The boy stood in the doorway, looking at Maxim with a puzzled expression on his face. Just for a moment Maxim thought the kid was going to turn around and dash back in, slamming the heavy, code-locked door behind him. Run, then, run!
The boy took a step forward, holding the door so that it wouldn’t slam too hard. He looked into Maxim’s eyes, frowning slightly, but without any sign of fear. Maxim couldn’t understand this. The boy hadn’t taken him for a chance passerby; he’d realized the man was waiting for him. And he’d come to meet him. Because he wasn’t afraid? Because he had faith in his Dark power?
«You’re a Light One, I can see that,» the boy said quietly but confidently.
«Yes.» He had trouble getting the word out, he had to force it out of his throat. Cursing himself for his weakness, Maxim took hold of the boy’s shoulder and said: «I am the judge.»
The boy still wasn’t frightened.
«I saw Anton today.»
What Anton? Maxim didn’t say anything, but the bewilderment showed in his eyes.
«Have you come to see me because of him?»
«No. Because of you.»
«What for?»
The boy was behaving almost aggressively, as if he’d had a long argument with Maxim, as if Maxim had done something wrong and he ought to admit it.
«I am the judge,» Maxim repeated. He felt like turning around and running away. This was all wrong; it wasn’t supposed to happen like this! A child couldn’t be a Dark One, not a child the same age as his own daughter! A Dark Magician should defend himself, attack, run away, not just stand there with an offended look on his face, as if he were expecting an apology.
As if there were something that could protect him.
«What’s your name?» Maxim asked.
«Egor.»
«I’m really sorry things have worked out this way,» Maxim said quite sincerely. He wasn’t getting any sadistic satisfaction from dragging things out. «Dammit. I’ve got a daughter the same age as you!»
Somehow that was the thing that hurt the most.
«But if not me, then who?»
«What are you talking about?» The boy tried to remove Maxim’s hand. That strengthened his resolve.
Boy, girl, adult, child… What difference did it make? Darkness and Light—that was the only distinction.
«I have to save you,» said Maxim. He took the dagger out of his pocket with his free hand. «I have to save you—and I will.»
Chapter 7
First I recognized the car.
Then I recognized the Maverick, when he got out of it.
I suddenly felt desperate. It was the man who’d saved me when I was running away from the Maharajah restaurant in Olga’s body.
Maybe I ought to have guessed at the time? Probably, if I’d been more experienced, with more time to think and more presence of mind. All it would have taken was to look at the aura of the woman in the car with him. Svetlana had given a detailed description of her, after all. I could have recognized the woman—and the Maverick. I could have ended everything right there in the car.
But how could I have ended it?
I dived into the Twilight when the Maverick looked in my direction. It seemed to work, and he kept walking toward the entrance of the staircase where I’d once sat by the garbage chute and had a gloomy conversation with a white owl.
The Maverick was on his way to kill Egor. Just the way I’d expected. Just the way Zabulon had planned it. The trap was right there in front of me. The tightly stretched spring had already begun to contract. One more move from me, and Day Watch could celebrate the success of their operation.
But where are you, Zabulon?
The Twilight gave me time. The Maverick was still walking toward the apartment block, moving his feet slowly. I looked around for signs of Darkness. The slightest trace, the slightest breath, the slightest shadow…
There was immense magical tension all around me. The threads of reality that led into the future all came together here. This was the intersection of a hundred roads, the point at which the world decided which way it would go. Not because of me, not because of the Maverick, not because of the kid. We were only part of the trap. We were extras on the set: One of us had been told to say «Dinner is served»; another had to act out a fall; another had to mount the scaffold, proudly holding his head high. For the second time this spot in Moscow was the arena for an invisible battle. But I couldn’t see any Others, Dark or Light. Only the Maverick, and even now I didn’t think of him as an Other, except that he had a scintillating focus of Power on his chest. At first I thought I was seeing his heart. Then I realized that it was a weapon—the one he used to kill the Dark Ones.
What’s going on here, Zabulon? I suddenly felt insulted, absurdly insulted. Here I am! I’m stepping into your trap. Look, I’ve already raised my foot, it’s all just about to happen, but where are you?
Either the great Dark Magician had hidden himself so carefully that I couldn’t find him, or he wasn’t there at all!
I’d lost. I’d lost even before the game was over, because I hadn’t understood my enemy’s intentions. There ought to have been an ambush here; the Dark Ones needed to kill the Maverick the moment he killed Egor.
I couldn’t let him kill him!
I was here, wasn’t I? I’d explain to him what was going on, tell him about the Watches and the way they monitored each other, about the Treaty that meant we had to maintain a neutral stance, about human beings and Others, about the world and the twilight. I’d tell him everything the same way I’d told Svetlana, and he’d understand.
Or would he?
If he really couldn’t see the Light!
For him the human world was a gray, mindless flock of sheep. The Dark Ones were the wolves who circled around him, picking off the fattest rams. And he was the guard dog. But he couldn’t see the shepherds; he was blinded by his fear and fury. So he rushed about crazily; it was just him against all of them.
He wouldn’t believe me, he wouldn’t let himself believe me.
