Authors: Jasper Kent
‘Go and get help, Raisa,’ she said. ‘Get Isaak. Dmitry’s down there too.’ Raisa did not move. ‘Quickly,’ urged Tamara.
‘I think Raisa Styepanovna understands the futility of such an action,’ said the lieutenant.
‘Your friend didn’t find it so futile,’ said Tamara, edging towards the main door, the knife always towards the lieutenant.
‘I’ll admit you took him by surprise, but he won’t be so foolish next time.’
‘I don’t think there’s going to be a next time for him.’
‘Really?’ As he spoke, the lieutenant turned his eyes towards his friend, inviting Tamara to do the same. She glanced left, guessing that it was a trick to distract her, but once she began to understand what she was seeing it became impossible for her to turn her gaze anywhere else.
The
michman
’s hand was still bloody, but it had dropped to his side, allowing a clear view of his mutilated face. And therein lay the fascination. Already, the injury was far less severe than what Tamara was certain she had inflicted. Where half the man’s face should have been hanging away from his jaw, now his lips were once again complete. Yet still the hole in his cheek bore testament to what had happened. Through it Tamara could see his tongue running along his teeth. Occasionally he poked it out through the bloody gap; yet even that quickly became difficult and then impossible as, in a matter of seconds, the tear receded and shrank
until
it was no more than the dark circle where her knife had first penetrated. At last, it was gone.
Tamara opened her mouth to scream. It was a gut reaction, but also a plea for help from whoever in the house might hear her. Even as her throat tensed, she remembered what the lieutenant had said about how little help anyone could be, and began to understand what he meant.
Before she could make a sound, a hand clamped itself over her mouth and another knocked her dagger to the ground. It seemed that the lieutenant did not have complete faith in his own invincibility. He whispered in Tamara’s ear, ‘No surprises this time.’ Then he held her tight to him, one arm across her chest and the other hand under her chin, pulling it upwards so that her neck was stretched tight, but not so that she couldn’t see the
michman
as he began to advance once again, his lips parted in that same libidinous grin.
‘Have your fill.’ Tamara knew the lieutenant was not speaking to her.
Then the door exploded in upon them.
Dmitry had hoped he was mistaken, but now there was no doubt. Ever since he had spoken to Nadia Vitalyevna, just minutes after he had seen Tamara do the same, and heard of the two naval officers who had gone up to Raisa’s room, he had feared the worst. There were enough sailors in Moscow now that the war was over for an innocent explanation to be entirely possible, but somehow Dmitry knew. And then Nadia had mentioned how tall one of them was – as tall as Dmitry himself.
His shoulder ached from where he had charged the door. He had thought it might take more than one go, but some passion had driven him to exert all his strength. He’d managed to keep a firm grip on his cane. He would need it – though not to help him stand.
‘Let her go, Tolya,’ he said.
Tyeplov, like the others in the room, was frozen in the pose of the moment of Dmitry’s raucous entry, his hands sullying Tamara’s body and offering her up to Ignatyev. Dmitry was reminded of when he had come upon the two of them – along with their victim –
in
the abandoned house in Sevastopol. Then he had completely failed to understand what his eyes were telling him. Now, at least, it was all plain to see. They had come after him, followed him to Moscow and, realizing that they would get no more from him here than they had there, had turned on Raisa, hoping the threat to her would change his mind. Tamara was just an innocent who had got in the way – they could little guess what she meant to him. At least Raisa was safe on the bed, for the moment. He gave her the briefest glance, but knew he must not drop his guard for a second.
Tyeplov released his grip on Tamara and took a step away from her. Ignatyev remained where he was, ready to pounce. Tamara stood between them, still easy prey for either. Dmitry silently cursed his father for bringing the
voordalak
into the life first of his son and now of his daughter. But it was not Aleksei’s fault – not this part of it at least. For the danger now brought to Tamara and Raisa there was only one man to blame – one human – and that was Dmitry himself.
‘Come over here, Tamara,’ he said.
