The People's Will (44 page)

‘I think …’ Mihail had no answer. If she was mad she had been driven mad. Her husband was undead – it was quite conceivable that she had seen him, but what was she supposed to make of it?

‘I wish I were,’ she moaned. ‘When I was mad, I believed it when I saw him. Now I’m sane, I know he’s not real, even when I do see him.’

It was an unfathomable contradiction, but she was bound by no law that insisted she should make sense.

‘You still see him?’ asked Mihail eagerly.

‘Don’t tease me. I know he’s not real.’

She pushed down hard on the arms of her chair and rose unsteadily to her feet. Mihail noticed a faint peeling sound as the fabric of the dress separated from that of the chair, as if she had not moved for a very long time. She walked, taking the smallest of steps, over to a high table, or perhaps a dresser, in the corner of the room; it was impossible to clearly discern its shape. A sheet had been thrown over it, now thick with the ubiquitous stratum of dust, and it was covered with rags and junk. The journey took half a minute, during which neither of them said a word. She was purposeful in her motion and Mihail did not want to distract her.

When she reached the table she lifted the sheet and reached beneath it, her fingers stretched. A sound emerged and Mihail
realized he had been mistaken. It was neither a table nor a dresser, but a piano – unrecognizable among the furniture and rubbish that had been piled around it and on it. The tune she played was mournful, made even more deathly by the instrument’s untuned strings. It was Chopin’s
Marche Funèbre
, though Svetlana was playing only the melody. Even so, she managed to invest the short, repeated phrase with far more melancholy than Mihail had ever heard in it before.

‘He loved Chopin above anyone,’ she said. ‘Even me, I think. I wonder if he still plays.’

‘Where do you see him?’ asked Mihail.

Svetlana raised her hand from the piano and the tune stopped. She turned and made the same slow, steady progress as before; this time towards the window. Mihail walked over to join her, arriving long before she did. The foetid smell was stronger when she stood beside him.

‘He walks along the embankment, just here,’ she said, pointing to the street below. ‘You’d think he’d look up, just for old times’ sake, but he never does.’

‘Where does he go?’

‘He crosses by the Egyptian Bridge, but then I lose sight of him.’

‘This is in the evenings?’

‘Of course,’ she said, with a casual certainty that made Mihail suspicious. To him the fact it was evening made perfect sense, but there was no reason it should for her. Did she guess?

‘And does he come back?’ Mihail asked.

‘I wait up until I see him safely return. He usually does, but not always.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘He stopped for a while, but then he started again.’

‘Recently?’

She began to nod, but then her head came to a standstill. She turned to him and gave a puzzled frown. ‘Pardon?’

‘When did you last see him?’ asked Mihail.

‘Who?’

‘Dmitry Alekseevich – your husband.’

‘My husband’s dead,’ she said and turned away. She resumed
her slow shuffle back towards her chair. When she reached it she turned and sat down, emitting a small, contented sigh. Then she looked up, as if catching sight of Mihail for the first time.

‘You have news?’ she asked. ‘From Sevastopol?’

Mihail left without another word.

Blood – that was what he craved. Not milk. Blood. And she gave it to him. He could not understand why, nor did he care. He needed blood and Susanna provided it. She had wept when she saw him and he had tasted the salt of her tears on his dry lips. He’d still been unable to recall the word, even to mouth it let alone utter it, but she had understood. She had removed her coat and undone her blouse so that the smooth white expanse of her breasts was revealed. He remembered a time when that had interested him, a stolen moment when Susanna had first persuaded him to touch her, but now it meant nothing. She revealed her bosom only as a consequence of revealing her throat. That was what concerned him now and she knew it.

She leaned over him, pressing her hands against her chest so that her breasts did not brush against his delicate exposed lungs. She raised her chin, stretching the skin of her neck close to his lips, but much as he craved to lift his head and taste her, he could not; he did not have muscles or bones to do it, even if he’d had the energy.

