Darkness was dawning over the world.
Maxim was standing on the balcony and smoking as he listened to Lena's grumbling. It had been going on for hours already, ever since the girl he'd rescued had gotten out of the car at the metro station. Maxim had heard more home truths about himself than he could ever have imagined.
The claim that he was a fool and a womanizer who was prepared to risk getting shot for the sake of a cute little face and a long pair of legs was one that Maxim could take calmly. The claim that he was a swine and a bastard who flirted with a jaded, ugly prostitute in his wife's presence showed a bit more imagination. Especially since he'd spoken only a couple of words to his surprise passenger.
And now Lena had moved on to total nonsense, she was dredging up those unexpected business trips, the two occasions when he'd come home drunk—really drunk—speculating on how many mistresses he had, commenting on his incredible stupidity and spinelessness, and how they'd prevented him from making a career or giving his family even a half-decent life.
Maxim glanced over his shoulder.
Lena wasn't even getting worked up, and that was strange. She was just sitting on the leather sofa in front of the massive Panasonic TV and talking, almost as if she meant everything she said.
Was this what she really thought?
That he had a harem of mistresses? That he'd saved that girl because she had a good figure, not because of those bullets that were whistling through the air? That they had a bad life, a poor life? When three years ago they'd bought a beautiful apartment, furnished it so stylishly, and gone to France for Christmas?
His wife's voice sounded confident. It was full of accusation. And it was full of pain.
Maxim flicked his cigarette down off the balcony and looked out into the night.
The Darkness, the Darkness was advancing.
Back there in the restroom he'd killed a Dark Magician. One of the most repulsive manifestations of universal evil. A man who was a carrier of malice and fear. Who extracted energy from the people around him and subjugated other people's souls, transforming white into black, love into hate. Maxim knew he was alone against the world, the way he always had been.
But nothing like this had ever happened before; he'd never run into the spawn of the devil two days in a row. Either they had all come crawling out of their foul, stinking burrows, or his vision was becoming keener.
Like right now.
As Maxim looked out from the tenth floor he didn't see the scattered lights of a city by night. That was for other people. For the blind and the feeble. He saw a small, dense cloud of Darkness hanging above the ground. Not very high, maybe ten or twelve floors up.
Maxim was seeing yet another manifestation of the Darkness.
The usual way. The same way as ever. But why so often now? Why one after another? This was the third! The third time in twenty-four hours!
The darkness glimmered and swayed and shifted. The Darkness was alive.
And behind him Lena went on reciting his sins in a weary, miserable voice. She got up and walked across to the door of the balcony, as if she wanted to make sure Maxim was listening. Okay, that was fine. At least she wouldn't wake the kids—if they were sleeping anyway. Somehow Maxim doubted it.
If only he really believed in God. Genuinely believed. But there was almost nothing left now of the weak faith that had once consoled Maxim after every act of purification. God could not exist in a world where Evil flourished.
But if only He did, or if there was any real faith left in Maxim's soul, Maxim would have gone down on his knees right there, on the dusty, crumbly concrete and held his hands up toward the dark night sky, the sky where even the stars shone quietly and sadly. And he would have cried out: «Why me? Why me, Lord? This is too much; this is more than I can bear. Take this burden from me, I beg you, take it away! I'm not the one You need! I'm too weak.»
But what was the point of crying out? He hadn't taken this burden on himself. It wasn't for him to abandon it. Over there the black flame was glowing brighter and brighter. A new tentacle of the Darkness.
«I'm sorry, Lena,» he said, moving his wife to one side and stepping into the room. «I have to go out.»
She stopped speaking abruptly, and the eyes that had been full of irritation and resentment suddenly looked scared.
«I'll be back.» He started walking toward the door quickly, hoping to avoid any questions.
«Maxim! Maxim, wait!»
The transition from abuse to entreaty was instantaneous. Lena dashed after him, grabbed him by the arm, and looked into his face—wretched, desperate.
«I'm sorry, forgive me; I was so frightened! I'm sorry for saying all those stupid things, Maxim!»
He looked at his wife—suddenly deflated, all her aggression spent. She'd give anything now to stop her depraved, lousy husband from leaving the apartment. Could Lena have seen something in his face—something that had frightened her even more than the gangland shoot-out they'd got mixed up in?
«I won't let you go! I won't let you go anywhere! Not at this time of night!»
«Nothing's going to happen to me,» Maxim said gently. «Quiet, you'll wake the kids. I'll be back soon.»
