I ONLY CALMED DOWN COMPLETELY WHEN I COULD RELAX AND LISTEN TO
the regular, hammering rhythm of the wheels. Although even then, not completely. How could I possibly feel calm? But at least I had recovered the ability to think coherently.
When that creature in the park broke through the bushes and threw itself at me, I hadn't been afraid. Not at all. But now I had no idea how I had found the right words to say. Afterward I must have surprised plenty of people with the way I staggered across the square in front of the station, past the tight ranks of route taxis parked for the night. It's not easy to walk with a steady stride when your knees are buckling under you.
What the hell was all this? The Night Watch... What on earth had I meant by saying that? And that beast with the teeth had immediately started whining and crept back into the bushes...
I took another mouthful of beer and tried once again to make sense of what had happened.
So, first I left the house...
Stop.
I put the bottle down on the little table, feeling confused. I must have looked very stupid at that moment, but there was no one to look at me¡ªI was the only person in the compartment.
Stop.
I suddenly realized I couldn't remember my own house at all.
I couldn't remember a single thing about my past life. My memories began there, in that chilly winter park, just a few seconds before the attack. Everything before that was hidden in a mysterious darkness. Or rather, not even darkness, but a strange, gray shroud¡ªsticky and viscous, almost completely impenetrable. A dense, gray, swirling twilight.
I didn't understand a thing.
I cast a confused and frightened glance around the compartment. It was a perfectly ordinary compartment. A little table, four bunks, brown plastic and maroon imitation leather, with lights occasionally sliding by in the night outside the window. My bag lying on the other bunk...
My bag!
I realized I didn't have the slightest idea what was in my bag. It had to be my things, and things can tell you a lot. Or remind you. For instance, they might remind me why I was going to Moscow. For some reason I felt certain the things could help reawaken my failed memory. I must have read about that somewhere or heard about it from someone.
I suddenly had a better idea and reached under my sweater because I realized my passport was in the left pocket of my shirt. If I started with my name, then maybe I would remember everything else.
As I looked at the yellowish page, with its dark pattern of fanciful curlicues, my feelings were mixed. I looked at the photograph, at the face that I had probably been used to identifying with my own unique personality for about thirty years¡ªor was this the very first day?
The face was familiar in all its minutest features, from the scar on the cheekbone to the premature hint of gray in the hair. But never mind the face. That wasn't what interested me just at the moment.
The name.
Vitaly Sergeevich Rogoza. Date of birth¡ªSeptember 28, 1965.
Place of birth¡ªthe city of Nikolaev.
Turning over the page, I read the same information in
Ukrainian and also ascertained that my sex was male and that the passport had been issued by an organization with an exceptionally clumsy acronym DO PMC ADIA¡ªthe District Office of the People's Municipal Council of the Administration of the Department of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The "Family Status" page was an unsullied, virginal blank. I heaved a sigh of relief, or perhaps disappointment.
Then came the eternal burden and curse borne by every ex-Soviet citizen: my residence permit and address. Apartment 28, 28 Tchaikovsky Street, Nikolaev.
Well, well, there was the number 28 again, twice in a row.
Then the associations really began to click¡ªI remembered that my house stood on the corner of Tchaikovksy Street and Young Guard Street, next to School No. 28 (that number yet again!). I remembered everything quite clearly and distinctly, right down to the charred poplar standing under my window¡ª the victim of chemical experiments conducted by the young kid who lived on the floor above me (he had poured all sorts of garbage out the window onto the long-suffering tree). I remembered a drunken party five years ago in the next house, when someone had casually told the neighbor from downstairs what she could do with herself when she complained about the noise. She'd turned out to be Armenian, the wife of some local bigwig, and later an entire mob of those swarthy Armenians had come bursting in and started battering our faces to a pulp. I'd had to clamber out through the little window in the end room, because the main window wouldn't open, and climb down the drainpipe. When they noticed that one of the woeful drunks had disappeared from the blockaded apartment, the Armenians stopped waving their fists about and some kind of agreement was eventually reached with them. I also remembered my bitter disappointment when I asked for assistance from some close local acquaintances of mine whom I'd often drunk beer with at the kiosks in the district, and not a single one of them came.
