I FOUND MYSELF CHANGING MY CLOTHES WITH UNFAMILIAR HASTE.
Where was I going in such a hurry? What for? Just to get to know a guy with a cute face and pumped-up muscles? In two or three days' time any man would be mine¡ªI'd be spoiled for choice! I'm no succubus. I'm an ordinary witch, but I could already enchant a man if I liked him when I was a child and had barely learned to control Power. I only had to wait a little bit longer, and then...
But no, I couldn't wait! I put on my best underwear¡ªfar too good for a Pioneer camp leader. It should have been shown off by a model on a catwalk. And the slim silver chain with the diamond pendant, even though no one would realize they were real diamonds and not cheap artificial stones... A drop of Climat perfume behind my ears, a drop on my wrist, a drop on my pubis... was I really serious about trying to seduce him today?
Yes, I was¡ªreally serious!
And I even understood why.
I was used to relying on my abilities as an Other, whether they were appropriate or not, even when I could get by making ordinary conversation or simply asking. It would have been strange if it hadn't become a habit. But since I'd been tern-porarily deprived of my supernatural powers, why not see how I fared without them?
Could I do anything without magic?
Even something as elementary as seducing a man that I liked?
After all, I was young, beautiful, and skillful... there was the sea, a campfire on a summer evening... the pesky children had all gone to bed... surely I could manage it without any magic?
If not, then what was I worth?
I'd promised not to wear the miniskirt, but the shorts that I took out of my bag were even more provocative. I spun round in front of the mirror, examining myself. Not bad. A more revealing blouse would have been better, but there was no point in asking for trouble. This was a Young Pioneer camp, after all, not a normal resort.
I was so absorbed in all my preparations that I even missed the knock on the door. I only turned round when it creaked open and Olechka peeped into my room and started gabbling: "Alisa, we're all ready... oh!" She stared at me with admiration. With such genuine admiration that I didn't even rebuke her for entering the room without permission. "Alisa, how beautiful you are!"
I smiled proudly. It was nothing really¡ªa word of praise from a dowdy little girl who painstakingly decorated her skinny little arms with silly bead trinkets and hung a stone with a hole in it on a string around her thin neck¡ªbut even so it was pleasant... Those stones with holes in them again¡ªI was sick to death of them!
"What do you think?" I asked, "Could someone fall in love with me?"
Olechka beamed happily. She dashed over to me, put her arms around me, pressed her face into my stomach and said passionately, "He's bound to fall in love with you! As soon as he sees you he will!"
"It will be our little secret!" I said in a whisper. "All right?"
Olechka began nodding rapidly.
"Run to the girls now, I'll be out in a moment," I said. Olechka gave me one last admiring glance and skipped out of the room.
Okay. Now just a little bit of makeup. When you're in a hurry, everything always goes awry, but...
I touched up my lips quickly with my softest, least-bright lipstick, and my eyelashes with waterproof mascara. For some reason I was sure it had to be waterproof. And that was it. Enough.
I wasn't going to a concert. Just a little Pioneer brigade campfire.
Every one of the summer houses had a campfire site. It was obviously one of the Artek traditions. The impression was spoiled a bit by the fact that the wood for the campfire looked a bit too "official"¡ªit was all neatly cut blocks. I could just imagine the camp leaders turning up at the supply office and writing out a request: "Firewood for the holding of a brigade bonfire to last two hours..."
But this was no joke. I would probably have to organize something of the kind too. Write out a request, bring the wood¡ªor would the workmen deliver it? Never mind, I'd find out later.
Everything was ready: the wood had been heaped up, the boys of the fourth brigade and the girls of the seventh were sitting round it. And space had considerately been left for my charges too. How very thoughtful...
Igor was sitting beside the huge campfire with his boys swarming all over him. He was quietly strumming the strings of a guitar, and I almost groaned out loud when I realized that songs by the Russian "bards" were an integral element of parties like this. What an unfortunate instrument the guitar is! An instrument of such great nobility, a genuine monarch of music¡ªreduced to a pitiful lump of wood with six strings, constantly abused by people with no ear and no voice.
Jut I would have to put up with it.
It would just be a shame if such an attractive human specimen turned out to be one more singer without any voice or any talent. Oh, and what if he even sang his own songs? That's a real nightmare¡ªwhen someone who writes bad verse learns three chords, decides that one negative quantity multiplied by another will give a positive result, and becomes a "singer-songwriter." I've seen so many of them. When they start to sing, their eyes glaze over, their voices are filled with mysterious, romantic, manly courage, and it's absolutely impossible to stop them. Like wood grouse in the mating season! The only alternative is popular songs in the garbled renditions that are the best they can manage. Numbers by Victor Tsoi and Kino or the group Alisa... or whatever it is that young people like today.
Anyway, whatever it was, I wasn't going to like it.
When he saw us there, Igor got up to greet us and all my forebodings immediately evaporated. Yes, he was a really handsome man. "Hello." He spoke as if we were already close. "We haven't started, we were waiting for all of you."
"Thank you." I felt myself losing control. My little girls were already sitting down, elbowing the boys aside¡ªthey were a little bit wary of the older girls¡ªand I was still standing there like a fool, attracting knowing glances.
