Necroscope®

by Brian Lumley

  Dragosani didn’t like the sound of that. He put down his drink and leaned forward. “What’s odd?” he asked. This might be very important to him.

  Vlady took up both of their glasses and poured more vodka. “First let’s get something straight, you and I,” he said. “Comrade, I’m not your rival. I have no ambitions in respect of E-Branch. None at all. I know Borowitz had me in mind for the job—along with yourself—but I’m just not interested. I think you should know that.”

  “You mean you’ll step aside for me?”

  “I’m not stepping aside for anyone,” the other shook his head. “I just don’t want the job, that’s all. I don’t envy any man that job. Yuri Andropov won’t rest until he’s crushed the lot of us—even if it takes the rest of his lifetime! Frankly, I wish to hell I was out of it altogether. Did you know I was a trained architect, Dragosani? Well, I am. Read the future? I’d far prefer to read the plans of great buildings any day.”

  “Why do you tell me this?” Dragosani was curious. “It has nothing to do with anything.”

  “Yes it has. It has something to do with living. And I want to live. You see, Dragosani, I know that you will have something to do with Borowitz’s death. With his ‘heart attack.’ And if you can tackle him and win, which you will, then what chance would I have? I’m not brave, Dragosani, and I’m not stupid. E-Branch is all yours.…”

  Again Dragosani leaned forward. His eyes were pricks of red light gleaming through the dark lenses of his spectacles. “But your job is to tell Borowitz this sort of thing, Igor,” he rasped. “Especially this sort of thing. Are you saying you haven’t told him? Or does he in fact already know that I’ll be … involved?”

  Vlady shook himself, sat up straighter. For a moment he’d felt almost hypnotized by Dragosani. The man’s gaze was like that of a snake. A wolf? Something not quite human, anyway. “I really don’t know why I’ve told you any of this,” he finally said. “I mean, for all I know the old warhorse might even have sent you here!”

  “But wouldn’t you know it if he had?” said Dragosani. “Isn’t that something your talent would have foreseen?”

  “I can’t see everything!” Vlady snapped.

  Dragosani nodded. “Hmm! Well, he didn’t send me. Now tell me truthfully: does he know he’s going to die tomorrow? And if so, does he know that I’ll be involved? Well, I’m waiting.…”

  Vlady bit his lip, shook his head. “He doesn’t know,” he mumbled.

  “Why haven’t you told him?”

  “Two reasons. First, it wouldn’t change anything even if he did know. Second, I hate the old bastard! I have a fiancée and want to be married. I’ve wanted it for ten years. But Borowitz says no. He needs me to keep my wits sharp. He doesn’t want my talent dulled. Too much sex might ruin me, he says! Damn the old bastard—he rations me with my own fiancée!”

  Dragosani sat back and laughed out loud. Vlady saw the gape of his mouth and the length of his teeth and once more felt that he talked with some strange animal rather than a man. “Oh, I can believe that!” Dragosani’s laughter finally rumbled into silence. “Yes, that’s just typical of him. Well, Igor,” he nodded knowingly. “I think you can now safely go ahead with your wedding arrangements. Yes, just as soon as you like.”

  “But you’ll want to keep me in the branch, eh?” Vlady’s tone remained sour.

  “Of course I will,” Dragosani nodded. “You’re much too valuable to be a simple architect, Igor Vlady—and far too talented! But the branch? That is merely a beginning. There’s more to life than that. After this is over I’m going on and up. And you can come with me.”

  Vlady’s response to that was a blank stare. Suddenly Dragosani was sure he was hiding something. “You were going to tell me what you’ve read in my future,” he reminded. “Now that we’ve dealt with Borowitz, I think that would be a good idea. I think you said there was something … odd?”

  “Odd, yes,” Vlady agreed. “But of course I could be wrong. Anyway, you’ll know all about it—tomorrow.” And he gave a nervous twitch at Dragosani’s startled expression.

  “What? What’s that about tomorrow?” the necromancer came slowly to his feet, uncoiling from his chair. “Have you been wasting my time and confusing me with trivialities when all the time you knew there was something in store for me tomorrow? When, tomorrow? And where?”

  “Tomorrow night—at the Château,” said Vlady. “Something big, but I don’t know what it will be.”

