Necroscope

Dragosani listened, rapt, breathless; but while his interest was keen, with all his attention focused upon Giresci's story, still his face showed little or no true emotion or horror. And Giresci saw this. 'Ah!' he said. 'And you're not without strength yourself, my young friend, for there are plenty who would turn pale or puke at what I've just said. And there's a lot more to be said yet. Very well, let's see how you take the rest…

'Now, I've said there was something else inside this man's body cavity, and so there was. I caught a glimpse of it when first I saw him lying pinned there, and thought my eyes must be playing tricks with me. Anyway, we saw each other simultaneously, and after our eyes met for the first time the thing inside him seemed to shrink back and disappear behind the rest of his innards. Or… perhaps I had simply imagined it to be there in the first place, eh? Well, as to what I thought I had seen: picture an octopus or a slug. But big, with tentacles twining round all the body's normal organs, centring in the region of the heart or behind it. Yes, picture a huge tumour — but mobile, sentient!

'It was there, it wasn't there, I had imagined it. So I thought. But there was no imagining this man's agony, his hideous wounds, the fact that only a miracle — many miracles — had so far saved his life. And no imagining that he had more than minutes or even seconds to live, either. Oh, no, for he was certainly done for.

'But he was conscious! Conscious, think of it! And try to imagine his torment, if you can. I could, and when he spoke to me I almost fainted from the shock of it. That he could think, have any sort of ordered thought process left in him, was… well, unthinkable. And yet he maintained something of control over himself. His Adam's apple bobbed, bulged, and he whispered:

''Pull it out. Drag it out of me. The point of the beam, draw it from my body.'

I recovered my senses, took off my jacket and put it carefully across his burst gut. This was for my good more than for his, you understand. I could have done nothing while his innards were exposed like that. Then I took hold of the beam.

''It'll do no good,' I told him, nervously licking my lips. 'Look this will kill you outright! If I can get it out — and that's a big if — you'll die at once. I wouldn't be doing you any favours if I told you anything else.'

'He managed to nod. 'Try, anyway,' he gasped.

'And so I tried. Impossible! Three men couldn't have shifted it. It was literally jammed right through him and down into the floor. Oh, I moved it a little, and when I did great chunks of the ceiling came down and the wall settled ominously. Worse, a pool of blood welled up in the depression in his chest where the beam impaled him.

'At that he started groaning and rolling his eyes to set my teeth grating, and his body started vibrating under my jacket like someone had sent a jolt of electricity through him. And his feet, drumming the ground in an absolute fit of pain! But would you believe it? — even while this was going on his shivering hands came up like claws to grab that splintered stump where it pinned him, and he tried to add his own weight to mine as I strained to free him!

'It was all a waste of effort and both of us knew it. I told him:

''Even if we could draw it out, it would only bring the whole place down on you. Look, I have chloroform here. I can knock you out so you won't have the pain. But I have to be honest with you, you won't be waking up.'

''No, no drugs!' he gasped at once. 'I'm… immune to chloroform. Anyway I have to stay conscious, stay in control. Get help, more men. Go — go quickly!'

''There's no one!' I protested. 'Who would there be out here? If there are any people around they'll be busy saving their own lives, their families, their property. This whole district has been bombed to hell!' And even as I spoke there came the loud droning of bombers and, in the distance, the thunder of renewed bombing.

'No!' he insisted. 'You can do it, I know you can. You'll find help and come back. You'll be well paid for it. believe me. And I won't die, I'll hang on. I'll wait. You… you're my one chance. You can't refuse me!' He was desperate, understandably.

'But now it was my turn to know agony: the agony of frustration, of complete and utter impotence. This brave, strong man, doomed to die here, now, in this place. And looking about me, I knew that I wouldn't have time to find anyone, knew that it was all over.

'His eyes followed my gaze, saw the flames where they were licking up outside the demolished bay windows. The smoke was getting thicker by the second as books burned freely, setting fire to tumbled shelves and furniture. Smoke was starting to curl down from the sagging ceiling, which even now settled a little more and sent down a shower of dust and plaster fragments.

