by Brian Lumley
Fascinated, drawn to him irresistibly, she clutched his shoulders and turned her lithe, lovely body this way and that, brushing her breasts against the gaping hole in his back. Done on impulse, her eroticism caused the Necroscope a little pain and gave him a lot of pleasure. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the brown of her nipples stained red by blood fresh from his body. But in the next moment, astonished by the strength of her own sensuality, Penny said, ‘I…I don’t quite know why I did that!’
‘I do,’ he growled, taking her there on the sand — and in turn being taken — again and again through the long hot afternoon.
It was love and lust and what lovers have done since the beginning of time; but it was other than that, more than that. It was an initiation of sorts, for Harry as much as for Penny. And it proved beyond a doubt how utterly inexhaustible are the Wamphyri and their thralls.
Later… she woke up feeling chilly, saw Harry sitting there with her shell in his lap. His face was gaunt, almost pained. The sun, setting over the rolling ocean, highlighted the rims of hollows in his face like shallow craters in a moonscape. Squinting her eyes until he was little more than a dark silhouette, Penny tried to make this newly perceived Harry less stark. The too-distinct lines melted a little and softened his face, but the pain was still there. Then, when he felt her eyes on him, the mood was broken. And when she sat up shivering, he draped her with his coat.
Picking the shell up, she said, ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
He gave her a strange look. ‘It’s a dead thing, Penny.’
‘Is that all you see, death?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I feel it, too. I’m the Necroscope.’
‘You feel that the shell is dead?’
He nodded. ‘And how the creature it housed died. Well, not feel it, exactly. I… experience it? No, not that, either.’ He shrugged and sighed. ‘I just know.’
She looked at the conch again, and the sun struck mother-of-pearl from its iridescent rim. ‘It isn’t pretty?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s ugly. Do you see that tiny hole toward the pointed end?’
She nodded.
‘That’s what killed it. Another snail, smaller but deadly
— deadly to it — bored into it and sucked out its life. A vampire, yes. There are millions of us.’ And she saw him give a shudder.
She put the shell aside. That’s a horrid story, Harry!’
‘It’s also a true one.’
‘How can you know that?’
His voice was harsher now. ‘Because I’m the Necroscope! Because dead things talk to me. All dead things. And if they haven’t the mind for it, then they… convey to me. And your “pretty” bloody shell? It conveys the slow grind of its killer eating into its whorl, the penetration of its probe, and the dully burning seep of its fluids being drained off. Pretty? It’s a corpse, Penny, a cadaver!’
He stood up and scuffed listlessly at the sand, and she said, ‘Has it always been like that? For you, I mean?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘But it is now. My vampire is growing. As he grows sharper, so he hones my talents. There was a time when I could only talk to dead people; or rather to creatures I could understand. Dogs go on after death just like we do, did you know that? But now — ‘ Again his shrug. ‘If they were alive once but now are dead, I can feel them. And I feel more and more of them all the time.’ He kicked at the sand again. ‘You see this beach? The very sand sighs and whispers and moans. A million billion corpses broken up by time and the tides. All of that life, wasted, and none of it ready or willing to lie quiet and still. And every dead thing wanting to know, “Why did I die? Why did I die?”’
‘But it has to be that way,’ she gasped, frightened by his tone. ‘It always has been. Without death, what would be the point of life? If we had forever, we wouldn’t strive to do anything — because everything would be possible!’
‘In this world — ‘ he took her shoulders, ‘ — there’s life and there’s death. But I know another world where there’s a state between the two…’ And as it grew dark he told her all about Starside.
When he was done she shivered to the inevitability of it and asked, ‘When shall we go there?’
‘Soon,’ he told her.
‘We can’t stay here? I know that place is bound to frighten me.’
‘Do my eyes frighten you?’ They were like small lamps in his face.
She smiled. ‘No, because I know they’re your eyes.’
‘But they frighten others.’
‘Because they don’t know you.’
‘On Starside I’ll build an aerie,’ Harry told her, ‘where your eyes will be as red as mine.’
‘Will they?’ She seemed almost eager.
