So why was I so unhappy about what was going on? I was the only one – Olga and Tiger Cub approved of what the boss was up to, and if I asked the others, they'd all feel the same way.
Maybe I really wasn't being objective.
Probably.
I took a sip of cognac and then looked into the Twilight, trying to locate the pale lights of unintelligent life in the room.
There were mosquitoes, two flies and one spider, right up in a corner of the ceiling.
I shuffled my fingers and made a tiny fireball, two millimetres across. I took aim at the spider – a fixed target is best for practising on – and sent the fireball on its way.
There was nothing immoral about my behaviour. We're not Buddhists, at least most of the Others in Russia aren't. We eat meat, we kill flies and mosquitoes, we poison cockroaches: if you're too lazy to learn new frightening spells every month, the insects quickly develop immunity to your magic.
Nothing immoral. It was just funny, it was the proverbial 'using a fireball to kill a mosquito'. A favourite game with children when they're studying for the Watch. I think the Dark Ones probably do the same, except that they don't distinguish between a fly and a sparrow, a mosquito and a dog.
I fried the spider with my first shot. And the drowsy mosquitoes were no problem either.
I celebrated each victory with a glass of cognac, clinking it against the obliging bottle. Then I started trying to kill the flies, but either I'd already had too much to drink or the flies were much better at sensing the little ball of fire approaching. I wasted four shots on the first one, but even though I missed at least I managed to disperse the first three in time. I got the second fly with my sixth shot, and in the process I managed to zap two balls of lightning into the glass of the cabinet standing against the wall.
'Sorry about that,' I said repentantly, downing my cognac. I got up and the room suddenly swayed. I went over to the cabinet, which contained swords hanging on a background of black velvet. At first glance I thought they looked German, fifteenth or sixteenth century. The cabinet light was switched off, and I didn't try to determine their age more precisely. There were little craters in the glass, but at least I hadn't hit the swords.
I thought for a while about how to put things right and couldn't come up with anything better than putting the glass that had been scattered round the room back where it had come from. It cost me more effort than if I'd dematerialised all the glass and then recreated it.
After that I went into the bar. I didn't feel like any more cognac, but a bottle of Mexican coffee liqueur looked like a good compromise between the desire to get drunk and the desire to perk myself up. Coffee and alcohol, all in the same bottle.
When I turned back round I saw Semyon sitting in my chair.
'They've all gone to the lake,' the magician told me.
'I'll be right there,' I promised, walking towards him. 'Right there.'
'Put the bottle down,' Semyon advised me.
'What for?' I asked. But I put it down.
He looked hard into my eyes. My barriers didn't go up, and when I realised it was a trick it was too late. I tried to look away, but I couldn't.
'You bastard!' I gasped, doubling over.
'Down the corridor on the right!' Semyon shouted after me. His eyes were still boring into my back, the invisible connecting thread was still trailing after me.
I reached the bathroom. Five minutes later my tormentor caught up with me.
'Feeling better?'
'Yes,' I said, breathing heavily. I got up off my knees and stuck my head into the basin. Semyon opened the tap without saying anything and slapped me on the back:
'Relax. We started with basic folk remedies, but now . . .'
A wave of heat ran through my body. I groaned, but I didn't complain any more. The dull stupefaction was already long gone and now the final toxins came flying out of me.
'What are you doing?' I asked.
'Helping your liver out. Have some water and you'll feel better.'
It helped all right.
Five minutes later I walked out of the bathroom, sweaty and wet, but utterly sober. I even tried to protest at the violation of my rights.
'What did you interfere for? I wanted to get drunk and I did.'
'You young people,' said Semyon, shaking his head reproachfully. 'He wanted to get drunk? Who gets drunk on cognac? Especially after wine. And especially that quick, half a litre in half an hour. There was this time Sasha Kuprin and I decided to get drunk—'
'Which Sasha's that?'
'You know the one, the writer. Only he wasn't a writer then. We got drunk the right way, the civilised way, totally smashed, dancing on the tables, shooting at the ceiling.'
'Was he an Other, then?'
'Sasha? No, but he was a good man. We drank a quarter of a bucket of vodka and we got the grammar-school girls drunk on champagne.'
I slumped down on to the sofa. I looked at the empty bottle and gulped, starting to feel sick again.
'A quarter of a bucket, you must have got really drunk.'
'Of course we did!' Semyon said. 'It's okay to get drunk, Anton. If you really need to. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine – that's all for the heart.'
'So what's vodka for?'
'For the soul. If it's hurting real bad.'
He looked at me with gentle reproach, a funny little magician with a cunning face, with his own funny little memories about great people and great battles.
'I was wrong,' I admitted. 'Thanks for your help.'
'No problem, my man. I once sobered up another Anton three times in the same evening. When he needed to drink without getting drunk, it was work.'
