The Day Watch (19 page)

“Light cannot be removed.” He shook his head. “What is taken returns a hundredfold. You take Darkness, and the Darkness grows. I take Light and it comes again.”

“Tell that to the boy Alyoshka, who’ll be miserable the whole evening!” I shouted. “Make him feel better by saying his joy will return!”

“I shall have other things to do, witch! Saving the children you have driven into the Darkness!”

“Console them,” I said indifferently. Everything in the world seemed to be covered with a crust of
i.e.
“That’s your job… my darling.”

What am I doing?

He’ll only be convinced that I knew everything in advance, that the Day Watch planned a cunning operation, that he has been cruelly mocked and deceived, that everything that has happened between us was only a cunning pretense…

“Witch…” Igor said contemptuously. “You will leave this place. Do you understand?”

I very nearly answered him: “Gladly!” After all, what joy was there left for me in this summer, this sea, this

abundance of Power? I could restore myself little by little; the important part of the work was already done.

“You can leave,” I said. “I have permission for a vacation and the use of human energy. You can ask your own organization… But do you have permission… darling?”

What are you doing, you fool? What are you doing, my love? What am I doing?

What am I doing? I am a Dark One. I am a witch. I am beyond human morality, and I have no intention of playing petty childish games with those primitive organisms known as people. I came here to rest, and that’s what I’m doing! And you, what are you doing? If you really do love me? And you do, I know! I can see it right now, and you can see it too… if you want to …

Because love stands above Darkness and Light.

Because love is not sex or a shared faith, or “the joint maintenance of a household and the upbringing of children.”

Because love is also Power.

And Light and Darkness, people and Others, morality and law, the Ten Commandments and the Great Treaty have damn all to do with it.

And I love you anyway, you bastard, you skunk, you Light son of a bitch, you good-hearted blockhead, you reliable cretin! I love you anyway! Even though only three days ago we stood against each other and dreamed of only one thing: destroying the enemy. Even though we are separated by an abyss that nobody can ever bridge!

Don’t you understand, I love you!

And everything I say is only to protect myself, my words are my tears, but you don’t see them, you don’t want to see them…

Oh, come to me, it doesn’t matter where-in the Twilight, where no one can see us, or in front of the astonished boys. Take me in your arm: and we will cry together, and there’ll be no need for words, and I’ll clear out and go back to Zabulon in Moscow, back to Lemesheva’s smug tutelage… or do you want me to leave the Day Watch?

Do you? I wouldn’t stop being a Dark One. That’s not in my power, and I don’t want to do it, but I will withdraw from the endless war between Darkness and Light. I will simply live and not even take anything from the ordinary, little people, even if you don’t want to be with me. I don’t even ask that, only leave me the memory of our love for each other!

Simply come to me.

No, do not reply to my words!

I am a Dark One!

I cannot be any different!

I love only myself in this world!

But now you are a part of me. The greatest part. The most important part. And if I have to-/ will kill part of myself, and that means I will kill all of myself.

But don’t do this!

You are a Light One!

You sacrifice your entire lives, you protect people and stand up for each other… oh, try to look at me in the same way, even if I am a witch, even if I am your enemy! You know that sometimes you can… understand. The way Anton Gorodetsky understood… when he gathered such immense Power for one purpose-and never made use of it. I can only admire Anton as a worthy enemy, but I love you, I love you, I love you! Oh, why won’t you understand what I’m saying and take a step toward me, you scum that I love, my darling rat, my only enemy, my beloved idiot!

“Idiot,” I shouted.

And Igor’s face contorted in such monstrous torment that I understood everything.

Light and Darkness.

Good and Evil.

They’re nothing but words.

Only we speak different languages and we just can’t understand each other-even if we’re trying to say the same thing.

“Leave, or I’ll destroy you.”

And with those words he left the Twilight. His body became blurred and indistinct and immediately reappeared in the human world, beside the two boys on vacation at Artek. And I rushed after him, tearing myself out of my shadow-if only it were as simple as that to escape from myself, from my nature, from my fate!

