The Night Watch (Watch 1)

Probably he was. I'd asked a straight question and been given a straight answer. Of course, as the years go by, even the most Light of magicians acquire a certain degree of cynicism and learn to play tricks with words. But the consequences of a direct lie would be too serious even for Boris Ignatievich.

I reached the entry lobby and its electronic security systems. Magicians tend to regard technology with disdain, and Semyon had once shown me how easy it was to fool the voice analyser and the iris scanner. But I'd gone ahead and bought these expensive toys anyway. Maybe they were no protection against an Other, but it seemed entirely possible that one day the guys from the Federal Security Service or the mafia would decide to check us out.

'One, two, three, four, five . . .' I muttered into the microphone, gazing into the camera lens at the same time. The electronic circuits pondered for a few seconds, then a green light came on above the door.

There was no one in the first room, where the server's cooling fans were humming gently. The air conditioners built into the wall were huffing and puffing, but it was still hot in there. And spring had only just begun . . .

I didn't go into the system analysts' lab, just walked straight through into my own office. It wasn't all mine. Tolik, my deputy, worked here too. Sometimes he lived here, spending the nights on an old leather sofa.

He was sitting at his desk, thoughtfully inspecting an old motherboard.

'Hi,' I said, sitting down on the sofa. The disk was burning my hands.

'It's a goner,' Tolik said gloomily.

'Bin it then.'

'Let me just take its brain out first.' Tolik was thrifty, a habit acquired from years of working in state-financed institutions. We had no financial problems, but he carefully stockpiled all the old hardware anyway, even if it was of no use to anyone. 'Would you believe it, I've been fiddling around with this for half an hour, and it's still dead.'

'It's a prehistoric antique, why waste time fiddling around with it? Even the technology in accounts is more up to date.'

'I could give it to someone . . . Maybe I should take the cache out too . . .'

'Tolik, we've got an urgent job to do,' I said.

'Uh?'

'Look . . .' I held up the disk. 'This is a dossier ... a complete dossier on four members of the Watch. Including the boss.'

Tolik opened the drawer of his desk, put the motherboard in it and stared at the disk.

'Exactly. I'm going to go through three of them. And you're going to go through the fourth . . . mine.'

'So what are we looking for?'

'This,' I said, holding up the briefing notes. 'It's possible that one of the suspects may be carrying out sporadic killings of Dark Ones. Unauthorised killings. All the known incidents are listed here. We have to either eliminate this possibility, or . . .'

'Ah, so it really is you who's killing them, then?' Tolik asked. 'Pardon my irony.'

'No. But don't take my word for it. Let's get on with it.'

I didn't even look at the information about me, just downloaded all eight hundred megabytes on to Tolik's computer and took out the disk.

'Shall I tell you if I come across anything really interesting?' Tolik asked. I glanced across at him as he started looking through the text files, tugging on his left ear and clicking regularly with his mouse.

'That's up to you.'

'Okay.'

I started with the materials on the boss. First there was an introductory section – background information. Every line I read brought me out in a sweat.

Of course, even this dossier didn't give the boss's real name and origins. Facts like that weren't kept on file anywhere for Others of his rank. But even so there was so much that I didn't know. Starting with the fact that the boss was older than I'd thought. At least a hundred and fifty years older. And that meant he'd been personally involved in drawing up the Treaty between Light and Dark. I was intrigued by the thought that all the other magicians still surviving from that time held positions in the central office and weren't stuck in the exhausting and tedious post of regional director.

Apart from that, I recognised a few of the names under which the boss had figured in the history of the Watch, and learnt where he was born. We'd wondered about that sometimes, and even placed bets on it, always pointing to 'indisputable' proof. But somehow no one had ever suspected that Boris Ignatievich was born in Tibet.

And even in my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined whose mentor he had been.

The boss had been working in Europe since the fifteenth century. From indirect references, I inferred that the reason for this move was a woman. I could even guess who it was.

I closed the introductory window and looked over at Tolik. He was watching some video footage. Of course, my biographical details were less fascinating than the boss's. I glanced at the small moving picture and blushed.

'For the first incident you have a solid alibi,' Tolik said without turning round.

'Listen . . .' I was lost for words.

'Okay, okay. I'll fast-forward it, to check the entire night. . .'

I imagined what the recording would look like at high speed and turned away. I'd always suspected the boss kept tabs on his colleagues, especially the young ones. But not that cynically!

'The alibi won't be that solid,' I said. 'I'll get dressed and go out any moment now.'

'I can see that,' Tolik confirmed.

