The Nightwatch

  "Svetlana… I hope you don't mind me asking," I said, looking away guiltily. "Have you got problems of some kind?"

  "Where did you get that idea, Anton?" she asked, continuing to write and not even glancing in my direction. But she tensed up.

  "Just a feeling. Has someone offended you somehow?"

  The girl put down her pen and looked at me with curiosity and gentle sympathy in her eyes.

  "No, Anton. There's nothing. I expect it's just the winter. The winter's too long."

  She gave a forced smile and the Inferno vortex swayed above her head, shifting its stalk greedily…

  "The sky's gray, the world's gray. And I don't feel like doing anything… everything seems meaningless. I'm tired, Anton. It'll pass when spring comes."

  "You're depressed, Svetlana," I blurted out before I realized that I'd drawn the diagnosis out of her own memory. But she didn't pay any attention.

  "Probably. Never mind, when the sun peeps out… Thanks for feeling concerned, Anton."

  This time her smile was more genuine, but it was still pained.

  I heard Olga's voice whispering through the Twilight:

  "Anton, it's down ten centimeters! The vortex is losing height! The analysts are working on it, Anton. Keep talking to her!"

  What was I doing right?

  That question was more terrifying than "What am I doing wrong?" Make a mistake, and all you have to do is make a sharp change of approach. But if you've hit the target without knowing how you did it, then you're in a real fix. It's tough being a bad shot who's hit the bull's-eye by chance, struggling to remember how you moved your hands and screwed up your eyes, how much pressure your finger applied to the trigger… and not wanting to believe that the bullet was directed to the target by a random gust of wind.

  I caught myself sitting and looking at Svetlana. And she was looking at me. Seriously, without speaking.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, Svetlana, forgive me. I came barging in late in the evening, and now I'm interfering in your private life…"

  "That's all right, Anton. Actually, I like it. How would you like some tea?"

  "Down twenty centimeters, Anton! Say yes!"

  Even those few centimeters skimmed off the height of the vortex were a gift from the gods. They were human lives. Tens or even hundreds of lives snatched away from the inevitable catastrophe. I didn't know how I was doing it, but I was increasing Svetlana's resistance to the Inferno. And the vortex was beginning to melt away.

  "Thanks, Svetlana. I'd love some."

  The girl got up and went into the kitchen. I followed her. What was going on here?

  "Anton, we have a provisional analysis…"

  I thought I glimpsed the white silhouette of a bird through the curtained window—it flitted on along the wall, following Svetlana.

  "Ignat followed the usual plan. Compliments, interest, infatuation, love. She liked it, but it made the vortex grow. You're using a different approach—sympathy. Passive sympathy."

  No recommendations followed, which meant the analysts hadn't reached any conclusions yet. But at least now I knew what I had to do next: look at her sadly, smile sympathetically, drink tea, and say: "Your eyes look tired, Sveta…"

  We'd be talking to each other like friends, right? Of course we would. I was certain of that.

  "Anton?"

  I'd been staring at her too long. Svetlana was standing by the stove, not moving, holding a kettle with its shiny surface dulled by condensation. She wasn't exactly frightened, that feeling was already beyond her, completely drained out of her by the black vortex. It was more like she was embarrassed.

  "Is something wrong?" she asked.

  "Yes. It feels awkward, Svetlana. I just turned up in the middle of the night, dumped my problems on you, and now I'm hanging around, waiting for tea…"

  "Anton, please stay. You know, I've had such a strange day, and being here alone… Let's call it my fee for the consultation, shall we? That is… you staying for a while and talking to me," she explained hastily.

  I nodded. Any word might be a mistake.

  "The vortex has shrunk another fifteen centimeters. You've chosen the right tactic, Anton!"

  But I hadn't chosen anything, why couldn't those lousy analysts understand that! I'd used the powers of an Other to enter someone else's home; I'd interfered with someone else's memory so I could stay there longer… and now I was just going with the flow.

  And hoping the current would bring me out where I needed to be.

  "Would you like some jam, Anton?"

