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TWENTY

Evgenia whispered, ‘It isn’t true’

‘What did she tell you,’ asked Lydia, ‘that you would become? And what did she do to you, to one Lydia had sent the to let even a whisper be heard Gossip in the streets had directed this girl here Clearly, the woht of as the Dayti knew – knew enough people to eventually hear of it, if servants started whispering about a valish lady at Razuirl pressed her hands to her face, shook her head violently ‘It isn’t true I am not a vampir, I have killed no one--’

‘Have you drunk blood?’

She looked up, from the peasant bench where she sat, her dark eyes desperate ‘The blood of rats andthem in, show us how to slit their throats with our nails and drain the blood into a silver cup Later, she said – e had grown, nurtured in the darkness as God nurtures up seeds in the ground – she said ould be as the angels are, able to live upon nothing but air and God’s light’ Her whole body treazed at Lydia’s face as if seeking some clue there that what Lydia had told her was a lie, or a test of soht

Lydia closed her eyes, breathed for awhat she had to say and knowing, firstly, that there wasn’t one, and secondly, that if there had been, she, Lydia Asher, who for all her social adeptness was as tactless as the average house-pet, was the wrong person to entrust with the task

She opened her eyes at the cold touch of those dead hands upon her own – cold as Ysidro’s were – and saw that Evgenia had sunk to her knees in front of Lydia’s chair, clasped her hands--

And flinched back in pain, rubbing her fingers even at the proximity of the silver chains Lydia wore on her wrists

‘Mada her voice steady with an effort ‘Mada is a vampire She lied to you – probably sent you dreams or visions in your sleep--’

The horrified widening of the girl’s eyes told her she’d guessed right about that

‘--and now she has made you a vampire, too Tellher arms around Lydia’s skirts, buried her head in her lap, and Lydia fumbled the chains free fro pile on the stool beside her chair and stroked the dark, thick hair

‘It can’t be!’ Evgenia sobbed ‘It can’t be, I have killed no one! I didn’t want it – and now you tell o to Hell, and I have done nothing! Nothing! I didn’t want it--’

Did Ysidro want it, when his long-vanished master had taken him, in the dark of some London churchyard? Did Ysidro consent, as his life ebbed away, knohat lay beyond the gate through which he was being drawn?

‘I will go to Hell--’

‘You won’t’ Lydia wondered if she herself would go to Hell – always supposing there was such a place – for telling the girl this ‘You say yourself, you have killed no one – you are a maiden still in this respect’

‘It’s what she calls us,’ whispered Evgenia, her voice breaking on the words ‘Her maidens’

Lydia did not say that this was how Ysidro had referred to fledglings who had been made vampires, but had not yet made their first kill They werethe psychic powers that were fueled by their victims’ deaths, and utterly in the coed, ‘Tell me about her Tell me what happened’

Like Ysidro, Petronilla Ehrenberg lured her prey through their dreaht – didn’t have the Spanish vaht to enia’s poverty, her pity for her family and friends in the bleak slums, the deep Slavic mysticism that provided the only comfort that the poor could afford: these were answered in dreams of voices, of a radiantly beautiful woman who said, You can strike down this evil You can save and remake the world

‘She said, it isn’t s to their fellow ood – even my father admits that – so how could men be truly behind the evil of the factories and the foremen and the landlords? They are demons, she said, that wear the form of men Des they do Papa said this was ridiculous, but the drea-side; I dreae where I was born, before Papa cary, but I could walk in the fields there, and in the birch woodsBut in my dream I could see exactly where she would be found, at Dr Benedict’s clinic It’s just along the Prospect fro for her, three, four timesThe others say the saenia nodded ‘They would see her at a place in their dreao to seek her And one day she was there at the clinic She was standing on the steps as I came up the street Our eyes met, like they do in booksI kneas she, when I was still a block away It was likesomeone I had known all otten She said she had been waiting for me That she needed me That God needed ain, this tier at the woman – the saaret Potton had cos! – Hotel St Petersburg in Paris Don Siht, That’s why she targets girls and boys of fourteen, fifteenA younger child probably couldn’t survive the transition to the vampire state An older one would not be taken in by so simple and comprehensive a lie

Lydia had seldo, this terrible lie, this theft of life and hope and faith – this is what it is, to be a va child because they suit your convenience – she hated Petronilla Ehrenberg with a hatred that made her tremble

