Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates: and Other Tales from the Lost Years (20 page)

“ ‘Enough!’ says Jake. ‘None of yere poxy flattery, Mister! Just tell me what ye think happened here, and quick about it.’

“ ‘Well you heard what the sawbones said, Cap’n Jake,’ says I. ‘How Stumpy Pete would have lived a lot longer if he’d liked apples as well as he liked rum. A bad case of scurvy is what it was; the
worst case ever, which caught up with Pete very sudden like.
Very
sudden, aye. Scurvy, Cap’n! Or at least, that’s what the sawbones says.’

“And in a while, starin’ through thoughtful, narrowed eyes far across the ruffled sea, Jake slowly nods and says: ‘Scurvy, ye say? Well, p’raps, Mister. But I’m sure ye must have noticed where the peg-leg was found, lyin’ stiff as a board on the deck? Directly under that thing hangin’ in the riggin’, that’s where! And do ye recall yestereve, how it was grown a mite dull? Well, just look at it now, will ye.’ He nods again, seemingly directin’ my gaze fore and amidships.

“But before I can look proper, the Cap’n catches my elbow and says, ‘Listen, Mister. Ye started off talkin’ about weirdness and things ye never saw nor heard of before. Well, I have to agree there’s somethin’ weird here. In fact I’d have the men jettison yon thing—a shroud for Peg-leg Pete in the dampness of the deeps, which is where that poor bugger’s bound—except I fancy it may have some real value; and anyway I won’t be seen to be the least bit leery of it. Hell’s teeth, I’m
not
leery of it—nor anythin’ else, for that matter!—but this so-called “pirates crew” of mine just might be. So no more talk of weirdness, ghosties, ghoulies, and such. The pegleg’s no great loss, truth be told, but we don’t want anyone else jumpin’ ship. Now ye’d best hurry on down and chivvy that bunch of gawpin’ fools up a bit, get them workin’ again, attendin’ to the
Sea Witch’
s welfare, before their lazy feet take root in the plankin’! Off ye go.’

“Havin’ said his all, and with another nod amidships—his eyes reflectin’ a certain golden glimmer—Black Jake let go my elbow and shoved me in that direction. So off I went, down onto the deck amidships, fightin’ the blow along the way.

“And there it was, with a handful of crewmen just standin’ there, starin’ up at it where it whipped in the wind. Except it didn’t really whip and snap, not like a sail’s canvas, but sort of floated there all languid like despite the rush and bluster. As for yestereve’s dullness, as remarked upon by the Cap’n: not any longer. Because
for all that the day was overcast and spray flyin’ from a surgin’ prow, that sky-cloth shone like burnished metal: for a fact, like precious gold!

“Indeed it seemed renewed, revitalised. Ah, but then—as I came upon a second small knot of crewmen where they mumbled a few words over Stumpy Pete’s wrapped corpse before launchin’ it to a watery grave—I looked again at that glowin’ thing, speculatin’ at the
cost
of its newfound brilliance. . . .

“Then, turnin’ from the rail, it happened I glanced in the direction of Black Jake and Zhadia’s cabin situated under the after-deck. The door was somewhat ajar and there she stood, half-hidden from view in the shadows of the cabin, gazin’ out across the deck. Aye, and what was Zhadia’s gaze rapt upon but the sky-cloth’s golden glow, its shimmerin’ warp and weave as it wafted so lazy like on the wind. Except . . . now the strangest thing of all, for I saw how the sky-cloth
ignored
the wind; it failed to fly leeward of the blow but instead seemed attracted to Zhadia; it wafted
diagonally
or
side-on,
appearin’ to drift towards her! And I suddenly found myself thinkin’ a crazy thought: how if it hadn’t been made fast in the riggin’ it might have attempted to fly right into Zhadia’s eager arms!

“But just then Zhadia saw me lookin’; she retreated out of sight, reluctantly I thought, and closed the door. And as quick as you like with Zhadia’s exit, the sky-cloth quit its hypnotic weavin’ and fell into formless folds, for all its lustre like a lifeless rag hangin’ there in the riggin’. . . .”

