'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.
The Countess fanned herself desperately. 'Well, I think we're all getting a little bit overexcited,' she said. 'I think we should all settle down and have a nice cup of... a nice... of tea... a cup of...'
'We're vampires!' Lacrimosa shouted.
'Then let's act like them!' screamed the Count.
Agnes opened her eyes, kicked up, and the man with the hammer and stake lost all interest in vampires and in consciousness as well.
'Whsz-' Agnes removed from her mouth what was, this time, a fig. 'Can you get it into your stupid heads that I'm not a vampire? And this isn't a lemon. It's a fig. And I'd watch that bloke with the stake. He's altogether too keen on it. I reckon there's some psychology there-'
'I wouldn't have let him use it,' said Piotr, close by her ear. 'But you did act very odd and then you just collapsed. So we thought we'd better see what woke up.'
He stood up. The citizens of Escrow stood watching among the trees, their faces gaunt in the flickering torchlight.
'It's all right, she's still not one,' he said. There was some general relaxation.
You really have changed, said Perdita.
'You're not affected?' said Agnes. She felt as if she was on the end of a string with someone jerking the other end.
No. I'm the bit of you that watches, remember?
'What?' said Piotr.
'I really, really hope this wears off,' said Agnes. 'I keep tripping over my own feet! I'm walking wrong! My whole body feels wrong!'
'Er... can we go on to the castle?' said Piotr.
'She's already there,' said Agnes. 'I don't know how, but-'
She stopped and looked at the worried faces, and for a moment she found herself thinking in the way Granny Weatherwax thought.
'Yes,' she said, more slowly. 'I reckon... I mean, I think we ought to get there right away. People have to kill their own vampires.'
Nanny hurried down the steps again.
'I told you!' she said. 'That's Esme Weatherwax down there, that is. I told you! I knew she was just biding her timel Hah, I'd like to see the bloodsucker who could put one over on her!'
'I wouldn't,' said Igor, fervently.
Nanny stepped over a vampire who hadn't noticed, in the shadows, a cunning combination of a tripwire, a heavy weight and a stake, and opened a door into the courtyard.
'Coo-ee, Esme!'
Granny Weatherwax pushed Oats away and stepped forward.