The castle gates swung open, and Count Magpyr stepped out, flanked by his soldiers.

This was not according to the proper narrative tradition. Although the people of Lancre were technically new to all this, down at genetic level they knew that when the mob is at the gate the mobee should be screaming defiance in a burning laboratory or engaged in a cliffhanger struggle with some hero on the battlements.

He shouldn’t be lighting a cigar.

They fell silent, scythes and pitchforks hovering in mid-shake. The only sound was the cracking of the torches.

The Count blew a smoke ring.

“Good evening,” he said, as it drifted away. “You must be the mob.”

Someone at the back of the crowd, who hadn’t been keeping up to date, threw a stone. Count Magpyr caught it without looking.

“The pitchforks are good,” he said. “I like the pitchforks. As pitchforks they certainly pass muster. And the torches, well, that goes without saying. But the scythes…no, no, I’m afraid not. They simply will not do. Not a good mob weapon, I have to tell you. Take it from me. A simple sickle is much better. Start waving scythes around and someone could lose an ear. Do try to learn.”

He ambled over to a very large man who was holding a pitchfork.

“And what is your name, young man?”

“Er…Jason Ogg, sir.”

“The blacksmith?”

“Yessir?”

“Wife and family doing well?”

“Yessir.”

“Well done. Got everything you need?”

“Er…yessir.”

“Good man. Carry on. If you could keep the noise down over dinner, I would be grateful, but of course I appreciate you have a vital traditional role to play. I’ll have the servants bring out some mugs of hot toddy shortly.” He knocked the ash off his cigar. “Oh, and may I introduce you to Sergeant Kraput, known to his friends as ‘Bent Bill,’ I believe, and this gentlemen here picking his teeth with his knife is Corporal Svitz, who I understand has no friends at all. I suppose it is faintly possible that he will make some here. They and their men, who I suppose could be called soldiers in a sort of informal, easy-come easy-go, cut-and-thrust sort of way”—here Corporal Svitz leered and flicked a gobbet of anonymous rations from a yellowing molar—“will be going on duty in, oh, about an hour. Purely for reasons of security, you understand.”

“An’ then we’ll gut yer like a clam and stuff yer with straw,” said Corporal Svitz.

“Ah. This is technical military language of which I know little,” said the Count. “I do so hope there is no unpleasantness.”

“I don’t,” said Sergeant Kraput.

“What scamps they are,” said the Count. “Good evening to you all. Come, gentlemen.”

He stepped back into the courtyard. The gates, their wood so heavy and toughened with age that it was like iron, swung shut.

On the other side of it was silence, followed by the puzzled mumbling of players who have had their ball confiscated.

The Count nodded at Vlad and flung out his hands theatrically.

“Ta-da! And that is how we do it—”

“And d’you think you’d do it twice?” said a voice from the steps.

The vampires looked up at the three witches.

“Ah, Mrs. Ogg,” said the Count, waving the soldiers away impatiently. “And your majesty. And Agnes…Now…was it three for a girl. Or three for a funeral?”

The stone cracked under Nanny’s feet as Magpyr walked forward.

“Do you think I’m stupid, dear ladies?” he said. “Did you really think I’d let you run around if there was the least chance that you could harm us?”

Lightning crackled across the sky.

“I can control the weather,” said the Count. “And lesser creatures which, let me tell you, includes humans. And yet you plot away and think you can have some kind of…of duel? What a lovely image. However…”

The witches were lifted off their feet. Hot air curled around them. A rising wind outside made the torches of the mob stream flames like flags.

“What happened to us harnessing the power of all three of us together?” hissed Magrat.

“That rather depended on him standing still!” said Nanny.

“Stop this at once!” Magrat shouted. “And how dare you smoke in my castle! That can have a very serious effect on people around you!”

“Is anyone going to say ‘You’ll never get away with it’?” said the Count, ignoring her. He walked up the steps. They bobbed helplessly along ahead of him, like so many balloons. The hall doors slammed shut after him.

“Oh, someone must,” he said.

“You won’t get away with this!”

The Count beamed. “And I didn’t even see your lips move—”

“Depart from here and return to the grave whence thou camest, unrighteous revenant!”

“Where the hell did he come from?” said Nanny, as Mightily Oats dropped to the ground in front of the vampires.

He was creeping along the minstrel gallery, said Perdita to Agnes. Sometimes you just don’t pay attention.

The priest’s coat was covered with dust and his collar was torn, but his eyes blazed with holy zeal.

