The Nightwatch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  Should I stop him? No, it wasn't allowed.

  I jumped up onto the sidewalk and squatted down, hiding from Zabulon behind an old Volga, letting the stray driver past. The silver Toyota hurtled past me and then screeched to a halt with a smell of burning brakes.

  The door on the driver's side opened and a hand beckoned me.

  Things like this just didn't happen!

  Heroes only got rescued by passing cars in cheap action movies.

  At least that's what I was thinking as I opened the back door and threw myself inside.

  "Get us out of here!" shouted the woman I found myself next to. But the driver didn't need any encouragement; we were already moving. There was a flash behind us, and the driver swerved out of the path of a streak of fire. The woman began wailing.

  How did they see what was happening? As automatic gunfire? Salvoes of rockets? A blast from a flame-thrower?

  "Why did you come back, why?" the woman asked, trying to lean forward to hit the driver in the back. I was all set to grab her arm, but before I could, the car jerked forward and tossed the woman back against the seat.

  "Don't," I said gently.

  She glared at me indignantly. She had every right. What woman would be pleased to see her husband stop and risk his life for an attractive, dishevelled female stranger and take her into his car when it's being chased by a gang of thugs?

  At least the immediate danger was past now. We came out onto Zemlyanoi Val Street

  and drove on in a solid stream of traffic. My friends and my enemies were both left a long way behind.

  "Thanks," I said to the short hair on the back of the driver's head.

  "Did you get hit?" he asked without even turning around.

  "No, thanks to you. Why did you stop?"

  "Because he's an idiot!" the woman beside me screeched. She moved away to the far side of the car, shunning me as if I had the plague.

  "Because I'm not an idiot," the man replied calmly. "Why were they out to get you? Never mind, it's none of my business."

  "They wanted to rape me," I said, blurting out the first thing that came into my head. But it was a pretty good story. Right there on the table: not like Moscow, even with all its gangland excesses, more like some saloon in the Wild, Wild West.

  "Where do you want to go?"

  "This will do fine," I said, looking out at the flaming red letter M above the metro entrance. "I'll make my own way home."

  "We can drop you off."

  "No need. Thanks, you've done more than enough already."

  "All right."

  He didn't argue or try to change my mind. The car braked and I got out. I looked at the woman.

  "Thank you," I said.

  She snorted and jerked away, slamming the door shut.

  Well, there you go.

  But things like that still went to prove that our work did make some kind of sense after all, I thought.

  I automatically straightened out my hair and dusted down my jeans. People walking by eyed me cautiously, but they didn't shy away, so I couldn't be looking all that bad.

  How much time did I have before the hunt picked up my trail? Would the boss be able to slow them down?

  That would be good. Because I thought I was beginning to understand what was going on here.

  And I had a chance, only a tiny one maybe, but still a chance.

  I set off toward the metro, taking the cell phone out of Olga's purse on the way. I started dialing her number, then swore, and dialed my own.

  It rang five times, six, seven.

  I canceled the call and dialed my cell phone number. This time Olga answered right away.

  "Hello?" said a slightly hoarse, unfamiliar voice. My voice.

  "It's me, Anton," I shouted. A young guy walking past looked at me in surprise.

  "You dimwit!"

  I wouldn't have expected anything else from Olga.

  "Where are you, Anton?"

  "Getting ready to go underground."

  "You'll have plenty of time for that. What can I do to help?"

  "Are you up to speed on the situation?"

  "Yes, I'm maintaining parallel contact with Boris."

  "I need to get my body back."

  "Where can we meet?"

  I thought for a moment.

  "The station where I got out after I tried to detach that black vortex from Svetlana."

  "Got you. Boris told me about that. Make it three stations farther around the circle, up and to the left."

  Aha, she was counting off stations on the map of the metro.

  "Yes, that's okay."

  "In the middle of the hall. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

  "Okay."

  "Want me to bring you anything?"

  "Just bring me. Anything else is up to you."

