Necroscope V: Deadspawn n-5 Page 13

  Paxton again: ‘Look, I know I’m a relative newcomer, and you don’t much like me, and in the past you’ve all had reason to be grateful for Harry Keogh. But have these things blinded you to the facts? OK, so you don’t want to believe me — don’t even want to believe yourselves — but just think what we’re up against if we’re right.

  ‘He can talk to the dead, who apparently know a hell of a lot. He uses the Möbius Continuum to go anywhere he wants to, instantly, like we take a step into another room. He’s a telepath. And now he not only speaks to the dead but calls them back, too!’

  ‘He could do that before,’ said Ben Trask, not without a shudder.

  ‘But now he calls them back to what looks like life.’ Paxton was relentless. ‘From their ashes! Life? Or undeath?’

  At which David Chung gave a mighty start, reeled like someone had hit him, and choked something out in Cantonese. Most of the espers were on their feet by now, but Chung gropingly found a chair and flopped down again. Frowning, the Minister Responsible said, ‘Mister Chung?’

  Chung’s pallor gave his face a sickly lemon tint. He wiped his shining brow and licked his lips, and again mumbled something to himself in Chinese. Then he looked up and his eyes were wide. ‘You all know what I do,’ he said, his words a little sibilant and clipped in his fashion. ‘I’m a locator, sympathetic. I take a model or a piece of something and use it to find the real thing. It’s Branch policy that I take and keep safe from each one of you a small item of your personal belongings. This is for your own safety: if you go missing, I can find you.

  ‘Well, I also have several items belonging to Harry Keogh, stuff he’s left here from time to time…

  ‘I was out in the Mediterranean with the others. I knew Zek Föener had been worried about something, and so I too have been keeping tabs on Harry. I told myself it was for his own good. But I knew what I was doing and what I was looking for.

  ‘At first when I scried on him it was just him; there was nothing different; it felt right. I got a picture of him, you know? Not doing anything, just a picture of him as I knew him, up there at his home in Edinburgh or wherever he was. But recently the picture has been dim, misty, and last night and this morning there wasn’t much of Harry there at all; just a mist, a fog. I was going to submit a report on it tomorrow.’

  ‘In the old days,’ Trask said, ‘we used to call that mind-smog. It’s what you get when you try to scan a vampire.’

  ‘I know,’ Chung nodded. He was more nearly recovered now. ‘It was partly that which hit me, and partly something else. Paxton said that Harry could call dead people up from their ashes. That’s what hit me the most.’

  ‘What?’ the Minister was frowning again.

  Chung looked at him. ‘I also have things which used to belong to Trevor Jordan,’ he said. ‘And this morning, just by accident, I happened to touch one of them. It was like Trevor was right here, right next door or down the street. And I thought it was something out of my memory. It was there and then it was gone. But it just struck me that he very well could have been here, just down the street!’

  The Minister still hadn’t taken it in, but Trask soon took care of that. Pale as a ghost, he whispered: ‘My God! Jordan was cremated out in Rhodes, burned to ashes in case he’d been infected with vampirism. But Jesus, now that I think of it, I remember how it was Harry Keogh who insisted on it!’

  Part Two (Four Years Earlier)

  1 The Icelands

  The Great Wamphyri Lords Belath, Lesk the Glut, Menor Maimbite, Lascula Longtooth and Tor Tornbody were no more. All of these and many lesser Wamphyri lights, their lieutenants and warrior-creatures, all wiped out by The Dweller and his father in the battle for The Dweller’s garden. That battle was lost, the kilometre-high aeries of the Wamphyri (all except the Lady Karen’s) reduced to so much stone and bone and cartilage rubble by the massed explosions of methane-belching gas-beasts, and the Wamphyri masters of Starside themselves brought low in the aftermath of their humiliating defeat.

  Now Shaithis, once-leader of the vampire army, turned his hybrid flyer’s head into a wind whistling out of the bitter north, and rising on its waft set course for the Icelands. He was not the first of the Wamphyri to venture that way. Over the centuries others had gone before him, exiled or fled there, and after the battle at the garden certain survivors of his army had headed that way, too. Better the Icelands, whatever they held in store, than the awesome weapons of The Dweller and his father. Aye, those two, father and son: mere men. But men with talents; men come out of the helllands beyond the sphere-Gate; who used the power of the sun itself to blow away the protoplasmic, metamorphic flesh of the Wamphyri into superheated gas and stinking evaporation!

