‘Pyotr stood back up on his feet, his eyes fixed on the bloody wound in front of him. He felt weak from his own loss of blood, and he knew that to consume a single drop of Zmyeevich’s would make him strong again, make him strong for ever, make him immortal. All he had to do was to bend forward and suckle.
‘But he did not. Instead, he looked Zmyeevich in the eye. “You imagine that I would want to become a thing like you?” he hissed. Then at a signal from him, Pyotr’s personal guard revealed themselves. They grabbed Zmyeevich. He was strong, but there were a dozen of them, and they wrestled him to the ground. Pyotr stepped forward and, with what little strength he had, placed his foot on the monster’s chest.
‘“I have beaten you, Zmyeevich. Russia has beaten you. We have taken everything we could from you, and given you nothing in return.”
‘“You have betrayed me,” replied Zmyeevich, with a snarl. “I helped to build your city. I gave you knowledge. Without me you would be nothing.”
‘“You took as much as you gave,” said Tsar Pyotr. “Do you think I didn’t know what you are – you and all those you brought with you? Do you think that I didn’t observe that as your kind grew fat, good Russians would vanish in the night? You came to feed, not to help. Don’t forget; I know your mind. You would not have shared Russia. You have tried to rule me and thereby rule my country. You would probably have succeeded. But instead you will die.”
‘Pyotr raised his hand to his brow. He felt faint. He knew he must end it quickly. He held out his hand to the commander of the troop – a Colonel Brodsky – who placed in it a stake made of hawthorn. He raised it, preparing to strike, but did not have the strength. He handed it back to Brodsky. “You do it,” he said.
‘It was a momentary distraction, but enough for Zmyeevich to exert his huge strength and throw off his captors. Blows from his bare hands were enough to kill two of them, snapping their necks like dry sticks. He ran towards the Neva and then turned back to Pyotr.
‘“It was your choice, Romanov,” he shouted. “To live or to die. You are dead now – dead since I took the blood from you. To live, you only had to drink my blood in exchange, but you refused. You feel unwell. Your heart beats weakly – it has little to pump, too little even to sustain itself. Soon you will die and you will die knowing this: I have your blood – Romanov blood. That cannot be undone. You have completed the first part of the transaction, but rejected the second, but it is not only you who can accept. I shall ask them all, in each generation, and one day, one of them will accept, and then, Romanov, Russia shall be mine.”
‘“Kill him!” shouted Pyotr, though he had barely the strength to make a sound. The soldiers ran across to Zmyeevich, but he was ready for them. He leapt into the Neva. The moment he jumped was the moment Pyotr lost consciousness. Zmyeevich must have been a strong swimmer. No trace of him was ever found.’
‘But Pyotr lived!’ said Aleksei. ‘For another thirteen years.’
‘He certainly did,’ said Aleksandr. ‘Pyotr was far more cunning than anyone gave him credit for. Do you know what he’d been doing in those three days he had asked Zmyeevich to wait? He had been eating: rare beef, venison, liver – kishka especially. Anything to build up the blood. He’d known he was taking a risk, that Zmyeevich might still take enough blood to kill him, but Pyotr was always a gambler. They took him straight to his bed, and he was there for almost three weeks. They fed him on the same sorts of things. He had no appetite, but he knew he must do it to live. Before long, he was as healthy as he had ever been.’
‘But why go to all that risk?’ asked Wylie.
‘For the enlightenment that Zmyeevich had promised him. He claimed that in those few moments, as the monster fed on him, he could see the whole world. He saw the future of Russia – an illustrious future. The knowledge faded quickly, but he remembered a little of it, enough to make his country a great one. Perhaps if he had completed the process it would have stayed for ever – but at what cost? Later in his life, he occasionally saw images in his mind that he knew must come from Zmyeevich – as do I. I saw you through his eyes, Aleksei Ivanovich, briefly, when he met you in 1812. Though why you were with him, I still do not know. Perhaps one day you will tell me.’
‘And did he call on the other generations of Romanovs?’ asked Wylie.
Aleksandr shook his head. ‘Not all. Or perhaps he did, but they kept it to themselves if so. He certainly visited my grandfather, Pyotr III. Convinced him too.’
‘To become a vampire?’ asked Wylie, astounded.
‘That’s what Yekaterina told me – and that’s why she overthrew him, though she had plenty of other reasons. But she wasn’t a Romanov, you see, so she was… immune. When Zmyeevich came back to take his prize, he learned that the tsar was dead. Yekaterina was waiting to confront him. He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere while she was alive, but he had time to wait. He was not confined to a single generation.’
‘But hang on,’ interrupted Tarasov. ‘You – and your grandfather – are descended from Pyotr by his daughter Anna Pyetrovna.’ The tsar nodded. ‘But she was born in 1708, before any of this happened. How could this… infection be carried to you by her?’
‘It’s not an infection,’ explained Aleksandr. ‘Zmyeevich took Pyotr’s blood, not the other way round. Pyotr’s blood was Romanov blood, as was Anna Pyetrovna’s – as is mine. It doesn’t matter if it was taken before or after she was conceived.’
‘Contagious magic,’ muttered Tarasov.
The tsar nodded. ‘That would seem to be the term for it.’
‘Yekaterina told you all this?’ asked Aleksei.
‘Some of it. Cain told me more. He was quite keen that I understood what was to happen to me. He claims to understand much more of it than Zmyeevich.’
‘I bet he does,’ said Aleksei.
‘So what happened – in the cave with Cain?’ asked Wylie.
‘He had a vial of Zmyeevich’s blood. He offered it to me. All I had to do was drink it. Then death for me would not be an ending, but a transformation. I would rise again, a new creature, wiser, stronger, more powerful than I had ever been before. I would live for ever.’
‘Just as Zmyeevich promised your great-great-grandfather,’ said Aleksei.
‘Yes, but babushka had warned me. I would get all those things, but I would become completely subservient to Zmyeevich. Russia would still be mine, but I would be his. Cain confirmed it. They were going to take me away, back to Zmyeevich’s country, but then I’d return and rule Russia. Someone would eventually understand that all wasn’t right, but by then, Zmyeevich hoped, it would be too late; he would have taken his grip on power.’
‘And when you refused, that was when he decided to kill you,’ said Aleksei. ‘I must have arrived just in time.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Aleksandr. ‘My refusal meant nothing to him. He told me I had no say in the matter.’
‘But I thought a man could only become a vampire willingly.’
‘That’s what Zmyeevich thought – and why he waited so long. Cain believed it at first, but he wasn’t going to be fool enough to take Zmyeevich’s word. He experimented. It turns out the victim does have to be willing – and that in this case, he was.’
‘You were happy to become a voordalak?’ gasped Aleksei.
‘No,’ said Aleksandr. ‘The free will does not come in drinking the vampire’s blood. It comes in allowing one’s own blood to be drunk. Pyotr did that quite happily, and his acquiescence is – apparently – good enough for all of us.’
‘Not quite all of you, I think,’ said Wylie, with half a smile.