Oddly enough, the terror had gone. That had been fear of a situation out of her control. Now, arms outspread, skirts whipping her legs, eyes streaming in the freezing air, she could at least see what the future held even if it was not big enough to hold very much.

Perhaps she could hit a snowbank, or deep water-

It might have been worth a try, said Perdita. He doesn't seem entirely bad.

'Shut up.'

It'd just be nice if you could stop looking as though you were wearing saddlebags under your skirt...

'Shut up.'

And it'd be nice if you didn't hit the rocks like a balloon full of water...

'Shut up. Anyway, I can see a lake. I think I can sort of angle across towards it.'

At this speed it will be like hitting the ground.

'How do you know that? I don't know that. So how do you know?'

Everyone knows that.

Vlad appeared alongside Agnes, lounging on the air as though it were a sofa.

'Enjoying it?' he said.

'It's fine so far,' said Agnes, not looking at him.

She felt him touch her wrist. There was no real sense of pressure, but the fall stopped. She felt as light as the air again.

'Why are you doing this?' she said. 'If you're going to bite me, then get it over with!'

'Oh, but I couldn't be having with that!'

'You did it to Granny!' said Agnes.

'Yes, but when it's against someone's will... well, they end up so... compliant. Little more than thinking food. But someone who embraces the night of their own volition... ah, that's another thing entirely, my dear Agnes. And you're far too interesting to be a slave.'

'Tell me,' said Agnes, as a mountaintop floated by, 'have you had many girlfriends?'

He shrugged. 'One or two. Village girls. Housemaids.'

'And what happened to them, may I ask?'

'Don't look at me like that. We still find employment for them in the castle.'

Agnes loathed him. Perdita merely hated him, which is the opposite pole to love and just as attractive.

... but Nanny said if the worst came to the worst... and then he'll trust you... and they've already got Granny...

'If I'm a vampire,' she said, 'I won't know good from evil.'

'That's a bit childish, isn't it? They're only ways of looking at the same thing. You don't always have to do what the rest of the world wants you to do.'

'Are you still toying with her?'

Lacrimosa was walking towards them on the air. Agnes saw the other vampires behind her.

'Bite her or let her go,' the girl went on. 'Good grief, she's so blobby. Come on, Father wants you. They're heading for our castle. Isn't that just too stupid?'

'This is my affair, Lacci,' said Vlad.

'Every boy should have a hobby, but... really,' said Lacrimosa, rolling her black-rimmed eyes.

Vlad grinned at Agnes.

'Come with us,' he said.

Granny did say you need to be with the others,

Perdita pointed out.

'Yes, but how will I find them when we're there?' said Agnes aloud.

'Oh, we'll find them,' said Vlad.

'I meant-'

'Do come. We don't intend to hurt your friends-'

'Much,' said Lacrimosa.

'Or... we could leave you here,' said Vlad, smiling.

Agnes looked around. They had touched down on the mountain peak, above the clouds. She felt warm and light, which was wrong. Even on a broomstick she'd never felt like this, she'd always been aware of gravity sucking her down, but with the vampire holding her arm every part of her felt that it could float for ever.

Besides, if she didn't go with them it was going to be either a very long or an extremely short journey down to the ground.

Besides, she would find the other two, and you couldn't do that when you were dying in some crevasse somewhere.

Besides, even if he did have small fangs and a terrible taste in waistcoats, Vlad actually seemed attracted to her. It wasn't even as if she had a very interesting neck.

She made up both minds.

'If you attached a piece of string to her I suppose we could tow her like some sort of balloon,' said Lacrimosa.

Besides, there was always the chance that, at some point, she might find herself in a room with Lacrimosa. When that happened, she wouldn't need garlic, or a stake, or an axe. Just a little talk about people who were too unpleasant, too malicious, too thin. Just five minutes alone.

And perhaps a pin, said Perdita.

Under the rabbit hole, down below the bank, was a wide, low-roofed chamber. Tree roots wound among the stones in the wall.

There were plenty of such things around Lancre. The kingdom had been there many years, ever since the ice withdrew. Tribes had pillaged, tilled, built and died. The clay walls and reed thatch of the living houses had long since rotted and been lost but, down under the moundy banks, the abodes of the dead survived. No one knew now who'd been buried there. Occasionally the spoil heap outside a badger sett would reveal a piece of bone or a scrap of corroded armour. The Lancrastians didn't go digging themselves, reckoning in their uncomplicated country way that it was bad luck to have your head torn off by a vengeful underground spirit.

One or two of the old barrows had been exposed over the years, their huge stones attracting their own folklore. If you left your unshod horse at one of them overnight and placed a sixpence on the stone, in the morning the sixpence would be gone and you'd never see your horse again, either...

Down on the earth floor under the bank a fire was burning darkly, filling the barrow with smoke which exited through various hidden crannies.

There was a pear-shaped rock beside it.

Verence tried to sit up, but his body didn't want to obey.

'Dinna scanna' whista,' said the rock.

It unfolded its legs. It was, he realized, a woman, or at least a female, blue like the other pixies but at least a foot high and so fat that it was almost spherical. It looked exactly like the little figurines back in the days of ice and mammoths, when what men really looked for in a woman was quantity. For the sake of modesty, or merely to mark the equator, it wore what Verence could only think of as a tutu. The whole effect reminded him of a spinning top he'd had when he was a child.

'The Kelda says,' said a cracked voice by his ear, 'that ye... must get... ready.'

Verence turned his head the other way and tried to focus on a small wizened pixie right in front of his nose. Its skin was faded. It had a long white beard. It walked with two sticks.

'Ready? For what?'

'Good.' The old pixie banged its sticks on the ground. 'Craik'n shaden ach, Feegle!'

The blue men rushed at Verence from the shadows. Hundreds of hands grabbed him. Their bodies formed a human pyramid, pulling him upright against the wall. Some clung to the tree roots that looped across the ceiling, tugging on his nightshirt to keep him vertical.

A crowd of others ran across the floor with a full-sized crossbow and propped it on a stone close to him.

'Er... I say...' Verence murmured.

The Kelda waddled into the shadows and returned with her pudgy fists clenched. She went to the fire and held them over the flames.

'Yin!' said the old pixie.

'I say, that's aimed right at my-'

'Yin!' shouted the Nac mac Feegle.

'... ton!'

'Ton!'

'Um, it's, er, right...'

'Tetra!'

The Kelda dropped something on the fire. A white flame roared up, etching the room in black and white. Verence blinked.

When he managed to see again there was a crossbow bolt sticking in the wall just by his ear.

The Kelda growled some order, while white light still danced around the walls. The bearded pixie rattled his sticks again.

'Now ye must walk awa'. Noo!'

The Feegle let Verence go. He took a few tottering steps and collapsed on the floor, but the pixies weren't watching him.