96

Abi licked the envelope and secured it. ‘Here. Keep this safe.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s in case something happens to me. You can read it then.’

‘Is something going to happen to you?’

‘No. It never has before. I don’t see why it should now.’ Abi checked his camouflage face-paint in the mirror. ‘I’m prepared. They’re not. This AK-47 is my favourite weapon. It fires at a rate of 600 rounds a minute. You tape an extra banana magazine upside down to the other one, like this. That way you don’t have to feel in your pockets if it comes to a firefight. When you run out of ammo you simply upend the magazine, slot it into place, and you’re back in action again. I’ve got four more magazines in this pouch on my hip. I could hold off a small army. The men I’m going up against only have pistols.’

‘And you’ve got your Wolf Pelt.’ Antanasia’s voice quavered a little as she spoke the words.

‘Yes. I’ve got my Wolf Pelt. My magic formula against bullets.’

‘Please don’t do this, Abiger.’

‘We’ve been over this a hundred times now. I can’t change. I won’t change. But one thing I’ll promise you. When this is over, I’ll never kill another man. If you’ll still have me after this, we’ll marry and you’ll be my countess. In a few years’ time you’ll forget this ever happened. You’ll come to realize how deeply unimportant it is in the general scheme of things.’

For a moment it looked as if Abi would reach forward and kiss her. Antanasia stood waiting. She would let him, she decided. Maybe kissing her for the first time would change something in him? But Abi let the moment slip by. He was too wound up in the prospect of action to care anymore about women. That would come afterwards. Antanasia sensed that much.

Abi would come back to the motorhome. They would drive away. He would be wound up after the killings. When he thought it was safe he would stop the vehicle and try to make love to her. Antanasia knew that she could not support this. It would mark a return to everything she despised about her past life. A return to the old ways, where her value to a man was nothing beyond the desire she elicited from him and the convenience she represented in the slaking of those desires.

Never again would she allow a man to take her without her permission. Never again would she allow herself to be used as a plaything. Not after what Dracul and her father had done to her. Not after that.

Antanasia watched Abi cutting through the scrub in the direction of the camp. She watched him all the way until he was out of sight.

Then she sat down and wrote her own letter.