The Night Watch (31 page)

'What districts are we closing off last?'

'Botanical Gardens and the Economic Exhibition,' he answered, without even looking up. The cursor carried on sliding across the screen. The Dark One was issuing instructions, relishing his power as he moved red dots across the map of Moscow. It would have been harder to prise him away from the exercise than to drag him away from his girlfriend.

They know how to love too, after all.

'Thanks,' I said, dropping my burning cigarette into the full ashtray. 'That's very helpful.'

'No worries,' the terminal operator said casually, without looking round. He poked the tip of his tongue out of his mouth and stuck another dot on the map: one more rank-and-file Dark One moving into the round-up. What are you so delighted about, you stupid idiot? The ones with real power will never appear on your map. You'd be better off playing with toy soldiers if power's the way you get your kicks.

I slid across to the spiral staircase. All the fury I'd felt on my way here – the determination to kill or, more likely, be killed – had disappeared. I'm sure at some point during a battle a soldier enters a state of icy calm. The same way a surgeon's hands stop trembling when the patient starts dying on the operating table.

What possible variants have you provided for, Zabulon?

That I start thrashing about in the nets closing in around me, and the commotion attracts both Light Ones and Dark Ones, all of them – and especially Svetlana?

No, that one's out.

That I give myself up or get caught and then the long, slow, exhausting trial starts, concluding in a frenzied outburst by Svetlana at the tribunal?

No, that one's out.

That I start a fight with your field headquarters operatives and kill them all, but end up trapped a third of a kilometre above the ground, and Svetlana comes racing to the tower?

No, that one's out.

Or I take a stroll round the field headquarters and figure out that no one there knows anything about the Maverick, and try to play for time?

That's a possibility.

The ring was getting tighter, I knew that. It had been closed off first round the outskirts of the city, along the Moscow Ring Road, then the city had been carved up into districts and the major transport routes had been closed off. It still wasn't too late to take a quick look around nearby districts that weren't under surveillance yet, find a hiding place and try to lie low. The only advice the boss had been able to give me was to hold out for as long as possible, while the Night Watch was racing about, trying to find the Maverick.

It's no accident that you're squeezing me into the district where we had our little scuffle last winter, is it, Zabulon? I can't help remembering it, so one way or another the way I act is bound to be affected by my memories.

The observation platform was completely empty now. The final visitors had fled, and there were no staff – only the man I'd recruited, standing by the stairs, clutching his pistol in his hand and staring downwards with his eyes blazing.

'Now we'll change clothes again,' I told him. 'The Light thanks you. Afterwards you'll forget everything we've talked about. You'll go home. All you'll remember is that it was an ordinary day, like yesterday. Nothing much happened.'

'Nothing much happened!' the security man blurted out cheerfully as he took my clothes off. It's so easy to turn humans to the Light or the Dark, but they're happiest of all when they're allowed to be themselves.

O
NCE
I
WAS
out of the tower I stopped, stuck my hands in my pockets and stood there for a while, looking at the beams of the searchlights lancing up into the sky and the brightly lit security checkpoint.

There were just two things I didn't understand in the game being played out by the two Watches, or rather, by their leaders.

That Other who had departed into the Twilight – who was he and whose side was he on? Had he been warning me or trying to frighten me off?

And the kid, Egor – had I really met him just by chance? And if not, had our meeting been a destiny node or just another of Zabulon's moves?

I knew next to nothing about inhabitants of the Twilight. Maybe even Gesar himself knew nothing.

But at least I could think a bit about Egor.

He was a card that hadn't been dealt yet. Maybe only a low card, but a trump, like all of us. And small trumps have their uses too. Egor had already been in the Twilight – the first time when he tried to see me, the second time when he escaped from the vampire. That wasn't a very good hand, to be honest. Both times he'd been led by fear, and that should have meant his future was decided. Maybe he could linger on the borderline between human and Other for a few more years, but his path led to the Dark Ones.

It's always best to look the truth squarely in the face. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference that so far Egor was just like any other good kid. If I survived, I'd still have to ask for his ID every time I met him – or show him my own.

Zabulon could probably influence him. Send him to any place I happened to be. That reminded me that he probably had no difficulty sensing where I was either. I was prepared for that.

But I still didn't know if our 'chance' meeting had any meaning.

Going on what the Dark computer operator had said – that they weren't combing the Economics Exhibition district yet – it had. I might get the wild idea of using the boy somehow – hiding in his apartment or sending him to get help. I might head for his building. Right?

Too complicated. Way too tricky. They could take me easily enough anyway. I was missing something, something crucially important.

I walked towards the road and didn't look round again at the tower that held the Dark Ones' sham headquarters of the day. I'd almost even forgotten about the shattered body of the magician who'd been guarding it, lying somewhere near the foot of the tower at that moment. What did they want me to do? What was it? That was the point I had to start from.

Act as bait. Get caught by the Day Watch. Get caught in a way that would leave no doubt that I was guilty. And that had as good as happened already.