  Harry Keogh and his son, called The Dweller: they had destroyed Shaithis’s army, ruined his plans, reduced him almost to nothing. But almost nothing is still something, and in all creation there does not exist anything more tenacious than a vampire. Shaithis, if it were at all possible and given even the smallest opportunity, would build on the vestigial power which he still was to become something again. And if and when that day should come, then the helllanders would pay. Yes, and all who had stood alongside them in the battle for the garden.

  The Lady Karen had stood with them, treacherous Wamphyri bitch! Shaithis jerked hard on the leather reins, yanking the gold bit in his flyer’s mouth until it tore the flesh there. The creature — once a man, a Traveller, but hideously changed now through Shaithis’s mutative art — uttered a complaining grunt through pluming nostrils and flapped its manta wings more rapidly, lifting higher still in the frosty air as if to reach for the cold diamond stars.

  Behind Shaithis, suddenly the mountains were split by a golden bomb-burst of searing light; a sliver of sunlight struck like a spear at him from beyond the barrier mountains, from Sunside. He felt it glance against his robe of black bat fur and cringed, and knew that he’d flown too high. Sunup! The sun’s slow creep was bringing its molten yellow rim into view. Cold as he was, Shaithis could feel it burning on his back.

  Mind-linked to a flying beast made in large part from a man, now Shaithis instructed his weird mount: Glide! A waste of mental effort, however small, for the flyer too had felt the sun’s menacing rays. Its enormous manta wings tilted upwards at their tips and stilled their pulsing; its head went down as it slid into a shallow glide; Shaithis sighed his relief and returned to his black brooding.

  The Lady Karen…

  A ‘Mother’, some said, whose vampire would one day bring forth a hundred eggs out of her body! There would be aeries again on Starside, in some unforeseen future, and all of them inhabited by Karen’s black brood, and the bitch herself hive-queen of all the Wamphyri! Doubtless there would be a truce between Karen and The Dweller, peace between them, even bonds of flesh. How that could ever be Shaithis was at a loss even to think. But hadn’t he with his own eyes seen Harry Keogh and Karen together in her stack, her aerie on Starside, which alone stood where all the rest were tumbled into ruins?

  Karen…

  Without exception, each and every vampire Lord had lusted after her body and her blood. And if things had gone their way in the battle for The Dweller’s garden, Shaithis would have been first with her. Now there was a thought to savour!

  Karen.

  Shaithis remembered her as he had once seen her, at a meeting of all the Wamphyri Lords in Karen’s aerie:

  Her hair was burnished copper; seeming to burn, it bounced like fine spun gold on her shoulders, competing with the golden bangles she wore on her arms. Gold rings on a slender golden chain around her neck supported her clinging sheath of a gown, which left her jutting left breast and right buttock exposed, or very nearly, so that with no undergarments the effect had been explosive. If the Lords who saw her like that had worn war-gauntlets, and if the meeting’s agenda had been anything less than of the utmost importance, then certainly the lustier Lords might have fought over her. And who among the Wamphyri was not lusty?

  From one
pale, perfect shoulder had depended a smoky black cloak, skilfully woven from the fur of Desmodus, which shimmered with a weave of fine golden stitches; on her feet sandals of pale leather, similarly stitched in gold; and dangling from the lobes of her ears, golden discs fretted with her sigil, which was the head of a snarling wolf.

  She had been breathtaking! Shaithis had felt the thoughts of his fellow Lords turn hot as their blood, and he’d known they all wanted to be into her. Even the thoughts of the slyest, most devious of them (Shaithis himself) had been diverted — which of course had been the witch’s purpose! Aye, a clever one, Karen. He could still see her, burning on his mind’s eye.

