The Night Watch (34 page)

He didn't hesitate. He just nodded, looking straight into my eyes.

'Yes, I am, I've never let a creature of the Dark get away. I won't let this one get away.'

The invisible trap snapped shut.

It wouldn't have surprised me to see Zabulon standing there. To see him surface out of the Twilight and give Maxim a slap on the back. Or flash a mocking smile at me.

But a moment later I realised Zabulon wasn't there. He never had been.

The trap he'd set didn't need any supervision. It would work all on its own. I'd been caught, and every member of the Day Watch had a solid alibi for that moment.

I either had to let Maxim kill the boy who was going to become a Dark Magician and make myself into his accomplice – with all the obvious consequences.

Or fight the Maverick and kill him – I was far more powerful, after all. Eliminate the only witness with my own hand and kill a Light Magician into the bargain.

Maxim would never back down. This was his war, his own cross that he'd been carrying for years. He wanted victory or death.

So why should Zabulon bother to interfere in the fight?

He'd done everything right. Purged the ranks of the Dark Ones of useless ballast, built up the tension, even deliberately shot to miss. Zabulon had made me come to this spot to meet the Maverick. And now Zabulon was somewhere far away. Maybe not even in Moscow. He might even be watching what was happening: there were plenty of technical or magical devices he could use for that. Watching and laughing.

I was finished.

Whichever way I jumped, the Twilight was waiting for me.

Evil has no need to bother to eliminate Good. It's far simpler to let Good fight against itself.

I had just one chance left, a tiny one, but it was a monstrous, vile idea.

I could be too slow.

I could let Maxim kill the boy, or rather, simply fail to stop him. He'd calm down after that. He'd go to the Night Watch headquarters with me, listen, argue and eventually give up, crushed by the boss's implacable arguments and iron logic. He'd realise what he'd done and just how fragile the balance he'd disrupted was. And he'd hand himself over to the tribunal, where he had at least a slim chance of being acquitted.

I was no field operative, after all. I'd done everything I could. I'd even seen through the Dark's game, a sequence of moves devised by someone far wiser than me. I simply hadn't been strong enough, my reactions hadn't been fast enough.

Maxim raised the hand holding the dagger.

Time suddenly slowed down, as if I'd entered the Twilight. But the colours didn't fade, they became brighter than ever. It was like moving through a stream of thick syrup. The wooden dagger glided towards Egor's chest, changing as it moved, gleaming like metal or grey flame. Maxim's face was calm and intent, only the lip held beneath his teeth betrayed how tense he was. The kid didn't understand what was happening, he didn't even try to move out of the way.

I shoved Egor to one side – my muscles almost refused to obey me, they didn't want to do something so crazy and suicidal. For the boy, the young Dark Magician, the dagger meant death. For me, it meant life. That's the way it always has been and always will be.

What means life for a Dark One means death for a Light One, and vice versa. Who was I to change . . . ?

I wasn't too slow.

Egor fell, banged his head against the door and slid down into a sitting position – I'd pushed him too hard. But I was more concerned about saving him than any bruises he might get. Maxim's eyes glittered with almost childish resentment, but he could still talk.

'He's an enemy!'

'He hasn't done anything!'

'You're defending the Dark!'

Maxim wasn't arguing about whether I was Dark or Light. He could see that well enough.

It's just that he was whiter than white. And he'd never had to decide who should live and who should die.

The dagger was raised again. Not aimed at the boy this time, but at me. I dodged away, looked for my shadow, summoned it, and it came obediently towards me.

The world turned grey, sounds disappeared, movement slowed. Egor stopped squirming and became completely still, the cars crept along the street uncertainly, with their wheels turning in spurts, the branches of the trees forgot about the wind. But Maxim didn't slow down.

He'd followed me in, without knowing what he was doing. Slipped into the Twilight as easily as someone stepping off the kerb on to the road. It was all the same to him now, he was drawing strength from his own certainty, his own hatred, his lighter-than-light hatred, the fury of the colour white. He wasn't the executioner of the Dark Ones any longer. He was an Inquisitor. And he was far more terrifying than our Inquisition.

