Finally he propped himself up on his side, glared his hate at the black earth which now steamed and smoked as the vapours of hell rose up from it. Cracks appeared in the sub-soil which Dragosani had cleared. The earth bulged upward, began to break open. Something thrust up from below. Then –
That same something sat up – and it was something unbelievable!
Dragosani’s lips drew back from his teeth in an involuntary snarl of loathing, and in terror! For this was the Thing in the ground. This was what he had talked to, argued with, cursed and profaned time and time again. This was Thibor Ferenczy, the undead embodiment of his own bat-devil-dragon banner. But worse, it was what Dragosani had doomed himself one day to become!
The thick ears of the thing grew close to its head but were pointed and projected slightly higher than the elongated skull, giving the appearance of horns. Its nose was wrinkled and convoluted, like that of a great bat, and squat to its face. Its skin was of scale and its eyes were scarlet, like a dragon’s. And it was . . . big! The hands where they now appeared and clawed at the soil at its waist were huge, with nails projecting all of an inch beyond the fingers.
Dragosani finally fought back his terror and forced himself to his feet – just as the vampire turned its strangely wolfish head to fix him with a monstrous, almost
startled stare. And its eyes opened wide as their scarlet light fell on him where he tottered. ‘I … I CAN SEE . . . YOU!’ said Thibor then, his risen voice as evil and alien as any of his mental sendings from the tomb. But the statement seemed in no way threatening; it was more as if the fact of sight – and in particular of seeing Dragosani – in some way brought to the creature a mixed measure of relief and disbelief. Whichever, the necromancer cringed back and down; but in that same moment:
I ‘Ho, Thing from the earth!’ said Max Batu, stepping out from cover.
” Thibor Ferenczy’s head shot round on his neck in the direction of the Mongol’s voice. Seeing Batu where he stood, his great dog’s jaws fell open and he hissed from between teeth like blades of bone which dripped slime. And without pause Batu took one look at that face, then aimed and fired Ladislau Giresci’s crossbow.
The lignum vitae bolt was five-eighths of an inch thick and steel-tipped. It sprang from the weapon and plunged at almost point-blank range into and through the vampire’s heaving chest, transfixing him.
Thibor gave a hissing shriek and tried to draw himself back down into the steaming earth, but the bolt jammed in the sides of the hole and prevented him, tearing his grey flesh. He gave a second shriek then – a soul-wrenching thing to hear – and tossed himself to and fro with the bolt still in him, cursing and spewing out slime from his chomping, grimacing mouth.
Batu loped quickly to Dragosani’s side, supported him, handed him a full-sized sickle whose edge gleamed silver from a recent sharpening. The necromancer took it, shook Batu off, staggeringly advanced upon the struggling monster trapped half-in, half-out of its grave.
‘The last time they buried you,’ he gasped, ‘they made one big mistake, Thibor Ferenczy.’ And the muscles of is neck and arm bunched as he drew back the sickle. ‘They left your fucking head on!’
The monster tugged at the shaft in its chest, stared at Dragosani with a look beyond his comprehension. There was something of fear in it, yes, but more than this there was that baffled astonishment, as if the beast could not take in or understand this sudden reversal.
‘WAIT!’ it croaked as he drew close, the cracked bass sound of its voice like so many saplings snapping in an avalanche. ‘CAN’T YOU SEE? IT’S ME!!!’
But Dragosani didn’t wait. He knew who and what the monster was, knew also that the only real way he could inherit its knowledge, its powers, was this way: as a necromancer. Yes, and such a wonderful irony in it, for Thibor himself had given him the gift! ‘Die, you bastard Thing!’ he snarled, and the sickle became a blur of steel as it sheared the monster’s head from its trunk.