Necroscope n-1

by Brian Lumley

  ‘According to statements they later made to the police, Ferenczy had been dragging one of them and herding the other two to the cellar when his attention was arrested by the arrival of horsemen outside the house. Remember, in those days the local police still used horses in the more isolated regions. It was them, all right; they had been alerted by reports of prowlers in the area, the brothers, of course. And never were three criminals more glad to be given over into the hands of the law!

  Thugs they were, by all means, but they’d been no match for Faethor Ferenczy. Each of them had a broken right arm and a broken left leg, and their intended victim was responsible! Think of his strength Dragosani! The police were too grateful to him to go into the matter too deeply, Widow Luorni said — and after all, he had only been protecting his life and property — but she was there when the brothers were carted away a few hours later, and it was plain to her that her employer had scared the daylights out of them.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve said that Ferenczy was in the act of taking his captives to the cellar. For what purpose? A place to detain them until help arrived? Possibly

  ‘Or a place to keep them, like a cool pantry, until they were… required, eh?’ said Dragosani.

  Giresci nodded. ‘Exactly! Anyway, shortly after that the Widow stopped working there.’

  ‘Hmm!’ Dragosani mused. ‘It surprises me he let her go. I mean, she must have suspected something. You said yourself that she was “disenchanted”, that a feeling of unease had grown in her until she could take no more. Wouldn’t he worry that she’d talk about him?’

  ‘Ah!’ Giresci answered. ‘But you’ve forgotten something, Dragosani. What about the way he controlled me — with his eyes and his mind — on the night of the bombing, the night he died?’

  ‘Hypnotism,’ said the other at once.

  Giresci smiled grimly, nodded. ‘It is an art of the vampire, one of many. He simply commanded her that so long as he lived she would remain silent. While he lived, she would simply forget all about him, forget that she had ever seen anything sinister in him.’

  ‘I see,’ said Dragosani.

  ‘And so strong was his power,’ the other continued, ‘that she actually did forget — until I questioned her about him all those years later. For, of course, by then Ferenczy was dead.’

  Giresci’s manner was beginning to irritate Dragosani. The man’s air of self-satisfaction — his smugness — his obviously high opinion of his own detective skills. ‘But of course this is all conjecture,’ the necromancer finally said. ‘You don’t know any of it for a certainty.’

  ‘Oh, but I do,’ answered the other at once. ‘I know it from the Widow herself. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that she simply volunteered all of this. It wasn’t that we had a good gossip session or anything like that. Far from it. No, for I had to really sit down with her and ask her about him, repeatedly, until I’d dug it all out. He was dead and his power gone, certainly, but still something of it lingered over, do you see?’

  Dragosani grew thoughtful. His eyes narrowed a little. Suddenly, surprisingly, he felt threatened by this man. He was too clever by far, this Ladislau Giresci. Dragosani resented him — and at once wondered why. He found it hard to understand his own feelings, the sudden surge of emotion within. It was too enclosed in here, claustrophobic. That must be it. He shook his head, sat up straighter, tried to concentrate. ‘Of course, the Widow is long dead now.’

  ‘Oh, yes-years ago.’

  ‘So you and I, we’re the only ones who know anything at all about Faethor Ferenczy?’

  Giresci peered at the younger man. Dragosani’s voice had sunk so low that it was little more than a growl, almost sinister. There seemed something wrong with him. Even under Giresci’s questioning gaze he gave himself another shake, rapidly blinking his eyes.

  That’s right,’ Giresci answered, frowning. ‘I’ve told no one else in — oh, longer than I can remember. No point telling anyone else, for who’d believe? But are you all right, my friend? Are you well? Is something bothering you?’

  ‘Me?’ Dragosani found himself leaning forward, as if drawn towards Giresci. He deliberately forced himself upright in his chair. ‘No, of course not. I’m a little drowsy, that’s all. My meal, I suppose. The good food you’ve served me. Also, I’ve driven a long way in the last few days. Yes, that’s it: I’m tired.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes, quite sure. But go on, Giresci, don’t stop now. Please tell me more. About Ferenczy and his forebears. About the Ferrenzigs. The Wamphyri in general. Tell me anything else you know or suspect. Tell me everything.’

