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Authors: Sergei Lukyanenko

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'Okay, let's watch a bit more,' the security boss said, taking pity
on me.

Later on, after a two-hour break, people came piling in.

Another three residents sent off envelopes of some kind. All
men, all very serious-looking.

And one woman. About seventy years old. Just before closing
time. Plump, wearing a sumptuous dress and huge beads in bad
taste. Her sparse grey hair was set in curls.

'Surely it couldn't be her?' the boss said, delighted. He got up
and slapped me on the shoulder. 'Well, is there any point in looking
for your mysterious flirt?'

'It's clear enough,' I said. 'It's a wind-up.'

'Never mind, it's nothing more than a harmless joke,' the security
boss consoled me. 'And a request from me to you for the
future . . . don't ever make such ambiguous gestures. Never take
money out, if you don't intend to pay someone.'

I hung my head.

'We're the ones who corrupt people,' the boss said bitterly. 'Do
you understand? We do it ourselves. Offer someone money once,
twice . . . and the third time he asks you for it. And we complain
– what is all this, and where did it come from? But you're a good
man, I can see the light in you.'

I gaped at the boss in amazement.

'Yes, you are a good man,' said the boss. 'I trust my instinct. I
saw all sorts in twenty years in the criminal investigation department.
Don't do that again, all right? Don't sow evil in the world.'

It was a long time since I'd felt so ashamed.

A Light Magician being taught not to do evil!

'I'll try,' I said, looking the boss in the eye guiltily. 'Thanks very
much for your help.'

He didn't answer. His eyes had turned glassy, as vacant as a little
baby's. His mouth had opened slightly. His fingers had turned
white, clenched tightly around the armrests of his chair.

The freeze. A fairly simple spell, very widely used.

There was someone standing by the window behind me. I
couldn't see them, but I could sense them with my back . . .

I jerked to one side as quickly as I could. But I still felt the icy
breath of the power aimed at me. No, it wasn't the freeze. But it
was something similar, something out of the vampire's arsenal of
tricks.

The power skidded across me and sank into the unfortunate
security boss. The cover Gesar had put in place not only disguised
me, it protected me too.

My shoulder smashed against the wall and I threw my hands
out in front of me, but at the last second I pulled back and didn't
strike. I blinked and raised the shadow of my eyelids up over my
eyes.

Standing by the windows, grim-faced from effort, was a vampire.
Tall, with the face of a well-bred European. A Higher Vampire,
without the slightest doubt. And not as immature as Kostya. He
was at least three hundred years old. And his power undoubtedly
exceeded mine.

But not Gesar's! The vampire had not seen that I was really an
Other. And now all those suppressed non-life instincts that Higher
Vampires can keep under control came bursting out. I don't know
who he took me for. Maybe some special human being with
reactions that could rival a vampire's, or a mythical half-blood –
the child of a human woman and a male vampire – or for a
rather less mythical warlock, a hunter of lower Others. But the
vampire was clearly on the point of cutting loose and smashing
everything around him. His features began melting like soft putty,
changing into a bestial face with a heavy forehead, fangs sliding
out of his upper jaw and razor-sharp claws springing from his
fingers.

A crazed vampire is a terrible thing.

The only thing worse is a vampire poised and in control.

My reflexes saved me from a duel with a dubious outcome. I
held back and didn't strike, and shouted out the traditional formula
of arrest:

'Night Watch! Leave the Twilight!'

And immediately I heard a voice from the doorway.

'Stop, he's one of us!'

I was amazed how quickly the vampire normalised. The claws
and the fangs were withdrawn, the face quivered, like jellied meat,
assuming that reserved, noble expression of a prosperous European.
And I remembered this European very well – from the glorious
city of Prague, where they brew the best beer in the world and
still have the finest Gothic architecture.

'Witiezslav?' I exclaimed. 'What do you think you're doing?'

And, of course, the person standing at the door was Edgar. The
Dark Magician who had worked for a short while in the Moscow
Day Watch before leaving to join the Inquisition.

'Anton, I beg your pardon!' The imperturbable Estonian was really
embarrassed. 'A slight error. In pursuit of our common goal . . .'

