TEXT: IN THE ECHOING CAVERN OF THE PIT
  "This one must not be wasted,' Anthony Francezci cautioned his unseen father. 'Her knowledge can't be lost. We paid
  for her, dearly. We may never see another opportunity  like this. And remember, Father: what threatens  us  threatens
  you ...'
  I understand, yesss. Send her down.
  'But you are hungry, we know, and occasionally ... impatient? And if—'
  —SEND HER DOWN ... NOW!
  There was nothing else for it. Franeesco Francezci operated the machinery, and together the brothers manoeuvred
  the platform and girl into position over the pit. Finally Anthony  broke an ampoule under her nose, and she groaned a
  little. But before she could wake up more fully, they sent her on her way to hell.
  Her weight was measured on a dial. She sank sixty, seventy, seventy-five feet... She must surely be awake by now ...
  And suddenly her weight became zero.
  'Get  it  up!'  Anthony  croaked,  as  Franeesco  reversed  the  gears.  The  platform  came  up  empty.  While  from  down
  below—
  —A shriek to end all shrieks!
  Also by Brian Lumley in New English Library paperback
  Dagon's Bell and Other Discords The Second Wish and Other Exhalations
  Necroscope: The Lost Years
  Volume I
  Brian Lumley
  About the author
  Brian Lumley is the internationally bestselling author of the Necroscope and Vampire World series. A career British
  Army Military Policeman for over twenty years, he has been a full-time writer  since  leaving  the  army.  He lives in
  Torquay, South Devon.
  i
  NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY Hodder and Stoughton
   
  Copyright © 1995 by Brian Lumley
  First published in 1995 by Hodder and Stoughton A division of Hodder Headline PLC
  First published in paperback in 1996 by Hodder and Stoughton
  A New English Library paperback
  The right of Brian Lumley to be identified as the Author of
  the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
  10 9 8 7 6 5 4
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
  reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
  
  in any form or by any means without the prior written
  permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated
  in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
  it is published and without a similar condition being
  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
  All characters in this publication are fictitious
  and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
  is purely coincidental.
  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
  ISBN 0 340 64962 3
  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire
  Hodder and Stoughton
  A division of Hodder Headline PLC
  338 Euston Road
  London NW1 3BH
  For Bonnie Jane Johnson, who took me to new heights, and Zahanine for her name's sake (if not her
  namesake); but mostly for Silky — so necessary to my way of life ...
  CONTENTS
  HARRY KEOGH: A Resume and Chronology
  1
  PROLOGUE                                                                                    9
  PART ONE: The Necroscope . . . Harry Keogh?
  25
  CHAPTER I:    A Devious Thing
  27
  CHAPTER II:   But where is Harry Keogh?
  41
  CHAPTER III: Dead Reckoning
  57
  CHAPTER IV: Keenan Gormley, and Other Victims
  72
  CHAPTER V:   R. L. Stevenson Jamieson,
  and his Brother ...
  88
  CHAPTER VI: ...  And One Other
  103
  PART TWO: Searching
  CHAPTER I: For Brenda, and for Himself
  119
  CHAPTER II: B.J.'s 136
  CHAPTER III: Home with Bonnie Jean 151
  CHAPTER IV: .Harry: Weird Warnings.
  Bonnie Jean: She Wonders and Worries.
  166
  ',
  CHAPTER V:   Harry: Presentiments and Precautions.
  Bonnie Jean: The Route to the Lair.
  182
  '.
  PART THREE: Vampire Genesis
  «
  CHAPTER I:    Shaitan: His Rise and Fall.
  Canis Sapiens: The Werewolf Connection.
  201
  i
  CHAPTER II:   Changeling!                                                      218
  !                 CHAPTER III: Red Revenge!                                                  232
  247
  264
  HARRY KEOGH
  281
  298
  314
  331
  346
  CHAPTER IV: Baled - To Earth! CHAPTER V:   Dreams in Resin
  PART FOUR: Wamphyri: Ancient and Modern
  
  CHAPTER I:    More of Radu's Story.
  Bonnie Jean: She Visits her Master
  CHAPTER II:   Bonnie Jean: Her Duties.
  The Dog-Lord: His Solution
  CHAPTER III: A Picture of the Mind,
  A Photograph of the Future
  CHAPTER IV: Darcy's Target.
  Bonnie Jean at Harry's.
  CHAPTER V:   One of the other ways.
  Truths, Half-truths and damned lies.
  A R£SUM£ AND CHRONOLOGY
  365
  381
  398
  416
  PART FIVE: Manse and Monastery: Aeries!
  CHAPTER I:    Bonnie Jean: Birthday Party. Harry: Getting in Shape, and Funding his Search.
  CHAPTER II:   Daham Drakesh-
  Le Manse Madonie - Dead Silence
  CHAPTER III: Humph, and others.
  In the Vaults Beneath.
  CHAPTER IV: The Pit-Thing -
  The Climb - The Example
  437
  454
  PART SIX: Harry Keogh, Catalyst
  CHAPTER I:    The Calm Before the Storm CHAPTER II:   'It Begins ...'
  EPILOGUE
  473
   
  C
  hristened  'Snaith'  in  Edinburgh  in  1957,  the  infant  Harry  was  the  son  of  a  psychic  sensitive  mother,  Mary  Keogh
  (herself the daughter of a gifted expatriate Russian lady), and Gerald Snaith, a banker. Harry's father died of a stroke a
  year later, and in the winter  of  1960  his  mother  remarried,  this  time  to  a  Russian  dissident,  Viktor  Shukshin.  In  the
  winter  of  '63  Shukshin  murdered  Harry's  mother  by  drowning  her  under  the  ice  of  a  frozen  river;  he  escaped
  punishment by alleging  that  while  skating  she'd  crashed  through  the  thin  crust  and  been  washed  away.  Shukshin
  inherited her isolated Bonnyrig house and the not inconsiderable monies left to her by her first husband.
  Within six months the young Harry 'Keogh' had gone to live with an uncle and his wife at Harden on the north-east
  coast of England, an arrangement that was more than satisfactory to Viktor Shukshin, who could never stand the child.
  Harry commenced schooling with the roughneck kids of the colliery; but a dreamy and introspective sort of boy, he
  was a loner, developed few friendships - not with his fellow pupils, anyway - and thus fell easy prey to bullying. Later,
  as he grew towards his teens, Harry's daydreaming spirit, psychic insights  and instincts  led him into further conflict
  with his teachers.
  His problem was that he had inherited his maternal forebears' mediumistic talents, which were developing in him to
  an extraordinary degree. He had no requirement for 'real' or physical companions as such, because the many friends he
   already had were more than sufficient and willing to supply  his every need. As to who his friends were - they were
  the myriad dead in their graves!
  Up against the school bully, Harry defeated him with the telepathi-cally communicated skills of an Kt-ex-Army physical training
  instructor, an expert in unarmed combat. Punished with maths homework, he received extra tuition from an ex-Headmaster
  of the school. But here
  4
  Brian Lumley
  he  required  only  a  little  help,  for  in  fact  he  was  something  of  a  mathematician  himself.  Except  Harry  leaned  more
  
  towards the metaphysical; his intuitive grasp of numbers was lateral to the point of sidereal; his numeracy was as alien
  to mundane science as his telepathic intercourse with the dead was to speech.
  In 1969 Harry gained entry into a technical college, and until the end of his formal (and orthodox) education, did his best to
  tone  down the use of  his  extraordinary  talent-and  be  a  'normal,  average  student.'  Aware  that  he  must  soon  begin  to
  support himself, he began writing, and by the time his schooling was at an end several short  pieces of his fiction had
  seen print.
  Three  years  later,  he  finished  his  first  novel,  Diary  of  a  17th-Century  Rake.  While  the  book  fell  short  of  the
  bestseller lists, still it did well. It wasn't so much a sensation  for its storyline as for its historical authenticity;  hardly
  surprising considering the qualifications of Harry's co-author and collaborator - namely a 17th-century rake, shot  dead
  by an outraged husband in 1672!
  By the summer of 1976, Harry had his own unassuming top-floor flat in an old three-storey  house  on the coast  road
  out  of  Hartlepool  towards  Sunderland.  Perhaps  typically,  the  house  stood  opposite  one  of  the  town's  oldest
  graveyards;  Harry was never short  of  friends  to  talk  to.  But  by  then,  too,  his  headmaster  of  a  few  years  ago  had
  discovered his grotesque secret, and passed it on to others more secretive yet . . .
  Blithely  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  he  was  now  under  wary  scrutiny,  Harry  let  his  talent  develop.  He  was  the
  Necroscope, the only man who could talk to the dead and befriend them. Now that his weird talent was fully formed,
  he  could  converse  with  exanimate  persons  even  over  great  distances;  once  introduced  to  a  member  of  the  Great
  Majority, thereafter he could always contact him again. With Harry, however, it was a point of common decency that
  whenever possible he would physically attend them at their gravesides; he wasn't one to 'shout' at his friends.
  In their turn (and in return for his friendship), Harry's dead people loved him. He was like a pharos among them, the one shining
  light in an otherwise eternal darkness, their observatory  on a world  they'd  thought  left  behind  and  gone  forever.  For
  contrary  to  the  beliefs  of  the  living,  death  is  not  The  End  but  a  transition  to  incorporeality  and  immobility.  Great
  artists,  when  they  die,  continue  to  visualize  magnificent  canvases  they  can  never  paint;  architects  plan  fantastic,
  continent-spanning cities, that can never be built; scientists follow up research they commenced in life but never had
  time to complete . . .
  At  his  flat  in  Hartlepool,  when  he  wasn't  working,  Harry  entertained  his  childhood  sweetheart,  Brenda.  Shortly,
  finding herself pregnant, she became his wife. But a shadow out of the Necroscope's  past  was rapidly becoming  an
  obsession. He brooded over dreams of his poor
  Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vol. I
  5
  drowned mother, and in nightmares revisited the  frozen  river  where  Mary  Keogh  had  died  before  her  time.  Finally,
  Harry resolved to take revenge on his evil stepfather. In this  as  in  all  things  he  had  the  blessings  of  the  dead,  for
  knowing only too well the horror of death, cold-blooded murder was a crime the teeming dead could never tolerate.
  In the winter of 1976-77 Harry tempted Viktor Shukshin out onto the ice of the frozen river to skate with him, as once
  the murderer had skated with his mother. But his plan backfired and they both crashed through the ice into the bitterly
  cold water. The Russian had the strength of a madman; he would surely drown his stepson  . . . but no, for at the last
  moment Mary Keogh - or what remained of her - rose from her watery grave to drag her murderer down!
  And  with that Harry had discovered a new talent; or rather, he now knew how  far  the  teeming  dead  would  go  in
  order to protect him - knew that in fact they would rise from their graves for him . . .
  The  Necroscope's  weird  abilities  had  not  gone  unnoticed;  a  top-secret  British  intelligence  organization  known  as
  E-Branch ('£' for 'ESP' or ESPionage), and its Soviet counterpart, were both aware of his powers. But he was no sooner
  approached to join E-Branch than its head, his contact, was taken out, 'with extreme prejudice,' by Boris Dragosani, a
  Romanian spy  and necromancer. Dragosani's terrible 'talent' lay in ripping open the bodies of dead enemy agents  to
  steal their secrets right out of their violated brains, blood, and guts!
  Harry vowed to track Dragosani down and even the score, and the Great Majority offered him their help. Of course
  they did, for even the dead weren't safe from a man who violated corpses!  What Harry and his friends couldn't know
  was that Dragosani had been infected with vampirism. What was more, he had murdered a colleague, the Mongol Max
  Batu, to learn the secret of his evil eye. The necromancer could now kill at a glance!
  Time was short; Harry must follow the vampire back to the USSR, to Soviet E-Branch Headquarters at the Chateau
  Bronnitsy south of Moscow, and there put him down . . . but how? A British 'precog' - an esper whose talent enabled
  him to scan fragments of the future - had foreseen the Necroscope's involvement not only with vampires but also with
  the twisted figure 8 or 'eternity' symbol of the Mobius Strip. In order to get to Dragosani, Harry first must understand
  the Mobius connection. But here at least he was on familiar ground;  the astronomer and mathematician August  Ferdinand
  Mobius had been dead since 1868 - and the dead would do anything for Harry Keogh . . .
  In Leipzig Harry visited Mobius's grave and discovered him at work on his space-time equations. What he had done in
  life he continued,
  Brian Lumley
  Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vol. I
   
  undisturbed,  to  do  in  death;  and  in  the  course  of  a  century  he  had  reduced  the  physical  universe  to  a  set  of
  mathematical symbols. Mobius knew how to bend space-time! Teleportation: an easy route into the Chateau Bronnitsy.
  For days  Mobius instructed  Harry, until the Necroscope was sure that the answer lay right there in front of  him  -
  
  just an inch beyond his grasp. But the East German GREPO (the Grenz Polizei) were watching him, and on the orders of
  Dragosani tried to arrest him at Mobius's  graveside . . . where suddenly  Mobius's  equations  transformed themselves
  into doorways into the strange  immaterial universe of the Mobius Continuum!  Using  one  of  these  doors  to  escape
  from the GREPO, finally Harry was able to project himself into the grounds of Soviet E-Branch HQ.
  Calling  up  from  their  graves  an  army  of  long-dead  Crimean  Tartars,  the  Necroscope  destroyed  the  chateau's
  defences, then sought out and killed Dragosani. But in the fight he, too, was killed . . .  his body  died; but in the last
  moment his mind, his will, transferred to the metaphysical Mobius Continuum.
  And  riding  the  Mobius  Strip  into  future  time,  Harry's  identity  was  absorbed  into  the  as  yet  unformed  infant
  mentality - of his own son!
  August 1977
  Drawn to Harry Jr's all-absorbing mind like an iron filing to a magnet, Harry Keogh's identity was in danger of being
  entirely subsumed and wiped clean. His only avenue of freedom lay in the Mobius Continuum, which he could only use when his
  infant  son  was  asleep.  But  while  exploring  the  infinite  future  timestream,  Harry  had  noted  among  the  myriad  blue
  life-threads of Mankind a scarlet thread: another vampire! Worse than this, in the near future he'd seen that red thread
  crossing the innocent blue of young Harry's!
  The Necroscope investigated. He was incorporeal, yes, but so were the teeming dead; he could still communicate
  with them, and they were still in his debt. In September of 1977 he  spoke  to  the  spirit  of  Thibor  Ferenczy  -  once  a
  vampire - at his tomb in the Carpathian Mountains;  also to Thibor's 'father', Faethor Ferenczy, who died in  a  World
  War II bombing raid on Ploiesti.
  Harry  was  cautious.  Even  when  dead,  vampires  are  the  worst  possible  liars,  devious  beyond  measure.  But  the
  Necroscope had nothing to lose (literally), and the vampires had much to gain; Harry was their last contact  with a world they had
  once  planned  to  rule.  Thus,  by  trial  and  error,  playing  oh  so  dangerous  cat-and-mouse  word-games  with  the
  Wamphyri, he pieced together the terrible truth: that in the late 1950s Thibor had 'infected' a pregnant  English woman,
  Georgina  Bodescu,  who  later  gave  birth  to  a  son.  And  Thibor's  spawn,  Yulian  Bodescu,  was  the  source  of  the
  threatening red thread!
  In Romania, Alec Kyle and Felix Krakovitch,  current  heads  of  their  respective  ESP-ionage  rings,  joined  forces  to
  destroy the remains of Thibor in his Carpathian mausoleum. There they burned a monstrous  remnant of the vampire,
  but not before Thibor sent  Yulian a dream-message and a warning. Thibor had  hoped  to  use  his  English  'son'  as  a
  vessel  in which to  rise  up  again  and  resume  his  vampire  existence.  But  since  his  last  physical  vestiges  were  now
  destroyed, instead he would use him to take revenge on the Necroscope, Harry Keogh.
  As for killing Keogh: that should be the very simplest of things. The Necroscope was incorporeal, a bodiless id, his
  own infant son's sixth sense. Only remove the child and the father would go with him . . .
  Meanwhile  in  the  USSR,  Alec  Kyle  stood  falsely  accused  of  murder.  Russian  espers  were  using  a  combination  of  high
  technology and ESP to drain him of knowledge . . . literally  all  knowledge!  This  process  would  leave  him  raped  of  his
  mind, brain-dead, and physical death would soon follow. And in England Yulian Bodescu was on the prowl. Intent on
  destroying Harry Jr, he headed for Hartlepool.
  His trail was bloody and littered with dead men when finally he entered the house  where Brenda Keogh lived and
  climbed the stairs to her garret flat. The mother tried to protect her small child . . . she was hurled aside! . . . Harry Jr
  was awake; his mind contained Harry Keogh . . .  the monster was upon them, powerful hands reaching!
  Harry could do nothing. Trapped in the infant's whirlpool id, he knew that they were both going to die. But then:
  Go, little Harry told him. Through you I've learned what I had to learn. I don't need you that way any longer. But I do need you as a father. So
  go on, get out, save yourself! Harry was free; the mental attraction binding him to his son's  mind had been relaxed; he
  could now flee into the Mobius Continuum.
  And what the father could do, the son  could do in spades;  he was a Necroscope of enormous power! And in the
  cemetery just  across  the  road,  the  dead  answered  Harry  Jr's  call.  They  came  up  out  of  their  graves,  shuffled  and
  flopped  from  the  graveyard  into  the  house  and  up  the  stairs.  Bodescu  the  vampire  attempted  his  first  and  last
  metamorphosis: adopting the shape of a great bat, he flew from a window . . . and took a crossbow bolt in his spine.
  And as he crashed down within the grounds of the cemetery, so the incorporeal Necroscope instructed  the dead in
  the methods of eradication: the stake, decapitation, the cleansing fire . . .
  Harry Keogh was free, but free to do what? He was a mind without a body. Except he now felt  a  different  force,  an
  attraction other than his infant son's magnet id, a vacuum seemingly eager to be filled. Exploring
  8
  Brian Lumley
   
  it, Harry was sucked in irresistibly - into the aching emptiness of Alex Kyle's drained mind!
  Employing ultra-high explosives to blow the Chateau Bronnitsy to hell, and his powers as a Necroscope to correct other anomalies, at last Harry could take the
  Mobius route home. His work, for the moment, was at an end. It was the late autumn of 1977, and he had taken up permanent residence in another man's body.
  Indeed, to all intents and purposes, and to anyone who didn't know better, he was that other man! But he was also the natural father of a most unnatural child, a
  child with awesome supernatural powers.
  So now Harry must face up to other, more mundane duties: those of a husband and father. But how might he perform those duties with the face and form of a
  different man? What of his poor wife, Brenda, who had already suffered more than her fair share of strangeness and horror? How could he ask her to share her life
  
  with a husband who wasn't the man she knew? Finally, what of the child . . . if Harry Jr could still be considered a child?
  But perhaps the most difficult questions the Necroscope must ask himself were these: how much greater than his own talents were his son's? How different
  were they? And perhaps more importantly: how did he intend to use them? Thus the world of Harry Keogh was a vastly complicated place—
  —Which wasn't about to get any simpler . . .
  The story that follows concerns itself mainly with certain episodes of the Necroscope's life, between the previously chronicled Wamphyri! and The Source. But it
  is not alone Harry Keogh's story. For without that the Wamphyri were there before him (and despite the paradox of their springing from him), it could even be said
  that Harry himself would not have been necessary: without a disease there's no need for a cure. In short, this story is also theirs: part of the lost history of the
  Wamphyri. . .
  PROLOGUE
  T
  he powerful, silver-grey stretch limo, familiar in itself however unusual - but less than unique - on an island of ancient
  Fiats  and  sputtering  Lambrettas,  bumped  carefully  over  shifting  cobbles  under  a  baroque  stone  archway  into  the
  courtyard  of  Julio's  Cafe  and  Restaurant  in  the  eastern  quarter  of  Palermo.  The  lone  survivor  of  a  World  War  II
  bombing raid, the walled enclosure was once the smallest of four gardens  containing a middling villa. The other three
  gardens  were rubble-strewn craters; only their outer  walls  had  been  repaired,  to  create  something  of  an  acceptable
  fagade in the district of the Via Delia Magione.
  The courtyard was set out like a fan-shaped  checker-board: square tables  decked  with  white  covers,  standing  on
  black flags of volcanic stone; the whole split down the middle by a 'hinge' of vehicles parked herringbone-fashion on
  what was once a broad carriageway. A palm-fringed gap in the wall at the point of the quadrant  marked the vehicular
  exit into the dusky evening.
  Some  three  dozen  patrons  sat  eating,  drinking,  chattering,  though  not  too  energetically;  a  pair  of  sweating,
  white-aproned  waiters  ran  to  and  fro  between  the  tables,  the  bar  and  kitchens,  each  serving  his  own  triangle  of
  customers. Even for the third week in May  the  weather  was  unseasonably  warm;  at  eight-thirty  in  the  evening  the
  temperature was up in the high seventies.
  The east-facing wall of the courtyard contained what was left of the old villa: a two-storeyed  wing three rooms wide
  and  three  deep,  with  a  balcony  supported  by  Doric  columns  that  more  than  hinted  of  better  times.  The  central,
  ground-floor room was fronted by a marble bar which spanned  the gap between the pillars; kitchens to the left of the
  bar stood open to the inspection of patrons. Amazingly, in this bombed-out relic of a place, wide arches in the wall to
  the right displayed the sweep of the original grand marble staircase winding to
  12
  Brian Lumley
  13
  Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vol. I
   
  the upper rooms and balcony. Better times indeed!
  On the balcony - whose tables were reserved for 'persons of quality' - Julio Sclafani himself leaned out as far as his
  belly would allow to observe  the arrival of these  latest, most elevated of all his customers: Anthony  and  Francesco
  Francezci, come down from the high Madonie especially to eat at Julio's.
  It was wonderful  that  they  came  here,  these  men  of  power,  ignoring  the  so-called  'class'  restaurants  to  dine  on
  Julio's simple but worthy fare. And they'd been doing it for six weeks now, ever since the first signs  of improvement in
  the weather. Or ...  perhaps  it was that one of them, or even both of them, had noticed Julio's Julietta? For Sclafani's
  youngest, still unmarried daughter was a stunner after all. And the Brothers Francezci were eminently eligible men . . .
  But what a shame that she wasn't at her best! It must be the pollution of Palermo's air. The fumes of all the cars and
  mopeds, the stagnation of all the derelict places, the breathing of dead air and the winter damp that came drifting in off
  the Tyrrhenian Sea. But spring was here and summer on its way; Julietta would bloom again, just as the  island  was
  blooming.
  Except. . .  it was worrying, the way she'd come down with - well, with whatever it was - just four or five weeks ago;
  since when all of the colour had seemed to go out of her, all the joy and vitality, everything that had made her the light of
  Julio's life. To be back there on her couch, all exhausted, with an old biddy of a sick-nurse sitting beside her - 'in attendance,'
  as it were - as at someone's deathbed!  What, Julietta? Perish the  thought!  As  fof  the  old  crow:  Julio  supposed  he
  should consider himself lucky to have obtained her services so reasonably. All thanks to the Francezcis, for she was
  one of theirs.
  But here they came even now, smiling up at him - at him! - as they mounted the marble staircase. Such elegant . . .
  such eligible men! Julio hastened to greet them at the head of the stairs, and usher them to their table on the balcony .
  . .
  Almost exactly one hour earlier,  Tony  and  Francesco  Francezci  had  departed  Le  Manse  Madonie  in  the  mountain
  heights over Cefalu en-route for Julio's and the supposed gourmet pleasures of the cafe's 'cuisine.' The quality of Julio
  Sclafani's  food  was,  ostensibly,  the  sole  reason  for  the  Francezcis'  weekly  visit  to  the  crumbling,  by  no  means
  decadent but decidedly decayed city. Ostensibly, yes.
  
  But in fact the brothers didn't much care for the food at Sclafani's, nor for the eating of common fare anywhere else
  for that matter. They could just as easily dine at Le  Manse  Madonie,  and  do  far  better  than  at  Julio's,  without  the
  bother of having to get there. For at the Manse  the brothers had their own servants,  their own cooks, their own . . .
  people.
  And so as Mario, their chauffeur, had driven the brothers down the often precipitous, dusty  hairpin track from the
  Manse to the potholed 'road' that joins Petralia in the south  to the spa town of Termini Imerese on the coast  - where
  according to legend the buried Cyclops 'pisses in the baths of men, to warm them' - so Francesco had turned his mind
  and memory to the real reason for their interest in Sclafani's piddling cafe: the fat man's daughter, Julietta. Francesco's
  interest, anyway . . .
  It had been six weeks ago to the day. The brothers had been in Palermo to attend  a meeting of the Dons: the heads  of
  the most powerful Families in the  world,  with  the  possible  exception  of  certain  branches  of  European  Royalty  and
  nobility, and other so called 'leaders of men' or business,  politicians and industrialists mainly, in the United States of
  America and elsewhere. Except there's power, and there's power. That of the Francezcis was landed and gilt-edged . . .
  and ancient, and evil.
  It lay in the earth (in territory, or real estate); in the wealth they'd been heir to for oh-so-many, many years, plus the
  additional wealth which the principal and their unique talents had accumulated and augmented; and not least in those
  peculiar talents themselves.
  For in fact the Francezcis were advisers. Advisers  to the Mafia, still the main force and power-base in Italy and Sicily; and
  through  the Mafia advisers  to  the  CIA,  the  KGB,  and  others  of  the  same  ilk;  and  through  them  advisers  to  those
  governments  which allegedly 'controlled' them. And because  their  advice  was  invariably  good,  invariably  valuable,
  they  were  revered  as  Dons  of  Dons,  as  every  Francezci  before  them.  But  to  actually  speak  of  them  in  such  a
  connection . . . that would be quite unpardonable. It was understandable; their social standing . . .
  As  to that last: they had the reputations  of the gentlest  of gentlemen! Their presence  had  been  requested  -  even
  fought  over  -  for  every  major  social  event  on  the  island  for  the  last  fifteen  years,  ever  since  they  came  into  their
  inheritance and possession of Le Manse Madonie. And their bloodline: there had been Francezci Brothers for as long
  as men could remember. The family was noted for its male twins, also for a line that went back into the dimmest mists of history - and
  into some of the darkest. But that last was for the brothers alone to know.
  Thus the immemorial and ongoing connection of the Francezcis with certain of the island's (and indeed the world's)
  less savoury elements was unsuspected; or if it was it wasn't mentioned in polite circles. Yet in their role of freelance
  intelligence agents  for the Mob or mobs - as advisers in the field of international crime, various kinds of  espionage,
  and terrorism - the Francezcis were an unparalleled success story. Where or how they gained their intelligence in these
  diverse yet connected fields: that, too, was for the brothers alone to know, and for others to guess at. But to the Dons
  it seemed obvious that they had
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  corrupted the incorruptible on a world-wide scale . . .
  . . . Francesco's  thoughts  had strayed  from their  course.  As  the  limo glided, or occasionally  bumped,  for the  junction  with  the
  A-19 motorway into Palermo, he redirected his mind to that evening six short weeks ago:
  After their meeting with the Dons (whom they had advised on such problems as what  or what  not  to  do about  Aldo  Moro  and
  his kidnappers the Red Brigade, in Italy, and President Leone, who had become an embarrassment)  the  hour  had been late. Driving
  back through  Palermo and turned  aside by  a  diversion  where  road  works  were  in  progress,  Tony  had  noticed  Julio's  Cafe  and
  suggested they pause a while for refreshments.
  Indoors in the  room of the  marble staircase,  the  brothers  had ordered Julio's  'Greek Island  Specialities.'  They'd  picked  at spicy
  sausages, stuffed  vine-leaves,  and  various  dips  prepared  in  olive  oil  -  but  no  garlic  -  all  washed  down  with  tiny  measures  of
  Mavrodaphne and a chaser, the brackish Vecchia Romagna, sipped from huge brandy-bowl glasses. By nine-thirty  the  kitchens  had
  closed; the  brothers  dined alone. Julio had excused himself - a toothache!  He'd  called  a  dentist  who,  even  at  this  late  hour,  had
  agreed to see him. His daughter, Julietta, would see the brothers off the premises when they were done.
  Perhaps Francesco had drunk a little too much Mavrodaphne, too large a measure of brandy. Or it could be that in the  gloom and
  draughty  emptiness  of the  place,  with  the  picked-at  food  gone  cold  on  their  plates,  and  the  knowledge  of  lowering  skies  just
  beyond the arches, the woman had looked more radiant, more luminous . . . more pure? Whatever, Francesco had looked at her in a
  certain way, and she had looked back. And Anthony Francezci had gone down to the limo on his own, while his brother . . .
  At which point the silver grey hearse of a car had swerved to avoid a dead animal in the road - a goat, Mario thought!  - and again
  Francesco had been shaken from his reflections where he lolled in a corner of the back seat.  Perhaps  it was  as well. They  had been
  passing close to Bagheria; in a moment they'd be making a sharp right turn. Oh, yes, for Tony would surely want to park a while at
  a place he was fond of: the Villa Palagonia.
  'What, drawn to your monsters yet again?' Francesco's comment had been petulant, almost angry; he was  irritated  that  his mood
  and memories had been broken into.
  'Our monsters!' Tony had answered immediately and sharply. For it was true enough: both of the brothers  knew  the  inspiration
  behind the lunatic array of stone beasts that  adorned the  walls of the  villa. The  carved dwarves  and gargoyles, the  creatures  with
  human  hands  and  feet,  and  other  Things  that  defied  description.  Some  two  hundred  years  ago  the  owner  of  the  villa,  Prince
  
  Ferdinando Gravina, had insisted upon
  visiting Le Manse Madonie, home to the Ferenczinis, as their name was  then.  Rich as Croesus,  he had been interested  to  discover
  why the equally wealthy Ferenczinis were satisfied to dwell in such an 'out-of-the-way, austere, almost inhospitable  sort  of place.'
  And Ferdinando's mania for grotesques - or his mania in general - had later emerged as a direct result of that visit.
  But in any case Francesco had shrugged, saying, 'According to Swinburne, these sculptures have their origin in Diodorus's  tale of
  the freakish creatures that  came out  of the  Nile's sunbaked  mud.' And  before his brother  could answer:  'Perhaps  it's  better  if that
  legend prevails? It was a long time ago, after all. Too long ago, for such as you and I to remember!'
  At which Tony had scowled and answered, 'Ferdinando looked into the pit, brother - the pit at Le Manse Madonie - and we both
  know it!' And then, sneeringly: 'Let's be discreet by all means, but in the privacy of our own car in a place like this,  who  is there  to
  eavesdrop?'
  Then, as at a signal, Mario had driven on for Palermo . . .
  And now they were there, at the Cafe Julio, and the fat little sod  seating them at a table on his precious balcony and
  detailing his odious 'cuisine,' from which list they ordered this and that: a few items to pick at, a carafe of red wine. All
  a  sham,  a  show;  the  brothers  moved  the  food  about  their  plates,  waiting  for  Sclafani  to  mention  Julietta.  And
  eventually, returning upstairs from some small duty in the kitchens:
  'Gentlemen, I'm eternally in your debt!' Julio bowed and scraped, plucked nervously  at the towel over his arm as he
  sidled up to their table. 'Er, I mean with regard to your kindness  in providing a . . .  a  companion  for  my  daughter.  I
  cannot  bring myself to call the  old  lady  a  nurse  -  can't  admit  to  any  real  sickness  in  my  girl  -  but  the  woman  is  a
  godsend nevertheless. She fetches and carries, sees to my daughter's needs, and I am left free to attend my business.'
  'Julietta?' Francesco contrived to look concerned. 'Your daughter?  Is she no better, then? We'd wondered why she
  wasn't around . . .' He looked down over the balcony into the courtyard, casting here and there with his dark eyes as if
  searching.
  Julio turned his own eyes to the night sky and flapped his hands  in an attitude of despair or supplication. 'Oh, my
  lovely girl! Weak as water and pale as a cloud! Julietta will get better, I am sure. But for now . . . she reclines upon  her
  bed, with shadows under her eyes, and complains about  the sunlight creeping in her room so that she must keep the
  curtains drawn! Some strange lethargy, a malaise, a weird photophobia.'
  The brothers looked at each other - perhaps  quizzically - and Francesco finally nodded.  And to Julio: 'Sclafani, we
  have business tonight. A man of ours returns from an important trip out of the country.
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  Meanwhile we're out for a drive, passing  a little time. It's a very pleasant  evening,  after  all.  Alas,  we  may  be  called
  away at any moment, which is why we didn't order more extensively from your menu. But this thing with Julietta: we
  -find ourselves . . . concerned for you.'
  'Indeed,' Tony nodded.  'We Francezcis  are  delicate  that  way  ourselves  -  with  regard  to  strong  sunlight,  I  mean.
  Which is why we're not often out and about when the sun is up.'
  'And,' Francesco went on, thoughtfully, '—who can say - perhaps  we find ourselves  in a position to be of  further
  service?' Qulio could have fainted! What, the Francezci Brothers, of service to him and his? Of further service?)
  'You see,' said Tony, 'in three days a man will fly from Rome. A doctor, a specialist. You are right: there is a certain
  malaise or anaemia abroad. Servants of ours  in  Le  Manse  Madonie  are  laid  low  by  it;  we  ourselves  feel  a  definite
  lethargy. Our blood seems . . . weak? But at least in the heights we have the benefit of clean air! While here in the city .
  . .' He shrugged.
  Open-mouthed,  Julio  looked  from  one  brother  to  the  other.  'But  what  do  you  propose?  I  mean,  I  scarcely  dare
  presume—'
  '—That our doctor friend should take a look at Julietta, and perhaps keep her under observation a while?' Francesco
  cut  him  short.  'But  why  not?  He's  our  own  private  doctor  and  comes  with  the  very  highest  recommendation!
  Moreover, he's been paid in advance. In such  an arrangement, surely there are no losers! So, it's settled.' He nodded
  his head as in final confirmation.
  'Settled?'
  'We shall send our car for Julietta three evenings from now -Saturday, yes. And the old woman shall stay with her at
  all times, of course. But that is to look on the gloomy side, for in the event that she should  recover between now and
  then, which naturally we hope she will. . .'
  'I. . .  am stunned!'Julio choked out the words.
  'No need to be,' said Tony, delicately dabbing at his mouth. Take our card. If your Julietta shows  signs  of recovery,
  call us. Otherwise look for  our  car  Saturday  night.  After  that,  you  may  inquire  after  her  at  your  convenience.  But
  remember: we're private men. Our telephone number is restricted. And rest assured, Julietta will be attended to in every
  circumstance.'
  It was done. Hardly believing his stroke of good fortune, the fat man went about  the night's business  in a daze; the
  brothers, apparently unmoved, continued  to pick at their food .  .  .  until  Julio  was  observed  busying  himself  at  the
  tables in the courtyard below. Then: 'Watch the stairs,' Francesco said. 'If he comes up, issue  a  warning  or  distract
  him.' But as he stood up and moved back a pace from the balcony:
  
  'Now who is being indiscreet?' Tony smiled up at him with eye-teeth
  that were white and needle-sharp in a too-wide mouth.
  Francesco leaned towards his brother - leaned at a peculiar angle -and answered through  clenched teeth in a voice
  that was suddenly as black and bubbling as tar, 'What, but can't you smell that  bitch back there?' In another moment
  he straightened up, coughed to clear his throat, and continued  in a more normal tone of voice. 'Anyway, we need to
  be certain the fat fool will accept our offer. So drink your wine . . . and watch the stairs!'
  He  turned  away.  Two  paces  took  him  across  the  balcony  and  through  a  curtained  archway  into  a  corridor.  He
  passed  a gentlemen's toilet on his left, a ladies' on  the  right,  and  entered  a  door  marked  'Private'  into  Julio's  office.
  Skirting the desk, he passed  through  a second  door into Julietta's sick-room. And there she  lay,  with  the  old  biddy
  Katerin, eighty years old if she was a day, in attendance. The crone was nodding. Startled, she glanced up at  Francesco  through
  rheumy eyes. 'Who? What?' Then, recognizing him, she smiled, nodded and made to rise.
  'No, stay,' he told her. 'Best that you're here, in case that oily little fat man should look in.' Katerin nodded  again and
  sat still. In the dimness of the room, the grandam's eyes were yellow as a cat's watching her master.
  He sat half-way up the wide couch where Julietta lay, and his sudden  weight woke her. Or  perhaps  she'd  already
  been awake . . . waiting. Her eyes opened big as saucers; her jaw fell open;  knowledge and horror painted themselves
  with rapid strokes upon  her lovely, oval, oddly pallid face. But in no way odd to Francesco. And before she could cry out, if she
  would:
  'Did you think I would desert you? Ah, no!' he told her. And his hand crept under her blanket, under her nightgown,
  to her thigh, so that she could feel his fingers trembling there. 'No, for having loved you once, I shall love you all the
  days of your life.' But he did not say 'my life.'
  As his hand climbed higher on her thigh, so Julietta's mouth closed and her fluttering breathing steadied; she began
  to breathe more deeply - of his breath. His essence  was in it, as it was in her. And his eyes  were  uniformly  jet,  like
  moist black marbles in his face and unblinking, or like the eyes of a snake  before  he  strikes.  Except  he  had  already
  struck, on that night six weeks ago. And the poison had taken.
  He smiled with his handsome, devil's face, and the horror went out of her as she lifted her arms to embrace him. But
  that could not be. 'Soon,' he told her. 'Soon - at Le Manse  Madonie! Can't you wait? A day or two, my Julietta. Just a
  day or two, I promise.' Her sigh, and her breathing suddenly quickening; the long lashes  over her dark eyes fluttering,
  as Francesco's  cool hand discovered the inside of her hot thigh. Then her nod, and a gasp  of  weird  ecstasy  as  her
  head flopped to one side in sudden shame, or defeat, or surrender, and her thighs lolled open.
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  Brian Lumley
  He held her lips open with his thumb and smallest finger, and let the middle three elongate into her. His hand was
  quite  still,  but  the  three  central  fingers  stretched  with  a  caterpillar's  expansion,  throbbing  with  the  effort  of
  metamorphosis like a trio of sentient  penises,  with pouting lips opening in their tips. And into her  body  they  crept,
  while his thumb and smallest finger closed on her bud, to gentle it like a nipple.
  And with the old crone watching and knowing  everything - laughing silently through  a gap-toothed  mouth whose
  eye-teeth at least were still sharp and white - so Francesco found the artery he sought  and used  his fingers to pierce
  and sip at the soft centre of Julietta's sex where the marks, if he left any, would never be found, and the blood, if any
  continued to flow, would have its own explanation.
  Then, in a few seconds, a minute - as the girl went, 'Ah! Ah! Ah!' and turned her head this way and that, until her
  eyes rolled up - slowly Francesco's jaws cracked open in a grin or a grimace, allowing a trickle of saliva to slop from a
  corner of his writhing lips. In that same moment his own eyes turned to flame, and then to blood! Julietta's blood. But:
  Brother!  It  was  Anthony;  not  a  call  as  such  (for  the  brothers  were  not  gifted  with  the  true  art),  but  a  warning
  definitely. A tingling of nerves, a premonition. Julio was coming!
  A moment to withdraw from Julietta, and another to lean forward and kiss her clammy brow. Then he was out of the
  room, flowing from Sclafani's office into the corridor, and the door marked 'Men' closing softly behind him. And  his
  penis steaming as he plied it in the privacy of a cubicle, once, twice, three times, before it spurted  into the bowl. And
  even his sperm was red where Francesco pulled the chain on it . . .
  In the corridor, Sclafani was waiting for him. 'Ah! Forgive me! I supposed  you would be in there. Your brother asked
  me to tell you . . . Your man has returned from England . . . And your driver, Mario? . . . A radio message?' He fluttered
  his hands, as if that were explanation enough. Which in fact it was.
  Francesco was cool now. He smiled his gratitude, and made for the balcony with Julio hard on his heels. 'It's been
  such a pleasure to have you,' the fat man was babbling. 'I can't possibly bill you. What? But I'm already too deeply in
  your debt!'
  At the table, Mario stood by in his uniform and cap while Tony spoke into a portable  radio-telephone.  Francesco  wheeled  on
  Julio and almost knocked him over. 'My friend,' he said hurriedly. This is a private conversation.  You understand?  As
  for the bill: the pleasure was all ours.' He pressed a wad of notes into the proprietor's hand, more than enough to cover
  what they had not eaten. As Julio waddled off, Tony was standing up.
  'ETA in forty-five minutes,' he said. 'Even if we go right now, still the
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  19
  chopper will beat us to the Manse.' He shrugged. Francesco nodded and said, Til speak to Luigi en route.'
  
  In the limo Francesco sat up front beside Mario. Outside Palermo the
  static cleared up and he was able to make himself understood on the
  car's communication system. 'Your patient?' 'Sedated,' came back a tinny, almost casual voice. Threw up a
  little . . . doesn't seem to travel too well. The sedative, I suppose.' From the back of the limo Tony said: 'Well, purging can't hurt.
  They'll
  be seeing to that anyway, at Le Manse.' Francesco glanced back at him. 'I left instruction, yes.' And into the
  radio: 'Any problems at the other end?'
  'None. Smooth as silk. Everything should be that easy!' 'Good,' Francesco was pleased. 'And this end? Control?'
  They've cleared me on to Le Manse Madonie. No problem.' (Of course not. The Francezcis' man in Air Traffic
  Control at Catania
  had picked up more than a year's wages for this!) 'Our people at the Manse will see to your patient,' Francesco
  finished. 'We'll be along later. Oh, and well done.' Thanks, and out,' the unseen pilot answered. There were no frills,
  not on the air . . .
  At Le Manse Madonie, the brothers looked on while their people saw to the girl from the helicopter. Still sedated, she'd
  been stripped and bathed by the time they got there. The rest of it would take most of the night. They watched for an
  hour or so - the enemas, the operation of the pumps and mechanically forced voiding, the 'purification,' as it were - but
  after that they lost interest. The manicuring of nails, the cleansing and polishing of teeth, application of fast-acting fungicides to
  her various openings (lotions to be removed later in a final bathing), all of that would go on and on. Clinical but less than beneficial: health wasn't
  the object of the exercise. Only cleanliness.
  'And all wasted,' Tony Francezci shook his head in disgust as they made for their apartments about  midnight. They
  wouldn't sleep but merely rest; time for sleeping when it was over.
  'Wasted?' his brother answered. 'Not at all. Well, the girl herself, maybe, but not the effort. He likes them clean, after
  all. And she can't lie to him, can't hide anything. Outside her mind, we could merely prise for clues. Inside it . . .  he can
  lay everything bare down to the electrons of her brain and patterns  of her past, the memories in the mush of her grey
  matter.'
  'Poetic!' Francesco's  brother seemed  appreciative,  but  his  voice  almost  immediately  turned  sour.  'Ah,  but  will  he
  divulge  what he discovers?  Or will he obscure  and obfuscate,  as he's so wont to do?  He  gets  more  difficult  all  the
  time.'
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  'He'll tell us something of it, at least,' the other nodded. 'It's been a while and he's hungry. He'll be grateful, and she'll make a rare
  tidbit. Why, I could even fancy her myself!'
  Tony gave a snort. 'What? But you could fancy old Katerin, if that's all there was!'  And  as they  parted  company  at the  top  of a
  flight of stairs and made for their own rooms: 'Oh, and on that same note: did you have Julietta, in Julio's backroom?'
  'Something like that,' his brother leered back at him. 'If you're  asking will we be sending for her . . . yes,  we will. Why?  Would
  you perhaps like her for yourself?'
  'Not really,' Tony told him. 'For you've been there before me.' There was no malice in it, nor in Francesco's answer:
  'It never stopped you before,' he said, evenly . . .
  In the hour before dawn, the Francezcis met again in the secret  heart  of Le Manse  Madonie.  Beneath  extensive cellars and ancient
  foundations, at a place deep in the bedrock - a place known only as 'the  pit'  - they  came together  to  attend  personally  to  the  final
  stage of the operation: the lowering of the girl into an old, dried-out well.
  The mouth of the well was maybe fourteen feet across, wall to wall; the walls were three feet high, and of massive blocks  of old
  hewn masonry; a 'lid' of electrified wire-mesh  in a circular frame was  hinged to  the  walls on opposite  sides,  covering the  opening
  like a grille. But the pit was silent for now, sullen and sinister even to  the  Francescis.  Down  there  somewhere,  at a depth  of some
  eighty feet, it opened into a cyst that had once contained water. Now it housed their father.
  A mechanical hoist  stood  to  one side, its  gantry  reaching out  over the  pit.  Suspended  by  chains, a metal table slowly  rotated.
  The girl lay naked on the table, with her hands folded on her stomach. In her entire life she had only once been cleaner, less toxic: in
  the womb, in the days preceding her birth before the first human hands were lain on her. Now mhuman hands would be lain on her.
  But first the interrogation; not of the girl but  the  Old Ferenczy,  the  monstrously  mutated  Francezci  in his pit.  Only  the  brothers
  were  present;  it  wasn't  work  for  lesser,  more  easily  influenced  or  corrupted  minds.  But  then,  how  might  one  corrupt  the
  Francezcis?
  The cavern containing the  pit  was  a natural  place,  made unnatural  only  by  its  grotesque  inhabitant.  Rocky  ledges swept  back
  into darkness, but the pit itself was illuminated: a bank of powerful spotlights shone down  on it from the  nitre-streaked  dripstone
  walls. Where the shadows crept, stone steps had been cut back into a shaft that climbed in a spiral  to  the  Manse  - the  aerie - high
  overhead. At the foot of the steps an electrified pneumatic 'door,' a grille of two-inch steel bars, guarded the exit. The door's control
  panel was set well back within the brightly lit shaft. Like the cover over the old well, this door to the exit
  shaft wasn't designed to keep anyone or thing out.
  Yet the place wasn't specifically a prison  but  more properly  a refuge, a sanctuary  . . .  an asylum.  And  just  this  once, perhaps
  
  the Francezcis were of a single mind where they stood at the rim of the well and Francesco quietly commented:
  'It's as if the "Mad"-in Madonie were deliberate . . .'
  Tony at once cautioned him: 'Always remember, brother: he can hear you. Even when you're sleeping - or lost  in your  lust  with
  some slut - he can be there. And he's here even now.'
  And the  other  knew  it was  true.  Down  here their  father's  presence  was  everywhere.  It  was  in the  echoes of  their  voices;  and
  despite the glaring lights - or because of them - it was  in the  movement  of the  blackest  shadows  back there  where there  should  be
  no movement. It permeated the very atmosphere, as if the place were haunted. But the  Old Ferenczy  was  no ghost.  Nor  would  he
  ever be, so long as he was their oracle.
  Francesco looked at his brother. 'Well, are you ready?'
  Tony licked his fleshy lips, and nodded.  He wouldn't ever be 'ready,' not really, but what must be must be. He had
  always been the Old One's favourite, 'spoiled' by a father who had had time for him. As for Francesco: he had been too
  precocious; his father had never had time for him! Knowing something of the future - indeed, of most things  -perhaps
  the pit-dweller had foreseen the time when Francesco would relish his . . .  incapacity.
  The electricity was off, the grille safe. 'Father,' Tony leaned over the rim of the old well and gazed down through  the
  mesh on a receding funnel of massive blocks of masonry. 'We've brought you something. A small tribute, a gift - a girl!'
  A girl. . . a girl. . . a girl, the well repeated, an echo carried on  the  miasma.  But  a  miasma,  here?  A  wisp  of  mist,
  anyway, rising from the pit. The heat of the spotlights vaporized it, turning it to stench.  The thing below might not be
  especially active, but it was there. It was breathing, and . . .
  '. . . Listening!' said Francesco, who was sensitive to such things. 'Oh, he hears you, all right!'
  'Father,' Tony leaned out more yet. 'We've brought  a gift for you, but we have our needs, too. There are things  we
  need to know . . .' For a moment there was nothing, and then the well seemed to sigh! It was physical - in that a gust  of
  foulness rushed up from below - but it was also mental: the Old Ferenczy's telepathy, which in the brothers' case had
  skipped a generation. And despite that they were not mentalists, still their father's power was such  that  finally  they
  'heard' him:
  Only ask, my son . . . after you have sent me my tribute.
  But  if  the  message  was  simple,  its  delivery  was  dramatic.  It  reverberated  in  their  heads  like  a  shout,  and  was
  accompanied by a
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  tumult of tittering, crazed background 'voices' that were all their father's. He had concentrated  part of his mind on his
  answer, but the rest of it was engaged in its own activity . . .  the way a madman might often seem calm on the outside,
  while in fact he seethes within. And the many personalities of the thing - his diverse identities - were like a bickering,
  uncontrollable,  heckling  audience  to  the  efforts  of  the  part  which  now  attempted  to  communicate  with  the  world
  outside itself; in fact with the thing's son.
  Tony reeled at the rim of the pit; his brother caught  his shoulder to steady  him; the mental babble subsided,  along
  with the 'echoes' of their father's true or 'sane' voice. And:
  'Dangerous!' Tony muttered. 'He isn't in control.'
  'Or is he simply playing with us? Francesco scowled. 'His split-personalities, multi-identities: it wouldn't be the first
  time he'd used them to confuse us . . .'
  Tony nodded, grimaced, and called down: 'Father, plainly you are not yourself. The girl will keep, and we'll try again
  later.' He made himself believe it - in his mind - in case his father was listening. But then, as they reached for the metal
  platform hanging over the pit, as if to swing the girl aside:
  NO!  came  that  enormous  mental  grunt  from  below.  NO,  WAIT!  And  a  moment  later  -  less  forcefully,  almost
  pleadingly now, as they paused - Does she come of her own free will? Is she pure? Is she . . . clean?
  And the brothers grinned at each other, nodding in unison. For this time there had been no background 'static,' no
  babble of crazed, secondary voices. When the thing in the pit desired it, he could control himself and shut them out.
  Tony waited a moment, then said, 'She has no will. As for purity: it's hard to find, father, in today's world. But clean?
  She's as clean as we can make her, yes. Except . . .'
  Yessss?
  'She knows things, which we would know. She's yours, but before you use her, will you not first examine her? For us?'
  For a long moment  there  was  silence, until:  But. . . why don't  you  examine her,  my son?  Before you give  her to  me?  The  old
  thing's mental voice was sly now, wickedly intelligent.
  'He knows,'  Francesco  grunted,  coldly  furious.  'He knows  that  we can't ask  her, that  even the  best  drugs won't  open  her  up,
  because she's been forbidden to speak! Her mind's been tampered with, locked from inside, and only  he can get in. And  he knows
  that, too! The old devil wants us to beg!'
  And: Oh, ha! ha! ha! laughed the  thing, as the  'miasma,' his breath,  thickened.  Oh, but I hear  and know  you,  my son,  my . . .
  Francesco? The laughter ceased and the mental voice turned cold as ice. And still you have no respect. . .
  'Hah!' Francesco scowled. 'He thinks he's a Don!'
  'He was,' Tony reminded him. 'A Don  of Dons,  one of the  first.  So don't  annoy  him; don't  even think,  but  let me handle this!'
  And directing his thoughts and voice into the pit:
  'Father, it was you who gave word of a certain threat. We acted on your word. For two centuries we have acted on it,  and at last
  
  we have a lead. This girl has secret knowledge, buried in her mind. Nothing we do will give us access. But you . . .?'
  And in a moment - when they could almost hear the brain below working, and the body seething - / can do it, yessss!
  'But will you?'
  Yessss! Send her down.
  'She must not be wasted,' Tony cautioned. 'Her knowledge can't be lost. It was risky bringing her here; we paid for
  her; we may never see another opportunity like this. And always remember, father, what threatens  us threatens  you . .
  .'
  / understand, yessss. Send her down.
  'But you are hungry, we know, and occasionally . . . impatient? And if—'
  SEND HER DOWN - NOW!
  There seemed nothing else for it. Francesco operated the gear to open one flap of the grille, and together they manoeuvred the platform and girl into position
  over the open half of the pit. Finally Tony broke an ampoule under her nose, and she groaned and shook her head a little. But before she could wake up more fully,
  they sent her on her way to hell.
  Her weight was measured on a dial on the control console. She sank skty, seventy, seventy-five feet. . . and her weight became zero. 'Get it up!' Tony croaked, as
  Francesco reversed the gears. The platform came up empty. But down below:
  Suddenly the mental emanations - the blasts of raw, terrible emotion - were like a gale blowing in their heads! The brothers reeled, recovered, quickly closed and
  activated the grille. While in their minds, despite that they were scarcely gifted in the art, and that for once they were glad of it:
  Flesh, bone, and bloood! The openingsss of her body, her face! The entrancesss to heaven, to hell! Oh, I am a monster! Yesss,
  for a man could never do thisss! But I am not a man! I am Wamphyri! Wamphyyyrrriii!
  And above it all, a scream, just one - but a shriek to end all shrieks -as the girl came awake and felt. . . what?  Her cry
  of shock, outrage, disbelief, was a sound to grate on the nerve endings  forever. It came and went, as her mouth, ears,
  nostrils and head entire were crammed full of the thing, filled to brimming with him, as was her body.
  And not only the hammerblows of the Old One's thought processes,
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  but pictures to accompany them: of a creeping, flowing, foaming something, never a human being, but with hands -
  oh, a great many -and mouths, and eyes, all converging on, soaking into, and expanding within, the girl.
  Then the bloating, the stretching, the rending!
  And the mist over the pit gradually turning pink, stinking where its molecules came in contact with the grille . . .
  A while later the Francezcis were surprised to find themselves close, touching, trembling, and slowly disengaged. Minutes had ticked by; the cavern was quiet
  again, or unquiet, and the pit...  was just a pit, an old well.
  Francesco looked at his brother quizzically, but Tony shook his head. 'I won't, couldn't, talk to him right now. So let him rest. Later, maybe ..."
  But as they made to pass out through the steel-barred door into the exit shaft:
  HE'LL BE UP! HE WILL BE UP! HE WILL BE UP! It was almost a cry of triumph, but quickly turning to sick terror. H-h-he will be
  up, yes - in just a few years, three, or four at most - and then . . . then he'll seek me out. . . seek us  out. . . seek us all
  out!
  'Who  will?'  Tony  tried  to  ask.  But  dazed  as  he  was  from  the  mental  blast,  his  voice  was  a  croak.  It  made  no
  difference, for he already knew, and his father had heard him anyway.
  Who? came a fading, awed, even frightened whisper in their minds. Who else butRadu? Who but Radu Lykan, eh?!
  And then a ringing cry like a soul in torment, or one lost forever in outer immensities: Raaaddduuu!
  And once again a whisper: Raaaddduuuuuu! . . . that shivered into a shuddering silence.
  PART ONE
  THE NECROSCOPE . . HARRY KEOGH?
  A DEVIOUS THING
  Getting up in the mornings was the worst of it, when he was obliged to leave his dreams behind. For in his dreams he was usually himself, while in his real life the
  Necroscope Harry Keogh had become someone else entirely. Or not entirely, for on the inside he was still him. But on the outside . . .
  ...  It was confusing, dizzying, frightening, maddening . . . especially maddening. And not only for Harry but for his wife, too. Indeed, more so for Brenda, for
  she could not and did not want to understand it; she only wanted things back as they had been. As for her baby son, Harry Jr: well, who could say about that one?
  Who knew what he was thinking, planning, working on? But then again, who but a fool or a lunatic would believe that an infant of eighteen or so tender months
  was capable of working on anything?
  
  Oh, he worked on getting fed or changed or attended to the same as any baby: by screaming for it. And he worked on collecting his audience of admirers the
  same way, too: by burping and farting and smiling in that gormless-innocent way that defenceless infants have, with their fat little faces seeming to slide off to one
  side, and their eyes getting crossed, and the drool dripping down off their wobbly little chins. Completely disarming, and utterly charming, of course. At a year and
  a half most of that was over now, but as for defenceless..
  Harry Jr was an angel - but one who had come face to face with the devil, and won! Him and his father both. But that had been only one battle; the greater,
  bloodier wars were still to come. Right now neither one of them knew that, however, which was just as well. Were it otherwise, they might not want to go on. The
  future has good cause to guard its secrets . . .
  But as his father was more than just any man, so Harry Jr was more than just any baby. It was when he was being . . . well, the other thing -when his expression
  was other than a baby's, and his thoughts more
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  than  the groping, fuddled demands or inquiries of an inchoate mind in an untrained  body  -  that  the  espers  of  E-Branch  were
  especially interested in him. It was when they felt, sensed,  experienced the awesome, alien  power  washing  out  from
  him as he experimented, or did whatever it was he did, that they knew for sure he wasn't merely  a  baby.  And  when
  those baby-blue eyes of his lit with a far-away expression seen previously only in his father's eyes, and they knew that
  he conversed with a teeming majority no one else but he and Harry Keogh could hear and talk to . . .
  Getting up mornings, the Necroscope would think of these things and, like Brenda, remember when it had been very
  different; when the world was a different place and he'd been a different person. It was easy to remember, for  in  his
  dreams he was still that other person. Hell, he was that  person,  even  when  he  was  awake!  But  only  on  the  inside;
  which is to say, inside his head. For outside - in Harry's body  and face and entire external appearance, and especially
  in the mirror - he was someone else. A man called Alec Kyle. Which took some getting used to.
  That was probably why he clung so tightly to his dreams and was reluctant to let them go: because they were a form
  of wish-fulfilment, a place and a time when the world was a different  world  and  the  Necroscope  a  different  person;
  himself.
  This morning was the same, or should be . . .
  For some, especially the young, waking up to a new day is a renewal, like being born all over again: the first day of
  the  rest  of  their  lives.  Despite  that  Harry  seemed  to  have  done  an  awful  lot  of  living,  he  was  still  very  young:
  twenty-one years old. But his body  - or Alec Kyle's body  - was ten years older. And knowing that this was what he
  must always  wake  up  to,  Harry  really  didn't  want  to.  It  wasn't  that  he  was  suicidal  about  it;  the  fact  that  he  now
  inhabited an older and alien body  scarcely made him long for death, (not the Necroscope Harry Keogh, a man who'd
  had it from the horse's mouth more than once what it actually felt like to be dead, who knew what it really meant to be
  incorporeal!) It merely made him reluctant toward life, made it safer to be asleep and dreaming—
  —Well, sometimes. It depended on what you were dreaming about.
  Currently he was given to dream a recurrent theme of life (but his life, before all this) where, like the proverbial drowning man, he
  clung to the straws of his past  existence only to feel them  grow  waterlogged  and  slip  one  by  one  from  his  straining
  fingers. Each straw was a scene from the times he had known and the life he had lived, the chronological story of his oh-so-strange
  adventures. So that like a drowning man facing his imminent, inescapable death, the dream-drowning Necroscope saw
  it all skipping before his eyes like a scratched, comically accelerated, badly edited monochrome film.
  His childhood in Harden, on the north-east coast of England, where he had attended primary and secondary schools
  with the roughneck colliery kids; his retreat from the mundane world of the living into the minds and 'lives' of the Great
  Majority; his secret being discovered by Sir Keenan Gormley, then Head of E-Branch, and his subsequent  return  to
  'the real world' . . .  his acceptance of his condition, the fact of his unique talent, and his willingness to use that talent
  by taking sides against the monstrous evils rooted in the USSR and Romania.
  And  superimposed on these  accelerated glimpses out of  the  past,  his  lifelong  relationship  with  Brenda,  a  simple
  colliery girl whose love had formed the strongest  single link between Harry and the orthodox world, one  of  the  few
  things that kept his feet planted firmly on solid ground when often as not his mind was under it. And superimposed
  even over this, a glowing picture or memory of his mother - radiant as any loving mother as visualized by her child: her
  soap and rose-petal scent, the sweet warmth of her sigh, a golden aura all around her, as if the sun  had risen behind
  her to diffuse her brilliant silhouette - all too soon snuffed out by a maniac, who in his turn had been snuffed by Harry.
  Which was always the point where the Necroscope's  blue, poignant  dreams turned a dark, vengeful  red.  For  after
  Viktor Shukshin there'd been Thibor Ferenczy, Dragosani, Yulian Bodescu, Theo Dolgikh, Ivan Gerenko . . .  The  list
  was a long one. And what of Faethor Ferenczy, that 'father' or grandfather of vampires? Faethor had been dead for a
  long time now, true . . . but  so  had  Thibor  before  him,  and  even  a  dead  and  buried  vampire  is  a  threat.  Harry  still
  couldn't be one hundred percent certain that the Old Ferenczy hadn't left other remnants (or revenants?)  to fester in
  the earth like Thibor, waiting out their time until a grand return . . .
  Coloured by his fears and anxieties, the Necroscope's  dream was quickly becoming confused.  His mind was Harry
  Keogh's, but the brain that housed  it had  once  belonged  to  Alec  Kyle,  a  precog  for  E-Branch.  Harry's  truths  -  his
  thoughts,  memories and emotions - dwelled now in those  same vaults of  complex,  convolute  cerebrum  once  Kyle's,
  where still the odd crevice or corner remained, not yet conforming to Harry's contours.  Kyle's weird talent had  been
  governed  by  the  'shape'  of  that  brain;  his  precognitive  glimpses  had  used  to  come  to  him  during  those  vague,
  confused  periods of mental hiatus between dream and waking proper, at that point in time where the conscious  and
  
  subconscious  minds separate, allowing a dreamer to surface to reality.  Nothing  was  left  of  Alec  Kyle  now,  but  the
  shape of his brain had not yet changed entirely; perhaps some small part of his talent lingered on.
  For  on  the  point  of  waking,  suddenly  Harry's  dreams  underwent  a  rapid  transformation,  mutating  into  sheerest
  nightmare! And because precognition is the dubious art of seeing the future - and the future is not a dream but a series
  of as yet unrealized events - it was as if
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  everything that the Necroscope experienced was real as life. And the difference between these  two dream-states was . . . electrifying! Most
  people, including Harry, 'know' that they are only dreaming, but on this occasion he didn't.
  As before it was a kaleidoscope of scenes, fast-fleeting, over which he had no control. But where before he'd considered himself accustomed
  to strangeness . . .
  He stood in a place that wasn't of this world, at the rim of a desiccated  plain  of boulders  that sprawled in one direction  to an aurora-lit
  horizon, and in the other merged with foothills climbing steeply into mountains. Close by, a huge luminous dome was set in a walled crater
  like the eye of some fallen Cyclops in its buried skull, giving off a cold white light. The dome was like an alien pharos - but for what weird
  travellers? On high, the disc of a tumbling moon was lit half with the gold of an unseen sun, half with blue starshine; its surface pattern was in
  a state of flux, caused by the eccentricity of its orbit and rotation.
  Clinging to what he knew of the geography of his own world, Harry's instinct told him that the aurora signalled north; odd, because that
  meant that the unseen sun lay far beyond the mountains in the south. But this was after all an alien world—
  —To which he'd been sent. . . been sent by ...  by Faethor?
  Here his reasoning faltered. To see the future is dangerous enough, but to try to remember what is yet to be . . .!
  Yet for a moment Harry had known that Faethor Ferenczy had sent him here, that his being here had at least been advised or guided by
  that father of vampires, that Lord of Lies. And also ...  fry Mobius? But for what reason? A quest, obviously - but why obviously? And if a
  quest, then for what, for whom?
  He looked all about. The mountains on the one hand  and the seemingly endless boulder  plains  on the other, and between them the
  enigmatic Gate, its cold white light flooding outwards to silhouette the scattered, menhir-like boulders, casting unevenly concentric rings of
  shadow out into the Starside night.
  The Gate? Starside? But these words, concepts, were meaningless to him . . . weren't they? Now what the—!?
  In the north-east he spied distantly  rearing stacks, fantastic rock formations crowned with. . . turrets? Towers? Tessellate
  stonework? . . . Battlements? Or was the effect simply the work of an alien Nature? Harry thought not, for there were lights up there. Smoke
  curled from tall chimneys; motes moved with purpose in the dark air around the upper levels. At this distance they were motes, anyway . . .
  Suddenly Harry was aware that someone watched him. Spinning on his heel he fell into a crouch. On the boulder  plain, only a short
  distance away, there stood a figure, slim, male, with a face of gold, burning in the
  reflected glare from the Gate. He held up a hand, gestured, said something, but Harry heard nothing. He was allowed to see but not to know . . . the future
  guarded its secrets.
  Harry knew instinctively that there was no danger here, not from this one, at least. And filled with strange emotions, he moved towards the other. Yet while he
  would have approached him anyway, his motions were involuntary, the flowing, maddeningly ungovernable mechanics of dream - or rather, of precognition.
  But the golden-faced one had commenced to make urgent gestures, pointing into the sky to the east. Harry looked.
  And now there was danger here! Those motes circling the great stacks -but no longer motes! Dark blots, rapidly taking on grotesque outlines, descending out
  of the sky from the direction of the aeries, and—
  —Aeries?
  Within his dream-self, Harry recoiled from the word. But his future-self continued to move towards The Dweller.
  —The Dweller?
  Finally he accepted that he was not given to know everything and concentrated on reaching the one who waited for him. But looking back he saw that the
  things in the sky were fast approaching, and that they were like nothing he had ever seen or nightmared before. One was winged, shaped something like a manta.
  The other was . . . incredible, monstrous, gigantic! It squirted through the sky like a squid in water. And now Harry could see that the first creature had a rider -
  Shaithis of the Wamphyri? - and knew that the second was one of his constructs, a warrior.
  Harry was close to The Dweller now . . . Shaithis aboard his flyer was swooping down out of the sky . . . the wind from the flyer's mighty manta wings blasted
  dust and grit up from the plain into Harry's and The Dweller's faces . . . the creature's shadow fell on them as it shut out the stars!
  The Dweller held up a wing of his cloak. Harry looked at him, at his golden mask, the scarlet eyes behind it, the mind behind the eyes . . . and knew that mind!
  Yet he couldn't possibly know it! And for all the strangeness, still he was unable to stop himself as he stepped - or flowed -forward into the shadow of The
  Dweller's cloak, and felt it wrap about him . . .
  . . . And the kaleidoscopic picture changed. Harry had known what would happen next - except it didn't! Instead of finding himself in The Dweller's garden
  (whatever that might be) Alec Kyle's wild talent had snatched him into yet another possible future, or the same one but further down the timestream.
  Now he was in the last great aerie of the Wamphyri . . . Karenstack? And furtive as a thief, he pursued the Lady Karen as she descended to her larder. Sinister
  and silent as smoke, Karen flowed in through a dark
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  doorway; following her, Harry kept to the shadows while she activated a trog and brought it out of its cocoon. He watched her lead the shambling, comatose
  neanderthal to a stone table where it lay down, stretched itself prone and bent back its ugly, prehistoric head for her.
  Then the Lady's jaws opened . . . opened . . . gaped! Blood slopped from her crimson mouth; scythe teeth sprouted, poising over a sluggishly pulsing jugular.
  Her nose wrinkled, flattening back on itself, and her eyes burned as red as lanterns in the twilight room.
  'Karen!' Harry heard himself attempting to cry - in the moment before the kaleidoscope scene changed, taking him forward again in time, but only a little way
  this time . . .
  . . . The Necroscope sat absolutely still, waiting . . . (for what he didn't know, couldn't say, only that he felt tense as never before), in the deepest darkest shadows
  of the aerie. And eventually it came: Karen's vampire! By what route it had left her body, Harry neither knew nor wanted to know; sufficient that it was here,
  where he . . . where he wanted it? It was a long leech, corrugated, cobra headed, blind-and it had pointed udders, a great many.
  Swaying its head this way and that, it inched forward . . . then sensed him and commenced a hasty retreat! Curling back on itself, it wriggled like a
  blindworm; for now it must get back to safety, return itself to Karen's undead flesh. But the Necroscope wasn't about to let that happen.
  Using his flamethrower, he burned it. . . dying, it issued eggs, dozens of them, which spun and skittered, vibrating over the stone flags towards him. Sweating,
  but cold inside, Harry burned the eggs, too, every one of them. And as if from a million miles away - as if from someone else's dream - he heard the awful
  screaming, which he somehow knew was Karen's.
  Then, abruptly, leaving him dizzy, disoriented, the scene changed yet again:
  To a high balcony where he leaned out and looked down, and knew why he was dizzy: the terrible height! And way down there, crumpled on the scree, the
  Lady's white gown . . . no longer entirely white but red, too.
  Karen (or what he and the future-Harry thought was Karen), was inside it. And terribly, achingly, none of it made sense to him, or fleeting sense at best -
  there one minute and gone the next.
  Another jump:
  Cold liquid burned his face, got into his throat and stung him, caused him to cough. It was . . . alcohol? Certainly it was volatile. It smoked, shimmering into
  vapour all around him. And . . . he saw that he was lying in it!
  He struggled to his hands and knees, tried not to breathe the fumes, which were rising up into some sort of flue directly overhead. . . A
  blackened flue . . . Fire-blackened? Harry kneeled in a basin or depression cut from solid rock, kneeled there in this pool of volatile liquid.
  Impressions came quickly: he must be in the very bowels of the castle (but what castle?),  down in the bedrock  itself. . . a huge
  cave. And against the opposite wall where rough-hewn steps climbed to unseen higher levels . . . there stood Janos Ferenczy, Wamphyri,
  watching him! The monster held a burning brand aloft, its fire reflecting in his scarlet eyes.
  Their eyes met, locked . . .}anas's lips drew back from his unbelievable teeth in a hideous grin. He spoke . . . but the Necroscope couldn't
  hear him, could only sense the threat. Janos's gaze transferred to the torch in his taloned hand, then to the floor. Harry looked,  too: at a
  shallow trough or channel cut in the rock, which ran from Janos's feet, across the floor, to the lip of the basin where Harry kneeled. And Janos
  was slowly lowering his torch!
  Jesus! Harry must use the Mobius Continuum - but couldn't!  His power had been taken away from him! He was no longer
  master of Mobius space-time! Again Harry knew this without knowing how he knew. His deadspeak was still available to him, but. . .
  . . . Deadspeak?  Since  when  had  it  been  called  that!?  But  no,  he  mustn't attempt to remember that which had not yet
  happened! Best if he simply accept it: that while the Mobius Continuum was no longer a viable proposition, still he had his deadspeak, his
  ability to talk to the dead. Wherefore, why not use it? Why not ask them - the teeming dead, the Great Majority - what all of this was about?
  Too late! Janos's torch touched down and fire came racing in a blue-glaring blaze! Searing heat gouted up in a whooshing
  tongue of shimmering flame, roaring into the chimney overhead. Liquid fire singed the hair from Harry's head and face and set his clothes
  ablaze.
  Leaping erect, he cavorted like a human torch!
  Until yet again -perhaps mercifully this time - he felt himself snatched a little way into the future . . .
  . . . To where he stood in antique ruins as dark as night, yet clear as daylight to him! For while he was scarcely aware of it, the
  Necroscope was a changeling now; an alien Thing was inside him.
  He waited  warily, patiently  in the ruins of Castle Ferenczy; waited  there with  .  .  .  with  a  dead  man!  With  the  resurrected
  Thracian warrior, Bodrogk.
  Briefly, momentarily, flickeringly, Harry knew why they were here. His precognition told him that much, at least. And in a little while two
  women came up from below. One was Sofia, Bodrogk's wife of centuries, who flew into her husband's arms. Both Sofia and Bodrogk were
  dead; they had been called up from their ashes. But they were not as dead as the other woman! She was Sandra and was or had been Harry's
  woman - and later Janos Ferenczy's! The difference now was all too obvious.
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  ForSandra came ghosting in the way of vampire thralls, her yellow eyes alive in the night. But Harry knew in his way that she was less than Sandra now. Or
  more. Once she had loved, or lusted after him, for himself; now she would lust after all men -for their blood!
  She flew into his arms, sobbed into his neck. And holding her tightly -as much to steady himself as to steady her - he looked over her sallow shoulder to where
  Bodrogk and Sofia embraced. If only their embrace could be the same. But of course, it couldn't. For Sandra's beautiful, near-naked body was cold as clay where
  it pressed against him, and Harry knew there was no way he could ever warm it.
  She sensed his intention and drew back a little, but not far enough. His thin sharp stake, a splinter of old oak, drove up under her breast and into her heart.
  She took a final gasping breath, a staggering step away from him, and fell.
  
  Bodrogk, seeing Harry's anguish, did the rest.
  And Harry jumped again . . .
  This time it was different, for the dream-Harry wasn't in it. Or he was, but stood apart from it, watching it happen to his future-self. Which was probably just as
  well, for surely this had to be the end of him? Yet despite that in this instance he was merely an observer, still he was given to understand something of what
  was happening . . . and wished that he wasn't.
  For in Starside, close to the glaring hemisphere Gate, the Necroscope Harry Keogh was burning. A vampire, finally he paid a vampire's price for a fatal
  mistake: to have let himself get too close to the Wamphri!
  He burned inside and out: fire on the outside, and a burning, consuming hatred within. For Shaithis, who even now took the Lady Karen (but Karen . . .?) by
  force right there in front of Harry's cross. She seemed exhausted where Shaithis savaged and ravaged her; she resisted not at all as he tore at her.
  The dream-Harry would go to their assistance . . . except he was rooted to the spot. He was an observer, forbidden to interfere. And as the flames licked higher
  around the Necroscope's funeral pyre, so Shaithis taunted him - but all in silence, like some hideous form of mime - while the fire ate at Harry's lower trunk. It
  was perhaps the cruellest thing that the dream-Harry had ever seen or could ever have imagined.
  Perhaps too cruel -for even as an observer he was beginning to feel his own future agony!
  Events speeded up, became a blur - a fury of fear, fire, arid frenzied flesh! - and light! Blinding light!
  The Gate was its source: a ball of silently expanding but all-consuming light. It ate Shaithis, Karen, the Necroscope - the entire scene - and it sent the
  dream-Harry . . .
  . . . Elsewhen.
  *    *    *
  Again Harry and his future-self - the one a dreamer, and the other a physical if future reality - were in the metaphysical Mobius Continuum, hurtling down a
  past-timestream, rushing back through times that were long gone and forgotten, among the myriad blue, green and red life-threads of Sunside-Starside, into
  their remote beginnings.
  And again the dream-Harry was the observer, who couldn't help but observe that his future self was dead. Neither asleep nor undead but dead, truly dead (in this manifestation
  any way), and gone forever . . . or going. Going where no one would ever be able to find him, into the far past of an alien, parallel vampire world. But being the Necroscope, the dream-Harry knew
  that it wasn't like that: the body of his future self was dead, yes, but the mind would go on. Except this time . . . well, who could say where it would go to? Or perhaps
  this was the very end of the road, albeit right back at the beginning. A paradox - but wasn't everything?
  Horrified, because he knew that this was or would be him, the dream-Harry watched his own future-corpse where it tumbled head over heels into past time.
  Fire-blackened and smouldering - with its arms flung wide and its steaming head thrown back in the final agony of death -it was the one grim anomaly in a darkness shot
  through with the thin neon bars or ribbons of blue, green and red life-threads; for where they sped forwards in time, the dead Harry fell back. Then . . .
  . . . An astonishing thing! For as that burned caricature of himself fell away from him - in the space it left behind as it tumbled from view - a glorious
  bomb-burst of golden splinters, like sentient spears of sunlight, breaking up and speeding out of this place into . . .
  . . . Into a hundred different worlds and times!
  Harry knew it without knowing how he knew: that while the Necroscope was gone, still he had gone on. Knew that he - the dream-Harry himself -would go on!
  But as for now:
  Still plunging headlong down the timestream - a dreamer, incorporeal
  - he went only into the past. But. . . the future-Harry's past? Which of course could only lead to his own present! Even by a dream's standards, it was confusing. . .
  The present, the now, his now. (Or if not now, then the immediate future. For of course his dream was precognitive). And this time Harry was himself. Not merely
  part of - or an observer of himself - but actually himself. And the action was happening to him.
  The immediacy of the thing stood his hair on end, caused a cold sweat to break out on his face and neck. This was real, and he was . . . the victim? So far, in almost everything he had been
  allowed to see - in each phase of it
  - there had been a victim. And Harry suspected that the same general theme would apply here, too. Or more than suspected; it was just the feel of
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  everything, enough in itself to bring on these symptoms of extreme anxiety.
  Very well: a victim. Probably. But of what? He could only wait and see.
  As to his location:
  It was subterranean, a great cave, but not too far underground. Beams or curtains of light, however dim, filtered down from several diverse sources, setting
  disturbed clouds of dust glowing like small silver galaxies in their faint searchlight rays.
  Harry was in motion; he moved with purpose if a little uncertainly through the gloom of the cavern, to a spot where the light was stronger. Looking up, he saw
  a rough-contoured ceiling of unusual stratification, as if the pressured bedrock had been tilted almost on end. Up there, like rows of jagged teeth set in the closed
  jaws of the ceiling, several harder, impervious layers projected downwards where softer strata had fallen away. Higher still, where even more loose stone had
  weathered out, narrow, uneven gaps reached up to daylight - or as Harry now saw, to starlight. These crevasses, filled with mainly unwinking stars on a
  backdrop of diamond-sprinkled sky, were the light-source. The lack of scintillation could be caused by the Necroscope's subterranean viewpoint, or by a thin
  atmosphere, or both. He was loath to hazard a guess.
  Still sweating (despite that he sensed the coldness of the place), Harry looked around on his own level. And now that his eyes were more accustomed to the
  smoky gloom, he could make out massively slanting columns, walls and chimneys of rock that climbed from floor to ceiling, and slabs of fallen rock tumbled into
  tiers and tangles in every direction. The cave was a veritable labyrinth of upended, mainly fractured strata; a geological freak whose ceiling seemed held aloft
  only by those mighty columns formed of harder layers. While around and through this Giant's Causeway of natural, angular supports - glooming over the
  rubble of shattered rock like empty, stony eye-sockets - a network of fissures, leaning lintels and gaping crevices formed doorways to uninviting, unknown routes
  through a forbidding and probably treacherous maze of doubtful extent. In a nutshell, it would be an easy place to get lost in.
  Except. . . Harry seemed to know where he was going. Certainly he did; for if this was a precognitive glimpse, then he had already been here -but in some
  
  near-distant future time. Not so strange; for time, as the Necroscope was well aware, is relative. But in any event he had no time to ponder it, for he was moving
  on. On through the jumble, seeming to drift in his dream-state over the debris of fallen ceiling stones which had been deliberately rearranged, laid in a
  rough-and-ready crazy-paving style to form a pathway or ways through the great maze. And because it seemed the safest way to go, Harry followed the main
  pathway.
  And suddenly he was there, at his destination . . . his rendezvous? A place where the tiers of fallen slabs and columns of rock formed a natural if jumbled
  stairway up the inwards-curving wall of the cavern to a level area some eighteen feet wide by twelve deep, where stood - a table? An
  altar? Some kind of neolithic sarcophagus?
  But Harry knew, that his last 'guess' was right, and that it hadn't been a guess; knew  that he had been here before, and that
  indeed this solid-seeming block of stone standing central in the levelled, paved area under the alcove in the rough rock wall was . . . a
  massive stone coffin!
  Now his sweat ran colder still; it stood out in droplets on his brow, and stuck his shirt to his back between his shoulder-blades. He paused
  to look around, to hold his breath, listen, absorb something of the atmosphere of the place. He had a feeling that he wasn't alone, and was
  offered evidence to confirm his suspicion; evidence, at least, that someone else had been here, and recently.
  As dreams (even precognitive dreams) are wont to do, this one was unfolding itself sequentially, adding details along the way. Now Harry
  saw the torches - or became aware of them - in their brackets  in the walls, and especially  at the base of the great stone coffin. Oil or
  resin-soaked faggots, bedded in gaps in the flags of the floor, and burning so close to the sarcophagus that their flames were blackening its
  base.
  And there was this sweet smell in the air. A scent remembered from . . . Zante? Or Samos? From the Greek Islands,
  definitely. It was in the smoke: a smell of. . . pine forests? Well, at least the torches accounted for the smoky atmosphere. As to who had set
  them burning: that would soon be made clear, Harry was certain. They would be back, those . . . worshippers? Those acolytes,
  anyway. Back to witness the Great Return.'
  What? A Great Return?! The Necroscope grimaced and felt a strengthening of his resolve. Hah! The reanimation of an alien abomination,
  more like - the resurgence of an ancient evil. And that was why he was here: to prevent it! Moving more naturally now, but sweating still, and
  anxious, he commenced climbing the jumble of stone to the dais and sarcophagus -and was arrested by a mournful sound echoing  in the
  confines of the great cave. Mournful, yes . . .  a sobbing ululation . . .  a howling! At which he felt the short hairs at the back  of his
  neck stiffening in spontaneous recognition.
  Time was short and Harry forced himself to climb faster. The steps leaned this way and that, some of them almost as tall as himself, so that he
  must actually and physically climb them, and at each level adjust his stance and balance.  But forty feet up the log jam of fallen
  blocks and toppled columns, finally he stood at the corner of the ominous mausoleum.
  Where the high dais backed up to the side of the cave the wall was formed of a series of black, near-vertical stacks compressed together
  into the almost crystalline forms of hexagonal columns. A horizontal fault had caused weak sections to topple, creating zig-zagging chimneys
  and, deeper still, cracks or windows passing right through the rock to the open air of the outside world. The rims of these vents or fissures
  were lined in pallid starlight, so that Harry imagined the entire cavern complex as located at
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  the edge of a crumbling ravine. Except. . . he more than merely imagined it, he knew—
  —That he was in fact in Scotland, somewhere in the high Grampians, the Cairngorms east ofKingussie!
  The knowledge came . . . and was gone again, as quickly as that. But the Necroscope's urgency - those sensations of nameless anxiety -remained the same. And
  as a second bout of howling sounded, he gave a start, ran his tongue over dry lips and approached the great stone coffin. The heady smell of resin was much
  stronger here, curling up in the smoke from the torches at the base of the sarcophagus.
  It was then, for the first time, that Harry noticed the 'decorations' of two-inch diameter holes bored through the bottom edges of the four slabs that made up
  the coffin's sides. He saw them, and at once recognized their function: not merely as a crude decoration, but as outlets for the contents of the sarcophagus. There
  were six of them along the nine-foot-long coffin's front edge, and three along each of its almost five-foot-long end panels. Warmed to a thick fluidity by the heat
  of the torches, a glutinous yellow substance was oozing from the rows of holes, dripping down the base of the sarcophagus, gradually filling the cracks in the
  paving and forming gluey puddles on the floor of the dais. And this substance was the true source of the evocative 'scent' - warm resin, of course.
  The sarcophagus was almost five feet high; the Necroscope took up one of the central torches from its niche at the front of the great box, and leaned over to
  look inside. What with the gloom, the smoke, the heady reek and all, his eyes were watering badly; it was hard to make out the contents of the coffin. But the very
  terms he'd applied - 'sarcophagus', and 'coffin' -had in themselves been sufficient of a clue or forewarning. For what else would one expect to find in a tomb, but
  a corpse or corpses? Except, and as Harry Keogh was only too well aware, there are corpses and corpses.
  The scattering of torches in the walls cast their flickering light down; the brand in Harry's hand set the surface of the translucent, semi-solid resin in the
  coffin glowing like burnished bronze; the vague outline of...  of something, but something grotesque almost beyond belief, suddenly became visible. Which was
  when what had started as a dream - a precognitive glimpse - turned into sheerest nightmare!
  The figure trapped in the resin was at least seven feet long, two and a half broad at the shoulders, and  narrow  at  the  waist  and  hip.  Still  only
  half-discernible but obviously a huge man, still there was that about it that smacked of the un-, the in-human. It lay on its back, arms folded across its chest, and
  despite its dimensions Harry felt that it was somehow shrivelled, reduced, as if time had taken its toll on it. As to the precise nature of the thing:
  Quite apart from the earlier phases of his dream, Harry was acquainted with the Wamphyri. Indeed the Necroscope knew more about vampires -real
  vampires - than any other man in the world. He had seen Dragosani
  at the end of their bloodfeud, in the fullness of his Wamphyri change, and he'd also been face to face with Yulian Bodescu, in the
  very flux of metamorphosis. He knew exactly what a fully-fledged vampire looked like; that  in fact it looked  something like  . . .
  like this! And yet this was like nothing he'd ever seen before. But one thing for certain: it exuded evil as surely as its great sarcophagus
  exuded pungent resin.
  
  And now it seemed the precognitive  nature of the Necroscope's dream was over, and that purest nightmare was
  taking full sway. At least he hoped so; for if the rest of it was a glimpse into his future, then he wanted none of it!
  Suddenly aware that shadows were creeping where no shadow had been, Harry stepped back from the sarcophagus, fell into a crouch
  and looked all about. There had been furtive movement, he was sure, there on the paved causeway  where it passed under crazily
  tilting lintels . . . and in the shadows along the walls . . . and among the countless jumbles of fallen rock. Grey shadows,
  flowing, fleet-footed . . .
  . . . And a renewed burst of howling, near-distant at first, but then answered from close at hand. Very close at hand!
  Harry's left hand held up the flaring torch; his right was on the rim of the sarcophagus. And even as he looked again into
  the coffin, at the barely discernible yet unmistakable outline there, something came bubbling up out of the gluey mess to
  grab his wrist!
  It wasn't a  hand,  or  barely.  Clawed,  black,  trembling  and  shrivelled,  yet  strong  with  some  inner  fever,  it  was
  half-hand,  half-paw,  all  horror!  And  it  drew  on  Harry  with  an  irresistible  strength  until  in  a  moment  he  found
  himself half-over the stone side of the coffin and into the resin. But at the last his  wits  were  returned  to  him,  and
  drawing back with every ounce of his strength, finally he broke free of the thing that held him. Or rather, it broke free of
  its arm!
  How Harry danced then, with the alien hand still clasped around  his wrist, as he tried to disengage,  free himself
  from that unearthly grip. But he'd hauled so hard that he'd dragged the owner of the shrivelled claw erect in its great coffin. And,
  God help him, the triangular  eyes in its resin-dripping,  half-mummified head were slowly opening.  . . and its dog's
  jaws were splitting apart in a monstrous grin!
  'Jesus! Jesus!' Harry yelped as the Thing reached for him. And:
  'Jesus?'  it replied, its awful voice a surprised cough, a snarl, a bubbling-up of centuries-trapped phlegm and mucus. And
  tilting its head sardonically on one side: 'Ah, no, not Jesus!' it told him. 'If you would call me anything, call me Lykan . .
  . Lord Lykan, of the Wamphyri! Or perhaps, in your case—'(its great arms were folding him in, while its eyes blazed  like  yellow
  lanterns, branding his soul as it growled), '—in your case I shall make an exception. Aye, for it were best  if you call
  me . . .  father?'
  Harry did no such thing. Starting awake he called out for his Ma, all
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  mud and bones and weeds in her watery grave nearly four hundred miles away in Scotland. For cold and terrible as she
   might seem (to anyone else), she was the warmest, safest thing in Harry's world.
  But as has often been stated, the future is a most devious, difficult thing, and not much given to displaying itself to common
  curiosity. Even the Necroscope, the least common of men, could not be allowed to know or remember too much. And as
  is frequently the way of it with dreams, this  one  was  already  fading  from  the  eye  of  memory.  In  a  moment  all  that
  remained of it was the fear of it, whatever it had been. That and the cold sweat, and Harry's tumbled bedclothes.
  And  his sweet mother's anxious query, sighing in his metaphysical mind across  all the miles  between:  What  is  it,
  son?
  Harry stopped panting, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and told her, Nothing, Ma. Just a dream, that's all.
  A nightmare.
  And: Well, she said after a little while, and  isn't it to be expected?  (He could picture her troubled frown.) After all,
  you've  known  some  strange  times,  Harry.  Oh,  yes,  she  was  right  there!  And  there  were  also  times  when  the
  Necroscope's Ma was the very master (or mistress) of understatement. But:
  Strange times, yes, Harry answered quietly, wryly.
  Then, in a moment, seeing her son was all right, she was lighter at heart. When will you come to see me, Harry? You've always
  a home here with me, you know.  Her words might easily have chilled another man to the bone, but Harry felt only her
  warmth.
  Soon, I think, he told her. Pretty soon. But right now . . .  He sighed and shivered a little, for the sweat of fear was
  beginning to dry on him. Oh, you know . . . there are problems.
  He sensed  her nod of  understanding.  There  always  will  be  problems,  Harry, among the living. And, as you know  well
  enough, even among the dead! But whenever, I'll be waiting here, knowing that soon you'll be close tome . . .
  Her incorporeal voice faded slowly away.
  Problems  among  the  living,  and  among  the  Great  Majority.  And  all  too  often  their  problems  were  Harry's.  His
  nightmare had disappeared completely now, forgotten, sunk back into the depths  of his subconscious  mind . . .  but
  however briefly, his mother's words had struck a chord there.
  Problems among the living and the dead.
  And . . .  the undead?
  II
  BUT WHERE IS HARRY KEOGH?
  
  'Er, Harry?'
  Darcy Clarke stuck his head round the door of the Necroscope's E-Branch 'suite': a long, narrow room, really, fitted out like a small hotel room for Harry's
  convenience, until he could find the time and opportunity to look round for a place for himself and his family in London . . . if he could convince his wife to stay.
  Right now, though, the way it was going with Brenda and all, Clarke considered it a hell of a big if. . .
  In fact, in years gone by when this entire top-floor complex had belonged to the hotel below, Harry's apartment had been one of the rooms. In front, it was
  simply an overnight bedroom some four or five paces square. At the rear, partitioned behind a sliding door, there was a wash-basin, a shower and WC. The floor
  space of the main room was occupied along one wall by a computer console with a swivel-chair and space beneath for the operator's feet; it was of little or no use to
  the Necroscope, who had his own unique ways of solving problems. In a corner a wardrobe stood open. Some items of Harry's clothing were hanging there; others
  lay folded on shelving to one side.
  Harry had been about to shave. He wore a towel round his waist and foam on his face, and was leaning over the wash-basin with a plastic shaver in his hand. And
  he looked just a little sick: pale and sick and tired. Well, Darcy thought, he's looked pale ever since I've known  him . . . ever since
  I've known him as Harry, anyway! Because of course that had only been for seventeen  months; but he'd once known
  him a lot longer than that as someone else. It  was  that  previous  person  whom  Darcy  was  looking  at  now  -  on  the
  outside, at least.
  Harry was only twenty-one, but his body (or Alec's) was ten years older. The Necroscope's  hair was russet-brown,
  plentiful and naturally wavy; but even in the last few months a lot of the lustre had disappeared, and the odd strand  of
  grey hair had appeared among the
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  brown in the temples. His eyes too were honey-brown; very wide, very intelligent, and (strange beyond  words) very
  innocent! Even now, for all they'd seen - for all that he'd experienced and learned - they were innocent. Darcy knew it
  could be argued, however, that certain murderers have the same look. But in Harry the innocence was mainly genuine.
  He hadn't asked to be what he was, or to be called upon to do the things he'd done - but he had done them.
  His teeth were strong,  not quite white, a little uneven;  they were set in a  mouth  that  was  unusually  sensitive  but
  could also be cruel, caustic.  He  had  a  high  brow,  a  straight  nose,  cheeks  that  seemed  just  a  fraction  sunken.  Not
  surprising, that last, for the Necroscope had lost weight. Alec Kyle had been perhaps too well-fleshed - once. With his
  height it hadn't mattered much. Not to Alec, whose work in E-Branch had been in large part sedentary.  But it mattered
  to Harry Keogh. It had been bad enough  carrying around those  extra years, let alone the extra weight! He was trying
  to find time to get his new body in training, bring it to its best possible condition. He'd be better off, Clarke thought,  if
  he got his mind sorted out first! He suspected  Harry's mind must feel something like a nervous  cat in a new house  -
  prowling around and trying to get used to the layout. But it was already more than a year.
  'What is it, Darcy?' the Necroscope asked, his voice listless as his looks - listless, but not lost. The man might be
  little more than a boy, but still he carried a lot of mileage. And his tone of voice, the depth  of his penetrating gaze, his
  obvious intelligence, carried a whole world of authority.
  But his looks, Harry Keogh's looks! They were the stumbling block, and not only for Clarke but for every esper in
  the Branch. The fact that each time they spoke to Harry - or even thought of him - it was on the tip of every tongue  to
  call him Alec, just as Clarke had barely avoided doing  a  moment  ago.  And  this  despite  that  he'd  been  deliberately
  rehearsing to himself, Harry, Harry, Harry, all the way down the corridor.
  Clarke forced himself back to earth. 'It's late,' he said. 'And, well, one or two of the gang just happened  to mention
  you mightn't be . . .  you know, feeling too good?' He came in, closed the door behind him and sat on Harry's tumbled bed.
  The Necroscope gave a shrug of his shoulders  and offered a mirthless, 'Huh! They just "happened"  to mention it,
  right? I mean, it's not that these  espers  of yours  have been into my mind or anything. Hell no! But they just kind of
  "suspected" I might be a bit down this morning.' He frowned and gave a snort  of derision. 'Christ, give it a rest, can't
  you, Darcy! I mean, surely you know I've been feeling them groping away in my head morning, noon  and night every
  day for well over a year now!'
  Clarke flopped his hands uselessly. 'But they're . . . well, espers,
  Harry!' he said, making it sound like an apology. 'And they do manage to keep their talents pretty much to themselves. I mean, we
  have our code, you know? But we can't help worrying about  you . . . "  Or thinking about you, and about Alec. Wondering
  what kind of a freak you are; how you feel about it. And what about that poor girl downstairs; how she feels. Because we told her you were
  dead! And now you're alive, but no longer you! And as for Alec, he's gone forever. We know how it was -you've told us how it was, and Ben
  Trask has corroborated it - but we wonder anyway . . . The Ben Trask of Clarke's silent reflections was another Branch operative,
  a human lie-detector.
  The Necroscope looked at Clarke and he looked back: at a man he'd known as the  precog Alec Kyle.  Or rather,  he looked at the
  shape of Kyle with Harry's mind in it. And so back to that again: a complete  fuck-up  of a situation!  And  Clarke thinking: But if it
  can fuck me up like this, what must it be doing to him and his family?
  
  Clarke continued to look at Harry  where he'd scraped  the  first  tentative  swath  through  the  foam - and where he'd immediately
  stopped  shaving,  and  was  now  staring  at  his  reflection  in  the  mirror  over  the  bowl.  Clarke  couldn't  possibly  know  what  the
  Necroscope was thinking (telepathy wasn't Darcy's talent), but he could take a stab at it: Looking at himself and wondering who he
  was . . . and where he was! Knowing that in fact the Russians would have cut the real him up long ago, to study his guts and brains.
  And that they'd have done a far more thorough job of it - and certainly a more clinical one - than the necromancer  Boris  Dragosani
  had ever done on one of his victims.
  Trying to concentrate on what he was doing, Harry  crooked his mouth  and said, 'You know,  sometimes  when  I cut  myself  I'm
  surprised  it hurts?  It's  true:  I'm having to  learn to  be a lot  more careful with  myself.  It's  like when  you  borrow  a book out  of  a
  library: you don't much care how you handle it because it isn't yours. Except this time it isn't like that,  because now  it is mine and
  I have to look after it. And I'm not just talking about a book but a body:  my body,  now!  And  not  even a snowball  in hell's chance
  that I'll ever get another. So I have to take care of it - despite that I don't much care for the damn thing!'
  He finished  shaving: a patchy  job, but  he hadn't  actually  cut  himself. Tossing  the  shaver  into  the  basin,  he splashed  his  face,
  patted it dry, and stepped into the bedroom. And letting the towel fall paradoxically wwselfconsciously  from around  his waist,  as
  he started  to  dress  he asked: 'So what  do you  think?  How  do we look, Darcy?'  Darcy  knew  it wasn't  a so-called royal  we. The
  Necroscope was asking about the two of him.
  Well, of course,  the  recently  elected Head of Branch could lie, but  he chose not  to.  'How  do you  look?' He shook  his head in
  unfeigned concern. 'Not too good, Harry. In fact, you look like shit!'
  And finally Harry had to grin. He looked like shit. This from Darcy
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  Clarke! Not  that  Darcy  looked like shit,  no - but  then  again he didn't  look like much of  anything!  For  Darcy  was  possibly  the
  world's  most  nondescript  man. Nature  had  made  up  for  this  physical  anonymity,  however,  by  equipping  him  with  an  almost
  unique talent.  He was  a deflector:  the  opposite  of accident-prone.  Only  let him stray  too  close to  danger,  and  something,  some
  parapsychological guardian angel, would intervene on his behalf. He had no control  over the  thing; indeed he was  only  ever aware
  of it if he stared deliberately in the face of danger. Or occasionally when danger came creeping up on him.
  The talents of the others - telepathy, scrying, precognition, oneiro-mancy, lie-detecting - were more pliable, applicable, obedient;
  but  not  Darcy's.  It  just  did  its  own  thing,  which  was  to  look  after  him.  It  had  no  other  use.  But  because  it  ensured  Darcy's
  longevity, it made him the perfect man for the job. Continuity was important  in E-Branch.  The  anomaly  was  this:  that  he himself
  didn't  quite  believe in it until  he felt  it working. He still  switched  off the  current  before he would  even change a light  bulb!  But
  maybe that was just another example of the thing at work.
  To look at Darcy Clarke, then, no one would  ever suspect  he could be the  boss  of anything  - let alone head of the  most  secret
  branch  of  the  British  Secret  Services!  A  job  that  Darcy  hoped  against  hope  he'd  soon  be  able  to  hand  over  to  Harry.  Of
  middle-height, mousy-haired, showing early signs of a slight stoop  and a small paunch,  he was  middling in just  about  every  way.
  He had sort of neutral-hazel eyes in a face not much given to laughter, and an intense mouth which you just might remember if you
  remembered nothing else, but other than  that  there  was  a general facelessness  about  him which made Darcy  instantly  forgettable.
  Even the way he dressed, was . . . conservative.
  And indeed looking at him, Harry thought: He's a very ordinary, extraordinary man!  And however  much the  Necroscope  might
  dislike the situation, it was a very difficult thing to dislike someone like Darcy Clarke. So: 'What's on the menu for today?' he asked
  him, glancing at his watch.  It  was  9.45 and Darcy  was  right: it was  late. By  now,  the  rest  of  E-Branch  would  be  buzzing.  But
  before Darcy  could reply  to  Harry's  first  question,  he followed  it up  with:  'And  what  about  Brenda?  Did  you  see  her  yet  this
  morning?'
  'We had breakfast together, downstairs,' Darcy answered. 'She's . . . well, fine.' But  he didn't  seem too  sure  about  it.  And  more
  hurriedly, eager to change the subject: 'The baby is just beautiful! I mean, he's really coming along . . .'
  Harry stared hard at him. Right now he wasn't interested in the baby. 'She still doesn't want to see me, right?'
  Darcy flapped his hands. 'Harry, it's only been—'
  '—A year and a half,' the Necroscope cut him off. And he was right. Time had flown.
  'Okay,' Darcy nodded. 'But give Brenda - give yourself- a little more time! I mean if you, we, aren't used to this yet, how can you
  expect her to be? She's just a girl, and she went through a hell of a lot.'
  The Necroscope  continued  to  stare  hard at him for a long time, then  nodded,  shrugged, gave a deep  sigh.  Darcy  was  right,  he
  knew. Life had to go on, and Harry's life for the moment was here at E-branch.  He had to  involve himself, become part  of it.  He'd
  be okay as long as there was something to do. Well, apart from these endless fucking debrief-ings!
  It was as if Darcy had read his thoughts. 'We think there may be work for you,  Harry,'  he said, beginning to  breathe  easier as he
  sensed the Necroscope's spring winding down a little. 'Work that should suit you right down to the ground.'
  But Harry only wondered: And below it?
  Much in accord with Harry's own deliberations, it was the  general consensus  of opinion  in the  Branch that  if they  could keep  the
  Necroscope  busy,  it would  be best  for him and everyone  else concerned. They  had  a  telepath,  Trevor  Jordan,  who  despite  the
  mainly  unspoken  Branch  code  occasionally  came  into  contact  with  Harry's  jumbled,  anxious  thoughts;  a  locator,  Ken  Layard,
  whose talent drew him to  the  Necroscope  like a moth  to  a lantern,  so that  his mind kept  bumping into  him; and an empath,  Ray
  Betts, who couldn't help but sense the Necroscope's overwrought emotions. But these were only the  special  cases; every  E-Branch
  member  was  affected  by  Harry's  presence  one  way  or  another.  For  to  a  man  or  woman,  and  in  their  own  ways,  all  Branch
  
  operatives were talented, and all must feel for a fellow psychic.
  They  knew  what  the  Necroscope  was;  they  were aware of his awesome,  even  frightening  powers.  But  they  also  knew  what
  Harry had done for them,  for the  world,  and how  he was  paying  for it.  If they  could keep  him with  them,  keep  him working, it
  could be he'd eventually  get over the  multiple  traumas  of past  and present.  Certainly  he  was  the  type  who  worked  best  under
  pressure.  Making  use of  a  case  that  only  the  Necroscope  could  possibly  handle,  Darcy  Clarke  was  about  to  apply  just  such
  pressure.  In his office at the  end of the  corridor,  the  recently-appointed  Head of Branch waved Harry  into  a chair and told  him,
  This . . . could be a nasty one.'
  Harry nodded and said drily, 'My kind of work, right?' He waited for Darcy to get on with it. But before he could begin:
  The  intercom  came  cracklingly  alive  and  blurted  an  urgent,  'Sir?'  Simultaneously,  an  alert  button  on  Darcy's  console  began
  flashing red. Keying all-points connections with the Duty Officer, he said:
  'What is it?'
  'One for us, I think.' The DO's voice was tense.
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  'Put it on screen,' Darcy answered. And a moment later his desk screen displayed a communication from the Minister
  Responsible. Harry, seated opposite, saw Darcy's jaw drop as his face almost visibly paled. 'Christ!' Darcy hissed.
  The Necroscope stood up, paced to Darcy's side of the desk, glanced at the screen:
  Origination: MinRes. Destination: Director INTESP.
  Duty Officer INTESP.
  All Agents INTESP.
  IRA Alert! A few minutes ago the Metropolitan Police received anonymous  advance warning that a device will be
  planted in Oxford St., set to detonate at 10:25 today. Any chance you can do something, Mr Clarke? Sorry for short
  notice. No reply required -action will suffice . . .
  'Your  Minister  Responsible  has  a  sense  of  humour!'  Harry's  tone  was  dry.  Then  . . .  the  Necroscope  blinked,
  staggered, and grabbed the edge of the desk to steady himself! Darcy scarcely noticed; made breathless  by haste, he
  was already getting back to the DO:
  'Is Trevor Jordan in?'
  'He's on it,' came the immediate answer. 'I caught him on his way to the office and diverted him.'
  'I'm on it, too,' Darcy snapped. 'But no one else! Get me a car, then get in here and take over.'
  There's a car waiting out back.'
  As Darcy left his chair and headed for the door, the Necroscope said, 'How about me?'
  Darcy skidded to a halt, whirled around. 'No way! There's only one you, Harry, and this is—'
  '—Dangerous?' Harry was himself again; he grinned, however coldly. 'I've seen a lot worse places than Oxford Street, Darcy.'
  Darcy shook his head. Speaking rapidly but precisely, he said, 'You can be hurt, Harry. You can be killed! But with
  me, it's not very likely. My talent won't even let me get close to that bomb, which means I can help the police find it.
  Where my legs won't take me, that's  ground zero! As for Trevor Jordan: he knows the risks - but he also knows the
  mind of just about every IRA bomber working in England! If this bloke's still out there on the street, Trev can probably
  find him. But you—'
  He might have gone on, but Harry held up a hand. 'You've made your point. Don't let me hold you up.'
  In the next moment, Darcy had wheeled and disappeared out into the corridor. In his wake he left an old-fashioned
  wooden coat-stand
  teetering where he'd grabbed his overcoat. It swayed first one way, then the other. It might even have toppled; but
  coming from nowhere, a sudden swirl of air straightened it up.
  The door hadn't yet slammed shut behind Darcy's back; his running footsteps were still echoing in the corridor; his
  communications screen" still carried the Minister Responsible's cry for help. But already his office was quite empty.
  Against Darcy Clarke's orders, against all logic, and definitely against commonsense, the Necroscope had taken a
  Mobius  shortcut  to Oxford Street. For to Harry it didn't feel like he was putting himself at risk  at  all.  And  he  could
  hardly be putting Alec Kyle at risk, now could he? For Kyle was already dead . . . wasn't he?
  And his talent, too?
  But if so, then what was it Harry had  seen,  experienced,  in  the  moment  after  reading  the  Minister  Responsible's
  message on the viewscreen? How to explain what had come and  gone  in  the  briefest  possible  time,  like  a  crack  of
  lightning illuminating some secret part of his brain and causing him to stagger?
  For he'd seen  . . .  a  Mobius  door,  but  horizontal!  A  Mobius  door,  shimmering,  hovering  lengthwise  in  mid-air,
  superimposed  on  reality.  Then,  as  quickly  as  it  had  come,  the  extraordinary  vision  had  disappeared.  But  in  its
  split-second  existence,  the  Necroscope  had  seen  the  door  shaken,  had  seen  it  writhing  like  a  ring  of  smoke  in  a
  sudden draft—
  —And he'd seen what it vomited, like some monstrous volcano, high into the suddenly darkening sky!
  
  Harry scarcely knew London at  all.  Despite  that  the  Necroscope  was  much,  far,  and  extremely  strangely  travelled,
  London hadn't been an extensive part of his itinerary. He had visited  Oxford  Street,  however,  and  so  knew  several
  co-ordinates;  enough  that he wouldn't emerge in the middle of the road in heavy traffic, anyway. Not that that ever
  happened; in doubt, he could always look out through  his exit door before stepping  through  it. But as for the Street
  itself, its junctions, idiosyncrasies - its 'personality' - he really didn't know one end from the other.
  He emerged in the entrance of a shoe  store perhaps  midway along the street. An extremely tall man in spectacles,
  leaving  the  shop  in  a  hurry,  bumped  into  him,  looked  surprised,  and  at  once  apologized.  But  Harry  was  already
  looking around, getting the feel of things.
  It was mid-week but there were plenty of people about. Up and down the street, he  saw  policemen;  already  they
  were thick on the ground. And somewhere out there would be Trevor Jordan, probably in the company of a couple of
  plain-clothes officers. As for Darcy Clarke: he wouldn't even have reached his car yet. But once at the driving wheel
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  he'd be here before you could say boo! And he'd very probably be mad at Harry, who couldn't  even  say  why  he'd
  come here against good advice.
  A  sign  said  Hyde  Park  to  the  west,  Oxford  Circus,  Holborn,  and  Central  to  the  east.  Looking  along  the  street
  towards  Hyde  Park,  Harry  saw  that  police  activity  was  hotting  up.  There  was  no  panic  as  yet,  but  things  were
  happening: barriers appearing as if from nowhere, being dragged across the road; traffic being diverted, stopped  from
  coming this way. Wherefore the suspect area must lie to the east, towards the city centre.
  Sure enough, in the direction of Holborn, traffic and pedestrians  alike were being diverted off the main road down
  side streets,  and several of the police down there were using loudhailers. A great many of the people  on  the  street
  seemed used to it all; they began to move a little faster but were still mainly unhurried. Most  of them looked irritated
  by the disruption of their everyday  routines,  but  were  nevertheless  obedient  to  the  law  as  police  activity  grew  in
  proportion to the number of officers arriving on the scene. On the other hand, some paid little or no attention  to it all
  but went about their business as if there were no interference whatsoever.
  A string of six red-robed Hari Krishna types with shaved, bowed heads, beads galore, and their arms folded up their
  wide  sleeves  went  single-file,  in  an  almost  mechanical  pitter-patter  shuffle,  along  the  pavement.  With  their  heads
  down like that - the way they seemed intent upon  their  own  feet  and  moving  with  that  rapid,  rhythmic,  apparently
  blind locomotion - it astonished  Harry that they somehow managed to avoid collision with anyone  or  thing  in  their
  way! Their leader, and  the  one  bringing  up  the  rear,  carried  tiny  golden  bells  that  chimed  in  time  to  their  precise,
  almost clockwork motion . . .
  Except Harry wasn't here as an observer of life but as a foil against death. Fine, but how to go about  it? So he stood
  there undecided, until a young policeman of about his own age approached and said, 'Best to get well away from the barriers, sir.
  We'll be clearing the whole street in a little while.'
  Harry  looked  him  in  the  eye  and  said,  'Look,  some  friends  of  mine  -E-Branch  people,  Trevor  Jordan  and  Darcy
  Clarke?  -  are  helping  you  blokes  out.  Now,  it's  possible  you  never  heard  of  these  people,  but  your  seniors  very
  definitely have. Since I fancy my friends are a lot closer to the action than I am right now, that's where I need to be. So
  I'd be obliged if you would, well, direct me? Where's it all happening?'
  Listening to Harry, the policeman had at first looked surprised; then his eyes had taken on a blank expression; now
  they went hard and his eyebrows came together in a frown. 'E-Branch? Sorry, pal, but you're right: I never heard of it.
  Press, d'you mean? But in any case, and since it isn't in my orders, I have to ask you to move on.'
  The pavement  was  still  alive with  people.  Harry  pointed  at them,  saying,  'What,  just  me? I mean .  .  .  can't  you  get  this  lot
  moving first? What about the Hari Krishna types?'
  Now the young officer was really ruffled. His lips tightened and he said, 'Look, chummy, we have to start somewhere and you're
  it! So just leave out all the lip and move your backside out of here!'
  Harry refused  to  display  his annoyance.  He simply  nodded,  conjured a Mobius  door  and stepped  through  it.  He wasn't  there
  any  more. The  young  officer started  to  say,  'And  if I can give you  a word  of advice and stopped  short.  He  wasn't  speaking  to
  anyone and people were starting to look at him. He turned a couple of stiff-legged, complete circles, looked for Harry  and failed to
  find him, finally shuffled sideways into a shop doorway and out of sight. . .
  The Necroscope emerged from the Mobius Continuum at the junction  of Oxford Street  and Regent Street,  and knew  that  he must
  be pretty close to the venue. Policemen in uniform were everywhere, working frantically to  clear the  street.  Glancing at his watch,
  Harry  saw  the  reason  why:  it was  10:16.  If indeed a bomb had been planted,  it was  due to  explode in something less  than  nine
  minutes' time.
  Caught in a crush  of people  being shepherded  down  Regent Street,  he stepped  to  one side and looked about.  Then,  just  as he
  was about  to  be caught up  again, he spotted  Trevor  Jordan  on a traffic  island in urgent conversation  with  two  uniformed  senior
  policemen. Sidestepping the cordon, he ran towards Jordan, shouting, Trevor, can I be of help?'
  Jordan saw him and quickly spoke to the inspectors; one of them waved off a policeman who  was  hot  on Harry's  heels. And  as
  he skidded to a halt, Harry was apologetic. 'I . . .  just thought it might be a good idea to be in on this,' he gulped.
  Jordan shrugged and said, 'Right now I don't see what you can do, but  since you're  here . . .' He shrugged again. Jordan  was  the
  
  easy-going sort  generally, but  it was  obvious  from his tone  of voice that  in  the  current  situation  he  saw  the  Necroscope  as  an
  encumbrance. There weren't any dead people to talk to here . . .  not just yet, anyway.
  A  seasoned  if  occasionally  variable  telepath,  Jordan  was  thirty-two  years  old.  His  looks  fitted  his  character
  precisely: he was usually transparent, open as a favourite book. It was as if he personally would like to be as readable
  to others as they were to him; as if he were trying to make some sort of physical compensation for his metaphysical
  talent. His face reflected this attitude: oval, fresh, open and almost  boyish.  He  had  lank  mousy  hair  falling  forward
  above  grey eyes, and a crooked mouth that straightened  out whenever he was worried or annoyed.  Mostly,  people
  liked him; having the advantage of knowing it if someone didn't like him, Jordan would simply avoid that person. But,
  rangy and athletic, it was a mistake to misread his
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  obvious sensitivity; there was plenty of determination in him, too.
  Harry asked him: 'Is this where it will happen?' He scanned all about, trying to work out what was going on.
  In his time (just seventeen months ago), the Necroscope had been the author of a considerable amount of bombing
  of  his  own,  but  he  told  himself  that  that  had  been  different  and  even  necessary.  Or  was  it  all  in  the  eye  of  the
  beholder? Well, maybe, except this wasn't a nest  of mindspy thugs and megalomaniacs in some nightmare-riddled chateau in the
  USSR, but a busy  thoroughfare in the heart of London. The people who could  get  involved,  hurt,  killed  here,  were
  innocent of any crime other than being here. And there were still far too many of them.
  A flood of shoppers  was even now issuing from stores  both east and west, adding to the  crushes  down  Regent,
  Portland and New Bond Streets.  And  police  activity  had  grown  even  more  urgent.  There  were  dog-handlers,  with
  sniffers straining at their leads; loud-hailers boomed to left  and  right,  issuing  raucous  instructions;  motorists  were
  leaving their blocked-in cars and hurrying on foot in what they hoped was the safest direction.
  'Chaos!' Harry said, guessing that Jordan hadn't answered his question because he didn't know.
  The name of the  game,  sir,'  one  of  the  police  inspectors  harshly  answered.  The  three  "D"s.  To  cause  as  much
  disruption, death and destruction  as inhumanly possible. Chaos, yes. But if you're with Mr Clarke's Branch - and  if
  this is new to you - where've you been?'
  'Oh, places,' Harry looked at him in a certain way of his, and was glad that  Alec  Kyle  had  been  the  sort  who  kept  himself  to
  himself. And turning to Jordan: There are only six minutes left, and people all over the place!'
  But Trevor Jordan wasn't listening. He was half-collapsed in the back of a squad  car parked  on  the  traffic  island,
  with a pained expression on his face and his hands to the sides of his head. The policemen looked at each other, went
  to question him. Harry stopped them, saying, 'He's at work. Leave him.'
  The police cordon in Regent Street had let a car through  the crush. It slewed across  the road, bumped up onto the
  traffic island alongside the squad car. And Darcy Clarke got out. He saw Harry at once and began to protest,  'Jesus,
  Harry—!'
  But the Necroscope had gone down on one knee beside Jordan, who was muttering: 'It's . . .  it has to be . . .  Sean!'
  'Scan?' Harry gripped his shoulder, stared hard into his squeezed-up face.
  'Sean Milligan,' Darcy hissed in Harry's ear. 'He's one of their best, or worst!'
  'Armed,' Jordan gasped. 'And with more than just a bomb! He . . .  he hasn't  primed it yet. Too many police around.
  Sean knows he'll be
  spotted, knows they'll get him. He's thinking of. . .  of creating a diversion.  Yes, that's  it,  a diversion!'  Jordan's  eyes  blazed  open.
  'Oh, fuck! Now he's primed it!'
  'Primed!' Darcy snapped at the two officers, who at once turned away and began speaking into walkie-talkies. Up on the  roof  of
  a building, Harry caught the glint of metal as a marksman took his position behind a parapet.
  'Primed, yes . . . "  Jordan's eyes were squeezed tightly shut again, and sweat rivered his face. 'And he's set the timer for . . .  just
  one and a half minutes!'
  'God!' Darcy was trembling; he looked like he might make a run for it, which told him - and Harry Keogh - a lot.
  Trevor,' the Necroscope spoke softly. 'With only ninety seconds left, Sean has to be on the move. Which way's he heading?'
  But Darcy Clarke babbled, 'Oh, I can tell you that!'
  And Harry continued to speak to Jordan: 'Has he still got the bomb?'
  'Yes!'Jordan's gasped  answer, as he squeezed his temples more yet. 'But he knows he must get rid of it, and now!
  Jesus, fifteen pounds of semtex!'
  'Christ!' Darcy suddenly  yelped. 'Let me in the car.  I've  got  to  get  out  of  here!'  He  made  to  scramble  for  his  car,
  tripped and went sprawling across the back of the police vehicle.
  And  it happened.  A tall thin man with a pale, badly pock-marked face, wearing  a  loosely  flapping  overcoat  and  carrying  a
  sausage-shaped holdall, came at a run down the middle of the road. Jordan looked up, saw him, yelped: 'Sean!' And
  the  recognition  was  mutual.  Not  that  Milligan  recognized  Trevor  Jordan,  but  seeing  the  squad  car,  the  senior
  policemen, and three civilians all grouped on the traffic island - and all staring at him  -  he  did  know  that  he'd  been
  made.
  The right-hand side of his coat went back and the snout of an ugly, short-barrelled machine-pistol swung into view.
  Harry sensed  hasty  movement on a roof, the re-alignment of a weapon; Milligan  sensed  it,  too,  and  the  gun  in  his
  hand  swept up, his thin lips drew back, and both he and his machine-pistol snarled their abuse! Bullets chewed  the
  
  high parapet of  the  building,  causing  the  marksman  up  there  to  duck  down  out  of  sight.  And  over  the  chatter  of
  Milligan's gun, Harry heard Jordan cry out:
  'Getaway! He's looking for the getaway car!'
  Milligan was maybe forty feet away, pointing his gun here,  there,  everywhere,  trying  to  choose  a  main  target.  A
  secondary crowd of people had come bursting out of a large store onto the street, but they weren't a threat to the IRA
  man. On the other hand, the sausage-shaped  holdall in his hand  was  definitely  a  threat  to  them.  And  it  was  rapidly
  becoming one to Sean Milligan, too.
  As the Necroscope glanced again at his watch and saw that there was
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  something less than a minute to go, two things happened. Darcy Clarke had finally got into his car, started  the motor,
  and was making to drive away. His car had just lurched off the traffic island onto the street when a second  car, low,
  dark, fast and mean, came careening through  a traffic barrier in a tangle of twisted metal. The two  vehicles  collided;
  Darcy's car was thrown back onto the traffic island and the rogue car glanced off, smashed  through  a pair of bollards, mounted the
  kerb and nose-dived through a store window. Scan Milligan wouldn't be making his getaway after all.
  He knew it, and it was time to apply the crazed logic of the total terrorist. The sniper on the roof couldn't get off a
  shot  at Sean because  of the people on the street;  Sean had to get rid of his holdall in the next twenty seconds  and
  then make one hell of a run for it, but first he had to get these  people out of his fucking way and he couldn't shoot
  them all. He aimed his gun at the parapet hiding the sniper, pulled the trigger and stitched the wall of the building with
  a tracery of bullets. Then, as the milling people scrambled for cover, Sean chose  his target. Not so difficult, for there
  was only one target after all: the City Centre itself, and what could only be a bunch  of top-ranking officials and police
  officers.
  By now he should have been shot dead, and he knew that, too. Which meant there were no armed policemen on the ground in
  the immediate vicinity. So maybe he stood a slight chance after all. . .  (/there was still time.
  Panting,  sweating,  cursing,  he  ran  towards  the  group  on  the  traffic  island  and,  pivoting  like  a  discus-thrower,
  whirled the holdall. Which was when he saw Harry Keogh. Harry had  come  forward  onto  the  road,  putting  himself
  between his friends and Sean Milligan. Still pivoting, preparing to release his deadly missile, Sean let rip with a burst
  of wild fire from his gun.
  Harry had guessed how the other would react; he'd already conjured a Mobius door between himself and Milligan.
  Stray bullets ripped past him, but Scan's arc of fire was restricted by the door, which no one else but the Necroscope
  could see. The main stream of bullets crossed  the threshold  and passed  right out of this universe. While up on  the
  roof, the sniper finally had Milligan in his sights and fired one hurried shot.
  Hit in the hip, the IRA man tripped and went flying. Him and his holdall both, flying right in through Harry's door!
  And the Necroscope knew what he must do. If he simply collapsed the door there'd be questions,  because  people
  just don't vanish into thin air like that. But Harry had a picture in his mind that he couldn't shift, which told him how it
  must be. And with only three seconds to go, he tilted the door on its side.
  His mind wrestled with the alien, metaphysical math of the thing . . . and won! And as if the invisible door's top edge
  were hinged, it swung
  upwards through ninety degrees into the horizontal. And the Necroscope hurled himself backwards away from it as it blew!
  Fifteen  pounds  of semtex in  the  Mobius  Continuum,  a  place  where  even  thoughts  have  weight,  and  a  spoken  word  can  be
  deafening. And only the frail however savage shell of a human body  to  take  the  blast.  With  one exception  it was  exactly as it had
  been during that split-second of precognition in Darcy's Clarke's office; the  exception  was  sound.  For  even though  the  Continuum
  acted as a baffle, still  there  came the  subdued  roar of the  explosion,  as the  immaterial frame of the  door  buckled and warped  and
  finally blinked out of existence.
  But not before the Continuum had rid itself of a hideous contamination,  and a jet of wet  red stinking  human debris  had erupted
  like a volcano, flinging the  guts and brains  and  shit  and  shattered  bones  of  a  man  up  and  outwards  against  the  high  walls  and
  windows of the street.
  And then the slimy, spattering rain, that smelled of cordite and copper and many a crime corrected . . .
  It was over but as yet the street was still and strangely silent. Street-cleaning vehicles had been ordered-up  and were on their  way;
  somewhere in the near-distance  police  and ambulance sirens  wailed their  unmistakable  dirges; a handful of unfortunate  uniformed
  officers were picking up . . .  whatever  pieces  were large enough to  be gathered off the  street.  A man, staggering and bloody,  was
  being led away from a shattered store window, where the rear of his car stuck up at an odd angle.
  'You,' one of the police inspectors said to Harry, with a hand on his shoulder, 'are a hell of a lucky  man. You were the  closest  to
  it when  that  bomb went  off.'  But  suddenly  his voice was  very  quiet.  'What  did  you  .  .  .  see?  I  mean  exactly  what  was  it  that
  happened there?' Carefully, he dabbed specks of blood and other matter from his forehead.
  Darcy  Clarke was  fully  recovered. Breaking into  the  conversation  with  what  he  hoped  would  be  a  useful  lie,  he  said,  'I  saw
  everything. When Sean was shot he fell on top of his hold-all. Then there came the explosion. His body muffled the sound but  took
  the full force of the blast. He just. . . flew apart.'
  Harry nodded. 'Something like that,' he said. 'Actually, I was looking away from it.'
  As luck would have it, most of them had been looking away  from it.  But  behind the  parapet  wall of a tall building, white-faced
  
  and wondering, a police marksman examined his weapon and thought, what the hell. . .? For it was one thing to  shoot  at a man, but
  quite another to hit him and see him fall - and then watch him disappear right out of this world!
  Not fifty feet away from the group on the traffic island, Harry's
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  Krishna types huddled in a shop doorway. For once immobilized, they stared at the scene of what could have been an enormous disaster. Harry saw them looking.
  Their sandals might have been stilled for once, but their slanted eyes were still full of the action that had been, and that they'd seen. One of them - their leader? - was
  lowering a camera. Harry couldn't help wondering what he'd been photographing, and why . . .
  Amazingly, Darcy's car looked like it might still drive, however dangerously. The senior lawmen seemed uncertain about it, but before they could advise Darcy
  against it he'd bundled the Necroscope and Trevor Jordan inside and driven off. On the way to E-Branch HQ, he said, 'It seems we should never underestimate you,
  Harry. I don't know what you did, or how you did it, but I do know it was you.'
  And Jordan said, 'My telepathy seems like a toy by comparison!'
  'We all played our parts,' Harry shrugged. 'We've worked together before, and it's starting to look like we make a good team.' But before they could misinterpret
  that, and perhaps his future intentions, he added: 'Well, this time it worked out, at least.'
  Darcy made a derisory noise in his nose. 'But sometimes I feel like such a ...  such a bloody coward, that's all!'
  'I shouldn't if I were you,' Jordan told him. 'Oh, it was Harry who saved the day, right enough, but was it all him? How do you know he wasn't prompted by that
  guardian angel of yours, Darcy, taking care of you as always?'
  Which gave them all something to think about on their way home . . .
  Back in Darcy's office, after he and Harry had cleaned up and things were quieter, the Head of E-Branch took up the conversation with Harry where it had been
  interrupted by the Minister Responsible's call for help:
  'Harry, we know that we can't overload you. By that I mean we know you could give us the solution to every unsolved murder there's ever been, certainly to the
  ones where the victims knew their murderer. Except—'
  '—Where they know their murderers, you mean,' Harry cut in, correcting him.
  And Darcy knew he was right. For Harry was the Necroscope and talked to dead men. To him, when a man died, he didn't just stop. His body stopped, yes, but
  his mind went on. And Harry's talent gave him access to such incorporeal minds. Any ordinary policeman must find clues, discover evidence to bring a killer to
  justice. But Harry could have it 'straight from the horse's mouth', as it were. To him the dead weren't, well, departed - not all the way - but moved aside. As if they
  were in another room, where he could speak to them across the
  threshold of his amazing talent. He could simply ask a victim who had done it!
  . . .  Or perhaps not so simply. No, definitely not simply. This thing he had was almost unique; it would still be unique, if Harry
  Jr hadn't come along. Which was the problem in a nutshell: how do you use a unique talent to best effect? For  example, you  surely
  wouldn't employ Albert Einstein as an accountant! And  what  of the  Necroscope,  Harry  Keogh? In a world  where brutal  murders
  and terrorist atrocities were now 'commonplace' crimes (God help us), Harry might easily find them his life's work!  Was that  why
  he had been born into this world and time? His only reason for being? Was that all? Darcy thought not.
  'What I'm saying,' he continued,  'is that  you  - we, the  Branch - can't  be expected  to  do the  work  of the  police.  Well, not  all of
  their work. We do some: a lot of big-time crime, or the occasional case that's so abhorrent someone has to be made to pay for it.  Or
  sometimes  an  "urgent"  job,  like  today's  thing  in  Oxford  Street.  But  in  the  main  we're  spies  .  .  .  mindspies.  It  isn't  so  much
  individuals we protect as the country, our way of life - "western civilization," if you like - from forces  that  oppose  it.  But  I know
  you've heard all of this before, and from someone far more eloquent. . . "
  Harry nodded, knowing that Darcy meant Sir Keenan Gormley, first  Head of E-Branch,  who  had recruited  him into  the  service.
  By  coincidence, that  had been just  such  a case. Abhorrent,  yes,  to  say  the  least. . .  for Boris  Dragosani had butchered  him! But
  without  Sir  Keenan,  without  having  spoken  to  his  remains,  Harry  might  never  have  gone  on  to  his  discovery  of  the  Mobius
  Continuum, and to his re-discovery  of life, in the  brain-dead body  of Alec Kyle.  Except  he must  stop  thinking of it in that  way,
  because Kyle was no more while he, Harry Keogh . . . was.
  'So currently you're worried I might think that this job of yours, whatever it is, is beneath me, too mundane,' he said. 'You think  I
  might reckon it's just a red herring to divert my mind from other, more personal  problems  - and that's  probably  exactly what  it is!
  But you and I are on the same side in more ways  than  you  think,  Darcy.  The  fact  is, I need this  job, whatever  it turns  out  to  be.
  That's why I got myself involved down in Oxford Street today - yes, I know, against your best advice - because it was a diversion  .
  . . Well, and maybe for a couple  of other  reasons,  too.  Okay,  so this  other  job you're  talking about  is no big deal. At  least  it will
  keep me busy. That's my reasoning, anyway. And it's yours, too, I fancy. So why don't we just get on with it?'
  Darcy  nodded,  seemed relieved. 'Okay.  But  it isn't  just  a coincidence that  I  mentioned  the  police.  This  time  they've  actually
  asked us for our help. Oh, we get requests from them . . . fine! Like today,  when  they  know  we have someone who  can help.  I'm
  talking about Jordan, whom they've used frequently enough in the past. But even to the top brass in
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  the police he's just someone with a weird knack, a lucky guesser. That's how they view us: as a pack of fortune-tellers,
  literally "psychics"  in the popular or worst possible meaning of  the  word.  As  if  they  see  us  sitting  around  a  table
  holding seances or something - which isn't too far from the truth, I suppose! Anyway, we're always their last resort.'
  'But not this time,' Harry nodded. 'Because this time . . .  is it something that involves the police directly?'
  
