Necroscope 4: Deadspeak (33 page)

So!
Faethor snapped.
Not quite the fool I thought! Little wonder you prevailed, Harry Keogh! But even if what you say is true, still you must admit that the advantage was mutual?

And now Harry knew that the old vampire wasn’t here simply to mock; no, there was more to it than that. That much was made perfectly obvious by Faethor’s manner of expression, his use of the words “mutual” and “advantage”. And Harry wondered, would their conversation now prove mutually advantageous? What did the monster want, and perhaps more importantly, what was he willing to exchange for it? Only one way to find out.

“Out with it, Faethor,” said Harry. “What is it you want from me?”

Shame on you!
said the other.
You know how I like a good argument: the persuasion of unassailable logic, the deft manipulation of words, the skilful haggling before a bargain is struck. Would you deny me these simple pleasures?

“Spit it out, Faethor,” said Harry. “Tell me what you want, and also what it’s worth to you. And only then—if I can deliver and still live with myself—only then let’s talk about bargains.”

Bah!
the other answered; but was equally quick to follow up,
Very well.
And without more ado:
I have heard it from the dead that you are come upon hard times. Yes, I admit it, I knew that you had been stripped of your powers. Oh, it’s true, I am a pariah among the dead, but sometimes when they talk it pleases me to “overhear” what is said. Much has been said about you, Harry Keogh, and I have overheard it. Not only are you forbidden to deadspeak, but you no longer command the facility of instantaneous transportation. This is all true?

“Yes.”

So (Harry sensed Faethor’s curt nod.)
Now, I know nothing of this … teleportation? And so in that sphere may not help you. It involves numbers, I believe—the simultaneous resolution of myriad complicated equations?—and in that I admit to a failing. I am out of touch by a thousand years, and even in my heyday was never much of a mathematician. But as for the question of deadspeak, there we might come to some agreement.

Harry tried not to show his eagerness. “An agreement? You think you can return it to me? You don’t know what you’re saying. Experts have handled my case. In my waking hours I can no more speak to the dead than pour acid in my ears! That is, I can, but the result would be the same. I know for I’ve tried it—once! And also because it was forced upon me—once!”

So,
said Faethor again.
And I have also heard it whispered by the dead, that this mischief was worked upon you by your own son in a world other than this world. Astonishing! So, you found your way there, did you? Aye, and suffered the consequences …

“Faethor,” said Harry, “get to the point.”

The point is simple. Only the Wamphyri could so interfere with your mind, and even then only one of their most powerful. It was the art of fascination—hypnotism—as used by a great master of that art, which crippled you, Harry Keogh. Ah, and I pride myself that I too was just such a master!

“You’re saying that you can cure me?”

Faethor chuckled darkly, for he knew as well as Harry himself that the ex-Necroscope was hooked.
What is written may be erased,
he said,
as you now appreciate. But just as surely, what is set askew may be put to rights! Only put yourself in my hands, and it shall be done.

Harry shrank back. “Put myself in your hands? Let you into my mind, as Dragosani once let Thibor into his? Do you think I’m mad?”

I
think you are desperate.

“Faethor, I—”

Now listen to me,
the long-extinct vampire interrupted.
I
have spoken of mutual advantage, and of the dead whispering in their tombs. But some of them do more than merely whisper. In the mountains of the Metalici and Zarundului there are those who cry out in their very
terror
of that which is risen up! For not even the centuries-dead—not even their bones and their dust—are safe from this one. Aye, and I know his name, and I deem myself responsible.

And now Harry was hooked more surely than ever, but like a fish on a line he intended to give the vampire a good run for his money. “Faethor,” he said, “you’re saying that one of the Wamphyri has come among us. But I already knew this. Where’s the advantage in that? Was I supposed to deliver my mind into your hands for such a scrap as this? You
do
think I’m mad!”

No, I think you are dedicated. To the eradication of what you term a foulness. You would destroy it before it destroys you. You would do it for the safety and sanity of your world, and I would do it… solely for my satisfaction. For I hated this one even as I hated Thibor.

