Edgar stood there for a while, thoughtfully squeezing the cell phone in his hand. Then he put it back on his belt, picked up his briefcase, and set off for the ticket desks.
Darkness! the magician thought to himself. What was that? A warning of some kind? And obviously behind Zabulon's back. And he brought up that business with Alisa…
Zabulon had simply sacrificed the witch Alisa. Coldly and without any unnecessary pity. Like a pawn in a game of chess. In the games played between the Watches it was absurd to develop any feelings for the faceless figures on the board… but Others know how to feel and love as well. Edgar felt genuinely sorry for Alisa, but he wouldn't have lifted a finger to save her, not even if he had known everything in advance. Every game has its own inflexible rules, set once and for all. And nobody who has joined in a game can ever withdraw from it, or go against the rules. The witch Alisa had made her exit, and the witch Alita had made her entry. The law of conservation in action. In fact, Alita promised to be more likeable…
Working on autopilot, Edgar brainwashed the girl at the desk, still absorbed in his own thoughts. She gave him a little blue booklet with his ticket and canceled the ticket of some other unfortunate passenger. Unfortunately, he would just have to take a later flight, because in the world of people and Others, it was the latter who set the rules. Why did Yury feel the need to warn me? Edgar wondered as he stood at a bar counter with a glass of beer that was very expensive, but not very good. Surely not out of altruism? Nobody breaks the rules of the game that way.
He recalled in passing that when Zabulon left Moscow, he hadn't left Yury or Nikolai as his deputy in charge, although they were the Day Watch's most powerful Dark magicians after the chief. He had appointed Edgar, who was substantially less powerful than either of them. Yury had already been acknowledged as a magician beyond classification in the nineteenth century, and Nikolai just recently, after the war. Edgar still hadn't even reached first level, and if he was honest, he hadn't even mastered the second level completely. Sure, Edgar was a powerful magician. Sure, he was more powerful than most of the Others in Moscow, Dark or Light. But he still couldn't match Yury and Nikolai.
Just why had Zabulon done that? Was Yury trying to take a bit of petty revenge? Out of simple envy? Trying to scare him or even (you could never tell!) simply having a joke at his upstart colleague's expense?
The way Edgar had been brought in from Estonia had been hasty and illogical too. There he was, living a quiet life up in the small Baltic country, running its small, drowsy Day Watch, and then suddenly-slam bang! The urgent summons to Moscow, the mad scramble to get his successor in Tallinn up to scratch-who was a classical "hot-headed Estonian boy," barely even fourth level… Edgar ought to give him a call, by the way. And then what had happened in Moscow? Edgar had been thrown straight into the crucible of a hectic two-week operation, and then, not long after that, he'd taken part in a wild cavalry raid to rescue from the Light Ones a witch who'd been practicing without a license. And that was all. After that, there'd been more than three months of routine work until the middle of November, when he'd suddenly been appointed acting chief of the Day Watch while Zabulon was away, and then there'd been the Mirror's visit and the Tribunal at Moscow University.
If he thought about it, it was quite possible that the old Day Watch magicians could try to teach this newcomer from the Baltic a lesson because he was making a career for himself too fast, but they could hardly believe he was actually conspiring to take over from the chief. Zabulon didn't leave Moscow very often. And when Zabulon was there, Edgar was no more than just another operational agent. A powerful one, of course, an elite operative, but he only had the same rights as the others.
By the time his glass was empty, Edgar had decided to stop guessing at the reasons behind it all. His best bet was to try to figure out a line of conduct that took account of… of everything. Even the very wildest possibilities.
All right. What was it that had finished off Alisa? She hadn't gathered enough Power in time. She hadn't recognized the Light Other, even though he was so close to her. She hadn't refused a duel that she was certain to lose. And most important of all- she'd given way to her emotions. She'd tried to appeal to a Light One's feelings.
