Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (58 page)

Her
depletion, yes, for her Master would have it no other way. How often had he told her: The flesh and blood of one’s own must always be the dearest, as it
is
always the sweetest!’ His meaning had never been entirely clear - at best it sounded sinister - but B.J. had taken it to mean that the blood of men and women, human beings, was the natural fare of the werewolf. And apart from a handful of occasions when she’d brought various thralls and recruits here, this perhaps dubious duty had been hers alone.

Fortified by her meal, now it was time …

Radu’s funnel was of soft beaten gold; only its needle tip was of copper. B.J. took it from its secret place, carefully wiped it clean, carried it up to the rim of his sarcophagus and gazed down on him. ‘Master, I am ready.’

As am I, Bonniejean!
His answer rang at once in her mind.
As am I, yesss. And I have given thought to everything you’ve told me. Now, as you
attend me, I shall tell you what must be done. For time is narrowing down, and my dreams scan ahead of me to
strange new tomorrows. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with my … my resurrection? And everything must be done to enhance it.

For while I have ‘seen to that point, beyond it lies uttermost confusion. The future of all men and creatures was ever a devious thing,
Bonniejean. And mine - and yours - no less. But for you 1 have seen a full and glorious moon: a wondrous good omen, yesss! While for myself, I
shall be bright as a star! And so our places in tomorrow’s firmament seem fixed, which is the where and the when of it. But as to the
how
of it:
that remains to be seen …

While he ‘talked’ to her, B.J. busied herself. She pushed the feeder into the resin crust of Radu’s sarcophagus and used her weight to drive it slowly but surely deeper into the semi-congealed stuff within. A

gauge-mark scratched into the golden tube, coming level with the surface of the resin, told her precisely where to stop. Any deeper and the sharp, holow ‘knife’

point of the funnel would drive right into Radu’s face.

About the watcher,
Radu continued, as she prepared a tourniquet on her left arm, but left it slack.
If this is no innocent or coincidental thing, then it can only be
one of extreme menace. And indeed I
feel
menaced! This watcher is a thrall: a Ferenczy, or a Drakul, aye. He watches you to discover me. And he
wil
discover me,
if he can, and lead his master here to my lair-through
you,
Bonniejean, through you! And so there is only one answer to it: dispose of him. But not now, not yet.

First learn al about him; know him as you know yourself, if that is at al possible, so that he may not creep up on you unannounced. Then, closer to the time -
but only when I give the word -
then
see to him! For if he were to suddenly disappear, now, immediately … why, his master would surely understand that he had
found me, and that I had found him!

And shortly thereafter there would be two watchers, then three … until in the end I would starve up here, because you could not come to me. Or if and when you
did, my enemies would folow you and find me helpless here. And be sure, Bonniejean, that they would deal just as cruely with you as with me. For you are a
woman and comely, and they … are Wamphyri!

B.J. sat beside the rim of the sarcophagus with her back to an angled slab of stone, but not too comfortably, and without glancing away made one slicing cut through the arteries of her left wrist with the razor-sharp blade of her knife. Indeed it was so sharp that she scarcely felt its bite -or only very briefly - and the cut was so clean that for a single moment it remained closed. Long enough for her to lean forward over the rim and direct the first sudden spurt into the golden funnel.

But Radu had ‘heard’ the
hiss
of air between her clenched teeth, felt the sting in her mind, sensed the tightening of her stomach, and knew what these things meant. And,
Ahhhh!
he said, as the hot, red, salty stream commenced to flow down the golden tube to his encysted figure. Then, to cover the unmistakable lust that suddenly burned like fire in his thoughts (and must surely burn its way into Bonnie Jean’s), he forced himself to continue with his instructions:

… So
then,
he barked,
we have dealt with this watcher. Or we will, eventually. But always remember, Bonniejean, that revenge is a dish
best served cold. Revenge? Oh, yesss! for I have seen in your mind how he has worried and angered you with his snooping. And I know that
you would be avenged, even as I
must
avenge myself against his master, one of mine own enemies out of ancient times. But attend me well,
Bonnie Jean. It can be nothing dramatic, nothing spectacular. When the time comes this watcher should simply … yes, disappear! Let his
master wonder but never know. That way, by the time he
must
know the way of it, and when
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his curiosity brings him to seek me out, I shall be up and about in the world. Time then for
my
revenge, aye! But only think, Bonnie Jean: if such
as you have felt the urge to strike at our enemies - and for what good reason, eh? The small irritation of covert observation? The shuddering
anticipation of some unknown, unspecified
DOOM
waiting just around the comer - then what of my passions, whose torment has lasted for
two thousand years?
Huh!
Wel, let me tell you: there were bloodfeuds before mine, and bloodwars since. But the next one will be
hot,
be sure.

As hot as every hell that men have ever dreamed …!

Then a pause so sudden., so sharp it was almost a gasp in B.J. ‘s mind, as the first drop of her blood, then a gush - a crimson, bloating bubble in the yellow envelope of fluid surrounding him - stained and suffused the area of Radu’s weird wolf head.

And:

Ahhhh!
It was almost a sob of pain, but an agony so sweet that it vibrated like some unbearable note struck on the chords of the mind. And in B.J.’s mind it was the rushing, irretrievable cry of climactic sex, the nerve-wrenching howl of a shovel in clay-cold ashes, the joy of the full moon when its call can no longer be denied. It was all of these things, and more. It was the blood that is the life.

Her blood, and Radu’s life, as the influx, the monstrous infusion, commenced.

And it was always the same: as if her Master were a live, alien current, which the conductor of her blood carried back to Bonnie Jean. For once the connection was made, the current came flowing back up the life-stream and into her.

It
leaped
to her, quick as light, with the speed of an electric arc: the incredible, terrible fact of Him! And as always - if only for those first few unutterable, unbearable seconds -she knew the
truth
of Him. That there was no truth
in
Him!

It came and it went, and left her floating, drifting on a sea of unknown emotions, no less than his bite would have done. For one brief moment the agony of Truth … and for the rest of time the inescapable acceptance of a Great Lie.

And before she could consider the difference, or even the existence of a difference:

Yesss!
(His hiss sounded that much clearer in B.J. ‘s innermost being).
Ah, yesss! Child of my children, my life is in you, as you
were in me. My life
is
you, as yours will be mine. But not yet awhile, not yet…

And as something of his unthinkable pleasure receded, and he accepted the renewal of his hideous life:
As for the girl, gone for a year and never to return: we must accept that she is no more. At best she has become one of theirs: a
Drakul or a Ferenczy, aye. More likely, she’s a husk, drained of knowledge and life both. Let us assume that you are right and she could not
talk. Still she ‘told’ enough to interest them; hence the watcher. Or has he been there a long time, Bonnie Jean? Longer than you suspect?

Even years, decades? The latter, I think. If not, then how did they know to take one of yours in
the first place? What came first, the egg, the spore, or the leech? It is a riddle; it moves in a circle and is best left alone. Likewise the girl… forget
her. She is no more.

B.J. listened with the one part of her mind that remained alert. As for the rest: her eyes were closing, her head nodding until she struggled to keep it upright. Drowsing, she was carried on the current of Radu’s life, and was nothing without that she belonged to him. It was his art, his hypnotism, the beguiling. She had it, too, but by comparison was an infant where he was the old, old Master … but a master of more than mere hypnotism.

And B.J.’s heart thudded, her blood pumped, and her mind listened …

Finaly we have this … this mysterious one,
(Radu eventualy continued).
Of whom you admit to wondering: perhaps
the
Mysterious One? Yesss, Bonnie Jean,
and you have set me to wondering, too. For I have seen him in my dreams these many ages, and the one whom you have shown to me is not dissimilar. But in my
dreams … strange, but I never saw him clearly. While I was given to know
of
him, I was never permited to
know
him. He was blurred, aye, or at best il-defined,
as al dreams of the future are, only more so. And so I came to think of him as The Man With Two Faces, because while
he
remained the same … his face
changed! Not that he was ‘two-faced,’ as in the common usage of that term, you understand. No, for this has nothing to do with simple treachery.

So …
what does it mean? For I have read it in your mind, that you, too, Bonnie Jean, have seen another side of him - as if some other were looking out
through his eyes? But could that other be me, in some future time? If so, then indeed he
is
the Mysterious One of my dreams. Or—

—Is it al a trick, a trap, a clever subterfuge?
(Radu’s mental voice was suddenly sharp as B.J.’s knife).
He helped you when he could have kiled you, you say.

But I remember how, in the Greek Sea, the fishermen would bait their hooks with little fishes - to catch big ones! And this ‘covert agency’ he worked for. Whose
agency, 1 ask? The powers that be, you say. For what good purpose, I ask? To which you answer, ‘to usurp the laws of the land, and supplement them where they
will not sufice!’ Eh? Usurp the laws? I am astonished! For this agency must be powerful indeed, that it works outside of governments and laws! Very wel, then
who were this Mysterious One’s masters? Alas, here we have no answer, for this was a line you did not pursue. Ah, but be sure that
I
will…!

Radu paused, probed a moment with his vampire mind, and immediately, worriedly inquired:
Is al wel, Bonnie Jean? Do you hear me? Best atend me,
for my needs shal go on beyond today. And I would that you go on with them!

B.J. jerked awake. She had
been
awake, the part of her that listened, at least. And she saw that the funnel was overflowing into the

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sarcophagus, where her blood pooled on the crusty resin. Like the gauge-marks on the stem of Radu’s funnel, this was her warning, telling her, ‘this far but no further!’

It was not the first time that this had happened, nor that her Master had ‘saved’ her life. But then, what would become of him without her?

She tightened the tourniquet on her arm, watched the spurting slow to a sporadic spatter, willed her metamorphic flesh to action.
Heal me!
Then, as she got stiffly down from the sarcophagus, a last twist on the tourniquet, which she taped in position. And finally the slow, awkward business of bandaging her wrist with dressings from her pack.

While she worked, Radu talked to her:

How many times had I expired without you, Bonnie Jean? How often haw I escaped the true death? But the sweet hot spark
of your life’s blood rekindles mine and I live anew … if such as this may be considered life.
(A creature of moods, now her Master was sour again. And B.J. knew why. It was always the same when his needs had been satisfied - or his immediate needs, at least).

Ah, you read me well,
he told her.
For I would be up again, and abroad in the world of men. I
would
be up, even now, except
pestilence put me down. And so I stay here, waiting out my time. And I keep myself quiet, lest my thoughts go out into
the world and
others
hear them. And I dream my red dreams, and keep them quiet, too, for the same good reason. And my bones
stiffen, and my flesh sags, and even my memory fades a little, for time is a long, long thing. So that sometimes I
wonder at the purpose of it all…

… Until you return to me, and then I know the purpose of it all! For once I was as men and lived with men. I
fought side by side with men, as were they my equal. I tried to be the same as men, but was different. I reined back on
my spirit,
which is a roaring fire that devours!!!
And I quenched it as best possible. But I was wrong to try, Bonnie Jean. Aye, for to
be Wamphyri is to be other than men, more than men.