Brian Lumley - Necroscope IV - Deadspeak

'There isn't a man knows 'em better!' Gogosu declared. But he was wily, too, and now his eyes narrowed a little. 'You're looking for a guide, eh?'

'We could be, we could be,' the other slowly nodded. 'But there are guides and there are guides. You ask some guides to show you a ruined castle on a mountain and they promise you the earth! The very castle of Dracula, they say! And then they take you to a pile of rocks that looks like someone's pigsty collapsed! Aye, ruins, Emil Gogosu, that's what we're interested in. For photographs, for pictures… for mood and atmosphere.'

The barman delivered their drinks and Gogosu tossed his straight back. 'Eh? Eh? You're going to make one of those picture things, right? Moving pictures? The old vampire in his castle, chasing the girls with the wobbling breasts? God, yes, I've seen 'em! The pictures, I mean, down in old Lugoj where there's a picture-house. Not the girls, no… sod-all wobbly tits round here, I can tell you! Withered paps at best in this neck of the woods, my lads! But I've seen the pictures. And that's what you're looking for, eh? Ruins

Oddly, and despite the brandy he'd consumed, the old boy seemed to have sobered a little. His eyes focussed more readily, became more fixed in their orbits as he studied the Americans each in his turn. First there was their interpreter. He was a queer one for sure, with his knowledge of the tongue and what all. He was tall, this one, a six-footer with inches to spare, long in the leg, lean in the hip and broad at the shoulders. And now that Gogosu looked closer, he could see that he wasn't just American. Not all American, anyway.

'What's your name, eh? What's your name?' The hunter took the young man's hand and made to tighten his grip on it… but it was snatched back at once and down out of sight under the table.

'George,' the owner of the refused hand quickly replied, reclaiming Gogosu's startled-to-flight attention. 'George Vulpe.'

'Vulpe?' the hunter laughed out loud and slapped the table, making their drinks dance. 'Oh, I've known a few Vulpes in my time. But George? What kind of a name is George to go with a name like Vulpe, eh? Now come on, let's be straight, you and I… you mean Gheorghe, don't you?'

The other's dark eyes darkened more yet and seemed to brood a very little, but then they relaxed and exchanged grin for grin with the grey eyes of their inquisitor. 'Well, you're a sharp one, Emil,' their owner finally said. 'Sharp-eyed, too! Yes, I was Romanian once. There's a story to it, but it's not much…'

The gnarled old hunter returned to studying him. 'Tell it anyway,' he said, giving Vulpe a slow once-over. And the young man shrugged and sat back in his chair.

'Well, I was born here, under the mountains,' he said, his voice as soft as his deceptively soft mouth. He smiled and flashed perfect teeth; so they should be, Gogosu thought, in a man only twenty-six or — seven years old. 'Born here,' Vulpe repeated, 'yes… but it's only a dim and distant memory now. My folks were travellers, which accounts for my looks. You recognized me from my tanned skin, right? And my dark eyes?'

'Aye,' Gogosu nodded. 'And from the thin lobes of your ears, which would take a nice gold ring. And from your high forehead and wolfish jaw, which aren't uncommon in the Szgany. Oh, your origins are obvious enough, to a man who can see. So what happened?'

'Happened?' Again Vulpe's shrug. 'My parents moved to the cities, settled down, became "workers" instead of the drones they'd always been.'

'Drones? You believe that?'

'No, but the authorities did. They gave them a flat in Craiova, right next to the new railway. The mortar was rotten and shaky from the trains; the plaster was coming off the walls; someone's toilet in the flat above leaked on us… but it was good enough for workshy drones, they said. And until I was eleven that's where I'd play, next to the tracks. Then… one night a train was derailed. It ploughed right into our block, took away a wall, brought the whole place crashing down. I was lucky enough to live through it but my people died. And for a while I thought I'd be better off dead, too, because my spine had been crushed and I was a cripple. But someone heard about me, and there was a scheme on at the time — an exchange of doctors and patients, between American and Romanian rehabilitation clinics — and because I was an orphan I was given priority. Not bad for a drone, eh? So… I went to the USA. And they fixed me up. What's more, they adopted me, too. Two of them did, anyway. And because I was only a boy and there was no one left back here,' (yet again, his shrug) 'why, I was allowed to stay!'

'Ah!' said Gogosu. 'And so now you're an American. Well, I'll believe you… but it's strange for Gypsies to leave the open road. Sometimes they get thrown out and go their own ways — disputes and what have you in the camps, usually over a woman or a horse — but rarely to settle in towns. What was it with your folks? Did they cross the Gypsy king or something?'

'I don't know. I was only a boy,' Vulpe answered. 'I think perhaps they feared for me: I was a weak little thing, apparently, a runt. At any rate, they left the night I was born, and covered their tracks, and never went back.'

'A runt?' Gogosu raised an eyebrow, looked Vulpe up and down yet again. 'Well, you'd not know it now. But they covered their tracks, you say? That's it, then. Say no more. There'd been trouble in the camp, for sure. I'll give you odds your father and mother were secret lovers, and she was promised to another. Then you came along so he stole her away. Oh, it happens.'

'That's a very romantic notion,' Vulpe said. 'And who knows? — you could be right.'

'My God, we're ignorant!' Gogosu suddenly exploded, beckoning to the barman. 'Here's you and me chatting in this old tongue of ours, and your two friends bewildered and left out entirely. Now let me get you all another drink and then we'll have some introductions. I want to know why you're here, and what I can do to help, and how much you'll pay me to take you to some real ruins!'

'The drinks are on us,' said Vulpe. 'And no arguments. God, do you expect us to keep up with you, Emil Gogosu? Now slow down or you'll have us all under the table before we've even got things sorted out! As for introductions, that's easy:'

He clasped the shoulder of the American closest to him. "This great gangly one is Seth Armstrong, from Texas. They build them tall there, Emil, as you can see. But then it's a big state. Why, your entire Romania would fit into Texas alone three times over!'

Gogosu was suitably impressed. He shook hands with Armstrong and looked him over. The Texan was big and raw-boned, with honest blue eyes in an open face, sparse straw-coloured hair, arms and legs as long and thin as poles. His nose was long over a wide, expressive mouth and a heavy, bristly chin. Just a little short of seventy-eight inches, even seated Armstrong came up head and shoulders above the others.

'Hah!' said the hunter. 'This Texas would have to be big to accommodate such as him!'

Vulpe translated, then nodded in the direction of the third member of his group. 'And this one,' he said, 'is Randy Laverne from Madison, Wisconsin. It mightn't be so mountainous up there, but believe me it can get just as cold!'

'Cold?' said Gogosu. 'Well, that shouldn't bother this one. I envy him all that good meat on his bones — and all the good meals it took to put it there — but it's not much use in climbing. Me, I'm able to cling to the rocks snug as a lichen, in places where gravity would get him for sure.'

Vulpe translated and Laverne laughed good-naturedly. He was the youngest and smallest (or at least the shortest) of the three Americans: twenty-five, freckle-faced, way overweight and constantly hungry. His face was round and topped with wavy red hair; his green eyes friendly and full of fun; the corners of his eyes and mouth running into mazes of laughter lines. But there was nothing soft about him: his huge hands were incredibly strong, a legacy of his blacksmith father.