He thrust something in front of the vampire’s face. Agnes saw him glance down hurriedly at a small book in his other hand.

“Er…‘Get thee hence, thou worm of Rheum, and vex not—’”

“Excuse me?” said the Count.

“‘—trouble no more the—’”

“Could I just make a point?”

“‘—thou spirit that troubles thee, thou’…what?”

The Count took the notebook out of Oats’s suddenly unresisting hand.

“This is from Ossory’s Malleus Malificarum,” he said. “Why do you looked so surprised? I helped write it, you silly little man!”

“But…you…but that was hundreds of years ago!” Oats managed.

“So? And I contributed to Auriga Clavorum Maleficarum, Torquus Simiae Malificarium… the whole damn Arca Instru-mentorum, in fact. None of those stupid fictions work on vampires, didn’t you even know that?” The Count almost growled. “Oh, I remember your prophets. They were mad bearded old men with the sanitary habits of a stoat but, by all that’s crazed, they had passion! They didn’t have holy little minds full of worry and fretfulness. They spoke the idiot words as though they believed them, with specks of holy foam bubbling away in the corners of their mouth. Now they were real priests, bellies full of fire and bile! You are a joke.”

He tossed the notebook aside and took the pendant. “And this is the holy turtle of Om, which I believe should make me cringe back in fear. My, my. Not even a very good replica. Cheaply made.”

Oats found a reserve of strength. He managed to say “And how would you know, foul fiend?”

“No, no, that’s for demons,” sighed the Count.

He handed the turtle back to Oats.

“A commendable effort, none the less,” he said. “If I ever want a nice cup of tea and a bun and possibly also a cheery singsong, I will be sure to patronize your mission. But, at the moment, you are in my way.”

He hit the priest so hard that Oats slid under the long table.

“So much for piety,” the Count said. “All that remains now is for Granny Weatherwax to turn up. It should be any minute now. After all, did you think she’d trust you to get it right?”

The sound of the huge iron doorknocker reverberated through the hall.

The Count nodded happily. “And that will be her,” he said. “Of course it will. Timing is everything.”

The wind roared in when the doors were opened, swirling twigs and rain and Granny Weatherwax, blown like a leaf. She was soaked and covered in mud, her dress torn in several places.

Agnes realized that she’d never actually seen Granny Weath-erwax wet before, even after the worst storm, but now she was drenched. Water poured off her and left a trail on the floor.

“Mistress Weatherwax! So good of you to come,” said the Count. “Such a long walk on a dark night. Do sit by the fire for a while and rest.”

“I’ll not rest here,” said Granny.

“At least have a drink or something to eat, then.”

“I’ll not eat nor drink here.”

“Then what will you do?”

“You know well why I’ve come.”

She looks small, said Perdita. And tired, too.

“Ah, yes. The set-piece battle. The great gamble. The Weath-erwax trademark. And…let me see…your shopping list today will be…‘If I win I will expect you to free everyone and go back to Uberwald,’ am I right?”

“No. I will expect you to die,” said Granny.

To her horror, Agnes saw the old woman was swaying slightly.

The Count smiled. “Excellent! But…I know how you think, Mistress Weatherwax. You always have more than one plan. You’re standing there, clearly one step away from collapse, and yet…I’m not entirely certain that I believe what I’m seeing.”

“I couldn’t give a damn what you’re certain of,” said Granny. “But you daren’t let me walk out of here, I do know that. ’Cos you can’t be sure of where I’ll go, or what I’ll do. I could be watching you from any pair of eyes. I might be behind any door. I have a few favors I might call in. I could come from any direction, at any time. An’ I’m good at malice.”

“So? If I was so impolite, I could kill you right now. A simple arrow would suffice. Corporal Svitz?”

The mercenary gave the wave that was as good as he’d ever get to a salute, and raised his crossbow.

“Are you sure?” said Granny. “Is your ape sure he’d have time for a second shot? That I’d still be here?”

“You’re not a shape-changer, Mistress Weatherwax. And by the look of it you’re in no position to run.”

“She’s talking about moving her self into someone else’s head,” said Vlad.

The witches looked at one another.

“Sorry, Esme,” said Nanny Ogg, at last. “I couldn’t stop meself thinking. I don’t think I drunk quite enough.”

“Oh yes,” said the Count. “The famous Borrowing trick.”

