Day Watch

Yura appeared, and I wondered irrelevantly why Edgar was carrying out the duties of senior deputy while the chief was away, even though he was only just on the border of the second level. Yura seemed more powerful to me. But the affairs of the Day Watch were none of my business, so I just hunkered down in a corner and tried to figure out if I could make a dash to the restaurant for ten minutes. The young technicians were already scraping away at the touch pads of their notebooks.

"The flight's making its approach, ETA is twenty minutes plus or minus five."

"Have you located the Light Ones?" A

"Yes. In the overnight transit rooms, beside the lounge. That's in the next building."

"What are they doing?"

"Looks like they're tinkering with the weather," someone said.

"What's the point? To stop the plane landing?"

"They won't do anything that might kill the passengers," A

It seemed to me the simplest thing would have been to bring the plane down, and that would have put an end to the whole business. But Light Ones are Light Ones. Even in a situation like this they worry about ordinary human beings. And then, who knew if a plane crash would even damage the artifact from Berne? Maybe it wouldn't touch it. Power is Power, after all.

"Who's a weather specialist here?" A

"Me!" two witches answered in chorus.

"Right then, feel out what's going on here…"

The witches began feeling things out-that is, sca

"They're intensifying the cloud cover," one of the witches a

One of the reserve magicians immediately picked up an amulet and groped for one of the witches' hands. They concentrated for a while, and finally all three of them held hands, closed their eyes and sank into something like a light trance.

"Everybody, help them if you can," A

I was in no state to help them yet. At least the energy I could have put into the effort was insignificant compared to the Power of the amulet. I'd pretty well drained myself back there on Strastnoi Boulevard…

The Watch continued with its work. The headquarters was really buzzing-nobody seemed to be ru

So I sneaked out. I stood up and slid into the Twilight. And then I moved deeper, to the second level.

Falling to the ground from the second floor took me about three minutes, even though I hurried it along as much as I could. It was strange-I'd expected the Twilight to drain me completely but, on the contrary, I felt invigorated, as if I'd just taken a shower and downed a shot of vodka. Amazing.

And by the way, that shot sounded like a good idea.

When I surfaced from the Twilight, I set out for the next building, a long glass-and-concrete slab quite unlike the administrative building, which was crowned by a tall spire-a souvenir of the architectural pomposity of the Soviet '50s.

I'd left my jacket in the field headquarters, so I had to sprint for the door. The wind was carrying fine pellets of snow, and I wondered how the plane from Odessa was going to land. Darkness and driving snow-it was a night you wouldn't put a dog out in. And then the Light Ones would be doing their best to spoil things. But if the plane didn't land, where would it go to? Would they redirect it to another Moscow airport? Maybe Bykovo or Domodedovo?

That was an idea. I ought to tell Edgar or A

And then again, they could divert the plane to Kaluga or Tula. If the weather was better there. Which it very well could be-after all, here in Butovo the Light weather magicians were obviously giving it their best shot.

After being outside, the terminal building felt warm and cozy. I went straight up to the second floor, to the bar where Boryansky and I once drank beer while we were waiting for a plane and ate nuts while we listened to a song that had literally dogged our footsteps during that trip: "… the summer has flown by, it's all behind us now…"

It took me a moment to realize that this was a memory-and I hardly had any of them left. What murky depths of my mind had it surfaced from? I couldn't tell.

I tried to think exactly who Boryansky was, but I couldn't even remember his face. And as to where we'd been flying to, and what for… For some reason the only memory that kept on coming back was that then, in those ancient Soviet times, he had a huge bidet in his apartment. Of course, it didn't work… and anyway, what would a Soviet citizen want with a bidet?

But the bar was still exactly the same as I remembered it. A counter, high stools, gleaming beer taps. And a TV in the corner. But the video clip they were showing on it was quite different. A young guy with suspiciously red eyes and a girl in a scarlet dress. He was kissing her hand. And the action after that was like a good thriller-complete with slashing wolf's jaws and all the rest. The moment I really enjoyed was when the young guy, who for some reason was now dressed in the girl's scarlet dress, came into the ballroom and then split apart into several wolves. And I liked the final shot, when the girl's red eyes glinted as she surveyed her guests…

Hmm. Well, the guys who made that didn't know too much about shape-shifting Others. Just as the unfailingly fashionable writer Pelevin didn't know much about real, gluttonous, dirty werewolves. But the clip was well produced, you couldn't deny that. The werewolves must have all chipped in to pay the producer and influenced the musicians-and what they'd ended up with was a beautiful, romantic video about themselves. The Russian vampires had done the same thing only just recently.

I remembered the name of the group-Rammstein-for future reference, so that I'd be able to find the song and listen to it a bit more carefully.

I ordered beer and a couple of hamburgers and then sat at one side near the television, with my back to the room. My stomach already thought my throat had been cut, and I was determined to do something about the situation.

I sensed the Light Ones when I'd just started my second hamburger-literally felt them with my back. And I immediately clammed up-I knew how to do that already, and I knew for certain that they hadn't spotted me.

I was a powerful Other, after all, even if I was inexperienced, and these two were still apprentices at best: a weak magician, about twenty or twenty-two years old, and a novice soothsayer. I figured I could see the future a lot more clearly than the soothsayer-the whole vast gamut of possible variants-and I could predict more precisely which of them was more probable.

The two Light Ones were talking in low voices; both of them were covered by a skillful spell of inattention-a fairly exotic variety, in fact. It had been cast by someone who was very powerful indeed.

I listened.

"… already here. The boss says things could get rough," the magician said quietly.

"They'll stick us in the security cordon anyway," the soothsayer objected wearily. "Especially after Tiger Cub and Andrei."

"Oleg, we'll need all our Power, you understand. All of it. Every last drop. The Dark Ones mustn't get their hands on the Talon- that would be the end of everything. The end of the Light…"