Сергей Лукьяненко - Day Watch

Or even in the Crimea.

The person sacrificed was supposed to be "a youth or a maiden." No longer a child, but not yet an adult.

Artek , Edgar thought immediately. The boy who drowned because of the duel .

And then again, if Zabulon had set his sights on Edgar as the second figure in his castling move, then during the final twenty-four hours-no matter where Zabulon might be-he had to find an image of Edgar. A portrait or photograph. More likely a portrait. And keep this image with him. Until the moment when the move was made.

That was all-the library had no more help to offer Edgar. He hastily thanked the vampire librarian and hurried across to a computer.

Of course, he could have simply phoned Moscow. But a phone call was easy to trace, and Edgar didn't want to show his hand too soon. And he was absolutely certain that Alita was chatting on one of the IRC channels right at that moment.

The young IT manager-either a weak magician or a wizard- was glad to show him how to get onto the Internet. Edgar thanked him, and the young guy instantly stuck his nose into his own notebook computer, with its screen full of machine code. He was programming the old-fashioned way, without any of those newfangled Delphi Windows.

Edgar launched miRC and connected in the usual way to the Getborg DALnet server, with the funny cow in its logo (of course, the cow was drawn in pseudo-graphics-with letters and numbers). He identified himself, but he didn't log into any of the channels. He selected "Query" from the menu and put in the name he was interested in: Alita.

A new window opened.

What Edgar was most afraid of was a curt phrase appearing in the status window, saying: "No such name or channel."

But the Darkness was merciful-the reply came almost instantaneously. And from the right address-alita@ncport.ru.

"Edgar, hi! Are you in Prague?"

"Yes. Alita, I have an urgent question… it's rather strange. And not for everyone's ears. Will you help me?"

"Do you need to ask, Edgar? Of course."

"Have you been in the chief's office during the last few days?"

In general, the likelihood of any witch being summoned by Zabulon himself was pretty low, but he had to start somewhere…

"Yes, I have, why?"

Well, well , Edgar thought to himself. I guessed right !

He typed in:

"You didn't happen to notice if he had a photograph or portrait of me in his office, did you? On the desk, for instance…"

"How did you guess?"

And Alita sent him a generous scattering of smiley faces to symbolize her good mood.

"After you left the chief commissioned two drawings. Your portrait and a picture of a dragon. They're both standing in frames on his desk. I went to the arts and crafts salon on Tverskaya Street to get the frames. The chief gave me a bottle of Veuve Cliquot as a reward!"

Edgar closed his eyes. That was it. The final touch for the planned switch of pieces. Your death sentence, Edgar the Estonian Now what are you going to do ?

"Thanks, Alita," he typed in with wooden fingers. "Got to run I'm snowed under with work…"

"Cheers, Edgar. Kiss!"

Edgar didn't even want to look at the smiley faces. He closed the window on the screen and got up from the table

The young programmer glanced at him from behind his note book. "Is that it?" he asked without any real surprise.

"Yes," Edgar replied. "Thanks."

He reached the exit without thinking about anything-hi; head felt strangely dull and empty.

He'd been specially selected, like a cow for the Christmas kebabs. A reasonably powerful magician from the Baltic. He'd been lured in and treated well. Allowed to run things for a little while- in the Moscow Watch, not some dull backwater. But all the time he'd been nothing more than a sacrificial cow, who would be slaughtered when the right moment came. Used, just like a thing Swapped, like a mindless chess piece.

After all, the game went on forever-it was only the presence of the pieces on the checkered board that was temporary.

But so what? If the time had come for one more black queen to join the game, did that mean it was pointless for the rook hastily drafted in from the periphery to dig in and clutch hard at the slippery surface of the board?

Oh no ! thought Edgar. I may not be a queen, but I'm certainly not a pawn. And I don't want to leave the board that easily. I'm going to kick up a fuss. And if I can manage it, I'll save half of Europe some serious problems .

If all else failed, there was the Inquisition. Something told Edgar that the gray-robed officials were unlikely to be pleased by the idea of a visit from the Dragon of the Twilight.

Festive Prague seemed to have disappeared, faded, and receded into the distance. Edgar caught a taxi and rode to the hotel he needed without once looking out the window. He paid the driver automatically and walked into the vestibule, giving the doorman a look that probably made him wish he could disappear through the granite slabs of the floor.

Edgar strode toward the elevators so rapidly that his unbuttoned raincoat almost fluttered behind him. He walked toward the suite that he knew from his intuition as an Other.

Then he suddenly stopped as if he'd run into something and swallowed convulsively.

The Finns had just come out of the bar. The Regin Brothers. All four of them. Four, not three-the Chinese, the African, and the Slav had been joined by a genuine Finn, the one everybody had thought was dead.

But there he was, alive and well.

But of course-why would Gesar have wanted to kill a witness?

No doubt the artist is overwhelmed by a whole range of inexpressible feelings when he puts in place the final piece of glass in a mosaic. But what are you supposed to do when the glass pieces of the mosaic form the sparse words of your own death sentence?

"Brother!" one of the Finns said triumphantly to Edgar. "We want to thank you and the Day Watch of Moscow for your support. Why don't you join us? We're celebrating the survival of our brother Pasi-everybody thought he was dead."

The genuine Finn gave an embarrassed smile, his entire appearance showing how touched he was by his comrades' concern.

"Congratulations…" Edgar said in a hollow voice, although there wasn't really anything to congratulate them on-all four of them would be certain to die at Fafnir's resurrection.

"Brother Dark One…" Seeing Edgar's hesitation, the magician stopped pressing him. "Do you happen to know… the Light One who is also a defendant… why did he call us four horses?"

His colleagues all began nodding indignantly.

"Are we entitled to regard it as an unjustified insult?" the leader of the Regin Brothers asked hopefully.

"No," Edgar replied. "It's worse than an insult-it's the truth."

And he sprinted for the elevator.

–«¦»-

By midday Anton had given up.

He and Igor hadn't drunk any more vodka, despite its remarkable ability to stimulate the imagination. Coffee already made him feel sick. And he didn't feel like drinking any of the wonderful Czech beer either.

Igor was standing by the window with a glass of Dannon drinking yogurt in his hand. He shook his head at Anton's latest suggestion. "No, come on. What sort of dragonslayer would I make? And I thought we'd abandoned the Fafnir scenario?"

"But what if it's right after all?"

"It makes no difference. It's a battle of magic, not a duel with a fire-breathing dragon…" Igor chuckled and added cynically. "And anyway, in a fight between Fafnir the Dragon and a pair of modern battle helicopters, I'd put my money on the choppers. There's no point in any more guessing, Anton. We won't come up with anything."