Nightwatch w-1

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  The guard I’d killed so easily. The third-degree magician debating so keenly with our observer and not bothering to keep his eyes open. Those young guys at the terminals, shouting out:

  «Tsvetnoi Boulevard has been checked!»

  «Polezhaevskaya Street is under surveillance!»

  Yes, this was a field headquarters. And it was about as ludicrously unprofessional as the way the inexperienced Dark Ones were hunting for me right across the city. Yes, the net had been cast, but no one was concerned about gaping holes in it. The longer I could keep on dodging the roundup and the more I thrashed about, the more the Darkness liked it. At the strategic level, of course. Svetlana wouldn’t be able to bear it; she’d lose control. She’d try to help, because she could sense the genuine Power developing inside her. None of our people would be able to restrain her—not directly. And she’d be killed.

  «Volgograd Avenue.»

  I could slit all their throats, or shoot them all right here and now! Every last one of them. They were the Darkness’s rejects and the failures, the dunces who had no prospects because they had too many shortcomings. It wasn’t simply that the Dark Ones didn’t feel sorry for them—they were a hindrance, they got in the way. The Day Watch was nothing like the almshouse that we sometimes resembled. The Day Watch got rid of anyone who was surplus. In fact, it usually got us to do the job for it, handing them a trump card, the right to respond, to change the balance.

  And the Twilight figure that had directed me to the Ostankino tower was another product of the Darkness. An insurance policy, in case I didn’t guess where I ought to go to fight my battle.

  But the real action was being coordinated by just one Other.

  Zabulon.

  He didn’t feel the slightest resentment against me. Of course not. What use would such complex and petty feelings be in a serious game like this?

  He’d eaten dozens like me for breakfast, removing them from the board, sacrificing his own pawns to pay for them.

  When would he decide that the match was played out and it was time for the endgame?

  «Do you have a light?» I asked, putting down my beer mug and picking up a pack of cigarettes lying on the counter. Someone had forgotten it, maybe one of the restaurant’s customers, fleeing in a state of panic, maybe one of the Dark Ones.

  Tiger Cub’s eyes lit up and she tensed her muscles. I realized the sorceress could start her battle transformation at any moment. She must have assessed the enemy’s strength too. She knew we had a serious chance of success.

  But there was no need.

  The old third-grade Dark Magician casually held out his Ronson lighter. It gave a melodic little click and shot out a tongue of flame, and the Dark Magician carried on talking.

  «There’s only one reason why you constantly accuse the Darkness of playing a double game and organizing deliberate provocations—in order to disguise the fact that you’re not fit to survive. Your failure to understand the world and its laws. When you get right down to it, your failure to understand ordinary people! Once it’s accepted that the diagnosis made by the Dark Side is far more accurate, then what becomes of your morality? Of your whole philosophy of life? Eh?»

  I lit up, nodded politely, and set out for the exit. Tiger Cub watched me go with a puzzled look in her eyes. Well, you just figure out for yourself why I’m leaving.

  I’d found out all I could find out around here.

  Or rather—almost all.

  I leaned down toward the short haircut of the young guy in glasses who had his nose stuck in his notebook and asked briskly:

  «What districts are we closing off last?»

  «Botanical Gardens and the Economic Exhibition,» he answered, without even looking up. The cursor continued to slide across the screen. The Dark One was issuing instructions, relishing his power as he moved red dots across the map of Moscow. It would have been harder to prize him away from this process than to drag him away from the girl he loved.

  They know how to love too, after all.

  «Thanks,» I said, dropping my burning cigarette into the full ashtray. «That’s very helpful.»

  «No worries,» the terminal operator said casually, without looking around. He stuck his tongue out of his mouth and stuck another dot on the map: one more rank-and-file Dark One moving into the roundup. What are you so delighted about, you stupid fool? The ones with real power will never appear on your map. You’d be better off playing with toy soldiers if power’s the way you get your kicks.

