Night Watch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  “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 onto my face. I began tearing myself out of it in jerks, and the Twilight hissed in displeasure at such behavior.

  “Help me,” said Egor. I only just caught the sound of his voice; I was almost out already. He’d left it until the very last moment.

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

  And he did.

  We tumbled out into the upper layer 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 tone of gray looked bright and colorful.

  Something had changed during those few seconds we’d spent 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 rolling about nearby . . . that wasn’t it.

  The snake!

  The white cobra was expanding, inflating to fill a quarter of the roof. As if it had been pumped full of air and it was rising, or flying up of its own accord into the low sky. Semyon was standing by the twined coils of the fiery body, half-squatting in one of the ancient combat stances, 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 underneath it, someone who should have been dead a long time ago but was still struggling . . .

  There was a sudden explosion!

  A vortex of Light and scraps of Darkness. I was tossed onto my back and as I fell I hit Egor and knocked him down, but just managed to grab hold of 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 stayed 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 downward in a helpless bundle.

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

  The remains of the fiery cobra soared upward, spreading out into glowing clouds, melting away, scattering in showers of sparks and fine rays of light. Beneath this fireworks display Zabulon slowly rose to his feet, extending his arms in some complex magical pass. He’d lost his clothes in the struggle and now he was completely naked. His body had changed, assuming the classical 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, dangling male member, and a short forked tail hanging from the base of his spine.

  “Begone!” cried Zabulon. “Begone!”

  The things that must have been going on at that moment in the human world . . . Outbursts of deadly depression and blind, irrational joy, heart attacks, ludicrous behavior, quarrels between best friends, betrayal by faithful lovers . . . People couldn’t see what was happening, but 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 maneuver. If we started from one simple idea, made one initial assumption—that everything was happening according to Day Watch’s plan—and then connected up all the chance 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 were acting as a brainstorm conductor, connected up to other people’s minds, the way our analysts sometimes worked. 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.

  Day Watch didn’t give a damn about the girl-vampire . . .

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

  A Dark Magician with monstrous reserves of power.

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

  But 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 indeterminate 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 defenses. Ilya was 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 toward each other again. “Zabulon!”

  The demon looked at me.

  “I know who you’re fighting for!”

  No, 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 giant 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 toward me—it extended in jerks, growing new joints as it came.

  “Come to me . . .” whispered Zabulon.

  Everybody froze—apart from me. I started walking toward the Dark Magician. There was a trace left of the mental defenses I’d nurtured for years and 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 just 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 the narrow, vertical slit pupils.

  Egor was still squatting down; he didn’t have the strength to get up. It was amazing 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.

  The 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 toward 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 girl-vampire was crying quietly, trying to get up. She was in the worst state of all; she’d used up all her strength in surviving 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 side of Darkness a person who doesn’t know how to hate? You can shower problems on him whichever way he turns . . . bit by bit, 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 slid 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, rapidly assuming his former appearance as a gloomy intellectual.

  That was funny. What for? When I’d already seen what he’d become in the Twilight, what he’d become once and forever.

  “A complex maneuver,” 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’s 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’ve lost.”

  The tatters of clothes scattered across the roof crept toward the Dark Magician, grew together and jumped up onto his body, clothing the sad, charming intellectual grieving for the whole world.

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

  Ilya laughed again.

  “I’m stronger than all of you,” said Zabulon, squinting at Ilya. “Your borrowed powers are not unlimited. You will stay here forever, in the Twilight, deeper than you have ever dared to look . . .”

  Semyon sighed and said, “Anton, he still hasn’t gotten the picture yet.”

  I looked around and asked:

  “Boris Ignatievich, don’t you think you could drop the play-acting now?”

  The bumptious young field operative shrugged:

  “Of course, Antoshka. 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 metamorphoses or light effects. He was still in his gown and skullcap, but he was wearing soft moccasins on his feet, with galoshes over them.

  Zabulon’s face was a sight for sore eyes.

  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 hissed at me. “Forever.”

