knew it would require something more than mere ice to make him see his own reflection.
Dmitry dived in in pursuit, while Zmyeevich headed back to the surface via the cathedral. The pool was an illusion; appearing simply to be standing on the cellar floor, it in fact went beneath it. From there the pipe turned to the horizontal and narrowed. It was too tight for Dmitry to make much use of his arms, but he kicked hard and propelled himself through. He could hold his breath for a long time, but if the pipe didn’t come to an end eventually, then the lack of air would subdue him in just the same way that the cold might. But Iuda would face exactly the same problems – and Iuda had come this way in full knowledge of what lay ahead.
Dmitry’s pursuit of Iuda had a new passion to it – a hatred that he had not been able to feel towards anyone since becoming a vampire. But in that time, there had always been one regret – that Raisa, the woman who had turned Dmitry into a vampire, was dead. His feelings for her were not the romantic love or corporeal lust that had attracted him to her in life. It was more of a pack instinct; the sense of loyalty that a dog has to its own kind. There was a practical side to it too – the fact that he could learn so much about his new state from her – but her loss had affected him more viscerally than could be dismissed with so rational an explanation. It still did.
Because she had made him, part of her mind had been in him, guiding and teaching him. With her death, that had gone, all except one tiny splinter which stuck in him like a bee’s sting after the insect itself has fallen away: a desire for vengeance. For Raisa’s death to be avenged would do her no good, but still that bit of her which remained inside Dmitry sought it on her behalf. It would act as a warning to others; even from beyond the grave, they would be punished.
But until today, until he had gazed into that mirror, he’d had no idea what had befallen Raisa. In the hours before her death her mind had become confused, unhinged, incapable of his understanding. And today, for a few moments, he had felt the same. The jumbled images of her last hours had suddenly coalesced. He still did not know just how she had died, but he knew that she, like him, had gazed into a mirror that had the power to let her see her own true appearance. Whatever effect that might have had on Dmitry or Zmyeevich, the impact on Raisa – a woman who loved her own beauty – had been devastating. Perhaps it hadn’t caused her death directly, but it had prevented her from defending herself when she most needed to.
It had all come from looking in a mirror. The mirror that Dmitry had seen today had been created by Iuda and Iuda had tricked them into looking at it. The mirror that had destroyed Raisa’s mind had been created by Iuda, and he had tricked her, or enticed her, or cajoled her into looking at it. Iuda had brought about her death, and now Dmitry would kill Iuda – whatever Zmyeevich might say about needing to keep him alive.
Dmitry kicked his legs more vigorously. Ahead he could see the dimmest circle of light, like the moon forcing its way through thick cloud. A second later he became suddenly colder still. He no longer found his arms constrained by the sides of the pipe, nor his kicking to have any effect whatsoever on his motion. He was swept sideways, far faster than he could propel himself by swimming.
He was out in the Neva. It was as he had suspected – the only way that Iuda’s escape route could make any sense was if it led to that vast waterway. Dmitry had no idea how many millions of barrels of water flowed each day from Lake Ladoga out into the Gulf of Finland, but he was now a part of it, and it was indifferent to him.
He exercised what little control he had over his body, and swam upwards. Within seconds he hit the ceiling of the underwater world, and fully understood just how quickly he was travelling, as his fingertips scraped across the underside of the