Last Watch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything to argue with in all this.

  “It’s a good room, you’ll like it,” the vampire continued as he reached the fourth-floor landing. There were only two doors there and the staircase went on up into the attic. “On the right is the suite for Dark Ones, also very pleasant. I furnished it to my own taste and am quite proud of the design. And this is your suite.”

  He did not need a key; he patted the lock gently with his hand and the door opened. A bit of petty showing-off that seemed rather strange for such an old vampire.

  “We have a very good self-taught designer, a Light Other. He is only sixth-level, but no magic is needed for this work,” Bruce went on. “I asked him to decorate three rooms to the taste of Light Ones. Most of the rest of the interior is rather more original, you understand...”

  I walked into the suite and froze on the spot in astonishment.

  I’d never realized that my taste was like this.

  Everything around me was white, beige, and pink. The parquet flooring was light, bleached wood, the walls were covered with beige wallpaper with pale pink flowers, the furniture was old-fashioned, but also made of light-colored wood and snow-white satin. The large sofa by the wall was leather. And what color? White, of course. There was a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The windows were draped with transparent tulle and the curtains were bright pink.

  The sun must really make this place sizzle in the mornings!

  One door led into a small bedroom. Cozy, with a double bed. The bed sheets were pink silk. There was a little vase on the dressing table with a fresh scarlet rose in it—the only spot of deep color in the entire suite. The washroom and toilet were behind another door. The space was tiny, but it was equipped with some kind of hybrid cross between a hydromassage unit and a shower cabinet.

  “Rather vulgar, and it doesn’t suit the style,” Bruce said with a sigh behind me. “But many guests like it.”

  His face, reflected in the mirror, looked rather pained. Evidently he had not really liked the idea of installing this miracle of modern plumbing in the hotel.

  I nodded to the vampire without turning around. The idea that vampires are not reflected in mirrors is just as false as the tales that they absolutely cannot tolerate sunlight and are afraid of garlic, silver, and aspen stakes. They are reflected in mirrors, even when they deflect a person’s attention.

  But if you don’t look at them when you’re talking to them or, even worse, if you turn your back on them, it really unnerves them. Vampires have a very large number of magic techniques that require looking their opponent straight in the eye.

  “I shall be glad to take a wash,” I said. “But a little bit later. Do you have ten minutes you could spare me, Bruce?”

  “Are you on an official visit to Edinburgh, Light One?”

  “No.”

  “Then, of course I do.” The vampire’s face lit up in a broad smile. He sat down in one of the armchairs.

  I took a seat facing the youth and forced a smile in response to his, all the while looking at his chin.

  “So what do you think of the suite?” Bruce inquired.

  “I think an innocent girl of seventeen would like it,” I replied honestly. “Only it needs a white kitten.”

  “If you wish, we can arrange for both of those,” the vampire suggested politely.

  Well, now I could consider the social part of the conversation over.

  “I have come to Edinburgh unofficially,” I repeated. “But at the same, at the request of the head of the Night Watch... and the head of the Day Watch... of Moscow.”

  “How unusual... ,” Bruce said quietly. “The esteemed Gesar and the most worthy Zabulon sending the same messenger... and a Higher Magician, as well—and for such a minor incident. Well, I shall be glad to be of assistance.”

  “Does what happened upset you personally?” I asked bluntly.

  “Of course. I have already told you my opinion,” Bruce said, and frowned. “We’re not living in the Middle Ages; this is the twenty-first century. We have to break the old patterns of behavior...” He sighed and squinted at the door of the bathroom. “You can’t wash in a basin and go to a wooden privy when water mains and sewers have been invented. Even if you are used to a basin and find it rather more agreeable... . You know, in recent times there has been a movement growing among us to take a humane attitude toward human beings. No one drinks blood without a license. And even with a license they try not to kill... . Hardly anyone drinks children under the age of twelve, even if they are chosen by the lottery.”

  “And why twelve?”

  Bruce shrugged. “It’s just a matter of history. Do you know, for instance, what the most terrible crime is in Germany? The murder of a child under the age of twelve. If the child is already twelve, it is a completely different crime with different penalties... . Well, as it stands we don’t touch the young growth. And now we are trying to push through a law to exclude children from the lottery altogether.”

  “Very touching,” I muttered. “But why did someone dine on the young man without a license?”

  Bruce thought about it. “You know, I can only offer hypotheses... .”

  “That’s exactly what I’m interested in.”

  Bruce paused for a bit longer, then smiled broadly. “What is there really to discuss? One of the young ones lost control. Most likely a young girl who only became a vampire recently, and she liked the look of the young man. And then there’s the setting, so arousing, in the style of the old legends... she got carried away.”

  “You think it was a woman?”

  “It could be a young man. If he’s gay. There isn’t actually a direct connection.” Bruce turned his eyes away in embarrassment. “But it’s always more pleasant... more natural, somehow...”

  “And the second option?” I asked, struggling to stop myself from commenting on what he had said.

