That was all normal, too. In moments of exceptional stress, the boss always reverted to the habits he'd picked up in Central Asia. He worked there at the end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth, first disguised as a mufti, then as a Muslim guerrilla leader, and then as a red commissar, and finally he spent ten years as the secretary of a district party committee.
Danila and Farid were standing by the window. Even with my powers I could make out the purple glimmer of the magic wands hidden in their sleeves.
A perfectly standard arrangement. At moments like this the headquarters would never be left unprotected. Danila and Farid weren't the strongest fighters we had, but they were experienced, and that was often more important than crude strength.
But what was I supposed to make of the final Other who was in the room?
He was squatting modestly and unobtrusively in the corner. As thin as a rake with sunken cheeks, black hair cut short, military style, and big, sad eyes. It was impossible to tell how old he was, maybe thirty, maybe three hundred. He was dressed in a loose-fitting gray suit. A human being would probably have taken the stranger for a member of some small sect. And he would have been half right.
He was a Dark Magician. And a top-flight one too. When he glanced briefly at me, I felt my protective shell—which wasn't installed by me!—crack and start to buckle.
I took an involuntary step backward. But the magician had already lowered his eyes to the floor as if to show me that the momentary probing had been accidental…
«Boris Ignatievich.» I could hear my voice wheezing slightly.
The boss nodded curtly, then he turned to the Dark Magician, who immediately fixed his eyes on the boss.
«Give him an amulet,» the boss ordered brusquely.
The Dark Magician's voice was sad and quiet, the voice of someone burdened with all the woes of the world.
«I'm not doing anything forbidden by the Treaty…«
«Neither am I. My colleagues must be immune against observers.»
So that was it! We had an observer from the Dark Side in our headquarters. That meant Day Watch had a headquarters somewhere close by, and one of us was there.
The Dark Magician put his hand in the pocket of his jacket. He took out a carved ivory medallion on a copper chain and held it out to me.
«Throw it,» I said.
The magician smiled gently with the same air of melancholic sympathy and flicked his hand. I caught the medallion. The boss nodded approvingly.
«Your name?» I asked.
«Zabulon.»
I hadn't heard the name before. Either he wasn't that well known, or he was somewhere right up at the top of Day Watch.
«Zabulon…« I repeated, glancing at the amulet. «You no longer have any power over me.»
The medallion grew warm in my hand. I put it on over my shirt, nodded to the Dark Magician, and walked over to the boss.
«You can see how things are, Anton,» the boss said, mumbling slightly, because he didn't take the mouthpiece of the hookah out of his mouth. «There you are, look.»
I looked out the window and nodded.
The black vortex sprouted out of a nine-story block just like the one we were in. Its slim, flexible stalk ended somewhere around the first-floor level. By reaching out through the Twilight, I could locate the precise apartment.
«How could this have happened, Boris Ignatievich?» I asked. «This is a lot more serious than a brick falling on someone's head, or even a gas explosion in a hallway…«
«We're doing everything we can.» The boss seemed to think he had to justify himself to me. «All the missile silos are under our control; the same measures have been taken in America and France, and they're just being put in place in China. Things are a bit trickier with the tactical nuclear weapons. We're having big problems locating all the operational laser satellites. The city's full of all sorts of bacteriological garbage… an hour ago there was almost a leak from the Virological Research Institute.»
«You can't cheat destiny,» I said guardedly.
«Exactly. We're plugging the holes in the bottom of the ship, and the ship's already breaking in half.»
I suddenly noticed that everyone—the Dark Magician, Olga, Lena, and the warriors—was looking at me. I began feeling uncomfortable.
«Boris Ignatievich?»
«You're linked to her.»
«What?»
The boss sighed and took the tube out of his mouth. The cold opium smoke streamed out onto the floor.
«You, Anton Gorodetsky, a programmer, unmarried, of average abilities, are linked to the girl with that vile black filth hanging over her head.»
The Dark Magician in the corner sighed softly. I couldn't think of anything better to say than, «Why?»
«I don't know. We sent Ignat to her, and he did a good job. You know he can seduce absolutely anyone.»
«But it didn't work with her?»
«It did. Only the vortex started to grow. They spent half an hour together and the vortex grew from a meter and a half to twenty-five meters. We had to call him off… quickly.»
I glanced sideways at the Dark Magician. Zabulon appeared to be looking at the floor, but he immediately raised his head. This time my defensive shield didn't react: The amulet gave me secure protection.
