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brownish-grey auras, the hideous pressure. I stopped dead, staring at them in horror. Polina, Kostya's mother, looked surprised, the boy froze and turned his face away. But the head of the family walked towards me, moving deeper into the Twilight as he came, walking with the elegant stride that only vampires, alive and dead at the same time, have. The Twilight is their natural habitat.
    'Hello, Anton,' he said.
    The world around me was grey and dead. I'd dived into the Twilight after him without even noticing it.
    'I knew you'd cross the barrier some day,' he said. 'Everything's okay.'
    I took a step back – and Gennady's face quivered.
    'Everything's okay,' he said. He opened his shirt and I saw the registration tag, a blue imprint on the grey skin. 'We're all registered. Polina! Kostya!'
    His wife also crossed into the Twilight and unfastened her blouse. The boy didn't move and it took a stern glance from his father to get him to show his blue seal.
    'I have to check,' I whispered. My passes were clumsy, I lost track twice and had to start again. Finally the seal responded. 'Permanent registration, no known violations . . .'
    'Is everything okay?' asked Gennady. 'Can we go now?'
    'I . . .'
    'Don't worry about it. We knew you'd become an Other some day.'
    'Go on,' I said. It was against the rules, but that was the last thing I was bothered about.
    'Yes . . .' Gennady paused for a moment before he left the Twilight. 'I've been in your home . . . Anton, I return to you your invitation to enter . . .'
    Everything was just as it should be.
    They walked away and I sat down on a bench, beside an old granny warming herself in the sunshine. I lit a cigarette, trying to sort out my thoughts. The granny looked at me and said:
    'Nice people, aren't they, Arkasha?'
    She was always getting my name wrong. She only had two or three months left to live, I could see that quite clearly now.
    'Not exactly . . .' I said. I smoked three cigarettes, then trudged off into the building. I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching the grey 'vampire's trail' fade away. I'd just learned how to see it that very day . . .
    I moped into the evening. I leafed through my notes, which meant I had to withdraw into the Twilight. In the ordinary world, the pages of those standard exercise books were a pure, unsullied white. I wanted to call our group's supervisor or the boss himself – I was his personal responsibility. But I felt I had to make the decision myself.
    When it was dark I couldn't stand it any longer. I went up to the next floor and rang the bell. When Kostya opened the door, he shuddered. But he actually looked perfectly ordinary, like all of his family . . .
    'Call your parents, will you?' I asked.
    'What for?' he muttered.
    'I want to invite you all for tea.'
    Gennady appeared behind his son's back, out of nowhere, he was far more skilful than me, the newly fledged adept of the Light.
    'Are you sure, Anton?' he asked doubtfully. 'There's no need. Everything's okay.' 'I'm sure.'
    He paused and then shrugged.
    'We'll come round tomorrow. If you invite us. Don't rush things.'
    By midnight I was feeling absolutely delighted they'd refused. At three I tried to get to sleep, reassured in the knowledge that they couldn't enter my home and never would be able to.
    In the morning, still not having slept a wink, I stood at the window, looking out at the city. There weren't many vampires. Very few, in fact. There wasn't another within a radius of two or three kilometres.
    How did it feel to be an outcast? To be punished, not for committing a crime, but for the potential ability to commit it? And how did it feel for them to live . . . well, not live, some other word was required here . . . alongside their own guard?
    On the way back from classes I bought a cake for tea.
     
    And now here was Kostya, a fine, intelligent young man, a physics student at Moscow University, who had the misfortune to have been born a living corpse, sitting beside me and