Night Watch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  The only weak glimmer of light from an aura belonging to an Other was outside the building, over beside the Belarussian embassy. But it wasn’t the Dark Magician; it was much weaker and its color was different.

  Where had he gone to?

  The narrow corridor ending in two doors was empty. I hesitated for a moment—who could tell, maybe we just hadn’t noticed the magician leaving via the Twilight, or maybe he was powerful enough to teleport? Then I opened the door of the men’s restroom.

  Inside it was very clean and bright and a bit cramped, and the air had a strong smell of floral air freshener.

  The Dark Magician was lying just inside the door, and his outstretched arms prevented me from opening the door all the way. He had a puzzled, confused kind of expression on his face. I spotted the gleam of a slim crystal tube in his hand. He’d reached for his weapon too late.

  There was no blood. There were no signs at all, and when I took another look through the Twilight I didn’t find any traces of magic.

  It looked like the Dark Magician had died of a perfectly ordinary heart attack or stroke—if he’d actually been capable of dying that way.

  There was just one small detail that totally ruled that possibility out.

  A small cut on the collar of his shirt. As narrow as if it had been made by a cutthroat razor. As if someone had stuck a knife in his neck and just nicked the edge of his collar. Except that there were no signs of the blow on his skin.

  “Bastards!” I whispered, not knowing who I was swearing at. “Bastards!”

  I could hardly have ended up in a worse situation than this. I’d swapped bodies and gone out to a crowded restaurant with a “witness,” only to wind up entirely alone, standing over the body of a Dark Magician killed by the Maverick.

  “Come on, Pavlik,” someone said behind me.

  As I looked around the woman who’d been sitting at the table with the Dark Magician came into the corridor, holding her son by the hand.

  “I don’t want to, Mom!” the kid yelled, acting up.

  “You go in and tell your dad we’re getting bored already,” the woman said patiently. The next moment she looked up and saw me.

  “Call someone!” I shouted, despairing. “Call someone! There’s a man hurt here! Take the child away and call someone!”

  They obviously heard me in the restaurant—Olga had a strong voice.

  The murmur of voices stopped immediately, leaving the slushy folk music to play on in the sudden silence.

  Of course, she didn’t do as I said. She dashed forward, pushed me out of the way, collapsed on her husband’s body, and started keening—actually keening—at the top of her voice, already knowing what had happened while her hands were still busy unbuttoning the slit shirt collar and shaking the lifeless body. Then the woman started slapping the magician on the cheeks, lashing hard, as if she hoped he was only pretending or had just fainted.

  “Mom, why are you hitting Dad like that?” Pavlik exclaimed in a shrill voice. Not frightened, just surprised; he’d obviously never seen his parents fight. They must have been a happy family.

  I took the boy by the shoulder and started gently leading him away. People were already squeezing into the corridor. I saw Sveta staring at me wide-eyed. She’d already guessed what had happened.

  “Take the child away,” I said to our waiter. “I think a man’s dead in there.”

  “Who found the body?” the waiter asked calmly. Speaking without the slightest accent, quite differently from when he was serving our table.

  “I did.”

  The waiter nodded as he deftly handed the boy on to one of the female restaurant staff. The boy was crying now, he’d realized something had gone wrong in his cozy little world.

  “And what were you doing in the men’s restroom?”

  “The door was open and I saw him lying there,” I said, lying without even thinking about it.

  The waiter nodded, accepting that it could have happened that way. But at the same time he took a firm grip of my elbow.

  “You’ll have to wait for the militia, lady.”

  Svetlana had already pushed her way through to us. She narrowed her eyes when she heard those last words. That was all I needed now—for her to try erasing the memories of everyone there!

  “Of course.” I stepped forward, and the waiter was forced to let go of my arm and follow me. “Svetka, it’s terrible, there’s a body in there!”

  “Olya.” Sveta’s reaction was the right one. She put her arm around my shoulders, gave the waiter an indignant look, and led me back into the restaurant.

