‘She’s gone,’ whispered Nanny. ‘She sent her self somewhere. . .’
‘Where? Where?’ hissed Magrat.
‘Don’t think about it!’ said Nanny.
Magrat’s expression froze.
‘Oh, no. . .’she began.
‘Don’t think it! Don’t think it!’ said Nanny urgently. ‘Pink elephants! Pink elephants!’
‘She wouldn’t-‘
‘Lalalala! Be-ie-ee-ie-oh!’ shouted Nanny, dragging Magrat towards the kitchen door. ‘Come on, let’s go! Agnes, it’s up to you two!’
The door slammed behind them. Agnes heard the bolts slide home. It was a thick door and they were big bolts; the builders of Lancre Castle hadn’t understood the concept of planks less than three inches thick or locks that couldn’t withstand a battering ram.
The situation would, to an outsider, have seemed very selfish. But, logically, three witches in danger had been reduced to one witch in danger. Three witches would have spent too much time worrying about one another and what they were going to do. One witch was her own boss.
Agnes knew all this, and it still seemed selfish.
The Count was walking towards Granny. Out of the corner of her eye Agnes could see Vlad and his sister approaching her. There was a solid door behind her. Perdita wasn’t coming up with any ideas.
So she screamed.
That was a talent. Being in two minds wasn’t a talent, it was merely an affliction. But Agnes’s vocal range could melt earwax at the top of the scale.
She started high and saw that she’d judged right. Just after the point where bats and woodworm fell out of the rafters, and dogs barked down in the town, Vlad clapped his hands over his ears.
Agnes gulped for breath.
‘Another step and I’ll do it louder!’ she shouted.
The Count picked up Granny Weatherwax as though she were a doll.
‘I’m sure you will,’ he said. ‘And sooner or later you will run out of breath. Vlad, she followed you home, you may keep her, but she’s your responsibility. You have to feed her and clean out her cage.’
The younger vampire approached cautiously.
‘Look, you’re really not being sensible,’ he hissed.
‘Good!’
And then he was beside her. But Perdita had been expecting this even if Agnes hadn’t, and as he arrived her elbow was already well into its thrust and caught him in the stomach before he could stop it.
She strode forward as he doubled up, noting that inability to learn was a vampire trait that was hard to shake off.
The Count laid Granny Weatherwax on the table.
‘Igor!’ he shouted. ‘Where are you, you stupid-‘
‘Yeth, marthter?’
The Count spun round.
‘Why do you always turn up behind me like that!’
‘The old Count alwayth . . . ecthpected it of me, marthter. It’th a profethional thing.’
‘Well, stop it.’
‘Yeth, marthter.’
‘And the ridiculous voice, too. Go and ring the dinner gong.’
‘Yeth, marrrtthhter.’
‘And I’ve told you before about that walk!’ the Count shouted, as Igor limped across the hall. ‘It’s not even amusing!’
Igor walked past Agnes, lisping nastily under his breath.
Vlad caught up with Agnes as she strode towards the table, and she was slightly glad because she didn’t know what she’d do when she got there.
‘You must go,’ he panted. ‘I wouldn’t have let him hurt you, of course, but Father can get . . . testy.’
‘Not without Granny.’
A faint voice in her head said: Leave . . . me . . .
That wasn’t me, Perdita volunteered. I think that was her.
Agnes stared at the prone body. Granny Weatherwax looked a lot smaller when she was unconscious.
‘Would you like to stay to dinner?’ said the Count.
‘You’re going to . . . after all this talk, you’re going to . . . suck her blood?’
‘We are vampires, Miss Nitt. It’s a vampire thing. A little . . . sacrament, shall we say.’
‘How can you? She’s an old lady!’
He spun round and was suddenly standing too dose to her.
‘The idea of a younger aperitif is attractive, believe me,’ he said. ‘But Vlad would sulk. Anyway, blood develops . . . character, just like your old wines. She won’t be killed. Not as such. At her time of life I should welcome a little immortality.’
