Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 14

Francesco freed the cradle from its mooring, lowered it to the 138.

natural rock floor. 'Help me with Julietta,' he said. And a moment later: 'I thought it was too good to be true: your suddenly seeing the light - your urge for flight, to throw off the shackles of this place. No, not you.

You're much too much of a home bird.'

And as they took Julietta from her box, placed her unprotesting body on the platform, and slid her loose cerements from her clay-cold, undead figure: "Well?' Tony demanded. 'How is it to be?"

Swinging the arm of the hoist out over the pit, they waited until it found its equilibrium and stopped gyrating.

Now all was in place; it only remained for Tony to speak to, or bargain with, the thing in the pit. And finally Francesco said: 'I say that one way or the other I'm out of here. There's a big wide world out there, brother, and for far too long I've felt confined to one little corner of it. So, I'll take what's mine t o take and go. You can come with me or st ay here, as you will. For lef s face it, we may be brothers but we're also Wamphyri! And the Wamphyri are loners. We've had a good run as the Francezcis, and managed to keep from each others' throats, too. But all good things must come to an end eventually.'

'Do you mean it?'

'Every word. My cards are on the table. And you?'

'If our father comes through for us,' Tony answered, however slowly,' - if we come through whatever"s coming - then 111 stay here in Le Manse Madonie and care for him. I'm used to this place. I like the idea that it is or will be... mine. Mine alone.'

'Wamphyri territorialism,' Francesco told him. 'Stronger in you than in me. Do you see what comes of being a home bird, brother? You've grown kennel-proud - like a dog kept too long in a cage! Only let someone step over your threshold... why, you'd even bite the hand of your keeper! But I was always the one who was out and about in the world. And I will be again.'

In answer to which Tony could only shrug and say, 'Perhaps you're right. If so, then so be it...'

Anthony Francezci was no great telepath. Several centuries ago his father Angelo had told him that in the Ferenczys the talent was sporadic. It skipped entire generations, but given sufficient time it would generally resurface even in the most 'insensitive' family member; which would appear to imply that Tony and his twin were entirely insensitive! This could be because they were more nearly a part of the modern world and in large part - especially in their thinking - divorced from their origins. In this world they had not required the art to combat alien, enemy vampire influences; thus it had failed to develop in them. Now that they did need it, it was too late. Unused, the metaphysical 'muscle' had simply atrophied.

139 Between each other, however, some vestigial telepathic awareness remained. And between them and their father, whose ESP was incredibly powerful, there was or could be a very strong link, even as strong as common speech ... if and when Angelo allowed it He knew his powers, however - knew that they alone were the reason he had lasted so long - and so guarded them jealously.

Recently it had been more than ever difficult to establish contact with him. He required bribing; the only bribes he would accept were of the human variety; the thing in the pit had little or no use for any other sort He was what he was: a ma.s.s of ungovernable metamorphic vampire flesh, a monster of many parts in control of none of them. Not even his mind... not entirely. A madman, then. Or a mad mutant thing, certainly.

'Crazy,' Tony muttered to himself where he leaned over the wall of the deactivated shaft. 'His mind goes in circles. There is such knowledge in it! But all confus ed, jumbled, fill ed with the static of his multi-minds, which spills over into his consciousness. Yet he won't abandon them, extrude them, and let them die. They are his incorporeal "thralls," all he has left of connection with the material world, all that remains of power. And even in that respect his power is limited; he can't control the multi-minds, except to close them out How can he threaten what he may not hurt? Terrible: to have such awesome talents and yet be trapped down there in his pit He can spy on a world, but is confined here; he can discover almost anything he wants to knows but cannot use such knowledge except to pa.s.s it on to us.

Frustration ... hunger... and madness. Oh, our father is crazy! But then, who wouldn't be?'

'Crazy?' Francesco's nervous grunt sounded from close at hand, where he stood with his arms folded on his chest trying to appear relaxed. 'He's that all right - crazy like a fox!'

'Shhh.r Tony cautioned him. 'His mind is stirring, attempting to concentrate. He... he feels me reaching for him, opening my thoughts to him. Look down there...'

