Sixth Watch (40 page)

The giant fixed his gaze on her and paused for a moment before speaking.

“Who are the members of the Watch of Six?” he asked

“I, Arina, for the witches. Zabulon for the Dark Ones. Nadezhda for the Light Ones. Egor for the Mirror Magicians. Innokentii for the Prophets. And . . .” Arina hesitated for a moment. “Konstantin for the vampires.”

“I shall talk to him first,” the Two-in-One announced. “By virtue of the right of the first Others, he speaks first.”

Kostya stepped out to join Arina.

“I am the Dark Other Konstantin Saushkin, the Master of Masters.”

“This is deception!” the Two-in-One declared. “You are dead.”

“I have been dead for a long time,” Kostya said coolly. “I am thrice dead. I died when I became a vampire, initiated by my own father. I died far from the earth, isolated from Power. I died on the sixth level of the Twilight, killed by Anton Gorodetsky. I am undead. What right have you to be indignant that someone who is dead has joined the Watch?”

“You hindered me.”

“I corrected your error. You had no right to attack a future member of the Watch of Six.”

The Two-in-One hesitated again before he replied.

“Speak.”

“By virtue of the right of vampires, the first Others, who concluded the Covenant of Blood with you, I hereby annul that covenant henceforth and forever. Not everything should be resolved in the simple manner to which you are accustomed. I declare the Covenant of Blood abrogated.”

“Whom do you offer in sacrifice as confirmation of your words?” the Two-in-One asked. “You know the rules. Bound by blood. Love and hate. Nobility and treachery. Strength and weakness.”

“I offer in sacrifice Anton Gorodetsky,” Kostya said, and I heard Svetlana screech behind me. “I loved him as my oldest friend. I hate him as my killer. He acted nobly in becoming my friend, defying
the rules of the Watches. He acted treacherously in sending me to my death. Because of him I have become strong and because of him I have become weak.”

The Two-in-One didn't react in any way to Kostya's words. “Now you speak, witch,” he said.

“I am a Dar— A Light Other, the head of the Conclave of Witches,” Arina declared. “By virtue of the right of witches, who stole their right to Power from the vampires and shape-shifters, by virtue of the women who concluded the Covenant of Blood with you, I annul it henceforth and forever. There is too much blood and much evil, even for us witches. The Covenant of Blood is abrogated.”

“Who is to be sacrificed for your words?”

“Anton Gorodetsky,” Arina said with a nod. “I loved him . . .” Suddenly she laughed. “Even a decrepit old witch has the right to fall in love with a man. I hate him because he did not notice my love, he loves another, and could never be mine. He acted nobly in not noticing my love and he acted treacherously in failing to notice it. I would have given him my strength, but he has no need even of my weakness.”

“The Mirror,” said the Two-in-One.

Egor sighed.

“Now, how does it go . . . I am Egor Martynov, an uninitiated Other and a Mirror Magician . . . probably. By virtue of the right—” he said, and stopped for a moment. “By virtue of the right of the party that preserves equilibrium, by virtue of the right of the party that realizes its purpose only in death, I annul the Covenant of Blood, because the balance must be maintained in some other manner. Without destroying everything. I abrogate it forever and all the rest of it, blah-blah-blah.”

“Your sacrifice?”

“Anton Gorodetsky,” Igor said. “I love him, he saved me. And I hate him, he deceived me. He acted nobly in defending my right to a destiny of my own, but he acted treacherously, because his own
destiny was more important to him. He showed me strength and I chose weakness. There. That's about it.”

“The Prophet?” the Two-in-One asked.

“I am Innokentii Tolkov,” Kesha said. “A Prophet. A Light One. First Level. I represent all Prophets, because I am the only one who suits in this case. I annul the Covenant of Blood, because there is no future in it. And I wish to see the future. Henceforth and forever.”

“The sacrifice?”

“Anton Gorodetsky,” Kesha said in a faint voice. “He saved me too, kind of. But that's not the important thing. I love him because he is Nadya's father. And I . . . I hate him. Because I have to name him, and he knew that I was going to name him. And he behaved nobly, he never tried to stop me being friends with Nadya, although I know that he doesn't like me, he thinks I'm a clumsy, namby-pamby weakling. And I'm a traitor . . . because Nadya and I deceived him. And I have strength, which I know not only foretells the future, but also changes it, only I am weak . . . and I cannot change the future so that I could name someone else.”

“The Dark One,” said the Two-in-One.

“That's me,” said Zabulon, without making the slightest attempt to move from the spot. “Zabulon, a Higher Dark One, representing the Dark Ones, obviously. I annul the Covenant of Blood; it is an archaic and irrational use of material. Henceforth and until the end of time. My sacrifice is Anton Gorodetsky. I love him—he is the most successful of my descendants. I hate him, he became a Light One and he likes it—I hate him especially because he likes it. He is a fine and noble enemy, but he is prepared to use treacherous means, and that makes me especially furious, because he would have been a truly great Dark One. And I am stronger than him, and would probably always have been stronger, but I could not do what he is doing now. In that way I am weaker. I have tried to do something of the kind sometimes, and I always stopped in time . . . but he does not know how to stop.”