Well, then, Edgar wasn't short of Power, and Zabulon had even given him some of his own. His two amulets were a real treasure house of Power, especially the one charged with the Transylvanian Mist. If Edgar used that one, every Other in Europe would sense the monstrous discharge of energy. Plus the battle wand- a highly specialized weapon, but it was fast and reliable. Shahab's Lash was nobody's idea of a joke!
That meant Edgar had to keep as close an eye as possible on the Light Ones. Oh yes, about the Light Ones… Just at that moment there were three of them in Sheremetievo. First, there was his old friend from previous operations, Anton Gorodetsky, who the lower-level Dark Ones had nicknamed "Zabulon's favorite." In that business with the Mirror he'd done just what Zabulon wanted for some reason, and helped the Dark Ones… Or had he just made everyone think he helped the Dark Ones? Probably that was it-otherwise how could he have stayed on in the Night Watch?
Second, there was a middle-aged female healer who had no connection with the Night Watch, thoughtfully sniffing perfumes in the duty-free shop. She probably just happened to be traveling that day by coincidence.
Third, there was a militiaman who was an Other on duty at the check-in, as there was supposed to be in any airport.
Apart from Edgar himself, there were four Dark Ones in the international terminal of Sheremetievo-2. First, his charges, the trio of Regin Brothers, who kept staring guardedly by turns at Edgar and Anton, who had installed himself in the bar at the far end of the hall. Plus a weak magician over by the gambling machines who was paying no attention to anything; he seemed to be trying to earn a bit of extra cash by getting the mechanism to pay out the maximum winnings. His kind was perfectly described by the phrase "cheap trash."
The basic situation couldn't have been clearer.
Check-in and passport control went quickly; no visas were required for the Czech Republic. In fact, just in case, Edgar was carrying Estonian and Argentinian passports, both perfectly legal- Argentina was a wonderful country that traded its own citizenship quite freely.
Edgar spent the rest of the time until boarding in one of the bars. Naturally, not the one where Zabulon's favorite, the Light magician Gorodetsky, had installed himself. Edgar's glance and his had met just once-I know you're here and you know I'm here, and both of us know that the other knows his opponent… and we're on similar missions. To defend our own at the trial and rout our enemies…
To Gorodetsky's credit, he'd made his position perfectly clear: When the trial starts, that's when we'll get to grips. Meanwhile, let's just enjoy the flight and not get in each other's way.
Strange, how easily they understood each other. Maybe it was just a hangover from those ancient times before the Others were divided into Dark Ones and Light Ones, when they simply stood up together against fate and the vicissitudes of life. Back then, of course, any healer was closer to a vampire than he was to any simple, luckless human being in the faceless mass of other people like him. The Twilight can bring you together.
But the Twilight could separate you too. In fact, the Twilight was pretty good at it-nowadays you simply couldn't find more irreconcilable enemies anywhere on earth than Dark Ones and Light Ones. The puny conflict between the USA and the Islamic world was nothing in comparison… Even the old Cold War between the USA and the USSR that was now a part of history hadn't come close to the war of the Watches. They were just childish games for foolish human beings.
Edgar drank coffee that was extremely black, but not very good, thinking about everything at once and nothing in particular. For instance, why all these airport bars that were so expensive and didn't seem to be skimping on the ingredients of their food and drink managed to brew lousy coffee, pour bad beer, and make absolutely inedible sandwiches. Plenty of the problem
s of human life could be attributed to the struggle between the Watches, but this certainly wasn't one of them.
His charges-the entire ill-assorted trio of them-were peering at him disapprovingly from the waiting hall. Of course, the Regin Brothers regarded him as just another cop. Let them. They were boneheads. Brainless, heedless boneheads. And since that was what they were, they could be used to serve the cause of Darkness. Zabulon had been quite right to decide to make use of them. That business with Fafnir's Talon had certainly put the Light Ones off their stride during Rogoza the Mirror's visit. Without even knowing it, the Regin Brothers had taken one of the blows intended for the Day Watch and allowed the Mirror, who had already grown strong, to top himself right up with Power. That was really what had made certain that Zabulon and his cohorts would win out in the latest clash with the Light Ones.
