"And don't forget, Anton, if you mess this up… even just a tiny bit, anything at all… you'll be the first to burn. You won't even have enough time to withdraw into the Twilight. You know what happens to Light Ones when they're caught in an Inferno eruption?"
My throat went dry. I nodded.
"Pardon me, my dear enemy," Zabulon said mockingly, "but don't you allow your colleagues the right to choose? In such situations, even in wartime, it has always been usual to call for volunteers."
"We've already made our call for volunteers," the boss snapped without turning around. "We've all been volunteers for a long time already. And we don't have any choice."
"But we do. Always." The Dark Magician laughed again.
"When we acknowledge that human beings have the right to choose, we deprive ourselves of it, Zabulon," said Boris Ignatievich, with a glance at the Dark Magician. "You're playing to the wrong audience here. Don't interfere."
"I say no more." Zabulon lowered his head and shrank down again.
"Give it your best shot," said the boss. "Anton, I can't give you any advice. Try. I beg you, please, try. And… forget everything you've been taught. Don't believe anything I've said; don't believe what you wrote in your course notes; don't believe your own eyes; don't believe what anyone else says."
"Then what do I believe, Boris Ignatievich?"
"If I knew that, Anton, I'd walk straight out of this headquarters and across to that entrance myself."
We both looked out the window at the same moment. The black vortex was still swirling around and around, swaying from side to side. Someone walking along the sidewalk suddenly turned to face into the snow and started making a wide circle around the stalk of the vortex. I noticed a path had already been trodden along the edge of the road: The people couldn't see the Evil straining to strike their world, but they could sense its approach.
"I'll watch Anton," Olga said, "back him up, and maintain communications contact."
"From outside," the boss agreed. "Only from outside… Anton… go. We'll do the best we can to screen you from any kind of observation."
The white owl flew up off the bed and landed on my shoulder.
I glanced at my friends, then at the Dark Magician—he looked like he'd gone into hibernation—and walked out of the room. The noise in the rest of the apartment faded immediately.
They showed me out in total silence, without any unnecessary words, without any shoulder-slapping or helpful advice. After all, what I was doing wasn't such a big deal. I was only on my way to die.
It was quiet.
Too quiet somehow, even for a bedroom community of Moscow at that late hour. As if everyone had shut themselves in at home, turned out the lights, and huddled down with their head under the blanket, keeping quiet, saying nothing. Quiet, but not sleeping. The only movement was the trembling of the blue and red spots in the windows—the TVs were switched on everywhere. It had become a habit already, when you were afraid, when you were suffering—switch on the TV and watch absolutely anything, from the shopping network to the news.
People can't see the Twilight world. But they are capable of sensing how close it is.
"Olga, what can you tell me about this vortex?"
"Nothing definite."
So that was it?
I stood in front of the entrance, watching the stalk of the vortex flexing like an elephant's trunk. I didn't feel like going in just yet.
"When… what size of vortex can you extinguish?"
"Five meters high, and I have a shot at it. Three meters and it's a sure thing."
"And will the girl survive if you do that?"
"She might."
There was something bothering me. In this unnatural silence, with even the cars in the street trying to avoid this doomed district of the city, there were still some sounds left…
Then it hit me. The dogs were howling. In all the apartments in all the buildings on all sides, the miserable dogs were complaining to their owners—in quiet, pitiful, helpless voices. They could see the Inferno moving closer.
"Olga, information about the girl. All of it."
"Svetlana Nazarova. Twenty-five years old. Physician, employed in polyclinic number seventeen. Has never previously come to the attention of the Night Watch. Has never previously come to the attention of the Day Watch. No magical powers detected. Her parents and younger brother live in Brateevo; she maintains occasional contact with them, mostly by phone. Four girlfriends, currently being checked, so far nothing exceptional. Relations with other people equable; no serious hostility observed."
"A doctor," I said thoughtfully. "That's a lead, Olga. Some old man or old woman dissatisfied… with their treatment. There's usually an upsurge of latent magical powers in the later years of life…"
"That's being checked out," Olga replied. "So far nothing's turned up."
There was no point; it was stupid making wild guesses; people cleverer than I am had already been working on the girl for half a day.
"What else?"
"Blood group O. No serious illnesses, occasional mild cardiac arrhythmia. First sexual contact at the age of seventeen, with one of her peers, out of curiosity. She was married four months; has been divorced for two years; relations with her ex-husband have remained equable. No children."
"The husband's powers?"
"He hasn't any. Neither does his new wife. That's the first thing that was checked."
"Enemies?"
"Two female ill-wishers at work. Two rejected admirers at work. A school friend who tried to get a fake sick-note six months ago."
"And?"
"She refused."
"Well, well. And how much magic have they got?"
"Next to none. Their malevolence quotient is ordinary. They all have only weak magical powers. They couldn't create a vortex like this one."
"Any patients died? Recently?"
"None."
"Then where did the curse come from?" I asked myself. Yes, now I could see why the Watch had gotten nowhere with this. Svetlana had turned out to be a goody two-shoes. Five enemies in twenty-five years—that was really something to be proud of.
Olga didn't answer my rhetorical question.
