The Last Watch

‘I’m all agog,’ I snorted.

‘I’m talking about the remains of Konstantin Saushkin. We keep them here, at the Watch.’

Now it was my turn to pause. But Geser said:

‘I really don’t want to distress you once again. Charred bones are not a very pretty sight. Konstantin Saushkin is dead. There can be no doubt about it. Not even Higher Vampires can live without a skull. That’s all. Now relax and wait for the helicopter.’

I cut off the call and looked at Alisher – he was lying close by, munching on a chocolate bar. I said:

‘Geser told me that we have Saushkin’s remains.’

‘Yes,’ Alisher replied calmly. ‘I’ve seen them. A skull with the glass from the spacesuit melted into it. Your Saushkin’s dead.’

‘Don’t be upset,’ Afandi put in. ‘Sometimes with an effort it’s possible to lie under any spell.’

‘He couldn’t have been lying …’ I whispered, recalling Edgar’s face. ‘No, he couldn’t have …’

I lifted the cellphone up in front of my face, went into the MP3 menu and switched something on at random. When I heard a woman’s voice singing to a quiet guitar, I put the phone down beside me. The tiny speaker strained as hard as it could.

We used to rise with the dawn
And live for a thousand years.
Then someone went and stole
The fire – the flickering light.
And then some of us started praying
And others sharpened their fangs,
But we all drank from the Blue River.
But then time slipped through our fingers,
And by winter the river was shallow.
And those who had always lived here
Blamed those who had come from afar. Some had daughters growing,
And others had sons,
But we all drank from the same stream …

‘Afandi!’ I called. ‘Do you know that my daughter told me about you? Back in Moscow.’

‘Yes?’ Afandi asked in surprise. ‘Is your daughter an enchantress, then?’

‘Yes, she is,’ I said. ‘But still a little one. Only six years old. She asked if you would give her your beads. The blue ones.’

‘What a fine daughter!’ Afandi exclaimed in admiration. ‘Only six, and already thinking about beads! And turquoise is a fine choice … here!’

I didn’t see which pocket he took the beads out of before he handed them to me. I looked curiously at the string of sky-blue pieces of turquoise, and asked:

‘Afandi, they’re magical, aren’t they?’

‘Only a tiny bit. I charmed the string so that it will never break. But apart from that, they’re just beads. Beautiful ones! I chose them for my great-granddaughter, she’s getting on a bit, but she still likes her finery. Never mind, I’ll buy some more. And these are for your daughter, may she wear them in good health.’

‘Thank you, Afandi,’ I said, putting the present away.

One rose higher and higher,
Another damaged his wing.
In some fields the grain swelled and ripened,
But in others nothing would grow.
One has died, struck by a bullet,
And the other fired the gun,
But we all drank from the same stream … After the wine or the poison potion,
Some remember their father, some their mother.
One decides it is time to build,
Another that it’s time to destroy,
But every day at midnight
He who sits by the Mill of Fate
Resolves all their arguments
And says who must go out on watch.[9]

Alisher cleared his throat and said quietly:

‘Perhaps it’s none of my business – after all, musicians are pretty strange people! But I think we ought to hold an official inquiry into that song …’

Part Three A COMMON DESTINY

PROLOGUE

THE TUTOR LOOKED round intently at the trainees. He was young himself: not so long ago he had been standing in their place, and now he was desperately lacking in respectability. Or at least, that was what he thought.

‘We’re about to make our first field trip,’ the tutor said. His hand automatically reached up for the bridge of his nose – he was always trying to adjust his spectacles. Why on earth had he cured own his short-sightedness? Spectacles would have added to his respectability! ‘Andrei, repeat the assignment.’

A skinny teenage boy took a step forward and recited in a breaking voice:

‘We walk along the street. We examine passers-by through the Twilight. If we see any Dark Ones or Light Ones we inform you. But we pay most attention to finding uninitiated Others.’

‘What do we do if we discover an uninitiated Other?’

‘Nothing,’ the boy said firmly. ‘We inform you, and then act according to the circumstances. An Other should be initiated at an appropriate moment, when he is most inclined towards the Light.’

‘What do we do if we notice a criminal act committed by Dark Ones?’

‘Nothing,’ the boy replied, with obvious annoyance. ‘We inform you and then contact the Watch …’

‘While maintaining a safe distance,’ the tutor added. ‘And what if we discover a crime being committed by human beings?’

‘Again, we do nothing,’ the boy replied, this time in a really sombre voice. ‘All we do is watch!’

The other trainees smiled. In addition to the boy there were two adult men and a young woman standing in the line. In the tutor’s opinion, they were all destined for the fourth or fifth level. But the boy might possibly get as far as the second, or even the first. He was an excellent prospect for a battle magician.

‘Thank you, Andrei. You put everything quite correctly. We watch. We are only learning. Is that clear? Do not enter the Twilight, do not cast any spells. Our basic task is to search for uninitiated Others. And don’t go thinking that it’s easy. Sometimes a person has to be studied for several minutes to determine if he or she is a potential Other. By the way, Anton Gorodetsky was discovered during a study assignment like this one. Geser himself discovered him.’

The tutor paused for a few seconds and then joked:

‘Well, I’m not Geser, but I am planning to become a Higher Other.’

He had absolutely no chance of reaching the Higher level. As a matter of fact, he had less than half an hour left to live. But the tutor couldn’t sense that. In the bundle of probability lines that he could have examined, there was only one inconspicuous little line that led to death.

But at that precise moment dozens of coincidences were coming together and that slim thread was swelling up with blood. Unfortunately, the tutor was too busy to study his own destiny every hour.

‘We walk along Chistoprudny Boulevard,’ he said. ‘We don’t do anything, we just watch.’

* * *

One kilometre away, at the very centre of the city, on Lubyanskaya Square, a car was stuck solid in a traffic jam. The Caucasian driver shrugged and glanced guiltily at his passenger, who thrust several banknotes into his hand and climbed out of the car. The driver put the money in his pocket and frowned as he watched his passenger walk away. The man was not very likeable, somehow. He had paid well enough, but… The driver looked at the little icon glued to the dashboard of the old Zhiguli, then at the copper plaque with a sura from the Koran. He mentally thanked both the Christian and Muslim gods that the journey had been short. He really hadn’t liked that passenger!

9

Zoya Yashchenko, ‘Night Watch’.