by Brian Lumley
And here it came “again”—which of course it must, because this was time in reprise—that single sentient vampire thread, that immaterial Möbius reflection of a deadly three-dimensional source. Little more than a red streak speeding into the future, still the vampire thread seemed monstrously intent as it veered toward Kate’s pale pink thread where it held steady beyond the future-time door’s threshold; even as Kate herself held steady, immobile and at ease within her flat.
But before the crimson thread could angle closer yet, which Harry knew it would because it had—and vice versa!—it was time for him to act!
The Necroscope still couldn’t fathom how this plague-bearing monster hoped to gain access to young Kate’s accommodation. Knowing that her flatlet was located at a fair height above the alley’s worn stone steps, he hadn’t thought to examine the exterior wall for windows. Thus to his mind there was only one way in: up these stairs to this landing…and then through him!
However improbable—unless the diseased creature had somehow come by a key to the downstairs door—still this last had seemed a possibility that Harry must consider and plan for; and one which he believed he could handle. All he must do was avoid getting bitten or in some other way infected as he set his plan in motion—
—Which was why he was now trying his best not to throw up as he munched on a whole clove of garlic!
The seconds ticked by, while Harry’s nerves stretched almost to breaking; because if the plague-bearing vampire was on its way, then where the hell was it? A pointless question, for of course the Necroscope knew where it was: the only place where it could be—out there in the alley even now!
Certainly, for that was how close this creature had come to its victim in Möbius time. Except…
…No! Harry corrected himself. This sick, crazed thing had managed to get—and must right now be getting—a great deal closer than that! Why, it had actually appeared on the point of merging with young Kate, which is to say touching her! But how?
At which moment there came a crashing sound from beyond the door, a small distressed cry in a feminine voice (Kate’s voice, which Harry immediately recognized,) accompanied by the slightest tremor underfoot, as of some dead weight striking the floor within the flatlet! But God! Surely not a “dead” weight?
Then, with his spine tingling—as finally he accepted the reality of what he had considered an almost impossible invasion—the Necroscope frantically conjured a Möbius door…
No longer handsome but ugly, pockmarked, and very sick, the ex-mafioso thug—the vampire Mike Milazzo—stood over Kate where she had crashed to the floor in disarray. Her once white dressing gown, spotted scarlet from her cut scalp, had flown open to reveal her beautiful, naked, almost boyish body. But still Kate lived: Her breast rose and fell, and she moaned however feebly.
It had taken the vampire but a moment to cross the floor to the open bedroom door and satisfy himself that there was no one else in the flatlet; satisfied in that respect, yes, yet despondent to discover that the one he had hoped to find here was absent. B.J. Mirlu’s lover—who, until tonight, was to have been Mike’s sole means of surviving the true death—had ignored his challenge and was elsewhere. And despite that the threat of The Chemist’s synthetic diseases had been removed (as Mike had been led to believe, however mistakenly) still he must find a way to deal with this elusive, cowardly Englishman or suffer the Francezci brothers’ wrath when they or their thralls caught up with him.
That last, however, was a problem for the future; while for the moment…Mike stared at the pulse in young Kate’s throat, shook purplish froth from his scabby, flaking lips, and lowered himself to one unsteady knee.
Unsteady, yes…he was weak…he had needs…the antidotes were working too slowly, or he was expecting too much of them too soon. And here on the floor this gorgeous young creature full of what he needed most if he would live out his undead life to its fullest extent!
Such were the monster’s mazy, drifting, but mainly puzzled thoughts. Yes puzzled: that while his vampire tenacity and will seemed unallayed—except perhaps by some antibiotic fever that was making his head spin—where was Mike’s physical strength? He had been close to the final moment, he knew that, but surely by now he had drawn at least partially back from the gulf? Maybe The Chemist’s remedies needed boosting? If so, Mike knew how.