"You're a great swimmer," Igor said with a smile.
Aha!
So he had found time to look around on the beach after all.
"Thank you," I said again. What was wrong with me? I was petrified, like some naive, inexperienced girl. I didn't even need to pretend. My anger at myself immediately gave me strength. I sat down on the grass between Olechka and Natasha. My own private little guard, the spy and the adviser... But they had no interest in me right now. They were too excited by the prospect of the campfire.
"Okay, Alyoshka, begin!" Igor said in a jolly voice and threw a box of matches to a thickset boy with blond hair. The boy caught it deftly, then crawled up to the campfire on all fours and sat down with his legs crossed. It was like the preparations for some sacred ritual.
The boy took a match out of the box with meticulous precision, cupped his hands like an inveterate smoker, and struck it. He leaned over toward the fire. It didn't look as if there was any paper there to start the blaze, just pine needles and small chips of wood. Everybody held their breath.
It was a ridiculous performance. But even so, I was curious to see if the little pyromaniac would manage to light the camp-fire with one match or not.
He did. The first tongue of flame flickered in the gathering gloom. It was greeted with universal howling and squealing, as if the campfire were surrounded by a tribe of primordial humans who were freezing in the bitterly cold weather.
"Well done!" Igor reached out and shook the boy's hand and then immediately ruffled his hair with a smile. "You'll be our campfire monitor."
Alyoshka's face expressed immense pride.
Five minutes later the campfire was already blazing and the children had settled down a bit. All around they were chattering, laughing, and whispering, running away from the fire and then back again, throwing on little branches and pine cones, trying to roast pieces of sausage threaded onto twigs. The rejoicing was unconfined. Igor sat in state in the middle of the children, punctuating the conversation with phrases that sent everyone into peals of laughter, or tasting the half-burnt food, or calling back children who were getting too close to the fire. The life and soul...
Galina was besieged by her charges too. I was the only one sitting there like a total fool in the middle of the jolly crowd, giving irrelevant answers to the girls' questions, laughing belatedly when they did, and turning my eyes away the moment Igor looked in my direction.
Fool! What a fool I am! The last thing I need is to fall in love for real with a human being.
I failed to look away yet again and Igor smiled at me. He reached out and picked up a guitar off the grass. The silence spread out from him in a wave¡ªthe children nudged each other, stopped talking, and prepared to listen with a strange, affected sort of attention. I suddenly wished desperately that he would sing some kind of stupid nonsense. Maybe some old-time Young Pioneer song about potatoes roasted in the fire, the sea, the Pioneer camp, firm friendship, and the kids' readiness to enjoy themselves and to study. Anything that would dispel this idiotic enchantment, anything to stop me inventing all sorts of nonsense and seeing imaginary positive qualities in that handsome physical shell.
When Igor started to play, I realized I was done for. He could play the instrument. The melody wasn't all that complicated, but it was beautiful, and he didn't hit any wrong notes.
And then he began to sing:
Two boys saw a heavenly angel
Come flying into their attic.
Without telling anyone, the boys
Went rushing up the fire stairs...
Two boys climbed in through the window,
It was dusty, deserted and dark,
But just four steps away from the corner
A pair of white wings lay on the floor...
Yes, boys, oh yes!
Angels are not forever,
But stealing is a sin,
There aren't enough wings for everyone...
They want to soar up into the sky,
They only have to put on the wings...
But they didn't dare, they had been taught well,
They knew what was right, what was wrong.
This wasn't a song for children. Of course they listened to it quite attentively, but at that moment you could have sung them a math textbook set to guitar music¡ªanything would have been good enough. A campfire in the evening, with your favorite camp leader and his guitar¡ªin a situation like that children will like anything.
But I realized Igor was singing for me. Even if he was looking into the flames the entire time, even if the song wasn't about love, even if we'd barely spoken two words to each other. It was as if he had sensed my expectations¡ªand decided to refute them. Maybe that was what it was, I thought¡ªmany people possess powerful intuition, even if they're not Others.
Two boys grew up and they followed
Different paths through the maze of life.
One was a bandit and one was a cop,
And both of them regretted it...
Yes boys, oh yes!
Angels are not forever.
But stealing is a sin,
There aren't enough wings for everyone...
He looked at me and smiled. His fingers ran quietly across the strings again and he repeated quietly:
There aren't enough wings for everyone...
The kids started kicking up a din.
They actually seemed to like the song, though I couldn't imagine what they could have understood in it. Maybe they were amused by the phrase about "right and wrong," or maybe in their little minds they imagined a real adventure¡ªclimbing into an attic that an angel had flown into... But I thought the song fitted the Others¡ªDark Ones and Light Ones.
It was a good song. Just not quite right about one thing. The boy who would later join our side would have put on the wings. Or at least tried them on. Because for us the idea of "right and wrong" doesn't exist.
"That's a good song. But it's very serious," said Galina. "Did you write it?"
Igor laughed and shook his head: "No, afraid not. It's by Yul¨¹ Burkin. Not a very well-known singer, unfortunately."
"Igor, could you play... one of our songs?" Galina was flirting with him for all she was worth. The stupid fool...
"Sure!" Igor agreed.
