Authors: Sergei Lukyanenko
In a war the most dangerous thing is to understand the enemy. To understand is to forgive. And we have no right to do 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 offence.'
Bear made another tiny movement forward. I could feel his muscles tensing as he prepared to leap.
But then Semyon appeared behind the vampire, without 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 encouragingly. '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.
'What do you want?' I asked. 'To exist? All right . . . give yourself up. There'll be a trial, a joint court of the Watches.'
The girl vampire looked at me and shook her head:
'No, I don't trust your court. Not the Night Watch or the Day Watch.'
'Then why did you call me here?' I asked. Semyon was moving towards the vampire, getting closer . . .
'For vengeance,' she said simply. 'You killed my friend. I'm going to kill yours . . . while you watch. And then . . . I'm going to try ... to kill you. But even if I fail. . .' She smiled. '. . . you'll always know you didn't save the boy. Won't you, Watchman? You sign those licences without thinking about real people. And the moment you do look . . . out creeps your morality . . . your rotten, false, cheap morality. . .'
Semyon leapt.
And Bear leapt at the same time.
It was beautiful, and it was faster than any bullet or any spell, because in the end all that's left is the body striking the blow and the skill acquired over twenty, forty, a hundred years . . .
But I still pulled the pistol out from behind me and jerked the trigger, knowing that the bullet would fly through the air slowly and lazily, like a 'high-speed' shot from a cheap action movie, still leaving the vampire a chance to dodge, a chance to kill.
Semyon flattened out in the air, as if he'd hit a wall of glass, and slid down an invisible barrier, shifting into the Twilight as he went. Bear was flung off to one side – and he was far bigger. The bullet, crawling towards the vampire with all the grace of a dragonfly, flared up in a bright petal of flame and disappeared.
If it wasn't for the way the vampire's eyes were opening wider and wider, I might have thought she'd conjured up the protective shield herself. But that's something only the most powerful magicians can do.
'They are under my protection .. .' a voice said behind my back.
I swung round – and met Zabulon's gaze.
It was amazing that the vampire didn't panic. It was amazing she didn't kill Egor. The unsuccessful attack and the sudden appearance of the Dark Magician must have been much more of a surprise to her than to us, because I'd been half expecting something of the kind from the moment I took off the amulet.
I wasn't surprised he'd got there so fast. The Dark Ones have their own pathways. But why had Zabulon, the observer from the Dark Side, preferred this little tussle to staying in our headquarters? Had he lost interest in Svetlana and the vortex hanging over her head? Did he know something that we had no way of figuring out?
That wretched habit of trying to work everything out in advance! The field operatives had it beaten out of them by the very nature of their work, which was all instant response to danger, battle, victory or defeat.
Ilya had taken out his wand. Its pale lilac glow was too bright for a third-grade magician and too steady for me to believe he could have charged it. The boss had probably charged it himself.
So he must have been expecting something.
He must have been expecting someone to turn up with powers that matched his own.
Neither Tiger Cub nor Bear changed their form. Their magic didn't require any external devices, and certainly not human bodies. Bear kept his eyes fixed on the vampire, totally ignoring Zabulon. Tiger Cub stood beside me. Semyon walked slowly round the vampire, rubbing his waist and deliberately making sure she saw him. He left the Dark Magician to us too.
'They?' Tiger Cub growled.
It took me a moment to realise what was bothering her.
'They are under my protection,' Zabulon repeated. The magician was wrapped in a shapeless black coat and his head was covered with a crumpled beret of dark fur. He had his hands in his pockets, but somehow I was certain there was nothing there, no amulets, no guns.
'Who are you?' screeched the girl vampire. 'Who are you?'
'Your protector and mentor,' said Zabulon, looking at me. Not even straight at me, more a casual glance past me. 'Your master.'
Had he gone insane? The girl vampire had no idea of the balance of forces here. She was wound up, ready to blow. She had been prepared to die ... to end her existence. Now she suddenly had a chance to survive, but the way he spoke . . .
'I have no master!' The girl whose life depended on other people's death laughed. 'Whoever you are – from the Light, or from the Dark – remember that! I have no master and never will!'
She began backing away towards the edge of the roof, dragging Egor after her. Still clutching him with one arm, holding the other hand at his throat. A hostage ... a good move against the forces of Light.
And maybe against the forces of Dark too?
'Zabulon, we accept,' I said, laying my hand on the tense muscles of Tiger Cub's back. 'She is yours. Take her – until the trial. We honour the Treaty.'
'I am taking
them,'
said Zabulon, gazing forward blindly. The wind was lashing into his face, but the magician's unblinking eyes remained wide open, as if they were made of glass. 'The woman and the boy are ours.'
'No. Only the vampire.'
He finally deigned to look at me.
'Agent of the Light, I am only taking what is mine. I honour the Great Treaty. The woman and the boy are ours.'
'You are stronger than any of us,' I said, 'but you are alone, Zabulon.'
The Dark Magician shook his head and smiled in mournful sympathy.
'No, Anton Gorodetsky.'
They came out from behind the lift shaft, a young man and a young woman. I knew them. Oh yes, I knew them.
Alisa and Pyotr. The witch and the warlock from Day Watch.
'Egor!' Zabulon said in a quiet voice. 'Have you understood the difference between us? Which side do you choose?'
The boy didn't answer. But perhaps only because the vampire's claws were pressed against his neck.
'Have we got a problem here?' Tiger Cub asked in a purring voice.
'Uhuh,' I confirmed.
'Your decision?' asked Zabulon. His Watch agents weren't saying anything yet, keeping out of it.
'I don't like this,' said Tiger Cub. She edged a little closer to Zabulon and her tail lashed me mercilessly across one knee. 'I don't like the Day Watch's view of what's going on here . . . not one bit.'
