Necroscope®

by Brian Lumley

  The thought didn’t improve Brenda’s state of mind. Instead it drove her to do something she would never normally consider. She carefully went through Harry’s file of manuscripts, checking every story whether it was complete or barely started. She didn’t really know what she was looking for, but by the time she was through she knew what she had failed to find.

  Nowhere in all his work had she come across a story about a Necroscope.

  So, either Harry hadn’t started the story yet—

  Or he was a liar—

  Or—

  Or what was bothering her was something entirely different.

  * * *

  As Brenda Cowell stood in a shaft of morning sunlight in Harry’s flat, pondering the strangeness of the man she was involved with, one hundred and twenty miles away Harry Keogh himself stood in the same sunlight on the banks of a drowsy river in Scotland and looked across it at the big house where it stood at the head of a large, overgrown garden. There had been a time when the place was well maintained, but that was a long time ago and Harry couldn’t remember it. He had been too young, an infant, and there were many things he couldn’t remember. But he remembered his mother. Somewhere, deep in his subconscious mind, he had never forgotten about her—and she had never forgotten about him. And she still worried about him.

  Harry stared at the house for a long time, then at the river. Its waters moved slowly, swirling, cool and inviting. Or inviting to most. A grassy bank with a few reeds; deep green water, and just here, a pebbly bottom; and somewhere down there, lodged in the slime-slick pebbles where it had lain for most of Harry’s years—

  A ring. A man’s ring. A cat’s-eye stone set in thick gold. Harry staggered at the river’s edge. He deliberately flopped down to save himself from falling. The sun shone on him but he was cold. The blue sky reeled, became the grey, liquid flurry of slushy water.

  He was under the water, trying to fight his way up through a hole in the ice.

  Then the face seen through the ice, its trembling jelly lips turning up at their corners in a grimace—or a smile! The hands coming down into the water, holding him under—and on one of them that ring. The cat’s-eye ring, on the second finger of the right hand! And Harry tearing at those hands, clawing at them, ripping the strong flesh in his frenzy. The gold ring coming loose, spiralling down past him into the murk and the icy deeps. Blood from the torn hands turning the swirling water red—red against the black of Harry’s dying.

  No, not his dying, hers! His mother’s!

  Waterlogged, he/she sank; and the current dragging them along under the ice, turning and tumbling them; and who’ll look after Harry now? Poor little Harry.…

  The nightmare receded, its rush and gurgle diminishing in his mind, leaving him gasping for air where he clawed at the grassy bank. Then he curled on his side and was violently ill. This was it; it was here. This was where it had happened. This was where she had died. Where she had been murdered. Right here!

  But—

  Where was she now?

  Harry allowed his feet to lead him, following the course of the river downstream. Where the channel narrowed a little, he crossed a small wooden bridge and continued on down the bank. Garden hedges came down close to the river’s edge here, so that he walked a narrow, often overgrown path between fences on the one hand and reeds and water on the other. And in a little while he came to a place where the bank had been worn away, forming an overhanging bight not ten feet across. Above the still water in the pool, the path ended where the fence leaned dangerously riverward, but Harry knew he need look no further. This was where she lay.

  Anyone watching him from the bank opposite would have seen the beginning of a strange thing then. Harry sat down with his feet dangling over the shallow, muddy pool, put his chin in his hands, stared deep into the water. And minutes later, if anyone had been closer, he would have been witness to something stranger still: tears from this young man’s staring, unblinking eyes which dripped from the tip of his nose in a steady stream to add their substance to the river’s.

  And for the first time in his adult life Harry Keogh met his mother, talked to her “face to face,” and was able to verify the terrible things his dreams and her restless messages had caused him to more than suspect for so many years. And while they talked he cried—tears of sadness, and some of gladness at first; then of remorse and frustration, that he’d had to wait so long for this day; then of white anger as things began to make more sense to him. Finally he told her what he intended to do.

