Necroscope V: Deadspawn n-5

by Brian Lumley

  You’re tired, Harry. Maybe you should take it easy for a while. Get some sleep.

  ‘At night?’ The Necroscope chuckled, but drily, darkly. ‘It’s not my nature, Trevor.’

  You have to fight it.

  ‘I’ve been fighting it!’ Harry’s growl was deeper. ‘All I do is fight it.’

  Jordan was silent for a moment. Then: Maybe… Maybe we should give it a break now. His deadspeak was full of trembling. Harry could feel his fear, the terror of a dead man. And to his innermost self, where Jordan couldn’t reach:

  Oh, God! Even the dead are afraid of me now.

  He stood up abruptly, starting to his feet so as almost to topple his chair. And lurching to the curtains he looked out through an inch of space where the drapes came together, across the river and into the night. At which precise moment, on the far river bank and under the trees there, someone struck a match to light a cigarette. Just for a second Harry saw the flare before it was cupped in the windshield of a hand. And then there was only a yellow glow, brightening when the watcher took a deep drag.

  The bastard’s out there right now,’ Harry spoke, almost to himself.

  It might as well be to himself, for Jordan was too frightened to answer…

  5 The Resurrected

  At midnight Harry was still seething.

  He invoked Wellesley’s talent, crept out into his garden and down the path to where the old gate in the wall sagged on its rusting hinges. The night was his friend and like a cat he became one with the shadows, until it would seem there was no one there at all. Looking through the gapped gate, across the river, his night-sensitive eyes could plainly see the motionless figure under the trees: the mind-flea, Paxton.

  ‘Paxton…’

  The word was like poison on Harry’s lips and in his mind… his mind, or that of the creature which was now a growing part of him. For Harry’s vampire recognized the threat even as did the Necroscope himself, except it might deal with it differently. If he would let it.

  ‘Paxton.’ He breathed the name into the cool night air, and his breath was a mist that drifted to the path and swirled around his ankles. The dark essence of Wamphyri was strong in him now, almost overpowering. ‘You can’t hear me, you bastard, can you?’ He breathed mist which flowed under the gate, across the overgrown river path, down among the brambles and on to the glassy water itself. ‘You can’t read me; you don’t know I’m here at all, do you?’

  But suddenly, coming from nowhere, there was a gurgling, monstrous voice — unmistakably that of Faéthor Ferenczy — in Harry’s mind: Instead of shrinking back when you sense him near, seek him out! He would enter your mind? Enter his! He will expect you to be afraid; be bold! And when he yawns his jaws at you, go in through them, for he’s softer on the inside!

  A nightmare voice, but one which Harry himself had drawn from memory. For Wellesley’s talent made any other sort of intrusion impossible; Faéthor was gone now where no man could ever reach him; he was lost for ever in future time.

  That father of vampires had been talking about his bloodson Janos, but it seemed to the Necroscope that the same techniques might well apply right here, right now. Or perhaps it didn’t seem so to Harry, but to the thing inside him. Paxton was here to prove Harry was a vampire. Since he was a vampire, there seemed no way he could disprove it. But must he simply sit still and wait for the consequences of this flea’s reports? The urge was on him to even the score a little, to give the mindspy something to think about.

  Not actually to ‘scratch’ his itch, no, for that would be conclusive proof in itself and could only drag the Necroscope further into an already unwelcome light, ultimately to the minute scrutiny of bigger fleas, whose bite might even prove fatal. Also (Harry was obliged to forcibly remind himself) it would be murder.

  The thought of that evoked visions of blood, and the thought of that was something he must put aside entirely!

  He stepped back from the gate in the old stone wall, conjured a door and passed through it into the Möbius Continuum… and out again onto a second-class road where it paralleled the river on its far side. There was no one in sight; the sky was clouded over; down through the flanking trees the river was seen as a ribbon of lead carelessly let fall in the darkness.

  A car, Paxton’s car, stood half-on, half-off the road under overhanging branches. A recent model and expensive, its paintwork gleamed in the dark; its doors were locked, windows wound up tight. It pointed slightly downhill, towards a walled bend where the access road joined the main road into Bonnyrig.

