Sergei Lukyanenko - Nightwatch

«Will you have something?» I asked my invisible companion.

«No, thank you.»

Standing there with the fine snow falling on me, I picked at my Olivier salad with a tiny plastic fork and sipped the hot coffee. A bum who'd been counting on me buying beer, so that he could have the empty bottle, hung about for a bit and then took off into the metro to get warm. Nobody else paid any attention to me. The girl behind the counter served the hungry passersby; faceless streams of people flooded away from the station and back toward it. The salesman at a bookstall was trying wearily and unenthusiastically to foist some book or other on a customer. The customer didn't like the price.

«I must be in a bad mood or something…« I muttered.

«Why?»

«Everything looks dark and gloomy. All the people are lowlifes and idiots; the salad's frozen; my boots feel damp.»

The bird on my shoulder gave a derisive screech.

«No, Anton, it's not just your mood. You can sense the approach of the Inferno.»

«I'm not noted for being particularly sensitive.»

«That's just the point.»

I glanced at the station, tried to get a close look at people's faces. Some of them were sensing it too. The ones who stood right on the very boundary line between human being and Other were tense and depressed. They couldn't understand why, so they were compensating by acting cheerful.

«Darkness and Light…What will it be when it happens, Olga?»

«Anything at all. You stalled the time of the eruption, but now when the vortex strikes the consequences will be absolutely catastrophic. That's the effect of delay.»

«The boss didn't tell me that.»

«Why should he? You did the right thing. Now at least there's a chance.»

«Olga, how old are you?» I asked. Between human beings the question might have been taken as an insult. But for us age doesn't have any particular limits.

«Very old, Anton. For instance, I can remember the uprising.»

«The revolution?»

«The uprising on Senate Square in 1825.» The owl chortled. I didn't say anything. The owl could be even older than the boss.

«What's your rank, partner?»

«I don't have one. I was stripped of all rights.»

«I'm sorry.»

«No problem. I came to terms with it a long time ago.»

Her voice was still cheerful, even mocking. But something told me Olga had never come to terms with it.

«If you don't mind me asking… Why did they shut you in that body?»

«There was no other choice. Living in a wolf's body is much harder.»

«Wait…« I dropped the remains of the salad in a garbage can. I looked at my shoulder, but, of course, I didn't see the owl—to do that I would have had to withdraw into the Twilight. «Who are you? If you're a shape-shifter, then why are you with us? If you're a magician, then why such a strange punishment?»

«That's got nothing to do with the job, Anton.» For just a moment here was a hint of steel in her voice. «But it all started with me compromising with the Dark Ones. Only a small compromise. I thought I'd calculated the consequences, but I was wrong.»

So that was it…

«Was that why you started talking? You wanted to warn me off, but you were too late?»

No answer.

As if Olga was already regretting being so frank.

«Let's get on with the job…« I said. And just then the phone squeaked in my pocket.

It was Larissa. What was she doing working two straight shifts?

«Anton, listen carefully… They've picked up that girl's trail. Perovo station.»

«Sugar,» was all I said. Working out in the dormitory suburbs was absolute hell.

«Right,» Larissa agreed. She was no field operative… that was probably why she was sitting by the phone. But she was bright. «Anton, get across to Perovo. All our guys are being concentrated over there, they're following the trail. And another thing… they've spotted the Day Watch there.»

«I get the picture.» I folded my phone away.

I didn't get a thing. Did the Dark Ones already know about everything? Were they just yearning for the Inferno to erupt? Then maybe it was no accident that they'd stopped me?

Nonsense. A major disaster in Moscow was not in the interests of Darkness. But of course, they wouldn't try to stop the twister either: That would go against their nature.

So I didn't go into the metro after all. I stopped a car. It ought to save me a bit of time, even if not that much. I sat beside the driver, a swarthy, hook-nosed intellectual about forty years old. The car was new, and the driver himself gave the impression of doing very well for himself. It seemed a bit strange for him to be earning a bit on the side by offering a private taxi service.

… Perovo. A large city district. Crowds of people. Light and Darkness, all twisted up together into a knot. And a few institutions, casting beams of Darkness and Light in all directions. Working there was going to be like trying to find a grain of sand on the floor of a crowded discotheque with the strobe lights on…

I wouldn't be much use to anyone, or actually, I wouldn't be any use at all. But I'd been ordered to go, so I had to. Maybe they'd ask me to identify the girl.

«For some reason I was sure we'd get lucky,» I whispered, gazing at the road ahead. We drove past Elk Island Park, a pretty grim place; the Dark Ones gather there for their sabbaths. And when they do, the rights of ordinary people aren't always respected. Five nights a year we have to put up with anything. Well, almost anything.

«I thought so too,» whispered Olga.

«I can't compete with the field agents,» I said, shaking my head.

The driver squinted sideways at me; I'd accepted the price without haggling, and he'd seemed happy enough to go in our direction. But a man talking to himself always arouses suspicions.

«I just blew this job,» I told the driver with a sigh. «That is, I completely screwed it up. I thought I could make up for it today, but they got along without me.»

«So what's your hurry?» the driver asked. He didn't look like the talkative type, but he was interested enough.

«I was ordered to go,» I said.

I wondered who he thought I was.

«So what do you do?»

«I'm a programmer,» I answered. And I was telling the truth too.

«Fantastic,» the driver commented, and laughed. What did he find so fantastic about it? «Do you make a living?»

He didn't really have to ask. After all, I wasn't riding the metro. But I answered anyway:

«I do ok.»

«I wasn't just asking out of curiosity,» my driver unexpectedly confided. «My system administrator's leaving me…«

My system administrator… I see!

«I personally see the finger of fate in this. I give a man a lift and he turns out to be a programmer. I think you're already doomed.»

He laughed, like he was trying to make light of his excessive confidence.

«Have you done any work with local networks?»

«Yes.»

«A network of fifty machines. It has to be maintained. We pay well.»

I felt myself starting to smile. It was a good offer. A local network. Decent money. And no one sending you out at night to catch vampires, making you drink blood and sniff out trails on the frozen streets…

«Shall I give you my card?» The man deftly slipped one hand into his jacket pocket. «Think about it…«

«No thanks. I'm afraid no one just leaves my kind of work.»

«KGB, is it?» the driver asked with a frown.

«More serious than that,» I answered. «Much more serious. But something like it.»

«Oh, well…« the driver said, and paused. «A pity. And I thought it was a sign from on high. Do you believe in fate?»

He'd slipped into a familiar tone quite naturally. I liked that.