I tore myself away from my surprisingly vivid memories.
So I did have a past after all? Or were these merely the forms of memories with nothing real behind them?
I had to try to figure it out.
From the passport I also gleaned the entirely useless piece of information that I had "exercised the right to privatize without payment the following volume of living space"¡ªthe volume was not indicated¡ª"subject to the standard maximum of 24.3 square meters."
And that was all.
I thoughtfully put the document away in my pocket¡ªthe same one, on the left side of my chest, and looked hard at the bag. What will you help me remember, my black-and-green traveling companion with the foreign inscription FUJI on your bulging side?
Well, let's hope you'll help me remember at least something...
The zipper opened with a quiet whoosh. I threw back the flap of cloth covering the contents and looked inside. The polythene bag on the top contained a toothbrush, a tube of Blend-a-Med toothpaste, a pair of cheap disposable razors, and a small, fragrant black bottle that obviously contained eau de cologne.
I put them on the bunk.
In the next plastic bag I discovered a warm wool sweater that was obviously knitted by hand, not on a machine. I set that aside too.
I spent two or three minutes rummaging through the other bags¡ªclean underwear, T-shirts, socks, a warm checkered shirt... Aha, here was something that wasn't clothing.
A small cell phone in a leather case, with an extendable aerial. My memory instantly reacted: When I get to Moscow, I'll have to buy a card...
The charger was there too.
And finally, at the very bottom, one more plastic bag. Filled with some kind of blocks. When I looked inside, I was astounded. This ordinary plastic bag, with its logo half worn away so that it was completely unrecognizable, contained wads of money stacked in two layers. American dollars. Ten wads of hundred-dollar notes. That was a hundred thousand.
My hand automatically reached out for the door and clicked the latch shut.
Jesus, where had I got this from? And how was I going to get such a huge amount of money across the border? But then, I could probably stick a hundred dollar bill under every customs officer's nose and they'd leave me alone.
The discovery aroused almost no associations, apart from the memory of how expensive hotels are in Moscow.
Still in a mild state of shock, I put all the things back in the bag, zipped it shut and pushed it under the bunk. I felt glad there was a second, unopened, bottle of beer standing beside the one I'd already started. I don't know why, but the sedative substance had a distinctly soporific effect on me. I was expecting to spend a long time lying there, listening to the hammering of the wheels, screwing up my eyes when the bright light suddenly broke in for a few moments, and racking my brains painfully.
Nothing of the sort happened. Before I'd even finished the second bottle of beer, I slumped onto the bunk, still fully dressed, and crashed out on top of the blanket.
Maybe I'd got too close to something taboo in my memories? But how would I know?
I woke up with cold winter sunshine flooding in through the window. The train wasn't moving. I could hear indifferent official voices in the corridor: "Good morning, Russian customs. Are you carrying any arms, narcotics, or hard currency?" The replies sounded less indifferent, but most of them were unintelligible. Then there was a knock at the door. I reached out and opened it.
The customs officer turned out to be a burly, red-faced guy with eyes that were already turning puffy. For some reason, when he spoke to me, he abandoned the standard routine and simply asked me, without any officialese: "What have you got? Get the bag out..."
He looked around the compartment carefully, got up onto the steps, and glanced into the luggage rack just under the ceiling. Then he finally focused his attention on the bag lying all alone in the middle of the bottom bunk.
I lowered the other bunk and sat down without saying anything.
"Open the bag, please," the customs officer demanded.
Can they smell money, or something? I thought sullenly and obediently opened the zipper.
One by one the plastic bags migrated to the bunk. When he reached the bag with the money, the customs officer brightened up noticeably and reached out in a reflex response to slam the door of the compartment.
