The Lost Years Vol 1, page 58
part #9 of Necroscope Series
The use of this place, of the pit? But they had been part of its use - as they were even now part of the creature in the pit! And while he, it, was not quite insane, they were - driven mad, because they remembered what they had been, and knew what they’d become.
The Necroscope gaped; his jaw fell open in that same split second; the short hairs stood up stiff at the back of his neck, because he sensed the coming onslaught. But this time - however strangely, inexplicably -he was ready for it. He somehow knew these people… he had heard their dead voices before, but had forgotten them because they were part of something that he had been ordered to forget. Now, however, he was once more performing in that earlier ‘mode,’ so that for the time being his subconscious memory was intact again. And:
Him! (The one with the small, timid voice).
He was here befoooore! (The one who growled).
He’s back! back! back! (A voice that seemed to echo).
He didn’t listen, didn’t run! (The agonized girl, her pain still fresh in her incorporeal mind).
He must be as mad as we are - har, har, haaarrrrgh! (The utterly crazed one, whose ‘laughter’ had sounded like bullets, and now sounded like a soul tearing).
But all of them beating on Harry’s metaphysical mind simultaneously, so that he had difficulty sorting them out; beating almost physically, great hammerblows of passion, rage, or terror. And not only for themselves but for him.
‘Dead!’ the Necroscope heard himself gasp out loud. ‘But where? How?’ Again that question. And in answer:
Here! (All of them in unison, explaining the where of it). In the pit! And another voice - like the breath of hell, like the croak of some gigantic, obscene toad - that cowed them all to silence in a moment, explaining the how of it:
IN ME…!
Contact with the group had been through Harry’s talent: he was the Necroscope and conversed with the dead. But this other contact was different. It was telepathy, which Harry recognized in a moment. But how could it be, when its source was the same? They had the answer to that, too:
But we’re part of Him, the terrified girl, perhaps not so terrified after all - or simply stronger, more determined than the rest - told him. The Francezcis…
BE QUIET!
… They fed its to him! She finished in a whisper.
He. Him. Something in the pit. Something that breathed air, creating the miasma rising from the throat of that now terrible hole. But… something alive? Obviously - yet when Harry had spoken to them in his unique fashion, it had answered him back.
THEY’RE DEAD! The thing told him at once, its massive mentality gonging in Harry’s mind. BUT THEIR MINDS LIVE ON IN ME…
And because telepathy and the language of the dead frequently convey more than is actually said, now Harry had the whole picture, or thought he did:
The Francezci brothers - Wamphyri, last survivors of the dread Ferenczy dynasty - had grown something in this pit, even as Yulian Bodescu had grown that Other thing in the cellars of Harkley House in Devon, England. But where Bodescu’s beast had been a mindless monstrosity sprouted of his own vampire flesh, a thing of little or no original intelligence, this construct of the Ferenczys was hugely intelligent! It gathered knowledge from the minds of those it consumed. It was powerfully telepathic; it was in Harry’s mind even now, leeching his knowledge. He could feel it - its eagerly groping fingers - and slammed the doors of his mind on it, to shut it out before it learned too much! Its hold was broken; Necroscope and pit-thing stood off, ‘face to face,’ as it were, weighing each other up; Harry felt its awesome vampire probes fumbling at the outer reaches of his identity.
But while telepathy is one thing, communication with the dead is something else; while the thing in the pit could ‘hear’ Harry and its ‘own’ absorbed vestigial multi-minds speaking - and while it might occasionally cow those consumed identities, or shout them down - it was mainly incapable of anything but threats. For you can’t any longer hurt the dead. And the girl, the one whose agony was still so fresh, seemed finally to have recognized that fact and was talking to Harry, begging him to:
Run! Oh, run! You’re warm and alive… you don’t want to be like us, cold and dead! So run!
‘But I have to know,’ Harry told her, as he sniffed the first faint reek of gas. ‘What… what is he?’
