The Last Aerie

by Brian Lumley

  “Can you do this?” she said. Her eyes, scarlet just a moment ago, were dark now and Gypsyish. “Metamorphism,” she told him. “It is draining but sometimes worth it; worth it here and now, for I know there’s still a lot of Szgany in you. You want innocence, Nestor, and as you will see, Wratha can be innocent if need be.”

  He took a third pace towards her, and now he was as naked as the Lady herself.

  “But you don’t know that,” she taunted, again reading his mind. “Perhaps beneath the foam, I’m wearing some gauzy shift.” She laughed again, stared pointedly at his throbbing, jerking manliness, and licked her scarlet lips. And her eyes were full of him.

  “Then I’ll go through it,” he husked, as if he were driving the words through the crusts of his dry throat.

  “You are dry,” she said. “But see, there’s a measure of good Szgany wine here.” Reaching out, she touched a stone jug and golden goblets where they stood on the tiled rim.

  He was at the edge and saw a step just under the surface where Wratha’s wavelets disturbed the water. Swallowing hard, he answered, “I know what I want to drink, and from which dark well.”

  And now the Lady’s voice was as husky and drunk with lust as Nestor’s own, as she told him, “I know your come will be as sweet as your fine, firm body. And so we’ll drink together.”

  As he stepped down into the bath and reached for her, the water and foam swirled round his rubbery knees. But Wratha held back, breathless as she instructed him: “Bathe me, and I shall bathe you. To touch is allowed, but nothing more for now. We’ll make all parts clean as never before, before we dirty them.”

  “I want you now.” His voice was a growl.

  “Don’t spoil it, Nestor.” She shook her head. “In times to come we’ll fuck in this bath a hundred times, I know it. But as for now … my bed is waiting. What, and would you drink froth and bubbles along with my juices? But when we’ve bathed you’ll be so much harder, and I shall be so much softer …”

  They bathed each other, and Nestor thought it was probably the cleanest he’d ever been. She lingered over him, and he over her, and nothing to interfere with or stay their hands except the soft water and honeyed soap. So that when at last she kissed his swaying, burning tip, but briefly, stood up, and wrapped herself in a towel, he knew that she’d been right. His rod had never been so hard, and she had never been so open to any man.

  Toweling themselves dry and barely able to keep from continuing their fondling, they moved to her bed. High and wide—built of great heavy slates, with the top layer hollowed in the middle to take a fur-stuffed mattress—it was massive. Wooden steps led up on one side, which Wratha climbed to turn back a soft bearskin blanket. And dropping her towel she turned and showed herself to him where he followed. After that …

  … It was delirium!

  Human beings can never experience the full, unfettered violence and animal sex of the Wamphyri and live. But Wratha and Nestor were no longer human. They were Wamphyri!

  And so for five long hours they did all and more to each other than ever man and woman had done before, except maybe for one other affair long, long ago (and in this very bed at that), or in the depths of drugged and frenzied fever dreams, or the dungeons of torturers. So that at last Nestor was satisfied.

  And perhaps surprisingly—to her surprise, at least—so was the Lady Wratha …

  Later they talked.

  “Was I innocent enough for you?” Wratha lay spread-eagled beneath the bearskin blanket, one lovely leg protruding, her jet-black hair damp and gleaming, releasing coils of scented vapour from her heat.

  “Look at you.” Nestor smiled a wry, drained smile. “With that wanton sprawl of yours, and those knowing eyes? Even when you made your eyes dark, they were scarcely innocent! Have you ever been innocent, Wratha? I know your story; I heard it from the dog-Lord, who is my friend.”

  “Well,” she shrugged, “and Canker’s right. No, I’ve known nothing of innocence, not ever. I would have liked to, but life as a Szgany girl in Turgosheim’s Sunside one hundred years ago … was not the best environment in which to learn it. We were slaves to the Wamphyri from birth. But at least I kept myself to myself until they took me. Even so, it wasn’t so much that I was innocent but clever. And I’ve stayed clever.” She propped herself on one elbow. “Very well, so I was not the sweet and shuddering, untried Gyspsy flesh you so admire or lust after. But I tried to be.”

