Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 20

Radu's men came swarming - too late! The Ferenczy was up onto his horse; others joined him out of the mist; they wheeled about and were gone. And only Faethor's mocking mind-voice came back to taunt: May you rot slowly and your death cause you awesome agonies, Radu Ly kan. Then at the last, when even your Wamphyri flesh crumbl es, remember who did this to you - the ghazi warrior, Faethor! My Ferenczy forebears are finally appeased! Radu commanded his leech: 'Heal me!'... and immediately collapsed shuddering to the floor of his coach, which served to drag the sword from his side. But his shudders weren't from the pain, which he had already stilled. Rather they sprang from the sure knowledge that indeed the plague lived in him now, and the torment of knowing who had put it there, without his being able to return that favour. But mostly it was the uncertainty of his vampire parasite's ability to drive it out. Nevertheless: Ferenczy, he sent a snarl, but no hint of hurt, from his telepathic mind. If it were at all possible - even if it meant trying a little harder -you should have made sure I was dead this time around. Too late for that now, though. So run as far and as fast as you can, and hide where you will, it will make no difference. The next time you lay eyes on this 'great dog,'h.e.l.l sink his teeth in your throat and rip it out, be sure!

Then he let go, and lolled and shuddered the rest of the way to Bordeaux...

The rest of Radu's journey - to a dreamed-of but as yet unrecognized destination, the great rock rising from the trees - was a nightmare of several anxieties. The wound in his side healed less readily than the norm, and he began to experience an unaccustomed malaise, a weariness springing from deep within, as if a hidden part of him fought an unequal battle. And he believed he knew which part Several of his men took ill in Bordeaux; he gave them some money, sent them on their way, then hired a s.h.i.+p and again fled the plague -for England. Other men fell sick aboard; Radu had them put out of their misery, disposed of them in the sea.

London in M arch seemed a quagmire of mud, mist and stench. If ever a place was ripe for the plague, London was it But it certainly wasn't the high northern territory of the dog-Lord's prophetic dreams. He made arrangements for a brief stay in the best possible accommodations, made known his location telepathically so that those parties he'd dispatched from north Africa in search of Greek resin would know where to find him, studied maps of the times until at last he found what he believed to be the refuge he sought. Then: Disguised as the retinue of a rich political refugee from France, his party headed north and in Newcastle boarded another s.h.i.+p bound for Gascony - which of course, wasn't Radu's destination. No sooner out 1%.

197.of port, he took command of the vessel, sailed north, and even tually wrecked on the wild coast north of Edinburgh. The healthy crew members became part of Radu's pack, strengthening it, and the party in its entirety became ostensibly the retinue of a rich Boyar out of Hungary.

At last, however briefly, Radu seemed to have outdistanced the Black Death. But his strength was fast failing, and he knew he must soon retire to a lair, go down into the resin, and give his leech a chance to combat the disease within him without the complications and additional effort of keeping up with his external, physical activities.

His Mediterranean pups found him; they wrecked their s.h.i.+ps in the Moray Firth, joined Radu where he camped and recuperated in the wild, wooded country under the Cairngorm Mountains. And this was it: these mountains were the great stone of his dreams rising from the woodlands of the misty Spey valley.

Radu's people became 'gypsies' now; all their rich robes were put aside for rags, their golden rings came off their fingers and out of their ears; and through the spring, summer and autumn of 1348, and all through '49 they guarded the foothills and found routes up into the high places, to the ma.s.sive labyrinth of caves which they had discovered there. Their lab ours were enormous on the do g-Lord's behalf, but there was game in the land, local clans not too far afield, and loners or people fleeing the cities, who were wont to come this way; so that provisions were never scarce. And by the autumn of '49 Radu's lair was ready. Oh it was a rude place, be sure, but secret and high, and his moon-children - and their children - would always be here to tend him through his long sleep.

A long, lon g sleep, aye. Of more than six slow centuries .

Eventually it was the summer of 1350, and as the creeping evil of the Black Death tightened its grip even in the spa.r.s.ely populated Highlands, the dog-Lord could no longer deny that his parasite was losing its - and his - fight for survival. And so he went down into the resin...

But that was men and this was now. And as the conscious world called to him, so Radu's dreams of other times receded. Stirring, though it was mainly his mind mat quickened, he knew his confinement and felt the oppression of dense, glutinous, ever-thickening resin weighing on him.

Thud...!

