Sixth Watch Read online

  The boy was twelve or thirteen; at that age they don’t use the word “pee,” especially to grown-up strangers. They might say “piss,” or “take a leak,” if the child is highly cultured.

  I glanced at him through the Twilight. Aha, clear enough. Like everyone in the school, he was under a light concentration spell. Right now, perhaps for the first time in the history of universal education, all the children in a school really were studying.

  Only in this youngster the pull of nicotine (it’s a very, very powerful drug) was battling against the inner attraction to knowledge.

  “You will take a leak and go back to class,” I said. “You really, really want to study. And you don’t want to smoke anymore; cigarettes disgust you.”

  “I want to study,” the boy said, relaxing, and he walked on.

  And I went to the classroom where the Other guards had caught up with Nadya.

  Of course, there weren’t any lessons taking place there right now. Repairs were in progress. Two men in overalls, a bucket of cement, bricks . . .

  “Hello,” I said. “Esan? Adrian?”

  The guys turned to face me. Esan was Fifth Level. Adrian was Sixth. Both from the Night Watch reserve.

  “Just leave out the wisecracks, Gorodetsky,” said Esan.

  He was over forty. A very cultured man, he used to teach in a university in his home country, and even wrote some kind of textbook. Then he left and came to Moscow to earn a bit of money from painting and decorating. He had been identified as an Other here—Semyon discovered him when he decided to redecorate his apartment.

  “Okay, I will,” I said.

  Adrian, a young, dark-skinned guy, smiled cheerfully.

  “What’s the problem? Spells won’t do the job for you here, this needs repairs. And all you Muscovites are useless. A Tajik and a Moldovanian—that’s real power for you!”

  “That’s good,” I agreed. “Power.”

  As far as I knew, these two guys, who had only recently acquired the full abilities of Others, were joint owners of a small construction firm. And why not? It’s an excellent, Light kind of trade.

  And in addition, it’s handy for all the Others to have a builder they know. Not only can they get a dacha built, they can have a few spells put on it at the same time.

  “Where are our boys?”

  “They’ve moved up to the fourth floor,” said Adrian.

  I set off toward the stairs. Halfway up I was overtaken by the same boy, dashing back from the toilet to continue his pursuit of knowledge. What miraculous academic progress would be made in this school for the next few days!

  On the stairs I met Las.

  “Gorodetsky!” he exclaimed joyfully. “They told me you’d gone zooming off somewhere with the boss!”

  “I’m back already.”

  Las turned serious, evidently remembering what had happened in the school less than two hours earlier.

  “How’s your daughter?”

  “Everything’s okay.”

  “And your wife?”

  “Fine. We coped.”

  Las nodded.

  “I’ll be sure to light a candle for our patron saint . . .”

  I had no problem with Las’s religious enlightenment; in fact I rather liked it. But something here triggered my doubts.

  “For whom?” I asked suspiciously.

  “For Ilya. Ilya of Murom.”

  “Whose patron saint is he?”

  “Well . . . Ours . . . the Others.”

  “Did the priest tell you that?”

  “No, I figured it out for myself. A warrior. He fought against forces of evil. As a child he was paralyzed. But he was cured and initiated by three wayward militants.”

  “Wandering mendicants!”

  “Right, sorry about that,” said Las, totally unembarrassed. “But all the rest is right.”

  “Light your candle,” I said with a nod. “No problem. What’s happening here, in the school?”

  “Well, we’re gradually sorting everything out,” Las said with modest pride. “I’ve been put in charge of the operation, by the way. Because this is the school where I—”

  “You were a pupil here?”

  “No, I used to teach singing. Only I didn’t really teach anything, it was just a cover to give my friends a spot for their band to rehearse, so I know this place well. We’re handling things. The kids are in their lessons, the teachers are teaching them, the Tajiks are doing their repairs, the healers are saving the wounded . . .”

  “Wounded?”

  “Oh yeah. That vampire went on a binge. Did he really save you?”

  I nodded.

  Las shook his head in wonder.

