"Sergei Lukyanenko - Night Watch 03 - Twilight Watch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lukjanenko Sergey)

This yard was one of the new ones.
The multi-story towers on the banks of the river Moscow were known throughout Russia. They were the
capital's new symbol, replacing the faded Kremlin and the TsUM department store, which had become an
ordinary shop. The granite embankment with its own quayside, the entrances finished with Venetian
plas-terwork, the cafes and restaurants, the beauty salons and supermarkets and also, of course, the
apartments with several hundred square feet of floor space. The new Russia probably needed a symbol like
this—pompous and kitschy, like the thick gold chains men wore around their necks during the initial capital
accumulation period. It didn't matter that most of the apartments that had been bought long ago were still
standing empty, the cafes and restaurants closed, waiting for better times to come, and the waves lapping
against the concrete quayside were dirty.
The man strolling along the embankment on this warm summer evening had never worn a gold chain. He
possessed a keen intuition that was more than adequate as a substitute for good taste. He had switched his
Chinese-made Adidas tracksuit in good time for a crimson club jacket and had then been the first to ditch
the crimson jacket in favor of a suit from Versace. He was even ahead of the game in the sports that he
played, having abandoned his tennis racket for mountain skis a whole month before all the Kremlin officials
(even though at his age the pleasure he could get from his mountain skis was limited to standing on them).
And he preferred to live in his mansion house in the Gorki-9
TWILIGHT WATCH 5
district, only visiting the apartment with the windows overlooking the river when he was with his lover. But
then, he was planning to get rid of his full-time lover—after all, no Viagra can conquer age, and conjugal
fidelity was coming back into fashion.
His driver and bodyguards were standing far enough away not to be able to hear what their employer said.
But even if the wind did carry snatches of his words to their ears, what was so strange about that? Why
shouldn't a man make conversation with himself as the working day was drawing to a close, standing all
alone above the dancing, splashing waves? Where could you find a more sympathetic listener than your
own self?
"Even so, I repeat my proposal. . ." the man said. "I repeat it yet again."
The stars were shining dimly through the city smog. On the far bank of the river, tiny lights were coming on
in the multistory blocks that had no yards. Only one in five of the beautiful lamps stretching along the
quayside was lit—and that was only to humor the whim of the important man who had decided to take a
stroll by the river.
"I repeat it yet again," the man said in a quiet voice.
The water splashed against the embankment—and with it came the answer.
"It's impossible. Absolutely impossible."
The man on the quayside was not surprised by the voice out of empty space. He nodded and asked, "But
what about vampires?"
"Yes, that's one possibility," his invisible companion agreed. "Vampires could initiate you. If you would be
happy to exist as non-life . . . no, I won't lie, they don't like sunlight, but it's not fatal to them, and you
wouldn't have to give up risotto with garlic ..."
"Then what's the problem?" the man asked, involuntarily raising his hands to his chest. "The soul? The need
to drink blood?"
The void laughed quietly.
6 Sergei Lukyanenko
"Just the hunger. Eternal hunger. And the emptiness inside. You wouldn't like it, I'm sure."
"What else is there?" asked the man.
"Werewolves," his invisible companion replied almost jocularly. "They can initiate a man too. But
werewolves are also one of the lower forms of Dark Others. Most of the time everything's fine ... but
when the frenzy comes over you, you won't be able to control yourself. Three or four nights each month.
Sometimes more, sometimes less."
"The new moon," the man said with an understanding nod.