The Night Watch (16 page)

'How long has she been asking for me?'

'About ten minutes.'

I looked into Svetlana's eyes. Dry, calm, not a single tear. The hardest thing of all is when pain is hidden behind a mask of calm.

'Sveta, would you mind if I went now?'

She shrugged.

'This is all so stupid . . .' I said. 'It seems to me that you need help right now. At least someone who can listen to you. Or is willing to sit beside you and drink cold tea.'

A faint smile and a barely perceptible nod.

'But you're right, there is someone else who needs help.'

'Anton, you're strange.'

I shook my head:

'Not just strange. Very strange.'

'I have this feeling . . . I've known you for a long time, but it's like we'd never met before. And then – it's like you're talking to me and someone else at the same time.'

'Yes,' I said. 'That's it exactly.'

'Maybe I'm going insane.'

'No.'

'Anton . . . this wasn't just a chance visit, was it?'

I didn't answer. Olga whispered something and stopped talking. The gigantic vortex rotated slowly above Svetlana's head.

'No, it wasn't,' I said. 'I came to help.'

If the Dark Magician who had cursed her was watching us . . . That is, if it wasn't just an accidental 'mother's curse', but a calculated blow struck by a professional. . .

We looked at each other without saying anything.

I had the feeling I could almost grasp what was really going on here. The answer was there, right beside me, and all our theories were stupid nonsense, we were following the old rules and maps that the boss had asked me to disregard. But to do that, I needed to think, I had to cut myself off for at least a second from what was going on, stare at a blank wall or a mindless TV screen and stop feeling torn between the desire to help one small human being or tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Stop swinging one way then the other trying to resolve this lousy mess, which would still turn out badly whichever way the cards fell, and the only difference it would make to me was that I would die quickly when the blast of the Inferno flung me into the grey expanses of the Twilight world, or slowly and painfully, kindling the dull flame of self-contempt in my own heart.

'Sveta, I've got to go,' I said.

'Anton!'
It wasn't Olga, it was the boss.
'Anton . . .'

He stopped, he couldn't give me any orders, the situation was an ethical impasse. The girl vampire was obviously sticking to her demands and refusing to negotiate with anyone except me. If he ordered me to stay, the boss would condemn the young hostage to death. He couldn't order me, he couldn't even ask me.

'We're organising your withdrawal. . .'

'Better just tell the vampire I'm coming.'

Svetlana reached out and touched my hand:

'Are you going away for ever?'

'Till the morning,' I said.

'I don't want you to go,' she said simply.

'I know.'

'Who are you?'

An express introduction to the mysteries of the universe? The same scene all over again?

'I'll tell you in the morning. Okay?'

'You're out of your mind,'
said the boss's voice.

'Do you really have to go away?'

'Don't say that!'
Olga shouted. She'd sensed what I was thinking.

But I said it anyway.

'Sveta, when they suggested you should mutilate yourself to prolong your mother's life, and you refused . . . You did what was right, what was rational, didn't you? But now you're suffering. And the pain's so bad, it would have been better to act irrationally.'

'If you don't go now, will you suffer?'

'Yes.'

'Then go. Only come back, Anton.'

I got up from the table, leaving my cold tea. The Inferno vortex swayed above us.

'I will, for sure,' I said. 'And believe me . . . the situation isn't hopeless.'

Neither of us said another word. I went out of the apartment and began walking down the stairs. Svetlana closed the door behind me. That silence . . . That deathly silence, even the dogs had howled themselves out that night.

Irrational, I thought, I'm being irrational. If there's no ethically correct solution, act irrationally. Did someone tell me that? Have I just remembered a line from my old course notes, a phrase from a lecture? Or am I looking for excuses?

'The vortex . . .'
Olga whispered. Her voice was almost unrecognisable, husky. I wanted to press her head against my shoulder.

I pushed the door to the building open and stepped out on to the icy pavement. The owl circled above my head like a bundle of white fluff.

