“Most o’ these ‘marvels’ are faked, o’ course—tourist attractions,’ for want o’ a better description, much like auld Nessie hersel’, Ah fancy—but in Hungary and Romania Ah did come across the odd case or two that simply defied explanation. And in Sicily … oh, a’ sorts o’ rumours in Sicily and the Mediterranean in general! But in fact it was in Sicily that Ah met up wi’ folks o’ similar persuasions, people who were interested in trackin’ down the same kind o’ legends as mahsel’ …
“Where was Ah? Oh, aye: Romania.
“Why, it’s only thirty years ago in a place called Dumitresti in Romania that they had a spate o’ wolf-killings—murders, mah friend!—by the light o’ the full moon! The local folks knew what it was. They waited a month ‘til the moon was full again, then sent out hunters intae the mountains wi’ rifles and silver bullets tae kill the beast. They knew where tae find him, too: near a Gypsy encampment. Because they’d made a connection, d‘ye see? That whenever the Romany folk came this way, the bleddy werewolf came wi’ them!
“Romany, ‘Szgany,’ George; that’s what they call Gypsies in they parts. And these were the Szgany Mirlu! Eh? And did ye no think tae ask that bonnie Bonnie Jean where she hails frae? Or if not the lassie hersel’, her people before her?”
Oddly enough, Ianson had asked B.J. that selfsame question, though in a different connection and because of her accent, not her name; but as he opened his mouth and stumblingly went to make some comment that he hadn’t quite thought out:
“Ah, no, dinnae gawp and wave yere arms!” McGowan seemed excited now. “Dinnae start yappin’ on about ‘coincidence’ and such but hear me out! D’ye think Ah’m stupid, George? Ah mean, d‘ye think Ah dinnae ken how a’ this must sound? Well, Ah ken well enough, but first let me tell it a’ and then make up yere own mind. For Ah’m no the luny here. Ye can take bets on that!
“Aye, and there’s another good word for ye. Lunacy! Moon madness! The madness o’ a creature who howls to his—or her—mistress moon, and whose foamin’ mouth contains a bite that’s contagious and carries a fever! A fever o’ change, aye! What, impossible? D’ye think so? And what about rabies, spread bite by bite, that’ll change a creature—even a man—tae a ravin’ monster? And doesnae cancer change the cells o’ a man’s body? And malaria change the colour o’ his skin? And acromegaly his verra shape!? So tell me, who’s tae say lycanthropy cannae do the same?”
By now the Inspector was more than a little concerned for McGowan; in fact, he was downright worried. Despite the “logic” of certain of the contents of the man’s—what? his “dialogue,” or harangue?—they seemed to have no connection with Ianson’s view of reality. Indeed, the little vet appeared to be outlining some peculiar obsession, something that he had kept hidden, bottled up inside him for a long, long time.
But as yet there was no sense of danger here; in fact if anything Ianson was starting to feel drowsy, lethargic, lulled by the vet’s whisky. This despite the fact that old Angus himself waxed ever more excited, more animated.
“As for the ‘myth’ o’ the silver bullet,” he went on now, “—but isnae lead a metallic poison, too? Or mercury? Or plutonium? Or a dozen others? Different chemicals affect different species, George. One man’s meat, as they say …
“So, what am Ah ravin’ on about? But by now it’s surely obvious, even tae a down-tae-earth bawbee such as yersel’. But hold yere fire a while longer, and Ah’ll say on.
“Excep’ Ah see ye’ve run dry. So let’s top up yere glass a wee. There—and a drop for me, too.” As he poured, so Ianson found strength of will to reach inside his pocket and draw out McGowan’s first edition of Wild Dogs, Big Cats, placing it face-down on the table beside the other book. There was no hidden threat in this, no intention to surprise or startle; he merely intended to ask McGowan about the photograph and didn’t want to forget, that was all. For surely someone—Mr. Greentree?—must be seriously in error here. Indeed, a great many things seemed in error here.
As in a dream, the Inspector opened the back flap of the book to old Angus’s picture, which seemed to float up off the paper at him. Then he let his hand fall into his lap where it lay trembling, exhausted—apparently from the effort of handling the book!
