‘Permit me to remind you,’ I said, unable to stop myself, ‘that if you lose your abilities, you’ll be transformed into a decrepit old woman. Or disintegrate completely, into dust.’
‘Yes,’ Arina said in a quiet voice. ‘You’re right. But that has nothing to do with the case. I’m prepared to pay that price.’
‘Well, I’m not! And in particular I’m not prepared to decide for others. For Sveta. For Nadya. For Kesha. For all the Others who exist and will exist.’
‘But you’ll have to, won’t you, Anton?’ Arina said with just a hint of a threat.
‘You think so?’ I asked. ‘What will you do? Reveal the prophecy to humans? It doesn’t state that the Tiger will be killed. It only tells us that Nadya can kill the Tiger. Do you want to make her do it? That will be pretty hard. And not only because you’ll have to get past me and Svetlana . . . I don’t know how I’ll manage, but Sveta will twist you into a fancy pretzel. She’s a mother. Do you understand that? But you’d still have to persuade Nadya. Battles like that aren’t won through fear. And Nadya won’t destroy the Tiger. She’s very fond of furry little animals in general.’
‘Furry little animals . . .’ Arina laughed bitterly. ‘Is that right? I’ll think of something.’
‘You can tell the prophecy to humans,’ I said magnanimously. ‘If that’s what you want. There’s nothing inevitable in it. All you’ll achieve is to set the Tiger on your own trail.’
‘I’ll think of something,’ Arina repeated stubbornly. ‘For instance . . . wait, where are you going?’
‘What do you mean, where?’ I asked. ‘To work. I turn through the gates right here.’
There was a pop behind me – and Arina disappeared. The Night Watch office is shielded by so many magical barriers that Arina could have been left stuck outside the gates for ever – despite all her great wisdom and the power of the Minoan Sphere.
I parked in my own space, with a gloating laugh, only to discover three of our guys getting into our SUV field vehicle – Semyon, Las and Alisher! A strange kind of team! I clambered out of the car and waved to them.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘Another Schuchart’s turned up. Want to go with us?’
‘What level?’ I asked.
‘Fourth. But the guy’s pumped himself full of Power.’
The picture of Arina tormented by demons flew right out of my head, along with all the prophecies in the world. When someone throws a Schuchart, it’s bad. Very bad. I know: it nearly happened to me once. And as yesterday evening had made clear, it could even have happened to Svetlana . . .
And if this young guy had already pumped himself up to the gills . . .
‘Let’s go,’ I said as I climbed into the car. Las was in the driving seat. He turned and looked at me intently.
‘Yes, thanks for reminding me,’ I said, then closed my eyes and started removing the block on my magical abilities. ‘Note that this is a matter of urgent necessity. I think I’ve already proved that I was right!’
Las didn’t argue. He just stepped on the gas.
The area around Luzhniki Stadium was quiet. I got out of the car first and looked round. Yes – this was bad. Judging from the amount of litter on the approaches to the stadium, quite a lot of people had passed this way. And the number of polizei at the entrances suggested the same. What a lot of fine puns we sacrificed when we took up that German term and dropped the good old Russian ‘filth’.
But it was quiet.
‘What’s going on here?’ I asked Alisher. ‘It’s a bit early for any kind of sports events.’
‘A concert,’ Las said curtly.
‘Thank God it’s not football,’ I murmured. ‘But what band is it? And why are they playing in the morning – is it a special children’s performance?’
‘Almost. The All-Russian Youth Competition for New Performers, the final. All sorts of rock bands from Perm and Yekaterinburg, original genre artistes from Kaluga and Syktyvkar, folk-rhyme declaimers from the Urals . . .’
‘Well, then, there can’t be many spectators here,’ I said dismissively. ‘Although maybe I shouldn’t be so sceptical – Yekaterinburg has produced heaps of tremendous groups . . .’
‘Someone had the bright idea of providing the performers with an audience. They’ve bussed in school kids, twenty thousand of them. And soldiers too, as part of their cultural programme – at least ten thousand.’
