Jasper Kent - Thirteen Years Later

Aleksei stepped inside the hallway again, but he did not need to watch as the wound to the book once again healed over. He had seen all he needed to see.

It explained the strange, delicate texture of the leather that bound the book, so refined it was as if the tanner’s salts had never touched it.

It was not leather.

The book was bound in the skin of a vampire; a living vampire.

ALEKSEI RETURNED TO HIS STUDY. DOMNIKIIA WAS STANDING in the doorway to the bedroom, her hand clasping Tamara’s.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

Aleksei flicked his eyes towards their daughter, and Domnikiia understood. She led the little girl away. Even before she returned, Aleksei had begun rereading his translation notes. That same sun that had burned the skin that covered the book had shone a new light on the meaning of its contents – it had nothing to do with rats.

‘What is it?’ said Domnikiia, now alone, closing the door behind her.

‘The book,’ said Aleksei. ‘I understand it now.’

‘You understand it?’ Domnikiia did not see what he meant.

‘Not the detail – but I understand what it’s about.’

‘Which is?’

‘Voordalaki.’ The single word still held the power to shock Domnikiia, despite what she already knew. She said nothing and he continued. ‘This Englishman, Cain, who wrote the book; he’s been conducting experiments on vampires – horrible experiments. He cuts them open and watches them regrow.’ Fresh understanding was coming to Aleksei even as he spoke. Every bizarre translation of the English suddenly became clear once he had the knowledge of what Cain’s victims were.

‘So?’ said Domnikiia dismissively. ‘Let him. He can torture them till doomsday for all I care.’

Aleksei wondered if he could be so callous, even towards a vampire. But that was not the issue. ‘It’s not torture – it’s experimentation. He’s trying to find out how they function. The question is, why?’

‘The better to kill them.’ Again, Domnikiia spoke with a passion she had picked up from Aleksei over the years. ‘You’ve done the same – this Cain’s just being a bit more thorough.’

‘Perhaps, or perhaps to use them – to make them stronger.’ That was the impression Aleksei had got from the notebook, but there was no specific line he could point to that asserted it. It was simply a question of tone – and tone was the hardest thing even for an expert to translate.

‘So how will you find out? Translate the rest of the book?’

Aleksei didn’t answer her question. ‘There’s another thing,’ he said instead. ‘I know where Cain is. He’s in Taganrog.’

She looked blankly at him.

‘That’s where the tsar is,’ he explained, his voice dropping unnecessarily to a whisper. It was not common knowledge, and he didn’t recall ever having told her.

‘More than a coincidence,’ she said.

‘He’s even mentioned in the book. It can’t be coincidence.’ Aleksei had never discussed with Domnikiia her views on the tsar – not as an institution. She loved him as a distant hero just as almost every other loyal Russian did, but Aleksei had no idea whether she would fall in with or against the members of the Northern Society, or if she would care at all. She had no idea about his own ambivalence.

‘So-’ She did not have time to finish what she was about to say. Valentin Valentinovich stormed in.

‘How dare you make such a scene, Aleksei,’ he blustered, still unable to raise his voice to the shout he so evidently wished to produce. Aleksei and Domnikiia both stared at him blankly, unable to think how to respond to his petty complaints in the light of what they had been discussing. ‘I should throw you both out of the house right now,’ continued Valentin. ‘All three of you.’

Aleksei stood, holding the French-English dictionary open in his hands. He slammed it shut just beneath Valentin’s nose. The loud clap of air silenced him, and a gust of wind blew his fringe out of place.

‘Don’t worry, I’m leaving,’ said Aleksei. He turned back to the desk and closed the notebook, wrapping it up in the paper in which it had first been delivered. He then tucked both it and the dictionary under his arm and headed for the door. Before leaving, he turned to Valentin Valentinovich. ‘But I still have friends in this town – from the highest and lowest echelons – and if I hear from anyone that your daughter and her nanny aren’t living in exactly the comfort which they would expect, then I think you know what the consequences will be.’

Valentin looked over at Domnikiia. She appeared confident but not defiant, and Valentin seemed to calm. He turned back and spoke to Aleksei.

‘You don’t need to say that. Whatever disagreements we may have, they will always have a home here. I gave you my word on that years ago.’

Aleksei felt momentarily embarrassed. He knew he took advantage of Valentin, but knew also it was out of an unnecessary fear – a fear born of his own guilt. Valentin would do as he had promised.

Aleksei gave a curt nod, which he felt conveyed a sense of understanding between them. ‘I’ll be gone by tomorrow,’ he said, turning and walking down the hallway.

Valentin took a few steps towards him and called after him. ‘But where are you going?’

‘To Taganrog,’ Aleksei shouted back.

The mood in the club was sombre, as it had been for the last three days. Dmitry played softly on the piano, sticking mostly with folk songs that were neither too solemn nor too cheery. No one had explicitly reproached him or his father for the death of Obukhov, but the enthusiasm that had greeted him a few days before, when he had first asked if anyone would be interested in a small military venture around Theatre Square, was now replaced by a weary half-acknowledgement. Today, no one had stood by the piano to ask him to perform a favourite tune they could sing along to.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up from the keyboard to see Lieutenant Batenkov heading away from him across the room. In the doorway stood Aleksei. Dmitry reached them just as Batenkov began talking to his father.

‘You’re not to blame, Colonel,’ he was saying in a quiet tone. ‘You warned Obukhov.’

‘I shouldn’t have picked him in the first place,’ replied Aleksei.

‘You didn’t pick him,’ interrupted Dmitry. ‘I did.’

‘I was in charge,’ insisted Aleksei.

‘He was a soldier,’ said Batenkov. ‘Soldiers die, even in peacetime.’ He cast his eyes around the room. ‘Everyone knows that – whatever they may say.’

Aleksei patted him on the arm and the lieutenant turned away with a brief smile. Dmitry followed his father to a quiet corner, where they sat down to talk.

‘I’m leaving Moscow,’ announced Aleksei.

‘Why?’ asked Dmitry.

‘I can’t say.’

‘Is it because of the book?’

Aleksei considered for a fraction of a second, then nodded briefly.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ asked Dmitry.

‘No, it’s best not.’

‘But I could help!’

‘You’d be court-martialled for desertion.’

Dmitry considered what his father had said. ‘What about you?’ he asked.

‘I have a freer rein. And I know what I’m dealing with.’ Aleksei spoke with a whisper that was almost a hiss, avoiding the word voordalak. Nevertheless, his meaning was quite clear.

‘You know how dangerous they can be,’ Dmitry responded.

‘Not in this case, I don’t think. Kyesha could have killed us both if he’d wanted to. Besides, there are other matters of greater concern – to everyone. I need you here – in the north.’ Dmitry looked at his father, his face asking what it was he wanted him to do. ‘You know what’s going to happen here,’ said Aleksei, his eyes flicking around the room and reminding Dmitry of the common cause for which they all fought, ‘when the time comes.’