Necroscope IV: Deadspeak n-4

by Brian Lumley

  ‘I know how to keep my nerve well enough,’ said Janos. ‘But unless I’m mistaken there is aboard the Samothraki an amount of cocaine worth ten million British pounds or two billions of drachmae. Which is to say two hundred billions of leptae! I had no idea such monies existed. Why, five hundred years ago a man could buy an entire kingdom with such a sum, and still have enough left over to hire an army to guard it! And you tell me to keep my nerve and not panic? Now let me tell you something, my fat friend: the difference between bravery and cowardice is discretion, between a rich man and a cutpurse it’s not being caught, and between freedom and the dungeon it’s the ability to walk away from ill-laid plans!’

  As he spoke the frowns on the faces of the others grew deeper, confused and far more concerned. To be frank, the master of the Samothraki (whose criminal nature had ever held sway over caution, resulting in a string of convictions) wondered what on earth he was prattling on about. In his younger days Themelis had collected coins. But the lepta? To his knowledge the last of those had been minted in 1976 — in twenties and fifties denominations only, because of their minuscule value. To calculate modern sums of money in leptae had to be a sure sign of madness! Why, it would take five hundred to buy one cigarette! And as for Lazarides’s use of the term ‘dungeon’ in place of ‘jail’… what was one supposed to make of the man? How could anyone look so young and think so archaic?

  Themelis’s sidekick was thinking much the same things; but over and above everything else Lazarides had said, his final statement — of intention? — stood out in starkest definition. Something about walking away? Was he looking for an out?

  ‘No threats, Jianni, or whatever your name is,’ this one now growled. ‘We’re not the type to threaten easily, Pavlos and me. We don’t want to hear any more talk about anyone walking away from anything. No one walks away from us. It’s hard to walk with broken legs, and even harder if it’s your spine!’

  Janos had been stroking his glass with the long fingers of his left hand, watching Themelis’s face rather than that of his loudmouth companion. But now his three-fingered hand stopped its stroking and his head slowly turned until he gazed directly into that one’s eyes. He seemed to crouch down a little into himself on the low window-seat — from fear, or was it something else? — and his left hand slid snakelike from the long, narrow table to hang by his side. The thug could almost feel the intensity of Janos’s gaze coming right through those enigmatic dark lenses at him. And:

  ‘You accuse me of making threats?’ Janos finally answered, his voice so quiet and deep that it might simply be a series of bass grunts rather than speech proper. ‘You have the audacity to believe that I might find it necessary to threaten such as you? And then — as if that weren’t more than enough — you in your turn threaten me? You dare to threaten… me?’

  ‘Have a care for your bones!’ the other hissed, his lips drawing back from yellow teeth as he perched himself on the very rim of his chair, tilting it forward to shove his bullet-head a little closer. ‘You smart-talking, oh-so-clean, high-and-mighty bastard!’

  Janos’s left arm and hand hung out of sight below the rim of the table. But instead of drawing back more yet, he too had leaned his face forward. And now -

  — In a movement so swift and flowing it was quicksilver, the vampire shot out his large, long-fingered hand a distance of fifteen inches under the table and bunched up the other’s scrotum so deep in his groin that his testicles flopped into his palm. Twisting and squeezing at the same time, Janos needed only nip with his chisel-tipped nails and tear with his great strength to castrate the other right through his threadbare lightweight trousers! Yes, and the fool knew it.

  His bottom jaw fell open and he snapped upright in his chair, crowding the table. He squirmed, gagging as his eyes flew wide open in his face. He was the merest moment away from becoming a eunuch, and he could do… nothing! Only let him begin to react violently and Janos could finish the job in a split second.

  The vampire increased the pressure, drew his arm in under the table — and his victim inched himself forward and off his chair, reached across the bolted-down table and grasped its rim in both hands to maintain his balance and take the strain off his balls. And still Janos held him there; and still he fixed him with his eyes, which were only inches away now. But where a moment ago the vampire’s face had been slate-grey with rage, now he merely smiled, however sardonically.