The atmosphere in the Hartlepool graveyard had grown heavy now, full of the oppressiveness of air that is usually the harbinger of bad weather. It might almost seem that the tropical storm of the dead pirate’s tale had somehow conjured or evoked this one; but no, for Harry had anticipated its coming ever since leaving the old stone harbour in the antique town’s most northerly quarter. And now that Billy Browen had chosen this moment to pause,
perhaps to reassess, readjust his story’s pace and progress, so the Necroscope found himself presented with the ideal opportunity to take stock of more mundane things—

—Which took him but a moment, until:

“Billy,” he said, “I fear that if I remain here any longer I’m going to get wet. As it is I’m all cramped up, and if I die of pneumonia you’ll never get the tale told, now will you?” And as if to illustrate his complaints he grunted, “
Uh!
” as he made the effort to rise and straighten up . . . which happened to coincide with the first of the heavy raindrops, one of which landed inside his collar. Then, as he stretched himself and flexed the muscles of his legs to ease the cramps:

Now, now, Harry!
the ex-pirate chided.
Don’t you know it’s bad luck to talk of dyin’—not to mention in very bad taste—especially if you’re talkin’ to someone who’s already dead?

Nodding, Harry answered, “You know, you’re probably right? But since speaking to the dead is my lot there’s not much I can do about it. Anyway, it hasn’t hurt me so far.”
And heaven only knows I’ve done enough of it!
Which was a thought Harry kept to himself, though not for any reason that came easily to mind.

On the far side of the graveyard the caretaker was locking heavy iron gates. In the deepening gloom of a dreary, worsening evening he’d failed to observe that the usually neglected cemetery had a visitor. The Necroscope had noticed him, however, and now to maintain his advantage he turned up his collar and stepped back into the shade of the trees.

Then as the rain came on in earnest, he spoke again to the ex-pirate, this time in Billy Browen’s own deadspeak mode.
It’s time I was off, Billy. But I’ll admit you’ve got me interested. So weather permitting I’ll return some time tomorrow, or if not then as soon as possible. And that’s a promise.

Excellent!
came the other’s deadspeak sigh—once again of gratitude, or possibly inordinate relief?—
I’m already lookin’ forward to it . . . er, Harry?

But as the wind whipped the trees and the leaden raindrops
came squalling down, spattering like a myriad miniature eggs on the slabs and markers, the ex-pirate’s words went unheard, lost to the deadspeak aether. For the Necroscope was no longer listening, indeed he was no longer there. . . .

Early the next morning, waking up alone in his lonely, rambling old house standing well off the beaten track near the hamlet of Bonnyrig, some miles from Edinburgh, Harry found himself with a headache; which was unusual for the Necroscope. It was also unusual that he was alone and “at home.” For during this phase of his life a lot of his time—and in fact almost every night—was spent with Bonnie Jean Mirlu at her place in the city. B.J. was away right now, however, paying a visit to a relative or an old friend of the family whom Harry had heard her refer to only as “Auld John,” in a place called Inverdruie “up north;” a fact which one of the girls B.J. employed as a hostess or barmaid in her Edinburgh wine bar had passed on to him by telephone only a minute or two after he had exited the Möbius Continuum into his living room on the previous evening.

Now, on reflection, and with B.J. in mind, the Necroscope reconsidered the frequency of his headaches and their possible cause or origin. For while just a moment ago he had misrepresented his current condition as “unusual”—which, for as long as he could remember, was exactly what such migraines had
used
to be—the truth of it was that since B.J.’s advent headaches and inexplicable periods of forgetfulness and absentmindedness had become not so much unusual as prevalent!

Suddenly realising that he was at cross-purposes with himself, Harry shrugged irritably. Oh, she was definitely one deep and mysterious lady, this Bonnie Jean! So perhaps his migraines came from trying to fathom the unfathomable, comprehend the unknowable and tame the completely untameable? For after all, who else but B. J. Mirlu would have the sheer gall, the impertinence to refer to the cold vampire killer and Necroscope, Harry Keogh, as
her “wee man,” and order him home like a little boy who had stayed out too late at night? Which, on several occasions, she had done! And these were orders with which Harry had willingly complied, at that!