He strummed the strings, striking up a jolly rhythm, and started singing simple-mindedly all about "the very, very best camp of songs and friends in all the world."
That was what they wanted. From the second couplet everybody started joining in, because it was no problem to guess what the next word would be. When they sang about the sea, and how you had to go running into it with your camp leader, because he loved "the splashing water and the sand" too, they all howled with great inspiration. Everybody was pleased, even Galina and her girls. At one point Igor sang about "a stone with a hole inside it" that was found on the seashore... as if anyone could imagine a stone with a hole outside it. I noticed that lots of the kids reached for the stones dangling around their necks.
Well, well. Faithful devotees of the chicken god! Maybe someone in Artek had a special job¡ªproducing stones with holes in them? Some drunk who never shaved, sitting in a workshop somewhere, drilling holes in stones all day long and scattering them on the beach in the evening to delight all the kids. If not, an opportunity had clearly been missed.
Igor appeared to be enjoying himself as much as the kids. He sang the song enthusiastically, except that... all the enthusiasm was for the children. Igor was amusing them, but he really felt nothing for the song one way or the other.
I relaxed.
At the very least he liked the look of me.
And I liked the look of him too.
Igor sang another couple of songs. Then Galina took over the guitar and coerced it into playing¡ªthe instrument resisted as hard as it could, flatly refusing to produce any normal sounds, but Galina still sang "Let's all hold hands, my friends" and yet another Young Pioneer song. Even the boy from the fourth brigade, who was barely strong enough to press down the metal strings, played better than she did.
Then Igor clapped his hands. "All right! Now we'll put the fire out and go for supper!"
They brought two buckets of water from somewhere and he began dousing the glowing embers.
I stood there for a while, following his sparse, precise movements. Igor looked as if he'd spent his entire life putting out campfires. Probably he did everything like that¡ªplaying the guitar, putting out fires, working on his computer, caressing a woman. Precisely. Conscientiously. Reliably. Satisfaction guaranteed.
White steam billowed up from the hot embers. The children scattered in all directions. Then suddenly, still dousing the fire, Igor asked, "Do you like swimming at night, Alisa?"
I shivered. "Yes."
"So do I. By one o'clock, the children will have settled down and I'll go to the beach for a swim, where we were this morning. Come along if you like."
For just a moment I lost my head. It was a feeling I'd completely forgotten. Instead of me hitting on a man, he was hitting on me!
Igor splashed the remains of the water onto the campfire and looked at me. He smiled. "I'd be really glad if you could come. Only... don't get the wrong idea."
"I think I've got the right idea," I replied.
"Will you come?"
I really wanted to say no. Just to provoke him. But it would have been stupid, after all, to give up my own pleasure for the sake of one little gibe.
"Probably," I said.
"I'll be waiting," Igor replied calmly. "Shall we go? A glass of
ryazhenka before bed is very good for tired camp leaders. It guarantees sound, healthy sleep." His smile was wonderful.
In Artek "lights out" comes at half past ten.
The bugles sounded solemnly in the loudspeakers and a gentle woman's voice wished everyone goodnight. I was standing in front of the mirror, looking at my reflection and trying to figure out what was happening to me.
Had I fallen in love?
No, that was impossible! I loved Zabulon. I loved the greatest Dark magician in Moscow! One of the few individuals who really controlled the fate of the world. And what was an ordinary human being, compared to him? Even if he was attractive. Even if he had a fine figure. Even with that idiotic reliability that oozed out of him with every move he made. He was an ordinary male of the human species with the ordinary little thoughts of human males. Pretty good for a resort romance, but nothing more than that. I couldn't really fall in love with him!
The cell phone in my purse rang and I started. Mom? Unlikely¡ªshe was terribly careful with money and never rang me on my cell.
I took it out and accepted the call.
"Hello, Alisa."
Zabulon's voice sounded tired. Affectionate and tired, as if he'd barely been able to find the strength to make the call, but really felt he had to...
"Hello," I whispered.
"You're feeling anxious, I can sense it. What's happened to you, my little girl?"
There's no way to hide anything from him. Zabulon knows everything... at least, everything he wants to know.
"I'm thinking about taking a friend for the month..."I sighed into the phone.
"Weil, what of it?" Zabulon sounded puzzled. "Alisa, I'm not jealous of your dog, and I'm not going to be jealous of some little man who amuses you either."
"I haven't got a dog," I said miserably.
Zabulon laughed, and all my stupid thoughts just seemed to evaporate.
"All right then! I'm not bothered if you have a dog or you don't. I'm not bothered if you have a human lover. Calm down, my little one. Relax. Recover your strength. Amuse yourself any way you like. Debauch the whole of Artek, including all the Young Pioneers and the old plumbers if you like. My little fool..."
"I'm behaving like a human being, aren't I?" I suddenly felt ashamed.
"It's nothing to worry about. It won't last long, Alisa. Build up your strength... only..." Zabulon paused for a moment. "Never mind. It's nothing."
"No, tell me!" I tensed up again.
"I have faith in your common sense," Zabulon said, and hesitated. "Alisa, just don't get carried away, all right? Your vacation is strictly governed by the terms of the old treaty between the Watches. You don't have the right to take a lot of Power. Only crumbs. Don't turn into some crude energy-vampire. You're on vacation, not out hunting. If you overstep the mark, we'll lose this resort forever."
