And that’s when you’ll feel yourself crunching in the jaws of the Twilight; you’ll feel the chilly, piercing wind, as corrosive as snake venom… and you’ll become one of the Others.
And choose which side to take.
«Is the boy still in the Twilight?» I asked.
«They’re all in the Twilight…« said Ilya, diving in there after me. «Anton, why didn’t you tell them?»
«It never occurred to me. I didn’t think it was that important. I’m not a field operative, Ilya.»
He shook his head.
We find it impossible, or almost impossible, to reproach each other, especially when someone’s really messed up. There’s no need; our punishment is always there, all around us. The Twilight gives us more strength than human beings can ever have; it gives us a life that is almost immortal in human terms. And it also takes it all away when the time comes.
In one sense we all live on borrowed time. Not just the vampires and werewolves who have to kill in order to prolong their strange existence. The Dark Ones can’t afford to do good. And we can’t afford the opposite.
«If I don’t pull this off…« I didn’t finish. Everything was already clear anyway.
Chapter 8
Seen through the Twilight it actually looked beautiful. Up on the roof, the flat roof of that absurd «house on stilts,» I could see different-colored patches of light. The only things that have any color in there are our emotions. And there were plenty of those around.
The brightest of all was the column of crimson flame that pierced the sky—the vampire’s fear and fury.
«She’s powerful,» Semyon said simply, glancing up at the roof and kicking the car door shut. He sighed and started taking off his coat.
«What are you doing?» I asked.
«I’ll go up the wall… over the balconies. I advise you to do the same, Ilya. Only you go in the Twilight; it’s easier.»
«And how are you going?»
«The ordinary way. There’s less chance she’ll notice. And don’t you two worry… I was climbing mountains for sixty years. I took the fascist flag down from Mount Elbrus.»
Semyon stripped to his shirt, throwing his clothes onto the hood of the car. They were followed by a swift protective spell covering his threads and the fancy wheels.
«Are you sure?» I inquired.
Semyon laughed, jiggled about, did a few squats, and swung his arms around like an athlete warming up. Then he trotted across to the building, with the fine snow settling on his shoulders.
«Will he make it?» I asked Ilya. I knew how to climb the wall of a building in the Twilight. In theory. But an ascent in the ordinary world, and with no equipment…
«He ought to,» said Ilya, but he didn’t really sound convinced. «When he swam through the underground channel of the river Yauza… I didn’t think he’d make it then, either.»
«Thirty years practicing underwater swimming,» I said gloomily.
«Forty… I’ll get going then, Anton. How are you going up, in the elevator?»
«Yup.»
«Okay… don’t keep us waiting.»
He shifted into the Twilight and ran after Semyon. They were probably going to climb different walls, but I didn’t really want to know who was going which way. My route was waiting for me, and it wasn’t likely to prove any easier.
«Why did you ever have to meet me, boss…« I whispered as I ran up to the entrance. The snow crunched under my feet; the blood pounded in my ears. I took my pistol out of its holster on the run and took the safety catch off. Eight explosive silver bullets. That ought to be enough, as long as I hit the target. I just had to spot the moment when I had a chance to take the vampire by surprise and not wing the boy.
«Sooner or later someone would have met you, Anton. If not us, then the Day Watch. And they had just as good a chance of taking you.»
I wasn’t surprised he was keeping tabs on me. First, this was a serious business. And second, after all, he was my first mentor.
«Boris Ignatievich, if anything happens…« I buttoned up my jacket and stuck the barrel of the pistol into my belt behind my back. «About Svetlana…«
«They ran an exhaustive check on her mother, Anton. No. She’s not capable of casting a curse. No powers at all.»
«No, that wasn’t what I meant, Boris Ignatievich… I just had this thought. I didn’t pity her.»
«And what does that mean?»
«I don’t know. But I didn’t pity her. I didn’t pay her any compliments. I didn’t make any excuses for her.»
«I understand.»
«And now… disappear, please. This is my job.»
«Okay. I’m sorry for turning you out into the field. Good luck, Anton.»
I couldn’t remember the boss ever apologizing to anyone before. But I had no time to be surprised; the elevator had finally arrived.
I pressed the button for the top floor and automatically reached for the little button-earphones. Strange, there was music coming through them. When had I turned on the Walkman?
And what trick will chance play me
All will be decided later, for some he is no one,
For me he is my lord,
I stand in the darkness, for some I am a shadow,
For others I am invisible
I love Picnic. I wonder if Shklyarsky’s ever been tested to see if he’s an Other. He ought to be… But then, maybe not. Let him keep singing.
I dance out of time, I’ve done everything wrong,
Not regretting the fact
That today I’m like a shower that never fell,
A flower that never blossomed.
I, I, I—I am invisible.
I, I, I—I am invisible.
Our faces are like smoke, our faces are smoke
And no one will learn how we conquer…
Maybe I could take that last line as a good omen?
The elevator stopped.
