Deadspawn

Novel by Brian Lumley (England) 1991.

Fifth and last in a series, begun by Necroscope (1986). Strictly the final volume in the series, though followed itself by Vampire World, a sequel series begun by Blood Brothers (1992).

Harry Keogh the Necroscope is now a vampire, spurned by the teeming dead and hunted by his former employers, the British E-Branch. He takes on one last challenge before exiling himself to Starside, the vampire source world situated in a parallel universe on the other side of the Perchorsk gate. This challenge is to bring to justice a particularly vicious and talented murderer, necrophiliac and necromancer, who has already killed six young women. Meanwhile on Starside, Lord Shaithis of the wamphyri, exiled to the freezing Icelands after the abortive battle in The Source against Harry and his son (now reverted to a wolf), has discovered his ancestor, Shaitan the Unborn, and the two intend to reclaim their former territory at the expense of Harry and the wamphyri traitor Lady Karen.

By book five, the plot has become extremely complicated, not to say incestuous, certainly to the extent that a reader new to the series would probably become hopelessly confused pretty quickly. This one splits relatively neatly into various segments, though each are typically difficult to pigeonhole. Harry's hunt for the murdering necromancer is almost formula crime, though to be fair it is given a treatment far from conventional, as is E-Branch's hunt for Harry. Lord Shaithis' discoveries in the Icelands are more fantasy than horror, though they still contain some highly horrific scenes. Then there's the finale - where the two strands of plot tie together. Where most series would have died, Brian Lumley is still teeming with concepts and originality, and some of what he brings in here can only be described as cosmology and the quest for the true nature of God. Guest stars this time include a pretty cheeky attack on Pythagoras, Mobius and well... Satan himself. Once again, pretty unmissable stuff, and far from the norm. But be warned: read the series in order!