Necroscope - Deadspeak Part 21

I mixed certain herbs and burned them, fell asleep breathing their ince nse, and sought by oneiromancy to divine the way it would be between myself and this doubtless fraudulent witch, this 'Marilena' (for such was her nam e). Aye, for in those days I had good reason to be interested in talented f olk, and to seek them out whenever the opportunity arose. My son Thibor had been abroad for several human lifetimes now, and might have sp.a.w.ned all ma nner of curiosities in the land!

And so I sought out all such anomalies, and in so doing prided myself wit h the discovery of charlatans. But... if I should come across a genuine talen t (and if Wamphyri blood should course in the veins of such a one) then he or she was a goner! For while to a creature such as I the blood is - or was - t he life, the sweetest nectar of all may only be sipped from the undead font o f another vampire! A font, aye, for such a sip is surely holy - to one such a s I am, at least.

But . . . only picture my astonishment when finally my oneiromancy prod uced results, and I dreamed of this dark angel where I had thought to disco ver a hag!

What? She was a child! I saw her in my dreams: a lovely child, aye, and innocent I thought (but wrongly, for she was knowing as a wh.o.r.e!). She cam e to me naked - all curves, creamy and brown, unblemished; dark in her eyes and in her s.h.i.+ning hair; the lips of her face red as cherries, and those o f her oyster when I opened it the hue of freshly slaughtered meat - to stan d before me unashamed. Two centuries gone by, since Thibor destroyed my cas tle in the Khorvaty, and raped my vampire women and put them down; between then and now I had tasted my share of soft Szgany flesh, spilling myself in to such Gypsy odalisques as pleased me. Nothing of 'love' in it, mind you; that word was only applicable to others, never to myself. But now . . . ?

It was the human side of me, of course, which from time to time held sw ay in my dreams. I gazed upon this sweet, sensuous Princess of the Travelli ng Folk through eyes fogged by human weakness. The shuddering of my loins w as the love (call it that if you will) of a man, but never the raging l.u.s.t of the Wamphyri. And to my shame my dreams were wet, and I came in my blank ets like a trembling lad stroking the teats of his first girl!

But ... the trouble with oneiromancy was always this: had it been a tru e and accurate prediction of the future, or was it just a dream? Thereafter , in order to reinforce my findings (and perhaps for other reasons, for pla inly I was besotted), night after night would find me burning my herbs and willing myself into divinatory dreams. And always they were the same, excep t that the better we got to know each other, Marilena and I, the more pleas urable our loveplay became and myself ever more enamoured; until I knew tha t instead of a mere dream I must have the real thing or go mad!

Which was when she came to me, as it were, in the flesh.

She was of the camp of Grigor Zirra, called 'King' Zirra; indeed, Marilen a was Grigor's daughter. And so I had been right: she was a 'princess' of the Travelling Folk.

It was winter when they came, the end of January, and never so biting co ld in all the years of my memory. My own Szgany stationed their caravans and carts in cl.u.s.ters close to my walls, banked them in with huge bricks of sno w smoothed to ice, pitched their tents within the cl.u.s.ters and tethered thei r beasts inside with them, for their warmth. Ah, they had known it would be a hard winter, these wise ones! In the caves all around they had worked long and hard, storing fodder for their animals. Even so, men and beasts alike w ould be hard put to see it through that winter without they relied on the pa tronage of the Boyar in his castle.

I kept all my doors unbarred to them, and my halls warm with fires ever ywhere. My good grogs and coa.r.s.e red wines were made available for the aski ng, likewise grain to make their bread; it cost me nothing; these things be longed to the Szgany anyway, for in better seasons they'd given them all to me, who had no need of them!

One mid-morning a man came to me. He had been hunting in the mountains , which were my mountains. I did not deny the Gypsies this privilege; if t hey shot three pigs or woodc.o.c.ks one was mine, and so on. And he told me of the Szgany Zirra: that they were caught in a pa.s.s close by, where an ava lanche had carried their caravans away! Only a handful survived, he said, scattered in the tumbled drifts.

I knew his report was true. Last night I had dreamed again my herbal dr eams, but this time devoid of carnal delights and filled instead with blizz ards and the screams of those swept away and dying. And because I had not d reamed of my Marilena, I wondered . . . was she one of them?

Then I called for my Szgany chief and told him: "There is a girl trapped in the snows. This man knows where she is. She and her people are Szgany. G o, find them, dig them out and bring them here. And hurry, for if you are to o late and she is dead ... the house of the Ferenczy may feel that its hospi tality is wasted on such as you and yours. Is this understood?'

It was, and he went in all haste.

In the afternoon my chief and his men returned. He made report: of the Szgany Zirra, which had numbered as many as fifty, he had found only Grig or Zirra himself and a dozen of his band alive. Three of the survivors wer e broken but would mend, two more were old women and might not, and of the rest. . . one was Grigor's daughter, called Marilena, an observer of times!

I commanded him: 'Have your women tend them, feed them, give them what soever they need. Spare nothing to make them welcome, comfortable, at ease in this place. I take it they have nothing? Nothing of extra clothing, no carts or coverings? So, without me they are dest.i.tute. Very well, quarter them within the castle's walls. Find them warm rooms within easy reach of my own, where they may stay apart.' And seeing a puzzled look in his eyes : 'Well?'

'Your own people might think it strange, master,' he said, 'that you trea t the strangers so well. That we make way for them, who owe you no allegiance .'.

'You are forthright and I like you for it,' I told him. 'I too shall be for thright. I have heard it said of the woman Marilena Zirra that she is comely. I f this is true it may be that I shall want her, for you Gipsies are not the onl y ones who feel the cold of a night! Wherefore treat her people with respect, e specially her father and family, if such as these survived. I do not wish that they should find me a cold and cruel man.'

'What? You, master?' he said, with no trace of emotion in his voice, his face utterly blank. 'Cold? Cruel? Who would ever believe it!?'

I regarded him a while, finally saying: 'Forthright is one thing, and for ward another entirely. Do you seek to be familiar with me? I tell you honestl y, I cannot believe you would enjoy such . . . familiarity. Wherefore, when y ou say certain things to me, and in such a way, it should always please you t o smile . . .' I stared at him and rumbled a little deep in my throat, until he grew uncomfortable. 'Master,' he said, beginning to tremble, 'I meant no - '

'Hus.h.!.+' I quieted him. 'You are safe, my mood is a good one! Now heed m e well. Later, when the Zirras are recovered, return and take me among them where they are quartered. Until then, begone.'

But when I went among them, I was not pleased. It wasn't that my instruc tions had not been followed; they had, to the letter. It was simply that the ordeal of these people had been such that they were mazed and vacant. It wo uld take a little time in the healing. Meanwhile, they sat in their rags and trembled, and spoke only when they were spoken to.

As for the supposed 'princess' of my dreams: where was she? One filthy b undle huddled to the fire looked much like the next to me. It annoyed me tha t my dreams had lied to me; I felt that I had failed in my oneiromancy; I ha ted failure, especially in myself.

So I stood and gloomed over these dregs a while, and finally asked, 'Whic h one of you is Grigor Zirra?'

He stood up: a nothing, a wisp, pale from the snow and his suffering, th e loss of his people. He was not old, but neither did he look young. There h ad been strength in his leanness once, but now it looked washed out of him.

Unlike myself, he was entirely human, and he had lost much.

'I am the Ferenczy,' I told him. "This is my castle. The people about are my people, Szgany like yourself. For the time being it pleases me to give yo u shelter. But I have heard there is an observer of times among you, and it a lso pleases me to contemplate such mysteries. Where is this witch - or wizard ?'.

'Your hospitality is vast as your legend,' he answered. 'Alas that in my sorrow I cannot more fully declare my appreciation. For something of me die d this day. She was my wife, swept from the cliff. Now I have only a daughte r, a child, who reads the future in the stars, in the palm of your hand, and in her dreams. She is no witch, lord, but a true observer of times, my Mari lena, of whom you have heard.'

'And where is she?'

