Night Watch 05 - The New Watch (11 page)

Gesar and Olga exchanged glances over the boy’s head. Zabulon cleared his throat.

‘Yes, you can,’ Gesar admitted, ‘if you want to. Do you want to?’

‘No,’ Kesha said firmly. ‘I just wondered.’

When the catty neighbour had called the boy a dumpling, she’d been pretty close to the truth. He was flabby and round-faced, like Doughnut in the book about Dunno. The skin on his face was lumpy, the way it usually is in older people but only very rarely in children. Parents who have children like that usually say in an apologetic tone: ‘You know, he’s very clever and good-natured.’

As for being good-natured, I didn’t know, although the boy’s aura was good, unambiguously Light. There was nothing there for Zabulon. But as for him being bright – that seemed to be true enough.

‘Is it all because of the plane?’ Kesha continued with his questioning. ‘Because I got frightened?’

‘Yes,’ Gesar said, with a nod. ‘The plane really could have crashed. And Anton’ – Gesar nodded in my direction – ‘realised that you’re a Prophet.’

‘And he saved the plane?’ the boy asked.

‘As you can see, the plane didn’t crash,’ said Gesar, avoiding a direct answer.

‘So I can only predict things? Is that all?’ Kesha asked with evident disappointment.

‘No, certainly not. That’s just the thing that you’ll be best at,’ said Olga, joining in the conversation. ‘It’s like with music. Everybody’s taught to play the piano, even the violinists and the flautists. As a basic training. So you’ll be able to throw fireballs, stop time, make yourself invisible . . .’

I suddenly felt a keen desire to smoke. I’d only been smoking very rarely just recently, but I still felt calmer with a pack of cigarettes in my pocket. I looked at Zabulon. He was languishing, kneading a long, dark cigarette in his fingers. We glanced at each other and headed for the balcony without saying a word.

This balcony was just the way small balconies in small flats are supposed to be – thoroughly cluttered. There was a sledge and an old child’s bicycle, a collection of empty jam and pickle jars, a large cardboard box full of all sorts of junk and a small plastic case of tools. The box was open and I could see that the hammer and the pliers had a light coating of rust. Well, who stores tools on an open balcony? Ah, these women . . .

Or maybe I should say: Ah, these men? It’s tough being a single mother. Especially in Russia.

We smoked – Zabulon obligingly held up a little tongue of flame for me, pinched between his thumb and forefinger, and I lit up, accepting his offer quite naturally. I took a deep drag and said: ‘I suppose we’ll have to send his mum off to some holiday resort. Why should she hang about here, if the child’s going to be with us? And that way . . . she might pick someone up, have a bit of fun . . .’

‘Send her,’ Zabulon agreed. ‘The Day Watch has no objections.’

‘You’re all heart today,’ I said. ‘And that makes me wonder.’

‘I can afford to be tender-hearted,’ Zabulon laughed. ‘But you, Anton, are embarrassed by your own goodness.’

‘Why so?’

‘Why else would you use those words? “Mum”, “pick someone up”, “a bit of fun” . . . You vulgarise your own kind suggestion. You feel embarrassed.’

I thought about it and agreed. ‘Yes. I feel embarrassed. These days even good magicians try to appear wicked. Zabulon . . . tell me, what does that mean – a Twilight Creature?’

‘Purely theoretical,’ laughed Zabulon. ‘Don’t bother your head about it.’

‘No one lives in the Twilight,’ I said.

‘If no one lives there, then they don’t,’ the Dark One agreed simply, and I realised I wouldn’t get any more information out of him.

‘So okay,’ I said, launching my cigarette end into flight from the balcony with a flick of my finger and incinerating it in mid-air with a second flick. ‘Thanks at least for helping. And for not laying claim to the kid.’

‘If he’d been a Battle Magician, I would have laid claim to him all right,’ Zabulon chuckled. ‘The boy isn’t ours, of course, but there are always opportunities . . . And if he’d been a Clairvoyant, I’d have fought for him then. But a prophet? No, thank you.’

‘You value a Clairvoyant more than a Prophet?’ I asked, amazed.

‘Of course. A Clairvoyant speaks of what might happen – and the future can be changed. A Prophet pronounces the Truth. That which is inevitable. Why would we want to know the inevitable, Anton? If the inevitable is bad, there’s no point in upsetting yourself sooner than necessary. And if it’s good – then let it come as a pleasant surprise. With great wisdom comes great sorrow.’ Zabulon looked at the cigarette in his hand. ‘Be seeing you, Light One . . .’

