The Night Watch (47 page)

'Some people believe,' the seer said contentedly, 'that the more blood there is in a potion, the stronger it will be. It's not true. The blood in it has to be good quality, but the quantity makes no difference at all . . .'

The medicine woman opened the fridge and took out a fifty-gram bottle of Privet vodka. Natasha remembered her driver calling that kind of vodka 'the reanimator'.

A few drops of the vodka went onto a wisp of cotton wool that was wound round Natasha's little finger. The medicine woman held the bottle out to Natasha.

'Want some?'

Natasha suddenly had a vivid vision of herself waking up the next morning – somewhere at the far end of the city, robbed, raped and not remembering a single thing about what had happened. She shook her head.

'Well, I'll have a drop.' Darya raised the 'reanimator' to her lips and drained the vodka in a single gulp. 'That's a bit easier . . . for working. And you, you've no reason to be afraid of me. I don't make my living by robbing people.'

The last few remaining drops of vodka also went into the little brown bottle. And then, quite unperturbed by Natasha's curious gaze, the seer added salt, sugar, hot water from the kettle and a little powder with a strong smell of vanilla.

'What is that?' asked Natasha.

'Have you got a cold? It's vanilla.'

The medicine woman held the little bottle out to her.

'Take it.'

'Is that all?'

'Yes, that's it. You get your husband to drink it. Can you manage that? You can put it in tea, or even in vodka – but that's not the best way.'

'But where's the . . . magic?'

'The magic?'

Natasha felt like a fool again. Her voice almost broke into a shout as she said:

'This is a drop of my blood, a drop of vodka, sugar, salt and vanilla!'

'And water,' Darya added. She put her hands on her hips and looked at Natasha ironically. 'What did you expect? Dried eye of toad? Oriole's testicles? Or for me to blow my nose into it? What do you want – ingredients or effect?'

Natasha didn't answer, overwhelmed. And Darya continued, no longer trying to conceal her mockery: 'My dear girl, if I'd wanted to impress you, then I would have done. Have no doubt about it. What matters is not what's in the bottle, but who made it. Don't you worry, go home and give it to your husband. Will he be coming round again?'

'Yes ... in the evening, he phoned to say he'd come and collect a few things . . .' she mumbled.

'Let him collect them, only you give him some tea. Tomorrow he'll bring the things back again. That is, if you let him in, of course.' Darya laughed. 'All right then . . . There's one more thing we need to do. Do you take this sin on yourself?'

'I do.' Natasha suddenly realised that she no longer felt entirely able to laugh at what she had said. There was something here that wasn't funny. The seer had made her promise far too seriously. And if her husband did come back tomorrow . . .

'Your word, my deed . . .' Darya slowly drew her hands apart and began speaking rapidly: 'Red water, others' grief and rotten seed and evil breed . . . What was is no more, what was not will not be . . . Return to the void, you are dissolved without trace, by my will, at my word . . .'

Her voice fell to an incoherent whisper. She continued to move her lips for a minute. Then she clapped her hands hard.

It must have been a trick of the imagination but Natasha thought she felt a gust of icy-cold wind blow through the kitchen. Her heart started pounding, she felt a shiver run down her spine.

Darya gave her head a shake, looked at Natasha and nodded:

'That's all. Go now, my dear. Go home, my daughter, and wait for your husband.'

Natasha got up. She asked:

'But what . . . when do I ... ?'

'When you get pregnant, you'll remember about me yourself. I'll wait for three months . . . and then if I'm still waiting – don't blame me . . .'

Natasha nodded. She swallowed hard to keep down the lump that had risen in her throat. Somehow she now believed utterly in everything the seer had promised . . . and at the same time, it was painfully clear to her that in three months' time, if everything really did work out, she would be reluctant to pay the woman. She would be tempted to put it all down to coincidence . . . why should she give this filthy charlatan five thousand dollars?

And yet she realised that she would. She might drag it out until the very last day, but she would bring her the money.

Because she would remember the clap of those unmanicured hands and that wave of cold that had suddenly spread through the kitchen.

'Go now,' the seer repeated with gentle insistence. 'I still have to cook supper and clean up the apartment. Go on, go on . . .'

