Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (59 page)

Oh, I have a man’s appetites, be sure. Indeed, I have them tenfold! I do not love but lust; which is better than love, for when love
lies spent lust drives on. And the strength of a man? Why, in these hands of mine strong men have snapped like twigs! As for the
span of a man: what mere man has survived for thirty lifespans? And as for a man’s passions: who before me has hated for twenty long
centuries, and will
continue
to hate so long as his enemies survive, even to the end of time?

And my thirst, my thirssst! Ahhh! Do you recall how it is when the day is hot and the way is long, and there is no water? And then the
sparkle of a stream … your hand trembling as you lift the water to your lips? Well, I have thirsted for
six hundred years,
Bonnie Jean! Ah, no, I am not ungrateful, and you have sustained me … but a quart? Sometimes I think I
know the source of these measures: for is not a quart one fourth

part of all your blood? Close enough, I think. But a quart! Why, I have
bathed
in blood, the blood of whole men, and women,
and babes - and
stil /
wanted more!

Men? With their puny needs, they are as ticks on the back of a goat. But I am a wolf, and the field is
filled
with goats! Except I
am crippled, trapped, immobilized. Why, I lie so still they don’t even suspect I’m here at all. Only the other wolves know. Only my
own sort, aye …

He rambles,
B.J. thought, unmindful of her own thoughts as she rekindled her fire, with which to warm a can of soup.
He is delirious on my blood, like a man who has drunk too much strong liquor. These are only his frustrations
coming out of him, and nothing more. This is
not
the way he will be.

WHAT?
Her Master at once shouted, or snarled, in her mind.
And is it for you to say how I will or will not be?

‘Forgive me,’ B.J. answered wearily from where she sat by her fire. ‘I… I think I must be delirious, too, for it seems you’ve had more than a quart, my Master. And I have rarely felt so tired

He was at once solicitous.
Ahhh! Bonnie Jean, Bonnie Jean! It is my fault, my fault! But! hungered so … I let it go
too long, too long.

‘No harm done,’ she sighed. ‘I have Auld John’s soup, his strong tea. I’ll stay here the night, and rest.’

Aye,
he answered,
aye. The way down is hard, and you must be strong for it.

The way is nothing,’ B.J. shook her head. The climb is child’s play. But in the dark I could slip, and the way I feel right now

Best rest,
he told her.
Best rest…

But in a little while, spooning soup as she huddled beside her fire in a blanket, B.J. was curious to know something.

‘My Master, how would it have been? What would be the result if you had not roused me up? Not death, I know. Not the true death.’

Indeed, no, my Bonnie,
he answered, so low it was a coughing rumble in her mind.
Never the true death, not for you.

For you, undeath. But with you
…
quite unnecessary. You are what you are. A throwback? No, a throw forward! That is the way
of it. Blood tells, Bonnie Jean, and in you it runs true.

‘I would be … Wamphyri?’

Will be, perhaps.
(But now she sensed a seething darkness in his mental voice).

‘Perhaps?’

Her master at once came alive again, and the darkness receded.
Time will tell, my faithful one,
he said.
Aye, time
alone will tell…

B.J. gave herself a shake, as the dog-Lord abruptly enquired:
Where … where was I? For it appears you were right,
and I rambled? Certainly my mind has wandered.

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It was as if he, too, had been asleep; his thoughts were dull, uncertain, groping in her mind.

The lair was so much darker now; B.J. ‘s fire burned low; a sappy branch crackled and popped, and sent a few last sparks flying.

Through the rocky tangle of the high crystalline vaulting, a lone star glittered like an eye frozen in a stony orbit.

The Mysterious One,’ B.J. reminded her Master. ‘Have you reached a solution?’

