Jasper Kent - Twelve

'Not too close,' I said. 'For reasons you'll understand, it's best that you don't hear what we discuss.' He nodded earnestly. I had no doubt that he would stand just on the far side of earshot, but I would speak to Iuda in French to be on the safe side. 'But if he does turn nasty, you'll need to be ready – for your own sakes as well as mine.'

All around us, the camp was in turmoil. Tents were being taken down. Horses were being harnessed to guns. Baggage was being loaded on to wagons. The activity of all was enough to keep them warm despite the frozen night air, but for Iuda and myself, and the two guards who stood apart, both at some distance from us, the fire provided the only heat.

I sat down opposite Iuda as his guards moved warily away. I pondered how to start, hoping that he might say something, but he remained silent, looking at the ground. Despite his circumstances, he still had an air of victory about him. Then I realized why. As far as he knew, his trick with Margarita had worked – I had believed Domnikiia to be a vampire and had killed her.

'Aren't you going to tell me that Domnikiia was never a vampire?' I asked him. He frowned briefly. The name was unfamiliar to him. Then he made the connection to Dominique.

'It seems you're already aware of it,' he replied.

'She's alive and well, you know.'

'I don't doubt it,' he said, nonplussed.

'Oh, come on, Iuda. I'm sure you have your pride, but I think you can be honest now. These are your last moments on earth – don't waste them. I know you intended me to see your performance with Margarita.'

'I won't waste them, Lyosha. Neither should you. You're right, though, I did know you were watching at the window.'

'And you expected me to march right in there and ram a stake straight through Domnikiia's heart, and then regret it for the rest of my life.'

'Do you play chess at all, Lyosha?' he asked.

'Some,' I replied.

'When you form a plan of attack – equally, when you plan an attack in a real battle – do you see it through (in your mind) to a single end, or does your plan branch with the varying assumptions about how your opponent might react?'

'It branches, of course – though I'd always assume it most likely that my opponent would make the best move.' I was surprised at how quickly Iuda had managed to take the reins of the conversation.

'Exactly. And it's disappointing, isn't it, when he doesn't play the best move – when he falls into some trivial trap you threw in his way, not with any real intent of entrapping him, but simply to force him along the path you had chosen? He doesn't in the end rob you of the victory, but robs you of the pleasure of demonstrating the full brilliance of your plan.'

'I think that depends on whether you're the sort of person who prefers the game or the victory,' I said.

'Clearly, without the victory, the game is nothing,' he replied, nodding in agreement. 'But the reverse is also true. And don't tell me that you don't enjoy the game, Aleksei Ivanovich. You've had many opportunities to go for the swift conclusion, but you've not taken them.'

'Haven't I?'

'Perhaps it's just caution on your part.'

I felt the same sense of unease in myself and the same confidence in him that I had done during our meeting at the crossroads. Here, though, I could see no reason for him to be confident. This was my territory. There was no hanging cadaver that was going to spring to his aid. Perhaps he was expecting something of the sort. Perhaps he was unaware that Foma was dead. That was it. This was part of a plan where Foma would come to his rescue. It would be a pleasure to see how he reacted to news of Foma's death, but for now I chose – as one cannot in the game of chess – to keep that card up my sleeve. In chess one can disguise one's plans, but not hide them.

'And so your scene with Margarita was just a sideshow – one of these little traps that I didn't fall into?' I asked.

'You have always played the better move when you've been given the choice. Only an idiot would kill the woman he loved without being sure she was a vampire.' It was the very word Domnikiia had used. As he spoke he smiled as if he knew how close I had come to doing what he described.

'So what's your real plan, from which that was just a diversion? To get captured here and to die in the morning sun?'

'There are more moves to make before you will see it.'

'Chess isn't a game of bluff, Iuda. A gentleman will resign once he sees he cannot win.'

'I am, I assure you, a gentleman.'

'And all your pretence at planning,' I went on, realizing that much of what he said could be only bravura, 'it all relies on so much luck. How could you be sure I would come back to Moscow to see Domnikiia that night?'

'Because I told Pyetr and Iakov Zevedayinich I was going to see her,' he said simply.

'And you asked them to tell me, I suppose?'

'No, I instructed them not to tell you.'

'So you knew I would get it out of them?'

'There were two of them in the barn, you outside. Either they would defeat you – which would have been a disappointment, but still a victory – or you would defeat them and probably get the information from them. Which one was it that talked, by the way? I would suspect Iakov Zevedayinich.'

'It was Pyetr. I didn't give Iakov Zevedayinich the opportunity. How did you know I was there?'

'Where else would you be? I never saw you after the coach crashed, but I knew you wouldn't run away. We were not particularly stealthy in our return to the barn.'

'And no concern at all for the others. You set up Pyetr and Iakov Zevedayinich for me to kill, just to further your own ends. Are all vampires like that, Iuda, or is it just you?'

'They all had as little concern for each other as I did for them. Clearly, there are times when it is convenient to work as a pack, and sometimes it's worth making an issue over the fate of one's comrades, as we did with Maksim Sergeivich, but it's mostly for show. There is no brotherly love that would make one sacrifice himself for another.'

'It's hard to see why there's any need for your soul to be damned,' I said contemplatively. 'To feel like that must be a living hell.'

'On the contrary, it is one of the vampire's most desirable attributes. I have no idea why it is that most humans possess these feelings of affection for other humans, nor why vampires suddenly lose them. I'm sure one day some great scientist will explain it. Myself, I suspect it's something to do with the different methods of reproduction.'

I looked at him blankly. He still did not believe that these were the last minutes of his life. I picked up his knife, which I had jabbed into the snow between my feet, and inspected it. It was a simple construction – precisely as I had conceived it to be when I first saw it. Two identical, short knives had been fastened together at the handles. The handles were bound up with a long strip of leather. The bond was very firm – I could not make the blades move relative to one another. Beneath the leather there must have been something that fixed them more solidly. The blades were smoothly sharp on one side, and serrated on the other – the teeth pointing slightly backwards towards the handle – ideal, in a single blade, for cutting the fur away from an animal's carcass. Each ended in a sharp point that could be used to stab. The gap between the blades was wide enough for me to comfortably fit two fingers.

'You don't all carry these, I noticed, do you?' I asked Iuda.

'No, just me.'

'Why do you need it? Your teeth no good? Too much sugar in your diet?'

He smiled, but did not grin, and it occurred to me that I could not recall ever seeing him grin. Perhaps I was right. Perhaps he was that most pitiful of creatures, a vampire with rotten teeth.