Natasha went out into the dark hall, took off the slippers with a sigh of relief and put on her shoes. Her tights seemed to have survived the ordeal . . . that was certainly more than she'd dared hope for . . .

She looked back at the seer and tried to find the right words. Should she thank her, ask her about some detail, maybe even make a joke – if she could manage to, of course . . .

But Darya had completely forgotten her. The seer's eyes were wide open and she was staring at the closed door, feebly waving her hands through the air in front of her as she whispered:

'Who . . . who . . . who?'

The next moment the door behind Natasha opened with a sudden crash and the hall was instantly full of people: two men were holding the seer firmly by the arms and another had walked quickly through into the kitchen – without looking around him first: he obviously knew the layout of the apartment very well. A young, black-haired girl had appeared beside Natasha. All the men were dressed in a simple and somehow deliberately inconspicuous manner: T-shirts and the same shorts that ninety per cent of the male population of Moscow was wearing in this incredible heat. Natasha suddenly had the frightening thought that clothes like that were something like the unobtrusive grey suits worn by agents of the special services.

'That's awful,' the girl said, looking at Natasha and shaking her head. 'How disgusting, Natalya Alexeevna.'

Unlike the men, she was dressed in dark jeans and a denim jacket. She had a sparkling pendant on a silver chain round her neck and several massive silver rings on her fingers – fancy, complicated rings with dragons' heads and tigers' heads, intertwined snakes and patterns that looked like the letters of a strange, mysterious alphabet.

'What do you mean?' Natasha asked in a dull voice.

Instead of answering, the girl unzipped Natasha's purse and took out the little bottle. She held it up in front of Natasha's eyes. And then she shook her head again in reproach.

'Got it!' shouted the young man who had gone into the kitchen. 'It's all here, guys.'

One of the men holding the seer by the arms sighed and said in a strangely bored tone:

'Darya Leonidovna Romashova! In the name of the Night Watch, you are under arrest.'

'What watch?' There was an obvious note of puzzlement, as well as panic, in the seer's voice. 'Who are you?'

'You have the right to respond to our questions,' the young man went on. 'Any magical action on your part will be regarded as hostile and punished without any warning. You have the right to request the settlement of your human obligations. You are accused of . . . Garik?'

The young man who had gone into the kitchen came back out. As if she were dreaming, Natasha noticed that he had an intellectual, thoughtful, rather sad kind of face. She had always rather liked men like that . . .

'I suppose it's the usually,' said Garik. 'The illegal practice of black magic. Third- or fourth-degree intervention in the consciousness of other individuals. Murder, tax evasion – but that's not for us, that's for the Dark Ones.'

'You are accused of the illegal practice of black magic, inter- vention in the consciousness of others and murder,' the man holding Darya repeated. 'You will come with us.'

The seer gave a long, piercing, terrifying scream. Natasha involuntarily glanced at the open door. Of course, it would be naïve to hope that the neighbours would come running to help, but they could call the police, couldn't they?

The strange visitors didn't react to the scream. The girl only frowned and nodded in Natasha's direction:

'What shall we do with her?'

'Confiscate the potion and wipe her memory clean.' Garik looked at Natasha without a hint of sympathy. 'Let her believe there was no one in the apartment when she got here.'

'And that's all?' the girl took a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one casually.

'Katya, what other choice is there? She's a human being, how can we do anything with her?'

This wasn't even frightening any more. It was a dream, a nightmare . . . and Natasha reacted as if she were dreaming. With a sudden movement she grabbed the precious bottle from the girl's hand and dashed towards the door.

She was flung back as if she had run into an invisible wall. She shrieked as she fell at the seer's feet, the bottle went flying out of her hand and shattered easily against the wall. A tiny patch of sticky, colourless liquid appeared on the lino.

'Tiger Cub, pick up the pieces for the report,' Garik said calmly.

Natasha burst into tears.

No, she wasn't afraid, although Garik's tone of voice left no doubt that they really would wipe her memory clean. They'd clap their hands or something like that and wipe it clean. And she would find herself standing out in the street, firmly convinced that the seer's door had never opened.

