Last Watch Read online

  “It’s easier to apply protective spells that prevent long-distance sensing to files made from organic materials,” Gesar said, in answer to my unasked question. “It’s the same reason why we use only books for studying magic. When a text is typed into a computer, it doesn’t retain any of the magic.”

  I looked into Gesar’s eyes, astonished.

  “I never even thought about reading your mind,” the boss said. “Until you learn to control your face, I don’t have to.”

  Now I could feel the magic that permeated the file: a light, defensive spell that caused no problems for Light Ones. Dark Ones could remove it with no real difficulty, but it would create a real din while they were at it.

  When I opened the file—the Great Gesar had tied the laces in a neat bow—I discovered four fresh newspaper clippings that still smelled of printer’s ink, a fax, and three photographs. The clippings were in English, and I began by focusing on them.

  The first clipping was a brief article about an incident in a tourist attraction that was called the Dungeons of Scotland. This establishment seemed to be a fairly banal version of the standard “house of horror.” But a Russian tourist had been killed there, according to the article, “as a result of technical faults.” The Dungeons had been closed and the police were investigating to establish whether the personnel were responsible for the tragedy.

  The second article was much more detailed. It didn’t mention any “technical faults” at all. The text was rather dry, even pedantic. I grew more and more excited as I read that the man who had died, twenty-year-old Victor Prokhorov, had been studying at Edinburgh University and was the son of “a Russian politician.” He had gone to the dungeons with his girlfriend, Valeria Khomko, who had flown from Russia to see him, and died in her arms from loss of blood. In the darkness of the tourist attraction someone—or something—had cut his throat. The poor guy and his girlfriend had been sitting in a boat that was sailing slowly across the “River of Blood,” a shallow ditch around the “Castle of the Vampires.” Perhaps some sharp piece of metal protruding from the wall had caught Victor across the throat?

  When I got to this point, I sighed and looked at Gesar.

  “You’ve always been good with... er... vampires,” the boss said, looking up from his papers for a second.

  The third article was from the yellow press, one of Scotland’s cheap tabloids. And of course, in this case the reporter told a terrible story of modern-day vampires who suck the blood of their victims in the dismal darkness of tourist attractions. The only original detail was the journalist’s claim that vampires did not usually suck their victims dry and kill them. But like a true Russian, the student had been so drunk that the poor Scottish vampire had got tipsy too and then got carried away.

  Even though the story was so tragic, I laughed.

  “The yellow press is the same everywhere the whole world over,” Gesar said without looking up.

  “The worst thing is, that’s exactly the way it appears,” I said. “Apart from him being drunk, of course.”

  “A pint of beer with lunch,” Gesar agreed.

  The fourth clipping was from one of our Russian newspapers. An obituary. “Condolences to Leonid Prokhorov, Deputy of the State Duma, whose son has been killed tragically... ”

  I picked up the fax.

  As I expected, it was a report from the Night Watch of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, Great Britain.

  The only slightly unusual thing about it was that it was addressed to Gesar in person, not the duty operations officer or head of the international department. And the tone of the letter was just a little more personal than is customary for official documents.

  The contents were no surprise to me, though.

  “We regret to inform you... the results of a thorough investigation... total loss of blood... no signs of initiation were found... searches have discovered nothing... our best men have been put on the case... if the Moscow department considers it necessary to send... give my best wishes to Olga, I’m very pleased for you, you old co... ”

  The second page of the fax was missing. Obviously the text on it was personal. And so I didn’t see the signature.

  “Foma Lermont,” said Gesar. “Head of the Scottish Watch. An old friend.”

  “Aha... ” I said thoughtfully. “And so... ”

  Our glances met again.

  “Oh no, you can ask for yourself if he’s related to the Russian poet Lermontov,” said Gesar.

  “I was thinking of something else. ‘Foma’ is the Russian version of ‘Thomas,’ so Thomas Lermont?” I asked.

