With which another layer of gloom settled like a shroud on Anthony’s dream. In an attempt to dispel it—or perhaps delay whatever it was he sensed coming—he made an effort to return to the previous subject:
“What point are you trying to make, father? Why this sudden leap from Harry Keogh to telepathy?”
The Old One seemed to grasp upon that. A sudden leap? Ah, good! So that Anthony feared it might signal the start of some new word-game. But no, for his father quickly went on: Telepathy, then. It exists, we are agreed. But in that case, what of “sudden leaps?” What of … teleportation ?
Anthony shook his head. “No, I can’t accept that. Even the Old Wamphyri had nothing of that order. At best it is theoretical. Telepaths, shape-changers—we know they exist. Evidence is immediately to hand. But teleports … ?”
And after a long moment: Theoretical? said his father, very quietly. Oh, really? Well, I would have thought so, too, upon a time. But what about Harry Keogh? And even the multi-minds were hushed, expectantly silent now.
Anthony, too, caught his breath. It was ridiculous—but it would explain the otherwise inexplicable: Keogh’s entry into Le Manse Madonie, his escape, and the fact that but for an automatic camera, no one would ever have sighted him. So that he felt prompted to ask, “You learned this thing from the multi-minds?”
When they made inquiry about this Harry Keogh outside, in the dead void, yes.
“Even if it were true,” Anthony said then, “what of it? I mean, he’s still a man. Can he avoid high-velocity bullets? Is he impervious to steel, poison, a garrotte? Right now, father, Francesco is in England. And he will kill our Mr. Keogh, trust me.”
And if he fails? And if Keogh strikes back? Tony, you said you would soon be speaking to Francesco. Good! Then tell him to leave Harry Keogh well alone.
“But Keogh has already robbed us once. And if what you say is true—why, he can do it again. Any time he likes!”
Which is why you must not try to kill him. Annoy, irritate him by all means, so that when this thing with Radu is over, if it is over, he might want to come here and seek you out, but do not try to kill him. Not yet.
“And if or when he does decide to return? Surely we should get rid of him now, so that he can’t return, ever?”
But: Where oh where has it gone? Angelo gave a mock groan, his sarcasm dripping like acid. The much-vaunted “guile” of the Wamphyri? Hah! Then, with a snarl: Set a trap for him, fool!
“A trap? But how? Where?”
Where did he hit you the last time?
“The treasure vault!”
Exactly. He bombed your treasure vault. But this time you bomb him! Trip-wires, pressure points, electric eyes. Only let him materialize there—
“—And he dematerializes there, forever!”
Of course. But pursue him? Never! Rather than that, Francesco would be well advised to avoid him, and all who run with him.
“And if he ‘runs’ with Radu and the pack, what then?”
Then … it would seem unavoidable. Indeed, then you must kill him! For if they are in league … together they would be unbeatable! Except it is hard to believe that Radu Lykan would be in league with anyone. Which is why I suggest you deal with the dog-Lord first, then Keogh, both in the manner prescribed.
“But what of the treasure, our money, our power base? For such a plan to work, we’d first have to—”
—Move it, yes. Or what remains of it would be destroyed along with Keogh.
“Move it? But where to?”
Where would it be safest?
“Here,” said Anthony, nodding. “Right here, in this cave. Where you can watch over it, and where there’ll be less temptation for Francesco …”
… To destroy me, too? Indeed, said Angelo. And temptation is sometimes contagious, eh? So be it. Anthony could sense his awful, knowing smile …
And again, before he could deny the other’s unspoken accusation: So then, speak to Francesco, and tell him what I have advised. For the present that seems as much as you can do. And in the next moment, changing the subject again:
Now then, tell me about … tell me about your dreams, my Tony, my little Anthony.
This was a dream, as Anthony was vaguely aware; albeit a “repeat performance” of a conversation that had actually taken place some hours earlier. But now, feeling that ominous something creeping closer still—beginning to understand or remember what it was—he shivered as he answered: “My dreams? What of my dreams?”
