The Night Watch (Watch 1)

'For Svetlana?'

The sorceress nodded.

'I only understood it today,' I admitted. 'Just an hour ago, when Sveta wanted to stand up to the Day Watch, she shifted up to fifth-grade powers. In an instant. If a fight had broken out, she would have been killed. We can be controlled too, Olya. Human beings can be turned in different directions, towards Good or Evil, the Dark Ones can be manipulated through their meanness, their vanity, their thirst for power and fame. And we can be manipulated through love. There we're as defenceless as children.'

'Yes.'

'Is the boss in the picture?' I asked. 'Olya?'

'Yes.'

She was finding it hard to get the words out. I couldn't believe it. Light Magicians who had lived for hundreds of years didn't feel shame. They'd saved the world so often, they had all the ethical dodges off pat. Great Sorceresses didn't feel ashamed, not even former Great Sorceresses. They'd been betrayed too often themselves.

I laughed.

'Olya, did you realise straight away? As soon as the Dark Ones lodged their protest? That they were hunting me, but only in order to push Svetlana beyond her self-control?'

'Yes.'

'Yes, yes, yes. And you still didn't warn me, or her?'

'Svetlana needs to mature quickly, to skip a few steps on the way.' A bright flame flared in Olga's eyes. 'Anton, you're my friend. I'll tell you the truth, so you can understand. We don't have enough time right now to nurture a Great Sorceress properly. But we need her, we need her more than you can even imagine. She already has enough power. She'll get tougher and learn how to draw on that power and direct it and, what's even more important, she'll learn how to hold it in check.'

'And if I die, that will only strengthen her will and her hatred of the Dark.'

'Yes. But I'm sure you're not going to die. The Watch is hunting the Maverick, everybody's been drafted in. We'll turn him over to the Dark Ones and the charges against you will be dropped.'

'But a certain Light Magician who wasn't initiated at the right time will die. Miserable and alone, like an animal brought to bay, convinced he's the only one fighting against the Dark.'

'Yes.'

'You agree with everything I say today,' I said calmly. 'Olga, don't you think what you're doing might just be despicable?'

'No.' There wasn't a trace of doubt. That meant the stakes must be really high.

'How long do I have to hold out, Light One?'

She shuddered.

There was a time, a long time ago, when that was a form of address Watch members often used – 'Light One'. Why had the words lost their old meaning, why did they sound as absurd now as the word 'gentlemen' used to address the dirty street bums at the beer kiosks?

'Until morning at least.'

'The night's not our time any longer. Today all the Dark Ones will be out on the streets of Moscow. And they'll be acting within their rights.'

'Only until we locate the Maverick. Hang on in there.'

'Olga.' I took a step towards her and touched her cheek, for a moment forgetting the difference in our ages – what were a few hundred years, compared with eternal night? – and the difference in our powers and our knowledge. 'Olga, do you really believe that I'll still be alive in the morning?'

The sorceress didn't answer.

I nodded. There was nothing more to say.

I wonder how it would be

To lose myself in the dawn.

To knock at the transparent doors

And know no one will answer.

I pressed the button and set the walkman to play in random mode. Not because the song didn't suit my mood, in fact exactly the opposite.

I love the metro at night, but I don't know why. There's nothing to look at except the same old dreary adverts and the same old tired human auras. The rumble of the engine, the gusts of air coming in through the half-open windows, the jolting over the rails. The numb wait for your own station.

But I love it anyway.

I shuddered, got up and walked to the door, even though I'd been planning to go to the end of the line.

This station was Rizhskaya. The next was Alexeevskaya.

Again that intense silence,

Always about the same thing,

Today the season opens

At the lepers' club.

That was okay.

I was already on the escalator when I caught the faint sense of power ahead of me. I ran my eyes along the down escalator and saw the Dark One almost immediately.

No, he wasn't Day Watch, he was carrying himself all wrong for that. He was a low-grade magician, grade four or five, probably five: and he was concentrating hard, scanning the people around him. Still really young, not much over twenty, in a crumpled, unbuttoned jacket, with long, fair hair and an attractive face, even though it was all tensed up like that.

So what could have pushed you over the edge into the Dark? What happened before that first time you stepped into the Twilight? An argument with your girlfriend? A quarrel with your parents? Did you flunk your exams in college or get a Fail at school? Did someone tread on your foot on a trolleybus?

And the most terrible thing of all is that your appearance hasn't even changed. Maybe you're even better-looking now. Your friends were amazed to discover what a fun guy you turned out to be, how well everything went when they planned things with you. Your girlfriend discovered all sorts of good qualities in you that she couldn't see before. Your parents were overjoyed to see how serious and intelligent their son had suddenly become. Your professors were delighted with their talented student.

