Necroscope®

by Brian Lumley

  In short, you desire to be … Wamphyri!

  The word and the way it was uttered in his mind were such that Dragosani could not suppress a shudder. Even he, Dragosani himself—necromancer, examiner of the dead—felt its alien awe, as if the word in itself conveyed something of the awful nature of the being or beings it named. “Wamphyri…” he repeated it, and then:

  “Here in Romania,” he quickly went on, “there have always been legends, and in the last hundred years they’ve spread abroad. Personally, I’ve known what you are for many years now, old devil. Here they call you vampir, and in the Western world they call you a vampire. There you’re a creature in tales to be told at night by the fireside, stories to frighten the children to bed and stir the morbid imagination. But now I want to know what you really are. I want to separate fact from fiction. I want to take the lies out of the legend.”

  He sensed a mental shrug. Then, I say it again, you would be Wamphyri. There is no other way to know it all.

  “But you have a history,” Dragosani insisted. “Five hundred years you’ve lain here—yes, I know that—but what of the five hundred before you died?”

  Died? But I did not die. They might have murdered me, yes, for it was in their power to do so. But they chose not to. The punishment they chose was greater far. They merely buried me here, undead! But that aside … you want to know my history?

  “Yes!”

  It’s a long one, and bloody. It will take time.

  “We have time, plenty of it,” said Dragosani—but he sensed a restlessness, frustration in the unseen presences. It was as if something warned him not to try his luck too far. It was not in the undead thing’s nature to be pressured.

  But finally: I can tell you something of my history, yes. I can tell you what I did, but not how it was done. Not in so many words. Knowing my origins, my roots, will not help you to be of the Wamphyri, nor even to understand them. I can no more explain how to be Wamphyri than a fish could explain how to be a fish—or a bird how to be a bird. If you tried to be a fish you would drown. Launch yourself from the face of a cliff, like a bird and you would fall and be crushed. And if the ways of simple creatures such as these are unknowable, how then the ways of the Wamphyri?

  “May I learn nothing of your ways, then?” Dragosani was growing angry. He shook his head. “Nothing of your powers? I don’t think I believe you. You showed me how to speak to the dead, so why can’t you show me the rest of it?”

  Ah! No, you are mistaken, Dragosani. I showed you how to be a necromancer, which is a human talent. It is in the main a forgotten art among men, to be sure, but nevertheless necromancy is an art old as the race itself. As for speaking to the dead: that is something else entirely. Very few men ever mastered that for a skill!

  “But I talk to you!”

  No, my son, I talk to you. Because you are one of mine. And remember, I am not dead. I am undead. Even I could not talk to the dead. Examine them, yes, but never talk to them. The difference lies in one’s approach, in their acceptance of one, and in their willingness to converse. As for necromancy: there the corpse is unwilling, the necromancer extracts the information like a torturer, like a dentist drawing good teeth!

  Suddenly Dragosani felt that the conversation was going in circles. “Stop!” he cried. “You are deliberately obscuring the issue!”

  I am answering your questions as best I might.

  “Very well. Then don’t tell me how to be Wamphyri, but tell me what a vampire is. Tell me your history. Tell me what you did in your life, if not how you did it. Tell me of your origins.…”

  After a moment:

  As you will. But first … first you tell me what you know—or think you know—of the Wamphyri. Tell me about these “myths, these “old wives’ tales” which you’ve heard, on which you appear to be something of an authority. Then, as you say, we shall separate the lies from the legend.

  Dragosani sighed, leaned his back against a slab, lit another cigarette. He still felt he was getting the runaround, but there seemed little he could do about it. It was dark now but his eyes were accustomed to the gloom; anyway, he knew every twisted root and broken slab. At his feet the piglet snorted fitfully, then lay still again. “We’ll take it step by step,” he growled.

  A mental shrug.

  “Very well, let’s start with this: A vampire is a thing of darkness, loyal subject of Satan.”

  Ha, ha, ha! Shaitan was first of all the Wamphyri—in our legends, you understand. Things of darkness: yes, in that night is our element. We are … different. But there is a saying: that at night all cats are grey! Thus, at night, our differences are not so great—or are not seen to be so great. And before you ask it, let me tell you this: that because of our proclivity for darkness, the sun is harmful to us.

