Read Online The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko - Free Book Online Page B

too.”
    Edgar was already hurrying toward the elevator, but he stopped and gave me a look of sympathy. Then he came over to me and kissed the palm of my hand. These Baltic types are always making themselves out to be Victorian gentlemen.
    “Alisa; my most profound gratitude! I could sense that you were giving everything you had. I was afraid that you would go the same way as Olga.” He turned to the healer. “Karl Lvovich, what can be done for this brave girl?”
    “I’m afraid nothing can be done,” the healer said with a shrug. “Alisa was drawing Power from out of her own soul.
    It’s like acute dystrophy, if you get my meaning. When the body doesn’t have enough food, it starts digesting itself. It destroys the liver, the muscles, the stomach-anything to maintain the brain until the very last. Our girls found themselves in a similar situation. Zhanna seems to have lost consciousness in time and stopped drawing on her final reserves. Alisa and Olga held out to the end, but Olga’s inner resources were not so great and she died. Alisa survived, but her mental reserves have been totally exhausted.”
    Edgar gave a sympathetic nod and everyone else listened to the doctor with interest as he continued with his florid rhetoric. “The special abilities of an Other are similar in some ways to any other energy reaction-take a nuclear reaction, for instance. We maintain our abilities by drawing Power from the world around us, from people and other less complex objects. But in order to begin receiving Power, first you have to invest some of your own-such is the cruel law of nature. And Alisa has practically none of that initial Power left. Simply pumping in Power is no help in this case, just as a piece of heavily salted pork fat or an overcooked, crispy steak won’t save someone who’s starving to death. The body can’t digest that kind of food-in fact, it will kill, not cure. It’s the same thing with Alisa-we could pump energy into her, but she would choke on it.”
    “Could you please not talk about me in the third person?” I asked. “And not in that tone of voice!”
    “I’m sorry, my girl.” Karl Lvovich sighed. “But what I’m saying is the truth.”
    Edgar gently released my hand and said, “Alisa, don’t take it too much to heart. Perhaps the chief will think of something. And by the way, talking about steaks… I’m absolutely ravenous.”
    Lemesheva nodded. “Let’s go to some little bistro.”
    “Wait for me, okay?” said Zhanna. “I’ll just take a shower, I’m lathered in sweat…”
    I didn’t even have enough strength left to feel horrified. I stood there like a fool, listening to their conversation, trying to sense anything at all at the level of an Other. To see my real shadow, to summon the Twilight, to feel the emotional background…
    There was nothing.
    And they seemed to have forgotten about me already.
    If it had been Zhanna or Lena in my place, I would have behaved exactly the same way. After all, there’s no point in hanging yourself just because someone else got careless, is there? Did anyone ask me to give everything, down to the very last drop? No, it was my fault for trying to be a hero!
    It was all because of Semyon and Tiger Cub. When I realized who we’d come up against, I decided to take my revenge. To prove something… to someone… for some reason…
    Now what was I going to do? I’d proved it, all right, and I’d been crippled. And far more badly than in the fight with Tiger Cub…
    “Just be quick, Zhanna,” said Lemesheva. “Alisa, will you come with us?”
    I turned toward her, but before I could say anything, someone spoke behind my back: “Nobody’s going anywhere.”
    Lemesheva’s eyes opened wide and I shuddered as I recognized that voice.
    Zabulon was standing by the elevator.
    He was in his human form: skinny and sad-looking, with a rather preoccupied air. Many of our people only know him like that-calm and unhurried, even a little bit