Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 28

It was like a taint to his metaphysical sixth sense. The touch of something slimy, or the smell of something rotten. A gurgle of sewage, or a bitter, poisonous taste. Worse, he recognized it at once and knew its name: Ferenczy!

Francesco was aloft over the Cairngorms. It was late February and would soon be March, but the snow was holding off, perhaps finished for the season. The streams running off the mountains were black and swollen, foaming grey with slush where they fell sheer. And the scarred domes of snow-capped summits and jumbles of craggy plateaux were rounded as outlines on Christmas cards, modelled by the slow melt. From up here it all looked very serene, and very treacherous, too.

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'Not the Madonie, is it?' Luigi Manoza, Francesco's pilot looked sidelong at Mm in the c.o.c.kpit of their helicopter. They were alone; a reconnaissance flight sixty miles to the west from their base at a decommissioned North Sea gas facility in Aberdeen; the first of several such flights, planned to survey the mountains for a likely location. Not a film location, however, but the location of a lair.

Finally in answer to his pilot's wry question, Francesco gave a grunt and said, 'No, it's not the Madonie. But wolf territory... yes, I think so. As it was six hundred years ago, so it is now, pretty much.' He glanced at a map in his lap, and as Manoza brought them swooping about in a low turn from the north said: That place down there with the skiers, that is Aviemore. Famous, so they say. They seem to be making the best of what's left of the snow. Across the river, that handful of cottages - there, you just flew over it - is Inverdruie, where this b.a.s.t.a.r.d dog-Lord has a thrall or thralls.'

Manoza was climbing now, skimming the mountains that were rising ahead. "Well," he said, 'there shouldn't be any problem sniffing them out. Not in a place as small as that'

'Correct,' Francesco nodded. 'Our people are on it right now. And through Radu's thralls, we get to him. But the thing is, we don't want to take him out too soon. If we can discover his approximate location, we'll know when he's set to make his comeback: the moment his thralls and the Drakuls all start heading in that direction.

Then we go after them, and get him, his people, and the Drakuls too.'

'And he's here, you think?'

'My father thinks so,' Francesco frowned. 'And my brother. But be quiet now and take it slowly, slowly over the mountains. I want to concentrate. It's not so much what I can see as what I may feel. Angelo, that d.a.m.ned Thing in his pit, says that we should know without seeing, without touching or smelling; says the Ferenczys and dog-Lords have been enemies for so long that it's bred in them, that the knowing is in our blood. And while I've always been suspicious of anything my father says, I have to admit that in this place...

I do sense something. Hah! And I'm the one who is supposed to be insensitive! So maybe Angelo is right and at short range like this, I might even be able to ... Ah! Ahk! Ahkh!'

*Wha-?' The squat Manoza, hunched over his controls, instinctively leaned away from him. 'Francesco, what the f.u.c.k... ?' The Ferenczy's eyes were suddenly red, bulging, staring out and down, this way and that, through the curved, clear plastic panel of his door. He clasped his ears; he seemed crushed down into himself, as by shock or astonishment, as if he'd seen the starburst of flak and heard the ho wl of shrapnel. But it was a different kind of howling he'd heard, while Luigi had seen and heard nothing at all. And: 'Again!' Francesco husked. Turn her around, now. Fly over that same spot again. Do it?

Manoza complied. And again, and again. But whatever it had been it was gone now...

Later, on their way back to Aberdeen, finally the bulky, toad-like Manoza's curiosity got the better of him.

He had to know. Well?' he queried. 'I mean, do you want to talk about it? Was it him?'

Francesco had been silent, lost in his own thoughts ever since ordering their return. But now: 'It's time we moved into Aviemore,' he grunted, mainly to himself. 'All of us - for the skiing, you know?' Then, as if he had only just heard Manoza's question: "Yes, it was him. Somewhere back there in those mountains, the dog- Lord hides in his lair. But not for much longer, Luigi, because he's awake. Radu is awake - and making ready!'

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RIVAL FACTIONS. THE DARKNESS CLOSES IN.

Harry wasn't 'switched on,' not any longer. After dealing with the situation at his place, he had gone to B.J.

full of anxious doubts, urgent questions and demands; 'disturbed' simply didn't convey his condition. So that she had immediately 'down-loaded* him of the cause: she'd struck the most recent, most horrific events from memory. And what the Necroscope had been left with was a series of 'facts' that were so disjointed, disconnected, it felt as if half of his life had gone missing.

