by Brian Lumley
His people were vampires after all, and many miles outside of any reasonable means of communication and control. Moreover, he knew that the British authorities were looking for them, and he had problems enough with officialdom as it was. That fool in his office on Kwijiang Avenue, Chungking, for instance: Colonel Tsi-Hong, a regular Red Army officer seconded to China’s paramilitary Department of Parapsychological Studies.
In the weeks since Drakesh had been obliged to murder the overly curious Major Chang Lun—the Officer in Command of the small garrison at Xigaze—he had found himself under increasing pressure from Tsi-Hong. Not that there was any way he could be connected with Chang Lun’s “accident”; indeed, with the land all about deep in the grip of winter, and the terrain a mass of drifted snow under crusty ice, they hadn’t even discovered the Major’s body as yet. And when they did, what then?
There’d been a blizzard the night Chang Lun’s driver nose-dived their snow-cat into a crevasse only a mile or so from the Xigaze garrison, and despite that Tsi-Hong acknowledged Drakesh as a man of rare talents, surely he wouldn’t consider him capable of calling up a storm!?
Oh, really? Yet from his seat in the foreboding “Drakesh Monastery,” the last Drakul, High Priest of his sect, had done just that! As Chang Lun had fled for Xigaze after a spying mission on the monastery and walled city, then, calling up a blizzard—and with the aid of his familiar albino bats—Drakesh had driven him to his doom. Following which:
A few days of silence … and then the messages, relayed from Chungking to the garrison, and delivered by hand to Daham Drakesh. He had known, of course, that Chang Lun was his enemy, and that the Major must have conveyed his concerns about him to Tsi-Hong; but he had believed that the Colonel’s commitment to his “experiment”—to develop an army of supermen for the Red Chinese Army—would be sufficient to keep him secure from all but a minimum of supervision and interference. So he had reasoned, anyway. But apparently he’d been wrong.
Colonel Tsi-Hong knew about Drakesh’s people in England. Having taken Drakesh at his word (that they were simply agents sent into the UK to initiate a low-profile investigation of the British mindspy organization) he had even sanctioned their visit. But now that the Chinese military intelligence services had picked up British press reports about their expulsion, and the Colonel himself was having to answer questions from his superiors, he wanted to know what the hell Drakesh was playing at?
What? Sectarian feuding? Firefights? Murders? Expulsions? And what if the British authorities took Drakesh’s people into custody, and made a connection between the sect and Red China? Also, there was now this unfortunate thing with Chang Lun: his disappearance. That such a capable and reliable officer should simply vanish off the face of the earth—even in a region as treacherous as the Tingri Plateau—was a curious and perhaps even suspicious thing in its own right, without that the Major had made several damning eye-witness reports on certain activities at the Drakesh monastery and in the neighbouring walled city.
Wherefore Drakesh should take note that a new, very much more rigid Officer Commanding would be arriving shortly in Xigaze Garrison; and soon after that the High Priest could expect the first thorough inspections, both of the monastery and the facilities at the walled city …
At first, Daham Drakesh had read such messages with some concern, which in a while had turned to resolution. His course was set, and no turning back. So, a new Officer Commanding was coming to Xigaze, and then across the frozen waste to the monastery. Very well, but his first visit would be his last. What was in the monastery couldn’t be hidden, not from a persistent inspection team. It was here to stay, until Drakesh was ready to send it—or them—out into the world. Therefore the inspection team could not be allowed to leave. And as for what was breeding in the old walled city … that was indeed the stuff of a new army, but in no way a Red Chinese army.
So then, Drakesh’s course was set. And as for any sort of heavy-handed military threat from China: in two, three or four weeks’ time, or whenever such a threat might have materialized—would China really have time to worry about some obscure sect in the cold waste of Tibet? Drakesh doubted it, not with Chungking, London and Moscow in ruins, and the whole world toppling over the brink into nuclear war!
Then, when the earth lay under the grey, windswept gloom of an unending winter, and Drakesh and his brood were the only kind who could profit from it … then his creatures and children, the spawn of his vats and loins, would go out from Tibet into the world, and the new order come into being.