Now what was that? The sound had not been threatening, at any rate. His own heartbeat, perhaps? Maybe that of some other? Not Bonnie Jean's, for it wasn't her time. He hadn't called for her. Whose, then... or what's?

He drifted a while, his thoughts gradually clearing.

Thud...!

Radu was 'awake' now, or awake as he had ever been in six hundred years. At least his mind stirred - consciously, under his c ontrol - if not his physical body. And he knew that from now on he must stay awake, and that because he was out of practice it would have to be a question of mind over matter self-hypnosis, to achieve resurgent, reliable and continuous mobility, activity, in a body wasted and atrophied by centuries of slothlike torpor, suspended animation.

But awake, really awake, Radu longed to breathe! He gagged and fought down the near irresistible urge. He couldn't breathe, not yet, and didn't need to ... for he was Wamphyri! But in any case, his metamorphic body put out hair-fine filaments into his resin matrix and the pale sac of softer fluids surrounding him, to siphon off minute traces of oxygen directly into his sluggish bloodstream.

It gave the dog-Lord ease, and he thought Air! It will be so good to feel it on my body again! And blood ...I could lie in it, and soak it up, and bloat to bursting in it! Could - and would! The blood was the life, and it would renew Radu's life. But first he must stay awake, concentrate, instruct his leech, regain his strength. If only he didn't feel so weak...

... At which he remembered.

Remembered his dreams - which were nothing less than his previous life - which was in fact the problem.

Radu was Wamphyri; he was undead, but had never been truly dead. Even now his mind was alive and well.

But what of his body? He had put himself down into the resin sure (he had had to be sure) that his leech would heal him. But he'd been so long 'disconnected,' as it were, that even now he didn't know.

Or perhaps he did. He felt so weak.

Thud...!

The dull reverberation in the rocks, the resin, the otherwise emptiness, came from a distance. Always the same distance; it neither approached nor retreated. A heartbeat, yes - and the beat of a great heart, at that - but static in s.p.a.ce and uneven in time. A fumbling heartbeat, not yet ready to burst into life full-fledged. But burgeoning, definitely. With which Radu knew what it was.

His creature! His warrior, created here, of his own p.i.s.s, sperm, plasma, and metamorphic flesh - and part of the brain, but a very small part, of one of his lieutenants - before the dog-Lord had gone down into the resin.

His creature lived! Why, of course it did! Hadn't the treacherous Bonnie Jean Mirlu, and later that cretin of a thrall Auld John, told him as much? And hadn't they nurtured it, even as they'd nurtured him? He knew they had, and recalled now how he'd heard that great heartbeat before during Bonnie Jean's and Auld198.

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John's visits. But if his warrior lived - and since it was made of his flesh and fluids - surely Radu himself must be clean. Surely his parasite had won its centuried fight with the Black Death that Faethor Ferenczy had stabbed into his system.

Thud-d-d! But dully this time, shuddering, uncertain. And as quickly as that, Radu's mood changed and he, too, was uncertain. His warrior was not... not perfect after all. And since it was built from his flesh and fluids... ? His earlier conclusion must stand reversed.

But nothing was proven as yet, nor would it be until he was up or ready to be up. And if he couldn't be up in his current body, well... those arrangements were covered, too.

His thoughts flowed faster and faster, also his blood, as he strove to connect up the two, mind and body. He was hungry and thought to call on Bonnie Jean, a mental howl that all of his moon-children near and far would hear. But it wasn't time and he wasn't ready. And in any case she was a traitor, or at least she contemplated treachery. What, with Harry Keogh? But it was ridiculous! He was only a man, and she was Radu's. She belonged to Radu.

Ah, but he wasn't only a man, he was the man! Radu's Man-With-Two-Faces, his Mysterious One - his new body, if need be! But patience, patience. Time was narrowing down, and after so much time what was a week or two, or three... or even seven? Seven weeks. It was down to that now, and Radu had work to do.

His blood ran faster still; his limbs felt the cold, life-sustaining liquids around him; his heart gave a single, solid-sounding thud deep in his chest, as he sent telepathic probes out into a world that was entirely strange to him, apart from what little Bonnie Jean and Auld John had managed to convey.

His mental probes went out, while the demands of his body, his parasite, sent physical probes - in the form of tubeworms of metamorphic flesh - up through the resin to find cracks in its crust. Air! It was drawn into his body with or without the involvement of his conscious will, its oxygen filtered out and pumped directly into his quickening bloodstream. And: Thud! His heart gave another lurch, and after several long seconds a third Thud!

