Nightwatch

What a hullabaloo there'd be!

Aliens landing at the Kremlin and the White House wouldn't even come close.

Impossible, of course.

Not my path.

In the first place, because I didn't want to take over the world or throw it into total turmoil.

I wanted only one thing: that they not force the woman I love to sacrifice herself. Because the path of the Great Ones is genuine sacrifice. The appalling powers they develop change them totally and completely.

None of us are quite human. But at least we remember that we used to be human. And we can still be happy and sad, feel love and hate. The great magicians and sorceresses move beyond the bounds of human emotions. They probably feel emotions of their own, but we can't understand them. Even Gesar, a magician beyond classification, isn't a Great One. And Olga somehow failed to become a Great One.

They'd bungled something. Failed to pull off some grandiose operation in the struggle against the Darkness.

And now they were willing to fling a new recruit into the breach.

For the sake of human beings who didn't give a damn about the Light and the Darkness.

They were jumping her through all the hoops an Other is supposed to jump through. They'd already raised her powers to third grade; now they were working on her mind. Very, very rapidly.

There had to be a place for me somewhere in this insane pursuit of some unknown goal. Gesar made use of everything that came to hand, including me. Whatever I did—hunting vampires, chasing down the Maverick, talking to Sveta in Olga's body—all that was just playing into the boss's hands.

Whatever I did now was bound to have been foreseen too.

My only hope was that not even Gesar was capable of foreseeing everything.

That I could find the only way to act that would ruin his plan. The great plan for Sveta's powers.

And avoid causing Evil in the process. Because if I did, it would be the Twilight for me.

But in any case, I'd be doing Svetlana a great favor.

I caught myself standing with my cheek pressed against the trunk of a scraggy little pine tree. Standing there, hammering my fist against the wood. In fury or in grief, I couldn't tell which. I stopped my scratched and bloody hand from moving. But the sound didn't stop. It was coming from somewhere in the forest, from the very boundary of the magical barrier around the house. Blows in the same rhythm, a rapid, nervous drumbeat.

I bent over and ran between the trees, like some grown-up still playing at paintball wars. I already had a pretty good idea of what I'd see.

There was a tiger jumping around in a little clearing. Or rather, a tigress. Her black and orange skin gleamed in the rays of the rising sun. The tigress didn't notice me; right then she wasn't capable of seeing anybody or anything. She dashed between the trees, with the sharp daggers of her claws ripping the bark. White scars sprang out on the pine trees. Sometimes the tigress stopped, rose up on her hind legs, and started slashing at the tree trunks with her claws.

I set off slowly back to the house.

All of us relax the best way we can. All of us have to struggle, not just against the Darkness, but against the Light. Because sometimes it blinds us.

But don't feel sorry for us: We're proud, very proud. Soldiers in the worldwide war between Good and Evil, eternal volunteers.

Chapter 4

The young man walked into the restaurant as confidently as if he came there every day for breakfast. But that wasn't the case.

He went straight over to the table where the short, swarthy man was sitting, as if they'd known each other for a long time. But that wasn't true either. With his last step he sank smoothly to his knees. He didn't slump; he lowered himself calmly, without losing his dignity or bending his back.

The waiter who was walking past gulped and turned away. He'd seen all sorts of things in his time, let alone petty incidents like a mafia underling kowtowing to his boss. Only the young man didn't look much like a minion, and the swarthy man didn't look much like a mafia boss.

The trouble he could smell in the air threatened to be far more serious than a mobsters' shoot-out. He didn't know what exactly was going to happen, but he could feel it coming, because he was an Other himself, although he wasn't initiated.

But only a moment later he had completely forgotten what he'd seen. He had nothing but a vague sense of unease somewhere in the region of his heart, but he couldn't remember why.

«Get up, Alisher,» Gesar said in a low voice. «Get up. We don't do that around here.»

The young man got up off his knees and sat down facing the head of the Night Watch. He nodded.

«We don't either. Not any longer. But my father instructed me to bow on my knees to you, Gesar. He followed the old rules. He would have knelt. But now he will never be able to.»

«Do you know how he died?»

«Yes. I saw with his eyes, heard with his ears, suffered his pain.»

«Give me also his pain, Alisher, son of a devona and a human woman.»

«Take what you ask, Gesar, Exterminator of Evil, equal of the gods, who do not exist.»

They looked into each other's eyes. Then Gesar nodded.

«I know the killers. Your father will be avenged.»

«I must be the one to do it.»

«No, you will not be able to do it, and you have no right. You have come to Moscow illegally.»

