Brian Lumley - Necroscope V - Deadspawn

Such negativity! Shaithis took it as a sign of the hell-lander's impotence. For if he and Karen had been lovers, then doubtless he'd delight in boasting how she was his cast-off, which was the way of it with the Wamphyri; in payment for which insolence Shaithis would have him gutted with middling sharp instruments, and before his living eyes feed his smoking entrails to a warrior! But however impotent he might or might not be, still the vampire Lord's question went unanswered.

'Very well.' Shaithis shrugged. Then I shall assume she means nothing to you. If I thought she did I would cut away your eyelids so that you couldn't close them, and hang you in silver chains from the walls of my bedchamber where you'd have no choice but to observe each smallest intricacy and nuance of our lovemaking — before she died from it!'

At which moment, even as he said this thing: Don't!

The warning echoed like a gong struck in Shaithis's mind, and he knew its source at once. Glaring across the hall at the Dark Hooded Thing, he saw that where before the interior of its hood had been black and impervious as granite, now the sulphur orbits and scarlet pinpricks of eyes were visible, unblinking, burning their message into his mind. Don't drive them too far! I hold them enthralled, their powers suppressed, but goading them is like thrusting sharp staves under a warrior's scales! It makes them unstable, galvanizes them, weakens my hold upon them.

And Shaithis sent back: But they're whelmed, conquered, whipped like dogs! Which no one knows better than you; for you hold their minds like grapes in your hands, to peel or crush as you will. But as well as this I have warriors here, and my many lieutenants and thralls. Aye, and all of my creatures without, thronging on the night wind. Now tell me, pray: what have I to fear?

Only your greed, my son, and your pride, the other answered. But did you say 'your' warriors, lieutenants and thralls? Yours and not ours? Have I no part in your triumph, then? There were two of us, Shaithis, remember? And yet now you talk of T when you can only mean 'we'. A slip of the tongue, obviously. Ah, but then, the tongues of all the Wamphyri are forked, are they not?

In answer to which Shaithis hissed: What do you want of me?

Only that you are not prideful, the Dark Hooded Thing told him. For I, too, was prideful in my time, only to discover that it goes before a fall.

It was all too much. Tell a vampire not to be prideful? Restrict the towering, enhanced emotions of a Being such as Shaithis? But he was Wamphyri! And to the Dark Hooded Thing: I vowed Karen's death in a certain fashion, at my hands, in my bed. My triumph will not be complete until it has come to pass, or as nearly as possible. Also, The Dweller and his father have been my mortal enemies, whom I intend to destroy.

Then destroy them! said the other, his eyes blazing up huge, as if gorged on fire. Kill them now, but don't torture them. For it could be that if they are driven to it…

Yes?

… I think that even they do not know their own strength, their own powers.

Shaithis was astonished. Their strength? But can't you see that they are weaklings? Their powers? Plainly they are powerless! Aye, and I shall prove it.

He released Karen's hair and she collapsed at his feet. And in his dreams Shaithis again turned to his captives, who throughout his conversation with the Dark Hooded Thing had stood as in a frozen tableau, held fast by vampire thralls. 'There was a time,' he told the pair then, 'when the bitch Karen betrayed her rightful master — which is to say myself — and all of the Wamphyri at a stroke. Betrayed us? What? Her treachery almost destroyed us! There and then I vowed that when times and fortunes had changed I would slip a siphon into her living heart and drain her blood sip by sip. Also, I vowed that while I emptied her of her juices, I would fill her with my flesh. A double ecstasy for a most undeserving Lady. So I vowed it, so let it be!'

And to his lieutenant: 'Go, bring me my couch of black, silken sheets, and the sharp, slender golden straw which you shall find upon my pillow.'

Shaithis's couch was carried in by six powerful thralls; a fawning lieutenant proffered a small silken cushion bearing a slim wand of gold tubing, whose funnel mouthpiece reflected the flaring torchlight. Shaithis took the golden straw, threw off his robe and beckoned Karen to the couch. But as he moved to join her there… again there came that rumbling growl from deep in The Dweller's throat, and again Shaithis sensed this oddly-postured being leaning towards him, like some nameless threat.

The vampire Lord paused a moment, cocked his head in mocking, silent inquiry, and smiled an utterly inhuman smile before seating himself upon the couch beside the apparently enthralled Karen. She lay there in a sort of vacant paralysis, with her scarlet eyes fixed upon him; but her breathing was shallow, palpitating, and gleaming beads of perspiration were starting from her brow in morbid anticipation. Catching up her left breast, Shaithis lifted it and examined the pale rib cage beneath, then slipped the sharp tip of his golden straw between two of her ribs and eased it towards the pounding centre of her body.

As a bubble of her dark-red blood formed around the siphon at the point of entry, so Shaithis's vampire lust brought him to massive erection. He released his partially inserted siphon and gripped the inside of Karen's right thigh with a huge hand, squeezing the flesh there as an indication that she should open herself to him…

… Which was when he felt her first, tentative rejection of his will — and the resistance of others bolstering her resolve — and sensed the suddenly converging foci of forces previously unsuspected. The Dark Hooded Thing sensed them, too, crying out in Shaithis's mind: I warned you! But too late, for the vampire Lord's dream fantasy had now turned to sheerest nightmare.

For the third time Shaithis heard The Dweller's now unmistakably animal growl and shot him a wide-eyed glance — in time to see him wrench himself free from the pinioning grip of his guards, then reach up and tear his own golden mask from his face. Except… whatever Shaithis had expected, it was not there beneath that mask; and as for the face which was there, that resembled nothing even remotely human. No, for bristling and flat-eared, it was the face or visage of a great grey wolf — but its blood-gorged eyes were still those of the Wamphyri!

Its wrinkled, quivering muzzle frothed and dripped saliva; teeth like the blades of small scythes gleamed where the wet, writhing muzzle revealed them; in the next moment the snarling beast (was this really The Dweller?) had turned and snapped at an astonished former guard. And even while Shaithis gaped, the thing's jaw closed like a steel trap on the lieutenant's arm and sheared it below the elbow.

From then on, all was madness.

As the huge, upright creature more nearly completed its metamorphosis into a grey-furred, lupine form, so its voluminous robes shredded like so much rotten cloth to reveal its sheer size. It was a wolf, yes, but as large as a big man! Shaithis's thralls, having already witnessed the monster's speed and savage efficiency, quickly backed off. Hastening their retreat, the great wolf fell to all fours and launched itself at another lieutenant, crunching effortlessly upon his head.

And through all of this, the vampire Lord on his couch grew only too well aware that fortune's tide had turned, and that other inexplicable reversals were even now in motion. Nevertheless, he determined that some of his dream-fantasy at least should be made to work for him; and crushing Karen in the circle of one great arm, he gripped the golden straw where it was poised to pierce her heart and prepared to thrust it home.