And serve them right.
Edgar watched without the slightest sympathy as the courteous customs officers led away a furious gent in a prim, formal suit and expensive raincoat. It was his place that Edgar would be occupying on the flight to Prague.
When they were already on their way, Edgar waited until one of the Regin Brothers left his seat and then sat down next to the one who seemed to be the most sensible-the white one.
"Greetings, brother," Edgar said warmly.
The Finn looked at him with big round eyes. A cautious look.
"We are Dark Ones," Edgar went on quietly. "We don't abandon our own. I've been sent to protect you, if necessary. And we'll be able to defend you at the Tribunal-trust me. So hold your heads high, servants of the Darkness. Our hour will come very soon now."
Having said that, Edgar got up and went back to his place without looking back even once.
There. Now let them rack their brains over that.
How dramatic he had been! He'd really had to work hard to keep a solemn, stony face and avoid cracking a smile. But the expression in the Finn's big round eyes had been the opposite of a smile-he'd been really frightened and worried.
"I really shouldn't have," Edgar muttered to himself. "They're like children… And I mock them."
Edgar sighed regretfully and opened his magazine. It was a nice short flight to Prague, not like flying to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, for instance. You were there before you knew it, without any other stops on the way or that hellish nightmare of having to sleep in your seat. But then, if you really thought about it, the most convenient form of transport was a Dark portal. Only setting up a portal from Moscow to Prague would be an unjustifiable extravagance. So he had to fly, like ordinary human beings.
But not quite like ordinary human beings… at least Others didn't have any problems with tickets.
Chapter two
–«¦»-
Anton loved Prague. In fact, he simply couldn't understand how it was possible not to love the place. There were some cities that confused you and suffocated you from the very first moment, and there were some whose charm slowly and imperceptibly fascinated you. Moscow, unfortunately, did not belong in either category. But Prague was like an old, wise enchantress who knew how to pretend to be young, but did not see any need for it, since she remained beautiful at any age.
And if you really thought about it, Prague ought to have become the abode of Dark Ones. A city saturated to overflowing with Gothic buildings, a city full of plague pillars-monuments to the medieval pestilence of the Black Death-a city that had a ghetto during the Second World War, a city that witnessed the opposition of the two superpowers during the Cold War… where could all those emanations of Darkness, the nutritional substratum of the Dark Ones, have gone to? How had they been scattered, where to, and why had they been converted into memory, but not into malice?
It was a mystery…
Anton didn't know any members of the Prague Night Watch in person. They had occasionally exchanged information by courier or email when something in the archives needed clarification. And at Christmas and the New Year it was traditional to send greetings to all the Night Watches… but nobody made any distinction between the Prague Night Watch (active staff- 130 Others, operational reserve-76) and the Night Watch of some small American town (active staff-1 Other, operational reserve-0).
Anton had been to Prague twice on vacation. Simply wandering aimlessly around the city from one beer bar to the next, buying cheap little souvenirs on the Charles Bridge, traveling out to Karlovy Vary to swim in the pool filled with hot mineral water and try the hot wafers in the cafe.
But now he was flying to Prague on business. Really serious business…
Anton stretched out in his chair, as far as the space in the Boeing 737's economy class would allow-the comfort level wasn't much different from an old Soviet Tupolev-and examined the backs of the Regin Brothers' heads. They looked tense- the Dark Ones' auras were full of fear and impatience. They knew Anton was there and they were dreaming of getting as far away from him as possible, as soon as possible…
If it wasn't for that incident at Sheremetievo airport, Anton might even have felt sorry for the luckless magicians. But once Anton had gone into combat with an enemy, he was an enemy forever.