After that, Svetlana wouldn't be able to control herself. We could protect her and her parents. The one thing we couldn't do was interfere in her own decisions. And if she started trying to save me, to pluck me out of the Day Watch's dungeons or rescue me from the tribunal, she would be killed. Swiftly and without hesitation. The whole game had been designed so she could make a wrong move. The whole game had been set up a long time ago, when the Dark Magician Zabulon had seen the appearance of a Great Sorceress in the future and the part I was destined to play. The traps had been set. The first one had failed. The second one was holding its greedy jaws wide open right now. Maybe there was a third still to come.

But where did a kid who still couldn't manifest his magical powers come into all this?

I stopped.

He was Dark, that must be it!

And who was it who killed Dark Ones? Weak, unskilled Dark Ones who didn't want to develop?

One more body laid at my door – but what was the point?

I didn't know. But I did know that the kid was doomed and the meeting in the metro hadn't been any accident. I could see that clearly now. I must have been experiencing prevision again or another piece of the jigsaw had simply fallen into place.

Egor would die.

I remembered the way he'd looked at me on the platform in the station, with his shoulders hunched over, wanting to ask me something and shout abuse at me all at the same time, to shout out loud the truth about the two Watches, the truth he'd seen too early. I remembered the way he'd turned and run for the train.

'They'll protect you, won't they? Your Watch?'

'They'll try.'

Of course they'd try. They'd keep looking for the Maverick right to the end.

That was the answer!

I stopped walking and seized hold of my head. Light and Dark, how could I be so stupid? So hopelessly naïve?

They wouldn't spring the trap as long as the Maverick was still alive. Making me look like a psychopath out on the hunt, a poacher from the Light Side, wasn't enough. They needed to kill the real Maverick as well.

The Dark Ones knew who he was – or at least Zabulon did. And more important than that – they could control him. They tossed his victims to him – members of their own kind they didn't see as particularly useful. And for the Maverick what was happening right now wasn't just one more heroic incident – he was totally absorbed in the battle against the Dark. He had Dark Ones coming at him from every side: first the female shape-shifter, then the Dark Magician in the restaurant, and now Egor. He must be thinking the whole world had gone crazy, that the Apocalypse was just round the corner, that the powers of the Dark were taking over the world. I wouldn't have liked to be in his shoes.

The female shape-shifter had been killed so they could lodge a protest with us and demonstrate who was under threat.

The Dark Magician had been killed to close off any last loopholes and allow them to bring a formal accusation and arrest me.

The kid had to be killed to get rid of the Maverick after he'd played out his part. So they could intervene at the last moment, catch him standing over the body and kill him when he resisted and tried to escape. He didn't understand that we fought according to rules, he'd never surrender, he'd ignore instructions from a 'Day Watch' he'd never even heard of.

Once the Maverick was dead I'd be left with no way out. I'd either have to agree to have my memory pulled inside out or depart into the Twilight. Either way Svetlana would blow her cool.

I shuddered.

It was cold. Really cold. I'd thought the winter was completely gone, but that had been wishful thinking.

I held up my hand and stopped the first car that came along. I looked into the driver's eyes and said:

'Let's go.'

The impulse was pretty strong, he didn't even ask where I wanted to go.

The world was coming to an end.

Something had shifted and started to move, ancient shadows had sprung to life, the long-forgotten words of ancient tongues had rung out and a trembling had shaken the earth.

Darkness was dawning over the world.

Maxim was standing on the balcony and smoking as he listened to Elena's grumbling. It had been going on for hours already, ever since the girl he'd rescued had got out of the car at the metro station. Maxim had heard more home truths about himself than he could ever have imagined.

The claim that he was a stupid idiot and a womaniser who was prepared to risk getting shot for the sake of a cute face and a long pair of legs was one that Maxim could handle. The claim that he was a pig and a bastard who flirted with a worn-out ugly prostitute in his wife's presence showed rather more imagination. Especially since he'd only spoken a couple of words to his unexpected passenger.

And now Elena had moved on to utter nonsense, dredging up those short-notice business trips, the two occasions when he'd come home drunk – really drunk – speculating on how many mistresses he had, commenting on his incredible stupidity and spinelessness, and how they'd prevented him making a career or giving his family even a half-decent life.

Maxim glanced over his shoulder.

Elena wasn't even getting worked up, and that was strange. She was just sitting on the leather sofa in front of the huge Panasonic TV and talking, almost as if she meant everything she said.

Was this what she really thought?

That he had a whole host of mistresses? That he'd saved that girl because she had a good figure, not because of those bullets that were whistling through the air? That they had a bad life, a wretched life? When three years ago they'd bought a lovely apartment, furnished it so well and gone to France for Christmas?

His wife's voice sounded confident. It was full of accusation. And it was full of pain.

Maxim flicked his cigarette off the balcony and looked out into the night.

The Dark, the Dark was advancing.

Back there in the restaurant lavatory he'd killed a Dark Magician. One of the most repulsive manifestations of universal Evil. A man who was a carrier of malice and fear. Who extracted energy from the people around him and subjugated other people's souls, transforming white into black, love into hate. Maxim knew he was alone against the world, the way he always had been.

