Brian Lumley - The Lost Years Volume 1

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IN THE ECHOING CAVERN OF THE PIT
"This one must not be wasted,' Anthony Francezci cautioned his unseen father. 'Her knowledge
can't be lost. We paid for her, dearly. We may never see another opportunity like this. And
remember, Father: what threatens us threatens you ...' I understand, yesss. Send her down. 'But
you are hungry, we know, and occasionally ... impatient? And if-' -SEND HER DOWN ... NOW! There
was nothing else for it. Franeesco Francezci operated the machinery, and together the brothers
manoeuvred the platform and girl into position over the pit. Finally Anthony broke an ampoule
under her nose, and she groaned a little. But before she could wake up more fully, they sent her
on her way to hell. Her weight was measured on a dial. She sank sixty, seventy, seventy-five
feet... She must surely be awake by now ... And suddenly her weight became zero. 'Get it up!'
Anthony croaked, as Franeesco reversed the gears. The platform came up empty. While from down
below- -A shriek to end all shrieks!
Christened 'Snaith' in Edinburgh in 1957, the infant Harry was the son of a psychic sensitive
mother, Mary Keogh (herself the daughter of a gifted expatriate Russian lady), and Gerald Snaith,
a banker. Harry's father died of a stroke a year later, and in the winter of 1960 his mother
remarried, this time to a Russian dissident, Viktor Shukshin. In the winter of '63 Shukshin
murdered Harry's mother by drowning her under the ice of a frozen river; he escaped punishment by
alleging that while skating she'd crashed through the thin crust and been washed away. Shukshin
inherited her isolated Bonnyrig house and the not inconsiderable monies left to her by her first
husband. Within six months the young Harry 'Keogh' had gone to live with an uncle and his wife at
Harden on the north-east coast of England, an arrangement that was more than satisfactory to
Viktor Shukshin, who could never stand the child. Harry commenced schooling with the roughneck
kids of the colliery; but a dreamy and introspective sort of boy, he was a loner, developed few
friendships - not with his fellow pupils, anyway - and thus fell easy prey to bullying. Later, as
he grew towards his teens, Harry's daydreaming spirit, psychic insights and instincts led him into
further conflict with his teachers. His problem was that he had inherited his maternal forebears'
mediumistic talents, which were developing in him to an extraordinary degree. He had no
requirement for 'real' or physical companions as such, because the many friends he already had
were more than sufficient and willing to supply his every need. As to who his friends were - they
were the myriad dead in their graves! Up against the school bully, Harry defeated him with the
telepathi-cally communicated skills of an Kt-ex-Army physical training instructor, an expert in
unarmed combat. Punished with maths homework, he received extra tuition from an ex-Headmaster of
the school. But here he required only a little help, for in fact he was something of a
mathematician himself. Except Harry leaned more towards the metaphysical; his intuitive grasp of
numbers was lateral to the point of sidereal; his numeracy was as alien to mundane science as his
telepathic intercourse with the dead was to speech. In 1969 Harry gained entry into a technical
college, and until the end of his formal (and orthodox) education, did his best to tone down the
use of his extraordinary talent-and be a 'normal, average student.' Aware that he must soon begin
to support himself, he began writing, and by the time his schooling was at an end several short
pieces of his fiction had seen print. Three years later, he finished his first novel, Diary of a
17th-Century Rake. While the book fell short of the bestseller lists, still it did well. It wasn't
so much a sensation for its storyline as for its historical authenticity; hardly surprising
considering the qualifications of Harry's co-author and collaborator - namely a 17th-century rake,
shot dead by an outraged husband in 1672! By the summer of 1976, Harry had his own unassuming top-
floor flat in an old three-storey house on the coast road out of Hartlepool towards Sunderland.
Perhaps typically, the house stood opposite one of the town's oldest graveyards; Harry was never
short of friends to talk to. But by then, too, his headmaster of a few years ago had discovered
his grotesque secret, and passed it on to others more secretive yet . . . Blithely ignorant of the
fact that he was now under wary scrutiny, Harry let his talent develop. He was the Necroscope, the
only man who could talk to the dead and befriend them. Now that his weird talent was fully formed,
he could converse with exanimate persons even over great distances; once introduced to a member of
the Great Majority, thereafter he could always contact him again. With Harry, however, it was a
point of common decency that whenever possible he would physically attend them at their
gravesides; he wasn't one to 'shout' at his friends. In their turn (and in return for his
friendship), Harry's dead people loved him. He was like a pharos among them, the one shining light
in an otherwise eternal darkness, their observatory on a world they'd thought left behind and gone
forever. For contrary to the beliefs of the living, death is not The End but a transition to
incorporeality and immobility. Great artists, when they die, continue to visualize magnificent
canvases they can never paint; architects plan fantastic, continent-spanning cities, that can
never be built; scientists follow up research they commenced in life but never had time to
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complete . . . At his flat in Hartlepool, when he wasn't working, Harry entertained his childhood
sweetheart, Brenda. Shortly, finding herself pregnant, she became his wife. But a shadow out of
the Necroscope's past was rapidly becoming an obsession. He brooded over dreams of his poor
drowned mother, and in nightmares revisited the frozen river where Mary Keogh had died before her
time. Finally, Harry resolved to take revenge on his evil stepfather. In this as in all things he
had the blessings of the dead, for knowing only too well the horror of death, cold-blooded murder
was a crime the teeming dead could never tolerate. In the winter of 1976-77 Harry tempted Viktor
Shukshin out onto the ice of the frozen river to skate with him, as once the murderer had skated
with his mother. But his plan backfired and they both crashed through the ice into the bitterly
cold water. The Russian had the strength of a madman; he would surely drown his stepson . . . but
no, for at the last moment Mary Keogh - or what remained of her - rose from her watery grave to
drag her murderer down! And with that Harry had discovered a new talent; or rather, he now knew
how far the teeming dead would go in order to protect him - knew that in fact they would rise from
their graves for him . . . The Necroscope's weird abilities had not gone unnoticed; a top-secret
British intelligence organization known as E-Branch ('£' for 'ESP' or ESPionage), and its Soviet
counterpart, were both aware of his powers. But he was no sooner approached to join E-Branch than
its head, his contact, was taken out, 'with extreme prejudice,' by Boris Dragosani, a Romanian spy
and necromancer. Dragosani's terrible 'talent' lay in ripping open the bodies of dead enemy agents
to steal their secrets right out of their violated brains, blood, and guts! Harry vowed to track
Dragosani down and even the score, and the Great Majority offered him their help. Of course they
did, for even the dead weren't safe from a man who violated corpses! What Harry and his friends
couldn't know was that Dragosani had been infected with vampirism. What was more, he had murdered
a colleague, the Mongol Max Batu, to learn the secret of his evil eye. The necromancer could now
kill at a glance! Time was short; Harry must follow the vampire back to the USSR, to Soviet E-
Branch Headquarters at the Chateau Bronnitsy south of Moscow, and there put him down . . . but
how? A British 'precog' - an esper whose talent enabled him to scan fragments of the future - had
foreseen the Necroscope's involvement not only with vampires but also with the twisted figure 8 or
'eternity' symbol of the Mobius Strip. In order to get to Dragosani, Harry first must understand
the Mobius connection. But here at least he was on familiar ground; the astronomer and
mathematician August Ferdinand Mobius had been dead since 1868 - and the dead would do anything
for Harry Keogh . . . In Leipzig Harry visited Mobius's grave and discovered him at work on his
space-time equations. What he had done in life he continued, undisturbed, to do in death; and in
the course of a century he had reduced the physical universe to a set of mathematical symbols.
