Twelve

This approach was complicated by the fact that I was urgently trying to evade Dmitry whilst still keeping track of Ioa

Despite these intricacies, and the steady rain that began to fall during the night, we did not lose sight of Ioa

'Any more you want to see?' asked Dmitry, unenthusiastically.

'Yes,' I replied. 'I want to see where he goes.'

'He went in there. He's not going anywhere else tonight. It'll be dawn in an hour.'

But I was already setting off to see precisely where in the building Ioa

I reached the doorway, still ajar as Ioa

'You see anything?' he asked. I shook my head and pushed open the door. There were three doors off the hallway, plus a flight of stairs. Beneath the stairs, open, was a fourth doorway which, undoubtedly, led down to the cellar. That surely was where Ioa

More prepared than the previous night, I had brought with me a candle, which I lit. I held it ahead of me as we descended the stairs. Dmitry was close behind me, his hand against my back. A sudden fear possessed me. If we were to encounter Ioa

At the bottom of the stairs, my candle illuminated on one side an archway into a small cellar and on the other a closed double door. A brief glance through the archway proved that there was nothing there. The ceiling was partially collapsed and no one had bothered to repair it in years. It was a miracle that no di

Dmitry remained on the stairs, again almost deliberately blocking my exit. I pulled open the left-hand door and peered into the darkness beyond. This cellar was larger than the other; less dilapidated but still unused by the occupants of the house. No windows shone any light into it, and there were no other exits but the one at which I stood. Much as I had seen twenty-four hours previously, in the centre of the floor lay two coffins. This time they were not the makeshift crates of the night before. Whoever slept here slept in luxury. The coffins were solid oak, with brass handles. Where the vampires had obtained them, I could not guess.

I walked over towards them. Halfway across the room I heard a sound at my back. I had just walked into a cellar with only one exit. Anyone who had been expecting me could easily have hidden beside the doorway and stepped out only now to seal the trap. I turned. It was Dmitry, peeping through the doorway. For a man so familiar with the ways of the Oprichniki, he was remarkably timid about encountering them in their own environment. I beckoned to him to follow me, but he stayed where he was.

I took a step towards the first coffin. It was empty. Stepping over that, I looked into the second. There lay Ioa

'What's in them?' hissed Dmitry from the door.

I dared not make even that little noise. I simply mouthed to him. 'Ioa

'Then let's get the hell out of here before the other one comes back.' Dmitry spoke louder this time, and once he had spoken, he was gone. I could only defer to his experience and assume that these creatures did not like their slumbers to be disturbed.

I went back up the stairs to the hallway and then out of the front door, looking around to see where Dmitry was. I heard a hiss and looked to its source. It was Dmitry, settled atop the low roof of a building on the other side of the street where he could observe this building u

'Not a moment too soon,' he said, pointing towards the far end of the street. The unmistakable form of Iuda had appeared. Unlike Ioa

'No sign of Vadim, though,' whispered Dmitry smugly. 'Evidently he lost track of him.'

'Either that or he's so good at avoiding detection that he's keeping hidden from us as well as Iuda,' I replied. For my part, I wasn't sure which was more likely. Vadim was a little older than the rest of us, and his skills in this sort of work had never been quite up to the abilities of me, Dmitry or Maks. Maks had always excelled at it – both in hunting and in avoiding being hunted. No one could get close to Maks unless he wanted them to – unless he trusted them. I pulled myself up. It was another train of thought that I did not wish to follow.

Iuda had reached the steps of the house. With a swift glance around, he went inside.

'I trust you don't want to follow him too, and check where he's going, Aleksei?' said Dmitry.

I smiled. 'No, I think we can make a guess on that one.'

We climbed down from the roof and headed back up the street.

'Well,' said Dmitry, 'if Vadim's out there, he's bound to see us now.'

But of Vadim there was no sign. 'Iuda must have given him the slip,' I said.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon as we turned the corner into the next road. Iuda had left his homecoming to the latest possible moment.

'Shall we go and steal some breakfast then?' asked Dmitry, in a ma

'No,' I said. 'I'm tired. I'll see you tonight.' With that I parted company from him, heading in whichever direction he wasn't.

I meandered through the city streets for about an hour. I had all day to return and destroy the creatures that slept in that cellar, but it would feel better to get it over with sooner. Turning back to the blocks of houses to the east of Red Square, I saw the now all too familiar glow of flames. The fires, thanks to the rain of the previous night, were generally dying down. But the rain had now stopped and there were still areas of Moscow that remained untouched by the flames and so were still ripe for the burning.