She looked like a piece of trash someone had tossed to the side of the road. Tiny she was and pale . . . so, so pale that her skin seemed to glow in the darkness.

At first Konstantin Misurov thought she might not even be real, just some starving sculptor's joke crafted from the late winter snow and draped with rags. Not that it would have surprised him. Since the Great Revolution, Misurov had seen many sculptors starving in the streets of the newly renamed Leningrad. It was only by the greatest luck that he had not joined them; that, and the fact that even a society of equals needed signs to be painted. His talent, once renowned in the Imperial courts, was at least not going to waste.

Ah, she moved . . . slowly as if the cold had already worked its bony fingers into her, and Misurov blinked away the snowflakes building on his lashes. He'd almost forgotten the child was there and that worried him. It was not like him to indulge in his own misery such that he would let so tender a morsel get away.

Even if he could not paint, life still had its compensations.

The child moved again, drawing her stockinged legs closer to her chest as Misurov closed the distance between them. Her eyes, dark as the rags she wore and betraying the taint of gypsy blood in her veins, raised to the level of his face and stayed there. Even in the shadows Misurov could see that they held no fear-mistrust, yes . . . and something else, but not fear.

"Hello, little bird, have you fallen from your nest?"

The child nodded and a ragged seam slipped from her shoulder. Her flesh tone was a subtle mix of cerulean and ash. A less subtle heat filled Misurov's groin an instant before the wind snatched it away.

"You should not be out all alone," he said softly, his breath steaming in the cold. "Aren't you afraid?"

As he crouched on the hard-packed snow in front of her, Misurov was aware of the others who shared the night with them. They were huddled forms . . . vague, faceless shadows . . . background images filling in an unfinished landscape. But one never knew in times like these what a mere shadow might remember, or a background image report to the wolfish authorities.

A lifetime ago, before the revolution, Misurov had relied upon his position in the old regime to make his "indiscretions" invisible. Now they would make him just another target for re-education.

"Where is your mother, little bird?" he asked gently, in a voice as soft as velvet.

Something glistened in the corner of her eye, just for a moment and then it was gone. A tear? Misurov wondered.

"Ah," he said, leaning forward over the woollen patches on the knees of his trousers, "you are alone."

She nodded again and an ebony lock slipped from beneath the shawl she wore over her head. Slowly, as if he were trying to pet a feral cat, Misurov reached out a gloved hand. He could feel the coldness of her cheek even through the layer of greased wool. Poor frozen little thing. I am Konstantin Ilyich Misurov," he said through the swirling steam of his breath, I was once a great artist with many friends, but now I too am alone in this world."

She seemed unimpressed. Misurov sighed and watched his breath encircle the child's head like a holy aura. Almost immediately an image appeared on the empty canvas he kept behind his eyelids: a gypsy Madonna huddling before the Angel of the Lord.

A dirty, half-starved gypsy Madonna.

Misurov felt the ice in his beard crack as he smiled. What a typical bourgeois thought, he reminded himself. But what a painting it would have made. Ah, well.

"What is your name, child?"

The dark eyes left his face, glancing quickly to the left and right, a slight frown creasing the smoothness of her brow. Was his little Madonna looking for help or simply making sure that whatever proposition he was about to offer met no opposition? Bourgeois or not, Misurov prayed it was the latter. It would make things so much simpler if she knew the ways of the world and men. The innocent tended to scream and claw when he dragged them away.

"My name is Yrena."

Her voice was as brittle as the cold and just as numbing. No trace of her breath moved through the darkness. She must be all but frozen.

"My mother's name was Yrena," Misurov lied. Again. He had given his mother so many names throughout the years that he no longer remembered what it really was. Part of him hoped it had been Yrena.

"Are you hungry, Yrena?"

Yes! He could see it in her eyes, in the way her body tensed. Of course she was hungry, most of Russia . . . no, most of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was hungry.

Nodding, Misurov dropped his hand to her bare shoulder and squeezed gently. Her flesh was as hard and unyielding as polished marble. "Come then," he said, pulling the child to her feet as he stood, I don't live far."

They walked slowly, the loose rags covering the child's feet leaving serpentine tracks in the snow behind them, only Misurov's breath steaming the air.

