Nightwatch

Maybe I ought to have guessed at the time? Probably, if I'd been more experienced, with more time to think and more presence of mind. All it would have taken was to look at the aura of the woman in the car with him. Svetlana had given a detailed description of her, after all. I could have recognized the woman—and the Maverick. I could have ended everything right there in the car.

But how could I have ended it?

I dived into the Twilight when the Maverick looked in my direction. It seemed to work, and he kept walking toward the entrance of the staircase where I'd once sat by the garbage chute and had a gloomy conversation with a white owl.

The Maverick was on his way to kill Egor. Just the way I'd expected. Just the way Zabulon had pla

But where are you, Zabulon?

The Twilight gave me time. The Maverick was still walking toward the apartment block, moving his feet slowly. I looked around for signs of Darkness. The slightest trace, the slightest breath, the slightest shadow…

There was immense magical tension all around me. The threads of reality that led into the future all came together here. This was the intersection of a hundred roads, the point at which the world decided which way it would go. Not because of me, not because of the Maverick, not because of the kid. We were only part of the trap. We were extras on the set: One of us had been told to say «Di

What's going on here, Zabulon? I suddenly felt insulted, absurdly insulted. Here I am! I'm stepping into your trap. Look, I've already raised my foot, it's all just about to happen, but where are you?

Either the great Dark Magician had hidden himself so carefully that I couldn't find him, or he wasn't there at all!

I'd lost. I'd lost even before the game was over, because I hadn't understood my enemy's intentions. There ought to have been an ambush here; the Dark Ones needed to kill the Maverick the moment he killed Egor.

I couldn't let him kill him!

I was here, wasn't I? I'd explain to him what was going on, tell him about the Watches and the way they monitored each other, about the Treaty that meant we had to maintain a neutral stance, about human beings and Others, about the world and the twilight. I'd tell him everything the same way I'd told Svetlana, and he'd understand.

Or would he?

If he really couldn't see the Light!

For him the human world was a gray, mindless flock of sheep. The Dark Ones were the wolves who circled around him, picking off the fattest rams. And he was the guard dog. But he couldn't see the shepherds; he was blinded by his fear and fury. So he rushed about crazily; it was just him against all of them.

He wouldn't believe me, he wouldn't let himself believe me.

I dashed forward, toward the Maverick. The door was already open, and the Maverick was talking to Egor. Why had the stupid kid come out so late at night when he knew perfectly well what kind of power rules our world? The Maverick wasn't able to summon his victims to him, was he?

Talk would be useless. Attack him from the Twilight. Pin him down and explain everything afterward!

The Twilight screeched with a thousand wounded voices when I crashed into the invisible barrier at full speed. Just three steps away from the Maverick, as I was already raising my hand to strike, I suddenly found myself flattened against a transparent wall. I slid down off it slowly with my ears ringing.

This was bad. Really bad! He didn't understand the nature of Power. He was a self-taught magician, a psychopath on the side of Good. But when he set out to do his work, he protected himself with a magical barrier. The fact that it was purely spontaneous wasn't any comfort to me.

The Maverick said something to Egor and took his hand out from inside his jacket.

A wooden dagger. I'd heard something about that kind of magic, naive and powerful at the same time, but this wasn't the right time to try to remember.

I slid out of my shadow into the human world and jumped the Maverick from behind.

When he raised the dagger, Maxim was knocked off his feet. The world around him had already turned gray; the boy was already moving in slow motion; Maxim could see his eyelids moving down for the last time before they would part in terror and pain. The night had been transformed into the Twilight stage where he held court and passed sentence.

Someone had stopped him. Knocked aside and pushed him down onto the asphalt. At the very last moment Maxim managed to put out his hand, roll over, and jump to his feet.

A third character had appeared on the stage. Why hadn't Maxim noticed his stealthy approach? While he was busy with his important work, chance witnesses and unwanted company had always been kept away by the power of the Light, the power that led him into battle. Why not this time?

The man was young, maybe a bit younger than Maxim. In jeans and a sweater, with a bag hanging over his shoulder—he shrugged it off carelessly onto the ground. He had a pistol in his hand!

That wasn't good.

«Stop,» said the man, as if Maxim had been about to run. «Listen to me.»

A chance passerby who'd taken him for an ordinary maniac? But then what about the pistol and the crafty way he'd crept up without being noticed? A special forces soldier out of uniform? No, he would have shot Maxim and finished him off; he wouldn't have let him get up off the ground.

