happened, told him to bring her car, where to leave it, and where he would find his own car. And when he'd got that straight she said, 'And now it's up to you, John. Are you up to it?'
The weather's guid,' he answered, barely managing to contain his elation, 'and ah'll take the easy way up. Dinnae fret, mah Bonnie lass ... Auld John'11 be just fine! Why, ah believe ah'm even lookin' forward tae it - tae see Him again!'
'But the feeding, old friend, the feeding. You must promise me you'l be careful?'
'No need tae bother ye're mind,' he told her. 'Ah ken well enough. It's near His time and He'l be hungry. But ah'l be on mah guard.'
'Good. And make sure - make absolutely sure - that you're not followed. They may be onto you as wel, John!'
B.J. could picture his wolfish grin as he answered, 'Aye, but ah'm no so an easy target. And mah old shotgun's loaded wi' silver shot, as wel ye ken.'
'Good luck, then. And talk to me when it's done.'
'Be sure ah will.'
'So be it,' said Bonnie Jean, and put the 'phone down ...
EPILOGUE
It was stil the early hours of the morning in Dalwhinnie, in Scotland; but some two hours earlier in the Drakesh Monastery, on the Tingri Plateau, it had already been midday ...
The white-robed initiate whom Harry Keogh had seen tramping the white waste to the face in the rock was at last ready. Ready to face (as he saw it) his final challenge, the last rite of 'purification,' and long-awaited acceptance into the Drakesh Sect.
He had been cleansed of all earthly sins, all vices of the flesh, the mind and the soul. He had endured all the rigours of life in the monastery - its austerity, celibacy, secrecy; its lack of communication, which was forbidden - al of the self-denial of the brotherhood without being a part of that brotherhood, without its acceptance. In short, for the two long years that he had lived here ... he'd lived a lie.
For unknown to him and two others just like him, they were the only ones who had suffered the austerity, celibacy and silence.
As for the rest of the brothers: they had survived their initiations long ago. Now they had their Master, Daham Drakesh, to give them succour; now they bathed in the blood which is the life, the tainted blood of their own; now they had each other. Moreover, they had the women of the Drakesh Township: the produce of their farm and fields; the warmth of their cringing bodies (while yet they remained warm) in the dark of night; their blood, in however small a measure, to provide at least a taste of the feasts to come.
Ah, for their Master provided for them in this monotonous white wilderness no less than he would provide for them in the outside world, when at last it was his ... when it was theirs! And except that they must not impregnate the women - or drain them to death or undeath, or weaken them beyond their capacity to work - nothing was forbidden to the brothers. But the only, the ultimate, the unforgivable sin would be the denial of the vampire Lord Daham Drakesh himself. And its punishment ...
... But there were diverse ways in which sinners, or even innocent men - such as initiates - might serve in the monastery of Daham Drakesh.
This initiate - that figure in white whom the Necroscope had seen marching with three priests in front and three behind - was ready for his final ordeal. In the preceding two years he had fasted for weeks at a time; at other times he had survived on yak's milk, coarse bread, and pale honey. For a month now his diet had been such that he'd lost ten pounds in weight and now weighed a litle over one hundred and five pounds. And this was a young, previously healthy man of eighteen years.
His ordeals had been fasting, freezing, loneliness, celibacy (which scarcely counted, since he'd never known a woman in his life), self-denial, hard work - and fear. The last because there were ... sounds in the monastery, and an aura ...
Work had been the first, when for months he must toil to dig his own cavelet from the solid rock, because he was forbidden to have a bed until he had a place to put the bed. The rest had been likewise obligatory: he could only eat what