  “And you can ask him yourself if he’s Thomas the Rhymer, too!” Gesar laughed, meaning the legendary thirteenth-century Scottish laird and poet.

  “What does he mean by ‘co’—as in commander?”

  “ ‘Co’ is... ” Gesar hesitated and glanced at the page with obvious annoyance. “ ‘Co’ is just ‘co.’ That’s none of your business.”

  I looked at the photographs. A young man, the unfortunate victim, Victor. A girl, very young. His girlfriend, no need to guess there. And an older man. Victor’s father?

  “The circumstantial evidence suggests a vampire attack. But why does the situation require intervention by us?” I asked. “Russians are often killed abroad. Sometimes by vampires. Don’t you trust Foma and his men?”

  “I trust them. But they don’t have much experience. Scotland is a peaceful, calm, cozy country. They might not be up to the job. And you’ve had a lot of dealings with vampires.”

  “Of course. But even so... Is the reason because his father’s a politician?”

  Gesar frowned.

  “Twenty years ago the young man’s father was identified as a potential Light Other. A rather powerful one. He declined initiation and said he wanted to remain a human being. He sent the Dark Ones packing straightaway. But he maintained a certain level of contact with us. Helped us sometimes.”

  I nodded. Yes, it was a rare case. It’s not often that people reject all the opportunities that Others have.

  “You might say that I feel guilty about Prokhorov senior,” Gesar said. “And though I can’t help his son anymore... I won’t let his killer go unpunished. You’re going to go to Edinburgh, find this crazy bloodsucker, and reduce him to dust in the wind.”

  That was a direct order. But I hadn’t been about to argue in any case.

  “When do I fly?” I asked.

  “Call in to the international section. They should have prepared your documents, tickets, and money. And a cover story.”

  “A co–ver story? Who for? Me?”

  “Yes, you’ll be working unofficially.”

  “Will I have co-ntacts?”

  For some reason Gesar frowned again and gave me a strangely suspicious glance.

  “Only Foma... Anton, stop mocking me!”

  I gave Gesar a perplexed look.

  “‘Co’ is the beginning of the word ‘cocksman,’” Gesar blurted out. “We were young then, you know... the free-and-easy morals of the Renaissance... All right, off you go! And try to catch the next flight out.” He paused for an instant, then added: “If Svetlana doesn’t object. And if she does, say that I’ll try to persuade her.”

  “She will object,” I said confidently.

  What was it that had upset Gesar like that? And why had he felt I needed the word “cocksman” explained to me?

  Svetlana set a plate down in front of me, full of fried potatoes and mushrooms. Then a knife and fork appeared on the table, followed by a salt shaker, a saucer of pickled cucumbers, a little glass, and a small carafe with just a hundred grams of vodka. The carafe was straight out of the fridge and it immediately fogged up in the warm air.

  Bliss!

  Every man’s dream when he comes home from work. His wife fusses o
ver the stove and puts delicious things that are bad for him on the table. Was there something she wanted to ask me? My daughter was playing quietly with her building set—at the age of five she had already lost interest in dolls. She didn’t build little cars and airplanes, though. She built houses. Maybe she was going to be an architect?

  “Sveta, they’re sending me to Edinburgh,” I repeated, just to be on the safe side.

  “Yes, I heard you,” Svetlana replied calmly as she made the little carafe on the table lift into the air. The round glass stopper twisted out of its neck. The cold vodka flowed into the glass in a thick, translucent stream.

  “I have to get a plane today,” I said. “There’s no direct flight to Edinburgh, so I’ll fly to London and transfer there... ”

  “Then, don’t drink a lot,” Svetlana said anxiously.

  The carafe swerved and moved away toward the fridge.

  “I thought you’d be upset,” I said, disappointed.

  “What’s the point?” Svetlana asked, serving herself a full plate of food as well. “Would you not go?”

  “No, I would.”