''I… I'll burn!' he gasped then. For a moment his eyes were wide and bright with fear, but then a strange look of peaceful resignation came into them. 'It… is finished.'

'I tried to take his hand but he shook me off; and once more he muttered, 'Finished. After all these long centuries…'

''It was finished anyway,' I told him. 'Your injuries… surely you must have known?' I was anxious to make it as easy as possible for him. 'Your pain was so great that you've crossed the pain threshold. You no longer feel it. At least there's that to be thankful for.'

'At that he looked at me, and I saw scorn staring out of his eyes. 'My injuries? My pain?' he repeated. 'Hah!' And his short bark of a laugh was bitter as a green lemon, full of acid and contempt. 'When I wore the dragon-helm and got a lance through my visor, which broke the bridge of my nose, shot through and smashed out the back of my skull, that was pain!' he growled. 'Pain, aye, for part of me — the real ME — had been hurt. That was Silistria, where we crushed the Ottoman. Oh, I know pain, my friend. We are old, old acquaintances, pain and I. In 1204 at Constantinople it was Greek fire. I had joined the Fourth Crusade in Zara, as a mercenary, and was burned for my trouble at the height of our triumph! Ah, but didn't we make them pay for it? For three whole days we pillaged, raped, slew. And I — in my agony, half eaten away, burned through almost to the very heart of ME — I was the greatest slayer of all! The human flesh had shrivelled but the Wamphyri lived on! And now this, pinned here and crippled, where the flames will find me and put an end to it. The Greek fire expired at last, but this one will not. Human pain and agony, I know nothing of them and care less. But Wamphyri pain? Impaled, burning, shrieking in the fire and melting away layer by layer? No, that must not be…'

These were his words as best I remember them. I thought he raved. Perhaps he was a historian? A learned man, certainly. But already the flames were leaping, the heat intolerable. I couldn't stay with him — but I couldn't leave him, not while he was conscious, anyway. I took out a cotton pad and a small bottle of chloroform, and -

'He saw my intention, knocked the unstoppered bottle from my hand. Its contents spilled, were consumed in blue flames in an instant. 'Fool!' he hissed. 'You'd only deaden the human part!'

'My clothes were beginning to feel unbearably hot and small tongues of fire were tracing their way round the skirting-board. I could barely breathe. 'Why don't you die?' I cried then, unable to tear myself away from him. 'For God's sake, die!'

''God?' he openly mocked me. 'Hah! No peace for me there, even if I believed. No room for me in your heaven, my friend.' 'On the floor amongst other debris from the desk lay a paperknife. One edge of its blade was unusually keen. I took it up, approached him. My target would be his throat, ear to ear. It was as if he read my mind. ''Not good enough,' he told me. 'It has to be the whole head.'

''What?' I asked him. 'What are you saying?' 'Then he fixed me with his eyes. 'Come here.' 'I could not disobey. I leaned over him, gazed down on him, held out the knife. He took it from me, tossed it away. 'Now we will do it my way,' he said. 'The only sure way.'

'I stared into his eyes and was held by them. They were… magnetic! If he had said nothing but merely held me with those eyes, then I would have remained there and burned with him. I knew it then and know it I now. Crippled, crushed, opened up like a fish for the gutting, still he had the power!

''Go to the kitchen,' he commanded. 'A cleaver — the big one — fetch it. Go now.'

'His words released my limbs but his eyes — no, his mind — remained fastened on my mind. I went, through gathering smoke and flame, and returned. I showed him the cleaver and he nodded his satisfaction. The room was blazing now and my outer clothes were beginning to smoke. All the hair of my head felt singed, crisped. ''Your reward,' he said. ''I want no reward.'

''But I want you to have it. I want you to know who you have destroyed this night. My shirt — tear it open at j the neck.'

'I began to do so, and leaning over him thought for a single moment that something other than a tongue moved in the partly open cavern of his mouth. His breath in my face was a stench! I would have turned away but