Last Watch

by Сергей Лукьяненков

  But it wasn’t a “who.” It was a “what.” A fancy metal tripod similar to a professional stand for a video camera. Standing on a rotating disk on the tripod was a cylinder with gleaming lenses. Attached to the disk by a spring recoil clamp was a short rifle with a round magazine like the old Soviet PPSh, with a long ridged silencer on the barrel. A metal-clad cable ran up to the trigger, ending in a clamp with a wire that ran around the trigger.

  The machine was still functioning. The cylinder was twitching with a quiet buzzing sound, the clamp was pressing the trigger, and the rifle, now pointing upward, was firing into the sky. I leaned down, feeling the blood flowing over my shoulder. I put my good hand on the cylinder. On the side I found a little lid with an inscription in Chinese characters-SHOOTER I-followed by a number: 285590607. Below the hieroglyphs was a round, smiling child’s face sketched in a few simple lines.

  Humorists.

  I pried open the little lid with my fingernail and turned the power switch to Off.

  “Shooter I” gave a quiet whir of its servomotors and then fell silent.

  “Greetings from the Heavenly Kingdom,” I said, and sat down beside the machine. I looked at the short rod of the aerial, protruding from the cylinder. Yes, the real gunman could be absolutely anywhere. I had been fighting a robot.

  And it was very lucky for me that its sights had been slightly off center.

  “Would you believe it?” I said, examining the robot. “What are we going to do about this sort of thing? Start inventing spells against technology?”

  The wolf walked out of the darkness. He sat down facing me and started licking his paw. I couldn’t see any wound; he had probably burned himself on the hot gun barrel when he knocked the tripod over.

  “If Martian tripods had fleas, they’d look like this,” I said to the wolf. “Have you read War of the Worlds?”

  At first I didn’t think he would answer. Not all werewolves are capable of speech when they change into animal form. But the wolf looked up at me gravely and barked, “On-ly-the-mo-vie.”

  “Then you know what I mean,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Lick-the-wound.”

  “I’m no shape-shifter, to go licking my wounds…,” I said, pressing my palm to my right shoulder and concentrating. I felt sick and the pain pulsed in my hand. A gun wound is a nasty business. Even for a magician. Sveta, now-she’d have healed me in a couple of minutes…

  “Whose-tail-have-you-stepped-on?” Words were coming more easily to the werewolf now. “The-Eif-fel-Tow-er’s?”

  I didn’t get the joke immediately. I shook my head. “I see you’re as witty as Petrosian. Thanks for your help. Were you hurt?”

  “My-paw,” the wolf said indistinctly, starting to lick himself again. “The-ma-chine-burned-it.”

  “Change to human form and I’ll heal it,” I said, standing up. I wasn’t bleeding anymore. Casting a Camouflage spell on the disabled tripod (everyone would see something quite ordinary and uninteresting in its place), I put it under my left arm. It was heavy, with a strong smell of hot metal, sour gunpowder smoke, and something oily. But I’d have to carry it, I couldn’t just leave a weapon lying in the center of the city.

  “La-ter,” the wolf said evasively. “In-a-safe-place. Where-are-you-stay-ing?”

  “In a hotel. You’ll like it, let’s go. Only, stay by my leg all the way and try to look like a good dog.”

  The wolf growled, but then immediately hid his fangs. He wasn’t really such a big beast. In the darkness he could pass for an Alsatian.

  To be honest, I wasn’t expecting that to be the end of the day’s unpleasantness. But we reached the hotel with no problems. There was a new receptionist looking bored behind the counter, but he didn’t ask any questions; he’d obviously been given instructions and guidance about me. He gave the werewolf a curious look but didn’t make any comment about him, either. I walked up to the desk and said, “The key to the Dark suite upstairs, please.”

  The receptionist didn’t argue, but he did inquire, “Could you not spend the night in the same suite?”

  “I have an allergy to animal hair,” I replied.

  I could hear voices and glasses clinking in the restaurant. Guests relaxing. But I didn’t really feel like joining in a party at which a Bloody Mary was the most popular drink and its name was taken quite literally.