  Darcy looked him straight in the eye. 'Right. It's because they're getting murdered, Harry. By a madman. And I mean
  literally, a genuine dyed-in-the-wool lunatic! A serial killer with a grudge against policemen.'
  The  Necroscope  thought  about  it,  and  finally  said:  There  must  be  a  lot  of  people  holding  grudges  against  the
  police.'
  'Just about every criminal in the book,' Darcy answered. That's what makes it so hard to catch the bastard! The files
  are  crammed  with  people  this  could  be.  Suspects?  Everyone  who  ever  committed  a  violent  crime!  And  thirteen
  thousand  reported in the last twelve months! So you  see,  this  could  be  the  break  we've  been  looking  for  with  the
  police. We already have a good record of co-operation with Special Branch and the other secret services, but we were never on a
  sure-footing with the common-or-garden "Bobby"  on the beat. If we can show them that we've really got something
  here, not just an old lady called Madame Zaza with a crystal ball in a Gypsy caravan ...  I mean, there could be all sorts
  of weird stuff the police bump into and we never get to hear about it. This could be a breakthrough.'
  'Weird stuff? I thought you said this was mundane.'
  'No, you did.  If  you  want  to  call  grotesque,  bloody  murder  mundane,  then  yes,  it  is.  Except. . .  it  just  could  be
  something else. If I sound hesitant, it's because we're not quite ready to believe that this is . . .  what it's made out to
  be.'
  Harry frowned. Then you'd better tell me what it's made out to be. Why are you holding back?'
  Darcy answered frown for frown, finally glanced away. 'Oh, I don't know,' he answered  at  last,  but  his  voice  was
  much quieter now, darker, even a little shaky. 'But  maybe  -  just  maybe,  you  understand  -this  really  is  your  sort  of
  thing, after all. . .'
  III
  DEAD RECKONING
  'It always happens at the full moon,' Darcy said.
  'What does?' And now Harry was quiet, too.
  The murders,' said Darcy. They happen at the full moon. And after each murder a bout of howling, and the bodies  of the  victims
  are found . . . torn.'
  Torn?'
  Darcy nodded. 'As by an animal. A big dog, or maybe a—'
  '—A wolf?' The Necroscope finished it for him, yet could never have said what  had prompted  him to  cut  in.  Just  that  Darcy's  mention  of
  howling, and a big dog, had seemed to set something in motion. It could be something he'd dreamed. But if so it was gone now, and only its echo left to  trouble
  him. Taking a deep breath, he tut-tutted; perhaps significantly, he didn't grin. 'What are we talking about here, Darcy? A werewolf?'
  'Someone who thinks he's a werewolf,' Darcy shrugged. 'Or wants  us to  think  it.'  He  relaxed  a  little,  feeling  pleasantly  surprised  that  the
  Necroscope  had got straight  to  the  heart  of the  matter.  Harry  Keogh had always  been precocious,  of course,  but  there  was  a lot
  more than that to him. There was his history, too, his knowledge of the darker side of life.
  'And we don't believe in werewolves, right?' (Was there a touch of sarcasm in the Necroscope's voice?)
  'We're E-Branch,' Darcy went on the defensive anyway. 'We can't afford to simply disregard or disbelieve anything  -
  not after what we've seen and what we know. But in this case, it's more that we'd like—'
  '—That  you'd  like  some  proof?  That  you've  simply  got  to  know  one  way  or  the  other?  Because  if  this  is  the
  unthinkable, you can't let it go on?'
  Again Darcy's shrug, a little nervous  but in no way careless. Two years ago we wouldn't  have  turned  a  hair.  But
  since then . . .' He let it
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  tail off, and of course Harry knew why. For since then there'd been the Necroscope and everything that went with him. Namely vampires! Upon a time, people
  hadn't believed in them either.
  'But a werewolf is ...  something else,' Harry was thoughtful now, his gaze sharper, less soulful. And staring at Darcy: 'You said you think these murders are
  the work of "someone who thinks he's a werewolf." But as you also pointed out, this is E-Branch. So what do you think?'
  Now Darcy's face was grim, even gaunt-looking. His eyes, suddenly vacant, seemed to scan the past. 'It feels like only yesterday,' he answered. 'I can hardly
  believe it was - what, eighteen months ago?' Again Harry knew what Darcy was talking about: the Bodescu affair.
  'I was in on most of it, down there in Devon,' Darcy went on. 'I saw . . . saw what became of poor Peter Keen. Hell, I was the one who found him, or what was left
  of him! But you know, we never did make up our minds just what did that to him? Yulian Bodescu? Well, maybe. Or was it that godawful dog of his, that Thing
  
  that was more than just a dog? I don't mind admitting, I still have nightmares about it, Harry, and I suppose I always will. We thought we had Harkley House
  contained. Huh! How wrong can you be? Yulian escaped, and his bloody dog very nearly got out too! But that was only at the end, the finale. And what I've been
  asking myself ever since, is—'
  '—I know,' the Necroscope cut him off again. 'You know how hard it is to kill such things. You're wondering if something - something like that dog, maybe? -
  might have escaped before you moved in for the kill, before you razed Harkley to the ground.'
  The other nodded, then changed his mind and said, 'Well, not really. We were fairly well satisfied that we nailed down everything that could be nailed down. But
  the Dragosani thing, then the Bodescu affair and all - the whole chain of events - seemed designed to make us aware that we espers aren't the only different things in
  creation. We're one side of the coin, yes, but for white there's black, and for good there has to be evil. We knew that, of course, but we weren't aware of the different
  bands of evil. I mean, we didn't know just how dark they could get.'
  'So now that you know, what do you think? About this so-called werewolf, I mean.'
  'Personally? It's like I said. I think, I hope, that he's a man - but only a man! A lunatic, affected by the moon at its full, trying to murder as many policemen as he
  can before they get him.'
  'But why policemen? Why should a "werewolf discriminate in that way? When his blood and the moon are up, surely a victim is a victim? That is, if our
  understanding of the "legend" of the beast is correct.'
  'But that's why I think it's a man!' Darcy nodded. 'It's one of my reasons, at least; I mean quite apart from logic and commonsense telling me it's a man! This is
  someone who reasons and discriminates, someone who knows the police will hunt him down. So if he must kill, who better
  to take out than the ones who are looking for him, threatening him?'
  Harry  found  himself  interested,  and  no  longer  just  because  it  was  something to keep  him  occupied.  For  of  all  men,  the
  Necroscope had experience of the strange things of the world, and knew that some of them shouldn't be allowed to continue.
  Finally: 'Okay, I'm convinced,' he said. 'Convinced that something needs sorting out, anyway. So how about the details?'
  'We don't have any,' Darcy shook his head. 'Just a set of utterly senseless  murders.  On the  one hand a couple  of police  officers
  already down in the ground, and a third in the morgue waiting to  go. And  on the  other  hand their  friends,  'Colleagues and families
  mourning them,  grief-stricken.  And  dead-centre,  a yawning  great gap called "motive"  and "evidence". I mean, it's  an old  cliche,  I
  know, Harry, but this time it's also a fact: we just don't have a clue.'
  'But we do have somewhere to start,' said the Necroscope, grimly.
  And in fact he had three somewheres . . .
  Sometimes  I can take  it, Jim Banks  told  Harry.  / tend to sleep a lot, like I'm  emotionally exhausted,  you know?  But it's  when I'm
  'awake' that it's rough. They try to comfort me . . .  I have that at least. But even  so,  it's  hard.  Oh,  I know  I had a long way to go
  and a tough road ahead. My life wasn't easy, and it wasn't about to get any easier, but it was a life!
  Banks  had been one hard copper;  the  Necroscope  could sense  the  sob  behind his unbodied  voice, but  Banks  never  once  let  it
  break through to the surface. Harry supposed he'd done most  of his crying and cursing earlier on, when  finally  the  dead - and his
  situation - had got through to him. The 'they' he had mentioned  were the teeming dead, of course,  the  Great  Majority  of mankind
  who were there before him, 'laid to rest' in the cold, cold earth, or gone up in smoke into the sky.
  Banks was of the former variety: buried in a north-London cemetery under a marker that gave his name, dates and a motto,  and a
  sad farewell from his family. The motto was in Latin and said, Exemplo Ducemus. Harry wondered about that.
  I was an MP, a Military Policeman, for twelve years, Banks explained. SIB: Special Investigation Branch. That's the Corps  motto,
   Exemplo Ducemus: By Example We Lead.  Now, in this place, I'm  just another  follower -following all the poor  bastards  who beat
  me to it! Maybe I should have stuck to a simple Requiescat in Pace, eh?
  Except, as Harry knew well enough, the dead don't rest all that easy but find ways to occupy their incorporeal minds. Jim Banks's way would be
  to keep on doing what he'd done in life. A cop, currently he might easily be investigating his own murder, if only in his incorporeal mind. He
  would be investigating it, certainly - or at least trying to think it through - but just like his colleagues in the world of the living he
  didn't
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  have much to go on. Only the fact that he'd been very close to something. Too close by far.
  'But you'll tell me as much as you know?'
  Not much to tell, Harry. A month ago I was the detective  in charge of investigating  a ring of car thieves. I got as
  far as a pub in the East End one night, and that was where my lead petered out. But after that until he got me, whoever  he  is-I
  don't know, it was . . . weird! / had this feeling I'd been made, that someone had cottoned on to me. Yet I had no reason to feel like
  that! I hadn't even known I was that close to anything!
  Scanning the  ranks  of old headstones,  some leaning,  Harry  looked  around.  His  gaze  followed  the  tracks  of  wandering,  white
  gravel pathways between dreary rows of markers, to a high stone boundary wall. Beyond  the  wall, a distant  hill stood  silhouetted
  against the smoky evening sky,  where lights were just  beginning to  come on in a clump  of darkly-huddled  houses.  The  cemetery
  was located in a  quiet  backwater;  well  in  keeping,  distant  traffic  sounds  hung  faint  as  ghosts  on  the  greasy  air.  It  was  a  late
  February night, damp and miserable as only  London  ever gets to  be. On the  other  hand, Harry  had to  admit that  it was  peaceful
  here. Well, to anyone else . . .
  But  there  was  pain  in the  earth,  the  Necroscope  knew,  and in some of  its  inhabitants.  Banks  was  one  of  them,  and  already
  Harry had made up his mind that  Jim Banks  must  be avenged. For  only  the  teeming dead -and the  one man privileged to  talk  to
  them - knew how truly precious was life, and how terrible the act of stealing it away.
  Harry's thoughts, except when he shielded them, were just as audible to the dead as his spoken words. Banks had
  
  overheard him, and was quick to point out: This mad bastard didn't simply 'steal it away,' Harry! If you mean he was
  stealthy, well, yes, there was that in it. But there was a lot more than that. Something  strong and fast and furious.
  Something that slid into my chest like the tines of a pitchfork, to puncture my heart and stop it, and me, dead!
  'Do you want to show it to me?' The Necroscope knew that it could be easier that  way.  'If you  don't  want  to  talk  about  it you
  can just. . .  let it happen. That way I get more of the flavour of it.'
  Flavour? Bank's incorporeal voice was suddenly sour. It wasn't ice-cream, Harry.
  'Bad choice of words,'  Harry  said, by  way  of an apology,  and he cursed  himself roundly.  But  it  was  okay;  Banks  would  do
  anything he could to help bring his killer to justice.
  You want to feel something of it, right? You want to get the mood of it?
  'Just the night in question, the start of it,' Harry told him.
  He had forgotten for the moment that he was talking to an ex-policeman, but Banks was quick to straighten him out: You'd better
  have what led to it, too, he said. And Harry gave a nod, which he knew the dead man, long gone into corruption, six feet  deep  in his
  grave,
  would sense. Because I have this feeling it all sprang from that night in the pub where my lead gave out on me. My
  lead ended there, yes, but I think that's where he must have picked me up! Looking  back  on it, I reckon  my mistake
  was a simple one. The thing is, I wasn't looking for violence, you know?  I was hunting  car-thieves, not some crazy,
  vicious, murdering bastard! So . . .  maybe I was a little loose with my enquiries.
  'You gave yourself away?'
  The Necroscope sensed a sigh from the immaterial mind of the man in the grave. Yes, probably . . . No, better than that, I know  I
  gave myself away.
  'How? I mean, I'm not a policeman, Jim. If I know what it was you did to attract attention to yourself, maybe I can duplicate it and swing a little action my way.'
  The other was at once alarmed. What? You'd use yourself as bait? No way, Harry! Jesus! I had the training, I knew what to expect. But I never expected this sod!
  All right, so you're the Necroscope. But you've just admitted you're no James Bond. And you're certainly not Muhammad AH!
  'No, but I do have a lot of . . . friends? You know what I mean? I'm never alone, Jim, and I'm not above accepting a few tips from
  those who went before. Believe me, I can look after myself.'
  Really? Well, so could I, or so I thought. Banks had settled  down  again, but  he was  bitter  and angry . . . with  himself, not  with
  Harry. Harry was only the trigger, a reminder of what had been lost, the fact that there was still a decent world up there with  some
   decent people in it at least. Up there beyond the final darkness, yes. And so:
  Okay, this is how it started . . .
  A nightclub owner's  Porsche  had been stolen.  Banks  hadn't  felt  too  bad about  the  theft  because he'd known  that  the  owner,  one
  Geordie King, had a lot of previous himself; he'd been a right old Jack-the-Lad  in his time, a gangland hoodlum from the  good old
  days. That was a long time ago, however; now he was a 'businessman' and 'going straight.'
  But, still having contacts in the underworld, Geordie King had done a bit of investigating of his own.  What  he'd managed to  turn
  up wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. An informant who owed Geordie a favour  had told  him he should  watch  out  for a
  man called Skippy,  who  could be identified  from the  spider  'or something'  tattooed  on the  back of his right hand. A spider  with
  five legs and a sting. What's more, this Skippy was from 'up north': Geordie's old patch in Newcastle, where the 'used  car' business
  was all the rage. His thick northern accent would give him away at once - especially to a fellow 'Geordie.'
  So King had put it about that he was interested in having a chat with a certain Skippy  bloke from up  North;  various  contacts  in
  the pubs and clubs had kept an eye out for the spider tattoo; soon the reports had
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  started to come in - in the form of ominous warnings! Skippy was only one member of the gang, and they weren't the sort to mess with. In other words, collect on
  your insurance, Geordie, and let it go at that.
  At the same time, however, King had heard on the grapevine that Skippy was known to frequent a boozer not far from his own East End club.
  Well, despite King's chequered history he was well past his sell-by date. So he'd taken good advice and from there on kept his nose out...  but it hadn't stopped
  him passing on the information to the Old Bill, namely Jim Banks. It was a matter of principle, so to speak. Honour among thieves, and all that.
  Which was how Banks had happened to drop in on the pub in question that night just a month ago . . .
  'But you hadn't told anyone about your lead?' Harry found it a bit odd.
  Bank's incorporeal shrug. Rivalry. It was my case. Maybe I was out of line, out to prove something - out of touch?
  But this is England, not the USA, and there was a time when policemen didn't get killed too often in the line of duty,
  you know? And as far as I was concerned, I was still investigating a gang of car-thieves. Maybe I should have taken a leaf out of
  Geordie King's book and stepped a bit more cautious.
  'You think there's more to it, then? More than just auto theft?'
  No, I think  they're car-thieves, plain  and  simple.  Mainly  young  and  crazy,  and  probably  into  drugs,  too.  And,
  fairly obviously, at least one of them doesn't give a kiss-my-arse about human life! Especially the lives of policemen . . .
  Tell me about the night in question,' said Harry.
  / thought you wanted to 'see' it?
  'Can we save that until later? Like ...  the end?'
  And after a pause: My murder?
  
  'If it's not too - oh, shit!' (For Harry had almost said 'painful').
  He sensed Banks's grin, however grim. Hey, don't sweat on it, Harry! Let's face it, I don't choose my words any too
  carefully either! Then, quickly sobering, he continued:
  It was a civvies job, which goes without  saying. I mean, I haven't  worn a  uniform  in  a  long  time.  Nothing  fancy,  though,
  because this pub had a rep as a bit of a rough-house. The night was miserable: rain, sleet and all sorts of shit hammering down
  out of the sky. It was a Friday and the bar was packed with all kinds of sub-human specimens. I had a rum to warm up and bought
  one for the barman, then asked him if Skippy was in. Good question - bad timing!
  A bloke just three stools away straightened up like someone had stabbed him in the back!  I'd already checked  him out in the
  bar mirror: about twenty-six or so, pale and pimply, white and ugly, long-jawed, loose-lipped and shifty-eyed, and a crew-cut like
  the bristles on a shaving brush.
  Hardly inconspicuous! Put it this way: you wouldn't want your sister dating  this one. But his hand  stayed wrapped
  round a beer on the bar. And that's what settled it.
  And it dawned on me: 'Skippy' was probably a foreshortened version of a nickname that must have sounded a bit over-the-top - a bit too
  Hollywood? -for this bloke's Newcastle chums. So they'd cut 'The Scorpion' down to Skippy.
  That's what was on the back of his hand: not a spider but a scorpion. Five legs (what, artistic licence?) stretched their hairy
  joints down his four fingers and thumb; the beady eyes of the beast were located  on his index-and  third-finger knuckles,
  to make them stand out when he clenched his fist; its sting was at the end of a segmented body stretching  four inches
  along his wrist.
  And some other stuff: Skippy was in paint- and oil-stained overalls. His hands  were dirty, and there was fresh paint  under his
  fingernails. But from the moment I mentioned his name he'd been looking at me - glaring at me - in the mirror. Suddenly the
  hand disappeared, and Skippy with it. He was out of there.
  Well, like I said, the bar was crowded; I couldn't really take off after him like  Kojak. (One, it would  give me away
  completely. Two, the bloke was young and fast - probably a sight faster than me - and he would know where he was going. Three,
  I was sure he'd have some previous; I could find out all about him from police records in Newcastle or New Scotland
  Yard). So . . .  I had another drink, hung about for fifteen minutes or so, finally went back out into that lousy night.
  And I think that was my second mistake. I should have got straight  out of there. See, these new gangs are more audacious
  than the old crowd. In Geordie King's day ifaperp thought the filth had locked-on, he'd head for the hills and keep  right on going.
  But nowadays . . . I'd made him, so he would make me.
  As Banks paused, Harry turned up his collar against a sudden squall of wind and drizzle. It had occurred to him that if anyone should see him sitting here on this
  slab and talking to himself, they'd think he was out of his mind and probably call the police!
  / am the police, Banks reminded him, with an entirely immaterial, totally humourless grin that Harry sensed rather than saw. And you probably are out of
  your mind! Why didn't you come to see me in daylight?
  'Because I wanted to get on with this,' the Necroscope answered. 'See, I've got problems of my own, and this should
  help me to forget about them. For a while, anyway.'
  So talking to dead people is therapeutic, is it? . . . But in the next moment, in a far more conciliatory tone: What sort
  of problems are we talking about, Harry? Bad ones?
  'Not desperate,' Harry told him. Not as bad as being dead, anyway! Even though that last thought was full of his usual compassion, still it
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  might sound flippant; and so Harry kept it to himself. And: 'Go on with what you were telling me,' he said.
  When I left the pub I had a tail, Banks went on. / wasn't sure about it then, but! am now. I mean, I've had lots of time to think things out, you
  know? And that was when it all started to go weird on me. It was like . . . I don't know . . . in a way it was pretty much like this, like talking to
  you. It felt like - how can I explain it? - like I wasn't alone . . . inside!
  'Inside?'
  Inside my head.
  'You were talking to someone in your mind?'
  (The shake of an incorporeal head). No, not talking, listening! And not me, someone else. As if someone - a stranger - was in there! Sitting
  there grinning to himself, in a comer of my mind, listening to me think and . . . watching me! That's what it felt like, Harry: I just knew / was
  being observed! It was a feeling that grew on me from then until. . . well, right to the bitter end. Weird, eh?
  In his time Harry had come across  weirder things;  for the moment he would keep those to himself, too. But having
  listened carefully to all Banks had told him so far, it struck him  that  Darcy  Clarke  was  probably  right,  and  on  both
  counts.
  For one: he was already engrossed  with the case, to such  an extent he was sure it would divert his mind from the
  psychological pitfalls of constantly  querying who or what or where he was. And  two:  it  looked  like  this  really  was
  something he would have to follow through  to the end, a job that only  the  Necroscope  himself  (but  himself,  Harry
  Keogh's self) was qualified to handle.
  And the more he listened to Jim Banks - and felt of his shock, his horror - the more convinced he would become . . .
  That was how it started, and pretty much how it stayed, Banks continued in a while. It wasn't with me all the time, only when I was
  actually working on the case. But the closer I got, the more I was aware of its presence. Except it wasn't an 'if, it was a him! Someone as real
  as you are, Harry, and as real as I. . . was.
  
  'You're talking about a telepath,' Harry told him. 'A mentalist. Someone who can get into a man's mind like that has
  got to be—'
  —A figment of his own imagination? Yeah, I know, Banks stopped him short. Or I thought I did. But:
  'Not. . . necessarily,' said  Harry,  thoughtfully.  For  the  Necroscope  remembered  Boris  Dragosani's  story:  how  the
  vampire Thibor Fer-enczy, the old Thing in the ground, had invaded his mind in order to sway Dragosani to its will.
  Also, he knew the mind-spies of E-Branch were capable of just such mental eavesdropping. Telepathy was real, not just
  an idea out of fantasy or a figment of wild imagination. Why, his own thoughts on the subject, on this occasion, were a form of the
  selfsame talent; which was something else that Banks overheard, of course.
  So I was right, he' said in a while. Call it by some other fancy name if you like, but what you're doing right now is the same sort of thing.
  'Well, not exactly,' Harry answered, with a shake of his head. 'As far as I know there are only two of us who can talk
  to the dead. The other one is . . .  my son! The talent seems to have passed  down to him from me. And plainly we are not
  spying on you! You know I'm here and you're not obliged to talk to me or even suffer my presence. True  telepathy,  on  the
  other hand, is mental communication between the living . . .' And sometimes the undead?  Which  was  a  thought  he
  also kept back; pointless to further complicate matters.
  'Also,' he went on, 'telepathy doesn't  have to be intrusive; it can provide genuine two-way communication. I have
  certain friends who  mind-spy,  yes  -  for  the  protection  of  society,  our  way  of  life,  just  as  you  through  your  work
  protected  those  same  ideals  -  but  the  way  these  friends  of  mine  describe  their  skills,  they  aren't  in  any  way  this
  sinister thing that you experienced.'
  No, because that was intrusive! Banks declared emphatically. And more than that, it was also frightening. If it hadn't finished
  when it did, the way it did -1 don't know -1 think I might well have gone crazy. Hah! Instead I went. . . dead! But at first, 1 really was starting to
  believe that I was suffering from some sort of persecution complex! I thought it was all in my head! I mean literally! It was only afterwards,
  recently, that I saw it as something else.
  'As what, then?'
  As ...  a distraction! Banks answered.
  'Someone was  deliberately  crowding  your  mind,  in  order  to  distract  you  from  your  investigations?  Is  that  what
  you're saying?'
  Like  an irritating  smokescreen, yes, Banks was convinced. But I fought it, pushed on, kept coming. And since he couldn't
  frighten me off, finally he—
  '—He killed you off.'
  Yes. But even at the end he was helped by this telepathic trick of his. I mean, he knew when I was going to come for him, and where from! And so he beat me to
  it. . .
  'So what did you find out about him? This fellow with the scorpion tattoo, I mean?'
  Harry sensed Banks's nod. As I'd suspected, he had lots of previous. But all petty stuff. He'd done time up north, plenty of it, all short term. But
  I did get something useful: Skippy was on a year's probation, but they'd let him move down to London to take a job in his cousin's garage in
  the East End. Some sort of cock-eyed rehabilitation programme: see if giving him a decent job would straighten him out. I mean, Jesus, Harry!
  This shifs 'therapy' was to do face-lifts on stolen cars!
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  The paint under his fingernails?' Harry lifted a querying eyebrow. 'It was all coming together for you.'
  Too true!
  'So what next?'
  Next? Have a look inside that garage, what else? It was the bottom floor of a condemned municipal car park. The upper storeys had been
  made safe, reduced to a towering  metal skeleton,  but the ground  floor and basement had been converted  into workshops,
  inspection pits, paint bays and what have you. All the gear: your typical auto-repairs garage on a grand scale. I figured most of the work
  would be legitimate, a front for the real earner: the conversion  of stolen cars. But it would  have to be a superfast turnaround.
  Tea-leaf a posh motor, give it a quick face-lift, and ship it out. Ten to twelve hours maximum, most of it at night, after hours.
  'And did you check it out? And is that what got you . . .?'
  . . . No. I didn't have time. Just thinking about doing it, and getting ready to set the thing up, is what got me killed! Because he, the gang's
  -what, mindspy? - wasn't about to let it go that far. He was on me all the way, and it happened the night before I would have taken out a
  search warrant.
  'And before you could let anyone  else in on it. . . "  Harry was quiet but couldn't keep a tone of censure - and of
  anger, at the waste of Jim Banks - out of his voice.
  Banks accepted it. / was out of line. I just wanted this one for myself, that's all. Rivalry, like I told you. It would have been a
  feather in my cap. But instead - it was something that felt like a pitchfork in my heart!
  'And that's why there were no clues to your death - well, other than the ones  you've given me. Because you chose
  to play it close to your chest?'
  Right. Banks was downcast. It was in his immaterial voice, and Harry could sense  it wasn't just because  he'd paid
  the ultimate price for his errors. Banks was privy to his thoughts, of course, and at last released a sob  that no one in
  the world but the Necroscope Harry Keogh could ever hear. You pays your money and takes your chance, Harry. But
  the voice in Harry's mind was racked with . . . what, guilt?
  'Jim, don't torture yourself,' Harry told him. 'You didn't do anything wrong.'
  
  And my family? My wife and kids? Were they guilty of something? But still they're paying, Harry. And . . . and the others, and their families?
  What about them? But no, I had to play the loner, ahvays the loner. I wouldn't feel so bad if I'd paid for it the same way, on my own. But those
  poor guys had to pay for it, too. Because of me!
  'Because of you? I don't see it, Jim. You were only doing your job, and when you'd gone someone picked it up where you'd
  left off. You had nothing to do with—'
  —But I did! And now I ask myself over and over again, if they'd had
  the whole story, would it have been different. . .?
  The Necroscope shook his head. 'I don't understand.  What do you mean,  "if  they'd  had  the  whole  story?"  Your
  colleagues? But they didn't have any of it, did they?"
  Do the names Stevens and Jakes  mean anything  to you? The dead man was  somehow  managing  to  keep  himself  under  a
  semblance of control, but his anguish was lying just beneath the surface.
  The other victims?'
  Banks's incorporeal nod. Those two were the closest I had to friends on the force. I mean, I had friends, you understand, but those two were . . .
  close. I asked them if they'd like to be in on it when I closed down the biggest auto-theft gang in London. And like a fool I told Derek Stevens,
  who was closest of all, about the garage. And all the time that bastard thing was in my head, listening to everything!
  Now  Harry  understood  Banks's  stored-up  grief.  Not  for  himself  but  his  friends.  And  he  sensed  the  dead  man's  nod  of
  confirmation. / told them too little too late. Just enough they'd be sure to try to square it for me after . . . after I. . .
  But for the moment he couldn't go on. So Harry finished it for him. 'After you'd been murdered?'
  Yes, (a fading sob).
  They'd investigate the garage without knowing how dangerous it was, and so put themselves in the firing line?'
  Yes . . . God, yes!
  'And they wouldn't know a thing about this mentalist, his telepathic trick, because  you yourself hadn't known. You
  said it yourself, Jim: that you thought you were going crazy.'
  Don't look for excuses for me, Harry.
  'I'm not, because you don't need any. You were only trying to uphold the law, and so were they - and so will I.' He was  in now,
  like it or not. 'Okay, Jim, you've given me enough to  go on. A starting  point,  anyway.  But  now  I need to  feel it: your  pain,  your
  anger. I need to feel angry enough to want to put it right. Call it incentive, for want of a better word.'
  The night it happened? How it happened? What I saw?
  'All of it, yes.'
  Give me a moment, Banks told him. And in a little  while, in direct  contact  with  the  Necroscope's  metaphysical  mind, he began
  to think it through, relive it exactly as he'd experienced it that night.
  And Harry was with him all the way . . .
  Banks's place was a stone's throw from Peckham High Street. It was nothing special: a tall, terraced house  with a yard
  at the front, a balcony on the first floor, a small round window spying out from an attic room, and a vegetable patch at
  the back, crushed between neighbouring
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  gardens. All of the houses in the terrace looked the same, with only slight variations of exterior decor. But the rooms
  were big and high-ceilinged, and there was plenty of space for the kids.
  No  space  for  Banks's  car,  though;  his  garage  was  one  of  a  dozen  in  a  low,  asbestos-roofed  block  of  badly
  constructed concrete boxes at the end of the terrace. This made for a walk (or a run when it was raining) of a hundred yards after
  he'd locked up. And when the weather was really bad, as tonight, it pissed  him off  to  have  to  go  rushing  into  the
  house spraying droplets |ike a hosed-down dog.
  These were some of the thoughts that occupied his mind as he switched off the motor, snatched  his keys from the
  ignition,  rammed  the  door  open  with  his  elbow  and  made  a  dash  for  the  up-and-over  garage  door.  And  this  was
  another:
  Fuck  it! Why can't I ever remember to take  the garage key off the fucking  keyring?  Now (as usual) he'd have  to
  start up the car again to drive inside! Standing under the leaky garage guttering, he finally fumbled the correct key into
  the release handle and turned it - only to discover when he yanked on the handle that he'd locked the damned thing!
  But even as warning bells commenced their mental  clamour,  as  suddenly  and  as  sinisterly  as  that,  he  was  there
  again! That ominous presence watching and waiting, his silent snigger grown to a snarl now in the back of Banks's mind!
  God!  Banks  thought  in  a  moment  of  panic.  /  must  really  be  losing  it!  And:  Bastard,  bastard,  bastard!  as  he
  concentrated on what he was doing, turned the key the other way, and hauled on the handle to swing the door into its
  up-and-over position. Inside the garage it was night-dark, cluttered with household  junk at  the  back.  And  the  light
  switch . . . wasn't working!
  Shit and damnation! But it was okay; the car's headlights would give him all the light he needed to park up. But. . .
  was that movement back there?
  A pair of dark figures moving forward, silhouetted against the greater darkness behind them; and Banks  frozen to
  the spot, transfixed by the utterly unexpected!  But in that single moment he put  the  whole  thing  together,  and  the
  warning clamour in his mind - and the sniggering -went up several decibels.
  
  The garage door: he always checked twice that he'd locked it. But you could buy these  fucking cheap keys in any
  hardware store. And the light: he'd replaced that bulb just a week ago! And that sniggering in his mind: it wasn't in his
  mind anymore but . . .  but right here in front of him! First the sniggering, and then a low warning growl!
  Banks unfroze . . .  but too late. The figures coming toward him out of the darkness of the garage converged with him, fastened
  on him! One of them, briefly illumined in the rain-lashed glint of a street lamp, was
  Skippy, Banks would swear. But in the next moment an arm went round  his  throat,  and  the  scorpion-tattooed  hand  swept  a
  glittering knife on high! Then—
  'No!' said the second figure. 'He's mine. This piece of. . .  filth is mine!' But the voice itself was filth - full of bile and
  phlegm  and  hatred  -and  Banks  knew  that  this  was  the  nameless  mental  intruder.  No  longer  a  bodiless,  spying,
  sniggering spectre but a living, breathing reality. And to corroborate it, coming to him in his mind again, but audibly now:
  Your balls are mine, you stinking cop scumbag!
  Then  Skippy's  knee  in  Banks's  back,  thrusting  him  forward  onto  something  that  ripped  him  open  like  a  paper  bag.  Pain!
  Unbelievable pain!  And  the  slash,  slash,  slash  of silver-flashing steel  as sharp  as razors  . . .  the  hot  surging  wetness  of  Banks's
  blood from his face, chest, belly and genitals as he went down. In just a couple of seconds he lost pints of blood.  That  alone would
  suffice to stop him, the shock alone: of feeling his face torn open to the bone, his belly in ribbons, his manhood shorn from him in a
  tearing of upward-swinging scythes!
  And the slashes not stopping but continuing to rain down on him where he slumped, then crawled, then collapsed.
  But  the  pain  .  .  .  miraculously  the  pain  was  going  away,  like  a  dull  ache  receding;  so  that  only  the  tearing  of
  shuddering but no longer protesting  flesh remained to remind him of his murder. Because Banks knew that that was
  what it was: The End of him, with all his blood leaking out onto the floor, to mix with the rain and the oil-clogged dirt . . .
  He  lay  just  inside  the  garage,  looking  out.  After  a  while  (it  might  have  been  hours  but  could  only  have  been
  seconds), his eyes focused one last time on the rain-blurred street lamp. It was either that, a focusing, or the mucus of
  his  eyes  drying  on  the  nerveless  eyeballs  to  sharpen  his  dying  vision.  But  as  his  brain  prepared  to  switch  off,
  someone or thing -a face, anyway - leaned down and looked him in his own torn and bloodied face.
  But god, that the last thing  he  would  ever  see  should  be  that  face!  It  wasn't  Skippy;  it  wasn't  human;  it  wasn't
  anything Banks might ever have believed in. But it was as monstrous  as the death it had delivered. So that he didn't
  just die but went out screaming, however silently.
  And as if in mocking answer, the last thing he ever heard seemed to be a distant howling . . .
  . . . Banks was still doing it, silently screaming - but in the eye of memory now, a scream of rage and frustration as well
  as horror - as that rabid wolf visage gradually faded from his mind, and the drizzle worked its way inside Harry's collar, and
  Bank's sobbing from beyond lit a fire in the Necroscope's  guts  that he knew couldn't be extinguished as long as this went
  unresolved, unpunished. Until he'd 'seen' the face of the wolf for himself, Harry had almost
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  forgotten  what Darcy Clarke had told him: the werewolf theory. Having seen  it, his  senses  were  as  shocked  as  the
  dead mind's that transmitted the pictures, as stunned as Banks had been on the night of his murder. He couldn't help
  but wonder if he would have fared any better. Probably not, not then, but he would now. It was all a matter of knowing what you
  were up against.
  Gathering his composure and his thoughts, he finally said: 'Two of them, then. Skippy and . . . that, whatever it was.'
  His voice was colder than the grave itself, so that Jim Banks knew Harry wouldn't let him down even if his own life were
  forfeit.
  And: Well, what do you think? The dead man was able to ask him at last. / mean, was I crazy, Harry? Or what?
  'You're as sane as I am,'  Harry  told  him.  And  to  himself:  Which  right  now  isn't  saying  much!  'But  what  do  you
  reckon?'
  Banks shook off the last remnants of his own horror, and answered, What do I reckon? Dead reckoning, eh, Harry? But his words contained
  little or no humour. All right: I think it was a bloke dressed up as a wolf. See, a wolf or big dog goes on all fours, but this bloke was leaning over
  me! So . . .  why the disguise? I mean, if I'd survived they were goners anyway. I had already identified Skippy. So why that crazy horror
  mask?
  'Work  on  "crazy,"  '  Harry  told  him.  'A  lunatic,  Jim.  Someone  influenced  by  the  full  moon,  who  thinks  he's  a
  werewolf.'
  Really?  The single word sounded  like a sigh of relief to the Necroscope. Even dead, Banks was pleased to know
  that his mind hadn't been cracking up.
  Harry squared  his shoulders,  tucked his collar in more yet and prepared to leave. 'I have some people waiting for
  me,' he was apologetic. 'But before I go I want to thank you, Jim, for what you've told me. It wasn't easy  for  you,  I
  know. I mean, I really do know.'
  Its okay, the other told him. Just don't forget to let me know how it turns out, right? It might make all of. . . this, a little easier
  to get used to.
  'Be sure I'll let you know,' Harry told him. 'One way or the other, I'll let you know ..."
  Beyond the gates of the cemetery, Darcy Clarke and the locator Ken Layard were waiting in a Branch car. Darcy was
  
  at  the  wheel  and  Layard  sat  slumped  in  the  back  seat,  half  asleep,  his  mouth  lolling  open.  As  the  figure  of  the
  Necroscope loomed out of the wreathing mist, Darcy opened the front passenger door for him.
  He got in, looked at Darcy, said: 'You know, there's really no need. Transport is the last thing I require. You could
  find a lot better things to do with your time.'
  Darcy gave a shrug and started up the motor. 'Harry, the way we see it you're our most valuable asset.  We can't be
  sure how or even if it will
  work out, but eventually, if it's  feasible, we'd like you  to  take  over as Head of Branch. Except,  as you  know,  we've already  lost
  two heads in the last two years! So—'
  '—So you intend to keep your beady eyes on me . . .  yes, I know.'
  As they pulled away from the curb, Layard jerked awake in the back, said: 'Huh—?' And, 'Oh, Alec!'
  Harry felt Darcy cringe down in his seat beside him, and turned his pale face to glower at Layard where the locator was already biting his lip. But whatever the
  Necroscope might have said, Darcy beat him to it. 'Ken, were you just born stupid or does it take a lot of practice?'
  'I. . .' Layard said, glancing at Darcy, then looking into Harry's face. Finally he shrugged and sighed, 'I guess I was asleep. What can I say? I'm sorry . . . Harry.'
  Following which he tried to change the subject. 'Anyway, how did things go? I mean, did you get to ...  weU, speak to him?'
  The Necroscope hadn't been in a good mood to start with; now he wasn't in any sort of mood at all. 'Yes, I ...  "well, got to speak to him," ' he mimicked the
  other's hesitancy. 'I'd never met Jim Banks in life, but we got on pretty well. Funny thing, but for a total stranger he knew my name right from the word go! And
  he'd only had a few minutes - which is a lot less than eighteen fucking months!' It was perhaps unfair of him, but that was the way he felt.
  In any case, nothing more was said until they reached their second destination. Nothing that Darcy or Layard were privy to anyway . . .
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  IV
  KEENAN GORMLEY, AND OTHER VICTIMS.
  Banks had been the first man to die; or rather, he'd been the first policeman to die. But on the way to the second graveyard, this
  time in the Muswell Hill district, as the Necroscope tried to relax in the front passenger  seat, closed his tired eyes and settled down
  into the worn leather upholstery:
  Harry? The dead voice was one he would know anywhere, any time: it was that of Sir Keenan Gormley, first Head of
  E-Branch. Harry? Harry, my boy! I can't tell you how good  it is to know  you're alive and well. . . again. Word has
  reached me about what you're working on. You're the Necroscope and your thoughts are very strong; sometimes we can't  help
  but overhear them. And of course we've been, you know, 'holding our breath,' as it were, since discovering that you were back in
  the land of the living. In fact I've held back - oh, for a long time - from contacting  you, for I knew  you'd be busy. But
  as of now I want you to know that if there's anything we can do . . .?
  'Sir  Keenan?'  The  Necroscope  spoke  under  his  breath,  the  merest  whisper  of  sound,  drowned  out  by  the  car's
  motor. 'It's good to know you're still around, too.' (What does one say to someone who was cremated more than two years
  ago?) 'I suppose you know that I'm . . . what? Not the man I used to be?' Conversing with the dead could be complicated.
  We know  about  it, yes, Sir Keenan's incorporeal voice was sorrowful, for Alec Kyle. And also  something  of  your
  problems, Harry. Your discomfort? But you know, Alec's case was one in a million.. He was totally lost, to the living
  and the dead alike. But without him we wouldn't have you. So you see, your problem is our blessing. Where would we ever have
  been, what could we ever have done, without the Necroscope?
  'And for that matter, what can you do now?' The way Harry said it, it wasn't a thoughtless question. The Great Majority were his friends and
  very important to him; he simply referred to their incorporeal condition.
  Or rather, their usual condition, without that they were engaged  in any . . . activity on his behalf. But as well as having certain
  conversational difficulties, communication with the teeming dead (much like telepathy) frequently conveys more than is actually
  said, and Sir Keenan understood that the Necroscope was only showing his customary concern and humility.
  Well, for one thing, we can tell you that the deaths you're currently investigating weren't the first of this maniac's murders!
  There have been a dozen here in London, all occurring near the time of the full moon; maybe a day or so before, during, or after. But
  it must be said that the victims were no great loss to humanity . . . nor of any special benefit to us! In fact, and to be frank
  about it, they are mainly of the criminal element.
  'Ganglanders?' Harry wasn't surprised. There had always been gang wars in London and there always would be, mainly for territory. 'From the
  East End?'
  In almost every instance, yes. But what a close-mouthed bunch, Harry! Honour  among  thieves  and  all  that  rubbish!  And  of
  course there was nothing they could do about their lot anyway. Ah, but that's all changed  now that you are on the case!
  You're the Necroscope; which is to say you're not 'Filth,' not the law! With you, they don't  consider themselves informants; it's
  
  not like 'grassing" in the normal sense of the word.
  'How good is their information?' Harry was eager now. For the fact was that he didn't have a lot to go on.
  I'm afraid there's not that  much I can tell you, the dead man answered. And most of it is conjectural anyway. But
  surely anything is better than nothing?
  Harry gave a mental nod. Tell me, then,' he said, 'and let me be the judge of it.'
  The murders had all happened during the last three years, all of them around the time of the full moon, but not so many that the police would necessarily make the
  connection; there'd been a good many killings in that time-frame. Indeed the only thing that might have connected them lay in their uniformly unsolved status ...
  In that, and in the fact that the last three murders (prior to those of the police officers) had been committed by a thing half-man, half-wolf, or by someone in the
  guise of such a creature. Which would seem to indicate that the maniac had only recently adopted his werewolf role. This last, however, the use of the wolf mask,
  was something that other living investigators couldn't possibly know; only the victims had seen their attacker's face. The victims, and now Harry Keogh,
  Necroscope . . .
  It was the horrific nature of these last three murders - their modus operandi - along with those of Jim Banks, Stevens and Jakes, of course, that had finally
  alerted the authorities to what they now erroneously categorized as a series of serial killings. That these atrocities were the
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  work of a lunatic was hardly in question, but 'serial' killings? Sir Keenan Gormley and the Great Majority doubted it.
  Harry had been right: the initial series of seemingly unconnected  murders had been territorial. A homicidal member
  of a gang of car-thieves had begun taking out members of encroaching gangs  one by one, almost systematically. But
  after a while, following his first half-dozen killings, maybe he'd started  to enjoy it! Maybe he'd sensed  his power, the
  advantage  that his weird talent gave him, his ability  to  get  into  an  enemy's  mind  and  pre-empt  his  every  move.  A
  grudge against the police? Well, maybe. The urge to permanently remove any persistent adversary - very definitely!
  An esoteric talent plus a diseased and generally criminal mind, equals gruesome murder. Lycanthropy: not merely a
  concept of fantastic fiction but a mania, a recognized and accepted psychiatric phenomenon. The madman's need to tear his victims
  to pieces like a wild animal, and his bloodlust at the full of the moon, when the lunar orb tugs  at the fluid of his brain
  no less insistently than it lures the great oceans.  His anguished howling when innermost passions  are finally vented  in acts of
  furious mayhem!
  The madness of a rabid animal, then, in combination  with  the  warped  cunning  of  an  habitual  criminal.  That  was
  what the Necroscope was up against. And as yet he was still no closer to learning the murderer's identity . . .
  'So what do you suggest?' he asked Sir Keenan Gormley, as the car sped him ever closer to the Muswell Hill cemetery
  and his second liaison.
  'Eh?' Darcy Clarke glanced at Harry out of the corner of his eye. 'Did you say something?'
  Harry gave a slight start, and muttered. 'Er, just talking . . .  to myself.' He knew how the espers  of E-Branch looked
  upon his talent, that even with their knowledge of parapsychology, still they found it disquieting. Settling deeper into
  his seat and switching to a mental mode, he said:
  Sir?
  And Keenan Gormley chuckling in his mind: What do I suggest? Well, for one thing, if I were you I wouldn't let myself stray too far from that
  one! Darcy Clarke has to be just about the safest man I know  - or knew. But quite  apart from Darcy's talent, he was
  also a good friend. And better to have him as a friend than a foe, Harry, what with that guardian  angel  of his and
  all! You certainly  wouldn't  want to go up against  him in a duel, now would you? So if Darcy wants to keep his eye on you,
  don't complain about it.
  I'll try to remember that, Harry told him. But that's not what I meant. I wasn't talking about Darcy.
  No, of course you weren't. But I thought it worth mentioning, thafsall. I'm just so glad to see that you're still with E-Branch. He fell silent for a
  moment, mulling the real question over in his incorporeal mind. Then:
  / think . . . (Sir Keenan's disembodied voice was much more sober, thoughtful  now), that  I would  probably  try to fight fire with
  fire. For talking to you about Darcy and the Branch brings back to mind some of the amazing talents you have at your command. Quite
  literally, yours to command. If you so desire them.
  Oh? Harry waited. And shortly:
  Your quarry appears to be some kind oftelepath, which so far has given him an advantage. But you ham all the fully developed talents of E-Branch. So why
  not give him a taste of his own medicine, Harry? From what I know of you, thafs your way, isn't it? An eye for an eye, and all that?
  Harry was interested. / should use an E-Branch telepath?
  Now that you know what you're up against? You'd be a fool not to! And Sir Keenan explained what he meant.
  Harry thought about it a while and said, Maybe, if that's what it comes down to. But right now I have to be saying goodbye. For shortly I'll
  be speaking to Derek Stevens, the second of this lunatic's three policemen victims.
  But Keenan Gormley had already drawn back; Harry felt him shrinking away, as from a scowl or a slap. And he felt
  obliged to ask: Is there something I should know?
  He sensed the other's nod and eventually, hesitantly, his answer: Sometimes . . . some people  . . . just aren't ready
  for it, Harry. Some people don't get used to death so readily. And some . . . well, they don't get used to it at all, ever. When I found
  out you'd be handling this, I tried speaking to Stevens myself, just as I've spoken to others of the victims: in order to
  save a little  time, you know?  (Harry sensed  his sigh). I'm sorry, my boy, but. . . Derek Stevens hasn't got used to it
  
  yet.
  Harry  felt  Darcy  Clarke's  elbow  giving  him  a  gentle  nudge.  Looking  up,  he  saw  that  the  car  was  at  a  standstill
  outside the Muswell Hill cemetery. And since they were here, it seemed only right that he should give it a try.
  Well, if you must, I suppose you must, Sir Keenan Gormley told him, his ghostly  echo of a voice fading to a distant
  whisper in the Necroscope's metaphysical mind. But better you than me, Harry. Far better you than me . . .
  From this side of Muswell Hill, the fact that the district was elevated was obvious.  Southwards, the nighted streets  of
  London sprawled like some giant, shimmering cobweb woven on the curve of the world. It had done raining for now,
  but in Harry Keogh's fertile imagination the cold glitter of distant street lamps in the moisture-laden air was the
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  reflection of a myriad jewels of dew on the blacktop strands of the great web. And the vehicles crawling on the roads were Mama Spider's children, learning the
  skills of the silken tightrope.
  But evocative though the vista was, it wasn't the Necroscope's reason for being here. As he penetrated the graveyard, the concerned, concerted, ever-burgeoning
  clamour of incorporeal voices sounding in his metaphysical mind brought him back down to earth - and below it -in a moment. Their concerned clamour, yes.
  Full of concern, for Stevens. They weren't talking to Harry (not yet, for they didn't know he was here), but to each other, and to Stevens. Trying to talk to him,
  anyway.
  Discovering the dead man's plot wasn't difficult: it lay dead centre of the physically silent but psychically noisy babble which, as Harry approached, grew
  louder by the moment. The brand-new marker, clean gravel chips and fresh flowers provided all the corroboration he needed. These things and Stevens's name, his
  dates, and his epitaph, of course:
  A Man of Law & Order,
  —a Fighter to the Last—
  Struck Down by the Lawless,
  in the Pursuit of His Duty.
  Sorely Missed, but Alive
  in Our Memories,
  Always.
  A very sad thing. But the babbling creature in its grave was sadder by far ...
  It was just as simple as Sir Keenan Gormley had tried to forewarn: the dead couldn't console him. Derek Stevens couldn't come to terms with his demise,
  wouldn't accept it, wasn't going to lie still for it. And despite that he knew in his innermost being (or unbeing) that he was dead, still he fought against it and cried
  his horror of it, until his plot and the entire graveyard reverberated with his silent shrieking and his coffin wasn't merely a box but a cell in a subterranean asylum.
  An asylum in the worst possible sense of the word, that of the madhouse.
  A madman? Harry asked of the dead moaning in their graves.
  Driven mad by grief, frustration and horror, Necroscope! a shuddering voice answered. For the living aren't alone in their capacity  for
  grief. We also mourn -for the absence of all the loved ones we left behind,, who don't know  that we're still down here . . . and must
  never know! Else they'd sit by our graves all day, and their brief sojourn in the land of the living  would  be wasted
  no less than ours in the darkness of death . . .
  So taken  aback by  the  sheer soulfullness  of  it,  the  doom-fraught  feeling  in  the  voice,  for  a  little  while  the  Necroscope  said
  nothing. But then:
  Excuse me,  Sir,  for  I  don't  know  you,  (Harry  respectfully  shielded  his  thoughts  from  the  rest  of  the  cemetery's
  dwellers in order to speak to this one alone). But I do know that while you are in the majority, still you are of a minority: a defeatist
  among optimists. For while I've spoken to a great many dead men, I honestly can't say I ever before heard the . . . condition
  or the lot of the teeming dead expressed so mournfully, so hopelessly as you express it. Even vampires, who have lost not only life
  but undeath and immortality, too, seem a deal more accepting of their station than  you are of yours! Which isn't so much to put
  you down as to inquire . . . well, what is it that's made you this way?
  For a moment the other was silent, perhaps  shocked. Could this really be the Necroscope, whose compassion was
  universally acclaimed? Harry sensed  the stiffness  in the unquiet night, and to his relief felt its gradual  easing.  Until
  eventually: You're right, of course, said the unknown voice, but without its hopeless  tremor now, stoic in the modern
  sense, yet submissive when faced with the truth. You must forgive me my doubts  and my regrets, Harry, my lack  of
  conviction. Ah, but it comes hard for a preacher to be preached to, for a man of the Faith to discover himself faithless! Made to discover it,
  and by one so young at that! And yet you're so - persuasive! You put it so very well! Perhaps you  should have taken the cloth
  and been a preacher? Or maybe you'd make a better philosopher. Have you studied philosophy, Harry?
  Some, the Necroscope answered, which was at least in part the truth. Or rather, I've played a few word-games in my time. And
  with experts, too. I know  how to argue, if that's what you mean.  He  explained  no  further  than  that.  But  on  the  other
  hand, what the dead man had said to him explained a great deal.
  All of his life this man had preached of a God and a life after death. But now, in death  . . . where was He? Why had He not taken
  these souls to His bosom? Neither Necroscope nor preacher could answer that  question;  but in fact He had claimed
  them,  or  would  eventually.  Except  Harry  had  always  had  his  doubts,  which  this  apparent  delay  in  the  promised
  deliverance only served to exacerbate. The whole truth of the matter was something he was yet to discover, albeit in
  another world, another time.
  
  Harry's thoughts on the preacher's predicament were like spoken words, which the dead man answered. Again  you
  are  right.  For  if  I  thought  it  hard  to  convince  my  flock  in  life,  how  much  harder  in  death,  when  the  anticipated
  resurrection is not?
  Harry nodded. It must be difficult, yes. But you do still talk like a priest.
  I still think like  one, deep down inside! It's just that now, well,  my  words  seem  so  futile,  so  empty.  Even  to  me,
  sometimes! And the worst thing  is, I  can't  put  a  time  on  it,  can't  advise  them  of  the  hour  of  their  salvation.  But
  talking to such as you, and feeling your living warmth, I
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  do believe, of course I do! For if there is nothing left but this darkness, this purgatory of sorts, then why have you come to remind us of the past - if not to provide
  evidence of a glorious future? For He was, He is, and He shall always be . . .
  God's messenger? Harry didn't feel like one.
  But you are! the preacher was insistent. You bring light in the eternal darkness, Harry, and hope where no hope existed. You . . . rekindle the
  flame! Yes, and I think I know what brings you here: the soul-destroying cries of this demented one, taken before his time. You are here to
  comfort him. Tell me that I'm right?
  Not quite, Harry shook his head, and knew the other would sense it. /// can comfort him, well and good. But in fact I'm here to question him. I
  want to know who killed him, so that I can right the wrong.
  Revenge? The voice of the preacher was far quieter now.
  An eye for an eye, Harry growled.
  You can't find it in you to turn the other cheek?
  So that the murderer goes free to kill again?
  It's not my way, Harry.
  Nor mine, not really. But I'll do what I must.
  And in doing so, lower yourself to the killer's level?
  Tell that to the dozen or more he's lowered six feet under the sod!
  I can't give you my blessing, the preacher shook an incorporeal head.
  Give me access, that's all I ask. Call off the others, for they're doing no good and crowding me out.
  It was true, Derek Stevens had them all in a state. Every single -inhabitant? - of the place, brought to the brink of what among
  the dead could only pass for nervous collapse. They knew no peace with him; they  could  neither  converse  nor  hear  themselves
  think  for his noise; they flocked to  him  with  gentle  words,  and  the  hardest  of  them  with  threats,  but nothing they did
  brought surcease for he was inconsolable. To the world outside, the world of the living, the Muswell Hill graveyard  would
  seem a hallowed place of peace and rest, but to the ones interred here it was now a Bedlam.
  Well, Harry thought to himself, Sir Keenan did try to warn me, after all. But as he seated himself on a nearby slab the tumult fell off a little, and
  as the teeming dead felt his presence, they drew back and made way for him. Then gradually, the incorporeal babble tailed off to a
  hiss of whispers, and finally a welcome silence, as they waited.
  Or almost a silence. For down there in the earth, unheard except by the  dead  and  the  Necroscope  Harry  Keogh,  there  was  a
  sobbing. A heart not yet melted in corruption lay broken there, a soul with nowhere to flee suffered all the undeserved grief of the grave, and a
  mind bereft of control, cut off from man's five earthly senses teetered on the brink of total insanity.
  to the eye of memory,  fleetingly,  the Necroscope pictured an
  illustration from some old book (perhaps the idea of Bedlam had brought it back to mind): of a man lying in a foetal position on a bed of filthy, vermin-infested
  straw over broken flagstones, with gaunt, drooling, hollow-eyed figures shambling to and fro, aimlessly all around. Add to that scene all the protests and the
  pleading and even the threats of the Great Majority, and Harry couldn't help wondering: is that what it's like for Derek Stevens?
  To the teeming dead, the unguarded thoughts of the Necroscope were perfectly audible. And:
  Yessss! Stevens sobbed, and huddled to Harry in his mind, crushing to him for his living warmth!
  Any other man would have recoiled at once. To be embraced, even in one's mind, by a corpse, isn't a thought to dwell upon. But Harry was the Necroscope, and
  the dead were his friends. He could no more shrink from Stevens in his grave than from a sick friend in a hospital ward. And so he instinctively wrapped the dead
  man in his warmth, and let him leech on it a while . . . but briefly, for something warned him not to let himself succumb to the other's incurable chill.
  But as he drew away:
  No! Don't go! Who are you? What are you? A nurse? A doctor? You're alive, I know that, because you're warm. I can feeljyowr warmth!
  But the others in this . . . place, they're cold! So tell me, tell me, tell me . . . you've got to tell me they're lying! I have to know that
  I. . . that I'm . . . aliiiive! Right at the end it turned to a wail, a sobbing shriek that sank down as if into the earth from which it issued.
  'I'm alive, yes,' Harry spoke out loud, however quietly now, which was easier for him and made no difference at all to the Great Majority. 'But
  this . . . isn't a hospital, Derek. I'm Harry Keogh, the one they call the Necroscope, and sometimes I wish I wasn't. This is one of
  those  times.' There was no other way to do it. His words spoke volumes, told far more than he'd said, but  even  in  his  ears  they
  sounded like a betrayal.
  Nooooo! The dead man's wail denied it. My parents, wife, family, friends. My whole wooooorld!.  . . Gone? But this
  time the final word was a whisper.
  'Not  gone,'  Harry's  face  was  wet  with  his  own  tears,  and  his  voice  rang  with  his  own  agony.  They're  still  there,  Derek,
  everything, everyone. They have accepted what you can't accept. Because they saw, felt, touched you, and knew  that  they  had to
  give you up. Their living senses made them to know that yours . . . don't work any more.'
  The sobbing had stopped  now,  and for long moments  there  was  only  a stunned,  breathless  silence. It  was  as if the  dead  held
  
  their breath, waiting for Derek Stevens to gather his, a renewal of his crazed raving. The Necroscope sensed it coming, and stopped
  it short:
  'I can tell them you're okay now,' he said. 'Your family, your friends,
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  Jim Banks and George Jakes. I'm the only one who can tell them. I can make it easy for them, reassure them, give them
  strength to carry on. Even those last two, who like yourself can't carry on, and have accepted  it. Or I can say nothing
  at all. Or . . .  I can tell them you're like this. But I'd really hate to do that, and leave them in the same sort of hell, going
  mad with worry over you ..."
  There couldn't be a 'same sort of hell,' not remotely! The dead man answered at last. But now there was that in his
  incorporeal  voice  that  hadn't  been  there  before,  so  that  Harry  felt  like  an  inquisitor,  as  if  he'd  issued  a  threat  or
  attempted to coerce the other. But you did! Stevens told him, with something of a sneer. You threatened  a dead man!
  So much for the 'mercy' of the Necroscope! And if that was a lie, what about the rest of the bullshit they've been feeding me?
  At  which  Harry  relaxed  a  little,  and  perhaps^even  smiled  to  himself  through  his  tears.  The  word-game  he  was
  playing was going his way at last. And: 'You're not crazy, Derek,' he told the other. 'Not if you can still reason as well
  as all that!'
  Crazy? The other seemed surprised. Was I supposed to be? His voice was still bitter, but Harry sensed  that he had
  definitely turned back from the brink. Mad with grief, sure, (just as the preacher had said). Tortured by  frustration,
  naturally.  But  I  wasn't  crazy.  Bull-headed,  that's  all:  a  bad  loser,  and  unwilling  to  give  up  on  a  lost  cause  or
  argument. Well, hell, I've always been that way!
  Of course. And how he'd always been in life was how he'd be in death.  But  even the  worst  loser must  accept  the  verdict  when
  he's finally down and out.
  Harry  felt  the  soft  sighing  of  the  dead,  for  this  was  an  argument  that  was  definitely  going  his  way  now.  Except,  as  the
  Necroscope was well aware, it wouldn't go down well if he stuck  the  boot  into  an underdog. One should  always  leave a bolthole,
  so that the gallant loser may retire with grace. And so:
  'Well, and you'll win this one, too, in the end,' he said, however casually.
  Eh? How's that? (Stevens was 'back on his feet' again, the sob gone from his voice forever. It was the  prospect  of winning when
  all had seemed lost. But how could everything be lost when he was still here, still fighting?) What? I can still win?
  'Can and will,' Harry assured him. 'Because in the end . . . why, we'll all be in the same hole! Everyone, eventually.'
  What? (Wonderingly).
  'Death is a hell of a long time,' Harry explained. 'You've lost nothing, Derek. Or at worst, your situation is a temporary  one. But
  everything and everyone you've said goodbye to, you'll be saying hello to  in some distant  future.  Except  by  then,  why,  you  may
  not want to!'
  Not want to? (Astonishment!) / won't want to be reunited with—
  '—You'll get old, Derek, and so will they. You'll be old in the ways of death, and them old in the physical sense.  Which is
  something you won't have to suffer. They'll have new friends and be . . .  different. And so will you. But who knows, who
  can say? Maybe they'll be like you, as rebellious as you have been, and need you to show them the way when finally
  . . . finally they get here. Just as the dead will show you the way, if you'll let them.'
  / can have new friends?
  'Even old ones! Jim Banks isn't that far away. You should be able to talk to him, if you'll just reach out.'
  Have I been . . . selfish?
  'No, just scared. And you scared the dead, too, because now and then they lose someone like you. Now and then,
  someone will retreat so far into his misery that he's permanently lost. They thought  you  were  going  that  way,  too,
  Derek.'
  And so they called you in . . .
  Harry shook his head. 'I didn't come to help you, but to ask  for your help! Just as Jim Banks has helped  me,  and
  George Jakes too, I hope.'
  Jim, George, and me . . . Now the dead man knew what it was all about, what it had to be about, and Harry felt his
  excitement. Now that really would be a way to finish a fight, right? To hit back from the grave! So what do you want to know?
  Harry told him, and what little there was he got: from a seat in the front row, as usual. . .
  Afterwards, when the Necroscope had said goodbye to Derek Stevens and was leaving the cemetery:
  Harry, said the preacher, that was just. . . marvellous! And you really do know how to argue, don't you?
  Told you so,' said Harry. 'But in fact I had an advantage over you. I knew something you couldn't know.'
  Oh?
  'It was something I saw written on his gravestone,  something that had been put there by people who knew Derek
  better than either one of us. It said he was "a fighter to the last." Except, as we've seen, the fight isn't over yet. . . "
  The Necroscope  had  to  make  one  more  visit.  And  this  time  it  was  a  venue  and  a  meeting  that  he  wasn't  looking
  forward to at all: the police mortuary in Fulham, where George Jakes lay gutted  on a slab waiting for him. For it's one
  thing to talk to the dead, but something else to converse with a mangled mess that simply isn't recognizable any more
  
  and smells of the blood, guts, and shit that used to lie under the skin!
  Harry steeled himself to it, however, and on the way told his esper friends what Derek Stevens had told him:
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  'Less than Banks, I'm afraid. When  Banks  was  hit,  Stevens  didn't  automatically  tie  it  in  to  what  Banks  had  been
  investigating.  Banks  had  been  onto  a  gang  of  car-thieves,  yes,  but  he  had  been  killed  by  some  maniac  who  was
  perhaps responsible for a whole string of previous murders. Maybe Banks had been doing some work on those,  too?
  The only thing Stevens was certain of was that Banks had a lead on this East End garage. And he knew it was a job he
  had been keen to finish. So Stevens  waited and watched, and got together and made plans with George  Jakes.  And
  because Stevens and Jakes had had close friendships with Banks, the investigation of Banks's murder was passed  to
  another, more 'impartial' team. Not that there was any real impartiality; a policeman had been murdered, and the police
  are clannish about that kind of thing. Anyway, Stevens and Jakes were out of it.
  'But if there was some connection between Banks's murder and his theory about  the garage and his auto-theft case,
  Stevens reckoned business would fall off a bit now; the gang would keep a low profile until they  saw which way the wind blew. In
  which case it would be pointless to raid the garage right now, for the place would be "clean."
  'And in fact, over the next three weeks to a month, there was a noticeable fall-off in reported car-theft. But that could
  be coincidental, and Stevens  still couldn't tie Banks's murder to the suspect  garage. In a  month, however, the moon had
  waned and waxed anew; toward the end of that period the incidence of vehicle theft had risen again; the taking of a  couple  of  Porsches
  clinched it, and a raid on the garage was on . . .  and the moon was nearing its full.
  'Meanwhile,  Stevens  and  Jakes  had  looked  the  place  over.  A  run-down,  multi-storey  ex-municipal  car  park,  the
  garage was huge and decrepit, a concrete skeleton. Upstairs it was a gutted  ruin; only the ground floor and basement
  were still viable, and housed the garage proper. Access, however, was by no means easy. There were no windows on
  the ground floor and one of the two old entrance/exits  had  been  blocked  off.  The  remaining  entranceway  onto  the
  disused ramps was controlled by a manned barrier and a motorized, steel-ribbed, retractable overhead door. There was
  no natural light in the work areas, only electrical, and the only visitors allowed inside were clients whose vehicles were
  in process of repair. A search-warrant was vital.
  'But in the course of looking the place over, Stevens  and Jakes had experienced the same kind of invasion suffered
  by Jim Banks: something, or one, had got into their minds! But a feeling so "strange, unnatural, weird, that neither one
  of  them  more  than  mentioned  it  to  the  other!  Maybe  they  suspected  they  might  be  cracking  up  a  little  -certainly
  Stevens  felt shaky about  it - but neither one of them made too much of it, not to his partner, anyway. In  fact  Derek
  Stevens put it down to an attack of nerves, and to the loss of Jim Banks. But I've
  spoken to both of them now, and I know that their symptoms were exactly the same.
  This  wolf-thing,  a self-designated  lycanthrope,  was  into  their  minds.  Maybe  he'd  been  alerted  by  their  giving  the  garage  the
  once-or twice-over in preparation for their raid. Whatever, it never got that far . . .
  'Five nights  ago, a day  before the  full moon,  Stevens  was  driving  home  from  work  on  wet  roads  through  a  thin  drizzle.  He
  stopped  at a red light controlling road-works  at a bridge over a railway  . . . but  the  truck  following right behind him didn't!  The
  only warning he got was that Thing in his mind, an obscene chuckle, and a gurgling mental voice that  told  him: "Kiss  your  asshole
  goodbye, fuckhead!" Followed by a howling, like a madman trying to imitate a wolf.
  'Struck in the right-hand rear, his car spun left, smashed through a makeshift "safety"  barrier, and fell thirty  feet  onto  electrified
  tracks . . .'
  Darcy  Clarke nodded.  'We read about  it in the  papers.  That  would  probably  have been enough - falling like that  and  crashing
  down on that live rail - but the commuter train that piled into him two minutes later left no doubt. It was a miracle the  train  wasn't
  derailed and there were no other injuries.'
  Harry nodded. That was the extent of what  Derek Stevens  could tell me. And  now  I'm left  with  George Jakes.  Or rather,  with
  whatever is left of him!'
  'Harry,'  Darcy  was  very  quiet,  'I know  you've  seen some stuff,  but  the  police  have told  us that  this  one  is,  you  know,  ugly.
  Jakes didn't have any family, so they didn't pretty him up much. He's . . . just as our mad friend left  him three  nights  ago. But  the
  police are finished  with  him now  and he burns  the  day  after  tomorrow.  Jakes  was  a  "Green"  and  that's  how  he  wanted  to  go,
  cremated. He reckoned we're short enough of space as it is, without filling the ground with dead meat - his words, Harry,  not  mine!
  So his boss told me, anyway.'
  Harry thought about it a moment, and said, 'You're right, Darcy, I've seen some stuff. The Chateau Bronnitsy  . . . was  full of it!
  But thanks for the warning, anyway. I could probably  contact  Jakes  from here, or from my  room at E-Branch HQ,  but  that  isn't
  my way. See, in my book, respect works both ways: if you want it, you've got to give it. So I'll go to see him anyway.'
  And in a little while they were there . . .
  No two dead people are alike,  Harry  knew  that.  Jim  Banks  had  been  hard,  but  not  really.  Derek  Stevens  had  been
  hard-headed;  he hadn't wanted to admit defeat, wasn't  nearly  ready  to  quit,  even  when  the  chips  were  all  the  way
  down. With them, maybe it was like a suit of clothes you wear to impress. They were just people underneath,
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  wearing policemen on the outside. Well, and that was them. But George Jakes was something else. George had been
  hard hard. And he still was.
  And  he  was  soft,  too,  in  places.  Or  as  soft  as  his  rigor  mortis  would  allow.  But  on  occasions  like  this,  the
  Necroscope was adept at keeping his thoughts to himself . . .
  Harry and his friends had been taken down into the Unnatural or Suspect  Deaths room by a police pathologist  in a
  white surgical smock -rather, it had started  out white, but their guide had just finished an autopsy  in  another  room.
  Chatting to them in a friendly enough fashion, he cleaned his hands on the smock as he led the way, then stripped off
  his thin rubber gloves to let the trio into the locked, refrigerated morgue. And leaving them, he told them, 'Drop the
  key into my room when you're finished.' Which was the only thing they actually heard. The rest of his patter had been
  drowned out, blurred to a mumble by the morbid aura of the place.
  Clarke and Layard followed quietly behind Harry where he went from sliding drawer to drawer, examining labels. But  when  he
  stopped  at a drawer marked 'George Jakes' they stepped  back a little. Darcy admitted to still being  queasy  from  the
  mess in Oxford Street, and Layard didn't want to see stuff just for the sake of seeing it. But if Harry really needed them
  . . . ? He shook his head and let them leave, then slid open the drawer. And:
  What's new, Necroscope?  said George Jakes, with a grin of horror  on  his  face  that  he'd  wear  forever,  or  at  least
  until'it rotted off. And before Harry could answer, but in a far quieter mode, as  Jakes  scanned  his  visitor's  stunned
  thoughts:  Hey, is it that bad?  Funny, 'cos I can't feel a thing! But I can  remember  it  -  and  how!  And  seeing  it  in
  Technicolor doesn't really help. So what say you switch it off now, Necroscope? I mean, I wjas never a one /or watching myself on Home
  videos, either, you know what  I mean? By which time the humorous touch  had disappeared entirely  from  Jakes's  voice.
  And Harry realized that the dead man had been looking at himself through his eyes.1
  He quickly slid the drawer shut, groped for a steel chair to steady  himself, sat  down heavily  in it and said, 'George
  . . .  I. . .  What can I say? I'm sorry.' It didn't seem much, but what else could he say?
  \teSpiXfcX\a\A\\fe ta« ex ms, s\\\A, Yisrry co\M stSi see'As contents. They were printed on his mind's eye in all their gory details. But Darcy
  had been wrong: someone had done something of a job on the corpse, if only to make it bearable. The stitches  were . . . less than
  cosmetic. Like a slipshod  job on a torn hessian  sack, Jakes's corpse seemed to have been sewn together mainly to keep  it
  together, to stop him falling open or even apart.
  Harry  deliberately  put  the  picture  out  of  mind  -  to  keep  it  from  Jakes's  mind  -  and  took  a  deep  breath.  Then,
  remembering what Jim Banks had told him: 'But at least you didn't feel all of it, George,' he
  said. 'You couldn't possibly have felt all of it.'
  / felt enough, Jakes  answered.  More than enough  to put me down among  the dead men!  Obviously  he wanted  to  forget it,  but
  knew that he couldn't, not for a little while. So: Let's get on with it, Harry. I know what you want, so let's get started . . .
  I had no family, Qakes commenced his story). The only real friends I had, and few of them at that, were on the force. I'd  been a cop
  man and boy, since I was eighteen until a couple of weeks  ago when I turned  forty. And much  like you, Harry,  I was  the one who
  always got the nasty cases.  It just seemed  to turn out that way: rapists  and murderers  and arsonists,  pimps,  perverts  and all the
  slime that walks the streets, they all seemed to head my way. Hence my reluctance to make  more  than a handful of friends,  take  a
  wife and raise a family. Being that close to all of the shit, I didn't like the idea of contaminating others. Or . . . maybe it was a matter
  of trust. So many people out there seem bent on making it, even over the bodies of the rest of us, that I wasn't willing to put myself in
  the firing line. I mean, I'd be the best sort of cop I knew how, sure, but I'd get along just fine on my own and not rely on anyone else.
  And I did.
  And people - even  other cops,  unless  they were close to me - didn't  mess  with me. I  had  this  reputation;  I  smoked  too  many
  cigarettes, and drank too much cheap whisky, maybe . . . but I got the job done. Especially if it was a job no one else wanted. And I
  was hard,  for despite all my bad habits  I kept  my body in good nick.  It would have  to be one rough  son  of a bitch who  put  me
  down. And it was . . .
  Normally I wouldn't  have  fallen for it, but these weren't  normal  times;  I was  feeling for Derek  Stevens.  I mean,  one day there
  were two of us, and the next. . . he was gone! A lousy hit and run traffic accident, of all
  if only because He leaves no one to mourn after him when he's gone. I suppose I was bitter, you know? And no way I could tie
  Derek's or Jim Banks's deaths together, or connect them to Jim's work on the stolen car rackets.
  But one thing for sure: warrant or no warrant, tomorrow I was into that East End garage. And nothing and no one was going to
  stop me! The trouble was,  I thought these things  while walking  the street with my hands  in my pockets  and my fortieth cigarette
  sticking out of a corner of my mouth right there outside the garage,  which I was  looking  at one last time before busting  the place.
  And of course he was listening to me! I knew he was there, in my head, but figured it was just another symptom of the blues.
  Well, you live and you learn, and then you die . . .
  Before I left the place I saw a van rolling  down the exit lane onto the road. There were two guys inside, and the
  van was giving out a blast of raw jungle-music, I mean like  that calypso stuff that your namesake  Harry Belafonte
  used to sing, but a hell of a lot wilder. Hey, I never got
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  past Bill Haley, Little Richard and Fats Domino, so don't  ask me to be specific! But it was Caribbean  Island stuff:
  Jamaica or somewhere like that, for sure. And so was the front seat passenger.
  He was Rasta as they come, greasy dreadlocks and all, and his eyes were black as his plaited hair where they stared at me
  as the van shot by. Those dark eyes seemed to be saying, 'We'll be seein' ya 'gain, Honky!' And they sure enough did!
  The guy driving was younger by three or four years; he was white - well, a dirty pale - pimply, sort of loose around  the mouth
  like  some kind  of idiot, and wore a crewcut. Yeah, Harry, I know.  What  do  you  think,  I've  been  lying  here  doing
  nothing? I've had a word or two with Jim Banks, sure, and this guy would have to be Skippy.  But I didn't  know  that
  then. These guys were what? -Just a couple of yobs employed by the garage, as far as I was concerned. Yeah, a couple of yobs who were
  waiting for me in my flat when I got home.
  Like I said, if I hadn't been so down I might have sensed it, I might have known  something didn't  smell right. But
  by the time I did smell it, it was too late.
  My flat is on the ground floor and the other two tenants, upstairs, always work late. So the rest of the house was empty. It
  was -1 don't know - something-to-seven by the time I got home. Outside, the street lights were already  on.  But  as  I  turned  my  key
  (which seemed to stick in the lock a little), opened the door, stepped inside and tried to switch on the lights . . .
  . . . Suddenly I knew! But it was already too late.
  There was a little light from a street lamp right outside the main door of the house, which shone in through chinks in my curtained
  windows. But I hadn't been in there a minute before I knew they were there. Just a feeling, or a taste or smell; the fact that my lights were on the
  blink; and shadows where there shouldn't be any.
  I don't know who or what hit me on the head. But the carpet was wet with my blood when I came to, and a spot behind my
  ear felt soft. I could only have been down a second or so, but as I stirred and tried to drag myself into a sitting  position  I
  heard this ugly voice say, 'Tough bastard, isn't he?' in a broad Geordie accent. And another voice, deep and brown and guttural,
  and yet a voice in my head, saying:
  'Yeah. But you II be softer on the inside, won't ya, boy?'
  And when I opened my eyes to catch a glimpse of that face, which I knew went with the voice . . .
  . . . It was Jim Banks's  wolf-face, of course, but the mad eyes staring out of the sockets  were black  and glinty  as
  coal, and human . . . and inhuman! Then I was kicked over onto my back, and the thing seated itself astride my upper thighs and showed
  me its claw: five surgical knives set in a swarf-glove that he wore over his hand!
  It was dark in my flat, as I've said; the only light  came in through  chinks in the curtains from the street lamp outside; but it
  wasn't so dark I
  couldn't see this Skippy character over the crazy man's shoulder; how pale his face looked, and how he couldn't bear to look but must turn
  away!
  And then the pain as that Thing ripped into me, and didn't stop ripping. . .
  But you're right, Harry, Jakes sighed after a while, / didn't  feel all of it. You can only take  so much, you know?  And
  funny, the last thing I remember thinking before I passed out and woke up here, was: 'Jesus, my flat's going  to look  a real mess . .
  .!'
  Then he was quiet again,, maybe turning it all over in his own mind. But as the Necroscope was about  to say thanks, Jakes said:
  Oh, and there's one other thing. It probably isn't worth mentioning, but I'll let you decide. There was this girl.
  'Girl?' Harry repeated him.
  She was outside the garage, just walking up and down the street. I saw her there twice, and again  on the  night.  .  .  that  this
  happened. He shrugged the last off, was finally done with it. She was a real looker. Tall, slim, slinky, yet natural with
  it. Maybe Eurasian?  Could  be, from the shape of her eyes: like  almonds and very slightly  tilted. And her hair, bouncing  on her
  shoulders, seeming black as jet but grey in its sheen, with the light glancing off it. She was the ageless type, Harry. I mean, anything  from
  nineteen to thirty-five. But a looker, oh yes!
  He pictured her for the Necroscope, who agreed with him: yes,  she was  definitely  a looker. 'A customer,  waiting for her car to
  be fixed?'
  Could be, Jakes shrugged again, and fell silent.
  The interview was over . . .
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  V
  R.L. STEVENSON JAMIESON, AND HIS BROTHER . . .
  Back at E-Branch HQ it should have been time to call it a day, or a night, but Darcy had mentioned some paperwork he must see to
  
  before going home. Likewise Ken Layard; he also had work to attend  to. And  so  they  had  ridden  up  together  with
  Harry in the elevator and accompanied him to his door. Or perhaps  the paperwork was just an  excuse  because  they
  had sensed that the night wasn't quite over yet where the Necroscope was concerned.
  The place was quiet. With the majority of esper personnel already checked out, the main corridor might easily be mistaken for
  any corridor in any better-class London hotel. But the Duty Officer had  met  the  three  out  of  the  elevator,  and  as  the
  Necroscope entered his room and made to close the door . . . suddenly it seemed he heard someone breathe his name!
  He immediately boiled over and, stepping  back into the corridor, shouted,  'Hey, look! If I'm involved, why not simply
  involve me? I mean, don't talk about me, talk to me! What am I, a social leper?'
  Layard had already entered his office; but  Darcy  and  the  Duty  Officer,  an  esper  by  the  name  of  John  Grieve  -  a
  bespectacled, balding twig of a man in rolled up shirt-sleeves, grey slacks and slippers, with a clipped, precise, military
  or 'old-school-tie' sort of voice that Harry supposed  might easily get him type-cast  as an Inland  Revenue  Inspector,
  which he was anything but - were standing with their heads almost conspiratorially close together.
  'Well?' he snapped, as they turned puzzled faces towards him.
  'Well what?' Darcy was plainly annoyed. 'We weren't talking about you, Harry!'
  'Er, but we were about  to.' John Grieve was less certain and fidgeted with the lobe of his right ear. 'Or if not about
  you, about your wife. And you're perfectly correct: I should have included you. But I wanted Darcy's opinion first.'
  Now Darcy was looking at Grieve in the same puzzled fashion. 'What? What's going on?'
  That's what I was trying to tell you. It's about  Brenda.' And quickly, before Darcy and the Necroscope could break
  into a bout of angry questioning: 'We seem to have lost her - and the baby.' In the Necroscope's  mind, Grieve's dry,
  official, almost emotionless voice seemed to ring like an echo chamber; Darcy's, too. Perhaps it was an irritating effect
  of the empty corridor and rooms, he thought,  and put it aside  if  only  for  the  moment.  But  Brenda  and  Little  Harry,
  missing? That was something else!
  'Lost them?'  he  repeated  Grieve.  'My  wife  and  child?  What  do  you  mean,  "lost"  them?'  The  phrase  seemed  too
  well-chosen, too final. Harry's tired eyes were wide awake now,  unblinking.  'Have  they  .  .  .  come  to  any  harm?'  He
  grabbed the DO's elbow.
  Grieve looked him straight in the eyes and said, 'No, not that we know of. Now, do you want to let go of my arm so I
  can talk to you in what's left of comfort?'
  Harry gritted his teeth but released him. And waiting for Grieve to speak, he re-evaluated what he knew of the man.
  Grieve had two talents; one of them 'dodgy,' Branch parlance for an as yet undeveloped ESP ability, and the other very
  remarkable and possibly unique. His first gift was that of far-seeing: he was a human crystal ball. The only trouble was
  he had to know exactly where and what he was looking for, otherwise he could see nothing. His talent didn't work at
  random but had to be directed: he had to have a definite target.
  His second string made him doubly valuable. It could well prove to be a reflection of his first talent,  but  occasionally  it  was  a
  godsend. Grieve was a telepath, but a mind-reader with a difference. Yet again he had to 'aim' his talent; he could only
  read a person's mind when he was talking to him . . . but if he knew the person  in question,  that included  when they
  were talking on the telephone! Using John Grieve, there was no  need  for  mechanical  scrambler  devices.  It  was  one
  reason why Darcy used him as frequently as possible in the role of Duty Officer.
  But. . . had it been something of Grieve's talent that the Necroscope had  experienced  just  a  moment  ago?  Was  it
  even possible?
  'You weren't talking about me?' Harry frowned and licked his dry lips, his mind returning to  that  peculiar  sensation  he  had  felt
  when he'd entered his room: the feeling that  his  name  had  been  whispered.  And  then  there  was  the  echo  chamber
  effect, which was still present: as if his head  were  hollow  -  or  as  if  it  were  .  .  .  what,  occupied?  By  someone  else?
  Someone who was spying  on his thoughts?  'Were you thinking  about  me, then? And if so, would I be able to hear
  you thinking?' Suddenly Brenda and the child had taken a back seat in Harry's order of priorities. Or if not that exactly,
  then he'd seen the possibility of a connection with their disappearance and this new
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  problem. A remote one (he hoped and prayed), but a possibility.
  Again Harry gripped Grieve's arm, then both of them, as he read the other's  negative  stare.  No,  he  wouldn't  have
  been able to hear Grieve thinking about him. And so: 'John, I want you to read my mind,' he snapped.  'Go on in there
  and see what you can find. See who you can find! Do it now, as quickly as you can.'
  Almost instinctively Grieve looked, and recoiled at once! He wrenched himself free of Harry, took a stumbling step
  backwards, said, 'What. . .?'
  'Well?' Harry caught up with him and held him against the wall of the corridor. 'What did you see?' (Perhaps not surprisingly, the
  echo had vanished now; the voices of everyone involved were remarkably clear and ordinary; there was no whisperer in the Necroscope's
  mind).
  Darcy was looking worriedly from Harry to Grieve and back again. 'What on earth . . .?' he began to say. But Grieve cut him short with:
  
  Two of you?' (This to Harry). 'A moment ago, two of you. But now, only one. Only . . . you!'
  Again Harry released him, and turned tremblingly away. He had been invaded, his mind broken into. Just like Banks,
  Stevens, and Jakes before him. For long moments there was an electric tension in the air, until finally:
  'Well, is someone going to explain?!' Darcy shouted.
  At which Harry took them into his room and listened while Grieve reported the details of Brenda's and Little Harry's
  disappearance. Grieve didn't waste any time, but the Necroscope was now sensitive  to every second  ticking by. And
  as he listened to Grieve, he also found himself listening to - or for - something in his head. But it didn't return. Or not
  yet, anyway.
  'She was shopping  in Knightsbridge,' Grieve started. 'She had the baby with her.  We  had  men  on  her,  of  course,
  three of the best. The same people who have watched out for her all the time she's been here, Special Branch and good
  at their job. Not espers but the next best thing.' He shook his head. 'If it were anyone  else, I'd suspect  their report was
  a whitewash. But not these blokes. They know what they're doing. And if they say she disappeared, she disappeared .
  . .
  'But not into the crowd, you understand,  though  certainly there were plenty of people on the streets.  But she took
  young Harry into a baby outfitters, and left the minders waiting outside. Where they waited, and waited . . . and finally
  went in to see what was wrong. Well, there was no exit from the rear, but Brenda and the kid—'
  '—Were gone,' Harry sounded much calmer now. 'Yes, I get the picture. But what time was this?'
  'Five-thirty or thereabouts.  You two had already left the H.Q. with Ken  Layard.  I  didn't  want  to  cause  a  panic  or
  divert you from what you were doing. There seemed every chance that we would pick Brenda up
  again. I mean, we're not looking after her because she's under threat or anything, but mainly because . . . well, because—'
  '—Because sometimes she doesn't seem capable of looking after herself?' Harry  cut  in again. 'It's  okay,  go ahead and say  it.  She
  has problems, I know.' And to himself: Problems, Brenda? That's saying the very least!
  All those weeks, months of debriefing following the  Bodescu  case and Harry's  subsequent  metempsychosis,  his rehabitation  of
  another's body. Indeed his very being, when Brenda had thought him dead. Wouldn't  that  be enough to  . . .  unnerve  anyone?  And
  gradually, during the course of all that debriefing, and Harry's rehabilitation, it had become increasingly apparent that Brenda was in
  real trouble. But surely that was only to be expected, and might even have been anticipated.
  For after  all, Brenda had only  recently  become  a  mother;  she'd  still  been  recovering  from  an  uncomfortable  confinement  and
  problematic birth, when for a while her doctor  had thought  he might lose her. Add  to  this  the  fact  of her husband's  weird 'talent,'
  that he conversed with dead people, which Brenda had known about and which had preyed  on her mind for months  - and then  the
  fact that her infant child seemed possessed of similar or even more frightening powers,  so that  even among the  espers  of E-Branch
  he was looked upon as something of a freak - and the  fact  that  Harry  was  now  (literally)  a different  person,  one who  was Harry,
  with all of his past, his memory and mannerisms, but living in a stranger's body; the fact of the  absolute  terror  Brenda had endured
  on the night when she came face to face with the monster Yulian Bodescu,  whose  like she couldn't  possibly  have imagined even in
  her worst nightmares . . .
  Little wonder her mind had started to give way under the strain. On top of which she hated London  and couldn't  possibly  return
  to  Hartle-pool  in the  north-east;  her old flat  would  be poison  to  her and full of  monstrous  memories.  For  it  was  there  that  the
  Bodescu creature had attacked her, attempting to destroy both herself and her child!
  Thus,  as her mental connections  with  the  real world  were eroded, Brenda's  visits  to  various  specialists  and psychiatric  clinics
  had increased. Until  now  . . . what  had happened  here? Had she decided that  enough was  enough? Or was  it  the  work  of  some
  outside agency? Or could it be that the baby himself. . .?
  'Anyway,' Grieve continued, glad to be off the hook, 'it didn't work out like I thought it would and they're  still  missing. We have
  as many Branch agents on it as we can spare. They're out there in the City right now, doing whatever they can.'
  His words drew the Necroscope back to earth. The address of the store?' The look on Harry's face was now entirely grim.
  Grieve took Darcy and Harry to the Ops Room, punched up a street
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  map of London onto the big screen. He showed the Necroscope the exact location of the store.
  Harry said, 'Okay, now I have something to do.' Then, to John Grieve: 'I won't be gone long,  but  in  the  meantime
  Darcy might like to tell you about the case we're on.' And to Darcy: 'I hope this thing with Brenda has nothing to do
  with our werewolf, but ever since we got back here -1 don't know, I can't be sure - but I think I've been experiencing
  the same sort of mental invasion that Banks and the others described.'
  'Christ!' Darcy gasped  as the meaning, or a possible meaning, of what the Necroscope had said sank in. 'But if he
  knows you're on to him . . . do you think he'd take hostages?'
  Harry held up his hands in a helpless gesture, but a moment later gave a grim shake of his head. 'No, I don't think my
  son would let him! Let's hope it's just a coincidence. But one thing for sure, I daren't waste tonight. So while I'm gone
  perhaps  you'd like to call in Trevor Jordan? Better still, let me have his address  and tell him to wait there  for  me.  It's
  something Sir Keenan Gormley recommended . . . "
  Using several co-ordinates that he knew, the Necroscope went to  the  store  in  Knightsbridge  where  he  entered  the
  premises using the Mobius Continuum. His arrival at once set off the store's  alarms, but that didn't bother him; in the
  event that his plan worked, he wasn't going to be here very long.
  
  In Harry's incorporeal days, before his 'repossession'  of Alec  Kyle,  he  had  been  able  to  travel  into  the  past  and
  'immaterialize' there: he'd been able to manifest a ghostly  semblance of himself  on  any  bygone  event  horizon.  Now,
  embodied  and  fully  corporeal  once  more,  this  was  no  longer  possible;  it  would  create  unthinkable  paradoxes  and
  perhaps  even damage the temporal flux itself. He could still travel in time, but while doing so must never attempt  to
  leave the Mobius Continuum for the real world.
  Transferring back to the Continuum, he found a past-time door and floated for a moment on the threshold, gazing on
  time past. This was a sight that never failed to awe him: the myriad blue life-threads of mankind, twisting and twining
  in the metaphysical 'vacuum' of a previously conjectural fourth dimension; those  neon  filaments  that  might  best  be
  likened to the 'retinal memories' of time, the trails of human lives that had travelled here; or if not here, in the mundane
  world on the other side of the Mobius Continuum.
  And  way back there in the past, the blue haze of  Man's  origins,  that  supernova  of  human  life,  from  which  these
  streamers had hurled themselves into the ever-expanding future.  It  seemed  to  Harry  that  he  heard  an  orchestrated,
  sighing Ahhhhhhh  sound,  like  a  single,  pure  note  from  some  other-worldly  instrument,  or  the  massed  voices  of  a
  magnificent chorus in a sounding cathedral; but in fact he knew that all
  was silence, that it was only the effect of his stunned mind. For if any man were to actually hear the tumult of the past, that would
  be a sound to blast his brain and deafen him forever.
  Almost reluctantly, the Necroscope brought himself back to the task in hand. This was the place where his wife and
  son had disappeared just a few hours ago. Well, he had his own theories about what had happened to them; and now,
  one  way  or  the  other,  he  intended  to  prove  them.  And  without  further  ado  he  launched  himself  down  the  past
  time-stream.
  But here a curious and paradoxical thing. Because he had never existed in this particular space-time, Harry had no
  past  life-thread  to  follow  but  must  simply  let  himself  plummet,  and  because  this  region  of  the  past  was  now  his
  present, (and even his future!) his true life-line extended behind him and seemed to unwind from him like cotton from a bobbin back
  to the past-time door. And Harry found the knowledge that he could return to his point of entry via that thread very
  reassuring . . .
  In a little while he had reached his destination, arriving at a point in past  time where it would be proved eventually
  that his son, the infant Harry, had contrived to bring about an amazing, almost unique occurrence. But that was for the
  future, not the past!
  He knew the life-threads of Brenda and her baby at once; he seemed drawn to them - sucked at by their rush - as
  they  emerged like bright blue meteors out of the past, and hurtled by  him  on  course  for  the  true  future.  The  one  a
  mature blue nucleus at the head of a trailing thread,  its  pathway  through  all  the  alternatives  of  time,  and  the  other
  smaller, but  brilliant  with  new  life!  This  was  them,  or  their  temporal  'echoes'  after  entering  the  store,  but  what  the
  Necroscope desired to discover was their course from here on.
  Quickly reversing his direction of travel, Harry followed behind and gained on them; for he had  the  advantage  of
  knowing that time is relative,  and  that  in  the  metaphysical  Mobius  Continuum  will  is  the  single  cause  that  brings
  effect. And indeed he willed himself to catch up with them, 'just in time.'
  Speeding  behind  them,  intent  on  following  wherever  young  Harry  might  take  his  mother,  the  Necroscope  was
  witness to an effect that would baffle even him, and continue to do so for a period of seven long years - or 'lost years,'
  as much of that time would come to seem to him. For Harry had forgotten a very simple fact: that what he  could  do
  with the Continuum, his son could do in spades!
  It was simply this: that in the space of a single moment of time Brenda and the infant Harry's life-threads had come
  to an  abrupt,  totally  unexpected,  apparently  violent  end!  Blinded  by  the  sudden  flash  of  twin  bomb-bursts,  Harry
  closed his eyes and sped on through what must surely be the debris of his family, scattered  atoms of light occupying
  the 'space' where they had been. But then, looking back, he saw that their
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  termination had been too complete, too utter; that in fact nothing remained of them. Not in this world, anyway—
  —Or rather, not in this place?
  And so perhaps Harry could be forgiven for believing that his son had simply moved his mother to some other, safer place in the mundane world, and that he
  would experience little difficulty in finding them and going to them later.
  But later can be a long time, as the Necroscope would discover soon enough. And in his case it might even be years . . .
  Back at the baby outfitters, the alarms were still going off. As Harry paused there to get his co-ordinates, so the telephone started ringing. For a moment he ignored
  it, then gave it some thought. For who would be trying to call a baby store at this time of night? The answer seemed obvious.
  Moving to the front of the store, Harry found the office, desk, and telephone, and lifted the latter from its cradle. At the other end of the line, Darcy Clarke said:
  'Harry?'
  'Yes?'
  'Good, I'm glad I caught you! Look, don't go to Trevor's place. I spoke to him on the 'phone and by now he's on his way in. But, er, he told me to tell you that he
  wouldn't - I mean, not under any circumstances - accompany you anywhere via your mode of travel. Is that understood?'
  Harry grinned to himself however coldly, and nodded. 'Yes, understood,' he said. And: 'Can you reach him in his car?'
  'Yes.'
  
  Then tell him to go to this address and meet me there.' He passed on the address of the East End garage. 'And tell him to keep a low profile.'
  'Harry, is this wise?' Darcy's concern came over loud and clear. 'Do you think you should be following this up? I mean, tonight?'
  'Probably not, but I didn't start it.'
  'What about police or E-Branch back-up?'
  'Definitely not! Just Jordan, no back-up. In fact I want you to back off!'
  For a moment there was silence, then Darcy asked, 'Can I hear alarms ringing?'
  'Probably in more ways than one,' Harry answered, and put the 'phone down. And to himself: Sirens, too! Outside the shop, visible through the plate glass, a
  police car had screeched to a halt. Its siren was blaring and blue light rotating. A young policeman came to the window, held a hand over the peak of his cap and
  scanned the interior. He saw Harry walk out of the office, shrank to one side, began talking excitedly into his handset. Harry waved cheerily at him, then walked
  into the back of the store where it was still dark, conjured a Mobius door and took his departure.
  Lawmen had irritated the Necroscope more than enough for one day. Time to let them do some explaining - and especially after they'd broken into the store for
  no apparent reason . . .
  Harry took the Mobius route to the East End, and stepped from his door into a thin, penetrating drizzle that filled the night with its misery and turned the cobbles
  to gleaming jet. Turning up his collar, Harry walked a quarter-mile to the run-down district where the garage was located, and from a nearby street looked the place
  over. The garage was pretty much as Harry had heard it described.
  Its supports and upper floors formed a concrete skeleton six storeys high; the sections making up the outer safety walls had been knocked out, so that the floors
  were like vast lintels supported on giant steel and concrete stanchions. In silhouette against the night sky, the place might be a towering 20th Century Stonehenge,
  or some surrealist sculptor's 'Ziggurat.'
  Below, at ground level, the ramps at Harry's end of the mainly derelict building had been removed, the entrance bricked up. But  enclosed  behind  an
  eight-foot-high brick wall, a maintenance yard extended a further sixty feet or so beyond the end of the main structure. Ensuring that he wasn't observed, Harry
  made a quick Mobius jump into the yard to have a look . . .
  . . . And retreated in double quick time when he discovered warehouse doors standing open at the end of the main building, emitting a blaze of electric light and
  the sounds of human and mechanized activity. Also, the yard was full of quality motors; he'd seen a handful of Porsches, even a Lotus! Obviously the people in the
  garage were working overtime, and the Necroscope knew what they were working on. He only hoped they wouldn't be working too late, and that Trevor Jordan
  wasn't going to take all night getting here.
  For if the 'werewolf were on duty, sooner or later he'd be bound to discover Harry lurking out here, which could only result in complications. But Sir Keenan
  Gormley had advised to fight fire with fire, and Harry's answer to his unknown adversary's telepathy was Trevor Jordan's. Maybe Jordan could block the other out,
  giving the Necroscope the edge he needed. Which wasn't to say that Harry didn't already have an edge; he had a good many edges, and sharp ones at that, but he'd
  seen through the eyes of dead men what he was up against.
  His plan was a simple one:
  Get into the garage, check out some plates, engine block numbers and what have you, get out again and report the entire operation to the police. The Branch
  could pass on the information about the crazy wolfman, the murders he'd committed. And if there wasn't enough real, living evidence against that one . . . maybe
  Harry could think up some
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  other way to settle the score. Maybe even to the point where he'd offer himself up as bait.
  But the law is the law; despite that the Necroscope might occasionally  seem  scathing  of  red-tape  officialdom,  he
  wouldn't be playing the part of executioner just for the sake of it. He knew that the murdered men, especially Jim Banks
  and the other policemen, wouldn't want it that way. Well, not if it could be avoided. But if it couldn't—
  —In that case, if there were no other way, then Sir Keenan Gormley's law would apply. Then it would have to  be
  Harry's way. An eye for an eye . . .
  Right now, however, deciding that his lone figure was too obvious standing  there in the blurry, watered-down light
  of the street lamps, Harry made his way  to  an  alley  on  the  far  side  of  the  road  and  stepped  into  its  shadows.  No
  sooner had he done so than he realized that he hadn't been alone in what he'd thought  was an empty street. Looking
  out into the night, he saw a figure, female, walking in his direction but on the other side of the road, in the lee of the
  garage wall.
  Despite that she wore flat black shoes, she looked tall and lithe. Her gloves were black, too, as was her trouser-suit.
  Her hair was tied back in a pony-tail, and her manner was carefree as she swung a fancy black shopping  bag, for all
  the world as if she were just returning from a jaunt to some fashionable outfitters for that special little item - and to hell
  with the rain! Harry couldn't quite make out her features but found himself wishing that he could, for he felt sure she'd
  be a looker . . .  At which he remembered what George Jakes had told him.
  Could this be the same girl? She fitted Jakes's picture, definitely. But if so, what would she be doing here now? Some sort of
  fancy lookout for the garage? It seemed likely.
  But then, catching a glimpse of her dark, slanted almond eyes in a pale, heart-shaped  face as the girl reached  the
  wall of the maintenance yard and glanced across the street in his direction, the Necroscope drew back into the alley's
  shadows.
  And as his back met the wall - at that precise moment of time - a well-known voice spoke suddenly,  sharply in his
  mind: Harry? Thank goodness I've found you! My boy, you move so fast, it's hard keeping track of you! Sir Keenan had spoken to
  him at a moment of maximum concentration, when his nerves were at full stretch. So that there in the darkness  Harry
  gasped and gave an involuntary start. The dead man felt it and said, Oh, and what are you up to now? Why are you so jumpy?
  
  Harry took a chance and glanced quickly round the corner. But the girl. . .  was gone? But how? There were no other
  alleyways close by, and the street was a long one. Yet from what he could see it was deserted  end to end. Even an
  Olympic sprinter couldn't have disappeared at that speed! And it wasn't likely she'd gone over that wall. . . was it?
  Well? Sir Keenan pressed him. What's going on?
  Putting the problem of the girl aside to explain the more important details, Harry whispered: 'So you see, while I was
  half-expecting  some  kind  of  mental  intruder,  I  wasn't  expecting  you!'  On  the  other  hand,  while  he  engaged  in
  incorporeal conversation  with Keenan Gormley,  he  wasn't  likely  to  be  overheard  and  intruded  upon  by  any  living
  mind. Even a telepathic 'werewolf can't intercept the thoughts of the dead.
  Sir Keenan, however, could hear his thoughts well enough, and told him: Harry,  you know  that normally  I wouldn't  bother  you,
  but I believe this to be important. Indeed, I think it's what you've been looking for - the identity of the murderer!
  Harry stiffened at once and said, 'I think I already have it. Or if not an actual identity, a description at least. But it
  would be good to have confirmation, yes.'
  It happened after you visited Banks, Stevens, and Jakes, Sir Keenan told him. Someone came forward.
  'A dead someone?'
  Oh yes, a victim no less than the others. Yet if possible a worse  crime than the others,  for this was  the murderer's  own brother!
  The Necroscope  sensed  what  would  be the  sad shake of Sir Keenan's  head. Then:  Harry,  now I'd  like  to  introduce  you  to  R.L.
  Stevenson Jamieson, and let him take it from there . . .
  Harry had become adept at discerning good  from bad almost from the initial 'sound'  of a dead voice. And when this
  one spoke to him, at first tremulously, and then with growing confidence, he knew its owner for a good and honest man.
  I reckon I was, yeah, the other agreed, but not  without  a degree of modesty.  As best I knew  how, anyways.  But my brother  . . .
  wasn't.  Like  I means,  he isn't!  You want to hear  our  story,  Necroscope?  See, I think  things  is gone far enough.  I has  heard  you
  talking to others bout this thing, and even though I was a ways off and it weren't me you talked to, still I felt how warm  you was.  So
  I know why the dead 'uns love you so. And God knows that should anything happen to you, my  name and bones  is cursed  forever.
  Well, I don't want that! No way! So . . .  does you have the time to hear me out, Necroscope?
  And of course Harry nodded his confirmation . . .
  /'// keep it short, (R.L. Stevenson began his story). We were born in Haiti, Port-au-Prince. By we I means me and my
  brother, A. C. Doyle Jamieson. And before you asks: yes, our Poppy was a hell of a reading  man! We had a older sister,
  too, Shelley. OrM. W. as we sometimes called her, 'cos Wollstonecraft is a mite long-winded.
  I was bom in '46 and Arthur Conan came seven years later. So you see, he was my little brother. But out there in the Antilles it was much the
  same
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  as here in England, or anywhere else in the world, I reckon: there's a hell of a difference in sevenyears! What I mean is, I was brungup
  respectful to folks, just like Shelley before me. But by the time Arthur Conan came along things  was changing.  For one
  thing, Poppy was getting old. He weren't much good at correcting anymore.
  Ma died when Arthur Conan was born, and three years later Shelley got herself married and moved across to Jamaica. Which
  left just me, ten years old, Poppy, and A. C. That didn't help a lot neither, 'cos there was no womenfolk to teach A. C.
  his manners and put him right when he did wrong, just me and Poppy to do our best at spoiling  him . . . which we
  did. By then Poppy was really old; A. C. had been his last spurt, so to speak, if you take my meaning.
  About  Poppy. He had obeah  blood  in him; me too, a little, and A.  C.  a  lot!  You  know  the  obi,  Harry?  Shoot,  a
  'course you does! Why, this thing  you're doing  right now  is  .  .  .  well,  it's  obeah,  right?  Black  magic!  Obi!  Those
  islands is still full of it, I hear. Whole regimes has risen and fallen on it! But more of it when A. C. and me was kids. It
  came with the black folks out of Africa, you know? The preacher used to say that obi was born in sin and bred in ignorance,  and
  didn't have no place in a God-fearing world. But I always figured he was more a-feared of obi than God!
  Except, Poppy's obi was gentle stuff, for protection more than anything else. I mean, Poppy wouldn't a harmed a soul! He was just happy
  with his charms and love-potions, and never once messed with poisons or dead folks-I mean the zombies, Harry, begging your
  pardon! Protection, yeah! But Poppy did have something more than the simple stuff, and he coulda used it to make himself a big man.
  Why, whole governments have balanced  on such as this, in Haiti and the Indies! Yeah! For Poppy had the power to
  look into a enemy's mind, and so know his every move.
  Why, it was even better than that: he simply knew it when he came up against a bad one! This thing of his would  kick  in; right
  away he'd be reading any bad or dangerous thoughts aimed in his direction. And he'd know  who was aiming them! Not that it
  happened too often, you understand, 'cos Poppy didn't have no enemies.
  There was special times when Poppy would practise his obi, and the full of the moon was one of them. We had a little house and garden
  sheltered by the cliffs in a corner of a shingle bay near Port dePaix on the south coast. We kept  a few chickens,  a pig or two, and
  there was plenty offish in the straits between Haiti and Tortue Island. What with green stuff out of the woods and the
  garden, we didn't do too badly at all. But as Poppy got older and A. C. grew up, I'd keep getting this feeling that my little  brother wasn't
  satisfied. There was a whole wide world to play in, and our garden by the beach wasn't big enough . . .
  We'd creep on up Poppy at full moon time. He had what he called his 'obeah house: it was just a wooden shack at the end of
  the garden, where mostly he'd sit on a old rocker and tilt a jug. But sometimes he'd burn
  
  herbs, mutter a spell or two, turn in a circle and scan all around, to 'feel' what was going  on in the world. And the
  next day we'd have chicken for dinner, 'cos he'd a used a bird in his practice. But if he'd catch us spying on him, my,
  how he'd fly into a rage then! Obi was something he didn't want us having nothing to do with! And he'd get me on my own and
  say:
  ' You has a good aura. Robert, you is chocolate - which is to say, you's a natural  thing. As a forest is green, and a fish is silver,
  you is chocolate. Like a log is brown, and the sky's blue, and the sea's deep green down under, you is the colour of your
  soul, too. But son, I tell you your brother is dark. And I mean darker  than just his skin! But  Arthur's  young  and  that  can
  change - better had, too, else there's no good ending for him! Except I knows I won't be here to look out for him, so I got to leave
  all that to you. You is his brother, after all.' And that was me stuck with it. Not that I minded much, not then . . .
  But come the time A. C. was seventeen, I was a full-time working  man and didn't  have a lot of spare time for him.
  Poppy was on his very last legs; in fact, I couldn't see how the Old Boy was still hanging in there! And my brother. . .
  well, he be just a handful!
  There was this girl in trouble  in Port de Paix (not  that that  meant a hell of  a  lot,  'cos  she  had  something  of  a  reputation
  anyways), and A.C. was smoking a lot of the wrong stuff. Also, I suspected he was big in a gang on the wrong side of the law. And you got
  to remember, Harry, The Law out there in them days wasn't the same as here in England! No sir! Men was dying for their political beliefs, or
  just disappearing off the face of the earth, which amounted to much the same thing. But worse than these things, I also figured
  A.C. was doing some obeah, or trying to do it, anyways.
  I spoke to Poppy'bout it, and he said, 'Son, it's what I feared. The blood will out. Obeah's in my  blood,  and  in  you  and  your
  brother's blood, too. Except I knows that if A. C. gets it he'll use it wrong. But I also knows that you is there to block him. So long as you is
  alive my obeah's split two ways, between you and your brother. So wherever he goes, whatever he does, be there to square it with the Powers
  That Be. I mean, the powers that govern obi. Just be there, and Arthur won't have full command of his skills. But son, I feel I
  has to tell you this . . . your brother is strong in obeah. I has known  it for, oh, many a long year. I reckon  it's why I
  hangs on: 'cos I know he doesn't come fully into his own till I is passed on . . .'
  Now Harry, that's a night I'll remember always, 'cos when I was leaving the Old Boy be in his obeah house, I saw a shadow
  sneaking away along the garden, and that shadow was shaped like my brother . . . Well, Poppy died a few days later, all curled up like an old
  leaf and clutching his belly  as if he ate something that didn't  agree. I had my suspicions, but God, I couldn't  see  A.C.
  doing that! I just couldn't. . .!
  A couple years went by, and Poppy was right: his obi came down to me and  A.C. But as I said before,  I  got  a  little  and  my
  brother got a lot - and all of what he got, bad!
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  A.C. was nineteen and wanted by The Law. Not for any thing you could specify; mainly for being against the so-called 'authorities.' If they'd got him he was a
  goner for sure, and A.C. knew it. That alone was enough to turn him against any kind of genuine authority from that time on. He wanted to smuggle himself out
  of the country, and he had the contacts to do it. All he needed was papers, which weren't hard come by to someone who could do a few favours, some obi tricks for
  folks, to get them. And he got papers for me, too.
  See, I minded my promise to Poppy, that 1 would go along with A. C. wherever he went, and watch him whatever he did. He was my little brother, after all. So
  we came to England. I suppose we was illegal immigrants, since our papers were faked and all; anyway, they never did catch us. Luck - and obeah - were with us.
  And there's a lot of island folk over here, you know? There's always someone who be ready, willing, and able to protect an obi man. I suppose I was looked after
  'cos people liked me, and A.C. 'cos . . . 'cos they feared him.
  But trouble follows trouble, Harry, and here in UK, A. C. just couldn't keep his nose out of it, same as back home. Black gangs and what all, pilfering, drugs . . .
  he was just a bad lot; he was into everything! I would a given up on him for sure, but for my promise to Poppy. And I knew that he'd be a lot worse if I wasn't
  there to keep a balance. But it seemed my.obi balanced his and kept him out of trouble. Well, out of the worst kind of trouble, anyways.
  'Ventually we fell apart. I had me a job, a good one, too, and there was a girl. . . but never mind 'bout that.
  One night A. C. came around to my place, and he'd had too much to drink. Said he wanted to talk. Well you know how drunks ramble. But there's rambling and
  rambling. My brother was looking at me sort of strange and breathing slow and heavy. And you know, Necroscope, I couldn't help but remember that night when
  Poppy told me about the balance between our obis, and how A. C. Doyle Jamieson wouldn't come into his own while Poppy was still alive; and how even then
  there 'd be me to steer a path for him. And I admit I thought: ' Well, looks like A.C.'s about ready to start steering his own path!' and I thought: 'This boy wants
  my obi, too!'
  Anyways, I asked him what was the trouble, and he told me the leader of another gang was after his skin. But A.C. could only catch a 'glimpse' of this boy every
  now and then. I mean, an obeah glimpse, you know? Like when Poppy knew that a enemy was after him? But this was serious stuff, and A.C. needed to know this
  guy's every move. But he couldn't, 'cos my obeah was blocking his! And I had heard 'bout this boy and knowed he was real bad stuff.
  Well, like a fool I told A.C. I'd rein back on it, and I did just that. I hadn't given my obi hardly a thought since my talk with Poppy, but now I concentrated on
  clearing the way for A.C. It weren't nothing physical, all
  in the mind. I just quit from giving off obi. 1 figure you knows what I'm talking 'bout, Necroscope, 'cos you be like  that. But. . . oh,
  I had bad dreams for a couple nights, 'til A.C. came to see me again.
  And by then it's been the time of the full moon, obi time, and I has seen in the papers how this other guy is dead and all tore up. And here's my
  brother, A.C. Doyle Jamieson, on top of the world, not like when I last saw him; 'cept just like before I couldn't believe that of him, not of my
  brother. But just in case, I lets my obi flow again; I send it out of me not just to guide but to counter Arthur! And he knows / done it, o' course.
  How? 'Cos he picked up on.a enemy - me!
  Well, a month went by . . .  it was full moon time again . . . and after that. . . I mean it was then that. . . Harry, I was out of it! But don't ask me to
  tell you 'bout it, 'cos I won't. Andyou already had it from the others. And it's because you had it from them that I knows it were Arthur. See, the
  
  way it happened to them is how it happened to me. Just exactly. So in the end I has to face up to it; but like I always tells myself, A. C. was my
  brother, after all. . .
  'You will know, of course,' Harry told R.L. Stevenson  Jamieson in a while, 'that the best  your brother can expect is to
  be put away, probably for the rest of his days? And I do mean the very best he can expect.'
  And the worst?
  'He thinks he's a werewolf, R. L., and to my way of thinking he won't be safe even behind bars or in a padded  cell!
  But the worst is death. If he puts up a fight. . . well, he just has to lose. Because if he doesn't,  other people will. They'll
  lose their lives.'
  He sensed R. L. 's nod. / suppose I knowed that, deep down inside. Sure I did, 'cos if I hadn't, I wouldn't a come toyou. But I figured if he got
  to go, best at your hands, Necroscope.
  'Not if I can help it, R.L.,' Harry shook his head. 'Not now I've spoken to you. But if it comes down to it . . .'
  /'// understand, R. L. told him. And Harry, if I can be of any help . . .?
  'Well, perhaps you can at that.' For out of the blue, the Necroscope had an idea. And: 'How's your obi, R.L.?'
  Eh? (And Harry could almost see the surprised expression on the other's face). Why, it be gone down into the earth
  with me!
  'Oh, really?' For Harry knew it wasn't like that; he knew that whatever a man is or does  in life, he'll usually continue
  to be and do afterwards. Why, it could well be that R.L.'s obeah had helped keep  his  brother's  identity  secret  even
  among the Great Majority!
  You think so? R.L. obviously  hadn't given it any thought.  Oh, my! You means, I was still looking out for A.C. even after he
  killed me?
  'It could very well be,' Harry told him. 'In a way you've kept right on protecting him - or his good name, at least.'
  Huh! said R. L. His good name, indeed!
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  'Yours, then,' Harry answered. 'And now, well, maybe you can protect me, too.'
  Eh? How's that? (Astonishment, this time!)
  Harry explained, and R.L. quickly got the picture. He was dead and his obi with him . . .• or maybe not. Through the
  Necroscope  he could use it again, for the Necroscope! And in  doing  so  deny  its  use  to  his  brother.  'But  only  if  it
  comes down to it,' Harry told him—
  —And in the next moment gave  a  massive  start!  There  in  the  deep  black  shadows  of  the  alley,  he  had  been  so
  caught up in his conversation with the dead man that he'd failed to hear the pad of soft, furtive footfalls as they approached him. Too
  late he had heard them - at the same time as a hand came down on his shoulder!
  'Harry?' Trevor Jordan said, as the Necroscope gasped and lurched away from him. 'Did I startle you?'
  'Jesus Christ!' Harry whispered, falling back against the wall. Trevor . . . Trevor, what do you think you're doing!?'
  'What I was told to do,' the other answered with a shrug and looked perplexed. 'I'm keeping a low profile, what else?'
  VI
  AND ONE OTHER
  Freed of his conversation with R.L., Harry's mind became a possible target again, as did the telepath Trevor Jordan's.  For  of course
  he,  too,  was  an  enemy  of  A.C.  Doyle  Jamieson.  The  extra-sensory  presence  of  both  of  them  was  too  much;  their  combined
  esp-auras  - undetectable  to  the  great mass of mundane mankind - radiated  out  from them into  the  rainy  night in every  direction.
  One direction would have been more than sufficient: that of the garage across the road.
  There came . . .  an intrusion! Which the Necroscope felt at once. But instead of avoiding it or flinching from it, he answered  back
  and tried to get into the mind that was getting into his. Trevor Jordan felt it, too, the blunt groping of a strange and strangely  gifted
  mind, and said: 'Wha—?'
  But Harry held up a hand to still  Jordan's  inquiry,  husking, 'Listen  in if you  want,  but  be sure  not  to  open  your  mind to  it for
  now. I'll let you know when.' And:
  Huh? The intruder grunted like a pig in Harry's mind, no longer a mere whisperer  but  a sentience  surprised  that  the  Necroscope
  had recognized his presence and was reacting to it, but not in the way that the intruder had anticipated. Then, because he knew  he'd
  been discovered:
  You . . . again! There could be no mistaking the phlegmy,  threatening  quality  of that  voice, or the  megalomaniac 'superiority'  of
  its owner. Any other man but a telepath born - and a practised  one, who  had come into  contact  with  deranged minds such  as this
  before - must  surely  recoil from the  stench,  the  mental slime of it,  like a poison  seeping in his mind. A telepath,  yes  . . .  or the
  
  Necroscope  Harry  Keogh.  For  he  had  spoken  with  vampires,  and  not  all  of  them  dead  ones.  By  comparison  -and  strictly  by
  comparison - this mind was almost sweet. But as for the rest of it, the actual contact:
  In fact, this mind-to-mind contact with a living person wasn't unlike
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  speaking to the dead. Except Harry wasn't a true telepath; he couldn't 'send', but only receive incoming information;
  any answers he might originate would only be 'heard' by virtue of the other's telepathy  - which in this case amounted
  to the same thing.
  And this time the other - none  other but A.C. Doyle Jamieson - had indeed heard the Necroscope's  thoughts.  But
  they were scarcely the thoughts of a frightened man, and definitely not those of one who doubted his own sanity! And:
  Who are you? (There was anger in that voice now, and perhaps something of uncertainty if not downright fear.) What are you?
  What the fuck . . . are . . . you!?
  'I'm the end of the road, Arthur,' Harry told him. 'I'm a big dose  of your own brand of obeah bouncing  right back at
  you. I'm a silver bullet heading for your heart. I'm the justice of all the lives you've taken held back way too long, pent
  up,  and  now  about  to  burst  out  and  enact  itself  on  you!'  But  in  Harry's  metaphysical  mind,  irrepressible  if  not
  deliberately expressed, there was one other thought: And I'm the one they call the Necroscope.
  A.C. got all of it, but especially the last bit. And even though  he didn't know what a Necroscope was, it  sounded
  threatening and he didn't like it. Huh? Necroscope?  (The 'scope' ending had stuck in his mind; finally made sense  to
  him, albeit mistakenly). 'Scope': a spy! A police  spy? A raid? Oh, really? A.C. was trying to sneer but in fact he was
  panicking now, and far more dangerous  for it! Finally he broke and  snarled:  Well,  fuck  your  ass,  bro!  His  presence
  vanished abruptly from Harry's mind.
  The seconds ticked by. Then:
  Down the street at the other end of the garage, the overhead door began clattering up on itself, its long metal leaves
  concertinaing into the housing.  It was easily sixty yards away, but in the  quiet  of  the  midnight  street,  even  at  that
  distance Harry and Trevor Jordan could hear hoarse, angry shouting.  And as the darkness  was suddenly  slashed  by
  headlight beams, a veritable convoy  of vehicles came roaring down the exit ramp, one after the other onto the  road.
  White and blue sparks lit the night where wings hit the walls of the ramp and chassis  jarred down onto the  shining
  tarmac as the cars and vans turned viciously, squeal-ingly into the road, some heading in the one direction and others
  coming Harry's way.
  He and Jordan ducked down, shrank against the wall of the alley, watched two cars and a van howl by, their drivers
  pale-faced where they crouched over their steering wheels. 'Like a pack of rats deserting a sinking shit!' Jordan said in
  Harry's ear. Glancing at him, Harry saw that his eyes were narrowed to slits and his face creased in concentration. 'But
  the shit who ordered them out of there is still inside!'
  'What?' Harry frowned. 'You're in contact  with him? But I asked you to stay  out  of  it!  We're  not  sure  what  we're
  dealing with here.'
  'We're  dealing  with  one  powerful  telepath,  that  much  I'll  grant  you,'  Jordan  answered.  'Also  a  frightened  one.
  Something is interfering with his talent. He's trying to locate you again but something is getting in his way. Not me or
  you but - oh, I don't know - something else. And anyway, I didn't deliberately ignore your warning, Harry. But with a
  talent as strong as this one . . . he's hard to avoid.'
  'R.L. Stevenson,' Harry offered a grim nod. That's what's bothering him most: his brother's obeah. I can almost feel it
  flowing through me!' Which made little or no sense to Jordan; he couldn't get the meaning of it because  he was busy
  not reading the Necroscope's mind.
  But at that precise moment the intruder had chosen to return, and he was reading it. And:
  What. . .'.? (He issued  a disbelieving croak). R.L.? But. . . he's dead! Listen, you white fuck, whatever you are: my brother is
  dead! Did you get that? He's dead! / know 'cos I killed him! For that matter, so are you dead, or good as . . . and the two you got out there with
  you!
  Two? And Harry wondered: What? Can he feel R.L. too? Not just his obeah but. . . R.L. himself?
  Who you trying to shit, Fuckscope? There ain't no 'feeling' R.L. 'cos R.L. 's dead! I mean your two friends out there! Enemies, all three of you -
  but only three of you. So come and get it, if you got the guts. I mean, three against one . . . what are you waiting for? But remember this: I got the
  moon on my side! His fading mental laughter was like the barking of a wild dog.
  'He's not scared any more,' Jordan hissed. 'He's just mad-angry - and mad as a hatter, too, of course!'
  'He's picked up three enemies, but there are only the two of us,' Harry was puzzled. 'If he's also reading R.L.'s talent,
  that makes him something of a Necroscope in his own right!'
  'Whatever he is, he craves blood . . . namely, yours!' Jordan answered.  'But  also  mine,  if  I've  read  him  right!  We
  should stop this right here and now and call in the law.'
  Cowardly bastards! the thing in Harry's head roared. Fuck you, then. We fight another  day! And  Harry got a vivid
  mental picture of the intruder inside  the  garage,  making  for  his  vehicle.  But  the  Necroscope  had  been  challenged;
  worse, he'd been scorned, called a coward. And deep inside there was still this feeling that he wasn't at risk. Not the
  Harry Keogh he'd used to be, anyway.
  Meanwhile, Jordan had locked on again, deliberately this time, and said: There's more than just him in there. He has
  a friend with him. Or . . .  friends?'
  
  'Skippy,' Harry answered, jumping to the wrong conclusion, or one that was only half-right. They're both in there.
  And if they get away this time, who knows when we'll be able to bring them to book.'
  Jordan saw what was coming next, and said, 'Harry, I. . . "
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  'Are you coming?' The Necroscope held out his arms.
  Jordan backed off. 'Your way? Not likely! I've seen inside your head, Harry. I know a little of what your Mobius Continuum is like! I'll go over the wall.'
  Allowing no time for argument, he left the cover of the alley and made to run across the road, only pausing to turn and toss something back. It glinted blued-steel.
  Harry caught it: a 9mm Browning. 'Since you'll be there first,' Jordan quietly called, 'you may need it.'
  Reaching the wall, he looked back . . . and saw that he was right, Harry was no longer there—
  —But he was inside the garage. And A.C. Doyle Jamieson knew it! The madman's astonishment was like triple exclamation marks in the Necroscope's mind,
  followed by a ripple of terror, and a barrage of inwardly-directed questions: What? Where? How? Who? . . . and finally a renewed flaring of anger. His was a mind
  full of moon and murder. And Harry was his target for tonight.
  There came silence, physical and mental. . .
  Someone switched the lights off; Harry heard the switches trip. And now there was darkness. Only one small electric bulb, fifty or so feet away in the middle of
  a massive concrete ceiling, gave any light at all. And it cast shadows.
  Moving shadows!
  Harry saw or sensed movement...  a metal object clattered as someone stumbled over it or kicked it aside. That was to the left. But to the right: a slithering of
  shadows, just a flicker but enough to bring the short hairs at the back of Harry's neck erect like a cat's brush. His eyes flickered this way and that, glanced upwards.
  Overhead, a system of gantries supported rails and a motorized cabin and crane; heavy chains were still swinging a little on their pulleys. Or maybe they'd only
  just been set swinging?
  A. C. and Skippy . . . and who else? Harry remembered what Trevor Jordan had said only a moment ago: 'He has a friend with him ...  or friends?' Well, great!
  But how many of them? Jordan was right: Skippy didn't have to be the only one.
  Three! said a voice from the blue, or rather from the metaphysical darkness behind the Necroscope's eyes. And he at once knew its owner for R.L. Stevenson
  Jamieson. Three enemies. But whose enemies is harder to say! Two of them is against you, for sure. As for the third . . . Harry sensed the dead man's
  shrug.
  'R.L.,' Harry whispered, 'you'd best be using your obi to damp down your brother's. I mean, you should save your efforts for that.
  Don't waste them talking to me.'
  You is there to put things right, Necroscope, and I'll do whatever I can to help you, R.L. told him. Don't you be worrying 'bout
  my obi. It is working,  believe me. And I just read in your mind my own brother boasting how he killed me! So I won't be
  holding you to no promises,
  Harry. Don't be holding off for my sake. You go get that son of a . . .
  Harry's eyes were now more accustomed to the gloom of the place. The shells of cars lay in various stages of repair, conversion, and reconstruction, in twin rows
  of bays equipped with inspection pits, overhead hoists, and various hand tools. Jacks and other wheeled machines stood abandoned in the central aisle, and chains
  dangled everywhere. The garage had been evacuated in a hurry and was now a mantrap. Even to someone well acquainted with the layout, any abrupt or hasty
  motion could prove dangerous to say the least.
  Harry was shielded by one of the massive steel stanchions supporting the high ceiling; he was located just inside a repair bay, where he'd stepped out of the
  Mobius Continuum. Some forty or so feet to his left, the warehouse doors that he knew opened on the maintenance yard . . . had been closed! By now Jordan would
  be stranded on the other side of them, and that meant that Harry was on his own. And he knew that even if he took the Mobius route into the yard, still the telepath
  wasn't going to let himself be transported that way. But in any case what good would it do to get Jordan inside? None: it would only place him in greater danger.
  Of course, Harry could simply wash his hands of the whole mess and take himself out of here. But that wasn't his way.
  And the trouble was that here in the dark and the danger, he was starting to feel more nearly himself; he was more surely aware of the jeopardy in which he had
  placed himself, the Harry Keogh mind if not the original body. But what the hell, it was all the same - wasn't it? It had now been brought forcefully home to him
  that this was him! And he really was on his own . . .
  Not necessarily, Necroscope, said the near-distant voice of George Jakes, causing him to start a little. Harry, use the - what, Mobius Continuum? Jakes was
  excited, uncertain of what he'd 'heard' Harry thinking. By all means use it, but not just to cut and run! You need real back-up,  Harry, and it just
  might be that I've got the answer. Then, quickly (indeed, as quickly as that), he outlined his plan. And because George Jakes was a dead
  man, whom only the Necroscope could hear and speak to, no other prying, intruding mind was privy to it.
  Harry listened, liked what he heard, acted upon it. The idea of placing an ally like Jordan in jeopardy had been sufficient to give him pause, true,
  but Harry was no fool; he knew he could use George Jakes without worrying about the consequences. And this way he would be keeping his
  promise both to R. L. Stevenson and to the teeming dead in general. He made a Mobius jump to the police mortuary in Fulham, and
  in a matter of seconds returned to the East End garage.
  But coming back, he wasn't alone . . .
  / got him! R.L. was triumphant, his incorporeal voice greeting the
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  Necroscope even as he stepped from his door. You was right, Harry. My obeah has come back to me, drawn back through you. It gives me
  
  strength and depletes A.C. He'll have a hard time finding you now. The balance is maintained; you is equals. At least as long as 1 can hold
  him.
  'My  thanks,  R.L.,'  Harry  whispered;  but  in  the  empty,  echoing  garage  his  words  were  plainly  audible!  Almost
  immediately, there were furtive movements both left and right. . . and overhead?
  Harry wasn't much disturbed by the movement on the right, which wasn't so much furtive as deliberate, purposeful.
  He knew the  sounds  he  heard  were  the  shuffling  scrape  of  George  Jakes's  feet  where  he  headed  off  alone  on  his
  mission  of  vengeance.  But  Jakes's  shape  and  shadow  were  grotesque  things,  made  even  more  grotesque  by  the
  glowing nucleus of the single dim light bulb, which silhouetted  his lumpish figure in a  pale  aura,  and  cast  his  long
  freakish shadow on the angular machinery and dangling festoons of chains like that of some nightmarish spider on its
  web.
  But  the  movement  to  the  left?  The  door  to  the  maintenance  yard  was  that  way.  Had  Trevor  Jordan  somehow
  managed to force an entry, or was someone waiting for him to do so there in the darkness?  Harry conjured a Mobius door
  and jumped to the warehouse doors. Standing in the near-absolute darkness, scarcely breathing, he could hear nothing inside.
  But outside:
  Harry? It was Jordan's telepathic whisper, the result of a gigantic effort on the part of the telepath. Can you . . . let
  me in?
  No, Harry thought his denial. Just stay in touch with me. Then, if anything happens, get the hell away from here and call the
  police!
  You've got it, and he sensed  the relief in Jordan's mind. But they had also given  themselves,  and  their  situation,
  away!
  Hey, you. Fuckscope! (In his mind, Harry saw a hulking, menacing outline moving in the mechanical labyrinth of the
  garage). / know  where you are, shithead.  You're locked  in and one other mother's locked  out. And I'm coming for you,
  Fuckscope! The maniac bayed like a hound, but all in silence.
  Trevor, did you get that?' Harry spoke out loud through  a knothole in a wicket gate set in the main door. 'Can you
  pinpoint him?'
  'Yes,' Jordan's anxious whisper came back. 'He's down in the basement where they keep their personal vehicles. But
  he's moving in your direction. He is coming for you, Harry!'
  Yes, but A.C. isn't a Necroscope, (Harry kept that thought to himself). And he hasn't got the foggiest idea what's coming for him! Neither had
  Jordan known it until he saw it in Harry's mind, and then he recoiled as if slapped in the face! However, Harry went on, if A. C. Doyle knows where I am, then it's
  probably a good idea not to be here.
  Going on foot this time, using the repair bays as cover, he made his way back along the central aisle into the heart
  of the garage. But
  half-way back to the single source of electric light. . . suddenly  it was snuffed! There came the soft  tinkle  of  fragile
  glass breaking.
  Harry froze. Whoever had smashed the light, it wouldn't be George Jakes. Because light or dark it would  make  no
  difference to him. Jakes  was  governed  by  . . .  whatever  he  was  governed  by!  Love  of  the  Necroscope,  mainly;  or
  Harry's power over the dead, whichever way one chose  to think of it. So, it could only have been A.C. or Skippy - or
  one other?
  One other, Jordan told him. But I can't read him . . . or her! This one has a funny mind. I've met the like before. You can't scan them any too
  easily. They sort of deflect telepathic probes. Like mindsmog, you know? I don't think it's a conscious thing, but—
  I get the idea, Harry  cut  him off,  and made to  release the  safety  on his 9mm Browning.  But  even as  he  did  so,  chains  rattled
  almost directly overhead!
  The Necroscope's gaze jerked upwards. He saw  eyes  glaring down  on him from the  gloom of the  gantry  walkway.  And  sliding
  down the greasy chains, a lithe, black-clad male figure kicked the gun from his hand, not only disarming him but numbing his arm at
  the same time.
  Shocked, caught completely  off guard, Harry's  thoughts  flew in every  direction.  Fumbling, he made to  conjure a Mobius  door,
  tripped  and went  sprawling  over an open  box of tools  into  a pile  of fresh  swarf.  He felt  a leg of his trousers  rip,  felt  his  hands
  sliced as he scrambled to  untangle  himself.  But  suddenly  the  black-clad  figure  was  standing  over  him,  eyes  burning  in  a  black
  stocking-mask, and a dark gash grimacing where the mouth would be. Then the mouth formed words, and snarled:
  'Just  one more motherfucking  copper  who  won't  come snooping  anymore!'  A  Geordie  voice  -  Skippy  -  and  the  Necroscope
  could picture the writhing of the scorpion tattoo on his wrist as he drew back his arm for the  killing stroke;  but  no need to  imagine
  his weapon. Harry could see that well enough: the long ugly curve of a silver-glinting machete!
  The blade went up, commenced its arcing sweep forward and down—
  —And something struck out of the  darkness,  making first  a vibrating thrum,  then  the  vicious whuuup  sound  of cleft air! But  it
  didn't cleave the Necroscope.
  The machete flew out of Skippy's hand; his black silhouette was straightened forcefully from its  killing, feet-apart  stance,  jerked
  upright and tossed  back like a carelessly  discarded  puppet.  He tugged at something sticking out  of his chest,  coughed a spray  of
  black that Harry knew must be red, and went down into darkness without another sound. And stayed down.
  A shadow moved sinuously close by. Harry heard a straining sound -like something being stretched  under pressure
  - and the sharp click as a
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  catch engaged. And being no stranger to crossbows, he knew what had hit Skippy. A moment later:
  The bright beam of a pocket torch shone directly into his eyes. He was still tangled in cutting swarf, and dripped blood where he
  put up a hand to shield his eyes. But before the light snapped off he saw the Browning lying in the swarf and reached for it. This
  time, before freeing himself, he prepared the gun for firing. As he did so, he saw the shadow - a female shape, surely? and one that he'd seen
  before? but he couldn't be sure because his eyes were still dazzled - slipping away along the central aisle.
  Think straight, can't you! Trevor Jordan snapped in his mind. And as Harry finally got to his feet, in a softer, more anxious tone: How bad is
  it? Are you okay?
  I'll live, the Necroscope answered, hoping Jordan would hear him. But things are getting nasty now and I can't rightly say what's going on.
  Get back over the wall and call for backup. Let's have the police in on it.
  H.Q. has been tracking us, Jordan answered. / called for back-up the moment you . . . what, went into shock? I thought it was all over for you,
  Harry!
  No, not quite, not yet, Harry answered. Now for Christ's sake leave me be! I need to concentrate.
  And as Jordan cleared the telepathic ether, so Harry took over. He spoke to R.L. Stevenson Jamieson:
  R.L.? I hope you've got your obi going full blast. A.C. 's going to be pretty mad when he finds out he's lost a bosom pal!
  'Fraid not, Necroscope, R.L. came back at once. You is on your own. My obi maintains the balance, that's all. But now the balance is all in
  your favour! And in case you is interested, I wants you to know we just welcomed a stranger into the ranks of the Great Majority. Or we will,
  eventually, when he quits fussing and screaming, and if he be worth it.
  Skippy? (Harry scowled, and knew that R.L. would feel the depth of his loathing, the way he shuddered in his soul). Well, he isn't worth it! But
  in the moment of speaking, Harry sensed that the shuddering wasn't his alone. The intruder, A.C. Doyle Jamieson, was back. Except
   now he was whimpering like a whipped dog where he crouched in Harry's metaphysical mind - almost as if he were trying to hide
  there!
  Get out of there, A.C., Harry quietly, coldly told him. / don't want to share your pain with you when finally you die!
  Let me show you something, Fuckscope. The other's terror was transformed on the instant, replaced by rage and madness. Now
  he no longer panted his fear but his hatred and bloodlust. Let me show you how it was for the rest of those bastards who tried to bring the
  werewolf to heel!
  But before he could begin: No! the Necroscope refused him point-blank. I've already seen how it was, A.C. I know exactly how it was. So
  instead, I'd like to show you something: (A mental picture of Skippy,
  transfixed by a crossbow  bolt, stopped  dead - literally - in his tracks, and sprawled in the bloody swarf where he'd fallen). But
  because that didn't seem enough:
  Harry  opened  up  his  metaphysical  mind  to  display  all  the  unknown  depths,  the  gauntly  yawning  vacuum,  the  absolute
  otherness of the endless Mobius Continuum. A.C. saw how Harry was a part of it, linked to it, and finally sensed the preternatural chill of The
  Great Unknown creeping in his bones. Then, as the psychic ether slowly cleared:
  Well? The Necroscope was very quiet now. And are you still coming for me, Arthur?
  The answer was a howl - but one of anguish, of a diseased mentality frustrated to the breaking point - that reverberated in the darkness of the garage and went
  echoing off into a throbbing silence. No, A.C. wasn't coming for him; A. C. was running!
  From somewhere below came the cough of a motor revved into tortured life, the scream of its abused engine, and Harry supposed that A.C. was heading out of
  here. There was only one way out, down the old car-park ramp and through the barrier. But if the barrier were lowered?
  Harry judged the co-ordinates and made a hasty jump to the garage entrance, just inside the retractable doors. To his left he saw the dark tunnel of a two-lane
  down-ramp to the basement; down there, headlight beams swerved erratically, tyres shrieked their shrill protest as the revving roar came closer.
  Hurriedly, Harry scanned the walls on both sides of the exit for the button controlling the overhead door, to no avail. And it was too late to cover the thirty or so
  feet to the barrier's tiny control shack, switch on and lower the boom; A.C.'s vehicle was already roaring up the ramp from the basement! But:
  Don't sweat it, Necroscope, said George Jakes's incorporeal voice in his head. Didn't you hear the bugle sounding the charge? The cavalry's right here, Harry!
  Harry  looked,  and  he  saw,  and  even  the  Necroscope  himself  scarcely  believed  what  he  was  seeing.  But
  conversation with the dead often conveys more than is actually said, and Jakes showed him the whole picture in the time it took for
  the battered van to make it up the ramp; or rather, he showed him the picture as it had been just a minute or so ago:
  A. C. Doyle Jamieson, tall, burly, decked  out in his wolf-mask and wearing his glove weapon, lurching like a drunkard in
  the darkness of the basement, spewing obscenities like the madman he was as he made for his van. The vehicle was parked  with its
  driver's door to the wall; A.C. yanked open the front-seat passenger's door and hurled himself headfirst inside the cab. But before he
  could reach the controls the motor coughed into life! Someone was in the driver's seat, hunched over the steering
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  wheel, andA.C. knew it could only be one of his enemies! So why hadn't he been able to read him?
  The answer was obvious, but of course A. C. couldn't know it: that only the Necroscope, Harry Keogh, can read anything of the dead!
  The cab rocked as the van drew out into the central aisle and the driver gunned the motor, heading for the dim square of light that marked the exit ramp. Then
  the headlights blazed on and illuminated a figure standing dead ahead, a female figure with her arm and hand raised and pointing -or aiming - directly at the
  cab!
  This was a concerted attack; they were acting in perfect co-ordination, all of A.C. Doyle's enemies together! He yelped, ducked, turned and struck with his
  honed steel claw all in one movement - struck at the face of the man at the wheel. And the face unzipped itself like a banana, its flesh flopping down in strips, then
  turned to grin at him with scarlet gums and reddened teeth and wet, pus-dripping eyes!
  A.C. would have screamed then, but could only go 'Urgh, urgh, urghhh!' as the Thing beside him lay back its grotesque head and gurgled:
  
  'Ow-woooow, wolfman! Ifs silver bullet time!'
  But in fact it was crossbow-bolt time: a bolt that came smashing through the windscreen and nailed A. C. 's shoulder to the padding of the seat, where its
  head jammed in the aluminium back-plate . . .
  All of this from Jakes's mind as the van reached the top of the ramp and bounded  onto the ground-floor level, and
  turned left, not right, to go revving up the skeletal ramp to the next floor, and the next, and the one after that. All the
  way  to  the  top.  And  Harry  seeing  it  through  Jakes's  dead  eyes,  but  hearing  it  with  his  own  ears  even  over  the
  thunder of the van's engine:
  A.C. Doyle's shrill, agonized, maniacal screaming, as it finally dawned on him that a man he'd killed was about to kill him! And:
  Cheers, Necroscope! Jakes crowed in Harry's metaphysical mind, and he aimed the vehicle at  the  parapet  wall  six  storeys  up.
  Thanks for having me in on this. This is for Jim Banks and Derek Stevens, but mainly if s for me. The tank of this bucket is full,
  and I always wanted to go out this way: in a blaze of glory! Oh and by the way, here's the face of the ugly fuck who caused all of this:
  And he reached over with a dead hand to rip A.C.'s wolf-mask right off his head. Which was at the same time as the
  van hit the wall and went through it in a crumbling of rotten mortar and battered concrete, and a shrieking of twisted
  metal.
  Harry staggered  back against the  wall  in  the  entrance  to  the"  garage,  flopped  there  with  his  jaw  hanging  slack,
  looking at A.C. looking at George Jakes. At the mad, black, screaming face; the claw-hand held up to ward off the very sight  of the
  dead man; dreadlocks flying in the midnight wind as the van's door was shorn  from its hinges. The mad eyes almost
  bursting from their sockets; the thick, foaming lips; the
  torso  beginning to float in  free-fall,  but  pinned  to  the  backrest  by  the  crossbow  bolt  whose  flight  stuck  out  from
  A.C.'s shoulder.
  Let's talk again some time, Necroscope, said Jakes. But right now I just want to savour the warmth . . .
  Harry shook himself, had time to straighten up and look out into the street. . . where even now something was  crashing down  in
  the centre of the road. And Jakes was right: the van's tank must have been full to brimming.
  Under a sky clearing of clouds, in which a bloated moon lit the  wet-shining  streets  of London,  A.C.'s  van hit  like a bomb, nose
  first, went off like a clap of thunder and blotted out the night with the abrupt brilliance of his funeral pyre. And of George Jakes's.
  Which was the way one of them had wanted it, at least . . .
  Harry shook himself again. His numb mind cleared, and he heard . . . police sirens? Of course, and they'd be here in
  just a few minutes.
  Harry, are you okay? (It was Trevor Jordan, but faint now that the pressure was off).
  Yes, Harry answered. Are you out of it?
  Well out of it, Jordan answered, with a mental sigh.
  See you later, Harry told him, nodding.
  But right now . . . there was something he had to do, had to know.
  He had seen the girl outside the garage. Then he'd seen her inside (but couldn't be sure), when she'd saved  his life.
  And he'd seen her a third time, in Jakes's dead mind, so that finally he was sure! Now he wanted to see her again, find
  out who she was, why she was here.  Jakes  had  pictured  her  at  the  far  end  of  the  basement.  To  the  Necroscope's
  knowledge there was no exit down there, and he knew that the maintenance yard doors  on this level were locked. She
  had got in through those doors but couldn't get out that way. Which left only one escape route. She had to come this
  way. And she did.
  She came panting, alert, aware of the growing clamour of the sirens. But Harry was waiting for her well  inside  the
  garage, at the landing where the down-ramp met the ground floor. She came up the ramp at the run, still carrying her
  'shopping  bag.' The Necroscope knew what was in it: her crossbow. She'd shot  two bolts  to  deadly  effect  and  was
  probably out of ammunition, else she'd be holding the weapon. But he still had the Browning. And he'd found the main switch for
  the lights, set back in a recess in the wall at the top of the ramp.
  As the girl drew level he threw the switch, stepped into view. She gave a small cry of surprise, skidded to a halt and
  blinked in the suddenly bright light. 'Who . . .? What. . .?'
  'Don't be scared,' Harry told her. 'It's all over. I just wanted to thank you - for my life.'
  'Oh, it's you,' she said, and breathed her relief. 'I. . .  didn't know
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  which one of you to shoot! I was . . . just  lucky,  I suppose.'  her dialect was  a distinctive,  husky,  even sexy  Edinburghian brogue
  that Harry vaguely recalled and recognized from early childhood days in Scotland, and from later visits.
  'Me too,' he grinned, however  wryly.  'Very  lucky!'  And  for the  first  time he felt  the  stiffness  of his drying  blood sticking his
  torn trousers to his legs.
  'But  the  one in the  stocking-mask,'  she continued,  'well, he looked the  most  likely  target.'  She  licked  her  lips  nervously  and
  glanced this way and that, obviously seeking a way out. She had seen the gun in his hand.
  'And the  man in the  van?' Harry  was  intent  now,  staring at her. 'The  passenger?  I mean, why  didn't  you  shoot  the  driver?' It
  would have made no difference but he wanted to know anyway.
  Her eyes went this way and that. 'I . . .  I saw what looked like a big dog or wolf, sitting in the van, but  it was  a man in a mask.
  He attacked the driver, tore at him. And I. . .  I—'
  
  '—you fired at the one who looked the most  dangerous,' Harry  nodded.  'So . . .  were you  hunting them,  or what?'  He stepped
  closer to her but she didn't shrink away. Out in the night the sound of the  sirens  had grown very  loud, and he could feel the  girl's
  urgency radiating from her.
  'Just one o' them,' she replied, her brogue thickening as her anxiety increased. And  now  she moved closer to  Harry.  'Are ye  the
  police?' The way she said police it sounded like 'polis.'
  'No,'  the  Necroscope  shook  his  head,  and  at  the  same  time  made  up  his  mind  about  something.  This  girl  should  answer
  questions - to the law if not to him - but she had saved his life after all. 'I was hunting them, too.'
  'Well, and we got them,  did we no? But  now,  I've to  go . . .' She made to  brush  by  him, and cars skidded  to  a screeching halt
  immediately outside the garage, where orange flames lit up the night and black smoke roiled for the moon.
  Tell me one thing and I'll help you,' he gripped her arm, and she looked at his hand where he held her. 'I promise, I'll get you  out
  of this.'
  'Better make it fast, then,' she gasped, as running footsteps clattered on the entrance ramp.
  'Why were you hunting him?'
  'Why were you?' She was drawing back from him, and she was surprisingly strong.
  They murdered friends of mine.'
  'And they placed good friends o' mine in . . .  in jeopardy. But I'm afraid ye're too late to get us out o' here!'
  Harry reached back, threw  the  master  switch,  and the  entire  garage was  black as night. Then  he conjured a Mobius  door,  and
  swept the girl through it. And: Where to? he asked.
  Her thoughts were like a vastly gonging, cracked and echoing bell: WHAT? . . . WHAT? . . . WHAT?
  Shhh! Harry told her. Just cling to me, and tell me where home is. Where do you want to go?
  She clung to him, just as tightly as she could! And: 'Anywhere out o' here!' she  whispered hoarsely, a whisper that rang like a
  shout in the primal emptiness of the Mobius Continuum.
  He went to a place he knew, exited from the Continuum, and held her upright until she felt the solid ground under her feet and
  stopped trembling. Then, gradually opening her eyes . . . she reeled for a moment, and abruptly sat down—
  —On the rain-slick cobbles of the alley just across the road from the garage. But the rain was finished now, and a mist swirled ankle-deep like a
  river of white-glowing milk all along the alley, lapping into recessed doorways and swirling from the Necroscope's sudden resurgence.
  Harry didn't want to answer any more questions right now, but later he might have some for her. 'Now I've to go,' he told her in
  her own brogue. 'How can I find you again? I mean, if I wanted to. Or if you . . . wanted me to?'
  He held out a hand, helped her to her feet. 'I. . .  I just dinna believe what happened then!' she gasped. 'I really dinna believe it!'
  Her hands fluttered up and down the length of her thighs, brushed water from the wet seat of her trousers.
  'I've really got to go,' Harry told her, moving off along the alley away from a street that flared red and orange in the roaring firelight.
  'B.J.'s,' she breathed. 'Find me at B.J.'s.'
  'Oh?' He looked back from the dark threshold of a recessed warehouse back entrance and cocked his head questioningly.
  'A wine bar - I mean, mah wine bar - in Edinburgh.' Her mouth was hanging open, and her words came out soft as breath.
  But Harry had had enough of initials, A.C.s and R.L.s, and B.J.s included. 'So what does it stand for? B.J., I mean?'
  'Eh?' Her mouth was still open, and looked delicious. 'Oh, mah initials? Bonnie Jean,' she said.
  The name rang a bell. Harry remembered an old musical he'd seen on the TV in his flat at Hartlepool - how long ago? Now he recalled the title, and the words of
  a certain song:
  Go home, go home,
  go home with Bonnie Jean.
  Go home, go home—
  —IIIII'll...  go home with Bonnie Jean.
  Well, maybe . . .  but not tonight, Bonnie Jean. 'Just like in Brigadoon!' he said.
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  She obviously understood his meaning. For now, accepting the weirdness of things, she closed her mouth, smiled
  however wonder-ingly, and said, 'Aye, mah brave laddie, exactly  like in Brigadoon.  And  your  name  .  .  .?'  But  then,
  momentarily distracted when a  police  vehicle  with  blaring  sirens  went  screeching  past  the  mouth  of  the  alley,  she
  looked back over her shoulder.
  And B.J. 's question hung unanswered on the damp night air, for when next she turned to Harry . . .  all that remained of him was a
  swirl of mist, collapsing like an exorcised ghost on the spot where he'd been standing . . .
  Harry made brief stops in several locations - graveyards, all of them -to report the results of the night's adventure. The
  principal details were already known, however,  mainly  through  the  efforts  of  one  R.L.  Stevenson  Jamieson.  Before
  returning to E-Branch H. Q., Harry spoke to R.L. himself, and said:
  'Well, a proven principle is shown to be working still. I mean, what you did in life you'll continue to do in death. And in so doing,
  you'll earn the gratitude of all the teeming dead. No need to worry about your name being cursed now, R. L.'
  You talking 'bout my obi, Necroscope?
  Harry  nodded.  'You know  I am. For  in life, you  took  care of your  brother  as best  you  could - you  kept  the  balance.  Now  in
  death you'll go right on doing it.'
  It don't take no effort, Harry, R.L. told him. Its a natural thing. 'Specially now that I'm in touch  with Poppy again!
  
