The Twilight Watch: Read online

  'Won't the owner object?' I asked with a laugh.

  'It's all the same to him now. And his heirs can't agree on how to share out the space.'

  CHAPTER 3

  I GOT BACK to my place at four in the morning. Slightly drunk, but remarkably relaxed. After all, you don't often come across people who are so different. Working in the Watch encourages you to be too categorical. This guy doesn't smoke or drink, he's a good boy. This one swears like a trooper, he's a bad boy. And there's nothing to be done about it, those are precisely the ones we're most interested in – the good ones as our support, the bad ones as potential Dark Ones.

  But somehow we tend to forget that there are all different sorts of people . . .

  The singer with the bass guitar didn't know anything about Others. I was sure of that. If only I could have sat up half the night with every one of Assol's inhabitants, then I could have formed an accurate opinion of all of them.

  But I wasn't entertaining any such illusions. Not everybody will ask you to come in, not everybody will start talking to you about obscure, abstract subjects. And then, apart from the ten or so residents, there were hundreds of service personnel – security guards, plumbers, labourers, bookkeepers. There was no way I could possibly check all of them in a reasonable amount of time.

  I managed to get washed in the shower – I'd discovered a strange sort of hose that I could get a jet of water out of – and then walked out into my one and only room. I needed to get some sleep . . . and the next morning I'd try to come up with a new plan.

  'Hi, Anton,' a voice said from the open window.

  I recognised it. And immediately felt sick at heart.

  'Good morning, Kostya,' I said. The words of greeting sounded inappropriate somehow. But not to greet the vampire at all would have been even more stupid.

  'Can I come in?' Kostya asked.

  I walked over to the window. Kostya was sitting on the outside sill with his back to me, dangling his legs. He was completely naked. As if to demonstrate straight away that he hadn't climbed up the wall, but had flown to the window in the form of a gigantic bat.

  A Higher Vampire. At not much more than twenty years old.

  A talented boy . . .

  'I think not,' I said.

  Kostya nodded and didn't try to argue:

  'As I understand it, we're working on the same job?'

  'Yes.'

  'That's good.' He turned round and flashed his teeth in a gleaming white smile. 'I like the idea of working with you. But are you really afraid of me?'

  'No.'

  'I've learned a lot,' Kostya boasted. Just like when he was a kid and he used to declare: 'I'm a terrible vampire! I'm going to learn how to turn into a bat! I'm going to learn how to fly!'

  'You haven't learned anything,' I corrected him. 'You've stolen a lot.'

  Kostya frowned:

  'Words. The usual Light word game. Your people allowed me to take it, so I did. What's the problem?'

  'Are we just going to carry on sparring like this?' I asked. And I raised my hand, folding the fingers into the sign of Aton, the negation of non-life. For a long time I'd wanted to find out if the ancient North African spells worked on modern Russian creatures of the Dark.

  Kostya glanced warily at the incomplete sign. Either he knew what it was, or he'd caught a whiff of power. He asked:

  'Are you allowed to breach your disguise?'

  I lowered my hand in annoyance.

  'No. But I might just risk it.'

  'No need. If you say so, I'll leave. But right now we're doing the same job . . . we have to talk.'

  'So talk,' I said, dragging a stool over to the window.

  'You won't let me in then?'

  'I don't want to be all alone in the middle of the night with a naked man,' I laughed. 'Who knows what people might think? Let's hear it.'

  'What do you make of the T-shirt collector?'

  I looked at Kostya quizzically.

  'The guy on the tenth floor. He collects funny T-shirts.'

  'He doesn't know anything,' I said.

  Kostya nodded:

  'That's what I think too. Eight of the apartments here are occupied. The owners of another six show up from time to time, but all the rest are very rarely here. I've already checked out all the permanent residents.'

  'And?'

  'Nothing. They don't know anything about us.'

  I didn't ask how Kostya could be so sure. After all, he was a Higher Vampire. They can enter another person's mind as easily as an experienced magician.

  'I'll deal with the other six in the morning,' said Kostya. 'But I'm not hopeful.'

  'And do you have any suggestions?' I asked.

  Kostya shrugged:

  'Anyone living here has enough money and influence to interest a vampire or a werewolf. A weak, hungry one . . . newly initiated. So the list of suspects is pretty long.'

