Night Watch 05 - The New Watch (33 page)

The vampire stopped kissing the girl and carefully set her aside – she froze like a doll. Then, with a note of resentment in his voice, he asked: ‘What is the problem here?’

‘Anton Gorodetsky, Night Watch of the City of Moscow,’ I said, already understanding everything. ‘Show me your registration.’

‘Well, good evening,’ the vampire said politely, unbuttoning his shirt, through which I could see the blue lines of a registration mark. ‘Pleased to meet you, Anton. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

‘Denis Liubimov, vampire, Sixth-Level,’ I said, reading from the mark. ‘You are under arrest for unlicensed contact with a human being.’

‘Why do you assume it’s unlicensed?’ Denis asked. ‘Here!’

A thin sheet of ‘parchment paper’ unfurled in his hand. I could have spent a long time drearily checking all the numbers, signatures, seals and magical signs . . . Only I could see perfectly well that the licence was genuine.

‘She’s not fifteen yet,’ I said for some reason.

‘And I’m twenty,’ Denis said. ‘Licences are issued beginning from the age of twelve, if there are no Others among the immediate relatives. It’s all legal.’

Sasha started breathing heavily behind me.

‘It’s your right,’ I said in an absolutely flat voice. I looked down at my feet – and the blue moss stirred as if someone had splashed petrol on it and set it on fire. ‘But you are really very young, Denis. I don’t dispute your rights, but I would like to remind you that many vampires live for hundreds of years without using their licences to hunt. Instead you can be granted various kinds of privileges under the terms of agreement number sixty-four, article seventeen, of the third of July—’

‘I have read and signed all the required documents, I know my rights and obligations,’ the vampire said politely. ‘I can confirm once again that everything will be done as humanely as possible, painlessly and quickly. And now, gentlemen of the Watch, I ask you . . . please leave the Twilight!’

‘Why?’ Sasha suddenly exclaimed. ‘Tell me why, you ugly vampire scum!’

I swung round and grabbed Sasha firmly by the shoulder. The last thing we needed was a complaint from a vampire to the Day Watch about unprovoked insults and discrimination on the grounds of nutritional preferences.

But this was a modern vampire – young, polite and restrained.

‘Because such are the laws of nature,’ he explained amiably. ‘Because people constantly take great pleasure in devouring each other. Most often in a figurative sense, but far more cruelly and painfully than vampires or werewolves. I did not choose my destiny, I did not choose my way of life – or death, if you prefer. But I will not pretend to be a sheep when I am a wolf. So now leave us . . . The Call is weakening, the girl could come round and become frightened, and you will be to blame!’

‘Remember one thing,’ I said without turning away. ‘You may be a wolf, but we are wolfhounds.’

I was already on my way out of the Twilight, dragging Sasha along, when I heard a shout from behind me: ‘My father kept an Irish wolfhound, a fine dog. Only they don’t live long.’

I had to grab hold of Sasha and thrust him bodily against the parapet, otherwise he would have gone dashing back into the Twilight.

‘Why he, he . . .’ the young watchman fumed.

‘He mocked us and provoked us, especially you,’ I said. ‘Calm down. He’s within his rights.’

‘But now he’ll kill the young girl!’

‘Yes, most likely,’ I said. I took out a cigarette and lit up. ‘Do you know how many people are killed in Moscow in a single night? And, by the way, most of them are killed by other humans, not by Others.’

‘But—’

‘We’re not knights in search of a damsel in distress,’ I said.

‘We’re police! We guard and protect!’

‘No, we’re not even police. We’re bureaucrats who ensure the observance of laws that we don’t even like. We’re dogs who guard the herd against the wolves, but we don’t bite the shepherds who cook kebabs in the evenings. Calm down.’

Alexander took a step back, staring at me in horror. Then he shook his head and said with genuine revulsion:

‘I don’t believe it. Honestly, I just don’t believe it! You, Anton Gorodetsky . . . you’re a hero, you’ve done so much . . . they told us about you in our classes, I watched the training films about how you—’

‘The training films have actors in them,’ I said. ‘And in the classes they tell you legends.’

There was a rustling sound behind my back. The girl’s limp body appeared in mid-air, hung there for a second, then flew over the parapet and hurtled down towards the water.

A second later the vampire appeared, looking pink-cheeked, cheerful and handsome. With a slight inclination of the head, as if he was saying goodbye, he swung round and dashed away from us across the bridge at an incredible speed.