I threw my arms out, spreading my fingers in the sign of power, simple and foolproof – how the young Others laugh when they're shown that move for the first time. Maxim didn't even stop – he staggered a bit, then put his head down stubbornly and came for me again. I began to get the picture and backed away, desperately running through the magic arsenal in my mind.

Agape – the sign of love. He didn't believe in love.

The triple key – a sign that engendered trust and understanding. He didn't trust me.

Opium – a lilac symbol, the path of sleep. I felt my own eyelids starting to close.

That was how he defeated the Dark Ones. Combined with the powers of an Other, his furious faith acted like a mirror, reflecting back any blow aimed at him. It raised him up to his opponent's level. In combination with his ability to see the Dark and his ridiculous magical dagger, it made him almost invulnerable.

He couldn't reflect everything like that, though. The reflected blows didn't come back immediately. The sign of Thanatos – death – or the white sword would probably work.

But if I killed him, I'd kill myself. Set myself on the one road that we all come to in the end – into the Twilight. Into the faded dreams and colourless visions, the eternal, cold haze. He'd found it so easy to see me as an enemy, but I wouldn't be strong enough to see him that way.

We circled round each other, with Maxim sometimes making clumsy rushes at me – he'd never been in a real fight before, he was used to killing his victims quickly and easily. From somewhere far away I could hear Zabulon's mocking laughter. His soft, wheedling voice.

'So you wanted to play a game against the Dark? Play, then. You have everything you need. Enemies, friends, love, hate. Choose your weapon. Any of them. You already know what the outcome will be.'

Maybe I imagined the voice. Or maybe I really did hear it.

'You're killing yourself too!' I shouted. The holster was flapping against my body, begging to be noticed, begging me to take the pistol out and fire a swarm of little silver wasps at Maxim. As easily as I'd done it with my namesake.

He didn't hear me – he wasn't able to hear me.

Svetlana, you wanted so much to know where our barriers are, where the line runs that we mustn't cross when we fight the Dark. Why aren't you here now? You could have seen for yourself.

But there was no one anywhere near. No Dark Ones to revel in the sight of our duel. No Light Ones to help me, to jump on Maxim and pin him down, to put an end to our deadly dance in the Twilight. No one but a young kid and future Dark Magician, getting up clumsily off the ground, and an implacable executioner with a face of stone – a self-appointed paladin of the Light who'd sown as much Evil as a dozen werewolves or vampires.

I raked my fingers through the cold mist, gathering it into my hand, letting it soak into my fingers. And directed a little more power into my right hand.

A blade of white fire sprouted from it. The Twilight hissed and burned. I raised the white sword, a simple weapon, reliable. Maxim froze.

'Good or Evil,' I said, feeling a wry grin appear on my face. 'Come to me. Come, and I'll kill you. You might be lighter than Light, but that's not the point.'

With anybody else it would have worked. No doubt about it. I can imagine how it must feel to see a sword of fire appear out of nowhere for the first time. But Maxim came for me.

He took those five steps across the space between us. Calmly, not even frowning, without looking at the white sword. And I stood there, repeating to myself the words that I'd spoken so confidently out loud.

Then the wooden dagger slid in under my ribs.

In his lair somewhere far, far away, the head of the Day Watch burst out laughing.

I collapsed on to my knees, then fell on my back. I pressed my palm against my chest. It hurt, but so far that was all. The Twilight squealed indignantly at the scent of living blood and began to thin out.

This was terrible!

Or was this my only way out? To die?

Svetlana wouldn't have anyone to save now. She'd travel on along her long and glorious road, but some day even she would have to enter the Twilight for ever.

Did you know this was going to happen, Gesar? Is this what you were hoping for?

The colours came back into the world. The dark colours of night. The Twilight had rejected me, spat me out in disgust. I was half sitting, half lying on the ground, squeezing the bleeding wound with my hand.

'Why are you still alive?' Maxim asked.

That note of resentment was back in his voice, he was almost pouting. I felt like smiling, but the pain stopped me. He looked at the dagger and raised it again, uncertainly this time. The next moment Egor was there, standing between us, shielding me from Maxim. This time even the pain couldn't stop me from laughing.

A future Dark Magician saving a Light One from another Light One!

