The Nightwatch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  The dogs who'd stayed outside shied away at the sight of me. The "freeze" had been really tough on them. Their bodies had refused to obey them; they hadn't been able to draw breath or bark; the saliva had congealed in their mouths; the air had pressed down on them with a hot, heavy delirious hand.

  But their spirits were still alive.

  The dogs had had a hard time.

  The gates were half-open. I went out and stood there for a moment, not quite sure where I was going and what I was going to do.

  What difference did it make, anyway?

  I didn't feel resentful. I wasn't even in pain. The two of us had never made love. In fact, I was the one who'd been careful to erect barriers. I didn't just live for the present moment; I wanted everything right now, but I wanted it forever.

  I found the disc-player on my belt and switched it on at random. That always worked for me. Maybe because I'd been controlling the simple electronic circuits for a long time, like Tiger Cub, without knowing it?

  Who's to blame if you're so tired?

  And haven't found what you were longing for?

  Lost everything you sought so hard,

  Flown up to the sky and fallen back again?

  Whose fault is it that day after day

  Life walks on other people's paths

  But your home has become lonely,

  With darkness behind its windows,

  And the light dims and sounds die

  And your hands seek new torment,

  And if your pain should ease—

  It means a new disaster's on the way.

  It was what I myself had wanted. I'd tried to make it happen. And now I had only myself to blame. Instead of spending all evening with Semyon, discussing the complex issues of the global conflict between Good and Evil, I ought to have stayed. Instead of getting angry with Gesar and Olga for their cunning version of truth, I ought to have insisted on my own. And never, ever have thought that it was impossible to win.

  Once you start thinking like that, you've already lost.

  Who's to blame, tell me, brother,

  One is married, another's rich,

  One is funny, another's in love.

  One's a fool, another's your enemy,

  And whose fault is it that there and here

  They wait for each other, it's how they live,

  But the day is dreary, the night is empty,

  The warm places are crowded out,

  And the light dims and sounds die,

  And your hands seek new torment,

  And if your pain should ease,

  It means a new disaster's on the way.

  Who's to blame and what's the secret,

  Why is there no grief or happiness

  No victories without defeats,

  And the score of luck and disaster is even.

  And whose fault is it you're alone,

  And your one life so very long,

  And so dreary and you're still waiting,

  Hoping some day you will die.

  "Oh, no," I whispered, pulling off the earphones. "That's not for me."

  We'd all been taught for so long to give everything and not take anything in exchange. To sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others, to face the machine-gun fire. Every glance noble and wise, not one single empty thought, not one sinful intention. After all, we were Others. We'd risen above the crowd, unfurled our immaculately clean banners, polished up our high boots, pulled on our white gloves. Oh, yes, in our own little world we could never go too far. A justification could be found for any action, a noble and exalted justification. A unique act for the first time in the ring—here we are all in white, and everyone else is covered in shit!

  I was sick of it!

  A passionate heart, clean hands, a cool head… Surely it was no accident that during the Revolution and the Civil War, almost all the Light Ones had attached themselves to the Cheka? And most of those who didn't had died, at the hands of the Dark Ones, or even more often at the hands of those they were defending. At the hands of human beings, because of human stupidity, baseness, cowardice, hypocrisy, envy. A passionate heart and clean hands. But keeping a cool head was more important. That was absolutely essential. I didn't really agree with all the rest. Why not a pure heart and hot hands? I like the sound of that better.

  "I don't want to protect you," I said into the quietness of the forest morning. "I don't want to! Children and women, old men and imbeciles—none of you. Live the way you want to, get what you deserve! Run from vampires, worship Dark Magicians, kiss the goat under his tail! If you've deserved it—take it! If my love means less than your happy life, then I don't wish you happiness!"

  They can become better, they must, they're our roots, they're our future, they're our responsibility. Little people and big people, road sweepers and presidents, criminals and policemen. They carry within them the Light that can burst out in life-giving warmth or death-dealing flame…

  I don't believe it!

  I've seen all of you. Road sweepers and presidents, robbers and cops. Seen mothers killing their children, fathers raping their daughters. Seen sons throwing their mothers out of the house and daughters putting arsenic in their fathers' food. Seen a husband smiling as he sees the guest out and closes the door, then punches his pregnant wife in the face. Seen a smiling wife send her drunken husband out for another bottle and turn to his best friend for a passionate embrace. It's very simple to see all this. All you have to do is look. That's why they teach us not to look before they teach us to look through the Twilight.

  But we still look anyway.

  They're weak, they don't live long, they're afraid of everything. We mustn't despise them and hate them; that would be criminal. They must only be loved, pitied, and protected. That is our job, our duty. We are the Watch.

  I don't believe it!

  Nobody can be forced to commit an act of villainy. You can't push anybody into the mud; people always step into it themselves. No matter what the circumstances of life are, there are no justifications and there never will be any. But people look for justifications and they find them. All people have been taught to do that, and they've all proved diligent pupils.

  And we're probably just the best of the best.

