Dragosani took a step forward. 'No!' he said again. "There are still things you can teach me, show me. Wamphyri secrets…' (Did the ground tremble just a little beneath his feet? Did the unseen presence's creep closer?) He moved back against the tree.
The voice in his mind sighed. It was the sigh of one who wearies of all earthly things, of one impatient for oblivion. And Dragosani forgot that it was the lying sigh of a vampire. Ah, Dragosani! Dragosani! — you've learned nothing. Did I not tell you that the lore of the Wamphyri is forbidden to mortals? Did I not say that to become is to know and that there is no other way? Begone, my son, and leave me to my fate. What? And should I give you the power to rule a world, while I lie here and turn to dust? What is that for justice? Where is the fairness in that?
Dragosani was desperate. 'Then accept the blood I've brought you, the sweet meat. Grow strong again. I will accept your terms. If I must become one of the Wamphyri to learn all of their secrets — then so be it!' he lied. 'But without you I cannot!'
The Thing in the ground was silent for long moments while Dragosani breathlessly waited. He fancied that the earth trembled again, however minutely, beneath his feet, but that could only be his imagination — the knowledge that something ancient and evil, rotten and undead lay buried here. Behind his back the tree stood seemingly solid as a rock, so that Dragosani hardly suspected it was eaten away at its heart. But indeed it was hollow; and now something gradually eased its way up through the earth and into the dry, worm-eaten wood.
Perhaps in another moment Dragosani might have sensed movement, but in that precise instant of time Thibor spoke to him again and his attention was distracted:
Did you say you had … a gift for me?
There was interest in the vampire's mental voice now, and Dragosani saw a ray of hope. 'Yes, yes! Here at my feet. Fresh meat, blood.' He snatched up one of the birds and squeezed its throat so that its squawking ceased at once. And in another moment he had taken a sickle of bright steel from his pocket and sliced the chicken's gizzard. Red blood spurted and the carcass flopped a little where he tossed it, while feathers fluttered silently to the black earth.
The leaf-mould soaked up the bird's blood as a sponge soaks water — but behind Dragosani's back a pseudopod of putrefaction slid swiftly up inside the hollow tree, its leprous white tip finding a knot-hole where a branch had decayed and poking through into view not eighteen inches above his head. The tip throbbed, glistening with a strange life of its own, filled with an alien foetal urgency.
Dragosani took up the second bird by its neck, stepped two paces forward to the very rim of the 'safe' area. 'And there's more, Thibor, right here in my hand. Only show a little trust, a little faith, and tell me something of the powers I'll command when I become as you.'
I… I feel the red blood soaking into the ground, my son, and it is good. But still I think you came too late. Well, I will not blame you. We were at odds with one another — I was as much to blame as you — and so let the
past be forgotten. Aye, and 1 would not have it end without showing you at least a small measure of what I've come to feel for you, without sharing at least one small secret.
' I'm waiting,' Dragosani eagerly answered. 'Go on…'
In the beginning, said the Thing in the ground, all things were equal. The primal vampire was a thing of Nature no less than the primal man, and just as man lived on the lesser creatures about him, so too lived the vampire. We both, you see, were parasites in our way. All living things are. But whereas man killed the creatures he fed upon, there the vampire was kinder: he simply took them for his host. They did not die — indeed they became undead! In this fashion a vampire is no less natural a creature than the lamprey or the leech, or even the humble flea; except his host lives, becomes near immortal, and is not consumed as in the normal manner of massive parasitic possession. But as man evolved into the perfect host, so evolved the vampire, and as man became dominant so the vampire shared his dominance.
'Symbiosis,' said Dragosani.
I can read the meaning of the word in your mind, said Thibor, and yes, that is correct — except the vampire soon learned to keep himself secret! For along with evolution came a singular change: where before the vampire could live apart from his host, now he was totally dependent upon him. Just as the hagfish dies without its host fish, so the vampire must have his host simply to exist. And if men discovered a vampire in one of their own sort — why, they would simply kill him! Worse, they learned how to kill the greater being within!
Nor was this the last of the vampire's problems. Nature is a strange one when it comes to correcting errors and quite ruthless. She had not intended that any of her creations should be immortal. Nothing she makes is allowed to live for ever. And yet here was a creature which
seemed to defy that rigid dictum, a creature which — barring accidents — might just survive indefinitely! And furious, she took her spite on the Wamphyri. As the centuries waxed and waned and the Earth grew through all the ages towards the present day, so my vampire ancestors developed within themselves a weakness. It was bred into them — it came down the generations, down all the years. It was a stricture of Nature, and it was this: that since vampires 'died' so very rarely, she would allow them only rarely to be born!
'Which is why,' said Dragosani, 'you're dying out as a race.'
