It must have been a trick of the imagination-Natasha thought she felt a gust of icy cold wind blow through the kitchen. Her heart started pounding; she felt a shiver run down her spine.
Darya gave her head a shake, looked at Natasha, and nodded: "That's all. Go now, my dear. Go home, my daughter, and wait for your husband."
Natasha got up. She asked, "But what… when do I…"
"When you get pregnant, you'll remember about me yourself. I'll wait for three months… and then if I'm still waiting-don't blame me…"
Natasha nodded. She swallowed hard to keep down the lump that had risen in her throat. Somehow she now believed completely in everything the seer had promised… and at the same time, it was painfully clear to her that in three months' time, if everything really did work out, she would be painfully reluctant to give the money away. She would be tempted to put it all down to coincidence… why should she give this filthy charlatan five thousand dollars?
And yet she realized that she would. She might drag it out until the final day, but she would bring it.
Because she would remember the gentle clap of those un-manicured hands and that wave of cold that had suddenly spread through the kitchen.
"Go now," the seer repeated with gentle insistence. "I still have to cook supper and clean up the apartment. Go on, go on…"
Natasha went out into the dark hallway, took off the slippers with a sigh of relief, and put on her shoes. Her pantyhose seemed to have survived the ordeal… that was certainly more than she'd dared to hope for…
She looked at the seer and tried to find the right words to say. Should she thank her? Ask her about some details? Maybe even joke-if only she could manage it, of course…
But Darya had forgotten her completely. The seer's eyes were open wide and she was staring straight at the closed door, feebly waving her hands through the air in front of her as she whispered:
"Who… who… who?"
The next moment the door behind Natasha opened with a sudden crash and the hall was instantly full of people. Two men were holding the seer firmly by the arms and another had walked quickly into the kitchen without looking around first-he obviously knew the layout of the apartment very well. A young, black-haired girl had appeared beside Natasha. All the men were dressed in a simple and somehow deliberately inconspicuous manner: the same kind of shorts and T-shirts that ninety percent of the male population of Moscow was wearing in this incredible heat. Natasha suddenly had the frightening thought that their clothes were something like the unobtrusive gray suits that special service agents wore.
"That's terrible," the girl said, looking at Natasha and shaking her head. "How disgusting, Natalya Alexeevna."
Unlike the men, she was dressed in dark jeans and a denim jacket. She had a sparkling pendant on a silver chain around her neck and several massive silver rings on her fingers-fancy, complicated rings with dragons' heads and tigers' heads, intertwined snakes and patterns that looked like the letters of a strange, mysterious alphabet.
"What do you mean…" Natasha asked in a cheerless voice.
Instead of answering, the girl unzipped Natasha's purse and took out the little bottle. She held it up in front of Natasha's eyes, and then she shook her head again in reproach.
"Got it!" shouted the young man who had gone into the kitchen. "It's all here, guys."
One of the men holding the seer by the arms sighed and said in an oddly bored-sounding voice, "Darya Leonidovna Romashova! In the name of the Night Watch, you are under arrest."
"What watch?" There was a note of obvious puzzlement, mingled with panic, in the seer's voice. "Who are you?"
"You have the right to reply to our questions," the young man went on. "Any magical action from your side will be regarded as hostile and punished without any warning. You have the right to request the settlement of your human obligations. You are accused of… Garik?"
The young man who had gone into the kitchen came back out. As if she were dreaming, Natasha noticed that he had an intellectual, thoughtful, rather sad kind of face. She had always liked men like that…
"I suppose it's the usual set," said Garik. "The illegal practice of black magic. Third or fourth degree intervention in the consciousness of other individuals. Murder, tax evasion-but the last one's not for us. That's for the Dark Ones."
"You are accused of the illegal practice of black magic, intervention in the consciousness of others, and murder," the man holding Darya repeated. "You will come with us."
The seer gave a long, piercing, terrifying scream. Natasha involuntarily glanced at the open door. Of course, it would be naive to hope that the neighbors would come running to help, but they could call the police, couldn't they?
The strange visitors didn't react to the scream. The girl only frowned and nodded in Natasha's direction: "What shall we do with her?"
"Confiscate the potion and wipe her memory clean." Garik looked at Natasha without a trace of sympathy. "Let her believe there was no one in the apartment when she got here."
"And that's all?" The girl took a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one without hurrying.
"Katya, what other choice is there? She's a human being- how can we do anything with her?"
This wasn't even frightening anymore. It was a dream, a nightmare… and Natasha reacted as such. She grabbed the precious bottle out of the girl's hand with a sudden movement and dashed toward the door.
She was flung back as if she had run into an invisible wall. Natasha shrieked as she fell at the seer's feet; the bottle went flying out of her hand and shattered against the wall with surprising ease. A tiny patch of sticky, colorless liquid appeared on the linoleum.
"Tiger Cub, pick up the pieces for the report," Garik said calmly.
Natasha burst into tears.
No, she wasn't afraid, although Garik's tone of voice left no doubt that they really would wipe her memory clean. They'd clap their hands or do something else to wipe it clean. And she would find herself standing out in the street, firmly convinced that the seer's door had never opened.