Maxim peered at the stranger in horror, trying to figure out who he was. He could be another Dark One, but Maxim had never come across two at the same time.

There wasn't any Darkness there. There just wasn't, none at all!

«Who are you?» asked Maxim, almost forgetting about the boy magician, who was slowly backing away toward his rescuer.

«Anton Gorodetsky, Night Watch agent. You have to listen tome.»

Anton caught hold of Egor with his free hand and pushed him behind his back. There was no mistaking the hint.

«Night Watch?» Maxim was still trying to detect a trace of Darkness in the stranger. He couldn't find it, and that frightened him even more. «Are you from the Darkness?»

He didn't understand a thing. He tried to probe me: I could feel him searching fiercely and determinedly, but clumsily. I don't even know if I could have screened myself against it. I could sense some kind of primordial power in this man, or this Other—both terms could apply here—a wild, fanatical energy. I didn't even try to shield myself.

«The Night Watch? Are you from the Darkness?»

«No. What's your name?»

«Maxim,» said the Maverick, walking slowly toward me. Looking at me as if he could sense that we'd already met, but I'd looked different then. «Who are you?»

«I work for the Night Watch. I'll explain everything, just listen to me. You are a Light Magician.»

Maxim's face trembled and turned to stone.

«You kill Dark Ones. I know that. This morning you killed a female shape-shifter. This evening, in the restaurant, you killed a Dark Magician.»

«Do you do that too?»

Maybe I just imagined it. Or maybe there really was a tremor of hope in that voice. I demonstratively stuck the revolver back in its holster.

«I'm a Light Magician. Although not a very powerful one. One of hundreds in Moscow. There are many of us, Maxim.»

His eyes opened wide and I realized I'd hit the target. Now he knew he wasn't a lunatic who'd imagined he was Superman and felt proud of it. He'd probably never wanted anything so much in his life as to meet a comrade-in-arms.

«We didn't spot you in time, Maxim,» I said. Was it really going to be possible to settle everything peacefully, with no bloodshed, without an insane battle between two Light Magicians? «That was our fault. You started a solitary war of your own, and you've created a messy situation, Maxim, but things can still be put right. You didn't know about the Treaty, did you?»

He wasn't listening to me. He didn't give a damn about some Treaty. He wasn't alone, that was the only thing that mattered to him.

«You fight the Dark Ones?»

«Yes.»

«And there are many of you?»

«Yes!»

Maxim looked at me again, and I saw the piercing glint of the Twilight in his eyes again. He was trying to see the lie, to see the Darkness, to see the malice and hatred—the only things he was capable of seeing.

«You're not a Dark One,» he said. It was almost a complaint. «I can see that. I've never been wrong, never!»

«I'm a watchman,» I repeated. I glanced around—there was no one to be seen. Something had frightened everyone away. That was probably one of the Maverick's powers.

«That boy…«

«He's an Other too,» I said quickly. «It's not clear yet if he's going to be Light or…«

Maxim shook his head.

«He's Dark.»

I glanced at Egor. The kid slowly raised his eyes to meet mine.

«No,» I said.

I could see his aura quite clearly—bright, pure, shimmering colors, typical for very young children, but not for teenagers. His destiny was his own; his future was still undefined.

«He's Dark,» said Maxim, shaking his head again. «Don't you see? I'm never wrong, never. You stopped me from exterminating an envoy of Darkness.»

He wasn't likely to be lying. He might not have been given many skills, but the ones he had were powerful. Maxim could see Darkness; he could spot the tiniest patches of it in other people's souls. In fact, he saw Darkness that was just being born more clearly than any other kind.

«We don't just kill every Dark One we come across.»

«Why not?»

«We have a truce, Maxim.»

«How can there be any truce with Darkness?»

I shuddered. I hadn't heard the faintest note of doubt in his voice.

«Any war is worse than peace.»

«Except this one.» Maxim raised the hand holding the dagger. «You see this? It was a present from a friend of mine. He was killed; maybe people like this boy were responsible. The Darkness is cu

«You think you need to tell me that?»

«Of course. You may be a Light One…« His face twisted in a bitter grin. «But if you are, your Light faded a long time ago. There can be no forgiveness for Evil. There can be no truce with Evil.»