"Well, well, well..."
I had already prepared myself to listen to a hypocritical tirade about permits and even to read a paragraph from a book¡ªlike every written law, this one consisted of perfectly understandable words strung together so that they made absolutely no sense at all. To listen, read, and then ask hopelessly: "How much?"
But instead of that, I mentally reached out my hand toward the customs officer's head, touched his mind, and whispered, "Go now... Go on. Everything's fine here."
The officer's eyes instantly turned as stupid and senseless as the customs regulations. "Yes... have a good journey..."
He swung around stiffly, clicked the lock open and staggered out into the corridor without saying another word. An obedient wooden puppet with a skillful puppet master pulling his strings.
But since when had I been a skillful puppet master?
The train moved off about ten minutes later, and all that time I was trying to figure out what was happening. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was doing exactly what was needed. First that creature in the park beside the factory, and now this customs officer whose mind had instantly gone blank...
And why, in hell's name, was I on my way to Moscow? What was I going to do when I got off the train? Where was I going to go? Somehow I was already beginning to feel certain that everything would be made clear at the right moment¡ªbut only at the right moment, not before. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite a hundred percent certain yet.
I slept for most of the day. Maybe it was my body's reaction to all the unexpected answers and new skills. How had I managed to set off the customs officer? I'd reached out to him, felt the dull crimson aura with the shimmering greenish overlay made up of dollar signs... And I'd been able to adjust his desires.
I didn't think people could do that. But what was I, if I wasn't an ordinary human being?
Oh, yes. I was an Other. I'd told that to the werewolf in the park. And only just that moment did I realize it was a werewolf that had tried to attack me. I remembered his aura, that bright yellow and crimson flame of Desire and Hunger.
I seemed to be gradually clambering up a stairway out of the blackness, out of a blank chasm. The werewolf had been the first step. The customs officer had been the second. I wondered just how long the stairway was, and what would I find up there, at the top? So far there were more questions than answers.
When I finally woke up we had already passed Tula. The compartment was still empty, but now I realized that was because it was the way I wanted it. And I realized that I usually got what I wanted in this world.
The platform at Kursk Station in Moscow drifted slowly past the window. I was standing in the compartment, already dressed and packed, waiting for the train to stop. The female announcer's muffled voice informed everyone that train number sixty-two had arrived at some platform or other. I was in Moscow, but I still didn't understand what I was doing.
As usual, the most impatient passengers had already managed to block the way through. But I could wait, I was in no hurry. After all, I'd be waiting anyway, until my slowly reviving memory prompted me or prodded me, like a muleteer with a stubborn, lazy mule.
The train gave a final jerk and came to a halt. There was a metallic clang in the lobby of the carriage; the line of people instantly started and came to life and spilled out of the carriage little by little. There were the usual exclamations of concern, greetings, attempts to squeeze back into a compartment to get things that couldn't be taken out the first time...
But the confused bustling around the carriage was soon over. The passengers had already got out and received their due allocations of kisses and hugs from the people meeting them. Or not, if there was no one there to meet them. There were a few still left, craning their necks as they gazed around the platform, already shivering in the piercing Moscow wind. But the only people left in the carriage were waiting to pick up the usual parcels of food and other things that relatives had sent with the conductor.
I picked up my bag and walked toward the door, still not understanding what I was going to do in the immediate future.
Probably I ought to change some money, I thought. I didn't have a single kopeck of Russian money, only our "independent" Ukrainian currency, which unfortunately wasn't valid here. Just before we reached Moscow I'd prudently slit open one of the wads in the plastic bag and distributed some of the bills around my various pockets. I always did hate billfolds...
What was that thought I'd had? Always... My "always" had only begun last night.
I shuddered reflexively at the cold embrace of winter and strode off along the platform toward the tunnel. Surely there had to be someone changing money at the station?
