'Look, I'm Nanny Ogg and thith, excuse me, this is Agnes Nitt. And you are...?'
'My name ith... well, it'th Igor, ath a matter of facththth,' said Igor. He raised a hasty finger. 'But it might not have been!'
'It's a chilly night. Can we get you something?' said Nanny cheerfully.
'Perhaps a towel?' said Agnes.
Nanny nudged her in the ribs to be silent. 'A glass of wine, p'raps?' she said.
'I do not drink... wine,' said Igor haughtily.
'I've got some brandy,' said Nanny, hitching up her skirt.
'Oh, right. I drink brandy like thtink.'
Knickerleg elastic twanged in the gloom.
'So,' said Nanny, passing up the flask, 'what're you doing this far from home, Igor?'
'Why'th there a thtupid troll down there on the... bridge?' said Igor, taking the flask in one large hand which, Agnes noticed, was a mass of scars and stitches.
'Oh, that's Big Jim Beef. The King lets him live under there provided he looks official when we've got comp'ny comin'.'
'Beef ith an odd name for a troll.'
'He likes the sound of it,' said Nanny. 'It's like a man calling himself Rocky, I suppose. So... I used to know an Igor from Uberwald. Walked with a limp. One eye a bit higher than the other. Had the same manner of... speaking. Very good at brain juggling, too.'
'That thoundth like my Uncle Igor,' said Igor. 'He worked for the mad doctor at Blinz. Ha, an' he wath a proper mad doctor, too, not like the mad doctorth you get thethe dayth. And the thervantth? Even worthe. No pride thethe dayth.' He tapped the brandy flask for emphasis. 'When Uncle Igor wath thent out for a geniuth'th brain, that'th what you damn well got. There wath none of thith fumblefinger thtuff and then pinching a brain out of the "Really Inthane" jar and hopin' no one'd notithe. They alwayth do, anyway.'
Nanny took a step back. The only sensible way to hold a conversation with Igor was when you had an umbrella.
'I think I've heard of that chap,' she said. 'Didn't he stitch folk together out of dead parts?'
'No! Really?' said Agnes, shocked. 'Ow!'
'That'th right. Ith there a problem?'
'No, I call it prudent,' said Nanny, taking her foot off Agnes's toe. 'My mum was a dab hand at sewing a new sheet from bits of old ones, and people're worth more than linen. So he's your master now, is he?'
'No, my Uncle Igor thtill workth for him. Been thtruck by lightning three hundred timeth and thtill putth in a full night'th work.'
'Have a drop more of that brandy, it's very cold out here,' said Nanny. 'So who is your master, Igor?'
'Call them marthterth?' said Igor, with sudden venom and a light shower. 'Huh! Now the old Count, he wath a gentleman of the old thchool. He knew how it all workth. Proper evening dreth at all timeth, that'th the rule!'
'Evenin' dress, eh?' said Nanny.
'Meth! Thith lot only wear it in the evening, can you imagine that? The retht of the time it'th all thwanning around in fanthy waithtcoatth and lacy thkirtth! Hah! D'you know what thith lot have done?'
'Do tell...'
'They've oiled the hingeth!' Igor took a hefty pull of Nanny's special brandy. 'Thome of thothe thqueakth took bloody yearth to get right. But, oh no, now it'th "Igor, dean thothe thpiderth out of the dungeon" and "Igor, order up thome proper oil lampth, all thethe flickering torcheth are tho fifteen minuteth ago"! Tho the plathe lookth old? Being a vampire'th about continuity, ithn't it? You get lotht in the mountainth and thee a light burnin' in thome carthle, you got a right to expect proper thqueakin' doorth and thome old-world courtethy, don't you?'
'Ah, right. An' a bed in the room with a balcony outside,' said Nanny.
'My point egthactly!'
'Proper billowing curtains, too?'
'Damn right!'
'Real gutterin' candles?'
'I thpend ageth gettin' them properly dribbly. Not that anyone careth.'
'You got to get the details right, I always say,' said Nanny. 'Well, well, well... so our king invited vampires, eh?'
