to let you live.’
‘Currently that’s not an option for you, though, is it?’ Iuda waved a hand lightly in the air, reminding Zmyeevich of the sunlight. He did a little pirouette and moved to a different patch of shade. Mihail noticed him looking at the floor, with its intricate mosaic of checks and spirals, as he moved. Was there some map embedded in them that allowed him to know with such confidence where he would be safe?
Zmyeevich remained silent.
‘I can of course offer you Ascalon,’ said Iuda, ‘if that would sweeten the deal.’
‘Ascalon?’
‘Oh yes, I know all about that, Ţepeş.’
‘Pyotr tore it from where it hung around my neck, even as his blood was on my lips.’
‘What do you care?’ asked Iuda.
‘It made me what I am. I unearthed it – four centuries ago. The dragon’s blood still stained it. I tasted it. I became … me.’
‘And if it is destroyed you believe you will return to what you were before?’
Zmyeevich stiffened, disconcerted by the depth of Iuda’s understanding. He nodded slowly in agreement.
‘Superstition!’ exclaimed Iuda. ‘Claptrap!’
‘You say I don’t know my own history?’
‘You have a medieval mind, Ţepeş. How could a primitive like you be expected to understand the processes which control his own body? But then who am I to question a man’s beliefs, when I can exploit them instead. I can offer you Ascalon. Or I can destroy it, and we’ll discover which of us is correct about its power. I do hope I’m proved wrong.’
‘You do not have Ascalon,’ said Zmyeevich. ‘Pyotr entrusted it to the Armenians. They buried it – and soon we shall unearth it.’
Iuda smiled tightly – confidently. ‘Then it seems there is nothing I can offer you,’ he said.
Zmyeevich stood upright, moving away from the pillar. He took a few cautious steps, eyeing the beams of sunlight. Mihail took the opportunity to scurry forward a little, finding a new hiding place close to the entrance to the chapel, where he was bathed in the sun’s protective rays.
‘You’re wrong,’ said Zmyeevich. ‘You do have something I want – and that I will take from you. You have your life.’
Iuda chuckled, but there was no hint that Zmyeevich had spoken with anything but the utmost conviction. The arch voordalak took a deep breath and seemed to tense himself, like someone about to dive into water that they knew to be cold. Then he took a pace forward.
The sunlight enveloped him.
Mihail gasped and Iuda’s face fell into an expression of genuine bewilderment. Both waited to see the vampire’s body reduce in seconds to powdered ash, but the transformation that did take place was far less spectacular – and infinitely more surprising.
Zmyeevich aged before their eyes. He became wizened. His skin grew thin and wrinkled, sucked in at his cheeks. He began to stoop forward, his spine curving. The hair of his head, and even his moustache, grew white. For Mihail, the metamorphosis transformed Zmyeevich into a familiar figure – the old man to whom he had spoken as they stood at the foot of the Bronze Horseman, the man who had first told him about Ascalon. Mihail had stood there in broad daylight, conducting a conversation with Zmyeevich himself. And – because it was broad daylight – he had never for a moment suspected.
Iuda simply gawped; his confidence evaporated, his arrogant goading silenced.
It was Zmyeevich who spoke first – the sound still resonant and grinding, unaffected by the sunlight. Clearly when he had been speaking to Mihail he had been disguising his voice to be in keeping with his physical appearance.
‘Who are you to presume to understand my body?’ he asked. ‘Do you think that after four hundred years I’m unaware of my own capabilities?’
‘But …’ Iuda’s terror robbed him of the power of speech. ‘Every vampire … I experimented … They all … None of them could face the sun … They burned.’
‘They were young,’ said Zmyeevich. ‘I have had time; time to learn how to face the pain; time to expose myself, and recover, and expose myself again.’
‘But your blood. When I threw that into the sun you screamed in agony.’
‘The skin protects the blood,’ explained Zmyeevich. ‘But even then I was not as able to endure the light as I am now. I was not as confident of my strength. The sun weakens me, as you can see, but it does not kill.’ As he spoke he straightened up, stretching his shoulders, as if becoming inured to the light. ‘I wonder if