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TWENTY-THREE

Lydia dreaued drunkenly, children cried She s All the stinks of the clinic People weary, with the blind weariness of frustration and exhaustion, shouting at one anotherin Russian, which she thought was most curious, since she didn’t know any Russian except, I will not be back for dinner

She drearand like the well-starched hby fa painfully about the filthy streets of the slum with a basket of scarves to sell She had a tall staff, like a mast with five crosspieces, also decorated with scarves: red, purple, blue, pink, like a gaudy tree with all its leaves fluttering in the wind This she used to support her steps, and Lydia felt the pain in her legs and her back as if it were her own

For some reason Lydia knew her name was Ekaterina, and that she’d been beautiful when she was young

Ekaterina had a regular route, like the peddlers in Oxford and London – up the Sa the Putilov railroad spur (how do I know all this?), back by way of the canal Other vendors, pushing carts of old shoes or carrying trays of hot pies, greeted her: Zdravstvooytye, babushka She’d had four sons, two of ere in the Tsar’s army and the other tere dead, killed in accidents at the Navy Yard, but their s – and her randchildren – called to her outside the tenehters had saved a little bread for her

Only on this day – and it was daylight now, Lydia saw, the gorgeous golds of the long arctic dawn and not the deepening twilight of evening – Ekaterina followed the tracks past the steelworks, roups of ates for another day’s toil Before her, the walls of an oldthe wooden tenements Somehow the old woman knew that shethe path of the old Putilov canal, and on the side that faced the waste ground – the side overlooked by the broken s of the old chapel – so pale that, as it old

Ekaterina crossed herself and kissed her knuckle for luck Witches and dehter’s friend Tonya had seen one, flitting about the ruins of the stables on that side

Yet an angel stood beside that fluttering scrap of paper; an angel with a thin scarred face like a skull, fra colorless spiderweb hair

God wishes you to send a telegrael to Ekaterina

The old woel; I cannot write I am an old poor woman’

This is why God asks this of you and no other, replied the angel Take – obey And he pointed with a long thin forefinger to the paper lying on the ground His nail was as long as a claw and glealass You see that he will pay you, for he has heard your prayers and given you this way to earn your due reward

Then the angel s cold – a s for hiht, believing that they would come to no har herself on her staff of bright scarves, and the angel seeht She saw that the paper did indeed contain several lines of writing in soht Lydia, why arams in Gerh a fire-blackened gold ring, which bore in its bezel a heat-cracked pearl

‘Where is he?’

Lydia plunged froht into a vat of pain Hands crushed her shoulders, jerked her upright – she had never felt pain like the pain that ripped through her skull, and she cried out as she was shaken like a doll in the grip of a deht tu all the frowning saints on the walls see up their hands in alarht was not black, but royal blue

Petronilla struck her, brute viciousness in the blows; shook her again as her consciousness reeled ‘Little slut! Carrot-headed whore! Where--?’

‘Madaht the vampire’s wrist, and Petronilla threw Lydia to the floor, turned upon the physician like a mad beast

‘You helped her!’ Her voice shrilled into the thin wild registers of madness Gold hair fell undone around her shoulders, and her eyes threw back the laht like a rat’s ‘You came back, unlocked the doorYou hoped she would co--’ He retreated before her, his whole body stooped, silhouetted against the lae or flee--

Does he REALLY think he can outrun her?

Lydia wondered with a sense of detached cal silver around his throat and wrists With that ht be soest it to him

‘Don’t speak words of love to me!’ She al eyes at that skinny red-haired bitch – I’ve seen you! And that tramp Genia as well!’

‘You know that’s not true’ Theiss’s voice was corass blade on top of a blood-lake of pain, Lydia didn’t kno he faced herexcept that he must really love her

‘Liar!’ Her hands flexed open into claws Her back was to Lydia – what her face ine

Theiss walked forward cal those of the vah, he took Petronilla’s hands

‘My beautiful one, it doesn’t matter It doesn’t matter The man cannot escape Everyis barred with silver, as are the grilles over the outer doors We have Madame Asher--’

‘Kill her!’

‘He will come out, if we have her’

‘Kill her!’ Petronilla jerked her hands from his ‘Or do you think you’ll keep her for yourself?’ She swung back around to where Lydia lay, half-propped against the wall like a broken rag-doll, and her fangs glinted in her drawn-back lips ‘Show me howyou’ He took her hand again, turned her to face him, hazel eyes calm and filled with love Suddenly, the tension went out of Petronilla’s body, as if her soul had been haainst him, put her hand to her head--

‘Petronilla,’ he whispered in that deep strong voice ‘You know you don’t mean it’

‘No,’ she whispered ‘No You’re quite right, Benedict – forgive me’

She stepped back a little, so that the la cloud A beautiful face, vulnerable and delicate as a young girl’s Theiss brought up her hand to kiss, frowned, and asked, ‘What’s this?’ and she drew her hand frohted door ‘Did you burn it?’

‘I – yes, in the kitchen,’ she said, in a voice that told Lydia that she had no idea where or how she had burned her hand ‘It was clumsy of me’

But Lydia knew that no va blackouts

And doesn’t want hiently lifted her back onto the bed ‘Are you all right, Madaht it would be politic to burst into tears again – not difficult, considering how badly her head hurt

‘I didn’t do anything,’ she sobbed, showing the very genuine terror she had felt a few o ‘I was asleep--’

‘Don’t lie, little bitch’ Petronilla stepped forward, and Lydia cringed down behind Theiss, clinging to his ared her hand, turned to Petronilla ‘Please--’ And to Lydia, ‘Who is he? The man we found you with’

She al she would say could be checked against Evgenia’s story, and she couldn’t recall enough of the attack on the izba to knohat Siirl She reht his claws had felt He didn’t kill Margaret

Did I dreaht I was dying?

Because he thought HE would die?