The Inferno vortex had shrunk, it was shorter. Not a lot, relative to its overall height, but enough so that I could see it, maybe one and a half or two metres.

'Did you know that would happen?'
asked the boss.

I looked up at the vortex and shook my head. Just what was going on here? Why had the Inferno reacted by growing larger and stronger when Ignat showed up? Putting people into a mellow state of mind was his speciality. Why had my aimless conversation and unexpected departure made the vortex shrink?

'It's time I sacked that group of analysts,'
said the boss. I realised he'd said it to everyone, not just me.
'When will we have a working hypothesis for what's going on?'

A car suddenly appeared from the direction of Zelyony Avenue, catching me in the glare of its headlights. Its tyres squealed as it bounced clumsily over the bumps of broken tarmac and stopped beside me. The hot-orange, low-slung, sporty cabriolet looked ridiculous, surrounded by the prefabricated, multi-storey blocks of a city where the best way of getting around was still a jeep.

Semyon stuck his head out on the driver's side and nodded:

'Get in. I've been told to drive you like the wind.'

I looked round at Olga and she sensed my glance.

'I've got a job to do here. Go.'

I walked round the car and got into the front. Ilya was sprawled in the back – the boss must have decided the Tiger Cub-Bear double act needed reinforcements.

'Anton,'
said Olga's voice, pursuing me through the Twilight.
'Remember . . . you made a deal today. Don't forget that, not for a single moment. . .'

I didn't understand at first what she was talking about. The witch from the Day Watch? What had she got to do with anything?

The car jerked, scraping across the hummocks of ice. Semyon swore with relish as he twisted the wheel and the car began crawling toward the avenue with an indignant roar.

'What halfwit did you get this car from?' I asked. Driving around in this in this weather . . .'

Ilya laughed.

'Shshsh! Boris Ignatievich has lent you his very own car.'

'Are you serious?' I asked, turning to face him. The boss was always delivered to work in his office BMW. I'd never realised he had a penchant for impractical luxury.

'It's the truth. Antosha, how did you manage that?' Ilya nodded in the direction of the vortex hanging above the houses. 'I never realised you had powers like that!'

'I never touched it. Just talked to the girl.'

'Talked? You mean you didn't fuck her?'

That was Ilya's usual way of talking when he was feeling tense about something. And he had plenty of reasons for feeling tense just then. But it still made me wince. I thought what he said sounded strained ... or maybe he just hit a raw nerve.

'No. Ilya, don't talk like that.'

'Sorry,' he said flippantly. 'So what did you do?'

'I just talked.'

The car finally hurtled out onto the avenue.

'Hold tight,' said Semyon curtly. I was pressed back in my seat. Ilya lolled about behind me, taking out a cigarette and lighting up.

Twenty seconds later I realised that my previous ride had been no more than a lazy jaunt.

'Semyon, has the probability of an accident been deleted?' I shouted. The car hurtled through the night, as if it was trying to overtake the beams of its own headlights.

'I've been driving for seventy years,' Semyon said contemptuously. 'I drove trucks on the Road of Life during the siege of Leningrad!'

There was no reason to doubt what he said, but the thought crossed my mind that those journeys had been less dangerous. He hadn't been moving this fast, and predicting where a bomb's going to fall is no great challenge for an Other. There weren't many cars around now, but there were some, the road was terrible, to put it mildly, and our sports car was never meant for conditions like this.

'Ilya, what happened over there?' I asked, trying to tear my eyes away from a truck swerving out of our path. 'Have you been posted on that?'

'You mean with the vampire and the kid?'

'Yes.'

'We did something stupid, that's what happened,' said Ilya, and then he swore. 'Maybe not really all that stupid . . . We'd done everything right. Tiger Cub and Bear introduced themselves to the kid's parents as their favourite distant relatives.'

'"We're from the Urals"?' I asked, remembering our course on social contacts and how to get to know people.