He looked at me and there was fear in his eyes. But I felt a tug at the sleeve of my robe, and started that someone dared touch me. None of my own h ad laid finger on me unbidden since the day I rose up from my sickbed! I loo ked and saw one of the rag bundles risen to its feet to stand beside me ...

its eyes were huge, dark beneath a fur hood ... its hair was all black ringl ets, spilling about a heart-shaped face ... its lips were the colour of cher ries, bright as blood. And upon my arm her tiny hand, whose fingers numbered only three, as I had seen them in my dreams!

'I am Marilena, lord,' she said. 'Forgive my father, for he loves and fe ars for me; there are some in the land distrustful of mysteries they cannot fathom, and unkind to certain women whom they term "witches".' My heart felt staggered! She could be none other! I knew the voice! I sa w through all her clothes to the very princess of my dreams, knowing that wh at was in there was a wonder. And: 'I ... know you,' I said, my voice choked .

'And I you, lord. I have seen you in my future. Often. You are in no wise a stranger!'

I had no words. Or if I had they were stuck in my throat. But... I was th e Ferenczy! Should I dance, laugh out loud, pick her up and whirl her all abo ut? Oh, I wanted to, but I could not reveal my emotions. I stood there thunde rstruck, like a great fool, frozen, until she came to my rescue: 'If you would have me read for you, lord, then take me aside from here.

Here my concentration suffers, for there is much sadness - aye, and variou s comings and goings, and likewise much fuss and to-do - oh, and many small matters to interfere with my scrying. A private place would be to some adv antage.'

Oh? Indeed it would! 'Come with me,' I said.

'Lord!' her father stopped us. 'She is innocent!' The last word was spo ken on a rising note - of pleading, perhaps? My nature was not unknown amon g the Szgany.

But. . . didn't he know his own daughter? It was in my mind to say to hi m: 'Lying Gypsy dog! What, this one, innocent? Man, she has licked my entire body clean as if bathed! I have fired my fluids into her throat every night for a month from the coaxing of her tongue and tiny, three-fingered hands!

Innocent? If she is innocent then so am I!' Ah, but how could I say these th ings? For the fact of it was that I had only ever dreamed my love affair wit h Marilena.

Again she rescued me: 'Father!' she rebuked him before I could more than pierce him with my eye s. 'I have seen what will be. For me the future is, father, and I have read n o harm in it. Not at the hands of the Ferenczy.'

He had seen my look, however, and knew how far he strained my hospitalit y. 'Forgive me, lord,' he said, lowering his head. 'Instead of speaking as a man sorely in your debt, I spoke only as a father. My daughter is only seve nteen and we are fallen among strangers. The Zirras have lost enough this da y. Ah! Ah! I meant nothing by that! But do you see? I trip over my own tongu e even now! It is the grief. My mind is stricken. I meant nothing. It is the grief!' And sobbing he collapsed.

I stooped a little and put my hand on his head. 'Be at your ease. He who harms you or yours in the house of the Ferenczy answers to me.' And then I le d her to my quarters . . .

Once there, alone, where none dared disturb, I lifted off her coat of fur s until she stood in a peasant dress. Now she looked even more like the princess I knew, but not enough. My eyes burned on her, burned for the sight of he r. And she knew it.

'How can this be?' she said, full of wonder. 'I truly know you! Never we re my dreams more potent!'

'You are right,' I said. 'We are not . . . strangers. We have shared the sam e dreams.'

'You have great scars,' she said, 'here on your arm, and here in your sid e.' And even I, the Ferenczy, trembled where she touched me.

'And you,' I told her, 'have a tiny red mole, like a single tear of blood, in t he centre of your back . . .'

Beside my fire, which roared into a great chimney, there stood a stone t rough for bathing. Over the fire, a mighty cauldron of water added steam to the smoke. She went to the tripod and turned the gear, pouring water into th e trough. She knew how to do it from her dreams. 'I am unclean from the jour ney,' she explained, 'and rough from the snows.'

She stripped and I bathed her, and then she bathed me. 'And how is this fo r a private reading?' I chuckled. But as I opened her and went to slip inside: 'Ah!' she gasped. 'But our mutual dreams took no account of my inexperience . My father told the truth, lord. The future is closing fast, be sure, but I am still a virgin!'