But his father only tut-tutted, and said: Ah, Anthony, my dear, sweet boy! But I have listened to them. To yours, and to your brother’s dreams. For years I have listened, even decades. Not merely to eavesdrop—though that was part of it—but because that was how … how it started in me. In dreams, yes …
And now the something, no longer unknown—but definitely unspeakable—reared up large as monstrous life to come knocking on the doors of reality!
Thump! Thump! Thump! A timid, triple knock at first. But Anthony was ignoring it, gazing into the mouth of the pit even as he had gazed in real life. And he was asking the same question, too: “Father, that was how what started in you?”
I had thought … perhaps Francesco? his father answered, as if he mused to himself. No, no, let’s be honest: I had even hoped it would be your brother. But alas, I hoped in vain. For I have seen it in your dreams, my Tony, my poor dear boy. Even as it was in mine, so it is in yours.
His dreams: those terrible dreams that he had hidden from everyone, even himself. The nightmare that he was—or that he was like, or that he would be like—the thing in the pit! But now Anthony knew, and horror reared up in the heart of him, in his mind, in his flesh and bones.
And creeping up from the pit—climbing the walls in sickening, seething rags, tendrils and groping limbs, staring up at him even as he stared bulge-eyed down upon it—Anthony saw his own mad future!
Then the clang of metal on stone as he lowered the grille, and the hum and crackle of electricity as he turned on the current, and his hammering heart and echoing, flying footsteps as he vacated that place, to renew himself with his female thrall.
But even blood and the comforts of the flesh are sometimes not enough …
Now it was dawn and another female thrall, but a very different one, made her patrol through Le Manse Madonie. It was the crone Katerin, who had been with the Francezcis since she was a girl, for at least seventy of her eighty-five years. Not a vampire as such—for she had never developed—Katerin was simply “of the blood” and no longer aspired. But despite that she was the lowest of the low in the Francezci household, she was trusted above all others. And because of her years of experience there was no secret however small to which Katerin wasn’t privy.
But as she reached Anthony’s door—
—What was that?
Some sort of worm-thing? A snake or similar injurious creature? For a moment it lay still on the marble floor of the high landing, and she saw that it seemed to be emerging from beneath her Master’s door, from his room … Or entering it?
She stepped closer and the vibration of her footfall galvanized the thing. It wriggled, whipped to and fro; and she saw throbbing, purple veins in the vibrating length of its leprous flesh. Then, lightning-fast, it drew itself out of sight under Anthony’s door. And because she feared for him—and for herself, if she did nothing—she knocked:
Thump! Thump! Thump! Timidly at first: the knock that Anthony had ignored in his dream. But when there was no answer she knocked again, louder, then turned the doorknob and went in.
For all that this side of the manse faced north-west away from the sun, the drapes at Anthony’s windows were heavy, thick with folds. The entire room was shadowed, gloomy, where barely a chink of daylight found its way in. Katerin’s eyes were feral, however; they saw in the dark as well as any cat’s eyes. And what they saw …
Anthony’s bed was of massive oak, an antique four-poster, with gauzy curtains tied back to the uprights on the side facing
Katerin. He lay on his back, naked under the single black sheet that reached to his rib-cage and was his only covering. As yet he was still asleep, barely. Close to waking, he tossed and turned—and moaned to himself. Cold sweat gleamed on Anthony’s forehead and limbs, forming sprays of fine grey pearls as he jerked his head this way and that.
Katerin started at some sudden movement on the floor by the bed, started again when the sheet over Anthony’s agitated figure billowed with a weird, flowing motion. Her yellow eyes swivelled to and fro, unable or unwilling to accept what they were witnessing. For the snake-thing … wasn’t a snake!
The harridan knew what the brothers kept in the pit deep under Le Manse Madonie. She knew that it was their father. And she knew that this was something like their father—except he himself was completely out of control and vaster far. And:
“Like father, like son!” Katerin breathed, stepping backwards, very quietly, towards the door. But not quietly enough.
