Brian Lumley - Necroscope

Boris had turned towards the window then, picking up a chair. 'Go on,' he'd snapped, 'out! Or I leave at once, right now. And not only will I tell my father, but also every policeman I meet between here and Bucharest. I'll tell them about the library of dirty books you keep — which alone might get you a term in prison — and about your daughters, who are little more than girls and already worse than whores — '

'Whores?' she had cut him off with such a hiss that he'd thought she would fly at him.

' — but who could never be as totally rotten as you!' he'd finished.

Then she had broken down, bursting into tears and letting him shove her from the room without further protest. And for the rest of the night he'd slept soundly and completely undisturbed.

That had been the end of it. At midday the next day, while Boris was enjoying his lunch in silence and on his own, his stepfather had arrived to take him home. The trouble with the animals was over; it had not been so serious after all, thank God! Never had Boris been so glad to see anyone in his whole life, and he'd had to fight hard not to show it too much. While he got his things together Aunt Hildegard spent an apparently cordial if careful half-hour with her brother, who made a point of asking after his nieces, neither of them being present. Then, with brief farewells, Boris and his stepfather had left to begin their trip back into the country.

At the gate as they got into the car, Aunt Hildegard had managed to catch Boris's eye. Her look, just for a second, before she began to wave them goodbye, was pleading. Her eyes begged his silence. In answer he had once more shown her that sneer, that look far worse than any snarl or threat, which said more of what he thought of her than any thousand words ever could.

In any event, he had never spoken of that awful visit to anyone. Nor would he ever, not even to the thing in the ground.

The thing in the ground… the old devil… the Wamphyr.

He was waiting (what else could he do but wait?) when Dragosani arrived in the gloomy glade of the tomb just before dusk with another piglet in a sack. He was awake, angry, lying there in the ground and fuming. And as the sun's rim touched the rim of the world and the far horizon turned to blood, he was the first to speak:

Dragosani? I smell you, Dragosani! And have you come to torment me? With more questions, more demands? Would you steal my secrets, Dragosani? Little by little, piece by piece, until there's nothing left of me? And then what? When I lie here in the cold earth, how will you reward me? With the blood of a pig? Ahaaa! I see it's so. Another piglet — for one who has bathed in the blood of men and virgins and armies! Often!

'Blood is blood, old dragon,' Dragosani answered. 'And I note you're more agile tonight for what you drank last night!'

For what I drank? (Scorn, but feigned or genuine?) No, the earth is the richer, Dragosani, not these old bones.

'I don't believe you.'

And I don't care! Go, leave me be, you dishonour me. I have nothing for you and will have nothing from you. I do not wish to talk. Begone!

Dragosani grinned. 'I've brought another pig, yes — for you or for the earth, whichever — but there's something more, something rare. Except…'

The old one was interested, intrigued. Except?

Dragosani shrugged. 'Perhaps it has been too long. Perhaps you're not up to it. Perhaps it's impossible — even for you. For after all, what are you but a dead thing?' And before the other could object: 'Or an undead thing, if you insist.'

I do insist… Are you taunting me, Dragosani? What is it you bring me this night? What would you give me? What do you… propose?

'Maybe it's more what we can give each other.'

Say on.

Dragosani told him what was in his mind, exactly what it was he was willing to share.

And you would trade? What would you have from me in return for this… sharing? (Dragosani could almost sense the Wamphyr licking its lips.)

'Knowledge,' Dragosani answered at once. 'I'm just a man, with a man's knowledge of women,' he lied, 'and — '

He paused in confusion, for the old one was chuckling! It had been a mistake to lie to him.

Oh? A man's knowledge of women? A 'complete' man's knowledge, eh, Dragosani?

He gritted his teeth, choked out: 'There hasn't been time… my work, studies… the opportunity hasn't arisen.'

Time? Studies? Opportunity? Dragosani, you are not a child. I was eleven when I tore through my first maidenhead, a thousand years ago. After that — virgin, bitch, whore, what did it matter? I had them all, in all ways — and always wanted more! And you? You have not tasted? You have not soaked yourself in the sweat and the juice and the hot sweet blood of a woman? Not one? And you call me a dead thing!

The old one laughed then, laughed uproariously, outrageously, obscenely. He found it all so ecstatically ridiculous! His laughter went on and on, became a deluge, a tidal wave, a howling ocean of laughter in Dragosani's head, threatening to drown him.

'Damn you!' he stood up and stamped on the earth, spat on it. 'Damn you!' he shook his knotted fists at the black soil and tumbled slabs. 'Damn you, damn you, damn you!'

The old one was quiet in a moment, oozing like some nightmare slug in Dragosani's mind. But I'm already damned, my son, he said, after a little while. Yes, and so are you…

Dragosani snatched out his knife, reached for the shunned piglet.

Wait! Not so hasty, Dragosani. I have not refused. But tell me: since it would appear that like some puny priest you've abstained for all these long years, why now?

Dragosani thought about it, decided he might as well tell the truth. The old devil in the ground had probably seen through him, anyway. 'It's the woman. She aggravates me, taunts me, flaunts her flesh.'

Ahhh! I know the sort.

'Also, I believe she thinks I've been with men — or at least she has wondered about it.'

Like the Turks? The old one's mental response was sharp, touched with hatred. That is an insult!

'I think so too,' Dragosani nodded. 'So… will you do it?'

You are inviting me into your mind, am I correct? Tonight, when this woman comes to you?

'Yes.'

And it is an invitation, made of your own free will?

Dragosani grew wary. 'Just this once,' he answered. 'It will have no permanence.'

Again you flatter yourself, the other chuckled. I have — or will have — my own body, Dragosani, which is nothing so weak as yours!

'And you can do it? And will I learn from it?'

Oh, I can do it, my son, yeeessss! Have you forgotten the fledgling? And didn't you learn something that time, too? Who made you a necromancer, Dragosani? Yes, and this time you will learn… much!

'Then I want nothing more from you — for now, anyway.' He began to back away from the tomb, moving downhill, away from that place of centuried horror. And -

But what of the piglet? asked the thickly glutinous voice in his head. And more hurriedly: For the earth, Dragosani, for the earth.

In the deep, unquiet gloom, Dragosani narrowed his eyes. 'Oh, yes, I very nearly forgot,' he said, his tone not quite sarcastic. 'The piglet, of course. For the earth Quickly he returned, slit the insensate animal's throat, tossed its pink body down. And then, without looking back, he made silently away.

A little way down the slope, against the bole of a tree where great roots forked, trapped there and unable to roll any farther, he saw something strange and stopped to pick it up. It was last night's offering, or what remained of it. A tightly interwoven ball of pink skin and crushed bones, all dry as crumpled cardboard. A beetle crawled on it, seeking in vain for some morsel of sustenance. Dragosani let it fall and roll out of sight.