‘Dammit!’ I said, lengthening my stride. ‘Alisher, I’ll make contact. You brief me and handle liaison with the Day Watch. Las, you take up position among the school kids. If necessary, put them all out with Morpheus. Semyon, you back me up, okay?’
‘There isn’t really much to brief you on . . .’ Alisher said, frowning. ‘Valentin Loktev, twenty-five years old, Fourth-Level, not specialised, studied in our school five years ago, didn’t join the Watch . . .’
The image that Alisher had sent took shape in my memory: a young guy with a nose twisted slightly to one side, sharp but rather coarse facial features, without any breeding or inner strength.
‘A sportsman, is he?’ I asked. ‘I seem to remember him. I saw him at the school a couple of times, when I was giving lectures.’
‘A sportsman,’ Alisher chuckled. ‘A chess-player! And his nose is flattened like that from fighting when he was a little kid and a teenager. He’s from the outskirts, a district well known for the direct approach to settling disagreements.’
‘I get it,’ I said.
As we reached the entrance I picked out a member of the Day Watch in the crowd – a young vampire, dressed in a deliberately bright, challenging style. To look at he was the same age as our Schuchart, about twenty-five. The vampire was standing there, slouching against the metal barriers near the entrance.
‘Hi there, Gorodetsky!’ he exclaimed, identifying me instantly. I have a certain reputation among the vampires. And you couldn’t even really say that it’s a bad one. It’s kind of complicated.
But at least they all know me.
‘Anton Gorodetsky, Night Watch,’ I said, preferring to introduce myself formally in any case, and not slip into an informal tone. ‘What’s happening?’
The vampire didn’t take up my cool tone.
‘Ah, the usual business with you Light Ones. Some young guy wants universal good and justice. And right now, straight away, as usual. He’s sitting in the stand, sector B, up at the top, pumping Power out of everyone on all sides.’
‘We get some interesting cases with you Dark Ones as well,’ I said. ‘When you get the urge for a drop of hot blood . . . and off you go into the dark streets at night.’
The vampire licked his lips. But he carried on smiling.
‘Tell me about it, Anton. The young folk these days have got so wild. We struggle and strain, trying to educate them . . . frighten them – with your name, by the way. Tell them Gorodetsky will come and dematerialise them . . .’
I realised I was taking a hopeless beating in this duel of words. So I pretended it had never even happened.
‘Right then, we’re onto it,’ I said. ‘Your assistance is no longer required, you can go.’
‘I’ll stand here for a while and watch,’ the vampire chuckled. What was his name . . . I’d seen his picture at briefings in the Night Watch office, but his name had completely slipped my mind. Something very ordinary, either Sasha or Andrei . . . ‘It’s not every day you see Light Ones clobbering their own.’
That finally got my back up.
‘Fine,’ I said, spreading my hands. ‘You can observe. But bear in mind that if I can’t disarm the guy immediately – and I can’t guarantee anything – then the first thing he’ll probably start doing is clobbering bloodsuckers. That’s a bad character trait we Light Ones have – we dislike the Lower Others most of all.’
His face twitched briefly, but then he smiled again.
‘I can’t argue with that. You do have a bent for discrimination. Thanks for the warning – I’ll be careful.’
I walked past the Day Watch representative, imagining to myself (with great pleasure) how I could flatten that insolent vampire with a Press and then rip off his registration mark, and he would crumble into grey ash.
What was it with the vampires these days? Insolent, smug . . . First that one who was hunting near Bolotnaya Square, and now this one . . .
The policemen at the entrance moved towards me uncertainly. They could sense that something was wrong – their instincts told them that the people in the stadium were behaving oddly . . .
What kind of nonsense is this? What instincts? These are people, not animals!
‘Show me your invitation, citizen,’ said a rosy-cheeked young man in uniform, blocking my way.
‘You’re not concerned about my invitation,’ I said morosely, waving my hand in the style of the Jedi knights. The vampire behind me giggled audibly.