On the roof of the monastery, where the vast skull façade sloped back into the face of the cliff, a radio antenna reared even now. And in a room near the dome of the rock, a crude but powerful radio transmitter wanted only Drakesh’s finger on the button.
As for his lieutenant, recently sent into England:
He could rally the four surviving vampire thralls to him, assess the situation locally, and—in telepathic consultation with Drakesh—make his own decision as to the best course of action. After that, if the group continued to survive the cataclysm soon to follow, then it would form the tiny nucleus of a European cell.
And while the great nations of Earth devolved into a final chaos, and all their armies and their power came to nothing in the end, the master of their destiny—the last Drakul—would be secure here on the Roof of the World. For of all the places in the world, surely this was the safest of all. What country would think to target Tibet? What was there here that was even worth destroying? Nothing.
Nothing but the very seat of evil. But to Daham Drakesh’s knowledge, of all living men he himself and his red-robed vampire “priests” were the only ones who knew about it.
To his knowledge, yes.
And of all living men …
Meanwhile two very disparate Ferenczy lieutenants, Vincent Ragusa and Angus McGowan had teamed up, journeyed north, and taken a suite of rooms at a hotel in Carrbridge north of Aviemore and a few cautious miles from Inverdruie. But right from square one things hadn’t been much to the young Sicilian’s liking.
Ragusa wasn’t happy with the situation: that this little man, the tiny, wizened McGowan, was his superior, from whom he was supposed to take orders. He had typecast McGowan as a runt from the moment he laid eyes on him—an assessment he’d since revised, and radically. But at first … things had got off to a less than auspicious start.
And now, as the ugly little man drove his ugly little V.W. Beetle south along blackly glittering roads, between three-foot banks of snowplough-heaped slush and dirty ice, from Carrbridge to Aviemore, and on across the Spey where the road was signposted for Inverdruie and Coylumbridge, Ragusa’s dark thoughts went back to their first meeting (a non-event if ever there’d been one), and to events since.
To start with, McGowan had failed to turn up to meet him at the airport in Edinburgh. That was the first let-down, when he had had to take a taxi into the city and book himself into a hotel. Ragusa could speak English, a smattering anyway, but what the locals were speaking was scarcely English! And people said the Italians talked too fast! Then, in his room, he’d got a call from McGowan:
“Saw ye come in,” the gravelly voice told him on the wire. “But circumstances bein’ what they are, well Ah could’nae meet ye. Yere room at the hotel: was that an advance bookin’?”
“No. Spur of the moment. I was out on a limb. And what the fuck’s all this cloak and dagger shit about anyway?” Ragusa’s tone of voice had said a lot for his feelings.
“So, no one knows ye’re there?” (The other might not even have heard him!)
“No, of course not! What kind of dumb shit is this?”
For long moments there had been silence, then: “Oh? Upset, are ye?” (That gruff, weaselly voice.) “Well, Ah’m sorry about that, laddie—but as Ah said, it could’nae be helped. So meet me in thirty minutes, where the road leads off Princess Street for Waverly Station.”
“Eh? Laddie?” Ragusa had snarled his outrage. And: “What’s th
at? Princes Street? Waverly Station? What the—?”
But: “Aye, just so, ye’ve got it,” that phlegmy voice had chuckled—just before the phone went dead.
And half an hour later:
That was the first time Ragusa had seen McGowan or his car, and he had instantly disliked both of them. At the junction of roads the Beetle had pulled over and McGowan had leaned across the front passenger seat to yank the catch and push the door open. “Get in, will ye no?” Then, pulling out into a sluggish stream of traffic: “McGowan,” he had said, reaching across his small body to extend his right hand, while giving his passenger a cursory glance. And, when that one deliberately ignored the proffered handshake, “No the best o’ weather, is it?” Followed by that phlegmy chuckle of his. “Which is all to the good, for it’s our kind o’ weather, eh?”
Ragusa had looked at him then and scowled. “Vincent,” he’d said. “Vincent Ragusa. You were supposed to meet me at the airport. Those were Francesco’s instructions—and the Francezcis like their instructions carried out to the letter.”