  I slid across to the spiral staircase. All the fury I’d felt on my way here—the determination to kill or, more likely, be killed—had disappeared. I’m sure at some point during a battle a soldier enters a state of icy calm, the same way a surgeon’s hands stop trembling when the patient starts dying on the operating table.

  What possible variants have you provided for, Zabulon?

  I start thrashing about in the nets closing in around me, and the commotion attracts Light Ones and Dark Ones, all of them—and especially Svetlana?

  That one’s out.

  That I give myself up or get caught and then the long, slow, exhausting trial starts, concluding in a frenzied outburst by Svetlana at the Tribunal?

  That one’s out.

  I start a fight with your field headquarters operatives and kill them all, but end up trapped a third of a kilometer above the ground, and Svetlana comes dashing to the tower?

  That one’s out.

  I take a stroll around the field headquarters and figure out that no one there knows anything about the Maverick, and try to play for time?

  That’s a possibility.

  The ring was getting tighter, I knew that. It had been closed off first around the outskirts of the city, along the Moscow Ring Road; then the city had been carved up into districts and the major transport routes had been closed off. It still wasn’t too late to take a quick look around nearby districts that weren’t under surveillance yet, find a hiding place, and try to lie low. The only advice the boss had been able to give me was to hold out for as long as possible, while the Night Watch was rushing about, trying to find the Maverick.

  It’s no accident that you’re squeezing me into the district where we had our little scuffle last winter, is it, Zabulon? I can’t help remembering it, so one way or another the way I act is bound to be affected by my memories.

  The observation platform was empty now. Completely empty. The final visitors had fled, and there were no staff—only the man I’d recruited, standing by the stairs, clutching his pistol in his hand and staring downward with his eyes blazing.

  «Now we’ll change clothes again,» I told him. «The Light thanks you. Afterward you’ll forget everything we’ve talked about. You’ll go home. All you’ll remember is that it was an ordinary day, like yesterday. Nothing much happened.»

  «Nothing much happened!» the security man blurted out cheerfully as he took my clothes off. It’s so easy to turn people to the Light or the Darkness, but they’re happiest of all when they’re allowed to be themselves.

  Chapter 6

  Once I was out of the tower I stopped, stuck my hands in my pockets, and stood there for a while, looking at the beams of the searchlights shooting up into the sky and the brightly lit security check booth.

  There were just two things I didn’t understand in the game being played out by the two Watches, or rather by the leaders of the Watches.

  That Other who had departed into the Twilight—who was he and whose side was he on? Had he been warning me or trying to frighten me off?

  And the kid, Egor—had I really met him just by chance? And if not, had our meeting been a destiny node or just another of Zabulon’s moves?

  I knew next to nothing about inhabitants of the twilight. Maybe even Gesar himself knew nothing.

  But at least I could think a bit about Egor.

  He was the card that hadn’t been dealt yet. Maybe only a low card, but a trump, like all of us. And small trumps have their uses too. Egor had alrea
dy been in the Twilight—the first time when he tried to see me, the second time when he escaped from the vampire. That wasn’t a very good hand, to be honest. Both times he’d been led by fear, and that should have meant his future was decided. Maybe he could linger on the borderline between human being and Other for a few more years, but his path led to the Dark Ones.

  It’s always best to look the truth squarely in the face. It didn’t make the slightest bit of difference that so far Egor was just like any other good kid. If I survived, I’d still have to ask for his ID every time I met him—or show him my own.

  Zabulon could probably influence him. Send him to any place I happened to be. That reminded me that he probably had no difficulty sensing where I was either. I was prepared for that.

  But I still didn’t know if our «chance» meeting had any meaning!

  Given what the Dark computer operator had said—that they weren’t combing the Economic Exhibition district yet—it had. I might get the wild idea of using the boy somehow—hiding in his apartment or sending him to get help. I might head for his building. Right?

