Now, staring into a similar scene inside that barn, I did care. But there was nothing I could do. To engage in a fight that pitted the four of them against just me would have ended in such a pointless death as to be immoral. I knew that I had to wait for better chances – to wait for the Oprichniki to become separated and to wait for daylight – before I could risk an attack. But the more difficult question was why I stayed to watch. I did not need to see any more to appreciate the vile nature of the Oprichniki, nor to find any aspect of their behaviour which might reveal a weakness in them. Part of what I needed was fuel for my hatred. It was a facet of myself of which I had long been aware. I am, or at least I perceive myself to be, a man of many passions, but all of those passions are difficult to kindle. I arrive at them in small steps, not in giant bounds. I would not go to the trouble of taking a lover, unless that lover was so available that her selection cost me but a few roubles. Moreover, I would not go to the trouble of falling in love unless it was with someone who was already my lover; it was only through the intensity of sex that I had discovered my depth of love for Domnikiia.
And similarly, it was only through the nauseating wrath of seeing what the Oprichniki actually did that I could stoke the fires of loathing enough to know that I would carry to the end my determination to destroy them. Iuda's words to me had struck home. I was a shallow, fickle, comfort-loving man. De-sensitized by what had happened in Silistria, and by what I had already seen of the Oprichniki, I had to remain there with my eye glued to what went on within the barn in order to corral the strength and determination that I would later require to defeat the accursed creatures. And yet, though it would give me that determination, would watching also not desensitize me further? The next time – though I prayed to God there would be no next time – I saw such horrors, would I dismiss them as commonplace, needing ever greater depths of corruption to raise my righteous passion? Whatever the risk, I stayed and watched.
Iuda issued another suggestion; this time it was to Iakov Zevedayinich. The vampire knelt before the man's stomach, gazing at it as if preparing to bite. The man already had several wounds to his belly. One on the side was long and deep and still bled profusely. Into this Iakov Zevedayinich swiftly jabbed his fingers, and the man's whole body convulsed with pain. Again a wave of laughter rippled through the Oprichniki. Foma grabbed the man's feet and Pyetr his chest so that he could not move. Iakov Zevedayinich twisted his fingers in the wound once more and this time the man's contortions, though more intense, were absorbed by the two vampires that held him fast.
Iakov Zevedayinich poked the wound again and again, learning from each jab how to make his victim's pain more intense. Each time, he exchanged glances with the other two, seeking their approval and relishing with laughter the approbation that he found. Pyetr called out to Iuda in a tone that might in normal life have said, 'Come on in, the water's fine.' Iuda strolled over to them. He had in his hand a small stick of wood. He may have picked it off the floor or ripped it from some tree or bush as he passed, but it was long and probing and had a jagged, uneven point. Iuda rammed it into the wound in the man's side and at the same time turned it like a gun worm. The man screamed in agony and Iuda spoke to him in Russian.
'I think your wife enjoyed it more than you when I did that to her.'
The man raised his head and attempted to meet Iuda's eyes. Had he the strength, he might have spat at him, but his head merely fell back as the exhaustion of his suffering overcame him.
Foma asked a question that could only be interpreted as 'What did you say to him?' Iuda's reply was, I presume, an honest answer to the question. The Oprichniki laughed again that same laugh.
Iuda took a step back and made a further suggestion. This time it was to Pyetr. I did not need to understand the details of it to comprehend that Pyetr complied readily. Whatever power struggles Dmitry might have perceived within them, it was clear that at this moment Pyetr was utterly subservient to Iuda, as were both of the other surviving Oprichniki. There was no laughter at Iuda's latest idea, but an intake of breath and an anticipatory licking of lips on the part of the two vampires who were not to be its implementers.
Pyetr opened his mouth wide and put his lips to the man's chest, totally encompassing his nipple. He left himself there for a moment mimicking a suckling baby and glancing slyly sideways at Iuda. Iuda smiled an appreciative smile and the other two exchanged their own glances, communicating solely in appreciative grunts, like a couple of dogs who knew that their master was about to feed them a titbit.
With a cocky smile, Iuda uttered a single word of encouragement to Pyetr, to which Pyetr's response was simply to bring his jaws together and then to pull back, shearing away the flesh that he had clasped between his teeth. The man's scream, momentarily so loud, exhausted him, fading into a croaking plea. Pyetr lay on his back on the floor of the barn with his hands behind his head, chewing contentedly at the flesh between his lips. It was as a red rag to the other two.
They pounced upon the farmer and began tasting the blood of old wounds and creating new ones with their sharp, probing teeth. Iuda's voice became firmer and his utterances became orders rather than ideas. He took a step forward and jerked Foma away. On seeing this, Iakov Zevedayinich meekly stepped away from the farmer as well, but it was too late – too late for them, but nothing like soon enough for their victim, or indeed for me. The farmer was dead, whether through the accumulation of unendurable pain or the happy accident of a thoughtless bite at a vital artery, it did not matter. He was released to join his so recently departed wife.
I slipped back into the surrounding woodland just in time to see the farmer's body ejected from the barn to lie alongside his wife in the snow. Crouched behind a tree in the freezing cold, I waited. If all four chose to sleep there through the following day, then it would be their last sleep. In daylight I had no qualms about confronting them and disposing of each as I had done others before them. But I would not go and face them in the dark. The fear that I had seen in Dmitry now became a solid presence in my chest. It stifled me and stiffened me, making me incapable of either advance or flight. It was as a conduit for the cold around me to enter my heart and freeze every sensation, every concept except for the most volatile instinct of all – that of self-preservation.
But at least the cold and the terror combined had one positive side effect – they kept me awake. Much as I would have liked to surrender to oblivion as I stood sentinel outside that barn, I could not. I waited and I wondered, thinking of all that had taken place since I had first met the Oprichniki, thinking of my memories, both happy and sad, of Vadim and Maks, thinking of Marfa and Dmitry Alekseevich, and thinking most of all of Domnikiia. The most ridiculous thing was the way that I attempted to combine my thoughts of those last three together – to see Dmitry playing happily with Domnikiia and to see the youthful Domnikiia chatting carelessly with the wise Marfa. I did not want them to merge. I did not want a single creature with the best aspects of both any more than I wanted a single great city of Russia, combining all that was fine in both Petersburg and Moscow. The result would be nothing – a synthetic perfection that could appeal only to the blandest of palates. I would enjoy it no more than if I were to take half a glass of red wine and another half of white and mix them together to produce the ideal beverage. My task was not only to keep them separate, but also to keep them balanced – to ensure that neither bottle became empty and also that neither came to taste so good to me that I would forget the other.