“That’s a shame, Roman,” Egor was saying in the meantime. “But whatever you say. As for performing at your place, maybe we could discuss that now?”
Roman solemnly raised his hand and looked at his massive Patek Philippe watch. He shook his head.
“Sorry, I have business to deal with. I’ve got to run, my friend. Give me a call . . . The day after tomorrow would be best.”
Everything seemed fine, except that the Patek Philippe was made in China and only cost fifty bucks—that is, if it was bought in a market in China. Or maybe one hundred if it was bought in the flea markets of Paris.
I suddenly felt furious.
“There’s no point calling you the day after tomorrow,” I said, picking up my glass and moving my table closer to theirs. “Tomorrow you’ll spend the whole day with a small-time Russian oligarch, trying to persuade him to invest in your restaurant. You’ll waste the last money you have on that, because he doesn’t even like wine and he hates lobster. The day after tomorrow you’ll ask the bank for an extension on your loan. So there’s no point in Egor calling you tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow . . . Or calling you ever.”
Roman looked at me with his mouth hanging open. He had a lump of bloody minced meat clinging to one perfectly white plastic tooth.
“Close your mouth,” I advised him. “And get out of here.”
I put just a tiny little bit of Power into the final words, not enough for it even to be considered an intervention, but enough to make this Russian-born Parisian restaurateur jump to his feet like a scalded cat.
“Gorodetsky, you cheeky rogue!” Egor said delightedly.
“Hello, by the way,” I said.
“Hi!”
To my surprise, he actually sprang to his feet and grabbed me.
“Well now, Gorodetsky, if you tell me that we’ve met by chance . . .”
“Of course not,” I said. “I was looking for you. Forgive me for that.”
Egor gestured dismissively.
“I forgive you. Will you have some wine?”
“I’ve brought my own,” I said, fetching the bottle from the other table. “We bring presents when we go visiting. And you’ve . . .” I began, and hesitated.
“Grown up?” Egor laughed.
“No, you grew up a long time ago. But now you’re all pumped up. All that beefy muscle!”
Egor really did look like an athlete. From the back I’d thought it was just his jacket, but the jacket turned out to have nothing to do with it. It must have been his broad shoulders. Egor had taken swimming lessons as a child, and it looked like he hadn’t spent the last few years lounging on the couch either.
“But you, you’re exactly the same as you were,” said Egor. “Only . . .”
“I’m drinking myself to death?” I asked forlornly. “I’ve been told several times recently . . .”
“You’re tired. You’re bruised, battered, and sad, somehow. Has something happened?”
I nodded.
“I’ll tell you about it. Only let’s sit and have a drink. Let’s have something to eat. I’m straight off the plane. They fed me well, but . . .”
“What has happened?” Egor asked, looking into my eyes. “Maybe I can’t read minds, but it’s written on your face.”
“It’s a crisis,” I said. “To keep it short. Some ancient thingamajig has come back to life and it wants to kill everyone.”
“Chtulhu,” Egor said with a nod.
“Who’s Chtulhu?” I asked, puzzled. “Ah, Lovecraft.”
“You’re way behind the times,” said Egor. “About twenty years behind. You don’t even understand the hairy old jokes. Okay, so some mysterious thingamajig wants to kill everyone. Who is this everyone? The Others?”
“First the Others. Then the people. Maybe even the animals too. Basically everyone.”
“He’s probably some kind of botanist,” Egor said. “His goal is to protect the world of plants.”
“You ought to write comic books. You have a powerful imagination, and your nerves are even stronger.”
“I had a difficult childhood.” Egor chuckled. “Anton, what have you come for? Tell me.”
“I want to initiate you,” I said morosely.
“Of course, Paris is a broad-minded city,” said Egor. “The very place for proposals like that.”
“Egor, you have to become an Other. Believe me!”
“I can help somehow with the fight against your Chtulhu, is that it?” Egor said. “I haven’t forgotten the way you lined me up for the very lowest level of Power for the rest of my life.”
“Egor, it would still be great. You’d extend your lifespan very significantly. Become absolutely unrivaled in your profession. You could help your family and loved ones . . .”
“Anton, I’m fairly young and I’m already a very well-known illusionist,” said Egor. “If my bank account’s empty at the moment, that’s no tragedy. I’ve got two offers, one from the Cirque du Soleil. If I accept it, I’ll be paid a good advance immediately. You can tell I’m not lying, can’t you? Then I’ll go on. I have a wife, and I really love her. I’ve been unfaithful to her a few times, it’s true, I’ve cursed and sworn at her sometimes, but I love her. I have a son, he’s three years old.”
“Congratulations,” I said awkwardly. “That’s—”
“Thanks. By the way, we called him Anton.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
“Well, after all, those were the most vivid impressions of my childhood,” Egor continued with a smile. “We couldn’t call him Gesar, or Zabulon. Anton’s a good name and it’s quite common in France too; in the kindergarten they call him Antoine.”
“That’s very touching . . .” I began.
“And my wife’s beloved grandfather is called Anton too,” Egor said with an ironic smile. “Thanks for the concern, but I still don’t want to become an Other.”