Mobius knew how to bend space-time! Teleportation: an easy route into the Chateau Bronnitsy. For
days Mobius instructed Harry, until the Necroscope was sure that the answer lay right there in
front of him - just an inch beyond his grasp. But the East German GREPO (the Grenz Polizei) were
watching him, and on the orders of Dragosani tried to arrest him at Mobius's graveside . . . where
suddenly Mobius's equations transformed themselves into doorways into the strange immaterial
universe of the Mobius Continuum! Using one of these doors to escape from the GREPO, finally Harry
was able to project himself into the grounds of Soviet E-Branch HQ. Calling up from their graves
an army of long-dead Crimean Tartars, the Necroscope destroyed the chateau's defences, then sought
out and killed Dragosani. But in the fight he, too, was killed ... his body died; but in the last
moment his mind, his will, transferred to the metaphysical Mobius Continuum. And riding the Mobius
Strip into future time, Harry's identity was absorbed into the as yet unformed infant mentality -
of his own son! August 1 Drawn to Harry Jr's all-absorbing mind like an iron filing to a magnet,
Harry Keogh's identity was in danger of being entirely subsumed and wiped clean. His only avenue
of freedom lay in the Mobius Continuum, which he could only use when his infant son was asleep.
But while exploring the infinite future timestream, Harry had noted among the myriad blue life-
threads of Mankind a scarlet thread: another vampire! Worse than this, in the near future he'd
seen that red thread crossing the innocent blue of young Harry's! The Necroscope investigated. He
was incorporeal, yes, but so were the teeming dead; he could still communicate with them, and they
were still in his debt. In September of 1977 he spoke to the spirit of Thibor Ferenczy - once a
vampire - at his tomb in the Carpathian Mountains; also to Thibor's 'father', Faethor Ferenczy,
who died in a World War II bombing raid on Ploiesti. Harry was cautious. Even when dead, vampires
are the worst possible liars, devious beyond measure. But the Necroscope had nothing to lose
(literally), and the vampires had much to gain; Harry was their last contact with a world they had
once planned to rule. Thus, by trial and error, playing oh so dangerous cat-and-mouse word-games
with the Wamphyri, he pieced together the terrible truth: that in the late 1950s Thibor had
'infected' a pregnant English woman, Georgina Bodescu, who later gave birth to a son. And Thibor's
spawn, Yulian Bodescu, was the source of the threatening red thread! In Romania, Alec Kyle and
Felix Krakovitch, current heads of their respective ESP-ionage rings, joined forces to destroy the
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remains of Thibor in his Carpathian mausoleum. There they burned a monstrous remnant of the
vampire, but not before Thibor sent Yulian a dream-message and a warning. Thibor had hoped to use
his English 'son' as a vessel in which to rise up again and resume his vampire existence. But
since his last physical vestiges were now destroyed, instead he would use him to take revenge on
the Necroscope, Harry Keogh. As for killing Keogh: that should be the very simplest of things. The
Necroscope was incorporeal, a bodiless id, his own infant son's sixth sense. Only remove the child
and the father would go with him . . . Meanwhile in the USSR, Alec Kyle stood falsely accused of
murder. Russian espers were using a combination of high technology and ESP to drain him of
knowledge . . . literally all knowledge! This process would leave him raped of his mind, brain-
dead, and physical death would soon follow. And in England Yulian Bodescu was on the prowl. Intent
on destroying Harry Jr, he headed for Hartlepool. His trail was bloody and littered with dead men
when finally he entered the house where Brenda Keogh lived and climbed the stairs to her garret
flat. The mother tried to protect her small child . . . she was hurled aside! . . . Harry Jr was
awake; his mind contained Harry Keogh ... the monster was upon them, powerful hands reaching!
Harry could do nothing. Trapped in the infant's whirlpool id, he knew that they were both going to
die. But then: Go, little Harry told him. Through you I've learned what I had to learn. I don't
need you that way any longer. But I do need you as a father. So go on, get out, save yourself!
Harry was free; the mental attraction binding him to his son's mind had been relaxed; he could now
flee into the Mobius Continuum. And what the father could do, the son could do in spades; he was a
Necroscope of enormous power! And in the cemetery just across the road, the dead answered Harry
Jr's call. They came up out of their graves, shuffled and flopped from the graveyard into the
house and up the stairs. Bodescu the vampire attempted his first and last metamorphosis: adopting
the shape of a great bat, he flew from a window . . . and took a crossbow bolt in his spine. And
as he crashed down within the grounds of the cemetery, so the incorporeal Necroscope instructed
the dead in the methods of eradication: the stake, decapitation, the cleansing fire . . . Harry
Keogh was free, but free to do what? He was a mind without a body. Except he now felt a different
force, an attraction other than his infant son's magnet id, a vacuum seemingly eager to be filled.
