Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 47

... An eerie howl came echoing out of the mist The inhuman, ululating cry of a beast, but in no way mournfu l, and in ev ery way threatening!

'Radu!' Anthony whispered.

'A dog?' Mario shrugged. 'No,' Anthony turned on him, grabbed him again. 'A wolf!'

'A wolf? Up here on the Madonie?'

'The w olf!' Anthony gasped. And quickly pulled himself together. "You," he snapped. "You stay with me. And if you're not already armed, do it now. Orders to the rest of them: anything that moves - and I do mean anything - shoot it! Especially if they see... a big dog. Go, tell them, then come back here. And Mario, is the chopper fuelled?'

'Yes,' the other answered.

But as he left, 'Radu!' Anthony breathed again. Then, leaning on his balcony - feeling suddenly weak in all his limbs - he anxiously scanned the courtyard and the ocean of mist beyond. And his eyes were l ike crimson marbles rolling in the orbits of his skull...

Out on the plateau, in Radu's mist Harry and the dog-Lord were on the far side of a clump of boulders.

Your mist has its disadvantages, Radu,' the Necroscope said. They can't see us, but neither can we see them.'

'Sunside of the barrier mountains, in my own world, I used it as cover,1 the dog-Lord coughed. 'Here I use it differently, to inspire fear! When the Ferenczy sees it - and when he hears this-' He laid back his head and howled at the full moon hanging low on the horizon, and Harry stepped back a pace.'-Then he will know w hat is what But I h ave discovered a weird thing: that what I did in life, I do with greater446.

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efficiency in death! Because in life there were die limitations of the flesh: air to be breathed, and a body to be fuelled lest it fail through exhaustion. But in death there are no limits ... except that you impose them, Necroscope. Hah.r c.o.c.king his head on one side, he let his lantern gaze light on Harry. 'Ah, but without you there would be nothing at all. I suppose I must be thankful Well, so be it Now I drive my mist in through that archway...'

He called the mist up from the dry earth, let it roll from his body's pores, and loping towards the vague white blur of Le Manse Madonie's lights drove it before him. The men outside the walls were engulfed in it; it rolled over them, into the c ourtyard, piled in a swirling drift against the manse itself .

'And now,' said Radu, quivering and leaning forward as if drawn by a magnet, 'I go to ravage among them!'

He dumped heavy sausage bags, one from each shoulder. Terenczys,' the dog-Lord snarled. The first and worst of my enemies!'

"Wait,' Harry told him. *We have things to do. You can... ravage later, if you must And be careful with those bags! That stuff is dangerous.'

Dangerous? That wasn't the half of it The Necroscope had stolen it right out of the Czechoslovakian plant that manufactured it A single stray shot could set it off - a thought that the werewolf read clearly in Harry's mind. 'So for now,' Harry continued, first things first That's if we don't want anyone to walk away from this.' 'I agree,' Radu barked, straightening from his crouch. 'No one is to walk away from it And any who run, I shall be behind them!'

'How's the mist coming?' The Necroscope heard himself say it thought about it blinked and shook his head as if to clear it Good grief: he wasn't only accepting all this, he was actually getting used to it!

The courtyard is filled with my mist' Radu growled.

Then let*s go,' said Harry. He made to pick up the sausage bags, but Radu beat him to them.

'You do your part Necroscope, and I shall do mine.'

They emerged from the MObius Continuum in a corner of the courtyard, and Radu quickly sniffed out what Harry was looking for. As he was finis.h.i.+ng up the job, two armed thralls came at a run, calling to each other through the mist - and ran right into Radu. The speed, the savage efficiency of the dog-Lord as he dealt with them was incredible and terrifying to watch. But Harry quickly turned away. The sound of it was enough...

Mercifully they were sounds that were lost in the general confusion. And finally: That"s it' said the Necroscope. Their transport is useless to them. They're stuck here, trapped. By now most of them will be out here, and the interior of Le Manse Madonie will be empty. That's how it was last time, anyway. Give me the bags.'

Radu read what was in his mind, said: "What about me?'

'Stay clear of the place,' Harry answered. There's a rocky outcrop in that direction,' he pointed. "Wait for me there. And take this with you.' He handed him a transmitter. 'If you see a vehicle or vehicles on the move, press the b.u.t.tons till you get the right one."

'Another of your modern toys? I hate them!'

Harry showed him a mental picture of what this 'modern toy' would do, and Radu grunted his reluctant appreciation.

'And if something happens to you?'

