Svetlana and I walked towards the door. I could feel three pairs of greedy eyes drilling into my back – well, not exactly my back.
I knew that Olga and Svetlana had become close. I’d known since that night when Olga and I had explained to her the truth about the world and the Others, the Light Ones and the Dark Ones, about the Watches and the Twilight, since that dawn when she had held our hands and walked through the closed door into the field headquarters of the Night Watch. Sure, Svetlana and I were closely linked. Destiny held us together in its firm grip, but only for the time being. Svetlana and Olga were just friends – it wasn’t destiny that had brought them together. They were free.
‘Olya, I have to wait for Anton,’ said Svetlana, taking hold of my hand. It wasn’t the gesture of a younger sister clutching her elder sister’s hand, looking for support and reassurance. It was the gesture of an equal. And if Olga allowed Svetlana to behave as her equal, then she really did have a great future ahead of her.
‘Don’t bother, Sveta,’ I said.
Again there was something not quite right in the phrase or the tone. Svetlana gave me a puzzled look, and it was exactly like Garik’s.
‘I’ll explain everything,’ I said. ‘But not right here. At your place.’
The new defences at her apartment were the best there were – the Watch had invested too much energy in its new member to lose her now. The boss hadn’t even argued about whether I could confide in Svetlana, he’d only insisted on one thing – it had to happen at her place.
‘All right.’ The surprise was still there in Svetlana’s eyes, but she nodded in agreement. ‘Are you sure it’s not worth waiting for Anton?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, quite sincerely. ‘Shall we take a car?’
‘Aren’t you driving today?’
Idiot!
I’d forgotten that Olga’s favourite mode of transport was the sports car the boss had given her as a present.
‘That’s what I meant – shall we drive?’ I asked, realising I must seem rather foolish.
Svetlana nodded. That puzzled look in her eyes was getting stronger.
At least I knew how to drive. I’d never been tempted by the dubious pleasure of owning a car in a megalopolis with lousy roads, but our training had included all sorts of things. Some things had been taught the ordinary way, some had been beaten into our heads by magic. I’d been taught how to drive like an ordinary human, but if I suddenly happened to find myself in the cabin of a helicopter or a plane, then reflex responses I couldn’t even remember in an ordinary state would kick in. At least, in theory they ought to kick in.
I found the car keys in the handbag. The orange sports car, with its top down, was standing in the parking lot in front of the building, under the watchful eye of the security guards.
‘Will you drive?’ asked Svetlana.
I nodded without saying anything, then got into the driving seat and started the engine. I remembered that Olga always took off like a bullet, but I didn’t know how to do that.
‘Olga, there’s something wrong with you,’ said Svetlana, finally deciding to say what was on her mind. I nodded as I drove out on to Leningrad Prospect.
‘Sveta, we’ll talk when we get to your place.’
I’m no racing driver. We were driving for a long time, a lot longer than we ought to have been. But Svetlana didn’t ask any more questions, she just sat there, leaning back in her seat and looking straight ahead. Maybe she was meditating, or maybe she was trying to look through the Twilight. Several times in the traffic jams, men tried to flirt with us from their cars – always the most expensive ones. At first I just found it annoying. Then it started to seem funny. By the end I wasn’t reacting to it any longer, just like Svetlana.
‘Olya, why did you make me come away? Why didn’t you want me to wait for Anton?’ Svetlana suddenly asked.
I shrugged. I was sorely tempted to answer: ‘Because he’s sitting right here beside you.’ The chances were pretty small that we were being observed. The car was protected by spells too, I could sense some of them, and some of them went beyond the level of my powers.
But I restrained myself.
Svetlana hadn’t done the course on information security yet, it comes three months into the training. I think it would make good sense to put it in earlier, but a specific programme has to be designed for each individual Other, and that takes time.
Once Svetlana had been through that ordeal, she’d know when to keep quiet and when to speak. They just start feeding you information, strictly measured, in a specific sequence. Some of what you hear is true, and some of it’s false. They tell you some of it quite freely and openly, and some of it under a terrible oath of secrecy. And some of it you find out ‘accidentally’, by eavesdropping or spying.
And then everything you’ve learned starts to ferment inside you, making you feel pain and fear, pushing and straining so hard to break out you think your heart’s going to burst, demanding some immediate, irrational reaction. In the lectures they tell you all sorts of nonsense you don’t really need to know to live as an Other, while the most important training and testing is taking place in your soul.
It’s rare for anyone to have a serious breakdown. It’s only training, after all, not a test. And the height set for every individual is no higher than he can jump – provided he calls on every last ounce of his strength, leaving scraps of blood-stained skin behind on the razor wire along the top of the barrier.
But when the people on the course matter to you, or even if you simply like them, it starts getting to you, tearing you apart. You catch a strange glance cast in your direction and start wondering what your friend has just learned on the course. What truths? What lies?
And what the student is learning about himself, about the world around him, his parents and friends …
And you have a dreadful, unbearable yearning to help. To explain, to hint, to prompt.
But no one who’s been through the course will ever give way to that desire. Because that’s what they’re learning through their own pain and suffering – what to say and when.
Generally speaking, we can and should say everything. We just have to choose the right time, otherwise the truth can be worse than a lie.
‘Olya?’
‘You’ll understand soon,’ I said. ‘Just wait a while.’
I glanced through the Twilight and hurled the car forward, flitting neatly between a clumsy jeep and a military truck. The mirror cracked as it folded back after clipping the edge of the truck – I didn’t care. Our car was first across the intersection, tearing out on to the Highway of Enthusiasts.
‘Is he in love with me?’ Svetlana suddenly asked. ‘Is he, yes or no? You must know, don’t you?’
I shuddered and the car swerved, but Svetlana took no notice. I sensed it wasn’t the first time she’d asked that question. She and Olga must have left a difficult conversation unfinished.
‘Or is he in love with you?’
That was it. I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
‘Anton is very fond of Olga,’ I said, speaking both of myself and the owner of my body in the third person. It was rather artificial, but it gave an impression of cool, distant politeness. ‘Comrades-in-arms. Nothing more than that.’
If Svetlana asked Olga how she felt about me, it would be harder to avoid lying.
She didn’t. And a moment later she touched my hand, as if she was asking me to forgive her.
But now I couldn’t stop myself:
‘Why do you ask?’
She answered simply, without hesitation:
‘I don’t understand. Anton is behaving very strangely. Sometimes he seems to be madly in love with me. And sometimes it’s as if I’m just one of hundreds of Others that he knows.’