And the Twilight figure that had directed me to the Ostankino tower was another product of the Darkness. An insurance policy, in case I didn't guess where I ought to go to fight my battle.
But the real action was being coordinated by just one Other.
Zabulon.
He didn't feel the slightest resentment against me. Of course not. What use would such complex and petty feelings be in a serious game like this?
He'd eaten dozens like me for breakfast, removing them from the board, sacrificing his own pawns to pay for them.
When would he decide that the match was played out and it was time for the endgame?
«Do you have a light?» I asked, putting down my beer mug and picking up a pack of cigarettes lying on the counter. Someone had forgotten it, maybe one of the restaurant's customers, fleeing in a state of panic, maybe one of the Dark Ones.
Tiger Cub's eyes lit up and she tensed her muscles. I realized the sorceress could start her battle transformation at any moment. She must have assessed the enemy's strength too. She knew we had a serious chance of success.
But there was no need.
The old third-grade Dark Magician casually held out his Ronson lighter. It gave a melodic little click and shot out a tongue of flame, and the Dark Magician carried on talking.
«There's only one reason why you constantly accuse the Darkness of playing a double game and organizing deliberate provocations—in order to disguise the fact that you're not fit to survive. Your failure to understand the world and its laws. When you get right down to it, your failure to understand ordinary people! Once it's accepted that the diagnosis made by the Dark Side is far more accurate, then what becomes of your morality? Of your whole philosophy of life? Eh?»
I lit up, nodded politely, and set out for the exit. Tiger Cub watched me go with a puzzled look in her eyes. Well, you just figure out for yourself why I'm leaving.
I'd found out all I could find out around here.
Or rather—almost all.
I leaned down toward the short haircut of the young guy in glasses who had his nose stuck in his notebook and asked briskly:
«What districts are we closing off last?»
«Botanical Gardens and the Economic Exhibition,» he answered, without even looking up. The cursor continued to slide across the screen. The Dark One was issuing instructions, relishing his power as he moved red dots across the map of Moscow. It would have been harder to prize him away from this process than to drag him away from the girl he loved.
They know how to love too, after all.
«Thanks,» I said, dropping my burning cigarette into the full ashtray. «That's very helpful.»
«No worries,» the terminal operator said casually, without looking around. He stuck his tongue out of his mouth and stuck another dot on the map: one more rank-and-file Dark One moving into the roundup. What are you so delighted about, you stupid fool? The ones with real power will never appear on your map. You'd be better off playing with toy soldiers if power's the way you get your kicks.
I slid across to the spiral staircase. All the fury I'd felt on my way here—the determination to kill or, more likely, be killed—had disappeared. I'm sure at some point during a battle a soldier enters a state of icy calm, the same way a surgeon's hands stop trembling when the patient starts dying on the operating table.
What possible variants have you provided for, Zabulon?
I start thrashing about in the nets closing in around me, and the commotion attracts Light Ones and Dark Ones, all of them—and especially Svetlana?
That one's out.
That I give myself up or get caught and then the long, slow, exhausting trial starts, concluding in a frenzied outburst by Svetlana at the Tribunal?
That one's out.
I start a fight with your field headquarters operatives and kill them all, but end up trapped a third of a kilometer above the ground, and Svetlana comes dashing to the tower?
That one's out.
I take a stroll around the field headquarters and figure out that no one there knows anything about the Maverick, and try to play for time?
That's a possibility.
The ring was getting tighter, I knew that. It had been closed off first around the outskirts of the city, along the Moscow Ring Road; then the city had been carved up into districts and the major transport routes had been closed off. It still wasn't too late to take a quick look around nearby districts that weren't under surveillance yet, find a hiding place, and try to lie low. The only advice the boss had been able to give me was to hold out for as long as possible, while the Night Watch was rushing about, trying to find the Maverick.
It's no accident that you're squeezing me into the district where we had our little scuffle last winter, is it, Zabulon? I can't help remembering it, so one way or another the way I act is bound to be affected by my memories.
The observation platform was empty now. Completely empty. The final visitors had fled, and there were no staff—only the man I'd recruited, standing by the stairs, clutching his pistol in his hand and staring downward with his eyes blazing.
«Now we'll change clothes again,» I told him. «The Light thanks you. Afterward you'll forget everything we've talked about. You'll go home. All you'll remember is that it was an ordinary day, like yesterday. Nothing much happened.»
«Nothing much happened!» the security man blurted out cheerfully as he took my clothes off. It's so easy to turn people to the Light or the Darkness, but they're happiest of all when they're allowed to be themselves.
Chapter 6
Once I was out of the tower I stopped, stuck my hands in my pockets, and stood there for a while, looking at the beams of the searchlights shooting up into the sky and the brightly lit security check booth.
There were just two things I didn't understand in the game being played out by the two Watches, or rather by the leaders of the Watches.
That Other who had departed into the Twilight—who was he and whose side was he on? Had he been warning me or trying to frighten me off?
And the kid, Egor—had I really met him just by chance? And if not, had our meeting been a destiny node or just another of Zabulon's moves?
I knew next to nothing about inhabitants of the twilight. Maybe even Gesar himself knew nothing.
But at least I could think a bit about Egor.
He was the card that hadn't been dealt yet. Maybe only a low card, but a trump, like all of us. And small trumps have their uses too. Egor had already been in the Twilight—the first time when he tried to see me, the second time when he escaped from the vampire. That wasn't a very good hand, to be honest. Both times he'd been led by fear, and that should have meant his future was decided. Maybe he could linger on the borderline between human being and Other for a few more years, but his path led to the Dark Ones.
It's always best to look the truth squarely in the face. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference that so far Egor was just like any other good kid. If I survived, I'd still have to ask for his ID every time I met him—or show him my own.
Zabulon could probably influence him. Send him to any place I happened to be. That reminded me that he probably had no difficulty sensing where I was either. I was prepared for that.
But I still didn't know if our «chance» meeting had any meaning!
Given what the Dark computer operator had said—that they weren't combing the Economic Exhibition district yet—it had. I might get the wild idea of using the boy somehow—hiding in his apartment or sending him to get help. I might head for his building. Right?