  See, I didn't like to bother him with all this before. But now we is all together, so to speak—
  Again Harry's nod. 'No shame attaches to you or your Poppy, R.L. And  like I said, the  dead will always  be grateful to  you  for
  keeping A.C. in his place. What I mean is, when the teeming dead talk to each other it's voluntary;  they  don't  need to  feel anything
  like A.C. creeping in their minds!'
  Oh, A.C. be no trouble now, Harry. The werewolf s gone for good. No more  howling,  just  the  whimper  of  a  cold,  lost  little
  puppy. But he'll be okay, once he learns he's safe in the dark and the quiet.
  And: 'Fair enough,' the Necroscope answered. 'Let's leave it at that, then . . .'
  PART TWO
  SEARCHING
  FOR BRENDA, AND FOR HIMSELF
  Despite his several duty stops, still Harry beat Trevor Jordan back to E-Branch H. Q. He found the place just as the telepath had
  advised: My activated under Darcy Clarke and ready at a moment's notice to back him to the hilt ...  psychically if not physically. In the event,
  and with the assistance of new-found friends, he hadn't needed extra help; also, and right from the beginning, he had asked Darcy to keep out of
  it. Be that as it may, the Head of Branch had been ready, willing and able, and it said a lot for the value the espers placed on Harry.
  Eventually the Necroscope was able to complete his report, and in the wee small hours he sat alone with Darcy in the latter's
  office. With his duties behind him, Harry at last found time to inquire after Brenda and his infant son. Not that his concern was any less than it
  should be, or his attitude in any way casual, but he knew that wherever his wife and child were, it was unlikely that they would
  come to any harm. For all that Harry Jr was a babe in arms, he'd already displayed his ability to protect his mother from even the
  most dire threat, and Harry Sr knew that whatever mundane things the infant wasn't capable of doing for himself, Brenda - or the
  Great Majority - would do for him.
  And in answer to his, 'Anything . . .?'
  'Nothing,' Darcy shook his head worriedly. 'Not a thing. Every man who wasn't on your case has been on the lookout for Brenda
  and the baby. They've all drawn blanks. Precogs, telepaths, hunchmen, locators:  a  dead  end  -  if  you'll  forgive  that  expression.
  When  Brenda first came here, it was Harry Jr who brought  her; we have to assume he's taken her away again. Why, and
  where to . . .  is anybody's guess. Of course we shall go on searching for them, but right now . . . "  His shoulders  slumped a
  little. 'I'm sorry, Harry. You've done so much, given so much of your time and energy for us, and we don't seem able to do a thing for
  you.'
  'Which means I'll have to do it for myself,' Harry answered, but
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  without bitterness. 'Darcy, you must have known from square one that the main reason I let you talk me into staying
  here was for Brenda? You had all the contacts, and I hoped the people you brought in would be able to do something for her. I knew
  she'd be safe here if there were any aftershocks from the work I'd been doing. But that's all over now.'
  Darcy saw what was coming. 'You're moving out?'
  'Lock, stock and barrel. E-Branch isn't for me, Darcy. I was always a loner, and that's the way I have to be. And after
  all - and as you've often enough  said yourself - do I really want to spend  my life slopping out mental sewers? I just
  can't see myself at the beck and call of the police, their "pet psychic" who they can call on to solve every grubby little
  murder in the book! Oh, I know it wouldn't be like that, but it would be something like that, and it isn't what I'm cut out
  for. So, it looks like it's come sooner than either one of us expected. I'm moving out, yes.'
  'When?'
  'I don't have any ties here. I mean, I'm not bosom buddies  with any of the people here, or anything  like that. I have
  friends  here,  yes  . . .  I  hope  you're  all  my friends.  But  no  one  I  have  to  say  goodbye  to.  Except  maybe  you.  So,
  goodbye.'
  Plainly Darcy didn't know what to say. 'You're our greatest asset - or you were.'
  'I'm just a man,' Harry answered, and meant it. 'And anyway, the Branch has enough going for it.'
  'But. . . lock, stock and barrel?'
  Harry shrugged.  That doesn't  amount to much. Nothing, in fact. What's  in that wardrobe in my room can  stay  for
  now. Maybe I'll pick it up sometime.'
  
  That's not what I meant. No contact?'
  'Only if you find my wife and child. But in any case, I'll probably find them first.' Suppressing  a yawn but stretching
  a little, the Necroscope grimaced as he felt a scab break on his thigh under new bandages.  His expression was wry as
  he looked at his hands, which were also bandaged.
  'You should have had stitches,' Darcy was concerned.
  'I hate stitches!' Harry answered. 'Not to mention scars! This way if I'm lucky there'll be no scars.'
  'So where will you go? And when? Not tonight, surely?'
  There's my flat in Hartlepool, which could use some tidying up before I sell. It's been empty for well over a year. And
  my inheritance up in Bonnyrig, that big old house.  I think I'd  probably  like  the  solitude,  and  I  would  be  that  much
  closer to my Ma. As for when: what's wrong with tonight?'
  'Look,' Darcy said, suddenly anxious, 'we're both tired. You especially. You look all in! And we don't see things  right
  - nobody
  does - when we're, tired. Spend the night here; have breakfast with me in the morning; make up your mind then.'
  Harry  shrugged again. 'It's  made up,'  he answered.  'On the  other  hand,  you're  right  and  I  am  tired.  Okay,  tomorrow  is  soon
  enough . . . "
  Darcy looked pleased, said, 'And you'll stay in touch - I mean, when you're settled?'
  Harry sighed. 'If you promise not to  bother  me . . .  maybe.  But  let's  have it understood  right here and now  - I'm through  with
  E-Branch, Darcy. It  isn't  me. I wouldn't  have time for the  Branch anyway,  no time for anything,  until  I know  about  Brenda and
  little Harry.'
  Darcy nodded. 'Very well. . .' And then, on an afterthought: 'What will I tell the police?'
  'Eh?'
  They found two bodies in that burned-out van. One was  our werewolf,  yes,  but  the  other  . . .? They're  bound  to  identify  him,
  you know. And then there's the one inside the garage, shot dead . . . but with a crossbow?'
  'Let's  deal with  George  Jakes  first,'  Harry  answered.  The  big  question  is  going  to  be:  how  did  George  get  out  of  a  Fulham
  mortuary into a burned out van in the East End, right?'
  'You're the last one who saw him, er, in designated situ, as it were. If we have to put a name on all of this - I mean, we won't,  but
  if we had to—'
  'It would be mine, yes . . . "  Harry gave it a few seconds  of thought,  and said, Tell them that  A.C.  Jamieson  was  an obeah man
  from Haiti. They should be able to prove that easily enough. He must have stolen Jakes's body so that  he could use it to  put  some
  kind of hex on the police. As for why he chose to commit suicide: who knows? He was a madman, after  all. Also,  tell them to  look
  for a shrivelled or melted wolf-mask, and a claw glove. Then they'll have all they need.'
  'More than they need,' Darcy agreed. That garage was full of class motors, most of them knocked off!'
  'As for the one inside the garage, "Skippy" . . . maybe that was Jamieson's work, too. Sure he was a madman, but  mad like a fox!
  Killing Skippy, he was covering his tracks. Simple . . . "
  'And the murder weapon?'
  They won't find it,' Harry shook his head.
  'Something you haven't told me?'
  'Something I might look into, eventually.'
  'Well,  then,'  said  Darcy,  nodding  thoughtfully,  'it  seems  we've  covered  just  about  everything.'  Then  the  faint
  half-smile that had almost made it onto his face turned to a frown.  'Still,  I'm  glad  Jakes  didn't  leave  anyone  behind.
  Family, I mean.'
  'I know what you mean,' Harry answered. 'It would be hard  to  explain,  right?  But  don't  go  worrying  about  Jakes,
  Darcy. I have it on
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  pretty good authority that he doesn't feel sorry for himself, just glad that he got his man, albeit after the fact.'
  Thinking about it, Darcy's face went pale. He remembered the Bodescu case, Hartlepool on the north-east coast, and the  teeming
  dead coming up out of their graves. But for the fact that he - what, liked the Necroscope?  trusted  him? knew  there  was  no menace
  in him? - he supposed by now his guardian-angel talent would be howling for him to run the fuck away from the man!
  'It just doesn't bear thinking about,' he said, quietly.
  'Well, if you must,' the Necroscope told him, 'then think of it this way: Jakes was only  doing what  he'd always  done in life, and
  what he did best. He considers himself fortunate to have had another crack at it, and to have done it well. I say  we should  all be so
  lucky . . .'
  'All I know,' Darcy answered, 'is that when I'm dead and gone, all I will want to do is lie very still!'
  'Yes, but that's for now,' Harry told him without emphasis, but with a strange light in those eyes that knew so much.
  Darcy was scarcely listening to or looking at him, which was probably as well, but was  still  considering recent  events.  The  dead
  thief and murderer in the garage, for instance. Harry was right: so far the police hadn't found the murder weapon - but they did have
  the actual instrument of death, the short, hardwood bolt. They had spoken to him about that, and it was worth mentioning at least.
  'Are you sure you don't want to say anything else, Harry?' he said. 'About this crossbow thing, maybe? I mean, a crossbow  is in
  any case an odd sort of weapon. But forensic are looking at it and they're puzzled by the fluke, the arrowhead.'
  This was something new. Harry cocked an eyebrow. 'So what about it?'
  
  Darcy shrugged. 'It's a steel arrowhead, as you'd expect. But silver-plated? You kill werewolves with silver, don't you?'
  Harry  was  good at hiding his thoughts,  his emotions,  and  this  time  his  surprise.  And  coming  to  him  as  an  extra  surprise,  it
  seemed he was getting good at telling lies, or half-truths,  too!  Never to  the  dead . . . but  to  the  living? 'I didn't  know  what  I was
  going up against,' he said. 'Oh, sure, we had decided that this was the work of a . . .  what, a lycanthrope? Some kind of lunatic? But
  what if we were wrong? There are strange things in the world, as we know only too well.'
  Darcy nodded. 'You did kill him, then? Hence the missing weapon?'
  The Necroscope looked away, finally muttered, 'He's dead, isn't he?' But now it was definitely something he would  have to  look
  into . . . eventually.
  He stood up a little unsteadily, and said, 'I seem to be more tired than I thought  - yet  how  am I supposed  to  sleep?  I have a lot
  on my mind, going round and round. Sometimes I can't remember a time when I
  didn't have! A pity we can't just switch ourselves off, like machines.'
  Darcy gave a small start, as if he'd just remembered something, and said, 'But we can! What, do you think that as head of this bloody outfit I leave sleep to
  chance? God, I'd never get any!'
  Harry looked at Darcy as he opened a desk drawer, took out a small bottle, stood up and went to a water dispenser. 'Do you have any allergies?' He dropped a
  single white pill in a glass and filled it with water. The tablet dissolved in a moment.
  'No,' Harry shook his head. 'No allergies that I know of. But. . . sleeping pills?'
  'Just one,' Darcy told him. 'Does the trick for me every time. Just switches me off.'
  Harry took the glass. 'Maybe this once,' he said, tilting his head back and downing the water. But as he drank, he didn't notice the fact that the Head of E-Branch
  seemed to be holding his breath . . .
  After the Necroscope left to go to his own room, Darcy called a Branch 'specialist' on his home number. Not an esper as such, still this was a man with an
  extraordinary talent. 'Doctor Anderson?' Darcy inquired, when finally the 'phone was picked up. 'James Anderson? This is Darcy Clarke ..."
  And in a moment, answering the tinny, tired voice at the other end of the line: 'Yes, I do know what time it is, Anderson, and I'm sorry it's so late. But this is
  important. Do you remember that Keogh thing we spoke about? Well, it's come up.'
  And in another moment: 'Just two minutes ago, yes.'
  And finally, before putting the 'phone down: 'Good, I'll be expecting you.'
  After that there was nothing for Darcy to do but wait for Anderson to get there. That and to suffer feelings of disgust, self-loathing, like his substance had
  devolved to so much quaking, treacherous scum on the surface of a sucking swamp. On the other hand . . . well, duty and conscience didn't mix, not in his job.
  Darcy's first duty was to the Branch (the swamp?), and he knew it. His conscience would have to take a back seat. . .
  Maybe the Necroscope's attitude had been too casual after all, or he had been too sure of himself. So E-Branch couldn't discover the whereabouts of his wife and
  child ...  so what? They didn't have the Mobius Continuum to work with. (Like a little kid refusing to let the other kids play with his ball - Nyahh! Nyahh!
  Nyahh! Or too possessive and much too pleased with himself that he had a ball in the first place). But as the saying goes, what goes around comes around, and just
  like the little kid Harry had discovered that you can't play the game on your own. Especially not hide-and-seek.
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  From his rambling old house  outside  Bonnyrig, he called Darcy Clarke and poured out his frustrations;  but Darcy
  could  only  tell  him  what  he  already  knew,  (else  E-Branch  would  have  contacted  him  first):  'We  haven't  even  the
  foggiest idea where they could be, Harry. It's like they've vanished off the face of the Earth!'
  'A month, five weeks?' Harry looked at the telephone like he didn't believe what he was hearing. 'You've been on it
  for five weeks, and nothing?  What, E-Branch, with your  locators  and  your  hunchmen,  your  seers  and  scryers  and
  precogs? You haven't the foggiest idea?'
  Which got Darcy's back up more than a little. 'What are you trying to say, Harry?' he snapped. 'That you don't think
  we're trying hard enough? That you don't believe we're looking for them, is that it? Well, start getting it together and
  believe this: that we have as much interest in the kid as you have - if not for the same reasons!'
  And while Harry didn't much like that last, still he knew it must be true. Of course E-Branch wanted to find Harry Jr.
  Just  because  his father had turned them down, that didn't mean the child would - when it was  his  turn!  But  maybe
  Darcy realized he'd said too much, and:
  'Harry,' his tone of voice was more even now, 'I . . .  don't want to fight with you.  I  mean,  Christ,  we  shouldn't  be
  fighting! We are looking for them, you know we are. And I was wrong to fly off the handle like that. What I said . . .
  wasn't what I meant to say.'
  'But you did say it,' Harry answered, and he was quieter, too. 'My son: the next E-Branch dupe! What,  when  he's
  fifteen, sixteen? And while you're waiting, you'll be stood off in the background watching him grow up, measuring his skills, letting
  him develop? Or will you step in before then, recruit him like I was recruited: by showing him all the world's evil, and
  telling him that with him on the team E-Branch will have the power to change all that? And what then, Darcy? Will he be the one who
  ends up slopping out all of those mental sewers? Oh really? Not if I can help it. . .'
  'And not if / can help it, Harry!'  Darcy's  voice  was  pleading  now.  'Look,  you're  not  yourself  or  you  wouldn't  be
  talking like this. And I really didn't  mean it the way it sounded.  You want my word on it? You've got  it:  we'll  never
  interfere with your son or his way of life. But Harry, the fact is that none of us will ever have anything  to do with him,
  if we can't find him! and at the moment we can't.'
  The Necroscope was silent for a while, then said, 'But you will keep trying?'
  'Of course we will.'
  
  'Well, thanks for that, at least.' And Harry put the 'phone down . . .
  Down by the river bank, where the water swirled and eddied in a small bight, Harry spoke to his Ma. It was the first
  time since the day he'd come up here almost three weeks ago, after selling off his flat in
  Hartlepool, and the Necroscope's mother was beginning to feel neglected. But his mind had been troubled - oh, for a long time - and
  like any mother she'd sensed it. So despite that she could speak to him anywhere, any time, she hadn't  intruded.  And  anyway,  she
  knew how he liked to visit the people he talked to.
  It was the middle of April, blustery but at least dry, and Harry was wearing his overcoat where he sat  at the  river's  rim. But you
  II probably catch your death anyway! she told him, feeling the cold breeze in his hair, and scanning the blurred grey mirror images of
  clouds scudding in the river (as seen through his eyes, of course). It's no day to be out, Harry.
  She was down there in the mud and the weeds, her spirit  at least,  and probably  her bones,  too,  even if the  rest  of her was  long
  washed away. But typical of a Ma (of any mother anywhere), even though Mary Keogh no longer felt the cold for herself,  she was
  still able to feel it for her son.
  'I'm okay,' Harry told her.
  No, you're not. But she wasn't ready to push it, not yet at least. And because he didn't seem ready to speak: Well, how are things
  with the world, Harry? The rest of the world, I mean . . .
  He recognized the ploy: to take his mind off his own problems by getting him to relate the troubles of the  world  in general. Now
  that the dead were all linked up and talking to each other from their graves and various resting places, they  could get the  news  from
  recent arrivals,  of course.  But  through  the  medium of the  Necroscope  it  was  that  much  more  immediate;  they  could  see  it  and
  perhaps  even feel something of it,  if not  actually  experience it.  Harry  was  their  one  link  with  the  living.  And  on  this  occasion
  especially he went along with it. For his Ma was right and-he wasn't 'okay'.
  Not that there was much of good news. 'Do you really want to know?'
  Is it that bad?
  'Well, it isn't wonderful!' He pulled a face. 'You'll have to judge for yourself.' And recalling a recent newscast:
  'Most of Africa is in turmoil: Zambia and Rhodesia, Mogadishu,  Somalia, Ethiopia. White "supremacy"  looks to be
  on its way out in Rhodesia, where they've just voted for black rule.'
  But isn't that just right? Aren't all men born equal?
  Again his shrug. 'As long as the recently equal are happy to remain equal -1 mean as long as they don't want to be
  more  equal  -  I  suppose  it's  okay  .  .  .'  And  quickly,  so  as  to  radically  change  the  subject  before  she  could  start
  protesting or moralizing: 'And there's been an atomic meltdown at a place called Three Mile Island in the United States.
  It's a power station.'
  Oh? (She scarcely sounded impressed). Something melted? Is it that important?
  Harry had to grin. When his Ma had died nuclear power was fairly new, industrially at least. 'It's pretty important,
  yes. Dangerous stuff. It
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  kills people, Ma. An unpleasant, invisible, silent death.' The grin was gone now from his face, and his Ma knew why. She had gathered the rest
  of it - the seething horror of it - from his mind. And he felt her incorporeal shudder.
  What else? she said.
  'Well, there's been some pretty terrible stuff coming out of Cambodia, but—'
  —But Harry couldn't possibly talk about that, not to his Ma! He at once bit his tongue and blanked his mind, wondering where in hell his thoughts could have
  been wandering that he'd ever mentioned it. Maybe it was because of the way she, his Ma, had died, but reading about that death-lake in Stung Treng had given the
  Necroscope nightmares: those two thousand bodies tied together with ropes and weighted with stones . . .
  She had caught on from his first mention of Cambodia, however, and quietly said, 'Oh, don't worry, Harry. For we know all about that. And as for
  Pol Pot: well, he'll have to come to us, too, you know, in the end. But he can have no idea what's waiting for him down here.
  'What's waiting for him?' Harry had never thought of the dead as being especially vengeful. After all, what could they do? - well,
  without that he, Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, was their motivation?
  Do? His Ma at once answered. We'll do nothing, say nothing, have nothing at all to do, not with him. And he'll be so cold, lost, and lonely, it
  will be as though he has no existence, not even this kind of existence, whatsoever. And eventually he won't have. He'll simply fade away into
  nothing. But he will know why . . .
  For a moment Harry felt the icy chill of her words - the coldness of outer space, the blackness of inner earth - as if it had entered
  into his soul. But it quickly passed and she was warm again. Strange, but of all Harry's dead people she was the only one who ever
  'felt' warm! Or maybe not so strange. She was his Ma, after all.
  'So, that's it then,' he said after a while, and shrugged. 'Oh, there's other stuff, but maybe it wasn't such a good idea to tell you
  what was happening in the world after all. I mean, when you think about it, that meltdown at Three Mile Island is probably the least of our
  worries!'
  And she was glad to change the subject, too. But if this . . . 'meltdown?' is so dangerous, then why did they do it?
  'What?' (Was her understanding that limited?) 'But it was an accident, Ma! They didn't do it on purpose!'
  Oh! (She gave a little laugh). Then I suppose it can't be helped, can it? But her laughter quickly died away, and it was time to be serious again.
  So in fact nothing is very much different from what it always was: men go on making mistakes. And I don't suppose there's much help for that.
  But now you've got to tell me what can be helped, Harry. Tell me how I can help. And more especially, how I can help you . . .
  
  So finally the Necroscope's beloved mother, his frequently omniscient Ma (where he was concerned, anyway), had got to the point. She
  sensed it when his shoulders slumped a little, just before he sighed and told her: 'I haven't found them yet, Ma - Brenda and my baby son. Oh,
  there are a million places I've not even thought to look yet, I know, but that seems a million too many to even know where to start!'
  For a while she was silent, then quietly said, Do you want me to ask among the dead, Harry? I mean, do you think it's possible that. . .?
  Harry scarcely dared question her on the subject, but knew he must. 'Surely not, Ma?' he said, almost pleadingly. 'If that was the
  case, wouldn't you have known by now? If they were . . .?'
  Not necessarily, son, she said. It depends where, and when. I mean, if it were you we'd know, be sure! And no matter where or when, for
  there's only one Necroscope . . . well, two now. And we'd know it at once, if your light  went out. But death  is generally  a common affair:
  someone is born, lives, and dies. Inevitably. Brenda is Brenda, just another ordinary person, another life. And if she were to die
  in some far place, well that could take some little time to get back to me.
  'And your grandson, Harry Jr? Is he just another "ordinary" person? I don't think so - and not just because he's your grandson. He knows about you! You know
  about him! Wouldn't the Great Majority know it if his light was extinguished, too?'
  But you have been with us for some time, Harry, she reminded him. And the Great Majority didn't know about you, either, at first. Why, they
  didn't even know about each other until you came on the scene! Oh, I knew you were different, but then I was your mother! But believe me, it
  took quite a while to convince the rest. Finally, they believed; how could it be otherwise? They felt your warmth as you passed close by; they
  heard your dreaming, and sensed you trembling when you were afraid. In those days of your childhood, they sprang to champion you. Little
  did they know that one day you would be the champion of the dead!
  'You mean, they don't know him yet? He hasn't  been around long enough? But in Hartlepool that time - what, a year and half
  ago? - they even came up out of their graves for him!'
  For both of you, Harry. Oh, Harry Jr called them up, but who did they come to save?
  'Isn't he . . .  warm, then? Like me?'
  He's warm, yes. And the dead feel him like a small, kindly flame. But he isn't the light in their darkness, like you. One day, maybe, but not yet.
  'You won't know it, then, if he dies . .  .'  It  wasn't  a  question  but  a  statement.  And  in  a  way  Harry  was  glad.  He
  wouldn't want to be appraised of his son's death, nor of Brenda's, ever. Neither by the living nor the dead.
  / would know it. . . sooner or later, his mother told him. But right now, I can promise you this much at least: nothing of that
  nature has
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  reached me yet. To my knowledge, they are still among the living.
  Harry breathed a sigh of relief. If his mother said it was so, then it was so. And in all truth, that had only been a very small fear
  anyway; he had 'known', been sure, that his wife and son were alive somewhere. But where?
  His Ma heard his silent query, and asked him: Where would you go, Harry, if you wanted to hide yourself away? Where would Brenda go?
  Surely you knew something of her secrets, her fantasies, her dreams?
  Suddenly the Necroscope realized how selfish he must seem. Because he hadn't been thinking of it from his wife's point of view,
  not really, but his own. And now his mother, in her way, had brought  it home to him that Brenda was a person in her own right,
  with her own secrets, fantasies, dreams. With feelings and emotions and passions, all of them damaged now, or contaminated by contact with
  Harry's world, until she had only wanted to 'hide herself away' from it. But:
  That's not what I meant, son, his Ma told him. You know it isn't! It was simply my ...  my manner of expression.
  Except  Harry  knew  that  speaking  to  the  dead  often  conveys  more  than  is  actually  said;  so  maybe  he'd  read
  something of his Ma's true thoughts, after all. And certainly she had touched a raw nerve in him. Perhaps deliberately? Ah, but she
  had a way of bringing things into perspective, his mother - and ways of bringing him into line!
  But at the same time her approach to his problem had set the Necroscope thinking. For of course Brenda was different, a person
  in her own right with her own ways of thinking, her own likes and dislikes. So that now Harry wondered where would she be likely to hide herself
  away, if 'hiding' as such had seemed the only course open to her? She had never been much of a one for the sun but always enjoyed the rain!
  She'd loved gardens, the wind in her hair, dramatic, misted landscapes. To sit in a window-seat in their garret flat and listen to the rain on the tiles . . .
  that had been one of her favourite things.
  In which case, Harry's Ma chimed in, this place would seem entirely suited to her purpose! This very place!
  'She never even saw this place,' he shook his head.
  But a place like this one?
  'Maybe, maybe not. Certain coastlines  seemed to appeal to her, rugged cliffs and rainy skies . . . and any garden; but more
  especially, a garden with a coiner run wild. Long grasses, wild flowers, and a place where she could lie on her back and watch the clouds. And the
  stars: the brighter the better. She didn't know a single constellation, but she liked them anyway. A place of wildness - a wilderness - and a lot of
  stars in the clear night sky: that would suit her perfectly.'
  You're a poet and you don't know it! His Ma rhymed.
  'I wonder where I get it? Harry said. And she sensed that his mood was lifting a little.
  / think it's about time you started checking on those million places, she told him. For after all, we must have narrowed them down a little by
  now. And Harry agreed.
  They little thought or could ever have guessed that Brenda and Harry Jr were in just such a place as the Necroscope's Ma had suggested, which her query had
  brought into vivid definition in his mind. A place of dramatic scenery, however alien; of long, misted nights, slanting, sunlit days, long grasses and wild flowers.
  And a garden quite beyond Brenda's previous expectations, her mundane imagination.
  For the fact was that at this point of time it was beyond even the Necroscope's imagination, too, and would stay that way long after he'd given up any real hope
  
  of finding them . . .
  But for now: first Harry reconsidered the places he'd already checked out, starting with Brenda's old home with her folks in Harden, a colliery village on the
  north-east coast.
  The mine ('the pit') itself had been worked out and shut down for some time now, so that the place had seemed even more soulless than before, but the people
  were there as always. Of course, if Brenda or the baby were really trying to avoid him, if they were actually hiding themselves away from him - which he was forced
  to believe was true - then this would be the last place they'd go. Harry had known that from the start, but still he had looked. What he'd found had made him more
  miserable yet.
  He couldn't simply approach Brenda's people as in the old days, for he was no longer him. What, go to them and tell them he was Harry Keogh, and try to
  explain? They'd never accept any of that, these salt-of-the-earth - and very much down to earth - north-east folks! Instead he'd approached Brenda's father in his
  local pub, introducing himself as a friend of Harry's, and asking what had become of him. Which had had a mixed result.
  To make a long story short: Brenda and Harry had got married, and there was a child. Eighteen months ago, she'd taken the baby to London to join her husband.
  He was working there, writing a book or something. She was always very quiet about his work. Nothing strange about that; she was probably a bit ashamed that he
  didn't have a 'proper job.' What, Harry Keogh? Why, he hadn't done a stroke since leaving school - not physical work, anyway. But whatever he did, writing or
  whatever, he must be doing all right; she'd never been short of money.
  But then, just a few weeks ago, she'd written to say that she was taking the baby 'abroad' somewhere. And that was maybe a funny thing, for she hadn't
  mentioned her husband: just herself and the baby. Still, she'd hinted often enough that Harry did some kind of hush-hush job with the government; maybe that
  was it. They must have gone off somewhere overseas to some embassy or other. Maybe the writing hadn't worked out, so he was wearing his other hat now. Maybe
  the
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  government  had  given  him  a  job  as  one  of  these  'special  couriers'  or  something:  someone  who  carries  important
  documents or goods from country to country. Or perhaps the writing had worked out after all, and all of this was a tax
  dodge. Except. . . well, Brenda should write more often. That last letter had been - what? All of five or six weeks ago?
  And they were her parents, after all...
  In short, they were obviously  worried about  her, no less in their way than Harry himself. And  equally  obvious,  it
  wasn't a put-up job . . .  Brenda wasn't with them and they really didn't know her whereabouts. He got the same story
  from all of her old friends. So Harden was out; she simply wasn't there, and no one knew where she was.
  Then  another  thought  had  occurred,  and  one  that  really  was  worrying.  The  Necroscope  had  given  the  Russian
  E-Branch (known to Darcy Clarke and his lot as 'the Opposition') a hard time of it in the last two and a half years. They'd lost three
  Heads of Branch over that same period, and seen their HQ outside  Moscow reduced to so much rubble! What if this
  thing  with  his  wife  and  baby  was  something  they  had  been  engineering  ever  since  Harry's  showdown  with  Boris
  Dragosani? What if they knew that he, Harry Keogh, was alive, despite that his body  - his original body  - was dead? If
  anyone was likely to have that information, it had to be the world's ESPionage organizations! The Opposition's top telepath,
  Zek Foener, had known it definitely . . . and following the destruction  of the Chateau Bronnitsy, Harry had let her go
  free. Could Zek have told them? And had they then taken Brenda and the baby in order to facilitate the coercion of the
  Necroscope himself?
  But no, a large part of that didn't make sense;  he'd been incorporeal following his fight with Dragosani, and no one
  in the world would have believed that he'd ever be back, not even Harry himself! But on the other hand part of it did
  make sense. Right at the end of it, up in the Khorvaty region of the eastern Carpathians, Zek Foener had  known that
  he was back. So she could have given him away after all; which would mean that her Russian superiors had put this
  thing together all in the space of. . .  what, eighteen months? Even after he'd decimated their E-Branch?
  No way; he hadn't left the Soviets nearly enough machinery to bring it into being! Which meant it had to be another dead end,
  and in a way the Necroscope was glad. He would hate to have to blame this on Zek Foener; partly  because  he  had
  genuinely liked her, but mainly because his last words to her had been a warning never to come up against him or his
  again. If a threat carries no weight, then it isn't a threat; But this way he wouldn't have to enforce it. . .
  So . . .  where had Brenda ever been, that she might want to return to? Nowhere to  mention.  Where  had  she  ever
  expressed a yearning to go? Again, nowhere. Since their early teens she'd only ever wanted to be with Harry. And he
  hadn't been the most responsive of sweethearts,
  either. Indeed, he'd asked himself a hundred times if he really loved her or if she was just some kind of habit. She had
  never known his uncertainty (he hadn't been able to tell her, because  she herself had been so absolutely  sure),  but
  now he despised himself for it anyway.
  But on the other hand, how do you tell someone who has loved you for so long - as long as you can remember - that
  you just aren't sure of your own feelings'? Not so easy. And a lot harder when she's pregnant with your child.
  Misted landscapes, dramatic scenery, cliff paths and gardens grown wild, and starry skies . . .
  It brought a certain picture to mind, but of what?  High passes  and mountain  peaks,  and stars  like chips of ice glinting on high.
  And a plain of boulders stretching away to a far northern horizon under the weave of ghostly auroras.
  The picture came and went like . . . like an invention of his own imagination? It had to be, for he had certainly  never visited  such
  a place! But in any case it was  already  fading, melting into  unreality  like a fantastic  dreamscape;  which was  probably  as good an
  explanation as any:  that  in trying  to  visualize  Brenda's  ideal habitat,  he'd evoked a leftover  from some old dream. Not  so old, in
  fact. . . indeed so new that the actual fact of it - its  basis  in reality  - was  yet  to  happen.  But  the  Necroscope  couldn't  know  that,
  
  and in the space of just a second or so the picture had faded entirely.
  The future was ever a jealous place . . .
  A  million  places?  Hell  no,  there  were  a  million  million  places!  Since  Brenda  had  never  been  anywhere  or  done
  anything very much, she could literally be anywhere doing anything! But the north-east  coast  was where she'd been
  born and grown up, and it still had to be the best bet.
  Harry had tried all the towns and villages between Harden and Hartlepool, and had then backtracked all the way to
  Sunderland and Durham City . . .  to no avail. But he had been surprised how many small villages there were that he'd
  never  heard  of  or  visited  before,  and  how easy it was to try to find a  lost  someone,  albeit  hopelessly.  Housing  and  building
  societies,  hotels  and  flats  and  bedsits,  and  temporary  accommodations,  these  were  the  obvious  places  to  check:
  Brenda had to be living somewhere, had to have a roof over her head. She wasn't registered at any of the agencies; the
  dozen or so girls with small babies who were registered weren't Brenda. And Harry wasn't greatly surprised, but he'd
  had to try anyway.
  Somewhere abroad: that letter she wrote to her father had said she was going abroad, hence the million million places. For if there
  were a couple of hundred towns in the north-east that the Necroscope had never
  r
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  visited, and five thousand in the rest of England, then what of the rest of the world?
  Somewhere abroad.
  . . . A garden in a fertile saddle between ruggedly weathered spurs, where dusty beams of sunlight came slanting through the high passes
  during  the long daylight  hours, and the stars glittered  like  frosted jewels at night, or ice-shards suspended  in  the
  warp and weave of ghostly auroras . . .
  The  northernmost  of  the  North  American  States?  Canada?  The  frozen  tundras  of  the  northern  Soviet  Union?
  Switzerland? (Did they even see the aurora borealis in Switzerland - and why the northern lights anyway?) But Brenda was
  a British girl, naive in most things even in her native country, even in her native county!  And  as the Necroscope rubbished  his
  own inward directed queries, so that fleeting picture of some far, alien land once more retreated. Which was  just  as
  well, for search as he might he would never discover it on Earth.
  Never find them . . . never find his baby son . . . never even see them again . . . not on Earth!
  Harry started  awake in a cold sweat,  in his bedroom in the  old house  not  far from Bonnyrig.  A sweat  of fear and frustration,
  yes, and a feeling of utter loneliness.
  He lay  panting  in his bed,  damp  with  perspiration,  feeling  his  heart  racing  and  his  blood  pumping.  So  that  for  a  few  brief
  moments it wasn't as if Brenda and the  baby  were missing at all but  simply  that.  . . that  he was the  lost  one! And  of course  the
  genuine Harry Keogh, the original Harry, was lost.
  That again: his body, gone. And piece by piece his entire world going, too. Was that why he had to find Brenda, in order to  find
  himself? In which case his search was useless, for she would only deny him.
  Fuck it. . .  that was why she'd run away in the first place! Because he wasn't him!
  She'd run, or been taken away. By the baby or by . . .  someone else?
  The Russians? But he'd already been over that and it seemed very  unlikely.  So if not  the  Opposition,  the  much-ravaged Soviet
  E-Branch, then who?
  As his sweat dried on him, so Harry's thoughts cleared and his mind seemed to sharpen and focus as he hadn't been able to  focus
  it for quite some time. He went right back to square one: to that night at E-Branch HQ when  he'd first  been told  that  his wife was
  missing.  At  the  time  he  had  put  aside  the  possibility  that  A.C.  Doyle  Jamieson  -  self-styled  'werewolf  -  could  have  been
  responsible for the double disappearance. But now?
  The man had been into his mind, after all. . .  but for how  long? Harry  had become his 'enemy'  the  moment  he became involved
  with the dead police officers and took up their case. Had A. C. been 'listening' to
  him - to  his thoughts  and worries  and problems  - from that  time on? In which  case  he  would  know  about  Brenda,  Harry's  one
  weakness. But surely if that were the case, ;/ he and his gang of car thieves  were responsible  for Brenda's  disappearance,  then  right
  at the end when A.C. himself had come under fire, he would have used her as a threat, to stand Harry off. Yes, of course he would  -
  but he hadn't. So . . .
  . . .  So, damn it to hell, it was another blind alley!
  After speaking to his Ma he'd come back to the house full of resolve, and now  it was  almost  burned  out  of him again. But  while
  his  mind  was  sharp  he  must  pursue  the  problem.  It  was  so  frustrating:  to  be  equipped  with  his  powers  -  the  powers  of  a
  Necroscope - and no way to use them to solve his problem, except by trial and error.
  He got up from the bed feeling stiff; this damned body of his, which wasn't nearly as flexible as it had used  to  be. Because it was
  a different one, naturally. Or unnaturally?
  The light coming through fly-specked windows was grey as the day outside. He had been down only an hour or two.  An hour  or
  two  wasted.  Down  and out.  Wilting. Going to  seed. Oh,  really? And  suddenly  Harry  was  angry  with  himself.  He  had  to  shake
  
  himself out of it and get on with the search, get on with life. He was  ten  years  older than  he should  be, sure,  but  he didn't  have to
  settle for that, did he? His mind was still in shape, wasn't it? And the mind governs the body, doesn't it? Well then, he'd have to  get
  the fucking body in shape, too!
  He was dressed; he went out into his overgrown garden and did twenty furious press-ups,  then felt ridiculous and
  sat hugging his knees in the deep grass  and shivering from the difference in temperature between the house  and the
  garden. And in a while he thought:
  My Ma's right. . . I'll catch my death!
  Death, yes.
  Always a close companion of Harry's, death wasn't something he worried about. Not from a distance, anyway. Close
  up it would be different, of course. If ever death should attempt his stealthy (or sometimes abrupt!) approach, then like
  anyone else Harry would be galvanized - to life! But as for the idea of death and the dead themselves, he knew no fear.
  Indeed, he had a thousand dead friends, but not one of them who could help him now, not this time. While among the living . . . did
  he have any friends at all?
  Well, some - like Darcy Clarke and his people  -  but  even  they  weren't  like  the  dead,  because  the  dead  were  true
  friends and rarely demanded payment. As for the exceptions to the rule,  the  one  or  two  monstrous  members  of  the
  Great Majority who had demanded payment . . . but they were in the Necroscope's past now and couldn't resurface. At
  least he prayed not.
  It was a morbid train of thought,  which he tried to break by numbering his friends among the living. These were a
  handful at best;
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  no, not even that, for he couldn't any longer approach them as Harry Keogh. They would 'know' that he wasn't!
  Depression, was that it? Probably. And Harry thought: /// believed in psychiatry I might even go and see a shrink. But if he started to explore
  my past, how could I explain it? He'd be certain / was incurably insane! Or, if I liked strong drink, I might go and get drunk and see how I felt
  when I woke up. Except. . . I wouldn't know where to go to drink, and I'd probably feel out of place when I got there. But damn
  it, I really feel like I could use a good stiff drink! And a talk with a genuine friend. Yet I have no one to talk to but the teeming dead, and they're
  the only ones who give a damn anyway!
  A morbid train of thought, yes . . .
  But now the entire chain of his thoughts,  ever since he'd started  awake in a cold sweat, began to join up link upon link. And
  there was one missing link, which was integral to the rest. He hadn't thought of it until now because  it had seemed wrong, especially
  when he was searching, or trying to search, for his wife and child. But there might be something in it at that.
  Initials writhed on the screen of Harry's mind. Not A.C. Doyle Jamieson and his brother R.L. Stevenson's initials, but someone
  else's. Someone the Necroscope had studiously avoided thinking of until now. But now . . . maybe he did have a friend among the living after all.
  Or someone who owed him, at least. And maybe, just maybe, it went a lot deeper than that. For one thing, the time frame was right:
  the disappearance of his wife and child had coincided precisely with this one's advent. And since that was true, mightn't there be a
  more relevant, more sinister connection?
  Psychiatry? Maybe that was the last thing Harry needed. Maybe all he needed was a rest - from all of this, even from thinking about it! Or a
  change. Didn't they say that a change was as good as a rest?
  Have a good stiff drink and sleep it off, sleep it right out of his system. Clear the air. Christ, he needed a drink! Or was it simply his body - or
  somebody else's body - that needed it? But. . .  the mind controls the body, doesn't it? Well, yes, it does, except when the body
  has habits or needs that control the mind!
  Suddenly things clicked into place in the Necroscope's metaphysical, his lateral-thinking mind. But his mind in another's body. And a little
  shakily - shaky with realization, albeit as yet unproven - he went back into the house, to the telephone.
  Darcy Clarke was at E-Branch, and he at once sensed  something of the  excitement  in  Harry's  voice.  And  in  answer  to  the
  Necroscope's question:
  'What, Alec Kyle? What did he do when he was under pressure?' Darcy said. 'Well, he would just ride it out, Harry.
  When there was work to be done, or a problem to be solved, he'd work at it all the way
  until he'd covered every angle, almost to the point of exhaustion. And after that? What did he do for relaxation?' (Harry could almost sense the other's grin). 'Well,
  I'm not sure if I should mention this, you know? I mean - speaking ill of the dead and all that - but..."
  '. . . Did he like a drink?' Finally Harry forced the issue. And Darcy's answer lit up his mind like the crack of dawn on a summer day:
  'Did Alec like a drink? Did he ever! When he was wound up, so tight it was the only way to unwind . . . then he would drink, yes! Usually at home, because there
  he wasn't risking anything and he didn't have so far to fall into bed. I remember one time he invited me round to his place and between us we killed a big bottle of
  Jack Daniel's. I stayed over, because I knew I wasn't going to make it to anywhere else. And I paid for it for three whole days. But Alec was just fine! That body of
  his could soak up hard liquor like a sponge.'
  'He wasn't an alcoholic, was he?' (Something of alarm now, in the Necroscope's voice).
  'God, no! Once in a blue moon, that's all. But when he did it, Alec did it right.'
  Thanks,' Harry breathed, and put the 'phone down.
  And now he knew. Knew how to be himself again: by not being himself. Feelings of illicit attraction? Chemistry, that's all. Alec Kyle's chemistry. And the need
  to have a good stiff drink following a period of prolonged stress? Again, chemistry: the ex-precog's body doing its own thing - or rather the thing it had used to do.
  And there stood Harry smack dab in the middle, firm in his determination to get used to his new body, without giving a moment's thought to the fact that it must
  get used to him!
  
  So maybe a night on the town wasn't such a bad idea after all. Maybe then he'd be able to get it all going - get body and mind working together - and figure
  something out. And come to think of it, he did know where to go to get a drink, and probably a free one at that. She owed him that much at least.
  Alec Kyle's personal body chemistry? Illicit attraction? Sheer loneliness? Maybe it was all of these things. And initials, certainly.
  B.J.'s . . .
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  II
  BJ.'S
  It was 3 p.m. and just as grey in London as in Edinburgh, and even darker for Darcy Clarke, who had been sitting at his
  desk for the last hour, ever since the Necroscope called him, still feeling bad about  things  in general and wondering
  what the hell this latest 'thing' was all about. Alec Kyle's personal habits? Especially the fact  that  he'd  liked  a  drink
  now and then? What in the  world  could  that  have  to  do  with  Harry's  search  for  his  wife  and  baby  son?  Answer:
  nothing. Which meant that Harry was still dealing with the same basic problem, still getting used to the fact of his new
  body.
  And as if that weren't enough,  Darcy thought,  / had  to go and fuck about inside his head! Or get someone to do it for me,
  anyway.
  The 'had to' part was the only tiling that let Darcy live with it: the fact that E-Branch and the security of the people,
  the country, came first above all other considerations. But it had been inevitable from the moment the Necroscope had
  let him know that he would probably be moving on. Then, even hating it, Darcy had been obliged to set the thing in
  motion. But all the time he'd been hoping against hope that it would never have to be brought into being, and he'd kept
  right on hoping until the moment Harry had said he was through, definitely.
  From then on it had all been down to Doctor James Anderson, whose business address was a consulting room and a
  highly rewarding practice in prestigious  Harley Street. One hell of a step  up for a man who only three years ago had
  been working the nightclub circuits as a stage hypnotist! But E-Branch had found and elevated him, which was about
  the  same  as  saying  that  they  owned  him.  And  certainly  he  owed  them.  That  was  why  he'd  come  in  that  night  a
  half-hour after Darcy called for him, and why he had done what he'd done.
  Sinister? But in a way it might be argued that everything E-Branch did had sinister implications for someone. Except
  this time it was being done to a friend. And that was what bothered Darcy the most: that this
  time the Department of Dirty Tricks had come down on Harry Keogh.
  Yet for all that Darcy felt guilty about  this thing, the fact was that he hadn't initiated it. That had come from much
  higher up, from a grey, almost anonymous entity known only as the Branch's 'Minister Responsible'.  It  had  been  Darcy's  duty
  merely to let the Minister know how things stood, and the Minister's to order counter measures.
  And (Darcy was pleased to remind himself) they could very easily have been much  harsher  measures,  except  he'd
  been able to advise in that respect, too. So Harry had suffered a degree of minor, or maybe not so minor, interference:
  so what? He was still functioning, wasn't he? Darcy gave a small shudder as he put what might have been to the back
  of his mind.
  As for why it had had to be done:
  Harry Keogh was potentially the most powerful force in the world, for good or evil. He was the Necroscope, and Sir
  Keenan Gormley had 'spotted'  him almost from scratch, and homed in on him with unerring instinct, recruiting him to
  E-Branch. But if Sir Keenan had 'discovered' him, so to speak, couldn't a far less friendly agency just as easily find him?
  For example the Russians. By now they must be keenly interested (to say the very least) in Harry's kind of ESP. It was a weapon he had used against them to
  devastating effect. Even though  Harry  'himself  was or  might  appear  to  be  dead  and  gone,  still  the  attention  of  all  surviving  members  of  the  Soviet
  ESP-organization would be riveted upon their British counterparts' every move from this time on.
  It was even possible (barely, but possible) that the Russians already knew about British E-Branch's 'new' Necroscope! And wouldn't that be causing them some
  concern! ? What, the ex-Head of Branch, Alec Kyle, back in business? Not brain-dead, or physically dead and blown to bits along with the Chateau Bronnitsy, but
  alive and well and living in England? Not drained of all intelligence on a slab in some necromantic ESP-experiment, or pulped in a holocaust of almighty
  proportions, but sound as a bell and consorting with his old colleagues in London? Good God! By now they'd probably be thinking that every Englishman was
  indestructible . . . and they'd be wanting to know why! And how . . .
  Darcy found himself grinning at his own flight of fancy, but of all men he knew that there had never been so fanciful a flight as that of Harry Keogh, Necroscope.
  And the grin died on his face as he considered other possibilities.
  Assuming that the Russians knew nothing - that they were still recovering from the Necroscope's onslaught - still there were other ESP-agencies in the world
  and Harry could conceivably fall into their hands.
  And not only mindspies but crime syndicates and terrorist organizations, too. What a thief he'd make, what an assassin or terrorist!
  
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  Barriers, borders and brick walls couldn't stop him; he could disappear almost at will; the teeming dead were in his debt
  and would go to any lengths, literally, to advise and protect him. And all the knowledge of Earth had gone down into
  the soil or up into the air, where it was written like lore in some mighty volume in an infinite encyclopedia for Harry to
  open and read. If he had the time, but he didn't because of his search.
  Oh, yes: Harry would be invaluable in the hands of any one of a score of criminal elements. And it was still possible
  that  his wife and child's disappearance  was connected  in some way to just  such  an  organization.  Which was why the
  Branch was indeed working flat out to discover their whereabouts. Oh, they were doing it for Harry, too, who had done so much
  for them and for the world, but they were also doing it for themselves, for 'the common good.' And it was for that same
  common cause that Darcy had called in Doctor James Anderson.
  Anderson  was the best, the  very  best  there  was:  a  hypnotist  without  peer  in  all  the  land,  as  far  as  was  known.
  Working without anaesthetics on patients lulled to a painless immunity under the weird spell of Anderson's  eyes and
  systems,  surgeons  had carried out  the  most  delicate  operations;  women  had  given  effortless  birth  in  exceptionally
  awkward  circumstances;  mentally  traumatized  and  schizoid  cases  had  shed  their  delusions  and  extraneous
  personalities to emerge whole and one from his healing gaze. And far more importantly where Darcy was concerned,
  Anderson was a master of the post-hypnotic command.
  Darcy remembered how it had gone that night. . .
  By the time they had entered Harry's room using a master key, the  Necroscope  had  been  dead  to  the  world,  and
  probably to the dead, too! The drug Darcy had given him had been a sleeping pill, but a pill with a difference. Distilled
  from the oriental yellow poppy - and as such an 'opiate' - the principal active ingredient had the effect of opening the
  mind  of  the  subject  to  hypnotic  suggestion  while  he  slept  on.  The  hypnotist  would  then  insert  himself  into  the
  subject's dreams, his subconscious  mind, implanting those  commands which the subject would act upon  and accept
  as routine long after the drug had dispersed and he was awake.
  Darcy had obtained the pills from Anderson, who used them when he was treating mental cases. Not that Harry was
  a mental case, but it had provided  an  easy  method  of  bringing  him  under  Anderson's  control  without the Necroscope
  himself knowing what was happening. Since he wasn't a patient as  such,  it  was  imperative  that  he  did  not  know  what  was
  happening. For rather than being a curative treatment, this was to be preventative.
  Darcy had been present  throughout  and remembered the entire thing in detail. Especially he remembered  his  only
  partly covert, his almost suspicious examination of Anderson himself: the way he'd considered
  the hypnotist's  attitude to be far too relaxed, too casual. . . well, in the light of what he was doing and  who  he  was
  working on. Didn't he know who this man was? But then he'd had to remind himself: no, of course Anderson  didn't
  know who or what Harry was. He was only doing what he'd been asked to do.
  Anderson was young, maybe thirty-five or -six years old, tall, and good-looking in a darkly humourless sort of way;
  or perhaps  more  attractive  than  good-looking.  But  maybe  that  was  residual  of  his  stage  days,  when  he'd  used  to
  portray  himself  as  some  inscrutable  deity  of  inner  mind.  If  so,  then  he'd  succeeded  very  well  indeed.  With  his
  high-arching eyebrows, full, sensual  lips - that seemed too full and sensuous  against the pallor of his face - and the
  sunken orbits of his eyes, dark as from countless  sleepless  nights;  why, only give him a pair of horns  and Anderson
  would be the very epitome of the devil! 'A handsome devil,' yes.
  His hair was a shiny black, swept back and, Darcy suspected,  lacquered  into  place.  His  chin  was  narrow,  almost
  pointed, and sported a small neatly trimmed goatee;  his sideburns  were angled to sharp points  mid-way between the
  lobes of his small flat ears and the corners of his mouth. And as  if  to  underline  or  emphasize  his  looks,  he  wore  a
  cloak, which to Darcy's mind was about as theatrical as you could get. Anderson's  eyes, of course, were huge, black,
  and hypnotic. And his voice . . . was velvet.
  Inside Harry's room, the doctor had wasted no time. Darcy remembered how it had been: first Anderson  sitting by
  the Necroscope's bed, and lifting each of his eyelids in turn to check the dilation of his eyes. Then, when Harry's eyes
  stayed  glassily open, the classic technique: a crystal pendant  swinging on a chain, and the  doctor's  soft,  smoothly
  insistent voice, commanding Harry that he:
  'Watch the lights, the sparkle, the heart of the crystal. Feel the heartbeat as the crystal swings to and fro, and match
  it with your own . . .' Then Anderson's  hand seeking and checking the pulse  in  the  Necroscope's  wrist,  his  nod  of
  approval, and the pendulum's swing gradually slowing as the doctor's marvellous voice continued:
  'Harry, you can close your eyes and sleep now. You are asleep . . . you are asleep but you will continue to hear me. I
  am your heartbeat, your mind, your very life and soul. I control you; I am you, and because  we are one, you will obey
  me. You will obey you, for I am you. We are one, and we're asleep, but we hear our mind speaking to us, and we obey.
  Can you hear me, Harry? If you can hear me, you may nod . . . "  The Necroscope had closed his eyes at Anderson's
  command. As he slowly nodded his head, so Darcy had found himself holding his breath.
  'Harry Keogh, you are a rare man with rare powers . . . you are a man with rare powers . . . rare powers, yes. Did you
  know that? That you're a man with rare and wonderful powers?' Anderson hadn't known
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  what Harry's 'rare powers' were; only that he was following Darcy Clarke's instructions.  And again the Necroscope's
  nod.
  'If  others  knew  of  your  powers,  they  would  want  the  use  of  them.  Others  might  want  the  use  of  these  strange
  powers. Others might even use them against us,  to  harm  you  and  me  and  the  ones  we  love.  Do  you  understand?'
  (Harry's nod).
  'Now listen,' Anderson had leaned closer to the man in the bed, his voice more deep and sonorous yet. 'We can only
  be safe so long as others  know nothing of our powers. We are safe only so long as we  protect  our  powers.  Others
  must never know what we can do. We must never speak of our powers. You must never ever mention  your powers to
  anyone.  You must never  disclose  them  to  anyone.  You  must  never  display  them  to  anyone.  Do  you  understand?'
  (Harry's slow, uncertain nod).
  'You may use your powers as is your right, Harry, but you may never speak of them, or display them or otherwise
  disclose them to others. You may never, ever speak of them, or disclose or display them to others, no matter what the
  provocation, not even under the stress of extreme pain or torture. Do you understand?' (Harry's nod, more positive now).
  'Now listen, Harry. You are still you but / am no longer you. This is someone new speaking to you - someone you
  don't know! You don't know me, but you can hear me. If you can hear me, say yes.' Harry's head had commenced its
  almost robotic, mechanical nod;  but  now  it  paused,  stiffened  into  immobility,  and  his  mouth  fell  open.  His  tongue
  wriggled a moment in the cave of his mouth, then stuttered:
  'Y . . .  ye . . .  yes.'
  'Good! Now then, my friend, my good friend. I've heard it said that you have amazing powers? Is this true? Answer
  me!'
  The Necroscope said nothing - but his face grew pale, his eyelids fluttered and his tongue  wobbled wildly. Which
  was the point where Darcy had begun  to wish he'd never set this in motion, except the possible alternative had been
  unthinkable.
  'Let's be reasonable,' Anderson's  oh so persuasive  voice had droned on. 'Let's have a normal conversation,  Harry.
  Your throat is no longer dry;  your  mouth  is  salivating;  your  tongue  is  freed  and  you  can  talk  normally.  Let's  talk
  normally, shall we? Now, what is all this about these powers of yours? You can trust me, Harry. Tell me about them . . .'
  At that the Necroscope had seemed to relax a little. His eyelids had stopped fluttering; his mouth closed as he licked
  his lips; his Adam's apple bobbed as he moistened his throat. Then:
  'Powers?' he said, enquiringly. 'Whose powers? You have me at a disadvantage. I'm afraid I don't know you, or what
  you're talking about.' (At which Darcy had grinned, for this was more like it. Harry didn't
  seem uncomfortable any more - indeed he was having a 'normal' conversation. And he was lying his head off!)
  Anderson  had glanced at Darcy, nodded  and said,  'He  was  a  difficult  subject.  I  know  it's  hard  to  believe,  that  it
  looked very easy, but you'll just have to take my word for it: he was hard to get into, and I could feel him fighting me. I
  always know when they are fighting me, for I get these terrible headaches . . . "  He used  a handkerchief to pat several
  beads of sweat from his forehead. 'And you can believe me, I've got a beauty right now! But let's put it to the ultimate
  test,  eh? He knows you, right? He knows you for a good  and trustworthy  friend?  So  why  don't  you  ask  him  about
  these wonderful powers of his?'
  'What?' Darcy had been taken by surprise. 'Just like that? I can . . . talk to him while he's under?'
  And: 'Wait,' Anderson  had  told  him,  and  turned  back  to  the  Necroscope.  'Harry,  you  have  a  friend  here,  Darcy
  Clarke. Darcy wants to speak to you, Harry, and you will talk to him just as you have spoken to me: a perfectly normal
  conversation. Do you understand?'
  'Of course,' Harry had  answered,  a  half-smile  forming  on  his  sleeping  face.  And  without  pause:  'How's  it  going,
  Darcy?'
  For a moment Darcy had been taken aback; he hadn't quite known what to say. Then words had formed and  he'd
  said. 'It's all going well, Harry. And you?'
  'Oh, so-so. Better when I know about Brenda and the baby. I mean, when I know they're okay.'
  It was the lead Darcy had been looking for. 'Sure. And as the Necroscope - I  mean  with  your  powers  and  all  -  it
  won't take too long, right?'
  Harry's  eyes  had  stayed  closed,  but  he'd  cocked  his  head  inquiringly  on  one  side.  'Eh?'  he'd  finally  answered,
  frowning. And: 'It seems everyone is determined to talk in riddles today! Look, I hate to rush off like this but I'm - you
  know - busy? Do you mind?' And with that he'd rolled over in his bed, turning his back on both of them.
  At which Anderson had grasped Darcy's elbow, saying, 'Not even you! You see, he won't even talk to you about  it -
  whatever "it" is. Well, so far so good. But  now  I'd  like  to  hammer  the  point  home.  I  want  to  reinforce  it  and  make
  absolutely  certain that my post-hypnotic  command is in place.  Except  I  warn  you:  this  is  very  repetitious  stuff.  I'm
  afraid I may bore you to death. Or if not that, I might certainly put you to sleep, too!' Anderson's  success  had pleased
  him, making him seem more warm and human.
  Darcy had stayed, however, and seen it out to the end. And Anderson had been right: it was repetitious and boring,
  so that by the time he was done Darcy was indeed yawning.
  'And now he can sleep it off,' the  doctor  had  told  Darcy,  as  they  turned  off  the  light  and  let  themselves  out  of
  Harry's room.
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  Then, in his- office, Darcy had asked: 'What next? Is  there  anything  else  I  should  do?  I'm  having  breakfast  with
  Harry tomorrow morning.'
  Anderson had shrugged. 'He'll probably seem a little confused, reluctant. Whatever this big secret of Keogh's is, all
  of your E-Branch agents presumably know about it. It's simply that you're keeping it from the outside world, right?'
  That's right,' Darcy had nodded his agreement. 'We know about it, and Harry knows we know—'
  '—Hence the confusion,' Anderson had finished for him. 'If I were you I wouldn't test it: don't even bring it up. Or if
  you must, then have someone else test it. Some "stranger?" But well away from this place.'
  And Darcy had seen the sense in that. 'And is that all? Nothing else I should know?'
  Anderson had looked at him, pursed his full lips, said: 'He's no longer one of yours?'
  'That's right. He's moving on. He has things to do. But why do you ask? Is it important?'
  Again Anderson's  shrug. 'There may be - I don't know - side  effects?'  But  before  Darcy  could  show  his  alarm:  'I
  mean, I've been into his mind - or not into it, but I have opened it up a little. In some people the mind is like a door with
  rusty hinges. And as I told you, Harry's door was damned near welded shut!  So I. . .  applied a little oil. You see, it's
  not simply the drugs and my eyes and my voice, Darcy - it's also my mind. No, I'm not an esper like you and yours, but I'm special
  in my own way just the same. I mean, I can put certain people under just by snapping  my fingers! But Harry wasn't one
  of them. He was difficult. Except now that I've oiled his hinges, so to speak, well, he could be easier the next time.'
  The next time?'
  'If someone did get hold of Keogh, it's possible - just possible, mind you - that they'd be able to get into his mind as
  "easily" as I seemed to.'
  They could undo what you've done?'
  'Ah, no, I didn't say that!' Anderson had held up a cautionary finger. 'What I've done is done, and as far as I know
  only  I  can  break  it.  But  the  rest  of  Harry's  mind  might  now  be  more  accessible.  He  might  more  readily  give  in  to
  hypnotic suggestion. However, that's a pretty big might. I shouldn't worry about it if I were you.'
  But in fact Darcy Clarke hadn't stopped worrying about it ever since, for close on five weeks. It was a terrible idea, a
  fearful concept: to have someone break into a man's id - into him - without his knowing it; to weaken him in ways he
  wasn't even aware of, then leave the doors of his mind flapping helplessly to and fro in the wind of some future mental intrusion!
  Not  that  it  was  really  as  bad  as  all  that,  Darcy  told  himself,  returning  to  the  present.  He  was  simply
  over-dramatizing again, that's all. It
  wasn't as if the Necroscope was likely to come up against another hypnotist, now was it?
  But still, it wasn't the sort of thing Darcy Clarke himself would ever want to happen to him. Not likely! And of course, it couldn't
   ever happen to him, not as long as his guardian angel talent was watching over him.
  On one of the last two counts Darcy was quite wrong, and on the other he wasn't quite right. But then, he wasn't a
  precog.
  Which was perhaps just as well. . .
  That same night Harry took the Mobius route into the heart of Edinburgh and hailed a taxi. It was raining and he didn't
  want to walk -and anyway he wouldn't know where to go, for B.J.'s wasn't in the book. But his taxi driver should  know
  it.
  'B.J.'s,' he told the man, who turned, looked back at him, and shook his head sadly.
  There's a lot cheaper places tae get pissed, Chief, if ye must,' he said. 'But the booze in they damn wine bars costs  a
  pretty penny, aye!' He was a 'canny Scot,' obviously.
  Thanks for the advice,' Harry told him, 'but B.J. 's will do.'
  'As ye say,' the other shrugged. 'Ah expec' it's the young lassies, aye.' And they headed for B.J.'s.
  The Necroscope quickly got himself lost as the taxi turned  right  off  Princes  Street  into  a  maze  of  alleys,  and  the
  looming grey bulk of Edinburgh Castle, his principal landmark, vanished  into a rain-blurred sky, behind  the  complex
  and  merging  silhouettes  of  shiny  rooftops  and  arching  causeways.  The  echoing  canyon  walls  of  bleakly
  uninteresting,  almost subterranean  streets  and alleys sped  by on both sides, and between  squealing,  nerve-rending
  swipes of the windscreen blades Harry could look ahead and see a pale glow of city lights reflected on the undersides of lowering clouds.
  Time seemed suspended . . .  he might even have dozed a little in the musty-smelling back seat. But eventually:
  'B.J.'s,' the driver grunted, bringing his taxi to a halt in a narrow street of three-storey  buildings whose  shop-front
  fagades were built onto or extended from the old brickwork of a gently curving Victorian terrace.
  Harry shook himself awake, climbed stiffly out of the taxi and paid the fare, then turned up his collar and looked up and down the
  street. And as the taxi pulled away he saw that the area was more than a little rundown and shabby,  and hardly  the
  place he'd thought  it would be. It scarcely  matched  up  to  B.J.  or  what  he'd  imagined  of  her.  But  just  what  had  he
  imagined of her? What sort of place had he envisioned? A low, Moorish dive - but one with style - on the fringe of
  some  Moroccan  Kasbah,  like  a  Rick's  Cafe  and  Casino,  magically  transported  from  pre-war  Casablanca?  What,  to
  Edinburgh? Oh, there were dives here,
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  certainly - likewise in London, Birmingham, Newcastle, Liverpool, and Leicester; and in Berlin, Moscow, Nicosia, New
  York, Paris, almost anywhere - but as for style . . . that was about as far as it went.
  Harry had no idea where he was, his physical geographical location, but he did know he'd never have any trouble
  finding it again. He had instinctively absorbed  the feel of the place - its aura, its 'co-ordinates' -into his metaphysical
  mind. From this time forward, using the Mobius Continuum, he would always be able to come here.
  The rain came squalling slantwise; the street was almost deserted; it was too late for run-of-the-mill shops,  and only
  one late-nighter was lit at the far end of the street. A Chinese takeaway was open maybe half-way down, also a pub
  opposite the restaurant, letting out a little orange light from incongruous  'antique' bull's-eye windows. But where was
  B.J.'s?
  For a moment the Necroscope thought his driver had simply dumped him at The End Of The Known World, until he
  spotted  the illuminated sign, no bigger or brighter than a cinema's 'Exit' sign, over a  shaded  door  set  back  from  the
  pavement between a shoe  shop  on the one hand and a fish-and-chip bar  with  a  'For  Sale'  sign  in  the  whitewashed
  windows on the other. The illuminated sign was in dull blue neon and simply said, 'B.J. 's.'
  Harry moved into the shadow between the two shops,  making for the door. But as he did so, he sensed  movement
  across the street. Turning his head, he was barely in time to witness the brief electric glare of a camera's flash from a
  dark shop  doorway directly opposite.  Now what the hell . . . ? Someone taking a picture of him, outside  B.J.  's?  But
  who could have known he'd be coming here? He hadn't known himself until this afternoon! And he  certainly  hadn't
  told anyone.
  He turned towards the street and made as if to cross  . . . and a slight, bent figure came scurrying out of the  shop
  doorway, heading down the street towards the pub. Bird-bright eyes under a wide-brimmed hat glanced back at Harry,
  as the figure made off in a slap, slap, slap of leather on wet paving slabs.
  Harry wanted to get a better look at this one. Fixing the orange glow of the pub's  small-pane windows in the eye of
  his mind, he quickly stepped back into the shadows and conjured a Mobius door . . . and a moment later stepped  out
  of the shadows of the pub into the street, and headed back towards B.J. 's.
  The mysterious figure in the raincoat and wide-brimmed hat came almost at a run, saw the Necroscope at  the  last
  moment and very nearly collided with him. As the man swerved aside, Harry caught at his arms as if to steady him, and
  so  came eye-to-eye with him, however briefly. Briefly,  yes,  because  even  as  Harry  stared  at  him,  so  the  small  man
  displayed a surprising strength and wiriness, wrenched himself furiously free and made off down the street again. And this time Harry let him go,
  all five feet four or five of him, watching him disappear out of sight down a side alley . . .
  Harry felt fairly certain he'd never seen the  man before, and therefore  that  the  stranger  didn't  know  and couldn't  possibly  have
  recognized him. As for Harry's use of the Mobius Continuum: the stranger would never believe that the  man in front  of B.J.'s  was
  the same one he'd bumped into on the street just a moment later! So, nothing much for Harry to concern himself over there. But.  . .
  what was it all about? Was it some kind of threat, something to worry over? Or was it simpler than that?
  Maybe Darcy Clarke had decided to  have Harry  watched  - or watched  over - for his own  good. But  if that  was  the  case, how
  had Darcy known he'd be going to B.J. 's?
  Maybe the explanation was even simpler:
  Like, someone was watching B.J.'s for his own reasons.  Or perhaps  a private detective for someone else's reasons?
  Or the police? What if B.J.'s was a front for something else? And what kind of a girl - or woman - was this Bonnie Jean
  anyway, that she should go around shooting at men with a crossbow?  But that last was a question  Harry had asked
  himself many times before. It was one of the several reasons  he  was  here:  to  find  out  if  there  was  any  connection
  between B.J. and Brenda's disappearance.
  Walking thoughtfully back to B.J.'s in the rain, he considered the face he'd seen, or that glimpse of a face, before the
  - what, observer? - had wrenched himself free. That face on the little man, that startled face, that had decided  Harry
  against any further action at this point. It wasn't that he'd felt afraid of the little man, just. . . surprised? Startled? Even
  as startled as the small observer himself? But by what?
  There  are  looks  and  there  are  looks,  and  the  little  man  had  had  one  of  those  looks.  Like  a  cornered  rat.  And
  everyone knows that it's best not to corner a rat. Such  a look, on the face of the little man, had been enough  to stall
  Harry - on this occasion, anyway. But if there should be a next time - then he might want to know more.
  Approaching  B.J.'s, he pictured that face again: that wrinkled old face with its rheumy, runny eyes.  At  a  distance
  he'd thought  of them as 'bright bird eyes,' but seen close-up they weren't. Those  oh-so-strange  three-cornered eyes
  that one second looked grey and the next shone dull silver, like an animal's at night. . .  and the next turned grey again;
  or maybe it was a trick of the street lights. And the long, heavily veined nose, flanged at the tip; and  the  too-wide,
  loose-lipped mouth in its thrusting, aggressive jaws. And overall, the grey, aged aspect of the face generally.
  Just a glimpse, yes, and not necessarily accurate. But it had been sufficient to give him pause . . .
  Letting the picture gradually fade in the eye of his mind,  the
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  Necroscope was satisfied (but not pleased) that he wouldn't easily forget it. Indeed he might just ask BJ. about it. About its owner, anyway. For if she was aware
  of the little man - if she'd ever seen him -she'd certainly know who Harry was talking about.
  
  It was just one of the several questions he had for her. As for the questions she might have for him . . . well, he'd do his best to avoid them.
  So he told himself, anyway . . .
  The door was heavy and banded with metal, and equipped with a buzzer, a peephole, and a speaker grille. Harry buzzed, detected slight movements within, and
  felt himself observed. Eventually a female voice asked:
  'Are you a member, sir? If so, hold up your card. If not, state your business.' Obviously one of the club's 'young lassies,' Harry thought.
  'I'm not a member,' he answered. 'I was invited - by Bonnie Jean.'
  There was silence for a long moment, then:"Wait.'
  Harry seemed to wait an inordinately long time, but when the door finally opened it was B. J. herself who stood holding it open for him. And
  again Harry wasn't certain what he'd been expecting. He had met her before, yes, but a lot had been happening  at the time. Funny,
  but the best picture he had of her was the one George Jakes had given him:
  A real looker . . . Tall, slim, slinky, yet natural with it. (The shape in Jakes's dead mind had been that of Lauren Bacall in that old Bogie movie
  where she says,  'You  know  how  to  whistle,  don't  you?')  Maybe  Eurasian?  She could  be, from the shape of her eyes: like
  almonds and very slightly tilted. . . And her hair, bouncing on her shoulders, seeming black as jet but grey in its sheen.
  The ageless type . . . Anything from nineteen to thirty-five . . . But a looker, oh yes!
  And now  the  reality.  But  still  the  Necroscope  couldn't  see her clearly enough, not  in the  dim light in the  hallway  inside  the
  door. On the other hand, she could obviously see him.
  'So, it's mah brave laddie in person,' she breathed, smiling at him wonderingly with her head on one side. 'Mah own wee man wi'
  no name.' Then she straightened up, and was still two inches shorter than Harry. 'And  maybe  no' so very  wee at that!  But  I was
  beginning to think I'd never see you again! Come in, come in.'
  The hallway  or corridor  was  wide, high-ceilinged, carpeted.  Low music came  from  somewhere  up  ahead;  pop  music,  Harry
  thought,  late '50s  or early  '60s.  He quite  enjoyed  all that  old stuff.  The  corridor  seemed a long one; there  were pictures  on  the
  walls, large tapestries in gilt frames; but there were no doors leading off to right or left. A peculiar set-up.
  'I know what you're thinking,' B.J. said, leading the way. 'I thought so myself the first time I saw  it - a fire hazard,  right? Aye,
  well the
  authorities thought so, too. But in the event of fire - God forbid! - there are escape routes enough at the back and out into the garden. And we are on the ground
  floor, after all.'
  'I wasn't thinking about fire,' Harry answered, not looking where he was going, and bumping into her where she paused at a fire door. And: 'Sorry,' he said, as
  she raised a querying, perhaps amused eyebrow. 'Clumsy of me . . .'
  'But you weren't so clumsy the last time we met,' she answered, with the hint of a frown in her voice. 'Indeed, I might even say greased lightning!' If she was
  fishing for some kind of reaction she didn't get it. Harry merely shrugged, and continued:
  'No, I wasn't considering the fire risk. I was just wondering: why such a long corridor?'
  They were standing very close together. He could smell her scented breath when she answered, 'Originally it was an alley between the buildings to right and
  left. When the shop fagades were built at the front, the alley was roofed over to give safe access to the property at the rear - my place, now.' Her Edinburgh burr had
  almost disappeared, replaced by something Harry didn't quite recognize. 'Downstairs is B.J.'s,' she continued, turning from him and pushing through the door.
  'Upstairs is my living area. And the garret...  is my bedroom.'
  Harry followed her, commenting, 'When you answer a simple query, you really do answer it in full, don't you?'
  And giving him that look again, 'Well, at least one o' us does!' she replied, and a little of the brogue was back. Then, with a wave of her arm: 'B.J.'s,' she
  announced.
  Inside was definitely better than out. Shrugging out of his coat, which a pretty girl in a not-quite-Playboy outfit took to the cloakroom, Harry looked the place
  over. There was a longish mahogany bar with access hatches at both ends, behind which two more girls served drinks - or would serve them, presumably, but at the
  moment there were only one or two customers. And at the far end of the room another girl sat near the juke-box, an original Wurlitzer by its looks, flipping the
  pages of a magazine.
  'A "quiet" night,' Bonnie Jean commented wryly, as Harry perched himself awkwardly on one of too many empty bar-stools, and she went behind the bar to
  serve him. 'It's always the same when it's raining.' There were two other customers ('club members,' Harry reminded himself) at the bar, one at each end where they
  nursed their drinks and chatted up the girls, and a group of three seated at a table in a corner close to a darts board. B.J.'s clients were all over forty, well turned out,
  business types. Men with money, anyway. It looked like the taxi driver was right: this wouldn't be a cheap place to drink.
  Harry continued to look the place over and decided: It's a converted hole-in-the-wall pub. And he was right. B.J.'s had been a fairly standard
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  if poorly-frequented public house at one time. The ancient pumps were still in place behind the bar, and the oak ceiling beams were dark-stained from genuine fire
  smoke. The open fireplace itself was still there, big enough to take a small table, but the flue had been sealed when central heating replaced the warmth of a real fire.
  That fireplace isn't Victorian!' he said: an awkward seeming statement - almost an accusation! But he was still finding his way, getting used to the place. And to
  B.J. To her presence. Or to his presence in her place.
  She took pity on him and didn't smile, but answered what he now saw as a dumb comment with a reasoned reply. 'You're right. This place isn't Victorian. It
  goes back a lot further - two or three hundred years at least. Remember, it's set back from the "modern" stuff, the terrace that fronts onto the street. Twenty years ago
  it got annexed to all of that almost by mistake, when they started to convert the whole street on this side into some kind o' shopping arcade! But the builder went
  broke and it all fell through. And a good thing, too, for this old building was here first. More recently it was a pub, but too out of the way. When I bought it I
  couldn't afford to modernize it, and now I'm glad.'
  And before he could make another stupid comment (what the hell was it about this girl that so tangled his tongue, Harry wondered?) she went on: This was
  
  once a huge living room. Why, it took up most of the ground floor! Now it's split in two by the wall behind this bar. Back there is a storage room, an original
  kitchen, modern toilets, and access to the garden. And the stairs.'
  'What's the difference?' said Harry.
  'Eh?' She cocked her head, and he admired the angle of her jaw, but found that he couldn't look at her. It was disconcerting. He wanted to look at her but
  couldn't. It was as though he was a schoolboy again - his first fumbling approach to Brenda?
  That brought him up short! What was this Bonnie Jean, some kind of Lorelei?
  The difference?' she said.
  'Oh!' He pulled himself together. 'Between a wine bar and a pub.'
  She nodded and smiled knowingly. 'I had'na taken ye for a drinking man, and it seems I was right. But while we're on that subject, what would ye like?'
  'Hmmm?'
  To drink!'
  Harry shrugged. 'I don't know. A short?'
  'Vodka, gin, whisky, brandy, rum - you name it.'
  'Er, brandy, I think.'
  'Cognac? Courvoisier?'
  'Whatever you say.'
  'No, no, no!' She laughed. 'It's what you say!'
  The man at the closest end of the bar had been listening to their conversation. NoV, sneeringly, he called out, 'Seems ye've got
  yoursel' a real live one there, B.J.!' He was short, stocky, and seemed to have no neck; well-dressed but uncomfortable-looking.
  What, a rough diamond? A rough something, certainly.
  Smiling along the bar at him, the Necroscope said, 'A live one? I guess I am - for the time being.' The other didn't know what to
  make of that; scowling, he turned back to his girl.
  And in a lowered voice, Bonnie Jean said, 'He chats me up from time to time. The protective type, you know?' She slid a glass of cognac in front
  of Harry, and said, 'On the house. I. . .  don't know your name?'
  'It's Harry,' he told her. 'Harry Keogh. So what with him and me, it seems you're well protected, Bonnie  Jean.'  He  sipped  at  his
  drink, which hit him at once and in all the right spots. So now he knew what Alec Kyle's tipple had been; what his body's tipple still was!
  'B. J.,' she told him. 'In here I'm just B.J.' But she had known what he meant well enough,  and quickly went on, 'I still owe you for
  that, Harry.'
  'Well, you owe me an explanation at least,' he agreed, and gave a shrug. 'You know, of a couple of small things . . .?'
  'But not here,' she replied. 'Not now. And there's a good many things I don't know about you, either . . .'
  Harry knew a word game when he heard one, and he was good  at them. 'Yes, but not  here,'  he  said,  smiling.  'Not
  now.' Astonishingly, after just a sip or two, the cognac was loosening him up! But he'd better not let it loosen him too fast or far. And aware
  of her eyes on him, finally he looked back at her - and looked, and drank her in.
  Finally he had her; her picture had firmed-up, taken on life. And she wasn't so much the looker that Harry and George Jakes had thought she
  might be. But undeniably attractive, yes - even to the point of magnetic. Those  eyes of hers, their oh-so-slight slant -
  and their colour, a deep, penetrating hazel flecked with gold: feral eyes. Her ears, large but not obtrusive,  flat  to  her
  head and elflike with their pointed tips, not quite hidden in the swirl and bounce of shining hair. Her nose, tip-tilted but by no means 'cute.'
  And her mouth: too ample by far, yet delicious in the curve of its bow. As for her teeth: the Necroscope couldn't remember seeing
  teeth so perfect or so white!
  But she had been studying  him, too.  'Funny  eyes,'  she said. 'Well, not  funny  . . . strange.  Like someone else is looking out  of
  them.'
  Harry could have answered that one, but he kept silent as she went on: They look sort of sad, compassionate, and . . .  I don't
  know, trustworthy?  But deep down, maybe they're a little cold,  too.  Maybe  you've  been made cold, Harry. Have you led a
  strange life?'
  'What, have you been reading my palm?' He smiled his sad smile, which was always a part of him and couldn't be changed, not
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  Alec Kyle's face. 'Maybe you've missed your calling, BJ. Maybe you should have been Gypsy Bonnie!'
  'I. . .  fancy I might have come from Gypsy stock at that,' she answered. 'But how close was I, really?'
  'Maybe too close,' he answered. 'Maybe right now, you're too close.'
  Showing feigned alarm, she drew back a fraction. 'Oh? And are ye big trouble, Harry?'
  'I hope I'm not going to be,' he told her, honestly. 'And I hope you're not going to be. I do need to talk to you, BJ.'
  She drew back more yet, and meant it this time - not away from Harry, but from the man who had spoken to him just a moment
  ago from the end of the bar. He had finished his drink and now knocked a bar stool aside in his stumbling approach. There was an
  unpleasant something on his face: a question  - an accusation  - aimed at B.J. but intended for Harry. Now he gave it
  voice. 'Is this creep botherin' ye, hon . . .?'
  And Harry thought: Protective? More the possessive type, I'd have thought. And  seeing the ugly glint in the man's
  eyes, and weighing him up: Two hundred and twenty pounds if he's an ounce, and every ounce a pain in the backside!
  
  Ill
  HOME WITH BONNIE JEAN
  And: Sergeant, said Harry to a good friend of his, well over a hundred miles away in the cemetery in Harden, / believe
  I have a problem. His dead friend, an ex-Army physical training instructor, and an extremely hard man in his time, was into
  Harry's mind at once, looking out through his eyes and reading the picture he saw in the bar room. The thing  is, Harry went
  on, while Sergeant got acquainted, / don't want too much mess.
  Step away from the bar, Harry, 'Sergeant' Graham Lane told him. This lad's big and bold, but he's getting  old. What, forty-five?
  And look at his gut: he drinks too much, and he's had too much tonight, too. The next time he speaks  to you, if he really means to
  have a go, is when he'll make his move. Let me take it from there . . .
  Harry moved away  from the  bar into  open  space,  heard B.J.  saying: 'Look, Big Jimmy,  we were only  talking. I've the  right to
  talk to people in mah own place, have I no'?'
  'It's the way he was lookin' at ye, lass,' Big Jimmy answered, speaking to her but narrowing his eyes  at Harry.  'I just  dinnae like
  his attitude, his flashy answers!' (Here it came):
  'You!' Big Jimmy rasped, turning more fully to Harry. 'So ye're a live one, eh?' And  he started  his swing. 'Well, not  for long, ye
  fucking pipsqueak!'
  Sergeant was right there in the Necroscope's mind, directing him, almost controlling him. So Harry let him handle it his way.
  The bar was on Harry's right, and Big Jimmy moving along it from the left, still knocking aside bar stools.  The man had swung
  with his right hand, a  lumbering  blow  with  lots  of  weight  but  nothing  of  speed.  The  Necroscope  stepped  forward
  inside  the arc of the fist, caught  Big Jimmy's wrist in both hands,  turned  and  bent  forward  from  the  waist.  The  big
  man's impetus carried him forward;  Harry's  back  formed  the  fulcrum  and  his  opponent's  arm  the  lever;  he  rose  up,
  somersaulted,
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  came crashing down on a table and reduced it to rubble. And Harry said:
  Christ, Sergeant! I said no mess!
  What mess? The other answered. Ifs over! He's winded but that's all. And maybe he'll take it as a warning. Only a total moron would push it
  any further. He's seen how fast we are.
  Well, I hope you're right, Harry answered with feeling, as Big Jimmy got groggily to his feet.
  'Why, ye—' The man took a stumbling step forward.
  The Necroscope took a pace back, his arms lifting and extending forward as his hands  commenced  moving  in  an
  unmistakable karate weave. And cocking his head slightly on one side, warningly: 'Don't,' he said. Simply that.
  'Huh!' The other grunted, stopping dead in his tracks. 'So ye're a hard man, are ye?'
  'You really don't want to find out,' Harry told him.
  And from behind the bar: 'Ye're leaving, Big Jimmy!' B.J. snapped. 'Right now, an' ye're no coming back!'
  Big Jimmy looked at her through little red pig-eyes, cast one more murderous glance at Harry, and grunted, Tuck ye'all, then!' As
  he swung around and headed for the door, one of the girls was hot on his heels with his coat; and B.J. shouting after them:
  'Tear up his card! No one's ever tae let that pig in here again!' Her eyes stopped blazing and she looked at Harry, who was
  finishing his drink. And regaining a semblance  of  control,  B.J.  said:  'Greased  lightning,  aye.  Maybe  ye're  right,  and  I
  should'nae have tae do with ye.'
  Too late for that, B.J.' he told her. 'We're already had "tae do," as you well know.' He glanced round the room but no one was
  looking his way. They probably thought it best not to. One of the girls was clearing away the wrecked table. 'We have to talk,' Harry reminded B.J.
  She pursed her lips, as if preparing to argue, but finally said, Tonight, then, after we've closed. Midnight, right here. And now perhaps ye'11
  go? Ye're no' a member, after all. Ah've mah licence tae think about.'
  And you should think a little more about your accent, he thought, which changes like the wind round Edinburgh Castle!
  B.J. signalled for one of her girls to get his coat, then phoned  for a taxi: 'Just in case the Big Man's waiting outside
  for ye . . .' But he wasn't, and neither was the little man with the camera. Harry didn't need the taxi but took it anyway -
  as far as the town centre. .Then he took the Mobius route the rest of the way to Bonnyrig.
  Back home he rummaged around until he found an incredibly ancient bottle of Scottish malt whisky that must have belonged to
  his stepfather. There was still an inch or two of liquor in the bottom, and as he poured himself a large shot he couldn't help but wonder what
  Alec Kyle would have thought of it. Oddly enough, he still felt buoyed by the single
  
  shot of cognac he'd had at B.J.'s! So what was he to make of that? A warning?
  And: I've really got to get this body in training, Harry thought. With which he poured the contents of his glass - and the rest of the bottle -away down
  the kitchen sink. Once you know your enemy, it's easier to deal with him.
  And that was the end of that. . .
  But maybe he should have taken a drink if only to lighten up a little. Doom and gloom were back by the time he used the Mobius Continuum to return to B.J.'s, a
  little after midnight, and the miseries were on Harry as heavy as ever. Also, he was somewhat upset by all this unnecessary hopping about; if B.J. had really
  wanted to talk to him, why hadn't she simply taken him into her back room and talked to him? Or ...  had she needed the time to set him up?
  Whichever, he was alert as never before as he stepped out of the Continuum across the street from B.J.'s in the dark doorway where he'd seen the little man with
  the camera. If anything he was early; two of B.J.'s girls were just getting into a taxi at the kerbside, and B.J. herself was seeing them off. She gave a wave from her
  doorway as the cab pulled away, then moved back out of sight. And the illuminated sign blinked into darkness.
  Harry conjured a door of his own, moved across the street, rang B.J.'s bell. She hadn't had time to lock the door yet; he sensed movement, heard the rattle of a
  chain; the door swung open.
  And seeing him: 'Now how in all that's . . .?' she said, and frowned her puzzlement. 'You weren't here just a moment ago. I thought you weren't coming.'
  He shrugged. 'I saw your girls leaving and waited. Didn't want anyone to get the, er, wrong idea.'
  'Oh, really?' she raised an eyebrow. 'Well, maybe ye'd better come in then, before someone sees you!' And as he made to step across the threshold, 'But Harry,
  you can believe me that they wouldn't get the wrong idea. So let's have it understood: this is strictly business. It's not that I want you here, but that you want to be
  here, right?'
  His turn to frown, where he paused with one foot over the threshold. 'You invited me.'
  'No,' she denied it. 'You insisted!'
  'Well, I'm here anyway,' he said.
  'And do you still want to talk to me?' (She half blocked his way).
  'If you'll let me in, yes!'
  Smiling, she let him pass. And walking along the corridor while she finished locking the door, he wondered, now what was that all about?
  The lights were low in the bar room; Harry stood waiting, until B.J. came in from the corridor and turned them off altogether. Then he
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  stood in total  darkness,  until  a vertical crack of light expanded into  an oblong as B.J.  opened  a recessed  door  behind the  bar and
  passed through into the back room. And looking back at him, she said: 'Well, are ye no' coming?' She was  in and out  of that  accent
  of hers like a hungry budgie in its cage, hopping to and fro from swing to swing!
  Harry let himself through the bar hatch and followed her into the back room, or one of them.  It  was  a storage room with  a door
  to  one side and stairs  ascending to  B.J.'s  private  rooms  overhead.  Here the  Necroscope  hesitated  . . . until  from  the  foot  of  the
  stairs B.J. said: 'I see more than enough of that bar of an evening. So if we must talk, let's at least be comfortable.'
  Following her up the lighted stairs, he admired her figure and the natural swing of her backside in her sheath skirt,  which was  slit
  up one side oriental style. B.J. was  slim and shapely  . . . and classy,  yes.  Or was  it just  Kyle's  body  chemistry?  Whichever, the
  Necroscope felt it; also their closeness: the fact  that  they  were quite  alone here. But  (he was  quick to  reassure  himself) it was  all
  part of the search for Brenda.
  This is where I live,' she told  him, stepping  aside on a landing that  opened  directly  into  her living room. 'Go on in.' And  as he
  stepped by her into the room: 'Do have a seat, Harry Keogh,' she said.
  Before doing so he looked the room over, and was pleased with what he saw. For where the bar below was a mixture of different
  styles, this room was all B.J. - it perfectly reflected her image, or the image that he still had of her. It was tasteful, yet  exciting, too.
  It pleased the eye, and simultaneously satisfied the mind. Lacking pretension or ostentation, still  it looked rich, looked real. . . like
  the woman herself?
  The carpet  was  pile,  patterned,  and obviously  wool.  Harry  could almost  feel its  warmth  coming right through  the  soles  of his
  shoes. The carpet's pattern was . . . what, Turkish? Greek? But Mediterranean, anyway. As were the  varnished  pine  ceiling beams
  that formed spokes from the centre of the ceiling, completing the wheel where they were joined up by  curving members around  the
  room's perimeter. Thus the room had a circular or at least  octagonal look, while in fact  it was  simply  a square  room. But  actually
  there was nothing 'simple' about it.
  The  main  lighting  feature,  a  small  round  chandelier  on  an  extending  golden  chain,  depended  from  the  hub  of  the  pine
  ceiling-wheel; its crystal pendants served to contain the electric light from three egg-shaped bulbs,  so that  the  whole piece was  set
  glowing like a small soft sun.  Its  light was  adequate,  but  could be supplemented  by  use of shaded  wall lights, and by  the  reading
  lamp on its tall white stand near the circular central table.
  The three inner walls were decorated with what looked like good quality old prints in modern frames, while in the comers narrow
  tapestry  screens  framed  in  bamboo  added  to  the  circular  effect.  In  the  exterior  wall,  a  wide  bay  window  and  seat  took  up
  three-quarters of the
  space and opened onto a balcony overlooking the  garden; the  Necroscope  could see the  gently  mobile tops  of trees  or shrubbery
  out  there,  gleaming a lush green in the  rain, and  a  night-dark  hill  in  the  distance  (the  Castle's  Rock,  maybe,  or  Arthur's  Seat?)
  silhouetted against a lowering sky.
  A light-tan leather lounger faced two  matching easy  chairs across  the  polished  top  of the  pine  table,  and a pair  of tall, narrow,
  crammed bookshelves filled the gaps between  the  framed prints  along one wall. A television  set  at the  foot  of one of the  screens
  that flanked the bay window could be viewed comfortably from the lounger, while a music centre  on its  stand  occupied  the  space
  
  in front of the other screen. Behind all four of the screens small chests of drawers were barely  visible; obviously  Bonnie Jean kept
  her clutter in the drawers, well out of sight of visitors. She was one tidy lady.
  To complete the picture, there  was  a rotating  drinks  cabinet on the  open  landing itself,  where B.J.  had paused,  presumably  to
  prepare drinks, and to inquire: 'A Courvoisier?'
  Harry almost replied in the affirmative, then remembered his vow against hard liquor and shook his head. 'Thanks, no.'
  'What?' she said. 'And am I supposed to sit here drinking by mahself!'
  'Nothing  hard,' he answered.  'I'm not  one for hard liquor. Tonight  was  a  one-off.  If  you  hadn't  suggested  cognac,  I  probably
  wouldn't have thought of it. But look, since B.J. 's is a wine bar, why don't you offer me a glass of wine?'
  That seemed to please her. 'Actually,' she said, 'I think I'm glad ye're no' a drinker. Hard drink will make a fool of a man - like Big
  Jimmy, for instance. It'll put an idiot in your head and a braggart in your mouth, to think and speak for ye!'
  The Necroscope  was  well able to  appreciate  that:  the  idea of other  people  in your  head, speaking  and acting for  you.  And  it
  wasn't too far-fetched, either, except his people were anything but idiots and usually told the truth!
  'As for the difference,' B.J. went on . . .
  '. . . Eh?' he felt obliged to cut in.
  'Between a pub and a wine bar,' she smiled.
  'Oh!'
  'It's the licence,' she explained. 'A pub's hours are controlled, and its clients often aren't! But my wine bar's a club whose  opening
  hours are satisfactory to me . . . within the law, you understand, and with clients that I can pick and choose.'
  'Like Big Jimmy?' Harry sat on the lounger.
  'It was Big Jimmy's first bad mistake,' she answered, 'and his last.'
  'You know,' Harry said, 'that  was  the  first  Jock  "Jimmy"  I ever met? I know  everyone  calls everyone  Jimmy  up  here, but  are
  there really that many Jameses?'
  r
   
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  She laughed, and explained: 'It's like "Johns"  in  London.  Or  "Bruces"  in  Australia.  If  you  don't  know  someone's
  name, you call him Jimmy, that's all. But Big Jimmy really was one.'
  Harry grimaced, and agreed, 'He was one, all right!'
  Til tell ye something, though,' she said, sitting in one of the easy chairs opposite  him. 'You'd best  be  careful  how
  you use "Jock." The Scots don't much care for it.'
  'Oh, I can tell you know about them,' Harry said. 'Despite that you're not one of them . . .?'
  B.J. turned her face away and busied herself pouring wine, generally hiding her momentary confusion.
  She had brought  a silver tray bearing a crystal  decanter,  a  bottle,  and  glasses,  from  the  drinks  cabinet.  Now  she
  poured a glass of red wine from the decanter and a glass of liebfraumilch from the bottle. Taking up the sweet white wine, she offered
  a toast: 'Here's to you, Harry Keogh.' And the accent had quite disappeared.
  Harry picked up his glass  and  looked  at  it.  The  glass  was  many-faceted;  its  contents  were  a  light  ruby  red,  but
  seemed misty. 'The red's for me?' he queried. 'But I thought  red wine was supposed  to give you a headache?  What's
  this, the "house" wine?'
  That headache  stuffs  a myth,' she told him. 'In fact I deliberately chose  the red for you because  it's not so strong.
  But it does have more than its share of sediment, which is why I decanted  it. I managed to clear most of it. But if you
  don't like it. . .' she shrugged. 'I can always make you a coffee, or something else of your choice?'
  Harry took a sip. The taste wasn't unpleasant; there was a certain bite to it - a hint of resin, maybe? He took a stab  at
  it. 'You seem taken by things Mediterranean.'
  'Aha!' she said. 'One minute an innocent, the next a connoisseur! But you're right: a friend brought a whole crate of it
  back from Greece for me. Probably very cheap local stuff, which might explain its quality, but. . .'
  '. . . It's okay,' Harry cut her short. 'It tastes  fine. And I'm grateful for your hospitality. But B.J., I do have to talk to
  you.'
  'I know,' she said. 'About that night?'
  'Yes.'
  'Well good, because I want to talk to you, too.'
  'You probably saved my life,' Harry went on, 'and I'm not forgetting that I owe you for that. But what you did was
  still a killing, if not downright murder! Also, you nailed the "wolfman" to his seat in that van, and so helped kill him,
  too.  And  you  were  very  cool,  calm  and  collected  about  the  whole  business  -  which  worries  me.  I  mean,  it's  not
  everyone who goes around shooting people with a crossbow, then shrugs it off like it's something that happens all the
  time . . . "
  She waited until she was sure he had finished, then said: 'You could
  have asked me all of these things that night, after you . . . well, after I found  myself  in the  alley . . . when  I was  off balance? Let's
  face it,  Harry,  if I have a case to  answer,  so do you.  You said you  weren't  a policeman,  so . . .  what  were you doing  there  that
  night, eh? And then there's a really big question: namely, how did you get us out of there? I mean, I still can't believe that—'
  '—Drugged,' the Necroscope lied. 'I drugged you.' (He'd come prepared for this).
  
  'What?' Her eyes has narrowed  to  slits,  increasing their  tilt,  making her look more feral than  ever. 'You . . . drugged me? How?
  When?' Disbelief was written plain on Bonnie Jean's face.
  'When I took your arm: I squeezed your arm tightly, held you, but still you pulled away. The effort you  exerted to  free yourself
  concealed the fact that I'd administered a drug from a small device in my  hand. It  had been meant for the  people  I was  after,  but  I
  hadn't had an opportunity to use it.'
  She let that sink in, and thought about it. And finally:  'That. . .  all sounds  a bit  far-fetched,'  she said. 'What,  you  got me out  of
  there, unconscious, on your own?' But Harry saw that she was uncertain.
  'I wasn't alone,' he went on. 'I had friends  in the  yard  at the  back of that  place.  And  I switched  the  lights off,  remember? That
  stopped the police for a little while. By the time they went inside, we'd bundled you over the wall.'
  'Oh?' She cocked her head on one side. 'And then you carried me across  the  road, in full view of anyone  who  just  might happen
  to be looking, to the alley, where you waited for me to recover, right?' Her sarcasm didn't quite drip, but it brimmed, certainly.
  'Yes,' Harry nodded, delighted that she herself had supplied the answer to his biggest problem.  'Exactly right. There  was  a lot  of
  milling around; most of the police were inside, or gathered at the entrance ramp;  their  vehicles were all over the  place,  blocking the
  road. And  there  was  the  distraction  of the  blazing van, of course.  Also,  if we had been seen . . . well, the  people  I work  for are
  powerful. And so you see it wasn't really difficult. The drug is quick-acting, and just as quick to disperse. After a few minutes  you
  came out of it. You were a bit shaken but nothing serious. Surely you remember sitting down on the wet cobbles?'
  B.J.  looked very  uncertain  now; her eyes  blinked rapidly  as she attempted  to  absorb  all of this.  'I was  shaken  up,'  she finally
  said. 'I . . .  didn't know what to make of things, except that it seemed like some kind of magic. I went  to  my  hotel  and to  bed. In
  the morning . . . well, it was all like a dream! And I had no way  to  contact  you  or even to  know  who  you  were. And  I still  don't.'
  She looked at him accusingly.
  'I shouldn't  have helped  you,'  the  Necroscope  continued,  and took  another  sip  of wine. 'It  didn't  do  me  much  good  with  my
  superiors, the
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  people at the top. I should have left you at the garage to fend for yourself, and that  way  the  police  would  have had a suspect
  for the killings. But . . .' He shrugged. 'You had saved my life, and I felt obliged.'
  'So . . .  you're an agent, of sorts?'
  'Yes.' (It wasn't too much of a lie. He had been one, at that time, anyway).
  'Working ...  for whom?'
  'People,'  Harry  shrugged again. 'When the  police  can't  do something that  needs doing - when  the  law defeats  the  lawful  -
  then my people are there to help. Except they're not my people any more. I overstepped myself, with you.'
  Her mouth fell open. 'You're out?'
  'Yes,' he answered. This is my last job: to find out why you were there, why you did what you did. Only answer a question
  or two, truthfully . . . you'll be in the clear. And I shall have squared it with my people.'
  They'll take you back?'
  'No, but that's okay. I have other things  to  do.' He sipped  again at his wine, which was  in fact  excellent. It  soothed  a sore
  throat he hadn't even realized he had. And it was loosening not only his tongue but  his mind, too,  and making everything  he'd
  said seem reasonable - even to him!
  'So . . .' (she was still uncertain). 'After you'd left me in that alley -       '. and that was something of a swift getaway, too, if I may say so! - where did you go? And
  how did you disappear so quickly?'
  'I went to my superiors and briefed them on what had occurred. They'd been after that gang for a long time. As for getting away
  quickly:       \ there's a wicket gate in that warehouse door in the alley. I simply       I stepped through it.' (Well,  he'd stepped
  through a kind of door,       : anyway, if not a wicket gate).
  The frown was back on her face. 'I could swear that when I glanced away from you, then  back again, you  had simply  . . .  I
  don't know, disappeared?'
  That stuff I used on you,' he answered. 'It has illusory effects, but       i they soon wear off. Also, it was very misty in the alley.
  Anyway, what       ; are you suggesting? Where's the mystery? I get paid -1 used to get paid       ' - not to be seen, to arrive
  unannounced and depart without leaving a trace.' Suddenly Harry was slurring his words. Not a lot, but sufficient that he noticed it.
  'So what with the mist and all, and your disorienta-       i tion . . .'
  And there was B.J. refilling his glass. Had he emptied it that quickly? 'Now it's your turn,' he said, stifling a yawn.
  'Is my company that boring?' B.J. smiled wonderingly. Or so he thought.
  Tired!' the Necroscope told her, feeling the weight of his leaden eyelids. Not surprising, really . . .  all the chasing about  he'd been
  doing . . . and the drink . . . and the big question mark still hanging like a sword  over Brenda and Harry  Jr: their  whereabouts,  their
  safety.  He leaned to  one side, propping  himself up  with  one elbow on the  lounger, and  asked:  'Why  were  you  there?  Why  the
  crossbow? Why did you kill that Skippy bloke, and try to kill the one in the wolf mask? Just for revenge? You said that  they'd  put
  friends of yours in jeopardy.' (The word 'jeopardy' hadn't  come out  very  well, but  Harry  continued  anyway):  'Which was  enough
  to make you track them down and kill them? Well, all I can say is, you  must  really  care for your  friends!  Why  not  start  by  telling
  me about that?'
  'Are you okay?' she looked a little worried now, concerned for him.
  'Me? I'm fine!' But the glass tilted in his hand a little. That was okay, there wasn't much wine in the glass anyway.
  'Look, be comfortable,' she said. 'I've only just realized how wiped out you look! Here, let me fix that . . .' And before
  
  he could complain even if he'd wanted to, B.J. had placed a couple of pillows under his head. 'You have hollows under
  your eyes a cat could curl up and sleep in!' she said. But the way she said the word 'sleep' was like an invocation: he
  could actually feel his itchy eyelids closing, and was too tired to rub them open.
  'Your . . . turn . . .' he said, lolling there—
  —And barely felt her hands touching his shoulders, turning him on his back, and easing his head onto the pillows. And: Damn it! he thought,
  as he passed out. And a moment or an aeon later, even more idiotically: / hope I didn't drop my glass!
  When she was satisfied that the Necroscope was well and truly under, taking her time and careful not to disturb him too much,
  B.J. unclenched his fingers from around the glass, removed the tray and  wine  and  all  back  to  the  drinks  cabinet,  then
  returned to Harry and pulled down the crystal chandelier on its retractable cable and chain. His story  hadn't been so
  wild after all. Not to someone like Bonnie Jean Mirlu, who had heard many wild stories and known many wild things  in
  her long, long life. And what he'd said about drugging her hadn't come as too much of a surprise either, except for the fact that she
  hadn't been able to work out what he'd done to her at the time. But now? It was far easier to believe that than that he'd
  somehow conveyed her in the blink of an eye from one place to another, without covering the space  between! What,
  like some kind of Genie out of the Arabian Nights?
  Well,  Bonnie  Jean  didn't  believe  in  that  sort  of  magic,  but  the  'magic'  of  secret  agencies,  like  Mis  5  or  6,  and
  mindbending drugs especially, these were things she could readily believe in. Yes, for she had experience of the latter!
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  Indeed her red wine was a case - or a good many bottles - in point. The recipe for that had been old when the sciences were young, and when dabblers had been
  called alchemists. B.J. didn't know what the ingredients were, but she knew where they were cached and how to brew them up. And she knew something of their
  origins, too: the islands of the Greek Sea - the 'Mediterranean,' as it was now - and the Bulgarian Empire (later Romania, or Eflak, or Wallachia). Oh yes, and even
  further afield; for certain of the ingredients had come from the Far East with the Hsiung-nu (later the Huns), in the form of precious balms and medicines.
  Certainly the wine had been known in Manchuria and Sinkiang, and to the esoteric Worm Wizards of the Takla Makan Desert, and much later to Arab
  alchemists in olden Irem, the City of Pillars. In the 14th Century it had been used by the Bulgars - who were good chemists and wine-makers both - and by the
  Serbians and the Ottoman Turks, to ward off the Black Death itself which also had its source in the east. After that, its secrets had been lost to mankind in the reel
  and roil and turmoil of a troubled world. Lost to mankind, aye, but not to Bonnie Jean's Master, who remembered all things and told them to her in the hours when
  she was called up to attend Him. For she was His watcher where He lay in state, the Guardian of His Place. And the hour of His calling would be soon now . . .
  . . . The howling in her mind, that would call her back even from half-way across the world - the cry of the Great Wolf in His secret den -that throbbing throat
  that the wild Carpathians had known when the Danube was a trade route and Alaric of the Visigoths was yet to sack Rome . . .
  Reluctantly, B.J. drew herself back from her mental wanderings in space and time. After all, these weren't her memories but those of her Master,
  and she was only privy to them through Him. But Bonnie Jean had watched over Him for two hundred years - like her mother before her, and
  hers before her - and was a zealous, even a jealous Guardian. And now someone was come who might, just might, threaten B.J., and in so doing
  threaten Him in His place.
  Well, threats weren't new. They were old as earth, as old as her Master's being here; indeed, some of them had come
  here with him! But the nature of the threat was something else. Aye, for there are threats  and there are threats. Now
  she must discover what sort Harry was, and decide how best to deal with it.
  Kill him? Oh, that would be easy, so easy. She could have done it in the garage - she almost had  done  it - except
  she'd thought he was a policeman, and knew that the police don't give up easily when one of their own is murdered.
  She could even do it now, this very minute . . . Ah, but what would follow behind? What of these  powerful friends of
  his, these men who could act when the law
  couldn't? And what was their interest in her? Was it just the way he said it was, or was there a  lot  more  to  it?  No,
  killing him now would be stupid, dangerous. Especially if he had been sent  here, as he alleged. Safer to find out about him -
  discover all there was to know -and then let her Master decide his fate.
  By now the wine would be right through his system. It was time to begin. Bonnie Jean propped Harry up with pillows until he was in the
  half-reclining position. She drew curtains across the bay windows, turned down the chandelier lights to a softly luminous glow,
  and gave the spiral flex a gentle twist that set the pendants  slowly turning. Winding and unwinding, they sent a stroboscopic
  flicker through the finely sheathing membranes of the Necroscope's eyelids.
  And: 'My turn, aye,' she said softly, in a while. 'Or are you no longer interested? Don't you want to listen to me then, Harry Keogh?'
  His eyelids flickered and B.J. smiled. Oh, he could hear that hypnotic voice of hers, all right, as in some especially vivid dream. 'No need to
  speak,' she told him. 'Simply nod, or shake your head, in answer to my questions. Do you understand?'  B.J. couldn't know that this
  was a 'game' he'd played before, and that therefore his resistance was weakened. Or should be.
  He nodded, but his eyelids continued to flutter a little. 'Would you like to see?' B.J. wondered out loud. 'If so, then open your eyes. The light
  won't hurt you; indeed the crystals will help you see more clearly. They'll help both of us to see much more clearly.'
  The Necroscope opened his eyes, and Bonnie Jean was gratified to note that their pupils were dark pinpricks swimming on moist mirror irises.
  'Now listen,' she said, ensuring that the soft spokes of light from the chandelier's pendants  were wheeling directly across  his eyes
  and forehead. 'I want you to listen carefully and answer truthfully. You do want to answer my questions,  don't you?' Her voice was now
  magnetic, utterly irresistible.
  (A slight twitch of Harry's head: left and right, left and right. A shake? A denial? He must be stronger than she'd suspected! But no, he'd been
  asked a question and was only trying to answer it truthfully - just as she had demanded!) Then his Adam's apple wobbled, and he
  gurgled: 'Y-your . . . t-turn . . . "
  
  Why, he was continuing their 'waking' conversation! A different reaction from anything she'd ever known before. Oh, he was a
  strange one, all right, this one! But: 'My turn, yes,' she agreed. And why not? Why  not  satisfy  his  queries  here  and  now?  Then,
  whatever his fate would be later, for now at least he'd be satisfied that she was innocent of any 'ulterior' motives in connection with the killings
  in the garage. What she'd told him at that time - that her motive was pre-emptive, defensive - had been a lie concocted on the spur of the moment.
  She had hoped to gain his sympathy by telling him that those people had threatened
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  friends of hers. That way he'd be more likely to see her as an instrument of his own revenge, which he had. And now
  was the ideal time, the perfect opportunity, to substantiate and reinforce his previous opinion.
  And so: 'My turn,' she said again. 'You want to question  me, Harry? You want me to answer those  questions  you
  asked me before you fell asleep?'
  (His slow,  shuddering  nod).  And  B.J.  wondering,  What  sort  of  mind  has  this  man,  anyway?  A  determined  one,
  certainly!
  'Very well,' she went along with it. 'Except. . .  I shall expect you to believe everything I tell you. And no matter what I
  tell you, or say to you, you will only remember that I'm innocent of any crime. You'll only remember that I'm innocent,
  and anything else that I require you to remember. And in that respect, and with that regard to myself, you will only act
  when I desire it. At such times as I require, you'll follow any instructions I may give you to the letter. You'll follow any
  instructions I give you . . . to . . . the . . . letter! Is that understood?'
  But his nod was tentative, trembling.
  'If I'm to trust you with the truth, you must trust me,' she insisted. 'Isn't it only fair?
  'Y-yes,' he said.
  'Very well,' she said. 'Now  pay  attention,  and  let's  try  to  have  a  normal  conversation  -  except  you  will  generally
  accept what I say. But you are allowed to point out any holes in the logic of my answers. So . . .  can we try to  talk
  normally?'
  Harry's throat worked up and down as he licked his lips. His face relaxed a little, and he said, 'Sure, why not?' in a
  perfectly ordinary speaking voice . . .  but his pinprick pupils remained fixed unblinkingly on the slowly mobile pendants.
  B.J. was frankly astonished: at one and the same time he was difficult and he was easy! Perhaps, when these  'people'
  of  his  had  trained  him,  they  had  somehow  strengthened  him  against  hypnotic  suggestion.  And  post-hypnotic
  suggestion? If so, then he was a dead man. He mustn't be allowed to take any knowledge out of this room except what
  she desired him to know. But that was for the future, while for now:
  'All right, then let's take it question by question,' she suggested. 'You wanted to know about my crossbow?'
  'It's a weird weapon,' he said, attempting a shrug.
  'No, it isn't,' she shook her head, despite that he wasn't looking at her. 'It's a perfectly normal weapon which I use to
  hunt rabbits in the Highlands. I climb, hunt, and live off the land; those are my hobbies. But I know a crossbow's  power, and that it
  will kill men as well as rabbits. Also, it's a silent  weapon! Anyway, it served its purpose  admirably, and it saved  your
  life. Does that answer your question?'
  'Yes and no.'
  'Yes and no? Theft let's deal with the "yes" part first. What do you mean by yes?'
  'Your answer goes part of the way to explaining a coincidence.'
  'Which is?'
  That the man you helped to kill - the one in the van - believed he was a werewolf.'
  That  hit  B.J.  like a fist!  And  forgetting for the  moment  that  she was  in control  here,  she  even  tried  to  cover  her  momentary
  confusion, which Harry wouldn't notice anyway. But then, regaining control: 'Are you saying that you, or these "people" of yours,
  actually believe in werewolves?'
  'No, but the man you shot in the van did believe in them. He thought he was one. If you  had believed it,  too,  you'd  use either  a
  silver bullet, or—'
  '—A silvered crossbow bolt?' (She had seen it coming).
  'Yes. And you did.'
  She laughed, however shakily. 'That bolt was ornamental! Both of them were. They were taken  from the  wall of a hunting lodge
  in the  Grampians.  They  were decorations,  hanging over a fireplace  along with  a  lot  of  other  old  weaponry.  The  lodge  was  my
  uncle's place,  and when  he passed  on I got one or two  of his things.  The  heads  of  those  bolts  were  silvered  for  easy  cleaning,
  because silver can't rust!' It was all a lie; clever, but  a lie. But  she knew  that  because it at least  sounded  feasible, it would  be that
  much more acceptable to her 'guest,' especially in his drug-induced trance. In any case, this was a 'normal' conversation  and allowed
  for normal responses. So perhaps Harry had been looking for just such an answer; maybe  he'd even hoped  for one. At  any  rate  he
  sighed . . .  a sigh of relief, it seemed to B.J.
  Yet still she frowned and said: 'But  if you  and these  . . . these  "people"  of yours  don't  believe in werewolves,  what  made you
  think I might?'
  'I didn't say that we did,' Harry answered. 'It was just something that required resolution, that's all.'
  'And is it resolved now?'
  'Yes.'
  'Very well, and now I have a question for you.'
  