  “Someone from out of town. Perhaps a tourist. You know, after the Second World War, everything got so jumbled up, everyone started traveling all over the place... .” He shook his head disapprovingly. “Certain irresponsible individuals started taking advantage of that.”

  “Bruce, I wouldn’t like to trouble your Watches,” I said. “They might get the idea that their Moscow colleagues have doubts about their professionalism. Perhaps you could tell me who’s the senior vampire in your city? The Elder, the Great... what do you call him?”

  “I don’t call him anything,” Bruce said with yet another broad smile. And he slowly moved his fangs to demonstrate his status, lowering the two long, sharp teeth out of his upper jaw and then drawing them back in again. “But they call me Master. I don’t really like the word; it comes from those stupid books and films. But if that’s what they want, let them call me that.”

  “You’re rather young for a Master,” I said, slightly surprised. “Only two hundred years old.”

  “Two hundred and eight years, three months, and eleven days,” Bruce specified. “Yes, I am young. But this is Scotland. If only you knew what suspicious, stubborn people the Highlanders are, absolutely hidebound in their superstitions! In the time of my youth not a year went by without one of us having an aspen stake hammered through his heart.”

  Perhaps I was mistaken, but I thought I detected a hint of pride in his fellow countrymen in Bruce’s voice.

  “Will you help me, Master?”

  Bruce shook his head. “No, of course not! If we find out who killed the Russian boy, we will punish him. Ourselves. We won’t destroy him, but we will punish him severely. No one will hand him over to the Watches.”

  Well, naturally. I should never have expected anything else.

  “Is it pointless to ask whether you have already found him and punished him?”

  “It is,” Bruce replied with a sigh.
>
  “Well, then, should I go bustling about, trying to find the criminal?” I asked in a deliberately rueful voice. “Or should I simply take a holiday in your wonderful city?”

  A harsh note of irony appeared in Bruce’s voice. “As a Dark One, the only thing I can say to you is, take a holiday! Relax, look around the museums, have fun. Who cares about this dead student now?”

  That was when I felt I couldn’t hold back any longer. I looked into Bruce’s eyes. The black holes of his pupils glittered scarlet. I asked, “And what if I break you, you bloodsucking carrion? If I break you, turn you inside out, and make you answer all my questions?”

  “Go ahead,” Bruce replied in a soft, almost tender voice. “Try it, Higher One. Do you think we don’t know about you? Do you think we don’t know how you came by your Power?”

  Eye to eye.

  Pupil to pupil.

  A black, pulsating tunnel, drawing me into emptiness. An eddying vortex of red sparks from the stolen lives of others. An enticing whisper in my ears. The inspired, exalted, unearthly beauty of the youthful vampire’s face.

  Fall at his feet...

  Weep in ecstasy at his beauty, wisdom, will...

  Beg for forgiveness...

  He was very powerful. After all, he had two hundred years of experience, multiplied by the first level of vampire Power.

  And I felt the full brunt of his Power. I stood up on trembling legs that would not obey me. I took an uncertain step forward.

  Bruce smiled.

  Another vampire once smiled in exactly the same way in a Moscow alleyway when I ran into it, following the boy Egor, who was helplessly following the Call...

  I put so much Power into my mental attack that if I had used it for a Fireball, it would have shot straight through about thirty houses and struck the fortress wall of the old Scottish castle.

  Bruce’s pupils turned white and blank. The alluring black tunnel was scorched by a white radiance. Sitting there in front of me, swaying backward and forward, was a dried-up old man with a young face. But the skin on his face was starting to peel off, flaking away in little scales, like dandruff.

  “Who killed Victor?” I asked. The Power continued to flow through me in a fine stream, twisting into a running knot threaded through the vampire’s eyes.

  He didn’t say anything, just carried on swaying in his chair. Maybe I’d burned out his brain... or whatever it is they had instead of brains. A fine start to the unofficial investigation!

  “Do you know who killed Victor?” I asked, reformulating the question.

  “No,” Bruce replied quietly.

  “Do you have any theories about the matter?”

  “Yes... two. A young vampire lost control... Someone from the outside... a visitor...”

  “What else do you know about this killing?”

  Silence. As if he was gathering his thoughts before starting a long speech.

  “What else do you know that is not known to the staff of the city Watches?”

  “Nothing...”

  I halted the flow of Power and sank into an armchair.

  What should I do now? And what if he submitted a complaint to the Day Watch? An unprovoked attack, interrogation...

  For about a minute Bruce carried on swaying in his chair. Then he startled, and his eyes acquired a meaningful expression again.

  Meaningful and pitiful.

  “I beg your pardon, Light One,” he said quietly. “Please accept my apologies.”

  It took me a few seconds to understand.

  A vampire Master is not simply the most powerful, cunning, clever bloodsucker. He is also the one who has never known defeat.

  A complaint from Bruce would mean serious trouble for me. But for him it would mean loss of status.

  And this polite old youth was very vain.

  “I accept your apologies, Master,” I replied. “Let what has happened remain between us.”