She understood and pressed closer, so that his lips gently kissed her flesh. He could feel the pulse of the blood in her veins, just the thickness of human skin away from him. He parted his jaws and bit, but the glorious, warm satisfaction of flowing blood did not cascade into his mouth. He tried again, but still there was nothing. His teeth did not even have the strength to pierce the delicate skin of this fragile, willing girl.

She straightened up. He tried to keep his lips pressed against her, but was still unable to move.

‘You poor thing,’ she said, still with tears in her eyes. She unbuttoned her left cuff and rolled up the sleeve. It was wrong; he despised drinking from there, though he knew it would still nourish him. But he could not complain; Susanna was in complete control. From her bag she took a small knife – an ordinary thing
with a single blade. She cut across the inside of her forearm, close to the crook of the elbow. She let out a little grunt.

The blood flowed fast, spilling on to the stones and running, wasted, into the sewer. She moved quickly, holding her arm above his face so that the blood began to splatter over it. Even that was nourishing. Every cell of his body craved it, and in the absence of better means, would assimilate it directly. But it would be most effective in his mouth. She moved her arm until the blood flowed between his open lips, trickling off the tip of her elbow. Now he could taste it. Memories came flooding to him, each recalling the pleasure of consuming human blood. He did not swallow, but allowed the warm liquid to fill his mouth, surrounding and caressing his tongue, until it overflowed and ran down his cheek.

Then he opened his pharynx and the liquid flowed down his throat. It was not really swallowing – he was not yet capable of that. It was simply the removal of a hindrance, allowing gravity to do its work. The blood did not have far to go, spilling out on to the ground beneath him from his incomplete oesophagus. Even there though he felt himself drawing nutrition from it, as the intricate folds of his half-formed lungs proved capable of absorbing more than just oxygen from their surroundings, sucking up the spreading blood like a mop cleaning dirty, spilled water.

Susanna pushed her arm down towards him and his lips sealed around the wound. He played at it with his tongue, hoping to inveigle more blood out of it. She yelped – which he enjoyed – but then pulled her arm away.

‘Gently,’ she murmured, then returned her arm to his mouth. He did not disobey her.

After a few minutes, she pulled it away again. Still he tried to move his head and still he could not. He watched as she bandaged her wound with a strip of cloth from her underskirt.

‘No more,’ she said. ‘Not today.’

‘Please,’ he mouthed. It was not an easy word for him at the best of times.

She shook her head. ‘Where would you be if you took it all?’ she asked.

She stood and departed. He lay still. Even the little blood she
had given, which he had so feebly absorbed, had done him good. He closed his eyes, trying to sense the shrivelled extremities of his own body. It was working, he could feel it. Morsel by morsel, cell by cell, his body was renewing itself.

It was on the fourth night of watching that Mihail finally saw Dmitry taking the path that his wife had described. He’d hidden himself on the northern side of the Fontanka, where Nikolskiy Lane joined Great Podyacheskaya Street. As he arrived, just before dusk, he noticed he could look along Podyacheskaya Street and see in the distance the dome of Saint Isaac’s, perfectly aligned as though the road had been built to point at it. He had been wise to abandon his post at the cathedral and take up this new position. Tonight, a little before midnight, he gained his reward.

Dmitry came from the south, emerging from Izmailovsky Prospekt and turning left along the embankment. As he passed beneath the windows of his former home Mihail thought he perceived a flicker of movement at them, but Dmitry did not look up, just as Svetlana had been so keen to point out. As she had described, he crossed the river via the Egyptian Bridge and carried on north. It would be too risky to follow his path directly, so Mihail too headed north, along a parallel street. Soon he found himself at the corner of the square containing the Saint Nikolai Cathedral, its blue and white plaster and small golden domes making it a quite different style of building from Saint Isaac’s, but Mihail had no time to take it in. Looking along the stretch of canal that bordered the square, he saw that Dmitry had now turned east, and was heading towards him.

Before Mihail could make a move, Dmitry turned north again along the far side of the square. Mihail paralleled his movements and both of them reached the top of the square at about the same time. Dmitry pressed onwards, oblivious to Mihail’s presence. Mihail continued to shadow him a block away and soon found himself in a broad, open square. Ahead and to the left he could see the multi-tier green stucco of the Mariinskiy Theatre, sitting in the square like some squat wedding cake. Mihail flung himself back into the shadows. Dmitry was approaching along the theatre’s southern wall, evidently no longer able to continue his
journey north. Mihail cursed himself for his lack of knowledge of the city’s layout, but his luck held; Dmitry did not see him.