'I'm alive because your weapon is only good against the Dark,' I said. I heard an ominous gurgling sound in my chest. The dagger hadn't reached my heart, but it had punctured a lung. 'I don't know who gave it to you, but it's a weapon of the Dark. Against me it's just a sliver of wood, but even that hurts.'

'You're a Light One,' said Maxim.

'Yes.'

'He's a Dark One.' The dagger slowly turned to point at Egor.

I nodded and tried to tug the boy out of the way. He shook his head stubbornly and stayed where he was.

'Why?' asked Maxim. 'Tell me why, eh? You're Light, he's Dark . . .'

And then even he smiled for the first time, though it wasn't a very happy smile.

'Then who am I? Tell me that.'

'I'd say you're a future Inquisitor,' said a voice behind me. 'I'm almost certain of it. A talented, implacable, incorruptible Inquisitor.'

I smiled ironically and said:

'Good evening, Gesar.'

The boss gave me a nod of sympathy. Svetlana was standing behind him, and her face was as white as chalk.

'Can you hold on for five minutes?' the boss asked. 'Then I'll deal with your little scratch.'

'Sure I can,' I agreed.

Maxim was staring at the boss with crazy eyes.

'I don't think you need to worry,' the boss said to him. 'If you were an ordinary poacher, the tribunal would have you executed – you've got too much blood on your hands, and the tribunal is obliged to maintain a balance. But you're magnificent, Maxim. They can't afford to just toss someone like you away. You'll be set above us, above Light and Dark, and it won't even matter which side you came from. But don't get excited. That isn't power. It's hard labour. Drop the dagger!'

Maxim flung the weapon to the ground as if it was burning his fingers. This was a real magician, well beyond the likes of me.

'Svetlana, you passed the test,' the boss said, looking at her. 'What can I say? Grade three for self-control and restraint. No question.'

Using Egor for support, I tried to get up. I wanted to shake the boss's hand. He'd played the game his own way again. By using everybody who was there to be used. And he'd outplayed Zabulon – what a pity the Dark Magician wasn't there to see it! How I'd have liked to see his face, the face of the demon who'd turned my first day of spring into a nightmare.

'But. . .' Maxim started to say something, then stopped. He was overwhelmed by too many new impressions. I knew just how he was feeling.

'Anton, I was certain, absolutely certain that you and Svetlana could handle this,' the boss said gently. 'The most dangerous thing of all for a sorceress with the kind of power she's been given is to lose self-control. To lose sight of the fundamental criteria of the fight against the Dark, to act in haste or to hesitate for too long. And this is one stage of the training that should never be put off.'

Svetlana finally stepped towards me and took me gently by the arm. She looked at Gesar, and just for a moment her face was a mask of fury.

'Stop it,' I said. 'Sveta, don't. He's right. Today, for the very first time, I understood where the boundary runs in our fight. Don't be angry. This is only a scratch.' I took my hand away from my wound. 'We're not like ordinary people, we're a lot tougher.'

'Thank you, Anton,' said the boss. Then he looked at Egor: 'And thank you, too, kid. I really hate the idea that you'll be on the other side of the barricades, but I was sure you'd stand up for Anton.'

The boy tried to move towards Gesar, but I kept hold of his shoulder. It would be awkward if he blurted out his resentment. He didn't understand that everything Gesar had done was only a counter-move.

'There's one thing I regret, Gesar,' I said. 'Just one. That Zabulon isn't here. That I didn't see his face when the whole box of tricks fell apart.'

The boss didn't answer right away.

It must have been hard for him to say it. And I wasn't too pleased to hear it, either.

'But Zabulon had nothing to do with it, Anton. I'm sorry. He really didn't have anything to do with it at all. It was exclusively a Night Watch operation.'

T
HE LITTLE
man had swarthy skin and narrow eyes. He was the ideal prey for any militiaman in the capital, with his confused, slightly guilty smile and a glance that was both naïve and shifty at the same time. Despite the killing heat, he was wearing a dark suit, old-fashioned but hardly even worn, and as a finishing touch an ancient tie from the Soviet period. In one hand he was carrying a shabby, bulging briefcase, the kind agronomists and chairmen of progressive collective farms used to carry around in old Soviet movies, and in the other a string bag holding a long Central Asian melon.