Yrena was so quiet that he kept looking down the long, black line of his greatcoat sleeve to make sure she was still there. She was-a silent shadow at his side . . . his own tiny piece of night to caress and bury himself in.

The thought kept Misurov warm.

She had wrapped the scarf across her face so that only her dark eyes showed, twin holes punched into the white canvas of her flesh. And she never blinked, his little Yrena Vojvoda . . . his little girl who named herself for a village that might not even exist anymore. His little child of the night - never looking up at him, never questioning him about their destination. Silent and servile. The way he preferred them.

When another night traveler suddenly appeared in front of them, its gender and purpose disguised by the layers of snow and clothing it wore, Misurov tightened his grip on the child's shoulder. But only he trembled.

Yrena continued walking at his side, as indifferent to his touch as she was to the cold and darkness.

Two long blocks down and one across, and Misurov pointed to a narrow garret set above an empty stable. He was lucky to have found the place, with so many going without. The walls were thick and sturdy, the floors solid enough, and the one window faced north. Even the rats, poor thin things, were a source of comfort. They made him feel not so alone.

Misurov paused for a moment and studied the weathered lines of his current home, nodding. Whatever it had been before, it made a passable artist's studio.

Or at least it would have if he were still an artist.

The ice tugged at the hairs in Misurov's beard as he threw back his head and laughed, his breath a white plume billowing into the night sky. It was such a good joke, such a terrible good joke to play on a man who had once lived only to create worlds with pigment and brush. Ah, God.

A gentle tug on the hem of his sleeve brought Misurov back.

Looking down, he met Yrena's eyes and nodded.

"I am not as much a madman as I appear, little bird," he said, releasing his grip on her shoulder to take her hand. "Don't be afraid."

"I'm not," came the muffled reply.

Thanking whatever angel or saint it was that had managed to escape detection by the new government in order to place such a child in his hands, Misurov pulled her close and began walking them toward the narrow wooden staircase that led to the garret.

One of the other misplaced denizens of the area was singing, accompanied by a bandura - a sad song, probably gypsy or Ukrainian . . . definitely antirevolutionary. The rich baritone rolled through the frozen darkness, bringing with it memories of palace life - of golden children with satin skin and virgin canvases to fill with the finest Parisian tinctures, and where the light of a thousand candles was captured and reflected by snowflakes created by Faberge instead of by God.

Misurov shook the frozen tears away from his eyes. Foolish man, he chided himself, those things are gone forever. Dead.

"Let's hurry and get inside," he whispered, half-tugging, half-carrying the child up the stair. "It's cold and you are hungry."

"Yes," she said, "starving."

Her voice was so pitiful it almost melted Misurov's heart. Almost. But not quite.

The brass hasp screeched as he opened the door, inciting a rolling tide of squeals from the rats as Misurov stepped inside. His palatial estate occupied a space no bigger than a pony stall in the Czar's stables and was as frigid as a grave. Another chorus of angry squeals met his blind fumblings for the wall shelf next to the door where he kept a tallow candle and matches. A thump followed by a high-pitched grunt let him know that the rats had again found a way up to the shelf.

Misurov felt a thumb-size strip gnawed out of the middle of the candle when he picked it up; the empty paint pot he kept the dozen or so matches in had been upended, the precious contents scattered or eaten. It took him another three pats along the shelf before the sodden fingers of his glove found a single match.

"Damn vermin," he growled, igniting the sulfur along the underside of the shelf. Shadows danced along the empty walls as he fought chills to light the candle. If this new government of ours really wanted to do something, they would classify rats along with other political dissidents and send them all to Siberia. Bah . . . but enough of things we cannot change, isn't that so, Yrena?"

Silence and darkness answered him.

Misurov tottered slightly as he turned, the narrow, rat-chewed candle quivering. Shadows fled across the walls, solidifying finally into the tiny figure still standing in the open doorway. Perhaps fear had found her at last.

"Yrena."

She didn't move-How many times had he told his models not to move? - didn't lower her dark eyes from his, the pinprick of light they reflected the only things moving.

"What is it, Yrena?" Misurov asked softly, his voice a lullaby. I won't hurt you. Come in, there is nothing of which to be afraid." Her body started moving forward at the word come. And by the time the last echo of the last word died Misurov found himself being grasped around the waist in a surprisingly strong bear-hug.