"I've got to go," I said. I turned toward the windows where I could see the two guards' silhouettes. One of them waved to me. "Olga, how did Ignat try to work this?"
"The standard approach. A meeting in the street, the 'diffident intellectual' line. Coffee in a bar. Conversation. A rapid rise in the mark's attraction. He bought champagne and liqueur; they came here."
"And after that?"
"The vortex started to grow."
"And the reason?"
"There was none. She liked Ignat; in fact, she was starting to feel powerfully attracted. But at precisely that moment the vortex started to grow catastrophically fast. Ignat ran through three styles of behavior and managed to get an unambiguous invitation to stay the night. That was when the vortex shifted gear into explosive growth. He was recalled. The vortex stabilized."
"How was he recalled?"
I was frozen through already, and my boots felt disgustingly damp on my feet. And I still wasn't ready for action.
"The 'sick mother' line. A call to his cell phone, he apologized, promised to call her tomorrow. There were no hitches; the mark didn't get suspicious."
"And the vortex stabilized?"
Olga didn't answer; she was obviously communicating with the analysts.
"It even shrank a little bit. Three centimeters. But that might just be natural recoil when the energy input's cut off."
There was something in all this, but I couldn't formulate my vague suspicions clearly.
"Where's her medical practice, Olga?"
"Right here, we're in it. It includes this house. Patients often come to her apartment."
"Excellent. Then I'll go as a patient."
"Do you need any help implanting false memories?"
"I'll manage."
"The boss says ok
ay," Olga replied after a pause. "Go ahead. Your persona is: Anton Gorodetsky, programmer, unmarried, under observation for three years, diagnosis—stomach ulcer, resident in this building, apartment number sixty-four. It's empty right now; if necessary, we can provide backup on that."
"Three years is too much for me," I confessed. "A year. One year, max."
"Okay."
I looked at Olga, and she looked at me with those unblinking bird's eyes, and somewhere in there I could still see part of that dirty, aristocratic woman who'd drunk cognac with me in my kitchen.
"Good luck," she said. "Try to reduce the height of the vortex. Ten meters at least… then I'll risk it."
The bird flew up into the air and instantly withdrew into the Twilight, down into the very deepest layers.
I sighed and set off toward the entrance of the building. The trunk of the vortex swayed as it tried to touch me. I stretched my hands out, folding them into the Xamadi, the sign of negation.
The vortex shuddered and recoiled. Not really afraid, just playing by the rules. At that size the advancing Inferno should already have developed powers of reason, stopped being a mindless, target-seeking missile, and become a ferocious, experienced kamikaze. I know that sounds odd—an experienced kamikaze—but when it comes to the Darkness, the term's justified. Once it breaks through into the human world, an inferno vortex is doomed, but it's only a single wasp in a huge swarm that dies.
"Your hour hasn't come yet," I said. The Inferno wasn't about to answer me, but I felt like saying it anyway.
I walked past the stalk. The vortex looked like it was made of blue-black glass that had acquired the flexibility of rubber. Its outer surface was almost motionless, but deep inside, where the dark blue became impenetrable darkness, I could vaguely see a furious spinning motion.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe its hour had come…
The entrance didn't even have a coded lock. Or rather, it had one, but it had been smashed and gutted. That was normal. A little greeting from the Darkness. I'd already stopped paying any attention to its little tricks, even stopped noticing the words and the dirty paw tracks on walls, the broken lamps and the fouled elevators. But now I was wound up tight.
I needn't have asked the address. I could sense the girl—I kept on thinking about her as a girl, even though she'd been married. I knew which way to go; I could even see her apartment, or rather, not see it but perceive it as a whole.
The only thing I didn't understand was how I was going to get rid of that damned twister…
I stopped in front of the door. It was an ordinary one, not metal, very unusual on the first floor, especially in a building where the lock at the entrance is broken. I gave a deep sigh and rang the bell. Eleven o'clock. A bit late, of course.
I heard steps. There was no sound insulation…
Chapter 7
She opened the door right away.
She didn't ask who it was; she didn't look through the spyhole; she didn't put on the chain. In Moscow! And at night! Alone in her apartment! The vortex was devouring the final remnants of the girl's caution, the caution that had kept her alive for several days. That was usually the way people died when they had been cursed…
But to look at, Svetlana still seemed normal. Except maybe for the shadows under her eyes, but who knew what kind of a night she'd had? And the way she was dressed—a skirt, a stylish blouse, heels—as if she were expecting someone or was all set to go out.
"Good evening, Svetlana," I said, already noticing a faint gleam of recognition in her eyes. Of course, she had a vague memory of me from the previous day. And I had to exploit that moment when she'd already realized we knew each other but still hadn't remembered from where.
I reached out through the Twilight. Cautiously, because the vortex was hanging right there above the girl's head as if it were tethered to her, and it could react at any second. Cautiously, because I didn't really want to deceive her.
Not even if it was for her own good.
It's only the first time that's interesting and funny. If you still find it amusing after that, the Night Watch is the wrong place for you. It's one thing to shift someone's moral imperatives, especially when it's always toward the Good. It's quite another to interfere with their memory. It's inevitable; it has to be done; it's part of the Treaty; and through the very process of entering and leaving the Twilight we induce a momentary amnesia in the people around us.