  “Weird stuff. You know, he cut loose first. Wounded the guard. Then ran through the classrooms, sucking a bit of blood . . .”

  “What?” At this point I was completely at a loss.

  “Eight little kids! Just a little drop from each one, mind you. Maybe he was preparing for battle?”

  “Maybe,” I said pensively.

  “Anyway, I don’t understand these vampires.” Las sighed. “Okay, back in the Middle Ages, if you wanted to suck a bit of fresh blood, without any syphilis or plague, and without any pockmarks or scars—then children were the only ones you should feed on. Not nice, of course, but logical. But now, in this day and age, why suck a kid’s blood? It’s laced with chemicals. All those low-alcohol cocktails! Nicotine! Burgers made with palm oil! A crazy amount of sugar from cola. Synthetic drugs. Dill and parsley smoking mixtures! Inoculations! Sheer poison!”

  “And who would you recommend?” I asked. “You know, if I suddenly turn vampire?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that myself,” said Las, nodding with a perfectly serious expression. “Right now the best choice would be some thirty- to forty-five-year-old brainworker. That means he’s already over his wild days, he can’t afford to get up to too much mischief for his health’s sake, and at the same time he’s not old enough to have accumulated a whole load of toxins.”

  “I really don’t know what to say to that,” I confessed. “I think I’d better change the subject. I need classroom 7A.”

  “You mean you want Innokentii Tolkov?” Las chuckled. “We didn’t put the spell on him, he’s one of ours, an Other. He’s on the first floor, in the first-aid room.”

  “What’s wrong with that chump?” I asked, frowning.

  Maybe I was being unfair to the lad, but I didn’t like the way he’d been spending so much time with Nadya recently.

  “Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s helping our doctor, as far as he can. It’s practical experience for him, and it makes things a little bit easier for us.”

  Innokentii Tolkov really was assisting our doctor. He was draped in a white coat that was too big for him and focusing very seriously on what he was doing.

  Ivan was just finishing treating the little wounds on the neck of a really small kid, barely even big enough for a first-year pupil. The boy was straight out of some children’s book—he had big eyes, a long neck, and tousled blond hair, and he was sitting there quietly on the doctor’s couch with his head leaning to one side, to make it easier for the doctor to inspect his neck. The very essence of cute sweetness. In reality, he was probably a quarrelsome, contentious troublemaker, an absolute nightmare for his parents and a headache for his teachers. But right now, under the spell, the boy sat there quietly, hardly even blinking as he listened to the doctor.

  “And then you grabbed Lena by the neck and scratched her until she bled,” Ivan was saying. “And then she grabbed you and scratched you too. And the teacher took you to the doctor’s room. You made up. The teacher told you that if your parents complain, you’ll both be expelled from the school, Lena and you. A plaster!”

  Innokentii handed him the plaster. He saw me, started, and nodded.

  Ivan deftly stuck the plaster over the boy’s wounds and patted him on the back.

  “Run back to class, Silvano. The teacher’s waiting for yo
u.”

  “Scratches?” I asked doubtfully as I shook Ivan’s hand.

  “The bites are all superficial,” Ivan said with a shrug. “In fact I’d say that in most cases no arteries or veins were punctured at all, just a drop or two of capillary blood, nothing more . . . And I stretched the wounds out just a little bit; now they can be put down to a childish scuffle.”

  “So they weren’t bitten for their blood,” I said.

  “Oh no. They were just bitten for the sake of the bite.” Ivan sighed. “It’s totally crazy . . . Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “I need a list of everyone who was bitten,” I said. “Name, patronymic, and surname. Preferably in the order in which they were bitten.”

  “Now you’re complicating things,” said Ivan, shaking his head. “Well . . . I’ll try. Judging from the positions of the victims, the vampire moved in from the main door, going into classrooms every now and then and biting children. Give me half an hour or an hour.”

  I nodded.

  “No problem. Text the list to my cell, okay? And another thing—I’ll take Innokentii with me.”

  “If that’s okay with him,” said Ivan, glancing at the boy. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Thank you, Uncle Ivan,” Innokentii replied, taking off the white coat. “It was interesting.”

