Necroscope: The Plague-Bearer (3 page)

His teeth were strong, not quite white, and a little uneven. They were set in a mouth that was unusually sensitive but could also be cruel, caustic. He had a high brow, a straight nose, and cheeks that seemed just a fraction sunken. Not surprising, that last: Kyle had been a little too well-fleshed for the Necroscope’s tastes, and he had worked hard to rid himself of the excess weight. This hadn’t mattered much to Alec Kyle himself with his height, whose work in E-Branch had more usually been sedentary; but it mattered to Harry. Bad enough carrying those extra years around without all that extra weight! And:

“Damn!” Harry muttered under his breath, and shook his head where he stood staring at himself. And then
to
himself: “Do you know something, chum? I think I’m actually getting used to you!” There was no answer, just a wry grin which gradually faded…

Now then, why was he back here in this room? Mainly because he wasn’t quite ready yet to return to Edinburgh. It would have been just as easy to base himself at home; with the Möbius Continuum at his command he could have based himself anywhere! But if he was back in Edinburgh, the Necroscope knew where he would be spending his time—or his nights, anyway: with Bonnie Jean, if she wasn’t too busy with her girls at B.J.’s wine bar in the city. But while she had become the love of his life, and albeit that it was a very odd love affair, still the absence of Brenda—her disappearance—was very upsetting, galling; and still he felt he must track his wife and baby son down if only to ensure that they were okay, fit and well and not suffering any kind of hardship.

As for his feelings for Brenda: Harry knew they were fading now if not already gone entirely. He had found that contrary to the old adage absence—at least in his case—had
not
made the heart grow stronger. Three years and more, much of it spent in fruitless, soul-destroying search, had only served to blunt his affections, especially since he had found B.J. or she had found him.

And that was why he was back in his hotel room: because he had promised to stay in touch, calling B.J. every day. Truth to tell, Bonnie Jean had
told
him to call her every day. She knew what he was about—his ongoing search and all—which apparently made little or no difference to her affections. But B.J. wasn’t the sort to admit to jealousy; and anyway, she was aware that Harry’s search was a matter of duty, an acceptance of personal responsibility as he saw it. No matter that his wife had fled him, he still must satisfy himself that she and the child were secure, whatever their location and situation.

B.J. never rose until late, rarely went abroad during daylight hours. She revelled in darkness, loved the night and the moon, especially at its full. It was now past midday; she would probably be abed still in her rooms above the wine bar. But the Necroscope knew there was a telephone on her bedside table.

When he dialled her number there was a pause of one or two seconds before a growling, softly Scots accented voice queried, “Aye? It’s B.J. here—who’s callin’ the noo?”

“It’s Harry,” he told her, already feeling her spell flooding over him. And immediately:

“Ah! Mah wee man!” she said: words that Harry could never resist, carrying a post-hypnotic command unbreakable as carbon steel chains. “Where are ye, Harry?”

“In Scarborough, Yorkshire,” he told her. “But I think I’m done here now.”

“Good!” she said, at which he believed he detected a degree of relief in her distant, telephone-metallic voice. “So, you’ll be coming home soon then?”

Truly amazing,
he thought, half-smiling to himself and just a little irreverently,
how B.J.’s Scottish dialect can come and go like that!
An eccentricity or idiosyncrasy…Oh really?

But anyway: “Yes, I’ll be back tonight.” (As the Necroscope he could be there instantly, of course, but how to explain that to her? He couldn’t, so instead he would spend the afternoon at his house near Bonnyrig.) “Should I come to the bar later?”

“Oh, but you’d better!” she answered. “It’s been only a few days—what, a week?—since your wanderlust, your search, took you away from me again, but I’ve missed you.” Then that note of concern crept back into her voice. “There’s…there’s perhaps a problem. Here in Edinburgh, I mean.”

“A problem? What, with the wine bar, or your girls? Someone sick, maybe? What sort of problem, B.J.?”

Another pause, until:

“Oh, it’ll keep until ye’re back, mah wee man. And if ye’re back early…maybe we’ll have a wee while to oursel’s, before openin’ hours eh?” B.J.’s voice was less troubled now, even seductive, with her warm Edinburgh accent firmly back in place.

That voice, and those words…oh, B.J. knew how to do it! Harry pictured her in his—in her—favourite position, with her backside raised, her face side-on in a pillow and her sweet mouth open, gasping—or snarling? Tonight, in Edinburgh, yes.