His twiggy fingers, parchment dry, reached to fondle Kate’s small breasts; and his septic, drooling mouth yawned open as he lowered his head…
At which there occurred a sudden compression of atmosphere, a stirring of the air and a fluttering of various loose fabrics throughout the room—and a breathless voice from behind Mike, saying: “You bastard thing—now I’ve got you!”
A hand in Mike’s collar, yanking him off balance! And as he recovered, staggered upright and whirled about, the foulness of someone’s garlic breath in his face; which anyone but a vampire would surely find more acceptable than Mike’s stench! And there in a half-crouch before him, the very man he was here to infect with The Chemist’s poisons!
How had he come here?…Where from?…What had he meant by that ridiculous, yet apparently threatening utterance: “Now I’ve got you!”?
For on the contrary Mike had got him, and would now feed on him! But only a very little—only a sip or two—in the short term to infect, but in the long term to destroy, putting an end to far more than any mere Englishman!
These were the vampire’s thoughts in those moments first of astonishment, then of glad recognition and deliverance! But—
Were The Chemist’s synthetic poisons still active in Mike, despite that he’d taken the antidotes? Surely they must be; for the remedies, only recently introduced into his system, had not yet had time to fight off his afflictions. And now, before that battle commenced—before Mike was completely cured, no longer a carrier—he must introduce the nightmarish trio of diseases into Harry Keogh’s system.
All of this passing through Mike’s mind in barely a second, the first brief moment of recognition. Now for the transfusion. Just a drop or two of Keogh’s life-blood, a mere sip; something sweet stolen away, and something hideous given in return. Then, with the Englishman thrust aside, the main course: drained from the neck of young Kate! That was how it would be…
Or perhaps not.
Ignoring as best possible Harry’s garlic reek, Mike reached for his lapels to immobilise him, draw him closer and bite him. But something was amiss: Where was Mike’s agility, the preternatural velocity of his vampiric reactions? Nowhere in evidence! His eyes, despite being sick and rheumy, observed all too easily and clearly the motion of claw hands that no longer seemed blurred by their own speed. Indeed those hands now appeared to be moving almost in slow-motion, or at best languidly!
But while this was how the vampire experienced the degradation of his mobility, not so the Necroscope.
To him Mike’s speed remained incredible: an almost subliminal blur that might easily—and probably would—have caught him off guard and might even have finished him off; but only if Mike had been physically capable. However, where the creature’s will and vampire tenacity remained intact, his physical components—the fibers of his organs and limbs—were no longer responsive, by no means reliable. For with The Chemist’s accelerants working on Mike’s systems like acid, they were rapidly breaking down, quite literally disintegrating.
Harry jerked himself back from Mike’s damp-gleaming visage; and several of the vampire’s flaky twig fingers—full of leprosy and as spongy as puffballs—went with him! Still grasping Harry’s jacket as they broke off from Mike’s quaking hands, the crumbling fingers at once lost their grip, and along with their blackened fingernails slid from the Necroscope’s lapels like so many giant, desiccated caterpillars!
Mike watched, in horrified disbelief as other chunks of his hands and wrists—like a catabolic avalanche of withered flesh—parted from him of their own volition, apparently in sympathy with the initial severance. And:
“What�
�?” Mike croaked through a spray of purplish-yellow froth; from which—leery of coming into contact with even the smallest drop of the vampire’s morbid liquids—the Necroscope galvanized his suddenly rubbery and uncooperative legs, forcing them to back him off more yet. At the same time, however, reaching Harry like a breath of fresh air through Mike’s suffocating stench, came the realization that the monster was done for, his termination assured. With the hideous reduction that was taking place in him, it could scarcely be otherwise.
Moreover, as Harry strove to recover from the momentary or partial paralysis of shock that he had suffered at the sight of this, the initial stage of Mike’s imminent collapse, he also realized how fortunate he was that his plan had not come entirely unstuck. Though he had known, of course, that the monster was a plague-bearer, he could never have guessed at the extent or virulence of his sicknesses; but in any case to have ventured here unarmed, unprotected except for a clove of garlic—
—The Necroscope now clearly saw that this had been an absolute folly for which his only excuse, and a puny one at that, was that he had hoped against hope that the threat against Kate was an empty one, sheer bluster on the part of a failed assailant. Well, it had not been a vain threat after all—not by any means—but it had been Mike’s last throw; and he too now realized that he was finished.