  Dragosani began to pace the floor, searched his own mind for clues. “KGB? Is it likely they’ll find Borowitz’s body that fast? I doubt it. Even if they did, why should they suspect the branch? Or me? After all, it will only have been a ‘heart attack.’ That could happen to anyone. Or is it someone inside the branch itself? Maybe you, Igor, having second thoughts about your loyalties?” (Vlady hastily shook his head in denial.) “Will it be sabotage?” Dragosani continued to pace. “And if so what form of sabotage?” He angrily shook his head. “No, no, I can’t see that! Damn it, come on, Igor you know more than you’re saying! What is it, exactly, that you’ve seen?”

  “You don’t seem to understand!” Vlady shouted. “Man, I’m not superhuman. I can’t be exact all the time!” It was true and Dragosani knew it; Vlady’s voice betrayed his own exasperation; he, too, wished he had an answer. “Sometimes, things are very vague—like that time when Andrei Ustinov got his. I knew there would be a ruckus that night and warned Borowitz about it, but I couldn’t for the life of me say who or what would be involved! It’s the same this time, too. There’ll be big trouble tomorrow and you’ll be right in the middle of it. It will come from outside and it will be … big trouble! Of that much I’m certain, but that’s all.”

  “Not quite all,” said Dragosani, ominously. “I still don’t know what you meant by ‘odd.’ Why do you avoid the issue? Will I be in any danger?”

  “Yes,” said Vlady, “a great deal of danger. And not just you but everyone at the Château.”

  “Damn it, man!” Dragosani slammed his fist down on the table. “You make it sound like we’ll all be dead men!”

  Vlady’s face slowly lost some of its dark colour. He half turned his face away but Dragosani leaned over him, clasped his cheeks in the fingers of one great hand, drew his averted face and the O-shape of his quivering mouth back towards him. He looked deep into the other’s frightened eyes. “Are you quite sure you’ve told me everything?” he asked, forming his words slowly and very carefully. “Can you not at least try to explain what you meant by your use of the word ‘odd’? Is there a chance, perhaps, that you’ve also foreseen my death for tomorrow?”

  Vlady jerked his face free and pushed back in his chair away from Dragosani. The white pressure marks of the other’s fingers faded on his cheeks, were replaced by a dark pink flush. Dragosani was capable of murder beyond a doubt. Vlady must at least try to satisfy his demands. “Listen,” he said, “and I’ll explain as best I can. After that … you must make what you will of it.

  “When I look at a man—when I try to see into his future—I normally detect a straight blue line extending forward. Like a line drawn down a sheet of paper from top to bottom. Call it his line of life, if you wish. From the length of this line I can work out the length of the man’s life. From kinks and deviations which occur in it, I can determine something of future occurrences and how they will affect him. Borowitz’s line ends tomorrow. At the end there is a kink which indicates a physical malfunction: his heart attack. As to how I know you will be involved: it is simply that at the end your lifeline crosses his—and goes on alone!”

  “But for how long?” Dragosani demanded to know. “What about tomorrow night, Igor? Is that where my line ends?”

  Vlady shivered. “Your line is entirely different,” he finally answered. “I hardly know how to read it at all. Some six months ago Borowitz demanded that I prepare weekly readings on you for his eyes only. I tried but … it was impossible. There were so many deviations in your line tha
t I couldn’t read it with any degree of accuracy at all! Kinks and wriggles I’d never come across before. Also, as the months passed, what had started out as one line began to divide, to split into two parallel lines. The new one wasn’t blue but red, which was something else I had never seen before. As for the old, original line: it too slowly turned red. You are like … like twins, Dragosani. I know no other way to put it. And tomorrow—”

  “Yes?”

  “Tomorrow night one of your lines terminates.…”

  Half of me will die! thought Dragosani. But which half? Out loud he asked, “The red or the blue?”

  “The red line terminates,” said Vlady.

  The vampire—dead! Dragosani’s spirits soared but he controlled the laughter he felt welling inside. “What of the other line?”

  Vlady shook his head, patently at a loss for any reasonable explanation. Finally he said, “That is the oddest thing of all. It’s something I simply cannot explain. The other line loses its red tinge and forms a loop, bends back on itself, rejoins the other where the division first occurred!”

