The Night Watch (6 page)

'Do you find the way we feed ourselves unpleasant?'

'Yes.'

'So you find me unpleasant as well? All of us?'

I shook my head. We'd never talked about this before. It had been easier that way.

'Kostya, in order to live, you need blood. And, sometimes at least, human blood.'

'We don't live.'

'I meant in the more general sense. In order to move, think, speak, dream.'

'What do you care about a vampire's dreams?'

'Listen, son. There are plenty of people living in the world who need regular blood transfusions. There are at least as many of them as you. And then there are hospital emergencies. That's why people give blood, that's why it's thought to be such an honourable and respected thing to do ... I know about your kind's contributions to the development of medicine and the way you promoted the giving of blood. Kostya, if someone needs blood in order to live, to exist – that's no big deal. And whether it goes in through the veins or the stomach is irrelevant too. The important thing is how you get hold of it.'

'Empty words,' Kostya snorted. I got the feeling he'd crossed over into the Twilight for an instant and then come straight back out. The boy was growing up, all right. And he was getting really strong.

'You showed the way you really feel about us yesterday.'

'You're wrong.'

'Ah, drop it . . .' He put the bottle down, then changed his mind and turned it upside down over the sink. 'We don't need your—'

I heard a hoot behind me and swung round. I'd completely forgotten about the owl, but now it had turned its head towards Kostya and spread its wings.

'Agh . . .' he said. 'What . . .'

The owl folded its wings and closed its eyes.

'Olga, we're talking,' I growled. 'Just give us a moment . . .'

The bird didn't respond. Kostya glanced from me to the owl and back again. Then he sat down and folded his hands on his knees.

'What's wrong with you?' I asked.

'Can I go now?'

He wasn't just surprised or frightened, he was in shock.

'Okay. But take this, will you?'

Kostya began grabbing the bottles and putting them in his pockets.

'Take a plastic bag, you dunce! What if there's someone in the hallway?'

The vampire obediently packed all the bottles into a plastic bag bearing the noble inscription: 'For the resurrection of Russian culture!' He gave the owl a sideways glance, went out into the hall and hastily began putting on his shoes.

'Call again,' I said. 'I'm not your enemy. Not until you cross that line, I'm not.'

He nodded and shot out of my apartment like a bullet. I shrugged and closed the door, then went back into the kitchen and looked at the owl.

'Well? What happened there?'

It was impossible to read anything in those amber-yellow eyes. I threw my hands up.

'How can we work together? Eh? How are we going to collaborate? Do you have any way of communicating? I'm trying to be frank with you, do you hear me? To have a frank conversation!'

I didn't go all the way into the Twilight, just reached in there with my thoughts. It's not good to trust anyone you don't know like that, but the boss wouldn't have given me a partner I couldn't trust, would he?

No answer. Even if Olga could communicate telepathically, she wasn't going to.

'What shall we do? We need to look for that girl. Will you accept her image?'

No reply. I sighed and tossed the scrap of my memory at the bird anyway.

The owl stretched its wings and soared across on to my shoulder.

'Ah, so we do hear when we're spoken to? But we don't condescend to reply. All right, have it your own way. What should I do?'

The owl still wouldn't speak.

In fact, I knew what to do. There was no hope of success, but that was a different matter.

'And how am I going to wander round the streets with you sitting on my shoulder?'

A mocking glance, definitely mocking. And the bird on my shoulder shifted into the Twilight.

So that was it. An invisible observer. And no ordinary observer – Kostya's reaction to the owl had been very instructive. Apparently I'd been given a partner that the powers of the Dark knew better than the rank-and-file servants of the Light did.

'Right,' I said cheerfully. 'I'll just grab a bite to eat, okay?'

I took out some yoghurt and poured a glass of orange juice. The very thought of what I'd been feeding myself with for the last week – half-raw steaks and meat juices that were not much different from blood – made me feel sick.

'Maybe you'd like a bit of meat?'

The owl turned away.

