The Night Watch (18 page)

'You okay?' It was a stupid question to ask, because his eyes were open and he was looking at me.

'Yes.'

Our voices had a hollow, rumbling sound. There were two fluttering shadows right beside us: Bear was still struggling with the vampire. She was certainly holding in there for all she was worth.

And so was Egor.

'Let's go,' I said, reaching out and touching his shoulder. 'It's. . . tough being down here. We could get stuck here for ever.'

'So okay.'

'Don't you understand, Egor? To be dissolved in the Twilight means suffering, eternal suffering. You can't even imagine what it's like. We're leaving!'

'What for?'

'To stay alive.'

'What for?'

My fingers wouldn't bend. My pistol felt heavy, cast out of ice. I might last another minute, or two . . .

I looked into Egor's eyes.

'Everyone decides for himself. I'm leaving. I've got something to live for.'

'Why do you want to save me?' he asked curiously. 'Does your Night Watch need me?'

'I don't think you'll join our Watch,' I said, surprising even myself.

He smiled. A shadow slowly ran through us – Semyon. Had he spotted something? Was someone in trouble?

And there I was, wasting my final strength trying to prevent a little Other from committing esoteric suicide – when he was doomed anyway.

'I'm leaving,' I said. 'Goodbye.'

My shadow clutched hold of me, freezing to my fingers and growing on to my face. I began to tear myself away from it and the Twilight hissed at me.

'Help me!' said Egor. I only just caught the sound of his voice, I was almost out already. He'd left it right until the last moment.

I reached out and grabbed his hand. I was already being torn out, the fog around me was melting. All my help was purely psychological, the boy had to do the real work for himself.

And he did.

We tumbled out into the upper level of the Twilight. The cold wind struck me in the face, but this time it felt good. The listless movements on every side were transformed into a furious struggle. The blurred grey looked bright and colourful.

Something had changed during those few seconds we'd been talking. The vampire was still twitching under Bear . . . that wasn't it. The young warlock was lying on the roof, either dead or unconscious, Tiger Cub and the witch were struggling nearby . . . that wasn't it.

The snake.

The white cobra was expanding, inflating, filling a quarter of the roof. As if it had been pumped full of air and was rising, or flying up of its own accord into the low sky. Semyon was standing by the twined coils of its fiery body, half squatting in an ancient combat stance, with small orange spheres streaking from his palms into the clump of white flame. He wasn't aiming at the cobra, but at someone else beneath it, someone who should have been dead a long time ago, but was still struggling . . .

Then a sudden explosion!

A vortex of Light and scraps of Dark. I was tossed on to my back and as I fell I hit Egor and knocked him down, but I just managed to grab his hand. Tiger Cub and the witch, locked together, shot across to the edge of the roof and froze against the barrier. Bear was torn off the vampire, who was badly mauled but still alive. Semyon staggered, but remained on his feet, protected by a dimly glowing defensive shield. The only thing blown off the roof was the unconscious warlock: on his way he broke through the rusty bars of the barrier and plunged to earth in a helpless bundle.

But Ilya just carried on standing where he had been, rooted to the spot. I couldn't see any defences around him, but he just gazed curiously at what was going on, clutching his wand.

The remains of the fiery cobra soared upwards, spreading out into glowing clouds, melting away, scattering in showers of sparks and needle rays of light. Beneath this firework display Zabulon slowly rose to his feet, extending his arms in some complex magical pass. He'd lost his clothes in the struggle and was now completely naked. His body had changed, assuming the classic features of a demon: dull scales instead of skin, an irregular skull, covered with some kind of matted fur instead of hair, close-set eyes with vertical slits for pupils, a massive penis, and a short forked tail that hung from the base of his spine.

'Begone!' cried Zabulon. 'Begone!'

What must have been going on at that moment in the human world . . . Outbreaks of vicious depression and blind, irrational joy, heart attacks, bizarre behaviour, quarrels between best friends, betrayals by faithful lovers . . . People couldn't see what was happening, yet it touched their souls.

But why?

Why did the Day Watch want all this?