  Gurgling, with tears streaming from eyes which were standing out like marbles in his purpling face, the agonized thug knew how utterly helpless he was. And suddenly it dawned on him that not only was it possible for Janos to do the unthinkable, but it was also probable!

  ‘N — no — no!’ he managed to gasp.

  That was what Janos had been waiting for; he read it in the other’s mind as well as in his wet, rubbery face; he recognized and accepted his submission. And in one viciously co-ordinated movement he gave a final twist and a squeeze, then released and thrust the man away.

  Sending his chair flying, the thug crashed over on his back. Gasping and sobbing, he rolled himself into an almost foetal position, with his hands down between his thighs. And there he remained, rocking and moaning in his agony.

  All of which had gone unheard by the people in the taverna down below, where Zorba’s Dance and its attendant clapping and stamping had drowned everything out. But in any case, there hadn’t been a lot to hear.

  Pavlos Themelis was pale now, his face twitching behind his great beard. At first he hadn’t known what was going on, and by the time he had known it was over. And meanwhile Lazarides had scarcely turned a hair. But now, seeming to flow to his feet as sinuous as a snake, he stood up and towered over the table.

  ‘You are a fool, Themelis,’ he grunted, ‘and that one is a bigger fool. But… a deal is a deal, and I have already invested too much in this business to abandon it now. And so it seems I must see it through. Very well, but at least let me give you some good advice: in future, be more careful.’

  He made as if to leave, and Themelis got quickly out of his way, gasping: ‘But we still need your money, or some gold at least, to see the job done!’

  Crossing the floor, Janos paused. He appeared to give it a moment’s thought, then said: ‘At three in the morning, when all the coastguards and petty law officers are asleep in their beds, weigh anchor and meet me three sea-miles due east of Mandraki. We will conclude our business there, far out of sight and sound of land. Is it agreed?’

  Themelis nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘Count on it,’ he said. ‘The old Samothraki will be there.’

  And on the floor his partner continued to writhe and groan and sweat out his gradually easing pain; and Janos, going downstairs, didn’t even look at him…

  It was after eleven and the streets of the Old Town near the waterfront were much quieter. Janos walked in the shadows wherever possible, his long stride more a lope as he quickly put distance between himself and the Taverna Dakaris. But he was not unobserved. Greek policemen in civilian clothes, hiding in even deeper shadows, saw him go and ignored him. They didn’t know him; he wasn’t the reason they were here; why would they be interested in him? No, their quarry was one Pavlos Themelis, who was still inside the taverna.

  Their brief had been to follow him, check out his contacts, see if he was passing any stuff around — but not to pull him in or hinder him in any way. There was bigger stuff going down, and when the axe fell someone up top wanted to make sure it came down not only on the master and crew of the Samothraki but the entire organization, and came down hard. It was perfectly obvious that Nichos Dakaris was part of it too, and his rancid taverna a likely distribution point.

  In short, Janos Ferenczy’s luck was holding.

  But the lackadaisical Greek policemen were not the only ones to see him leave the Dakaris; Ellie Touloupa was watching, too, looking down from a vantage point one level up and a block away, where an old stone arch supported a narrow, walled alley. She saw him take his departure a
nd noted his route: towards a small jetty in the main harbour, where people came ashore in their tenders from the yachts and pleasure-craft. Ellie wasn’t stupid: she had done a little quiet checking-up on this Lazarides and knew that the sleek white Lazarus was his. So where else would he be going?

  Perhaps he had a woman aboard — but if so what was keeping him ashore, drinking on his own in a fleapit like Nichos Dakaris’s place? Maybe he had problems. Well, and Ellie had a way with problems. Anyway, she found him exciting, and who could say but that there might be some money in it, too? Why, she might even end up aboard his boat for the night.

  So her thoughts ran as she put out her cigarette, descended to the lower level and hurried through a maze of cobbled alleys to a spot where she might intercept him. And intercept him she did, at a junction of dark, high-walled streets not fifty feet from the jetty.

  Janos, arriving at the junction, was aware of her at once. Her breathing was still laboured, from hurrying, and her high heels skittered a little on the cobbles as she came to a halt in the shadows. She felt that he could even see her (though how he saw at all in those dark glasses she couldn’t say) as he slowed his pace and turned his head to look straight in her direction.