Exploring it, Harry was sucked in irresistibly - into the aching emptiness of Alex Kyle's drained
mind! Employing ultra-high explosives to blow the Chateau Bronnitsy to hell, and his powers as a
Necroscope to correct other anomalies, at last Harry could take the Mobius route home. His work,
for the moment, was at an end. It was the late autumn of 1977, and he had taken up permanent
residence in another man's body. Indeed, to all intents and purposes, and to anyone who didn't
know better, he was that other man! But he was also the natural father of a most unnatural child,
a child with awesome supernatural powers. So now Harry must face up to other, more mundane duties:
those of a husband and father. But how might he perform those duties with the face and form of a
different man? What of his poor wife, Brenda, who had already suffered more than her fair share of
strangeness and horror? How could he ask her to share her life with a husband who wasn't the man
she knew? Finally, what of the child . . . if Harry Jr could still be considered a child? But
perhaps the most difficult questions the Necroscope must ask himself were these: how much greater
than his own talents were his son's? How different were they? And perhaps more importantly: how
did he intend to use them? Thus the world of Harry Keogh was a vastly complicated place- -Which
wasn't about to get any simpler . . . The story that follows concerns itself mainly with certain
episodes of the Necroscope's life, between the previously chronicled Wamphyri! and The Source. But
it is not alone Harry Keogh's story. For without that the Wamphyri were there before him (and
despite the paradox of their springing from him), it could even be said that Harry himself would
not have been necessary: without a disease there's no need for a cure. In short, this story is
also theirs: part of the lost history of the Wamphyri. . . PROLOGUE The powerful, silver-grey
stretch limo, familiar in itself however unusual - but less than unique - on an island of ancient
Fiats and sputtering Lambrettas, bumped carefully over shifting cobbles under a baroque stone
archway into the courtyard of Julio's Cafe and Restaurant in the eastern quarter of Palermo. The
lone survivor of a World War II bombing raid, the walled enclosure was once the smallest of four
gardens containing a middling villa. The other three gardens were rubble-strewn craters; only
their outer walls had been repaired, to create something of an acceptable fagade in the district
of the Via Delia Magione. The courtyard was set out like a fan-shaped checker-board: square tables
decked with white covers, standing on black flags of volcanic stone; the whole split down the
middle by a 'hinge' of vehicles parked herringbone-fashion on what was once a broad carriageway. A
palm-fringed gap in the wall at the point of the quadrant marked the vehicular exit into the dusky
evening. Some three dozen patrons sat eating, drinking, chattering, though not too energetically;
a pair of sweating, white-aproned waiters ran to and fro between the tables, the bar and kitchens,
each serving his own triangle of customers. Even for the third week in May the weather was
unseasonably warm; at eight-thirty in the evening the temperature was up in the high seventies.
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The east-facing wall of the courtyard contained what was left of the old villa: a two-storeyed
wing three rooms wide and three deep, with a balcony supported by Doric columns that more than
hinted of better times. The central, ground-floor room was fronted by a marble bar which spanned
the gap between the pillars; kitchens to the left of the bar stood open to the inspection of
patrons. Amazingly, in this bombed-out relic of a place, wide arches in the wall to the right
displayed the sweep of the original grand marble staircase winding to the upper rooms and balcony.
Better times indeed! On the balcony - whose tables were reserved for 'persons of quality' - Julio
Sclafani himself leaned out as far as his belly would allow to observe the arrival of these
latest, most elevated of all his customers: Anthony and Francesco Francezci, come down from the
high Madonie especially to eat at Julio's. It was wonderful that they came here, these men of
power, ignoring the so-called 'class' restaurants to dine on Julio's simple but worthy fare. And
they'd been doing it for six weeks now, ever since the first signs of improvement in the weather.
Or ... perhaps it was that one of them, or even both of them, had noticed Julio's Julietta? For
Sclafani's youngest, still unmarried daughter was a stunner after all. And the Brothers Francezci
were eminently eligible men ... But what a shame that she wasn't at her best! It must be the
pollution of Palermo's air. The fumes of all the cars and mopeds, the stagnation of all the
derelict places, the breathing of dead air and the winter damp that came drifting in off the
Tyrrhenian Sea. But spring was here and summer on its way; Julietta would bloom again, just as the
island was blooming. Except... it was worrying, the way she'd come down with - well, with whatever
it was - just four or five weeks ago; since when all of the colour had seemed to go out of her,
all the joy and vitality, everything that had made her the light of Julio's life. To be back there
on her couch, all exhausted, with an old biddy of a sick-nurse sitting beside her - 'in
attendance,' as it were - as at someone's deathbed! What, Julietta? Perish the thought! As fof the
old crow: Julio supposed he should consider himself lucky to have obtained her services so
reasonably. All thanks to the Francezcis, for she was one of theirs. But here they came even now,
smiling up at him - at him! - as they mounted the marble staircase. Such elegant . . . such
eligible men! Julio hastened to greet them at the head of the stairs, and usher them to their
table on the balcony . . . Almost exactly one hour earlier, Tony and Francesco Francezci had
departed Le Manse Madonie in the mountain heights over Cefalu en-route for Julio's and the
supposed gourmet pleasures of the cafe's 'cuisine.' The quality of Julio Sclafani's food was,
ostensibly, the sole reason for the Francezcis' weekly visit to the crumbling, by no means
decadent but decidedly decayed city. Ostensibly, yes. But in fact the brothers didn't much care
for the food at Sclafani's, nor for the eating of common fare anywhere else for that matter. They
could just as easily dine at Le Manse Madonie, and do far better than at Julio's, without the
bother of having to get there. For at the Manse the brothers had their own servants, their own
cooks, their own . . . people. And so as Mario, their chauffeur, had driven the brothers down the
often precipitous, dusty hairpin track from the Manse to the potholed 'road' that joins Petralia
in the south to the spa town of Termini Imerese on the coast - where according to legend the
buried Cyclops 'pisses in the baths of men, to warm them' - so Francesco had turned his mind and
memory to the real reason for their interest in Sclafani's piddling cafe: the fat man's daughter,
Julietta. Francesco's interest, anyway . . . It had been six weeks ago to the day. The brothers
had been in Palermo to attend a meeting of the Dons: the heads of the most powerful Families in
the world, with the possible exception of certain branches of European Royalty and nobility, and
other so called 'leaders of men' or business, politicians and industrialists mainly, in the United
States of America and elsewhere. Except there's power, and there's power. That of the Francezcis
was landed and gilt-edged . . . and ancient, and evil. It lay in the earth (in territory, or real
estate); in the wealth they'd been heir to for oh-so-many, many years, plus the additional wealth
which the principal and their unique talents had accumulated and augmented; and not least in those
peculiar talents themselves. For in fact the Francezcis were advisers. Advisers to the Mafia,
still the main force and power-base in Italy and Sicily; and through the Mafia advisers to the
CIA, the KGB, and others of the same ilk; and through them advisers to those governments which
allegedly 'controlled' them. And because their advice was invariably good, invariably valuable,
they were revered as Dons of Dons, as every Francezci before them. But to actually speak of them
in such a connection . . . that would be quite unpardonable. It was understandable; their social
standing . . . As to that last: they had the reputations of the gentlest of gentlemen! Their
presence had been requested - even fought over - for every major social event on the island for
the last fifteen years, ever since they came into their inheritance and possession of Le Manse
Madonie. And their bloodline: there had been Francezci Brothers for as long as men could remember.