And at that moment I suddenly felt calm. A state of icy, rational composure I'd almost forgotten.

It was all one complex manoeuvre. If we started from one simple idea, made one initial assumption – that everything was happening according to the Day Watch's plan – and then connected up all the seemingly random events, starting with my hunt in the metro – no, starting with the moment when the young vampire had been allocated a girl to feed on, a girl he couldn't help falling in love with . . .

My thoughts were moving as fast as if I was acting as a brainstorm conductor, connected up to other people's minds, the way our analysts sometimes worked. But no, of course, that wasn't really happening, it was just that the pieces of the jigsaw had started moving around on the table in front of me, coming together.

The Day Watch didn't give a damn about the girl vampire . . .

The Day Watch wouldn't risk open conflict for the sake of a kid with potentially great powers. The Day Watch had only one reason for doing all this.

A Dark Magician of extraordinary power.

A Dark Magician who could reinforce their position, not only in Moscow, but right across the continent . . .

But then they'd already achieved that goal, we'd promised to hand over the Dark Magician . . .

The unidentified magician was the only unknown in the equation, the X. We could designate Egor as Y: his resistance to magic was far too high for any novice Other. But on the other hand, the boy was an already known quantity, with just one undetermined factor . . .

And that had been deliberately introduced into the problem, to make it more complicated.

'Zabulon!' I shouted. Behind my back Egor was scrabbling and sliding on the ice as he tried to stand up. Semyon was backing away from the magician, still maintaining his defences. Ilya was simply observing everything dispassionately. Bear was closing in on the twitching girl vampire as she tried to stand up. Tiger Cub and the witch Alisa were moving towards each other again. 'Zabulon!'

The demon looked at me.

'I know who you're fighting for!'

But I didn't know yet. I was just beginning to understand, because the pieces of the jigsaw had come together and shown me a familiar face . . .

The demon opened its jaws – they shifted to the left and the right, like a beetle's. He was looking more and more like some huge insect, his scales had grown together into a single carapace, his genitals and tail had retracted, new limbs had begun to sprout from his sides.

'Then you're dead.'

His voice was the same as before, in fact it sounded even more thoughtful and intelligent. Zabulon stretched his arm out towards me – it extended in jerks, growing new joints as it came.

'Come to me . . .' whispered Zabulon.

Everybody froze – apart from me. I started walking towards the Dark Magician. There was barely a trace left of the mental defences I'd nurtured for years. There was just no way I could not obey Zabulon.

'Stop!' roared Tiger Cub, turning away from the battered but still snarling witch. 'Stop!'

I really wished I could do as she said, but I couldn't.

'Anton . . .' I heard someone say behind me. 'Look back . . .'

That was something I could do. I turned my head, tearing my eyes away from the gaze of those amber eyes with their narrow, vertical slit pupils.

Egor was still squatting down, he didn't have the strength to get up. It was incredible that he was even conscious at all . . . after all, the external input into his energy reserves had been shut off. The external input that had attracted the boss's attention, that had been maintained from the very beginning. Factor Y. Introduced to complicate the situation.

A small ivory medallion on a copper chain dangled from Egor's hand.

'Catch!' the kid shouted.

'Don't take it!' Zabulon ordered me. But he was too late, I'd already bent down and grabbed the amulet as it came flying towards my feet. The carved medallion burned my hand when I touched it, as if I'd picked up a live coal.

I looked at the demon and shook my head:

'Zabulon, you no longer have power over me.'

The demon howled and came straight at me. His power over me was gone, but he still had plenty of strength.

'Tut-tut!' said Ilya.

A wall of white flame cut across the space between us. Zabulon howled as he hit the magical barrier and the sheet of pure white light flung him back. He shook his scorched paws, looking ridiculous now, not terrible at all.

'A complex move,' I said. 'But elementary really, isn't it?'

Everything on the roof went quiet. Tiger Cub and the witch Alisa stood side by side, not even trying to attack each other. Semyon looked at me, then at Ilya, and I couldn't tell which of us had surprised him most. The vampire was crying quietly, as she tried to get up. She was in the worst state of all, she'd used up all her strength to survive the fight with Bear, and now she was struggling to regenerate. With an incredible effort she left the Twilight, becoming a vague silhouette.