I was even in time to see what Igor did as he emerged from the Twilight: He caught the guitar that had almost touched the floor, threw a paranjah-I don’t know what the Light Ones call it-over his face that was contorted in pain, and brought the boys out of their trance. He must have put them into a stupor when he entered the Twilight

so that they wouldn’t be frightened by the camp leaders’ sudden disappearance…

What was that you said, little Natasha?

Reliable?

Yes, he’s reliable.

“It’s time for you to go, Alisa,” Igor said. “What do we say, boys?”

Only I could see his real face now. Full of grief, nothing but grief…

“Goodbye,” said the fat boy.

“Ciao,” said Alyoshka.

My legs felt like cotton wool. I tore myself away from the railings of the veranda that I was leaning on… and took a step.

“Goodbye now,” said Igor.

It was dark.

It was good that it was dark.

I didn’t have to waste any energy on a paranjah. I didn’t have to pretend to be happy. I just had to be careful with my voice. The weak light coming from the window didn’t matter.

“And then they divided into Light Ones and Dark Ones,” I said. “And the Light Ones believed that they should teach others to tear their lives to pieces. That the most important thing was to give, even if those who took were not worthy of it. But the Dark Ones believed that they should simply live. That everyone deserves what he has taken from life, and nothing more.”

They didn’t say anything, my stupid little girls… these human children-I hadn’t found a single Other among them, Dark or Light. Not a single enchantress, or witch, or even vampire…

“Good night, girls,” I said. “Sweet dreams, or even better-no dreams at all…”

“Good night, Alisa…”

So many voices. I was rather surprised. It wasn’t even a fairy story, it was a fable that every Other knew, Dark Ones and Light Ones. But they hadn’t gone to sleep… they had listened.

I was already halfway out of the door when Natasha’s voice asked, “When the eclipse happens-will it be frightening?”

“No,” I said. “It’s not frightening at all. Just a little bit sad.”

In my room I picked up my cell phone yet again and dialed Zabulon’s number.

“The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable…”

Where can you be, Zabulon, if your famous Iridium isn’t receiving my call? Where are you, where?

I don’t love you, Zabulon. And I probably never did love you. I think I’ve only just realized what love is. But you do love me! We were together and we were happy. You gave me this whole world and… please answer! You’re my chief, you’re my teacher, you’re my lover, so tell me-what should I do now? When I’m left face-to-face with my enemy… and my beloved? Run? Fight? Die? What should I do, Zabulon?

I entered the Twilight.

The shadows of the children’s dreams flickered all around me. A banquet… those streams of energy. Light and dark. Fears and sorrows, misery and resentment. I could see right through the whole Azure section. There was the boy, Dimka, feeling offended in his sleep because his friends hadn’t called him to drink some of their lemonade. There was the tireless little girl, Irochka, who was nicknamed the Energizer, whining quietly into her pillow because someone had stolen her inflatable ring for swimming… And there was my faithful energy donor Natasha-she’d lost her little brother in the strange, dark back alleys of a dream and now she was running, crying as she tried to find him…

I don’t want to gather Power. I don’t want to prepare for battle. I don’t want anything.

“Zabulon!” I shouted into the shimmering gray gloom. “I call to you! Zabulon…”

No answer.

It was easier for Aunt Polly to get an answer from Tom Sawyer with his hand stuck in the jar of jam than for me to get through to Zabulon…

“Zabulon…” I repeated.

This isn’t the way I imagined this night… nothing like it.

Igor…Igor…

What are you doing now? Gathering Power? Consulting with the all-wise Gesar? Or are you sitting staring dully into the mirror… like me…

Mirror, mirror… can you tell my fortune?

I’m not very good at fortune-telling, hut sometimes I have managed to see the future …

No.

I don’t want to.

I know there’s nothing good there.

They reached the beach when the eclipse had already begun. My girls were squealing and grabbing the pieces of dark glass from each other. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t ask for a piece. Oh girls, girls… what difference does the blinding light of the sun make to me? I can look the sun full in the face and not blink.

