by Brian Lumley
A Coven of Vampires Copyright © 1998 by Brian Lumley.
All rights reserved.
Cover and interior illustrations Copyright © 1998, 2007 by Bob Eggleton.
All rights reserved.
Interior design Copyright © 2008 by Desert Isle Design, LLC.
All rights reserved.
Electronic Edition
ELECTRONIC ISBN
9781596064485
Acknowledgements
“Foreword,” 1998
“What Dark God?” Nameless Places, ed. Gerald W. Page, Arkham House, 1975
“Back Row” Terror Australis, Autumn 1988
“The Strange Years” Fantasy Tales, No. 9, Spring 1982
“The Kiss of the Lamia” Weirdbook, No. 20, Spring 1985
“Recognition” Weirdbook, No. 15, 1981
“The Thief Immortal” Weirdbook, No. 25, 1990
“Necros” The Second Book of After Midnight Stories, ed. Amy Myers, Wm Kimber, 1986
“The Thing from the Blasted Heath” The Caller of the Black, Arkham House, 1971
“Uzzi” Fear, Sept/Oct 1988
“Haggopian” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1973.
“The Picknickers” Final Shadows, ed. Charles L. Grant, Doubleday, 1991
“Zack Phalanx is Vlad the Impaler!” Weirdbook, No. 11, March 1977
“The House of the Temple” Weird Tales, Vol. 48, No. 3, Fall 1981
www.subterraneanpress.com
A COVEN OF VAMPIRES
Brian Lumley—Grandmaster of Horror
BRIAN LUMLEY is the internationally bestselling author of the Necroscope and Vampire World series. Both of these epics have gained a huge and loyal following and have demonstrated a breadth of imagination and scope to rival the greats: Poe, Lovecraft and King. A career British Army Military Policeman for over twenty years, he has been a fulltime writer since the army and lives in Torquay, South Devon.
Brian has been awarded the title of “Grandmaster of Horror” by the 1998 World Horror Convention. Previous winners of this accolade include Clive Barker, Stephen King and Peter Straub.
Table of Contents
Foreword
What Dark God?
Back Row
The Strange Years
Kiss of the Lamia
Recognition
The Thief Immortal
Necros
The Thing from the Blasted Heath
Uzzi
Haggopian
The Picknickers
Zack Phalanx is Vlad the Impaler!
The House of the Temple
FOREWORD
I've been hooked (or should that be impaled?) on vampires ever since I was a kid. But don’t ask me to be exact, because when I was a kid was a long time ago. It was probably those old books my father used to keep on a high shelf he knew I couldn’t reach…without the aid of stepladders.
The stepladders would come out whenever Mom and Dad would make one of those rare excursions out into the world, maybe to the Picturehouse or the Ritz or the Empress, to see the latest big picture—the latest “movie”, to you American cousins. It would be something with Betty Grable, maybe, or Dick Haymes.
But ah, those books! Do you remember all those big, heavy, black-bound books? Fifty Great Mysteries! Fifty Great Tales of Terror and the Imagination! Fifty This and Fifty That. Perhaps those weren’t the precise titles—it’s hard to remember now—but I’ll never forget the weight and the looks, and the smell, of those books; they were musty even then. The black bat embossed into the binding cloth; the claw-like hand drawing back the curtains, and the sinister figure beyond the curtains. And the interior illustrations. The horrid interior illustrations! The naked black girl wrapped in a carnivorous tree’s tendrils, being hoisted to her doom like a cocooned fly. That one stuck in my boy’s mind for a long time; it’s still there, in fact, just as fresh (and as monstrous) as ever.
All those books, and some of them must have contained vampire stories, I’m sure….
I had a library ticket when I was eight, and I think I was maybe halfway through Bram Stoker’s Dracula before “they” even noticed. But that was okay…Dracula was a classic after all. Then my big brother, Harry—just about to be drafted for National Service—started to read it, and he asked the Old Folks: “Do you really think he should be reading this? Won’t it give him nightmares?” Thanks a bunch, big brother! After that I had to read it chapter by chapter in the library.