Rummaging about in my unreliable memory, I managed to establish two things: First, I didn't remember the last time I'd been in Moscow but, second, I had a general idea of how the station looked from the inside, where to look for the bureau de change, and how to get into the metro.
The tunnel, the large waiting hall in the basement, the short escalator, the ticket hall¡ªmy immediate goal was on the second floor, beside another escalator.
But this currency exchange point looked to have been closed very securely for a very long time. No light showing in any chink, no essential board with the current exchange rates. All right. Then I had to go to the exit and turn left, toward the ramp sloping down to the Chkalovskaya metro station... and the place I needed would be near there.
A white trading pavilion, a staircase up to the second floor, empty little shop spaces flooded with light, a turn... The security guard glanced up at me quickly and then relaxed when he recognized someone newly arrived in town.
"Go in, there's no one inside," he told me magnanimously.
I carried my bag into a tiny little room, in which the entire furnishings consisted of a rubbish bin in the corner and, of course, a tiny window with one of those little retractable drawers that had always reminded me of an eternally hungry mouth.
Hey, I reminded myself, don't forget just how young your "always" is...
But even so¡ªif I thought like a man who really had lived thirty-five years, surely there must be some reason for it?
All right, we could get to that later.
The hungry mouth instantly devoured five one-hundred-dollar bills and my passport. I couldn't see who was concealed there behind the blank partition, and I wasn't really concerned to get a look at them. All I noticed were the fingers with pearly polish on the nails, which meant it was a woman. The mouth reluctantly slid open and belched out a sizeable heap of one-hundred-ruble bills and several bills of smaller denominations. Even a couple of coins. Without counting the money, I put it into my breast pocket, under my sweater, keeping just the smaller bills and the coins for my trouser pocket. I put my passport in my other breast pocket and threw the receipt¡ªa small rectangle of green paper¡ªinto the rubbish bin.
Right, now I was someone. Even in this insane city, which was just about the most expensive on the planet. But no... that wasn't right. It had to be almost a year since Moscow had relinquished that dubious title.
Outside, winter greeted me again with its ice-laden breath. The wind carried fine hard crumbs, like grains of semolina, a kind of immature hail. I strolled back along the front of the railroad station and then down to where I wanted to be¡ªon the metro circle line.
It felt like I was beginning to remember where I needed to get to. Well, I could enjoy making some progress, even if I didn't enjoy the state of uncertainty. And I could hope that whatever business had brought me to Moscow was entirely good, because somehow I didn't feel I had the Power to serve Evil.
Only native Muscovites go home from the railroad stations in taxis. If their financial status permits it, of course. Any provincial, even if he has the kind of money I had, will take the metro. There's something hypnotic about this system of tunnels, with its labyrinth of connections, about the rumbling of the trains as they go hurtling past and the rush of air that fades away and then starts up again. About the constant movement. Down here there is unspent energy seething and swirling around under the vaults of the station halls: free for the taking, more than I could possibly use.
And there is protection. I think it's connected somehow with the thick layer of earth above your head... and all the past years that are buried in that earth... Not even years¡ªcenturies.
The doors of the train parted and I stepped in. There was a repulsive, insistent buzzing from the loudspeakers, and then a finely modulated man's voice announced: "Please mind the closing doors. The next station is Komsomolskaya."
I was riding the circle line. Counter-clockwise. And I was definitely not getting out at Komsomolskaya. But after that... after Komsomolskaya I apparently would get out. That would be Peace Prospect. And, by the way, it would be worth walking up the platform at Komsomolskaya to get closer to the front of the train. Then I'd be nearer the exit for my connection.
That meant I was changing onto the brown line, and probably going north, because otherwise I'd have gone around the circle line in the opposite direction and changed at Oktyabrskaya.