  Bruce licked his lips. His faced turned pink, recovering its former attractive appearance. His voice became slightly stronger, as he had realized that it was not in my interest to publicize what had happened. “But I would ask,” he said, putting emphatic, poisonous hatred into that last word, “that you do not make any more attacks of the kind, Light One. The aggression was unprovoked.”

  “You challenged me to a duel.”

  “De jure, I did not,” Bruce replied quickly. “The ritual of challenge was not observed.”

  “De facto, you did. Are we going to bother the Inquisition with this?”

  He blinked, and once again became the hospitable host.

  “All right, Light One. Let bygones be bygones... .”

  Bruce got to his feet and swayed slightly. He walked across to the door. Once outside the room, he turned and declared with evident displeasure, “My home is your home. This room is your dwelling and I shall not enter it without permission.”

  This ancient legend, strangely enough, is quite true. Vampires cannot enter anyone else’s home without being invited in. No one knows why that is.

  The door closed behind Bruce. I let go of the armrests of my chair; there were wet marks left on the white satin. Dark marks.

  It’s bad to be sleep-deprived. Your nerves start playing tricks.

  But now I knew for certain that the Master of Edinburgh’s vampires had no information about the murder.

  I unpacked my suitcase and hung a white linen suit and two white shirts on hangers. I looked out the window and shook my head. I took out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt with the inscription NIGHT WATCH on it. A hooligan’s joke, of course, but you can see anything at all written on T-shirts nowadays.

  Then my eye was caught by a fancy calligraphic text in a frame on the wall. I had already noticed a frame like it downstairs, and another on the staircase. Were they hanging all over the hotel, then? I walked over and was surprised by what I read:

  By oppression’s woes and pains,

  By your sons in servile chains,

  We will drain our dearest veins

  But they shall be free!

  Robert Burns

  “Why, the son of a bitch!” I said almost admiringly. Even the people who stayed in the hotel would never suspect anything!

  Unquestionably, Bruce had the same sense of humor as the vampire who had drained his victim at the Castle of the Vampires. He was an excellent candidate for the role of murderer.

  The only trouble was that after the kind of shock he had suffered, Bruce couldn’t possibly have lied.

  .

  .

  COMMON CAUSE

  Chapter 3

  Tourists are the most terrible breed of human beings. sometimes I feel a vague suspicion that every nation tries to send its most unpleasant representatives abroad—the loudest and most clueless, with the worst manners. But it’s probably all much simpler than that. Probably it’s just that the secret Work/Play switch everybody has hidden in their heads gets toggled and turns off 80 percent of their brains.

  But the remaining 20 percent is more than enough for play anyway.

  I was walking along in a crowd that was moving slowly toward the castle on the hill. No, I wasn’t planning to study the austere dwelling of the proud kings of Scotland. I just wanted to get a feel for the atmosphere of the city.

  I liked it. Like any tourist center, its festive atmosphere was a little bit forced and feverish, encouraged by alcohol. But even so, the people around me were enjoying life and smiling at one another. For the time being they had set their cares aside.

  Cars didn’t often come this way, and they were mostly taxis. Most of the people were walking. The streams moving in the direction of the castle and back intermingled, swirling together in quiet whirlpools around the performers doing their thing in the m
iddle of the street; thin rivulets trickled into the pubs, filtered in through the doorways of the shops. The boundless river of humanity.

  A wonderful place for a Light Other. But a tiring one too.

  I turned off into a side street and strolled gently downhill toward the gorge that separated the old and new parts of the city. There were pubs here, too, and souvenir shops. But there weren’t so many tourists, and the frantic carnival rhythm slowed down a bit. I checked my map—it was simpler than using magic—and moved in the direction of a bridge over the broad gorge that had once been Nor Loch. The gorge had now passed through its final stage of evolution and been transformed into a park, a place where local people and tourists who were sick of noise and bustle could take a relaxed stroll.

  There were more tourists eddying onto the bridge—boarding the double-decker tour buses, watching the street artists, eating ice cream, pensively studying the old castle on the hill.

  And on the grassy lawn there were Cossacks, dancing and waving their swords about.

  I gave way to that shamefaced curiosity with which tourists regard their compatriots who are working abroad and moved closer.

  Bright red shirts. Broad pants like jodhpurs. Titanium alloy swords, presumably so that they would give off pretty sparks during swordplay and be easier to wave around. Stiff, frozen smiles.

  There were four men squatting down and dancing.

  And they were talking to one another—with Ukrainian accents, but still in my own native Russian. Although you might say they were using the underground version. In more or less printable form it went something like this:

  “Up yours!” one pantomime Cossack dancer spat merrily through his teeth. “Move it, you louse! Keep the rhythm going, you tattered condom!”

  “Go to hell!” another man in fancy dress answered. “Quit grousing. Wave those arms about. We’re losing money!”

  “Tanka, you bitch!” the third man joined in. “Get out here!”

  A girl in a bright-colored dress started dancing, letting the Cossacks take a short break. But she still found time for a dignified reply with no serious obscenity: