Free Sixth Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

calmly and confidently, like someone who has a perfect right to do it.
    I opened the door—and my wife and I breathed a joint sigh of relief when we spotted Nadya.
    The “final line of defense” consisted of three spells that were all activated at exactly the same moment.
    The first visited “Morpheus” on everyone in the vicinity. With luck, it could snare attackers too, but its primary purpose was to get people out of harm’s way.
    The second spell sent an alarm signal to the offices of the Watches and to Svetlana and me. I hadn’t really been counting on this particular spell and, as it turned out, the signal hadn’t got through.
    And the third spell—that imposed a “Freeze” on Nadya herself.
    The Freeze had always been regarded as a mild attacking spell. It halted time—and the enemy froze like a fly in amber, giving youtime to think over what to do with him and what spell to serve up for him next.
    But there were certain disadvantages to a Freeze. First, an Other could defend himself or herself against it quite easily, so it was mostly used against ordinary people or animals. Second, while the opponent was under the influence of the Freeze, it was impossible to do anything to him—absolutely anything at all—because for our world he had ceased to exist. A target hit with a temporal freeze was clearly visible, he was surrounded by a faint blue glow, and if you touched him, it felt like he was wrapped in a tight, elastic membrane. But nothing could tear through this membrane; it was impossible, no magical or material means could do it. As the scientists explained: “although the object appears accessible to our sense organs, in reality we are observing a mere projection, and the object itself does not exist in our time.” Third, a Freeze required a long setup time: it either had to be there “on your fingertips” in advance or else inscribed on an artifact.
    In our case all the disadvantages had been converted into advantages. The Freeze applied to Nadya had put her completely out of her enemies’ reach.
    Nadya had frozen at the window, and judging from her pose, she’d been running, intending to jump out. Straight through the glass. From the third floor.
    For an Absolute Enchantress already capable of controlling her powers, this wasn’t very typical. I took a second to examine Nadya’s silhouette, enveloped in that bluish radiance, and decided that she wasn’t running away, but chasing after someone.
    I didn’t like the alternative.
    And then my mind took in the whole picture and I relaxed completely.
    Denis was there, standing beside Nadya. He was a Light Battle Magician from somewhere in Siberia, either Tomsk or Omsk—as a typical Muscovite, I was always getting them confused, which brought a grin to Denis’s face. He was a young lad, very promising.I didn’t know he was guarding Nadya, but I thought it was a very good choice.
    I’d never met the Dark Magician from the Day Watch. But it looked like he was another ambitious young guy who’d been glad to accept the job of security guard for “the Absolute girl.” If anything, he was rather too young and good-looking for me to view him without feeling suspicious. The young schoolgirls walking around here were all so naive, later on in life they’d start falling in love with Dark Ones. I hate all these human stupidities, like the cult of vampires and all sorts of other evil. It starts off with a couple of stupid jokes, tittering and snickering, “Draco Malfoy’s such a sweetie,” “Edward’s a real dreamboat,” and then they start strangling kittens in basements and reciting prayers backward . . .
    â€œI haven’t used this spell very often,” said Denis—he and the Dark One hadn’t noticed our presence yet. “The Freeze, it stops time. There’s no way to break through it, unless you know the code.