Sixth Watch (8 page)

I suddenly started trembling nervously.

“If you were using Nadya as bait . . .” I whispered, looking at Gesar.

“Stop!” the boss roared. “Come to your senses, Gorodetsky! And think twice before you make an accusation like that!”

He raised his hands, showing me his open palms and simultaneously lowering his defenses. Now I could see all the spells he had on his fingertips.

I gulped. Six of them were battle spells that I knew, but these versions had distinctive features . . . extremely interesting ones. Four others had obviously been set up in a hurry. Three portals—attuned to me, Svetlana, and Nadya. And the “sarcophagus of time.”

Everything indicated that Gesar had been prepared to evacuate us and depart into eternal limbo with our attackers.

“Sorry, Gesar,” I said.

“Do you really think that a threat to your daughter that her own mother and father—Higher Others—couldn't handle is a trivial matter?” Gesar asked. “Do you seriously think that I could have beaten those”—he hesitated for a moment—“traitors, if the two of you couldn't manage it? With your absolute coordination?”

“We were observing,” Zabulon said amicably. He gave me a smile that was astonishingly, blindingly white, like a Hollywood actor's. In the case of an actor, or any other ordinary person, everything would have been clear—he'd had his real teeth pulled out and implants put in.

But Zabulon, of course, had simply grown them. Although it wasn't really clear why he was suddenly concerned about his appearance. His teeth always used to be just normal teeth.

“I already realize that,” I snarled.

“We were prepared to intervene,” Zabulon went on. “Both of us. Believe me, Anton, I don't like it when members of my staff are abused . . . and transformed into puppets!”

“How could it possibly have happened?” I began.

“Gentlemen and comrades,” Gesar said abruptly. “The Inquisi
tion's cleanup squad and specialists have arrived. Everyone here has another thirty-five minutes to sleep, during which the area will be tidied up and false memories will be implanted. I suggest we proceed—”

“—to my office,” Zabulon added rapidly, chuckling. “We can discuss the situation there. I find it awkward, dear Gesar, that I'm always coming to your place and never have a chance to show any hospitality of my own.”

“You know what you need to do,” Gesar replied halfheartedly.

“I have no power over you,” said Zabulon, smiling again and spreading his hands wide. “I invite you as guests without malicious intent or design. I guarantee your protection and safety, freedom of entry and exit, and immunity from harm both physical and mental.”

He raised his palm—a tiny little bundle of darkness was spinning on it.

“All right,” I said. “Right . . . thirty-five minutes . . .” I looked at my watch. “Nadya, you can stay here. Your class still has sport and choir.”

“Dad!” Nadya shouted indignantly. “Stop it, Dad, you're joking!”

“School is no joke,” I said, stealing a glance at the others.

Zabulon was frankly merry. Svetlana was smiling faintly. Nadya . . . Nadya was fuming. Gesar was serious; only the corners of his mouth quivered slightly.

“You're absolutely right, Anton,” said the boss. “But . . . we'll have to listen to your daughter's story of what happened. So I excuse her from her lessons.”

“Thank you, Uncle Gesar!” said Nadya, delighted. And she pulled a face at me.

Zabulon got up and stretched. As the girl he'd been sitting beside started slipping over sideways, he held her up and said, “Quite a pretty little girl, really . . . take off the glasses and style her hair properly, and she'll be a beauty. What's her name . . . Nadya?”

“Her name is you-go-to-hell!” Nadya exclaimed indignantly.

“Zabulon, the girl's only about fourteen,” Svetlana remarked.

“Well for me that's much the same as Astakhova,” Zabulon chuckled. “For my age, fourteen or ninety-four—that's no age at all . . . Now don't worry, don't worry, I'm not going to seduce these little schoolgirls. Their kind are five kopecks a dozen, if you really want them.”

No way could I seriously believe that Zabulon had suddenly been overwhelmed by desire, and seriously enough for him to to start discussing the sex appeal of Nadya's classmates.

That meant he was playing the fool. Either trying to provoke someone or trying to distract them from something.

Unfortunately, there was no way to figure that out right now.

