But Semyon used the temporal freeze. He caught two of the dogs in the air: their bodies were left hanging there, enveloped in a blue glow, with their narrow, snarling muzzles reaching out. Saliva dripped from their fangs like gleaming blue hail.

The three dogs who'd been frozen on the ground weren't quite so impressive.

Tiger Cub came running over to us. Her face was white, her eyes wide. She looked at Yulia for a moment, who was still whimpering, but she was getting quieter.

'Everyone okay?' Tiger Cub asked eventually.

'Fortunately,' mumbled Ilya, lowering his wand. 'What kind of animals are you keeping here?'

'They wouldn't have done anything,' Tiger Cub said ruefully.

'Oh yeah?' Semyon took Yulia out from under his arm and set her down on the ground. He pensively ran one finger over the bared fang of a dog hanging in mid-air. The film of the time freeze was springy and elastic under his hand.

'I swear!' said Tiger Cub, pressing her hand to her heart. 'Guys, Sveta, Yulia, I'm sorry. I didn't have a chance to stop them. The dogs are trained to knock strangers down and restrain them.'

'Even Others?'

'Yes.'

'Even Light Ones?' There was a note of uncertain respect in Semyon's voice.

Tiger Cub dropped her eyes and nodded.

Yulia went over, moved up close to her, and said more or less calmly:

'I wasn't frightened. Just taken by surprise, that's all.'

'It's a good thing I was slow to react too,' Ilya commented, putting away his wand. 'Roast dog's too exotic a dish for me. But your dogs know me, Tiger Cub!'

'They wouldn't have touched you.'

The tension slowly eased. Of course, nothing too serious would have happened, we know how to heal each other, but it would have been the end of the picnic.

'I'm sorry,' Tiger Cub repeated. She looked at us all imploringly.

'But listen, why do you need all this?' asked Sveta, with a glance at the dogs. 'Can you explain that to me? Your powers are strong enough to beat off a platoon of Green Berets, what do you need Rottweilers for?'

'They're not Rottweilers, they're Staffordshire bull terriers.'

'What difference does that make?'

'They caught a burglar once. I'm only here two days a week, I can't go back and forth to town all the time.'

The explanation wasn't all that convincing. A simple frightening spell would have kept any ordinary people from coming anywhere near the place. But no one got a chance to say it – Tiger Cub got in first:

'It's just the way I am, okay?'

'How long are the dogs going to stay hanging there like that?' asked Yulia. 'I want to make friends with them. Otherwise I'll be left with a latent psychological complex that's bound to affect my personality and my sexual preferences.'

Semyon snorted. Yulia's comment had finally defused the tension – but it was anybody's guess how spontaneous or calculated it had been.

'They'll start moving again before the evening. Well, hostess, are you going to invite us in?'

We left the dogs where they were round the car and walked towards the house.

'What a great place you have, Tiger Cub!' said Yulia. She was ignoring the rest of us entirely now, clinging to the young woman. As if the sorceress was her idol and she could be forgiven for anything, even overvigilant guard dogs.

Why is it that the powers we can't develop are always the ones that become an obsession?

Yulia's a wonderful analytical sorceress. She can untangle the threads of reality and reveal the concealed magical causes of events that seem quite ordinary. She's really smart and everyone in the department loves her, not just as a sweet girl, but as a comrade-in-arms, a valued and sometimes quite irreplaceable colleague. But her idol is Tiger Cub, a shape-shifting sorceress, a combat magician. Why couldn't she look up to good-hearted old Polina Vasilievna, who worked in the analytical section part-time, or fall for the head of the department, the impressive middle-aged ladykiller Edik.

But no, she'd chosen Tiger Cub as her role model.

I started whistling as I walked along at the back of the procession. I caught Svetlana's eye and gave her a quick nod. Everything was fine. We had entire days of doing nothing ahead of us. No Dark Ones or Light Ones, no intrigues and plots, no confrontations. Just swimming in the lake, sunbathing, eating kebabs from the barbecue and washing them down with red wine. And in the evening – the bathhouse. A big house like this had to have a good bathhouse. And then Semyon and I could take a couple of bottles of vodka and a jar of pickled mushrooms, get as far away as possible from the rest of the crowd and drink ourselves stupid, gazing up at the stars and making philosophical conversation on elevated subjects.

Marvellous.

I wanted to be a human being. For twenty-four hours at least.

Semyon stopped and nodded to me.

'Let's take two bottles. Three, even. Someone else might decide to join us.'

'It's a deal,' I said. He hadn't been reading my thoughts, it was just that he had so much more experience of life than I did.

'It's easier for you,' Semyon added. 'I almost never get the chance to be a human being.'

'Do you need to?' Tiger Cub asked, halting by the door.

Semyon shrugged:

'Of course not. But I kind of like the idea.'

We went into the house.

Twenty guests was a bit too much even for this house. If we'd been ordinary people, it would have been different. But we were too noisy. Try bringing together twenty kids who've been studying hard for months, give them the free run of a well-stocked toyshop, let them do anything they like and see what you end up with.

