Read Online The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, Sergei Luk'ianenko - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sergei Lukyanenko, Sergei Luk'ianenko
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Thrillers, Vampires, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), General & Literary Fiction, Occult, Fantasy fiction; Russian, Science fiction; Russian
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trails on the frozen streets…
"Shall I give you my card?" The man deftly slipped one hand into his jacket pocket. "Think about it…"
"No thanks. I'm afraid no one just leaves my kind of work."
Page 41
"KGB, is it?" the driver asked with a frown.
"More serious than that," I answered. "Much more serious. But something like it."
"Oh, well…" the driver said, and paused. "A pity. And I thought it was a sign from on high. Do you believe in fate?"
He'd slipped into a familiar tone quite naturally. I liked that.
"No."
"Why not?" asked the driver, genuinely surprised, as if he'd never met anyone but fatalists in his life.
"There's no such thing as fate. It's been proved."
"By whom?"
"In the place I work."
He laughed.
"That's great. So it's not meant to be! Where shall I stop for you?" We were already driving downZelyony Avenue .
I peered hard through the layer of ordinary daily reality, into the Twilight. I couldn't make anything out clearly; my powers weren't strong enough. I sensed it rather than saw it—a cluster of dim lights in the gray gloom. Almost the entire central office was there.
"Over there…"
While I was still in ordinary reality I couldn't see my colleagues. I walked over the gray city snow toward the little square buried under snowdrifts between the apartment blocks and the avenue. A few frozen little trees, a few lines of footsteps—either some kids had been having fun or a drunk had just walked straight across.
"Wave to them; they've spotted you," Olga advised me.
I thought for a moment and followed her advice. Let them think I could see clearly from one reality into the other.
"A meeting," Olga said mockingly. "An emergency briefing." I glanced around, just for form's sake, then summoned the Twilight and stepped into it. The entire central office really was there. The wholeMoscow department.
Standing in the middle was Boris Ignatievich. Lightly dressed, in a suit and a light fur cap, but wearing a Page 42
scarf for some reason. I could just imagine him scrambling out of his BMW, surrounded by his bodyguards.
The field operatives were standing beside him. Igor and Garik—they were the ones really suited to the role of front-line fighters. Thickset, stony faces, square shoulders—impervious. You can tell at a glance what kind of education they'd had: eight grades of school, technical college, and the special forces. And as far as Igor's concerned that's exactly right. But Garik has two full college degrees. The appearance is similar, the behavior's almost identical, but the content's absolutely different. By comparison with them, Ilya looked like a refined intellectual, but don't be fooled by those round spectacles with the thin frames, that high forehead, and naive expression. Semyon was another exaggerated character: short, stocky, with a cunning gleam in his eyes, in a cheap nylon baseball jacket. A provincial, come up to the big city. And he'd come from somewhere out of the '60s, from the prize-winning collective farm Lenin's Stride. Absolute opposites. But what Ilya and Semyon did have in common was their beautiful tans and dejected expressions. They'd been pulled out ofSri Lanka in mid-vacation, and they weren't enjoying theMoscow winter too much. Ignat, Danila, and Farid weren't there, although I could sense their fresh trails. But standing right behind the boss, not exactly like they were trying to hide, but not really noticeable unless you looked hard, were Bear and Tiger Cub. Those two gave me a jolt. They're not ordinary front-line fighters; they're really good, and they don't let anything stand in their way. There were lots of workers from the office there too.
The analytical section, all five of them. The research team—everyone except Yulia, but that wasn't surprising; she's only thirteen years old. The only ones missing were the archive group.
"Hi," I said.
Some nodded, some smiled. But I could see they all had more important things to worry about. Boris Ignatievich
"Shall I give you my card?" The man deftly slipped one hand into his jacket pocket. "Think about it…"
"No thanks. I'm afraid no one just leaves my kind of work."
Page 41
"KGB, is it?" the driver asked with a frown.
"More serious than that," I answered. "Much more serious. But something like it."
"Oh, well…" the driver said, and paused. "A pity. And I thought it was a sign from on high. Do you believe in fate?"
He'd slipped into a familiar tone quite naturally. I liked that.
"No."
"Why not?" asked the driver, genuinely surprised, as if he'd never met anyone but fatalists in his life.
"There's no such thing as fate. It's been proved."
"By whom?"
"In the place I work."
He laughed.
"That's great. So it's not meant to be! Where shall I stop for you?" We were already driving downZelyony Avenue .
I peered hard through the layer of ordinary daily reality, into the Twilight. I couldn't make anything out clearly; my powers weren't strong enough. I sensed it rather than saw it—a cluster of dim lights in the gray gloom. Almost the entire central office was there.
"Over there…"
While I was still in ordinary reality I couldn't see my colleagues. I walked over the gray city snow toward the little square buried under snowdrifts between the apartment blocks and the avenue. A few frozen little trees, a few lines of footsteps—either some kids had been having fun or a drunk had just walked straight across.
"Wave to them; they've spotted you," Olga advised me.
I thought for a moment and followed her advice. Let them think I could see clearly from one reality into the other.
"A meeting," Olga said mockingly. "An emergency briefing." I glanced around, just for form's sake, then summoned the Twilight and stepped into it. The entire central office really was there. The wholeMoscow department.
Standing in the middle was Boris Ignatievich. Lightly dressed, in a suit and a light fur cap, but wearing a Page 42
scarf for some reason. I could just imagine him scrambling out of his BMW, surrounded by his bodyguards.
The field operatives were standing beside him. Igor and Garik—they were the ones really suited to the role of front-line fighters. Thickset, stony faces, square shoulders—impervious. You can tell at a glance what kind of education they'd had: eight grades of school, technical college, and the special forces. And as far as Igor's concerned that's exactly right. But Garik has two full college degrees. The appearance is similar, the behavior's almost identical, but the content's absolutely different. By comparison with them, Ilya looked like a refined intellectual, but don't be fooled by those round spectacles with the thin frames, that high forehead, and naive expression. Semyon was another exaggerated character: short, stocky, with a cunning gleam in his eyes, in a cheap nylon baseball jacket. A provincial, come up to the big city. And he'd come from somewhere out of the '60s, from the prize-winning collective farm Lenin's Stride. Absolute opposites. But what Ilya and Semyon did have in common was their beautiful tans and dejected expressions. They'd been pulled out ofSri Lanka in mid-vacation, and they weren't enjoying theMoscow winter too much. Ignat, Danila, and Farid weren't there, although I could sense their fresh trails. But standing right behind the boss, not exactly like they were trying to hide, but not really noticeable unless you looked hard, were Bear and Tiger Cub. Those two gave me a jolt. They're not ordinary front-line fighters; they're really good, and they don't let anything stand in their way. There were lots of workers from the office there too.
The analytical section, all five of them. The research team—everyone except Yulia, but that wasn't surprising; she's only thirteen years old. The only ones missing were the archive group.
"Hi," I said.
Some nodded, some smiled. But I could see they all had more important things to worry about. Boris Ignatievich
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