Necroscope II Wamphyri(Vampyri) - By Brian Lumley Page 0,115

guide you, Harry! she said at once. It's only since you came that we've all been able to... well, get together again. We all owe you so much.

'If I may,' Harry answered, 'I'll come back and talk to you again some time. Meanwhile, I'm afraid I've no time to spare. What are your brothers called?'

They are Jahn and Dmitri Syzestu, she said. Wait and I'll call them for you. She called, and in a moment her brothers answered. They were very faint, like voices on a telephone from the other side of the world. Harry was introduced.

'Just keep talking to me,' he told the brothers, 'and I'll find my way to you.'

He excused himself from the company of his friends in the Hartlepool cemetery, found a space-time door and passed through it into the Mobius continuum. 'Jahn, Dmitri? Are you still there?'

We're here, Harry, and we're honoured to be able to help you like this.

He homed in on them, emerged through another door into the grey Romanian dawn. He found himself in a field of grass beside a pock-marked wall fast crumbling into ruins. There were ponies in the field but of course they couldn't see him; they just stood still, shivering a little, their coats shining with drops of dew. Plumes of warm air came snorting from their nostrils like smoke. In the distance, the last lights of a town were blinking out as the sun rose on the eastern horizon.

'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? Anna Syzestu repeated. Why that's nought but fifty kilometres or so away! What's more, we've friends buried there! She was plainly proud to be of assistance to the Necroscope. Greta, can you hear?

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

There you are! said Anna Syzestu, in a told-you-so tone. If you want to meet someone in Titu, ask Greta Mirnosti. She knows everyone!

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