  “If I had not known,” he told her truthfully, “then you would have fooled me. When you tightened on me, you could have been a young girl, certainly. And when you cried out, it was as if you were a virgin. But you exude … womanhood! You are hot and exciting. There is no disguising that.”

  “So I was not everything you wanted?”

  “You are the most beautiful creature in Wrathstack,” he told her. “If you are not everything I could want, then where can I find it? No, you are everything. You were everything. I won’t be able to go to my bed again in Suckscar without wishing I were here with you.” He touched her breasts, and her nipples instantly hardened between his fingers. It wasn’t metamorphism, simply her natural reaction to his caress. And when her slender hand fell on him, Nestor too reacted, despite that he’d thought he was drained.

  “I’ll tell you something,” she said, looking deep into his eyes. “And this is the whole truth: I never gave myself to any man before. Not even Karl the Crag, who was my ‘master.’ Oh, he took me, aye, and believed that I enjoyed it. Indeed, he ‘knew’ that I loved him! But in fact I loathed him. Following which I suffered the sleep, but worse than any gone before. I was buried alive, Nestor, and no one was ever more frightened! I still start awake, cold and clammy in my bed, as if it were the rock tomb in which I became a vampire …

  “Since when … I’ve had men, be sure, but I never gave myself to one. Not as I’ve given myself to you. Oh, I tried a Lord or two in Turgosheim—the bravest of a sorry bunch—but only to discover that the sap had gone out of them. Maybe they’ll get it back one day, but not until they pursue me out of that pesthole gorge and return to the true life. Not until they learn how to live again, and lust, and drown themselves in blood! That’s what I wanted and it’s why I fled: to return to the old ways and turn this western Sunside into a vast and sprawling charnel house, and make my men and warriors strong! I would have had it, too, if this gang of grumbling renegades who inhabit my stack hadn’t turned on me.”

  “You stole their thralls,” Nestor pointed out. “Even from the first raid on Twin Fords, you were a thief.”

  “I took what was rightfully mine!” she cried, drawing back from him a little. “I was their leader, and a good one. But Wran and Spiro, they are madmen who have no reason and so won’t listen to it. As for Gorvi, his instincts are so inbred he cannot think except in ever tightening spirals: to plot and scheme and work to his own devious designs. Vasagi the Suck, however ugly, was the only clever one among them; I had hoped he would kill Wran, so that I could draw the others back into one body, but it was not to be. Vasagi is no more, and we are still divided. As for Canker Canison, what can I say? His father went baying mad, and it seems to me that the dog-Lord follows a like pattern! That damned bone thing, that instrument he plays, whose so-called music blares out even here: to lure his silver mistress down from the moon, indeed! Bah! It was a mismatched batch I chose to bring with me out of Turgosheim …”

  She paused, and in a moment: “But there, it seems I’ve strayed a little from my theme, which was innocence.”

  “And was I innocent?” he asked her.

  “You want me to say no,” she told him. “But in fact you were. Not naive, but innocent, aye. Because you have not had a woman before me. A Szgany girl or girls, maybe, and a handful of vampire thralls, but never a woman. And anyway, there is no other woman like Wratha.”

  No, not like you. He kept the thought to himself. But one I wanted, who was … what, stolen from me? One day I’ll teach her all I’ve learned, even what I’ve learned fr
om you. It may kill her—with pleasure, or pain, whatever—but at least I shall know her at last. And she’ll know what she’s missed, that she could have been my Lady in Suckscar. And a fleeting picture of a girl, standing in a river’s shallows, sun-splashed and dripping water, briefly crossed his mind. But all hidden from Wratha.

  “Are we unique, then?” he asked out loud. “Vampires, and yet true lovers? Are we forever for each other, or is this a fleeting thing?”

  “It will last as long as it lasts,” she answered. “I ask only one thing.”

  “That I’m faithful? But how? I’m Wamphyri!”

  “No, not that.” She shook her head. “But that if we part, or when, that we go our separate ways with honour. Neither bitterness nor treachery of any sort. When it’s done it’s done, and that is all.”