There were a good many—extrusions? As they whipped and writhed, drew back under the black sheet and returned to their source and origin, Anthony came awake and saw, and perhaps felt the last of them: that rope of glistening matter, a chameleon’s tongue of protoplasm, vanishing under his weirdly mobile covering. And yanking the sheet aside, eyes bugging, he saw it soak into him!
He wanted to scream but couldn’t; there was no moisture in his throat. He had dreamed this before, all too frequently, and always worse than the dream before, but this was the first time that he’d actually seen it. Now he knew it for a fact. Except—
—He wasn’t the only one who knew it. Anthony’s panic passed, was replaced by his “natural” cold, calculating calm. The chilling logic of the Wamphyri.
Katerin was standing there, a bundle of dry sticks that he might oh-so-easily snap. And: “The door,” he husked, sitting up in his bed. “Close the door, and come here.”
She obeyed—what else could she do?—and stood beside his bed, shivering. Anthony nodded, and his eyes were flame as he said, “You saw?”
“A … a mouse!” the crone gasped, gagged, croaked. “Something very small, I think, that crept under your door …”
But he shook his head and smiled a ghastly smile. “No, you saw more than that—didn’t you?”
“Yes, Master, yes …”
He sighed and reached out a hand on a long, an incredibly long arm, and grasped her throat even as she made to step back from him. “Katerin, I have fond memories of you. When you were a girl of fifteen I fucked you; we both did, my brother and I. Perhaps fortunately, you were barren. Your flesh had little of quality, and nothing seeded itself. Nothing at all. Since when you’ve known our protection, the safety of these strong walls, the sanctuary of Le Manse Madonie. It would be … oh, a great shame, if you were to turn traitor now …” His fingers tightened on her scrawny neck, and old Katerin knew their terrible strength.
“I would never betray you, Master,” she wheezed.
His eyes were blood; his lips curled back from teeth that were long and salivating; his tongue was forked and scarlet in a red-ribbed throat. And as he drew her closer still: “You are less than refuse,” he said. “And if I should hear so much as a whisper, then I would throw you like refuse—or you would be seen to fall, like refuse—from the great cliff. Do you understand?”
But Katerin could only gag and hang on to his wrist, and stick out her wriggling tongue at him.
Finally he released her, thrust her away, sent her stumbling across the marble floor. “Now go, and never come into my room again!” Clutching at her throat, she went.
Then, knowing there would be no more sleep for him this morning, shuddering, and trembling in every limb, Anthony got dressed. But as he finished he paused, lifted his head, listened intently as a voice came to him from far below:
I fought it for two hundred years, my son, my dear sweet Tony, before it won and you put me down here. But with help—with my help, my knoouledge—why, your fight might last even longer. And as long as I remain safe, so do you. But ah! … Only see how our roles are reversed, eh, my dear, dear boy?
And then there was only silence …
Three days later:
In his lair in the high Cairngorms, the dog-Lord Radu was awake and aware as never before in six hundred long years. By now, Bonnie Jean Mirlu had contacted the surviving sons of the sons of his thralls throughout the land, calling them to Scotland to prepare for his coming, and to protect him in the hour of his resurgence. Indeed, he knew that it was so; at the full of the moon he had put out probes of his own to seek them out and reinforce B.J.’s instructions.
And moon-children that they were, they had answered him. Radu had sensed their response: the howling going up over the moors—over the Dartmoor tors, and in Bodmin—and the whimpering of Auld John in Inverdruie. But only three? Only three descendants of his Children of the Moon? Well, four if he included B.J. herself, and a handful more with her small pack.
But as for her girls: they were more dedicated to Bonnie Jean herself than to Radu. Which was only understandable, the dog-Lord supposed, for B.J. was Wamphyri in her own right—
—And becoming more so with every full moon.
