The Night Watch (Watch 1)

The investigator left me in peace and went to talk to the dead man's wife. Boris Ignatievich immediately made straight for our table. Nobody paid any attention to him, he was clearly protected by some mild distraction spell.

'Now you've done it,' he said simply.

'Us?' I asked, just to get things clear.

'Yes. Both of you. But especially you, Anton.'

'I followed all the instructions I was given,' I whispered, feeling furious. 'And I never laid a finger on that magician.'

The boss sighed.

'I don't doubt that. But, knowing the situation, how could you, a member of the Night Watch staff, be so stupid as to go off after a Dark One on your own?'

'Who could have foreseen this?' I asked indignantly. 'Tell me who!'

'You could. After the unprecedented measures we've taken to disguise your identity. What were your instructions? Never be left alone for a moment! Eat and sleep with Svetlana! Take your showers together! Go to the lavatory together! Every single moment you had to be . . .' The boss stopped and sighed.

'Boris Ignatievich,' Svetlana spoke up. 'None of that matters any more. Let's try to think what we can do now.'

The boss looked at her in surprise and nodded.

'You're right. Let's try to think. Starting from the fact that the situation is catastrophic now. Before, any suspicion of Anton was purely circumstantial, but now he's been caught red-handed. Don't shake your head like that! You were seen standing over a body that had just been killed. The body of a Dark Magician, killed in the same way as all the previous victims. The Day Watch will appeal to the tribunal for your memory to be read.'

'That's very dangerous, isn't it?' asked Svetlana. 'But at least it will prove Anton isn't guilty.'

'Yes, it will, Svetlana. And in the process the Dark Ones will acquire all the information Anton has had access to. Do you realise just how much the Watch's senior programmer knows? Some things he may not even be aware of, he just glanced at the data, processed it and forgot it. But the Dark Ones have their own specialists, and when Anton comes out of that courtroom – assuming he survives having his mind turned inside out – the Day Watch will know about all our operations. Can't you see what will happen? Our teaching methods, the way we look for new Others, the way we analyse combat operations, our networks of human informers, our casualty lists, our employees' personal files, our financial plans . . .'

They were talking about me, while I just sat there as if I had nothing to do with what was going on. It wasn't just cynical frankness, it was simpler than that: the boss was consulting with Svetlana, a novice magician, and not with me, a potential magician of the third grade.

If I compared the situation with a game of chess, it was insultingly simple. I was a rook, an ordinary officer of the Watch, and Svetlana was a pawn – but a pawn about to become a queen.

And for the boss all the bad things that could happen to me meant nothing compared with the chance to give Svetlana a little practical lesson.

'Boris Ignatievich, you know I won't allow them to read my memory,' I said.

'Then you'll be found guilty.'

'I know. I swear I had nothing to do with the death of these Dark Ones. But I don't have any proof.'

'Boris Ignatievich, what if we suggest they only check Anton's memory for today?' Svetlana exclaimed joyfully. 'That would solve everything, they'd be convinced—'

'The memory can't be sliced up like that, Sveta. It spills out all in one piece. Starting from the first moment of life. With the taste of the amniotic fluid in the womb, with the smell of mother's milk.' The boss was speaking very emphatically now. 'That's the problem. Even if Anton didn't know any secrets. Imagine what it's like to remember absolutely everything and go through it all again. Swaying in that dark, viscous liquid, the walls closing in on you, the glimmer of light ahead, the pain, the choking sensation, the struggle to survive your own birth. And so on, moment by moment – you've heard it said that when you're dying your whole life flashes in front of your eyes? That's exactly what happens when they turn out your memory. And at the same time, somewhere deep inside, you still remember that all this has already happened. Can you understand that? It's hard to hold on to your sanity.'

'You say that,' Svetlana said uncertainly, 'as if-—'

'I've been through it. But not in an interrogation. More than a century ago. The Watch was still studying the effects of exposing and reading the memory, and a volunteer was required. Afterwards it took them about a year to restore me to normal.'

'How?' Svetlana asked curiously.

'With new impressions. Experiences I hadn't had before. Foreign countries, unfamiliar food, surprise meetings, unfamiliar problems. And even so . . .' The boss smiled wryly. 'I still sometimes catch myself thinking: What is all this – reality or just memories? Am I living it or lying on a crystal slab in the Day Watch office while they unwind my memory like a ball of string?'

He stopped.

There were people sitting at the tables around us, waiters bustling to and fro. The crime scene team had taken away the body of the Dark Magician and a man, evidently a relative, had come for the widow and the children. Nobody else seemed to be affected by what had happened. Quite the opposite, in fact. There were more customers, with bigger appetites and a greater zest for life. And nobody there was taking any notice of us: the boss's casual spell made them all look away.

What if all of this had already happened?