  'How many newly initiated lower Dark Ones are there in Moscow?' I asked. I was amazed at how easily the phrase 'lower Dark Ones' slipped off my tongue.

  I never used to call them that.

  I used to feel sorry for them.

  Kostya reacted calmly to the phrase. He really was a Higher Vampire. In control, confident.

  'Not many,' he said evasively. 'They're being checked, don't worry. Everybody's being checked. All the lower Others, and even the magicians.'

  'Is Zabulon really concerned?' I asked.

  'Well, Gesar isn't exactly a model of composure,' Kostya responded. 'Everyone's concerned. You're the only one taking the situation so lightly.'

  'I don't see it as a great disaster,' I said. 'There are human beings who know we exist. Not many, but there are some. One more person doesn't change the situation. If he makes a sensation out of this, we'll soon locate him and make him look like some kind of psycho. That sort of thing has already . . .'

  'And what if he becomes an Other?' Kostya asked curtly.

  'Then there'll be one more Other,' I said and shrugged.

  'What if he doesn't become a vampire or a werewolf, but a genuine Other?' Kostya bared his teeth in a smile. 'A genuine Other? Light or Dark . . . that doesn't matter.'

  'Then there'll be one more magician,' I said.

  Kostya shook his head:

  'Listen, Anton, I'm quite fond of you. Even now. But sometimes I'm amazed at how naïve you are.'

  Kostya stretched – his arms rapidly sprouting a covering of short fur, his skin turning dark and coarse.

  'You deal with the staff,' he said in a shrill, piercing voice. 'If you get wind of anything, call me.'

  He turned to me, his face distorted by the transformation, and smiled again:

  'You know, Anton, a naïve Light One like you is the only kind a Dark One could ever really be friends with.'

  He jumped down, flapping his leathery wings ponderously. The huge bat flew off into the night, a little awkwardly, but quickly enough.

  There was a small rectangle of cardboard lying on the outside sill – a business card. I picked it up and read it:

  'Konstantin. Research assistant, the Scientific Research Institute for Haemotological Problems.'

  And then the phone numbers – work, home, mobile. I actually remembered the home number – Kostya was still living with his parents. Most vampires tend to have pretty strong family ties.

  What had he been trying to tell me?

  Why all the panic?

  I switched on the light, lay down on the mattress and looked at the pale grey rectangles of the windows.

  'If he becomes a genuine Other . . .'

  How did Others appear in the world? No one knew. 'A random mutation', Las had called it – a perfectly adequate term. You were born a human being, you lived an ordinary life . . . until one of the Others sensed your ability to enter the Twilight and pump power out of it. After that you were 'guided'. Lovingly, carefully coaxed into the required spiritual condition, so that in a moment of powerful emotional agitation you would look at your shadow, and se
e it in a different way. See it lying there like a black rag, like a curtain you could pull up over yourself and then draw aside to enter another world.

  The world of the Others.

  The Twilight.

  And the state you were in when you first found yourself in the Twilight – joyful and benign or miserable and angry – determined who you would be. What kind of power you would go on to draw from the Twilight . . . the Twilight that drinks power from ordinary people.

  'If he becomes a genuine Other . . .'

  There was always the possibility of coercive initiation. But only through the loss of true life and transformation into a walking corpse. A human being could become a vampire or a werewolf, and he would be forced to maintain his existence by taking the lives of human beings. So there was a route for the Dark Ones . . . but one that even they weren't particularly fond of.

  Only what if it really was possible to become a magician?

  What if there was a way for any human being to be transformed into an Other? To acquire long – very long – life and exceptional abilities. There was no doubt many people would want to do it.

  And we wouldn't be against it either. There were so many fine people living in the world who were worthy of being Light Others.

  Only the Dark Ones would start building up their ranks too . . .

  Suddenly it struck me. It was no disaster that someone had revealed our secrets to a human being. It was no disaster that information could leak out. It was no disaster that the traitor knew the address of the Inquisition.

  But this was a new twist in the spiral of endless war.

  For centuries the Light Ones and Dark Ones had been shackled by the Treaty. We had the right to search for Others among human beings, even the right to nudge them in the right direction. But we were obliged to sift through tons of sand in our search for grains of gold. The balance was maintained.

  Then suddenly here was a chance to transform thousands, millions of people into Others!