'Have it your own way,' I said. 'No doubt when you get hungry you'll find some way to communicate.'

I
LIKE WALKING
round town inside the Twilight. You don't actually become invisible, or you'd have people bumping into you all the time. They just somehow look straight through you and don't notice you. But this time I'd have to work out in the open.

The day's not our time. Odd as it may seem, the followers of the Light work at night, when the Dark Ones become active. And just at the moment there wasn't so much the Dark Ones could do. During the day vampires, werewolves and Dark Magicians are obliged to live like ordinary people.

Most of them, that is.

I was walking round Tulskaya metro station. Following the boss's advice, I'd worked through all the stations on the circle line where the girl with the black vortex could possibly have left the metro. She should have left a trail behind, a weak one maybe, but still detectable. Now I'd decided to work my way out along the radial lines.

It's a stupid station in a stupid district. Two exits quite some distance apart. A market, that pompous-looking skyscraper occupied by the tax police, a massive apartment block. With all those dark emanations all around, any chance of picking up the trail of the black vortex was looking pretty doubtful.

Especially if it had never even been there.

I walked round everything, trying to sense the girl's aura, sometimes glancing into the Twilight at the invisible bird nesting on my shoulder. The own was dozing. It couldn't sense anything either, and for some reason I felt sure its reconnaissance skills were better than mine.

Once a militiaman checked my papers. Twice I was pestered by crazy blokes who wanted to give me, absolutely free – that is for only fifty roubles – a Chinese fan, a child's toy and a dirt-cheap Korean mobile phone.

And again I couldn't control myself. I brushed aside the next street salesman who pestered me and performed a remoralisation. Only a little one, right at the very edge of what's allowed. Maybe he would start looking for a different kind of work. Or maybe he wouldn't. . .

But just at that moment someone grabbed hold of my elbows. A second earlier there was no one there – then suddenly there was a young couple. An attractive-looking girl with red hair and a solid-looking man with a surly expression on his face.

'Stop there,' said the girl. She was the leader, I could tell that straight off. 'Day Watch.'

Light and Dark!

I shrugged and looked at them.

'Your name,' the girl demanded.

There was no point in lying, they'd captured the image of my aura already, and after that identifying the individual is only a matter of time.

'Anton Gorodetsky.'

They waited.

'Other,' I confessed. 'Night Watch agent.'

They lifted their hands off my elbows, and even took a step back. But they didn't seem disappointed.

'Okay, let's enter the Twilight,' said the man.

They didn't look like vampires. That was one good thing. At least I could hope for a certain degree of objectivity. I sighed and shifted from one reality into the other.

The first surprise was that they turned out to be genuinely young. A witch of about twenty-five and a warlock of about thirty, the same age as me. I thought that if I needed to, I could probably even recall their names, there weren't that many witches and warlocks born in the late 1960s.

The second surprise was that the owl wasn't there on my shoulder. Or rather, it was: I could feel its claws and I could see it, but only with some effort. It was as if the bird had shifted realities at the same time as I had and moved into a deeper level of the Twilight.

This was getting really interesting!

'Day Watch,' the girl repeated. 'Alisa Donnikova, Other.'

'Pyotr Nesterov, Other,' the man muttered.

'You have some kind of problem?'

The girl drilled me with one of those speciality 'witch's glances'. She started to look more attractive and appealing with every moment. Of course, I'm protected against direct influence, it's not possible to bewitch me, but it certainly looked impressive.

'We're not the ones with the problem. Anton Gorodetsky, you have entered into unsanctioned contact with a human.'

'Yes? And what was that?'

'Only a seventh-degree intervention,' the witch admitted reluctantly. 'But an offence is an offence. And you also urged him towards the Light.'

'Are we going to draw up a charge report?' I suddenly found the situation amusing. Seventh degree was next to nothing – a level of influence on the borderline between magic and ordinary conversation.

'We are.'

'And what are we going to write? A Night Watch agent slightly increased one human's aversion to deception?'