‘But she hates vampires!’
‘This may present her with a problem when she comes round, since she will be a rather subservient one. Oh dear. . .’ The Count reached down and picked up Oats from under the table by one arm. ‘What a bloodless performance. I remember Omnians when they were full of certainty and fire and led by men who were courageous and unforgiving, albeit quite unbelievably insane. How they would despair of all this milk and water stuff. Take him away with you, please.’
‘Shall I see you again tomorrow?’ said Vlad, proving to Agnes that males of every species could possess a stupidity gene.
‘You won’t be able to turn her into a vampire!’ she said, ignoring him.
‘She won’t be able to help it,’ said the Count. ‘It’s in the blood, if we choose to put it there.’
‘She’ll resist.’
‘That would be worth seeing.’
The Count dropped Oats on to the floor again.
‘Now go away, Miss Nitt. Take your soggy priest. Tomorrow, well, you can have your old witch back. But she’ll be ours. There’s a hierarchy. Everyone knows that . . . who knows anything about vampires.’
Behind him Oats was being sick.
Agnes thought of the hollow-eyed people now working in the castle. No one deserved that.
She grabbed the priest by the back of his jacket and held him like a bag.
‘Goodbye, Miss Nitt,’ said the Count.
She hauled the limp Oats to the main doors. Now it was raining hard outside, great heavy unmerciful rain slanting out of the sky like steel rods. She kept close to the wall for the slight shelter that this gave and propped him up under the gush from a gargoyle.
He shuddered. ‘Oh, that poor old woman,’ he moaned, slumping forward so that a flattened star of rain poured off his head.
‘Yes,’ said Agnes. The other two had run off. They’d shared a thought – and Perdita had too. They’d all felt the shock as Granny set her mind free and . . . well, the baby was even called Esme, wasn’t she? But . . . she couldn’t have imagined Granny’s voice in her head. She had to be somewhere close . . .
‘I really made a terrible mess of it, didn’t I?’ said Oats.
‘Yes,’ said Agnes vaguely. No, lending her self to the baby did have a sort of rightness to it, a folklore touch, a romantic ring, and that’s why Nanny and Magrat would probably believe Wand that was why Granny wouldn’t do it. Granny had no romance in her soul, Agnes thought. But she did have a very good idea of how to manipulate the romance in other people.
So . . . where else was she? Something had happened. She’d put the essence of herself somewhere for safety, and no matter what she’d told the Count she couldn’t have put it very far away. It had to be in something alive, but if it was in a human the owner wouldn’t even know it-
‘If only I’d used the right exorcism,’ Oats mumbled.
‘Wouldn’t have worked,’ said Agnes sharply. ‘I don’t think they’re very religious vampires.’
‘It’s probably only once in his life that a priest gets a chance like this . . .’
‘You were just the wrong person,’ said Agnes. ‘If a pamphlet had been the right thing to scare them away, then you’d have been the very best man for the job.’
She stared down at Oats. So did Perdita.
‘Brother Melchio is going to get very abrupt about this,’ he said, pulling himself to his feet. ‘Oh, look at me, all covered in mud. Er . . . why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Oh . . . just an odd thought. The vampires still don’t affect your head?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They don’t affect your mind? They don’t know what you’re thinking?’
‘Hah! Most of the time even I don’t know what I’m thinking,’ said Oats miserably.
‘Really?’ said Agnes. Really? said Perdita.
‘He was right,’ mumbled Oats, not listening. ‘I’ve let everyone down, haven’t I? I should have stayed in the college and taken that translating post.’
There wasn’t even any thunder and lightning with the rain. It was just hard and steady and grim.
‘But I’m . . . ready to have another go,’ said Oats.
‘You are? Why?’
‘Did not Kazrin return three times into the valley of Mahag, and wrest the cup of Hiread from the soldiers of the Oolites while they slept?’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes. I’m . . . I’m sure of it. And did not Om say to the Prophet Brutha, “‘I will be with you in dark places”?’
‘I imagine he did.’