The carriage shook as it moved, and since I had nothing better to do, I studied the numerous advertisements. There was a long-haired man standing on tiptoe, but squatting down at the same time, who was advertising pantyhose for women, and someone with a felt-tip pen had taken the opportunity to endow the hairy poser with a phallus of impressive proportions. The next stick-on poster suggested that I should go chasing around the city after a jeep painted in bright colors, but I failed to grasp the point of this pursuit. A prize, probably. Miracle tablets for almost every ailment¡ªall in a single bottle¡ª real estate agencies, the most yogurty yogurt of all yogurts, genuine Borzhomi mineral water with a picture of a ram on the bottle... And here was Komsomolskaya.
I was fed up with the advertisements, so I dropped my bag by the door and went to look at the plan of the metro system. I don't know why, but at the first glance my attention was immediately caught by the little red circle with the letters AEEA above it¡ªthe All-Union Exhibition of Economic Achievements.
That was where I was going. No doubt about it. To a massive horseshoe-shaped building. The Cosmos Hotel.
No one can deny that life feels easier when you know what your goal is. I heaved a sigh of relief, went back to my bag, and even smiled at my dull reflection in the glass of the door. The door also bore traces of the mindless hyperactivity of the city's own pithecanthropoids¡ªthe inscription "Do not lean against the doors" had been reduced to "Do lean again do."
The unknown author of this pointless statement wasn't even a pithecanthropus; he was more likely a monkey, a dirty, smug little monkey. Dirty and stupid, precisely because he was too much like a human being...
I was glad that I was an Other, and not a human being.
Here was Peace Prospect; stairs, a turn to the right, an escalator, and there was the train just arriving. Rizhskaya, Alexeevskaya, AEEA. Out of the carriage and turn right¡ªI'd always known that.
A long, long escalator, on which for some reason I have no thoughts about anything at all. Those annoying advertisements again. A pedestrian underpass. And there's the hotel. A horseshoe-shaped monstrosity of French architecture. The hotel has changed, though, and quite noticeably. They've added illuminated billboards and bright lights; and then there's the casino, with the prize foreign automobile displayed on a pedestal. Some street girls standing around outside smoking, despite the hard frost. And the doorman inside, whose hands instantly swallow up a hundred-ruble bill.
It wasn't really late yet, so it was still busy in the foyer. Someone was talking on a cell phone, rapping out phrases in Arabic loud enough for everyone to hear, and there was music coming from several directions at once.
"A deluxe suite for one," I said casually. "And please, no phone calls offering me girls. I've come to work."
Money is a great thing. A suite was found instantly and I was immediately offered dinner to be delivered to my room and promised that no one would call me, although I didn't really believe it. And they suggested I should register straightaway, because I had a Ukrainian passport. I registered. But then, instead of quietly making for the elevator to which I was solicitously directed, I set out toward an unremarkable little door in the darkest and emptiest corner of the foyer.
There were no plaques at all on this door.
The receptionist watched me go with genuine admiration. I think everyone else had stopped noticing me at all.
Behind the door I discovered a grubby little office¡ªprobably the only space in the hotel that hadn't been given a European makeover. It looked as if it had come straight out of the uncivilized Soviet '70s.
A standard-type desk¡ªnot really shabby, but it had seen plenty of service, a standard-type chair, and an ancient Polish "Aster" telephone in the center of the desk. Perched on the chair was a puny little guy wearing a militia sergeant's uniform. He looked up at me inquiringly.
The sergeant was an Other. And he was a Light One¡ªI realized that straightaway.
A Light One... Hmm. Then who was I? I didn't think I was a Light One. No, definitely not a Light One.
Well then, that decided the matter.
"Hello," I said to him. "I'd like to register in Moscow."
The militiaman addressed me through clenched teeth, with a mixture of surprise and irritation in his voice: "The receptionist handles registration... When you check in. You have to check in to register." He rustled the newspaper that he had been studying with a pencil in his hand before I arrived¡ªI think he was marking interesting announcements from the incredibly long list.
"I've been through the ordinary registration already," I explained. "I need the Other registration. By the way, I haven't introduced myself: Vitaly Rogoza, Other."