She cried as she watched her love dribble across the dirty floor.

Someone stuck their head in through the open door to the landing. 'We've got company, guys!' Natasha heard an alarmed voice say, but she didn't even look round. There was no point. She was going to forget it all anyway. It would all be shattered into sharp little fragments and soak away into the dirt.

For ever.

I
NEVER
have enough time to get ready in the morning. I can get up at seven, or even at six, but I still always need another five minutes.

Why is it always like that, I wonder?

I was standing in front of the mirror, quickly putting on my lipstick. And as always happens when you're in a hurry, the lipstick was going on unevenly, as if I was a schoolgirl who'd secretly borrowed her mother's lipstick for the first time. It would have been better not to bother at all, and go out without any makeup on. I don't have any complexes about that, I look good enough without it.

'Alya!'

Here we go.

That just has to happen, doesn't it?

'What is it, Mum?' I shouted, fastening my sandals in a hurry.

'Come here, my little one.'

'Mum, I've already got my shoes on!' I shouted, adjusting a twisted strap. 'I'm late.'

'Alya!'

There was no point arguing.

Deliberately clattering my heels, although I wasn't really angry at all, I went through into the kitchen. Mum was sitting in front of the TV the way she always does and drinking yet another cup of tea with yet another cake. What is it she likes so much about those horrible Danish cakes? They're such terrible garbage! Not to mention how bad they are for your figure.

'Little one, are you going to be late again today?' Mum asked, without even turning her head in my direction.

'I don't know.'

'Alisa, I don't think you ought to put up with it. Nine to five is one thing, but keeping you there until one in the morning . . .' Mum shook her head.

'They pay for it,' I said offhandedly.

And then Mum did look at me. And her lips began to tremble.

'So you hold that against me, do you?'

My mother always did have an expressive voice, like an actress's. She should have worked in the theatre.

'Yes, we do live on your wages,' my mum said bitterly. 'The state robbed us and threw us out to die at the side of the road. Thank you, dear daughter, for not forgetting us. Your father and I are very grateful to you. But there's no need to keep reminding us . . .'

'Mum, I didn't mean anything of the kind. You know I don't have a standard working day!'

'Working day!' My mum threw her arms in the air. She had a crumb of cake on her chin. 'Working night, more like! And who knows what you get up to?'

'Mum . . .'

Of course, she didn't really think anything of the kind. Quite the opposite, she was always proudly telling her friends what a fine, upstanding girl I was. It was just that in the morning she felt like arguing. Perhaps she'd been watching the news and she'd heard yet another awful story about our life here in Russia. Perhaps she and Dad had had a row first thing in the morning – that would be why he had left so early.

'And I've no intention of becoming a grandmother at forty!' my mum went on, following no apparent logic. What logic did she need, anyway? She'd been terrified for ages that I would get married and leave home and she'd be left on her own with my father. Or maybe she wouldn't – I'd looked at the reality lines, and it was very likely that my dad would leave her for another woman. He was three years younger than Mum, and unlike her he took care of himself.

'You'll be fifty this year, Mum,' I said. 'Sorry, I'm really in a hurry.'

When I was already in the hall, I heard my mum's voice, full of righteous indignation:

'You never did want to talk to your mother like a normal human being!'

'There was a time when I wanted to,' I muttered to myself as I headed out of the door. 'When I still was a human being I wanted to. But where were you then . . . ?'

And now I knew for sure that Mum was taking comfort in thinking about the row she would have with me in the evening. And she was dreaming of involving Dad in it too. When I thought about that, it instantly put me in a foul mood.

What kind of way to behave is that – deliberately provoking a row with someone you love? But Mum just loves to do it. And she simply doesn't understand that it's her own character that's destroyed my father's love for her.

I'll never do that to anyone.

And I won't let Mum do it either!

There was no one in the hall, but even if there was it wouldn't have stopped me. I turned back to face the door and looked at it in a particular way, with my eyes slightly screwed up ... so that I could see my shadow.

My real shadow. The one that's cast by the Twilight.

