by Jasper Kent
Over by the lever, Otrepyev’s men had dealt with the last remaining Turcomans and were already wiping their bayonets clean. Otrepyev himself was pressed against the floor, aware that the swinging blade was still loose. Osokin could see it returning already, level with his eyes and hurtling towards him. He stood his ground. It had missed him before, and would follow the same path back. He felt his hair ripple as the blade flew over his head and relished his bravery, or at least the power of his intellect to overcome his native fear. It swung past again, on its way down.
‘Deal with it!’ shouted Otrepyev from his position on the floor.
Two soldiers approached warily, knowing full well what the blade had done to their comrade. They kept to the side of its path, jabbing at it with their rifles and each time taking a little of its momentum. When it had slowed enough, one of them felt sufficiently brave to grab at it, but he couldn’t keep hold. The other man was knocked to the floor, but the blade had lost its power to kill. Soon they had it under control and let it come to rest at its natural position, just above where the chair had been, at the height of the prisoner’s neck.
Otrepyev pulled himself to his feet and dusted down his greatcoat.
‘Get him up,’ he snapped.
Two more of his men ran forward and grabbed the chair, dragging it across the chamber, away from the dangling blade. Then they began to tip it back upright, the prisoner still bound to it as tightly as ever.
Osokin stepped closer, keen to see the man who had been the focus of so much effort, both on the part of Otrepyev to get at him and, it seemed evident, on the part of the Turcomans to ensure that he was not taken alive. The others gathered around too. Osokin noticed that Lukin was among them. Whether he had taken part in the battle or, like himself, had been merely a bystander, Osokin could not tell.
With grunts and gasps the chair was finally lifted back to an upright position. Otrepyev leaned forward and stared into the prisoner’s eyes. Osokin had a clear view of both men. They were of about the same age – late forties, perhaps fifty – but apart from that, in appearance they were almost opposites. The prisoner was not short by any means, but compared with the towering Otrepyev he seemed puny. His blond, straggling, unkempt hair contrasted with the neat dark brown of Otrepyev’s. But his cold, grey eyes spoke of a fierce intelligence which, Osokin guessed, was not nearly matched by that of the colonel.
One thing, however, was beyond doubt: that these two men knew each other. The entire chamber became hushed. One of them would have to speak; the prisoner or his … rescuer, if that was what Otrepyev truly was.
In the end, it was the captive’s lips that moved first.
‘It’s been a long time, Dmitry Alekseevich,’ he said.
CHAPTER II
IT HAD BEEN almost twenty-five years since iuda last saw that face, in circumstances remarkably similar to those in which the two vampires now found themselves. Then Dmitry had cast Iuda into a dungeon. Today he acted as liberator. No, that went too far. Iuda may have been free of the Turcomans, but that did not mean he was free. That would depend on the reason Dmitry was here. And there would be a reason. Iuda’s freedom – his life itself – would depend on his ability to fathom Dmitry’s motivation.
He’d got it wrong before, terribly wrong, the last time they had met. He’d pondered it over the years – particularly during that first year, when he’d had little else to do – but still he could make no sense of it.
Dmitry had been a vampire for only a matter of weeks back then in 1856 – Iuda for thirty years. They’d been down there in the tunnels beneath the Kremlin: Iuda, Dmitry, Dmitry’s half-sister Tamara and their father Lyosha.
Lyosha – a man who had seemed able to defeat Iuda even as he died, pathetic and old. It was a common enough diminutive for the name Aleksei; Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov. He’d returned from exile. He’d been half drowned and shot, and still, somehow, he’d goaded Iuda into a mistake. No. It wasn’t Lyosha. Iuda had made the mistake all on his own. He’d wanted to twist the knife, to destroy not only Lyosha but what Lyosha loved. And that meant his son. And Iuda had destroyed Dmitry; transformed him willingly into a vampire. And yet it was nothing if Lyosha did not know it.
But in all that consideration of Lyosha, Iuda had failed to take account of Dmitry. Rather than let his father hear the truth, he’d chosen to protect him. He’d kicked out with both feet and knocked Iuda into one of his own dungeons, then drawn the heavy bolts across and turned the lock.
Iuda was trapped.
He’d designed and built the dungeon himself, with one end in mind – to make a prison that could hold a vampire. The chamber he was in now, beneath the citadel of Geok Tepe, was constructed with much the same intent, but on a grander scale. But in Moscow in 1856 he had known that he could not escape a prison of his own design. He would have to wait. Someone would come.
Sustenance was not an immediate concern. Although he had built this cell to be the cage for a voordalak, he’d been using it as a larder. There were four humans in there with him. They’d even attacked him, wrapping their chains around his neck and dragging him down as Dmitry bolted the door. But they were weakened, and chains were no weapon against a voordalak. He soon subdued them, and returned the shackles to their correct use – restraining the humans themselves; making them available when his hunger surfaced.
But they would not live for ever. There was a little food for them, left from their last meal, but even with the most careful rationing it would eventually rot. The humans lasted three weeks. He knew which one would be the last he left to die: Marfa Mihailovna. In saving his father from the truth, Dmitry had been quite happy to sacrifice his mother, whom he’d known full well was in there. Once again, it made little sense.
