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well; he used to help his parents and drive around in a good car.
"He was probably high on drugs," Maxim had said sternly. So sternly, his mother hadn't even tried to argue. "I
suppose so; he always was strange."
His heart hadn't contracted in sudden pain. But for some reason that evening he'd got drunk and killed a woman
he'd been trying to track down for two weeks, a woman whose Dark power forced men to leave the women they
loved and go back to their lawful wives, an old witch who forced people together and forced them apart.
Petka was gone. The boy he'd been friends with had already been gone for many years, and now Pyotr Nesterov,
the man he'd seen once a year or even less often, had been gone for three months. But Maxim still had the
dagger Petka had given him.
There must have been some special reason for it, that awkward childhood friendship of theirs.
Maxim toyed with the wooden dagger, rolling it from one hand to the other. Why was he so alone? Why didn't he
have a friend beside him to lift at least part of the burden off his shoulders? There was so much Darkness all
around, and so little Light.
For some reason Maxim recalled the last thing Lena had shouted at him as he was leaving: "I'd wish you'd love
us, not just take care of us."
"But isn't that the same thing?" thought Maxim, mentally parrying the thrust.
No, it probably wasn't. But what was a man to do when his love was a battle fought against Evil, not for Good?
Against the Darkness, not for the Light.
Not for the Light but against the Darkness.
"I'm the guardian," Maxim said to himself in a low voice, as if he were too timid to say it out loud. Only schizos
talked to themselves. And he wasn't a schizo, he was normal. He was better than normal; he could see the
ancient Evil creeping and crawling into the world.
Was it creeping in, or had it already made its home here a long, long time ago?
But this was madness. He mustn't, he absolutely mustn't allow himself to doubt. If he lost even a part of his faith,
allowed himself to relax or start searching for non-existent allies, then he was finished. The wooden dagger would
no longer be a luminous blade driving out the darkness. The next magician would reduce it to ashes with his
magic fire, a witch would cast a spell on it, a werewolf would tear it to shreds.
The guardian and the judge!
He mustn't hesitate.
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The patch of Darkness moving about on the ninth floor suddenly started moving downward. His heart started
beating faster: The Dark Magician was coming to keep his appointment with destiny. Maxim climbed out of the
car and glanced rapidly around him. As usual, some secret thing inside him had driven everyone away from the
scene and cleared the battlefield.
Was it a battlefield? Or a scaffold?
Guardian and judge?
Or executioner?
What difference did it make? He was serving the Light!
The familiar power flooded into his body. Holding his hand inside the flap of his jacket, Maxim walked toward the
entrance, toward the Dark Magician who was coming down in the elevator.
Quickly, everything had to be done quickly. It still wasn't quite night yet. Someone might see. And no one would
ever believe his story; the best he could possibly hope for would be the madhouse.
Call out. Give his name. Pull out his weapon.
Misericord. Mercy. He was the guardian and the judge. The knight of the Light. And not an executioner!
This courtyard was a battlefield, not a scaffold.
Maxim stopped outside the door into the building. He heard steps. The lock clicked.
He felt so wronged; he could have howled out loud in horror and screamed curses at the heavens for his destiny
and his great gift.
The Dark Magician was a child.
A skinny, dark-haired little boy who looked quite ordinary-except for the quivering halo of Darkness that only
Maxim could see.
But why? Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Maxim had killed women and men, young and old,
but he'd never come across any children who'd sold their souls to the Darkness. He'd never even thought about it,
maybe because he hadn't wanted to accept the idea that it was possible, or maybe because he'd been avoiding
making any decisions in advance. He might have stayed at home if he'd known his next victim would be only
twelve years old.
The boy stood in the doorway, looking at Maxim with a puzzled expression on his face. Just for a moment Maxim
thought the kid was going to turn around and dash back in, slamming the heavy, code-locked door behind him.
Run, then, run!
The boy took a step forward, holding the door so that it wouldn't slam too hard. He looked into Maxim's eyes,
frowning slightly, but without any sign of fear. Maxim couldn't understand this. The boy hadn't taken him for a
chance passerby; he'd realized the man was waiting for him. And he'd come to meet him. Because he wasn't
afraid? Because he had faith in his Dark power?
"You're a Light One, I can see that," the boy said quietly but confidently.
"Yes." He had trouble getting the word out, he had to force it out of his throat. Cursing himself for his weakness,
Maxim took hold of the boy's shoulder and said: "I am the judge."
The boy still wasn't frightened.
"I saw Anton today."
What Anton? Maxim didn't say anything, but the bewilderment showed in his eyes.
"Have you come to see me because of him?"
"No. Because of you."
"What for?"
The boy was behaving almost aggressively, as if he'd had a long argument with Maxim, as if Maxim had done
something wrong and he ought to admit it.
"I am the judge," Maxim repeated. He felt like turning around and running away. This was all wrong; it wasn't
supposed to happen like this! A child couldn't be a Dark One, not a child the same age as his own daughter! A
Dark Magician should defend himself, attack, run away, not just stand there with an offended look on his face, as
if he were expecting an apology.
As if there were something that could protect him.
"What's your name?" Maxim asked.
"Egor."
"I'm really sorry things have worked out this way," Maxim said quite sincerely. He wasn't getting any sadistic
satisfaction from dragging things out. "Dammit. I've got a daughter the same age as you!"
Somehow that was the thing that hurt the most.
"But if not me, then who?"
"What are you talking about?" The boy tried to remove Maxim's hand. That strengthened his resolve.
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Boy, girl, adult, child... What difference did it make? Darkness and Light-that was the only distinction.
"I have to save you," said Maxim. He took the dagger out of his pocket with his free hand. "I have to save you-and
I will."
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Chapter 7
First I recognized the car.
Then I recognized the Maverick, when he got out of it.
I suddenly felt desperate. It was the man who'd saved me when I was running away from the Maharajah restaurant
in Olga's body.
Maybe I ought to have guessed at the time? Probably, if I'd been more experienced, with more time to think and
more presence of mind. All it would have taken was to look at the aura of the woman in the car with him. Svetlana
had given a detailed description of her, after all. I could have recognized the woman-and the Maverick. I could
have ended everything right there in the car.
But how could I have ended it?
I dived into the Twilight when the Maverick looked in my direction. It seemed to work, and he kept walking toward
the entrance of the staircase where I'd once sat by the garbage chute and had a gloomy conversation with a white
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