  Upon which the wondering observer, had there been one, would have seen the strangest thing of all. For when Mary Keogh knew her son’s plans she became even more afraid for him and voiced her fears, and she made Harry promise that he would do nothing rash. He couldn’t deny her pleading, answered with a nod of his head. She didn’t believe him, cried out after him as he stood up and moved away. And for a moment—the merest second—it seemed the bottom of the pool shuddered, shaking the water and sending ripples coursing outward from its centre. Then the pool was still again.

  Harry didn’t see this for already he was making for the bridge, returning to the spot where it had happened all those years ago. The place where his gentle mother had been murdered.

  He found a place where the reeds grew tall, checked that he was completely alone, stripped down to his shorts and stepped to the river’s edge. A moment later he was in the water, diving deep, then making for the middle where the current ran swiftest. Even there the river’s pull was barely noticeable, and after twenty minutes of diving and delving amongst the pebbles of the bottom he found what he was looking for. It lay within a few inches of the spot where he’d first thought it might be, tarnished and a little slimy, but unmistakably a ring. The gold gleamed through on the instant he rubbed it, and the cat’s-eye stone held its cold, unwinking stare as of old. Harry had never actually seen the ring before that moment when his groping fingers found it—not consciously, anyway—but he knew it at once. It was that familiar. Nor did it seem odd to him that he’d known where to look. Stranger far if the ring had not been there.

  On the bank of the river he finished cleaning it, slid it onto the index finger of his left hand which it fitted a little loosely but was not so slack that he might lose it, and turned it thoughtfully between his fingers, getting the feel of it. It felt cold even under the hot sun, cold as the day its owner had lost it.

  Then Harry dressed and headed for Bonnyrigg. From there he’d catch a bus into Edinburgh and take the first train home to Hartlepool. His work here was done—for now.

  Now that he had found his mother he would have no trouble reaching her again, no matter how far he wandered, and he would be able to calm her fears and give her a little of the peace she’d sought for so long. She would no longer need to worry about little Harry.

  Before leaving the spot by the river, however, he paused to look again at the big house where it stood well back from the opposite bank; and he stared at its old gables and wild gardens for long, long moments. His stepfather still lived and worked there, he knew. Yes, and it would not be too long before Harry paid him a visit.

  But before that there was much he would have to do. Viktor Shukshin was a dangerous man, a murderer, and Harry must be careful how he approached him. He intended that his stepfather should pay the price for his mother’s death—that he must be punished in full—but the punishment would have to fit the crime. And no use at all to simply accuse the man, for what proof was there after all these years? No, Harry must set a trap, and bait it, and Shukshin must find it irresistible. But no hurry, none at all, for Harry had time on his side. Time would allow him to become expert in many things, and indeed he had much to learn. For what good to be a Necroscope if he could make no use of it? As to how he would use his talent after he had avenged his mother’s death: that remained to be seen. It would be as it would be.

  But right now his instructors were waiting for him and they were the best in the world. Yes, and they knew far more
now than ever they had known when they were alive.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Summer of 1975

  Three years since Dragosani’s last trip home, and only a year short of that time when the old thing in the earth had promised to deliver up his secrets to Dragosani, the secrets of the Wamphyri. In return for which, Dragosani would give him back his life—or rather, he would return him to renewed undeath to walk the earth again.

  Three years, and the necromancer had gone from strength to strength until his position as Gregor Borowitz’s right-hand man now seemed virtually unassailable. When the old man went, Dragosani would be the one to replace him. After that, with the entire Soviet ESP organization at his command, and with all the knowledge of the Wamphyri in his hands and mind—the possibilities were vast.

  What had once seemed an impossible dream might still come to pass, when old Wallachia would once more become a mighty nation—the mightiest nation of all. Why not, with Dragosani to lead the way? A mortal man can achieve very little in his short span of years, but an immortal man might achieve anything. And with that thought in mind, a question Dragosani had often asked himself cropped up yet again: if it was true that longevity meant power, and immortality ultimate power, why had the Wamphyri themselves failed? Why weren’t vampires the leaders and rulers of this world?

