Brian Lumley - Necroscope IV - Deadspeak

In that moment I might have torn down the curtains, started forward and struck them both dead; oh I wanted to, be sure! But… why had she called him Faethor? Then, as he lifted her up from the table and staggered to and fro with her clinging to him still, and jerking herself up and down upon his pole, I saw her face: how vacant it was despite the apparently animal lust. Her eyes, round as saucers, set in the paleness of flesh which should at least be flushed from her efforts.

And I knew at once that she was mazed, hypnotized, deeply!

Then, for the first time, I knew how treacherous he was, and how utterly he had fooled me. I understood why my Wamphyri powers had not worked on him: because he had powers of his own, which all this time he'd kept hidden from me. I understood too Marilena's reluctance to let me go on those nights when I must fuel myself, things she had said to me, which made no sense at the time. How she dreamed bad things when I was apart from her, and could never remember what they were; and how she bruised herself alone in her bed, and woke up aching and worn out as from strenuous work.

Aye, strenuous, all right — for he had worked and used her on those occasions, the while causing her to believe that was her lusty lover! He imitated me to perpetrate his mother's rape! And the thought that drove me most mad: how often had he done it?p>

Bursting into the room, I took the curtains with me in a tangle upon my shoulders. Crossed swords were fixed upon a wall; I tore them down and sprang upon Janos with one of them raised high. I went to split him down the middle, but he saw me and turned his mother into the blow. Her skull was split in two, with the brains leaking out even as she slumped in his embrace!

My fury evaporated in a moment, and as Janos grimaced and tossed my Marilena from him, I caught her up and cradled her in my arms. He ran gibbering from the room, leaving me alone with her grotesque corpse…

How long I sat there and rocked her who was no more I cannot say. Many mad schemes crossed my mind. I would put something of my vampire into her — enough to grow strong in her and heal her wound. She was dead now but need not stay dead… she could be undead! Except that then she would be changed, my Marilena no more but a wispy thrall to come ghosting whenever I called — a vampire. No, I could not bear the thought of her like that, when she would have no will but my will. Or I could open her up and perform an act of necromancy, and learn all about my bastard son's infamy. For even though she had been mazed to forget his handling of her, her spirit would know of it, her flesh would remember. But I could not, for I knew that even the dead feel the agony of the necromancer's touch, and I would cause her no more pain. Ah, if only I had been a Necroscope, eh? But at that time even the concept was unknown to me.

And so I sat there long and long, until her blood and brains had dried upon me and she was grown stiff in my arms; and as my despair waned a little so I commenced to think again, and likewise my fury to wax. I would kill Janos, of course, inch by agonizing inch. But before I could kill him I must first find him.

I composed myself, called in unto me Grigor Zirra and others of my Szgany chiefs. Some of them slept in the lower quarters of my castle, where in softer times I had let them take up an almost permanent residence. An end of that, however, for harder times were coming — starting now!

I showed Marilena's corpse to Grigor and said, 'Your grandson did this, whose Zirra blood was impure. Henceforward the Szgany Zirra are accursed! You are no longer welcome in the house of Ferenczy. Take yourself and all of them who are yours and get you gone from here. And from this time forward, never let me find you in all the lands around.'

When he had gone I turned to that chief of mine who upon a time had been forward with me, familiar and loose-tongued. And: 'How could things have come so far?' I demanded of him. 'In my absence, did you not keep guard over what was mine?'

'But, my lord,' he answered, 'it was your son you ordered to keep watch over your house and estates.' And he shrugged, indifferently I thought. 'I have not known your confidence, or favours, for many a year.'

'Are you not Szgany?' I grunted, as Wamphyri teeth sprouted in my skull and my talons grew into knives. 'And am I not the Ferenczy? Since when must I make request of that which is my birthright, or make command of that which was ever your duty?' In my manner of speaking I was very quiet; all of them in the room with me backed off a little, except the one I questioned, whom I had taken hold of by the shoulder.

Then… he pulled out a knife, and made as if to stab me! But I only smiled at him in my grim fashion and held him with my eyes. And trembling, he let the knife fall, saying, 'I… I have betrayed your trust! Banish me also, lord, and let me go with the Zirras.'

I showed him my teeth in torn and bleeding gums, and yawned to let him see the gape of my jaws. He knew that I could close those jaws on his face and tear it off! But I merely drew him towards the high window. 'Banish you?' I repeated him. 'And is there a place of your liking?'

'Anywhere!' he gasped. 'Anywhere at all, lord, out there.'

'Out there?' I said, glancing out the window. 'So be it!' And before he could speak again I gathered him up and hurled him out and down. He screamed once before his bones were broken on the rocks, and then no more.

By then the lesser chiefs might have flown but I cautioned them against it. 'Only flee and I shall seek you out one by one, and eat your hearts.' And when they were still: 'Go now, and find my son. Find him and take me to him, where I may deal with him. And after that gather to me, for I would speak with you of important things. We shall make a great crusade, you and I together. Faethor Ferenczy will rise up and be a power in the world again, and all of you shall earn your fortunes. Aye, but it will be man's work and you shall earn them…!'

A distant clanking momentarily distracted Harry from the extinct vampire's story. Excusing himself from listening, he scanned across the wasteland of churned, boggy earth and decaying, partly demolished houses to a gaunt horizon. Even the sun, falling warmly on his neck and drawing up vapour wraiths from the stagnant pools, could not dispel the cheerlessness of the scene: a handful of metal dinosaurs on the move, strange silhouettes obscuring themselves in clouds of dust and blue exhaust smoke. Unlikely that the bulldozers would head this way, but the sight of them working brought home to Harry something of the hour. It would be about nine o'clock; he still had to get back to Bucharest; his return flight to Athens was booked for 12:45.

Harry? said Faethor, his mental voice faint as a sigh. / can feel the sun on the earth and it weakens me. Should I continue, or shall we postpone it until another time?

Harry thought about it. He'd already learned quite a lot about Janos, a vampire with enormous mental powers. And yet according to Faethor his son had not been a vampire in the fullest sense of the word, not at that time almost eight hundred years ago. So this wasn't simply an opportunity to learn more about him, but also about vampires in general. Harry knew that he was already an authority, but he felt there could never be a surfeit of knowledge about creatures such as these. Not when his life, and the lives of others, might very well depend upon it.

Quite right, said Faethor. Very well, let me continue. I shall be brief as possible…

My Szgany found the dog shivering in a cave high in the crags. I went up to him and called him out. He came to the entrance, which opened onto a ledge in the face of a sheer cliff.