Anton attempts to remove the black vortex

Anton Gorodetsky's attempt to remove the black vortex from Svetlana Nazarova is the first decisive, if failed, intervention in the escalating crisis that threatens to destroy Moscow. The attempt, made impulsively in a crowded metro car, exhausts his onyx amulet without destroying the curse, yet it postpones the Inferno and forces the Night Watch to recognize that the vortex is far beyond ordinary magical means.

The Encounter and the Impulse to Act

While riding the circle line on the fifth night of a vampire hunt, Anton senses a sudden cramp running from his toes to the back of his head and immediately spots a young woman in a stylish fur coat with a black vortex spinning above her head—a curse he has not seen in at least three years. He recognizes the vortex as the genuine article, stabilized and set in motion by an experienced Dark Magician, and understands that the girl is already as good as dead. Torn between his primary assignment—tracking a vampire—and the doomed girl, he reaches into his pocket and fingers the smooth onyx amulet, a rod carved out of cool stone. He hesitates, trying to come up with some other course of action, but finds none. Squeezing the amulet tight, he feels a prickly sensation as the stone warms up, giving out its accumulated energy like a coal covered with cold ash but still red hot at the center. When he has drained the amulet completely, he glances at the girl and sees the black twister shuddering, leaning over slightly in his direction—the vortex is so powerful that it possesses a rudimentary intelligence.

The Strike and Its Immediate Effect

Anton strikes, unleashing a blinding flash that could pierce metal or concrete with equal ease. He has never tried striking at a black vortex with such a complex structure before, nor used an amulet with such a powerful charge. The effect is totally unexpected: the feeble curses hanging over other passengers' heads are completely swept away. An elderly woman who had been rubbing her forehead looks at her hand in amazement as her vicious migraine suddenly disappears; a young guy who had been gazing dully out the window shudders, his face relaxing and the look of hopeless misery disappearing from his eyes. But the black vortex above the girl is merely tossed back five meters, slipping halfway out of the carriage, before it maintains its structure and comes zigzagging back through the air to its victim. Anton realizes this is real power, with real perseverance. He recalls that if a vortex is pushed even two or three meters away from its victim, it gets disoriented and attaches itself to the nearest person, but this vortex comes straight back like a faithful dog running to its master in trouble.

Consequences and the Postponement of Catastrophe

The failed attempt has profound consequences. The train is stopping, and Anton throws one last glance at the vortex—it is back in place, hanging above the young woman's head, spinning even faster. He can do nothing more. However, when Boris Ignatievich later reviews the incident, he reveals that Anton's ill-considered but well-intentioned action has postponed the Inferno for a day or two, buying the Watch precious time. The boss explains that a vortex as strong as this cannot be removed with an amulet and that even he could not have done so; only the person who created it can remove it. The vortex, he warns, cannot act selectively—the girl's doom will not be a brick falling on her head but something far more catastrophic, like a building exploding, an epidemic, or an atom bomb dropped on Moscow by mistake. Because Anton gave way to pity and used the amulet, half of Moscow is not already lying in ruins. The Watch now has a day, maybe two, to find the girl, protect her, and locate the Dark Magician who cast the curse.

Thematic Significance: Pity Versus Calculation

Anton's failed attempt embodies the novel's central ethical tension between the common good and the individual good. He admits to Boris Ignatievich that his first mistake was failing to understand the nature of the mission—he assumed his goal was to track down a vampire, when the basic purpose was to determine his suitability for field work. By draining the amulet in a futile attempt to neutralize the vortex, he contravened the principle of "separate and protect" and botched the mission. Yet the boss counters that when Anton gave way to pity, he acted quite correctly, asserting that ill-considered but well-intentioned actions do more good than actions that are well-considered but cruel. The incident establishes Anton as a character driven by immediate human sympathy rather than strategic calculation, a trait that will define his subsequent choices throughout the novel.