Necroscope® Page 14

  He tried to avert his eyes but there was nowhere else to look. And, damn it, she flounced! A narrow black “V” separated the swivelling white globes of her buttocks.

  At the second landing she paused, deliberately turned to wait for him at the head of the stairs. Dragosani stopped dead in his tracks, held his breath. Looking down at him—and looking as cool as ever—she leaned her weight on one foot more than the other, rubbed at the inside of her thigh with her knee, flashed her green eyes at him. “I’m sure you’ll like it … here,” she said, and slowly shifted her weight to the other foot.

  Dragosani looked away. “Yes, yes—I’m sure I … I—”

  Ilse took note of the fine film of sweat on his brow. She turned her face away and sniffed. Perhaps she had been right about him in the first place. A pity.…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Without any more delay, Ilse Kinkovsi now took Dragosani straight to the garret, showed him the bathroom (which, surprisingly, was quite modern) and made as if to leave. The rooms were very pretty: whitewash and old oak beams, with varnished wooden corner cupboards and shelves, and Dragosani was beginning to feel much better about things. As the heat went out of the girl, so he warmed a little towards her—or more properly towards the as yet unseen Kinkovsi family in its entirety. It would be extremely gauche of him to eat here, alone in his room, after the Kinkovsis, father and daughter both, had shown him such hospitality.

  “Ilse,” he called after her on impulse. “Er—Miss Kinkovsi—I’ve changed my mind. I would like to eat at the farm, yes. Actually, I lived on a farm when I was a boy. It won’t be strange to me—and I’ll try not to be too strange to the family. So … when do we eat?”

  Descending the stairs she looked back over her shoulder. “As soon as you can wash and come down. We’re waiting for you.” There was no smile on her face now.

  “Ah!—then I’ll be two minutes. Thank you.”

  As her footsteps on the stairs faded into silence, he quickly took off his shirt, snapped open one of his cases and found shaving gear, towel, clean, pressed trousers and new socks. Ten minutes later he hurried downstairs, out of the guesthouse, and was met by Kinkovsi at the farmhouse door.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he said. “I hurried as fast as I could.”

  “No matter,” the other took his hand. “Welcome to my house, Please enter. We’ll eat at once.”

  Inside, it was just a little claustrophobic. The rooms were large but low-ceilinged and the decor was dark and very “old” Romanian. In the dining room, at a huge square deal table which could have seated a dozen easily, Dragosani found himself with a side of his own, facing a window. The light was such that the face of Ilse, who, after she had helped her mother serve, sat opposite, was set in a vague semi-silhouette. To Dragosani’s right sat Hzak Kinkovsi, with his wife when her duties were done, and to his left two sons of maybe twelve and sixteen years respectively. A small family by farming community standards.

  The meal was simple, abundant, deserving of an accolade. Dragosani said as much and Ilse smiled, while her mother Maura beamed delightedly across the table at him, saying: “I thought you would be hungry. Such a long journey! All the way from Moscow. How long did it take you?”

  “Oh, well, I did stop to eat,” he answered, smiling. And then, remembering, he frowned. “I ate twice, and both meals were unsatisfactory and very expensive! I even slept for an hour or two, in the car, just this side of Kiev. And of course I came via Galatz, Bucharest and Pitesti, chiefly to avoid the mountain passes.”

  “A long way, yes,” Hzak Kinkovsi nodded. “Sixteen hundred kilometres.”

  “As the crow flies,” said Dragosani. “But I’m not a crow! More than two thousand kilometres, according to my car’s instruments.”

  “And all this way just to study a little local history,” the farmer shook his head.

  They had finished their meal now. The old boy (not really old, more weathered than withered) sat back with a clay-pipeful of fragrant tobacco; Dragosani lit a Rothmans, one of a pack of two hundred Borowitz had purchased for him back in Moscow at a “special” store for the party elite; the two boys left to tend to evening chores, and the women went off to wash dishes.