  “Agreed. And until then?”

  “That we’re lovers, and allies.”

  “We are lovers,” he answered. “But allies? Against what? To what end?”

  “The hunting goes badly.”

  “For you, too? And yet you sent me three good ones. Well, two good ones, and a third for my manse’s provisioning.”

  “It was my token, my promise. I gave to you, so that you would know you could give to me—safety, without fear—and you have. And I appreciate it. I didn’t know how much I needed a strong man by my side, and in my bed. But indeed the get out of Sunside grows smaller. If we can work together as lovers, then surely we can work together against the Szgany?”

  “I had intended speaking to you on that very theme,” he answered in her conchlike ear, for Wratha had crept back into his arms. “Something must be done, for the stack suffers. We all suffer alike.”

  “But the others are incapable of helping themselves,” she said. “Because they’re stupid and selfish, and can’t see past their own noses. They’re like Szgany fishermen who quarrel over a stretch of river: one man can’t handle the nets alone, and so all lose out. But the two of us—working together, as a team—we can grow strong. For there are plenty of fish in Sunside, Nestor. It’s just that as individuals we’re inefficient. And so I say it again: we can do it together, you and I.”

  “The three of us.” Nestor held her closer, let his hand reach down the curve of her back to the valley of her buttocks.

  “Three?”

  “Canker is strong, and cleverer than you think. Forget his music and his moon madness; that is only one thing, and anyway he’s not so mad. I’ve learned a lot from him.”

  “It’s true he makes good monsters.” She took his stirring male cluster in the palm of her hand, gently revolving and jiggling his parts. “Will he be amenable?”

  “He loves me like a son,” Nestor answered, lowering his head to draw a stiffened nipple into his mouth. Then, withdrawing, he frowned and said, “But on the other hand, Gorvi hates me.”

  “He hates all of us,” she answered. And sighed. “Ah, what it is to be young!”

  “Eh?”

  “Your rod is pulsing again. I can’t believe it!”

  He chuckled darkly. “Oh, it’s my body, Wratha—but it’s my vampire’s lust! And the Wamphyri are inexhaustible.”

  And reaching down between her coarse dark curls, he found her bud and triggered it. Her leg went over him at once, drawing him closer. But as if to deny her resurgent need, she said urgently, “It’s important we talk—and now. There’ll be time enough to satisfy our other needs later.” And in a voice on the edge of trembling: “As if we hadn’t already done so!”

  “One mouth says one thing,” Nestor husked, “and the other denies it. The mouth in your face is wise and speaks prudently, but the one between your thighs is greedy and mindless of all but pleasure. When they speak together, as now, all is confusion.”

  “A Szgany saying?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then here’s another: a stiff prick has no conscience.”

  “And a soft wet cunt is deep as a swamp, and just as hard to escape from.”

  Another moment and he would be in her again; she pulled apart from him and shook her head. “We must talk!”

  He sighed and rolled over onto his back. “Very well, say on. But work my meat a moment. The throbbing is delicious.”

  “You are insatiable!” she laughed, grasping him.

  “Not me—my vampire!” was his excuse.

  “Now listen,” she said. “If we three work together, then Wran, Spiro, and Gorvi will doubtless join forces, too. And that is all to the good.”

  “How so?”

  “Because they will then put aside their differences and ready themselves for what they’ll see as inevitable battle. I want them to be prepared, for I have seen what they have not: that eventually Vormulac and the others will come bursting out of Turgosheim to wage war … against me, Wrathstack, the last aerie! For in Turgosheim’s Sunside the blood grows thin, while here it’s still hot and red. Vormulac knows that’s why I came here in the first place: to better myself, to grow strong. He doesn’t know if I’m successful, but he daren’t take the chance that I’m not. And so he must come, eventually, unless he’s even weaker than my estimate! He must, for he’ll fear that I’m building an army to return and attack him! And so when war comes it won’t be between us renegades but two great armies: Vormulac’s and Wratha’s. Oh, Gorvi, Wran, and Spiro will know which side to take! For they’d get short shrift from the invaders.”

