The Plague-Bearer

by Brian Lumley

  In the past, and considering the nature of B.J.’s girls—that they were a new generation of moon-children, lycanthropes descended from the thralls of Radu Lykan, whose werewolf blood had bred true—any risk had seemed minimal and acceptable, but no longer. And now, as a result of B.J.’s concerns, the Necroscope had determined that who or whatever was threatening Bonnie Jean and the pack it was time someone put a stop to it.

  For the fact that the unknown assailant had already failed twice in whatever he was trying to do was no guarantee that he would not try again. And as for the identities of his two most likely targets: These were already apparent.

  The black girl, Zahanine, was one such, and young Kate herself another. As such, Kate scarcely realized how lucky she had been three nights ago when she’d escaped Mike Milazzo’s poisonous bite by the skin of her—or of his?—teeth!

  With these things in mind, Harry had distanced himself from the wine bar by a quarter mile and crossed the road into one of his coordinates, the entrance to a narrow alley: as good a spot as any to commence reconnoitring Zahanine’s and Kate’s routes, searching for the one or two locations on each route which the unknown attacker might find best suited to an ambush.

  Then he would have to decide—or perhaps try to discover—which of these locations it would most likely be, and more importantly when. And he must work quickly, for Kate would be leaving the bar in barely an hour’s time. She had said she’d take a taxi; but she had also mentioned that after she was dropped off there yet remained a wearying climb to her first-floor flatlet, almost one hundred yards of it up steep stone steps in a narrow canyon-like alley. Once indoors she’d feel safe enough, for the flat was well secured behind “verra strong doors wi’ guid locks and bolts, aye. It’s just a pity the alley’s so verra steep and narrow. As for the neighbourhood…well, while it’s no a slum it’s no of the, er, highest quality, if ye ken mah meanin’.”

  Harry did indeed “ken” young Kate’s meaning; it solved the problem of which locations to reconnoitre first. But before any of that there was someone he must contact about that item which had caught his attention in the evening newspaper. And so, with only a little time to spare, Harry took the Möbius route to his lonely old house outside the city, and from there put through a call to the Night Duty Officer at E-Branch H.Q. in London…

  A gangling, ex-intelligence corps major called Fred Madison was on duty. Normally easy-going, and sometimes downright indolent, Madison sat up straighter in his chair and came wide awake when Harry identified himself.

  “Harry? Long time no see—or hear. So what’s up?”

  The Necroscope told him: an item in the Edinburgh Express’ late edition. A post mortem that seemed to be returning strange or anomalous results. Some poor girl, a prostitute, had died of drugs, starvation, anaemia; perhaps a combination of all three. Maybe Madison could look into it for him, let him know what was going on?

  “Let me look at the screen,” the other answered. “Something you think might interest us? I mean, the Branch?”

  “I don’t know,” Harry snapped, and frowned impatiently even though Madison couldn’t see him. “Perhaps, perhaps not—but it does interest me, and time is pressing…”

  And just a few moments later: “Well, what do you know! I’ve got it on the screen. It must have come to us through the usual channels. Whenever Porton Down is involved we get to know about it first off, er, as you probably know.”

  Harry’s frown deepened. Porton Down: the British Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research. “So, what’s going on?”

  “Er,” Madison seemed of two minds. “Harry, you’re no longer with us, right?”

  “Listen,” said the Necroscope quietly, “I really don’t have time for any cloak and dagger stuff. This could be very important to me, you, everybody. So either tell me what you’ve got on your screen or put me through to Darcy Clarke.” Clarke was Head of Branch and had used to be as good a friend as any of Harry’s old circle at E-Branch. And after another brief pause:

  “Okay, Harry, but I’ll need to let Darcy know. It’ll be in the situation report in the morning. You do understand that?”

  “Of course,” Harry answered. “Fine.”

  “Okay then.” Madison sighed, and Harry could sense that he remained reluctant. “Now let’s see what we’ve got here…Well, it doesn’t say how the people from Porton Down got onto it, but their post mortem has come up with a really weird mixture which includes some drug use and apparent pernicious anaemia—though not enough in itself to have killed her—but the rest of it is…Jesus! What in the name of…!?”

