So why should Zabulon bother to interfere in the fight?
He’d done everything right. Purged the ranks of the Dark Ones of useless ballast, built up the tension, even deliberately shot to miss. Zabulon had made me come rushing to this spot to meet the Maverick. And now Zabulon was somewhere far away. Maybe not even in Moscow. He might even be watching what was happening: There were plenty of technical and magical devices he could use for that. Watching and laughing.
I was finished.
Whichever way I jumped, the Twilight was waiting for me.
Evil has no need to bother with eliminating Good. It’s far simpler to let Good fight against itself.
I had just one chance left, a tiny one, but it was monstrous, vile.
I could be too slow.
I could let Maxim kill the boy, or rather simply fail to stop him. He’d calm down after that. He’d go to Night Watch headquarters with me, listen, argue, and eventually give up, crushed by the boss’s implacable arguments and iron logic. He’d realize what he’d done and just how fragile the balance he’d disrupted was. And he’d hand himself over to the Tribunal, where he had at least a slim chance of being acquitted.
I was no field operative, after all. I’d done everything I could. I’d even seen through Darkness’s game, a sequence of moves devised by someone far wiser than me. I simply hadn’t been strong enough; my reactions hadn’t been fast enough.
Maxim raised the hand holding the dagger.
Time suddenly began moving slowly, as if I’d entered the Twilight. But the colors didn’t fade; they became brighter than ever. It was like moving through a stream of thick syrup. The wooden dagger glided toward Egor’s chest, changing as it moved, gleaming like metal or gray flame. Maxim’s face was calm and intent; only the lip held under his teeth betrayed how tense he was. The kid didn’t understand what was happening; he didn’t even try to move out of the way.
I threw Egor aside—my muscles almost refused to obey me; they didn’t want to do something so absurd and suicidal. For the boy, the little Black Magician, the dagger meant death. For me, it meant life. That’s the way it always has been and always will be.
What means life for a Dark One means death for a Light One, and vice versa. Who was I to change…
I wasn’t too slow.
Egor fell, banged his head against the door, and slid down into a sitting position—I’d pushed him too hard. But I was more concerned about saving him than about any bruises he might get. Maxim’s eyes glittered with almost childish resentment, but he could still talk.
«He’s an enemy!»
«He hasn’t done anything!»
«You’re defending the Darkness.»
Maxim wasn’t arguing about whether I was Dark or Light. He could see that well enough.
It’s just that he was whiter than white. And he’d never had to decide who should live and who should die.
The dagger was raised again. Not aimed at the boy this time, but at me. I dodged away, looked for my shadow, summoned it, and it rushed obediently toward me.
The world turned gray, sounds disappeared, movements slowed. Egor stopped squirming and became completely motionless; the cars crept along the street uncertainly, with their wheels turning in spurts; the branches of the trees forgot about the wind. But Maxim didn’t slow down.
He’d followed me in, without knowing what he was doing. Slipped into the Twilight as easily as someone stepping off the road onto the curb. It was all the same to him now; he was drawing strength from his own certainty, his own hate, his lighter-than-light hate, the fury of the color white. He wasn’t the executioner of the Dark Ones any longer. He was an Inquisitor. And he was far more terrifying than our Inquisition.
I threw my arms out, spreading my fingers in the sign of Power, simple and foolproof—how the young Others laugh when they’re shown that move for the first time. Maxim didn’t even stop—he staggered a bit, then put his head down stubbornly and came for me again. I began to get the picture and backed away, desperately running through the magic arsenal in my mind.
Agape—the sign of love. He didn’t believe in love.
The triple key—a sign that engendered trust and understanding. He didn’t trust me.
Opium—a lilac symbol, the path of sleep. I felt my own eyelids starting to close.
That was how he defeated the Dark Ones. Combined with the powers of an Other, his furious faith acted like a mirror, reflecting back any blow aimed at him. It raised him up to his opponent’s level. In combination with his ability to see the Darkness and his ridiculous magical dagger, it made him almost invulnerable.
