Twelve (37 page)

Iuda took a step back and made a further suggestion. This time it was to Pyetr. I did not need to understand the details of it to comprehend that Pyetr complied readily. Whatever power struggles Dmitry might have perceived within them, it was clear that at this moment Pyetr was utterly subservient to Iuda, as were both of the other surviving Oprichniki. There was no laughter at Iuda's latest idea, but an intake of breath and an anticipatory licking of lips on the part of the two vampires who were not to be its implementers.

Pyetr opened his mouth wide and put his lips to the man's chest, totally encompassing his nipple. He left himself there for a moment mimicking a suckling baby and glancing slyly sideways at Iuda. Iuda smiled an appreciative smile and the other two exchanged their own glances, communicating solely in appreciative grunts, like a couple of dogs who knew that their master was about to feed them a titbit.

With a cocky smile, Iuda uttered a single word of encouragement to Pyetr, to which Pyetr's response was simply to bring his jaws together and then to pull back, shearing away the flesh that he had clasped between his teeth. The man's scream, momentarily so loud, exhausted him, fading into a croaking plea. Pyetr lay on his back on the floor of the barn with his hands behind his head, chewing contentedly at the flesh between his lips. It was as a red rag to the other two.

They pounced upon the farmer and began tasting the blood of old wounds and creating new ones with their sharp, probing teeth. Iuda's voice became firmer and his utterances became orders rather than ideas. He took a step forward and jerked Foma away. On seeing this, Iakov Zevedayinich meekly stepped away from the farmer as well, but it was too late – too late for them, but nothing like soon enough for their victim, or indeed for me. The farmer was dead, whether through the accumulation of unendurable pain or the happy accident of a thoughtless bite at a vital artery, it did not matter. He was released to join his so recently departed wife.

I slipped back into the surrounding woodland just in time to see the farmer's body ejected from the barn to lie alongside his wife in the snow. Crouched behind a tree in the freezing cold, I waited. If all four chose to sleep there through the following day, then it would be their last sleep. In daylight I had no qualms about confronting them and disposing of each as I had done others before them. But I would not go and face them in the dark. The fear that I had seen in Dmitry now became a solid presence in my chest. It stifled me and stiffened me, making me incapable of either advance or flight. It was as a conduit for the cold around me to enter my heart and freeze every sensation, every concept except for the most volatile instinct of all – that of self-preservation.

But at least the cold and the terror combined had one positive side effect – they kept me awake. Much as I would have liked to surrender to oblivion as I stood sentinel outside that barn, I could not. I waited and I wondered, thinking of all that had taken place since I had first met the Oprichniki, thinking of my memories, both happy and sad, of Vadim and Maks, thinking of Marfa and Dmitry Alekseevich, and thinking most of all of Domnikiia. The most ridiculous thing was the way that I attempted to combine my thoughts of those last three together – to see Dmitry playing happily with Domnikiia and to see the youthful Domnikiia chatting carelessly with the wise Marfa. I did not want them to merge. I did not want a single creature with the best aspects of both any more than I wanted a single great city of Russia, combining all that was fine in both Petersburg and Moscow. The result would be nothing – a synthetic perfection that could appeal only to the blandest of palates. I would enjoy it no more than if I were to take half a glass of red wine and another half of white and mix them together to produce the ideal beverage. My task was not only to keep them separate, but also to keep them balanced – to ensure that neither bottle became empty and also that neither came to taste so good to me that I would forget the other.

I may not have been at my most lucid, but at least I was wakeful when, some hours after their hideous feast, Iuda and Foma emerged from the barn. At the roadside they exchanged a few words and then Foma headed south while Iuda turned north. Foma's journey south would not have taken him far. He would soon hit the main road that could take him either east to Serpukhov or west to Mozhaysk. The latter seemed more likely. That would take him back to the path along which Bonaparte was retreating. As for Iuda's course, there was only one major city to the north.