«If you won't think about yourself, then at least think about the children! Think about me!» said Lena, changing her tack. «What if they remembered the number of the car? What if they turn up here looking for that bitch? Then what will I do?»
«Nobody's going to turn up here.» Somehow Maxim knew that was true. «And even if they do, it's a strong door. And you know who to call. Lena, let me past.»
His wife froze in the middle of the doorway with her arms flung out wide and her head thrown back. Her eyes were screwed up as if she were expecting him to hit her.
Maxim kissed her gently on the cheek and moved her out of the way. Her expression was totally confused as she watched him go out into the hallway. She could hear terrible, noisy music coming from her daughter's room. She wasn't sleeping, she'd turned on her cassette deck to drown out their angry voices, Lena's voice.
«Don't!» his wife whispered imploringly.
He slipped on his jacket, checking quickly to make sure everything was in place in the inside pocket.
«You don't think about us at all!» Lena told him in a choking voice, speaking purely out of inertia, no longer hoping for anything. The music was turned up in her daughter's room.
«That's not true,» Maxim said calmly. «It's you who I am thinking about now. I'm taking care of you.»
He didn't want to wait for the elevator. He'd already walked down one flight of steps when his wife's final shout came. It was unexpected—she didn't like to air their dirty laundry in public and she never quarrelled in the entrance.
«I wish you'd love us, not just take care of us.»
Maxim shrugged and started walking faster.
This was where I'd stood in the winter.
It was all just the same: the lonely alley, the noise of the cars on the road behind me, the pale light from the streetlamps. Only it had been much colder. And everything had seemed so simple and clear, I was like a fresh, young American cop going out on my first patrol.
Enforce the law. Hunt down Evil. Protect the innocent.
How wonderful it would be if everything could always be as clear and simple as it used to be when you were twelve years old, or twenty years old. If there really were only two colors in the world: black and white. But even the most honest and ingenuous cop, raised on the resounding ideals of the stars and stripes, has to understand sooner or later that there's more than just Darkness and Light out on the streets. There are understandings, concessions, agreements. Informers, traps, provocations. Sooner or later the time comes when you have to betray your own side, plant bags of heroin in pockets, and beat people on the kidneys—carefully, so there are no marks.
And all for the sake of those simple rules.
Enforce the law. Hunt down Evil. Protect the innocent.
I'd had to come to terms with all this too.
I walked to the end of the narrow brick alley and scuffed a sheet of newsprint with my foot. This was where the unfortunate vampire had been reduced to ashes. He really had been unfortunate; the only thing he'd done wrong was to fall in love. Not with a girl-vampire, not with a human being, but with his victim, his food.
This was where I'd splashed the vodka out of the bottle and scalded the face of the woman who'd been handed over to feed the vampires by us, the .
How fond the Dark Ones were of repeating the word «Freedom!» How often we explained to ourselves that freedom has its limits.
And that's probably just the way it ought to be. For the Dark Ones and the Light Ones who simply live among ordinary people, possessing greater powers than they have, but with the same desires and ambitions, for those who choose life according to the rules instead of confrontation.
But once you got to the borderline, the invisible borderline where the watchmen stood between the Darkness and the Light… It was war. And war is always a crime. In every war there will always be a place not only for heroism and self-sacrifice, but for betrayal and backstabbing. It's just not possible to wage war any other way. If you try, you've lost before you even begin.
And what was this all about, when you got right down to it? What was there worth fighting for? What gave me the right to fight when I was standing on the borderline, in the middle, between the Light and the Darkness? I had neighbors who were vampires! They'd never killed anyone—at least Kostya hadn't. Other people, ordinary people, think they are decent folks. If you judged them by their deeds, they were a lot more honest than the boss or Olga.
Where was the boundary line? Where was the justification? Where was the forgiveness? I didn't have the answers. I didn't have anything to say, not even to myself. I drifted along, went with the flow, with the old convictions and dogmas. How could they fight all the time, those comrades of mine, the Night Watch field operatives? What explanations did they offer for their actions? I didn't know that either. But their solutions wouldn't be any help to me anyway. It was every man for himself here, just like the Dark Ones' slogans said.
The worst thing was I could tell that if I failed to understand, if I couldn't get a fix on that borderline, then I was doomed. And it wasn't just me. Svetlana would die too. She'd get embroiled in a hopeless attempt to save her boss. The entire structure of the Moscow Watch would collapse.
If I didn't get the one thing right.