The boys of the fourth brigade were jumping around Igor, hurrying him on. They couldn’t understand why their beloved camp leader wasn’t going faster. They couldn’t understand why he’d led them to the beach by such a long, roundabout route.

But I understood.

Through the Twilight I could see the faint flashes of Power being gathered.

What are you doing, Igor … my beloved enemy…

At each step the smile faded on one more face. Now a ten-year-old fidgety nuisance was no longer feeling happy about making up with his friend. Now an eleven-year-old fidget had forgotten about the black shell he found on the seashore. Now the serious man of fifteen years had stopped thinking about the date he was promised this evening.

Igor was walking through Artek in the same way that Anton Gorodetsky had once walked through the streets of Moscow.

And I, who was his primordial enemy, wanted to shout out, “What are you doing?”

Anton didn’t outwit Zabulon because he gathered more Power than everybody else. Zabulon was still more powerful.

Anton knew how to use it properly…

Will you?

I don’t want you to win. I love only myself. But what am I to do if you have become the greater part of me?

Transfixed my life like a bolt of lightning?

Igor was collecting everything. Every last drop of Light energy around him. He was breaking all the laws and agreements and staking everything on a single throw of the dice-including his own life. And not just because he was burning with desire to protect the little human children from the evil witch.

He didn’t want to live either. But, unlike me, he was prepared to live for others. If that was the way it had to be.

The last one he drew Power from was Makar.

I’d been feeling the boy looking at me for a long time. With the miserable, longing gaze of a boy in love with a grown-up woman. Miserable, and filled with the sadness of farewell.

It wasn’t the kind of sadness that we Dark Ones can use. It was a bright sadness.

Igor drank it all up.

He had transgressed all the boundaries. And I couldn’t even respond in the same way-I was bound by the promise I had given to Zabulon, bound by my old misdemeanor.

And also by the insane hope that he would do the right thing. That my enemy would win his victory, but I wouldn’t lose either.

Up in the sky the bright disk of the sun was slowly dying. The children were already tired of staring at it through their pieces of glass. They were wallowing in the sea under the strange spectral light that reminded the two Others on the beach of the Twilight.

I turned to Igor and caught his eye.

“Leave,” his lips whispered silently. “Leave, or I will kill you.”

“Kill me,” I answered silently.

I am a Dark One.

I will not leave.

What is he going to do, this enemy of mine? Attack me? Despite my legal right to be here? Call in the Yalta division of the Night Watch? He must already have consulted with them… and he knows there are no charges that can be brought against me.

Igor took a step closer.

“By the Light and the Darkness, I challenge you…” his lips whispered.

I shuddered.

I hadn’t been expecting this. Not this.

“Beyond Light and Darkness, you and I, one against one, to the end.”

He had challenged me to a duel.

It’s an old custom that came into being with the Great Treaty between the Light Ones and the Dark Ones. A custom that is hardly ever used. Because the victor has to answer to the Inquisition. Because a duel only takes

place when there is no legitimate basis for conflict, when the Watches have no le-gal competence to intervene, when emotions speak louder than reason.

“And may the Light be my witness.”

Nobody else could have seen the tiny petal of white fire that flared up for an instant on Igor’s open palm. He himself started when he saw it. The higher powers rarely respond to appeals from simple Watch agents…

“Igor, I love you…”

His face quivered as if I had struck it. He didn’t believe me. He couldn’t believe me.

“Do you accept my challenge, witch?”

Yes, I can refuse. Go back to Moscow, humiliated but secure, with the stigma of having refused a challenge…

every lousy werewolf would spit as I walked past…

Or I could try to kill Igor. Gather so much Power that I could stand up to him…

“May the Darkness be my witness…” I said, opening my hand. And a tiny scrap of Darkness quivered on my palm.

“Choose,” said Igor.

I shook my head. I wasn’t going to choose the place, the time, or the type of duel.

Why can’t you understand me? Why?