Free Necroscope 4: Deadspeak by Brian Lumley

that’s a fact, for I’ve tried to shoot him, too!”
    Vulpe began to translate, but in the middle of it the hunter started to laugh. “Hey! Hey!” he said. “Not so serious! And don’t take my threats too much to heart. Oh, I know my story’s a wild-sounding thing but it’s true all the same. Pay me for my time and trouble and come see for yourselves. Well, what do you say?”
    Vulpe held up a cautionary hand and Gogosu looked at it curiously in the moment before it was withdrawn. It had felt strange, that hand, when he’d grasped it. And there’d been something not quite right about it when Vulpe had clasped the gangling Armstrong’s shoulder. Also, Vulpe seemed shy about his hands and kept them out of sight most of the time. “Now wait,” said the young expatriate Romanian, reclaiming the hunter’s attention. “Let’s first see if we’re talking about the right place.”
    “The right place?” said Gogosu, puzzled. “And just how many such places do you think there are?”
    “I meant,” Vulpe explained, “let’s see if maybe we’ve heard of this castle of yours.”
    “I doubt it. You’ll not find it on any modern maps, and that’s for sure. I reckon the authorities think that if they leave it alone—if they just ignore it for long enough—then maybe it’ll finally crumble away! No, no, you’ve not heard of this place, I’m sure.”
    “Well, let’s check it out anyway,” said Vulpe. “You see, the deeds, territories and history of the original Dracula—I mean of the Wallachian prince from whom Dracula took his name—are well chronicled and absolutely authentic. An Englishman turned the fact into fiction, that’s all, and in so doing started a legend. Then there was a famous Frenchman who also wrote about a castle in the Carpathians, and possibly started a legend or two of his own. And finally an American did the same thing.
    “Now the thing is, this American—his name would mean nothing to you—has since become very famous. If we could find his castle … it could be the Dracula story all over again! Tourists? Ah, but you’d see some touristi then, Emil Gogosu! And who knows but that you’d be chief guide, eh?”
    Gogosu chewed the centre of his moustache. “Huh!” he finally snorted; but his eyes had grown very bright and not a little greedy. He rubbed his nose, finally said: “Very well, so what do you want to know? How can we decide if the castle I know and the one you’re looking for is one and the same, eh?”
    “It might be simpler than you think,” said Vulpe. “For example, how long has this place of yours been a ruin?”
    “Oh, it blew up before my time,” Gogosu answered with a shrug—and was at once astonished to see Vulpe give a great start! “Eh?”
    But already the American was translating to his friends, and astonishment and wonder were mirrored in their faces, too. Finally Vulpe turned again to the hunter. “Blew up, you say? You mean … exploded?”
    “Or bombed, yes,” said Gogosu, frowning. “When a wall falls it falls, but some of these walls have been blasted outwards, hurled afar.”
    Vulpe was very excited now, but he tried not to show it. “And did it have a name, this castle? What of its owner before it fell? That could be very important.”
    “Its name?” Gogosu screwed up his face in concentration. He tapped his forehead, leaned back in his chair, finally shook his head. “My father’s father had old maps,” he said. “The name of the place was on them. That’s where I first saw it and when I first decided to go and see it. But its name … it’s gone now.”
    Vulpe translated.
    “Maps like this one?” said Armstrong. He produced a copy of an old Romanian map and spread it on the table. It soaked up a little beer but otherwise was fine.
    “Like this one, aye,” Gogosu nodded, “but older, far older. This is just a copy. Here, let me see.” He smoothed the map out, stared at it in several places. “Not shown,” he said.