Nightwatch

Maxim took out his wooden dagger and looked at the toy with a heavy heart, feeling slightly confused. He wasn't the one who'd whittled this dagger; he wasn't the one who'd given it the highfalutin name of a «misericord.»

They were only twelve at the time, he and Petka, his best friend, in fact his only friend when he was a child and—why not admit it?—the only friend he'd ever had. They used to play at knights in battle—not for very long, mind you; they had plenty of other ways to amuse themselves when they were kids, without all these computer games and clubs. All the kids on the block had played the game for just one short summer, whittling swords and daggers, pretending to slice at each other with all their might, but really being careful. They had enough sense to realize that even a wooden sword could take someone's eye out or draw blood. It was strange how he and Petka had always ended up on opposite sides. Maybe that was because Petka was a bit younger and Maxim felt slightly embarrassed about having him as a friend and the adoring way he gazed at Maxim and trailed around after him as if he were in love. It was just a moment in one of the battles when Maxim knocked Petka's wooden sword out of his hands—his friend had hardly even tried to resist—and cried: «You're my prisoner!»

But then something strange had happened. Petka had handed him this dagger and said that the valiant knight had to take his life with this dagger and not humiliate him by taking him prisoner. It was a game, of course, only a game, but Maxim had shuddered inside when he pretended to strike with the wooden dagger. And there had been one brief, agonizing moment when Petka had looked at Maxim's hand holding the dagger where it had halted, just short of the grubby white T-shirt, and then glanced into his eyes. And then he'd blurted out: «Keep it, you can have it as a trophy.»

Maxim had been happy to accept the wooden dagger. As a trophy and as a present. But for some reason he'd never used it in the game again. He'd kept it at home and tried to forget about it, as if he felt ashamed of the unexpected gift and his own sentimentality. But he'd never, ever forgotten about it. Even when he grew up and got married and his own first child had started to grow, he'd never forgotten about it. The toy weapon always lay in the drawer with the albums of children's photographs, the envelopes with locks of hair, and all the other sentimental nonsense. Until the day Maxim first felt the presence of Darkness in the world.

It was as if the wooden dagger had summoned him. And it had proved to be a genuine weapon, pitiless, merciless, invincible.

But Petka was gone now. They'd grown apart when they were still young: A year is a big difference for children, but for teenagers it's a massive gulf. And then life had separated them. They'd still smiled at each other whenever they met and shaken hands, even enjoyed a drink together a few times and reminisced about their childhood. Then Maxim had got married and moved away and they'd almost completely lost contact. But this winter he'd had news of Petka, purely by chance, from his mother—he phoned her regularly, just like a good son should, in the evening. «Do you remember Petya? You were such good friends when you were children, quite inseparable.»

He'd remembered. And he'd realized immediately where an introduction like that was leading.

He'd fallen to his death from the roof of some high rise, though God only knew what he'd been doing up there in the middle of the night. Maybe he'd deliberately committed suicide, or maybe he'd been drunk—only the doctors had said he was sober. Or maybe he'd been murdered. He had a job in some commercial organization that paid well; he used to help his parents and drive around in a good car.

«He was probably high on drugs,» Maxim had said sternly. So sternly, his mother hadn't even tried to argue. «I suppose so; he always was strange.»

His heart hadn't contracted in sudden pain. But for some reason that evening he'd got drunk and killed a woman he'd been trying to track down for two weeks, a woman whose Dark power forced men to leave the women they loved and go back to their lawful wives, an old witch who forced people together and forced them apart.

Petka was gone. The boy he'd been friends with had already been gone for many years, and now Pyotr Nesterov, the man he'd seen once a year or even less often, had been gone for three months. But Maxim still had the dagger Petka had given him.

There must have been some special reason for it, that awkward childhood friendship of theirs.

Maxim toyed with the wooden dagger, rolling it from one hand to the other. Why was he so alone? Why didn't he have a friend beside him to lift at least part of the burden off his shoulders? There was so much Darkness all around, and so little Light.

For some reason Maxim recalled the last thing Lena had shouted at him as he was leaving: «I'd wish you'd love us, not just take care of us.»

«But isn't that the same thing?» thought Maxim, mentally parrying the thrust.

No, it probably wasn't. But what was a man to do when his love was a battle fought against Evil, not for Good?