  “There, you see; Gesar would only start calling and explaining how important your trip is.” Svetlana frowned.

  “It really is important.”

  “I know,” Svetlana said, nodding. “This morning I sensed that they were going to send you somewhere far away again. I phoned Olga and asked what had happened in the last few days. Well, she told me about that young guy in Scotland.”

  I nodded in relief. Svetlana knew all about it; that was great. No need for lies or half-truths.

  “It’s a strange business,” she said.

  I shrugged and drank the forty grams of vodka I had been allocated. I crunched happily on a pickled cucumber and then asked, with my mouth full, “What’s so strange about it? Either a wild vampire or one who went insane because he hadn’t fed for too long... that’s pretty normal stuff for them. This one seems to have a distinctive sense of humor, though. Fancy killing someone in a tourist attraction called the Castle of the Vampires!”

  “Quiet.” Svetlana frowned and indicated our daughter, Nadya, with her eyes.

  I started chewing energetically. I love fried potatoes, especially with a crispy crust. And they have to be fried in goose fat, with crackling, and a handful of white mushrooms, fresh ones if they’re in season, or dried ones if they’re not. Everything’s all right. Mommy and Daddy are talking about all sorts of nonsense about movies and books. Vampires don’t really exist... .

  Unfortunately, there’s no way our daughter can be fooled. She can see them all quite clearly. It had been a struggle to teach her not to mention it in a loud voice in the metro or on the bus. “Mommy, Daddy, look, that man there’s a vampire!” It wasn’t a big deal about the other passengers—they would just put it all down to childish foolishness—but I felt awkward for the vampires somehow. Some of them have never attacked people. They drink their donor blood honestly and lead perfectly decent lives. And then in the middle of a crowd a five-year-old kid jabs her finger at you and laughs: “That man’s not alive, but he’s walking around!” There was nothing we could do, she could hear what we were talking about, and she would draw her own conclusions.

  But this time Nadya took no interest in our conversation. She was putting a red tile roof on a little house of yellow plastic bricks.

  “I don’t think it’s a question of anybody’s sense of humor,” Svetlana said. “Gesar wouldn’t send you all the way across Europe for that. The Watch in Scotland isn’t full of fools. They’ll find the bloodsucker sooner or later.”

  “Then what is it? I’ve found out everything about the victim. A decent guy, but no saint. Obviously not an Other. The Dark Ones have no need to kill him deliberately. The boy’s father once refused to become an Other, but he cooperated unofficially with the Night Watch. A rare case, but not unique. The Dark Ones have no reason for revenge.”

  Svetlana sighed. She glanced at the fridge and made the carafe come flying back to us.

  I suddenly realized that she was worried about something.

  “Sveta, have you looked into the future?”

  “Yes.”

  It’s not possible to see the future in the way that charlatans and fortune-tellers talk about it. Not even if you’re a Great Other. But it is possible to calculate the probability of one event or another: Will you get stuck in a traffic jam on this road or not, will your plane explode in midair, will you survive or be killed in the next battle?... To put it simply, the more precise the question is, the more precise the answer will be. You can’t just ask, “What’s in store for me tomorrow?”

  “Well?”

  “There’s no threat to your life in this investigation.”

  “That’s great,” I said sincerely. I took the carafe and poured another glass each for both of us. “Thanks. You’ve reassured me.”

  We drank, then looked at each other grimly. The vodka tasted like water.

  Then we looked at Nadya. Our daughter was sitting on the floor, fiddling with her building set. Sensing our eyes on her, she started trilling, “La la-la la la-la.”

  It was the kind of singsong that grown-ups often use to represent little girls in jokes. Horrid little girls who are just about to blow something up, break something, or say something really nasty.

  “Nadezhda!” Svetlana said in an icy voice.

  “La-la-la... ” Nadya sang in a slightly louder voice. “What have I done now? You said Daddy shouldn’t drink before he flies away. Drinking vodka’s bad for you, you said so! Masha’s daddy drank, he drank and he left home... ”

  There was a subtle weepy note in her voice.

