Necroscope II: Wamphyri! n-2

by Brian Lumley

  ‘You!’ He grabbed Krakovitch’s arm. ‘Plague, you said! But did you see it? Did you see that… that thing before it burned? It had eyes, mouths! It lashed, writhed.

  it…t… my God! My God!’

  Under the soot and sweat, Chevenu’s face was chalk. Slowly his glazed eyes cleared. He looked from Krakovitch to the others. The gaunt faces that looked back seemed carved of the same raw emotion: a horror, no less than Chevenu’s own. ‘Plague, you said,’ he dazedly repeated. ‘But that wasn’t any kind of plague I ever heard of.’

  Krakovitch shook himself loose. ‘Oh yes it was, Janni,’ he finally answered. ‘It was the very worst kind. Just consider yourself lucky you were able to destroy it. We’re in your debt. All of us. Everywhere…‘

  Darcy Clarke should have had the 8.00 P.M.—2.00 A.M. shift; instead he was bedded down at the hotel in Paignton something he’d eaten, apparently. Stomach cramps and violent diarrhoea.

  Peter Keen had taken the shift in Clarke’s place, driving out to Harkley House and relieving Trevor Jordan of the job of keeping Bodescu under observation.

  ‘Nothing’s happening up there,’ Jordan had whispered, leaning in through the open window of his car, handing Keen a powerful crossbow with a hardwood bolt. ‘There’s a light on downstairs, but that’s all. They’re all in there, or if not then they didn’t come out through the gate! The light did come on in Bodescu’s attic room for a few minutes, then went out again. That was probably him getting his head down. Also, I felt that there just might be someone probing for my thoughts but that lasted for only a moment. Since when it’s been quiet as the proverbial tomb.’

  Keen had grinned, however nervously. ‘Except we know that not every tomb is quiet, eh?’

  Jordan hadn’t found it funny. ‘Peter, that’s a really weird sense of humour you’ve got there.’ He nodded at the crossbow in Keen’s hand. ‘Do you know how to use that? Here, I’ll load it for you.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Keen nodded affably. ‘I’ll manage it all right. But if you want to do me a real favour, just make sure my relief’s on time at two in the morning!’

  Jordan got into his car and started it, trying not to rev the engine. ‘This makes twelve hours out of twenty-four for you, doesn’t it? Son, you’re a glutton for punishment. Keen by name, and all that. You should go far if you don’t kill yourself first. Have a nice night!’ And he’d pulled carefully away in his car, only turning on the lights when he was a hundred yards down the road.

  That had been only half an hour ago but already Keen was cursing himself for his big mouth. His old man had been a soldier. ‘Peter,’ he’d once told him, ‘never volunteer. If they need volunteers, that’s because nobody wants the job.’ And on a night like this it was easy to understand why.

  There was something of a ground mist and the air was laden with moisture. The atmosphere felt greasy, and heavy as a tangible weight on Keen’s shoulders. He turned up his collar, lifted infra-red binoculars to his eyes. For the tenth time in thirty minutes he scanned the house. Nothing. The house was warm, which showed clearly enough, but nothing moved in there. Or the movement was too slight to detect.

  He scanned what could be seen of the grounds. Again, nothing — or rather, something! Keen’s sweep had passed over a hazy blue blur of warmth, just a blob of body heat which his special nite-lites had picked up. It could be a fox, badger, dog — or a man? He tried to find it again, failed. So… had he seen something, or hadn’t he?

  Something buzzed and tingled in Keen’s head, like a sudden burst of electrical current, making him start.

  Slimy gibber-gobble spying babble-gabble bastard!

  Keen froze stiff as a board. What was that? What the hell was that?

  You’re going to die, die, die! Ha, ha, ha! Gibber-jabber, gobble-gabble… And then some more of the electrical tingling. And silence.

  Jesus Christ! But Keen knew without further inquiry what it was: his unruly talent. For a moment then, just for a few seconds, he’d picked up another mind. A mind full of hate!

  ‘Who?’ Keen said out loud, staring all about, ankledeep in swirling mist. ‘What…?‘ Suddenly the night was full of menace.