  Just then the boy passed us, sobbing loudly as he squeezed his way through the greedy, curious crowd back to his mother. They were trying to get her away from the body—she’d taken advantage of the confusion to bend back down over her husband and start shaking him:

  “Get up! Gena, get up! Get up!”

  I felt Svetlana shudder at the sight and I whispered:

  “Well? Do we exterminate the Dark Ones with fire and the sword?”

  “Why did you do it? I would have understood without that!” Svetlana whispered furiously.

  “What?”

  We looked into each other’s eyes.

  “Then it wasn’t you?” Sveta whispered uncertainly. “I’m sorry; I believe you.”

  I realized then just what a deep hole I was in.

  The investigator didn’t take any particular interest in me. I could see from his eyes that he’d already made his mind up—death from natural causes. A weak heart, drug abuse, whatever. He couldn’t be expected to feel any sympathy for a man who frequented expensive restaurants.

  “Was the body lying in this position?”

  “Yes, just like that,” I confirmed, wearily. “It was terrible!”

  The investigator shrugged. He couldn’t see anything really terrible about a body, especially one that wasn’t drenched in blood. But he was condescending.

  “Yes, a terrible sight. Was there anybody else nearby?”

  “Nobody. But then a woman appeared, the man’s wife, with their child.”

  I was rewarded with a crooked smile for my deliberately disjointed statement.

  “Thank you, Olga. Someone may be in touch with you again. Not planning to leave town at all, are you?”

  I shook my head rapidly. The militia was the very last thing I was bothered about right then.

  But I was bothered by the sight of the boss sitting unobtrusively at a table in the corner.

  The investigator left me in peace and went to talk to “the dead man’s wife.” Boris Ignatievich immediately made straight for our table. Nobody paid any attention to him; he was obviously protected by some mild distraction spell.

  “Now you’ve done it,” he said simply.

  “Us?” I asked, just to get things clear.

  “Yes. Both of you. But especially you, Anton.”

  “I followed all the instructions I was given,” I whispered, feeling furious. “And I never laid a finger on that magician!”

  The boss sighed.

  “I don’t doubt that. But knowing the situation, how could you, a member of the Night Watch staff, be so stupid as to go off after a Dark One on your own?”

  “Who could have foreseen this?” I asked indignantly. “Tell me who!”

  “You could. After the unprecedented measures we’ve taken to disguise your identity. What were your instructions? Never be left alone for a moment! Eat and sleep with Svetlana! Take your showers together! Go to the bathroom together! Every single moment you had to be . . .” The boss stopped and sighed.

  “Boris Ignatievich,” Svetlana unexpectedly put in. “None of that matters anymore. Let’s try to think what we can do now.”

  The boss looked at her in surprise and nodded.

  “You are right. Let’s try to think. First of all, the situation is really catastrophic now. Before, any suspicion of Anton was purely circumstantial, but now he’s literally been caught redhanded. Don’t shake your
head like that, Anton! You were seen standing over a body seconds after its death. The body of a Dark Magician, killed in the same way as all the previous victims. The Day Watch will appeal to the Tribunal for your memory to be read.”

  “That’s very dangerous, isn’t it?” asked Svetlana. “But at least it will prove Anton isn’t guilty.”

  “Yes, it will, Svetlana. And in the process the Dark Ones will acquire all the information Anton has had access to. Do you realize just how much the Watch’s senior programmer knows? Some things he may not even be aware he knows, when he just glanced at the data, processed it, and forgot it. But the Dark Ones have their own specialists, and when Anton comes out of that courtroom—assuming he survives having his mind turned inside out—the Day Watch will know about all our operations. Can’t you see what will happen? Our teaching methods, the way we look for new Others, the way we analyze combat operations, our networks of human informers, our casualty lists, our employees’ personal files, our financial plans . . .”