  Dragosani had long since worked out something of an answer; right or wrong he could not yet say:

  To man the concept of a vampire is abhorrent—the very concept itself! If men believed—if they were given indisputable proof of vampiric infestation—then they would seek the creatures out and destroy them. This had been the way of it since time began, since a time when men really did believe, and it had limited the vampire in his scope. He dare not reveal himself, must not be seen to be different, to be alien. He must control as best he might his passions, his lusts, his natural craving for the sheer power he knows his evil arts could bring him. For to have power, whether political or financial or of any other sort, is to be scrutinized—which is the one thing above all others that a vampire dreads! For under prolonged scrutiny he must be discovered and destroyed.

  But if a mere man could control a vampire’s arts—a living man, as opposed to an undead Thing—he would suffer no such restrictions. Having nothing to hide but his dark knowledge itself … why, he could achieve almost anything!

  That was why Dragosani had journeyed yet again to Romania; conscious of the fact that his duties had kept him away for far too long, he wished to speak once more with the old devil and offer him small favours, and learn whatever there was to be learned before next summer, when the time appointed would be at hand.

  The time appointed, yes—when all the vampire’s secrets would lie naked before him, open and revealing as an eviscerated corpse!

  Three years had flown by since last he was here, and they had been busy years. Busy for Dragosani because over that entire period Gregor Borowitz had driven all of his ESPers, including the necromancer, to the limits of their capabilities. Of course he had: to ensure that in the four years Leonid Brezhnev had allowed him, in which he must turn a profit, his branch would become so firmly entrenched as to be indispensable. And now the Premier had seen that it was indeed utterly indispensable. What’s more, it was the most secret of all his secret services and by far the most independent—which was the way Gregor Borowitz wanted it.

  Through Borowitz’s advance warning, Brezhnev had been fully prepared for the fall from grace of his one-time political pal Richard Nixon in the USA. And where Watergate might have hindered or even ruined many another Russian premier, Brezhnev had actually managed to reap some benefits from it—but only by virtue of Borowitz’s (or more properly Igor Vlady’s) predictions. “A pity,” Brezhnev had told Borowitz at the time, “that Nixon didn’t have you working for him, eh, Gregor?”

  Similarly, and also as predicted, the Premier now found himself advantageously placed in his dealings with the presidential “stand-in,” at best a humbler; and before Nixon’s fall, as early as 1972, knowing in advance that there were American hard-liners still to come, Brezhnev had taken Borowitz’s advice and signed satellite agreements with the USA. Moreover, and especially since America was so far advanced in space technology, he had also been quick to put his signature to the ultimate “detente” coup of his career: a joint Skylab space venture, which even now was coming to fruition.

  Indeed, the Soviet premier had taken the initiative on these and many other ESP-Branch suggestions or prognoses—including the expulsion of many dissidents and the “repatriation” of Jews—and every step he had taken so far had been completely successful in bolstering his already awesome position as Leader. And much if not all of the credit due directly to Borowitz and his branch, so that Brezhnev had been pleased to honour his and Borowitz’s agreement of 1971.

  Thus, as Brezhnev and his regime prospered, so prospered Gregor Borowitz; likewise Boris Dragosani, whose loyalty to the branch seemed unquestionable. And in fact it was unquestionable—for the moment.…

  While Gregor Borowitz had secured the permanence of his branch and climbed in Leonid Brezhnev’s esteem, however, his relationship with Yuri Andropov had deteriorated at a directly proportionate rate; there was no overt hostility, but behind the scenes Andropov was as jealous and scheming as ever. Dragosani knew that Borowitz continued to watch Andropov closely. What the necromancer did not know was that Borowitz also watched him! Oh, Dragosani was not under any sort of surveillance, but there was that in his attitude which had been worrying his boss for quite some time. Dragosani had always been arrogant, even insubordinate, and Borowitz had accepted that and even enjoyed it—but this was something else. Borowitz suspected it was ambition; which was fine, as long as the necromancer didn’t become too ambitious.