“The Light One,” the Two-in-One announced.

I couldn't stop myself—I turned and looked at Nadya. And I nodded to her, because right then she was feeling really, really bad, and there was nothing I could do to support and protect her.

“I am a Higher Light One, Nadezhda Gorodetsky,” said Nadya. Her voice was matter-of-fact—the very sound of it made my blood run cold. “I annul the Covenant of Blood. I hate it; perhaps there was a time when it was the best answer, the correct solution, but that time was long ago. I abrogate it forever. Let there be nothing but good or nothing but evil, if that's what people deserve. But we've had enough of this balance. A balance of good is always a balance of evil too. I . . . I . . .”

“You must name a sacrifice,” the Two-in-One said.

“My sacrifice . . .” Nadezhda began, and stopped, looking at me. I nodded to her encouragingly. There was nothing that she could do about this. Absolutely nothing. “My sacrifice is Anton Gorodetsky, my father. I . . . I love him because he is my father and that's a good enough reason. And I hate him! I hate him because I should be standing where he is and he should be standing where I am, but he understood everything before I did and did as he wanted! And that's probably awfully noble of him, only it's terribly, terribly, treacherous. And I'd give away my Power, I don't need it. I'd be willing to live as an ordinary person, but I'm too weak to kill you . . . But I'll get stronger and I'll totally pulverize you. I'll go right through the Twilight and burn you out completely, or I'll invent special Twilight defoliants and poison every one of its levels. Do you think I'm a fool and I don't realize where you hide and what you're made of, you trashy, creeping blue garbage?”

Silence fell, broken only by Nadya's heavy breathing.

“The Watch of Six has spoken,” the Two-in-One declared. “The Covenant of Blood is abrogated. No longer will anyone preserve the balance of good and evil among people. Henceforth your destiny is in your own hands.”

For just a tiny, fleeting moment I thought he would turn and walk away. As the Tiger had once done.

For just a fleeting moment I thought my daughter's name was a magic talisman that would save me even on the brink of the abyss.

“I accept your sacrifice,” the Two-in-One said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him raise his immense hand and hold it out toward me. But I didn't want to look around. I looked at my daughter and my wife, who was being held firmly by Olga. And somewhere nearby was Gesar, who had made me the person I was; and my newly acquired Dark granddad, Zabulon; and the sharp-tongued old witch Arina, with her misplaced love; and the young Prophet Kesha, with his arms round Nadya's heaving shoulders; and the brave, good man who had grown out of the frightened boy Egor; and those battle-hardened old stagers Jermenson and Glyba . . .

But I looked at my daughter and my wife, trying to smile as sincerely as I could, so they would remember that smile and know that I was proud of them.

And then something icy blue and fiery red struck me in the back.

A GRAVEYARD IS A JOYLESS PLACE AT ANY TIME OF THE YEAR.
In spring, when the air is cool and fresh and the trees are hazy with new green leaves, thinking about death is especially distressing. In the heat of summer, when the smell of the hot earth rises up into the air, a graveyard seems like a lurking predator, biding its time before it pounces on you. In autumn, under the gray, rainy sky, a graveyard is dreary and repulsive.

But the worst time of all is winter. The hard ground refuses to yield to the spades, and the thought that someone is about to be left in that frozen earth sends chilly shivers up and down your spine.

It was an old cemetery, right in the center of Moscow. Funerals were only held here very, very rarely, and always for people who were either very famous or very rich. Of course, it didn't have the prestige of the famous Vagankovo and Novodevichy cemeteries, but anywhere in the center of Moscow is pricey for the living and the dead.

“We don't often bury one of our colleagues,” said Zabulon. “Usually there's nothing left to bury . . . and we don't get together with the Light Ones very often either.”

He simply stood there for a while, wrapped up in his warm coat, then removed his gloves, took a wreath with the inscription
FROM THE DAY WATCH OF MOSCOW
from the shivering assistant who was standing behind him, placed it on the fresh grave, and stood back again with his head lowered.

“Farewell. You served loyally,” he said.

Gesar never wore gloves. Maybe he had been used to the cold since the long-gone days of his youth in Tibet, or maybe he liked flaunting his folksy simplicity. The wreath
FROM THE NIGHT WATCH OF MOSCOW
was handed to him by Olga.

“A hard destiny,” he said. “And a hard death. But . . . you were one of us and you always will be.”

He lingered on the spot for a while, then looked at Zabulon, took a flask out of his pocket, and held it out to the Dark One.

“Here . . . let's see them off in the Russian style.”

“A fine old Russian custom,” Svetlana remarked in a low voice, “swigging French cognac in a graveyard . . .”

She took hold of my hand.

Zabulon let Gesar take a mouthful first, took one himself, and then held the flask out to me.

“Anton?”