There was a thump as Igor slumped backwards and a tinny sound as the flask landed on the cobbles. Nanny picked it up and secreted it about her person.
'Good head for his drink,' she remarked. Not many people ever tasted Nanny Ogg's home-made brandy; it was technically impossible. Once it encountered the warmth of the human mouth it immediately turned into fumes. You drank it via your sinuses.
'What're we going to do?' said Agnes.
'Do? He invited 'em. They're guests,' said Nanny. 'I bet if I asked him Verence'd tell me to mind my own business. O' course, he wouldn't put it quite like that,' she added, since she knew the King had no suicidal tendencies. 'He'd prob'ly use the word "respect" two or three times at least. But it'd mean the same thing in the end.'
'But vampires... what's Granny going to say?'
'Listen, my girl, they'll be gone tomorrow... well, today, really. We'll just keep an eye on 'em and wave 'em goodbye when they go.'
'We don't even know what they look like!'
Nanny looked at the recumbent Igor.
'On reflection, maybe I should've asked him,' she said. She brightened up. 'Still, there's one way to find them. That's something everyone knows about vampires...'
In fact there are many things everyone knows about vampires, without really taking into account that perhaps the vampires know them by now, too.
The castle hall was a din. There was a mob around the buffet table. Nanny and Agnes helped out.
'Can o' pee, anyone?' said Nanny, shoving a tray towards a likely-looking group.
'I beg your pardon?' said someone. 'Oh... canapes...'
He took a vol-au-vent and bit into it as he turned back to the group.
'... so I said to his lordship What the hell is this?'
He turned to find himself under close scrutiny by the wrinkled old lady in a pointy hat.
'Sorry?' she said.
'This... this... this is just mashed garlic'!
'Don't like garlic flavour, eh?' said Nanny sternly.
'I love garlic, but it doesn't like me! This isn't just garlic flavoured, woman, it's all garlic!'
Nanny peered at her tray with theatrical shortsightedness.
'No, there's some... there's a bit of... you're right, perhaps we overdid it a gnat's... I'll just go and... just get some... I'll just go...'
She collided with Agnes at the entrance to the kitchen. Two trays slid to the floor, spilling garlic vol-au-vents, garlic dip, garlic stuffed with garlic and tiny cubes of garlic on a stick, stuck into a garlic.
'Either there's a lot of vampires in these parts or we're doing something wrong,' said Agnes flatly.
'I've always said you can't have too much garlic,' said Nanny.
'Everyone else disagrees, Nanny.'
'All right, then. What else... ah! All vampires wear evening dress in the evenings, even this lot.'
'Everyone here is wearing some kind of evening dress, Nanny. Except us.'
Nanny Ogg looked down. 'This is the dress I always wear in the evenin'.'
'Vampires aren't supposed to show up in a mirror, are they?' said Agnes.
Nanny snapped her fingers. 'Good thinking!' she said. 'There's one in the lavvie. I'll kind of hover in there. Everyone's got to go sooner or later.'
'But what if a man comes in?'
'Oh, I won't mind,' said Nanny dismissively. 'I won't be embarrassed.'
'I think there may be objections,' said Agnes, trying to ignore the mental picture just conjured up. Nanny had a pleasant grin, but there had to be times when you didn't want it looking at you.
'We've got to do something. Supposing Granny were to turn up now, what would she think?' said Nanny.
'We could just ask,' said Agnes.
'What? "Hands up all vampires"?'
'Ladies?'
They turned. The young man who had introduced himself as Vlad was approaching.
Agnes began to blush.
'I think you were talking about vampires,' he said, taking a garlic pasty from Agnes's tray and biting into it with every sign of enjoyment. 'Could I be of assistance?'
Nanny looked him up and down.
'Do you know much about them?' she said.
'Well, I am one,' he said. 'So I suppose the answer is yes. Charmed to meet you, Mrs Ogg.' He bowed and reached for her hand.
'Oh no you don't!' said Nanny, snatching it away. 'I don't hold with bloodsuckers!'
'I know. But I'm sure you shall in time. Would you like to come and meet my family?'
'They can bugger off! What was the King thinking of?'
'Nanny!'