Against the Darkness, not for the Light.

Not for the Light but against the Darkness.

«I'm the guardian,» Maxim said to himself in a low voice, as if he were too timid to say it out loud. Only schizos talked to themselves. And he wasn't a schizo, he was normal. He was better than normal; he could see the ancient Evil creeping and crawling into the world.

Was it creeping in, or had it already made its home here a long, long time ago?

But this was madness. He mustn't, he absolutely mustn't allow himself to doubt. If he lost even a part of his faith, allowed himself to relax or start searching for non-existent allies, then he was finished. The wooden dagger would no longer be a luminous blade driving out the darkness. The next magician would reduce it to ashes with his magic fire, a witch would cast a spell on it, a werewolf would tear it to shreds.

The guardian and the judge!

He mustn't hesitate.

The patch of Darkness moving about on the ninth floor suddenly started moving downward. His heart started beating faster: The Dark Magician was coming to keep his appointment with destiny. Maxim climbed out of the car and glanced rapidly around him. As usual, some secret thing inside him had driven everyone away from the scene and cleared the battlefield.

Was it a battlefield? Or a scaffold?

Guardian and judge?

Or executioner?

What difference did it make? He was serving the Light!

The familiar power flooded into his body. Holding his hand inside the flap of his jacket, Maxim walked toward the entrance, toward the Dark Magician who was coming down in the elevator.

Quickly, everything had to be done quickly. It still wasn't quite night yet. Someone might see. And no one would ever believe his story; the best he could possibly hope for would be the madhouse.

Call out. Give his name. Pull out his weapon.

Misericord. Mercy. He was the guardian and the judge. The knight of the Light. And not an executioner!

This courtyard was a battlefield, not a scaffold.

Maxim stopped outside the door into the building. He heard steps. The lock clicked.

He felt so wronged; he could have howled out loud in horror and screamed curses at the heavens for his destiny and his great gift.

The Dark Magician was a child.

A ski

But why? Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Maxim had killed women and men, young and old, but he'd never come across any children who'd sold their souls to the Darkness. He'd never even thought about it, maybe because he hadn't wanted to accept the idea that it was possible, or maybe because he'd been avoiding making any decisions in advance. He might have stayed at home if he'd known his next victim would be only twelve years old.

The boy stood in the doorway, looking at Maxim with a puzzled expression on his face. Just for a moment Maxim thought the kid was going to turn around and dash back in, slamming the heavy, code-locked door behind him. Run, then, run!

The boy took a step forward, holding the door so that it wouldn't slam too hard. He looked into Maxim's eyes, frowning slightly, but without any sign of fear. Maxim couldn't understand this. The boy hadn't taken him for a chance passerby; he'd realized the man was waiting for him. And he'd come to meet him. Because he wasn't afraid? Because he had faith in his Dark power?

«You're a Light One, I can see that,» the boy said quietly but confidently.

«Yes.» He had trouble getting the word out, he had to force it out of his throat. Cursing himself for his weakness, Maxim took hold of the boy's shoulder and said: «I am the judge.»

The boy still wasn't frightened.

«I saw Anton today.»

What Anton? Maxim didn't say anything, but the bewilderment showed in his eyes.

«Have you come to see me because of him?»

«No. Because of you.»

«What for?»

The boy was behaving almost aggressively, as if he'd had a long argument with Maxim, as if Maxim had done something wrong and he ought to admit it.

«I am the judge,» Maxim repeated. He felt like turning around and ru

As if there were something that could protect him.

«What's your name?» Maxim asked.

«Egor.»

«I'm really sorry things have worked out this way,» Maxim said quite sincerely. He wasn't getting any sadistic satisfaction from dragging things out. «Dammit. I've got a daughter the same age as you!»

Somehow that was the thing that hurt the most.

«But if not me, then who?»

«What are you talking about?» The boy tried to remove Maxim's hand. That strengthened his resolve.

Boy, girl, adult, child… What difference did it make? Darkness and Light—that was the only distinction.

«I have to save you,» said Maxim. He took the dagger out of his pocket with his free hand. «I have to save you—and I will.»

Chapter 7

First I recognized the car.

Then I recognized the Maverick, when he got out of it.

I suddenly felt desperate. It was the man who'd saved me when I was ru