The family was noted for its male twins, also for a line that went back into the dimmest mists of
history - and into some of the darkest. But that last was for the brothers alone to know. Thus the
immemorial and ongoing connection of the Francezcis with certain of the island's (and indeed the
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world's) less savoury elements was unsuspected; or if it was it wasn't mentioned in polite
circles. Yet in their role of freelance intelligence agents for the Mob or mobs - as advisers in
the field of international crime, various kinds of espionage, and terrorism - the Francezcis were
an unparalleled success story. Where or how they gained their intelligence in these diverse yet
connected fields: that, too, was for the brothers alone to know, and for others to guess at. But
to the Dons it seemed obvious that they had corrupted the incorruptible on a world-wide scale . .
. . . . Francesco's thoughts had strayed from their course. As the limo glided, or occasionally
bumped, for the junction with the A-19 motorway into Palermo, he redirected his mind to that
evening six short weeks ago: After their meeting with the Dons (whom they had advised on such
problems as what or what not to do about Aldo Moro and his kidnappers the Red Brigade, in Italy,
and President Leone, who had become an embarrassment) the hour had been late. Driving back through
Palermo and turned aside by a diversion where road works were in progress, Tony had noticed
Julio's Cafe and suggested they pause a while for refreshments. Indoors in the room of the marble
staircase, the brothers had ordered Julio's 'Greek Island Specialities.' They'd picked at spicy
sausages, stuffed vine-leaves, and various dips prepared in olive oil - but no garlic - all washed
down with tiny measures of Mavrodaphne and a chaser, the brackish Vecchia Romagna, sipped from
huge brandy-bowl glasses. By nine-thirty the kitchens had closed; the brothers dined alone. Julio
had excused himself - a toothache! He'd called a dentist who, even at this late hour, had agreed
to see him. His daughter, Julietta, would see the brothers off the premises when they were done.
Perhaps Francesco had drunk a little too much Mavrodaphne, too large a measure of brandy. Or it
could be that in the gloom and draughty emptiness of the place, with the picked-at food gone cold
on their plates, and the knowledge of lowering skies just beyond the arches, the woman had looked
more radiant, more luminous . . . more pure? Whatever, Francesco had looked at her in a certain
way, and she had looked back. And Anthony Francezci had gone down to the limo on his own, while
his brother . . . At which point the silver grey hearse of a car had swerved to avoid a dead
animal in the road - a goat, Mario thought! - and again Francesco had been shaken from his
reflections where he lolled in a corner of the back seat. Perhaps it was as well. They had been
passing close to Bagheria; in a moment they'd be making a sharp right turn. Oh, yes, for Tony
would surely want to park a while at a place he was fond of: the Villa Palagonia. 'What, drawn to
your monsters yet again?' Francesco's comment had been petulant, almost angry; he was irritated
that his mood and memories had been broken into. 'Our monsters!' Tony had answered immediately and
sharply. For it was true enough: both of the brothers knew the inspiration behind the lunatic
array of stone beasts that adorned the walls of the villa. The carved dwarves and gargoyles, the
creatures with human hands and feet, and other Things that defied description. Some two hundred
years ago the owner of the villa, Prince Ferdinando Gravina, had insisted upon visiting Le Manse
Madonie, home to the Ferenczinis, as their name was then. Rich as Croesus, he had been interested
to discover why the equally wealthy Ferenczinis were satisfied to dwell in such an 'out-of-the-
way, austere, almost inhospitable sort of place.' And Ferdinando's mania for grotesques - or his
mania in general - had later emerged as a direct result of that visit. But in any case Francesco
had shrugged, saying, 'According to Swinburne, these sculptures have their origin in Diodorus's
tale of the freakish creatures that came out of the Nile's sunbaked mud.' And before his brother
could answer: 'Perhaps it's better if that legend prevails? It was a long time ago, after all. Too
long ago, for such as you and I to remember!' At which Tony had scowled and answered, 'Ferdinando
looked into the pit, brother - the pit at Le Manse Madonie - and we both know it!' And then,
sneeringly: 'Let's be discreet by all means, but in the privacy of our own car in a place like
this, who is there to eavesdrop?' Then, as at a signal, Mario had driven on for Palermo . . . And
now they were there, at the Cafe Julio, and the fat little sod seating them at a table on his
precious balcony and detailing his odious 'cuisine,' from which list they ordered this and that: a
few items to pick at, a carafe of red wine. All a sham, a show; the brothers moved the food about
their plates, waiting for Sclafani to mention Julietta. And eventually, returning upstairs from
some small duty in the kitchens: 'Gentlemen, I'm eternally in your debt!' Julio bowed and scraped,
plucked nervously at the towel over his arm as he sidled up to their table. 'Er, I mean with
regard to your kindness in providing a ... a companion for my daughter. I cannot bring myself to
call the old lady a nurse - can't admit to any real sickness in my girl - but the woman is a
godsend nevertheless. She fetches and carries, sees to my daughter's needs, and I am left free to
attend my business.' 'Julietta?' Francesco contrived to look concerned. 'Your daughter? Is she no
better, then? We'd wondered why she wasn't around . . .' He looked down over the balcony into the
courtyard, casting here and there with his dark eyes as if searching. Julio turned his own eyes to
the night sky and flapped his hands in an attitude of despair or supplication. 'Oh, my lovely
girl! Weak as water and pale as a cloud! Julietta will get better, I am sure. But for now . . .
she reclines upon her bed, with shadows under her eyes, and complains about the sunlight creeping
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in her room so that she must keep the curtains drawn! Some strange lethargy, a malaise, a weird
photophobia.' The brothers looked at each other - perhaps quizzically - and Francesco finally
nodded. And to Julio: 'Sclafani, we have business tonight. A man of ours returns from an important
trip out of the country. Meanwhile we're out for a drive, passing a little time. It's a very
pleasant evening, after all. Alas, we may be called away at any moment, which is why we didn't
order more extensively from your menu. But this thing with Julietta: we -find ourselves . . .
concerned for you.' 'Indeed,' Tony nodded. 'We Francezcis are delicate that way ourselves - with
regard to strong sunlight, I mean. Which is why we're not often out and about when the sun is up.'