Bear obviously shared her opinion: when they worked as a pair, one of them spoke for both. I looked at Ilya: he was twirling the wand in his fingers, smiling darkly as if he was thinking. Like a child who's brought a loaded Uzi to a party instead of a plastic machine gun. Semyon was clearly up for anything. He didn't give a damn about petty details. He'd spent seventy years running over rooftops.
'Zabulon, do you speak for the Day Watch?' I asked.
I saw a brief flicker of doubt in the Dark Magician's eyes.
What was going on? Why had Zabulon left our headquarters, abandoning the chance to track down an unknown magician of incredible power and enlist him in the Day Watch? You didn't just abandon an opportunity like that, not even for a vampire and a kid with potentially great powers. Why was Zabulon determined to go head to head?
And why on earth was he so reluctant – I could sense it, there was no doubt about it – to speak in the name of the Day Watch?
'I speak as a private individual,' said Zabulon.
'Then we have a few little personal disagreements,' I answered.
'Yes.'
He didn't want to involve the two Watches. Right now we were just Others. We might be on duty, we might be on assignment, but Zabulon preferred not to raise the conflict to the level of an official confrontation. Why? Was he so very confident of his own powers, or was he afraid the boss might turn up?
I didn't get any of it.
And the most important question of all was why he'd left our headquarters and abandoned the hunt for the sorcerer who'd put the curse on Svetlana. The Dark Ones had insisted that the sorcerer must be handed over to them. Why would he abandon that claim so easily?
What did Zabulon know that we didn't?
'Your pitiful—' the Dark Magician began. But before he could finish, the hostage made his move.
I heard Bear's puzzled growl of confusion and looked round.
After playing hostage in the vampire's clutches for the last half-hour, Egor was dissolving, disappearing.
The kid was withdrawing deeper into the Twilight.
The vampire squeezed her arms together in an attempt to keep hold of him ... or kill him. The sweeping movement of the clawed hand was swift, but it met no living flesh. The vampire struck herself under her left breast, in the heart.
What a pity she wasn't alive!
Like a snowdrift suddenly springing into life, Bear leapt, streaking through the empty air where Egor had just been standing and felling the vampire. The twitching body was completely covered by his massive form, with just one clawed hand protruding from under his shaggy side and twitching spasmodically.
In the same instant Ilya raised the wand. The lilac glow dimmed slightly, and then the wand exploded into a column of white flame. He looked as if he was holding a beam of light torn from the lamp of a lighthouse. It was blinding, I could almost feel its weight. With a visible effort, Ilya swung his arms, scraping the grey sky with a beam of light brighter than any seen in Moscow since the war, and swung the huge club down on Zabulon's head.
The Dark Magician cried out.
He fell, pinned down on to the roof, and the column of light tore itself out of Ilya's hands, moving of its own accord. It was no longer a beam of light, but a white snake, sprouting silvery scales as it coiled and writhed. The end of the gigantic body flattened out into a hood and a blunt head protruded from under it, with unblinking eyes the size of truck wheels. The slim, forked tongue flickered, blazing like a gas burner.
I jumped back as the tail almost caught me. The fiery cobra coiled itself into a ball and fell on Zabulon, rapidly winding the coils of its body round his head. And on the far side of the blazing coils three shadows thrashed away at each other, their rapid movements blurred into dim streaks. I hadn't noticed when Tiger Cub leaped at the witch and the warlock.
Ilya laughed quietly and took another wand from his belt. This one was less bright – he must have charged it himself.
Had he been carrying a weapon designed personally for Zabulon, then? Had the boss already known whom we'd be up against?
I looked round the roof. At first sight, everything was under control. Bear was lying on the vampire, with occasional muffled sounds emerging from beneath his body. Tiger Cub was dealing with the two Day Watch agents, and it didn't look as if she needed any help. The white cobra was throttling Zabulon.
We were left with nothing to do. Ilya was watching the struggle, holding the wand at the ready, evidently trying to decide which tussle to throw himself into. Semyon had never taken any interest in the Day Watch agents and Zabulon, and now he'd lost all interest in the vampire and was wandering along the edge of the roof, looking down. Was he worrying about new reinforcements for the Dark Side?
And I stood there like an idiot, holding the useless pistol in my hands. . .
My shadow sprang to my feet at the first attempt. I stepped into it, feeling the searing chill. Not the chill that humans know, not the chill that every Other knows – this was the chill of the deep Twilight. Here there was no wind, here the snow and ice under our feet had disappeared. Here there was no blue moss. The space was entirely filled with fog, thick and glutinous. If fog can be compared with milk, then this was curdled milk. My friends and enemies alike had all been transformed into vague shadows that were barely moving. Only the fiery cobra fighting with Zabulon was as fast and bright as ever – that battle was being fought at every level of the Twilight. Thinking about the amount of energy that must have been transferred to that wand made me feel dizzy.
But what for? Dark and Light, what for? Neither the vampire nor this young Other, the boy, were worth all this.
'Egor!' I shouted.
I was beginning to feel frozen. I'd only ever entered the second level of the Twilight twice: once in class, with an instructor beside me, and the day before, to get through the door of the apartment. I didn't carry any protection for this level, and every moment I was losing more and more strength.
'Egor!' I took a step through the fog. I could hear muffled blows behind me – the snake was pounding someone against the roof, clutching his body in its jaws . . . and I knew whose body . . .
Time down there moves even more slowly, and there was just a chance that the kid might not have lost consciousness yet. Struggling to make anything out in the gloom, I walked towards where he'd dived down to the second level of the Twilight, and I didn't see his body at my feet. I stumbled and fell, then got up, squatting on my haunches, and found myself face to face with Egor.