Let me try to explain things to you, Korath continued, and when I’m done, then by all means deny me if you can:
Love is a thing that wears men down; it bends them to the will of the object of their affection. But lust is what drives the greater beast on to satisfy his need! And while compassion and sacrifice make men poor—diminishing their stature in the eyes of ever-watchful enemies—avarice and vengefulness make them powerful, so that lesser men are wary of them. And surely it must be obvious that the man who trusts no one can never be betrayed? For where trust and companionship frequently lead to betrayal, the very cornerstones of survival are mistrust, envy, jealousy, and territorialism. And always remember, that while a good and tender heart is also tender to the taste, a heart full of poison tastes only of the piss that keeps it pumping! Tolerance is what lets an idle servant sleep late abed, while terror finds him at his post, guarding his master’s—
“—Enough!” said Jake.
Eh? Enough? I’m barely started!
“And you’re done. Enough of your word games.”
But my reasoning wasn’t intended as any kind of word game, I assure you! Since the very beginning—since Shaitan himself—the Wamphyri have lived by these principles, and—
“And died by them,” said Jake. “Don’t forget, Korath, that it was a man—a very human being—that Malinari, Vavara, and Szwart ran away from in Starside. As for why strong men such as Ben Trask fear them: they don’t fear for themselves but for the weak ones of this world, the ones who do believe in such ‘principles,’ such rubbish as you were spouting. And that is the big difference between me and Trask. What I am doing is for myself, while what he does is for all of us.”
You do admire him, then?
“How can I do otherwise? How can anyone not admire someone whose life is dedicated to the truth? And his truth has it that you are wrong. So that while for the moment we’re obliged to be allies of a sort, don’t get carried away and think that you can sway me to your cockeyed ‘principles.’ I don’t want anything to do with them.”
And:
Bravo! … Bravo! … Bravo! It seemed a hundred deadspeak voices whispered in concert in Jake’s mind. But they were faint and distant, and some seemed uncertain. Only a hundred of them, out of all those many millions. Because for the time being only a small minority of the Great Majority were on his side.
Hah! said Korath. Do you hear them, the so-called ‘teeming dead?’ Well a handful of them, anyway. It seems that your words—spoken against my principles—have convinced a few of them that you are not quite the menace they took you for. So let me, too, congratulate you, Jake: bravo! Huh! What a pity it doesn’t bring us any closer to speaking to this Jean Daniel.
Jake had to admit that that was true enough. He and Korath had been here for quite a while now, but as yet nothing had happened; he wasn’t too sure how to go about it, this conversing with the dead. In fact the only thing he knew for certain was that he mustn’t shout at the dead. That had never been the way of the Necroscope, Harry Keogh, and it wasn’t going to be his.
(But … had he read about that somewhere—or had he been told about it—or was this knowledge just one more example of the foothold that Harry’s revenant had gained on his mind?) But in any case, and that apart:
How did one go about introducing or announcing oneself? Or did one simply wait until someone else opened the conversation? All well and good, but what if no one wanted to?
Jake’s thoughts were deadspeak, and while his shields were down Korath could read them as clearly as the “spoken” word. He had done so, and now said: Well then, perhaps we’re wasting our time here after all? Since you now speak so highly of Ben Trask and bis people, maybe we’d be better off serving their purpose, tracking down Malinari and bis kind—which, incidentally, has been my argument since the beginning. Let’s face it, Jake: this vendetta of yours is a paltry thing compared to what the people of E-Branch are doing.
“But it’s my paltry thing!” Jake stood up straighter as he felt his resolve firming up again (or perhaps as the real Jake Cutter came more properly into his own, took control of himself, and shook off the aura of someone else). “Castellano—him and one other murdering dog—they are my paltry things! Thanks for reminding me, Korath. How does it go? An eye for an eye, right? And what was that other thing you said? Something about ‘a good and tender heart,’ how it will also taste tender? Hey, who am I to argue something as monstrous as that with a creature as monstrous as you, a vampire? But as for my heart: where Castellano is concerned it only pumps piss. So don’t you go worrying about my weaknesses, Korath ‘once Mindsthrall.’ Me, I’m not in thrall to anything, least of all my emotions.”
