Necroscope: The Plague-Bearer Read Online Free PDF

depicted foreign lands—chiefly Romania and the mountains of Transylvania—while the pictures were mainly portraits.
    Hung sinistrally, anticlockwise, to represent the line of descent of the Francezci family (or at least its twin brothers, for it could only be them) there were at least two dozen of the latter dating from ancient times to the comparatively modern: a thousand or more years of the dynasty’s male offspring. And all of them—apart from their dress, their postures, the artistic styles of the various periods, and the natural aging and darkening of the earlier works—all of them looking amazingly similar if not exactly alike.
    After a while, angry at his treatment—that he’d been kept waiting like this, with his nerves on edge in the silence, the solitude of this large room—and as his eyes grew more fully accustomed to the dim lighting, Mike had decided he didn’t much like the way the faces in the portraits seemed to be staring at him. Rising, he had crossed the floor to take a scowling closer look at them. And that was when the Francezcis had appeared.
    From their picture on the wall to their physical presence, Mike saw immediately how right he had been. The twins, pale as they were, seemed paradoxically more darkly handsome than Mike himself; and it had been wholly obvious that they were the men in the most recent of the portraits. Indeed, they might easily have sat for all of the paintings! That last had been a fleeting thought…the young thug could scarcely have imagined it as a matter of fact.
    Without pause the brothers had then called him back to the table and waited for him to reseat himself before they commenced what he had imagined would be some sort of threatening interrogation or “interview;” but in any case a “frightener.”
    And one of the pair had opened with: “Mike Milazzo, as you are known. You know who we are—or if not, you will know soon enough. I’m Francesco Francezci and this is my brother Anthony. Your ill-advised activities, far too many of them, have come to our attention for our consideration. However, before we determine what’s to be done with you, do you have anything to say for yourself? Any excuses you might care to offer by way of explanation? Any redeeming features you think we should know of?”
    Looking from one to the other, Mike had suddenly found himself sneering. Why, these guys couldn’t be too many years older than he himself! And: “Godfathers, you?” he’d snorted, relaxing back into his chair. “I should explain myself—offer ‘excuses’—to you? Oh really?” Ha! Let the old men of the Sicilian Families kow-tow to such as these, but not Mike. Everything he had heard about the brothers—not that he’d heard a lot—what did it all add up to? Nothing much: a bunch of hooey was all! False gods, these guys, and nothing more.
    And as the brothers had glanced with raised eyebrows wonderingly, perhaps speculatively at each other, he had continued: “You’re like a pair of rich, spoiled snails, too scared to drag your shells into the light; scared that someone is going to see you, know you for what you really are: a pair of fucking frauds, that’s what! But Dons, Godfathers? Don’t make me laugh! I don’t know how you’ve conned the old Mob guys in Siracusa and Palermo all this time, but you don’t con Mike Milazzo. You two? Why you wouldn’t last twenty-four hours in America! So fuck having this little chat with you guys. Me, I’m out of here!”
    Daring, ridiculously bold, but Mike wasn’t just muscle. His senses had been honed by a short lifetime of danger in America; he’d been aware of furtive movement behind him, someone or ones moving closer, and he’d smelled again the expensive aftershave of the Francezci soldier who had lifted his gun from its underarm holster. His harangue had been provocative, insulting, and aggressive…but it had also had a purpose: to put those men behind him off guard, give them the wrong impression,