  'Oh?'
  'What else are you working on? You said you weren't concerned that you'd been dropped by your people because you  had other
  things to do. What things?'
  Tm searching for my wife and child.'
  Stranger by the moment! B.J. thought. But he couldn't be faking it. His eyes hadn't blinked once; they were still fixed firmly on the
  crystal pendants where they slowly revolved, continuing to seek their natural balance. 'Are your wife and child lost,
  then?'
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  'They . . . went away,' he said. 'From me, my work. The baby . . .  he  . . .  it  was  a  difficult  birth.  My  wife's  health
  suffered, mental as well as physical - or rather, mental instead of physical.'
  'Post-natal depression?'
  'And other . . . problems, yes.'
  'So she ran away? With your baby?'
  'Yes.'
  'But in your line of work, with your experience, you'll be able to find them, right? I mean, like you found me? I'm not
  in the telephone book, Harry.'
  'Neither is Brenda,' he answered. 'But I can't simply ask a taxi driver to take me to her . . .' '
  That's how you found me?'
  'Yes.'
  'So . . .  where will you look for them?'
  'Abroad. Canada. Maybe America. The West Coast. Seattle. That's where I'll start, anyway. Probably.'
  'And when will you go?'
  'As soon as possible. Maybe tomorrow. But that's a lot of questions, and it's your turn again.'
  She nodded, despite that he couldn't see her; it was just that their conversation was that 'normal!'
  'You asked me if I'd killed or helped to kill those men in the garage out of revenge,' she reminded him. 'Well, I did. Revenge pure
  and simple. I told you it was because  they had placed friends of mine in jeopardy, but it was more than that. I don't
  much like to talk about  it, that's  all.' (She was lying again, but trying to make it sound  good). 'You see, one  of  them
  used  to  come  here,  into  my  bar.  He  was  chatting-up  one  of  the  girls,  a  close  friend  of  mine.  Later  he  called  from
  London, asked her down to see him. She went, and didn't come back. But she left a note of the address  she'd gone to.
  I waited, and eventually saw in the newspapers  how her body  had been discovered. After that, I felt it was all up to
  me. I look after my girls, Harry. Their welfare is very important to me ..."
  At least that last part was the truth, and B.J.'s story as a whole wasn't a complete falsehood. About  a year ago, she
  had lost a girl on holiday in London. She simply hadn't come back and was still missing, B.J. presumed dead. The work
  of her Master's olden enemies? She prayed not. . .
  Meanwhile, though  she  had  finished  speaking,  Harry  wasn't  saying  anything.  So  B.J.  prompted  him:  'Does  that
  sound reasonable?'
  'Yes,' he answered tentatively, 'as far as it goes. Skippy was from Newcastle. Edinburgh is a short  hop. Skippy was
  always on the run. He might have come up here to get away from trouble in Newcastle. But. . . you shot at two men.'
  'One because he was trying to kill you,' she answered. 'It was dark in the garage, and he was obviously a killer. And . . .'
  '. . . And the other?' Harry prompted her, his eyes as glassy and fixed as ever.
  'Because I thought he was trying to run me down! I mean, I didn't actually shoot  at anyone,  just  at the  van . . . and I had to  get
  out of there! I was frightened, Harry!' It was another clever lie. And while the Necroscope's drugged mind was absorbing it:
  'Your turn, Harry,' she said. 'Just what is this organization you worked for?'
  'It's called E-Branch,' he said, flatly. 'Part of the Secret Intelligence Services. The most secret of them all.'
  'And your job with this E-Branch?'
  He was silent, but beads of sweat had formed on his brow.
  'Well?'
  'I was a field agent.'
  'Doing what?'
  'You saw that for yourself. Those  louts in the garage were murderers and  thieves.  They  were  responsible  for  the
  deaths  of innocent people, including policemen,  and  your  friend!  I  was  -  oh,  a  means  of  enforcing  the  law,  where
  natural laws no longer applied.'
  'What,' she cocked her head on one side, 'they'd given you a licence to kill?' That wasn't exactly  what he'd meant,
  but:
  'Oh, I'm no stranger to death,' he answered. And before she could respond, 'But now it's your turn again. Why does
  an "innocent"  girl like you have access  to mind-bending drugs  - like the stuff you must have put  in  my  wine?  And
  why, if you're so innocent, are you afraid of being questioned?  Instead  of hunting  this  Skippy  and  his  lycanthrope
  friend down, why didn't you give the police the girl's last known address  in London, which you told me  you  knew?
  Last but not least, why is someone watching you or your place - this place? A shrivelled-up little man with a face like
  
  ...  I don't know. Like a greyhound?'
  But Bonnie Jean had had more than enough of this game now. And anyway, he was much too good at it. As for that
  last question of his: it had shaken her to her roots!
  So: Enough of this! she thought. Now it was time to apply the real pressure . . .
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  IV
  HARRY: WEIRD WARNINGS
  BONNIE JEAN: SHE WONDERS AND
  WORRIES
  Beyond the bay window, low over the distant hills and gleaming palely on the rim of the clouds, the waning moon was
  five days past full strength. B.J. 's powers - or some of them, such as her metamorphism - had waned with it. But others
  had been hers from birth; they were hers by right. Her Master's  greatest  talents had been his mentalism and, upon  a
  time, his metamorphism, of course;  and B.J. was blood of his blood.  She  would  have  all  that  was  due  to  her  in  the
  fullness of time . . . even if it took another two centuries for full development. But for now—
  —She was a beguiler. That  was  her  art:  hypnotism.  Aided  by  the  wine,  her  eyes  and  mind  would  exercise  such
  power  even  over  this  awkward  subject,  this  Harry  Keogh,  that  he  would  become  as  a  toy  in  her  hands:  hers  to
  command, to do with as she willed. And because she had never failed, B.J. never once considered the idea of failure.
  In this she was surely fortunate, for Harry Keogh's metaphysical mind wasn't at its best. It resisted the Necroscope's
  contours;  echoes  of Alec Kyle's  precognitive  talents  continued  to  shape  it;  its  defences  had  been  undermined  by
  previous tampering. But Bonnie Jean knew none of this.
  Now, drawing the small table to one side, she positioned her chair so that the chandelier hung just to the right of her
  head, where its scintillant pendant  crystals  continued  to  turn  to  and  fro  but  on  a  level  with  her  eyes.  And  in  this
  position she faced the man on the lounger across eighteen inches to two feet of space, and said, 'Harry, now we'll do
  something else. When I tell you to, I want you to look into my eyes. Not now, but when I tell you. Is that understood?'
  'Sure,' he said. 'But it's still your turn.'
  Oh, he had willpower, this man! But so did B.J., and she also had the wine - and powers other than will - to subvert
  the will of others. 'But that game is over now,' she insisted. 'And at my command you will look
  into my eyes.' And before he could answer, if he'd intended to:
  'Harry, this is no longer a "normal" conversation. Your mind isn't yours to control. You feel the effects of the wine. You feel ill as never before. Your brain is
  swimming. The room is spinning. Only I can stop it. Only my eyes can stop it!'
  Harry's head began to loll on the cushions, to and fro, backwards and forwards. More beads of sweat stood out on his brow, forming damp spots in the
  permanent creases of forgotten frowns. But his pin-prick pupils never once left the pendants, even though his eyes rolled to the motion of his face and head.
  'You do believe me, don't you?' she went on. 'You do feel those effects I've described?' In combination with her purring, persuasive voice, the action of the
  delusion-inducing, suggestion-enhancing wine worked on Harry's mind to the desired effect. He was pale as death, panting now and beginning to convulse. As
  rapidly as that, he displayed all the symptoms of physical illness; in a little while he might even be sick!
  And: Now! thought Bonnie Jean, reaching behind her back to the top of her sheath dress, finding the zipper, drawing it down, down, and shrugging the garment
  off her shoulders. Let it be now! For a moment the dress clung to her breasts, then fell forward and exposed her to the waist. She stood up, stepped out of the dress
  as it fell, and pushed down her panties. And once again: Now! Let it be now!
  This would take some effort; it wasn't her time; the full moon was B.J.'s time. But she needed more than her own strength now, more than the strength of her
  human eyes. Oh, Harry Keogh would listen to her as a woman, and obey her to a point. But as the Other she would be more powerful yet and have complete control
  over him, or so nearly complete that it wouldn't matter.
  And seating herself naked before him, she turned her gaze on the chandelier and let its light fill her brain. It formed a softly glowing moon floating right there in
  her room, a gloriously full moon. A moon of strange powers, and one of change. And Bonnie Jean . . . changed!
  It was as if her flesh rippled; it was as if her colours flowed, especially the colour of her hair, out of her head and into her body. The grey highlights were
  highlights no more but solid colour; she was grey, almost white. Her coat, pelt, fur, was white! And her eyes: their shape was angular now, triangular, or at least
  framed in triangles of white fur. And their size was huge, and their colour - was blood!
  And Bonnie Jean's lips . . . her mouth . . . her teeth!
  It was metaplasia, but almost instantaneous. It was metamorphosis, monstrous and immediate. If the Necroscope had been awake, or other than entranced - if
  he'd seen it, experienced it - then he would have known what it was, would have known to cry out. And the one awesome word he would have cried:
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  Wamphyri!
  But he hadn't seen, didn't know. And the breath he might have felt upon  his face,  which  came  from  scant  inches
  away now, was still sweet
  - not with the sweetness of perfume but an animal sweetness, or musk
  - and the words he heard when she spoke were more a cough, a grunt,  a  growl,  but  still  her  words  which  he  must
  obey:
  'My eyes, Harry. Only my eyes. If you would put an end to  your  sickness,  your  misery,  then  look  into  my  eyes.
  Don't look at me . . .  but only into my eyes.'
  And  he did. Into her furnace gaze, into those  eyes which had fascinated Mesmer himself, into a hypnotic whirlpool that was
  easily the equal  of  Doctor  James  Anderson's;  except  James  Anderson  had  been  here  first,  and  his  post-hypnotic
  commands still applied. They were buried deep, but they were here and they were still active.
  And: There,' the creature that was Bonnie Jean husked, binding Harry to her gaze. 'And all your pain is eased, your
  sickness is washed away, the whirling of your brain has been stilled. Now tell me, is it good, Harry?'
  The Necroscope tried to answer but couldn't; his tongue  was swollen, his throat parched. But she heard his sigh,
  and saw how the heaving of his chest gradually subsided. And finally, completely under her spell, he nodded.
  And his pinprick pupils were like crimson motes burning in the reflection of her gaze, or tiny planets swayed by the
  lure of twin suns ...
  In the morning, starting awake from some instantly forgotten nightmare, Harry had a splitting headache  and  felt  like
  death warmed up. Then he saw where he was, knew that he'd spent  the night here without remembering a thing about
  it (well, except for the really important stuff), and felt even worse. B.J.'s living-room, her lounger . . . herself, emerging
  onto the stairwell landing in a towelling robe. She'd showered and her hair was still damp on her collar. The smells of
  coffee and toast came wafting from the tray she was carrying.
  'God!'  said  Harry,  sitting  up  and  laying  aside  the  blanket  she  had  thrown  over  him.  And  he  meant  it  when  he
  repeated: 'God!' For the last time he'd felt like this was on that morning in London, after taking Darcy Clarke's sleeping pill...
  She smiled at him where he screwed up his eyes, fingered back his hair and gritted his teeth, and told him: 'When you went, you
  went really fast and never knew what hit you. But I have to admit I asked for  it.  After  all,  you'd  warned  me  that  you
  weren't much of a drinker.'
  The wine?' Harry grunted. That stuff? How can anything that tastes so good be so wicked?'
  'But isn't that always the way is it?' She laughed at his pained
  expression. 'Anyway, it was either the wine ...  or the life of a secret agent is very, very strenuous!'
  'Ah!' he said. 'I told you about that?' (But how much? Had he been that drunk, or ill, or whatever?)
  'Nothing specific - but I would have known anyway. I mean, you were so calm and controlled in that awful situation in London. You would
  have to be something special just to be able to get us out of that place the way you did!'
  With  which  most  of  it  came  flooding  back  -  or  so  the  Necroscope  thought.  The  words  'that  awful  situation  in
  London' were a mental trigger, a trip to release his stored  'memories.' And now they were there, dropping neatly into
  place . . .
  . . . Her motive had been revenge pure and simple. Her girls were very special  to her, and she felt  like  a  mother  to  them;  in
  almost every case they'd been in need of care up until the time she employed them. Also, she had known that Skippy was 'a bad one.' If the
  police weren't able to pin the murder  on  him,  he  might  easily  put  two  and  two  together  and  work  out  that  B.J.  had
  fingered him. After that, he might even have come looking  for her! It seemed like a perfectly sound  motive -  to  the
  Necroscope, at least. Because B.J. had told him it was sound.
  And  the silvering on the heads  of the ornamental crossbow  bolts? Perfectly acceptable. Even the odd little chap who had
  been watching the place: the father of one of the bar's hostesses, maybe, checking  that she worked in a decent place?  Or
  perhaps a private detective following one of B.J. 's more dubious customers? Well, if she had any more clients like Big Jimmy, that would seem
  reasonable enough, too!
  And so his memories seemed whole, complete  as some well-remembered tune,  and not  a single discordant  note  to  jar his mind
  awake to its errors. As far as last night was concerned, that page of the Necroscope's mind had been re-written.
  Maybe  he frowned  once or twice,  and blinked as B.J.  sat  down  beside him and poured  coffee, but  that  was  all. Harry's  main
  concern right now was that he hadn't been bothersome to his lady host. For after drinking her red wine . . . well, the  night's  events
  were vague, to say the least!
  'Have you decided, then?' B.J. broke into his thoughts.
  Startled, he looked at her. 'Decided?'
  She nodded, sighed, said, 'My, but you're having a really rough time of it, aren't you? Have you decided when you'll
  continue your search for your wife and baby! It was the very last thing you said to me before you, er, turned in? No, I can see that
  you don't remember. You said that you'd have to sleep on it. You told me it could be as early as today. But looking at
  you this morning . . .  I can't say I'd advise you to travel anywhere too far too fast, Harry Keogh!'
  Too far too fast.' The word sequence opened  another door in the Necroscope's  mind. Brenda and his son. He had
  come here to find out if
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  there was a connection between Bonnie Jean and their disappearance. Forlorn hope! No, B.J. was just a strong-willed  young
  woman who believed in taking matters into her own hands. And Harry couldn't deny that if he'd been in her place he would probably have
  done pretty much the same thing. An eye for an eye. Her connection therefore was purely coincidental.
  And despite his false memories, this time Harry was absolutely right: where Brenda was concerned, BJ.'s coming on
  the scene had been entirely coincidental.
  So,  back  to  her  question.  Til  think  it  over  -  think  it  out  -  a  while  longer,'  he  said.  'Well,  for  a  couple  of  weeks,
  anyway.' (A couple of weeks? Yes, he was decided. Three weeks at least. . .  to think it out.) And fingering his scalp again: That is, when I
  can think again! But I'll need at least that long to work out some kind of plan - won't I?'
  She nodded  and shrugged.  'Well, it's none of my business,  of course. It's just that I wish you luck. But whatever
  you do, you will stay in touch, right? Let me know how you get on?'
  Harry wasn't looking at her; he was sitting there holding his head between his hands, blinking his stinging eyes and
  trying to focus them, looking at his left sock where it hung half off his foot. But her words rang in his mind like a bell:
  'Stay in touch . . . "
  He gave a slight involuntary jerk, was unable to stop  his reaction, as a short, sharp series of vivid scenes  flooded
  his mind:
  A full moon, brilliant yellow, like burnished gold, sailing  a clear night  sky. That was all he should  have seen, and he knew it - knew
  something
  - remembered something however briefly, like a name on the tip of the tongue  that comes . . . then slips maddeningly
  away: 'When the moon is nearing its full, stay in touch!' That was all there should be, yes. But there was more:
  A  snarling  visage:  the  merest  glimpse  of  dripping  fangs,  salivating  leathery  lips,  pointed  ears  and  grey  fur;  and
  commanding eyes, red as sin
  - full of sin - carrying some secret message that Harry couldn't read. Then the moon again, showing the wolfs head in silhouette, thrown back
  in a silent, throbbing howl!
  The kaleidoscopic scenes were there . . . and they were gone. And even the knowledge that they'd been there was
  gone, except for a fading shadow on Harry's metaphysical mind.
  And of course he jumped to the wrong, or not entirely correct, conclusion: it had to be Alec Kyle, his precognition!
  But had it been a warning, or what? Or was it simply an echo not of the future but the past, a flashback to the madness
  and mayhem down in London? And if so, why? But already it was gone . . .
  B.J. had seen him start;  he could feel her watching him. He jerked up his head and looked at her, catching her off
  balance. There was a smile
  on her face - or the vestiges of one - that she hadn't quite managed to drop. And knowing she'd been caught out, as it
  were, she shook her head and said: 'So there we have it: no drinking man, you, Harry! Man, ye're rough!'
  So, she'd been smiling at his discomfort - right? But a very secretive sort of smile. Or maybe a knowing smile? Again
  Harry jumped to the wrong conclusion:
  B.J. must see a good many heavy drinkers in her bar. Alcoholics even. Let's face it, you could find alcoholics in just
  about any bar anywhere in the world. Couldn't you? The trouble was the Necroscope didn't know much about  them.
  Only what he'd heard. For instance: one drink is enough  for some people, while others  can drink all night and never
  show it for a moment. What kind of drinker had Alec Kyle been, really? A heavy one, maybe? Too heavy? A secret
  one? Secret enough to hold down his job at E-Branch? And here was Harry Keogh, lumbered with Kyle's body. And
  his addiction?
  He looked at the tray where B.J. had  set  it  on  the  pine  table.  The  coffee  looked  good  but  he  really  didn't  fancy
  anything to eat. His throat was sandpaper-dry and his brain felt like a wet sponge!  But Bonnie Jean had asked him a
  question. God, he felt so stupid! What was it she'd asked?
  'Won't I be seeing you again?' She obliged him.
  'I. . .  I have your number,' he told her. 'I'll know where to contact  you.' (But why in hell would he want to contact
  her, apart from the obvious  reason? What arrangements had been made last  night?  He  was  sure  that  nothing  had
  happened here.)
  Mulling it over, he drank his coffee . . . '
  Half an hour later he left, walking off along the street into a dreary morning. And not long after that one of B.J. 's girls
  reported back to her and said: 'I followed him, like you said. But. . .  I lost him!'
  'What?' B.J. was angry. She had obtained Harry's telephone number but that was all. It was a simple oversight, an
  error on her part. She'd wanted to know where he lived, how to get there and what it looked like - things that she could
  have asked him last night. It had seemed such  a perfect coincidence: the fact that  he  had  a  place  up  here  close  to
  Edinburgh! But she'd known that Harry would 'stay in touch' with her, and so hadn't really considered the possibility
  that he might be hard to locate. She had only sent the girl after him on an afterthought.  Now, however, taking time to
  give it a little more thought:
  Harry was (or had been) some kind of agent. What if  this  place  of  his  wasn't  'his'  place  at  all  but  a  safe  house?
  Perhaps it was a good thing her girl had lost him. Perhaps these 'people' of his had been waiting for him, to whistle him
  away, and the telephone number was merely a contact number. She knew it was listed, which meant she couldn't use it
  to
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  discover his address. All very irritating! And because the girl hadn't answered her yet: 'How could  you  lose him?' she
  snapped.
  'He went into a newsagent's,' the girl told her hurriedly. 'I thought he'd be buying a newspaper and waited in my car.
  But he didn't come back out.'
  'Maybe he'd spotted you!' BJ. snapped. 'I told you to be careful. He's no fool, that one.'
  'I thought I was careful,' the girl looked bewildered.
  B.J.'s attitude softened, and finally she said, 'Maybe he went out the back way.' And she left it at that. For after all,
  Harry was that kind of man. And in his line of work it must be second  nature to take precautions  against being tailed.
  Indeed, he had said as much. He was just good at his job, that was all.
  Again she remembered that damp, dangerous night in London: the action in the garage, and how . . . something  had
  happened to her, before she came to her senses  in the alley; then how Harry had seemed to disappear into the mist.
  Oh, yes, he'd been good at his job, all right! But in any case, what difference did it make? For BJ. knew he would be in
  touch again, and even when he would be in touch: in just three weeks' time.
  Glad to be let off the hook, B.J. 's girl went down to tidy up in the bar room. For in fact  she,  too,  was  lost  for  an
  explanation as to how she had so stupidly, even ridiculously, lost her  target.  Because  as  far  as  she  knew  -  having
  checked and double-checked - the newsagent's shop in question didn't have any back way out!
  Harry's coat was of the  voluminous  variety,  a  big  heavy  thing  that  John  Wayne  might  have  worn  in  some  wintry
  Western. Shrugging out of it in the old house  near Bonnyrig, he became aware of an oblong shape  swelling out the
  left-hand  side  pocket,  and  of  extra  weight  on  that  side.  He  would  have  noticed  it  sooner,  except  he  wasn't  up  to
  noticing much of anything this morning. It was a small, flat bottle of B.J.'s wine; no label, but the same unmistakable
  red, and loaded with sediment.
  A gift, obviously. What, from B.J. ? But after last night anyone  would think she'd know better. Red wine and Harry
  Keogh  didn't  mix! Maybe  she'd  simply  dumped  it  on  him  before  someone  else  suffered  the  consequences.  Well,
  cheers, B.J.! He gave it no further consideration . . . because he'd been told not to.
  There was something else that B.J. hadn't mentioned about  her 'Greek' wine: the fact that it was savagely  addictive,
  far more so than any cocaine derivative. But even if the Necroscope had,known, right then he wouldn't have been able
  to so much as look at the stuff. Not yet, anyway . . .
  It was mid-morning, and Harry was still tired; he had a stiff neck from B.J.'s lounger, not to mention a hellish hangover. Taking
  aspirins, he
  tried to think straight. There were things he had to do this morning - if only he could remember what they were! But—
  —Call your superiors. The people you worked for. Get me off the hook. We don't want them carrying out any unnecessary investigations on
  an innocent girl, now do we?
  No,  of  course  not.  But.  .  .  Bonnie  Jean  wasn't  on  the  hook,  was  she?  They  didn't  even-know  about  her!  Even  as  these
  pseudomemories and thoughts crossed his mind, Harry  had picked  up  the  'phone  and dialled Darcy's  number. It  was  a Saturday,
  but still Darcy might be in his office. And he was.
  'Harry? What can I do for you?' And more quickly: 'If it's about Brenda, I'm sorry, but—'
  'No, it's something else,' the Necroscope cut in. And now he knew  what  it really  was about.  'Darcy,  check and see if the  police
  down there have an unsolved murder on their hands, won't you? An Edinburgh girl or young  woman,  murdered in London  about  a
  year ago? If they have, you can tell them the case is closed. Tell them it was  down  to  Skippy  or our would-be  werewolf  - or both
  of them.'
  'You're still working on that?'
  'No, it was just something that came up.'
  'Oh. Well, thanks anyway.'
  'Oh, and you remember the silvering on the heads on those crossbow bolts? Well, it was ornamental. They  once decorated  a wall
  over a fireplace in a hunting lodge or something. The silver was to stop them from rusting.'
  'You have been working on it!'
  'No,' Harry sighed. 'Just checking back on everything that was going on at that time, that's all. The time when Brenda and my son
  . . . you know.'
  'Sure,' said Darcy. And: 'Well, thanks again, Harry.'
  'Also,' the Necroscope blurted, before Darcy could put the 'phone down, 'you might be able to  tell  me  something
  more about Alec Kyle.'
  'If I know, I'll tell you,' Darcy answered.
  'I asked you if he liked a drink. You told me he wasn't a heavy drinker, but that when he did take a nip, then he really went to town
  on it.'
  That's right.'
  'Could he have had a problem that you didn't know about? I mean, is it possible  he was an alcoholic and knew it, but he had it
  more or less under control? Except on occasion, when it would break out and he'd have to feed it? Wait! Don't give me
  your answer right off but give it a moment's thought. It could be very important, and I know how loyal you are, Darcy ..."
  Several seconds ticked by, then the other said: 'Well, it is possible, of course. In this game I've come to realize that
  almost anything is possible! But I wouldn't have thought so. I never knew a steadier man,
  
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  Harry. On the other hand . . .  he was a precog, as you know. They all have this thing about  the future; they're all a
  little scared of it - and sometimes a lot. If, and I mean if, Alec had a problem, he kept it pretty well hid. And if he had one, you
  can bet your last penny it would have to do  with  his  talent.  "Talent":  that's  a  laugh!  I  sometimes  wonder  if  we're  not  all
  cursed!'
  Harry thought about that, then said, Thanks, Darcy.'
  'No, it's me, we, us, who should be thanking you,' Darcy told him.
  'You're welcome,' Harry answered, automatically, and he started  to  put  the  'phone  down  -  then  paused  and  said:
  'Darcy, I'll be up here for maybe three more weeks, then I'll probably be out of  the  country.  I  think  they  must  have
  gone abroad. But when I go . . .  I may be gone a while. I mean, I won't be coming back here each night. And I'll need
  funds.'
  'I can swing that,' Darcy told him, without hesitation.
  'No,' Harry answered, 'I'm not going to hit on you or E-Branch for money. But there is something you can do for me.'
  'Just mention it.'
  'Find out where the Russians keep their gold.'
  'What?' (Astonishment). 'Where the Russians—?'
  'I mean, their repository? Like Fort Knox or something?'
  As the last word fell from his lips, so Harry reeled. It was as if for a single second  he was no longer in his room. It
  was just like that time in Darcy's office, in the moment following the warning of an imminent IRA attack. Except this time nothing
  had prompted it, there was nothing to explain why—
  —Why Harry stood in the open, somewhere else, in bright daylight, and craned his neck to look up, and up, at stark yellow and white cliffs .
  . . and  at the squat, white-walled  castle, mansion, or chateau  that was perched there on the edge of oblivion. A fortress on a
  mountainside (from Harry's viewpoint), at the very rim of a sheer drop that must be all of twelve hundred metres to the sloping
  scree of a rubble-strewn gorge. The scene was . . . Mediterranean? All sun-bleached rocks, brittle scrub, a few stunted pines, and a salty tang
  from the unseen ocean.
  Their repository?' Darcy answered, abruptly yanking the Necro-scope  back  to  the  here  and  now.  'Why,  I'm  sure
  they must have! And I can probably find out about it, yes. But—'
  Harry quickly pulled himself together. It could only have been a manifestation of Alec Kyle's precognition. As to
  what it meant. . . who could say? He tried to carry on  the  conversation  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  'Or  if  not  the
  Russians, someone or some outfit - maybe the Mafia, or some other organization like that, with bullion - who you'd like to see lose
  some big money? Maybe to our advantage? Like, gunrunners, or drug traffickers? I'm sure you know what I'm saying.'
  Darcy laughed out loud . . . but the Necroscope didn't even chuckle;
  he was still recovering from the effects of his inexplicable - what, visitation? Finally the head of E-Branch said, 'Ahem!
  You know, if I didn't know better, Harry, I might accuse you of planning something decidedly illegal?'
  'I suppose it depends whose side you're on. You'll do it?'
  'If that's what you want, yes,' Darcy said.
  Harry nodded,  despite that the other couldn't see him, and said, Then do it soon. And Darcy - see if you can find someone
  who'll give us a decent exchange rate, no questions asked.'
  This time, putting the 'phone down, Harry was smiling despite his headache. Because he knew that on the other end
  of the line, Darcy Clarke wasn't.
  But even as the 'phone settled in its cradle—
  —He was there again! But this time he was up there on the rim of the cliff, and the walls of the keep rising before him. Its medieval turret
  towers seemed semi-sentient - like stone sentinels - where he craned his neck to look up at them. And he felt his hair moving on his head,
  perhaps blown by the winds off the gorge.
  It came and it went, and Harry sat there beside the telephone again. With his hair still standing on end . . .
  Bonnie Jean was worried. About E-Branch: how successful she'd been in throwing Harry, or 'them', off her trail.' About
  Harry Keogh himself, because she believed there was still something about that one that wasn't connecting. Where he
  was concerned, no sooner was one mystery cleared up than another surfaced!
  Like how he moved so quickly and came and went the way he did, and the way he had eluded her tracker. As to the matter of his
  drugging her that night at the garage in London - the more she considered that, the more utterly ridiculous it seemed!
  But any alternative was even more ridiculous, indeed impossible! So it could only be true. If only she had been a little
  more thorough when he was in her power. She could have discovered a lot more about  this E-Branch he'd worked for,
  for one thing . . .
  And as if all of this weren't worrying enough, now there was the question  of the watcher. A detective, or the father
  of one of Bonnie Jean's girls? She thought not. But from the description Harry Keogh had given her, B.J. believed she
  knew who - or what - it might be. Well, it had happened  before, on several occasions  down the decades.  And now it
  could be happening again. She supposed she should be grateful Harry had brought  it to her attention, except grateful
  wasn't part of the equation.
  But forewarned is forearmed. If indeed this should prove to be the worst possible scenario come or coming to pass,
  
  then B.J. must look into it and, if necessary, draw their fire away from her Master. She had
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  done it before - all of a hundred and seventy-five years ago - to lure them from the true spoor;  and twice more in
  the years flown between. Inexperienced though she had been on that first occasion, still she'd won; and likewise
  ever since, else she wouldn't be here now! It was why she  was here, after all; to guard over the dog-Lord in His
  immemorial sleep, where He patiently awaited the advent of the One Foreseen, the Mysterious One.
  The right one, aye. And yet again BJ. thought of Harry Keogh, if only for a moment . . .
  . . . And the time of the calling so close now, when again she must go to Him. But this watcher:
  If he (or they) were that close, and if they had been allowed to follow B.J., all unbeknown, perhaps  to the very lair?
  That was unthinkable -that she might so easily have betrayed a secret so well-kept for six long centuries! Well, at least
  it excluded Keogh's involvement with them. ! For if he were one of them he never would have offered his help in the |
  first place. And when he had her under the influence of his drug, he ! could have done whatever he wanted with her;
  could have . . . removed \ her, and so dealt with her Master, too.  For  without  BJ.  what  was  her  Master  but  a  poor
  defenceless thing in a cavern tomb? But Harry had done nothing except bring her to safety.
  But oh, what she wouldn't give for Harry Keogh's extraordinary skills now! The way he seemed simply to vanish
  like that. Why, with him on her side, B.J. would have nothing to fear during the coming visit to her Master! Harry
  would lose any would-be trackers as easily as he'd eluded her girl.
  With him on her side . . .  or, him by her side?
  Keogh . . . Keogh . . . Keogh!
  Why was he on her mind so? For after all she, Bonnie Jean Mirlu, was the beguiler, with the power of fascination! And yet
  somehow this Keogh fascinated her . . .
  Oh? And did that mean something?
  His eyes, so warm and innocent: neither brooding, conniving, nor flirting (or flirting only a very little); not even
  especially beautiful, yet extraordinary in their depth, in the way they echoed the soul behind them. They were oh
  so  soulful, those  eyes of his. And at that B.J. gave  an  involuntary  shiver,  for  the  thought  of  his  soul  was  .  .  .
  delicious! And if her Master were to give the word, why, she might yet taste it, steal it from him in one raw red moment!
  Aye, and that would put an end to his mysterious ways, for sure.
  His mysterious ways . . . ?
  Bonnie Jean started  into shocked awareness where she sat thinking things  out and brooding in a chair  in  her
  living-room. Harry Keogh: a mystery man appearing on the scene from nowhere, as if on cue. And BJ. feeling this
  attraction, a weird affinity that was hard to place, as if
  she already knew him. So much so that when she should have let him be killed  -  or  killed  him  herself  -  instead  she'd  entrusted
  herself to him! Then, later, he had sought her out, to bring her a warning. This mysterious Harry Keogh.
  What  was  she  thinking?  That  he  might  actually  be  that  mysterious  one,  the  Mysterious  One,  for  whom  the
  dog-Lord waited? And if he was, and she had simply let him walk out of here . . . ?
  Bonnie Jean had lived too long to panic, but for a moment that's  what it felt  like.  Then  logic  took  over.  So  Harry
  Keogh had come and gone ...  so what? He would be back, and she knew  he would be back  -whenever  she  called!
  Through  her hypnotism, her  fascination,  he  was  now  as  much  in  thrall  to  her  as  she  was  to  her  sleeping  Master.
  Except he didn't know it yet and probably never would. She could be with him -use him, deal with him, however she
  chose - and afterwards he would remember only what she required him to remember.
  Her immediate instinct, to call him on the telephone - now, at once -gradually eased. He was at her beck and call, and
  not the other way around! And anyway, he wasn't going anywhere for at least three weeks. And when he did he'd be
  going with B.J., to see her Master. Yes, and then all would be well. If by some miracle Harry should  prove to be the
  one, then she would reap her reward: her Master's  eternal gratitude.  And  if  he  was  not  the  one,  still  she  would  be
  rewarded, and the dog-Lord's most urgent need satisfied. For it would also be the time of replenishment, the time  of
  nourishment.
  Bonnie Jean's time, too, as well as that of her Lord and Master and ancestor, the dog-Lord Radu Lykan . . .!
  Meanwhile, she would put a watch on the watcher, and perhaps  discover who or what he  was.  Using  her  girls,  it
  would be an easy thing to arrange a roster of observers  - a stake-out?  -  on  the  street  outside  the  wine  bar.  A  tiny
  garret window in BJ.'s bedroom looked out over the rooftops, but could just as easily look down across  the street into
  the very doorway where Harry had seen him. A person might sit there, unseen  and unsuspected  behind the window's
  net curtains all day long, and keep watch on the street. All night long, too,  if  B.J.  desired  it.  Then,  if  someone  was
  watching the place, and if he should  be a terrible someone, B.J. would soon  know about  it. And the next time one of
  her girls followed someone, be sure she would not lose him!
  She would not dare lose him!
  Not for her life. Not for all their lives . . .
  It  was  that  same  afternoon.  Some  miles  away  in  the  study  of  his  house  outside  Bonnyrig,  the  Necroscope  Harry
  Keogh sat absorbed in - and occasionally nodding over - the list of faraway places which he'd spent  hours  compiling
  in the reading room of a local library. His 'system' had been elementary, and flawed:
  
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  Take a modern World Atlas and track the lines of longitude west from the north-eastern  region of the British Isles to  discover
  areas  of  similar  climatic  characteristics  and  habitability  in  the  rest  of  the  world;  not  forgetting  the  west  coast  of
  England itself, of course, but with all coastal regions given the same priority.
  The idea sprang from what his Ma had said, and what he had later thought: that Brenda might have found this place,
  Bonnyrig,  ideally  suited  to  her  personality.  From  which  Harry  had  gone  several  steps  further,  extrapolating  an
  imaginary - yet persistently 'real' - world or place of dramatic scenery, misted nights, slanting sunlit days, long grasses,
  leaning trees and wild flowers. Indeed, a vast  garden run wild,  all  hidden  away  from  the  eyes  of  men.  Hidden  from
  Harry's eyes, anyway.
  So where to find such a place? And would the climate prove to be similar along the same lines of longitude? For the
  imagined scene  - at least with regard to  its  weather  patterns  -  wasn't  especially  dissimilar  to  the  north-east  coastal
  region of Brenda's childhood. And the Necroscope had simply extended that region one hundred and fifty miles north
  to take in Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth. And Bonnyrig, of course.
  It  gave  him  a  band  round  the  Earth  bordered  by  lines  of  longitude  55  and  56  North,  including  parts  of  Antrim,
  Donegal, and Londonderry in Northern Ireland; which was something that Harry hadn't previously considered - that
  Brenda and his baby son could be as close as Ireland. It had given him pause, but not as much as the discovery that if
  he followed the same lines east, they would also enclose Moscow, several thousands  of miles of  frozen  tundra,  the
  Bering Sea, and Alaska!?
  Which would seem to put paid to that theory, at least.
  And  Harry  had  shaken  his  head  and  grinned,  however  wrily,  thinking  himself  a  fool  that  he  hadn't  paid  more
  attention in school. If only his knowledge of the world's geography  was as good  as his understanding  of maths! But
  there again, the Necroscope's amazing skill with numbers had very little to do with his education. Nothing he'd learned
  from the living, anyway . . .
  It was then, as  he  tossed  his  pencilled  list  aside  to  let  his  head  loll  against  the  back  of  his  easy  chair,  that  the
  telephone rang.
  Harry sat up, reached for the telephone on the occasional table, paused  and frowned. B.J.'s bottle of red wine was
  there, beside the telephone where he'd set it down. And the Necroscope was thirsty. He - or Alec Kyle's body  - was
  thirsty. His eyes stung like there was a pound or two of grit in them; his throat hurt as if someone had wire-brushed it
  on the inside; his mind felt equally desiccated, dried out. And somehow he  knew  that  a  sip  of  the  wine,  just  a  sip,
  would ease everything and he'd be able to face up to things. But face up to what  things?  Just a moment ago he had
  seemed okay, and now . . . ?
  For his life, Harry couldn't say why he had frozen like that, with his hand stretching  halfway to the 'phone. But the
  room was suddenly darker, as if a storm was about to break. Or maybe it was just the grimy patio windows; he hadn't
  found the time or energy to clean them, and what little light forced its way in from the overgrown garden was usually grey.
  The telephone rang again, insistently,  drawing  his  hand  just  a  few  inches  closer,  to  where  it  hovered  nervously
  above the top of the dusty table. Yet still he held back from picking up the 'phone. He felt a chill on or in his back, as if
  a cold wind was blowing along the marrow of his spine, and shivered uncontrollably. In the last few seconds  it was as
  if the whole room had gone cold as the grave! Now what the hell. . . ?
  Pick it up, idiot! he heard his own voice demanding from deep  inside his head. Pick up the damn  telephone! What in the world's
  wrong with you?
  But he wasn't expecting a call, was he? Or was he? There was something he should  remember about  the  telephone,  but  when  he
  went to think about it, it kept giving him the slip. Like a word on the tip of his tongue that  he simply  couldn't  remember. And  his
  brain was fuzzy from all the planning he was . . . well, supposed to be doing! Was he expecting a call? Maybe  he was,  but  not  yet,
  surely? And what call was it anyway?
  The 'phone rang yet again, and this time - despite that he knew it was coming - it caused him to start in his chair.
  So why  not  pick  the  fucking thing up,  answer  it and find out?  But  find out  what?  Something that  he really  wouldn't  want  to
  know? Maybe. And what had made him think that, anyway?
  Questions, questions! And nothing in his head but a ball of fluff, or rather a tangle of barbed wire. His  stinging eyes  . . .  his sore
  throat . . . and B.J.'s bottle of red wine sitting there oh-so-temptingly . . . and the—
  Rrrr-iiiing!. . . Rrrr-iiiing!
  —Damned telephone!
  Harry went for it, curled his fingers around it, picked it up . . .  and the room went dark as night, so that he knew it
  had to be a storm. Now the thunder! he thought. Now the lightning! But the thunder and lightning never came.
  Something else came.
  Almost involuntarily, Harry tightened his grip on the fur ruff of the telephone as he drew it from its cradle towards
  his face . . .  the telephone that wasn't. He drew it at first,  but  in  the  next  moment  it  was  drawing  him!  A  straining,
  bristling ruff that dragged on his arm as if he was walking an unruly brute of a dog. And he simply couldn't believe his eyes  as he
  looked at his hand and saw what it was holding in check, but barely:
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  Not a dog, but a snarling, coughing, choking wolfs head, red-eyed with feral yellow pupils! The thing didn't have
  a body  but grew out of the  telephone's  speaker.  And  the  cable  was  like  a  leash  that  lashed  with  the  living  head's
  frantic motion, then stretched  itself  taut  as  the  awful  thing  it  anchored  strained  on  it,  turning  Harry's  arm  inwards
  towards  his  gasping,  utterly  astonished  mouth!  The  head  was  trying  to  get  at  him,  bite  him,  crush  his  face  in  its
  slavering, fetid mantrap jaws!
  'Almighty G-God!' Harry gasped, tightening his fist to a knot in the ruff of coarse fur, trying to force the head back
  while bringing his left hand into play as he fought to protect his face. The wolfs gaping, snarling muzzle was black leather
  flecked with white foam; its unbelievable teeth were ivory yellow; its ears lay flat to its head, seeming to streamline the horror
  of its intentions as they pointed the whole gnashing, clashing monstrosity of a visage at the Necroscope. Then—
  —That tunnel of teeth closing on Harry's flapping left hand, where he felt bones snap in at least three of his fingers,
  and the searing agony of flesh severed, shorn through!
  And paws as big as his hands  were elongating themselves out of the telephone's  speaker, followed by a long grey
  slime-damp body, as if the telephone was giving birth to this Thing! And the jaws were clashing inches from his face;
  they slopped blood and bits of mangled, twitching finger! And the grey fur of the beast's ruff tearing in his right hand,
  coming out in scurvy, matted tufts!
  He ...  he couldn't hold it off!
  And worst of all, the intelligence  in those  yellow-cored, murderous, oh-so-knowing eyes, as the red-ribbed throat
  of the monster expanded to engulf his face, his head!
  Harry screamed gurglingly but unashamedly, thrusting  himself back so spastically,  with  such  force  in  his  driving
  legs, as to topple his chair over backwards.
  And as if from a million miles away, the heavy pattering of raindrops on glass, and a flash of lightning at last. Then
  thunder clattering mightily close by, and a gust of wind hurling open the patio doors.
  Harry's Ma came rushing in through the doors, crying:
  Harry! Good God, son . . . what sort of a dream was that!?
  And his Ma was all mud and bones and weed, but that was okay because  it was how she had always been. But he
  also knew she shouldn't be here, that she wasn't here except. . . except in his head . . . ?
  Harry?
  And, 'Ma!' he gasped,  panted, choked, where he lay sprawled on the floor, with the rain hissing in his face, and a
  wind howling from the garden, whirling his pages of loose-leaf notepaper in a dervish dance all around the room.
  Dream? Of course it had been a dream! But had she really needed to ask what sort?
  'A nightmare, Ma,' he told her, where her drowned spirit lay deep in mud and weeds in a bight in the river that was
  her grave. 'A f-fucking godawful n-n-nightmare!' For the first (and probably the last) time in his life,  the  Necroscope
  Harry Keogh had uttered a curse word in the presence of his beloved Ma.
  But he needn't worry, for his Ma had 'seen' his dream and understood . . .
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  V
  HARRY: PRESENTIMENTS AND
  PRECAUTIONS BONNIE JEAN: THE ROUTE TO THE LAIR
  'Ma,' Harry said, after he'd stopped shivering. 'Do you think it's possible I'm going . . . well, maybe a little crazy?'
  Do you mean really crazy? (His long-dead mother was careful how she answered him). Do you mean mad? If so, then I think  it's highly
  unlikely. If that were going to happen at all, son, then surely it would have happened some time ago? But after all you've been through  -
  which really doesn't bear thinking about  -1 think  it's very possible  that you're suffering from stress, anxiety, pressure. And who knows?
  Perhaps you're physically ill too. I mean, with an ordinary illness?
  'My eyes? My sore throat? The fluff in my head?' He blinked watering eyes and swallowed hard to try to ease his throat.
  Flu, if ever I saw a dose! his Ma told him. All the classic symptoms. You're suffering from the backlash of living down in London. I was only
  there once - oh, thirty years ago, when I was a girl - and then only for a few weeks, but it did the same to me! All that smog, the smoky trains and
  dirty railway stations. Not only that, but didn't I warn you against coming down to the river to talk to me? Not in this bad weather, Harry! Not
  when you could just as easily be warm and dry in the comfort of the house.
  Harry shrugged and told her, 'But you know that isn't my way, Ma.' Then he managed a wry grin, and added: 'Anyway, that London you're
  talking about was some time ago! It's not as bad as that now. Don't I recall reading somewhere that if you fell in the Thames in the
  
  'Forties, when you were a girl, you'd have to be really lucky to drown - because it was much more likely you'd die of any one of a dozen fatal
  infections instead?'
  He sensed his Ma's incorporeal nod. / think thafs probably true, yes. But—
  '—But there are fish in the Thames now,' he informed her. 'Even salmon!'
  Well, you wouldn't catch me eating them! she said. And anyway, you've
  changed the subject. Because you know what's coming next.
  'I should go and see a doctor?' He hugged his overcoat more tightly to him, where he crouched at the rim of the bight, over the grey-gleaming,
  wind-ruffled water. But there had been something in the Necroscope's voice (scorn, perhaps? impatience? or sheer obstinacy?) that caused his
  mother to bridle.
  Huh! She snorted. And is that how you reward good advice? Well, your grandmother used to say, 'No one can help the man—'
  '—Who won't help himself,' Harry finished it. 'Yes, Ma, I know. And I also know you're right. So I'll go and see a doctor - tomorrow.'
  But why not today?
  'Because it's late in the afternoon. Even if I could find a surgery open it's an odds-on  bet there'd be a queue. And,
  Ma, these days you're not much appreciated if you call a doctor out for something like the 'flu!'
  No, she said. You wait until  you die, right?  And  before he could answer: Harry, you're living alone up here, and you don't
  have any close friends! Well, not among the living. What if you should come down with something serious?
  He shrugged. 'But I do have a teleph ..."  And he broke off.
  And she said: A telephone, yes . . . which you're afraid of? But I can't say I blame you. That was a very bad dream, Harry!
  'Or a warning, maybe?' He wondered out loud . . . then shook his head, and said: 'No, Ma, I'm not afraid of the 'phone, just a little
  wary of it...  And I'll stay that way until I find out what all of this means.'
  She picked up on the first part of what he'd said. A warning? How do you mean?
  'Alec Kyle was a precog. That was his talent: he was able to catch these glimpses of the future. Usually in his dreams, just
  before waking. And I think he still does. Or rather ..."
  You do? (Sometimes she was quick on the uptake).
  'Possibly. That dream wasn't my first. . . what, warning?'
  But isn't that all to the good? she queried. / mean, surely it's better to know something of what to expect than nothing at all?
  'Maybe,' he answered. 'But just to know that something unpleasant is coming doesn't  help me to understand  it. Sometimes I do
  and other times I don't. That was how it worked for Kyle, too. Also, he ..."  And Harry paused again.
  Yes?
  'I think that Kyle may have been an alcoholic,' he blurted it out. 'He kept it under tight control - or as tight as possible - but it was
  there nevertheless.'
  Oh, dear! His Ma said, slowly and sadly. And you . . .?
  Til have to control it the same.'
  You've . . . experienced the need, the urge, to take strong drink?
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  'More than just the urge.' Harry nodded ruefully, and knew she would sense  it. 'My thick head?' he sighed. 'Not the 'flu, as you
  see.' And quickly: 'But I promise you I'll see a doctor anyway.'
  She was suddenly thoughtful. So your dream wasn't necessarily poor MrKyle's talent in action after all, then?
  'What?' But since speaking with the dead often conveys far more than is  actually  said,  the  Necroscope  had  her  meaning  well
  enough. 'You mean, some kind of delusion?'
  Delirium tremens, (the nod of her incorporeal head). Well, possibly. So as you see, Harry, that makes a doctor imperative!
  He hugged his coat tighter still, and sighed his agreement. 'Yes, Ma, I suppose it does . . .'
  It was coming in squally again and Harry headed for home. Home: the old house where his mother and stepfather, Viktor Shukshin, had lived, until the maniac
  Shukshin had murdered her, drowning her under the river's ice. Harry had been a small child, but he 'remembered' that day well enough - and from his mother's
  point of view at that! So maybe this new 'thing' was just part of an older skill; maybe he was an 'observer of times,' like some Old Testament wizard. For if he was
  able to so vividly visualize a past he had never personally known, then why not something of a future that no man had known - as yet? Perhaps these flashes of the
  future came to him via the Mobius Continuum and had nothing to do with Alec Kyle at all!
  Thus Harry's metaphysical mind ran in contradictory, ever-decreasing circles, while he continued to get nowhere.
  Home: a drab, unkempt sort of place at best. One day he'd find the time to do it up, starting with the garden that sprawled almost all the way down to the river.
  Except to call it a 'garden' was to lend it an unwarranted respectability; in fact it was an overgrown and weed-infested wilderness!
  As it started to rain again, the Necroscope hurried along a crazy-paving path to the fly-specked patio doors, swearing a vow along the way that the thorny
  bramble creeper that whipped at his legs would be the first to go!
  Letting himself in, he saw the sky darkening over again as the wind came up to bend the trees bordering the river. A great day for a nightmare, no question. But
  Harry didn't believe that was all it had been. Despite its surreal quality, it had seemed very real at the time. And what if he'd ignored that other warning, down at
  E-Branch HQ in London? That had been a hell of a mess anyway, but if he hadn't been able to use his Mobius door as 'foreseen' - it didn't bear thinking about. At
  least he had understood that warning. Which made this other thing, about the old castle, the place on the cliff, seem doubly suspect; it was something he didn't
  understand. Why, he could feel the hair on his scalp
  moving again at the thought of it! As for this latest warning, the telephone nightmare: whatever else he did, Harry knew he couldn't afford to ignore that one!
  This time he locked the patio doors behind him and turned on the single ceiling light. And in the dusty jumble of his so-called 'study', where a plywood
  
  packing case stood open in one corner, dribbling straw, and Harry's handful of 'worldly goods' were strewn about willy-nilly, the mere fact that an easy chair still
  lay on its back where he'd left it in his rush to get out of here, and that the occasional table had been overturned, and that the telephone was still purring away to
  itself, where he'd spilled it onto the floor . . . these things would hardly seem to matter. They were just part of the general clutter, that's all. Except that wasn't all,
  for Harry knew that in fact they were the debris of his dream. Especially the telephone.
  He picked the 'phone and cradle up and went to replace the receiver -and paused. What if it were to ring?
  But how could it ring? No one knew his number, or next to no one. He hadn't been up here long enough, and his name wasn't even in the telephone book; and in
  any case, he'd asked for his number to be listed, ex-directory. B.J. had it, yes (though for his life he couldn't think why he'd given it to her). But what the heck, she
  was just an innocent - if strong-headed, even wrong-headed? - young woman anyway. But fascinating, in a way.
  And then there was E-Branch . . .
  Was that it? Was he scared of getting a call from E-Branch, frightened of learning something that he really didn't want to know? Such as the death of his wife, or
  his child, or both? Or maybe being called in on something he couldn't ignore? For the fact was, that as part of the country's security services, the Branch had its
  own Dirty Tricks Department. And if they really needed him ...  he knew they wouldn't think twice.
  Was that it? That his dream had been symbolic, coloured by his recent experiences in London? That would explain this wolf fetish he seemed to be developing,
  which had combined with the warning to produce his nightmare. So it still remained his best bet that this was some sort of left-over of Alec Kyle's talent. He was
  seeing something of the future; he had been warned about receiving a call, most probably from E-Branch, that would prove to be dangerous; he must protect
  himself against it.
  Well, that was easy. And more determined now, he placed the 'phone in its cradle and dialled the operator. But even so, and while he waited for her to answer,
  still he sweated and glanced all about the room. Until finally:
  'This is the operator. How can I help you?'
  'I want to change my number, to ex-directory,' he said.
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  And after she'd checked: 'But your number's already listed, sir. It is ex-directory.'
  'I want to change it anyway.'
  'Fine. I'll put you through to the service you require . . . "
  It was as simple as that. As for Bonnie Jean . . .  he could always give her his new number, if the need should arise.
  And  then, generally feeling a lot better, the Necroscope shaved,  tidied up  his  study,  finished  the  unpacking  that
  he'd started  a month ago, and made himself an evening meal  .  .  .  And  thought  about  Brenda  and  his  baby  son,  of
  course.
  The way he worried about  them, he could have set off right there and then, heading off aimlessly into the Mobius
  Continuum on some wild-goose chase that might easily last him the rest of his life. A wild-goose chase? Now why had
  he thought that? But of course he knew why: because his son had powers the equal of his own, and if he didn't want
  to be found, then Harry didn't stand much chance of finding him. His one trump card was that he knew more about  the
  world and its ways; he was experienced as only an adult who has lived (and died?) can be experienced. While the baby . . . was a
  baby.
  But in any case he wouldn't be going anywhere for, oh, at least three weeks? . . . He would need that long to work
  out his plan of campaign, surely? . . . And meanwhile he would  stay here, warm and  comfortable  despite  all the bad
  weather, safe in this big old house.
  Harry shook his head and frowned. God, he was starting to think like his mother! Starting to worry about himself - promising to see a doctor and such! But,
  three whole weeks to plan some kind of search campaign? He shrugged, blinked watery eyes, rubbed at his sore throat. And the mental fluff was back, right there
  where his brain should be. So much for a rapid recovery!
  As for getting a plan together: if three weeks was what it took, then that's what it would get. All he had to work out now was what to put in it!
  But his throat was so sore! And his eyes: hot, and itchy as hell . . . probably through sleeplessness, or a night spent in a drunken stupor, tossing and turning on
  Bonnie Jean's lounger. At which he remembered her wine. It had been on the table—
  —And was now on the floor, having skittered against the skirting board under a bookshelf when he'd knocked everything flying. He went scrambling for it
  without realizing how desperately he needed it,, trying to convince himself that it might be just the ticket, just what the doctor ordered. Its warm, resin-laden,
  sleep-inducing glow, all ruby-red and swirly-deep in his glass. It would ease his throat, for sure.
  A sip, that's all. Just this one small glass. After all, it wasn't his addiction he was pandering to, but Alec Kyle's. Except this time it really was for curative or
  medicinal purposes. He was just so tired! Damned if
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  he didn't intend to get a good night's sleep tonight, at least! And doubly damned if he did, too . . .
  Two and a half weeks later, when B.J. could no longer resist it, and when she had decided that she couldn't afford to wait any
  longer, she did try to call the Necroscope - only to discover that he had given her the wrong number! But she knew he
  couldn't possibly  have done it deliberately. Checking  with  the  switchboard,  she  then  found  that  he'd  changed  his
  ex-directory number. But since she'd given him no instructions  to  the  contrary,  why  shouldn't  he?  She  had  simply
  failed to consider the possibility that he might do such a thing, that was all.
  But all was not lost. He had been ordered to stay in touch with her, and B.J. knew he would and even when he would: just a
  few days before the full moon, Harry would contact her. He had damn well better! And meanwhile she had decided to do
  a little searching of her own, for him. For  in  the  glaring  light  of  the  possibility  that  he  might  be  more  than  a  mere
  mystery man and in fact the Mysterious One—
  —Harry Keogh had become very important to her. So important that perhaps  it was time B.J. took a short  'holiday.'
  She had already closed the  bar  down  and  split  her  five  girls  into  two  teams:  one  pair  of  girls  searching  for  Harry
  
  locally, and the second team staking-out the wine bar in its immediate vicinity to see if they could sight this watcher
  Harry had warned her about and discover his business with her. Which left B.J. herself and one other girl. Well, now
  she had somewhere to go, with or without Harry Keogh, and couldn't risk being followed. And she knew exactly how
  to employ the last of her girls . . .
  In the wee small hours of a wet and windy Sunday morning some four days  before B.J. was due to hear her Master's
  call, she headed north. She felt sure that once she'd explained why she was early, Radu would understand  her zeal in
  this respect.
  She drove a hired car, a cheap, old, reliable but unspectacular model that wasn't likely to attract unwanted attention.
  Even so, she wouldn't drive it directly from the bar but took a taxi to the home of one of her girls who had picked the
  car up for her. The girl lived in a northern district of the city.
  It was a well-timed operation: Bonnie Jean left the taxi and paid the driver, got into the hired car and drove it away.
  And in the mirror she saw the girl - one of her 'lieutenants' - following close behind in her own car. The girl wasn't just
  acting as a decoy; she would become a physical obstruction  if B.J. should  be followed. She would simply put herself
  and her vehicle in the way of the pursuer! But it was 2 a.m. and the weather was bad, and with the precautions B.J. had
  taken, she didn't think it likely that she'd be tailed.
  To further bolster her confidence in that respect, there was the fact
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  that despite all her vigilance there had been no further spying on her place as reported by Harry Keogh. So perhaps  it
  had been a one-off sort of thing after all, a coincidence that hadn't involved her directly. Well, maybe . . . but B.J. was
  becoming less and less inclined towards coincidences, and in any case she hadn't been willing to risk it.
  And now there was only one hazard, one gauntlet left to run: the Firth of Forth bridge, the only way into or out of
  the city from the north. If anyone had seen her leave home, and assuming they knew she would ultimately drive north,
  the bridge would be the ideal place to pick up her trail.
  But the bridge came and went without incident, and so did B.J.'s escort. A  mile  or  so  beyond  the  Firth  of  Forth,
  heading for Perth, the headlights of the car behind flashed three times in  her  mirror,  and  she  knew  what  the  signal
  meant: there was no one in pursuit, no one to track her to the lair in its mountain fastness.  But even so her lieutenant
  would park at the side of the road, and wait there a good  hour, recording the details of passing  cars and  observing
  what she could of their drivers.
  And the rest of it was all down to Bonnie Jean Mirlu . . .
  Dawn found B.J. at 'a friend's house'  in tiny Inverdruie; she  stayed  there  whenever  she  was  up  this  way,  which  of
  necessity  meant regular quarterly  visits.  But  Auld  John  was  always  here,  as  his  father  had  been  before  him.  John
  'belonged' to her Master no less than Bonnie Jean herself, but his blood was not of the blood, and so he was merely a
  thrall - a watcher or sentinel - here on the approach routes  to Him in His lair high in the mountains. But having been
  sworn to Him by moonlight, John was nevertheless his Master's true man.
  B.J.'s  route  had  taken  her  through  Perth,  Pitlochry,  Kingussie  and  Kincraig,  and  finally  across  the  Spey  to
  Inverdruie. And as true dawn's light limned the misty horizon of the Grampians, so Auld John was there to greet the 'wee mistress,'
  as he thought of her, when her car pulled into his drive. And:
  'Better garage the car, John,' she told him, after a brief hug. 'I've had snoopers  at  my  place  in  Edinburgh,  and  we
  cannot  afford such  up here.' And entering his small house  where it was almost hidden  from  the  road  in  a  copse  of
  birch, rowan and juniper, she waited for him.
  'It was dire cold last time ye were here, Bonnie Jean,' he told her, coming in and closing the door. 'Me, ah could'nae
  hae climbed wi' ye. Not this time. It's these old bones . . . mah fingers hae no grip in they!'
  'You're for watching, John,' she reminded him. 'No for the climbing.'
  'Aye, but ah'd hae dearly loved tae see Him just one more time,' he said. 'Perhaps next time, come summer. But. . .
  surely ye're early, lass?'
  'Snoopers,  as  I  said,'  she  nodded.  'And  maybe  worse  than  snoopers.  Things  He  should  know,  anyway.  And  a
  stranger, John. All very
  mysterious. But as for him: well, I've no doubt you'll be seeing him soon enough, if I've gauged it right.'
  The old man cocked his head. 'A stranger? Here? And "mysterious," did ye say?' His eyes were suddenly bird-bright.
  Again her nod. 'Who knows, who knows?' She gave herself a shake, turned to the fire and warmed her hands. 'Reasons enough to come up here a few days early,
  anyway.'
  Auld John was maybe sixty-five, but still spry for all his complaining. He was tall, gangling, walked with a woodsman's lope (an entirely natural one, the
  insignia of his calling as a gillie and tracker, if anything, and not rooted in any condition), and wore his long, thinning grey hair tied back in a clasp, to keep it from
  his weathered face.
  He had on occasion accompanied Bonnie Jean high into the Cairngorms, to the lair. But that was a climb, and Auld John was no longer up to it. As for their
  relationship . . . that was strange as can be. For more than sixty years ago B.J. had used to bounce him on her knee! And here she was a young girl, and him an old
  man . . .
  The blood is the life!
  Auld John sat down opposite the wee mistress, reached out to put a log on the fire in the great wide hearth, and said, 'A body grows auld. Truly auld.'
  
  'But slowly, John,' she answered, 'very slowly. And you'll outlive most men. Aye, and you've a lot to be thankful for. For after all, you've known Him.'
  'In His sleep, ah've known Him, it's true. But tae see Him up and aboot. . .! D'ye think . . .?' And now his voice was low and his eyes narrow in the firelight.
  Narrow and feral over a long flat nose.
  'All things are possible in Him, John,' she told him. 'As the stars and mistress moon spin their tracks through space and time, slowly but surely His time comes
  around. He may not stay down forever. For just as your bones age and wither, so do His - and He has outlasted the centuries! I've calculated his time over and over
  again, and always it comes out the same.'
  'Four years, is it?' The old man's voice was low, almost a growl, yet pleading in its eagerness. 'Is it down to just four years?'
  Bonnie Jean nodded again, and repeated him, Three or four at most, after six long centuries! A drop in the ocean, John.'
  'And then, and then . . .?' It was an old story, but he would hear it again.
  'Then, a legend born anew,' she answered. 'A new creature in the heights, along with the pine martens, the golden eagles, and the wildcats. But just think, John:
  in His horseshoe mountains, He knew the real cats: the last of the sabretooths!'
  'A new creature in the high crags,' he whiningly repeated her, his yellow eyes blinking his excitement.
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  'And in the cities!' Bonnie Jean added. 'Don't forget the cities. Oh, our Master tried the other way - the secret way -
  all those many centuries ago. It didn't work then, and won't now.'
  'But,' the old man protested, 'only show a man something that's  different - be sure he'll murder it! Come hell or high
  water, if it's strange and fails to conform, it's a goner. And if it's like Him up there?' (A toss  of his head, indicating the
  Cairngorms). 'If it's like the Master? War, Bonnie Jean, war!'
  'Indeed,' she agreed. 'And as it was then, when He first came among us, so it is now. Except men have forgotten the
  old times, the old legends, and no longer believe. And by the time they do, it will be too late! Aye, and there's no Great
  Black Death now, John, to plague Him and His. And just as our Master was driven here, driven west, and north, by
  that black, devouring fire, so now He will light a flame and drive east. Except He'll not stop,  but drive south  and west
  too! For in His time the world was so small; why, there are entire continents that He never saw or knew about! But He
  will, He will . . .'
  The Black Death stopped Him, consigning Him to the everlasting dark ..."  Auld John shivered.
  '. . . Not everlasting, John,' she told him. 'And when He's up, it's the Red Death that will light His way! Ah, but nothing from poor Mr Poe, though certainly it
  will seem like it. No more hiding, John, when next He comes down from the mountains. And the name of the pack ..."
  '. . . Shall be Mankind!' (His turn to interrupt).
  They shall be legion,' she tossed back her hair, grey as Auld John's in the firelight. 'And His enemies, who or whatever remains of them . . .'
  '. . . The true death,' he nodded. 'Neither undeath, nor any sort of sleep such as He has known, but death forever!'
  'Amen to that,' she said, and smiled.
  'When will ye go tae Him?'
  'Give me soup, your good broth, and tea to brew and a little strong, wild meat to take with me. Inverdruie sleeps; when she wakes I'll be long gone. You'll see
  me along the trail into the foothills, as always, then return and wait for me here. But I may be gone a while, so don't worry if I seem late.'
  Til no worry,' he told her.
  'And my equipment?'
  'Safe and sound.  But, are ye sure ye need it?' There was a chuckle in his voice. She answered with a laugh of her
  own:
  'I could climb it blindfold, as well you know!' Then her laughter stilled and she sobered  in a moment. 'Except I can't afford to slip.
  My life means nothing, but His . . .'
  'Aye, lass, aye,' he leaned across and took her hand. 'He has lived too long to die like that: cold and alone, lonely in
  His lair.'
  Bonnie Jean said nothing but stared into the fire. Shortly, John went to see to her food and make his preparations . .
  .
  B.J. 's climbing skills were prodigious; working with enormous efficiency and at great speed, and using only her sense  of balance,
  and the natural tenacity of long fingers and toes to defy gravity, she seemed almost to adhere to a rock face. And in all
  truth she scarcely required Auld John's ropes, pitons, karabiners, and similar paraphernalia of the professional climber.
  But she took them with her anyway.
  It was as she had explained: as His guardian, His keeper, she simply could not afford to slip. For  while  to  Bonnie
  Jean the climb itself was little more than a thrill - and her faith in her skill was absolute  - still she might  make  a  slip.
  Which to Him in His centuried sleep could easily mean the difference between undeath  and  the  true  death.  For  the
  balance  B.J.  was  required  to  maintain  on  the  rock  face  wasn't  nearly  so  delicate  as  the  balance  of  His  continued
  existence.
  Auld John knew all of this, and though he was silent on the woodland trail where they walked, still all of his thoughts were for
  Bonnie Jean and their mutual Master. 'Ye'll take care, lassie, in the heights?'
  'You know I will, John.'
  There has been a rockfall or two.'
  'Good! I'm always on the lookout for new routes.'
  Early spring sunlight, sharp and bright, dappled their path through  birch and Scots pine. B.J.  didn't  much  like  the
  
  sunlight; stepping aside from the larger yellow splotches, she felt glad that her climb would be mainly shaded by the bulk of
  the mountains.
  Back in Inverdruie, most people were still abed, barely awake, tossing and turning . . . but mainly turning their backs
  on the light coming in through their windows on this fine but chilly Sunday morning. There'd be church, of course, and animals to
  feed at the nearby nature reserves: brown bears, bison, antelope, and reindeer. And maybe even a handful of visitors,
  tourists,  at the gift shops  in the villages. Nothing like the crush of  a  few  months  ago,  when  the  snow  was  deep  at
  Aviemore  and  the  skiers  dotted  the  slopes  like  a  myriad  brightly  hurtling  insects  against  winter's  blinding  white
  backdrop.
  'Aye, and there were climbers, too,' Auld John reminisced. 'But no out this  way.'  No,  for  this  was  the  Cairngorms
  Nature Reserve: more than a hundred square miles of mountain heights and wilderness; the haunt of deer and wildcats,
  of foxes, otters, and other creatures of the wild - but rarely men. And it was John's domain, too. These were the trails
  where he was a guide, which made it easier to ensure that the most  secret  of  the  forest  tracks  remained  secret.  Oh,
  sometimes, even in the winter months, some idiot climber would ignore all the posted  warnings  to  bring  his  team  in
  here and stray this way . . . and sometimes they wouldn't make it out again. It rather depended on
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  where they walked, and especially where they climbed - and also on who else might be climbing there . . .
  Now the ground was rising. At a break in the trees Bonnie Jean and Auld John paused and looked back along the way they'd come, across Loch -an Eilein with
  its crumbling castle. Bonnie Jean was well acquainted with a local tradition: that the old castle in the lake was much associated with the outlawed son of Robert II,
  called the Wolf of Badenoch; Badenoch being the area east of the Spey and along the Cairngorms foothills. Ah, but she also knew that 'the Wolf had been dead for
  a hundred years before the castle was built; which seemed to her to beg the question, just which wolf was remembered here - and just how well had diverse
  traditions kept themselves apart? Or how badly?
  Among the trees, mossy granite outcrops began to show: 'the tears o' the titan mountains,' as Auld John was wont to call them. And at last they were through
  the foothills to the base of an almost sheer rock face. And: 'Granite,' Auld John informed unnecessarily, 'an' more than four thousand feet of it, at that -
  perpendicular!' Well, not quite.
  He had carried her pack; now he helped to transfer it to her person, tied back her hair with his own clasp, and filled a small pouch at her belt with chalk powder,
  to keep her fingers dry for the climbing. Finally: 'Where the going's rough, use the rope,' he advised, for he dared not order.
  And up she went...
  Four thousand feet of granite. But by no means perpendicular, not all of it. In places the going was flat, or very nearly so: scree-filled basins, domed plateaux,
  rocky re-entries and pine-clad saddles. Oh, in one or two places it was sheer, and in the worst place of all vertiginous to overhanging through five hundred feet of a
  traverse that would cause the best of climbers to blink and cringe back from it, if only for a moment or two, before the actual assault. But to Bonnie Jean's mind
  that was what climbing was all about: the challenge.
  .    Not so much of a challenge to her, though, whose business, whose duty it had been to climb these rocks at least once in a three-month, every season of the year,
  for the last one hundred and seventy years! Some six hundred and eighty times now - she occasionally lost count -B.J. had pitted herself against these heights, and
  so knew each crack and crevasse, every cave, ledge and chimney along the way.
  She knew where veins of rose quartz shone pink and purple in the grainy granite face, and a chimney where curious smoky crystals or 'germs' (cairn gorms) had
  weathered loose and lay in a neat pile, like a natural cairn. She knew where to avoid the aeries of the great Golden Eagles, especially now, in the mating and nesting
  season, and used as landmarks the bruised and rusted pitons of yesteryear, more often than
  not her own, out of times when she'd lacked experience.
  And for every thousand  feet she climbed, she would move laterally a kilometer or more, ever deeper into the mazy
  interior of the mountain system, where few climbers had ventured  before.  But  in  one  hundred  and  seventy  years  -
  especially the last thirty - there had been climbers, some of whom had come too close.
  Well, the Cairngorms were notoriously unforgiving mountains, and in places they were entirely inaccessible. Some
  bodies had never been, never would be discovered. But Bonnie Jean knew where the bones  of a handful of them lay,
  at least; knew, too, what was become of their flesh . . .
  Some two hours  after midday, she rested on a ledge overlooking a dark ravine with a waterfall  and  white  water  that
  rushed down to the swollen,' near-distant Spey. Almost all the snows of winter had melted down into the earth and the
  rocks now, to filter their way into falls and cataracts. The heavy rains of the last few months had added to the tumult,
  and the tumbling tributary four hundred and fifty feet below sent up spray to dampen the rocks. Higher up, a series of
  caves opened into a far greater cavern system: the lair itself.
  B.J. could have - perhaps  should  have - chosen  the 'easy' route into the lair: up onto the plateau's shattered  roof,
  and down through any one of several shafts into the dusty, rubble-strewn heart of the place. But this way had been a
  challenge,  albeit  a  small  one,  for  here  the  rock  was  rotten  and  given  to  crumbling.  Thus  it  presented  her  with  an
  opportunity to test secondary skills, this time with the generally despised apparatus of the professional climber.
  And having eaten just a bite, and sipped a little water, then - for the first time during her climb - pitons  and hammer,
  karabiners and fine, light nylon rope came into play. She used  them all to form a hoist, then cranked herself up onto
  the last ledge, where a treacherously fractured 'window' opened  into the gloom of the lair. And leaning back with her
  feet on the ledge and every ounce of her weight suspended  on the  rope,  she  looked  down  through  all  that  deadly
  height to where fangs of rock were blackened  by  the  torrent,  and  the  gorge  was  a  snarling  gash  of  a  mouth  more
  
  terrible than any dark beast's—
  —Almost.
  And so into the lair, which for all B.J. 's previous visits was at least as fearsome a step as the actual climb itself . . .
  Once  inside,  after  a  brief  scramble  through  shrouding  cobwebs,  accumulated  dust  and  sharp,  stony  debris,  B.J.
  wasted no time. With the ease of any night-sighted animal and most wild creatures, her eyes very quickly adjusted  to
  the gloom. Had it been pitch-black, they would have served her just as well. So that even as she shrugged out of her
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  harness, she was able to gauge fairly accurately her location in this cavern system which she had explored so many times before. She knew where she was, and
  therefore where He was.
  And between them, maybe two hundred feet of pitfalls and crumbling pathways, jumbles of fallen, hexagonal pillars, and dizzy causeways over crevasses
  which, for all she knew, might well go down to the roots of the mountains. On this one level she had explored the lair, for this was His place. But as for other
  possible levels: she didn't know, couldn't say.
  And apart from the natural obstacles of this great cavern, there was one other thing standing between B.J. and her Master. A Thing, yes, and she shuddered at the
  thought of it. . . even the 'wee mistress' herself.
  It was something of His, she knew, but still it was beyond reason. Beyond her reason, anyway. But it was sentient; it knew things, sensed things. It would
  know she was here, and it would stir when she passed by. And it would know why she was here . . . that it, the Thing itself, was one of her reasons. For just as B.J.
  's Master hungered, so did His creature . . .
  That would be the part she disliked, the one aspect of her duty that bothered her. Her Master's needs were one thing, but the needs of His creature were
  something else. She . . . disliked feeding it, even with beast's blood. Also, she never failed to be amazed by the fact that so little could satisfy so much. But would
  it be the same when the Thing was up? Surely He intended to bring it up, else what was its purpose? But Bonnie Jean had never inquired about it; it wasn't her
  business to question but to guard and inform, as it was her duty to obey.
  The place was unquiet; only take a single step away from the crack of light gleaming through the dusty, irregular shape of the 'window,' and silence fell as if
  someone had switched it on - or switched all sound off -except for the echoes of the lair itself: the dripping of water in various unseen locations, and B.J.'s own
  breathing, her own muffled movements. Quiet, yet unquiet. . . But by no means a contradiction of terms. The tumult of the gorge was dead here; it couldn't find its
  way in; something shut it out.
  There was some light, at least; rays or curtains of dim light filtering dustily down from various faults in a ceiling of ill-defined height and extent: the shafts
  through which she might have descended, if she'd chosen a different route. Light in this place, anyway, but not where He lay. For B.J. 's Master could no longer
  suffer direct sunlight. The moon was His light, and the full moon His glory! And it would be the same for B.J. in time to come, for she too was a moon child. So
  far as possible, she shunned the sun even now, though as yet it wouldn't kill her - not in her human form, at least. And she had often wondered: why here? Why
  build a lair in this high
  place, when Radu might have found Himself a place of darkness utter? But as she knew well enough, it had been a matter of circumstance, not
  choice. And anyway, He had been used - in a different age, in a different world - to a lofty manse indeed. But then, He'd been used
  to many things in His time . . .
  Carrying her pack slung over her shoulder, and following a trail of poorly arranged 'flagstones' long since fallen from the ceiling,
  Bonnie Jean  set  out  through  the  maze  of  stony  rubble.  In  places  the  path  was  obscured,  almost  obliterated,  where
  recent falls had crashed down and caved-in the paving stones or hurled them aside, forming angular granite piles and jumbles of
  rock which were almost crystalline in their nitre-fused shapes.  But 'recent' in B.J.'s terms meant other than it would to
  persons  of normal longevity. Indeed, it meant any time in the last ten decades!  Still, it was as well that  her  Master's
  time would soon be up - that He would soon be up - for this place wouldn't last forever. And in this modern world . . .
  well, "repairs' were out of the question!  Oh, there remained a handful of thralls in  various  parts,  and  B.J.  's  girls,  of
  course, but getting them up here safely and secretly would be nigh impossible, and the task itself utterly beyond  them.
  This place had been 'built' before B.J.'s time, and the thralls who had built it for Him had died at their work. But in that  bygone  time
  all the land around was a wilderness, when prying eyes were few and far between . . .
  Thus her thoughts ran as she approached the place of the Thing, that dark cave to one side of the main cavern, where the light never reached
  and the silence was near absolute; the physical silence, anyway. But the atmosphere, or aether - if there really were such  a thing -
  seemed to seethe here; she felt the oppressive weight of the place almost tangibly upon her shoulders.
  B.J.  was  no  mentalist  (it  was  only  the  awesome  strength  of  her  Master's  sendings  that  made  possible
  communication with Him, let alone His creature!), but as always in this place, so close to the Thing, she  sensed  emanations of weird
  entity, the foetal fumblings of that which waited to be born. And because it was her duty, despite the fact that  she hated it, still she
  turned from the path, however briefly, entered the cave of the Thing, and thus 'announced' her presence.
  And as her eyes adjusted to the greater darkness, so the aura of awful sentience - of a vacant yet savage  awareness
  - grew more tangible yet. . . and the sure knowledge that she in her turn had been recognized.
  An outline or silhouette took shape in the darkness, one which radiated its own almost imperceptible red glow, like the embers of
  an almost-dead fire in a dark room. It was a cylindrical shape formed of hexagonal granite columns standing on end like the staves
  of a barrel. At their bases these pillars were buried in rubble and buttressed with
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  boulders to stop them toppling outwards; they formed the walls of a massive container or vat. But several of them were cracked,
  
  and others were slightly splayed or stood askew, or had been forced apart by the geological  stresses  of  the  mountains,  allowing
  trickles of a resinous sealant or preservative to escape  from within and form puddles  hardening to amber at the bases of the
  surrounding boulders.
  B.J. approached the vat, reached out tentatively at first, but finally placed her hands upon two of the columns. The stone was
  cold to her touch; it shouldn't convey anything but that it was stone; nothing of the nature of its contents should be apparent. But something
  was apparent. And B.J. thought: Ifs like listening to the sea in a sounding shell. Except the sea has an entirely natural sound, with nothing of sentience and
  entirely oblivious to the rest of the world around it. It can't respond, except to ignore.
  But this Thing, her Master's creature, was not oblivious. And even as she listened to it, so it 'listened' to her. And:
  Thud! (Dully, like some far, faint vibration, felt in her fingertips).
  She had felt, heard or sensed it before and didn't recoil. In another five minutes, or fifteen, or twenty, if she cared to
  stand here so long, she would hear it again.
  The slowed-down, almost-stilled, hibernating heartbeat of the Thing. No, not hibernating (she corrected herself) but suspended, indefinitely
  extended . . . waiting! And alive, oh yes!
  Alive, in there, Her Master's future . . . what, guardian? Something to take her place, when He was up again? That was a thought  she had
  thought before, even scarcely daring to think it. His own fierce creature, to guard Him in His lair ...
  Thud!
  And this time, because she stood there rapt in thought - and perhaps unworthy thoughts, at that, because He had assured her often enough
  that she would always have a place with Him - Bonnie Jean was startled and snatched back her hands.
  Was it intelligent, like Him, she wondered? Would it perhaps be jealous of her, this unborn Thing?
  She moved quickly to the side of the stone vat, climbed a stairway of stacked slabs, finally gazed down into the solidified murky swirl of a
  mainly opaque, luminous resin reservoir. And with eyes feral in the darkness, she kneeled at the rim to peer through
  the crusted surface deep into the looser liquids beneath, at the foetal Thing that was curled there -
  —That massive wedge of a head as seen in profile. Those long dog jaws. The dark orbit of an eye big as a platter!
  The last time she was here, its heartbeat had been slower, and the great lid of its eye entirely closed, asleep. But now:
  Thud!
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  The Thing quickened beyond a doubt, and the lid of its eye seemed gashed where a crack of yellow light glowed from within, brighter than its protective resin
  sheath . . .
  Bonnie Jean stood up, descended the stairs, left the cave for the less fearsome labyrinth of the cavern complex, and finally ran breathlessly to her Master . . .
  ...  To Radu Lykan.
  PART THREE
  VAMPIRE GENESIS
  I
  SHAITAN: HIS RISE AND FALL.
  CAMS SAPIENS: THE WEREWOLF
  CONNECTION.
  Shaitan the Unborn came out of the vampire swamps, oh, a long time ago. The first and worst of the Wamphyri - the first of the
  Great Vampires - Shaitan was the source of undeath.
  He came out of the west and saw that the darkness of Starside was good, but he felt through the thinning mists the withering rays of a hot sun
  blazing through the high passes of the barrier mountains; it turned his skin rough and red. So he took the left-hand path round the
  mountains,  and  came  upon  the  boulder  plains  of  gaunt  and  gloomy  Starside whereon dwelled nothing of any threat;  while
  southwards lay the sun which was injurious (and possibly even fatal) to him and all such as he would bring into the world. From which time
  forward he would always choose a dark and sinistral path through life ...
  When he knew a strange dark thirst, he drank of the sweet water tumbling down from the mountains; it quenched his thirst but
  did not truly satisfy him. When he felt a strange dark hunger, he ate grasses, herbs, some bitter fruits. These served to fill him but
  the hunger would not pass. It was the hunger of an evil spore, a leech, which had taken root within Shaitan, body, mind, and soul
  . . .  if there had been a soul.
  Shaitan was unclothed  but unashamed, for he knew that he was beautiful; and he would display his beauty. So he compared
  himself to the beasts of the wild, of the swamps, foothills and mountains, and saw that their beauty came from their innocence. For which reason it
  
  was useless to display himself or even impose his will upon them. Unintelligent, innocent, they could not deny that he knew best; they would
  bend  to his will too easily. Wherefore he would impose that will upon  others  of  his  own  design.  Except.  .  .  where  were  they?
  Travelling east, he looked for them but discovered them not yet a while. And in his loneliness he took bats for familiars, whose
  flying skills he envied.
  Eventually he came upon trogs, cavern un-men and -women, who were scarcely beautiful and not greatly like unto himself; but Shaitan
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  corrupted them anyway, filling them with his vices, and making them sick and dead and undead. He took trog women
  to his bed, and there was issue. Such 'children' as were born were hideous, insane, ever hungry! They suckled blood,
  not milk, and grew too fast. Their mothers lay on them to smother them. Shaitan devoured  one, in order to taste  of its
  flesh. It satisfied the hunger of his leech . . . barely, for a while.
  So then, with the bats  and the trogs  Shaitan had gathered minions unto himself. But was this  all  there  was?  The
  parasite within him was mature now; it desired more; it lived on Shaitan's blood as he lived on the blood of others, but
  was not satisfied with its host's regimen. And so he would seek out other men, on whom to impose his will. Except he
  sometimes wondered: whose will was it? His or his parasite leech's? And from then on the question  of free will, and
  integrity of spirit, became matters of great  importance  to  Shaitan,  even  assuming  dimensions  of  obsession  in  him.
  And in all subsequent vampires.
  The trogs  likened Shaitan to certain 'men' on the far side of the mountains, in Sunside. He determined to conquer
  Sunside, which would be as subtle as all his works. First he would approach the sunsiders as their friend, later as their
  master.
  And so in the twilight before the night Shaitan went into Sunside, and in the gloamy foothills was drawn to the fires
  of hunters. East and west as far as his eyes could see, the fires lit up the night like beacons.  The Sunsider tribes were
  legion! In his black heart Shaitan was glad, believing that at last he had found true men upon which to impose his will.
  His dreams of conquest quickly evaporated. With Starside's trogs it had been easy, but these men (the 'Szgany' of Sunside) were very different...  and their
  women different, too. Unlike trog females, Szgany women were lovely creatures. Shaitan was the Great Seducer; he seduced - and he murdered! But his crime was
  discovered and he was hounded out of the Szgany camps.
  His trackers set a wolf upon him, and for the first time Shaitan used metamorphism to change his shape and become more animal than the wolf itself! Furious
  in his rage, he slew not only the watchdog but certain of his human pursuers, and took others for his thralls. For as a dweller among Starside's cavern trogs.
  Shaitan had discovered his power over men: how his bite infected their blood with an incurable fever, until they became his thralls for ever and ever.
  And hidden in a vampire mist called out of his own pores and up from the earth, Shaitan and one of his thralls went up into the dark foothills, finding refuge in
  a cave. For the purple dawn twilight was fading, and a poisoned golden blister was poising itself even now on the southern horizon far across the forest. Shaitan's
  symbiont had become a two-edged sword - impossible to accept its advantages without its disadvantages.
  Sunlight: it was a seething agony in his eyes and against his hide! It burned him, visibly steamed the moisture from
  his flesh, and sapped his great strength!  He could go out from the cave for seconds,  but minutes would deplete him
  horribly, and an hour would kill him and his leech both. He had suspected it, which was why he had gone into Sunside
  in the evening. But now he had proof positive: the sun was his mortal enemy.
  The long day crawled endlessly  by; more men of the Szgany whom Shaitan had vampirized came to him as thralls;
  when night fell he took these  poor creatures over the mountains and down into Starside,  where  several  trog  thralls
  were  waiting  on  the  return  of  their  master.  Now  his  band  numbered  thirteen  in  all,  and  Shaitan  named  them  his
  disciples (though in fact they were his blood-slaves). And thirteen would become a number of ill-omen from that time
  on, in more worlds than one . . .
  Coming down into Starside, Shaitan saw a light shining up into the night, which one of his band said must be the fallen white sun
  that some called a gateway into hell. Shaitan was curious, and said he must see this hell-gate.
  They climbed a low crater wall, stood on its rim and gazed down upon the dome of cold fire within. Blinded, the trogs  staggered
  to and fro. One tripped, fell, landed on a ledge close to the white glare. Fearful of the strange light, he put up a hand to
  fend it off; his hand touched the dazzle's surface, and sank into it. . .  he cried out in his guttural fashion, as the hellgate
  dragged him in and swallowed him whole!
  And  Shaitan said: This shall be a punishment for any who would offend me  three  times.  Three  chances,  for  I  am
  forgiving, as you see. And there shall be other punishments, aye. I am the Lord Shaitan, who can make men undead!
  Anyone  who would do me harm, let him first think on this: I shall drain his blood and bury him deep in the ground.
  And he shall lie there and scream forever, or until he stiffens to a stone in the earth. And that land there to the north; I
  perceive it is icy cold and no fit habitation. Therefore, let him who would deny me beware. In my house  there shall be
  no warm bed or soft woman-flesh for him; no kind master to guide and instruct him; neither wonders to be witnessed
  nor mysteries revealed. For I shall banish him north to freeze in the ice all alone. But for him who would obey me in all
  things, and be my true servant, a rich red life forever . . . aye, even unto death - and beyond! So be it. . .'
  Lord Shaitan and his followers came to a region of giant stone  stacks  weathered out of the mountains. In their bases
  they were fortified with fallen scree jumbles; in their columns were fissures, ledges and caverns, many as vast  as halls.
  Shaitan much admired these soaring
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  stacks, which were very grand and gaunt. 'One of these shall be my house,'he said.
  And a thrall told him: They are like unto the aeries of the mountain eagles!'
  'Aye,' said Shaitan. The aeries of the Wamphyri!' He set to and built his house. The task was enormous; only a vampire and his thralls could ever accomplish it.
  Except Shaitan would build not only a house but an empire of vampires. He recruited trogs out of their caverns, and sent his lieutenants into Sunside to hunt
  Szgany. And in the bowels of his rearing house, Shaitan experimented with his own metamorphic flesh, to furnish himself with all of his requirements.
  He bred trogs into cartilage creatures, whose minds were small and bodies elastic. From these he made leathers and coverings for the aerie's exterior stairways,
  or articles of furniture for his rooms. And all of his materials still living a life of sorts, gradually petrifying and becoming permanent in their places. He mated
  men with trog women, the issue of which was unseemly. He got foul, bloated things, all gross and mindless, which he bred into gaslings, for the heating of the
  stack, and into things-which-consume, for his refuse pits.
  Shaitan took mindless vampire flesh and converted it; he would build flying creatures, and soar out from his aerie upon the winds like his familiar bats. At
  first he failed; later he provided his flyers with the altered brains of men, that they should have something (but never too much) of volition. All of which
  creatures, nascent and full-formed, were his thralls.
  Word of his works went abroad into Sunside. Starside was now damned and shunned utterly - by men, at least. But by now the Szgany had problems other
  than Shaitan and his raiders. Far in the west the swamps were a spawning ground for monsters! Foolish men and innocent creatures went down to the scummy
  waters to drink, and things other than men and wolves came up!
  And in the early years of Shaitan's ascendancy, a great many beings who were like unto him came over from Sunside to build their houses in the rearing stone
  aeries of the Wamphyri. And because they were even as strong as Shaitan and much of a kind, he made no protest but let them be. For in any case there was space
  enough among the great stacks and even Shaitan was unable to lay claim to all of them. Also, across the barrier mountains there was food and entertainment for
  all. Still, as a precaution, Shaitan fashioned fierce warrior-creatures, to. fill any would-be enemies with terror . . .
  And in the next two hundred years the Wamphyri became a great many. Too many . . .
  On Sunside, the Szgany had become clans of Travellers,' moving nomadically from place to place by day, and sleeping in deep forests or
  caves at night. Even so, the Lords of Starside gave them no peace, and the toll in blood was monstrous!
  Then Shaitan saw his error in permitting other Lords to wax so strong and so many. He determined to get bloodsons
  out of comely women, with which to whelm the other Lords and keep them down; and his sons and daughters were many. Of the latter: he
  used them in their turn, for his own flesh was the sweetest. Which would be the way of it with vampires down all the ages.
  And as the Lords and Ladies of the Wamphyri proliferated, so they degenerated, going from evil to evil, and descending depth to irredeem
  able depth . . .
  Eventually all of the greater stacks  had masters or mistresses;  the lesser aeries were occupied; there was no room left in all the
  heights for men and their sons, daughters,  thralls and creatures. And so, finally, they warred for possession of the stacks, until
  Starside's skies were full of flyers and warriors fighting under the ice-chip stars  and in  the  ramparts of the great aeries. Gongs
  sounded, war-drums pounded, and banners  fluttered, displaying the devices of their masters. Vampire destroyed  vampire -
  even fathers, sons and brothers - as the boulder plains and lands around were drenched in blood and littered with the
  grotesque, shattered corpses of fallen beasts.
  Even Shaitan came under attack, but he was clever in the defence of his aerie, and went not out to war. But as various Lords were weakened in
  stacks close by, then he would swoop on them and put them down. In this manner a cluster of aeries all came under Shaitan's command.
  When his strategy was seen, the others called a truce and came upon him as a single force, and Shaitan was almost
  trapped in Shaitanstack. Only his metamorphism saved him, when like the fallen angel he was he used  it to develop a bat's design
  and glide from his higher ramparts to safety in a secret place. Meanwhile  his  forces  had  rallied and regrouped under his
  lieutenants, and Shaitanstack had not been taken . . .
  The bloodwars lasted a hundred years; the fashioning of flyers and warriors became an art; Wamphyri numbers were decimated
  in all the reek and roil of mindless slaughter. It was the era in which Sunside's Szgany backed off from the abyss and breathed
  again, and reorganized their lives and what little remained of their society. Except it couldn't last.
  For Shaitan was now the undisputed  Lord of Vampires, the 'high magistrate' to whom lesser Lords took their disputes for his
  judgement. And as the clamour of war subsided,  so the period of mercifully infrequent raids on Sunside was over, and
  the nightmare sprang up again with renewed vigour. For now the Wamphyri must see to the
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  provisioning of their ravaged and undernourished aeries, whose sustenance roamed on Sunside.
  For sixty years this was the way of it, and Shaitan doled out hunting permits and took his tithe of trembling flesh
  from whatever the others brought back. But the lesser Lords loathed him and would whelm him if they could. He knew
  it and when the coup came at last was ready to put it down. All who had conspired against him, he brought  to trial -
  even his own son, who he banished to the Icelands: the least of his punishments.
  As for the others who. had plotted to overthrow him, these were several, and their punishments various. Some were
  buried alive (or undead) on the boulder plains, to 'stiffen to stones'  in the shuddering  earth. One, Nonari the Gross,
  was  tossed  with  his  entire  court  and  the  leaders  of  his  Szgany  supplicants  into  the  Hell-lands  Gate.  And  if  this
  
  Nonari's bloodname, Ferenczy, had been a curse to the Szgany of this world, then it was destined to become just such
  a curse in another.
  Likewise banished through the Gate were the Drakul brothers, Karl and Egon, who rivalled Shaitan in their evil, and
  one other who was a great thorn in Shaitan's side. For in the earliest days of Shaitan's coming he had tried to work his
  will on such as Radu Lykan, but all in vain; the grey brothers of the barrier mountains acknowledged no master but
  the Leader of the Pack and owned no mistress but the hurtling silver moon at her full. And Radu Lykan was of that sub-order of
  Wamphyri: a wolf, or more properly, a werewolf! Lord Shaitan abhorred such 'dog-Lords,' the sons of wolves, and even if
  there'd been no bloodwars he would have found a way to dispose of such as Radu.
  So for a while there was peace again on Starside, and a truce between the Wamphyri Lords and Ladies. But because
   they were Wamphyri, it couldn't last. Greedy, jealous, territorial, they were a plague unto themselves. And eventually
  even Shaitan was whelmed and fell, and was driven from Starside into the cold and inhospitable Icelands.
  All of these things are legends told aforetime. But what remains to be told was previously undisclosed . . .
  Perhaps  wolves,  like  men  and  bears,  foxes  and  bats,  and  other  species,  were  creatures  of  both  worlds:
  Sunside/Starside, and the so-called Hell-lands on the far side of the Starside Gate. Perhaps, springing  from  the  one
  cosmic germ, a universal soup of genesis, similar forms of life were pre-ordained in the primal plastic of many worlds.
  The fossil record  of  earth  suggests  it  was  so.  But  unless  some  palaeontologist  was  fortunate  (or  unfortunate?)
  enough  to  know  exactly  where  to  dig,  he  would  never  in  all  the  world  find  anything  remotely  resembling  the
  Wamphyri  of  Sunside/Starside.  He  would  not  discover  them  among  the  strata  of  Earth's  prehistory,  for  in  their
  beginning Earth was not the homeworld of the Wamphyri. But for an accident of
  Nature (the Gate on Starside, and later a second  Gate, forged in error and  ignorance  by  men),  the  Wamphyri  could
  never have ventured here. There would have been wolves of the wild in our world, but not werewolves.
  Of the latter:
  It has been told how men and beasts went down to the vampire swamps to drink, and how creatures other than men
  - but most certainly beasts  - returned from that place. Until they learned better, the grey  brothers  of  the  mountains
  were among the first victims of the swamp-born horror. Contaminated with a vampire spore, occasionally a sick wolf
  would  return  to  the  pack.  But  he  would  be  different  and  changed  forever.  Like  any  human  wanderer  or  explorer
  suffering the same fate, he would become an outcast from his own kind.
  Men savaged by such an animal would usually die, to rise up again as vampire thralls - but without a master! Then
  they  in turn must flee from their families and friends to wander as outcasts  until their  former  brothers  tracked  them
  down, or the furnace sun found them wanting. Or they could cross the mountains into the dubious safety of Starside.
  But they were different again from the victims of human vampires; not only did they fear the sunlight but revelled in
  the moonlight! For there was something of the grey brothers in them, whose mistress is the full and tumbling moon.
  Also, they were generally insane - lunatics -or at the very least, they lacked total command of their senses.  As such
  and despite that they were dangerous, they fell easy prey to men, the sun, the human vampires of Starside. Thus, in
  the language and psychology of the world beyond the Starside Gate, it was such pitiful creatures as these  who would
  have been the true lycanthropes: madmen who thought that they were wolves!
  Except. . . there was another sort.
  Paradoxically - and for all that it sickened such  lifeforms as suffered its infection - vampirism was the source of an
  incredible longevity. For the sickness  was spiritual and of the soul, while life was physical and of the blood. Which
  meant that rarely, mercifully rarely, a wolf infected with a vampire spore would live long beyond  the years of  a  true
  wolf, and its leech . . . would mature! Then the real danger, when a wolf such as this should savage a man!
  For the vampire is tenacious, and the bite of this wolf would carry  a  deal  more  than  venomous  spittle!  Indeed  it
  might even carry the egg of its leech, by means of which a true vampire extends something of itself down all the ages.
  And whether or no the victim died, he would rise up again undead  and Wamphyri! Such men were. They were men -
  but the vampire egg of a wolf was in them, with whatever it had contracted or inherited of its former host's makeup.
  And  unlike the poor lycanthropes  of  a  different  civilization  and  world  (whose  blood  might  be  infected  however
  slightly with some faint trace
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  descended from Starside?) the werewolves of that parallel world did indeed have the power of transformation: metamorphosis into their ancestral form. All it
  took was the moon flying full over the boulder plains, to transform man into beast-man, to turn certain Lords of the Wamphyri into men with the faces, forms,
  and ferocious appetites of wild
  dogs!
  Homo sapiens, Canis sapiens, loup-garou . . . werewolf.
  Radu Lykan - banished through the Hell-lands Gate by Lord Shaitan, as we have seen - was one such. But before he was a dog-Lord, Radu was a man. And
  this is his story:
  Radu had been a loner, a mountain man . . . until he and his companion wolf had ventured east of the barrier mountains into the swampy badlands. He had been a
  man who rarely bothered with his own kind, favouring the company of a dog of the wild whose broken leg he had healed when he discovered the animal
  half-buried in sliding scree; since when they had been inseparable.
  
  But where other Szgany loners were usually dull, slothful fellows -disinclined to the companionship of the camp, or to working alongside their gipsy
  brothers on Sunside; or defective of mind or spirit, which might tend to make them brutish, turning them into thieves, vagabonds, and finally outcasts from the
  camps of the Szgany by virtue of the fact that none would have truck with them - Radu was very different.
  He had been born into the band of Giorga Zirescu, a bully of a tribal chieftain whose twin sons were no better than their father, made worse by virtue of
  Giorga's influence and protection. Ion and Lexandru Zirescu had grown up with Radu, or rather he had grown up suffering their constant brutalities - but no more
  or less than the rest of the tribe suffered under Giorga and his sons. For while the Szgany Zirescu were strong in numbers, they were weak in resolve and easily
  cowed by their chief. And despite that Giorga was loathed, he and his sons were huge men, as hard-headed as they were hard-fisted.
  Radu's mother had died giving life to his sister, Magda; that had been when he was seven years old, following which his own childhood had been lost to
  caring for the small girl-child, while his father Freji hunted, gathered, or beat the bounds on the perimeter of Giorga's territory, in the lee of the barrier mountains
  where they commenced their gradual slump towards the western swamps and badlands. And in Freji's frequent absence, Radu fell prey to the Zirescu brothers.
  The twins were two years Radu's senior, and their various torments ranged from trifling insults to major beatings. They would even have hurt little Magda, if
  Radu had not been there to redirect and absorb their spite, so protecting her. But he always was - which served to earn him yet more insults, when Ion and
  Lexandru were wont to catcall and name him 'Radu the wetnurse,' and so forth.
  Radu was tall; indeed, and for all that his father was a slight man, Radu's height was extraordinary. Aged  nine  he
  was tall as a fifteen-year-old, yet lithe and willowy as a lath - or as 'a lass,' as Ion and Lexandru would have it! Perhaps
  it was his nature to be thin; more likely it was the lack of good  food (and the fact that hard work was plentiful) that
  kept  him  that  way.  But  he  was  not  without  physical  strength,  and  likewise  his  character  was  strong,  however
  repressed. His face was usually expressionless, with dark, deep-sunken  and humourless eyes, long cheekbones and jaw, and
  strong straight teeth in a thin mouth closed as if clamped shut.  For he had learned even as a child that it was best  to say
  very little, especially in the company or presence of the Zirescu brothers.
  As a child, Radu's hair had been black - black as night, black as jet! -but even in his early teens it had started to turn grey, and ashen streaks
  were prominent at his veined, sensitive temples. His nose was long but not severe  .  .  .  until  Ion  Zirescu  broke  it  in  a  one-sided
  scuffle,  and  it  healed  squat  at  the  base  and  hooked  in  the  middle,  lending  Radu  a  hawkish  mien  tempered  by
  self-imposed strictures of iron will, with which he held himself in rein. It was necessary that he exercise a firm control over himself, if
  only to appease his ailing father, who was a pacifist at best, a coward at worst, and no match for the Zirescus at any time. Which might
  explain why Radu usually lost his battles: (why, in his circumstances it might even be considered prudent to lose!) For while the Zirescu twins
  were trouble enough  in themselves, their cronies among the tribe's young  men were numerous and the times several
  when these had held Radu down while the brothers kicked and pummelled him. So the young Radu had learned to control himself,
  while events shaped which would be quite uncontrollable.
  Into Radu's mid-teens, the bullying of the Zirescus went on unabated; the youth  suffered many a bloodying, many a sore bone
  and broken face, but never once complained to his father, whose health had for long and long been failing. But if Freji Lykan was feeling the
  weight of his years and the weariness of many deprivations under his swine of a chief, then Giorga was likewise declining . . . except in
  his case it was the good plum brandy and surfeit of meat that were taking their toll. And of course  his brutish sons  looked on like
  the vultures they were, wondering where and when he would fall down for the last time, and who would bully the Szgany Zirescu when
  Giorga was no more. Perhaps both of them, if only out of mutual fear and suspicion. Oh, for they knew well enough  how much they were
  hated among a majority of their people.
  All of which brings us to a time approximate with the era of Shaitan, when he came out of the west on Starside and built his aerie
  on the boulder plains, and the swamps in the badlands seethed with vampire spores. But as yet the incidence of their evil manifestations on
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  were few and far between. As in all mankind, however, other evils were ever present. And in the Szgany Zirescu, the evil was in the
  name of their most prominent family: the Zirescus themselves.
  The morning came when Freji could no longer work. His eyesight was failing, and in any case he had never been much of a hunter. Now his
  back gave him such pain that he could scarcely walk, and it was his turn to go into the forest to gather nuts  and fruit.
  In the Szgany Zirescu, a man worked till he dropped, then lay there while the tribe moved on, or until he found  the
  strength to get up again. There were few drones among the Zirescus (with the exception of Giorga, of course, his sons
  and a handful of their cronies), and precious few old ones. And despite that Freji was half-crippled, his chief sent  him
  stumbling off into the forest with a basket - from which task he failed to return. The Sunside days  were worth four of those  in  a
  parallel world that lay all unknown beyond the Starside Gate, yet night fell and still Freji was not back.
  Radu had had his own duties that day; likewise his sister Magda, now grown to a beautiful girl, even as beautiful as her mother had been.
  And when finally Radu left the camp and went off into the woods to search for his father, he went without knowing or suspecting that it would
  be Magda - or her beauty, or her loss - that would finally forge the iron in his blood into cold, hard steel.
  Magda - and the Zirescu twins, of course . . .
  But when he'd found his father's body, and seen the truth of his dying - that it had been no accident, and certainly not the natural end of Freji's
  life - then the rest of it had gone blazing across Radu's mind like some mad meteorite through Sunside's night skies!
  For more than a year now the Zirescu twins had been paying court (of sorts) to Magda, not yet fifteen . . .
  Giorga had said that eventually she must choose one or the other . . . Magda had scorned both of them; she knew that already they were a
  scourge among the Szgany Zirescus girls and young, unmarried women -and among some of the married ones, too ...
  Her father, Freji, who had a parenfs say in such matters, had been stalling the twins and their father, telling  them that Magda was too
  young. But it was not uncommon among Szgany girls to take husbands at the age of thirteen, and Freji had known he couldn't delay matters
  indefinitely. Giorga had fumed, cursed, threatened!  He wanted  grandsons  from his sons  (real  grandsons,  and  not  bastards),  to
  carry his name on. Freji Lykan had fumbled and fawned, but still he'd stood his ground . . .
  
  The twins had poured scorn on Magda, and declared that she would end up an old maid, or a tart for any man. And deep down inside,
  Radu had bubbled and boiled . . .
  And now this:
  Freji stiff and dead - murdered and left to the flies in an area of the
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  forest rarely visited. His body had been tumbled into dense undergrowth; Radu discovered it when a vixen started away from the corpse. Then, after lighting a
  small fire, he had seen the cause of his father's death: the long blade of an ironwood knife broken off and still buried ...  in Freji's thin back! A cowardly attack -
  typical of the backstabbing Zirescu twins. But Freji's wicker basket was missing, and never a sign of the fruit and nuts which he had surely gathered that morning
  . . .
  Back at the Szgany Zirescu encampment, Radu went direct to the keeper of the foraging, called Provisioner Borisciu, and asked him if anyone had brought in food
  from the forest that day. But despite that Radu held himself under tight rein, perhaps Borisciu saw something in his face. Answering Radu's question carefully, he
  told him that it had been an extremely good day; but surely he must already know that, since he had been one of the hunters, hadn't he?
  'From the forest,' Radu repeated himself, clutching the other's wrist, however coldly. 'I'm talking about greenstuffs, not meat, Provisioner.' And now Borisciu
  was sure that there was something hard and cold and different in Radu's eyes.
  'Fruits, aye,' he answered. 'But isn't the forest always good to us?' And quickly, as if to change the subject: 'But the catch in fishes was exceptional! A good
  day at the river, Radu! Keep it to yourself, and I'll perhaps find you a fat trout for your sister to cook for you and your father's supper . . .' With which he'd paused,
  remembering that someone had told him Freji Lykan was late coming in.
  'Fruits,' Radu's grip tightened more yet, while his voice became a growl. Tell me about the fruit, and nuts. Did anyone bring in plums, apples, almonds? A
  wicker basket of fruit, out of the woods? Tell me quickly!'
  'Radu, I—'
  '—Who was out gathering today? Do you know what I'm saying? Or were you in on this too, Provisioner Borisciu?'
  'What?' Borisciu's mouth fell open. 'In on something, me? Why, the Govasci family were gathering today, likewise Andreas Tuvi, and . . .' But here he paused
  again.
  '. . . And?'
  'And your father, I remember now.' But the Provisioner's eyes had suddenly gone very wide; he was frightened for his own skin. Something that had struck
  him strange earlier in the day, when the Zirescu twins had come in very quietly and secretively with a great basket of fruit, struck him even stranger now. Or
  perhaps not. And: 'What is it that you are thinking, Radu?' He trembled in the other's grip. 'What is it with your father?'
  'Dead!' Radu hissed in answer, releasing him with a shove, so that
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  Provisioner Borisciu staggered back behind his counter, against the side of his caravan. 'Dead! Murdered in the forest, and his basket taken.'
  'By some enemy of the Szgany Zirescu, no doubt!' Borisciu gasped. 'Would-be settlers, claim-jumpers, land-thieves - on Giorga's territory!' But
  Radu cocked his head on one side and said, 'Enemies of the Szgany Zirescu? Aye, it's true - the twins themselves!' At
  which Borisciu knew he'd been right, even though he'd scarcely dared admit it even to himself. And Radu saw it in the Provisioner's eyes.
  Nodding slowly, grimly, the young man said, 'Now tell me: did they bring in a basket of fruit?' His voice was cold as the wind through the
  mountain passes. Though his eyes showed little or no emotion, his lips were thin and pale; his chest rose and fell, rose and fell, as
  if from running. And suddenly Borisciu saw the right and wrong of it - the cold-blooded murder of it - and could keep his peace
  no longer.
  They did,' he gulped at last. 'A basket laden with fruit and nuts. And I remember thinking it strange that for the first time in as long as I could
  remember, the Zirescu twins had done a little hard work!'
  'Dirty work, aye,' the other muttered, turning away. 'They must be mad or half-witted, to bring that basket back here.'
  'Or they don't give a damn,' The Provisioner called after him, quietly. 'Because for too long they and their father have stood  taller
  than  any law, even their own. But you . . . you're grown to a tall one in your own right! Only go carefully, lad, and look for them at Hzak's
  brandy stall. They were half-way drunk when 1 passed by an hour and a half ago. By now they'll have had a skinful; they shouldn't give you
  too much trouble. But what's this? Will you go hot-blooded and without a weapon? I like you, Radu Lykan; even as I liked your father. I'd hate
  to see you dead, too.'
  Good advice. Radu went to the caravan of Freji Lykan, now his ...  and found it dark and still, the lamps unlit, the door swinging ajar in a night
  breeze. But an empty clay jug lay on the grass outside, and a whiff of brandy still drifting on the air: foul breath of the beasts who had been here
  before him.
  Magda . . . was in the bushes  close by, where they'd dragged her, used her, and left her broken and naked and dead. And
  Radu incapable of believing it; he could only sit holding her in his arms, rocking her and shaking his head. Until in a  little  while  he
  grew cold, then hot, then bitterly cold again, and trembling as from a fever - or from the fury building inside, as he pictured
  in his mind's eye that which he could not bear to picture:
  The blood under her fingernails, some of which were broken, a sure sign of the furious fight she'd put up. The coarse-weave
  scarf around her neck, with which they'd choked her screams and eventually her life. The bruises and other . . . signs,  upon  her
  tanned body. Many hands had gripped Magda's flesh, to hold her down (even as Radu had been
  held down, upon a time), their fingers digging in, to leave disgraceful, impure marks on what had been purest of all. And all of them had shared in her - shared in
  her! And there had been more than just the Zirescu twins . . .
  
  Back to the caravan Radu went, his feet finding their own way, for his mind was somewhere else. To the box under his bed, where in the afternoon he had
  cleaned his crossbow, and wrapped it in an oiled rag until the next time. For now it was the next time, except he wasn't after goats now but pigs.
  Then to the campfire, where the coarse, guttural laughter of drunken men - or louts - rang out loud in the red-flickering light; and a half-dozen of them sitting
  there, where decent men no longer sat, for the Szgany Zirescu were ashamed of themselves. But no shame here, only whispers and jeers and the mention of ...  of a
  name! Magda's name! But to have heard it from the rubbery, brandy-sodden lips of her violators and murderers! To have heard it in such a context:
  That's a fuck I'll never forget! And tight as the skin on a tambourine -well, until we were all done with her, anyway!' The speaker was one Arlek Bargosi. He
  burst out laughing at his own coarse wit - then coughed, choked, and lurched to his feet. The others looked to see what was wrong with him—
  —And saw the flighted half of a crossbow bolt sticking out of Arlek's Adam's apple, and the red-dripping barb protruding from the back of his neck! Arlek
  clutched uselessly at the stout ironwood shaft, said, 'Urk! Urk! Urk!' Then spewed blood and fell on his face in the fire. And as hot cinders flew this way and that,
  Radu Lykan stepped into view, stretched the gut on his weapon, and laid a second bolt in the tiller's groove.
  But Radu was changed, his face no longer expressionless but broken in a nightmarish grin, his eyes reflecting the red firelight, and teeth bared like bars of white
  light where saliva foamed in the corners of his mouth. Taller and greyer than ever, he looked, and even more hawklike - except the hawk was blooded now, and
  stooping to its second prey.
  The Zirescu twins shot to their feet. Bulky, bearded, red with booze, they were nevertheless sober in a moment. For this time, in the astonished silence, they
  heard the thrum as Radu released his bolt, and the hiss as it flew true to Ion's heart. . .  or would have flown true, if another of their cronies had not stood up and
  put himself stumblingly in the way.
  That one's name was Kherl Fumari, and Radu's bolt smashed through his spine and pushed out his jacket a little in front before it lodged there. And as Kherl
  gave a gurgling cough and crumpled to his knees, Ion Zirescu saw how close he had come. For Kherl clutched at him as he slid to earth, and looked up into his face
  with eyes already glazing over.
  And there stood Radu grinning his mad wild grin, chill as the night but fluid as a river, nocking his weapon and sliding home his third bolt on the
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  tiller ...  a shot destined never to be fired. Behind him, a massive figure loomed out of the darkness: that of Giorga Zirescu himself! A club was in Giorga's hand;
  he hefted it, then swung it with smashing force against the back of Radu's head. And that was that.
  Giorga tossed the club aside, scowled at his dumbfounded sons and their stumbling colleagues. And: 'Huh!' he growled. 'As well I still have a friend or two -
  despite that I sired such as you two!'
  'Father, we—' Lexandru started to speak.
  '—Be quiet!' his father told him. 'Do you think 1 don't know what brought all this about? Well, I do! I was woken from my sleep by a friend, as I said. And he
  had overheard you talking about it round the fire. Radu's sister, Magda - dead, and by your hands! Six of you, onto one girl! This pair of mangy corpses here, Kherl
  Fumari and Arlek Bargosi, and the Ferenczy brothers, Rakhi and Lagula,' (Giorga glowered at the Ferenczys where they stood shuffling their feet and glancing
  sly-eyed at each other), '. . . and you two, of course!'
  'Not all our fault,' Ion shook his tousled head. 'It was you who sent us after Freji, to do him in. Well, and there was that in Radu's eyes as told us he knew! He
  must have found his father out in the woods. As for the girl: that. . . was an accident. She wouldn't hold still.'
  Coming closer round the fire, the old man kicked Arlek Bargosi in the side so that he rolled over out of the embers. Smoke and the smell of roasting meat came
  up from Arlek's scorched corpse; his black face crackled and popped. Giorga stepped around his body, and paused where Kherl Fumari lay sprawled on the
  trampled grass. 'Huh!' he said again. 'A hell of a to-do, all this!' And to Ion: 'Help me with Kherl.'
  Ion stepped forward—
  —And met Giorga's fist like a rock, smashing into his face! 'Never accuse me again!' Giorga stood over him where he fell. 'Never answer me back in any way.
  Do you understand?'
  And Ion could only look up dazedly at his father, dab at his bloody mouth and nod.
  Giorga nodded, too, glanced from face to face, narrowed his eyes and muttered, 'Now then, listen in and I'll tell you what's to be done.'
  The four gathered round him, and waited while he considered it. Then: 'First the girl,' he said, 'where is she?'
  Lexandru started to answer but Giorga cut him short. 'No, don't bother telling me. I don't want to know. Two of you can collect her from wherever she is, take
  her into the woods and bury her. And bury her deep!' He looked scathingly at his sons. 'Later, when everyone has their heads down, you two had better do the same
  for Freji Lykan. Except this time make sure no one can find him - ever! As for Radu: if that clout I gave him on the head didn't do for him, the river will. So drag
  him to the river bank where it's deep, put a weighted rope round his neck and toss him in. In the morning we're moving on; the next time we
  come round this way, there'll be nothing of evidence left. That's it: a whole family dealt with. And our hands clean . . .'
  Ion said, 'And no one will ask questions?'
  Giorga nodded. 'Probably. But this is how it was: 'Radu went mad. He was always the weird one, as everyone knows, quiet and sneaky and what have you. So
  he was overheard arguing with his father. Then he must have followed Freji into the woods and done away with him. His sister guessed the truth of it and accused
  him. He threatened her and she ran off. Knowing that she might come back and tell what she suspected, Radu made to go after her. Before he could leave camp,
  Kherl Fumari and Arlek Bargosi, who had learned something of the story from the frightened girl, challenged him; Radu killed them - one in a cowardly fashion,
  from the rear - and ran off. As for the veracity of the tale: why, here's poor Arlek, all done to a turn, and Radu's bolt in his neck. And here's Kherl with another bolt
  in his back, and Radu's crossbow lying where he dropped it. And there were witnesses: you four.
  'All of this was tonight. . . you must work out the finer details for yourselves, for from now on I don't want anything to do with it. But in any case, and since
  we'll never see any of the Lykans again, there'll be no one to deny your story.'
  As Giorga finished speaking, Ion and Lexandru looked at each other. A mutual message, however silent, passed between them: that they'd better have words
  with Provisioner Borisciu, too, to ensure that his lips were likewise sealed. Or maybe to seal them permanently, if they weren't already. And:
  'Well, what are you waiting for?' Giorga wanted to know. 'Best get to it, before this spreads any further.'
  And all four of them, they got to it . . .
  
  Radu knew nothing of the fact that he was dumped in the river, and that a big rock dragged him down  to  the  mud and weeds.  But
  the Zirescu twins had been very sober by then and in something of a hurry; the knot around his neck was  fumbled; it had slipped
  loose before he hit the bottom. Then the current found him, buoyed him up, and whirled him downstream.
  Midnight  found  him on his back, where wavelets  washed  white  pebbles  at  a  bend  in  the  river.  He  was  tethered  by  weeds,
  supported by a mat of drifted branches. The swelling at the back of his head was large as a hen's  egg, but  apart  from a handful of
  scratches and bruises he was in one piece, and felt all the better for it after he'd emptied his system of river water. He remembered
  . . . well, something  of the  night  before  (the  vengeful  killing  he  had  done,  certainly,  and  of  being  knocked  down  and  dragged
  through night-dark undergrowth; fragments of whispered conversation) but precious little. Still, it was enough for now. Sleep and
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  warmth were what Radu needed most, to give the soft spot at the back of his head a chance to harden up.
  He managed to get a fire going, dried out his clothes and got back into them, built a bed of bracken and grasses  to sleep out the
  night. And spent most of the next day in sleeping, too, and in trying to forget about his father and his sister. It was hard, but he tried anyway.
  Because by then he'd decided to forget about mankind in general and be a loner, one of the strange wild men who came down out of the hills
  now and then to sit by a campfire in the night. Except Radu would be a real loner; no campfires for him but his own, and no man's
  company, either.
  All his life he'd known the brutalities of his 'brother' men, and for all he knew it would be the same in any tribe as it had been with the Szgany
  Zirescu. With which Radu Lykan was gone from the Szgany of Sunside, and claimed by the forest and the wild mountains. He had no friend but
  himself (at least for a while), no cares but his own, no counsel but that of the sun, moon, and stars. For the first time in his life he was free.
  And he moved from place to place and territory to territory as if there were no bounds to speak of, taking to the ways of the wild as if it had
  been preordained. Thus Radu became a creature of nature, a man alone who went where his fancy took him. He left no tracks, and
  skirted or otherwise avoided the camps of men. But more especially he vowed to keep apart from the Szgany Zirescu, for he knew that if he
  returned to them it would be a bloody thing ...  his blood or theirs, whichever.
  But he also knew that having tasted the blood of his foes, he'd found it to his liking, which meant it could easily become a habit. Two of his
  had died, and two of theirs had paid the price. Let that suffice; let Giorga, Lexandru and Ion Zirescu, and the Ferenczy brothers, stew in the juice
  of their own miserable existence, and if they thought Radu was dead so be it, he was dead - to them, anyway.
  East lay the territories of the Szgany Hagi, the Szgany Tireni, the Mirlus, Lidescis, and many another band or tribe.
  Radu often heard their babble, saw their fires reflected from clouds drifting low over the woods at night, read their boundary  marks and
  crossed their trails; but other than that he had nothing to do with them, and they never once knew he was there.
  So he wandered the length and breadth of Sunside's woods; he climbed through the foothills to the tree-line, turned west, and
  explored the passes and mountain heights. For a year, two, three, he was alone, until the day when he found a great white she-wolf trapped in
  the scree where the flank of the mountain had slipped a little. And it was a rare, strange thing . . .
  Radu had been hungry and could have killed and eaten the wolf. It would have been easy; he'd stolen a good crossbow in his wanderings
  and could have put a bolt in her, then dug her out and built a fire to roast her joints. She was a dog, true, but she was meat.
  But looking into her great, feral yellow eyes, Radu decided against it. He, too, had been crippled in his time - by apathy and cowardice, and by the shame of the
  Szgany Zirescu, unable to escape from the shadow of a shameless leader - but he'd freed himself, grown strong in his freedom, and survived. This she-wolfs
  crippling was a purely physical thing: a forepaw was broken where it stuck up awkwardly from the rubble and debris, and she was unable to drag herself free. But
  Radu saw parallels, and couldn't bring himself to kill her. It was one of those strange paradoxes; if she'd been Funning with a pack he wouldn't have thought twice
  about shooting her. But now:
  He made his way out onto the dangerous sloping surface of the sliding scree, and patiently dug her free. And with every passing moment the treacherous rocks
  could have slipped and fallen away, grinding both of them into oblivion; or the bitch could have turned on him and grabbed his throat. But the mountain held its
  breath, and the she-wolf made no such vicious protest; finally Radu put a rope round her chest and dragged her to one side—
  —At which the scree jumble gave a shudder and a mighty groan, and avalanched down onto Sunside!
  Well, maybe she knew Radu had saved her life. But whether or no, she let him splint her paw, and accepted cooked food out of his hand when he shot and
  roasted a rabbit. And a day later, when Radu thought she could probably make it on her own and set off west again, the she-wolf came hobbling after him. For
  while her pack had forsaken her, this man had not, and she would not forsake him. After that, going from strength to strength, eventually she was fully recovered.
  From which time on there were two of them.
  In Radu's entire life, this incident was one of the very few good things that had ever happened to him. Who could have guessed that it would result in the very
  worst thing of all?
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  II
  CHANGELING!
  
  In Radu's dreams, his father  and  sister  lived  again,  and  walked  and  talked with him, reminding him of his past. Waking was
  invariably a bad time, when suddenly  he would know that they were dead, of course, and discover himself a loner. And
  but for the company of Singer (so named for the fact that when Radu sang  to himself of an evening, she would join in
  to serenade the moon), he suspected he might very easily lose his mind. Nor would he be the first loner to go mad from
  the solitude of his ways.
  But Singer was there, hunting with and for Radu, constantly  by his side, more of a friend and companion than any
  human creature he had ever known, except for the mother he had loved for so short a time, and his family which was no
  more. But despite the presence  of the white she-wolf, ever more frequently he would find himself dwelling  upon  the
  fate of his father and sister, and the fact that he'd been thwarted in the hour of his vengeance. At the time, two for two
  had seemed satisfactory  . . . now he felt the scales had been weighted again him, and knew how he'd  been  cheated.
  Looking  down  on  western  Sunside  from  the  heights  where  the  barrier  mountains  commenced  to  crumble  to  the
  swamps, he would fancy he saw the fires of Zirescu encampments. And despite his Szgany vow to be gone from the
  western forests forever, he would feel this oh so strong compulsion to return, for however brief and bloody a time . . .
  He was a man full-grown now, firm in all his limbs, still lean but springy as a sapling, swift as a bolt from a crossbow
  and just as deadly a hunter, no less than his lupine companion. And he wondered how fat and idle were grown the Zirescu twins,
  Ion and Lexandru, and their loathsome father, Giorga; and how long, tall and pimply the Ferenczys brothers, Rakhi and
  Lagula?  Perhaps  Giorga  was  dead;  Radu  hoped  so.  But  strangely,  he  hoped  the  Zirescu  twins  and  the  Ferenczy
  brothers yet lived. And when thoughts like that came to him, then he would run
  with Singer, and hunt to take his mind off things.
  Until eventually, weary of the mountain heights  in spite of  all  their  grandeur  (and  perhaps  afraid  of  his  feelings
  when he looked down on western Sunside), he sought  new horizons, new scenes  and  sensations.  The  far  western
  lowlands  lay  mainly  unexplored;  Radu  fancied  there  must  be  havens  in  the  green  fringes,  where  birds  sang  and
  creatures played, and fishes leaped in the cool clear water before it all ran to swamp.
  But in any case he dreamed of the dark and misted forests  he'd known as a boy, and once more walked  with  his
  father, sister and mother (despite that she had died when Magda was born) along old Szgany trails, and so would go
  down  into  the  unknown  badlands.  If  he  dared,  he  would  prefer  to  go  down  into  the  Sunside  of  his  childhood,
  however unhappy that had been, but could not for reasons already explained. At the moment he was an outlaw, true,
  but to the best  of his knowledge men didn't seek him for  his  life.  All  of  which  could  change  if  he  deliberately  set
  himself against the Zirescus. And so it was the badlands, which were not named that way for nothing.
  At first, all seemed well. Streams fell from on high, cascading  into cool, misted depths,  and Radu and Singer swam
  where the falls had formed basins in centuries-hollowed rocks. Vines and hybrid flowers flourished in the spray from
  the waters and the sunlight streaming from Sunside, and in fertile valleys between black, eroded spurs the foliage was
  lush and filled with living things. But then, as the course of their descent  turned away from Sunside, abruptly things
  changed.
  The warmth from the sun lancing overhead was still present, but now the rising mist was dark and dank, no longer
  silver-edged and glowing. The shrubbery was lush and tangled, but there were fewer and smaller flowers; the nights
  were cold, and Singer full of some strange uneasiness of spirit. Radu supposed  it was because  they had turned their
  faces  from  Sunside,  and  at  his  earliest  opportunity  turned  south  again  while  yet  continuing  his  descent.  The
  freshness of the heights never returned, however, and down in the western bottoms, where the mountains crumbled
  to a desert of mud, Radu found no such green fringes as he'd hoped for and never a haven to mention.
  What  he did find was a marshy bogland of fallen, rotting trees and low, thick-leaved, flabby grey shrubs,  under  an
  evil miasma which rose as a mist from the apparently endless swamps. Of croaking, hopping things  there were plenty,
  and of snapping lizardlike things, too, but of the clean, warm-blooded life of Sunside's forests . . . never a sign, except
  for the occasional slumped, black, unrecognizable carcass, rapidly turning to rot and becoming one with the swamp. It
  was like a different world, even a dawnworld, whose dwellers were primal creatures out of time. And in the swampy
  margins were toadstools as black as tar, bursting
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  underfoot and sending up clouds of red spores to drift in the foggy reek. It was as if the very air was poisonous,  and
  something warned Radu to fasten a rag over his nose  and mouth; but Singer went on all fours like the wild dog she
  was, drinking the water between patches  of scum and breathing the  spore-laden  air.  Then,  as  they  began  a  retreat
  towards higher ground, they saw a ragged, mud-streaked fox stumbling in the mire, all bleary-eyed and three-quarters
  done for.
  Radu was loath to waste a bolt on this poor emaciated creature, yet knew it would be a mercy to put it  out  of  its
  misery. In the time he'd spent with Singer, some two years now, he had trained her in the hunt (though  truth to tell, in
  
  certain aspects she had trained him!) Now he told her: 'See to it!' Which was the order to kill.
  Leaping out into the mud, she came upon the fox at once, to break his neck in her jaws. And shaking the poor thing,
  she let it fall on its side. That should have been enough, but in the next moment . . .  an amazing thing! For the jaws of
  the  fox  yawned  open  and  it  snapped  at  Singer's  face,  and  what  with  the  spray  of  flying  mud,  and  the  snarling,
  snapping, and threshing of their heads  where their jaws seemed locked, it appeared to Radu watching from the bank
  that  something passed  between them, from fox to wolf.  Or  it  could  have  been  that  Singer  had  ripped  out  the  fox's
  tongue to swallow it whole! Whichever, that signalled the end of it; the fox sprayed  red from his mouth, sank down
  into the mud and gave up the ghost.
  But it was not the end of it for Singer. Leaping to firm ground, she sprang  this way and that, coughed  and choked,
  and bounded in the air, until finally she collapsed. Unconscious,  she lay with her sides  heaving, then grew still, and
  only the faintest of heartbeats to let her master know she yet lived.
  Dismayed, Radu sat with Singer a while, there by the rim of the swamp,  with  her  head  in  his  lap  and  her  tongue
  lolling, until it appeared she wouldn't die. Then, draping her over his shoulders, he carried her out of that place, and in
  an hour or so she struggled to be put down. Shortly after that, to Radu's great relief, she seemed as good  as new. She
  seemed that way, at least . . .
  They explored for  an  afternoon  and  an  evening  -  that  was  all,  but  more  than  enough  in  that  place  -  before  Radu
  headed south  and a little east, to skirt the barrier mountains into Sunside. He knew it to be a route which must take
  him into Zirescu territory sooner or later, but by then he would have climbed back up into the mountain heights  and
  so put temptation behind him. So he thought.
  And when the ominous twilight failed and the long night fell at last, because  the region was strange  to Radu and
  possibly dangerous  with hitherto unknown hazards, and the swamps alive with mosquitoes and other flying things,
  he found a cave in an outcrop at the foot of the
  mountains and built a fire in the entrance to keep injurious insects  and other creatures at bay; behind which he and
  the now strangely withdrawn she-wolf sheltered and prepared for sleep . . .
  . . . When down from the heights echoed a distant howling in praise of a blotchy yellow moon tumbling through  the
  murky sky. And though Singer's nose lifted and her eyes lit with recognition, still she made no reply to the songs  of
  the grey brothers on the mountain flanks. And even when Radu sang  a low tune to himself (as he was wont to do in
  strange  places),  Singer  held  back  from  joining  in;  not  even  a  growl  escaped  her,  or  a  yawn  of  her  long-jawed,
  soft-leather mouth. So that all in all Radu considered it weird, but perhaps a mood was on her, which in a place like this he could
  understand well enough . . .
  During the night on those  several occasions  when Radu woke  up  to  toss  branches  on  the  fire,  stretch  his  legs  or
  relieve himself, he discovered Singer awake, silent, staring out past  the slow-burning fire into  the  night,  or  whining
  low in her throat, or shaking her head from some unknown irritation and pawing at the earth where she stood  in the
  entrance of the cave.
  Far  more  worrying,  on  the  last  such  occasion,  she  was  on  her  belly  close  by,  forepaws  outstretched  in  Radu's
  direction, peering at him intently through her feral - or sick? - yellow triangular eyes. Following which he felt it prudent
  to remain awake, and sat by the fire until the twilight before the dawn, then moved on with all speed  towards the risen
  but as yet hidden sun  somewhere on the far flank of the crumbling mountains. And it has to be said that Radu was
  glad the night was over . . .
  As the Sunside/Starside nights are long, the days are longer still. But the territory was unknown to Radu, the rotting
  rock of the lower mountains was treacherous (so that he must go with care and patience), and there always seemed to
  be a new, higher ridge behind whichever false plateau he had just negotiated.
  For he had made up his mind that  instead  of  skirting  the  mountains,  he  would  cut  diagonally  across  their  lower
  ramparts and so arrive in the western part of Sunside already aloft and in the heights. But because  of the dangers  and
  arduous nature of the route (which seemed far more difficult than the one by which he'd descended  to the swamps), it
  wasn't until the twilight before the night, and after several camps, that at last he arrived over Sunside; and even then
  not nearly as high on the mountain flanks as he had intended.
  The twilight before the night: a dull orange afterglow slowly fading over the far furnace desert, and the sky to the
  south banded from amethyst on the horizon to a dark indigo in the vault of the sky, where several stars  were already
  evident. While over Starside the skies were
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  long since jet, whose stars seemed like chunks of ice frozen in their orbits; but Starside itself was obscured  by virtue
  of the mountain peaks. A myriad of Sunside's tiny bats, along with a handful of a larger species, whooshed  and whirred on the air
  where  they  hunted,  while  down  in  the  woods  the  scattered  fires  of  Szgany  camps  lit  the  night,  sending  aromatic
  odours drifting on thermals of their own making.
  And there was a conflict of longings in Radu hard to describe: the need to be among men again, oh yes - but good
  men, brothers, men he could trust - and the need to avoid them at all costs,  for this was surely Zirescu territory. The
  
  need to sit in the glow and warmth of a campfire, and chew on a joint of meat with its juices hot and dripping, washed
  down with a jug of good Szgany wine ...  and the dark desire to glimpse a  startled  face  by  starlight  (that  of  Ion  or  Lexandru,
  perhaps? Or Rakhi or Lagula?) and squeeze off an ironwood bolt at point-blank range. Oh, a medley of longings, wishes, desires and
  urges; but the certain knowledge, too, that to surrender to them must bring about  the worst possible result, when he
  would not only be a loner but an outcast, too, from all men and for the rest of his days.
  Well, and wasn't that his way? And wouldn't it suit him well enough? To be a loner, yes, but not to be pursued  as a
  murderer, when in fact he would be an avenger  of  the  weeping  dead.  (For  in  Radu's  mind  and  memory,  and  in  his
  dreams, his father and sister were given to weeping, causing him to cry, too).
  And so, as always, he put it from his mind, climbing up into the mountains while yet there was the light for it. And
  Singer with him as ever, but a Singer changed  now and almost unknown to him. For now when she hunted  the great
  white she-wolf kept her kill, and  now  when  he  would  hug  her  she  backed  off  from  him,  whining  and  showing  her
  fangs. And whatever it was that was at odds between them, Radu knew that the difference wasn't in him.
  Not yet, at least . . .
  It happened quickly. Radu made camp that night in a delve in a cliff high over the foothills, where a great boulder had weathered free
  of the bedrock, rolled away and left a hollow behind. Scarcely a cave, still it was dry and would shelter him if the rains
  came. Soft heather made a passable  bed, and a cured skin was his blanket; it would suffice. Normally he would have
  Singer, too, to snuggle  close and keep him warm. But the she-wolf didn't want that now, and truth to tell, neither did
  Radu. She had a look about her, a light in her eyes, a flattening of her ears, that warned of further changes in the offing—
  —Which came as he slept.
  It was a sound that woke him: a whine, a snarl, a cough or grunt. One or all of these things, but a sound  anyway . . .
  made by Singer. And sitting up in his bed of heather, backing away from her, Radu was
  astonished  and  horrified  by  this  picture  of  a  dog  of  the  wild  so  patently  torn  between  loyalty  and  strange,  alien
  emotions. She crept towards him, shied away, whined as in some inexpressible agony . . . and was at once drawn back
  to him, slavering and showing her scythe teeth, where the soft leather of her muzzle was drawn quiveringly back. And
  Radu understood that she now saw him as prey of sorts  - yet remembered him as her friend and master! He sensed
  that she was driven by something, and fought it with whatever remained of her former loyalty. He knew something of
  her torment, which must in a way be similar to his own. For while  he  lusted  after  the  blood  of  certain  men,  still  he
  remembered a handful of times when men had been good  to him; and while she came upon  him  to  kill  him,  she  yet
  loved him with at least a spark of her old love.
  And  even as he drew back the string of his crossbow  until it nocked,  and  even  as  he  slid  a  bolt  into  the  tiller's
  groove, Radu Lykan grieved over what he must do, for the companionship they had known together. But plainly Singer
  was mad and all of that was over now, and like the fox in the swamp she'd be better off dead and out of her misery.
  He aimed direct at her forehead - her brain, to make a quick end of it - and knew he couldn't miss. For even though
  Singer had witnessed  the power of his weapon, still she crept closer, and closer yet, almost as if begging him to kill
  her! And all the while she stared fixedly at Radu, pleadingly with eyes he knew yet didn't know, not any longer. She
  was almost upon him; her eyes were yellow lamps shining on him; powerful jaws yawned open! And:
  'Goodbye, old friend,' Radu told her, squeezing the trigger.
  In the last moment Singer had lunged forward . .  .  only  to  be  stopped  dead  by  the  ironwood  bolt  that  chopped
  through her sloping skull into her brain; so that she fell twitching upon  Radu's chest  where he had jerked back away
  from her. Her jaws still gaped open, however; his, too, as he saw something writhing in the dark cavern of her mouth!
  Then, but too late, he once again remembered the diseased fox in the swamp: the thing he had seen passing  from the
  one to the other, which he'd mistakenly thought was the fox's tongue, torn out at the roots by Singer.
  It was the same now, but as the shiny-black, corrugated body of the leech-thing ejected from the wolfs mouth, and
  in the instant that it transferred to Radu's, he saw that it was no tongue! It lived - it thought, reasoned, or instinctively
   knew - and it moved like lightning as it sought. . .
  . . .  A new, better, stronger, more intelligent host!
  Impossible to close his mouth! Such was the girth of the horror that his jaws were made powerless, like taking too
  big a bite of an apple and stalling on it  -  except  this  loathsome  thing  was  no  apple.  Head-first,  it  fed  itself  to  him,
  putting out hooks into his throat to draw itself down
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  inch by choking, vile-tasting, stomach-heaving inch. Then  . . .  it  was  in  him  and  he  could  breathe  again.  He  did  -
  gasping,  coughing, and massaging his throat - and came lurching to his feet as he tried desperately to vomit, to  rid
  himself of the nightmarish parasite within. And it knew that, too!
  Radu would never know just exactly what the horror did to his insides then, but even as he blacked out he guessed  it was the
  same thing that it had done to Singer's. And as incredible pain hounded him into a merciful oblivion, he could more fully appreciate
  how she had felt when she'd collapsed at the rim of the swamp . . .
  . . . And something of how she must have felt when she came awake. His throat burned; it was dry, cracked, bruised
  inside from the thing's passage into his body. And so it had been no nightmare, no subconscious association of ideas
  
  lingering from his recent visit to the swamps, but the real thing. A real Thing had vacated Singer's body  in favour of
  his! It was in there even now, hiding in his body, lodged there where he could neither see nor feel it, nor affect it in
  any way. Like the fox, and then Singer, he was now the host of this parasitic creature, this leech that he imagined to be
  similar to the tapeworms that occasionally got into the systems of the Szgany.
  Well,  Radu  knew  the  cure  for  that  well  enough!  He'd  seen  how  the  sufferers  of  such  infestation  submitted  to
  starvation, and when they were almost dead of hunger allowed themselves to be tied down with their mouths propped
  open, so that the parasite could be lured out of them by the stench  of rotting fish or meat! But that was something a
  man  couldn't  do  on  his  own;  the  temptation  to  bite  such  a  thing  in  half  and  spit  it  out  as  it  disgorged  must  be
  overwhelming - not to mention a complete waste of time and effort! For only leave a segment of the creature inside the
  host  body,  an  entire  new  worm  would  grow  from  it!  Then  again,  the  tapeworms  Radu  had  seen  were  slender,
  many-sectioned creatures; they could be bitten in half!
  But . . .  he  knew  that  his  parasite  was  different.  He  knew  it  without  knowing  how  he  knew.  He  felt  it:  a  malign
  intelligence of sorts, a sentience  other than the basic, natural, instinctive hunting and breeding knowledge of beasts
  of the wild, or the higher spiritual or morality-guided intelligence of men. This thing would use the guile of the fox, the ferocity of the
  hunting wolf, and his superior knowledge and intelligence for its own! Except . . . there would be nothing spiritual or moral about
  it. And nothing remotely human.
  These were thoughts that entered Radu's mind in his first waking moments, but he could hardly suspect  that they
  were not his thoughts entirely, or that their source was not entirely his mind. But such  was the case: by virtue of its
  metamorphic make-up, the leech's mutant DNA was already bringing about the most drastic changes in his own,
  and doing it in such a way as to  link itself  with  his mind, his blood and bones,  his very  being. The  thing would  be him, and even
  though he would continue to believe himself master of his own destiny, he would be it.
  Cold, it would kill off whatjwas human in him while intensifying what was  cold and inhuman. Devious,  it would  so dilute  what
  little was left of human love and compassion as to* remove these  things  entirely,  while accentuating those  baser emotions  it could
  use to its own advantage . . . such as lust,  greed, and hatred.  Tenacious,  it would  cling to  life - to  Radu's  life - even as it moulded
  itself to his internal  organs and spine.  And  there'd  be no getting rid of it,  neither  by  primitive  medicine nor any  method  of man's
  devising. For Radu was the higher life-form it had searched for since its development from a spore to a leech in the body  of the  fox,
  and it was with him now for as long as he lived.
  Ever ravenous, it would  lust  after  the  very  source  of life, the  red-pulsing  river of life, which flows  through  the  arteries  of men
  and beasts.  Except  a man has only  so much life, only  so much blood; so that  in order to  survive,  Radu too  must  consume or be
  consumed. It was the burgeoning curse of the vampire, new to Sunside/Starside even as Shaitan the Unborn was new, so that  as yet
  Radu knew neither of them. But he would, he would . . .
  Day finally dawned, and Radu was ill. He carried Singer out of the cave, dropped her into a crack in the  rocks,  filled it with  stones.
  Under normal circumstances the effort would be scarcely worth mentioning; now  . . . it felt  like a day's  work.  He knew  he should
  hunt,  for good red meat to  fuel him through  whatever  was  to  come, but  the  sun  had a furnace heat  he'd never felt  before,  which
  raised angry red weals on his skin and crisped  the  hair of his forearms  to  small coiled cinders.  Even with  his back to  the  sun  he
  could scarcely see to find a target! Plainly he was ill. But he knew he had a Thing in him, so it was  hardly  surprising.  And  the  very
  thought of that Thing made him feel more ill yet.
  He found  water,  a small waterfall  with  a pool,  laved his scorched  and rapidly  roughening body  and  filled  a  skin,  took  up  his
  clothes in a bundle and headed back to his cave. On the way he saw a rabbit nibbling the grass in the shade of a tree, and even in his
  condition couldn't miss such an easy target. Back in the cave he found himself ravenously hungry and ate raw red flesh.
  This wasn't the first time Radu had had it red; now and then when it rained and the grass  he  used  for  tinder  was
  damp,  he  might  find  it  impossible  to  get  a  fire  going.  Then  he  would  simply  skin  his  catch,  cut  himself  a  good
  hindquarter joint and fill his belly. And of course Singer had been there to dispose  of the rest of their kill, which she
  naturally preferred that way. But on this occasion  there was  no  such  excuse.  The  day  was  hot  and  dry;  Radu  had
  flintstones; he could easily have cooked
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  his food - but he ate it raw anyway. Perhaps it was simply a question of expedience.
  And perhaps not. . .
  And he slept . . . and slept. Never such a long sleep in all his life. Never before, and never again. For this was the Sleep of Change. This was his leech's chance to
  complete the melding, and make itself one with him. Something of the fox's wiles went into him, but not a lot, for that poor creature had been out of its own
  environment; it had never been afforded the opportunity to display its skills. On the other hand, a great deal more of the great white she-wolf found its way into
  Radu; for the leech had liked her strength and ferocity, her sense of the wild, her sinuous shape and speed. Singer had been a child of the night, a hunter of lesser
  creatures, an eater of raw meat, who slaked her thirst on blood. Good!
  But the man . . . knew things! He had something that neither fox nor wolf of the wild could ever match: a creative mind with the power to override instinct, to
  say 'No!' or 'Later!' to the normally irresistible hereditary urges and demands which alone command the actions of lesser creatures. And because he could guide and
  control his own actions, he could himself be guided and controlled.
  Thus, even as Radu had trained Singer, now his leech would train him. And with filament extensions of itself rooted in his brain, the vampire leech lay with
  Radu where he tossed and turned in his cave through the long Sunside day, ignoring all the nightmares which its presence inspired, while 'listening' with rapt
  
  intent to his dreams. And learning from them.
  And determining how it would be ...
  Radu woke in the evening twilight and was himself again ...  so he thought. He stretched upon his heather bed, and there was a new suppleness in all his joints.
  His throat no longer gave him pain, and there was no aching in his bones. Whatever small symptoms of his solitary ways had been, they were no more. He knew a
  physical comfort - a sensation of real well-being - such as he had never experienced before. He was 'a new man.' And he was more than a man. And less.
  During his recovery, Radu had defecated in a secondary cave that branched off from the main one close to its entrance; the smell of his shit would keep creatures
  at bay. Strange for it was something he had never done before. Singer had done it from time to time, but she was a child of the wild. Rather, she had been a child of
  the wild. Then, remembering that Singer was no more, Radu grieved a little while he dressed.
  His short trousers of stitched skins seemed baggy on him; obviously he'd lost weight, but he didn't feel too hungry, not for his usual fare, anyway. Radu's
  sandals seemed too short for his feet, and his jacket
  failed to connect with his trousers or tie properly across  his deep chest. And there were short, dark manes of hair on
  the backs of his hands, and trailing down his wrists. Astonished, he found twin pads of hair in the palms of his hands,
  too! Moreover his fingernails were longer, thicker, darker, and pointed at their tips like claws.
  But. . . how long had he  lain  there?  Why,  he  must  have  been  delirious!  These  changes  in  him  had  surely  taken
  longer than a single night. But they were natural changes, obviously: loss of weight, and some slight wrinkling and shrinkage
  of his clothes, and his hair and nails growing all unhindered by normal wear and tear. But a healing sleep, for sure. For there was such  a zest
  in him that—
  —Except here  Radu's  thoughts  were  arrested  by  an  echoing,  ululant,  faint  but  concerted  howling  from  the  high
  plateaux and passes, as his grey brothers in the heights began to serenade a full and glorious moon where she tumbled
  through the darkening skies. But. . .
  . . . His grey brothers?
  Radu wasted no time puzzling over it, for now his zest had turned to something other than a human passion.  Now he
  longed for the thrills of the wild: the hunt, the chase, and the kill. But again, his bloodlust  was not for the blood of the
  wild but for that. . .  of his own kind? Or those who had been his kind, at least. And down there in the western forests,
  that was Zirescu territory.
  He paused for a moment in the mouth of the cave to sniff at his excrement. His, yes, but it was black. The black of
  the digested blood of the rabbit. And perhaps the digested essence of something else? What of the leech-thing? Was this it,
  liquefied and turned to black shit by his juices? Radu thought not. But then why couldn't he feel it inside him, a Thing as big as that? He frowned
  and gave a shrug. What had been had been. What was become was become. And what would be . . .  would be.
  But up in the mountains his grey brothers were aprowl and howling, and Radu threw back his head and howled with
  them. It felt good, as good as the night against his flanks! And pausing  beside the pool to go down on all fours and
  sip, and seeing his face reflected in moonlight, Radu scarcely wondered at the fact that his eyes were triangular and
  gleamed feral yellow, or that his long-toothed smile was the smile of a wolf. For in the silver light of the moon all was made clear to
  him, and he remembered his dreams of vengeance and knew that it was time. Except he would go among men as a man, so that they
  would know who he was and why he had returned . . .
  In his descent into Sunside, Radu was quick and surefooted as a wolf, but a wolf with all the agility and climbing skills of a man.
  Head first, with his chest  and  belly  close  to  the  earth,  he  dug  in  the  heels  of  his  hands  to  brake  himself,  sliding  and
  skittering where the way was treacherous.
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  Upright but bent forward, he loped where the going was level and easy. Whenever he found his way barred by cliffs, he reverted to human skills and clambered
  like a man, and at all times he stuck to the shadows as much as possible. For his eyes were suited to the night; he saw as clearly as in daylight. Or better, for he was
  Wamphyri! But as yet he wouldn't have recognized the word, or known that it described his condition, even if he'd heard it shouted.
  In the first quarter of the night Radu was down into the foothills. Now the night was dark, lit only by starshine, for the orbit of the hurtling moon had taken her
  beyond the rim of the world. Which was just as well; her gravity no longer enraptured Radu's mind, and he was more himself...  or he would be, if not for his
  symbiont. And in fact his leech was a true symbiont, for it gave as well as took. Now, if Radu were wounded, the vampire would heal him. Now his strength was
  that of eight or nine men - even ten, if need be. Now he was near-indefatigable, not to mention near-immortal! For barring accidents or an attack of the utmost
  ferocity, or a disease such as leprosy which even his leech could not cope with, he would not die.
  Not that Radu knew any of this; these were wonders he was yet to discover, mysteries as yet unfathomed - or irredeemable depths as yet unplumbed. All he
  knew was that he felt. . . well, fitter, faster, and fiercer than ever before, and that his body burned with an inner fire; also that he was a force to be reckoned with
  greater than he'd ever been, but not nearly as great as he would be. But mainly he knew that he had the ability to right several great wrongs.
  Revenge, aye, against the Zirescus and the Ferenczys!
  And this would be what he gave to his leech; this was his part of the unspoken, unspeakable, unbreakable pact: that what he apparently did for himself, he in
  fact did for the vampire. Radu knew how to kill, and now must learn how to enjoy it. His life had been governed by fear and hatred; now his own hatred, enhanced
  tenfold by his vampire, would be an instrument with which to inspire fear. His human passions, hitherto suppressed, contained within the dam of his humanity,
  could now spill over in an inhuman orgy of emotion and violence beyond the range of common men. He could feel it in his blood. Wamphyri!
  And the weirdest thing of all was this: that not even his leech knew these things! All it 'knew', and this by some alien instinct, was that its host was a strong
  one, and that through him it lived. And all it had was its metamorphism, its tenacity, its awful hunger. For the fuel of its degenerate, regenerative engine was
  blood - which was why that engine was geared to drive Radu's lust for life, and for death. Aye, even at the expense of every life he touched from this time forward .
  . .
  