  ‘Everything? It could take a week, longer!’

  ‘I have a week,’ Dragosani answered.

  ‘Damn, I believe you’re serious!’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Well now, Dragosani, doubtless you’re a nice enough young fellow, and it’s good to talk to someone who’s genuinely interested and knows something about one’s subject — but what makes you think I’d care to spend a whole week like that? At my age time’s important. Or maybe you think I have the same kind of longevity Ferenczy had, eh?’

  Dragosani smiled, but thinly. On the point of saying, you can talk to me here or in Moscow, he checked himself. That wasn’t necessary. Not yet, anyway. And it might let Borowitz in on his big secret: how he came to be a necromancer in the first place. ‘Then how about the next hour or two?’ he compromised. ‘And, since you’ve suggested it, we can start with Ferenczy’s longevity.’

  Giresci chuckled. ‘Fair enough. Anyway, there’s whisky left yet!’ He poured himself another shot, made himself comfortable. And after a moment’s thought:

  ‘Ferenczy’s longevity. The near-immortality of the vampire. Let me tell you something else the Widow Luorni

  said. She said that when she was a small girl, her grandmother had remembered a Ferenczy living in the same house. And her grandmother before her! Nothing strange about that, though — son follows father, right? There were plenty of old Boyar families round here whose names went back to time immemorial. There still are. What’s strange is this: to the Widow’s knowledge there had never been any female Ferenczys. And how does a man pass on his name if he never takes a wife, eh?’

  ‘And of course you looked into it,’ said Dragosani.

  ‘I did. Records were scarce, however, for the war had destroyed a great deal. But certainly the house had been the seat of the Ferenczys as far back as I could trace it, and never a woman among ‘em! A celibate lot, eh?’

  Without understanding his outrage, Dragosani suddenly felt that he himself had been insulted. Or perhaps it was only his natural intelligence which felt slighted. ‘Celibate?’ he said stiffly. ‘I think not.’

  Giresci nodded. In fact he was well aware of the Wamphyri’s rapacious nature. ‘No, of course not,’ he confirmed Dragosani’s denial. ‘What? A vampire celibate? Ridiculous? Lust is the very force that drives him. Universal lust — for power, flesh, blood! But listen to this:

  ‘In 1840 one Bela Ferenczy set off across the Meridionali to visit a cousin or other relative in the mountains of the northern Austro-Hungarian borders. Now this much is well documented; indeed, old Bela seems to have gone to a deal of trouble to let people know he was going visiting. He installed a man to look after the place while he was away — not a local man, incidentally, but someone of gypsy stock — hired a coach and driver for the early stages of the journey, made reservations for connections through the high passes, and completed all of the preparations necessary to travel in these parts in those days.

  And he put it about locally that this was to be a journey of valediction. He had seemed to grow very old very quickly in the last year or two, and so it was accepted that he went to say his last farewells to distant relatives.

  ‘Now remember, we were still very much Moldavia-Wallachia at that time. In Europe the Industrial Revolution was in full swing — everywhere but here! Insular as ever, we were so backward as to seem almost retard
ed! The Lemberg-Galatz railway, skirting the mountains, was still more than a decade away. News travelled extremely slowly, and records were hard to keep. I mention this to highlight the fact that in this case there was good communication, and that a record did survive.’

  ‘Case?’ Dragosani queried. ‘What case are you talking about?’

  ‘The case of Bela Ferenczy’s sudden death when his coach and horses were hurled into a precipice by an avalanche in one of the high passes! News of the “accident” got swiftly back here; the old man’s Szgany retainer took Ferenczy’s sealed will to the local registrar; the will was posted without delay, showing that the Ferenczy house and grounds were to pass to a “cousin”, one Giorg, who had, apparently, already been appraised of the situation and his inheritance.’

  Dragosani nodded. ‘And of course this Giorg Ferenczy later turned up and took possession. He would be — or he would appear to be — younger far than Bela, but the family resemblance would be unquestionable.’

  ‘Good!’ Giresci barked. ‘You follow my reasoning precisely. Having lived here for fifty years, which would normally make him an old man, Bela had decided it was high time he “died” and made way for the next in line.’

  ‘And after Giorg?’

