Day Watch

Two things in particular had completely blunted the hunter's ardor. First, the words "Night Watch"-after all, he didn't have a license. And second, the fact that he had failed to recognize his intended victim as an Other. An Other like him.

Not long ago the werewolf and any of the Others that he knew would have said that was simply impossible.

Still in the form of a naked human being, the werewolf hurried through the low thickets to the spot where he had left his clothes. Now he would have to hide for many, many days, instead of prowling through the park at night hoping to chance upon a victim. He would have to stay hidden away, waiting for sanctions from the Night Watch, or maybe even from his own side.

His only hope was that this solitary traveler, who had not been afraid to cut across the park in the dark, this strange Other-or someone pretending to be an Other-really had been hurrying to catch a train. That he would catch it and leave the city. And then he wouldn't be able to contact the Night Watch.

Others also know how to hope.

Chapter one

–«¦»-

I ONLY CALMED DOWN COMPLETELY WHEN I COULD RELAX AND LISTEN TO the regular, hammering rhythm of the wheels. Although even then, not completely. How could I possibly feel calm? But at least I had recovered the ability to think coherently.

When that creature in the park broke through the bushes and threw itself at me, I hadn't been afraid. Not at all. But now I had no idea how I had found the right words to say. Afterward I must have surprised plenty of people with the way I staggered across the square in front of the station, past the tight ranks of route taxis parked for the night. It's not easy to walk with a steady stride when your knees are buckling under you.

What the hell was all this? The Night Watch… What on earth had I meant by saying that? And that beast with the teeth had immediately started whining and crept back into the bushes…

I took another mouthful of beer and tried once again to make sense of what had happened.

So, first I left the house…

Stop.

I put the bottle down on the little table, feeling confused. I must have looked very stupid at that moment, but there was no one to look at me-I was the only person in the compartment.

Stop.

I suddenly realized I couldn't remember my own house at all.

I couldn't remember a single thing about my past life. My memories began there, in that chilly winter park, just a few seconds before the attack. Everything before that was hidden in a mysterious darkness. Or rather, not even darkness, but a strange, gray shroud-sticky and viscous, almost completely impenetrable. A dense, gray, swirling twilight.

I didn't understand a thing.

I cast a confused and frightened glance around the compartment. It was a perfectly ordinary compartment. A little table, four bunks, brown plastic and maroon imitation leather, with lights occasionally sliding by in the night outside the window. My bag lying on the other bunk…

My bag!

I realized I didn't have the slightest idea what was in my bag. It had to be my things, and things can tell you a lot. Or remind you. For instance, they might remind me why I was going to Moscow. For some reason I felt certain the things could help reawaken my failed memory. I must have read about that somewhere or heard about it from someone.

I suddenly had a better idea and reached under my sweater because I realized my passport was in the left pocket of my shirt. If I started with my name, then maybe I would remember everything else.

As I looked at the yellowish page, with its dark pattern of fanciful curlicues, my feelings were mixed. I looked at the photograph, at the face that I had probably been used to identifying with my own unique personality for about thirty years-or was this the very first day?

The face was familiar in all its minutest features, from the scar on the cheekbone to the premature hint of gray in the hair. But never mind the face. That wasn't what interested me just at the moment.

The name.

Vitaly Sergeevich Rogoza. Date of birth-September 28, 1965.

Place of birth-the city of Nikolaev.

Turning over the page, I read the same information in Ukrainian and also ascertained that my sex was male and that the passport had been issued by an organization with an exceptionally clumsy acronym DO PMC ADIA-the District Office of the People's Municipal Council of the Administration of the Department of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The "Family Status" page was an unsullied, virginal blank. I heaved a sigh of relief, or perhaps disappointment.

Then came the eternal burden and curse borne by every ex-Soviet citizen: my residence permit and address. Apartment 28, 28 Tchaikovsky Street, Nikolaev.

Well, well, there was the number 28 again, twice in a row.

Then the associations really began to click-I remembered that my house stood on the corner of Tchaikovksy Street and Young Guard Street, next to School No. 28 (that number yet again!). I remembered everything quite clearly and distinctly, right down to the charred poplar standing under my window- the victim of chemical experiments conducted by the young kid who lived on the floor above me (he had poured all sorts of garbage out the window onto the long-suffering tree). I remembered a drunken party five years ago in the next house, when someone had casually told the neighbor from downstairs what she could do with herself when she complained about the noise. She'd turned out to be Armenian, the wife of some local bigwig, and later an entire mob of those swarthy Armenians had come bursting in and started battering our faces to a pulp. I'd had to clamber out through the little window in the end room, because the main window wouldn't open, and climb down the drainpipe. When they noticed that one of the woeful drunks had disappeared from the blockaded apartment, the Armenians stopped waving their fists about and some kind of agreement was eventually reached with them. I also remembered my bitter disappointment when I asked for assistance from some close local acquaintances of mine whom I'd often drunk beer with at the kiosks in the district, and not a single one of them came.

I tore myself away from my surprisingly vivid memories.

So I did have a past after all? Or were these merely the forms of memories with nothing real behind them?

I had to try to figure it out.

From the passport I also gleaned the entirely useless piece of information that I had "exercised the right to privatize without payment the following volume of living space"-the volume was not indicated-"subject to the standard maximum of 24.3 square meters."

And that was all.

I thoughtfully put the document away in my pocket-the same one, on the left side of my chest, and looked hard at the bag. What will you help me remember, my black-and-green traveling companion with the foreign inscription FUJI on your bulging side?

Well, let's hope you'll help me remember at least something…

The zipper opened with a quiet whoosh. I threw back the flap of cloth covering the contents and looked inside. The polythene bag on the top contained a toothbrush, a tube of Blend-a-Med toothpaste, a pair of cheap disposable razors, and a small, fragrant black bottle that obviously contained eau de cologne.

I put them on the bunk.

In the next plastic bag I discovered a warm wool sweater that was obviously knitted by hand, not on a machine. I set that aside too.

I spent two or three minutes rummaging through the other bags-clean underwear, T-shirts, socks, a warm checkered shirt… Aha, here was something that wasn't clothing.

A small cell phone in a leather case, with an extendable aerial. My memory instantly reacted: When I get to Moscow, I'll have to buy a card…