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“Evasive, but acceptable,” Zabulon said, with a nod. “My dear enemy, I even sympathize with you slightly. I have a distinct feeling that this ‘tiger’ of yours is not a person at all.”

  “Why ours?” I asked.

  “Why not a person?” asked Gesar.

  “I’m prepared to answer one question,” Zabulon declared gleefully. “You choose which.”

  Gesar snorted contemptuously and said: “Basically, the answers to both questions are elementary. He didn’t have any aura at all. He could hardly have concealed it from several Higher Others. And he appeared differently to each of us. That means he’s not a material entity, but merely reflected in our consciousness. And he’s ‘ours’ because he’s interested in the boy who is now under our protection.”

  “Oh, so there’s no need for any answers, then?” Zabulon asked delightedly.

  It sometimes seems to me that they could go on sparring like that forever.

  “Answer Anton’s question,” said Gesar. “Why the ‘tiger’ is our problem.”

  Zabulon nodded: “By all means. In my view, the real issue is not that he’s hunting the boy. Perhaps he merely wanted to pat him on the head and wish him luck in his fight for the cause of the Light? What is far more interesting is that the ‘tiger’ left after I made my appearance.”

  “He didn’t want to fight on two fronts,” said Gesar, growing more somber with every second.

  Zabulon burst into laughter.

  “Too hopeful by far! I suspect that he didn’t wish to harm me.”

  “A kindred spirit?” I asked.

  “Oh, don’t be so childish, Anton!” Zabulon rebuked me. “When has that ever been a hindrance to Dark Ones? At the present moment the Day Watch is less powerful than you are. If he had annihilated all of us the Night Watch would simply have been exsanguinated, but the Day Watch would have been left practically dead.”

  “Maintaining the balance is the Inquisition’s job,” said Gesar. “Is that what you’re hinting at?”

  “No, Gesar. What I’m hinting at is that the balance is also maintained by the Twilight. This is a Twilight Creature. You may not believe in them, but . . .”

  For a few seconds Gesar and Zabulon stared daggers at each other. I felt like saying: “Don’t bother—you’re not going to fight anyway!”—but I wasn’t sure that I would be right.

  The situation was defused by the door of one of the flats opening. An old granny stuck her head out of the door slowly and solemnly, like a tortoise poking its head out of its shell. Actually, she wasn’t even fifty yet, but she looked like a genuine old woman, the caricature Russian “babushka” of the American and European imaginations—flabby and shapeless, wearing a sloppy housecoat, slippers over thick stockings, a headscarf. Incredible! You usually only see that kind of thing outside a church.

  “What are you doing standing there?” the granny asked. “Get off my doormat, you pervert.”

  Zabulon glanced down at his feet in surprise. He really was standing on the corner of the mat that the granny had set out in front of the door of her flat. The mat had clearly seen better times. It had once been part of a big, bright carpet of synthetic fiber, the kind that people used to queue up for in Soviet times. And then, when even the polyvinyl chloride had faded with age, was covered in stains and worn right down to the bare threads, it had done time lying on an open balcony. The rain had drenched it. The insane city moths had tried to gnaw on it. A tin of paint had been spilled on it.

  And now this putrid, semi-decayed floor covering had been hacked into crooked pieces and set out in front of the door as a doormat.

  Zabulon gave an emphatically polite nod and stepped off the mat.

  “Come up here to drink, have you?” asked the granny. “The ninth floor, that’s where the winos live! But we’re decent people here!”

  The most surprising thing was that Zabulon wasn’t even slightly angry with the granny. He studied her with the intensely keen interest of an entomologist gazing at a cockroach and attempting to establish contact with it. Gesar was the one who was fuming.

  “We’ve come to see your neighbors,” he said. “Everything’s all right, don’t worry.”

  “To see Olka?” the granny exclaimed delightedly. “Police, are you? Not paying her loans, isn’t she? I warned her not to get carried away! Lives without a husband, raising that little dumpling all on her own, but she keeps on doing it, always having the place decorated or flitting off abroad somewhere”—at this point her words rang with the genuine hatred of someone who has never traveled anywhere—“or buying a flat TV, or taking that dumpling of hers to clubs and classes . . .”

