Сергей Лукьяненко - Day Watch

But that wasn't definite. It could well be that I wouldn't find any. That they were all sincere-to the extent that that is possible. That they sincerely loved the children, the camp, and each other with a love that was pure. That this place really was a reservation for idiots, the kind of place the Light Ones dreamed of turning the whole world into.

But that would mean there was at least some basis for the way the Light Ones acted.

"Hello…"

I looked around at the boy walking past. Aha, my first acquaintance in Artek.

"Good morning, Makar." I squinted at his skinned knee. "So where's the iodine?"

"It's nothing. It'll heal on its own," the boy muttered. He gave me a slightly alarmed look-evidently he was trying to figure out if I'd found out anything about him already or not.

"Better run, or you won't have time to eat anything…" I smiled. "Maybe you only need three hours' sleep, but food's a different matter. The food here's institutional too, but it's good."

He strode off quickly along the line of tables. Now he knew that I was in the know-about his nocturnal wanderings and his genuine social status. If I'd been in better shape I could have drawn in a lot of Power…

"Alisa, how do you know him?" Olechka whispered loudly.

I put on a mysterious face. "I know everything about everybody…"

"Why?" Olechka asked curiously.

"Because I'm a witch!" I told her in a hollow, ghostly voice.

The little girl laughed happily.

Oh yes, it's very funny… especially because it's the absolute truth… I patted her on the head and called attention to her full plate with my eyes.

I still had to go through the official part of the proceedings- the introduction to the head of the Azure section. And then, the beach and the sea that my little girls were already twittering about.

And to be quite honest, I realized I was looking forward to it with just as much delight as the night ahead. I might be a Dark One but, contrary to common ignorant opinion, even vampires love the sea and the sunshine.

The year before, at the end of summer, I'd managed to get away to Jurmala. I don't know why I went there-I must have wanted to be somewhere uncomfortable. If so, I was lucky: August turned out rainy, cold, and miserable. The stiff Latvian waiters immediately started speaking Russian as soon as they'd added up the price of my order. The service in the hotel was primitive and Soviet-style, despite its pretentious four-star rating. I wandered all around Jurmala, sat for ages in a little beer hall in Majori, strolled on the wet sand of the deserted beach, and in the evenings I escaped to Riga. There were two attempts to rob me, and one to rape me. I enjoyed myself as best I could… I had my Other powers then, and no human being in the world could cause me any harm. My heart was weary and empty, but I had all the Power I needed and more.

And then I suddenly felt sick of it all. All at once, in a single day. Maybe it was because of the two Night Watch agents who detained me in Dzintari for ages while they tried to frame me for some unsolved crime involving third-level magic. They were irreproachably polite and absolutely adamant. That was probably what the Latvian Red Riflemen were like, and then the Forest Brothers later. The Latvians are a very thorough, consistent people-once they take a job on, they see it right through to the end…

I managed to refute the charges-they were genuinely groundless in any case. But the very next morning I took a plane to Moscow. Without having swum in the sea even once all summer.

But now it was payback time for me.

Everything was going along all right, everything was normal. I met the woman in charge of the Azure section-a very nice woman, brisk and pleasantly businesslike, who spoke briefly and to the point in a good way. I felt we had parted entirely satisfied with each other.

Maybe it was because today I'd put on my light summer jeans, and not the provocative miniskirt?

At last I had done a bit of sunbathing and been in the sea. The beach at Artek was wonderful, except that there was too much howling from the kids. But that was an inevitable evil, no matter which way I looked at things. My little girls turned themselves over in the sun in a highly professional manner, trying to get a nice even tan. Almost half of them had suntan lotion and after-tan lotion, which they shared generously with each other, so there was no prospect of problems in the evening with burnt shoulders and backs.

If only I didn't still have to keep an eye on the girls… I imagined myself swimming out a kilometer or two, or even three, throwing my arms out and lying on the water… looking up into the transparent sky, swaying on the gentle waves, not thinking about anything or hearing anything…

But no. I had to watch them. I had to teach Anya to swim and prevent Verochka, with her grade-one swimming diploma, from trying to swim off too far. I had to herd the girls into the shade- they might have suntan lotion, but rules were still rules… Basically, along with the wonderful sea, I had been given another eighteen capricious, noisy, fidgety little presents. The only thing that kept me smiling was the thought of the night ahead, when the time would come for me to get even with the most bothersome ones-I'd already decided it would be Verochka, Olga, and Ludmila! That night I wasn't going to gather chance scraps of Power. I was going to sow the seeds that would sprout in their dreams.

And then I saw Igor.

No, I didn't know what he was called then. I simply looked around as I was lying on the warm sand and noticed a well-built young man the same age as myself. He was messing about in the water with his little squirts-a gang of ten- or eleven-year-old boys-throwing them into the water, offering them his shoulders as a diving board, just having a really good time. He wasn't tanned at all, but that seemed to suit him somehow-in the middle of the crowd of swarthy children's bodies he stood out like… like a white elephant moving condescendingly through a crowd of dark-skinned Indians…

A handsome young man.

I felt a sweet ache somewhere below my stomach. We haven't really moved all that far away from people. I understood well enough that there's an immense gulf between Others and human beings, that this young guy was not my equal and we couldn't have any kind of lasting relationship, but even so…

I just like men like that: with strong muscles, light brown hair, and intelligent faces. There's nothing to be done about it.

And what would be the point of doing anything? I'd been intending to find myself a friend for the summer anyway…

"Olechka, do you know what that camp leader's called?" I asked the little girl pressing herself against me. Olechka clearly felt fond of me because I'd singled her out from the crowd just a little bit, and now she was staying close to me, trying to build on her success. People are funny, especially children. They all want care and attention.

Olechka looked and shook her head. "That's brigade number four, only they used to have a different leader before."

A look of alarm appeared in the girl's eyes-as if she were afraid that I would be disappointed with her for not knowing the answer. She probably really was afraid… "Do you want me to find out?" Olechka asked. "I know some boys in that brigade…"

"All right," I said with a nod.

The little girl jumped up, scattering sand around her, and ran toward the water. I turned away, hiding a smile.

So now I already had my first informer. A nervous, skinny little girl desperately seeking my attention.

"He's called Igor," Natasha suddenly said out of the blue. She was sitting beside me. This was the same girl who had been dreaming about a boy the night before. She didn't sunbathe like a child either-she sat up on the sand with her legs stretched out and her head thrown back, with her hands propping her up from behind. She must have seen the pose in some fashion magazine or a movie. Or perhaps she'd simply realized that in that position her new little breasts were clearly outlined under her swimming costume. She would go a long way…