He 'remembered' in some detail, however blurred and unreal, his all but abandoned search for his wife and infant son; even places he'd never visited except in his mind, at BJ.'s hypnotic command. But he did know that he had been there, definitely; for if not, then he was simply insane. He knew, too, all of his early life - his time at E-Branch, the powers he had once mastered, and how he had once used them - and, since quitting the Branch, his time with Bonnie Jean. But that last ... was a huge jumble, a monster jigsaw puzzle with no borders a nd most of the pieces missing or refusing to come together.

And thus his memory was as BJ. wanted it... more or less. But there were things in there that she didn't know about, that she'd forgotten or hadn't had time or inclination to ask about, which were Harry's alone.

And because he was restricted by previous instructions - the post-hypnotic commands of someone who had been there before B.J., that he must not divulge his powers to anyone - he wasn't able to tell her about them.

For example: he couldn't tell her what he had discovered about Le Manse Madonie - about the Thing in the pit - because in fact he didn't know, or 'knew" on a lower level of consciousness. For right at the beginning of their relationship she had ordered him to forget anything she told him or that he might learn about the Wamphyri, because it was for her ears alone. Harry couldn't refamiliarize himself with this stored information until she or the dog-Lord actually switched him on all the way and sent him out against their enemies, the Drakuls and Ferenczys.

Thus this was a level that was hidden even from the Necroscope himself- but on another level he couldn't even tell her that Le Manse Madonie existed! For then BJ. would want to know why - and far more importantly how - he'd gone there, and how he had got out again unscathed. Yet even now, if only she would say the right words and turn him on all the way, she could have instant access to much of this hidden information.

But she wouldn't, because she didn't know he had it Which was why he had gone to her begging her to switch him on and tell him everything; which in turn was why she had switched him off said taken most everything away! And the only thing about the current status quo that he had been allowed to retain was the fact that they were in hiding from their enemies while waiting for some kind of call. That and the entirely indisputable fact of Bonnie Jean's innocence. So that Harry no longer even bothered to ask himself: innocent of what?

It scarcely mattered at all that reality was a blurred and indistinct place somewhere outside himself, or that he was in a constant daze, little better than a zombie, confused in all his mental processes. What mattered most was that he was with B J. And come what may, well, really that was all that mattered ...

The first night they'd spent together at the inn, BJ. had made a mistake. Easily corrected, still it was the sort of thing she would have to watch in future. In their room she had started to ask him, 'Harry, tell me about Zahanine? What did you-?'

-Until she remembered that he couldn't tell her anything, because she had cancelled it from his mind. By which time Harry had been frowning, asking: 'Zahanine? Your black girl? I didn't notice her with the other girls. Is she OK?' Was she... was she at my place? He gave his head a small, worried shake.

And: "You're quite right,' BJ. had quickly nodded. 'My mind was wandering, that's all. So don't worry about it'

But maybe it had continued to make connections somewhere in Harry's head, because he'd still been frowning as he asked her, "Why can't we hide out at my place? I know the area like the back of my hand, and it's easily defended.'

Oh really? From the Wamphyri? BJ. had smiled to herself, however bitterly. Oh, yes, easily defended - but isolated, too. And: 'Hey, you!' Despite her gloom, and the fact that she felt chilly within, she'd forced a 'real'

smile, and sat on the bed hugging her knees. 'Lighten up, OK, Harry? Well be just fine right here. Why don't you come over here and love me?'

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And he had smiled sort of lopsidedty and gone to her. But even as they'd been making love Harry had been frowning inside. Something about Zahanine, and his house?... Something about a dark spot on the floor, in his study?... Something about that frozen plateau on the roof of the world? It came and went, disappearing into limbo. For on his current level of consciousness he wasn't given to remember these things. They'd been erased - or should have been - and his reality reduced to a misty swirl far less coherent than a dream.

In fact he might as well be asleep and dreaming! And for all that B.J. had been real, hot, and vibrant in Harry's arms, still he had wondered if maybe it was so - that this was all a strange, jumbled dream. In which case it was way past the time when he should have woken up. Except... he was afraid of what he might wake up to.

That had been three days ago. Since when, among the rival vampire factions, there had been a deal of to-ing and fro-ing, a new arrival, meetings, much searching and surveillance, and a long overdue (and in its way 'merciful") death.

... In London, a certain 'political refugee' had arrived on a flight from India. Ostensibly a wealthy ex-guru whose estate in Patna had suffered from an ever-increasing incidence of sectarian violence, he was in the UK to find a suitable home with a long-term view to leaving his 'religious career' behind and starting a business in oriental carpets.