  Then… it was a strange feeling: to want him to know that she was there, but at the same time almost fearing him knowing it. Should she stand still, hold her breath, hope that he would carry on by? Or -

  But too late.

  ‘You,’ he said, taking a step towards the shadows where she stood. ‘But this is a lonely place, Ellie, and by now there should be customers for you, back at Nick’s.’

  As he stepped in, so she stepped a little out of the shadows. They stood close, half-silhouettes in the darkness of old stone walls. And there and then she knew she would have him, the way she always knew it. ‘I thought I might come aboard your boat,’ she said, breathlessly.

  Another pace and he drove her back into the darkness, until she leaned against the wall. ‘But you may not,’ he answered, with a slow shake of his head.

  ‘Then — ah!’ she drew breath sharply as his hand grasped her narrow waist just above the hip. ‘Then… I think perhaps I would like you to fuck me here — right now — against this wall!’

  He chuckled, but without humour. ‘And should I pay for something you so obviously desire?’

  ‘You’ve already paid,’ she answered, beginning to pant as his free hand opened her blouse. ‘Your wine…’

  ‘You sell yourself cheaply, Ellie.’ He lifted her skirts, moved even closer.

  ‘Cheaply?’ she breathed against his neck. ‘For you it’s free!’

  Again his chuckle. ‘Free? You give yourself freely? Ah, but this world is filled with surprises! A whore, and yet so innocent.’

  She parted her legs and sucked at him, and expanded as he slid into her. He was massive. He surged within her, filling her and yet still surging! The sensation was one such as she’d never known or even imagined before. Was he some sort of god, some fantastic Priapus? ‘Who… are… you?’ she gasped the words out, knowing full well who he was. And before he could answer: ‘What… are… you?’

  Janos was aroused now — his hunger, if nothing else. One hand tugged at her breasts while the other reached behind and under her. He continued to surge; not thrusting but simply elongating into her. And now his fingers had found her anus, and they too seemed to be surging.

  ‘Ah! Ah! Ah!’ she gasped, her eyes wide and shining in the darkness and her mouth lolling open.

  And finally, grunting, he answered her question with one of his own: ‘Do you know the legend of the Vrykoulakas?’ His hand left her breasts and took away the dark glasses from his eyes — which burned crimson as coals in his face!

  She inhaled air massively, but before she could scream his chasm of a mouth had clamped itself over the entire lower half of her face. And his tongue also surged, into and down her convulsing throat. While in her mind:

  Ah, I see you do know the legend! Well, and now you know the reality. So be it! Inside her body his vampire protoflesh spread into every cavity, putting out filament rootlets which burrowed in her veins and arteries like worms in soil, without damaging the structure. And even before she had lost full consciousness, Janos was feeding.

  Tomorrow they would find her here and say she had died of massive pernicious anaemia, and not even the most minute autopsy would discover anything to the contrary. Nor would there be any-progeny — of this most delicious fusion. No, for Janos would see to it that nothing of him remained in her to surface later and cause him problems.

  As for the life he was taking: what of it? It was only one of many hundreds. And anyway, what had she been but a whore? The answer was simple: she had been nothing…

  Three and a half hours later and three miles due east of Rhodes Town, the Samothraki lay as if becalmed on a sea like a millpond. Quite extraordinarily, in the last ten or fifteen minutes a writhing fret had developed, quickly thickening to a mist and then to a fog. Now damp white billows were drifting across the old ship’s decks, and visibility was down to zero.

  The First Mate, still tender from his brush with Janos Ferenczy, had just brought Pavlos Themelis up onto the deck to see for himself. And Themelis was rightly astonished. ‘What?’ he said. ‘But this is crazy! What do you make of it?’

  The other shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Crazy, like you said. You might expect it in October, but that’s six months away.’ They moved to the wheelhouse where a crewman was trying to get the foghorn working.