  I folded away the cell phone, took another quick look around, and walked quickly into the station.

  Chapter 4

  I was standing in the center of Novoslobodskaya Station. It's a common enough scene there when it's not that late: a girl waiting, maybe for a guy, maybe for a girlfriend.

  In my case, I was waiting for both.

  It would be harder to find me underground than on the surface. Even the best Dark Ones wouldn't be able to pick up my aura through the layers of earth, through all the ancient graves that Moscow stood on, among the crowd, in that dense, agitated stream of people. Of course, combing all the stations wouldn't be too hard either: Just one Other with my image for each station would do it.

  But I was hoping I still had an hour or half an hour before the Day Watch made that move.

  How simple everything was, after all. How elegantly the pieces of the puzzle fit together. I shook my head and smiled, and immediately caught a young guy dressed punk-style looking at me inquisitively. No, my young friend, you're on the wrong track. This sexy body is only smiling at its own thoughts.

  I ought to have got the picture the moment the plotlines all started converging on me. The boss was right, of course. I wasn't valuable enough. They wouldn't have come up with a dangerous and costly maneuver lasting years just for my sake. It was all about something else, something completely different.

  They were trying to exploit our weaknesses. Our goodness and love. And it was working, or almost working.

  I suddenly felt like I needed a cigarette really badly; my mouth even filled up with saliva. Strange, I'd never really smoked much; it had to be a reaction from Olga's body I imagined her a hundred years earlier—an elegant dame with a slim cigarette in a long holder, sitting in some literary salon somewhere with Blok or Gumilev. Smiling as she discussed the Freemasons, the sovereignty of the people, and the urge toward spiritual perfection.

  Ah, here was someone at last!

  "Have you got a cigarette?" I asked a young guy walking past—he was dressed well enough not to smoke cheap garbage like Golden Yava.

  He gave me a surprised look, then held out a pack of Parliaments.

  I took a cigarette, thanked him with a smile, and cast a mild spell over myself. People's eyes slid off to the side.

  That was better.

  I concentrated, raising the temperature of the tip of the cigarette to two hundred degrees, and inhaled. So we'd wait. And we'd break a few little unquestionable rules.

  People flowed past, giving me a wide berth, about a meter. They sniffed the air in surprise, wondering where the smell of tobacco smoke was coming from. And I smoked, dropping the ash at my feet, eyeing the militiaman standing just five steps away and trying to figure out my chances.

  They turned out to be not that bad. Pretty good, in fact. And that bothered me.

  If they'd been preparing this maneuver for three years, one option they must have taken into account was that I'd see through it. They must have an answer for that—but what was it?

  It took me a second or two to register the surprised look. And when I realized who was watching me, I started in surprise.

  Egor.

  The kid, t
he Other with weak powers who'd got caught up in the big fight between the two Watches six months ago. Played for a patsy by both sides. An open card that still hadn't been dealt. But players don't fight over cards like that.

  His powers were strong enough to penetrate my casual cover, and the meeting itself didn't really come as a surprise. There are many chance events in the world, but apart from that, there's also something called predetermination.

  "Hi, Egor," I said without even pausing to think. I expanded the range of the spell to include him in the circle of non-attention.

  He started and looked around. Then he started staring at me. Of course, he hadn't seen Olga in human form. Only as a white owl.

  "Who are you and how do you know me?"

  Yes, he'd grown. Not on the outside, on the inside. I couldn't understand how he could have avoided making his choice for so long and still not joined the side of Light or the side of Darkness. He'd already entered the Twilight, in circumstances that meant he could have gone either way. But his aura was still as pure and neutral as ever.

  His destiny was his own. It must be good to have your own destiny.

  "I'm Anton Gorodetsky, the Night Watch agent," I said simply. "Remember me?"

  Of course he remembered me.

  "But…"

  "•Take no notice. It's a disguise; we can swap bodies."