  Dragosani too had noticed the change in himself. Despite the fact that one of his oldest inhibitions, his greatest “hangup,” was now extinct, he had grown if anything colder still towards members of the opposite sex. When he took a woman it was invariably brutally, with little or nothing of love in it but purely as a release for his own pent-up emotional and physical needs. And as for ambition: at times he had difficulty controlling his frustration and could hardly wait for the day when Borowitz would be out of his way. The old man was past it, a dodderer, his usefulness was on the wane. This was not in fact the case, but such was Dragosani’s own energy—the rapid acceleration and growth of his drive and character—that it seemed that way to him. And that was another reason why he had returned this time to Romania: so that he might obtain the counselling of the Thing in the ground. For like it or not, Dragosani had begun to accept the vampire as a sort of father-figure. Who else could he talk to in absolute confidence, of his ambitions and his frustrations? Who else if not the old dragon? No one. In a way the vampire was like an oracle … but in another way he was not. Unlike an oracle, Dragosani could never be sure of the validity of any of his statements. Which meant that while he had felt himself drawn back here, to Romania, still he must be careful of his dealings with the Thing in the ground.

  These were some of the thoughts which passed through his mind as he drove up through the old country from Bucharest towards Pitesti; and as his Volga passed a signpost which stated that the town was sixteen kilometres ahead, he remembered how three years ago he had been on his way to Pitesti when Borowitz had recalled him to Moscow. Strangely, he had not given thought to the library in Pitesti from that day to this, but now he felt himself drawn again to visit the place. He still knew so very little about vampirism and the undead, and what knowledge he did have was dubious in that it had come from the vampire himself. But if ever a library were the seat of local lore and legend, then surely the reference library in Pitesti was that one.

  Dragosani remembered the place from his years at the college in Bucharest. The college had often used to borrow old documents and records concerning Wallachian and ancient Romanian matters from Pitesti, for a great amount of historical material had been taken there fo
r safety from Ploiesti and Bucharest during World War II. In the case of Ploiesti this had been a wise move, for the city had suffered some of the worst bombing of the war. In any case, much of the material had not found its way back to the original museums and libraries but remained in Pitesti even now. Certainly it had been there as recently as eighteen or nineteen years ago.

  So … the old Thing in the ground could wait a little longer on Dragosani’s return. He would go first to the library in Pitesti, have lunch later in the town, and only then carry on into the heart of his homeland.…

  By 11:00 A.M. Dragosani was there, had introduced himself to the librarian on duty, asked to be allowed to see any documents pertaining to boyar families, lands, battles, monuments, ruins and burial grounds, or any records at all for the regions comprising Wallachia and Moldavia—and especially local areas—circa the mid-fifteenth-century. The librarian seemed agreeable enough and only too pleased to assist (despite the fact that he appeared to find Dragosani’s request a little amusing, or sufficiently so to cause him to smile) but after he had taken his visitor to the room which housed those old records … then Dragosani had been able to appreciate the funny side of it for himself.

  In a room of barnlike dimensions he found shelves containing sufficient books and documents and records to fill several large army trucks, all of it relating to his inquiry! “But … isn’t it catalogued?” he asked.

  “Of course, sir,” the young librarian told him, smiling again; and he produced an armful of catalogues whose reading alone—if Dragosani had been willing to contemplate such a task—would have taken several days in itself; and that without taking down one of the listed items from its shelf.

  “But it would take a year or more to sift through this lot!” he finally complained.

  “It has already taken twenty,” the other told him, “and that was simply for the purpose of cataloguing—or mainly for that purpose. But that is not the only difficulty. For even if you could afford so much time, still you would not be allowed it. At last the authorities are splitting it up; much is returning to Bucharest, a large amount is scheduled for Budapest, even Moscow has made application. It will be moved, most of it, some time in the next three months.”