Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 42

One-hundred... two-hundred... three-hundred- -There was a m.u.f.fled roar, and an explosion as if from for, far away; a sound or feeling more in the mind than in the real world. And 398.399.

Necrosc ope: The Last Years - Vol. II then a very real sound: a clanging, clattering, skittering, metallic sort of sound.

Harry opened his eyes. Above the road, a red lick of fire that burned itself out as it rose through a ring of smoke. And in the air -spinning end over end, bounding one last time as it hit the road and flew sideways to scythe among the roadside trees - the twisted, smouldering rear fender of the Mercedes. Nothing more than that.

And the Necroscope gave a small shudder as he pictured it in the Mb'bius Continuum, a meteorite shooting through the endless night, its fireball winking out, and a cloud of shattered debris - plastic and metal and flesh and blood - going nowhere, and taking forever to do it...

Half an hour earlier: Auld John Guiney, Alan-on-the-Moor, and Garth Trevalin had arrived on the crumbling, striated and wind- scarred dome of the rock over the cavern system of Radu's redoubt. Rusty pitons hidden under shards of stone had told a tale, pointed the way, and were still usable. Ropes had been lowered into the throat of a black, echoing pothole, down which the men had slithered, descending into the hollow, unhallowed skull of the mountain.

And in the gloomy, cavern-riddled world below, John had led the others deeper still into the secret heart of the rock - to Radu Lykan's resting place.

At the dog-Lord's sarcophagus on its platform of stony rubble, John and the others had climbed to the rim and looked down on Him. His outline had been dim, vague, blurred by his bath of glutinous resin and the cracked, dusty yellow crust on its surface. But where the blot of his head was situated, the darkness glowed with twin areas of red light. And: 'It's like some kind o' weird womb,' John had explained in a throaty whisper. 'Surrounding our Master, a thin envelope of fluids that replenishes itsel' by drawing off the essence, die preservative powers, o' the resin.'

'And he lives?' Young Garth had been awed by the wonder of it 'After all these years?'

'Are his eyes no open?' John had answered reverently. 'Has he no spoken tae ye, tae a' o' us, calling tae us wi* his mind? Oh, he lives, laddie, aye. The nicht... well see him up, and be his loyal subjects for a' time: immortals among common men! But time's wasting. So let's be at it the noo.'

Then he'd freshened and set fire to the flambeaux in their sockets about the base of Radu's stone coffin, and warned young Garth: "Yere task now, Garth. Tae keep yere eye on they torches there. And when the warm resin starts tae drip frae th e outlets, tae ensure the flame does'nae jump. Th is resin's the stuff that blazes up in auld pine logs... It does'nae take verra much tae set it afire. But it's a comfortable wee job. Ye can have yeresel' a snack from yere pack, and ah've something here that will warm ye up no end. A drop o' red wine. Aye, guid for the blood, so it is...'

From his own pack John had taken a bottle of wine, popped the cork, poured the thick, resinous stuff into their drinking mugs. Then a toast as they'd drained it away. 'Here's to Radu! Long has He waited, and long may He reign!'

To Radu!' they'd echoed him, not noticing or used now to the gleam of fervour in John's yellow eyes. But he'd poured himself the merest drop, and then scarcely touched it...

And Alan, smacking his lips, had questioned, 'But if this is Garth's task, what about us?'

'A great task, ours!' Auld John had answered. "What Garth does here, we do elsewhere. For Radu is'nae the only one who'll be up the nicht, and we must ease the way for his creature too. So come on with me now, Alan-on-the-Moor, for it's a'most noon. Ah, but this yin will take some melting out, be sure!'

Then, before leaving Garth to his vigil, John had poured him a further measure of wine, winked and asked him, "Yell no be, well, a-feared? Tae stay here on yere own, ah mean?"

"What's to fear?' Garth had narrowed his eyes. Tve some food and water, light and warmth from the torches, plenty more torches if these burn low. How long will you be, anyway?'

'As long as it takes,' John had answered. 'But when we're gone yell find it awfy quiet. Guid! No yin can come upon ye or take ye by surprise! And remember: if there's some problem, ye only need tae yell. These caverns will carry yere cry like the echo o' a howling wolf - as they will soon be echoing, aye.'

