Carpe Jugulum

challenge…”
    “ What will wear off?” said Vlad.
    “Oh, they’re strong, your walls of thought,” said Granny dreamily. “I couldn’t get through them.”
    The Count smiled.
    Granny smiled, too. “So I didn’t,” she added.

The mist rolled through the crypt, flowing along the floor, walls and ceiling. It poured up the steps and along a tunnel, the billows boiling ahead on one another as though engaged in a war.
    An unwary rat, creeping across the flagstones, was too late. The mist flowed over it. There was a squeak, cut off, and when the mist had gone a few small white bones were all that remained.
    Some equally small bones, but fully assembled and wearing a black hooded robe and carrying a tiny scythe, appeared out of nowhere and walked over to them. Skeletal claws tippy-tapped on the stone.
    “Squeak?” said the ghost of the rat pathetically.
    S QUEAK , said the Death of Rats. This was really all it needed to know.

“You wanted to know where I’d put my self,” said Granny. “I didn’t go anywhere. I just put it in something alive, and you took it. You invited me in. I’m in every muscle in your body and I’m in your head, oh yes. I was in the blood , Count. In the blood. I ain’t been vampired. You’ve been Weatherwaxed. All of you. And you’ve always listened to your blood, haven’t you?”
    The Count stared at her, open mouthed.
    The spoon dropped out of her saucer and tinkled onto the floor, raising a wave in a thin white mist. It was rolling in from the walls, leaving a shrinking circle of black and white tiles in the middle of which were the vampires.
    Igor pushed his way through the crowd until he was alongside Nanny.
    “It’th all right,” he said, “I couldn’t let it go on, it wath dithgratheful…”
    The mist rose in a boiling tower, there was a moment of discontinuity, a feeling of sliced time, and then a figure stood behind Vlad and Lacrimosa. He was rather taller than most men, and wearing evening dress that might have been in style once upon a time. His hair was streaked with gray and brushed back over his ears in a way that gave the impression his head had been designed for its aerodynamic efficiency.
    Beautifully manicured hands gripped the shoulders of the younger vampires. Lacrimosa turned to scratch him, and cowered when he snarled like a tiger.
    Then the face returned to something closer to human, and the newcomer smiled. He seemed genuinely pleased to see everyone.
    “Good morning,” he said.
    “Another bloody vampire?” said Nanny.
    “Not any old vampire,” said Igor, hopping from one foot to the other. “It’th the old marthter! Old Red Eyeth ith back!”
    Granny stood up, ignoring the tall figure firmly holding the two suddenly docile vampires. She advanced on the Count.
    “I know all about what you can and can’t do,” she said, “because you let me in. An’ that means you can’t do what I can’t do. An’ you think just like me, the difference bein’ I’ve done it longer and I’m better’n you at it.”
    “You’re meat ,” snarled the Count. “Clever meat !”
    “And you invited me in,” said Granny. “I’m not the sort to go where I’m not welcome, I’m sure.”
    In the Count’s arms the baby started to cry. He stood up.
    “How sure are you that I won’t harm this child?” he said.
    “I wouldn’t. So you can’t.”
    The Count’s face contorted as he wrestled with his feelings and also with Magrat, who was kicking him in the shins.
    “It could have worked…” he said, and for the first time the certainty had been drained from his voice.
    “You mean it could have worked for you!” shouted Agnes.
    “We are vampires. We cannot help what we are.”
    “Only animals can’t help what they are,” said Granny. “Will you give me the child now?”
    “If I…” the Count began, and then straightened up. “No! I don’t have to bargain! I can fight you, just as you fought me! And if I walk out of here now, I don’t think there’s anyone who’ll dare stop me. Look at you…all of you…and look at me. And now look at…him.” He nodded at the figure holding Vlad and Lacri-mosa as still as statues. “Is that what you want?”
    “Sorry…who is this we’re supposed to be looking at?” said Granny. “Oh…Igor’s ‘old master’? The old Count Magpyr, I believe.”
    The old Count nodded gracefully. “Your servant, madam,” he said.
    “I doubt it,” said Granny.
    “Oh, no one minded him ,” said Piotr,