  “Harmful? It would destroy you, turn you to dust!”

  What? That is a myth! No, nothing so terrible—but even weak sunlight will sicken us, just as strong sunlight sickens you.

  “You fear the cross, symbol of Christianity.”

  I hate the cross! To me it is the symbol of all lies, all treachery. But fear it? No …

  “Are you telling me that if a cross were held against you—a holy crucifix—it wouldn’t burn your flesh?”

  My flesh might burn with loathing—in the moment before I struck dead the one who held the cross!

  Dragosani took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t deceive me?”

  Your doubts tax my patience, Dragosani.

  Cursing under his breath for a moment, finally Dragosani continued: “You cast no reflection. Neither in a mirror, nor in water. Similarly, you have no shadow.”

  Ah! A simple misconception—but not without its sources. The reflection I cast is not always the same, and my shadow does not always conform to my shape.

  Dragosani frowned. (He remembered the leprous tentacle from that time almost twenty years ago.) “Do you mean that you are fluid, unsolid? That you can change your shape?”

  I did not say that.

  “Then explain what you did say.”

  Now it was the turn of the old one in the ground to sigh. Will you leave nothing of mystery, Dragosani? No, I’m sure you won’t.…

  But now Dragosani was doing some thinking for himself. “I believe this may answer two questions in one,” he said while the other pondered. “Your ability to change into a bat or a wolf, for example. That’s part of the legend, too. If it is legend. Are you a shape-changer?”

  He sensed the other’s amusement. No, but I might seem to be such a creature. In fact there is no such thing as a shape-changer, not that I ever encountered.…

  Then … it seemed that the old one had come to a decision. Very well, I will tell you: what do you know of the power of hypnotism?

  “Hypnotism?” Dragosani repeated, continuing to frown. But then his jaw fell open as he saw the truth, or what might be the truth, in a sudden flash of realization. “Hypnotism!” he gasped. “Mass hypnotism! That’s how you did it!”

  Of course. But while it fools the mind it cannot fool a mirror. And while I might appear to be a fluttering bat or loping wolf, still my shadow is that of a man. Ah! The mystique falls away, eh, Dragosani?

  Dragosani remembered the leprous tentacle again but said nothing. He had long ago decided that dead (or undead) things which talked in men’s minds might also be masters of deception. Anyway, he had other questions to ask:

  “You can’t cross running water. It drowns you.”

  Hmmm! I may have an answer for that one, too. In my life I was a mercenary Voevod. And aye, I would not cross running water! It was my strategy. When the invader came I waited and let him cross the water—and slaughtered him on my side. Perhaps this is where this legend arose, on the banks of the Dunarea, the Motrul and the Siretul. And I have seen those rivers run red, Dragosani.…

  While the other offered his explanation, Dragosani had been building up to the big one. Now, without pause, he tossed it in: “You drink the blood of the living! It is a
lust in you, which drives you on. Without blood you die. Your utterly evil nature demands that you feed on the lives of others. The blood is the life.”

  Ridiculous! As for evil: it is a state of mind. If you accept evil you must accept good. Perhaps I am out of touch with your world, Dragosani, but in mine there was very little of good! And as for drinking blood: do you take meat? And wine? Of course you do! You devour the flesh of beasts and the blood of the grape. And is that evil? Show me a creature which lives, which does not devour lesser lives. This legend springs from my cruelties, which I admit, and from all the blood I spilled in my lifetime. As to why I was so cruel: it seemed to me that if my enemies believed I was a monster, then they would be reluctant to come against me. And so I was a monster! If my legend has lasted so long and grown so fraught with terror, who may say I was wrong?

  “That doesn’t answer my question. I—”

  And I … am tired now. Do you know what it takes from me, this sort of inquisition? And do you think I am one of your corpses, Dragosani? A suitable case for necromantic examination?

  At that a thought came into Dragosani’s mind—but he suppressed it at once. “One last question,” he said darkly.

  Very well, if you must.

