The Twilight Watch (9 page)

'Well,' Las continued imperturbably, 'I just saw one lobster climb
on another's back, crawl out onto the edge and hide under those
fridges over there.'

The girl started blinking rapidly. A minute later two security
men and a sturdy female cleaner appeared at the checkout. After
listening to the terrible tale of the escape, they rushed over to the
fridges.

Las finished paying, glancing back into the hall every now and
then.

The pursuit of the non-existent lobster was in full swing. The
cleaner was poking her mop under the fridges, with the security
men bustling around her. I heard one of them say:

'Drive it this way, towards me! I can almost see it already!'

Las moved towards the exit with a quiet smile on his face.

'Go easy with that poking. You'll dent its shell – it'll be damaged
goods,' one of the security men warned.

Trying to wipe a smile unworthy of a Light Magician off my
face, I took my coffee from the waitress. No, that guy wouldn't
have cut letters out of newspapers with nail scissors. That would
have been far too tedious.

My phone rang.

'Hi, Sveta,' I said.

'How are things going, Anton?'

Her voice sounded a bit less alarmed this time.

'I'm having a coffee. I've had a chat with my colleagues. From
the competing firms.'

'Aha,' said Svetlana. 'Well done. Anton, do you need my help
at all?'

'But you . . . you're not on the staff,' I said, perplexed.

'I don't give a damn!' Svetlana replied, flaring up instantly. 'It's
you I'm concerned about, not the Watch!'

'No need yet,' I replied. 'How's Nadiushka?'

'She's helping me make borscht,' Svetlana said with a laugh. 'So
dinner will be a bit late today. Shall I call her?'

'Uhuh,' I said, relaxing, and took a seat by the window.

But Nadya didn't take the phone, and she didn't want to talk
to her daddy.

They can be stubborn like that at the age of two.

I talked to Svetlana a little bit longer. I felt like asking if her
bad premonitions had disappeared, but I didn't. It was clear enough
from her voice that they had.

I wound up the conversation, but I didn't put my phone away.
There was no point in calling the office. But what if I had a word
with someone in a private capacity?

Well, I had to go into town, meet people, keep the wheels of
my business turning, sign new contracts, didn't I?

I dialled Semyon's number.

It was time to stop playing the sleuth. Light Ones don't lie to
each other.

For meetings that are not entirely business, but not exactly
personal either, the best places are small pubs, with five or six
tables at most. There was a time when Moscow didn't have any
places like that. Public catering always meant premises large enough
for a full-scale bash.

But we have them now.

This particular entirely unremarkable pub-café was right in the
very centre, on Solyanka Street. A door in the wall leading straight
in from the street, five tables, a little bar – back at the Assol complex
even the bars in the apartments were more impressive.

And there was nothing special about the clientele. It wasn't one
of those special-interest clubs that Gesar loved to collect – scuba-divers
get together here, and recidivist cat-burglars there . . .

And the cuisine had no pretensions of any kind. Two types of
draught beer, other alcoholic drinks, sausages out of a microwave
and French fries. Booze and junk.

Maybe that was why Semyon had suggested meeting in this
café? He fitted right in. And I didn't exactly stand out from the
crowd either . . .

Noisily blowing the froth off his Klin Gold beer – I'd only ever
seen that done in old movies – Semyon took a mouthful and
looked at me amiably:

'Let's hear it.'

'You know about the crisis?' I asked, taking the bull by the
horns straight away.

'Which crisis is that?' Semyon asked.

'The one with the anonymous letters.'

Semyon nodded. He even added something:

'I've just completed the temporary registration of our visitor
from Prague.'

'This is what I think,' I said, twirling my beer mug round on
the clean tablecloth. 'They were sent by an Other.'

'Sure they were!' said Semyon. 'You drink your beer. If you
want, I'll sober you up afterwards.'

'You can't, I'm shielded.'

Semyon screwed his eyes up and looked at me. And he agreed
that yes, I was shielded and it was beyond his powers to break
through a magic-proof shell installed by none other than Gesar
himself.

'Well then,' I went on, 'if they were sent by an Other, what is
he trying to achieve?'