‘Oh, yes!’ Harry told her. And to himself: You may be sure of it, you poor darling child. For even here and now, as early and unanticipated as this, he could detect the faintest scarlet flush in them…
While she slept in his arms, Harry sat and made plans. They weren’t much, just something to do. They kept him from thinking too deeply about his and Penny’s imminent departure, its possible perils. About its inevitability.
For it was inevitable — as was the drone of the helicopter whose searchlights came sweeping along the beach from the east. Harry had thought they’d be safe here for… oh, a long time. But as he reached out and touched the minds of the people in the droning dragonfly airplane he saw that he’d been wrong. They were espers.
The Branch,’ he said, perhaps bitterly, waking Penny up and forming Möbius equations in his mind.
‘What, even here?’ she mumbled, as he shifted her across the continent to a clothing store in Sydney.
‘Even here… there… yes,’ he said. ‘Indeed, anywhere. Their locators will find me no matter where I go; they’ll alert their contacts worldwide; espers and bounty hunters will track and trap and eventually burn us. We can’t fight a whole world. And even if I could, I don’t want to. Because to fight is to surrender — to the thing inside me. And I’d prefer to be just me. For as long as possible, anyway. But tonight we’ll lead them all a dance, right? For tomorrow we die.’
‘Die?’
‘We’ll be dead to this world, anyway,’ he said.
They chose expensive clothes willynilly, and an expensive leather suitcase in which to pack them. Then, as the store’s alarms began to clamour, they moved on.
It had been 9:00 p.m. local time when they left the beach; it was 11:30 in the store they robbed; moving east they got dressed on another beach (Long Beach) at 5 a.m. in the first light of dawn, and started a champagne breakfast in New York a little after 8 a.m. - and all in the space of thirty or so minutes!
Penny ate her steak barbecued, medium rare; Harry’s was so rare it dripped blood, just the way he’d ordered it. They drank three bottles of champagne. When presented with the bill the Necroscope laughed, snatched Penny into his lap, tilted his chair over backwards… and the pair of them out of this world into the Möbius Continuum.
Minutes later (at 10:30 p.m. local time) and some three and a half thousand miles north of where they’d started out, they robbed the innermost security vaults of the Bank of Hong Kong; and by midnight they’d lost a million Hong Kong Dollars on the gaming tables in Macau. A few minutes later (at 6:30 in the evening, local), still ordering and drinking champagne, Harry bundled an entirely tipsy Penny into a hotel bed in Nicosia, and left her there to sleep it off. She dripped pearls and diamonds and her skin smelled of a fine haze of alcohol. Most women (were they truthful) would give an entire world for the things she had seen and done and experienced in the last half-day of her life on Earth. So had Penny given a world. That’s why Harry had arranged and executed it.
Their binge had taken a little over three hours: the locators at E-Branch HQ in London — and others in Moscow — were quite dizzy. But the Necroscope knew that Penny was as yet too weak a source for them to track as a single entity. On her own, they probably wouldn’t be able to find her.
Even if they could, he doubted if they’d have a man in Cyprus. She’d be safe there. For a little while, anyway.
And now it was time he made their Starside reservations…
Part Four
1 Faéthor — Zek — Perchorsk
In the Möbius Continuum, Harry opened a future-time door and went looking for Faéthor Ferenczy. Faéthor was long dead and gone, and had been incorporeal — which is to say bodiless — for a very long time. So long that by now he was probably mindless, too. But there were things of great importance which the Necroscope wanted to ask him. About Harry’s ‘disease’ and how he’d come by it; maybe even about how he could cure it, though that possibility seemed almost as remote as Faéthor himself.
Möbius time was awesome as ever. Before launching himself down the ever-expanding time-stream, Harry paused, framed in the doorway, and looked out on humanity as few flesh-and-blood men had ever seen it — and then only on his authority. He saw it as blue light — the near-neon blue of all human life — rushing out and away with an interminable sigh, an orchestrated angelic Ahhhhhhhhh, into forever and ever. But the sigh was all in his mind (indeed he knew that it was his mind sighing), for time is quite silent. Which was just as well. For if all the sound in all the years of all the LIFE he witnessed had been present, then it would have been an utterly unbearable cacophony.