  Yes, of course, there have been, there still are, and there always will be those who have not become Others, but managed somehow to remain people. But there are so few of them, so very few. Or perhaps we're simply afraid to look at them more closely? Afraid to see what we might discover?

  "Am I supposed to live for your sake?" I asked. The forest didn't answer; it was already prepared to accept anything I said.

  Why must we sacrifice everything? Ourselves and those we love?

  For the sake of those who will neither know about it nor appreciate it.

  And even if they did find out about it, all we'd earn for our efforts would be an amazed shake of the head and the insulting exclamation: "Stupid hicks."

  Perhaps it would be worth just once showing humankind who exactly the Others are? What one single Other is capable of when he's not shackled by the Treaty, when he breaks free of the Watches?

  I actually smiled to myself as I pictured the whole scene. The general picture, not just my place in it: I'd be stopped soon enough. So would any Great Magician or Great Sorceress who decided to violate the Treaty and reveal the Others to the world.

  What a hullabaloo there'd be!

  Aliens landing at the Kremlin and the White House wouldn't even come close.

  Impossible, of course.

  Not my path.

  In the first place, because I didn't want to take over the world or throw it into total turmoil.

  I wanted only one thing: that they not force the woman I love to sacrifice herself. Because the path of the Great Ones is genuine sacrifice. The appalling powers they develop change them totally and completely.

  None of us are quite human. But at least we remember that we used to be human. And we can still be happy and sad, feel lo
ve and hate. The great magicians and sorceresses move beyond the bounds of human emotions. They probably feel emotions of their own, but we can't understand them. Even Gesar, a magician beyond classification, isn't a Great One. And Olga somehow failed to become a Great One.

  They'd bungled something. Failed to pull off some grandiose operation in the struggle against the Darkness.

  And now they were willing to fling a new recruit into the breach.

  For the sake of human beings who didn't give a damn about the Light and the Darkness.

  They were jumping her through all the hoops an Other is supposed to jump through. They'd already raised her powers to third grade; now they were working on her mind. Very, very rapidly.

  There had to be a place for me somewhere in this insane pursuit of some unknown goal. Gesar made use of everything that came to hand, including me. Whatever I did—hunting vampires, chasing down the Maverick, talking to Sveta in Olga's body—all that was just playing into the boss's hands.

  Whatever I did now was bound to have been foreseen too.

  My only hope was that not even Gesar was capable of foreseeing everything.

  That I could find the only way to act that would ruin his plan. The great plan for Sveta's powers.

  And avoid causing Evil in the process. Because if I did, it would be the Twilight for me.

  But in any case, I'd be doing Svetlana a great favor.

  I caught myself standing with my cheek pressed against the trunk of a scraggy little pine tree. Standing there, hammering my fist against the wood. In fury or in grief, I couldn't tell which. I stopped my scratched and bloody hand from moving. But the sound didn't stop. It was coming from somewhere in the forest, from the very boundary of the magical barrier around the house. Blows in the same rhythm, a rapid, nervous drumbeat.

  I bent over and ran between the trees, like some grown-up still playing at paintball wars. I already had a pretty good idea of what I'd see.

  There was a tiger jumping around in a little clearing. Or rather, a tigress. Her black and orange skin gleamed in the rays of the rising sun. The tigress didn't notice me; right then she wasn't capable of seeing anybody or anything. She dashed between the trees, with the sharp daggers of her claws ripping the bark. White scars sprang out on the pine trees. Sometimes the tigress stopped, rose up on her hind legs, and started slashing at the tree trunks with her claws.

  I set off slowly back to the house.

  All of us relax the best way we can. All of us have to struggle, not just against the Darkness, but against the Light. Because sometimes it blinds us.

  But don't feel sorry for us: We're proud, very proud. Soldiers in the worldwide war between Good and Evil, eternal volunteers.

  Chapter 4

  The young man walked into the restaurant as confidently as if he came there every day for breakfast. But that wasn't the case.

  He went straight over to the table where the short, swarthy man was sitting, as if they'd known each other for a long time. But that wasn't true either. With his last step he sank smoothly to his knees. He didn't slump; he lowered himself calmly, without losing his dignity or bending his back.

  The waiter who was walking past gulped and turned away. He'd seen all sorts of things in his time, let alone petty incidents like a mafia underling kowtowing to his boss. Only the young man didn't look much like a minion, and the swarthy man didn't look much like a mafia boss.

  The trouble he could smell in the air threatened to be far more serious than a mobsters' shoot-out. He didn't know what exactly was going to happen, but he could feel it coming, because he was an Other himself, although he wasn't initiated.

  But only a moment later he had completely forgotten what he'd seen. He had nothing but a vague sense of unease somewhere in the region of his heart, but he couldn't remember why.

  "Get up, Alisher," Gesar said in a low voice. "Get up. We don't do that around here."

  The young man got up off his knees and sat down facing the head of the Night Watch. He nodded.

  "We don't either. Not any longer. But my father instructed me to bow on my knees to you, Gesar. He followed the old rules. He would have knelt. But now he will never be able to."

  "Do you know how he died?"

  "Yes. I saw with his eyes, heard with his ears, suffered his pain."