“Aye, so they do and always have,” McGowan had immediately agreed. “Fifty years ago they were much the same … and thirty before that when Ah was first recruited, when Ah was about yere age. Since when Ah’ve been wherever they had a mind tae send me, but mainly in the British Isles. Ah’ve been—ye ken—sniffin’ out big dogs, as it were? And other creatures, aye. While ye’ve been … what? Learnin’ the business in Sicily at Le Manse Madonie? Aye, Ah imagine so. But it’s no the same out here. It’s a whole other world—laddie.”
“Call me Vincent!” Ragusa had snapped then. “Or if that’s too hard for you, then it’s Ragusa. Lieutenant Ragusa!”
But McGowan had at once made clucking noises. “Yere rank does‘nae come into it,” he’d said then, but very quietly. “It will give ye away in a minute, be sure. But Ah ken ye did’nae mean it. It was simply yere way o’ expressin’ yere—what?—yere disappointment? Or displeasure? Ah’m no what ye expected, nor the cityation, eh?”
“The what?” (The accent had had Ragusa baffled.) “Did you say ‘cityation?’”
“The way things stand,” McGowan had explained. “Ah, well … it’ll a’ work out, Ah’m sure. Anyway, Ah could’nae meet ye at the airport. Things are no perfec’, ye ken? Ah had a small to do wi’ a polis friend—but ye’ll be meeting that yin soon enough. We can even have lunch wi’ him, if ye’d like? But see, Ah had tae be sure no one else knew ye were arrivin’, that no one was watchin’ tae see if ye’d be picked up. But it happens that no one was. So it seems we’re a’ in the clear.”
“So what’s this about the … the polis? The police?”
“Oh, a spot o’ bother wi’ an old friend. But dinnae fret, it’s a’ sorted out the noo—er, Vincent …”
And so it had gone.
They had talked about the job in hand: tomorrow they’d be travelling north to the Spey Valley—“sniffin’ out big dogs”—and so on. But as they talked it had become clear to Ragusa that Francesco must have spoken in depth with McGowan; the ugly little man had a clear picture of the task in hand that left no room for argument or rearrangement. So that on the two or three occasions when Ragusa might have thought to question something, McGowan had always had the answer, or he’d got in first with a timely reminder: “But that’s how Francesco wants it done—er, Vincent. And as ye’re aware, the Francezcis like their instructions carried out tae the letter …”
And finally they had arrived at McGowan’s address in that most dreary district of the city. On their way, the young Sicilian vampire had caught a glimpse of frothing wavecrests on a grey ocean mirroring desolate skies, and, in the darkly wintry distance, a bleak skyline of derelict-like monoliths that reminded him (oddly enough) of Palermo. Only the gelid slush was new to him—the way it ate like acid into his patent leather Italian shoes.
Ragusa had stepped from an icy pavement into the shadow of the dilapidated Victorian terraced property that was McGowan’s home, and had followed the shabby little man through a wrought-iron gate, up wet stone steps to the drier cover of the arched-over entranceway, before even thinking to ask: “Er, Angus? Why are we here, anyway?”
“Are ye no hungry?” The other had cocked his head, raising a bushy, inquiring eyebrow, as he unlocked the stout oak door.
Ragusa had shrugged, stepped inside and smelled a familiar taint that he always associated with old buildings. Sicily was full of such. “We could have eaten at my hotel, or anywhere.”
“Aye, true enough,” McGowan had grinned. “But Ah fancy mah fare will be more to yere taste. Anyway, ye’ve entered of yere own free will …”
At which the Sicilian had paused half-way out of his coat to look curiously at his little host. The eyes of both men had been feral yellow in the gloom. And Ragusa had said, “You fancy yourself as quite the little comedian, don’t you?”
But McGowan had only chuckled as he answered, “Well, er—Vincent? If a man cannae have a joke on himsel’, then what can he laugh at, eh?” And he had switched on dim lights, taken his guest’s coat, and ushered him along a narrow corridor.
“Now where?” Ragusa had queried, straightening his expensive tie and stretching his neck a little.
“Tae see mah big old polis pal,” McGowan had laughed from low in his chest. “Down here.” And he’d led the way to the cellar.