Misurov's laughter clouded the air as he swung her up to his chest and slammed the door with a kick. She didn't seem to notice when he released his hold just long enough to slide the iron inner bolt shut. His quiet little bird didn't even seem to notice when he carried her to the tiny stone fireplace four paces away and set her before it.

A half-dozen thrusts with the fireiron into the bed of coals and a ruddy glow filled the room, exposing piles of dust-covered canvases propped up against the walls. In recent years they had proven to be a better source of fuel than a lasting monument to his genius.

To prove that, Misurov grabbed a painting from the stack nearest the hearth and set it on the embers. The portrait, showing one of the Czar's brood mares, sizzled into flames almost instantly, the heat from it sending shivers down Misurov's back.

"There now," he said, laying the poker aside to rub his hands vigorously in the warmth, "Isn't that better?"

Than what? Yrena's dark eyes asked silently.

Another shiver raced through him. Sighing, Misurov pulled one of the only two chairs he owned over to the fire and let the wet coat slip from his shoulders. Wisps of steam that smelled like wet dogs curled up from the material.

"Come, then," he said, gently pulling the shawl away from her face and fingering one of the ebony locks it exposed, "off with those wet things before you catch your death."

Misurov felt his hands tremble, but not from the cold.

"We'll get you warm and dry first," he said, putting a promise into his voice, "and then food."

With that one word, Misurov saw more emotion in the child's face than he had since meeting her. Her need tore at his heart, but it didn't stop him from undressing her. If he could no longer paint, then life owed him some sort of compensation.

Without her shawl, dress, and stockings, Yrena was little more than blued flesh and knobby bones; barely a mouthful.

But beggars cannot be choosers, Konstantin, he reminded himself as he reached down to slip the child's gray undershift from her shoulders. And you most certainly have become a beggar in this-

Misurov was still chiding fate when Yrena lunged forward and sank her teeth into his wrist. The pain made him react without thinking, backhanding her to the floor, her shift coming away in his hand.

Blood dripped from the jagged wound at his wrist.

She lay naked at his feet, but for the first time in his life Misurov didn't care.

"You little bitch," he screamed, his right boot already cocked and waiting to spring, "why the hell did . . . you . . . do . . . ?"

Misurov's anger and shock transformed, scattered like ash borne before the winds as he gazed into Yrena's dark eyes. The hunger that lurked there was a living creature that reached out to him the way he had once reached out for the tender flesh of children. He felt it close around his soul. Pulling him. Luring him into its depths.

Without any effort on his part, Misurov kneeled before her and held out his bloodied arm. The dark eyes shifted to the wound, a sardonic grin slowly parting her lips. The light from the burning portrait reflecting off strong white fangs.

"Papa," she whispered, reaching up to take Misurov's hand. "Papa."

As Yrena's teeth pierced his flesh a second time an ecstasy Misurov had never found even in the arms of children exploded in his soul, creating images in his mind so real, so sublime that he began painting them on the invisible canvas of air around him.

Yrena . . . his little bird . . . his little gypsy Madonna encircled by the ruby-red light of Heaven as she-

The sound of retching shattered the illusion and Misurov collapsed, tumbling hard to the rough wooden floor.

"What the-?"

Yrena was curled into a ball, hunched over on her heels, the ridges of her backbone writhing snakelike beneath the thin layer of skin as she vomited. It took Misurov a moment to realize what she was throwing up was blood. His blood.

"God protect me," he prayed, forgetting that God had been declared dead as he scrambled away from her, stopping only when his own spine collided with the paintings lying against the wall behind him. "What are you?"

She looked up, his little bird, tears the color of garnets leaving tracks against her snow-colored cheeks - her fangs, like ivory scimitars, stained with his blood.

"You're not my Papa," she whimpered, "and I'm so hungry."

His little bird. His little Madonna.

A verdalak!

Misurov crossed himself quickly, forgetting again as he pressed his knuckles against the front of his teeth in place of the ceremonial kiss and watched the child slowly lower her head back to the blood-spattered floor.

No wonder she was alone. And starving. If the legends his Baba told him as a child were true, the verdalak was that form of vampire which could feed only on members of its own family.

