The Nightwatch

  "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 apologizing to anyone before. But I had no time to be surprised; the elevator had finally arrived.

  I pressed the button for the top floor and automatically reached for the little button-earphones. Strange, 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. 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 elevator stopped.

  I jumped out onto 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 broken the trapdoor out.

  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 wedged in firmly. "So technology's all nonsense, is it?" I thought. "We'll see about that, Olga."

  I cast my shadow upward, 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; it tried to creep away.

  "Anton!"

  When I stepped out onto 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 single step I was chilled to the bone.

  "Anton, we're here!"

  Tiger Cub was standing about ten meters 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, but it's not torn the human world either. In her human form the girl weighed maybe fifty kilograms, maybe a bit more. The young tigress poised in combat stance on the icy roof must have weighed a centner and a half. Her aura was a flaming orange and there were sparks wandering lazily over 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. At that spot it was scraped right through to the concrete… someone would get flooded come spring…

  "Come closer, Anton," the tigress roared, without turning around. "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 the pictures and children's 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 take the form of a pigeon-toed brown Russian bear (when we arranged a carnival for the Watch's American guests), and the form of a grizzly, at our demonstration classes on transformation.

  The girl-vampire was standing right on the edge of the roof.

  She looked worse, a lot worse since the first time I met her. Her features were even sharper now and her cheeks were hollow. During the first stage of the body's transformation, a vampire requires 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 agonizing for her, but it didn't take away 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 for negotiations.

  "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 two he was counting on most. The vampire had one arm around the boy's chest, holding him tight against her, and she was holding her other hand against his throat, with its claws extended. The situation wasn't that hard to assess. Stalemate. Both sides stymied.

  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 incomparably 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 around—her neck easily turned the full three hundred and sixty degrees. Oho! 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 stupid young 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 a single 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 armored 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-vampire said triumphantly. "Trickery!"

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

  "What right have you to talk about trickery?"

  "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 'good must have hard fists' only applies in old poems by a ridiculed poet, you just keep right 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; we'd never be able to understand each other. She was dead. Her life was someone else's death. I was alive. But from where she stood, it was all the other way around.

  "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 Darkness… where were you when my blood was drunk?"

  Bear shifted forward slightly. A tiny little step, as if he hadn't moved his powerful paws at all, just slid when the wind pushed him. I knew he'd continue slipping forward like that for another ten minutes, the same way he had been doing for an entire hour since the standoff 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 Darkness, not for young Svetlana, with the curse hanging over her, not for the entirely 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-story building? "It would have been good to die—honestly. But the person who signed the license… the one who earmarked me as food. Was he acting honestly?"

  Light and Darkness…

  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 rip off heads; they can 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 naive 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.

  In a war the most dangerous thing is to understand the enemy. To understand is to forgive. And we have no right to do that—we never have had, not since the creation of the world.

  "Even so, you still had a choice," I said. "You did. Someone else's betrayal is no excuse for your own."

  She laughed quietly.

  "Yes, yes… good servant of the Light… Of course. You're right. And you can tell me a thousand times that I'm dead. That my soul has burned away and evaporated into the Twilight. But if I'm so malevolent, can you explain to me what the difference is between us! Explain that… make me believe it."

  The vampire lowered her head and looked into Egor's face. She spoke in an intimate, almost friendly tone:

  "And you… boy… do you understand me? Answer me. Answer me honestly, don't take any notice of… my claws. I won't take offense."

  Bear made another tiny movement forward. I could feel his muscles tensing as he prepared to pounce.

  But then Semyon appeared behind the vampire, without making a sound, with a movement that was smooth and quick at the same time—how did he manage to move that fast in the human world?

  "Wake up, little one!" the vampire said coaxingly. "Answer! Only honestly! And if you think he's right and I'm wrong… if you really believe that… I'll let you go."

  I caught Egor's eye.

  And I knew what he was going to say.

  "You're right too."

  A cold, empty feeling. No strength left for emotions. Let them show on the outside, let them blaze like a bonfire that people couldn't see.

  "What do you want?" I asked. "To exist? All right… give yourself up. There'll be a trial, a joint court of the Watches…"

  The girl-vampire looked at me and shook her head:

  "No, I don't trust your court. Not the Night Watch or the Day Watch."

