Sergei Lukyanenko - The New Watch

At night, strangely enough, the Watch office is empty. We’re called the ‘Night Watch’ and we patrol the streets mostly at night (how else can we do it – our main client base are the lower Dark Ones, the vampires and shapeshifters, who find it harder to control themselves) but our work is like an iceberg: most of it’s invisible. And that work takes place during the day – paper-shuffling, training, analysing data, studying fresh information. We live among human beings, after all, and it’s more convenient for us to live by their rhythm. At least we managed to push an initiative through the human parliament recently to coordinate daylight-saving time across the entire country…

I sat at the computer in my office for a while. Went into my e-mail and wrote a couple of letters. For some reason I suddenly remembered the song that the policeman Iskender’s son had been playing, searched for the group that performed it and was surprised to discover that it was from Kazakhstan – I hadn’t realised before that they played anything but the dombra down there! Then I found a pirate site where their other songs were available. I clicked on the title Obedient Boys , leaned back in my chair and listened:

That made me wince. The wrong choice. The boy-Prophet was nothing like a romantic young hero, but the song was reproaching me for something.

What the hell was this? Why couldn’t these Kazakhs imitate Russian kitsch pop and sing songs about beautiful girls, expensive resorts and glittering cars, instead of propagating this decadent romanticism! I turned off the computer and walked out of the office.

My feet took me to the basement floors of their own accord. The door of one of the rooms was open and I glanced inside. The two ‘old-timers’, Jermenson and Glyba, were sitting there, sipping calmly on glasses of cognac. Mark Emmanuilovich was snacking on non-kosher smoked eel, while Glyba, a member of the old Soviet school, was using ‘nikolashka’ – a sliced lemon, sprinkled with coffee and sugar. There was a sign of the new times, however – the coffee wasn’t instant, but natural, and Glyba was crumbling the beans over the lemon with his strong fingers.

They were sitting with their backs to me, but that was no hindrance to them.

‘Come on in, Anton!’ Jermenson called amiably.

‘You’ll have a glass of cognac,’ Glyba told me no less sociably. Told me, not asked.

Without speaking, I joined them at the table and took a glass. To my surprise, the cognac wasn’t French, but Moldavian – a pot-bellied bottle with a label that said Surprise .

‘To the victory of the forces of good,’ said Jermenson, taking a sip from his glass.

‘Over the forces of reason,’ Glyba continued.

I downed my glass in one and immediately regretted it. The cognac turned out to be surprisingly good. In fact, you could say it was excellent.

‘Where do you get this?’ I asked.

‘You have to know the right place,’ Glyba laughed. ‘See, Emmanuilich? I told you Anton was a rational person.’

‘That’s just it, he’s a real person, human…’ Jermenson said gruffly. He took a long leather case from his jacket pocket and held it out to me. ‘How about a cigar, young man? I highly recommend it. None of that sacrilege with a lemon, the only thing that goes with a good cognac is a genuine cigar.’

The Great Ones seemed perfectly placid and relaxed. Not at all as if they were preparing for a skirmish with the Tiger. But in that case what were they doing in the office?

‘Has Gesar already told you?’ I asked.

‘About the Tiger?’ Jermenson responded. ‘Yes, of course. I ought to be ashamed of myself. I’ve heard about this kind of thing before… It was a very long time ago, though.’

‘And?’ I asked abruptly.

‘We’re going to sit here until the morning, gabbing the way that old men do,’ Jermenson said, shrugging. ‘If he comes… well, then we’ll take a look. We’re not going to fight, just take a look… There’s no charge for looking.’

‘You’re going to watch the Tiger kill the boy?’

‘In a case like this, leaving is even more cowardly,’ Jermenson replied coolly. ‘Why don’t you tell us what he prophesied to you at the airport? Word for word. Maybe Gesar’s wrong? Maybe the boy has already uttered his prophecy?’

‘But then why would the Tiger bother to carry on chasing him?’ Glyba responded. ‘No, you tell us, Anton. We’re genuinely interested.’

‘“You are Anton Gorodetsky, a Higher Light Magician. You are Nadka’s father. Because of you… all of us…”’ I shrugged and spread my hands. ‘Is that any good as a prophecy?’

‘No,’ said Glyba, shaking his head. ‘Djoru’s right: it was a harbinger, induced by stress.’

‘But there is something interesting about it!’ said Jermenson, raising his finger. ‘Right?’

‘Right,’ said Glyba, splashing more cognac out into the glasses. ‘First, the prophecy will be addressed to one particular person. It’s linked to Anton. Perhaps because he’s the one the boy met?’

‘Or because Anton saved him…’ Jermenson said, with a nod. ‘And it’s important that he said “Nadka’s father”. Our little friend doesn’t look like one of those children who address all little girls in that familiar fashion. That means…’

‘That means the prophecy is linked to Nadya as well, and the boy-Prophet has to become friends with her.’

‘And it concerns all Others – “all of us” is in there for a reason. But the clinching role will be played by Anton.’ It looked as if this wasn’t the first time that Jermenson and Glyba had brainstormed together.

‘It’s very interesting, it really is!’ said Glyba, beaming. ‘I’d like to hear it. I hope Djoru will be able to explain to the boy how to prophesy.’

‘Djoru might have managed it,’ said Gesar, walking into the room, ‘but I haven’t.’

He sat down with us (now that was strange – I thought there were only three chairs at the table before then) and took a glass. (Well, there definitely wasn’t a fourth glass on the table before, let alone a full one!) He looked at me, cleared his throat, took a sip of cognac and said: ‘The ball keeps going wide of the goalpost. The lad is an Other, the lad really is a Prophet. Only we were mistaken. He’s not a Higher Other, only first or second rank.’