Night Watch 05 - The New Watch (3 page)

Of course, that was another rhetorical phrase. Absolutely rhetorical. The kind of thing a man who has fallen under some absurd suspicion would say – for instance, when he’s a guest in someone’s house and is accused of stealing the silver spoons off the table . . .

‘Thank you, Anton. I accept your suggestion,’ Gesar replied, getting up.

The next moment I blanked out.

And then I opened my eyes.

Between those two points, of course, some time had passed – five or ten minutes. Only I didn’t remember it. I was in Gesar’s office, lying on the small divan referred to ironically by everyone as ‘the brainstorm launch pad’. Olga was holding my head – and she was very, very angry. Gesar was sitting on a chair opposite me – and he was very, very embarrassed. There was no one else in the office.

‘Well, then, am I a trembling wretch or am I justified?’ I asked, quoting Dostoevsky’s famous phrase.

‘Anton, I offer you my very humblest apologies,’ said Gesar.

‘He’s already apologised to all the others,’ Olga added. ‘Anton, forgive the old fool.’

I sat up and rubbed my temples. My head didn’t actually hurt – it just felt incredibly empty and it was ringing.

‘Who am I? Where am I? Who are you, I don’t know you!’ I muttered.

‘Anton, please accept my apologies . . .’ Gesar repeated.

‘Boss, what made you think I was under some kind of influence?’

‘Doesn’t it seem strange to you that after seeing off our guest you sat down to drink beer in a lousy, expensive little cafe, even though you knew you were going to drive?’

‘It does, but that’s the way the day went.’

‘And that, at the precise moment when you suddenly decided to linger at the airport, a clairvoyant boy threw a hysterical fit right in front of your eyes?’

‘Life is made up of coincidences,’ I said philosophically.

‘And that the plane reached Barcelona safely?’

That really knocked me back. ‘How?’

‘The usual way. Engines roaring and wings swaying. It got there, offloaded all the people and set off on the way back an hour ago.’

I shook my head from side to side. ‘Boris Ignatievich . . . of course, I’m no clairvoyant. But when I specifically check the probability of one event or another . . . The boy started howling about a catastrophe. I glanced at his aura – an uninitiated Other in a spontaneous outburst of Power. I started checking through the reality lines – the plane crashed. With a probability of ninety-eight per cent. Maybe . . . well, there are no absolutely certain predictions . . . maybe those two per cent came up?’

‘Possibly. But how else can you interpret what happened?’

‘A deliberate provocation,’ I said reluctantly. ‘Someone pumped the boy full of Power and hung a false aura on him. It’s a well-known move – you yourself . . . Hmm. Well, then the boy has a fit of hysterics, I hear him howling and start calculating the probabilities . . . let’s assume they’ve been distorted, too.’

‘With what intent?’

‘To make us use our right to a first-level intervention for nothing. The plane was never going to crash, the kid is of no interest. And we, like idiots, have wasted our bullet.’

Gesar raised his finger didactically.

‘But we didn’t have the right to intervene in any case!’ I exclaimed.

‘We did,’ Gesar muttered gruffly. ‘We did and we do. But reserved exclusively for me. If you had come directly to me . . . I would have allowed you to intervene.’

‘So that’s how it is . . .’ I said. ‘Well . . . that really does make it look like a trick. But what about the kid?’

‘A Prophet . . .’ Gesar said reluctantly. ‘A very powerful one. And you bear no signs of having been influenced. So you’re probably right.’

‘But the plane didn’t crash,’ Olga said quietly.

We stopped talking for a moment.

‘Prophets don’t make mistakes. The boy is a Prophet, since he made predictions about his own fate and the fate of a Higher Other. But the plane didn’t crash. You didn’t interfere in events . . .’ Gesar said quietly.

That was when it hit me. ‘You weren’t checking if I was under some kind of influence or not,’ I said. ‘You were checking if I saved the plane without permission.’

‘That too,’ said Gesar, not even embarrassed now. ‘But I didn’t want to state a reason like that in front of our colleagues.’

‘Well, thanks a million.’ I got up and walked towards the door.

Gesar waited until I opened it before he spoke. ‘I must say, Anton, I’m very pleased for you. Pleased and proud.’

‘Why, exactly?’

‘Because you didn’t intervene without permission. And you didn’t even come up with any human nonsense like phone calls about a bomb on the plane . . .’