"I understand," I said.
How long was that blunder with the Prism of Power going to keep coming back to haunt me?
I didn't start pouring out promises or swearing by the Darkness and my own Power. Promises mean nothing. The Darkness doesn't bother itself with petty details, and I had no Power right then. I simply promised myself that I wouldn't overstep the defined boundaries for anything. I wouldn't let down Zabulon and the entire Day Watch.
"Then have a good vacation, my little girl." I thought I caught a hint of sadness in Zabulon's voice. "Have a good vacation."
"Couldn't you come? Just for a short while?" I asked hopelessly.
"No. I'm very busy, Alisa. I'm afraid we won't be able to talk for the next three or four days. But don't you worry. What good is a tedious old miscreant obsessed with global problems as a partner for a young witch on vacation?"
He laughed.
We generally tried not to say things like that on the phone, especially the cell phone, because they listen to all of them and record everything. It all sounded like a flippant conversation... But what if some ordinary little human being picked up the thread and started following it? Then we would have to waste time and energy on him.
"I love you," I whispered. "Thank you."
"Good luck, my little one," Zabulon said affectionately. "I kiss you."
I switched off the phone and smiled to myself.
Well then, everything was all right. So where had that stupid feeling of alarm come from? And where had I gotten the crazy idea that I was in love with Igor? Love was something different. Love was pure delight, a fountain of emotions, sensual delights, and enjoying spending time together. But what I was feeling¡ªthis strange, timid alarm¡ªwas only the consequence of my illness. It just felt strange to associate with a man without having any idea of how to control him... I couldn't threaten him with a pistol, like those half-witted bandits...
"Alisa?" Olechka's curious little face had appeared in the doorway. "Are you coming in to see us for a minute?"
The girl was barefoot, in just her panties and top. She'd already gone to bed, but she got impatient.
"I'll be right there," I said. "Shall I tell you all a story?"
Olechka lit up: "Uh-huh!"
"A happy one or a scary one?"
The girl wrinkled up her little forehead. But, of course, curiosity won out. "A scary one."
All children like scary stories.
"Run back to bed now," I said. "I'll be right there."
Ten minutes later I was sitting on Olechka's bed in the dormitory, telling the girls a story in a low voice:
"And in the morning the little girl woke up and went over to the mirror and looked¡ªand all her teeth were red! She tried cleaning them with toothpaste, and washing them with soap, but they were still as red as ever. She couldn't say a single word to her parents, in case they noticed. It was a good thing her younger brother had fallen ill and her parents took no notice of her at all. That's the way it always is¡ªthe little ones get all the attention and nobody even looks at you, not even if all your teeth are red..."
Scary children's stories are so wonderful! Especially if you tell them at night, to a pack of silly little girls, with a mysterious half-light coming in through the window.
"I've guessed it already," Natasha said in a bored voice. Such a serious girl, you couldn't impress her with scary stories. The others started hissing at her indignantly and she shut up. I carried on, feeling Olechka's little heart pounding as she pressed herself against me. There would be a good harvest for me there...
"On the third night the little girl tied her right braid to her bed with a piece of string," I went on in a mysterious whisper. "And at midnight she woke up because the string was stretched tight and it was pulling on her hair and hurting. And the girl saw that she was standing over her little brother's bed and her teeth were chattering! Chattering!"
Larisa gave a quiet squeal. Not because she was frightened, but because it was the right thing to do. And of course one of the girls began happily chattering her teeth together.
"Then the little girl went into the kitchen and took out the hammer and the pincers that her father kept in the cupboard, and before morning came she secretly pulled out all her own teeth. It hurt very badly, but she managed it, because she was a brave girl and she had strong hands. And the next morning
Her little brother got better. And the little girl's teeth grew back better than ever, because the first ones were her milk teeth!"
I lowered my voice to a whisper and said solemnly, "Only they were still pink anyway!"
One of the girls who had been waiting for a happy ending gasped in fright. I concluded solemnly: "And the parents still loved her little brother more than her. Because he was very ill that time and they were really worried about him."
And that was all. I wondered how many of the girls had younger brothers. The birth rate in Russia is low, but if the first child is a girl, people usually try for a second.
My mother had wanted to do that when she was already too old, past thirty¡ªwhat a fool... But by then I was an Other, even at the young age of twelve, and I dealt with the unexpected problem. Though probably I shouldn't have bothered. If I did have a brother, what would have been so bad about that? Even if he was only a half brother... and only I would have known that for sure (even my mom had her doubts)... He could have turned out to be an Other¡ªnot just a brother but an ally... But what's done can't be undone.
"And now¡ªto sleep!" I ordered the girls in a cheerful voice.
Of course, they started asking me to tell them another story. But I refused. It was half-past eleven already, and I still had to get to the beach... the girls' voices were already ragged and sleepy. When I left, Gulnara tried to tell a scary story of her own, but all the pauses and hesitations suggested that she would fall asleep halfway through it.
I went back to my room, stretched out on the bed, and started waiting.
I wondered what Igor was doing right then.