  "Then why did you call me here?" I asked. Semyon was moving toward the vampire, getting closer all the time…

  "For vengeance," the vampire said simply. "You killed my friend. I'm going to kill yours… while you watch. And then… I'm going to try… to kill you. But even if I fail…" She smiled. "… you'll always know you didn't save the boy. Won't you, watchman? You sign licenses without thinking about real people. And the moment you do look… out creeps your morality… your rotten, false, cheap morality…"

  Semyon pounced.

  And Bear pounced in the same instant.

  It was beautiful, and it was faster than any bullet or any spell, because in the final analysis all that's left is the body striking the blow and the skill acquired over twenty, forty, a hundred years…

  But I still pulled the pistol out from behind me and jerked the trigger back, knowing that the bullet would fly through the air slowly and lazily, like a "high-speed" shot from a cheap action movie, still leaving the vampire a chance to dodge, a chance to kill.

  Semyon flattened out in the air, as if he'd hit a wall of glass, and slid down an invisible barrier, shifting into the twilight as he went. Bear was flung off to one side—and he was far more massive. The bullet, crawling toward the vampire with all the grace of a dragonfly, flared up in a bright petal of flame and disappeared.

  If it wasn't for the way the vampire's eyes were slowly opening wider and wider, I might have thought she'd conjured up the protective shield herself… But that's something only the most powerful magicians can do…

  "They are under my protection…" a voice said behind my back.

  I swung around—and met Zabulon's gaze.

  It was amazing that the vampire didn't panic. It was amazing she didn't kill Egor. The unsuccessful attack and the sudden appearance of the Dark Magician must have been much more of a surprise to her than to us, because I'd been half-expecting something from the moment I took off the amulet.

  I wasn't surprised he'd gotten there so fast. The Dark Ones have their own pathways. But why had Zabulon, the observer from the Dark Side, preferred this little tussle to staying in our headquarters? Had he lost interest in Svetlana and the vortex hanging over her head? Did he know something that we didn't?

  That damned habit of trying to calculate everything in advance! The field operatives had it beaten out of them by the very nature of their work. Their work was all instant response to danger, battle, victory, or defeat.

  Ilya had taken out his magic wand. Its pale-lilac glo
w was too bright for a third-grade magician and too steady for me to believe he could have charged it. The boss had probably charged it himself.

  So he must have been expecting something?

  He must have been expecting someone to turn up with powers that matched his own?

  Neither Tiger Cub nor Bear changed their form. Their magic didn't require any external devices, and certainly not human bodies. Bear kept his eyes fixed on the vampire, totally ignoring Zabulon. Tiger Cub stood beside me. Semyon walked slowly around the vampire, rubbing his waist and deliberately making sure she saw him. He left the Dark Magician to us too.

  "They?" Tiger Cub growled.

  It took me a moment to realize what was bothering her.

  "They are under my protection," Zabulon repeated. The magician was wrapped in a shapeless black coat, and his head was covered with a crumpled black beret of dark fur. He had his hands in his pockets, but somehow I was certain there was nothing there, no amulets, no pistols.

  "Who are you?" screeched the girl-vampire. "Who are you?"

  "Your protector and mentor," said Zabulon, looking at me. Not even straight at me, more a casual glance past me. "Your master."

  Had he gone insane? The girl-vampire had no idea of the balance of forces here. She was wound up, ready to blow. She had been prepared to die… to end her existence. Now she suddenly had a chance to survive, but the way he spoke…

  "I have no masters!" The girl whose life depended on other peoples' death laughed. "Whoever you are—from the Light, or from the Darkness—remember that! I have no masters and never will!"

  She began backing away toward the edge of the roof, dragging Egor after her. Still clutching him with one arm, holding the other hand at his throat. A hostage… a good move against the forces of Light.

  And maybe against the forces of Darkness too?

  "Zabulon, we accept," I said, laying my hand on the tense muscles of Tiger Cub's back. "She is yours. Take her—until the trial. We honor the Treaty."

  "I am taking them," said Zabulon, gazing forward blindly. The wind was lashing into his face, but the magician's unblinking eyes remained wide open, as if they were made of glass. "The woman and the boy are ours."