Francesco took a single pace forward and looked down into the reeking well, whose fumes were rising thicker now. And from deep in the darkness of the lower regions of the shaft where it expanded into the old volcanic cavity, his father's eyes stared back at him. A great many eyes, unblinking, red, and hateful in the smoky reek of the pit Tony had to concentrate. Without so much as a glance at his brother, he felt him step falteringly back again. For all Francesco's bravado, he feared the old Ferenczy. Not without cause, for: Treacherousss! came that single whispered or hissed accusation, as if their father had breathed the word out in a stream of cold air over the shrinking contours of their brains. And in the next moment.

140.strengthening: You, my son. Yesss, you, Francesssco - treacherous as ever! And infectious. Why, your poisons have even infected your brother!

But: 'Not yet, Father,' Tony told him, speaking out loud, trying to keep his voice even. 'And in any case, is it treachery to consider an act of mercy? Your misery has been long and long...'

There was a moment of stunned silence, until: Oh? And you knout that for a fact, do you? That I am miserable? So that you would deem it a mercy to.consider releasing me from my burden ? But how kind of you. How thoughtful -you murderous b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Your mother died giving you birth. But if she'd known the sc.u.m she gave birth to, it would have killed her anyway!

'Listening!' Francesco grated. 'And didn't I tell you so? Crazy like a fox! Now hear me, Tony: don't play his word games but put it to him straight. Our beloved father has a choi ce to make. So let him make it now.'

'Be q uiet!' Tony rounded on him at once - but immediately, anxiously, turned back to the pit. And over his shoulder: 'He's not only listening but speaking, too! He's making sense at last - so let him.'

Ah, Anthony, my little Anthony! But is this the same small boy I bounced on my knee in the cool shade of Le Manse Madonie? So guileless - well, within limits - and full of questions? The son who was so near and dear to me, so eager for knowledge, who would leant f rom his father's lips and witness in his deeds the ways of the Wamphyri? Why, in those days it was as if my every word was a revelation to you, to be soaked up as a sponge soaks water. And I knew you for a true bloodson, aye...

'Nothing has changed, Father,' Tony answered. 'For here we are as always, you and I. And still I come to you with my questions, ready to drink up your answers. Except you rarely answer any more.'

Oh yes, / know. (Angelo Ferenczy's mental voice sounded full of self-pity in Tony and Francesco's minds.

But it was all affectation, they knew.) / was listening, it must be admitted. Listening to you and Francesco ...

which might well have been a dream, for all I knew. Or a nightmare! Praying for some word of comfort.

Seeking some act of solace, however small - or hoping, perhaps, for some sweet tidbit with which to relieve the unrelenting boredom of this h.e.l.lhole? But what I heard... was none of these things.

'You heard the words of angry, despairing, even desperate men, Father,' Tony answered. 'For we are at a loss.'

And do you say that nothing has changed? (The thing in the pit continued as if he had not been interrupted.) Ah, yes, and I recall you said it to Francesco, too. And that he also denied it. But I am changed, to this creature who is less than a creature. And you are changed, into 141

ruthless men. And the times are changed - until they are charged with great dangers!

Eagerly now, Tony lea ned out more yet He gr ipped the wall of the pit's coping with one hand and leaned his weight on Julietta's swaying platform with the other, so securing himself at the rim. 'And do you know of these dangers?' He aimed his query directly into the shaft 'Can you speak of them? Are we threatened? For always remember, Father what threatens us threatens yo u.'

Aye, and you are full of threats, you and your brother.

'Now hold!' Francesco could no longer contain himself. He stepped forward and glare d down into smouldering darkness. 'If you were listening you must know that Tony championed you. Oh, I can be bitter. I can worry about what is happening out there in the world -of which we would have knowledge, if you woul d only apply yourself. Yes, and I can make dire threats, if only out of frustration, and despite that there can be no substance in them. But when it conies down to it, as always, Tony champions you. If you were eavesdropping, surely you heard him elect to remain here and care for you?'

For two or three seconds there was total silence, a stillness both physical and metaphysical. But in the next moment the atmosphere in the cavern took on the weight of a thunderstorm. The spotlights illuminating the mouth of the pit seemed to dim; Angelo Ferenczy's effluvium, his 'breath,' streamed faster and colder from the mouth of the shaft, and the darkness in the pit itself appeared to seethe. Then: He doesn't want to talk to you! It was some other's voice, not their father's. The voice of one of his long- absorbed victims, his multi-minds, who were as mad, and more so, than Angelo himself. To spite Francesco - to ignore and refute his presence - Angelo had deliberately relaxed all constraint upon them; and now the rest joined in ... a lunatic babble of denial, all different, but all directed into Francesco's buffeted mind: He won't talk to you!