'Yes. Everything was going fine. The table was set, the drink was flowing, they were pigging out on Urals delicacies . . . from the nearest supermarket. . .'

'They were really having a great time.' That note in Ilya's voice didn't sound like envy, more like enthusiastic approval of his colleagues. 'Everything was just fine. The kid sat with them some of the time, some of the time he was in his room . . . How could they know he was already able to enter the Twilight?'

I felt a cold shudder.

Well, how could they have known?

I hadn't told them. And I hadn't told the boss. Or anyone. I'd been satisfied with pulling Egor out of the Twilight and sacrificing a little of my own blood. A hero. The solitary warrior in the field.

Ilya went on, not suspecting a thing.

'The vampire hooked him with the Call. Very neatly too, the guys felt nothing. And firmly . . . the kid never made a sound. He entered the Twilight and climbed up on to the roof.'

'How?'

'Over the balconies. He only had to climb up three floors. The vampire was already waiting for him. And she knew the boy was under guard – the moment she took him, she revealed herself. Now the parents are sound asleep and the vampire's standing there with her arms round the kid, while Tiger Cub and Bear are going out of their minds.'

I didn't say anything. I didn't have anything to say.

'Our stupid mistake,' Ilya concluded. 'And a combination of unforeseen circumstances with potentially fatal consequences. Nobody had even initiated the kid . . . How could anyone know he could enter the Twilight?'

'I knew.'

Perhaps it was my memories that did it, or perhaps I was just frightened by our terrible speed as the car raced along the highway, but I looked into the Twilight.

People are so lucky that they can't see this – ever! And so unlucky that they will never be able to see it.

A high, grey sky, where there have never been any stars, a sky as glutinous as milk jelly, glowing with a ghastly, wan light. The outlines of everything have softened and dissolved – the buildings, covered with a carpet of blue moss, and the trees, with branches that sway regardless of which way the wind's blowing, and the streetlamps, with the birds circling above them, barely moving their short wings. The cars coming towards you move really slow, the people walking along the street are hardly even moving their feet. Everything appears through a grey light filter, everything sounds as if your ears are plugged with cotton wool. A silent, black and white movie, an eerie, elegant director's cut. The world from which we draw our strength. The world that drinks our life. The Twilight. Whoever you really are when you enter it, that's who you are when you come out. The grey gloom dissolves the shell that has been growing over you all your life, extracts the core that people call the soul and tests its quality. And that's when you'll feel yourself crunching in the jaws of the Twilight, you'll feel the chilly, piercing wind, as corrosive as snake venom . . . and you'll become an Other.

And choose which side to take.

'Is the boy still in the Twilight?' I asked.

'They're all in the Twilight,' said Ilya, diving in there after me. 'Anton, why didn't you tell them?'

'It never occurred to me. I didn't think it was that important. I'm not a field operative, Ilya.'

He shook his head.

We find it impossible, or almost impossible, to reproach each other. Especially when someone's really messed up. There's no need, our punishment is always there, all around us. The Twilight gives us more strength than humans can ever have, it gives us a life that is almost immortal in human terms. And it also takes it all away when the time comes.

In one sense we all live on borrowed time. Not just the vampires and werewolves who have to kill in order to prolong their strange existence. The Dark Ones can't afford to do good. And we can't afford the opposite.

'If I don't pull this off. . .' I didn't finish the sentence. Everything was already clear anyway.

S
EEN THROUGH
the Twilight it actually looked beautiful. Up on the roof, the flat roof of that absurd 'box on stilts', I could see different-coloured patches of light. The only things that have any colour in there are our emotions. And there were plenty of those around.

The brightest of all was the column of crimson flame that pierced the sky – the vampire's fear and fury.

'She's powerful,' Semyon said simply, glancing up at the roof and kicking the car door shut. He sighed and started taking off his coat.

'What are you doing?' I asked.

'I'll go up the wall. . . over the balconies. I advise you to do the same, Ilya. Only you go in the Twilight, it's easier.'

'And how are you going?'

