The Twilight Watch (3 page)

'Nadya
is
a human being,' I said, feeling myself starting to get
angry. 'Whether or not she becomes an Other is for her to decide
. . . Most Lucent Gesar.'

Gesar realised that I was all set to blow too. And he changed
his tone.

'Okay. That's your right. Pull out of the fight, ruin the little
girl's life . . . Anything you like! But where does this hate come
from?'

'What did Sveta say?' I asked.

Gesar sighed:

'Your wife phoned me. On a number that she has no right to
know . . .'

'Then she doesn't know it,' I put in.

'And she told me I intended to have you killed! That I was
hatching a highly complicated plot for your physical elimination!'

I looked into Gesar's eyes for a second. Then I laughed.

'You think it's funny?' Gesar asked in a pained voice. 'You really
think so?'

'Gesar . . .' I said, struggling to suppress my laughter. 'I'm sorry.
May I speak frankly?'

'By all means . . .'

'You are the greatest schemer I know. Worse than Zabulon.
Compared to you, Machiavelli was a mere pup . . .'

'Don't be so quick to underestimate Machiavelli,' Gesar growled.
'I get the idea, I'm a schemer. And?'

'And I'm sure you have no intention of having me killed. In
a crisis, perhaps, you might sacrifice me. In order to save a
commensurately greater number of people or Light Others. But
not that way . . . by planning . . . and intriguing . . . I don't
believe it.'

'Thanks, I'm glad to hear it,' Gesar said with a nod. I couldn't
tell if I'd nettled him or not. 'Then what on earth has Svetlana
got into her head? I'm sorry, Anton . . .' Gesar suddenly hesitated
and even looked away. But he finished what he was saying: 'Are
you expecting a child? Another one?'

I choked and shook my head:

'No . . . at least, I don't think so . . . no, she would have told
me!'

'Women sometimes go a bit crazy when they're expecting a
child,' Gesar growled and started fingering his glass beads again.
'They start seeing danger everywhere – for the child, for their
husband, for themselves . . . Or maybe now she has . . .' But then
the Great Magician got really embarrassed and stopped himself
short 'That's rubbish . . . forget it. Why don't you pay your wife
a visit in the country, play with your daughter, drink some milk
fresh from the cow . . .'

'My holiday ends tomorrow,' I reminded him. There was something
not right here. 'And I thought the idea was that I was going
to work today.'

Gesar stared hard at me:

'Anton, forget about work. Svetlana shouted at me for fifteen
minutes. If she was a Dark One, there'd be an Inferno vortex
hanging over my head right now! That's it, work's cancelled. I'm
extending your holiday for a week – go to the country to see
your wife.'

In the Moscow department of the Watch we have a saying:
'There are three things a Light Other can't do: organise his own
personal life, achieve worldwide peace and happiness, and get time
off from Gesar'.

To be honest, I was quite happy with my personal life, and now
I'd been given an extra week of holiday.

So maybe worldwide peace and happiness were only just around
the corner?

'Aren't you pleased?' Gesar asked.

'Yes,' I admitted. No, I wasn't inspired by the prospect of
weeding the vegetable beds under the watchful eye of my
mother-in-law. But Sveta and Nadya would be there. Nadya,
Nadyenka, Nadiushka. My little two-year-old miracle. A lovely
little human being . . . Potentially an Other of immense power.
An enchantress so very Great that Gesar himself couldn't hold
a candle to her. I imagined the Great Light Magician Gesar
standing there holding a candle, so that little Nadya could play
with her toys, and grinned.

'Call into the accounts office, they'll issue you a bonus . . .'
Gesar continued, not suspecting the humiliation I was subjecting
him to in my mind. 'Think up the citation for yourself. Something
like . . . for many years of conscientious service . . .'

'Gesar, what kind of job was it?' I asked.

He stopped talking and tried to drill right through me with
his gaze. When he got nowhere, he said:

'When I tell you everything, you will phone Svetlana. From
here. And you'll ask her if you should agree or not. Okay? And
you tell her about the extra holiday too.'

'What's happened?'

Instead of replying, Gesar pulled open the drawer of his desk,
took out a black leather folder and held it out to me. The folder
had a distinct aura of magic – powerful, dangerous battle magic.