  ‘Faethor, of course,’ Giresci scratched his chin reflectively. ‘I’ve often wondered,’ he said, ‘if I had not killed

  him on the night of the bombing — if he had survived that night — what his next incarnation would have been? Would he have shown up after the war in some new Ferenczy guise, to rebuild the house and carry on as before? I think the answer is probably yes. They are territorial, the Wamphyri.’

  ‘And so you’re convinced that Bela, Giorg, and Faethor were all one and the same?’

  ‘Of course. I thought that was understood. Didn’t he tell me as much himself, when he raved of the battles at Silistria and Constantinople? And before Bela there was Grigor, Karl, Peter and Stefan — oh, and the Lord knows how many others — all the way back to Faethor Ferrenzig the princeling and probably beyond! This was his territory, do you see? He held bloody dominion here. And in the olden times, as princelings or Boyars, my God but the Wamphyri were fierce about their holdings! That was why he joined the Fourth Crusade, to keep olden and future enemies off his lands. His lands, you understand? No matter what king or government or system is in power, the vampire considers his home ground to be his. He fought to protect himself, his monstrous heritage, and not for a mangy pack of scummy foreigners out of the West! You’ve seen the defaced Crusader cross on the reverse of my medallion — hah! When they dishonoured him he scorned them, spat on them!’

  ‘And have you actually traced his name that far back? To Constantinople, I mean, in 1204?’ Something of his awe of the vampire — or his envy? — was evident in Dragosani’s voice.

  Giresci cocked his head a little on one side; ‘Dragosani, how’s your history?’

  ‘Hardly brilliant. Fair, I suppose.’

  ‘Hmm! Well, many names came down from the Fourth Crusade, but you’ll be hard put to find a Ferenczy or Ferrenzig amongst them. He was there, though, be sure of it! How do I know? Well, it’s possible that you’re talking to the world’s foremost authority on that particular bloodbath, and I’ve discovered things which I’m sure many other historians have overlooked. Of course, I had the advantage of knowing what I was looking for — my objectives were specific — but in the process of tracking down the vampire I’ve naturally covered a deal of extraneous ground. Man, I could write a book on the Fourth Crusade — certainly from Hungary to Constantinople! And talking of Constantinople: Lord, what a hell that must have been! What a battle! And sure enough, right there in the thick of it — wherever the fighting raged fiercest — there was this man and the brutish horde he commanded. He was there too when the city fell, when he and his band of mercenary berserkers rampaged, utterly out of control. Yes, and his excesses spread like a cancer; the entire army joined in; they raped, pillaged and massacred for three long days…

  Tope Innocent III had called the Crusade; now, aghast at what it had turned into, he was unable to regain control. The Crusaders had vowed to take the Holy Land, but Innocent and his legate were obliged to absolve them from that vow. He as good as washed his hands of the affair; but in secret communiqués he exercised what little control remained to him, ordering that those directly responsible for “gross acts of excessive and unnatural cruelty” must gain “neither glory nor rich reward” for their barbarism but that “their names shall not be mentioned, nor shall they be offered respect or high regard”.

  ‘Well, no need to look far for a scapegoat: a certain “bloodthirsty Wallach recruited in Zara” would fit the bill nicely. Nor was he blameless. At first the Crusaders had honoured and elevated him — perhaps, secretly, they’d even envied or feared him — but now he found himself stripped of all honours and disgraced, and his name was stricken from all records. In return he scorned them for their duplicity, and defacing the sigil of their campaign — the cross on his medallion — he took his band and went home, proud and fierce under the banner of the devil, the bat and the dragon.’

  Dragosani chewed on his lip for a moment before saying: ‘Let’s assume that to all intents and purposes all of this is true, or at least based on the truth to the best of your knowledge. Still there are several important questions remaining to be answered.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Ferenczy was a vampire. A vampire takes victims. When the hunger is on him he’ll kill as ruthlessly as a fox kills chickens, and just as thoughtlessly. Yet it seems his sheet was clean. How could he possibly live here through all those centuries without once arousing suspicion? Remember, Ladislau Giresci, the blood is the life! Were there no cases of vampirism?’