'What?'
'You don't have to shout like that. It's not very... polite. I don't think-'
'Vlad de Magpyr,' said Vlad, bowing.
'-is going to bite my neck!' shouted Nanny.
'Of course not,' said Vlad. 'We had some sort of bandit earlier. Mrs Ogg is, I suspect, a meal to be savoured. Any more of these garlic things? They're rather piquant.'
'You what?' said Nanny.
'You just... killed someone?' said Agnes.
'Of course. We are vampires,' said Vlad. 'Or, we prefer, vampyres. With a "y". It's more modern. Now, do come and meet my father.'
'You actually killed someone?' said Agnes.
'Right! That's it!' snarled Nanny, marching away. 'I'm getting Shawn and he's gonna come back with a big sharp-'
Vlad coughed quietly. Nanny stopped.
'There are several other things people know about vampires,' he said. 'And one is that they have considerable control over the minds of lesser creatures. So forget all about vampires, dear ladies. That is an order. And do come and meet my family.'
Agnes blinked. She was aware that there had been... something. She could feel the tail of it, slipping away between her fingers.
'Seems a nice young man,' said Nanny, in a mildly stunned voice.
'I... he... yes,' said Agnes.
Something surfaced in her mind, like a message in a bottle written indistinctly in some foreign language. She tried, but she could not read it.
'I wish Granny was here,' she said at last. 'She'd know what to do.'
'What about?' said Nanny. 'She ain't good at parties.'
'I feel a bit... odd,' said Agnes.
'Ah, could be the drink,' said Nanny.
'I haven't had any!'
'No? Well, there's the problem right there. Come on.'
They hurried into the hall. Even though it was now well after midnight, the noise level was approaching the pain threshold. When the midnight hour lies on the glass like a big cocktail onion, there's always an extra edge to the laughter.
Vlad gave them an encouraging wave and beckoned them over to a group around King Verence.
'Ah, Agnes and Nanny,' said the King. 'Count, may I present-'
'Gytha Ogg and Agnes Nitt, I believe,' said the man the King had just been talking to. He bowed. For some reason a tiny part of Agnes was expecting a sombrelooking man with an exciting widow's-peak hairstyle and an opera cloak. She couldn't think why.
This man looked like... well, like a gentleman of independent means and an inquiring mind, perhaps, the kind of man who goes for long walks in the morning and spends the afternoons improving his mind in his own private library or doing small interesting exper-iments on parsnips and never, ever, worrying about money. There was something glossy about him, and also a sort of urgent, hungry enthusiasm, the kind you get when someone has just read a really interesting book and is determined to tell someone all about it.
'Allow me to present the Countess Magpyr,' he said. 'These are the witches I told you about, dear. I believe you've met my son? And this is my daughter, Lacrimosa.'
Agnes met the gaze of a thin girl in a white dress, with very long black hair and far too much eye make-up. There is such a thing as hate at first sight.
'The Count was just telling me how he is planning to move into the castle and rule the country,' said Verence. 'And I was saying that I think we shall be honoured.'
'Well done,' said Nanny. 'But if you don't mind, I don't want to miss the weasel man...'
'The trouble is that people always think of vampires in terms of their diet,' said the Count, as Nanny hurried away. 'It's really rather insulting. You eat animal flesh and vegetables, but it hardly defines you, does it?'
Verence's face was contorted in a smile, but it looked glassy and unreal.
'But you do drink human blood?' he said.
'Of course. And sometimes we kill people, although hardly at all these days. In any case, where exactly is the harm in that? Prey and hunter, hunter and prey. The sheep was designed as dinner for the wolf, the wolf as a means of preventing overgrazing by the sheep. If you examine your teeth, sire, you'll see that they are designed for a particular kind of diet and, indeed, your whole body is constructed to take advantage of it. And so it is with us. I'm sure the nuts and cabbages do not blame you. Hunter and prey are all just part of the great cycle of life.'
'Fascinating,' said Verence. Little beads of sweat were rolling down his face.
'Of course, in Uberwald everyone understands this instinctively,' said the Countess. 'But it is rather a backward place for the children. We are so looking forward to Lancre.'
