Sixth Watch (23 page)

I didn't argue with that.

Svetlana has a better sense of such subtle things than I do. She doesn't know, but she senses.

“Then I know absolutely nothing at all,” I said wearily. “A tie of blood. Where does that get us? Mr. Glyba can adopt me and we'll go and do the job . . .”

“Go to bed,” Svetlana said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “You need to rest.”

“And are you going to rearrange your schedule to suit me?” I asked. “It's still the afternoon here.”

“You won't bother us. Lie down and have a sleep; Nadya and I will watch TV.”

And I didn't argue with that.

My sleep was sound and calm, and I had none of those dreams that are so misleading.

Simply sleep.

It was only just before I woke that it threw up a scrap of a dream that couldn't really be called either a nightmare or a vision.

At first I was standing in my Moscow apartment, and Gesar kept trying to climb in through the window. No, he wasn't levitating and he hadn't grown wings. A fire engine brought him on its extended ladder. Gesar clambered onto the cornice and waved to me with a grin.

In the dream it seemed perfectly natural that he should arrive that way and that his goal was to have a drink with me.

But while I was walking over to the window to let Gesar in, he slipped off the cornice somehow, and he was left dangling below the window, clinging on with his fingertips. I opened the window and tried to pull my boss in, but he was too heavy. I didn't even think about magic at all, as if there was no such thing. Then I went to get a rope to tie around Gesar so I could haul him into the apartment, but when I got back I saw my boss's gaping, frightened eyes and his fingers slipping off the ledge.

An instant later, following the laws of dreams, I was falling instead of Gesar, hurtling down past the wall of the high-rise building.

But even then I didn't feel any terror. I just looked into the windows curiously.

A woman putting on lipstick in a mirror. A beautiful woman, completely naked, apart from bright-red boots and a red bow tie.

Two elderly men playing cards. The cards were rather strange, with little colored pictures and text on them. On the table in front of the men, instead of cards, there were tiny creatures. Little monster-people in strange clothes with swords and knives—none of them more than four inches tall—jumping up and down and waving their arms, fighting and falling . . .

An elderly, cultured-looking man in professorial spectacles, feeding a swallow sitting on a kitchen chair with grasshoppers.

Two little girls sitting on the floor, swaying to and fro and swinging at each other moodily with dolls. The dolls were disheveled and so were the little girls. I thought they must be in pain and on the point of tears—but the children's expressions were determined and impassive.

A fat, bald man smoking a pipe, standing in front of a huge glass cabinet full of Karlsons. All different kinds of figures, in different colors and sizes and materials.

A teenage boy standing and talking to his mother. At one point he turned toward me and I saw that it was Egor, as he was the first time I met him.

After opening my eyes I lay there without moving for a while. I
suppose I must have slept for two or three hours. A little bit more or less than that and I would still have felt short of sleep. But two or three hours was just the right amount of sleep to refresh my body and my mind. Not for long, unfortunately—only for half a day.

The room was dark, illuminated only by the feeble, glimmering colors of the television. There was a barely audible murmur of voices—Sveta and Nadya were watching something.

What strange things they are, our dreams!

Well, why would I dream of Gesar falling? Or of him climbing in through the window to have a drink with me?

And those strange people and events in the windows flying past me?

And young Egor?

Of course, if you try, you can find an explanation for everything. Gesar is trying to establish a normal human relationship with me, but things keep breaking down because of my weakness and reluctance to reach out to him in response.

The naked woman in the red boots and bow tie—that's banal, Freudian stuff. I want sex. With a dissolute stranger.

The men with the cards and the little monster-people . . . That's the Two-in-One, playing with us like puppets.

The professor feeding the swift with grasshoppers? That's . . . that's . . . well, let's say it's the futility of existence. He who is born to jump cannot fly. Except into someone else's stomach.

The little girls hitting each other—that's the Watches fighting.

The boy Egor is my guilt complex about him.

