Once more, I offered the bottle back to Boris Mihailovich. He took another small swig, before handing it back to me. 'You drink it, Aleksei. Fedya can drink no more, so you should have it.'

I took a gulp, taking more pleasure in it than I had the first, feeling the fire trickle down my throat and through my chest before spreading like a fountain around the walls of my stomach. I took a second gulp and felt the same feeling of refreshment. I knew that the man was giving me the last of his supply, that I should be grateful and abstemious, but I could not. I took gulp after delicious gulp until the bottle was dry.

If he was upset to see the last of his vodka drunk, he did not show it. He merely smiled the smile of an old man who enjoys seeing in others the enjoyment of pleasures that he can no longer appreciate for himself.

'Were you at Smolensk?' he asked. I nodded. 'Tell me about it.'

And so began a long day of me recounting every war story that I knew. I told him of distant campaigns, like Austerlitz, and of the more recent battles at Smolensk and Borodino. I always spoke as if I had been just a regular soldier. He needed no stories of espionage and the Oprichniki, simply good honest tales of soldiery of the sort that he knew his son had been involved in.

As I spoke, he continued to mend boots, able to listen and to work without one activity in any way interfering with the other. Sadly, he had only three pairs in his pile and, once they were mended, there was no more work for him to do. During our conversation Natalia returned. She had the money she had received for the one pair of boots that he had given her, plus two more for him to deal with. He made quick work of them, listening throughout to my stories, and as I spoke, Natalia also sat beside us on the floor, enraptured by my words, basking in the illusion that her brother was once again with them.

Towards mid-afternoon, Boris sent his daughter away to fetch some food. She returned with a loaf of bread and, miraculously, some butter. Dmitry was in no condition to eat, but they shared the food with me as though I was a part of their family. Once again, my heart told me to restrain myself, but my hunger was victorious.

My leg, it turned out after I had gingerly rolled up my trouser leg to inspect it, was not too badly burnt. Dmitry had snatched me out from the burning stairway after only seconds, so the heat had not penetrated too deeply. All the hairs on my shin and calf had shrivelled to nothing. The skin was red, but still intact. It would easily heal. I was certainly in a far better state than Dmitry.

By evening, I had shown my missing fingers and told them a much sanitized version of how I lost them. I had turned Dmitry's head to show them the scar on his cheek and tell them the story behind that. I would have loved to tell them of the brave heroics of a young ryadovoy I had met at Smolensk named Fyodor Borisovich, but I could not. Even if I had met him, I doubt I would have remembered him, and I could not bring myself to lie to these people – even to flatter them – on a matter so close to their hearts as that.

As night fell, I realized that I had work to do. I took my leave of them, but told them I would return.

There was a freshness in the air of Moscow that night which seemed familiar and yet which I had so quickly forgotten. The last of the fires were dying away and there was nothing new to burn and so the air once again smelled normal. Better than normal. In purging the city of so many buildings, the fires had left behind them a cleaner city; a city with less waste and less sewage. Perhaps the shortage in the city of every item that might support life also meant that there simply was less waste. No one would throw out the driest of bones or the most rotten of vegetables at a time when they did not know where their next meal would come from. The rats must have been having a hard time.

Personally, I preferred the traditional stenches of the city. Some slight alleviation would be pleasant, but not to this extent. The smells were the smells of life. The cleanliness was the cleanliness of an empty desert.

That night's rendezvous was in Tverskaya, at a tavern not far from the inn where we had stayed in Moscow in happier times. It wasn't clear to me whether we were meant to meet inside or outside. Inside is clearly the obvious place when meeting at an inn, but the risk was that it would be swarming with French soldiers looking for any place where they might relax. When I arrived I saw that the issue was beyond debate. There was no inside and no outside, because there was no tavern. It, along with every other building in the block, had burnt to the ground.

I stood and waited on the other side of the street, which was less damaged, leaning against the wall and scanning the wreckage of buildings opposite. I was suddenly hit by how tired I was. It had been before nightfall the previous day that I had last slept, deep in the crypt of that church in Zamoskvorechye. My eyelids began to droop. I tried holding them half open, then closing just one, then the other, then I decided to allow myself a few seconds' rest by closing them both.

I awoke with a jerk. I didn't know how long I had been asleep, but I was still on my feet, so I doubted it could have been more than a few seconds. Something was moving in the dark, charred shadows opposite me. As I looked, the movement stopped.

'Vadim,' I hissed, more in hope than in expectation. There was no reply. It was only Vadim that I was hoping to see, but I was well aware that my appointment was with the Oprichniki as well. It was a risk that I had to take, but I suddenly realized how foolish I was being. I had killed four of them now. How was I to know that none of the others had been silently watching as I acted? Even if they didn't have the evidence of their own eyes, they could easily become suspicious. And I knew all too well how they had taken their revenge on Maks for his offences against them.

There was movement amongst the rubble again, this time to the right; I only caught it with the corner of my eye. I pressed myself back against the wall, but I knew I could still be clearly seen. I had been a fool to come. There were still five vampires abroad in the city with good reason to pick upon me as their prey. Even if I hid away in the deepest crypt they would eventually find me, but I had made it easy for them and kept our appointment. Perhaps I had hoped that they would give enough credit to my guile that they would assume I wouldn't show up. But had I been in their shoes, I would have gone even for a long shot like that.

I saw a glint of light, a reflection from an Oprichnik's eye, and then heard a movement from further down the street. My hand reached to my chest and I felt the comforting hardness of the icon of the Saviour. I offered Him a silent prayer. It would have surprised Him; He had not heard from me for many years, but I had been brought up to believe that He wasn't one to hold a petty grudge. I edged down the wall towards the end of the street, hoping that they hadn't posted a guard there, but knowing that even if I ran, they would quickly catch up with me. They might toy with me. Let me flee tonight only to strike some other evening. Nowhere would be safe in a city that was now theirs to plunder – a city I had brought them to.

Suddenly, there was a squeal, and the sound of falling rubble. I looked and saw a cat bounding from the ruined tavern and into the street. It turned and stood its ground as another cat leapt at it in pursuit. Both were scrawny, but the first had some morsel of food in its mouth. The second wanted it.

I fled. I had gone fifty paces before it became clear to me that those cats were all that I had seen and heard amongst the charcoal, but I didn't stop running. Just because the Oprichniki weren't there now, they might be there later. If Vadim showed up, then that was his look-out. He was smart enough not to, anyway – smarter than me. I ran back to the shantytown where I had left Dmitry with Natalia and her father. I was calmer than I had been, but terror still pervaded my body; a terror that should have struck me when I first saw Matfei's teeth at that soldier's throat, but which now took hold of me with a vengeance. Dmitry still occupied what served as the only bed. Natalia and Boris lay sleeping on the muddy floor, wrapped in each other's arms for warmth and comfort. There was an empty strip of earth between them and Dmitry. I lay there, but sleep did not come to me quickly. When it did, it was a welcome oblivion.