“Please, after you,” said Zabulon, waving his hand to open a portal—a really swanky one: it opened immediately after the wave of his hand and looked like a dark, silvery mirror with sparks glinting inside it.

“Your love of cheap effects will be the death of you,” Gesar muttered, walking into the portal first.

“If only they were cheap.” Zabulon sighed, gesturing for us to go in. “Ah, if only . . .”

The Night Watch office used to be on Tverskaya Street, not far from the Kremlin. In our Watch we used to joke about them “feeding off the negative energy.”

I don't think the amount of negative energy in the center of Moscow had declined at all, but a couple of years earlier the Dark Ones had moved to the Moscow City business district, buying three floors in one of the office skyscrapers. Naturally, I had never been in either of the Dark Ones' offices.

I assume that in his physical form Gesar had never been there either.

In any case, when we found ourselves at the main hub of the Dark Ones of Moscow, Gesar stood there and gaped, looking around with an expression of obvious perplexity.

The Moscow Day Watch was housed in an immense, brightly lit hall, with low partitions at chest height. Sitting in the cubbyholes
formed by this labyrinth were young sorceresses and elderly witches, morose vampires and frolicsome werewolves, battle magicians and female healers.

“Well, well,” said Gesar. “Zabulon, you really do keep abreast of the times. Maybe even a step or two ahead of them.”

“In the twenty-first century you can't behave the same way as you did in the fifteenth,” said Zabulon, appearing behind us. “Or even in the twentieth. If you like, I can put you in touch with the owner of the building.”

None of the Dark Ones reacted at all when we appeared; they seemed to have been forewarned. Well, they squinted sideways at us, of course. And some of the cheekiest ones tried to view us through the Twilight. But on the whole there was a vigorous, upbeat working atmosphere in the hall, the kind that's typical for a publishing house or a firm producing almost any kind of item. “I'm quite satisfied with our building,” said Gesar.

“Of course, a remarkable underground dungeon, storerooms, an archive . . . everything the way it should be for the Light Ones,” Zabulon murmured. He was still in the same agitated mood. “This way to the conference room, please. As you can see, we have an open-plan concept, open space. It's good for team spirit, encourages friendly competition on the job. But right now we have to talk in private . . .”

No, of course I hadn't been expecting to see them brewing up philters in human skulls and carving up virgins on black-marble tables in the Day Watch office.

At our place no one goes around with saintly expressions, discussing highly moral topics in sickly sweet voices.

But this . . . this was so much like a business!

Now what kind of bee had flown into Zabulon's bonnet?

The conference room in the Day Watch offices was splendid: a minimalist interior with walls of dark-gray tropical wood. The immense window-wall with a view of the Moscow River had red velvet
curtains. The table was an antique, at least a hundred years old, covered with green baize fabric that had faded with age. The chairs were also “vintage.”

“You got it from the Kremlin,” said Gesar, sitting at the head of the table without asking if he could. It was a statement, not a question.

“Of course,” Zabulon admitted, sitting down opposite him.

Our family somehow naturally found itself between them. I sat closer to Zabulon and Svetlana was closer to Gesar. Nadya ended up between us.

“Tell us what happened, Anton,” said Gesar.

I sighed.

“Can I count on you answering questions frankly? Both of you?”

“Yes,” Zabulon said immediately. “You can. I'll tell you everything I know about what's going on.”

Gesar frowned, but he nodded.

“At breakfast, Nadya told me she had three bodyguards. From both of the Watches and the Inquisition. Only, my wife and I couldn't spot the Inquisitor,” I said. “And when Svetlana was accompanying Nadya to school, she noticed two Dark Ones and a Light One.”

“You decided it was that female vampire,” said Gesar.

“Yes, that's what we decided,” said Svetlana, nodding.

“After that it's all very simple,” I went on. “We dashed to the school . . .”

“Why didn't you open a portal?” Zabulon asked.

“Portals are blocked on the territory of the school,” Gesar said morosely. “They're allowed on the way out, but not going in. I personally removed the block for you and me, Zabulon.”

“But why didn't you run through the Twilight?” asked Zabulon, continuing his interrogation. “You would have saved time.”