And he and Alan had gone off into the mazy interior, their footsteps rapidly fading, as the silence of forgotten centuries had come crowding in.

Ten minutes and Garth had felt drowsy. Shaking himself, he had climbed again to the rim of the sarcophagus, looked down on Radu. But by then the dog-Lord's outline had become very indistinct, distorted by the slow circulation of resin at the bottom of the great vat. And a froth of bubbles had begun rising oh-so-slowly, gathering under the crust and seeking a way through.

Garth had sat with his back against the base of the sarcophagus a while, until again he'd felt himself nodding. It must be the warmth of the torches, he had supposed. And after checking them he'd climbed down to the rubble-strewn floor to eat a bite from a sandwich. Sitting there in the gloom, in the rhythmic, flickering torchlight, his nerves 400.Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vo l. II 401.

had slowly relaxed, his muscles softened, and his head had fallen onto his chest Just once Garth had started, at what he imagined was some faraway cry. But it was nothing, and the torches were burning steadily, and there was this slow drip, drip, drip, hypnotic in the regularity of its pacing. Or regular to Garth, at least, as the effect of John's or Radu's wine worked steadily on his system. Except the drip wasn't regular but speeding up.

And on the dais, slow puddles of yellow resin forming; and in the stone sarcophagus, an original Lord of the Wamphyri sending out telepathic probes which at this range couldn't help but find their target... Auld John and Alan-on-the-Moor came to the vat of Radu's creature. 'My G.o.d!'

said Alan, looking at the ma.s.sive stone 'staves' of the container, bolstered at the bottom with boulders, in the light of John's torch. -What the h.e.l.l...?'

And John looked at him strangely. 'G.o.d, did ye say? Do ye have faith then, Alan? I mean other than faith in Him?'

The other shook his head. *You mix with men, and talk with men, you end up thinking and speaking like them. Thaf s why you are so lucky up here on your own, John. But I worked in a brewery a while, and I've seen ten thousand gallons of beer brewed in smaller vats than this!'

'Ah!' said John. 'But it's no beer brewing here. Listen!' And he placed his ear to the cold stone.

Alan followed suit - and at once reacted, and sprang away. "What!?' he said. 'A heartbeat? But what kind of heart?'

'A big yin, aye!' John grinned, and continued listening. But after a moment the smile fell from his face, replaced by a frown of strange concern. The heavy, thudding beat was far more frequent than on previous occasions, but it was also very irregular. If the thing in the great womb (and mor e literally a womb this time) were a human sleeper, he would either be nightmaring or very, very sick... Or perhaps simply weak? Well, maybe John had the cure for his weakness. Which was why he was here, after all And why Alan- on-the-Moor was here, too...

'Up ye go,' John grunted, lighting the way with his torch. 'And now ye're really going tae see something!'

To one side, a stairway of stacked stone slabs lay against the vat Suddenly tired, depleted, Alan clambered to the eight-foot high rim with Auld John right behind him... and failed to see the old gillie reaching into a deep crack under a slab, or what he brought out At the top, Alan crept forward on hands and knees until a sickly sweet resin-reek wafted up to him. A sweetness - and the smell of something other than resin, and other than sweet John planted the torch in a crack well back from the rim, and said, 'Well? What d'ye make o' that?'

Shaking his dizzy head, Alan-on-the-Moor gazed down into the semi-solid murk of a mainly opaque, luminous resin reservoir, and as his eyes adjusted peered through the crusted surface into the looser liquids beneath... at the Thing that lay half-curled there, no longer entirely foetal, just waiting to be born.

The ma.s.sive head, triangular in profile; dog jaws two and a half feet long; the yellow glow of an eye as big as a saucer that opened and turned in its socket to glare up at Alan, even as he gave a strangled cry and lurched back from the rim- -Driving his spine onto the sharp metal point that Auld John rammed forward to transfix and hold him shuddering like a hapless slug on a nail! The beast's feeding funnel, which made as good a weapon as any.

As for the rest: John didn't make a meal of it. His knife across Alan's throat, and the tube withdrawn, thrust deep into the resin to catch his spurting blood. Then, the fluids of the sac-like inner egg turning red as Alan's life drained into it No, John didn't make a meal of it... but he hoped that Radu's warrior-creature would.