'Very glad to hear it,' said Verence.
'And so kind of you to invite us,' she went on. 'Otherwise we could not have come, of course.'
'Not exactly,' said the Count, beaming at his wife. 'But I have to admit that the prohibition against entering places uninvited has proved curiously... durable. It must be something to do with ancient territorial instincts. But,' he added brightly, 'I have been working on an instructional technique which I'm sure will, within a few years-'
'Oh, don't let's go through all that dull stuff again,' said Lacrimosa.
'Yes, I suppose it can sound a little tedious,' said the Count, smiling benevolently at his daughter. 'Has anyone any more of that wonderful garlic dip?'
The King still looked uneasy, Agnes noticed. Which was odd, because the Count and his family seemed absolutely charming and what they were saying made perfect sense. Everything was perfectly all right.
'Exactly,' said Vlad, beside her. 'Do you dance, Miss Nitt?' On the other side of the hall, the Lancre Light Symphony Orchestra (cond. S. Ogg) was striking up and out at random.
'Ur...' She stopped it turning into a giggle. 'Not really. Not very well...'
Didn't you listen to what they were saying? They're vampires!
'Shut up,' she said aloud.
'I beg your pardon?' said Vlad, looking puzzled.
'And they're... well, they're not a very good orchestra...'
Didn't you pay any attention to what they were saying at all, you useless lump?
'They're a very bad orchestra,' said Vlad.
'Well, the King only bought the instruments last month and basically they're trying to learn together-'
Chop his head off! Give him a garlic enema!
'Are you all right? You really know there are no vampires here, don't you...'
He's controlling you! Perdita screamed. They're... affecting people!
'I'm a bit... faint from all the excitement,' Agnes mumbled. 'I think I'll go home.' Some instinct at bonemarrow level made her add, 'I'll ask Nanny to go with me.'
Vlad gave her an odd look, as if she wasn't reacting in quite the right way. Then he smiled. Agnes noticed that he had very white teeth.
'I don't think I've ever met anyone like you, Miss Nitt,' he said. 'There's something so... inner about you.'
That's me! That's me! He can't work me out! Now let's both get out of here! yelled Perdita.
'But we shall meet again.'
Agnes gave him a nod and staggered away, clutching at her head. It felt like a ball of cotton wool in which there was, inexplicably, a needle.
She passed Mightily Oats, who'd dropped his book on the floor and was sitting groaning with his head in his hands. He raised it to look at her.
'Er... miss, have you anything that might help my head?' he said. 'It really is... rather painful...'
'The Queen makes up some sort of headache pills out of willow bark,' Agnes panted, and hurried on.
Nanny Ogg was standing morosely with a pint in her hand, a hitherto unheard-of combination.
'The weasel juggler didn't turn up,' she said. 'Well, I'm going to put out the hard word on him. He's had it in showbusiness in these parts.'
'Could you... help me home, Nanny?'
'So what if he got bitten on the essentials, that's all part ofAre you all right?'
'I feel really awful, Nanny.'
'Let's go, then. All the good beer's gone and I'm not stoppin' anyway if there's nothin' to laugh at.'
The wind was whistling across the sky when they walked back to Agnes's cottage. In fact there seemed more whistle than wind. The leafless trees creaked as they passed, the weak moonlight filling the eaves of the woods with dangerous shadows. Clouds were piling in, and there was more rain on the way.
Agnes noticed Nanny pick up something as they left the town behind them.
It was a stick. She'd never known a witch carry a stick at night before.
'Why have you got that, Nanny?'
'What? Oh? Dunno, really. It's a rattly odd night, ain't it... ?'
'But you're never frightened of anything in Lan-'
Several things pushed through the bushes and clattered on to the road ahead. For a moment Agnes thought they were horses, until the moonlight caught them. Then they were gone, into the shadows on the other side of the road. She heard galloping among the trees.
'Haven't seen any of those for a long time,' said Nanny.
'I've never seen centaurs at all except in pictures,' said Agnes.
'Must've come down out of Uberwald,' said Nanny. 'Nice to see them about again.'
