NECROM

by Mick Farren

  "I think Balg may do it for you."

  His eyes snapped open. "Balg?"

  Nephredana's dark glasses were a couple of inches from his face, and her lips were moist, "Balg." She spoke the word almost lovingly.

  Gibson blinked. "The guy who did the shouting; he wasn't crazy? There really is a Balg?"

  Nephredana stepped away from him. "You'll see."

  They went back down the big staircase to the more public areas of the party. The jazz trio had been replaced by a large swing band that verged on the cacophonous. A lot more people were dancing and with a great deal more energy. The whole nature of the downstairs party had changed. People seemed more intent on enjoying themselves rather than just being seen, and it went without saying that the great majority of guests were now a good deal drunker and some appeared to be verging on doing things that they might later regret. Gibson and Nephredana went past the bandstand and started down the long corridor that linked the front and back of the house. Halfway along it, she quickly stepped over the velvet rope that was supposed to prevent guests from entering one of the side passages and indicated that Gibson should do the same,

  It was about that time that a security man, on guard a little way down the corridor, spotted them. "I'm sorry, miss, you can't go in there."

  He moved quickly, attempting to get to them before they went any farther. Nephredana made a fast pass with her right hand. The man stopped dead, then turned and went back to his post as though nothing had happened. She seemed to have blanked all awareness of them from the security guard's mind. Without waiting to see any further effects of her handiwork, she grabbed Gibson by the hand and pulled him over the rope.

  "Come on! A zapper like that doesn't last very long."

  Gibson followed her as she hurried down the passage. At the end of it there was a spiral flight of stone steps that led down, presumably into the cellars of the mansion. Nephredana plunged straight down them with her spike heels ringing on the stone. She reached the first level down and kept on going. It smelled like a wine cellar. The second level was different, colder and clammier, with a strange musty smell that Gibson didn't like at all. The third level was decidedly odd. The walls ran with condensation and the steps were slippery with a greenish slime. The musty smell was close to becoming a stench, and the few dim lights that there were created new threatening shadows with each turn of the stair.

  "The foundations of this place are very old. Even though Raus virtually rebuilt the house from the ground up, he kept the original roots. The roots were why he went to so much trouble to buy the property some ten years ago, right after Lancer came to power."

  Gibson put a hand to his mouth. "What's making that smell?"

  "You'll see."

  "I'm not sure I want to."

  "Chicken?"

  "You're too fucking much."

  The stairs ended and a door was in front of them. Although the door seemed to be constructed of dark, ancient wood reinforced with corroded iron bolts, the lock system was modern; preelectronic but very formidable. Nephredana hiked up her skirt. There was a small flat utility wallet made from some sort of ultra-soft leather strapped round her upper thigh like a garter. She extracted a small, silver cylinder, not unlike a very advanced dental drill, and pointed it at each lock in turn. The sound of the tumblers falling and the bolts pulling back was plainly audible.

  Gibson looked on in admiration. This was one hell of a woman. "Useful thing, that."

  Nephredana nodded. "My passkey. Help me push this door open."

  The door opened on a small stone platform from which another set of steps led down, curving around the outside wall of a circular chamber that went even deeper into the earth, almost like a huge shaft or well. The word "bowels" sprang into Gibson's mind. This was the closest to the bowels of the Earth that he had ever been. The smell was definitely a stench now. Except that, once inside the door, there was a warm musky quality to it that almost seemed alive.

  Gibson peered over the edge of the steps. He could see a light at the bottom of the shaft, a luridly poisonous green glow that also seemed to be the source of the stench. "What is that thing?"

  "That's Balg."

  "Balg's a bunch of glowing toxic radiation in the bottom of a pit?"

  "I guess you'd call Balg an entity."

  Gibson grunted. "Two entities in one day is at least one over my limit. Is it safe?"

  "Not in the least."

  "So what the fuck are we doing here?"

  "It can't come out of the shaft. It's pretty well penned up."