  He’d left the crossbow in his car, loaded and lying on the front seat. The red Capri was parked with-its nose in a field, about twenty-five yards away along the road. Keen was on the verge, his shoes, socks and feet already soaking from walking in the grass. He looked at Harkley House, standing sinister in its misty grounds, then started to back off towards the car. In the grounds of the old house, something loped towards the open gate. Keen saw it for a moment, then lost it in the shadows and the mist.

  A dog? A large dog? Darcy Clarke had had trouble with a dog, hadn’t he?

  Keen backed faster, stumbled and almost fell. An owl hooted somewhere in the night. Other than that there was only silence. And a soft, deliberate padding — and a panting? — from beyond the gate just across the road. Keen backed faster yet, all his senses alert, his nerves starting to jump. Something was coming, he could feel it. And not just a dog.

  He slammed backwards into the side of his car, drew breath in an audible, grateful gasp. He half turned, reached in through the open window, groped with his hand on the front seat. He found something, drew it into view. The lignum vitae bolt — broken in two halves — hanging together by a mere splinter of wood! Keen shook his head in dumb disbelief, reached into the car again. This time he found the crossbow, unloaded, its tough metal wings bent back and twisted out of shape.

  Something tall and black flowed out of the shadows right up to him. It wore a cape which, at the last moment, it threw back. Keen looked into,a face which wasn’t nearly human. He tried to scream but his throat felt like sandpaper.

  The thing in black glared at Keen and its lips drew back. Its teeth were hooked together, meshing like the teeth of a shark. Keen tried to run, leap, move, but couldn’t; his feet were rooted to the spot. The thing in black raised its arm in a swift movement and something gleamed a wet, silvery gleam in the night.

  A cleaver!

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Kyle and his companions got back to lonesti and the inn, they found Irma Dobresti pacing the floor of their suite, nervously massaging her long hands. Her relief when she saw them was obvious. Likewise her delight when they told her the operation had been a complete success. They weren’t eager, however, to detail much of what had happened in the foothills; looking at their drawn faces, she was wise enough not to pry. They might tell her later, in their own time.

  ‘So,’ she said, after they’d had a drink, ‘the job is done here. We are not needing to stay any longer in lonesti. It is ten-thirty — late, I know, but I am suggesting we go now. These red tape dolts will arrive soon. Is better if we are not here.’

  ‘Red tape?’ Quint looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know you used that term, er, over here!’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she answered, unsmiling. ‘Also “Commie”, and “Zurich Gnome”, and “Capitalist dog”!’

  ‘I agree with Irma,’ said Kyle. ‘If we wait we’ll only be obliged to brazen it out — or tell the truth. And the truth, while it is verifiable in the long term, isn’t immediately believable. No, I can see all kinds of problems coming up if we stay here.’

  ‘All true.’ She nodded, sighing her relief that the Englishman was of a like mind. ‘Later, if they are determined to talk about this, they can contact me in Bucharest. There I am on my own ground, with the backing of my superiors. I am not for blaming. This was a matter of national security, a liaison of a scientific, preventative nature between three great countries, Romania, Russia, and Great Britain. I am secure. But right now, here in lonesti, I do not feel secure.’

  ‘So let’s get to it,’ said Quint, with his usual efficiency.

  Irma showed her yellow teeth in one of her infrequent smiles. ‘No need for getting to it,’ she informed. ‘Nothing to get to. I took the liberty of packing your bags! Can we go now, please?’

  Without more ado, they pa
id the bill and left.

  Krakovitch opted to drive, giving Sergei Gulharov a break. As they sped back towards Bucharest on the night roads, Gulharov sat beside Irma in the back of the car and quietly filled her in as best he could on the story of what had happened in the hills, the monstrous thing they had burned there.

  When he was finished she said simply, ‘Your faces told me it must have been like that. I am glad I not seeing it.

  After his last painful visit, at about 10.00 P.M., Darcy Clarke had slept like a log in his hotel bedroom for nearly three hours solid. When he woke up he felt fighting fit. All very mysterious; he’d never known an attack of gastro-enteritis to come and go so quickly (not that he was sorry it had gone) and he had no idea what he could have eaten to cause it. Whatever it had been, the rest of the team had felt no ill effects. It was because he didn’t want to let that team down that Clarke dressed quickly and went to report himself fit for duty.