Ah!' I answered her, moan for moan, the while gentling my way inside. 'B ut weren't we all, once upon a time?'

How my vampire raged within me then, but I held him back and loved her on ly as a man. Else the first time were surely her last. . .

Now let me make it plain. What had happened was this: As much out of idle curiosity as for any other reason, in my oneiroman tic dreams I had sought Marilena out, become enamoured of her and seduced her. Or we had seduced each other.

But (you will ask), how could she, a child, inexperienced, seduce me?

And I will answer: because dreams are safe! Whatever happens in one's drea ms, nothing is changed upon awakening. She could indulge all her s.e.xual fa ntasies without reaping the reward of such indulgence. And (you will also ask), how could I, Faethor Ferenczy, even asleep and dreaming, be anything less than Wamphyri? Ah, but I was a dreamer long before I became a vampir e! Indeed, I was once a mere man! The things which had troubled me in my y outh still occasionally troubled me in my sleep: the old fears, the old em otions and pa.s.sions.

I am sure my meaning is not lost: all of us know that long after an exp erience has waned to insignificance in the waking world, we may still revie w it afresh in our dreams, with as much apprehension - or excitement - as w e did when it was new. In my dreams, for example, I was still wont to remember the time of my own conversion, when I had received my father's egg and so been made a vampire. Aye, and such dreams as those still horrified me! B ut in the cold light of day that horror was quickly forgotten, lost in the grey mist of time where it belonged, and I was no stripling lad but the Fer enczy again.

The meeting of Marilena's dreams with mine had been more than mere ch ance, however: I had sought her out, and found her. And once insinuated i nto her dreams, I had dreamed (as any man might) of knowing her carnally.

And again I say, these were not simple dreams! I had Wamphyri powers and she was a prognosticator. These were talents akin to telepathy. We had i n fact shared each other's dreams, and through them known each other's bo dies.

All of our fumbling and fondling, and later our more energetic, far mor e diverse lovemaking, had been done in another world - of the mind - where there had been no obligation to spare anything; so that when we came togeth er at last it was very much as lovers of long standing. Except that in real ity Marilena was innocent and her flesh untried by any man . . . for a whil e, anyway. Now, I understood these things but she did not. She thought that her talent alone had shown her the future, her future, without outside int erference. She did not know that I had guided her in those dreams with a va mpire's magnetism and beguilement and ... oh, with all those arts so long i nstinct in me. She thought we were natural lovers! Who can say, perhaps we would have been anyway. But I was not so foolish as to tell her and take a chance on her disillusionment.

Now, it might also cross your mind to wonder how she, a gorgeous young girl, round and firm as an apple, fresh-minded and -bodied, could find any sort of waking satisfaction in a scarred and ancient undead thing like me, savage and cruel and filled with horror? I would be surprised if it did not ! But then you would doubtless recollect what you know of a vampire's power s of hypnotism, and perhaps believe that you had fathomed the mystery. You would say: 'She was his plaything, not of her own free will.' Well, I'll ma ke no bones of it, before Marilena this had always been the way of it. But it was not the way of it with her.

To begin with, I was not so grotesque as you might imagine. Wamphyri, m y many hundreds of years didn't show, except perhaps occasionally in my eye s, or when I wanted it to show. Indeed with a small effort I could appear a s old or as young as it pleased me to appear, which in Marilena's case was always young, no more than forty. Even without my vampire I would be tall a nd strong, and I had all those centuries of charm, wit and wisdom - and fol ly - in me, to draw on at will. Scarred? Oh, I was, and badly! But I had re tained these gouges out of vanity (it pleased me to wear the dents of old b attles) and to remind me of the one who had put most of them there. I could have let the vampire in me repair such disfigurements entirely, but so lon g as Thibor lived I would not do so. No, I wore those scars like spurs agai nst my own flanks, to goad me if ever I should find my hatred flagging.

But if you doubt that I was so handsome, only think on how Ladislau Gir esci described me the night he took my head. Ah, and you see? Ancient as I was, still I was quite the man, eh? There, you must excuse me; it is my van ity; the Wamphyri were ever vain.