“I won't, if you don't mind,” I said. “I have to take care of my health now. Good health is the most precious thing a human being has.”

“Anton, stop that,” Zabulon said, looking at me reproachfully. “We'll take care of your health. And if you need treatment, we'll use all the resources of both Watches. You've earned it.”

“I don't want to drink to them,” I said, nodding at the grave where the monstrous body of the Two-in-One—the former Light Magician Denis and former Dark Magician Alexei—lay in an immense coffin. “He killed me, after all. One side of me.”

“We all reach the end of the road sometime,” Gesar replied. “Others are immortal, but . . .”

“And people are simply mortal,” I said. “Sorry, but I won't drink. They're not to blame. But people don't drink to their own killers.”

“You could say he took it easy on you,” Gesar reminded me. “He could simply have killed you. Finally and completely. Disembodied you. Incinerated you. Extracted every last drop of your Power.”

“He did kill me,” I said. “By making me a man, he killed me. Maybe not right now, but in twenty years . . . Or thirty. And that's it.”

“That's the way people live, Dad,” said Nadya.

She was standing beside me, holding Innokentii's hand.

“Okay,” I said, and took the flask from Zabulon.

The cognac seared my throat.

I closed my eyes, focusing on my inner sensations, and tried to look through my eyelids, into the Twilight.

But of course I couldn't do it.

“Rest in peace, may the Twilight be gentle,” I muttered, handing back the flask.

Everyone was gradually drifting away. It was a joint funeral, held by both Watches, but the Light and Dark Watchmen were going to separate wakes. The two minibuses standing at the gates of the cemetery would take them in different directions.

Kostya Saushkin waved to me, but he didn't come over. And I think he was right. The Twilight had left him here on earth and given back to him what takes the place of life for vampires. We had been friends once, but that didn't alter the fact that I had killed him and he had killed me.

“Come on,” said Semyon, walking up to me. “We have to go. It's the custom. Don't feel angry with Denis. He got wiped out in the line of duty.”

“I'll drop around later,” I said.

Semyon stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He was embarrassed.

“But Anton . . . You can't . . . The restaurant's blocked off with a Sphere of Negation . . . You won't get through on your own.”

He was right, of course.

“I'll bring him in,” Svetlana said. “You guys go on. We'll follow.”

Svetlana, Nadya, and I deliberately walked at a leisurely pace. And Kesha, of course. He was right there. Maybe he and Nadya would go
their separate ways in a couple of months . . . or a couple of hundred years. But Kesha obviously saw something more optimistic in their future.

I'd have to put up with him.

“There are famous people here,” Nadya said in a quiet voice. “Look, there's a famous film director, he made cartoons! And there's a writer . . . Oh, I've read his books!”

“Yes, a very respectable gathering,” I said. “The Two-in-One should be pleased.”

“Stop it, Dad!” my daughter told me. “He didn't kill you, that's all that matters!”

I remembered how Svetlana had sobbed as she hugged me. I sat there on the floor, pawing at the icy remnants of my shirt on one arm and the singed tatters on the other. Compared with the Two-in-One's usual blow, it was no more than a goodbye kiss.

But it was a genuine goodbye, because at that moment the Two-in-One was lying dead on the floor. And the former Watchmen of the Light and the Darkness had died in his gruesome body.

I didn't even understand straightaway what had happened. I was too glad just to be alive. Not even Gesar's embarrassed stare and the crestfallen look in Zabulon's eyes alerted me.

Or even the way that Svetlana suddenly stopped sobbing, drew back, and peered at me . . .

Then Nadya told me, with the ruthless frankness of youth: “Dad, you're human!”

Yes, I had become a human being. A perfectly ordinary person. Without even a hint of Other powers. With a “magical temperature” far higher than the threshold at which premonitions and the ability to perform paltry magic tricks are manifested.

I hadn't run out of steam, the way Others can do sometimes. I wasn't squeezed dry, the way Svetlana was after she fought the Mirror Magician.

I had irrevocably become a human being.

“I think part of the Two-in-One kind of felt sorry for you,” said Nadya. “That's the reason, isn't it?”

I didn't want to offend my daughter. She's a clever girl. But she's also an Absolute Enchantress and it would be useful for her to be wise too.

“No, Nadya,” I said. “That part of the Two-in-One was cruel and was very angry with me. That's why I'm still alive.”

Nadya didn't say anything to that.

The minibuses had already left by the time we got into the car—Zabulon hadn't asked for his present to be returned. Svetlana took the wheel and I didn't object—without the ability to read the lines of probability, I would have been like a blind man on the road.

“You're not entirely right, you know, Anton,” Svetlana said. “You didn't become human because someone felt sorry for you or hated you. You became a human being because you
were
human. You remained a human being, even after living as an Other for a quarter of a century. That's a very rare thing. And that's why you're still alive, even after the Two-in-One killed the magician in you.”

I nodded. She was probably right. That was probably the way it was. But not even my wise wife could tell me how to live now.

I'd just have to learn.

People manage it, don't they?