Was he entertaining his kids too?
Or was he drinking vodka with some other camp leaders?
Or was he screwing one of them?
Or had he forgotten he was intending to go swimming that night and sleeping peacefully in his bed?
I shook my head. No. Anything but the last option.
He was reliable. Almost... almost like Zabulon. What an absurd comparison: There weren't many, even among the Dark Others, who could call Zabulon reliable. But I could. I had a perfect right to do it. Love is a great power, and such a strange power...
What if Igor turned out to be a potential Other?
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly in simultaneous sweet anticipation and panic. What would I do then? Then it wouldn't be the tryst with an ordinary man that Zabulon had approved, but a genuine love triangle...
What was wrong with me!
There couldn't be any triangle. Not even if Igor did turn out to be an uninitiated Other. He'd go running off with his tail between his legs and forget he ever had a romance with Zab-ulon's girl.
And I would forget it too.
The time dragged by unbearably slowly. The hands on my watch crept along hesitantly, as if they weren't even sure that time was passing. I had planned to wait for half an hour, but I gave in after twenty minutes. I didn't have the strength to hold out any longer...
I got up and walked quietly through the girl's dormitory...
There was silence in there. The calm, pleasant silence of a large children's dormitory with just a few sounds¡ªbreathing, snuffling, lips smacking sleepily.
"Girls," I called quietly.
No answer.
I set off along the row of beds, gently touching shoulders, arms, hair... Nothing... nothing... nothing...
Here was something.
It was Olechka. I knelt down beside her bed and lowered my hand onto her sweaty forehead. I heard her dream and felt the flow of Power. The dream was confused and incoherent; it had nothing to do with my bedtime story. Olechka was dreaming that she was climbing to the top of a tower¡ªan old tower that was leaning slightly, with half-ruined stone banisters that had huge gaping holes in them. Down below at the foot of the tower there was either a medieval town or an ancient monastery. And the strange thing was that although the tower was in semi-darkness, down below the sun was shining. And there were people wandering about between the decrepit buildings¡ªhappy and cheerful, dressed in light summer clothes, holding cameras and colorful magazines. They were enjoying themselves so much, it couldn't possibly occur to them to look up at the sky and see the little girl walking toward a gap in the banisters as if she were under a spell...
I needed to hang on just a little bit longer. Wait until Olechka started falling¡ªthat was where the dream was leading her. I don't know what happened, but I suddenly gathered my strength and sucked in her dream. Every last scrap of it.
The dark tower above the cheerful crowd, and the gaping holes in the banisters, and the cold indifference, and the fearsome, alluring height. Everything that could give me Power.
Olechka held her breath for a moment. I even felt afraid that she might fall into a coma¡ªit's rare, but it sometimes happens to people when you draw Power from them too suddenly.
But she started breathing again.
I got up off my knees. I'd even broken into a sweat myself. I could feel that a bundle of energy had fallen into the empty gap left by my usual Power. No, it still hadn't filled it, not by a long way... and I'd acted hastily for some reason...
But I was recovering.
Again¡ªthe gentle touches, the soft hair, the lips parted in sleep, the relaxed fingers...
Nothing here... nothing here... but there was something here.
It was Natasha.
And her dream had been prompted by me.
Natasha was standing in a bathroom, naked and covered in soapy lather. She was holding a boy, about five or six years old, and hammering his head against the tiled wall, saying over and over again: 'Are you going to peep again? Are you going to peep?"
The boy was dangling in her hands like a rag doll. His eyes were wide open in terror, but he didn't say anything. He seemed to be far more afraid of being punished by his parents than hurt by his sister.
But Natasha wasn't feeling too good either. Her soul was filled with a mixture of furious anger at her insufferable brother, and fear that she would hit his head against the wall too hard, and shame, even though only very recently she and her brother had been given their baths together, and guilt... because she'd deliberately left the door unlocked in the expectation that her brother would try to peep in, driven by the natural urge of children to violate all prohibitions.
This was really something! Passions like that in someone who wasn't even twelve yet!
Natasha gave a deep sigh, and in her dream she hit her brother's head so hard against the wall that it started to bleed. I couldn't see where the blood came from, but it suddenly covered the entire head.
I sucked in her dream.
Completely. The fury, the fear, the shame, the guilt, and the budding sensuality, still vague and ill-defined. But the dream didn't end!
Natasha had just released her grip when she grabbed her brother again by the shoulders and, with the cold calculating movement of an executioner, forced his head into the bath water, which instantly turned pink. Even the clumps of foam on the surface of the water turned pink. The boy began twitching helplessly, struggling to pull his head out of the water.
I froze in surprise. A murder committed in a dream gives almost the same discharge of Power as a real one. Now I'd be able to fill the gap in my soul in a single moment!
All I had to do was draw Natasha's newly awakened fear out of her, and...
But I didn't do anything. I stood there, leaning down over the bed, watching another person's dream as if it were a horror movie that was showing on TV instead of the children's cartoons.
Natasha suddenly jerked her brother's head out of the water and he gulped in air greedily. There was no blood on him any longer¡ªhe just had a small bruise under one eye. Dreams have their own laws.