Sveta and I were just about the only ones not really caught up in the boisterous fun and games. We each grabbed a glass of wine from the buffet table and settled down on a leather sofa in the corner of the sitting room.

Semyon and Ilya locked horns in a magical duel. Very civilised and peaceful, amusing for the others who were watching – at first, that is. Semyon must have wounded his friend's vanity in the car: now they were taking it in turns to change the climate in the room. We'd already had winter in the forest outside Moscow, and autumn mist, and summer in Spain. Tiger Cub had categorically forbidden any kind of rain, but the magicians weren't trying to summon up a violent display of the elements. They'd obviously imposed some restrictions of their own on their range and the competition was less about who could produce the most unusual natural moment ever recorded than who could deliver something that suited the mood of the moment.

Garik, Farid and Danila were playing cards. A perfectly standard game, without frills, but the air above the table was nevertheless sparkling with magic. They were using every possible magical means to cheat and protect themselves against each other's tricks.

Ignat stood by the open doors, surrounded by women from the research department, with our useless programmers in tow. Our Casanova must have suffered some kind of romantic reversal, and he was now seeking comfort in a close circle of friends.

'Anton,' Sveta asked in a low voice, 'what do you think, is all this for real?'

'What exactly?'

'All this happy mood. You remember what Semyon said, don't you?'

I shrugged:

'Can we come back to this when we get to be a hundred? I'm feeling good. It's that simple. I don't have to go running off anywhere, I don't have to do any calculations. The Watches are lying low in the shade with their tongues hanging out.'

'I feel good too,' Svetlana agreed. 'But there are only four of us here who are young, or almost young. Yulia, Tiger Cub, you and me. What are we going to be like in a hundred years? Or in three hundred?'

'We'll have to wait and see.'

'Anton, listen to me,' Sveta said, touching my cheek lightly. 'I'm very proud that I joined the Watch. I'm happy that my mother's well again. My life's better now, no doubt about it. I can even understand why the boss put you through that ordeal . . .'

'Don't, Sveta.' I took hold of her hand. 'Even I understood that, and I got the worst of it. Don't let's talk about it.'

'I wasn't going to,' Sveta said, and drained her wine glass. 'Anton, what I'm trying to say is – I can't see any real joy.'

'Where?' Sometimes I must seem incredibly thick-headed.

'Here. In the Night Watch. In our close, friendly team. After all, every day is just one more battle for us. A big one or a little one. With a crazed werewolf, with a Dark Magician, with all the powers of the Dark at once. Flex those sinews, jut out that chin, prepare to block that attack with your bare chest or squat on a hedgehog with your bare arse.'

I snorted with laughter.

'Sveta, what's so bad about all that? Yes, we're soldiers. Every last one of us, from Yulia to Gesar. Sure, it's no great fun being at war. But if we withdraw, then . . .'

'Then what?' Sveta asked. 'Will the Apocalypse come? The forces of Good and Evil have been fighting each other for a thousand years. Tearing at each other's throats, setting armies of humans against each other – and all for the highest goals. But tell me, Anton, have people really not become any better in all that time?'

'Yes, they have.'

'And what about since the Watches were set up? Anton, my dear, you've told me so many things, and not just you. That the most important battle is for people's souls, that we're preventing mass slaughter. But are we? People still kill each other. Far more than they used to two hundred years ago.'

'Are you trying to tell me that the work we do is actually harmful?'

'No,' said Sveta, with a weary shake of her head. 'No, I'm not. I'm not that conceited. I was just trying to say that maybe we're simply the Light, and that's all there is to it. . . You know, they've started selling fake New Year Tree decorations in Moscow. They look just like the real thing, but they don't bring people any joy at all.'

She told the joke with a straight face, without even changing her tone of voice. She looked into my eyes.

'Do you understand what I mean?'

'I understand.'

'Maybe you do. The Dark Ones do less Evil,' said Svetlana. 'These mutual concessions of ours, good deed for bad deed, licences for murder and healing, those can all be justified, I'm sure. The Dark Ones do less Evil than they used to, and we don't do Evil by definition. But what about humans?'

'What have they got to do with it?'

'What do you mean? It's them we're defending. Tirelessly, self-sacrificingly. So why aren't their lives getting any better? They do the work of the Dark themselves. Why? Maybe it's because we've lost something, Anton. The faith Light Magicians used to have when they sent entire armies to their deaths, and marched in the front ranks themselves? The ability not just to defend people, but to bring them joy? What good are secure walls, if they're the walls of a prison? Humans have forgotten about genuine magic, they don't believe in the Dark, but they don't believe in the Light either! Yes, Anton, we are soldiers. But people only love the army when there's a war going on.'

'There is a war going on.'

'Who knows about it?'

'We're not just ordinary soldiers, I suppose,' I said. It never feels good to retreat from old, familiar positions, but there was no other way. 'More like hussars. Taram, taram, taram . . .'