Сергей Лукьяненко - Day Watch

A car moving slowly along the curb stopped with a quiet rustle of tires. It was a decent car, a Volvo, and it hadn't come from the junkyard. A jerk with a shaven head stuck his smug face out of the window, looked me up and down, and broke into a satisfied smile. Then he hissed.

"How much?"

I was dumbstruck.

"For two hours-how much?" the idiot with the shaved head asked more specifically.

I looked at the number plate-it wasn't from Moscow. So that was it.

"The prostitutes are farther down, you halfwit," I said amiably. "Get lost."

"Anyone would think you didn't screw," the disappointed idiot said, trying to save face. "Think it over, I'm feeling generous today."

"You hold onto your capital," I advised him and clicked my fingers. "You'll need it to fix your car."

I turned my back to him and walked toward the building. My palm was aching slightly from the recoil. The "gremlin" isn't a very complicated spell, but I'd cast it in too much of a hurry. I'd left the Volvo with an incorporeal creature fiddling about under its hood-not even a creature really, but a bundle of energy with an obsessive passion for destroying technology.

If he was lucky, his engine was finished. If he was unlucky, then his fancy bourgeois electronics would blow-the carburetors, the ventilators, all those gearwheels and drive-belts that the car was crammed full of. I'd never taken any interest in the insides of an automobile except in the most general terms. But I had a very clear idea of the result of using the "gremlin."

The disappointed man drove off without wasting too much time arguing. I wondered if he'd remember what I'd said when his car started going haywire. He was bound to. He'd shout, "She hexed it, the witch!" And he wouldn't even know just how right he was.

The thought amused me, but nonetheless, the day had been hopelessly spoiled.

I was five minutes late for work, and there was that quarrel with my mother, and that idiot in the Volvo…

With these thoughts in my head I walked past the magnificent, gleaming shop windows, raised my shadow from the ground without even thinking about it, and entered the building through a door that ordinary people can't see.

The headquarters of the Light Ones, near the Sokol metro station, is disguised as an ordinary office. We have a more respectable location and our camouflage is a lot more fun. This building, with seven floors of apartments above shops that are luxurious even by Moscow standards, has three more floors than everyone thinks. It was specially built that way as the Day Watch residence, and the spells that disguise the building's true appearance are incorporated into the very bricks and stone of the walls. The people living in the building, who are mostly perfectly ordinary, probably feel a strange sensation whenever they ride the elevator up-as if it takes too long to get from the first floor to the second…

The elevator does take longer than it should because the second floor is actually the third, and the real second floor is invisible-it houses our duty offices, armaments room, and technical services. Our other two floors are on the top of the building, and not a single human being knows about them either. But any Other who is powerful enough can look through the Twilight and see the severe black granite walls and the window arches that are almost always covered with thick, heavy curtains. Ten years ago they installed air-conditioners-that's when the clumsy boxes of the split systems appeared on the walls. Before that the internal climate was regulated by magic-but why waste it like that, when electricity is far cheaper?

I once saw a photograph of our building taken through the Twilight by a skillful magician. It's an incredible sight! A crowded street with people walking all dressed up in their finest, cars driving along, shop windows and apartment windows… a pleasant old woman looking out of one window, and a cat sitting in another one, looking disgruntled and gloomy-animals can sense our presence very easily. And running parallel to all this: two entrances to the building from Tverskaya Street, with the doors swung open, and in one doorway there's a young vampire from security, polishing his nails with a file. Directly above the shops there's a strip of black stone with the crimson spots of windows in it… And the two top floors seem to weigh down on the building like a heavy stone cap.

If only I could show that photograph to the people who live there! But then, they'd all think the same thing-a clumsy piece of photomontage! Clumsy, because the building really does look awkward… When everything was still all right between Zabulon and me, I asked him why our offices were located so strangely, mixed in with the humans' apartments. The boss laughed and explained that it made it more difficult for the Light Ones to try any kind of attack-innocent people might get killed in the fighting. Everybody knows that the Light Ones don't worry about people at all either, but they have to hedge around what they do with all sorts of hypocritical tricks-so the seven floors of apartments make a very reliable shield.

The tiny duty office on the first floor, with the two elevators (the people living in the building don't know about them either) and the fire stairs, seemed to be empty. There was no one behind the desk or in the armchair in front of the television. It took me a moment to spot the two security guards who should have been there according to the staff list: a vampire-I think his name is Kostya-who had only joined the Watch very recently, and the werewolf Vitaly from Kostroma, also a civilian employee, who'd been working for us as long as I could remember. Both guards were standing quite still, huddled over in the corner. Vitaly was giggling quietly. Just for an instant I had a quite crazy idea about the reason for such strange behavior.

"Boys, what's that you're doing over there?" I asked sharply. There's no point in being too polite with these vampires and shape-shifters. They're primitive beasts of labor-not to mention that the vampires are non-life-but they still claim to be no worse than magicians and witches!

"Come here, Aliska!" Vitaly said, beckoning to me without turning round. "This is a real gas."

But Kostya straightened up sharply and took a step backward, looking a bit embarrassed.

I walked over.

There was a little gray mouse dashing around Vitaly's feet. It stopped dead still, then jumped up in the air, then began squeaking and beating desperately at the air with its little paws. I didn't understand until I tried looking through the Twilight.

So that was it.

There was a huge, glossy cat jumping about beside the mouse. Sometimes it reached its paw out toward the tiny creature, sometimes it clattered its jaws together. Of course, it was only an illusion, and a primitive one at that, created exclusively for the small rodent.

"We're seeing how long it can hold out!" Vitaly said happily. "I bet it will die of fright in a minute."

"Now I understand," I said, beginning to see red. "Having fun, are we? Did your hunting instincts get the better of you?"

I reached down and picked up the mouse that had frozen still in fear. The tiny bundle of fur trembled on my hand. I blew on it gently and whispered the right word. The mouse stopped trembling, then it stretched out on my palm and went to sleep.

"What's it to you?" Vitaly asked in a slightly offended voice. "Aliska, in your line of work you're supposed to boil these creatures alive in your cauldron!"

"There are a few spells like that," I admitted. "And there are some that require the liver of a werewolf killed at midnight."

The werewolf's eyes glittered brightly with malice, but he didn't say anything. His rank wasn't high enough to try arguing with me. I might only be a simple patrol witch, but that was way above a mercenary werewolf.