A piece of cannon fodder in the war between the armies of Light and Dark.
‘The Light be with you,’ I said. The pathetic little man nodded and his face lit up. There was adoration in his eyes. A few hours earlier he’d gazed in exactly the same way at the Dark Magician who’d given him a casual command and shown him my photo.
A moment later the security guard was standing at the top of the stairs in my stinking clothes, and I was walking down the stairs trying to figure out what I was going to do if Zabulon was at the headquarters. Or any other magician of his level, come to that.
In that case my powers wouldn’t be enough to maintain my disguise for even a second.
The Bronze Hall. I stepped through the doors and looked at the absurd ring-shaped ‘restaurant car’. The ring was slowly rotating, along with the tables standing in it.
I’d been sure the Dark Ones would have set up their headquarters in either the Gold Hall or the Silver Hall. And I was quite surprised by the scene in front of me.
The waiters were drifting from table to table like lazy fish, handing out bottles of spirits, which were supposedly forbidden up here. On two tables straight ahead of me computer terminals had been set up, connected to two mobile phones. They hadn’t bothered to run a cable to any of the tower’s countless service outlets, which meant the headquarters had only been set up to function for a short while. Three young guys with short hair were working away intently, with their fingers leaping around all over the keyboards while the lines of type scrolled up the monitor screens and their cigarettes smoked away in the ashtrays. I’d never seen Dark programmers before, and these were only simple operators, of course. But they didn’t look any different from one of our magicians sitting at a laptop plugged into the network at headquarters. Maybe they even looked a bit more respectable than some of ours.
‘Sokolniki’s completely covered,’ one of them said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it rumbled right round the ring of the restaurant, making the waiters shudder and falter in their stride.
‘The Tagansko – Krasnopresnenskaya line’s under surveillance,’ said another. The programmers glanced at each other and laughed. They probably had a little competition going to see who could report fastest on his sectors.
Go right ahead, keep looking!
I set off round the restaurant, making for the bar. Take no notice of me. I’m a harmless security man who just happened to be given the role of a lowly guard. And now the security man’s decided he’d like a beer. Has he completely lost all sense of responsibility? Or has he decided to check that his new bosses are safe?
The young woman behind the bar was wiping glasses in a melancholy sort of way. When I reached her, she started pouring me a beer without saying a word. Her eyes were dark and empty, she’d been turned into a puppet and I had to struggle to suppress an outburst of fury. I couldn’t allow it. I had no right to feelings. I was a robot too. Puppets didn’t have feelings.
And then I saw the girl sitting on the tall rotating stool opposite the bar, and my heart sank again.
Why hadn’t I thought of that earlier?
Every field headquarters has to be declared, and an observer sent over from the other side. It’s part of the Treaty, one of the rules of the game, in the interest, supposedly, of both sides. If we had a field headquarters, then one of the Dark Ones was sitting in it right now.
The Light One here was Tiger Cub.
At first her glance slid over me with no sign of curiosity, and I was almost certain everything would be okay.
Then her eyes came back to me.
She’d already seen the security man whose appearance I’d assumed. And there was something about me that didn’t match the features stored in her memory, something that bothered her. In an instant she was looking at me through the Twilight.
I stood still, without trying to shield myself.
Tiger Cub looked away and turned towards the magician sitting opposite her. I estimated his age at about a hundred and his powers as at least grade three. He wasn’t low-level, just complacent.
‘The actions you’re taking are still a provocation,’ she said to him evenly. ‘The Night Watch is certain that the Maverick isn’t Anton.’
‘Who, then?’
‘An untrained Light Magician unknown to us. A Light Magician controlled by the Dark Ones.’
‘But what for?’ the magician asked, genuinely surprised. ‘Explain it to me. Why would we let our own people be killed, even those who are less valuable?’
‘Yes, “less valuable” is the key phrase,’ Tiger Cub replied in a melancholy tone.
‘Maybe, just maybe, if we had a chance to eliminate the leader of the Light Ones in Moscow but, as usual, he’s above all suspicion. And sacrifice twenty of our own just for one ordinary, average Light One? No way. Or do you think we’re idiots?’
‘No, I think you’re very clever. Probably much cleverer than me.’ Tiger Cub smiled her dangerous smile. ‘But I’m only a field operative. Conclusions will be drawn by someone else, and they will be drawn, you can be sure!’
‘We’re not demanding immediate execution!’ the Dark One said with a smile. ‘Even now we don’t exclude the possibility of error. A tribunal, a professional, impartial investigation, justice – that’s all we want.’
‘But isn’t it strange that your leader couldn’t hit Anton with Shahab’s Lash?’ said Tiger Cub, tilting a glass of beer with one finger. ‘It’s extraordinary. His favourite weapon, one he’s been a master of for hundreds of years. Almost as if the Day Watch wasn’t really interested in seeing Anton caught.’
‘My dear girl,’ said the Dark Magician, leaning across the table, ‘you’re being inconsistent. You can’t accuse us of pursuing an innocent, law-abiding Light One and at the same time claim we’re not trying to catch him!’
‘Why not?’
‘Such petty sadism.’ The magician laughed. ‘I’m genuinely enjoying this conversation. Do you really think we’re a gang of crazy, bloodthirsty psychopaths?’
‘No, we think you’re a gang of cunning creeps.’
‘Let’s try comparing our methods.’ I could see the Dark One was mounting hobby horse. ‘Let’s compare the losses the actions of the two Watches have inflicted on ordinary people, our food base.’
‘It’s only for you that humans are food.’
‘What about you? Or are Light Ones born to Light Ones now and not picked out of the crowd?’
‘For us, humans are our roots. Our roots.’
‘Okay, call them roots. What’s the point of arguing over words? But in that case they’re our roots too. And it’s no secret that the amount of sap they feed us is increasing.’
‘It’s no secret that our numbers aren’t declining either.’
‘Of course. Troubled times, all that stress and tension – people are living on the edge and it’s easy to fall off. At least we’re able to agree on that!’
‘Yes,’ Tiger Cub agreed. She didn’t look in my direction again and the conversation wandered off. I realised that Tiger Cub had told me everything she needed to.
Or everything she felt it was appropriate to tell me.
I picked up the mug of beer standing in front of me and drank it in several deep, measured swallows. I really had been thirsty.
So the hunt was just a front?
Yes, and I’d realised that a long time ago. But it was important for me to know that our side understood that too.
And the Maverick hadn’t been caught?
Naturally. Otherwise they would already have contacted me. Either by phone or mentally, that was no problem for the boss. The killer would have been handed over to the tribunal, Svetlana would no longer be torn between the desire to help and the need to avoid getting drawn into a fight, and I could have laughed in Zabulon’s face.