And the next moment they started tearing into us.
The Watchmen didn’t try anything fancy—they used the “Press” and tried to crush us with sheer power. Knowing Svetlana, I was sure her shield was charged to the hilt, but it held for about three seconds, and that was all. In that time Svetlana had managed to put up another Shield and I poured everything that I still had left into it—but even this Shield only lasted for a couple of seconds too.
Then we were swept through the classroom, through the burned and frozen doorway, out into the corridor, and into a central heating radiator that was set at just the wrong spot under a window. It’s a good job it wasn’t the old ribbed, cast-iron kind, but even the modern duralumin didn’t exactly feel soft. The blow knocked the breath out of me and for a moment everything went black. A second later I came around and caught Svetlana’s glance.
It was a long time since she’d given me a look like that—confused and pitiful.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I miscalculated somewhere . . .”
The Watchmen walked toward us, leaving Nadya in the Freeze for the time being. They weren’t hurrying, but they weren’t wasting any time either. The flames on them had gone out. The Dark Other was brushing flakes of soot off his coat as he walked.
“Denis,” I said, struggling to my feet. “Denis, come to your senses. I’m Anton Gorodetsky. We work in the same Watch. We’re . . . friends.”
“How can we be friends, we’ve only seen each other maybe three times,” Denis replied with a smile.
And again this was so crazy, so bizarre that I felt like screaming. He was acting normal!
I stepped back, pressing against the wall, and my spine nuzzled against a hot central-heating pipe. I reached for the reserves of Power that I had come to think of as inexhaustible since I became a Higher Other. Ah but no! They’d been wiped out, totally exhausted. In a minute, or maybe two, the Power would start accumulating in me again—but I didn’t have those minutes.
The two Watchmen took each other by the hand again. Was that essential or did it just make the magic easier for them?
In despair, I reached out, trying to draw Power from Nadya’s classmates, but they were in an enchanted sleep, and in that state people are very poor donors. Nadya was right there—a genuinely inexhaustible source of Power—but she was sealed off by the Freeze.
“Here,” Svetlana whispered, and I caught the little scrap of energy she sent me. An absolutely tiny little scrap. Worthy of some Seventh-Level Other, not a Higher Light Enchantress. Svetlana smiled helplessly, as if apologizing to me.
The hot central-heating pipe was burning me painfully from ankle to shoulder blade. A thick, strong pipe.
I swung around and the final scrap of Power that Svetlana had poured into me sliced through the pipe at the floor and the ceiling. I tore the pipe out—two jets spurted upward and downward out of the stumps, dousing me with scalding hot water. I could only be thankful that steam central-heating systems are forbidden in schools.
Taking a swing across the entire width of the corridor, I smashed that three-yard pipe into the Light Magician Denis’s neck. Something crunched, he gave a muffled sort of bark, and his head slumped over at an angle that you never see in anyone who’s alive, no matter if they’re people or Others.
But Denis had no intention of dying. He started spinning along the corridor, holding his head up with his hands as if he was trying to straighten it out. As if his skull had slipped off some bearing on his spine, and he could simply set it back in place.
The Dark One struck out anyway, but he had been put off his aim. The hot water gushing out of the stumps of the pipe instantly froze into an icy stalactite and stalagmite. But there was no time to admire the sight—I jabbed the Dark One in the stomach and heaved with a furious howl, driving him back and smashing him against the wall of the corridor. The pipe slid across the Dark One’s stomach, slipping into the hole left by the White Spear. I even heard the crash as the pipe hit the wall . . .
There was a short, awkward pause—behind me ice crunched as Svetlana tried uncertainly to get to her feet. The Light Magician Denis was careering around the corridor, trying to hoist his head back up into place. The Dark One gazed at me with huge round eyes, stuck to the wall by the pipe like a beetle impaled on a pin.
Then things took another bad turn.
Svetlana fell. Apparently she’d taken a really hard hit. The Dark One grabbed hold of the pipe and started walking toward me, moving hand over hand and feeding the pipe through himself. And Denis’s head snapped into place with a crunch. I cast a sideways glance at him—the Light Watchman was giving me a very bad look. An offended kind of look.