  Coming upon the camp of the Zirescus, Radu was cautious. The camp's watchdogs (wolves reared from pups) would be out in the dark forest, silent but alert.
  Trained, they wouldn't bark to scare an intruder
  off but simply tree him, then whine or howl till someone came to discover what was what. Or,  if  their  victim  should
  choose to fight, they'd just as soon hamstring him behind his knees, and bark to attract their masters. All very daunting.
  Yet Radu was not overly concerned. For somehow he felt he understood the ways of wolves; he believed he could handle them
  even as he'd handled the great white she-wolf of the wild. Perhaps even better than he'd handled Singer . . . now.
  Sure enough, when they came to sniff him out, Radu held out his arms to them, and after a moment they crept close and licked
  his hands where he stood in the forest's shadows. Then, when they would whine, he cautioned them with a low 'Tut-tut!' Until they were silent.
  And while he could sense that they were worried, still they were silent. For all of this was at a time when the Wamphyri were unknown
  in western Sunside; as yet, and apart from the frightful campfire tales of the occasional lone traveller (old wives' tales at best), the
  Zirescus had no real knowledge of the terror out of Starside's towering aeries that even now ravaged in the eastern woods. Thus  the
  Zirescu wolves had not been trained against such as Radu - but after tonight they would be.
  The wolves were satisfied (half-satisfied, at least) that Radu was not a threat; he sent  them about  their business,  then advanced
  upon the camp. The night was young and there were men about the central fire. Radu was more than well acquainted with the habits of the
  Zirescus; he knew where to find old Giorga's caravan on the outskirts of the encampment. That is, if the fat old bastard were still
  alive! Of course that last was as yet a matter for conjecture: what with the Old Zirescu's swinish eating and drinking habits and all, and the
  ungovernable nature of his temper. But z/he yet survived . . . well, the future extent of his span was hardly conjectural at all! It
  would end right here, right now, this very night. And Radu's father would be waiting to greet him in hell.
  Yet. . . Radu held back, waiting in the shadows  a while to think things out. For it seemed somewhat bold to simply walk up to
  Giorga's wicker door, knock and wait for a reply. If the old man were to look out through  a peephole, suspect  something and cry out -
  what then? The stars were too bright, the night too clear. Better if there were a ground mist, to soften the sound of Radu's approach or the
  clatter of any brief scuffle. Better if the damp, fertile earth and the trees of the forest were to exhale the moisture they'd gathered during the day, and
  throw a soft lapping blanket of white over the entire camp. Except, the earth and the trees couldn't do that - could they?
  In some worlds it would be thought  of as witchcraft, magic, the supernatural. And perhaps  in Radu's world, too. Yet in the
  Himalayas of Earth, Tibetan priests are known to test themselves by falling asleep in water turning to ice, and upon waking generate sufficient
  bodily heat to melt it! And the firefly turns on the lamp in his own body without
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  burning himself, and by its light finds a mate. And certain creatures winter through in a state of hibernation where others would surely die a freezing death. But
  here in this world . . . despite that Radu knew little or nothing of such things, suddenly he sensed a measure of his power -of a new power, in Sunside/Starside.
  Radu was like - no, he was, or would be if he willed it - a catalyst! His presence in these woods was alien, even as he himself was alien to mundane mankind;
  the very chemistry of his body, no longer a human or entirely natural chemistry, had the power to bring about changes in natural things. He felt it burgeoning
  within him; he had desired something and now would will it. He would breathe a mist, and cause the forest itself to reciprocate!
  And with the metamorphic assistance of his leech, he did exactly that. The pores of his body opened and seemed to steam; the mist poured off him as if he were
  dry ice; his heavy breath issued from his lips as an expanding evil essence that billowed out from him and appeared to call lesser mists out of the woods and up
  from the very earth itself. And on the outer rim of the Zirescu encampment, Radu flowed within his mist to reach up and tap lightly on the wicker door of Giorga's
  caravan.
  'Eh? Who?' (Radu would know that bass, grumbly, rumbling voice anywhere; the Old Zirescu was still alive.) 'What is it? Can't a man catch up on a little sleep
  around here?' There came the sound of movement from within, a small barred window opened inwards, and a puffy, bearded, squinting and red-eyed face appeared
  behind the bars. Radu stood at the foot of the caravan's steps and kept his face averted. His vampire mist obscured him a little where it swelled, rolled, and sent up
  wispy tendrils, serving to hide his actual identity, but the sparse and ragged clothing of a mountains loner gave him away as a stranger. And:
  'Eh?' Giorga mumbled again, but sharper now. 'What, a wanderer, come at night to try the hospitality of the Zirescus? So why bother me? There are men at the
  campfire, I'm sure. Go sing for your supper there.' Giorga was probably drunk; certainly his brandy breath was strong in Radu's nostrils. But before the old man
  could close his window:
  'I haven't come to take anything but to give something,' Radu told him, disguising his voice as best possible - which wasn't in fact difficult, except now he
  must also disguise it from a growl! And continuing: 'Giorga Zirescu, I bring a warning. But I can't talk out here—' And he glanced quickly this way and that, as if
  worried that he might be overheard. '—So let me in, and I'll tell you of the doom that hangs over you and yours even now!'
  'A warning?' the other gasped. 'A doom? Whatever can you mean?' And more harshly, commandingly: 'Speak up, man, and perhaps I'll hear you out!'
  Radu straightened up but kept his face averted. 'I'm not one of yours,
  Giorga, that you can speak to me like an underling. I'm a loner, yes, a wanderer . . .  ah, but the places I've wandered, and the  things
  I've heard! They say that Giorga Zirescu grows old and fat and sodden, and his sons no better than young shads  in the  rut,  and the
  Zirescu women all slatterns who would open their legs to dogs rather than take the pigs his men have become!'
  'What!'  Giorga's  eyes  bulged  at  the  window.  'Who  says  these  things?  Who  dares  issue  these  lies?  I  have  no  truck  with
  neighbours, so who's to know that. . . that I . . .'
  And Radu looked at him sideways, just a glance, but a look that said it all. 'Yes, go on. Who's to know, that you . . . "
  The other calmed down a little, snarled, 'I've no time for gossip. Sticks and stones may hurt me, but catcalling . . .'
  'Sticks and stones, aye,' Radu repeated him. 'And crossbow bolts -and men who lust after your land, because they  believe you're
  not fit to hold it?' And when that sank in:
  'Eh?!' Again Giorga's gasp. 'Is that it? Land thieves? But this is my land, as it was  my  father's  before me! So someone's  after  me
  for my territory, is that it? A land feud? But no one has the right! Tell me more.'
  'I would,  gladly,' Radu answered  with  a shrug, beginning to  turn  away.  'Except  it would  seem  that  the  one  they  call  the  Old
  
  Zirescu is much too proud to talk face to face with a loner and wanderer. It seems he's too high and mighty! And should I stand out
  here in this damp and clinging mist, without even a sip  of your  good plum  brandy  to  warm my  throat?  No,  I reckon not.  So now
  you'll just have to guess where they'll strike . . .  and how many . . .  and when. Well, and good luck to you . . .'
  Turning his back on the caravan, Radu made as if to stride away. But:
  'Wanderer, whoever you are, wait!' Giorga's voice was anxious now, all of the bluster driven out of it. 'And yes, you're right: I'm an ungrateful old wretch at
  times! But come in, come in and warm yourself. Brandy, did I hear you say? Why, I could use a drop myself! And look, I've a jug of the very stuff right here!' The
  bolt was drawn back, and Radu heard the creak of the caravan's wicker door.
  In another moment, soundlessly, he turned and was up the wooden steps, and something of his mist flowed inside with him. What's more, Giorga Zirescu had
  invited him in of his own free will!
  Well, with a little help from Radu's lying leech . . .
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  Ill
  RED REVENGE!
  'Land?' Giorga asked again, after handing Radu a leather jack. 'Is that what this is all about?'
  Radu took a sip of the sharp-tasting brandy - the merest sip - then put the jack down. It had been a long time and he needed a
  clear head. 'It's about land, and life, and death,' he said, and his voice was very deep, very gruff, as for the first time he turned his
  face fully in Giorga's direction. And in the light from the Old Zirescu's lamp, he searched for some sign of recognition, but found nothing in the
  red-flecked, boozy, bulging eyes of the other. If he had - if Giorga had shown even a glimmer of recognition - then his time
  had come, be sure. His night visitor had already determined that it had come anyway, but all in good time, when Giorga had been given to
  know why.
  'Well, we're face to face,' the old man told him. And that was true enough;  in the close confines of Giorga's caravan
  they couldn't be anything else. 'So now let's have it: explain yourself. As for land and life and death, they're all one. If a man must fight to keep
  his territory, then he fights. His land is his life, and it's where he's buried when he dies!'
  'And will his people fight with him, or will they run away because they hate him?' Radu's voice was deeper yet, a rumbling growl issuing from
  his throat, his suddenly chaotic emotions.
  'No,' the Old Zirescu pushed his face closer yet. 'They'll fight -because they fear him! Here in these  western forests,
  since time immemorial, the Zirescus have always been strong. In my time, I, Giorga, have been strongest of all! I had to be.'
  'In your time, aye,' Radu nodded. 'But do you mean strongest, or hardest? Were you strong with your people, or hard on them?'
  By now the old man had sobered a little. His gaze was curious as he sat down on the wooden frame of his bed and looked Radu up and down.
   If he'd seen this man before he was sure he would remember him. What, a man as tall as this; why, he must be all of six foot three!
  And his
  strange looks . . . those eyes of his: yellow in the lamplight. And his grey hair, swept back like a mane to fall over his collar. His slightly pointed ears and long,
  hairy hands . . . Then again, the loners were all weird in their ways and looks - this one especially! Why, his words were almost. . . what, accusing?
  And suddenly Giorga suspected that this wasn't about land, and likewise that he wasn't much interested what it was about. Simultaneously, he suspected it had
  been a mistake to invite this man into his tiny cramped caravan in the first place.
  'Whatever I've been - and whatever I've done - it was my way,' he answered at last, and placed his pillow as a rest for his back. But beneath that pillow he kept a
  long ironwood knife with a bone handle. Its edge wasn't so keen, but its point was sharp as a splinter.
  'It was your way, aye,' Radu growled, 'and always for your own good: yours and your sons'. But never for the good of your people. They do hate you, Giorga! -
  even as I hated you, upon a time . . .'
  'Eh?' Giorga sat up straighter, pulled the pillow round in front of himself, clasped the handle of his knife. There was a good crossbow hanging on the wall, but it
  wasn't loaded. Supposing it had been, so what? This man looked as fast as he now looked dangerous! This isn't...  it isn't about land?'
  'Oh, but it is!' Radu answered, sitting down carefully at the other end of Giorga's bed and moving fractionally, inch by inch closer. And now his voice was a
  hoarse throb ...  of anticipation? 'Indeed, for it's about a man who worked that land for you, who hunted it for you, and beat the bounds with you, year in, year out,
  and for payment suffered the jibes and insults of a fat, greedy old man and his loathsome sons. It's about how he was murdered because he stood in the way of his
  daughter going to one of your sons; and it's about the girl, too, who was as good as you and your lot were bad! She was held down, Giorga, raped time and time
  again, then murdered because her father - by no means a brave man -had not obliged the Zirescus by letting her go as wife to Ion or Lexandru!'
  'I ...  I ...  I know you now!' Giorga pointed with his left hand. But Radu knew that the old pig was right-handed, and saw that treacherous right hand
  trembling behind the pillow in Giorga's lap. And indeed all of Giorga trembling: his fat belly, his chins, the very jowls of his face. And: 'You're Radu, son of Freji
  L-L-Lykan!' he stuttered.
  'Aye, Freji's son, and Magda's brother. That same brother who was outlawed - or who outlawed himself - when he avenged his father's death and his sister's rape
  and murder. Except he was stopped in the hour of his vengeance . . . by you, Giorga, I fancy! And was it Ion and Lexandru who also tried to drown me? And the
  
  Ferenczy brothers, likewise on your orders? Ah, I know it was! But as you see, I am not drowned, and not nearly dead! And it is about land, or soil, after all - this
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  soil, Zirescu soil, where you've rooted like a pig all your days, and where you're now destined to die a swinish death. This earth,
  which the poisons of your loathsome gases shall turn putrid even as you're lowered into it! And no one to mourn over
  you, Giorga, even if they would. No, for your sons will be down there with you!'
  Giorga lunged; his black ironwood knife was in his hand, upraised; Radu grinned as he caught the other's fat wrist in his own taloned hand,
  and held it effortlessly. And his grin was the grin of a wolf as his leech poured metamorphic juices through  his system, causing his
  teeth to scythe upwards from his raw red gums as his mouth yawned wider yet!
  In the space of five heartbeats Radu Lykan had changed - changed before the Old Zirescu's bulging, disbelieving  eyes  -  into
  something radically different from . . . from anything he'd ever seen before! The man was gone, and a monster crouched in his place. And the
  face on that creature: the flame-eyed, salivating, grinning, panting visage of hell itself! That monstrous, gaping mouth . . .!
  Giorga sucked at the suffocating air, and opened his own mouth - to cry out! But too late. Pain snatched the cry from the circle of
  his rubbery lips, turned it to a yelp, a gurgle, a great whoosh! of expelled air, as Radu twisted his arm until it snapped at the elbow, closed a hand
  over Giorga's hand, and slid the knife home through unprotesting layers of fat and up under bulging ribs. Oh ...  it hurt, and it did great - even
  fatal - damage! But not immediately. Giorga's fat protected him; the knife's tip couldn't reach his heart, not angling up from his belly
  like that; his left hand ceased its fluttering and reached for the knife, clasping its handle where it protruded from his gut. And he panted, 'Oh! - ah! -
  oh!' as he tried to draw it out, but couldn't because of the pain.
  Then, still grinning, Radu towered over him, cocked his head on one side in the inquiring manner of a great dog, and looked him right in his
  cringing eyes, as if he were looking into his soul. And he said, 'Farewell, Giorga!'  -  then  caught  his  beard  and  yanked  it  up,  and
  without pause drove his fangs into and slicing through the old man's windpipe!
  Giorga flopped and vibrated in Radu's grasp, until the werewolf released him and let him topple from his bed to the floor, where
  he got jammed in the narrow space. It was over, this part of it at least. And the Old Zirescu bled and tried to scream (but had neither
  the air nor the strength for it), and flopped about in his own blood, and bled some more; great steaming jets of crimson, pulsing
  from his gaping throat and punctured gut. Air whistling in and out of his severed windpipe, where bright red bubbles formed a livid froth, but all
  slowing down now as life quickly ebbed.
  Until finally it really was over . . .
  Outside the caravan in a mist of his own making, Radu paused for the merest moment to spit Giorga's taste from his mouth. His taste and the
  last trace of his blood. For despite that Radu was hungry, and his leech ever hungry, Giorga Zirescu's blood tasted vile to him. Yet the memory of
  what he had done would always remain sweet - and sweeter still when the rest of it was over and done with.
  Radu had taken down Giorga's crossbow. Now he loaded it and his own weapon both, hooked the one to his belt and took the other firmly in a
  paw-like hand. And as the woods and the earth continued to issue his wreathing mist, he headed direct for the communal fire's dull orange glow in
  the centre of the encampment. For he had realized his strength at last; he knew his awesome power, and that he need not fear anything in man or
  nature - not yet at least.
  And loping low through the mist, his senses were alive with all the sounds, scents, and sensations of the night. He was a child of the night! He
  heard the rustling in the undergrowth that tracked the hunting shrew; sensed the hooded eyes of an owl upon him; detected an
  almost inaudible shrilling of tiny bats, sounding clearer than ever before in his vampire-enhanced ears. And he smelled blood, of course - the
  blood of the Zirescus and the Ferenczys! For Giorga's blood had not been enough. But that of his sons  and their friends
  might yet quell the fire raging in Radu's veins . . .
  The moon was up again, a full and brilliant disc shining like silver in the sky! Its beam fell in a swath, undulating on Radu's ground mist and
  lighting his way to the fire. Passing like a wraith between the innermost caravans and carts, he was almost there. Now he could see the ruddy
  faces of men in a huddle about the fire, and saw that they were frowning. Their conversation  reached him; they talked
  about - the watchdogs, the camp's wolves!
  For the wolves were there, those tame dogs of creatures; their tails were down and their ears flat, and they whimpered around
  the feet of their human masters. Aye, and if they could  talk  they'd  be  telling  of  Radu's  presence,  too!  They  probably
  were, in their way, but the men were too stupid to know it.
  Except if the blood of men had a scent, so did the blood of the Wamphyri - Radu's blood! And now the wolves around the fire
  smelled it. Moreover, they smelled the death which he had so recently wrought. There were three of them; they quit their slinking about the feet of
  the seated men and as one creature turned in Radu's direction. Their ears pointed him out in the shadow of a caravan, and now that they stood in
  the company of men, they felt safe to issue a series of growls and yips.
  'Eh?' someone said. 'Is there something there?' And indeed  there  was  something  there.  Radu  loped  forward  more
  surely into the fire's glow, came to a halt and straightened up. Without pause he scanned the faces in the firelight - and saw that Ion and
  Lexandru were there! Also the Ferenczys, and three colleagues. As scurvy a handful as he could imagine, but he hated the first four above all
  other men.
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  All jaws dropped, all eyes were on Radu, who now grinned in his fashion and growled, This is between me and
  
  the Zirescus - those two, Ion and Lexandru, rapists and murderers!' He pointed with his crossbow. 'And also the
  Ferenczys,' he pointed again. 'I've killed Giorga and now I'll kill his sons  and their friends. As for the rest of you:
  you don't have to die if you don't want to. Enough of talk; too much, even.' No longer just pointing his weapon
  but aiming it, at Lexandru, Radu squeezed the trigger.
  It started as quickly as that, without any warning other than that
  furnished by the watchdogs. Lexandru had come to his feet as Radu        |
  spoke, and as the bolt flew to its target he held up his hands in denial.        j
  The bolt passed between them and struck him in the left breast, burying       i
  itself to the ironwood flights. 'Oh?' he said in a loud voice, as if he
  queried the thing. 'And is it - what, Radu? Not dead? Well, there's a        i
  th-thing!' Then he coughed blood, crumpled to his knees and fell on his        \
  face.
  i
  But one of the men at the fire had sufficient wits about him to shout,        j 'Attack!' to the wolves. And as Radu
  hooked the empty crossbow to his belt and levelled the other, the wolves at once sprang towards him. The leader
  fastened to his weapon forearm; snarling fangs bit deep; Radu grasped the wolfs mane with his free hand, whirled in a
  circle, and       i released the disorientated animal into the sprawling fire! Twin strips of       ! his flesh and skin went
  with it, torn from his forearm by its eye-teeth,        j but Radu scarcely felt it. For he was in action, doing what he'd
  dreamed of doing for so long. Except for now Ion and the Ferenczys must wait, for the other wolves were here.
  One of them was in mid-air, coming head-on, forepaws outstretched  and muzzle slavering. Radu couldn't miss;
  he shot his bolt and ducked, and the skewered wolf yelped, passed overhead, bounced  once and struggled  to its
  forelegs, then collapsed and lay still. The third skidded to a halt as Radu fixed it with a feral-eyed glare and said growlingly, 'Oh?
   And would you die, too? Come on, then, let's get done with it. For there's room in the fire yet.' But the grey one
  had seen more than enough of Radu and backed off whimpering.
  Radu sensed  trouble, retaliation; he'd  spent  too  long  on  these  tame  wolves!  Quick  as  thought  he  fell  to  all
  fours, felt a crossbow  bolt fly inches overhead even as he dropped, glanced across  the fire at the knot of men.
  The Ferenczys had already bolted. Ion Zirescu was making off between the caravans, heading for the forest. The
  man who had shot  at Radu was now readying his weapon for a second  try. The others  stumbled  this  way  and
  that; startled out of their wits, they scarcely comprehended what was happening.
  Radu loped to the fire, stooped  to snatch  up a burning brand. And as the man with the crossbow  nocked his
  bolt, Radu let fly with the firebrand, which hit him full in the face. His beard went up in fire and
  smoke; in another moment his head was a ball of fire! Dropping his weapon, he danced;  yelped and beat at himself,
  and went rolling into a patch of undergrowth close by. By which time the others  were all fled. But Radu had seen Ion
  go, and knew which direction he'd taken.
  The moon came up over the trees at the edge of the clearing, and seeing it Radu went to all fours, threw back his
  head and howled. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, despite that the sound  it made was surely one of the
  most terrible. For although  it  was  the  cry  of  a  beast,  the  howling  issued  from  the  throat  of  a  man!  And  all  of  his
  pent-up  passions  went into it. It told of all the pain and frustration of a tortured youth  remembered and stored, and
  now released in a torrent of monstrous  pleasure as it burst  like a flood over the last of those  who  had  caused  it.  It
  cried all his years of torment relieved, or in the process of being relieved, at least.
  For Ion Zirescu and the Ferenczys brothers still lived, and the fact of their living was itself a great torment. But their
  deaths would be a pleasure incomparable: like a sigh in the soul of Radu Lykan - a sigh of relief! - if he still had a soul.
  Ah, and the werewolf knew what he wanted  from  Ion!  For  he'd  dreamed  a  dream  from  time  to  time,  which  he  now
  believed was more memory than dream:
  Of lying face-down in the trampled earth of a clearing, and hearing voices as if from a long way away, yet coming  to him clearly
  through a darkness shot with brilliant flashes of light but otherwise devoid of sensation  except for a terrible pain at the back  of his
  head, and a great anger seething deep in his core, and a yearning even as great as his current yearning: to tear the living,  smoking
  hearts out of the ones who spoke these words:
  '. . . Radu's sister - dead, and by your hands! Six of you, onto one girl! This pair of mangy corpses here, Arlek Bargosi and Kherl
  Fumari, and the Ferenczy brothers, Rakhi and Lagula . . . and you two, of course!' (Unmistakably Giorga's voice. And the answer):
  'Not all our fault. It was you who sent us after Freji, to do him in. Well, and there  was  that  in Radu's  eyes  as told  us he knew!
  He must have found his father out in the woods. As for the girl: that . . . was an accident, for she wouldn't hold still.'
  That one had been Ion.  And Magda's  death had been an 'accident,'  because she had tried to fight them off where they'd rutted
  over her like beasts!
  Ah, but there are beasts and there are beasts,  and the rest of it wouldn't be an accident, be sure! Giorga was dead,
  Lexandru, too, but Ion and the Ferenczys still lived. For now they  lived,  anyway.  Again  Radu  howled  -  howled  his
  bloodlust  and a vow to  the  goddess  of  the  moon  where  she  floated  on  high:  that  Magda  would  be  avenged  in  a
  manner befitting her ordeal!  In  answer,  it  seemed  the  moon  lit  his  way  through  the  woods  by  silvering  the  madly
  trampled, blundering trail of
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  Ion Zirescu ...  to where the last of that loathsome family was hiding. Later, Radu would scarcely remember tracking him, loping through the dark woods and
  
  falling to all fours to sniff the trail of freshly crushed grass and rootlets, the vile-smelling spoor of sweat and fear. But in a little while there'd been a clearing,
  with a stand of trees to one side, and breaking from the woods into the clearing Radu had sensed . . . stillness! All was still; neither a sound nor any movement;
  not even the hoot of an owl or the furtive creep of small creatures in the grass. Why? Because they had been startled to stillness by the sudden crashing of a
  fugitive? Possibly . . .
  Radu's mist had subsided by then, but the moon was still full and high and his powers were still with him. Except they were new powers and he didn't know
  them; he wasn't experienced in their use. But listening to the stillness - keeping absolutely still himself and straining to detect even the slightest sound - he
  'heard' something that wasn't a sound! Instead, it was ...  a thought! They were thoughts! The terrified thoughts of Ion Zirescu!
  At first Radu shook his head; he knew he was imagining it, this listening to another's mind. But as he concentrated even harder, so the thoughts came that
  much clearer, so that now he must heed them. And this was what he heard:
  . . . Followed me! But how? Is he a man or a dog, to track  me so unerringly? Radu Lykan, alive! Or perhaps his vengeful
  spirit? But a ghost that kills? And his strength! His great speed! No, this is no ghost but Radu himself. We thought him a coward like his
  father, but the youth who killed Kherl andArlek that night was no coward. And now he's back. But my father, Giorga, dead? Well, so what. . .
  Lexandru and I would have seen to him before too long! Ahhh . . .! (That last was a gasp of horror, and it signalled that Radu had been seen).
  He closed his eyes and concentrated more yet, and saw . . . through another's eyes! Through Ion's, of course! Saw himself, or his shadow, poised at the edge of
  the clearing, head cocked forward, ears alert as they angled this way and that. And saw - and indeed felt - himself go down on all fours again, and aim himself at
  the stand of trees. For Ion's line of sight had given him away, and the shock of his thoughts
  confirmed it: . . . He's pointing at me, coming straight for me! But I have my
  machete . . .!
  Oh, yes, Radu was coming. Half-upright and leaning forward, he loped towards the stand of trees. But. . . Ion had a
  machete? Oh, really? And deep in a clump of gorse, Radu paused  to ready his crossbow  - four seconds  at most - before
  continuing in a new direction, apparently away from Ion. And in his head:
  . . . He'll go right by me! He hasn't seen me! (It was a sigh of relief, almost a sob - a pitiful 'sound'! But there was no pity in Radu Lykan).
  And in the corner of his eye Radu saw Ion there, crouching in the shrubbery under the trees, behind a dense patch of brambles. But not dense enough. Radu
  whirled, aimed, and fired; Ion uttered a cry of shock, pain, as the bolt zipped through fringing undergrowth to take him in the right forearm, spinning him until his
  feet tangled and he went down. His machete had flown from useless fingers. And suddenly he was a man alone, unarmed, against a monster . . .
  A shadow grew out of the night's darker shadows, and as the moon slipped behind a cloud Radu Lykan was there, his eyes like yellow lamps in the darkness.
  And: 'Up,' he panted, his voice a cough, a bark, a hideous threat. 'On your feet, Ion Zirescu, or die where you lie.' He nocked the last of his bolts.
  Sobbing, Ion got up, and stumbled backwards away from Radu until he backed up against a tree. And: 'Perfect!' the werewolf Radu growled, as he pointed his
  weapon point-blank and squeezed the trigger. The ironwood bolt shattered Ion's left collarbone and nailed him to the tree; his cry of agony cut the night like a
  knife, and he would have blacked out but daren't. His weight would rip the muscle of his shoulder open, or stretch and tear the ligaments there, and cripple him for
  life. Radu heard his thoughts and inquired, 'What life?'
  'Kill me, then!' Ion sobbed. 'Get it done with, if that's what you want.' And with a bolt in his right arm, and another through his shoulder, holding him in place,
  he braced himself shuddering against the tree.
  Radu's voice was a low rumble as he answered, 'But that's not all I want!'
  'Wh-what?'
  'You murdered my father, then raped and killed my sister. Well, Freji's paid for: Giorga paid that debt. But Magda can't ever be paid for, for she was priceless.
  But you and your brother, the Ferenczys and those other two pigs, you held my sister down and took her again and again. Maybe two of you at a time ...  or
  maybe three? I saw her body, the signs you left, your stinking froth on Magda's skin. As well she died, for I don't think she could have lived with it. Well, neither
  can I. And neither can you.'
  His last words were a snarl; he hooked a hand like a claw in the front of Ion's trousers and ripped them open. Ion was caused to jerk a little, and the bolt in his
  shoulder dragged against raw nerves. He almost passed out, which wouldn't do at all. Radu pushed his wolfs face close, sniffed at Ion's parts and growled, That
  worthless thing was the instrument of your torture, your . . . your pleasure?' As he closed his talon-like hand on his captive, Ion could do nothing but writhe and
  shudder against the tree. 'And you and the others, all six of you, you took turns to rape her of her innocence. Now it's my turn. Except you're not innocent.'
  He crushed Ion to the tree, clenched his hand like a vice, used his
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  vast Wamphyri strength to castrate and more than castrate the other. In a split second  Ion lost everything, even the
  lower pipes of his body, dislocated, wrenched out of place, and left dangling. He lost consciousness,  too, and would
  go on losing blood enough  that he'd never again wake up. Well, and Radu wouldn't let it go to  waste,  not  all  of  it.
  While there was yet a pulse in his victim's neck, he sank a wolfs fangs into it to draw off the remainder of Ion's life.
  And drank long and deep, giving nothing of himself but taking all from the other, even the very last dregs.
  Blood . . .  it was what he'd needed, what his vampire leech had needed. It was the nectar of life . . .  it was the life!
  And it was the drug that very nearly killed him, because he almost - but not quite - let himself drown in it. Because the
  sheer unbridled pleasure of it almost -but not quite - numbed him to everything else. Until, as if in a dream, he heard a
  startled gasp as someone cried:
  There! But look - only look, will you!'
  Radu knew the voice: Rakhi Ferenczy, the younger of  that  degenerate  pair.  Knew  the  next  voice,  too,  as  that  of
  Rakhi's brother, when Lagula answered: 'I see him - and I've got the moon-crazed bastard!'
  He surfaced from his delirium of bloodlust, straightened up from slaking his monstrous  thirst, and shook his head -
  to clear his swimming senses and red-drenched vision both . . .
  
  . . . And moved - but not fast enough!
  Lagula's bolt burned his neck, cut a shallow groove in it before burying itself inches deep in the tree. Radu laughed,
  a great bark of a laugh . .  .  until  Rakhi's  bolt  bit  deep  into  his  left  thigh,  scraped  bone  and  jammed  there,  midway
  between knee and buttock.
  Radu had fired his last bolt. He had nothing to fight back with except his fierce Wamphyri strength.  He would  have
  fought, certainly, if his leech had let him. But survival was uppermost in the symbiont's 'mind'; its host's  survival, and
  its own, of course.
  The werewolf let himself fall to the forest's floor, went three-legged, limping through  the undergrowth, but still with
  the sinuous, flowing motion of the Wamphyri. And this time he breathed his mist in earnest, knowing what he did, to
  obscure him as he fled. Not far from Ion Zirescu's dangling, ravaged body, he found the machete where it had fallen,
  and for a  moment  considered  standing  and  fighting.  But  a  greater  wisdom  (or  a  more  sinister,  insidious  instinct?)
  forbade it. For the time being, survival was everything.
  Once, near the edge of the clearing, Radu paused  to look back, and saw the Ferenczys still blundering about  in his
  mist, searching for him (but searching oh so carefully!) in the undergrowth on the fringe of  the  stand  of  trees.  The
  fools, to have let him slip through  their fingers like this! Didn't they know, didn't they  realize,  that  he'd  be  back  for
  them? Obviously not. Radu thought to remind them, and as the moon tumbled
  from view behind the treetops, he threw back his head and howled.
  And from now on, whenever the Ferenczy brothers heard the howling of a wolf, they would automatically tremble
  and reach for the nearest weapons . . .
  In the western foothills, well away from the camp of the Zirescus, Radu cut the flights from the bolt that transfixed his
  thigh and drew it out head-first. At first there was pain, but as he gritted his teeth the pain faded to a dull throb, and in
  another moment all that remained was an insensitive numbness, as if his thigh were asleep.
  There were medicinal leaves Radu knew of that would help in the healing, but he didn't bother with them. Something
  told  him  they  weren't  necessary.  It  was  his  leech,  already  at  work  on  him  with  its  vastly  superior  metamorphic
  processes.
  Radu was a changeling creature now, but in the main his mind remained the mind of a man, and in his sleep he was
  visited by nightmares. He dreamed of the Thing that he'd become, and woke up cold and shivering, unwilling to accept
  the fact that he was no longer entirely human. His vampire, of course, worked on him  to  subdue  all  such  fears  and
  regrets. Dimly, he was aware of its influence: the small urging voice of some subconscious 'conscience' that nagged  or
  advised him; no voice at all, but in fact chemical agents and catalysts in his blood and his brain, changing the way he thought. Eventually he
  succumbed to suggestion, stopped fearing and lost interest in it; finally he accepted  that he was what he was - without
  considering that he was what his leech wanted him to be.
  When the moon was down or on the wane, he was a man - a wolfish-looking man, by all means - but a man. When
  the moon was up and full, then it was hard to remain a man. But at all times he was Wamphyri, even though  he still
  didn't understand or recognize his condition . . .
  He dwelled for some years between the foothills and the barrier mountains, sleeping in deep caves  or crevices  by
  day,  and  wandering  gradually  eastwards  by  night.  And  despite  that  his  work  wasn't  finished  in  the  camps  of  the
  Szgany Zirescu - by now the Szgany Ferenczy - and that it never would be while Rakhi and Lagula lived, still he put
  distance  between. He knew that to return now would mean certain death;  the entire tribe would be watching out  for
  him, doubtless  with orders to shoot  on  sight.  And  in  any  case  he  needed  time  to  explore  his  amazing  powers:  his
  mentalism, metamorphism, and the source of his boundless,  surging energy. As for the wound in his thigh: that had
  healed in a night and a day; there was scarcely a scar to show for it.
  Adept at avoiding the encampments or settlements of men, he continued to do so; alas that they couldn't avoid him.
  But the farther east Radu journeyed, the more surely he was aware of a change. Not in
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  himself this time, but in the Szgany, in Sunside's people themselves.
  Thus far, avoiding men, he had also avoided their challenge, or rather the challenge of his bloodlust; he had slaked his thirst (and that of his
  parasite) on the raw red flesh of creatures of the wild. In this respect, and without even knowing it, Radu had pitted himself against his leech! But
  as well as tenacity, the vampire has all the patience of centuries of life as yet unlived. With a vampire's longevity, it's not too hard
  to be patient.
  And meanwhile: Radu was allowed to believe that the pleasure he'd derived from slaughtering Ion Zirescu and drinking his blood had lain in
  the killing, while in fact it had lain in the drinking! Revenge? That had been his motive, but necessity had been his leech's. Well, Radu would learn
  in time. And meanwhile his vampire must be satisfied with the blood of beasts.  Except, and as has been noted, there
  are beasts and there are beasts.
  And indeed great beasts had come among the Szgany of Sunside, which was the reason for the changes that Radu had noted
  in them. For now during the long hours of daylight, there were grim-faced, determined men on the flanks of the barrier mountains, hunters who
  pursued and butchered . . . men! Aye, and it was butchery. For with his own eyes, Radu was witness to it.
  It happened  at a time perhaps  two years and nine months (one hundred and thirty-five or thirty-six  sunups)  after
  he'd taken his revenge on the Zirescus in the westernmost woods . . .
  
  It was the twilight before the true dawn, and the tumbling moon was already reduced to a pale stain of a disc high in the amethyst
  sky over Sunside. Soon the furnace sun would be up, but it wouldn't find Radu wanting. For by now his photophobia was full-fledged; he knew
  that direct undiluted sunlight would kill him, even if he still didn't understand the reason.
  But no sooner was he settled in the back of a shallow cave, where a single stratum of soft rock had weathered out from the face of the cliff,
  than he heard a panting and scrabbling from beyond  the rim of his shelter. It was a man in full flight, exhausted from
  his exertions and hoarse from the terror of pursuit. Dried up and beginning to blister even in the first faint rays from the southern
  horizon, he came stumbling, croaking his relief, into Radu's cave.
  Hidden in a dark corner, Radu shielded the luminous yellow glare of his eyes and waited until the man - a ragged-looking Sunsider, possibly a
  loner - had himself under partial control at least. And when the other's panting had slowed and his whimpering ceased, then, speaking softly,
  Radu asked: 'Who pursues you, and why?'
  At the first word the other had jumped a foot, gasped  out loud, spun  about  where  he  sat  upon  the  dusty  floor.  'What?'  he
  croaked. 'Who?'
  And then he saw Radu's eyes, and the dark shape of a man sprawled on a bed of heather in the back of the cave. Radu's crossbow was loaded; aiming it at the man,
  he eased himself erect - or partly erect, because of the low ceiling - and went to where the newcomer cringed against the wall of the cave. The man seemed
  speechless; his throat throbbed and his Adam's apple went up and down, but he merely gurgled. And finally he pointed at Radu's face, at his eyes.
  'Eh?' Radu growled, rapidly losing his patience. He wanted to know what was going on here. If this man was a fugitive, he wanted to know why, from what
  cause. 'Are you deaf or daft, or both? I asked why are you running?'
  'Y-you, ask that?' Finally the other had found his voice.
  And perhaps Radu understood at that. He narrowed his feral eyes, sniffed his suspicion. 'Are you a Ferenczy, is that it? Have you heard about me and what I've
  done, and what I'll do!' He pointed his crossbow direct at the other's throat. But even in the act of speaking the words, he knew he was mistaken. The Ferenczys had
  become an obsession with him, that was all.
  'A F-Ferenczy?' The fugitive frowned. 'No, I'm a Romani - Bela Romani, of the Szgany Mirlu. Or I was ..."  And now the sob was back in his voice.
  'Are you an outcast then? What, a leper?' The Zirescus had used to banish anyone even suspected of leprosy. And they'd put a bolt through him and burn his
  body if he tried to return!
  'Leprosy?' The other looked at Radu through haggard, red-rimmed eyes. 'Ah, no. Worse than that!'
  Radu backed off a pace. What? Could anything be worse than leprosy? 'Explain!' he barked.
  'Who . . . what are you?' Now it was Bela Romani's turn to be curious. 'A loner? A wild man of the mountains? Where have you been that you don't . . . don't
  know of these things?'
  'Of what things?' Radu was exasperated. 'Enough of riddles! Can't you explain yourself?'
  The other crouched back away from him. 'I'm speaking of...  of the Wamphyri!' But the way he spoke that last word, or name!
  'Wamphyri?' Radu repeated him, and frowned. 'Who are they?'
  The other licked his lips and shook his head. 'But you . . . your eyes! Are you saying that you're not. . . not one of them?'
  And for the first time Radu pondered it. He was more than a mere man, for sure. But Wamphyri? 'Tell me about them,' he gave a nod of his huge grey wolfish
  head. And Bela Romani told him:
  It had started in the east, beyond the great pass into Starside and the barren boulder plains. There were rearing stacks out on those plains, vast carved buttes, some a
  kilometre high, either weathered from the
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  mountains over countless  millennia or thrust  up from  below  by  some  colossal,  forgotten  prehistoric  upheaval.  The
  boulder plains were empty of life, cold and dead, for which reason men never went there.
  Or at least, that was how  it  had  used  to  be;  neither  the  Szgany  nor  any  other  beings  had  dwelled  there,  except
  leathery trog unmen in caverns under the barrier mountains. But for some years now there'd been rumours of lights in
  those rearing rock castles, and grey smoke issuing from fissure chimneys, and flying things  that soared in the winds
  off the northern Icelands, around the summits of those mighty aeries of. . .  of what?
  And  a  hundred  sunups  ago  the  first  of  Them  had  come  raiding  on  the  Szgany  camps.  They  came  in  search  of
  provisions for their manses in the towering stacks, thrall recruits for their aeries, and fodder for their beasts.  But they
  themselves, the Wamphyri, were the greatest beasts of all: blood-beasts out of Starside!
  Huge men all, the Wamphyri looked human but were mhuman. Their strength  was unbelievable! They took strong
  Szgany youths for their lieutenants and thralls, and beautiful girls as their odalisques.  Chiefest among them was One
  whose nature had rapidly become a byword for everything evil: Shaitan  the  Unborn!  He  was  beautiful  as  a  golden
  man, but deep and dark as the swamps that spawned him. And his lust was insatiable.
  At first Shaitan had restricted his raids to regions east of the great pass, and had set up tribes of Szgany supplicants
  there.  But  as  other  monstrous  Lords  had  ascended  to  their  aeries,  and  the  needs  of  the  Wamphyri  had  doubled  and
  redoubled, so the raids had spilled over from the eastern lands into Zestos,  Lidesci, Tireni,  and  Mirlu  territories  west  of  the
  pass,  and  sometimes  to  points  even  further  west.  But  the  Szgany  Zestos,  the  Lidescis,  Tirenis,  Mirlus,  were  not
  supplicants; they fought back! And now during the daylight hours  they travelled - they had become Travellers - as a
  matter of survival, and not merely to beat the bounds. But during the nights:
  'We hid in deep caves or in the woods, with never a fire for comfort or light,' Bela continued. 'But still the Wamphyri would find
  us. Last night - following immediately on the evening twilight - they found  us  again!  There  was  some  fighting,  but
  
  what can men do against Them? The Szgany Mirlu scattered . . .  I ran, too, into the woods! But I was caught anyway.
  'Hengor "the Gust" Hagi, a blood-soaked barrel of a man, got me, clubbed me unconscious,  drank  blood  from  my
  veins and infected me with his poisons. When I came to in the twilight before the dawn, I remembered his instructions
  as in a dream: that I must go to him in Starside, and be his thrall in Hengstack. Never! I would return to my wife and
  children, and be a Mirlu! Oh, really? Hah!
  'I was -1 am - a vampire creature, in thrall to Hengor the Gust! The
  sun is my mortal enemy, the night my only friend. As the poisons take hold, so my  condition  will worsen.  I tried  to  return  to  the
  Mirlus; they saw the mark of Hengor's bite on my  neck; now  if they  find me - they'll  kill me! But  you,  your  looks,'  Bela turned
  imploringly to Radu. 'We are the same, I'm sure. Except. . . you seem to have learned to live with it!'
  Radu shook his head. 'I don't know. But one thing is certain: I won't die with it! While you were talking, I was  listening, but  not
  as you listen. And you're right: Mirlu hunters are coming. And this cave . . .  is mine. I was here first.'
  Bela's eyes went wild in a moment. Drawing his lips back from snarling needle teeth, he made to spring at Radu—
  —Who simply caught him up in one hand, dragged him to the mouth of the cave and tossed him out!
  The entrance was fringed with a little undergrowth and a few trees, and the sunlight didn't strike at Bela immediately.  He tried  to
  stay in the shade, searched for a way up the cliff. There  was  a goat track;  he might even make it!  He scrambled up  above the  tree
  level, and so came into view of the men who had followed him up through the scree jumbles of the foothills.
  Crossbows twanged and bolts buzzed like angry wasps. Radu saw it all: the  way  the  fugitive was  swatted  like a fly  against the
  cliff, his feet sliding on the  narrow  track,  his back arching like a bow,  as he was  struck  time and time again. His  body  crumpling,
  then toppling, and turning lazily end over end, and slamming down hard into the sharp rubble and scree at the foot of the cliffs.
  Anyone  would  think  that  would  be enough, that  Bela's pursuers  would  be  satisfied;  apparently  they  weren't.  They  took  his
  body, drove a stake through his heart and cut off his head, and built a fire to  burn  him to  ashes!  Which apparently  was enough. It
  would have to be, for there was nothing left of him. It  took  a while but  finally  the  men left,  and Radu crept  back into  his cave to
  sleep in safety from the sun.
  Getting to sleep took a while, too,  for  there  was  a  great  deal  on  Radu's mind. Yet somehow, while he slept, a good  many
  problems were resolved. And it might even be said that he resolved some of them himself. . .
  In the twilight before the true night Radu awakened, felt the lure of the fading moon and  left  his  cave  to  worship  a
  while. And as his eerie, ululant howling echoed up into the mountain heights  and down into Sunside, he knew. Knew
  finally and for certain that he was Wamphyri! An eater of men, aye,  a  Great  Vampire.  But  more  than  this:  he  was  a
  werewolf! A man half-human, half-wolf, with the brain of the one and all the speed  and cunning and killer instinct of the other. And
  if changeling men - mere men! - could make it on Starside, where the sun never
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  shone, and be Lords and masters of the great aeries there, then what of Radu? And so, turning his back on Sunside (for now, at least), he climbed for the peaks and
  headed for Starside and the destiny that waited for him there.
  And there was such a monstrous joy in Radu - the joy of darkling knowledge, the hideous anticipation of living off the life-blood of others - that he could
  scarcely contain it. For Bela Romani had had it quite wrong, and Radu wasn't like him at all. Oh, the same fever was in his blood, certainly, but where Bela had
  been a mere thrall infected with the disease of vampirism, Radu was that disease! By virtue of his parasite he was Lord Radu Lykan! And he knew it.
  For welling up from deep within his werewolf body and vampire heart, it was as if he heard the first discordant notes of a strange, savage, and wonderful song.
  And how that silent song of blood and eternity thrilled him to his core, when at last he came padding, panting through a high mountain pass, and finally gazed
  down on Starside.
  Starside, aye. And faint with distance yet darkly foreboding against a backdrop of writhing northern auroras, there in the cold blue light of the Northstar ...  the
  mist-wreathed stacks of the vampire Lords! But however awesomely bleak, the scene wasn't weird or cold to Radu. Indeed it felt. . . familiar? No, much more than
  that: it felt like home!
  And as he turned his face to the sky and vanishing moon, and gave voice from a throbbing throat, it seemed to Radu that even his howling carried a new note
  and was more surely a song, albeit a song that was awesome and terrible:
  Wamphyri! Wamphyyyyri. . .!
  IV
  EXILED - TO EARTH!
  Going down from the heights of the barrier mountains into Starside, Radu came upon a ragged handful of pitiful 'survivors' of last night's vampire raid: men of the
  Mirlus, like Bela Romani, and of the Szgany Tireni and Szgany Zestos. He told them who he was and what he intended to do: lay claim to an aerie among the
  several as yet vacant stacks, and people it with thralls of his own. They were reluctant to join him; they 'belonged' to Hengor "the Gust" Hagi, or Lord Lankari, or
  the Drakul brothers, or - Lord Lagula Ferenczy!?
  
  What? Lagula, a Lord of the Wamphyri? But...  the same Lagula? Well, Radu must wait and see. But meanwhile he offered the vampirized group a choice: he
  would guarantee them his personal 'protection', swear them to his service, and proceed with them across the boulder plains ...  or they could die the true death
  right here in these barren foothills, with crossbow bolts skewering their poor decapitated bodies. And without more ado they went with Radu.
  Their presence was observed; giant Desmodus bats from the various aeries reported their progress; they were in any event 'poor quality' thralls who had not
  warranted transportation on the backs or in the belly pouches of their masters' flyers. But when they headed for a middling, unoccupied stack in the outer circle of
  great upthrusting aeries, that attracted rather more attention. Too late to do anything about it, however, for Radu and his followers had taken all of the long Starside
  night to come across the mountains and boulder plains, and already the sun was burning on the higher ramparts of the greater stacks.
  This was the time when the Lords slept, normally in north-facing rooms on the permanently dark sides of their aeries. It was not a time when they would launch
  out on their flyers simply to investigate the odd behaviour of a handful of 'branded' thralls! Perhaps the thralls themselves were merely being cautious and taking
  shelter from the sunlight. All well and good; this was a sign of some intelligence among them at
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  least!  Come  sundown  they'd  doubtless  proceed  to  the  stacks  of  their  rightful  Lords,  who  had  recruited  them  in
  Sunside.
  But they didn't. Radu, less fearful of the sun than most vampire Lords, had put his men to work at once. They had
  inhabited a cave near the foot of the stack, fortified its entrance, found bolthole passageways  onto other levels and
  down onto the boulder plains, and generally made themselves as  'comfortable'  as  possible.  Cold  comfort,  true,  but
  Radu was still learning the way of things.
  And a lot more to learn yet, be sure . . .
  Sundown, and Lord Egon Drakul sent a thrall and flyer to see what was what. He had beasts  to feed and two of these
  errant thralls  were  his,  destined  for  the  provisioning  of  Drakstack.  The  thrall  landed  his  mount  at  the  foot  of  the
  suspect aerie, went striding into the scree jumbles, and disappeared. And in a little while, a strange, long-haired figure
  was seen seated awkwardly astride the flyer, putting it through its paces over the knobby dome of the new aerie! But
  what was this? Some raw recruit fresh out of Sunside, who yet fancied himself a Lord?
  Klaus Lankari sent two thralls to investigate. These were bold, burgeoning lads who aspired to lieutenants . . .  the
  result was the same. By now Shaitan the Unborn himself was interested; he watched and 'listened' keenly from afar, as
  Hengor Hagi flew out with his chief lieutenant from Hengstack. Ah, but the Gust was careful to remain airborne as his
  man Emil landed in soft, sliding scree at the base of Radu's aerie, and continued afoot to put matters right. But shortly:
  My Lord? Emil Hagisman sent, with a slight but patently nervous tremor in his Gust-orientated, feeble mental probe.
  Aye? The Gust circled on a flyer that was all muscle and manta wing, to take his great weight. What's the word?
  My Lord, a man is with the recruits who says he is Wamphyri. In fact he has the looks, and I smell it on him. This one has a mature leech!
  Oh, really? Swamp-bom, was he? With no egg-sire? So he's Wamphyri, so what? He hasn't ascended; we haven't accepted him. Not yet,
  anyway. Nor are we likely to, since he's a thief! The recruits you speak of belong to me, to the Ferenczys, to Klaus Lankari  and the
  Drakuls. What, is he herding  them for us - if so, well, that's damned kind  of him! But it's another matter if he intends to
  keep them for himself.
  But now a different 'voice' joined in, that of Radu. Hengor, I can do many things for myself, including speak! I don't need an interpreter. I have
  a leech; I'm "swamp-bom", aye, if that's the term, but that was some time ago. Oh, I know:  this stack  I've chosen for myself isn't
  nearly as grand as some of your soaring aeries, but it's a start and I will ascend! If I need your recognition,  then I'll wait for it. If
  it's not forthcoming . . . well, I'm here anyway! Meanwhile, what's mine is mine. Nor ami a thief in respect of these thralls: a middling lot
  at best! I need them for now,
  that's all. But in due time I'll gladly repay whatever and whoever I owe, with interest.
  Oh, indeed? The Gust sent back. So you take and then say you've merely borrowed, eh? And the flyers you've commandeered, are those yours, too?
  For now, until I've learned the way of making my own. And that includes this one of yours . . . but I'll give you your man Emil back. He's loyal to a fault, and
  therefore useless to me.
  Really? Hengor couldn't make up his mind to roar his rage or laugh out loud! But he found himself liking this one -
  his audacity, anyway -without that he'd even met him as yet. And if I sent another  flyer for Emil Hagisman, will you keep
  that, too?
  (A mental shrug, and): He can fly or he can walk. That's your problem.
  Do you know, said Hengor, beginning to enjoy this now, in the perverse fashion of the Wamphyri, but without ever meeting
  you in the flesh, already I like your colours. And I fancy I'll like them even more -when I use them to decorate the walls of my great hall in
  Hengstack!
  Have I slighted you? (Radu's voice showed mild surprise - feigned, of course). Then come down and let's settle it.
  Well, bugger me backwards! the other burst out, but he was no longer amused. A challenge,  is it? Listen, upstart: between the
  Ferenczys, Drakuls, Klaus Lankari and myself, we have four hundred men, thirty-two flyers and seven fighting beasts! How do
  you think you and your handful of fools would fare against those odds, eh?
  Badly, Radu answered, which is why I've taken the time to parley.
  But here yet another mental voice in Starside's  aether,  a voice as powerful  and authoritative  as it was  sinister,  interrupted  and
  came between the two; the voice of Lord Shaitan the Unborn: the devil himself!
  What's all this about a swamp-bom Lord, Hengor Hagi? Do you frown on a man because he had no egg-sire? Is a spore any less than an egg or a leech? Now,
  let's face it: whether a vampire is born of a woman, or changed by a spore or a leech, or by a bite, we're all of the one source, the one origin, which is the swamp.
  
  It's not the route we take, which is a decision of fate, but the getting here that counts. Well, so this one has got here . . .
  Hengor seemed more than a little surprised. What, and do you accept him, Lord Shaitan? On his word alone? Why, we don't know what we
  have here! But a thief and a loudmouth upstart - we know these things for sure!
  Oh?  (Now  Shaitan's  mental  voice  was  a  sneer).  But  aren't  we  all  thieves?  Don't we all steal, out of Sunside?  As  for  his
  braggart's mouth: is it any bigger than your own? Or mine? Or anyone's? Nor is his status suspect: we most certainly do know what we have
  here: a Lord of the Wamphyri, and one to watch out for, it's obvious! But if you disagree, take
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  a look at the evidence. He plays a decent word-game - better than you, Hengor, for it was you who lost your temper! Also, your own man says
  he has a leech; neither spore, egg, nor mark on his neck but a mature leech! And he has made his way into Starside to occupy his own aerie;
  oh, a hovel of a place, granted . . .  as yet! So there you have it: he must be a Lord. Moreover, he has mentalism, which many of our
  colleagues lack, or possess to a lesser degree. But this one's mentalism is a power; I felt it!
  Shaitan grew thoughtfully quiet, perhaps inviting comment, and the telepathic aether came alive in a moment:
  Klaus Lankari  now speaks,  said  a  wooden,  almost  mechanical,  yet  somehow  doom-fraught  voice.  What's  to  be
  done?  Something  must be done, for this newcomer  appears  to  have  taken  a  thrall  of  mine,  which  I  recruited  in
  Sunside. Klaus was an ex-loner, not much known for quick-thinking. But he was a great and monstrous  destroyer  of
  life and drinker of blood.
  He has men of ours, too, the Drakuls spoke up, in voices that hissed their telepathic venom. Is he to simply keep them, and get away with it? We say let's take
  them back, right now, and him, too! So he has a leech -so what?
  All the better, in fact, said the Gust. For there's nothing quite like the juice of another vampire - especially his leech! And since I'm closest, I lay claim to it!
  And finally Radu's turn again. What? Don't the Ferenczys have anything to say? Don't they want their peck at me, too? If so,
  well fine, for I certainly want my peck at them! There, it was out in the open, his hatred - the blood feud - between him
  and the Ferenczys. And better to do it this way, bold and swaggering, as befitted the image Radu would convey. For
  there was that in their voices (and in his own dark heart) that told him it was their way,  the  way  of  the  Wamphyri.
  They seemed to take pleasure in words: perverse, convoluted  argument and  contradictions.  Not  so  strange,  really;
  why, they were themselves contradictions - of Nature!
  But so was Radu, and just as devious as the worst of them. He had flyers now and could ride them in a fashion; if
  he were attacked in force he could flee to the barrier mountains, find a place to hide and consider his position. And he
  would take a handful of thralls with him, and so retain at least the nucleus of an aerie. Thus  his braggadocio wasn't all
  it might seem. He wasn't about to stand and fight a veritable horde of Wamphyri Lords and their followers, but he was
   ready for flight at a moment's notice!
  As it happened, the way he'd acted was the best thing he could have done, said, thought.  Shaitan the Unborn was
  fascinated, intrigued; it set his own more than devious  mind working overtime. What, some bad blood between this
  one and the Ferenczys? The brothers were fairly recent among the Wamphyri, true, but already they posed a threat;
  they were like stormclouds on Shaitan's horizon, roiling and issuing stabs of lightning, and inevitably heading his way.
  For one thing there were two of them, and as a team they were closer far than the Drakuls. Shaitan remembered how
  they had ascended:
  Two years ago Lord Petre Stakis had taken a small party of lieutenants, thralls, and an aerial warrior west along the
  spine of the barrier mountains and down into previously unexplored regions of Sunside.  Unexplored,  aye  .  .  .  Odd,
  then, that he should receive such a warm welcome! But such appeared to be the case. For it seemed that the Szgany of
  those western parts had been ready, waiting and prepared for just such an invasion - or for something in the nature of
  an invasion, at least! The Ferenczy brothers had been members (indeed, they'd been the recently elected leaders) of
  the same tribe, formerly the Szgany Zirescu. And that night. . . well, Lord Stakis had been unfortunate, to say the least.
  His warrior had developed a temporary fault, which caused  it to land badly in the mountain peaks. Leaving two of
  his lieutenants to see what could be done, Stakis had gone on with his reduced force, homed in on the smoke  of  a
  Szgany campfire, and landed in the lower foothills. On foot and engaged  by a ferocious  fighting  force  under  Rakhi
  and Lagula, Stakis had been shot once through  the eye and twice through  the heart. His leech had reckoned he was
  done for, and made ready to exit his body; the Ferenczys had been on hand and would make perfect hosts.
  But even in his death throes, still Stakis was a force to be reckoned with. Grabbing Rakhi when he  drew  close  to
  inspect  his  body,  Stakis  savaged  him,  transfusing  essence  of  his  blood  into  Rakhi's  system.  Lagula,  seeing  his
  brother grappling for his life with a 'dead' man, set about  Stakis with a machete  and  decapitated  him  -  and  likewise
  fatally injured his leech, which at that very moment was attempting to make an exit through  its host's  throat! Dying,
  the leech issued  an egg which transferred to Lagula. Thus  Lagula was Wamphyri, and his brother a  vampire  in  the
  making. Two birds with one stone, as it were!
  So much Lord Shaitan had had from a spy  of his among Stakis's thralls. The rest of the story  - how the Ferenczys
  had holed-up in the dark woods, slept the Sleep of Change, and the next night set about  'recruiting' as many of the
  former Zirescus as they could find; and how they'd then made their way back to Starside in a body - was unimportant.
  The rules of the game were as simple as Shaitan himself had made them: it wasn't the route men took but the getting
  there that counted.
  Well, they had got here, since when they'd made their presence  felt. . . almost as a thorn in Shaitan's side! He was
  
  sure they worked against him, or would if given the opportunity. He was glad that they had no mentalism to speak of,
  which was the reason of course that they
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  hadn't been privy to what was going on here. And now the coming of this one, and bad blood between them, or so it would
  appear. All in all an interesting situation, and something to be fostered. For if the newcomer and  the  Ferenczys  were  at
  each other's throats,  they wouldn't have the time to be at Shaitan's. Which was why he now proposed  a solution to
  the problem posed by Radu:
  Hear me out, he said. Let's give this one the benefit of the doubt. He says he'll repay your losses. Very well, and if he forgets his promise, time enough then to
  sort matters out, and take back - and take all - of what he's accrued. Except. . . we cannot continue to think of him as he. Among the Wamphyri, I am the only He,
  the first and only Lord of Lords. You, stranger, do you accept that? If so, tell us your name, and how you come to be here.
  And Radu answered: My only desire is to be accepted among my peers. Since you appear to be the greatest of them, be sure I'll agree to anything you propose -
  on the understanding that you leave me the means to live and prosper, of course! My name and status: I'm Lord Radu Lykan, who fused with a leech in the
  swamplands far to the west.
  All of which seems only right and reasonable to me, the unseen Shaitan answered, eager to be done with the preliminaries. Very well, then we will trust you -
  but it's a trust you must repay in kind. If I were to offer you audience in Shaitanstack, would you attend me, come up to my manse and enter of
  your own free will?
  Previously, there had been a subdued but very real background 'babble' in the psychic aether; now, as Shaitan made
  his invitation, this faded to an almost electric air of expectancy, a hush as of held breath. And Radu sensed that the question
  of free will was of vast importance to the Lords - as indeed, for some ill-defined reason, it was to him. In effect, Lord Shaitan
  had  offered  him  the  ultimate  test,  (or  ultimate  challenge?)  and  if  nothing  else,  Radu's  answer  would  decide  his
  suitability one way or the other. Which was why he said:
  My Lord, merely tell me the hour of my audience, guarantee my safe access and egress, and give me a route . . .?
  And: A lot of'merelys'! Shaitan answered. But. . . so be it. And so it would be . . .
  The time was set: three hours before dawn. That was Shaitan's choice, of course,  and a good one for him. That  close to  sunup,  he
  could be sure that the affair wouldn't be a long one, therefore that it wouldn't get too heated. For of course this was to be more than
  any mere audience: it would be in its way a reception for the newly ascended Lord Lykan. While Shaitan had failed to mention it to
  Radu, the  other  principal  Lords  - and at least  two  of the  Ladies -  would  also  be  there.  Indeed  they  would  demand  invitations,
  ostensibly as a matter of protocol, but mainly to ensure that no deal would be struck between Shaitan and the
  stranger without their knowledge. With the Wamphyri, suspicion was a way of life . . .  not  to  mention  a way  of undeath  and true
  death.
  Radu  still  didn't  know  too  much  about  the  Wamphyri.  Since  Hengor  seemed  reluctant  to  send  down  another  flyer  for  his
  lieutenant,  Radu used  the  long night hours  to  question  Emil Hagisman and familiarize himself with  vampire  codes  and  customs.
  And oddly  (or perhaps  not)  he approved  almost  everything  he learned of them; for after  all he was  Wamphyri,  too!  But  in fact
  their nature was much as he'd expected it to be - as he was or would be himself in the fullness of time.
  They  were proud,  vain, lusty,  greedy and devious,  and they  were bestial  beyond  the  beasts,  cruel beyond  human cruelty,  and
  bloody beyond the deepest gutters and vats of the  worst  possible  charnel house.  Their  conceit and various  vanities  were perhaps
  their weirdest aspect. Every one of them considered  him or herself 'handsome'  or 'beautiful'  to  a fault  - except  they  had no faults,
  not to mention, and certainly none of their own making! Any shortcomings were blamed on their  'worthless'  eggs or leeches, while
  every  triumph  however  small was  as a direct  result  of their  own  efforts.  It  was  an utter  contradiction  of  the  so-called  'free-will
  code'  that  governed  their  every  interaction  with  and  treatment  of  their  contemporaries,  thralls,  beasts  and  victims.  Since  the
  Wamphyri  themselves  enjoyed  no free will  as  such,  the  ideology  or  concepts  of  freedom  and  self-determination  in  others  was
  paramount. If lesser men controlled  their  own  destinies,  then  surely  the  mighty  vampire  Lords  controlled  theirs?  Why,  of course
  they did . . .!
  The Wamphyri were bloodbeasts. The  blood was  the  life, and the  life was  or could be eternal as far as was  known.  Youth  and
  blood went hand in hand; if a Lord wished  it,  he could keep  his 'looks',  hold back the  years  and retain  his sexual potency  forever.
  Lesser men could - indeed must  - shrivel under his bite  and die the  true  death  if  nothing  of  him  got  into  them,  or  rise  up  again
  undead and renewed,  vampirized  and enthralled  by  their  Lord's  essence;  while  he  would  go  on  unchanged,  except  he  would  be
  stronger (made stronger by their loss), and so continuously evolving through his victims' devolution, always.
  And people, the Szgany of Sunside, and their produce . . . were for using. They were no more than very temporary
  vassals, (or vessels?) from which all the good things of life including life itself might be taken wholesale as by right, or
  gradually siphoned off, as was more frequently the case. And the Wamphyri could do no wrong, not in their own red
  and rapacious eyes, for they were mainly without conscience! Perhaps the first handful of changeling Lords -with the
  exception  of  Shaitan  -  wondered  about  it  from  time  to  time:  how  they  who  had  been  Szgany  could  now  live  like
  parasites off their former kith and kin, and put them through such travails of terror.
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  Perhaps they  pondered  it . . .  but infrequently. For while their own parasites  held sway, the host  bodies  would  be
  
  and do as their leeches willed it . . .
  Next, Radu learned about the individual Lords and Ladies:
  About  Shaitan  the  Unborn,  so  called  because  he  had  neither  father  nor  mother  (not  that  he  remembered),  but
  seemed to have bred himself out of the vampire swamps! . . . And why not, since he was the original vampire Lord? No
  such creature before him, and none since except he made them or made those who made them, or they had followed him out of the
  spore-laden western swamps. He alleged that he was the victim of some Great Expulsion, but from where or when he
  knew not; his persecutors had robbed him of all memory of previous existence! But he believed that his 'crime' had been his pride
  and awesome beauty: he had dared to be more beautiful than the masters of that unremembered place, which to them was
  unforgivable.
  And in fact Shaitan was 'beautiful', as handsome a Lord of vampires as could be imagined. 'Judge for yourself,' Emil Hagisman told Radu, 'when
  you go up to see him. Why, Shaitan is so good-looking you just know he has to be the worst! He makes no pretence of it but calls
  it the "perfection of evil": when the external or visible image reaches a peak such  as his, then the rot must commence
  invisibly from within. And Lord Shaitan has been rotting since his very first moment of being!'
  Shaitan was the overlord here, the uncrowned King of these  beings. But among his closest  contemporaries ('peers'
  he would never allow) it was generally suspected  that just such  a crown, and a throne, were his ambition. Therefore,
  because he was so powerful, his allies were few. Perhaps that was why he seemed so eager to accept Radu . . .  as a
  future ally? But in any case, Lord Lykan would do well to watch his step in Shaitanstack.
  As for the rest of the Wamphyri: Radu paid some attention to what Emil Hagisman told him - especially with regard
  to the Ferenczys - but their descriptions, habits and origins, could only come as something of an anticlimax after Shaitan
  himself.
  There was Hengor, called the Gust for his girth, thunderous  outbursts,  and bellowing laughter. Not that there was
  very much of 'merriment' in him; his angers were frequently as violent as his 'mirth', while his  vampire  appetite  -  for
  anything  unholy - matched the size of his belly. Hengor was not a true Hagi; he took his surname  from  the  Szgany
  Hagi, the first Sunside tribe visited by Shaitan the Unborn during his journey of discovery from the western swamps
  into Starside. Among the unsuspecting  Hagis, the Lord of Vampires had seduced  a girl, who later converted  Hengor
  among others  before the tribe's leader, Heinar Hagi, put her down. Hengor had dwelled in  Starside  only  a  year  less
  than Shaitan himself; his aerie rivalled Shaitanstack in its
  colossal if morbid grandeur. And meanwhile, the Szgany Hagi. . . were probably no more.
  Klaus Lankari was a mountain man, a loner and dullard who had thought  to explore the swamps . . . only to return
  from them something other than a man. Less 'scrupulous'  than Shaitan and the others, most of his thralls were trogs
  recruited from caverns under the barrier mountains. He kept trog odalisques, too, and was pleased to admit that during
  his years in the wild he had shagged far worse than these.
  As  for Thereza Three-Eyes' Lugosi: she would be a gross  mistake in any world! Born  a  freak,  as  a  Sunsider  child
  she'd been fortunate to escape with her life. The Szgany had enough  to do in those  days  of restructuring without the
  extra burden of caring for monstrous  children. But her parents  had pleaded her case;  however grudgingly,  they  had
  been granted the right to care for her; fearing for her safety anyway, they'd become loners in Sunside's foothills and
  mountain passes. The source of her eventual vampiric contamination was unknown except to Thereza herself, but that
  her doting parents had paid in full for letting their deformed ogre of a child grow to full maturity was scarcely a matter
  for conjecture: she kept their teeth and finger bones on a gold chain around her neck!
  Thereza's  deformities  were  several.  One  shoulder  appeared  to  be  missing  entirely;  she  held  the  good  one  high,
  which gave her the appearance of a hunchback. Her left arm was of normal length, but the right dangled to her knees.
  Her breasts were dissimilar flaccid dugs, and all of her skin was mottled with purplish blotches and birthmarks.
  But her third eye was the worst of her blemishes. She'd been born with an extra orbit in the back of her skull, and a
  rudimentary eye skinned over in its socket. Since her change, Thereza had developed this abnormality into an actual
  optical receptor, an eye which gazed out lidlessly - if not vacantly - from the spot where she kept her hair shorn. Which
  was perhaps a measure of her real monstrousness: that with her metamorphism, while she scarcely required to remain
  ugly  at  all  but  might  easily  remodel  herself,  she  preferred  it  that  way!  As  to  the  eye:  she  declared  that  of  all  the
  Wamphyri, she alone possessed the means of watching her back at all times . . .
  Then there was the Lady Rusha Basti, by all accounts  gorgeous  as a peach!  Except,  by  whose  account?  To  Emil
  Hagisman's knowledge no one had ever seen her entirely . . . what, exposed? Not even her occasional lovers! Rusha's
  hair was red  as  flame  and  longer  than  her  ample  body,  and  she  wore  it  in  several  sensuous  designs,  strategically
  bunched,  or shaped  with clasps  to cover or expose her various parts according to  her  mood.  Sometimes  she  would
  leave a breast bare, now and then her back and buttocks, or her long and alluring legs . . . but never her face. Perhaps
  she was a hag after all; rumour had it that she detested her eyes - which were red as her hair, of course - and her
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  nose, which had a flange and was  convolute  beyond  her ability  to  mask it with  vampire  metamorphism.  A rarity,  Rusha  actually
  admitted to these small flaws - or rather, she would not admit to them, and so must keep them covered. With luck, Radu might find
  himself 'on a good thing' with  the  Lady  Rusha  Basti.  With  the  exception  of  Lord  Shaitan  the  Unborn,  who  preferred  absolute
  control  over his odalisques,  and Hengor Hagi, because he had the  bulk of a bull shad  and Rusha  would  not  suffer  the  necessary
  
  bruising of such  an affaire, she'd  had all the  Lords  worth  mentioning as lovers.  Indeed, she loved them and left  them as easily  as
  snapping her fingers!
  But on the other hand . . . Rusha was not so easy as might at first be reckoned. Stolen out of Starside just  four  or five years  ago,
  she had ascended in very short order. And the young Lord who had taken her . . . well, where was he? She had his egg, be sure,  but
  did she also have his head? According to  Rusha  he had died of some wasting  disease in her loving embrace. And  if so,  then  he'd
  probably expired happy - but expired, definitely!  Emil Hagisman had heard of certain female spiders,  who  . . .  but  he'd made his
  point, and Radu assured him he need say no more.
  Then there were the Drakuls, Karl and Egon. They had been among the first-established in Starside.  The  younger  bloodsons  of a
  loner family vampirized in the swamps, they'd been obliged to care for themselves almost from infancy.  For  the  Drakul  family  had
  dwelled in the mountains, where as long as they stayed Starside of the peaks they'd been able to eke out something of an existence.
  But allegedly, in those days there had been dog-Lords in the hills -men much like Radu, but with a great deal more of the  wolf  in
  them and far less of intelligence - and these and the Drakuls had feuded. One night, hounded  by  these  wolflings, the  man, his wife,
  and one older son had been driven over into Sunside in the twilight hours before the dawn. Unable to find shelter, they'd perished in
  the blast from the rising sun. But the infant brothers - twins, which were not  uncommon among the  Szgany  - had been left  behind
  and raised half by the wild dog-Lords, half by a pack of common grey brothers.
  When they were old enough (and they were only youths even now,  perhaps  seventeen  or eighteen years  old, but  precocious  far
  beyond  their  years),  then  they  had come down  into  Starside  to  build  an  aerie  among  the  menhirs  of  the  Wamphyri.  Demoniac
  fighters, both of them were viciously territorial, even more so than the Wamphyri in general. Perhaps  it was  only  natural,  for after
  all their  mountain-dwelling  parents  had had nothing.  Currently  the  brothers  occupied  Drakstack,  which Egon  had  claimed  as  his
  own; wherefore  his twin  was  already  at work  on  nearby  Karlscar.  Both  of  these  stacks  would  make  tremendous  aeries,  which
  together might house vampire armies to rival anything of Shaitan's making. Shaitan, however, was
  aware of Drakul  rapaciousness;  needless  to  state,  the  brothers  were  not  his  favourites  among  the  lesser  Lords.  Nor  were  they
  anyone's, for even by Wamphyri standards their ways were dark . . .
  And finally the Gust's lieutenant went on to tell Radu of Turgo Zolte,  Shaitan's  so-called 'son.'  But  discovered  by  Shaitan in an
  act of black treachery,  Turgo had been thrown  out  of his 'father's'  manse onto  the  boulder plains,  to  exist as best  possible  in the
  scree and the rubble and the dust. It was said he dwelled now in Sunside, sleeping out his days in deep caves where the sun couldn't
  find him, and constantly on the run from the Szgany. If so, then he was fortunate indeed - and far more so than his co-conspirators.
  One of these had been tossed into the Starside Gate, and so banished to unknown hells; the other lay undead in a deep  grave on the
  boulder plains, slowly stiffening to a stone among stones . . .
  As  for the  lesser  Lords  and Ladies: they  were diverse as all of the  aforementioned,  but  Emil Hagisman would  gladly say  on if
  Radu  wished  it.  He  didn't,  for  in  the  new-found  conceit  or  self-assurance  of  his  own  strengths  and  talents,  he  wasn't  much
  interested in the lesser personages. Certain things, however, continued to puzzle  him; not  least  how  for so long he'd been ignorant
  of the Wamphyri's presence here.
  The Lords  lived on trogs  for long and long,' his informant  told  him. 'Until  their  stacks  were established.  And  it's  only  recently
  that  Lord Shaitan bred his first  flyers  and warriors,  thus  prompting  the  others  to  follow  suit.  But  now  .  .  .  they're  moving  that
  much  faster.  They've  organized  supplicant  tribes  east  of  the  great  pass,  who  make  their  battle  gauntlets  for  them,  and  other
  supplicants who . . .  are simply flesh.  They  take  tithe  from the  poor  bastards,  even as I was  taken.  Raids west  of the  pass  have
  been few and far between; certain of the Szgany tribes fight back! The Lidescis in particular are vicious in their  defence of Sunside!
  And you say you were a loner, who dwelled in the  mountains  and kept  apart  from men? Plainly  you  were, for there's  that  of the
  great  wolf  in  you.  But  the  barrier  mountains  are  a  mighty  range;  it's  not  surprising  you  didn't  sight  the  Wamphyri  on  their
  infrequent raids. Ask yourself this: why should they  raid west  of the  pass  when  there's  easy  meat in the  east?  Also,  why  should
  they  be in a hurry  to  show  themselves?  What  is time to  them? But  that  was  then,  and this  is now; Sunside will come more  and
  more under attack . . . "
  And one other subject:
  'Mentalism,' said Radu. 'Do they  all have it? Who is the  craftiest  thought-thief,  whom I must  watch  out  for? And  who  is least
  talented, that I can spy on his mind?'
  'You could get me killed!' Emil Hagisman protested. 'Perhaps I've said too much already!'
  'And why have you?'
  'Something about your eyes, their penetrating stare. Or your open
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  attitude . . . your "innocence", perhaps? You treat me as a man, not as a slave. I suspect it's because you are new to all this - ah, but you'll be a true Lord soon
  enough! Perhaps it's because you have more than mere mentalism. They say that Rusha Basti is a beguiler, too.'
  'A beguiler? Hypnotism?' Radu hadn't realized it, not in himself.
  There's that in your voice that lulls,' said the other. 'It makes me weary and lures words out of me.'
  Radu held him close and stared deep into his eyes, which were feral even as Radu's own, but without his scarlet cores. Then say on, and tell me what I would
  know,' he said.
  And Emil Hagisman told him - or would have. But at that very moment one of Radu's thralls came scrambling down from a high vantage/viewpoint looking
  northeast on the greater stacks of the Wamphyri. He was pointing back over his shoulder, gabbling, 'Lord Lykan! There in the sky around one of the mightiest
  aeries: aerial warriors, and flyers bearing armoured men! They swarm even now, perhaps against us!'
  In moments Radu and the Gust's lieutenant had climbed up into a viewing niche, where they gazed out through a wide and jagged crack in the stack's outer
  
  sheath, upwards and into the heart of the nest of sky-scraping towers. And in one sense at least Radu's thrall was correct: a swarm of men and creatures were massed
  about one of the central aeries. Except they were not descending from it, but attacking it.
  'Shaitanstack!' Emil Hagisman gasped. 'Shaitan, the Lord of Vampires himself, is under attack!'
  Radu looked at him. 'In two more hours I was to meet with him. Now ...  it would seem not!'
  'It was probably his invitation to you that started this going,' the other told him, shielding his eyes from the northern auroras as he tried to identify the shapes
  darting around Shaitanstack.
  'Oh? How so?'
  'A distraction, of course. The perfect time to launch a pre-emptive strike! What, a reception in Shaitanstack? Why, the Lords are all busy prettying themselves
  up, not to mention the Ladies! Proud, aye! And Shaitan himself, proudest of them all: he'll want his place to look its very best. Oh, they don't get their heads
  together very often, these vampire Lords, but when they do ...  it's a grand contest of words and gestures, poses and postures!
  'All for me?'
  'For them! Half-hinted taunts and challenges, threats and insinuations. They thrive on it. But at a reception: no weapons allowed. They can crow, preen and
  bluster all they like, and no harm done. Until later, possibly.'
  'You make them sound . . . what, like fools? Buffoons!'
  'Among themselves, so it would ofttimes seem - for they have each other's measure, after all. Well, more or less. But among humankind? Ah,
  no. Great bears play rough-and-tumble in the foothills of Sunside, and no harm done. But if they played with men like that, they'd break all of their
  bones.' Emil saw something and pointed excitedly. 'Ah, see!'
  Radu looked. 'See what?'
  'More flyers going up . . .  from Kirkscrag, Antonstack, and Wens-keep. Reinforcements! And look, a crippled flyer heads this way. It is one of
  Lord Ehrig's creatures; I cannot be mistaken, for his sigil adorns its flank. Lord Shaitan's enemies are . . .  Kirk Nunosti, Anton Zappos, and Ehrig
  the Wen!'
  'Lesser Lords, all?'
  'Aye,' Emil nodded his head in great excitement. 'All lesser Lords -all joined together now against Shaitan - and all losers, too!'
  'Losers?'
  'He has their measure!' Emil pointed again, and Radu saw.
  With a stuttering and coughing of bio-propulsive orifices, Things had emerged from Shaitanstack's launching bays.
  And  even at this distance they were far more  awesome  constructs  than  the  ones  ranged  against  them.  Other  bays
  issued  flyers  with  lieutenant  and  thrall  riders;  their  polished  leather  armour  and  iron  weapons  glinting  blue  in  the
  sheen of the stars. There followed a scattering as of leaves in a sudden  gust,  as Shaitan's forces fought and tore and
  ravaged  amongst  their  enemies.  And  shortly,  in  the  space  of  only  a  minute  or  two,  the  debris  of  Lords  Nunosti,
  Zappos, and Ehrig the Wen's shattered forces began spiralling, drifting, or plummeting down onto the boulder plains.
  Some survivors - a very few, the merest handful, all of them in wild disarray - made to fly home to the lesser aeries of Kirkscrag,
  Antonstack, and Wenskeep; Shaitan's superior forces harried them all the way. 'If the errant Lords themselves are among the survivors,' Emil
  husked, 'Shaitan will hang them in silver chains from his ramparts, and fry them in the golden fires of sunup.'
  Suddenly, there were flurries of activity in the launching bays of the other manses and aeries. Where previously the greater Lords
  had looked on, perhaps even wagering on the outcome of this insurrection, now they seemed eager to show their solidarity with
  Shaitan. Flyers launched as 'anxious' Wamphyri Lords and Ladies made to attend their overlord. But he would have none of that.
  Radu jerked back from his natural viewport as great gonging thoughts  rang in his (and in all) vampire minds: Keep
  back! Who dares come here now comes at his own risk! My blood  is up! I am betrayed! And who can say but that
  these were only dupes, playing out the moves of some sneaky, cowardly gamesmaster? Is there no honour  among the
   Wamphyri?
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  Of  course  not,  and  Shaitan  knew  it. . .  knew  also  that  the  others  would  protest  his  insinuation  -  indeed  his
  accusation - anyway. But before their denials could get underway, Shaitan's 'voice' rang out again: Shaitanstack is now inviolate. I shall
  not suffer any of you to come here. All invitations and engagements  are cancelled.  Now I go to make assessment of my losses -
  and my not inconsiderable gains! Also to think what must be done - and against whom! First, however, I require a show of allegiance. Answer
  me now: who stands with Shaitan, recognizing him as his one and true liege Lord?
  Radu answered at once: /, Radu Lykan, stand with Shaitan. (In truth he didn't care who he stood with, just as long as he was accepted with a
  minimum of trouble).
  From the others there was momentary silence . . . until the Lord of Vampires said: Any who do not stand with me, naturally stand against me .
  . .
  At which there was a concerted babble of nightmare voices, as they sought to 'guarantee' their allegiance. For if not, why, Shaitan could pick
  them off one at a time! And they had already seen what lesser alliances were worth.
  The mental gabble picked up, until again Shaitan broke in:
  Radu Lykan - Lord Lykan, as you are now -you were first to side with me. Since it seems I now hold sway, I hereby testify to your ascension . .
  . you are Lord Lykan! Moreover, he who would harm you, harms me. (He paused).  Except. . . I would  hazard from your wolfish
  ways, and the bark in your mind, that you are a dog-Lord? (And after another pause, a mental shrug). Just so. Well, and as the dogs of the
  Szgany are faithful, so shall I expect faithfulness of you. So be it. . .
  But from the other Lords:
  What? He has ascended? Just like that? This bold thief of a wolf out of Sunside?
  
  And Shaitan laughed and told them: Aye, and he keeps what he has taken! No payment or repayment due! What? But your losses are small!
   For only think what you might lose, should I pursue . . . certain investigations? As it stands, the uprising has been put down.
  Those Lords who were caught red-handed will pay for it, and let that be the end of it. Shaitan is merciful. . .
  As the psychic aether fell silent, Radu said to Emil Hagisman, 'Now you can take your flyer and return to the Gust. If he asks you what transpired, tell him you
  told me nothing, and be sure I'll never give you away. Also, if at any future time something should befall Hengor Hagi, you know there's a place for you with me.
  Only tell me one more thing before you go.'
  'Name it,' the other's relief was plain to see.
  'In all of this so far, I've haven't heard a single word out of the Ferenczys. Are they without mentalism, or what?'
  'Apparently,' Emil nodded. 'It will doubtless come with time, as all Wamphyri talents do - though slower in some than in others - but for the moment the
  Ferenczy brothers are deaf and dumb in the art of telepathy.'
  They'll know nothing of my presence here?'
  'Oh, be sure they'll know you're here, if not who you are. And they'll know that soon enough, for others are bound to tell them. Then there's the question of
  Lagula's stolen thralls. But you have Shaitan's protection - for now, at least.'
  'He's changeable?'
  'As the wind off the Icelands, aye!'
  The wind off the Icelands—' Radu repeated him, nodding thoughtfully and stroking back his mane. But then he grinned in his wolf fashion, clapped Emil on
  the shoulder, and barked: '—Which currently blows in your favour! So be off now to Hengstack, and give my regards to the Gust. Tell him I admired his
  word-game, and that I look forward to taunting with him again sometime ..."
  Thus Radu Lykan ascended to Wolfsden in Starside, in those earliest days of the Wamphyri...
  The rest is known.
  Radu rose in the ranks of the Wamphyri, and acquired all the 'natural,' monstrous instincts of a Lord almost as a vampire born. Eventually he incurred the wrath
  of Shaitan, by which time he was equal in stature to even the greatest of the lesser Lords, and Wolfsden was insufficient to contain his army. Territorial, he looked
  at the other stacks - all of them occupied now - but especially he looked at Ferencscar!
  Let the bloodwars commence! Radu allied himself with  Hengor Hagi, Klaus  Lankari, and Thereza  Lugosi against the  Ferenczys,
  who were now legion. Lagula Ferenczy had sired a bloodson, Nonari the Gross,  and a daughter,  Freyda  Ferenc, both  of whom had
  ascended in their turn to occupy their  own  aeries. Rakhi Ferenczy  had likewise ascended to  a Lord (albeit a lesser  one); for Petre
  Stakis's  last  bite  had been virulent  indeed,  transfusing  or  conferring  upon  Rakhi  all  the  ingredients  of  a  Lord.  In  short,  he  had
  developed a leech of his own.
  Still Rakhi fell first. Radu beheaded him, tore out his parasite and devoured it.  Rakhi's  men and beasts  were divided between  the
  victors; straws were drawn for Rakstack,  which went  to  the  Gust,  who  at once gutted  the  place; Radu and his allies again turned
  their eyes on Ferencscar, Nonspire and Freydastack. But Freyda, a so-called 'Mother of Vampires,' was no more; she had died spawning a
  deluge of eggs, all of which save one were diseased and likewise expired.
  Ferencscar fell, and finally Lagula Ferenczy  - the  lone surviving member of that  band who  had ravaged Radu's  innocent  sister  -
  must pay the price. A hundred and seventy years had passed since then, but
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  Radu had forgotten and forgiven nothing. The Wamphyri do not forgive. He cut through Lagula's tendons to weaken his joints, put his neck in a
  silver noose, skewered his limbs with iron hooks, and had him drawn and quartered between straining flyers, so that his blood and his bits fell like
  red rain down onto the shuddering boulder plains . . .
  And  that would have been that, except now Lagula's bloodson,  Nonari the Gross, swore vengeance  on  Radu  and
  death to his kith, kin, and spawn for all time to come. The impassioned vow of a Lord of the Wamphyri, which might outlast eternity
  itself. They would have gone at it at  once,  except  a  greater  peril  now  united  all  the  Lords,  even  Radu  and  Nonari,
  against a yet more pitiless foe -whose name was Shaitan!
  The Lord of Vampires had stood aloof from the bloodwars . . . until now. But finally, when all the others were weakened, Shaitan swooped on
  the lesser stacks and ate them up in a veritable frenzy of conquest. Until shortly, only two camps left: Shaitan on the one hand, and
  his Great Enemies on the other.
  The stacks under Shaitan's control were many; flesh of his flesh, his own bloodsons  and daughters,  inhabited them. But one of
  these  (Shaitan's 'true' son, or egg-son,  the once-Turgo Zolte, long returned from banishment and grown mighty in Starside)
  joined now with his father's foes in the longest and bloodiest bloodwar so far . . .  which in the end Shaitan won.
  Then the reckoning, when Hengor Hagi, Klaus Lankari, and Thereza Lugosi were buried alive out on the boulder plains, to stiffen to stones,
  and Turgo Zolte was banished into the northern Icelands; except he reneged on his punishment and fled east over the Great Red
  Waste, out of his father's jurisdiction, and presumably to his death. And the Drakuls, Nonari the Gross, and Radu were hurled,
  along with a handful of surviving thralls and supplicant Szgany, into the Hell-lands Gate; many of whom resurfaced in a land
  called Dacia by its Roman overlords, on a great river called the Danuvius, in a world an entire dimension's remove from Starside, in the year AD
  371.
  They emerged close to a harbour, where Roman merchants and the soldiers who protected them, along with local Dacians, gathered to buy or
  barter, and to trade in slaves. And because they arrived by the light of the full moon it was a joyous time for Radu, when he and his ran free and
  amok among the sparse local populace . . .
  Eventually, the Drakuls and theirs went up into the mountains (later the Carpathians), to find or build an aerie; Nonari 'the Gross' Ferenczy fled
  east from Radu's wrath and took a new name; and Radu crossed the river with his followers, who spread out into all the lands around. And in an
  
  age of legends, it was the beginning of a new legend - indeed, of several. The legends of the vampire and the werewolf,
  and the dark things of night.
  As for the place of Radu's resurgence, the barter-camp of the Romans and Dacians, it would have many names down the centuries. But to the superstitious
  people of that region, who had long memories, it would always be known as Radujevac:
  'Where Radu came forth,' of course . . .
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  V
  DREAMS IN RESIN
  Radu dreamed his olden, less than vivid dreams, and strove  to reinstate, restructure them, in the eye of memory. He
  dreamed of ages  past  and  of  the  life  he'd  known  then,  and  of  the  many  lives  he'd  consumed  since  then.  Crimson
  dreams of his genesis as a man in a far vampire world; of his monstrous  conversion  into something other than a man
  during his time of banishment; of his everlasting (and soon  to be on-going) revenge on those  who had dared to rape
  and ruin what little he had loved.
  Less than vivid, these dreams of his, aye - unless they were recounted, reinforced, revisited time and again to bring
  them into nightmare definition in a yet more nightmarish mind. For time  has  the  power  to  blur  and  even  erase,  and
  these were things that Radu desired to remember forever. During his sleep of centuries they had been his one recourse,
  his only means of keeping his hatred alive while he waited out his time undead.
  He recalled names out of the fading past, names that were cursed for all time to come. Such as the Zirescus: Giorga,
  Ion,  and  Lexandru  -  and  the  Ferenczys,  Lagula  and  Rakhi,  once  Lords  in  Olden  Starside.  Except  all  were  dead  in
  another time, even another world. Dead by his hand, aye! And Radu relished resurgent  memories of how he had dealt
  with them who had borne those  names, and how he would next deal with any survivor, any descendant,  when once
  more he was up and abroad in this new world where his dreams would become the new reality.
  True, the resolution of ancient blood-feuds was but a very small part of the overall  schemes  he'd  schemed  in  his
  immemorial sleep . . . but a delicious part! And it would be for any survivors  just as it had been for their ancestors,  or
  worse.
  His 'immemorial' sleep . . .
  Well, immemorial to those he'd left behind - Szgany supplicants,
  thralls to remember and restore him when his time was nigh - but not to him. For despite the fact that Radu's dreams
  and memories required constant restoration, still they remained his one true anchor on the dimly echoing past, his one
  guide to an ever-expanding future . . . and still they  were red! He saw it even now in the eye of memory: how it had
  been in another time, another world. And how it was yet to be in this one:
  Giorga, that cruel old bastard! Bah! For his death had been too easy . . . Flopping about in his own blood, awash in a crimson
  flood that pulsed from his gaping throat and punctured gut. Air whistling in and out of his sliced windpipe, forming bright red bubbles into a
  livid froth that stained his beard and speckled his madly puffing face. But the spurting  of his life-blood and all his jerking and twitching
  quickly slowing down as life ebbed. Much too quickly!
  And Giorga's son, Lexandru: who had raped Radu's sister, sharing Magda's body - even when life had fled it - with his brother Ion and the
  Ferenczys. He too had died far too quickly,  with a bolt from Radu's crossbow buried in his black  heart and Radu's name
  spraying in red from his disbelieving lips.
  And Ion, last and most loathsome of a brutish line:
  Ion, with one bolt through his right arm, and another in his shoulder pinning him to a tree. But Radu had promised
  himself that this time the payment would be cruel as the crime - even so  cruel, just so  cruel! Magda had been raped,
  deflowered even unto death, her innocence crushed and ravaged from her as if torn out. So be it. . .
  Ion, hanging there helpless from a crossbow bolt, while Radu's taloned hands caressed him in his body's most delicate parts. Then . . .  a// of
  Radu's rage and Wamphyri passion flowing in a single moment into his arms and hands!
  In that same moment Ion Zirescu had lost everything, even the lower pipes of his body: dislocated, wrenched out of place, and left dangling
  like lumpy red rags! Not surprisingly, he had lost consciousness, too, and would have gone on losing enough blood that he. would never
  wake up -except Radu would not let it go to waste, not all of it. And while there was yet  a  pulse  in  his  victim's  jugular,  he  had
  buried a wolfs fangs in it to draw off the remainder of Ion's life.
  Ah, how he had slaked his awful thirst, giving nothing of himself but draining all from the other, even to the dregs . . .
  Blood! It was what Radu had needed, what his parasite vampire leech needed. It was the nectar of life—
  —It had been the life, and would be again, when he was up, up, up from his  gluey  grave!  No,  not  a  grave  but  a
  refuge, a sanctuary. From men, and from ancient enemies who were other than men, and from time itself. But especially
  
  a sanctuary from that Greatest of all Destroyers, which had finally determined his fate. Black it had been,
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  and Black its name. Black as the swarming rats that brought it out of the east . . .
  As for men: they'd been naive as children when first Radu and the others out of Starside came among them. Their sciences were young, their superstitions
  many, and their blood sweet as any to be found on Sunside in that far vampire world of Radu's youth. Even so, their weapons had been deadly, and their courage
  unbelievable. In the first hundred, two hundred years, the vampire and werewolf had flourished; aeries and lairs had been erected or excavated in the mountains,
  and men had shunned the wooded foothills of the Carpatii Meridional! and lands around.
  In the beginning, ranging far and wide, Radu and his various packs had ravaged among the colonial settlements north of the Danube - even to the point of
  harassing a Roman garrison's three cohorts, which were permanently stationed there to man forts strung out between the river and foothills, protection for the trade
  and supply routes. A fairly easy target, the garrison was residual of a much earlier XIHth Legion; its soldiers had mainly settled the land around; they were as
  much 'locals' as the Dacians themselves.
  But despite that they were only three cohorts of the original legion, the title 'the 13th' stuck, and the troubles Radu brought them quickly earned them a prefix:
  the 'Unlucky' 13th. From which time forward that number had been known as a symbol of ill-fortune among the Romans and others, and eventually the entire
  world, even as it had been in Sunside/Starside.
  Night-skirmishing with legionnaires along the river and in the Dacian hamlets: ah, but that had been a grand and dangerous game! One time, Radu had been
  taken in an animal trap.
  . . . Given a knock on the head that near-brained him, he'd come to on a Roman ship on the Danube, on course for the Black Sea and eventually Rome itself, and
  doubtless the Games! Several of his pack were with him, taken with common wolves in nets or pitfalls. Perhaps their captors considered them a new species!
  Well, so they were, in a way. There were also caged bears, and wild boars from the woods of eastern Pannonia, chests of local gold in thumb-sized ingots, barrels of
  spices, and wines galore in racks of amphorae. A varied cargo.
  But the wolf is a wily beast, and the werewolf even more so; while the sheer physical strength of a Lord of the Wamphyri...  is awesome! The oak-staved cages
  were like so much kindling in Radu's hands. And above decks a full moon rode high in the Dacian sides, and the night was by no means done . . .
  The ship had beached itself near Zimnicea; its crew, and a handful of legionnaires retiring out of the army and returning to their homelands, were found hanging
  by their heels from the rigging, naked, pale and bloodless. But despite that their bodies had been ripped apart and their
  throats torn out, there was little of actual blood to be discovered. Later, local Dacians had paid for this atrocity; a hamlet in the foothills, well known
  for the rebellious nature of its citizens, was put to the sword and razed to the ground.
  It still amused Radu to think of it: how he had freed the wild creatures to swim ashore, stolen much of the wine and destroyed what couldn't be
  carried away. As for the gold . . . well, in his way Lord Radu, too, had been naive in those early times. And gold had been common in Starside.
  He'd seen no use for the heavy stuff; his thralls had thrown a fortune overboard! There it had stayed (for all he knew) in the silt of
  a shallow reach of the river for over fifteen hundred years. If ever he revisited those parts, he would know where to find it again.
  But there had been two other items of cargo that Radu had found much more interesting, which years later he had
  cause to remember and utilize: several amphorae filled with a glutinous golden liquid, at first mistaken for honey;  and ...  a chest  of
  yellow stones?  The first was resin, used  throughout  the Mediterranean as a preservative  in  wine,  and the second  was
  fossilized resin, turned hard as rock and rounded by the Baltic into polished amber pebbles. And Lord Radu - originally an untutored nomad, little
  more than a savage from the woods of a parallel world, then a mutated Lord on the dark side of that world, now finally a werewolf in this world -
  had seen the connection between the two, and might well have been one of the first men ever to see it.
  For  on  Starside  it  had  been  the  practice  of  certain  Lords  of  the  Wamphyri  to  bury  defeated  enemies  alive  (or
  undead) out on the boulder plains, to 'stiffen to stones' and fuse with the earth in their deep and inescapable graves. But in this case
  it was different - here the  preserving resin itself had stiffened, keeping intact  whatever was caught  within. For the translucent, softly
  glowing pebbles had contained flies and beetles trapped in the exuded life-fluids of coniferous forests dead and gone for countless years.
  Radu had no idea of the span of time, of the aeons it had taken to turn resin to amber, but the principle had astonished  him all the
  same.  Especially  when  he  examined  some  of  the  specimens  locked  in  the  amber:  such  as  a  perfectly  preserved
  dragonfly, or an ant with a fragment of leaf still clearly visible in its mandibles. These creatures were dead, of course,
  and in the terms of men might well have been dead 'forever.' But what if a Lord of  the  Wamphyri  should  choose  to
  preserve himself in this fashion? What, a metamorphic vampire, with self-regenerating flesh? And from that time forward Radu had worn an amber
  bauble, with its captive insect intact, on a slender chain of gold around his neck . . .
  Amber: the ultimate end product of resin.
  Resin: the blood of great pines . . . which fifteen hundred years ago, and indeed in far more recent times, had covered the mountain slopes
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  like winter fur on a beast's  hide;  not  only  the  granite  mountains  of  inhospitable  Scottish  regions  but  those  of  far,
  foreign parts as well. No shortage of resin, no! Two centuries after Radu's coming, all the Greeks in the Mediterranean
  had been using countless  tons  of the stuff just to cure their wines! And if Radu's 'contemporaries' - the Drakuls, for
  instance - had thought to bring native earth from their aeries in Starside for their beds here in this world, then why not
  a bed of amber for a sleep of centuries?
  For long and long, years without number, the idea had lain dormant in Radu's head without his even suspecting  it
  was there. But when he'd needed it. . .
  
  Resin: a preservative with medicinal properties.  A  shield  against  the  ravages  of  time.  Perhaps  even  a  cure  for  a
  terrible curse that in this world was as devastating as leprosy in Starside. Well, that last wasn't proven as yet, but—
  —What was that. . .?
  Radu's 'dreams' were more  nearly  conscious  thoughts  now,  so  that  the  very  slightest  of  tremors  which  he'd  felt
  through  the  walls  of  his  sarcophagus  and  the  near-solid  matrix  of  his  resin  cocoon  had  seemed  like  a  presence
  entering the room of a man  on  the  verge  of  waking.  He  had  sensed  -  something!  Or  someone?  Or  perhaps  it  was
  merely the mountains settling onto their foundations, as they had been doing for all of the six hundred years he'd lain
  here. He hadn't called, had he? It wasn't time yet, was it? Soon, but not yet. So . . .  could it have been his  creature,
  stirring with hideous life where it waxed in its own great vat? Possibly. He would 'feel' such  motions, certainly, for its
  mind and flesh were of his making. And so:
  Gently, little one, gently, Radu sleepily sent. Your time is soon, be sure . . . but not before mine. So have no fear,
  for your master shall be there to bring you forth . . .
  There was no answer, and Radu hadn't expected one. It was simply a tremor in these old and fractured rocks, that was all. He could go back to his dreaming: of
  men and monsters, time and the plague, and of his eventual flight from all these things.
  Men . . .
  The Romans. But the Empire had been on the wane, at least in the parts where Radu and the others came forth. Aye, for the Goths were coming, and they were
  only a very small part of what else was coming! Such wars, such battles, such blood! The blood was the life! And the diversity of blood, in this new world! No
  wonder that at first these hell-lands had seemed like some sort of Wamphyri heaven or paradise. Oh really. . .?
  Men, and their wars . . . (Radu gradually settled back into his sleep of centuries).
  During long years of upheaval, the Wamphyri had moved into the
  mountain heights  and spread out into  the  lands  around,  even  into  other  lands  across  the  sea;  indeed,  into  all  the
  shores of the Mediterranean and its islands. For they had seen the folly of their ways when first they came here; they
  had been too bold and had become legends which would not fade quickly in the memories of men. But if they desired
  long lives here, they must be (or at least appear to be) as one with the world and its people and not apart from them.
  And slowly but surely they had come to a mutual understanding:  that in this bloody and war-torn world, they would
  use to best advantage such cover as the wars established for them. And indeed a cover had been required.
  For already it was seen how men reacted to the Wamphyri presence: fearfully at first, in a world rife with superstition
  - but then, like  the  Szgany  of  Sunside,  they  fought  back!  For  while  men  may  suffer  their  lands  to  be  stolen,  their
  children to be eaten and their wives seduced  away, when finally they have nothing left, then there's  nothing  left  to
  lose! And then any man will fight!
  That was how it had been: the alien invaders of Earth had thought to rule by terror, as they had in Sunside/Starside.
  But even there they had not had it all their own way. Through seemingly endless  days  the sun  had forbidden entry
  into Sunside; in the dark of misty nights the Szgany had hidden themselves away, or if they could not hide had taken
  up arms. Likewise in this world, except here it was worse. Here the nights were fleeting things and allowed so little time
  for  the  vampire  Lords  to  establish  themselves;  and  the  days  .  .  .  were  terrible!  The  furnace  sun  passed  directly
  overhead, and there were no barrier mountains to contain its searing rays, or the rage of vengeful men.
  Oh, there were mountains, to be sure - and such mountains: the vast  horseshoe  of the Carpatii in the east, and the
  mighty Alps in the west -but  unlike  the  barrier  mountains  of  Sunside/Starside,  the  solar  orb  was  not  restricted  by
  them, and at its zenith burned down on all and everything indiscriminately. As for the great armies of nomad tribesmen
  that were sweeping the world at that time: where mountains could not be climbed, they could always be circumvented .
  . . and they were. By warriors!
  By men who had known how to destroy their enemies, even the Wamphyri, and destroy  them utterly; known how a
  bolt or a lance through the heart would kill a man, and how his head on a lance would guarantee he was dead . . . then
  how to reduce his castle and its contents to ashes, until nothing of him or his survived. Such methods were simply the
  way of the warrior, and by no means reserved for the Wamphyri and  their  followers.  For  in  a  majority  of  cases  the
  invaders who used them - first the Goths, later the Visigoths and Avars - did not even know they went up against the
  Wamphyri! No, for they were merely murdering rich  Dacian  landowners  in  their  gloomy  castles,  or  strange,  savage
  grey halflings in their foothill keeps and caverns.
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  And because of the times, times of change, tumult, and crisis -indeed the crisis of an entire Classical World - the as
  yet young legend of the Wamphyri, of the blood-crazed vampire and werewolf, was almost eradicated. What need for
  monstrous  myths  in  a  world  that  was  in  reality  a  bloodbath?  Forty  years  after  Radu's  coming  the  Visigoths  had
  sacked Rome itself, and forty-five years later it had fallen again, to the Vandals; except on  that  occasion  Radu  had
  been part of it. For like most of the Wamphyri exiled from Starside by Shaitan, he was unable to resist blood, certainly not in such
  copious amounts.
  War, to which he was drawn as a lodestone  is drawn north. And such  wars to be warred as nothing conceived in
  Starside by even the mightiest of the Old Lords. And down all the years and decades,  Radu was a great  mercenary
  washed  hither  and  to  by  the  tides  of  war  and  blood.  He  used  his  gift  of  oneiromancy  -  not  uncommon  among
  dog-Lords - to scry on future times and know in advance which side to join in the great wars to come. And likewise he
  remained alert for word of those olden enemies who came through the Hell-lands Gate with him. And  time and again Radu cursed
  
  himself that he'd not dealt with them then, on the very threshold  of this new world, when they were at their weakest.
  But then, he had been at his weakest, too, for a time.
  Rumours found their way to Radu. Employed as a mercenary warlord by the Vandal Gaeseric (who dubbed  him 'Radu, Hound of
  the Night,' because  he preferred guerilla warfare by the light of a full moon), he learned of the alleged death  of  one
  'Onarius Ferengus,' a provincial senator (what, Roman?) murdered by pirates in his villa at Odessus  on the Black Sea
  ten years earlier. This he had from a Numidian slave-girl, Ulutu, set free when Gaeseric's forces sacked Rome. Upon a
  time she'd belonged to Onarius, but she had fled from the fire and the fighting on the night he was killed. And from
  Ulutu's descriptions of her ex-master . . .
  . . . Radu had little doubt but that he had been none other than Nonari the Gross Ferenczy!
  And in Radu's keeping, where he and his pack spent their days in a den under the Colli  Albani  twelve miles out of
  Rome, Ulutu fell under her new master's spell (and Radu, to a lesser degree, under hers); and they were lovers.  But
  because he had enough of 'pups' up in the mountains of Dacia, now Goth territory, and because  he had learned that
  anonymity and insularity were synonymous with longevity, he made sure that Ulutu stayed  entirely human; which is
  to say that for all that he was into her, nothing of him got into her. And at times, lying spent  on their bed of cured
  furs, at Radu's request she would tell him various things about her former master.
  Just how Nonari the Gross had gained elevation to the rank of a Roman Senator  in absentia  during the eighty-odd
  years sped by since the coming of the Wamphyri into Dacia - that was anybody's guess. But
  the way the girl described his castle, backed up to a great cliff, with  his private  chambers facing away  from the  sun  and always  in
  the shade; and his servants, 'like mists over a bubbling swamp,  drifting,  pale  and ghastly,  yet  smiling with  strong  white  teeth  . . .
  all wafting and weaving, hastening to Onarius's beck and call, yet shuddering to his touch  so cold and menacing; and his right hand
  like a club, with its fingers all welded into one . . .'
  He had called her 'his little  trog,' and had told  her that  he'd known  trogs  before, in the  dank caverns of a far forbidden  world.
  Except they  had been shambling leathery  creatures,  while Ulutu  was  graceful and her skin so soft.  It  had never ceased to  amaze
  him: that she'd been browned by the sun, 'but yet was not burned up!'  But  Onarius's  odalisques  were white  - Arabs,  Britons,  and
  Syrians - and he had no time for dalliance with trogs, even if they were as beautiful as Ulutu. And so she had carried water,  cleaned
  Onarius's chambers, and been grateful. For she knew how he dealt with them with  whom he 'dallied.' Or rather,  she did not know,
  for he was wary of prying eyes.
  But she had seen the evidence of his passion, apparent in the feral yellow  eyes  of his male and female thralls  alike, and in their
  'wafting and weaving' after only a very short space of time spent  in his service; even in certain of the  villa's children, which were
  gross. She had seen how rapidly his odalisques aged and his thralls were worn down - 'sucked dry,  until  they  were no more,' - and
  how when  they  died he buried them deep  in the  earth  where the  rocky  land sloped  down  to  the  sea, with  the  rush  and  roar  of
  breakers to deaden . . . other sounds.
  Onarius  had a son  in the  mountains  far to  the  north,  in a place called the  Khorvaty  in  Moldavia.  (Here  Radu  had  paid  more
  attention. What, another living Ferenczy?) He was called Belos Pheropzis (not  Ferengus? No,  of course  not,  not  if one desired to
  hide one's true kith and kin away!) and kept a great castle  in the  heights,  on the  very  borders  of the  Empire's  territory.  All secret
  from Romans and nomad invaders alike, the place was to be Onarius's bolt-hole, in the event he should need one.
  As to how Onarius's 'little trog' had known these things: she had feared this Belos mightily when he visited his father, because of
  the way he looked at her - the way he looked at all females, even his father's  thrall  mistresses!  Yet at the  same time she had been
  fascinated  by  him: his dark good  looks,  hawkish  features,  massive  yet  proportionate  stature.  Keeping  well  out  of  sight,  she'd
  listened to their conversations, mainly to ensure that Belos did not ask for her. For if he had, then she would have run away.
  But when Radu had queried her one time, about this attraction that she'd felt towards Belos:
  'No,  my  Lord,'  Ulutu  had  told  him,  lying  sprawled  between  his  legs  and  fondling  his  now  flaccid  rod,  squeezing  its  glans
  between her dark
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  breasts, and kissing its tiny lips, 'perhaps I have given you the wrong impression. It was not so much fascination as
  terror that I felt. For this Belos was like one of the great warhorses that draw the Roman chariots . . . and what was I
  but a tiny black mare? I was a slave, and if this son of Onarius had wanted me . . .  I scarcely believed I could contain
  him in my small body!' (At which she had seen her mistake at once, for Radu was fiercely prideful).  '—But,  since  it
  seems I contain you well enough, my Lord, obviously  I was mistaken! Whichever, this Belos frightened me, seeming
  more creature than man, more animal than human.'
  'What, even as I am more creature than man, more animal than human?' Radu had reached down to fondle her soft
  breasts and draw Ulutu effortlessly up onto his belly, where he could squeeze her dark and rounded buttocks.
  'You are a wolfling, as I've seen,' she had told him then. 'But Belos . .  .  was  other!'  And  Radu  had  felt  her  small
  shudder.
  Aye, and Ulutu was right: Belos was 'other.' No slightest  shadow of a doubt, he  was  this  Onarius's  (or  Nonari's)
  egg-son. Wamphyri! Which perhaps explained his looks and appetites, and the reason why he and his damned father
  were so close. Or maybe that last was as a result of the wars, the shaken, perhaps  even crumbling Roman Empire, the
  unstable skein of things  in general. For even the best  Wamphyri relationship could scarcely be described as 'close,'
  not in normal circumstances. But that apart, quite obviously  this . . . this scum of Starside had bred one of  its  own
  here in this world! An egg-son for Nonari! A Ferenczy!
  
  Well, so be it. It simply meant there'd be one more Ferenczy for Radu to hunt down when all wars were won  and
  times were right, and the world was quiet again. And as for this so-called 'Onarius Feren-gus' . . . dead, was he? Radu
  didn't think so. More likely it was some grand contrivance, the entire scenario, some scheme of Nonari's to vanish a
  while, and come back later under a new name and in a different guise. The idea was interesting, something Radu could
  even try for himself in some future time, when it might seem to some that he had lived too long . . .
  Radu's dreams had set his juices working however sluggishly. Dreams of his undying hatred for the Ferenczys, his
  charnel love of the battlefield, but especially his carnal memories of Ulutu.
  Ah, Ulutu! She had loved his horn, and it had been hard to will his spunk lifeless when he spurted in her. But if she
  had fallen pregnant  . . . then she had also fallen dead, be sure! For Radu was not like Nonari, making vampires left,
  right and centre, to plague him in a later age, His pups  were enough  for him. They had known his bite and bore his
  curse - that of the moonchild, the changeling, the werewolf - but not liis seed. There would be time for bloodsons, and
  eventually an
  egg-son, later, when he could afford the time to train, control, and bend them to his will. But in that savage world of fifteen hundred years ago, Radu Lykan had
  control over nothing! Even kings and emperors had controlled nothing! Only the restless forces of Nature, Change, and Chaos had any control at all. . .
  But Ulutu: Radu had bitten her during intercourse, a love bite, but much too deep. She would never be Wamphyri - well, not for a long, long time at least, if she
  lived that long - but she would be a wolfling, bound to Radu as his thrall. Very well, she could run with the pack and be his mate, for as long as it lasted. Alas, but
  that hadn't been long. Gaeseric's advisers, who earlier in the campaign had welcomed Radu's pack as 'mercenary warriors without peer - men who fight like dogs of
  the wild!' now gave their lord different advice. Oh, it had seemed a grand irony at first, a marvellous jest, that a great city founded by wolf-suckled brothers should
  be brought to its knees in part by a wolfish man, this so-called Hound of Night, with his band of howling berserks. But the city had fallen now and Radu and his
  lot had been paid off. And who could say, perhaps they had even been paid ...  too well?
  For what were they after all but mercenaries? And only a handful by comparison with the true Vandal army. No match for Gaeseric, if he should decide to take
  back what tribute he had paid them. Aye, and these wolves of war kept many comely women plundered out of Rome, and measures of good red wine likewise
  sacked from the city, which they held in their cavern lair in the mountains with the rest of their loot. . .
  A man of Gaeseric's had come to Radu in the early evening with news of a legion mustering in the north, and Roman galleys from the Eastern Empire putting
  men and ordnances ashore south of the Tiberis. And these were Gaeseric's orders:
  Radu was to send one-third of his men to spy out the land to the north, and he and the rest were to harass the sea-borne invasion at the mouth of the river; which
  in the same night he set out to do ...  only to discover that there were no such reinforcements for the ravaged city! Nor had there been. Then he remembered how
  he'd dreamed dreams of treachery, and saw when he rushed back to his lair under the mountains how his dreams were true: smoke and fire issuing from the great
  cavern's outlets, and the ravished bodies of the pack's women strewn among the coarse grasses at the mouth of the cave! Even Ulutu, with blood under her nails
  from the fight she'd put up.
  At which it was as much as Radu could do to keep himself from screaming aloud. It was not that she was dead - he might even have killed her himself, had
  circumstances required it - but more the way of her death. For it brought back to him memories of his own sister's rape and murder at the hands of Zirescu and
  Ferenczy scum, in Sunside in a different world.
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  And finally he did scream, except it was a howl that went vibrating up to the sinking moon. And a full moon, at that. . .
  There were Vandals in the heights around the cavern and in the defile that led to it. They had thought that Radu would not be back until full daylight, which
  would be to their advantage for he was a night fighter. Yet here he was, albeit weary from his abortive journey to the coast and back. By comparison Radu's hundred
  was a handful, while Gaeseric's ambush party, a formidable assault unit, outnumbered them four to one.
  But despite that the two sides were unequal, and that the Vandals held the high ground, still their advantage was not so great as might be reckoned. Not against
  furious, vengeful men, and men who were werewolves at that! So the battle was joined, as bloody as might be imagined.
  It was the twilight before the dawn, when the eyes of men may not be trusted. But the eyes of wolves are feral; they see in the twilight just as well as in the night.
  Also, a mist was rising ...  a vampire mist, conjured out of Radu's pores and up from the bone-dry earth! But all in vain; the pack was beaten from the start, almost
  before it began. For they must strike up at the ambushers, while the Vandals need only strike down. And Radu's wolflings fought in ragged clothes, with staves,
  knives, axes, and their bare hands and fierce teeth; while the Vandals had leather armour, lances, bows and primitive crossbows. (And that last was an irony in itself,
  for it had been the Wamphyri who brought the first crossbows with them out of Sunside/Starside. In their world the crossbow had been a Traveller weapon, which
  the vampire Lords had neither the skill nor the patience to duplicate or manufacture for themselves in this one. As for the few entirely human Szgany thralls they
  had brought through with them: they had become scattered among the peoples of this new world. Aye, and all their skills with them. Hence that the Vandals had
  crossbows).
  Yet still Radu's pups slew three to one, except there was always a fourth to come. And pierced by lances, feathered with red-streaming shafts, one by one they
  went down. And all their tribute stolen, their women raped and butchered, finally their very lives forfeit to the treachery of the Vandals . . .
  The sun rose on a hillside that seemed to smoke from all the blood and urine, all the sweat and guts and foulness that had been spilled there; four hundred and ten
  bodies reeking under the hot sun. But Radu and two of his lieutenants had survived; seeing how all was lost, they'd crept away through Radu's mist to find refuge
  in a deep dark crevice till nightfall.
  And coiled like a snake in the cool dank of their hiding place, and willing his leech to heal his several wounds, Radu had vowed a Wamphyri vow where he
  sheltered - not only against Gaeseric and the
  Vandals but against mankind in general. For so far Radu had been the most 'lenient' of all the Lords, the most 'human' of an inhuman lot. But that was over now.
  What, treacherous, the Wamphyri? Hah! For now it seemed to Radu that those old Starside Lords had been the veriest beginners in the ways of the traitor! And as
  for cruelty . . .
  The lust of the vampire was that of a man, increased tenfold by his parasite. When he raped it was because he must! His passions, rages, delights, all of his
  
  emotions were larger than life or even undeath. He could no more turn away from a shapely woman than a drunkard refuse a jack of wine, or the furnace sun hold
  still in the sky. He could no more resist blood than a fly avoid fresh dung, or the tides resist the pull of the moon. For the blood was the life! But the men of this
  world - Romans and barbarians alike - they fucked simply because it was there; not because they were driven to it, but because it was right of the conqueror! To the
  victor the spoils!
  And while the vampire as often as not created life - or undeath - the men of this world invariably destroyed it. Radu had seen how it was when Gaeseric and his
  Vandals stormed Rome; he had seen how inhuman were these humans. And as for the 'civilized' Romans: why, in the Eastern Empire they would crucify a man for
  stealing a loaf of bread!
  Well, Radu was half-way between the two, or so he'd liked to fancy. As much wolf as man, yes, but more wolf than vampire. That was how he'd seen himself:
  greater than a mere man by virtue of his strength and awesome vampire powers, yet superior to the Wamphyri by virtue of the last lingering traces of his humanity!
  A paradox but a fact. Oh, really? And again, hah! Well, so much for humanity! And this was the final change, the true change, the last straw that turned a man to a
  pitiless monster.
  But naive? Aye, he'd been that. In Sunside, naive. Looking back, he knew that he'd always had the measure of the Ferenczys and Zirescus. But he'd been a mere
  youth and inexperienced. And in his Starside aerie, naive: to believe he stood the slightest chance against Shaitan the Unborn, yet still he'd gone against him.
  Finally in this world, oh so naive. The golden ingots he'd thrown in a river believing them worthless - while in fact men would kill for them! The way he'd made
  werewolves to run with him, when he should have stayed a loner. Last but not least, to have sold himself to a warlord, and think he'd actually be paid for his
  services and accepted as an equal!
  What, an equal? Radu Lykan? But he had the measure of all these so-called 'warriors.' Their only advantage was that they were men, and could live here as men.
  Ah, but in the long term time was on Radu's side. He could outlive them all...  if only they would let him!
  And so, with all such notions as 'honour,' 'trust', and 'faith' put aside forever, a new strategy was needed. From now on Radu would honour neither man nor
  creature, but only his own vows. He would trust no
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  one, not even his pups, but continually assert his will and ensure that his word was law. He would have faith only in himself, and in the blood which is the life.
  And above all, he would be the most secretive and watchful of men, so that no one could know him, or come upon him unsuspected.
  So, perhaps old 'Onarius Ferengus' had got it right and Radu should find himself a position, elevate himself, and prepare bolthole dens and lairs along the way,
  with caretakers to keep them in his absence. Then, like Nonari the Gross Ferenczy, he would be able to venture forth in the world as before, indulging himself as
  never before, but always knowing there would be a refuge jn needful times, or when the number of his years was such that he should 'retire' a while.
  Or perhaps he misjudged Nonari and that one had not gone into hiding since his 'murder' as a Roman senator but was out and about, revelling in all the great
  reel and roil of things. If so, no doubt he'd come to Radu's attention again, when the time was ripe for him to rise up in other parts. And who could say, perhaps
  then the time would also be ripe for 'Onarius' to vanish forever? Likewise his egg-son, this Belos Pheropzis.
  These were some of Radu's thoughts, and some of the plans he made, while hiding the day away in a hole in the ground . . .
  Came the night. One of Radu's pups had died of too many cuts in his side, which had leaked all his blood away. He had gone uncomplainingly, simply stiffening
  where he crouched. The crevice would make as good a grave as any; Radu and the other survivor of Gaeseric's treachery had dropped stones on him from on high, to
  block the crevice and keep away any lesser wolves and wild dogs from the body of their ex-colleague.
  Then away into the night under a moon that was still full, heading north for the Appenino heights that stretched the full length of Italia. For in a land overrun by
  Vandals, that would be the safest route out.
  Werewolves run swift. The next night, up in the mountains, the pair met up with other survivors, men of the pack that Radu had sent north to spy on the alleged
  legion massing there. They had their own story to tell: of a vile ambush not twenty miles along the river north of Rome, which had left forty-two of them dead.
  Only eight had been lucky; they'd somehow managed to swim to safety across the river, and left Gaeseric's lot bogged down in their armour with all their
  weaponry. After that, like Radu, the eight had made for the heights, for they'd known that they were dupes.
  So ten of them now, ten of a hundred and fifty. Well, and that must suffice, for Radu would make no more werewolves for a while . . .
  He started ...  a nervous twitch of his limbs that spent itself uselessly in his resin matrix. Not enough to wake him entirely, but enough to make certain
  subconscious connections, so that he dreamily wondered:
  What. . .?
  But is there someone here, someone coming? What was it he thought he had heard, footsteps? But footsteps, in this riddled rock, which barring the furtive creep
  of spiders and flutter of bats had been so long silent? Perhaps a stone had rotted out of the high ceiling, and the thunder of its fall had caused him to dream of a past
  age when he had piled boulders on the body of a dead colleague . . . and secondary shocks had caused him to start? Yes, that must be it.
  Yesss. That must...  be ...  it...
  After Rome Radu had taken his much reduced party north to the Danube, then east through the forests and mountains, and eventually down into the Dacian
  territories that they knew so well. This was Lombard, Ostrogoth and Hun territory now, but south of the river the people were mainly Christian. Radu himself had
  no religion except blood; the superstitions and beliefs of local Dacians made little or no difference to him, except Christian-held land made safer journeying than
  land under the control of the barbarians.
  In any case it wasn't his intention to stay south of the river; finally he headed north again for the mountains of what would much later become Wallachia. For he
  believed that in taking the high ground he would be secure a while from the bloody tides of war washing all around on the fertile plains below.
  In this he was correct. The mountains were mainly barren and inhospitable. Unattractive to invaders, they contained little or nothing of value; Radu knew he
  could safely recruit the hardy locals for the building of a castle, an aerie of his own in a place as high and inaccessible as he could find.
  That would require funds, of course, but he had learned a valuable lesson: that while wine and women can do a man a power of good, gold can do him even more.
  And on his way from Rome to Dacia he had not been remiss in accumulating monies. There had been Romans fleeing the barbarian slaughter of their land; Radu
  
  had slaughtered them, for their wealth. There'd been parties of Vandals scathing in the land around; he'd done some scathing of his own, taking back what they had
  stolen. Finally, on the Danube, there had been a last handful of Roman merchants and traders. Radu had traded death for their blood and their gold.
  And journeying through the nights and paying his way during the days in Christian  camps  and villages, he'd listened  to  rumours
  and learned a new word which the local folk associated with  the  devil and every  evil thing. But  this  word  was  in fact  a name, one
  that had filtered through the high passes and from far across the mountains.  It  was  the  name of a family  - or of a curse now  - and
  one that was by no means new to Radu:
  The Drakuls!
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  Upon a time Karl and Egon had been Radu's allies against Shaitan the Unborn; now they were his greatest threat, in that they continued to scourge among the
  horseshoe of the high Dacian mountains, so bringing themselves into unnecessary prominence. Unlike Radu - who had developed a certain tolerance for weak
  sunlight, until he could abide to venture out in a hooded cloak - the Drakuls were true children of the night; sunlight would kill them instantly. But they'd
  developed their metamorphism to such a degree that like Shaitan the Unborn they could shape themselves into bats to fly out in the night and so take their prey.
  And they'd been doing it ever since. Moreover, in Starside they had been reared by wolves. They knew wolves, and in this world kept grey brothers as familiar
  creatures. Wolves of the wild kept watch for them, by means of which the Drakuls were secure in their aerie and feared no man.
  For the moment it worked for them, hence the rumours now finding their way to Radu. For the barbarian invaders who were settling the plains north of the
  mountains were no less superstitious than the locals they usurped. And when their wives or children died mysteriously or vanished in the night, then they knew
  who to blame: the winged devil in his mountain retreat - the 'obour' or 'viesky,' the vampire - the Drakul! The brothers had long since built a castle or castles in
  no-man's-land, at least one of which aeries stood on a rocky promontory over a chasm.
  This much Radu learned, and no more. Sufficient to determine him to avoid the error of bringing himself into prominence. And he kept reminding himself:
  anonymity and obscurity are synonymous with longevity. The Drakuls were true legends now; when all the fighting was over and done with and Dacia was united
  as a single tribe or country, then the people would remember these monsters and go looking for them. But even if the locals should forget, be sure that Radu Lykan
  would not. Territorial the Wamphyri, aye, and this place was where Radu had come forth.
  And anyway, there'd never been much love lost between him and Karl and Egon in the first place.
  Ever vengeful - and smiling grimly, if only to himself - Radu dreamed
  PART FOUR:
  WAMPHYRI: ANCIENT AND MODERN
  I
  MORE OF RADU'S STORY. BONNIE JEAN: SHE VISITS HER MASTER
  In those  days  if you would live, the high mountains were most probably the  safest  place  to  do  it.  And  for  the  time  being  the
  werewolf Radu Lykan had had his fill of war. In the last quarter of the year 467 AD, he and his small pack wintered down in what was
  to be their lair for the next sixty years.
  The place was a great cavern in the mountains of western Moldavia, not  far  from  a  scrabbled-together  'town'  or  village,  more
  properly a makeshift encampment of refugees, called Krawlau by its one hundred and fifteen polyglot inhabitants.
  As  to why he chose  this  place:  Radu's  reasons  were  several.  For  one,  the  heights  were  inhospitable  and  almost
  inaccessible. To  gradually  establish  oneself  there  would  be  one  thing,  but  for  any  would-be  invader  to  launch  an
  attack, or even want to? . . .  That seemed unlikely. Two: being simply a hollow crag, the redoubt would not  invite  attack  in  the
  manner of an 'aerie' or castle; and at its rear, its lowest crevice exits opened  on the shore of a broad, bitterly cold lake.
  In the event that he was attacked, Radu could easily slip away by  boat  to  the  far  shore.  For  while  it  was  a  time  of
  relative quiet, there would continue to be sporadic invasions from the east (Radu's dreams were full of them) . . .
  Three: while a true aerie would be his first choice for a permanent dwelling place, its construction  would prove prohibitively
  expensive. The cavern on the other hand required no actual or external building as such  but only some interior works,
  and  what  monies  Radu  had  amassed  were  better  put  aside  against  the  vagaries  of  an  uncertain  future  -  his
  precognition was by no means infallible. Four: an entire work-force, with which to make the crag habitable, was immediately to hand
  in the shape  of the folk of Krawlau. These former farmers -driven into the mountains by war and the collapse  of  the
  Eastern Empire's borders in the face of invading Asiatics - had no work. Like
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  Radu, they were simply wintering out the bad times. In order to survive they'd become scavengers,  hunting the land
  and fishing the lake for food. Which was why, when first Radu found them, they saw him as a godsend. •
  At first, aye . . .
  And  when he was established  . . . then they saw him almost as a god! Oh, it was  in  his  bearing  when  he  walked
  among them: his  penetrating  gaze  and  lordly  mode  of  speech,  his  attire  and  generosity.  Obviously,  with  his  dark,
  wolfish good looks - standing tall and lean as a tree, and equally strong - this was no ignorant, guttural farmer born in
  the fields but a gentleman landowner, a boyar removed from  his  own  place  by  those  same  savage  forces  that  had
  removed them. And he had gold, and the wit to fashion himself a fortress from a  raw  crag!  His  money  was  of  little
  value now - not in these naked mountains where there was nothing to buy - but it would be when the land was quiet again. As for
  Radu's cavern: when all of the work was finished and if the winters were hard, then it would provide refuge for all of
  them. This was his promise.
  Oh, Radu knew he shouldn't bring himself into prominence, but up here in the heights  that was in any case a near-impossibility.
  Who was there to see him or his, or know what they were about?  No one but these  low persons  in their sod-roofed,
  timber huts. Radu hired them by the dozen, and chose men to watch over them while they turned the great cavern into
  a lair. When a man joined him, Radu would state his wages and promise him a bonus if he should later decide to go his
  own way, perhaps back down to his ruined fields to start again.
  In that first winter, when the snow lay deep, a good many of them did just that: approached Radu and told him they'd left families in Moldavia,
  and would now return to see if they survived . . . and if so provide for them out of the monies Radu had paid them, and the bonus he still owed
  them. For his part, he would always require one last day's work of them before paying them their due, wishing them well and seeing them on their
  way in the dusk of evening. But in the dark of night he would send members of his pack loping after them, to make certain no word of him and his
  works - and none of his money - found its way down out of the mountains.
  And because new refugees were arriving day after day, and others  trying to leave, there was a steady  turnover of
  workers and no lack of. . .  provisions. (Likewise, there was no gradual trickling away of Radu's funds).
  The keep took shape. He would go among the workers directing them, so that every stone  was laid in accordance with his
  design (even as it had been in Wolfsden in Starside in another world). Massive timber lintels for the several 'doors' that he left open,
  and piled boulders in
  other holes  that  Radu  desired  closed;  archways  with  keystones  to  bolster  the  dripstone  ceilings  where  they  were
  eaten with rot, and stone  staircases  leading to ledges, lesser caves  or high 'window' observation  ports  in  the  rough
  outer walls; the levelling of various floors, and laying of an uneven but serviceable paving of slate slabs. And so  to the fireplaces
  and ovens, and the flues to channel smoke to the rear of the crag, there to drift with the mists rising off the lake.
  And while all such works were in progress to make the cavern liveable if not 'comfortable,' Lord Radu was not remiss in seeing to
  its defences:
  Outside, between the natural spurs of the crag, he built awesome death-trap gantlets for would-be invaders; on high,
  he piled rocks behind logs stopped with chocks that were easily knocked away in the event of an invasion. And at last Radu saw that his lair
  was safe. But in any case these were no puny castle's walls to fall to the first assault of an enemy's battering rams - they were the walls of the
  mountain itself! And as each external work was completed, so Radu would disguise it as living rock, in imitation of its surrounding formations.
  But inside:
  In strategic places Radu buttressed certain works of stone with good timber; which would seem odd to some, for obviously the
  wood could not outlast the stone. But Radu reasoned that when the time came for him to leave his mountain fastness,
  then  by lighting a handful of fires behind him he could easily topple it, or at least reduce it  to  the  original  shell.  Wamphyri  and
  savagely territorial, he could not bear the thought of another dwelling in a place that his hands had wrought! But by the same token
  he also knew that if ever he desired to return, then that he had the knowledge and skill to put the place back to rights.
  Radu's 'pups' worked side by side with the men of Krawlau, showing never a sign of their lupine natures except perhaps in their silence and the
  feral intelligence of their eyes. The ex-farmers saw nothing peculiar in it; they'd seen wave after wave of slant-eyes (and of yellow-eyes, and -skins,
  too) long before Radu came on the scene. He and his retainers were from foreign parts, that was all. Plainly this rangy boyar in his fur boots and
  jacket, with his long, grey-to-white hair falling on his collar, and golden crescent moons in his fleshy ears, was some rich expatriate. Certainly he
  was 'Lord' Radu to his men!
  And he was fair to a fault. When his hunters went out and killed a pig in the night (though where they were able to find such game up here in
  the mountains was a mystery) then there'd be meat off the bone for the common workers too, be sure! And Lord Radu laughing and joking with
  them as they sucked at the sweet, smoking flesh.
  Radu 'recruited' the strongest of them - but by the light of a full moon, and not as workers! For while earlier he'd determined to
  'make
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  no more werewolves,' still he was on the lookout for men of quality. The ones  he  chose  from  these  ex-farmers  were
  hard as men come; they'd make superb lieutenants when next he went out into the world . . .
  So the dog-Lord proceeded.
  A  long,  hard  winter  came  and  went,  and  several  more  like  it,  before  finally  'Wolfscrag'  was  finished  to  Radu's
  
  satisfaction. But only Radu himself, and those who were his, knew what he'd named it.
  By then the men of Krawlau were much reduced in numbers; they worried about the fact that of all their fellows who
  had left Radu's employ, not a one had been known to return to it. They went down from the mountains to the steppes  -
  aye, allegedly - but they never came back! Not a one? And this so-called 'Lord' in his lair of a cavern: why, his looks  were  more
  wolfish than ever! And his men . . . their looks, too. The way they loped like upright dogs!
  As for the three or four ex-Krawlau men who had actually joined Radu and dwelled with him now in his great cavern: why, they
  were visibly changed! As quickly as that, they had become indistinguishable from the rest of his retainers. Loping, long-haired and
  wild . . . their eyes were feral in the night. . . and when they grinned their upper lips wrinkled back, curling like the muzzles of
  snarling wolves!
  Thus  legends that were  already  one  hundred  years  old  -  which  had  been  almost  but  not  quite  forgotten  -  were
  re-born and lived anew.
  Radu heard their whispers where the men of Krawlau crept about like so many mice, putting the final touches  to his
  den. Well, let them whisper; he had other problems. The sixth winter was  on  its  way,  provisions  were  low,  and  the
  dog-Lord had no more use for clods such as these . . .
  . . . No, not so: there was one more use for them, yes!
  As  to  why  they'd  so  suddenly  become  aware  or  at  least  suspicious  of  their  danger:  Radu  had  relaxed  certain
  strictures on himself and his pups both, until they went about more nearly as 'nature' intended. Now it was plain to see
  that nature had not intended, that these were by no means natural men. Yet in some respects they were all too natural.
  For years now they had gone without good wine and woman-flesh, and all the other small comforts that men - even
  men of war - might easily grow accustomed to when they are not about  their business.  Radu was scarcely ignorant of
  his men's needs, for he felt them, too. But now that he was set up . . .
  Earlier in the year, aware that the Huns had had the run of the Moldavian steppe  for decades  and wondering if their
  supremacy was holding, Radu had dispatched scouts east to discover the state  of things. He had also sent  men west
  through the high passes and all along the twin spurs of the horseshoe range, and a spy into a handful
  of villages where they clung to the flanks of the mountains not too far removed from Wolfscrag. These latter places
  were small,  isolated,  self-supporting  townships.  But  if  Radu's  long-term  plan  was  of  merit,  in  time  they  might  also
  support him. Now he waited for his scouts to return and report to him . . .
  When  the  first  snows  came,  Radu  went  down  into  Krawlau  personally,  to  invite  the  last  half-dozen  of  his  former
  workers  into  the  great  cave  for  the  winter.  They  thanked  him,  however  cautiously,  and  told  him  they  would  take
  advantage of his offer . . . perhaps tomorrow? Radu sat by their fire a while - long enough that they noted the red cores
  of his eyes, and his talon hands which he made no effort to hide - and when all grew silent he left.
  But within the hour, panting as they dragged their scant  belongings  behind them on makeshift sledges,  the ragged
  survivors  of Krawlau were off down the mountain trails. Except they were survivors  no longer. They got to the  first
  pass . . . where they found Radu and the pack waiting for them.
  Which saw to the provisioning . . .  for the next week or so, at least.
  One by one as winter laid its white cloak on the land, Radu's scouts  returned. Utterly in thrall to their dog-Lord, they
  had given him away neither by word nor deed. But they brought home to him various items of information and all manner of
  rumours.
  Information:
  There were trappers, at least four teams of them, working along the river where it wound to lasi in the east.  These
  were good clean, hardy folk; they'd make for good recruiting . . .  or eating, whichever. They'd made their winter camps,
  and because the Moldavian steppe was still volatile they had brought their families - and more especially their women -
  with them!
  There was a man with his two sons  - aye, and a fine fat daughter, too. Another couple  had  two  grown  girls,  who
  helped out with the skinning, curing and what all. Oh, and there were others, eating good red meat and taking pelts for
  the trading. Radu's informant had seen these  people from  the  tree-line  over  the  river.  He  had  noted  their  locations,
  discovered their rude lodges in the rocks, but done nothing to alert them to his presence. They were only a few miles
  away, seven at a guess. Why, he could lead a party back there this very night. . .
  Radu himself led the raiding party, and at last there was woman-flesh in the dog-Lord's cavern manse. Naturally, he
  took 'first fruits' of the women; he had all of them that were worth having, kept the one he considered best  for himself -
  the only one who'd tried to have his eyes out. . .  at first, anyway - and gave the  rest  to  his  men.  They'd  fight  over
  them, he knew that, but it was only to be expected. Indeed, Radu
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  watched the rough-and-tumbling with great interest, in order to discover the most worthy fighters. These were his lieutenants,
  after all. . .
  Another scout came in, bringing more information:
  He had gone into the mountain hamlets in the guise of a beggar (but in fact as a spy) and seen how they were ripe for conquest
  and destruction. Why, the people were so soft he had no doubt they could even be herded, like so many cattle! Isolationists, pacifists, they had
  cut themselves off completely from the outside world, from all the surrounding war-torn regions of Dacia and the great battlefields
  under the mountains.
  