Muuurderer! Kin-killer! Do not invite conversation. Do not force it upon him. He can turn your dreams, turn your mind. You visit him now to torment him. But if he were to visit you...?

RUN! OH, RUN! WOULD YOU BE A VESSEL TO HIM, AS HE IS NOW A VESSEL TO US?.

He turns his back on you. Go now, before he turns his face towards you!

You are all cursed, you Ferenczys, but Francesco above all others!

OH, HA HA HA! YOU HAVE YOUR METAMORPHISM NOW, BUT HOW LONG BEFORE IT HAS YOU?.

The sins of the father, Francesco...

Your father is glad that you are cursed!

HE WONT TALK TO YOU.142.

143.

Not to you, Francesssco... The voices tailed off a little. And: 'Get away!' Tony half-turned from the pit, hissed at Francesco where he backed off, his face pale, his hands held up and forwards, as if to ward off the unseen mental presences. 'Get back from the pit, away from him.

That temper of yours... you place yourself, place both of us, in danger! I know h.e.l.l talk to me. I can feel it But you're right: h.e.l.l have nothing to do with you. And d.a.m.n you, I don't blame him!'

'And what are you, his f.u.c.king keeper?' But still Frances...o...b..cked away, his features writhing. "Well, you can have hi m. Burn the useless, frothing old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, that's what I say! I 'm finished with him! f.u.c.k him, and f.u.c.k you, too!'

He turned and flowed with the eerie motion of the Wamphyri to the exit shaft, turned and looked back. Still dressed in funereal clothes, the change that had taken place in Francesco was even more apparent, and to any normal person appalling. For his blood was up and his vampire leech fuelled his metamorphism.

His eyes like scarlet lamps; his nostrils gaping wide in a convoluted, bat-like f.l.a.n.g.e of a snout; his mouth a fanged gash in a leaden-grey mask of a face! And: 'd.a.m.n you both to h.e.l.l,' he snarled. 'For you're two of a kind, you and my "dear father" both!'

And the parting shot from his 'dear father" was a sinister mental hiss: But we are already d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l, Francesssco! And son, if I were you - which I thank my stars I am not -1 would keep a tight rein on my metamorphism. For we are of one blood, Francesco, and Wamphyri blood runs true. Whose pit will you occupy, I wonder, and whose oracle will you be, in one or two or three hundred years' time? Oh, ha ha ha ha haaaaa!

But Francesco had already left, and only the fading echoes of his footfalls on the stone stairs came back to the cavern of the pit. Where eventually, breathlessly Tony asked: 'Can we talk now? And will you answer truthfully, to the best of your knowledge?'

His father's thoughts at once came groping, like fat cold graveworms in his head - and paused, startled.

What? But what have we here? Have I discovered... some other?

Tony was still leaning on the wall of the shaft, with one arm outstretched, steadying the suspended platform.

He frowned, pondering his father's query... which a moment later he understood only too well.

'Eh?' Julietta's first, gasping breath - her waking query - was like a sharp stab in Tony's awareness, Julietta!

Awake! Wamphyri!

He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away and felt her fingers sc.r.a.pe the skin from his knuckles where she had almost caught hold of him. The n she jerked erect - bending at the waist - sitting up like a corpse waking in its coffin. An accurate simile: to return to consciousness, to life, to undeath, on a swaying platform over a nightmare pit! But Julietta had never been down here in her life before, and for a moment she was disorientated. Then she saw Tony, his expression- -And her eyes widened as, with a vampire's understanding, she knew! Knew that this was to have been, and might still be, her end. The tenacity of the Wamphyri. Julietta's slender arms, marble-grey, with fine blue veins, reached for him ; their inch-long painted nails crooking like claws to hook into his flesh.

But th ey never reached him. Tilting with her sudden movements, the suspended platform tipped her into the abyss.