He is their seer, their scryer, their crystal ball. He’s their machine: they aim, direct him, and he gathers knowledge for them. Even from across the world! He is their oracle! And more than that, he—
—I WAS THEIR FATHER! The great voice was back, breaking through all Harry’s barriers. But now there was a gasping sob in it, an all-consuming grieving, a sense of great loss, like the loss of being - or of the control of being. I WAS ANGELO FERRENZIG, FERENCZINI, FRANCEZCI. AND I WAS THE MASTER OF METAMORPHISM -UNTIL METAMORPHISM MASTERED ME!
Again, more was conveyed than was spoken. Much more:
The Necroscope’s skin crept as he saw the seething horror of a grotesque birth… twins, one of which was a monster from first gasp and destroyed at once. The other was Angela, bloodson of Waldemar, and apparently normal… A thousand years of vampire life, until his metamorphism ran rampant, became a disease, reduced or exploded him to what he was now.
If Harry had wondered how many generations of Francezcis? - then he wondered no longer. The answer was one: the brothers themselves, twins sons of Angelo Ferenczini, born toward the end of his time as… as a man! For as his disease had taken hold on him, he had determined to extend something of his loathsome existence into the future. Or… perhaps he had hoped to do a lot more than that, which was why he was now trapped down here and not free-roaming. For Harry had ample evidence of the tenacity of the Wamphyri; he knew that if there’d been any way for this creature to continue as ‘a whole man,’ then that he would have found it - or would yet find it! - perhaps in one of his sons, if they’d not seen fit to trap him down here first.
So, how long had he been here? Two, three, four hundred years? And all that time his sons inhabiting Le Manse Madonie, sometimes as one person and at others as brothers. Little wonder there was a long history of twins - for they were the same twins! They would live here for a while (until one of them had to ‘die’ and for a time live elsewhere,) then reverse the process, ‘rejuvenate,’ come together as sons and brothers again. And always there would be at least one ‘keeper’ here.
But their father was Faethor Ferenczy’s brother, or half-brother, out of a different mother, Constanza de’ Petralia. Had Angelo not known -didn’t he know? - of his sibling in a different time, a different land? And what of the long-dead Faethor? Did he not know of Angelo? He had never mentioned him to Harry. But then, Faethor had usually kept himself apart; his interests had been limited, divided between war and his mountain territories, and bitter hatred of his egg-son, Thibor the Wallach. Or perhaps the two had known of one another but simply stayed well apart. And anyway, what would it have profited Faethor to speak of this Angelo, whom he never met? And if he had spoken of him, would it have been the truth? For of all liars, there is none like a vampire: fathers not only of monsters, but of lies!
Harry gave up on it; there were discrepancies enough in the history of the Wamphyri, as the Necroscope had long-since discovered…
But though all of this - these incredible revelations, and the presence of the thing in the pit - was mind-staggering, still Harry had to know the worst of it. And through the first faint wisps of a yellow mist, he stumbled to the rim of the pit, avoided the wire-mesh, ignored his stinging eyes and gazed down the throat of the awful shaft.
Down there, looking back up at him through its own miasma, something with burning sulphur eyes quivered and surged…
Get out of here! the multi-minds urged him, while the Necroscope reeled with the knowledge - the vision - of what had driven them half or wholly mad. But:
OUT OF HERE? Angelo Ferenczy was quieter now, his ‘voice’ dripping sarcasm. OUT OF LE MANSE MADONIE? BUT CAN’T YOU SEE? HE CAME OF HIS OWN FREE WILL - AND UNINVITED. THERE’S BUT ONE WAY OUT, WHICH HE WILL FIND BARRED, I AM SURE! AND EVENTUALLY… AH, IT WILL BE A PLEASURE SPEAKING TO HIM AGAIN, BUT MORE INTIMATELY NEXT TIME! OH, HA HA HAAAA!
Dizziness, nausea, that same mental confusion which had left Harry so helpless on the road below Le Manse Madonie the previous afternoon, struck again! But this time he knew what it was. The mental power of the thing in the reeking pit - of Angelo Ferenczy, or what was become of him - was awesome. The Necroscope could only think of his own safety now. And he knew that the multi-minds of those that the thing had devoured were quite right: he should run, get out of here with all speed.