Even the wind seemed to have died away . . .

'How can you make a Dark Magician out of someone who is fundamentally pure?' I asked. 'How can you win over to the Dark Side a person who doesn't know how to hate? You can rain difficulties on him whichever way he turns ... a little at a time, hoping that he'll become embittered . . . But that doesn't work. This person . . . this girl ... is too pure.'

Ilya gave a quiet laugh of approval.

'The only thing that she could hate,' I said, looking into Zabulon's eyes, now filled with nothing but powerless malice, 'is herself. And that's the clever move. Unexpected. Let her mother fall ill. Let the girl devour her very soul, despising her own weakness and refusal to help. Drive her into a corner so tight, there's nothing else she can feel but hate, even if that hate is for herself. Of course, there is a divergence of probabilities. Just a slight chance that a single Night Watch agent who doesn't really know all that much about field work—'

My knees started to buckle – I wasn't used to staying in the Twilight this long. I would have fallen on my knees in front of Zabulon, something I really didn't want to do, but Semyon slipped through the Twilight and supported me by the shoulders. He'd probably been doing that for a hundred and fifty years too.

'About field work . . .' I repeated. 'Might suddenly not behave according to plan, not trying to pity and comfort a girl for whom pity is fatal. He had to be distracted. A situation had to be created that would keep him busy. He had to be given a secondary assignment, and feel obliged to carry out that assignment for professional and personal reasons – anything that came to hand would do. An ordinary vampire could be sacrificed for that, couldn't he?'

Zabulon began transforming back to human form, assuming his former appearance as a mournful-looking intellectual.

That was odd. What for? When I'd already seen what he'd become in the Twilight, what he'd become once and for ever.

'A complex manoeuvre,' I repeated. 'I'll bet Svetlana's mother doesn't really have to die from any fatal illness at all. That was a minor intervention from your side, within the permitted limits. . . But then we have rights too.'

'She ours!' said Zabulon.

'No.' I shook my head. 'The Inferno's not going to erupt. Her mother's going to get well. I'm going straight to the girl now . . . and I'm going to tell her everything. Svetlana will join the Night Watch. You've lost, Zabulon. No matter what you do, you've lost.'

The tatters of clothes scattered across the roof crept towards the Dark Magician, grew together and sprang up on to his body, reclothing the sad, charming intellectual grieving for the whole world.

'None of you will leave here,' said Zabulon. The Dark began thickening behind his back, like two immense black wings unfurling.

Ilya laughed again.

'I'm stronger than all of you,' said Zabulon. 'Your borrowed powers are not unlimited. You will stay here for ever, in the Twilight, deeper than you have ever dared to look . . .'

Semyon sighed and said:

'Anton, he still hasn't got the picture.'

I looked round and asked:

'Boris Ignatievich, don't you think you could drop the playacting now?'

The bumptious young field operative shrugged:

'Of course, Antosha. But I don't often get a chance to observe the head of the Day Watch in action. Don't hold that against an old man. I hope Ilya found it just as interesting being me . . .'

Boris Ignatievich resumed his normal form. Instantly, without any theatrical intermediate stages or light effects. He was still dressed in his gown and skullcap, but he was wearing soft moccasins on his feet, with galoshes over them.

Zabulon's face was a sight.

The dark wings didn't disappear, but they stopped growing and flapped hesitantly, as if the magician was thinking about flying away, but couldn't quite make up his mind.

'Wind up this operation, Zabulon,' the boss said. 'If you withdraw immediately from this building and from Svetlana's house, we won't lodge an official protest.'

The Dark Magician didn't hesitate.

'We'll withdraw.'

The boss nodded, as if he'd never expected any other answer. Just for a moment I thought . . . He lowered the wand, and the barrier between me and Zabulon disappeared.

'I'll remember the part you played in this. . .' the Dark Magician murmured. 'For ever.'

'Do,' I said. 'It's good to remember.'