“When you end up in the hospital with a heart attack, or your car skids on the road, you’ll regret it,” I warned him.
“No doubt. But for now, I don’t want to do it.”
I drained my glass. Good wine.
“Egor, you’re not only a weak Other. You’re a potential Mirror.”
“And what does that mean?” he asked with a frown.
“If there’s a serious imbalance between the Darkness and the Light, you’ll change. You’ll turn into a Mirror Magician, whose Power is unlimited and always equal to the Power of his opponent—Light or Dark, depending on the situation. It’s extremely difficult to defeat someone like that.”
“So far I don’t see any cause for panic,” said Egor.
“You’ll change spontaneously. Without any initiation. You’ll lose part of your memory and you’ll act, consciously or otherwise, as the Twilight wishes.”
“Now that does sound unpleasant,” Egor admitted.
“And when you’ve performed your function—the one imposed on you by the Twilight—you’ll disappear.”
“I’ll die?” Egor asked, twirling his glass in his fingers.
“I don’t know. You’ll simply disappear. Be disembodied.”
Egor said nothing for a while. Then he nodded.
“Yes. That’s certainly not good news.”
“And it could happen,” I said. “We have information. Basically, the group that can halt the apocalypse has to include a Mirror Magician. That’s why I’m suggesting initiation. A Light One, a Dark One . . . What’s the difference in the Twilight? If you become an Other, you can’t turn into a Mirror Magician.”
“And who’ll become one instead of me?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “We’ll find someone, I’m sure of it.”
“You’ve changed, Anton,” Egor said in a quiet voice. “Become more flexible. So in fact you don’t have any other candidates, apart from me? But you’re prepared to initiate me so that I won’t be killed?”
“Yes. Because—” I stopped short.
“Because you’re stuffed full of comple
xes and doubts, like a genuine member of the Russian intelligentsia,” Egor blurted out. “In your mind I’m still the little boy who was set up by your wonderful boss. Sixteen years ago you had your face stuck in the fact that good isn’t necessarily good, evil isn’t always evil, and you weren’t clad in white robes, but tattered jeans and a shirt with a dirty collar.”
“You know where you can stick your psychoanalysis,” I said, getting worked up and raising my voice.
“And although you’ve come to terms with it and gotten used to playing hide-and-seek with your conscience, you still don’t feel completely at ease with it!” Egor shouted. “The way you all exploited me was the first dirty trick that you noticed. Not really much of a dirty trick, if you think about it. A mere trifle, really. But it obviously still rankles you. You want to put a final and complete end to that story. Rescue me triumphantly, for instance. And then you’ll feel better. As though when that little compromise with your conscience disappears, it will erase all the others that followed. Right?”
For a moment I wanted to thump Egor in the face. Really wallop him. I even started getting up and something probably flickered in my eyes—Egor narrowed his own eyes slightly and tensed up.
“Ne vous disputez, les filles!” the owner said merrily, setting my food down in front of me. The two little medallions of veal were decorated with three slices of fried potato, a sprig of parsley, and intricate twirls of berry sauce. Then he leaned against my shoulder slightly. But he leaned hard. And glanced briefly into my face. His eyes were dark and heavy. Oh, these clowns, I never did trust them!
“Why don’t you hit him with a fireball?” Egor suggested with a smile. He turned toward the owner and said, “C’est de ma faute.” Then he glanced at me again and said, “Now look where we’ve gotten to. They all think we’re pansies!” Then he spoke to the owner again: “Désolé!”
“Désolé,” I echoed. People really were giving us disapproving sideways glances. Not, of course, because they’d taken us for a couple having an argument—it’s simply not comme il faut to argue that loudly. Not proper.
The owner smiled—it was a broad smile, artificial through and through, like all clowns’ smiles—and walked away.
I started fiddling with a veal medallion.
Egor took a sip of wine.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” Egor said simultaneously.
We looked at each other and laughed. And a moment later the entire little restaurant turned toward us and started applauding.
“Oh, my sainted mother,” I said. “They really do think—”
“Gorodetsky, here in Paris you must never disappoint the expectations of the audience,” Egor said with a theatrical sigh. “Now we’ll have to become genuine Europeans.”
“Listen, I’m teleporting out of here right now . . .” I began.
“Where to, where to?” Egor inquired. “Are you abandoning me?”
And that triggered an absolutely idiotic fit of laughter from both of us. Surrounded by benevolent French smiles, it all really was very funny, but I could only hope that the story would never become known in the Watch.
They’d be sniggering at me for fifty years!
“So what about initiation?” I asked, chewing on a medallion. “Will you do it or not?”
“Of course. I’ll go with you . . . Where do you need the Mirror?”
“I don’t know yet. We’re probably meeting in Moscow. Egor, do you realize what you’re getting into?”
“Anton, you explained to me that the end of the world is expected in a week. And I—or someone like me—can prevent it. Even if it does cost my life. Do you think I really have any choice? Can any normal person have a choice in that situation?”
I shook my head.
“Of course I’ll go,” said Egor, chewing his veal. “And the food here is only middling. It’s not bad, but . . . I had a much better chef in mind. It was a good idea—the Illusion Restaurant!”
