Wamphyri! Brian Lumley

Yulian called the women down into the main living room on the ground floor. It was totally dark in that room, but each present could see the others perfectly well. Like it or not, night was now their element. When they were assembled, Yulian seated himself beside Helen on a couch, waited a moment to be sure he had the full attention of the women, then spoke.

‘Ladies,’ he commenced, mockingly, his voice low and sinister, ‘it will soon be dawn. I can’t be certain but I rather fancy that it will be one of the last dawns you ever see. Men will come and they will try to kill you. That may not be easy, but they’re determined and they’ll try very hard.’

‘Yulian!’ His mother at once stood up, her voice shocked; fearful. ‘What have you done?’

‘Sit down!’ he commanded, glaring at her. She obeyed, but reluctantly. And when she was perched again on the edge of her chair, he said, ‘I have done what I must do to protect myself. And you all of you — shall be obliged to do likewise, or die. Soon.’

Helen, simultaneously fascinated and horrified by Yulian, her skin crawling with her fear of him, timorously touched his arm. ‘I shall do whatever you ask of me, Yulian.’

He thrust her away, almost hurled her from the couch. ‘Fight for yourself, slut! That is all I ask. Not for me but for yourself — if you desire to live!’

Helen cringed away from him. ‘I only —,

‘Only be quiet!’ he snarled. ‘You must fight for yourselves, for I shall not be here. I’m leaving with the dawn, when they’d least expect me to leave. But you three will remain. While you are here they may be fooled into thinking that I am still here.’ He nodded and smiled.

‘Yulian, look at you!’ his mother suddenly hissed, her voice venomous. ‘You were always a monster inside, and now you’re a monster outside, too! I don’t want to die for you, for even this half-life is better than none, but I don’t intend to fight for it. Nothing you can say or do shall make me kill to preserve what you’ve made of me!’

He shrugged. ‘Then you’ll die very quickly.’ He turned his eyes on Anne Lake. ‘And you, Auntie dear? Will you go to your maker so passively?’

Anne was wild-eyed, dishevelled. She looked mad. ‘George is dead!’ she babbled, her hands flying to her hair. ‘And Helen is. . . changed. My life is finished.’ She stopped fussing, leaned forward in her chair and glowered at Yulian. ‘I hate you!’

‘Oh, I know you do,’ he nodded. ‘But will you let them kill you?’

‘I’d be better off dead,’ she answered.

‘Ah, but such a death!’ he said. ‘You saw George go, Auntie dear, and so you know how hard it was. The stake, the cleaver, and the fire.’

She sprang to her feet, shook her head wildly. ‘They wouldn’t! People. . . don’t!’

‘But these people do,’ he gazed at her wide-eyed, almost innocently, aping her expression. ‘They will, for they know what you are. They know that you’re Wamphyri!’

‘We can leave this place!’ Anne cried. ‘Come on, Georgina, Helen we’ll leave right now!’

‘Yes, go!’ Yulian snapped, as if done with them, utterly sick of them. ‘Do go, all of you. Leave me — go now. .

They looked at him uncertainly, blinking their yellow eyes in unison. ‘I won’t stop you,’ he told them with a shrug. He got to his feet, made to leave the room. ‘No, not I. But they will! They’ll stop you dead! They’re out there now, watching — and waiting.’

‘Yulian, where are you going?’ His mother stood up, looked as if she might even try to take hold of him, detain him. He forced her back with nothing but a growl of warning, swept by her.

‘I have preparations to make,’ he said, ‘for my departure. I imagine that you, too, will have certain final things you want to do. Prayers to some non-existent god, perhaps? Cherished photographs to look at? Old friends and lovers to remember, while you may?’ And sneering, he left them to their own devices.

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