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  "You'd have got there quicker on the metro," the driver warned me honestly.

  "I don't like the metro."

  The driver nodded. I liked him-he wasn't staring too brazenly, even though I'd obviously overdone things with the paranjah-and the car was well cared for. He also had very beautiful hands. They were strong, and their grip on the wheel was gentle but secure.

  What a pity I was in a hurry.

  "Are you late for work?" the driver asked. He spoke very politely, but in a manner that was somehow personal and intimate. Maybe I ought to give him my number? I'm a free girl now, I can do what I like.

  "Yes."

  "I wonder, what kind of jobs do such beautiful girls do?" It wasn't even an attempt to strike up an acquaintance or a compliment-it was genuine curiosity.

  "I don't know about all the rest, but I work as a witch."

  He laughed.

  "It's a job like any other…" I took out my cigarettes and my lighter. The driver gave me a fleeting glance of disapproval, so I didn't bother to ask permission. I just lit up.

  "And what do a witch's duties consist of?"

  We turned off onto Rusakov Street and the driver speeded up. Maybe I was going to get there in time after all.

  "It varies," I replied evasively. "But basically we oppose the forces of Light."

  The driver seemed to have accepted the rules of the game, though it wasn't really a game at all.

  "So you're on the side of the shadow?"

  "The Darkness."

  "That's great. I know another witch, my mother-in-law," the driver said with a laugh. "But she's already retired, thank God. So why don't you like the forces of Light?"

  I stealthily checked out his aura. No, everything was okay. He was a human being.

  "They get in our way. Tell me, for instance-what's the most important thing in life for you?"

  The driver thought for a second.

  "Just life itself. And for nobody to stop me living it."

  "That's right," I agreed. "Everyone wants to be free, don't they?"

  He nodded.

  "Well, we witches fight for freedom too. For everyone's right to do what they want."

  "And what if someone wants to do evil?"

  "That's his right."

  "But what if he infringes on other people's rights in the process? Say I stab someone and infringe on his rights?"

  This was funny. We were conducting the classic dispute on the subject "What is the Light and what is the Darkness?" We Dark Ones and those who call themselves the Light Ones-we all brainwash our novices on this subject.

  "If someone tries to infringe on your rights, then stop them from doing it. You have that right."

  "I get it. The law of the jungle. Whoever's stronger is right."

  "Stronger, cleverer, more farsighted. And it's not the law of the jungle. It's just the law of life. Is it ever any different?"

  The driver thought about it and shook his head.

  "No, it isn't. So I have the right to turn off the road somewhere, throw myself on you, and rape you?"

  "But are you sure you're stronger than me?"

  We'd just stopped at an intersection and the driver looked at me closely. He shook his head.

  "No… I'm not sure. But the reason I don't attack girls isn't because they might fight back!"

  He was beginning to get a bit nervous. The conversation seemed like a joke, but he could sense that something wasn't right.

  "It's also because they might put you in jail," I said. "And that's all."

  "No," he said firmly.

  "Yes," I said with a smile. "That's exactly the reason. You're a normal, healthy man, with all the right reactions. But there's a law, so you prefer not to attack girls, but court them first."

  "Witch…" the driver muttered with a crooked smile. He stepped hard on the gas.

  "Witch," I confirmed. "Because I tell the truth and don't play the hypocrite. After all, everyone wants to be free to live his or her life. To do what they want. Not everything works out-everyone has their own desires-but everyone has the same aspirations. And it's the clash of these that gives rise to freedom! A harmonious society in which everybody wants to have everything, although they have to come to terms with other people's desires."

  "But what about morality?"

  "What morality?"

  "Universal human morality."

  "What's that?"

  There's nothing better than forcing someone into a dead end and making him formulate his question properly. People don't usually think about the meaning of the words they say. It seems to them that words convey truth. That when someone hears the word "red" he will think of a ripe raspberry and not a pool of blood. That the word "love" will evoke Shakespeare's sonnets and not the erotic films of Playboy. And they find themselves baffled when the word they've spoken doesn't evoke the right response.

  "There are basic principles," said the driver. "Dogmas. Taboos. Those… what do they caff them… commandments."

  "Well?" I said encouragingly.

  "Thou shalt not steal."

  I laughed, and the driver smiled too.

  "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife." His smile was really broad now.

  "And do you manage it?"

  "Sometimes."

  "And you even manage not to 'covet'? You control your instincts that well?"

  "Witch!" the driver said with relish. "All right, I repent, I repent…"

  "Don't repent!" I interrupted. "It's quite normal. It's freedom! Stealing… and coveting."

  "Thou shalt not kill!" the driver declared. "Eh? What do you say to that? A universal commandment!"

  "You might as well say 'don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk." Do you watch TV and read the newspapers?" I asked.

  "Sometimes. But I don't enjoy it."

  "Then why do you call 'Thou shalt not kill' a commandment? Thou shalt not kill… It was in the news this morning-down South they've taken another three people hostage and they're demanding a ransom. They've already cut a finger off each one of them to show their demands are serious. And one of the hostages, by the way, is a three-year-old girl. They cut her finger off too."