“Sveta, run!” I shouted, realizing that she wasn’t going to run anywhere if she couldn’t even get up. I would have shouted: “Jump out the window!”—but that reminded me too much of Nadya’s unsuccessful attempt to escape.
“You’re finished!” said Denis. The tone of his voice had changed; it sounded as if my blow had damaged his vocal cords. “I’m going to turn you inside out . . .”
I don’t think it was just a figure of speech. I myself could have come up with two or three spells that produced the very same unappetizing effect.
But at that very moment everything changed again.
A shadow came hurtling out of absolutely nowhere, from out of the shade and patches of light. I couldn’t make out the face, or even the figure, the vampire was moving so fast. I only saw the dark aura of the undead.
The vampire broke Denis’s neck again—actually broke it. I heard that terrible crunch that’s impossible to forget. And then hurled him along the full length of the corridor—the Light Other went tumbling head over heels almost as far as the stairs. The next moment the pipe was torn out of my hands; it wrapped itself twice around the Dark One and pierced him through again. The Dark One yelled—probably more out of indignation than out of pain—and set off toward the stairwell after Denis.
I was expecting the deranged Watchmen to attack again. But nothing of the sort. The Dark One helped Denis up and they both disappeared into the stairwell.
I took a step toward Svetlana and sat down beside her on the floor. My hands were shaking, and my legs too. Most likely a psychological reaction—I felt naked stripped of my Power.
The vampire was gone.
“There,” Svetlana said, and ran her tongue over her lips. “And you were afraid. She wasn’t hunting you . . . or Nadya . . . She was protecting us.”
“She?” I asked. “Did you get a good look at her?”
“No. But that powerful emotional drive. Absolutely feminine. Don’t you think so?”
I took hold of her hand.
“How are you?”
“I could really, really do with some magic right now,” said Svetlana. “Preferably in the next two or three minutes.”
“Why, what’s wrong with you?”
“A broken rib,” she said with a smile. “And it’s bad. My heart’s punctured.”
“Hell . . .” I gasped, moving toward the classroom on my knees. “Hell and damnation . . . hang on . . . Just don’t do anything stupid!”
“A couple of minutes. I promise,” Svetlana said in a faint voice.
I ran to our frozen Nadya just as I was, on my knees. And then I got up and reached out with my lips to my daughter’s forehead.
Left on its own the Freeze would have dispersed toward evening.
But with a kiss, it instantaneously melted away.
I had to hang on to Nadya with all the weight of my body, to stop her from leaping out of the window. For her nothing had happened—she was dashing toward the window, then suddenly her wet, disheveled, crazy-looking father appeared out of nowhere and almost knocked her down onto the floor.
“Nadya . . . your mother’s in the corridor, hurry!” I growled, collapsing onto the nearest chair. A girl who looked like the class egghead was sitting beside me, snoring. I felt like switching off and going to sleep too, as if all the adr
enaline in my blood had turned to valerian drops.
But Nadya was already in the corridor. I sensed a flash of Power out there—first Nadya did something to herself, then she poured energy into Svetlana. And all without a single sound, without any tears or wailing. My girls are fighters!
Then I felt a charge of energy as strong as if I’d downed an entire pot of coffee in a single gulp. I got up and shouted: “Thanks, sweetheart.”
I looked around.
The battlefield was certainly impressive. Especially the door that had been blasted out with fire and ice.
The clean-up squad would have a job on their hands . . . but where were they?
And where was the boss?
“Gesar, I invoke you!” I yelled out the formula, as ancient as the Twilight itself, for summoning a teacher. “Gesar, I invoke you! Gesar . . .”
“Stop yelling, will you?” a voice said right beside my ear.
I swung around.