  “Anton, do something,” Gesar begged me. “I’m . . . afraid I might overdo it.”

  “Yes, do a bit of work,” Zabulon said, with a nod. “Remoralize her if you like. I promise not to count it against your allowance for intervention.”

  I probably could have tried to exert a positive influence on the granny. After all, she hadn’t always been like this, had she? People aren’t born like that. Something bad happens to them . . . or maybe it’s some special spitefulness virus, as yet unknown to science.

  “I won’t remoralize her, I’m afraid I might rupture myself in the process,” I said. “Go to bed, grandma!”

  I didn’t even want to read her name, as if I was afraid of soiling myself on her thoughts.

  “To bed?” the granny echoed in amazement.

  “You’ll sleep for exactly ten hours,” I said. “And when you wake up, you’ll forget about us.”

  The granny nodded and closed the door, pulling her head back in through the crack at the very last moment.

  “The brilliant solutions are always the simplest,” said Gesar. And he rang the bell at the next door.

  Olga Yurievna answered it. Her eyes were slightly hazy, like the eyes of any person who has come under the gentle but irresistible influence of an Other.

  “Come in!” she said in the tone of a hospitable housewife and stepped aside.

  I spotted Semyon immediately—he was standing in the middle of the room, pressing the boy Kesha up against himself with one hand and “holding” a very, very unpleasant spell, cocked and ready to fire, in the other. Semyon is a very experienced and proficient field agent. But after seeing the “tiger” with my own eyes, I knew that no amount of experience and skill would have helped him.

  When we appeared Semyon let out a deep sigh of relief and fluttered his hand through the air, dispersing the spell. Then he said: “They’re friends, Kesha, everything’s fine . . .”

  And then he spoke to us, with far more feeling.

  “Thank you. You’ve no idea how glad I am to see you. Even you . . . Zabulon.”

  Chapter 6

  IN THE FAIRY-TALE BOOKS, YOUNG MAGICIANS’ PARENTS ARE always honestly informed that their child is being taken away to be taught magic. In the Watches they never do that. Firstly, we don’t have any special school. Others are taught at the Watch, and it’s rare for more than a third of them to be children, since the abilities of an Other can manifest themselves at any age. For Others, as for chess players, there are no “adult” and “child” ratings. Secondly, it’s something that the parents simply don’t need to know. And the point is not just that they might give something away—that’s easy enough to prevent with simple spells. The problem is actually something quite different . . .

  Over the many centuries before humankind finally lost its belief in magic and the wizards and sorcerers set up the Watches and were divided into Light Ones and Dark Ones, we acquired substantial experience in dealing with human beings. Imagine you have been told that your child is a wizard or a sorceress. At first, you’ll probably be glad to find out (or distressed, if it contradicts your ardently held faith or no less ardent atheistic convictions). But later . . . later you’ll feel resentful. Of course, all parents want the best possible future for their children. But one so much better than the norm? To accept that you will live the short life of an ordinary human being, while
your child will be able to work miracles and will live for hundreds of years—that’s not easy! Very many people come completely unglued and start taking their irritation out on the child in various ways, which may be more or less explicit. And that, by the way, can lead to very serious unpleasantness—children have far less self-control than adults do.

  But even that’s not the most important thing.

  People may be glad that their child is an Other.

  They may genuinely love the child and not allow even a single drop of envy into their hearts.

  This usually means that we’re dealing with a good, loving family.

  But then the most difficult part starts.

  “Daughter, your grandmother’s seriously ill . . . but you could help her, couldn’t you?”

  She could. A seventh-level intervention. A trifling matter, of course . . . but it disrupts the balance between the Watches.

  “Son, life’s getting really hard nowadays . . . Could you drop into my office? There’s a man there, and it depends on him whether they give me a raise or not . . . could you have a word with him?”