  “The legend has it that the vampire’s bite turns ordinary men into vampires. If you were to draw my blood, old one, would I become as you—undead?”

  A long pause, through which Dragosani sensed something of confusion, a mental scrabbling for an answer. And finally:

  There was a time in the world’s youth when the forests were alive with great bats, as they were with all sorts of creatures. Disease destroyed most of them—a specific disease, and horrible—but some learned to live with it. In my day a species existed which drew the blood of other animals, including men. Since the bats were carriers of the disease, they passed it on to those they bit, and the infected victims were seen to take on certain characteristics which—

  “Stop!” said Dragosani. “You mean the vampire bat, which still exists in Central and South America even today? Obviously you do. The disease is rabies. But … I don’t see the connection.”

  The thing in the ground chose to ignore his scepticism, said: America?

  “A new land,” Dragosani explained. “They hadn’t found it in your day. It’s vast and rich and … very, very powerful!”

  Ah? You say so? Well! And you must describe this entire new world of yours in more detail—but on some other occasion. As for now … I am tired, and—

  “Not so fast!” cried Dragosani, aware that the conversation had strayed. “Are you saying I wouldn’t become a vampire if you bit me? Are you trying to say that the legend is unfounded, except upon this supposed connection with vampire bats? That won’t wash, old devil! No, for the bat was named after you, not you after the bat!”

  Another pause—but not so long as to give the other too much time to think over what he had said—and Dragosani quickly continued: “You asked me if I desired to be of the Wamphyri. And how would you make me a vampire if not in this way? Could I be ‘invested’ with it, then, as you were once invested with the Order of the Dragon? Hah! No more lies, old devil. I want only the truth. And if you really are my ‘father,’ why do you hold the truth back? What do you fear?”

  Dragosani felt the disapproval of the unseen presences, sensed them drawing back from him. In his mind the other’s voice was indeed tired now—and accusing. You promised me a gift, a small tribute, and brought me only weariness and torment. I am a spark that grows dim, my son, an ember that expires. You have kept the flickering flame alive, and would you now snuff it out? Let me sleep now, if you would not … exhaust … me … utterly … Dragosaaaniiii.…

  Dragosani clenched his teeth, growled his frustration low in his throat, snatched up the piglet by its hind legs. He jumped to his feet, took out a switchblade and snapped it open. The blade glittered sharp as a razor. “Your gift!” he snapped.

  The piglet struggled, squealed once. Dragosani slit its throat, let the scarlet blood spray out, then drain onto the dark earth. A wind at once sprang up that sighed in the pines with a voice not unlike that of the thing in the ground: Ahhh!

  Dragosani tossed the piglet’s corpse down in tangled rootlets, stepped back from it, took out a handkerchief and cleaned his hands. The unseen presences crept forward.

  “Back!” Dragosani snapped, turning on his heel to leave. “Back, you ghosts of men. It’s for him, not you.”

  Descending through the pines in total darkness, Dragosani was sure-footed as a cat. In his way, he too was a creature of the night. But a live one. And thinking of life, death, undeath, he smiled an emotionless smile into the darkness as he considered again the one question he had not asked: How might one kill a vampire? Kill it dead.

  No, he had not asked the thing in the ground that question—not in a place such as this, during the hours of darkness. For who could gauge what the reaction might or might not be? It could be a very dangerous question indeed.

  And anyway, Dragosani believed he already knew the answer.

  * * *

  The next day was Thursday. Dragosani had spent a poor night with very little sleep, and he was up early. Looking out of his window, he saw Ilse Kinkovsi feeding chickens where they had wandered out of the farmyard and on to the grass verge of the country road. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his movement at the window and turned her face up to him.

  Dragosani had thrown the windows wide, was breathing the morning air deeply into his lungs. Leaning on the sill, leaning out into the light, his flesh was pale as snow. Ilse looked at his naked chest. When he breathed in deeply like that, the muscles under his arms where they V-ed down into his back seemed to swell out like air sacs. He was deceptive, this one. She suspected he would be very powerful. “Good morning!” she called up.

  For an answer he nodded, and staring at her knew now why he’d slept so badly. She was the reason.…

  “Is that good?” she asked, her teeth white where she deliberately licked them.