McGowan’s eyes darted from the book to Ianson’s face and back again. He pointed at the photograph, and his pinched face gave an involuntary twitch as his thin lips drew back a little from teeth that were sharp and white. The Inspector had always thought they were false, those teeth. And surely they must be?
But: “Longevity!” McGowan had burst out, without any recognizable sense of continuity. “Another key word, aye! And Ah can see ye’ve been worryin’ about it. But o’ course, ye wouldnae have any reason tae check up on that sweet young thing at the wine-bar, now would ye? Well, we’ll get tae that—eventually. But for now …
“ … Where was Ah?” (McGowan’s voice was rough and rasping as always, but angry, too, Ianson thought; his eyes kept straying to his photograph in the book on the table.) “Aye, Ah remember now,” he pulled himself together. “Thirty years ago in a place called Dumitresti, in Romania. Werewolves, George, werewolves! They hunters Ah mentioned—they shot theysel’s a wolf! A great grey monster o’ a beast that had one o’ they men’s left arm off at the shoulder before they killed it! Then the authorities had them a’ up for trial … for murder. For o’ course it was the same auld story: they hadnae shot a beast but an innocent Gypsy lad, a youth frae the Romany caravan site. Oh really? So why were they acquitted, George? Set free—turned loose—wi’ never a stain on their characters!
“A backward land, ye say, and even today full o’ monsters in their own right—such as its bleddy government! Well it’s true enough. And that’s the noo. But Romania thirty years ago? And so Ah’m obliged tae agree, it’s no fair o’ me tae base mah argument—or shall we say, mah dissertation?—on alleged occurrences taken place in such a barbaric hellhole. So let’s take a look at a more enlightened society, shall we? Like, how about England? Or even closer to home, Scotland maybe? What about the Highlands, just thirty years ago? Aye, just about the same time as this incident in Dumitresti. Ah, but it would surprise me if by now ye hadnae done yere homework, George. Indeed, Ah’m certain sure ye ken what Ah’m on about.
“So then, what about it, eh? That incident at the wildlife park on the Spey, eh? … Eh?
“Ah see it in yere eyes, George: how would auld Angus ken a’ about that? But have ye no been listenin’? Man, this is mah field; it’s a part o’ me no less than police-work is a part o’ yeresel’!
“But thirty years ago? Well let me tell ye that was some weird time! It was a phase o’ the moon, somethin’ different, a time o’ unrest among a’ the world’s lycanthropes. Romania, Hungary—aye, and Scotland, too—it was everywhere. They couldnae control theysel’s; they ran wild for however brief a spell. The moon held a’ the wolf-folk in her power, and the bloodlust ran high as the highest tides …
“So, now let’s get tae Bonnie Jean. But first … will ye no have another nip? What, it’s gone right tae yere head, has it? Just a couple o’ wee drams? Ah, well, it happens like that sometimes, when a body’s a mite weary. Maybe it’s a’ this detective work ye’re doin’, George. Aye, for some o’ us are no as young as we used tae be. It’s gettin’ time for ye tae quit, Ah fancy …
“But where was Ah? Oh, aye: Bonnie Jean Mirlu. Ah’ve been watchin’ that yin for some time now—”
“For too long,” Ianson gurgled, finding his tongue floppy in his mouth. “From a time … a time before the murder at Sma’ Auchterbecky!” The moment after he said it, he could have bitten his tongue off. But too late, and it had probably been too late anyway. The doctored whiskey, and the fact that old Angus—very old Angus—had scarcely touched a drop. The Inspector could not possibly know or even make a guess at what was going on here, but he sensed that he was in serious trouble. And his fear must have shown in his eyes.
McGowan sprang to his feet, agile as a youth. ??
?So, Ah was right!” he snarled. “Ye’ve tumbled me! Oh, ye’ve no proof positive as yet—no enough for George bleddy Ianson’s oh-so-orthodox, down-tae-earth mind, anyway—but good enough tae start investigatin’ me, eh? Well, Ah’m sorry, mah old friend, but it cannae be. And Ah’m done the noo wi’ a’ this blether!”
But the look on his face: Ianson had seen it before, when McGowan had driven away from the house on the river. That look of sheer bestial loathing! Was the man insane?
“Angus!” the Inspector tried to speak, but could only mumble. Quick as the vet himself, he too had tried to spring erect—only to go sprawling when his legs failed to obey his brain! Or maybe his brain wasn’t sending or receiving the right information, for everything was beginning to swim before his eyes.
