Wamphyri

‘Where is this place?' Harry asked the brothers Syzestu. The town is Cluj, said Jahn, who was the oldest. This

place is just a field. We were in prison — political prisoners

—and we ran away. They came after us with guns and caught us here, trying to climb this wall. Now tell us, Harry Keogh, how we can help you?

‘Cluj?' said Harry, a little disappointed. ‘I need to be south, I think, and east — across the mountains.'

This is easy! The younger brother, Dmitri, was excited.

Our father and mother lie side by side in the graveyard in Pitesti. Only a little while ago we were talking to them!

Indeed they were, a deeper, sterner voice joined in, from some distance away. You're welcome to come and visit, Harry, if you can find your way here.

Harry excused himself — a little hastily but with many apologies — and re-entered the Mobius continuum. In a little while he was in a misted graveyard in Pitesti. Who is it you're seeking? inquired Franz Syzestu.

‘His name is Ladislau Giresci,' said Harry. ‘All I can tell you is that he died some little time ago at his home near a town called Titu.'

Titu? A

Indeed I can! A new voice, sharp and shrewish, answered. And I've the very man right here.

There you are! said A

Harry Keogh? A male voice now came to the fore. I'm Ladislau Giresci. Do you want to come closer or will this do?

‘I'm on my way!' said Harry. He thanked the Syzestus and went to Giresci's plot in Titu. And finally, at last in the presence of the vampire expert himself, he asked, ‘Sir, I believe you can help me — if you will?'

Young man, said Giresci, unless I'm very much mistaken I know why you're here. Last time someone came to me inquiring about vampires, it cost me my life! But if there's any way I can help you, Harry Keogh, any way at all, just ask it!

‘That was Boris Dragosani who came to see you, right?' said Harry. He sensed the other's shudder. Giresci might have no body, but at the mention of Dragosani's name he shuddered.

That one, yes, Giresci answered at last. Dragosani. When first 1 met him I didn't know it, but he was already one of them. Or as good as. He didn't know it himself, not quite, but the evil was in him.

‘He sent Max Batu to kill you with his evil eye.'

Yes, because by then I knew what he was. That's the thing a vampire fears most: that people will discover what he is. Anyone who suspects... he has to die. So the little Mongol killed me, and he stole my crossbow.

‘That was for Dragosani. He used it to kill Thibor Ferenczy in the cruciform hills.'

Then at least it was put to good use! Ah, but when you talk about Thibor, you're talking about a real vampire! said Giresci. if Dragosani, with all of his potential for evil, had lived — alive or undead — as long as that one, then the world would have an incurable illness!

‘I'm sorry,' said Harry, ‘but I can find nothing to admire in such monsters. And in any case, there was one greater than Thibor, who came before him, and outlasted him. His name was Faethor, and Thibor took his second name from him. Rightly so, for it was Faethor who made him a vampire. I'm speaking of Faethor Ferenczy, of course.'

Ladislau Giresci's voice was the merest whisper now as he answered: Indeed, and that was where my interest in the undead really began. For I was with Faethor when he died. Imagine that, and him a creature at least thirteen hundred years old!

‘These are the ones I want to know about.' Harry was eager. ‘Thibor and Faethor. In your life you were a vampire expert; however people might scorn your obsession or look upon you as an eccentric, you studied the vampire's myths, his legends, his lore. You were still studying them when you died, and it's my guess that dying didn't stop you. So where's your research led you now, Ladislau ? How did Thibor end up buried there on the cruciform hills? And what of Faethor between the tenth and twentieth centuries? It's important that I know these things, for they relate to what I'm doing now. And what I'm doing relates to the safety and sanity of the whole world.'

I understand, said Giresci, soberly. But Harry, don't you think you should speak to someone with even more authority? I believe it can be arranged.

‘What?' Harry was taken aback. ‘Someone with more authority than you? Is there such a person?'

Ahhh! said a new voice, a powerful voice. It was black as the night itself and deep as the roots of hell, and it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Oh, yesss, Haarrry, there is — or was — just such a one. And I am he. No one knows as much about the Wamphyri as I do, for no one has or ever will live so long. So very long, indeed, that when I died I was ready for it. Oh, I fought against it, be sure, but in the end it was for the best. Now I have peace. And I have Ladislau Giresci to thank for giving me that final, merciful release. Since he obviously holds you in the greatest esteem — as do all the dead, apparently — then so must I. So come to me, Harry Keogh, and let a real expert answer your questions.

It was an offer Harry couldn't refuse. He knew who it must be at once, of course, and he wondered why he hadn't thought of it himself. It was, after all, the obvious answer.

‘I'm coming, Faethor,' he said. ‘Just give me a moment and I'll be right there. .

Chapter Eleven

To this day, on the outskirts of Ploiesti, towards Bucharest, there stand gutted ruins, reminders of the mundane horrors of war. The burned-out shells lie like half-buried stony corpses in open countryside, strangely gorgeous in the summer when the old bomb craters are full of flowers and brambles and wildlife, and ivy climbs shattered walls to turn them green. But it takes the winter and the snow to make the devastation visible, to bring into monochrome perspective the gaunt reality of the region. The Romanians have never rebuilt in or near these ruins.

This was where Faethor Ferenczy had finally met his death at the hands of Ladislau Giresci during a Second World War bombing raid on Bucharest and Ploiesti. Pi

The vampire had known that he was finished. With a superhuman effort of will he had commanded .Giresci to make a quick end of it. The old way was still the only way. Since Faethor was already staked, Giresci need only behead him. The flames would do the rest, and the ancient monster would burn along with his house.

The things he experienced in that house of horror stayed with Giresci for the rest of his life. They were what had made him an authority on vampirism. Now Ladislau Giresci was dead along with Faethor, but still the vampire stood in his debt. Which was why he would give Harry Keogh whatever assistance he could; at least, that was part of the reason. The rest of it was that Keogh was up against Thibor the Wallach.

It wasn't yet winter when Harry Keogh homed in on Faethor's incorporeal thoughts and emerged from the Möbius continuum into the creeper- and bramble-grown ruin which had been the vampire's final refuge on earth. Indeed, the summer was barely turning to autumn, the trees still green, but the chill Harry felt might have suggested winter to the bones of any ordinary man. Harry was least of all ordinary. He knew it was a chill of the spirit, a wintry blast blowing on the soul. A psychic chill, which is only felt in the presence of a supernatural Power. Faethor Ferenczy had been such, and Harry recognised that fact. But just as surely Faethor, too, knew when he was face to face with a Power.