Before I was sixteen, I was out of school and had a job as an apprentice machinist. That meant a bus ride into town every workday, and there was a newsagent opposite where I got off the bus. It must have been the early to mid-50s, and one morning I saw this garish magazine cover glaring at me through the window of the shop. Weird Tales, And the “s” looked like it was about to fall off the end of the title.
Those British edition WT were—wow!—a whole shilling each in those days. That was good money. In pristine condition they’d easily fetch two hundred times that amount now. That is really good money! But just looking at the cover of that first of many issues (my first issue, anyway) was like seeing one of those ancient mariner maps with the legend “Here be Monsters”, stamped over un charted waters. And in WT’s terms, “Here be Vampires”, too! Oh, yes, those magazines were definitely my blood group. And I used to suck ’em bone dry.
1958. The year I was drafted. And that was a horror story in its own right…well, until I got to like it. And I liked it so much I signed on for twenty-two years. But that’s not the only reason I remember ’58. Not a bit of it, for it’s also the year they released Dracula on film again—only this time with Christopher Lee as the bloodthirsty Count. Now tell me, isn’t that scene where he strides past the castle’s battlements with his cloak belling behind him just one of your favourites? It’s one of mine, be sure!
But whoa—I’ve missed something! And a very important something at that. Do you remember EC? No, of course you don’t, ’cos you were a little kid then and your big brother would probably have told on you. Tales From the Crypt, and The Vault of Horror, and…God, there was a whole gaggle of them! Not only EC but other publishers, too. Frankenstein, Black Magic—man, I remember those titles! And they were called “comics”…?
You know, I’m frequently accused of using too many exclamation marks. But honestly, how could I write this without them? I need exclamation marks to make my point. Which is that EC was Vampire Wonderland to me. Was there ever an issue without a vampire story? Well, maybe, but I can’t remember one. (Or maybe I just don’t want to.)
Even worse, I can’t remember where or when I first read Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, but I do know I’ve read it half a dozen times since. It probably delayed my attempts to write my own vampire novels by, oh, twenty years…because it was that damned good! But that wasn’t a bad thing (in a couple of decades I’d learned a lot, not only about authorship but about the world). And if I was going to do it at all, I knew it would have to be widescreen.
And eventually I did do it, let all of that stuff I’d once soaked up so avidly leak back out of me, and even occasionally splatter. The Necroscope novels and Vampire World Trilogy are the end results.
Between times, though, I had worked up to it in a host of shorter stories that explored the vampire myth and came at it from many diverse angles, some of them so far removed from the original that even I didn’t realize what I was really writing until the stories were finished.
A host of them? Well, a coven of them, in fact. Thirteen tales that dance widdershins around the central concept, and occasionally rock ’n’ roll with it, too. Stories that are more or less traditional, some less so, and others straight out of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.
So there you go. I �
�blame” this collection on EC Comics, Weird Tales, Christopher Lee, Richard Matheson, et al, whose stories in this subgenre really bit me. To all of them and to others long forgotten I offer my thanks. They all have a stake in this collection….
Brian Lumley
Devon, England
December 2006
WHAT DARK GOD?
“Summanus—whatever power he may be….” –Ovid’s Fasti
The Tuscan Rituals? Now where had I heard of such abook or books before? Certainly very rare…. Copy in the British Museum? Perhaps! Then what on earth were these fellows doing with a copy? And such a strange bunch of blokes at that.
Only a few minutes earlier I had boarded the train at Bengham. It was quite crowded for a night train and the boozy, garrulous, and vociferous “Jock” who had boarded it directly in front of me had been much upset by the fact that all the compartments seemed to be fully occupied.
“Och, they bleddy British trains,” he had drunkenly grumbled, “either a’wiz emp’y or a’wiz fool. No orgynization whatsayever—ye no agree, ye Sassenach?” He had elbowed me in the ribs as we swayed together down the dim corridor.