What if I, Anton Gorodetsky, systems administrator at the Nix trading company, and also a Night Watch magician, was lying on a crystal slab covered with ancient runes? And my memory was being unwound, examined, dissected by someone – it didn't matter who, Dark Magicians or a joint tribunal of both sides?

No!

That couldn't be right. I didn't have that feeling the boss had been talking about. I had no sense of déjà vu. I'd never been in a woman's body before, and I'd never found any bodies in restaurant lavatories.

'I've laid out the problem,' said the boss, drawing a long, slim cigarillo out of his pocket. 'Is the situation clear? What are we going to do?'

'I'm prepared to do my duty,' I said.

'Don't be in such a rush, Anton. Drop the bravado.'

'It's not bravado. It's not just that I'm prepared to protect the secrets of the Watch. I simply wouldn't survive that kind of interrogation. Better to die.'

'But we don't die the same way people do.'

'Sure, it's tougher for us. But I'm ready for that.'

The boss sighed.

'I'm sorry, ladies. Anton, let's forget the consequences for a moment and try thinking about what led up to this incident. Sometimes it's helpful to look back.'

'Okay,' I said, not feeling particularly hopeful.

'The Maverick has been poaching in the city for several years. The latest information from the analytical section indicates that these strange killings began three and a half years ago. Some of the victims are known Dark Ones. Some are probably potentials. None of the victims was higher than grade four. None of them worked for the Day Watch. It's ironic that almost all of them were moderate Dark Ones, if you can put it like that. They killed and they influenced people, but far less than they could have done.'

'They were set up, weren't they?' said Svetlana.

'They must have been. The Day Watch didn't touch this psychopath, it even laid on victims for him from the Dark Side – those it could easily spare. But what for? That's the important question: what for?'

'So they could accuse us of incompetence,' I suggested.

'The end doesn't justify the means.'

'In order to set up one of us.'

'Anton, the only member of the Night Watch who doesn't have alibis for the times of the killings is you. Why would the Day Watch go hunting for you?'

I shrugged.

'Zabulon's revenge?' said the boss, shaking his head. 'No. You only clashed with him recently, yet this was carefully planned three and a half years ago. We're still left with the question why?'

'Maybe Anton is potentially a very powerful magician,' Svetlana suggested, speaking softly. 'And the Dark Ones have realised that. It's too late to bring him over to their side, so they decided to eliminate him.'

'Anton is more powerful than he realises,' the boss replied sharply, 'but he'll never get higher than grade two.'

'What if our enemies can see further along the possible realities than we can?' I asked, looking the boss in the eye.

'And?'

'Maybe I'm a weak magician, I may be average or powerful, but what if it's enough just for me to do something in order to change the balance of power? Do something simple that has nothing to do with magic? Boris Ignatievich, the Dark Ones tried to get me away from Svetlana – that means they could see the branch of reality in which I could help her. What if they can see something else? Something in the future? What if they've been able to see it for a long time, and they've been getting ready to take me out of the game? What if the fight over Sveta is small change by comparison?'

At first the boss listened carefully. Then he frowned and shook his head.

'Anton, you're suffering from megalomania. I'm sorry, but I check the lines of everybody working in the Watch, from key staff to our plumber, Uncle Shura. And there simply aren't any great achievements in your future. Not on any of the reality lines.'

'Boris Ignatievich, are you absolutely sure you haven't missed something?'

He'd really made me angry now.

'Of course not. I'm not absolutely sure of anything. Not even of myself. But the chances of you being right are very, very slim. Believe me.'

I believed him.

Compared with the boss, my powers approximate to zero.

'So we still don't know the most important thing – the reason?'

'Right. The hit is aimed at you, there's no doubt about that now. The Maverick is being controlled, very subtly and precisely. He believes he's waging war on Evil, but he's always been a puppet, with someone else pulling the strings. Today they brought him to the same restaurant you came to. They handed him a victim. And you went right along.'

'Then what are we going to do?'

'Try to find the Maverick. It's our only chance, Anton.'

'We're actually going to kill him, though?'

'No, we're not. All we're going to do is find him.'

'All the same. No matter how bad he might be, no matter how wrong he's got everything, he's still one of us. He's fighting against Evil the best way he knows how. We just have to explain everything to him.'

'Too late, Anton. Too late. We missed him when he appeared. Now, after all he's done . . . Remember how that girl vampire died?'

I nodded: 'Laid to eternal rest.'

'And her crimes were far less serious – from the Dark Ones' point of view. She didn't understand what was going on either. But the Day Watch accepted that she was guilty.'

'Was that pure coincidence?' asked Svetlana. 'Or were they creating a precedent?'

'Who knows? Anton, you have to find the Maverick.'

I looked up, amazed.

'Find him and hand him over to the Dark Ones,' the boss said sternly.

'Why me?'