  Kinkovsi’s remark about “local history” had taken Dragosani a little by surprise, until he remembered that was his assumed reason for being here. Drawing on his cigarette, he wondered how much he dare say. On the other hand, he was also supposed to be a mortician; perhaps it would not seem too strange if his inclinations ran altogether morbid.

  “Local history in a way, yes—but I might just as easily have gone into Hungary, or cut short my journey in Moldavia, or gone on across the Alps to Oradea. Or Yugoslavia for that matter, or as far east as Mongolia. They all hold a common interest for me, but more so here for this is my birthplace.”

  “And what is this interest, then? Is it the mountains? Or perhaps the battles, eh? My God—this country has known some fighting!” Kinkovsi was not merely polite but genuinely interested. He poured more farm-brewed wine (made from local grapes and quite excellent) into Dragosani’s glass and topped up his own.

  “The mountains are part of it, I suppose,” the younger man answered. “And in this part of the world, the battles, certainly. But the legend in its entirety is far older than any history we can hope to remember. It’s possibly as old as the hills themselves. A very mysterious thing—and very horrible!”

  He leaned across the table, stared fixedly into Kinkovsi’s watery eyes.

  “Well, go on, don’t keep me in suspense! What is this mysterious passion, this ancient quest of yours?”

  The wine was very heady and had robbed Dragosani of most of his natural caution. Outside, the sun had gone down and dusk lay everywhere like a mantle of blue smoke. From the kitchen came the clinking of dishes and soft, muted voices. In another room, an old clock ticked throatily. It was the perfect setting. And these country folk being so superstitious and all … Dragosani couldn’t resist it. “The legend of which I speak,” he said, slowly and distinctly, “is that of the vampir!”

  For a moment Kinkovsi said nothing, looked stunned. And then he rocked back in his chair, roared with laughter and slapped his thigh. “Hah!—the vampir—I should have known it! Every year there are more of you, and all looking for Dracula!”

  Dragosani sat astounded. He was not sure what reaction he’d expected, but certainly it was not this. “More of us?” he said. “Every year? I’m not sure I understand.…”

  “Why, now that the restrictions have been relaxed,” Kinkovsi explained. “Now that your precious ‘iron curtain’ has been opened up a little! They come from America, from England and France, even one or two from Germany. Curious tourists, mainly—but at other times learned men and scholars. And all of them hunting this same lie of a ‘legend.’ What? Why, I’ve pulled a dozen legs here in this very room, by pretending to be afraid of this … this ‘Dracula.’ But what fools! Surely everyone knows—even ‘ignorant peasants’ like myself—that the creature is only a character in a story by a clever Englishman, written at the turn of the century? Yes, and not more than a month ago there was a film of the same title at the picture house in town. Oh, you can’t fool me, Dragosani. Why, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that you’re here as a guide for my English party. They’re due in on Friday. And yes, they too are searching for the big bad vampir!”

  “Scholars, you say?” Dragosani fought hard to hide his confusion. “Learned men?”

  Kinkovsi stood up, switched on the dim electric light where it hung in a battered lampshade from the centre of the ceiling. He sucked at his pipe and got it going again. “Scholars, yes—professors from Köln, Bucharest, Paris. For the last three years. All armed with their notebooks, photocopies of mouldy old maps and documents, their cameras and sketchbooks and—oh, all sorts of paraphernalia!”

  Dragosani had recovered himself. “And their chequebooks, too, eh?” he feigned a knowing smile.

  Again Kinkovsi ro
ared. “Oh, yes, of course! Their money, too. Why, I’ve heard that up in the mountain passes there are little village shops which actually sell tiny glass bottles of earth from this Dracula’s castle! My god! Can you believe it? It’ll be Frankenstein next! I’ve seen him on film, too, and he’s really frightening!”

  Now the younger man began to feel angry. Irrationally, he felt himself to be the butt of Kinkovsi’s joke. So the snag-toothed simpleton didn’t believe in vampires; they made him roar with laughter; they were like the Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster: tourist attractions born out of myths and old wives’ tales …

  … And right there and then Dragosani made himself a promise that—

  “What’s all this talk about monsters?” Maura Kinkovsi came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. “You be careful, Hzak! Mind how you speak of the devil. And you, Herr Dragosani. There are still things in the lonely places that people don’t understand.”

