Сергей Лукьяненков - Last Watch

Translated by Andrew Bromfield

To my wife, Sonya,

and my son, Tema, with love

This text is acceptable to the forces of Light.

This text is acceptable to the forces of Darkness.

Story One

Common Cause

VALERIA LOOKED AT VICTOR AND SMILED. INSIDE EVERY MAN, NO MATTER how grown up, there was still a little boy. Victor was twenty years old and, of course, he was grown up. Lera was prepared to insist on that with all the conviction of a nineteen-year-old woman in love.

“Dungeons,” she whispered into Victor’s ear. “Dungeons and dragons. Oo-oo-oo!”

Victor snorted. They were sitting in a room that would have seemed dirty if it wasn’t so dark. Jostling all around them were excited children and adults with embarrassed smiles. On a stage decorated with mystical symbols a young man wearing white makeup and a long, flowing cloak was making frightening faces. He was lit from below by a few crimson footlights.

“Now you are going to learn what real horror is like!” the young man drawled menacingly at the spectators. “Aagh! A-a-a-agh! Even I feel afraid at the thought of what you are going to see!”

He spoke with the precise articulation that only college drama students have. Even Lera, who didn’t know much English, could understand every word.

“I like the dungeons in Budapest,” she whispered to Victor. “They have real old dungeons there…it’s very interesting. And all they have here is one big ‘house of horror.’”

Victor nodded guiltily and said, “But at least it’s cool in here.”

September in Edinburgh had turned out hot. Victor and Lera had spent the morning in the royal castle, a center of tourist pilgrimage. They had a bite to eat and drank a pint of beer in one of the countless number of pubs. And then they had found somewhere to take shelter from the midday sun…

“Sure you haven’t changed your minds?” the actor in the black cloak asked the audience.

Lera heard someone crying quietly behind her. She turned around and was surprised to discover that it was a grown girl, about sixteen years old, standing there with her mother and little brother. Several ushers surfaced out of the darkness and quickly led the entire family away.

“There you have the other side of European prosperity,” Victor said didactically. “Would any grown girl in Russia be frightened by a ‘house of horror’? European life is too calm and peaceful, it makes them afraid of all sorts of nonsense…”

Lera frowned. Victor’s father was a politician. Not a very important one, but very patriotic, always taking every chance to demonstrate the shortcomings of Western civilization. But that hadn’t stopped him from sending his son to study at Edinburgh University.

And Victor, who spent ten months of the year away from his homeland, stubbornly repeated his father’s rhetoric. You would have to look very hard to find another patriot like him, even inside Russia. Sometimes Lera thought it was funny, and sometimes it made her angry.

Fortunately the introduction was over now, and the slow guided tour through the Dungeons of Scotland began. Under a bridge beside the railway station, some enterprising people had partitioned off the bleak concrete premises into small cages. They had put in weak lightbulbs and draped tattered rags and artificial cobwebs everywhere. On the walls they had hung portraits of the maniacs and murderers who had run amok in Edinburgh over its long history. And they had started entertaining children.

“This is the bootikin!” howled a girl dressed in rags-their guide for the room they were in. “A terrible instrument of torture!”

The children squealed in delight. The grown-ups exchanged embarrassed glances, as if they had been caught blowing soap bubbles or playing with dolls. To avoid getting bored, Lera and Victor stood in the back and kissed while the guides babbled. They had been together for six months already, and they were both haunted by a strange feeling that this romance would turn out to be something really special.

“Now we’ll go through the Maze of Mirrors!” the guide announced.

Strangely enough, this turned out to be really interesting. Lera had always thought that those descriptions of mirror mazes in which you could lose your way and run your forehead straight into the glass were exaggerated. How was it possible not to see where there was a mirror and where there was an empty space that you could walk into?

It turned out that it was possible. In fact, it was very possible indeed. People laughed as they jostled against the cold mirrored surfaces, and waved their arms about as they wandered around in the noisy clamor of the group, which had suddenly been transformed from a handful of people into a crowd. At one point Victor waved in greeting to someone, and when they eventually got out of the maze (the door was slyly disguised as a mirror too), he gazed around for a long time.

“Who are you looking for?” Lera asked.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” Victor said with a smile. “Just nonsense.”

There were a few more halls decorated with the somber trappings of medieval prisons, and then-the River of Blood. The hushed children were loaded into a long metal boat, and it set off slowly across the dark water to the Castle of the Vampires. The darkness was filled with malevolent laughter and menacing voices. Invisible wings flapped above their heads, water gurgled. The impression was only spoiled by the fact that the boat sailed about five meters at the very most, after which the illusion of movement was maintained by fans blowing air into their faces.

But even so, Lera suddenly felt afraid. She was ashamed of her fear, but she was afraid. They were sitting on the last bench; there was no one else beside them, ahead of them there were actors groaning and giggling as they pretended to be vampires, and behind them…

Behind them there was nothing.

But Lera couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was someone there.

“Vitya, I’m afraid,” she said, taking hold of Victor’s hand.

“Silly girl,” Victor whispered into her ear. “Just don’t cry, all right?”

“All right,” Lera agreed.

“Ha-ha-ha! Evil vampires all around!” Victor taunted, imitating the voices of the actors. “I can sense them creeping up on me!”

Lera closed her eyes and clutched his hand even tighter. Boys! They were all boys, even when they had gray hair! Why was he frightening her like that?

“Ow,” Victor exclaimed very convincingly. Then he said, “There’s someone…someone biting my neck…”

“Jerk!” Lera blurted out, refusing to open her eyelids.

“Lera, there’s someone drinking my blood,” Victor said in a mournful, despairing voice. “And I’m not even afraid. It’s like a dream…”

The fans kept blowing their cold wind, the water slapping against the sides of the boat, the wild voices howling. There was even a smell of something like blood. Victor’s hand went limp. Lera angrily pinched him on the palm, but he didn’t even twitch.

“I’m not afraid, you blockhead!” Lera exclaimed, almost at the top of her voice.

Victor didn’t answer, but he tumbled softly against her, and that made her feel a bit less afraid.

“I’ll bite your throat out myself!” Lera threatened. Victor seemed to be confused. He didn’t say anything. Then Lera surprised even herself by adding, “And I’ll drink all your blood. Do you hear me? Straight after…straight after the wedding.”

It was the first time she had mentioned this word in connection with their relationship, and she froze, waiting to see how Victor would react. A single man simply had to react to the word “wedding”! He would either be frightened or delighted.