She cried as she watched her love dribble across the dirty floor.
Someone stuck their head in through the open door from the landing. "We've got company, guys!" Natasha heard the alarmed voice, but she didn't even look around. There was no point. She was going to forget it all anyway. It would all be shattered into sharp little fragments and soak away into the dirt.
Forever.
Chapter one
–«¦»-
I NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO GET READY IN THE MORNING. I CAN GET up at seven, or even at six, but I still need another five minutes.
Why is it always like that, I wonder?
I was standing in front of the mirror, hastily putting on my lipstick, and as always happens when you're in a hurry, the lipstick was going on unevenly, as if I were a schoolgirl who'd secretly borrowed her mother's for the first time. It would have been better not to bother at all and go out without any makeup on. I don't have any complexes about that-I look good enough without it.
"Alya!"
Here we go.
That just has to happen, doesn't it?
"What is it, Mom?" I shouted, fastening my sandals in a hurry.
"Come here, my little one."
"Mom, I've already got my shoes on!" I shouted, adjusting a twisted strap. "I'm late, Mom!"
"Alya!"
It was pointless arguing.
Deliberately clattering my heels, although I wasn't really angry at all, I walked into the kitchen. Mom was sitting in front of the television, the way she always does, and drinking yet an-other cup of tea with yet another cake. What is it she likes so much about those repulsive Danish cakes? They're such terrible garbage! Not to mention how bad they are for the figure.
"Little one, are you going to be late again today?" Mom asked, without even turning her head in my direction.
"I don't know."
"Alisa, I don't think you ought to let it happen. Normal worki
ng hours are one thing, but keeping you there until one in the morning…" Mom shook her head.
"They pay for it," I said offhandedly.
And then Mom did look at me. And her lips began to tremble. "So you hold that against me, do you?"
My mother always did have an expressive voice, like an actress's. She should have worked in the theater.
"Yes, we live on your wages," my mom said bitterly. "The state robbed us and threw us out to die at the side of the road. Thank you, dear daughter, for not forgetting about us. Your father and I are very grateful to you. But there's no need to keep reminding us…"
"Mom, I didn't mean anything of the sort. You know I don't have a standard working day!"
"Working day!" My mom flung her arms in the air. She had a crumb of cake on her chin. "Working night, more like! And who knows what you get up to?"
"Mom…"
Of course, she didn't really think anything of the kind. On the contrary, she was always proudly telling her friends what a fine, upstanding girl I was. It was just that in the morning she felt like arguing. Perhaps she'd been watching the news and she'd heard yet another disgusting story about our life here in Russia. Perhaps she and Dad had had a fight first thing in the morning-that would explain why he had left so early.
"And I've no intention of becoming a grandmother at forty!" my mom went on, without following any particular logic. What logic did she need, anyway? She'd been afraid for ages that I would get married and leave home and she'd be left living with just my father. Or maybe she wouldn't-I'd taken a look at the reality lines, and it was very probable that my dad would leave her for another woman. He was three years younger than Mom, and unlike her, he took care of himself.
"You'll be fifty this year, Mom," I said. "Sorry, I'm really in a hurry."
When I was already in the hallway, I heard my mom's voice, full of righteous indignation: "You never did want to talk to your mother like a normal human being!"
"There was a time when I wanted to," I muttered to myself as I skipped out the door. "When I still was a human being I wanted to. But where were you then…"
I knew for sure that Mom was taking comfort in thinking about the argument she would have with me in the evening. And she was dreaming about involving Dad in it too. When I thought about that, it instantly put me in a foul mood.
What kind of way to behave is that-deliberately provoking a fight with someone you love? But Mom just loves to do it. And she doesn't understand it's her own character that killed my father's love for her.
I'll never do that to anyone.
And I won't let Mom do it either!
There was no one in the hallway, but even if there had been it wouldn't have stopped me. I turned back to face the door and looked at it in a special way, with my eyes slightly crossed… so that I could see my shadow.
My real shadow. The one that's cast by the Twilight.
It looks as if the gloom is condensing in front of you, until it becomes an absolutely black, intense darkness-so black it would make a starless night look like day.
And against the background of that darkness you see a trembling, swirling, grayish silhouette, not quite three-dimensional but not flat either… As if it had been cut out of dirty cotton wool. Or maybe it's the other way around-a hole has been cut through the great Darkness, leaving a doorway into the Twilight.
I took a step forward onto the shadow and it slid upward, enfolding my body, and the world changed.
The colors almost completely disappeared. Everything was frozen in a dark, gray blur, like what appears on a television screen if you turn the color and contrast all the way down. Sounds slowed down, leaving silence, with nothing but a barely audible background rumble, as faint as the murmur of a distant sea.
I was in the Twilight.
I could see Mom's resentment blazing in the apartment. A bitter, lemon-yellow color mixed with self-pity and her acid-green dislike of my dad, who had chosen the wrong time to go to the garage and tinker with his car.
And there was a black vortex slowly taking shape above Mom's head. A curse directed at someone specific, still weak, on the level of "I hope that job of yours drives you crazy, you ungrateful creature!" But it was a mother's curse, and they're especially powerful and tenacious.