I walked out and closed the door behind me.

I felt like screaming out loud or smashing my fist against the wall.

But I held out. I was imperturbable and cool.

I really hadn’t come up with any ‘human nonsense’! The thought had never even entered my head. I was convinced that we had no legal right to save two hundred people – and I had saved one Other and his mother.

I must have learned all my lessons well – I had behaved entirely correctly for a Higher Other.

And that made me feel lousy.

‘Anton!’

Looking round, I saw Semyon hurrying to catch up with me. He seemed slightly embarrassed, like an old friend who has just witnessed an awkward and ugly scene. But we had been close friends for a long time already, and Semyon didn’t have to pretend that he had been detained by chance.

‘I thought I’d have to wait longer,’ Semyon explained. ‘Well, that was a freaky move by the boss – very, very freaky . . .’

‘He’s right,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘It really was a strange situation.’

‘I’ve been assigned to talk to the boy, initiate him and explain to the mother why he should study in our school . . . basic standard procedure. Why don’t we go together?’

‘You mean you’ve already found him?’ I asked. ‘I only read the names, I didn’t take any more trouble . . .’

‘Of course we’ve found him! This is the twenty-first century, Antokha! We called our information centre and asked them who didn’t show up for such-and-such a flight to Barcelona. A minute later Tolik called back and gave me the names and addresses. Innokentii Grigorievich Tolkov, ten and a half years old. Lives with his mum . . . well, you know that Others are statistically more common in single-parent families.’

‘It’s the effect of social deprivation,’ I muttered gruffly.

‘The explanation I heard is that dads subconsciously sense when a child is an Other and leave the family,’ said Semyon. ‘In other words, they’re afraid . . . The Tolkovs live not far from here, near the Water Stadium metro station – why don’t we mosey over?’

‘No, Semyon, I won’t go,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You’ll manage just fine on your own.’

Semyon gave me a quizzical look.

‘Everything’s cool!’ I said firmly. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not having a fit of hysterics, I’m not going on a binge and I’m not hatching plans to quit the Watch. I’ll take a trip to the airport and wander about there for a while. This whole thing’s wrong somehow, can’t you see? A boy-Prophet mouthing vague prophecies, a plane that should have crashed and didn’t . . . it’s not right!’

‘Gesar’s already sent someone to inspect Sheremetyevo,’ Semyon told me.

His voice had a sly kind of note to it . . .

‘Who did he send?’

‘Las.’

‘I see,’ I said with a nod, stopping in front of the lifts and pressing the call button. ‘In other words, Gesar’s not expecting anything interesting.’

Las was an untypical Other. He didn’t have any Other abilities at all to begin with, and he shouldn’t have developed any. But several years earlier he had managed to get in the way of the spell of an ancient magical book, the
Fuaran
. The vampire Kostya, who at one time was my neighbour and even my friend, had used Las to demonstrate that the book gave him the power to turn human beings into Others . . .

What had seemed strangest to me was not that Las was transformed into an Other, but that he was transformed into a Light Other. He was no evil villain, but he had a very specific sense of humour . . . and his views on life would have been more suitable for a Dark One too. Working in the Night Watch hadn’t changed him all that much – he seemed to regard it as just one more joke.

But he was a weak Other. Seventh-Level, the very lowest, with only vague prospects of ever reaching the Fifth or Sixth (and Las wasn’t desperately keen on the idea anyway).

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Semyon disagreed amiably. ‘Gesar simply isn’t expecting anything interesting in the line of magic. You were there, after all, you didn’t spot anything. And you’re a Higher Magician . . .’

I winced.

‘Yes, you are, you are,’ Semyon said in a friendly tone. ‘You don’t have much experience, but you have all the abilities. So digging in that direction is pointless. But Las – he’ll look at the situation differently. Practically from a human point of view. His head works in a rather paradoxical fashion . . . what if he spots something?’

‘Then the two of us should definitely go together,’ I said. ‘And you can boldly proceed with initiating the Prophet.’

‘Arise, prophet, and see, and hearken . . .’ said Semyon, quoting Pushkin. He walked into the lift first when it finally arrived. He sighed: ‘Oh, I don’t like Prophets and Clairvoyants! They blurt out something about you, and then you wander around like an idiot, wondering what they meant by it. You can imagine such terrifying things sometimes, but it’s all total nonsense really, phooey, not worth bothering about!’

