Free The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, Sergei Luk'ianenko Page A

telepathy… a long experience of life," Olga went on slyly. "Your thoughts are closed to me, Anton. And anyway, you're my partner."
    "I wasn't really…" I gave up. It was stupid to deny the obvious. "And what about the boy? Are we just dropping the assignment? It's not all that serious…"
    "It's very serious," Olga exclaimed indignantly. "Anton, the boss has admitted that he acted wrongly. He's given us a head start, and we've got to make the most of it. The girl-vampire is focused on the boy, don't you see? For her he's like a sandwich she never got to eat; it was just grabbed right out of her mouth. And he's still on her leash. Now she can lure him into her lair from any side of the city. But that gives us an advantage. Why go looking for a tiger in the jungle, when you can tether a little goat out in a clearing?"
    "Moscow's just full of little goats like that…"
    "This boy is on her leash. She's an inexperienced vampire. Establishing contact with a new victim is harder than attracting an old one. Trust me."
    I shuddered, trying to shake off a foolish suspicion. I raised my hand to stop a car and said somberly:
    "I trust you. Absolutely and completely."

Chapter 4
    The owl emerged from the Twilight the moment I stepped inside the door. It launched into the air—for just an instant I felt the light prick of its claws—and headed for the refrigerator.
    "Maybe I ought to make you a perch?" I asked, locking the door. For the first time I saw how Olga spoke. Her beak twitched, and she forced the words out with an obvious effort. To be honest, I still don't understand how a bird can talk. Especially in such a human voice.
    "Better not, or I'll start laying eggs."
    That was obviously an attempt at a joke.
    "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you," I told her, to avoid complications. "I was trying to lighten things up too."
    "I understand. It's all right."
    I rummaged in the refrigerator and discovered a few odd bits and pieces. Cheese, salami, pickles… I wondered how forty-year-old cognac would go with a lightly salted cucumber? They'd probably find each other's company a bit awkward. The way Olga and I did.
    I took out the cheese and the salami.
    "I don't have any lemons, sorry." I realized just how absurd all these preparations were, but still… "At least it's a decent cognac."
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    The owl didn't say anything.
    I took the bottle of Kutuzov out of the drawer in the table that I used as a bar.
    "Ever tried this?"
    "Our reply to Napoleon?" the owl asked with a laugh. "No, I haven't." The situation just kept getting more and more absurd. I rinsed out two cognac glasses and put them on the table, glanced doubtfully at the bundle of white feathers, at the short, crooked beak.
    "You can't drink from a glass. Maybe I should get you a saucer?"
    "Look the other way."
    I did as she said. There was a rustling of feathers behind my back. Then a faint, unpleasant hissing sound that reminded me of a snake that's just been woken up or gas escaping from a cylinder.
    "Olga, I'm sorry, but…" I said as I turned around.
    The owl wasn't there anymore.
    Sure, I'd been expecting something like this. I'd been hoping she was allowed to assume human form sometimes at least. And in my mind I'd drawn this portrait of Olga, a woman imprisoned in the body of a bird, a woman who remembers the Decembrist uprising. I'd had this picture of Princess Lopukhina running away from the ball. Only a bit older and more serious, with a wise look in her eyes, a bit thinner…
    But the woman sitting on the stool was young; in fact, she looked really young. About twenty-five. Hair cut short like a man's, dirt on her cheeks, as if she'd just escaped from a fire. Beautiful, with finely molded, aristocratic features. But that dirty soot… that crude, ugly haircut…
    The final shock was the way she was dressed.
    Dirty army trousers in the 1940s style, a padded jacket, unbuttoned, over a dirty-gray soldier's blouse. Bare feet.
    "Am I beautiful?" the woman