Day Watch

I didn't put my jacket on because I'd already spotted the familiar BMW standing outside the door of the hotel-I'd only been able to see it because I was an Other.

It was warm and cozy inside the car. And spacious too-my knees didn't press against the back of the front seat. I made myself comfortable and asked, "And where am I going to stay now?"

"At the Day Watch office, colleague. Or, rather, in the office hotel. You should have gone there straightaway."

"If only I'd known where to go…" I muttered.

The BMW went darting off, turned smartly out of the parking lot toward the entrance, dived under the boom almost before it had time to rise high enough, and eased into the sparse flow of traffic on Peace Prospect.

Shagron might not be the strongest of magicians, but he could drive a car superbly. Peace Prospect flashed by and disappeared, followed by the arc of the Garden Ring Road. And all I saw of Tverskaya Street was an endless row of shop windows with tinted glass… but then, it wasn't really endless after all.

We got out of the car very close to the Kremlin. The magicians left their BMW at the curb, without even bothering to lock it. I decided to take a look at it through the Twilight, simply out of curiosity and a desire to assess the quality of the protective spells so that I wouldn't overdo things again.

I was astounded. Not by the sight of the car, but by the sight of the building, which had looked so ordinary in the ordinary world.

In the Twilight the building had grown by three whole floors. One of them was inserted between the ordinary first and second floors, while the other two were on top, making the already big building even taller. The Twilight floors were made of polished black granite. Almost all the windows were curtained and dark, but the first weak rays of sunlight were already glinting on the white boxes of modern air-conditioners.

I forgot about the protective spells in an instant.

There was a small portal leading straight out onto Tverskaya Street; behind the glass door I could sense, rather than see, the silhouette of an Other.

"Well, well, well!" I said. My voice sounded hollow, like all sound in the Twilight. My colleagues all turned their heads as if by command.

"What? Haven't you seen it before?"

"No."

"It impresses everybody the first time. Come on, you'll have plenty of time to admire it."

We went up a few steps and found ourselves in a tiny duty office. The vague figure behind the door had materialized into a ski

But the moment Edgar entered the duty office, the young guy was transformed. His eyes flashed and the book dropped onto the desk.

"Hi, Oleg." Edgar greeted him in a Baltic accent that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Shagron simply nodded.

I decided to say hello too: "Good morning."

"This is a colleague of ours from Ukraine," Edgar said, introducing me. "When he wants, let him through into the guest sector without any checks."

"Understood," Oleg agreed immediately. "Shall I enter him in the database?"

"Yes."

Oleg glanced into my eyes and bared his teeth in a friendly grin, read my registration mark with some effort, sat down at the desk, and took a notebook PC out of one of the drawers.

"And where's your partner?" Edgar asked.

Oleg's face took on a guilty expression.

"He went out for cigarettes… Just for a moment."

"Let's go," Edgar said with a sigh, taking me by the sleeve and drawing me toward the elevators. Shagron had already pressed the call button.

We seemed to be in the elevator for a long time. At least longer that I'd been expecting. But then I remembered the additional floors and everything fell into place.

"The guest sector is on the ninth floor," Edgar explained. "Basically it's just like a hotel, only it's free. I don't think there's anyone staying there at the moment."

The elevator doors parted soundlessly and we found ourselves in a square foyer, decorated with a rational combination of luxury and economical functionality. Leather divans and armchairs, a live palm tree in a tub, engravings on the walls, a carpet on the parquet floor. A counter like the ones in hotels, but there was no sign at all of any table and chair for a bellhop. Just a locked secretaire, with an elegant metal key protruding from the lock.

Edgar opened the secretaire to reveal neat rows of horizontal wooden pegs, with a key hanging on each one. And beside the pegs there were numbers.

But I was being too hasty-there were no keys on two of the pegs: numbers two and four.

"Take your pick. If the key's here, it means the apartment's free."

He said "apartment," and not "suite," as if the fact that this accommodation for Others was free distinguished it from faceless hotel suites and put it in the category of places that could be called home.

I took key number eight. From the right end of the second row.

"You can look the place over later," Edgar told me. "Leave your things and come straight back."

I nodded, wondering what my Dark colleagues were pla

That was okay. I'd survive. They were my kind, after all.

The apartment really was an apartment. With a kitchen, a separate toilet, and three spacious rooms-and a huge hallway. It was a typical Stalin-period apartment refurbished to "European" standards. The ceilings were three and a half meters high, if not four.

I hung my jacket on the coatrack and dropped my bag in the middle of the hallway. Then I went out into the corridor and pulled the door shut.

I could hear faint music coming from apartment number four: A minute earlier, as I was walking past, it had been something light and foreign. But now the song had changed. The words were almost drowned out by the harsh rhythm and the background of hard rock-I guessed at them rather than heard them:

Cast down by the power of fate,

You are humiliated and crushed.

It's time to forget who you were,

And remember who you've become!

Cast into the depths, where it doesn't matter

Why fame used to court you before-

Villains set a brand of fire on you,

And your soul is empty.

People in the depths prowl through the darkness,

Ready to eat each other up.

Anything to prolong this wild life,

And snatch something for themselves…

Angry like them, all angry and pitiful,

You rush round and round in the same herd,

With them you crawl for food at knifepoint,

Like a slave or a prophet.

I don't know why, but I froze outside that other person's door. These were more than just simple words. I absorbed them through my skin, with my entire body. I had forgotten who I used to be, but how could I remember who I'd become? And hadn't I entered a new circle now, ru

Oh, if I could listen just to silence.

Not lies, or flattery, not the midday or the darkness.

Be like snow melting in the sun,

And love, knowing no betrayal,

Then you would die of anguish and anger!

No, I clearly wouldn't get any chance to listen to silence in the immediate future. Too many others had taken an interest in my modest person. Light Ones and Dark Ones…

Meanwhile the singer's voice had grown stronger and taken on a triumphant, challenging note:

Hey, you inhabitants of the skies!

Which of you has not plumbed the depths?

Without passing through hell,

You can never build heaven!