'And,' Francesco went on, thoughtfully, '-who can say - perhaps we find ourselves in a position to
be of further service?' Qulio could have fainted! What, the Francezci Brothers, of service to him
and his? Of further service?) 'You see,' said Tony, 'in three days a man will fly from Rome. A
doctor, a specialist. You are right: there is a certain malaise or anaemia abroad. Servants of
ours in Le Manse Madonie are laid low by it; we ourselves feel a definite lethargy. Our blood
seems . . . weak? But at least in the heights we have the benefit of clean air! While here in the
city . . .' He shrugged. Open-mouthed, Julio looked from one brother to the other. 'But what do
you propose? I mean, I scarcely dare presume-' '-That our doctor friend should take a look at
Julietta, and perhaps keep her under observation a while?' Francesco cut him short. 'But why not?
He's our own private doctor and comes with the very highest recommendation! Moreover, he's been
paid in advance. In such an arrangement, surely there are no losers! So, it's settled.' He nodded
his head as in final confirmation. 'Settled?' 'We shall send our car for Julietta three evenings
from now -Saturday, yes. And the old woman shall stay with her at all times, of course. But that
is to look on the gloomy side, for in the event that she should recover between now and then,
which naturally we hope she will. . .' 'I... am stunned!'Julio choked out the words. 'No need to
be,' said Tony, delicately dabbing at his mouth. Take our card. If your Julietta shows signs of
recovery, call us. Otherwise look for our car Saturday night. After that, you may inquire after
her at your convenience. But remember: we're private men. Our telephone number is restricted. And
rest assured, Julietta will be attended to in every circumstance.' It was done. Hardly believing
his stroke of good fortune, the fat man went about the night's business in a daze; the brothers,
apparently unmoved, continued to pick at their food . . . until Julio was observed busying himself
at the tables in the courtyard below. Then: 'Watch the stairs,' Francesco said. 'If he comes up,
issue a warning or distract him.' But as he stood up and moved back a pace from the balcony: 'Now
who is being indiscreet?' Tony smiled up at him with eye-teeth that were white and needle-sharp in
a too-wide mouth. Francesco leaned towards his brother - leaned at a peculiar angle -and answered
through clenched teeth in a voice that was suddenly as black and bubbling as tar, 'What, but can't
you smell that bitch back there?' In another moment he straightened up, coughed to clear his
throat, and continued in a more normal tone of voice. 'Anyway, we need to be certain the fat fool
will accept our offer. So drink your wine . . . and watch the stairs!' He turned away. Two paces
took him across the balcony and through a curtained archway into a corridor. He passed a
gentlemen's toilet on his left, a ladies' on the right, and entered a door marked 'Private' into
Julio's office. Skirting the desk, he passed through a second door into Julietta's sick-room. And
there she lay, with the old biddy Katerin, eighty years old if she was a day, in attendance. The
crone was nodding. Startled, she glanced up at Francesco through rheumy eyes. 'Who? What?' Then,
recognizing him, she smiled, nodded and made to rise. 'No, stay,' he told her. 'Best that you're
here, in case that oily little fat man should look in.' Katerin nodded again and sat still. In the
dimness of the room, the grandam's eyes were yellow as a cat's watching her master. He sat half-
way up the wide couch where Julietta lay, and his sudden weight woke her. Or perhaps she'd already
been awake . . . waiting. Her eyes opened big as saucers; her jaw fell open; knowledge and horror
painted themselves with rapid strokes upon her lovely, oval, oddly pallid face. But in no way odd
to Francesco. And before she could cry out, if she would: 'Did you think I would desert you? Ah,
no!' he told her. And his hand crept under her blanket, under her nightgown, to her thigh, so that
she could feel his fingers trembling there. 'No, for having loved you once, I shall love you all
the days of your life.' But he did not say 'my life.' As his hand climbed higher on her thigh, so
Julietta's mouth closed and her fluttering breathing steadied; she began to breathe more deeply -
of his breath. His essence was in it, as it was in her. And his eyes were uniformly jet, like
moist black marbles in his face and unblinking, or like the eyes of a snake before he strikes.
Except he had already struck, on that night six weeks ago. And the poison had taken. He smiled
with his handsome, devil's face, and the horror went out of her as she lifted her arms to embrace
him. But that could not be. 'Soon,' he told her. 'Soon - at Le Manse Madonie! Can't you wait? A
day or two, my Julietta. Just a day or two, I promise.' Her sigh, and her breathing suddenly
quickening; the long lashes over her dark eyes fluttering, as Francesco's cool hand discovered the
inside of her hot thigh. Then her nod, and a gasp of weird ecstasy as her head flopped to one side
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in sudden shame, or defeat, or surrender, and her thighs lolled open. He held her lips open with
his thumb and smallest finger, and let the middle three elongate into her. His hand was quite
still, but the three central fingers stretched with a caterpillar's expansion, throbbing with the
effort of metamorphosis like a trio of sentient penises, with pouting lips opening in their tips.
And into her body they crept, while his thumb and smallest finger closed on her bud, to gentle it
like a nipple. And with the old crone watching and knowing everything - laughing silently through
a gap-toothed mouth whose eye-teeth at least were still sharp and white - so Francesco found the
artery he sought and used his fingers to pierce and sip at the soft centre of Julietta's sex where
the marks, if he left any, would never be found, and the blood, if any continued to flow, would
have its own explanation. Then, in a few seconds, a minute - as the girl went, 'Ah! Ah! Ah!' and
turned her head this way and that, until her eyes rolled up - slowly Francesco's jaws cracked open
in a grin or a grimace, allowing a trickle of saliva to slop from a corner of his writhing lips.
In that same moment his own eyes turned to flame, and then to blood! Julietta's blood. But:
Brother! It was Anthony; not a call as such (for the brothers were not gifted with the true art),
but a warning definitely. A tingling of nerves, a premonition. Julio was coming! A moment to
withdraw from Julietta, and another to lean forward and kiss her clammy brow. Then he was out of
the room, flowing from Sclafani's office into the corridor, and the door marked 'Men' closing
softly behind him. And his penis steaming as he plied it in the privacy of a cubicle, once, twice,
three times, before it spurted into the bowl. And even his sperm was red where Francesco pulled
the chain on it ... In the corridor, Sclafani was waiting for him. 'Ah! Forgive me! I supposed you
would be in there. Your brother asked me to tell you . . . Your man has returned from England . .