  "I have your word on that?"

  "In the elder days, Balg was vanquished by Galmesh and bound outside of the time stream. Over the millennia, though, a small part of him began to intrude into this dimension. The original house on this sight was built around the intrusion. Subsequent owners have put in a lot of work attempting to set free Balg in his entirety. Verdon Raus is only the latest in a long line."

  "You 're telling me that Raus is trying to let this thing loose?"

  "He believes that he can control it for his own ends."

  "Can he?"

  "He doesn't have a prayer."

  Gibson held up a hand. "Wait a minute. Let's just back up here. I thought that this Raus dealt in newspapers and TV stations, was some kind of William Randolph Hearst." He nodded toward the glow in the pit. "You're telling me that, when he gets home from a hard day's moguling, he messes around with this H. P. Lovecraft shit?"

  "Verdon Raus is a very complex individual. Shall we go a little closer?"

  "Do we have to?"

  Nephredana sighed. "Come on, Gibson. Live dangerously."

  Gibson followed Nephredana down the stairs with serious trepidation. The stairs had no banister or safety railing on the outside, nothing but a long drop to Balg. Gibson didn't like heights at the best of times, and when they came with a dangerous glowing entity at the bottom, they were infinitely worse.

  After descending for forty or fifty feet, with the glow of Balg becoming brighter by the foot, the steps terminated in a circular flag-stoned platform in the center of which was sunk the final shaft that contained Balg, or, at least, the portion of Balg that had made it into this dimension. Gibson noticed that a number of steel rings were set into the stonework right at the edge of this deepset well. Gibson glanced at them and then at Nephredana, whose face had taken on a ghoulish aspect now that it was lit green from below. "What are these for? The human sacrifices?"

  Nephredana scarcely bothered to look. "Probably."

  Gibson took a quick step back. "You're kidding me?"

  Nephredana shook her head. "Balg feeds mainly on psychic energy, so I imagine a good few of those who've been messing with him over the years would have tried it. I've found that it never takes humans very long to get around to sacrificing their own kind. I guess it's the attraction of the ultimate."

  "Death-moment energy physics?"

  "You got it."

  There was a strange echoing noise from down inside the shaft and a sudden rush of the foul-smelling air. Gibson turned away. It was as though Balg had detected their presence. "Are you sure that thing can't climb out of the well?"

  "Look down there."

  "Must I?"

  "Go ahead. It won't hurt you."

  Gibson advanced cautiously to the edge and peered down. It was the act of looking into a green hell. His overwhelming instinct was to get away from Balg and out of his subterranean vault as fast as possible.

  Nephredana was standing behind him. "What do you see?"

  "Balg. Isn't that enough?"

  "Be precise."

  Gibson gritted his teeth. "A green glow that looks radioactive with a kind of white mist covering it."

  "Look at the mist."

  Gibson looked again. He could just make out lines of red light running through the mist. "Are those lasers?"

  "Raus thinks it's his final defense against Balg."

  "I didn't think they had lasers here. Shit, they don't even
have color TV."

  "They don't have lasers here. He's had a little outside help. I suspect your chums in the streamheat."

  "Isn't that against the Prime Directive or something? Not giving advanced technology to a culture that it hasn't developed itself?"

  Nephredana smiled. "Actually that's Star Trek, but the same principle applies."

  Gibson looked back up the steps. "I think I've seen enough of this place. The stink is starting to get to me."

  Nephredana nodded. "Balg isn't the most attractive of beings."

  As they turned to leave, Gibson noticed that there was a small, dark alcove set beneath the curve of the steps where they rose from the platform. It appeared to contain racks of devices that, as far as he could see, had the sole common purpose of inflicting pain on various specific areas of the human body.

  He quickly pointed the stuff out to Nephredana. "Is that what I think it is?"

  Nephredana didn't seem particularly concerned. "What else would it be?"

  "You mean he tortures his victims before he feeds them to Balg?"