‘I’m not concerned about your invitation,’ the policeman agreed, stepping back. His comrade, who had also been affected by the mild spell, backed away to allow me through.
And then I saw a familiar face ahead of me. This policeman hadn’t been affected by the spell, and now he was waving his arms, desperately trying to attract my attention.
Yes indeed. Anyone who has experienced magical compulsion tries not to repeat the experience.
‘Hi, Dima,’ I said, walking over to Pastukhov. ‘What are you doing here? It’s not your district, is it?’
‘I’ve been shipped in with the reinforcements,’ said the senior sergeant. Despite the cold weather, he was streaming with sweat. ‘Tell me, Anton – what’s happening?’
‘A minor emergency,’ I said dismissively. ‘Don’t bother your head about it, it’s our job.’
‘And tell me, over there . . . behind you . . . is that . . .?’ He hesitated.
‘A vampire,’ I replied honestly. ‘Don’t worry, he’s on duty too. He’s bad, but not dangerous right now. He won’t do anything to anyone.’
‘Can I stick with you?’ Pastukhov implored me desperately. ‘I’m like one of the gang, right? I help you, we work together . . . I gave a lecture to your colleagues yesterday . . .’
Probably he simply didn’t want to stay near a vampire, even a ‘safe’ one. But on the other hand . . . why not? There was something intriguing about the idea of working in tandem with a member of the human forces of law and order.
‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘Only stay behind me and don’t interfere, all right?’
Pastukhov nodded and then crossed himself clumsily.
Valentin Loktev was a young man of rather unprepossessing appearance. The only noteworthy feature he possessed were his immense eyebrows, which reminded me of the former leader of the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev. But the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union also had a massive and impressive figure that somehow harmonised with his giant eyebrows – as well as a post that allowed him to determine people’s fate and the destiny of the entire world with a single flourish of them. But the beetle-browed Loktev was a skinny young guy with an otherwise absolutely ordinary appearance.
Maybe, of course, if he were to occupy a post like Brezhnev’s, that would lend him charisma, the way it so often happens.
Loktev was sitting well apart from the other spectators. As Pastukhov and I climbed up to him, I examined the audience curiously. They looked kind of dejected. Some rock band was performing on the stage, laying down frenzied heavy metal, and the spectators periodically seemed to come to life and start moving about . . . and then slump back into indifference again.
The Light Magician Valya Loktev was pumping their energy out of them. Pumping out the Power that was swirling about, mingled with positive emotions. And that is basically what every Schuchart does.
‘Light vampires’ like this got their name from readers and admirers of the Strugatsky Brothers. In their novel Roadside Picnic, there’s a wonderful character by the name of Schuchart, and at the end of the book he approaches the Golden Orb that grants wishes, shouting out (or muttering to himself – ah, I can’t remember . . .) the only good wish that he can think of: ‘Happiness for all, and let no one leave feeling short-changed!’
Naturally, malicious tongues rehashed this agonised cri de coeur from a member of the intelligentsia into the phrase: ‘Happiness for all and let no one who feels short-changed leave!’ Which, of course, changes the whole idea substantially. But at the same time it introduces a certain honest realism into a fantastic story.
‘Schucharts’ is the term we in the Watch use for Light Ones who one day simply snap in the face of the imperfection of the universe, decide to work good all over the place and run amok. The problem with this is that the good they work immediately gives the Dark Ones the right to work evil of equal strength . . . Of course, Dark Ones are not all born villains, thirsting to torment everyone around them simply to satisfy their own malice. In daily life many Dark Ones are perfectly pleasant. But they mostly derive their Power from the negative feelings of the humans around them. And in general they have no real regard for them, so when they’re given the right to Dark intervention they quickly make up for all the good caused by a ‘Schuchart’. And, as a rule, with interest.
