The Day Watch (24 page)

Well, let’s put it this way: He wanted something that was unacceptable even to a hooker. And this is the result.”

“Shagron, you can’t unload this on the human cops, because she killed him when she was in her Twilight form.

Like it or not, the Watches are involved. So tell me straight: Are you going to carry out an investigation or will you force us to deal with it? And don’t even hope that you can just drag things out. We want Saturday’s vampire and this cat up in front of a tribunal, and before next weekend. Do you understand our demands?” The skinny young guy was leaning on Shagron, insisting on his rights, and he obviously enjoyed doing it, as an Other who didn’t often get involved in showdowns. And he seemed to have justification for putting on the pressure…

“These lousy, lecherous cats,” the scaly one suddenly muttered. “Brainless bitches…”

“Shut up,” the Light girl told him coldly. “You overgrown gecko.”

Ah, yes, she was a cat too, even though she was Light…

“Cool it, Tiger Cub,” Gorodetsky said to her. Then he turned to the Dark magician again. “Do you understand our demands?”

At this point I returned to the first level of the Twilight. To describe the seconds that followed as a dumb show would be a gross understatement.

“You!” the girl gasped. “You again!”

“Buenos noches, lady and gentlemen. Pardon me, I saw the light, so I just dropped in.”

“Anton, Tolik,” Tiger Cub said in a ringing voice that trembled slightly, pointing one finger at me in a childish manner. “Andriukha found him standing over the vampire’s victim on Saturday! This Dark One from Ukraine!”

All five of them carried on staring straight at me.

“I hope,” I said ironically, “that I don’t resemble a shape-shifting hooker any more than I do a crazy vampire?”

“Who are you?” the Dark magician, the one they called Shagron, asked in a hostile voice.

“A magician, dear colleague. A Dark magician. From out of town.”

When he tried to probe me, I could tell that if I hadn’t yet climbed up the next step, then I was right there in front of it. He didn’t get anywhere. And meanwhile I noticed that Shagron’s defenses were not entirely his own-I could sense a framework that had been put together by a top-class magician. Probably the famous chief who wasn’t in Moscow at the moment.

“A second murder, and here you are again,” Tolik drawled suspiciously, also making an attempt to probe me-quite unsuccessfully, as I noted with some satisfaction. “I don’t like it. Perhaps you would care to explain?”

Tolik certainly looked annoyed, but now he was behaving correctly, and that suited me just fine. He was obviously the leader of the three Light Ones and now he was busily thinking over the possible courses of action. There seemed to be plenty of choice.

“Yes, I would,” I agreed readily. “I was out strolling not far from here. I sensed something bad going on. And I came to see if I could do anything to help.”

“Do you work in the Watch back home in Ukraine?” the scaly one asked unexpectedly.

“No.”

“Then how can you help?”

“Who knows?” I said with a shrug.

Of course, the scaly one’s tongue was long and forked. Our people’s imagination is certainly pretty limited. You’d think the Twilight image of a Dark One offered plenty of scope for fantasy-unlike what the Light Ones have, which is just a standard outfit: a luminescent glow and white clothes. The more sentimental ones, mostly the women, have a white garland as well. But even so… almost all the Dark Ones go for the old worn-out cliche of a scaly demon with horns and a forked tongue.

“Of course, you have nothing at all to do with these murders?” the girl said with poorly concealed sarcasm.

“Naturally.”

“I don’t trust him,” said the girl and turned away. “Anton, you have to probe him.”

“We will,” Anton replied without thinking. “When we get back I’ll personally request all the data on him…”

I laughed ironically.

“All right. If you don’t want any help, I don’t mind. I’m not going to impose myself on you. I’ll be going then…”

I started toward the door.

“Hey, Dark One,” Tolik said to my back. “I’d advise you not to leave Moscow. That’s an official ban from the Night Watch.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” I promised. “In any case, I wasn’t planning to leave…”

“I’ll go with you,” Tolik said to Anton and Tiger Cub. “I have something to say to you.”