“Er, yes,” I had answered. “Quite so!”
Neither of us carried cases and as we stumbled along, searching for vacant seats in the gloomy compartments, Jock suddenly stopped short.
“Noo what in hell’s this—will ye look here? A compartment wi’ the bleddy blinds doon. Prob’ly a young laddie an’ lassie in there wi’ six emp’y seats. Privacy be damned. Ah’m no standin’ oot here while there’s a seat in there….”
The door had proved to be locked—on the inside—but that had not deterred the “bonnie Scot” for a moment. He had banged insistently upon the wooden frame of the door until it was carefully, tentatively opened a few inches; then he had stuck his foot in the gap and put his shoulder to the frame, forcing the door fully open.
“No, no….” The scrawny, pale, pinstripe-jacketed man who stood blocking the entrance protested. “You can’t come in—this compartment is reserved….”
“Is that so, noo? Well, if ye’ll kindly show me the reserved notice,” Jock had paused to tap significantly upon the naked glass of the door with a belligerent fingernail, “Ah’ll bother ye no more—meanwhile, though, if ye’ll hold ye’re blether, Ah’d appreciate a bleddy seat….”
“No, no….” The scrawny man had started to protest again, only to be quickly cut off by a terse command from behind him:
“Let them in….”
I shook my head and pinched my nose, blowing heavily and puffing out my cheeks to clear my ears. For the voice from within the dimly-lit compartment had sounded hollow, unnatural. Possibly the train had started to pass through a tunnel, an occurrence which never fails to give me trouble with my ears. I glanced out of the exterior corridor window and saw immediately that I was wrong; far off on the dark horizon I could see the red glare of coke-oven fires. Anyway, whatever the effect had been which had given that voice its momentarily peculiar—resonance?—it had ob viously passed, for Jock’s voice sounded perfectly normal as he said: “Noo tha’s better; excuse a body, will ye?” He shouldered the dubious-looking man in the doorway to one side and slid clumsily into a seat alongside a second stranger. As I joined them in the compartment, sliding the door shut behind me, I saw that there were four strangers in all, six people including Jock and myself; we just made comfortable use of the eight seats which faced inwards in two sets of four.
I have always been a comparatively shy person so it was only the vaguest of perfunctory glances which I gave to each of the three new faces before I settled back and took out the pocketbook I had picked up earlier in the day in London.
Those merest of glances, however, were quite sufficient to put me off my book and to tell me that the three friends of the pinstripe-jacketed man appeared the very strangest of travelling companions—especially the extremely tall and thin member of the three, sitting stiffly in his seat beside Jock. The other two answered to approximately the same description as Pin-Stripe—as I was beginning mentally to tag him—except that one of them wore a thin moustache; but that fourth one, the tall one, was something else again.
Within the brief duration of the glance I had given him I had seen that, remarkable though the rest of his features were, his mouth appeared decidedly odd—almost as if it had been painted onto his face—the merest thin red line, without a trace of puckering or any other depression to show that there was a hole there at all. His ears were thick and blunt and his eyebrows were bushy over the most penetrating eyes it has ever been my unhappy lot to find staring at me. Possibly that was the reason I had glanced so quickly away; the fact that when I had looked at him I had found him staring at me—and his face had been totally devoid of any expression whatsoever. Fairies? The nasty thought had flashed through my mind unbidden; nonetheless, that would explain why the door had been locked.
Suddenly Pin-Stripe—seated next to me and directly opposite Funny-Mouth—gave a start, and, as I glanced up from my book, I saw that the two of them were staring directly into each other’s eyes.
“Tell them…” Funny-Mouth said, though I was sure his strange lips had not moved a fraction, and again his voice had seemed distorted, as though his words passed through weirdly angled corridors before reaching my ears.
“It’s, er—almost midnight,” informed Pin-Stripe, grinning sickly first at Jock and then at me.
“Aye,” said Jock sarcastically, “happens every nicht aboot this time…. Ye’re very observant….”