  Dragosani sat down again and took up his drink. What Vlady had given him wasn’t satisfactory but it was better than nothing. “I’ve been hard on you, Igor,” he said, “and I’m sorry for that. I can see you’ve tried to do your best for me and I thank you. But you’ve said that this thing tomorrow will be big, which tells me that you’ve probably done readings for the others who’ll be at the Château. So now I want to know just how big it will be?”

  Vlady bit his lip. “You won’t like the answer, Comrade,” he warned at last.

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “It will be very nearly total! A force—a power—will visit itself upon the Château Bronnitsy, and it will bring devastation.”

  Keogh! It could only be Harry Keogh! No other threat existed.… Dragosani stood up, grabbed his coat, headed for the door. “I have to go now, Igor,” he said. “But again I thank you. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me tonight, believe me. And if you should see anything new, I’d be obliged if—”

  “Of course,” said Vlady, breathing a sigh of relief, following him to the door; and, as Dragosani went out into the night: “Comrade … what happened to Max Batu?” It was a dangerous question, but he must ask it.

  Dragosani paused just beyond the threshold, glanced back. “Max? Ah, you know about him, do you? Well, it was an accident.”

  “Oh,” said Vlady with a nod. “Of course.…”

  When he was alone again, Vlady finished off the vodka and then sat deep into the night, wrapped in his own thoughts. But as a clock tolled midnight somewhere out in the cold city he started up and shivered, and finally decided to break his own rule. Quickly he cast his mind into the future, followed his own life-line to its inevitable end. Which came in just three days’ time, and with a violent, wrenching terminal squiggle!

  Automatically, then, Vlady began to pack a few things and prepare to flee. And uppermost in his mind was the thought that with Borowitz gone Dragosani would be the head of E-Branch, or head of what survived. Whatever else Gregor Borowitz was, at least he was human! But Dragosani…? Vlady knew he could never serve under him. Oh, it could well be that Dragosani would die tomorrow night—but what if he didn’t? His line was so very confusing, so very alien. No, there was only one course for Vlady now. He must try—at least try—to avoid the unavoidable.

  And almost a thousand miles away, where a dark watchtower overlooked the wall in East Berlin, a Kalashnikov machinegun waited for Igor Vlady. He didn’t know it, but even now his and the weapon’s futures were bending towards each other. They would meet at exactly 10:32 P.M.—in just three days’ time.

  * * *

  Dragosani drove straight back to his flat. From there he phoned the Château and got hold of the Duty Officer. He passed on Harry Keogh’s name and description for immediate transmission to border crossing points and incoming airports within the USSR, along with the information that Keogh was a spy for the West who should be arrested on sight, or, if that should prove difficult, shot dead without delay. The KGB would get to know about it, of course, but Dragosani didn’t mind. If they took Keogh alive they wouldn’t know what to do with him, and one way or the other Dragosani would get his hands on him. And if they killed him … that would be the end of that.

  As for Vlady’s predictions: Dragosani had some faith in them but it was by no means total. Vlady insisted that the future could not be changed. Dragosani thought differently. One of them must be right but they must wait until tomorrow night to find out which one. In any case, the promised “trouble” at the Château Bronnitsy might well turn out to be nothing to do with Harry Keogh after all; and so, until then at least, things must continue according to plan.

  After passing on his information to the Château, Dragosani had another drink—a stiff one, which was not his normal habit—and at last fell into his bed. Exhausted, he slept right through until mid-morning.…

  At 11:40 A.M. he parked his old Volga in a copse off the main road half a mile from the closest dacha, turned up the collar of his overcoat and walked the rest of the way into Zhukovka precinct. Just before noon he turned off a track inches deep in snow and walked through a strip of woodland lying parallel to the river, until he came to Borowitz’s dacha. Smiling grimly, he went quickly along the paved path to the door and knocked gently on the rustic oak panels. While he waited, he sniffed at wood smoke where it hung in the bitter cold air. The fine hairs inside his nostrils crackled, but melting icicles where they hung from Borowitz’s roof told him that already the temperature was rising. Soon the snow would melt and Dragosani’s footprints would disappear; there would be nothing to connect him with this place.