Below us, in the cold, dirty water of the river Moscow, there was a barely audible splash.

Sasha stared at me, glassy-eyed.

‘Remember, I told you the important thing is to understand whether it’s necessary to jump or not?’ I asked.

Sasha didn’t answer.

‘Well, that’s the entire problem here,’ I explained. I spat the cigarette over the parapet – and jumped after it.

The river struck my legs like repulsive, heavy meat jelly that instantly liquefied, turning into icy autumnal water. I went right under, opened my eyes and looked at the lights shining through the water. If I didn’t look too hard, I could have taken them for stars . . .

The girl’s body was slowly sinking quite near me. I had already made two broad strokes when the sound of a sharp blow struck my ears – another body had hit the water.

‘Are you stupid?’ I asked, once I was sure that Sasha had stopped coughing up water. ‘Why did you jump, if you can’t swim?’

‘But you, you said . . .’ he groaned, sitting up.

‘What did I say?’

‘That you . . . have to . . .’

‘That you always have to understand what you’re doing,’ I reminded him pitilessly. ‘You’re a Magician. An Other. A Light One. So you should be especially ashamed of being a fool!’

I had dragged Sasha and the girl through the water against the current and out onto the bank at a spot where there weren’t many people – thankfully, the abilities of an Other allowed me to perform tricks like that. We were sitting on the dirty embankment, beside the car park in front of the monstrously ugly statue of Columbus, to which Peter the Great’s head had been attached. Peter-Christopher gazed contemptuously over our heads into his own bronze-yellow distance.

‘The girl . . .’ Sasha groaned.

‘Lying over there,’ I said, nodding in her direction. ‘I dragged you both out. Thanks, you were a great help . . .’

‘Is she alive?’ Sasha asked hopefully.

‘She’s not dead,’ I said, after glancing at her aura.

‘What?’ exclaimed Sasha, finally sitting up properly and looking round. ‘That bastard—’

‘Could have finished her off completely. But I managed to nettle him, with your help. So she isn’t dead – she’ll be a vampire.’

A sombre-faced pair walked by – a solid-looking man in a suit and tie and an even more sturdily built man with a bull-neck, wearing a suit slightly too large for him. I automatically extended the Sphere of Inattention to cover the poor girl, but even so the owner of the powerful neck turned his head and slipped his hand in under the flap of his jacket. Good bodyguards are like that – they can sense us Others . . .

‘What shall we do?’ asked Sasha.

‘First, get dry,’ I said. ‘Do you remember the spells? Well done! Second, get up, it’s dirty and cold here, we’re still young men, we don’t want prostate problems. Third, I’ll go home, get washed and sleep.’

‘What about me?’ Sasha asked in a quiet voice.

‘You’ll stay here and wait for the girl to come round. Call the Day Watch . . . say “Situation six, no complications.” If you don’t remember the number or you’re too squeamish to talk with Dark Ones – ask our operations officer. Is your mobile okay?’

‘It’s protected . . .’

‘Smart boy. Before the Dark Ones arrive – and they won’t hurry – have a talk with the girl. Explain that she has been bitten by a vampire, that now she will also become – essentially she already has become – a vampire. Well, all the rights and obligations . . . You hand her over to the Dark Ones, and they’ll find a teacher for her. That Denis, for instance. That’s all, after that your work’s over.’

I got up and shook myself down. My clothing gave off clouds of steam that smelled of rotting wood and oil. It was a good job I was wearing my windcheater: you couldn’t clean a good suit after the river Moscow’s water, not even with magic . . .

The Mercedes with the boss and his bodyguard in it was already trundling out of the car park. I raised my hand, transmitting a light command. Remoralisation or the Breath of Teresa wouldn’t do the trick here.

The Mercedes braked gently to a halt. I opened the back door: the owner of the car was sitting beside the driver in that manner that nouveau-riche second-raters have.

‘Drive along the embankment for the time being,’ I ordered the bodyguard. And before I slammed the door, I shouted to Sasha: ‘Oh, by the way, you passed the practical exam. You can take tomorrow to recover – in situations like this I usually get drunk, but you can think up something of your own. And the day after tomorrow, report to the operations section. You’re hired.’

On that day Gesar had been in an elated mood since the morning. At the briefing meeting he smiled, told an irrelevant joke that was funny but rather crude, unexpectedly increased the science department’s budget for the next quarter, gave Olga Ignat’s playful little hug when she was simply walking by and approved Ignat’s business trip to Lvov ‘for an exchange of experience’, although everybody knew perfectly well that Ignat was from Lvov and he simply wanted to visit his relatives and friends.