Down the stone steps Auld John went, to set light to the row of great torches around the base of t he vat And watching them flare up -feeling them warming the feeding beast and the liquids that had preserve d it thro ugh six long centuries - he congratulated himself on a task well done. And only Alan's single strangled cry when the sharp feeder chopped into his spine to give the game away. Except young Garth would be so far gone by now, he probably hadn't heard it...

In fact Garth had heard it but it had made no impression. And now he was lost to his stupor, and to the dog-Lord's hypnotic, telepathic voice in his stumbling, staggering mind: Garth. Oh, you faithful one, you child of my children, you moon-child! You heard and you came... you are here! Here to be my p rotection, my guide. To.. .to sustain me in the hour of my resurgence. And you shall be o ne with me. Garth; and when lesser men speak to me, they shall also speak to you, for we snail be inseparable, you and I. You shall be named Raduesuvia: 'who came out ofRadu' - yet you will forever be a part of me.

Except... why do you sit so far apart, who will sit upon my right hand forever? I need you here - to feel my strengthening heartbeat, the st irring of these stiffened limbs of mine - to help me up from my cold stone coffin. Come, Garth, come, and be my strong right hand...

It seemed an invitation, which was in fac t an irresistible command. And with his eyes full of moonlight and a cold sweat upon his brow, 402.

403.

Garth stood up, swaying as he clambered awkwardly up the tangle of stone that held aloft the dais and sarcophagus, until he crouched at the rim. The resin bubbled, not from the heat of the torches - or only partly - but mainly from the commotion beneath the surface. And: Ah! Ahhh! It was a cry of pain - almost a birthpang - in Garth's mind. 1 would breathe, Garth! I would be up. See, see -1 reach for you, for the light, for the full moon where soon my olden mistress will ride the sky!

But I have not the strength.

The surface of the resin bulged, split, sent out a jet of gas and a spurt of yellow liquid like pus, that slopped Garth's face. Beguiled, he felt nothing, saw nothing but the heaving of a glorious womb, heard only Radii's telepathic voice: Now, child of my children, now Garth! See, I breathe -1 would be born - so bring me up, bring me forth from these ugly juices! Now, Garth! Now!

Pink and purple tubeworms broke the surface of the liquid where its crust had split Resin bubbled up as the worms developed pouting mouths that sucked greedily at the air. A hand - or more properly a great dog's black, leathery paw with three-inch claws - reached upwards in an agonized spasm and clutched at thin air.

But Garth saw only a hand and, washed by the bubbling resin, a face floating just beneath the surface- -The kindly, beneficent but agonized face of a G.o.d suffering all the pain of the world. And he clasped the hand that the dog-Lord offered.

But on the instant, everything changed. Garth was Garth again -in the full knowledge of where he was and what he was about - and Radu was Radu. And as the dog-Lord's soft, trembling hand firmed up, grew hard and drew Garth inexorably into the sarcophagus: 'Ahhhhhhr said Radu ...

Auld John heard the cry - that rising shriek, that echoing, ear-piercing scream that climbed the scales to the whistle of a boiler about to burst - and his eyes went up to the shimmering, vibrating air of the cavern complex. And when the scream stopped, and the air stopped trembling, h e smiled his wolfish smile.

And: 'Aye,' he said after a moment, and returned to lighting more torches, to warm the vat of Radu's creature, 'that'll be Him the noo. Bless ye, Alan-on -the-Moor, and especially ye, Garth Treval in. For we shall long remember ye.'

Then, as the first low howl ululated in distant darkness, John's feral eyes widened and lit like yellow lamps. And shaking his fists at the world, he cried: 'Oh, A h'm coming, dinnae fear,' as he went loping off into the cavern labyrinth to greet his reborn Master...

BJ.'s girls were dousing the lower walls and woodwork of Auld John's house with water when Harry came striding down the service road. BJ. saw him, went running, held him close for a moment,then pushed him away. 'Cover you?' she said. 'Cover you? I didn't even see you leave! But I saw you put a bolt right next to mine in that... that man's shoulder, and-'

That vampire's shoulder,' Harry said. 'Don't worry about those two - they're finished. But B.J., it's time you levelled with me. I already know most of it, and I don't think it makes any dif ference to my feelings.