  “Do,” I said. “It’s good to remember.”

  Zabulon brought his hands together—the mighty wings flapped together, and the magician disappeared. But before he went, he glanced at the witch—and she nodded.

  I didn’t like that one little bit. A spiteful parting gesture may not be fatal, but it’s never pleasant.

  Alisa came over to me, walking with a light, dancing step completely out of keeping with her bloody face and dangling, dislocated left arm.

  “You must leave too,” said the boss.

  “Of course, I’ll be only too delighted,” replied the witch. “But before I do, I have one small, very small, debt to collect. Isn’t that right, Anton?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “A seventh-degree intervention.”

  Who would she strike her blow at? Not the boss; the idea was ludicrous. Tiger Cub, Bear, Semyon . . . that was stupid. Egor? What suggestion could she implant in him at the very weakest level of intervention?

  “Open yourself,” said the witch. “Open yourself to me, Anton. A seventh-degree intervention. The head of the Night Watch is a witness: I won’t overstep the mark.”

  Semyon groaned, squeezing my shoulder so tight it hurt.

  “She has the right,” I said. “Boris Ignatievich . . .”

  “Whatever you say,” the boss answered softly. “I’m watching.”

  I sighed and laid myself open to the witch. There was nothing she could do! Nothing! A seventh-degree intervention—she could never turn me to the Darkness with that! The idea was simply ludicrous!

  “Anton,” the witch said gently. “Tell your boss what you wanted to say. Tell the truth. Act honestly and correctly. The way you ought to act.”

  “Minimal intervention . . .” the boss confirmed. If there was any pain in his voice, it was so deeply hidden that I couldn’t hear it.

  “A complex maneuver,” I said, glancing at Boris Ignatievich. “From both sides. The Day Watch sacrifices its pawns, and the Night Watch does the same. For the great goal. In order to win over to their side a sorceress of immense, unprecedented power, a young vampire who is longing for love may die. A little kid with feeble powers may disappear forever in the Twilight. Operatives may be hurt. But there’s an end that justifies the means. Two great magicians
who have opposed each other for hundreds of years cook up another little war. And the Light Magician is in the toughest spot . . . he has to stake everything. And for him to lose is more than just an inconvenience; it’s a step into the Twilight, into the Twilight forever. But still he stakes everyone’s lives. His own side’s and the other’s. Right, Boris Ignatievich?”

  “Right,” replied the boss.

  Alisa laughed and walked toward the trapdoor. The witch was in no shape for flying; Tiger Cub had given her a good mauling. But even after that she was feeling victorious.

  I looked at Semyon and he turned his eyes away. Tiger Cub slowly transformed back into a girl . . . also trying not to look me in the eye. Bear gave a short, sharp howl and trudged toward the trapdoor without changing his form. It was toughest of all for him. He was too uncompromising. Bear, the great warrior and opponent of all compromise . . .

  “You’re all bastards,” said Egor. He stood up, moving jerkily—not just because he was tired; the boss was feeding his reserves now; I could see the fine thread of power streaming through the air—because at first it’s always hard to tear yourself out of your shadow.

  I was the next out. It wasn’t difficult; during the last quarter of an hour so much energy had been splashed out into the Twilight that it had lost its usual aggressive clamminess.

  Almost immediately I heard a disgustingly soft thud: It was the warlock who’d fallen off the roof hitting the asphalt.

  Then the others started appearing. An attractive-looking, black-haired girl with a bruise under her left eye and a broken jaw; an imperturbable, stocky little man, a calm-looking businessman in an oriental robe . . . Bear had already gone. I knew what he’d be doing in his apartment—his “lair.” Drinking pure surgical spirit and reading poetry. Probably out loud. And watching the happily burbling TV.

  The girl-vampire was there too. She was in really bad shape. She mumbled something, shaking her head and trying to re-attach a hand that had been bitten off. The hand was making feeble efforts to grow back. Everything around her was spattered with blood—not hers, of course; it was the blood of her latest victim . . .