Сергей Лукьяненко - Day Watch

Still in a mild state of shock, I put all the things back in the bag, zipped it shut and pushed it under the bunk. I felt glad there was a second, unopened, bottle of beer standing beside the one I'd already started. I don't know why, but the sedative substance had a distinctly soporific effect on me. I was expecting to spend a long time lying there, listening to the hammering of the wheels, screwing up my eyes when the bright light suddenly broke in for a few moments, and racking my brains painfully.

Nothing of the sort happened. Before I'd even finished the second bottle of beer, I slumped onto the bunk, still fully dressed, and crashed out on top of the blanket.

Maybe I'd got too close to something taboo in my memories? But how would I know?

I woke up with cold winter sunshine flooding in through the window. The train wasn't moving. I could hear indifferent official voices in the corridor: "Good morning, Russian customs. Are you carrying any arms, narcotics, or hard currency?" The replies sounded less indifferent, but most of them were unintelligible. Then there was a knock at the door. I reached out and opened it.

The customs officer turned out to be a burly, red-faced guy with eyes that were already turning puffy. For some reason, when he spoke to me, he abandoned the standard routine and simply asked me, without any officialese: "What have you got? Get the bag out…"

He looked around the compartment carefully, got up onto the steps, and glanced into the luggage rack just under the ceiling. Then he finally focused his attention on the bag lying all alone in the middle of the bottom bunk.

I lowered the other bunk and sat down without saying anything.

"Open the bag, please," the customs officer demanded.

Can they smell money, or something ? I thought sullenly and obediently opened the zipper.

One by one the plastic bags migrated to the bunk. When he reached the bag with the money, the customs officer brightened up noticeably and reached out in a reflex response to slam the door of the compartment.

"Well, well, well…"

I had already prepared myself to listen to a hypocritical tirade about permits and even to read a paragraph from a book-like every written law, this one consisted of perfectly understandable words strung together so that they made absolutely no sense at all. To listen, read, and then ask hopelessly: "How much?"

But instead of that, I mentally reached out my hand toward the customs officer's head, touched his mind, and whispered, "Go now… Go on. Everything's fine here."

The officer's eyes instantly turned as stupid and senseless as the customs regulations. "Yes… have a good journey…"

He swung around stiffly, clicked the lock open and staggered out into the corridor without saying another word. An obedient wooden puppet with a skillful puppet master pulling his strings.

But since when had I been a skillful puppet master?

The train moved off about ten minutes later, and all that time I was trying to figure out what was happening. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was doing exactly what was needed. First that creature in the park beside the factory, and now this customs officer whose mind had instantly gone blank…

And why, in hell's name, was I on my way to Moscow? What was I going to do when I got off the train? Where was I going to go? Somehow I was already beginning to feel certain that everything would be made clear at the right moment-but only at the right moment, not before. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite a hundred percent certain yet.

I slept for most of the day. Maybe it was my body's reaction to all the unexpected answers and new skills. How had I managed to set off the customs officer? I'd reached out to him, felt the dull crimson aura with the shimmering greenish overlay made up of dollar signs… And I'd been able to adjust his desires.

I didn't think people could do that. But what was I, if I wasn't an ordinary human being?

Oh, yes. I was an Other. I'd told that to the werewolf in the park. And only just that moment did I realize it was a werewolf that had tried to attack me. I remembered his aura, that bright yellow and crimson flame of Desire and Hunger.

I seemed to be gradually clambering up a stairway out of the blackness, out of a blank chasm. The werewolf had been the first step. The customs officer had been the second. I wondered just how long the stairway was, and what would I find up there, at the top? So far there were more questions than answers.

When I finally woke up we had already passed Tula. The compartment was still empty, but now I realized that was because it was the way I wanted it. And I realized that I usually got what I wanted in this world.

The platform at Kursk Station in Moscow drifted slowly past the window. I was standing in the compartment, already dressed and packed, waiting for the train to stop. The female announcer's muffled voice informed everyone that train number sixty-two had arrived at some platform or other. I was in Moscow, but I still didn't understand what I was doing.

As usual, the most impatient passengers had already managed to block the way through. But I could wait, I was in no hurry. After all, I'd be waiting anyway, until my slowly reviving memory prompted me or prodded me, like a muleteer with a stubborn, lazy mule.

The train gave a final jerk and came to a halt. There was a metallic clang in the lobby of the carriage; the line of people instantly started and came to life and spilled out of the carriage little by little. There were the usual exclamations of concern, greetings, attempts to squeeze back into a compartment to get things that couldn't be taken out the first time…

But the confused bustling around the carriage was soon over. The passengers had already got out and received their due allocations of kisses and hugs from the people meeting them. Or not, if there was no one there to meet them. There were a few still left, craning their necks as they gazed around the platform, already shivering in the piercing Moscow wind. But the only people left in the carriage were waiting to pick up the usual parcels of food and other things that relatives had sent with the conductor.

I picked up my bag and walked toward the door, still not understanding what I was going to do in the immediate future.

Probably I ought to change some money, I thought. I didn't have a single kopeck of Russian money, only our "independent" Ukrainian currency, which unfortunately wasn't valid here. Just before we reached Moscow I'd prudently slit open one of the wads in the plastic bag and distributed some of the bills around my various pockets. I always did hate billfolds…

What was that thought I'd had? Always… My "always" had only begun last night.

I shuddered reflexively at the cold embrace of winter and strode off along the platform toward the tunnel. Surely there had to be someone changing money at the station?

Rummaging about in my unreliable memory, I managed to establish two things: First, I didn't remember the last time I'd been in Moscow but, second, I had a general idea of how the station looked from the inside, where to look for the bureau de change, and how to get into the metro.

The tunnel, the large waiting hall in the basement, the short escalator, the ticket hall-my immediate goal was on the second floor, beside another escalator.

But this currency exchange point looked to have been closed very securely for a very long time. No light showing in any chink, no essential board with the current exchange rates. All right. Then I had to go to the exit and turn left, toward the ramp sloping down to the Chkalovskaya metro station… and the place I needed would be near there.

A white trading pavilion, a staircase up to the second floor, empty little shop spaces flooded with light, a turn… The security guard glanced up at me quickly and then relaxed when he recognized someone newly arrived in town.