He went downstairs to the desk, checked out, and paid the skinny, weasel-like proprietor in cash for the few nights he’d spent here. He hadn’t needed to stay here; he couldn’t be sure that he’d ever want to be back this way again, but in any case it wasn’t his style to leave a trail of bad debts behind him.

The man counted his money and cocked his head on one side. “And your suitcase?”

“Still packing,” said Harry. “One or two items, that’s all. It’ll take a minute.”

The other nodded. “Well, you get home safe, and come see us again some time.”
And that’s precisely why I’ve paid you,
Harry thought, going back up to his room.

He had literally a couple of items: spare slacks, socks, an extra shirt, washing and shaving kit. And it didn’t even take a minute to throw them into his battered old suitcase. As for the skinny little proprietor: Watching the stairs for a further half hour, he still didn’t see the Necroscope leave.

And neither did anyone else…

Some fifteen days earlier, about 11:30 p.m. in Sicily:

Mike Milazzo—now a vampire, but once a “made man” who had got above himself in New York and been required to flee home to the Old Country—had been called to attend the brothers Francezci at Le Manse Madonie: not a good omen. Common soldiers were only rarely invited to visit with the Francezcis in their mountain retreat, which normally occurred only when there were questions to be answered; and Mike’s activities had never been less than questionable. Moreover, this was his second visit. He considered his past as his car groaned up and around the precipitous route of stone-walled or metal guardrailed hairpins—the only route of access—to the high plateau.

Mike, a darkly handsome, third-generation Sicilian-American thug, had been caught banging his capo’s slut wife at her Hamptons home. Still the boss’s wife, she was now scarred for life, her mouth slit open so wide she could give blow-jobs to rhinos, and no young Turk (or Italian) was ever likely to find her fuckable again. Only Milazzo’s “made man” status had saved him from similar treatment. Oh he’d been badly beaten, but at least they hadn’t rearranged or enhanced his features.

And so he’d come back here: back “home” to an uncle also in the Mob, who had reduced him to a soldier in charge of collections and corrections in Palermo. But just like most dicks, when Mike’s was hard it had no conscience, no memory, and absolutely no respect for the usual conventions. By all means take advantage of those you prey upon—which is simply the nature of the work, “the business”—but do
not
fuck their virgin daughters! Men can be coerced into paying for your so-called “protection,” but only as long as they,
and their families,
are protected.

Mike’s uncle had been bombarded, overwhelmed by complaints. Moreover, despite that Mike was paid a decent percentage of the produce of his rounds, he was not above “skimming” the take, to such a degree that his uncle’s profits were much reduced. Also, Mike found himself accused of dealing drugs within a neighbouring boss’s territory, and his use and abuse of this same capo’s young prostitutes had made him more than a mere nuisance; badly beaten high-price girls do not attract high-roller customers.

No more than a year in the Old Country—and no sooner established, albeit shakily—and already Mike Milazzo had become a problem. He had seemed ungovernable, quite beyond the control of his uncle; so that finally the elder Milazzo had asked the advice of the Francezcis, who despite their apparent youth were his “Godfathers” in everything but name.

Their response had been quick in coming—they would “talk” to the wayward young thug—but they had demanded carte-blanche in his handling, in whatever advice or punishment they found it necessary to hand out. Wholly sick of his nephew’s often threatening behaviour even towards his superiors—which included the elderly capo himself!—Vito Milazzo had agreed readily enough. Frankly, he didn’t give a damn what the Francezcis did to Mike; Mike was already dead where his uncle was concerned. A man offers a helping hand to the undeserving, no account, illegitimate son of a brother long gone the way of all flesh in America, and this jumped-up bastard should immediately take advantage, start muscling in around the territories, crapping all over his benefactor’s business and generally fucking him over at every opportunity? No, Mike deserved whatever he had coming—but
not
from his uncle. No way! Forget about it! Family values, and all that shit. But, as Vito’s cousins in America would probably have it: “What are you gonna do?”

All of which had occasioned Mike’s
first
visit to the Francezci citadel in the Madonie mountains, which was something he would
never
forget; though from the brothers’ point of view it might appear that it was already forgotten. Hence this second summons, or so Mike suspected, but only in part correctly.