  “What’s that, Fred?” Harry rasped, his impatience mounting. “Something you don’t understand? Well neither will I understand if you don’t get on with it and tell me what you’ve got!”

  “Harry,” Madison replied, “it’s not what I’ve got but what that girl had! She’d been sick with several unknown strains of some of the world’s nastiest diseases, possibly natural mutations but more likely some weird shit designed in a laboratory! Well, that’s according to the Porton Down memo, anyway.”

  “Diseases? Made in a laboratory?” Shivering, the Necroscope could feel the hairs standing up at the back of his neck. “What kind of diseases, Fred?”

  “What kind?” the other came back. “Leprosy, rabies, and—would you believe—the bubonic plague!? That’s what kind! What the hell is going on up there in your neck of the woods?”

  And as suddenly and horrifyingly as that, Harry knew exactly what was going on, and he couldn’t stop from gasping it out loud, though it was only intended for himself. “He’s a plague-bearer!” With which:

  Erupting from secret subconscious depths, the Necroscope’s metaphysical mind was instantly awash with otherwise forbidden knowledge. He “remembered” everything that Bonnie Jean had told him, and all of it made sense. B.J. Mirlu, a moon-child; likewise her girls—wolflings all—in thrall to a dog-Lord sleeping down the centuries! What better way for her enemies, their enemies, to deal with them than by infecting them with the only diseases that could destroy them? Leprosy, the so-called “bane” of both vampires and lycanthropes; rabies, which maddened dogs, causing them to bite and spread it abroad; and the Black Death, the bubonic, a hideous scourge out of the past which even their enhanced systems couldn’t handle!

  Now the Necroscope understood it all, and in no more than a whisper he said it again: “He’s a bloody plague-bearer! A vampire and a plague-bearer!”

  “He’s a what?” Madison’s suddenly anxious voice got through to him. “Who are you talking about, Harry? What’s going on?”

  But Harry couldn’t tell him, and so said, “Nothing, not now that the Porton Down people are on it. I was just…you know, checking things out, that’s all.” Which sounded stupid, even to him. But Madison wasn’t letting it go as easily as that.

  “Harry, we’re talking about a dead girl here. It’s like…I mean, you know—you being who you are, what you are—and if you were wanting to know something about her, like how come you didn’t just—”

  “Why didn’t I speak to her?” Harry cut him short. “Perhaps I would have, if I thought I could get to her, see her without attracting a lot of attention. But this would have been new to her…death would have been very new, very terrifying to her. And with those poisons in her—in her body, butchered in the post mortem—asking questions of her wouldn’t have been easy. It never is, not for them and not for me…” He gave himself a shake and withdrew from the morbidity of it all, then said:

  “Anyway, I’ve got what I wanted. So thanks.” And before the other could say anything else he put the phone down…

  Now, with a far more complete picture of all that was happening in his mind, under cover of darkness the Necroscope returned to the entrance of his gloomy alley bolthole near B.J.’s wine bar, and there commenced his previously determined course of action.

  Using the Möbius Continuum, he began by making a series of covert jumps that traced Kate’s route, as s
he’d described it to him, all the way from his secret alley to the door of her flat. And with those locations locked firmly in his mind, he went on to examine Zahanine’s routes, accumulating several more coordinates along the way…

  At approximately the same time, Mike Milazzo was making his way towards B.J.’s bar intent upon attacking the first of her girls he came across. It no longer made any difference to him whether the attack resulted from an ambush or a chance encounter.

  During the past week or so, he had indeed checked out every location or ambush site that the Necroscope was now reconnoitring—both these and some of the routes taken by other members of Bonnie Jean’s pack—but the urgency of his mission, not to mention that of his personal situation, was now so extreme that he was on the verge of throwing caution to the wind.

  The means of Mike’s salvation was in his bite, also in the tiny phials in an inner pocket of his coat; but while the first of these was still viable, the second continued to be an enigma both frustrating and terrifying. Where was the Francezci brothers’ sleeper, their so-called watcher? When would he put in an appearance and finally reveal which of the phials contained the antidote? Ah, but Mike already knew the answer to that last…not until he’d completed his task, obviously.