'Another Anton? Chekhov?' I asked in astonishment.
'No, don't be stupid. It was another Anton, one of us. He was killed in the Far East, when the samurai . . .' Semyon flipped his hand through the air and stopped. Then he said almost affectionately 'Don't be in such a hurry. We'll do things the civilised way this evening. Right now we've got to catch up with the others. Let's go.'
I meekly followed Semyon out of the house. And I saw Sveta. She was sitting on a lounger, already wearing her swimsuit and a bright skirt, or rather, a strip of cloth round her hips.
'Are you okay?' she asked, looking at me in surprise.
'Sure. The kebabs just didn't agree with me.'
Svetlana looked hard at me. But apparently the dark flush on my face and my wet hair were the only signs I'd got drunk so quickly.
'You should have your pancreas checked out.'
'Everything's okay,' Semyon interrupted. 'Believe me, I studied healing too. It was the heat, the sour wine, the fatty kebabs – nothing more to it. What he needs now is a swim, and in the cool of the evening we'll polish off a bottle together. That's all the treatment he needs.'
Sveta got up, walked up to me and looked into my eyes sympathetically.
'Maybe we should just sit here for a while. I'll make some strong tea.'
Yes, probably. It would be good. Just to sit here. The two of us. And drink tea. Talk or not say a word. That didn't matter. Look at her sometimes or not even look. Just hear her breathing – or stop up my ears. Simply know that we're together. Just the two of us, and not the entire Night Watch. Together because we want to be, not because of some plan hatched by Gesar.
Had I really forgotten how to smile?
I shook my head, twisting my stubborn face into a cowardly smile.
'Let's go. I'm not a doddery old veteran of the magic wars yet. Let's go, Sveta.'
Semyon had already gone on ahead, but somehow I could tell that he winked. Approvingly.
The night didn't bring any real coolness, but at least it took the edge off the heat. From about six or seven in the evening the company split up into groups. The indefatigable Ignat stayed down by the lake with Lena and, strangely enough, Olga. Tiger Cub and Yulia went off to wander in the forest. The others were scattered through the house and around.
Semyon and I occupied the large loggia on the second floor. It was cosy in there, it let the wind through better and it had wicker furniture – perfect for hot weather.
'Number one,' said Semyon, taking a bottle of Smirnovskaya vodka out of a plastic bag with an advert for Danone kids' yoghurt on the side.
'Is that good?' I asked doubtfully. I don't regard myself as a vodka expert.
'I've been drinking it for more than a hundred years. And it used to be far worse than it is now, believe me.'
The bottle was followed out of the bag by two plain glasses, a two-litre jar with pickles floating in brine under its flat tin lid and a large cellophane bag of sauerkraut.
'What about something to drink with it?' I asked.
'You don't drink anything else with vodka, my boy,' said Semyon, shaking his head. 'Only with the fake stuff.'
'There's always something new to learn.'
'You'll learn this lesson soon enough. And there's no need to worry about the vodka, Chernogolovka village is in the territory I patrol. I know this wizard who works in the distillery there, small fry, not particularly nasty. He gets me the right stuff.'
'An exchange of petty favours,' I commented.
'No exchange. I pay him money, all honest and above board. It's our private business, nothing to do with the Watches.'
Semyon deftly twisted the cap off the bottle and poured us half a glass each. His bag had been standing on the veranda all day, but the vodka was still cold.
'To good health?' I suggested.
'Too soon for that. To us.'
When he'd sobered me up that afternoon, he must have done a thorough job and not just removed the alcohol from my bloodstream, but all the metabolic side-products as well. I drank the half-glass without even shuddering, and was amazed to discover that vodka could taste good after the heat of a summer day, not only after a winter frost.
'Well now,' said Semyon with a grunt of satisfaction, settling down more comfortably. 'We should drop a hint to Tiger Cub that a pair of rocking chairs would be good up here.'
He took out his appalling Yavas and lit up. When he spotted the annoyance on my face he said:
'I'm going to carry on smoking them anyway. I'm a patriot, I love my country.'
'I'm a patriot too, I love my health,' I retorted.
Semyon chuckled.
'There was one time this foreigner I knew invited me to go round to his place,' he began.
'A long time ago?' I asked, playing along.
'Not really, last year. He invited me round so I could teach him how to drink Russian-style. He was staying in the Penta hotel. So I picked up a girlfriend of mine and her brother – he was just back from prison camp, with nowhere to go – and off we went.'
I imagined what the group must have looked like and shook my head.
'And they let you in?'
'Yes.'
'You used magic?'
'No, my foreign friend used money. He'd laid in plenty of vodka and snacks, we started drinking on the thirtieth of April and finished on the second of May. We didn't let the maids in and we never turned the television off.'