Twelve

I began to run back to where Ioa

When I got there, half of the block beneath which the two Oprichniki lay was already ablaze. Within five minutes their cellar too would be a furnace. I couldn't remember the folklore in detail, but I did remember the slight fear that Foma had shown when I mentioned the fires to him. I felt quite confident that fire was one of the ways by which vampires might be destroyed. Even if they tried to escape the fire, they would have to leave the safety of the cellar to do so. If the flames did not destroy them, then when they came out into the street, the light of the sun would.

It was still not certain enough, however. Their cellar lay beneath a massive sprawl of buildings. It was conceivable that, with a degree of luck, they might find their way to safety without ever having to expose themselves to daylight. It was a risk I did not want to take.

I raced into the house and down the cellar steps with none of the trepidation that I had shown during the night. The doors behind which the two coffins lay remained closed. Already I could smell smoke creeping in from the neighbouring houses. I looked around me. In the collapsed cellar opposite I saw a short beam of wood. It was perfect. The cellar doors had on them two large handles through which the beam would fit, barring the door securely.

I turned and lifted the wooden beam. When I turned back, I saw that the doors had begun to move. Somebody was begi

I knew that I should leave, that I had as much to fear from fire as the vampires did, but I felt the urge to wait, to make certain that they perished. I sat down on the steps. Almost immediately, I heard someone banging against the doors. At first it was the rapid beating of someone demanding attention, then it was the slower, heavier thud of a shoulder trying to break down a barrier. The door held. Soon there was coughing. I could see smoke begi

With the fire so close upon me, I decided it was time to leave. As I began climbing the stairs, the beating on the doors returned to the rapid pounding that cried attention. Now, between coughs, it was accompanied by an excruciated scream.

'Help! Help!'

I could not resist smiling at the thought of Iuda or Ioa

'My God, have mercy upon me.'

It was only then that I recognized the voice as Dmitry's.

CHAPTER XV

I THREW MYSELF BACK DOWN THE STAIRS AND LIFTED THE BAR FROM the doors. Immediately they swung open and Dmitry's semiconscious body spilled out on to the floor. At the same time, I was hit by a wall of smoke and heat which combined to make breathing an impossibility.

The cellar beyond was in flames. Fire licked across the wooden ceiling and the supporting beams were almost charcoal. Within moments the roof would collapse. One of the coffins was completely ablaze, the other, in which I could just make out Ioa

I bent down over Dmitry. He was breathing shallowly. The backs of his hands and his forearms were burnt. On the right side of his face, his beard had withered away to reveal his scar, surviving intact as the rest of his cheek had blistered under the intense heat. I would have slapped his face to try to bring him round, but given his injuries, I chose to shake him by the shoulders.

He soon began to cough and open his eyes.

'Can you walk?' I asked.

'Yes, yes!' he insisted, pushing himself up to a sitting position.

'We have to get out, and fast.' I went back to the doorway. The stairway down which I had descended was begi

'Come on,' I said, turning back to Dmitry.

'Give me a hand!' Dmitry was further into the cellar than where I had left him. His hands were clasped around a handle on Ioa

Even if I had wanted to save the Oprichniki – rather than leave them there to be reduced to nothingness by the all-consuming flames – it would have been impossible. Ioa

'Leave him, Dmitry! You've got to come now!' Dmitry ignored me and continued to haul pathetically at the coffin. I dashed back over to him and pulled him away. He could offer little resistance.

I pushed him towards the door, and he seemed then either to bow to my stronger will or realize that his rescue attempt was hopeless. I herded him in front of me up the stairs. When he was almost at the top, and I was about halfway up, the step beneath my foot gave way. The fire below the wooden stairs was intense – enough to eat away at them without actually sending them up in flames. As my leg fell through the gap, up to my thigh, I felt immediately the heat of the cavity below. My leg began to roast with a pain such as I had never before experienced.

My body twisted and I found myself looking back down the stairs into the cellar. Through the smoke and flame I saw Ioa

As he leapt, the ceiling above him gave way. Burning beams crashed to the ground and took Ioa

The fire had now attracted some attention. A French captain was attempting to organize a human chain of both French soldiers and Russian civilians to get water to the fire. The task was hopeless, but they were intent on it and paid little attention to the two figures that had just bolted out of the house and lay gasping for breath in the street outside.