  Nestor was thoughtful. “Canker has been a mine of information. He’s told me a lot about Turgosheim. There are so many Lords … and what if they all come together?”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  “Then how can we win?”

  “Because this is home territory. And by then we’ll be an army in our own right. Far easier to defend than attack, Nestor. And remember: they’ll be exhausted from their long flight. But we’ll be fresh. And our familiar bats will bring us warning well in advance. Indeed, even now and ever since I first settled here, I have had my creatures stationed in the eastern ranges of the barrier mountains, watching and waiting.”

  “But if we in Wrathstack are positively divided, so that we can’t even work together in peace, how will we make out in war?”

  Wratha shrugged. “We’re not so divided. We three—you, me, and Canker—have the top levels of the stack, while Gorvi and the brothers Killglance have the bottom. If Wran denies me gas from his beasts, I deny him water from my siphoneers. Insofar as the proper maintenance of the stack is concerned, that’s how it works; we need each other this much, at least.”

  “Have you talked to the others about this invasion you’re sure will come?”

  “In the early days, often. And they listened to me, then. Since then they’ve grown lax. We all have, for various reasons. There were easy pickings at first, until this Lardis found his feet and the other tribes started to follow suit. Aye, the living was easy, and we lost something of our impetus.”

  “Then how will you get it back?”

  “Oh, I know the way. When you, me, and the dog-Lord start working together, and when the others see our get, then they’ll unite as stated. And when they see our new monsters? Our aerial warriors and fighting creatures? And when we make gas chambers and fashion our own beasts? And when we double and redouble the numbers of our lieutenants? Hah! They’ll do the same. We shall cause them to gear themselves for war. We shall be their inspiration!”

  Nestor nodded. “The entire stack will benefit and be that much stronger.”

  “Exactly! Even as you are strong.” She got down in the bed and trapped him between her breasts, gentling his bruised, jerking shaft, then took him in her mouth and entered his tip with the sharp points of her split tongue.

  “Wait!” Nestor groaned, inverting himself and burying his face in her core. And:

  Together? she whispered in his mind, feeling his imminent explosion—and her own—as she drew him into her throat.

  Together, he answered, sucking on her elongated clitoris like a calf on an udder. So that in a ve
ry little while they both drew milk.

  And reveling in each other’s juices, the thought occurred to both of them together: that if the blood was the life, then surely the milk was its spice …

  They slept long and long, but Wratha was first to come awake. Then, stroking him where he lay on his back, listening to his heartbeat, his breathing, and feeling the slow rise and fall of his massive chest, she wondered again: love?

  Was it possible, between vampires? Between members of the Wamphyri? She knew it had happened to others, yes, but to Wratha? What if the feelings she felt now deep inside were merely fleeting, insubstantial things? Well, so be it. Ah, but what if Nestor’s feelings were the same? One thing for the Lady Wratha to reject a lover, but to be rejected?

  He was moaning in his sleep, tossing and turning a little, perhaps beginning to come awake. She had never stayed with him before, in his mind, to the point of waking. Previously, she’d entered and inserted her erotic pictures—dreams of herself, the two of them together, as now they had been together—and departed. Or on occasion she’d spied on his own lustful dreaming to discover his preferences. But now …

  What was it that disturbed him?

  She glanced into his mind—but too late! He was coming awake, right now.

  And all she got was a single word, a name, but a name that glowed in his mind like an iron in a fire: Misha.

  A girl’s name …

  And Wratha wondered: Is this the unknown Other? Nestor’s unrequited love out of Sunside? But no need to wonder, for she knew it was.

  He yawned and sat up. “Wratha?” He looked at her, reached for her—but she was up and out of bed, slipping into a robe. “Wratha? Is something wrong?”

  He was sleepy, but perhaps he’d glimpsed her eyes.

  “Wrong?” She almost ran into her dressing room. “Why, no. What could be wrong?” But in her mirrors the Lady saw what was wrong. And fitting a curved bone scarp to her brow, turquoise earrings in the lobes of her conch ears, and sapphire disks to her cheeks, she sought to disguise the evidence of her wrath: the way her eyes bulged, and their crimson, hellfire glare!