Bulge-eyed, she slipped from view; her hair floated over her head as she plunged; her shriek - of outrage more than terror - echoed in the throat of the shaft. And: Mine! - came that guttural grunt of sheerest l.u.s.t from the depths of the well. A tidbit a fter all! From my Anthony to his ever-loving father!

Tremblingl y, Tony cranked the wire-mesh grid into place over the mouth of the pit. Only then, as he activated the current, and heard the hum and buzz of the field re-establishing itself, did he begin to breathe more normally. And to Angelo: 'You knew that she was here, of course. Francesco and I, we spoke of her when you were listening.'

But Angelo was no longer listening. Now it was his son's turn to listen. To the obscene, disbelieving shrieking of Julietta; her panted, tortured, ignored denials as the thing that was Angelo Ferenczy explored her. Then to the splitting sounds. The sounds of suction, rending, finally of flesh exploding outwards as Julietta's screams echoed into silence. And Tony reeling at the rim , as he realized how close he, too, had come to being dragged shrieking into the pit.

And if he had been, would it have been any different for him?

Probably not...

Almost an hour later, when Tony climbed up from the bowels of Le Manse Madonie to its saner levels, he found Francesco waiting for him. Tony was exhausted and made no effort to hide it. Without comment, Francesco drove them in the Land Rover across the brutal terrain of their scrubby plateau to a rocky promontory looking out over the Tyrrenhian. Parking on the far side of an outcrop that shielded them from Le Manse, finally Francesco lit two cigarettes, pa.s.sed one to his brother, and said: *Well, how did it go?'

145.144.

'Very well,' Tony nodded. 'Good cop, bad cop. A good idea. It worked very well indeed.'

'Hah!" his brother laughed. 'Good! And now who watches too much American television, eh?'

'It went well,' Tony said again, but without emotion - as if he were drained of emotion - and showing never a sign of his brother's elation. "Which in turn presents its own problems.'

'Eh?' Francesco stopped chuckling. 'Come again? What problems?'

'Problems aplenty,' Tony answered. 'If we can believe him. And I think we can.'

Tell me about it.'

Tony's face was grey in the gloomy light A breeze off the sea blew a lock of his black hair across his sunken cheeks. To start with, it will be soon,' he said. 'So little time. Radu's resurgence - only three months, until all h.e.l.l breaks loose!'

'Our father has foreseen it?' Francesco gripped his brother's arm. 'And you have faith in his predictions? How can he be sure? How can we be sure? Angelo is a madman, after all.'

'But "mad like a fox," the last time we spoke,' Tony reminded him. 'And when did you ever know him to be wrong? Also, he isn't predicting anything, not this time. He overheard it'

'He what?'

'For the last two or three years we've taken his silence, his moods, his increasingly complex nature and general unwillingness to cooperate - in short, his apparent lack of mental equilibrium - as symptoms of a swift degeneration into madness. But as I've so frequently asked before, who wouldn't go mad in our father's circ.u.mstances? Put yourself in his position. When he is lucid, in control of his talents, he can scry - or spy - on the world! He can, or could, scan something of future times. He can locate a single man out of a million ten thousand miles away, and report on his circ.u.mstances. He was our oracle, from whom we profited for more than three centuries. And he was amazingly successful! It was as if, when his metamorphism ran out of control, confining his body to that place, it gave his mind far greater freedom...'

Francesco gave an impatient nod. 'Now tell me something I don't know. Tell me about our intruder - who he really is, and how he's linked to B J. Mirlu and Radu Lykan. Tell me about the dog-Lord: his location, the names of his thralls and the extent of his power. Then tell me about this lone Drakul in his Tibetan monastery: what he is all about and why he's chosen to show his hand now. If you can tell me some of these things, 7 might begin to have a little faith in our father, too."

'Some of these things,' Tony answered, narrowing his eyes. 'I can tell you some of them. For that is precisely what Angelo has been working on all this time, since the intruder - whoever or whatever he is - broke into the vault and robbed us.'

'What? Did I really hear you say "whoever he is?"' Francesco's voice was full of a biting, furious sarcasm.

'Are you telling me we don't already know who he is? Has Angelo changed his mind? And did you also say "working?" Has our dear father been working, then?' He paused as he noticed Tony's expression - the reddening of his eyes and angry flaring of his dark nostrils - sighed and changed his tack. 'As usual, I'm short on patience,' he gruffly excused himself. "Very well, tell it your way.'