My account of Alexander’s practical exam was also received favourably. The only question was one that I was expecting.

‘And are you sure it wouldn’t have been better for the girl to die than become undead?’ the boss asked, toying with his ballpoint pen.

‘No, I’m not,’ I replied honestly. ‘But I didn’t have a chance to ask her, and I didn’t want to decide for her. At the end of the day, she has enough time with a relatively healthy psyche before she is totally transformed. If she should choose differently . . . And then, it was extremely useful for Alexander to realise that our actions don’t always produce the desired result. I’m sure he got the point.’

‘Convincing,’ Gesar said, nodding, and signed the order for Alexander’s enrolment as a full-time member of staff with a flourish.

Basically, it was a day when you could get Gesar to okay anything, or almost anything. And I tried to take advantage of that when I stayed behind after the gathering started to disperse.

‘Questions, Anton?’

‘Yes, I have one. About Erasmus.’

‘Have you guessed how to reveal his prophecy?’ Gesar asked.

‘Not yet, although I’ve had one inkling of an idea. But everything here’s so interconnected . . . Boris Ignatievich, tell me, that bonsai you sent him – can you tell me what magic is concealed in it?’

‘No,’ Gesar snapped.

Well, it was worth a try . . .

‘I wouldn’t bother my head about the old prophecy,’ Gesar continued, without looking at me. ‘It either went off and was never realised, or it all happened ages ago. But finding out what the boy wanted to tell us, now that really would be interesting.’

‘Arina twisted me round her little finger,’ I said, repenting for my sins, and not for the first time. ‘But even I’m not certain that there was anything on that flash stick . . .’

‘Remember the unwritten law that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong – there was something there, all right . . .’ Gesar sighed and closed his laptop. ‘Sit down, Anton. Let’s talk. I understand what’s bothering you.’

‘Arina’s prophecy,’ I admitted. ‘Or rather, her friend’s . . . What if she’s right and the prophecy does come true?’

Gesar shrugged.

‘Maybe she’s right, and the prophecy will come true. Maybe it already did, despite all her cunning tricks – the Germans occupied Little Russia, the Japanese invaded Siberia, they hanged Bolsheviks . . .’

‘The war will last nine years?’

‘The First World War began in 1914, the Civil War in Russia ended in 1923. Can you do the sum?’

‘It ended in 1922,’ I protested stubbornly.

‘Oh, these historians! In Yakutia, in Kamchatka and Chukotka, it was 1923!’ Gesar growled. ‘Who are you arguing with? Were you there? I fought against Bologov’s Cossacks and their shaman in 1923! And the basmachi carried on their bloody struggle after that . . .’

‘That’s not what I’m arguing about,’ I said in a conciliatory tone. ‘If the count includes 1914 and 1922, that makes exactly nine years.’

Gesar raised his hands thoughtfully and started bending down the fingers. Then he looked at me and turned crimson.

‘So what
are
you arguing about? It’s all happened!’

‘Not all of it,’ I said morosely. ‘“A third of the people die of starvation . . .”’

‘Famine in the Volga region, Kazakhstan, Little Russia . . . Not a third, of course, but let’s grant the Prophets the right to pile on the tragedy.’

‘“The world absorbs the rest of the nation . . .”’

‘What country hasn’t been absorbed into the world nowadays?’ asked Gesar, raising one eyebrow in surprise. ‘Globalisation, Anton! Everybody has dissolved in everybody! I went into a toilet in Paris, and there were graffiti scratched on the wall in fourteen languages!’

‘“Moscow consumed by flames . . .”’

‘Prophecies are always allegorical,’ Gesar snapped. ‘The old Moscow has perished, there’s nothing left of it but the Kremlin – but the Kremlin isn’t Moscow.’

‘“With the loss of his heir, the tsar is deranged . . .”’

Gesar pondered for a moment. Then he said: ‘Well, that is the result of Arina’s interference. She treated the heir to the throne’s illness, if she’s not lying, so he didn’t die – as he should have done . . . But one way or another, all the rest has happened. The silly old fool has simply gone gaga. She wants to suffer a bit, don’t you know. She has destroyed Russia! What a laugh! The whole world and its uncle have been trying to destroy Russia for a thousand years, but it’s still there, and it will stay there!’