  "Yes…"

  A mad tea party! Move over, Lewis Carroll! The maddest tea parties aren't the ones in the rabbit's burrow, with the Mad Hatter, the Sleepy Dormouse, and the March Hare around the table.

  A small kitchen in a small apartment, tea left over from the morning, topped up with boiling water, raspberry jam from a three-liter jar—this is the stage on which unknown actors play out genuinely mad tea parties. This is the place, the only place where they say the words that they would never say otherwise. This is where they pull nasty little secrets out of the darkness with a conjuror's flourish, where they take the family skeletons out of the closet, where they discover the cyanide sprinkled in the sugar bowl. And you can never find a reason to get up and leave, because every time they pour you more tea, offer you jam, and move the sugar bowl a bit closer…

  "Anton, I've known you for a year already…"

  A shadow, a brief, perplexed shadow in the girl's eyes. Her memory obligingly fills in the blanks, her memory hands her explanations for why a man as likeable and good as me is still no more than her patient.

  "Only from my work, of course, but now… I feel I'd like to talk to you somehow… as a neighbor. As a friend. Is that okay?"

  "Of course, Sveta."

  A grateful smile. It's not so easy to use the familiar form of my name. From Anton to Antoshka is too big a step.

  "Thank you, Anton. You know… I just don't know where I am. For the last three days now."

  Of course, it's not so easy to know where you are when you have the sword of Nemesis hanging over you. Blind, furious Nemesis, escaped from the power of the dead gods…

  "Today… never mind…"

  She wanted to tell me about Ignat. She didn't understand what was happening to her, why a chance encounter had almost gotten all the way to the bed. She felt like she was going insane. Everybody who comes within the Others' sphere of activity has thoughts like that.

  "Svetlana, perhaps… perhaps you've fallen out with someone?"

  That was a crude move. But I was in a hurry. I didn't even know why myself; so far the vortex was stable, it was even shrinking. But I was in a hurry.

  "Why do you think that?"

  Svetlana wasn't surprised and she didn't think the question was too personal. I shrugged and tried to explain:

  "It often happens to me."

  "No, Anton. I haven't fallen out with anyone. I've no one to fall out with, and no reason. It's something inside me…"

  That's where you're wrong, girl, I thought. You've no idea how wrong you are. Black vortices the size of the one hanging over you appear only once in every hundred years. And that means someone hates you with the kind of power rarely granted to anyone… even to an Other.

  "You probably need a vacation," I suggested. "To get away somewhere… far away to the back of beyond…"

  When I said that, I realized there was a solution to the problem after all. Maybe not a complete solution; it would still be fatal for Svetlana. She could go away. Out into the taiga or the tundra, to the North Pole. And then it would happen there—the volcano would erupt, the asteroid would hit, or the cruise missile with the nuclear warheads would strike. The Inferno would erupt, but Svetlana would be the only one to suffer.

  It's a good thing that solutions like that are as impossible for us as the murder suggested by the Dark Magician.

  "What are you thinking, Anton?"

  "Sveta, what's happened to
you?"

  "Too abrupt, Anton! Steer the conversation away from that, Anton!"

  "Is it really that obvious?"

  "Yes."

  Svetlana lowered her eyes. Any moment I was expecting Olga to shout that the black vortex had begun its final, catastrophic spurt of growth, that I'd ruined everything, and now I'd have thousands of human lives on my conscience forever… but Olga didn't say a word.

  "I betrayed…"

  "What?"

  "I betrayed my mother."

  She looked at me seriously, not a trace of the disgusting posturing of someone who's pulled some really low-down trick and is boasting about it.

  "I don't understand, Sveta…"

  "My mother's ill, Anton. Her kidneys. She needs regular dialysis… but that's only a half-measure. Well, anyway, they suggested a transplant to me."

  "Why suggest that to you?" I still didn't understand.

  "They suggested I should give my mother one kidney. It would almost certainly be accepted; I even had all the tests done… and then I refused. I'm… I'm afraid."

  I didn't say anything. Everything was clear now. Something about me must have clicked; something about me had made Svetlana feel she could be totally open with me. So it was her mother.