I dashed forward, toward the Maverick. The door was already open, and the Maverick was talking to Egor. Why had the stupid kid come out so late at night when he knew perfectly well what kind of power rules our world? The Maverick wasn’t able to summon his victims to him, was he?
Talk would be useless. Attack him from the Twilight. Pin him down and explain everything afterward!
The Twilight screeched with a thousand wounded voices when I crashed into the invisible barrier at full speed. Just three steps away from the Maverick, as I was already raising my hand to strike, I suddenly found myself flattened against a transparent wall. I slid down off it slowly with my ears ringing.
This was bad. Really bad! He didn’t understand the nature of Power. He was a self-taught magician, a psychopath on the side of Good. But when he set out to do his work, he protected himself with a magical barrier. The fact that it was purely spontaneous wasn’t any comfort to me.
The Maverick said something to Egor and took his hand out from inside his jacket.
A wooden dagger. I’d heard something about that kind of magic, naive and powerful at the same time, but this wasn’t the right time to try to remember.
I slid out of my shadow into the human world and jumped the Maverick from behind.
When he raised the dagger, Maxim was knocked off his feet. The world around him had already turned gray; the boy was already moving in slow motion; Maxim could see his eyelids moving down for the last time before they would part in terror and pain. The night had been transformed into the Twilight stage where he held court and passed sentence.
Someone had stopped him. Knocked aside and pushed him down onto the asphalt. At the very last moment Maxim managed to put out his hand, roll over, and jump to his feet.
A third character had appeared on the stage. Why hadn’t Maxim noticed his stealthy approach? While he was busy with his important work, chance witnesses and unwanted company had always been kept away by the powe
r of the Light, the power that led him into battle. Why not this time?
The man was young, maybe a bit younger than Maxim. In jeans and a sweater, with a bag hanging over his shoulder—he shrugged it off carelessly onto the ground. He had a pistol in his hand!
That wasn’t good.
«Stop,» said the man, as if Maxim had been about to run. «Listen to me.»
A chance passerby who’d taken him for an ordinary maniac? But then what about the pistol and the crafty way he’d crept up without being noticed? A special forces soldier out of uniform? No, he would have shot Maxim and finished him off; he wouldn’t have let him get up off the ground.
Maxim peered at the stranger in horror, trying to figure out who he was. He could be another Dark One, but Maxim had never come across two at the same time.
There wasn’t any Darkness there. There just wasn’t, none at all!
«Who are you?» asked Maxim, almost forgetting about the boy magician, who was slowly backing away toward his rescuer.
«Anton Gorodetsky, Night Watch agent. You have to listen tome.»
Anton caught hold of Egor with his free hand and pushed him behind his back. There was no mistaking the hint.
«Night Watch?» Maxim was still trying to detect a trace of Darkness in the stranger. He couldn’t find it, and that frightened him even more. «Are you from the Darkness?»
He didn’t understand a thing. He tried to probe me: I could feel him searching fiercely and determinedly, but clumsily. I don’t even know if I could have screened myself against it. I could sense some kind of primordial power in this man, or this Other—both terms could apply here—a wild, fanatical energy. I didn’t even try to shield myself.
«The Night Watch? Are you from the Darkness?»
«No. What’s your name?»
«Maxim,» said the Maverick, walking slowly toward me. Looking at me as if he could sense that we’d already met, but I’d looked different then. «Who are you?»
«I work for the Night Watch. I’ll explain everything, just listen to me. You are a Light Magician.»
Maxim’s face trembled and turned to stone.
«You kill Dark Ones. I know that. This morning you killed a female shape-shifter. This evening, in the restaurant, you killed a Dark Magician.»
«Do you do that too?»
Maybe I just imagined it. Or maybe there really was a tremor of hope in that voice. I demonstratively stuck the revolver back in its holster.
«I’m a Light Magician. Although not a very powerful one. One of hundreds in Moscow. There are many of us, Maxim.»
His eyes opened wide and I realized I’d hit the target. Now he knew he wasn’t a lunatic who’d imagined he was Superman and felt proud of it. He’d probably never wanted anything so much in his life as to meet a comrade-in-arms.
«We didn’t spot you in time, Maxim,» I said. Was it really going to be possible to settle everything peacefully, with no bloodshed, without an insane battle between two Light Magicians? «That was our fault. You started a solitary war of your own, and you’ve created a messy situation, Maxim, but things can still be put right. You didn’t know about the Treaty, did you?»
He wasn’t listening to me. He didn’t give a damn about some Treaty. He wasn’t alone, that was the only thing that mattered to him.
«You fight the Dark Ones?»
«Yes.»
«And there are many of you?»
«Yes!»
Maxim looked at me again, and I saw the piercing glint of the Twilight in his eyes again. He was trying to see the lie, to see the Darkness, to see the malice and hatred—the only things he was capable of seeing.
«You’re not a Dark One,» he said. It was almost a complaint. «I can see that. I’ve never been wrong, never!»
«I’m a watchman,» I repeated. I glanced around—there was no one to be seen. Something had frightened everyone away. That was probably one of the Maverick’s powers.