The little man emerged from his second-class sleeper carriage with a smile, and he kept on smiling: at the female conductor, at his fellow travellers, at the porter who jostled him, at the stallholder selling lemonade and cigarettes. He raised his eyes and gazed in delight at the roof of Kazan Station. He wandered along the platform, occasionally stopping to adjust his grip on the melon. He might have been thirty years old or he might have been fifty. It was hard for a European eye to tell.

A minute later a young man got out of a first-class sleeper carriage in the same Tashkent–Moscow train, probably one of the dirtiest and most run-down trains in the world. He looked like the little man's complete opposite. Another Central Asian type, perhaps Uzbek, but his clothes were more in the modern Moscow style: shorts and a t-shirt, with a small leather bag and a mobile phone attached to his belt. No baggage and no provincial manners. He didn't stare at everything, trying to spot the fabled letter 'M' for 'Metro'. After a quick nod to the conductor of his carriage and a gentle shake of his head in response to the offers from taxi-drivers, two more steps saw him slipping through the bustling crowd of new arrivals, with an expression of mild distaste and alienation on his face. But a moment later he was entirely part of the crowd, indistinguishable from any of the healthy cells in the organism, attracting no interest from the phagocyte militiamen or the other cells beside him.

Meanwhile, the little man with the melon and the briefcase was pushing his way through the crowd, muttering countless apologies in rather poor Russian, looking this way and that with his head hunched between his shoulders. He walked past one underpass, shook his head and set off towards a different one, then stopped in front of an advertising hoarding where the crush was less fierce. Clutching his things clumsily against his chest, he took out a crumpled piece of paper and started to study it closely. From the look on his face he knew perfectly well he was being followed.

The three people standing next to a wall nearby were quite okay with that: a strikingly beautiful redhead in a slinky, clinging silk dress, a young man in punk clothes with a bored expression in eyes that looked surprisingly old, and a rather more mature, sleek-looking man with a camp manner and long hair.

'It doesn't look like him,' the young man with the old eyes said doubtfully. 'Not like him at all. I didn't see him for very long, and it was a long time ago, but. . .'

'Perhaps you'd like to ask Djoru, just to make sure?' the girl asked derisively. 'I can see it's him.'

'You accept responsibility?' There was no surprise or wish to argue in the young man's voice. He was just checking.

'Yes,' said the girl, keeping her eyes fixed on the little man. 'Let's go. We'll take him in the underpass.'

They set out unhurriedly, walking in step. Then they separated and the girl carried on walking straight ahead, while the men went off to each side.

The little man folded up his piece of paper and set off uncertainly for the underpass.

The sudden absence of other people would have surprised a Muscovite or a frequent visitor to the capital. After all, this was the shortest and easiest route from the metro to the platform of the mainline station. But the little man took no notice. He paid no attention to the people who stopped behind him as if they'd run into an invisible barrier and walked off to the other underpasses. And there was no way he could have seen that the same thing was happening at the other end of the underpass, inside the railway station.

The sleek man came towards him, smiling. The attractive young woman and the young man with an earring and torn jeans closed in on him from behind.

The little man carried on walking.

'Hang on, Grandpa,' the sleek man said in a friendly voice that matched his appearance – high-pitched, affected. 'Don't be in such a hurry.'

The Central Asian smiled and nodded, but he didn't stop.

The sleek man made a pass with one hand, as if he was drawing a line between himself and the little man. The air shimmered and a cold breath of wind swept through the underpass. Up on the platform children started to cry and dogs to howl.

The little man stopped, looking straight ahead with a thoughtful expression. He pursed his lips, blew, and smiled cunningly at the man standing in front of him. There was a sharp, tinkling sound, like glass breaking. The sleek man's face contorted in pain and he took a step backwards.

'Bravo,
devona'
said the young woman, coming to a halt behind the Central Asian. 'But now you definitely shouldn't be in a hurry.'

'Oh, I need to hurry, oh yes I do,' the little man jabbered rapidly. 'Would you like some melon, beautiful lady?'

The young woman smiled as she studied him. She made a suggestion:

'Why don't you come with us? We'll sit and eat your melon, drink some tea. We've been waiting for you so long, it's not polite to go running off straight away.'

The little man's face expressed intense thought. Then he nodded:

'Let's go, let's go.'