Two hearts beating now, his and his creature's, but both of them unsteady as yet.

Radu laughed deep inside, bayed like the great hound he was - for a moment...

... And paused abruptly as his mind-probes came into sudden collision with others of a like nature. Vampires, if not Wamphyri! Thralls then, or lieutenants, but Drakul or Ferenczy Radu couldn't say; the contact had been that brief before he'd s.n.a.t.c.hed back his probes and clamped shut his mind. But just touching upon them had been an electric experience, so much so that his metamorphic siphons had automatically drawn back down into him through the resin, leaving a trail of tiny bubbles to rise to the canopy of crusty resin, get trapped there and form into yellow froth.

But vampires! They were there - they were here, right here in Scotland - and they were listening! For him, obviously. And when finally he called for Bonnie Jean, they'd hear that, too. Except by then it would be too late for he'd be ready. And she too would know that they were there, which should make her put aside any...

plans she may have made in her own right. And oh yes, Radu was sure she would have made plans - for Bonnie Jean was Wamphyri! And no matter how often she had dwelled upon the fact and he had denied it, by now she would be sure .

Wamphyri, aye, but inexperienced and no match for the Masters who were out there searching for the dog- Lord's lair even now. Bonnie Jean would have come to that conclusion, too: that if she would survive to live out her span, she needed the instinct, the expertise, even the merciless guile and savagery of someone who had already lived ten times her fragile lifespan! And so she must remain 'faithful* to her dog-Lord even to the end. Which she would, Radu knew, for survival was everything to the Wamphyri.

Everything to him, anyway. As for Bonnie Jean: she wasn't worthy.

She was expendable.

She was blood.

She was meat...

PART THREE.

THE DARKNESS GATHERS.

VISIONS AND VISITATIONS.

This time it was a fortnight since Harry had seen BJ. He had missed her - and he hadn't The last time he had been with her was when he'd woken up in a sweat, thinking he was lying with a hairy dog-b.i.t.c.h, whose multiple teats had felt like pulpy dugs in his hands.

Perhaps the nightmare was why he hadn't missed Bonnie Jean as much as he might because he did not want to dream anything like that ever again, not about B.J., but was aware that recurrent nightmares were part and parcel of him now. He had wanted to get it out of his system, that was all. And maybe he'd succeeded at that, for it hadn't come back. Not in the last fortnight anyway. Not while he'd been sleeping alone.

In that same period she'd contacted him only three times, sounding nervous and jumpy on the phone as if she were taking care not to say too much. Harry had likewise called BJ. three times, asking her when he would be seeing her again and hoping - because of the nightmare - that she wouldn't say tonight But the dream had stayed away and so had BJ. And a fortnight is a long time. Also, certain things she had said to him during their last phone conversation continued to bother him: 'Harry, it could be that we, the girls and I, will need to be moving on from here pretty soon now. There are people watching my place. Not just the watcher, the little man you saw that time, but people. People - and some who probably aren't people. Asiatic types, I mean, but no longer dressed in those lying red robes of theirs. They're difficult to spot, until they're right on top of you! And there's also a pair of shady types who just might be policemen, but I don't think so. I did have some dealings with the police but that was before I last saw you. since when I've heard nothing. I'm pretty sure that no one suspects me of... well, anything! So these strangers could be 204.

205.

Ferenczy thralls, or simply ordinary men in their pay, or just my imagination. But when I'm out I find I'm frequently followed - the girls, too - and we can't stay cooped up forever. We feel like we're trapped, and as time goes by it gets worse. So maybe now you unde rstand why I can't be with you as much as I would like - because I don't want to put you in jeopardy.'

Harry had been switched on at the time, capable of holding a 'normal' conversation. B J.'s "wee man,' he'd known exactly what she was talking about; more than Bonnie Jean herself would have believed. He'd felt her fear, not only for herself but for him - indeed mainly for him - and that had put everything right and made him want to tell her oh so much ... Except he couldn't possibly, because it was forbidden.

But by whom forbidden? By what? By something inside him, was all Harry knew. Something that restricted his powers until they were all but useless to him. He couldn't talk about them, daren't display them, felt less and less inclined towards using them even for his own protection.

ButforBJ.'s?

'Why don't you turn me loose?" he had asked her then.