As individuals, we may only reproduce once in a life-span, no matter the great length of that span…
'But you're so potent! I can't see that the fault lies with your males. Is it that your females are infertile… I mean, that they only have the one opportunity to reproduce?'
Our 'males', Dragosani? said the voice in Dragosani's mind, with a sardonically inquisitive edge that he didn't like. Our 'females"…? And once again the necromancer stepped back against the tree.
'What are you saying?'
Males and females. Oh, no, Dragosani. If Nature had saddled us with that problem then surely were we long extinct…
'But you are a male. I know you are!'
My human host was a male.
Dragosani's eyes were now very wide in the dark. Something inside urged him to flee — but from what? He knew that the Thing in the ground could not — dared not — harm him. 'Then… you're a female?'
/ thought I had explained adequately. I am neither one nor the other…
Dragosani wasn't sure of the term. 'Hermaphrodite?'
No.
'Then asexual? Agamic!'
A pearly droplet was forming on the pallid, pulsating tip of the leprous tentacle where it protruded from the hole in the tree above Dragosani's head. As it grew it became pear-shaped, hung downward, began to quiver. Above it a crimson eye formed, gazed lidlessly, full of rapt intent.
'But what of your lust on the night we took the girl?'
Your lust, Dragosani.
'And all the women you had in your life?'
My energy, but my host's lust!
'But — '
AHHHH! the voice in Dragosani's mind suddenly gave a great groan. My son, my son — it is nearly finished! It is almost over!
Alarmed, the necromancer advanced yet again to the edge of the circle. The voice was so weak, so despairing, so filled with pain. 'What is it? What's wrong? Here, more food!' He slit the second bird's throat, threw its twitching corpse down. The red blood was sucked up by the earth. The Thing in the ground drank deep.
Dragosani waited, and: Ahhhh!
But now the necromancer's scalp fairly tingled. For suddenly he sensed great strength in the vampire — and even greater cunning. Quickly he stepped back — and in that same instant of time the pearly droplet overhead turned scarlet and fell!
It landed on the back of Dragosani's neck just below the high collar-line. He felt it. It could have been a drop of moisture fallen from the tree, except it was totally dry here; or it could be a bird dropping, if he had ever seen a bird in this place. In any case, his hand automatically went to his neck to wipe it away — and found nothing. The vampire egg needed no ovipositor. Like quicksilver it had soaked straight through the skin. Now it explored the spinal column.
In the next moment Dragosani felt the pain and bounded from the tree. He found himself within what he had thought to be the danger area — bounded again as the pain increased. This time he was incapable of directing himself; he ran from the circle, blindly colliding with the boles of trees where they stood in his path; he tripped and fell, rolling headlong. And always the pain in his skull, the pressure on his spine, the fire lancing through his veins like acid.
Panic gripped him, the worst panic he had ever known in his entire life. He felt that he was dying, that his seizure — whatever its cause — must surely kill him. It felt as though his internal organs were bursting, as though his brain were on fire!
Within him, the vampire seed had found a resting place in his chest cavity. It ceased exploring, settled to sleep. Its initial fumblings had been the spastic kicking of the newborn, but now it was warm and safe and desired only to rest.
The agony went out of Dragosani in an instant, and so great was his relief that his system completely lost its balance. Drowning in the sheer pleasure of painlessness, he blacked out.
Harry Keogh lay sprawled upon his bed, sweat plastering his sandy hair to his forehead, his limbs twitching fitfully now and then in response to a dream which was something more than a dream. In life his mother had been a psychic medium of some repute, and death had not changed her; if anything it had improved her talent. Often over the years she'd visited Harry in his sleep, even as she visited him now. Harry dreamed that they stood in a summer garden together: the garden of the house in Bonnyrigg, where beyond the fence the river swirled its sluggish way between banks grown green with the hot sun and lush from the richness of the river. It was a dream of sharp contrasts and vivid colours. She was young again, a mere girl, and he might well be her young lover rather than her son. But in his dream their relationship was distinct, and as always she was worried for him.
'Harry, your plan is dangerous and it can't possibly work,' she said. 'Anyway, don't you realise what you're doing? If it does work it will be murder, Harry! You'll be no better than… than him!' She turned her head of golden tresses and gazed fearfully at the house through eyes of blue crystal.
The house was a dark blot against a sky so blue that it hurt the eyes. It stood there like a mass of ink frozen against a green and blue background, as if fresh spilled in a child's picturebook; and like a Black Hole of interstellar physics, no light shone out of it and nothing at all escaped its gaping, aching void. It was black because of what it housed, as black as the soul of the man who lived there.
Harry shook his head, dragging his own eyes from the house only with a great effort of will. 'Not murder,' he said. 'Justice! Something he's escaped for almost fifteen years. I was little more than a baby, a mere infant, when he took you from me. He's got away with it until now. But now I'm a man. How much of a man will I be if I let it go at that?'