Right now, the lunar orb was in the centre of its cycle, a crescent, but in a fortnight it would be full again. Radu’s original schedule had been set to ensure Harry Keogh’s audience with him at the full of the moon in May. And the dog-Lord’s rebirth had been scheduled for the moon after that. Auld John, however—whom Radu had “taken into his confidence”—believed that he had brought these dates forward by two full months … and so he had, upon a time. But now the Old Wolf in his resin tomb had had second thoughts.
Auld John was a fool for his “wee mistress”; he had been in thrall to her for long and long, perhaps even too long. Who could say what she might or might not have winkled out of him? Which was one of the reasons why Radu had yet again rearranged his rebirth—to the end of February, just a few weeks away!
Another reason was that he could no longer wait to come face to face with B.J.’s mysterious Mr. Keogh, who might well prove to be Radu’s Man-With-Two-Faces, so frequently glimpsed in prescient dreams; the one who would be there to greet, and perhaps even “succour” him, in his most needful hour.
Now, in just two weeks’ time, the dog-Lord would see this Harry for himself, in the flesh, and know the truth of it. And then, one way or the other he would use him—and use him up! But however it went, in whichever eventuality, the meeting was now set to coincide with Radu’s rising.
The final and perhaps most important reason for advancing the date of his return lay in Radu’s constant state of nervous apprehension: his anxiety, the awareness of his own vulnerability while he lay here “in state.” The knowledge that should his enemies find him here like this, they could do with him as they wished. And as to what they would do: the dog-Lord had no delusions about that.
For they were searching for him even now; and by now, but for B.J.’s vigilance, her diligence, they might even have found him. This wouldn’t save her, however, for Radu knew why she was so “diligent”: because she could not hope to stand against them on her own. What, the filthy Drakuls, and the loathsome Ferenczys? And both camps determined to destroy him and his? Not only were they vampire Lords, in command of unknown numbers of lieutenants and thralls, but they were Wamphyri, experienced in the arts and wiles of the Great Vampire! By comparison, Bonnie Jean was indeed innocent. Even as innocent as she’d fooled her Harry into believing.
And so she must have Radu up; to be her protection, and to learn what she could from him … before turning on him in earnest in the right place and at the right time. The dog-Lord knew this was her plan, as indeed it would be his, if he were in her place.
Ah, the Wamphyri! No two alike—not even twin brothers—yet in certain ways alike as peas in a pod.
Thus, being Wamphyri and a beguiler, B.J. had made a great fool of her thrall and lover Harry Keogh—because he, too, was a part of her plan. Bu
t Radu had plans of his own.
He was no female’s fool like this Harry, to fall under the treacherous spell of any scheming witch or bitch however clever or buxom. No, he wasn’t this mysterious Harry Keogh, not in any shape or form …
… Well, not yet anyway.
It was midday and the moon was a pale sickle hanging low in the wintry grey sky. The dog-Lord Radu couldn’t see it, but he felt it there—its influence on him—tugging at the fluids of his brain. It wasn’t strong, indeed it was at its weakest, much as he was at his; for this was ever an inauspicious time for him, midway between his mistress moon’s cycle. But with just a fortnight of waiting left (a mere fourteen days!) there were still things he must do, precautions to take. He couldn’t allow himself simply to lie here like this in a gluey semi-torpor, with the resin weighing on him like lead and only his mind free.
But since it was so … very well, he would use his mind.
Radu knew the danger in using his mentalism, his telepathy. But he had been taking risks with it for six hundred years now, every time he’d reached out to some thrall or other to call him or her to his side when he needed sustenance. Recently, however—since his first true awakening—he’d used it that much more frequently: to call his few remaining thralls, or to see if the psychic aether was clear, and if not, to discover who else was probing it. And therefore the danger was that much greater.
For if anyone had sensed his sendings, or intercepted them, they too would know that his time was imminent. And if a really clever mentalist were in the vicinity (for example, some gifted vampire Lord) then Radu might easily reveal his location. These were the risks he took.