  Radu couldn't really say he blamed them, and in any case it wasn't conquest that was on his mind; or perhaps ...  a very subtle
  conquest? No, these  people didn't need a conqueror but a saviour! He would not kill  them,  not  yet,  but  instead  offer  them  his
  services  as a mercenary warrior, their Voevod  against  who or whatever might brave these  mountains and attack them. A
  grand scheme, and a safe one at that; for indeed it seemed that the dog-Lord had been right and the mountains were impregnable. What? But
  only thirty years earlier Attila himself had had his headquarters at the foot of these very mountains - but even he had skirted them to continue his
  assault on the west!
  And since Radu first commenced building Wolf scrag here? Six years sped by, and not a single invader had ventured  into these
  heights. Or perhaps . . . could it be that the threat from the east was finally over? Uneasy precognitive dreams told him 'no, not
  yet!' But Radu's dreams weren't always right. Or they were, but rarely worked out the way he thought they would. The future seemed a very
  devious thing. And just how long was the future, anyway . . . ?
  Finally all of Radu's scouts returned, including the man he'd sent down onto the steppes to see how things stood. And now it was known for a
  fact: the last of the Huns had either retreated back into the east or settled the plains to the north. For the time being,
  locally at least, the fighting was over. Wherefore it seemed a good time for expansion. Now Radu's Wamphyri territorialism could come into
  play.
  Obviously these mountains belonged to no one. They might be temporarily 'annexed' now and then, by this or that regime, but
  no one held physical sway over them. It could be said that they belonged to the Dacians, the Ungars, the Romans, whoever; but who was there
  here to protect them? No man . . . except Radu Lykan. And what is a mountain if not an aerie? And these horseshoe mountains, rearing like a
  buttress against the east?
  Inhospitable, were they? What, like the colossal stacks of Starside? Ah, but there's inhospitable and there's inhospitable! By comparison,
   
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  these mountains were sheerest luxury. And inaccessible? Aye, to an invader - but not to a man already in residence. And Radu was that man.
  Very well. Hamlet by hamlet, village by village, town by town, these unconquered Dacian mountains would come under his control. At first he'd be the Voevod
  Radu, then a princeling, finally a king of his own land - this land! It might take all of fifty years, even longer, but what was that to Radu? Wamphyri, he had
  hundreds of years behind him, and an incalculable number ahead. His original men, those thralls and lieutenants who had come through the Gate with him: where
  were they? Gone down into the earth, or gone up in smoke and reek on some battlefield, that's where. Why, even the longest-lasting of them had been dead for
  twenty years! But Radu - he looked a young thirty; younger, if it so pleased him! Anonymity? Bah to anonymity ...  for now, anyway. But insularity? Ah, yes! He
  would protect the mountains, and the mountains would protect him.
  So be it...
  Rumours. One of Radu's scouts had heard it that a Ferenczy was in league with the Vandals. Hah! Well good luck to him, whoever he was, be it Nonari the Gross -
  if in fact he still lived - or this son of his, this Belos Pheropzis. For if that bastard Gaeseric dealt as badly with all of his mercenaries as he'd dealt with Radu . . .
  well, that was one Ferenczy he needn't hunt down!
  As for the Drakuls:
  They held fortress castles ('aeries,' of course) in the western reaches of Dacia: in the Zarundului Mountains and the northern Carpathians. Perhaps they were
  enemies now; certainly they had put space between them! All the better when the time came for Radu to deal with them; he could take them out one at a time. And
  because they'd brought themselves into prominence and were become 'legends' - viesky or vrykoulakas, who descend like bats in the night, to drink their victim's
  blood or steal his wife and children - it shouldn't prove too hard to recruit an army of locals to go against their castles. Oh, Radu looked forward to it! But all in
  good time.
  And meanwhile he had work to do ...
  Radu had reckoned on fifty or more years to make himself Lord or 'king' of the horseshoe mountains. It took all of that and would have taken more, if ever he'd
  been able to complete the job. But fate, history, and ancient enmities intervened. Despite earlier vows, he brought himself into prominence, became less than
  anonymous, set himself up as a target.
  Fifty years to spread out into all the mountain hamlets, villages, towns. A half-century to become Voevod of the horseshoe range - in its eastern reaches,
  anyway - during a period in history when warlords or
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  princelings were the last thing it needed. He had werewolf lieutenants in every town, with dozens of thralls to back
  them up. He knew every pass, track, route, and short-cut  through  the eastern heights, and could move his men with
  incredible speed from place to place. Of course he could, for there was that of the wolf in all of them. And indeed Radu and the pack
  were fearsome warriors . . .  or would be. But where was the war? Never up here.
  And Radu had been wrong, too, in his belief that the Drakuls would be hated. They were, by those  they wronged, but they were
  worshipped  by  others!  Indeed,  in  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  they  had  infiltrated,  corrupted  and  vampirized  the
  populace of their own western mountain areas to such  an extent that  entire  townships  were  now  in  thrall  to  them,
  including all of the hamlets on the approaches to their aeries!
  Moreover, the Drakuls had recruited and turned loose many thralls to become their 'emissaries' or servants  (or more
  properly their spies) abroad in the world. These had become wanderers, Gypsies, and 'Travellers' here no less than in
  
  Starside, in another world. And the Drakuls had engineered all of this  a  hundred  years  ago,  when  the  Empire  held
  sway over these  Dacian parts. Why, men of the  Drakuls  had  even  crossed  the  borders  to  become  true  citizens  of
  Rome  -'sleepers,'  as  it  were,  in  the  so-called  'civilized'  regions  of  a  barbaric  world.  Romans,  aye  . . .  or  Romani?
  Romany! The source of yet another legend.
  And  so  the  Drakuls  had  become  almost  invulnerable,  impervious  to  attack  except  perhaps  in  the  drone  of  hot
  summer days when they slept in the deeps of their castles, in 'native soil' brought with them out of Starside.
  But Radu knew none of that, not then.
  He knew where they were situated, but not their situation, how powerful they'd become.  He  might  have  guessed
  something of it when, well past the fifty years of his earlier reckoning, he sent spies to map out the land in the heart of
  Drakul territory . . . and they never returned. But Radu had grown powerful in his own right, until he believed that he
  was invulnerable. And perhaps this had made him lax ...
  Meanwhile, in the outside world beyond the mountains - beyond Dacia, beyond the Danube - history was passing him by. The Western Empire had crumbled
  away entirely; an Ostrogothic kingdom had been established in Italy; only the Eastern, 'Byzantine' Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, survived intact. He
  knew of these things, for he was not without external intelligence; perhaps he even pined a little, for all the blood spilled on the reeking battlefields of the world.
  And all gone to waste, without that he'd been part of it.
  And  Gaeseric the Vandal king: dead and  gone  these  forty-odd  years;  and  Radu's  Wamphyri  vow  of  vengeance
  gone with him, for he'd not
  been a part of that either! Oh, it was maddening! Which was when he realized how bored he'd become. Well, enough
  of all that! And he promised himself that when finally he was established  throughout  the mountains, and not just in
  the east, then he'd find time to venture forth and play the warrior again.
  But now, in order to bring that time forward - also as an exercise in preparation for it - now it was surely time for a grand expansion west, against
  the Drakuls!
  Except. . .  the Drakuls moved first, against him.
  There  had  been  warnings.  In  retrospect,  looking  back  on  the  far  past  -still  dreaming  his  unquiet  dreams  in  the
  semi-solid matrix of his resin 'tomb,' - Radu knew it well  enough:  that  there  had  been  unsettling  occurrences  in  his
  many outposts strung out north and south along the legs of the horseshoe range . . .
  In the northern Carpathians, the Voevod Radu (occasionally 'the Wolf) held sway in villages as far removed as Rakhov, and in
  the south as far as Turnu Rosu, where the hurtling waters of the Oltul had long since carved a pass through the mountains on
  their way to the Danube more than a hundred miles farther south.  But many miles inside  these  far  boundaries  -  deep  in  the  Wolfs
  heartland - even there his outposts had had their problems. And not hard to guess what sort of problems.
  He prepared expeditions to lacobani in the north and Ruckar in the south,  to see what could be done. Radu himself
  would lead the southern expedition; it would consist of some forty of his men, and one hundred more to be gathered
  along the way. Two of his bravest lieutenants -true werewolves or 'pups' - would head north for lacobani, and likewise
  collect a small army en-route. These detachments of Radu's main mercenary force, whose nucleus was still centred in
  Wolfscrag and the hamlets around, should suffice to sort out the problem. Which was this:
  Villagers and their wives and children in Ruckar, lacobani and neighbouring towns were being picked off by the viesky,  the
  Drakul who fell upon  his prey out of the night sky. People - mainly women, but occasionally children - had vanished
  without trace; other victims had been found drained of their life's blood. Mumbled prayers were said over them before
  they were put down into the ground . . .  but they would not stay down! Those  of Radu's lieutenants who were perma
  nently stationed in the plague towns knew well enough how to deal with these  undead  'droppings' of the Drakuls - the stake, the
  sword, and the fire - but were at a loss as to what to do about the nightly attacks. They were werewolves and ran on the ground, while the
  Drakuls were flying creatures who struck out of the sky!
  And so it was seen how the Drakuls' methods were the very opposite  of Radu's. For despite that he was no longer
  'anonymous,' still he kept the facts of his vampirism - the fact that he was Wamphyri, and
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  especially the fact of his lycanthropy - fairly well hidden; whereas the Drakuls scathed openly abroad as vampires and revelled in their power.
  And where he used his military might and prowess to keep a tight rein on the peoples who came under his control and within his
  sphere of influence, they used fear pure and simple. Also, where Radu recruited men only in such numbers as were sufficient to resupply or
  complement the pack, and killed only strangers, wanderers, outsiders, and beasts of the wild for the provisioning - but never people under his
  'protection'; or rarely, when they were  rebellious,  or  openly  suspicious  of  him  -  the  Drakuls not only recruited their thralls in
  outrageous numbers but were using their vampirism to infiltrate the enemy camp and destroy  opposition from within. So that in a
  way their blunt methods were subtle after all: first convert Radu's people, and when his power base had been destroyed  . . . then attack
  him!
  These had been the Wolfs thoughts on the matter, and in his mind's eye he'd seen the gradual eastward creep of the Drakuls -
  their eating-up of his towns and villages - until at the last, as leaders of two vast vampire hordes, they'd join forces in a mass attack on Wolfscrag
  itself . . . and discover Radu and the remnants of his pack trapped in the cavern manse.
  Then ...
  . . . Perhaps it was only the morbidity of Radu's old memories (for in their subconscious minds, even creatures who are grown evil
  and monstrous beyond words may be terrified anew by nightmares out of their past; even the horrific may be horrified) but suddenly he gave an
  
  involuntary shudder; a tremor ran through him in the semi-solid resin of his vat.
  Or was the tremor in the resin itself?
  What? A sound! A reverberation, however faint - or furtive? Now surely the Drakuls were upon him . . ..'/.'
  But no, no, for that was only an old dream out of the distant past, while the sound had been here and now . . . immediate and
  threatening.  And this time he could  not be mistaken.  There  was  someone  here!  Or. . .  someone  coming?  Well,  of
  course someone was coming, eventually. A delicious someone who always came. So perhaps that was it: anticipation, or wishful
  thinking. Imagination.
  Ah, yesss! But it was much too early . . . she wouldn't be here yet awhile.
  Anticipation, yesss. But not yet. . . awhile.
  No, not yet. . .  a . . .  while . . .
  Slowly Radu relaxed into resurgent dreams, allowing them to foam up again  over  his  anxieties  to  drown  them.  And  however
  uncertainly, however reluctantly - having come that much closer to a true awakening this time - his mind returned to its state  of
  hibernation, its contemplation of bygone centuries ...
  *    *    *
  At that time, in the mountains of Moldavia, Radu had scarcely realized the urgency of his situation; he had seen the gradual encroachment of the Drakuls across the
  Transylvanian mountains into Moldavia as just that: gradual. But in fact their plan had been more immediate, and their campaign not merely one of territorialism
  but also of destruction.
  Radu's destruction, and now!
  Partly, it was the enmity which exists between all great vampires. A hatred which had existed since the building of the first Starside aeries, which had been
  wrought in all the bloodwars of a parallel world, and which would now continue in this world until the end of time, or until no one was left to carry it on. It was the
  knowledge in the dark heart of every Lord of the Wamphyri that if he would live he must do to others of his kind before they did to him.
  But from the Drakuls' point of view, it was also the need to clear the way for expansion. For it seemed to them that they had proved a point: that they could live
  as vampires here without hiding themselves away. Anonymity was no longer a requirement, no longer synonymous with longevity - but invincibility was!
  They were not visionaries, the Drakuls, no; but planners, certainly. For the time being, for now, these soaring mountains were vast. But in some future time,
  would there be room for all the Wamphyri yet to come, those as yet unsired out of women, or brought about by transfusion of vampire eggs or poisoned blood?
  Which of them were destined to inherit this earth, these gaunt and gloomy mountains? The egg- and blood-sons of noble Drakuls, or the spawn of miserable
  dog-Lords? And what of the Ferenczys? Well, for the moment the Ferenczys were not part of the equation, but Radu Lykan most definitely was . . .
  Radu's expeditionary forces were ready; he was on the point of sending them westward through the high passes when he heard a rumour - but such a rumour that it
  at once rooted in his imagination and grew there until he couldn't ignore it. Then, sending the lacobani contingent north, he took his own party with him down into
  the steppe, to Bacau where this whisper had its origin. And now the truth was learned: how the Emperor Justinian had commissioned a fleet under the general
  Belisarius, to strike at the Vandals even across the Mediterranean, in north Africa and other parts . . . and take back the Western Empire.
  The Vandals! and Radu's old vow still unfulfilled! And a Ferenczy among the treacherous scum at that! Old Gaeseric may have gone the way of all - or most -
  flesh, but at least one Ferenczy remained. And even after all this time any surviving member of the Ferenczy dynasty was far and away Radu's direst enemy, spawn
  of those olden destroyers
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  of his dearest love in another world, another time. And all of it like yesterday to Radu.
  His blood was up at once; he saw all kinds of possibilities: join with the Byzantines as a mercenary under Belisarius, distinguish himself in the
  field of battle, eventually return to these desolate heights, but as Voevod of all Dacia - and all with the Emperor's approval! And
  then see to the Drakuls, with an entire legion, perhaps, to back him up.
  Grand schemes, except . . .  no, it could never be. For his plans were made and his mind set. And  in  the  west  the
  Drakuls were waiting even now. Also, who could say how the Byzantines would come out of this new venture? What
  if they should lose? Indeed, it would be to Radu's advantage if that were the case (especially if he was not with them),
  for  he  would  rather  protect  his  mountain  territories  against  some  future  invasion  by  Vandals  than  the  reborn,
  restructured might of Rome!
  And so, torn two ways, Radu returned to Wolfscrag in the heights. Or to what had been Wolfscrag. But now . . .
  It might easily be a different place. Radu scarcely recognized it. But he did recognize his error, or something of it. His dreams of warfare in these
  mountains: not against invaders out of the east but the Drakuls; not against a horde of nomad warriors but a swarm of vampires! Under the
  grey cloud ceiling of early winter, there had been no sun to fear; they had flown by day, attacked by night. And, but for the fact
  that he'd gone down into the plain, Radu would have been part of it. But from the sheer scale of the devastation he knew that even he could
  never have survived it.
  The gantlets  were undermined, toppled inwards. In several places the ceilings - even the sides  of the crag, of the
  mountain peak itself -had fallen in, where black smoke roiled and the occasional tongue of flame still belched up from the fires within. Fifty
  years' work gone up in smoke. The scene was very nearly volcanic; certainly it burned in Radu's heart.
  The Drakuls! Evidence of them and theirs was everywhere, but they had not had it  all  their  own  way.  A  half-dozen  common
  thralls stood  gaunt  as  sentinels  in  the  early  morning  light,  like  mind-blasted,  yellow-eyed totems on the slopes  of ruined
  Wolfscrag; but a handful of grim, grimy, surviving lieutenants tumbled mangled vampire bodies down into the fiery vents, the
  while inhaling gustily on the reek of their burning.
  Ah, Radu's dream was real as life, as death, as undeath! So that he sniffed, too - with his mind, for his great wolfs nostrils were plugged with
  resin - and for a moment he could even smell the roasting meat. . .
  
  . . . Until he smelted something else!
  Smelled - heard - sensed - something else!
  A presence! An intelligence!
  And this time he simply could not be mistaken. Footsteps, running. A mouth, gasping. A heart, pounding.
  Radu's heart pounded, too, but just once: a single great throb in his breast, finally bringing him awake . . .
  Bonnie Jean came to the place of her Master. She came panting, with pictures of the vat-creature's slit of an alien eye still burning on the eye of her own mind. And
  she came pondering the question of her own presence here. It was hardly the first time she'd so pondered, and it wouldn't be the last. But did it constitute
  uncertainty, making her unworthy? Surely not. Surely it was part of the ritual: not only to perpetuate Him but her own faith in Him. For after all she was of Rim,
  however many times removed.
  And the creature in the vat? Was that o/Him, too? Bonnie Jean knew that it was, and once more was set to wondering: what sort of a future world would it be,
  when He came up to elevate mankind into His kind? What part could a Thing or things such as the vat-creature play in the dark and deadly future world of her
  Master's forevisioning? His guardian creatures? But against what, in a world where the dog-Lord was the ultimate power?
  At the western extreme of the lair she recognized her location, came to a halt, controlled her breathing. It would never do to approach Him in this agitated state,
  showing signs of her uncertainty. But as she waxed more and more like Him, the more fearful she grew . . .
  . . . And that was a thought to give pause, too! What, Bonnie Jean Mirlu, His from birth, fearful? And of Him? Ridiculous! It was this place, playing on her
  nerves, her mind; it was the creature in its resin vat; it was . . . anxiety, yes! The advent of Harry Keogh, and the watcher in Edinburgh, and recent events in general.
  But most of all it was awareness of the fast-approaching time of her Master's awakening, when He would be up again. A time of change, when her oh-so-long
  established way of life must of necessity change, to accommodate His.
  For at present He was only her Master in absentia, and she was the 'wee mistress.' But. . . how much influence would Bonnie Jean retain when the Master was
  back? And if it's true that when the cat's away the mice will play, how 'playful' the cub when the Wolf is not to house? Would her Master have given thought to
  such, or was it beneath Him? Could He consider such things, in His long sleep, and why did she give thought to it? Had she been unfaithful, if only in her mind, in
  her thoughts? Bonnie Jean didn't think so; but in any case never seriously, and never maliciously!
  But then, she would be Wamphyri! And they were ever prideful, territorial. . . and this had been her territory for close on two hundred years!
  What!?
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  She couldn't go to Him thinking these thoughts! She hadn't intended to think them! It was this place, her mood, the question  of
  her own continuity, when all that should concern her was His!
  How would it be when He was up? What would be allowed, and what disallowed?
  Men? Oh, she'd known men over the years. But that had been entirely compatible with her faithfulness to Him. Indeed He had
  required that she know men, so that she might be experienced in all things. He wished no wilting, virginal hand-maiden sitting at His right hand in
  that dark, future world of His visions but an experienced woman. No naive, blushing bumpkin but a scholar in all Man's ways, in his emotions as
  well as his sciences. For the more a man (or a woman, or a changeling creature out of the myths and legends of the past) knows his
  enemy, the more easily he may dispose of him.
  Intelligence . . .
  Aye, intelligence, that was it! ...  To gather knowledge of the world around, for His sake. And surely to have intelligence was to
  be intelligent and to question things? Even such questions as Bonnie Jean had asked herself? But they were not symptomatic of treachery.
  Never that.
  Intelligence? . . . A presence? . . . Bonnie! Bonnie Jean! (A grunt, almost of pain, finally of recognition, but sounding in her
  mind!)
  And then B.J. reeled as if struck in the forehead, as she knew that the words in her head were not hers but His. She was the intelligence, that
  presence He referred to; for her Master had sensed her here! But how long had He been listening, while she thought. . . such thoughts?
  She cleared her mind; indeed her thoughts were driven out, if only by her utter confusion. And: 'Master, I am here.' She gasped
  the words out, concentrating only on Him.
  Bonnie! Bonnie Jeeeeean! (A grunt, a snarl, finally a sigh. Then a vast and terrible sniffing, like that of a great hound - the Great Hound - as He
  tracked her essence through the shuddering vaults of her mind). And echoing there: But I had thought. . . an intruuuuder!
  She was in control of herself now. 'No intruder, no.' She shook her head, then lifted her gaze up, up, taking in the outline of his great stone
  sarcophagus, like an altar at the apex of a granite jumble: the source of these, His thoughts. 'No intruder, my Master. Just me.'
  (Another rumbling sigh, and His thoughts coming clearer to her as the mental connection  strengthened,  as  His  concentration
  centered upon her). Ahhhh! Bonnie Jeeeean! But. . . did I call you? It seems . . . too soon?
  'You did not call me, my Master.' (Bonnie Jean had caught her breath now; she  was  fully  in  command  of  the  situation,  of  her
  words and thoughts alike). 'But I came in a hurry, before my time. If I have disturbed  you, then I am sorry, but events
  were such . . .'
  Eventsss?
  'Yes,' she nodded, climbing the crazily-angled jumble of the steps. 'Yes, there have been . . . occurrences.  A watcher  in Edinburgh
  -some kind of spy, perhaps - and a mysterious  stranger.  Perhaps  these  things  mean nothing,  I can't  yet  say,  but  I thought  it best
  that you should know.'
  But just as quickly as Bonnie Jean had regained command of her senses, so Radu had come fully  awake. And  as she stepped  up
  onto the platform of his sarcophagus, so she felt the intensity of his thoughts -his mental frown - right through the stone slab walls
  of his coffin. A spy, in Edinburgh? (His 'voice' was  sharp,  severe).  And a mysterious  stranger?  And yet you saw  fit to come here?
  
  What, and would you place me in jeopardy, Bonnie Jean?
  'Never that,  my  Master!'  She shrank  back from his severity.  'For  am I not  your  guardian, set  to  watch  over you?  And  I  have
  watched most diligently. I have served you faithfully. Why, my blood is in you, as yours is in me! But now I need advice, and who
  else can I go to?'
  (Radu's grunt by way of reply.  And  after  a moment's  consideration):  First tell me about this watcher,  this spy.  Could it be . . .
  Them? Do you think they seek me out?
  'I think it must be them, yes,' she answered, and she told him what Harry Keogh had told her. It wasn't much, but it
  worried him nevertheless. When she was done:
  But what if you were followed on your way here? How do you know your precautions were sufficient? At least one Drakul survives; so I
  believe, for I have dreamed it. Aye, and more than one Ferenczy! And here am I, a weak,  shrivelled  old thing  like  . . . why, like  a fly
  in amber! I am not ready to be up, Bonnie Jean. I cannot protect myself. And you . . . are only a girl.
  At which she bridled a very little, and knew that he would sense it as surely as if they were face to face. Then, climbing onto the piled slabs towards one end of
  the sarcophagus, she leaned over the rim to gaze down on him; so that now they were face to face. But his form was indistinct, obscured by the resin where dust had
  settled on its crusted, wrinkled surface. She stared harder, until slowly the thing in the resin took on an awesome outline.
  His eyes were closed, of course, as they had been for all of the two hundred years she'd known and served him. But behind them,
  as ever, Bonnie Jean saw, sensed, but couldn't quite  feel their  heat.  Oh,  but  it was  there,  subdued  but  not  quenched: the  nickering
  heat of life - or undeath  - suspended  to  the  limit. Moreover,  it was  as if something of the  fire of those  eyes  had spilled  out  onto
  their sunken orbits, to turn them and his hollow cheeks ruddy against the sick-yellow pallor of his face in general.
  Her Master, despite that he was not all man, was a veritable giant of
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  a man. He must be almost seven  feet  tall,  and  in  his  heyday,  full-fleshed,  he  had  been  more  physically  powerful  -  and  more
  dangerous, certainly -than any intelligent creature the world had ever known. He'd had the speed  and cunning of the
  wolf, the intelligence of man, the strength of the Wamphyri!
  And will again, Bonnie Jean, and will again, he told her. And in a moment: Very well, I can see that I have offended you. And I
  accept that you came here in all good faith, and that you have taken all necessary measures to keep me safe. And truth to tell, I have been
  feeling. . . weak. Which has made me impatient and less than agreeable. Is that so hard to understand? I think not. The years of waiting have
  been long, and what am I become but a wraith of my former self? And you are right: your blood has kept me warm, kept me alive. So, this time
  you are early; perhaps it is as well, for my spark flickers low, Bonnie Jean. But you . . . shall rekindle it yet again.
  At that last Radu's 'voice' had fallen to  a  low,  guttural,  almost  a  lustful  growl, which Bonnie Jean had answered with an
  involuntary shudder (of immeasurable horror . . .  or unthinkable pleasure? She couldn't say), for his meaning was clear enough.
  That, however, will have to keep for now, the thing in the resin quickly went on, and his voice was normal again. Aye, for we have other things
  to do, to discuss. Problems have presented themselves; but until I know their extent, I cannot know how to counter them. And there have been
  other problems, which remain . . . unresolved? What about the girl? A whole year, Bonnie Jean. Is she still missing? Is there no news of her? If
  not, we must assume the worst: that They took her! Wherefore, they could be that much closer to you, and to me . . .
  But: 'No,' B.J. shook her head, and knew he would sense  it. 'She didn't know this place; she'd never been here. Nor
  did she know you, my Master.'
  But she knew of me. And certainly she knew of you.
  'She was sworn to silence,' B.J. countered. 'She was beguiled, hypnotized . . . she could not speak! None of us can,
  and myself least of aU; you  vowrself  have  seen  to  that,  my  Master.  An  enemy  might  contrive  to  steal  me  away  -
  though not without a fight - but he could never make me talk ..."
  Huh! (A wry, dry, barking chuckle). But you do not know the Wamphyri, Bonnie Jean. With them, you must always assume the
  worst. However, let us put that aside for now and go on to this other thing. You have told me about the watcher. We will talk about him - what
  to do about him - again. But you also made mention of a mysterious stranger. What, and have you let a man into your life, Bonnie Jean? Into
  our lives? Ah, and you seem to consider him important! I can even feel your . . . what, excitement? Very well, and now perhaps you will tell me
  about him.
  Yesss, tell me all about your mysterious stranger.
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  Or better still, show meeee.
  And  she  did.  For  long  minutes  the  story  flowed  from  her  mind  to  his,  just  as  she  remembered  it.  And  while  it
  answered certain questions  he hadn't yet asked - such  as  the  result  of  her  quest  for  a  bogus  werewolf  in  London,
  which she had undertaken on his behalf- it prompted others which he'd scarcely conceived ever to ask her.
  And now Radu's excitement was as great as hers . . .
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  II
  BONNIEJEAN: HER DUTIES THE DOG-LORD: HIS SOLUTION
  
  This man, (Radu's 'voice' was eager, almost panting, in Bonnie Jean's mind), this Harry Keogh. I have seen him with your eyes and know how he
  strikes me. But how did he strike you?
  BJ. didn't quite know how to answer. 'As . . .  mysterious,' she  finally  said,  and  tried  to  suppress  her  involuntary
  shrug. 'As if he hid secrets where there couldn't possibly  be secrets,  because  he was beguiled. He struck me as a man who
  has seen and experienced things no other man ever saw or experienced. He was warm, gentle, human . . . and yet he was cold, hard,
  and—'
  —Inhuman? (The Great Wolf sniffed in her mind, literally a bloodhound on the trail). Yet still you tell me that he's not one of them!
  'He is human, my Master,' she told him. 'I would stake my life on it.'
  Oh, but you already have, he answered with a low, rumbling growl. But as B.J. recognized the threat, he quickly added, All of our
  lives! Which served to relieve something of the onus he had seemed to place on her.
  'Master,' she set out to convince him, 'this man had me in his power, however briefly - but long enough to kill me, certainly! Instead he kept me
  from trouble, from harm. He admits to skills that would be of great benefit to you. He has worked for . . .  a covert agency,' (she was
  finding difficulty in describing Harry's duties; and no wonder, for she scarcely understood them herself). 'He was . . . above the laws
  of the land. Now, as your agent, he could prove invaluable. As a fighter, he's quick and strong. And as a thinker, deep, I think. If there's more to
  him than I have found, I know you can find it where I have failed.' There was nothing more she could tell him.
  After a while:
  As to how he struck me: forcefully, Bonnie Jean. He struck me powerfully, and with more than any normal power. Why, I felt it
  in your mind! He was beguiled, aye, but he likewise beguiled you! You were
  attracted to him as a man, not so? Don't deny it, for even though you won't admit it to yourself, you cannot  lie to me. I have felt it: your
  fascination for this . . . this mysterious one, aye.
  'But. . . but. . .!' B.J. sputtered, because her Master had seen what she had not, or what she had refused to accept.
  Oh?  Ha-ha-ha-ha!  Radu's  laughter  was  a  staccato  barking  that  stabbed  briefly,  harshly  in  her  mind  .  .  .  before
  coming to an abrupt halt. And is that why he's still alive, Bonnie Jean? Because you desired to feel him in your body, his root burrowing in
  your soil, seeking to seed itself in the garden of your sex? Is it so? Did you desire to fuck him, Bonnie Jean? Or for him to fuck you?
  'My Master, I..."
  Then you should have! For there are more ways to enslave a man than by sharing your blood, your essence; better ways to enthrall him
  than by a bite; other ways to seduce than by addiction to poisoned wines. His voice fell to a whisper, a whine, a fetid panting. And it
  seemed that he stripped her to the soul as he informed, Why, your woman's body would more than suffice to enslave a man - any man, or
  creature - I am sure. Your soft breasts and thighs would enthrall, enfold him. And the suction of your sex would be a greater addiction,  a
  sweeter poison by far than any wine, however strange and rare . . .
  Bonnie Jean got down from the rim of his sarcophagus, stood with her head bowed, and stared at the buckled flags supporting  his great
  coffin. She felt shame, for plainly her devotion had been to other than her Master. But it had taken Him to identify emotions that
  she had rejected. Radu felt B.J. 's confusion, her dejection, and said:
  No, Bonnie Jean, you are not at fault. You're a woman, destined to be more than a woman. And you have suppressed emotions that are
  instinct in you as they are in me. In so doing, you've also proved a point: that you are not yet Wamphyri! For the Wamphyri may not
   suppress their emotions. If they could, then were they unstoppable, unbeatable! Aye, and that is important to me, Bonnie Jean: that you
  are not yet of that high station. For the . . . condition of the Great Vampire is such as to make it, well, let us say undesirable, at this time.
  He fell silent (musing, she thought). But his meaning had not escaped her . . .
  After a while - if only to change the subject and divert his thoughts -BJ. felt it prudent to prompt him: 'Master, I am here early, that's true. But in any case it is
  close to the time of your renewal. While you give thought to the things I've told you, we should see to your replenishing. Also to the needs of your creature ..."
  My warrior? He was at once interested. Is the beast well? Does the great vat support him? Does he wax and quicken? Surely it is so. For
  since he is of me, he too must feel the time narrowing down.
  'He waxes, my Master. He . . . quickens in his vat, yes.'
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  See to it, then, he told her. Tend the beast first, while I lie here and think, and consider. . . oh, a great many things.
  But hurry, Bonnie Jean, for you have awakened me and my time is nigh. And I hunger like a helpless child stirring in his crib, but the
  faithful little mother is at hand to bare her breast. . .
  B.J. went out onto the bald, domed roof of Radu's redoubt and followed a south-westerly  route that she'd known for
  the better part of two centuries. Indeed to her keen eyes and senses there was now a clearly discernible track between
  scattered boulders, across gaping fissures, and through the treacherous scree jumbles of the high, narrow passes.
  Her camouflaged denim suit was crag-grey and lichen-green, matching her surroundings. Over her left shoulder, tied
  across  her back, she carried a rope; also on the left, two small grappling irons dangled from her wide leather belt. A
  crossbow  hung  on her right thigh, and was strapped-just  above the  knee  so  as  not  to  swing  with  her  movements.
  These things, plus a knife in a leather sheath, were all that Bonnie Jean carried.
  
  To  her  relief,  the  sun  was  hidden  behind  bank  upon  bank  of  clouds  sweeping  in  from  the  west,  across  the
  Monadhliath Mountains  and the Spey. It  was  mid-afternoon,  creeping  towards  evening;  the  shadows  of  the  crags
  beginning to creep, too, but that meant nothing to B.J. Her eyes were feral as the wilds she traversed;  they saw  the
  wildcats sporting in the heather before the cats saw her. Only the eagles, circling on high, had any great advantage.
  But she wasn't interested in cats and eagles. Both were difficult, and both dangerous until stone dead.
  But  on  the  penultimate,  false-plateau  of  a  series  of  mighty  terraces  east  of  Loch  Insh,  B.J.  knew  there  were
  near-inaccessible woodlands and copses in the lee of the upper heights. Knew, too, that she'd find deer there - indeed,
  a small herd of deer. Her kill would not be missed; these were creatures of the wild; she was the only one who had ever
  culled them. And she required just one, a faun; not for sweetness but size. It must be easily portable, back to the lair.
  She came to the rim. The forest-belt sprawled a dark, misted green all of seven hundred feet below, and the chimney
  of a teetering stack was her route down.
  At the top of the last stage of her descent, B.J. used her rope to form a hoist and lowered the grapples, and without
  further pause  went hand over hand to the bottom. Her prey had  long  since  sensed  her  and  fled,  of  course;  in  this
  place, there were no sounds extraneous to nature. Any sound that was strange was also dangerous.
  So  she  tracked  them  through  the  woods.  And  from  then  on,  never  a  snapped  twig  or  the  swishing  recoil  of  a
  brushed-aside  branch to give her away . . . until the last moment, when the gut of  her  crossbow  thrummed  and  the
  lethal bolt hissed unerringly to its target. . .
  *    *    *
  Paralysed, with its spine almost severed at a point one inch forward of the flanges of its shoulders, the buck merely trembled as B.J. used the rope and grapples to
  hoist it by stages up the cliff. The animal had voided itself in the woods and so didn't foul her. Then the four-mile trek back to the lair, with the shuddering buck
  on her shoulders, and B.J. hoping against hope that it wouldn't die along the way. No, for at the vat of Radu's beast she would require the engine of its pounding
  heart to beat to the very last.
  At the lair, she lowered the animal into the vent closest to the great vat, followed it into darkness. Shortly, she ascended the ramp to the rim of the vat and
  tossed the buck down onto the yellow, semi-solid surface. Then back down and around to the rear of the vat, where a copper implement was stored in oiled
  wrappings. It was a hollow tube three feet long, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, with a trumpet-like funnel at one end. The pointed end had been cut through
  diagonally, like the tip of a hypodermic needle.
  Back up the ramp to the buck, where B.J. moved the paralysed animal aside in order to drive the sharp end of the funnel down into the resin ...  at which the
  obscure outline or silhouette of Radu's creature stirred visibly, however sluggishly, in the gelatinous soup of its vat womb! For the fluids in the saclike core were
  not alone of resin and therefore less resistant. She saw the sudden movement, which caused her to start. It was the first time in all B.J.'s time that this had
  happened. And it meant that her Master was right: his beast was indeed quickening!
  Then, without further pause (or, if anything, more urgently, while yet her mood was right for it) she worked the copper tubing down into the gummy resin, a
  good two-thirds of its length, until the funnel stuck up like a pouting mouth. And grimacing a little, but with no other sign of reticence, she cut the buck's throat
  and held its body steady on the rim, watching its life's blood spurting into the obscene bell-mouth of the funnel, from there to gurgle its way to the thing in the vat.
  Down there, there might be a rudimentary mouth or mouths. B.J. didn't know, couldn't say. She only knew that the living blood of the buck would be absorbed
  into her Master's creature. A quart of blood, maybe. So little for so much, but enough. And only a little less for Radu, despite that he had only one-tenth of the
  vat-thing's bulk. But then, Radu needed - or demanded - so much more. And not deer's blood . . .
  In a while (surprisingly long minutes later, when the flow was less than a clotting trickle), B.J. dragged the buck's body to one side and drew out the long
  funnel. Taking it to a place where water fell vertically from above, and cascaded into conjectural depths below, she washed the funnel out, replaced it in its
  wrappings, returned it to its niche behind the vat.
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  Then she cut out the raw, fresh heart of the buck to take  with  her,  and toppled the stiffening carcass  down the dark and
  unknown course of the waterfall. And now it was time to attend Radu.
  The day had seemed very short; it was the season, and B.J. had had much to do. Outside, the sun  was setting, the light fading.
  Her eyes  readily adjusted  to the gloom of the cavern complex, as she returned to the  sarcophagus,  kindled  a  fire  of  bone-dry
  faggots from a pile of prepared wood, boiled water on a tripod and brewed tea. Hungry herself now, and succumbing
  at last to her own needs, she ate the buck's heart raw with teeth that formed razor cusps  even as they worked at the wild
  flesh. Jaws like a steel trap finished the job in short order: not much by way of sustenance, but the heart's dark muscle had been strong and B.J.'s
  system would make best use of what little there had been. She could have saved more of the buck, but hadn't wanted to glut herself. No, for
  now she must stay alert, and not give in to the inevitable drowsiness of her imminent. . . depletion.
  Her depletion, yes, for her Master would have it no other way. How often had he told her: The flesh and blood of one's own must always be
  the dearest, as it is always the sweetest!' His meaning had never been entirely clear - at best it sounded sinister - but B.J. had taken it to mean that
  the blood of men and women, human beings, was the natural fare of the werewolf. And apart from a handful of occasions when she'd brought
  various thralls and recruits here, this perhaps dubious duty had been hers alone.
  Fortified by her meal, now it was time . . .
  Radu's funnel was of soft beaten gold; only its needle tip was of copper. B.J. took it from its secret place, carefully wiped it clean, carried it up to
  the rim of his sarcophagus and gazed down on him. 'Master, I am ready.'
  As am I, Bonniejean! His answer rang at once in her mind. As am I, yesss. And I have given thought to everything you've told me. Now, as you
  attend  me, I shall tell you what must be done. For time is narrowing  down,  and  my  dreams  scan  ahead  of  me  to
  strange new tomorrows. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with my ...  my resurrection? And everything must be done to enhance it.
  
  For while I have 'seen to that point, beyond  it lies uttermost confusion. The future of all men and creatures was ever a devious thing,
  Bonniejean. And mine - and yours - no less. But for you 1 have seen a full and glorious moon: a wondrous good omen, yesss! While for myself, I
  shall be bright as a star! And so our places in tomorrow's firmament seem fixed, which is the where and the when of it. But as to the how of it:
  that remains to be seen . . .
  While he 'talked' to her, B.J. busied herself. She pushed  the feeder into the resin crust of Radu's sarcophagus and used her
  weight to drive it slowly but surely deeper into the semi-congealed stuff within. A
  gauge-mark scratched into the golden tube, coming level with the surface of the resin, told her precisely where to stop. Any deeper and the sharp, hollow 'knife'
  point of the funnel would drive right into Radu's face.
  About the watcher, Radu continued, as she prepared a tourniquet on her left arm, but left it slack. If this is no innocent or coincidental thing, then it can only be
  one of extreme menace. And indeed I feel menaced! This watcher is a thrall: a Ferenczy, or a Drakul, aye. He watches you to discover me. And he will discover me,
  if he can, and lead his master here to my lair-through you, Bonniejean, through you! And so there is only one answer to it: dispose of him. But not now, not yet.
  First learn all about him; know him as you know yourself, if that is at all possible, so that he may not creep up on you unannounced. Then, closer to the time -
  but only when I give the word - then see to him! For if he were to suddenly disappear, now, immediately . . . why, his master would surely understand that he had
  found me, and that I had found him!
  And shortly thereafter there would be two watchers, then three . . . until in the end I would starve up here, because you could not come to me. Or if and when you
  did, my enemies would follow you and find me helpless here. And be sure, Bonniejean, that they would deal just as cruelly with you as with me. For you are a
  woman and comely, and they . . . are Wamphyri!
  B.J. sat beside the rim of the sarcophagus with her back to an angled slab of stone, but not too comfortably, and without glancing away made
  one slicing cut through the arteries of her left wrist with the razor-sharp blade of her knife. Indeed it was so sharp that she scarcely felt its bite -or
  only very briefly - and the cut was so clean that for a single moment it remained closed. Long enough for her to lean forward over the rim and
  direct the first sudden spurt into the golden funnel.
  But Radu had 'heard' the hiss of air between her clenched teeth, felt the sting in her mind, sensed the tightening of her stomach, and knew
  what these  things  meant. And, Ahhhh! he said, as the hot, red, salty stream commenced to flow down the golden tube to his
  encysted figure. Then, to cover the unmistakable lust that suddenly burned like fire in his thoughts (and must surely burn its way into Bonnie
  Jean's), he forced himself to continue with his instructions:
  . . .  So then, he barked, we have dealt with this watcher. Or we will, eventually. But always remember, Bonniejean, that revenge is a dish
  best served cold. Revenge? Oh, yesss! for I have seen in your mind how he has worried and angered you with his snooping. And I know that
  you would be avenged, even as I must avenge myself against his master, one of mine own enemies out of ancient times. But attend me well,
  Bonnie Jean. It can be nothing dramatic, nothing spectacular. When the time comes this watcher should simply . . . yes, disappear! Let his
  master wonder but never know. That way, by the time he must know the way of it, and when
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  his curiosity brings him to seek me out, I shall be up and about in the world. Time then for my revenge, aye! But only think, Bonnie Jean: if such
  as you have felt the urge to strike at our enemies - and for what good reason, eh? The small irritation of covert observation? The shuddering
  anticipation of some unknown, unspecified DOOM waiting just around the comer - then what of my passions, whose torment has lasted for
  two thousand years? Huh! Well, let me tell you: there were blood-feuds before mine, and bloodwars since. But the next one will be hot, be sure.
  As hot as every hell that men have ever dreamed . . .!
  Then a pause so sudden., so sharp it was almost a gasp in B.J. 's mind, as the first drop of her blood, then a gush  - a crimson,
  bloating bubble in the yellow envelope of fluid surrounding him - stained and suffused  the area of Radu's weird wolf head.
  And:
  Ahhhh! It was almost a sob of pain, but an agony so sweet that it vibrated like some unbearable note struck on the
  chords of the mind. And in B.J.'s mind it was the rushing, irretrievable cry of climactic sex, the nerve-wrenching howl
  of a shovel in clay-cold ashes, the joy of the full moon when its call can no longer be denied. It was all of these  things,
  and more. It was the blood that is the life.
  Her blood, and Radu's life, as the influx, the monstrous infusion, commenced.
  And  it was always the same: as if her Master were a live, alien current, which  the  conductor  of  her  blood  carried
  back to Bonnie Jean. For once the connection was made, the current came flowing back up the life-stream and into her.
  It leaped to her, quick as light, with the speed of an electric arc: the incredible, terrible fact of Him! And as always - if
  only for those first few unutterable, unbearable seconds -she knew the truth of Him. That there was no truth in Him!
  It came and it went, and left her floating, drifting on a sea of unknown emotions, no less than his bite would have
  done. For one brief moment the agony of Truth . . . and for the rest of time the inescapable acceptance  of a Great Lie.
  And before she could consider the difference, or even the existence of a difference:
  Yesss! (His hiss sounded that much clearer in B.J.  's innermost  being). Ah, yesss!  Child of my children,  my life is in you, as you
  were in me. My life is you, as yours will be mine. But not yet awhile, not yet. . .
  And as something of his unthinkable pleasure receded, and he accepted the renewal of his hideous life:
  As for the girl, gone for a year and never to return: we must accept that she is no more. At best she has become one of theirs: a
  Drakul or a Ferenczy, aye. More likely, she's a husk, drained of knowledge and life both. Let us assume that you are right and she could not
  talk. Still she 'told' enough to interest them; hence the watcher. Or has he been there a long time, Bonnie Jean? Longer than you suspect?
  Even years, decades? The latter, I think. If not, then how did they know to take one of yours in
  the first place? What came first, the egg, the spore, or the leech? It is a riddle; it moves in a circle and is best left alone. Likewise the girl. . . forget
  her. She is no more.
  
  B.J. listened with the  one  part  of  her  mind  that  remained  alert.  As  for  the  rest:  her  eyes  were  closing,  her  head
  nodding  until  she  struggled  to  keep  it  upright.  Drowsing,  she  was  carried  on  the  current  of  Radu's  life,  and  was
  nothing  without  that  she  belonged  to  him.  It  was  his  art,  his  hypnotism,  the  beguiling.  She  had  it,  too,  but  by
  comparison was an infant where he was the old, old Master . . . but a master of more than mere hypnotism.
  And B.J.'s heart thudded, her blood pumped, and her mind listened . . .
  Finally we have this . . . this mysterious one, (Radu eventually continued). Of whom you admit to wondering: perhaps the Mysterious One? Yesss, Bonnie Jean,
  and you have set me to wondering, too. For I have seen him in my dreams these many ages, and the one whom you have shown to me is not dissimilar. But in my
  dreams . . . strange, but I never saw him clearly. While I was given to know of him, I was never permitted to know him. He was blurred, aye, or at best ill-defined,
  as all dreams of the future are, only more so. And so I came to think of him as The Man With Two Faces, because while he remained the same . . . his face
  changed! Not that he was 'two-faced,' as in the common usage of that term, you understand. No, for this has nothing to do with simple treachery.
  So ...  what does it mean? For I have read it in your mind, that you, too, Bonnie Jean, have seen another side of him - as if some other were looking out
  through his eyes? But could that other be me, in some future time? If so, then indeed he is the Mysterious One of my dreams. Or—
  —Is it all a trick, a trap, a clever subterfuge? (Radu's mental voice was suddenly sharp as B.J.'s knife). He helped you when he could have killed you, you say.
  But I remember how, in the Greek Sea, the fishermen would bait their hooks with little fishes - to catch big ones! And this 'covert agency' he worked for. Whose
  agency, 1 ask? The powers that be, you say. For what good purpose, I ask? To which you answer, 'to usurp the laws of the land, and supplement them where they
  will not suffice!' Eh? Usurp the laws? I am astonished! For this agency must be powerful indeed, that it works outside of governments and laws! Very well, then
  who were this Mysterious One's masters? Alas, here we have no answer, for this was a line you did not pursue. Ah, but be sure that I will. . .!
  Radu paused, probed a moment with his vampire mind, and immediately, worriedly inquired: Is all well, Bonnie Jean? Do you hear me? Best attend me,
  for my needs shall go on beyond today. And I would that you go on with them!
  B.J. jerked awake. She had been awake,  the  part  of  her  that  listened,  at  least.  And  she  saw  that  the  funnel  was
  overflowing into the
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  sarcophagus,  where her blood pooled on the crusty  resin. Like the gauge-marks on the  stem  of  Radu's  funnel,  this
  was her warning, telling her, 'this far but no further!'
  It was not the first time  that  this  had  happened,  nor  that  her  Master  had  'saved'  her  life.  But  then,  what  would
  become of him without her?
  She tightened  the tourniquet on her arm, watched the spurting slow to a sporadic spatter, willed her metamorphic
  flesh to action. Heal me! Then, as she got stiffly down from the sarcophagus, a last twist on the tourniquet, which she
  taped in position. And finally the slow, awkward business of bandaging her wrist with dressings from her pack.
  While she worked, Radu talked to her:
  How many times had I expired without you, Bonnie Jean? How often haw I escaped the true death? But the sweet hot spark
  of your life's blood rekindles mine and I live anew . . . if such as this may be considered  life. (A creature of moods, now
  her Master was sour again. And B.J. knew why. It was always the same when his needs  had been satisfied - or  his
  immediate needs, at least).
  Ah, you read me well, he told her. For I would be up again, and abroad in the world of men. I would be up, even now, except
  pestilence put me down. And so I stay here, waiting  out my time. And I keep  myself quiet, lest my thoughts  go out into
  the world and others hear them. And I dream my red dreams, and keep them quiet, too, for the same good reason. And my bones
  stiffen, and my flesh sags, and  even  my  memory  fades  a  little,  for  time  is  a  long,  long  thing.  So  that  sometimes  I
  wonder at the purpose of it all. . .
  . . . Until you return to me, and then I know  the purpose of it all! For once I was as men  and  lived  with  men.  I
  fought side by side with men, as were they my equal. I tried to be the same as men, but was different. I reined back on
  my spirit, which is a roaring fire that devours!!! And I quenched it as best possible. But I was wrong to try, Bonnie Jean. Aye, for to
  be Wamphyri is to be other than men, more than men.
  Oh, I have a man's appetites, be sure. Indeed, I have them tenfold! I do not love but lust; which is better than love, for when love
  lies spent lust drives on. And the strength of a man? Why, in these hands of mine strong men have snapped  like  twigs! As for the
  span of a man: what mere man has survived for thirty lifespans? And as for a man's passions: who before me has hated for twenty long
  centuries, and will continue to hate so long as his enemies survive, even to the end of time?
  And my thirst, my thirssst! Ahhh! Do you recall how it is when the day is hot and the way is long, and there is no water? And then the
  sparkle of a stream . . . your hand  trembling as you lift the water to your lips? Well, I  have  thirsted  for  six  hundred
  years, Bonnie  Jean! Ah, no, I am not ungrateful, and you have sustained  me . . . but a quart?  Sometimes  I  think  I
  know the source of these measures: for is not a quart one fourth
  part of all your blood? Close enough, I think. But a quart! Why, I have bathed in blood, the blood of whole men, and women,
  and babes - and still / wanted more!
  Men? With their puny needs, they are as ticks on the back of a goat. But I am a wolf, and the field is filled with  goats! Except I
  am crippled, trapped, immobilized. Why, I lie so still they don't even suspect I'm here at all. Only the other wolves know.  Only my
  own sort, aye . . .
  He rambles, B.J. thought,  unmindful of her own thoughts  as she  rekindled  her  fire,  with  which  to  warm  a  can  of
  soup.  He is delirious  on my blood, like  a man who has drunk  too much strong liquor. These are only his frustrations
  coming out of him, and nothing more. This is not the way he will be.
  WHAT? Her Master at once shouted, or snarled, in her mind. And is it for you to say how I will or will not be?
  
  'Forgive me,' B.J. answered wearily from where she sat by her fire. 'I. . .  I think I must be delirious, too, for it seems
  you've had more than a quart, my Master. And I have rarely felt so tired
  He was at once solicitous. Ahhh! Bonnie Jean, Bonnie Jean! It is my fault, my fault! But! hungered so . . .  I let it go
  too long, too long.
  'No harm done,' she sighed. 'I have Auld John's soup, his strong tea. I'll stay here the night, and rest.'
  Aye, he answered, aye. The way down is hard, and you must be strong for it.
  The way is nothing,' B.J. shook her head. The climb is child's play. But in the dark I could slip, and the way I feel
  right now
  Best rest, he told her. Best rest. . .
  But in a little while, spooning soup as she huddled beside her fire in a blanket, B.J. was curious to know something.
  'My Master, how would it have been? What would be the result if you had not roused me up? Not death, I know. Not
  the true death.'
  Indeed, no, my Bonnie, he answered, so low it was a coughing rumble in her mind. Never the true death, not for you.
  For you, undeath. But with you . . . quite unnecessary. You are what you are. A throwback? No, a throw forward! That is the way
  of it. Blood tells, Bonnie Jean, and in you it runs true.
  'I would be . . .  Wamphyri?'
  Will be, perhaps. (But now she sensed a seething darkness in his mental voice).
  'Perhaps?'
  Her master at once came alive again, and the darkness  receded. Time will tell, my faithful one,  he  said.  Aye,  time
  alone will tell. . .
  B.J. gave herself a shake, as the dog-Lord abruptly enquired: Where . . . where was I? For it appears you were right,
  and I rambled? Certainly my mind has wandered.
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  It was as if he, too, had been asleep; his thoughts were dull, uncertain, groping in her mind.
  The lair was so much darker now; B.J. 's fire burned low; a sappy branch crackled and popped, and sent a few last sparks flying.
  Through the rocky tangle of the high crystalline vaulting, a lone star glittered like an eye frozen in a stony orbit.
  The Mysterious One,' B.J. reminded her Master. 'Have you reached a solution?'
  / remember, Radu's 'tone' was more focused now. But you are mistaken; I had already reached a solution, but I had not voiced
  it. I must see him - talk to him with my own 'voice - have him here, where I can decide for myself his value . . . or his threat? But not yet. Not yet a
  while. So, my solution:
  He has things to do, you say. Then let him do them. For a year, even two years. He would search for his missing wife and child? Good! let
  him search. Ah, but he is resourceful; he has talents. Excellent! Let us put them to use. We are agreed that my enemies seek me out. Very well:
  let this 'mysterious' Harry Keogh seek them out! Let him locate them for us. Then, when or if they do not see fit to come to me, I can always go to
  them! So, how is that for a solution?
  'And if he draws attention to you, what then?'
  Huh! But their attention has never been absent! They have sought me for long and long! And as always, I shall rely upon you to hold them at bay.
  'And if he places himself in jeopardy, maybe gets himself killed?'
  What is that to us? Or should I say, to me? For plainly it is a great deal to you! But I take your point. You are asking:  why sacrifice a
  valuable ally? Is that it? Well, for one: his value is not yet proven. This could be the ultimate test. And for two: if he is indeed my Man With Two
  Faces - the Mysterious One of my dreams - then he'll suffer no harm. How can he, and still come to me at the time of my coming forth?
  'But. . . before he can seek them out - the Drakuls and the Ferenczys - he must know of them. And you have always forbidden
  me to speak of them. As you lie secret in the world, my Master, so must they, else alert men to the presence of us all!'
  A good argument, (Radu seemed genuinely pleased with her). But a false one. Do you think I would let someone loose in the world with that
  sort of knowledge, without that we place certain strictures upon him? Of course not! You have told me he is in thrall. True?
  'Beguiled,' she nodded. 'And by now addicted to your wine. He knows nothing at all of you; nothing of me, except that I am an
  innocent, a friend, and possibly—'
  A lover?
  B.J.'s silence answered for her.
  All to the good. For I tell you, Bonniejean, that if he is not your lover,
  or does not at least aspire, then he is not a man by my books. Which means he is not my man!
  'And if he does . . . aspire?'
  What? And should I send you out to whore for me? (But seeing her confusion): Oh, ha-ha-ha! And now you would tell me you have no mind
  of your own, and that you are guided in all things by me. (His sarcasm smoked like acid as the laughter faded from his thoughts). Huh! And you
  know how I cannot abide a liar!
  'You . . . you're playing with me.' She stuttered. This . . . this has to be a word game. It must be!'
  Indeed! Radu growled. And if you cannot win them, then do not play them! Certainly not with me . . .
  B.J. waited, tried not to tremble, and eventually he said: Very well. And did I not hint - and more than hint - that you should  use
  your woman's ways, your female wiles, on him? Better ways than poisoned wine? Other ways to enthrall a man? Aye, but use them on him,
  Bonnie Jean, not on me!
  
  'Yes, my master,' she bowed her head.
  See to it, then, and when next you come make report.
  'Yes, my master.' She curled herself up.
  And Bonnie Jean, do without the wine. If you have weaned him on it, now wean him off. Doubtless it served its purpose, but an end to that
  now. I want a man, not a sot. And finally - in the event that you do seduce him, or he seduces you, whichever - one last thing. Be sure, absolutely
  sure, that nothing of you, of us, gets into him. Above all else, be sure of that. For when he comes to me, he must be human - all of him.
  'I understand.'
  So be it. And now sleep well, my Bonnie.
  'And you, my ...  my ...  my Master.' (His final words had been a command, and she was his thrall. Already B.J. was yawning, her eyes closing).
  And as he felt her slipping away, and knew that she would not hear him: Aye, sleep well, Bonniejean. For if I was up - or when I am up-
  there shall be no sleep for you, but a night such as you never imagined. Indeed, a night to die for! One of us, anyway . . .
  In the grey dawn B.J. woke up, changed her dressing, saw that the scar was knitting and no fresh blood flowing. There was a cold cut of cooked
  venison in her pack, courtesy of Auld John. Washed down with strong tea, it served as breakfast. Then she saw to the cleaning of
  Radu's feeder and stored it away. She should have attended to it last night but had been too weary. And finally she took her departure. As she
  left the lair, the psychic aether was empty of her Master's  emanations. He continued to sleep his sleep of ages. Coming up, her
  spirits had been high; she had revelled in the climb.
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  Going down, she took the easiest route; her mood was different and she must think things over . . . about her Master's instructions, of course. (Oh, yes, for she was
  still too close to him to think . . . other things). Confused, disorientated in all manner of ways, finally she did little thinking at all but concentrated mainly on her
  climbing.
  She was not naive, Bonnie Jean - with so many years behind her, how could she be? - but she was enthralled, beguiled. Radu held her in his spell no less than
  she held Harry Keogh. And as his thrall she must always obey him. But as a Lady of the Wamphyri. . . ?
  Except that was a thought she must never think, and so she didn't—
  —Until midday, back at Auld John's place, when he noticed a spot of blood on her dressing and changed it for her. Then he had cause to remind her.
  'Why, Bonnie Jean!' he exclaimed. 'It's no more than a wee scratch. Ye must have stretched it a bit, that's all. But...  I never saw healing like it! Surely ye
  couldn'ae hae gone so deep this time?'
  'Deep as ever, John,' she told him. And in the next breath, 'But we all heal quickly. It's part of us - part of you, too.'
  'Aye, but never like this!' For a moment in awe of her, he stepped back and gaped. And then, eagerly: 'But he did promise ye, after all. And we've always known
  that sooner or later—'
  'Later, John, later!' she hissed, suddenly angry, but with herself as much as with him. 'When he's up ...  when he says so, and not before. So don't you say it,
  nor even think it!'
  'No, no!' He blinked rapidly, licked his lips, peered at her. 'Ye're right, of course ye are, but—'
  'No buts, John!' She cautioned him. There can be no buts. I told you: don't even think it, because I daren't think it!'
  But later, in his tiny bathroom, after she had bathed and when she applied a minimum of makeup:
  B.J. paused, then stood stock still in front of the small mirror. Mirrors hadn't much bothered her before; they had never been a problem. But now, for the first
  time . . . was there something wrong? Or not wrong but different?
  She stared harder at her own image. The grey in her hair. Not a premature grey but the natural colour of wolfish fur. It wasn't fur but hair, but the colour was all
  wolf. Much more so than before. And her eyes: their slant, the golden rim of their cores. And her ears: elfish before, but now . . . longer?
  And when she put up a hand with a square of tissue to dab pale lipstick from the tip of an eyetooth . . . surely her teeth were longer, too? And behind her teeth . . .
  B.J. held her breath, bared her teeth, all the way, then flicked her tongue over them - or flickered it, like a snake's tongue. Her cleft tongue!
  Not all the way, not yet. But indented at the tip, beyond a doubt. And
  suddenly  her  blood  was  singing  in  her  veins,  singing  a  strange,  savage  song.  But  one  that  she  must  not,  dare  not  sing!  She
  remembered how easily she had changed for Harry Keogh. And how she had known she could do it. Oh, she had known before him,
  but always at the time of the full moon. Now, apparently, she could do it any time. It was simply a matter of will.
  And standing there, before the mirror, she willed the grey from her hair, willed her tongue to its human shape, willed her eyes and her ears back to normal. And
  they were . . . normal?
  Well, yes, for a normal human being, anyway . . .
  That afternoon she slept. She didn't need it, but made herself sleep. That way she was out of Auld John's way; he couldn't ask her things, and she wasn't tempted to
  think or experiment.
  As night fell she set out, with John as back-up in a battered old car he'd owned for years, doing the same job her girl had done two nights past. Through
  Pitlochry she saw his headlights blink twice, and his car quickly faded in her rearview. Then she was on her own, on her way home.
  And no time to spare, because B.J. had given the 'Mysterious One,' Harry Keogh, specific post-hypnotic instructions to call her early tomorrow morning before
  the three-week stricture she'd placed on his departure was up. She had supposed that by that time she would know better what to do about Harry; which she did,
  courtesy of the dog-Lord Radu. Now she had other, more important orders to pass on, and she must speak to Keogh before he commenced his search abroad, which
  from now on would be that much more important and so much more dangerous. But she daren't miss his call, in case this close to the full of the moon Harry took
  this to be his 'obligatory' call - in which case it could be the last opportunity she would have to speak to him for more than a month, until the next full moon.
  Full moon, aye, in just a few days' time. B.J. could even feel it, tugging at her mind. But these sudden complications in what were once long-established,
  uninterrupted routines. Harry Keogh; and Radu's -what, churlishness? - his impatience, anyway; the changes taking place within herself, of which she was ever
  
  more aware. And the unknown watcher, this Drakul or Ferenczy thrall. And all of it weighing on B.J. 's shoulders.
  Upon a time, no problem. She could have dealt with all of this and much more. She had dealt with many problems, down the decades. But her system, thought
  processes, mutating emotions, were badly out of kilter. And even if Radu hadn't detected it - even though he might deny it - still B.J. knew what was happening to
  her. But she, too, must deny it . . .  or deny him! And after all this time, that last was unthinkable.
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  She wasn't  giving her best  concentration  to  the  road, her driving; her hands  were too  loose,  or occasionally  too  vicious,  on the
  wheel; her speed was too great for the bends and uneven camber. When the front offside tyre  blew it was  as much as she could do
  to hit the brakes before the car skidded off the road, smashed through a fence, nose-dived down  a grassy  decline, and slammed to  a
  halt in the pebbles of a sluggish beck.
  On impact, B.J.'s head snapped forward, banged down hard on the centre of the steering column -
  — And for quite some time that was all. . .
  So maybe Radu was right after all. For would a little knock  like that have  put a true Lady of the Wamphyri  to sleep? Even as B.J.
  realized that the thought was her own, she felt a hand fumbling on her shoulder through the  shattered  mess of the  driver's  window.
  And as the  hand went  round  her  neck,  seeking  her  pulse,  she  wrenched  herself  free  and  snarled,  'What?'  And  then,  in  a  more
  reasonable, even a pained voice - feeling the aching in her neck and head, and turning the latter to squint into  the  early  morning light
  - 'W-what?' It had to be six or six-thirty in the morning. She must have been out for hours!
  A policeman  stood  beside the  car, ankle-deep  in the  cold water  of the  beck. His  face was  full of concern. 'Dinna try  to  move,
  miss,' he told her. 'We're calling help right now. Ye'll be out o' there in no time.'
  He was right, and sooner than he thought!  'I'm . . . okay,'  B.J.  said, unfastening  her seatbelt  and wrenching at the  handle of the
  door, which at once sprang open. 'I'm all right. Just a bit shaken, that's all.'
  There were two of them, the second one leaving his vehicle to come scrambling down the bank. They assisted  her back up  to  the
  road and into  their  police  car. 'How  long were ye  there?  We would'nae  hae known  if not  for the  broken  fence. We'll take  ye  into
  town for a check-up,' the driver glanced back at her. 'That bruise of yours—'
  '—Is just a bruise,' she told him, then smiled. 'Look, the last thing I need is a check-up. I'm fine. As for my  car: a tyre  burst.  But
  if you really want to be helpful, you can take  me on to  Perth  where I can get a taxi. I've an important  appointment  in Edinburgh,
  and I'm late already.'
  They looked at each other. B.J. dug in a pocket, produced documentation. 'Details of the car,' she said. 'Insurance  documents,  for
  your notebooks. I hired the car. You could do me a favour and let them know. It's their . . . junk, after all! Their  problem  to  recover
  it. My name and address are on the agreement there if you should need to contact me later.'
  One of the officers scratched his head. 'Ye're an awfy cool lassy, for someone just out o' an accident.'
  'Accidents happen!' B.J. snapped, then bit her lip. 'Look, I really am in a hurry. I'm sorry if I appear ungrateful
  Too late. Her attitude had been all wrong and sorry wasn't going to put it right.
  In the  police  station  in Perth  they  recorded her statement  and had a doctor  look at her anyway,  if  only  to  cover  themselves.
  Which meant it was after ten before she could call a taxi and get under way again . . .
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  Ill
  A PICTURE OF THE MIND, A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE FUTURE
  In case her place was under observation,  Bonnie Jean rode the taxi to within a quarter mile of 'B.J. 's,'  paid  her  fare,
  then walked or was blown the rest of the way. It was a little after midday, raining, and blowing a gale. Buffeted along
  the slippery pavements, she thought: The windy fucking city, indeed!
  Furious by the time she arrived  at  the  bar  -  mainly  with  herself,  but  also  with  the  way  things  were  or  were  not
  working out - she had to call one of her girls down from her bedroom, from where she was supposed  to be watching
  the street outside, to let her in!
  -   'Didn't you see me arrive?'
  'I. . .  I was using your toilet,' the girl told her.
  Two other girls, who were in the vicinity and witnessed B.J. 's arrival, reported to her in the bar as she was towelling
  her hair and trying to dry out.
  
  'Any luck?' She glared at them. 'What of the watcher? Has he been back? And Harry Keogh? Have you found him?' But
  seeing the negative look on their faces: 'Let's get this place tidied up, sorted out. We open tonight. If we stay  closed any
  longer, it will only attract attention. I'll make adjustments to your duties as soon  as I get the chance.' And finally, as
  she made to head upstairs: 'Any calls?'
  'A few,' the girl from her bedroom told her. They're on your answering machine. I didn't monitor them. You didn't tell
  me to . .
  B.J. rushed through the bar and up the stairs to her bedroom. There were three calls from regulars wanting to know
  when the bar would be open again, and two more from someone or ones who said nothing, but the next and last—
  —Was from Harry:
  'B.J.?' (He sounded unsure of himself, tinny, distant). 'I said I would call you before I went off. So, I'm calling. Tried
  to get you twice already
  - nothing doing. Too early, I suppose. Sorry about that. So, I'll be away
  maybe a month, I'm not sure. About a month, yes. I don't know why I'm bothering you, really. That's it, then . . . "  But
  after a long pause:
  'Oh, and by the way, that Greek wine of yours  is . . .  good  stuff? Well, let's say it's an "acquired taste,"  eh? But a
  damn good  way to get to sleep nights, when your mind just can't stop  ticking over! Know what I mean? No, I don't
  suppose you do . . .'
  (Another pause, then):
  Til be in touch ..."  And. again a long silence before the 'phone went dead.
  And: 'Damn!' B.J. said under her breath, expelling all of her air in a heavy sigh before taking her first deep breath for
  what seemed like the first time that day.
  She breathed in . . .  and held it. Now what in all—?
  Aftershave? Old Spice? Harry's aftershave? It must be. But lingering on, all this time since he'd been here? Except. . .
  he hadn't been here, not 'up' here, not in her bedroom! Or was it just his voice that had set it off? But damn it all, she
  could smell him - him, and not just his aftershave! He was that  real, that vivid, tantalizing, in her mind . . . And in her
  room?
  B.J.'s eyes were suddenly feral in the gloomy quiet of her room, with the curtains drawn and the rain pattering on the
  window panes. Her nostrils gaped;  she turned her head sharply  this  way  and  that!  She  sniffed,  as  she  tracked  the
  essence of a man, his scent, his odour. But here, in her bedroom . . . where he had never been.
  Oh, really?
  She flew down one flight to her living-room. Nothing! His scent wasn't here - or if it was, it was just the merest trace.
  He may have been here, but he hadn't lingered here. He'd gone . . .  up to her bedroom!
  She bounded back up the stairs. And there it was again . . . like a familiar perfume, hanging on the air. His scent, and
  the sweet human smell of her girl. Hers, and his.
  B.J. called for her, screamed for her, down the stairwell. 'Moreen! Come up here! Come now!'
  She came, looking confused, frightened, astonished. B.J. took her by the shoulders and shook her. 'He was here! He
  was here - with you!'
  'He what? Who?' Moreen was a stunning redhead, twenty-two or twenty-three years old. Her green eyes were wide,
  amazed, disbelieving. Finally she broke free. 'B.J., no one was here. Not while I was  here,  anyway!'  And  she  shrank
  away from the other, especially from her looks. 'You look like . . . like a wild thing!'
  And B.J. knew that she did, that she was. But at least it was controllable. She pulled herself together, willed the thing
  hiding within her to subservience, then slumped on her bed. 'He was here,' she said,
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  mainly to herself. 'Maybe not with you, if you say so. But here, certainly.'
  The watcher?' Moreen was genuinely mystified. 'You think I would invite—?'
  B.J. shook her head. 'Not the watcher, no. Damn, we don't  even  know  if  the  watcher  exists,  not  for  sure!  I'm  just
  taking Harry Keogh's word for it. He's the one I'm  talking  about.  Him,  Harry  Keogh  himself,  who  tossed  Big  Jimmy
  about like a sack of coal that night!'
  'The one we're looking for?'
  B.J. bared her teeth. 'I can smell him, right here.'
  Then you're mistaken.' The girl tossed her head almost defiantly, and sat down beside the bed on a chair.
  B.J. sat up, took hold of Moreen's shoulders again, more gently this time. 'Look, this is important. Were you here all
  the time?'
  'Why, no, of course not. How could I be?' the other said, and gave a defensive shrug. 'I mean I had to  eat,  sleep,
  attend to various other things. But when it was important to be here, then I was here.'
  'When it was important? When, exactly?'
  'I sat at that window,' the girl pointed, 'oh, until two or half-past two each morning, just watching the road outside. And you
  have no idea how boring that can get to be, B.J. But I did it anyway, for you.'
  'And then you slept? Where, and how long?'
  'Wrapped in a spare blanket, in the barroom beside one of the big radiators.'
  
  'Downstairs, you're sure?'
  'Yes.'
  'And if someone had got in?'
  'But that's why I slept down there!' Moreen was close to tears. 'Any burglar or intruder would have had to get past
  me. I'm usually a light sleeper and would hear him. But I was up each morning by six-thirty, so as to come up here and
  check if anyone was watching us in the early mornings - this morning especially ..."
  B.J. was quick to catch that one. 'Why? What was so special about this morning?'
  There were two calls. I heard the 'phone ring before your answer machine took over. I seem to remember checking
  the time; the first call was, oh, about five-thirty I think, and the second  maybe fifteen minutes later. That one woke me
  up more yet. I tossed and turned a bit, then must have dozed for a few minutes. But about six o'clock, I thought  I heard
  something.'
  'What did you hear?' B.J. tightened her grip.
  'I heard the boards creak, somewhere up here. But it was windy and raining; it was just the old house protesting.'
  B.J. thought about it. Harry could have called from any telephone. A telephone box in the street, even. He'd called
  twice, got no answer,
  given up and come here personally. But how had he got in past  Moreen?  And  more importantly,  what  did he want?  Suddenly  the
  answer was clear in her mind.
  As clear as his voice on her answering machine . . .
  'Go down and help the others,' she said, standing up. 'I. . .  I'm sorry I was so excited, sorry  I shouted.  Things  could be working
  out better, that's all. You understand?'
  The girl looked worried now. 'B.J., are we in trouble?'
  'Not if I can help it,' she shook her head. 'Do as I say, and don't worry about it.'
  But as soon as the girl was gone she turned to her bed, stooped and reached underneath,  and drew  out  a three-by-four  cardboard
  wine crate. There were three  bottles  of her 'Greek' wine sitting  neatly  in their  sockets  in the  last  row.  Three,  yes.  But  B.J.  knew
  there should be four!
  Oh, she'd weaned him on, all right, this oh-so-talented Harry Keogh, this  'mysterious'  Mr  Keogh! And  the  longer she knew  him
  the more talented and mysterious he got to be . . .
  It wasn't quite a month before Harry was back; in fact, it was twenty-five days. And  B.J.  needn't  have worried  about  weaning him
  off her wine - Radu's wine, actually - for Harry had been doing that, or trying to  do it for himself, and fairly  successfully.  A single
  shot on a night, before sleeping, was all he'd allowed himself. And he'd tried tempering the stuff with other brews. Jack Daniel's Old
  No. 7 had been one such: a top-quality  liquor whose  potency  should  leave any  mere wine standing  at the  post.  But  that  stuff  of
  B.J.'s was definitely . . .  oh, something else! It was very much to Harry's taste - or Alec Kyle's taste, whichever. Its only drawback
  was what it did to him: his stinging eyes, dry throat, fluffy head; all the  symptoms  of a heavy  cold, for which it seemed to  be the
  only cure! There was a word for it: addiction, which Harry realized well enough. It was  why  he would  only  take  it on a night, and
  then only one small shot.
  Even so, it interfered with his search. Except (as he had come to  realize by  the  end of his three  weeks  and four  days  in Seattle,
  Washington, USA), his 'search' was a joke. And a joke that he was playing on himself.
  Of course, with the Mobius Continuum at his fingertips  - his to  command - he hadn't  needed to  stay in Seattle.  He could come
  and go as he wished; spend every night at home in Bonnyrig if he so desired. But he hadn't desired.
  Truth  to  tell, the  old house  where  his  beloved  Ma  had  died  and  his  murdering  black-hearted  bastard  of  a  stepfather,  Viktor
  Shukshin, had continued to live - until his past and Harry had caught up with him, at least - was a cheerless  sort  of place,  ominous
  and full of evil memories.
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  It would be a long time, if ever, before the Necroscope could think of it as 'home' in the truest sense of the word.
  Which was  why  he'd  hired  a  so-called  'house'-boat  down  on  the  waterfront  in  Seattle,  paying  a  month's  rent  in
  advance  for far less comfort and only half the space  he'd  been  used  to  even  in  his  and  Brenda's  tiny  garret  flat  in
  Hartlepool, in the . . .  in the old days. But the flat had worse memories than the house  in Bonnyrig, which was one of
  the reasons he had got rid of it. He'd thought about taking a hotel room, or a suite. Why not? He could easily stay  at
  the city's finest, if he fancied; and just as easily skip out without paying the bill when it was time to Mobius on. Except
  hotels weren't him.
  But, 'the old days?' Funny, that it seemed so long ago! Funny, yes ...  for a man whose incorporeal, metaphysical
  mind had once had access to all of the past, and all of the future, and as much of space  as he or any man could live in
  or explore even in an eternity of lifetimes!
  And the funniest thing of all - or the most ironic - was that he still had it but couldn't use it. Not to its, or his, best
  advantage. Not until he'd found Brenda and the baby.
  The past? That was over and done. There was nothing there to help him now, even if he had access  to it. Which he
  didn't; and that, too, was funny. Incorporeal, he'd been able to 'immaterialize' in the past. But now if he went there, he'd
  be like a toy man on a toy train that went in a circle - or figure-of-eight loop? - and never stopped;  with all the stations
  passing him by, but never able to get off.
  
  And as for space - which in this case meant the total of all the places, the geographic locations, in the world - well,
  he had access to those, certainly. But there were millions of them, and Brenda and the baby were only in one of them.
  Which one was anybody's guess.  The Great Majority couldn't help him, because  they had no contact  with the living
  except Harry himself. And the living . . . ?
  Of all living people, the E-Branch specialists - Darcy Clarke's espers  - should  have been able to tell him something.
  Yet they'd told him nothing. And he believed them; they simply didn't  know.  So  where  did  that  leave  Harry?  What
  chance did he stand? A very slim one, at best.
  Yet there he'd been in Seattle, Washington,  USA (why, he couldn't say), allegedly 'searching' for two  people  who
  were, or should be, very dear to him. And he wasn't even sure about that last part, either! Love Brenda? But she didn't
  love him, didn't even know  the him he was now! And love the baby? What, little Harry, who knew more than he did
  about everything that made him what he was?
  And yet Harry must search, if only to find out why they'd left him. No, not even that, for he knew why: because he wasn't him, and
  because the things he'd done - and others he might yet do - were dangerous. The baby loved his Ma, that was all, just
  as Harry loved his Ma. Except this baby wasn't about to let anything happen to Brenda.
  And so back to that word: 'search.' Big joke! In England it had seemed to make sense.  Close to Brenda's source, she
  had felt more real, she'd seemed feasible. Here she seemed impossible. So what it boiled down to was Harry wandering
  about  in a strange  body  in a strange  city  in  a  strange  land,  praying  he'd  somehow  collide  with  someone  who  was
  trying her best  to avoid him! And she had a  million  other  places  in  which  to  do  it.  And  things  were  mainly  a  blur
  anyway, because he felt like hell. . .
  Maybe if he hadn't run out of B.J. 's wine he would have stayed  on even longer, doing nothing  much.  But  it  was
  starting to look like the wine wasn't the only thing that had him under its spell. B. J. herself kept coming back to mind:
  some beguiling thing about  her, some promise he'd made, or she'd made. Or maybe some unspoken  promise  that  he
  wished they'd made.
  Harry wasn't too pleased with himself that he had stolen B.J. 's wine, but whatever else he did he knew (or hoped)
  that  he wouldn't have to steal any more. With any luck it was out of his system now. And truth to tell his 'problem' - his, or Alec
  Kyle's alcoholism - had narrowed itself down, become specific. For it was now an established  fact that the Necroscope
  couldn't or didn't want to drink any other kind of liquor. What was the point  when  it  had  little  or  no  effect  on  him,
  except in massive doses?  So maybe that was why he'd come home at this time: to be closer to B.J., and to her  wine.
  HeU of a note!
  And what the hell kind of alcoholism was this anyway? Was it possible for a smoker to be addicted to just one brand? What if
  they  stopped  making  it?  After  he'd  finished  his  last  pack  of  Brand  X,  what  then?  He'd  never  smoke  again?  The
  Necroscope had never heard of anything like it. And neither had his Ma.
  Have it analysed, she told him. See what's in it. Maybe it has an antidote.
  Harry was sitting on the river bank where he had materialized, his first port of call upon  his return. It had been just
  after six a. m. in Seattle when he'd woken up, lifted his head, and looked at an empty bottle sitting there on a shelf at
  the side of his bookcase headboard. An empty bottle and an empty glass. And his first thought  had been that he had
  used up the wine and there'd be none for tonight. That had been some twenty minutes, a wash, shave  and a good  stiff
  toothbrushing  while  he  was  still  brave  enough  to  put  something  in  his  mouth,  ago  -  plus  a  minute  or  two  to  get
  dressed. While here in Scotland it was mid-afternoon. A decently warm spring day; the sun  shining, birds singing and
  all . . .  and Harry feeling rotten.
  'Mobius-lagged!' he grumbled, and at once bit his tongue.  He shouldn't  be talking about  that stuff to anyone  -  or
  even thinking about it where the dead were concerned. Even his Ma. He'd have to learn to guard his thoughts  about. .
  . about that sort of thing.
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  Nonsense! his Ma answered. But she was talking about his comment, not about his regretting it. You're not any kind of lagged! You're hung
  over, that's all.
  He was glad to change the subject. 'Yes, probably. Except it doesn't go away.'
  So do as I tell you! And anyway, if that's the end of it, it's the end of it. Thank goodness for that.
  'But I know where there's more.' And again he could have bitten his tongue, for she was on him like a ton of bricks:
  Leave it alone, Harry! That's all I can do, advise you. You have a mind, and therefore you have a choke: be an alcoholic or
  don't be. It's one or the other. To be or not to be. It's up to you. No one can order you not to drink, but by the same token no one can make you
  drink!
  But in the back of the Necroscope's head, a voice seemed to say, 'Oh, really?' Harry didn't know what it meant, and
  so ignored it. 'Anyway,' he said out loud, 'credit where credit's due: I'm fighting it. It's just this last wrinkle in my - or Alec Kyle's
  - grey matter. It needs ironing out, that's all. It's something that's residual of him, like his precognition. But I can feel it adjusting to
  fit me, I think. And if I don't use it, don't pander to it, it will. . .  I don't know, atrophy? It's just a matter of time, I'm sure.'
  His precognition? She repeated him, as glad as he was to change the subject. Have you been having more visions, then?
  'No,' Harry shook his head—
  —And at once reeled, and grabbed at the root of a tree to keep from toppling from the bank! For his Ma's question  had seemed
  to bring something on, a scene obscured by what appeared to be mental static -until the Necroscope realized that he was seeing it through a
  
  blizzard!
  A frozen monochrome landscape, like the roof of the world, and a gaunt range of mountains marching against grey skies that went on
  forever. It was cold - a biting cold - that was so real Harry could even feel it gnawing at him; and the snow slanting down like a million white
  spears, piercing his warmth as they landed and formed an ever-thickening layer on his being, his mind, his psyche . . .
  ...  It was gone, leaving him shivering and reeling, while his Ma's dead voice cried in his mind: Harry! What on earth—? But what she should have been
  asking was where. Where on earth? For Harry had seen nothing like it; he'd never been in or imagined being in such a place. He gasped for air, could scarcely
  believe that he was warm and the sun still shining down on him. It had been so very real. And damn it, he could feel it coming back again!
  He had let go of the root but now clutched at it again, as the thing invaded his senses and tore him from his reality into its own:
  The iron-grey  mountains,  snow-capped,  ridged  with carved,  drifted snow;  and  the  valleys  and  passes  between  the  spurs  and
  peaks full of it,
  like  white  dunes  rolling  to  rearing  horizons  of  stone.  But  to  Harry's  right.  .  .  what,  a  city?  A  walled  city,  yes,
  protected in the lee of the mountains and by a long, snaking wall — like a miniature version of the Great Wall of China - with gaunt
  square towers, battlements, mighty gates. But the old, cold city was dead and empty; it huddled down into itself behind the wall, and kept its
  secrets . . .
  It was much like a scene from some old geography book in Harry's secondary modern school at Harden. And once again  the thought
  struck him: the Roof of the World, yes! But. . . Tibet? Why was he seeing a scene out of Tibet?
  The blizzard had fallen off a little. (Harry felt the familiar river bank under his thighs) - but he also felt the cold of the snows gnawing in his
  bones, and saw a scene from incredible distances of space, or even out of future time, enacted on the screen of his mind. But Harry
  was the Necroscope and could  handle  it, perhaps even better than Alec  Kyle  himself. And finally accepting  it, no longer
  fighting it, he shielded his eyes against the falling snow and stared harder.
  Out there on the white waste . . . movement? Single file, a line of seven people - antlike figures, at this range - were making their way across
  the snow. They were robotic in their movements, like a military drill routine -left, right, left, right, left-but rapid and shuffling. The three in front
  were dressed in red, also the three bringing up the rear. But the one in the middle was all in white. And as if from a million miles
  away, the Necroscope could hear the chiming of tiny golden bells . . .
  . . . The cold receded, was gone from mind and body in a moment; the river swirled below; Harry swayed like a drunkard, and his
  Ma had time for a single word - Son! - before Alec Kyle's talent struck again.
  It was no longer snowing. Harry saw the six - what, monks? And one initiate? - out on the snows, tramping single-file as before. But the
  walled city was no longer in sight; the location was different. This time, in front of the six, the base of a sheer cliff reared like a titan face. It was
  a face: carved out of the rock! But if the location was cold, that great grim visage in the rock was colder still.
  It could only be a temple, (a monastery?) with huge steps carved from the bedrock leading up to the entrance: the yawning mouth of the
  great face. And up the steps the seven went, to where a portcullis was lifted and the throat became a passageway into the monastery. Then:
  Sheer fantasy!
  For as the seven disappeared inside . . .  so the face became flesh! The great jaws snapped shut, and the eyes opened wide to burn crimson
  as hell! And suddenly the no-longer-stone face was smiling the devil's own smile!
  Harry couldn't believe his eyes. He blinked—
  —And stared up at a blue sky, where wisps of cloud drifted across a blinding sun. He'd toppled over onto his back, and was lying there on
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  the river bank with his mouth wide open. Dazzled, Harry blinked again -and at once gritted his teeth, cringing down  into  himself in
  anticipation of another shift. But no, it was over now, and it gradually dawned on the Necroscope that he knew it was over.
  Then, struggling to sit up, and gasping the words out, he began to ask his mother, 'Ma, did you—?'
  Of course I saw it! She cut him short. We're in contact; I saw what you saw. But Harry, what does it mean? What was it?
  Harry  stood  up  and shakily,  absentmindedly  brushed  himself down.  Finally  he shook  his head. 'Whatever  it was,  it  certainly
  wasn't delirium tremens!'
  But it's all tied up, isn't it? It's all one and the same! Harry, are you into  another  of these . . . these things  of yours? Her dead
  'voice' overflowed with concern.
  Things?' Harry's mouth was dry; he hadn't quite given up expecting something else to happen.
  You know what I mean, his Ma insisted. Are you in trouble again, son?
  And for the first time the Necroscope wondered, Am I?
  But  out  loud, without  really  considering what  he said,  he  answered,  'Ma,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  I'm  not  in  any  real
  "trouble"  trouble.  I don't  think  so,  anyway.  And  that's  fine by  me, because I've  got  enough  problems  as  it  is.  So  don't  you  go
  wishing any more on me, okay?'
  And yet again he could have bitten his tongue, because what he'd said wasn't nearly what he'd meant. But too late now.
  Well! his Ma said, in a certain way  she had, making that  one small word  an entire  statement  on its  own.  Following which she
  wasn't much inclined to talk to him any more . . .
  Harry walked the river path to the arched-over gate in the  garden wall, and letting himself into  the  garden became aware of a car's
  engine fading to  silence at the  front  of the  house.  Since the  rest  of  the  houses  in  this  once  select,  now  neglected  location  were
  derelict, this could only be someone visiting or delivering to him.
  Avoiding the  brambles as best  he  could,  Harry  ran  up  the  garden  path  and  quickly  let  himself  in.  He  could  have  taken  the
  Mobius route, of course, but the more sparing  he was  in his use of the  Continuum,  the  less likely  he'd be to  give away  its  secret
  
  inadvertently. In a few seconds he was through the house to the front, where it took  only  a moment  or so to  unlock and open  the
  door. Outside, a tall, slim young man was already half-way back down the walled yard to the gate that he had left open. In his hand
  was a large manila envelope. Beyond the gate, a black car stood  waiting on the  rutted  service road. Hearing the  door  of the  house
  open, the man turned and saw Harry.
  'Delivery,' he said, showing Harry the envelope. And trying hard not to show too much interest, his keen, curious eyes looked the Necroscope over.
  Harry returned the other's cautiously appraising look and said: 'You don't much look like a typical postman.' And it was true, he didn't. No uniform for one
  thing, and the car outside wasn't a post van, and the envelope had no address or stamps.
  The other shrugged. 'Well then, let's say it's "special" delivery. Or better still—'
  '—E-Branch,' Harry's mouth turned down at the corners as the man started back up the path. 'Do I know you?' He held the house door open to let his visitor in.
  They both had to avoid trampling a month's worth of mail - most of it junk - on the coconut-fibre mat just inside the door.
  The other shook his head, held out his hand, which Harry pointedly ignored. He'd told Darcy he was finished with all of this. 'Munroe,' the stranger let his hand
  fall. 'James Munroe. And no, we haven't met. I'm usually on embassy duties here and abroad, "checking out the talent," so to speak. I'm a spotter, only recently
  returned from Italy to home duties - rotation of embassy staff, and what have you. Today I sensed you were back at last. . .' He paused and frowned. 'But I'm puzzled
  you didn't answer the door sooner. Is there a problem, Mr Keogh?'
  'No problem,' Harry led him through the house to the room he'd designated as his study, whose patio doors looked out over the garden, directed him to a chair
  and seated himself. 'I was out in the garden, that's all. But did you say "back at last?" How long have you been waiting for me, then?'
  'For a fortnight. In Edinburgh, coming out here each day to see if you were home yet.'
  As they talked, Harry had checked James Munroe over. He would be six foot one or two, twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, one hundred and forty-five
  pounds maximum. His fare was angular: jutting chin, pointed nose and ears, and jet-black hair, swept back and lacquered down. His eyes saved him from looking
  cynical, or even sinister; they were wide, brown, penetrating and honest. The sort you could look into and not worry about what was going on in there.
  'A fortnight? Coming out here every day? It's that important?'
  To you, I believe.' Munroe shrugged. 'And possibly beneficial to the Branch, too, but I'm just guessing. It's the way we work, as you know.' He was staring, and
  Harry was suddenly uncomfortable.
  'Is there something?' he snapped.
  'Eh?' the other sat up straighter, was at once startled. 'Oh, I'm sorry! I was staring, right? It's just that when you asked if you knew me, I almost answered, "No,
  but I once knew you." But Darcy Clarke has told me you're touchy about that.'
  Harry sighed, nodded and said, 'Alec Kyle. Yes, I'm sometimes
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  touchy about it. But I'm getting used to it - to him - to certain aspects of him, anyway.' He.was nervous. This was getting too close to stuff he couldn't talk about.
  'It's funny,' the other said, 'but on you he looks - oh, I don't know -younger?'
  'Oh? Well, he feels ancient!'
  'I meant younger . . . overall,' Munroe hurriedly corrected himself. 'I mean, it's like I can sense a younger man shining through. But shining too brightly, maybe?
  Burning up?' 'What are you, an empath, too?'
  The other's turn to sigh. 'I'm sorry, but I'm really fucking this up, right? But I've read your files. You're the Necroscope, and I expected ...  no, I didn't know
  what to expect! And I didn't mean to say that, either! I mean - you know - I'm not usually a rude person, Mr Keogh ..."
  And now there was an awkward silence, until: 'Harry,' the Necroscope said at last, his unnatural antagonism collapsing. 'Call me Harry, please. And I'm afraid I
  have been rude, so don't you go apologizing. Just recently I've been doing more than my fair share of tripping over my tongue!' And changing the subject: 'So
  what's in the envelope?'
  Munroe shrugged. 'I wasn't told what's in here.' He handed it over, and Harry looked at it with an almost accusing expression. This could be some kind of
  hook, and him the fish. But on the other hand ...  it just might be news of Brenda.
  And as he tore it open: 'I imagine Darcy tried to get me on the telephone, right? And when he found he couldn't get me, then he sent you?'
  'Your listed number?' Munroe shook his head, and smiled. 'But we're E-Branch, Harry. No such things as listed numbers, not to E-Branch. Darcy Clarke could
  'phone you, if he wanted to. I suppose he's doing his best to respect your privacy.'
  The Necroscope said, 'Huh!' He took out a single, double-folded sheet of A-4 from the envelope. A letter, probably, but there was something stiff inside it - a
  photograph, maybe? And because it might be about Brenda, he wanted to open it at once. But because it mightn't be, he didn't.
  'It doesn't make sense,' he finally shook his head. 'Darcy can get me on the 'phone and doesn't. Or he could just write me a letter, asking me to contact him. But
  he doesn't. Instead, he sends you.' He glanced at the contents of the manila envelope - the letter, or whatever - still folded in his lap. 'So what do you reckon,
  James? Was your journey really necessary?'
  The other raised a querying eyebrow. 'I'm sorry, but—'
  'See,' Harry cut him short. 'I'm not going to look at this - this
  whatever it is - until I know why you had to deliver it personally. In fact, if you don't tell me, and in the very near future at that, say the next five seconds, I'll
  simply set fire to it and dump it in the fireplace there. And you'll have to go back down to London and tell Darcy Clarke what happened.'
  He looked around for his table-lighter, began to stand up, and Munroe said: 'Okay! You're right. Darcy wanted me, or someone, to see you personally. Yes.'
  Harry sat back again. 'Why?'
  'Just to see how you, well, looked ..."
  'He's . . . what, worried about me?'
  'Maybe about how you're taking things. Maybe he feels responsible. Guilty ..."
  Harry jumped on that. 'Guilty? And maybe you're right. So what would he have to feel guilty about?'
  Munroe shrugged again, perhaps desperately this time, and said, 'Harry, I'm just a messenger, that's all. But Mr Clarke did say he was concerned about your
  general health. I mean, he knows your problems better than I do, right? So why don't you read the letter? Maybe it's all in there.'
  
  And in any case, despite his threat to burn it, the Necroscope had to know. So he unfolded the single sheet of A-4, laid the small envelope inside to one side for
  the moment, and read what was written in Darcy Clarke's spidery script:
  Harry—
  First things first. Still nothing on Brenda, I'm afraid. And I suppose if you had heard anything, you would have told me. Don't worry, we're still on it.
  Last time we spoke, you said you were thinking of taking a long holiday, except you were short of funds. So it could be you would take a sort of working holiday?
  You asked if I'd check a few places out for you. Well, I've found a place you might like - in the Mediterranean. The weather would be beneficial I'm sure, and the deal could
  work out really cheap . . .
  Oh, and you asked about exchange rates? Well, they are pretty good, too. So why don't you contact me and we'll talk?
  I enclose a photograph. Nice place. I think you'd enjoy working there . . .
  All best—
  Darcy.
  The Necroscope knew what Darcy was talking about; he remembered how he'd suggested doing a job on the  Russian  repository  in
  Moscow, or maybe on some other outfit or organization in the Branch's bad
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  books, for monies to fund his search. Damn! Was that all this was? Darcy scratching his back - and maybe hoping to
  get a job done for free - all the time knowing it would put Harry in his debt, so that at some future time the Necroscope
  might feel obliged to do a little back-scratching in return? A sort of two-birds-with-one-stone scenario?
  'So why don't you contact me and we'll talk?' —Indeed! E-Branch! It was typical! The nerve of the double-dealing . .
  .!
  He almost ripped the photograph from its envelope . . . and then sat there frozen, staring at it!
  For a moment Harry thought  it must be one of Alec  Kyle's  'things'  again,  his  precognition.  Hell!  -  it  was  one  of
  Kyle's things, but this time it was real! As real as this photograph, anyway:
  The stark yellow and white cliffs, coloured by sunlight. And the squat, white-walled castle, mansion, chateau, whatever it was, perched
  there on the edge of oblivion. A fortress on a mountainside, at the rim of a sheer drop. The scene was Mediterranean; yes, of course it was, and
  Harry had seen it before. All sun-bleached rocks, brittle scrub, a few stunted pines; he could almost taste the salty tang off an unseen ocean.
  Finally he moved, rocked back in his chair, and James Munroe was at his side in a moment. 'Harry? Are you okay? I
  mean, your face. You looked stunned ..."
  Harry got a grip on himself. He didn't know what all this meant, but he  would  soon  damn  well  find  out.  'I. . .  I'm
  okay,' he said. 'It's . , . something you wouldn't understand.' Because I don't  understand  it! 'Look, you get on back to
  London. Sorry I can't be more hospitable, but I've things  to do. Especially now. And don't worry, you've done your
  job. I'll be getting in touch with Darcy Clarke and E-Branch, yes.'
  And after he'd seen Munroe off, he did just that. . .
  The Necroscope could have just telephoned Darcy, but there was a better, almost an easier way. And anyway, face to
  face Darcy wouldn't be able to hide too much. That is, assuming there was anything to hide.
  Not so long ago, using the Mobius route to E-Branch would  have  been  much  easier,  but  Harry  couldn't  do  that
  now. Part of him realized that Darcy knew all about it anyway, but he still didn't like the idea  that  he knew - Darcy or
  anyone else, for that matter! And so he was restricted in his use of the Continuum; he couldn't do it in front of people.
  So there was no way he could simply materialize in Darcy's office.
  But that was all right, for there was another way. Harry doubted  if they would have converted  his  room  just  yet;
  Darcy had told him they'd keep it for him just the way it was, even if he never had cause to use it again. So he couldn't
  see any reason why he shouldn't use it now, one last time.
  He did: used it as one of his Mobius co-ordinates—
  —And a moment later stepped  out through  the door of his old room into the main corridor of E-Branch in  central
  London.
  About  half-way to Darcy's office, situated  at the far end of the corridor,  two  Branch  agents  were  talking  to  each
  other. Harry headed their way, and for a moment they scarcely noticed him. But as he passed  the open  door  of  the
  Duty Officer's room he heard someone say, 'Holy shit!' and guessed he'd been recognized. So, in another five seconds
  maximum Darcy Clarke would know he was here, too. Then, as he closed with the two espers,  they  finally  saw  him,
  snapped erect as soldiers on parade, and slid to one side out of his way. Harry was aware of their surprised glances, at
  him and at each other, as he passed by.
  Darcy's office was full of security gadgets;  the Necroscope knew that if he just barged in, he would probably  set
  some of them off. So he went to knock . . . but before his fist could strike home the door was yanked open from within.
  And Darcy was there - in his shirt-sleeves, open-mouthed -beckoning him to come in. 'Harry! It's . . . really great to
  see you! In fact I was just talking about you—'
  '—With Munroe, on his car-phone?' the Necroscope nodded.  'Or with the Duty Officer?' He tossed  Darcy's  letter
  and photograph down on the Head of E-Branch's desk. And without further ado: 'Would you care to explain this?'
  Darcy moved to close the door. Before he could close it all the way, Harry looked back down the corridor and saw half-a-dozen
  
  faces peering from their respective offices. Darcy saw his raised eyebrow and knowing, even scornful expression, gave a
  shrug and said, 'Er, word travels fast around here.'
  'In some cases as fast as thought,' Harry nodded. 'Especially around here!' He placed extra emphasis on the 'esp' of
  'especially.' 'So how will it be? Can we have some privacy for once? I mean complete privacy?' He sat down in a chair facing Darcy's
  desk. 'You  have  more  than  your  fair  share  of  listening  devices  around  this  place,  Darcy:  gadgets  and  ghosts  and
  what-all. But your people would do well to remember how curiosity killed  the  cat.  Maybe  the  two-legged  variety  could  use  a
  reminder now and then?'
  Darcy sat down in his own chair, flipped a switch on  the  desk  and  said,  'All  stations.  We  have  a  guest  who's  a
  personal friend of mine, and of the Branch. You all know  who  he  is,  and  of  course  he's  to  get  the  same  degree  of
  respect that we give each other. So this is private - and that's a capital "P." '
  As he switched off again, Harry nodded  and said, 'Gadgets and ghosts,  yes. Machines are easy to switch off. But
  minds . . .  are something else, right?' He glanced about the office. 'Well, nothing seems to have changed much around
  here.'
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  'Er . . . how's it going?' Darcy rubbed his hands in a businesslike fashion. He was lost for words if only for a moment. 'So, where
  have you been, Harry? And for that matter, how have you been?'
  'How do I look?' The Necroscope was unsmiling.
  'Fine!' Darcy answered, then  slumped  and  shook  his  head.  'Hey,  we're  friends,  Harry,'  he  said,  his  tone  of  voice
  flattening out a little, losing its bounce. 'I'd like to think so, anyway. And in that respect I'm pretty much like Ben Trask: I don't like to lie.'
  'So don't.'
  'You look about the same as last time,' Darcy told him. 'You've lost weight, gained a few wrinkles, and you seem very tired. But at
  the same time - I don't know - somehow you look more like you, too? But you don't talk like you. I mean, I've given a lot of thought
  to that conversation we had about Alec Kyle - could he have been a secret drinker and so forth? That was pretty strange stuff!
  So, you know, apart from Brenda and the baby . . . what is it that's troubling you, Harry? I mean, I'd really like to help, if I can.'
  And  suddenly  the Necroscope felt  he  could  relax  a  little.  Darcy's  friendship was genuine. Oh, there would always be this
  E-Branch thing, but that aside Darcy was real, and Harry felt able to talk to him. About certain things, anyway. And he did talk to him:
  Told him about Alec Kyle's precognition, how he seemed to have inherited it, and something about his strange new problem
  with drink. He didn't go into details on the latter, but enough  that Darcy got the message. Certainly he got the message on the
  other thing.
  'About Alec drinking; I still think you're wrong,' Darcy said, when Harry was through. 'And even if you're right, it's amazing to
  me that he hid it so well! As for this,' he picked up the picture from his desk. 'You say you've seen it before?'
  The Necroscope nodded. 'Yes. A scene, or sudden vision - in my head - but absolutely real. Actually, it was during
  our conversation about a Russian Fort Knox. Do you remember?'
  'Of course, as a result of which I sent you the picture.'
  'Right, but my mind - or maybe Alec Kyle's mind, the last wrinkle in his grey matter? - had already sent it to me! Only I didn't recognize it, didn't
  know what it meant.'
  Darcy nodded. That's how it was with Alec, too,' he said. 'He rarely understood anything he saw but simply had to run with his visions to see
  how they worked out. He had to wait until he caught up with the future.'
  'Me, too,' Harry said. 'Except this time I've been given more than just a precognitive glimpse, more than a mental clue.
  I have your photograph, too,' he leaned forward and tapped his index finger on the picture. 'And I know that you know quite a bit
  about this . . . what, target? So I won't be going in blind, because now that I'm sure this place
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  is waiting to happen to me somewhere in my future, you'll be giving me all the details.'
  'As much as we have,' Darcy said. 'Certainly. But even so, it's still fait accompli. You are going to do it.'
  'So it would appear,' Harry's face was grim. 'So maybe we can start with you telling me who it is I'll be doing it to . . .'
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  IV
  DARCY'S TARGET. BONNIE JEAN AT HARRY'S.
  'First the place,' Darcy pushed the photograph back across the desk closer to Harry. 'We don't know much about it; its
  
  history is vague at best. But you can probably find out more locally if you're so inclined.' (In fact the 'probably' was redundant,  for
  Darcy knew that the Necroscope could do just that - could actually talk to the original owners  or  builders,  if  he  so
  desired - but he didn't want to broach that subject).
  'Anyway,' he went on, 'it's called Le Manse Madonie, named after the mountainous region in Sicily where it stands.
  It was built about four hundred years ago on the foundations of a castle dating back to crusader times. And like most
  ancient properties, it's been added to and subtracted from for centuries.
  'As  to  what  it  was  originally:  a  watchtower  looking  out  over  the  Tyrrhenian?  Possibly.  The  redoubt  of  some
  princeling? We don't know. And actually it mightn't be so easy to find out after all - not from books, at least - because
  as far as we're able to discover most of its historical records have been destroyed. I mean, utterly.
  'The one sure thing we do know is that it's stayed in the hands of the same family for centuries. Their line goes  back
  a long way, you might say immemorially.  But  records?  -  forget  it!  Where  they  exist  they've  been  altered,  updated,
  re-written from scratch. Not that there's much we can deduce from that; quite a few old families have skeletons  in their
  closets.  These people have cleared them out, that's  all. Or maybe that's  not all. It could be they were simply making
  room for a few new ones . . .'
  These people?' Harry sat wrapped in his own thoughts.  He had absorbed  all that Darcy had told him, which wasn't
  much so far. 'Well, it seems obvious  to me that you've been interested  in  "these  people"  for  quite  some  time.  And
  that's E-Branch I'm talking about, keenly interested! So who are they?'
  'They're called the Francezcis,' Darcy told him. 'That's their family
  name, anyway: the current owners and occupiers of Le Manse  Madonie. But as I've  said,  it's  been  Francezci  family
  property,  oh,  since  the  year  dot.  They're  brothers,  twins,  but  not  identical.  Anthony,  or  Tony,  and  Francesco
  Francezci. That is who they are, but it's what they are that interests us.'
  Harry nodded. 'So what are they?'
  'First the facts,' Darcy answered. 'Let me tell you what we know for sure, and then what we suspect.  And finally we'll
  be down to best  bets. The Francezci brothers are the sole surviving heirs to one of the richest families in the world.
  You can measure their wealth . . . well, in billions! So we believe. Okay, okay!' He held up a hand. 'I said I'd tell  you
  only what we know, and we do know. But it isn't easy to tie these people, or their assets,  down. Put it this way: if you
  could calculate their wealth in terms of the Italian economy - if you could find a way to put back half of what they have taken out -
  then Italy and Sicily wouldn't be in half the shit they're in now.'
  Harry could see where they were going. 'Mafia,' he said, very simply.
  'Shhh!' Darcy put a finger to his lips and pulled a mock-horrified face. 'What, the Francezci brothers? But that's akin to blasphemy,
  Harry! Even suggest such a thing in polite Italian society, you'd be ostracised  in a moment - and later you could end
  up circumcised, too, from the neck up! No one talks about  them in such  terms,  but  we're  pretty  damn  sure  it's  how
  people think of them. Except. . . well it's amazing how things  get warped with the passage  of time. I mean, look at the
  so-called  "legends"  of  Robin  Hood,  Jesse  James,  Ned  Kelly  -  all  the  murderers  and  thieves  who've  become  folk
  heroes.'
  As he paused for breath, Harry said, 'Are you telling me the Francezcis are heroes?'
  Darcy grinned, or grimaced, and said, 'But when you're powerful enough you can be what you want to be. I'll give you an
  example of what I'm talking about. Some forty-odd years ago it was a Francezci -allegedly one "Emilio" Francezci, a shady
  "uncle" to Anthony  and Francesco - who helped to organize the collaboration of a then underground Sicilian Mafia in the
  American invasion of 1943. That was a joint effort that came about  as a direct result of an old debt owed by Emilio to Lucky
  Luciano, who was then rotting in an American prison cell.
  'It was Emilio's "suggestion" that in exchange for Luciano's freedom and later extradition to Italy, Lucky might like to
  contact  several Sicilian "ex"-capo  friends on behalf of the American invasion force, and request  that they  and  their
  "ex"-Mafia soldiers - who were still scattered  throughout  Sicily's villages - tighten the screws on what remained of II
  Duce's armed forces and make them an offer they couldn't refuse: life if they ran away, death if they chose  to remain at
  their posts. Except
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  while a clean sudden  death as the result of an American blitzkrieg couldn't  be  guaranteed,  a  very  ugly  one  on  the
  cutting edge of some mafioso guerrilla's garrotte most certainly could!
  The reason for all those  "ex"s is simple: you've got to remember that at the time, Mussolini  was  hanging  mafiosi
  from whichever handy  lampposts he could find, and so it was a very good  time to refute or  better  still  cancel  your
  membership in that organization! But the Mafia never dies; it might go away for a while, but it  always  comes  back.
  And II Duce, by standing against them, had put himself in their line of fire. They wanted rid of him - and they certainly
  didn't want Hitler!
  'Thus the American invasion of Sicily was a walkover, and the course of the war - and a great many world-shaping
  
  events since - was altered. And so while this Emilio Francezci might be a difficult man to trace, by which I mean that
  we know absolutely nothing about him, still he could become one of those  fake folk heroes I was talking about. But
  then, I'm told that there are people who idolize the memory of Al Capone, too . . .'
  Harry was silent a while, then said: 'But we are talking about  Italy, or more properly Sicily, which is a place apart,
  surely? The way I understand it, graft, political corruption, crime in general, these things are almost a way of life. Just
  because  this one Francezci - this  "Emilio"  -  had  bad  connections,  does  that  mean  they're  all  tarred  with  the  same
  brush? I mean, isn't everyone in that sort of culture tainted or at least touched by it, from the politicians down? . . .  Or
  up, as the case may be? What else have you got, Darcy? Why don't you tell me what brought  about  E-Branch's  interest  in  the
  Francezcis in the first place?'
  'Cut straight to the point, right?' Darcy answered. 'Okay, let's try that. E-Branch's interest in the Francezcis:
  'Harry, I have prognosticators,  people like Alec Kyle, yet unlike him, who are mainly interested in the  future.  The
  future of this country, and its welfare - and, I hasten  to add, of the world as a whole. But charity begins at home. So
  what do I mean, these people are like Alec yet unlike him? Well, you were with us long enough  to understand  that no
  two sets  of ESP skills are exactly alike. The talents of my precogs  don't work like Alec's did, that's  all. But they are skilled at
  making damn good guesses. Except as any precog will tell you, the future is devious as hell and therefore hard to gauge.
  But they do their best.
  The point is, as an island and a race we're moving closer and closer to Europe. Not in the physical sense,  no, but
  ideologically,  politically,  and  financially.  So  it  would  seem,  anyway;  so  my  precogs  -  my  futurologists  -  have
  predicted. Well, if that's how it will be, it's how it will be. But in a future world where we are tied to Europe, we'd like to
  give  ourselves  the  best  possible  advantage.  Just  because  we  happen  to  be  divided  from  Europe  by  the  English
  Channel and the North Sea - a situation which has given us a positive advantage in the past - doesn't
  mean we have to be some kind of poor offshore relative, some sort of bare-arsed cousin!'
  The Necroscope was quick on the uptake. 'Your - futurologists? -foresee financial difficulties?'
  Darcy was impressed. 'Among others,' he answered. 'French governments come and go like day follows night, and
  the French franc fluctuates accordingly. Then there's the deutschmark . . . except there we're more worried about  the
  past than the future! The old deutschmark may look good now, but it has one hell of a bad record, Harry. And as for the lira and the
  drachma? I mean, seriously, the pound sterling should end up tied to currencies such as those?'
  'So, you've gauged something of the future, you're mindful of the lessons  of the past, and you're now considering
  the present, right?' Harry nodded. 'So that you can discover where the rot has set in, and stop  it from spreading over
  here? Which led you to the Francezcis.'
  'Among  others,  right.  But  we've  had  to  tread  oh-so-carefully.  The  Francezcis  seem  immune  from  any  kind  of
  accusation.  I can give you several examples in the last  decade  where  Italian  governments  have  fallen  just  because
  they looked like they were pointing a finger in their direction! E-Branch is E-Branch, yes, but on an international scale
  even we don't have that kind of diplomatic clout. Let them get wind of the fact that we've been checking on them . . . why, even our
  plug could be pulled! And the intelligence of these people is awesome.'
  Darcy had gone too fast. 'Hold it!' Harry held up a hand. 'You could get the plug pulled?  Cease  to  function?  But
  surely, you're first-line national security?'
  Darcy sighed. 'We're E-Branch. There are people who should  know better who still  don't  even  believe  in  us,  and
  others who want to cut our expenditure . . . and we exist on a fucking shoestring  anyway! And it isn't just idle flattery
  when I tell you that you, personally, have saved  our skin time  and  again.  You,  your  successes,  are  what's  kept  us
  afloat.  We  are  ahead  of  The  Opposition,  which  means  we're  successful.  Ergo:  we  are  allowed  to  exist.  But  the
  Francezcis are just too powerful for us. As a covert organization, we simply can't go against them. If we're right about
  them, we lack the clout to do anything  about  it. And if we're wrong and get found out - they'd have us by the balls
  . . . "
  Harry was thoughtful. Two brothers, that powerful? Just the two of them? What's  their power-base - I mean, apart
  from money.'
  'Well, of course, that's the most powerful force on Earth!' Darcy exclaimed. 'But okay, apart from money:
  'Harry,  they're  like  an  octopus,  with  tentacles  all  over  the  place,  in  every  kind  of  sinkhole.  I  mentioned  their
  intelligence. Well, in the main that's their power-base, too. Except the rest of this is really deep and you might find it
  difficult to believe, even hearing it from me, even here at E-Branch HQ.'
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  Try me, anyway,' the Necroscope answered. 'See, I have a very open mind.' He actually smiled, and for a moment looked even
  more like the old Harry Darcy had known. And Darcy could see the humour of it: someone trying to tell Harry Keogh
  that something might be too hard to believe! And that someone just happening to be himself, Darcy Clarke, who could
  walk through  a minefield blindfold, in snowshoes,  and come  through  without  a  scratch.  So  that  Darcy  smiled,  too,
  then chuckled, and the tension was that much more diminished.
  But in the next moment it was back to  business,  as  Darcy  said:  'Okay,  then  listen.  These  people,  the  Francezcis,
  aren't just a couple of big-time hoods. They've got the weight of the Mafia behind them - the total weight! Of course
  they have, for they're advisers to the Mafia, like Dons of dons,  or Godfathers of godfathers! But that's  not nearly the
  end of it. For through the Mafia they're also advisers to the KGB and, on occasion . . .  to the CIA!'
  
  The Necroscope looked blank, as if he hadn't heard. But as it sank in, he cocked his head  on  one  side  and  said,
  'They're what?'
  Darcy nodded. 'You can't see it. Well, that's  understandable.  But remember the Lucky Luciano story, and then ask
  yourself why the Mob is still alive and well and living in a great many places even today, when every "straight"  body
  in this big wide world would love to put them out of business for good.'
  'But the CIA?' Harry still needed convincing. 'I mean, the first is acceptable, even plausible; naturally Mother Russia
  would love to undermine western capitalism. And what better way than by the corruption at its root? But  the  CIA?
  What kind of "advice" would the Central Intelligence Agency take - what kind would they even want  -from people in
  bed with the Mob?'
  'Go back a step,' Darcy told him. 'First  the  KGB.  I  never  said  they  were  giving  orders  to  the  Francezcis.  I  wasn't
  hinting that they were sabotaging or manipulating financial institutions, or anything of that order - though  they could
  well  be,  or  at  least  setting  up  the  machinery  for  it.  I  said  the  Francezcis  were  "advisers."  The  key  word  is
  "intelligence!" And as I told you, the Francezci intelligence machine is awesome! Which is why the CIA uses  them;
  their information is that good. But as to the kind  of advice they offer . . .' Darcy shrugged.  The Branch isn't privy to
  that information. But it won't be small potatoes,  you can bet on it. As to how it works: they'll tell the KGB stuff that
  doesn't conflict with CIA interests. Likewise, they'll offer information to the CIA if it doesn't  drop the Russians  in it.
  And  the  Mob  benefits  both  ways  by  knowing  what's  going  to  go  down  world-wide.  And  everyone  involved  is
  grateful to the Francezcis. That's power, Harry.'
  Harry was silent a while, then said: 'So, they're "advisers" of a sort to the Mob, the KGB, even the CIA . . .'
  '. . . And through them, advisers to their governments - just as
  Emilio Francezci was, when he advised that collaboration between the American invasion force and Sicily's Mob-in-Waiting.'
  'Information of that order,' Harry mused.
  'Yes . . .'
  'Intelligence is the key word,' the Necroscope continued to mull it over. 'Okay, so what is their intelligence machine? How do they organize it? What's the
  source of their information? Maybe they're simply the Mob's own CIA: the nerve-centre in a spiderweb of international crime and corruption?'
  Darcy shrugged again. 'Possibly. But unlikely. For let's face it, the Families aren't that. . . well, familiar with each other. There are Mob wars going on even
  now in the USA; probably in Italy, too. They're not united. It isn't in their genes. But here's something to think about:
  'Our precogs tell us that Communism is on the wane, certainly in Russia. So maybe the Francezcis are preparing the way for the Mob, or a faction of the Mob,
  in the USSR? That's a lot of turf, Harry! The point is, whatever they're doing, you can guarantee they're not up to any good.'
  'And you - or the Branch - want me to throw some spanners in their works?'
  Darcy held up his hands in protest. 'Hey, I told you we can't be involved! You asked me if there was someone you could hit for funds. Which suggested to me
  that maybe there was a way we could both benefit from . . . well, from what you do best. But if there's any fall-out from anything you do, the Branch can't be
  implicated. We aren't part of this scene.'
  'What if I don't need the money that badly?'
  Then let it go.'
  The fact is I don't need the money that badly, or haven't so far.'
  'You asked me to do something for you,' Darcy said. 'What can I tell you? I've done it. Now all I'm saying is this: that place in the photograph, Le Manse
  Madonie, houses money, treasures, gold, beyond your wildest dreams. Because we're sure that quite apart from what these characters have stashed away in the
  world's banks, they're also magpies. They - their family - have been accumulating goodies for a couple of hundred years! A lot of the wealth of Europe that
  vanished into Nazi coffers during World War Two still hasn't been accounted for. Hell, it never will be while it's tied up in that place!'
  'Oh?' The Necroscope raised a querying eyebrow. 'So even now I don't know it all?'
  'I would have told you,' Darcy said at once. That's the whole idea of talking like this, surely? But so far we've just been kicking it around, right?'
  'What about plans of the place?'
  'I thought you weren't interested?'
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  Harry grinned, however tightly. 'But we're just kicking it around, right?'
  'No plans. And their security is second to none. The space centre at Baikonur in Kazakhstan would be easier! That's probably an exaggeration,
  but I'm sure you take my point.'
  The Chateau Bronnitsy was secure, too,' Harry answered.
  Darcy nodded but made no reply. He didn't want to mention Harry's "talent" for getting into and out of places . . .  or the damage
  the Necroscope had done to some of the places he'd been into. The Chateau Bronnitsy - once the headquarters of Soviet ESPionage - was only
  one of them. And Bronnitsy was no more.
  'But that place was the  very  seat  of  evil,'  Harry  went  on,  'while  I'm  not  yet  convinced  that  these  Francezcis  are
  anything but big-time crooks.'
  'I'm not asking you to destroy anything,' the Head of E-Branch shook his head. 'In fact, I'm not asking you to do anything. If you do, it's your
  business and I don't even want to know. I'm just pointing out the bull's eye in case you should ever want to do a little target practice, that's all.'
  'And if during my "investigations" I should discover the Francezci's oracle, the source of their intelligence . . .?'
  'We'd be grateful, of course. Because if we could tap into that source ...  it goes  without saying that we'd put it to
  better use than they do.'
  
  'And maybe queer their pitch at the same time?' Harry was on top of it. 'But you're not in any kind of hurry?'
  'No. Honestly, Harry, this was for you. If you use it, then you use it. And if you don't. . . well, it's your choice. But as you say, if it's also of benefit
  to us so much the better.'
  The Necroscope gave it another moment's thought,  said, 'Do we know what these brothers look like? Or their people? You've
  told me their security at Le Manse Madonie is good. So what do they have up there?'
  "Their own private "staff," ' Darcy answered. 'Not massive by Mob standards - but, as I've said, the Francezcis aren't Mob. They're bigger than
  that. They just pull strings; others do the twitching. And an army wouldn't be necessary anyway, not in a place as inaccessible as
  the Madonie. They have guards, their "servants," a four-seater helicopter, and various types of surface transport. Locally, they like to travel in a
  stretch limo: which is about as close as they come to emulating their nearest and dearest!'
  'Yes,' Harry nodded. The Mafia. And Sicily is still Mafia H.Q.?'
  'But definitely!' Darcy said. 'If the Francezcis ever required it, they could call up a lot of heavy-duty help. But not in short  order. It
  takes time to get from Palermo into the Madonie - for some people, anyway.' With his last comment he averted his face, dug in a desk drawer,
  and
  came out with a handful of photographs which he tossed onto the desk top. 'Pictures of our friends,' he quickly returned to the original subject. 'Not very good
  ones, I'm afraid. But the Francezcis appear to be the world's least photographed - and least photogenic - people!'
  'Can I take these with me when I leave?'
  'Sorry,' Darcy shook his head. 'Memorize by all means, but that stuff stays right here. I'll say it again: officially, we aren't even interested in these people. We
  can't be identified as a source of information in this respect.'
  Harry frowned. 'You make it sound like the Francezcis have influence over here, too.'
  Darcy said nothing.
  'What, with the British Government? Are they "advising" our intelligence agencies, too? Another reason you're interested in them?'
  'We don't know what the Francezcis are or aren't into!' The other threw his hands wide. 'But with their intelligence, there has to be a real chance that they're
  players on our side of the pond, too. Not big as yet, but—'
  '—Up and coming,' the Necroscope finished it for him. And: 'I have to admit, you've got me interested. I'm not keen on the idea of my country's strings being
  pulled by some kind of super-criminal puppet-master, not now or in the future.'
  He looked at the photographs.
  Three of the five pictures were of the same two men, taken from the same angle, same location. They'd been snapped in grey evening light leaving a typically
  Italian or Sicilian building, descending a wide flight of steps. Other people were following on behind them but out of focus. In the first picture, the two were
  glancing directly at the camera, their eyes unseen behind the dark lenses of sunglasses, their handsome faces twisted by shock or surprise.
  In the second picture they loomed much closer, one of them pointing at the camera, his slash of a mouth barking some sort of question or order. In the third
  picture the pair were almost totally obscured by the five fingers of a gloved hand, reaching to cover the lense of the camera.
  In all of the photographs their features - while appearing handsome in an almost stereotyped Mediterranean fashion - were very indistinct, blurred; possibly by
  motion, or by the nerves of the cameraman. Dark hair brushed back, large ears lying flat to their heads, long, slender faces. Also, they appeared taller than the
  average Italian. Harry knew he would retain these lasting impressions of the Francezcis . . . and one other: their lack of colour. For Italians, or Sicilians, they didn't
  seem to have too much colour . . .
  'A couple of cold-looking customers, right?' said Darcy, his voice reaching Harry as if from a million miles away.
  The Necroscope looked up. 'Hmm?' he said.
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  'Crawly types.' Darcy pulled a face. "The result of misspent youths. Pale as a pair of long-time hustlers; spawn of the back alleys and the billiard halls - or in
  their case, of the dimly-lit, echoing rooms of Le Manse Madonie.'
  'Being a bit theatrical, aren't you?' Harry frowned, and his thoughtful or faraway expression disappeared. 'And anyway, I thought you didn't know anything
  about Le Manse Madonie?'
  'No, but I know something about them. They have a congenital disorder, a kind of photophobia: allergy to strong light. Which means they keep pretty much to
  home. It's one of the reasons why we don't have better pictures. No one has better pictures. Another good reason is that they don't like people taking pictures! The
  fellow who took these ...  he was paparazzi, at the time of that nasty Aldo Moro business. It seems amazing to me that he ever got these pictures out of Sicily.
  Anyway, that's not all he got.' 'Oh?'
  Darcy shrugged, but in no way negligently. 'He was found hanging from a bridge in Naples a month later. Suicide - apparently.'
  Harry looked at the other photographs. One of a squat man in a flying suit, and the other of a cadaverous type in a valet's uniform. 'And these people?'
  The little stubby one is their pilot,' Darcy said. 'His name is Luigi Manoza. Until a couple of years ago he was working for one of the New York families. A
  local war took out his employer, and there were threats on Luigi's life, too. He fled to relatives in Sicily, ended up working for the Francezcis.
  The other one is their chauffeur, Mario. He doesn't have a second name - not that he's telling anyway. But he's a dead ringer for a certain "Mario" who was a
  highly-paid hit man for the Scarlattis in Rome in the late Sixties. He was "the best" at his infamous job; just the right sort of chap to be driving for the
  Francezcis!'
  'Nice,' said Harry. 'But something seems wrong. I mean, for people who want to appear divorced from the Mob, these Francezcis seem to employ an awful lot
  of ex-soldiers.'
  Darcy shrugged. 'In Manoza's case, he was on the periphery. So he's a pilot, but he could just as easily be a gardener. The Mafia employs ordinary people, too,
  you know. As for Mario: he has no criminal record, was never brought to trial. It's hardly surprising: "the best" never are.'
  The Necroscope dropped the photographs back on the desk and stood up. He held out his hand and Darcy shook it. But as Harry headed for the door:
  'Harry,' Darcy said. 'I can still find you some clean money if you want it.' Harry paused. 'I'D make out,' he said. 'I'm not short, not yet anyway.
  It depends how long it takes to find Brenda and the baby - if I find them. You're sure there's nothing your end?'
  