  “What?” he went on the defensive again—and at once silently cursed himself for an immature child. Yes, him, Dragosani!

  “The air on your skin like that. Does it feel good? But look at you, so pale! You could use some sunlight, too, Herr Dragosani.”

  “Yes, you could … could be right,” he stuttered, and withdrew from the window to get dressed. Angrily tugging his clothes on, he thought: women, females, sex! So … ugly? Is it? So un-natural! And so … necessary? Is this what I lack?

  Well, there was a way to find out. Tonight. It would have to be tonight, for tomorrow the English were coming. He made up his mind and went back to the window.

  Ilse had gone back to feeding her chickens. Hearing his cough, she looked up to see him buttoning his shirt, staring down at her. For a long moment their eyes met; then, stumblingly, he said:

  “Ilse, does it get chilly still? Er, in the night, I mean…?”

  She frowned, wondering what he was getting at. “Cold? Why, no, it’s summer.”

  “Then tonight,” he blurted, “I believe I’ll leave my window—and my curtains—open.”

  Her frown lifted. She tossed her head and laughed. “That’s very healthy,” she answered after a moment. “I’m sure you’ll feel better for it.”

  Embarrassed now, Dragosani once more withdrew, closed the window and finished dressing. For a moment or two he regretted what he had done—this rendezvous so simply arranged, which in fact seemed to have been arranged for him—but finally he shrugged the feeling off. It was done now. What would be would be. And anyway, it was time he lost his virginity.

  Lost his virginity, indeed! It made him sound like a young girl! And yet there was a touching naivety about that phrase, unlike the blunt delivery of his undead mentor. How had the old devil in the ground put it that time? “A mere pup who never breached a bitch…”

  Yes, that was it—and he’d been referring to Dragosani’s father. His true father. And so I got into his mi
nd … and I bequeathed the night to them!

  He got into his mind—to show him how to do it.…

  Dragosani started as a pebble clattered against his window. He had been sitting on his bed, lost in thought. Now he got up, opened the window again. It was Ilse.

  “Breakfast in your room, Herr Dragosani?” she called up, “or will you eat with us?” The emphasis she put on “in your room” was unmistakable, but Dragosani ignored it. No, for first he must speak to the old dragon.

  “I’ll come down,” he answered, and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at the disappointment which instantly registered in her face. Oh, yes, he would need assistance with this one, this time, this first time. She would know exactly what she was about, and he knew nothing. But … the old vampire knew everything. And Dragosani suspected that there were certain secrets which even that devious old one wouldn’t mind divulging. No, not at all.…

  * * *

  Dragosani’s sexual problem—rather, the mental block which had until now checked his psychological development in this area—had been implanted in puberty, at a time when other boys went on to steal their first kisses and explore their first soft bodies with hot, groping, inexperienced fingers. It had happened during his third year in Bucharest while he was boarding at the college there.

  He had been thirteen and looking forward to the summer break. Then his stepfather’s letter had arrived telling him not to come home. There was disease on the farm; the animals were being slaughtered; visitors were forbidden and even Boris would not be allowed onto the estate. The fever was virulent; people could easily spread it about on their feet, their shoes; the entire area for twenty miles around was under quarantine.

  A disaster, apparently—but it need not prove to be one for Boris. He had an “aunt” in Bucharest, his stepfather’s younger sister, and could stay at her house for the break. It was better than nothing; at least he would have somewhere to go and not be stuck in an outbuilding of the old college, cooking his own food on a tiny stove.

  His Aunt Hildegard was a young widow with two daughters only a year or so older than Boris himself, Anna and Katrina, and they lived in a large, rambling wooden house on the Budesti road. Oddly, they had never been much mentioned at home and Boris had only ever met them on their very infrequent visits to the Romanian countryside. He had always found his aunt very affectionate, perhaps too much so—and his cousins a little sickly and giggly in the way of young girls, except that there were also undercurrents of a sly sensuality beyond their years—but hardly darkly suspicious or especially odd. Yet he gained the impression from his stepfather’s attitude towards them that his aunt was something of a black sheep, or at least a lady with a terrible secret.