  Meanwhile—while yet there remained a meanwhile—he found himself salivating or frothing at the mouth more frequently; he felt the seeping stickiness of the pus in his armpits and groin where his clothing adhered, and could even smell it; and insensitive ex-mafioso thug that Mike was, still he was horrified by the rapid, spongy degeneration of his extremities.

  Hence his anxiety, his preoccupation as he entered a gloomy alley on Zahanine’s route; where even with his heightened vampire senses he failed to note a shadow growing out of the deeper shadows until it was upon him, taking form and confronting him! Momentarily startled, he came to an abrupt halt, his heels skidding on the cobbles. But a moment later, as brute instinct took over, he snarled, lurched forward and reached for the throat of the small man who now stood in his way.

  But quick as Mike was the stranger was quicker yet. Without seeming to move a muscle, he yet appeared to flow aside, easily avoiding Mike’s reaching hands. And Mike had seen that sinuous, flowing motion before: It belied the little man’s appearance no less than it had once belied that of the brothers Francezci! He was—could only be—their man, their thrall, their watcher!

  Mike gasped, snatched a breath, took a pace to the rear and hissed his recognition. Then, sighing his relief, he forced his tense muscles to relax as he searched for something to say. But once again the little man beat him to it, and:

  “Aye,” he said, with a curt nod of his head. “Now ye ken me for sure, d’ye no? Mah name’s McGowan. That’s Mr. McGowan—but ye can call me Angus for simplicity, though it’s usually a name Ah reserve for mah friends. As for yeresel’: Ah ken yere name well enough, and more than that yere purpose here. But damn me if ye’re no a verra sloppy man, Mike Milazzo! And if ye ask mah opinion, when it’s doon tae the task in hand ye’ve been as slow as bleddy treacle!”

  Mike’s mob nature now surfaced, and he wasn’t one to accept insults from anyone, let alone someone of McGowan’s small physical stature. “What’s that?” he said, scowling and studying the other more closely. “I’m sloppy and slow? Big talk, from a fucking midget!”

  “Sloppy and slow, aye.” McGowan repeated him. “Not tae mention forgetful! Ye might want tae be a wee bit more careful how ye speak tae a body—and in particular this body! For Ah’m the one wi’ your life in mah hands, am Ah no?”

  The darkness of the alley was nothing to Mike and even less to McGowan, and now close-up they continued to study each other. Mike was young, handsome, well-built if not muscular, and close to six feet in height. While McGowan on the other hand—

  —Mike might find him laughable, might even be scornful of him, if he didn’t know he was a vampire thrall of the Francezci brothers. For Angus McGowan was old, gnarled, and shrivelled as a prune, all five foot four or five of him. Only his nature, of which Mike was now completely convinced, loaned him anything of stature, however illusory. Other than that he was like some kind of living caricature: a “canny” old Scotsman…but his rheumy grey eyes—the eyes of a hawk for all that they were misted—missed very little; and the way his quivering, blue-veined nose sniffed at the air, and at Mike, it must surely be as sensitive as a bloodhound’s.

  No, Mike finally decided, the Francezcis’ watcher wasn’t at all someone to be ridiculed. If anything he was impressive, and in his attitude a match for Mike himself. More than a match, as long as he held the key to Mike’s future: an extended life or a dreadful death. For as he’d oh-so-correctly pointed out, Mike’s continued existence was indeed in his hands.

  And now it was as if McGowan could read his mind, which was something else Mike had experienced before, at Le Manse Madonie: the intuitive, near-telepathic talent of long-term vampires, to glimpse the thoughts of others of their kind. And:

  “Oh, dinnae fret yeresel’, Mike,” the little man told him. “Auld Angus has the answer to yere problem sure enough. But Ah cannae gi’ it tae ye until the wee job’s done—which Ah’m sure ye ken. But man, yere time is verra nearly up and ye’re sick as a body can be. Why, Ah can even smell it on ye…and in ye! And when Ah call ye sloppy it’s no an insult but a fact.”

  “How so?” Mike snarled, not knowing what else to say.

