Jasper Kent - Thirteen Years Later

‘You did what you had to do. I know how much your kind fear the day.’ Aleksei knew he had to be careful. There was a purpose for him and Dmitry in tonight’s meeting, and that was to prepare the ground for tomorrow. After what had happened in the cathedral, Kyesha would be wary. He had to be lulled. ‘I presume you were already a vampire,’ he added.

‘Oh yes,’ said Kyesha. He did not elaborate further.

‘So why didn’t your fingers grow back then?’ demanded Dmitry. It was the right tone – Kyesha wouldn’t be fooled by utter acceptance. Aleksei and Dmitry had discussed this very question earlier.

‘Regrowth can be repressed temporarily,’ replied Kyesha, ‘with practice.’

‘Why bother?’ asked Dmitry.

‘A good question. You think like a scientist.’

‘And the answer?’

‘To survive! History has taught us that, of all the skills that might fend off death for a little while longer, the simplest and most effective is to avoid being recognized for what we are.’ He paused for a moment. ‘By people such as you.’ They were speaking in Russian, and it was clear that his use of the plural form of ‘you’ was not intended to be polite, merely to encompass a very large plural – the whole of humanity. He was right though. If he had allowed his fingers to regrow before the eyes of the Turks, they would have known precisely how to deal with him.

‘I thought you were a hero,’ said Kyesha after a brief silence, directing his words at Aleksei.

‘Me?’

‘In Silistria,’ continued Kyesha. ‘I knew from the start that you were a spy – even before the Janissaries came in to arrest us. I saw you dropping that message out of the window. Obviously I could have escaped when they rounded us up, but I was curious.’

‘Curious?’

‘I’d heard all those terrible stories about the brutal Turk and his torturous ways – I wanted to see if they were true.’

‘Wanted to pick up a few tips,’ added Dmitry. Aleksei was pleased to hear how quickly his son had understood the vileness of these creatures.

Kyesha chose to ignore the comment. ‘I thought the idea of cutting off the fingers one by one was ingenious; the way it incremented the terror, the way that, as the victim became accustomed to the pain, he would become more aware of the permanence of the mutilation. Most of all, I was fascinated by the fact that a single word from you could end it for the rest of us – and yet you said nothing. Were you being brave or callous? Of course now I’ve learned what you knew then – there’s little difference between the two.’

‘And so fifteen years later you’ve tracked me down, just to tell me that?’ asked Aleksei.

‘Oh, no, no. That’s really just a coincidence, but a pleasant one. For years I didn’t even know if you’d survived, though I suspected you would have.’

‘You did well to remember me.’

‘I had my mementos.’ It was almost imperceptible, but there was a new darkness, a leering tone to those words. It chilled Aleksei.

‘What?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘I came back the following night,’ Kyesha explained. ‘Back into the gaol. They hadn’t cleared up at all; the table was still stained with blood. And scattered all around, like little pink dog turds, were fingers. Yours were easy to find, long and slender – so much more refined than those of the peasants. You should have been a pianist.’ Aleksei glanced sideways towards his son at the mention of the piano. Kyesha misinterpreted him. ‘I’m sorry, that was thoughtless. Perhaps you were a pianist – until then.’

‘Just get on with it,’ muttered Aleksei.

‘As I say, your fingers were easy to find. If our captors had just looked at our hands rather than hacking at them, they’d instantly have worked out who was the spy. But they didn’t, and their loss is… your loss. But the gain was mine. I’ve kept them ever since, as a tribute to bravery.’

‘You’ve kept them?’ Aleksei was stunned.

‘All these years.’

‘But wouldn’t they… rot?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Kyesha lightly. ‘They’re nothing but bones now; six little bones.’

Aleksei’s realization came at the same moment that Kyesha threw the six knucklebones on to the table, in the same manner he had done each night they had met. Then he arranged them in two straight lines, and the shape of Aleksei’s two missing fingers was plain to see.

Aleksei placed his left hand on the table. He thought of the ballet he had seen less than a week before. Then it was a slipper that had fitted perfectly, but now it was those six small bones. He looked down at his hand, complete for the first time in fifteen years – as complete as it could ever be. The bones lay exactly where they should, as if Aleksei had dipped those two fingers into vitriol and allowed their flesh to dissolve while the rest of his hand remained intact. For a few years after they had first been severed, he had still thought he was able to feel them – if he looked away and flexed his hand, he had been able to sense all five fingers move. It happened rarely these days, but as he looked down at the table he tried to flex them again, tried to take control of the long-decayed muscles that had once encased those bones. He almost expected to see movement, but there was none.

He looked deliberately away and tried again, and this time, just as in the early days, he could observe no difference in sensation in his left hand from that he would have felt in his right. He glanced down again, and almost instantly flung himself backwards, away from the table, knocking his chair to the ground. What he had seen was impossible: his hand complete – truly complete, not just with the two skeletal remnants, but with actual fleshy fingers. He had even seen the nails.

He raised his left hand to his face, holding it in his right, but all was as it should be; a thumb, two fingers and two stumps. He looked back on to the table. There lay two fingers. Yes, they were made of flesh as well as bone, but they were not Aleksei’s. They had never been attached to him and had remained on the table as he pulled his hand away. The blood around where they had been cut was dried, but still visible.

Kyesha was smiling. He poured the six small bones of Aleksei’s fingers between his hands as he watched their owner’s reaction.

‘I’m sorry, Aleksei,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize you’d be so shocked. I just thought it would be a fair exchange: my fingers for yours.’

‘You’re very kind,’ replied Aleksei blankly. He resumed his seat, and attempted to ignore the two lumps of flesh on the table in front of him.

‘Not very gracious,’ said Kyesha.

‘I know how little they mean to you.’

Unlike his father, Dmitry seemed intrigued by Kyesha’s gift. He picked up the ring finger, but immediately dropped it back on the table as if it had burned him.

‘What is it?’ asked Aleksei.

‘Feel it! It’s not dead.’

Aleksei picked up the finger. Dmitry was right; it was not dead, but neither was it alive – an apt status considering the creature from which it had come. It was warm – around body temperature – with none of the strange, clammy quality that dead flesh exhibited. Moreover, it was flexible, without the stiffness that a dead body-part should have after a day. But there was nothing that more obviously indicated life. It did not move, or resist being bent by Aleksei’s own hands. He picked up the other finger and slipped them both into his pocket. Kyesha leaned his head to one side and gave a brief nod of acknowledgement. He let Aleksei’s six bones cascade one last time from one hand to the other, and then – mimicking Aleksei’s action – returned them to his own pocket.

‘I presume this still isn’t the reason you contacted me?’ said Aleksei.