  In the control room (the living area of their main suite of rooms), he found Guy Roberts slumped in his swivel chair, head on his folded arms where he sprawled across his ‘desk’: a dining table, cluttered with notes, a log book and a telephone. He was fast asleep with an ashtray piled full of dog-ends right under his nose. A tobacco addict, he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep comfortably without it!

  Trevor Jordan snoozed in a deep armchair while Ken Layard and Simon Gower quietly played their own version of Chinese Patience at a small green-baize card table. Gower, a prognosticator or augur of some talent, played badly, making too many mistakes. ‘Can’t concentrate!’ he growlingly complained. ‘I have this feeling of bad stuff coming lots of it!’

  ‘Stop making excuses!’ said Layard. ‘Hell, we know bad stuff is coming! And we know where from. We don’t know when, that’s all.’

  ‘No,’ Gower frowned, tossed in his hand, ‘I mean not of our making. When we go against Harkley and Bodescu, that will be different. This thing I’m feeling is — ‘ he shrugged uneasily, ‘something else.’

  ‘So maybe we should wake up the Fat Man there and tell him?’ Layard suggested.

  Gower shook his head. ‘I’ve been telling him for the last three days. It isn’t specific it never is — but it’s there. You could be right: I’m probably feeling the ding-dong coming up at Harkley House. If so, then believe me it’s going to be a good one! Anyway, let old Roberts kip. He’s tired and when he’s awake the place stinks of bloody weed! I’ve seen him with three going at once! God, you need a respirator!’

  Clarke stepped round Roberts’s snoring form to-check the roster. Roberts had only mapped it out until the end of the afternoon shift. Keen was on now, to be relieved by Layard, a locator or finder, who in turn would watch Harkley till 8.00 A.M. Then it would be Gower’s turn until 2.00 P.M., followed by Trevor Jordan. The roster went no farther than that. Clarke wondered if that was significant…

  Maybe that was what Gower was feeling: a ding-dong, as he had it, but a little closer than he thought.

  Layard cocked his head on one side, looked at Clarke where he studied the roster. ‘What’s up, old son? Still got the runs? You can stop worrying about shift work at Harkley. Guy has pulled you off it.’

  Gower looked up and managed a grin. ‘He doesn’t want you polluting the bushes out there!’

  ‘Ha-ha!’ said Clarke, his face blank. ‘Actually, I’m fine now. And I’m starving! Ken, you can go and jump in your bed if you like. I’ll take the next shift. That’ll adjust the roster back to normal.’

  ‘What a hero!’ Layard gave a soft whistle. ‘Great! Six hours in bed will suit me just fine.’ He stood up, stretched. ‘Did you say you were hungry? There are sandwiches under the plate on the table there. A bit curly by now, but still edible.’

  Clarke started to munch on a sandwich, glancing at his watch. It was 1.15 P.M. ‘I’ll have a quick shower and get on my way. When Roberts wakes up, tell him I’m on, right?’

  Gower stood up, went to Clarke and stared hard at him. ‘Darcy, is there something on your mind?’

  ‘No,’ Clarke shook his head, then changed his mind. ‘Yes… I don’t know! I just want to get out to Harkley, that’s all. Do my bit.’

  Twenty-five minutes later he was on his way.

  Shortly before 2.00 A.M. Clarke parked his car on the hard shoulder of the road maybe quarter — of a mile from Harkley House and walked the rest of the way. The mist had thinned out and the night was starting to look fine. Stars lit his way, and the hedgerows had a nimbus of foxfire to sharpen their silhouettes.

  Oddly enough, and for all his terrifying confrontation with Bodescu’s dog, Clarke felt no fear. He put it down to the fact that he carried a loaded gun, and that back there in the boot of his car was a small but quite deadly metal crossbow. After he had seen Peter Keen off duty, he’d bring up his car and park it in Keen’s spot.

  On his way he met no one, but he heard a dog yapping across the fields, and another answering bark for bark, apparently from miles away. A handful of hazy lights shone softly on the hills, and just as he came in sight of Harkley’s gates a distant church clock dutifully gonged out the hour.

  Two o’clock and all’s well, thought Clarke except he saw that it wasn’t. There was no sign of Keen’s unmistakeable red Capri, for one thing. And for another there was no sign of Keen.