  In the years since I first met Innokentii, or Kesha, Tolkov, he had changed dramatically. The first time I saw him, he was a terribly fat, astoundingly ugly, and hysterically weepy child. Well, you must admit there are some children like that.

  Now Kesha was fourteen. He was almost the same age as Nadya, but he was one class behind her in school. He was still chubby, as he probably would be forever, but not so awfully fat as before—he had stretched and grown out of that. His ugliness hadn’t gone away, but in some amazing fashion, it had been recast as what women refer to in embarrassed tones as “male beauty.” That is, it was obvious he would never be handsome, but he would definitely catch any woman’s eye. This is a strange thing that often happens to actors, especially Russian and French ones.

  And that weepiness was long gone and forgotten. He was a very serious, composed young man, who spoke very judiciously.

  A Prophet!

  It was just a pity that Nadya and he had become such firm friends.

  “I would,” he said, walking over to me and holding out his hand.

  “Would what?” I asked as I shook it.

  “Like an ice cream. You were going to ask if I’d like an ice cream. Ice cream, in winter—of course I would!”

  I laughed.

  “Kesha! Common predictions aren’t your professional profile. You’re a Prophet.”

  “Yes, but a common Seer can’t predict what a Higher Other is going to say,” Kesha parried. “Let’s go, Uncle Anton, I know a good little café near here.”

  “And why haven’t you asked how Nadya’s getting on?” I asked reproachfully as we walked across the schoolyard.

  “What for? I know she’s all right.”

  I got an ice cream and a coffee for myself as well. The café was a cozy place, not part of a chain; they even made their own ice cream here in the Italian style—soft, with fruit flavors. I didn’t want anything sweet, so I chose the coffee flavor. Innokentii devoured a pistachio ice cream with obvious relish—it looked like he often treated himself to calorific indulgences like that in this place.

  “Do you remember the prophecy yourself?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, frowning. This was clearly a sore point—Prophets rarely remember what they say. “But I listened to it afterward.” Kesha licked his spoon and started reciting: “‘It was not spilled in vain, nor burned to no purpose. The first time has come. The Two shall arise in the flesh and open the doors. Three victims, the fourth time. Five days are left to the Others. Six days are left to people. To those who stand in the way, nothing will be left. The Sixth Watch is dead, the Fifth Power has disappeared. The Fourth has come too late. The Third Power does not believe, the Second Power is afraid, the First Power is exhausted.’”

  “That’s exactly right,” I said. “Will you help me decipher it?”

  “Why me, Uncle Anton?” Kesha asked, genuinely surprised. “I’ve got absolutely no experience. I might be a High-Level Other, but I’m still only learning.”

  “Because I trust you. Because you once proclaimed a very, very important prophecy indeed. Because we’re friends. Because Nadya likes you.”

  Kesha was slightly embarrassed. But he didn’t blush, he didn’t look away, even though he was uncomfortable. And he answered with dignity.

  “I like Nadya a lot, Uncle Anton. And I think she likes me too. We were going to talk to you about it. In a couple of years.”

  I gasped, feeling it was my turn to be embarrassed now . . . And hoping that I wouldn’t blush.

  “Let’s say in . . . Er . . . Four or five years . . . Maybe six would be better.”

  “All right . . .” The young teenager didn’t try to argue. “But really, why? You can call in any Seer or Prophet. Bring in Glyba, he’s a clever man, he teaches our special course.”

  “Well, you see, Kesha, it seems to me that this case doesn’t demand an awful lot of knowledge and cleverness. Although a solid grounding in the basics is essential. And you fit the bill perfectly, you get nothing but A’s on the special course. Tell me how it all happened.”