  "Once you get started in the sacrifice business, the rest pretty much follows."

  Gibson didn't wait any longer. He was climbing the steps. "That's it, I'm out of here."

  Nephredana followed without comment. Unfortunately, as they approached the door there were sounds from the other side.

  Gibson looked round in alarm. "Christ, what do we do now?"

  Nephredana was already out of her high heels and heading back down the stairs in silent stockinged feet.

  She turned and hissed at Gibson. "Come on!"

  "Where do we go?'

  "The alcove, we can hide in there. It's probably Raus coming to show his pet to some selected guests."

  There was the sound of keys in the door. Gibson gave thanks that Nephredana had had the foresight to relock the doors behind them. The alcove was small, and Gibson wasn't keen on taking refuge in a torturer's tool locker, but it was a case of needs must. It was far from being the ideal hiding place. There was hardly enough room for two people in among the various steel and leather appliances, and the glow from Balg was so intense on that level that they hardly had even the protection of darkness.

  Gibson whispered urgently to Nephredana. "Can't you put some whammy on them so we can slip away?"

  Nephredana shook her head. "Too risky with Balg just below us. Any influence could too easily backfire. Balg's all random surplus energy and no smarts. A hex could trigger all manner of ugly shit."

  Gibson was about to protest that they were in all manner of ugly shit already when the sound of footsteps and voices came from the stairs above. Nephredana put a silent finger to her lips. Gibson suddenly recognized one of the voices. It was Smith.

  "… despite that, Verdon, this is still a very dangerous experiment. If that thing should get loose before we are able to control it…"

  What in hell was she doing down here and what kind of deal was going down between Raus and the streamheat?

  The voices and footsteps reached the platform, and Gibson's horror was multiplied a hundredfold when he risked a peek around the edge of the alcove. Seven people had come through the door, and now they stood just a few yards from where he was hiding, black shapes against the green glow from the shaft. To his horror, he recognized four out of seven: in addition to Smith, the party included Raus, French, and the man who looked like Sebastian Rampton, If this was a parallel Rampton, it seemed that he was on a pretty much parallel trip. Two of Raus's tuxedoed goons brought up the rear. They were holding up a young woman who sagged between them, either helplessly drunk or drugged. Somewhere along the line, she had lost her dress, and she was now down to torn black lingerie that hadn't been too demure in the first place. Her head lolled, and every few seconds she was consumed by helpless giggles. In a moment of absolute, dark, crystal clarity, Gibson knew what was going to happen to the girl. He tensed but Nephredana put a restraining hand on his arm. It might be a grand gesture to leap out and try and save the girl, but it would also be suicidal. There was no point in sacrificing himself for some anonymous party girl. It was ultimately cold but wholly logical.

  Rampton, at least, had the decency to raise a token objection. "Does this really need to be done?"

  It was Raus who provided the rationalization. "The sacrifices have to be made. If they're not, Balg becomes violent. I doubt we could continue to contain it."

  Rampton still seemed a little shocked by the proceedings.

  "How many people do you have to feed to this thing?"

  Raus's voice had an edge of cold, clinical pride, as though Balg was his hobby.

  "Lately it's been taking about four a month to keep it quiet, approximately one a week."

  "And nobody has wondered what you're doing here. There've been no rumors, no questions."

  Raus sounded as if it was no problem. "When you control as much of the media as I do, rumors are easy to manipulate away. Besides, I'm very good to my people here. They understand and they keep their mouths shut. Also Balg doesn't leave any remains. There are no bodies to dispose of, and people vanish all the time."

  Smith peered down into the shaft. "I think we'll have to talk about all this after the matter of Lancer has been resolved."

  Raus seemed anxious to change the subject. "On the matter of Lancer, has this man from another dimension been picked up, this double for Zwald?"

  At this, Gibson's ears pricked up. Were they talking about him? He listened tensely.

  French answered Raus's question. "We don't have him but we're monitoring him. We can pick him up when we need him."