. And your driver, Mario? . . . A radio message?' He fluttered his hands, as if that were
explanation enough. Which in fact it was. Francesco was cool now. He smiled his gratitude, and
made for the balcony with Julio hard on his heels. 'It's been such a pleasure to have you,' the
fat man was babbling. 'I can't possibly bill you. What? But I'm already too deeply in your debt!'
At the table, Mario stood by in his uniform and cap while Tony spoke into a portable radio-
telephone. Francesco wheeled on Julio and almost knocked him over. 'My friend,' he said hurriedly.
This is a private conversation. You understand? As for the bill: the pleasure was all ours.' He
pressed a wad of notes into the proprietor's hand, more than enough to cover what they had not
eaten. As Julio waddled off, Tony was standing up. 'ETA in forty-five minutes,' he said. 'Even if
we go right now, still the chopper will beat us to the Manse.' He shrugged. Francesco nodded
and said, Til speak to Luigi en route.' In the limo Francesco sat up front beside Mario. Outside
Palermo the static cleared up and he was able to make himself understood on the car's
communication system. 'Your patient?' 'Sedated,' came back a tinny, almost casual voice. Threw up
a little . . . doesn't seem to travel too well. The sedative, I suppose.' From the back of the
limo Tony said: 'Well, purging can't hurt. They'll be seeing to that anyway, at Le Manse.'
Francesco glanced back at him. 'I left instruction, yes.' And into the radio: 'Any problems at the
other end?' 'None. Smooth as silk. Everything should be that easy!' 'Good,' Francesco was pleased.
'And this end? Control?' They've cleared me on to Le Manse Madonie. No problem.' (Of course not.
The Francezcis' man in Air Traffic Control at Catania had picked up more than a year's wages for
this!) 'Our people at the Manse will see to your patient,' Francesco finished. 'We'll be along
later. Oh, and well done.' Thanks, and out,' the unseen pilot answered. There were no frills, not
on the air ... At Le Manse Madonie, the brothers looked on while their people saw to the girl from
the helicopter. Still sedated, she'd been stripped and bathed by the time they got there. The rest
of it would take most of the night. They watched for an hour or so - the enemas, the operation of
the pumps and mechanically forced voiding, the 'purification,' as it were - but after that they
lost interest. The manicuring of nails, the cleansing and polishing of teeth, application of fast-
acting fungicides to her various openings (lotions to be removed later in a final bathing), all of
that would go on and on. Clinical but less than beneficial: health wasn't the object of the
exercise. Only cleanliness. 'And all wasted,' Tony Francezci shook his head in disgust as they
made for their apartments about midnight. They wouldn't sleep but merely rest; time for sleeping
when it was over. 'Wasted?' his brother answered. 'Not at all. Well, the girl herself, maybe, but
not the effort. He likes them clean, after all. And she can't lie to him, can't hide anything.
Outside her mind, we could merely prise for clues. Inside it ... he can lay everything bare down
to the electrons of her brain and patterns of her past, the memories in the mush of her grey
matter.' 'Poetic!' Francesco's brother seemed appreciative, but his voice almost immediately
turned sour. 'Ah, but will he divulge what he discovers? Or will he obscure and obfuscate, as he's
so wont to do? He gets more difficult all the time.' 'He'll tell us something of it, at least,'
the other nodded. 'It's been a while and he's hungry. He'll be grateful, and she'll make a rare
tidbit. Why, I could even fancy her myself!' Tony gave a snort. 'What? But you could fancy old
Katerin, if that's all there was!' And as they parted company at the top of a flight of stairs and
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made for their own rooms: 'Oh, and on that same note: did you have Julietta, in Julio's backroom?'
'Something like that,' his brother leered back at him. 'If you're asking will we be sending for
her . . . yes, we will. Why? Would you perhaps like her for yourself?' 'Not really,' Tony told
him. 'For you've been there before me.' There was no malice in it, nor in Francesco's answer: 'It
never stopped you before,' he said, evenly ... In the hour before dawn, the Francezcis met again
in the secret heart of Le Manse Madonie. Beneath extensive cellars and ancient foundations, at a
place deep in the bedrock - a place known only as 'the pit' - they came together to attend
personally to the final stage of the operation: the lowering of the girl into an old, dried-out
well. The mouth of the well was maybe fourteen feet across, wall to wall; the walls were three
feet high, and of massive blocks of old hewn masonry; a 'lid' of electrified wire-mesh in a
circular frame was hinged to the walls on opposite sides, covering the opening like a grille. But
the pit was silent for now, sullen and sinister even to the Francescis. Down there somewhere, at a
depth of some eighty feet, it opened into a cyst that had once contained water. Now it housed
their father. A mechanical hoist stood to one side, its gantry reaching out over the pit.
Suspended by chains, a metal table slowly rotated. The girl lay naked on the table, with her hands
folded on her stomach. In her entire life she had only once been cleaner, less toxic: in the womb,
in the days preceding her birth before the first human hands were lain on her. Now mhuman hands
would be lain on her. But first the interrogation; not of the girl but the Old Ferenczy, the
monstrously mutated Francezci in his pit. Only the brothers were present; it wasn't work for
lesser, more easily influenced or corrupted minds. But then, how might one corrupt the Francezcis?
The cavern containing the pit was a natural place, made unnatural only by its grotesque
inhabitant. Rocky ledges swept back into darkness, but the pit itself was illuminated: a bank of
powerful spotlights shone down on it from the nitre-streaked dripstone walls. Where the shadows
crept, stone steps had been cut back into a shaft that climbed in a spiral to the Manse - the
aerie - high overhead. At the foot of the steps an electrified pneumatic 'door,' a grille of two-
inch steel bars, guarded the exit. The door's control panel was set well back within the brightly
lit shaft. Like the cover over the old well, this door to the exit shaft wasn't designed to keep
anyone or thing out. Yet the place wasn't specifically a prison but more properly a refuge, a
sanctuary ... an asylum. And just this once, perhaps the Francezcis were of a single mind where
they stood at the rim of the well and Francesco quietly commented: 'It's as if the "Mad"-in
Madonie were deliberate . . .' Tony at once cautioned him: 'Always remember, brother: he can hear
you. Even when you're sleeping - or lost in your lust with some slut - he can be there. And he's
here even now.' And the other knew it was true. Down here their father's presence was everywhere.