«Take me into your Watch, Gesar.»

The head of the Night Watch shook his head.

«I was the best in Samarkand, Gesar,» the young man said, staring hard at him. «Don't smile; I know that here I would be the lowest of the low. Take me into the Watch. As a pupil of your pupils. As a guard dog. I ask this in honor of my father's memory—take me into the Watch.»

«You are asking too much, Alisher. You are asking me to give you your death.»

«I have already died, Gesar. When they drank my father's soul, I died with him. I walked along with a smile while he distracted the Dark Ones. I walked down into the metro while they were trampling his ashes underfoot. Gesar, I have a right to ask this.»

Gesar nodded.

«Let it be so. You are a member of my Watch, Alisher.»

Not a trace of emotion showed in the young man's face, but he nodded and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant.

«Where is the thing that you have brought, Alisher?»

«I have it, my lord.»

Gesar reached his hand out across the table without speaking.

Alisher opened the little bag on his belt and took out an oblong bundle of coarse fabric, handling it with great care.

«Take it, Gesar, and relieve me of my duty.»

Gesar covered the young man's open palm with his hand and closed his fingers. When the young man withdrew his hand a moment later, it was empty.

«Your service is completed, Alisher. Now let us simply relax. Let us eat, drink, and remember your father. I will tell you all that I can remember.»

Alisher nodded. It was impossible to tell if he was pleased by what Gesar had said or simply willing to accept whatever the older man suggested.

«We will have half an hour,» Gesar stated simply. «Then the Dark Ones will arrive. They must have picked up your trail, even if they did so too late.»

«Will there be a battle, my lord?»

«I do not know,» said Gesar with a shrug. «What does it matter? Zabulon is far away. I have no reason to fear the others.»

«There will be a battle,» Alisher said thoughtfully. He looked around the restaurant.

«Drive all the customers away,» Gesar advised him. «Gently, unobtrusively. I wish to observe your technique. And we will relax while we wait for our guests.»

About eleven everyone started waking up.

I was waiting on the terrace, lazing in a beach chair with my legs stretched out, taking occasional sips from a tall gin and tonic and savoring the sweet pain of a masochist. Every time someone came out through the doors, I greeted them with a friendly wave and a little rainbow that sprang from my spread fingers and went soaring up into the sky. It was a bit of childish fun, and everybody smiled. When Yulia saw my greeting, she stopped yawning, squealed, and replied with a rainbow of her own. We competed with each other for a couple of minutes, and then made a rainbow together, a big one that stretched away into the forest. Yulia told me she was going to go and look for the pot of gold, and she strode off proudly under the multi-colored arch, with one of the terriers ru

I was waiting for certain people.

The first to come out was Lena. Bright and cheerful, wearing just her swimsuit. When she saw me she was embarrassed for a moment, but then she nodded and ran toward the gates. I enjoyed watching the way she moved: slim and graceful, full of life. Now she'd plunge into the cool water, frisk about on her own for a while, and come back for breakfast with a keen appetite.

Next to appear was Ignat. In his swimming shorts and rubber sandals.

«Hi, Anton!» he shouted happily. He came over, opened up the next chair, and flopped down into it. «How are you doing?»

«I'm in a fighting mood!» I told him, raising my glass.

«Good man.» Ignat looked around for a bottle and didn't see one. He reached out for my drink and took a sip. «Too weak, too much mixer.»

«I got plastered yesterday.»

«In that case you're right; better watch yourself,» Ignat advised me. «We were guzzling champagne all evening. Then we threw in some cognac later. I was afraid I'd get a headache, but it's okay. I got away with it.»

It was impossible to be offended by him.

«Ignat, what did you want to be when you were a kid?» I asked.

«A hospital attendant.»

«What?»

«Well, they told me boys didn't work as nurses, and I wanted to help sick people. So I decided that when I grew up I was going to be a medical attendant.»

«Great,» I said. «But why not a doctor?»

«Too much responsibility for me,» Ignat admitted. «And you had to study for too long.»

«So did you get to be a medical attendant?»

«Yes. I used to ride around in an ambulance, with the psychiatric team. All the doctors loved working with me.»

«Why?»

«First, because I'm extremely charming,» Ignat explained, praising himself ingenuously. «I can talk with a man or a woman in a way that calms them down and makes them agree to go to a hospital. And second, I could see when someone was really ill and when he was just seeing something invisible. Sometimes I I was able to whisper in the doctor's ear, explain that everything was okay and no injections would be required.»

«Medicine has suffered a great loss.»