'The isolation or elimination of his human client,' Semyon said
calmly. 'Evidently he must have rashly promised to make him an
Other. So now he can't back out of it.'

All my heroic intellectual efforts had been pointless. Without
even working on the case, Semyon had figured it all out in his
own head.

'It's a Light Other,' I said.

'Why?' asked Semyon, surprised.

'A Dark Other has plenty of other ways to go back on a
promise.'

Semyon thought for a while, chewed on a potato straw and said
yes, it looked that way. But he wouldn't entirely rule out any
involvement by Dark Ones. Because even Dark Ones could swear
a rash oath that there was no way to get round. For instance, swear
on the Dark, call the primordial power to bear witness. After that,
they couldn't wriggle out of it.

'Agreed,' I said. 'But even so, the chances are greater that one
of us has slipped up.'

Semyon nodded and declared:

'Not me.'

I looked away.

'Don't you get upset,' Semyon said in a melancholy voice.
'You've got the right idea and you're doing the right thing. We
could have slipped up. Even I could have blundered. Thanks for
asking me to talk, and not just running to the boss . . . I give you
my word, Light Magician Anton Gorodetsky, that I did not send
these letters and I do not know who sent them.'

'You know, I'm really glad about that,' I said honestly.

'Not nearly as glad as I am,' Semyon laughed. 'I'll tell you something,
the Other who did this has got some nerve. He hasn't just
got the Watches involved in this mess, he's dragged the Inquisition
into it as well. To do that, you either have to be way out of control,
or calculate every last little detail. If it's the first, he's done for, but
if it's the second, he'll squirm his way out of it. I'd lay two to one
he'll squirm his way out.'

'Semyon, is it true that an ordinary human being can be turned
into an Other after all?' I asked. Honesty is the best policy.

'I don't know,' Semyon replied and shook his head. 'I used to
believe it was impossible. But if recent events are anything to go
by, there's some kind of loophole. Very narrow, pretty nasty, but
still a loophole.'

'Why nasty?' I asked, seizing on his words.

'Because otherwise we would have made use of it. What a coup,
for instance, to make the President one of your own! And not just
the President, but everyone who has any kind of influence. There'd
be an amendment to the Treaty, determining the procedure for
initiation, and there'd be the same stand-off, only at a new level.'

'But I thought it had been absolutely forbidden,' I admitted.
'The Higher Others got together and agreed not to disrupt the
balance . . . threatened each other with the ultimate weapon . . .'

'With what?' Semyon asked, astonished.

'You know, the ultimate weapon. Remember, you told me about
the incredibly powerful thermonuclear bombs? We have one, the
Americans have one . . . There must be something of the sort in
magic too . . .'

Semyon started laughing:

'What nonsense, Anton! There aren't any bombs like that, it's
all fantasy, fairy tales! Learn some physics! There isn't enough heavy
water in the oceans for a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction.'

'Then why did you tell me that?'

'We were spinning all sorts of yarns at the time. I never thought
you'd believe it . . .'

'Ah, dammit,' I muttered and took a mouthful of beer. 'And
you know, after that I couldn't sleep at night . . .'

'There is no ultimate weapon, you can sleep easy,' Semyon
laughed. 'No real one and no magical one. And if we accept that
it is possible to initiate ordinary people after all, then the procedure
is extremely difficult and disgusting, with unpleasant side
effects. In general, no one wants to get their hands dirty. Neither
us nor the Dark Ones.'

'And you don't know about any such procedure?' I asked, just
to make sure.

'I don't.' Semyon thought for a moment. 'No, I definitely don't.
Reveal myself to people, give them orders or, say, recruit them as
volunteers – I've done it all. But as for turning someone into an
Other when you want to, I've never heard of that.'

Another dead end.

I nodded, gazing gloomily into my beer mug.

'No need to knock yourself out,' Semyon advised me. 'There
are only two possibilities. This Other is either a fool or he's very
cunning. In the first case the Dark Ones or the Inquisitors will
find him. In the second case they won't, but they will find the
human being and teach him not to wish for such strange things.
Similar cases have been known.'