  He could. It’s only a sixth- or seventh-level intervention. And it undermines the morals of a young Other.

  “What the hell are the bastards doing now! This law will destroy our entire education system!”

  There isn’t even any need to say anything. The good, honest Other child gazes at the glistening features of the functionary on the TV screen. And involuntarily wishes him ill.

  An inferno vortex swells up above the wise bureaucratic head. And not the kind that they accumulate every day from ordinary human curses—they can answer for those themselves, with their drug-addict children, booby-trapped automobiles, spy cameras in the bathhouse—but a genuine, really serious vortex. One that will stir up such a stink that the Inquisition will intervene to make peace between the Watches and determine who’s to blame and what one side owes the other.

  Therefore the best, in fact the only way is to explain to someone, no matter how big or little they might be: “You are not human. You are an Other. It’s not better or worse . . . it’s different. The misfortunes and problems of ordinary people are nothing to do with you any longer, and you have nothing to do with them. You’ll have plenty of misfortunes and problems of your own.”

  Sometimes it takes a while, but eventually everyone understands.

  And as for the parents . . . they learn that their talented child is now going to study in a special school in addition to the ordinary one. A special school for physics and chemistry, or for art. Or else attend a macramé club five times a week. It doesn’t matter in the slightest what they think, because they will accept any lie and never try to discover the truth. There was a time when I thought that even this was cruel. Then I realized that it wasn’t cruelty, but firmness. Benign firmness.

  . . . What is genuinely cruel is to initiate an Other who is in love, or who is loved with all the ardor of human passion. And to explain that, no, he probably will not be able to rejuvenate or extend the life of the object of his love . . . that he must never tell her anything . . . That must be like living as a spy who has been planted in an enemy country. Except that Others are not spies, and the lovers generally separate. Even if the Other is content to love a human being and can reconcile himself to remaining silent and watching as old age stealthily advances—even so, day after day, year after year, life itself pulls them further and further apart. Interests, tastes and habits change. And love dies.

  That’s why those people who decline the chance to be initiated, and so remain human, probably act wisely. Stupidly, but wisely . . .

  “I won’t be able to tell Mummy anything?” asked Kesha.

  “Not a thing,” Gesar confirmed.

  “But Hermione . . .” said Kesha, glancing at Gesar from under his eyebrows, “. . . that’s Harry Potter’s friend . . .”

  “I know,” Gesar said approvingly.

  “She told her parents.”

  “But afterwards, remember, she had to erase their memories,” Gesar remarked gently. “Believe me, it’s best not to say anything at all.”

  Yes, after J. K. Rowling’s books the job has become much easier. Children grasp the basic idea without even a blink now, only the absence of Hogwart’s is a serious disappointment for them. Gesar claims that Rowling was commissioned to write her books by the London Watch or, rather, both Watches, and the decision to let her have a strictly controlled amount of information was taken by the Inquisition. Maybe it’s true. Or maybe he’s just joking. For Light Others the ability to joke easily compensates for the impossibility of lying.

  “But I’ll still go to ordinary school?” Kesha asked, just to make sure, and clearly hoping to hear the answer “no.”

  “Of course,” said Gesar. “Ignorant magicians are no good to anyone. You’ll go to our school after your lessons in the ordinary one. But right now . . . right now you’ll have to live with us for a little while, in the Night Watch. There are rooms there for the staff, they’ll give you one, with a big TV, a games console . . .”

  “The Internet,” Olga added.

  Kesha turned slightly pale—at ten years old, fright at the prospect of finding yourself somewhere without Mummy is far stronger than any joy at the ability to cast spells. But he asked quite firmly: “And Mummy will let me?”

  “Of course,” said Olga, nodding. “We’ll persuade her. And it’s not for long. A few days . . . perhaps a week. Then you’ll come back home.”