  Gibson's eyes narrowed. If they were talking about him, French didn't know half as much as he claimed. They weren't monitoring him so closely that they knew he was just a few feet from them.

  Raus didn't seem entirely happy with French's answer. "I'd rather we had him in a secure place. He's now crucial to the operation."

  "Don't worry, we'll pick him up in the morning."

  Raus continued to lean on the streamheat. "I don't want any mistakes."

  Rampton also seemed to have misgivings. "I certainly haven't made a dimension transition to attend a nonevent."

  Gibson was transfixed. Unless there were copies of Sebastian Rampton spread all over the multidimensional universe, it had to be the Rampton from New York, the one that he had met, and they had to be talking about him.

  French was doing his best to be reassuring. "There's no problem, Gibson is too stupid to be a problem,"

  While Gibson had to fight to control himself, Smith was at her most efficient and reassuring as she backed up French. "There won't be any problem. We can handle Gibson."

  Gibson's jaws clenched in silent fury. Handle me, can you, you bastards? We'll see about that.

  Raus signaled to the two black-tie goons, indicating that he thought it was time to feed the bimbo to the entity. As the two men moved the girl toward the edge of the shaft, her legs suddenly sagged, as though she'd lost control of them. She burst out in another fit of giggles. Gibson found that there was something particularly hideous about the sound, about her total unawareness of what was about to happen to her. Then, somehow, awareness cut through whatever they'd given her or whatever she'd taken. She let out one long awful scream before they pushed her over the edge and then a second, even longer one as she fell that reverberated with echoes. There were sobs and sucking noises from the bottom of the shaft and finally a single obscenely satisfied belch. Gibson closed his eyes and bit down on the knuckle of his index finger. When he looked again, Raus and his party, now only six in number, were going back up the steps. A few seconds later, the door closed and there was the sound of it being locked from the outside.

  Gibson let out a sigh from the heart. "Jesus Christ."

  Nephredana stepped out of the alcove. "Them's the breaks."

  "I don't know how you can take something like that so calmly."

  "It wasn't my first human sacrifice."

  "I guess not
."

  "I'm very, very old, Joe. Don't be attributing any phony innocence to me. I've truly seen it all."

  "This isn't easy."

  He had probably never said a truer word. He walked over to the edge of the well and looked down. He didn't have a clue what to think. In the bottom of the well there seemed to be a new smug quality to the green glow. Nephredana came and stood beside him. She also looked down into the shaft. "One day we're going to destroy that thing."

  "I sure as hell hope so. Did you hear what those bastards were talking about?"

  "They were talking about you."

  "They seem to have plans for me. The word they used was 'crucial.' You think they can get me?"

  Nephredana shrugged. "It depends on how crucial it is to you to stay away from them. You seem to be doing okay so far."

  "I've only been away from them for a few hours,"

  "For the fugitive, it's one hour at a time."

  Gibson knelt down and touched one of the steel rings in the stonework. "How many people do you think have died here?"

  "Probably hundreds. Maybe thousands over the years. Balg has been here for a very long time."

  Gibson shook his head. "Balg? What's next? Necrom?"

  Fury flashed across Nephredana's face, and she grabbed him angrily by the lapels of his tuxedo jacket and pulled his face close to hers. She was very strong.

  "Don't even say that name. Not here, not ever. You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about."

  Her fingers were in his hair. He could feel her long nails against his scalp. She hissed into his face. "Never say that name. You humans are so ignorant that you're dangerous."

  Then she kissed him. The kiss was electric. His whole body trembled, and it was some moments before he could break away. "Surely not here?"

  Gibson couldn't tell whether the force in her whisper was anger or passion. "Yes, right here. There are a lot of ways to fight the power."

  She was holding his face between her hands, her nails were digging into the skin of his cheeks, and her hands were icy. He was revolted by the idea of making love in this place, but he knew that he could never find the strength to resist. A slow, languid smile spread over Nephredana's face.