“Entry via the Twilight is closed off too,” I said. “The most we could have done was run as far as the school fence. Which is like switching on a siren as you pull up.”

“Fair enough,” Zabulon agreed.

“The Inquisitor was lying dead in the yard. We thought the vampire had done it.”

“How could a vampire have inflicted wounds like that . . .” Gesar muttered. Fortunately, it wasn't a question. He'd probably decided to put our stupidity down to parental panic.

“We ran into the school, saw the wounded guard and the sleeping children . . . And dashed upstairs.”

“That's enough, we saw everything from then on,” Zabulon said politely.

What a creep. Our desperate battle had been fought out right in front of his eyes.

“Nadya, what do you remember?” asked Gesar.

Nadya sighed.

“Almost nothing. The lesson was going on. And then . . . there was a burst of Power out in the yard. A very powerful one. I even decided to take cover in a Sphere of Inattention and go out to take a look . . . Oh, Mum, what's wrong with that? It was a special situation . . .”

“Carry on,” said Gesar.

“But this . . . wave ran through the Twilight,” Nadya said after thinking for a moment. “A wave. Something was moving closer. I couldn't see it, I only sensed danger. I set up the Sphere, got up, and dashed for the window. I thought I ought to jump out and levitate . . . And that's all. The next moment Dad woke me up and shouted that Mum needed help.”

“We're simply wallowing in information,” Zabulon declared gleefully. “We should celebrate. Does anyone object to coffee? Cigars? Perhaps some cognac?”

Silence hung in the air for a few seconds. And then Gesar asked:

“Zabulon, when I called, you weren't abusing any psychedelic substances, were you?”

“What?” Zabulon exclaimed, outraged.

“You weren't drinking whisky at a tasting in London? Guzzling pills at a party in Thailand? Or sniffing cocaine in Las Vegas?”

“I was working on some papers,” the Dark One said resentfully. “I'm snowed under with bureaucratic red tape. I'm simply happy to have escaped from that miserable paper shuffling . . . I'm sorry, Gesar, but you're insulting me!”

The heads of the Night and Day Watches stared daggers at each other. Both of them were leaving something unsaid. Both of them were being cunning. Both of them were playing the fool—only each in his own way.

The usual thing, basically.

“And now I want to hear what you have to say,” I said. “And if I get the impression that you . . . it doesn't matter which one of you . . . isn't telling us everything, I'll take my wife and daughter and clear out of here.”

“Where to?” Zabulon asked.

I gave him a broad smile.

“A place where no one will find us,” Svetlana said in a cool voice. “We've had enough, Great Ones. You've been toying with us, keeping us in the dark for a long time . . . both of you. Now you're going to switch on the lights—or we'll handle our own problems for ourselves.”

“What happened to the bodyguards?” I asked. “Who is that vampire and why did she come to our rescue? Why were you Great and Wise Ones afraid to show your faces?”

Gesar and Zabulon looked at each other.

“Go ahead,” said Gesar. “You're better at telling the truth.”

Zabulon nodded. He rested his gaze on Nadya for an instant—as if he was hesitating whether to speak in front of her. But he didn't try to send her out.

“We have a crisis, Anton. The most serious crisis for the last two . . . the most serious crisis I can remember, and I can remember a lot of things.”

“More serious than the Tiger?” I asked doubtfully.

“An hour ago all the Prophets and all the Higher Seers proclaimed exactly the same prophecy,” said Zabulon.

“Which Prophets and Seers?” I asked abruptly. “The Dark Ones?”

“The Dark Ones. The Light Ones. What difference does that make, anyway?” Zabulon asked with an ironic smile.

“That's exactly when I called for help . . .” I said, suddenly catching on.

“No. Slightly earlier. Exactly when the bloody battle began around the school attended by the Absolute Enchantress.”

“I see,” I said with a nod. “That means when I made my appeal for help, the Light Ones were already trying to make sense of the prophecy. And the Dark Ones too. And the operational HQs were probably working on their own, while Gesar and Zabulon discussed what was happening in private . . . ah, but no. Gesar asked Zabulon where he was . . . What's the extent of the prophecy? Moscow? The district? The region?” I asked, suddenly transfixed by an ominous presentiment.