  Her body had the sinuous motion of Traveller women when they danced, which yet seemed so unaffected as to be innocent. Her face, heart-shaped, with a lock of that fiery hair coiled on her brow, likewise could have been innocent — except her red eyes gave her away. Her mouth was full, curved in a perfect bow; the colour of her lips, like blood, was accentuated by her pale, slightly hollow cheeks. Only her nose marred looks otherwise entirely stunning: it was a fraction tilted, stubby, with nostrils just a little too round and dark. And perhaps her ears, half-hidden in her hair, showing whorls like the strange orchids of Sunside. Beautiful but… Wamphyri, aye!

  Shaithis shivered, even Shaithis. Not from the cold but from his lust, and from his loathing. It was a tremor which coursed through him like the vibrating burn of electricity. And it was the sure recognition of his ambition. To destroy The Dweller had been all of it, upon a time. But now there was more.

  ‘One day, Karen,’ Shaithis promised himself out loud, his voice a low rumble, ‘one day, if there is justice, I shall have you. Ah, and while I fill you to brimming on the one hand, on the other I’ll empty you to the last drop! I will feed a straw of gold directly into your heart, and for every milky driblet your sex drains from me, I shall suck a spurt of scarlet from you! Thus of our depletions, mine will be temporary while yours… yours, alas, will be permanent. So shall it be!’ It was his Wamphyri oath.

  And scowling into the bitter wind, Shaithis flew north…

  The sun’s slow rising over Sunside could not catch Shaithis of the Wamphyri; flying however slowly around the curve of the vampire world toward its roof, still his going was faster and farther than the sun could chase him. So that in a little while he reached and passed that margin beyond which the sun’s rays never fell, and after that he knew that he was in the Icelands.

  Shaithis had never been much of a one for legends and histories. Of the Icelands he knew only those details which were items of gossip or matters of common knowledge: that the sun never shone there was self-evident; but rumour also had it that if one crossed the polar cap and kept going, then that he’d find more mountains and fresh territories for the conquering. No one in living memory had tested the legend, however (at least, not of his own free will), for the great stacks of Starside had been the places of the Wamphyri, their homes and aeries since time immemorial. But… that was yesterday. And now it appeared that the myth would be tested in full.

  As for the creatures of the Icelands: in the margins of its oceans (some said) great hot-blooded fishes spouted, vast as the mightiest warrior and with shovel mouths that scooped the sea for smaller prey. They swam there from some eastern ocean, along a warm river that ran in the sea itself! It sounded like a lie to Shaithis.

  Aye, and there were bats, too, which also ate the smallest fishes. These were miniature albinos and dwelled in caverns of ice, and were attuned to Wamphyri minds as were their kith and kin in more hospitable parts. Another myth to be tested.

  Other than the whales and the snow-bats: Shaithis had heard of bears like the small brown bears of Sunside, but huge and pure white, which hid indistinguishable in the snow and ice to leap out on unwary wanderers. But again, he would see what he would see. None of these things held anything of terror for him. They were life and life is blood. And conversely, as in an old Wamphyri saying, the blood is the life…

  For the equivalent of two and a half days Earthtime Shaithis flew steadily north; until, at the end of one huge glide and when it was time for his flyer to climb again, he spied bears basking in starlight on a floe at the rim of an ice-crusted sea. Shaithis’s flyer was tired, its fats, liquids and metamorphic flesh depleted. Starside had been cold, but the Icelands were colder far. This place would be as good as any to stop and rest a while, for Shaithis was tired too. And hungry.

  Where a cliff of ice towered over the sea he brought his flyer down, commanding it to remain there while he strode out along the frozen shore. The elevation of the place would make it a good launching platform when it was time to get under way again. A quarter-mile away the bears sensed him coming; a pair of them towered to their hind feet on the tilting floe, sniffing the air suspiciously and grunting their annoyance. They were females, and cubs tumbled from underfoot as they commenced to roar their furious warnings.

  Shaithis smiled grimly and came on. Their roaring was a challenge. His Wamphyri nature reacted to it; his face elongated and needle teeth scythed through the cartilage of his jaws and gums like an eruption of bone daggers. His mouth filled with the salt taste of his own blood, and that too served to speed his monstrous metamorphosis.

  The vampire Lord was only an inch or two less than seven feet tall, but the she-bears where they rumbled and roared on the float of ice and threatened to tip it over were all of that and twelve inches more at least! Their paws were three times the size of Shaithis’s hands, and tipped with claws sharp enough to spear fish dead in the water at a thrust.