That only leaves unexplained the bald man with the pipe and the Karlsons. Well, we'll write that off as a joke of the subconscious.

For instance—it's a profoundly secret dream of mine to be bald, smoke a pipe, and collect Karlsons . . .

The television's murmuring was replaced by the lively music that plays over the credits. Then I heard a quiet woman's voice.

“A good film. My favorite film from my childhood.”

“Only it's really, really ancient,” Nadya replied skeptically. “It's not in 3-D.”

“There wasn't any 3-D then,” Svetlana said.

“But was there color? Or did they color it in afterward?”

“There was color,” Svetlana said calmly. “And in those days children were better brought up and didn't try to show off by making cheap cracks in conversations with their parents.”

“Oh, Mum . . . it was an honest question! That film we watched yesterday, about the children's camp, it was in black and white.”

“Nadenka, don't ever think you're more cunning than your parents are. I was a little girl too, and I remember very well all the thoughts you have swarming around in your head right now. And believe me, not many of them are clever ones.”

“Mum . . .”

“Why did you frighten your father and me like that?”

There was a brief pause.

“I . . . I did it for a joke.”

“Well don't joke like that anymore. All right?”

“I'm at an awkward transitional age. I'm supposed to joke like that.”

“You're only supposed to get covered in pimples. All the rest is optional. Surely you can understand that your father . . .”

I sighed noisily and stretched, then sat up on the bed.

My wife and daughter really were sitting in front of the television.

“Did I sleep for long?” I asked in fake alarm.

“Why, were you in a hurry to go somewhere?” Svetlana asked in surprise.

“No, but I'm cut off from everything here. Like you. What if Gesar's looking for me?”

Svetlana shook her head skeptically.

“Take it from me, Gesar would find a way to get through to you, no matter how cut off you might be. He would appear in your dreams if necessary.”

“He would appear in my dreams,” I echoed. “Aha.”

I got up and went to the bathroom. I came out a minute later, drying my face with a towel.

Svetlana gave me a knowing look.

“Well, did he actually?”

“He appeared in my dreams,” I confirmed. “I'll go and check right away. When should I come to visit you?”

“It's almost eight in the evening now,” said Svetlana. “You'll come to us . . .”

She paused for a moment. Nadya and I glanced at each other. Svetlana didn't have moments of prescience all that often, but if they concerned family matters, her foresights were always unerringly accurate.

“You'll come to us at one in the afternoon,” Svetlana said after her brief hesitation. Her face rapidly turned pale. “Yes. At one o'clock . . . in the afternoon. Tomorrow.”

Svetlana and I had understood everything.

I would come the next day at one o'clock.

I would definitely come.

If I was still alive, of course.

But apparently that wasn't definite at all.

“Well, see you tomorrow,” I said.

Sveta nodded and whispered with just her lips: “See you tomorrow.”

“ 'Bye, Dad!” Nadya called to me from in front of the television. “And I don't agree to spend the rest of my adolescence stuck in here!”

“All right, I'll bear that in mind,” I called back, keeping my eyes fixed on Svetlana. “Shall I say hi to Kesha?”

“Oh, Dad!” my daughter said indignantly. “We've been through that already!”

“I'm serious.”

“Then say hi, of course,” Nadya answered warily.

I nodded to Svetlana.

“See you. I'll grab some potatoes tomorrow.”

Sveta smiled. With an effort, but she smiled.

“And onions,” she said.

“And even carrots,” I promised. “Everything will be all right. I'm feeling great. Bursting with energy and ready for great deeds.”

“That's because Mum and I pumped you full of Power,” Nadya boasted. “I collected it and Mum poured it into you.”

“Well, I've really got it made!” I exclaimed, opening the portal. “I even envy myself!”

I thought I heard the phone ring at the very moment I was stepping through the portal.

AT NIGHT THE BUSINESS CENTER WAS AS WIDE AWAKE AS IT WAS
in the daytime. The same kind of girls were sitting at the desk in the vestibule, I came across the same kind of security men along the way, and the same kind of inconspicuous Eastern-looking women in security service uniforms were washing the floors and scrubbing the panels of the walls.