His first step knocked the sleek man off his feet. It was as if there were an invisible shield moving along in front of the little man, a wall of raging wind: the sleek man was swept along the ground with his long hair trailing behind him, his eyes screwed up in terror, a silent scream breaking from his throat.

The young punk waved his hand through the air, sending flashes of scarlet light flying at the little man. They were blindingly bright as they left his hand, but began to fade halfway to their target, and only reached the Central Asian's back as a barely visible glimmer.

'Uh!' the little man said, but he didn't stop. He twitched his shoulder blades, as if some annoying fly had landed on his back.

'Alisa!' the young man called, continuing his fruitless attack, working his fingers to compact the air, drawing the scarlet fire out of it and flinging it at the little man. 'Alisa!'

The girl leaned her head to one side as she watched the Central Asian walking away. She whispered something and ran her hand across her dress. Out of nowhere a slim, transparent prism appeared in her hand.

The little man started to walk faster, swerving left and right and holding his head down strangely. The sleek man went tumbling along in front of him, no longer even attempting to cry out. His face was ragged and bleeding, his arms and legs were limp and useless, as if he hadn't simply slid three metres across a smooth floor, but been dragged three kilometres across the rocky steppe by a wild hurricane, or behind a galloping horse.

The girl looked at the little man through the prism.

First the Central Asian started to walk more slowly. Then he groaned and unclasped his hands – the melon smashed open with a crunch against the marble floor, the briefcase fell with a soft, heavy thud.

The man whom the girl had called
devona
gasped.

He slumped to the floor, shuddering as he fell. His cheeks collapsed inwards, his cheekbones protruded sharply, his hands were suddenly bony, the skin covered with a network of veins. His black hair didn't turn grey, but it was suddenly thinner and dusted with white. The air around him began to shimmer and currents of heat streamed towards Alisa.

'What I have not given shall henceforth be mine,' the girl hissed. 'All that is yours is mine.'

Her face flushed with colour as rapidly as the little man's body dried out. Her lips smacked as she whispered strange, breathy words. The punk frowned and lowered his hand – the final scarlet ray slammed into the floor, turning the stone dark.

'Very easy,' he said, 'very easy.'

'The boss was most displeased,' said the girl, hiding the prism away in the folds of her dress. She smiled. Her face radiated a sexual energy.

'Easy, but our Kolya was unlucky.'

The punk nodded, glancing at the long-haired man's motionless body. There was no great sympathy in his eyes, but no hostility either.

'That's for sure,' he said, walking confidently towards the little man's desiccated corpse. He ran his hand through the air above the body, which crumbled into dust. With his next pass the young man reduced the melon to a sticky mess.

'The briefcase,' said the girl. 'Check the briefcase.'

Another wave of his hand, and the worn imitation leather cracked apart and the briefcase fell open, like an oyster shell under the knife of an experienced pearl-diver. But to judge from the young man's expression, the pearl he'd been expecting wasn't there. Two clean changes of underwear, a pair of cheap cotton tracksuit bottoms, a white shirt, rubber sandals in a plastic bag, a polystyrene cup with dried Korean noodles, a spectacles case.

He made a few more passes and the polystyrene cup split open, the clothing came apart at the seams and the case opened to reveal the spectacles.

'Shit! He hasn't got anything, Alisa! Nothing at all!'

An expression of surprise slowly spread across the witch's face.

'Stasik, this is the
devona,
the courier. He couldn't have trusted what he was carrying to anyone else!'

'He must have done,' the young man said, stirring the Central Asian's ashes with his foot. 'I warned you, didn't I, Alisa? You can expect anything from the Light Ones. You took responsibility. I may be a low-level magician, but I have more experience than you – fifty years more.'

Alisa nodded. There was no confusion in her eyes now. Her hand slid over her dress again, seeking the prism.

'Yes,' she said softly. 'You're right, Stasik. But in fifty years' time our experience will be equal.'

The punk laughed, then squatted down beside the long-haired man's body and started going swiftly through his pockets.

'You think so?'

'I'm sure. You shouldn't have insisted on having your own way. I was the one who wanted to check the other passengers as well.'

The young man swung round to protest, but it was too late – the hot currents of his life energy were already streaming out of his body.