“Seein’ me at that bleddy house outside Bonnyrig was bad enough,” McGowan rasped. “Knowin’ that Ah’ve been watchin’ the wine-bar and B.J. Mirlu since long before she slaughtered that other damn animal at Sma’ Auchterbecky is a lot worse. But now ye’ve found this bleddy book o’ mine—mah one error—and me hopin’ a’ these years it would never come up again! Well, it’s a’ too much, and ye’ve done for yeresel’, George.”
He came around the table; Ianson could see his feet floating towards him, coming closer, expanding to the size of barges in his poisoned vision. Then, however numbly, he felt the vet’s arms lifting him—but picking him up like a child—into the fireman’s lift position. The strength of the man!
“In a way, it’s opportune,” McGowan was speaking as much to himself as to the Inspector. “They’ll know ye were investigatin’ the murder. When ye don’t show up, they’ll probably speak tae the girl again; that’ll keep her busy. But they’ll no’ give me a second thought. What? But auld Angus McGowan was yere pal! And Ah’ll be properly upset when Ah learn how ye’ve up and disappeared. But no as upset as yeresel’, George.”
Ianson felt himself carried out into the corridor, turned inward, into the house, borne along in darkness. Motion ceased momentarily when McGowan paused to grasp his hair, tugging his face round to look him in the eye. And old Angus’s eyes lit up the darkness like yellow lamps, like lumps of raw sulphur burning in his face, with the fires of hell raging in their cores!
“Oh, but it has tae be a terrible thing, mah friend,” he said, “tae stumble on such truths as these. And even then, not tae be able tae believe them! But ye will, ye will …”
There was a door, with stone steps descending to a cellar that Ianson had never known was there. But then, why should he? Nitre-streaked walls brushed the Inspector’s thigh and dangling arm, as the stale smell of dampness—and of something else—came wafting from below. Then McGowan must have tripped a light switch for the darkness was driven back a little, but not much.
“These auld houses,” McGowan commented, shaking his head as he put Ianson down on a wooden table. “When the tides are high, why, sometimes ye can smell the salt sea down here! But twenty-five years ago, Ah dug down two or three feet under the foundations—for sanitary reasons, as ye’ll see.” He jerked Ianson’s head on its side and pointed. “Y‘see that pipe there: that’s an auld sewer, still runnin’ out tae sea. Ah cut intae it and put a cover on it; mah verra own disposal unit … for the wee bits o’ rubbish Ah’ve no more use for. Yere bits, too, George, when Ah’m done wi’ them. Ah, but it’ll be a guid wee while yet afore Ah’m completely done wi’ ye! Oh, we’ll share many a guid square meal taegether first, eh, George?”
The Inspector lay there and gurgled. He desperately wanted to cry out but couldn’t. He made noises like a man nightmaring, trying hard to wake up. Except he was awake and knew it … but that didn’t mean that this wasn’t a nightmare. It was the worst possible nightmare!
And McGowan, wandering about in this loathsome subterranean den, muttering to himself and causing unknown but terrifying things to happen: the hiss of pressured gas, and crump! of sudden ignition; the clatter of tools taken up and laid aside, and the high-pitched yet sinister whirr as some sort of electrical apparatus powered into life. And the numbness, spreading into every part of Ianson’s body until he could no longer feel his arms and legs. And his eyes blurred as if they were filmed over. They probably were, for he was incapable of blinking to clear their lenses.
And as for what little he could see, maybe he’d be better off if he couldn’t.
There was a bench to one side, where McGowan seemed to be selecting certain tools from a rack on the wall. And if Ianson focussed his vision in the corner there … a stove? And cooking utensils? And … and what, a blowtorch? With its flickering blue tongue of near-invisible fire beating on some kind of flat-flanged branding iron, until it was beginning to radiate an orange heat of its own?
Finally the small man was finished with his … his preparations, whatever they were. Returning to Ianson, he began to undress him. And the Inspector managing to gurgle, “Whaaa … ? Whaaa … ?”
“Aye,” McGowan told him, “ye’re still firm-limbed, George. No quite the auld dodderer yet, eh? But that’s more a problem than a compliment. See, that stuff Ah gave ye will soon enough wear off, and Ah cannae be around a’ the time. Man, ye’ll soon be mobile again! And we cannae have that, now can we?”
