“And now in wartime they torture them and poison them with gas in concentration camps, bomb them with high-precision smart bombs, or, in the very best of cases, they occupy countries economically and turn them into powerless satellites. And where there is no war—they dumb down their own people and treat them like cattle.” Las spread his hands emphatically. “All those Genghis Khans, Xerxeses, and Caligulas were more honest, I reckon. So far, there is nothing to respect human beings for.”

I started getting a bit wound up at this point.

“Las, we’re the Night Watch. We protect people, we don’t despise them.”

Las pulled a wry face.

“Listen, Anton. You’re, you know . . . a Higher Magician and all that. One of the high-ups. But can we talk off the record, just as friends?”

“Sure, go on.”

“Then don’t give me that razzmatazz about how we protect people,” Las said calmly. “We control them—just a little bit. And we prevent the Day Watch from controlling people the way they think is right. What kind of protection is it, when we issue licenses to vampires to hunt people? What kind of protection is it, if for every good deed that we do the Dark Ones are granted the right to work evil? We protect ourselves! Our way of thinking, our comfortable existence, our long lives and lack of human problems. Sure, we’re good, and the Dark Ones are bad! That’s why we don’t entirely regard human beings as cattle. But we don’t consider them equal to ourselves!”

“We do,” I said stubbornly.

“Oh, yes?” Las laughed. “When did you last live life as a human, Anton? So that you had to count the money left in your pocket until payday, grovel to some petty human bureaucrat to get some absurd little piece of paper with a stamp on it, wander round grimy, filthy health centers trying to get exhausted doctors to treat you, spend two hours stuck in a traffic jam because half of Moscow has been blocked off for some big shot, or dodge a car with a flashing light and ‘special’ number plates hurtling along the wrong side of the road?”

“There are plenty of people in Moscow who don’t count every kopeck and don’t grovel to bureaucrats . . .” I began.

“Of course, and they regard the people around them as cattle,” Las said. “All those other people who don’t have a flashing light or a couple of credit cards from major foreign banks in their wallet. And if you behave like those who reckon they’re above the common folk—and, I’m sorry, that’s exactly how you do behave when you calculate the lines of probability, remoralize roughnecks just for a minute or two when you run into them, pay in a shop with your bank card from work, which has no limit—”