The Night Watch Read Online Free

The Night Watch
Book: The Night Watch Read Online Free
Author: Sergei Lukyanenko
Pages:
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my phone and switched it to repeat dial. The young salesman stared – he must have been shocked that someone who could afford a mobile phone would buy such bad vodka. I took a swallow as I walked along – the vodka stank like kerosene and tasted even worse, it was definitely moonshine, bottled in the back of someone's garage – and ran to the underpass.
    'Hello.'
    Larissa wasn't there any more. Pavel's usually on night duty.
    'This is Anton. It's somewhere near the Cosmos hotel, in the back alleys. I'm in pursuit.'
    'You want the team?' The voice was beginning to sound interested.
    'Yes. I've already discharged the amulet.'
    'What happened?'
    A street bum bedded down halfway along the underpass reached out a hand as if he was hoping I'd give him the bottle I'd just started. I ran on past him.
    'Something else came up . . . Make it quick, Pavel.'
    The guys are already on their way.'
    I suddenly felt as if a red-hot wire had been stuck through my jaws. Hell and damnation . . .
    'Pasha, I can't answer for myself I said quickly and rang off. I pulled up short, facing a police patrol.
    Isn't that always the way? Why do the human guardians of law and order always turn up at the most inappropriate moments?
    'Sergeant Kampinsky,' a young policeman announced briskly. 'Your papers . . .'
    I wondered what they were planning to pin on me. Being drunk in a public place? That was probably it.
    I put my hand into my pocket and touched the amulet. Just barely warm. But this wouldn't take a lot.
    'I'm not here,' I said.
    The four eyes that had been probing me in anticipation of easy pickings went blank as the last spark of reason in them died.
    'You're not here,' they echoed in chorus.
    There was no time to program them. I blurted out the first thing that came into my head:
    'Buy some vodka and take a break. Now. Quick march!'
    The order clearly fell on fertile ground. The policemen linked arms like kids out looking for fun and dashed off along the underpass towards the kiosks. I felt vaguely uncomfortable, picturing the consequences of my instructions, but there was no time to put things right.
    I hurtled out of the underpass, certain I was already too late. But oddly enough, the boy still hadn't got very far. He was just standing there, swaying slightly, less than a hundred metres away. That was serious resistance. The Call was so loud now, it seemed strange to me that the occasional passers-by walking down the street didn't start dancing, that the trolleybuses didn't swing off the main avenue, forcing their way down along the alley towards their sweet fate . . .
    The boy glanced round. I thought he looked at me. Then he set off again, walking quickly.
    That was it, he'd broken.
    I followed him, frantically trying to decide what I was going to do. I ought to wait for the team – it would only take them ten minutes to get here, at most.
    But that might not turn out so good – for the boy.
    Pity's a dangerous thing. I gave way to it twice that day. The first time in the metro, when I spent the charge of the amulet in a useless attempt to displace the black vortex. And now the second time, when I set out after the boy.
    Many years ago someone told me something that I flatly refused to accept. And I still don't accept it now, despite all the times I've seen it proved right.
    'The common good and the individual good rarely coincide . . .
    Sure, I know. It's true.
    But some truths are probably worse than lies.
    I started running towards the Call. What I heard was probably not what the boy did. For him the Call was an enchanting melody, sapping his will and his strength. For me it was just the opposite, an alarm call stirring my blood.
    Stirring my blood . . .
    The body I'd been treating so badly all week was rebelling. I was thirsty, but not for water – I could quite safely slake my thirst with the dirty city snow without doing myself any harm. And not for strong drink either – I had that bottle of lousy vodka with me and even that
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