  There came slow footsteps from within and the door cracked open. Pale, shaggy and red-eyed, Gregor Borowitz peered out, blinked in the grey light of day. “Dragosani?” He frowned darkly. “But I said I wasn’t to be disturbed. I—”

  “Comrade General,” Dragosani cut in, “if it wasn’t a matter of the utmost urgency.…”

  Borowitz stepped aside, opened the door wider. “Come in, come in,” he grumbled, but without his accustomed fire. He had been alone here for a week; he no longer seemed robust; his grief was very real and had left him old and tired. All of which suited Dragosani very well indeed.

  Now Borowitz led Dragosani through into the more familiar living-cum-dining room and offered him a seat close to a window. The rest of the dacha’s windows were shuttered but this one’s shutters stood open, letting in the light. With a silent shake of his head, Dragosani declined to sit, watched Borowitz flop heavily down onto a padded couch. “I prefer to stand,” the necromancer said. “This won’t take long.”

  “A flying visit?” Borowitz grunted, scarcely interested. “You might have waited, Dragosani. Tomorrow they take my Natasha away from me, and then I return to Moscow and the Château Bronnitsy. What is it that brings you here so urgently anyway? You told me that your trip to England was successful.”

  “So it was,” said Dragosani, “but something has come up since then.”

  “Well?”

  “Comrade General,” said Dragosani, “Gregor, I want you to ask no questions just yet but simply tell me something. Do you remember a conversation we once had, you and I, about the future of E-Branch? You said that one day you would decide who would take over from you when you … retired. Also, you said the decision would lie between myself and Igor Vlady.”

  Borowitz drew his brows together, stared at Dragosani disbelievingly. “So that’s why you’re here!” he growled. “A matter of the utmost urgency, eh? You think I’m ready to step down, do you? Or maybe you think it’s time I stepped down! Now that Natasha’s gone, maybe I’ll think of retiring, eh?” He sat up straighter, his eyes flashed something of the fire Dragosani was used to seeing in them. Except that the necromancer no longer stood in awe of this man.

  “I said you should ask no questions,” he reminded, a low, dark rumble in his voice. “I am
the one who seeks answers, Gregor. Now tell me: who did you decide would be your replacement? Indeed, have you yet decided? And if so, have you made a record of your decision?”

  Borowitz was astonished, outraged. “You dare…?” he scowled, his eyes bulging. “You dare…? You forget yourself, Dragosani. You forget who I am and where you are. And apparently you forget—or choose to ignore the fact—that I am recently bereaved! Well, damn you, Dragosani! But in answer to your questions: no, I have committed nothing to paper—there’s nothing to commit for I’ll be going on as the head of E-branch for a long time yet, I assure you. Moreover, even if I had chosen a successor, as of this moment you could erase from your mind any thoughts of yourself in that position!” He stood up, shaking with rage. “Now get your damned arse out of here! Get out before I—”

  Dragosani took off his dark, wide-rimmed spectacles.

  Borowitz looked at Dragosani’s face and was suddenly staggered by the massive metamorphosis that had taken place in him. Why, it hardly seemed like Dragosani at all standing there but someone else entirely. And those eyes—those incredible scarlet eyes!

  “I am retiring you, Gregor,” Dragosani rumbled. “But you don’t go empty-handed. Not after so many years of faithful service.” He crouched down into himself, his shoulders and back seeming to bunch up with a grotesque life of their own.

  “Retiring me?” Borowitz tried to back away from Dragosani but the couch was right behind him. “You, retiring me?”

  Dragosani nodded, opened his long jaws and smiled, displayed fangs like scythes. “We have a small retirement gift for you, Gregor.”

  “We?” Borowitz croaked.

  “Me and Max Batu,” said Dragosani. And in the next moment Borowitz looked into the face of hell itself.

  Then—it was as if a mule had kicked him in the chest. He flew backward, his arms thrown wide, crashed into the wall and bounced off. Small shelves and pictures were brought crashing down. Borowitz fell, half-sprawling on the couch. He clutched at his chest, fought to take control of his rubber limbs and climb to his feet, gulped air into his straining lungs. His heart felt crushed—and if he didn’t know how, at least he knew what Dragosani had done to him.