The Night Watch (Watch 1)

'The ordinary way. There's less chance she'll notice. And don't you two worry ... I was climbing mountains for sixty years. I took the fascist flag down from Mount Elbrus.'

Semyon stripped to his shirt and threw his clothes on to the bonnet. Then he cast a swift protective spell to cover the clothes and the car.

'Are you sure?' I asked.

Semyon laughed, did a few squats and swung his arms around like an athlete warming up. Then he jogged across to the building, with the fine snow settling on his shoulders.

'Will he make it?' I asked Ilya. I knew how to climb the wall of a building in the Twilight. In theory. But an ascent in the ordinary world, and with no equipment. . .

'He ought to,' said Ilya, but he didn't really sound convinced. 'When he swam through the underground channel of the River Yauza ... I didn't think he'd make it then, either.'

'Thirty years practising underwater swimming,' I said glumly.

'Forty ... I'll get going then, Anton. How are you going up, in the lift?'

'Yup.'

'Okay . . . don't keep us waiting.'

He shifted into the Twilight and ran after Semyon. They were probably going to climb different walls, but I didn't really want to know who was going which way. My route was waiting for me, and it wasn't likely to prove any easier.

'Why did you ever have to find me, boss?' I whispered as I ran up to the building. The snow crunched under my feet, the blood pounded in my ears. I took my pistol out of its holster on the run and took off the safety catch. Eight explosive silver bullets. That ought to be enough. As long as I hit the target. I just had to seize the moment when I had a chance to take the vampire by surprise and not wing the boy.

'Sooner or later someone would have met you, Anton. If not us, then the Day Watch. And they had just as good a chance of taking you.'

I wasn't surprised he was keeping tabs on me. Firstly, this was a serious business. And secondly, after all, he was my first mentor.

'Boris Ignatievich, if anything happens . . .' I buttoned up my jacket and stuck the barrel of the pistol into my belt behind my back. 'About Svetlana . . .'

'They ran an exhaustive check on her mother, Anton. No. She's not capable of casting a curse. No powers at all.'

'No, that wasn't what I meant, Boris Ignatievich . . . I just had this thought. I didn't pity her.'

'And what does that mean?'

'I don't know. But I didn't pity her. I didn't pay her any compliments. I didn't make any excuses for her.'

'I understand.'

'And now . . . disappear, please. This is my job.'

'Okay. I'm sorry for turning you out into the field. Good luck, Anton.'

I couldn't remember the boss ever apologising to anyone before. But I had no time to be surprised, as the lift had finally arrived.

I pressed the button for the top floor and automatically reached for my earphones dangling on their lead. Oddly, there was music coming through them. When had I turned on the walkman?

And what trick will chance play me? All will be decided later, for some he is no one,

For me he is my lord,

I stand in the darkness, for some I am a shadow,

For others I am invisible

I love Picnic's music. I wonder if Shklyarsky's ever been tested to see if he's an Other. He ought to be . . . But then, maybe not. Let him keep singing.

I dance out of time, I've done everything wrong,

Not regretting the fact

That today I'm like a shower that never fell,

A flower that never blossomed.

I, I, I – I am invisible.

I, I, I – I am invisible. Our faces are like smoke, our faces are smoke.

And no one will learn how we conquer . . .

Maybe I could take that last line as a good omen.

The lift stopped.

I got out on to the top-floor landing and looked up at the trapdoor in the ceiling. The lock had been torn off, quite literally – the shackle was flattened and stretched. The vampire wouldn't have needed to do that, she'd probably flown to the roof. The boy had climbed up over the balconies.

So it must have been Tiger Cub or Bear. Most likely Bear – Tiger Cub would have ripped the trapdoor out completely.

I pulled off my jacket and dropped it on the floor with the murmuring walkman. I felt for the pistol behind my back – it was firmly wedged. So technology's all nonsense, is it? I thought. We'll see about that, Olga.

I cast my shadow upwards, projecting it into the air. I reached up and slid swiftly into it. Once I was in the Twilight, I started climbing the ladder. The thick, clumpy blue moss covering the rungs felt spongy under my fingers, and tried to creep away.

'Anton!'

When I stepped out on to the roof I even hunched over a bit, the wind up there was so strong. Wild, icy gusts – either an echo of the wind in the human world or some fantastic whim of the Twilight. At first I was sheltered from it by the concrete box of the lift shaft, projecting above the level of the roof, but the moment I took a step I was chilled to the bone.

'Anton, we're here!'

Tiger Cub was standing about ten metres away. For a moment the sight of her made me envious; there was no way she was feeling the cold.

I don't know where shape-shifters and magicians get the mass for transforming their bodies. It doesn't seem to come from the Twilight, nor from the human world either. In her human form the girl weighed maybe fifty kilos, maybe a bit more. The young tigress poised ready to fight on the icy roof must have weighed a hundred and fifty kilos. Her aura was a flaming orange and there were sparks wandering lazily across the surface of her fur. Her tail was twitching left and right in a regular rhythm, the right front paw was scraping regularly at the bitumen of the roof and had scraped right through to the concrete . . . someone would get flooded come spring.

