand, to a state of inexplicable fury. He was on the point of pushing little Yari out of the way, but Raivo concocted a hasty spell of respect, and after that the line that had gathered behind them stopped complaining about the leisurely manner in which the Finns were consulting.
"We'll take the Duisburg plane," Yukha decided at last. "It's more convenient. And we won't have to wait so long. They'll postpone the Prague flight another three times at least, won't they?"
Of course they would. The reality lines were woven into a tight knot, and the ill-fated flight wouldn't leave until late that evening.
The almost forgotten sensation of freedom was as intoxicating as their favorite Lapin Kulta beer. While Yukha was talking to the pretty girl at the ticket desk (who was already hassled out of her mind), Yari and Raivo enjoyed themselves staring around the large hall, looking at the passengers walking by, the sales assistants in the brightly lit aquariums of their little shops, the international airline offices that are always there in any major airport...
It was Yari who spotted the Other.
"Look!"
There was a Light magician standing at a counter near the exit to the boarding gates, drinking coffee from a small, dark green cup. And there was a half-empty travel bag lying beside his tall stool.