Then it happens to you, too...' (Harry hoped he was right, but he kept that thought to himself.) He conjured a door and took Radu back out onto the plateau, watched him lope away into the thinning mist, and without pause returned to Le Manse Madonie- -To the co-ordinates of a forbidden location in the very bowels of the place. The cavern of the pit The spotlights lanced down, illuminating the throat of that ominous shaft; the electrified exit was barred; the alarm clamoured high on the wall. Except for a cloud of red vapour drifting over the pit nothing moved. The cavern seemed still, safe. Harry checked again, then made an exit through his door, which he hadn't collapsed. He had another use for some of his plastic that he hadn't wanted the dog-Lord to know about But on a count of ten he was back again, carrying just one of the sausage bags.

The weird red cloud over the pit was denser now; lured by the ventilation system, it was drifting towards the air-ducts. Whatever the stuff was, Harry was well away from it But as he moulded plastic -twenty pounds of plastic - into a wide crack in the wall: N.

ecroscope!

And Harry gave a ma.s.sive start. 'R.L? Is that you? d.a.m.n, you nearly scared the life out of me!'

You mean, like you is scaring me, Necroscope? R.L Stevenson Jamieson came back.

'What? I'm scaring you?' Harry didn't understand.

Man, you has enemies all around you! A million of em!

'I what?' Harry fell into a crouch, scanned the cavern all around. Nothing. 'R.L, your obi must be playing tricks on you. There's no one here.'

h.e.l.l, no, RL insisted. My obi's just fine, Harry - and there's more'n I c an even calc'late. But... but they's all the same one !.

It was quite beyond Harry. But: 'OK, RL, 111 be looking out for them - whatever they are!' And he finished packing the plastic intoNecroscope: The Lost Years - Vol. // 448.

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the wall. But as he stuck the timer and detonator into the explosive ma.s.s: Harry? said another voice. Is that what I think it is? And if so, do you know what it vfill do down there? It was J. Humphrey Jackson Jr -'Humph' to his Mends, the American who had built the Francezci treasure vault in another part of the underground system. A man they had murdered for his efforts.

'I know what it will do, Humph,' Harry said. 'I shouldn't think you'd have any complaints about that'

Not as long as you're out of there when it happens, Necroscope, Humph said. But do you really know what you're doing?

'How do you mean?'

/ mean this is Sicily, and these mountains are as shaky as a lightning-struck tree! h.e.l.l, I even warned the Francezci brothers they shouldn't do any blasting down there. But in my day, well, we had nothing like that stuff!

'I want to reduce this place to rubble, and destroy what's in that pit,' Harry said, dispa.s.sionately.

I am with you, Humph said. I just thought maybe I should, you know, point out that we're on a fault-line here? This part of the Med is volcanic. From here across to Etna, and due north into Italy, then west through the Peloponnese to the Greek islands: one big lightning-flash of a fault. Oh you won't be setting anything really big off, but I think you 'II do a lot more damage than just fitting in a hole...

'Good!' Harry said, and set the timer for two minutes. 'Now I have to be out of here. Have fun, Humph.'

You too, said the other, as Harry conjured a door and left.

But he and Humph didn't know the half of it; couldn't know, for instance, that Anthony Francezci had also b.o.o.by-trapped the treasure vault and other rooms and junctions in the tunnel system. And now, from the balcony of his private rooms, he and the corpse-like Mario were watching the madness that was going o n at the arched entrance to the courtyard and on the plateau.

Searchlight beams were sweeping the plateau; d iffused by Radii's dispersing mist, they found nothing. Yet when Anthony had ordered a Land Rover out onto the rough terrain just a minute ago ... the vehicle had travelled maybe forty yards beyond the archway before it blew itself to pieces in a searing flash of light that was still fading on his retinas. And now the men on and outside the walls were firing at nothing - blazing away with fire and steel - cutting holes in the swirling mist.

'Did something hit the Land Rover - or was it sabotaged?' Mario's slit of a mouth hung open.

'Sabotage?' Anthony's face was a mad white mask. 'Sabotage? The last time this b.a.s.t.a.r.d was here, that was sabotage!'

He is here! came a desperate cry in Anthony's mind. He is down here, under Le Manse Madonie! Or he was just a moment ago.

'Angelo! Angelo, are you sure?'

Yes, yes, I am sure. And I know what he did. Goodbye, my Anthony. Goodbye, my dear sweet Tooonnnnyyyyy...!

Two more vehicles went speeding out under the archway but they got no further than the Land Rover. Hot twisted metal shot aloft, and fire lanced the night 'We can't fight this,' Anthony snarled. 'f.u.c.k - there's nothing to fight!' Hunched over, he ran inside, yanked open a drawer in his desk, and pressed a b.u.t.ton.

In six different locations - some deep and others not so deep -under his feet under Le Manse Madonie, timers started counting off the seconds. Two minutes,' Anthony's face cracked open in an uncontrollable grin, snarl, something; his gums spurted blood as teeth like knifes sliced up through them; his tongue seemed to unwind endlessly from his throat 'Do you think,' he choked on that fantastic snake of a tongue,'... I mean, do you think that we can ... that we can make the chopper in just ... in just two minutes, Mario?'

