maybe you have, but none so great as those you've worked. How many men did you kill with your Evil Eye, Max, stopping them dead in their tracks and crumpling their hearts like paper? And were they all bad men? Did they deserve to die? As horribly as that? No, for one at least was my friend, as good a man as you could ever wish to meet.'
The head of your British E-Branch? Batu was quick off the mark. But Dragosani ordered me to kill him!
It was our mission! Dragosani railed. Don't play the innocent here, Mongol. You'd killed others before him.
He also ordered Ladislau Giresci killed, said Batu. One of his own countrymen, and entirely innocent! Ah, but Giresci knew Dragosani's secret — that he was a vampire!
He was a danger to… to the State! Dragosani blustered. I worked only for Mother Russia, and —‘You worked only for yourself!' Harry stopped him.
‘The truth is, you desired to be a power in the land. No, in the whole world! Lie if you must, Dragosani, for it's a trait of vampires, after all, but not to yourself. I've spoken to Gregor Borowitz, remember? And did he too die for Mother Russia? The head of your own E-Branch?'
There you have it, Dragosani, said Thibor, his voice a dark chuckle. Caught on your own barbs!
‘Don't crow, Thibor,' Harry's voice was lower still. ‘You were as bad and probably worse than both of them.'
I? Why, I have — or I had — lain here in the earth for five hundred years! What harm can a poor thing in the ground do, alone with the worms in the cold hard earth?
‘And what of the five hundred years before that?' said Harry. ‘You know as well as I that Wallachia trembled to your tread for centuries! The earth itself is soaked black with the blood you spilled. And don't lay it all at Faethor Ferenczy's feet. He's not entirely to blame. He knew what you were, else he wouldn't have chosen you.
And is that why you've come? Thibor asked after a moment. To harangue and accuse and denounce?
‘No, I came to learn,' said Harry. ‘Now look, I can't lie as well as you do. I was never much of a liar at the best of times. So I'm sure you'd see through me if I tried any sort of subterfuge. That's why I'll come straight out with it.
Well then? said Dragosani. Out with it, if you will.
Harry ignored him, was silent for a few seconds. ‘Thibor,' he said at last, ‘a moment ago you asked what harm you'd done, buried here these last five hundred years.'
I can tell you what harm he did! Dragosani would not be ignored. Only look at me! I was an innocent child and he taught me the arts of necromancy. Later, as a youth, he beguiled me with his hypnotism and his lies. As a man he put his vampire egg in me, and when it had matured, he —‘Your history concerns me not at all!' Harry stopped him. ‘Neither that nor any calumny of charges you bring against Thibor or anyone else.'
Calumny? Dragosani was furious.
‘Be quiet!' Harry's patience had broken. ‘Be quiet now, or I leave you at once, immediately, to wait out all the ages in your loneliness. All three of you.'
There was a sullen silence.
‘Very well,' said Harry. ‘Now, as I was saying, I'm not greatly concerned with Thibor's crimes or supposed crimes against you, Boris Dragosani. No, but I am concerned to know about what he did to another. I refer to a woman, Georgina Bodescu, who came here with her husband one winter. There was an accident and the man died. He died here, on this very spot. She was pregnant and fainted at the sight of his blood. And afterwards.
Ah? said Thibor, his interest quickening. But I've already told you that story. Are you telling me now that
are you saying it took effect?
Beware, Harry Keogh! Dragosani interrupted. Tell him no more. I heard the tale, too, when the old liar told it to you. If that unborn child as was is now a man, he'll be in thrall to Thibor! Aye, even though his master's dead! Can't you see? This devil would see himself alive again — in the body and mind of this new disciple!
You… dog! Thibor howled. You are Wamphyri! Does that mean nothing to you? We may fight among ourselves, but we do not divulge our secrets to others! You are damned for all time, Dragosani!
Old fool, I'm that already! Dragosani snarled.