He couldn’t reflect everything like that, though. The reflected blows didn’t come back immediately. The sign of Thanatos or the white sword would probably work.
But if I killed him, I’d kill myself. Set myself on the one road that we all come to in the end—into the Twilight. Into the faded dreams and colorless visions, the eternal, chilly haze. He’d found it so easy to see me as an enemy, but I wouldn’t be strong enough to see him that way.
We circled around each other, with Maxim sometimes making clumsy rushes at me—he’d never been in a real fight before; he was used to killing his victims quickly and easily. From somewhere far away I could hear Zabulon’s mocking laughter. His soft, wheedling voice.
«So you wanted to play a game against the Darkness? Play, then. You have everything you need. Enemies, friends, love, hate. Choose your weapon. Any of them. You already know what the outcome will be. Now you know.»
Maybe I imagined the voice. Or maybe I really did hear it.
«You’re killing yourself too!» I shouted. The holster was flapping against my body, begging to be noticed, begging me to take the pistol out and fire a swarm of little silver wasps at Maxim. As easily as I’d done it with my namesake.
He didn’t hear me—he wasn’t capable of hearing me.
Svetlana, you wanted so much to know where our barriers are, where the line that we mustn’t cross when we fight the Darkness runs. Why aren’t you here now? You could have seen for yourself.
But there was no one anywhere near. No Dark Ones to revel in the sight of our duel. No Light Ones to help me, to jump on Maxim and pin him down, to put an end to our deadly dance in the Twilight. No one but a young kid and future Dark Magician, getting up clumsily off the ground, and an implacable executioner with a stony face—a self-appointed paladin of the Light who’d sown as much evil as a dozen werewolves or vampires.
I raked my fingers through the cold mist, gathering it into my hand, let it soak into my fingers. And directed a little more Power into my right hand.
A blade of white fire sprouted from my hand. The Twilight hissed and burned. I raised the white sword, a simple weapon, reliable. Maxim froze.
«Good or Evil,» I said, feeling a wry grin appear on my face. «Come to me. Come, and I’ll kill you. You might be lighter than Light, but that’s not the point.»
With anybody else it would have worked. No doubt about it. I can imagine how it must feel to see a sword of fire appear out of nowhere for the first time. But Maxim came for me.
He took those five steps across the space between us. Calmly, not even frowning, without looking at the white sword. And I stood there, repeating to myself the words that I’d spoken so confidently out loud.
Then the wooden dagger slid in under my ribs.
In his lair somewhere far, far away, the head of Day Watch burst out laughing.
I collapsed onto my knees, then fell on my back. I pressed my palm against my chest. It hurt, but so far that was all. The Twilight squealed indignantly at the scent of living blood and began thinning out.
This was terrible!
Or was this my only way out? To die?
Svetlana wouldn’t have anyone to save now. She’d travel on along her long and glorious road, but someday even she would have to enter the Twilight forever.
Did you know this was going to happen, Gesar? Is this what you were hoping for?
/> The colors came back into the world. The dark colors of night. The Twilight had rejected me, spat me out in disgust. I was half-sitting, half-lying on the ground, squeezing the bleeding wound with my hand.
«Why are you still alive?» Maxim asked.
That note of resentment was back in his voice; he was almost pouting. I felt like smiling, but the pain stopped me. He looked at the dagger and raised it again, uncertainly this time. The next moment Egor was there, standing between us, shielding me from Maxim. This time even the pain couldn’t stop me from laughing.
A future Dark Magician saving a Light One from another Light One!
«I’m alive because your weapon is good only against the Darkness,» I said. I heard an ominous gurgling sound in my chest. The dagger hadn’t reached my heart, but it had punctured a lung. «I don’t know who gave it to you, but it’s a weapon of Darkness. Against me it’s just a sliver of wood, but even that hurts.»
«You’re a Light One,» said Maxim.
«Yes.»
«He’s a Dark One.» The dagger slowly turned to point at Egor.