'Thereby disrupting the established balance,' the warlock barked out.

'Really? And what harm does it do to the Dark? If the guy stops working as a petty crook, his life is bound to get worse. He'll be more moral, but unhappier too. Under the terms of the commentaries on the Treaty on the balance of power, that's not regarded as a violation of the balance.'

'Sophistry,' the young woman said curtly. 'You're a Night Watch agent. What might be pardonable for an ordinary Other is not acceptable from you.'

She was right. It was still a violation, even if it was petty.

'He was obstructing me. I have a right to use magical intervention in the course of conducting an investigation.'

'Are you on duty, Anton?'

'Yes.'

'Why during the day?'

'I have a special assignment. You can direct your enquiry to my superiors. Or rather, you have the right to address your enquiry to your superiors.'

The witch and the warlock exchanged glances. No matter how opposed our goals and moralities might be, the two hierarchies had to collaborate.

Only, to be quite frank, nobody really liked involving the bosses.

'Very well,' the witch agreed reluctantly. 'Anton, we will limit ourselves to a verbal warning.'

I looked around. All round me there were people, moving slowly through the grey gloom. Ordinary people, incapable of moving out of their own little world. We were Others, and though I stood on the Light Side and the other two were on the Dark Side, we had far more in common with each other than with any of those ordinary humans.

'On what terms?'

You should never try to second-guess the Dark. You should never make any concessions. And it's even more dangerous to accept any gifts from it. But rules are only made to be broken.

'No terms.'

Well, that was a surprise!

I looked at Alisa, trying to figure out the catch. Pyotr was obviously indignant at his partner, he was angry, he wanted to expose an adept of the Light as a criminal. That meant I didn't have to worry about him.

But where was the trap?

'That's unacceptable to me,' I said, with a sigh of relief – I'd spotted the catch. 'Alisa, thank you for your offer of a peaceful resolution. I can accept it, but in a similar situation I am bound to forgive you a minor magical intervention, up to and including the seventh degree.'

'Very well, Other,' Alisa agreed readily. She held out her hand and I automatically shook it. 'We have a personal agreement.'

The owl on my shoulder flapped its wings. There was a furious screech right in my ear. And a moment later the bird materialised in the Twilight world.

Alisa took a step back and the pupils of her eyes rapidly extended into vertical slits. The young warlock took up a defensive stance.

'We have an agreement,' the witch repeated sullenly.

What was going on?

I realised too late that I shouldn't have entered into an agreement while Olga was there. But then – what was so terrible about what had happened? As if I hadn't been there when other guys from the Watch had concluded alliances like this, made concessions, agreed terms for co-operating with the Dark Ones, even the boss himself had done it! Sure, it's undesirable, but sometimes you have to.

Our goal is not to exterminate the Dark Ones. Our goal is to maintain the balance. The Dark Ones will only disappear when people conquer the Evil in themselves. Or we'll disappear, if people decide they like the Dark better than the Light.

'The agreement's been made,' I told the owl. 'Cool it. It's no big deal. Just standard collaboration.'

Alisa smiled and gave me a wave. She took the warlock by the elbow, and they started moving off. A few moments later they were out of the Twilight and setting off along the pavement. An ordinary young couple.

'What's wrong with you?' I asked. 'Well? Field work has always been built on compromises.'

'You made a mistake.'

Olga's voice was strange, it didn't match her appearance. Soft, velvety, musical. The way werecats talk, not birds.

'Oh! So you can talk now?'

'Yes.'

'Then why didn't you say anything before?'

'Everything was okay before.'

I laughed, remembering the old joke about the child that didn't speak for years.

'I'll leave the Twilight, okay? And meanwhile you can explain what mistake I've made. Minor compromises with the Dark Ones are inevitable in this line of work.'

'You're not well enough qualified to make compromises.'

The world around me became coloured. It was like switching modes on a video camera, when you change from 'sepia' or 'old movie' to the standard view. The comparison is really quite apt in some ways: the Twilight is an 'old movie'. A really old one that humankind has managed to forget. They find it easier to live that way.