“What an invigorating working atmosphere!” I said. “Eh?”

“You're really full of energy, I can see that,” Olga muttered gruffly.

“Listen, you're the one who told me to take a rest!”

“I did,” Olga admitted gloomily. “And I got a full-scale tongue-lashing for that from Gesar. Especially when he realized that he couldn't find you.”

“Hidden better than anyone else,” I said. “I'm proud of myself.”

“Don't be. Gesar almost reached you. He said he could feel your dream. And if he had a few days, he would have gotten to you.”

We walked into the elevator and I shook my head.

“That's bad. Very bad. So this . . . Double What's His Name . . .”

Olga snorted.

“Ah!” I said, slapping myself on the head. “The Two-in-One!”

“Oh yes, he's no weaker than Gesar is.” Olga sighed. “But he doesn't know you, Sveta, and Nadya so well. It will be harder for those two to find them.”

“You say that as if you're certain that they're not our friends and not our enemies, but something completely different.”

“That's the way it is, Anton. The Twilight gutted them and filled them with something new. They're nothing but a facade.”

“Then why not us? Why didn't Svetlana and I become the Twilight's instrument? Nadya wouldn't even have tried to resist, she wouldn't have understood what had happened.”

As I said it, my blood ran cold. I imagined something pitiless, implacable, and irresistible erasing me and my personality. Or even worse, leaving it somewhere on the bottom of my soul, floundering and screaming in helpless horror. And then “I”—this gutted and altered “I”—go with an equally false Sveta to kill Nadezhda . . .

“There are rules for everything,” Olga said. Her expression was severe and stubborn, as usual. “Apparently it can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe it's beyond its power to embody itself in those it wants to kill. Maybe someone has to possess some particular feature in order to become the embodiment of the Twilight.”

I nodded. She was probably right.

The elevator stopped and we walked out into a lobby. Straight toward the somber Day Watch security men—two battle magicians and a werewolf.

Apparently in order to save time, the werewolf was already in the form of an immense wolf.

“What if some casual passerby looks in?” I asked reproachfully, nodding at the wolf.

“We've got a permit for him,” one of the magicians replied politely. “An Irish wolfhound, trained for security work.”

“Although he actually failed the training course, couldn't understand it all.” The other magician sighed.

The werewolf growled.

The magicians laughed.

Well, that's the way Dark Ones are.

Not very bright.

We were expected and no one even bothered to check our ID, fingerprints, auras, and the rest of it. Or rather, they probably did check them all, but not so that we would notice. Maybe it was in the elevator—it seemed to take a long time getting up here.

An Asian-looking girl magician (Japanese? Korean? Chinese?) led us from reception to Zabulon's office, opened the door, let us in, and stayed outside. She looked like a sweet, innocent girl, but I sensed that she was a Second-Level Battle Magician, and an old, experienced one at that, who had fought plenty of battles. I hadn't heard about her before. Zabulon had brought her in from somewhere far away.

“Anton,” said the Great Dark One, smiling genially as he got up from behind his desk. “I'm so glad to see you! Olga! You're looking great!”

I looked around curiously.

While Zabulon had put his employees in a glass aquarium and chosen a somewhat calmer interior for the meeting room, he had kept his office in classical English style.

Wooden panels on the walls (with so many spells pumped into the wood that they were almost splitting apart from the Power trying to force its way out). The ceiling was also paneled in dark wood and old fabric wall covering. The furniture was very old, no doubt the work of some famous craftsman, but the only master craftsman I know is Chippendale, and only from the cartoon series.

The windows in the office were covered with sumptuous curtains of red velvet with tassels—probably the last thing you expect to find in a modern glass-and-metal business center.

Zabulon already had a visitor—a delightful, red-haired girl in severe round glasses. The girl was wearing a gray pantsuit that made her look like a businesswoman—but a very attractive and sexy businesswoman.

