Necroscope 4: Deadspeak (3 page)

It is 1985. Eight years since Yulian Bodescu died and Harry wrecked the Chateau Bronnitsy, eight long years since his half-deranged wife and her necroscopic child fled, apparently right out of this world. And ever since then he’s been looking for them. They are not dead, for if they were the teeming dead would know it and likewise Harry Keogh. But if they’re alive … then Harry no longer knows where to search. He has exhausted every bolthole, searched everywhere.

Darcy Clarke, head of INTESP, goes to see Harry at his Edinburgh home. He starts to tell him about Perchorsk but Harry isn’t interested. As Clarke fills in the details, however, Harry’s interest picks up. His old enemies the Soviet mindspies have established a cell at Perchorsk to block metaphysical prying. They’re obviously hiding something big, something very unpleasant. They have a regiment of troops up there in the mountains, equipped with real firepower—for what? Who is likely to attack the Urals? Who do the Russians think they’re keeping out? …
What
are they keeping in?

“We think they’re doing something with genetics,” Clarke tells Harry. “We think they’re breeding warrior vampires!”

Even now Harry is only half-swayed; but at last Clarke plays his trump:

The British spy in Perchorsk, Michael J. Simmons, has vanished; the very best of E-Branch’s espers can’t find him; they believe he’s alive (he hasn’t been “cancelled”, or their telepaths would know) but they don’t know
where
he’s alive. Which precisely parallels Harry’s own problem. Perhaps, by some weird freak of coincidence, Harry Jr., Brenda Keogh and the Perchorsk spy are all in the same place. To be doubly sure that E-Branch aren’t just using him to their own ends, Harry asks his myriad dead friends to look into it. Is there a recent arrival in their teeming ranks by the name of Michael J. Simmons? But:

There is not. Simmons isn’t dead, he’s simply not here …

Harry investigates and discovers that the accident at the Perchorsk Projekt has blown a hole in space-time, a “grey hole” leading to a world “parallel” with our own; also that the world on the other side is the spawning ground of vampires, indeed
The Source
of all vampire myth and legend.

He talks again to the long-dead August Ferdinand Möbius, to the devious mind of the extinct Faethor Ferenczy, and to more recent friends among the legions of the dead; until finally he discovers an alternate route into the vampire world. And what a monstrous world that is!

Sunside is hot, a blazing desert; Starside is the realm of the Wamphyri, where their aeries stand kilometre-high close to the mountain pinnacles which divide the planet. On Sunside the Travellers, the original Gypsies, wander in bands and tribes through the verdant foothills of the central range; active during the long days, they burrow in dark holes and caves through the short, fear-filled nights. For when the sun sets on Sunside—that’s when the Wamphyri come a-hunting.

Travellers and Trogs (a primitive aboriginal race) are to the Wamphyri what the coconut is to Earth’s tropical islanders. They form a large part of their diet, provide slaves, workers, women; even when they die or are disposed of there is rarely any waste. Their remains go to feed Wamphyri “gas-beasts”, “siphoneers” and “warriors”, which are themselves fashioned of transmuted Trogs and Travellers. Their grotesquely
altered,
fossilized bodies decorate the vertiginous, glooming castles of the Wamphyri, are even formed into furniture or hardened into exterior sheaths, so protecting the aerie properties of their vampire masters against the elements.

As for the Lords of these rearing keeps:

The Wamphyri are monstrous, warlike, jealous of their territories and possessions, forever scheming and feuding. There is nothing a vampire hates and distrusts more than another vampire. And no one they
all
hate and distrust more than The Dweller in His Garden in the West.

Following a nightmare series of adventures and misadventures, a party of Travellers—including Jazz Simmons and the beautiful telepath Zek Foener—have joined forces with The Dweller. By the time Harry Keogh arrives, the Wamphyri have set aside all personal arguments and disputes to unite against their common enemy preparatory to invading the Garden, The Dweller’s territory in the hills. Of all the awesome Wamphyri Lords, only the Lady Karen, a gorgeous once-Traveller whose vampire tenant has not yet reached full maturity, renegues and flees to The Dweller, warning him of the coming war.

The battle is joined: the Lords Shaithis, Menor Maim-bite, Belath, Volse Pinescu, Lesk the Glut and many others, with all their hybrid warriors and Trog minions, against The Dweller and his small party of humans.