“If we survive this, I’ll find an investor for you,” I said. “Only you have to make the restaurant ‘Other-friendly.’ That’s a partnership program we have.”
“Done,” Egor said with a nod. “But I won’t survive. Basically, I think I was supposed to be left back there in that passageway—white and drained of blood. You were just in too much of a hurry.” He chuckled. “And you gave me sixteen extra years. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that. And you didn’t even really know what to do; you had a look of absolute horror on your face.”
“You remember?” I asked.
“Of course. I’ve never forgotten it for a moment. And I never doubted that sooner or later it would all end like this.”
“All what?” I asked stupidly.
“Everything. It has all been . . . unreal. Borrowed time. A loan. Everything went wrong, but I’m still alive. It all feels like make-believe.”
“I’m sorry, Egor,” I said.
“Ah, come on, Watchman. I stopped feeling angry long ago.”
“We all live on borrowed time,” I said.
“Let’s just say it’s a term loan. That sounds more respectable.” Egor looked around to find the owner, who kept glancing across at us, and gestured in the air with his finger, as if he was signing the bill. The owner nodded and leaned down over his cash register. “We can go straight to Moscow now.”
“But don’t you want to say good—” I said and broke off. “To see your wife and son before you leave?”
“My wife and son are in Nice,” Egor said with a smile. “She’s not expecting me to call.”
“But you told me you loved her!”
“And I wasn’t lying, Anton. Only I didn’t say that she still loves me . . .”
My phone rang, sparing me the need to reply.
It was Pavel.
“Anton, I’m off duty now,” he said, yawning. “But Gesar told me to call you at a quarter past eight and say that two tickets have been booked for the Paris-Moscow flight departing at ten thirty. For you and Egor.”
“I see,” I said. “Have you got the tickets?”
“Yes. Are you going to curse and swear at Gesar?”
“No.”
“Then good night.”
I put the phone in my pocket and nodded to Egor.
“You’ve convinced me, we’ll go right now. Here in Paris, do you usually phone for a taxi, or stop one in the street?”
CHAPTER 4
I WALKED INTO GESAR’S OFFICE AT TEN THE NEXT MORNING. We had flown in from Paris that morning, and then I had taken Egor to the Economic Achievements Exhibition district, where his mother still lived. Only then did I go home and grab barely two hours’ sleep.
There was something heroic about it.
As there was in the impervious, restrained expression on my face.
“Good morning, boss,” I said. “Egor has come to Moscow, he’s staying with his mother. He’s prepared to take part in our operations if necessary.”
“Good,” said Gesar, studying my face curiously. “Well done, both of you. I’m glad.”
“Can I go?” I asked.
“Hmm,” Gesar said. “Is that all? No questions, arguments, or accusations?”
“No,” I said. “Can I go?”
“Wait,” said Gesar. “Sit down.”
I obediently sat facing him.
“Anton, you have every right to be indignant,” said Gesar. “But let me explain at the very start—there wasn’t even any magic involved! Just psychology. An understanding of the motives that guide people and Others. Only you could have persuaded Egor to come to Moscow and agree to a suicide mission, and then only if you sincerely tried to talk him out of it.”
“Boss, I understand.”
“And so I—” Gesar broke off and frowned. “You really do understand? And you’re not accusing me of anything? And you agree that we need Egor?”
“I feel really, really bad about it,” I said. “We ruined the guy’s life when he was still a child. But the stakes ar
e too high. Neither his life, nor mine, nor yours is of any importance here.”
Gesar said nothing for a moment, twirling a fountain pen in his fingers. For some reason he switched on the laptop on his desk—and immediately slammed the lid shut.
“So I’ll be going then?” I asked. “Or is there some new information?”
“There is,” Gesar said. “I won’t keep you in the dark any longer. I’m sorry. I didn’t notice that you really had grown up.”
“Apology accepted,” I said.
“Also, I’m not entirely sure that we do need a Mirror. The analysts set the odds at thirty percent for a Mirror, twenty for the shapeshifters, and fifty for something that we don’t know yet. Don’t get upset for the boy too soon, there might not be anything for him to do here after all.”
“Thank you for that,” I replied sincerely.
“Last, Olga’s having some problems with our bloodsuckers,” said Gesar. “Go and see her, she wanted to discuss it with you.”
The text message caught me right outside the door of Olga’s office. I took out my phone and glanced at it. I didn’t recognize the number.
“The Grandmothers spent all night thrashing things out. No agreement. The next coven is tomorrow night. Yulia Tarasovna.”
What the hell was this? The world was hurtling toward its end, and these old witches couldn’t even choose themselves a new Great Grandmother! At least temporarily—there was a good chance that none of the Sixth Watch would survive the encounter with the Two-in-One in any case.
Oh no, they were going to gather again and again and argue about which of them was the oldest, most malign, and most repulsive!
I put the phone away and walked into Olga’s office. The Great One was standing at the window, blowing cigarette smoke through a small open pane. It was drawn out into the frosty air in a vigorous stream of gray.