“Bastards!” Mike croaked, choking as he coughed up lumps of purple, perforated lung, seething flesh and gluey foam. “Lousy, rotten—arghhh, ach, arghhh!—lying bastards!” He made as if to spring at the Necroscope, only to discover there was nothing of energy in his legs; they were bending sideways at the knees, concertinaing, threatening to fold on him like rotten sticks!
And yet, even with his head wobbling frantically on a suddenly scrawny neck, and as his nose collapsed into the sinus cavity behind it, still Mike managed one stumbling step before his right leg gave way and sent him lurching off balance, pivoting, and finally falling. At which the Necroscope at once seized the opportunity, grabbed the collar of Mike’s coat, and dragged him bodily through a Möbius door. Which was as well, perfect timing, because at that exact moment Kate had started moaning again and was trying to sit up. To Harry’s relief she was still confused, concussed; she had seen nothing of him or his departure…
Floating in the darkness of the Continuum—in darkness absolute—Harry held a jerking, spastically twitching scarecrow figure at arm’s length; a figure too traumatized for speech who nevertheless continued to think great gonging thoughts into the mathematical Möbius Continuum, where even thoughts have weight:
WHAT?…WHERE?…HOW? What the fuck is happening to me?
And the Necroscope answered him, thinking: Whoever you are, it must surely be obvious…I mean, surely you can tell—you can sense, feel—smell (Harry shuddered!)—that you’re dying?
What? You mean they’ve actually poisoned and killed me? Not because I failed them, but because they were going to do it all along? Yeah, I guess I know that now. And what the hell—maybe I always knew they’d whack me in the end! Yeah, damn right I’ve known it! But what the hell are you? And as for this place: Is this where you go when you do your thing and vanish like you do? Is this where you disappear to? Maybe you’re dead, too, and this is where we all go in the end…
As Mike deteriorated he had commenced to ramble, and now he continued: Hey! How come you’re helping the brothers? It’s like you’ve helped them to kill me! The brothers, The Chemist—even that fucking midget! But why you, now that I’m done for anyway?
And again:
Hey! I guess I’m confused, right? But you have no idea just how much this hurts! It hurts like…like hell! So if this is death, how come I’m still hurting?
No, this place isn’t death, said Harry, hauling Mike behind him as he headed for coordinates which he knew of old. It’s not death, not yet, and I’m not helping anyone. Or at least not the ones you have in mind, who I don’t even know. On the other hand, maybe I’m helping everyone: Every ordinary human being that is, and maybe you should be grateful!
What was left of Mike’s brain was finally succumbing, collapsing inside his skull. But still he said: Grateful? You think that I…that I should be grateful…to you…for fucking whacking me!?
And knowing that the vampire would sense it, the Necroscope nodded and answered: Well, yes! And maybe you should even thank me. Because I can feel something of your pain and how bad it is for you. In fact in this place I’m trying to avoid feeling your pain! But my way, the way it will be with me, it will stop hurting, be over and done with, much faster. Which is why you might want to thank me…If not now, probably later.
Your way? said Mike, completely delirious in his agony now, his mind evaporating. I…should…what?…thank you?…Because your way…of killing me…is…faster?
Very much so, Harry answered, exiting from the Möbius Continuum onto a golden Australian beach in brilliant sunlight, and taking the disintegrating vampire with him.
The beach, which appeared to extend almost endlessly north and south, or for many miles at the very least, and was backed inland by dry, windblown scrub, was as deserted as the Necroscope had supposed and hoped it would be. Nevertheless, as Harry backed away from what he had brought with him, he cast searching glances in all directions in order to satisfy himself that he and the other were quite alone.