«We don't need this,» he said in a low voice. «Only a savage would kill an elephant to get a small steak for his breakfast.»
The comparison shocked me. But he seemed to be telling the truth.
«We don't require destruction on this scale very often,» the Dark Magician continued. «At the moment we don't have any ongoing projects that require such a large-scale discharge of energy.»
«I really hope you don't…« said the boss, in a strange, grating voice. «Zabulon, what you have to understand is that if this disaster does happen… we'll squeeze everything we can out of it too.»
The shadow of a smile appeared on the Dark Magician's face.
«The number of people who will be horrified by what happens, who will spill tears of sympathy with others' grief, will be very great. But there will be more, infinitely more, who will sit with their eyes glued greedily to their TV screens, who will take pleasure in other people's suffering, feel glad that it passed their city by, and make jokes about the retribution meted out to the Third Rome… retribution from on high. You know that, my enemy.»
He wasn't gloating; the highest-ranking Dark Ones don't react in such primitive ways. He was stating a fact.
«Nonetheless, we're ready,» said Boris Ignatievich. «You know that.»
«I know, but we are in a more advantageous position. Unless you have a pair of aces up your sleeve, Boris.»
«You know I always have all four.»
The boss turned toward me as if he'd completely lost all interest in the Dark Magician:
«Anton, the vortex isn't being nourished by the Day Watch. Whoever created it is working on his own, an unknown Dark Magician of hideous strength. He sensed Ignat's presence and accelerated the pace of events. Now you're our only hope.»
«Why?»
«I told you, Anton, you're linked. There are three divergences in the probability field.»
The boss waved his hand and a white screen unfurled in the air. Zabulon frowned; he must have been caught by the edge of the energy discharge.
«The first path along which events can develop,» said the boss. A black stripe ran across the white sheet that hung in the middle of the room without any visible means of support. Then it blurred, spreading out in an ugly blot than extended beyond the edge of the screen.
«This is the most probable path. The vortex attains its maximum power and the Inferno erupts. Millions killed. A global cataclysm—nuclear, biological, asteroid impact, a twenty-point earthquake. You name it.»
«And a direct infernal discharge?» I asked cautiously, glancing sideways at the Dark Magician. His face remained impassive.
«No. I don't think so. The threshold's still a long way off.» The boss shook his head. «Otherwise, I think the Day Watch and the Night Watch would have wiped each other out already. The second path…«
A thin line, leading away from the black stripe. Broken off abruptly.
«Elimination of the target. If the target dies, the vortex will disperse… of its own accord.»
Zabulon stirred and said politely:
«I'm prepared to help with this little initiative. Night Watch cannot carry it out on its own, I believe? We are at your service.»
Silence. Then the boss laughed.
«As you wish,» said Zabulon with a shrug. «I repeat: For the time being we offer you our assistance. We don't want a global catastrophe that will wipe out millions of people in an instant. Not yet.»
«The third path,» said the boss, looking at me. «Watch carefully.»
Another line, branching off from the main root, gradually growing thinner and fading away to nothing.
«That's what happens if you get involved, Anton.»
«What do I have to do?» I asked.
«I don't know. Probability forecasting has never been an exact science. I only know one thing: You can remove the vortex.»
I suddenly had the stupid idea that maybe I was still being tested. A field-work test… I'd killed the vampire, and now… But it couldn't be. Not with such high stakes!
«I've never removed any black vortices.» My voice sounded different, not exactly frightened, more surprised. The Dark Magician Zabulon giggled repulsively, with a woman's voice.
The boss nodded:
«I know that, Anton.»
He stood up, pulled his gown around him, and walked up to me. He looked absurd; his oriental garb seemed like an awkward parody in the setting of an ordinary Moscow apartment.
«Nobody has ever removed any vortices like this one. You'll be the first to try.»
I said nothing.
«And don't forget, Anton, if you mess this up… even just a tiny bit, anything at all… you'll be the first to burn. You won't even have enough time to withdraw into the Twilight. You know what happens to Light Ones when they're caught in an Inferno eruption?»
My throat went dry. I nodded.
«Pardon me, my dear enemy,» Zabulon said mockingly, «but don't you allow your colleagues the right to choose? In such situations, even in wartime, it has always been usual to call for volunteers.»
«We've already made our call for volunteers,» the boss snapped without turning around. «We've all been volunteers for a long time already. And we don't have any choice.»