  “I was sitting in class,” Kesha replied. “And then it swept over me . . . I fell into a trance. I’ve got this thing now . . .” He stuck his hand in under his shirt and took out a little disk hanging on a chain, like a pendant. “It’s a recording device. I came around and everyone was looking at me and giggling . . . ‘He’s flipped, jabbering gobbledygook.’ You know, the usual thing . . . I put them all to sleep,” Kesha said with a smile. “And wiped the last minute from their memories. Standard procedure for Prophets, all by the book, but it was the first time I’d done it. Then I listened to the recording. I called the Watch and transmitted the file. They told me well done, I’d done everything right, but it was a mass prophecy. Well, I waited for everyone to come around and stayed in the classroom, wondering what kind of heavy shit this was. And then it was like a shudder ran through the Twilight . . .” Kesha frowned. “There was a crash out in the yard. I tried to look through the Twilight, but I couldn’t see anything, only blue moss scattering in all directions. And then I went out like a light, when Nadya’s spell kicked in. When I woke up there was a Dark One standing over me. He gave me this miserable look, then spoke into the headset of his phone. ‘I’ve got an Other here, First Level. A Light One.’ Well, he helped me up. All perfectly polite and correct.”

  “And have you had time to think over the prophecy?” I asked, swirling the melted ice cream around with my spoon. It was warm in the café, the numerous plants and well-directed lighting giving the impression of a summer day. Only outside it was starting to get dark and it was gray and cold. Snow was just beginning to fall.

  “Uncle Anton, I’m not a magician, I’m still studying.”

  “Understood. Tell me.”

  “Well, all these figures—they’re just embellishment. They do mean something, of course. But they’re mostly there for effect. A prophecy has to sound awesome and mysterious. Our Sergei Sergeevich is always telling us that.”

  “All right,” I said, and nodded. “That is, we take them into account, but we don’t get hung up on all these two-times-fours . . .”

  “It was not spilled in vain, nor burned to no purpose,” Kesha began. “I think it’s a sacrificial offering. Blood has been spilled. Someone’s been burned. Well, the beginning of a prophecy is usually fairly clear, and it usually talks about something bad . . .”

  “I’d just once like to hear a prophecy about something good,” I said.

  “They do happen,” Kesha said, consoling me. “What comes next? The first time has come. That’s twiddle too.”

  Kesha had used this word already and I couldn’t resist correcting
him.

  “Twaddle.”

  “No, twaddle is when someone just talks nonsense, but twiddle is when it’s absolute gibberish and malicious too, or meant to distract your attention.”

  “I’m not well up with teenage slang,” I admitted. “So it’s twiddle, then?”

  “Twiddle,” Kesha said confidently. “‘The first time has come’—so what, it’s come. And further on: ‘The Two shall arise in the flesh and open the doors.’ Well, that’s twiddle as well. About those two Watchmen who flipped, right? Some valuable information that is. Then: ‘Three victims the fourth time . . .’ You probably think that’s about you, don’t you? Nadya, Nadya’s mum, you . . . But it’s not necessarily that. It could be anybody at all. It’s not clearly attached to anything. If it said ‘A Zero Enchantress and two Great Ones, her parents . . .’”

  “It’s never like that.” I sighed. “All right, you’ve reassured me just a little bit. But only a tiny little bit. They came to Nadya’s school, they attacked her, and when they saw us, they gleefully turned on us too. Nadya’s definitely in that list of victims. And we probably are too.”

  “I did want to reassure you a bit,” Kesha admitted. “Well yes, it probably is about you after all.”

  “Kesha, let’s do without the reassurances. We’re not children.”

  “‘Five days are left to the Others. Six days are left to people. For those who stand in the way, nothing will be left.’ That’s all clear, right?”

  “Just one question. Five days beginning from when?”

  “From the time of the fourth attempt to kill you,” Kesha said in a quiet voice. “If they kill you.”

  “And then everyone will die? First the Others, then the people?”

  “Yes,” Kesha said after hesitating for a moment. “Although death isn’t directly mentioned, the general tone and the use of series, especially the figures five and six . . .”

  “Never mind the details, I believe you,” I said.

  “‘The Sixth Watch is dead,’” Kesha said, and started pondering. “Uncle Anton, that’s really what’s the most important thing. Definitely the most important. The Sixth Watch.”

  “Why?”

  “Because here there’s an asymptote at the point of inflexion, and that means—”