Bullshit! Even as Jake said it he knew it wasn’t so—that in fact his emotions were in turmoil—that he was fighting off someone else’s emotions, or what was left of them. And to cover his vulnerability, with a snarl of frustration if not an actual shout, he opened every deadspeak channel and said:
“Jean Daniel, you murdering French bastard, where the hell are you?” And:
Right first time, a mournful voice sounded clear in Jake’s mind. I’m in hell, Jake Cutter—where you sent me. A graveyard in Avignon, the town where I was born. At least that’s where my bones are. My burial was a quiet ceremony, just a small handful of people to see me off, Luigi Castellano must have hired them, I reckon, for I had no friends above the ground. And none below it, as it now appears! So there you have it, that’s my lot: the loneliness, the darkness, and the endless silence of the grave. The “dead silence,” until I sensed you here.
Startled at first, and feeling the small hairs rise on the back of his neck at the weirdness of this thing, Jake recovered and responded: “You’re getting used to it, then? The situation, I mean?” Caught off guard, he didn’t know what else to say, how to carry it forward.
The what The situation? (Disbelief, astonishment, in Jean Daniel’s dead voice.) Used to it?
And Jake quickly went on, “At least you’ve worked out some kind of mobility for yourself, or you wouldn’t be here.” It had suddenly dawned on Jake that he and Korath were probably in the wrong place after all. If the Frenchman’s grave was in Avignon, that’s where his spirit should be, too. Yet Jake’s rapidly developing metaphysical powers told him that Jean Daniel was here; he could sense the other here, his presence. But:
Used to it? the other moaned again, his voice a shuddering deadspeak sob. Do I sound used to it? What, to being, dead, you fucking idiot?! No, I’m not used to it. I hate it—the graveyard in Avignon, this place, the whole fucking bit! But because I died here, in this lousy alley, sometimes I can’t help drifting back here. That bar over there, it was a haunt of mine. And now I really do haunt it! At least, I know when I’m there, even if no one else does. But what’s the point of being there if I’m … if I’m not there? I can’t see, hear, smell, touch, or taste anything, I’m not even a ghost as such—just a thing, floating in the everlasting darkness. Or rather, a nothing. And even the dead ignore me. And you ask me if I’m used to it? Some sense of humour you’ve got there, you dumb English shit! So now fuck off and leave me to my misery, made more miserable by your presence and the knowledge that in the total lousy vacuum of this place, the only one I can ever talk to is the one who put me here, the lousy fucking Necroscope himself, Jake Cutter! Damn it to hell, why couldn’t you have died—you and that Russian bitch both—when we pushed your car over that bridge into the river?
But Jean Daniel’s insults flew right over Jake’s head; the fascination of this thing was such that he scarcely heard them. He did hear himself referred to as the Necroscope, however, and said, “Is that what they call me?” For it still hadn’t sunk in; as yet he wasn’t ready to accept or handle the role even if the teeming dead wished it. Which they didn’t, not yet.
What are you deaf? The Frenchman said after a moment. Are you still here? What the fuck difference does it make what anyone calls you? A piece of shit by any other name, and all that. It’
s what you are, Cutter: a Necroscope! The Necroscope: like a maggot in the minds of the dead! In my mind, anyway. So get the hell away from me. Leave me alone. No longer sobbing, but very much fainter now and more distant, it seemed that Jean Daniel’s deadspeak voice floated to Jake on a series of muted, dwindling sighs, from someone who was quickly drifting away from him.
“Wait!” said Jake urgently. “I need to talk to you.”
It was like a command, and Jean Daniel came drifting back. What? (He sounded puzzled). Are you magnetic, too? It’s as if I felt you turning me, pulling me. But a moment later: No, you’re not magnetic, the Frenchman said. It’s just your warmth, that’s all. As a fire draws a draft, you draw the dead. Oh, you’re the Necroscope all right! But you’re not all warmth and light, Jake Cutter, for I can feel your dark side, too. Yeah, and your cold side, for that matter …
That would be Korath. And as suddenly as that, Jake understood that to the Great Majority—who “existed” in the nothingness, the nowhere of death—Jake must seem like a lone candle in the dark, the warm glow of a small, flickering flame. But by the same token Korath would seem like an even greater darkness, as cold as the spaces between the stars.
