And dropping the accent: 'Harry, you will listen to me, and you will obey me. Is that understood?'
'Y-yes.'
And as quickly, as easily as that, she had taken command of his mind. It still seemed amazing to B.J. that control was so simple over a mind
she'd suspected of being so complex! And so far she'd used only the human side of her wil, while there was that in her which was much stronger and far and away superior to anything human. But now, because of the ultimately esoteric nature of what she must tell Harry -as a prelude to what Radu would eventualy instil into him - B.J. had need of that greater, alien strength of wil.
Again leaving their makeshift bed before the fire, she went to the patio windows and opened the curtains. High over the garden, a three-quarter-ful moon poured its silvery light on her, which pooled around her and turned her to an alabaster statue. She opened her arms wide, sighed, and reached up, letting the moonlight flood her psyche and drawing strength from it. And this time her metamorphosis was that much easier.
Colours flowed, flesh rippled, moved, rearranged. There sounded a crackle of static electricity as fur bristled, stood erect, and setled down on B.J. 's flanks. And drawing the curtains again, and faling to al fours, she went back to Harry.
And cradling him, and lusting after his flesh (but denying herself, because her lust was no longer sexual), she commanded that he open his eyes and gaze upon the glorious moon, and that he see only her eyes, in the moonlight flooding from his reading-lamp. Then, burning the message home with her furnace gaze, she told him what he must know if he was to go out into the world as the dog-Lord's spy, to seek out the Drakuls and the Ferenczys: knowledge he would retain in his innermost being without even realizing it was there. Likewise any information he might gather: no other would be privy to it - Harry himself would scarcely be aware of its existence - until B.J. or Radu Lykan drew it out of him.
And as her husky, she-wolfs voice coughed, rumbled and occasionaly whined through the long night hours, telling its truths, half-truths, and damned lies -mainly as she herself had heard the story from the dog-Lord Radu, and employing his mode of expression - so the Necroscope absorbed al that she told him, soaking it up as a bone-dry sponge soaks water ...
Haaaarry! Harry Keogh, listen to me. Listen, and remember all that I shall tell you. But these are secret things - this is secret knowledge - for you and you alone. Retain it, and use it when the time is right. But at other times forget it, lest it harm you irrepairably.
Harry, there is a world other than this world. A place, a space, other than ours. It has a name, SunsidelStarside, where there are men ... and other than men. There are barrier mountains, which keep the two races apart. Sunside of the mountains dwell men; Starside is home to the Wamphyri. The Wamphyri were men, but no longer. Now they are greater than men; they are the vampire Lords of a vampire world.
In the earliest times of the vampire world, Lord Shaitan of the Wamphyri was the greatest of the Starside Lords. The others rose up against him, and he defeated them. Many of them whom he took prisoner were executed in various ways; they were put into deep graves to stiffen to stones in the earth, or were banished into the bitter-cold Icelands. But others were thrown into the Starside Gate, which was thought to be the throat of a vampire hell. In fact it was a true Gate ... to this world, our world! Except having come here, they could not go back, for the Gate had closed behind them.
Among them who came through with their thralls were several of the vilest of men, creatures whose evil was quite beyond the imagining of mundane minds: the Drakul brothers, Karl and Egon, and Nonari the Gross Ferenczy. And these awesome Lords were destined to become the forebears of vampirism in this world, even as they had been among its first progenitors in Starside.
But there was one other who was banished with them, and He was honourable even among the Wamphyri, where true honour never existed. His name was Radu Lykan, a so-called - 'dog-Lord,' whose mistress was the moon, and whose shape and affinity