The only thing wrong was that this woman was over two hundred years old, and for two centuries of that time she had already been dead.

“Ekaterina,” I said briefly, nodding to the Master of the vampires of Moscow.

“Anton,” she replied, smiling with the corners of her lips. Then she frowned. She sniffed demonstratively, got up, and glided across (this word describes the process far more accurately than “walked over”) to me.

“Careful now, my dear,” Olga said in a voice as cold as ice.

“Don't treat me like a fool, Great One,” Ekaterina replied without even looking at Olga. She leaned her head down to my neck and examined my skin closely for a few seconds.

“Have you seen everything?” I asked.

Ekaterina moved away from me to the desk and sat on the faded greenish-bronze leather of the desktop. There was total and absolute puzzlement in her eyes.

“Who?” she asked, and I imagined I heard envy and admiration in the voice of the Master of Vampires. “Who, Higher One?”

“It's not important,” I replied. “Not important at all anymore.”

“I see,” Ekaterina said with a nod, keeping her eyes fixed on my neck. “But nonetheless, how . . . unusual.”

I squinted at Zabulon. I still hadn't told the Dark One what had happened to his protégée. But the Great Magician's face remained impassive. Either he knew that the ancient vampire was dead, or he didn't give a damn. Or he was used to concealing any emotions.

“You don't like us,” Ekaterina said with a note of sadness in her voice. “You don't respect us.”

“Why do you say that? I've even had friends who were vampires,” I replied.

“So I've heard,” she said with a nod. “Only they all ended up the same way.”

“We all end up the same way,” I pointed out.

“Break!” Zabulon announced, clapping his hands. “I'd happily listen to your sparring, but we don't have that much time . . . how much do we have, by the way?”

Ekaterina raised her arm in an elegant movement and looked at
something made of pink gold and diamonds running around her wrist that could just about have been mistaken for a watch.

“The gathering starts in ten hours. It's in New York, and all our important events are traditionally tied to midnight. If I'm going by plane, it's time I was on my way to the airport, Zabulon.”

“I'll open a portal for both of you,” the Dark One said.

“We still haven't agreed on ‘both of us,'” said Ekaterina, glancing at me. “That wasn't simply taunting or sparring. All the vampires who have become involved with this young man have ended badly.”

“It's your damned vampire god who tried to kill my family,” I said. “I have a right to be annoyed.”

Ekaterina snorted.

“I'm no supporter of old legends, wild gods, and ancient covenants. As far as I'm concerned, the Two-in-One can burn in hell. I'm happy with my”—she hesitated for a moment—“my afterlife. Beautiful young men, sweet blood, modern art. I haven't finished watching
Castle
yet, you know!”

Behind me Olga laughed quietly.

“Well, to stop the entire world going to hell, we have to choose a Master of Masters,” I said.

“A Master of Masters,” Ekaterina said with a frown.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “A Master of Masters. We want to help with that.”

“How?” the vampiress asked. “There'll be fifty of us Masters at the gathering. And let me tell you right away, I have no claims on the leading role. I couldn't handle it. But you know how our Master of Masters is chosen, don't you?”

“Yes, I do,” I said.

“Then you understand that none of us are consumed with the desire to die . . . finally and completely.”

“But then everyone will die,” I said. “The people, the animals . . .”

“The little mousies, the birdies.” Ekaterina snorted.

“You mean you don't believe it?”

“I believe it, Anton,” said the vampiress, leaning forward slightly
and looking into my eyes. “These are our . . . fables. Our dark fables. We remember the god of Light and Darkness . . .”

“But if you're going to die anyway!”

“Even so, we want to live a few days longer,” Ekaterina said with a smile. “And apart from that, misery loves company. Believe me, it's a lot easier to die, knowing that the whole world is dying with you.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

The vampiress looked into my eyes, then looked away. And then she spoke in a peevish nagging voice, the illusion of youth had disappeared completely.

