by Jasper Kent
And then I could imagine no finer country on the planet to inhabit than one in the state of turmoil into which Russia would surely descend. Why else had Dmitry come here?
Why, indeed? He had seemed on remarkably good terms with Danilov when we’d met, but that might have been a ruse. He was a melancholic soul at the best of times, as might be expected from one who became a voordalak for reasons of love. But perhaps over the years he’d learned to accept his sorry condition. Perhaps the blood he had exchanged with Zmyeevich had given him some idea of how a vampire should truly live. I would have to speak to him.
I tried to remember his words of the previous night. ‘We’ll meet tomorrow – usual time and place.’ I had no idea what that meant, but I could assume I hadn’t missed the appointment. It was mid-afternoon now, a few hours before dusk. Dmitry would be unable to meet anyone until then. The rendezvous could be any time during the hours of darkness – at any place in the city. It would be impossible to guess, but with a little mental agility it would be simple enough to find out.
I turned off Nevsky Prospekt and on to Great Konyushennaya Street where, by coincidence, Dmitry had once lived, with his father, Lyosha, and his mother, Marfa. It was where I had screwed Marfa, knowing Lyosha would find us there. But all I needed now was somewhere to rest. Just as I recalled, there was a bench.
I sat down and, as seemed fitting for the body of a sixty-year-old man after a heavy lunch, tried to sleep.
I would dearly have loved to sleep too, but at the first opportunity I stood up, pleased to be once again in command of my own body. As before I’d been fully aware of Iuda’s every thought and action. I had been as surprised as he was when my thoughts had broken through to him in the dining room of the Hôtel d’Europe – and over such a trivial matter. I’d not been attempting to communicate with him; quite the reverse – I’d simply been trying to make something of my miserable state by crowing at his ignorance of the modern world. I’d somehow responded to his thoughts, but then managed to retreat into silence, like a snail hiding away inside its shell.
But now, like Iuda, I needed to make plans. I knew his ultimate intent – to make himself once more a voordalak. What that might mean for me I could only guess. From what I could gather, he had little idea either. Would his soul dominate in a body that was once again in a form that befitted his degenerate mind? Would I be destined for ever to witness each foul act that he perpetrated? Worse than that, would I not just witness it, but experience it? At lunch today it was Iuda who had willed his hand each time it lifted the fork to his lips, but I had tasted the food just as distinctly as he had – and enjoyed it too. Would I come to appreciate all his pleasures, or forever be revolted by them? I could only hope for the latter.
Perhaps my consciousness would simply wither and die once it found itself in the body of a vampire. It would be a blessed release for me, though it would mean the ultimate failure of my life’s work. I thought I had killed Iuda decades before. Now through me he would live on as a vampire, taking my body and with it my reputation.
There was another possibility, though, that we would share possession of my vampire body, as we did my human body now. In that case he was doomed. It would take only moments, once I was in control, for me to walk outside and bathe myself in blessed sunlight, just as I had done this morning, but with infinitely greater success. It was not the perfect solution, but ultimately it would mean victory, and at a price I was more than willing to pay.
I checked myself, remembering that Iuda was eavesdropper to my every thought. I should be cautious in revealing my plans, and yet how could I make plans, if I did not think them? Anyway – in this case it was a strategy that I ought to be pleased for him to comprehend. It would make him think twice about becoming once more a vampire.
And why did I need to wait? If suicide was a viable tactic after we had become a voordalak, then why not before? I reached into my pocket and felt the smooth nacre of the handle of the razor that Iuda had put there. It wouldn’t be too difficult for me to open up the blade and then open up one of my own veins. Or if not that, there were other ways. There were plenty of tall buildings in Petrograd. Unlike those in the West, my church preached that suicide was not in every case a sin. Surely in these circumstances God would forgive me? And anyway it was hardly suicide. My intent was to destroy Iuda – my death would be what Aquinas had regarded as a secondary effect.