But nothing like this had ever happened before, he'd never run into the spawn of the devil two days in a row. Either they'd all come crawling out of their foul, stinking burrows, or his vision was becoming keener.

Like right now.

As Maxim looked out from the tenth floor he didn't see the scattered lights of a city by night. That was for other people. For the blind and the feeble. He saw a small, dense cloud of darkness hanging above the ground. Not very high, maybe ten or twelve floors up.

Maxim was seeing yet another manifestation of the Dark.

The usual way. The same way as ever. But why so often now? Why one after another? This was the third! The third time in twenty-four hours!

The Dark glimmered and swayed and shifted. The Dark was alive.

And behind him Elena went on reciting his sins in a weary, miserable, hurt voice. She got up and came across to the door of the balcony, as if she wanted to make sure Maxim was listening. Okay, that was fine. At least she wouldn't wake the kids – if they were sleeping anyway. Somehow Maxim doubted it.

If only he believed in God. Genuinely believed. But there was almost nothing left now of the weak faith that had once consoled Maxim after every act of purification. God could not exist in a world where Evil flourished.

But if only He did, or if there was any real faith left in Maxim's soul, Maxim would have gone down on his knees right there, on the dusty, crumbling concrete, and held his hands up towards the dark night sky, the sky where even the stars shone quietly and sadly. And he would have cried out: 'Why me? Why me, Lord? This is too much, this is more than I can bear. Take this burden from me, I beg you, take it away! I'm not the one You need! I'm too weak.'

But what was the point in crying out? He hadn't taken this burden on himself. It wasn't for him to abandon it. Over there the black flame was glowing brighter and brighter. A new tentacle of the Dark.

'I'm sorry, Elena,' he said, moving his wife to one side and stepping into the room. 'I have to go out.'

She stopped speaking in mid-sentence, and the eyes that had been full of irritation and resentment suddenly looked scared.

'I'll be back.' He started walking towards the door quickly, hoping to avoid any questions.

'Maxim! Maxim, wait!'

The transition from abuse to entreaty was instant. Elena dashed after him, grabbed him by the arm and looked into his face – crumpled, desperate.

'I'm sorry, forgive me, I was so frightened! I'm sorry for saying all those horrid things, Maxim!'

He looked at his wife – suddenly deflated, all her aggression spent. She'd give anything now to stop her stupid, depraved, lousy husband leaving the apartment. Could Elena have seen something in his face – something that had frightened her even more than the gangland shoot-out they'd got mixed up in?

'I won't let you go! I won't let you go anywhere! Not at this time of night!'

'Nothing's going to happen to me,' Maxim said gently. 'Quiet, you'll wake the kids. I'll be back soon.'

'If you won't think about yourself, then at least think about the children! Think about me!' said Elena, changing tack. 'What if they remembered the number of the car? What if they turn up here looking for that bitch? Then what will I do?'

'Nobody's going to turn up here.' Somehow Maxim knew that was true. 'And even if they do, it's a strong door. And you know who to call. Elena, let me past.'

His wife froze in the middle of the doorway with her arms flung out wide and her head thrown back. Her eyes were screwed up as if she was expecting him to hit her.

Maxim kissed her gently on the cheek and moved her out of the way. She looked totally confused as she watched him go out into the hall. She could hear terrible, noisy music coming from her daughter's room. She wasn't sleeping, she'd turned on her stereo to drown out their angry voices, Elena's voice.

'Don't!' his wife whispered imploringly.

He slipped on his jacket, checking quickly to make sure everything was in place in the inside pocket.

'You don't think about us at all!' Elena told him in a choking voice, speaking purely out of inertia, no longer hoping for anything. The music volume increased in her daughter's room.

'That's not true,' Maxim said calmly. 'It's you that I am thinking about now. I'm taking care of you.'

He didn't want to wait for the lift. He'd already walked down one flight of steps when his wife's last shout came. It was unexpected – she didn't like to wash their dirty linen in public and she never quarrelled outside the apartment.

'I wish you'd love us, not just take care of us!'

Maxim shrugged and started walking faster.

This was where I'd stood in the winter.

It was all just the same: the lonely alley, the noise of the cars on the road behind me, the pale light from the streetlamps. Only it had been much colder. And everything had seemed so simple and clear, I was like a fresh, young American cop going out on my first patrol.

Enforce the law. Hunt down Evil. Protect the innocent.

How wonderful it would be if everything could always be as clear and simple as it used to be when you were twelve years old, or twenty. If there really were only two colours in the world: black and white. But even the most honest, conscientious cop, raised on the resounding ideals of the Stars and Stripes, has to understand sooner or later that there's more than just Dark and Light out on the streets. There are understandings, concessions, agreements. Informers, traps, provocations. Sooner or later the time comes when you have to betray your own side, plant bags of heroin and hit people in the kidneys – carefully, so as to leave no marks behind.