Witiezslav was politeness itself.

'Our apologies, watchman. We did not recognise you.'

His gaze slid over me tenaciously and a note of admiration
appeared in his voice.

'What a disguise . . . Congratulations, watchman. If that is your
work, I bow to you.'

I didn't explain who had constructed my defences. It's not often
that a Light Magician (or a Dark Magician, for that matter) gets
a chance to give Inquisitors a good bawling-out.

'What have you done to this man?' I barked. 'He is under my
protection!'

'It was necessary for our work, as my colleague has already said,'
Witiezslav replied with a shrug. 'We're interested in the information
from the video cameras.'

Edgar casually moved aside the chair with the frozen security
boss in it and came closer. He smiled:

'Gorodetsky, everything's all right. We're all doing the same job,
aren't we?'

'Do you have permission for . . . using methods like this?' I asked.

'We have permission for very many things,' Witiezslav replied
frostily. 'You have no idea how many.'

That was it, he'd recovered his equilibrium. And he was set on
confrontation. But of course – he'd very nearly given way to his
instincts, lost his self-control, and for a Higher Vampire that's an
unpardonable disgrace. A note of genuine, cold fury appeared in
Witiezslav's voice:

'Would you like to test that, watchman?'

Of course, an Inquisitor can't allow anyone to yell at him. Only
now there was no way I could back down either.

Edgar saved the situation. He raised his hands and exclaimed in
emotional tones.

'It's my fault! I ought to have recognised Mr Gorodetsky.
Witiezslav, it's all the result of my poor work. I'm sorry.'

I held out my hand to the vampire first.

'Fair enough, we are all doing the same job. I hadn't expected
to see you here.'

I'd hit the bull's eye there. Witiezslav looked away for a moment.
And he smiled very amiably as he shook my hand. The vampire's
palm was warm . . . and I realised what that meant.

'Our colleague Witiezslav has come straight from the plane,' said
Edgar.

'And he hasn't gone through temporary registration yet?' I
asked.

No matter how powerful Witiezslav might be, no matter what
position he might hold in the Inquisition, he was still a vampire.
And he was obliged to go through the humiliating procedure of
registration.

I didn't press the point too hard. Just tried to be helpful.

'We can complete all the formalities here,' I suggested. 'I have
the right to do that.'

'Thank you,' the vampire said with a nod. 'But I'll call into your
office. Proper procedure above all things.'

A shaky truce had been patched together.

'I've already looked through the recordings,' I said. 'Letters were
posted three days ago by four men and one woman. And some
construction worker posted a whole pile of letters. There are builders
from Uzbekistan working here.'

'A good sign for your country,' Witiezslav said very politely.
'When the citizens of neighbouring states are used as manpower,
it's an indication of economic growth.'

I could have explained to him what I thought about that. But
I didn't.

'Would you like to see the recording?' I asked.

'Yes, I think so,' the vampire said.

Edgar stood aside.

I brought up the image of the post office on the monitor, then
switched on 'movement search', and we watched all the local lovers
of the epistolary genre once again.

'I know this one,' I said, pointing at Las. 'I'll find out today
what it was he posted.'

'Do you suspect him?' asked Witiezslav.

'No,' I said and shook my head.

The vampire ran the tape through again. But this time the
unfortunate security boss was set in front of the monitor, still
under the spell.

'Who's this?' Witiezslav asked him.

'A resident,' he replied indifferently. 'Block one, sixteenth floor.'

He had a good memory. He named all the suspects, except the
building worker with the pile of letters. As well as Las, the resident
from the sixteenth floor and the old woman from the eleventh,
letters had been posted by two of Assol's managers.

'We'll deal with the men,' Witiezslav decided. 'For a start. You
check the old woman, Gorodetsky. All right?'

I shrugged. Collaboration was all very well, but I wasn't going
to let anyone order me about.

Especially not a Dark One. And a vampire.

'It's easier for you,' Witiezslav explained. 'It's . . . hard for me to
approach old people.'

The admission was frank and unexpected. I mumbled something
in reply and didn't press him for any further explanation.

'I sense in them something that I don't have,' he went on to
explain anyway. 'Mortality.'