“Who was he?” Harry shot the question, hoping against hope to catch the other out and read the answer in his startled mind.

But Faethor only tut-tutted, and Harry sensed a saddened, disappointed shake of his head.
No need for that, my son,
he said, oh so quietly,
for I’ll gladly tell you his name. Why not? For you won’t remember it when you awaken. His name—his most hated, despised name—was Janos!
And such was the venom in his voice that Harry knew it was true.

“Your son,” he sighed, nodding. “Your second son, after Thibor. Janos Ferenczy. So now at least I know who I’m up against, if not what.”

The who of it is Janos,
said Faethor,
and without my help the what of it will destroy you utterly!

“Then tell me about him,” Harry answered. Tell me all you can of him, and I’ll try to do the rest. You’ve bargained well. I can’t refuse you.”

Again Faethor chuckled. And:
Indeed your memory is short,
he said.
It will last only as long as your dream!

Harry saw that it was true and his frustration turned to anger. “Then what has been the point? Did you only come to mock me after all?”

Not at all, I came to seal a bargain. And it is sealed. You will come to me where you know I lie, and we shall speak again—but the next time you’ll remember!

“But I won’t even remember this time!” Harry cried out.

Ah, but you will, you will,
Faethor’s fading voice came echoing out of the rolling fog.
You’ll remember something of it, at least. For I’ve seen to it, Harry. I’ve seen to it, Haaarry Keeooogh!

“Harry?” Someone stood beside him, bent over him.

“Harry”
Sandra’s urgent hand was on his arm; and Darcy Clarke hurrying to answer a banging at the door, where Manolis Papastamos was shouting to be let in; and a feeble dawn light struggling to find cracks in the louvres.

Harry leaped awake, lurched upright like a drunkard and almost overturned his chair. But Sandra was there to support him. He held her close, and in another moment Darcy and Manolis were in the room.

“A terrible thing! A terrible thing!” Manolis kept repeating, as Darcy opened a window and shutters to let in the pale light of a newly dawning day. But as the room sprang to life so Manolis’s jaw fell open and he pointed a trembling hand at a huge Greek tapestry covering the better part of one entire wall. The tapestry was moving!

“God almighty!” Darcy gasped, as Sandra clung to Harry more tightly yet.

The tapestry was a panorama of banded blue sky over brown mountains and white villages, but printed on the sky in letters eighteen inches high was a name: FAETHOR. And it was printed in fur that crawled!

Already Harry’s dream was forgotten, but he would never in a lifetime forget his waking conversations with this father of vampires. “Faethor!” he gasped the word out loud. And as if it were some Word of Power, the name at once broke up the legend written on the tapestry—into a hundred individual bats! No bigger than winged mice, they released their hold on the fabric and whirled around the room once before escaping through the open window.

And: “So, it’s true,” said Manolis Papastamos, white and trembling, the first to regain command of his senses. “It all comes together. I had thought Ken Layard and Trevor Jordan were the strange policemen, and you three stranger still. But of course, because you hunt the strange criminal!”

Sandra caught a telepathic glimpse of his mind, and knew that he knew.

“You should have told me from the beginning,” he said, flopping down into a chair. “I am a Greek and some of us understand these things.”

“Do you, Manolis?” said Darcy. “Do you?”

“Oh, yes,” said the other, nodding. “Your criminal, your murderer, he is the Vrykoulakas. He is the vampire!”

IX: Cat and Mouse

 
“
I
UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DIDN’T TRUST ME,” SAID
P
APASTAMOS
, “but you should have. What? You think the Greeks are ignorant of these things? Greeks, of all people? Listen, I was a boy in Phaestos on the island of Crete, born and lived there until I was thirteen. Then I went to my sister in Athens. But I never forgot the myths of the islands, and I never forgot what I saw and heard there. Did you know that there are places in Greece even now where they put the silver coins on the eyes of the dead, to keep them closed?
Hah!
Those slits in the eyes of Layard. He kept opening his eyes!”