“Yes,” said Pin-Stripe, choosing to ignore the jibe, “as you say—but the point I wish to make is that we three, er, that is, we four,” he corrected himself, indicating his companions with a nod of his head, “are members of a little-known, er, religious sect. We have a ceremony to perform and would appreciate it if you two gentlemen would remain quiet during the proceedings….” I heard him out and nodded my head in understanding and agreement—I am a tolerant person—but Jock was of a different mind.
“Sect?” he said sharply. “Ceremony?” He shook his head in disgust. “Well; Ah’m a member o’ the Church o’ Scotland and Ah’ll tell ye noo—Ah’ll hae no truck wi’ bleddy heathen ceremonies….”
Funny-Mouth had been sitting ramrod straight, saying not a word, doing nothing, but now he turned to look at Jock, his eyes narrowing to mere slits; above them, his eyebrows meeting in a black frown of disapproval.
“Er, perhaps it would be better,” said Pin-Stripe hastily, leaning across the narrow aisle towards Funny-Mouth as he noticed the change in that person’s attitude, “if they, er, went to sleep…?”
This preposterous statement or question, which caused Jock to peer at its author in blank amazement and me to wonder what on earth he was babbling about, was directed at Funny-Mouth who, without taking his eyes off Jock’s outraged face, nodded in agreement.
I do not know what happened then—it was as if I had been suddenly unplugged—I was asleep, yet not asleep—in a trance-like condition full of strange impressions and mind-pictures—abounding in unpleasant and realistic sensations, with dimly-recollected snatches of previously absorbed information floating up to the surface of my conscious mind, correlating themselves with the strange people in the railway compartment with me….
And in that dream-like state my brain was still very active; possibly fully active. All my senses were still work ing; I could hear the clatter of the wheels and smell the acrid tang of burnt tobacco from the compartment’s ashtrays. I saw Moustache produce a folding table from the rack above his head—saw him open it and set it up in the aisle, between Funny-Mouth and himself on their side and Pin-Stripe and his companion on my side—saw the designs upon it, designs suggestive of the more exotic work of Chandler Davies, and wondered at their purpose. My head must have fallen back until it rested in the corner of the gently rocking compartment, for I saw all these things without having to move my eyes; indeed, I doubt very much if I could have moved my eyes and do n
ot remember making any attempt to do so.
I saw that book—a queerly-bound volume bearing its title, The Tuscan Rituals, in archaic, burnt-in lettering on its thick spine—produced by Pin-Stripe and opened reverently to lie on that ritualistic table, displayed so that all but Funny-Mouth, Jock, and I could make out its characters. But Funny-Mouth did not seem in the least bit interested in the proceedings. He gave me the impression that he had seen it all before, many times….
Knowing I was dreaming—or was I?—I pondered that title, The Tuscan Rituals. Now where had I heard of such a book or books before? The feel of it echoed back into my subconscious, telling me I recognized that title—but in what connection?
I could see Jock, too, on the fixed border of my sphere of vision, lying with his head lolling towards Funny-Mouth—in a trance similar to my own, I imagined—eyes staring at the drawn blinds on the compartment windows. I saw the lips of Pin-Stripe, out of the corner of my right eye, and those of Moustache, moving in almost perfect rhythm and imagined those of Other—as I had named the fourth who was completely out of my periphery of vision—doing the same, and heard the low and intricate liturgy which they were chanting in unison.
Liturgy? Tuscan rituals? Now what dark “God” was this they worshipped?... And what had made that thought spring to my dreaming or hypnotized mind? And what was Moustache doing now?
He had a bag and was taking things from it, laying them delicately on the ceremonial table. Three items in all; in one corner of the table, that nearest Funny-Mouth. Round cakes of wheat-bread in the shape of wheels with ribbed spokes. Now who had written about offerings of round cakes of—…?
Festus? Yes, Festus—but, again, in what connection?
Then I heard it. A name: chanted by the three worshippers, but not by Funny-Mouth who still sat aloofly upright.
