Authors: Jasper Kent
‘You know who my parents are?’ she asked.
‘Of course I do. Would you like to hear?’
Tamara considered. What value could anything that Raisa said have? She could throw out two names at random and Tamara
would
be in no position to judge whether they truly were her parents – the knowledge of them plucked from Dmitry’s mind – or simply Raisa’s invention, intended purely to tease. But whatever she said would at least be a starting point. If it were true, it might easily be verified; if false it might still contain some shadow of the truth.
‘Tell me,’ said Tamara before she had finished considering the possibilities.
‘Come over here,’ said Raisa, beckoning. ‘I’ll whisper it to you.’
In spite of herself, Tamara took a step forward. There was something entrancing about Raisa, almost hypnotic. It seemed that it would be so very simple and very natural to go over there and bend towards Raisa’s lips. She saw the image in her mind: her own head tilted to one side, offering up her ear to Raisa and at the same time exposing the snow-white skin of her neck; Raisa’s red lips opening, ready to impart the knowledge that Tamara had for so long desired. But that would not be the outcome. Raisa’s lips would descend not towards Tamara’s ear, but towards her throat. She could see the image of white teeth rupturing her skin, of her own red blood spurting forth.
Even as Tamara hesitated, Raisa had taken two steps across the room towards her, and was moving fast now. Tamara turned and fled up the stairs. She heard Raisa’s feet behind her, catching up with her. The bright rectangle of the doorway above, filled with late afternoon sunshine, was only a few steps away. She could almost feel its warmth. A second more and she would be basking in its safety.
She fell forward. For a moment she couldn’t understand why, but then she felt Raisa’s grip around her ankle, tight as a vice, trying to pull her back down the stairs. At the same time, Raisa still managed to climb, her face closing in on Tamara, her teeth bared. Tamara twisted and managed to get on to her back. She kicked out and her heel caught Raisa squarely on the nose. Tamara saw blood, but the blow had little effect in deterring Raisa. Tamara reached out behind her, trying to find anything to grip on to before Raisa could pull her back down into the darkness and do to her what she had already done to Dmitry. Her hand found something and for a moment she felt hope; an instant
later
despair. It was the edge of the door. It yielded as she pulled, and offered her no anchor against Raisa’s remorseless strength.
Then there was a scream. From Tamara’s ankle – from Raisa’s hand – smoke began to rise. Despite her yelp of pain, Raisa was determined not to let go. Tamara felt her grip, still pulling, but her hand was disintegrating as Tamara watched. The slight movement of the door had allowed the daylight to shine a little further down the stairs, and it had caught Raisa’s fingers.
The skin had blackened and split, allowing blood and a thick, yellow pus to ooze out. The smell was repellent. Tamara even thought she saw a glimpse of bone. It lasted only moments. Soon Raisa could resist the pain no longer and snatched back her hand. She gazed at Tamara sullenly from the shade and seemed about to speak, but Tamara did not give her the opportunity. Instead she turned and scrambled up the last few remaining stairs to the door. She stood in the corridor for a moment, safe in the sunlight, though still indoors. To her left she saw the faded tapestry in which the unicorn gazed at its reflection in the mirror, covering the door to the archives.
Then the unicorn itself began to move, turning its head as if about to speak to her. Doubts of her own sanity were banished as she realized that someone was emerging from behind the hanging cloth. Before she could wonder who it might be, the bald head and bushy eyebrows of her friend Gribov appeared.
She glanced back down the dark stairway to Yudin’s office. Down there she could still see a vague movement which she knew to be Raisa; the smell of her charred skin still filled Tamara’s nostrils.
‘Don’t go down there,’ she said, turning back to Gribov, her voice croaking. ‘Just don’t.’
It was all she could do. She knew he deserved a better warning, but her fear for herself was overpowering. She turned and fled, running out into the fading daylight of the Kremlin, knowing that Raisa would not dare venture after her. But daylight would not last for long – already evening was drawing in. Tamara turned and headed away towards the Nikolai Gate; she had no idea where she would hide once night fell.
‘Are you hurt?’
Raisa looked up. Yudin had been in the cellars below his office and returned to find her sitting at his desk, cradling her hand. He could see no sign of injury, but a slight hint of something unpleasant in the air suggested that her flesh might briefly have been caught in the rays of the sun.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s Tamara Valentinovna’s fault.’
‘Really?’
‘She knows about me; knows about Dmitry.’
‘And about me?’
Raisa shook her head. ‘I doubt it, but she’s still a danger.’
Yudin considered. Everything was becoming a danger. It was no surprise how much Tamara knew. Dmitry’s letter to Yudin, sent before his death, had revealed that a similar letter had been sent to Tamara. From it she’d guessed the truth about Raisa. It wouldn’t be a great leap from that to Yudin. It was already time to move on. He’d known for weeks that Prince Dolgorukov would soon be taking over command of the Third Section, and that could only lead to the discovery of what Yudin had been up to in Moscow. Down below, in one of the empty cells, he had begun packing his most treasured possessions into crates – his journals and scientific instruments being the most essential. He would have to find a place for them to be stored, to be sent for when he had re-established himself elsewhere. Where, he knew not. But Raisa was right about Tamara.
‘Deal with her,’ he said.
‘That’s what I was trying to do.’
‘Then try harder!’
He went over to his desk, expecting her to vacate his seat, but she stayed where she was. He looked at her, but still she did not move.
‘No,’ she said.
‘No?’
‘No, I won’t try harder. No, I won’t deal with her. Not until you keep your promise to me.’
‘My promise?’
‘You know.’