As if he could read Anton's thoughts-although, of course, that was beyond his power-one of the Regin Brothers, the tall, strong black guy, turned around, glanced warily at Anton, and hastily averted his gaze. Raivo-Anton remembered his name. From somewhere in Senegal… no, from Burkina Faso, that was it. Picked up by one of the Regin Brothers' families and raised in the spirit of devotion to the great Fafnir…
Just how had the Regin Brothers come up with all this nonsense?
Once, long, long ago, something had happened, something that often happened among the Others. A Dark magician and a Light magician fought to the death. The Light magician was called Sigurd… Siegfried, if you pronounced it in the German manner. The Dark magician was killed… and he died in his Twilight form of a dragon. He was called Fafnir. Later Sigurd was killed as well… Anton wondered if Gesar had known him?
After that, things took a rather unusual turn. The Dark magician's disciples didn't scatter, as often happened, and they didn't fight among themselves, as happened even more often. Instead they decided to resurrect their master. They banded together to form a sect known as the Regin Brothers and withdrew almost completely from the usual struggle between Light and Darkness… which suited the Light Ones very well, of course. The brothers lovingly preserved the Talon torn from the Twilight body of the Dark magician. Later the Talon was confiscated by the Inquisition-just before the Second World War the Light Ones had lodged a successful protest against such an extremely powerful artifact remaining in the hands of Dark Ones. The Regin Brothers hadn't really argued about it, but they handed over the Talon with the words, "Fafnir's time has not yet come…" And then suddenly the European office of the Inquisition had been attacked! There had been a battle in which almost all the magicians in the small sect had been killed, together with a substantial number of the Inquisition's bodyguards, who had grown idle and lazy. Then the remnants of the sect had made their absurd appearance in Moscow.
It was a well-known fact that human beings didn't have a monopoly on idiots…
But then… were they really idiots?
Anton remembered what an intense charge of Power the Talon had given off. In part it was the Power accumulated in the Talon as a result of the Regin Brothers' efforts over many years. In part it was the Power of the Dark magician himself.
Others didn't die in the same way as ordinary people. They receded into the Twilight, losing their physical form and with it their ability to return to the world of human beings. But there was something left behind-Anton had seen vague shadows and a quivering mist that sometimes appeared in the Twilight, marking out the path taken by dead Others. Once he had even met a dead Other… It wasn't one of his most pleasant memories. But there was something left, even there…
Was it possible to bring a dead Other back to life?
The answer was probably somewhere. In the labyrinth of the a
rchives, classified as top secret, sealed by the Night and Day Watches, with access banned by the Inquisition. The Higher Magicians were bound to have wondered about where Others went when they died, the path that they themselves would eventually follow…
But Anton wasn't supposed to know the answer.
He looked through the window at the clouds stretching out below, at the weak glimmering of thousands of auras merged together that indicated cities. The plane was already flying over some part of Poland.
Just supposing it was possible to bring Fafnir back to life…
So what? Maybe he had been a powerful magician, maybe even a Higher Magician, a magician beyond classification… his resurrection wouldn't change anything in the global balance of power, especially since he would be estranged from human life. He wouldn't understand modern reality… and if he was stupid enough to set off around Europe in his Twilight form, he'd be torn to pieces by rockets, shot with lasers from satellites. They'd use tactical nuclear weapons… while the Japanese howled woefully that Godzilla had come back to life and been killed again…
What was it the Dark Ones wanted? Disorder, panic, people screaming about the Apocalypse?
Anton squirmed in his chair. He took the plastic cup and the small, two-hundred-gram bottle of dry Hungarian wine from the smiling stewardess. It was all right for Edgar… Like any Dark One, he was flying business class, so he had a crystal glass and superior wine…
There was something to that last idea. Fafnir… the Apocalypse… At least it made some sense of Gesar's remark about mass hysteria over the year 2000. But why would the Dark Ones want to stage the end of the world? And what about all the other things? The witch Alisa… the Chalk of Destiny…
Day Watch Page 33