  Darcy shook his head. 'But we're keeping our eyes and our ears wide open.'
  He watched Harry open the door and step out into the corridor. He wanted to call him back, but didn't. He wanted to ask after his health again: were there any
  other problems - inside his head, maybe? But he didn't. It was always the Branch first. And if the Necroscope had looked back, seen Darcy's face right then, he
  would have known something was wrong. And maybe Darcy wanted him to. But Harry didn't look back.
  Instead, over his shoulder, he said, Thanks, Darcy. It's as much as I can ask.'
  And then he closed the door behind him . . .
  That night, Harry called Bonnie Jean. Why, he could never have said. Maybe it was the three-quarters full moon hanging in the sky over the budding trees beyond
  his garden wall. (Though why that should be a motive was just as big a mystery.) Or maybe it was simply that he'd run out of B.J. 's wine, which was probably
  why he'd left Seattle and headed for home in the first place.
  But these were arguments the Necroscope had had before, if only with himself. And Bonnie Jean . . . was just another of the mysteries of his life. Or was she
  more than that? An innocent? Harry was sure she was. But how innocent can someone who goes out intent on murder be? Except Harry wasn't allowed to think
  that way, and so he settled for innocent. Also, she was a damn good-looking woman and someone to talk to. Company, yes. Well, if she wanted to be.
  And it looked like it could be a long night, spent tossing and turning. Especially if Harry didn't have anything to drink. And damn it, he intended not to have
  anything to drink! So why call Bonnie Jean?
  But he called her anyway.
  First he got one  of  her  girls,  then  Bonnie  Jean.  She  was  in  the  bar,  said  she'd  take  it  upstairs.  (For  privacy,  he
  imagined. She wanted privacy, to talk to him.) And she must really have flown up those stairs, for after a few seconds:
  'Harry? Is it really mah wee man himself?' Her voice - or words -were like warm fingers driven home through his butter brain,
  pressing  buttons,  switching  channels,  conjuring  a  different  him.  Then  B.J.  dropped  the  accent  but  retained  her  husky
  breathlessness: 'Funny, but I've really missed you, Harry ..."
  And whatever misgivings he'd had - if he had had any at all - were at once forgotten. 'Well, I'm back,' he found his voice. 'For the time being,
  anyway. And you told me to stay in touch . . .' It seemed a weak, ineffectual way to broach what was on his mind. But
  the words just
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  slipped off his tongue as if they were someone else's.
  'And if anything, your call is early,' B.J. said, without really thinking what she was saying. But it was a fact that the full moon
  was still a week away. Immediately realizing her mistake (why  did  this  bloody  man  have  this  effect  on  her?),  she  went  to  add
  something, anything, but Harry beat her to it:
  'I know what you mean,' he said, without really knowing. 'I seem a bit eager, right? Well, maybe it's the moon.'
  That shocked her rigid, so that she found difficulty in answering: The moon?'
  'Over my garden wall,' he explained. 'I seem to have this tune in my head: "Give me the moonlight, give me the girl,
  and leave the rest to me." Well, I have the moonlight, but. . .'
  She sighed her relief, inaudible to Harry, and said, 'But no girl, eh?' And before he could answer: 'Where are you?'
  'Pretty close. I'm home. Five or six miles.'
  'Did you find them? Your wife and child?'
  'No,' the Necroscope answered, his voice showing no emotion one way or the other. B.J. wouldn't be able to tell if
  he was glad or sad. And the fact was that right now, Harry didn't know either.
  'It's a quiet night,' B.J. said. 'We'll be closing around twelve ..."
  It wasn't much, Harry thought, but she seemed to be saying so much more. And: That's more than three hours,' he
  answered.
  Too long?'
  'Yes . . .  no . . .  I don't have much to do. I mean I'm alone and . . . lonely, I suppose.'
  'Do you want to come here?'
  'I can if you—'
  '—No, don't. Look, why don't you tell me where you are, and I'll come to you? I'll take a taxi. The girls can take care
  of things here for one night.'
  'You'll come now?'
  He sensed her shrug. 'I could use a break. Have you eaten?'
  'Not in a while.' (It was true, he was starving!)
  'Do you have any food in?'
  'No food,' he shook his head, despite that she couldn't see him. 'No drink either . . .'
  She answered pause for pause and finally said, Tm sure we can fix that. I mean, I'll pick something up on the way.
  So . . .  what's the address? Oh, and Harry, give me your 'phone number, too, in case I'm delayed. The number I have
  doesn't work.'
  And he told her both his address and telephone number. Why not? It seemed the most natural thing in the world
  to do . . .
  Harry's address was scarcely the easiest place in the world to find. It
  was one of four Victorian houses  standing  in an uneven  cluster on a riverbank a mile or two out of Bonnyrig, with undulating
  
  patchwork-quilt fields on three sides, dotted with dark copses here and there, and, during daylight, the rare hazy view of
  a distant steeple or square church tower.
  Just why any specific area falls derelict is hard to say, but this district definitely had. Three of the once-proud, even
  grand old houses were terraced and stood in high-walled gardens extending almost to the river. The two outer houses
  had  been  empty  for  years  and  were  beyond  redemption;  their  windows  were  gaping  holes  and  their  roofs  were
  buckling inwards. They had been up for sale for a long time; every so often someone would come to look at them, and
  go away shaking his head. They were not 'desirable' residences. The central house  was Harry's place. It was lonely,
  but he could talk to his Ma in private here and never fear that anyone  would see him sitting on the riverbank mouthing
  nonsense to himself.
  Glimpsed through  the trees lining the riverbank, Bonnie Jean's first view of the house  was from a road on  the  far
  side of the river. She had asked the driver of her taxi to halt, and sat there a while just looking across  the river. It was
  obvious which house was occupied: the ground floor lights were on; they flooded out and lit the sprawling garden,
  lending the place an eerie illumination. The house  was alive, barely. But by comparison the others  were stone  dead.
  Yet oddly enough, B.J. didn't consider the place as a whole at all out of keeping with Harry Keogh's character. Indeed,
  she thought it suited him.
  The reason she had caused the driver to stop was simple: she'd wanted to observe  the house  from a safe distance.
  But it was what it was, an old house  on its last legs: hardly a 'safe' house  as she would imagine such  a place to be.
  And in any case, since Harry's people, his ex-employers, already knew about  her - or something about  her - it made
  little  difference.  But  he  had  told  her  they  were  finished  with  him  and  that  they'd  have  no  further  interest  in  her.
  Following which she'd made doubly sure by  giving  him  certain  post-hypnotic  commands.  But  he  was  no  ordinary
  man, this mysterious Harry Keogh, and it was something she'd have to check up on anyway.
  After a while she'd told the driver to carry on, and a  minute  later  the  taxi  had  crossed  the  river  by  an  old  stone
  bridge onto a rutted service road. The row of houses lay at the end of the road, and B.J. dismounted and paid her fare
  outside Harry's address: Number 3, The Riverside, the one with the lights.
  As  the taxi pulled away, B.J. walked the  moonlit  ribbon  of  paving  stones  to  Harry's  door,  which  opened  as  she
  reached it. And Harry was there.
  Taking  the  brown-paper,  Chinese-motif  takeaway  bags  out  of  her  hands  as  he  ushered  her  inside,  he  looked
  harassed and was instantly
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  apologetic about the state of the place. He had obviously been busy; his brow was damp with perspiration.
  'But. . . you seem in a bit of a state!' she said, looking all around his spacious if sparsely furnished study, the only room that he'd spent any
  time on, and that nearly a month ago. 'What on earth have you been doing, Harry?'
  He grimaced. 'Er, tidying up?'
  'Really?' She couldn't help but smile. Then I'd hate to have seen it when it looked rough!' He nodded glumly. 'A mess, right?' She
  shook her head in bewilderment. 'And you live here?' 'Is it that bad?' He looked around, licked his lips nervously, nodded again. 'Yes, it is that bad.
  Well, actually, the house isn't too bad at all. It's been a decent old place in its time and was built to last. Which is as well, because it's seen
  some neglect. But the site . . .  is a mess, yes. The main thing is, this place is mine, and I can do it up. I've only been here a while,
  after all. And I've been busy. But the place has had a survey and doesn't seem to have any problems. I mean,
  structurally,' Harry opened his arms expansively, setting the Chinese takeaway bags swinging, 'it's just fine! I'll replace the carpets .
  . . well, eventually. And a few floorboards kind of creak. Er, the decor could be improved, I suppose. And I really don't know where all the
  dust comes from.' He sighed, and his poorly-feigned optimistic air disappeared in a moment. 'Then there's the paintwork, and a handful
  of roof tiles, and . . .' Shrugging, he fell silent. 'But why this place?' There had to be a reason. 'It was my Ma's,' Harry said. 'Then my
  stepfather's. They . . .  are dead now. It's just a place to be, I suppose, now that I'm on my own.'
  Listening to him, B.J. had felt his loneliness. She'd been lonely, too -albeit in a different way - for a very long time now. 'Outside,
  from across the river, I thought it looked like you. The house, I mean. From a distance, it's still -1 don't know - rich?' 'I'm not rich,' Harry shook his
  head.
  'I mean its character,' she said. 'In the night, it looks like it has style.' 'Do I have style?'
  B.J. nodded and cocked her head on one side. 'Well, you've certainly got something, Harry Keogh. Else I wouldn't be here.' Which was the
  truth, however she meant it. And, before he could answer: 'Where's the kitchen?' she asked, as she took the takeaway bags back
  from him. 'Or don't I want to know?' But thank God, the kitchen had been modernized . . .
  They ate. Discovering that he really was hungry, Harry set to with a will. B.J. watched him mainly, and toyed with the smaller
  portions of Chinese food that she had served herself. She had also been watching
  him as she'd unpacked and reheated the food in his microwave: his keen interest in what there was to drink, and his obviously disappointed frown on sighting a
  bottle of Liebfraumilch.
  He didn't want any (for which she was glad), settling for a can of Coke instead. But as she poured herself a glass, she said, 'The red wine is gone. What was left,
  anyway ..."  And the pause was pregnant as she stared at him.
  Harry was ready for it, but still he glanced at her before looking away. That was bad of me,' he said. 'Would you believe me if I said I came to see you? I mean,
  you'd asked me to stay in touch, and here I was about to go away. And I couldn't contact you.' 'But why break in?'
  'Break in? As in burglary?' He shook his head. 'I didn't have to break anything. I told you: this is what I do best. It was my job, remember? And your place is a
  
  walk-in, believe me! From the back, anyway.'
  'Oh?' She'd thought she was so secure, but the fact was that she had been advised to employ more security at the rear of the premises. 'It was that easy?'
  Til show you some time,' he said, hoping he would never have to. And he carried on eating.
  'And you got past one of my girls,' B.J. wasn't finished. 'I move very quickly, and very quietly,' Harry said, knowing that she couldn't argue with that.
  'But it was very wrong of you, anyway! What would I have thought or done, if I had been in and you had suddenly entered my bedroom? And as for stealing a
  bottle of my wine . . .!'
  Harry grinned in what he hoped was a disarming manner. 'I left a calling card, that's all. You must have seen that ad on TV. You know the one: "and all because—" '
  ' "—Harry Keogh loves red wine?" '
  'Something like that, yes. But you know that stuff really did have an adverse effect on me? And didn't I read something recently - about a mass-poisoning or
  some such - where certain European vintners were accused of topping up their wines with antifreeze? And now you tell me it's gone? What, did you actually sell
  that stuff?'
  What? Bonnie Jean could hardly believe it! Now he seemed to be accusing her of something! Also, this was beginning to sound a lot like one of Radu's
  word-games . . . and if so, then Harry Keogh was good at them! But she kept her temper, answering: 'You know, you could be right? I tried it myself and the next
  morning felt like you looked that time. But no, I didn't sell it. I gave it to my customers to try - and they didn't like it either.' 'And so it's gone?' 'Finished, yes.'
  Against his will, Harry felt himself gritting his teeth. He didn't quite
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  know whether to be glad or mad. He should have taken all the bottles when he had the chance. But no, of course he
  shouldn't! It had to be for the best that the vile stuff was finished. And with it the 'after-image,' or whatever, of Kyle's
  alcoholism, obviously. For Harry was damned if he could fancy B.J. 's  Liebfraumilch!  Exactly  how  it  all  tied  up  he
  couldn't say, but now, at last, it was over. It had to be over, because there was no more of B.J. 's wine.
  And  as  if  someone  had  pulled  a  plug  in  his  brain,  most  of  Harry's  frustrations,  anxieties  and  self-doubts  went
  flooding away down the drain of his mind, leaving him relieved and cool where a moment ago he'd been burning up.
  For perhaps, after all, he was that one smoker in ten million who could only smoke one brand . . . and at last they'd
  stopped making it! Yet even now, in the depths of his subconscious mind, a small voice was asking him: 'Oh, really?
  But what about Greece? I'll bet you can get it in Greece . . .'
  And there it was: the question right there on the tip of his tongue, making ready to blurt itself out: That friend of yours, the one
  who brought it back for you? You wouldn't happen to know where he got it, would you? Except he mustn't ask it! Never! Not if he
  would be his own man again. She came to his rescue, saying: 'All I knew was that someone had been into my place. I
  didn't think of you at first, but wondered if maybe it had been this organization you worked for. Maybe they were checking me out
  or something.'
  For a moment that caught him off guard; he had quite forgotten the story  he'd told her about  the Branch wanting
  him to clear up a point or two. But now she'd brought it all back to mind, and since in fact E-Branch knew nothing at
  all about her: 'No, B.J., no one's out to get you,' he said. 'Like I told you, the people I worked for aren't police, and in
  fact they're not even remotely interested in you. Not any longer. Nor in me for that matter. And believe me, I really am
  sorry I caused you so much concern ..."
  They finished the rest of the meal in an awkward silence, just mulling things over. But when Harry finally sat back,
  he sighed and said, 'You want to know something? I think this is the first time in - God, I don't know how long! - that
  I've felt relaxed. Your choice of food was just  great.  And  you  . . .  are  just  great,  too.  Wrong-headed,  maybe,  but
  great. And anyway, who am I to talk?'
  'Who  indeed?'  she  said,  something  like  his  Ma  might,  but  with  an  entirely  different  feel  to  it.  'Was  that  a
  compliment?'
  Harry laughed and rubbed his chin. 'I'm not sure,' he answered, 'but it felt like a whole series of them!'
  'Your best line? Your idea of chatting me up? Seduction, even? To tell me that I'm great despite that I'm wrong-headed? Well, I
  have to say I've heard better!' The way she said 'Well,' it really did sound like his Ma.
  The idea of red wine was now rapidly receding in the Necroscope's mind. B.J. had spoken several key words - words that had nothing to do with previous
  post-hypnotic commands - which Harry had picked up on. And now he realized what else he'd been missing in the last eighteen months, other than his own body.
  Taking up the used plates and cutlery, and fumbling it a little, he said, 'Do you feel cold? Is it cold in here?' There had been a fire laid in his open fireplace ever
  since he moved in, but the Necroscope hadn't felt the need to light it. Normally he didn't like it too warm, and perhaps surprisingly the house's oil-fired
  central-heating system was working very well.
  She had seen his eyes rove over the hearth and had perhaps read something of what was on his mind. 'A little chilly, yes.'
  'Then toss a match on the fire while I wash up.'
  'All right,' she said. 'And ...  I'd like to wash up, too.'
  'Ummm?'
  The bathroom, is—?'
  'Off the landing, upstairs,' he answered. "The shower is ...  very good."
  'But I bet your bedroom's a mess, right?' The direct way was usually the best and easiest. Even so, B.J. was surprised to find herself breathing a shade too fast.
  'Actually, no,' Harry answered, his voice a little husky. 'No, it's . . . pretty tidy. I, er, tidied it?' He paused in the doorway and looked back to where she was
  standing by the fireplace. Their eyes locked, and for a moment it was like it had been in her bar-room. There was this magnetism, which had nothing to do with the
  art of beguilement...  or on the other hand, it was that entirely natural, mutual beguilement, the electric moment, when a man and woman know that it's going to
  
  happen.
  'But now that the fire's lit,' she tore her eyes from his, struck a match and tossed it onto a base of crumpled newspaper and kindling, 'I think I would be just as
  comfortable . . . down here?'
  And beginning to burn as quickly as the fire, and just as hot, Harry husked, Then after you've showered, bring down the quilt and soft top blanket from my bed.'
  Then he was off to the kitchen, and B.J. licked her lips. The dog-Lord was right: there were other ways, better ways, to enthrall a man. With the lights off and the
  curtains drawn, in the red glow of the fire, it would be just like a warm, secret cave in here.
  Yes, it would be just like a lair . . .
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  V
  ONE OF THE OTHER WAYS.
  TRUTHS, HALF-TRUTHS, AND DAMNED
  LIES
  It was two a.m. before Harry fell asleep in her arms, but the night time was B.J.'s time and she didn't feel the need. She
  needed, oh yes, but not sleep. And as the time crept inexorably closer to the full of the moon, that need was ever more
  insistent. But she had long since learned to deny herself, so that Harry was never in any real danger. Especially Harry,
  who impressed her more and more as the Mysterious One, Radu's 'Man With Two Faces.'
  Well, his ways weren't quite so mysterious now. One facet at least had revealed itself to her. And in his way, he had
  initiated it. Shy to begin with (scarcely  a  Don  Juan!),  his  prowess  had  improved  with  experimentation.  And,  unlike
  most  men  the  first  time  they  are  with  a  woman,  Harry  had  felt  driven  to  satisfy  her;  he'd  quickly  discovered  her
  preference.
  A moon child, with that of the wolf - a great deal  of  the  wolf  -  in  her,  B.J.  had  'submitted.'  And  with  her  breasts
  flattened to the soft blanket, and  her  face  turned  to  the  red  glow  of  the  fire,  she'd  felt  the  delicious  thrusting,  the
  hammering home of Harry's turgid flesh in the heart of her womanhood. Oh, he had gone without for . . .  a long  time,
  that  much was obvious.  But so had she, and could take all that  he  could  give.  Yet  despite  the  fact  that  she  sucked  on  him
  desperately with her sex, still he had held back until he first felt her shuddering,  and heard her moaning, before firing
  into her his long, hot bursts. And Bonnie Jean Mirlu had never felt so well satisfied. Not in that respect, anyway.
  For him, their sex was a jammed floodgate finally opened. Pouring himself into her, the rest of his pain - his grief? -
  and all of his anxieties and frustrations were temporarily suspended.  Time itself seemed suspended,  in the oblivion of
  those briefly blazing seconds as B.J.'s sugar, the searing and singing of her flesh, saturated  his psyche  and melted in
  his mind. And the second time he came, such was B.J.'s pleasure that as they disengaged  she turned him on his back
  and kept
  his shaft moist and throbbing in the soft sleeve of her mouth . . . until he was ready again.
  But throughout she had been aware of the danger, and mindful of Radu's warning: 'Be sure - be absolutely sure -
  that if he gets into you, nothing of you, of us, gets into him!'
  Of course not, for he wanted Harry for himself, to use . . . however he would use him. He wanted him pure, human. At first,
  anyway. As for Radu's purpose with Harry:
  B.J. knew of it (the dog-Lord had explained something of it, at least) but for the moment did not want to think about
  it. For the moment she wanted only to lie here, warm and drowsy, with Harry's arm draped over her and his sleeping,
  no longer intense but oddly innocent face resting against the resilience of her breasts, and her thigh between his legs
  where his rod, all flaccid now, twitched occasionally, perhaps  from the  'memory'  of  its  mounting.  For  while  he  had
  pleasured her with his body, it had not stopped  there: he now pleasured her with his presence. Yes,  she  .  .  .  liked
  being there with him! And it was also a curiously pleasant thought that he'd shot  his seed into her - despite that she
  had been obliged to kill it.
  Contraception?  Pills  and  plastic  and  senses-stifling  rubber?  Unnecessary.  Her  body,  her  system,  was  its  own
  protection. There was that in her blood - the same alien essence  that defended her against Man's common ailments,
  time's deterioration, and even physical injuries - that would not allow of the invasion of his sperm. B.J. need only call
  on it, think it into being, and her system would, or had, responded to destroy all of Harry's myriad squirming tadpoles
  of generation.
  It had taken but a thought,  a command issued  from B.J. 's mind to her own innermost organs  and tissues,  to  the
  immature leech which she even felt growing within her despite that her Master had denied it:
  Other than you, there is that in me which is alive. I do not wish it. Cleanse me of this infestation. So be it. And it was done.
  Except the other way was much  harder:  to  keep  that  alien  essence  to  herself,  and  not  transmit  it,  or  allow  it  to
  
  transmit itself, into her partner. She wanted him enthralled in the one sense,  but not as a true thrall in the other. B.J.
  herself, she might have wanted him  so,  but  the  dog-Lord  did  not.  No,  for  Radu  wanted  him  for  himself.  Again,  it
  seemed a contradiction:
  That her Master would insist she was not Wamphyri, but at the same time worry about  her passing  on anything  to
  Harry, to his Mysterious One. Herself a thrall (if that was all she was), B.J. 's bite would make him a moon child - aye, to be
  stricken by the moon at its full, and held in awe of unnatural urges - but never a true wolfling. Only by transfusion  of Radu's
  blood, his saliva, his sperm, his essence, could that be accomplished. Or by his leech or its vampire egg. But surely,
  during all the years that B.J. had served him, sufficient of her Master must have
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  found its way into her? No, not so; Radu had it that the giving was a one-way thing; B.J. got nothing back . . .
  Oh, really? Then why was it that she always felt - what, an electric connection? An inner awareness, anyway - as Radu's
  funnel filled and he began to consume her life's blood? Bonnie Jean knew why, or supposed  she knew. But she scarcely
  dared to admit it, not even to herself. For if she was wrong . . .
  How great his wrath, to discover that she had somehow imagined herself magically endowed - indeed Wamphyri -
  without that he had engineered it!
  Well, he need not worry, for it was not her intention to make a vampire, a wolf, or any other creature out of Harry. It
  was her intention to obey her Master and eventually have him up out of his resin grave; for as much as Bonnie Jean
  had been the dog-Lord's champion, she sensed  the day coming when he must be hers. The  Drakuls  and  Ferenczys
  and their thralls were abroad in the world; as yet B.J. was more woman than composite creature; Radu must survive, at
  least until she had learned all she could from him, and with that knowledge became more capable of managing, of engineering . . .
  her own . . . dynasty?
  And  so  it  was  out  in  the  open  at  last,  in  the  open  of  her  consciousness,  her  self-understanding,  at  least.  Not
  treachery, but survival! Her own survival. More proof - and possibly  the best  yet - that she was or would  soon  be
  what she'd suspected for the last forty years at least: Wamphyri! So for now, Radu would continue to be her Master,
  and his word law.
  And until he was up again, and for as long as the Drakuls and Ferenczys were a threat, she would suppress  it as
  best she could; and as he had used her she would now use others, and so prepare her own way in the world.
  As for the dog-Lord's plans for Harry - his so-called Mysterious  One, his 'Man With two Faces,' - B.J. could now
  look at those  in a different light, from  Radu's  point  of  view.  For  what  he  would  do  now,  she  herself  might  yet  be
  obliged to attempt in some far-distant future time . . .
  Radu had not gone down into the resin of his own volition. Not entirely. He had thought  that he sickened; he had
  believed that the Black Death held him in thrall, and knew from experience that he could  not  beat  it.  With  his  own
  eyes  he had seen his pups  develop those  hideous  black pustules,  and die. He had  felt the  disease  inside  him,  and
  knew  the  struggle  his  essence  put  up  against  it,  in  vain.  And  he'd  cursed  his  leech  for  its  weakness,  its  idle
  inefficiency, that it could not combat the creep of this insidious thing.
  But the 1340s was a decade not only of plague but of famine and unrest. Simple movement throughout  Europe had
  been the most difficult thing in its own right. Even a rich Boyar's entourage, fleeing before the all-devouring scourge
  from the east, could scarcely expect to
  find it an easy passage. Radu had got into a fight, suffered a sword thrust in his side. Normally his vampire leech could
  easily handle, quickly heal a simple wound. But his parasite was already battling the plague within Radu's system; a
  fight it couldn't hope to win, not as long as he was up and about, engaging in other activities.
  He had hated it, but there was no other solution. So that finally, in Scotland in 1350, the dog-Lord's long-laid contingency plan
  for continuity must be brought into being. The pack had built him a makeshift lair in unexplored mountain heights, and Radu had gone
  down into the resin.
  A drastic solution, perhaps, but this was what he'd seen in precogni-tive dreams: that he must go down for long and
  long - six hundred years and more - and rise up in a future world, even in another body! Metempsychosis:  the passing
  of his Being and Personality into the body  of another. Moreover, he had long dreamed of this Mysterious  One, who
  would be there at his awakening; and of himself as the avenger out of time, destroyer  of his olden enemies, burning
  bright as a star in the final hour of his triumph!
  With these  things  in mind it had been easier to submit to the sarcophagus  of soft, suffocating resin.  The  wine  of
  desert-bred  wizards had helped; the coma it induced had been like unto  death  itself,  but  in  fact  was  the  dawn  of  a
  radically extended undeath. And immobile in his state of suspended animation in a gluey grave in the Cairngorms lair,
  he had commenced to dream.
  And now that Radu was no longer active, consuming energy and making demands on his leech, his vampire could
  concentrate  on its real battle, directing all of its efforts to combat the virus raging in the dog-Lord's heart.  Just  how
  that battle had gone . . . who could say? Radu slept; and even when his mind was awake, still in a way it was detached
  from his body. He would not know he was a whole man again until the two came together, which would be on the day
  when B.J. melted away the resin and set him free.
  And if he was not the whole man? If his parasite had lost its light and the fever rose up in him again, resurgent  after
  all these years? That was where Harry Keogh came into the picture; it was the role that Radu saw him playing in that
  
  final scene. Metempsychosis, aye.
  Because in the year preceding the dog-Lord's awakening, he would use his superior powers of  beguilement  -  that
  hypnotism which was his art above all others - to transfer his detailed memories into Harry's mind. And if when he arose he
  discovered his body riddled with disease, about  to succumb and suffer the true death, then he would cause  his leech to flee
  his body into Harry's. Indeed, he would scarcely need to 'cause' it, for the natural tenacity of the parasite - its lust for
  life - would see to that. And if by chance the leech itself could not transfuse,  if it should  be obstructed,  then it would
  issue its egg, swiftest and surest of all carriers of vampirism!
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  But in the moment of transfusion, by, whichever method, the dog-Lord would attempt his greatest wonder. Radu was an incredibly powerful mentalist, a
  telepath without peer. And with his own uniformly scarlet gaze, he would burn out Harry's mind and project himself through Harry's own honey-brown eyes into
  his mentality. He would be Harry Keogh.
  Or more properly, Harry would become him. With Radu's egg, or leech, all of his memories and his mind entire ...  he would be Radu. Why, eventually,
  through metamorphism, he would even come to look like him, would wear the dog-Lord's face. The Man With two Faces, aye.
  That was Lord Radu Lykan's plan.
  But on the other hand - if he should rise up again a whole man or creature, free of the plague - then there would be other uses for the Mysterious One. And they
  were far less of a mystery. For one thing, there'd be a hungry warrior to see to ...
  It was 2:30. Harry stirred and mumbled something in his sleep, and it was as good a time as any.
  B.J. shushed him, checked that he was still deeply asleep, reached across him and toppled a smouldering block of firewood, oak, she thought, from the back of
  the deep old-fashioned fireplace into the glowing embers. Then she slid out from under the blanket that she'd drawn over them, crossed the room and turned on a
  reading-lamp at Harry's desk. And aiming it directly into Harry's face, his shut eyes, she at once blocked the beam with her naked body and quickly returned to him.
  Then she lay beside him and propped herself on one elbow, turned and looked at the lamp. And narrowing her eyes to close out the rest of the room, she nodded
  and congratulated herself that the glowing sphere of light looked not unlike a full moon, the principal image, the trigger, that was already implanted in his mind.
  The rest of it was down to power of will, the intensity of her own eyes and voice and mind, to which he'd already succumbed on previous occasions.
  And she breathed, 'Harry, mah wee man. Are ye listening?' It was a deep, purring, penetrating Scottish brogue, which she breathed into his nostrils as well as his
  ears. Her scent, her musk, infiltrated Harry's system, his dreams and subconscious, and for a moment his eyelids fluttered, then were still, as he mumbled:
  'Y-yes.'
  'Good,'  she  purred.  And  dropping  the  accent:  'Harry,  you  will  listen  to  me,  and  you  will  obey  me.  Is  that
  understood?'
  'Y-yes.'
  And as quickly, as easily as that, she had taken command of his mind. It still seemed amazing to B.J. that control was so simple
  over a mind
  she'd suspected of being so complex! And so far she'd used only the human side of her will, while there was that in her which was much stronger and far and away
  superior to anything human. But now, because of the ultimately esoteric nature of what she must tell Harry -as a prelude to what Radu would eventually instil into
  him - B.J. had need of that greater, alien strength of will.
  Again leaving their makeshift bed before the fire, she went to the patio windows and opened the curtains. High over the garden, a three-quarter-full moon poured
  its silvery light on her, which pooled around her and turned her to an alabaster statue. She opened her arms wide, sighed, and reached up, letting the moonlight
  flood her psyche and drawing strength from it. And this time her metamorphosis was that much easier.
  Colours flowed, flesh rippled, moved, rearranged. There sounded a crackle of static electricity as fur bristled, stood erect, and settled down on B.J. 's flanks. And
  drawing the curtains again, and falling to all fours, she went back to Harry.
  And cradling him, and lusting after his flesh (but denying herself, because her lust was no longer sexual), she commanded that he open his eyes and gaze upon
  the glorious moon, and that he see only her eyes, in the moonlight flooding from his reading-lamp. Then, burning the message home with her furnace gaze, she
  told him what he must know if he was to go out into the world as the dog-Lord's spy, to seek out the Drakuls and the Ferenczys: knowledge he would retain in his
  innermost being without even realizing it was there. Likewise any information he might gather: no other would be privy to it - Harry himself would scarcely be
  aware of its existence - until B.J. or Radu Lykan drew it out of him.
  And as her husky, she-wolfs voice coughed, rumbled and occasionally whined through the long night hours, telling its truths, half-truths, and damned lies -
  mainly as she herself had heard the story from the dog-Lord Radu, and employing his mode of expression - so the Necroscope absorbed all that she told him,
  soaking it up as a bone-dry sponge soaks water . . .
  Haaaarry! Harry Keogh, listen to me. Listen, and remember all that I shall tell you. But these are secret things - this is secret knowledge - for
  you and you alone. Retain it, and use it when the time is right. But at other times forget it, lest it harm you irrepairably.
  Harry, there is a world other than this world. A place, a space, other than ours. It has a name, SunsidelStarside, where there are men . . . and
  other than men. There are barrier mountains, which keep the two races apart. Sunside  of the mountains  dwell men; Starside is
  home to the Wamphyri. The Wamphyri were men, but no longer. Now they are greater than men; they are the vampire Lords of a vampire
  world.
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  In the earliest times of the vampire world, Lord Shaitan of the Wamphyri was the greatest of the Starside  Lords.  The others  rose
  
  up against him, and he defeated them. Many of them whom he took prisoner were executed in various ways; they were put into deep
  graves to stiffen to stones in the earth, or were banished into the bitter-cold Icelands. But others were thrown into the Starside Gate,
  which was thought to be the throat of a vampire hell. In fact it was  a true Gate . . .  to  this world,  our  world!  Except having  come
  here, they could not go back, for the Gate had closed behind them.
  Among  them who came through  with their thralls  were several  of the vilest  of men,  creatures  whose  evil was  quite  beyond  the
  imagining  of mundane  minds:  the Drakul  brothers,  Karl and Egon, and Nonari  the Gross  Ferenczy.  And  these  awesome  Lords
  were destined to become the forebears of vampirism in this world, even as they had been among its first progenitors in Starside.
  But there was  one other who was  banished  with them, and He was honourable  even  among  the Wamphyri,  where true honour
  never  existed. His  name  was  Radu Lykan,  a so-called  - 'dog-Lord,'  whose  mistress  was  the moon,  and whose  shape  and affinity
  were more like unto the noble wolf than the ill-omened bat. Oh, Radu was  Wamphyri,  but in his nature  he was  above  them as men
  are above rats.
  And for a thousand years Radu ran with the wolves  and was  one with the wild of this world  . . . a creature of Nature,  aye, and
  different from the vile and terrible Lords who came out of Starside with him. He desired only to go his own way, doing no harm  to
  men but living  alongside  them, unseen  in the woods  and mountain  heights.  His  prey were the wild things,  and his drink  was  the
  clean, clear water of mountain streams.
  But as for the Drakuls and Ferenczys: they were - they are - a monstrous scourge and the source of a legend as wide as a world.
  The legend of the vampire! And Radu, because he is Wamphyri,  has  been tarred  with their brush.  In that ancient world  where he
  came forth out of Starside, down all the years  of his freedom  in the wild, even  unto these modern  times,  he is known  by a terrible
  name  and  an  undeserved  reputation:  werewolf!  And  despite  that  he  was  never  guilty  of  Drakul  and  Ferenczy  excesses  and
  atrocities, he bears the selfsame taint and his memory is likewise cursed.
  His memory, aye . . .
  Because he is no more, nothing in this world but an ancient creature in a cavern lair. Nothing but a bad dream,  which was  never
  given the opportunity to clear its name. Because he was driven into hiding, made to seek refuge and relinquish his life in the wild as
  a veritable Force of Nature, by his olden Starside enemies. Six hundred years ago, in a time of war  and famine and pestilence, they
  sought him out, to pursue him and put him down. But he evaded them and theirs by hiding himself away in a mountainous  redoubt.
  Except it is a redoubt in name only. Untenanted,
  unprotected, it is more a lair, a sanctuary - a place of refuge - than a fortress.
  But even there the dog-Lord Radu is not safe. Even there, even  now, he is 'dogged'  by the sons  of the sons  of his olden Starside
  enemies. For while the descendants  - the spawn  - of vile Drakuls  and Ferenczys  are  ignorant  of  Radu  s  whereabouts,  still  they
  know that he is not dead but undead, dreaming in a place of his own, and they cannot bear that he yet abides.
  For when Lord Lykan's sleep of centuries is done, he will be up again and return to his woods and mountains. Except this time he
  will not suffer such as his enemies to live. This time he will seek them out, wherever they are disguised  as men,  and deal with them
  as they would deal with him.
  But. . . it will not be easy. For even  in those bygone days  six hundred  years  ago,  already  the  Wamphyri  were  adept  at  hiding
  themselves away among men! And the Ferenczys especially so. Let me tell you what I know of their history,  Harry,  as it was  told to
  me by my Master, the dog-Lord Radu Lykan. But remember: as a family-tree of infamy, this history  of the Wamphyri  is incomplete;
  it ends where Radu retired to his mountain hideaway. And in all the time gone by since then . . . ah, but who can say what is become
  of such creatures now, their place in the world today? Well, I can say. Something of them at least.
  First the Drakuls:
  As told, there were two of them came through  the Gate with Radu: Karl and Egon. Black Karl,  as he was  known  - not for  the
  colour of his skin  but that of  his  heart  -  met  up  with  Radu  in  Ainjalut  in  1260.  Karl  was  with  the  Mongols  (as  was  a  certain
  Ferenczy, who ran  off when he saw  how all was  lost; I will tell you  about  him  later)  and  Radu  with  the  Mamelukes,  who  were
  triumphant.  Wherefore  we  needn't  any  longer  concern  ourselves  with  Karl!  Thereafter,  however,  Egon  Drakul  was  far  more
  mindful of a Wamphyri maxim here in this world: that anonymity is synonymous  with longevity!  Perhaps  it was  because Radu was
  actively  hunting  the  Drakuls  down  -perhaps  Egon  had  simply  had  enough  of  the  slaughter  of  the  times?  -  whichever,  he
  disappeared for a while, and for long and long Radu could discover nothing of his whereabouts . . .
  . . . But some ninety years later Radu's spies reported Egon's presence in Poland! Alas, Radu only learned of this when he was
  in France en-route for England, fleeing from the scourge of the Black Death, else he would have gone to Poland at once.
  Too late . . . He fell ill. . . Even as the Black Death began to burn itself out- in its initial  manifestation  at least-so
  the dog-Lord went  into  'hibernation'  in  his  secret  mountain  refuge.  But  he  left  certain  tried  and  trusted  thralls
  behind, to look after his interests down the centuries . . .
  Of the latter: there weren't many. Most of his 'pups' had been taken by the plague; others had died building his retreat; only the hardy
  descendants ofMirlus and Tirenis, recruited out ofSunside in the vampire world, when Radu was a Starside Lord, lived to survive
  him - and then only by
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  virtue of their isolation, the inaccessible mountain heights in which they worked.
  But when Radu was safely asleep in his great sarcophagus,  then they went down into Scotland  to settle the land
  around, or to wait out the last days of the plague before returning abroad to more familiar lands and territories. Ah,
  how could  they know  that the plague  wasn't finished with them, that scarcely a decade would pass for the next four centuries
  without  it returning  again  and again  to scythe among them? For since they were moonchildren  all,  and  ofRadu's  blood,  its
  
  contagion was deadly to them no less than leprosy to the vampire Lords ofStarside.
  Well, if there were survivors, I do not know of them . . .
  But of that handful who remained local and loyal to Radu, a few did survive. Aye, and six hundred  years ago, an
  ancestor of mine, a Mirlu, was one of them. We had to survive, else Radu himself could not. For who would  there be to . . .  to tend
  him in his secret lair? To listen to him dreaming? To reassure him, if only by our presence, of the time of his return?
  To . . .  to console him, in his long, lonely sleep?
  My ancestor, aye. He, or more likely she, lived and died a moon child -but not without leaving  an heir to her duties. And there
  would  always  be  an  heir  down  the  centuries.  For  four  hundred  years,  Harry  -  a  Mirlu  to  care  for  Radu  in  his
  immemorial tomb! Until there was me . . .
  And surely that is the true miracle: that to know him and be faithful to him - indeed, to dedicate  one's life to him -
  is to extend that life indefinitely!  Longevity  beyond  the wildest dreams of the boldest  men of science and medicine!
  And yet Radu has it, Harry, and so do I. And so can you!
  But I fancy I've strayed . . . I was speaking of EgonDrakul. . . let me continue:
  In Poland the Black Death had little impact. Why? Who can say? The plague was carried by rats of Asiatic origin; perhaps
  there were too many rivers to cross: the Danube, the Elbe, the Oder. Anyway, and despite that one  third  of  the  European  population
  succumbed, Egon Drakul survived. OrifnotEgon himself, a blood- or egg-son, certainly.
  Now, theDrakuls had been driven out of their foothold in Transylvania many hundreds of years earlier by successive waves of eastern
  invaders. Their influence in that mountainous region had been eroded; they'd been less than covert in their activities;  the legend
  they originated was eradicated - almost.
  But six hundred years ago, in the wake of plague, famine, war, and civil unrest in general - after the decimation  of
  Europe - it was time to return to the source land, the mountains that Egon knew so well. Why, upon a time he'd even
  been a Lord there, no less than in Sturside in another world! So much I've gathered  . . . for in two hundred  years I have been
  something of a far-traveller myself, when times have allowed. And on my Master's behalf I've done what you will do: sought evidence of his
  olden
  enemies; sought to locate them, so that when Radu returns he'll know their numbers and whereabouts.
  And this much I have learned:
  That indeed there was a Drakul in his Transylvanian  castle until  a time as recent as a hundred years ago! An 'aristocrat,'
  aye-a Count! The people around knew him, however, and eventually it was his time to move on  again.  But  was  it  Egon  Drakul?
  Egon himself? Oh, I think so. And I have my reasons.
  Radu had killed Egon's brother Karl, then 'gone to earth' in Scotland. Perhaps Egon sought  revenge. Perhaps he
  would  even seek out my Master! However it was, he had his thralls in England  - 'sleepers,' if you  will  -  and  went
  there. Now down the years this Drakul's mentalist talent had grown; in order to inform his English thralls of his imminent arrival
  on their soil, he reached out to them with his mind . . . and in so doing, likewise alerted Radu where he lay dreaming in his
  mountain refuge! And Radu alerted me . . .
  A hundred years ago, aye. Can you imagine how things have changed, Harry? There were no aeroplanes in those days; now men have
  walked on the surface of our mistress moon, and sent their messages out to the stars'. The sciences were still young, while superstition was still
  rife. There were alchemists, and others who remembered and believed in the old legends. And there were some I feared, because of what they
  believed. But there was no other way and I must protect my Master.
  There was a much-travelled man, a doctor, who knew - who believed -the legend  of the Wampir. And before the Drakul was
  able to set up a colony in England, I made known to this doctor his presence here. It was easy . . . a letter . . . a warning. And it
  coincided with a spate of strange deaths and deteriorations. Also, Egon had come aboard a ship; well, how else? But a plague ship
  by the time it wrecked on the north-east coast! And so my doctor was convinced.
  He put paid to Egon's plans, pursued him back to Transylvania, brought him up out of his coffin into sunlight. It was the end
  of one of the original Lords of the Wamphyri, brought about by my hand!. . . As instructed by my Master, of course.
  But it was the way of it - the way of his true death  - that convinced  me it was Egon Drakul and  none  other,  no
  matter what names he may have used. To surrender to the sunlight like that, and devolve into so much dust. Ah, but
  he had been Wamphyri for long and long . . .
  And what an opportunity, eh? I couldn't resist it: a trip to my Masters country, where first he entered this world.
  And from there into the hinterland, where at least one ancient Drakul castle is standing to this day. My duties were such
  that I could afford ninety days, no more: barely sufficient time. But I went anyway - to the castle of the dead Drakul.
  What, on a whim? Never! My Lord Radu Lykan  sent me, and with specific instructions  at that. For he knew  that
  the Drakuls had been
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  creatures of habit, by which I might know for certain it was Egon we had killed. And in the dank and gloomy dungeons, in the spider-haunted vaults of that hated
  place on its gaunt promontory, I found the evidence I sought:
  A bed of earth in the crumbling debris of an antique coffin. Earth out of Starside, in a vampire world. But a coffin? One coffin? Ah, wo ...  there were two coffins!
  The one, the old one, bore a motif in the shape of a riven man. And according to my Master Radu, it had been a Drakul punishment in Starside to tear enemies
  asunder and let their guts rain down onto the boulder plains beneath the great aeries. The other coffin was newer. Some two or three hundred years old, it carried no special sigil
  but only these initials: 'D.D.' Surely the second of the two must stand for Drakul?
  There were Szgany around, Szekely. Apparently they were in thrall in one degree or another to the now absent Drakuls. They kept the castle, and sheltered within its structure through bad
  
  winters. Me they hated on sight, but I am what I am and was not concerned. They melted away into the country around, leaving me to my own devices. But before
  departing for England I. . . found a Szkeley youth who was . . . not adverse to talking tome.
  And the youth told me that indeed the great Boya/s 'son' had set out with his retainers and journeyed east, at the self-same time as his 'father' had ventured
  westwards. So then, Egon was dead, but his son - egg- or blood-son, I can't say - had fled east. But 'east is a big place and too far away in those days for me to
  visit. And it seems that this most recent Drakul had learned the lesson his forbears forgot or ignored: the maxim which has it that longevity is synonymous with
  anonymity. For in all the years since I've heard no more of these terrible Drakuls. Except from Radu, who assures me that at host one of them survives still. 'D.D.'
  of course.
  Well, so much for them, who were in any case the least of Radu's enemies. As for the worst of them: they were - they are - the Ferenczys!
  Let me tell you what is known of them, but in order to do so I must go back a long, long way . . .
  Now in the vampire world, Radu and the Ferenczy clan had been enemies from the start. Theirs was a bloodfeud that began long before they were Lords, when they were Szgany
  in Sunside. Radu was a mere youth when the brutish Ferenczy brothers, Lagula and Rakhi, not only murdered his human father but raped to death his sister, the only creature he'd
  ever cared for in all Sunside. When she was dead . . . then he cared for nothing much. Nothing but revenge.
  No, not true: he was also fond of a she-wolf who wandered the Sunside hills with him during his days as a mountain man, a loner without a tribe, neither family nor friends, only the sun to warm
  him and the stars for guide at night. Radu and his she-wolf, aye. But she was infected with
  vampirism and had a leech; the parasite vacated her for Radu, who was a stronger, cleverer host. Thus he became Wamphyri.
  But when Radu crossed into Starside, he found the Ferenczys already there, vampire Lords of their own great aeries. So their bloodfeud continued, becoming
  part of the greater Wamphyri bloodwars. Eventually Radu conquered and killed both of the Ferenczy brothers, but not before Lagula had sired Nonari 'the
  Gross Ferenczy, whose left hand was like a club, with all the fingers fused into one.
  And so the bloodwars went on, year in year out, for decades, until Starside was drenched in blood! But in the end the only real victor was neither dog-Lord,
  Ferenczy, Drakul, nor any 'common' Lord. No. It was Shaitan the Unborn, first of them all, who had the wit to pick them off one by one when they were weakened
  by the fighting. Then, when it was over, Shaitan banished them through the Gate for their troubles. Thus Radu came into this world, and his most hated enemies
  with him - especially Nonari the Gross.
  They could have settled it then, but they were strangers in our world with troubles enough. So they went their own ways; Radu adventuring in the world, and
  Nonari . . . doing whatever he did. But Nonari had sworn vengeance on Radu, his kith, kin, and spawn for all time to come, for the deaths of Lagula his father
  and Rakhi his uncle: the impassioned vow of a Lord of the Wamphyri, which might even outlast eternity! And down all the years and centuries Radu stayed alert,
  and kept an ear cocked at all times for word of Nonari Ferenczy.
  He heard certain things. For instance:
  How one 'Onarius Ferengus,' the Roman Governor of a small province on the Black Sea, had died in the Year 445 of thereabouts, at the hands of unknown
  barbarians. That was when Radu had been a Vandal, before they turned on him and drove him out of Italy. But he had also heard how this Onarius had a son in
  the mountains north of Moldavia, in a place called the Khorvaty. And this son's name was Belos Pheropzis.
  Down the years, as time and his travels allowed, Radu made inquiry but learned little. A hundred years later, when he was a Voevod in the eastern
  Carpathians, he even tried to discover the whereabouts of this castle of Belos Pheropzis. Events intervened; his duties called him away; the search must wait.
  Centuries later he did come across the castle in the Khorvaty, but found it deserted and falling into ruin. Fortunately the people of the region kept records, and
  they remembered.
  Belos Pheropzis had been a great and terrible Boyar, and his mountain retreat secret and near-inaccessible, as Radu had discovered. He, too, had a son,
  called Waldemar Ferrenzig, and a daughter who never ventured out from the castle. It was rumoured that Belos slept with her, a not uncommon practice among
  the Wamphyri.
  Belos had finally come to grief fending off a party ofBulgar raiders; his castle was saved but he lost his life; surviving Bulgars likewise expired, in
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  an avalanche brought about by Waldemar. And thereafter Waldemar slept with his sister. . .
  There were two sons (but one of them might have been Waldemar s egg-son, who knows?  Wamphyri bloodlines  are intricate  as their
  histories are complex; even what I've told you so far is hearsay and unproven!) But at least one must have been a bloodson, by Waldemar,
  most likely  out of his  sister.  Well,  brother  murdered  brother  in  an  argument,  and  the  survivor  inherited  the  castle  from
  Waldemar. But as to what became of Waldemar himself. . . again I am at a loss.
  The brother who inherited the Khorvaty castle was called Faethor, and he reverted to the original family name: Faethor Ferenczy . . .
  BJ. paused as Harry's body spasmed in an apparently involuntary (and inexplicable) jerk. It felt like the kick of a recumbent man
  in the moment before he falls asleep, which will often wake him  up  again.  Except  Harry's  'sleep'  was  a  state  of  deep
  hypnosis, and his reaction outside of B.J.'s previous experience.
  'Are you  .  .  .  cold?'  (For  now  she  felt  a  shiver,  or  even  a  shudder,  running through  him). Kneeling over him, B.J. stirred
  blackened cinders to life and placed kindling and a small log where the embers were still hot. By which time Harry had settled down
  again and she could continue:
  Faethor was a strange one. He would stay at home in his castle for decades at a time, but always in the end the blood would draw him out, and off he'd go
  adventuring in a war-torn world. In the two hundred years preceding the Fourth Crusade he used a great many pseudonyms. He was, for instance, 'Stefan
  Ferrenzig,' then 'Peter,' 'Karl,' and 'Grigor,' He became his own son time and time again, for he knew that a man may not be seen to live too long among common
  men - and certainly not for centuries!
  At various times he was a Crusader, an Uighur warrior, a warlord under Temujin; then a general under Genghis's grandson, Batu. As 'Fereng the Black,
  "Son" of the Fereng,' under Hulegu he played apart in the extermination of the Assassins, and he was there at the fall of Baghdad in 1258. Why, the dog-Lord
  has even reasoned it out that it was this Faethor who fought on the side of the Mongols and Karl Drakul at the battle ofAin Jalut! Ah, but what a pity that Radu
  killed Karl and missed him, this damned Ferenczy!
  And so, yet again, we see how the histories of the Wamphyri are complex . . .
  
  But let me get on:
  Faethor had two sons that Radu heard of in his time, though he never came up against them. They were Thibor, Faethor's egg-son - a fierce Wattach who was
  a Voevod for the rulers of both Russian and his native land - and Janos, a bloodson out of Gypsy stock. The last my Master heard of Thibor was in the late
  1340s, shortly before the plague drove him
  to seek refuge in the resin. At that time Thibor was a Voevod in Romania. In the last two hundred years, however - certainly in the last hundred, excluding the
  war years - it has been easier to travel in Europe. On behalf of my Master, Radu, I've done some research abroad and believe I know something of Thibor.
  As stated, Thibor was a Voevod for a long line of Wallachian princes: the Mirceas, Vlad Tepes (whose evil reputation had a great deal to do with Thibor, I
  fear), Radu the Handsome - but no relation to my Radu, be sure - and finally Mircea the Monk, who seems to have been sore afraid of him . . . too afraid to let
  him live, perhaps? At any rate, that is where Thibor's trail ends, as a warlord in the service of Mircea the Monk.
  And then there was Janos Ferenczy, who first made himself known as a young man in the early part of the 13th Century. He was a thief, a pirate, a corsair on
  the broad bosom of the Mediterranean. During the Christian-Moslem conflicts of the Crusades, he was one of the petty princelings looting them who had
  looted others! He had a castle in the Zarundului heights (his father Faethor spent many years there, too), to which he would return periodically. And there is
  evidence to suggest he was a necromancer, for which there might be a simple explanation. As Faethor's bloodson, Janos could use this necromancy to enhance
  or supplement his meagre Wamphyri powers, which are frequently weaker in blood- than in egg-sons or -daughters. Not that it could have done him much
  good; he seems to have disappeared at the end of the 15th Century, about the same time as Thibor.
  So, it's my conclusion that Faethor, Thibor, and Janos are all dead and gone. My Master. . . isn't so sure. He tells me the Wamphyri have a habit of turning
  up in the strangest places, at the most inconsiderate times. And he's certain that Ferenczys - more than one, and at least one Drakul: this 'D.D.', of course -
  survive to this day . . .
  But now there are more complications and we're obliged to go back, back, all the way bach to Waldemar Ferrenzig. Waldemar was a lusty one and fertile,
  and his sister wasn't the only one he slept with. There were records in a museum in olden Moldavia that I read all of sixty years ago. Alas, when I went back
  recently the museum was no more; what they'd missed in World War I they hit in World War II, and the museum was a bumed-out ruin. But I remember what I
  read originally:
  That before Svyatoslav, in Kiev, there was a Boyar like a prince who was banished out of the city west, 'to the farthest corners of the land,' who built a great
  house 'under the mountains on the border of Moldavia'. . . the Khorvaty! His name was 'Valdemar Fuhrenzig,' but I can only believe he was Waldemar. As to
  why he was sent out of Kiev . . . well, he was Wamphyri!
  Those were Viking days, and the Varyagi were establishing their trade routes to the Greeks along Kievan Russia's eastern rivers. Well, despite that
  Waldemar was banished from the land, he liked to go into the woods
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  for days on end, hunting boar in the great forests that sprawled west of the River Bug. And one day he came across a Varyagi encampment.
  Normally there would be no trouble; oh, they were fierce men, these Vikings, but they were traders, too. And the Ferenczy had
  a party of retainers, his thralls, along with him. But this time it was different. The Vikings  were heading  north for the Baltic and
  home, and they had a beautiful woman with them, stolen out of some port on the Black Sea. So far, she had suffered no harm; they would
  sell her back home, to be some Prince or King's raven-haired, dark-eyed wife.
  She implored Waldemar"s help as a gentleman. Obviously he was a Boyar, for he had his men with him, his dogs, his hawks.
  But the Ferenczy's men were thralls', his dogs were wolves, and his hawks as bloodthirsty as he himself!
  Well, there was no more of the story in the old Moldavian museum, but at least I was able to ascertain this lady's name. She was a Sicilian
  Princess, or at least of royal blood. Alas, she was also illegitimate,  with no actual  claim to the region from which
  she took her name: Constanza de Petralia. And Petralia is a village or town in Sicily's Le Madonie.
  It was worth a trip to Sicily; I spoke to several historians; the code of silence is extensive! But finally I was able to consult certain records.
  Constanza de' Petralia had returned to Sicily in 866. No sooner was she home than she gave birth to twin boys, one of which was
  hideously deformed and destroyed at birth. The surviving child was named - of all things - Angela! Far more important, on coming of age
  he  changed  his  surname:  to  Ferenczini!  His  mother  came  into  property,  money.  She  was  over-indulgent  with  her  son,  who  was
  much-travelled: Corsica, Italy, Romania and Moldavia. But there the trail peters out, and to my knowledge there are no more
  Ferenczinis today. As for Ferenczy: its a common name in all regions throughout and bordering the Carpathians. But—
  —The real Ferenczys are still out there somewhere . . .
  B.J. was finished with that part of it. Harry now knew (to the best of her knowledge,) as much as she knew. In fact the
  Necroscope  knew a great deal more; so much more that he could easily have told B.J. what had become of  Faethor
  and Thibor Ferenczy! Except it wouldn't be easy, couldn't even be dragged out of him if it also meant compromising
  his talents. But in any case she didn't ask, for that was something she would never have suspected  in a million years.
  Why should she?
  B.J. was tired now; it had taken a massive effort of will to maintain her wolf-shape  and  the  energy  of  her  scarlet
  Wamphyri  eyes.  But  she  had  needed  to  be  sure  that  the  knowledge  she  imparted  would  sink  in,  stay  there  and  not  get
  misrepresented. For he was a strange one, this Harry
  Keogh, and B.J. couldn't afford any more episodes or mistakes like the telephone farce.
  And on that subject, after she had relaxed a fraction and flowed back into human form:
  'Harry, about your telephone. Why change the number? What was that all about?'
  He stared unblinking into her eyes, feral now in the  dark blot  of her head, where it was  silhouetted  against the  glowing halo of
  his reading-lamp across the room. 'I was scared of it,' he croaked from a bone-dry throat.
  
  She said: 'Salivate, moisten your throat, feel well, and talk normally. But remain asleep, and hear and obey.'
  'Of course,' he answered after a moment, when the knob of his throat had stopped bobbing.
  'But why were you frightened of the 'phone?'
  He shrugged (because hypnotized or not, he really didn't know). But he could guess. 'Bad dreams, maybe?  I don't  want  to  hear
  anything bad about Brenda and the baby . . .'
  B.J. could understand and accept that. But it couldn't  be allowed to  go on; she must  have contact  with  him. 'Get  an answering
  machine,' she said. 'If you start  to  hear something that  you  don't  like, you  can switch  it off.  Or you  can monitor  your  calls, and
  simply cut them off as and when it suits you.'
  'Good!' Harry nodded.
  'But of course you won't switch off when it's me on the line, because our little rule still applies. You'll hear—'
  '—Is that mah wee man?' Harry cut in, talking normally.
  'And you'll see—'
  '—The moon, your eyes—'
  '—And a wolfs head in silhouette, yes.'
  'Radu's head,' he nodded.
  'Indeed.' B.J. was pleased. 'But now we really must talk about this search of yours - for Brenda and the  baby,  I mean.' But  that
  wasn't what she meant at all; in fact she didn't even want him to  find them.  He needed a new direction,  that  was  all, to  which his
  'search' would be peripheral. His conscious purpose would seem the same to him, but subconsciously . . .?•
  'Also, you're not as fit as you should be. We have to get you in shape.'
  'I've been intending to,' Harry answered.
  'And I have a sneaking suspicion that you've been having a hard time of it with alcohol?',
  A frown at once etched itself deep into Harry's forehead. 'Alcohol? Well, not so much booze in general as that  damned red wine
  of yours! It seemed to have . . . something for me?'
  'Something for you?' B.J. shook her head. 'Not any more, Harry. As
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  MANSE AND MONASTERY: AERIES!
  of now it's something you can do without. From this moment on you don't need it; indeed, the very thought  of  it  is
  enough to make you feel sick! Is that understood?'
  'Oh, yes!' Harry breathed his relief - but a moment later his face turned pale, his stomach lurched and he belched.
  'It's okay now. Put it out of your mind and you'll be just fine.' She had to smile as he sighed and snuggled  closer to
  her warmth, her 'safety'. 'And after we've talked over these  other things  - your search and what-all - then we'll be able
  to get some sleep.'
  'Afterwards, yes,' said Harry, and she felt the need building in him, beginning to swell against her thigh.
  She might have laughed - in surprise, delight, whatever - but knew it would only sap her concentration. And  with
  him she needed all the concentration she could muster. With him, yes.
  With this oh-so-mysterious Harry Keogh . . .
  PART FIVE:
  I
  BONNIEJEAN: BIRTHDAY PARTY.
  HARRY: GETTING IN SHAPE, AND
  FUNDING HIS SEARCH.
  In the morning, B.J. was up first. It was a few minutes after six, and the light still burgeoning from the east. In the garden the birds had been twittering for some
  time: enough noise to wake the Necroscope up, albeit gradually.
  He came awake knowing that it was going to be hell again, and was pleasantly surprised, or more properly relieved beyond measure, to find that it wasn't. No
  headache, no fluff in his head where his brains used to be, no sore throat, and no great urge to drink . . . anything! Except maybe a mug or two of black coffee. At
  which he remembered that both his pantry and fridge were empty.
  B.J. was upstairs; he could hear the shower. He dressed quickly, made a Mobius jump into town, the local newsagent's, which doubled as a grocery-cum-post
  office, and just three or four minutes later was unloading stuff into the fridge; which, as B.J. came down and found him in the kitchen, looked like he was taking
  stuff out of the fridge, to prepare breakfast.
  'You have a wash, brush your hair, clean your teeth - and whatever -while I do it,' she said.
  
  'Yes, Ma!' He cocked his head on one side, raised an eyebrow, asked: 'Any other instructions?'
  'Oh, you're okay,' she laughed. 'But in bed you're a ten, so why lower your average when you're up?' And eyeing his groceries, 'Funny, last night when I was
  getting supper, I didn't think you had anything in.'
  'You didn't look in the freezer compartment,' he mumbled, waved his arms. 'The cupboards ..."
  She shrugged. Til manage something.' And, as he headed upstairs: 'And buy a new toothbrush. That one tastes awful!'
  Make yourself at home! he thought. But he knew he should feel pleased. So why didn't he? Maybe because he - his place - had been invaded? This had been a
  private place. He and it could be as they were
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  here. Now he had to be someone else; and there it was again: the reminder that he was someone else! And it was possible he even felt guilty, too. But why, he
  couldn't honestly say. For after all, he wasn't the heavy in the piece. It was Brenda who had left him . . .
  Breakfast was good, very. And for the first time in God-only-knows how long - with most of his guilty feelings and doubts melted away - the Necroscope actually
  felt good! But then, as the sky turned a lighter shade of grey, and B.J. made ready to leave him, he didn't. For with her out of the way he'd be back to thinking in
  ever-decreasing circles again, and doing nothing much else . . .
  ...  Or perhaps not. For in fact it seemed he did have a few things to do now. They were there in the back of his mind, anyway, probably headed-off down the
  diversion that was B.J. But he knew that if he concentrated he'd get back on track again.
  Til call one of my girls,' B.J. said, breaking into his thoughts. 'Sandra. I'll catch her before she sets out for work. She lives not too far away.'
  'Sure, if you like,' Harry told her. Which satisfied her that this really was his place and not some kind of safe house for the people he had used to work for. If it
  had been, surely he wouldn't want too many people to know about it. But no, he fitted in here; the house had Harry Keogh written all over it.
  'Or I can take a taxi?"
  'Whichever suits you,' he shrugged. Til call one, if you like? Whatever is best for you. Just don't forget where I live, right?'
  And to B.J. 's mind, that settled it. 'Not just a one-night stand, then?' Waiting for his answer, she dialled a number and spoke briefly to someone at the other end
  of the line, then put the 'phone down and turned to him.
  Looking down in the mouth again, Harry was standing close to her. 'I suppose it should be,' he said. 'A one-night stand, I mean. Or rather it shouldn't have been,
  shouldn't have happened at all. But it did, and frankly I'm ...  I'm upside down, messed up. That's the truth of it: I'm messed up.'
  She nodded. 'Well, perhaps I am, too. But I'd better tell you now, Harry Keogh: I can't see myself as part of an eternal triangle thing, in the role of "the other
  woman." It's not my scene, and it certainly isn't my style.'
  Harry shook his head. This wasn't a cheap thing. Not for me. It's just that I don't know how I feel. I did a moment ago, but now I don't. As for Brenda and my
  son: this search is something I have to do, even though I know I won't find her. Oh, I might find them . . . but I won't find her. Brenda doesn't know me any more.'
  'Neither do I, scarcely.'
  'But time is on our side,' Harry said.
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  She looked surprised. Time? What, from what was possibly a one-night stand to a long-term relationship - all in one quick move?'
  'I told you I was messed up.'
  B.J. almost felt sorry for him. She knew why he was messed up. Something of it, anyway. And leaning forward, giving him a brief, brushing kiss: 'Let's wait
  and see how it all works out, okay?'
  He nodded and said nothing.
  And they waited for her girl to come . . .
  B.J. hadn't been gone ten minutes before Harry made a jump and bought himself a telephone answering machine. And a bicycle, to be delivered. The first so that
  he could monitor calls, and the second so that he could get himself in shape. Himself, yes. For he'd finally decided: this was him now, and he'd have to accept it.
  And it (he, damn it to hell!) couldn't really be that bad, after all, because B.J. for one had accepted him - with a vengeance!
  It was only after the bike had arrived that he realized he could have ridden it home, along the Mobius route. Why not? He could easily have pedalled down a
  back street, through a door, and so home. He knew the co-ordinates of the service road, and the road across the river. It would have been the easiest way. He
  wouldn't have had to pay for the delivery, either.
  Next up on his search itinerary was Northern Ireland. He would give himself a week or so here at the house, settling in and adjusting to a new regime, make a
  list of places to visit, then go and do it. And he wouldn't any longer be alone ...  not while he was at home, anyway. B.J. would be here. He just knew she would
  come to him, or he could go to her. He couldn't say how it would work out, didn't even want to think about it. It was just the way it was.
  The day had cleared up; the sun was peeping through tufts of, fluffy cloud; next thing you know, it'll be spring!  Harry  thought.
  And time for spring-cleaning.
  Had B.J. mentioned that? Spring-cleaning? He thought  she probably had - told  him  the  house  could  use  a  little
  dusting, polishing, scrubbing - but couldn't think when. Or had it been sparked by the shame he'd felt when she first
  walked in and saw the place? But if it was her, then she'd been wrong: the house could use a hell of a lot of dusting,  polishing and
  scrubbing! His 'study' . . . wasn't even a room yet! It was a jumble.
  So why not start now! A little hard labour would pass  for getting himself in shape, wouldn't it? But  first  he  had
  something really important to do: a mind to put at rest. . .
  Down on the river bank Harry was wrapped warmly for once. But more importantly he felt warm on the inside, too. And his Ma felt the
  difference in him as soon as she 'heard' him in her mind. Tve been bad,
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  Ma,' he told her, but she could feel the grin on his face. One that slipped a little as she answered: In how many ways, son?
  'Er, I meant about the doctor. I didn't go to see one like I promised. But listen, whatever the trouble was, it's gone.' No more drinking?
  'Couldn't face it.' He shook his head. 'The very thought's enough to make me want to throw up!'
  It was the last ofMrKyle, then . . . which you've finally kicked out. You've rejected what little was left of him to make room for you. I can feel that you've more or
  less settled down with yourself, son. At least, I think so. I hope I'm right. . .
  'I feel a lot better all round, yes.' He said, but even now couldn't be sure. Maybe she sensed that, too. Even as an expert at talking to the dead - the expert, the
  Necroscope - Harry knew how hard it was to fool his Ma. And Kyle's talent? This precognition thing?
  'Not for a while now,' Harry answered. 'But that could be my loss. I didn't understand it, but it might have given me a few pointers. Anyway, the
  main thing is I feel. . . good. And I'm determined to get myself back in shape. I've bought myself a bicycle - for exercise, lots of it -
  and when I'm finished talking to you, I'm going to tear the house apart.' He sounded really enthusiastic, if a bit jumbled.
  You'll what? Tear the house apart? With a bicycle? Now she sounded more than a little alarmed.
  'I mean I'll rip the place apart - dust, polish, scrub. It can use it. Spring-cleaning, Ma!'
  Yes, she said, after a moment. And thoughtfully: Why, I do believe I can smell it! Springtime, when a young man's thoughts turn to ...
  '. . . To spring-cleaning!' Harry stopped her.
  Among other things, his Ma said, but very quietly.
  It was Harry's cue to leave. Til let you know how I get on,' he said, turning away from the river.
  But you started this conversation by telling me you'd been bad, Harry. (She wasn't about to let him go). And I asked you, in how many
  ways?
  Harry guarded his thoughts. 'I meant two things, Ma. About not seeing a doctor, and about being neglectful.'
  Of me?
  'Of course!'
  Not ofBrenda? (She was sharp as a tack.)
  'Ma?' And now he was doubly cautious, defensive.
  You haven't mentioned her once, Harry . . .
  'Ma,' he was momentarily lost for words, 'I feel. . . like we're drifting.'
  Drifting apart?
  He nodded. 'I mean it's not just that Brenda is lost; she lost herself, after all. She, or the baby, wanted to get lost, or they wanted
  to lose me. But it goes deeper than that. It's that we're strangers now . . .'
  He sensed her understanding, or at least that she was trying to understand. And in a little while she said: Well, lets not you and 1
  go the same way, all right? I mean, there's nothing you can't tell me, .Harry. We're too close for that. I was there at the start of you . . . and you're
  here at the end of me! I'm not some kind of ogre that you have to hide from, now ami?
  She had sensed that his guard was up, and it saddened her. But from Harry's point of view there was no help for it. There  are
  some things you don't tell anyone.
  And especially not your Ma . . .
  Once he got started on the house there was no stopping him. He wanted it in order before he saw B.J. again. Two days
  went by, three . . .  a few more and there'd be a full moon. What that had to do with things Harry couldn't say, but he knew that he must speak
  to, must see B.J. again, and soon.
  Finally he couldn't fight it any longer. Right or wrong he wanted her in his bed again, maybe even in his life. Damn, she was in his
  life! He called her at the wine bar, got one of her girls - who told him that B.J. wasn't available right now.
  Then would she please tell B.J. that he'd called?
  Of course. Would he be around if B.J. called back later?
  Yes, he would, and it didn't matter how much later.
  And that  night, dozing on the  couch in what  really  was  his study  now,  he felt  the  light of the  full moon flooding  through  the
  patio windows into the room, and wondered why it felt like B.J.'s eyes on him. But  she was  busy  right how; she had a life of her
  own and he had to understand that. Maybe she would call him later.
  God, he hoped so ...
  B.J. was busy, or was about to be. It had been a six-month and her needs, and that of her girls, must be attended to. Discretion was the name of the game. It was like
  fishing, or hunting, for that matter; or better still, poaching. Make too much noise and you'd scare away the game and perhaps attract unwanted attention. Use the
  wrong lure and the fish wouldn't bite, or the game would ignore the trap.
  Tonight, Zahanine was the lure. She was black and she was beautiful, and she was one of Bonnie Jean's: a moon-child, and hungry as the rest of them. Oh, she ate
  and she drank the same as anyone else. Except it wasn't the same.
  It was Zahanine's night off ...  That was what she told Big Jimmy Lee when he walked into the lounge of the Fiddler's Elbow down the
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  road from B.J.'s. The place was almost empty; with her round, perfect backside seated on a bar stool, and her long legs
  crossed and swaying to a juke box tune, Zahanine stood out like a sore thumb, or a green light.
  Big Jimmy bought  himself a drink, hesitated  a moment and bought  another  for  the  girl,  before  eyeing  her  up  and
  down in an openly suggestive, pig-eyed fashion, and saving: 'But ah'm surprised ye're still on speakin' terms wi' such
  as me, since ye're boss, that bleddy Bonnie Jean, kicked me oot-a there.'
  'Big Jimmy,' she said, her voice as soft as her dark skin and seductive  as her dark eyes, 'you were out of order and
  
  well you know it. You used  threatening behaviour against a customer, disturbed  the  other  members,  and  wrecked  a
  table. Now tell me, how is B.J. supposed to run a decent bar with all that stuff going on? Until that night you were a valued customer
  . . . she's said so herself.'
  'B.J.? Oh, really?' He looked doubtful.
  Zahanine nodded. 'She's looked for you coming back, even had a new member's card made out with your name on it.
  But B.J. isn't the sort to beg. If you want in again it's up to you. No more trouble, though, or the next time's final.'
  'A new card?'
  'I've seen it myself,' she told him, then fell silent as the barman headed their way picking up empty glasses. But when
  he went into a back room: 'You should drop by.'
  'Ye think so?'
  'I know so. And tonight would be a good time.'
  'What? But does she no close up around now?'
  Zahanine glanced at her watch. 'Half an hour, yes. That's when you should come, after I've had a chance to speak to
  her.'
  Big Jimmy frowned. 'Come again? Ah'm no wi' ye.'
  'Party time,' she explained. 'After hours. Staff only - just B.J. and the girls - and maybe you, too, if you think you can mend your
  ways. One of the girls is having a birthday. Why else would I be here on my night off? Free  drinks,  Jimmy!  Not  something  that
  happens every day! I'm on my way in a minute or two. So what do you say? Should I tell B.J. you'll be dropping by?'
  Standing up, she leaned forward and put her index finger in the cleft of his chin. 'Frankly, I've missed you, too.'
  He was genuinely taken aback. 'But ah . . .  ah didn'ae ken ye cared!'
  'Maybe you've been chatting up the wrong girls,' she said, and headed for the door. Thanks for the drink . . .'
  'Ye'11 speak to her?' Big Jimmy called after her.
  Zahanine turned back, stepped  closer.  'But  remember,'  she  whispered,  'this  is  a  private  party.  You've  been  quite
  enough trouble already, so don't go blabbing it all over Edinburgh or B.J.'11 lose her licence for sure!'
  Big Jimmy nodded. 'No a word!' he promised.
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  Then wait half an hour and come on along. Just give the usual ring, and I'll let you in.'
  'Ye're sure it'll be okay?'
  'Positive. But we'll be late finishing. Maybe you'd be a gentleman and see me home afterwards?'
  He grinned. 'Oh, ah'm no so sure aboot the gentleman bit, but ah can see ye home, definitely!' His voice was now rougher than ever, with anticipation.
  She smiled knowingly and left, and he watched her out of the door and saw her distorted shadow pass by the small-paned, smoked-glass windows. But the
  memory of Zahanine's deliciously wriggling backside stayed with him for the next half hour . . .
  . . . Until he pressed the bell outside B.J. 's and fidgeted under the dark archway until the door was opened. Zahanine was there, and one of the other girls. They
  took his coat and would have led him inside at once, but B.J. stepped from behind the door to caution him:
  'Ye're privileged, Jimmy. Don't mess it up, now.'
  'Oh, no fear, mah Bonnie lass!' he told her.
  'But ye know ye're drinkin' after hours and shouldn'ae be here? If I let ye in it's on ye're own head, of ye're own free will.'
  'What? Why, all the polis in Edinburgh couldn'ae keep me away!' he declared. And, smiling, B.J. took his arm and marched him down the corridor.
  All four girls were in the bar; five, if Jimmy included Zahanine. Apart from her, they all wore their black stockings, short, flouncy dresses, high heels, blouses
  that were open way too far in front, and snowed lots of flesh at the back. Owing a lot to Playboy attire, all they were missing were the fluffy bunny tails and ears.
  And they were obviously in party mood.
  Poppers went off left, right, and centre as Big Jimmy Lee appeared with B.J. and party; he was covered in paper streamers, slapped on the back, made welcome
  as a prodigal son, told 'Good to have ye back, Big Jimmy!' by all and sundry.
  'Damn, but ah'm fair knocked out!' he declared. The only thing tha's missin' seems tae be the fatted calf!'
  'Later, Jimmy,' B.J. told him. 'We'll eat later. But for now there's the drinks. Wine's ye're tipple, is it no?'
  'Wine, whisky, whatever!' he said, as she directed him to a stool at the bar. And Zahanine perched herself alongside, her swinging leg stroking his thigh. 'Damn
  me!' he said. 'But ah'd swear this was all for me!'
  B.J. poured red wine, ('My own special reserve, Jimmy!') which he swigged back almost without tasting it, and the party got underway. The girls took turns to
  flank him, rubbing themselves against him, all
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  tits and smiling teeth and temptation. And Big Jimmy had never  resisted  temptation.  It  was  wonderful!  He  was  the
  only man here, and though  he'd heard of parties like this, he'd never imagined he'd be the centrepiece at just such  a
  one. A gaggle of stacked women, all bent on plying, pleasing, and plundering him of his vital fluids.
  The lights were low, the juke box played some old bluesy  stuff,  and  the  girls  seemed  more  gorgeous  with  every
  taste of B.J.'s red wine. As for Bonnie Jean herself:
  She disappeared momentarily; Jimmy scarcely noticed; he was having a hard time loosening the last button  on one of the girls'
  
  blouses, but finally succeeded and gawped as her ample breasts  lolled free and available. He would have availed himself, too,
  except B.J. was back, and dressed in a flimsy see-through baby-doll nightie!
  By now Big Jimmy was certain-sure what kind of party this was, and despite that  the  room  spun  a  little  when  he
  moved too fast, and that the bar stool seemed to sway under his backside so  that  he  must  constantly  maintain  his
  balance, his blood was pounding as he dazedly wondered which of the girls would want him first.
  As it happened, they all did.
  'So,' B.J. said, standing a little apart from him along the bar, 'was it worth coming back to us, Jimmy?'
  'Ah wouldn'ae missed it for the world!' he tried to answer, but all of his words came out sideways. He tried staring at
  B.J., tried to focus on her breasts, the dark V of her pubic region under the gauzy nightgown, but his gaze kept sliding
  off first to one side, then the other.
  Behind the bar, Zahanine poured him the largest measure of whisky he'd ever seen, said: This will straighten  you
  up, Big Jimmy. It's more what you're used to.'
  'Right!' he said, and actually managed to grasp the glass, and tilt its contents  down his throat. As Zahanine refilled
  it, two of the other girls wheeled a long trolley up behind Jimmy, positioning it precisely to his rear. Head lolling, he
  glanced around and took in the scene as B.J. and the girls stood chairs around the trolley, three to a side. Decked with
  a tablecloth, the trolley was quite empty. Obviously they'd be bringing food and a birthday cake out from the kitchen.
  Obviously, yes.
  'Whose f-f-fuckin' birthday is it anyway?' Big Jimmy slurred, tilting more whisky down his throat. But this time as he
  went  to  put  the  glass  down  he  missed  the  bar  and  sent  the  glass  crashing  to  the  floor.  It  pulled  him  together
  momentarily, long enough to look from face to face, stupidly, as he waited for an answer. And eventually B.J. said:
  'Birthday? Why, it's yours, Jimmy!'
  'Aye!' Big Jimmy rocked on his stool and tilted it back a little way, but just a little too far. Tha's  a  good'yin,  that  is!'  he  roared.
  'Mine, by fuck!' And he teetered there.
  'Except it's not exactly a birthday,' B.J. said, and her voice was quite
  different now, as she touched his shoulder to apply the very slightest pressure. Losing his balance and toppling over backwards,  he
  scarcely knew he was falling. Several pairs  of hands  took  his weight, lowering him on to  the  top  of the  trolley  - or rather,  to  the
  hardwood draining board, for one of the girls had whipped away the cover.
  There  are two  big days  in a man's life, Jimmy,'  B.J.  said where she stood  looking down  into  his  quivering  face.  'One's  at  the
  beginning, and the other's at the end. Well, you've had the one, and this is the other.'
  'Wha'?' he said. 'Whazzat?'  As  the  girls strapped  him down,  hands  and feet.  And: 'Eh? Eh?' he queried, as they  used  knives  as
  sharp as scalpels  to  cut  away  his clothing. And  however  ridiculously,  Big Jimmy  was  still  grinning, for this  could only  be some
  kind of weird sex game, or an even weirder dream, as someone turned  the  lights down  more yet  and B.J.  's eyes  - and the  eyes  of
  her girls - became yellow triangles in the gloom.
  Then  there  was  more  yellow  -  the  glitter  of  golden  instruments  -  as  B.J.  passed  around  slender  tubes  with  trumpetlike
  mouthpieces,  similar to  the  funnels  she'd  used  in Radu  Lykan's  redoubt.  Except  the  feeders  had  been  for  the  giving,  and  these
  smaller versions were for the taking.
  Big Jimmy  only  noticed  them in passing,  however,  because he wasn't  able to  take  his eyes  off B.J.  herself.  Bonnie Jean,  who
  might just as well be naked for all her nightgown hid, standing there in the gloom, with her yellow eyes - no, her scarlet eyes  now  -
  burning into Jimmy's soul!
  All feeling had fled him; Jimmy was as drunk,  or as poisoned,  as any  man had ever been and remained conscious.  Oh,  he had a
  powerful constitution, but not powerful enough. He could still hear, see, think (though not much of the latter), but he couldn't  have
  moved a muscle, couldn't speak any more, didn't understand that  the  crimson pounding  in his skull,  his heart  and his veins wasn't
  sexual potency but an effect of the drugged wine.
  And the  ceiling was  revolving, first  this  way,  then  that;  and  the  faces  of  the  girls  looking  down  on  him  were  foxy,  wolfish,
  lustful; and B.J. herself—
  —Wasn't Bonnie Jean!
  What she was  exactly Jimmy  couldn't  have  said.  But  as  the  nightgown  slid  from  her  slender,  furry  form,  and  her  soft  dark
  muzzle wrinkled back in a half-snarl, half-smile, he thought:
  What a bitch! Which was perhaps as close as he would ever come to the truth of it. Or to anything. Ever again.
  When the siphons sank in, Jimmy barely  felt  them.  He felt  the  warmth  leaving him, and the  cold seeping in, and a tide  as dark
  and darker than the deepest ocean floor rolling over him, washing him to and fro, and gradually dissolving him all away . . . but  that
  was all.
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  At 2:30 in the morning Bonnie Jean got Harry out of bed to answer the door; Sandra had dropped her off. There had been an after-hours birthday party for one of
  the girls. BJ. was sorry, but she hadn't been able to get out of it. Anyway, here she was. Or, if it was too late . . .?
  Too late? Harry told her she must be joking, made her a coffee in the kitchen while she watched, had a hard time keeping his hands off her but managed it
  somehow. And he even made small talk, until she asked him: 'Can't we talk in bed?'
  Then he almost had her on the kitchen table, and she was equally wanton on the stairs, until finally, in the bedroom . . . getting her out of her clothes was a
  frenzied affair, for both of them.
  
  Afterwards ...
  . . . Harry lit one of his very rare cigarettes, and eventually B.J. said, 'Don't think me vulgar, please, but that was a fuck. That wasn't just making love . . .' And
  replete - in every way replete - she was asleep before he could think her vulgar, or think anything else of her.
  Before sleeping himself, he touched her body all over, but very gently so that she wouldn't know. Maybe it was to reassure himself that she was there. But it
  felt like he was making sure that she was . . . she? What that was all about, he couldn't say.
  In his bed, she smelled of woman, and warm flesh, and sex, and -something else. Her breath? Copper? Salt? Or was it just the sex. Hah! Just the sex! But she'd
  been like an animal: vibrant, writhing, crushing him in her coils. He had found himself thinking on several occasions that she would draw blood - with her nails or
  her teeth - but she hadn't. He believed he'd actually felt her holding back; he knew there had been a repressed violence in her (purely sexual, he thought), which had
  inspired the same sort of frenzy in him. But now:
  Now, despite that he felt exhausted, it was hard to get to sleep. Something was bothering him. Finally Harry realized what it was: the light of the full moon,
  pouring its rays in through his bedroom window.
  So he got up and drew the faded curtains . . .
  Life became a blur. Space, time, places, faces: Harry couldn't say where they came from, or where they went. He even began to forget where he'd been; would have
  forgotten, he was sure, but for the list he kept of the places he'd visited. Spring turned to summer. The seasons were turning, and Harry frequently felt that his mind
  was turning, too . . .  from sanity to full-fledged madness. Yet when he was with B.J. he knew he was sane. Indeed, those were the only times when he did know it.
  Upon a time he'd had difficulty accepting his body; he had felt that when it was hurt - despite that it had hurt - that it really didn't matter because it wasn't his
  body anyway. But those times were past now.
  That  had a lot  to  do with  B.J.,  too,  the  fact  that  she had  accepted  him.  She'd  become  his  anchor  on  an  increasingly  ephemeral
  world. She'd anchored his body, anyway. But his mind was something else.
  Frequently  he  would  wake  up  furious,  frightened,  unable  to  remember  the  nightmare  that  had  awakened  him,  but  thinking,
  someone is fucking with my mind! And promising  himself that  when  he found  out  who  it was,  then  there'd  be hell to  pay.  But  as
  the waking world took over, so the anger would recede. Yet the feeling persisted:  that  while his body  was  very  definitely  his now,
  his mind was someone else's.
  His memory,  for one thing - or memories, recent  memories, anyway  - was  or were totally  up  the  creek. Sometime around  the
  middle of May he'd mentioned it to Bonnie Jean when they stayed late in bed at his place one Sunday morning:
  'Do you remember when I did Ireland?' And he had felt her drowsy attention sharpening, rapidly centering on him.
  'Yes. You've not long since finished. What of it?'
  'Well, I don't! I don't remember it!'
  She had slipped out of bed in a moment,  gone to  a dresser,  returned  with  his notebook  and opened  it at the  relevant  pages: his
  Irish 'itinerary.' And she'd read from a list of places in his handwriting, starting  at Belfast  and working down  the  coast  to  Dundalk
  before he stopped her.
  That's right! That's right!' He was excited, frustrated. 'Downpatrick and Newry and Kilkeel, and half-a-dozen  more. You think  I
  don't remember?' His jaw was tight where he scowled at her almost accusingly.
  She sat beside him, looked down on him curiously with her head cocked on one side, and said, logically, 'But  didn't  you  just  say
  that you don't remember?'
  And she was right. It was a contradiction, a confusion, a confounded nonsense! He had shook  his head, flapped  his hands,  said:
  'Green fields; emerald green, in fact! Greener than England. Irish accents - "Top o' the mornin' to  yeh,  sor!"  Little  pubs  with  ocean
  outlooks and peat fires. Shillelaghies and all that shit. Picture book stuff. Toss in a pixie or two, and ..."
  'Harry!' she'd stopped him. 'What is all this?'
  And the look on her face had said it all: that it wasn't rational talk, and hardly reasonable behaviour, that he should
  take this out, whatever it was, on her.
  After that they hadn't seen each other for a week or more. Finally he'd called her and  apologized  for  his  irrational
  accusations,  which had been directed at the world in general, never at Bonnie Jean.  She  had  seemed  uncertain  and
  he'd said he would come and see her at B.J.'s. She had stalled him and come to him instead. For which he was grateful, for she really
  had become his one anchor on the world . . .
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  No, for there was one other, of course, but Harry hardly dared speak to his Ma any more. And (mercifully) he knew
  that she wasn't likely to sneak up on him at an awkward moment. She knew he liked his privacy and would wait until
  he came to her, to the riverbank. He hoped so, anyway.
  But a new idea had occurred to Harry, and he felt stupid that he hadn't thought of it earlier. He'd been relying on his
  own skills and the extraordinary talents at E-Branch to turn up something on Brenda and the  baby.  But  wasn't  that
  exactly what the missing pair would expect? Harry Jr was a Power in his own right and would know how to avoid that sort  of
  detection. And he could move his mother at will any time he wanted to. As to providing for her, or for both of them . . .
  well, who could say what he was or wasn't capable of? He would provide for his Ma what she  couldn't  provide  for
  herself, and vice versa.
  So, they would naturally expect the very sort of approach that Harry was employing: the esoteric, the gadgets,  the
  ghosts of E-Branch. But what about a more mundane approach? Every major town and city in the Yellow Pages of the
  whole wide world - certainly the Western  World  -  listed  scores  of  detective  agencies!  And  here  was  Harry  Keogh,
  Necroscope, trying to cover all of that ground himself. Which he could do, of course, given an eternity of time! Stupid! And if he
  
  should ever be lucky enough to get close and they spotted  him . . . then the whole wild-goose chase  would have to
  start all over again.
  But to have fifty detective agencies all on the job at the same time, in fifty different places—
  —would cost a hell of a lot of money! And Harry's funds went only so far. . .
  . . . His funds, yes.
  But there were others who could well afford it. According to Darcy Clarke, anyway . . .
  By the middle of June Harry had set up the mechanisms for putting his battalions of detectives  in their regiments of
  agencies  in England, France, Germany and the USA, to work. All he needed was the funding: at  least  three  and  a  half  million
  pounds  sterling, or the equivalent in whatever currency was available, to guarantee he could  bankroll  the  tiling  for
  just the first three months of its operation! Meanwhile Darcy Clarke had put him in contact with a Swiss bank used  by
  E-Branch, and Harry had made a ridiculously small deposit - a few hundred pounds out of his remaining few thousands  - to open a
  numbered account.
  Now he could get on with the more serious stuff . . .  So he thought. But Bonnie Jean Mirlu had other plans.
  She had decided it was time that Harry went into training in earnest. Real training.
  For a man in his early thirties (she of course worked on the not
  unnatural presumption that his body was his own, that his mind and body were the same age) Harry hadn't been in the
  best possible shape. Concern over his wife and child might explain some of that, and long idle periods between jobs would account
  for the rest: the fact that he'd done little or nothing in his field since his people ditched him.
  But when he was working . . . well, she had evidence of his general efficiency. The way he'd been able to handle that
  situation in London; the episode with Big Jimmy (who would never be a problem to anyone  ever again); the fact that
  he had been able to enter secured, guarded premises - her premises - find what he sought  and get out again without
  being detected . . .  it said a lot for his skill in every department. And even B.J., who had known a good  many men in
  her  vastly  extended  time,  had  to  admit  that  he  was  good  in  other  departments,  too.  So  good  indeed  that  she
  considered  herself  genuinely  fond  of  him.  Or  as  fond  as  she  could  be  of  someone  with  his  strictly  limited  future
  potential.
  But the thought of actually sending him out into the world - into Radu's world of hideous  dangers  such  as he 'could
  never imagine,' except as she had told him about it - was a matter of some concern. Not so much for Harry (if he failed and fell
  foul of Drakul or Ferenczy, so be it) as for herself and her Master. Not that he could talk about  them . . . he didn't even know
  about them, not consciously. But anyone who cared to backtrack Harry Keogh's recent activities was bound  to come
  across  BJ.  somewhere  along  the  line,  and  possibly,  in  the  course  of  things,  Radu  Lykan.  On  that  front  the  secret
  watcher was problem enough (despite that his purpose was as yet undetermined) without any further complications.
  Also,  BJ.  hadn't  yet  quite  satisfied  herself  that  Harry  was  all  he  appeared  to  be,  or  something  more.  She  had
  reasoned that he wasn't in thrall to any Other . . .  or if he was, then it was beyond her power to detect. Radu, however,
  would soon sniff out whatever she might have missed. Nor was she convinced that his previous employers were quite
  done with him - or with her. What if she was being watched through  Harry - without his consent  or knowledge? With
  that  in mind she had ordered him not to scrub messages  on  his  answering  machine,  which  so  far  were  few  and  far
  between. And then she'd monitored them for coded or in any way cryptic content. But so far, nothing.
  As for E-Branch itself: well, he'd said it was an esoteric organization, one of the 'secret' services. And so it appeared;
  she'd been unable to discover anything  at all, not a single reference or clue, to any such  authority. And despite that
  Harry was completely in B.J.'s thrall -beguiled at the snap of her fingers, or the utterance of a simple phrase, 'Mah wee
  man' - still he refused to divulge anything  more than he'd already told her. He would simply tense  up, sweat, tremble,
  and offer no further information. If they'd brainwashed all of their operatives the same way, it was  hardly  surprising
  that this E-Branch remained secret!
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  But there again, the dog-Lord Radu had his own methods; if there was something her Master should know, be sure he would get to know it.
  Except, of course, she must first get Harry into the lair. He must somehow be made  to  climb  into  the  'unexplored'
  heights of the Cairngorms, along with B.J. Which was why she'd needed him fit, and why she must now train him . . .
  In early July Harry woke up one morning to find B.J. gone from his bed. It was a Wednesday; she'd recently been a little neglectful of work in the
  wine bar; he found her note in the kitchen, where she'd thoughtfully laid out the makings of his breakfast:
  Harry—
  What with your home-maintenance drive, your cycling, and all your fit-making activities, you are almost a new man. I want
  you to give serious thought to what we talked about - that holiday in the Highlands? It will be different, something for me,
  really. But something I would like to share with you. Surely you can afford a few days, before you start searching  again?  After all, I
  don't know that if you're successful, it won't be the end of us. Do I?
  All Love— B.J.
  The conversation she mentioned sprang immediately to mind (though he couldn't remember where or when they had had it). A holiday, yes, in
  the Highlands. B.J. liked to hunt, climb, live off the land: healthy exercise, for body and mind both. And she had suggested that he
  
  might like to go with her, live rough for a long weekend, make love under the moon and stars. Especially the moon . . .  or was that
  last one of Harry's inspirations?
  It inspired him to go, anyway. Thus it was his decision to go, if only to please her. So he thought.
  The Wamphyri have long believed that wherever possible the destiny of men should be in their own hands: that whatever they enter into, it
  should be of their own free will. But no harm on occasion to offer a little encouragement along the way . . .
  Later he rang her and they set a date: a month from now, in August. Meanwhile, they'd practise at least once a week in some good spots in
  the Trossachs,  just a few hours  out of Edinburgh. B.J. knew a lot of good rock climbs that would be ideal for an enthusiastic
  amateur. Well, maybe so, but the Necroscope didn't intend to be that much of an amateur.
  Also, she'd only asked him to put off his search for a while; which to his mind didn't include his planned operation to fund that search. And in
  any case, it was something that would only take a day or two, depending
  on circumstances yet to be encountered in Sicily. Since he was seeing her only once or twice in any week, it was something he could fit in in between dates.
  As for his preparations: they were simplicity itself. The Necroscope made a jump to an Army Ordnance Depot in the south of England, entered in the dead of
  night via the Mobius Continuum, and equipped himself with a lot of devastating weaponry. He could have gone to Darcy Clarke for his supplies but wanted to
  avoid implicating E-Branch in anything he did. This wasn't simply because Darcy had asked him to, but mainly because he'd quit the Branch and couldn't afford
  any more favours. He'd managed to keep himself out of debt so far, and liked it that way. Even if they found Brenda for him they would only be balancing the
  books on what he had done for them.
  The Necroscope was scrupulously fair-minded. At the ammo depot, he knew the squad on duty would catch hell; they'd be in it up to their necks. So before
  getting out with his heavy-duty loot he deliberately tripped an alarm. Let the M.O.D. and Military Police try to figure out how it had been done. That's what they
  were paid for. Doubtless they'd blame the IRA.
  Next (and most obvious and easiest), he obtained a recent map of Sicily, and more especially of the mountainous Madonie. Then, the next right, riding the
  Mobius Continuum to the Mediterranean in a series of cautious exploratory jumps, he checked flight ETAs at the sleepy airport in Catania, and synchronized his
  watch to local time.
  Finally he used the toilets in the reception area, secured his stall's door on the inside, made doubly sure of his co-ordinates and returned home.
  And when he'd very carefully packed his suitcase, then he was ready . . .
  An hour later, at 9:30 that same night, he 'phoned B.J. to tell her he'd be away for a day or two.
  'Looking for Brenda?' She seemed anxious, maybe even suspicious.
  'No, other things. Business ..."
  'I didn't know you had any "business." Not any more.'
  This is financial. I have to move my bank accounts, sort things out in general. I've got nothing fixed up locally. It's your fault, in a way. You've occupied my free
  time, not to mention my thoughts. I'm doing some important personal administration, that's all. Stuff I've let slip. But it doesn't interfere with anything, and I'm
  not due to see you until Saturday.'
  There was a long pause, until B.J. very softly said: 'Are you sure? That it won't interfere with anything?' And before he could answer, even as he framed words
  to answer: 'Now listen to me, mah—'
  '—Of course I'm sure!' he cut her off, and was surprised to find
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  himself perspiring. 'B.J., it's Thursday night. I'll be back tomorrow night, or Saturday morning at the latest.'
  And after another pause: 'Very well - but remember, Harry, we're climbing this weekend.'
  'I wouldn't miss it for the world,' he told her . . .
  After that:
  Briefly Harry gave thought to what he was doing. Something puzzled him, and he couldn't figure out what it was. Eventually it came to him.
  There had been a time when he would have simply used the Mobius Continuum to jump straight into Palermo. Now—
  —It seemed he'd developed a real need for his little subterfuges, the secrecy, this esoteric camouflage for his metaphysical talents. But that was
  ridiculous: of course he needed to keep his skills secret! Obviously he did - but to this extent? It was odd; he was more concerned
  now about someone discovering his talents than ever before in his life. But why now (he kept asking himself), in a time of relative safety?
  Safety? Scarcely that, considering what he had in mind!
  But if there was an answer to all of this, it was going to have to wait. His course was set, his plans made. For the next few days, at least.
  It was 9:45 in Edinburgh, 10:45 in Sicily.
  Harry made an international call to the airport at Catania to check the sitrep on the incoming flight from Athens. It was descending, starting its
  approach run. He allowed it forty-five minutes to land and commence discharging its passengers toward customs, then took the Mobius route
  directly to the stall he'd booked in the men's toilets. Two or three minutes later he was queuing to change pounds into lira at the
  cambio, then walking out of the airport reception area into the Sicilian night with a handful of rather more mundane travellers.
  Now he was just another tourist with a heavy suitcase.
  Heavy for its size, anyway . . .
  II
  
  DAHAM DRAKESH— LE MANSE MADONIE - DEAD SILENCE
  The Necroscope took a taxi to Paterno, paid for a room at the Hotel Adrano two nights in advance, and by 12:30 was taking a
  shower before retiring. With a little luck, the fan above his bed would keep him cool in the seventy-plus degrees of heat. . .
  Hot in Sicily, yes . . . but some four and a half thousand miles away, on the Roof of the World, it was anything but hot; indeed, on
  Tibet's Tingri Plateau at 7:00 a.m.  the  temperature  hovered  just  one  degree  above  freezing.  But  the  sun  was  bright
  where its burgeoning golden blister threatened  to burst  on the eastern horizon, and Major  Chang  Lun was comfortable
  enough in his winter-warfare uniform, fur-lined boots and hooded jacket.
  He and his Corporal driver had set out from the barracks at Xigaze ninety minutes earlier because  they knew they had to reach
  Drakesh Monastery within an hour or so of the sun clearing the horizon. Any later and they'd be denied entry. No one
  was allowed to enter the monastery at Drakesh in full daylight. Daylight was for contemplation, worship; darkness was for mundane man in
  his wickedness, the taking of food, the thinking of mundane thoughts, the maintenance of the body as opposed  to the soul. The Major
  must consider himself fortunate indeed that the High Priest of the sect, the enigmatic Daham Drakesh, had seen fit to grant him audience
  during daylight hours.
  Such would be the opinion of outsiders, anyway. Hah! Well, Major Chang Lun knew differently. Powerful as this monkish creature was in his
  own spheres, the so-called 'People's' Army of Communist China was more powerful yet. But Chang Lun was under orders and must
  play Drakesh's game.
  The Major's vehicle was a two-seater halftrack, a snow-cat equipped for the plateau's uneven  terrain. His driver parked it in the
  lee of boulders close to steps  leading up to the monastery's foreboding entrance, covered it with  a  tarpaulin,  finally
  came erect and saluted.
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  Chang Lun nodded his curt approval, turned and bowed from the waist to the string of red-robed priests where they
  stood stock still, arms folded, patiently waiting.
  There were six of them; they indicated that the Major and his driver should  take their places  centrally  in  the  line.
  And with three priests leading and three bringing up the rear, the string set out at what was to the Chinese soldiers an
  awkward, unmilitary shuffle, climbing the steps single-file to the yawning stone mouth that formed the entrance to the
  monastery. The leading priest held his left arm tucked into his waist at the elbow, with the forearm held stiffly out in
  front. His jogging motion  caused  tiny  golden  bells  to  chime  where  they  were  stitched  into  the  seam  of  his  robe's
  extended sleeve.
  And so into the Drakesh monastery. As they entered, Chang Lun looked back. In the middle distance, glowing yellow where
  glancing rays of sunlight struck through  the shade  in  the  lee  of  ragged  mountains,  a  nameless  city  stood  gaunt  and
  deserted behind high fortress walls. If it weren't so remote the place would make an excellent military base, but what
  purpose would it serve to station  soldiers in a region as barren and inhospitable as this? The southern  borders with
  Nepal, Bhutan, and India were no longer in dispute.
  Then a portcullis of massive timbers was lowered, shutting off the view and Lun's thoughts both. The tinkling of the
  bells receded, along with the soft flutter of monkish robes;  darkness  settled;  the silence was near-absolute.  And  as
  the Major's eyes began to adjust, he saw that he and the Corporal were alone . . .  if only for a moment. Then:
  'Welcome to Drakesh,' said a voice as dark as the surroundings.  It spoke a sibilant Chinese but yet without a trace
  of dialectal accent. 'You have entered of your own free will - or rather, at the command of your superiors! Well, so be
  it.' The voice held a none too subtle sarcasm.
  Abruptly, a torch was lit; the shadows  were at once thrown back, and flickering fight illumined the face and form of Daham
  Drakesh.
  Chang Lun had met him before but the physical appearance, the presence of Drakesh, never failed to impress him. At
  sixty-eight inches in height, the Major himself was taller than average for his race, but he felt dwarfed in the presence
  of Daham Drakesh. The man must be all of six and a half feet in height! But thin to the point of emaciation, he looked
  almost skeletal where the light of his torch showed through  his shift and silhouetted  his  pipestem  body.  His  hands
  were freakishly long and tapering, their pointed fingers tipped with thick yellow nails hooked into claws; his shaven
  skull was thin at the front and lantern-jawed, long at the back and bulbous as the head of an insect on a scrawny neck.
  But for all that Daham Drakesh seemed fragile as porcelain, his eyes - eyes luminous and yellow as molten sulphur - gazed on
  Chang Lun and the Corporal, and seemed to gaze through  them, as if they were the ephemeral ones, not  he.  They  felt
  paralysed by that gaze, until finally
  Drakesh's lips cracked in a ghastly smile and he said:
  'Come. I have prepared a room for your man in the left eye  of  the  carven  face.  There  he  may  enjoy  the  daylight,
  forbidden to me and mine, sip tea, break bread, take his rest - and wait for you, of course. We require no underlings to
  
  attend our discourse.' He smiled a mirthless sideways smile down on the Major and moved silently, flowingly ahead of
  his guests,  leading them through  the labyrinth of  rock-hewn  halls,  galleries  and  tunnels  which  was  the  monastery.
  'Alas, you and I may not rest, Major,' (again his loathsome smile, directed at Chang Lun). The wicked are not permitted
  to rest, ever - by which I mean that we have matters to discuss, of course.'
  'Indeed  we  have,'  the  Major  snapped,  feeling  (as  he  always  felt)  intimidated  by  this  creature  in  this  place  and
  determined to regain the upper hand. 'Grave matters, which have brought me here on the orders of my superiors!'
  'Aye, and your timing - or the timing of your masters in Peking - is faultless,' Daham Drakesh answered, as he rushed
  his visitors along gloomy stone  corridors, with his torch held high in front. 'For just  as  you  have  your  orders,  so  I
  have my . . .  shall we say, requirements? Who can say, perhaps  there are higher powers at work? Certainly it seems
  that  your coming at this time was inevitable. For if you had not requested  an audience, I most certainly would have
  summoned you.'
  'Summoned?'  Chang  Lun  gasped.  'Why,  you  .  .  .!'  But  there  he  paused  with  his  mouth  agape,  his  slanted  eyes
  opening wide.
  In the last few moments, a massed moaning had become apparent; the Major had thought it might be some acoustic
  effect of the wind on the outer shell of the monastery. But now, in addition to the moaning, he could discern a regular
  whistling or slicing sound, like the crack of a lash splitting the air, or of several lashes in unison. And he had seen its
  source.
  They had reached a central gallery deep in the mountainside. Lit by flambeaux, still the light  failed  to  illumine  the
  high ceiling or reach into every corner. The place was an amphitheatre, with stone  steps  descending  to a level central
  area. But while the rest of the hall, cave or excavation was poorly lit,  that  central  area  was  all  too  clearly  illumined.
  Burning braziers suspended on chains from the ceiling cast their flaring light on a scene  that Bosch might easily have
  omitted from some hellish triptych. Emerging onto a perimeter walkway, the Major had come to an abrupt halt. Drakesh
  immediately gripped his elbow in a surprisingly powerful hand. 'Ah, no!' he whispered. 'Be silent, I beg you. Do  not
  disturb them. They are at worship . . .'
  They' were the monastery's priests, the sect's  devotees,  the acolytes of the faith. They were naked; their red robes
  of priesthood lay folded on the lower tiers of the amphitheatre's encircling steps;  their pale, cringing bodies thronged
  around the central dais - no, the long
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  stone trough, as Chang Lun now saw - but those who stood upon or in the trough were clad in red nevertheless. The red of their own blood!
  Heads down, in single-file, they trudged in their shuffling flip-flop fashion from one end of the trough to the other, while the 'brothers' all around flailed away at
  them with long black - and red - metal-tipped whips. The blood streaked them; it rained from them; their feet were stained crimson where they slopped through an
  inch of plasma like men treading grapes! Yet never a cry of pain from a single 'brother' but that low, concerted moaning, not least from the ones with the whips . . .
  who knew it was their turn next.
  And the blood in the trough: it drained away through boreholes to a sluice, and went steaming down a chute into unknown darkness. Those who had offered up
  their blood stepped from the trough at its far end, and went stumbling, reeling down an exit tunnel, presumably to a place of rest and healing. While at the other
  end untried brothers took their places, stepped into the trough and commenced the ordeal of blood. And in the outer circle, the last of the priests were even now
  disrobing, accepting whips from flayers who chose their own places in the shuffling, moaning line.
  'Worship?' The Major was aghast, and his driver trembling, where Daham Drakesh hurried them around the perimeter and under an archway marked with an
  ankh: a symbol of long life, as Chang Lun was aware. But long life, in a place like this?
  'But what of the blood?' The Corporal's face was now a far paler shade of yellow. 'Where does it all go? All of that blood, all of that. . . life?' For some time there
  was no answer, just the flaring of Drakesh's torch as he forged ahead. Then finally his voice came echoing back to the pair hurrying after him:
  The blood returns to the earth . . . eventually. Surely it is better to offer it fresh than rotting in corpses? Men take from the soil and the rivers, giving nothing
  back but piss and shit until the end. But here we observe our duty to Nature.'
  'Huh!' the Major couldn't suppress a derisory snort. 'And do you bleed with them, Daham Drakesh?'
  Drakesh rounded on him in the doorway to his quarters and for a moment seemed to rear taller still. Then the fire dimmed a little in his eyes as he answered,
  'With them? No, Chang Lun, I bleed for them, for they are sinners all! In the night, they have sinned. Even their dreams have been foul, and full of the vices which
  are in men. They have dreamed of women, and some of men. They have plied their own flesh, making it despicable. But in this place we are of the spirit, not the
  body. Which is why, periodically, we suffer their vile bodies to be purged; not by the release of base fluids but the essence of life itself. And so you see, your driver
  was right: the blood is the life . . .'
  At which a red-robed priest stepped forward from the shadows, and
  Drakesh turned to the shivering Corporal. 'Go with the brother here, who will see that you are comfortable.' When they were gone, he stood aside and ushered the
  Major into his chambers . . .
  Daham Drakesh had been here a hundred years. At the time, this had seemed the only place in the world that no one wanted. But now men wanted everything,
  everywhere, even a wasteland as barren as this plateau.
  When first he came here there was the walled city and its people, nothing else. But in twenty-odd years the city was forbidden and its people in thrall, and in
  another twenty most of them had died in the excavation of the 'monastery.' It pleased Drakesh to call it a monastery, which was in fact an aerie. As for the survivors
  of the great task: their children were still in thrall to Drakesh in his aerie, in one of the highest, most remote places on Earth. But it had not been remote enough.
  Even that mighty fang Qomolangma, Everest itself, one hundred and thirty miles away, would not be remote enough. Men had conquered its topmost peak;
  they had come out of foreign lands to plant their sigils there. Usually they hailed from the west, but in older times they had come from the east, too. Except those
  
  earlier conquerors had had scant interest in Everest.
  History repeats. Those same slant-eyed warriors were back again. Not the Hsiung-nu or Avars nor even the Huns, but their descendants certainly, and with the
  same fierce blood in them. But where before they had skirted the Great Plateau, this time they had taken it. Well, and Daham Drakesh, last of his line, was of an
  alien blood, too - of a truly alien blood, aye! This would not be the first time his kind had been swayed, usurped, even decimated by human invaders. But never
  exterminated. Nor would it happen now.
  It had been the same in Dacia, Eflak, Wallachia, Transylvania (the same in 'the source-place,' under whatever name the pages of history ascribed to it), in those
  earlier times. Daham had heard it from his egg-sire, Egon, who had lived through all of those long centuries of war to become the survivor of survivors, oldest of all
  the Wamphyri . . . Well, save one:
  How nomadic invaders from the east had driven the vampire Lords from their ancient territories time and again, not least when they had considered themselves
  secure. And now? Was it to be the same again? Not if Daham Drakesh had his way.
  He had come here those hundred years ago to remove himself from the actions of his father. Bored by isolation in his Transylvanian keep, and aware that an
  ancient enemy lay asleep in a secret place in the west, the 'Count' had determined to venture out and broaden his interests in the world; he had lain low for far too
  long. Daham Drakul (now Drakesh), Egon's 'son' by transfusion of his egg, had been left to care
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  for the  keep:  'in  command,'  as  it  were,  of  a  handful  of  itinerant  Szekely  serfs  and  thralls.  Huh!  What  was  that  for
  power?
  But treachery was ever the way of the vampire, and no one hates  a Master Vampire, a Lord of the Wamphyri, more
  than  his own flesh and blood, his own egg-son.  By virtue of Egon's egg, the burgeoning  leech  within him, Daham was
  Wamphyri; he would be a Lord in his own right. But not here in Transylvania, not in another Lord's castle. Wherefore he must
  remove himself to some far place and find or build an aerie of his own. A handful of soil out of Starside (his 'birthright') and six
  Szgany thralls vampirized into lieutenants, were all Daham took with him. Oh, and some monies in ancient golden ingots
  stolen from his father's treasury.
  And so to the Roof of the World, and to this place—
  —Where eight years later he'd learned of Egon's death at the hands of some merely human adversary. But by then a
  return to the Transylvanian keep had been out of the question, for it had been recognized as a source of great evil; the
  local administration would never  allow  another  Drakul  to  take  up  residence  there.  It  were  best  that  the  legend  die
  again, only to rise up in other parts when the time was ripe.
  And so the decades had flown, but what is time to a Lord of the Wamphyri? Time is nothing . . . but ennui is. And
  just as Egon had become bored, so was his 'son' bored by his existence in this place. Except he must wait out his time;
  or rather, he must wait out the time of Another, until He was up again.
  Daham knew about Radu; knew who, if not where he was. At least he knew as much as Egon had known,  before  his  ill-fated
  sojourn  in England. He also knew about  the 'Francezcis' (more properly  the  Ferenczys),  and  had  watched  from  afar
  while they grew powerful in the world. For just as they had their sources,  so Daham had his. Indeed they were often
  the same sources! But more than this, he had his eyes and ears out in the world, his red-robed thralls and 'Emissaries
  of the Message,' ostensibly a message of love and peace . . .
  In reality they were his spies pure and simple, and their message a sham. Or rather, they were his «crf-so-simple and
  far less than pure agents. But as well as information, they sought out vampires, too-common vampires like themselves
  - to learn from them . . .
  . . . And then to destroy them!
  It was part of the ages-old scheme of things, a rule as valid as it had been fifteen hundred years ago: that obscurity
  and anonymity are synonymous  with longevity. A simple code of  existence  that  Egon  Drakul  had  forgotten  or  put
  aside  once  too  often.  But  his  son  Daham  would  not  make  the  same  mistake.  For  he  knew  that  if  man  discovered
  vampires in the world - and if man believed in them  -  he  would  not  rest  until  they  were  destroyed,  every  last  one,
  including Daham. Which was
  why he sought out and killed these lesser creatures first.
  As to who they were:
  Spawn of Ferenczy, Lykan, and  Drakul errors from a time lost in history.  The  sons  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of
  daughters of supplicant Szgany come into this world with Radu Lykan, Nonari the Gross Ferenczy . . . yes, and with
  Karl and Egon Drakul, too, out of a far strange  place. They were not Wamphyri, no, but they were of the blood. And
  their source had been Sunside/Starside in a vampire world. Daham had learned something of that place from his father,
  and of blood-feuds so terrible that they would outlast time! Moreover, he knew it was only a matter of time before just
  such a feud erupted here.
  He knew, because down the years his 'disciples' had come across descendants of Radu's thralls - lycanthropes  with
  eyes full of moonlight - who told of a legend sleeping in a mountain far in the west. This was the same rumour Egon
  had heard a hundred years ago, that sent  him plunging headlong into England . . .  to his eventual  death.  And  who
  could say that Egon's death had not been wrought by Radu, or those  he'd left behind to tend him through  his  long
  sleep?
  Radu Lykan, and the Ferenczys, and the Drakuls. But that  had been a feud - and would be again, when Radu was
  up! As to the when of it: soon, if Daham could believe his sources.  And he did believe them. The Ferenczys had had
  thralls in England for long and long; for what good reason, if not to track Radu to his lair? And just as Daham's people
  
  had researched the so-called 'Ferenczinis,' and later the 'Francezcis,' so had some other agency out of England! Daham
  knew it; his eyes and ears were out there, not always in the guise of red-robed priests! Radu's thralls protected  and
  looked after their sleeping master even now, and in their turn sought out his olden enemies until the time of his return.
  And  when he returned, what then? And what of  Daham  Drakesh,  Wamphyri,  in  this  remote  but  not  inaccessible
  place? How long before Radu found him? Or - if the Ferenczys should  find and destroy  Radu first - how long before they
  found him?
  . . .  Or (and this was surely the worst possible of any and all scenarios), what if they had already found him . . . ?
  Well, he had no proof of that, nor even a shred of evidence  as  yet.  But  there  was  always  tomorrow,  and  Daham
  Drakesh was a sincere believer in another old edict: that a stitch in time saves nine.
  Egon had told him now, upon a time in the vampire world, the great Lord Shaitan the Unborn had stood  off and let
  lesser Lords fight a great bloodwar, until all of them were depleted, made weak by their efforts. Then how he'd picked
  them off one by one, until he was the undisputed  Lord of Lords. It had been a story  worth listening to, and a lesson
  worth learning.
  But how much better, how much more ironic, if Shaitan the Unborn had set those  lesser Lords to fighting, if he had
  deliberately planned it so
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  that they performed the bulk of his work for him? And who could say, perhaps he had! And perhaps  Daham would do
  the same. The ultimate agent provocateur, yes.
  History repeats . . .
  All of which were thoughts  that passed  fleetingly through  the vampire Lord's  mind  as  his  visitor,  Major  Chang  Lun  of  the
  People's Army of Red China, tried in vain to make himself comfortable in the austere cavern that served the last Drakul
  for living space.
  There was an alcove cut back into one wall. Within it a long, lidded box like a linen chest  fitted snugly  into the seven
  by two foot recess. A bench, its polished top was scattered  with cushions  of a coarse local weave. This was  where
  Drakesh had seated  the Major, upon  his own bed in fact - which was inside  the box. Normally at this hour, Drakesh
  would be inside, too. Alas that on certain rare occasions, such as this one, he was obliged to make allowances.
  And  while  Chang  Lun's  'host'  brought  tea  and  foul  Tibetan  biscuits  from  a  secondary  cave,  the  Major  sat  and
  narrowed his oval eyes, staring all about the dim, somehow smoky interior of this place. It wasn't  smoky, he knew, yet
  seemed full of drifting shadows and the shimmery mobility of a scene viewed through  smoke. Perhaps it was an effect
  of the indirect daylight filtering in through narrow slits hewn right through the great thickness of the far wall, the only
  indication that Daham Drakesh's apartments were on the outer extremes of the monastery.
  Chang Lun had inquired about those narrow windows before. In other keeps in other lands they  might  easily  be  mistaken  for
  ancient arrow slits, but in fact they were Drakesh's clock. The light crossed  the room in dim, barely perceptible bars,
  forming patterns  on the wall above the alcove where Chang Lun sat. According to the shape  and  brightness  of  the
  patterns and the time of year, Drakesh could immediately determine the hour to within two or three minutes.
  'And at night?' (the Major had asked him one time).
  'I have a certain affinity with the night,' Drakesh had at once answered. 'It is an art  of  mine  instinctively  to  know
  what is the hour. I take pride in it - a vanity, I know. But as the setting  of the sun  is a marvel, and its rising even more
  so, we should likewise pay attention to the darkness that lies between the two.' Pseudo-mystical garbage . . .
  . . . The Major felt himself slumping and sat up straighter. It was always the same: this place seemed to drain him of
  life. Huh! The blood is the life,' indeed!
  Tea,' said Daham, entering as if from nowhere, and causing the dingy air to  shift  and  shimmer  into  new  patterns.
  'And there are Somangha biscuits, should you require refreshment.'
  The tea is welcome,' the Major offered his curt nod.  'As for
  Himalayan grass seeds in milk paste—'
  '—Each to his own,' Daham nodded his understanding and placed  a brass  tray  on a circular wooden  table.  Then  he pulled  up  a
  three-legged stool and seated himself facing his visitor. 'Soup, cheese, biscuits, bread: you would probably  starve  on a diet such  as
  that. But to the Tibetan, more than sufficient.'
  The Major smiled thinly. 'But you are not Tibetan.'
  'Polish, originally,' Drakesh was frank. 'When my mother  died and my  father  returned  to  his native  Romania, I went  with  him.
  There I - what, heard the call? - I knew  I had a mission  in life. And  so I came here and built  this mission,  this  monastery.  Think
  what you will of it, and of me; I have my devotees. You saw some of them at a phase of their devotions.'
  'Indeed I did!' Chang Lun grimaced, and quickly  diverted  the  conversation.  'So, you  built  your  monastery.  Then  we came, and
  one by one the temples began to topple.'
  'But not this one,' Drakesh's eyes had narrowed.  Those  troops  who  preceded  you  -  warriors,  and  not  merely  an
  occupying  force - they saw that I was  different,  and  that  the  mysteries  of  the  Drakesh  Sect  were  real.  They  made
  report, and an officer - ah, a full Colonel,  Chang Lun! -came from his headquarters  on Kwijiang Avenue, Chungking,
  to see me. Do you  know  the  significance  of  that?  Perhaps  you  will  understand  me  better  if  I  speak  of  the  British
  E-Branch, or their Russian equivalent at the Chateau Bronnitsy near Moscow? Oh, yes, Major! There are forces in the
  
  world greater than all the armaments of war. Some men understand  such  things,  and  I,  Daham  Drakesh,  am  one  of
  them. But that is my pride speaking, and pride is a sin. Indeed, it is one of the original sins. But. . . perhaps  I'm boring
  you?'
  Chang Lun shook himself. This man was hypnotic; his voice lulled; his eyes drilled into your soul. And as if he knew the Major's
  innermost thoughts, Drakesh was even now smiling that ghastly smile of his. 'No,' the Major protested.  'What, bored?
  Not in the least! So tell me: what did the Colonel from Chungking want?'
  Drakesh nodded.  'I  know  that  you  already  know,'  he  said,  'and  that  you  think  me  a  fraud,  a  fakir,  and  Colonel
  Tsi-Hong a gullible fool. But I'll tell you anyway. He wanted to see me melt a block of ice - from within! He wanted to
  know how I can see in the dark, without the aid of nitelite binoculars. He was fascinated that I could  fast  for  thirty
  days and nights without even water or a crust of bread to sustain  me, then walk naked, ten miles out into the snows,
  to meditate. And having heard certain truths and untruths about me in Lhasa, he was especially interested in my longevity, the fact that
  I've been here for a hundred years!'
  Chang Lun nodded.  'Metaphysics,'  he sniffed.  'Longevity.  ESP.  On  Kwijiang  Avenue,  in  Chungking,  they  study
  such  things. Also genetic mutations and such. I say it's a fad. What weight can a thought  carry? And what use  to
  breed freaks? But we know the weight of a tank, and
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  how deadly a gun is in the hands of a well-trained soldier! So ...  for the moment Colonel Tsi-Hong is in favour. Indeed, he has been in favour a good many years.
  But he has superiors, too, and men want results. As for genetics: the Russians have bred a super-pig. The beast can't walk, its flesh is vile, and its shit stinks!'
  'But on Kwijiang Avenue in Chungking,' Drakesh's voice had fallen to a whisper, 'they are not breeding pigs . . .'
  And now, finally, it was the Major's turn to smile. He just couldn't resist it. 'On Kwijiang Avenue,' he said, letting each word sink in, 'they are no longer
  breeding anything!' Reaching inside his uniform, he produced a heavy, 'sealed' manila envelope, which he handed to Drakesh.
  Without a word or change of expression, Drakesh opened the envelope with a hooked fingernail. The 'seal' sprang open at a touch, which scarcely surprised him.
  Where Major Chang Lun was concerned, the word privacy wasn't in his vocabulary. What was written was lengthy and very complicated; Drakesh's eyes swept the
  crackling pages at incredible speed. He nodded his acceptance of the contents. And:
  'I told him as much nine years ago,' he said. 'So now we'll do it my way.' As he placed the envelope in his robe, his face was entirely emotionless.
  Chang Lun made no attempt to disguise his knowledge of his host's subject. 'They wanted tissue samples . . . you refused to co-operate. They wanted blood . . .
  you said it was your "life," and you could not part with it. They wanted you! As a sample of something alien, extraordinary, they would dissect you like a frog,
  disassemble you like a watch to see what made you tick. Oh, no physical damage, neither scar nor puncture hole to tell the tale, but small bits of you removed all
  the same. You bluffed them; you said you would rather die first, told them you'd will yourself to death. Tsi-Hong believed you - why, he might even learn
  something from watching you do it! - but then you offered him an alternative.'
  'My seed,' Daham Drakesh nodded. 'It seemed abhorrent to me that pieces of me, however small, should die on their telescopic slides and in the chemicals of
  their experiments. I did not want myself. . . examined. But I could find no logical argument against the promotion of life, from the ugly, wriggling, otherwise
  useless hordes of my loins.'
  'You came in a bottle for them,' Chang Lun, too, could be cold, emotionless. They froze your sperm and took it away . . .'
  To Chungking,' Drakesh whispered.
  'Indeed. And that was nine years ago.'
  'And fifty came forth!' Drakesh's eyes seemed afire in the cave's weird light.
  'Out of the flower of China's womanhood, yes. You, father to a horde,
  when loyal, weeping Chinese parents  were strangling their babies in the name of the People's Republic!' (Chang Lun
  was merciless, by his lights at least). To what end, Drakesh? What of Colonel Tsi-Hong's genetic experiments now?'
  'I told him how it would be,' said the other. That one may not grow exotic orchids  in  a  paddy  field;  that  they  will
  come up twisted and strange. But if they are tended  by caring gardeners, watered by familiar rains, and reared in their
  natural, their native soil. . .'
  'In other words, you'll "grow" them yourself. What, here? And how will the brothers react to that, Daham Drakesh?
  A monastery, or a harem? A holy place, or a place of holes?'
  'If  it's  your  intention  to  offend  me,  your  time  is  wasted  here,'  Drakesh  answered.  'What  will  be  will  be  . . .  not
  necessarily because / want it, but because your leaders want it. And if in order to exist I must obey, then I will obey. I
  will not be forced out of being, driven from my place.'
  'You don't fool me,' Chang Lun shook his head. 'Your so-called "emissaries" are out in the world even now, to what
  end if not to find a new place for you? I fancy you'll flee before your deceptions are discovered. Let's be clear on this: I
  consider you a fraud, yes. But I also consider you evil. This . . . this spawn that  they bred by artificial insemination in
  Chungking is proof of it. Sooner or later even Tsi-Hong will recognize the truth, and what of you and yours  then?  I
  don't know what you are, Drakesh,  but  you're  no  holy  man.  And  you're  not  up  to  any  good,  I'm  sure.  As  for  this
  monastery: do you think I can't see why you chose this place, so close to so many borders? Even now your boltholes
  are ready to receive you, when you are found out!'
  Drakesh touched  his robe, the place  of  the  letter.  Major  Lun's  raving  didn't  concern  him;  his  mind  was  on  other
  things. Fifteen of his 'children' deformed, destroyed at birth. He had known about  that long ago, of course. But fifteen
  out of fifty? It was hardly surprising: freak births and nightmarish malformations had been all too common among the
  Wamphyri of Starside; so Egon had informed him. As for grotesque autisms - bone and brain disorders - tendencies  to
  extreme violence and madness - 'unnatural' lusts: what else would  one  expect?  These  children,  these  creatures,  had
  
  been vampires! Daham's blood-brood, his creatures, aye . . .
  The last six escaped,' Chang Lun broke into his thoughts,  made no excuse for knowing every smallest detail of the
  letter. 'Only eight years old, and apparently perfect apart from their accelerated growth rate. They killed their keepers
  and instructors; they not only bit the hands that fed them . . . but fed on them! Drinkers of blood, cannibals, homicidal
  maniacs! In only eight years they'd grown to men, and sexually voracious women! Finally they were hunted  down to
  the last one, and eradicated. But it wasn't easy . . .'
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  And again Drakesh said, 'I told them how it would be. But this time we'll do it my way.' His whisper was a hoarse
  rustle in his pipestem throat. 'My way, yes . . . "
  All of his 'children' gone now - the nucleus of an indefatigable army, which Tsi-Hong had tried to create as a unique
  breed, protectors  of China - all gone now. But Drakesh knew no  pain.  He  had  known  what  the  outcome  would  be.
  Tsi-Hong had tried to teach them to be human; Daham would teach them to be what they were, and to hide  what they
  were until he was ready!
  It was what he had wanted from the beginning. It had been the way of the Drakuls since a time beyond  memory - to
  infiltrate and eat out an enemy's heart from within. But China, the enemy? Not at all; the enemy was Mankind! China
  was merely the greenhouse  for the next and last generation of  Great  Vampires,  and  Daham  Drakesh  would  be  their
  unholy priest - their bloodsire, aye - in the vampire world of tomorrow! But for now:
  'You asked me certain questions,' he reminded the Major. 'Unless they were frivolous, I would answer them. Indeed,
  I am obliged to answer them, so that you may take my answer back to Tsi-Hong. "Would I make this place a harem?"
  you  asked.' Drakesh shook his head. 'No. The brothers will make ready the city in the lee of the  mountain.  And  the
  lascivious among them will repopulate it. But I shall be the true father of the brood!'
  'I know that place,' Chang Lun answered. 'I visited it - but briefly -the first time I came here. Its doors are still daubed
  with plague markings.'
  Drakesh shrugged. 'Whatever the plague was . . .  it is gone now.' And changing the subject: 'There was something
  else that you said: that I would flee when I was discovered, and that my emissaries were out in the world even now,
  seeking new places for me. Well, you were right in one thing, at least. But quite wrong in another ..."
  'Oh?' Chang Lun prompted him.
  'Boltholes - hah! If ever I had intended flight, surely by now I would have fled?' Drakesh cocked his knobby head
  on one side and smiled. 'What? Only sixty miles to Nepal, and the same to Sikkim or Bhutan? And I am still here? No,
  don't pride yourself that I would ever flee from such as you, Major.' And before Chang Lun could answer:
  'As for my emissaries: you don't know the half of it. . .  But Colonel Tsi-Hong does! Over  the  roof  of  the  world  -
  across the Himalayas - is the easiest route into "friendly territories," it's true. Ah, but not for me! For my "emissaries!"
  '
  Chang Lun frowned, and for the first time began to feel a little unsure of himself, a little uneasy. 'Go on,' he said.
  'Who better to look into the affairs of the outside world - not only the religious affairs, but also the social, political
  and economical - than
  harmless monks of an obscure Tibetan order? Spies, Chang Lun! Not  only  for me but  also for the  much-reviled Colonel Tsi-Hong.
  And by whom  reviled? By  you!  And  you  dare to  threaten  me? By  all means do so.  But  remember, you  may  well be threatening
  China herself! My emissaries, yes . . . spies  for China. Ah,  and very  necessary,  Chang Lun! Never more so than  now.  Doubtless
  you read in this letter how the Chateau Bronnitsy is no more, reduced to rubble some two years  ago? But  how  was  it wrought,  for
  what reason, and by whom? And what if a similar establishment on Kwijiang Avenue in Chungking should be next? Metaphysics,  a
  fad? Do you still think so? Well, others in the world  take  it far more seriously.  So now  you  see the  entire  picture;  you've  become
  one of the privileged handful who do see it. And perhaps one too many . . .  if 1 were to  let slip  the  fact  of this  new knowledge of
  yours, and of your opinions, to a certain Colonel in Chungking . . . "
  Chang Lun came to his feet at once! But slowly, oh so very slowly, he sat  down  again. 'I. . .  seem to  have underestimated  you,'
  he said. 'Worse, it seems I was mistaken - about certain things.'
  'You were suspicious  of what  you  did not  understand,'  Drakesh  told  him. 'But  now  you  do understand  . . . something of it,  at
  least. Well, no harm done.' He smiled that smile of his and stood  up.  'Now  you  will excuse me while I write  my  reply.  This  time,
  perhaps the seal will remain intact. . .?' And once again, before the Major could answer or protest, if he intended to:
  'But  let's  have  no  secrets,  you  and  I.  My  letter  will  list  my  requirements,  the  equipment  needed  to  make  Drakesh  City
  inhabitable again . . . Which the  military,  your  forces  in Xigaze, will transport  as it is made available. Also,  I  shall  require  more
  freedom, the necessary visas, to send my "emissaries" out into the world in greater numbers. For troubled times  are coming, and I -
  or should  I say  we? - would  be well advised to  prepare  for them  now.'  It  was  all  true  as  far  as  it  went;  logically,  it  fitted  the
  scenario perfectly. But none of it was for China.
  Drakesh turned to go, turned back again. 'I will send for your  driver; no need for you  to  wait  on your  own.  Meanwhile,  I thank
  you for your understanding, Chang Lun. May you always be at peace with yourself, if not with the world.'
  Then, with a last enigmatic smile, bowing from the waist, he retired into his inner sanctum in a swirl of red robes . . .
  The Necroscope's  dreams were and always  had been strange.  Now  more than  ever before he found  himself unable to  recall  their
  substance when he was awake. This morning was no different; he came awake in his bed in his room at the  Hotel  Adrano  sweating,
  
  panting, fighting with his bedclothes in a frenzy of fear, yet a moment later was lost  as to  the  cause. But  the  fear had been real, as
  the continued trembling of his limbs and pounding of his heart testified . . .
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  Something about  B.J.,  about  the  moon,  about  wolves,  about  a  place  like  a  skull  on  a  frozen  plateau  .  .  .  about  dark  forces
  gathering in all the unquiet places of the world. It was there and it was gone. Something about  himself: that  he was  two  men in one
  body, with two sets of thoughts? When he was the other he didn't know his own mind, and when he was him—
  —When he was him? . . . Now what the hell?
  When he was him!? What? Was he back to that again? Well, he was him, and he was satisfied with him, now!
  With which the rest of the dream blinked out and disappeared entirely, and Harry  was  left  to  locate himself physically,  in three
  dimensions, as opposed to the  fourth  and purely  mental dimension of his mind, in this  first  day  of the  rest  of his life . . .  in the
  Hotel Adrano, in Paterno, Sicily. And having fixed that,  the  rest  of it fell into  place and he knew  why  he was  here. Set a thief  to
  catch a thief? Well, not quite. But set one to steal from one, or from two . . . ?
  That was why he, the waking him, was here.
  But the subconscious Harry Keogh - of whom he wasn't even aware - was here for another  reason.  Yet no confusion  of purpose
  physical or otherwise; both purposes  locked together  like the  two  halves of one brain! And  B.J.  could not  have planned  it better
  even if she'd  known  everything;  but  if she had, the  Necroscope  wouldn't  be here in the  first  place,  or  any  other  place  by  now.
  Except maybe  in a no-place,  the  last  place on or under the  earth:  talking to  his dead people  in their  own place, face to  face as it
  were. But Harry didn't know that.
  He called for coffee, breakfast, and when it came had no taste for it. By then he'd washed, shaved and dressed. So he ate anyway,
  and chewing over his food,  likewise chewed over his plans.  In doing so,  the  two  halves of his  mind  found  a  meeting  place.  His
  business here was to 'break into' Le Manse Madonie, of course, and steal back from the  Francezci  brothers  some of their  ill-gotten
  gains. But it could do no harm to do a little research first: in fact, to research the Francezcis.
  Not  from any  library  or registrar's  office, but  from the  dead themselves.  For  who  would  know  better  about  the  history  of  a
  family and its ancestral home than that family's progenitors; or, if they  were unwilling, its  servants?  And  where better  to  find the
  latter than at Le Manse Madonie itself?
  Except here . . . something extraordinary, that the Necroscope never before in his life stumbled across. Two extraordinary things,
  in fact.
  One: thinking of Le Manse Madonie, his mind had conjured the photographs that Darcy Clarke had shown him at E-Branch HQ
  in London; more, it had superimposed them over that precognitive  vision  of the  place,  as shown  to  him by  some residual echo of
  Alec Kyle's talent. This combination, a sort of mental triangulation, had the effect of
  locating  the  building  exactly  in  his  memory  .  .  .   and  in  his  mind!  Astonishingly,  he  'remembered'  his  co-ordinates  from  a
  flash-forwards!
  The idea at once struck him that using the Mobius Continuum he could go there  right now,  without  further  ado. It  would  be as
  simple as that. He had his room's co-ordinates; if he was mistaken, or if something were to go wrong, he could return at once to  the
  hotel in Paterno, or even further afield to any of the  old co-ordinates  he knew  so well. But  if he was  right - if he could make one
  unbroken Mobius jump directly to the Madonie,  without  ever having been there  physically  - then  the  experiment  would  provide
  irrefutable proof that indeed he'd inherited some gradually fading trace of Alec Kyle's metaphysical skill.
  And after Le Manse . . . there were other, perhaps far more important places.
  It was completely irresistible. Placing his breakfast tray outside his door and locking it,  Harry  forced his mind's Mobius  maths
  to a familiar configuration, conjured a door, stepped across the threshold and—
  —Went there, to the mountains of the Madonie! It worked!
  There had been two locations, one of them at a lower elevation, well away from the place, and the other close up.
  Harry had materialized at the first one, thus  keeping a healthy distance between  himself  and  the  actual  house.  But
  there it was, just as he had seen it in his vision:
  He craned his neck to look up and up, at stark yellow and white cliffs -yellow in sunlight, as he now saw, - and at the squat, white-walled
  castle, mansion, or chateau, perched there in the rim of oblivion. A fortress on a mountainside from the Necroscope's viewpoint, where he
  stood on a winding road halfway between the sea and the sky.
  The sea, of course! He remembered how, during that brief, earlier 'visit,'  he'd  smelled  the  Tyrrhenian  at  his  back.
  And  now  he  could  turn  and  take  it  in:  the  great  sweep  of  Sicily's  northern  coast  against  the  blue  dazzle  of
  white-flecked ocean, hazing towards Palermo in the west, and curving over the distant horizon to Messina in the east.
  There were cars and a bus groaning their way up the steep road. Harry didn't especially care to be noticed; turning
  his back to the vehicles, he looked again at Le Manse Madonie:
  That somehow foreboding mansion, built on the edge of a sheer drop that  must be almost four thousand  feet to  the  sloping
  scree of a rubble-strewn gorge. And the great cliff of the mountainside  itself, all sun-bleached  rocks,  brittle  scrub  and  a  few
  stunted Mediterranean pines . . . exactly as he'd seen it before. Deja vu indeed!
  But in reverse? More like Vega du! Harry thought, drawing himself back to the present.
  The vehicles had disappeared around a bend, been eaten up by a spur of the mountain where the road had been cut
  through it. The Necroscope was quite alone. He found a flat-topped rock by the side of
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  the road and sat down. Now, with a bit of luck, he should be able to find someone who could help him.
  Yet even as his mind slipped into its familiar mode, that weird telepathic talent which allowed him to talk to the dead,
  something warned him that he should  guard his thoughts.  It was the place . . .  or rather, it was  that  place  up  there,
  teetering on the rim of the cliff like that. Oh, yes, it was as well to whisper, in the presence of the unknown. But a place
  is only a place after all; so why was Harry sweating? It was a hot day, certainly, but it didn't feel like that kind of sweat.
  And if it had been other than day—
  —The Necroscope scarcely believed he'd want to be here at all. But he would have to be. Indeed he would have to
  go in there, into that place. Tonight . . .
  Which made it imperative that he know something about  it. And he would also like to know something  about  the
  Francezcis - something about their background, their history - something other than Darcy had told him. Though  why
  he couldn't exactly say . . . call it for future reference.
  Harry's thoughts  - even his most recent,  guarded,  inward-directed  thoughts  -  were  'audible'  to  the  teeming  dead.
  They always were, except when he shielded them or  aimed  them  at  an  individual.  By  now  he  would  normally  have
  expected  someone  to  answer  him,  inquire  as  to  his  presence  here.  He  was  the  Necroscope,  after  all.  But  no,  the
  telepathic 'aether,' his lines of communication, seemed to be down. No one was interested in him. Or if they were, they
  weren't expressing that interest.
  And  yet he knew they were there; he sensed  them like phantom callers  on  a  telephone;  they  'breathed,'  however
  silently, in his weird mind. But it wasn't Harry who was afraid, it was them. And because  they were, and after listening
  to their silence for a while, so was he . . .
  . . . Harry?
  He jumped a foot! 'What? Who . . .?' With all of his experience, still the Necroscope spun  around; and despite that
  everything was bright, hot, dazzling sunlight, and that sweat (good old honest-to-goodness,  physical sweat now, as
  well as a trace of the other sort) rivered his back, still he shivered. Until: 'I . . .  I'm sorry,' he finally gasped.  'I suppose  I
  should  have  been  expecting  you.  I  mean,  I  was  expecting  someone.  But  this  silence,  this  dead  silence,  is  sort  of
  unnerving.'
  And  that was it, the second  extraordinary thing: the fact that with the exception of this one dead voice, the  Great
  Majority were 'dead silent.' Oh, they were here, but they weren't saying anything.
  Nor will they, said the one lone voice in Harry's metaphysical mind. You're forgetting  something, Harry: that what
  the dead did in life, they continue to do in death. Isn't that how it goes?
  'Why, yes, but—'
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  —But this is Sicily, said the as yet unknown other, as if that were explanation enough. Ifs a place apart, Harry. It has its own
  special code.
  And indeed the Necroscope did understand. 'A code of silence?'
  That's right, he sensed the other's incorporeal nod. Ifs a code they adhere to. And never more so than here.
  'Here?' Harry knew what the answer was going to be in the selfsame moment he framed the question.
  Right here, yes, said the dead voice. In this very place. In the shadow of Le Manse Madonie . . .
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  III
  HUMPH, AND OTHERS. IN THE VAULTS BENEATH.
  'Who are you?' Harry would have liked a proper introduction, but it seemed that in this place he wasn't going to get one.
  Who was /, do you mean? The other was open about it; he'd obviously had plenty of time to get used to the idea; he wasn't one of the recently
  dead, but more properly a long-time member of the Great Majority. / was J. Humphrey Jackson Jr - 'Humph' to my friends. An American, yeah. As
  for what I did: / used to build safes.
  'Safes?'
  That's right. For banks, for rich folks, and sometimes for thieves who were worried that someone might try to steal it all back. I designed
  and installed safes, strong-rooms, vaults. Big steel piggy-banks for little greedy piggies.
  'Well, I'm very glad to meet you, Humph,' Harry told him. 'Especially since no one else around here seems interested!'
  Oh, they're interested  for sure! Humph told him. But talk  about  close-mouthed? Cliques, Harry, a whole bunch  of cliques,
  
  clans, families. Why, they talk to each other all the time - or rather, they whisper! But if you're an outsider . . . forget it.
  'But . . .  in death, too? I would have thought silence was the last thing they'd want.'
  Well, you don't know much about the history of this island, do you? (Humph gave an incorporeal snort). Ifs a bloody place, Necroscope. Me,
  I sort of found out the hard way - and so could you. That's why I spoke up. See, I was beginning to fall into their ways. I mean, there are people
  here I can speak to, sure, but recently I've been as tight-assed as the rest of them! Then I sensed you'd come on the scene; you could only be the
  Necroscope because you were warm and I could hear you thinking - and what you were thinking about: Le Manse Madonie.
  'That's why you spoke to me?'
  Mainly, yes . . . The dead man's thoughts were suddenly hard, cold.
  His was an uneasy spirit; in life, he'd either left something undone,  or there  had  been  a  great  injustice.  Giving  him  a  chance  to
  organize his thoughts, Harry said:
  'You sound pretty close, Humph. I mean, is there a cemetery close by? Where's your grave? I could come and talk to you there. It seems only
  right.'
  Grave? Step to the other side of the road, Harry. And look down.t
  Harry crossed the narrow road and came to a halt at a knee-high metal safety barrier that didn't look any too safe.
  That wasn't there in 1938, Humph told him. No black-top on the road, either. Just a potholed track. An easy place to take a dive into the
  next world, if you were a careless driver- or if someone figured your time was up. . .
  'You crossed  the wrong people?' The Necroscope took a cautious  step  over the barrier, one  leg  only,  and  looked
  down. Two or three hundred feet of thin air to a scree-strewn slope that went down to the next loop of road.
  That's where I ended up in my burned-out wreck, Humph told him. Right there on that stretch of road. Mercifully, I didn't feel a thing after the first bounce.
  And no, I didn't cross the wrong people . . . I worked for them!
  Harry guessed what was coming next. 'The Francezcis?'
  Absolutely. Three months to put in their vault -1 supplied the brain, they supplied the brawn - and this is how I got paid off. A couple of their
  boys, their soldiers, flagged me down on my way off the mountain; they rapped me on the head hard enough to knock me dizzy, took the brake
  off, Pushed me over. An ' accident,' of course.
  'But why?'
  Two reasons, (Harry sensed a shrug). One: they took back my cash payment before I went over . . . miserable bastards! And two . . . Two has to be obvious.
  'You were the only one who knew about their strong-room?'
  That's how I figure it, yeah.
  'Murder.' Harry's voice had been quiet enough before; now it was the merest murmur.
  Most foul, Humph agreed. And a moment later; So, my bones went into a grave somewhere, but I hung about down there, where it happened. And what
  do you know, forty-odd years later, along comes Harry Keogh, Necroscope! Enough to make a man believe in God. Vengeance is thine, sayeth the Lord!
  'Except that's not what I'm here for,' Harry told him.
  And after a moment's silence: Then maybe we should forget I ever spoke to you . . .
  '. . . But I'll see what I can do.' Humph's lead was too good to let go of. It might be exactly what Harry was looking for.
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  Promise?
  'Absolutely.'
  How? I mean, how will you get my own back?
  The Necroscope's turn to shrug. 'They robbed you . . . it's my intention to rob them.'
  They killed me, Harry! And I don't go for this turning the other cheek stuff! I mean, I've been hearing some things in the last couple of
  years; like, you're a man who believes in an eye for an eye?
  That's true enough,' Harry answered. 'But I also need to believe in what I'm doing. And as yet I don't have much
  information on the Francezcis. I'm pretty sure it's within my parameters to steal from      \ them, but as for anything else
  . . .  try to put yourself in my position.       j There's no way I can right every wrong that's ever been done to the dead. Not
  on my own. There are an awful lot of you, Humph - you're of a very large, even a Great Majority - and I'm only one. But yes, when I      j can see the
  whole picture, then I'll see what can be done.'
  (A thoughtful pause, and): So what can I tell you?
  'First, do you know anything about their family history?'
  What? (Utter bewilderment). / mean, what the hell would I know about family histories? I build safes, Harry! Or I did.
  'Is there nothing you might have seen inside that place?'
  i
  Shit, I wasn't allowed to see anything inside that place! I had a room. I ;
  could go from my room to my place of work, and from my place of work to
  my room. And also to the place where I ate, always alone. Oh, and the
  grounds; it was okay if I wanted to walk around the grounds. Layout? Oh,
  I can tell you the layout, roughly. I can tell you where their treasury is, for
  sure! But history?
  \
  'Very well, let's settle for the layout. For now, anyway.'
  !
  And Humph told him. Taking it all in, The Necroscope listened intently as he moved out of the glaring sunlight into the shade of an embankment where the
  winding road had been blasted through the solid      ] rock of the spur.
  It had been some time since Humph was inside Le Manse Madonie, but it had been on his mind ever since. Also, his description was enhanced by pictures
  
  straight out of his dead mind, so that Harry was enabled to 'see' the route he had taken from his room to the vault that      | he'd been securing in the bowels of the
  place as if he himself were      | walking it. He could actually get the feel of the place, take co-ordinates.
  'Right down in the bedrock,' he eventually commented.
  No, Humph told him. Deep, but not right down. There were other levels below that one. I just sort of happened to stray down there one
  time. I can't remember if I lost my way or if I was just curious. Probably the latter - no, definitely the latter. Anyway, I found a place with a
  steel-barred door hooked up to a generator. Electrified! Oh, yeah! 1938, but Le Manse Madonie had its own juice. That was something
  in Sicily in those days.
  'Maybe that was the old strong-room that yours was replacing?' Harry reasoned.
  Maybe, but I don't think so, Humph's thoughts were very dark now. There was just something down there that they didn't want anyone to
  see . . . Not anyone. Anyway, a guard caught  me, gave me hell,  frog-marched  me  in  front  of  Emilia  Francezci,  my
  employer. (Harry caught a 'reflection' of the man from Humph's mind - and gave a start).
  Oh? Humph said. Something up?
  Something  was  up,  yes.  This  could  easily  be  one  of  those  photographs  that  Darcy  Clarke  had  shown  him.  The  family
  resemblance was that  close!  And  like  the  photographs,  this  picture  from  the  mind  of  a  dead  man  was  somehow  blurred,
  indistinct.
  / know  what you mean, Humph said. These people  were shady characters in more ways than one. I never could  remember
  precisely what they looked like. Funny, eh? But in no way funny ha-ha . . .
  'You say this Emilio was your employer, singular,' Harry frowned, felt a little confused. 'But you've also been talking in the plural: "they," and
  "these people." '
  Emilia's brother, Humph explained. He was a big cheese in Le Manse Madonie, but didn't go out much. Never, that I saw. I saw
  the pair together, though, frequently. Brothers, but definitely. Twins, even, if not identical.
  Darcy had said exactly the same thing, but about the current owners of Le Manse, the current generation of Francezcis. And this time it was
  Humph who saw their pictures in the Necroscope's mind.
  That's them! he said at once.
  'Can't be,' Harry shook his head. "These are Francesco and Tony, or Anthony  . . . today  people. What you're seeing is from a
  recent photograph.' He felt Humph's astonishment. And:
  You know something? the dead man said, very quietly. Emilia's brother was called Francesco . . .
  'Well, why not?' Harry wanted to know. 'Names can carry on down the generations as well as family resemblance. And anyway, I'm not so
  much concerned with the current family as with the historical . . .' (But for the life of him he couldn't say why, even to himself!)
  7 don't know anything about that, said Humph, stubbornly.
  'Maybe you do. Let's go the route again, from your room to the tunnel where you were putting those vault doors in.' He had
  remembered seeing something and wanted to see it again.
  Humph took him back along the route, from his first floor rooms in the manse, down a winding marble staircase into a huge hall
  or ballroom. And on the walls - glimpsed however dimly in the eye of the American's memory - rich, gilt-framed portraits of. . .
  . . . Francezcis! Humph had surprised himself. Hey, I remember now! Why, there's a whole damn family tree on those walls! Except. . . I'm
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  sorry, Harry, but I can't remember what a single one of 'em looked like. Try to look a little closer,' the Necroscope begged him. And
  Humph obliged. As he had said, these people were shady characters in more ways than one; even their brooding
  portraits seemed obscured, either by Humph's memory or the patina of age, or . . .  whatever. But the family likeness
  was there in every one of them, certainly.
  Harry leaned against the rocky wall of the cutting through  the  spur  and  closed  his  eyes  the  better  to  see  through
  Humph's. And he saw— —A woman. Misty  in  Humph's  memory,  but  still  beautiful.  She  was  long-necked,  had  an
  elegant or perhaps haughty tilt to her head, and was classically Sicilian. And under the picture, her name on a brass
  plate, swimming up uncertainly in the eye of the dead American's memory:
  Constanza . . . Constanza de . . .
  Constanza de' Petralia . . .! And this time Harry's start was violent indeed. Humph felt it, and moving on to the next
  portrait asked: Are you okay, Necroscope? Are you getting all of this? Harry nodded, knew Humph would sense it,  peered yet more intensely
  through his incorporeal eyes.  And next to Constanza's portrait, that of her son, Angelo as a young boy. But the very next frame was Angelo again, this time as a
  young man. And now he had changed his name. To Angelo Ferenczini, of course!
  The Necroscope withdrew, crashing out of Humph's mind as if all the devils of hell were after him. Well, they weren't, but evidence of them was in there for
  sure. Even as they were in - still in - Le Manse Madonie!
  Harry? Humph queried as from very far away. You okay, Necroscope? Harry knew what he'd seen and recognized, but already the information was subsuming
  itself into his inner identity, into his subconscious mind. It wasn't for him, this information, but for some other. He was only the one who gathered it. He mustn't
  allow it to register. That part of his mind - or Bonnie Jean's part - was like her personal computer. What was in there would not be activated until she pressed the
  right keys.
  Hearing the warning toot of a car's horn, Harry opened his eyes. He'd staggered out into the middle of the road, and a car was coming through the cutting.
  Slowing to avoid him, it pulled to a halt and the driver leaned out of his window and made some inquiry in Italian. Harry stumblingly apologized, shrugged, got
  out of the way. And the car rolled forward, picked up speed and set off again down the mountainside.
  Harry? }. Humphrey Jackson Jr called again, a faint cry from a long, long way off as the Necroscope deliberately tried to shut him out entirely. He felt ill and
  didn't know why. Sunstroke? Possibly. But
  
  suddenly  his  entire  being  seemed  to  reel  like  a  drunkard.  What  in  hell  had happened  - was happening  - here? What  was
  happening in his head?
  He had felt this before, when that lunatic telepath 'wolfman' had invaded his mind. But that had been in London and
  this was Sicily. Was someone trying to get at him, or get through to him? Normally Harry could guard his thoughts  to
  exclude whoever he wanted to. But something - some shock or other - must have thrown him out of kilter, off balance.
  However temporarily, his mind was wide open.
  And they came . . .
  . . . Whoooo? Whoo? Who? Who are you? Who? Yes, who? Who are you??? A dozen of them, all speaking at once.
  Whooorrrr? A growl.
  Who? A small, timid, pleading voice.
  Whoooooooooo!? Like some young girl's shriek of agony.
  Who? Who-ho-ho? Ha-ha-ha-haaa! A burst of crazed laughter, fired into the  Necroscope's  mind like a stream  of bullets  from a
  machine-gun.
  And finally: WHO? . . . WHAT? . . . WHERE . . .? But  unlike the  previous  voices - and despite  that  its  source  was  the  same -
  this one was utterly alien and totally menacing. And Harry felt himself reeling again from its sheer terror, from the touch of its  mad
  blind groping in the innermost whorls of his brain.
  Run! (The lesser voices whispered as one dead voice in his head). Oh, run, run, run!
  NO! WAIT! Mad mental 'hands' were reaching, clutching for him. He clapped his own hands to his ears and ran!
  His  knees  hit  the  crash  barrier;  his  body  pivoted;  he  toppled  forward,  and  felt  the  air  whistling  in  his  clothes,
  plastering back his sweat-wet hair. Harry opened his eyes - saw the cliff and the sky and the distant sea, all revolving -
  and saw the rocks and  rubble  waiting  for  him  below.  In  a  moment,  sanity  returned,  and  in  the  next  he  conjured  a
  Mobius door immediately beneath his falling body . . . and fell through it.
  The continuum! Safety! His co-ordinates! Paterno—
  —He stumbled from the Mobius Continuum into his room at the Adrano, crumpled to his knees, and was at once sick in the
  middle of the beautifully carpeted floor . . .
  Harry must have  been  down  for  a  couple  of  hours.  When  he  awoke  he  remembered  being  sick  but  not  what  had
  caused  it. Sunstroke, it could only be. He'd cleaned up the mess  before  collapsing  on  his  bed;  thank  goodness  he
  didn't have to face that! The room's air-conditioning had dispersed the stale smell.
  But turning his mind to Le Manse Madonie . . .  he remembered everything Humph had told him, including the dead
  man's tale of a forbidden place with an electrified door deep in the bedrock, but nothing after that. No big deal; he knew where the
  strongroom was, the
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  Francezci treasury, and that was why he was here.
  The only reason? The only reason, yes. So why was he shivering?
  It was a momentary thing ...  it came and it went. . . possibly, even probably, it was whatever had made him sick. Well, probably. He shivered again, which
  triggered something else out of the past. Not what had made him sick but a scene of bitterly cold wastelands, and a stony face carved on the stonier face of a
  mountain.
  As quickly as that the Necroscope's computer mind - but a computer 'damaged' or 'diseased,' not only by Bonnie Jean's virus but also by Dr James Andersen's -
  had managed to switch drives and thrown him off what could easily have become a very dangerous programme or train of thought.
  And Harry was quick to grab hold of something - anything solid - that might steady him up and give him a focal point to revolve around, instead of all this
  dizzy spinning he was doing now. And he remembered an idea that had flashed across his mind on discovering that he had Le Manse's co-ordinates without ever
  having been there in the flesh: that if it could work for that place, maybe it would work for those other places, too.
  Why not? Alec Kyle's power had been to look into the future, but without ever knowing just exactly what the things he saw meant. And something of that
  power had come down to Harry in the contours of Kyle's brain. He'd 'seen' Le Manse Madonie as part of his future, but his own weird talent had complemented
  Alec's; his metaphysical mind had instinctively recorded the co-ordinates!
  And there were other places. The stone-faced - what, temple? - in the mountains was one of them. And the other:
  Was or might be where Brenda was!
  High passes and fang-like mountain peaks, and stars like chips of ice glinting  with a frozen blue sheen in an alien  sky. And
  down below, a barren plain of boulders reaching to a shimmering horizon under the weave of ghostly auroras . . .
  Harry gave himself a shake. Brenda and the baby could be there?  Yes, they  could be - ;/ it was  a scene from his future  and not
  just the leftover of some fanciful dream.
  Well, he'd already proved the theory by going to Le Manse Madonie, and so would feel safer using it to visit these  other  places,
  too -wouldn't he? Only one way to find out.
  First the temple or monastery, or whatever it was . . .  but not before he felt a little better.
  He took two Alka Seltzers, let them go down, and waited a few minutes until his stomach felt settled. Then he threw  cold water
  in his face over his wash basin, patted himself dry with a fresh towel. And after lying on his back on his bed with his hands  behind
  his head for half an hour, just thinking it over, finally he was ready.
  He pictured the place in the frozen wastelands, the location from which he'd viewed the temple, and tried to remember the co-odinates. No problem: they were
  waiting right there in his mind. This was it. He got up from his bed, conjured a Mobius door, and went there:
  
  —And again it worked!
  A little after twelve noon in Paterno, Sicily - five in the afternoon at the Drakesh Monastery on the Tibetan Plateau.
  And there the place was, exactly as Harry had seen it in that previous visitation. Indeed this was that visitation; it was his future caught up with him, or him with
  a precognitive glimpse out of the configurations of a brain not yet conforming to his patterns:
  The unseasonal blizzard had fallen off; fresh snow glistened softly in sunlight glancing through a grey cloud blanket; and out there on the white waste . . .
  movement? Of course: ant-like figures at this range, making their way across the snows. They were robotic in their movements, like some physically punishing
  military drill routine - left, right, left, right, left - rapid and shuffling. The three in front were dressed in red hooded robes, also the three bringing up the rear. But the
  one in the middle was clad in pure white. And coming to the Necroscope across a half-mile of gradually melting snow, the chiming of tiny golden bells . . .
  Harry wasn't dressed for this. 'Summer' it was, even here, but the elevation more than compensated. The Roof of the World, yes. And shivering again - this time
  from the cold - he conjured a door and returned to Paterno.
  The heat struck him an almost physical blow as he stepped from nowhere into his room. And a maid was banging on the door, the real door, asking if she could
  'makes it da-cleanings.'
  He let her in, showed her the  stained  carpet  and said he'd spilled  coffee, let her get on with  her tut-tutting  and frantic  cleaning.
  And sitting in a corner out of the way, watching her, he wondered  what  the  stone-faced  temple  on the  cold plateau  was  all about,
  and how  it featured  in his future.  One thing seemed certain: Brenda wasn't  there.  There  had been no 'sense'  of her presence,  and
  there'd be no sense to it. Not in that place.
  But mainly he wondered about the next place, and how that featured.
  —A garden in a fertile valley between ruggedly-weathered spurs, where dusty beams of sunlight came slanting through the high passes
  during the long daylight hours, and the stars glittered like frosted jewels at night, or ice-shards suspended in the warp and weave of ghostly
  auroras . . .
  Was Brenda there?
  Just thinking of the place, weird co-ordinates surfaced on the screen of  Harry's  mind.  Weird,  yes,  like  nothing  he'd  ever  seen
  before. So strange that he was given to wonder: were they real, or were they simply the co-ordinates of fantasy, the ephemera of
  dreams? Was that
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  it, wishful thinking? Had he wished or dreamed too hard of an unattainable location somewhere over the rainbow?
  Well, the Necroscope didn't have any ruby slippers, but he did have the Mobius Continuum.
  Finally the maid was finished. With many nods, smiles, and a mouthful of unintelligible pidgin-English, she backed out of the room and was gone. Harry
  waited no longer but conjured his Mobius door, and in the primal darkness of the Mobius Continuum he pictured the esoteric symbols, the weird equation that
  would signpost his destination, and went. . . nowhere.
  It had been after all a dream, a wish, a forlorn hope. And the co-ordinates had failed because they, too, were an invention of his wishful imagination and meant
  nothing.
  He was wrong, of course, but had been perfectly correct to think of the co-ordinates as alien. For in a parallel dimension beyond space as we know it, Harry's
  'weird' co-ordinates would have taken him directly to his target. There was nothing wrong with them at all...  except that they were alien.
  Enough of experimentation, discovery and disappointment; right now, despite that he had rested, still Harry was tired. He was emotion-lagged, time-lagged, even
  Mobius- or spacetime-lagged. But later tonight he would need his wits about him, need to be physically and mentally fit for the job in hand. He had all the
  information he needed about Le Manse Madonie; his new knowledge with regard to the inhabitants of that place had sunk into and locked itself away in
  post-hypnotic vaults of the Necroscope's mind; it would remain there, beyond recall until some other - Bonnie Jean, or Radu Lykan - pressed the right buttons. As
  for conscious apprehensions: they were natural enough considering his mission. So he told himself.
  He slept like a small child, for once undisturbed by the whispering of the dead in their graves. If they were talking, they were very quiet about it. But this was
  Sicily after all...
  Waking about six in the evening, Harry felt a moment's disorientation before his mind cleared. It was still broad daylight, would be for another two to three
  hours.
  Showering to shake off the last effects of dull sloth, he made a desultory meal in the hotel restaurant - a 'something' Genovese - and at once returned to his
  room.
  Now the Necroscope was just about ready and it was only a matter of time. Now, too, he realized how little he knew about Le Manse Madonie, its occupants
  and staff. . . Like how many of them, for instance, and what their duties were. But in a place like that - a fortress in its own right - there would be little or no
  requirement for security in
  the form of guards. A night watch, possibly, but on the perimeter. Even then it seemed unlikely that there would be too many people
  up and about in the wee small hours.
  Oh, really? (Harry frowned to himself, at the niggling little voice in the back of his mind).
  Well, if they were up and about, his plan was designed to take care of that. They would be buzzing like wasps  once he'd set the
  thing in motion, but on the outside. A distraction was what they required, something to divert them from their normal routine.
  And a distraction was what he intended to deliver.
  As for the vault doors: they were combination-locked. He wasn't an expert safe-breaker, but he was an expert at getting into places without
  going through  doors. Or rather, he was the only one with the combination to his doors. In fact it worked very much in Harry's
  favour, that Humph's steel vault doors - two of them - took time to open; he'd be out of there before anyone else could get in! Why, they might
  not even try to get in; probably wouldn't, because Humph's doors were alarmed. And Harry wasn't going to set off any
  alarms - not on the outside, anyway.
  