'What?' (As if the thought hadn't occurred to her - which in fact it hadn't. She loved him, and you don't unleash the one you love on things that would gladly eat his raw, smoking heart right out of him! Moreover, he would have to be there at Radu's resurgence. First to see him up, and then to put him down! B.J. knew that now: that somehow she must find a way to use the dog-Lord to destroy their enemies - before destroying Radu himself. It was the only way, if she and Harry were to survive and go on together.) 'I know about them,' he'd told her then. *You told me all about them - that the time might come when we would have to go up against them. I've accepted that and I'm ready. So don't try to fight them alone, B.J.

Also, what good can it do to run from them when you know they'll only catch up with you? And you even know where they'll catch up - in the lair of the dog-Lord! Why leave it until the last minute?'

It was as if he had read her mind. But BJ. knew that in fact he was only remembering what little she'd let him retain. Yet still he seemed to know so much, and to accept it so readily!

'Harry, you listen to me,' she had snarled then, in something close to panic. 'You'll keep out of it! Oh, you're good, I know - but not that good. We were very lucky that time, up there in.

.." But there she had paused in sudden confusion. For it was something she'd erased from his mind: the failed attack of the Drakuls. Or at least she thought she had erased it. Yet when she'd mentioned Asiatics, 'no longer in their red robes,' he hadn't queried her. It had been a slip of the tongue on her part but he hadn't picked it up. It was as if he knew! So what the h.e.l.l was going on here?

And again it was as though he had read her mind: Those Tibetan priests,' he said, in an oddly neutral tone that defined her hypnotic influence on him (but how much of an influence?) 'I felt there was something strange about them the first time we saw them. They've been on my mind ever since...'

At which Bonnie Jean had let out an audible sigh of relict so clear that Harry heard it over the line. And he, too, sighed his relief, albeit iwaudibly, for once again he'd protected his powers. And: 'Anyway,' B J. had gone on,after a brief pause to get her thoughts in order, "that's what we're up against The Tibetans - who I believe are Drakuls - and the watcher and his friends, who are probably Ferenc/ys. Lieutenants or simple thralls, or a mix, we don't know. Mostly thralls, I would guess. And their intentions: we can't be absolutely certain except that they're looking for Radu.' But in facts/re could be sure, for the Drakuls had tried to kill them that time. Harry didn't know that, however (or he couldn't remember), which was how she preferred it. She didn't want his two levels of awareness merging again, and certainly not at a time like this.

'You should let me help you,' he'd told her. 'Don't switch me off. Let me come to you, protect you. Two of us together, we have to h ave a better chanc e than one. And B J., you're right I am... good at this sort of thing.' Then, hurriedly, as if to clarify what he'd said: 'It's what I used to do, remember?'

'I've seen what you can do,' she'd told him then. 'I have lots of evidence as to what you can do. But you don't know what they can do! Anyway, it's decided. Pretty soon well be out of here... out of BJ.'s Wine Bar, I mean. And Harry, it might be a good idea if you got out of there, out of your house. If they decide you're a threat - if they suspect you're more than just my lover...'

'Am I?' He had cut in. 'Am I your lover? And are you mine, B J.? Do you love me?"

'Don't you know it?' She'd sighed again, this time a very different sigh, as human a sound as she'd ever made. 'Love you? Harry, I love the sight of you, the air you breathe, the ground you walk on, the touch of you inside and out - the very thought of you! I don't know why, but I do.'

'But you won't let me help.'

'No, I forbid it. And when I switch you off you'll remember that Harry: that you're forbidden to get any more involved than you are already. And that you won't act except on my word, or in order to protect yourself in my absence. Is that clear?'

'Yes,' and his tone had been vacant robotic again. 'Perfectly clear. But if you're moving out and if I move out too, how will I know where to find you?'

Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vol . II.206.

207.

'One of my girl s will be watching, following you. You'll know her but you mustn't try to talk to her. And don't go anywhere too far or too fast; I mean, don't lose her. For when it comes to losing people, well you're too d.a.m.n good at that, Mr Harry Keogh! And if she loses you we may have trouble finding you again. But if we do somehow get separated, as a last resort you can always try my place. I can have someone watch out for you.'

And when he said nothing: 'Well?' BJ. had queried.

That's it, then?' he had finally said, in a wavery, misunderstanding tone of voice that made her heart want to cry out loud. A tone that spoke all too eloquently of his tangled emotions, damaged personality and bewildered psyche all in one. And a tone that he really shouldn't be capable of, not while he was under her influence like this; not even while conversing 'normally.' Still and all, that was why she loved him: because there was no one else like him, not who BJ. had ever met before. But whatever else she did, she knew she mustn't weaken now.