  Harry stepped from the potholed tarmac, past the car and into the cover of the trees, and where he went the mist followed. No, it didn’t simply follow, for he was the source and the catalyst. It boiled up from the ground where he walked, fell from his dark clothes like weird evaporation, poured from his mouth as breath. He went silently, flowingly, unaware of his own feet unerringly seeking soft ground, stepping between the places where brittle, betraying twigs lay in wait for him. And he felt his tenant flexing its muscles and securing its hooks more deeply in his will.

  It would be a fine test of the thing’s power over him, to take control here and now, causing him to do that from which there could be no return.

  Until now Harry’s fever had been more or less controlled. His angers had been more violent, true, his depressions deeper and his snatches of joy poignant, but on the whole he had felt no real craving or compulsion, or at least nothing he couldn’t fight. But now he felt it. It was as if Paxton had become the centre of all that was wrong with his life, a point he could focus upon, a large wen on the already imperfect complexion of existence.

  Some surgery was required.

  Harry’s mist crept ahead of him. It sprang up from the bank of the river and the boles of trees where they joined the damp earth, and cast swirling tendrils about Paxton’s feet. The telepath sat on a tree stump close to the river’s rim, his gaze fixed firmly on the dark shape of the house across the water, where light spilled out from an upstairs window. Harry had left that light on, deliberately.

  But while the Necroscope was unaware of it, still there was a half-scowl, half-frown on Paxton’s face; for the mindspy had lost his quarry’s aura. He supposed that Harry was still in the house, but for all his mental concentration he no longer had contact with him. Not even the tenuous contact which was his minimum requirement.

  It didn’t mean a great deal, of course not, because Paxton was well aware of Harry’s talents: the Necroscope could be literally anywhere. Or on the other hand it could mean quite a bit. It isn’t everyone who will just go flitting off in the midnight hour, putting himself beyond the reach of men and mentalists alike. Keogh could be up to almost anything.

  Paxton shivered as a ghost stepped on his grave. Only an old saying, that, of course; but for a moment just then he’d felt something touch him, like an unseen presence come drifting across the water to stand beside him in the silence of the mist-shrouded river bank. Mist-shrouded? Where in hell had that sprung from?

  He stood up, looked to left and right and began to turn around. And Harry, not five paces away, stepped silently into darkness. Paxton turned through a full, slow circle, shivered again and shrugged uncomfortably, and continued to stare at the house across the river. He reached inside his coat and brought out a leather-jacketed flask, tilted it and let strong liquor gurgle into his throat in a long pull.

  Watching the esper empty the flask, Harry could feel something dark swelling inside him. It was big, maybe even bigger than he was. He flowed forward, came to a halt directly behind the unsuspecting telepath. What a joke it would be, to let go of Wellesley’s shield right now and deliberately aim his thoughts into the back of Paxton’s head! Why, the esper would probably leap straight into the river!

  Or perhaps he’d just turn round again, very slowly, and see Harry standing there looking right at him, into him, into his quivering, quaking soul. And then, if he went to scream…

  The dark, alien, hate-swollen thing
was in Harry’s hands now, lifting them towards the back of Paxton’s neck. It was in his heart, too, and his eyes, and his face. He could feel it pulling back his lips from drooling teeth. It would be so easy to sweep Paxton up and into the Möbius Continuum, and… and deal with him there. There, where no one would ever find him.

  Harry’s hands only had to close now and he could wring the esper’s neck as if he were a chicken. Ahhh!

  The thing inside sang of emotions as yet unattained, which could be his. He thrilled to its message, to the ringing cry which echoed through his innermost being even now: Wamphyri! Warn -

  - And Paxton hitched back the sleeve of his overcoat and glanced at his watch.

  That was all: his movement had been such a natural thing, so mundane, so much of this world, that the spell of an alien plane of existence was broken. And Harry felt like a twelve-year-old boy again, masturbating furiously over the toilet bowl and ready to come, and his uncle had just knocked on the bathroom door.

  He drew back from Paxton, conjured a Möbius door and almost toppled through it. Too late (and mercifully so), the mindspy sensed something and whirled about -

  — And saw nothing there but a swirl of fog.