“Nothing will come of it. No one will agree. I can take you with me. The circumstances are exceptional, I'll find some explanation for my actions. But it won't get us anywhere!”

“Let's give it a try!” Olga said with a sudden note of warmth in her voice. “Come on, Katerina, keep your chin up!”

“Go to hell, you scheming . . .” The vampiress gestured with her hand and didn't finish what she was saying. “Everyone's flailing about, but it's pointless. Light One, I want three licenses.”

“All right,” Olga said calmly.

“A man about twenty-five years old, fit, pumped, and ripped,” Ekaterina went on. “Only he mustn't use steroids; I'm careful with my health.”

Zabulon looked at me curiously. I yawned and looked at Ekaterina.

“The second one. Make him a Caucasian type. Hot-blooded and young. Eighteen to twenty years old. And a boy too, fifteen or sixteen years old. Blond. He has to be a virgin.”

Olga spoke again in the same calm voice.

“Do you have any other requests?”

“Well, you know my tastes,” Ekaterina said with a shrug. “Except . . . make them all from the Central District; we haven't got much time.”

“I know your tastes,” Olga agreed.

She lowered her hand into her handbag and took out a bundle of
forms. I think there were seven or eight of them. Olga separated out three and handed them to the vampiress.

“Agh, I was too modest!” Ekaterina sighed, watching the other sheets of paper disappear with a disappointed expression.

“As you quite rightly remarked, we don't have much time,” Olga reminded her.

“Well, that's true,” Ekaterina said with a nod. “Well then . . . see you soon.”

“Eight hours from now, at this spot,” Zabulon said in a quiet voice. “And bear in mind that if you're late, I'll drag you to New York myself, on time, but by a different route. One that you won't like at all.”

“I won't be late,” the vampiress said without looking back.

The door closed behind her. I looked around for a more comfortable chair and sat in the one that had been occupied by the vampiress.

“You've changed,” Zabulon said, looking at me. “You've really changed.”

I shrugged.

“I liked the old Gorodetsky more,” Zabulon added. “So sincerely uncompromising.”

“Oh come on,” said Olga, sitting down and taking out a cigarette. “You liked him . . . Let's all burst into tears of tender emotion. Zabulon has fond feelings for Gorodetsky.”

“Nonetheless, Anton, surely you were outraged by the vampire's behavior?” said Zabulon, continuing to probe. “She's going to kill two young men now. And then a boy as well!”

“I feel very sorry for the pure, organic beefcake, the passionate Caucasian, and the innocent blond boy,” I said. “But in a few days all the beefcakes, Caucasians, and blond-haired boys in the world could die. And if the death of three innocents will save the world, then so be it.”

“So you're no longer trying to solve the problem of a child's tears?” Zabulon asked merrily, slumping back in his chair. “So now you're looking at the problem of Omelas?”

“Stop talking gibberish, Dark One,” Olga said in a tired voice. “Have you really been sniffing some kind of junk? You're garrulous and jittery, Dark One.”

“Yes, Olga. I'm jittery and garrulous. I sense death ahead and I'm afraid. I don't want to die, Olga. So I'm keeping cheerful any way I can. And I haven't slept for two nights now. I close my eyes and see a void. It's waiting for me, Olga.”

“The same thing's waiting for us,” Olga replied. “Stop being hysterical. Let's think it through one more time. We only have one try.”

“But why hasn't the wise Gesar come?” asked Zabulon, narrowing his eyes. “It's his idea—but we have to make it work?”

“He's at the Sabbath,” Olga replied. “He's going to try to persuade the witches to choose a Great Grandmother.”

“Oh! You took the risk of letting your husband go to a den of iniquity like that, full of lecherous old . . .” Zabulon began. He stopped and cleared his throat. “All right, I'll keep quiet.”

“I'm here for Gesar. He told me everything he thought up,” Olga said, after waiting for Zabulon to be quiet. “We have eight hours, right? I suggest working for four or five hours, then getting a bit of sleep. Can you come up with beds and a shower here?”