In general, Schucharts are not very powerful – Fourth-or Fifth-Level, only rarely Third. (Those who are more powerful than that are usually more intelligent and mature.) That’s why, once they’ve chosen the path of militant good, ‘Schucharts’ set out for places where they can load up with Power from positive emotions – a good concert, the premiere of a long-awaited film, a sports event at which the fans of the winning team are in the majority, or even a children’s New Year party. And there they pump themselves full of energy – so much energy that it makes dealing with them a problem, even for Higher Magicians.
And then off they go, working good on all sides. Until they’re stopped.
By any possible means.
One day I almost became a ‘Schuchart’ myself. But I had either the wits or the luck to realise exactly what I ought to do . . . what I was gathering the energy of human happiness for.
I wasn’t sure about the young man Valentin.
As I approached, I could see quite clearly just how full he had pumped himself. Right up to the eyeballs, as they say – he couldn’t accumulate any more Power and was flinging everything he pumped out into a Sphere of Negation. I could tell at a glance that no spell of mine would pierce that defence. Maybe Gesar could have done something. Thanks to his technique. But there was no certainty that even he could have done anything straight away.
So, a Sphere of Negation. A spell that weak Others are really fond of – it allows them to oppose far more powerful magicians.
Right, now we know you, Valentin.
‘May I sit down?’ I asked as I approached the young man. Pastukhov had stopped a little distance away and started watching the stage in a very unnatural manner.
‘Have a seat, Anton,’ Valentin said. And he added, trying to speak as impressively as possible: ‘Only don’t try anything stupid, all right?’
‘There’s nothing stupid left for me to try here,’ I sighed as I sat down.
Valentin snorted.
‘It was always interesting to listen to you, Anton. You added a special kind of twist to the way you put things.’
‘That comes with age,’ I said, surveying the stand. ‘If you happen to live that long . . . So what are you doing, kiddo?’
‘You can see that,’ he replied with an adamant edge to his voice.
‘Sure, I can see. You’re pumping in Power. But what have you taken it into your head to do? Remoralise everyone here? Annihilate the Dark Ones? Scatter the clouds and improve the weather?’
‘There, now you’re talking plain nonsense,’ Valentin said scornfully. ‘Do you take me for a total fool?’
‘No, for a noble idealist with a passionate heart,’ I replied seriously.
‘I realise perfectly well that remoralising everyone haphazardly won’
t do any good,’ said Valentin. ‘For your information, I’ve studied the history of those who’ve already tried to do that.’
‘And did that history teach you anything?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
Valentin paused for a moment, peering into the stand. He was clearly waiting to seize the moment to suck in the next spurt of energy. I had to suppress a puerile desire to beat him to it and imbibe the spectators’ Power. It would be amusing . . . but no, better not nettle the young guy.
‘Valya, what is it that’s got you so wound up, anyway?’
‘The world’s full of injustice,’ Valentin replied immediately.
‘I won’t argue with that. But there was something specific, wasn’t there?’
Valentin thought for moment.
‘Yes, probably. The old woman.’
‘What old woman?’
‘My neighbour. She’s almost eighty already. Lives alone. Her children are either dead, or they don’t visit her. Yesterday I was walking along and I saw her in front of a shop – standing there, crying . . . counting the kopecks in her hand. How can that happen, Anton? How can we let people suffer like that?’
I sighed.
‘So it’s not the Dark Ones you’re protesting about, then? Not about the vampires who hunt people? Not about the Dark Magicians and Sorceresses?’
‘Them too,’ Valentin replied quickly. ‘But they come second. I just can’t bear to see the way people suffer!’
‘By the way, did you help the old woman?’ I asked casually.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you ask her why she was crying? Was it because she didn’t have enough money for bread and kefir? Or had she lost her purse? Or was she simply senile, squirrelling away all her money for her funeral? That happens to old women sometimes, you know.’
‘I can’t help all the old women in Russia,’ Valentin said resentfully.
‘Why only in Russia?’ I asked in surprise. ‘Do you know how badly the old women and children in Africa suffer? You’re not a racist, are you?’
‘No!’ Valentin exclaimed indignantly. ‘But there are other people there, and Others too. I think that’s their duty.’