It's the half I don't know that worries me, because that might make a difference. But I'm here, for what that's worth, and you know you have me. Now I want to know if I have you. I want to know that and everythin g else. I mean... everything. And you're the only one who can tell me.' He undipped her crossbow from his belt, gave it back to her.

'Come back to the house,' she said. We're making ready to leave, but we've a few minutes. And then you can decide whether or not you want to come with us.'

'Into the mountain?' he said, walking with her towards the cottage. 'And if I decide not to?'

'You won't,' she shook her head.

"You don't intend to... accept my refusal?'

'Can't. I can't accept it, Harry. You have to come.'

Tell me everything and let me decide for myself,' he answered. "You said you loved me. And if thafs true-'

'It is.'

'-Then you wouldn't place me in jeopardy. And if I climb that mountain with you ...' He came to a halt, caught her arm.

She turned to face him, and he could see how torn she was. 'If you don't climb it, I'm dead,' she said, quite simply. 'And if I do tell you everything - now, all at once - you could be dead, too. A different kind of dead, but close enough it makes no difference.'

They started to walk again, and Harry said, 'A part of my life, maybe several parts, have been a lie. And you're the one who told it' It wasn't an accusation, just a statement That was before I loved you."

'But you've kept the lie going.' Now it was an accusation.

'No,' she answered. And to herself: Yes-for two hundred years -until I saw the truth. But I can't show it to you.

'No?' Suddenly he looked haggard. 'BJ., you 're ly ing even now!

At the door of the cottage, it was BJ.'s turn to catch at his arm. 'Only on the surface!' she blurted. They're only lies on the surface. Underneath, you already know the truth!'

404 'I know the... ? But I... I don't understand.' Or did he?

He knows! - yet may not know, until set free by the kennel-maid; he sees, yet may not understand...

"You know most of it, yes. Except for the real lies. If I tell you about the real lies, then 111 really lose you.'

Ill lose you, Harry- if I tell you that your search for your wife and child was the biggest lie of all. And if I tell you it was for me, not for Radu. "You've always known,' she went on. 'but you can't remember. Not until I switch you on. I mean, all the way on.'

Then do it,' Harry said, as they entered the cottage. 'Do it now, switch me on all the way and lef s see what happens. I mean, let's face it - if s got to be better than being a half-person! See, I'm trying hard to hang on, but I think I'm losing it, BJ.' He tried to grin but only twisted his face; and suddenly she looked just as haggard as he felt. Which made him feel better, because he knew this must be equally hard for her. Love was like that it was only real when it hurt.

Inside the house, gloomy now that they were out of the daylight, even the winter daylight, BJ. put her arms round Harry and held him close. 'Do you remember that time we came here? I asked you about life? What it was all about? About growing old, and watching your partner grow old, and wondering where it had all gone? You gave me your philosophy of life, said that when we are young we know everything, but the older we get the more we realize we don't know any f.u.c.king thing! And I said what if it didn't have to be that way?'

'I remember, yes,' he frowned. 'But not how the conversation ended.'

*We were... interrupted,' she told him. 'But this time we won't be. Harry, what if you could love me always?

I mean, what if we could always be the same, and never have to change. Or at least, not for a very long time?'

'What?' he said, feeling her pressing against him and loving it 'Is that a mountain up there, or Shangri-la? Is this an invitation to a nightmare, or the fountain of youth?' His questions were serious. And now she understood that in fact he did half know.

'I believed in something - worked towards something - oh, for a very long time,' she said. 'And then you came along and changed my mind. But are you right? Is love really the way? Or are you a false prophet?'

'Switch me on,' he urged her, holding h er away from him.

*You may hate me..." There was fear in her face, and enormous inner pain, and emotions beyond Harry's or any mere man's understanding. And yet she looked more - human? - than he had 406.

Necroscope: The Last Yean - Vol. II ever seen her. And he knew, too, why that thought had occurred, but daren't admit it And when he made no reply: 'It will hurt you,' she said.

'You know something?' said Harry. 'I don't think I care.'

'What that I'm a liar? That I'm not... innocent'' There, it was half out.