Now, driving his car up the winding mountain road, fearful and apprehensive in the knowledge of his most recent misdemeanours, as his headlights lit up the luminous arrow warning signs at the hairpin bends, Mike once again remembered in detail that first visit. And vampire that he now was, still he shivered uncontrollably…

Then too the time had been approaching midnight. The Francezcis had this complaint apparently, this photophobia: an aversion to light, especially sunlight. They saw no one and were seen by no one during daylight hours. Chauffeur-driven in their black limo—whose specially tinted windows were opaque to the glances of curious passers-by—their presence might be suspected or even observed by night in Palermo, Bagheria, or some other town more local to their place in the mountains. For there in comparative privacy, in secluded rooms or on the reserved balconies of some of the island’s finest restaurants, the brothers would hand out advice, share invaluable intelligence, and discuss business concerns with Sicily’s top Mob bosses…but never in daylight.

There were of course excellent reasons why they restricted such outings, meetings, and conversations to the dead of night, one of which the arrogant, overly self-assured, quick-tempered Mike Milazzo—as he had been then—had been about to discover for himself…

In the courtyard of Le Manse Madonie, Mike had been met by two Francezci henchmen who had frisked him rather sloppily. One of them, who stank of too much costly aftershave, had taken his automatic. Then they’d ushered him inside the ancient, mazy old mansion, and left him in a dimly lit, marble-floored room whose walls were decked with rich tapestries and gilt-framed pictures and whose furniture was of mahogany and old but supple leather. The big oval table at which Mike was left seated was of marble, gold-rimmed, with a wonderful mosaic of multi-hued marble chips so arranged as to display a two-metre map of Sicily. As for the tapestries and paintings: When Mike’s eyes had grown partly accustomed to the shadowy gloom, he had seen that the former hangings depicted foreign lands—chiefly Romania and the mountains of Transylvania—while the pictures were mainly portraits.

Hung sinistrally, anticlockwise, to represent the line of descent of the Francezci family (or at least its twin brothers, for it could only be them) there were at least two dozen of the latter dating from ancient times to the comparatively modern: a thousand or more years of the dynasty’s male offspring. And all of them—apart from their dress, their postures, the artistic styles of the various periods, and the natural aging and darkening of the earlier works—all of them looking amazingly similar if not exactly alike.

After a while, angry at his treatment—that he’d been kept waiting like this, with his nerves on edge in the silence, the solitude of this large room—and as his eyes grew more fully accustomed to the dim lighting, Mike had decided he didn’t much like the way the faces in the portraits seemed to be staring at him. Rising, he had crossed the floor to take a scowling closer look at them. And that was when the Francezcis had appeared.

From their picture on the wall to their physical presence, Mike saw immediately how right he had been. The twins, pale as they were, seemed paradoxically more darkly handsome than Mike himself; and it had been wholly obvious that they were the men in the most recent of the portraits. Indeed, they might easily have sat for all of the paintings! That last had been a fleeting thought…the young thug could scarcely have imagined it as a matter of fact.

Without pause the brothers had then called him back to the table and waited for him to reseat himself before they commenced what he had imagined would be some sort of threatening interrogation or “interview;” but in any case a “frightener.”

And one of the pair had opened with: “Mike Milazzo, as you are known. You know who we are—or if not, you
will
know soon enough. I’m Francesco Francezci and this is my brother Anthony. Your ill-advised activities, far too many of them, have come to our attention for our consideration. However, before we determine what’s to be done with you, do you have anything to say for yourself? Any excuses you might care to offer by way of explanation? Any redeeming features you think we should know of?”

Looking from one to the other, Mike had suddenly found himself sneering. Why, these guys couldn’t be too many years older than he himself! And: “Godfathers, you?” he’d snorted, relaxing back into his chair. “I should explain myself—offer ‘excuses’—to you? Oh really?”
Ha!
Let the old men of the Sicilian Families kow-tow to such as these, but not Mike. Everything he had heard about the brothers—not that he’d heard a lot—what did it all add up to? Nothing much: a bunch of hooey was all! False gods, these guys, and nothing more.

And as the brothers had glanced with raised eyebrows wonderingly, perhaps speculatively at each other, he had continued: “You’re like a pair of rich, spoiled snails, too scared to drag your shells into the light; scared that someone is going to see you, know you for what you really are: a pair of fucking frauds, that’s what! But Dons, Godfathers? Don’t make me laugh! I don’t know how you’ve conned the old Mob guys in Siracusa and Palermo all this time, but you don’t con Mike Milazzo. You two? Why you wouldn’t last twenty-four hours in America! So
fuck
having this little chat with you guys. Me, I’m out of here!”