But another way would be better. If I could find a means of killing Iuda that would leave me unharmed then I would take it. At present, though, I had no idea how that might be achieved. Perhaps the answer lay in Iuda’s journals. Perhaps it was in his mind – if so there was a chance he would let it slip. But I had read his notebooks and seen nothing relevant. Anastasia knew more than Iuda did. It was she whom I should seek, though I had no idea where to look. There was still the possibility that she was looking for me.
I felt the desire to speak to Dmitry. Even if there was nothing he could do to help my situation, it would do me good to be able to share it with someone. But would he be inclined to help me? Would I even get the chance to speak with him? If it was Iuda who spoke through my lips, then there was no end to the lies he might tell. And I knew that Iuda was keen to see Dmitry. The easiest course of action was to do precisely the opposite of what Iuda desired. I would stay away from the rendezvous with Dmitry – stay away from Senate Square entirely and—
I thought I heard laughter. If it wasn’t Iuda jeering at me then it was the voice of my own doubts. Now Iuda knew the location of our meeting. Thankfully he didn’t know the time: half past nine. The same laughter echoed through my mind again. It was impossible to keep any idea from entering my brain once the train of thought had been embarked upon. So now Iuda knew the time and place. If my legs chose to obey him at the appropriate moment, then we would go to see Dmitry. If my lips chose to obey him, then he would be able to convince Dmitry of anything.
But I had one chance. Even if my legs were subject to Iuda’s will, they were still bound by the laws of nature. They remained the legs of an old man and had a limit to the speed at which they could move. If I could get far enough away while I had the chance then there was nothing Iuda could do to return in time.
I began to walk. I turned down Nevsky Prospekt and carried on swiftly. As I crossed the Yekaterininsky Canal I reached into my pocket and flung the remains of the money I’d stolen into the water, keeping just a few kopeks. At the next opportunity I spent them, jumping on a tram and paying the fare to get me to the Nikolaievsky Station. Dusk had fallen by the time I arrived. I carried on along the prospekt on foot, in the direction of the Nevsky Monastery. I didn’t know the area beyond – it would be interesting to see. I still had much further to go to ensure I could not make it back in time.
I was past the monastery and almost at the river when I turned around and began walking back into the city.
CHAPTER XV
DANILOV WAS RIGHT about the frailty of his body. I walked back up Nevsky Prospekt with the same determination that he had walked down it, judging that he knew better than I how much strain his muscles could take. In the end it was not his legs but his lungs that began to register pain. I slowed down a little – there was plenty of time.
Danilov was right about other things too – most of all about my ignorance. I had no idea what would happen if this body became that of a vampire. It might even be his soul that took back the reins of power and mine that was cast out. And yet still I craved the strength that I had known as a voordalak. I felt the desire to hunt and kill and feed running in my veins. It was a base, animal urge and I was wise enough to know that I should not yield to it unthinkingly.
It was irritating that he had thrown away the money. He’d forgotten to get rid of the hotel room keys – though now I’d brought them to his attention I was sure that he would at the next opportunity. Anyway, their loss would have been discovered, so they were of little value.
I was at Senate Square in plenty of time. I didn’t know pre
cisely where we were supposed to meet, but it was a small enough area that I could patrol it. I went over to the embankment and looked out across the river. A grey battleship was anchored opposite. It must have been the Avrora, judging by Danilov’s contemplations as to whether she had fired upon the Winter Palace. I turned and walked in the other direction, catching glimpses of the dome of Saint Isaac’s through the trees. They were the same trees as last time I was here, though they had grown tall in the intervening years.
‘Nice get-up!’
Dmitry had been standing beside the Bronze Horseman. He’d seen me as I walked across the square. For a moment what he said made no sense to me.
‘What?’
He looked me up and down. ‘The clothes.’
‘Oh, these. I thought I’d better make use of them. I don’t think there’ll be much call for Sunday best now they’re in charge.’
He seemed to accept it as an explanation, if he was even interested. ‘Have you found anything out?’ he asked.