  I wondered for a moment if I ought to think back to the course on illusion and temporarily restore my usual appearance. But there was no need—he believed me. Maybe because he remembered the boss's body swap.

  "What do you want from me?"

  "Nothing, I'm just waiting for a friend, the girl this body belongs to. You just happened to meet me here by chance."

  "I hate your Watches!"

  "If you say so. But I really haven't been trailing you. You can go if you want."

  The kid found that far harder to believe than the idea of swapping bodies. He looked around suspiciously and frowned.

  Of course, it was hard for him to leave. He'd touched the secret and sensed powers that went beyond the human world. And he'd renounced those powers, at least for the time being.

  But I could imagine how much he wanted to learn—at least just a few little things, stuff like conjuring tricks with pyrokinesis and telekinesis, suggestion, healing, cursing—I didn't know what exactly, but he must have wanted to know how to do these things, not just know about them.

  "You really haven't been trailing me?" he finally asked.

  "No, I haven't. And we can't lie—not directly."

  "How do I know that isn't a lie too?" the kid muttered, looking away. A logical question.

  "You don't," I agreed. "Believe it if you want to."

  "I'd like to," he said, still looking down at the floor. "But I remember what happened up there on the roof. I dream about it at night."

  "You don't need to be afraid of that vampire," I said. "She's been laid to rest. By order of the court."

  "I know."

  "How?" I asked, surprised.

  "Your boss called me."

  "I didn't know about that."

  "He called one day when there was no one else home. He said the vampire had been executed. And he said that since I was a potential Other, even if I hadn't made a choice yet, I'd been taken off the list of human beings. So I could never be selected by chance again, and I needn't be afraid."

  "Yes, of course," I said.

  "And I asked him if my parents were still on the list."

  I couldn't think of anything to say to that. I knew what the boss's answer had been.

  "I'll be going, then," said Egor, taking a step away. "Your cigarette's finished."

  I dropped the butt and nodded.

  "Where have you been? It's late."

  "Training; I swim. Tell me, is that really you?"

  "You remember the trick with the broken cup?"

  Egor gave a weak smile. It's always the cheapest tricks that impress people the most.

  "I remember. Look…" he stopped short, staring past me.

  I turned around.

  It was strange to see myself from the outside. A young guy with my face, walking with my walk, wearing my jeans and sweater, with a Walkman on his belt and a small bag in his hand. And that smile, so faint you could barely see it—that was mine. Even the eyes, those false mirrors, they were mine too.

  "Hi, Anton," said Olga. "Good evening, Egor."

  She wasn't surprised to see the kid there. She seemed very calm altogether.

  "Hello," said Egor, looking first at her, then at me. "Is Anton in your body now?"

  "That's right."

  "You're pretty. How do you know me?"

  "I saw you when I was in a body that wasn't so pretty. Excuse us now; Anton's got serious problems and we've got to deal with them."

  "Should I go then?" Egor seemed to have forgotten that was what he'd just been about to do.

  "Yes. And don't get angry; things are going to get hot around here any moment, very hot."

  The kid looked at me.

  "I've got all of Day Watch on my trail," I explained. "All the Dark Ones in Moscow."

  "Why?"

  "It's a long story. You'd better get back home."

  It sounded rude. Egor frowned and nodded. He glanced in the direction of the platform. A train was just pulling in.

  "But they'll protect you, won't they?" He was still finding it hard to grasp which of us was in which body. "Your Watch will?"

  "They'll try," Olga replied gently. "But now go, please. We haven't got much time, and it's running out fast."

  "Goodbye," said Egor, turning and running toward the train. His third step took him out of the circle of non-attention and he was almost knocked off his feet.

  "If the boy had stayed, I might have believed he was going to join our side," Olga said as she watched him go. "I'd really like to check the probability lines to see why you met him in the metro."

  "By chance."

  "Nothing happens by chance. Ah, Anton, I used to be able to read reality lines like an open book, no problem. "

  "I wouldn't mind having decent prevision."

