The Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko Read Free Book Online Page B

for all sorts of hardcore
weirdos. And what do you think happened? This well-known
songwriter immediately called the radio station and said all his life
in his songs he'd been teaching people about good, and about
eternal values, but this had cancelled out his entire life's work . . .
You heard one of my songs, I think – did you think it was encouraging
people to do bad things?'
    'I think it made fun of bad attitudes,' I said.
    'Thank you,' Las said sadly. 'But that's exactly the problem –
there are too many people who won't understand that. They'll
think it's all for real.'
    'That's what the fools will think,' I said, trying to console the
unacknowledged bard.
    'But there are more of them,' Las exclaimed. 'And they haven't
perfected head replacements yet . . .'
    He reached for the bottle, poured the vodka and said:
    'You drop in any time you need to, don't be shy. And later I'll
get you a key for an apartment on the fifteenth floor. It's empty,
but it has toilets.'
    'Won't the owner object?' I asked with a laugh.
    'It's all the same to him now. And his heirs can't agree on how
to share out the space.'

CHAPTER 3
    I GOT BACK to my place at four in the morning. Slightly drunk, but
remarkably relaxed. After all, you don't often come across people who
are so different. Working in the Watch encourages you to be too
categorical. This guy doesn't smoke or drink, he's a good boy. This
one swears like a trooper, he's a bad boy. And there's nothing to be
done about it, those are precisely the ones we're most interested in
– the good ones as our support, the bad ones as potential Dark Ones.
    But somehow we tend to forget that there are all different sorts
of people . . .
    The singer with the bass guitar didn't know anything about
Others. I was sure of that. If only I could have sat up half the
night with every one of Assol's inhabitants, then I could have
formed an accurate opinion of all of them.
    But I wasn't entertaining any such illusions. Not everybody will
ask you to come in, not everybody will start talking to you about
obscure, abstract subjects. And then, apart from the ten or so residents,
there were hundreds of service personnel – security guards,
plumbers, labourers, bookkeepers. There was no way I could possibly
check all of them in a reasonable amount of time.
    I managed to get washed in the shower – I'd discovered a strange
sort of hose that I could get a jet of water out of – and then
walked out into my one and only room. I needed to get some
sleep . . . and the next morning I'd try to come up with a new
plan.
    'Hi, Anton,' a voice said from the open window.
    I recognised it. And immediately felt sick at heart.
    'Good morning, Kostya,' I said. The words of greeting sounded
inappropriate somehow. But not to greet the vampire at all would
have been even more stupid.
    'Can I come in?' Kostya asked.
    I walked over to the window. Kostya was sitting on the outside
sill with his back to me, dangling his legs. He was completely naked.
As if to demonstrate straight away that he hadn't climbed up the
wall, but had flown to the window in the form of a gigantic bat.
    A Higher Vampire. At not much more than twenty years old.
    A talented boy . . .
    'I think not,' I said.
    Kostya nodded and didn't try to argue:
    'As I understand it, we're working on the same job?'
    'Yes.'
    'That's good.' He turned round and flashed his teeth in a gleaming
white smile. 'I like the idea of working with you. But are you
really afraid of me?'
    'No.'
    'I've learned a lot,' Kostya boasted. Just like when he was a kid
and he used to declare: 'I'm a terrible vampire! I'm going to learn
how to turn into a bat! I'm going to learn how to fly!'
    'You haven't learned anything,' I corrected him. 'You've stolen
a lot.'
    Kostya frowned:
    'Words. The usual Light word game. Your people allowed me
to take it, so I did. What's the problem?'
    'Are we just going to carry on sparring like this?' I asked. And
I raised my hand, folding the fingers into the sign of