  They were talking about me, while I just sat there as if I had nothing to do with what was going on. It wasn’t a question of frankness, it was simpler than that: The boss was consulting with Svetlana, a novice magician, and not with me, a potential magician of the third grade.

  If I compared the situation with a game of chess, it was insultingly simple. I was a rook, an ordinary officer of the Watch, and Svetlana was a pawn—but a pawn about to become a queen.

  And for the boss all the bad things that could happen to me meant nothing compared with the chance to give Svetlana a little practical lesson.

  “Boris Ignatievich, you know I won’t allow them to read my memory,” I said.

  “Then you’ll be found guilty.”

  “I know. I swear I had nothing to do with the death of these Dark Ones. But I don’t have any proof.”

  “Boris Ignatievich, what if we suggest they only check Anton’s memory for today!” Svetlana exclaimed joyfully. “That would solve everything, they’d be convinced . . .”

  “The memory can’t be sliced up like that, Sveta. It spills out all in one piece. Starting from the first moment of life. With the smell of mother’s milk, with the taste of the amniotic fluid in the womb.” The boss was speaking very emphatically now. “That’s the problem. Even if Anton didn’t know any secrets. Imagine what it’s like to remember absolutely everything and go through it all again! Swaying in that dark, viscous liquid, the walls closing in on you, the glimmer of light ahead, the pain, the choking sensation, the struggle to survive your own birth. And so on, moment by moment—you know how when you’re dying your whole life passes before your eyes? That’s exactly what happens when they turn out your memory. And at the same time, somewhere deep inside, you still remember that all this has already happened. Can you understand that? It’s hard to hold on to your sanity.”

  “You say that,” Svetlana said uncertainly, “as if . . .”

  “I’ve been through it. But not in an interrogation. More than a century ago. The Watch was still studying the effects of exposing and reading the memory, and a volunteer was required. Afterward it took them about a year to restore me to normal.”

  “How?” Svetlana asked curiously.

  “With new impressions. Experiences I hadn’t had before. Foreign countries, unfamiliar food, surprise meetings, unfamiliar problems. And even so . . .” The boss smiled wryly. “I still sometimes catch myself thinking: What is all this—reality or just memories? Am I living it or lying on a crystal slab in the Day Watch office while they unwind my memory like a ball of string?”

  He stopped speaking.

  There were people sitting at the tables around us, waiters dashing around. The crime scene team had taken away the body of the Dark Magician, and some man, evidently a relative, had come for the widow and the children. Nobody else seemed to be affected by what had happened. Quite the opposite, in fact. There were more customers, with bigger appetites and a greater zest for life. And nobody there was taking any notice of us: The boss’s casually cast spell made them all look away.

  What if all of this had already happened?

  What if I, Anton Gorodetsky, systems administrator at the Nix Trading Company, and also a Night Watch magician, was lying on a crystal slab covered with ancient runes? And my memory was being unwound, examined, dissected by someone—it didn’t matter who, Dark Magicians or a joint tribunal of both sides?

  No!

  That couldn’t be right. I didn’t have that feeling the boss had been talking about. I had no sense of déjà vu. I’d never been in a woman’s body before, and I’d never found any bodies in restaurant restrooms.

  “I’ve laid out the problem,” said the boss, drawing a long, slim cigarillo out of his pocket. “Is the situation clear? What are we going to do?”

  “I’m prepared to do my duty,” I said.

  “Don’t be in such a rush, Anton. Drop the bravado.”

  “It’s not bravado. It’s not just that I’m prepared to protect the secrets of the Watch. I simply wouldn’t survive that kind of interrogation. Better to die.”

  “But we don’t die the same way people do.”

  “Sure, it’s tougher for us. But I’m ready for that.”

  The boss sighed.

  “I’m sorry, ladies. Anton, let’s forget the consequences for a moment and try thinking about what led up to this incident. Sometimes it’s helpful to look back.”

  “Okay,” I said, not feeling particularly hopeful.