Daring, ridiculously bold, but Mike wasn’t just muscle. His senses had been honed by a short lifetime of danger in America; he’d been aware of furtive movement behind him, someone or ones moving closer, and he’d smelled again the expensive aftershave of the Francezci soldier who had lifted his gun from its underarm holster. His harangue had been provocative, insulting, and aggressive…but it had also had a purpose: to put those men behind him off guard, give them the wrong impression, make them think he was stupid, all mouth and no brain.

Well, it was true enough: He sometimes mouthed off, got to breaking balls with the wrong people; but he could also back it up. He had the speed, the strength and the know-how, and it was time he showed these Francezcis just exactly who they were dealing with here. His gun may have been taken, but they had missed the slender, razor-edged knife in the sleeve of his lightweight jacket. Redeeming features? Oh, he would show them some redeeming features!

Mike hadn’t known when exactly the brothers’ men had entered the room, there must be doors other than the one he had come in through. But as a shadow from behind him had darkened almost imperceptibly he had known for sure they were there, known also how to react to their threat. With the smell of aftershave growing stronger, he had slammed back his chair with every ounce of his strength, directly into the knees of both men, and was gladdened to hear at least one bone crack and a sharp yelp of pain. Then, turning as he started to his feet, he’d lashed out at the nearest target with a flat hand whose fingers were stiffened to rock hardness: a slicing blow to the throat.

The man with the popped knee was already down, squirming in agony; the other—the one with the aftershave, who had lifted Mike’s gun—had been sent staggering, clutching at his throat where Mike’s blow had smashed his Adam’s apple. One glance, and Mike had climbed his chair, toppled it, been on the choking man in a second; one hand in his greasy hair while the other patted his jacket, dipped into a pocket and came out clutching his own weapon. And as easily as that he’d rearmed himself.

Then Mike had taken a moment, all of half a second, to aim a kick at the downed man’s throat and put him right out of business, rammed his gun in Mr. Aftershave’s ear and, still clutching a handful of his hair, maneuvered him down to the floor and kneeled behind him, using him as a shield. He hadn’t even required to use his knife and it was all over, or so Mike had reckoned. But he had reckoned without the Francezcis.

They had looked at Mike where his weapon was now pointed at them, and as they rose to their feet their movements were surprisingly smooth, unruffled. They appeared unafraid, even unconcerned! And again Mike had seen them glance at each other speculatively…or perhaps with new-found resolve? And:

“So then,” the one called Anthony had slowly nodded, leaning forward to rest his knuckles on the table. “It would appear you are well capable of looking after yourself.” And smiling in his way—a smile as cold as the face of the moon—he’d continued, “Given time these men will recover, of course, but still you dealt with them in short order and severely. You have small regard, it seems, for your whereabouts and your…situation.” In its way a question, it was delivered with a raised eyebrow.

“These ‘men’ of yours are useless,” Mike had replied. “Boys doing a man’s job—which doesn’t work. This one smells like a woman, and he didn’t even put the safety on my shooter!” Saying which he had returned the muzzle of his automatic to that one’s ear. “As for his ‘recovery:’ if I put a little pressure on this trigger he won’t be recovering, believe me! Not with his brains—if he ever had any—all over your nice shiny floor!”

“Believe you? Oh, we
believe
you!” Francesco had answered, almost conversationally. “With his brain ruptured, ripped apart by a bullet, he would be very definitely dead. Which is as good a way as any to kill such as him, certainly.”

“In fact,” said Mike, rising and releasing his victim, hurling him onto his side on the marble floor, “I’m surprised these guys have any life left in them at all!” He was frankly puzzled that both of the seriously injured soldiers were indeed showing signs of recovery, not squirming so much as trying to sit up!

“Oh?” Anthony had laughed, moving around the table and that much closer to Mike. “Is that so? But you see, my young friend, they have a
great deal of life
—well, of sorts—remaining in them even now. They are very tenacious creatures, Mike, even as you yourself would appear to be. But with them it is…it’s a far more recent thing, something in their blood. You might even say they were reborn, recreated with it. While in you it’s pure instinct, the natural skill of the predator.”

“That’s correct,” Francesco had agreed, also moving closer. “And you are very fortunate, for it may even be possible we can find a use for such skills…
after all!”
That “after all” had sounded oddly ominous, hinting of a brutal fate barely avoided, but Mike had been given little enough time in which to consider or worry about it.