Instead Dmitry kept close to the theatre, turning into the square as soon as it was possible and then finally stopping at a small wooden door, some way from the main entrance. Mihail heard him knock and then there was a pause. Dmitry knocked again. This time he got a response. A few moments later the door opened. There was a brief conversation which Mihail could not hear and Dmitry disappeared inside, the door closing behind him.

Mihail scampered over, but the door was already locked. He considered knocking, but it seemed unwise. Dmitry had been welcomed in, so whoever was in there was on his side. Even if Mihail could gain access, he would be walking into hostile territory. Better to wait. This was not Dmitry’s new lair; it was too early for him to be returning home and anyway, Svetlana had said she usually saw him make his way back along the route by which he had come. Mihail had little doubt as to what Dmitry had come there for – he wanted to feed – though why the theatre should be an appropriate place for it, he could only guess. Perhaps there were ballerinas in there who would sell their blood to vampires, just as there were those who sold their bodies to rich noblemen. His father Konstantin’s mistress had begun her career in that very theatre.

It was none of Mihail’s concern. If there were girls in the ballet who would take such a risk then they were fools and got what they deserved. Mihail was interested only in Dmitry – and through him Iuda. Dmitry would have to emerge at some point; with luck through that very same door, or at least one nearby.

Mihail crossed the square, to a point where he could see that entire side of the theatre, and settled down to wait.

Dmitry trotted eagerly down into the theatre’s cavernous depths. It had cost him five roubles to bribe the nightwatchman, but it was money well spent. And what did money mean to him anyway? He could always steal more from his next victim.

He held a single candle to light his way, included in the price of his admission. The old man had been surprised to see him on his first visit since returning to Petersburg, three weeks before. His journey to Turkmenistan in search of Iuda had meant he had
not been in the city since the end of the previous year. While away there had still been opportunities to indulge himself, but they were stolen and infrequent, and he knew of few places in the whole Russian Empire where he would find a creation of such elegance and beauty as what lay here beneath the stage of the Mariinskiy Theatre.

Soon he came to the door with which he was so familiar. This was his fifth visit since returning to Petersburg. He was overindulging himself, but who was to stop him? Zmyeevich laughed at him but offered no objection. How could he? He had his own vices of which Dmitry was well aware.

He almost felt the urge to knock before entering, though he would receive no granting of admission. Perhaps crossing himself would be a more appropriate act of deference, but coming from a
voordalak
it would be a worthless sham. He knew he was just delaying the moment, aware that the anticipation was almost as thrilling as the act. Almost.

He opened the door. The room was lined with mirrors so that the dancers could watch themselves as they rehearsed. Dmitry could never, therefore, be a dancer. He crossed the floor, but no image was reflected in any glass. He might have expected to see the candle floating mysteriously in mid-air, supported by his invisible hand, but even that was gone. He was by now used to the phenomenon, but had no way of explaining it. No doubt Iuda had conducted some foul experiment to determine the mechanism, but Dmitry did not care. Who knew where such exploration might lead? Dmitry shuddered. He did know – he had seen it in that strange mirror beneath Senate Square. At least these reflected nothing.

Thoughts of Iuda filled his mind once again, but he felt no sense of relief at the death of the creature that had once been his mentor. Zmyeevich had assured him that Iuda was no more, but even as he spoke there had been doubt in his eyes. He had witnessed Iuda’s body burned to almost nothing, but had been distracted. Together they had searched Saint Isaac’s and found no trace of Iuda – but what did that tell them? Raisa, lurking somewhere at the back of Dmitry’s skull, remained unconvinced. But she had no mind of her own. Her suspicions were a reflection of Dmitry’s. She merely told him what he hid from himself. He
pushed them all – Raisa, Zmyeevich and Iuda – from his mind. They were not the reason he was here.