Сергей Лукьяненко - Day Watch

"And you still love her?" Anton asked incredulously.

Igor raised his head, and they looked into each other's eyes. Then Igor reached out and gently touched Anton's hand. "Don't be angry with me, brother Light One. Don't despise me. And if you can't understand, you'd better go. Take a walk around Prague…"

"I'm trying to understand," Anton whispered. "Honestly, I'm trying. Alisa Donnikova was a perfectly ordinary witch. No better and no worse than all the rest. A clever, beautiful, cruel witch. Who left evil and pain in her wake wherever she went. How can you love her?"

"She was different with me," Igor replied. "A nervous and unhappy girl who really wanted to love someone. Who had fallen in love for the first time. A girl who, unfortunately for us, the Dark Ones spotted before we did. And for her initiation they chose a moment when there was more Darkness in her soul than Light. That's not too difficult to do with teenage girls-you know yourself. And after that it was all very simple. The Twilight drained all the goodness out of her. The Twilight turned her into what she became."

"It's not Alisa herself that you love ," said Anton, failing to notice that he was speaking about Donnikova in the present tense. "What you love is her idealized… no, her alternative image! The Alisa that never existed!"

"She certainly doesn't exist now. But you're still wrong, Anton. I love her the way she became when she lost her powers as an Other. When she was freed for just a moment from that sticky gray cobweb. Tell me, have you never had to forgive somebody?"

"Yes, I have," Anton replied after a pause. "But not for something like that."

"You've been lucky, Antoshka."

Igor poured more vodka.

"Then tell me this…" Anton wasn't trying to spare Igor's feelings, but he still found it hard to get the words out. "Why did you kill her?"

"Because she was a witch," Igor said very calmly. "Because she caused evil and pain. Because 'a member of the Night Watch always protects people against Dark Ones everywhere, in any country, regardless of his personal attitude to the situation.’ Have you never wondered about why the Regulations include that specific phrase? About our personal attitude to the situation? It ought to read 'personal attitude to the Dark Ones," but that sounds rather pitiful. So they used a eum… euph…"

"Euphemism," Anton prompted him.

"A euphemism." Igor laughed. "Exactly. Remember when we caught the girl vampire on the roof? You were about to fire at her point-blank, but then your vampire neighbor turned up. And you lowered your gun."

"I was wrong," Anton said with a shrug. "She had to be tried. That was why I stopped."

"No, Anton. You would have shot her. And any other vampire who came running to help the criminal. But you were facing a vampire who was your friend, or at least one that you knew. And you stopped. But imagine if the choice had been between shooting and letting the criminal escape."

"I would have shot her," Anton said abruptly. "And Kostya too. There wouldn't have been any choice. I'd have felt very bad about it, I agree, but I…"

"And what if it hadn't just been someone you knew well, but the woman you loved? A human woman or an Other enchantress from either side?"

"I would have shot…" Anton whispered. "I would have shot anyway."

"And then what?"

"I wouldn't have allowed such a situation to arise. I just wouldn't have allowed it!"

"Of course. The very idea of loving never enters our heads if we see the aura of Darkness. It's the same for the Dark Ones if they see the aura of Light. But we were caught by surprise, Anton. We'd lost all our powers. And we didn't have a choice…"

"Tell me, Igor…" Anton paused and took a breath. The vodka hadn't done the trick, and even though the conversation was certainly intimate, it wasn't bringing any relief. "Tell me, why didn't you just throw Alisa out of the camp? Why didn't you ask Gesar for help and advice? That way you would have protected people and at the same time…"

"She wouldn't have gone," Igor said sharply. "After all, she had legitimate reason to be there at Artek. You know what's the most terrible thing about this whole business, Anton? Zabulon extracted the right for her to restore herself from Gesar in exchange for the same right for a third-level magician! Me, that is! Do you see how everything was all tied up together?"

"But are you sure she wouldn't have gone away?" Anton asked.

