by Brian Lumley
No, she couldn’t even contemplate that, not for a moment. And yet in three months time, in the spring, she would have to do just exactly that. For that was when Radu had determined to be up. He might even be up now, but had wanted to see Harry in advance of the event. He should have seen him three months ago, and barring the intervention of a Drakul lieutenant and thrall would have done so. It had been then that Harry Keogh had once again demonstrated his talent for survival—and his feelings for Bonnie Jean, that he would protect her with his life—for now those Drakuls were no more.
And half-way to Harry’s place near Bonnyrig, B.J. remembered what little she had seen of the Drakul attack, and how it had been afterwards …
IV
LET SLEEPING DOG-LORDS LIE—COVERT SURVEILLANCE— AULD JOHN’S REPORT—THE LIMBO INTERFACE
B.J. HAD TAKEN HARRY NORTH FOR A LONG WEEKEND’S CLIMBING, HUNTING, living off the land and generally roughing it in the Highlands. So she’d told him, anyway. But in fact they’d been going to see the sleeping dog-Lord in his lair. She had had all kinds of misgivings about it; she’d grown inordinately fond of Harry, too fond, perhaps. He’d aroused emotions in her other than the grand passions of her kind, and she had known that to let Radu see him, “talk” to him, would mean simply giving him up to the dog-Lord. But in any case they hadn’t made it.
On the unseasonably warm autumn morning scheduled for the climb, as B.J. and Harry headed for the starting point in Auld John’s car—then the Drakuls had launched their attack.
There had been two of them, red-robed “priests” in a station wagon that they used as a juggernaut, trying to force B.J. off the road. She had “switched Harry on,” told him that these were two of the enemies she’d warned him about. But as soon as she had gained a little distance, rounded a bend and so passed out of sight of their pursuers, Harry had asked to be dropped off. She had done it, and a minute or two later when the Drakuls failed to catch up she’d gone back for him.
Somehow he had caused them to crash; their station wagon had left the road over a wooded gorge and fallen to earth nose-first through trees which had scarcely broken its fall. One of the occupants, the driver—a lieutenant by his looks, and by the way he later died—had got himself skewered on his steering column; the other, a thrall, was uninjured. B.J. had come on the scene barely in time to prevent the latter’s attack on Harry. She had put a crossbow bolt through the thrall’s heart, and Harry had set fire to the petrol leaking from their shattered car. Both of the Drakuls had burned, melting down in the furnace heat as B.J. and Harry backed off.
That had been a horrific thing, but it had served to confirm that the driver was a lieutenant:
Through the envelope of blue-shimmering heat, his blazing figure had been plainly visible where he tried to lift himself off the steering column. Failing, he’d then looked out through the wall of fire with eyes like peeled grapes. A moment later, his torso had burst open and put out corpse-white tentacles or feelers to lash in the super-heated interior of the car. Twining together, the tentacles had blossomed outwards through the stripped-away roof and upward into the fiery slipstream, where they floated in the incendiary updraft like the arms of a crippled anemone.
Other tentacles had uncoiled like worms from the open car door. They pissed an orange fluid all around that smoked where it fell to earth. Then the lieutenant’s vampire had submitted, and he had withdrawn his molten appendages, crumpled down into himself and begun to slop out of the door around the shoulders of his companion. As for that one: he had sat there lifelessly with B.J.’s bolt through him.
And it had been over …
They had driven to Dalwhinnie, and during the journey B.J. had cancelled the episode from Harry’s mind. He’d seen things that just didn’t fit the “innocent” image he had of her, things out of her dark side that he wasn’t ready for. And from then on—from Harry’s point of view, at least—they had simply been on a climbing and hunting trip, which for reasons of her own B.J. had cried off. Nothing more complicated than that …
But of course Harry was thinking and acting under hypnosis, and for B.J. it wasn’t that easy to throw off. Indeed she daren’t forget a single detail, for it was life and death.