It was in the echoes of their voices; and despite the glaring lights - or because of them - it was
in the movement of the blackest shadows back there where there should be no movement. It permeated
the very atmosphere, as if the place were haunted. But the Old Ferenczy was no ghost. Nor would he
ever be, so long as he was their oracle. Francesco looked at his brother. 'Well, are you ready?'
Tony licked his fleshy lips, and nodded. He wouldn't ever be 'ready,' not really, but what must be
must be. He had always been the Old One's favourite, 'spoiled' by a father who had had time for
him. As for Francesco: he had been too precocious; his father had never had time for him! Knowing
something of the future - indeed, of most things -perhaps the pit-dweller had foreseen the time
when Francesco would relish his ... incapacity. The electricity was off, the grille safe.
'Father,' Tony leaned over the rim of the old well and gazed down through the mesh on a receding
funnel of massive blocks of masonry. 'We've brought you something. A small tribute, a gift - a
girl!' A girl. . . a girl. . . a girl, the well repeated, an echo carried on the miasma. But a
miasma, here? A wisp of mist, anyway, rising from the pit. The heat of the spotlights vaporized
it, turning it to stench. The thing below might not be especially active, but it was there. It was
breathing, and . . . '. . . Listening!' said Francesco, who was sensitive to such things. 'Oh, he
hears you, all right!' 'Father,' Tony leaned out more yet. 'We've brought a gift for you, but we
have our needs, too. There are things we need to know . . .' For a moment there was nothing, and
then the well seemed to sigh! It was physical - in that a gust of foulness rushed up from below -
but it was also mental: the Old Ferenczy's telepathy, which in the brothers' case had skipped a
generation. And despite that they were not mentalists, still their father's power was such that
finally they 'heard' him: Only ask, my son . . . after you have sent me my tribute. But if the
message was simple, its delivery was dramatic. It reverberated in their heads like a shout, and
was accompanied by a tumult of tittering, crazed background 'voices' that were all their father's.
He had concentrated part of his mind on his answer, but the rest of it was engaged in its own
activity ... the way a madman might often seem calm on the outside, while in fact he seethes
within. And the many personalities of the thing - his diverse identities - were like a bickering,
uncontrollable, heckling audience to the efforts of the part which now attempted to communicate
with the world outside itself; in fact with the thing's son. Tony reeled at the rim of the pit;
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his brother caught his shoulder to steady him; the mental babble subsided, along with the 'echoes'
of their father's true or 'sane' voice. And: 'Dangerous!' Tony muttered. 'He isn't in control.'
'Or is he simply playing with us? Francesco scowled. 'His split-personalities, multi-identities:
it wouldn't be the first time he'd used them to confuse us . . .' Tony nodded, grimaced, and
called down: 'Father, plainly you are not yourself. The girl will keep, and we'll try again
later.' He made himself believe it - in his mind - in case his father was listening. But then, as
they reached for the metal platform hanging over the pit, as if to swing the girl aside: NO! came
that enormous mental grunt from below. NO, WAIT! And a moment later - less forcefully, almost
pleadingly now, as they paused - Does she come of her own free will? Is she pure? Is she . . .
clean? And the brothers grinned at each other, nodding in unison. For this time there had been no
background 'static,' no babble of crazed, secondary voices. When the thing in the pit desired it,
he could control himself and shut them out. Tony waited a moment, then said, 'She has no will. As
for purity: it's hard to find, father, in today's world. But clean? She's as clean as we can make
her, yes. Except . . .' Yessss? 'She knows things, which we would know. She's yours, but before
you use her, will you not first examine her? For us?' For a long moment there was silence, until:
But. . . why don't you examine her, my son? Before you give her to me? The old thing's mental
voice was sly now, wickedly intelligent. 'He knows,' Francesco grunted, coldly furious. 'He knows
that we can't ask her, that even the best drugs won't open her up, because she's been forbidden to
speak! Her mind's been tampered with, locked from inside, and only he can get in. And he knows
that, too! The old devil wants us to beg!' And: Oh, ha! ha! ha! laughed the thing, as the
'miasma,' his breath, thickened. Oh, but I hear and know you, my son, my . . . Francesco? The
laughter ceased and the mental voice turned cold as ice. And still you have no respect. . . 'Hah!'
Francesco scowled. 'He thinks he's a Don!' 'He was,' Tony reminded him. 'A Don of Dons, one of the
first. So don't annoy him; don't even think, but let me handle this!' And directing his thoughts
and voice into the pit: 'Father, it was you who gave word of a certain threat. We acted on your
word. For two centuries we have acted on it, and at last we have a lead. This girl has secret
knowledge, buried in her mind. Nothing we do will give us access. But you . . .?' And in a moment -
when they could almost hear the brain below working, and the body seething - / can do it, yessss!
'But will you?' Yessss! Send her down. 'She must not be wasted,' Tony cautioned. 'Her knowledge
can't be lost. It was risky bringing her here; we paid for her; we may never see another
opportunity like this. And always remember, father, what threatens us threatens you . . .' /
understand, yessss. Send her down. 'But you are hungry, we know, and occasionally . . . impatient?
And if-' SEND HER DOWN - NOW! There seemed nothing else for it. Francesco operated the gear to
open one flap of the grille, and together they manoeuvred the platform and girl into position over
the open half of the pit. Finally Tony broke an ampoule under her nose, and she groaned and shook
her head a little. But before she could wake up more fully, they sent her on her way to hell. Her
weight was measured on a dial on the control console. She sank skty, seventy, seventy-five feet. .
. and her weight became zero. 'Get it up!' Tony croaked, as Francesco reversed the gears. The
platform came up empty. But down below: Suddenly the mental emanations - the blasts of raw,
terrible emotion - were like a gale blowing in their heads! The brothers reeled, recovered,
quickly closed and activated the grille. While in their minds, despite that they were scarcely
gifted in the art, and that for once they were glad of it: Flesh, bone, and bloood! The openingsss
of her body, her face! The entrancesss to heaven, to hell! Oh, I am a monster! Yesss, for a man
could never do thisss! But I am not a man! I am Wamphyri! Wamphyyyrrriii! And above it all, a
scream, just one - but a shriek to end all shrieks -as the girl came awake and felt. . . what? Her
cry of shock, outrage, disbelief, was a sound to grate on the nerve endings forever. It came and
went, as her mouth, ears, nostrils and head entire were crammed full of the thing, filled to
brimming with him, as was her body. And not only the hammerblows of the Old One's thought
processes, but pictures to accompany them: of a creeping, flowing, foaming something, never a
human being, but with hands - oh, a great many -and mouths, and eyes, all converging on, soaking
into, and expanding within, the girl. Then the bloating, the stretching, the rending! And the mist
over the pit gradually turning pink, stinking where its molecules came in contact with the grille
. . . A while later the Francezcis were surprised to find themselves close, touching, trembling,
and slowly disengaged. Minutes had ticked by; the cavern was quiet again, or unquiet, and the
pit... was just a pit, an old well. Francesco looked at his brother quizzically, but Tony shook
his head. 'I won't, couldn't, talk to him right now. So let him rest. Later, maybe ..." But as
they made to pass out through the steel-barred door into the exit shaft: HE'LL BE UP! HE WILL BE
UP! HE WILL BE UP! It was almost a cry of triumph, but quickly turning to sick terror. H-h-he will
be up, yes - in just a few years, three, or four at most - and then . . . then he'll seek me out.
