Brian Lumley - Blood Brothers

Until now, finally, he heard their whispers, and felt once more the pain in his back, the agony of his ruined face. But he held still as they peeled away the bandages, and listened to their whispers tailing off as they sensed that he was awake. Then, despite the pain of tearing scabs, he gradually forced his eyes open and felt pus begin to ooze as something of sight returned. But -

— Was the room dark, or was it his eyes? It was both, he knew. He was healing, but not yet fully healed. For even a dark room would appear as daylight to one who was Wamphyri. But this room seemed full of a thick grey mist, and his eyes burned like fire when he blinked them to clear his vision. Except his vision would not clear. He was half-blind, and a long way yet to go before his vampire repaired him back to new.

He stirred, groaned, moved his limbs and tested his body. And like shadows the ones who had saved him backed off, melted away and out of this misty room of vague grey shapes and musty odours. Their movements seemed strange, stumbling, crippled as badly as Nestor himself and perhaps worse. For he was at least aware of his blood surging and knew that his limbs were his own again. He was weak but would be strong, and given time he would see as well as ever. But not yet for a while.

Now that Nestor was alone he put out a trembling hand to feel his bed, the wall, the edge of a table. All of wood, and warm. In no way the familiar cold grey stone of the last aerie. So what was this place? Where was he and what had awakened him? Deep down inside, some strange instinctive terror grinned and gurgled, and in the eye of memory showed him a picture out of the past: Of a flyer, gouting smoke and steam and shrivelling as its hide split open; then spilling its loathsome fats as the sun ate into it like acid and reduced it to so much slop! The sun…! Was that what had awakened him, fear of the sun? But why? Where was he… and what was the hour?

Someone entered the room and Nestor froze, then fought to control his fear as the grey shadow came closer and stood beside his bed. His fear? But of what? He was the Lord Nestor of the Wamphyri! 'What…?' he gurgled from scabby, tattered lips. 'Who…?'

'Ah!' The grey shape nodded. 'And so you'll recover and return to Starside. Good!'

But though the voice was warm and not unkind, still its tone was strange, bitter, and… satisfied? And what was that it had said? About a return to Starside? Suddenly, anger and frustration flooded Nestor. He struggled to a sitting position and focused his damaged eyes until the grey one's misty silhouette filled in a little and his features took on shape beneath the cowl of his robe. But they were still grey features, poorly defined and oddly… incomplete? The wraithlike figure leaned a little on a crutch which fitted under his right shoulder, and his robe hung like a shroud from his insubstantial frame.

'It's so dark in here,' Nestor said stupidly, or perhaps hopefully.

The other shook his head. 'No, it's light enough. Or will be soon.'

Nestor's pain threatened to engulf him again. He was Wamphyri, but he was still learning their disciplines. As yet he couldn't suppress pain. He fought it back as best he was able, and asked: 'Who are you, and what is this place?'

'My name is Uruk Piatra, called Uruk Long-life,' the grey one answered with a shrug. 'But a misnomer, I fear. And as for this place… it's a leper colony.'

For a single moment Nestor's brain froze: a leper colony! Leprosy, the great bane of vampires! — but in the next he was galvanized to activity. Then, swinging his legs out from under the blankets, he grabbed the dangling arms of the other's robe. But they were only empty sleeves and couldn't take his weight. They ripped at the shoulders and came away in Nestor's hands where he fell back again onto the bed. And he saw how Uruk's twig arms ended in swollen fungus nubs at the elbows!

After that: a rush of adrenalin — a madness of vampire-induced flight in which all of Nestor's previous agonies were forgotten — a blundering confusion of blind terror as he fled the colony out into the forest. And even then no respite, for in the south the light was improving moment by moment. Grey shapes stood gaunt as ghosts in the mist of Nestor's perception as he rushed this way and that under the trees, trying to avoid them. He crashed among a cage of squawking chickens and wrecked it, fell against a fence and tumbled over it, and felt no pain now but only fear as he careened deeper into the dawn woods in search of a place to hide.

A deep hole in which to find safety from the sun and wait out the long day. A sanctuary in which to rest and recuperate, sleep and dream… and nightmare, certainly.

About what had been, and what was yet to be…