Brian Lumley: Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

'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 Jnr, 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 Jnr! By means of a timeslip, Harry Jnr 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 Snr 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 Jnr is ever more aware of his father's hooded eyes, watching him intently…

Transylvania, the first week of September 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.'