  Too complicated. Way too tricky. They could take me easily enough anyway. I was missing something, something crucially important.

  I walked toward the street and didn’t look around again at the Dark Ones’ sham headquarters. I’d almost even forgotten about the shattered body of the magician who’d been guarding it, lying somewhere near the foot of the tower at that moment. What did they want me to do? What was it? I had to start from that point.

  Act as bait. Get caught by the Day Watch. Get caught in a way that would leave no doubt that I was guilty. And that had as good as happened already.

  After that, Svetlana wouldn’t be able to control herself. We could protect her and her parents. The one thing we couldn’t do was interfere in her own decisions. And if she started trying to save me, to pluck me out of the Day Watch’s dungeons or rescue me from the Tribunal, she would be killed. Swiftly and without hesitation. The whole game had been designed so she could make a wrong move. The whole game had been set up a long time ago, when the Dark Magician Zabulon had seen the appearance of a Great Sorceress in the future and the part I was destined to play. The traps had been set. The first one had failed. The second one was holding its greedy jaws wide open right now. Maybe there was a third still to come.

  But where did a kid who still couldn’t manifest his magical powers come into all this?

  I stopped.

  He was Dark, that must be it!

  And who was it who killed Dark Ones? Weak, unskilled Dark Ones who didn’t want to develop?

  One more body laid at my door—but what was the point?

  I didn’t know. But I did know that the kid was doomed and the meeting in the metro hadn’t been any accident. I could see that clearly now. I must have been experiencing prevision again or another piece of the jigsaw had simply fallen into place.

  Egor would die.

  I remembered the way he’d looked at me on the platform in the station, with his shoulders hunched over, wanting to ask me something and shout abuse at me all at the same time, to shout out loud the truth about the two Watches, the truth he’d seen too early. I remembered the way he’d turned and run for the train.

  «They’ll protect you, won’t they? Your Watch?»

  «They’ll try.»

  Of course they’d try. They’d keep looking for the Maverick right to the end.

  That was the answer!

  I stopped walking and grabbed hold of my head. Light and Darkness, how could I be so stupid? So hopelessly naive?

  They wouldn’t spring the trap as long as the Maverick was still alive. Making me look like a psychopath out on the hunt, a poacher from the Light Side, wasn’t enough. They needed to kill the real Maverick as well.

  The Dark Ones knew who he was—or at least Zabulon did. And more important than that, they could control him. They tossed his victims to him, members of their own kind they didn’t see as particularly useful. And for the Maverick, what was happening right now wasn’t just one more heroic incident—he was totally absorbed in the battle against Darkness. He had Dark Ones coming at him from every side: first the female shape-shifter, then the Dark Magician in the restaurant, and now the kid. He must be thinking the whole world had gone crazy, that the Apocalypse was just around the corner, that the powers of Darkness were taking over the world. I wouldn’t have liked to be in his shoes.

  The female shape-shifter had been killed so they could lodge a protest with us and demonstrate who was under threat.

  The Dark Magician had been killed to close off any last loopholes and allow them to bring a formal accusation and arrest me.

  The kid had to be killed to get rid of the Maverick after he’d played out his part. So they could intervene at the last moment, catch him standing over the body and kill him when he resisted and tried to escape. He didn’t understand that we fought according to rules; he’d never surrender; he’d ignore instructions from some «Day Watch» agent he’d never even heard of.

  Once the Maverick was dead I’d be left with no way out. I’d either have to agree to have my memory pulled inside out or depart into the Twilight. Either way Svetlana would blow her cool.

  I shuddered.

  It was cold. Really cold. I’d thought the winter was completely gone, but that had been wishful thinking.

  I held up my hand and stopped the first car that came along. I looked into the driver’s eyes and said:

  «Let’s go.»

  The impulse was pretty strong; he didn’t even ask where I wanted to go.

  The world was coming to an end.