"You'll tell them you fell in the bath yourself and banged your head, all right?" Natasha hissed. The boy nodded in fright. Natasha quickly pushed him out of the bathroom and closed the door, then slowly got into the foamy water. The nice, bright-pink water... I waited for another second or two and then drank in the remains of the dream. Triumph, excitement, tran-quillity.
And the gaping wound in my soul was immediately half-filled.
I should have let Natasha kill her brother. I only needed to take away her fear, and she would have drowned her little brother like a kitten.
I was covered in perspiration. My hands were shaking. Who could ever have expected nightmares like that from such a rational little Miss Know-it-all?
All right. Slow and steady does it
I moved on.
By half past midnight I had absorbed another three dreams. They weren't such sumptuous feasts, but they provided fine surges of Power. This was a good place for a vacation, if the girls accumulated that much energy.
I had almost completely restored the strength that I'd lost. The lion's share, of course, had come from Natasha. I had the feeling that if I could just suck in one more dream, then I would be completely restored and become a normal Other. But nobody had any more dreams that were of use to me. There was one that simply repelled me: Gulnara was dreaming that she was taking care of her old grandfather. Dashing around the kitchen, pouring his tea, constantly asking him solicitous questions. Oh, how I hate that awful Eastern culture... Turkish delight laced with arsenic.
If it wasn't for Igor...
I would only have had to wait half an hour, or an hour, and one of my eighteen donors would have had a frightening dream.
But...
I didn't hesitate for long.
I would collect all the Power I needed, absolutely everything, the next night. But today I could relax and try out the role of an ordinary woman.
I closed the door firmly and slipped out into the summer night. The camp was sleeping. There were lamps lit here and there on the pathways and an almost full moon hung in the sky. Nights like this are great for the werewolves: They're at the peak of their powers, they can transform easily and at will, they're full of high spirits, the thirst for life, and the urge to hunt, to tear living flesh to pieces, to stalk and pounce on their prey. Of course, the vampires and the shape-shifters are the very lowest caste of the Dark Ones. And most of them are simply stupid and primitive. But... on nights like this I envied them just a little bit. I envied them the primitive power that comes from the deepest animal depths of their nature. The ability to transform into a beast¡ªand get rid of all those stupid human feelings.
I started laughing and set off along the path at a run, flinging my arms out and throwing my head back to look up at the sky. I might not have the powers of an Other yet, but my blood was seething with fresh Power, and I didn't stumble even once or hesitate for a moment in my choice of direction. It was like just before my initiation, when "mother's old friend" Irina Alexandrovna had arrived at our apartment unexpectedly. I could sense that my parents were behaving oddly, awkwardly, and every now and then Irina Alexandrovna would look at me in a strange way, as if she were evaluating me, with a gentle, condescending smile. And then my parents suddenly decided to go out somewhere in a great hurry, leaving me alone for the entire evening with "the old friend." And my future mentor told me everything. She said this was the first time she had ever seen my parents, that she had simply put a spell on them. She told me about the Others, and about the Twilight that gives them miraculous powers and said that the first time I entered the Twilight would determine who I would be, a Light One or a Dark One... She said I was a future Other. That I had been noticed by a certain "very, very powerful magician." Later I wondered if it could have been Zabulon himself, but I couldn't bring myself to ask...
Back then I hesitated for a long time... I was a little fool. I didn't like the words "Dark Ones." In the fairy tales and films the Dark Ones were always bad. They had power over the entire world, ruled countries and commanded armies, but at the same time they ate all sorts of disgusting things, spoke in horrible, repulsive voices, and betrayed everyone whenever they got the chance. And, in the end, they always lost.
Irina Alexandrovna laughed for a long time when I told her all that. She admitted that all the fairy tales were invented by the Light Ones. The Dark Ones didn't usually bother with that kind of nonsense. She said what the Dark Ones really wanted was freedom and independence. They didn't strive for power, they didn't impose their own foolish desires oh others. She demonstrated some of her abilities to me¡ªand I learned that my mom had been unfaithful to my dad for a long time already, and my dad wasn't nearly as courageous as I thought, and that my best friend Vika told people all sorts of horrible things about me...
I knew about my mom already, even at the age of ten. I tried not to think about her and Uncle Vitya. I felt so hurt for my dad. But when I heard about Vika, I got really furious and I realized that I wanted to get even with her. It seems funny to me now, but when I was ten, to learn that my friend had told our classmate Romka my most terrible secret¡ªthat I used to wet the bed until I was in second grade¡ªwas really horrible! I'd been wondering why he smirked in that disgusting way when I gave him a card and some colored pens for Army Day on the twenty-third of February...
Irina helped me to enter the Twilight for the first time. She said while I was there I would decide for myself who I would be. The
Twilight would see straight through my soul and make the most appropriate choice.
After that my friend Vika started getting bad marks all the time and swearing at all the teachers, even the head teacher. Then they took her out of our school; I heard she spent a long time in a children's psychiatric hospital being treated for a rare condition, Tourette's syndrome. The handsome Romka pissed his pants in the middle of Russian dictation and had to live with the nickname "Pisser" for two years afterward, until he and his parents moved to a different district.