Darcy said to him: “Manolis, how could we know? If you took a hundred people and told them you were hunting a vampire, how many do you think would believe you?”

“Here in Greece, in the Greek islands, ten or twenty,” the other answered. “Not the young peoples, no, but the old ones who remember. And up in the mountains—in the mountain villages of Karpathos, for example, or Crete, or better still in Santorin—maybe seventy-five out of a hundred! Because the old ways die hard in such places. Don’t you know where you are? Just look at a map. Six hundred miles away is Romania! And do you think the Romanian peoples don’t know the Vrykoulakas, the vampire? No, no, we are not the innocent childrens, my friends!”

“Very well,” said Harry, “let’s waste no more time. You know, you understand, you believe—we accept that. But still we warn you that myths and legends can be very different from the real thing.”

“I’m not so sure,” Manolis shook his head. “And in any case I have had the experience of the real thing. When I was a boy thirty years ago there was a sickness. The children were growing weak. An old priest had lived on the island in a remote place in the stony hills. He had lived there, all alone, for many years. He said he was alone for his sins, and dared not surround himself with the people. Recently he had been found dead in his place and they had buried him there. But now the village priest went there with the people—with the fathers of the sick children—and dug him up. They found him fat and red and smiling! And how did they deal with him? I heard it later—with a wooden spear through the heart. I cannot be sure, no, but that night there was a big bonfire in the hills, and its light was seen for miles around.”

“I think we should tell Manolis everything,” said Sandra.

“We will,” Harry nodded, “but first he came here to tell us something.”

“Ah!”
Manolis gave a start and stood up. “My God, but now this vampire you hunt—there are two of them!”

Harry groaned. “Ken Layard!”

“Of course, the poor Ken. This morning, one hour ago, I get the call. It is the morgue. They have found the naked body of a mortician. He is dead with a broken neck. And Ken Layard’s body has disappeared. And then—” he spoke directly to Harry,”—then I remember what you say about Layard being undead, and that you want him burned very quickly. And then I know. But this is not all.”

“Go on, Manolis,” Darcy prompted him.

“The
Samothraki
has been absent from the harbour since the night of the trouble under the old windmills, when I saved Layard from the sea. This morning the fishermen have brought in many pieces of burned wreckage. It is—it was—the
Samothraki!
And still there is more. A girl, a prostitute, died on the streets three, four nights ago. She has been examined. The doctor says it could have been anything: not eating—the, how do you say, malnutrition?—or perhaps she fainted and lay in the alley all night, and so died of the exposure. But most likely it is the anaemia.
Hah!
You know this anaemia? No blood in the body? My God—anaemia!”

“Like a plague.” Harry groaned. “She must be burned, too.”

“She will be,” Manolis promised. “Today. Believe me, I will see to it!”

Sandra said: “And still we’re no closer to discovering who the vampire is, or what he’s done to Ken. And I for one would like to know how those bats got in here …”

Harry indicated a domed wood-burning fireplace where its flue went up into a brick wall. “At least there’s no great mystery there,” he said. “As to Layard: he’s now in thrall to this thing and, depending how strong his will is, serving it faithfully. And the vampire’s identity? Well, there’s a clue I can follow up. I think I may know someone who has the answer.”

“What clue?” Manolis faced him. “Any clue—all clues—are for me. No more secrets. Also, I want to know about that word the bats made on the wall: what did it mean?”

“That’s the clue,” said Harry. “Faethor fixed it so that I couldn’t mistake his meaning. He wants me to go and see him.”

Frowning, Manolis looked from face to face. “This Faethor who
fixes
such things, and in such a way. He is … what?”

“No more secrets?” said Harry, wryly. And: “Manolis, even if we had an entire day to waste, still we couldn’t tell you everything. And even you wouldn’t believe it all if we did.”

Try me!” Manolis answered. “But in the car. First you dress and I take you to breakfast, then to the police station in town. I think is the safest place. And meanwhile you tell me everything.”

“Very well, we will,” Darcy agreed. “But we must be allowed to get on with this thing in our own way. And Manolis, we have to be sure that all of this will go no further than you.”