The Night Watch (Watch 1)

'Bastards . . .' he hissed. 'Monsters. Sure I heard that. But they're scum, they're inhuman, they have to be to do something like that. I'd strangle them all with my bare hands . . .'

I kept quiet. The driver's aura was blazing bright scarlet. I didn't want him to crash, he was almost out of control. My thrust had been too accurate – he had a little daughter of his own . . .

'String them up from the telegraph poles!' he went on, still raging. 'Burn them with napalm!'

I kept quiet and waited until the driver had gradually calmed down. Then I asked:

'Then what about those universal moral commandments? If they gave you a machine gun now, you'd press the trigger without even hesitating.'

'There aren't any commandments that apply to monsters!' the driver snarled. His calm cultured manner had disappeared without trace now! Energy was streaming out of him in all directions . . . and I soaked it up, quickly replenishing the power that I'd spent earlier that morning.

'Not even terrorists are monsters,' I said. 'They're human beings. And so are you. And there are no commandments for human beings. That's a scientifically proven fact.'

As I drew in the energy that was pouring out of him, the driver calmed down. It wouldn't last long, of course. That evening the pendulum would swing back, and he'd be overcome by rage again. It's like pumping all the water out of a well very quickly – it comes rushing back in again.

'But even so, you're not right,' he replied more calmly. 'Logic does exist, of course, yes . . . But if you compare things with the Middle Ages, then morality has definitely advanced.'

'Don't be ridiculous!' I said, shaking my head. 'How has it advanced? . . . Even in the wars back then they had a strict code of honour. A war then was a real war, and kings fought with their armies, risking their thrones and their heads. And now? A big country wants to put pressure on a little one, so it bombs it for three months and gets rid of its outdated armaments at the same time. Not even the soldiers risk their lives! It's the same as if you drove up onto the pavement and started knocking down pedestrians like skittles.'

'The code of honour was for the aristocrats,' the driver objected sharply. 'The common people died in droves.'

'And is it any different today?' I asked. 'When one oligarch settles scores with another, there's a certain code of honour that's observed! Because both of them have goons to kill for them, compromising information about each other, interests in common, family ties. They're just like the old aristocracy! Kings sitting up to their ears in cabbage. And the common people are trash. A herd of sheep that are good for shearing, but sometimes it's more profitable to slaughter them. Nothing's changed. There never were any commandments, and there aren't any now!'

The driver fell silent.

And after that he didn't say another word all the way. We turned off Kamergerskaya Street onto Tverskaya Street and I told him where to stop. I paid, deliberately giving him more than I should have. It was only then that he spoke again.

'I'll never give a witch a lift again,' he told me with a crooked grin. 'It's too hard on the nerves. I never thought a conversation with a beautiful girl could spoil my mood so badly.'

'I'm sorry,' I said and smiled sweetly.

'Have a good day at . . . work.' He slammed the door and drove off abruptly.

Well, well. I'd never been taken for a prostitute before, but he seemed to think that was what I was. That was the effect of the paranjah . . . and the area of town, of course.

But at least I'd more than made up for the power I'd used earlier. He'd turned out to be a magnificent donor, this intelligent, cultured, strong man. The only time I'd ever done better was ... it was with the Prism of Power.

I shuddered at the memory.

It had all been so stupid . . . everything about it had been so monstrously stupid.

My entire life had gone downhill as a result. I'd lost everything in a single moment.

'You fool! You greedy fool!'

It was a good thing that nobody could see my real face. It probably looked about as pitiful as my stupid young neighbour's.

Anyway, what was done was done. I couldn't turn back the clock, put things right and win back ... his affection. It was my own fault, of course. And I ought to be glad that Zabulon hadn't handed me over to the Light Ones.

He used to love me. And I loved him ... it would have been absurd for a young, inexperienced witch not to fall in love with the head of the Day Watch when he took a special interest in her . . .

My fists were clenched so tight that the nails were biting into the skin. I'd struggled through. I'd survived last summer. The Dark only knew how, but I'd survived.

And now there was no point in remembering the past and snivelling and trying to catch Zabulon's eye again. He hadn't spoken to me since the hurricane last year, the one that had hit on the day when I was captured so shamefully. And he wouldn't speak to me for a hundred years, I was sure of it.

A car moving slowly along the kerb stopped with a quiet squeal of tyres. It was a decent car, a Volvo, and it hadn't come from the tip. A jerk with a shaven head stuck his smug face out of the window, looked me up and down and broke into a satisfied smile. Then he hissed.

'How much?'

I was dumbstruck.

'For two hours – how much?' the idiot with the shaved head asked more precisely.

I looked at the number plate – it wasn't from Moscow. So that was it.

'The prostitutes are further down, you twit,' I said amiably. 'Get lost.'

'Anyone would think you didn't screw,' the disappointed idiot said, trying to save face. 'Think it over, I'm feeling generous today.'

'You hold on to your money,' I advised him and clicked my fingers. 'You'll need it to fix your car.'

I turned my back on him and walked towards the building. My palm was aching slightly from the recoil. The 'gremlin' isn't a very complicated spell, but I'd cast it in too much of a hurry. I'd left the Volvo with an incorporeal creature fiddling about under its hood – not even a creature really, but a bundle of energy with an obsessive passion for destroying technology.