'You envy them that?' I couldn't resist asking.

'It frightens me.' Witiezslav leaned down over the security chief
and said: 'We're going to go now. You will sleep for five minutes and
have beautiful dreams. When you wake up, you will forget our visit.
You will only remember Anton . . .you will feel very friendly towards
him. If Anton needs anything, you will give him any help you can.'

'There's no need . . .' I protested weakly.

'We are all working for the same cause,' the vampire reminded
me. 'I know how hard it is to work undercover. Goodbye.'

And instantly he disappeared. Edgar gave a guilty smile and
walked out of the door.

I left the office too, without waiting for the head of security
to wake up.

CHAPTER 4

F
ATE, WHICH OUR
magicians claim does not exist, was kind to
me.

In Assol's vestibule (well, you really couldn't call that spacious
hall a lobby,) I saw the old woman that the vampire had been
afraid to approach. She was standing by the lift, gazing pensively
at the buttons.

I glanced at the old woman through the Twilight, and realised
that she was totally confused, almost in a panic. The well-trained
security guards were no help here. On the outside the old woman
seemed entirely calm and collected: I realised she was definitely a
lady – not an ordinary old Russian woman at all. I set off decisively
towards her.

'Excuse me, can I be of any help?' I asked.

She cast me a sideways glance. Not a glance of senile suspicion,
more of embarrassment.

'I've forgotten where I live,' she confessed. 'Do you happen to
know?'

'The eleventh floor,' I said. 'Allow me to show you the way.'

The grey curls with delicate pink skin showing through them
swayed ever so slightly.

'Eighty years old,' said the old woman. 'I remember that . . . it's
painful to remember it. But I do.'

I took the lady by the arm and led her towards the lift. One
of the security men started walking towards us, but my aged
companion shook her head:

'The gentleman's showing me the way . . .'

The gentleman did show her the way. The elderly lady recognised
her own door and even quickened her step in delight. The
apartment was not locked, it had been magnificently refurbished
and furnished, and there was a lively girl about twenty years old
striding to and fro in the hallway and complaining into a phone:

'Yes, I've looked downstairs! She slipped out again . . .'

The girl was delighted when we showed up. Only I'm afraid
the sweet smile and the touching concern were mostly meant for
me.

Good-looking young women don't take servants' jobs in homes
like that because the money's good.

'Mashenka, bring us some tea,' said the old woman, interrupting
the girl's prattling. She probably had no illusions either. 'In the
large room.'

The girl went dashing obediently to the kitchen, but not before
she had smiled once more and deliberately brushed her pert breasts
against me as she said in my ear:

'She's got really bad . . . My name's Tamara.'

Somehow I didn't feel like introducing myself. I followed the
old woman through into the 'large room'. Well, it was huge. With
furniture from Stalin's time and clear traces of the work of an
expensive designer. The walls were covered with black-and-white
photographs – at first I even took them for elements of the design.
But then I realised that the blindingly beautiful young woman
with white teeth, wearing a flying helmet, was my elderly lady.

'I bombed the Fritzes,' the lady said modestly as she sat down
at a round table covered with a maroon velvet tablecloth with
tassels. 'Look, Kalinin himself presented me with that medal . . .'

Dumbfounded, I took a seat facing the former pilot.

Even in the best of cases people like that live out their final
days in old state dachas or in monolithic, dilapidated Stalinist buildings.
But not in an elite residential complex. She had dropped
bombs on the fascists, not ferried the Reichstag's gold reserves
back home to Russia.

'My grandson bought the apartment for me,' the old woman
said, as if she had read my thoughts. 'A big apartment. I don't
remember anything here . . . it all seems familiar, like it's mine,
but I don't remember . . .'

I nodded. She had a good grandson, what could I say? Of course,
transferring an expensive apartment to your war-heroine grandmother's
name and then inheriting it later was a very clever way
to do things. But in any case it was a good deed. Only the servant
should have been chosen with more care. Not a twenty-year-old
girl obsessed with the profitable capital investment of her pretty
young face and good figure, but an older, reliable nurse . . .