Mario ran - for the helicopter, of course, but also away from Anthony - out of his rooms, down the great staircase, and out into the courtyard. And his master came flowing and floating, collapsing and reforming, laughing and loping behind him.

Harry emerged from the Mobius Continuum near the rocky outcrop, where Radu came running to meet him.

'All done, Necroscope?'

'I think so,' Harry nodded. 'But well see better from up there.' They ran back to the rocks, and Radu sprang to the summit in two bounds. Harry climbed, looked up, saw the dog-Lord's great paw reaching down for him, and his lantern eyes watching his every move.

'Allies, for the moment, Harry?' Radu growled. Harry took the preferred paw, and the dog-Lord pulled h im up.

All the lights blazed in Le Manse Madonie; weapons blazed, too, uselessly. Headlights swept the plateau as another vehicle - the Francezci's stretch limo - glided out under the archway. The dog-Lord grunted and pressed the last but one b.u.t.ton on the Necroscope's remote. And the car's roof blew off, and its sides ruptured, as the blast expanded into a red and yellow fireball. Then: a lone wheel went bounding, and a bent axle turned lazily in the updraught It was a scene in slow-motion - which suddenly speeded up. Scarred metal rained to earth, leaving other sc.r.a.ps burning where they drifted on high.

Harry nodded and glanced at his watch. 'I don't know how much Necroscope: The Lost Yean - Vol. II 451.450.

we'll see of this,' he said. 'Maybe nothing of the actual bang. But it's due just about... now.'

Then, very faintly, the ground trembled underfoot. A section of Le Manse Madonie's courtyard wall buckled and fell. Dust fountained up from a jagged crack that suddenly appeared in the earth, zigzagging like a bite from rim to rim of the high promontory and encompa.s.sing the sprawling villa and its walls.

lights dimmed, went out, and cries of alarm came drifting from antlike figures staggering atop the walls. And: 'd.a.m.n!' Harry said. 'It looks like Humph was wrong.'

But then the dust jets geysered higher yet, and the crack widened as yet more detonations - mysterious this time - were felt underfoot...

'Get her up!" Anthony mouthed as Mario gunned the helicopter's engine, willing her to lift off. The machine twitched, b.u.mped, skittered, and began to lift as the engine's whine climbed up and up. And Anthony frothed and foamed where his rubbery tentacle fingers couldn't fasten his seat-belt. Then the walls of Le Manse Madonie were falling away - but they were falling faster than the chopper was lifting! Literally falling, and the entire Francezci-Ferenczy empire going with them - crumbling from the face of the great cliff.

Anthony laughed and laughed, his fles h rippling, his face transforming, and Mario leaned away from him, choking where he fought to control the aircraft. But she was lifting, yes, gaining elevation even as Le Manse Madonie lost it and slid groaning into the ravine.

And a quarter-mile away on the roof of the rocky outcrop, Radu and Harry saw the chopper's lights and heard the accelerating whup, whup, whup of its rotors. The other brother,' Harry said, grimly. "You can bet your life - or you can't - that it's him. The last b.u.t.ton, Radu. Time to press it.' The effect was extraordinarily dramatic. Like a giant fan cut loose, the complete rotor a.s.sembly blew off, shot into the night sky trailing sparks. And the body of the machine was gutted, a black shape disintegrating in the fireball that consumed it and the blast that reduced it and its vampire pa.s.sengers to the basic elements of plastic and metal and flesh, indistinguishable one from the other.

Where Le Manse Madonie had stood there was now the rim of a cliff, fresh and raw, and sc.r.a.ps of debris still floating on the billowing air. Of the Ferenczy dynasty, nothing remained except a few antlike figures, thralls and a lieutenant or two, stumbling in their dazed panic-flight across the plateau. 'And now I ravage!'

Radu growl ed.

Harry thought: who better? And said, "While I have other things to do.'

The Drakuls? I should be there...' Radu was uncertain.

'No,' Harry answered. 'Best if you... clean up here.'

Radu nodded his great s.h.a.ggy head. 'I have faith in you of a sort' And he urged, 'Do it for me, Necroscope!'

Tm afraid not,' Harry told him. 'I'm doing it for someone else. A whole lot of someone elses.'

'Don't forget to come back for me,' said Radu. And then, the inevitable threat 'Remember, there's always Bonnie Jean.'

'Oh, I haven't forgotten,' said Harry, in a certain way, with a certain look.

Then he was gone, and Radu went to ravage...