If he was lucky, his engine was finished. If he was unlucky, then his fancy bourgeois electronics would blow – the carburettors, the ventilators, all those gearwheels and drivebelts that the car was full of. I'd never taken any interest in the insides of a car except in the most general terms. But I had a very clear idea of the effects of the 'gremlin'.

The disappointed driver drove off without wasting too much time arguing. I wondered if he'd remember what I'd said when his car started going haywire. He was bound to. He'd cry 'She hexed it, the witch!' And he wouldn't even know just how right he was.

The thought amused me, but nevertheless, the day had been hopelessly spoiled.

I was five minutes late for work, and there was that quarrel with my mother, and that idiot in the Volvo . . .

With these thoughts in my head I walked past the magnificent, gleaming shop windows, raised my shadow from the ground in a pure reflex action, without even thinking about it, and entered the building through a door that ordinary people can't see.

The headquarters of the Light Ones, near the Sokol metro station, is disguised as an ordinary office. We have a more respectable location and our camouflage is a lot more fun. This building – seven floors of apartments above shops that are luxurious even by Moscow standards – has three more floors than people think. It was specially built that way as the Day Watch HQ, and the spells that disguise the building's real appearance are incorporated into the very bricks and stone of the walls. The people living in the building, who are mostly perfectly ordinary, probably feel a strange sensation when they take the lift. As if it takes too long to get from the first floor to the second . . .

The lift really does take longer than it should. Because the second floor is really the third, and the real second floor is invisible – it houses our duty offices, armaments room and technical services. Our two other floors are on the top of the building, and no human being knows about them either. But any Other who is powerful enough can look through the Twilight and see the severe black granite of the walls and the arches of the windows that are almost always covered with thick, heavy curtains. Ten years ago they installed air-conditioning, and the clumsy boxes of the split systems appeared on the walls. Before that the internal climate was regulated by magic, but why waste it like that, when electricity is much cheaper?

I once saw a photograph of our building taken through the Twilight by a skilful magician. It's an incredible sight! A crowded street with people walking along it all dressed up, and cars driving along. Shop windows and apartment windows ... a nice old lady looking out of one window, and a cat sitting in another one, looking disgruntled and gloomy – animals can sense our presence very easily . . . And in parallel with all this – two entrances to the building from Tverskaya Street, with the doors standing open, and in one doorway there's a young vampire from security, polishing his nails with a file. Directly above the shops there's a strip of black stone, with the crimson spots of windows in it . . . And the two top floors seem to weigh down on the building like a heavy stone cap.

If only I could show that photograph to the people who live there. But then, they'd all think the same thing – a clumsy piece of photomontage. Clumsy, because the building really does look awkward . . .When everything was still all right between Zabulon and me, I asked him why our offices were located so oddly, mixed up with the humans' apartments. The boss laughed and explained that it made it more difficult for the Light Ones to try any kind of attack – innocent people might get killed in the fighting. Everybody knows that the Light Ones don't really worry about people at all. But they have to hedge round what they do with all sorts of hypocritical tricks, and so the seven floors of apartments make a really reliable shield.

The tiny duty office on the ground floor, with the two lifts (the people living in the building don't know about them either) and the fire stairs, seemed to be empty. There was no one behind the desk or in the armchair in front of the television. It took me a moment to spot the two security guards who should have been there according to the staff list: a vampire – I think his name was Kostya – who had only joined the Watch very recently, and the werewolf Vitaly from Kostroma, also a civilian employee, who'd been working for us as long as I could remember. Both the guards were standing quite still, doubled over in the corner. Vitaly was giggling quietly. Just for an instant I had a quite crazy idea about the reason for such strange behaviour.

'Boys, what's that you're doing over there?' I asked sharply. There's no point in being too polite with these vampires and shape-shifters. They're primitive beasts of labour – and as well as that the vampires are non-life, but they still claim to be no worse than magicians and witches.

'Come here, Aliska!' Vitaly said, beckoning to me without turning round. 'This is a real gas.'

But Kostya straightened up sharply and took a step backwards, looking a bit embarrassed.

I walked over.

There was a little grey mouse dashing around Vitaly's feet. It stopped dead still, then jumped up in the air, then began squeaking and beating desperately at the air with its little paws. I didn't understand for a moment, until I tried looking through the Twilight.

So that was it.

There was a huge, glossy cat jumping about beside the mouse. Sometimes it reached its paw out towards the tiny creature, sometimes it snapped its jaws together. Of course, it was only an illusion, and a primitive one at that, created exclusively for the small rodent.

'We're seeing how long it can hold out!' Vitaly said happily. 'I bet it will die of fright in a minute.'

'I see,' I said, beginning to see red. 'Now I understand. Having fun are we? Did your hunting instincts get the better of you?'

I reached down and picked up the mouse that had frozen dead still in fear. The tiny bundle of fur trembled on my hand. I blew on it gently and whispered the right word. The mouse stopped trembling, then it stretched out on my palm and went to sleep.

'What's it to you?' Vitaly asked in a slightly offended tone. 'Aliska, in your line of work you're supposed to boil these creatures alive in your cauldron!'

'There are a few spells like that,' I admitted. 'And there are some that require the liver of a werewolf killed at midnight.'

The werewolf's eyes glittered brightly with malice, but he didn't say anything. His rank was too low to try arguing with me. I might only be a simple patrol witch, but that made me a cut above a mercenary werewolf.

'All right, then, you guys, tell me the procedure to be followed following the discovery in the premises of rodents, cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes,' I said in a slow, lazy voice.