Uncle Vitya drowned while he was swimming in the shallow pond at the dacha, but that wasn't until three years later. That's quite a difficult task for a child, after all. And it still makes me feel sick to remember the way I managed to get hold of a lock of his hair...
I didn't regret my choice the tiniest bit.
There are some who think that we Dark Ones are evil. But that's not true at all. We're simply just. Proud, independent, and just.
And we decide things for ourselves.
The beach at night is filled with a wistful enchantment. Like a park in autumn, or a concert hall after a premiere. The tired crowd goes away for a while to gather its strength for new insanities; the sea licks its wounds and throws the melon rinds, sodden chocolate wrappers, corn cobs, and other human rubbish up onto the beach; the cool, wet sand covers over the tracks of the seagulls and the crows.
I heard Igor when I was still approaching the beach. First his guitar and then his voice.
As he sang, I suddenly realized with piercing clarity that nothing was going to happen. There was a group of people sitting over there on the sand, enjoying themselves with a bottle or two and some bread rolls stolen from the supper table to go with them. And the most that I could count on, stupid fool that I was, was an invitation to spend the rest of the night in his room...
But even so I walked toward the sound. Just to make certain...
You say there's no such thing as love,
There's nothing but the carrot and the stick,
But I say flowers bloom
Because they don't believe in death.
You tell me that you never want
To be a slave to anyone at all.
I say that means the slave will be
Whoever you have by your side.
I never liked that song. I don't like the group Nautilus Pom-pilius in general¡ªtheir songs sound almost as if they were ours, but there's something subtly different about them. No wonder the Light Ones are so fond of them.
But I particularly disliked that song.
I was only two or three steps away from Igor when I realized that he was there on the beach alone. Igor noticed me too¡ªhe raised his head and smiled, still singing:
Maybe I am wrong,
Maybe you are right.
But I have seen with my own eyes
The grass reaching for the sky.
Why should we argue all night long
And lie sleepless till the dawn?
Maybe I am wrong,
Maybe you are right.
What good is arguing to us,
The day will come and then
You'll see for yourself
If there's a bottom to the sky
And why
The grass reaches up to it...
I sat down beside him on a large fluffy towel spread out on the sand and waited patiently for the song to end. When Igor finally put down his guitar, I asked him: "Playing for the waves and the sand?"
"For the stars and the wind," he corrected me. "I thought it would be hard for you to find me in the dark. And I didn't like the idea of bringing a tape deck."
"Why not?"
He shrugged. "Surely you can feel it? This is a time for living sound."
Igor was right. Maybe I didn't agree with his choice of song, but I was all for the idea of living sound...
I looked him over without saying anything¡ªor rather, I tried to look him over in the darkness. He was barefoot, dressed in nothing but his shorts. His hair had a wet gleam to it¡ªhe must have been in the sea already. He reminded me of someone at that moment... someone from one of the old fairy tales, either a jolly troubadour or a prince dressed up as a troubadour...
"The water's warm," Igor said. "Shall we go in?"
That was when I realized I'd been in too much of a hurry to get to the beach.
"Igor... you'll laugh at me... I can't go swimming. I forgot my bathing costume."
He thought for a moment and then asked very calmly, "Are you shy? Or are you afraid I'll think you did it deliberately?"
"I'm not afraid, but I don't want you to think that."
"I don't think that at all," Igor said and stood up. "I'll go into the water and you come and join me."
He took off his shorts right at the water's edge, started to run, and dived almost immediately. I didn't hesitate for long. I hadn't even thought about seducing Igor in such a primitive way¡ªI really had forgotten my bathing costume in my room. But there was no way I was going to feel shy, especially in front of an ordinary human being.
The water was warm and the waves caressed me like a lover's hands. I swam after Igor, and the shoreline receded and blurred until only the lighted lamps marked Artek out in the night. We swam far beyond the buoy, probably a kilometer from the shore. I caught up with Igor, and then we were swimming beside each other in silence, not saying a single word. Not competing with each other, moving in the same rhythm.
Finally he stopped, looked at me, and said, "That's enough."
"Are you tired?" I asked, a little surprised. It had seemed to me that he could go on swimming forever... and I¡ªwell, I could have swum across the Black Sea and got out in Turkey.
"No, I'm not tired. But the night is deceptive, Alisa. This is the maximum distance I could pull you to the shore if anything happened."
I remembered what Natasha had said about him being "reliable." Looking into his face, I realized it wasn't bravado and he wasn't joking. He really was in control of the situation at every moment. And he was ready to save me.
You funny little human being. In the morning or tomorrow night I'll gather a little more Power¡ªand then I'll be able to do whatever I like with you. And it won't be you who'll save me if anything happens. I'll save you¡ªyou big, strong, confident, reliable man... But right now you're sure of yourself, sure of your ability to protect and save, like a little child walking along a dark street with his mother and telling her, "Don't be afraid, Mom, I'm here..."
Maybe it is in the style of the Light Ones, but even so, I like it somehow...
I swam slowly up to Igor. Right up to him. I put my arms around him and whispered, "Save me."
The water was warm, but his body was hotter than the water. He was as naked as I was. We kissed, sometimes going under the water, then surfacing with a rush and gulping in the air and searching for each other's lips again.