The old woman looked pensively out of the window. She said:

'I'd be better off in those houses, the little ones . . . I'm more
used to that . . .'

But I wasn't listening any more. I was looking at the table,
heaped high with letters bearing the eye-catching stamp 'No
longer at this address'. It was hardly surprising. The addressees
included such figures as the old Soviet Union figurehead Kalinin,
Generalissimus Joseph Stalin, Comrade Khrushchev and 'Dear
Leonid Ilich Brezhnev'.

Our more recent national leaders had clearly not been retained
in the old woman's memory.

I didn't need any Other abilities to guess what kind of letter
the old woman had posted three days earlier.

'I can't bear having nothing to do,' she complained, catching my
glance. 'I keep asking to be assigned to the schools, the flying colleges
. . . so I can tell the young people what our life was like . . .'

I took a look at her through the Twilight anyway. And I almost
exclaimed out loud.

The old pilot was a potential Other – maybe not a very powerful
one, but it was crystal clear.

Only, to initiate her at that age . . . I couldn't imagine it. At
sixty, at seventy . . . but at eighty?

The stress of it would kill her. She'd just fade away into the
Twilight, an insane, insubstantial shadow.

You can't check everyone. Not even in Moscow, where there
are so many watchmen.

And sometimes we recognise our brothers and sisters too late.

Tamara appeared carrying a tray set with dishes of biscuits and
sweets, a teapot and beautiful old cups. She set the dishes down
on the table without making a sound.

But the old woman was already dozing, still perched on her
chair as firm and upright as ever.

I got up carefully and nodded to Tamara:

'I'll be going. You should keep a closer watch on her, you know
she forgets where she lives.'

'But I never take my eyes off her,' Tamara replied, fluttering her
eyelids. 'I'd never . . .'

I checked her too. No Other abilities at all.

An ordinary young woman. Even quite kind in her own way.

'Does she often write letters?' I asked with the faintest of smiles.

Taking the smile as sign of absolution, Tamara began smiling
too:

'All the time! To Stalin, and Brezhnev . . . Isn't that hilarious?'

I didn't argue with her.

 

Of all the cafés and restaurants that Assol was crammed with, the
only one open was the café in the supermarket. A very nice café,
on the second-floor balcony above the checkouts. With an excellent
view of the entire supermarket hall. It had to be a good place
to drink a cup of coffee, mapping out your route for a pleasant
stroll as you bought the groceries – doing your 'shopping': that
terrible word, that monstrous Anglicism that has eaten its way into
the Russian language, like a tick boring into its helpless prey.

That was where I had my lunch, trying not to feel horrified
by the prices. Then I bought a double espresso, and a packet of
cigarettes – which I smoke only very rarely – and tried to imagine
that I was a detective.

Who had sent the letter?

The renegade Other or the Other's human client?

It didn't look like there was any advantage in it for either of
them. And the scenario with another individual attempting to forestall
the initiation was just too melodramatic.

Think, head, think! You've come across more confused situations
than this before. We have a renegade Other. We have his
client. The letter was sent to the Watches and to the Inquisition.
So the letter was most likely sent by an Other. A powerful, intelligent,
well-informed Other.

Then the question was: What for?

And I already had the answer: In order not to go through with
this initiation. In order to deliver the client into our hands and
not go through with his promise.

That meant it wasn't a matter of money. In some incomprehensible
fashion the unknown client had acquired a hold over the
Other. A hold so terrible and absolute that he could demand
anything he wanted. An Other could never admit that a human
being held that kind of power over him. So he was making a
cunning knight's move . . .

Yes, yes, yes!

I lit a cigarette, took a sip of coffee, and slumped back grandly
in the soft chair like I belonged there.

It was beginning to come together. How could an Other end
up in bondage to a human being? An ordinary human being, even
if he was rich, influential, intelligent . . .

There was only one possibility, and I didn't like it one little bit.
Our mysterious renegade Other could have found himself in the
position of the golden fish in the fairy tale. He could have given
a human being his word of honour to grant him or her any wish
at all. After all, the fish in the story hadn't expected the crazy old
woman . . . that reminded me: I had to inform Gesar that I had
discovered a potential Other . . . that the crazy old woman would
want to become the Empress of the Sea.