Since his credentials were impeccable - and he appeared to have all of the 'necessary qualifications,' two hundred thousand of which he'd already transferred to a branch of Lloyds in London - he had been granted a business visa and made welcome.

In fact he was one of Daham Drakesh's lieutenants, a long-time sleeper - and long-distance telepath - who several years ago had established a bolthole and base for Drakesh in Lucknow. But as the dog-L ord's time loomed ever closer, the last Drakul was more in need of a lieutenant in the British Isles, or more specifically Scotland, to contact and take control of his thralls there. Daham's bloodson and chief lieutenant, Mahag, along with a common thrall, had been killed by Radu's people; since when he'd had no contact with his four surviving 'disciples.'

Drakesh was hopeful that since the death of his bloodson the four had realized that their mission had now changed. With their cover blown they were no longer incognito; they could no longer play agents provocateurs but must abandon all such plans and let the dog-Lord and the Ferenczys get on with it. But for all that his thralls were expendable, the last Drakul couldn't simply leave it at that His people were vampires after all, and many miles outside of any reasonable means of communication and control. Moreover, he knew that the British authorities were looking for them, and he had problems enough with officialdom as it was.

That fool in his office on Kwijiang Avenue, Chungking, for instance: Colonel Tsi-Hong, a regular Red Army officer seconded to China's paramilitary Department of Parapsychological Studies.

In the weeks since Drakesh had been obliged to murder the overly curious Major Chang Lun - the Officer in Command of the small garrison atXigaze - he had found himself under increasing pressure from Tsi-Hong.

Not that there was any way he could be connected with Chang Lun's 'accident'; indeed, with the land all about deep in the grip of winter, and the terrain a ma.s.s of drifted snow under crusty ice, they hadn't even discovered the Major's body as yet And when they did, what then?

There'd been a blizzard the night Chang Lun's driver nose-dived their snow-cat into a creva.s.se only a mile or so from the Xigaze garrison, and despite that Tsi-Hong acknowledged Drakesh as a man of rare talents, surely he wouldn't consider him capable of calling up a storm!?

Oh, really? Yet from his seat in the foreboding 'Drakesh Monastery,' the last Drakul, High Priest of his sect, had done just that! As Chang Lun had fled for Xigaze after a spying mission on the monastery and walled city, then, calling up a blizzard - and with the aid of his familiar albino bats - Drakesh had driven him to his doom. Following which: A few days of silence... and then the messages, relayed from Chun gking to the garrison, and delivered by hand to Daham Drakesh. He had known, of course, that Chang Lun was his enemy, and that the Major must have conveyed his concerns about him to Tsi-Hong; but he had believed that the Colonel's commitment to his 'experiment' - to develop an army of supermen for the Red Chinese Army - would be sufficient to keep him secure from all but a minimum of supervision and interference. So he had reasoned, anyway. But apparently he'd been wrong.

Colonel Tsi-Hong knew about Drakesh's people in England. Having taken Drakesh at his word (that they were simply agents sent into the UK to initiate a low-profile investigation of the British mindspy organization) he had even sanctioned their visit But now that the Chinese military intelligence services had picked up British press reports about their expulsion, and the Colonel himself was having to answer question s from his superiors, he wanted to know what the h.e.l.l Drakesh was playing at?

What? Sectarian feuding? Firefights? Murders? Expulsions? And what if the British authorities took Drakesh's people into custody, and made a connection between the sect and Red China? Also, there was now this unfortunate thing with Chang Lun: his disappearance. That 279.

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such a capable and reliable officer should simply vanish off the face of the earth - even in a region as treacherous as the Tingri Plateau -was a curious and perhaps even suspicious thing in its own right, without that the Major had made several d.a.m.ning eye-witness reports on certain activities at the Drakesh monastery and in the neighbouring walled city.

Wherefore Drakesh should take note that a new, very much more rigid Officer Commanding would be arriving shortly in Xigaze Garrison; and soon after that the High Priest could expect the first thorough inspections, both of the monastery and the facilities at the walled city...

At first, Daham Drakesh had read such messages with some concern, which in a while had turned to resolution. His course was set, and no turning back. So, a new Officer Commanding was coming to Xigaze, and then across the frozen waste to the monastery. Very well, but his first visit would be his last. What was in the monastery couldn't be hidden, not from a persistent inspection team. It was here to stay, until Drakesh was ready to send it - or them - out into the world. Therefore the inspection team could not be allowed to leave. And as for what was breeding in the old walled city... that was indeed the stuff of a new army, but in no way a Red Chinese army.

