Brian Lumley - Necroscope IV - Deadspeak

Harry nodded. 'I understand all of that, and I'll tell you about it later. Go on.'

Manolis turned left off a busy street into an alley, then left again into a tiny private car park behind his hotel. 'We'll talk inside,' he said.

He had good spacious rooms; apparently the proprietor owed the local police a few favours, and Manolis was collecting; as he talked he prepared cool drinks, but low in alcohol. For a Greek he was sweating profusely. Darcy mentioned it and again Manolis shrugged.

'I am the criminals,' he explained. 'Pardon: a criminal. I am a murderer, and it concerns me.'

'Armstrong?' said Harry. 'You never performed a more worthy act in your entire life!'

'Still, I did it, and I am hiding it, and it bothers me.'

'Forget it!' Harry insisted. 'You may be doing it again, and sooner than you think. Tell me more about Lazarides.'

Manolis nodded. 'He is purchasing an island. Well, a rock, in the Dodecanese off Sirna. Amazing! I mean, what is that for an island? One small beach and a fang of rock jutting from the sea? But he plans a house there, on a great ledge on the rock. Again, there was once a Crusader tower there, a pharos. What he will do there is anybody's guesses. There is no water; everything will have to be brought in by boat; he will be one very lonely creature up there!'

'An aerie,' said Harry, 'or the next best thing. He still desires to be Wamphyri!'

'Eh?'

'Forget it. Goon.'

Again Manolis's shrug. 'He keeps a small private aeroplane, a Skyvan, on Karpathos. There is a runway there now. He uses the plane for trips to Athens, Crete, elsewhere. Maybe even to Romania, eh? Which means that sometimes his boat may be found off Karpathos. Don't worry, I have a man on it. Every day tourists fly out to Karpathos from Rhodes. They, too, use a Skyvan. It is the flying matchbox! But very, very safe. The pilot will look for Lazarides's boat. I expect his call any time…'

'Anything else?' Harry was still very cool, very pale. He didn't seem to have been touched by the sun.

'About Armstrong,' said Manolis. 'Five and a half years ago he and some American friends went on a trip somewhere in Europe… that's all I know about it, somewhere in Europe. There was an accident, a fall in the mountains or some such, and some people were killed. Armstrong survived but he didn't go back to America. Instead he ended up here, in Greece, and applied for the Greek citizenship. The next thing we know, he's working for Lazarides.'

'And that's it?' Harry's gaunt, almost vacant expression hadn't changed.

That's it,' said Manolis. And: 'Oh, one other thing. I now have the authorization to chase this Vrykoulakas dog to hell, if I can find him!'

Darcy nodded. 'We didn't sleep much last night. Manolis spent a lot of time phoning Athens. We pushed the drugs side of this thing just as hard as we could. So now we can use all the force that's necessary to apprehend and search Lazarides and his lot.'

'If we can find them,' Harry echoed Manolis.

'Well, two or three of them we can find, for sure!' said the Greek. 'On Halki, where they're digging in those ruins.'

Again Harry's nod. "That will be as good a place as any to start, yes. I'd like to see this fang of rock in the Dodecanese, too. All right, and now I'll tell you what I've discovered, and you'll see for yourselves how it all fits together. But I warn you now, it's an incredible story.'

He told it all and they sat fascinated to the end. 'And so now I have my deadspeak back,' he finished off, 'which is one step in the right direction, at least.'

'You are the cool one,' Manolis told him. 'I thought so the first time I met you. You talk about steps in the right direction, and all this time Sandra, your lover — '

'Manolis,' Harry stopped him. 'No man has lost more than I have. No, I'm not being a martyr, I'm just stating a fact. It started when I was a kid and it hasn't stopped yet. I've lost just about every person I ever loved. I've even lost my son in another world, to another creed: this same damned creed, vampirism! And the more you lose, the more hardened you get to it. Ask any habitual gambler. They don't play to win but to lose. They used to play to win, but now when they win they just go right on back to the tables.'

'Harry,' Darcy took his arm, 'ease up.'

But Harry shook him off. 'Let me finish.' And he turned back to Manolis. 'Well, I used to play to win, too. But it's a hell of a game where all the cards are stacked against you. You want me to cry over Sandra? Maybe I will, later. You want me to go to pieces, to show that I'm a good guy? But what good will I be in all of this if I go to pieces? I loved Sandra, yes, I think. But already it's too late to do anything about it. She's just one more thing that I've lost. It's the only way I can look at it and still go on. Except now I may be starting to win again. We may be starting to win again. Not Sandra, no, for she's dead. And if she isn't, then she'd be better off. I know this Janos Ferenczy now, and I know what I'm talking about. You call me cold, but you don't know how I'm burning up inside. Now I'll ask you to do me a favour: stop worrying about how you see things. Stop worrying about Sandra. It's too late. This is a war and she was a casualty. What we have to do now is start hitting back, while we still have a chance!'

For long moments Manolis said nothing. Then: 'My friend,' he said, very softly, 'you are wound up very tight. You bear a great weight on your shoulders, and I am a great fool. I cannot hope to know what it is like for you, or even anything about you. You are not the ordinary man, and I had no right to speak the way I did or think the things I have thought.'

Harry sat very still, just looking at the Greek; and slowly Manolis watched the Necroscope's soulful eyes turn to liquid. Before they could spill over, Harry stood up and kicked his chair away, and went unsteadily to the bathroom…

Later:

'What I hate especially about this,' said Harry, 'is that he's laughing at us — at all of us, at Mankind — and perhaps at me in particular. It's his vampire ego. He calls himself Lazarides, after the Biblical Lazarus, raised up from the dead by Christ. Depending on your beliefs that's a blasphemy in itself. But he doesn't stop there. Just to rub it in and make his point he calls his boat by the same name! He dares us to discover him, yells: "Hey, look, I'm back!" He breaks the first rule of vampires and makes himself prominent, in several ways. And I think he does it deliberately.'

'But why?' said Darcy.

'Because he can afford to!' Harry answered. 'Because people no longer believe in vampires. No, I don't mean us but people in general. In this day and age he can afford to be prominent, because to a point he's safe from the masses. But he also does it because he knows that the people who do believe — and they are the ones he's chiefly interested in, the dangerous ones, you, me, E-Branch, and any other friends — will go up against him.'

'You mean he… he wants a showdown?'

'Oh yes, for he's seen the future! That's the thing he was best at, and it's how he thwarted Faethor. He knows we have to have a showdown, so he's guiding events his way, to give himself every advantage. He'll use my own devices against me, and against anyone who is with me. He has Ken Layard, and so can locate any one of us more or less at will. He crippled Trevor Jordan so that he'd be no use to us; and he's taken Sandra not out of spite or greed or lust but the better to know me, because then he'll not only know my strengths but also my weaknesses. As for last night: he sent his thrall Armstrong to test you and possibly destroy you, so as to deny me the use of one of my last crutches.'

'But if he can see the future, wouldn't he know we'd get Armstrong?' Manolis used his policeman's logic. 'In which case, why simply sacrifice him like that?'