Сергей Лукьяненков - Last Watch

He didn’t bother to mention that he meant the Night Watch. That was quite obvious.

“Yes,” I said.

“I have a good friend who runs a little family hotel in Edinburgh,” said the Dark One, joining in the conversation again. “For two hundred years already. Beside the castle, on the Royal Mile. If it doesn’t bother you that he’s a vampire…”

What was all this, nothing but vampires on every side?

“…then here’s his card. It’s a very good hotel. Friendly to Others.”

“I have no prejudices against vampires,” I assured him, taking the rectangle of cardboard. “Some of my friends have been vampires.”

And I sent one of my vampire friends to his death…

“There’s a good restaurant in terminal B,” the Light One put in.

They were so genuinely eager to help me that I wasn’t sure how to get past this solid wall of friendship and goodwill. Fortunately, another plane landed, and several more Others showed up behind me. Keeping a smile on my face the whole time-something to which the Russian facial musculature is rather poorly adapted-I went to collect my suitcase.

I didn’t go to the restaurant, I wasn’t feeling hungry at all. I wandered around the airport a bit, drank a double espresso, dozed for a while in a chair in the lounge, and walked to my plane, yawning a bit as I went. As was only to be expected, Egor was on the same flight. But now we demonstratively ignored each other. Or rather, he demonstratively ignored me, and I didn’t try to impose my company on him.

An hour later we landed at Edinburgh Airport.

It was already almost noon when I got into a taxi-one of those remarkably comfortable English taxis that you start to miss just as soon as you leave Great Britain. I greeted the driver and, on a sudden impulse, handed him the card from the “friendly hotel.” I had a booking in an ordinary human hotel, but the chance of talking to one of Scotland ’s oldest vampires (two hundred years is no joke, even for them) in informal surroundings was simply too tempting.

The hotel was in the historical town center, on a hill close to the royal castle. I lowered the window and gazed around unabashedly with the curiosity of someone who has just arrived for the first time in an interesting new country.

Edinburgh was impressive. Of course, you could say that any truly old city is just as impressive presuming it wasn’t flattened sixty years ago by the fiery steamroller of the Second World War, which reduced ancient cathedrals, castles, and houses-large and small-to rubble. But there was something special here. Perhaps it was the royal castle itself, so well sited on a hill and surmounting the city like a crown of stone. Perhaps it was the large number of people on the streets-tourists idly loitering or wandering about with cameras hanging around their necks, looking at the shop windows or the monuments. After all, the king is always made by his retinue. Or perhaps it was the lacework pattern of the streets scattered around the castle, with their old houses and cobbled roadways.

Even if he’s wearing the most beautiful crown, a king also needs worthy robes. The naked king in Andersen’s fairy tale was not saved by the glittering diamonds on his head.

The taxi stopped at a four-story stone house with a narrow frontage that was squeezed between two shops crowded with customers. The shop windows were hung with colorful kilts and scarves, and there were the inevitable bottles of whisky. What else would you take away from here? From Russia it’s vodka and matryoshka dolls, from Greece it’s ouzo and embroidered tablecloths, from Scotland it’s whisky and scarves.

I climbed out of the taxi, took my suitcase from the driver, and paid him. Then I looked at the building. The sign above the entrance to the hotel said HIGHLANDER BLOOD.

Right. An impertinent vampire.

I walked up to the door, blinking against the bright sunshine. It was getting hot. The legend that vampires can’t tolerate sunlight is just that-a legend. They can tolerate it, they just don’t find it pleasant. And on a hot summer day like this I could almost understand them.

The door didn’t swing open in front of me as I expected-obviously they weren’t fond of automatic devices in this hotel. So I pushed it with my hand and walked in.

Well, at least there was an air conditioner here. The coolness I felt could hardly have been left over from the night, despite these thick stone walls.

The small entrance hall was rather dark, and perhaps that was why it felt rather cozy. I saw an elderly, highly respectable-looking gentleman standing behind a counter. A good suit, a tie with a pin, a shirt with silver cufflinks in the form of thistle heads. A plump face with a mustache and red cheeks, a strawberries-and-cream complexion…But his aura left no doubt at all-he was human.

“Good afternoon,” I said, approaching the counter. “Your hotel was recommended to me… I would like to take a single room.”

“A single?” the gentleman asked with an extremely pleasant smile.

“A single,” I repeated.

“We’re very short of rooms, it’s the Festival…” the gentleman said with a sigh. “You didn’t book, then?”

“No.”

He sighed plaintively again and started leafing through some papers or other-as if this little family hotel had so many rooms that he couldn’t remember if any were free. Without looking up, he asked, “Who was it that recommended us?”

“The Dark One at the customs in Heathrow.”

“I think we should be able to help you,” the man replied without any sign of surprise. “Which room would you prefer, Light or Dark? If you have…er…a dog with you, there is a very comfortable room that even the very largest dog can leave…and come back to…on its own…without disturbing anyone.”

“I want a Light room,” I said.

“Give him the suite on the fourth floor, Andrew,” said a voice behind me. “He is a distinguished guest. Very distinguished.”

I took the key that had appeared as if by magic in the receptionist’s hand (no, no magic involved, it was simply his dexterity), and turned around.

“I will show you the way,” said the light-haired youth who was standing in front of a cigarette machine beside the door that led into the small hotel restaurant. Hotels like this one very often do not have a restaurant and they serve breakfast in the rooms, but the guests here had rather exotic tastes.

“Anton,” I said, introducing myself as I examined the owner of the hotel. “Anton Gorodetsky, Moscow, Night Watch.”

“Bruce,” said the youth. “Bruce Ramsey, Edinburgh. Owner of this establishment.”

He looked just perfect to play Dorian Gray in a film version of Oscar Wilde’s novel. Young, graceful, and indecently fresh and handsome, he could easily have worn a badge that said READY FOR DEBAUCHERY!

Except for the fact that his eyes were old. Gray and faded, with the even, pink whites of eyes that belong to a two-hundred-year-old vampire.

The youth picked up my suitcase-I didn’t object-and started walking up the narrow wooden stairs, talking as he went.

“Unfortunately we don’t have a lift,” he said. “It’s an old building and too narrow to fit a shaft in. And besides, I am not used to lifts. It seems to me that a mechanical monster would disfigure this wonderful house. I hate those reconstructed houses, old facades hiding boring standard-plan apartments. And we don’t often have guests who find it hard to climb the stairs…except that werewolves don’t like steep steps, but we try to accommodate them on the first floor-there’s a special room there-or on the second…What wind has blown you into our quiet town, Higher Light One?”

He was not so ordinary himself. A vampire at the first level of Power-not exactly magical Power, not the same as my own, it was vampire Power. But he could definitely be called a first-level Other.