  “What lonely places, woman?” her husband chuckled. “Here’s a man come down from Moscow in little more than a day—a journey which once would have taken a week and more—and you talk about lonely places? There’s no room for lonely places any more!”

  Oh, but there is, Dragosani thought. It’s a terribly lonely place in your grave. I’ve felt it in them: a loneliness they don’t even know is there—until they waken to my touch!

  “You know what I mean!” Kinkovsi’s wife snapped. “It’s rumoured that in the mountains there are still villages where they yet put stakes through the hearts of people taken too young or dead from no obvious cause—to make sure they don’t come back. And no one thinks ill of it.” (This last to Dragosani.) “It’s just custom, so to speak, like doffing your hat to a funeral procession.”

  Now Ilse also appeared. “What? And are you a vampire-hunter, too, Herr Dragosani? But what a dark, morbid lot they are! Surely you can’t be one of them?”

  “No, no, of course not,” Dragosani’s feigned smile was fixed now, frozen on his face. “I was just having a laugh with your father, that’s all. But my joke seems to have backfired.” He stood up.

  “Eh?” said Kinkovsi, obviously disappointed. “Early night, is it? I suppose you’re still tired. Pity, I was looking forward to talking to you. Never mind, I’ve jobs a-plenty to get on with. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Oh, we’ll find time for talking, I’m sure,” said Dragosani as he followed his host to the door.

  “Ilse,” said Kinkovsi, “take a torch and see the Herr to the guesthouse, will you? The dusk is worse than darkest midnight when you’re not sure of your step.”

  The girl did as she was told and guided Dragosani across the farmyard, out of the gate and into the guesthouse. There she switched on the lights for the stairs. Before saying goodnight, she told him:

  “Herr Dragosani, there is a button beside your bed. If you require anything in the night just press it. Unfortunately, it will probably wake up my parents, too. A better way would be to open your curtains halfway—which I would see from my own bedroom window.…”

  “What?” said Dragosani, pretending to be slow on the uptake. “In the middle of the night?”

  But as to her meaning, Ilse Kinkovsi left little doubt of that. “I don’t sleep very well,” she said. “My room is on the ground floor. I like to open my window and smell the night air. Sometimes I even go out that way and walk in the silver moonlight—usually about 1:00 A.M.”

  Dragosani nodded his head but made no answer. She was standing very close to him. Before she could further clarify the situation he turned away from her and hurried up the stairs. He could feel her mocking eyes on him until he turned the corner onto the first landing.

  * * *

  In his room Dragosani quickly closed the curtains at the window, unpacked his cases, ran himself a bathful of water. Heated by a gas jet, the water steamed invitingly. Adding salts, Dragosani stripped himself naked.

  In the bath he lay and soaked, luxuriating in the heat and languid swirl of the water when he moved his arms. In what seemed a very short while he found himself nodding, his chin on his chest, the water growing cold. Stirring himself, he finished bathing and prepared for bed.

  It was only 10:00 P.M. when he slipped between the sheets, but within a minute or two he was fast asleep.

  Just before midnight he woke up, saw a vertical white band of moonlight, deep and inches wide, like a luminous shaft, streaming into the room where the curtains missed coming together. Remembering what Ilse Kinkovsi had said, he got up, took a safety pin and firmly pinned the curtains shut. He half-wished it could be different, more than half, but … it couldn’t.

  It wasn’t that he hated women or was frightened of them, he didn’t and wasn’t. It was more that he couldn’t understand them, and with so many other things to do—so much else to learn and try to understand—he simply had no time to waste on dubious or untried pleasures. Or so he told himself. And anyway, his needs were different to those of other men, his emotions less volatile. Except when he needed them to be. But what he’d lost in common sensuality, he more than made up for in uncommon sensitivity. Though even that would seem a paradox to anyone who knew his work.

