'Wait/ Jake said. 'Sit down. I may need you — to help me with this.' He waved a dismissive hand at Trask's file.
Liz took a very deep breath, but despite her annoyance she sat down, folded her arms, said nothing.
And after a while Jake said, 'You know why I'm pissy, even with you?'
That 'even' told Liz something, at least… mainly that she was special, different in his perception. But she remained cool towards him and simply said, 'Go on?'
'Ben Trask, Goodly, Lardis/ he said, 'especially Lardis! — he can give you bad dreams, that one — it's as if they were all waiting for something to happen/ And he thumbed himself in the chest. 'To happen to me!'
'Or waiting for you to do something/ she said.
'Exactly/ Jake narrowed his eyes at her. 'And you, too?'
'Well, and weren't we justified in that?' she countered. 'I mean, we've seen one of the things you can do. The way you move… without moving.'
'But I thought that was agreed/ his frustration was mounting. 'I've already told you that's not me!'
'Maybe it's trying to be you,' she said — and at once bit her KP— Jake nodded, and his voice was harder when he accused: 'So you are in on it.'
'Jake/ Liz told him, 'if you were to learn everything all in one go, it might be too much for you. I can understand that even if you can't. Ben Trask and the other espers, they've recognized a germ in you. But maybe it's more than a germ. Especially after last night, and again this morning with McGilchrist. Anyway, they would like it to grow; they don't want to kill it off with the shock of sudden awareness. That's why they'll let you in on it slowly, gradually. That way, when it all becomes clear to you, you'll be ready for it.'
Jake looked at her and saw only truth in her eyes. Then he looked at the file again. 'So reading this stuff is like Trask said: just another step in my gradual education, right?'
'I think so, yes/ she answered.
'Huh!'And muttering darkly to himself, Jake picked up the file. It had a yellow plastic jacket with a red diagonal stripe stamped with the word COSMIC. A once-white, well-thumbed label gummed in the top righthand corner bore a scrawled legend in Indian ink: 'VAMPIRES AND THE WAMPHYRI — basic/
But as Jake Cutter was about to discover, there was little or nothing basic about them…
Jake had of course been briefed prior to last night's foray; a very sparse — even a brief— briefing before being 'thrown in at the deep end/ as he had had it. He'd seen a jerky old black and white film from a place called Perchorsk in the Ural Mountains, which at first he'd thought was a clip from some old horror movie that a sensitive
20th Century film censor had refused to pass for general viewing. It was just too graphic, too real, too horrific. And its special effects had been… well, something else.
But the rest of the footage (of the underground Perchorsk Complex, which was obviously real, and of an incredible, nightmarish flying creature that two USAF fighters had sent to hell over the Hudson Bay all of thirty years ago, coupled with Ben Trask's matter-of-fact, voice-over commentary) had finally served to convince Jake of its authenticity… well, almost. But still not quite with it, and at that time not really wanting to be, he had allowed himself to arrive at his own incorrect conclusion:
That all those years ago Soviet scientists had been breeding something — probably biologically engineered soldiers — in subterranean laboratories in the Urals, and that an unspecified number of genetically mutated monsters, not to mention several 'altered' human beings had somehow escaped… which even now seemed a far more acceptable explanation than the fantastic story he was beginning to piece together from the notes in Trask's file.
'WAMPHYRI/ (Jake read the heading again): 'The Mowing notes result from Harry and Nathan Keogh debriefs. The Keoghs, father and son(s), were mainly responsible for the destruction of the Wamphyri. This file should be read in conjunction with 278, 'HARRY KEOGH,' 279, 'NECROSCOPE,' and 311, 'NATHAN/'
And then he started again on the text:
'The Wamphyri are the original vampires of 'myth' and legend. For the last two thousand years vampires have been periodically 'banished' from their own world into ours. Prior to that time it seems possible that several of them found their own way to Earth via a 'wormhole' situated in Starside, having its exit in a subterranean cave under the foothills of the Carpatii Meridional! the Transylvanian Alps. This is obviously the reason why, even to this day, that region is associated with vampires and vampirism. It is the source of the so-called 'myth.'