  The driver's fingers tightened their grip on the wheel and turned pale.

  "Bastards…" he hissed. "Monsters. I heard that all right. But they're scum, they're inhuman-they have to be to do something like that. I'd strangle them all with my bare hands…"

  I kept quiet. The driver's aura was blazing bright scarlet. I didn't want him to crash; he was almost out of control. My thrust had been too accurate-he had a little daughter of his own…

  "String them up on the telegraph poles!" he continued, still raging. "Burn them with napalm!"

  I kept quiet and waited until the driver had gradually calmed down. Then I asked:

  "Then what about those universal moral commandments? If they gave you a machine gun now, you'd press the trigger without even hesitating."

  "There aren't any commandments that apply to monsters!" the driver snarled. His calm, cultured manner had disappeared without a trace now! There were streams of energy pouring out of him in all directions… and I soaked it up, quickly replenishing the Power that I'd spent earlier that morning.

  "Not even terrorists are monsters," I said. "They're human beings. And so are you. And there are no commandments for human beings. That's a scientifically proven fact."

  As I drew in the energy that was bursting out of him, the driver calmed down. It wouldn't last long, of course. That evening the pendulum would swing back, and he'd be overcome by rage again. It's like pumping all the water out of a well very quickly-it comes rushing back in again.

  "But even so, you're not right," he replied more calmly. "Logic does exist, of course, yes… But if you compare things with the Middle Ages, then morality has definitely advanced."

  "Don't be ridiculous!" I said, shaking my head. "How has it advanced?… Even in the wars back then they had a strict code of honor. A war then was a real war, an
d kings fought with their armies, risking their thrones and their heads. And now? A big country wants to put pressure on a little one, so it bombs it for three months and gets rid of its outdated armaments at the same time. Not even the soldiers risk their lives! It's the same as if you drove up onto the sidewalk and started knocking down pedestrians like bowling pins."

  "The code of honor was for the aristocrats," the driver objected sharply. "The simple people died in droves."

  "And is it any different today?" I asked. "When one oligarch settles scores with another, there's a certain code of honor that's observed! Because both of them have goons to kill for them, compromising material about each other, certain interests in common, certain family ties. They're just like the old aristocracy! Kings sitting up to their ears in cabbage. And the simple people are trash. A herd of sheep that are good for shearing, but sometimes it's more profitable to slaughter them. Nothing's changed. There never were any commandments, and there aren't any now!"

  The driver fell silent.

  After that he didn't say another word all the way. We turned off Kamergerskaya Street onto Tverskaya Street and I told him where to stop. I paid, deliberately giving him more than I should have. It was only then that he spoke again.

  "I'll never give a witch a lift again," he told me with a crooked grin. "It's too hard on the nerves. I never thought a conversation with a beautiful girl could spoil my mood so badly."

  "I'm sorry," I said, and smiled sweetly.

  "Have a good day at… work." He slammed the door and drove off abruptly.

  Well, well. I'd never been taken for a prostitute before, but he seemed to think that was what I was. That was the effect of the paranjah… and the district we were in, of course.

  But at least I'd more than made up for the Power I'd used up earlier. He'd turned out to be a magnificent donor, this intelligent, cultured, strong man. The only time I'd ever done better was… it was with the Prism of Power.

  I shuddered at the memory.

  It had all been so stupid… everything about it had been so monstrously stupid.

  My entire life had gone downhill as a result. I'd lost everything in a single moment.

  "You fool! You greedy fool!"

  It was a good thing that none of the people could see my real face. It probably looked about as pitiful as my stupid young neighbor's.

  Anyway, what was done was done. I couldn't turn back the clock, put things right and win back… his affection. It was my own fault, of course. And I ought to be glad that Zabulon hadn't handed me over to the Light Ones.

  He used to love me. And I loved him… it would have been ridiculous for a young, inexperienced witch not to fall in love with the head of the Day Watch when he looked favorably on her…

  My fists were clenched so tight that the nails were biting into the skin. I'd struggled through. I'd survived last summer. The Darkness only knew how, but I'd survived.

  And now there was no point in remembering the past and sniveling and trying to catch Zabulon's eye again. He hadn't spoken to me since the hurricane last year-the one that had hit on the day when I was captured so shamefully. And he wouldn't speak to me for the next hundred years. I was sure of it.

  A car moving slowly along the curb stopped with a quiet rustle of tires. It was a decent car, a Volvo, and it hadn't come from the junkyard. A jerk with a shaven head stuck his smug face out of the window, looked me up and down, and broke into a satisfied smile. Then he hissed.

  "How much?"

  I was dumbstruck.

  "For two hours-how much?" the idiot with the shaved head asked more specifically.

  I looked at the number plate-it wasn't from Moscow. So that was it.

  "The prostitutes are farther down, you halfwit," I said amiably. "Get lost."

  "Anyone would think you didn't screw," the disappointed idiot said, trying to save face. "Think it over, I'm feeling generous today."

  "You hold onto your capital," I advised him and clicked my fingers. "You'll need it to fix your car."