. . seek us out. . . seek us all out! 'Who will?' Tony tried to ask. But dazed as he was from the
mental blast, his voice was a croak. It made no difference, for he already knew, and his father
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had heard him anyway. Who? came a fading, awed, even frightened whisper in their minds. Who else
butRadu? Who but Radu Lykan, eh?! And then a ringing cry like a soul in torment, or one lost
forever in outer immensities: Raaaddduuu! And once again a whisper: Raaaddduuuuuu! . . . that
shivered into a shuddering silence. PART ONE THE NECROSCOPE . . HARRY KEOGH? A DEVIOUS THING
Getting up in the mornings was the worst of it, when he was obliged to leave his dreams behind.
For in his dreams he was usually himself, while in his real life the Necroscope Harry Keogh had
become someone else entirely. Or not entirely, for on the inside he was still him. But on the
outside . . . ... It was confusing, dizzying, frightening, maddening . . . especially maddening.
And not only for Harry but for his wife, too. Indeed, more so for Brenda, for she could not and
did not want to understand it; she only wanted things back as they had been. As for her baby son,
Harry Jr: well, who could say about that one? Who knew what he was thinking, planning, working on?
But then again, who but a fool or a lunatic would believe that an infant of eighteen or so tender
months was capable of working on anything? Oh, he worked on getting fed or changed or attended to
the same as any baby: by screaming for it. And he worked on collecting his audience of admirers
the same way, too: by burping and farting and smiling in that gormless-innocent way that
defenceless infants have, with their fat little faces seeming to slide off to one side, and their
eyes getting crossed, and the drool dripping down off their wobbly little chins. Completely
disarming, and utterly charming, of course. At a year and a half most of that was over now, but as
for defenceless.. Harry Jr was an angel - but one who had come face to face with the devil, and
won! Him and his father both. But that had been only one battle; the greater, bloodier wars were
still to come. Right now neither one of them knew that, however, which was just as well. Were it
otherwise, they might not want to go on. The future has good cause to guard its secrets . . . But
as his father was more than just any man, so Harry Jr was more than just any baby. It was when he
was being . . . well, the other thing -when his expression was other than a baby's, and his
thoughts more than the groping, fuddled demands or inquiries of an inchoate mind in an untrained
body - that the espers of E-Branch were especially interested in him. It was when they felt,
sensed, experienced the awesome, alien power washing out from him as he experimented, or did
whatever it was he did, that they knew for sure he wasn't merely a baby. And when those baby-blue
eyes of his lit with a far-away expression seen previously only in his father's eyes, and they
knew that he conversed with a teeming majority no one else but he and Harry Keogh could hear and
talk to ... Getting up mornings, the Necroscope would think of these things and, like Brenda,
remember when it had been very different; when the world was a different place and he'd been a
different person. It was easy to remember, for in his dreams he was still that other person. Hell,
he was that person, even when he was awake! But only on the inside; which is to say, inside his
head. For outside - in Harry's body and face and entire external appearance, and especially in the
mirror - he was someone else. A man called Alec Kyle. Which took some getting used to. That was
probably why he clung so tightly to his dreams and was reluctant to let them go: because they were
a form of wish-fulfilment, a place and a time when the world was a different world and the
Necroscope a different person; himself. This morning was the same, or should be ... For some,
especially the young, waking up to a new day is a renewal, like being born all over again: the
first day of the rest of their lives. Despite that Harry seemed to have done an awful lot of
living, he was still very young: twenty-one years old. But his body - or Alec Kyle's body - was
ten years older. And knowing that this was what he must always wake up to, Harry really didn't
want to. It wasn't that he was suicidal about it; the fact that he now inhabited an older and
alien body scarcely made him long for death, (not the Necroscope Harry Keogh, a man who'd had it
from the horse's mouth more than once what it actually felt like to be dead, who knew what it
really meant to be incorporeal!) It merely made him reluctant toward life, made it safer to be
asleep and dreaming- -Well, sometimes. It depended on what you were dreaming about. Currently he
was given to dream a recurrent theme of life (but his life, before all this) where, like the
proverbial drowning man, he clung to the straws of his past existence only to feel them grow
waterlogged and slip one by one from his straining fingers. Each straw was a scene from the times
he had known and the life he had lived, the chronological story of his oh-so-strange adventures.
So that like a drowning man facing his imminent, inescapable death, the dream-drowning Necroscope
saw it all skipping before his eyes like a scratched, comically accelerated, badly edited
monochrome film. His childhood in Harden, on the north-east coast of England, where he had
attended primary and secondary schools with the roughneck colliery kids; his retreat from the
mundane world of the living into the minds and 'lives' of the Great Majority; his secret being
discovered by Sir Keenan Gormley, then Head of E-Branch, and his subsequent return to 'the real
world' ... his acceptance of his condition, the fact of his unique talent, and his willingness to
use that talent by taking sides against the monstrous evils rooted in the USSR and Romania. And
superimposed on these accelerated glimpses out of the past, his lifelong relationship with Brenda,
file:///G|/rah/Brian%20Lumley/Brian%20Lumley%20-%20The%20Lost%20Years%20Volume%201.txt (10 of 208) [2/13/2004 10:21:09 PM]
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file:///G|/rah/Brian%20Lumley/Brian%20Lumley%20-%20The%20Lost%20Years%20\Volume%201.txtINTHEECHOINGCAVERNOFTHEPIT"Thisonemustnotbewasted,'AnthonyFrancezcicautionedhisunseenf\ather.'Herknowledgecan'tbelost.Wepaidforher,dearly.Wemayneverseeanotheropportu\nitylikethis.Andremember,Father:whatthreatensus...

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