'What am I going to do?' I asked. 'I must admit the Assol
complex is interesting, it's fun to live there. Especially on expenses.'

'Then enjoy it,' Semyon said calmly. 'Or is your pride offended?
Do you want to out-gallop everyone else and find the traitor first?'

'I don't like leaving things half-done,' I admitted.

Semyon laughed:

'All I've been doing for the last hundred years is leaving things
half-done . . . There was the little business of the hoodoo laid on
the rich peasant Besputnov's cattle, in the Kostroma province. What
a case that was, Anton! A mystery. A tight web of intrigue. It was
magical all right, but it was all done so cunningly . . . the hoodoo
was applied via a field of hemp.'

'Do cattle actually eat hemp?' I asked, intrigued despite myself.

'Ah, who'd let them? The peasant Besputnov used to make rope
out of that hemp. And he used the rope to lead his cows around.
And the hex went through it that way. A cunning hoodoo, slow
and thorough. And not a single registered Other for a hundred
miles around. I moved into the little village and started searching
for the evildoer . . .'

'Did they really work that thoroughly back then?' I asked, amazed.
'Sending in a watchman for the sake of some peasant and his
cattle?'

Semyon smiled:

'I did all sorts of work back then. This peasant's son was an
Other, and he asked us to step in to help his father, who was so
depressed he almost made himself a noose out of that rope . . .
So I moved in, all on my ownsome, got myself some property,
even started cosying up to a certain little widow lady. But at the
same time I was searching. And I realised I was on the trail of
an ancient witch, very well disguised, not a member of any
Watches and not registered anywhere. It was really fascinating.
Just imagine: a witch who was two or three hundred years old!
She had accumulated as much power as a first-grade magician!
And there I was playing at Nat Pinkerton . . . detecting . . . I
felt ashamed somehow to call in the Higher Magicians to help.
And gradually, bit by bit, I turned up clues, and put together a
list of suspects. One of them was actually the attractive young
widow . . .'

'Well?' I asked, entranced. Semyon certainly liked to stretch the
truth a bit, but this story seemed like the real thing.

'That's all there is,' Semyon sighed. 'There was a rebellion in
Petrograd. Then the revolution. So you can imagine, there were
more important things to deal with than cunning witches. Human
blood was flowing in rivers. I was recalled. I wanted to go back
and find the old hag, but I never had the time. And then they
flooded the entire village and everybody was resettled. Maybe that
witch is dead by now.'

'Frustrating,' I said.

Semyon nodded:

'And I've got an entire wagonload of stories like that. So there's
no need for you to go sweating your guts out on this one.'

'If you were a Dark One,' I admitted, 'I'd definitely think you
were trying to divert suspicion from yourself.'

Semyon just smiled.

'I'm not a Dark One, Anton. As you know perfectly well.'

'And you don't know anything about the initiation of human
beings,' I sighed. 'I was really hoping . . .'

Semyon turned serious.

'Anton, let me tell you something. The girl I loved more than
anything in the whole world died in 1921. She died of old age.'

I looked at him, but didn't dare risk a smile. Semyon wasn't
joking.

'If I'd known how to make her an Other . . .' Semyon whispered,
gazing off into the distance. 'If I'd only known . . . I
revealed myself to her as an Other. I did everything for her. She
was never ill. At the age of seventy, she looked thirty at the most.
Even in hungry Petrograd she never wanted for anything . . .
the permits she had used to strike Red Army men dumb . . .
I had her credentials signed by Lenin himself. But I couldn't give
her my length of life. That's not in our power.' He looked into
my eyes sombrely. 'If I'd known how to initiate Lubov Petrovna,
I wouldn't have asked anybody's permission. I'd have gone through
anything. I'd have dematerialised myself – but I'd have made her
into an Other . . .'

Semyon stood up and sighed:

'But now, to be quite honest, it doesn't matter to me. Whether
people can be transformed into Others or not simply doesn't
concern me. And it shouldn't concern you either. Your wife's an
Other. Your daughter's an Other. All that happiness for one person?
Gesar himself can't even dream of anything like it.'