  "Genuine prevision isn't something you can just order from a catalog. Okay, back to business. You want to give my body back?"

  "Yes, right here."

  "Okay." Olga stretched out her arms—my arms—and took hold of my shoulders. It gave me a stupid, ambiguous sort of feeling. She obviously felt the same thing, because she laughed and said: "Why did you have to mess everything up so soon, Anton? I had such extravagant plans for this evening."

  "Maybe I should be grateful to the Maverick for disrupting your plans?"

  Olga stopped smiling and concentrated.

  "All right. Let's get on with it."

  We stood with our backs touching and held our arms out in the form of a cross. I took hold of Olga's fingers, which were also mine.

  "Give back what is mine," said Olga.

  "Give back what is mine," I repeated.

  "Gesar, we return your gift!"

  I started when I realized she'd spoken the boss's real name. And what a name!

  "Gesar, we return your gift!" Olga repeated sternly.

  "Gesar, we return your gift!"

  Olga switched into an ancient tongue, intoning the words gently, speaking as if it were her native language. It hurt me to feel how hard she had to strain to perform a piece of magic that really shouldn't have been difficult with second-grade powers.

  Changing back bodies is like releasing a spring. Our minds had only been kept in each other's bodies by the energy that Boris Ignatievich Gesar had transferred to us. All we had to do was relinquish that energy and we would resume our previous forms. If either of us had been a first-grade magician, we needn't even have been in physical contact; it could all have been done at a distance.

  Olga's voice soared as she pronounced the final formula of renunciation.

  For an instant nothing happened. Then I was racked by cramps and shooting pains; ever
ything blurred and went gray in front of my eyes, as if I were sinking into the Twilight. For a moment I could see the whole station—the dusty, stained-glass windows, the dirty floor, the slow movements of the people, the rainbows of their auras, two bodies thrashing about as if they'd been crucified to each other.

  Then I was pushed and shoved and squeezed into the shell of my body.

  "Aaagh," I gasped as I fell to the floor, just putting my hands out at the last moment. My muscles were twitching, my ears were ringing. The reverse switch had been far less comfortable, maybe because it wasn't performed by the boss.

  "Are you okay?" Olga asked in a feeble voice. "Ooh, you bastard."

  "What?" I asked, looking at her.

  "You could at least have gone to the bathroom!"

  "Not without Zabulon's permission."

  "Okay, let's forget it. Anton, we've got about a quarter of an hour. Tell me everything."

  "What exactly?"

  "What you've figured out. Come on. You didn't just want to get back into your own body; you've worked out some kind of plan."

  I nodded, then straightened up, dusted off my palms, and slapped my knees to clean off my jeans. The strap holding my holster was too tight under my arm; I'd have to loosen it. There weren't many people in the metro now, the flood tide had receded. But that meant the ones who were left weren't kept busy maneuvering through the crowd, and they had time to think: Auras flared up in bright rainbow colors and I caught the echoes of their owners' feelings.

  They'd really cut back Olga's powers. In her body it had taken me a real effort to see the secret world of human feelings. But then, that was only a simple thing, absolutely simple. Not even anything to feel proud about.

  "It's not me the Day Watch want, Olga. They don't want me at all. I'm an ordinary average magician."

  She nodded.

  "But I'm the one they're hunting. There's no doubt about that. So if I'm not the quarry, I must be the bait. The same way Egor was the bait when Sveta was the quarry."

  "Have you only just realized that?" Olga shook her head. "Of course. You're the bait."

  "For Svetlana?"

  The sorceress nodded.

  "I only realized it today," I admitted. "Just an hour ago, when Sveta wanted to stand up to the Day Watch, she shifted up to fifth-grade powers. In an instant. If a fight had broken out—she would have been killed. We can be controlled too, Olya. Human beings can be turned in different directions, toward Good or Evil; the Dark Ones can be manipulated through their meanness, their vanity, their thirst for power and fame. And we can be manipulated through our love. In that area we're as defenseless as children."