"My God," he whispered, louder . . . and louder, pounding his fist against the floor. "My God. My God."

And God answered.

It was at that instant the frame within the fire cracked and spat out a smoldering piece of itself next to his hand. He could still see the intricate carving that had once decorated the wood, reduced now to charcoal nothing . . . useless . . . a shadow of what it had been.

Like Yrena. Like his little bird.

Like himself . . . nothing . . . useless . . .

A painting appeared in his mind: Yrena lying there, cowering, night shadow and firelight playing over the contours of her naked body. Yrena.

Misurov's fingers stung from the heat of the charcoal sliver as he sketched the outline. The floor was too rough for fine detail, too worn for the delicate features that soon appeared.

"Yrena. Lift your head and look at me . . . no, too much. Lower your chin. To the left, move your chin to the left, you're throwing a shadow across your arm. Yes . . . that's it. That's it."

A moment later two Yrenas stared questioningly back at him-one, the reanimated corpse, hunger filling its empty eyes; the other, a perfect Madonna surrounded by light.

Yes.

Nodding, Misurov stood and grabbed another canvas from the pile behind him. The painting was of a stately young woman in a flowing white gown-a lady of the court or perhaps even one of the Grand Duchesses themselves-walking along a spring path, golden sun dappling her amber hair, pink cherry blossoms cascading about her.

It was soulless. Dead. As imaginative as the signs he now painted.

A thin cloud of dust trailed across the room as he carried it to the long abandoned easel sitting beneath the room's window. The remains of a silken shirt, dust-stained and torn and yellowed with age, hung from the point of the skeletal frame like a decaying corpse. Misurov had placed it there in hopes of hiding one piece of the past with another. Fool, he chided himself as he tossed it over his shoulder, fitting the painted canvas into the frame.

A tube of gesso that had been in the tray for God knew how long fell when he moved the easel closer to the fire and shattered. Misurov crushed the hardened plaster flakes beneath his boots. It didn't matter. He could still paint her even without preparing the canvas. He could still paint.

Misurov looked at the monster-child over the edge of the canvas and felt something stir in his belly . . . his own buried dead rising from their coffins to feast on his life's blood.

Like Yrena.

The charcoal swept across the painting, obliterating one image as it created another. And Yrena watched, as complacent and silent as stone, only her dark eyes breaking the illusion as they darted left and right, following the blood on his wrist.

"Here," he said, bringing the wound to his face so her eyes would follow. "Look at me here."

"I'm hungry."

Misurov nodded and quickly sketched in the eyes before they broke contact.

"Of that I have no doubt, verdalak," he said, softening the shadows caressing the charcoal face with the side of his hand. "How long did it take you to kill your family? A month? Two? Not even wolves eat their own kind."

A garnet tear blossomed in the corner of one eye. Misurov copied it in charcoal, mentally keeping a list of the colors he'd have to buy to finish the painting.

"But I couldn't help it," she whined - a little girl being chastised for some minor misdoing. "My brother Oleg."

"Ah, your brother," Misurov said, deepening the look of anguish in the thin lips. Is he here in the city with you?"

"No."

Bold strokes-three, four, five - and ebony curls encircled her unpainted face.

"There is no one left then?"

The garnet tear fell. "No."

"So you decided to come to the big city, huh? Walked all the way from Vojvoda to see if there was some long-forgotten family member . . . like a wolf cub tracking lambs. But it wasn't that easy, was it, little bird?"

Misurov let the charcoal drop from his fingers as he took a step back to look at the sketch. Yrena, like the child Madonna, stared calmly back at him. Where there had been only need and hunger, there was now acceptance. Where there had been only shadow, there was now light.

"You came all that way and you found nothing." Misurov reached out and brushed his fingers lightly over the charcoaled shoulders. "Well, you are in good company even the living have found nothing here."

"But I'm so hungry," the creature moaned, the points of her fangs digging into her colorless bottom lip.

Misurov nodded, understanding. "As I was."

Absently rubbing the charcoal into his beard, he walked back to her and kneeled-slowly pulled the blood-soaked cuff away from his wrist and held it out. Yrena yelped like a booted hound, covering her face with bloodied fingers.