Also, I beg your indulgence that I have dwelled so long upon Marilena b ut ... it pleased me so to do. For who else is there with whom I might shar e such memories? None but a Necroscope can ever know them . . .'

You know, of course, that I am Janos's father; by now you have probably guessed it, too, that Marilena was his mother. He was my bloodson, born of t he love and the l.u.s.t between a man and a woman, of blood in its fiery fusion , and in the pa.s.sing of a single germ of life from the one to the other, to pierce her egg and bring life to the chick within. My bloodson, aye, my 'nat ural' son, with nothing of the vampire in him. That was the way it was to ha ve been. I did not know if it could be done but would try it anyway: to brin g life into the world independent of Wamphyri influence. I would do it for M arilena, so that she could be a natural mother.

And if I should fail and the child grow to be a vampire?

Well, anyway, he would still be my son. And I would teach him the way s of the Wamphyri, so that when I went out into the world he would stay b ehind and keep my castle and my mountains safe from all enemies.

Oh? . . . Oh? . . . Hah! You will remember that in an earlier time I held j ust such high expectations of that ingrate Wallach Thibor! Ah well; it is the n ature of all great men, I suppose, to try and try again, and never count the co st in their striving for perfection. Except, and as I have stated, I was never the one to suffer failure lightly.

Janos, when he was born, seemed natural. He was born out of wedlock, wh ich dismayed Grigor his grandfather somewhat but meant nothing at all to me . His hands were three-fingered, as were Grigor's and Marilena's before him ; but this was a mere freakishness, a trait pa.s.sed down to him, with nothin g sinister in it.

As he grew, however, it became clear that I had failed. My sperm, which I had tried by force of will to keep free of crimson influences, had been ta inted, however lightly. It had been a foolish experiment at best: can an eag le beget a sparrow, or the grey wolf a squealing pink piglet? How much harde r then for a vampire, whose very touch is a taint, to beget an innocent chil d? No, Janos was not a true vampire, but he had the bad blood of a vampire.

Aye, and all my vices twofold; but with little of my flexibility and nothing of my caution. Still, I'd been headstrong myself when I was young; I was hi s father and it fell to me to show him the way of things. I did show him, and if and when a heavy hand was required to stop him dead in his tracks or si mply steer him aright, I was not slow to apply that, too.

But. . . still he grew up wrong-headed, prideful, obstinate, and cruel b eyond his needs. His one good point, in which he kept faithfully to my teach ings, was the way he held sway over the Gypsies. Not only the Szgany Zirra, his mother's people, who were on the increase again, but also my own Szgany Ferengi. I thought that they loved him even better than they loved me, all o f them! And perhaps it soured me and I was a little jealous of him because o f it. And it could be that I was harder on him, too, for the same reason.

Anyway, I will say one more thing in his favour and then no more: he love d his mother. A point to stand any child in good stead while he is still a ch ild, aye . . . but not necessarily when he becomes a man. For there's love an d there's love. You will understand my meaning . . .

Meanwhile, other troubles had brewed up, boiled over and were still sca lding in the world. All of ten years ago, Saladin had crushed the Prankish Crusader kingdoms; the sinister mercenary Thibor was now fighting on the fa r borders of Wallachia, a Voevod for the gold of puppet princelings; in Tur keyland beyond the Greek Sea, the Mongols were rising up like a forest fire with the wind at its back; wars raged close to the Hungarian borders; and another 'Innocent', the third, had recently been elected Pope. Aieee! The s torm lightnings flashed red from the many clouds boiling up over all the wo rld's horizons!

. . . And where, pray, was Faethor Ferenczy in the great scheme of thin gs? In his dotage, some must have thought, tending his castle in the mounta ins. Teaching manners to his b.a.s.t.a.r.d son, while his once-true Szgany guards drank too much and slept late abed, and chuckled behind his back.

More time pa.s.sed, unremarkably enough for me. But then one morning I w oke up, shook my head and looked all about. I felt dazed, mazed, astonishe d! Twenty years in all gone by, almost in a flash, without my noticing. Bu t now I realized it well enough. It had been a sort of lethargy, a malaise , some weird spell I'd been under: a thing which commoner men call 'love'.