The cigarette flared up in his fingers with a sombre crimson flame. The fire leapt onto his fingers, ran up his arm and engulfed his entire body. Zabulon smiled at me through the flames – and disappeared.

The smouldering cigarette fell at my feet.

‘Poser,’ I said. ‘Cheap ham . . . swell-headed freak!’

Zabulon’s demonstrative refusal to fight for the boy-Prophet frightened me. Maybe he was just trying to put a good face on things, but something told me that the Dark One meant exactly what he had said.

But no way had he told me everything he knew.

Had he really had so little contact with Prophets, did he understand so little about who this tiger was?

And what was a ‘Twilight Creature’ anyway?

Zabulon had spoken as if Gesar ought to understand him perfectly well. Which meant that Gesar knew too . . .

But, naturally, I didn’t ask the boss about it. Boris Ignatievich has his own opinion about what he ought to let his subordinates know so that they can discharge their obligations successfully.

Our visit to the Tolkovs’ flat ended exactly as I had assumed it would. The boy’s mother was put in the SUV and sent off to the airport, accompanied by Igor, Alisher and Jermenson – to board a regular flight to Barcelona and enjoy a holiday at a seaside resort. She was clearly a good mother, judging from the fact that Semyon had had to use two sixth-level suggestions to persuade her to leave her child in our charge while she relaxed on the beaches of Catalonia. And for us Gesar opened a portal directly to the office of the Watch.

And he even initiated the boy in person there and then, as we were traversing the Twilight. You could have said that was a great honour, if not for the fact that the boy was a genuine Prophet.

The rooms for overnight stays were located on the semi-basement level of the office. It’s the right place for them. In reality hardly anyone ever stays there – usually it’s only the duty staff or Others from out of town who are here on business.

There are other levels below that, starting with the artefacts repository and archives and ending with the holding cells. But that’s a whole different story: there’s a different staircase for accessing those levels and it’s not that easy to get down there.

Kesha was allocated a room that was usually occupied by non-smokers. They dragged in a huge flat-screen TV set, two games consoles, a heap of DVDs and two sacks of toys that had been bought in the nearest branch of Children’s World. From the look of things, the staff member sent to buy the toys had no children of his own, otherwise the heap wouldn’t have been such a jumble of stuffed animals, Lego sets, remote-controlled cars and helicopters, board games that could only be played in a group and wooden toys for developing the skills of kindergarten-age tots. Kesha stood with his hands braced against his well-fed sides, gazing at the chaotic heap in mild fright.

‘Semyon, make sure that he’s fed by someone with a family, who has children,’ I said. ‘And preferably with a child less than a hundred years old. Or else they’ll bring the boy shish kebabs, beer and smoked sausage.’

‘It’s too early for him to have beer, that I understand,’ Semyon said with a nod. ‘But what’s wrong with sausage and shish kebabs? I remember one time during the Civil War, I picked up this street kid at the station – he turned out to be a Light Other. You know him, by the way, it’s . . . well, never mind that. He was skinny as hell. Anyway, I fed him up with sausage for a month! It happened in the Ukraine, they make good sausage there . . . if you fry it . . .’

‘Okay, I get the idea,’ I said, also nodding. ‘Then definitely ask one of the women to take care of the boy. Okay?’

‘I will,’ Semyon chuckled. ‘Only the boy won’t see his supper for a long time yet – the boss wanted to start teaching him the basics of magic immediately.’

I shrugged. What was all the hurry about? The child was under the protection of the entire Night Watch now. We could take our time to work out what he was capable of.

‘I’ll be off,’ I told Semyon. ‘I’ll collect my family and go home. Svetlana promised me borsch.’

‘Borsch – that’s great!’ said Semyon, breaking into a broad smile. ‘I reckon I’ll go to the canteen. I’ll get something to eat and ask the cook to knock something up for the kid.’

Our cook was a woman about forty years old. As an Other she was pretty weak, but as a cook she was outstanding. The only difference between the food in our canteen and food in Michelin-listed restaurants was the price.

‘Now that’s a good idea,’ I told him approvingly.

In the car Nadka babbled away incessantly. Firstly, she was in raptures over the portal that Gesar had opened. She knew how to open portals herself all right, but in the first place she was strictly forbidden to do it, and in the second place there was something different about Gesar’s portal. Some kind of ‘subtle energy structure’ and ‘personal selectivity’. Basically, Gesar had spent a tenth of the usual energy on opening it, and only those who were allowed could pass through it.

