by Brian Lumley
Can you put on the shapes of lesser creatures?
“I can go on all fours like a great dog,” Yulian answered. “And in the night, people would swear I was a dog!”
Hah! A dog! A man who would be a dog! What is that for an ambition? It is nothing! Can you form wings, glide like a bat?
“I … haven’t tried.”
You know nothing.
“I can make others like myself!”
Fool! That is the simplest of things. Not to make them is much harder!
“When harmful men are nearby, I sense their minds …”
That is instinct, which you. got from me. Indeed, everything you have you got from me! So you read minds, eh? But can you bend those minds to your will?
“With my eyes, yes.”
Beguilement, hypnotism, a stage magician’s trick! You are an innocent.
“Damn you!” Yulian’s pride was hurt at last, his patience all used up. “What are you anyway but a dead thing? I’ll tell you what I’ve learned: I can take a dead creature and draw out its secrets, and know all that it knew in life!”
Necromancy? It is so? And no one to show you how? That is an achievement! There is hope for you yet.
“I can heal my own wounds as though they never were, and I’ve the strength of any two men. I could lie with a woman and love her—to death, if I desired—and not even weary myself. And only anger me, dear father, and then I could kill, kill, kill! But not you, for you’re already dead. Hope for me? I’ll say there is. But what hope is there for you?”
For a moment there was no answer from the melting Thing. Then—
Ahhh! And indeed you are my son, Yuliaannn! Closer, come closer still.
Yulian moved to less than arm’s length from the Thing, facing it squarely. The stench of its burning was monstrous. Its blackened outer shell began to crumble, rapidly disintegrated and fell away. The flames immediately attacked the inner image, which Yulian now saw almost as a reflection of himself. It had the same features, the same bone structure, the same dark attraction. The face of a fallen angel. They could be peas from the same pod.
“You … you are my father!” he gasped.
I was, the other groaned. Now I am nothing. I am burning away, as you see. Not the real me but something I left behind. It was my last hope, and through it—and with your help—I might have been a power in the world once again. But it’s too late now.
“Then why do you concern yourself with me?” Yulian tried to understand. “Why have you come to me—or drawn me to you? If I can’t help you, what’s the point of this?”
Revenge! The burning Thing’s voice was suddenly sharp as a knife in Yulian’s dreaming mind. Through you!
“I should avenge you? Against whom?”
Against the ones who found me here. The ones who even now destroy my last chance for a future. Against Harry Keogh and his pack of white magicians!
“You’re not making sense.” Yulian shook his head, gazed in morbid fascination as the Thing continued to melt. He saw his own features liquefying, streaming away and falling from the burning creature in molten tatters. “What white magicians? Harry Keogh? I don’t know anyone of that name.”
But he knows you! First me, Yulian, and then you! Harry Keogh knows us—and he knows the way: the stake, the sword, and the fire! You tell me you can sense the presence of enemies—and have you not sensed just such enemies close to you even now? They are one and the same. First me, and then you!
Even dreaming, Yulian felt his scalp crawling. The secret watchers, of course! “What must I do?”
Avenge me, and save yourself. That, too, is one and the same. For they know what we are, Yulian, and they cannot abide us. You must kill them, for if you don’t they’ll surely kill you!
The last scrap of human flesh fell from the nightmarish entity, revealing at last its true, inner reality. Yulian hissed his horror, drew back a little way, gazed upon the face of all evil. He saw Thibor’s bat’s snout, his convoluted ears, long jaws, crimson eyes. The vampire laughed at him—the bass booming of a great hound—and a split tongue flickered redly in a cave of teeth. Then, as if someone had applied a giant’s bellows to the task, the flames roared up higher still and rushed in, and the image blackened at once and turned to glowing cinders.
Trembling violently, running with sweat, Yulian came awake, sat bolt upright in his bed. And as from a million miles away he heard again, one last time, Thibor’s far, faint voice: Avenge me, Yuliaannn …
He stood up in the dark room, went shakily to the window, looked out on the night. Out there, a mind. A man. Watching. Waiting.