  And: Ah! he thought. Good strong flesh, and ferocious fighters born. What warriors I could build from such as you!

  Now he was only a hundred yards away, and that was too close for the nursing mothers. Plunging into bitter, slapping wavelets, they struck out for the shore. They’d see this creature off or kill him. If the first, good enough. And if the second: well, he’d make good red meat for the cubs.

  Shaithis, fifty yards away from them where they left the water and shook themselves on all fours like huge white shaggy dogs, took his war-gauntlet from his hip and thrust his right hand into it. Come on then, ladies, he urged with his telepathic mind, not knowing if they heard him and caring less. For I’ve come a long hungry way, and a cold hungry way yet to go.

  Still his ‘hand’ was only two-thirds the size of one of theirs, but deadlier far. He spread wide his fingers inside the gauntlet, and the grotesque palm was a great rasp of cutting edges, blades and scythes. And clenching his hand as nearly as possible to a fist, razor spines stood up inches from the knuckles, and four sharp-filed iron punches sprang out to point forward like ramrods.

  The bears were charging, the smaller one (but only inches smaller) leading the larger on. Shaithis had chosen the site of the battle: he shrugged off his cloak, stood tall and central on a flat cake of ice frozen in a field of sharp, jumbled ice-boulders. The bears were disadvantaged, came slipping and sliding over the rough terrain. They roared, and the vampire Lord roared back, which served to increase their fury.

  Before, Shaithis had appeared more or less human. Now he was anything but human. His skull had elongated to that of a wolf; the gape of his mouth was enormous, where white needle teeth meshed like those of a shark. His long and sloping nose had broadened and flattened to his face, growing convoluted and sensitive as the snout of a bat. Even if he were blinded, that snout and his whorl-like ears would track the movements of his opponents as surely as his scarlet eyes. His right hand inside its gauntlet had expanded to fill that fearsome weapon and give it yet more weight, while his left hand was now lizard-like and taloned, whose fingers were tipped with sharp chitin chisels. So that for all his manlike silhouette, in fact he had become a composite warrior-creature: Wamphyri!

  The leading she-bear came at a shambling run, rearing upright as she entered the arena of battle. Shaithis let her come and at the last moment crouched low and hurled himself forward into her massive legs. He clung there, reached
round behind, hamstrung her with one clawing rake of his gauntlet. Howling, she crashed down on him, and before he could escape the tangle tore open his back to the spine. The moment he felt the pain he killed it, willed it away; and kicking himself free of the crippled bear he looked for its larger companion. She was on him!

  Huge paws groped for him where he skidded on his damaged back, and crushing jaws fastened in the left forearm he held up before his face for protection. But as her great head worried at his arm and her claws tore his body, so Shaithis swung his gauntlet in a deadly arc. It smacked against her head, demolishing her left ear and slicing into the eye, so that she at once reared upright and away, dragging Shaithis to his feet. His left arm had been released but was crushed, temporarily useless. If she should fasten those great jaws of hers around his neck or shoulder, he’d be finished.

  Bloodied and roaring her pain and fury, she shook her red, torn head and sent pearls of blood flying in Shaithis’s eyes. He ignored them and, as she lowered her jaws towards his face, thrust his gauntlet direct into her yawning cave of a mouth. Teeth like the heads of claw-hammers sheared as the gauntlet crunched through them. Shaithis drove that terrible weapon in deeper yet, wrenched it to and fro, enlarging her throat, then tore downwards into her gullet.

  She staggered this way and that, her great arms beating uselessly. Shaithis opened his gauntlet in her mouth, wrenched it free, dislocated what was left of her bottom jaw. She’d not bite him now! And while still she flailed he swung his gauntlet again, this time with its iron punches extended. They slammed into her skull through the red debris of her ear and crushed the delicate bone inwards, penetrating to her brain.

  She was done; she puffed and snorted and swayed, pawing uselessly at empty air. Shaithis gathered all his remaining strength to drive his gauntlet one last time through the ruin of her flapping jaw and into the back of her throat, where he gripped, crushed and severed the spinal column. Virtually decapitated, she was dead on her feet — for a single moment. And in the next the ice shook as her great body thudded down upon it.