His mind reeled, but a very little. For he'd been expecting it. 'What's done is done. From now on lef s be straight'

And BJ. thought If I tell him, and if it breaks him, damages his mind, then h.e.l.l be lost to me; but h.e.l.l also be lost to Radu... which would be good, except Radu will exact payment from me! And if I don't tell him, h.e.l.l never be himself. Mentally, he will vegetate; h.e.l.l only be what I tell him to be; he won't be the real Harry Keogh, the man I fell in love with. But he'd never get that far anyway, for Radu would have him. And so it boils down to this: do I love him enough to risk his sanity, to believe that he will still love me, and that together we can defeat and destroy the dog-Lord, my so-called f.u.c.king 'Master?'

But right at the end of the question, she knew she'd answered it herself.

And looking at her face, the Necroscope knew it too.

Her name is Pretty, but her thoughts are dark. Hers is to choose where no choice fits her role in His survival...

My f.u.c.king Master, yes. (B J.'s eyes were more slanted, more golden-yellow, more feral than ever; a low growl escaped her throbbing throat). Yes, she did have a choice, and she had made it. For Radu Lykan was treacherous and the worst possible liar, compared to whom B J. was in fact an innocent Auldjohn: missing. Alan-on-the-M oor, and young Garth Trevalin: nowhere to be found. Oh, really? But BJ. knew where they were, all right!

That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Thing in the resin had called them to his redoubt. He knew BJ. 's destiny and was taking no chances, wouldn't let her reach it. She had discovered his Mysterious One and was no longer of any use; none that BJ. could contemplate, anyway!

'B J.,' Harry said, taking a pace backwards, away from her. And his strange eyes had a look in them that she had never seen before; not fear or fascination but an odd mixture of both, and a great sadness, too. And BJ.

knew now for certain that he had spoken the truth: he did know half of it at least And now he must know it all.

Controlling the beast within, she said, "Y ou win, Harry, mah wee man!'

The Necroscope jerked his head, took a second step backwards, and the backs of his knees. .h.i.t John's old rocking chair, tipping him into it. The full moon blazed down on him, with the silhouette of a f 406.great wolf's head black against the yellow. And the rocking chair rocked back, an d forwards...

... And Harry said: You're his kennel-maid. His castle is a hollow place, and high.'

'Do you remember what I told you about the Wamph yri Lords of Starside, Harry?' she said, stepping forward and bending to loosen the belt around his waist, the strap over his shoulder. 'And about Radu, the Drakuls and Ferenczys?' She took the belt and his explosive devices from him, dropping them to the floor behind her. 'No, you don't ... because I told you to forget it all, until we were ready to go up against Radu's enemies. Well, and now we're ready. Except the dog-Lord is one of them, one of our enemies, one of my enemies! So now if you haven't worked it out already, you can remember what the Drakuls did to Zahanine at your place in Bonnyrig: revenge for the two we killed in the Spey Valley, probably. And you can remember that, too: how they died in their blazing car. Also what I told you about Ferenczy, Lykan, and Drakul history. And Brenda: your search for her? But it never happened, Harry. All the places you remember going to, well, you didn't Those were memories that / put there, that I suggested to you, because I wanted you for myself. And now I'm admitting it and so losing you. So whatever else you do, don't you ever dare ask me again if I f.u.c.king love you!'

From outside, Sandra was shouting: 'B J. We're ready.'

There, and now you have it,' BJ. continued. 'So remember it all, Harry. Every d.a.m.n thing. Put it all together, tie it up in one big bundle. And when you know what you're running from - and if you're still capable of running - then when you wake up, run, run, run!"

He rocked back and forward, back and forward, and his eyes were huge and round, and his face was pale and blank.

B J. sobbed, got behind him, and took up her shotgun from where it leaned against the wall. For she had made another decision and must act now before she changed her mind. Radu's Mysterious One, his 'Man- With-Two-Faces,' Harry Keogh? Well, ac* Radu, the two-faced treacherous b.a.s.t.a.r.d! And whether Harry wanted to be in on this or not - whether he would or wouldn't be able to be in on it - it was too d.a.m.n late now. He wouldn't be going anywhere, not for a couple of hours at least But when he did wake up, at least he'd know that she had loved him.

And as the chair rocked forward she gritted her teeth and smacked the b.u.t.t of the shotgun up against the back of Harry's head, so that he kept right on going off the chair and crumpled to the floor...

II.