‘Cain and Iuda? An Old Testament murderer and a New Testament traitor? I suppose there’s a connection, but I can’t take all the credit. The name Iuda was chosen for me.’ He looked away, pondering the question.
‘I think I preferred Iuda,’ said Aleksei, ‘the man, not the name. I presume you are still a man?’
‘And not a vampire? As we discussed some years ago, I’m not sure I really see the benefits of such an existence. Though if I did, I would have no qualms about changing my… lifestyle. But I’m scarcely older than you, Lyosha; not yet fifty. One day, perhaps, it will be a better state in which to exist, though I have my doubts. When faced with death, I may see things differently, but I have plenty of time before I need to consider how I’m going to deal with my own mortality.’
‘Prove it.’ Aleksei had long ago learned that Iuda lied with much the same frequency as he spoke. If he were in fact a voordalak, and Aleksei judged him to be human, the consequences might prove fatal.
‘That I’m not a vampire? How?’
Aleksei looked back at Iuda, then held out the two swords in his hands – one wooden, one steel. ‘These should discriminate,’ he said.
Iuda swallowed with mocking exaggeration. ‘I don’t think we need to go that far,’ he said. He turned slightly and picked up the knife with which he had been menacing the tsar. Its two blades were sharp. He held his left hand upright, its palm facing towards Aleksei, and moved the knife towards it. For a moment Aleksei thought he was going to witness a repeat of Kyesha’s demonstration in Saint Vasiliy’s – but in that instance the intent had been to demonstrate that Kyesha was a vampire.
Iuda’s performance was somewhat more restrained; a tiny scratch, just along the outside of his palm. The blood ran down his wrist and disappeared beneath his cuff.
‘“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”’ said Iuda. ‘We certainly don’t heal, as they do.’
Aleksei shook his head. ‘Not good enough, I’m afraid. I know a voordalak can hold off regrowth if need be. I’ve read your book, remember?’
Iuda raised both his eyebrows, then smiled benevolently. Damn it! thought Aleksei. Iuda hadn’t known he had the book.
‘So that’s where it got to,’ said Iuda. ‘But you’re right; it’s a poor proof.’ He put his hand to his lips to clean the blood. It was an ordinary enough action, but it seemed deliberately intended to cast further doubt into Aleksei’s mind. Iuda walked over to a high bookcase he had somehow assembled there, deep underground. A ladder lay against it, allowing access to the upper shelves. Iuda climbed the ladder but ignored the books, instead reaching out for a cord that stretched out up to the cavern’s ceiling. He tugged at it and above the shelves a curtain was pulled back, allowing Aleksei to see the sky.
‘You see,’ said Iuda as he descended, ‘we’re actually very close to the cliff here. As you can imagine, I need light for my experiments.’ He climbed down and walked across the room to where the beam of sunlight that had been let in hit the floor. He stood in its rays and held his arms open, smiling up at the sky as if basking in the sun’s warmth. The patch of light was wide enough that even his outstretched fingertips did not escape it on either side. If Iuda had been a vampire, he could not have stood there for even a fraction of a second and lived.
‘Very well,’ said Aleksei. ‘Now tell me, what is all this – all this experimentation? And what’s it got to do with the tsar?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Iuda, almost bemused by the suggestion that it should. ‘In my dealings with Aleksandr Pavlovich I am acting merely as an intermediary; as a representative of an old friend. In terms of my discoveries – I have you to thank for that.’
‘Me?’
‘You inspired me.’ He walked out of the sunlight and over to a huge tapestry that covered one of the cavern walls, becoming the foreground to a scene of unicorns and demure maidens. ‘You remember when we met in that house in Moscow, when you pulled down the boards over the window and trapped us in the corner of the room?’
‘I remember,’ said Aleksei. ‘Are you saying that’s what gave you the idea for “Prometheus” back there?’
‘Yes,’ replied Iuda, his enthusiasm breaking into his voice, ‘but more than that. You inspired me to learn. Don’t you remember? You asked so many questions – questions I found myself unable to answer. About how they die – how they breed. I’m not a man who likes to be floored.’
‘And so you decided to find out?’
‘They are wonderful creatures in many ways – dangerous. Can you imagine how powerful that danger would be if it could be directed?’
‘That was Dmitry Fetyukovich’s idea when he first brought you to Russia. It didn’t work.’
‘Really?’ replied Iuda. He seemed more nervous than in the past. Perhaps that was a trick of Aleksei’s memory, though he doubted it. Every detail of Iuda’s persona had stayed with him over the years, engraved on his heart. ‘I would suppose that it didn’t work for Dmitry because I knew better than he how to direct the behaviour of the brutes,’ continued Iuda. ‘But not all vampires are brutes, and so one must learn their subtleties.’
Of course, the anxiety that Aleksei perceived in Iuda might still be an artefact of the passing years, not a result of Aleksei’s fading memory, but of the ageing process in Iuda himself. What had he gone through since they had last met? Aleksei’s instinct was to imagine for him a life of success after perverted success, but the reality could have been very different.
‘Now I know their strengths and weaknesses.’ Iuda was still speaking, but Aleksei was scarcely listening to his words. Even so, he noticed that the tone was becoming more confident. Was he bluffing now, to cover his unease? Or had the bluff been in the earlier mood?
‘The knowledge of their weaknesses protects me from them – makes me almost free to walk amongst them, taking a few sensible precautions. But to know only how they are weak would be of little benefit if I did not also know how they are strong.’
Iuda’s voice began to rise with a controlled anger that Aleksei found chillingly familiar.
‘That knowledge gives me a far greater power,’ he continued. ‘It is an understanding of their strengths that makes them, in my hands, an invincible weapon… a weapon against anyone who would dare to threaten me!’
As he spoke he reached up and grabbed the edge of the tapestry, pulling it aside. It easily came loose from its fixings and fell to the floor. Behind it was revealed another set of cages, with voordalaki within. Aleksei could not see how he operated the mechanism, but in an instant Iuda had unlocked the barred iron gates. There were four of the monsters, and they at first appeared confused, but Iuda shouted directions at them and they turned to face Aleksei. Meanwhile, Iuda crossed to the other side of the room and pulled aside another curtain. Behind that were three more of the creatures, which he released in a similar manner.
‘If only I’d known you were coming, Lyosha,’ said Iuda, ‘I would have had more time. I would have taken such pleasure in chatting with you.’ He looked at Aleksei and to all the world seemed sincere in what he was saying. ‘But the fact that you let Aleksandr Pavlovich go really does cause problems for me, and I don’t have time to deal with you in a more interesting manner. I’m truly sorry.’
Aleksei backed away as the seven voordalaki approached him. Converging from either side, they had already cut him off from both the door he had come in by and that by which the tsar had left. The only possibility of safety lay in the patch of light in which Iuda had stood earlier, and that would only protect him until nightfall. Moreover, it would not protect him from Iuda. He had already noticed the pistols in the cabinet against the wall. Iuda would not even have to come within reach of his sword to get rid of him – or wound him and leave him to his fate.