'Okay, then, pass me a bottle of holy water... Hurry up...'

'None left, Nanny.'

'We've got nothing?'

'Got'n orange, Nanny.'

'What for?'

'Run out of lemonth.'

'What good will an orange do if I hit a vampire in the mouth with it?' said Nanny, eyeing the approaching creatures.

Igor scratched his head. 'Well, I thuppothe they won't catch coldth tho eathily...'

The knocking reverberated around the castle again. Several vampires were creeping across the courtyard.

Nanny caught a flicker of light around the edge of the door. Instinct took over. As the vampires began to run, she grabbed Igor and pulled him down.

The arch exploded, every stone and plank drifting away on an expanding bubble of eyeball-searing flame. It lifted the vampires off their feet and they screamed as the fire carried them up.

When the brightness had faded a little Nanny peered carefully into the courtyard.

A bird, house-sized, wings of flame wider than the castle, reared in the broken doorway.

Mightily Oats pushed himself up on to his hands and knees. Hot flames roared around him, thundering like fiercely burning gas. His skin should have been blackening already, but against all reason the fire felt no more deadly than a hot desert wind. The air smelled of camphor and spices.

He looked up. The flames wrapped Granny Weatherwax, but they looked oddly transparent, not entirely real. Here and there little gold and green sparks glittered on her dress, and all the time the fire whipped and tore around her.

She looked down at him. 'You're in the wings of the phoenix now, Mister Oats,' she shouted, above the noise, 'and you ain't burned!'

The bird flapping its wings on her wrist was incandescent.

'How can-'

'You're the scholarl But male birds are always ones for the big display, aren't they?'

'Males? This is a male phoenix?'

'Yes!'

It leapt. What flew... what flew, as far as Oats could see, was a great bird-shape of pale flame, with the little form of the real bird inside like the head of a comet. He added to himself: if that is indeed the real bird ...

It swooped up into the tower. A yell, cut off quickly, indicated that a vampire hadn't been fast enough.

'It doesn't burn itself?' Oats said weakly.

'Shouldn't think so,' said Granny, stepping over the wreckage. 'Wouldn't be much point.'

'Then it must be magical fire...'

'They say that whether it burns you or not is up to you,' said Granny. 'I used to watch them as a kid. My granny told me about 'em. Some cold nights you see them dancin' in the sky over the Hub, burnin' green and gold...'

'Oh, you mean the aurora coriolis,' said Oats, trying to make his voice sound matter of fact. 'But actually that's caused by magic particles hitting the-'

'Dunno what it's caused by,' said Granny sharply, 'but what it is is the phoenix dancin'.' She reached out. 'I ought to hold your arm.'

'In case I fall over?' said Oats, still watching the burning bird.

'That's right.'

As he took her weight the phoenix above them flung back its head and screamed at the sky.

'And to think I thought it was an allegorical creature,' said the priest.

'Well? Even allegories have to live,' said Granny Weatherwax.

Vampires are not naturally co-operative creatures. It's not in their nature. Every other vampire is a rival for the next meal. In fact, the ideal situation for a vampire is a world in which every other vampire has been killed off and no one seriously believes in vampires any more. They are by nature as co-operative as sharks.

Vampyres are just the same, the only real difference being that they can't spell properly.

The remnant of the clan scurried through the keep and headed for a door that for some reason had been left ajar.

The bucket containing a cocktail of waters blessed by a Knight of Offler, a High Priest of Io and a man so generically holy that he hadn't cut his hair or washed for seventy years, landed on the first two to run through.

They did not include the Count and his family, who had moved as one into a side tower. There's no point in having underlings if you don't let them be the first to go through suspicious doors.

'How could you have been so-' Lacrimosa began, and to her shock got a slap across the face from her father.

'All we need to do is remain calm,' said the Count. 'There's no need to panic.'

'You struck me!'

'And most satisfying it was, too,' said the Count. 'Careful thought is what will save us. That is why we will survive.'

'It's not working!' said Lacrimosa. 'I'm a vampire! I'm supposed to crave blood! And all I can think about is a cup of tea with three sugars in it, whatever the hell that is! That old woman's doing something to us, can't you see?'

'Not possible,' said the Count. 'Oh, she's sharp for a human, but I don't reckon there's any way she could get into your head or mine-'

'You're even talkin' like her!' shouted Lacrimosa.

'Be resolute, my dear,' said the Count. 'Remember — that which does not kill us can only make us stronger.'

'And that which does kill us leaves us dead!' snarled Lacrimosa. 'You saw what happened to the others! You got your fingers burned!'

'A moment's lapse of concentration,' said the Count. 'That old witch is not a threat. She's a vampire. Subservient to us. She'll be seeing the world differently-'

'Are you mad? Something killed Cryptopher.'

'He let himself be frightened.'

The rest of the family looked at the Count. Vlad and Lacrimosa exchanged a glance.

'I am supremely confident,' said the Count. His smile looked like a death mask, waxen and disturbingly tranquil. 'My mind is like a rock. My nerve is firm. A vampire with his wits about him, or her, of course, can never be defeated. Didn't I teach you this? What's this one?'

His hand flew from his pocket, holding a square of white cardboard.

'Oh, Father, this is really no time for-' Lacrimosa froze, then jerked her arm in front of her face. 'Put it away! Put it awayl it's the Agatean Chlong of Destiny!'

'Exactly, which is merely three straight lines and two curved lines pleasantly arranged which-'

'-I'd never have known about if you hadn't told me, you old fool!' screamed the girl, backing away.

The Count turned to his son.

'And do you-' he began. Vlad sprang back, putting his hand over his eyes.

'It hurts!' he shouted.

'Dear me, the two of you haven't been practising-' the Count began, and turned the card around so that he could look at it.

He screwed up his eyes and turned his face away.

'What have you done to us?!' Lacrimosa screamed. 'You've taught us how to see hundreds of the damned holy thingsl They're everywherel Every religion has a different one! You taught us that, you stupid bastard! Lines and crosses and circles... Oh, my...' She caught sight of the stone wall behind her astonished brother and shuddered. 'Everywhere I look I see something holy! You've taught us to see patterns!' she snarled at her father, teeth exposed.

'It'll be dawn soon,' said the Countess nervously. 'Will it hurt?'

'It won't! Of course it won't!' shouted Count Magpyr, as the others glanced up at the pale light coming through a high window. 'It's a learned psychochromatic reaction! A superstition! It's all in the mind!'

'What else is in our minds, Father?' said Vlad coldly.

The Count was circling, trying to keep an eye on Lacrimosa. The girl was flexing her fingers and snarling.

'I said-'

'Nothing's in our minds that we didn't put there!' the Count roared. 'I saw that old witch's mind! It's weak. She relies on trickery! She couldn't possibly find a way in! I wonder if there are other agendas here?'

He bared his teeth at Lacrimosa.