But Harry Keogh is with The Dweller, and The Dweller is … Harry Jr.! By means of a timeslip, Harry Jr. is not the mere boy his father expected but grown to a young man in a golden mask, and this is the world to which he has transported his poor demented mother—for her safety and peace of mind! Yes, and until now he has provided amply for all her needs—and his own. For individually the Wamphyri Lords were no match for him and his “science”. Now that they are united, however … Harry Sr. has arrived just in time.

By ingenious use of the Möbius Continuum, and of the Necroscope powers of father and son, Shaithis and his vampire army are defeated, their aeries destroyed, all bar the Lady Karen’s. She goes back there, and Harry Keogh visits her. He seeks to free her of her vampire, not for her sake but for his son’s—for The Dweller has become infected with vampirism. Harry will use Karen to test a theory, hopefully provide a cure.

He drives Karen’s vampire out and destroys it. Alas, he also destroys her. She had
been
Wamphyri, and now she is a shell. When one has known the magnified emotions—the freedom from guilt, timidity and remorse—the sheer
lust
and
power
of the Wamphyri, what is there after that? Nothing, and she throws herself from the aerie’s battlements.

But The Dweller still has a vampire in him, and back in the Garden where his band of Travellers are rebuilding their shattered lives and homes … Harry Jr. is ever more aware of his father’s hooded eyes, watching him intently …

I: Castle Ferenczy

T
RANSYLVANIA, THE FIRST WEEK OF
S
EPTEMBER
1981 …

Still an hour short of midday, two peasant wives of Halmagiu village wended their way home along well-trodden forest tracks. Their baskets were full of small wild plums and the first ripe berries of the season, all with the dew still glistening on them. Some of the plums were still a little green … all the better for the making of sharp, tangy brandy! Dark-robed, with coarse cloth headsquares framing their narrow faces, the women cheerfully embroidered tidbits of village gossip to suit their mood, their teeth flashing ivory in weathered leather as they laughed over especially juicy morsels.

In the near-distance, blue wood smoke drifted in almost perpendicular spirals from Halmagiu’s chimneys; it formed a haze high over the early-autumn canopy of forest. But closer, in among the trees themselves, were other fires; cooking smells of spiced meats and herbal soups drifted on the still air; small silver bells jingled; a bough creaked where a wild-haired, dark-eyed, silent, staring child dangled from the rope of a makeshift swing.

There were gaudy caravans gathered in a circle under the trees. Outside the circle: tethered ponies cropped the grass, and bright-coloured dresses swirled where bare-armed girls gathered firewood. Inside: black-iron cooking pots suspended over licking flames issued puffs of mouthwatering steam; male travellers tended their own duties or simply looked on, smoking their long, thin-stemmed pipes, as the encampment settled in. Travellers, yes. Wanderers: Gypsies! The
Szgany
had returned to the region of Halmagiu.

The boy on the rope in the tree had spotted the two village women and now uttered a piercing whistle. All murmur and jingle and movement in the Gypsy encampment ceased upon the instant; dark eyes turned outwards in unison, staring with curiosity at the Romanian peasant women with their baskets. The Gypsy men in their leather jackets looked very strong, somehow fierce, but there was nothing of animosity in their eyes. They had their own codes, the Szgany, and Knew which side their bread was greased. For five hundred years the people of Halmagiu had dealt with them fairly, bought their trinkets and knick-knacks and left them in peace. And so in their turn the Gypsies would work no deliberate harm against Halmagiu.

“Good morning, ladies,” the Gypsy king (for so the leaders of these roving bands prided themselves, as little kings) stood up on the steps of his wagon and bowed to them. “Please tell our friends in the village we’ll be knocking on their doors—pots and pans of the best quality, charms to keep away the night things, cards to read and keen eyes that know the lie of a line in your palm. Bring out your knives for sharpening, and your broken axe-handles. All will be put to rights. Why, this year we’ve even a good pony or two, to replace the nags that pull your carts! We’ll not be here long, so make the best of our bargains before we move on.”

“Good morning to you,” the oldest of the pair at once answered, if in a breathless fashion. “And be sure I’ll tell them in the village.” And in a hushed aside to her companion: “Stay close; move along with me; say nothing!”