‘Ah!’ His promise that he would find a way for her to look
upon
her own reflection. He couldn’t string her along for ever. He’d had the mirror for months, but had not dared show it to her, much as he was tempted to. He was eager – desperate almost – to discover how a
voordalak
would react to truly seeing its own image, but fearful as well; certainly too fearful to perform such an experiment on himself. But he was also afraid of losing Raisa – at least, he had been. Now, if he were to move away from Moscow, then it would be safer not to take her with him. Perhaps this was the best time.
‘Move,’ he said, flicking his hand at her. She stood up from his desk and walked round to the other side of it. He took her place and opened the top right-hand drawer. Out of it he took his latest journal. He wrote down the date, 26 September 1856, and then a brief heading in anticipation of the events he would so carefully note.
Effects of Iceland Spar mirror on
voordalak
subject – Raisa Styepanovna
.
Then he reached into the lower drawer, and took it out. It was still covered in the old, embroidered shawl – an essential protection, not for the mirror but for Yudin. He did not want to catch sight of his own reflection in there. Raisa’s eyes followed the shape beneath the cloth as he placed it on his desk.
‘A few words of explanation first, I think,’ he said.
‘Very well.’ Still she did not take her eyes from it.
‘I’ve long known that a normal mirror does reflect the image of a vampire, but I believed that it does so in a way that somehow alters the image.’
‘You’ve told me this before.’
‘I have, and that was what I believed. But now I think I was wrong.’
‘You?’
Yudin shrugged, happy to acknowledge his error. ‘I’m now of the opinion that it is only by reflection that the true image of the
voordalak
is revealed. What you and I see in each other is the illusion, the shroud of humanity that allows us to pass among them undetected – and among ourselves.’
‘But we don’t see our true selves in a mirror – we see nothing.’
‘Oh, we see it. We see it, but our minds cannot cope with it.
They
remove it – censor it like a diligent and benign government. We see nothing because it is safer to see nothing.’
‘But you have found a way to … avoid the censor?’
Yudin nodded. ‘It’s essentially an ordinary mirror, but instead of glass we have a sheet of a mineral that is well known for allowing the viewer to see two images of whatever they look at through it. In the case of a vampire, the mind is caught unawares. The first image is removed, but the second gets through.’
‘You tested it?’
‘On a human; a human looking at my reflection in the glass.’
‘What did they see?’
Yudin paused, careful to phrase his answer. ‘They wouldn’t say,’ he replied eventually. The memory of a woman’s laughter, echoing in the chambers beneath them, filled his mind. She had been laughing at him; laughing at what she saw of him in the mirror.
‘But you’ve never looked at yourself.’
‘I felt that would be unscientific. But if you don’t want to be the first, I’m sure I can find another way.’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘Let me see.’
Yudin put his hand under the shawl and felt the mirror beneath, checking that the glass was facing down on to the desktop, keeping all risks to a minimum. It was. He held it still while he pulled the cloth away, and then slid it over towards Raisa. She put her hand on it, but did not lift it immediately.
‘You may not like what you see,’ he said. The words seemed decisive for her. She grasped the handle and held the mirror before her face.
For a moment her expression was calm. She stared at her image, obscured from Yudin’s sight, with an air of fascination. A smile almost crept to her lips. She glanced over at him with a look of amused excitement, but only for a moment, before returning to look into the glass.
‘
Also
,’ he said, ‘
bist du die Schönste im ganzen Land?
’
She said nothing. She raised her hand to her face and touched her cheek with her fingertips. Then she moved her hand away and looked at it directly, then put it back to her face so that she could see its reflection. Now her expression was of ever-growing
puzzlement
. She looked at her fingers, flexed them, turned her hand around to see its palm. Her eyes flicked between the reality of her hand and its image in the glass, as if trying to find any difference between the two – or perhaps any similarity.
‘Tell me what you see,’ he said.
A tiny sound escaped her throat, the closest thing she could manage to speech. She returned her hand to her face and now, rather than simply touching it, began to probe and explore it. Yudin could see tears form in her eyes, and wondered if she could see them herself. One or two began to trickle down her face. Now her probing had become a clawing. Her nails scratched down her cheek, drawing blood, whose droplets mingled with the saltwater of her tears. She watched and waited and the marks on her cheek soon healed, but as soon as they had she began again, her nails digging deeper than before so that Yudin could see the skin hanging from her.
Now at last she found the power of speech. Her voice was mournful, deeper than Yudin had ever heard it. ‘What have you done to me?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Yudin, still hopeful of learning something from her. ‘Tell me.’
She shook her head. Her nails continued to scratch at her face, creating new wounds faster than the old ones could heal. Her own blood caked her fingernails. Now she had them hooked into her lower eyelid. She began to pull mercilessly at it and the skin stretched and finally began to rupture. Her eye remained as beautiful as ever, its blue iris shining even in the dim lamplight, but below it her cheek came away, gripped tightly in her hand. It was a deliberate attempt to destroy her own face, to remove it in reality so that whatever she saw of its reflection might vanish too. But as she watched herself, her hand fell down to her side. The effort was clearly futile.
‘Tell me,’ Yudin repeated.
She let her other hand, still holding the mirror, fall and placed the two together like a ballerina with her arms
bras-bas
. The mirror was at about the level of her crotch, its back facing out towards Yudin. Her eyes were still tearful. The flap of torn flesh
that
hung down from below her right eye was only just beginning to heal.
‘Why should I tell you?’ she asked, her voice numb and empty. ‘Why should I tell you, when it’s so much easier to show you?’
As she spoke she lifted both her hands, raising up the mirror to face Yudin. He caught the reflection of his office wall sliding quickly past as the glass moved into place, and then, as he held up his hands to block the image and turned away, he caught the briefest glimpse of something awful sitting at his desk.