She obeyed, walking backwards and never taking her eyes off the two monsters. Moments later she was beside him. He swapped his cane to his left hand and reached out with his right towards Raisa, feeling a thrill as her flesh touched his. He guided her to her feet.
‘This has nothing to do with them, Tolya,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s about you and me. Let them go, and we can talk.’
Tyeplov said nothing.
In truth, Dmitry had little intention of talking. If he could achieve it, both vampires would die here tonight by his hand. He’d given them the chance to leave him alone, and they’d ignored it. He knew that he could never be free until they were no more.
‘Get out of here,’ said Dmitry, nodding at the two women and towards the door.
‘I’ll get Isaak,’ said Tamara.
‘No!’ snapped Dmitry. ‘Keep him away. I’ll be with you in a few minutes, believe me.’ Raisa and Tamara glanced at one another, but said nothing. They began to move towards the door.
‘She stays,’ growled Ignatyev. Tyeplov shot him an angry look,
but
it was too late. Ignatyev strode across the room in a few paces, repeating the phrase more loudly. He reached out his hand to make a grab for one of them – whether Tamara or Raisa, Dmitry could not guess. His reaction was instinctive. In a single motion he drew his sabre and brought it down on Ignatyev’s wrist. Ignatyev stepped back and raised his arm. His hand hung limply, attached by only a few tendons and a little skin. At the same moment, Tyeplov came to life, pacing towards them. Dmitry knew he must act quickly.
He threw his sabre aside and transferred the cane back to his right hand, still holding on to its tip with his left and giving it a slight twist. The cap came away easily to reveal the sharp, wooden point that he had whittled during his slow journey back from the Crimea, knowing – while praying against it – that this day would come.
Ignatyev was taken quite off guard. Dmitry’s attack was nothing like the one against Wieczorek in the casemate, when he had stabbed blindly and repeatedly with little understanding of what he was doing. His lunge was swift and precise, straight from the textbook of Sainct-Didier. The thin wooden blade penetrated at a slightly upward angle between the fifth and sixth ribs, just as Dmitry had planned and envisaged so many times, spreading them apart and allowing access to the heart behind.
Ignatyev’s face froze as all integrity was lost from the flesh of his body – he did not even have time to adopt a look of surprise. Dmitry did not wait to watch the slow collapse of his remains, but pulled the stick straight back out of him and turned towards Tyeplov.
‘I told you that if I saw you again, I would kill you,’ said Dmitry. When he had said it, he hadn’t known for sure whether he meant it. Now there was no doubt. If Tyeplov had left well alone, then some of the friendship – some of the love – that Dmitry had held for him might have lingered. But to come here in pursuit of him, and then to try to use Raisa as a bargaining chip, was too much.
‘This isn’t about you, Mitka,’ Tyeplov replied.
Dmitry gave a curt laugh. He knew he would be a fool to allow anything to distract him from what he must do, but still there
was
something deep inside that forced him to engage with this creature.
‘It never was,’ he said. ‘You’re using Raisa to get to me now, but you only wanted me so you could take revenge on a monster as foul as yourself.’
‘Are we so wrong to seek vengeance?’
Dmitry laughed again. ‘“We”?’ he sneered, glancing from side to side to emphasize the point. ‘There’s no “we” any more, Tolya. Wieczorek’s long dead. And now so’s Ignatyev.’ Even as he spoke, Dmitry realized that there was one name unaccounted for. He paused, hoping that Tyeplov might volunteer the information, but the vampire remained silent, accepting what Dmitry had said. Dmitry was forced to ask the question directly. ‘What happened to Mihailov?’
At the words Dmitry noticed the tiniest change in Tyeplov’s demeanour – imperceptible to anyone who knew him less well. ‘Mihailov?’ the
voordalak
asked.
‘That’s right. Is he dead, or has he simply abandoned you?’
‘Neither.’ The curl of a smile appeared on Tyeplov’s lips.
‘So where is he?’
‘He’s …’ – the smile broadened and Tyeplov’s eyes moved from Dmitry’s face to over his shoulder – ‘behind you.’