“But you don’t know where, you don’t know how far,” said Granny wearily. “You don’t even know what kind of head. You don’t know if it has to be a head. All you know about me is what you can get out of other people’s minds, and they don’t know all about me. Not by a long way.”

“And so your self is put elsewhere,” said the Count. “Primitive. I’ve met them, you know, on my travels. Strange old men in beads and feathers who could put their inner self into a fish, an insect…even a tree. And as if it mattered. Wood burns. I’m sorry, Mistress Weatherwax. As King Verence is so fond of saying, there’s a new world order. We are it. You are history—”

He flinched. The three witches dropped to the ground.

“Well done,” he said. “A shot across my bows. I felt that. I actually felt it. No one in Uberwald has ever managed to get through.”

“I can do better’n that,” said Granny.

“I don’t think you can,” said the Count. “Because if you could you would have done so. No mercy for the vampire, eh? The cry of the mob throughout the ages!”

He strolled toward her. “Do you really think we’re like some inbred elves or gormless humans and can be cowed by a firm manner and a bit of trickery? We’re out of the casket now, Mistress Weatherwax. I have tried to be understanding toward you, because really we do have a lot in common, but now—”

Granny’s body jerked back like a paper doll caught by a gust of wind.

The Count was halfway toward her, hands in the pockets of his jacket. He broke his step momentarily.

“Oh dear, I hardly felt that one,” he said. “Was that your best?”

Granny staggered, but raised a hand. A heavy chair by the wall was picked up and tumbled across the room.

“For a human that was quite good,” said the Count. “But I don’t think you can keep on sending it away.”

Granny flinched, and raised her other hand. A huge chandelier began to swing.

“Oh dear,” said the Count. “Still not good enough. Not nearly good enough.”

Granny backed away.

“But I will promise you this,” said the Count. “I won’t kill you. On the contrary—”

Invisible hands picked her up and slammed her against the wall.

Agnes went to step forward, but Magrat squeezed her arm.

“Don’t think of it as losing, Granny Weatherwax,” said the Count. “You will live forever. I would call that a bargain, wouldn’t you?”

Granny managed a sniff of disapproval.

“I’d call that unambitious,” she said. Her face screwed up in pain.

“Goodbye,” said the Count.

The witches felt the mental blow. The hall wavered.

But there was something else, on a realm outside normal space. Something bright and silvery, slipping like a fish…

“She’s gone,” whispered Nanny. “She sent her self some-where…”

“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! Ee-ie-ee-ie-oh!” shouted Nanny, dragging her toward 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 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 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 it and 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.”

“Yes, he did. He must have done.”

“And,” said Agnes, “on that basis you’d go back in?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because if I didn’t, what use am I? What use am I anyway?”

“I don’t think we’d survive a second time,” said Agnes. “They let us go this time because it was the cruel thing to do. Dang! I’ve got to decide what to do now, and it shouldn’t be me. I’m the maiden, for goodness’ sake!” She saw his expression and added, for reasons she’d find hard to explain at the moment, “A technical term for the junior member of a trio of witches. I shouldn’t have to decide things. Yes, I know it’s better than making the tea!”

“Er…I didn’t say anything about making the tea—”

“No, sorry, that was someone else. What is it she wants me to do?”

Especially since now you think you know where she’s hiding, said Perdita.

There was a creak, and they heard the hall doors open. Light spilled out, shadows danced in the mist raised by the driving rain, there was a splash and the doors shut again. As they closed, there was the sound of laughter.

Agnes hurried to the bottom of the steps, with the priest squelching along beside her.

There was already a wide and muddy puddle at this end of the courtyard. Granny Weatherwax lay in it, her dress torn, her hair uncoiling from its rock-hard bun.

There was blood on her neck.

“They didn’t even lock her in a cell or something,” said Agnes, steaming with rage. “They just threw her like…like a meat bone!”

“I suppose they think she is locked up now, the poor soul,” said Oats. “Let’s get her undercover, at least…”

“Oh…yes…of course.”

Agnes took hold of Granny’s legs, and was amazed that someone so thin could be so heavy.

“Perhaps there’d be someone in the village?” said Oats, staggering under his end of the load.

“Not a good idea,” said Agnes.

“Oh, but surely—”

“What would you say to them? ‘This is Granny, can we leave her here, oh, and when she wakes up she’ll be a vampire’?”

“Ah.”

“It’s not as though people are that happy to see her anyway, unless they’re ill…”

Agnes peered around through the rain.

“Come on, let’s go around to the stables and the mews, there’s sheds and things…”