The Most Radiant Gesar, aka Gesser, aka Djoru the Snotty, aka Boris Ignatievich, aka Berl Glaichgevicht (this wasn’t very well known, but I had found it out by chance in the course of a cordial wine-sampling session with a certain Jewish Battle Magician), aka Boris Presianovich (which I had discovered in a really amazing fashion and had kept quiet about), anyway—the Most Radiant Gesar, Higher Magician and Magician Beyond Classification, Light Other, Conqueror of Demons and Son of Heaven, Hero of Tibet and Mongolia, central character of the national epic the Gesariada, venerated by the Kalmyks and honored with a huge equestrian statue in Buryatia, head of the Night Watch of Moscow and therefore, de facto, of the whole of Russia, was standing behind me.
Or rather, not exactly standing. He was unsticking himself from the wall and the floor, acquiring human form, gathering himself together like the liquid terminator-robot in that film. I watched this process for a few seconds, totally dazed. I think part of Gesar was actually transparent, spread out across the floor like glass.
“Have you been here long, boss?” I asked. I looked at his hands—they were shaking.
“Long enough,” he replied evasively.
And then the air beside him darkened, started sparkling, and condensed into a figure in dark clothes: Zabulon.
“That’s impossible,” I said, looking at him. For some reason his appearance finally threw me for a loop. “I can think of two . . . even three ways of hiding like the boss . . .” I began.
“There are at least six,” Gesar replied. “And I wasn’t hiding, I camouflaged myself.”
“But concealing yourself in the Twilight,” I continued, ignoring what my boss had said. “That’s impossible. I was fighting here, as you probably noticed. I looked through the Twilight. Through all the levels. I’m still looking through it now. You weren’t there.”
“A portal?” Zabulon suggested in reply.
I shook my head.
Zabulon sighed. He ran a keen glance around the classroom, then sighed again and sat down at the desk, casually elbowing aside the class intellectual.
“All right, I’ll give you a hint. I was between the levels of the Twilight. You don’t know how to look there. And I’m not going to teach you, so forget it.”
“But . . .” I said, as if the way Zabulon had hidden was more important than anything else just at that moment—including the reason the Great Dark One was hiding at all. “Okay then. I’ll think it over when I have a moment.”
Then Nadya came back into the classroom, together with Svetlana. While my daughter was clearly agitated, Svetlana gave no impression at all of a woman who had just fought a duel to the death and lost it, and only a moment ago was dying.
“Gesar,” she said. “Zabulon. Why am I not surprised?”
“Because you sensed us?” Zabulon inquired. He ran his finger across the school desk, licked the finger, and nodded, as if he were tasting a rare wine.
“Because I know you,” said Svetlana, looking at Gesar. It was a hostile kind of look. Inappropriate for a Light Healer. Gesar jerked his head nervously.
“Svetlana, this is all very, very serious. In a situation like this, it’s much more important to observe and gather information than it is to launch a magical Armageddon . . .”
I suddenly started trembling nervously.
“If you were using Nadya as bait . . .” I whispered, looking at Gesar.
“Stop!” the boss roared. “Come to your senses, Gorodetsky! And think twice before you make an accusation like that!”
He raised his hands, showing me his open palms and simultaneously lowering his defenses. Now I could see all the spells he had on his fingertips.
I gulped. Six of them were battle spells that I knew, but these versions had distinctive features . . . extremely interesting ones. Four others had obviously been set up in a hurry. Three portals—attuned to me, Svetlana, and Nadya. And the “sarcophagus of time.”
Everything indicated that Gesar had been prepared to evacuate us and depart into eternal limbo with our attackers.
“Sorry, Gesar,” I said.
“Do you really think that a threat to your daughter that her own mother and father—Higher Others—couldn’t handle is a trivial matter?” Gesar asked. “Do you seriously think that I could have beaten those”—he hesitated for a moment—“traitors, if the two of you couldn’t manage it? With your absolute coordination?”
“We were observing,” Zabulon said amicably. He gave me a smile that was astonishingly, blindingly white, like a Hollywood actor’s. In the case of an actor, or any other ordinary person, everything would have been clear—he’d had his real teeth pulled out and implants put in.