It looks as if the gloom is condensing in front of you. Until it becomes an utterly black, intense darkness, so black it would make a starless night look like day.

And against the background of that darkness you see a trembling, swirling, greyish silhouette, not quite three-dimensional but not flat either. As if it had been cut out of dirty cotton wool. Or maybe it's the other way round – a hole has been cut through the great Dark, leaving a doorway into the Twilight.

I took a step forward into the shadow and it slid upwards, enfolding my body, and the world changed.

Colours almost completely disappeared. Everything was frozen in a dark, grey blur like what appears on a television screen if you turn the colour and contrast all the way down. Sounds slowed down, leaving silence; nothing but a barely audible background rumble, as faint as the murmur of a distant sea.

I was in the Twilight.

I could see Mum's resentment blazing in the apartment. A bitter, lemon-yellow colour, mingling with her self-pity and her acid-green dislike of my dad, who had chosen the wrong time to go to the garage and tinker with his car.

And there was a black vortex slowly taking shape above Mum's head. A curse directed at someone specific, still weak, still on the level of 'I hope that job of yours drives you crazy, you ungrateful creature!' – but it was a mother's curse, and they're especially powerful and tenacious.

Oh no, my dear mother!

Thanks to your efforts Dad had a heart attack at thirty-seven and three years ago I barely managed to save him from another ... at a cost that I don't even want to remember. And now you've set your sights on me?

I reached out through the Twilight as hard as I could, so hard I got a stabbing pain under my shoulder blades, and grabbed hold of Mum's mind – it twitched and then froze.

Okay . . . now this is what we'll do . . .

I broke into a sweat, although it's always cool in the Twilight. I wasted energy that would have been useful at work. But a moment later Mum no longer remembered that she'd been speaking to me. And more generally, she was pleased that I was such a hard worker, that I was appreciated and liked at work, that I went out when it was barely light and didn't come back until after midnight.

Sorted.

Probably the effect would only be temporary; after all, I didn't want to delve too deep into Mum's mind. But at least I could count on a couple of months of peace and quiet. And so could my dad; I'm my dad's daughter – I love him much more than I do my mum. It's only kids who can't tell you who they love more, their mum or their dad; adults have no problem answering the question . . .

When I was done, I removed the half-formed black vortex, and it drifted out through the walls, looking for someone else to attach itself to. I took a breath and cast a critical eye round the hall.

It hadn't been cleaned for a long time. The blue moss had crept back over everything again, and it was thickest of all round our door. That was only to be expected; with Mum's hysterical fits there was always something for it to feed on. When I was little I used to think the Light Ones planted the moss to annoy us. Then I was told that the blue moss is native to the Twilight, a parasite that lives on human emotions.

'Ice!' I commanded, flinging out my hand. The cold obediently gathered at my fingertips and ran across the walls like a stiff brush. Frozen needles of moss dropped to the floor, decaying instantly.

Take that!

That will teach you to go feeding on people's petty little thoughts!

That's real power, the power of an Other.

I emerged from the Twilight – in the human world less than two seconds had gone by – and straightened my hair. My forehead was damp, I had to take out my handkerchief and blot the sweat away. And of course, when I looked in my mirror I could see that my mascara was smudged.

I had no time to fuss over how I looked. I just threw on a light veil of attractiveness that would prevent any human being from noticing the faults in my make-up. We call them 'paranjahs', and everybody likes to tease Others who wear them, but we all do anyway. When we're short of time or we need to be absolutely sure of making a good impression, or sometimes just for fun. There's a pretty young witch from Pskov who can't really do anything right except throw on a paranjah, and she's been working as a model for three years. She makes her living from it. The only trouble is that the spell doesn't work in photographs or on video, so she has to keep turning down all the offers she gets to work in advertising . . .

Everything was against me today. The lift didn't come for ages, and the other one's been out of order for a long time now; and on my way out of the lobby I ran into Vitalik, the young guy who lives above us. When he saw me in my paranjah, he just froze with a stupid smile on his face. He's been in love with me since he was thirteen – stupidly, hopelessly, silently in love. To be honest, it's all because of my sloppy work. I was learning the love spell and decided to practise on our neighbours' little boy, since he took every chance he could get to ogle me while I was sitting on the balcony, sunbathing in my bikini. Well ... I practised. And I missed out the limiting factors. So he fell in love for ever. When he doesn't see me for a long time, it all seems to pass off, but it only takes one sight of me, and it all starts up again. He'll never be happy in love.