In a while Ianson had been stripped naked. Moving back to the bench and its rack of tools, McGowan called out to him: “They knockout drops Ah put in yere drink: guid, are they no? Mah bosses in Sicily swear by them. And so should ye, George, so should ye. Why, ye’ll no feel a thing! Later, perhaps, but no just the noo.”
He brought the sinister whirring thing back to the table and showed it to Ianson: the blurred silver-gleaming disc of a surgeon’s circular saw! But as McGowan held the terrible thing close and grinned at his victim’s frozen expression, so Ianson found himself far more fascinated and horrified by the little vet’s face, mirrored in the fan of bright motion:
Oh, it was McGowan all right—old Angus himself—but it wasn’t human. Not all human, anyway. Perhaps other than human? Or more than human. Or a lot less:
That gaping mouth, convolute snout, and red-ribbed throat that matched the cores of McGowan’s feral yellow eyes! And his teeth—no longer perfect in their shape—but like shards of white glass sprouting from the crimson of his gums! And behind those teeth his tongue: deeply cleft and hideously mobile, and lashing like a crippled lizard in his mouth!
“Now then, see if ye can guess this wee riddle, George,” McGowan rasped as he passed from view and the whirring of the saw became a rubbery vibration—sensed (or felt?) rather than heard—which seemed to physically move Ianson and blurred his vision more yet. “Where might a man expec’ tae find a limbless police Inspector, eh?”
The vibration stopped, and McGowan’s face swam back into view … except it was spattered red, and the saw was whirring again as it sprayed a fine pink mist all around! “What? Dinnae tell me ye’ve given in a’ ready?” McGowan grinned.
But indeed Ianson had given in, fainting in the moment he recognized the red-dripping thing that McGowan held aloft. So that he never heard the little man’s answer to his own riddle, as he went to fetch the white-hot iron, to cauterize the first of the Inspector’s stumps:
“Why, where ye left him, o’ course … !”
PART 2
The Other Players
I
DAHAM DRAKESH
IT WAS SOMETHING AFTER SIX IN THAT NIGHTMARISH CELLAR IN EDINBURGH, Scotland. But some seven thousand miles away on Tibet’s Tingri Plateau it was well past midnight, and the stars frozen in their orbits seemed so close you could pluck them right out of the firmament. So thought Daham Drakesh, Wamphyri, the last Drakul, where he stood tall and skeletally thin on the roof of the so-called “Drakesh monastery,” in fact his aerie.
He stood on the high-domed skull of a monolithic head and face carved into the rock in the lee of the gaunt mountainside, and with his red robe fluttering behind him in a breeze off the plateau contemplated or more likely adored the night. But while the yawning—or perhaps s
hrieking?—face in the rock was huge it was merely a façade, and the gape of its great jaws only the entrance to the cavern complex proper.
As for the warren within: it was a many-layered labyrinth of tunnels, storerooms, accommodations, and … other, darker, and yet more secretive halls and chambers. These latter places, situated mainly in the lower levels, were forbidden to the majority of the aerie’s inhabitants, where only Daham Drakesh himself, the High Priest, as it were, might venture with impunity. Even the most long-lived, most trusted and experienced lieutenants were loath to tread there, and then they trod lightly.
The project—the building of the aerie, by slave labour, by vampire thralls “recruited” from a nearby walled city—had taken fifteen to twenty years in all. Almost seventy years ago it had been finished, the entire complex excavated by hand from the ancient volcanic rock; or Drakesh had taken advantage of and expanded upon the many natural cysts, cavelets, and fissures in the riddled strata. The last of his line, the last Drakul—and by his lights deserving of an aerie of his own—he had personally supervised the work from beginning to end. By which time the once-prosperous walled city from which he’d taken his workforce had been as dead and forbidding as the greater expanse of the plateau itself.
The last Drakul, aye …
The last true Drakul, certainly, now that his chief lieutenant and bloodson, Mahag, was dead in Scotland by Lykan hands. But Daham had a vampire leech, and his parasite would doubtless have its egg; there could be another Drakul—and another, and another—well, given time. That time was not yet, however, nor would it ever be until the Lykans and Ferenczys were eradicated entirely from the world.