As Tyeplov spoke, Dmitry heard the sound of heavy footsteps snapping the shards of the broken door. He spun round, his sharpened cane outstretched, ready to kill again, but found himself facing only Isaak, finally arrived to do his job of protecting the ladies who worked in the house.
At the same time the clatter of breaking glass and splintering wood assaulted Dmitry’s ears. He turned again, but Tyeplov had needed only a moment to flee, throwing himself out through the window and landing in the street below. It took Dmitry only two paces to reach the shattered frame and, just as he had done that awful night in Sevastopol, watch Tyeplov flee into the darkness.
‘
Voordalaki!
’
Tamara laughed briefly, but it was an instinctive reaction – a defence against superstition. She saw a similar response in Raisa. The
voordalak
came from stories she’d heard as a child, heard
from
Yelena Vadimovna and Valentin Valentinovich, but neither had given her the slightest reason to think of them as real. They went with Grimm and Perrault and all those other tales that children loved to believe, but knew to be untrue.
But she couldn’t deny what she had seen. She had cut through what she had thought to be human flesh and seen it heal before her eyes. She’d seen the same thing when Dmitry had slashed at the creature’s hand. Most convincing of all, she had seen the monster die, and watched its body crumble to nothing.
She could not deny that what she had witnessed defied everything that rational understanding of the world insisted to be true. But it was still a step too far to go from that to
voordalaki
.
‘Why do you say that?’ she asked. Both Dmitry and Raisa looked at her askance. They were sitting in her office, each, like her, clutching a glass of vodka that had already been refilled more than once. ‘I mean why
that
word? They weren’t human, I’ll grant you that, but we can’t jump to conclusions. I mean, I didn’t see them drinking anybody’s blood.’ Even as she spoke she wondered if the
michman
might have been lusting after her body in a way that was quite different from what she had imagined. She shuddered.
‘I’ve got good reason to say it. This wasn’t some chance encounter. Why do you think they were after Raisa?’
Tamara hadn’t had a moment to consider it.
‘They wanted her so they could get to me,’ continued Dmitry. He rose and took a step towards Raisa, taking her hands in his. ‘And I’m so sorry, my darling, that I ever brought you into such danger.’ She said nothing – she was even more stunned than Tamara. Dmitry kissed her on the lips and she responded. He had the romantic streak of a man half his age.
‘Why you?’ asked Tamara.
‘Because of Father – my father.’ He paused. ‘You asked me, Toma, to tell you about Aleksei Ivanovich. I’ll tell you now. It began in 1812, when Bonaparte was marching on Moscow, and nothing seemed like it could stop him.’
Dmitry then told a fantastical story, of how his father had recruited a group of vampires to help save Moscow from the French, and how, once the French had left, they’d turned on the
Russians
, and begun to feast on them. He told of how, one by one, the monsters had murdered Aleksei’s comrades. They were names Tamara knew well – Maksim Sergeivich, Dmitry Fetyukovich – names that her mother had often spoken while recalling the exploits of her grandfather.
One thing Dmitry recounted would stay with Tamara for ever.
‘Your grandfather, Vadim Fyodorovich, was killed by a
voordalak
. They hung his body from a nail on the wall and left him to rot.’
Tamara felt her stomach tighten, but Dmitry was right not to spare them any detail.
‘But Aleksei dealt with them all, in the end?’ asked Raisa when Dmitry had finished.
‘All of the twelve, but there were other vampires – there still are.’
‘And the woman who was murdered here in 1812 – Margarita Kirillovna – she was killed by a vampire too?’ asked Tamara.
‘Papa never mentioned it, but it would make sense – especially if it was he who found the body.’
‘The way she died would make sense too,’ said Tamara. Then she remembered that additional wound; not to Margarita’s neck, but to her chest. ‘I think your father may have attempted to save her soul.’
Dmitry looked at her, but didn’t ask her to explain.
‘And you were how old then?’ asked Raisa. ‘Five?’
Dmitry nodded. ‘Neither of you was even born.’
‘And then it happened again in 1825,’ said Tamara. ‘Five deaths then.’