  Chapter 5

  FIRST I UNLOCKED THE WOLF’S DOOR, THEN MINE. THE WOLF DARTED into the dark room, turned around, and slammed the door shut with his muzzle. Immediately I heard a damp tearing sound, as if someone was ripping wet foam rubber into pieces. The werewolf had begun transforming back into a human.

  I walked into my suite, switched on the light, and closed the door. I put “Shooter I,” still smelling of gunpowder smoke, in the corner. I pulled off my bloody T-shirt and threw it in the rubbish bin. I took a look at myself in the mirror.

  A handsome devil. One shoulder caked with blood and a terrible crimson scar where the bullets had entered.

  But never mind. The important thing now was to patch up the wound. I’d apply an Avicenna spell now, and by morning there wouldn’t be a single trace left. What was a bullet wound to us magicians? Pah! A mere trifle. But I closed the curtains across the windows anyway and switched off the ceiling light. If I got another bullet in the head, no magic would save me.

  I stood under the shower, washing away the sweat and blood and simply luxuriating in the warm streams of water, trying to fit all the pieces together.

  The Dungeons of Scotland were an anomalous zone through which Power drained out of our world…to where? To the lower levels of the Twilight, obviously. That was clear enough.

  Egor had been invited to Edinburgh as a potential Mirror Magician. That is, as a magician who would take the side of the Night Watch-Foma wouldn’t work against his own interests! And so Foma was afraid of a serious battle in which the Dark Ones would get the upper hand. He was so afraid that he was trying to cover himself in every possible way. And Gesar had apparently sent me to Scotland at his request. That was clear enough too.

  But after that, things were a bit less clear!

  Victor’s blood had been sucked out; only a vampire, with his throat built like a vacuum pump, could drain a man dry like that in three or four minutes. But the vampire had immediately puked the blood into the trough. Why? Was he not hungry? A vampire is never well enough fed to turn down another helping. Blood is not so much food as energy in the only form that vampires can absorb. A vampire can digest the blood he has drunk in fifteen minutes. Why pour it away? So no one would think it was a vampire? But people don’t believe in vampires anyway, and the form of the wound would make everything clear to the Watch.

  Why had the watchman been killed? And in such a cruel manner? Was he getting under somebody’s feet in the Dungeons? There were plenty of ways to put a man out of action without doing him any harm. That Morpheus spell, for instance. The Vampire Call. If it came to it, a blow across the head with a club-cruel, but not fatal! An incomprehensible, unnecessary murder…

  And then everything really got tied into knots with the robot shooter! Sometimes we and the Dark Ones do use firearms. It’s particularly common among young Others-a serious faith in heavy pistols, machine guns loaded with silver bullets, powerful grenades. But who could have brought a remote-controlled robot shooter to peaceful Edinburgh? I hadn’t even known that such devices had already gotten past the prototype stage and been put into mass production in China. There was nothing complicated about them, of course-a rotating turret, a TV camera, and a night-vision device. Whoever had set up the robot on my route had been hiding somewhere far away, staring into the screen of a switchboard, twirling a joystick, pressing the Fire button. Any magician-or any vampire-could do it. Or any human being, come to that.

  What was going on? Why was there so much aggression directed against me? Attacking a Higher Light One, and a member of the Night Watch, was a very serious step to take. Whoever had taken it must have noth
ing to lose…

  As if someone had read my thoughts, there was a knock at the door. I groaned, closed my bathrobe, and went to open up.

  Standing outside on the doorstep was a girl, or a very young woman-she was about fifteen, the age that can be interpreted in different ways. The girl was barefoot, her short black hair glistened, and her black-and-red dressing gown seemed to be the only thing that she was wearing.

  “May I come in?” she asked in the voice of an exemplary schoolgirl.

  “I ought to have guessed straightaway,” I said. “Yes, come in.”

  “And how ought you to have guessed?” the girl asked, lowering her eyes. “By taking a better look at the figurine?”

  “I didn’t have a microscope with me. But a male wolf would certainly have pissed on the gun.”