The militiaman immediately straightened up and looked at me differently, with a perplexed expression now. He didn't seem able to recognize me as an Other. So I helped him.
"Dark," he muttered after a while, with a feeling of relief, or so it seemed to me. He also introduced himself: "Zakhar Zelin-sky, Other. Night Watch employee. Let's go through..."
I could clearly hear in his tone of voice the old complaint about all these foreigners flooding into our Moscow. Others could never help dragging human models and stereotypes into their own relationships. This Light One definitely seemed annoyed by the arrival of yet another provincial and the need to get up off his backside, tear his eyes away from the newspaper, drag himself to his computer, and go through the hassle of a registration...
There was another door in the middle of the wall, one that an ordinary person never could have seen. But there was no need to open it¡ªwe walked through the wall, surrounded by the gray twilight that had instantly filled the space around us. Our movements became soft and slow, and even the flickering of the light bulb on the ceiling became visible.
The second room looked far more presentable than the first.
The sergeant immediately sat down at a comfortable little desk with a computer and offered me a seat on a plump divan.
"Are you staying in Moscow for long?"
"I don't know yet. I think for at least a month."
"Show me your permanent residence registration, please."
He could have seen it for himself, using his sight as an Other, but apparently the rules obliged him to use the simplest method.
My jacket was already open, so I just pulled up my sweater, shirt, and T-shirt. There on my chest was the bluish mark of a permanent registration in the Ukraine. The sergeant read it with a pass of his open hand and began slowly fingering the keyboard of his PC. He took a while to check the data, then rustled away on the keyboard again. He opened a massive safe that was locked with more than just keys, took something out, ran through the necessary procedures, and concluded by flinging a small bundle of bluish light at me. For an instant my entire upper body was flooded with fire, and a second later I had two seals decorating my chest. The second was my temporary Moscow registration.
"Your registration is temporary, but it has no fixed period," the sergeant explained without any particular enthusiasm. "Since our database indicates that you are an entirely law-abiding Dark Other, we can go easy on you and issue an unlimited registration. I hope the Night Watch won't have any reason to change its opinion about you. The seal will self-destruct as soon as you spend twenty-four hours outside the Moscow city limits. If you have to leave for more than twenty-four hours, I'm afraid you'll have to register again."
"I understand," I said. "Thank you. Can I go?"
"Yes, you can go... Dark One."
The sergeant said nothing for a few moments, then he locked the safe (with more than just keys), left the computer as it was, and gestured with his hand toward the door.
Back in the grubby little room, he asked me uncertainly:
Sergei Lukyanen
"Pardon me, but who are you? Not a vampire, not a shape-shifter, not an incubus, not a warlock¡ªI can tell all that. And not a magician either, I think. I don't quite understand..."
The sergeant himself was a Light magician, about fourth level. That wasn't very high, but it wasn't exactly nothing either...
Yes, indeed¡ªwho was I?
"That's a difficult question," I replied evasively. "More a magician than anything else, I think. Goodbye."
I picked up my bag and went back out into the foyer.
Five minutes later I was already making myself at home in my suite.
I'd been right not to believe the receptionist¡ªthe first call with an offer to provide me with entertainment caught me while I was shaving. I morosely but politely asked them not to call again. The second time there was less politeness in my tone of voice, and the third time I simply poured so much sticky, viscous Power into the innocent phone that the person at the other end choked and stopped in mid-word. But at least they didn't call me anymore.
I'm learning, I thought. But am I really a magician or not?
To be honest, I hadn't really been surprised by what the Light sergeant had said. Vampires, shape-shifters, incubuses... They all exist. They certainly do. But only for their own kind, for the Others. For ordinary people, they don't exist. But for the Others, ordinary people are the very source of existence. Their roots and their nourishment. For both the Light Ones and the Dark Ones, no matter what nonsense the Light Ones might trumpet on every street corner. They also draw their energy from the lives of human beings. And as for their goals... We both have the same goals. It's just that we and the Light Ones both try to overtake our competitors and reach our goals first.