Sweat quickly dried on Yulian and his flesh turned cold, but still he stood there. Panic receded, was replaced by rage, hatred. “Avenge you, father?” he finally breathed. “Oh, I will. I will!”
In the window’s luminous, night-dark pane his reflection was an echo from the dream. But Yulian was neither shocked nor surprised. It simply meant that his metamorphosis was now complete. He looked through the reflection at the dark, furtive shadow there in the hedgerow … and grinned.
And his grin was like an invitation to step in through the gates of hell …
At the foot of the cruciform hills, Kyle and Quint, Krakovitch and Gulharov waited close together in a small group. It wasn’t cold but they stood together, as if for warmth.
The fire was dying down now; the wind which had earlier sprung up out of nowhere had quickly blown itself out, like the dying breath of some unseen Gargantuan. Human figures, half hidden in the trees and the billowing black smoke, toiled above and to the east of the devastated area, containing the fire and beating it down. A grimy, coveralled hulk of a man came stumbling from the trees at the foot of the slope toward the vampire hunters where they huddled. It was the Romanian ganger, Janni Chevenu.
“You!” He grabbed Krakovitch’s arm. “Plague, you said! But did you see it? Did you see that … that thing before it burned? It had eyes, mouths! It lashed, writhed … it … it … my God! My God!”
Under the soot and sweat, Chevenu’s face was chalk. Slowly his glazed eyes cleared. He looked from Krakovitch to the others. The gaunt faces that looked back seemed carved of the same emotion: a horror, no less than Chevenu’s own.
“Plague, you said,” he dazedly repeated. “But that wasn’t any kind of plague I ever heard of.”
Krakovitch shook himself loose. “Oh yes it was, Janni,” he finally answered. “It was the very worst kind. Just consider yourself lucky you were able to destroy it. We’re in your debt. All of us. Everywhere …”
Darcy Clarke should have had the 8:00 P.M.–2:00 A.M. shift; instead he was bedded down at the hotel in Paignton—something he’d eaten, apparently. Stomach cramps and violent diarrhoea.
Peter Keen had taken the shift in Clarke’s place, driving out to Harkley House and relieving Trevor Jordan of the job of keeping Bodescu under observation.
“Nothing’s happening up there,” Jordan had whispered, leaning in through the open window of his car, handing Keen a powerful crossbow with a hardwood bolt. “There’s a light on downstairs, but that’s all. They’re all in there, or if not then they didn’t come out through the gate! The light did come on in Bodescu’s attic room for a few minutes, then went out again. That was probably him getting his head down. Also, I felt that there just might be Someone probing for my thoughts—but that lasted for only a moment. Since when it’s been quiet as the proverbial tomb,”
Keen had grinned, however nervously. “Except we know that not every tomb is quiet, eh?”
Jordan hadn’t found it funny. “Peter, that’s a really weird sense of humour you’ve got there.” He nodded at the crossbow in Keen’s hand. “Do you know how to use that? Here, I’ll load it for you.”
“That’s OK,” Keen nodded affably. “I’ll manage it all right. But if you want to do me a real favour, just make sure my relief’s on time at two in the morning!”
Jordan got into his car and started it, trying not to rev the engine. “T
his makes twelve hours out of twenty-four for you doesn’t it? Son, you’re a glutton for punishment. Keen by name, and all that. You should go far—if you don’t kill yourself first. Have a nice night!” And he’d pulled carefully away in his car, only turning on the lights when he was a hundred yards down the road.
That had been only half an hour ago but already Keen was cursing himself for his big mouth. His old man had been a soldier. “Peter,” he’d once told him, “never volunteer. If they need volunteers, that’s because nobody wants the job.” And on a night like this it was easy to understand why.
There was something of a ground mist and the air was laden with moisture. The atmosphere felt greasy, and heavy as a tangible weight on Keen’s shoulders. He turned up his collar, lifted infra-red binoculars to his eyes. For the tenth time in thirty minutes he scanned the house. Nothing. The house was warm, which showed clearly enough, but nothing moved in there. Or the movement was too slight to detect.