But if you ever start to enjoy toying with someone else's memory—it's time you quit the Watch.
"Good evening, Anton." Her voice blurred slightly when I forced her to remember things that had never happened. "What's happened?"
I smiled sourly and slapped myself on the stomach. By now there was a hurricane raging in Svetlana's memory. My control wasn't so great that I could implant a fully structured false memory in her mind. Fortunately, in this case I could just give her a couple of hints, and from then on she deceived herself. She put my image together out of one old acquaintance I happened to resemble and another person she'd known and liked even earlier than that, but not for long, as well as a couple of dozen patients my age and some of her neighbors in the building. I only gave the process a gentle nudge, helping Svetlana toward an integrated image. A good man… a neurasthenic… quite often unwell… flirts a bit, but no more than a bit—very unsure of himself… lives on the next stairwell.
"You have pain?" She gathered her thoughts. She really was a good doctor, with a real vocation.
"A bit. I had a drink yesterday," I said, trying to look repentant.
"Anton, I warned you… come in…"
I went in and closed the door—the girl hadn't even bothered about that. While I was taking off my coat, I had a quick look around, in the ordinary world and in the Twilight.
Cheap wallpaper, a tattered rug on the floor, an old pair of boots, a light bulb in a simple glass shade on the ceiling, a radio telephone on the wall—cheap Chinese junk. Modest. Clean. Ordinary. And the important thing here wasn't that the profession of district doctor doesn't pay very well. It was more that she didn't feel any need for comfort. That was bad… very bad.
In the Twilight world the apartment made a slightly better impression. No repulsive plant life, no trace of the Darkness. Apart from the black vortex, of course, just hanging there… I could see the entire thing, from the stalk, swirling around above the girl's head, up to the broad mouth, thirty meters higher.
I followed Svetlana through into the only room. At least things were a bit more cozy in here. The couch had a warm orange glow—not all of it though, just the spot by the old-fashioned standard lamp. Two walls were covered with single-box bookshelves stacked on top of each other, seven shelves high… Clear enough.
I was beginning to understand her, not just as a professional target and a potential victim of a Dark Magician, not just as the unwitting cause of a catastrophe, but as a person. An introverted, bookish child, with a mass of complexes and her head full of crazy ideals and a childish faith in the beautiful prince who was searching for her and would surely find her. Work as a doctor, a few girlfriends, a few male friends, and a great deal of loneliness. Conscientious work almost in the spirit of a builder of communism, occasional visits to the cafe and occasional loves. And each evening like every other one, on the couch, with a book, with the phone lying beside her, with the television muttering something soapy and comforting.
How many of you there still are, girls and boys of various ages, raised by naive parents in the sixties. How many of you there are, so unhappy, not knowing how to be happy. How I long to take pity on you, how I long to help you. To touch you through the Twilight—gently, with no force at all. To give you just a little confidence in yourself, just a tiny bit of optimism, a gram of willpower, a crumb of irony. To help you, so that you could help others.
But I can't.
Every action taken by Good grants permission for an active response by Evil. The Treaty! The Watches! The balance of peace in the world?
I have to live with it or go crazy, break the law, walk through the crowd handing out unsolicited gifts, changing destinies, wondering which corner I'll turn and find my old friends and eternal enemies, waiting to dispatch me into the Twilight. Forever…
"Anton, how's your mother?"
Ah, yes. As Anton Gorodetsky, the patient, I had an old mother. She had osteochondrosis and a full set of old folks' ailments. She was Svetlana's patient too.
"Not too bad, she's okay. I'm the one who's…"
"Lie down."
I pulled off my shirt and sweater and lay down on the couch. Svetlana squatted down beside me. She ran her warm fingers over my stomach and even palpated my liver.
"Does that hurt?"
"No… not now."
"How much did you drink?"
As I replied to the girl's questions, I looked for the answers in her mind. No need to make it look like I was dying. Yes… I had dull pains, not too sharp… After food… I'd just had a little twinge…
"So far it's just gastritis, Anton…" said Svetlana, taking her hands away. "But that's bad enough, you know that. I'll write you a prescription…"
She got up, walked to the door, and took her purse off the hanger.
All this time I was observing the vortex. There was nothing happening; my arrival hadn't triggered any intensification in the Inferno, but it hadn't done anything to weaken it either…
"Anton …" I recognized the voice coming through the Twilight as Olga's. "Anton, the vortex has lost three centimeters of height. You must have made a right move somewhere. Think, Anton."
A right move? When? I hadn't done anything except invent a reason to visit!
"Anton, do you have any of your ulcer medicine left?" Svetlana asked, looking across at me from the table. I nodded as I tucked in my shirt.
"Yes, a few capsules."
"When you get home, take one. And buy some more tomorrow. Then take them for two weeks, before sleep."
Svetlana was obviously one of those doctors who believe in pills. That didn't bother me, I believed in them too. All of us—the Others, that is—have an irrational awe of science; even in cases when elementary magical influence would do the job, we reach out for the painkillers and the antibiotics.