Agnes hurriedly lit the candles when she got into the cottage, and wished there were bolts on the door.
'Just sit down,' said Nanny. 'I'll get a cup of water, I know my way around here.'
'It's all right, I-'
Agnes's left arm twitched. To her horror it swung at the elbow and waved its hand up and down in front of her face, as if guided by a mind of its own.
'Feeling a bit warm, are you?' said Nanny.
'I'll get the water!' panted Agnes.
She rushed into the kitchen, gripping her left wrist with her right hand. It shook itself free, grabbed a knife from the draining board and stabbed it into the wall, dragging it so that it formed crude letters in the crumbling plaster:
VMPIR
It dropped the knife, grabbed at the hair on the back of Agnes's head and thrust her face within inches of the letters.
'You all right in there?' Nanny called from the next room.
'Er, yes, but I think I'm trying to tell me something-'
A movement made her turn. A small blue man wearing a blue cap was staring at her from the shelves over the washcopper. He stuck out his tongue, made a very small obscene gesture and disappeared behind a bag of washing crystals.
'Nanny?'
'Yes, luv?'
'Are there such things as blue mice?'
'Not while you're sober, dear.'
'I think... I'm owed a drink, then. Is there any brandy left?'
Nanny came in, uncorking the flask.
'I topped it up at the party. Of course, it's only shopbought stuff, you couldn't-'
Agnes's left hand snatched it and poured it down her throat. Then she coughed so hard that some of it went up her nose.
'Hang on, hang on, it's not that weak,' said Nanny.
Agnes plonked the flask down on the kitchen table.
'Right,' she said, and her voice sounded quite different to Nanny. 'My name is Perdita and I'm taking over this body right now.'
Hodgesaargh noticed the smell of burnt wood as he ambled back to the mews but put it down to the bonfire in the courtyard. He'd left the party early. No one had wanted to talk about hawks.
The smell was very strong when he looked in on the birds and saw the little flame in the middle of the floor. He stared at it for a second, then picked up a water bucket and threw it.
The flame continued to flicker gently on a bare stone that was awash with water.
Hodgesaargh looked at the birds. They were watching it with interest; normally they'd be frantic in the presence of fire.
Hodgesaargh was never one to panic. He watched it for a while, and then took a piece of wood and gently touched it to the flame. The fire leapt on to the wood and went on burning.
The wood didn't even char.
He found another twig and brushed it against the flame, which slid easily from one to the other. There was one flame. It was clear there wasn't going to be two.
Half the bars in the window had been burned away, and there was some scorched wood at the end of the mews, where the old nestboxes had been. Above it, a few stars shone through rags of mist over a charred hole in the roof.
Something had burned here, Hodgesaargh saw.
Fiercely, by the look of it. But also in a curiously local way, as if all the heat had been somehow contained...
He reached towards the flame dancing on the end of the stick. It was warm, but... not as hot as it should be.
Now it was on his finger. It tingled. As he waved it around, the head of every bird turned to watch it.
By its light, he poked around in the charred remains of the nestboxes. In the ashes were bits of broken eggshell.
Hodgesaargh picked them up and carried them into the crowded little room at the end of the mews which served as workshop and bedroom. He balanced the flame on a saucer. In here, where it was quieter, he could hear it making a slight sizzling noise.
In the dim glow he looked along the one crowded bookshelf over his bed and pulled down a huge ragged volume on the cover of which someone had written, centuries ago, the word 'Burds'.
The book was a huge ledger. The spine had been cut and widened inexpertly several times so that more pages could be pasted in.
The falconers of Lancre knew a lot about birds. The kingdom was on a main migratory route between the Hub and the Rim. The hawks had brought down many strange species over the centuries and the falconers had, very painstakingly, taken notes. The pages were thick with drawings and closely spaced writing, the entries copied and re-copied and updated over the years. The occasional feather carefully glued to a page had added to the thickness of the thing.
No one had ever bothered with an index, but some past falconer had considerately arranged many of the entries into alphabetical order.
Hodgesaargh glanced again at the flame burning steadily in its saucer, and then, handling the crackling pages with care, turned to 'F'.