  "Give me also his pain, Alisher, son of a devona and a human woman."

  "Take what you ask, Gesar, Exterminator of Evil, equal of the gods, who do not exist."

  They looked into each other's eyes. Then Gesar nodded.

  "I know the killers. Your father will be avenged."

  "I must be the one to do it."

  "No, you will not be able to do it, and you have no right. You have come to Moscow illegally."

  "Take me into your Watch, Gesar."

  The head of the Night Watch shook his head.

  "I was the best in Samarkand, Gesar," the young man said, staring hard at him. "Don't smile; I know that here I would be the lowest of the low. Take me into the Watch. As a pupil of your pupils. As a guard dog. I ask this in honor of my father's memory—take me into the Watch."

  "You are asking too much, Alisher. You are asking me to give you your death."

  "I have already died, Gesar. When they drank my father's soul, I died with him. I walked along with a smile while he distracted the Dark Ones. I walked down into the metro while they were trampling his ashes underfoot. Gesar, I have a right to ask this."

  Gesar nodded.

  "Let it be so. You are a member of my Watch, Alisher."

  Not a trace of emotion showed in the young man's face, but he nodded and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant.

  "Where is the thing that you have brought, Alisher?"

  "I have it, my lord."

  Gesar reached his hand out across the table without speaking.

  Alisher opened the little bag on his belt and took out an oblong bundle of coarse fabric, handling it with great care.

  "Take it, Gesar, and relieve me of my duty."

  Gesar covered the young man's open palm with his hand and closed his fingers. When the young man withdrew his hand a moment later, it was empty.

  "Your service is completed, Alisher. Now let us simply relax. Let us eat, drink, and remember your father. I will tell you all that I can remember."

  Alisher nodded. It was impossible to tell if he was pleased by what Gesar had said or simply willing to accept whatever the older man suggested.

  "We will have half an hour," Gesar stated simply. "Then the Dark Ones will arrive. They must have picked up your trail, even if they did so too late."

  "Will there be a battle, my lord?"

  "I do not know," said Gesar with a shrug. "What does it matter? Zabulon is far away. I have no reason to fear the others."

  "There will be a battle," Alisher said thoughtfully. He looked around the restaurant.

  "Drive all the customers away," Gesar advised him. "Gently, unobtrusively. I wish to observe your technique. And we will relax while we wait for our guests."

  About eleven everyone started waking up.

  I was waiting on the terrace, lazing in a beach chair with my legs stretched out, taking occasional sips from a tall gin and tonic and savoring the sweet pain of a masochist. Every time someone came out through the doors, I greeted them with a friendly wave and a little rainbow that sprang from my spread fingers and went soaring up into the sky. It was a bit of childish fun, and everybody smiled. When Yulia saw my greeting, she stopped yawning, squealed, and replied with a rainbow of her own. We competed with each other for a couple of minutes, and then made a rainbow together, a big one that stretched away into the forest. Yulia told me she was going to go and look for the pot of gold, and she strode off proudly under the multi-colored arch, with one of the terriers running obediently by her feet.

  I was waiting for certain people.

  The first to come out was Lena. Bright and cheerful, wearing just her swimsuit. When she saw me she was embarrassed for a
moment, but then she nodded and ran toward the gates. I enjoyed watching the way she moved: slim and graceful, full of life. Now she'd plunge into the cool water, frisk about on her own for a while, and come back for breakfast with a keen appetite.

  Next to appear was Ignat. In his swimming shorts and rubber sandals.

  "Hi, Anton!" he shouted happily. He came over, opened up the next chair, and flopped down into it. "How are you doing?"

  "I'm in a fighting mood!" I told him, raising my glass.

  "Good man." Ignat looked around for a bottle and didn't see one. He reached out for my drink and took a sip. "Too weak, too much mixer."

  "I got plastered yesterday."

  "In that case you're right; better watch yourself," Ignat advised me. "We were guzzling champagne all evening. Then we threw in some cognac later. I was afraid I'd get a headache, but it's okay. I got away with it."

  It was impossible to be offended by him.

  "Ignat, what did you want to be when you were a kid?" I asked.

  "A hospital attendant."

  "What?"

  "Well, they told me boys didn't work as nurses, and I wanted to help sick people. So I decided that when I grew up I was going to be a medical attendant."

  "Great," I said. "But why not a doctor?"

  "Too much responsibility for me," Ignat admitted. "And you had to study for too long."

  "So did you get to be a medical attendant?"

  "Yes. I used to ride around in an ambulance, with the psychiatric team. All the doctors loved working with me."

  "Why?"

  "First, because I'm extremely charming," Ignat explained, praising himself ingenuously. "I can talk with a man or a woman in a way that calms them down and makes them agree to go to a hospital. And second, I could see when someone was really ill and when he was just seeing something invisible. Sometimes I I was able to whisper in the doctor's ear, explain that everything was okay and no injections would be required."

  "Medicine has suffered a great loss."

  "True," Ignat said with a sigh, "but the boss persuaded me that I'd be more useful in the Watch. And that's right, isn't it?"

  "I suppose so."