Sergei Lukyanenko - The New Watch

‘Until I get home – no, I won’t.’

‘Great,’ the witch said delightedly. ‘Let’s get a move on. It’s getting dark already and the forces of evil are coming out to hunt!’

It occurred to me that the sight of Arina would be enough to make any force of evil who had the slightest inkling about magic fill his pants, but I didn’t verbalise this banal thought. Smiling at each other, we walked out of the supermarket and headed for my apartment block.

I wasn’t at all surprised that Arina knew exactly where I lived.

‘What do you make of the prophecy?’ Arina asked casually as soon as we were a few steps away from the shop.

‘Nothing. You stole the flash stick.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to apologise for that bit of petty larceny,’ Arina replied, not embarrassed in the least. ‘But I can’t believe that a computer specialist didn’t keep a copy.’

‘Gesar didn’t believe that, either,’ I sighed. ‘They turned the whole place upside down, checked my PC and my laptop… took away the toy…’

‘Oh, don’t play the hypocrite,’ Arina snorted, ‘As if you didn’t keep a copy, and somewhere where they wouldn’t find it! You could have sent it to an e-mail address, for instance.’

‘I did think about that,’ I said. ‘But that’s dead easy to trace too.’

‘All the same, you have that file,’ Arina said confidently. ‘By the way… would you like me just to give you back the flash stick? I don’t need it any more.’

‘I’ll destroy it, Arina. You can take it to Gesar, he was interested.’

‘Oh, woe is me, I don’t want to go to Gesar,’ said Arina, fluttering her hands. ‘It’s you I’m interested in. What are we going to do?’

‘I already told you – I haven’t heard the prophecy!’ I replied irritably. ‘I haven’t heard it! And I don’t want to hear it!’

Arina walked along for a while in silence, thinking about something. Then she said: ‘You’ll have to listen to it. It’s important, Anton. Believe me.’

‘And then the Tiger will come for me? And I’ll have to choose between revealing the prophecy to humans or dying? Thank you kindly! I’ll leave that choice to you!’

‘Anton, it’s all much more complicated than you think.’

‘Life is always more complicated than we imagine. Stop this! I’m sick of it, do you understand? I’m sick of deciding for other people! I’m sick of defending the Night Watch! I’m sick of fighting for good! I’m sick of everything!’

I didn’t realise at first that I was standing there shouting and the infrequent passers-by were keeping well away from us. Arina stopped too and looked at me sombrely. Then she said: ‘Anton, I understand you. And I’m not exactly overjoyed at what’s happening, either. But you must hear this prophecy. And you will hear it.’

‘And how will you make that happen?’ I asked. ‘Will you force me? Will you break your oaths again?’

‘Again?’ Arina asked in surprise. ‘I didn’t break anything. I didn’t swear that I wouldn’t purloin your trousers and the flash stick.’ She giggled, then turned serious. ‘No, Anton, and I don’t intend to exploit your temporary helplessness to force you to listen to the prophecy. You’ll do that yourself.’

I laughed and lengthened my stride. Arina hurried after me.

‘Anton, do you remember the joke about how to make a cat lick itself under its tail?’

‘No.’

‘You should: it may be a child’s joke, but it demonstrates various approaches to solving a problem. As usual, representatives of three different nationalities were involved. The American hypnotised the cat. The Frenchman spent ages training it painstakingly—’

‘I think it was the Chinese who trained it,’ I said without stopping.

‘That’s not important. And the Russian rubbed mustard on the cat, after which it started licking itself voluntarily with passion and gusto. You’ll listen to the prophecy yourself, Anton – with passion and gusto!’

‘And what’s going to be the mustard?’ I asked.

‘Your daughter. The boy’s prophecy concerns Nadya.’

‘What?’ I exclaimed, looking round.

Arina spread her hands expressively.

‘You heard what. And don’t look at me like that, it’s not my fault. See you, Anton! When you want to talk to me about the prophecy, summon me. Just summon me through the Twilight – I’ll hear you.’

She waved her hand to give me a glimpse of the Minoan Sphere and disappeared.

Lousy old witch, crazy senile schemer…

Yes, of course.

But she’d given me a good slathering of mustard. No mistaking that professional touch.

I only remembered that I’d forgotten to buy the toilet paper after I got out of the lift.

APPARENTLY SVETLANA HAD understood everything the moment I walked in the door. But she only asked the question late in the evening, when we were already in bed.

‘Have you blocked your magic?’

‘Uh-huh.’ I didn’t attempt to deny it, but I tried not to get involved in explanations. ‘The block will run out tomorrow.’

‘I see. For a dare?’

‘For a dare.’

Svetlana put down the book that she was reading in bed for the second evening in a row and glanced into my eyes. I tensed up, expecting some ironic comment or at least the question: ‘What the hell for?’

‘Was it hard, Anton?’ Svetlana asked.

‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘I never realised before that I’m always doing something with magic – little bits and pieces, but I do them…’

‘I understand.’

‘It’s hard to understand,’ I said, smiling to soften the unintended harshness of my words. ‘Until you try, it looks dead easy.’

‘Anton, I haven’t used magic outside the home for four years now.’

‘What!’ I sat up on the bed. ‘But that’s stupid!’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Svetlana, nodding.

‘But why?’

‘I felt like I was becoming less and less human,’ Svetlana replied. ‘Almost imperceptibly. At first it seemed miraculous – solving every problem with a single movement, only worrying about the balance between good and evil… Then I realised that I never solved any problems but my own. I started trying to reassure myself that there was nothing wrong with that. That the Night Watch couldn’t exterminate evil… that that wasn’t its job in any case: all we can do is not allow good to be defeated, humans have to strive for all the rest themselves. Well, you know… And the things they teach young Others in school – the ones with the most passionate hearts join the Watch afterwards, and the ones with cool heads simply live as Others among humans. And then it started making me feel…’ She paused, trying to find the right word.

‘Sick?’ I asked with avid curiosity.

‘Uncomfortable.’ Svetlana shook her head: ‘Not sick. We really do try to do good, after all. But… uncomfortable. You know, it’s… Rumata Estorsky probably felt that way just before he took out his swords and stood facing the door that the storm troopers were breaking down.’

‘I understand,’ I said with a nod.

‘I love you precisely because you do understand and I don’t have to explain to you who Rumata was,’ Svetlana said seriously and smiled. ‘And then… I realised that I would end up like he did.’

‘I went through something like that,’ I said.

‘You coped. You’re a man, you react differently. If push comes to shove, you can always get drunk and abuse Gesar. But I realised that I would just fly off the handle and run wild, create a real mess… And I stopped using magic. Well – apart from at home. I hate ironing the laundry!’

‘Why didn’t you say anything to me?’ I asked.