  Clarke scratched his head, scuffed the grass where Keen’s car should be parked. The wet grass gave up a broken branch, and… no, it wasn’t a branch. Clarke stooped, picked up the snapped crossbow bolt in fingers that were suddenly tingling. Something was very, very wrong here!

  He looked up, staring at Harkley House standing there like a squat sentient creature in the night. Its eyes were closed now, but what was hiding behind the lowered lids of its dark windows?

  All of Clarke’s senses were operating at maximum efficiency: his ears picked up the rustle of a mouse, his eyes glared to penetrate the darkness, he could taste, almost feel the evil in the night air, and something stank. Literally. The stink of a slaughterhouse.

  Clarke took out a pencil-slim torch and flashed it on the grass which was red and wet and sticky! The cuffs of his trousers were stained a dark crimson with blood. Someone (God, let it not be Peter Keen!) had spilled pints of the stuff right here. Clarke’s legs trembled and he felt faint, but he forced himself to follow a track, a bloody swath, to a spot behind the hedgerow, hidden from the road. And there it was much worse. Did one man have that much blood!

  Clarke wanted to be sick, but that would incapacitate him and right now he dare not be incapacitated. But the grass… it was strewn with clots of blood, shreds of skin and gobbets of… of meat! Human flesh! And under the narrow beam of his torch there was something else, something which might just be God, a kidney!

  Clarke ran — or rather floated, fought, swam, drifted, as in a dream or nightmare back to his car, drove like a madman back to Paignton, hurled himself into INTESP’s suite of rooms. He was in shock, remembered nothing of the drive, nothing at all except what he’d seen, which had seared itself onto his mind. He fell into a chair and lolled there, gasping, trembling: his mouth, face, all of his limbs, even his mind, trembling.

  Guy Roberts had come half-awake when Clarke rushed in. He saw him, the state of his trousers, the dead white slackness of his face, and was fully alert in an instant. He dragged Clarke to his feet and slapped him twice, ringing blows that brought the colour back to Clarke’s cheeks — and blood to his previously blank eyes. Clarke drew himself up and glared; he growled and showed his gritted teeth, went for Roberts like a madman.

  Trevor Jordan and Simon Gower dragged him off Roberts, held him tight and at last be broke down. Sobbing like a child, finally he told the whole story. The only thing he didn’t tell was the one which must be perfectly obvious: why it had affected him so very badly.

  ‘Obvious, yes,’ said Roberts to the others, cradling Clarke’s head and rocking him like a child. ‘You know what Darcy’s talent is, don’t you? That’s right: he has this thing that looks
after him. What? He could walk through a minefield and come out unscathed! So you see, Darcy’s blaming himself for what happened. He had the shits tonight and couldn’t go on duty. But it wasn’t anything he ate that queered his guts it was his damned talent! Or else it would be Darcy himself minced out there and not Peter Keen.

  Tuesday, 6.00 A.M.: Alex Kyle was shaken rudely awake by Carl Quint. Krakovitch was with Quint, both of them hollow-eyed through travel and lack of sleep. They had stayed overnight at the Dunarea, where they’d checked in just before 1.00 A.M. They had had maybe four hours’ sleep; Krakovitch had been roused by night staff to answer a call from England on behalf of his English guests; Quint, knowing by means of his talent that something was in the air, had been awake anyway.

  ‘I’ve had the call transferred to my room,’ said Krakovitch to Kyle, who was still gathering his senses. ‘It is someone called Roberts. He is wishing to speak to you. Most important.’

  Kyle shook himself awake, glanced at Quint.

  ‘Something’s up,’ Quint said. ‘I’ve suspected it for a couple of hours. I tossed and turned, sleep all broken up but too tired to respond properly.’

  All three in pyjamas, they went quickly to Krakovitch’s room. On the way the Russian inquired, ‘How do they know where you are, your people? It is them, yes? I

  mean, we had not planned to be here tonight.’

  Quint raised an eyebrow in his fashion. ‘We’re in the same business as you, Felix, remember?’

  Krakovitch was impressed. ‘A finder? Very accurate!’

  Quint didn’t bother to put him right. Ken Layard was good, all right, but not that good. The better he knew a person or thing the easier he could find him or it. He’d have located Kyle in Bucharest; they’d have systematically checked out the major hotels. Since the Dunarea was one of the biggest, it must have come up high on the list.