‘It is the blood of the saints, you see,’ explained Evgenia, sitting on the floor at Lydia’s feet, her arly across Lydia’s knees ‘Papa says, the saints were all just busybodies who poked their noses into other peoples’ affairs, but there’s more to it than that I know there is! There has to be! And Madae – the slayer of devils – came to her in a dream and opened the vein in his arm, as she did to me, and had her drink of his blood, as I did hersHis blood became hers, she said As hers becairl’s eyes again ‘She held me in her arms, and it was as if she held hand beautiful and filled with love I was like the clearest water, inside a crystal vase, only the vase was a living heart that loved ht my old body died, and a new one was born, with the blood of St George in its veins, that would transform me and let me see which men were actually de sorrow and pain to the world’ She raised her face to Lydia’s, and the light of the hearth lent a deceptive whisper of color to skin that Lydia kneas like white silk

‘Afterwards, she said I had to stay at the old row in the darkness, like wheat or roses grow, until ere strong enough to co to happen--’ Her voice faltered like a child’s ‘Is it?’

Lydia said, ‘No That’s how vae in the wooded hills behind Bebra The cab from the railway station – as the hub of a dozen railway lines Bebra was aile sliver of the newleaves at ten ht’ Jacoba steered Asher across the pitch-black hall – her hand cold on his wrist, her ar his other elbow – to the door that led to the cellars below This was, he knew, for guidance rather than restraint, though he could no rip than he could have broken the chains that he carried in theirAn attempt to flee, either here or on the station platform, would have been plain and siinal at best, a task she would cheerfully abandon, if he gave her the excuse to do so, to kill hiht, I should say,’ she added, and then stopped Asher heard door hinges creak, s rankness of a cellar ‘It will be dawn in less than two hours There are stairs here’ She guided hiloves, of her body through their clothing At the bottom the floor was brick, so worn and pitted as to be like a broken honeycomb of dents

‘Listen to me, my friend,’ said her voice out of the darkness ‘We will re toht and remain there also for a day But the train that leaves Eichenberg in darkness does not reach Berlin until the sky is growing light So this is what you will do Tonight I will give you the address of where you are to go in Berlin You will go straight froo and how Re; maybe the police as well When dark falls I willon this , to connect her with those on the Wilhelo sooner’

She released him, stepped away, but he did not move He knew she was very close, soht, he would have felt it on his cheek

Her voice went on, ‘Do as I say, and afterwards ill go our separate ways Cheat me, and ill find you, wheresoever you may hide’

‘I won’t cheat you’

The cold hand rested on the side of his neck, ungloved, so that he could feel the claws ‘And what else will a man say, who is alone in the darkness with Death? Just see you don’t’

She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him, her body pressed to his, and such was the power of the va in any case that it was impossible for him to physically thrust her away Then she pinched his ear, hard enough to draw blood, and chained his wrists together and drew him back to what felt like a pillar The chain clinked coldly as she locked it around the stone ‘There’s water and bread to your left, a bucket to your right,’ she said ‘I’ll return, when it is time for us to depart’

‘I shall count the hours,’ said Asher politely, though the kiss had left hi It was, he knehat vampires did, to cloud the minds of their victimsand it certainly worked, at least for a time He wondered if he dared sleep, not so ine a town as small as Bebra would support thee that the railways brought through – as froh to read in his dreaet away

He did not hear her leave

‘I wrote a letter toti theot it’

‘They never did’ Jamie had told her about his conversation with the Okhrana, and about thepeople ‘Were there others there, besides you and Kolya?’

‘About six of us Maybe more Tasha Plek – she was in the room next to mine, and we could sometimes speak – said there had been others before Dr Theiss looks after us, or M’sieu Texel It is Dr Theiss ill coe, to study it, I think If Mada is a vaives of his time and talent to ith the poor – ould Dr Theiss be helping her?’

‘If she lied to you,’ said Lydia slowly, ‘and sent you dreams to make you believe her lies, I’m sure she lies to Dr Theiss as well God only knohat she’s told hiirl seeun to take in what had happened to her, which could never be undone ‘Come,’ said Lydia ‘We need to find a place for you to sleepDo you sleep in the daytime?’

‘I don’t know, Madame In the dark of the crypts one cannot tell’

And when the sun didn’t set until ten at night, and twilight lingered for hours, what constituted ‘night’ anyway?

Lydia took her by the hand ‘Vaht,’ she said ‘Your flesh will catch fire, at even the tiniest ray of its light--’