Anton thought gloomily that he must have done a bad job cleaning up again-for some reason this strange Dark One’s words had really stung him. Tiger Cub had imitated the stranger’s way of speaking very precisely, right down to the intonation pattern, and when Anton saw the Dark One, he was convinced yet again that Tiger Cub had the makings of a skillful actress. Who could tell what she might have been if she hadn’t been an Other…

Shagron and his partner had driven off in their fancy BMW a long time ago. Tolik reached out his hand demandingly and Anton obediently gave him the keys to the office Zhiguli. Tiger Cub got into the back without speaking. Anton sat beside Tolik, who drove rapidly out onto Sirenevy Boulevard and headed east.

“Who is he, this Dark One?” Anton asked to break the silence. He was in a foul mood. Another body-and this time an uninitiated Other!

“He’s a very powerful magician,” Tolik said abruptly. “More powerful than me. I tried to probe him and I failed-he closed up instantly.”

“Closed up?” Tiger Cub said in an excited voice from the back. “You mean he came without a shield?”

“That’s just the point,” Tolik exclaimed gloomily. “When he came in, he looked exactly like an ordinary magician, maybe third or fourth level. Like me and Anton.”

Anton didn’t say anything-strictly speaking, Tolik was incorrect, but in essence he was right. Gesar had called Anton a second-level magician, but Anton’s powers had only risen to that level on a few occasions. It would be more honest to admit that for the time being he was still third level.

“But as soon as I tried to probe him,” Tolik went on, “that was it. A blank wall. He’s definitely more powerful than me. Anton. Did you try to probe him?”

“No.”

“Looks like he’s first level…” Tolik, said with a sigh. “If it comes to it, we’ll have to call in Ilya…”

“I’m afraid we might even have to call in Olga and Sveta and the boss,” Anton remarked. Nobody answered him.

Nobody liked the
i.e.
of asking the Higher Magicians for help.

Tiger Cub started squirming about, making herself more comfortable on the seat. “There’s no way he’s not connected with these murders. I can understand the first time-he arrived in Moscow, went out for a walk, and accidentally stumbled across a poacher. But this time? What was he doing on Pervo-maiskaya Street?”

“But did he definitely arrive on Saturday?” Tolik asked.

“Definitely,” Tiger Cub assured him. “I didn’t like the look of him, you know? I even found the train he was on and scanned the conductress for memories. He almost never came out of his compartment, but he was on the train all right.”

“And do we have anything on him?”

Anton thought he caught a hint of concealed hope in Tolik’s question: “Compromising material, you mean? Not a thing. Not a single violation. He doesn’t need any licenses, he’s not a vampire or a shape-shifter. And he was only initiated fairly recently, just seven years ago… Like me.”

Tolik nodded thoughtfully. “There aren’t many Others in Nikolaev. So the Watches are small as well, only twenty or thirty agents…”

“Okay, when we get back, I’ll dig a bit deeper,” Anton promised. “Did you lock up your station wagon, eh?”

“What’s going to happen to it?” Tolik asked with a shrug. “Yes, we’ll have to phone the boss after all. Or will we be able to handle this on our own?”

He was obviously feeling uncomfortable. Tolik had been in charge of the IT department for more than a year now, since Anton made the move to operational work. But no member of the Night Watch has the right to let his qualifications slip-and the time had come around for Tolik’s month of field duty.

And on the very first day there was an unpleasant incident like this…

“We’ll probably have to tell him,” Anton decided.

“Then there’s no point in putting it off…” Tolik sighed.

Tiger Cub eagerly held out her cell phone, but before Tolik could even touch it the phone started chirping the tune of “Midnight in Moscow.”

Anton was about to take the phone, but he restrained himself. You never know… It was obviously one of their own calling, but he couldn’t sense the tense, nervous energy of a work call. Maybe it was simply some member of the

Watch calling Tiger Cub? Everybody had a personal life, even the members of the Watch.

Tiger Cub took the call. Most of the time she just listened, and once she said, “I don’t know.”

“It’s Garik,” she explained in a voice filled with quiet alarm. “Andriukha’s disappeared.”

“Tiunnikov?”

“Yes. Garik thought he was with us.”

“The last time I saw him was this afternoon,” Tolik told her. “He was planning to go and catch up on his sleep.”

“His phone’s not answering. Garik can’t sense him either-and he’s Andriukha’s mentor…”

Anton turned toward Tiger Cub: “After Saturday he was like a man possessed. What did that Dark One say to him in the alley?”

Tiger Cub shrugged. “Nothing specialI’ve told you a hundred times already. He called him a detective. But Andriukha really had screwed up-it was obvious straightaway that the Dark One was no vampire. I explained that to him myself.”