And then for the sake of his health he felt obliged to back off again—to step even further back—well away from the hideousness that was taking place before him…
XIII
Harry had not lied when he said it would be much faster. Indeed Mike Milazzo’s decomposition could scarcely have been faster or any more complete. For as the seething had ceased even the vampire’s bones had been turning to chalk, crumbling into the blackened, ugly patch of once-golden sand that was all that remained of him. Now, too, since a swirl of dust-devils off the land had taken most of Mike’s gut-wrenching, doubtless poisonous stench out to sea, the Necroscope was able to move in closer, kneeling and using a length of sandpapered driftwood like the blade of a bulldozer to heap a thick layer of pristine sand over the still simmering, lumpy, but mainly liquescent patch.
Harry performed this last act after picturing in his mind’s eye some sadly mistaken opportunist seabird settling to what it supposed was a free meal…a sickening thought, even to a man such as Harry Keogh.
But then, still not satisfied—desiring to be utterly rid of the remains—the Necroscope left the beach via the Continuum, and returned in a little while using the same mathematical medium, with a five-gallon container half full of petrol.
Then Harry built a small funeral pyre of driftwood over the tainted area, doused the desiccated branches and tossed a flaming brand, and stood by watching until every last trace of this man whose name he hadn’t known—at least not yet—was reduced to smoke and blackened sand…
And then there were questions Harry would like some answers to: questions only he could ever ask, because he must ask them of a dead creature. And here in the mundane world of men, as opposed to the intangible, eternal, entirely metaphysical Möbius Continuum, the Necroscope could ask his questions out loud while relying on his deadspeak for the answers.
“Can you hear me? Or has your pain shut everything out?”
The answer when it came was so very faint that Harry almost missed it: No, the pain is gone now. And it’s so very quiet, so very…very peaceful! I can’t…can’t remember, when things were ever so quiet and…and peaceful! I feel…I feel that I’m drifting…like smoke over a blue sea. Drifting and drifting. And you: you’re disturbing the peace, the quiet. Oh yes, I can hear you. But I wish…I wish you would go away and leave me…leave me…alone…to drift so thin and so light…to mix and…and mingle? (As if the word in itself was weird, unusual beyond words; which in this creature’s case it probably was)…And…mingle…with…the…air!
And for a fact the vampire, or his greasy black smoke, had indeed gone drifting out to sea, and was even now mingling with the air! Had the m
onster actually experienced this, Harry wondered? Oh, the Necroscope had seen death a great many times, but could never be sure how it was viewed by the subject, the sufferer. Some accepted death almost at once…others never; some felt raging anger at their lot…others knew only peace, like this one. Perhaps it was possible that a Higher Power had taken pity on this being—this once human being—who had suffered agonies both mental and physical which, for however fleeting or lingering a period, must have seemed to last an eternity.
“Oh, I’ll leave you alone in a little while,” said the Necroscope. “But I helped you, and now maybe you can help me?”
Help you?…But how…how could I…help…you?…And why…why would I…why would I want to?
“Because I might be able to do something about these people who poisoned and murdered you, the ones who put those synthetic diseases into you.”
People?…Poisoned?…Drifting and drifting…So very…very peaceful…But murdered?…Whacked?…Was I…?
Fainter with every passing moment, the creature’s deadspeak was losing coherence, breaking up and expiring, as if intent on following his atoms into a merciful oblivion. But:
“Listen to me!” Harry cried aloud, alone on the beach with only a ghost, or the echo of one, to heed him. “I shall do what I can…perhaps I can even avenge you!” (And to himself: Even if you don’t deserve it.) “I may be able to seek them out—” he gave it one last shot “—for surely your murderers are at least as sick as you are—or were!? At least in their minds…”
Yes, my murderers! said the other, suddenly awake, a shade sharper, darker; but only for a moment, then fading away again. But who…who were…who were they?…I think…think I used to…used to know…But now…now I can’t…caan’t…caaan’t speeeak!…Can’t any looonger thiiiink!—