Ragusa hadn’t been with it yet. “So, you bribed him, converted him—or what?”
“Or what,” McGowan had answered. By which time they were in the cellar, and again the little man had put on dim lights.
And: “Ahhhh!”Ragusa had said—but by no means an expression of fear or detestation. More of surprise, even admiration. For Vincent Ragusa had served a long apprenticeship at Le Manse Madonie; but even there this would have seemed exceptional … well, if the setting had been a little more in keeping.
McGowan had sensed what he was thinking; in a voice that was deeper and more guttural than ever, he’d said, “D‘ye remember, Vincent, how it used tae be … before? Why, o’ course ye do! Mahsel’, Ah certainly do—no that Ah’d go back tae it, ye understand. Still, some o’ the best meals Ah’ve ever eaten were served up in the nastiest little places, aye.”
A nasty little place, yes. Indeed Ragusa couldn’t remember seeing one that was nastier. The brick walls were streaked with nitre; the floor was of stone flags, laid back in one corner to reveal a smelly hole, with rusting chains descending into darkness; there was a work-bench with assorted tools, a large fire-blackened stove with a hooded flue ascending, and—
—A dining table, in the centre of the floor! A table set for lunch with a white tablecloth, gleaming crockery and highly polished cutlery, glasses and a ship’s decanter of red wine. It had been so incongruous that it was fetching; for a moment Ragusa hadn’t been able to take his eyes from the almost hallucinatory scene. But with senses more than one, and all of them far more finely tuned than a normal human being’s, he had detected the smell (or rather the scent) of food … or, as McGowan had put it, of “fare that was more to his taste.”
Behind the stone stairway, the brick-arched entrance to a recessed passage or annex had been the source of the odour. Old McGowan, seeing Ragusa’s eyes turn that way, his nostrils widening, had grinned, lit the stump of a candle and tossed the flaring match into the stove. And leading the way into the cramped space, he had warned: “Avoid brushin’ against the walls. Dinnae get yeresel’ hooked up—if ye see what Ah mean.”
Ragusa had seen. Every two or three feet along the wall, meat hooks had been cemented into the brickwork. Most of them were stained, rusty, empty. But at the back of the alcove, the last one wasn’t. The figure hanging there was human … it had been a human being. The arms were gone to the shoulders; a leg—the left one—was off at the knee; the right leg was missing half-way up the thigh, and all of the stumps had been cauterized. But the neatness of the mutilations was remarkable.
“You’re a craftsman,” the Sicilian had grunted, beginning
to salivate.
“Huh!” McGowan’s answering snort had been one of frustration from where he examined his victim. “Damn the man … he’s gone and done it!”
“Oh?”
“Died on me! He was alive when Ah spoke tae him this morning—Ah had taken precautions tae preserve him, ye see. But now …”
Again Ragusa had been impressed. “He could still talk?”
“Oh, aye—but he was‘nae strong enough tae scream. Hah! Ah had thought he would’nae be able tae do this, but damn the man, he has! Oh, he had a mind o’ his own, did George Ianson! Still, he’s verra fresh, as ye can see, and won’t go entirely tae waste. Out o’ here now, and sit yeresel’ at mah table.”
Back in the main cellar room, the little man had sprinkled olive oil into a large, shallow, blackened tray on top of the smoking stove. And selecting various tools from the bench, he’d inquired, “Name yere cut, Vincent—and tell me how ye’d like it prepared?”
“Oh, chefs choice,” the other had grunted, with his version of an affable shrug. “But rare, of course—or maybe even bloody?” By which time his voice had been no less clotted than McGowan’s. Then, as the deceptive little man disappeared again with his saw and knives into the annex behind the stairs, “But tell me, what was it you thought your ‘policeman friend’ would not be able to do? Kill himself?”
“Aye, kill himsel’,” the answer had come back. “Still, it happens frae time tae time. Ye can drug ’em tae stop the pain and numb the shock, but if they’ve the will for it, there’s no stoppin’ ‘em.” And the whine of his saw had sprung into being.
At the table, Ragusa had nodded to himself, poured a glass of wine, then lifted his voice to answer: “I’d forgotten. Life isn’t the fire in them that undeath is in us.”