Harry staggered back from the pit amidst thickening clouds of yellow and conjured a Mobius door. It took unaccustomed effort… the gas was in his eyes and lungs; the multi-minds were shouting at him, telling him to run, run; and the ancient, hideously mutated Ferenczy was tearing aside the Necroscope’s mental barriers like so much tissue paper.
Panic set in. Confused, Harry saw half-a-dozen co-ordinates displayed on the screen of his mind, places he could escape to. Such as his old flat in Hartlepool; or better still the Hartlepool cemetery, for the flat was probably occupied by now… or (most obvious) his hotel room in Paterno… or his study, garden, or bedroom at the house in Bonnyrig… Except he could no longer think of that last without B.J. Mirlu also crossing his mind. Everything was so confused and confusing!
The pictures in the Necroscope’s mind were automatic, instinctive; lacking an explanatory ‘narrative,’ they gave little or nothing away. But the girl - the mind of the dead girl who had not yet forgotten the agonies of her dying - seized upon one of them and clung to it.
And: Bonniejean! she cried. B.J. Mirlu sent you!
And because she was part of Angelo Ferenczy, he heard her, too. MIRLU? RADU LYKAN’S THRALL? THIS ONE IS… ONE OF RADU’S? Then, his awful mind registered utter terror! His mental probes were immediately withdrawn; they released their grip on Harry’s mentality, writhing back from him as if he were suddenly white hot. And in a way Angelo was right: Harry was one of Radu’s.
Go! The girl cried. Hurry! You can’t help me. No one can. So go now, if you still can. And tell B.J. - tell her…
But Harry never found out what he should tell Bonnie Jean, for at that moment Angelo exerted his telepathic power over all the shrieking multi-minds and closed them down, and the psychic aether was empty as deep space. By which time—
The Necroscope was in even deeper space: that of the Mobius Continuum, where he twirled aimlessly for what seemed a long time, before a co-ordinate surfaced from the whirlpool deeps of his metaphysical mind and he fled to its source:
His room at the hotel in Paterno…
Harry woke up from an instantly forgotten nightmare, woke with a splitting headache, sweating and shivering and nauseous. But he fought it down and lay still, and in the light of a bedside lamp took in his surroundings. The hotel, yes. His room at the Hotel Adrano. In Paterno. Sicily.
It all came flooding back - or it didn’t, not all of it:
Le Manse Madonie, the treasure vault, the tear-gas - and the money!
At that he came off the bed so fast it set his mind, and his body, reeling again. And his clothing stank of gas. God - no wonder he felt nauseous! He’d been hit by his own tear-gas! But the money… was it real? Nothing/eft real. It all felt like some badly fragmented dream, as if something was missing. So what else was new? He hadn’t felt right from the first moment he got to this fucking place!
But after he’d opened the windows to his balcony, and then opened the wardrobe…
It was no dream, and nothing was missing. Not of his loot, at least. A burlap bag slumped over on its side, and a handful of gold coins slipped from the rim and set off on their diverse courses, wobbling across the polished boards. Their milled rims purred on varnished pine; they thumped heavily where they collided with the carpet trim and fell on their sides.
And in the wardrobe where he’d emptied his jacket - bundles of high denomination notes! A suitcase full. Pounds, deutschmarks, dollars, in fifties and hundreds. And the Krugerrands: twin burlap sacks weighing at least thirty pounds each! Sixty pounds of solid gold!
And all of this money here in his room, in the night, in Sicily. Harry broke out in a sweat again. He wasn’t a thief - but he was now! But so were the Francezcis. And what the hell, he’d known what he was doing. And what it was for. But…
… He had to get it out of here!
He did, to the old house in Bonnyrig. Then returned to the Hotel Adrano, and lay tossing and turning all through the rest of the night, unable to sleep.
* * *
Rising with the sun, Harry checked out of the hotel. He didn’t dare simply disappear, for that would be to invite investigation. But having checked out, then he disappeared—
—back to his home in Bonnyrig, where at last he would be able to set the wheels of a real search in motion.
In his house - which felt unaccountably strange and empty now, as if he’d been away for a week at least - Harry secreted the money away and began to feel a little easier. And then, to make up for the deficiencies of last night, he slept…
… But only for an hour, until the sun rose again for the second time in just sixty minutes.