'The ordinary way. There's less chance she'll notice. And don't you two worry ... I was climbing mountains for sixty years. I took the fascist flag down from Mount Elbrus.'

Semyon stripped to his shirt and threw his clothes on to the bonnet. Then he cast a swift protective spell to cover the clothes and the car.

'Are you sure?' I asked.

Semyon laughed, did a few squats and swung his arms around like an athlete warming up. Then he jogged across to the building, with the fine snow settling on his shoulders.

'Will he make it?' I asked Ilya. I knew how to climb the wall of a building in the Twilight. In theory. But an ascent in the ordinary world, and with no equipment. . .

'He ought to,' said Ilya, but he didn't really sound convinced. 'When he swam through the underground channel of the River Yauza ... I didn't think he'd make it then, either.'

'Thirty years practising underwater swimming,' I said glumly.

'Forty ... I'll get going then, Anton. How are you going up, in the lift?'

'Yup.'

'Okay . . . don't keep us waiting.'

He shifted into the Twilight and ran after Semyon. They were probably going to climb different walls, but I didn't really want to know who was going which way. My route was waiting for me, and it wasn't likely to prove any easier.

'Why did you ever have to find me, boss?' I whispered as I ran up to the building. The snow crunched under my feet, the blood pounded in my ears. I took my pistol out of its holster on the run and took off the safety catch. Eight explosive silver bullets. That ought to be enough. As long as I hit the target. I just had to seize the moment when I had a chance to take the vampire by surprise and not wing the boy.

'Sooner or later someone would have met you, Anton. If not us, then the Day Watch. And they had just as good a chance of taking you.'

I wasn't surprised he was keeping tabs on me. Firstly, this was a serious business. And secondly, after all, he was my first mentor.

'Boris Ignatievich, if anything happens . . .'
I buttoned up my jacket and stuck the barrel of the pistol into my belt behind my back.
'About Svetlana . . .'

'They ran an exhaustive check on her mother, Anton. No. She's not capable of casting a curse. No powers at all.'

'No, that wasn't what I meant, Boris Ignatievich . . . I just had this thought. I didn't pity her.'

'And what does that mean?'

'I don't know. But I didn't pity her. I didn't pay her any compliments. I didn't make any excuses for her.'

'I understand.'

'And now . . . disappear, please. This is my job.'

'Okay. I'm sorry for turning you out into the field. Good luck, Anton.'

I couldn't remember the boss ever apologising to anyone before. But I had no time to be surprised, as the lift had finally arrived.

I pressed the button for the top floor and automatically reached for my earphones dangling on their lead. Oddly, there was music coming through them. When had I turned on the walkman?

And what trick will chance play me? All will be decided
later, for some he is no one,
For me he is my lord,
I stand in the darkness, for some I am a shadow,
For others I am invisible

I love Picnic's music. I wonder if Shklyarsky's ever been tested to see if he's an Other. He ought to be . . . But then, maybe not. Let him keep singing.

I dance out of time, I've done everything wrong,
Not regretting the fact
That today I'm like a shower that never fell,
A flower that never blossomed.
I, I, I – I am invisible.
I, I, I – I am invisible. Our faces are like smoke, our faces are smoke.
And no one will learn how we conquer . . .

Maybe I could take that last line as a good omen.

The lift stopped.

I got out on to the top-floor landing and looked up at the trapdoor in the ceiling. The lock had been torn off, quite literally – the shackle was flattened and stretched. The vampire wouldn't have needed to do that, she'd probably flown to the roof. The boy had climbed up over the balconies.

So it must have been Tiger Cub or Bear. Most likely Bear – Tiger Cub would have ripped the trapdoor out completely.

I pulled off my jacket and dropped it on the floor with the murmuring walkman. I felt for the pistol behind my back – it was firmly wedged. So technology's all nonsense, is it? I thought. We'll see about that, Olga.

