Twelve

'Just like you locked Ioann in,' he said, still smiling.

Behind me I heard a thud which I took to be Pyetr dropping to the floor of the barn. With the two of them now on my level and with Iakov Zevedayinich armed, the fight was most definitely going away from me. Iakov Zevedayinich was the closer of the two and I knew he had to be removed from the picture before Pyetr could take the few steps needed to reach me. Despite all that I knew of the inefficacy of the traditional use of the sword against these creatures, years of training and experience had built up in me so strongly as to make it almost an instinct. I attacked Iakov Zevedayinich as though he were a mortal man.

As he swung at me again with the scythe, I took a step back. He followed my movement and became slightly off balance. I grabbed hold of the shaft of the scythe and pulled him closer towards me and towards my sword, wincing even as I did at the pain it caused to my wounded arm. In fear, he let go of the scythe, and took a step away from me. The door was at his back and he could go no further. At that moment I lunged and the tip of my sabre pierced his chest, went through his heart, out of his back and through the wooden door behind him. So great was the force of my thrust that the blade continued, stopping only when the guard came to his chest. I let go the sword and took a step away. Any human would have died in an instant, his heart rupturing as the blade penetrated it, and with its rupture would come the withdrawal of that force which supplied blood so vitally to the body. But vampires had different means of supplying their bodies with blood and had no need – in any sense – for a heart. I heard Pyetr's laughter behind me, and a broad grin spread across Iakov Zevedayinich's brutal face.

'You should stick to fighting against men,' said Pyetr, mockingly. 'You'd be good at that.'

Iakov Zevedayinich prepared to take a step forward to resume the attack, but found that he could not. Although my sword had done him no serious injury, it had pinned him to the door like a butterfly in a collector's case. He put his hands to the handle of the sword and tried to pull it out, but he had no leverage. Pyetr's laughter ceased.

I turned to face Pyetr, drawing my only remaining weapon – my wooden dagger. Pyetr backed away in what struck me as unnecessary fear, but I took full advantage of it. I began to run towards him, and he backed away faster. Behind him, the handle of the embedded pitchfork jutted out of the ground towards him like a spear. It would be a lucky chance if he fell on it at the correct angle.

In the event, Iakov Zevedayinich foresaw the danger and shouted to his comrade. Just in time, Pyetr twisted his body to one side and avoided falling on to the handle of the pitchfork. Instead he fell on to his back on the ground beside it. I wrenched the pitchfork out of the earth and thrust it back down on to Pyetr's throat. His flesh offered only a momentary resistance before yielding deliciously to my pressure and allowing the sharp points to penetrate through it and deep into the ground beneath. It did not kill him; it didn't even appear to hurt him, despite the blood that oozed from the punctures in his neck, but it kept him from moving. His body writhed and arched as he tried to get free and he could even raise his head a little, his pierced neck sliding up and down the tines of the pitchfork, but unable to escape them.

Now I had two captive Oprichniki in my collection, but I needed only one. I turned back to Iakov Zevedayinich. He was still struggling to free himself from the door. It would take a few minutes, but he would have worked himself free. I kicked at the door's bolt with the sole of my booted foot. It gave a little, but not completely. Iakov Zevedayinich stretched out towards me with flailing arms, but could not reach me. At a second blow, the metal bolt splintered away from the wood and the door swung open into the early daylight outside, taking the vampire with it like a jacket hung on a peg – like Vadim Fyodorovich hung on a wall.

Only then did Iakov Zevedayinich realize the implication. His scream was not of pain, but of fear, and it was soon cut short by the sound of an explosion as the sunlight hit his body. It was not the tight, sharp explosion of a gun or a cannon, but a slower, broader whoosh, as when gunpowder ignites in a bowl. The door opened as far as it would go and then bounced closed again. My sword still remained protruding from the back of the door at the height of a man's chest. Of Iakov Zevedayinich there was no sign, save a few scorched rags drooping from my sword and a slight singeing of the wood, roughly forming the shape of a man.

I turned back to Pyetr. He was still struggling to try to free himself. I pulled the pitchfork out of him and held it to his face. He crawled backwards away from me with a crab-like motion, heading towards the door as if it could bring him some escape. I thrust the fork back into him – this time through his shoulder, laying in with all my weight so as to pierce the tough bone and sinew – and he was immobile once more. He stared at me with a face that revealed no fear; only hatred and contempt.

'More Russian hospitality?' he sneered. 'You invite people into your country and then kill them off one by one.'

'We may have invited people,' I replied, 'but that's not what we got.'

I glanced around the barn and saw the two pools of blood, reminding me of what I had witnessed just hours before. Part of me wanted to forget it, but a stronger part had to know more.

'I watched you,' I said, my voice scarcely above a whisper, 'watched what you did to that man. I saw the body of that woman. Animals eat, but that was… What was that? Why was that?'

Pyetr smiled. 'You really want to know?'

'No,' I lied instinctively. 'But tell me anyway.'

Within the constraints of the metal shafts that pierced his shoulder, Pyetr adjusted his posture, as if settling in to tell a long story.

'We each start off just by drinking,' he began, 'and that in itself is a pleasure, when one is young at least, and inexperienced. But as we grow older, merely drinking becomes dull, so we eat. Then eating becomes what drinking was, so we play. Then playing becomes as dull as eating, so we torture. Then to satisfy, torture becomes worse torture. The older the vampire, the further he has to go.'

They were, it seemed then, like me. I needed ever more intensity of experience to raise my anger; they needed it for their pleasure.

'Your beloved Zmyeevich is pretty old,' I said. 'He must do…' I dared not even imagine what he must do.

'The master is too old. He told me once, he has gone beyond physical pain. There is more pleasure to be had from people's minds. But humans realize that far quicker than we do. It's beyond me. The physical will do for now.'

'I'm surprised you have the imagination to find new… ideas.'

'It can be troublesome.' He smiled again. 'But Iuda must have been a vampire for a very long time – not as long as the master, for Iuda's interests are still physical, but he has such ideas.' He nodded an acknowledgement of the word he had taken from me. 'For instance,' he went on, smiling more broadly, 'had the man not died, we were going to-'

I jogged the handle of the pitchfork. In a human, that slight motion would have sent agonies through his wounded shoulder. For him it meant little, but at least it shut him up. I didn't want to help him indulge in a vicarious pleasure through his retelling, much as – to my shame – I was eager to hear. I moved on to more significant matters.

'Where have Iuda and Foma gone?' I asked.

'Gone to screw your mother,' he replied charmingly. I kicked him hard in the armpit, just next to where the pitchfork transfixed him.

'Tell me,' I growled, but again he seemed to feel no pain. I had no urgent need for the information. I felt sure that I would be able to track them down and that, even if I didn't, Iuda would not be able to resist the temptation of coming after me once again. I took a step back and picked up my wooden dagger, readying myself to kill the defenceless monster. Outside, the distant sound of a cockerel belatedly heralded the dawn. I turned back to Pyetr and saw that his expression had changed from a look of resigned malevolence to one of utmost fear. It was as though the sound of the cockerel had terrified him. Perhaps it had. It was a signal of the danger that he would have known every morning since he first made the repellent choice to become a vampire.