Of the four prisoners, Marfa Mihailovna’s blood had been the least appetizing, but that was not why he had kept her alive. The hope had been that she would offer some amusement. By goading her over the fate of her son and her husband, described in exquisite and revolting detail, he expected to raise in her some reaction that might make his imprisonment less tiresome. But it was too late. She was already a broken woman, and Iuda had only himself to thank for that. Occasionally though, in moments of lucidity, she would ask where Dmitry was. At first he believed she had genuinely forgotten her son’s fate, but later he realized she was merely reminding him – reminding him, with a hint of pride, that it was her son who had locked him in there.
At least before she died – as she died – she could facilitate Iuda’s eventual escape. He had taken the last of her blood, but had not drunk it. He lay in the dungeon, dormant thanks to the lack of nourishment, for fourteen months. Eventually someone had bothered to break down the door and investigate the cellars below and had found the various rotting bodies that lay there, along with Iuda’s strangely undecayed corpse. They had carried it back up. Somewhere on the short journey they’d twisted or jolted their load, and the small vial of human blood – the blood Iuda had taken from Marfa and lodged in his own throat before losing consciousness – was spilled. It was so little, but it meant so much. He was recalled to life.
When he awoke, he was lying on the floor of his own office. He barely recognized it. Dust sheets were thrown over the furniture and repainting had begun. The stairs led up to the Kremlin above, but Iuda did not need to see the glimmer of light shining down them to know that it was mid-afternoon – he felt it in his gut.
He could hear voices down in the cellars below, and footsteps ascending. There were two of them. Normally, he would have no concerns about defeating them, but he’d consumed such a tiny amount of blood that he was still weak. He would hardly be able to stand without support.
‘Let’s get on with it then.’
The timbre of the voices had changed; the men had climbed the steps and were now in the office. He sensed them moving towards him and then leaning over. He let out a groan. He felt them grip him and begin to lift. They hadn’t noticed. He coughed a little and felt the hands release him.
‘Bollocks. It’s just air escaping.’
Iuda coughed again, letting his body convulse a little.
There was silence – a stunned silence, he presumed. Then the second man spoke. ‘What do we do?’
They clearly needed guidance. Iuda opened his lips, flexing them after months of disuse. He tried to make his speech appear weak, but discovered he had little need to pretend. He allowed his eyes to flicker open and saw the two men peering over him. One of them knelt down and bent his head forward to listen more closely. His ear hovered above Iuda’s lips, meaning that his neck was not far away. Iuda sensed the blood pulsing in the man’s jugular vein – so close that only a slight movement would allow Iuda to bury his teeth deep into the sweet pink flesh. But it was not worth the risk. He raised his head just a little.
‘Water,’ he muttered, and then fell back, closing his eyes as if the effort had exhausted him.
‘What?’ asked the man standing.
‘Water. He wants water. Go find some.’
Iuda heard feet pattering up the stairs to the Kremlin. He opened his eyes. The first part of the plan – to separate them – had worked. The other man was still there, his hands clasped to his chest, his eyes raised upwards, his lips moving in a rapid whisper. Iuda suppressed the urge to laugh at the realization that the man was praying for him. He’d have need to pray for himself soon enough.
Iuda began to speak again, mumbling without any thought as to what he was pretending to say. The man squeezed his arm reassuringly.
‘It’s all right. You’re safe now.’
Evidently this was going to require a little more bait.
‘No, please, listen,’ Iuda croaked. ‘There’s not much time.’
The man looked down, puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s about …’ Iuda allowed his voice to die away. The man bent forward, but not close enough. Iuda raised his arm and beckoned, letting it fall again with an exhaustion he had little need to feign. He could not be sure he even had the strength to do this – but it would be his only chance. The man leaned over him again, just as he had done before, his ear close to Iuda’s cracked lips.
Iuda pounced.
His hands clamped on to the man – one to his head, the other to his back. Iuda’s nails dug through his hair and into his scalp, twisting his head to one side. The man pulled away. Iuda felt his emaciated muscles scream at him in pain, but he held on. The man was strong and was soon halfway to his feet, but he brought Iuda with him. Iuda bit. The instant rush of blood was bliss, but his first need was not to drink. The blood would take time to invigorate him, time which his prey could easily use to fight him off. The man must die and die quickly. Iuda bit again, and pulled his mouth away, bringing with it a mess of artery and sinew. Blood cascaded over Iuda’s face – an appalling waste, but the job was done.
The man fell limp, collapsing on top of Iuda and forcing his weakened body back to the ground. It had been a quick death – a sudden, catastrophic loss of blood pressure to the brain. But Iuda had a better purpose for the blood. He rolled the man’s lifeless corpse off him. The two of them lay side by side, like exhausted lovers who did not care to embrace one another after the act.
The urge to remain there in silence, resting, was powerful, but Iuda knew he had work to do. They would not be alone for long. He crawled over and placed his lips to the ragged wound in the man’s throat, almost mimicking the posture of the man when he had been listening to Iuda. Drinking blood this way was neither pleasant nor easy. The blood of the dead was stale. Nutritionally it had only a little less value than living blood – Iuda had established that by experiment years before. But it tasted like a cold, thin, flavourless soup.
