Carpe Jugulum

rolled?”
    “Er, there’s some new ladies and gentlemen,” said Hodge-saargh. “They’re hanging around the kitchens. There’s some men in chain mail, too.”
    “Damn!” said Nanny.
    “There’s the little door off the main hall,” said Magrat. “But that’s always locked on the inside.”
    Agnes swallowed. “All right. I’ll go in and unlock it, then.”
    Nanny tapped her on the shoulder. “You’ll be all right?”
    “Well, they can’t control me…”
    “They can grab you, though.”
    Vlad won’t want you hurt, said Perdita. You saw the way he looked at us…
    “I…think I’ll be all right,” said Agnes.
    “You know your own minds best, I’m sure,” said Nanny. “Got the holy water?”
    “Let’s hope it works better than the garlic,” said Agnes.
    “Good luck.” Nanny cocked her head. “Sounds like the mob is spontaneously arriving at the gate. Go!”
    Agnes ran off into the rain, around the castle to the doors of the kitchen. They were wide open. She made it to the corridor beyond the kitchens when a hand grabbed her shoulder, and then in a blur of speed two young men were standing in front of her.
    They were dressed something like the young opera-goers she’d seen in Ankh-Morpork, except that their fancy waistcoats would have been considered far too fast by the staider members of the community, and they wore their hair long like a poet who hopes that romantically flowing locks will make up for a wretched inability to find a rhyme for “daffodil.”
    “Why are you in such a hurry, girl?” one said.
    Agnes sagged. “Look,” she said, “I’m very busy. Can we speed this up? Can we dispense with all the leers and ‘I like a girl with spirit’ stuff? Can we get right to the bit where I twist out of your grip and kick you in the—”
    One of them struck her hard across the face.
    “No,” he said.
    “I’ll tell Vlad of you!” Perdita screamed in Agnes’s voice.
    The other vampire hesitated.
    “Hah! Yes, he knows me!” said Agnes and Perdita together. “Hah!”
    One of the vampires looked her up and down.
    “What, you ?” he said.
    “Yes, her,” said a voice.
    Vlad strolled toward them, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat.
    “Demone? Crimson? To me, please?”
    The two went and stood meekly in front of him. There was a blur, and then his thumbs were back in his waistcoat and the two vampires were in mid-crumple and sinking to the floor.
    “This is the kind of thing we don’t do to our guests,” said Vlad, stepping over Demone’s twitching body and holding out his hands to Agnes. “Did they hurt you? Say the word, and I’ll turn them over to Lacrimosa. She’s just discovered you have a torture chamber here. And to think we thought Lancre was backward!”
    “Oh, that old thing,” said Agnes, weakly. Crimson was making bubbling noises. I didn’t even see his hands move, said Perdita. “Er…it’s been there for centuries…”
    “Oh really? She did say there weren’t enough straps and buckles. Still, she is…inventive. Just say the word.”
    Say the word, Perdita prompted, That’d be two less of them.
    “Er…no,” said Agnes. Ah…moral cowardice from the fat girl. “Er…who are they?”
    “Oh, we brought some of the clan in on the carts. They can make themselves useful, Father said.”
    “Oh? They’re relatives?” Granny Weatherwax would’ve said yes, Perdita whispered.
    Vlad coughed gently. “By blood,” he said. “Yes. In a way. But…subservient. Do come this way.”
    He gently took her arm and led her back up the passage, treading heavily on Crimson’s twitching hand as he did do.
    “You mean vampirism is like…pyramid selling?” said Agnes. She was alone with Vlad. Admittedly, this had the edge over being alone with the other two, but somehow at a time like this it seemed vital to hear the sound of her own voice, if only to remind herself that she was alive.
    “I’m sorry?” said Vlad. “Who sells pyramids?”
    “No, I mean…you bite five necks, and in two months’ time you get a lake of blood of your very own?”
    He smiled, but a little cautiously. “I can see we will have a lot to learn,” he said. “I understood every word in that sentence, but not the sentence itself. I’m sure there is a lot you could teach me. And, indeed, I could teach you…”
    “No,” said Agnes, flatly.
    “But when we—Oh, what is that moron doing now?”
    A cloud of dust was advancing from the direction of the kitchens.