So then, Drakesh's course was set. And as for any sort of heavy-handed military threat from China: in two, three or four weeks' time, or whenever such a threat might have materialized - would China really have time to worry about some obscure sect in the cold waste of Tibet? Drakesh doubted it, not with Chungking, London and Moscow in ruins, and the whole world toppling over the bri nk into nuclear war!

Then, when the earth lay under the grey, windswept gloom of an unending winter, and Drakesh and his brood were the only kind who could profit from it... then his creatures and children, the sp.a.w.n of his vats and loins, would go out from Tibet into the world, and the new order c ome into being.

On the roof of the monastery, where the vast skull facade sloped back into the face of the cliff, a radio antenna rear ed even now. And in a room near the dome of the rock, a crude but powerful radio transmitter wanted only Drakesh's finger on the b.u.t.ton.

As for his lieutenant, recently sent into England: He could rally the four surviving vampire thralls to him, a.s.sess the situation locally, and - in telepathic consultation with Drakesh - make his own decision as to the best course of action. After that, if the group continued to survive the cataclysm soon to follow, then it would form the tiny nucleus of a European cell.

And while the great nations of Earth devolved into a final chaos, and all their armies and their power came to nothing in the end, the master of their destiny - the last Drakul - would be secure here on the Roof of the World. For of all the places in the world, surely this was the safest of all. What country would think to target Tibet? What was there here that was even worth destroying? Nothing.

Nothing but the very seat of evil. But to Daham Drakesh's knowledge, of all living men he himself and his red-robed vampire 'priests' were the only ones who knew about it.

To his knowledge, yes.

And of all living men ...

Meanwhile two very disparate Ferenczy lieutenants, Vincent Ragusa and Angus McGowan had teamed up, journeyed north, and taken a suite of rooms at a hotel in Carrbridge north of Aviemore and a few cautious miles from Inverdruie. But right from square one things hadn't been much to the young Sicilian's liking.

Ragusa wasn't happy with the situation: that this little man, the tiny, wizened McGowan, was his superior, from whom he was supposed to take orders. He had typecast McGowan as a runt from the moment he laid eyes on him - an a.s.sessment he'd since revised, and radically. But at first... things had got off to a less than auspicious start.

And now. as the ugly little man drove his ugly little V.W. Beetle south along blackly glittering roads, between three-foot banks of snowplough-heaped slush and dirty ice, from Carrbridge to Aviemore, and on across the Spey where the road was signposted for Inverdruie and Coylumbridge, Ragusa's dark thoughts went back to their first meeting (a non-event if ever there'd been one), and to events since.

To start with, McGowan had failed to turn up to meet him at the airport in Edinburgh. That was the first let- down, when he had had to take a taxi into the city and book himself into a hotel. Ragusa could speak English, a smattering anyway, but what the locals were speaking was sca rcely English! And people said the Italians talked too fast! Then, in his room, he'd got a call from Mc Gowan: 'Saw ye come in,' the gravelly voice told him on the wire. 'But circ.u.mstances bein' what they are, well Ah could'nae meet ye. Yere room at the hotel: was that an advance bookin'?'

'No. Spur of the moment I was out on a limb. And what the f.u.c.k's all this cloak and dagger s.h.i.t about anyway?' Ragusa's tone of voice had said a lot for his feelings.

'So, no one knows ye're there?' fThe other might not even have heard him!) 'No, of course not! What kind of dumb s.h.i.t is this?'

For long moments there had been silence, then: 'Oh? Upset, are ye?' (That gruff, weaselly voice). 'Well, Ah'm sorry about that, laddie Necnxope: The Lost Yean - Vol. U281.

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- but as Ah said, it could'nae be helped. So meet me in thirty minutes, where the road leads off Princes Street for Waverly Station.'

'Eh? Laddie?' Ragusa had snarled his outrage. And: "What"s that? Princes Street? Waverly Station? What the-?'

But: 'Aye, just so, ye've got it,' that phlegmy voice had chuckled - } just before the phone went dead. !

And half an hour later: That was the first time Ragusa had seen McGowan or his car, and he had instantly disliked both of them. At the junction of roads the Beetle had pulled over and McGowan had leaned across the front pa.s.senger seat to yank the catch and push the door open. 'Get in, will ye no?" Then, pulling out into a sluggish stream of traffic: 'McGowan,' he had said, reaching across his small body to extend his right hand, while giving his pa.s.senger a cursory glance. And, when that one deliberately ignored the proffered handshake, 'No the best o'

weather, is it?' Followed by that phlegmy chuckle of his. "Which is all to the good, for if s our kind o'

weather, eh?'