I waited. There were good reasons for me not to rush in and surprise the two remaining vampires in the barn. One was that Iuda and Foma might yet return. The other was that, under the veil of night, even two Oprichniki might prove to be able opponents. I knew that I should wait – wait until midday when they would both be at the nadir of their consciousness and would be able to offer no opposition to the wooden stakes that pierced their chests. But in their consciousness lay the only satisfaction I could derive from their deaths. I had seen that they loved to keep their victims alive – that their only pleasure came in the pain of others. My reasoning went beyond that. I wanted them to suffer, but moreover I cherished a desire for them to know why they died, and at whose hand. In all honesty, I felt the same desire in myself. To perceive and comprehend the moment of one's death must be the final act of understanding, be the perception good or ill. I had failed to be present at the moment of Maks' death and before that, at my father's. I did not want to miss the occasion of my own mortality, nor did I see why these two vampires should miss theirs. Thus, even if it had not been to punish them, I would have wanted them to be sentient of their own deaths. It was merely that that was how I felt it ought to be.

Hence it was not long before dawn, but most certainly before it, that, to the sound of the first birds welcoming the new day, I crept back up to the barn and looked inside once more.

It was empty. I slipped inside. Two lanterns, hung from beams in the ceiling, lit the space within. The rope by which I had earlier seen the farmer suspended was still there, both ends roughly severed where his body had been cut down. Beneath it, the ground was stained with blood; two patches, side by side – one for the man, one for his wife. There was little else. In one corner was a collection of farm tools, and near to them an overturned manger, not big enough to hide a man. A ladder led up to the hayloft. There was no sign of any Oprichniki, not even of their coffins.

Above me I heard the sound of rats scuttling across the hayloft – their tiny claws clattering and their tails slithering over the wooden floorboards as they either scoured for food or clambered to see if I was any threat to them. Or was it rats? Was it a different breed of vermin? The hayloft provided a low flat ceiling for about a third of the length of the barn. From it sprouted a thick beam that ran across to the far wall. This was the beam from which the rope still hung. Smaller shafts sprung outwards from the central beam to support the walls and upwards at angles to hold up the roof.

I walked backwards to the far end of the barn, keeping my eyes on the hayloft. As I moved, I heard the sound of their movement. When I stopped, they stopped. I could not see them, but I knew that Pyetr and Iakov Zevedayinich were up there. Then, between two bales of hay, I saw the glint of a pair of gleaming dark eyes. I fixed my gaze on the eyes and began to approach. They made no move, nor any indication that they knew I was looking at them. My hope was to get back underneath the hayloft, directly under whichever of the Oprichniki those eyes belonged to and to stab at him upwards from below. I knew that I could not kill them that way, but I had seen how disabling the wound to Iuda had been the night before and I hoped it would give me enough of an advantage to move in for the kill. I glanced occasionally toward the ladder and along the edge of the hayloft. There was a second vampire up there as well, and I did not want my attack on one to leave me vulnerable to the other.

With a start, I felt something land on my cheek. I brushed it away and looking at my hand saw that it was a spider, curled up into a defensive ball. I glanced upwards to where it had fallen from and came face to face with Iakov Zevedayinich. He himself was perched much like a spider, his limbs spread across the oak roofbeams without any visible means of purchase. It was the same climbing skill that I had seen Foma display once in Moscow. Iakov Zevedayinich dropped down towards me from the ceiling, and though I had enough warning to take a step back, he still knocked me to the ground.

The vampire was immediately looming over me, ready for the kill. Over his shoulder I saw Pyetr emerging from the hayloft along the central beam, managing to crawl on all fours along a path no wider than his hand. I slashed wildly at Iakov Zevedayinich with my sword and he held back, giving me a chance to get to my feet. I swung the sabre sharply back and forth in front of me, aiming for his neck. On one stroke, I felt a tiny impediment as the sharp tip made contact with his skin. He put his hand to his throat. It was a trivial wound, but enough to make him wary. He backed further away and I looked up to see Pyetr now even closer to me, climbing his way deftly through the web of beams as though he had spun them himself.

I made a few upward jabs at him, but he easily dodged them, emitting a feral snarl. Iakov Zevedayinich made another lunge for me, but I was not so distracted by Pyetr that I could not connect the blade of my sword with the back of his hand. He snatched it back. Pyetr swung down from above, his legs hooked around a beam, and grabbed at my sword, holding the blade tightly with both hands, oblivious to any pain that the action might cause him. I tried to shake the sword free from his grasp, but he held firm. Iakov Zevedayinich approached again, more slowly now, not out of fear, but to savour the moment of my death. With Pyetr holding my sword, I had nothing with which to fend him off. My wooden dagger, though a fine device to despatch the creatures, was no weapon for engaging them in open combat.