I was distracted from this torrent of revelations by a knock at the door¡ªthey had brought my dinner. After I'd fed the waiter a hundred-ruble bill (where did I get this lordly habit of handing out such incredibly generous tips?), I tried to concentrate again, but I'd obviously lost the wavelength. A pity.
But in any case, I had climbed up one more step. At least now
I knew there were two different kinds of Others: Light Ones and Dark Ones. I was a Dark One. I wasn't very fond of Light Ones, but I couldn't say that I hated them. After all, they were Others too, even if they did follow rather different principles from us.
And I'd begun to understand a bit more about what lay behind my threat to the werewolf in the park, behind the vague but imposing title "Night Watch." What it signified was the observation of Dark Ones at night¡ªprecisely at night, because the Dark Ones' time was the night. Naturally, there was a Day Watch as well. They were my kind, but I had to be careful with them too, because if I did something wrong it wouldn't earn me a pat on the back. And this whole system was in a rather shaky state of equilibrium, since both sides were constantly seeking means and methods to finally rout their opponents and acquire undivided control over the world of human beings...
That was all I had so far. And from the height of this step I couldn't make out anything more in the encircling Twilight...
I heard the Call just as I was finishing my dinner.
Neither too quiet, nor too loud, neither pleading nor imperious. The person it was intended for heard it too. And couldn't resist.
It wasn't intended for me. So it was strange that I could hear it...
That meant I had to do something.
Something implacable inside me was already giving orders. Put your jacket on! Put the bag in the cupboard! Lock the windows and the doors! And not just with the locks and latches, you blockhead!
Drawing in Power from everywhere I could reach, I made sure that ordinary people wouldn't take any interest in my room. Others had no business being here anyway.
The dead-drunk Syrian in the next room suddenly sobered up. On the next floor down the Czech who had been suffering torment with his stomach finally puked and collapsed in relief with his arms round the toilet bowl. In the room across the corridor an elderly businessman from the Urals slapped his wife on the cheek for the first time in his life, putting an end to an old, lingering quarrel¡ªan hour later the couple would celebrate their reconciliation in the restaurant on the second floor. If there was a Light One around then, I'd already set the table for him...
But all this didn't really interest me. I was following the Call. The Call that wasn't intended for me.
Evening was smoothly merging into night. The avenue was full of noise, the wind howled in the trolley wires. For some reason the sounds of nature drowned out the voices of civilization¡ª maybe because I was listening so intently?
To the right, along the avenue. Definitely.
I pulled my cap down tighter on my head and set off along the sidewalk.
When I had almost reached a long building with shop windows along its first floor displaying absurd phoney samovars, the Call stopped. But I already knew where to go.
Beside the next building there was the dark tunnel of a narrow alley. And right now it was filled with genuinely intense darkness.
As if to spite me, the wind grew stronger, lashing at my face and shoving me back like a rugby player, and I had to lean forward in order to move at all.
There was the alley. It looked like I was too late. An indistinct silhouette froze for a moment against the vague patch of light that was the other end of the alley; all I could make out was a pale face that was obviously not human and the dull gleam of two eyes. And I think I saw teeth.
That was all. Someone had been here and disappeared, but there was someone else still here, and they wouldn't be going anywhere.
I leaned down over the motionless body and took a close look. A girl, still very young, about sixteen, with a strange mixture of bliss and torment in her glazed eyes. There was a fluffy knitted scarf and a matching hat lying beside her. Her jacket was unbuttoned, exposing her neck. And there were four puncture marks clearly visible on her neck.
Somehow I wasn't surprised that I was able to see in almost total darkness.
I squatted down beside the girl. Whoever had drunk her blood¡ªnot a lot of it, no more than a quarter of a liter¡ªhad also drunk her life. Sucked out all of her energy right down to the last drop. A lousy way to go.