‘Thanks,’ I said to Semyon. ‘Don’t worry . . . I’m taking all this very calmly. A Prophet – so what?’

‘I remember we had a clairvoyant in Petrograd,’ Semyon remarked eagerly. ‘So in 1916, on New Year’s Eve, we ask him what the prospects are. And then he laid it all on us . . .’

I managed to intercept Las in the yard, just as he was getting into his freshly washed Mazda. He was frankly delighted when I showed up.

‘Anton, are you really busy?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Why don’t you scoot over to Sheremetyevo with me? Boris Ignatievich told me to follow in your footsteps and look for anything odd. Maybe you could come along?’

‘What are we going to do about you?’ I asked, clambering into the right-side front seat. ‘All right, I’ll go. But you’ll owe me one, you know that.’

‘Goes without saying,’ Las said delightedly, turning on the motor. ‘I’m a bit pushed for time – I had to change my plans for today.’

‘What plans were they?’ I asked as we drove out of the car park.

‘Well, it’s like this . . .’ Las was slightly embarrassed. ‘I was going to get baptised today.’

‘What?’ I thought I’d misheard.

‘Baptised,’ Las repeated, looking at the road. ‘All right, isn’t it? We can get baptised?’

‘Who are “we”?’ I asked, just to be on the safe side.

‘Others!’

‘Of course we can,’ I answered. ‘That’s, like, that’s . . . a spiritual matter. Magic’s magic, and faith . . .’

Las suddenly started talking nineteen to the dozen.

‘I just thought – the devil only knows what they’ll make of me practising magic . . . I always used to be an agnostic – a broad-profile ecumenist, that is – but then I thought . . . better get baptised, to make completely sure.’

‘There was this character in the Simpsons: to make completely sure, he observed the Sabbath day and performed the Salat too,’ I remarked, unable to resist the jibe.

‘Don’t blaspheme,’ Las said strictly. ‘I’m serious . . . I found this church especially for it, in the Moscow region. They say all the priests in Moscow are corrupt. But in the provinces they’re closer to God. I phoned them yesterday and had a talk – well, some acquaintances recommended me – they promised to baptise me today, but then Gesar gave me this assignment . . .’

‘You’re moving kind of fast,’ I said doubtfully. ‘Are you really ready for the sacrament of baptism?’

‘Of course,’ Las laughed. ‘I’ve bought a cross, and a Bible just in case, and a couple of icons . . .’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ I said, starting to get interested. We’d just come out onto Leningrad Chaussee and started burning up the road to the airport. Las usually put the ‘escort’ spell on his car, and people had started hastily making way for us. I don’t know which drivers saw what – for some it was an ambulance, for some a police car with its siren wailing, for some a government escort vehicle with blinking lights hung all over it, like some chicken-brain techie with his mobile phones – but they all cleared the road for us pretty smartly.

‘And have you learned off the creed?’

‘What creed?’ Las asked in surprise.

‘The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed!’

‘Do I have to?’ Las asked anxiously.

‘Never mind, the priest will explain,’ I said, beginning to feel really amused. ‘Have you bought a baptismal robe?’

‘What for?’

‘Well, when you climb out of the font . . .’

‘They only immerse infants in the font – I’m not going to climb into it! They splash the water on grown-ups!’

‘You numbskull,’ I said emphatically. ‘They have special fonts, for adults. They’re called baptisteries.’

‘Is that what the Baptists have?’

‘It’s what they all have.’

Las started pondering – thankfully, driving an automobile with the ‘escort’ spell on it didn’t require truly intense concentration.

‘But what if there are dames there?’

‘They’re not dames any more, they’re Sisters in Christ!’

‘You’re putting me on!’ Las exclaimed indignantly. ‘That’s enough, Anton!’

I took out my mobile, thought for a second and asked: ‘Which of our guys do you trust?’

‘In spiritual matters?’ Las asked. ‘Well . . . I’d trust Semyon . . .’

‘He’ll do,’ I said, with a nod. Then I dialled the number and turned on the speaker.

‘Yes, Anton?’ Semyon responded.

‘Listen, are you baptised?’

‘At my age, how could a Russian not be baptised?’ Semyon answered. ‘I was born in the tsar’s time . . .’

‘And are you still close to the Orthodox Faith?’

‘Well . . .’ Semyon was clearly embarrassed. ‘I go to church. Sometimes.’