Oh no, my dear mom!
Thanks to your efforts, Dad had a heart attack at thirty-seven and three years ago I barely managed to save him from another… at a cost that I don't even want to remember. And now you've set your sights on me?
I reached out through the Twilight as hard as I could, so hard I got a stabbing pain under my shoulder blades, and grabbed hold of Mom's mind-it twitched and then froze.
Okay… now this is what we'll do…
I broke into a sweat, although it's always cool in the Twilight. I wasted energy that would have been useful at work. But a moment later Mom no longer remembered that she'd been speaking to me. And in general, she was really pleased that I was such a hard worker, that I was appreciated and liked at work, that I went out when it was barely light and didn't come back until after midnight.
That's done.
Probably the effect would only be temporary. After all, I didn't want to delve too deeply into Mom's mind. But at least I could count on a couple of months of peace and quiet. And so could my dad-I'm my dad's daughter and I love him a lot more than my mom. It's only kids who can't tell you who they love more- their mom or their dad-grown-ups have no problem answering the question…
When I was finished, I removed the half-formed black vortex, and it drifted out through the walls, looking for someone to attach itself to. I took a breath and cast a critical glance around the entrance.
Yes, it hadn't been cleaned for a long time. The blue moss had crept over everything again, and it was thickest around our door. That was only natural. With Mom's hysterical fits, there was always something for it to feed on. When I was little I used to think the Light Ones planted the moss to annoy us. Then it was explained to me that the blue moss is a native inhabitant of the Twilight, a parasite that consumes human emotions.
"Ice!" I commanded, flinging out my hand. The cold obediently gathered at my fingertips and ran across the walls like a stiff brush. The frozen needles of moss dropped to the floor, instantly decaying.
Take that!
That will teach you to go feeding on people's petty little thoughts!
That's real Power, the Power of an Other.
I emerged from the Twilight-in the human world less than two seconds had passed-and straightened my hair. My forehead was damp. I had to take out my handkerchief and blot off the sweat. And of course when I looked in my mirror I could see that my mascara had smudged.
I had no time to fuss over my appearance. I just threw on a light veil of attractiveness that would prevent any human being from noticing the faults in my makeup. We call it a "paranjah," and everybody likes to poke fun at Others who wear it, but we all use it anyway… When we're short of time or we need to be absolutely sure of making a good impression… or sometimes just for fun. One pretty young witch from Pskov -who doesn't really know how to do anything right except throw on a paranjah-has been working as a model for three years. She makes her living from it. The only trouble is that the spell doesn't work on photographs and videos, so she has to keep turning down all the offers she receives to work in advertising…
Nothing was going my way today. The elevator didn't come for ages, and the second one's been out of order for a long time now, and on my way out of the hallway I ran into Vitalik, the young guy who lives above us. When he saw me in my paranjah, he just froze with a stupid smile on his face. He has been in love with me since he was thirteen-stupidly, hopelessly, silently in love. It's the result of my sloppy work, to be quite honest. I was learning the love spell and decided to practice on our neighbor's little boy, since he took every chance he could get to ogle me while I was sitting on the balcony, sunbathing in my bikini. Well… I practiced. And I misjudged the limiting factors. He fell in
love forever. When he doesn't see me for a long time, it all seems to pass off, but it only takes a fleeting encounter, and everything starts up again. He'll never be happy in love.
"Vitalik, I'm in a hurry," I said, smiling at him.
But the young man just stood there, blocking the doorway. Then he decided to pay me a compliment.
"Alisa, you look really beautiful today…"
"Thanks." I gently moved him aside and felt him tremble when my hand touched his shoulder. He'll probably remember that touch for a week…
"I've passed the final exam, Alisa!" he said hastily, talking to my back. "That's it, I'm a college student now!"
I turned back and took a closer look at him.
Was this boy, who still used acne lotion, getting wild ideas into his head? Was he hoping that now he'd got into college and launched into "adult life" he could have a chance with me?
"Squirming out of the army?" I asked. "Men today have no balls. They're all wimps. They don't want to serve their time and get a bit of experience, and then go and study."
His smile was slowly fading away. It was a wonderful sight!
"Ciao, Vitalik," I said, and skipped out of the entrance into the sweltering heat of summer. But my mood was a bit better now.
These little pups in love are always fun to watch. They're boring to flirt with and having sex with them is repulsive, but just watching them is pure pleasure. I ought to give him a kiss sometime…
Anyway, a moment later I'd completely forgotten my lovesick neighbor. I stuck my hand out. The first car drove straight past- the driver looked at me with greedy longing in his eyes, but his wife was sitting beside him. The next car stopped.
"I need to go to the center of town," I said, leaning down toward the window. " Manege Square."
"Get in," said the driver, reaching across and opening the door. He was a cultured-looking man with dark hair, about forty years old. "How could I refuse such a good-looking girl a lift?"
I slipped into the front seat of the old Zhiguli 9 and rolled the window all the way down. The wind hit me in the face- that was some relief at least.
Day Watch Page 2