'Come closer, Anton,' the tigress growled, without turning round. 'There she is!'

Bear was standing closer to the vampire than Tiger Cub. He looked even more terrifying. For this transformation he'd chosen the form of a polar bear, but unlike the real inhabitants of the Arctic he was snowy white, just like in children's picture books. No, he had to be a magician, not a reformed shape-shifter. Shape-shifters were limited to only one form, two at most, and I'd seen Bear as a pigeon-toed brown Russian bear (when we arranged a carnival for the Watch's American guests), and as a grizzly at our demonstration classes on transformation.

The girl vampire looked terrible, a lot worse than the first time I met her. Her features were even sharper now and her cheeks were hollow. During the first stage of their body's transformation vampires require fresh blood almost constantly. But I wasn't about to be fooled by the way she looked: her exhaustion was just her appearance, it was agonising for her, but it didn't reduce her strength. The burn mark on her face was almost gone, I could just make out a faint trace.

'You!' the vampire's voice rang out triumphantly – as if she'd summoned me to be slaughtered, not to negotiate.

'Yes, me.'

Egor was standing in front of the vampire, she was using him to shield herself from our operatives. The boy was in the Twilight she'd summoned, so he hadn't lost consciousness. He stood still, not saying anything, looking from me to Tiger Cub and back. We were obviously the ones he was counting on most. The vampire had one arm round the boy's chest, holding him tight against her, and she had her other hand at his throat, with its claws extended. The situation wasn't hard to assess. Stalemate.

If Tiger Cub or Bear tried to attack the vampire, she'd tear the kid's head off with a single sweep of her hand. There's no cure for that . . . not even with our powers. On the other hand, once she killed the boy, there'd be nothing to stop us.

It's a mistake to drive your enemy into a corner. Especially if you're going to kill him.

'You wanted me to come. So I've come.' I raised my hands to show they were empty and started walking forward. When I was midway between Tiger Cub and Bear the vampire bared her fangs:

'Stop!'

'I haven't got any poplar stakes or combat amulets. I'm not a magician. And there's nothing I can do to you.'

'The amulet! The amulet on your neck!'

So that was it. . .

'That's nothing to do with you. It protects me against someone vastly superior to you.'

'Take it off!'

Oh, this was bad . . . really bad. I grabbed the chain, pulled the amulet off and dropped it at my feet. Now, if he wanted to, Zabulon could try to influence me.

'I've taken it off. Now talk. What do you want?'

The vampire twisted her head right round – her neck easily turned the full three hundred and sixty degrees. I'd never even heard of that one ... I don't think our fighters had either: Tiger Cub growled.

'There's someone sneaking up here!' The vampire's voice was still human – the shrill, hysterical voice of a foolish girl who has acquired great strength and power by accident. 'Who is it? Who?'

She pressed her left hand, the one with the extended claws, into the boy's neck. I shuddered, picturing what would happen if one drop of blood was spilled. The vampire would lose control. She pointed to the edge of the roof with her other hand in a ludicrous gesture of accusation – like Lenin on his armoured car.

'Tell him to come out!'

I sighed and shouted:

'Ilya, come out. . .'

Fingers appeared on the edge of the roof and a moment later Ilya swung over the low barrier and stood beside Tiger Cub. Where had he been hiding? On the canopy of a balcony? Or had he been hanging there, clutching the strands of blue moss?

'I knew it!' the girl said triumphantly. 'A trick!'

It seemed like she hadn't sensed Semyon. Maybe our phlegmatic friend had spent a hundred years training in ninja techniques.

'What right have you to talk about tricks?'

'Every right!' Something human flickered briefly in the vampire's eyes. 'I know how to deceive! You don't!'

Fine, fine. You know how, we don't, I thought. Just you keep on believing that. If you believe the only place for 'white lies' is in sermons, that's just fine. If you think that the words 'good must have hard fists' belong in old poems by a ridiculed poet, you just keep on thinking that way.

'What do you want?' I asked.

She paused for a moment, as if she hadn't given it any thought:

'To live!'

'Too late. You're already dead.'

'Really? And can the dead rip people's heads off?'

'Yes. That's all they can do.'

We looked at each other, and it was strange, so pompous and theatrical – the whole conversation was absurd, after all, as we'd never be able to understand each other. She was dead. Her life was in someone else's death. I was alive. But from where she stood, it was all the other way round.

'I'm not to blame for this.' Her voice had suddenly become calmer and softer. The hand on Egor's neck relaxed slightly. 'You, the ones who call yourselves the Night Watch . . . who never sleep at night, who claim the right to protect the world against the Dark . . . where were you when my blood was drunk?'