Of course, B.J. wasn’t aware of his . . . but his what? His secret identity, like Lois Lane with Clark Kent? She was privy to as little of Harry’s metaphysical talents and previous life as he to hers; but he felt fairly sure that even if she suspected he was somehow different or special it wouldn’t change anything very much, because he was
that
much under her spell—and she knew it! But still Harry fancied (however erroneously) that this “spell” he was under was no supernatural thing. No, it was her incredible sensuality that attracted him, or which—while he continued to deny the reality of it—more properly held him fast, besotted and in thrall; simply that rather than some dark and esoteric magic. And he smiled as he wondered:

Can too much sex give a man migraines?

On the other hand—as another sharp, stabbing pain struck him in his temple, banishing his smile and causing him to wince—on the
other
hand, it was ridiculous to even jokingly ascribe blame for this current headache to B. J. Mirlu when it was plain that its source was something else entirely. . . .

It had been there ever since he’d woken up—perhaps even before that—as part of a dream. Now, while toasting bread and making himself a pot of coffee, a frown creased the Necroscope’s forehead as he attempted to bring that dream back into focus:

In it he had heard the murmur of several deadspeak voices whispering secretively amongst themselves, their owners apparently arguing about some shadowy thing—some danger, perhaps?—concerning himself. This, at least, was definitely not unusual; as well as fantasies conjured by the sleeping mind, people frequently dream scenarios and situations regarding the trials and tribulations of their waking lives, dreams that are often problem-solving mechanisms that discard the accumulated debris and mental garbage of mundane life and allow more serious problems—and sometimes,
albeit rarely, their resolutions—to surface: in a word, oneiromancy. However, while Harry knew of Kekulé von Stradonitz’s renowned “benzine ring” revelation, here the knowledge was redundant: he could rely on past, personal experience of the phenomenon.

Returning to the actual dream: the Necroscope could remember very little of it, and then only vaguely, as viewed through or muffled by a thick mist. In particular he recalled his frustration in trying to eavesdrop the deadspeak conversation. As to its source, however: he had somehow been left with the impression that the whispering voices had emanated from the Hartlepool cemetery. But there had been something else, indeed a
lot
more than that to it.

And there it was, the source of his headache: that buzzing or humming, the deadspeak static Harry had felt or sensed while talking to the ex-pirate, Billy Browen. And that really
was
unusual: that an hitherto unknown effect, first sensed in a deadspeak conversation, should later manifest itself in a dream so forcefully, insistently, that upon waking the Necroscope continued to experience its echoes or reverberations as a migraine. A man might dream of cancer but would be vastly unfortunate to wake up
with
a tumor! A person might dream he was on fire—but was most unlikely to spring awake charred and blistered! Well, not unless he really
was
on fire. . . .

As the Necroscope ate breakfast and the stabbing pains in his head gradually died away, he cast his mind back to the time he had spent—no more than an hour or two—in the incorporeal company of Billy Browen. It was shortly after the ex-pirate had begun to tell his story that Harry had first sensed this irregularity, this impression that the psychic aether’s volume—or rather his sensitivity to such emissions from beyond—had somehow, suddenly been turned way up. At the time he had thought it might be simply another indication of his burgeoning parapsychological powers, but as Billy’s story had progressed—

—So the intensity of the static had increased, apparently in parallel; and again, remembering his first impression of it, Harry
likened it to the monotonous electrical hum of a record-player’s speakers when the turntable is empty and the volume is turned up far too high. But in fact the turntable—or in this case the medium or instrumentality of the metaphysical aether—had
not
been empty; rather it had been the channel by which the Necroscope and Billy Browen communicated. Similarly, their deadspeak thought processes had been analogous to a spinning record.

And now Harry frowned again, thinking:
Why, by the time it started raining last night, our “private” conversation, or more properly Billy’s story, would have been sounding out across the entire psychic spectrum! It may well have been “heard”
throughout
the dark domain, by all of the dead in their graves!

But done with breakfasting and on checking this theory out with several dead friends in graveyards near and far, Harry discovered that he was quite wrong: not one of them had sensed any powerful or otherwise extraordinary emmissions in the deadspeak aether, and they assured the Necroscope that if
his
voice—and his warmth—had been broadcast in excessive volume, then they would surely have sensed, heard, and recognised him at once.

Which begged the questions: if the metaphysical volume had been deliberately turned up high, to what unknown realm and for what purpose had the Necroscope and Billy Browen’s conversation been transmitted? And was it simply a deadspeak anomaly, or had there been someone there—wherever “there” was—to tune in on it?