  Her mother!

  " Well done, Anton. The guys are already on their way." Olga's voice sounded triumphant. And so it should—we'd found the Black Magician! "Would you believe it, at first contact nobody felt a thing, they thought there was nothing to her… Well done. Calm her down, Anton, talk to her, comfort her…"

  You can't stop your ears in the Twilight. You have to listen when you're spoken to.

  "Svetlana, you know no one has the right to demand…"

  "Yes, of course. I told my mother, and she told me to forget about it. She said she'd kill herself if I decided to go ahead with it. She said, what difference did it make to her, when she was going to die anyway? And it wasn't worth crippling myself for her. I shouldn't have told her anything. I should have just donated the kidney. She could have found out later, after the operation. You can even give birth with one kidney… there have been cases."

  Kidneys. What nonsense. What a petty problem. One hour's work for a genuine White Magician. But we weren't allowed to heal people; every genuine cure gave a Dark Magician a permit to cast a curse or put the evil eye on someone. And it was her mother… her own mother, who had cursed her, in a split-second emotional outburst, without realizing what she was doing, while she was telling her daughter not even to think about having the operation.

  And that had set the monstrous black vortex growing.

  "I don't know what I ought to do now, Anton. I keep doing stupid things. Today I almost jumped into bed with a stranger." For Svetlana to tell me that must have been almost as difficult as telling me about her mother.

  "Sveta, we can work this out," I began. "The important thing is not just to give up, not punish yourself unnecessarily…"

  "I told her on purpose, Anton! I knew what she'd say! I wanted to be told not to do it! She ought to have cursed me, the damned old fool!"

  Svetlana had no idea how right she was… No one knows what mechanisms are involved here, what goes on in the Twilight, and how being cursed by a stranger is different from being cursed by someone you love, by your son or by your mother. Except that a mother's curse is the most terrible of all.

  "Anton, take it easy."

  The sound of Olga's voice sobered me up instantly.

  "That's too simple, Anton. Have you ever dealt with a mother's curse?"

  "No," I said. I said it out loud, answering Svetlana and Olga at the same time.

  "I'm to blame," said Svetlana, with a shake of her head. "Thanks, Anton, I'm to blame and no one else."

  "I have," the voice said through the Twilight. "Anton, my friend, this looks all wrong! A mother's curse is a blinding black explosion and a large vortex. But it always dissipates in an instant. Almost always."

  Maybe so. I didn't argue with her. Olga was a specialist in curses, and she'd seen all sorts of things. Of course, nobody would wish their own child ill… at least, not for long. But there were exceptions.

  "Exceptions are possible," Olga agreed. "They'll check her mother out thoroughly now. But… I wouldn't count on this being over soon."

  "Svetlana," I asked. "Isn't there any other solution? Some other way to help your mother? Apart from a transplant?"

  "No. I'm a doctor, I know. Medicine's not all-powerful."

  "What if it wasn't medicine?"

  She was puzzled:

  "What do you mean, Anton?"

  "Alternative medicine," I said. "Folk medicine."

  "Anton…"

  "I understand, Svetlana; it's hard to believe," I added hastily. "There are so many charlatans, con men, and psychos out there. But is all of it really lies?"

  "Anton, can you show me one person who has cured a really serious illness?" said Svetlana, looking at me ironically. "Not just tell me about him, but show him to me. And his patients too, preferably before and after treatment. Then I'll believe. I'll believe in anything, in psychics, and healers, in White Magicians and Black Magicians…"

  I couldn't help squirming on my chair. She had the most absolute proof possible of the existence of "black" magic hanging right there over her head, a textbook case.

  "I can show you one," I said. I remembered how they'd brought Danila into the office one time. It was after an ordinary fight—not absolutely standard, but not too heavy either. He'd just been unlucky. They were detaining a family of werewolves for some petty violation of the Treaty. The werewolves could have given themselves up and nothing more would have come of it than a brief joint investigation by the two Watches.

  But the werewolves decided to resist. They probably had an entire trail of bloody crimes behind them that the Night Watch knew nothing about—and now they never would. Danila went in first and got badly mauled. His left lung, his heart, a deep trauma to the liver, one kidney torn right out.

  The boss fixed Danila up, with a helping hand from almost everyone in the Watch who had any strength right then. I was standing in the third circle; our job was not so much to provide the boss with energy as to cut out external influences. But sometimes I took a look at Danila. He kept sinking into the Twilight, either on his own or with the boss. Every time he surfaced into reality his wounds were smaller. It was impressive, but not really all that difficult; after all, the wounds were still fresh and they weren't predestined. But I had no doubt that the boss could cure Svetlana's mother. Even if the line of her destiny broke off in the near future, even if she was definitely going to die. She could be cured. Death would simply be due to other causes…

  "Anton, aren't you afraid to talk like that?"

  I shrugged. Svetlana sighed.

  "If you give someone hope, you become responsible, Anton. I don't believe in miracles. But right now I just might. Doesn't that scare you?"

  I looked into her eyes.

  "No, Svetlana. There are lots of things that scare me. But different things."

  "Anton, the vortex is down by twenty centimeters. The boss says to tell you well done."

  There was something about her voice I didn't like. A conversation through the Twilight isn't like an ordinary one; you can sense emotions.

  "What's happened?" I asked through the dead gray shroud.

  "Keep going, Anton."

  "What's happened?"

  "I wish I could feel so self-assured," said Svetlana. She looked at the window: "Did you hear that? A kind of rustling sound…"

  "The wind," I suggested. "Or someone walking by."

  "Olga, tell me!"

  "Anton, everything's fine with the vortex. It's slowly shrinking. You're increasing her internal resistance somehow. They calculate that by morning the vortex will have shrunk to a theoretically safe size. Then I can get to work."

  "Then what's the problem? There is one, Olga, I can sense it!"

  She didn't answer.

&nbs
p; "Olga, are we partners or not?"

  That worked. I couldn't see the white owl, but I knew her eyes had glinted and she'd glanced toward the windows of our field headquarters, into the faces of the boss and the observer from the Dark Ones.

  "Anton, there's a problem with the boy."

  "With Egor?"

  "Anton, what are you thinking about?" Svetlana asked. It was hard work holding simultaneous conversations in the real world and the Twilight one…

  "Just wishing I could be in two places at the same time."

  "Anton, your mission is far more important."

  "Tell me, Olga."

  "I don't understand, Anton." That was Svetlana again.

  "You know, I've just realized that a friend of mine is in trouble. Big trouble," I said, looking into her eyes.

  "The girl-vampire. She's taken the boy."

  I didn't feel a thing… No emotions, no pity, no anger, no sadness. I just felt cold and empty inside.

  I must have been expecting it. I didn't know why, but I was.

  "But Bear and Tiger Cub are there!"

  "It just happened."

  "And what's happened to him?"

  As long as she hadn't initiated him! Death, simple death. Eternal death was more terrible.

  "He's alive. She's taken him as a hostage."

  "What?"

  That had never happened before. It had simply never happened. Taking hostages was a game human beings played.

  "The girl-vampire's demanding negotiations. She wants a trial… she's hoping to find some way out."

  In my head I gave the vampire ten out of ten for inventiveness. She didn't have a chance of getting away and she'd never had one. But if she could shift all the blame onto her eliminated friend, the one who'd initiated her… I don't know anything, I don't understand a thing. I just got bitten and turned into what I am. I didn't know the rules. I hadn't read the Treaty. I'll be a normal, law-abiding vampire…

  "It might even work!" I thought. Especially if Night Watch made a few concessions. And we would… we had no choice. Every human life had to be protected.

  I even went limp in relief. You might say, what was the kid to me, anyway? If he'd drawn the short straw, he could have been the legitimate prey of vampires and werewolves. That's just the way life is. And I'd have walked on by. Never mind the short straw—how many times had Night Watch gotten there too late, how many people had been killed by the Dark Ones… But it was a strange thing. I was already involved in the struggle for him, I'd stepped into the Twilight and spilled blood. And it wasn't all the same to me anymore. Not by a long way…