Necroscope V Deadspawn - By Brian Lumley Page 0,82

a Lord of the Wamphyri: he hosted a vampire in his body and brain, while his captives were merely human. Or were they? For even now there was that defiant something in their bearing which in itself might almost be ... Wamphyri? Then Shaithis saw their eyes and knew the astonishing truth.

Ah! And how was this for revenge? For there is nothing so delightful to a vampire than to torment, torture and tap the life fluids of another or others of his own kind. And: 'Dweller,' Shaithis said, his voice so softly threatening it was almost a whisper. 'Dweller, come, take off your golden mask. For I know you now even as I should have known you right from the start. Ah, but your "magic" had me fooled just as it fooled us all. Magic? Hah! No such thing - but the true art of the great vampire! For who else but a master of every Wamphyri talent - aye, and then some - would dare to wage a one-man war against all the great Lords that were? And who else but the most crafty - ah, crafty vampire - might ever have won such a war?'

The Dweller made no answer but simply stood there in his loosely flowing robes and golden mask, behind which his red eyes burned. And Shaithis, believing he saw terror in those half-hidden eyes, smiled a grim smile. Oh, yes, for whether or not there was terror there now, he knew that there would be soon enough.

As for the other prisoner: Shaithis would never forget this one! For not only was he a hell-lander but also The Dweller's father, who had stood side by side with his son in the devastating battle at the garden, when the Wamphyri had been swatted out of Starside's skies and crushed like so many gnats. What was more, when the fighting was over and all the great aeries of the Wamphyri had been levelled (all bar the bitch Karen's), Shaithis had seen this one with that selfsame 'Lady' in these very chambers: Karen's 'private' chambers, as they had been at that time, so that Shaithis had wondered: Are they lovers?

Well, perhaps they had been and perhaps not. It could be that they'd simply been allies against Shaithis and his army of Wamphyri Lords, and as a reward for her part in his defeat her aerie had been spared; but only to become Shaithis's in the fullness of time, as everything else had become Shaithis's. He supposed that one way or the other it made little difference, except that for some ill-defined reason he really would like to know whether or not this hell-lander had known Karen and been in her. Well, that was a question he could resolve easily enough.

She sprawled beside the bone-throne where he had left her, and now he called out: 'Karen, come to me.' She made to stand up but he added quickly: 'No, crawl!'

Luscious body oiled and gleaming in the light of flaring flambeaux, with only her golden bangles and rings to cover a figure which her vampire had made irresistible, she obeyed. Her great bush of pubic hair was a glistening copper tangle; the stains of her aureoles and spiked nipples were dark as bruises against the pale loll of her pendulous breasts; even proceeding in the undignified, animal fashion which Shaithis demanded, still her lithe loveliness could not be disguised.

When she was close to him, then Shaithis reached down quickly and bunched the mass of her red hair in his hand, jerking back her head and yanking her to her feet. She made no sound, no protest, but The Dweller leaned forward a little - a strange attitude or posture, like a dog balanced on its hind legs - and Shaithis thought he heard a low growl rumbling behind the mask. Had he aroused The Dweller's passions? And if so, what about those of his hell-lander father?

Now, still holding Karen upright, so that she stood upon her crimson-nailed toes, Shaithis deliberately looked away from The Dweller and into the strange, sad eyes of his puny-looking father. He cocked his great head on one side enquiringly. 'And so you're the hell-lander who caused me so much trouble in the garden, eh? Well, little man, it strikes me that you and your son were lucky that time, and that if you're the best they have going for them beyond the sphere Gate, then it's high time the Wamphyri went through into the hell-lands and