  Zabulon smiled sarcastically, but didn’t say anything. Somehow he didn’t seem in any hurry to leave—apparently he couldn’t get enough of the sight of a genuine Prophet. He and I were standing off to one side, but Gesar and Olga were sitting on the sofa, one on each side of Kesha, singing a duet in praise of the advantages of life as an Other. After the serious fright that Semyon had suffered before we arrived, he was drinking tea in the kitchen with Olga Yurievna. Nothing so very terrible had actually happened to him while we were on our way there. He simply discovered that he’d lost the ability to communicate with anyone by magical means, that he couldn’t probe the surrounding space or divine the future for even a minute ahead. And there was also the sense of impending danger that had been growing with every second. Semyon didn’t know anything about the “tiger” but he had realized that this was no ordinary skirmish between the Watches, that it was something far more serious than that. So he had been standing there with some kind of spell cocked and ready to fire, waiting to see who would reach him first . . .

  “It’s interesting that I’m a wizard,” Kesha said indecisively. “But . . . do I have to be one? Can’t I stay human?”

  Gesar and Olga exchanged glances over the boy’s head. Zabulon cleared his throat.

  “Yes, you can,” Gesar admitted, “if you want to. Do you want to?”

  “No,” Kesha said firmly. “I just wondered.”

  When the catty neighbor had called the boy a dumpling, she’d been pretty close to the truth. He was flabby and round-faced, like Doughnut in the book about Dunno. The skin on his face was lumpy, the way it usually is in older people but only very rarely in children. Parents who have children like that usually say in an apologetic tone: “You know, he’s very clever and good-natured.”

  As for being good-natured, I didn’t know, although the boy’s aura was good, unambiguously Light. There was nothing there for Zabulon. But as for him being bright—that seemed to be true enough.

  “Is it all because of the plane?” Kesha continued with his questioning. “Because I got frightened?”

  “Yes,” Gesar said, with a nod. “The plane really could have crashed. And Anton”—Gesar nodded in my direction—“realized that you’re a Prophet.”

  “And he saved the plane?” the boy asked.

  “As you can see, the plane didn’t crash,” said Gesar, avoiding a direct answer.

  “So I can only predict things? Is that all?” Kesha asked with evident disappointment.

  “No, cer
tainly not. That’s just the thing that you’ll be best at,” said Olga, joining in the conversation. “It’s like with music. Everybody’s taught to play the piano, even the violinists and the flautists. As a basic training. So you’ll be able to throw fireballs, stop time, make yourself invisible . . .”

  I suddenly felt a keen desire to smoke. I’d only been smoking very rarely just recently, but I still felt calmer with a pack of cigarettes in my pocket. I looked at Zabulon. He was languishing, kneading a long, dark cigarette in his fingers. We glanced at each other and headed for the balcony without saying a word.

  This balcony was just the way small balconies in small flats are supposed to be—thoroughly cluttered. There was a sledge and an old child’s bicycle, a collection of empty jam and pickle jars, a large cardboard box full of all sorts of junk and a small plastic case of tools. The box was open and I could see that the hammer and the pliers had a light coating of rust. Well, who stores tools on an open balcony? Ah, these women . . .

  Or maybe I should say: Ah, these men? It’s tough being a single mother. Especially in Russia.

  We smoked—Zabulon obligingly held up a little tongue of flame for me, pinched between his thumb and forefinger, and I lit up, accepting his offer quite naturally. I took a deep drag and said: “I suppose we’ll have to send his mum off to some holiday resort. Why should she hang about here, if the child’s going to be with us? And that way . . . she might pick someone up, have a bit of fun . . .”

  “Send her,” Zabulon agreed. “The Day Watch has no objections.”

  “You’re all heart today,” I said. “And that makes me wonder.”

  “I can afford to be tender-hearted,” Zabulon laughed. “But you, Anton, are embarrassed by your own goodness.”

  “Why so?”

  “Why else would you use those words? ‘Mum,’ ‘pick someone up,’ ‘a bit of fun’ . . . You vulgarize your own kind suggestion. You feel embarrassed.”

  I thought about it and agreed. “Yes. I feel embarrassed. These days even good magicians try to appear wicked. Zabulon . . . tell me, what does that mean—a Twilight Creature?”