It would have been a delight to be the two hundredth to tell Vadim, just to have had the pleasure of seeing him at all.

I wrote a quick response to Marfa, saying very little except that I was safe and back in Moscow. I said nothing of Dmitry or Vadim, since to say only that Dmitry was safe would imply that Vadim was not, and I saw no sense in raising undue alarm. For all I knew, he could have headed straight back to Petersburg and be doting over his beloved grandson, cradling him in his arms at that very moment.

I went to Degtyarny Lane to find out what had happened to Domnikiia the night before. When I arrived, I was told she was occupied. I knew she was still working, but the reality of it remained nonetheless unpleasant. That, I suppose, is why she had said we should not meet there. I went back outside and truculently began to throw pebbles up at her window. Soon, her head popped out. I immediately felt concerned that I was intruding on her territory, that she would brusquely send me away, much as I would have done if she were to interrupt me on the battlefield – a bizarre image.

Her face, however, was a portrait of delight at seeing me.

'Are you all right?' I asked.

'I'm wonderful, Lyosha. How are you?'

'What happened to you last night?'

'Things just got busy. I'm sorry.' She pulled a sorry face as she said the word.

'I wasn't complaining. I was just concerned.'

She smirked. 'You're scared of me, aren't you?'

'Scared of losing you. I wish you didn't seem so happy.'

'Charming! Shouldn't I be happy to see you?'

'So you were miserable until you opened the window?'

'Wretched,' she grinned.

'Good. Now I'm happy.'

I heard the call of a man's voice from within her room. 'I have to go,' she said.

'I'll see you tonight?' I asked.

'I'll try.' With that she was gone.

That evening, I went to the Stone Bridge, still clinging on to the receding hope of seeing Vadim. Even over the three days that I had been back in Moscow, it was already just perceptible that more people were returning to the city. Like the complexion of a man drained of almost all his blood, but not quite to the point of death, the colour was beginning to return to Moscow's cheeks. Although the hour was late, the bridge was still busy, busier even than in happier times as the amount of work that people found themselves faced with increased the hours that they put into it.

As I stood there on the bridge, it began to snow. This was the first real snowfall of the winter; heavier than we had seen in Yuryev-Polsky and still scarcely settling, but a portent of what was to come. It was another sign that winter was to be early that year, but Muscovites – and all Russians – are well prepared and would take the winter in their stride whenever it came. In retreat, out to the west, the same could not be said of the French.

I waited for over an hour, inspecting every face that passed me, but Vadim's was not among them. I headed north, back to my bed and, I hoped, to Domnikiia. I was just gazing up at the towers of the Kremlin when I heard the voice of someone very close behind me whisper in my ear.

'Murderer!'

I turned, but saw no one near. A few steps away from me, I saw the back of a tall, shabby man who was marching directly away. It could only have been he who had spoken. I followed him. Although he never had to run, his long legs carried him with enormous pace, forcing me to break into a trot. As we headed on to the Stone Bridge, I found my pursuit of him hindered by the crowd, bumping into them in my rush to keep up. For him, the crowd offered no such obstacle, seeming to open before him like the sea before the bow of a ship as he strode purposefully across the bridge.

We were across the river and the Vodootvodny Canal before I caught up with him. I put my hand on his shoulder and he offered no resistance in turning to face me. He was tall and pale, with many small scars on his face. His shoulder-length hair was loose and unkempt. His dark, black eyes looked towards me, but seemed to see nothing. There was no specific reason for it, but I knew in my heart that I was standing face to face with a vampire – moreover, a vampire that was not one of the Oprichniki. I had thought that my task had been reduced to having just five more of these creatures to face, but now – as my grandmother had told me they could, and as I had hoped she had made up – the vampires had bred. And if they had produced this one offspring, then how many more might there be? They would become unstoppable.

The creature looked fixedly into my eyes for a few seconds and then turned away and continued his journey. I stood in shocked immobility for a moment, considering the prospect of the number of vampires that I might have to face; considering that I had helped to introduce them into a city where they might now stay for ever, neither noticing nor caring that the language spoken by their food supply had changed from French to Russian. The monster that I had been following might be just one of dozens of innocent Muscovites, picked at random, who had not only been denied life, but subsequently denied a true death as the hideous plague spread.

And yet somewhere at the back of my mind, I recognized the face into which I had just been staring. It was certainly not one of the Oprichniki, nor anyone that I knew very well. It was someone that I had previously seen in Moscow. Then it hit me; a corpse that did not decay. Weeks before, when the dead and wounded of Borodino had been arriving in the city, I had looked briefly into those same dark eyes to verify that the grenadier was indeed dead. The priest had declared it to be a miracle that the body did not putrefy, but I knew now it was no such thing. The corpse did not decay because the body had survived the death of the soul. Presumably one of the Oprichniki, during our first foray out to the west, had transformed him into one of their own. The process must take some time. When I had seen him, he was somewhere between the two states of existence – dead as a human but not yet alive as a vampire. But now he was fully a voordalak.

I continued my pursuit of him, but now more stealthily, reenacting how I had pursued Foma, Matfei and then Ioann. This vampire displayed little of their discretion, walking openly down the streets without any show of fear. Indeed, what was there to fear? The city was free again. He had no need to worry about being stopped by French patrols and he could walk about without obstruction, as free as any other Russian. I, too, was in a better position for the French having left. I could once again wear my sword which, though it gave me some comfort, I knew was not the best weapon at my disposal. Tucked inside my coat was the wooden dagger that I trusted would be of far greater use. I reached in and grasped it firmly, reassured and emboldened by the texture of the chiselled wood.

His indirect meanderings about the city might have been put down to his unfamiliarity with its geography, but it seemed to me more that he was merely trying to pass the time. It wasn't until the early hours of the morning that he finally reached his destination and went up to the doorway of a particularly grand house, certainly owned by one of the wealthier families in the city. It was not far from the cellar where I had left Iuda and Ioann to burn so many weeks before. This residence appeared strangely unravaged in comparison with those around it. The area had not been molested by the fires, but no street in Moscow had been left unmolested by looters, be they native or invader. All along the street, windows were smashed and doors kicked in. Rejected booty – and times were harsh enough that only the most impractical of items (books, paintings and so forth) were counted so valueless as to be rejected – lay strewn outside. But this house had its windows intact, its door still a barrier. Even the street outside, though not clean, was at least clear of the debris that lay outside its neighbours. It was as though some faithful servant had remained behind in the house and had – out of habit and oblivious to the tumult around him – kept the building in the tidiness that befitted it. And yet in the chaos that had befallen Moscow, no amount of diligence alone could have maintained such order. A terrifying strength would have been required. The absence of refuse around the house was reminiscent of the absence of insects around the dark corner of a room in which a spider lurks.