Necroscope

The librarian, perhaps three or four years younger than

Dragosani and obviously a little awed by his almost cosmopolitan appearance, seemed to be giving the matter a deal of consideration. He chewed his lip, frowned and was silent for long moments. But at last he said, 'If you'll take a look at them, you'll note that those catalogues I gave you are mainly hand-written and penned in one uniform hand throughout. And I've already told you that there's at least twenty years of work in them. Well, the man who did that work is still alive and lives not far away, in Titu. That's towards Bucharest, about twenty-five miles.'

'I know the place,' said Dragosani. 'I drove through here not half an hour ago. Do you think he could help me?'

'Oh, yes — if he wanted to.' That sounded cryptic. 'Well, go on — ?'

The librarian seemed unsure, looked away for a moment. 'Oh, I made a mistake two or three years ago, sent a couple of American "researchers" to see him. He wanted no truck with them, threw them out! A bit eccentric, you see? Since that time I'm more careful. We've had a good many requests of this nature, you understand. This "Dracula" thing is something of an industry, apparently, in the West. And it's this commercial aspect that Mr Giresci is anxious to avoid. That's his name, by the way: Ladislau Giresci.' 'Are you telling me that this man is an expert on vampirism?' Dragosani felt his interest quickening. 'Do you mean to say that he's been studying the legends, tracing their history through these documents, for twenty-odd years?'

'Well, among other things, yes, that's what I'm saying. It's been what you might call a hobby — or perhaps an obsession — with him. But a very useful obsession where the library has been concerned.'

Then I have to go and see him! It might save me a great deal of time and wasted energy.'

The librarian shrugged. 'Well, I can give you directions, and his address, but… it will be entirely up to him whether or not he'll see you. It might help if you took him a bottle of whisky. He's a great whisky man, when he can afford it — but the Scottish sort and not that filth they brew in Bulgaria!'

'You just give me his address,' said Dragosani. 'He'll see me, all right. Of that I can assure you.'

Dragosani found the place just as the librarian had described it, on the Bucharest road about a mile outside of Titu. On a small estate of wooden, two-storey houses set back from the road in a few acres of woodland, Ladislau Giresci's place was conspicuous by its comparative isolation. All of the houses had gardens or plots of ground surrounding them and separating them from their neighbours, but Giresci's house stood well away from all others on the rim of the estate, lost in a stand of pines, hedgerows run wild amid untended shrubbery and undergrowth.

The cobbled drive leading to the house itself had been narrowed by burgeoning hedges, where leafy creepers were throwing their tendrils across the cobbles; the gar dens were overgrown and slowly returning to the wilderness; the house was visibly affected by dry rot in a fairly advanced state, and wore an atypical air of almost total neglect. By comparison, the other houses on the estate were in good order and their gardens well maintained. Some small effort had been made at maintenance and repair, however, for here and there at the front of the house an old board had been removed and a new one nailed in place, but even the most recent of these must be all of five years old. The path from the garden gate to the front door was likewise overgrown, but Dragosani persisted and knocked upon panels from which the last flakes of paint were fast falling.

In one hand he carried a string bag containing a bottle of whisky bought from the liquor store in Pitesti, a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, some fruit. The food was for himself (his lunch, if nothing else was available) and the bottle, as advised, for Giresci. If he was at home. As Dragosani waited, that began to seem unlikely; but after knocking again, louder this time, finally he heard movement from within.

The figure which finally opened the door to him was male, perhaps sixty years of age, and fragile as a pressed flower. His hair was white — not grey but white, like a crest of snow upon the hill of his brow — and his skin was even paler than Dragosani's own, with a shine to it as if it were polished. His right leg was wooden, an old peg as opposed to any sort of modern prosthetic device, but he seemed to handle his disability with more than sufficient agility. His back was a little bent and he held one shoulder gingerly and winced when he moved it; but his eyes were keen, brown and sure, and as he enquired as to Dragosani's business his breath was clean and healthy.

'You don't know me, Mr Giresci,' said Dragosani, 'but I've learned something of you, and what I've learned has fascinated me. I suppose you could say I'm something of a historian, whose special interest lies way back in old Wallachia. And I've been told that no one knows the history of these parts better than you.'

'Hmm!' said Giresci, looking his visitor up and down. 'Well, there are professors at the university in Bucharest who'd dispute that — but I wouldn't!' He stood blocking the way inside, seemingly uncertain, but Dragosani noted that his brown eyes went again to the string bag and the bottle.

'Whisky,' said Dragosani. 'I'm partial to a drop and it's hard stuff to come by in Moscow. Maybe you'll join me in a glass — while we talk?'

'Oh?' Giresci barked. 'And who said we were going to talk?' But again his eyes went to the bottle, and in a softer tone: 'Scotch, did you say?'

'Of course. There's only one real whisky, and that's — '

'What's your name, young man?' Giresci cut him off. He still blocked the way into his house, but his eyes held a look of interest now.

'Dragosani. Boris Dragosani. I was born in these parts.'

'And is that why you're interested in their history? Somehow I don't think so.' From frank and open scrutiny, now his eyes took on a look of wary suspicion. 'You wouldn't be representing any foreigners, would you? Americans, for example?'

Dragosani smiled. 'On the contrary,' he said. 'No, for I know you've had trouble with strangers before. But I'll not lie to you, Ladislau Giresci, my interest is probably the same as theirs was. I was given your address by the librarian in Pitesti.'

'Ah?' said Giresci. 'Is that so? Well, he knows well enough who I'll see and who I won't see, so it seems your credentials must be all right. But let's hear it from you now — from your own lips — and no holding back: just what is your interest?'

'Very well' (Dragosani could see no way round it, and little point in hedging the matter anyway), 'I want to know about vampires.'

The other stared hard at him, seemed not at all surprised. 'Dracula, you mean?'

Dragosani shook his head. 'No. I mean real vampires. The vampir of Transylvanian legend — the cult of the Wamphyri!'

At that Giresci gave a start, winced again as his bad shoulder jumped, leaned forward a little and grasped Dragosani's arm. He breathed heavily for a moment and said: 'Oh? The Wamphyri, eh? Well — perhaps I will talk to you. Yes, and certainly I'd appreciate a glass of whisky. But first you tell me something. You said you wanted to know about the real vampire, the legend. Are you sure you don't mean the myth? Tell me, Dragosani: do you believe in vampires?'

Dragosani looked at him. Giresci was watching him keenly, waiting, almost holding his breath. And something told Dragosani that he had him. 'Oh, yes,' he said softly, after a moment. 'Indeed I do!' 'Hmm!' the other nodded — and stood aside. 'Then you'd better come in, Mr Dragosani. Come in, come in — and we'll talk.'

However dilapidated Giresci's place might look from outside, inside it was as clean and neat as any cripple living on his own could possibly keep it. Dragosani was pleasantly surprised at the sense of order he felt as he followed his host through rooms panelled in locally crafted oak, where carpets patterned in the old Slavic tradition kept one's feet from sliding on warmly glowing, age-polished pine boards. However rustic, the place was warm and welcoming — on the one hand. But on the other -