Midnight was two hours past in the so-called Drakesh Monastery on the Tingri Plateau, yet still Daham Drakesh held back. Despite that he had read the death-cries of his lieutenant Singra Singh acros s all the miles between, and despite knowledge of a new regime at the Xigaze Garrison - and the fact that he could be visited and investigated at any time - still he held back. His creatures were not yet waxed; his many children in the old walled city were as yet infants, drawing blood from fla me-eyed, vampirized mothers; his monastery was still the safest place in the world, especially a world primed to burst into flame at the touch of a b.u.t.ton.

Drakesh had planned to press that b.u.t.ton - still planned to do so -but yet hoped that the task force at Xigaze would hold off a little longer. If he was forced to flee this place on his own, to leave his children and waxing warriors behind, he could not doubt but that they would be destroyed, all laid to waste; and he would have to start again without advantage, in a world likewise laid to waste.

Also, it could be true that the special forces at Xigaze were in fact there to put down Tibetan insurrection, and that Drakesh and his project had little or nothing to do with their current deployment And what a folly that would be: to abandon his works and initiate Armageddon, out of an ill-founded sense of insecurity! On the other hand, he could always pre-empt matters, press the b.u.t.ton anyway, and blow Central Londo n, Moscow, and Chungking to h.e.l.l! Which might do the trick at that; China would d oubtless discover new priorities, and deploy her forces elsewhere.

Thus the 'High Priest' of the sect was torn two ways where he paced the floors of his apartment pondered his options, and waited on word from his familiar albino bats...

... But for the Necroscope Harry Keogh there was only one option, one objective, as he exited from the Mobius Continuum at the only co-ordinate he was absolutely certain of: Zahanine's snowed-in car where he had left it in the lee of a cl.u.s.ter of rocks on the frozen452.

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plateau a mile from the Drakesh Monastery.

Almost entirely buried in a drift now, with only its rear-end free where it stood at an angle with its trunk to the leaning boulders, the car formed a hump of snow entirely in keeping with the terrain. But knowing what was under the hump - a modern motor vehicle, where never such a thing was seen before - and knowing who sat with her back to the fender - a black girl in modern western clothing, equally alien to these parts - the Necroscope felt the strangeness of it Like a scene from some weird fantasy.

The large trunk was open; a soft bed of snow lay within; Harry picked the girl up and put her inside. She was solid in his arms, like an ice-sculpture. Then he got in with her, and yanked down on the cover from the inside until the frozen hinges gave way and the cover crunched most of the way shut And now for the real miracle.

Scrambling over the seats to the front Harry found the keys in the ignition where he'd left them. Using the cigarette lighter salvaged from Auld John's place to warm the frozen barrel, finally he tried turning the key. And even Harry was surprised when the engine gave a m.u.f.fled cough, caught and began to tick over. The car's nose was way under the snow but it was soft, fluffy stuff; there'd be plenty of air down there. Also, the radiator was very likely full of- -Antifreeze, said Zahanine, startling him. In the winter in Edinburgh, I never took chances, always used twice the recommended dose! And then straight to the point What's on your mind, Necroscope?

Getting the accelerator pedal working - jamming it in a fast tick-over and turning on the heater - Harry told her. And as the car and the dead girl warmed up a little, Zahanine told him one or two things, too. For she had been here a while now, and she'd talked to the local dead, of which the Drakesh Monastery was responsible for more than its fair share.

Now the Necroscope could talk to them, too. And he did: Talked to the original inhabitants of the forbidden city, about the 'plague' that had taken them a hundred years ago and how Drakesh had used them - and used them up - in building his monastery. Talked to a certain would-have-been initiate, a boy the Necroscope had once seen in a precognitive vision tramping the white waste to the monastery, in the company of six of the sect's bell-jingling acolytes; a mere youth - crushed like an orange for its juice, to fuel the vampire appet.i.te of the high priest Daham Drakesh. And talked to others who knew the innermost secrets of that nightmarish temple,' until he knew those secrets, too. And until he knew their coordinates.

And even when he thought he was through there were others waiting to talk to him. Major Chang Lun, for instance, speaking from the bottom of a ravine near Xigaze, where he and his mangled driver were friends now forever, lying frozen and broken in the tangle of wreckage that had been their snow-cat So that finally all the pieces of this last corner of the jigsaw puzzle came together, and Harry could see the whole picture. Except for one detail. One last piece, which would remain missing until he fixed it in place. And: '111 need your help,' he told Zahanine and Major Chang Lun.

Against the Drakuls? Zahanine was eager.

'Against their master,' the Necroscope answered. 'Against him and his charnel house, that entire temple of blood!'

Then you've got it, Harry! she told him. Let me know what you want, and it's yours. And Chang Lun was in complete agreement Harry explained what he would do, and finished by saying: 'I want to drive him to the limit, panic him into action.'

He is a madman, Chang Lun said. Or teetering on the edge, at least. A megalomaniac, yes - but even so, how can you make him do a thing like that?