But Zabulon, of course, had simply grown them. Although it wasn’t really clear why he was suddenly concerned about his appearance. His teeth always used to be just normal teeth.
“I already realize that,” I snarled.
“We were prepared to intervene,” Zabulon went on. “Both of us. Believe me, Anton, I don’t like it when members of my staff are abused . . . and transformed into puppets!”
“How could it possibly have happened?” I began.
“Gentlemen and comrades,” Gesar said abruptly. “The Inquisition’s cleanup squad and specialists have arrived. Everyone here has another thirty-five minutes to sleep, during which the area will be tidied up and false memories will be implanted. I suggest we proceed—”
“—to my office,” Zabulon added rapidly, chuckling. “We can discuss the situation there. I find it awkward, dear Gesar, that I’m always coming to your place and never have a chance to show any hospitality of my own.”
“You know what you need to do,” Gesar replied halfheartedly.
“I have no power over you,” said Zabulon, smiling again and spreading his hands wide. “I invite you as guests without malicious intent or design. I guarantee your protection and safety, freedom of entry and exit, and immunity from harm both physical and mental.”
He raised his palm—a tiny little bundle of darkness was spinning on it.
“All right,” I said. “Right . . . thirty-five minutes . . .” I looked at my watch. “Nadya, you can stay here. Your class still has sport and choir.”
“Dad!” Nadya shouted indignantly. “Stop it, Dad, you’re joking!”
“School is no joke,” I said, stealing a glance at the others.
Zabulon was frankly merry. Svetlana was smiling faintly. Nadya . . . Nadya was fuming. Gesar was serious; only the corners of his mouth quivered slightly.
“You’re absolutely right, Anton,” said the boss. “But . . . we’ll have to listen to your daughter’s story of what happened. So I excuse her from her lessons.”
“Thank you, Uncle Gesar!” said Nadya, delighted. And she pulled a face at me.
Zabulon got up and stretched. As the girl he’d been sitting beside started slipping over sideways, he held her up and said, “Quite a pretty little girl, really . . . take off the glasses and style her hair properly, and she’ll be a beauty. What’s her name . . . Nadya?”
“Her name is you-go-to-hell!” Nadya exclaimed indignantly.
“Zabulon, the girl’s only about fourteen,” Svetlana remarked.
“Well for me that’s much the same as Astakhova,” Zabulon chuckled. “For my age, fourteen or ninety-four—that’s no age at all . . . Now don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m not going to seduce these little schoolgirls. Their kind are five kopecks a dozen, if you really want them.”
No way could I seriously believe that Zabulon had suddenly been overwhelmed by desire, and seriously enough for him to to start discussing the sex appeal of Nadya’s classmates.
That meant he was playing the fool. Either trying to provoke someone or trying to distract them from something.
Unfortunately, there was no way to figure that out right now.
“Please, after you,” said Zabulon, waving his hand to open a portal—a really swanky one: it opened immediately after the wave of his hand and looked like a dark, silvery mirror with sparks glinting inside it.
“Your love of cheap effects will be the death of you,” Gesar muttered, walking into the portal first.
“If only they were cheap.” Zabulon sighed, gesturing for us to go in. “Ah, if only . . .”
The Night Watch office used to be on Tverskaya Street, not far from the Kremlin. In our Watch we used to joke about them “feeding off the negative energy.”
I don’t think the amount of negative energy in the center of Moscow had declined at all, but a couple of years earlier the Dark Ones had moved to the Moscow City business district, buying three floors in one of the office skyscrapers. Naturally, I had never been in either of the Dark Ones’ offices.
I assume that in his physical form Gesar had never been there either.
In any case, when we found ourselves at the main hub of the Dark Ones of Moscow, Gesar stood there and gaped, looking around with an expression of obvious perplexity.
The Moscow Day Watch was housed in an immense, brightly lit hall, with low partitions at chest height. Sitting in the cubbyholes formed by this labyrinth were young sorceresses and elderly witches, morose vampires and frolicsome werewolves, battle magicians and female healers.