  “Oh, how crude you are, and a Light One, too!” the girl said with a frown. She walked over to an armchair, sat down, and crossed her legs. “Not pissed on it, marked it! You don’t mind me coming in? I won’t compromise you?”

  “Unfortunately no, my child, you won’t compromise me,” I said, opening the minibar. “Would you like something?”

  “Warm milk with honey.”

  I nodded. “All right, I’ll just call the restaurant.”

  “There isn’t any room service here.”

  “They’ll make an exception for me,” I said confidently.

  “Never mind, pour me some wine. Red.”

  I poured myself a whisky with ice. Then I spotted a fifty-gram bottle of Drambuie and poured that into the whisky. Just what I needed for a sound night’s sleep-a large serving of Rusty Nail. If the girl could do without her milk and honey, that was no reason for me to do without my honeyed whisky…

  “So whose tail have you stepped on so hard?” the girl asked. “That’s the first time I’ve seen a robot rod blazing away like that…“

  “It isn’t a rod…”

  “What’s the difference?” My guest snorted. “I’m a girl. I’m allowed to get it wrong.”

  “You’re not a girl, you’re a werewolf.” I looked closely at her face. “And I remember you.”

  “You do?” All her bravado suddenly evaporated. “You remember?”

  “Of course. Your name’s Galya. Galina Dobronravova. You were the one who noticed the witch Arina when she kidnapped my daughter.”

  “You do remember,” the girl said with a smile. “And I thought you must have forgotten a long time ago.”

  “No.” I handed her the glass of wine. “Thank you. You really helped a lot that time.”

  “You have a fine daughter.” She took a bold gulp of wine and frowned slightly. “And your wife is very beautiful.”

  I nodded and asked, “What are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know. Zabulon told me this is a very important assignment. He said I have to help you, even though you’re a Light One. Protect you against everything.”

  “But why you?” I asked. “Pardon me for saying so, but you are very young. And you’re only fifth-level.”

  “Because I…” Galya hesitated. “Was I some help? Even though I am only fifth-level?”

  “Yes, you were.” I downed my cocktail in a single gulp. “I’m sorry, I’m terribly sleepy.”

  “So am I. But I feel so afraid in there. It’s all red and black. Can I stay with you?” She looked at me and lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

  I put down my glass and nodded.

  “Of course. Will the sofa be all right for you? I’ll give you a pillow and a blanket.”

  “Light One…” the girl began slowly in an offended voice, but abruptly changed tack. “All right, I’ll leave these heavenly halls and go back to my anteroom to hell. It will probably feel more cheerful in any case!”

  She walked proudly out of the room, clutching the glass of wine in her hands. I glanced into her doorway-her suite really was decorated in crimson and black. On the floor I saw tufts of black fur. The girl had transformed so quickly that she hadn’t given her skin time to change completely.

  As she closed her door, Galya stuck her tongue out at me.

  And after I closed mine, I started laughing quietly.

  Acceleration, emancipation, and the sexual revolution! No, I won’t lie, I liked the idea that this girl had fallen for me four years earlier. Or maybe not four years earlier, maybe she had fallen in love afterward. Retrospectively, so to speak, when the flood of hormones brought the time for romantic emotions and vague desires.

  And how hard she’d tried to seduce me! Crossing her legs like that, allowing her dressing gown to slip, making those eyes at me.

  Yes, sometimes I felt it was a great shame that I was a Light One…

  But I wanted to sleep so badly that I felt absolutely no desire to indulge in exciting fantasies about sex with a young female werewolf. I posted a few guardian and defense spells entirely automatically-a ritual as ordinary as cleaning my teeth. Then I climbed into bed and listened to the sounds outside the windows: The city was still enjoying itself, the city was in no hurry to get to sleep. I took my cell phone, switched it to the music function, and closed my eyes. The age of cassette players had gone the same way as gramophone records, the age of minidisks had never happened, and now the age of CDs was on the way out. Now there was just the cold code name MP3. But we’d gotten used to it. It didn’t bother us anymore.