/
remember,
Radu’s ‘tone’ was more focused now.
But you are mistaken; I had
already
reached a solution, but I had not voiced
it. I must see him - talk to him with my own ‘voice - have him here, where I can decide for myself his value … or his threat? But not yet. Not yet a
while. So, my solution:

He has things to do, you say. Then let him do them. For a year, even two years. He would search for his missing wife and child? Good! let
him search. Ah, but he is resourceful; he has talents. Excellent! Let us put them to use. We are agreed that my enemies seek me out. Very well:
let this ‘mysterious’ Harry Keogh seek
them
out! Let him locate them for us. Then, when or if they do not see fit to come to me, I can always go to
them! So, how is that for a solution?

‘And if he draws attention to you, what then?’

Huh! But their atention has never been absent! They have sought me for long and long! And as always, I shal rely upon you to hold them at bay.

‘And if he places himself in jeopardy, maybe gets himself killed?’

What is that to us? Or should I say, to me? For plainly it is a great deal to you! But I take your point. You are asking: why sacrifice a
valuable ally? Is that it? Wel, for one: his value is not yet proven. This could be the ultimate test. And for two: if he is indeed my Man With Two
Faces - the Mysterious One of my dreams - then he’ll sufer no harm. How can he, and still come to me at the time of my coming forth?

‘But… before he can seek them out - the Drakuls and the Ferenczys - he must know of them. And you have always forbidden me to speak of them. As you lie secret in the world, my Master, so must they, else alert men to the presence of us al!’

A good argument,
(Radu seemed genuinely pleased with her).
But a false one. Do you think I would let someone loose in the world with that
sort of knowledge,
without
that we place certain strictures upon him? Of course not! You have told me he is in thrall. True?

‘Beguiled,’ she nodded. ‘And by now addicted to your wine. He knows nothing at al of you; nothing of me, except that I am an innocent, a friend, and possibly—’

A lover?

B.J.’s silence answered for her.

All to the good. For I tell you, Bonniejean, that if he is not your lover,

or does not at least aspire, then he is not a man by my books. Which means he is not
my
man!

‘And if he does … aspire?’

What? And should I send you out to whore for me?
(But seeing her confusion):
Oh, ha-ha-ha! And now you would tell me you have no mind
of your own, and that you are guided in all things by me.
(His sarcasm smoked like acid as the laughter faded from his thoughts).
Huh! And you
know how I cannot abide a liar!

‘You … you’re playing with me.’ She stuttered. This … this has to be a word game. It must be!’

Indeed!
Radu growled.
And if you cannot win them, then do not play them! Certainly not with me …

B.J. waited, tried not to tremble, and eventually he said:
Very well. And did I not hint - and more than hint - that you should use
your woman’s ways, your female wiles, on him?
Better
ways than poisoned wine?
Other
ways to enthrall a man? Aye, but use them on
him,
Bonnie Jean, not on me!

‘Yes, my master,’ she bowed her head.

See to it, then, and when next you come make report.

‘Yes, my master.’ She curled herself up.

And Bonnie Jean, do without the wine. If you have weaned him on it, now wean him of. Doubtless it served its purpose, but an end to that
now. I want a man, not a sot. And finally - in the event that you do seduce him, or he seduces you, whichever - one last thing. Be sure,
absolutely sure,
that nothing of you, of us, gets into him. Above all else, be sure of that. For when he comes to me, he must be human -
al
of him.

‘I understand.’

So
be it. And now sleep well, my Bonnie.

‘And you, my … my … my Master.’ (His final words had been a command, and she was his thral. Already B.J. was yawning, her eyes closing).

And as he felt her slipping away, and knew that she would not hear him:
Aye, sleep well, Bonniejean. For if I was up - or when I am up—
there shall be no sleep for you, but a night such as you never imagined. Indeed, a night to die for! One of us, anyway …

In the grey dawn B.J. woke up, changed her dressing, saw that the scar was knitting and no fresh blood flowing. There was a cold cut of cooked venison in her pack, courtesy of Auld John. Washed down with strong tea, it served as breakfast. Then she saw to the cleaning of Radu’s feeder and stored it away. She should have attended to it last night but had been too weary. And finaly she took her departure. As she left the lair, the psychic aether was empty of her Master’s emanations. He continued to sleep his sleep of ages. Coming up, her spirits had been high; she had revelled in the climb.

