The Last Watch-Night Watch-4 by Sergei Lukyanenko

Author:Sergei Lukyanenko [Lukyanenko, Sergei]
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy - Epic, Occult, Epic, Vampires, Edinburgh (Scotland), Fantasy fiction, Horror, Fiction - Fantasy, General, Fantasy, Fiction, Good and evil
ISBN: 9780385663991
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2008-11-25T08:00:00+00:00

NIGHT WATCH

Samarkandbranch

Business hours:

20.00-8.00

At first I thought I must have gone crazy. Then I thought I must be looking through the Twilight. But no, the inscription was absolutely real, written in yellow letters on a black background and covered with a cracked sheet of glass. One corner of the glass had fallen off, and the final letter of the word 'watch' was tattered and faded.

The same text was written alongside in Uzbek, and I learned that 'Night Watch' translated as 'Tungi Nazoraf.

I pushed the door — it wasn't locked, of course — and walked straight into a large room. As usual in the East, there was no entrance hall. And that was right: why would they need a hallway here? The weather was never cold inSamarkand .

The furnishings were very simple, reminiscent in part of a small militia station and in part of an old office from Soviet times. There was a coat rack and several cupboards full of papers by the door. Three young Uzbek men and a plump middle-aged Russian woman were drinking tea at an office desk. There was a large electric samovar, decorated in the traditional Khokhloma folk style, boiling on the desk. Well, how about that - a samovar! The last time I'd seen one inRussia had been at the Izmailovo flea market, with all the matryoshka dolls, caps with earflaps and other goods for the foreign tourists. There were several other desks with no one sitting at them. An ancient computer with a massive monitor was clat-tering away on the farthest desk — its cooling fan ought to have been changed ages ago . . .

'Assalom aleikhum'I said, feeling like a total idiot who was trying to look intelligent. Why on earth hadn't Geser taught me Uzbek?

'Aleikhum assalom,'the woman replied. She was swarthy-skinned, with black hair — quite clearly Slav in origin, but with that remarkable change in appearance that happens without any magic at all to a European who spends a long time in the East or is born and lives there. She was even dressed like an Uzbek woman, in a long, brightly coloured dress. She looked at me curiously — I sensed the skilful but weak touch of a probing spell. I didn't shield myself, and she gathered her information with no difficulty. Her expres-sion immediately changed. She got up from the desk and said:

'Boys, we have a distinguished visitor . . .'

'I'm here entirely unofficially!' I said, raising my hands in the air. But the fuss had already begun. They greeted me and intro-duced themselves: Murat, sixth level; Timur, fifth level; Nodir, fourth level. I thought they looked their real age, about twenty to thirty. According to Geser, there were five Others in theSamarkand watch . . . and according to Alisher, the members of the Watch inTashkent were younger. How much younger could they be? Did they take on children from school?

'Valentina Ilinichna, Other. Fourth level.'

'Anton Gorodetsky, Other, Higher,' I said in turn.

'I run the office,' the woman went on.

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