And nobody knows how you make the people around you pay. And just how high the price of your kindness, your jokes and your sympathy is.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the moving handrail. I was tired, I was slightly drunk, I wasn't paying any attention to anything, just listening to the music.

The Dark One's gaze slid over me, moving lower, then quivered and came to a halt.

I hadn't had any time to prepare, to change my appearance or distort my aura. I really hadn't expected the search of the metro would have started already.

A cold, piercing touch, like a gust of icy wind. The young guy was comparing me with the image that must have been distributed to all the Dark Ones in Moscow. He was working clumsily, he'd forgotten about his defences, he didn't notice my mind slipping along the pathway cleared through the Twilight and touching his thoughts.

Joy. Delight. Found. The prey. They'll give me some of the prey's power. They'll appreciate this. They'll promote me. Fame. Getting my own back. They didn't appreciate me before. Now they'll understand. They'll pay.

I'd been imagining that at least somewhere in some corner of his mind there would be some other thoughts. About me being an enemy. About me killing others like him.

But no. There was nothing. He wasn't thinking of anything but himself.

I withdrew my feelers before the young magician withdrew his own clumsy ones. All right. He didn't possess any great powers, he wouldn't be able to communicate with the Day Watch from inside the metro. And he wouldn't even want to. He thought of me as a cornered animal, and not even a dangerous one – a rabbit, not a wolf.

Bring it on, my friend.

I walked out of the metro, slipped round beside the entrance and summoned my shadow. The hazy silhouette shimmered above the ground and I stepped into it.

The Twilight.

People walking by became a transparent haze, cars started to crawl like tortoises, the streetlamps dimmed, their light turned gloomy and oppressive. It was quiet, all sounds reduced to a barely audible rumble.

I'd made my move a little too early, it would be a while before the magician could get back up after me . . . But I could feel my own power, I was pumped full of it. That must have been Olga's work. While she was in my body she'd regained her former powers and filled it with energy, without using up any of it. She would never even have thought of taking any, no matter how great the temptation might be.

'You'll understand for yourself where the boundary lies' – that's what I'd told Svetlana. Olga had known, far better than me, where the boundary lay for a long, long time.

I walked along the wall, glancing through the concrete at the inclined shaft and the belts of the escalators. There was a dark spot climbing upwards rapidly: the magician was in a hurry, running up the steps, but he was still in the human world. Saving his powers. Bring it on, bring it on.

I stopped dead.

There was a small, swirling cloud skimming toward me just above the ground, a patch of mist that had assumed the form of a human figure.

An Other. A former Other.

Maybe it had been one of us. And maybe not. The Dark Ones had to go somewhere when they died. But now it was just a hazy little cloud, an eternal wanderer in the Twilight.

'Peace be with you, fallen one,' I said. 'Whoever you may have been.'

The quivering silhouette halted in front of me. A tongue of mist freed itself from its body and extended towards me.

What did it want? The number of times inhabitants of the Twilight had tried to communicate with the living could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The hand – if it could be called a hand – was trembling. White threads of mist came away from it, dissolving in the Twilight, scattering on to the ground.

'I'm very short of time,' I said. 'Fallen one, no matter who you were in life, Dark or Light, peace be with you. What do you want from me?'

A gust of wind seemed to ripple through the swirls of mist. The phantom turned and the outstretched hand – I no longer had any doubt that it was a hand – pointed through the Twilight towards the north-east. I turned in its direction. It was pointing to a needle-slim silhouette glimmering in the sky.

'Yes, the tower, I understand! But what does it mean?'

The mist started to blur and dissolve and a moment later the Twilight around me was as empty as usual.

I started to shiver. The dead Other had tried to communicate with me. Was it a friend or an enemy? Had it been advising me or warning me?

There was no way to tell.

I took another look through the walls of the station building – the Dark Magician had almost reached the top of the escalator, but he was still on it. So I had a moment to try to figure out what the phantom had been trying to say. I hadn't been intending to go to the Ostankino Television Tower, I had a different route in mind, a somewhat risky but surprising plan. So it didn't make any sense to warn me not to go to the tower.

Maybe I'd been given directions. But who by? Friend or foe, that was the important question. I couldn't expect all differences to be wiped out beyond the borders of life. Our dead would not abandon us in battle.

I would have to decide for myself. Only not right now.

I ran towards the entrance of the metro, taking my pistol out of my shoulder holster as I ran.