As they passed by one of the wagons, so this same older woman took a small jar of hazelnuts from her basket and a double handful of plums, placing them on the steps of the wagon as a gift. If the offering was seen no one said anything, and in any case the activity in the camp had already resumed its normal pace as the women headed once more for home. But the younger one, who hadn’t lived in Halmagiu very long, asked:

“Why did you give the nuts and plums away? I’ve heard the Gypsies give nothing for nothing, do nothing for nothing, and far too often
take
something for nothing! Won’t it encourage them, leaving gifts like that?”

“It does no harm to keep well in with the fey people,” the other told her. “When you’ve lived here as long as I have you’ll know what I mean. And anyway, they’re not here to steal or work mischief.” She gave a small shudder. “Indeed, I fancy I know well enough why they’re here.”

“Oh?” said her friend, wonderingly.

“Oh, yes. It’s the phase of the moon, a calling they’ve heard, an offering they’ll make. They propitiate the earth, replenish the rich soil, appease … their gods.”

“Their gods? Are they heathens, then? … What gods?”

“Call it Nature, if you like!” the first one snapped. “But ask me no more. I’m a simple woman and don’t wish to know. Nor should you wish to know. My grandmother’s grandmother remembered a time when the Gypsies came. Aye, and likely her granny before her. Sometimes fifteen months will go by, or eighteen—but never more than twenty-one—before they’re back again. Spring, summer, winter: only the Szgany themselves know the season, the month, the time. But when they hear the calling, when the moon is right, when a lone wolf howls high up in the mountains, then they return. Yes, and when they go they always leave their offering.”

“What sort of offering?” the younger woman was more curious than ever. “Don’t ask,” said the other, hurriedly shaking her head.

“Don’t ask.” But it was only her way; the younger woman knew she was dying to tell her; she bided her time and resolved to ask no more. But in a little while, fancying that they’d strayed too far from the most direct route back to the village, she felt obliged to inquire:

“But isn’t this a long way round we’re taking?”

“Be quiet now!” hushed the older woman. “Look!”

They had arrived at a clearing in the forest at the foot of a gaunt outcrop of grey volcanic rock. Bald and domed, with several humps, this irregular mound stood perhaps fifty feet high, with more forest beyond, then sheer cliffs rising to a fir-clad plateau like a first gigantic step to the misted, grimly forbidding heights of the Zarundului
massif.
The trees around the base of the outcrop had been felled, all shrubs and undergrowth cleared away; at its summit, a cairn of heavy stones stood like a small tower or chimney, pointing to the mountains.

And up there, seated on the bare rock at the foot of the cairn, working with a knife at a shard of stone which he held in his lap—a young man: Szgany! He was intent upon his work, seeing nothing but the stone in his hands. He gazed down across a distance of little more than one hundred feet—gazed seemingly head on, so that the women of the village must surely be central to his circle of vision—but if he saw them he gave no sign. And indeed it was plain that he did not see them, only the stone which he worked. And even at that distance, clearly there was something … not quite right with him.

“But what’s he doing up there?” the younger of the two inquired in a hoarse whisper. “He’s very handsome, and yet… strange. And anyway, isn’t this a forbidden place? My Hzak tells me that the great stone of the cairn is a very special stone, and that —”

Shhh!
the other once again cautioned her, a finger to her lips. “Don’t disturb him. They don’t take kindly to being spied upon, the Szgany. Not that this one will hear us anyway. Still… best to be careful.”

“He won’t hear us, you say? Then why are we talking in whispers? No, I
know
why we’re whispering: because this is a private place, like a shrine. Almost holy.”

“Un
holy!” the other corrected her. “As to why he won’t notice us—why, just look at him up there! His skin’s not so much dark as slate-grey, sickly, dying. Eyes deep-sunken, burning. Obsessed with that stone he’s carving. He’s been called, can’t you see? He’s mazed, hypnotized—doomed!”

Even as the last word left her lips, so the man on the rock stood up, took up his stone and ground it firmly into position on the rim of the cairn. It sat there side by side with many dozens of others, like a brick in the topmost tier of a wall, and anyone having seen the ritual of the carving would know that each single stone of that cairn was marked in some weird, meaningful way. The younger woman opened her mouth to say something, but her friend at once anticipated her question: