Brancusi had long wondered how far back the Family went. It wasn't like tracing a normal family tree-oh, yes, the lines were bloodlines, but not as passed on from father to son. He knew his own lineage-a servant at Castle Dracula before the Count had taken to living all alone, a servant whose loyalty to his master extended even to letting him drink from his neck.
Brancusi himself had succumbed to pneumonia, not an uncommon ailment in the dank Carpathians. He had no family, and no one mourned his passing.
But soon he rose again-and now he did have Family.
An Englishman and an American had killed the Count, removing his head with a kukri knife and driving a bowie knife through his heart. When news of this reached Brancusi from the gypsies, he traveled back to Transylvania. Dracula's attackers had simply abandoned the coffin, with its native soil and the dust that the Count's body had crumbled into. Brancusi dug a grave on the desolate, wind-swept grounds of the Castle, and placed the Count's coffin within.
Eventually, over a long period, the entire tribe had felt the Stranger's bite directly or indirectly.
A few of the tribefolk lost their lives to ravenous bloodthirst, drained dry. Others succumbed to disease or giant cats or falls from cliffs. One even died of old age. But all of them rose again.
And so it came to pass, just as it had for the Stranger all those years before, that the tribe had to look elsewhere to slake its thirst.
But they had not counted on the Others.
Weidenreich and Brancusi sat in Weidenreich's lab late at night. Things had been getting very tense-the Japanese occupation was becoming intolerable. 'I'm going to return to the States,' said Weidenreich. 'Andrews at the American Museum is offering me space to continue work on the fossils.'
'No,' said Brancusi. 'No, you can't take the fossils.'
Weidenreich's bushy eyebrows climbed up toward his bald pate. 'But we can't let them fall into Japanese hands.'
'That is true,' said Brancusi.
'They belong somewhere safe. Somewhere where they can be studied.'
'No,' said Brancusi. His red-rimmed gaze fell on Weidenreich in a way it never had before. 'No-no one may see these fossils.'
'But Andrews is expecting them. He's dying to see them. I've been deliberately vague in my letters to him-I want to be there to see his face when he sees the dentition.'
'No one can know about the teeth,' said Brancusi.
'But he's expecting the fossils. And I have to publish descriptions of them.'
'The teeth must be filed flat.'
Weidenreich's eyes went wide. 'I can't do that.'
'You can, and you will.'
'But-'
'You can and you will.'
'I-I can, but-'
'No buts.'
'No, no, there
is a but. Andrews will never be fooled by filed teeth; the structure of teeth varies as you go into them. Andrews will realize at once that the teeth have been reduced from their original size.' Weidenreich looked at Brancusi. 'I'm sorry, but there's no way to hide the truth.'
The Others lived in the next valley. They proved tough and resourceful-and they could make fire whenever they needed it. When the tribefolk arrived it became apparent that there was never a time of darkness for the Others. Large fires were constantly burning.
The tribe had to feed, but the Others defended themselves, trying to kill them with rock knives.
But that didn't work. The tribefolk were undeterred.
They tried to kill them with spears.
But that did not work, either. The tribefolk came back.
They tried strangling the attackers with pieces of animal hide.
But that failed, too. The tribefolk returned again.
And finally the Others decided to try everything they could think of simultaneously.
They drove wooden spears into the hearts of the tribefolk.
They used stone knives to carve off the heads of the tribefolk.
And then they jammed spears up into the severed heads, forcing the shafts up through the holes at the bases of the skulls.
The hunters marched far away from their camp, each carrying a spear thrust vertically toward the summer sun, each one crowned by a severed, pointed-toothed head. When, at last, they found a suitable hole in the ground, they dumped the heads in, far, far away from their bodies.
The Others waited for the tribefolk to return.
But they never did.
'Do not send the originals,' said Brancusi.
'But-'
'The originals are mine, do you understand? I will ensure their safe passage out of China.'
It looked for a moment like Weidenreich's will was going to reassert itself, but then his expression grew blank again. 'All right.'
'I've seen you make casts of bones before.'
'With plaster of Paris, yes.'
'Make casts of these skulls-and then file the teeth on the casts.'
'But-'
'You said Andrews and others would be able to tell if the original fossils were altered. But there's no way they could tell that the casts had been modified, correct?'
'Not if it's done skillfully, I suppose, but-'
'Do it.'
'What about the foramen magnums?'
'What would you conclude if you saw fossils with such widened openings?'
'I don't know-possibly that ritual cannibalism had been practiced.'
'Ritual?'
'Well, if the only purpose was to get at the brain, so you could eat it, it's easier just to smash the cranium, and-'
'Good. Good. Leave the damage to the skull bases intact. Let your Andrews have that puzzle to keep him occupied.'
The casts were crated up and sent to the States first. Then Weidenreich himself headed for New York, leaving, he said, instructions for the actual fossils to be shipped aboard the S.S.
President Harrison. But the fossils never arrived in America, and Weidenreich, the one man who might have clues to their whereabouts, died shortly thereafter.
Despite the raging war, Brancusi returned to Europe, returned to Transylvania, returned to Castle Dracula.
It took him a while in the darkness of night to find the right spot-the scar left by his earlier digging was just one of many on the desolate landscape. But at last he located it. He prepared a series of smaller holes in the ground, and into each of them he laid one of the grinning skulls. He then covered the holes over with dark soil.
Brancusi hoped never to fall himself, but, if he did, he hoped one of his own converts would do the same thing for him, bringing his remains home to the Family plot.
Necros by Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley is the bestselling author of dozens of novels, including the Necroscope and Vampire World series, and his Titus Crow and Dreamlands series, both of which take place in H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. He's also written more than 100 short stories, which have been collected in numerous volumes, such as the vampire-centric A Coven of Vampires, and recent releases The Taint and Other Novellas and Haggopian and Other Stories. Lumley is a winner of the British Fantasy Award, and in 1998, he was named a Grand Master by the World Horror Society.
It raised eyebrows when twenty-six-year-old Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith married eighty-nine-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall. It seemed such a shameless example of a relationship built on mutual exploitation rather than mutual affection. But is that really so different from most relationships? Is it the case, as one character in this story ponders, that 'all relationships are bargains of sorts'? Maybe so, maybe not. But in the case of this story, most definitely so.