He stood or floated in the metaphysical doorway and gazed on all those lines of blue light streaming out and away — the myriad life-lines of the human race — and thought: It’s like a blue star gone nova, and these are its atoms fleeing for their lives! And he knew that indeed every dazzling line was a life, which he could trace from birth to death across the tractless heavens of Möbius time: for even now his own life-line unwound out of him, like a thread unwinding from a bobbin, to cross the threshold and shoot away into the future. But where the rest were pure blue, his own thread carried a strong crimson taint.
As for Faéthor’s line: if it existed at all, it would be pure (impure?) scarlet. But it didn’t, for Faéthor’s life was over. No life now for that ancient, once-undead thing, but true death, where he sped on and on beyond the bounds of being… all thanks, or whatever, to Harry Keogh. Bodiless, yes, the old vampire, but still the Necroscope knew how to track him. For in the Möbius Continuum thoughts have weight and, like time itself, go on for ever.
Faéthor, Harry called out, sending a probe lancing ahead as he launched himself down the time-stream, I’d like to pay you a visit. If you’re in the mood for it.
Oh? The answer came back at once, and then, astonishingly, a chuckle; one of Faéthor’s most dark, most devious chuckles. A meeting of two old friends, eh? And is it visiting day? Well, and why not? But truth to tell, I’ve been expecting you.
You have? Harry caught up with Faéthor’s spirit: with the memory, the mind which was all that remained of him.
Oh, yes! For who else would know the answer if not me, eh?
The answer? But Harry knew well enough what he meant. The answer — the solution — to his problem, assuming such a solution existed.
Come, come! Faéthor tut-tutted. Am I naive? Call me what you will, Harry, but never that! And now he gave a deadspeak nod and looked the Necroscope over. Well, well! But, you know, you never fail to amaze me? I mean, so many talents! And now this faster-than-life travel! Why, look-you’ve even outstripped yourself!
Even as Faéthor spoke, Harry’s life-line gave a wriggle, a shudder, and split down the middle. Half of the line bent back a little on itself and shot off at right-angles to the Necroscope’s line of travel, shortly to disappear in a brilliant burst of red and blue fire. But the other half, like a comet with Harry himself for its nucleus, sped on as before and kept pace with Faéthor.
Harry had been expecting some such. The phenomenon he’d just witnessed (which in fact had been his departure point for Starside) was in the probable future. But this was Möbius time, which is to say speculative time, and nothing was for certain. It was the reason why reading the future was so very hit and miss. For if in the real world anything contrary should happen to him between now and then, his departure simply wouldn’t happen. Or possibly not. In other words — and despite the fact that he’d seen it — it was only something which might happen.
But probably, said Faéthor. And again he chuckled. So… they’re driving you out, eh? No, Harry shrugged, I’m going of my own free will. Because if you stay they’ll hunt you down and destroy you.
Because I will it, Harry repeated. You brought yourself into prominence, said Faéthor, and they looked at you — closely! Now they know you for what you are. All of these years you’ve been their hero, and now you’re their worst nightmare come true. And so it’s back to Starside. Well, good luck to you. But mind you look out for that son of yours. Why, the last time you were there he crippled you!
Before continuing their conversation, Harry very carefully shielded his mind. Only show Faéthor the tiniest crack in the door and he’d be in. Not only to spy on the Necroscope’s most secret thoughts, but to lodge himself in his mind as a permanent tenant. It was the ancient vampire’s one chance — his very last chance — for any sort of continuity other than this empty, endless speeding into the future.
And so, when Harry was satisfied that he’d made himself impregnable: Yes, my son crippled me, he agreed. Robbed me of my deadspeak, denied me access to the Möbius Continuum. It was easy for him then, because I was only a man. But now… as you see, I’m Wamphyri!
You go back to do battle with him? Faéthor hissed. Your own son?
If that’s the only way. Harry shrugged again, mainly to disguise his lie. But it doesn’t have to be a fight. Starside is a big place. Even bigger, now that the Wamphyri are dead or fled.