'But the Wamphyri are not a myth. They are the inhabitants of an Earth-type world lying parallel to Earth in a 'universe' on 'the other side' of our familiar space-time continuum; and but for the fact that the wormhole enters our world deep underground on a watercourse subject to flash flooding, it is quite feasible that by now the human race would have been conquered, converted and enslaved by vampires.
'However, and whatever might have been Mankind's fate, one thing is certain: there will be no more vampires in this world. The only means of entry have been closed. In 2007, the Russian Premier, Gustav Turchin, diverted hydroelectric dam waters from the Urals Pass into the subterranean complex at Perchorsk, thus drowning the singularity or 'Gate' in the heart of the complex. This action served to preserve the integrity of both worlds and guaranteed the future safety of at least one of them, ours. For further reading see 262, PERCHORSK, and 297, THE REFUGE. 'STAGES OF VAMPIRISM — the Vampire Life-Cycle — in large part speculative:
'In the east and west of Sunside/Starside lie swamps which are always gloomy under rolling banks of fog. In a time immemorial to Sunside's Szgany (nomadic humans), the first vampires came out of these swamps.
'The morphology or evolution of the Wamphyri would make for a fascinating study in its own right. (But we must consider any clinical, laboratory, or experimental study of ANY PHASE of vampires and vampirism far too dangerous!) Cyclical, it frequently involves forms other than human. Vampire DNA is unique in being mutative within a single life-cycle without the benefit of generation. Like any disease, but almost sentiently aggressive, it invades non-vampire tissues to infect them. But instead of destroying the contaminated body it passes on its mutant DNA, causing the host to adapt — and indeed to mutate — within its own span. Since longevity is invariably a result of vampirism, barring accidental death or fatal diseases the lifespan of the victim, then a vampire in his own right, might easily extend to many hundreds and perhaps even thousands of years.
'In the vampire swamps of Sunside/Starside, the first (or final) phase of the cycle may be found. It is a black mushroom that ripens to give off red spores. SPECULATIVE: The spores are the genesis of vampiric life and carry the as yet 'blank' form of vampire DNA. Breathed in, the spores attach to animal lungs and commence leaking their 'poison' into the bloodstream along with oxygen. Then the mutation quickens, the victim falls ill, and following a period of some three days emerges as a vampire in his own right. In Transylvania, the illness would occasionally appear fatal and the victim dead. Hence the legend of the vampire rising from his grave after three days in the earth.
'The spores do not discriminate; they infect who or whatever breathes them in. An infected fox or dog would have vampire instincts. But the true vampire has instincts of its own.
'SECOND PHASE. (In part, speculative):
'Within an infected host, certain special strands join up to take on a separate, parasitic identity. This may take a few years, decades, or even centuries; the reason for these variations are as yet undetermined. But the symbiotic creature that results is the true vampire: a semi-protoplasmic leech clinging to the spine of the host and extending its own nervous and sensory systems into his brain, literally possessing his mind. It is him, and he is it. And the parasite or symbiont's appetite is for blood. It feeds on the source of life itself: the blood of its host's future victims. Indeed, 'the blood is the life.'
'The symbiont is not necessarily 'faithful' to an original host; in Sunside, should a dog or fox host come in contact with a human being, a wholesale transfer of leech from the animal to the human is possible, especially if the animal is stricken and dying. In other words the leech will seek a continued existence — or even better, a higher life-form — in its new host. Among the Szgany of Sunside, the tenacity of the leech is a legend in its own right.
'THIRD PHASE: Wamphyri.
'Not only has the symbiont become an integral part of its host's body, but the host's being — even his thought processes, his personality, and of course his DNA — have been altered forever. Just as strands of that DNA have mutated into the leech, so the host's flesh has become in itself imitative. His flesh is now metamorphic: he can within certain limits bring about physical alterations in his shape and form. He is Wamphyri.'
'FOURTH PHASE: Back to the Origin. Speculative: 'In the event of death the symbiont leech (and even the host's 'dead' flesh) may attempt a secondary existence by way of reconstitution. Essential fats and amino acids —