  “The Maverick has been poaching in the city for several years. The latest figures from the analytical section indicate that these strange killings began three and a half years ago. Some of the victims are known Dark Ones. Some are probably potentials. None of the victims was higher than grade four. None of them worked in the Day Watch. It’s ironic that almost all of them were very moderate Dark Ones, if you can put it like that. They may have killed and they influenced people negatively, but far less than they could have done.”

  “They were set up, weren’t they?” said Svetlana.

  “They must have been. The Day Watch didn’t touch this psychopath, it even laid out victims for him from the Dark Side—those it could easily spare. But what for? That’s the important question: What for?”

  “So they could accuse us of incompetence,” I suggested.

  “The end doesn’t justify the means.”

  “In order to set up one of us.”

  “Anton, the only member of Night Watch who doesn’t have alibis for the times of the killings is you. Why would Day Watch go hunting for you?”

  I shrugged.

  “Zabulon’s revenge?” said the boss, shaking his head. “No. You only clashed with him recently. But this blow was carefully planned three and a half years ago. We’re still left with the question: Why?”

  “Maybe Anton is potentially a very powerful magician?” Svetlana suggested, speaking softly. “And the Dark Ones have realized that. It’s too late to bring him over to their side, so they decided to eliminate him.”

  “Anton is more powerful than he realizes,” the boss replied sharply, “but he’ll never get higher than grade two.”

  “What if our enemies can see further along the possible variants of reality than we can?” I asked, looking the boss in the eye.

  “And?”

  “Maybe I’m a weak magician; I may be average or powerful, but what if it’s enough just for me to do something in order to change the balance of power? Do something simple that has nothing to do with magic? Boris Ignatievich, the Dark Ones tried to get me away from Svetlana—that means they could see the branch of reality in which I could help her! What if they can see something else? Something in the future? What if they’ve been able to see it for a long time, and they’ve been getting ready to take me out of the game? What if the fight over Sveta is small change by comparison?”

  At first the boss listened carefully. Then he frowned and shook his head.

  “Anton, you’re suffering from megalomani
a. I’m sorry, but I checked the lines of everybody working in the Watch, from the key personnel to our plumber, Uncle Shura. And there just aren’t any great achievements in your future. Not on any of the reality lines.”

  “Boris Ignatievich, are you absolutely sure you haven’t missed something?”

  He’d really made me angry now.

  “Of course not. I’m not absolutely sure of anything. Not even of myself. But the chances of you being right are very, very slim. Believe me.”

  I believed him.

  Compared with the boss, my powers approximate to zero.

  “So we still don’t know the most important thing—the reason?”

  “Right. The hit is aimed at you; there’s no doubt about that now. The Maverick is being controlled, very subtly and precisely. He believes he’s waging war on Evil, but he’s always been a puppet, with someone else pulling the strings. Today they brought him to the same restaurant you came to. They handed him a victim. And you went right along.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  “Try to find the Maverick. It’s our only chance, Anton.”

  “We’re actually going to kill him, though.”

  “No, we’re not. All we’re going to do is find him.”

  “All the same. No matter how bad he might be, no matter how wrong he’s got everything, he’s still one of us. He’s fighting against Evil the best way he knows how. We just have to explain everything to him.”

  “Too late, Anton. Too late. We missed him when he appeared. Now, after all he’s done . . . Remember how that girl-vampire died?”

  I nodded: “Laid to eternal rest.”

  “And her crimes were far less serious—from the Dark Ones’ point of view. She didn’t understand what was going on either. But the Day Watch accepted that she was guilty.”

  “Was that pure coincidence?” asked Svetlana. “Or were they creating a precedent?”

  “Who knows? Anton, you have to find the Maverick.”

  I looked up, amazed.

  “Find him and hand him over to the Dark Ones,” the boss said sternly.

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the only one who has the moral right to do it. You’re the one under threat. You’re only protecting yourself. For anybody else, handing over a Light One, even if he is purely instinctive, self-taught, and misguided, would be too much of a shock. You’ll survive it.”