Worse than that, it had to be drawn from the body. To drink from a living victim one had only to pierce the artery and let the beating heart force gush after gush of blood into the mouth, weakening in strength as it gradually deprived itself of that which it most needed in order to live. With this lifeless slab of flesh, Iuda had to suck the blood for himself – harder still in his starved condition. If he’d had the time and the strength he would have imitated a butcher and hauled the cadaver up on a rope to let it hang upside down, allowing gravity to do the work that the heart was no longer capable of. But he had no strength. In the end he resorted to lapping at what had spilled on the floor, like a cat. It was degrading, but no one would see, and it would give him the strength for better things soon.
It was only a few minutes before the dead man’s workmate returned, racing down the steps two at a time and clutching a bottle in his hand. Iuda was seated in his chair – the same chair that had been there when the room had been his office – in a dark corner where he would not be seen by someone coming in from the daylight. Even after so little time and so little blood, he felt renewed. He was not quite his old self, but he was strong enough to take his next meal in a more dignified manner.
He’d placed the corpse in the position where he himself had been lying. The differences between his cold, dormant body and the bloody remains that now took its place would be quickly noticed, but not quickly enough. From the bottom of the stairs, the returning man took only a glance at it, not realizing who it was.
‘Sergei?’ he shouted, looking around. ‘Sergei?’
There was, unsurprisingly, no reply. He didn’t seem too concerned. He went over to the body, uncorking the bottle as he went. He began to kneel.
‘Here you are, old fella. We’ll soon have you feeling—’
He leapt upright and took a step back, staring down at what remained of his workmate, saying nothing, his face showing bewilderment rather than fear. That would change.
‘I have to say I’m already feeling much better, thank you.’ As Iuda spoke he felt stiffness in the skin of his face, where the splattered blood had begun to congeal.
The man turned in the direction of Iuda’s voice, peering into the darkness to make out its source.
‘Your friend, however,’ Iuda continued, ‘is beyond all hope.’
He stood and began to walk, not straight towards the man, but on a path that would put himself between him and the stairs. The man’s head followed him as he moved, realization dawning on his face.
‘You. But …’
Iuda would not have been easy to recognize. In a few short minutes the effect of new blood must have taken twenty, perhaps thirty years off him. With only a little more, he would be fully restored.
‘I sent for a doctor. He’ll be here soon.’
It was difficult to determine what he meant by it. Was he still concerned for Iuda’s health? Or was he simply giving a warning that they would not be alone for long? Iuda would not need long.
He stepped forward and put his hand over the man’s mouth, pushing him back towards the wall. He felt the man try to resist, and lifted him upwards, revelling in his returned strength. The man’s feet scraped and tapped on the floor, but could find no purchase. He hit the wall with a thud and began to scream, but the sound was muffled by Iuda’s hand. His arms flailed, beating against Iuda’s sides and back, but with no effect.
Iuda bit. His primary purpose was still sustenance, but he now felt confident in his abilities. A hungry man might rush the appetizer of his first meal, but he would allow time to relish the main course. He sealed his lips over the wound he had just inflicted and allowed the blood to pump into him, as though his mouth, oesophagus and stomach had become an extension of the man’s circulation, a one-directional extension that took blood and did not return it. Iuda knew that at this moment his victim would share something of his mind. He tried to make it clear that there was no hope of survival.
Soon the blows from the man’s fists became more feeble, his screams turned into gasps for breath. Within a minute he was unconscious; within two, dead. Iuda was replete. Now a different weakness took him – not the powerlessness of the starved, but the lethargy of the glutted.
‘It must be dow
n here.’
The voice came from outside, at the top of the stairs. There were at least two of them. Iuda could probably have dealt with them, but was in no mood. He let the drained body drop to the floor and headed for the other flight of stairs, the one that went down to the dungeons. He stepped through the archway and examined the door. The lock had been smashed, probably not long before, when the cellars had finally been broken into. Fortunately the door itself was intact.
He slid the bolts across as quietly as he could. They would find the two bodies in moments, and he did not want to leave any clue that the killer was near at hand. For the moment he was trapped in the cellars, almost as he had been trapped in that one dungeon for fourteen long months. This time it would only be until sunset. Once the sun was down he would make his way through the tunnels that led down to the Moskva, and then he would be able once again to walk the city’s streets.
He had lain down and slept, and when evening had come, he had been free, and had continued to be free for twenty years.
And now, as he sat strapped to the wooden chair in Geok Tepe from which he had been unable to move for three years, he wondered if he might soon be free again. He maintained his gaze into Dmitry’s eyes, searching for some hint of what was to come.
Dmitry spoke.
CHAPTER III
‘SHALL WE CONDUCT this interview in english?’ Dmitry asked. There was little chance that anyone in the chamber beneath Geok Tepe would understand the subject matter of their conversation, whatever language they spoke, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep it from them.
‘I didn’t know you spoke English,’ replied Iuda.
‘I’ve travelled since we last met. One picks these things up.’