  I turned my back to him and walked toward the building. My palm was aching slightly from the recoil. The "gremlin" isn't a very complicated spell, but I'd cast it in too much of a hurry. I'd left the Volvo with an incorporeal creature fiddling about under its hood-not even a creature really, but a bundle of energy with an obsessive passion for destroying technology.

  If he was lucky, his engine was finished. If he was unlucky, then his fancy bourgeois electronics would blow-the carburetors, the ventilators, all those gearwheels and drive-belts that the car was crammed full of. I'd never taken any interest in the insides of an automobile except in the most general terms. But I had a very clear idea of the result of using the "gremlin."

  The disappointed man drove off without wasting too much time arguing. I wondered if he'd remember what I'd said when his car started going haywire. He was bound to. He'd shout, "She hexed it, the witch!" And he wouldn't even know just how right he was.

  The thought amused me, but nonetheless, the day had been hopelessly spoiled.

  I was five minutes late for work, and there was that quarrel with my mother, and that idiot in the Volvo…

  With these thoughts in my head I walked past the magnificent, gleaming shop windows, raised my shadow from the ground without even thinking about it, and entered the building through a door that ordinary people can't see.

  The headquarters of the Light Ones, near the Sokol metro station, is disguised as an ordinary office. We have a more respectable location and our camouflage is a lot more fun. This building, with seven floors of apartments above shops that are luxurious even by Moscow standards, has three more floors than everyone thinks. It was specially built that way as the Day Watch residence, and the spells that disguise the building's true appearance are incorporated into the very bricks and stone of the walls. The people living in the building, who are mostly perfectly ordinary, probably feel a strange sensation whenever they ride the elevator up-as if it takes too long to get from the first floor to the second…

  The elevator does take longer than it should because the second floor is actually the third, and the real second floor is invisible-it houses our duty offices, armaments room, and technical services. Our other two floors are on the top of the building, and not a single human being knows about them either. But any Other who is powerful enough can look through the Twilight and see the severe black granite walls and the window arches that are almost always covered with thick, heavy curtains. Ten years ago they installed air-conditioners-that's when the clumsy boxes of the split systems appeared on the walls. Before that the internal climate was regulated by magic-but why waste it like that, when electricity is far cheaper?

  I once saw a photograph of our building taken through the Twilight by a skillful magician. It's an incredible sight! A crowded street with people walking all dressed up in their finest, cars driving along, shop windows and apartment windows… a pleasant old woman looking out of one window, and a cat sitting in another one, looking disgruntled and gloomy-animals can sense our presence very easily. And running parallel to all this: two entrances to the building from Tverskaya Street, with the doors swung open, and in one doorway there's a young vampire from security, polishing his nails with a file. Directly above the shops there's a strip of black stone with the crimson spots of windows in it… And the two top floors seem to weigh down on the building like a heavy stone cap.

  If only I could show that photograph to the people who live there! But then, they'd all think the same thing-a clumsy piece of photomontage! Clumsy, because the building really does look awkward… When everything was still all right between Zabulon and me, I asked him why our offices were located so strangely, mixed in with the humans' apartments. The boss laughed and explained that it made it more difficult for the Light Ones to try any kind of attack-innocent people might get killed in the fighting. Everybody knows that the Light Ones don't worry about people at all either, but they have to hedge around what they do with all sorts of hypocr
itical tricks-so the seven floors of apartments make a very reliable shield.

  The tiny duty office on the first floor, with the two elevators (the people living in the building don't know about them either) and the fire stairs, seemed to be empty. There was no one behind the desk or in the armchair in front of the television. It took me a moment to spot the two security guards who should have been there according to the staff list: a vampire-I think his name is Kostya-who had only joined the Watch very recently, and the werewolf Vitaly from Kostroma, also a civilian employee, who'd been working for us as long as I could remember. Both guards were standing quite still, huddled over in the corner. Vitaly was giggling quietly. Just for an instant I had a quite crazy idea about the reason for such strange behavior.

  "Boys, what's that you're doing over there?" I asked sharply. There's no point in being too polite with these vampires and shape-shifters. They're primitive beasts of labor-not to mention that the vampires are non-life-but they still claim to be no worse than magicians and witches!

  "Come here, Aliska!" Vitaly said, beckoning to me without turning round. "This is a real gas."

  But Kostya straightened up sharply and took a step backward, looking a bit embarrassed.

  I walked over.

  There was a little gray mouse dashing around Vitaly's feet. It stopped dead still, then jumped up in the air, then began squeaking and beating desperately at the air with its little paws. I didn't understand until I tried looking through the Twilight.

  So that was it.

  There was a huge, glossy cat jumping about beside the mouse. Sometimes it reached its paw out toward the tiny creature, sometimes it clattered its jaws together. Of course, it was only an illusion, and a primitive one at that, created exclusively for the small rodent.

  "We're seeing how long it can hold out!" Vitaly said happily. "I bet it will die of fright in a minute."

  "Now I understand," I said, beginning to see red. "Having fun, are we? Did your hunting instincts get the better of you?"

  I reached down and picked up the mouse that had frozen still in fear. The tiny bundle of fur trembled on my hand. I blew on it gently and whispered the right word. The mouse stopped trembling, then it stretched out on my palm and went to sleep.