  “Because Ah’ve watched ye,” the other replied. “And Ah tell ye, what may have served ye well in the past in New York is’nae any damn guid tae ye here! Have ye no heard the phrase: longevity is synonymous wi’ anonymity? Did the Francezcis no tell ye? Stealth, man, that’s the word! Now listen:

  “Clever men knew it even three hundred and fifty years ago. Aye, and the Francezcis were around even then! Did’nae Descartes hissel’ make it clear? Did’nae he say how in order tae live well a body must live unseen? Damn right he did! It was a different season and there were different reasons—religious reasons—but the inspiration was the same: fear o’ death!”

  Feeling browbeaten, Mike scowled and said, “What? Des who?”

  “Hah!” McGowan was scornful. “Sloppy and ignorant too!” And before Mike could reply: “Tae see and no be seen, tae track and no be tracked. Why, ye’ve a’ready been here—what, eight days is it? And achieved what? Nothin’ of any value! B.J. Mirlu, she kens there’s somethin’ in the wind. Her girls are grown more cautious and are sure tae change their tack; as they’ve done in the past when they’ve sensed a threat. Ye’ll no be catchin’ them out so easy the noo. And after a’ that ye still seem tae think ye have the right tae take offense when Ah call ye sloppy? Huh! Mike, Ah’ve been here since long before ye were born, and in a’ that time B.J.’s moon-children may have spied me once or twice, like a shadow on the wall, or a far faint figure in the nicht—but that’s a’. Because Ah watch but Ah’m no watched. Because Ah see but Ah’m no seen. Now d’ye understand?”

  Mike had listened in silence; he had heard all and in fact understood all perfectly well. But there was only one thing on his mind, or perhaps two. The first was his horrific condition, and how he must try to find a way not to alienate McGowan, who knew how to alleviate it. And the second was McGowan’s criticism; for irrefutable as it was, it nevertheless rankled and he couldn’t let it go. And so:

  “Yeah, sure I understand. What you don’t seem to understand is all the shit I’ve been going through! I know this B.J. bitch is dangerous; if she wasn’t the Francezcis would have taken her out long ago, and I wouldn’t be here. That’s why I’ve had to be careful, or ‘slow’ according to you: because she is still here. And as for being ‘sloppy’—”

  “Ah take it ye’re speakin’ about a couple o’ dead yins, are ye no?” McGowan sneered. “Aye, and one without her head, so tae speak? And a’ this in the papers under glarin’ headlines? So if that’s no sloppy maybe ye’ll tell me what is! And Ah do ken the shit ye’ve been goin’ through. Man, ye stink o’ it, d’ye no? S
o now let’s walk and talk. We’re just a wee bit conspicuous standin’ here arguin’ in this place.”

  “What?” said Mike, glancing here and there perhaps a little nervously. “But who’s there to see us?”

  McGowan likewise peered up and down the alley. And sniffing the night air, he finally nodded his satisfaction; but he nevertheless touched a bony finger to his lips, indicating caution. And then, moving off with Mike alongside: “Aye, who indeed?” he grunted. “But let me remind ye one more time: ye must see, but no be seen. And wi’ B.J.’s boyfriend—who or what the bleddy hell he is—that’s no easy job. He’s like tae appear as if out o’ thin air, then disappear like so much smoke! It pains me tae admit it, but Ah’ve never been able tae track his movements for more than half a mile or so. Oh, he’s a queer yin, that yin—a night owl—yet no one o’ B.J.’s pack; and neither kith nor kin to ye and me, if ye take mah meanin’…”

  McGowan paused, scowled and shook his head. “So maybe ye’ve been lucky after a’, Mike, that he’s no been at B.J.’s wine bar this last week or so. But one thing’s sure: he’s back the noo!”

  Mike nodded. “The Francezcis told me about him, what little they knew! But with all the years you’ve been here, is that all you’ve got on him?” It was Mike’s turn to sneer. “Maybe I’m not so sloppy after all! But then again, I’m not used to just watching, sneaking about, and doing fuck all else!”

  “Oh aye, verra clever!” McGowan replied sarcastically. “But ye should ken, Mike, that if Ah’d been telt tae do more than Ah do, be sure Ah’d have taken action long ago, no matter the cost tae mahsel’. For it’s no good idea tae fail the Francezcis, and Ah never have. Mah job here has been and still is tae watch and report, that’s a’. The fact that Ah’m still here doin’ it after a’ these years surely speaks for itsel’, does it no?”