The New Watch

So there I was, listening, as usual, in random-selection mode. The electronics selected the group Orgy of the Righteous. Sometimes it seems to me that I affect the choice involuntarily: the songs are simply too much in tune with my own thoughts …

My heartbeats insist that I have not died
Dawn peeps through my eyelids scorched by the flames
And standing right there when I open my eyes
I see the Great Horror that has no name.
We were all overwhelmed, trampled into the ground
They swept us aside like a raging black flood.
Our standards and banners thrust into the sand –
They smashed every one, drowned us in our own blood …

I looked at Arina. The witch was sleeping: she’d either crashed out after the complimentary glass of champagne, or she was tired after some mysterious nocturnal exploits that I knew nothing about … or it was simply out of habit. She still looked just as young and beautiful, only her mouth had come half-open like an old woman’s and a slim thread of saliva was trickling out onto her chin.

Through the burnt crops I could creep to the river,
Cut loose a boat and then leave, safe and free,
To be this war’s one and only survivor.
But I spit in their faces, tell myself: ‘On your feet!’

My heartbeats insist that I have not died
Dawn peeps through my eyelids scorched by the flames
And standing right there when I open my eyes
I see the Great Horror that has no name.

And I see the Shadow, dead ashes and stones,
I see there is nothing more left here to guard.
But raising my battered shield high once again,
I reach for my scabbard and wrench out my sword.

The last warrior of a dead land …

But what I know dies not with me this day,
Even though victory can never now be mine:
They have no right to see the dawn’s bright ray,
They have no right even to be alive.

And through my cracked war horn I trumpet out loud,
Sounding the charge for all our lost men.
‘Follow me!’ I bellow. ‘Forward!’ I shout.
When none are alive, the dead must rise again.

Sergei Kalugin’s voice fell silent. I set the player on pause and adjusted the seat to a more comfortable position. I glanced sideways at Arina. Fortunately, she had closed her mouth, but now her chin and cheeks seemed to have turned flabby. When she slept, the illusion seemed to dissolve – although it didn’t really, it wasn’t the crude ‘yashmak’ that all witches use, it was something far closer to being real. But that made it all the harder for the witch to maintain it.

How strangely life works out sometimes. There I am sitting in Moscow, delighted at the idea of a short work trip to London – and suddenly I get caught up in a swirl of events and dragged off to the other side of the world, to a place I don’t really know anything about … even though half the computer hardware I can remember was produced in Taiwan.

And who with? A former witch who is now a Light Other. Someone I once fought a deadly duel with …

I felt a sudden ache in my chest. It wasn’t a physical pain, but a clear, piercing realisation that my duel with Arina wasn’t just a thing of the past, it was waiting for me in the future too.

It wasn’t a vision of the future, no. Something else. As if subconsciously I had already understood everything that hadn’t yet come together, that was still stuck in my conscious memory in the form of separate, scattered splinters. All these Prophets, dreams, visions, Tigers, Witches, Gesar and Zabulon – it had all merged together to produce a result that I didn’t like at all.

And the main reason I didn’t like it was because I would have to kill. Or be killed.

What the hell was going on! What rotten damned impulse had made me pay attention to some bawling kid at an airport – I could have just walked on by …

I winced painfully. I could have just walked on by. And allowed him to die? And another hundred and fifty people with him?

Of course I couldn’t.

That’s the way things are arranged in this world – one person’s life is always another person’s death.

The pretty air hostess walked by quietly, smiling. Catching my eye, she inclined her head slightly and glanced inquiringly at the empty glass on the broad armrest of the seat. I nodded. I waited for her to bring the cognac, took a sip – and stayed there, half-lying in the seat. I could have done with a bit of sleep … but sleep wouldn’t come now. My biological clock would go completely haywire. First from Moscow to London, then from London to Taipei …

Why was I certain that I would have to fight with Arina?

And not simply fight, but fight to the death?

Yes, she had become a Light One, but she was still a dark schemer … as bad as Gesar.

Yes, she had revealed a certain amount of information to me, but she was concealing even more.

Yes, somehow she knew things that she ought not to know. I had the feeling that she had a source in one of the Watches … I made a mental note to investigate the idea. Of course, she said that she hated Zabulon, and she really had changed her colour – but where was the real truth in all of this?

All of us, even in relationships with our friends, leave some things unsaid and hide others. Not necessarily with any bad intention. Sometimes it’s simpler and quicker not to say something than to try to explain and persuade.

What was it that had disconcerted me?

Arina had sworn that she hadn’t influenced me. I believed her, and it wasn’t just a matter of the oath – with her persuasive abilities she had no need to resort to direct magical influence on a person’s mind.

But her oath had referred to the past. She hadn’t said that she wouldn’t do me any harm. That she wouldn’t ever try to deceive me or fight against me. A mere detail, of course … but if she hadn’t been keeping that possibility in mind, she would definitely have tried to intensify her oath, make it more convincing.

What else?

I took a sip of the pungent cognac and tried to summon up Arina’s face in my memory. Strange, in my mind’s eye, even though she was still young, her eyes were old and faded … wise … and sad.

Those eyes were already gazing into the future.

She knew that our alliance was a brief one.

Or, at least, she took the possibility seriously.

Arina looked at me as if I were someone she liked, but who would inevitably become an enemy – and soon, very soon.

Well, then … two could play at that game.

For the time being our interests coincided.

We’d have to see how things went.

Of course, I didn’t feel like sleeping. I switched on the entertainment centre built into the seat, leafed through the film listing, watched some movie about vampire hunters for about ten minutes, chuckling. On the one hand, it was very funny. It was like the way Russians watch Hollywood movies about Russia, the way a real doctor laughs when he watches House or Doc Martin. But then, really, it was all just wrong! In recent times the classic poppycock about vampires being afraid of holy water, garlic and crosses has disappeared without trace. But that doesn’t mean the screenplays have got any more intelligent. It’s just that the old, unfashionable clichés have been replaced by new nonsense – by vampires who are glamorous, mysterious, elegant … Various pseudoscientific explanations have appeared – either vampirism is caused by a virus, or a vampire’s blood has a low haemoglobin content, or it’s a mutation (movie directors are happy to put absolutely anything down to a mutation).