  As for those other things he had to learn or at least try to understand: they were legion. Borowitz was happy with him the way he was, yes, but Dragosani was not. He felt that at the moment his talent was one-dimensional, that it lacked any real depth. Very well, he would give it the very greatest depth, a depth unplumbed for half a millennium! Out there in the night lay one who had secrets unique, one who in life commanded monstrous magics, and who even now, in death, was undead. And there, for Dragosani, lay the fount of all knowledge. Only when he had drained that well would there be time for the rest of his sorely neglected “education.”

  It was midnight now, the witching hour. Dragosani wondered how far the sleeper’s dreams reached out beyond the borders of the dark glade, wondered if they might meet halfway. The moon was up and full, and all the stars were bright; high in the mountains wolves prowled and howled even now, as they had five hundred years ago; all the auspices were right.

  He lay back in his bed, lay very still, and pictured the shattered tomb where roots groped like fossil tentacles and the trees leaned inward to hide their secret. He pictured it, and out loud but also in his mind said:

  “Old one, I’ve come back. I bring you hope in return for knowledge. It’s the third year, and only four remain. How goes it with you?”

  Outside in the night a wind sprang up, blowing down from the mountains. Trees soughed as their branches bowed a little, and Dragosani heard a sighing behind the rafters over his head. But as quickly as it had risen the wind fell, and in its place:

  Ahhh! Dragosaaaniiii! Is it you, my son? Are you then returned to me in my solitude, Dragosaaaniiii…?

  “Who else would it be, old devil? Yes, it is Dragosani. I have grown stronger, I am become a small power in the world. But I want more! You hold the ultimate secrets of power, which is why I have returned and why I will continue to return, until … until.…”

  Four more years, Dragosani. And then … then you shall sit upon my right hand, and I shall teach you many things. Four years, Dragosani. Four years. Ahhh!

  “Long years for me, old dragon, for I must wake each morning and sleep each night and count all the hours between. And time is slow. But for you…? How has it been, old one, this last year?”

  It would have been the merest moment, fleeting, speeding, gone!—had you not disturbed me, Dragosani. But you have given me … yearnings. Here I lay and for fifty years hated, and lusted for revenge on them that put me here. And for fifty more I desired only to be up and about my business, which is to put down my enemies. And then … then I thought me: but my murderers are no more. They are bones in graves of their own now, or dust blown on the winds. And in another hundred years … what of even the sons of my enemies then? Ah! Well might I ask! What of the legions who came up against these mountains in ages past and met my father’s fathers waiting? W
hat of the Lombard and the Bulgar, the Avar … and the Turk? Ah!—a brave fighter in his time, the Turk—he was my enemy, but no more. And so five hundred years fleeting by, for I was forgetting the glories just as a grandfather forgets his own infancy, until I had forgotten—almost. Until I was forgotten—almost! And what then, when there was nothing left of me but a word in a book, and when the book itself crumbled to dust? Why, then surely I would have no reason to be at all! And perhaps glad of it. And then you came, a mere boy, but a boy whose name … was … Dragosaaaniiii.…

  As the voice faded so the wind sprang up again, the two merging and dying away together. Dragosani thought of what was to be done and shivered in his bed. But this was his chosen course, this his destiny. And fearing that he had lost the other, he called out urgently:

  “Old one, you of the Dragon-banner, of the bat and the dragon and the devil—are you there?”

  Where else would I be, Dragosani? the voice seemed to mock. Yes, I am here, I quicken in my forsaken place, in this earth which was my life. I thought I was forgotten, but a seed was sown and blossomed, and you remembered and knew me. And by your name, so I knew you, Dragosaaaniiii.…

  “Tell me again!” Dragosani was eager. “Tell me how it was. My mother, my father, their coming together. Tell it to me.”

  Twice you have heard it, the voice in his head sighed. And would you hear it again? Do you hope to seek them out? Then I cannot help you. Their names were of no importance to me; I knew them not, knew nothing of them except the heat of their blood. Aye, and of that I tasted the merest drop, a small pink splash. But afterwards there was that of them in me, and that of me in them—which came out in you. Don’t ask after them, Dragosani. I am your father.…