I nodded and tried to tug the kid out of the way. He shook his head stubbornly and stayed where he was.
«Why?» asked Maxim. «Tell me why, eh? You’re Light, he’s Dark…«
And then even he smiled for the first time, though it wasn’t a very happy smile.
«Then who am I? Tell me that.»
«I’d say you’re a future Inquisitor,» said a voice behind me. «I’m almost certain of it. A talented, implacable, incorruptible Inquisitor.»
I smiled ironically and said:
«Good evening, Gesar.»
The boss gave me a nod of sympathy. Svetlana was standing behind him, and her face was as white as chalk.
«Can you hold on for five minutes?» the boss asked. «Then I’ll deal with your little scratch.»
«Sure I can,» I agreed.
Maxim was staring at the boss with crazy eyes.
«I don’t think you need to worry,» the boss said to him. «If you were an ordinary poacher, the Tribunal would have you executed—you’ve got too much blood on your hands, and the Tribunal is obliged to maintain a balance. But you’re magnificent, Maxim. They can’t afford to just toss someone like you away. You’ll be set above us, above Light and Darkness, and it won’t even matter which side you came from. But don’t get your hopes up. That isn’t power. It’s hard labor. Drop the dagger!»
Maxim flung the weapon to the ground as if it were burning his fingers. This was a real magician, well beyond the likes of me.
«Svetlana, you passed the test,» the boss said, looking at her. «What can I say? Grade three for self-control and restraint. No doubt about it.»
I supported myself on Egor and tried to get up. I wanted to shake the boss’s hand. He’d played the game his own way again. By using everybody who was there to be used. And he’d outplayed Zabulon—what a pity the Dark Magician wasn’t there to see it! How I’d have liked to see his face, the face of the demon who’d turned my first day of spring into a nightmare.
«But…« Maxim started to say something, then stopped. He was overwhelmed by too many new impressions. I knew just how he was feeling.
«Anton, I was certain, absolutely certain that you and Svetlana could handle it,» the boss said gently. «The most dangerous thing of all for a sorceress with the kind of power she’s been given is to lose self-control. To lose sight of the fundamental criteria for the fight against Darkness, to act in haste or to hesitate for too long. And this is one stage of the training that should never be put off.»
Svetlana finally stepped toward me and took me gently by the arm. She looked at Gesar, and just for a moment her face was a mask of fury.
«Stop it,» I said. «Sveta, don’t. He’s right. Today, for the very first time, I understood where the boundary line runs in our fight. Don’t be angry. This is only a scratch,» I said, taking my hand away from my wound. «We’re not like ordinary people; we’re a lot tougher.»
«Thank you, Anton,» said the boss. Then he looked at Egor: «And thank you too, kid. I really hate the idea that you’ll be on the other side of the barricades, but I was sure you’d stand up for Anton.»
The boy tried to move toward Gesar, but I kept hold of his shoulder. It would be awkward if he blurted out his resentment! He didn’t understand that everything Gesar had done was only a countermove.
«There’s one thing I regret, Gesar,» I said. «Just one. That Zabulon isn’t here. That I didn’t see his face when the whole box of tricks fell apart.»
The boss didn’t answer right away.
It must have been hard for him to say it. And I wasn’t too pleased to hear it, either.
«But Zabulon had nothing to do with it, Anton. I’m sorry. He really didn’t have anything at all to do with it. It was an exclusive Night Watch operation.»
Story three.
All for My Own Kind
Prologue
The little man had swarthy skin and narrow eyes. He was the ideal prey for any militiaman in the capital city, with a confused, slightly guilty smile and a glance that was naive and shifty at the same time. Despite the killing heat, he was wearing a dark suit, old-fashioned but hardly even worn, and as a finishing touch, an ancient tie from the Soviet period. In one hand he was carrying a shabby, swollen briefcase, the kind agronomists and chairmen of progressive collective farms used to carry around in old Soviet movies, and in the other a string bag holding a long Central Asian melon.