And that brought me to the really upsetting part.

A vampire, or a werewolf, or a Dark Magician wouldn't give a
damn about any promise.

They would give their word and then take it back again. And
they'd tear the human's throat out if he tried to stand up for his
rights.

So it was a Light Magician who had made the rash promise!

Could that really happen?

It could.

Easily. We were all a bit naïve, Kostya had been right about that.
Our human weaknesses made us vulnerable – we could be trapped
by our sense of guilt, all sorts of romantic notions . . .

And so the traitor was in our ranks. He had given his word –
I wouldn't try to figure out why just yet. He was caught in a trap.
If a Light Magician refused to carry out his promise, he would
dematerialise . . .

Stop! There was another curious point here. I could promise a
human being to do 'anything he wanted'. But if I was asked to
do the impossible . . . well, I didn't know what exactly, not something
that was difficult, or repugnant, or forbidden – but actually
impossible . . . extinguish the sun, for instance, or turn a human
being into an Other . . . What answer would I give? That it was
impossible. No way. And I'd be right, and there wouldn't be any
reason for me to dematerialise. And my human master would have
to accept that. Ask for something else . . . Money, health, incredible
sex appeal, good luck playing the stock market and a keen
nose for danger. In general, the usual human pleasures that a
powerful Other can provide.

But the renegade Other had panicked. He'd panicked badly
enough to set both Watches and the Inquisition on his 'master' at
the same time. He was backed into a corner, he was afraid of
disappearing into the Twilight forever.

That meant that he really could turn a human being into an
Other!

That meant the impossible was possible. The means existed. Not
known to many, but they did exist . . .

I suddenly felt uneasy.

The traitor was one of our oldest and most knowledgeable
magicians. Not necessarily a magician beyond classification, not
necessarily someone who held a really important position. But an
old hand with access to the greatest secrets . . .

For some reason I immediately thought of Semyon.

Semyon, the Light Magician who sometimes knew things that
required the seal of the Avenging Fire to be applied to his body,
to prevent him talking about them.

'I'm well into my second century . . .'

Maybe.

He knew a lot of things.

Who else did?

There was a whole bunch of old, experienced magicians who
didn't work in the Watch. Just got on with living in Moscow,
watched TV, drank beer, went to football matches.

I didn't know them, that was the problem. Those wise old birds
who had quit working didn't want to get involved in the endless
war between the Watches.

And who could I turn to for Advice? Who could I expound
my terrifying conjectures to? Gesar? Olga? Potentially they were
on the suspect list themselves.

No, I didn't believe they could have blundered. After the rough
deal she'd had from life, Olga – not to mention the arch-cunning
Gesar – would never make a gaffe like that, they wouldn't make
impossible promises to a human being. And Semyon couldn't do
it either. Semyon was wise, in the primordial, folk meaning of the
word. I couldn't believe he would slip up like this . . .

That meant it was another of our senior colleagues who had
blundered.

And anyway, how would I look putting forward an accusation
like that? 'I think the guilty party is one of us. A Light One. Most
likely Semyon. Or Olga. Or even you, Gesar . . .'

How could I carry on going to work after that? How would
I be able to look my colleagues in the face?

No, I couldn't come out with suspicions like that. I had to
know for sure.

Somehow it felt awkward to call the waitress over. I walked to
the counter and asked her to make me a fresh cup of coffee. Then
I leaned against the railings and looked down.

Below me I spotted my acquaintance from the night before.
The guitarist, collector of amusing T-shirts and happy owner of a
large English toilet, was standing beside a small open pool full of
live lobsters. Las's face reflected the intense workings of his thought.
Finally he laughed and pushed his trolley towards the checkout.

I pricked up my ears.

Las unhurriedly set out his modest purchases on the moving
belt, with a bottle of Czech absinthe towering over everything
else. As he was paying, he said:

'You know, that pool of lobsters you have over there . . .'

The girl at the checkout smiled, every element of her posture
confirming that there was a pool and there were live lobsters
paddling in it, and a couple of arthropods would go remarkably
well with absinthe, kefir and frozen pelmeni.

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