I cast my shadow upwards, projecting it into the air. I reached up and slid swiftly into it. Once I was in the Twilight, I started climbing the ladder. The thick, clumpy blue moss covering the rungs felt spongy under my fingers, and tried to creep away.

'Anton!'

When I stepped out on to the roof I even hunched over a bit, the wind up there was so strong. Wild, icy gusts – either an echo of the wind in the human world or some fantastic whim of the Twilight. At first I was sheltered from it by the concrete box of the lift shaft, projecting above the level of the roof, but the moment I took a step I was chilled to the bone.

'Anton, we're here!'

Tiger Cub was standing about ten metres away. For a moment the sight of her made me envious; there was no way she was feeling the cold.

I don't know where shape-shifters and magicians get the mass for transforming their bodies. It doesn't seem to come from the Twilight, nor from the human world either. In her human form the girl weighed maybe fifty kilos, maybe a bit more. The young tigress poised ready to fight on the icy roof must have weighed a hundred and fifty kilos. Her aura was a flaming orange and there were sparks wandering lazily across the surface of her fur. Her tail was twitching left and right in a regular rhythm, the right front paw was scraping regularly at the bitumen of the roof and had scraped right through to the concrete . . . someone would get flooded come spring.

'Come closer, Anton,' the tigress growled, without turning round. 'There she is!'

Bear was standing closer to the vampire than Tiger Cub. He looked even more terrifying. For this transformation he'd chosen the form of a polar bear, but unlike the real inhabitants of the Arctic he was snowy white, just like in children's picture books. No, he had to be a magician, not a reformed shape-shifter. Shape-shifters were limited to only one form, two at most, and I'd seen Bear as a pigeon-toed brown Russian bear (when we arranged a carnival for the Watch's American guests), and as a grizzly at our demonstration classes on transformation.

The girl vampire looked terrible, a lot worse than the first time I met her. Her features were even sharper now and her cheeks were hollow. During the first stage of their body's transformation vampires require fresh blood almost constantly. But I wasn't about to be fooled by the way she looked: her exhaustion was just her appearance, it was agonising for her, but it didn't reduce her strength. The burn mark on her face was almost gone, I could just make out a faint trace.

'You!' the vampire's voice rang out triumphantly – as if she'd summoned me to be slaughtered, not to negotiate.

'Yes, me.'

Egor was standing in front of the vampire, she was using him to shield herself from our operatives. The boy was in the Twilight she'd summoned, so he hadn't lost consciousness. He stood still, not saying anything, looking from me to Tiger Cub and back. We were obviously the ones he was counting on most. The vampire had one arm round the boy's chest, holding him tight against her, and she had her other hand at his throat, with its claws extended. The situation wasn't hard to assess. Stalemate.

If Tiger Cub or Bear tried to attack the vampire, she'd tear the kid's head off with a single sweep of her hand. There's no cure for that . . . not even with our powers. On the other hand, once she killed the boy, there'd be nothing to stop us.

It's a mistake to drive your enemy into a corner. Especially if you're going to kill him.

'You wanted me to come. So I've come.' I raised my hands to show they were empty and started walking forward. When I was midway between Tiger Cub and Bear the vampire bared her fangs:

'Stop!'

'I haven't got any poplar stakes or combat amulets. I'm not a magician. And there's nothing I can do to you.'

'The amulet! The amulet on your neck!'

So that was it. . .

'That's nothing to do with you. It protects me against someone vastly superior to you.'

'Take it off!'

Oh, this was bad . . . really bad. I grabbed the chain, pulled the amulet off and dropped it at my feet. Now, if he wanted to, Zabulon could try to influence me.

'I've taken it off. Now talk. What do you want?'

The vampire twisted her head right round – her neck easily turned the full three hundred and sixty degrees. I'd never even heard of that one ... I don't think our fighters had either: Tiger Cub growled.

'There's someone sneaking up here!' The vampire's voice was still human – the shrill, hysterical voice of a foolish girl who has acquired great strength and power by accident. 'Who is it? Who?'