After some browsing, he eventually found what he was looking for under 'P'.
Back in the mews, in the deepest shadow, something cowered.
There were three shelves of books in Agnes's cottage. By witch standards, that was a giant library.
Two very small blue figures lay on top of the books, watching the scene with interest.
Nanny Ogg backed away, waving the poker.
'It's all right,' said Agnes. 'It's me again, Agnes Nitt, but... She's here but... I'm sort of holding on. Yes! Yes! All right! All right, just shut up, will y- Look, it's my body, you're just a figment of my imagina- Okay! Okayl Perhaps it's not quite so clear c- Let me just talk to Nanny, will you?'
'Which one are you now?' said Nanny Ogg.
'I'm still Agnes, of course.' She rolled her eyes up. 'All right! I'm Agnes currently being advised by Perdita, who is also me. In a way. And I'm not too fat, thank you so very much!'
'How many of you are there in there?' said Nanny.
'What do you mean, "room for ten"?' shouted Agnes. 'Shut up! Listen, Perdita says there were vampires at the party. The Magpyr family, she says. She can't understand how we acted. They were putting a kind of. .. 'fluence over everyone. Including me, which is why she was able to break thr- Yes, all right, I'm telling it, thank you!'
'Why not her, then?' said Nanny.
'Because she's got a mind of her own! Nanny, can you remember anything they actually said?'
'Now you come to ' mention it, no. But they seemed nice enough people.'
'And you remember talking to Igor?'
'Who's Igor?'
The tiny blue figures watched, fascinated, for the next halfhour.
Nanny sat back at the end of it and stared at the ceiling for a while.
'Why should we believe her?' she said eventually.
'Because she's me.'
'They do say that inside every fat girl is a thin girl and-' Nanny began.
'Yes,' said Agnes bitterly. 'I've heard it. Yes. She's the thin girl. I'm the lot of chocolate.'
Nanny leaned towards Agnes's ear and raised her voice. 'How're you gettin' on in there? Everything all right, is it? Treatin' you all right, is she?'
'Haha, Nanny. Very funny.'
'They were saying all this stuff about drinkin' blood and killin' people and everyone was just noddin' and sayin', 'Well, well, how very fascinatin"?'
'Yes!'
'And eatin' garlic?'
'Yes!'
'That can't be right, can it?'
'I don't know, perhaps we used the wrong sort of garlic!'
Nanny rubbed her chin, torn between the vampiric revelation and prurient curiosity about Perdita.
'How does Perdita work, then?' she said.
Agnes sighed. 'Look, you know the part of you that wants to do all the things you don't dare do, and thinks the thoughts you don't dare think?'
Nanny's face stayed blank. Agnes floundered. 'Like... maybe... rip off all your clothes and run naked in the rain?' she hazarded.
'Oh, yes. Right,' said Nanny.
'Well... I suppose Perdita is that part of me.'
'Really? I've always been that part of me,' said Nanny. 'The important thing is to remember where you left your clothes.'
Agnes remembered too late that Nanny Ogg was in many ways a very uncomplicated personality.
'Mind you, I think I know what you mean,' Nanny went on in a more thoughtful voice. 'There's times when I've wanted to do things and stopped meself...' She shook her head. 'But... vampires... Verence wouldn't be so stupid as to send an invitation to vampires, would he?' She paused for thought. 'Yes, he would. Prob'ly think of it as offering the hand of friendship.'
She stood up. 'Right, they won't have left yet. Let's get straight to the jelly. You get extra garlic and a few stakes, I'll round up Shawn and Jason and the lads.'
'It won't work, Nanny. Perdita saw what they can do. The moment you get near them you'll forget all about it. They do something to your mind, Nanny.'
Nanny hesitated. 'Can't say I know that much about vampires,' she said.
'Perdita thinks they can tell what you're thinking, too.'
'Then this is Esme's type of stuff,' said Nanny. 'Messing with minds and so on. It's meat and drink to her.'
'Nanny, they were talking about staying! We have to do something!'
'Well, where is she?' Nanny almost wailed. 'Esme ought to be sortin' this out!'