«That boy…«
«He’s an Other too,» I said quickly. «It’s not clear yet if he’s going to be Light or…«
Maxim shook his head.
«He’s Dark.»
I glanced at Egor. The kid slowly raised his eyes to meet mine.
«No,» I said.
I could see his aura quite clearly—bright, pure, shimmering colors, typical for very young children, but not for teenagers. His destiny was his own; his future was still undefined.
«He’s Dark,» said Maxim, shaking his head again. «Don’t you see? I’m never wrong, never. You stopped me from exterminating an envoy of Darkness.»
He wasn’t likely to be lying. He might not have been given many skills, but the ones he had were powerful. Maxim could see Darkness; he could spot the tiniest patches of it in other people’s souls. In fact, he saw Darkness that was just being born more clearly than any other kind.
«We don’t just kill every Dark One we come across.»
«Why not?»
«We have a truce, Maxim.»
«How can there be any truce with Darkness?»
I shuddered. I hadn’t heard the faintest note of doubt in his voice.
«Any war is worse than peace.»
«Except this one.» Maxim raised the hand holding the dagger. «You see this? It was a present from a friend of mine. He was killed; maybe people like this boy were responsible. The Darkness is cunning!»
«You think you need to tell me that?»
«Of course. You may be a Light One…« His face twisted in a bitter grin. «But if you are, your Light faded a long time ago. There can be no forgiveness for Evil. There can be no truce with Evil.»
«No forgiveness for Evil?» Now I was really angry. «After you stabbed the Dark Magician in the restroom, you should have tried staying around for another ten minutes! Or didn’t you want to see his children screaming and his wife crying? They’re not Dark Ones, Maxim! They’re ordinary people who don’t have our powers! You saved that girl they were shooting at…«
He started, but his face remained as implacably stony as ever.
«Well done! But did you know they were trying to kill her because of your crime? Well?»
«This is war.»
«You’ve started your own war,» I whispered. «You’re like a child, with your toy dagger. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, is that it? No holds barred in the great struggle for the Light?»
«I don’t fight for the Light,» he said in a quiet voice. «I fight against the Darkness. That’s all I’m capable of. Do you understand? And you’re wrong; it isn’t a matter of eggs and omelettes for me. I didn’t ask for this power; I didn’t dream of having it. But since it has come to me, I can’t act any other way.»
Just who was it who hadn’t noticed him in time?
Why hadn’t we found Maxim immediately, as soon as he became an Other?
He’d have made a first-class field operative. After long arguments and explanations. After months of training, after years of exercises, after tantrums, mistakes, bouts of drinking, attempts to kill himself. Eventually he would have understood the rules of the confrontation—not with his heart, he wasn’t capable of that, but with his cold, uncompromising reason. The laws that govern the way Light and Darkness wage war, that mean we have to turn a blind eye to werewolves hunting their victims and kill our own people who can’t do that.
There he was, right in front of me. A Light Magician who’d killed more Dark Ones in a few years than a field operative with a hundred years of experience. Alone, cornered. Knowing only how to hate, incapable of loving.
Egor just stood there quietly behind me, listening intently to what we were saying. I turned around, took him by the shoulders, and pushed him in front of me. I said:
«Is he a Dark Magician? Probably—I’m afraid you’re right. In a few more years, this kid will start to sense his own powers. As he goes through life, Darkness will creep alongside him. With every step his life will become easier and easier. And every step will be paid for by someone else’s
pain. Do you remember the fairy tale about the mermaid? A witch gave her legs; she could walk, but she felt like there were red-hot knives stabbing into her feet all the time. That story’s about us, Maxim! We always walk over sharp knives, and that’s something you can never get used to. But Andersen didn’t tell the whole story. The witch could have done things differently: The mermaid walks, and the knives stab other people. That’s the way of the Darkness.»
«I carry my own pain with me,» said Maxim, and I suddenly felt an insane hope that he could understand after all. «But that mustn’t be allowed to change anything.»
«Are you prepared to kill him?» I said, nodding toward Egor. «Tell me, Maxim. I’m a Night Watch agent, I know where the line runs between Good and Evil. You can create Evil, even by killing Dark Ones. Tell me—are you prepared to kill him?»
He didn’t hesitate. He just nodded, looking straight into my eyes.
«Yes, certainly I am; I’ve never let a creature of the Darkness get away. I won’t let this one get away.»
The invisible trap snapped shut.
It wouldn’t have surprised me to see Zabulon standing there. To see him surface out of the Twilight and give Maxim a slap on the back. Or flash a mocking smile at me.
But a moment later I realized Zabulon wasn’t there. He never had been.
The trap he’d set didn’t need any supervision. It would work all on its own. I’d been caught, and every member of the Day Watch had a solid alibi for that moment.
I either had to let Maxim kill the boy who was going to become a Dark Magician and make myself into his accomplice—with all the obvious consequences.
Or fight the Maverick and kill him—I was far more powerful, after all. Eliminate the only witness with my own hand and kill a Light Magician into the bargain.
Maxim would never back down. This was his war, his own cross that he’d been carrying for years. He wanted victory or death.
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