'Don't worry, open it, you've been granted access,' Gesar
murmured.

I opened the folder – at that point any unauthorised Other or
human being would have been reduced to a handful of ash. Inside
the folder was a letter. Just one single envelope.

The address of our office was written in newsprint, carefully
cut out and stuck onto the envelope.

And naturally there was no return address.

'The letters have been cut out of three newspapers,' said Gesar.
'
Pravda
,
Kommersant
and
Arguments and Facts
.'

'Ingenious,' I remarked. 'Can I open it?'

'Yes, do. The forensic experts have already done everything they
can with the envelope – there aren't any fingerprints. The glue
was made in China and it's on sale in every newspaper kiosk.'

'And it's written on toilet paper!' I exclaimed in delight as I
took the letter out of the envelope. 'Is it clean at least?'

'Unfortunately,' said Gesar. 'Not the slightest trace of organic
matter. Standard cheap pulp. "Fifty-four metres", they call it.'

The sheet of toilet paper had been carelessly torn off along the
perforation and the text was glued onto it in different-sized letters.
Or rather, in entire words, with a few endings added separately,
and with no regard for the typeface:

'The NIGHT WATCH should BE INTERESTED to know
that a CERTAIN Other has REVEALed to a CERTAIN human
being the entire truth about oTHErs and now inTENDs to turn
this human beING into an OTHER. A wellWISHer.'

I would have laughed, but somehow I didn't feel like it. Instead,
I remarked perspicaciously:

'"Night Watch" is written in complete words . . .'

'There was an article in
Arguments and Facts
,' Gesar explained.
'About a fire at the TV Tower. It was called "NIGHT WATCH
ON THE OSTANKINO TOWER".'

'Clever,' I agreed. The mention of the tower gave me a slight
twinge. That hadn't exactly been the best time of my life . . . I
would be haunted forever by the face of the Dark Other I threw
off the TV Tower in the Twilight . . .
^*

^*
See
The Night Watch
, Story Two

'Don't get moody, Anton, You didn't do anything wrong,' said
Gesar. 'Let's get down to business.'

'Let's do that, Boris Ignatievich,' I said, calling the boss by his
old 'civilian' name.

'Is this for real then?'

Gesar shrugged.

'There's not even a whiff of magic from the letter. It was either
composed by a human being, or by a competent Other who can
cover his tracks. If it's a human being, then there has to be a leak
somewhere. If it's an Other, then it's a totally irresponsible act of
provocation.'

'No traces at all?' I asked again to make sure.

'None. The only clue is the postmark.' Gesar frowned. 'But that
looks very much like a red herring.'

'Was the letter sent from the Kremlin then?' I quipped.

'Almost. The postbox the letter was left in is located on the
grounds of the Assol complex.'

Great tall buildings with red roofs – the kind that Comrade
Stalin would have approved of. I'd seen them. But only from a
distance.

'You can't just go walking in there!'

'No, you can't,' Gesar said with a nod. 'So, in sending the letter
from the Assol residences after all this subterfuge with the paper,
the glue and the letters, our unknown correspondent either
committed a crude error . . .'

I shook my head.

'Or he's leading us onto a false trail . . .' At this point Gesar
paused, observing my reaction closely.

I thought for a moment. And then shook my head again:

'That's very naïve. No.'

'Or the "wellwisher",' Gesar pronounced the final word with
frank sarcasm, 'really does want to give us a clue.'

'What for?' I asked.

'He sent the letter for some reason,' Gesar reminded me. 'As
you well understand, Anton, we have to react to this letter somehow.
Let's assume the worst – there's a traitor among the Others who
can reveal the secret of our existence to the human race.'

'But who's going to believe him?'

'They won't believe a human being. But they will believe an
Other who can demonstrate his abilities.'

Gesar was right, of course. But I couldn't make sense of why
anyone would do such a thing. Even the most stupid and malicious
Dark One had to understand what would happen after the
truth was revealed.

A new witch hunt.

And people would gladly cast both the Dark Ones and the
Light Ones in the role of witches. Everyone who possessed the
abilities of an Other . . .

Including Sveta. Including little Nadya.