Aye, and it had reduced me accordingly. For where was my mystery now? Wha t? I was no more than a miserable Boyar: obscure baron over a wasteland no one else wanted, master of a piddling stone house in the crags!

I went to Marilena and she read my future for me. I was to embark upon a great and b.l.o.o.d.y crusade, she said, and she would not stand in my way. I could make neither head nor tail of it. Not stand in my way? Why, she could n't bear to be apart from me! What crusade was she speaking of? But she onl y shook her head. She'd seen no more but that I would fight in some terribl e holy war; and after that ... all her augury, palmistry and astrology had seemingly forsaken her. Ah! How could I know that she'd read her own future , too - only to discover she did not have one?! But ... a great and b.l.o.o.d.y crusade, she'd said. I thought about it and de cided she could well be right. News travelled slowly in those days, and somet imes reached me not at all. I began to feel penned in, with all my old frustr ations returning upon me with a vengeance.

Enough of that! It was time I was up and about!

Well, Janos was almost twenty; he was a man now; I charged him with t he keeping of my house and went down incognito into Szeged to see what I would see and make whichever plans were appropriate. It was a timely move .

The city was abustle with news: Zara, so recently taken by Hungary, wou ld soon be under siege from Prankish Crusaders! A great fleet of Franks and Venetians was under sail even now, and riders had been sent out at the kin g's command to all the Boyars around (myself included, I supposed) with ord ers that they gather their men to them and take up arms. Marilena had read my future aright.

There were men of mine in the countryside around. Szgany, I found them easily enough during my return to the mountainous borders. 'Meet me,' I t old them, 'when I come down again from my castle. I gather a small army of the very best. We go to Zara, aye, and far beyond Zara! You who have been poor shall be rich. Fight under my banner and I'll make all of you Boyars to a man! Or fail me and I'm done with you, and in one hundred years I sh all still be here and mighty, and you shall be dust and your names forgotten.'

And so I returned home. But travelling in the manner of the Wamphyri - at least by night - I had made good time, and I had lingered not at all i n Szeged. Being apart these few days from Marilena, all of my instincts ha d sharpened, and my wits were made keen in antic.i.p.ation of the 'holy' bloo d-feast which was my future. In the mountains my Szgany retainers had grow n fat and lazy, but I knew ways to wake them up again. They would not be e xpecting me back so soon, but they would know when they saw me that I was the Ferenczy as of old.

In that last night, soaring home on wings of thick membrane, I reached out in the dark with my vampire's mind and called to all the young bloods o f the Szgany Ferengi wherever they were scattered, and told them to meet me in the approaches to Zara. And I knew that they heard me in their dreams, and that they would be there.

And having shaken off twenty years of sloth, so I floated on an updraug ht between the moon and the mountains, setting all the wolves to howling in the silvered peaks, before finally gentling to the battlements of my house where I shrank back into a man. Then ... I sought out my woman and my son.

Aye, and I found them -together!

But there, I have gone too fast; let me pause and retrace my steps a while. I have said that nothing of the Wamphyri was in Janos. Well, so I thou ght. But oh, how I was wrong. It was in him. Not in his body but in his mi nd! He had the mind of a true vampire, inherited from me. And he had inher ited something of his parents' powers, too. Something of them? He was a po wer!

Telepathy? How often through the years had I tried to read his mind, and failed? Still, nothing very remarkable in that: there are men, a handful, w ho are naturally resistant. Their minds are closed, guarded from talents suc h as mine. And fascination, or hypnotism? On occasion, when he was obstinate , I had tried to hypnotize him to my will. Wasted efforts all, for my eyes c ould not see into his, couldn't penetrate behind them. So that in the end I no longer tried.

But in fact the reason for my failure in these endeavours was not that J anos was unresponsive, but that his strength was such as to defy all such wo uld-be intrusions and close him off from me. I had likened it to a tug-o'-wa r, where my opponent's rope was wedged in a tree root, immovable. But no, it was not so complicated as that; he was simply stronger. What's more, he had also inherited his mother's skill at foretokening. He could see the future, or something of it, anyway. Except that in this last our talents were more evenly balanced, else I should never have caught him. For the futures he saw were faint and far-distant, like the memories of some history which time ha s made obscure.