  Something had shifted and started to move; ancient shadows had sprung to life; the long-forgotten words of ancient tongues had sung out and a trembling had shaken the earth.

  Darkness was dawning over the world.

  Maxim was standing on the balcony and smoking as he listened to Lena’s grumbling. It had been going on for hours already, ever since the girl he’d rescued had gotten out of the car at the metro station. Maxim had heard more home truths about himself than he could ever have imagined.

  The claim that he was a fool and a womanizer who was prepared to risk getting shot for the sake of a cute little face and a long pair of legs was one that Maxim could take calmly. The claim that he was a swine and a bastard who flirted with a jaded, ugly prostitute in his wife’s presence showed a bit more imagination. Especially since he’d spoken only a couple of words to his surprise passenger.

  And now Lena had moved on to total nonsense, she was dredging up those unexpected business trips, the two occasions when he’d come home drunk—really drunk—speculating on how many mistresses he had, commenting on his incredible stupidity and spinelessness, and how they’d prevented him from making a career or giving his family even a half-decent life.

  Maxim glanced over his shoulder.

  Lena wasn’t even getting worked up, and that was strange. She was just sitting on the leather sofa in front of the massive Panasonic TV and talking, almost as if she meant everything she said.

  Was this what she really thought?

  That he had a harem of mistresses? That he’d saved that girl because she had a good figure, not because of those bullets that were whistling through the air? That they had a bad life, a poor life? When three years ago they’d bought a beautiful apartment, furnished it so stylishly, and gone to France for Christmas?

  His wife’s voice sounded confident. It was full of accusation. And it was full of pain.

  Maxim flicked his cigarette down off the balcony and looked out into the night.

  The Darkness, the Darkness was advancing.

  Back there in the restroom he’d killed a Dark Magician. One of the most repulsive manifestations of universal evil. A man who was a carrier of malice and fear. Who extracted energy from the people around him and subjugated other people’s souls, transforming white into black, love into hate. Maxim knew he was alone against the world, the way he always had
been.

  But nothing like this had ever happened before; he’d never run into the spawn of the devil two days in a row. Either they had all come crawling out of their foul, stinking burrows, or his vision was becoming keener.

  Like right now.

  As Maxim looked out from the tenth floor he didn’t see the scattered lights of a city by night. That was for other people. For the blind and the feeble. He saw a small, dense cloud of Darkness hanging above the ground. Not very high, maybe ten or twelve floors up.

  Maxim was seeing yet another manifestation of the Darkness.

  The usual way. The same way as ever. But why so often now? Why one after another? This was the third! The third time in twenty-four hours!

  The darkness glimmered and swayed and shifted. The Darkness was alive.

  And behind him Lena went on reciting his sins in a weary, miserable voice. She got up and walked across to the door of the balcony, as if she wanted to make sure Maxim was listening. Okay, that was fine. At least she wouldn’t wake the kids—if they were sleeping anyway. Somehow Maxim doubted it.

  If only he really believed in God. Genuinely believed. But there was almost nothing left now of the weak faith that had once consoled Maxim after every act of purification. God could not exist in a world where Evil flourished.

  But if only He did, or if there was any real faith left in Maxim’s soul, Maxim would have gone down on his knees right there, on the dusty, crumbly concrete and held his hands up toward the dark night sky, the sky where even the stars shone quietly and sadly. And he would have cried out: «Why me? Why me, Lord? This is too much; this is more than I can bear. Take this burden from me, I beg you, take it away! I’m not the one You need! I’m too weak.»

  But what was the point of crying out? He hadn’t taken this burden on himself. It wasn’t for him to abandon it. Over there the black flame was glowing brighter and brighter. A new tentacle of the Darkness.

  «I’m sorry, Lena,» he said, moving his wife to one side and stepping into the room. «I have to go out.»

  She stopped speaking abruptly, and the eyes that had been full of irritation and resentment suddenly looked scared.