From Dalwhinnie, she had phoned Auld John in Inverdruie and told him to see to Radu. Unlike B.J., who was Radu’s lieutenant, Auld John was merely in thrall to the dog-Lord. Though he had been a moon-child all his long life, he would never run with the pack under a full moon; it wasn’t in him to be a werewolf. But he was a very capable climber, and he knew the way to the lair. Indeed, as a gamekeeper, in the protected preserve of the Badenoch valley, John had guarded the routes to Radu’s lair for most of his life. And of course he would attend to the dog-Lord in B.J.’s absence. That is to say, he would see to Radu’s feeding—and to the feeding of his creature …
And doubtless Radu would probe John’s all too eager mind, to see what had gone wrong.
The plan had worked; two days later Auld John had called B.J. at the wine-bar to tell her all was well. But as for “Him in His high place,” well, he “wasnae verra pleased!” His time was fast approaching, and his resurgence could not be delayed. Come hell or high water, B.J. would present the Mysterious One to him when next duty called her to the Cairngorms lair. Which should have been this past weekend.
The three months’ reprieve had flown, and despite that the weather had worsened dramatically—and that she was less inclined than ever to part with her “wee man”—there’d seemed no putting it off. But at least (B.J. had told herself anxiously) this would only be Harry’s initial audience; after that, there would still be six months left before Radu’s actual resurgence.
Then, with less than two weeks to go before the scheduled visit, things had started to happen …
In fact a variety of things had been happening all along, ever since the failed attack of the Drakuls. For just a day or so after the release of the story of a “fatal Spey Valley accident” in the newspapers, B.J. had been pleased to read how the Home Office had issued expulsion orders on “several members of an obscure Tibetan religious order, believed to have been engaged in inter-sectarian warfare in the British Isles.” Not only were they being expelled but others of their order—the “Emissaries of Drakesh”—had been refused entry … This had gone hand in hand with the story of a firefight, and the discovery of weapons and evidence of their use at the scene of what was previously and mistakenly considered a traffic accident.
It all fitted, especially that reference to these Emissaries of Drakesh. But a religious order? Hah! An order of Drakuls, no less! And in no way engaged in sectarian or any other kind of warfare (not until they had met up with B.J. and Harry Keogh, anyway), but in spying and building up their numbers in advance of the dog-Lord’s resurgence! Well at least Radu would now know where to look for them—or for him, “D.D.,” the last of his line. In Tibet.
But if this sneaking Drakul in his far-distant monastery hideaway knew of Radu’s imminent return, then what of the Ferenczys? For a long time, even decades, B.J. had suspected that she was being watched; just as she had watched out for, and on occasion even tried to seek out, others of her own and the dog-Lord’s kind. Some years ago she had lost one of her girls, mysteriously vanished in London. Radu’s opinion had been that it was the work of Ferenczys, who were seeking him out in anticipation of his rising. Since when B.J. had been doubly careful, but not watchful enough. Or perhaps familiarity had bred contempt, and time had worn down her vigilance.
It had been Harry Keogh who first brought to her attention the fact of a secret observer, the little man she had told the Inspector about. For on Harry’s first visit to B.J.’s Wine Bar, he had seen this strange figure lurking in a shop doorway across the street, apparently taking pictures. But it was only after Harry had described this watcher to B.J. that she realized she’d seen him, too … frequently over the years, in and around the city and the rundown district of her wine bar. But only at night, or when it was cloudy and overcast
.
Then B.J. had remembered a hundred occasions when she’d sensed eyes on her in a crowd, or heard soft footsteps sounding behind her in quiet lanes, or glimpsed pin-pricks of gold in the shade of a vaguely familiar broad-brimmed hat. And not only B.J. but most of her girls, too …
So, was this watcher a Ferenczy spy such as Radu had warned her about? It seemed more than likely. A spy—a “sleeper,” sent to Scotland thirty or more years ago—with no orders but to establish himself, seek out the dog-Lord’s thralls and minders, and through them find Radu himself in his secret place.