  Drenched in his own pungent sweat, the Necroscope vacated the Möbius Continuum into the back seat of Paxton’s car. And he sat there shuddering, retching and being physically ill on to the floor until he’d sicked the thing right out of himself. At last, looking at the stinking mess of his own vomit, his anger gradually returned. But now he was mainly angry with himself.

  He’d set out to teach the esper a lesson and had almost killed him. It said a hell of a lot for his control over the thing inside him, which as yet was… what? A baby? An infant? What hope would he have later, then, when the thing was full-fledged?

  And still Paxton was there under the trees by the river bank, there with his thoughts and his cigarettes and whisky. And he’d probably be there tomorrow, too, and the day after that. Until Harry made a mistake and gave himself away. If he hadn’t done so already.

  ‘Fuck him!’ Harry said out loud, bitterly.

  Yes, screw him, shaft the bastard! Which had to be better than murdering him, at least.

  He climbed over into the front seat of the car and took off the brake, and felt the wheels slowly turn as she began to roll. He guided the car fully on to the road and let gravity take her along. Rolling down the gentle gradient, the vehicle gained momentum.

  Harry pumped at the accelerator until he could smell the heavy petrol fumes, pulled out the choke and pumped some more. A quarter-mile later he was still pumping and the car was doing maybe twenty-five, thirty. The curve was corning up fast, with its grass verge and high stone wall. Harry let go the wheel, conjured a Möbius door out of the seat beside him and slid over into it.

  And two seconds later Paxton’s car mounted the verge, hit the wall and went off like a bomb!

  Just that moment returning from the river to the road, the esper stared uncomprehendingly at the spot where his car had stood — then heard the explosion farther down the road and saw a ball of fire rising into the night. And: ‘What…?’ he said. ‘What?’

  By then Harry was home again, dialling 999. He got an emergency operator in Bonnyrig who put him through to the police station.

  ‘Police — how can we help ye?’ The voice was heavily accented.

  There’s a car just burst into flames on the access road to the old estate behind Bonnyrig,’ Harry said, breathlessly, and passed on full details of the location. ‘And there’s a man there drinking from a hip flask and warming his hands on the fire.’

  ‘Who’s speaking, please?’ The voice was more authoritative now, alert and very official-sounding.

  ‘Can’t stop,’ said Harry. ‘Have to see if anyone’s hurt.’ He put the phone down.

  From his upstairs bedroom window the Necroscope watched the fire steadily brightening, and ten minutes later saw the Bonnyrig fire-engine arrive along with its police escort. And for a little while there was the eerie wailing of sirens where blue-and orange-flashing lights clustered around the central leap of flames. Then the fire winked out and the sirens were silenced, and a little after that the police car drove off… with a passenger.

  Harry would have been happy to know that the passenger was Paxton, furiously swearing his innocence and breathing whisky fumes all over the hard-faced officers. But he didn’t because by then he was fast alseep. Whether sleep at night was right or wrong for his character made no difference: Trevor Jordan’s advice had been sound…

  In the morning the rising sun scorched Harry from his bed. Coming up beyond the river, it crept in through his window and seared a path across a twitching left hand which he dreamed was trapped in one of Hamish McCulloch’s kilns. Starting awake, he saw the room flooded with glowing yellow sunlight where he’d mistakenly left the curtains open.

  He breakfasted on coffee — just coffee — and immediately proceeded to the cool cellar. He didn’t know how long he had left, so it might well be a case of now or never. And anyway he’d promised Trevor Jordan it would be today. Jordan’s and Penny’s urns were already down below, along with the chemicals Harry had taken from the Castle Ferenczy.

  Trevor,’ he said as he weighed and mixed powders. ‘I went after Paxton last night… no, not seriously, but almost. All I did in the end was toss a spanner in his works, which should keep him out of our hair a while. I certainly don’t feel him near, but that could be because it’s morning and the sun is up. Can you tell me if he’s out there?’

  The newsagent in Bonnyrig has just opened his shop and there’s a milkman doing his rounds, Jordan answered. Oh, and a lot of perfectly ordinary people in the village are having breakfast. But no sign of Paxton. It seems a pretty normal sort of morning to me.