Korath knew that, too—had known it from the start—and so remained silent. But Jake could sense him there, in the back of his mind, listening intently. Doubtless the dead vampire was monitoring his progress. So best to get on with it; for failure would only set Korath off again, complaining about wasted time.
“Jean Daniel,” Jake said, “get this straight: I don’t like you any more than you like me. You tried to kill me … you did kill the woman I loved, and paid for it. In my book, that makes us even. But only just even, because while you’ve moved on now, beyond pain, I’m still hurting.”
Oh, really!? said the Frenchman, his deadspeak voice dripping sarcasm. Well lucky fucking me! So while I am merely dead, it’s a whole lot worse for you because you’re actually hurting, right? And it’s my fault, and I should feel bad about it. Sure, I can see that. So let me think it over, give me a minute or so to work out a way to tell you how badly cut up I really do feel about all this, okay? And meanwhile—GO AND FUCK YOURSELF!
“So then—” Jake gritted his teeth, but carried on regardless “—it seems dying hasn’t taught you anything: in death you’re the same worthless bastard that you were in life. Maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised at that, because that’s in the rules according to Hoyle, too: we are what we are, and death doesn’t change us. But you’ve got something I need, Jean Daniel, and I want you to give it up. So here’s the deal: talk to me, tell me what I need to know, and then I’ll leave you in peace.”
Something you want, eh? (Now the Frenchman laughed, however high and shrill.) So what’s this, the Inquisition? I might have been born in Avignon, but in the twentieth not the thirteenth century! Oh, I know what you want, Necroscope! Hey, while I’m definitely not partying with what you’d call “high society” down here, I’m not entirely out of touch either … know what I mean? Like, you’ve been quite the busy little bastard lately, right?
And again, instinctively (if with someone else’s instinct), Jake knew what the dead man was talking about.
Yeah, that’s right (Jean Daniel’s incorporeal nod.) Wilhelm “Willie” Stuker was next on your list, then Francesco “Frankie” Reggio. Me and both of them, taken out one, two, three, by you. Which makes it kind of obvious what you’re doing, and also what you want from me, right?
“Stuker?” said Jake. “That fat, slimy Kraut queer? Was that his name, Stuker?” He shook his head. “I never knew him by name—only by his ugly looks.”
Is that right? the Frenchman said. Well be sure wasn’t any prettier when you got through with him! He told me about it … how you packed his asshole with plastique, set a fuse, and left him counting down the seconds to the big bang. I mean, I didn’t see mine coming, but Willie—Jesus, he knew about it! His ass really was grass—or gas, whichever …
Poor Willie! We called him that, “Willie,” not because his name was Wilhelm but on account of his twig dick. I never saw a thinner dick on a fatter guy! But it wasn’t just Willie’s willy you vaporised, Necroscope. You blew his mind, too! He never was any too stable, but during the countdown be completely lost it. Likewise Frankie Reggio: not raving mad, no, but pretty “burned up,” for sure! How’s that for a sense of humour? Not bad, for a dead man, eh? But you know—just thinking about how those guys went out—it would really make my eyes water, if I had any! It has to be said, you burned both of them pretty good. Especially Frankie.
“An eye for an eye,” Jake answered, trying his best not to think about it. “Since they liked it dirty, those two, that was how I gave it to them. You all got what you deserved. So you’ve been talking to them, have you?”
Willie doesn’t talk much, said the other. He only gibbers. The couple times I bumped into him, I didn’t get much sense. He was a queer and a gutless coward in life, but since physical is no longer an option, there’s only one of those things be can be in death. He was crazy with fear when your plastique ripped him apart, and that’s the way he’s stayed.
“He was your colleague, and you don’t give a damn?”
What? My colleague? said Jean Daniel. I didn’t give a shit for the fat slob pervert when I was alive! So why should I care now? And the same goes for Frankie. I mean, maybe I could use a little quality company around here—but those two? Castellano kept Frankie around because he scared the competition almost as much as the boss man himself. But as for Willie Stuker: I don’t know why anyone would keep him around. Unless it was because be was so fucking nasty! Castellano likes nasty.