"Go away," she whimpered, leave me alone."

How many other children had told him that? Fifty? One hundred? And how many times had he heeded that plea? Not once.

Then or now.

"Shush, little bird," Misurov said as softly as he had every other time, "I'm not going to hurt you. Look, see what I have for you." Dark eyes lifted just enough to gaze at the wound. "Come, my Yrena, eat."

Caution, like black ice forming across the surface of a pond, momentarily replaced the hunger in her eyes. In the flickering light, Misurov watched the muscles in her narrow thighs and calves quiver.

"Why are you doing this?" she hissed. "Why aren't you afraid of me?"

Why? Why wasn't he?

The Joints in his knees popped as he kneeled next to her. Why? Turning his head, Misurov studied the sketch he'd just done. It had been so long since anything had stirred him enough to go back to his easel . . . so very long since he'd felt truly alive.

"Because," Misurov said, on his knees now, moving his bloodied wrist closer even as she backed away, I need you to model for me."

"But I can't," she whimpered, I can only feed on I can only.

Her sobs sounded human enough.

I know, I know," Misurov said, taking both her cold hands in his. "But listen to me, little bird, there is a way. I can adopt you. Do you understand? I do adopt you. That makes me your Papa now. Understand?"

The skin around Yrena's mouth tightened. She understood.

"My Papa."

"Yes."

"My Papa."

Misurov felt his body jerk as she darted forward, her fangs golden in the firelight and glistening with drool. It was all he could do to keep her at bay, the wound at his wrist held just out of reach.

"Yes, but listen to me, verdalak," he commanded, I will be your Papa but you will not feed off of me. I have many cousins in this city, many more than any family needs, and each night I will tell you where to find one. You may drain that one to the dregs, I don't care, but then you will come back to me. Only to me, do you understand that?"

Yrena nodded, less child and more monster as she nuzzled the wound and whined.

"All right then, you may take just a little . . . to seal our bargain, so to speak. Ah, God!"

Light and fire coursed through Misurov when she reopened the wound and began to lap, her slug-white tongue making kitten sounds in the stillness. Closing his eyes, Misurov shuddered and saw colors swirl into a hundred paintings . . . masterpieces that had yet to be created. Hundreds? No . . . thousands, and all of Yrena. All of them of his little bird.

Misurov arched his back, groaning at the strength of the spasm that rocked through him.

God, it was good to be painting again.

He loved her.

Not the way he had once feigned love with living children, using their bodies to fill an emptiness he'd never even known existed until Yrena came into his life.

Because she had given him back his life and filled it the way her painted image filled the walls of his room. His little bird, gazing back at him regardless of where he looked-but always in shadows, features highlighted only by candlelight, the colors muted . . . dark.

She required so little of the spectrum: black, mulberry, lapis and cerulean, alabaster and ivory for her flesh, a touch of mustard and primrose for the candle's wan glow, and vermillion for her lips and cheeks.

It was sad in a way, Misurov mused as he swirled a drop of red into black, now that he had money enough to buy every hue ever imagined.

One of the benefits of Yrena's nightly "family visits" was the presents she brought home to her loving Papa. Sometimes rubles and sometimes things that could be more discreetly bartered for the supplies he needed. His lovely little bird.

Misurov felt no remorse. His morally superior family had kept their disapproval of him a secret as long as he was their link to court; but almost at the same moment the Czar and his family were falling beneath a summer rain of bullets, Misurovs were denouncing him to anyone who would listen as a pervert and Menshevik.

Bastards.

Rolling his shoulders against the cramp that had worked its way into them, Misurov stuck the sable-tipped brush between his teeth and took a step back . . . nodding at the Yrena who stared back at him from the finished canvas.

She was standing half hidden by the open door, looking back into the room over her right shoulder . . . the faintest hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

It was that smile which had driven Misurov back to the easel, the first real smile he had ever seen from her. The first, he prayed, of many more to come.

Misurov heard her light step on the stairs only a moment before she opened the door.

"I'm home, Papa," she said, closing the door and walking quickly to his side, her woollen cape fluttering behind her like angel wings. Smiling around the brush, Misurov leaned forward to receive her offered kiss. And felt a shiver nettle his spine. Her lips were icicles against his flesh, her breath the wind from a slaughterhouse.