I jumped out onto the top-floor landing and looked up at the trapdoor in the ceiling. The lock had been torn off, quite literally—the shackle was flattened and stretched. The vampire wouldn’t have needed to do that; she’d probably flown to the roof. The boy had climbed up over the balconies.
So it must have been Tiger Cub or Bear. Most likely Bear; Tiger Cub would have broken the trapdoor out.
I pulled off my jacket and dropped it on the floor with the murmuring Walkman. I felt for the pistol behind my back—it was wedged in firmly. «So technology’s all nonsense, is it?» I thought. «We’ll see about that, Olga.»
I cast my shadow upward, projecting it into the air. I reached up and slid swiftly into it. Once I was in the Twilight, I started climbing the ladder. The thick, clumpy blue moss covering the rungs felt spongy under my fingers; it tried to creep away.
«Anton!»
When I stepped out onto the roof I even hunched over a bit, the wind up there was so strong. Wild, icy gusts—either an echo of the wind in the human world or some fantastic whim of the Twilight. At first I was sheltered from it by the concrete box of the lift shaft, projecting above the level of the roof, but the moment I took a single step I was chilled to the bone.
«Anton, we’re here!»
Tiger Cub was standing about ten meters away. For a moment the sight of her made me envious; there was no way she was feeling the cold.
I don’t know where shape-shifters and magicians get the mass for transforming their bodies. It doesn’t seem to come from the Twilight, but it’s not torn the human world either. In her human form the girl weighed maybe fifty kilograms, maybe a bit more. The young tigress poised in combat stance on the icy roof must have weighed a centner and a half. Her aura was a flaming orange and there were sparks wandering lazily over the surface of her fur. Her tail was twitching left and right in a regular rhythm; the right front paw was scraping regularly at the bitumen of the roof. At that spot it was scraped right through to the concrete… someone would get flooded come spring…
«Come closer, Anton,» the tig
ress roared, without turning around. «There she is!»
Bear was standing closer to the vampire than Tiger Cub. He looked even more terrifying. For this transformation he’d chosen the form of a polar bear, but unlike the real inhabitants of the Arctic he was snowy white, just like in the pictures and children’s books. No, he had to be a magician, not a reformed shape-shifter. Shape-shifters were limited to only one form, two at most, and I’d seen Bear take the form of a pigeon-toed brown Russian bear (when we arranged a carnival for the Watch’s American guests), and the form of a grizzly, at our demonstration classes on transformation.
The girl-vampire was standing right on the edge of the roof.
She looked worse, a lot worse since the first time I met her. Her features were even sharper now and her cheeks were hollow. During the first stage of the body’s transformation, a vampire requires fresh blood almost constantly. But I wasn’t about to be fooled by the way she looked: Her exhaustion was just her appearance; it was agonizing for her, but it didn’t take away her strength. The burn mark on her face was almost gone; I could just make out a faint trace.
«You!» the vampire’s voice rang out triumphantly—as if she’d summoned me to be slaughtered, not for negotiations.
«Yes, me.»
Egor was standing in front of the vampire; she was using him to shield herself from our operatives. The boy was in the Twilight she’d summoned, so he hadn’t lost consciousness. He stood still, not saying anything, looking from me to Tiger Cub and back. We were obviously the two he was counting on most. The vampire had one arm around the boy’s chest, holding him tight against her, and she was holding her other hand against his throat, with its claws extended. The situation wasn’t that hard to assess. Stalemate. Both sides stymied.
If Tiger Cub or Bear tried to attack the vampire, she’d tear the kid’s head off with a single sweep of her hand. There’s no cure for that… not even with our powers. On the other hand, once she killed the boy, there’d be nothing to stop us.
It’s a mistake to drive your enemy into a corner. Especially if you’re going to kill him.
«You wanted me to come. So I’ve come.» I raised my hands to show they were empty and started walking forward. When I was midway between Tiger Cub and Bear the vampire bared her fangs:
«Stop!»
«I haven’t got any poplar stakes or combat amulets. I’m not a magician. And there’s nothing I can do to you.»
«The amulet! The amulet on your neck!»
So that was it…
«That’s nothing to do with you. It protects me against someone incomparably superior to you.»
«Take it off!»
Oh, this was bad… really bad… I grabbed the chain, pulled the amulet off and dropped it at my feet. Now, if he wanted to, Zabulon could try to influence me.
«I’ve taken it off. Now talk. What do you want?»
The vampire twisted her head right around—her neck easily turned the full three hundred and sixty degrees. Oho! I’d never even heard of that one… I don’t think our fighters had, either: Tiger Cub growled.
«There’s someone sneaking up here!» The vampire’s voice was still human—the shrill, hysterical voice of a stupid young girl who has acquired great strength and power by accident. «Who is it? Who?»
She pressed her left hand, the one with the extended claws, into the boy’s neck. I shuddered, picturing what would happen if a single drop of blood was spilled. The vampire would lose control! She pointed to the edge of the roof with her other hand in a ludicrous gesture of accusation, like Lenin on his armored car.
«Tell him to come out!»