We couldn’t have been very far from the exact spot where the three of us – Lyosha, Dmitry and me – had stood on 14 December 1825, along with 3,000 soldiers preparing to defy Nikolai I at the outset of his reign. I knew that Dmitry would remember it too – when we’d been friends he’d been obsessed by it. It was the formative moment of his life; and of my life too, in a quite different way. I’d been human then, though not for very much longer. Lyosha had chased me out on to the river – frozen then, not like today. I could picture him, standing on the quay, his arm outstretched with a pistol in his hand. He fired and hit me, then came down and pretended to comfort me as I lay dying in his arms. But I cheated him, and cheated death too. I drank the blood of a vampire who had already drunk mine. I did die, but I rose again as a voordalak. I hoped Danilov was experiencing my memories, that they reminded him how like his grandfather he was. Both had killed me. Both had seen me return from death.
But it was Dmitry that I was more concerned with just now. I had nothing to tell him, but I needed to tease from him everything he knew. ‘I went back to the church again to look around,’ I said. ‘I thought if Zmyeevich had appeared there might be some sign – but I couldn’t find anything. The bodies hadn’t been moved. What happened?’
‘You were there, weren’t you?’
It sounded like an accusation, though it was clearly not meant as such. I was becoming paranoid, which was probably wise. ‘I was hit over the head, if you recall. I can’t remember anything after that.’ I smiled. ‘And what went before is a little hazy.’
‘After they grabbed us here,’ Dmitry explained, ‘Louis must have managed to climb out of the river and follow us to the church. He saw what was happening and realized he’d need help. He found a troop of Red Guards. I don’t know what he said, but he clearly got them to follow him.’
‘You’ve not spoken to him?’
‘They got him. It was Ilya, I think; ran him through with his wooden sword, but not before Louis had managed to get me out of my chains. You were already unconscious by then. One of the soldiers had realized his bullets were useless and had started swinging his rifle like a club. Caught you on the back of the head. I managed to take out a couple of Anastasia’s converts with a sword. Then she told them to run.’
I still needed to find out who this Anastasia was, but I didn’t want to reveal my ignorance. And clearly Dmitry had something more important to tell me. His face became dour.
‘Mihail,’ he said. ‘She took Ascalon.’
‘Ascalon!’
‘Don’t you even remember that?’
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. If Anastasia had managed to break into my house in London and steal the vial of my blood marked as Zmyeevich’s then she could easily have found Ascalon too. ‘Vaguely,’ I said. ‘Tell me everything she said about it.’
‘There wasn’t very much, to be honest. As far as she was concerned it was just—’
‘—a sort of holy relic. I don’t think she has any idea—’
‘No!’
I threw my arms into the air as I shouted, doing everything I could to shock Dmitry into silence. It was effective. He took it calmly, but didn’t say any more. The look on his face was one more of amusement than surprise. I took a step towards him and spoke rapidly and precisely.
‘Dmitry, listen to me. I may not have much time. The ceremony did work, but it was not Zmyeevich who was resurrected, it was Iuda, and he didn’t return in his own body but in mine. He’s here now, in my head. Sometimes he comes to the fore, sometimes I do. Just then it was him you were speaking to; now it’s me, Mihail. When we met last night by the Moika it was him. Be very careful what you tell me, because he’ll hear it too.’
As I’d spoken his eyes had been fixed on mine, but now they fell to the ground as he considered what I’d said. When he finally spoke, it was not to dispute my words in any way.
‘But how? Why should Iuda come back and not Zmyeevich?’
‘The blood that Anastasia discovered – Iuda had taken a vial of his own blood and labelled it as Zmyeevich’s.’
Dmitry fell silent, taking in what I had told him. ‘So it would have worked?’ he said at last. ‘If it had been the right blood then I’d have been standing here talking to him – to Zmyeevich?’
‘I’m not sure which would be worse.’