'How is it possible "to turn this human being into an Other"?'
I asked. 'Vampirism?'

'Vampires, werewolves . . .' Gesar shrugged. 'That's it, I suppose.
Initiation is possible at the very crudest, most primitive levels of
Dark power, but it would have to be paid for by sacrificing the
human essence. It's impossible to make a human being into a magician
by initiation.'

'Nadiushka . . .' I whispered. 'You rewrote Svetlana's Book of
Destiny, didn't you?'

Gesar shook his head:

'No, Anton. Your daughter was destined to be born a Great
One. All we did was make the sign more precise. We eliminated
the element of chance.'

'Egor,' I reminded him. 'The boy had already become a Dark
Other . . .'

'But we erased the specific quality of his initiation. Gave him
a chance to choose again,' Gesar replied. 'Anton, all the interventions
that we are capable of have to do only with the choice of
"Dark" or "Light". But there's no way we can make the choice
between "human" or "Other". No one in this world can do that.'

'Then that means we're talking about vampires,' I said. 'Supposing
the Dark Ones have another vampire who's fallen in love . . .'

Gesar spread his hands helplessly:

'Could be. Then everything's more or less simple. The Dark
Ones will check their riff-raff, it's in their interest as much as ours
. . . And yes, by the way, they received a letter too. Exactly the
same. And sent from Assol too.'

'How about the Inquisition, did they get one?'

'You get shrewder and shrewder all the time,' Gesar laughed.
'They also got one. By post. From Assol.'

Gesar was clearly hinting at something. I thought for a moment
and drew yet another shrewd conclusion.

'Then the investigation is being conducted by both Watches
and the Inquisition?'

There was a brief flicker of dissatisfaction in Gesar's glance.

'Yes, that's the way it is. When it's absolutely necessary, in a
private capacity, it is permissible to reveal yourself as an Other to
human beings. You've seen yourself . . .' he nodded towards the
door through which his visitors had left. 'But that's a private matter.
And the appropriate magical limitations are imposed. This situation
is far worse than that. It looks as if one of the Others intends
to trade in initiations.'

I imagined a vampire offering his services to rich New Russians
and smiled. 'How would you like to drink the people's blood for
real, my dear sir?' But then, it wasn't all about blood. Even the
very weakest vampire or werewolf possesses power. They have no
fear of disease. They live for a very, very long time. And their physical
strength shouldn't be forgotten either – any werewolf would
beat Karelin and give Tyson a good whipping. And then there was
their 'animal magnetism', the 'call' that they had such complete
control over. Any woman was yours for the taking, just summon
her.

Of course, in reality, both vampires and werewolves were bound
by numerous restrictions. Even more so than magicians – their
instability required it. But did a newly initiated vampire really
understand that?

'What are you smiling at?' Gesar asked.

'I just imagined an announcement in a newspaper. "I will turn
you into a vampire. Safe, reliable, a hundred years' guarantee. Price
by arrangement".'

Gesar nodded.

'Good thinking. I'll have the newspapers and internet notice-boards
checked.'

I looked at Gesar, but I couldn't tell whether he was joking.

'I don't think there's any real danger,' I said. 'Most likely some
crackpot vampire has decided to earn a bit of money. Showed
some rich man a few tricks and offered to . . . er . . . bite him.'

'One bite, and all your troubles are over,' Gesar said.

Encouraged, I continued:

'Someone . . . for instance, this man's wife, found out about the
terrible offer. While her husband hesitates, she decides to write to
us, hoping that we'll eliminate the vampire and that her husband
will remain a human being. Hence the combination of letters cut
out of newspapers and the post office in Assol. A cry for help. She
can't tell us openly, but she's literally begging us: Save my husband!'

'You hopeless romantic,' Gesar said disapprovingly. 'So then she
takes a pair of nail scissors, and snippety-snips the letters out of
the latest
Pravda
. . . Did she get the addresses out of the newspapers
too?'

'The address of the Inquisition!' I exclaimed, suddenly realising
the problem.

'Now you're thinking. Could you send a letter to the Inquisition?'

I didn't answer. I'd been put firmly in my place. Gesar had told
me straight out about the letter to the Inquisition!