Brian Lumley - Necroscope IV - Deadspeak

These were my thoughts when, as I came to Marilena's rooms, my Wamphyri senses told me that she was not alone. Following which it took my every effort to stop the teeth in my jaws from forming scythes and shearing my gums to pulp. Indeed I felt the nails of my fingers involuntarily elongating into chitin knives, and this too was a reaction I could scarce control.

The room had an exterior door, a small antechamber and a second door to the bedroom proper. Gently, soundlessly, I tried the outer door and found it barred. Never since she came to me had this door been barred. My worst suspicions were now fully aroused, also my hot blood. Oh, I could break the door down, certainly, except… to come upon them that way would be to alert them too soon. And I wanted to see with my own eyes. No amount of screeched or gasped or blood-tinged, frothed denial may eradicate a scene seared upon the very skin of one's eyeballs.

I went out onto a balcony, formed my hands and forearms into webbed discs like the suckers of some grotesque octopus, and made my way to Marilena's window. The window was large, arched, and cut through a wall six feet thick. Inside, across the opening in the inner wall, curtains had been drawn. I climbed in and inched to the curtains, which I drew fractionally apart to form a crack. Inside the room, a floating wick in a bowl of oil gave light enough to see. Not that I had need of it, for I saw in the dark as surely as other men see in full daylight, and even better.

And what I saw was this:

Marilena, naked as a whore, flat on her back across a wooden table; her legs were wrapped around a man who stood upright, straining between her thighs until his buttocks were clenched like fists, driving into her as if he were hammering home a wedge. And indeed he was, a fat wedge of flesh, and in a moment more I would drive that same wedge down his throat!

But then, through the pounding of my blood and the mad thundering of my brain, and through all the roaring of my outraged emotions, I heard her voice gasping: 'Ah, Faethor — more, more! Fill me, my vampire love, as only you can!'

But… let me pause… the memory enrages me even now, when all I am is a voice from beyond the grave… let me pause a moment and make explanation.

It strikes me I've made little mention of myself during the twenty years of Marilena and her bastard son. I shall do so now, but quickly.

The fact that I had taken a woman for my own had not made me any less the vampire. I had had women before, be sure. It is the vampire's nature to have women, just as it is the nature of the female of the species to have men. But I had never before been so fond of any one creature. (Enough of the word 'love'; I have used it too often, and anyway do not believe in it. It is just such a lie as 'honesty' or 'truth' in its definition of rules which all men break from time to time.)

So, for all that I had not deliberately enthralled or vampirized Marilena, I was nonetheless Wamphyri in all my thoughts, moods and activities. But having determined not to partake of her blood, and likewise that as little of my flesh as possible should be allowed to enter her (carnal intercourse excepted, of course), it had fallen upon me to find my sustenance elsewhere. I did not have to drink blood; so long as I could control the craving, commoner fare would suffice. But blood is as much true life to the vampire as opium is sure death to the addict, and they are both hard habits to break. In the case of the Wamphyri, the creature within ensures that the habit will not be broken.

I could go for long periods, then, without taking myself apart from Marilena. But occasionally the craving would overpower me, and then in the night I would rise up, change my shape and glide from my castle's walls to find my pleasure. My lady, of course, was no dimwit; she had long since divined the true nature of her lover; it was in any case common knowledge among the Gypsies that the Szgany Ferengi served a vampire master. And she was jealous of them with whom I visited from time to time.

Waking up as I left our bed, she would cry: 'Faethor! Are you deserting me in the night? Do you fly to some lover? Why do you treat me so badly? Is my body not enough for you? Take it and use it as you will, but do not leave me here alone and weeping!'

And I would say: 'I seek me a man for his blood! What? And do you say I'm unfaithful? All through the seasons, night upon night I lie with you abed, and you have what you will of me. And have I ever flagged in my duties? But the blood is the life, Marilena… or would you have me shrivel to a mummy in my sheets, so that when you wake with the morning and reach out for me, I crumble into dust beneath your touch?'

And then she would shriek: 'You… go… with… women! What? You seek a man for his blood? No, you seek a woman for her round backside, pointy breasts and hot, steaming core! And am I a simpleton? Shrivel to a mummy, indeed! Why, you've the strength of ten men — and their stamina! Are you so full of a man's seed, Faethor, that you must spill it or burst? Then give it to me. Come, let me suck it out of you, and all your flightiness evaporate.'

How does one deal with it? One may not argue with a woman in such a mood. I had only ever struck her the once, and then was so filled with remorse that I could never strike her again. I was so… fond of her!

And so, when she would catch me that way, then I would make love to her — to prove to her that no other had attracted me. Aye, and she'd keep me at it all through the night, just to be sure I'd stay abed. Which only served to increase my fondness.

But there were times when I must be up and about, and then I would employ a certain draught which, taken with wine, would serve to keep her still. Or I might stroke her and hypnotize her into a deep sleep, so that I could be off into the night.

And of course Marilena was right; I lied to her; I had only rarely sought out men for their life-force. Oh, blood is blood, be it the blood of bird or beast, or even the nectar of another vampire, when one such may be had. But other than that sweet rarity, man-blood is superior. Or rather, the blood of women.

Once Thibor had said to me: 'You can do more to a girl than just eat her.' Ah, and the Wallach was right! But… it was not so much that I myself would be unfaithful to Marilena, rather that the vampire within me demanded it. Or so I beg to excuse myself.

I did not go to Szgany women. Even before Marilena I had only ever gone to them for… comfort, never because I was hungry. No, for they were my own and I would not break their trust. But I did have a liking for the ladies of certain foppish Boyars. There were a good many castles and rich houses in those days, and often as not the 'men' of such estates would be away on king's business; there were wars in the world, as I have said.

I remember one such lady of mine was a personage with royal connections, a Bathory called Elspa. Aye, and my evil was made manifest in the Bathorys down all the centuries. There was one born in 1560 called Elisabeth, who was married as a child to the Count Nadasdy. As coincidence would have it, his first name was Ferencz!

Oh? Ha-ha! I know what you are thinking! Well, and why not? Incest is also the way of the vampire: incest of the body, and of the spirit, and of the blood. But if you are right… what a delight, eh? To be wedded to my own ten-times-great-granddaughter!

Ah, the Bathorys. And Elisabeth, the 'blood countess' herself. At least she is a legend, even if I myself am nothing.

And so I am brought back to Janos, by incest. And by the vile incest with which he first betrayed me. Where was I…? Ah, yes:

There he was, in her to the hilt, moaning like a bull and dripping sweat and semen; and the bedroom all a shambles, with clothing and bedclothes tossed here and there, and other signs that their fornication had not been confined to a tabletop; and her soft breasts red from his furious fondling while her thighs squeezed him further in. This was what I saw from behind those curtains. But more than what I saw, what I heard: my Marilena calling her own son by my name, Faethor!