Dmitry ran a hand through his hair. ‘It was him that told me – Iuda. In 1881 he said he’d hidden Zmyeevich’s blood in London. He must have known that I’d tell Zmyeevich. How can he have been planning it for so long?’
‘I don’t know. The problem now is to get him out of me.’
‘You’re sure it’s him?’
‘I know him better than anyone.’
‘Perhaps that’s just it,’ said Dmitry softly.
‘What?’
‘I’ve heard of cases … illnesses … where the mind plays tricks.’
‘You think I’m mad?’
‘No, no of course not.’
I considered the idea. On face value it was clearly wrong. Iuda’s presence inside my skull was as much a certainty as the fact that I could see or hear or taste. But what did that mean? I could think of no objective test that would distinguish whether Iuda really had been resurrected in me or whether my own mind had created an imaginary Iuda for its own devices. As I’d said, I knew Iuda better than anyone. The first part of my life had been dedicated to his destruction. Could it be that I, in some way, missed him? Had I recreated him, having destroyed him, just to fill the void that he had left? But why leave it forty years? It seemed unlikely, but then so did what I believed to have happened.
‘Either way, I need to get rid of him.’
‘And he needs to get rid of you,’ Dmitry pointed out.
I nodded. ‘So we have to be extremely careful. Don’t tell me anything that might be of help to him, unless it’s absolutely necessary.’
‘Like Ascalon.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Even if you ask me to?’
‘You can’t trust that it’s me asking.’
‘There must be a way to tell. Can’t we work out some sort of signal?’
‘Whatever we decided upon, Iuda would know.’
‘What about something you knew before. Wouldn’t that work? Something that happened between us, that he wouldn’t know about.’
‘It might.’ I smiled. ‘Though my memory isn’t what it used to be.’
‘What about a different language – one that you speak but he doesn’t?’
‘We know he speaks English, Russian and French fluently – and others. We could try German, but I bet he’s comfortable with that too.’
‘Don’t worry – we’ll work something out.’ Dmitry completely failed to sound reassuring. ‘There is one thing you might want to know.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ve discovered where Anastasia is sleeping. I went back to where I lost track of her last night, then hung around. I saw Ilya going … in.’
&
nbsp; ‘Is it close by?’
‘Do you really want to know? Do you really want him to know?’
I thought about it, but I could see no other way forward. The only alternative was inaction, and that would be unendurable. Moreover, it might give Iuda time to make his own moves.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I have to.’
‘And how do I know that’s you talking?’
‘Weil ich es sage.’
‘Not good enough, I’m afraid, Herr Cain.’ Dmitry thought for a few seconds, then broke into a smile. ‘Has he had a chance to read much since he’s been back – to learn anything of world events since he died?’
‘A couple of newspapers, but not much.’
‘Good. In that case, what did Roald Amundsen do in 1912?’
For a moment I was dumbfounded, but then I began to laugh.
‘Well?’ asked Dmitry.
‘He reached the South Pole.’ Just at the mention of it I felt a yearning to see Polkan, and by extension Nadya.
Dmitry nodded. ‘I don’t think Pravda is still covering that, and so I don’t think Iuda could know it. And you definitely want to know about Anastasia?’
‘I do.’
‘Actually, Iuda should be pretty familiar with it. She and the others are sleeping in the tunnels underneath Saint Isaac’s.’
‘She can’t be.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because—’
‘Because what?’ asked Dmitry.
‘It just seems unlikely, but if you’ve seen it you must be right.’ I had no idea what Danilov had been about to say. Clearly he had a better idea of what had happened to the passageways that ran beneath the cathedral than I did, just as he had a better idea of world events. I felt a certain thrill at the news that the South Pole had been conquered and realized how much more I needed to catch up on, both out of curiosity and for the practical reason of being able to defeat Dmitry in his little tests. Perhaps I should do some reading; mug up on what had been happening. Someone must have published The History of the World Since 1881. It was a smart idea of Dmitry’s to test me that way. Better than Danilov’s. Ich habe perfekt Deutsch gesprochen. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let him know that.