That's it, yes. Until we're together again. But Harry, I want you to remember this, too: that we will be together again. As for the rest, the usual rules apply.'

The usual rules?'

'Forget about the Drakuls, the Ferenczys, the vampires we are up against. Unless you come under threat, forget them. But if or when you are threatened, then you'll remember everything I've told you about them and be able to act against them. It's for your own good; I just can't have you fighting them on your own and getting yourself killed. For you see, I don't think I could bear that, Harry... mah wee man.'

After a long pause he said, Til... remember?' And that was that...

And he had remembered - if only what the usual rules' allowed him to - and wondered and worried about the rest of it He remembered that B.J. would soon be moving out of her place in the city, but didn't know why.

Also that she'd advised him to move out, too. (But that had been more in the way of advice, not an order.) And he was vaguely aware that certain enemies were closing in even now but that he couldn't go against them until she said so or until he himself was threatened directly. He remembered too that she loved him, that they would be together again, and that despite all the seeming ambiguities she was innocent.

She was innocent!... innocent!... innocent! The shout of an idiot in an empty church, echoing in the Necroscope's aching head. Aching because of all the strange stuff that was in there trying to find its way out, and all the natural - or unnatural - stuff that was the real Harry Keogh, that he no longer dared to let out All of which further served to remind the Necroscope that his life was screwed up and being screwed tighter all the time, perhaps to a fatal degree, and that someone or someones was or were responsible. Like - maybe Bonnie Jean herself? But no, for she was an innocent Then who? And how?

If only he could get a look - take a peek, a single glimpse - at the picture on the box, then he might be able to work it out for himself, the whole b.l.o.o.d.y jigsaw puzzle. But all he had was the frame, and a twisted frame at that and no picture at all. Or at best a jumble of pieces that wouldn't interlock, because they worked in three dimensions and Harry was working in only two of them (was only allowed to work in two of them), and then not at the same time...

The conversation with BJ. had been yesterday morning. In the afternoon, the Necroscope had got out his bicycle and pedaUed it furiously five miles and back. His fitness programme (or so he told himself), and G.o.d he was/!/.' In his body anyway. Then, leaving the bik e in the yard out front Harry had gone through the house into the back garden - no longer an utter wilderness but something of a garden at least - and walked the riverbank to the tiny bight that was his Ma's grave. And for a long time he had stood there in silence, looking at the ruffled water.

He would have loved to talk to his Ma but couldn't... or wouldn't She knew all about her son's weird talent naturally, and he knew she wasn't about to betray him even if she could - but it was this thing again.

Someone might be watching him, and someone might guess what he was doing: talking to dead people.

Crazy! Who in h.e.l.l would ever guess he was doing something like that!? But nonetheless, Harry had looked all about up and down and across the river, to see if anyone was there. And d.a.m.n it if someone wasn't! A parked car, gleaming in the pale afternoon suns.h.i.+ne, maybe a hundred and eighty yards up-river on the gra.s.s verge of the road that ran parallel with the water. And a blurred figure at the steering wheel, whose breath was steaming the windows.

Then back to the house with his heart beating just a little faster, walking briskly, but trying not to act or look too concerned about anything (and wondering just how fast is a bullet anyway, and why would anyone want to shoot him in the first place?) and up to his bedroom, where he had tried to focus his binoculars through a c.h.i.n.k in his curta ins, only to be frustrated by his own br eath on the windowpane.

And then there'd been nothing else for it...

... But a MObius jump to the deserted country road some two Necro scope: The Lost Years - Vol. II 209.208.

hundred yards 'downwind' of the suspect car, where the Necroscope had stepped out of his metaphysical door behind a s.h.i.+elding clump of bushes. There, peering through fringing foJ<:.;re, finally="" he'd="" got="" his="" gla.s.ses="" focused="" on="" the="">

Zahanine's car! One of Bonnie Jean's girls. The gorgeous black girl with the legs that went up forever - well, almost. And Harry had almost chuckled: that in his situation, whatever it was, he was still capable of thinking along such lines. But not quite, because the sight of the girl standing there out of the car now, training binoculars of her own on his house, had served to bring back the rest of his conversation with Bonnie Jean.

Some of it, anyway: That she would have one of her girls follow him, keep an eye on him ... protect him? And something else, about the girl herself. And about all of BJ.'s girls. A question he knew he should ask himself, without knowing what the question was. But ridiculous anyway, because they were all as innocent as B J.

-Weren't they?