Hmmm! Faéthor mused. So you’ll return to Starside, build yourself an aerie there, and if necessary do battle with your son for a piece of his territory. Is that it?
Possibly.
So why have you come to see me? What have I to do with it? If this is your plan, then go to it.
For long moments Harry was silent; finally he answered: But it was my thought that… you might like to come with me?
Faéthor’s gasp — and the ensuing silence — was of stunned disbelief. Until, eventually: That I might like…?
To come with me, Harry said it again.
But: No, said Faéthor in a while, and Harry sensed the unbodied shake of his head. I can’t credit this. It is — can only be — a trick! You who once fought so long and hard to keep me out, now invite me in? To be one with you in your new Wamphyri mind, body and -
Don’t say soul! said Harry. Also, you have it wrong.
Eh? Faéthor was at once on his guard. But how can I have it wrong? To go with you from this… this hellish no-place into Starside is out of the question, unless it is as part of you. Here I am nothing, but if of your own free will you’re now inviting my mind into yours…?
Initially, yes, said Harry. But this time you must agree to move out when I desire it. And without a struggle, without that I must use trickery, as last time.
Faéthor was flabbergasted. Move out to where?
Into the mind and body of some lesser man, some Traveller king or such, in Starside.
And finally Faéthor understood, or thought he did, and his deadspeak thoughts turned sour as vinegar. And so you are unworthy after all, he said then. And have been from the start. I used to lie in the earth in my place in Ploiesti and think: ‘The Necroscope can have it all, everything, the world! Thibor was a ruffian, unworthy, but not so Harry. Janos was the scummy froth of my loins, beside which Harry has the consistency, the purity — or if not that, then at least the homogeneity — of cream. I shall make Harry my third and last son!’ Yes, these were my thoughts, of which you were unworthy.
How come? said Harry. I mean, why do you insult me?
What? (astonishment, disbelief). Surely you mean why do I sorrow! But you could have been — could still be — the most powerful creature of all time: The Ma
ster Vampire! The Great Plague Bearer! Because I, Faéthor Ferenczy, willed it, you are Wamphyri! You have admitted as much yourself. And yet now you would throw it all away. Does it mean nothing to you, to be Wamphyri? What of the passion, the power, the glory?
What of me? Harry answered. The real me, before my adulteration?
The new you is greater!
I don’t resent the greatness. Harry shook his head. Only that it was not on my terms. But now I’m offering you terms, and no more time to waste. Can you help me… or can’t you?
Cards on the table, then, said Faéthor. You will take me into your mind, transfer or transport me to Starside — which after all is or should have been my natural place — and there pass me on to some other to guide him as I would have guided you. In return for which, you desire to know if there’s a way you may rid yourself of the thing growing within you. Now, do I have it right?
And if there is a way — Harry qualified the deal — you’ll describe it in detail, a fool’s guide, so that I may be my own man again.
Following which, you’ll return to your own world, leaving me, embodied once more, in Starside?
That’s the plan.
And if there is no way to free you?
Harry shrugged. A deal is a deal. You’ll be a power on Starside anyway, as stated.
Eventually to become your rival? And your son’s rival?
Yet again the Necroscope’s shrug. Like I said, with the old Wamphyri dead or fled, Starside is a big place.
Faéthor was cautious. It seems to me that whichever way it goes, still I get the best of this bargain. Now why should you be so good to me?
Maybe it’s like you said, Harry told him, a meeting of two old friends.
Fiends, Faéthor corrected him.
As you will, except I’m an unwilling fiend. And despite the fact that you’re the engineer of my current fix, still I can’t forget that in the past you’ve put yourself out to do me one or two favours; even though all of them (a little sourly), as I’ve since come to realize, were to your ultimate benefit. Still, it seems I’ve grown accustomed to you; I understand you now; you played the game according to your own rules, that’s all. Wamphyri rules. Also, I’m full of human compassion — I can’t help it — and I have to admit my conscience has been bothering me. About you, stuck here in Möbius time. About my leaving you here. And finally… well, you said it yourself: if there is a cure for my complaint, who’d know it better than you? Which is the Number One reason I’m here and doesn’t leave me with much choice. He was very convincing.