"I want to go back to the beach," I whispered. We started swimming, sometimes touching each other, sometimes stopping to exchange another long kiss. I had the taste of salt and his lips on my lips, my body seemed to be on fire, the blood was pounding in my temples. You could drown like that... from the excitement, from the impatience, from the longing to be closer.
About five meters from the beach, where the water was already shallow, Igor picked me up in his arms as easily as if I weighed nothing at all, carried me to our clothes and put me down. I felt the towel under my back and the stars swayed over my head.
"Come on..." I whispered, spreading my legs. Like a depraved little girl, like a seasoned slut... and this was me, a witch of the Moscow Day Watch who was loved by Zabulon himself!
But right now that didn't bother me at all. There was only the night, the stars, Igor...
He lowered himself toward me, his right hand slid under my back and caught me between the shoulder blades, his left hand slid across my breasts and for just a moment he looked into my eyes¡ªas if he were doubtful, hesitating, as if he weren't feeling the same burning desire for intimacy that I was. I arched up involuntarily to meet his body, felt for his aroused member with my hips, swayed¡ªand it was only then that he entered me.
How I wanted him...
It was like nothing else in the world. Not like sex with Zabulon, who always took on the form of a demon for this. With Zabulon I had always experienced a wild, painful pleasure, but it had always had a feeling of humiliation in it, sweet and arousing, but still humiliation. Not like sex with ordinary men, whether they were inexperienced youths full of strength, hefty hunks, or experienced, aging womanizers. I'd tried everything. I knew it all and I could make an evening with any man interesting in its own way.
But this was different.
It was as if we really did become one, as if my desires were immediately transmitted to him and his to me. I could feel the trembling of his member that had entered my body, and I knew that he could come at any moment, but he was putting that moment off and I was balanced there on the same agonizingly sweet, timeless boundary of pleasure.
It was as if he had known me for years and could read me like an open book. His hands responded to the desires of my body before I could even feel them myself, his fingers knew where to be gentle and where to be rough, his lips slid over my face without stopping for an instant, his thrusts became more and more powerful, carrying me up into the dark sky on a swingboat of delight and I whispered something without knowing what I was saying...
And then the world stopped and I groaned, clutching at his shoulders and scratching, moving after him, not wanting to let him go. The pleasure was as brief as a flash of lightning, and as blindingly bright. But he didn't stop, and I was buoyed up again, balancing on that wave of sweetness¡ªand at the precise moment when his eyes opened wide and his body went totally rigid, I came again. But this time in a different way¡ªthe pleasure wasn't as piercing, it was long and pulsating¡ªas if it were following the rhythm of his sperm, spurting into my body.
I couldn't even groan anymore. We lay beside each other¡ª I was on the towel and Igor was on the sand¡ªtouching each other, caressing each other, as if our hands had a life of their own. I pressed my cheek against his chest, catching the salty smell of the sea and the sour smell of sweat, his body shuddering under my hand. And I didn't even realize when I started kissing him, moving lower and lower and burying my face in the rough hair, caressing him with my lips and my tongue, feeling the excitement mounting in him again. Igor lay there without moving, just touching my shoulders with his hands. And that was right, that was what he should do, because now I wanted to give him pleasure. And when he came again with a quiet groan, unable to restrain himself, I felt as happy as if he had been caressing me.
Everything was just the way it should be.
Everything was like nothing that had ever happened before.
No orgy, not even the very liveliest, had ever given me so much pleasure. I had never felt such happiness, not with one man or two or three, never felt this feeling before... this feeling of... completeness? Yes, that was it, completeness! I simply didn't need anyone else.
"I love you," I whispered. "Igor... I love you."
He could have answered that he loved me too¡ªand he would have spoiled everything, or almost everything. But he only said, "I know."
When Igor got up and took something out from under the heap of clothes on the sand, I could hardly even believe my eyes at first.
A bottle and a glass. A crystal glass. Just one.
Igor smiled, the cork went flying into the air and the foaming champagne poured into the glass. I took a mouthful. Brut, and cold too.
"Now am I good or bad?" he asked.
"Bad," I said, holding out the glass to him. "For hiding a precious treasure like that!"
Igor smiled and drank the wine. Then he said thoughtfully, "You know, I think I'm getting that feeling again..."
He started, and stopped speaking, straightening up abruptly. I jumped up¡ªjust in time to see an indistinct shadow slip away into the night from behind a beach parasol not far away.
"That's not good," Igor whispered.
"Who was it?" I asked. The realization that someone had been watching us didn't increase my excitement as it usually did. Completeness. Total completeness. Even the sip of champagne was just a pleasant extra after sex now, but not really necessary. And I certainly didn't need any outsiders.
"I don't know... it looked like one of the children." Igor was clearly upset. "That's really bad... how stupid."
"It's no disaster," I said, putting my arms around his shoulders. "The little ones are already asleep, and it's good for the older ones... it's part of their education too."
He smiled, but he was obviously concerned. That's people for you... always making a big deal out of nothing...
"Let's go to your room," I suggested.
"Okay," said Igor with a sharp nod. He looked at me. "But remember, in that case you won't get any sleep today."
"I was just going to warn you about that," I said. And it was true.