But now let me return to that night.

I have said my instincts were sharper than at any time in the previous twenty years. They were, and as I pa.s.sed through the castle so I sensed tha t things were not as they should be. I formed a bat's convoluted snout to s niff the air of the place; no enemy was here and there seemed nothing of ph ysical danger to me, but something was strange. I went with more caution, m oved silent as a shadow, and willed it that I should be unseen, unheard. Bu t no need for that; Janos was too . . . engrossed - the dog! - and his moth er too mazed to even know what he was about, except when he made some comma nd of her.

Again I go ahead of myself.

I did not know that it was him, not at first. Indeed I thought the ma n must be Szgany, and was astonished! What, a Gypsy? One of my own, and i n my woman's bedroom at dead of night? A fearless man indeed; I must make known to him how much I admired his bravery, while choking him with his own entrails!

These were my thoughts when, as I came to Marilena's rooms, my Wamphyri senses told me that she was not alone. Following which it took my every ef fort to stop the teeth in my jaws from forming scythes and shearing my gums to pulp. Indeed I felt the nails of my fingers involuntarily elongating into chitin knives, and this too was a reaction I could scarce control.

The room had an exterior door, a small antechamber and a second door t o the bedroom proper. Gently, soundlessly, I tried the outer door and foun d it barred. Never since she came to me had this door been barred. My wors t suspicions were now fully aroused, also my hot blood. Oh, I could break the door down, certainly, except ... to come upon them that way would be t o alert them too soon. And I wanted to see with my own eyes. No amount of screeched or gasped or blood-tinged, frothed denial may eradicate a scene seared upon the very skin of one's eyeb.a.l.l.s.

I went out onto a balcony, formed my hands and forearms into webbed disc s like the suckers of some grotesque octopus, and made my way to Marilena's window. The window was large, arched, and cut through a wall six feet thick.

Inside, across the opening in the inner wall, curtains had been drawn. I cl imbed in and inched to the curtains, which I drew fractionally apart to form a crack. Inside the room, a floating wick in a bowl of oil gave light enoug h to see. Not that I had need of it, for I saw in the dark as surely as othe r men see in full daylight, and even better.

And what I saw was this: Marilena, naked as a wh.o.r.e, flat on her back across a wooden table; he r legs were wrapped around a man who stood upright, straining between her thighs until his b.u.t.tocks were clenched like fists, driving into her as if he were hammering home a wedge. And indeed he was, a fat wedge of flesh, and in a moment more I would drive that same wedge down his throat!

But then, through the pounding of my blood and the mad thundering of my brain, and through all the roaring of my outraged emotions, I heard her vo ice gasping: 'Ah, Faethor - more, more! Fill me, my vampire love, as only y ou can!'

But... let me pause . . . the memory enrages me even now, when all I am is a voice from beyond the grave . . . let me pause a moment and make expl anation.

It strikes me I've made little mention of myself during the twenty years o f Marilena and her b.a.s.t.a.r.d son. I shall do so now, but quickly.

The fact that I had taken a woman for my own had not made me any less the vampire. I had had women before, be sure. It is the vampire's nature to have women, just as it is the nature of the female of the species to have men. Bu t I had never before been so fond of any one creature. (Enough of the word 'l ove'; I have used it too often, and anyway do not believe in it. It is just s uch a lie as 'honesty' or 'truth' in its definition of rules which all men br eak from time to time.) So, for all that I had not deliberately enthralled or vampirized Marilen a, I was nonetheless Wamphyri in all my thoughts, moods and activities. But having determined not to partake of her blood, and likewise that as little of my flesh as possible should be allowed to enter her (carnal intercourse ex cepted, of course), it had fallen upon me to find my sustenance elsewhere. I did not have to drink blood; so long as I could control the craving, common er fare would suffice. But blood is as much true life to the vampire as opiu m is sure death to the addict, and they are both hard habits to break. In th e case of the Wamphyri, the creature within ensures that the habit will not be broken.