Well, so far he had failed, B.J. felt reasonably sure. Her base was so far removed from Radu, and her precautions when she paid him her quarterly visits so strict—and the climb to his lair so arduous, with Auld John to watch the routes for strangers—that Radu’s safety seemed assured. But she herself, and the pack, her girls … they had been discovered long ago.
So, why had this Ferenczy scum waited? A hundred or more times he could have put a silver bullet through B.J.’s head—yet hadn’t. The answer seemed simple: to take her out would be to alert Radu’s other thralls, if any such existed, jeopardizing both the watcher and his Masters, wherever they were! Also, the Ferenczys could afford to wait, for while Radu was down he was no real threat. And obviously this “D.D.,” the last Drakul, felt the same: let the sleeping dog-Lord lie, and while he lay investigate his thralls, discover his lair and find out everything there was to be known about him and his.
Then, in the hour of his resurgence—strike full force, before his strength had time to flow back into him!
It all made sense, or would do if the Drakuls hadn’t preempted things. So what had caused them to jump the gun? And as for Harry … he had seemed edgy from his first glimpse of the red-robed “priests.” What was it with him and them? Or was it simply coincidence, or B.J. reading too much into too little?
But that aside, in the quarter gone by since the Drakuls’ failed attack, Ferenczy surveillance on the wine-bar, on B.J.’s girls, and herself, had gone up one hundred per cent. It was no lie when she’d told Inspector Ianson about the observer; since alerting her girls to his presence, the furtive little man had been spotted a dozen times. The only lie had been in regard to his “great dog.” No such dog existed but a wolf, a great white she-wolf …
As for the Drakuls themselves:
B.J. had read in a third newspaper report how the police were looking for four more members of the sect, believed to be hiding out in the country. It made sense: originally the group had been six members strong. So, four of them were still here, and probably not too far away. Well, no way they could sneak up on B.J. now, not in their red robes, anyway! And be sure that she and her girls would avoid Asiatics of any description; or, if need be, strike back at them a second time.
So then, all these reasons to let Auld John stand in for her again, put off her quarterly visit to Radu in his den, and so for a second time delay his meeting with Harry—a meeting which would surely seal the latter’s fate. All these reasons—and not one of them good enough. The dog-Lord would doubtless tell her that since she knew the problems to be overcome, she must simply take greater precautions, that was all. Worse, he would probably wonder at her reticence, too.
Then, with only a week to go, the reprieve, when fate had delivered a pair of far more acceptable excuses: the fact that one of her girls, Margaret Macdowell, had been threatened—a matter which B.J. must attend to herself—and severe weather conditions, making any kind of Cairngorms venture more treacherous yet. Despite that she’d had Harry in training (she would protest), he was by no means the expert climber; she certainly wouldn’t want to lose him on some icy, vertiginous face on the route to the dog-Lord’s lair! Better far if his first audience with Radu were delayed a further three-month, when the weather should be improved and the climb so much easier.
So her excuses were finally sufficient, and she’d called Auld John in Inverdruie and told him her decision. And because she took time to list all of her reasons, impressing them into John’s memory, she could be sure that when Radu used his mentalism to dig them out again—which he surely would—he would know that Bonnie Jean Mirlu was his true and devoted servant.
But in fact B.J. knew what she was—treacherous! And she knew why she was; because she was Wamphyri!
Wamphyri, aye, and devious to a fault, as every Great Vampire before her. And yet devoted too, to Harry …
B.J.’s jumbled thoughts returned to the present.
She was driving across an old stone bridge. A quarter of a mile away along the river, silhouetted against a threatening sky, Harry’s house stood like an old, watchful but bleary-eyed owl between two sleeping brothers.
Watchful but tired, yes …
It was only then that B.J. paused to consider how anxious and tired she was, and her actions since Harry’s call. For the first time in a long time she hadn’t bothered to take any precautions against being followed. But it had been a week since she’d last seen Harry, and he was feeling down and troubled in his mind. And what with all of B.J.’s other worries, not least the Inspector’s visit, and the fact that she was still waiting for a call from Auld John in Inverdruie to confirm that all was well with Radu—well, little wonder she wasn’t quite with it! And anyway, what the hell? Who would be out following her on a night as cold and dark as this?