It was the telephone that brought him awake; Bonnie Jean’s husky voice inquiring oh-so-knowingly, ‘Is that mah wee man?’
And oh, yes, it was him. And he was hers, beyond a doubt:
The full moon, its golden light streaming down… B.J.‘s strange eyes, undergoing an even stranger metamorphosis… and a wolfs head in silhouette, dark against the disk of the moon.
Harry said nothing, because her words hadn’t been a question but a trigger. On the other end of the line B.J. understood his silence, smiled at it and asked him: ‘Well, did you get your finances sorted out? You can answer normally, Harry.’
‘Er, yes,’ he said. ‘I’m all fixed up now.’
‘And ready for a weekend’s climbing?’
‘Ready as I ever will be,’ he answered.
‘Good!’
She arranged a meeting for lunch: 12:00 noon, at a little place she knew outside Falkirk, about half-way to where they’d be climbing. And she finished by asking him, ‘How will you get there?’
Til bike it,’ Harry answered. ‘Looks like a nice day. I should enjoy the ride.’ It was no lie; he would bike it - some of the way, anyhow.
He sensed B.J.‘s surprise. ‘But that’s -I don’t know - maybe fifteen miles?’
‘I’ll be setting out about 9:30. Plenty of time.’
Til have my car. I could pick you up?’
‘I… think I’ll enjoy the fresh air.’
At last he sensed her shrug. ‘Well, okay, just as long as you save some of your energy. Er, for the climbing, I mean…’
‘Oh, I’ll have enough of energy.’
‘Very well then,’ she laughed. Til see you around midday. Afterwards, when we’re done, we can always put your bike on the roofrack and I’ll drive you home… mah wee man.’
Which left Harry feeling as if the world had blinked and for a moment he’d felt the darkness. But all he could remember was that he had a date with Bonnie Jean, and that she was innocent, of course.
But innocent of what… ?
* * *
At Le Manse Madonie there was hell on. There had been hell on all night. And unheard by the brothers’ lieutenants and common thralls (their servants or ‘soldiers,’) and ignored for now by the Francezcis themselves, because they were busy, the ancient thing in the pit had wailed piteously, continuously to itself for hours now.
And one by one the interrogations went on: the ‘household staff were called forward one after the other into Francesco’s private rooms; he and Anthony talked to them, threatened them, required them to admit responsibility for last night’s damage and robbery. Or if they weren’t directly responsible, to admit that they’d been seduced by some outside agency, and were part and parcel of the break-in. To no avail; but the brothers had known that from the start; it was simply something that had to be done.
Finally it was done. Le Manse’s staff, sufficiently cowed but all perfectly ‘innocent’ - or as innocent as vampires can be - were back at their duties; the Francezcis could now begin to consider, or at least attempt to consider, the mechanics of this thing. Which had to be the most frustrating, infuriating part, for it was patently impossible.
Francesco paced, while Tony sprawled in an easy chair. The latter looked entirely exhausted, but his looks were deceptive. Wamphyri, he was simply exhausted of ideas. But in fact he was the most ‘sensitive’ or ‘passive’ one, while Francesco had all the aggression.
‘We should have Guy Cavee in again!’ Francesco burst out. He strode to the hugely heavy curtains, looked for a moment as if he might draw them, tear them aside. But out there, all was brilliant sunlight. And throughout Le Manse Madonie all of the curtains would stay closed until sundown. The Francezcis had a woman whose sole responsibility it was to open and close curtains. No one else touched them, not even the brothers.
The night watch? To what end?’ Tony lolled in his chair. ‘He gave warning, while still the intruder was in the vault.’
‘We don’t know that!’ Francesco rounded on him. ‘If Cavee is lying, the thief could have been in there - and out of there - before he called out. If there was a plot, he is the obvious one to have been in on it.’
‘But if he is lying,’ Tony waved a slender, languid hand, ‘then he’s also planning his escape from this place. Indeed, he would be fled by now, or dead by his own hand. For he must know that when, if, we discover the truth…’
‘In any case,’ Francesco stopped pacing. ‘We have to make an example of someone. And again, he is the most obvious one.’