  ‘Forget it,’ Themelis told him. ‘It doesn’t work. God, this is the Aegean! Foghorn? — I never once used it. The pipes will be full of rust. Anyway, she works off steam and we’ve precious little up. So make yourself useful, go take a turn stoking. We have to move out of this.’

  ‘Move?’ said the First Mate. ‘Where to?’

  “The hell out of this!’ Themelis barked. ‘Where do you think? Into clear water, somewhere where the Lazarus isn’t likely to come barging up out of nowhere and cut us in half!’

  ‘Speak of the devil,’ the other growled low in his throat, his little pig-eyes full of hate where they stared through the condensation on the cabin window at the sleek white shape which even now came ghosting alongside, her reversed screws bringing her to a dead halt in the gently 1 lapping water.

  The grey, mist-wreathed crew of the Lazarus tossed hawsers; the ships were hauled together, port to portside; ancient tyres festooning the Samothraki’s strakes acted as buffers, keeping the hulls apart. All was achieved by the light of the deck lamps, in an eerie silence where even the squealing of the tyres as they were compressed and rubbed between the hulls seemed muted by the fog.

  For all that the Lazarus was a modern steel-hull, as broad as the Samothraki but three metres longer, still she sat low in the water when her screws were dead or idling. The decks of the two ships were more or less level, and with little or no swell to mention transfer would be as simple as stepping from one ship to the next. And yet the crew of the white ship, all eight of them, simply lined the rail; while her master and his American companion stayed back a little, gaunt figures under the awnings of the foredeck. The cabin lights, blazing white through the fog, gave their obscure shapes silvery silhouettes.

  At the port rail of the Samothraki, Themelis and his men grew uneasy. There was something very odd here, something other than this weird, unnatural fog. ‘This Lazarides bastard,’ Themelis’s sidekick grunted under his breath, ‘bothers me.’

  Themelis offered a low snort of derision. ‘Something of an understatement, that, Christos,’ he said. ‘But keep your balls out of his way and you should be OK!’

  The other ignored the jibe. ‘The mist clings to him,’ he continued, shivering. ‘It almost seems to issue from him!’

  Lazarides and Armstrong had moved to the gate in the rail. They stood there, leaning forward, seeming to examine the Samothraki minutely. There was nothing to choose between them in height, Themelis thought
, but plenty in bearing and style. The American shambled a little, like an ape, and wore a black eyepatch over his right eye; in his right hand he carried a smart black briefcase, hopefully full of money. And Lazarides beside him, straight as a ramrod in the night and the fog, affecting those dark glasses of his even now.

  But silent? Why were they so silent? And what were they waiting for? ‘So here we are then, Jianni!’ Themelis shook off the black mood of depression which had so suddenly threatened to envelop him, opened his arms expansively, glanced around and nodded his satisfaction. ‘Privacy at last, eh? In the heart of a bank of fog, of all bloody things! So… welcome aboard the old Samothraki.’

  And at last Lazarides smiled. ‘You are inviting me aboard?’

  ‘Eh?’ said Themelis, taken aback. ‘But certainly! How else may we get our business done?’

  ‘How indeed?’ said the other, with a grim nod. And as he crossed between ships, so he took off his dark glasses. Armstrong came with him, and the rest of his men, too, clambering over the rails. And the crew of the Samothraki backed stumblingly away from them, knowing now for a fact that something — almost everything — was most definitely wrong here. For the crew of the Lazarus were like flame-eyed zombies to a man, and their master… he was like no man they’d ever seen before!

  Pavlos Themelis, seeing the transformation in the face of the man called Lazarides as he stepped aboard the Samothraki, thought his eyes must be playing him tricks. His First Mate saw it, too, and frantically yanked his gun from its under-arm holster.

  Too late, for Armstrong towered over him. The American used his briefcase to bat the gun aside even as it was brought into view, then grabbed the man’s gun-hand and wrestled the weapon round to point at its owner’s head.

  Bullet-head didn’t stand a chance. Armstrong pointed the gun into his ear and said, ‘Hahr And his victim, seeing the American’s one eye burning like sulphur — and his forked, crimson tongue, flickering in the gape of his mouth — simply gave up the ghost.