a paraffin lamp from his bag and lit it.
His inspection of the ground floor and first floor was cursory. Every window was curtained and shuttered, and the rooms themselves were empty of all but a few scraps of furniture. The layers of dust were suggestive of far longer than three years’ disuse, but Dmitry knew Iuda would not have spent much of his time here; the instinct for any vampire was to be underground.
The steps down to the cellar lay directly beneath the main staircase. Dmitry opened the door at the top and descended, still circumspect in case of any snare that Iuda had left. What might it be? Would Iuda have merely been defending his lair against human trespassers? Or would he have been afraid of his own kind coming in here and discovering his darkest secrets? It would be like him to cover all eventualities – but there could be no doubt as to which of the two species harboured his truest enemies.
Dmitry reached the bottom of the stairs safely. He was faced with another door. He reached for the handle and opened it. Beyond, the cellar was vast, taking up half the ground plan of the entire building. At its centre was a stone plinth, and on that lay a simple wooden coffin. Its place of honour in the middle of the room reminded Dmitry of the solitary chair that had held Iuda fast in Geok Tepe.
Dmitry approached. The coffin lid was in place. Still there seemed nothing to protect the slumbering figure of Iuda on those occasions when he lay here. But today he was not here. It made sense that he would not have set a snare to catch himself on his own return. Dmitry drew his sword and held it out, slipping its blade into the crack beneath the coffin lid, then twisting and pushing it to one side. If there were any trap installed, he hoped he was standing far enough away.
The lid fell to the floor with a low clatter, but there were no other consequences of Dmitry’s action. He glanced around; nothing in the cellar had changed. He approached the plinth and looked inside. The coffin, as he had expected, was empty, its silk lining still showing the slight imprint of where a body had once lain. This was not what they had been expecting at all. Zmyeevich had been sure that there would be documents, journals – with luck even some of Iuda’s experimental samples. They hadn’t expected Ascalon itself, but at least some clue. But Dmitry had examined the entire house, and this coffin was the only thing that suggested Iuda had ever been here.
Dmitry raised his sword and used the sharp tip to make a long, straight incision in the coffin’s lining, down the whole of its length. He ripped away the smooth material and hurled the bundle into the corner of the cellar. But beneath, there was nothing – just the hard wooden sides and bottom of the casket, and …
Something caught Dmitry’s eye, just where the side and bottom panels joined, about halfway down: a small metal ring attached to a wire, which disappeared into a gap in the wood, no bigger than a wormhole. On the other side was a similar arrangement, except that a longer stretch of wire was visible. The mechanism for some secret door? Dmitry doubted it. More likely it was the switch to activate whatever traps Iuda had to protect him while he slept; one wire to switch them on, when he lay down, the other to disable them before he rose. Dmitry would leave things be, for now.
He returned upstairs and considered. Why would Iuda have bothered telling them, if there was nothing here to be found? For a momentary respite from his suffering? To allow him the chance to overpower Zmyeevich and escape? It was possible, but it would not get him very far – Zmyeevich could deal with him perfectly well. Merely for the amusement of wasting their time? That seemed feasible, but Dmitry was still doubtful.
In his mind he retraced his steps around the house – upstairs, downstairs and in the cellar. And then he saw it: a gap in the layout of the rooms, on the ground floor, between the stairwell, the kitchen and the large room that looked out on to the street. He walked around it, trailing his fingers across the wall, feeling for any secret latch. The space was definitely there, large enough