‘I think I understand,’ said Sasha, nodding thoughtfully. ‘But why won’t this one help?’
‘There are many factors,’ I replied evasively.
Sasha stood there, fiddling with a little lock dangling on the railings of the bridge. A funny habit that modern lovers have – come to the bridge, kiss, hang up a lock – and it’s as if they have locked up their love.
But love shouldn’t be locked up. That’s not what it’s given to us for.
‘I can sense him,’ Sasha exclaimed excitedly. ‘He’s coming! From the left!’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘He won’t …’
‘He won’t sense that we’re Others and he won’t even see what we really look like,’ I reassured him – without telling him that instead of me the vampire would see a skinny young guy with an earring in one ear, and instead of Sasha he would see a dejected girl. A standard sight for this spot – lovers who have fallen out.
‘I can sense the girl too,’ Sasha said with relief. ‘There she is, walking along … why, she’s almost a child!’
I turned my head slightly. The girl walked past us, gazing blindly straight ahead, and I agreed: ‘Yes, only fourteen or fifteen. That’s bad. If she was ten …’
‘What’s bad about it?’ Sasha asked in amazement.
Hadn’t he done his lessons? Did he really not remember that licences were issued …
‘They’ve disappeared!’ Sasha exclaimed excitedly.
I myself saw the vampire, who looked as young as my partner, take a step towards the girl and smile – his fangs had not extended yet, there was just a faint hint … and they both disappeared.
‘Let’s go,’ I said, pitching my cigarette end over the parapet into the water with a snap of my fingers. I sensed my shadow rather than saw it – and stepped into it.
Cold. The usual piercing cold of the Twilight. The world around was veiled in grey and slowed down, sounds became viscous, lingering and distant. Underfoot there was an uninterrupted covering of blue moss. Our feet sank into it like an expensive carpet.
The vampire was standing a few steps away from us, very young and handsome, aristocratically pale. He was genuinely young, too, not just disguising himself as youthfuclass="underline" he was the real thing – otherwise his Twilight image as an Other would have been quite different.
The vampire was standing there, holding the girl and kissing her on the lips. Kissing, not biting. Out of the corner of his eye he looked at me and at Sasha, who entered the Twilight clumsily behind me.
‘Night Watch – everyone leave the Twilight,’ I said in a humdrum voice.
I was really hoping that the vampire would expose his fangs and throw himself at me. Or make a run for it. Or start shouting that he hadn’t done anything wrong, he’d only kissed a pretty girl …
The vampire stopped kissing the girl and carefully set her aside – she froze like a doll. Then, with a note of resentment in his voice, he asked: ‘What is the problem here?’
‘Anton Gorodetsky, Night Watch of the City of Moscow,’ I said, already understanding everything. ‘Show me your registration.’
‘Well, good evening,’ the vampire said politely, unbuttoning his shirt, through which I could see the blue lines of a registration mark. ‘Pleased to meet you, Anton. I’ve heard a lot about you.’
‘Denis Liubimov, vampire, Sixth-Level,’ I said, reading from the mark. ‘You are under arrest for unlicensed contact with a human being.’
‘Why do you assume it’s unlicensed?’ Denis asked. ‘Here!’
A thin sheet of ‘parchment paper’ unfurled in his hand. I could have spent a long time drearily checking all the numbers, signatures, seals and magical signs … Only I could see perfectly well that the licence was genuine.
‘She’s not fifteen yet,’ I said for some reason.
‘And I’m twenty,’ Denis said. ‘Licences are issued beginning from the age of twelve, if there are no Others among the immediate relatives. It’s all legal.’
Sasha started breathing heavily behind me.
‘It’s your right,’ I said in an absolutely flat voice. I looked down at my feet – and the blue moss stirred as if someone had splashed petrol on it and set it on fire. ‘But you are really very young, Denis. I don’t dispute your rights, but I would like to remind you that many vampires live for hundreds of years without using their licences to hunt. Instead you can be granted various kinds of privileges under the terms of agreement number sixty-four, article seventeen, of the third of July—’
‘I have read and signed all the required documents, I know my rights and obligations,’ the vampire said politely. ‘I can confirm once again that everything will be done as humanely as possible, painlessly and quickly. And now, gentlemen of the Watch, I ask you … please leave the Twilight!’
‘Why?’ Sasha suddenly exclaimed. ‘Tell me why, you ugly vampire scum!’
I swung round and grabbed Sasha firmly by the shoulder. The last thing we needed was a complaint from a vampire to the Day Watch about unprovoked insults and discrimination on the grounds of nutritional preferences.
But this was a modern vampire – young, polite and restrained.
‘Because such are the laws of nature,’ he explained amiably. ‘Because people constantly take great pleasure in devouring each other. Most often in a figurative sense, but far more cruelly and painfully than vampires or werewolves. I did not choose my destiny, I did not choose my way of life – or death, if you prefer. But I will not pretend to be a sheep when I am a wolf. So now leave us … The Call is weakening, the girl could come round and become frightened, and you will be to blame!’
‘Remember one thing,’ I said without turning away. ‘You may be a wolf, but we are wolfhounds.’
I was already on my way out of the Twilight, dragging Sasha along, when I heard a shout from behind me: ‘My father kept an Irish wolfhound, a fine dog. Only they don’t live long.’
I had to grab hold of Sasha and thrust him bodily against the parapet, otherwise he would have gone dashing back into the Twilight.
‘Why he, he …’ the young watchman fumed.
‘He mocked us and provoked us, especially you,’ I said. ‘Calm down. He’s within his rights.’
‘But now he’ll kill the young girl!’
‘Yes, most likely,’ I said. I took out a cigarette and lit up. ‘Do you know how many people are killed in Moscow in a single night? And, by the way, most of them are killed by other humans, not by Others.’
‘But—’
‘We’re not knights in search of a damsel in distress,’ I said.
‘We’re police! We guard and protect!’
‘No, we’re not even police. We’re bureaucrats who ensure the observance of laws that we don’t even like. We’re dogs who guard the herd against the wolves, but we don’t bite the shepherds who cook kebabs in the evenings. Calm down.’
Alexander took a step back, staring at me in horror. Then he shook his head and said with genuine revulsion:
‘I don’t believe it. Honestly, I just don’t believe it! You, Anton Gorodetsky … you’re a hero, you’ve done so much … they told us about you in our classes, I watched the training films about how you—’
‘The training films have actors in them,’ I said. ‘And in the classes they tell you legends.’
There was a rustling sound behind my back. The girl’s limp body appeared in mid-air, hung there for a second, then flew over the parapet and hurtled down towards the water.
A second later the vampire appeared, looking pink-cheeked, cheerful and handsome. With a slight inclination of the head, as if he was saying goodbye, he swung round and dashed away from us across the bridge at an incredible speed.