They would, that’s who.
But too late now to cry over spilled milk. And anyway, the odds were that they already knew about Harry. On the other hand they would also know he was only a man, her human lover, and of no great concern to them. The Ferenczys would think so, anyway. And the handful of Drakuls were still in hiding. So, there was really no way she could have seriously compromised anything.
Still, as she pulled up outside the old house and dimmed her lights, B.J. narrowed her slanted eyes and looked long and searchingly into her rearview—and finally sighed her relief. There was nothing back there but the dark ribbon of the river, suddenly silvered by moonlight as a gap opened in the low cloud ceiling. Moonlight, aye, but two days past its full. In another moment the gap had closed and it was dark again.
B.J. got out of her car, locked it, and almost ran up the path to Harry’s front door …
… But across the river and roughly opposite Harry’s place, on the grass verge of the country road and hidden beneath the overhanging branches of tall trees, a second car sat in darkness and silence, with only the occasional tick, tick from an engine that was already cooling in the frosty night air.
The car was an old but reliable Volkswagen Beetle, whose driver had known from several previous visits the best place to park. For the next half-hour or so he would simply sit and watch, and wait for the lights to go out, then take his departure. But at first light he’d be back in time to see the girl leave. Nor was this any kind of weird long-distance voyeurism but simply his sinister job. For B.J. Mirlu’s habits were all-important to him—especially in connection with the man she was visiting …
… And two hundred yards back up the same road, on the same grass verge, a third vehicle sat in darkness and silence; but Inspector George Ianson was here for a very different reason. Not to spy on the girl—not at all—but on the spy. And to wonder what in hell old Angus McGowan thought he was up to!?
The Inspector was here by virtue of a series of coincidences, which was odd in itself because he’d never believed in them. His street was a no-parking area, wherefore he garaged his car the best part of a mile from home. Ex-constable Gavin Strachan lived only a short walk away but in the other direction; wherefore on leaving Strachan’s place, Ianson had taken taxis to and from B.J.’s. But on his way home—still wrestling with this thing about old Angus’s book—he had decided to pay the vet a visit.
It was rather latish, true, and McGowan didn’t much care for visitors at any time, but Ianson knew him for a night-owl and hoped he wouldn’t mind. Also, he could disguise the real purpose of his visit by asking the vet about his zoo queries, how he was
getting on with them … though why he would want to use such a subterfuge he couldn’t quite say.
So he had taken the taxi to his garage, then driven himself to McGowan’s place east of the city towards the sea. But as he’d driven into the poorly-lit street of tall dark houses where his quarry lived, he had been barely in time to see the man himself leaving in his battered Beetle.
It was the car that gave McGowan away (though again, why Ianson should think of it in those terms was anybody’s guess). Unless it was the way McGowan was crouched over his steering wheel, intent on his driving, staring straight ahead … his furtive attitude in general. Or not even his attitude but Ianson’s, the way he was beginning to feel about this whole damn business. A gut feeling, yes: a hunch. The instinct that sometimes makes a good policeman great—and sometimes the thing that makes him feel guilty, too.
Be that as it may, Ianson had turned his car around and used covert pursuit techniques learned twenty-five years earlier in the Metropolitan Police to follow the vet through Edinburgh’s wintry night streets. Mercifully, there had been just enough traffic that he could stay two or three cars back out of sight without losing McGowan. Fortunate, too, that Ianson’s seven-year-old car was an anonymous brown model of which there were hundreds in the city.
But in a little while it had dawned on the Inspector that he was backtracking much the same route his taxi had taken from B.J.’s Wine Bar—returning in fact to B.J.’s Wine Bar! A wild guess, but it had proved to be an accurate one. And as he drove into the bar’s district, Ianson’s gut-feeling had begun to knot into something else inside him.