“He doesn’t have to be a vampire,” Tolik declared in a bored, didactic voice. “This Dark One could quite easily be the organizer of the whole grisly mess. And it goes without saying that his organizational talents are clearly above average!”

“One of Zabulon’s pawns,” Anton mused. “Yes, it’s possible. Perfectly possible.”

“Aim a bit higher. Not a pawn, not even a knight or a rook. A bishop. A serious piece. Maybe even a queen…”

“Tolik, don’t exaggerate. Without Zabulon there’s no way the Dark Ones can match us. And Zabulon’s not in Moscow.”

“That’s what the Dark Ones say. But who knows what the truth is…”

“Zabulon hasn’t shown his face much at all recently,” Anton put in.

“That’s just it. He’s been keeping quiet, planning an operation… The lousy thing is that I can’t imagine what its objectives are. What do we have so far? Two suspicious killings, with absolutely no
i.e.
of how they’re connected.”

“If they are connected at all,” said Anton, but even he didn’t seem to believe his own words.

“No, say what you like, but they’re connected,” Tolik insisted stubbornly. “I can sense it. And the link is that magician from out of town.”

“Why bother thinking about it?” Tiger Cub asked. “Since Svetlana appeared we’ve had a substantial advantage.

The Dark Ones have yielded one position after another-remember how the boss put the pressure on Zabulon at the last round of negotiations? And Zabulon gave way-what other choice did he really have? It looks as if the Dark Ones have launched an operation to restore the balance. But the timing’s terrible-just before Clean Week…”

“For the Dark Ones that’s the best possible time,” Anton growled. “They know we won’t start anything serious without a good reason. But so far there doesn’t seem to be any reason.”

“Be careful what you say…” Tolik told him in a pained voice.

The Zhiguli flew on along Leningradsky Prospect, overtaking the advancing dawn.

They drove the rest of the way to the office without saying another word. Either no one wanted to predict the worst, or they all felt they were in for something serious.

Garik was standing outside the entrance, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. And Ilya was there beside him, short of sleep and squinting out from behind his spectacles.

“Right,” Tolik said cheerlessly. “Brace yourselves.”

Ilya and Garik quickly got into the car, squeezing Tiger Cub from both sides, and Anton immediately realized why they’d got in like that, and what the pale, furious, and therefore very restrained Garik would say next…

“The Cosmos Hotel. Andriukha’s dead, guys…”

Tolik slammed the accelerator to the floor, but even the most powerful car isn’t fast enough to overtake death.

Tiger Cub jerked feebly, squeezed tight between her friends, and then froze.

“How did it happen?” Anton asked in a dull voice.

“That Dark One-Vitaly Rogoza-just phoned. He said he’d found the body of an Other in his room.”

“I’ll personally bite his throat out,” Tiger Cub promised in a hoarse voice. “And don’t you try to stop me!”

“I phoned Bear just in case,” Ilya said in a very neutral tone. “I think he’s already in the Cosmos.”

Anton got the
i.e.
that his colleagues had understood everything in advance and come to terms with the fact that a fight was inevitable. He secretly stroked the pistol in the holster under his armpit-the weapon that had never been any real use to him even once.

I had a nagging feeling that the events of the night were still far from over. I felt I was just beginning to be able to foresee the immediate future. Not in detail-far from it, in fact-more as a tangled ball of probability threads. But I had begun to sense where the thickest strands were leading.

Alarm, trouble, disaster, danger-that was what the night had in store for me. At first I thought I would wait for the

Dark Ones downstairs, beside their BMW outside the entrance, but then I realized I shouldn’t do that. I shouldn’t enlighten them as to… well, as to my total ignorance. Let them think that I really was playing a game. The chief of the Day Watch was out of town, and the others didn’t seem to be any competition for me…

But just who was I? Wasn’t I aiming too high? Was Moscow so short of powerful magicians? Even if they didn’t work in the Watches? I couldn’t keep being led on up the steps forever, could I?-there are no infinite stairways.

Some way would be found to keep me in check-the Moscow magicians had plenty of experience, many of them had an entire century of it. And I didn’t really know what I could do and what I couldn’t. I was still an unknown quantity. And how did I know my Power wouldn’t evaporate just as miraculously as it had appeared?