The little man emerged from his second-class sleeper car with a smile, and he kept on smiling: at the female conductor, at his fellow travelers, at the porter who jostled him, at the young guy selling lemonade and cigarettes from a stall. He raised his eyes and gazed in delight at the roof covering Kazan Station. He wandered along the platform, occasionally stopping and adjusting his grip on the melon. He might have been thirty years old or he might have been fifty. It was hard for a European eye to tell.
A minute later a young man got out of a first-class sleeper car in the same Tashkent-Moscow train, probably one of the dirtiest and most run-down trains in the entire world. He looked like the little man’s complete opposite. Another Central Asian type, maybe Uzbek, but his clothes were more in the modern Moscow style: shorts and a T-shirt, with a little leather bag and a cell phone hanging on his belt. No baggage and no provincial manners. He didn’t gaze around at everything, trying to spot the sacred letter «M» for metro. After a quick nod to the conductor of his car and a gentle shake of his head in reply to the offers from taxi drivers, two more steps saw him slipping through the bustling crowd of new arrivals, with an expression of mild distaste and alienation on his face. But a moment later he was an integral part of the crowd, indistinguishable from any of the healthy cells in the organism, attracting no interest from the phagocyte militiamen or the other cells beside him.
Meanwhile, the little man with the melon and the briefcase was pushing his way through the crowd, muttering countless apologies in rather poor Russian, looking this way and that with his head drawn down. He walked past one underpass, shook his head, and set off toward a different one, then stopped in front of a billboard where the crush was less fierce. Clutching his things clumsily to his chest, he took out a crumpled piece of paper and studied it closely. From the look on his face he knew perfectly well he was being followed.
The three people standing over by the wall were quite happy with that: a strikingly beautiful redhead in a slinky, clinging silk dress, a young guy in punk-style clothes with a bored expression in eyes that looked surprisingly old, and a rather older, sleek-looking man with effete mannerisms.
«It doesn’t look like him,» the young guy with the old man’s eyes said doubtfully. «Not like him at all. I didn’t see him for very long, and it was a long time ago, but…«
«Perhaps you’d like to ask Djoru, just to make sure?» the girl asked dismissively. «I can see it’s him.»
«You accept responsibility?» There was no surprise
or desire to argue in the young man’s voice. He was just checking.
«Yes,» said the girl, keeping her eyes fixed on the little old man. «Let’s go. We’ll take him in the underpass.»
They set out unhurriedly, walking in step. Then they separated with the girl sauntering straight ahead, while the men went off to each side.
The little man folded up his piece of paper and set off uncertainly for the underpass.
The sudden absence of people would have amazed a Muscovite or a frequent visitor to the capital. After all, this was the shortest and easiest route from the metro to the platform of the mainline station. But the little man took no notice. He paid no attention to the people who were stopped behind his back as if they’d run into an invisible barrier and walked off to the other underpasses. And there was no way he could have seen that the same thing was happening at the other end of the underpass, inside the railroad station.
The sleek man came toward him, smiling. The attractive young woman and the casually dressed young guy with an earring in his ear and torn jeans closed in on him from behind.
The little man continued walking.
«Hang on, old timer,» the sleek man said in a friendly voice that matched his appearance—high-pitched, affected. «Don’t be in such a hurry.»
The Central Asian smiled and nodded, but he didn’t stop.
The sleek man made a pass with one hand, as if he were drawing a line between himself and the little man. The air shimmered and a cold breath of wind swept through the underpass. Up on the platform children started crying and dogs started howling.
The little man stopped, looking straight ahead with a thoughtful expression. He pursed his lips, blew, and smiled cunningly at the man standing in front of him. There was a high-pitched jangling sound, like invisible glass breaking. The sleek man’s face contorted in pain and he took a step backward.
«Bravo, devona ,» said the young woman, halting behind the Central Asian. «But now you definitely shouldn’t be in any rush.»
«Oh, I need to hurry, oh yes I do,» the little man jabbered rapidly. «Would you like some melon, beautiful lady?»
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