Igor lifted up his glass without speaking. For the first time that evening they clinked glasses, but no toast was proposed. "No, Anton, I'm not sure. That's the terrible thing, I'm not sure. I told her… I ordered her to clear out. But that was the very first moment, when we'd only just realized who was who. When my brain still hadn't kicked in, I was running on pure adrenaline…"

"If she loved you," said Anton, "she would have gone. You just needed to find the right words…"

"Probably. But who can say for certain now?"

"Igor, I'm really sorry," Anton whispered. "I don't feel sorry for the witch Alisa, of course… don't even ask me. I can't shed even a single tear for her. But I feel terribly sorry for you. And I really want you to stay with us. To get through this and not let it destroy you."

"I've got nothing left to live for, Anton," said Igor with a guilty shrug. "You understand, nothing! You know, I probably fell in love for the first time in my life too. I had a wife once. I became an Other in 1945… I came back from the front, a young captain with a chest full of medals, and not a single scratch on me… and I'd been lucky in general. It was only later I realized it was my latent abilities as an Other that had kept me safe. And then I learned the truth about the Watches… It was a new war, you understand? And an absolutely just one, it couldn't have been more just. I didn't really know how to do anything except fight, and now I realized I'd found myself a job for life. For a very long life. And that I wouldn't have to face any of those human afflictions and annoying illnesses, those lines for food… you can't even imagine what perfectly ordinary hunger is like, Anton, what genuinely black bread tastes like, or genuinely bad vodka… what it feels like the first time you laugh in the fat, well-fed face of a special agent from SMERSH and yawn lazily in response to his question: "Why did you spend two months on enemy territory if the bridge was blown up on the third day after you parachuted in?"

Igor was beginning to get carried away now. He was speaking quickly and furiously… not at all the way the young magician from the Night Watch usually spoke…

"I came back and I looked at my Vilena, my little Lenochka-Vilenochka, so young and beautiful. She used to write me letters every day, honestly, and what letters they were! I saw how glad she was that I'd come back-I wasn't hurt, I wasn't crippled, and I was a hero as well. Very few women were so fortunate then. But she was very afraid that her envious bitches of neighbors would tell me about all the men she'd had during those four years, that my officer's warrant wasn't the only reason she'd been getting by quite comfortably… even now you don't understand half of what I'm saying, do you? But I suddenly saw it. All of it at once. The longer I looked at her, the more I saw. All the details. And not only all her men- from lousy speculators to others like me, soldiers who hopped over the hospital fence and went absent without leave… And the way she whispered to one colonel, "He's probably been rotting in the ground for ages…'-I heard that too… And by the way, that colonel turned out to be a real man. He got up off the bed, slapped her across the face, got dressed, and walked out."

Igor poured himself some vodka and drank it quickly, without waiting for Anton, then filled the glasses again. He said, "That's when I became what I am. When I left my home, with my medals jangling and Vilena roaring, "It's all lies what they told you, the bitches, I was faithful to you!" I walked along the street, with something burning away in my soul. It was May, Anton. May 1945. Immediately after Germany capitulated, Gesar pulled me back from the front and told me: "From now on your front line is here, Captain Teplov." And back then people were… they were different, Anton. Their faces were all shining! There were plenty of foul Dark creatures around, I won't deny it, but there was a lot of Light as well. And as I walked along the street the little kids darted round me, looking at my chest full of medals, arguing about which one was for what. Men shook my hand and invited me to take a drink with them. Girls came running up to me… and kissed me. Kissed me like their own boyfriends, who hadn't come back yet, or had already been killed. Like their own fathers, like their own brothers. Sometimes they cried, kissed me, and went on their way. Do you understand me? No, how could you… You worry about our country too, you think how bad everything is right now, what a lousy hole we're all in… You suffer because the Light Ones won't all get together to help Russia. Only you don't know what it's like to be in a real hole, Anton. But we do!"