I sighed and shouted:
«Ilya, come out…«
Fingers appeared on the edge of the roof, and a moment later Ilya swung over the low barrier and stood beside Tiger Cub.
Where had he been hiding? On the canopy of a balcony? Or had he been hanging there, clutching the strands of blue moss?
«I knew it!» the girl-vampire said triumphantly. «Trickery!»
It seemed she hadn’t sensed Semyon. Maybe our phlegmatic friend had spent a hundred years training in ninja techniques?
«What right have you to talk about trickery?»
«Every right!» Something human flickered briefly in the vampire’s eyes. «I know how to deceive! You don’t!»
«Fine, fine. You know how, we don’t,» I thought. «Just you keep on believing that. If you believe the only place for ‘white lies’ is in sermons, that’s just fine. If you think that ‘good must have hard fists’ only applies in old poems by a ridiculed poet, you just keep right on thinking that way.»
«What do you want?» I asked.
She paused for a moment, as if she hadn’t given it any thought:
«To live!»
«Too late. You’re already dead.»
«Really? And can the dead rip people’s heads off?»
«Yes. That’s all they can do.»
We looked at each other, and it was strange, so pompous and theatrical—the whole conversation was absurd, after all; we’d never be able to understand each other. She was dead. Her life was someone else’s death. I was alive. But from where she stood, it was all the other way around.
«I’m not to blame for this.» Her voice had suddenly become calmer and softer. The hand on Egor’s neck relaxed slightly. «You, the ones who call yourselves the Night Watch… who never sleep at night, who claim the right to protect the world against Darkness… where were you when my blood was drunk?»
Bear shifted forward slightly. A tiny little step, as if he hadn’t moved his powerful paws at all, just slid when the wind pushed him. I knew he’d continue slipping forward like that for another ten minutes, the same way he had been doing for an entire hour since the standoff began. Until he thought he had a good enough chance. Then he’d pounce… and if he was lucky, he’d be able to tear the kid out of the vampire’s arms with no more harm done than a couple of broken ribs.
«We can’t keep track of everybody,» I said. «It’s just not possible.»
This was terrible… I was starting to feel sorry for her. Not for the boy who’d been caught up in the game played between Light and Darkness, not for young Svetlana, with the curse hanging over her, not for the entirely innocent city that would bear the full brunt of that curse… I was feeling sorry for the vampire. It was a good question—where were we that night? The ones who call ourselves the Night Watch…
«In any case you still had a choice,» I said. «And don’t tell me you didn’t. Initiation can only take place by mutual consent. You could have died. Died honestly. As a human being.»
«Honestly?» The vampire shook her head, scattering her hair across her shoulders. Where was Semyon?… How hard could it be to climb to the roof of a twelve-story building? «It would have been good to die—honestly. But the person who signed the license… the one who earmarked me as food. Was he acting honestly?»
Light and Darkness…
She wasn’t simply the victim of a vampire on the rampage. She’d been marked down as prey, chosen by a blind throw of the dice. She had been destined to give up her life for the continuation of someone else’s death. But that young guy who had crumbled into a heap of dust at my feet when he was incinerated by the seal had fallen in love with her. Really fallen in love… and he hadn’t completely sucked out the girl’s life; he’d turned her into his equal.
The dead can do more than rip off heads; they can love too. The trouble is that even their love requires blood.
He’d had no choice but to conceal her, since he’d turned the girl into a vampire illegally. He’d needed to feed her, and only live blood would do for that, not the bottled blood of naive donors.
So he’d started poaching on the streets of Moscow, and then we’d started to pay attention, the keepers of the Light, the valiant Night Watch, who hand victims over to the Dark Ones.
In a war the most dangerous thing is to understand the enemy. To understand is to forgive. And we have no right to d
o that—we never have had, not since the creation of the world.
«Even so, you still had a choice,» I said. «You did. Someone else’s betrayal is no excuse for your own.»
She laughed quietly.
«Yes, yes… good servant of the Light… Of course. You’re right. And you can tell me a thousand times that I’m dead. That my soul has burned away and evaporated into the Twilight. But if I’m so malevolent, can you explain to me what the difference is between us! Explain that… make me believe it.»
The vampire lowered her head and looked into Egor’s face. She spoke in an intimate, almost friendly tone:
«And you… boy… do you understand me? Answer me. Answer me honestly, don’t take any notice of… my claws. I won’t take offense.»
Bear made another tiny movement forward. I could feel his muscles tensing as he prepared to pounce.
But then Semyon appeared behind the vampire, without making a sound, with a movement that was smooth and quick at the same time—how did he manage to move that fast in the human world?
«Wake up, little one!» the vampire said coaxingly. «Answer! Only honestly! And if you think he’s right and I’m wrong… if you really believe that… I’ll let you go.»
I caught Egor’s eye.
And I knew what he was going to say.
«You’re right too.»
A cold, empty feeling. No strength left for emotions. Let them show on the outside, let them blaze like a bonfire that people couldn’t see.
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