  This is how the light begins.

  A dark night with no special signs.

  But someone has entered into that gloom.

  You still don’t realize it will be the same way for you.

  Yes, this sounds crazy, yes it sounds like a pipe dream.

  But this is exactly how the light begins, how the fear ends,

  How the sound is born.

  This is how the fear ends.

  And you have drunk the potion of poisoned herbs

  From the carefully hidden books.

  Now each shout you make is also a clue.

  So much unhappiness and misfortune. So much meaningless suffering.

  But this is the only way the light begins, the only way the fear ends,

  The way the sound is born.

  Soon is the day of funerals,

  So dig that trench to the roaring of thieves and cawing of ravens.

  Bury your own death,

  Tell yourself a fortune of life and of light.

  The first trace left. The last friend lost.

  This is how the light begins, how the fear ends,

  How the sound is born…

  I fell asleep. And in my dreams there was no one shooting. There was no one cutting off heads with a blunt guillotine. And there was no one chasing anyone else.

  There wasn’t a young girl in a silk dressing gown, either. There wasn’t even any room for Sveta. Just someone’s curious, hostile gaze that was fixed on me and never moved.

  It’s never nice to be woken by a phone call. Not even if it’s the woman you love or an old friend who’s calling.

  It was already light outside. I lifted my head up off the pillow and looked around the bedroom… everything was fine, except that I’d kicked the blanket onto the floor during the night. I reached out for my phone and looked at the number.

  Instead of a number, the screen on the phone simply said ZABULON, even though the Dark One’s number was not in my address book.

  “Hello, Dark One.”

  “How’s your health, Anton?” Zabulon inquired sympathetically. “Has the shoulder healed up?”

  “Everything’s fine, thank you.” I touched the place where there had been a wound the day before. The skin there was pink and it itched.

  “I’m glad my gift was of some use,” Zabulon continued in the same polite tone. “I’d like to share a bit of information with you. There are no candidates for the role of Mirror in Great Britain. There is one in France, one in Poland, two in Italy…I can’t imagine why Thomas chose to drag Egor all the way to Edinburgh.”

  Well, there was my proof. My naive attempt a
t cunning had failed. Zabulon had dug up the truth after all.

  “I hope that he won’t be required,” I said.

  “Of course, of course,” Zabulon agreed. “It really is quite disgraceful to exploit the poor boy again in the interests of the Light… Anton, my dear fellow, what is actually going on there? I heard there was another murder yesterday. Has someone else had his blood drained?”

  “Yes,” I said, sitting up in bed. “Another one. He was beheaded with a model of a guillotine.”

  “And what did they do with the blood?” Zabulon inquired.

  “Drained it into the bucket for washing the floor.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m glad you understand something at least,” I said.

  “Don’t be so modest, Anton…,” Zabulon said, and paused. “Ask Foma how long it’s been since he visited his neighbor in the grave.”

  “What’s that?” I said, thinking I must have misheard. “His neighbor’s grave?”

  “How long is it since he visited his neighbor in the grave,” Zabulon repeated with a chuckle, and cut the connection.

  Swearing under my breath, I got up and headed for the bathroom. I tidied myself up and took a cold shower, then put on a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans. Somehow I wasn’t in the mood anymore for frivolous shorts and a T-shirt. If the weather had allowed, I would have put on a sweater or a jacket.

  My phone rang again.

  “Hello, Gesar,” I said after glancing at the display.

  “How are you getting on?”

  “The shoulder’s healed,” I said, absolutely certain that Gesar knew everything.

  “Which shoulder’s that?”

  “Yesterday someone shot at me.” I told him briefly what had happened. And there was such a deadly silence that I blew into the mouthpiece, as if it was an old-style telephone.

  “I’m thinking,” Gesar said dryly. “Thinking…”

  “Maybe I should go and get some breakfast first?”

  “Yes, do,” said the boss. “And then find Foma. Tell him there’s no time left for half-truths and dissembling. He has to check the rune.”

  “Which one, exactly?” I asked in the tone of someone who checks runes every day of the week.