Secondly, Nadya felt very sorry for the little boy-Prophet. Because he lived with his mummy, but without a daddy. Because he hadn’t gone to the seaside. Because he was in the boring office without his mummy . . . although they had brought him some interesting toys – could she borrow the little helicopter to play with? Because he was too fat to be good at sports and they probably laughed at him at school.

Thirdly, Nadya was very proud that she’d given Gesar the right advice. No, she didn’t boast about it straight out, but she kept coming back to that moment . . .

Svetlana smiled gently as she listened to the chatter from the back seat. Then she said in a low voice: ‘I was very worried about you.’

‘There was a whole army of us.’

‘And what good did that do you? I don’t like these magical mystery thingamajigs.’

‘That’s pure human atavism,’ I sighed. ‘Others are supposed to love magic in all its manifestations. By the way, do you know what a Twilight Creature is?’

‘It’s the first time I ever heard of it,’ said Svetlana, shaking her head.

‘Me too . . .’

‘But I know!’ Nadya exclaimed from behind us – that incredible ability children have to hear everything interesting, even if they never shut their own mouths for a second!

‘Well?’ I asked, pricking up my ears.

‘If there are plants in the Twilight . . .’

‘What plants?’

‘Blue moss! Then there must be someone who eats it.’

‘And who generally eats moss?’ asked Sveta.

‘Deer,’ I replied automatically. ‘But this guy . . . he wasn’t anything like a deer. A bit of a maggot, maybe, but not a deer, no way . . .’

‘Anton!’

‘Now what have I said?’ I growled. Nadya started giggling. ‘We’ve got a critical situation here,’ I went on.

‘It’s not critical any longer! Someone’s hunting the boy-prophet. Well, so what? No one can stand up against the entire Watch, especially if the Dark Ones help too. Gesar will contact the Inquisition now, if he hasn’t done it already. They’ll scour the archives and find out what’s going on. It might possibly be some kind of sect. Like the Regina Brothers, remember? You’d better decide what you’d rather do – finish cooking the borsch or do Nadya’s maths with her,’ said Sveta.

‘I choose the maths,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know how to cook borsch.’

A sect . . . Maybe it really could be. One that had been sitting quietly, doing nothing for a couple of centuries, waiting for a prophet. Maybe they wanted him to reveal the meaning of life to them. Sitting there, waiting . . . Pumping artefacts full of energy, training a hunter . . .

A good theory. Exotic, but coherent. I’d have liked to hope that was the way it really was.

NADYA AND MATHS
didn’t get along. Languages were fine, and she did the work herself on principle, without using magic. History was excellent: she found it all very interesting, both human history and Other history. She also read a lot and enjoyed it.

But she had trouble with maths.

We just about scraped through the quadratic equations (you can call me a sadist and bring in the children’s ombudsman, but she went to a school where the programme differed from the one approved by the ministry of education). My daughter closed her exercise book with a sigh of relief and climbed onto the bed with a book. I glanced quickly at the cover and decided it must be some kind of Harry Potter clone – it showed an inspired-looking boy working spells (well, that is, with his hands wreathed in blue glowing mist and his forehead wrinkled up grimly). And I went into the sitting room, picked out a Terry Pratchett book and lay down on the sofa with it.

What more could a middle-aged magician with a family want for perfect contentment at the end of a hectic day? Read about invented magicians while his wife cooks the borsch and his daughter’s doing something quiet and peaceful . . .

‘Daddy, so there really are Twilight Creatures after all?’

I looked at Nadya. What was stopping her from reading?

‘Probably. I don’t know.’

‘And they chase after Prophets?’

‘Don’t believe everything it says in fairy tales,’ I replied, turning a page. The magician Rincewind had just got himself into yet another scrape, which he would wriggle his way out of, of course. Heroes always wriggle their way out of scrapes, if the author loves them . . . and if he’s not sick of them.

‘But they’re not fairy tales!’

‘What?’ I took the book out of my daughter’s hands and opened it at the publisher’s imprint page. Aha . . . they certainly weren’t fairy tales. The Other Word publishing house. They publish books and various printed materials for Others. For Light Ones and Dark Ones, indiscriminately. Of course, they don’t produce anything really serious: genuine spells are either too secret to be printed, or they can’t survive the mechanical application of the text to paper. Some things can only be conveyed by the spoken word and by example. They print the very basics – secrecy isn’t particularly important here: if a book like this finds its way into an ordinary shop (as sometimes happens), people will think it’s a children’s book or a fantasy penned by some graphomaniac. The book was called
The Childhood of Remarkable Others
.