Carpe Jugulum

own boss.
    Agnes knew all this, and it still seemed selfish.
    The Count was walking toward 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 toy.
    “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 around.
    “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 toward 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 around and was suddenly standing too close 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 around, 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 onto 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