He scanned what could be seen of the grounds. Again, nothing—or rather, something! Keen’s sweep had passed over a hazy blue blur of warmth, just a blob of body heat which his special nite-lites had picked up. It could be a fox, badger, dog—or a man? He tried to find it again, failed. So … had he seen something, or hadn’t he?
Something buzzed and tingled in Keen’s head, like a sudden burst of electrical current, making him start … Slimy gibber-gobble spying babble-gabble bastard!
Keen froze stiff as a board. What was that? What the hell was that?
You’re going to die, die, die! Ha, ha, ha! Gibber-jabber, gobble-gabble … And then some more of the electrical tingling. And silence.
Jesus Christ! But Keen knew without further inquiry what it was: his unruly talent. For a moment then, just for a few seconds, he’d picked up another mind. A mind full of hate!
“Who?” Keen said out loud, staring all about, ankle-deep in swirling mist. “What … ?” Suddenly the night was full of menace.
He’d left the crossbow in his car, loaded and lying on the front seat. The red Capri was parked with its nose in a field, about twenty-five yards away along the road. Keen was on the verge, his shoes, socks and feet already soaking from walking in the grass. He looked at Harkley House, standing sinister in its misty grounds, then started to back off towards the car. In the grounds of the old house, something loped towards the open gate. Keen saw it for a moment, then lost it in the shadows and the mist.
A dog? A large dog? Darcy Clarke had had trouble with a dog, hadn’t he?
Keen backed faster, stumbled and almost fell. An owl hooted somewhere in the night. Other than that there was only silence. And a soft, deliberate padding—and a panting? —from beyond the gate just across the road. Keen backed faster yet, all his senses alert, his nerves starting to jump. Something was coming, he could feel it. And not just a dog.
He slammed backwards into the side of his car, drew breath in an audible, grateful gasp. He half turned, reached in through the open window, groped with his hand on the front seat. He found something, drew it into view …
The lignum vitae bolt—broken in two halves—hanging together by a mere splinter of wood! Keen shook his head in dumb disbelief, reached into the car again. This time he found the crossbow, unloaded, its tough metal wings bent back and twisted out of shape.
Something tall and black flowed out of the shadows right up to him. It wore a cape which, at the last moment, it threw back. Keen looked into a face which wasn’t nearly human. He tried to scream but his throat felt like sandpaper.
The thing in black glared at Keen and its lips drew back. Its teeth were hooked together, meshing like the teeth of a shark. Keen tried to run, leap, move, but couldn’t; his feet were rooted to the spot. The thing in black raised its arm in a swift movement and something gleamed a wet, silvery gleam in the night.
A cleaver!
Chapter Thirteen
WHEN KYLE AND HIS COMPANIONS GOT BACK TO IONESTI AND the inn, they found Irma Dobresti pacing the floor of their suite, nervously massaging her long hands. Her relief when she saw them was obvious. Likewise her delight when they told her the operation had been a complete success. They weren’t eager, however, to detail much of what had happened in the foothills; looking at their drawn faces, she was wise enough not to pry. They might tell her later, in their own time.
“So,” she said, after they’d had a drink, “the job is done here. We are not needing to stay any longer in Ionesti. It is ten-thirty—late, I know; but I am suggesting we go now. These red tape dolts will arrive soon. Is better if we are not here.”
“Red tape?” Quint looked surprised. “I didn’t know you used that term, er, over here!”
“Oh, yes,” she answered, unsmiling. “Also ‘Commie,’ and ‘Zurich Gnome,’ and ‘Capitalist dog!’”
“I agree with Irma,” said Kyle. “If we wait we’ll only be obliged to brazen it out—or tell the truth. And the truth, while it is verifiable in the long term, isn’t immediately believable. No, I can see all kinds of problems coming up if we stay here.”
“All true.” She nodded, sighing her relief that the Englishman was of a like mind. “Later, if they are determined to talk about this, they can contact me in Bucharest. There I am on my own ground, with the backing of my superiors. I am not for blaming. This was a matter of national security, a liaison of a scientific, preventative nature between three great countries, Romania, Russia, and Great Britain. I am secure. But right now, here in Ionesti, I do not feel secure.”