'And I'll be gone for almost an hour and a half. I was looking for champagne . . . and while I was looking, I sobered up a bit in the fresh air. Started wondering if it was worth going back.'

'Don't worry about it,' said Tolik. 'You watch the boss's private life.'

Half an hour later, I realised Tolik was right. Maybe I had good reason to feel offended by the observers' invasion of my privacy. But Boris Ignatievich had as much reason as I did.

'The boss has an alibi,' I said. 'Indisputable. For two incidents he has four witnesses. And for one – almost the entire Watch.'

'Was that the hunt for that Dark One who went crazy?'

'Yes.'

'Well, in theory, you could have killed the Dark Ones. Quite easily. And I'm sorry, Anton, but every one of the killings happens when you're in an excited state. As if you weren't completely in control of yourself.'

'I didn't do it.'

'I believe you. What shall I do with the file?'

'Delete it.'

Tolik thought for a moment.

'I don't have anything valuable on here. I think I'll run a low-level format. The disk's long overdue for a clean-out.'

'Thanks.' I closed the dossier on the boss. 'That's it, I'll deal with the others myself.'

'Sure,' said Tolik as he overcame the computer's righteous indignation and it began digesting itself.

'Go check on the girls,' I suggested. 'And look disapproving for a change. I'm sure they're playing cards in there.'

'All in a day's work, I suppose,' Tolik agreed. 'When will you be through here?'

'In a couple of hours.'

'I'll call in.'

He went off to our 'girls', two young programmers who dealt with the Watch's official activity. I carried on working. Semyon was next.

Two and a half hours later I tore my eyes away from the computer, massaged the back of my neck with my palms – it always cramps up when I sit there hunched over the terminal like that – and turned on the coffee machine.

Neither the boss, nor Ilya, nor Semyon could be the unhinged killer of Dark Ones. They all had alibis – and some of them were absolutely watertight. For instance, Semyon had managed to spend the entire night of one of the murders negotiating with the senior management of the Day Watch. Ilya had been on secondment in Sakhalin – they'd screwed things up so badly over there that they'd needed back-up from Moscow . . .

I was the only one left under suspicion.

It wasn't that I didn't trust Tolik, but I went through the data again anyway. It was all very clear. Not a single alibi.

The coffee was disgusting, sour, the filter couldn't have been changed for ages. I gulped down the hot swill, staring at the screen, then took out my mobile and dialled the boss's number.

'Yes, Anton.'

He always knew who was calling him.

'Boris Ignatievich, only one of the four can be suspected.'

'Which one?'

The boss's voice was dry and official. But somehow I suddenly got this picture of him sitting half-naked on a leather sofa, with a glass of champagne in one hand and Olga's hand in the other, holding the phone in place with his shoulder, or levitating it beside his ear . . .

'Tut-tut,' the boss rebuked me. 'You lousy clairvoyant. So who's under suspicion?'

'I am.'

'I see.'

'You knew it,' I said.

'Why do you say that?'

'There was no need to get me to process that dossier. You could have done it yourself. That means you wanted me to be convinced of the danger.'

'That could be,' the boss said with a sigh. 'What are you going to do, Anton?'

'Start packing my bag for jail.'

'Come round to my office. In ... er ... in ten minutes.'

'Okay.' I switched off my phone.

First I went to see how the programmers were doing. Tolik was still there with them, and they were hard at work.

The Watch didn't really have any need for these two worthless workers. Their security clearance was low, so we still had to do almost everything ourselves. But where else could we find work for two sorceresses as low-level as these two? If only they'd have agreed to live ordinary lives. . . but no, they wanted the 'romance' of working for the Watch ... So we'd invented jobs for them.

They mostly just whiled away the time, surfing the net and playing games, their favourites being various kinds of patience.

Tolik was at one of the spare PCs – we had plenty of hardware around the place. Yulia was sitting very close to him, twitching her mouse around on its mat.

'Is that what you call computer skills training?' I asked, gazing at the monsters hurtling round the screen.

'There's nothing better than computer games for improving skill with the mouse,' Tolik replied innocently.

'Well . . .' I couldn't think of any response.

It was a long time since I'd played video games. The same went for most other members of the Watch. Killing evil vermin in a cartoon became less interesting once you'd met it face to face. Unless, that is, you'd already lived a couple of hundred years and built up reserves of cynicism, like Olga . . .

'Tolik, I probably won't be back in today,' I said.

'Uhuh.' He nodded, without any sign of surprise. None of us has really strong powers of prevision, but we sense little things like that immediately.