Thibor?'
‘It's true!' he screamed, through the earth I threw in his face. ‘You do fear me!'
‘If that were true, then I should most certainly behead you,' I smiled. ‘No, I merely hate you above all others. Do you remember how you burned me? I cursed you for a hundred years, Thibor. Now it is your turn to curse me for the rest of time. Or until you stiffen into a stone in
the dark earth.'
And without further ado I filled in his grave.
When he could no longer scream with his mouth he screamed with his mind. I relished each and every yelp. Then I built a small fire to fool the soldiers and the priests, and warmed myself before it for an hour, for the night was chill. And eventually I went down to the plain.
‘Farewell, my son,' I told Thibor. And then I shut him out of my mind, as I had shut him out of the world, forever.
‘And so you took your revenge on Thibor,' said Harry when Faethor paused. ‘You buried him alive — or undead — forever. Well, that might have suited your cruel purpose, Faethor Ferenczy, but you certainly weren't doing the world at large any favours by letting him keep his head. He corrupted Dragosani and planted his vampire seed in him, and between times infected the unborn Yulian Bodescu, who is now a vampire in his own right. Did you know these things?
Harry, said Faethor, in my life I was a master of telepathy, and in death…? Oh, the dead won't talk to me, and I can't blame them — but there is nothing to keep me from listening in on their conversations. In a way, it could even be argued that I'm a Necroscope, like you. Oh, I've read the thoughts of many. And there have been certain thoughts which interested me greatly — especially those of that dog Thibor. Yes, since my death, I have renewed my interest in his affairs. I know about Boris Dragosani and Yulian Bodescu.
‘Dragosani is dead,' Harry told him, albeit unnecessarily, ‘but I've spoken to him and he tells me Thibor will try to come back, through Bodescu. Now, how can this be? I mean, Thibor is dead — no longer merely undead but utterly dead, dissolved, finished.'
Something of him remains even now.
‘Vampire matter, you mean? Mindless protoplasm hiding in the earth, shunning the light, devoid of conscious will? How may Thibor use that when he no longer commands it?'
An interesting question, Faethor answered. Thibor's root. — his creeper of flesh, a stray pseudopod detached and left behind — would seem to be the exact opposite of you and me. We are incorporeal: living minds without material bodies. And it is… what? A living body without a mind?
‘I've no time for riddles and word games, Faethor,' Harry reminded him.
I was not playing games but answering your question, said Faethor. In part, anyway. You are an intelligent man. Can ‘(you work it out for yourself?
That got Harry thinking. About opposite poles. Was that what Faethor meant: that Thibor would make a new home for himself in a composite being? A thing formed of Yulian's physical shape and Thibor's vampire spirit? While he worried at the problem, Faethor was not excluded from Harry's thoughts.
Bravo! said the vampire.
‘Your confidence is misplaced,' Harry told him. ‘I still don't have the answer. Or if I do then I don't understand
it. I can't see how Thibor's mentality can govern Yulian's body. Not while it's controlled by Yulian's own mind, anyway.'
Bravo! said Faethor again; but Harry remained in the dark.
‘Explain,' said the Necroscope, admitting defeat.
If Thibor can lure Yulian Bodescu to the cruciform hills, said Faethor, and there cause his surviving creeper — the protoflesh he shed, perhaps for this very purpose — to join with Bodescu.
‘He can form a hybrid?'
Why not? Bodescu already has something of Thibor in him. He already is influenced by him. The only obstacle, as you point out, will be the youth's mind. Answer:
Thibor's vampire tissue, once it is in him, will simply eat Yulian's mind away, to make room for Thibor's!
‘Eat it away?' Harry felt a dizzy nausea. Literally!
‘But… a body without a mind must quickly die.' A human body, yes, if it is not kept alive artificially. But Bodescu's body is no longer human. Surely that is the essence of your problem? He is a vampire. And in any case, Thibor's transition would take the merest moment of time. Yulian Bodescu would go up into the cruciform hills, and he would appear to come down again from them. But in fact —‘It would be Thibor!'
Bravo! said Faethor a third time, however caustically.
‘Thank you,' said Harry, ignoring the other's sarcasm, ‘for now I know that I'm on the right track, and that the course of action chosen by certain friends of mine is the right one. Which leaves only one last question unanswered.'
Oh? Black humour had returned to Faethor's voice, a certain sly note of innuendo. Let me see if I can guess it. You desire to know if I, Faethor Ferenczy — like Thibor the Wallach — have left anything of myself behind to fester in the dark earth. Am I right?
‘You know you are,' said Harry. ‘For all I know it's a precaution all the Wamphyri take — against the chance that death will find them out.'
Harry, you have been straightforward with me, and I like you for it. Now I too shall be forthright. No, this thing is of Thibor's invention. However, I would add that I wish I had thought of it first! As for my ‘vampire remains': yes, I believe there is such a revenant. if not several. Except ‘revenant' is perhaps the wrong word, for we both know there will be no return.
‘And it — they, whatever — is in your castle in the Khorvaty, which Thibor razed?'
A simple enough deduction.
‘But have you no desire to use such remains, like Thibor, to raise yourself up again?'
You are naive, Harry. If! could, I probably would. But how? I died here and may not depart this spot. And anyway. I know that you will destroy whatever Thibor left buried in that castle a thousand years ago — if it has survived. But a thousand years, Harry — think of it! Even I do not know if vampire protoplasm can live that long, in those circumstances.
‘But it might have survived. Doesn't that… interest you?'
Harry detected something like a sigh. Harry, I will tell you something. Believe me if you like, or disbelieve, but I am at peace. With myself, anyway. I have had my day and I am satisfied. If you had lived for thirteen hundred years then you might understand. Perhaps you will believe me if I say that even you have been a disturbance. But you must disturb me no longer. My debt to Ladislau Giresci is paid in full. Farewell.
Harry waited a moment, then said, ‘Goodbye, Faethor.'
And tired now, strangely weary, he found a space-time door and returned to the Mobius continuum.
Harry Keogh's conversation with Faethor Ferenczy had ended none too soon; Harry Jnr was awake and calling his father's mind home. Snatched from the Mobius continuum into the infant's increasingly powerful id, Harry was obliged to wait out his son's period of wakefulness, which continued into Sunday evening. It was 7.30 P.M. In England when finally Harry Jnr went back to sleep, but in Romania it was two hours later and darkness had already fallen.
The vampire-hunters had a suite of rooms in an old world inn on the outskirts of lonesti. There in a comfortable pine-panelled lounge they finalised their plans for Monday and enjoyed drinks before making an early night of it. That at least was their intention. Only Irma Dobresti was absent, having gone into Pitesti to make final arrangements for certain ordnance supplies. She had wanted to be sure the requisition was ready. All of the men were agreed that whatever she lacked in looks and personal charm, Irma certainly made up for in efficiency.
Harry Keogh, when he materialised, found them with drinks in their hands around a log fire. The only warning of his coming was when Carl Quint suddenly sat bolt upright in his easy chair, spilling his slivovitz into his lap.
Visibly paling, staring all about the room with eyes round as saucers, Quint stood up; but even standing it was as if he had shrunk down into himself. ‘Oh-oh!' he managed to gasp.
Gulharov was plainly puzzled but Krakovitch, too, felt something. He shivered and said, ‘What? What? I think there is some —,
‘You're right,' Alec Kyle cut him off, hurrying to the main door of the suite and locking it, then turning off all