Ragusa had looked at him then and scowled. 'Vincent,' he'd said. "Vincent Ragusa. You were supposed to meet me at the airport Those were Francesco's instructions - and the Francezcis like their instructions carried out to the letter.'

'Aye, so they do and always have,' McGowan had immediately agreed. 'Fifty years ago they were much the same... and thirty before that when Ah was first recruited, when Ah was about yere age. Since when Ah've been wherever they had a mind tae send me, but mainly in the British Isles. Ah've been - ye ken - snif fin'

out big dogs, as it were? And other creatures, aye. While ye've been... what? Learnin* the business in Sicily at Le Manse Madonie? Aye, Ah imagine so. But it's no the same out here. If s a whole other world -laddie.'

'Call me Vincent!' Ragusa had snapped th en. 'Or if that's too hard for you, then it's Ragusa. Lieutenant Ragusa!'

But McGowan had at once made clucking noises. 'Yere rank does'nae come into it,' he'd said then, but very quietly. 'It will give ye away in a minute, be sure. But Ah ken ye did'nae mean it. It was simply yere way o'

expressin' yere - what? - yere disappointment? Or displeasure? Ah'm no what ye expected, nor the cityation, eh?'

The what?' (The accent had had Ragusa baffled). 'Did you say "cityation?"'

The way things stand,' McGowan had explained. 'Ah, well ... it'll a' work out, Ah'm sure. Anyway, Ah could'nae meet ye at the airport Things are no perfec', ye ken? Ah had a small to do wi' a polis friend - but yell be meeting that yin soon enough. We can even have lunch wi' him, if ye'd like? But see, Ah had tae be sure no one else knew ye were arrivin', that no one was watchin' tae see if ye'd be picked up.

But it happens that no one was. So it seems we're a' in the clear.'

'So what's this about the... the polis? The police?'

'Oh, a spot o' bother wi' an old friend. But dinnae fret, if s a' sorted out the noo - er, Vincent...'

And so it had gone.

They had talked about the job in hand: tomorrow they'd be travelling north to the Spey Valley - 'sniffin' out big dogs' - and so on. But as they talked it had become clear to Ragusa that Francesco must have spoken in depth with McGowan; the ugly little man had a clear picture of the task in hand that left no room for argument or rearrangement So that on the two or three occasions when Ragusa might have thought to question something, McGowan had always had the answer, or he'd got in first with a timely reminder 'But that's how Francesco wants it done - er, Vincent And as ye're aware, the Francezcis like their instructions carried out tae the letter...'

And finally they had arrived at McGowan's address in that most dreary district of the city. On their way, the young Sicilian vampire had caught a glimpse of frothing wavecrests on a grey ocean mirroring desolate skies, and, in the darkly wintry distance, a bleak skyline of derelict-like monoliths that reminded him (oddly enough) of Palermo. Only the gelid slush was new to him - the way it ate like acid into his patent leather Italian shoes.

Ragusa had stepped from an icy pavement into the shadow of the dilapidated Victorian terraced property that was McGowan's home, and had followed the shabby little man through a wrought-iron gate, up wet stone steps to the drier cover of the arched-over entranceway, before even thinking to ask: 'Er, Angus? Why are we here, anyway?'

'Are ye no hungry?' The other had c.o.c.ked his head, raising a bushy, inquiring eyebrow, as he unlocked the stout oak door.

Ragusa had shrugged, stepped inside and smelled a familiar taint that he always a.s.sociated with old buildings.

Sicily was full of such. We could have eaten at my hotel, or anywhere.'

'Aye, true enough,' McGowan had grinned. 'But Ah fancy mah fare will be more to yere taste. Anyway, ye've entered o f yere own free will...'

At which the Sicilian had paused half-way out of his coat to look curiously at his little host The eyes o f both men had been feral yellow in the gloom. And Ragus a had said, "You fancy yourself as quite the little comedian, don't you?'

But McGowan had only chuckled as he answered, "Well, er -Vincent? If a man cannae have a joke on himsel', then what can he laugh at, eh?' And he had switched on dim lights, taken his guesf s coat, and ushered him along a narrow corridor.

'Now where?' Ragusa had queried, straightening his expensive tie and stretching his neck a little.

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