  “Nadezhda Antonovna!” Svetlana said in a genuinely stern tone. “Grown-up people have the right... sometimes... to drink a glass of vodka. Have you ever seen Daddy drunk?”

  “At Uncle Tolya’s birthday,” Nadya replied instantly.

  Svetlana gave me a very expressive look. I shrugged guiltily.

  “Even so,” said Svetlana, “you have no right to use magic on Mommy and Daddy. I’ve never done that!”

  “And Daddy?”

  “Neither has Daddy. And turn around and face me immediately. Am I talking to your back?”

  Nadya turned around and pressed her lips together stubbornly. She thought for a moment and then pressed one finger against her forehead. I could hardly hold back a smile. Little children love to copy gestures. And it doesn’t bother them at all that it’s only characters in cartoons who put their fingers to their foreheads when they’re thinking, whereas real live people don’t.

  “OK,” said Nadya. “I’m sorry, Mommy and Daddy. I won’t do it again. I’ll fix everything!”

  “Don’t fix anything!” Svetlana exclaimed.

  But it was too late. The water that had been in our glasses instead of vodka suddenly turned back into vodka. Or maybe even pure alcohol.

  Right there in our stomachs.

  I felt as if a little bomb had gone off in my belly. I groaned and started picking up the almost cold potatoes on my fork.

  “Anton, at least say something,” said Svetlana, exasperated.

  “Nadya, if you were a boy, you’d get my belt across your bottom!” I said.

  “Lucky for me I’m not a boy,” Nadya replied, not the slightest bit frightened. “What’s wrong, Daddy? You wanted to drink some vodka. And now you have. It’s already inside you. You said vodka doesn’t taste nice, so why drink it with your mouth?”

  Svetlana and I looked at each other, at a loss.

  “There’s no answer to that,” Svetlana summed up. “I’ll go and pack your suitcase. Shall I call a taxi?”

  “No need. Semyon will take me.”

  Even that late in the evening the ring road was packed, but Semyon didn’t even seem to no
tice it. And I didn’t even know if he had checked the probability lines or was simply driving with the instincts of a driver who has a hundred years’ experience.

  “You’re getting snobbish, Anton,” he muttered without taking his eyes off the road. “You might at least have told Gesar: I won’t go anywhere on my own, I need a partner, send Semyon with me... ”

  “How was I supposed to know that you like Scotland so much?”

  “How? Didn’t I tell you how we fought the Scottish at the battle of Sebastopol?”

  “Not the Germans?” I suggested uncertainly.

  “No, the Germans came later,” Semyon said dismissively. “Ah, there were real men in those days... bullets whistling overhead, shells flying through the air, hand-to-hand fighting by the Sixth Bastion... and there we are, flinging magic at each other like fools. Two Light Others, only he’d come with the English army... He got me in the shoulder, with the Spear of Suffering... But I got him with the Freeze—frosted him all the way up from his heels to his neck!”

  He grunted happily.

  “And who won?” I asked.

  “Don’t you know any history?” Semyon asked indignantly. “We did, of course. And I took my friend Kevin prisoner. I went to see him later. It was already the twentieth century then... 1907... or was it eight?”

  He swung the steering wheel sharply as he overtook a Jaguar sports car and shouted through the open window, “Use your brakes, you stupid ass! And he wants to swear at me!”

  “He’s embarrassed in front of his girlfriend,” I explained, glancing at the Jaguar as it disappeared behind us. “Letting some old Volga cut him off like that.”

  “A car’s not the right place for showing off to a girl—the bed’s for that. The consequences of a mistake there are more upsetting, but less tragic... Ah. I tell you what, if things get tight, call Gesar and ask him to send me to help. We’ll call in to see Kevin, drink some whisky. From his own distillery, by the way!”