of his arrival. She went and fetched one.
‘You’re just going to kill him?’ she asked. ‘We still don’t know why he came after you.’
‘As I say, that really isn’t an issue.’ Iuda pulled back the string of the arbalyet once again as he spoke, slipping the bolt into place. ‘There’ll be plenty of time to talk to him after he’s dead.’ He raised the crossbow, aiming it at Mihail.
‘In that case,’ said Dusya, ‘allow me.’
She placed the revolver on the floor beside her and held out both hands towards Iuda. He thought for a moment and then smiled, handing her the weapon.
‘What do I do?’ she asked.
He stood behind her, his arms around her, his hands over hers. ‘Just like a gun,’ he explained. ‘Aim at the heart, and then squeeze the trigger.’
She cocked her head to one side, examining Mihail dispassionately. Then she grinned and her finger began to squeeze.
Mihail moved fast. He dived to the side, grabbing one of the acid cells that Kibalchich had stored in the room and hurling it towards them. The crossbow launched its bolt across the room, but at a space Mihail no longer occupied. The lid came off the battery in mid-flight and the liquid inside spilled through the air. Most of it fell on their hands, and a little on the side of Dusya’s face. There was a hiss of burning flesh and smoke began to rise into the air. Dusya squealed and dropped the crossbow. Even Iuda reacted, pulling his hands away and wiping them on his jacket.
Mihail had changed direction the instant he threw the jar, hurling himself across the room in its wake. He caught the crossbow as it fell from Dusya’s hands, before it even reached the ground. In the same movement he kicked at the revolver beside her, sending it skidding across the flagstones and through the door, out into the passageway. As it hit the wall it fired, the sound of the blast echoing through all the chambers and tunnels around them.
Mihail backed quickly away, rearming the crossbow as he did so, but at the same time keeping his eyes on the two of them. Both had managed to wipe away the splashes of acid. On Iuda’s hands there was no sign of it – he had already healed – but his jacket had holes in it from which smoke still rose. Dusya bore further proof that she was not a vampire. Her clothes too showed the marks of where she had wiped her hands against them, but her hands themselves were scarred – the right merely raw and red, but the left blistered. The wound to her face was only a minor disfigurement; a single line of red where a drop of the acid had trickled, like a tear cutting through face powder. As Mihail watched, a genuine tear fell from her eyelid and ran down her cheek along a similar path. She winced as its salt water touched her wound. Mihail searched his heart to see if it held any sympathy for her, but he found none. Her alliance with Iuda was unexpected, but he had been too long planning his revenge to be distracted by it. He had been raised from boyhood to know that any friend of Iuda’s was an enemy of his. That it was Dusya did not complicate the matter.
Iuda regained his presence of mind more quickly than Dusya and was already striding across the room towards Mihail. Mihail groped behind him until his fingers found the pile of bolts. He grasped one and a moment later the crossbow was loaded and aimed.
‘Get back!’ he shouted.
Iuda obeyed. Soon he was against the wall, standing alongside the weeping Dusya.
‘I think we’ve been here before,’ said Iuda.
‘Except that Dusya is in no position to save you this time,’ Mihail added. He raised the arbalyet and aimed. It was not what he had planned, but it would have to do. ‘There’s one thing I must tell you before I die, Iuda. And that is my name.’
Iuda laughed, though his voice revealed his fear. ‘And what’s that? Rumpelstilzchen?’
Mihail smiled. He could only admire Iuda’s projection of calm. ‘No,’ he said. ‘My name is …’
‘Who gives a shit what your name is?’ Dusya sprang suddenly to life, awakened from her shock at the acid burns. She took a few steps across the room and stood boldly in front of Iuda, her hands by her sides, clenched into tight fists, her chest stuck out defiantly,