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Going down, she took the easiest route; her mood was different and she must think things over … about her Master’s instructions, of course. (Oh, yes, for she was still too close to him to think … other things). Confused, disorientated in al manner of ways, finaly she did little thinking at al but concentrated mainly on her climbing.

She was not naive, Bonnie Jean - with so many years behind her, how could she be? - but she was enthraled, beguiled. Radu held her in his spel no less than she held Harry Keogh. And as his thral she must always obey him. But as a Lady of the Wamphyri… ?

Except that was a thought she must
never
think, and so she didn’t—

—Until midday, back at Auld John’s place, when he noticed a spot of blood on her dressing and changed it for her. Then he had cause to remind her.

‘Why, Bonnie Jean!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s no more than a wee scratch. Ye must have stretched it a bit, that’s al. But… I never saw healing like it! Surely ye couldn’ae hae gone so deep this time?’

‘Deep as ever, John,’ she told him. And in the next breath, ‘But we al heal quickly. It’s part of us - part of you, too.’

‘Aye, but never like this!’ For a moment in awe of her, he stepped back and gaped. And then, eagerly: ‘But he did promise ye, after al. And we’ve always known that sooner or later—’

‘Later, John, later!’ she hissed, suddenly angry, but with herself as much as with him. ‘When he’s up … when
he
says so, and not before. So don’t you say it, nor even think it!’

‘No, no!’ He blinked rapidly, licked his lips, peered at her. ‘Ye’re right, of course ye are, but—’

‘No buts, John!’ She cautioned him. There can be no buts. I told you: don’t even think it, because I
daren’t
think it!’

But later, in his tiny bathroom, after she had bathed and when she applied a minimum of makeup:

B.J. paused, then stood stock still in front of the smal mirror. Mirrors hadn’t much bothered her before; they had never been a problem. But now, for the first time … was there something wrong? Or not wrong but different?

She stared harder at her own image. The grey in her hair. Not a premature grey but the natural colour of wolfish fur. It
wasn’t
fur but hair, but the colour was al wolf. Much more so than before. And her eyes: their slant, the golden rim of their cores. And her ears: elfish before, but now … longer?

And when she put up a hand with a square of tissue to dab pale lipstick from the tip of an eyetooth … surely her teeth were longer, too? And behind her teeth …

B.J. held her breath, bared her teeth, al the way, then flicked her tongue over them -
or flickered
it, like a snake’s tongue. Her
cleft
tongue!

Not al the way, not yet. But indented at the tip, beyond a doubt. And

suddenly her blood was singing in her veins, singing a strange, savage song. But one that she must not, dare not sing! She remembered how easily she had changed for Harry Keogh. And how she had
known
she could do it. Oh, she had known before him, but always at the time of the full moon. Now, apparently, she could do it any time. It was simply a matter of will.

And standing there, before the mirror, she wiled the grey from her hair, wiled her tongue to its human shape, wiled her eyes and her ears back to normal. And they were … normal?

Wel, yes, for a normal human being, anyway …

That afternoon she slept. She didn’t need it, but made herself sleep. That way she was out of Auld John’s way; he couldn’t ask her things, and she wasn’t tempted to think or experiment.

As night fel she set out, with John as back-up in a batered old car he’d owned for years, doing the same job her girl had done two nights past. Through Pitlochry she saw his headlights blink twice, and his car quickly faded in her rearview. Then she was on her own, on her way home.

And no time to spare, because B.J. had given the ‘Mysterious One,’ Harry Keogh, specific post-hypnotic instructions to cal her early tomorrow morning before the three-week stricture she’d placed on his departure was up. She had supposed that by that time she would know beter what to do about Harry; which she did, courtesy of the dog-Lord Radu. Now she had other, more important orders to pass on, and she
must
speak to Keogh before he commenced his search abroad, which from now on would be that much more important and so much more dangerous. But she daren’t miss his cal, in case this close to the ful of the moon Harry took this to be his ‘obligatory’ cal - in which case it could be the last opportunity she would have to speak to him for more than a month, until the
next
ful moon.