  ‘Not exactly normal,’ Harry told him. ‘Not for you, anyway.’

  I’ve been trying not to hope too hard, Jordan answered, his deadspeak shivery. Trying not to pray. I still keep thinking I’m dreaming. I mean, we actually do shut down and sleep sometimes. Did you know that?

  The Necroscope nodded, finished with his powders and took up Jordan’s urn. ‘I was incorporeal myself one time, remember? I used to get tired as hell. Mental exhaustion is far worse than physical.’

  For a while, as he carefully poured Jordan’s ashes, there was silence. Then: Harry, I’m too scared to talk!

  ‘Scared?’ Harry repeated the word almost automatically, concentrated on breaking the urn with a hammer and lying its pieces with the insides uppermost around the heap of mortal remains and chemical catalysts, so that anything clinging to them would get caught up in it when he spoke the words.

  Scared, excited, you name it… but if I had guts I’d throw them up, I’m sure!

  It was time. Trevor, you have to understand that if you’re not right… I mean — ‘

  I know what you mean. I know.

  ‘OK.’ Harry nodded, and moistened his dry lips. ‘So here we go.’

  The words of evocation came as easy as his mother tongue, and yet with a growl which denied his human heritage. He used his art with — pride? Certainly in the knowledge that it was a very uncommon thing, and that he was a most uncommon creature.

  ‘Uaaah!’ The final exclamation wasn’t quite a snarl — and it was answered a moment later by a cry almost of agony!

  The Necroscope stepped back as swirling purple smoke filled the cellar, stinging his eyes. It gouted, mushroomed, spilled from or was residue of the chemical materia. It was the very essence of jinni: its massive volume spilling from such a small source. And staggering forward out of it, crying out the pain of his rebirth, came the naked figure of Trevor Jordan. But the Necroscope was ready, in case this birth must be aborted.

  For a moment Harry could see very little in the swirl of chemical smoke, and for another only a glimpse: a wild, staring eye, a twisted, gaping mouth, head only partly visible. Only partly there?

  Jordan’s arms were reaching for Harry, his hands shu
ddering, almost vibrating. His legs gave way and he fell to one knee. Harry felt the chill of absolute horror and the words of devolution sprang into his mind, were ready on his desiccated lips. Then -

  — The smoke cleared and it was… Trevor Jordan kneeling there.

  Perfect!

  Harry sank to his knees and embraced him, both of them crying like children…

  Then it was Penny’s turn. She, too, thought she was dreaming, couldn’t believe what the Necroscope told her with his deadspeak. But it was one dream from which he soon awakened her.

  She fell into his arms crying, and he carried her up out of the cellar to his bedroom, laid her between the sheets and told her to try to sleep. All useless: there was a maniac in the house, running wild, laughing and crying at the same time. Trevor Jordan came and went, slamming doors, rushing here and there — pausing to touch himself, to touch Harry, Penny — and then laughing again. Laughing like crazy, like mad. Mad to be alive!

  Penny, too, once the truth sank in, once she believed. And for an hour, two hours, it was bedlam. Stay in bed? She dressed herself in Harry’s pyjamas and one of his shirts, and… danced! She pirouetted, waltzed, jived; Harry was glad he had no neighbours.

  Eventually they wore themselves out, almost wore the Necroscope out, too.

  He made plenty of coffee for them. They were thirsty; they were hungry; they invaded his kitchen. They ate… everything! Now and then Jordan would leap to his feet, hug Harry until he thought his ribs must crack, rush into the garden and feel the sunshine, and rush back again. And Penny would burst into a fresh bout of tears and kiss him. It made him feel good. And it disturbed him. Even now their emotions were no match for his.

  Then it was afternoon, and Harry said: ‘Penny, I think you can go home now.’

  He had told her what she must say: how it couldn’t have been her body the police found but someone who looked a lot like her. How she had suffered amnesia or something and didn’t know where she’d been until she found herself in her own street in her own North Yorkshire village. That was all, no elaboration. And no mention, not even a whisper, of Harry Keogh, Necroscope.