I set off towards the steps down into the metro, snarling to my invisible companion on the way:

'And just what have qualifications got to do with it?'

'A high-ranking Watch member is able to foresee the consequences of a compromise. Whether it's no more than just a minor trade-off and the effects are self-neutralising, or a trap, a trick.'

'I doubt if a seventh-grade intervention's likely to lead to disaster.'

A man walking along beside me glanced at me in surprise. I was just about to say something like: 'I'm harmless, the non-violent kind of psycho.' It's a great way of curing excessive curiosity. But the man had already lengthened his stride, probably having come to a similar conclusion himself.

'Anton, you can't predict the consequences. You overreacted to a minor annoyance. Your little piece of magic led to intervention by the Dark Ones. You agreed a compromise with them. But the saddest thing of all is that there was no need for magical intervention in the first place.'

'Okay, okay, I admit it. So now what?'

The bird's voice was sounding more lifelike now, developing more expression.

I suppose it must have been a long time since she'd last spoken.

'Now – nothing. We'll have to hope for the best.'

'Are you going to tell the boss what happened?'

'No. At least, not yet. We're partners, after all.'

I felt a warm glow. This sudden improvement in relations with my partner made any mistakes worthwhile.

'Thanks. So what do you advise?'

'You're doing everything right. Look for the trail.'

I'd have preferred rather less standard advice . . .

'Let's go.'

By two o'clock, along with the circle line, I'd combed the entire grey line too. Maybe I am a lousy operational agent, but there was no way I could have failed to spot the trail from yesterday, when I'd captured the image myself. The girl with the black vortex spinning over her head hadn't got out here. I'd have to go back and start again from the point where we'd met.

At Kurskaya I went up the escalator and out of the metro and bought a plastic tub of salad and a coffee from a van on the street. The very sight of the hamburgers and sausages made me feel sick, even though the amount of meat in them was strictly symbolic.

'Will you have something?' I asked my invisible companion.

'No, thank you.'

Standing there with the fine snow falling on me, I picked at my salad with a tiny plastic fork and sipped the hot coffee. A bum who'd been counting on me buying a beer, so that he could have the empty bottle, hung about for a bit and then took off into the metro to get warm. Nobody else paid any attention to me. The girl behind the counter served the hungry passers-by, faceless streams of people flooded from the station and back towards it. The salesman at a bookstall was trying wearily and unenthusiastically to foist some book or other on a customer, who didn't like the price.

'I must be in a bad mood or something . . .' I muttered.

'Why?'

'Everything looks dark and miserable. All the people are low-lifes and idiots, the salad's frozen, my boots feel damp.'

The bird on my shoulder screeched.

'No, Anton, it's not just your mood. You can sense the approach of the Inferno.'

'I'm not noted for being particularly sensitive.'

'That's just the point.'

I glanced at the station and tried to get a close look at people's faces. Some of them were sensing it too. The ones who stood right on the line between human and Other were tense and depressed. They couldn't understand why, so they were compensating by acting cheerful.

'Dark and Light. . . What will it be when it happens, Olga?'

'Anything at all. You delayed the time of the eruption, but now when the vortex strikes the consequences will be absolutely catastrophic. That's the effect of delay.'

'The boss didn't tell me that.'

'Why should he? You did the right thing. Now at least there's a chance.'

'Olga, how old are you?' I asked. Between humans the question might have been taken as an insult. But for us age doesn't have any particular limits.

'Very old, Anton. For instance, I can remember the uprising.'

'The revolution?'

'The uprising on Senate Square, in 1825.' The owl chortled. I didn't say anything. She could be even older than the boss.

'What's your rank?' I asked.

'I don't have one. I was stripped of all rights.'

'I'm sorry.'

'No problem. I came to terms with it a long time ago.'

Her voice was still cheerful, even mocking. But something told me Olga had never come to terms with it.