“So let’s get to it,” said Quint, with his usual efficiency.
Irma showed her yellow teeth in one of her infrequent smiles. “No need for getting to it,” she informed. “Nothing to get to. I took the liberty of packing your bags! Can we go now, please?”
Without more ado, they paid the bill and left.
Krakovitch opted to drive, giving Sergei Gulharov a break. As they sped back towards Bucharest on the night roads, Gulharov sat beside Irma in the back of the car and quietly filled her in as best he could on the story of what had happened in the hills, the monstrous thing they had burned there.
When he was finished she said simply, “Your faces told me it must have been like that. I am glad I am not seeing it …”
After his last painful visit, at about 10:00 P.M., Darcy Clarke had slept like a log in his hotel bedroom for nearly three hours solid. When he woke up he felt fighting fit. All very mysterious; he’d never known an attack of gastroenteritis to come and go so quickly (not that he was sorry it had gone) and he had no idea what he could have eaten to cause it. Whatever it had been, the rest of the team had felt no ill effects. It was because he didn’t want to let that team down that Clarke dressed quickly and went to report himself fit for duty.
In the control room (the living area of their main suite of rooms), he found Guy Roberts slumped in his swivel chair, head on his folded arms where he sprawled across his “desk”: a dining table, cluttered with notes, a log book and a telephone. He was fast asleep with an ashtray piled full of dog-ends right under his nose. A tobacco addict, he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep comfortably without it!
Trevor Jordan snoozed in a deep armchair while Ken Layard and Simon Gower quietly played their own version of Chinese Patience at a small green-baize card table. Gower, a prognosticator or augur of some talent, played badly, making too many mistakes. “Can’t concentrate!” he growlingly complained. “I have this feeling of bad stuff coming—lots of it!”
“Stop making excuses!” said Layard. “Hell, we know bad stuff is coming! And we know where from. We don’t know when, that’s all.”
“No” Gower frowned, tossed in his hand, “I mean not of our making. When we go against Harkley and Bodescu, that will be different. This thing I’m feeling is—” he shrugged uneasily, “something else.”
“So maybe we should wake up the Fat Man there and tell him?” Layard suggested.
Gower shook his head. “I’ve been telling him for the last three days. It isn’t sp
ecific—it never is—but it’s there. You could be right: I’m probably feeling the ding-dong coming up at Harkley House. If so, then believe me it’s going to be a good one! Anyway, let old Roberts kip. He’s tired—and when he’s awake the place stinks of bloody weed! I’ve seen him with three going at once! God, you need a respirator!”
Clarke stepped around Roberts’s snoring form to check the roster. Roberts had only mapped it out until the end of the afternoon shift. Keen was on now, to be relieved by Layard, a locator or finder, who in turn would watch Harkley till 8:00 A.M. Then it would be Gower’s turn until 2:00 P.M., followed by Trevor Jordan. The roster went no farther than that. Clarke wondered if that was significant …
Maybe that was what Gower was feeling: a ding-dong, as he had it. but a little closer than he thought.
Layard cocked his head on one side, looked at Clarke where he studied the roster. “What’s up, old son? Still got the runs? You can stop worrying about shift work at Harkley. Guy has pulled you off it.”
Gower looked up and managed a grin. “He doesn’t want you polluting the bushes out there!”
“Ha-ha!” said Clarke, his face blank. “Actually, I’m fine now. And I’m starving! Ken, you can go and jump in your bed if you like. I’ll take the next shift. That’ll adjust the roster back to normal.”
“What a hero!” Layard gave a soft whistle. “Great! Six hours in bed will suit me just fine.” He stood up, stretched. “Did you say you were hungry? There are sandwiches under the plate on the table there. A bit curly by now, but still edible.”
Clarke started to munch on a sandwich, glancing at his watch. It was 1:15 P.M. “I’ll have a quick shower and get on my way. When Roberts wakes up, tell him I’m on, right?”