'Vitalik, I'm in a hurry,' I said, smiling at him.

But he just stood there, blocking the doorway. Then he decided to pay me a compliment.

'Alisa, you look really beautiful today . . .'

'Thanks.' I gently moved him aside and felt him tremble when my hand touched his shoulder. He'll probably remember that touch for a week . . .

'I've passed my last exam, Alisa!' he said quickly, talking to my back. 'That's it, I'm a student now!'

I turned and took a closer look at him.

Was this boy who still used anti-pimple lotion getting crazy ideas into his head? Was he hoping that now he'd got into college and launched into 'adult life' he could have aspirations?

'Skiving out of the army?' I asked. 'Men today have no balls. They're all wimps. They don't want to do their time and get a bit of experience, and
then
go and study.'

His smile was slowly fading. It was a wonderful sight!

'Ciao, Vitalik,' I said and skipped out into the sweltering heat of summer. But my mood was a bit better now.

These little lovesick pups are always fun to watch. They're boring to flirt with and actually having sex with them is disgusting, but just watching them is pure pleasure. I ought to give him a kiss some time . . .

But anyway, a moment later I'd entirely forgotten my lovesick neighbour. I stuck out my hand. The first car drove straight past – the driver looked at me with greedy longing in his eyes, but his wife was sitting beside him. The next car stopped.

'I'm going into the centre,' I said, leaning down towards the window. 'Manege Square.'

'Get in,' said the driver, reaching across and opening the door. He was an educated-looking man with dark hair, about forty. 'How could I refuse such a good-looking girl a lift?'

I slipped into the front seat of the old Zhiguli 9 and turned the window all the way down. The breeze hit me in the face – that was some relief at least.

'You'd have got there quicker on the metro,' the driver warned me honestly.

'I don't like the metro.'

The driver nodded. I liked him – he wasn't staring too brazenly, even though I'd obviously overdone things with the paranjah, and the car was well cared for. And he had quite beautiful hands. They were strong, and their grip on the wheel was gentle but firm.

What a shame I was in a hurry.

'Are you late for work?' the driver asked. He spoke very politely, but in a manner that was somehow personal and intimate. Maybe I ought to give him my number? I'm a free girl now, I can do what I like.

'Yes.'

'I wonder, what kind of jobs do such beautiful girls do?' It wasn't even an attempt to strike up an acquaintance or a compliment, it was genuine curiosity.

'I don't know about the others, but I work as a witch.'

He laughed.

'It's a job like any other . . .' I took out my cigarettes and my lighter. The driver gave me a fleeting glance of disapproval, so I didn't bother to ask. I just lit up.

'And what are a witch's duties?'

We turned off onto Rusakov Street and the driver accelerated. Maybe I was going to be on time after all?

'It varies,' I replied evasively. 'But basically we oppose the forces of Light.'

The driver seemed to have accepted the rules of the game, although it wasn't really a game at all.

'So you're on the side of the Shadow?'

'The Dark.'

'That's great. I know another witch, my mother-in-law,' the driver said with a laugh. 'But she's already retired, thank God. So why don't you like the forces of Light?'

I stealthily checked out his aura. No, everything was okay, he was a human being.

'They get in our way. Tell me, for instance – what's the most important thing in life for you?'

The driver thought for a second.

'Just life itself. And for nobody to stop me living it.'

'That's right,' I agreed. 'Everyone wants to be free, don't they?'

He nodded.

'Well, we witches fight for freedom too. For everyone's right to do what they want.'

'And what if someone wants to do evil?'

'That's his right.'

'But what if he infringes other people's rights in the process? Say I stab someone and infringe his rights?'

This was funny. We were straight into the classic dispute on the subject 'What is the Light and what is the Dark?' We Dark Ones and those who call themselves the Light Ones – we all brainwash our novices on this subject.