  A football team wins the Cup Final – and a wave of magic surges across tens of thousands of exultant people, transforming them into Light Others.

  And at the same moment the Day Watch issues a command to the fans of the team that has lost – and they're transformed into Dark Others.

  That was what Kostya had had in mind. The immense temptation to shift the balance of power in your own favour at a single stroke. Of course, the consequences would be clear, both to the Dark Ones and us Light Ones. Of course, the two sides would adopt new amendments to the Treaty and restrict the initiation of human beings within acceptable limits. After all, the USA and the USSR had managed to keep their nuclear arms race within bounds . . .

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. Semyon had once told me that the arms race was halted by the creation of the ultimate weapon. Two thermonuclear devices – that was all that was required – each of which could trigger a self-sustaining reaction of nuclear fusion. The American one was installed somewhere in Texas, the Russian one in Siberia. It was enough to explode either one of them – and the entire planet would be transformed into a ball of flame.

  Only, of course, that state of affairs didn't suit us, so the weapon that was never meant to be used could never be activated. But the presidents didn't need to know that, they were only human beings . . .

  Maybe the leaders of the Watches had 'magical bombs' like that? And that was why the Inquisition, which was in on the secret, policed the observation of the Treaty so fervently?

  Maybe.

  But even so it would be better if it was impossible to initiate ordinary people . . .

  Even in my drowsy state I winced at the implications. What did this mean, that I'd begun to think like a fully fledged Other? There are Others, and there are human beings – and they're second class. They can never enter the Twilight, they're not going to live more than a hundred years. And there's nothing you can do about it . . .

  Yes, that was exactly the way I'd started to think. Finding a good human being with the natural aptitudes of an Other and bringing him or her over to your side – that was a joy. But turning everyone into Others was puerile nonsense, a dangerous and irresponsible delusion.

  Now I had something to feel proud about. It had taken me less than ten years to finally stop being human.

  My morning began in contemplation of the mysteries of the shower cubicle. Reason finally conquered soulless metal and I got a shower – with music playing, no less – and then concocted a breakfast out of crispbreads, salami and yoghurt. Feeling cheered by the sunshine, I settled down on the windowsill and ate with a view of the Moscow river. For some reason I recalled Kostya admitting that vampires can't look at the sun. Sunlight doesn't actually burn them, it just gives them an unpleasant sensation.

  But I had no time for melancholy reflection on old acquaintances. I had to search for . . . for whom? The renegade Other? I was hardly in the best position to do that. His human client? A long, dreary business.

  All right, I decided. Let's proceed according to the strict laws of the classic detective novel. What do we have? A clue. The letter sent from Assol. What does it give us? It doesn't give us anything. Unless perhaps someone saw the letter being posted three days ago. There's not much chance that they'd remember, of course . . .

  What a fool I was! I even slapped myself on the forehead. Sure, it's no disgrace for an Other to forget about modern technology, Others aren't very fond of complicated technical gizmos. But I was a computer hardware specialist.

  All the grounds of Assol were monitored by video cameras.

  I put my suit on, knotted my tie and splashed on the eau de cologne that Ignat had chosen for me the day before. Dropped my phone into my inside pocket . . . 'Only dumb kids and sales assistants carry their mobiles on their belts' – that was one of Gesar's helpful little comments.

  The phone was new and still unfamiliar. It had some games in it, a built-in disc player, a dictaphone and all sorts of other unnecessary nonsense.

  I rode down to the lobby in the cool silence of the lift. And immediately caught sight of my new acquaintance from the night before – only this time he was looking really odd . . .

  Las, wearing brand new blue overalls with Assol written on the back, was explaining something to a confused elderly man dressed the same way.

  'This isn't a broom you've got here, okay! There's a computer in it, it tells you how dirty the tarmac is and the pressure of the cleaning solution . . . Come on, I'll show you . . .'

  My feet automatically carried me after them.

  Out in the yard, in front of the entrance to the lobby, there were two bright orange road-sweeping machines, with a tank of water, round brushes and a little glass cabin for the driver. There was something toy-like about the small vehicles, as if they'd come straight from Sunshine Town, where the happy baby girls and boys cheerfully clean their own miniature avenues.

  Las clambered nimbly into one of the machines and the elderly man thrust himself halfway in after him. He listened to something Las said, nodded and set off towards the second cleaning unit.