And between deep drags on his cigarette, Tony told it. 'He has located B J. Mirlu's mind, and gained limited access. She is definitely Wamphyri and he daren't go too deep. She would know it if he was less than discreet. But one thing seems sure: she has a thrall or an a.s.sistant - help of sorts - in a place called Inverdruie, in t he Cairngorms . It fits: it's where she and her E-Branch friend, our intruder, took out the Drakul lieutenant and a thrall. As to what the Drakuls were interested in: the dog-Lord's den, obviously. They came too close to finding him.

Inverdruie is a hamlet, a country crossroads, a scattered handful of houses. We can have our men check the place out house by house if necessary. If BJ. Mirlu's main man is there, we'll find him.

There are other thralls, too: a few, perhaps in Scotland. Like BJ. herself, they're descendants of old Szgany clans who came through from Starside in the old times. None of them are changelings but they are of the blood. "Moon-children," Angelo calls them. They are sleepers, and the woman can call on them for help as and when she needs it. And of course, we also have it from our sleeper and lieutenant, Angus McGowan, that all of the girls working at BJ.'s wine bar in Edinburgh are in thrall to her - as was the one we gave to Angelo that time. But Angus can't be sure of their status. Simple thralls, at a guess.

'As for this E-Branch type: he's definitely our intruder. Goes under the name of Harry Keogh - who we know to be a dead man! Convenient, eh? But in fact he's Alec Kyle - who by all accounts should likewise be dead!

And yet here... well, it has to be said that Angelo is confused, undecided; and understandably so. There's something about this one's mind. Angelo can't get into it, or doesn't want to. This man is different in more ways than one. He's ex-E-Branch, yes... allegedly. Or perhaps he's still with them: a double agent working for Radu Lykan's downfall? If so, he has BJ. Mirlu fooled. They're lovers. But as I said, Mr Keogh is a tricky one; our father simply doesn't know what to make of him. He talks of him "coming and going," whatever that means, and still insists that he "talks" to dead men! Which is something of a coincidence in itself.

146.For if you remember, the KGB told us that the real Mr Keogh was some sort of necromancer. Mysel f, I don't know what to think; I give up on it; but Ange lo maintains that Harry Keogh is the very worst of our enemies, and I tend to agree with him. a.s.suming he was our intruder anyone who can get in here sight unseen, and get out again with millions - and go unpunished for as long as he has - has to be special!

'So much for the dog-Lord and the people around him. But these are strong leads, you'll agree, which we must follow up. And soon. And personally. Then there's this Drakul...

'Angelo has been into his mind, too. Touched upon it, at least. Enough to learn that Daham Drakesh, as he calls himself- or the last true Drakul - knows more than enough about us. Which makes us a future target, obviously. But talk about madness? Francesco, compared with this Drakul, our father is the sanest of men! Drakesh plans to engineer a nuclear war - just how is uncertain - and in the aftermath will set up a network of aeries in the rubble of the cities, under cover of the last long winter! Indeed the apparatus, the triggers for this devastation, are already in place, and our father is still trying to discover what the catalyst will be.

'So, t roubles enough, you'll agree. And a vastly tangled skein for us to work our way through. But work we must, if we want to survive. And we have to start without delay.'

Francesco had listened to all of it in a s ull en silence. But despite his volatile nature he was wise enough to realize that Tony was deadly serious in everything he said, and sensitive enough to feel the winds of change blowing over the mountains of Le Madonie. Yes, and they blew far more ominously than the winds off the grey Tyrrhenian. And finally, now that Tony was done: 'So, what's next?' he asked, his tone sombre. Ts it time we got involved, do you think? I mean, in person?'

'Haven't I said as much?' Tony looked at him. 'One of us, at least, with a handful of our men. In Scotland, yes.'

'One of us?' Francesco raised an eyebrow. 'Meaning me?'

'Unless you'd prefer to stay here and care for Angelo, and look after our other interests.'

'No,' his brother shook his head, flicked away the stub of his cigarette. You were ever the home bird, while I'm far more at ease out in the wider world. And as for that loathsome thing in his pit I would probably let him rot! So I'm the one who'll have to go.'