Necroscope: The Plague-Bearer by Brian Lumley

choice!” Francesco had then growled. “Except to knock you out. But in fact we did have a choice: We could have killed you outright and thrown you into the pit…or not killed you but thrown you in there anyway! Which in the end would be the same but even more…unpleasant. Thank your lucky stars that you’re not down there even now!”
    At which, once again, Anthony had taken over from his twin. “You see, Mike, we’ve decided to give you one more chance—one last chance—which is why you’re chained instead of suffering the worst true death that any undead man could possibly imagine. So then, you’re still alive, at least for now, but nevertheless shackled. Why? Because you are too quick off the mark and there may still be a little fight left in you. And if you continue to give us trouble…but no, for we have taken measures to ensure that can’t happen.” From a pocket in his long black coat he had then produced a hypodermic syringe, tapped it twice with a sharp fingernail, and squeezed the plunger to eject a few droplets of glistening fluid.
    And: “No,” Anthony had continued, stabbing the needle into Mike’s arm through the expensive materials of his soiled jacket and sweat-stained shirt, “we can’t afford to have you fight us, for then we’d be obliged to kill you and be done with it! Which would ruin our plans for you. Wherefore, this:” And he had held up the hypodermic again, to let Mike see that it was empty now. “You scarcely felt it at all, did you? A mere bee sting, right? From which you feel no ill effect whatever. Not yet, anyway…”
    Then it had been Francesco’s turn. And his voice had gurgled like thick oil draining from a sump—gurgled with perverse pleasure—when he asked, “Do you recognize the word ‘bubonic,’ Mr. Milazzo? And, in relation to that needle, can you guess the word’s significance? Oh yes! Indeed you can! I see by your suddenly bulging eyes and twitching lips that you know exactly what I’m telling you! But are you also aware that the bubonic plague is yet another way, one of the cruellest ways, for the likes of us, or rather, on this occasion the likes of you, to suffer the true death? What, you didn’t know that? Well now you do!”
    At which Anthony, not to be denied some measure of the sadistic pleasure enjoyed by his twin, had explained that Mike had less than a fortnight to seek an antidote in Bulgaria; to visit their agent there, a man known only as “The Chemist,” who would supply him with the cure and certain instructions, before sending him off to complete his assignment in Edinburgh, Scotland.
    “But of course,” Anthony had added as if on an afterthought, “if you should foolishly decide not to follow our orders or The Chemist’s instructions, then you’ll surely die—in agony! And if you should think to attempt any more ridiculous heroics here at Le Manse Madonie…there’s always the pit. But for now, if all I’ve said is understood, I shall unchain you. Then when you are feeling a little better, my brother and I will explain something of the task you’ll perform for us in Edinburgh.
    “So then, is all clearly understood?”
    After Mike had nodded his aching head, and croaked a single word: “Yes,” in reply, Anthony had unlocked his shackles, letting him crumple to the floor. And in a little while, as some of the stiffness went out of Mike’s joints, a pair of the brothers’ vampire thralls had come to help him move to a more comfortable room in Le Manse Madonie’s upper quarters, leaving him there to consider all that he’d been told and wait for the Francezcis to supply him with the rest of their instructions, his orders.
    But with what he had supposed was a deadly poison, a veritable plague coursing in his veins, each minute Mike waited had felt like an hour…
     

     
    Mike had been given “less than a fortnight,” perhaps twelve or thirteen days, to visit The Chemist in Bulgaria, obtain an antidote for his alleged