  ‘Around Ploiesti? None — not one — not as long as they’ve kept records, so far as I can discover.’ Giresci smiled grimly and leaned forward. ‘But if you were a vampire, Dragosani, would you take victims right on your own doorstep?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose I would,’ Dragosani frowned. ‘Where, then?’

  ‘North, my friend, in the Meridionali itself! Where else but the Transylvanian Alps, where all vampire stories seem to have their roots? Slanic and Sinaia in the foothills, Brasov and Sacele beyond the pass. And none of them more than fifty miles distant from Ferenczy’s house, and all shunned for their evil reputations.’

  ‘What, even now?’ Dragosani feigned surprise, but he remembered what Maura Kinkovsi had had to say on the subject three years ago.

  ‘Stories linger down the years, Dragosani. Especially ghost stories. They take no chances, the mountain folk. If you die young up there and there’s no simple explanation, it’s the stake for you for sure! As to actual case histories: the last child to die of a vampire’s bite did so in Slanic in the winter of forty-three. Yes, and she was buried with a stake through her heart, like a great many ‘innocents before her. What? There had been eleven that year alone, in the villages around!’

  ‘In forty-three, you say?’

  Giresci nodded. ‘Oh, yes, and I see you’ve already made the connection. That’s right, it was just a few months before Ferenczy died. She was his last victim, or at least the last we know of. Of course, with the war going on he’d be far less restricted, his victims more readily disposed of. He may well have taken many we don’t know about, people who simply “went missing” during air-raids in the countryside around — and there were plenty of those, believe me.’ He paused. ‘Any more questions?’

  ‘You said that those towns you named were up in the mountains, fifty miles from Ploiesti. That’s rough country; the ground rises rapidly, through two thousand feet in places; so how did Ferenczy do it? Did he become a bat and fly to his hunting grounds?’

  ‘Folklore says he has that power. Bat, wolf, wraith — even flea, bug, spider! But… I think not. There’s no hard evidence anywhere to be found. But you ask, how did he get to his kill? I don’t know. I have my own ideas… but no proof at all.’
>
  ‘What ideas?’ Dragosani asked, and waited half-anxiously for Giresci to answer. He already knew the correct answer to the question — or believed he did — but now he would discover just how clever Giresci really was. And how dangerous… What? He once again propped himself upright in his chair. What the hell was going wrong with his thought processes?

  ‘A vampire,’ the other slowly answered, carefully for mulating his thoughts, ‘is not human. I saw enough on the night Ferenczy died to convince me of that. So what is he? He is an alien creature, a co-habitant of man’s body and mind. He is at best symbiotic, a gestalt-creature, and at worst a parasite, a hideous lamprey.’

  Correct! Dragosani snapped his agreement — but silently, to himself. And at once he felt dizzy and confused. He had known for a fact that Giresci was right in his assessment of the vampire — but how had he known? And even as he wondered what was happening to him, now Dragosani heard himself say:

  ‘But isn’t he supernatural? Surely he would need to be, to go about his business and still escape detection down all the years.’

  ‘Not supernatural, no,’ Giresci shook his head. ‘Super human! Hypnotic, magnetic! Creature of illusion, in no way a magician but in every way a great trickster! Not a bat but silent as a bat! Not a wolf, but swift as a wolf! Not a flea but a monster with a flea’s appetite for blood — on a scale unprecedented! That’s my idea of the vampire, Dragosani. Fifty miles to a creature like that? A healthy evening’s walk! He would be able to compel his human shell to excesses of effort undreamed of…’

  All correct, all of it, Dragosani mentally agreed, and out loud: The name, Ferenczy. You say it’s common enough. Why, being so clever, and taking into account all your research and what have you, haven’t you tracked down other Ferenczys? You say that the vampire is territorial, and this region belonged to Faethor. Surely then there must have been other territories — and who lords or lorded it over them, eh?’

  His voice was a rasp, harsh as a file. Once more Giresci

  was a little taken aback. ‘Why, you’ve pre-empted me!’ he finally answered. ‘Shrewd stuff, Dragosani. Very astute. If Faethor Ferenczy had single-handedly held Moldavia and eastern Transylvania in his thrall for seven hundred years and more, what of the rest of Romania? Is that what you’re saying?’