I grasped the handle of my sword and lifted my feet, as though trying to drop to my knees. Pyetr managed to sustain my full weight for a fraction of a second, before the sharp blade of my sabre sliced its way out of his grip and I fell to the ground. I lashed out with the sword at Iakov Zevedayinich's ankle and landed a blow which made him leap sideways. Pyetr was still hanging upside-down from the beam, examining his injured hands, his head dangling like a ripe plum ready for the harvest. I swung at his neck and only a cry of warning from Iakov Zevedayinich told him to raise his body back up to the roof as my blade whistled inches beneath his head.

Pyetr retreated back across the rafters and I followed, jabbing at him with my sword. Iakov Zevedayinich too had retreated back under the hayloft. I soon discovered why, as a pitchfork from amongst the tools I had noted earlier flew towards me, flung like a trident from across the barn. I side-stepped and parried it with my sword, but still it caught my upper left arm, tearing through my coat and drawing blood before continuing to the ground, where its tines sunk in deep. The battle was not going my way and I decided now was the time for departure. I raced to the door, but Iakov Zevedayinich beat me to it. He now held a scythe in his hands and swept it in front of him, keeping me away from both himself and the exit. With a leering smile he slid the bolt across the door. It was not a serious impediment, but it would delay me.

'Just like you locked Ioann in,' he said, still smiling.

Behind me I heard a thud which I took to be Pyetr dropping to the floor of the barn. With the two of them now on my level and with Iakov Zevedayinich armed, the fight was most definitely going away from me. Iakov Zevedayinich was the closer of the two and I knew he had to be removed from the picture before Pyetr could take the few steps needed to reach me. Despite all that I knew of the inefficacy of the traditional use of the sword against these creatures, years of training and experience had built up in me so strongly as to make it almost an instinct. I attacked Iakov Zevedayinich as though he were a mortal man.

As he swung at me again with the scythe, I took a step back. He followed my movement and became slightly off balance. I grabbed hold of the shaft of the scythe and pulled him closer towards me and towards my sword, wincing even as I did at the pain it caused to my wounded arm. In fear, he let go of the scythe, and took a step away from me. The door was at his back and he could go no further. At that moment I lunged and the tip of my sabre pierced his chest, went through his heart, out of his back and through the wooden door behind him. So great was the force of my thrust that the blade continued, stopping only when the guard came to his chest. I let go the sword and took a step away. Any human would have died in an instant, his heart rupturing as the blade penetrated it, and with its rupture would come the withdrawal of that force which supplied blood so vitally to the body. But vampires had different means of supplying their bodies with blood and had no need – in any sense – for a heart. I heard Pyetr's laughter behind me, and a broad grin spread across Iakov Zevedayinich's brutal face.

'You should stick to fighting against men,' said Pyetr, mockingly. 'You'd be good at that.'

Iakov Zevedayinich prepared to take a step forward to resume the attack, but found that he could not. Although my sword had done him no serious injury, it had pinned him to the door like a butterfly in a collector's case. He put his hands to the handle of the sword and tried to pull it out, but he had no leverage. Pyetr's laughter ceased.

I turned to face Pyetr, drawing my only remaining weapon – my wooden dagger. Pyetr backed away in what struck me as unnecessary fear, but I took full advantage of it. I began to run towards him, and he backed away faster. Behind him, the handle of the embedded pitchfork jutted out of the ground towards him like a spear. It would be a lucky chance if he fell on it at the correct angle.

In the event, Iakov Zevedayinich foresaw the danger and shouted to his comrade. Just in time, Pyetr twisted his body to one side and avoided falling on to the handle of the pitchfork. Instead he fell on to his back on the ground beside it. I wrenched the pitchfork out of the earth and thrust it back down on to Pyetr's throat. His flesh offered only a momentary resistance before yielding deliciously to my pressure and allowing the sharp points to penetrate through it and deep into the ground beneath. It did not kill him; it didn't even appear to hurt him, despite the blood that oozed from the punctures in his neck, but it kept him from moving. His body writhed and arched as he tried to get free and he could even raise his head a little, his pierced neck sliding up and down the tines of the pitchfork, but unable to escape them.