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TWENTY-ONE

‘Don’t let theenia’s hands clutched Lydia’s arainst her in the dark doorway ‘They’ll make me one of them And then I will be lost indeed’

‘I won’t let them take you’ Even as she spoke, sleepiness rolled over her e, bolted the door, and ran to the bedrooarlands she’d woven, garlic and wild roses, as if she were a peasant girl in the sixteenth century instead of a scholar and a physician and a an to say, but stopped herself, as Evgenia backed away, face twisted with repulsion and fear

‘It hurts’

‘Good It’ll hurt thearlands around the door handle, hung another over the door There weren’t enough of thearlands that she had hung above her bedrooe, so that there would be enough for a little to hang over everyin the place She was so sleepy she blundered into the walls as shethe relentless pressure of the vampire minds

How can I be this terrified and still fall asleep? ‘Who is it out there? Is it Madairl pressed her hands to her temples, her eyes ‘Voices – it isn’t her When she held ed – it was as if she was a part of gered into the kitchen, pulled open the drawers of the sideboard Thank goodness His Excellency would be ashauest She fu, dropped the silver forks and spoons as she bound them onto the ends of the broom handle and the poker from the stove ‘Take this’

‘It burns!’ cried the girl ‘It burns my eyes, like smoke--’

‘It will burn them where it touches their flesh,’ said Lydia ‘Can you endure it?’

‘I think so’ Evgenia looked disoriented, her eyes starting to wander, as if she were having trouble understanding

‘Listen to me,’ said Lydia ‘Focus your mind Try to push past the voices, try to close the door on theely, shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it ‘This ’ She threw a glance at the very un-peasant-like clock in the ‘red corner’ It was just past two She took a deep breath Whoever these were – Golenischev or his rival or those angry young rebel fledglings Jamie had told her about – they would have to leave soon, if they were themselves to reach shelter before the first stain of dawn in the sky If they were only here to observe, to keep an eye on--

Glass shattered with a splintering tinkle in the bedroom Lydia dashed in to see shadowy forms draay froarlic At the same moment she heard s break in the parlor behind herfour rooenia screaht – probed through the bedroo for the garlic wreath Lydia strode up to the , stabbed into the darkness with her own silver-ended makeshift weapon, and as the boat pole drew back she snatched down the swags of herbs froh the door into the parlor

‘Gospozha!’ Evgenia was jabbing and thrusting through the ith her oeapon, trying to parry another boat pole She was too far away to use the weapon effectively – Lydia wound one of the half wreaths around the bedroom doorknob, snatched up her heavy skirts, and crossed the parlor in two bounds In the dark beyond theshe glimpsed a white face, like a corpse’s, but ht, as the reflective eyes caught the light

‘Bitch!’ yelled a voice fro in Russian; Evgenia fell back behind Lydia, clinging to her – anothershattered, at the far end of the parlor, from a billet of firewood thrown like a spear Lydia ran to the place, jabbed into the darkness, struggling with the near-conviction that this was all a dream and it didn’t matter if she defended the house or not

‘You have to get close!’ she shouted back at Evgenia

Gri boat-hook when it ca with her silver weapon, then reaching up to grab the boat hook, to try to pull it away from the attackers The force hich it was jerked back er than you!’ Lydia fell back, grabbed the second fragment of wreath and wrapped it around the door handle of the study ‘We only have to hold them off for a little while--’

A ain, close this tienia shouted so back, then whispered over her shoulder, ‘He says that you will betray me That, because I’m already vampire, you’ll wait till I fall asleepHe says Iht’

‘I won’t’

Tears were running down the girl’s face, cruh I’ can save me’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Lydia desperately ‘A priest will know--’

Another jeering shout from outside Lydia almost didn’t need the translation

‘He says, priests lie All of the crashed against the door fro around A woman’s voice cursed, cold and silvery – in Russian Then a thirdbroke, and Lydia rushed to parry the long hooked pole that cah--

She didn’t kno it happened – true accident or cluineered, like the sleepiness, froht on one of the low peasant stools and she fell Her head hit the corner of the table with a sickening crack on the way to the floor At the salass break soht, the s upstairs, but she see end of a telescope Get up! Get up!

She h her head brought on a spas in her corset Gray swaenia screaed her up; she saw eerily glowing vampire eyes as claws ripped at the collar of her blouse

‘Vyedyma!’ The vampire – thin and cold-faced with a cruel slit of ahis hand where the welts were already ballooning on his fingers froenia backed into a corner by two others, woman and man; the cold-faced man drew back his foot to kick her ‘Gryazn--’

Wait, no, don’t I at least get to see Ja – a shadow – flickered in the deeper shadows of the parlor, and as Lydia’s vision fractured away to nothing she sahat seemed to be a pair of disembodied white hands appear out of the darkness behind her attacker One – connected by a wrist like whalebone to a grimed and smutted shirtsleeve – wrapped neatly around the vampire’s jahile the other molded itself over tenized the ring on one finger, as with a neat twist Ysidro snapped the other vampire’s neck

That scene repeated itself for her a half-dozen times, it seemed, in various forms of dreale tiny flame Damp chill lay clammy on her skin, where her torn blouse exposed her throat She smelled coals and wet earth Her feet were raised and lay on what felt like soenia’s, she realized, when she heard the girl speak We must be in the cupboard in the cellar, in the safety of the darkness

‘Then there is no hope for ht and soft and disinterested – replied from just behind her head ‘It depends upon how you define hope, child Can you becoain? No No more than you can by effort of will return to the flesh you wore as a child of two This is not possible’

‘Am I damned? You who are one of them – you who are varet to say that I do not, Evgenia I have been vampire for three hundred and fifty-four years now, and never have God or any of His angels appeared to me to inform me of whether I am damned or saved, or if I am able to alter my state, or even if they care, about me or anyone else There is no way for any of us but forward, and none – living or Undead – can see through any gate before its portals are passed’

Very light, very chilly hands passed across Lydia’s forehead She was lying, she slowly ca – a folded coat? – and her head resting against, but not directly on, Ysidro’s narrow thigh She groped for his fingers, even as Evgenia whispered, ‘And the one you killed?’ Her voice was thick with sleepiness, already drifting away ‘Is he now in Hell?’

‘Mistress?’ Ysidro’s grip tightened gently around Lydia’s fingertips

Silver, she thought I still have silver on my wristsOr did I take it off?

‘No, child,’ Ysidro went on, ‘h to snap our friend’s neck, but not tear his head off – at least, not quickly But it rendered hi him away to safety – they had barehim to burn up where he--’

Ysidro’s voice broke off Moving her head – Lydia felt as if her own neck had been broken, and she fought to keep froenia had slumped over in the corner of the crowded little cupboard where they huddled The girl’s eyes were shut, her palefifteen-year-old’s, except for the fangs

‘Is vampire sleep that much like real sleep?’ she murmured

‘No, Mistress’ Ysidro moved the candle ‘How many flames do you see?’

Lydia flinched, turned her head away, the light painful ‘Too ers?’

‘How do I know?’ she said, her ed to someone else ‘I don’t have my spectacles My head hurts’

‘I have no doubt of that, Mistress, and had I a spare one for you in my pocket you should surely have it Did you take any other hurt?’

‘I don’t know’ Lydia groped for fraght Moving her hand was an agony – any movement, in fact – but she felt at where her shirtwaist had been torn, touched the skin of her throat The chain was still there ‘I wasn’t bitten, was I?’