Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

Harry nodded. 'I rarely sleep,' he answered, 'peacefully.'

And as if they had already agreed it, though in fact it hadn't been mentioned, they carried three single beds out of the bedrooms into the large living-room and set them up there around the central table, and prepared to sleep in the same room together. It might not be entirely civilized, but it was safest.

Harry brought out his crossbow from a holdall, assembled it and fitted a bolt. He placed the loaded weapon between his and Darcy's bed, on the floor close to the table, where they weren't likely to step on it. Then, while the others used the bathroom to prepare for bed in their turn, he stretched out in an armchair and drew a blanket up over himself. If he became uncomfortable later, he could always stretch out on his bed then.

And in the darkness and quiet of the room, where only a haze of grey light came in through the louvres, Darcy yawned and asked, 'What plans for tomorrow, Harry?'

'To see to Ken Layard,' Harry answered without hesitation, 'to get Sandra on a plane for home, and to see what can be done for Trevor Jordan. We should try to get him out of here as soon as possible. To distance him from the vampire should be to lessen the thing's influence. Again I suppose it's up to the local authorities and what they say. But let's deal with all that in the morning. Right now I think I'll be happy just to make it through the night.'

'Oh, I'm sure we will,' said Darcy.

'You feel… easy, then?'

'Easy? Hardly that! But there doesn't seem to be anything bothering me especially.'

'Good,' said Harry. And: 'You're a very handy man to have around, Darcy Clarke.'

Sandra said nothing. Already she was asleep…

Harry did in fact sleep; he caught brief, troubled snatches of sleep in a series of short naps, never more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time… for the first few hours, anyway. But in the wee small hours his exhaustion caught up with him and his sleep grew deeper; and now the dead, no longer able to communicate with his conscious mind, could at least try to get through to him.

The first was his mother, whose voice came to him from far away, faint as a whisper in the winds of dream:

Haaarry! Are you sleeping, son? Why don't you answer me, Harry?

'I… I can't, Ma!' he gasped, expecting to feel his brain squeezed in a moment, and acid poured on the nerves of his mind. 'You know that. If I try to talk to you, he's going to hurt me. Not him, but what he did to me.'

But you are speaking to me, son! It's just that you've forgotten again, that's all. It's only when you're awake that we can't speak. But nothing to stop us when you're only dreaming. You've nothing to fear from me, Harry. You know I'd never hurt you. Not deliberately.

'I… I remember now,' said Harry, still not quite sure. 'But what's the use anyway? I won't remember what you tell me when I wake up. I never do. I'm forbidden to.'

Ah, but I've found ways round that before, Harry, and I can try to do it again. I don't quite know how, for I sense you're a long way away from me, but I can always try. Or if not me, perhaps some of your other friends.

'Ma,' he was fearful now, 'you have to tell them to stop that. You've no idea the pain they can cause me, the trouble they can get me in! And I have enough problems right now without adding to them.'

Oh, I know you have, son, I know, she answered. But there are problems and there are problems, and the solution is sometimes different. We don't want you to go solving them in the wrong way, that's all. Do you understand?

But in his sleep he didn't understand; only that he was dreaming, and that someone who loved him was trying her best to help him, however mistakenly, however misguided. 'Ma,' he said, suddenly angry with her, and with all of them, 'I really wish you'd try to understand. You have to get it through your head that you're putting me in danger! You and the rest of the dead, all of you — it's like you were trying to kill me!'

Oh, Harry! she gasped. Harry I And he knew she was ashamed of him. Now how can you say a thing like that, son? Kill you? Heavens, no. We're trying to keep you alive.

'Ma, I — '

Haaarry. She was fading away again, going back where she belonged, as faint and distant as a forgotten name on the tip of your tongue, which won't shape itself no matter how hard you try. But then, in another moment, her deadspeak signal strengthened and he focussed on her again. And:

You see, son, she said, we don't worry too much about you that way any more. It's no longer so painful to us to think that one day you might die. We know you will, for it comes to us all. And through you we've come to understand that death isn't really as black as it's painted. But between life and death there's another state, Harry, and we've been warned that you're straying too close.

'Undeath!' it was his turn to gasp, as suddenly his dream turned sharp as reality. 'Warned? By whom?'

Oh, she answered, there are many talents among the dead, son. There are those you can speak to and trust, without fearing their words, and others you should never, ever speak to! At times you've moved without caution, Harry, but this time… one… evil… lost to… dark as… forever!

Her deadspeak was breaking up, fading, dissolving. But what she'd been saying was important, he was sure. 'Ma?' he called after her, into the gathering mists of dream. 'Ma?'

Haaaaarrry! Her answer was the faintest echo, diminishing and… gone.

Then-

— Something touched Harry's face; he started and sat up a little in his armchair. And: 'Wha…?' he gasped, as he came half-awake. Was that a fluttering just then? Had something disturbed the air of the room?

'Shhh!' Sandra mumbled from her bed somewhere in the darkness. 'You were dreaming. About your mother again.'

Harry remembered where he was and what he was doing here, and listened for a moment to the room's darkness and silence. And in a little while he asked, 'Are you awake?'

'No,' she answered. 'Do you want me to be?'

He shook his head before realizing she couldn't see him, then whispered, 'No. Go to sleep.'

And as he himself sank down again in dreams, once more he felt that faint fanning of the air. But sleep had already claimed him and he ignored it.

This time the voice came from the heart of a fog which rolled up out of Harry's dreams as dank and clinging as any fog he'd known in the waking world. It was clear, that voice; however distant, its signal was fixed and true; but it was dark, too, and deep and grinding and sepulchral as the bells of hell. It came out of the fog and seemed to surround Harry, pressing in on his Necroscope mind from all sides.

Ahhh! Beloved of the dead, it said, and Harry recognized it at once. And so I have found you, despite the misguided efforts of those who would protect you from a very old, very dead, very harmless thing.

'Faethor,' Harry answered. 'Faethor Ferenczy!'

And: Haaarry Keeooogh, crooned the other, his voice seething. But you do me honour, Harry, with this stress which you place upon my name! Is this awe which I sense in you? Do you tremble before the Power I once represented? Or is it something else? Fear, perhaps? But how so? What, fear? In one who was always so fearless? Now tell me: what has changed you, my son?

'No son of yours, Faethor,' Harry at once answered, with something of his old spirit. 'My name is clean. Don't try to taint it.'

Ahhh! smiled the gurgling, hissing, monstrous thing in his mind. But that's better. So much better to be on familiar termsss.

'What is it you want, Faethor?' Harry was suspicious, careful. 'Is it that you've heard the dead whispering of my fix and so you've come to taunt me?'

Your fix? Faethor feigned surprise, but not so much as to disguise his oozing sarcasm. You are in a fix? But is it possible? With so many friends? With all the teeming dead to advise and guide you?

Even dreaming, Harry was well versed in the ways of vampires — even the 'harmless', expired variety.