And then people burst into the alley from both ends simultaneously, or rather, not people¡ªOthers.
"Stop there! Night Watch! Leave the Twilight!"
I straightened up, not realizing immediately what they wanted from me, and received a hard blow¡ªbut not from a fist or a foot. It was something white, as white as a surgeon's coat. It didn't really hurt, but it was annoying. One of the watchmen was pointing a short rod at me. There was a red stone on the end of it, and he looked as if he were getting ready to hit me again.
And then I was immediately thrown one more step up the stairway. Not even just one, but two at least.
I left the Twilight. Now I understood what was happening when everything around me slowed down and I could suddenly see in pitch darkness. It was the world of the Others. And I'd been ordered¡ªnot asked, but ordered¡ªto return to the world of human beings.
So I did, obeying without any objections. Because it was the right thing to do.
"Name yourself!" they demanded. I couldn't see who they were, because they were shining a flashlight in my face. I could have made out their faces, but just at that moment that wasn't the right thing to do.
"Vitaly Rogoza, Other."
"Andrei Tiunnikov, Other, Night Watch agent," said the one who had struck me with his battle wand, clearly taking pleasure in introducing himself.
Now I could tell that I hadn't been hit with full Power; it had just been a warning shot. But if they wanted, they could strike a lot harder¡ªthe charge in the wand was strong enough.
"Well now, Dark One. What do we have here? A fresh corpse, and you standing beside it. Are you going to explain? Or maybe you have a license? Well?"
"Andriukha, hold your horses," someone called sharply to him from out of the darkness.
But Andriukha took no notice and just gestured in annoyance.
"Wait!"
He spoke to me again: "Well, then? Why don't you talk, Dark One? Nothing to say?"
I wasn't saying anything.
Andriukha Tiunnikov was a magician. A Light magician, naturally, and just barely up to the fifth level.
I'd been that strong yesterday.
He obviously hadn't charged the amulet himself¡ªI could sense the work of a much more experienced magician than him. And I thought the two young guys behind his back looked a bit more powerful too.
On the other side the alley was blocked off by a girl, standing on her own. She was young and not very tall, but she was the most experienced and dangerous member of the group. She was a shape-shifting battle magician. Something like a Light werewolf.
"Well, come on, Dark One!" Andriukha insisted. "Still got nothing to say? I see. Show me your registration! And someone let the Day Watch know we have a Dark poacher here..."
"You're a fool, Andriukha," I said derisively. "So delighted because you've caught a Dark poacher! Why don't you try taking a look at the victim? Who do you think finished her off?"
Andriukha broke off and squinted sideways at the dead girl. He seemed to be getting the picture.
"Ava... vampire..." he muttered.
"And who am I?"
"You're a ma... magician..." Andriukha was so confused, he'd begun to stammer.
I turned to the girl, because I'd decided she was the one I ought to talk to. "When I got here it was all over. I saw the vampire, but he was already outside the alley. He took off into the yard. The girl was already dead, she's been completely drained, but only a mouthful of her blood has been taken. I'm new in town, just off the train two hours ago. I'm staying at the Cosmos Hotel."
And I couldn't resist adding, "Not the first time vampires have used this alley for poaching, is it?"
Now I could see the traces of the past there, on the ground and on the walls. I'd jumped several steps at once.
"Only last time you were luckier, Light Ones... But I must say you did a lousy job cleaning up¡ªthe signs are still visible now."
"Don't get any idea we're grateful to you," the girl answered darkly through her clenched teeth. "And let me take a look at your registration anyway."
"By all means." I meekly showed them the seal. "I hope I'm not required any longer? I wouldn't like to hinder your superlative detectives in their search for the poacher."
"We'll find you tomorrow," the girl told me dryly. "If we need you."
"Please do!" I said with a grin. Then I moved one of the watchmen aside and walked out onto the avenue.
I cast off the guise of an ordinary Dark One about a hundred steps farther on.