And Jake said, “See, you can talk once you get going.”
Yeah? said the other. Well I’m really glad you enjoyed it, because as of right now I’m all talked out. Luigi Castellano is one subject I won’t ever talk about, dead or alive. Not to you, and not to anyone else. And since there is no one else—except a load of dead fucks who won’t have anything to do with me—I guess I’m safe.
Jake sensed his fear and said, “You’re scared of him? Even in death? And you’re the one who called Stuker a coward?”
And after a moment’s silence: I don’t know, said Jean Daniel, maybe I am still scared of him. And maybe I’m not, not any longer. Maybe I even hate him, if only because he’s still alive and I’m dead. But let’s face it, Cutter, I couldn’t hate anyone as badly as I hate you. So forget it, because I won’t be giving you any kind of edge over Castellano. If you go up against him, you’re on your own. Against him and his boys: you haven’t a cat in hell’s chance. Even one on one, no way you can win. So maybe we’ll be talking again some day. In the not too distant future, I hope.
“Worthless bastard!” said Jake.
Maybe you picked the wrong man, said Jean Daniel, his deadspeak very gradually fading. I’m no nark. Maybe you should have gone after Alfonso Lefranc first. Or is he next? Well whatever, bad luck to you, Necroscope …
“Lefranc?” Jake frowned. He had never come across the name before and didn’t know who the other was talking about.
But Jean Daniel “heard” the thought and said: Sure you do, you dumb English shit! And his deadspeak automatically conjured a picture of Jake’s fourth quarry—the last but one of the men who had been there that terrible night in Marseilles—a man he had tried to trace, so far without luck.
And yet suddenly Jake started as he remembered an incident at the airport in Brisbane, when he had been about to board the UK-bound Skyskip with Trask and his E-Branch espers. For it was then he’d thought to see this selfsame face staring at him through the flexiglass wall that secured the boarding area from the viewing promenade. This sallow, badly pockmarked face on a small, thin, shifty-eyed man. A weaselly man, with an aura that was distinctly rodentlike … he’d been there one minute, gone the next.
At the time Jake had thought he’d imagined it. Considering it a symptom of his obsession—when from time to time he would see these hated face
s wherever he looked, even though three of them were no more, dead by his hand—he had simply put it out of his mind. For after all, what would one of Castellano’s gang be doing out in Australia?
His thoughts were deadspeak, of course, and:
Not very bard to figure, said the Frenchman, his deadspeak growing fainter as he drifted away, doubtless returning to Avignon. Castellano probably sent Lefranc out there to keep bis eye on you, because you were making a nuisance of yourself. Alfonso is Luigi’s intelligence agent, a spy, the sneakiest bastard you could never wish to meet. But at the same time he’s pure rat: a grass, a nark, an informer. I think Luigi will kill him one day even if you don’t. That guy’s got more mouth than a porn star’s got pussy! He’s a liability. It’s like he just can’t help mouthing off. Maybe you should have taken him out first, Necroscope. It’s a sure thing Alfonso would have talked to you.
“Oh, you’ve talked your share,” said Jake. “I’ve got a new name to conjure with, and you’ve proved at least one thing that I’d heard about but hadn’t experienced.”
Such as? A whisper now, in the deadspeak aether.
“Such as how when people die, they go on doing as they did in life. You’re the dead proof of it, Jean Daniel. You were and you still are a worthless scumbag.”
Fuck you, Necroscooope! (But all the edge, the poison, the vindictiveness, gone now from the dead Frenchman’s voice, while a renewed burst of hushed sobbing replaced it, rapidly tapering away into nothing.)
“Likewise, I’m sure,” said Jake, but to himself now.
And then silence …
Disappointed, Jake stood alone—yet not alone—in the alley in Marseilles. And eventually Korath said: Your diplomacy seems somewhat lacking.
“Oh?” said Jake. “Diplomacy? With scum such as that? Maybe you mean I’m not as good at lies and word games as you are.”
I suppose that could be it, said the other, without taking offence. But all that profanity, vituperation, verbal abuse … such language came as a great surprise to me! You’re not always so, er, forthright.