His little love.

"Did you remember to do as I told you, Yrena?" He asked as he took the brush from between his teeth, then tossed both it and the palette to the floor. He had asked that same question for twenty-six nights in a row.

"Yes, Papa."

"And there was no trouble?"

"No, Papa."

She was such a good child.

"Come then and tell your Papa all about it."

Misurov flexed the stiffness from his fingers as he walked to the hearth. The roaring fire he had started before beginning to paint had reduced itself to a fist-sized mound of rolling coals, Where did the time go? Picking up the wrought-iron poker he stabbed the embers and watched a million sparks fly to heaven.

When he turned around she was standing at his side, the knife blade laid out across both palms. Even though he didn't think the taint of the verdalak would extend to Yrena's adoptive family, Misurov didn't believe in taking chances. Instead of using her fangs, he had instructed his beloved child to slit throats or wrists to feed.

What news there'd been on the streets had been full of the ghastly murders. The work of a madman, it was thought, or a Loyalist out to avenge the Empire.

Fools, Misurov thought as he curled his fingers around the knife handle and brought it into the light. As usual it had been licked clean. Misurov nodded.

"Well, then," he said, listening to the rustle of her clothing whisper through the gloom behind him, "what have you brought your Papa tonight?"

There was no answer.

Misurov turned to find her staring at her newest portrait. There wasn't a trace of the earlier smile on her florid lips.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

"No, Papa."

"But why not, my little love?"

Her eyes traced the lines of the panting. "Because it's like a mirror," she said. "They all are. Do you hate me that much, Papa?"

"Hate you?" The knife slipped from Misurov's hand, clattering hollowly against the hearthstone as he stood. "How can you say such a thing? Just look around you, Yrena . . . these paintings . . . "

Misurov took a step toward her and spread his arms to the room. Smiled at each image he had made of her.

"These paintings tell how much I love you. Look here. And here, look." Misurov spun on the heels of his boots, stopping when he faced the first portrait he'd ever done of her, the night she had come into his life-lying naked before the fire, the soulless eyes glaring back at him. "You are my reason to live, Yrena, my reason to paint. How could I not love you? My God, how could you say such a thing?" She shrugged. It was so human, so childlike an action that Misurov chuckled.

Until she turned and stared at him.

"What?" he asked. "What is it, my little bird?"

"That was the last one, wasn't it, Papa?"

Misurov made it all the way to his chair by the hearth before his legs gave out from under him.

Something scraped beneath the heel of his boot. Looking down he saw the knife blade gleam like blood in the embers' glow. Like blood. A grinding ache shot through Misurov's back and shoulders as he leaned forward to pick it up.

"I don't know what you mean, little bi-"

"You don't have any more family left. Do you, Papa?"

Misurov stared at his elongated features-blood red-in the blade.

"No. How did you know?"

"This one was so old and thin, not even much juice left, like the last apple in a barrel, Papa."

Misurov nodded, watched his reflection shimmer.

"Do you hate me, Yrena?"

"No," she answered from across the room. "Papa."

"Do you love me?"

"No, Papa."

"Are you going to leave me?"

"Yes, Papa."

Letting his eyes gaze at the portraits surrounding him, Misurov lifted the knife and pressed the point of the blade into the throbbing vein at the side of his neck. There was less pain than he had hoped for.

"Well, then," he said, "show your Papa what you have brought him before you go."

Misurov heard the rustle of her cape and the tap, tap, tap of her boots crossing the room toward him. But already she sounded so very far away.

"Here, Papa."

The goblet was exquisite, turned smoky quartz crystal with a reeded gold base, just the sort of thing his late spinster cousin would keep. A ghost from the past.

Like his paintings.

Like Yrena.

"How fitting," he said, holding the goblet up to catch the blood oozing from his throat.

She took the first brimming goblet full and drained it dry.

He filled it a second time. A third. It was getting harder to talk, to think. "Will you love me when I'm dead, Yrena?"

"No," she said, licking her lips, "Papa."

Misurov heard glass break as Yrena climbed onto his lap and began kissing his neck. Closing his eyes, Misurov watched the colors fade from dull gray to black to . . . blood red.