‘Very well then,' Harry sighed. ‘I can see I'm wasting precious time. That being the case, I'll bid you —‘
Wait! Thibor's voice was all burning anguish. You can't tell me just so much and leave it at that. That's.
inhuman!
‘Hah!' Harry snorted.
A trade, then. I shall finish my story, and you shall tell me if the child was born and lives. And… how he lives. Agreed?
Harry guessed he'd said too much already, which in itself might be as good a reason as any for going on. There were now four principal things he must try to discover. One: the full range of a vampire's powers. Two: how, exactly, Thibor might try to use Yulian Bodescu. For Dragosani seemed to think it was possible for Thibor to resurrect himself, in Bodescu. Three: the rest of Thibor's story concerning the occurrences a thousand years ago at the castle of Faethor Ferenczy, so that he might know if anything of evil yet remained in that place. And four:
how to kill a vampire, but definitely!
As to the last: Harry had thought he knew that much eight months ago, when he'd waged war on the Chateau Bronnitsy. But looking back now he saw that Dragosani's death had only come about through a fortunate combination of events. For one thing Dragosani had been blinded: his eyes had been ruined by a reflected mind-bolt when Max Batu's stolen talent had rebounded on him from one of Harry's zombies; for of course Harry had had his zombie Tartars, his shock troops, for back-up in that affray. It had been one of them, called up from the preserving peat, who'd hacked Dragosani's head from his shoulders; and another who'd pinned his parasite vampire to his chest with a wooden stake when it deserted his shattered body. Harry couldn't have done all of these things, maybe not any of them, on his own. In fact, Harry's only real ace had been his mastery of the Mobius continuum: when he'd been very nearly cut in half by machinegun fire, he'd fled his dying body and dragged Dragosani's mind in there with him. In the Mobius continuum he'd hurled Dragosani through a past-time door, which had led the necromancer back to Thibor in his grave. And there an ‘earlier' Dragosani had lured up and killed Thibor, never dreaming that with the same stroke he had also determined his own fate. As for Harry's incorporeal mind: he'd gone forward, found his son's life-thread and joined with it, lay with it in the womb of Brenda waiting to be born. She had been his lover, his wife, and now, in a way, might even be considered his mother. His second mother.
But what if he had left Dragosani's mind in his corpse back at the Chateau? How long would that broken body have stayed a corpse? That was conjectural.
And Harry wondered: how had the surviving Russian E-Branch members dealt with what remained when all the fighting stopped? What had they made of his zombies? It must have seemed utter madness, an absolute nightmare! Harry supposed that after he left the Chateau along the Mobius way, the Tartars had fallen once more into quiescence.
Perhaps by now Alec Kyle had the answers to these questions, learned from Felix Krakovitch. Harry would find out eventually, but for now there were fresh problems. Foremost among them: how much dare he tell Thibor about Yulian Bodescu? Very little, he supposed. But, on the other hand, by now the extinct vampire had probably guessed all of it for himself. Which made any continued secrecy pointless.
‘Very well,' said Harry, finally, ‘we trade.'
Fool! Dragosani cut in at once. I had given you some credit, Harry Keogh — I thought you were cleverer than that. And yet here you are attempting to bargain with the devil himself! I see now that I was unlucky in our little contest. You are as big a fool as I was!
Harry ignored him. ‘The rest of your story then, Thibor, and quickly. For I don't know how much time I have…'
The first time the old Ferenczy came, I was not ready for him. I was asleep; but exhausted, half-starved, it's unlikely I could have done anything anyway. The first I knew of his visit was when I heard the heavy oaken door slam, and a bar was dropped into place outside. Four trussed chickens, alive, full-feathered, squawked and fluttered in a basket just inside the door. As I roused myself and went to the door, Ehrig was a pace ahead of me.
I caught him by the shoulder, threw him aside, got to the basket first. ‘What's this, Faethor?' I cried. ‘Chickens? I thought we vampires supped on richer meat!'