She pressed her left hand, the one with the extended claws, into the boy's neck. I shuddered, picturing what would happen if one drop of blood was spilled. The vampire would lose control. She pointed to the edge of the roof with her other hand in a ludicrous gesture of accusation – like Lenin on his armoured car.

'Tell him to come out!'

I sighed and shouted:

'Ilya, come out. . .'

Fingers appeared on the edge of the roof and a moment later Ilya swung over the low barrier and stood beside Tiger Cub. Where had he been hiding? On the canopy of a balcony? Or had he been hanging there, clutching the strands of blue moss?

'I knew it!' the girl said triumphantly. 'A trick!'

It seemed like she hadn't sensed Semyon. Maybe our phlegmatic friend had spent a hundred years training in ninja techniques.

'What right have you to talk about tricks?'

'Every right!' Something human flickered briefly in the vampire's eyes. 'I know how to deceive! You don't!'

Fine, fine. You know how, we don't, I thought. Just you keep on believing that. If you believe the only place for 'white lies' is in sermons, that's just fine. If you think that the words 'good must have hard fists' belong in old poems by a ridiculed poet, you just keep on thinking that way.

'What do you want?' I asked.

She paused for a moment, as if she hadn't given it any thought:

'To live!'

'Too late. You're already dead.'

'Really? And can the dead rip people's heads off?'

'Yes. That's all they can do.'

We looked at each other, and it was strange, so pompous and theatrical – the whole conversation was absurd, after all, as we'd never be able to understand each other. She was dead. Her life was in someone else's death. I was alive. But from where she stood, it was all the other way round.

'I'm not to blame for this.' Her voice had suddenly become calmer and softer. The hand on Egor's neck relaxed slightly. 'You, the ones who call yourselves the Night Watch . . . who never sleep at night, who claim the right to protect the world against the Dark . . . where were you when my blood was drunk?'

Bear shifted forward slightly. A tiny movement, as if he hadn't shifted his powerful paws at all, just slipped when the wind pushed him. I knew he'd carry on sliding forward like that for another ten minutes, the same way he'd been doing for an entire hour since the stand-off began. Until he thought he had a good enough chance. Then he'd pounce . . . and if he was lucky, he'd be able to tear the kid out of the vampire's arms with no more harm done than a couple of broken ribs.

'We can't keep track of everybody,' I said. 'It's just not possible.'

This was terrible ... I was starting to feel sorry for her. Not for the boy who'd been caught up in the game played between Light and Dark, not for young Svetlana, with the curse hanging over her, not for the innocent city that would bear the full brunt of that curse ... I was feeling sorry for the vampire. It was a good question – where were we that night? The ones who call ourselves the Night Watch . . .

'In any case you still had a choice,' I said. 'And don't tell me you didn't. Initiation can only take place by mutual consent. You could have died. Died honestly. As a human being.'

'Honestly?' The vampire shook her head, scattering her hair across her shoulders. Where was Semyon? . . . How hard could it be to climb to the roof of a twelve-storey building? 'It would have been good to die – honestly. But the person who signed the licence . . . the one who earmarked me as food. Was he acting honestly?'

Light and Dark . . .

She wasn't simply the victim of a vampire on the rampage. She'd been marked down as prey, chosen by a blind throw of the dice. She had been destined to give up her life for the continuation of someone else's death. But that young guy who had crumbled into a heap of dust at my feet when he was incinerated by the seal had fallen in love with her. Really fallen in love . . . and he hadn't completely sucked out the girl's life, he'd turned her into his equal.

The dead can do more than tear off heads, they can fall in love too. The trouble is that even their love requires blood.

He'd had no choice but to conceal her, since he'd turned the girl into a vampire illegally. He'd needed to feed her, and only live blood would do for that, not the bottled blood of naïve donors.

So he'd started poaching on the streets of Moscow, and then we'd started to pay attention, the keepers of the Light, the valiant Night Watch, who hand victims over to the Dark Ones.