  It was time he checked out his distraction. He hung a 'do-not-disturb' sign on his doorknob, double-checked that the door was locked, got out
  his suitcase and opened it on his bed. Four T-shirts, a black track-suit, a pair of soft black canvas  shoes  (a bit scuffed), a light-blue
  summer jacket, and . . .  an ex-Army web belt, with canvas pouch attachments, a box of six tear-gas canisters, and nine fragmentation grenades,
  packed like dully glinting, blued-steel eggs in a three-by-three plywood nest of straw-stuffed compartments. The mere presence of the last couple
  of items would suffice to make most people extremely nervous, but the Necroscope had played around with far more deadly things in his time.
  He put the stuff away again, went down to the bar, drank mineral water and sat alone, determined to remain mainly unnoticed.
  Beyond patio windows a swimming pool's lights came on. A party of British tourists  was out there, hooting and splashing  about. A pretty
  blonde girl came in with a towel wrapped round her, ordered drinks, smiled at Harry and said, 'English?'
  'Nicht verstehen,' he told her, went back to his room and fidgeted. But on his way to his room he remembered to stop off at the
  gift shop and buy a pencil-slim flashlight. . .  he might well need it, in the treasure vault under Le Manse Madonie.
  His room had a small balcony; he sat out there under brilliant stars and counted satellites tracking the sky, until just after one o'clock in the
  morning when his patience ran out. It was still early, but it would have to do.
  He put on the track-suit and black shoes,  fitted  the  belt  and  attachments  to  his  waist,  stuffed  the  pouches  with
  canisters and
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  grenades, then tested their weight and his own freedom of movement. Everything was just right, yet still he felt. . .  not
  unlike he'd felt before he 'invaded' the Chateau Bronnitsy for the first time. But surely it wasn't as bad as that? Then:
  Harry had been full of mayhem, bloodlust; he had been going up against Boris Dragosani, a vampire. This time: it was
  'just' a couple of Godfathers . . . Wasn't it?
  Also, Dragosani had been expecting him, and these people weren't.
  But in any case, Harry's  course  was  set;  too  late  to  have  second  thoughts  now;  he  had  to  fund  his  search  for
  Brenda and the baby - and fund it big - and the Francezcis were crooked as they come, and murderers to boot. That
  last couldn't be proved in a court of law, no, but the Necroscope was satisfied to take J. Humphrey Jackson Jr's word
  for it. He'd rarely known a dead man to lie. Some dead things lied, but not men.
  He conjured  a  Mobius  door  and  'went'  to  Le  Manse  Madonie,  to  that  spot  under  the  walls  of  the  place  whose
  co-ordinates he remembered from his second flash forwards. And without pause he jumped again -this time a half-mile
  away  across  rugged,  barren  terrain,  to  where  uneven  fang-like  outcrops  of  rock  jutted  from  the  stony,  desiccated
  mountain soil like shattered teeth. That was far enough.
  Using his flashlight, he climbed a few feet to a good vantage point and looked back at the dark, squat  silhouette of Le Manse.
  There were just a handful of dim lights shining out from rooms built into the walls -servants quarters, Harry supposed.
  But the arched-over entrance to the inner courtyard was lit up by a battery of spotlights.  That was okay; he  wasn't
  going in through the main door. He had his own doors.
  'Humph,' he said, under his breath, 'are you out there?'
  Hey, I've been expecting you, Necroscope! The other came back at once. Then the excitement ebbed as the American asked him:
  What happened, Harry? I mean, when we were talking? You were there and you were gone. You sort of faded out, as if you were being blocked out. . . but by
  what?
  The Necroscope frowned, shook his head. 'I'm . . . not sure. I don't  remember.  I  get  this  feeling  occasionally  that
  someone is messing about with my mind, and when I find out who there's going to be hell to pay! But for the moment
  . . .  I think maybe I'd better keep a tight rein on this conversation at least. So it'll be just you and me this time, Humph.'
  How can I help you?
  'Show  me  the  route  to  the  vault  again  -  not  from  your  room  but  just  the  underground  part,  the  tunnels  in  the
  bedrock.'
  Humph was puzzled. But with your talents, why not go right on into the vault?
  For the life of him, Harry couldn't think why not! He only knew he had to  take  a  closer  look  at  the  subterranean
  layout of the place. 'Maybe it's for later,' he shrugged.
  Humph answered shrug for shrug, and said, It's your game, Harry. And without more ado his dead mind lit with all the details of
  the  snaking  tunnel  labyrinth  through  the  bedrock  under  Le  Manse  Madonie.  The  Necroscope  memorized  all  the
  co-ordinates he needed - including those of that forbidden nether tunnel in the very bowels of the place, where Humph
  had earned himself a reprimand.
  Got what you want, Harry?
  'Let's hope so,' the Necroscope answered, and excused himself. He was going to be busy now.
  Good luck then, Humph told him, his dead voice fading into nothing.
  Harry got down from the  rock.  It  was  time  for  his  distraction,  a  diversionary  tactic.  He  took  three  fragmentation
  grenades from his belt pouches, pulled their pins, lobbed them left, right, and centre as far as he could throw. Then he
  ducked down in a cluster of rocks and counted off the seconds.
  In  the  silence  of  the  warm  Mediterranean  night,  with  only  the  frying-fat  sounds  of  a  hundred  cicadas,  and  the
  toot-toot!  of owls to  disturb  it,  the  abrupt  triple  blast  of  the  grenades  going  off  one,  two,  three,  sounded  like  the
  beginning of World War HI. Shrapnel whistled overhead.
  Harry waited until the echoes came rolling back from the mountains, then stood up. Sulphur and cordite stench  came
  drifting on orange and grey clouds, while across  the false plateau the lights of Le Manse  Madonie blinked on one by one
  
  until the entire fagade was lit up like the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle during the annual tattoo. There was even a searchlight
  beam in one of the corner towers, that began to sweep the ground immediately outside  the walls. Whoever was awake
  - probably all of them by now - they'd heard the blasts but hadn't detected the source. And that wouldn't do.
  Harry gave it a count of ten, then lobbed another grenade off to his left. This time, after the flash and the bang, the
  searchlight beam came lancing right at him. He sat down in the rocks and let it pass  overhead.  Unless  these  people
  were equipped with something extraordinary in the way of night-sight binoculars, they wouldn't see anything  at this
  range.
  A minute passed,  and another; the beam flashed to and fro; a motor coughed into life and a vehicle - probably a Landrover,
  four-wheel drive engaged  -  roared  into  view  from  under  the  arch  of  the  entrance.  It  came  bumping  across  the  rough
  terrain, headlights blazing. Then another motor snarled into life, and with a rising whine and  the  unmistakable  whup,
  whup, whup of rotors, a helicopter hovered into view from behind Le Manse's walls.
  Harry wasn't about to let these vehicles get to him, only to where he had been. By now every occupant of Le Manse
  Madonie would be looking - and thinking - out. It was the Necroscope's  time to go in. He conjured a Mobius  door,
  and jumped . . .
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  . . .  To the location, the co-ordinates, that had come over the clearest (and the darkest) from J. Humphrey Jackson's
  memory: a  junction  of  rock-hewn  tunnels  deep  under  Le  Manse  Madonie.  Darkest,  because  this  was  a  place  that
  Humph hadn't much cared for. The Necroscope had felt it as the dead American had guided him along the route: his
  reluctance - even in death, and after all this time - to have to visit this spot  again, however briefly. It was easy to see
  why.
  The place was claustrophobic, soulless, empty . . . there was nothing here, except the junction of tunnels  itself. Yet
  it  was  as  if  something  listened.  So  that  Harry  found  himself  listening  back,  to  nothing.  Maybe  it  was  just  the
  knowledge of the weight  of rock overhead - claustrophobia, yes, - and the sudden  notion  that  if  Le  Manse  were  a
  beast, these tunnels were its jaws; and the waiting for them to close. It was an oppressive  place, evocative of morbid
  thoughts  . . . but no more so than any deep, dark, deserted  mine shaft. So Harry  thought,  as  he  deliberately shook the
  feeling off.
  The gouged, arched ceiling was low, no more than six and a half to seven feet. Every fifteen paces  or so, dim naked
  light bulbs were strung to the walls, bending away horizontally with the curvature of the tunnel. The illumination they
  offered was eerie at best: more a haze than true lighting. This was a meeting point for five tunnels. Stone steps  going up, to  the
  basement of Le Manse, Harry knew. And others descending, to forbidden regions, apparently. It was down there that
  Humph  had  got  himself  in  trouble.  Just  for  being  there,  without  having  seen  anything.  But  Harry  must  see  -
  eventually.
  (What? But his reason for being here was  money,  surely?  It  was  to  fund  his  search.  The  two  halves  of  Harry's
  mentality - conscious and subconscious, or post-hypnotic - met in momentary conflict, confusion, then cancelled the
  problem out, solving it with a soft solution: the Necroscope's need to explore this place was just his natural curiosity,
  that was all.) But right now his need was to be into the Francezci treasure vault.
  Yet still he paused, if only for a second, to fix this co-ordinate indelibly in his metaphysical mind. These steps coming down from
  above, and others  descending  steeply  into  the  echoing  bowels  of  the  place  .  .  .  And  three  other  tunnels  joining
  horizontally . . . The place was a labyrinth, just as Humph had said . . . They and theirs had been hollowing  it out for
  centuries.
  Harry  gave his head an angry shake,  blinking his eyes  rapidly,  worriedly  in the  poor  light.  But  the  information  had  sunk  in,
  buried itself in his secret memory. And now he could get on with the job in hand.
  Seconds had passed, that was all. Up above, there'd be a lot of activity  by  now.  But  down  here all was  silence, or near-silence:
  the soft  susurration  of ventilation  systems,  a sighing of air through  the  tunnels,  the  muted  throb  of  unseen  machines.  And  the
  pressured tonnage of the
  solid rock overhead, of course - with all the additional weight of Le Manse  Madonie  on top  of that  - which felt like a sound  in its
  own right: the mute but ever present groaning of stressed strata . . .
  Two of the three horizontal tunnels were unknown quantities; Humph had never explored them. Harry 'knew' the  route  that  lead
  upwards into Le Manse, also something of the route leading down . . .  to  whatever.  The  third  horizontal  tunnel  led straight  to  the
  strong-room, to the  massive steel  doors  installed  by  the  dead American some forty-odd  years  ago. But  Harry  needn't  waste  time
  following the tunnel. He could 'go' directly to the outermost door.
  He thought to contact  Humph  again, to  check the  co-ordinates,  then  changed his mind. Not  in this  place.  He wouldn't  want  to
  disturb  the  psychic  aether  in this  place.  And  so the  Necroscope  was  on his own  here; it was  as simple  as that.  He went  via the
  Mobius  route  to  the  vault's  outer  door  -  and  discovered  it  exactly  as  Humph  had  described  and  pictured  it:  a  hinged,  circular,
  six-foot  'plug' of shining stainless  steel,  set  in a wall of rough-surfaced  blued steel  whose  four  unseen  edges were sunk  deep  and
  concreted into walls, floor and ceiling. The great airlock of a plug was  fitted  with  a combination  lock and a massive wheel to  slide
  the hidden bolts. You could only go through that door if you had the lock's combination, or a thermal lance with an unlimited power
  source, or quite a few well-placed high velocity tank shells. That was it. There was no other way—
  —Except one. Harry's way.
  To  anyone  watching it would  seem he simply  disappeared  . . . and reappeared,  in the  utter  darkness  on the  other  side  of  the
  
  door. He breathed dead air, used his flashlight, took two paces to the inner door, then a third  pace  into  another  quite  invisible door
  which he conjured over the impervious metal. . . and so into the treasure vault of the Francezcis,  the  fabulous  loot  of centuries,  the
  greedy black 'heart' of Le Manse Madonie.
  And in the first thin beam from his flashlight, as he swept the room, or rather the cave - the treasure cave, yes  - behind Humph's
  less than impenetrable doors . . .
  . . . The Necroscope had known something of what to expect, but  that  something was  nothing compared  to  the  reality.  Wealth?
  Monies?  The  illicit proceeds  of ten,  twenty,  or thirty  years  of Mob  graft and greed, vice and crime, overseen  or advised by  the
  Francezcis? Well, in that case they had a hell of a lot of crime on their hands! But deep inside - in a forbidden  place within  himself,
  which was as much a sealed vault as this place - Harry knew better, knew it was more than that. Much more.
  That some of this unthinkable, some might say  obscene spoil  was  garnered recently  was  obvious.  For  one thing, there  must  be
  millions, if not billions, in high denomination notes of almost every modern
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  currency:  certainly  the  wages  of  crime  -  for  what  did  the  Francezcis  do,  that  they  could  possibly  have  earned  all  of  this
  legitimately? And if it was legitimate, then why was it here? - but that was only the actual money,  and  by  no  means  the
  treasure. As for that:
  Some of it was literally centuried. There had been pirates on the Mediterranean since the early tenth  century, when
  Genoa and Pisa raided the Saracen shipping routes. Later, the Crusaders themselves had been attacked as their ships
  lolled westward loaded down with the loot of fine cities; and some of that loot was here. Statuettes in rare marbles and
  gold, crude ingots of that same precious metal, treasures from every era of Mediterranean history. But there was more
  recent treasure, too. Harry's flashlight illumined chests  clearly marked with the swastika - some of which were as yet
  unopened! But of those that had been opened:
  Harry knew of a wartime legend that Rommel's forces, pinned down in Tunisia in May 1943, had moved an immense
  hoard to Corsica in the hope of using it to galvanize the German war effort. The treasure was in the form of gold, ivory,
  works of art, jewellery; all of which had been 'accumulated' in Tunisia, Libya, and northern Egypt. But none of it had
  ever fuelled the war, if indeed it ever reached Corsica. The Necroscope knew now that it never had - for it was here!
  But his flashlight wasn't enough, couldn't show him enough. Harry's mouth was dry; his hands  trembled and he felt
  the sweat of fever on his  brow;  even  the  Necroscope  wasn't  immune  to  this.  For  it  was  greed  -like  the  insatiable,
  incredible lust of the Wamphyri themselves -treasure fever!
  To be here, alone, surrounded  by . . .  by a world's ransom! For a moment he could  actually  feel  it:  the  way  They
  must feel in all their power, their strength, their gluttony. And it was seductive.
  Then, sweeping the metal shelves, chests, naked walls with his slender beam, Harry saw what he needed: electrical
  conduits looping down from the ceiling, with wires leading to light switches on a panel mortared to the wall between
  racks of shelving. It pulled him together, let him get a grip on his emotions, his greed-stricken senses.  It separated  his
  two parts, his two purposes. So that while he knew about the Francezcis in their modern role, he also knew about  the
  Ferenczys in all their ancient horror:
  Knew that the historical treasures  gathered here had been amassed by the brothers' father  -  who  or  whatever  he
  was - and before him by his forebears all the way back to Angelo Ferenczini, bloodson  of  Waldemar  Ferrenzig  and
  Constanza de' Petralia. As to how many forebears . . . that was beyond even Harry's mathematical powers to calculate,
  a  matter  for  conjecture.  But  certainly  this  mad,  magpie's  nest  was  not  the  work  of  one  man  but  generations.
  Generations of vampires!
  The knowledge was there - clear as crystal in the Necroscope's
  mind - but only for a split second. Then it sank down into the limbo of B.J.'s beguilement and was gone. And, frowning to himself, Harry hit the light switch.
  In the dazzle of the bright lights, for the first time he saw the full extent of it ...  and in his turn was seen!
  In a tower security room, a guard stared from a half-open window across the plateau of the Madonie and watched the helicopter sweeping the far jumble of rocks
  and blasting clouds of dust over the sheer rim of the canyon. Then, sensing the glare of a viewscreen brightening to unaccustomed life on the security console, he
  blinked tired eyes and turned to see what was happening. What he saw froze him rigid, if only for a moment:
  It was the strong-room; its lighting system could only be activated from within; it had been activated, else the screen would be in darkness. But that was okay;
  it must be one of the brothers; must be one of them, because no one else was allowed in the strong-room, ever. Except. . the brothers were down at the arched
  entranceway, waiting for reports on the explosions!
  A shadow - a male figure, dark-suited - flitted across the viewscreen, paused at one of the racks, picked up a small burlap sack and spilled some of its contents.
  Gold burned silver on the monochrome viewscreen as coins rolled this way and that. The intruder was plainly astonished; he picked up handfuls of heavy coins,
  standing stock still to let them trickle through his fingers.
  Unaccountable blasts . . . both of the Francezcis in plain view out there in the night. . . strong-room . . . intruder!
  It all came together in the disbelieving watchman's mind. His jaw had fallen open; he snapped it shut to bite off a half-hissed, 'Shit!' - then grinned as a red
  flashing light on the console told him that the vault's cameras had been activated along with the lights. Whoever it was down there, he was having his picture
  taken! One way or the other, he was already a dead man. And sliding the window open all the way, the guard shouted down to the Francezcis: 'Intruder! In the vault!
   Intruder!'
  At first they failed to hear, or perhaps they didn't understand, accept. But who would? Then it sank in. 'What?' Anthony Francezci called up, as he and Francesco
  glanced frowningly at each other and began walking, then running, towards Le Manse's main doors. 'What's that you say? In the vault? What vault?'
  'He's on-screen!' The guard's voice was hoarse with excitement. 'He's in the strong-room!'
  
  The brothers knew what it meant. Of course they did. It was one of theirs, could only be one of theirs. The bomb blasts had been a decoy. Treachery! But it was
  unheard of, unthinkable. To a man, these people were all in thrall. In any case, how could anyone even think to get away with it?
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  'Weapons!' Francesco called out, his voice booming into the night. He snatched his dark glasses from his face, and his eyes were scarlet. 'Everyone up and on
  the alert. Man the walls. Any stranger you see, take him alive - or if you can't, then shoot him dead! In or out of the house.' And pointing at the security guard in the
  tower window: 'You -what about the cameras?'
  They're activated, yes.' The guard shouted back.
  But by then the Francezcis were into Le Manse and gone from view . . .
  The Necroscope hadn't noticed the cameras in the ceiling. Since switching on the lights he'd noticed nothing, except the extent of the hoard. And even then his
  mind couldn't take it in, only the fact that it was massive and ill-gotten.
  From stacks (literally stacks) of 'lost' Old Masters - one or two of which, in rich gilt frames, were actually hanging on the naked rock walls - to the coins of
  forgotten realms; from the books and illuminated manuscripts of antiquity, to the jewelled ornaments of Byzantium; from pirate gold to modern paper money in
  bundles inches thick, Harry's eyes were drawn this way and that as the mass of it sank in.
  It was far more than Darcy Clarke had hinted, because Darcy hadn't known. But the Necroscope did know, and knew what he must do.
  The place had ventilation; he could hear a faint whirring and feel a gentle current of dry air being circulated. And when he looked closer, sure enough there were
  ducts behind the racks. Doubtless the system was an extension of Le Manse Madonie's air-conditioning. Harry grinned (for what felt like the first time in a very
  long time), and thought Well, and why not add insult  to injury? This is for Humph. Something  of what he's owed, anyway.
  He took two tear-gas canisters from his belt attachments, positioning them on shelving close to the ventilation ducts  .
  . .
  . . . But first he had his own needs.
  He unzipped the top half of his track-suit and stuffed it to bulging with wads of deutschmarks, sterling, dollars; filling the jacket
  until it bloated obscenely on him and threatened to split at the seams. Then he took up two small, ridiculously heavy burlap
  sacks and hung them from hooks on his belt. It was as much as he could manage; it would have to do.
  He yanked the ring-pulls on the gas canisters, backed off across the concrete floor and turned his face away. There
  came the threatening hiss of hot gases expanding under pressure.
  Harry conjured a door and held it steady. He took two grenades  from his belt, armed them, tossed  them among the
  shelving. Wanton destruction of priceless treasures, but so what? No way the Francezcis were ever going to release
  any of this stuff or let anyone else see it, or
  even admit that it was here! It was here because it was theirs; ownership was everything.
  He stepped through his door, exiting the Continuum between Humph's doors, in the airlock section. Quickly, he fiddled with  the
  combination,  until  a red light began flashing . . . the  alarm system,  obviously.  Then  he heard the  crump!  crump!  of his  grenades
  from within the vault, and felt the bedrock give a shudder under his feet.
  Another jump took him into the outer  passage  on the  other  side of the  first  door,  where again he fiddled with  the  combination
  . . .  and once more the red flashing light—
  —Which was when he heard the shouting, and saw powerful torch beams turning the dim light almost  to  daylight  where they  lit
  up the bend in the tunnel. As  to  why  he'd bothered  to  mess with  the  combination  locks: he'd definitely  developed  a 'thing' about
  protecting his talents. This way he was making it 'obvious' that somebody had physically broken into the  strong-room.  And  thus  it
  would be far less obvious that the someone in question was purely and not-so-simply a magician!
  But in order to protect his talents  yet  again it was  now  time for him to  move on, before the  people  with  those  powerful  hand
  torches came into view around the bend. And anyway, there was somewhere else he wanted to see.
  He didn't quite know why, but—
  —There was definitely somewhere else he wanted to see . . .
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  IV
  THE PIT-THING— THE CLIMB — THE EXAMPLE
  Harry was back in his hotel room. He dumped his small but heavy burlap sacks  and unzipped his jacket into a wardrobe, deflating
  himself like a marquee with a snapped kingpost. Then, moving at a frenzied pace, he was out again.
  
  At Le Manse  Madonie: only nine or ten seconds  had passed;  the Francezci brothers were at the outer vault door,
  where Tony expertly spun  the combination lock in a sequence  that disarmed the alarms. But  already  Francesco  was
  asking: 'Why did he lock the fucking place up again? And how did he - how could he - get past us on his way out? Or
  . . . is he still here, one of us?' He glared all about, at the small party of thralls gathered in the tunnel.
  They stared back at his writhing features, the unequivocal guarantee of murder written clear in his scarlet eyes and
  flaring, convoluted nostrils.
  Tony had the outer door open;  he made to step  through  into the airlock section . .  .  paused,  lifted  his  head,  and
  sniffed at the air. And, nostrils gaping, he inhaled frantically, disbelievingly - then choked and grabbed his brother's
  elbow.
  They all smelled it at the same time: gas!
  Tear-gas, in the ventilation system!
  The lieutenants and thralls reacted instantly: they stumbled about in the tunnel, coughing  and choking, blinded by
  their own tears,  as  the  atmosphere  became  tinged  with  a  trace  of  yellow  from  the  tunnel's  ducts.  But  a  trace  was
  enough.
  Not enough  for  the  Francezcis,  however.  Not  yet.  Wamphyri,  they  had  more  control  over  their  bodies.  The  gas
  couldn't hurt if they didn't breathe it in. Their eyes wouldn't sting if they shuttered  them with transparent  membranes.
  The membranes would sting, but sight would remain unimpaired for a while at least.
  Francesco put the second combination to rights as his men began to
  leave the tunnel, staggering  away through  the reek of the place, colliding with each other, their torches  probing the
  misty-yellow, gradually thickening atmosphere. He spun the dial this way and that, and finally swung the door open -
  on an inferno!
  Hot metal had set fire to paper money and burlap; shelving sprawled in twisted disarray; art treasures  lay blackened,
  broken in the roil of dense smoke and fumes. Electrical conduits  burned, sparked, sputtered.  Flames licked up the rear
  wall and gouted on the ceiling, emitting the greasy black smoke and gut-wrenching stench  of destruction,  as fabulous
  oil paintings submitted to the heat. A wall of heat came scorching out of the strong-room!
  There were fire extinguishers, but many of them were damaged, blasted  loose  from  their  seatings  on  the  walls.  It
  took quite some time for the Francezcis to find two that were still working, and a lot longer to bring the wreckage of the
  treasure vault under a semblance of control. And of course they  must  do  it  themselves  in  the  stinging  yellow  fog,
  through all the tears and blood and rage of their hellish vampire eyes -for as yet their thralls were only human after all
  . . .
  Harry emerged from the Continuum at Humph's co-ordinates deep underground  - where the American's unauthorized
  explorations had been challenged more than forty years ago, and from which he'd been marched under escort before
  his employers - in that wide, spiralling stairwell that led upwards to the junction of five tunnels  and downwards . . .  to
  what? A secret place that no one was allowed to see. Which was why the Necroscope must see it.
  It was very confusing.  He  told  himself  it  was  to  satisfy  his  'natural  curiosity,'  but  in  fact  it  was  to  satisfy  B.J.'s
  post-hypnotic  command that he seek out the Wamphyri. Oh, she'd yet to turn him loose officially, but he  knew  her
  purpose, and it had become his. It would have been his purpose anyway, whatever the circumstances; but at the same
  time he'd been ordered to store away whatever information he discovered -to 'forget it,' place it in limbo - until B.J. or
  Radu brought about its resurgence.
  The result of which was that he was now here, investigating a monstrous  survival, a powerful and esoteric branch
  of the most dreadful 'dynasty' to ever infest mankind with its evil - the Ferenczys. And on this level he worked without
  conscious  thought  with regard to any outcome, but certainly with regard to his own safety. He was in thrall, but he
  was still Harry Keogh . . .
  Down here, there was as yet no tainted air. In these nethermost extremes of Le Manse  Madonie, the performance of
  the air conditioning system was at its slowest, the circulation languid at best. But up above . . . Harry could hear the
  hoarse shouting, the crying of men scrambling for fresh air. And they wouldn't find it until they were out of
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  the building proper, out in the night. That was good, for they wouldn't be coming down here.
  On the other hand  Harry  knew  his  own  limitations,  too.  He  was  sure  that  the  tear-gas  would  soon  find  its  way
  through the system and back to him. Wherefore time was of the essence.
  He went down the spiralling steps through several complete revolutions, until he arrived at a door formed of parallel
  bars of steel set in vertical stanchions. A warning sign - an openly displayed red lightning flash - warned that the bars
  were electrified. Beyond the door the floor was fairly level but uneven, and showed the natural stratification of rock;
  the place was a cave at the terminal point, the very lowest level, of Le Manse Madonie's excavations.
  Well back from the bars on Harry's side of the door, there were twin, rubber-handled switches set in a panel bolted
  to  the  wall.  One  of  these  was  marked  with  a  lightning  flash;  the  other  was  likewise  pictorial,  showing  a  series  of
  horizontal bars. It couldn't be simpler. Harry threw both switches, waited until a mechanism hummed and the bars slid from left to
  right through the housing stanchion. The door stood deactivated, and open.
  Of course the Necroscope could have simply taken the Mobius route into the natural cavern beyond  the door, but
  
  he'd been interested in the operation of the mechanism; plainly the technology  here antedated  Humph's vault doors.
  Also, this door was never intended to keep people out - which gave Harry pause  as he stepped  across  the threshold
  into the dimly-lit cave beyond.
  There was a nest  of supplementary light switches  mortared  to  the  wall;  when  he  switched  them  on,  a  battery  of
  spotlights high in the walls lit the cave with a brilliance that was dazzling. It took a few moments for Harry's eyes to adjust. Then he
  saw that the main focus of the spotlights was the mouth of a great circular well whose wall was of massive blocks of old
  hewn masonry.
  The Necroscope took it all in at a glance: the well, its electrified wire-mesh cover, the hoist with its metal platform,
  throwing  a  gallow's  shadow  across  the  mouth  of  the  well. . .  or  the  pit?  And  the  deeper  shadows,  sharp-etched,
  marching away into the cavern's unseen  corners. But the walled pit was  definitely  the  place's  centre  of  focus.  And
  perhaps 'well' was a better description after all; Harry could make out a thin mist issuing from its throat, vaporizing on
  contact with the cover.
  That this place was a  facility,  that  it  was  used,  however  infrequently,  was  obvious.  The  door,  spotlights,  hoist,
  electrification . . .  all of these things spoke volumes however inarticulately. But what was it used for?
  In the very instant  of his inwards-directed question,  the Necroscope  was  warned  not  to  ask  it.  Too  late;  Harry's
  'natural curiosity' had let him down; his mental guard was down, and his every thought was like a spoken word to the
  dead. Of which Le Manse Madonie - and the 'pit' in
  particular - had more than its fair share. They might have remained silent, but his query; 'What was this  place used  for?' galvanized
  or even shocked  them  into  grotesque  activity.  It  had been akin to  showing  the  long-healed  victims  of  some  hideous  torture  the
  implements of their suffering. Except it was much worse, for these victims were not yet healed.
  The use of this place, of the pit? But they had been part of its use - as they were even now  part  of the  creature  in the pit!  And
  while he, it, was not quite insane, they  were - driven  mad, because they  remembered what  they  had been, and knew  what  they'd
  become.
  The Necroscope gaped; his jaw fell open in that same split second; the short hairs stood up stiff at the back of his neck, because
  he sensed  the  coming onslaught.  But  this  time - however  strangely,  inexplicably  -he was  ready  for  it.  He  somehow  knew  these
  people . . .  he had heard their  dead voices before, but  had forgotten  them because they  were part  of something that  he had been
  ordered to forget. Now, however, he was once more performing  in that  earlier 'mode,' so that  for the  time being his subconscious
  memory was intact again. And:
  Him! (The one with the small, timid voice).
  He was here befoooore! (The one who growled).
  He's back! back! back! (A voice that seemed to echo).
  He didn't listen, didn't run! (The agonized girl, her pain still fresh in her incorporeal mind).
  He must  be as mad  as we are - har,  har,  haaarrrrgh!  (The  utterly  crazed  one, whose  'laughter' had sounded  like bullets,  and
  now sounded like a soul tearing).
  But all of them beating on Harry's metaphysical mind simultaneously, so that he had difficulty  sorting  them out;  beating almost
  physically, great hammerblows of passion, rage, or terror. And not only for themselves but for him.
  'Dead!' the Necroscope heard himself gasp out loud. 'But where? How?' Again that question. And in answer:
  Here! (All of them in unison, explaining the where of it). In the pit! And another  voice - like the  breath  of hell, like the  croak of
  some gigantic, obscene toad - that cowed them all to silence in a moment, explaining the how of it:
  IN ME. . .!
  Contact with the group had been through Harry's talent: he was the Necroscope and conversed  with the dead. But
  this other contact was different. It was telepathy, which Harry recognized in a moment. But how could it be, when its
  source was the same? They had the answer to that, too:
  But we're part of Him, the terrified girl, perhaps  not so terrified after all - or simply stronger, more determined than
  the rest - told him. The Francezcis . . .
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  BE QUIET!
  . . . They fed its to him! She finished in a whisper.
  He. Him. Something in the pit. Something that breathed air, creating the miasma rising from the throat of that now terrible hole. But. . . something alive?
  Obviously - yet when Harry had spoken to them in his unique fashion, it had answered him back.
  THEY'RE DEAD! The thing told him at once, its massive mentality gonging in Harry's mind. BUT THEIR MINDS LIVE ON IN ME ...
  And because telepathy and the language of the dead frequently convey more than is actually said, now Harry had the whole picture, or thought he did:
  The Francezci brothers - Wamphyri, last survivors of the dread Ferenczy dynasty - had grown something in this pit, even as Yulian Bodescu had grown that
  Other thing in the cellars of Harkley House in Devon, England. But where Bodescu's beast had been a mindless monstrosity sprouted of his own vampire flesh, a
  thing of little or no original intelligence, this construct of the Ferenczys was hugely intelligent! It gathered knowledge from the minds of those it consumed. It
  was powerfully telepathic; it was in Harry's mind even now, leeching his knowledge. He could feel it - its eagerly groping fingers - and slammed the doors of his
  mind on it, to shut it out before it learned too much! Its hold was broken; Necroscope and pit-thing stood off, 'face to face,' as it were, weighing each other up;
  Harry felt its awesome vampire probes fumbling at the outer reaches of his identity.
  But while telepathy is one thing, communication with the dead is something else; while the thing in the pit could 'hear' Harry and its 'own' absorbed vestigial
  multi-minds speaking - and while it might occasionally cow those consumed identities, or shout them down - it was mainly incapable of anything but threats.
  
  For you can't any longer hurt the dead. And the girl, the one whose agony was still so fresh, seemed finally to have recognized that fact and was talking to Harry,
  begging him to:
  Run! Oh, run! You're warm and alive . . . you don't want to be like us, cold and dead! So run!
  'But I have to know,' Harry told her, as he sniffed the first faint reek of gas. 'What . . . what is he?'
  He is their seer, their scryer, their crystal ball. He's their machine: they aim, direct him, and he gathers knowledge  for them. Even from
  across the world! He is their oracle! And more than that, he—
  —I WAS THEIR FATHER! The great voice was back, breaking through  all Harry's barriers. But  now  there  was  a
  gasping sob in it, an all-consuming grieving, a sense of great loss, like the loss of being - or of the control of being. I WAS
  ANGELO  FERRENZIG,  FERENCZINI,  FRANCEZCI.  AND  I  WAS  THE  MASTER  OF  METAMORPHISM  -UNTIL
  METAMORPHISM MASTERED ME!
  Again, more was conveyed than was spoken. Much more:
  The Necroscope's  skin crept as he  saw  the  seething  horror  of  a  grotesque  birth  .  .  .  twins,  one  of  which  was  a
  monster  from  first  gasp  and  destroyed at once. The other was Angela, bloodson  of Waldemar, and apparently  normal.  .  .  A
  thousand years of vampire life, until  his metamorphism ran rampant, became a disease, reduced or exploded him to what he was
  now.
  If Harry had wondered how many  generations  of Francezcis?  - then  he wondered  no longer. The  answer  was  one: the  brothers
  themselves, twins sons of Angelo Ferenczini, born toward the end of his time as . . .  as a man! For  as his disease had taken  hold
  on him, he had determined to extend something of his loathsome existence into the future. Or . . .  perhaps he had hoped to do a lot
  more than  that,  which  was  why  he  was  now  trapped  down  here  and  not  free-roaming.  For  Harry  had  ample  evidence  of  the
  tenacity of the Wamphyri; he knew that if there'd been any way for this creature  to  continue  as 'a whole man,' then  that  he would
  have found it - or would yet find it! - perhaps in one of his sons, if they'd not seen fit to trap him down here first.
  So, how  long had he been here? Two,  three,  four  hundred  years?  And  all  that  time  his  sons  inhabiting  Le  Manse  Madonie,
  sometimes as one person and at others as brothers. Little wonder there was a long history of twins - for they were the  same  twins!
  They would live here for a while (until one of them had to 'die' and for a time live elsewhere,) then  reverse the  process,  'rejuvenate,'
  come together as sons and brothers again. And always there would be at least one 'keeper' here.
  But their father was Faethor Ferenczy's  brother,  or half-brother,  out  of a different  mother,  Constanza  de' Petralia.  Had Angelo
  not known -didn't  he know?  - of his sibling in a different  time, a different  land? And  what  of the  long-dead Faethor?  Did he not
  know of Angelo? He had never mentioned him to  Harry.  But  then,  Faethor  had usually  kept  himself apart;  his interests  had been
  limited, divided between war and his mountain territories, and bitter hatred of his egg-son, Thibor the Wallach. Or perhaps  the  two
  had known  of one another  but  simply  stayed  well  apart.  And  anyway,  what  would  it  have  profited  Faethor  to  speak  of  this
  Angelo, whom  he never met? And  if he had spoken  of him, would  it have  been  the  truth?  For  of  all  liars,  there  is  none  like  a
  vampire: fathers not only of monsters, but of lies!
  Harry  gave  up  on  it;  there  were  discrepancies  enough  in  the  history  of  the  Wamphyri,  as  the  Necroscope  had  long-since
  discovered . . .
  But though all of this - these incredible revelations, and the presence of the thing in the pit - was mind-staggering, still Harry  had
  to  know  the  worst  of  it.  And  through  the  first  faint  wisps  of  a  yellow  mist,  he  stumbled  to  the  rim  of  the  pit,  avoided  the
  wire-mesh, ignored his stinging eyes and gazed down the throat of the awful shaft.
  Down there,  looking back up at him through its own miasma,
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  something with burning sulphur eyes quivered and surged . . .
  Get out of here! the multi-minds urged him, while the Necroscope reeled with the knowledge - the vision - of what had driven them half or wholly mad. But:
  OUT OF HERE? Angelo Ferenczy was quieter now, his 'voice' dripping sarcasm. OUT OF LE MANSE MADONIE? BUT CAN'T YOU SEE? HE CAME OF
  HIS OWN FREE WILL - AND UNINVITED. THERE'S BUT ONE WAY OUT, WHICH HE WILL FIND BARRED, I AM SURE! AND EVENTUALLY . . .
  AH, IT WILL BE A PLEASURE SPEAKING TO HIM AGAIN, BUT MORE INTIMATELY NEXT TIME! OH, HA HA HAAAA!
  Dizziness, nausea, that same mental confusion which had left Harry so helpless on the road below Le Manse Madonie the previous afternoon, struck again! But
  this time he knew what it was. The mental power of the thing in the reeking pit - of Angelo Ferenczy, or what was become of him - was awesome. The Necroscope
  could only think of his own safety now. And he knew that the multi-minds of those that the thing had devoured were quite right: he should run, get out of here
  with all speed.
  Harry staggered back from the pit amidst thickening clouds of yellow and conjured a Mobius door. It took unaccustomed effort...  the gas was in his eyes and
  lungs; the multi-minds were shouting at him, telling him to run, run; and the ancient, hideously mutated Ferenczy was tearing aside the Necroscope's mental
  barriers like so much tissue paper.
  Panic set in. Confused, Harry saw half-a-dozen co-ordinates displayed on the screen of his mind, places he could escape to. Such as his old flat in Hartlepool; or
  better still the Hartlepool cemetery, for the flat was probably occupied by now ...  or (most obvious) his hotel room in Paterno ...  or his study, garden, or
  bedroom at the house in Bonnyrig . . . Except he could no longer think of that last without B.J. Mirlu also crossing his mind. Everything was so confused and
  confusing!
  The pictures in the Necroscope's mind were automatic, instinctive; lacking an explanatory 'narrative,' they gave little or nothing away. But the girl - the mind of
  the dead girl who had not yet forgotten the agonies of her dying - seized upon one of them and clung to it.
  And: Bonniejean! she cried. B.J. Mirlu sent you!
  And because she was part of Angelo Ferenczy, he heard her, too. MIRLU? RADU LYKAN'S THRALL? THIS ONE IS ...  ONE OF RADU'S? Then, his awful
  mind registered utter terror! His mental probes were immediately withdrawn; they released their grip on Harry's mentality, writhing back from him as if he were
  
  suddenly white hot. And in a way Angelo was right: Harry was one of Radu's.
  Go! The girl cried. Hurry! You can't help me. No one can. So go now,
  if you still can. And tell B.J. - tell her . . .
  But Harry never found out what he should tell Bonnie Jean, for at that moment Angelo exerted his telepathic power over all the
  shrieking multi-minds and closed them down, and the psychic aether was empty as deep space. By which time—
  The Necroscope was in even deeper space: that of the Mobius Continuum, where he twirled aimlessly for what seemed a long
  time, before a co-ordinate surfaced from the whirlpool deeps of his metaphysical mind and he fled to its source:
  His room at the hotel in Paterno . . .
  Harry woke up from an instantly  forgotten  nightmare, woke  with  a splitting  headache, sweating  and shivering and nauseous.  But
  he fought it down and lay still, and in the light of a bedside lamp  took  in his surroundings.  The  hotel,  yes.  His  room at the  Hotel
  Adrano. In Paterno. Sicily.
  It all came flooding back - or it didn't, not all of it:
  Le Manse Madonie, the treasure vault, the tear-gas - and the money!
  At that he came off the bed so fast it set his mind, and his body, reeling again. And his clothing stank of gas. God - no wonder he felt nauseous! He'd been hit by
  his own tear-gas! But the money . . . was it real? Nothing/eft real. It all felt like some badly fragmented dream, as if something was missing. So what else was new?
  He hadn't felt right from the first moment he got to this fucking place!
  But after he'd opened the windows to his balcony, and then opened the wardrobe . . .
  It was no dream, and nothing was missing. Not of his loot, at least. A burlap bag slumped over on its side, and a handful of gold coins slipped from the rim and
  set off on their diverse courses, wobbling across the polished boards. Their milled rims purred on varnished pine; they thumped heavily where they collided with
  the carpet trim and fell on their sides.
  And in the wardrobe where he'd emptied his jacket - bundles of high denomination notes! A suitcase full. Pounds, deutschmarks, dollars, in fifties and
  hundreds. And the Krugerrands: twin burlap sacks weighing at least thirty pounds each! Sixty pounds of solid gold!
  And all of this money here in his room, in the night, in Sicily. Harry broke out in a sweat again. He wasn't a thief - but he was now! But so were the Francezcis.
  And what the hell, he'd known what he was doing. And what it was for. But. . .
  ...  He had to get it out of here!
  He did, to the old house in Bonnyrig. Then returned to the Hotel Adrano, and lay tossing and turning all through the rest of the night, unable to sleep.
  *    *    *
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  Rising  with  the  sun,  Harry  checked  out  of  the  hotel.  He  didn't  dare  simply  disappear,  for  that  would  be  to  invite
  investigation. But having checked out, then he disappeared—
  —back to his home in Bonnyrig, where at last he would be able to set the wheels of a real search in motion.
  In his house  - which felt unaccountably  strange  and empty now, as if he'd been away for a  week  at  least  -  Harry
  secreted the money away and began to feel a little easier. And then, to make up for the deficiencies of last night, he
  slept. . .
  . . . But only for an hour, until the sun rose again for the second time in just sixty minutes.
  It was the telephone that brought him awake; Bonnie Jean's husky voice inquiring oh-so-knowingly, 'Is that mah wee man?'
  And oh, yes, it was him. And he was hers, beyond a doubt:
  The full moon, its golden light streaming down . . . B.J.'s strange eyes, undergoing an even stranger metamorphosis . . . and a wolfs head in
  silhouette, dark against the disk of the moon.
  Harry said nothing, because her words hadn't been a question but a trigger. On the other end of the line BJ. understood his silence, smiled at it and asked him:
  'Well, did you get your finances sorted out? You can answer normally, Harry.'
  'Er, yes,' he said. 'I'm all fixed up now.'
  'And ready for a weekend's climbing?'
  'Ready as I ever will be,' he answered.
  'Good!'
  She arranged a meeting for lunch: 12:00 noon, at a little place she knew outside Falkirk, about half-way to where they'd be climbing. And she finished by
  asking him, 'How will you get there?'
  Til bike it,' Harry answered. 'Looks like a nice day. I should enjoy the ride.' It was no lie; he would bike it - some of the way, anyhow.
  He sensed B.J.'s surprise. 'But that's -1 don't know - maybe fifteen miles?'
  'I'll be setting out about 9:30. Plenty of time.'
  Til have my car. I could pick you up?'
  'I ...  think I'll enjoy the fresh air.'
  At last he sensed her shrug. 'Well, okay, just as long as you save some of your energy. Er, for the climbing, I mean . . .'
  'Oh, I'll have enough of energy.'
  'Very well then,' she laughed. Til see you around midday. Afterwards, when we're done, we can always put your bike on the roofrack and I'll drive you home . . .
  mah wee man.'
  Which left Harry feeling as if the world had blinked and for a moment he'd felt the darkness. But all he could remember was that he had a date with Bonnie Jean,
  and that she was innocent, of course.
  But innocent of what . . . ?
  
  *    *    *
  At Le Manse Madonie there was hell on. There  had been hell on all night. And  unheard by  the  brothers'  lieutenants  and common
  thralls (their servants or 'soldiers,') and ignored for now by the Francezcis themselves, because they were busy, the  ancient thing in
  the pit had wailed piteously, continuously to itself for hours now.
  And one by one the interrogations went on: the 'household staff were called forward  one after  the  other  into  Francesco's  private
  rooms; he and Anthony talked to them, threatened them, required them to admit responsibility for last  night's  damage and robbery.
  Or if they weren't directly responsible, to admit that they'd been seduced by some outside agency, and were part  and parcel  of the
  break-in. To no avail; but the brothers had known that from the start; it was simply something that had to be done.
  Finally it was done. Le Manse's staff, sufficiently cowed but  all perfectly  'innocent'  - or as innocent  as vampires  can be - were
  back at their duties; the Francezcis could now begin to consider, or at least attempt to consider,  the  mechanics of this  thing. Which
  had to be the most frustrating, infuriating part, for it was patently impossible.
  Francesco  paced,  while Tony  sprawled  in  an  easy  chair.  The  latter  looked  entirely  exhausted,  but  his  looks  were  deceptive.
  Wamphyri, he was simply exhausted of ideas. But  in fact  he was  the  most  'sensitive'  or 'passive'  one, while Francesco  had all the
  aggression.
  'We should have Guy Cavee in again!' Francesco burst out. He strode to the hugely heavy curtains, looked for a moment  as if he
  might draw them, tear them aside. But  out  there,  all was  brilliant sunlight.  And  throughout  Le Manse  Madonie  all of the  curtains
  would stay  closed until  sundown.  The  Francezcis  had a woman whose  sole responsibility  it was  to  open  and close curtains.  No
  one else touched them, not even the brothers.
  The night watch? To what end?' Tony lolled in his chair. 'He gave warning, while still the intruder was in the vault.'
  'We don't know that!' Francesco rounded on him. 'If Cavee is lying, the thief could have been in there  - and out  of there  - before
  he called out. If there was a plot, he is the obvious one to have been in on it.'
  'But if he is lying,' Tony waved a slender, languid hand, 'then he's also planning his escape  from this  place.  Indeed, he would  be
  fled by now, or dead by his own hand. For he must know that when, if, we discover the truth . . .'
  'In any case,' Francesco stopped pacing. 'We have to make an example of someone. And again, he is the most obvious one.'
  'You're saying that whoever did this, he can't be seen to get away with it entirely? Someone must pay?'
  'Exactly.'
  'But it will make no difference. We still won't know who did it, or how
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  he got into the strong-room  without  tripping  an alarm, and out  again -and out  of Le Manse  - without  anyone  so much as seeing,
  hearing, or even smelling him!' Even Tony was beginning to show his agitation now.
  'Oh,  I  smelled  him  well  enough!'  Francesco  shouted.  'Tear-gas!  In  the  ventilation!  And  grenades,  in  the  vault!
  Uncounted - literally uncounted - billions in marks, lira, francs, dollars, and treasures, destroyed  or stolen. From under
  our noses. At least a quarter of everything we held down there. And as if that weren't enough,  he actually locked up
  before leaving! The impertinence of this bastard! Unbelievable!'
  'Impertinent, yes,' his brother agreed, scowling. 'And we sit here impotent.'
  Francesco ground his teeth, and repeated: 'We should have Cavee in again.'
  Tony's shrug. 'He knows nothing. One look at his face says  it all: why, he thinks he should  be rewarded; he was
  that quick off the mark!'
  'Rewarded!' Francesco snarled.
  'And the cameras, ruined,' Tony slumped more yet. 'It was hot in there.'
  'Not necessarily ruined,' Francesco answered. 'They think they can save one of them - or rather, its contents.  We
  can at least hope that we have this dog on film!'
  'We do have Cavee's description.'
  'Hah!' Francesco snorted.  'What, a true description? If he was in  on  it? And if he wasn't, what was that for a description
  anyway? A face and figure, seen distorted, in monochrome and at an angle from above?'
  Tony stirred himself, stood up. 'You know, of course, that He has been crying out all this time? There was gas down there, too.
  And he is, after all, our greatest "treasure." For without him, where would we be?'
  'I've heard him, yes,' Francesco rumbled. 'But then, who could avoid hearing him? Raving, babbling  about  bloody
  Radu, at a time like this!' But he knew that it must have been worse for his brother, for Anthony  and his father were
  closer. Then, in a moment, Francesco's expression changed. And turning to face the other, his eyes narrowed more yet
  and became red-burning slits in his dark face.
  'Oh?' said Tony, wonderingly.
  'We have to make an example of someone,' Francesco growled. 'We can't be seen to be . . .  impotent, as you put it.
  Our dear father is ever hungry. And if Guy Cavee has knowledge of this thing . . . "
  'He's a lieutenant,' Tony pointed out. 'Junior, but—'
  'No, he is our example!' Francesco cut him off,  grinning  darkly.  'Our  important  example.  We  can  always  promote
  another junior lieutenant, but we shall never be able to make a better example - of anyone.'
  Again Tony's shrug. 'Well, at least it's a course of action,' he said. 'Certainly we need to do something. But  I can't  see that  it will
  produce anything of a solution. However, and since you seem determined . . .' Grudgingly, he nodded his head. 'So be it. . .'
  
  By 11:30 the Necroscope was cycling through wild and gorgeous country somewhere west of Edinburgh. He wore  his track-suit;  a
  pack on his shoulders contained a pair of decent climbing shoes  and some spare  items  of clothing; he supposed  B.J.  would  see to
  anything else. Himself: Harry had already  seen to  something and got himself some expert  tuition;  or he'd arranged access to  it,  at
  least.
  Not wanting to  make a total  fool of himself in the  hills, this  morning he'd spoken  to  the  dead in a Bonnyrig  cemetery  and got
  some leads. The  man he had been looking for was  in a graveyard  in Dalkeith.  Harry  had  gone  there  along  the  Mobius  way  and
  introduced himself in his fashion; when the excitement had died down,  he'd explained his reason  for being there.  Now  he felt  a lot
  happier that he could look after himself on a cliff face.
  The dead man he'd spoken to had been a climber of the old school. Not a mountaineer as such, no, but someone who had made
  himself  something  of  a  local  legend  in  his  lifetime,  as  a  rock-climbing  man  without  peer.  No  nylon  ropes  in  they  days,
  Necryscope, he'd told Harry. And I wouldn'ae be caught dead - ye'll excuse mah language - with hammer and piton in mah
  hand! Lord, no! All that cock wiz fer the so-called 'professionals.' Ah wiz no professional - but man, ah could  monkey
  up a sheer slab o' a rock like a wee lizard! Lookin' back now, all eighty years and more - ah can't say, ah don't know - ah think it wiz the view
  pure and simple. Toe look doon on the world frae on high, frae a new place, ye ken, and ken that only the eagles had ever perched there afore
  a man? Ah, that wiz something!
  'Will be again,' Harry had told him from his seat on the old lad's sarcophagus in the shade of a tree,  breathing in the  cool, calming
  quiet of the cemetery. 'You can see it all again, through  my  eyes;  though  I can't  promise  you  the  climb is going to  excite you.  I'm
  only a beginner. I don't suppose my guide will be letting me tackle anything too adventurous.'
  A beginner, is it? Well, ye're in good hands, be sure, I wouldn'ae dare let anything happen to ye! The dead man had assured him. Me. but ah travelled tae do mah
  climbing, Harry. Ben Nevis, the Peak District, North Wales, Derbyshire, the Dartmoor Tors, the Cornish and Pembrokeshire sea cliffs . . . you name it! But a wee
  climb will be better than none at all! Just gi' me a call, and ah'll be there fer ye. And don't fret none . . . ah'll no be letting ye down, Necryscope. No wi' a bump,
  anyhow!
  'Good!' Harry told him. 'See, this lady I'll be climbing with is good  at it. I don't want to be made to look, you know,
  stupid, that's all.'
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  Eh? A wee lassie, is it? Aye, well there were a few good ones in mah day, too. Ah mind one who . . . oh, it's a long time ago. But she wiz the
  only one who ever beat me up a crag, ah'll tell ye that. . .!
  And shortly it had been time to go.
  It was only after the Necroscope had left that his new friend recalled the name of the girl from his time, eighty years ago, who had
  'beaten him up a crag.' Then, he'd thought to call out after the Necroscope, but Harry's Ma had got to him first:
  Don't, she told him. My son . . . is in trouble. But we have it under control. We think so, anyway. The thing is, if he were to hear
  that girl's name . . . we really don't know what it would do to his mind. So let it be for now. There will be time later, if it comes to it. . .
  The old climber had asked no questions.  Like most of the Great Majority, he'd heard of Mary Keogh and knew her
  reputation;  that  whatever  she  did  on  Harry's  behalf  would  be  for  the  best.  But  he  really  couldn't  understand  her
  concern. Why, that young lassie he'd remembered, that Bonnie Jean Mirlu, would be a long time down in the ground
  herself by now! What, after all these long years? Of course she would.
  But because Mary Keogh had spoken, these were thoughts he would keep to himself, always . . .
  The Necroscope had long since mastered the technique of vacating the Continuum astride his machine: it was just a
  matter  of  balance,  of  going  from  metaphysical  to  physical,  weightlessness  to  gravity,  darkness  to  light  -  'simple'
  things,  to Harry. But he still  had  his  other  thing  -  about  someone  seeing  him  in  the  moment  he  emerged  into  this
  space-time. He had become that concerned with keeping his esoteric talents secret.
  On this occasion, though (and oddly enough, because he was riding a bike), he didn't worry. For it's one thing for a
  man to suddenly  appear out of  nowhere,  but  quite  another  for  a  man  on  a  bicycle  to  spring  into  existence.  For  a
  bicycle is such a mundane thing that if a man on a bike comes from nowhere, then it's a trick of the light, or the eye, or
  the mind. But it certainly can't be weird or supernatural.
  Thus in only ten minutes Harry was able to cover the distance from his house  on the outskirts of Bonnyrig to his
  rendezvous with Bonnie Jean at a pub on the approaches to Falkirk, by 'jumping' stretches  of the road ahead for distances
  of anything from a hundred yards to half a mile. If he could see the way was clear ahead - see with his own eyes the place where
  he would like to emerge - it was as good as a co-ordinate, and he could simply 'go' there.
  Finally the picturesque  little pub was in view; he spied the place from  the  crest  of  a  low  hill,  jumped  to  a  paved
  service track at the rear, and emerged as from an avenue of tall, fully-clad chestnut trees that made
  for a  perfectly  concealed  'landing.'  A  moment  more  and  he  had  cycled  round  to  the  front  of  the  place,  parked  his
  machine and entered.
  Bonnie Jean was seated  at a table in an alcove at one end of the bar. A shame, because  it was gloomy; she could
  have chosen a window seat; but in any case the day was overcast. Maybe she wouldn't want to climb after all. But no
  such luck.
  He slid into his seat beside her, said, 'Hello,' and: 'It doesn't look any too hot out.'
  'It's ideal.' She gave him a kiss on the cheek. 'We won't have the sun  in our eyes.' He couldn't  know  that  she  had
  
  been keeping abreast of the weather forecasts and so had been fully aware that there'd be little or no sun from noon today.
  They talked,  about  nothing  much  in  particular,  ate  a  light  lunch,  and  Harry  paid  the  bill.  'A  man  of  means,'  B.J.
  commented.
  'Er, you could say that,' he answered. 'I'm solvent again, anyway.'
  She pulled a wry face. 'I wish I could say the same. That place of mine scarcely pays for itself. In fact, I'm in debt.' Then she bit her
  lip, for she hadn't meant to tell him that.
  'How much?' he asked her.
  Too  much,'  she  told  him.  Three  and  a  half  thousand  too  much!'  And  she  sighed  and  shrugged.  'It  might  mean
  becoming a pub instead of a club after all.'
  Harry felt sorry for her, said, 'Oh, you never know. Something could turn up.' In a way he felt guilty; for she'd been
  spending quite a lot of her time, her nights, with him. Well, he certainly had the means to put that right. . .
  The climb B.J. had chosen  was further than she had thought;  it  was  some  time  since  she'd  been  out  this  way,  and
  never by car. Something like sixty years since the last time she'd practised her climbing here . . . but the scenery hadn't
  changed  that much.  The  place,  in  the  sprawling  foothills  of  Ben  Vorlich,  was  dramatically  beautiful:  Loch  Lubnaig
  gleamed silver-grey under the low, unseasonal cloud ceiling, and Ben Ledi across  the loch was a hazy blue silhouette
  like a squat mushroom - the bulk of the mountain holding aloft a massive grey cap formed of dirty sky.
  'Shoes,' B.J. commented, eyeing Harry's feet as they made their way diagonally across  sliding scree to the foot of a
  jagged rock outcrop that rose almost sheer for a hundred feet, to a saddle between awesomely carved  spurs.  'Boots
  were better - climbing boots  - but as you can see, I don't wear them either. Anyway, it's the soles  that count.  Good,
  gritty rubber to grip the rock. Boots do protect the ankles, though. You'll remember, if you get a sprain.'
  Thanks,' Harry told her. Til try not to.' But, as they arrived below the crag: 'Are we climbing this?'
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  B.J. grinned at him. 'For starters,' she said. 'But don't worry - this time next year, this will be like a Sunday afternoon
  stroll! And anyway, I'll have you on a rope - this time. So for now, why don't you just sit there and watch while I get
  the gear ready? I'll be a minute or two, that's all.'
  She shrugged out of her pack, turned her back on him, and went down on one knee.
  Harry wandered off around the base of a chimney that rose half-way to the summit. Out of sight of B.J., he spoke to
  his friend in the cemetery in Dalkeith. How about it?
  The other looked out through his eyes, answered: Damn me, but ah've climbed here before! Ben Vorlich, am I right?
  Absolutely.
  Well, are ye ready?
  Harry peeped around the base of the stack. B.J. was still busy  with her pack, her back still turned to him. Yes, why
  not?
  Off we go then. A piece o' cake. Just you leave it toe me, Necryscope.
  And  the Necroscope left it to him - but not entirely. He felt what the dead climber felt, every nuance of the climb.
  And  of course he learned as they went; for it  was  his  arms  and  muscles  taking  the  strain,  easing  him  up,  ever  up
  within the cleft of the chimney; his eyes scanning  the way ahead, taking in each  and  every  detail  of  the  route;  his
  brain, recording it all for later. And the old-timer's narrative to guide him all the way;
  That crack there - a good wee hand hold, three fingers at least. And that split opposite: ye can getye're toe in there - but mind ye dinnae twist
  ye're foot! and that wee ledge, Necryscope: aye, park ye're arse right there a moment. . . but on'y a moment! And alwiz
  keep moving - on and up! And breathe, laddie, breathe! For it's the air that powers ye. Breathe easy, Harry, in and oot. Ah! And
  see there: a piton! But dinnae ye touch it! That's cheatin'!
  They were through  the chimney and onto the  outer  face,  and  Harry  felt  like  he  was  actually  haring  for  the  high
  horizon of the topmost rim. Then he scuffed loose a pebble that went clattering all the way down the sheer face, until it
  hit the scree and bounced up between B.J.'s legs, where she'd just that instant  straightened  up from her pack. Laden
  with a rope, hammer, pitons, she frowned, turned, saw a trickle of dust from above. And she looked up.
  Then . . . she would have called out - in astonishment  if for no other reason - but was afraid to do so in case she
  distracted him. The idiot!
  But 'the idiot' was hauling himself up onto the rim, to sit there with his legs dangling, waving down at her! And B.J.
  too sat down, with a bump, on the scree, stared up at Harry and for the first time in as long as she could remember felt
  dizzy - from the angle of her neck, and from the thought of Harry's 'solo' climb: the speed of it!
  Then anger replaced her astonishment. The clever bastard! Letting her think he was new to all this!
  Quickly, she shed  her gear, grabbed her pack, set off back the way they had  come.  Thus  she  failed  to  see  Harry
  reeling on the rim, and almost falling before he could regain his balance. Except it wasn't him but his guide:  the  fact
  that the old climber's mind had seemed suddenly  to go blank, so that the Necroscope had been left alone, as it were,
  on a knife-edge of vertiginous rock.
  Following which . . .
  . . . The way down took a deal longer, and Harry could feel something of a tremble in his guide's suddenly  uncertain
  mind. At the bottom he asked him: 'What was all that about?'
  
  A sick spell, the other lied. That's what stopped me frae climbing, Necryscope: dizzy sickness. Er, vertigo? Aye, and it got me in
  the end, sure enough. Ah got dizzy once too often . . .
  'You fell?' Harry's jaw fell open. He couldn't believe it.
  So ah did. But it's how ah lived; ah cannae complain it's how ah died, too.
  And Harry sighed deeply, closed his eyes and thought: Now he tells me! But he kept the thought to himself.
  Likewise his guide. He, too, kept his thoughts to himself. The fact that he now knew something of what Harry's Ma had been talking about. For
  in fact his 'attack' had  come  when  Harry  had  looked  down  at  Bonnie  Jean.  The  old  climber  had  seen  her,  too  -  through  the
  Necroscope's eyes - that lass who eighty years ago had beaten him up a crag!
  Well, and finally he'd got his own back . . .
  By the time Harry reached the car, B.J. had almost, not quite, forgiven him. Her tone was severe as she told him: 'I've a
  mind to make you cycle home.'
  'You've got it all wrong,' he lied, but in a way told the precise truth. 'I've never done it before. It just seemed - I don't
  know - so natural, that's all. Sort of instinctive?'
  And by the time she'd got him home she was half-convinced.
  They made love through the evening, but as night came on she had to go. 'I've missed too many Saturday nights,'
  she explained. 'My regulars expect to see me behind the bar.'
  But as she kissed him and got into the car, Harry pressed a velvet gift sacklet into her hand. 'Oh?' B.J. looked at him
  curiously, surprised at the weight of his present.
  'It's very practical,' he told her. 'A little something I feel sure you can use.'
  And it was. In her room above B.J.'s, she untied the ribbon and turned out the contents  onto her bedspread: twenty
  golden Kruger-rands. B.J. knew their value! Her mysterious Mr Keogh certainly
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  seemed" to have got his finances sorted out - not to mention hers . . .
  At Le Manse Madonie, the 'cleansing' of Guy Cavee's person  had taken all day. He'd been kept fully conscious  most
  of the time - a torture in itself; the Spanish Inquisition could scarcely have been more cruel - and like the Inquisition, at
  each  stage  of  the  process  he'd  been  given  the  opportunity  to  confess.  If  he  had  been  able  to  tell  the  Francezcis
  anything, certainly he would have done so. And in the end he did: let them so much as make a suggestion  - he agreed
  with it. So that even then they couldn't be sure he was entirely innocent.
  But they knew how to make sure. In the moment of his absorption into Angelo, the truth would be known. After that
  . . .  his mind, or what was left of a mind, would be mainly his own again. But his body  -well, there would be no body.
  Angelo's  digestive  system  was  that  of  the  Wamphyri  carried  by  his  rampant  metamorphism  to  its  absolute  limits.
  Literally absorption: he would not so much 'digest' the ex-lieutenant as render him liquid, suck him up like a sponge,
  add his mass to the bulk of the unthinkable abnormality that was Angelo Francezci, Ferenczini, Ferenczy. A process  of
  simultaneous internal and external homogeniza-tion: to make Cavee as one with the active  body,  the substance,  of the
  pit-thing. The utter and utterly destructive  rape and reduction  of a person  to protoplasm of. . .  of a different nature.
  But  the  mind,  thoughts,  memories,  would  be  there,  not  alive  but  incorporated  into  Angelo's  mentality,  giving  him
  something of access, as to a piece of unfeeling computer software. Incorporeal, and therefore unfeeling, yes, but not
  without emotion and not without memories. Guy Cavee, like all the others  before him, would know exactly what  was
  become of him.
  As for the thing in the pit: Angelo had been 'silent' for hours;  even Tony Francezci had heard or sensed  nothing of
  his father since midday. It was possible that the intruder's tear-gas had entered the Thing's system, rendering him ill or
  even  unconscious.  But  his  metamorphism  -which  was  all  he  was  now,  a  metamorphism  -  would  have  no  trouble
  dealing with that; and his mist, his miasma, rose up from the pit as before.
  Tony had tried 'speaking' to him, told him what had happened  and  what  he  and  his  brother  were  doing  about  it;
  hoping to bring him round, he had even asked for his advice in the matter - all to no avail. But as the brothers had had
  the now unconscious Cavee placed on the crane's platform and swung out over the open pit, Tony had felt a psychic
  tingle  of  expectancy  and  had  sensed  an  incredible  hunger;  so  that  he'd  known  his  father  was  silent  for  his  own
  reasons.
  Therefore, before bringing Cavee awake with an ampule and lowering him into the shaft, Tony had tried one last time:
  'Father, we need to know if this man is a traitor. We need to know who coerced him, turned him against us, against
  you. I know you are
   
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  hungry, but if he is a dupe we need his thoughts. We need the names in his head.'
  Nothing - only the miasma thickening - as the brothers, and their lieutenants and senior thralls, edged back from the mouth of the pit. And then Francesco, ever
  impatient, stepped forward and broke an ampule under Cavee's nose, committing him to hell.
  The platform descended; the miasma rose thicker yet; Cavee began screaming as he came awake to his worst nightmare. He was tied down; his screams, denials,
  confessions, pitiful pleading, couldn't help him -nothing could. Then the choking, coughing, gurgling, and the soggy splitting sound . . . like meat wrenched from a
  bone, or wet leather tearing; and in a little while the mist rising from the mouth of the pit turning pink. Then:
  AN INNOCENT, their father's doom-fraught voice rang in the brothers' minds. MORE INNOCENT THAN THEM WHO LEFT ME DOWN HERE TO CRY
  
  OUT, NOT KNOWING THE WHYS OR WHEREFORES OF IT! THE SAME ONES WHO NOW BEG ME FOR MY HELP! . . . HAH! BUT YOU MERELY
  SEEK ANSWERS, WHILE I ALREADY HAVE THEM . . .!
  Tony waited awhile, then said: 'Father, what threatens us threatens you. We need to know, else we can do nothing.'
  AH, ANTHONY, MY ANTHONY! AND FRANCESCO; I SEE THAT YOU ARE HERE, TOO. BUT DID YOU NOT
  HEAR ME CALLING OUT TO YOU? I CALLED FOR LONG AND LONG. AND DID YOU NOT HEAR THE NAME THAT I CALLED?
  The brothers glanced at each other, and Francesco finally grunted and said, That  again: Radu, Radu, Radu! But  he's long gone to
  earth and won't be up for a while, if ever. What has he to do with anything?'
  OH  YOU FOOL!  said that  awful Voice' from the  pit,  quietly  but  scornfully.  WHY, UPON  A TIME  YOU  BROUGHT  ME
  ONE OF HIS -A GIRL  - TO  QUESTION  HER. I LEARNED  A LITTLE;  NOT  MUCH,  BECAUSE UNLIKE  MY THRALLS,
  RADU'S  THRALLS  ARE STRONG.  SHE WAS BEGUILED;  HER  MIND  WAS  CLOSED;  SHE  COULDN'T  SPEAK.  BUT
  SHE WAS ONE OF HIS . . .  AND YOU TOOK HER!
  'Because you pressured us into believing that when he was up again he'd come looking for us!'  Francesco  snarled,  displaying  his
  objection to being called a thrall. 'Because you fear this dog-Lord bastard, and transferred your fear to us!'
  And  after  a  moment's  silence:  FEAR  HIM?  WHY,  I  FEAR  EVERYTHING!  TRAPPED  DOWN  HERE  AS  I  AM,  I  AM
  VULNERABLE! EVEN MY OWN SONS HAVE POWER  OVER ME.  BUT  NOW  THERE'S  ONE  WHO  MAY  WELL HAVE
  POWER OVER ALL OF US.
  'His name?' Tony was eager now.
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  AYE, I SAW THAT, IN HIS MIND. IT WAS ...  IT WAS HARRY!
  'And is he invisible, this "Harry?" ' Francesco snorted his sarcasm.
  APPARENTLY - OR NOT APPARENTLY! The Thing had its sense of humour.
  'And his master, the people he works for?' (From Tony.)
  HOW CAN YOU BE MY SONS, AND DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND, TOO?
  Again the brothers glanced at each other. And: 'Are you saying—' Tony began, only to be cut off at once by a howl
  of rage, frustration:
  HE STRIKES BACK, EVEN FROM HIS LONG SLEEP! YOUR INTRUDER WAS NO COMMON MAN - WHAT, BUT HE SPEAKS
  TO THE DEAD! - AND HE WORKS FOR NO COMMON MASTER. YOU TOOK ONE OF HIS, AND THIS WAS HIS REVENGE ...  OR PART OF IT.
  Angelo was mistaken, in part at least, but his logic was perfectly sound.
  'Radu?' And now there was a tremor in Tony's voice.
  THE SAME, his father answered. HE FLEXES WASTED MUSCLES, AND TESTS OUR METAL IN ADVANCE OF HIS RETURN. AND HE HAS
  FOUND IT WEAK!
  Tony grabbed Francesco's arm. 'I think he's right. I know that he believes it!'
  'I need proof!' the other snarled. 'Oh, I know we can move on our father's word, bring about mayhem in England or wherever, perhaps track this Radu to his lair
  and destroy him there - and perhaps expose ourselves, too! Not to any old vampire Lord, but to the authorities! What, centuries of secrecy wasted? Ah, and how
  many of our good friends across the world would "flock" to our assistance then, do you suppose? No, before I make another move, I need proof.'
  I, I, I. It was always T with Francesco and never 'we.' Tony narrowed his eyes. But before he could answer, there came a shout from the stairwell:
  'Francesco, Anthony! Sir, and sir!' A man in a white smock waved something excitedly. 'Photographs! The intruder! We have him on film!'
  And: 'Proof?' Tony said, his red eyes lighting like lamps. 'Well, perhaps now we have it!'
  And behind them as they left the place, the ancient thing in the pit thought: IT BEGINS! - then relapsed into gibbering and darkness . . .
  PART SIX:
  HARRY KEOGH, CATALYST
  THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
  In the privacy of Francesco's rooms, the brothers studied the photographs at greater length; but even at first glance in
  the cavern of the pit that housed  their  terrible  father,  Francesco  had  gasped,  'What  in  the—?'  before  showing  the
  badly mottled pictures to his brother. Tony's reaction had been more or less the same: not shock but dismay, that it
  appeared the pit-thing, old Angelo Ferenczy, was right. For he had to agree with Francesco that for all the distortion of
  the grainy prints he, too, was certain they'd seen images of this man before.
  Some months earlier their sleeper in the British Isles - a trusted,  senior lieutenant - had sent  them a series of snaps
  taken  outside  'the  woman's  place'  in  Edinburgh.  Just  like  these  current  pictures  they  too  had  been  badly  lit,
  monochrome, spur-of-the-moment efforts; scarcely  studio  quality.  But  then,  they  weren't  required  to  be.  They  had
  
  been obtained 'for information only,' items destined  for the brothers' file on one Bonnie Jean  Mirlu,  whom  they  had
  long suspected of being in thrall to Radu Lykan.
  Now the contents  of that file lay  sprawled  across  a  massive  desk;  one  picture  uppermost,  where  Francesco  had
  thrown it in a rage. For it was clear to both men - or monsters - that the man in the Edinburgh  photograph,  and  the
  intruder pictured inside their treasure vault, was indeed one and the same man.
  'A dead man!' Francesco snarled for the third time. 'Him, the woman, Radu too! All of them!'
  'You  agree  that  our  father  was  right,  then?'  Tony  made  no  attempt  to  hide  his  smugness;  he  took  pride  if  not
  pleasure in the fact that he'd been wise to take Angelo's side in this matter.
  'Eh?' Francesco rounded on him. 'And what difference does it make if that . . . that disgusting  Thing was right? Yes,
  yes, of course he was right - but isn't he always? It's his function to be fucking right! And yours  to bolster his bloody
  ego, or so it seems to me!'
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  Tony smiled thinly and said, 'We were right, then.' And before his brother could rage again: 'Which seems to mean
  that  we  now  have  a  feud  on  our  hands.  You  and  I,  and  the  people  we  control  -  all  of  us,  under  the,  er,  Thing's
  guidance, of course - against this elusive character in the photographs, his mistress Bonnie Jean Mirlu and her people,
  and the sleeping but by no means silent Radu Lykan.'
  'Because of that girl we took?' Francesco was trying hard to control himself.
  That's what Angelo said,' Tony nodded.
  This Radu: he goes to war over a thrall, while he himself is still in hibernation or whatever?'
  'So it would seem.'
  Then he must be pretty damn sure of himself!' Again Francesco's outburst. And again his brother's nod:
  'Pretty damn sure of his thralls, anyway. What  are  we  up  against,  brother?  Oh,  we  now  know  what  our  intruder
  looks like - but how did he do it? Where did he come from, and where did he go? And how? Angelo says  he talks to
  dead people!'
  'Angelo babbles!'
  'Frequently, yes. But at other times he's perfectly lucid. Today . . . he seemed lucid enough to me.'
  'Lucid and devious,' Francesco snarled. 'He took Guy Cavee knowing that he was innocent. This intruder had no inside help, and
  our bloody father knew it!'
  'He was hungry,' Tony shrugged. 'As always. And anyway, it was your idea. Cavee was your example . . .'
  Pacing  to  and  fro,  Francesco  scowled  and  nodded  grudgingly  'Yesss,'  he  hissed,  'he  was!  But  anyway,  it  did
  produce results of sorts. We appeased the old bastard and he did speak to us - if only to talk rubbish.'
  'Some of it, maybe. But we do know the intruder's name, at least. What, Harry? British, isn't it?'
  'Probably.' Francesco picked up the vault photographs from a corner of his desk. 'He looks British, anyway.'
  Tony took the initiative. 'Let's take a look at what we've got and try  putting  it  all  together.  We've  been  watching
  Bonnie Jean Mirlu for years, but from a distance. Recently,  because  of  Angelo's  warnings,  we've  been  taking  a  lot
  more interest in her. We could have had her taken out a long time ago, but that would have alerted Radu's other thralls
  and it still wouldn't tell us the location of his lair. So, we waited. More warnings from our father in his pit; we saw an
  opportunity  to grab one of Mirlu's people, the girl. We got very little out of her - yet in a way we  did.  At  least  she
  showed us how strong Radu's power is over his people. Even our father failed to get into her . . . well, in one way at
  least. Or perhaps  she didn't know a lot? But in any case she was only a thrall. Oh? But she was one of  his,  Radu's.
  And apparently he cares for
  his own, even from his secret lair. How we were traced, tracked down, and discovered after all this time . . . who can
  say? But we were. And last night the dog-Lord struck back, hit us where it hurts  most. So, what use is money to such
  as  him?  But  as  you  and  I  know  well  enough,  in  this  modern  world  money  is  all-important!  Especially  to  someone
  attempting to re-establish himself, who will doubtless build his own power base, his own army. And what a wonderful
  irony - to fund it with the proceeds of a strike against his greatest, his oldest enemies!'
  'But we were not his enemies!' Francesco burst  out. 'After two thousand  years? Radu's enemies were all dead long
  before we were born!'
  'Perhaps you should have paid more attention to our father when . . . when you could have,' Tony told him. 'For to
  the Wamphyri, the blood is the life. And a blood-feud is a blood-feud, unending  until. . . until it ends. This Radu will
  seek to avenge himself. Yes, even for alleged crimes committed against him in another world, another time, by an earlier
  generation.'
  'Another world, another time!' Francesco mimicked. 'Myths and legends - and lies, of course. And tell me, how would
  our dear father know about that, anyway! What? Why, he never knew his father, Waldemar Ferrenzig! So what are his
  sources to all this Wamphyri history? What makes him such an authority?'
  Anthony smiled wryly at what he could only assume was his brother's naivete,  his  stupidity,  his  petty,  argumentative  nature.
  'Now I know that you are playing word games,' he said. 'Or you are being stupid  and arguing for argument's sake. Our
  "dear father," as you have it, had centuries in which to research his forebears. I'll tell you something you don't know,
  for you were away at the time in the USA, Rome, Berlin. That was a most difficult period, as you'll perhaps recall?'
  'What, the Second World War?'
  
  'Exactly. You remember the American invasion?'
  'Of course I remember. Wasn't  I your go-between, "Emilio" Francez-ci's spokesman in America? Didn't I bargain for
  Luciano's freedom, in return for a "soft landing" for the American invasion force? And also to ensure that no shells fell
  in the vicinity of Le Manse Madonie?'
  Tony smiled. That wasn't all you bargained for, or with. Our dear father had told me about  a plan he'd been working
  on: a saturation air-raid on Nazi-held territory north of Ploiesti in Romania. It called for pin-point bombing.'
  'I remember,' Francesco answered. There was to be a top-brass meeting of German strategists,  to re-direct the course
  of the war they were losing. This was a valuable piece of information that Angelo wanted passed on to the Americans.
  The meeting place would be the target for the bombers, who would then head south  and raid the oil  installations  at
  Ploiesti. What of it?'
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  "There were no German strategists  north of Ploiesti  on  the  night  of  the  1st  August  1943,'  Tony  told  him.  'Just  a
  village, or a huddle of rich homes and fine gardens. And in one of those houses . . .  a Ferenczy!'
  'What?' Francesco frowned. 'What are you saying?'
  'Our father's brother, a bloodson of Waldemar, but out of a different mother - which is to say our uncle, Francesco! -
  lived there. As he had lived there for hundreds of years! His name was Faethor, and he was or might possibly  become
  a threat. Such was our father's research, brother, that he was aware of Faethor without that Faethor ever knew of him!
  And such was - such  is - his wicked intelligence, that he had Faethor removed without that he, or we, could ever be
  shown to have been involved. That way if Faethor had survived, he would never know that the bombs that night were
  intended specifically for him! But in any case, he didn't survive.'
  'And I never knew about this? I was never informed?' Francesco's brows were black as thunder.
  Tony held up a hand placatingly. 'You were the negotiator. You were our liaison with the Americans - among others. If you had
  known, would your story have held the same conviction?'
  'I arranged for the death of my own uncle?'
  'Before he could discover you and arrange for yours, yes.'
  'I don't know how I should take this . . .'
  'Take it as it was intended. Angelo - he and I - were protecting you, us, the Francezcis.'
  'Without my knowing? All these years . . .'
  'You were away for years! It was one thing, one incident. Why, I wouldn't have remembered it myself, if you hadn't
  questioned our father's authority in such matters. But it's as I've said: he is an authority, mainly as a result of research
  in his youth. Such research as led him to the conclusion that this was the way forward: his way - and our way.'
  'Our way?'
  'Strength in riches, in secrecy, in ritual silence, Francesco. Why are the Sicilians the way they are? Omerta! Because
  of the Mafia. Why is the Mafia? Because of the Francezcis. Why were we - until last night -untouchable?  Because we
  are the heart of a secret empire of terror. And why all or any of this? Because of Angelo Francezci's talents! What? But
  he knew something of everything, even of the future. And he knew that the blood wars were not finished!'
  'Huh! Francesco snorted.  The sins of the fathers, indeed. But out of another world and  time?  Did  we  inherit  that,
  too?'
  'Apparently, along with everything else. Haven't you enjoyed it, then? What? And isn't it worth fighting for? You
  say  we weren't the dog-Lord's enemies . . .  oh, really? but the Ferenczys have been his enemies  as  long  and  longer
  than you or I can possibly remember. When
  we took that girl, to examine her, we rekindled an old fire, lit an old fuse. Yes, and it's burning down even now, Francesco ..."
  'We have to find him,' Francesco was paler than ever.
  'Him?'
  The intruder. Find him, extract every ounce of knowledge, and kill him!'
  But Tony shook his head. 'No, we have to find them. And I mean all of them. The Lykans, the Drakuls, their aeries, their thralls to the last man. And we have to
  do it soon. Then - and only then - can we move against them. And even then in stealth and secrecy.'
  'A blood-feud,' the other mused.
  But again his brother disagreed. 'I would call it a blood-war,' he said. 'Oh, yes, for that's how hot it could get to be! Yet on the surface all must appear calm - the
  world can't know. We must use our wits, as Angelo used his. It must be something like that bombing raid on those "German strategists." '
  'It is definitely coming, then?'
  'It has come. And no use to plead innocence or ignorance; for just like last time, we Ferenczys are the ones who started it.'
  'Damn it to hell!' Francesco slammed a clenched fist down onto the desk top, scattering papers.
  To hell, yes,' Tony agreed. 'Or maybe to glory? We have the advantage, brother. Radu isn't back yet, but we're already here! Not only do we have the intelligence
  of a certain - what, "disgusting thing?" - but also of the Mafia, the KGB, and even our several contacts in the CIA.
  'As for this Harry person, whoever he is: he'll be out of Sicily by now. But we know where to find him: with Radu's lady lieutenant, Bonnie Jean Mirlu! And we
  certainly know where to find her - and through her Radu himself.'
  'All very interesting,' Francesco told him. 'But haven't you forgotten something - like our vulnerability? We've been hit once. So what's to stop them doing it
  again? I mean, this "Harry" fellow has to be a ghost! Indeed we have our father's word for it that he "talks to dead people!" Hah!'
  'We were vulnerable, yes,' Tony answered.  'But  no  more.  From  now  on  there'll  be  day  and  night  patrols,  guards
  
  outside the vault, men on the walls and at every access  or egress;  Le Manse  Madonie has to become a fortress. And
  after that, if we so much as smell a stranger within a mile of the place . . .' He left the threat unspoken.
  Finally Francesco was convinced. 'Everything you've said makes sense,'  he said.  'Especially  what  you  said  about
  intelligence. So why not put our contacts  to use? In the past  we've been in the business  of selling them information,
  so why don't we buy a little back? Let's not stick our own necks out - or, at least, not too far - but have the KGB and
  CIA do
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  it for us. Our father tells us this Harry is no common man . . . Huh! As if we didn't have proof enough already! But doesn't that mean he should be
  on record somewhere?'
  'Good!' Tony was enthusiastic. 'Send out copies of these photographs. If he's known, then we'll know him too. And meanwhile
  I'll look to the security of this place. We have a network, brother, so let's use it. But slowly, oh-so-slowly. And let me  emphasize  it
  again: the world must never suspect,  must never know of our secret war. For if it did know, be sure the world would go to
  war, too - against us, all of us! Our father says two to three years before Radu Lykan is up again. That is when he will be at his weakest, in the
  hour of his resurgence. Well, two to three years should be time enough to find him. So I repeat: slowly, slowly does it. And let's be sure that
  whatever it is that's going down, we're not going with it. . .'
  Harry Keogh, Necroscope, woke up in his house on the outskirts of Bonnyrig one morning and discovered that two years had
  gone by. He had known they were going, of course, but still it surprised him. From autumn to autumn to autumn, as if in a single night. It was the
  colour of the leaves that told him; some of them were turning  again  -  just  as  they'd been when he and B.J. had first started
  climbing together.
  But two years? As long as that? Maybe it was only one!
  And feeling disoriented - but even so, knowing what he would find -he checked his calendar. Two years, yes.
  And again he wondered about his memory. Alzheimer's? God, no! He was too young  for that! Echoes of Alec Kyle: his talent,
  and  all  his  problems? Was Harry compensating for those  glimpses of the future by losing  fragments  of  his  past?  But  Kyle's
  'problems' - in particular his drinking - had disappeared, merging with or being subsumed into Harry's stronger identity; and
  his dubious talent hadn't recurred. Not so far, anyway.
  But two years! And as he got dressed, Harry tried to fill them in. He had done a little searching, for his wife and baby of course.
  Except now ...  he sometimes forgot what Brenda had looked like; and this time it wasn't any kind of defect in his memory. Not
  long-term, anyway.
  He remembered her as a girl, in Harden on the coast; and school holidays . . .  on the beach . . .  the woods . . . long
  walks . . . their first fumbling attempts at making love. Then a blank. It was grief, but Harry didn't know that. It was as if Brenda had died, and
  his mind had found ways to forget. Forget what she'd felt like in his arms, what he had felt like in her. The adult part, the meaningful part, had been
  closed down. He had found ways to close it down, to forget - if only to get to sleep at nights - when he was on his own.
  As for the baby: nothing. Harry just didn't know, couldn't remember a single feature of the baby. But except to a mother, aren't all
  babies
  like that? A baby is a baby. And what the hell, Harry Jr wasn't a baby any longer (and had he ever been one?) He was an infant, almost four
  years old now: lost years, from his father's point of view. And Harry wondered: would he even recognize Harry Jr or his mother if
  he were to pass them on the street?
  But in any case, he had  done  some searching -  personally,  that  is,  and keeping it quite separate from the army of private
  investigators who were now working on his case. The west coast of England: Maryport to Blackpool. . .  the Derwent at Workington . .
  . 'grockles' in kiss-me-quick hats on fifty different promenades. Blackpool and the illuminations, and the tower like some garish beacon, its
  lights liquidly mobile on a rainy night. And of course, the east coast  again: Whitley Bay, Seaton Carew,  and  Redcar;  Marske  and
  Saltburn-by-the-Sea;  Whitby  and  Robin  Hood's  Bay.  But  all  stereotypes  -  images,  unreal  somehow  -scenes  that
  drifted on the surface of his memory, unable to anchor themselves, as if he had never been there at all! Except he must have, for they
  were all places he'd struck from his itinerary. Yet if he tried to focus on  any  specific  place  or  moment:  nothing.  And  time  and  again  he
  remembered catching himself thinking: someone is messing with my mind!
  In the end he'd given it up: his search, the personal side of it. He would let the professionals do it. Except they seemed to be
  having as little luck as he himself. And of course he had to fund them all the way. Or someone must fund them, if not the Necroscope.
  And  a good  many someones  had; including the most  powerful  of  Japan's  Yakuza  'families,'  whose  illicit  earnings
  were such that they operated their own bank, and several oil-rich, potentially dangerous  potentates, and a Czechoslovakian
  arms manufacturer notorious for his dealings with terrorists. So far it had cost twenty million pounds, or the equivalent, and the end was
  nowhere in sight. Another two or three months, Harry would have to top-up his fund yet again. But since there was no lack of rich
  villains, that shouldn't be too hard . . .
  But the idea of 'villainy' - the word itself, the thought of it - was sufficient to bring on other emotions. First among them (again),
  Harry felt himself victimized; by whom or what he couldn't say. Worse, he, too, felt like something of a villain. It wasn't his series of grand larcenies
  (his 'fund-raising activities,' as he liked to think of them), because in that regard he felt more like some modern Robin Hood; no, it was
  his adultery. It was his guilt.
  And no matter how many times he reminded himself that his wife, Brenda, had deserted him, still he felt like the villain of the piece; like some
  kind of animal, yes. The Necroscope had never considered, had never thought of people as animals before meeting B.J., but he did now. For his
  sexual appetite when he was with her was certainly animal. Likewise hers! Love? Perhaps he was in love with her, and
  
  she with
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  him. But wild? No 'perhaps' about that! Together, they were wild! Harry told himself that for him it was a sort of frenzied making up for lost time - the taking
  back of something stolen from him, if only by circumstances - but at the same time he admitted to a fascination he'd never known before. No doubt about it, B.J.
  was fascinating.
  And for her? What was in it for her? Just lust? Maybe in the beginning, but Harry felt it was deeper than that now. How much deeper, then? What if he were to
  find Brenda now? What if she should change her mind, decide to come back, and suddenly appear? Where would B.J. fit in the scheme of things then? And would
  he even want Brenda back?
  Thus his guilt complex - if that was what it was - ran in circles. And the idea of himself as some sort of lustful animal who cared only for his own sexual
  fulfilment was reinforced. It perhaps explained his dreams . . .
  Harry's dreams - specifically his nightmares - had always been complex things, but never more so than now. While he could never remember the substance of
  certain parts, the animal motif was always present; the wolf fetish (inspired no doubt by those events in London almost three years ago) featured strongly.
  He would dream of B.J., usually when he was alone, and the nightmare would start when she was in his arms, gazing into his eyes. The moon's rim would rise
  above the window-sill, shining into her eyes. And they would change . . .
  . . . From slightly slanted hazel ovals, to feral yellow triangles, then from the colour of gold to that of blood. And finally . . . finally they would
  drip blood! Then a swirl of strange motion, and dark against the disk of the moon, a silhouette . . . always the same silhouette . . . a wolfs head,
  thrown back in a full-blooded howl!
  Thinking about this fragment (for that was all there was to it) was sufficient to bring it back into focus, and sufficient to chill the Necro-scope to the bone even
  though the morning was warm and sunny. Brilliant sunlight streamed in through his bedroom window, pooling on the polished boards of the floor, while Harry
  sat and shivered, and listened to an ululant, fading howl conjured from a dream . . .
  He gave himself a shake, slid his feet into shoes, tried physical as opposed to mental activity. He knew what he would like to do today: talk to his Ma. (God,
  something else to feel guilty about!) How long had it been? Far too long he was sure. She would be feeling neglected. But how could he talk to her? There were
  questions she was bound to ask that he couldn't possibly answer. And if he guarded his thoughts she would know it at once, would think he was hiding
  something. And of course he would be; he'd be hiding B.J.
  Bonnie Jean. The woman was always on his mind. Especially at this time of the month. Tonight was a full moon: he wouldn't be seeing B.J.
  After two years he knew . . . that she had her own moods - did her own thing, whatever it was - at the full of the moon. She was a woman; it was all part of her cycle,
  Harry told himself. And every three-month without fail, he could guarantee she'd be off to her beloved Highlands for three or four days on her own. Climbing, and
  hunting, no matter the season. He remembered her promise: to take him with her one of these days. And, in fact, they had already set the date: just a month from
  today. Well, at least it would be something to do, other than check the mail for endless negative reports on the whereabouts of Brenda and the baby. And so he
  looked forward to it—
  —And yet, at the same time and without knowing why - he didn't. . .
  . . . And neither did B.J.
  But the two-year period of probation was up. She was satisfied that Harry had no ulterior motive, that he was under no other's influence. He was fully trained in
  her climbing techniques; not that she believed he'd needed extensive training, but at least it had been an excuse to keep him from the most dangerous climb of all. .
  . until now. For Radu had finally decided it was time he met his 'Man-With-Two-Faces,' this oh-so-Mysterious One, in the flesh. Even knowing that this was not
  the safest of times, still the dog-Lord had insisted that B.J. bring Harry to the Cairngorms lair; and she knew that he'd ordered it in spite of the danger, because he
  now felt obliged to advance the hour of his resurgence.
  Dangerous times, yes - for Radu, and for Bonnie Jean, and not least for Harry.
  For Radu, because of his vulnerability. For B.J., because she suffered agonies of indecision, the frustration of her own burgeoning vampire, which constantly
  strove to defy and undermine the authority of her Master. And for Harry because he was the catalyst; several kinds of catalyst.
  For one thing, Harry worked on Bonnie Jean. She was used to him now, wanted him for herself; she was unwilling to envisage a future without him in thrall to
  her - and herself partly in thrall to him? Well, possibly. And for another he worked on Radu. For the dog-Lord saw Harry as his future; as an alternative to the
  possibility of a crippled, diseased, incapacitated body. And finally he had worked, and was working still, on the Francezcis . . .
  Harry's 'watcher' had been seen again, indeed on a number of occasions over the last two years. Bonnie Jean had even seen him for herself; she had spied him one
  night through the gauzy curtains of her garret bedroom - an ominous shadow lurking in the dark doorway across the street, keeping his furtive vigil. And her girls
  had been followed to and from their various lodgings, so that all of their comings
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  and goings, the tracks and trails of B. J. 's small pack were known.
  Occasionally one or another of the girls would report seeing a certain figure and face on a crowded street in the gloom of a warm evening. It was festival time,
  and the tourists were here in their thousands; the Castle on the Rock was lit like a Christmas tree. Normally, it would be a good time for B.J. and the pack. This
  or that lone stranger could so easily disappear in the thronging night. Bonnie Jean's girls were good-lookers all. But now they were wary as never before. It was
  that face, that figure, that watcher whom they feared; for B.J. knew him. She'd seen him before - oh, ten, twenty, thirty years before.
  Bright bird eyes in a rheumy wrinkled old face; eyes that one second looked grey and the next shone dull silver, like an animal's at night. B.J. understood that
  well enough. For they were feral eyes - thrall eyes! The heavily veined nose, flanged at its tip, and the too-wide loose-lipped mouth and aggressive jaws. And the
  grey, aged aspect of the face generally. But just like herself he never changed or got any older, and until now had been cautious not to show himself too
  
  frequently.
  She had passed on details of this suddenly increased surveillance to Radu, of course, which had perhaps determined him to accelerate his rising. And now he
  would examine Harry, find out if he was a fit vessel for his resurgence, and also to discover whether in fact he could be sent out into the world as an agent and put
  to good use prior to ...  to his primary use. And even though B.J. was worried about the possible loss of her lover in various ways, the dog-Lord wasn't. For if
  indeed this Harry Keogh was the key to Radu's future . . . why, then it was already decided.
  // he was the one foreseen, then surely he must be there at Radu's rising. Between times, no harm could possibly befall him . . . Not between times. Oh, the
  dog-Lord knew only too well that the future was a devious thing, but what was foreseen was foreseen; as fixed as the moon in its orbit. And nothing could
  change that. . .
  These were 'facts' which Radu impressed upon B.J.'s mind, just as she had impressed her own 'facts' upon Harry's. It had become necessary, for the dog-Lord had
  seen the way things were going with his long-lived - perhaps too long-lived - lady lieutenant. As the seasons passed and the hour of Radu's true awakening drew
  ever closer, so with each successive quarterly visit she paid him, the dog-Lord had felt B.J.'s reluctance, her resistance to his beguilment ...  the way she seemed
  to be turning away from him.
  He had known for many years, of course, that she was Wamphyri. But while he was fixed in the resin - helpless, vulnerable - it was something he'd been
  obliged to keep from her. Not that he doubted his own powers, but that he was unable to assess the growing potential of hers. For B.J. was that rarity among
  Great Vampires: she had achieved
  her ascension neither by transfusion of an egg, migration of a leech or the breathing of spores; nor by a 'bite of conversion' (near-total loss of blood and its
  replacement by copious amounts of metamorphic vampire essence, the 'natural' result of which would be undeath and true vampirism); nor even as her birthright.
  (For all that Bonnie Jean's parents had been 'of the blood,' moon-children, they'd also been common thralls and for the greater part human. Much like Auld John.)
  No, none of these things had brought about Bonnie Jean's ascension. For she had simply willed it. Oh, there'd been more to it than that - the fact that her blood
  was 'tainted' by more than four centuries of ancestral thralldom; her regular contact over two more centuries with a source of 'purest' vampirism and lycanthropy, in
  the shape and form of Radu; the indefinite extension of her own existence at the expense of others' - but in essence it was the truth. Bonnie Jean had willed it.
  Which was perhaps a measure of the vampire Lady she could become, if her Master were to allow it. Which of course he would not. . .
  In the past -for the past two hundred years - B.J. had been Radu's lifeline, without which he could not exist. By now, but for her ministrations, he would be a
  shrivelled, truly dead thing. In some millions of years when his mountain den had collapsed and his remains were excavated, men would wonder at this bony relic
  out of time, of which there was no other fossil record; this dog- or wolf-like man -Homo lupus? - preserved in amber. But that time would never come, for which he
  should be grateful to her.
  On the other hand, she had outlived her span by a hundred years at least, and was still young; so she should be grateful to him! Well, and she had been, and loyal
  to a fault. . . until recently. For at last she had started to feel the influence of her own creature.
  Radu had sensed it in her, he had tasted it in her blood: how she was torn two ways, between obedience to him and obedience to her 'instincts,' her burgeoning
  parasite. But more than this, he had sensed her uncertainty, her fear. Her uncertainty with regard to the future: B.J. knew that the Ferenczys and at least one Drakul
  were out there waiting; would she be capable of handling them without Radu? . . . And her fear of him. Oh, he had promised her the moon, but that was when she
  was a thrall. Now she was a Lady! And what about her Harry? How would he fare when Radu was up again? Was he to be Radu? And if so, in whose design?
  Would he have his man's body and aspect...  or the dog-Lord's?
  Bonnie Jean was a Lady, aye, but her thoughts and tumultuous emotions were as yet a woman's, set to raging by her parasite. But a vampire is a vampire, and a
  Great Vampire is Wamphyri! Already she had doubts . . . and in a hundred years? The time would come when Radu must deal with her, he knew it. So why not in
  the hour of his resurgence, when his need would be greatest?
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  The  idea  was  nothing  new;  he  had  considered  it  before.  But  now  it  was  more  than  merely  a  notion,  it  was  a
  necessity. What? But she loved a man! A mere man! Radu had only told her to give her body, not her soul! That was
  his; or if not his it belonged to whoever it was who gathered them, when they were fled . . .
  Now that it was decided, definitely decided, the dog-Lord looked forward to it: that marvellous feast to come! Oh,
  he had sipped of Bonnie Jean's nectar before, but to take it all - to take her, as he had so often dreamed of doing - to fill her
  on the one hand while draining her on the other . . . The thought was delicious! But he would save the most prized delicacy,
  the gobbet of true delight, until the last: B.J.'s immature parasite itself, to break a fast of centuries . . .
  So he lay in the yellow glue of his sarcophagus,  and surrendered himself to his leech's lust. For, of course, these
  were not the dog-Lord's plans alone but mainly those of his vampire, from which creature sprang  everything that he
  was. Through his leech's talent, or its vampire influence on his, Radu knew how the future would be; something of it
  at least. For he had been given to see it:
  The Mysterious One, (this Harry Keogh?) his eyes full of a weird and wonderful passion: his new knowledge - his new being, perhaps - in
  the wake of Radu's metempsychosis? And the thrall, Bonnie Jean: a pallid husk, all drained away to nothing . . . And Radu Lykan, risen from
  the resin, burning bright as the moon in his glory! And the world of men trembling, tumbling, thundering to its knees in the face of such a
  plague as to make the Black Death seem the most trifling thing. . .
  But not a man of them would die from Radu's plague, or not for long. For they would all be wwdead! Not a man would die, no—
  —But as for those who were already undead: the Ferenczys and Drakuls, Radu's ancient enemies out of time, or their descendants . . . well, of course they
  would die, most certainly. The true death at last, for them.
  For a solution had dawned on Radu; even a 'final solution' to a problem as old as olden Sunside/Starside. That in a vampire world, which this world would be,
  the only safe course for a Lord of vampires was to be the only one! Let there be vampires galore, aye, but only one Lord. Lord Radu Lykan: Wamphyri. . .!
  The Ferenczys and the last Drakul had their own problems, one of which was common to both: Harry Keogh - except they didn't know him under that name. Or
  rather the Ferenczys did, through their father in his cavern pit, but Angelo Francezci seemed to have given them the
  
  wrong name! Two years ago the Francezcis' many contacts had responded to a
  rare reversal, when the brothers had sent  out pictures of their intruder, the thief in their treasury, requesting information! And
  over the next few months the answers had commenced to come in:
  From long-established 'Families' in Italy and America, and also from more recent branches in Europe: nothing. To the
  Cosa Nostra, the man in the photographs  was an unknown quantity;  he wasn't on file. From the brothers' contact  in
  the CIA; nothing. Indeed, 'their man' in the CIA returned their substantial 'gift' in crisp dollar bills with the recommendation that the
  Francezcis 'suspend their inquiries' concerning this man -which only served to make them more curious yet. And from
  their long-time contact and senior lieutenant in Edinburgh: a very disappointing nothing. He had seen  this  man  only  once,  since
  when Bonnie Jean Mirlu had tightened  her security. It was now more difficult than ever to keep track of her and the
  members of her pack. And as for the man in the pictures - he left no tracks at all! The Francezcis had answered by telling
  him to try harder, which accounted for his increased surveillance; and so far only sheer misfortune had kept him from tracking B.J.
  from  her  wine  bar  to  the  Necroscope's  house  near  Bonnyrig.  Misfortune,  and  the  fact  that  she  was  now  doubly
  vigilant.
  But from the KGB, some eleven months after the Francezcis dispatched  their initial request  for information, at last a
  positive but baffling response. Yes, their high-ranking go-between with the KGB knew the man in the photographs; to prove it,
  he enclosed a microfilm of his own. The pictures  had  been  taken  two  years  earlier  in  the  Chateau  Bronnitsy,  the  Soviet
  ESPionage  centre,  on  the  night  of  the  Chateau's  destruction  by  some  unknown  agency.  As  for  the  man  in  these
  pictures:
  He was Alec Kyle, Head of E-Branch, the British equivalent of the Russian  organization  whose  HQ  had  been  the
  Chateau  Bronnitsy!  As  a  result  of  'extreme  methods  of  interrogation,'  Kyle  had  been  brain-dead  (which,  with  no
  life-support system, meant as good as physically dead) when the pictures were taken. But he had been most certainly
  dead later that same night, when the Chateau was reduced to so much rubble, and a great  many  of  its  staff  with  it!
  There  was  no  way  he  could  have  avoided  that  holocaust!  As  for  the  cause  of  the  destruction:  it  remained  to  be
  ascertained, but sabotage seemed probable.
  And a connection, however tenuous: the name 'Harry' rang a bell. One Harry Keogh had been an agent of this same
  E-Branch, but he too was dead. And as circumstances would have it, he too had died at the Chateau Bronnitsy, also during
  a time of crisis and sabotage in which he had definitely been instrumental. But that had been prior to the actual destruction  of
  the place. The two incidents were probably connected,  but if so the connection  was  'restricted  beyond  this  agent's
  need to know.' In short, he didn't have access to the relevant files . . .
  The brothers had pressed  for further information on British E-Branch. Three months later, a list of  names  (Branch
  operatives and
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  contacts) had arrived at Le Manse Madonie - and also a warning: this organization was the most secret of the British secret services, and certainly the most
  effective. In the field of extrasensory or parapsycho-logical intelligence-gathering, no comparable opposition existed; not since the destruction of the Bronnitsy
  complex - which perhaps said a lot in itself. But in any case, these people should be considered untouchables.
  Which gave the brothers pause. Until now they had thought that their organization - their web, with their diseased father at its centre - was the only one of its
  sort. And so it was, in the field of criminal endeavour. Indeed the report in its entirety gave them pause. For unless the man pictured on a mortuary trolley at the
  Chateau Bronnitsy had an identical twin, he was quite definitely the intruder in their subterranean vault; and he was the man in the street outside Bonnie Jean
  Mirlu's place in Edinburgh!
  But if the report was wrong and Alec Kyle was still alive - and perhaps alive in his capacity as Head of E-Branch? - then what was he doing with B.J. Mirlu?
  Was it possible that the dog-Lord Radu Lykan had started recruiting in advance of his return, and that he was recruiting such as these top-level British espers?
  What if the Bronnitsy affair had been some kind of elaborate subterfuge to make it appear that Kyle was dead? And on the subject of death, what had been their
  diseased father's meaning when he said that this 'Harry' spoke to dead people?
  One further request of their Moscow contact - with regard to the Harry Keogh mentioned in the first report - produced a yet more thought-provoking result.
  Their informant was 'embarrassed' that he must pass on such dubious information; but then, in his estimation, the whole world of ESPionage was a very grey
  and dubious area. The brothers could readily understand his reluctance. As a hard-boiled KGB double-agent, a very much down to earth secret policeman, his
  mundane perception of such matters was bound to be a narrow one. But to them ...  his information was worrying indeed.
  For this dead Harry Keogh, an ex-member of E-Branch, was believed to have been a necromancer; a man gifted or cursed to commune with the dead in order to
  know the secrets of the tomb! The coincidences were too many; and anyway, the brothers Francezci were no firm believers in coincidence. Whatever was going
  on here it involved them, B.J. Mirlu, the dog-Lord Radu Lykan in his secret lair, and apparently certain members - dead or alive - of Britain's security
  services.
  Enough! It had been time to set wheels turning. Eighteen months had gone by since the incident in their treasure vault, and their progress towards a solution
  and retribution seemed slow indeed. They had to know more about this E-Branch, about Alec Kyle, and about Harry Keogh.
  But how might they investigate E-Branch, an organization of trained espers, without alerting them more substantially to their presence and their interest? Their
  father could probably help ...  the Old Ferenczy in his pit was after all their seer, server, oracle. But he was ever more difficult, given to rambling, less in control of
  himself. And if Angelo knew anything at all, why hadn't he already told them? They must see if they could find some special tidbit for him, something to goad
  him to greater effort.
  Also, there was the list of E-Branch operatives and contacts, and on that list the name of a man' who was not an esper as such but who was very skilled in the art
  of hypnotism. Sufficiently so that E-Branch used him from time to time. Surely he would know something about the organization? And if he did ...  then the
  
  Francezcis could get to know about it.
  His name was Doctor James Anderson . . .
  And meanwhile, on the Roof of the World:
  Daham Drakesh, the last Drakul, had a certain advantage over the Ferenczys. He had known of the world's ESPionage organizations from the start. Indeed, he
  was ostensibly 'employed' by one such: the People's Army's Parapsychology Unit in Chungking, under the command of Colonel Tsi-Hong. Through Tsi-Hong,
  he had been one of the first outsiders to learn of the destruction of the Chateau Bronnitsy. Also, he had been kept up-dated on what little was known of the
  activities of British E-Branch. This last was very important to him, for Radu Lykan lay sleeping somewhere in the British Isles. While seeking out his den,
  Drakesh must take care not to cross tracks with E-Branch. For just like the Ferenczys, he knew what would result if men suddenly became aware of the 'monsters'
  in their midst! Until now Drakesh had been the most anonymous and secure of them all; he would like to keep it that way.
  But some two years ago - by some weird process of synchronicity, at about the same time the Francezcis had been studying grainy photographs of their intruder
  - Drakesh had likewise received a set of pictures, a series of snapshots, from members of his 'sect' in England. And he had at once recognized several faces: Darcy
  Clarke, current Head of E-Branch, Trevor Jordan, a Branch telepath, and—
  —Alec Kyle? . . . But that was impossible!
  Comparisons with photographs in one of Drakesh's numerous files had decided the matter. Despite a deal of evidence to the contrary, Alec Kyle wasn't dead.
  And the last Drakul had jumped to an understandable but incorrect conclusion: that for reasons known only to E-Branch, Kyle was now working undercover. In
  all likelihood he'd been 'killed off to free him from mundane duties and obscure the fact of his involvement with more important matters - or perhaps
  But sooner rather than later
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  he had 'died' in order to protect himself? But from what?
  It had been a mystery that not even Tsi-Hong could solve; but then again, British E-Branch was a mysterious organization. And since Drakesh was in no way
  involved, the pictures and the report that accompanied them - about a peculiar event in London's Oxford Street -had been filed for future reference . . .
  . . . Until recently.
  But now, suddenly, E-Branch was hot again. The Ferenczys were known to be buying information on Alec Kyle and other members of E-Branch from their
  contacts world-wide; they had even sent two of their lieutenants into England to strengthen their presence there.
  Drakesh had started to put two and two together:
  One: the dog-Lord's rising was close now, he could feel it in his vampire bones. Two: the Ferenczys must likewise be aware of this. Three: for some time now
  the British E-Branch had involved itself in a great many hush-hush affairs - not least the Bronnitsy thing. Now they'd attracted the attention of the Ferenczys, in
  what connection Drakesh couldn't say. And in conclusion, four: since from now on it might well prove too dangerous to keep an eye on E-Branch, Drakesh should
  watch the Ferenczys' people in England instead.
  Drakesh's emissaries, expert in discovering vampires, had found little difficulty in tracing the extra thralls sent into England by the Ferenczys. Through them
  they had also found the Ferenczy sleeper, and through him Bonnie Jean Mirlu. Moreover, they had succeeded where the sleeper had failed - for through Bonnie Jean
  they had also found Alec Kyle!
  Both Radu's keeper, and the supposed 'ex'-Head of E-Branch together! Now finally it all made some kind of sense, and Drakesh believed he had the whole
  picture:
  E-Branch were indeed aware of the menace in the midst of humanity! - something of it, anyway - aware of Radu and possibly the Ferenczys, too. But E-Branch
  did not yet know Radu's whereabouts, else they would have put him down and all subterfuge done with. Alec Kyle was their undercover agent, who had somehow
  found his way into the female thrall's confidence. Or, Kyle had been recruited by her . . . and if so, how many others of these damned espers had Radu got at? As for
  the Ferenczys: perhaps they were still safe, and were simply keeping a wary eye on the whole thing to see which way it went.
  Well, Daham Drakesh knew which way it would go. It would appear that he was the only unknown factor in this entire equation, and he intended to stay that
  way. But for some time now he'd searched for a way to play the role of agent provocateur, and finally the opportunity had fallen right into his hands.
  He had a triangle of forces here, all in deadly opposition, just waiting to be unleashed at each other's throats. The dog-Lord Radu
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  'TfDrTeJ"' t ^^ E~E™Ch' and the -"-called
  S'tU eVe" —— ft «*r remained to choose the
  II
  IT BEGINS. . .'
  
  September . . . Harry and Bonnie Jean were driving north through  the Grampians, en route for the Cairngorms. In the
  boot  of her hired car: surprisingly little by way of climbing gear; Harry had turned out to be 'a natural,' and B.J. was
  mainly scornful of such  equipment. And in any case she was planning to  use  the  easy  route  to  Radu's  lair,  on  the
  Badenoch flank of the Cairngorms. That way she could save time by making a kill, food for Radu's waking warrior, on the way up.
  Harry was in 'conscious' mode; he was for the moment himself, and not under any mental constraints  other than the
  deep-seated  post-hypnotic  commands of James Anderson,  and those  of Bonnie Jean herself, of course. In  short,  he
  continued  to hide his talents as best  he could, and B.J. continued  to  be  an  'innocent'  but  strong-  or  wrong-headed
  young woman. She was also his lover, and Harry was loyal to a fault, or things  might not be so easy for her . . .  or so
  hard. Radu had been partly right: there were other ways to enthrall a man - but some swords are two-edged.
  Physically, the Necroscope was fit and well. But mentally or subconsciously . . .
  He was constantly uneasy. His worries, mainly unspecified - which seemed something of a contradiction in itself! -
  were many. And despite that he hid it from B.J. as far as possible, he often felt . . . paranoid? That was the only way to
  describe it: the omnipresent feeling that he was the victim of some malicious  plot.  His  memory,  however,  was  much
  improved - especially since giving up his search for Brenda on a personal level. On the other hand, his sleep continued
  to be plagued by grotesque  nightmares he could never remember in his waking hours  but which he knew had grown
  worse than ever.
  All he ever recalled of them was  that  they  involved  the  Great  Majority,  the  teeming  dead,  who  were  desperately
  trying to convey some message which he wasn't allowed to receive; and a picture of his
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  beloved Ma, her face filled with concern, and her arms thrown wide open as if to protect him from the tumult of their thoughts.
  And lingering over as he struggled  to bring himself awake, always there would be that familiar moon motif, with a howling
  wolfs head in silhouette.
  Oddly, these  dreams didn't come when he slept with Bonnie Jean; she seemed to  act  as  a  buffer  against  them.
  And something of a paradox, too, that in the conscious,  waking world he found the dead less inclined to his company,
  while sensing in them an air of expectancy hard to define . . .
  'Penny for them?' said Bonnie Jean, luring the Necroscope from his inward-probing thoughts. She spoke mainly to
  fill the unaccustomed  vacuum between them, an emptiness which - in her case, at least - felt like an ache in her bones,
  growing there from the moment Radu had told her to bring Harry to him.
  'A total blank,' he lied, not wanting to worry her. 'I was just lying back enjoying it.'
  'The ride? You can drive if you like.' (On the other hand, it would be better if he didn't. They were travelling north
  and it was past noon. If she let him drive, she would be uncomfortable in the warm sunlight coming through his window).
  He shook his head, elevated his seat a little, sat up and glanced out of the window. Almost  unnoticed,  summer
  had slipped quietly away and made room for autumn. The trees were beginning to shed  their leaves: red, gold, and
  umber, slipping by outside the car, and the occasional glossy blur of an evergreen. 'Where are we?'
  'I chose a different route . . . er, from my usual one,' she began to explain, then realized there was no need; Harry
  hadn't been out this way before. Anywhere north of the Firth of Forth would be new to him. 'I just thought  - I don't
  know - a change of scenery?' She fiddled with her sunglasses,  adjusting them on the bridge of her nose.  The  real
  reason  she was taking a different route was to break  the  routine  and  confuse  anyone,  such  as  the  watcher,  who
  might try to follow her. Also, since she had rarely if ever sensed an intrusion during daylight hours, it had seemed a
  good idea to make the trip in daylight.
  'A change of scenery?' he said. 'Well, that's why we're here. But I asked where.'
  'We're through Blairgowrie, heading for Pitlochry,' she told him. 'Does that help?'
  'Shouldn't have asked,' he shrugged. And, showing a rare flash of humour: 'It's all Irish to me!'
  'Scottish!' she admonished. But the smile as quickly fell from her face, too. And she wondered what he was really
  thinking, the man inside this man. For the man inside knew why they were here, where they were going, and who he would
  be meeting. But the man inside was a prisoner in his own mind-cell, and he couldn't be set free - couldn't
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  think his real thoughts - except by special command.
  To Bonnie Jean . . . suddenly Harry seemed much less than a whole man. He felt like some kind of zombie sitting here beside her - or a puppet waiting to jerk
  into life the moment she pulled his strings - and she felt guilty; she didn't like it. But the fact of the matter was he would only become a zombie, or a puppet, if
  
  and when she commanded it. Then he would know, would remember, everything she had told him . . . and not be able to do a damned thing about it! He was so
  much under her control that she felt sorry for him.
  But at the same time . . . maybe something of understanding had surfaced at that. The atmosphere between them felt unusual, uneasy, unnatural. And now and
  then, if she looked at him suddenly out of the corner of her eye—
  —Was that an accusing look on Harry's face? If she were a faithless wife, it might be just exactly the sort of curious, vaguely doubting look she would expect
  from a husband who half-suspected. Or was she just
  imagining it?
  'Oh?' Harry raised an eyebrow. He'd caught her giving him just such
  a look as she'd imagined!
  'Just wondering,' she said. And before he could ask what: 'After Pitlochry, within the hour, we should be back on my usual route and into the Forest of
  Atholl. Plenty of places along the way to stop and picnic, if you like? Or maybe a little cafe in the woods, for tea?' It all sounded so weak, so ...  treacherous?
  Even to her own ears, yes. Or especially
  so,
  'Whatever you say,' he said - which for some reason irritated her out of her mind. Bad enough that it was "whatever she said" when he was
  totally under her influence. But here he was like . . . like a lamb on his way to the slaughter! And maybe not now, not this time, but soon, too
  soon, he really would be!
  'Do you put that much bloody faith in me, then?' she blurted, glaring at him. 'Whatever I fucking say?'
  He was taken by surprise. 'Why, yes. Why not?'
  Oh, mah wee man! B.J. cried out. . .  to herself, yet still managing to surprise herself. If only it were possible to break the chains on his mind
  and set it free - set him free - to fly, fly like a small frightened bird! It would be worth . . . almost anything! She thought it, and at once denied
  the thought:
  What, and betray a cause she'd worked for for two hundred years? And defy her master, Radu? And throw away her own chance of
  immortality? And prove once and for all and beyond any reasonable doubt that she could never be a Lady, Wamphy'ri, but must
  always be a snivelling. . . woman!? Ridiculous!
  It was her immature leech fighting back; fighting for its life against a power as strong as anything it ever met before, which it didn't, couldn't
  possibly, understand. Bonnie Jean's emotions boiled over; she glanced at Harry; he had tucned his face away to look out of his window. Damn, he was simply
  ignoring her outburst! As if she were a child! Probably because he subconsciously understood only too well what was going on.
  And there and then - in broad daylight, even at the wheel of the car -B.J. felt the change coming and couldn't stop it. It was as though she stood outside herself,
  watching in horror, frozen by her own hypnotic talent! She could even feel the eye-teeth - her dogteeth - curving up through pink-sheathing gums, cutting the flesh!
  She could taste the blood on her gums. Her blood, as yet. . .
  Harry glanced ahead, jerked upright, cried: 'Christ - the road . . .!'
  And the Lady in her was banished, and B.J. back in charge. For now at least.
  She slammed on the brakes, hauled on the wheel, almost physically dragged the car round a sharp left-hand bend. Harry was thrown against her, and as they
  collided B.J. came close to losing her sunglasses. She knew her eyes would be crimson, but had to put every effort into bringing the car to a halt. The right-hand
  wheels bumped up onto the grass verge; the hedgerow made a sharp scraping against her window; her driving mirror was bent back. And the car stopped . . .
  The Necroscope collapsed his Mobius door where he had instinctively conjured it across the dashboard. It had been a close thing. If they had crashed, been
  thrown forward ...  by now they would be in the Mobius Continuum! Nothing he could have said or done would have fooled Bonnie Jean this time. No
  'drug-induced hallucination' would have covered it.
  He wiped the sweat from his brow and said, 'Did I say something?'
  B.J. thumped the steering wheel with both hands, glared at him - and burst  out  laughing! Then,  in the  mirror, she saw  the  blood
  on her lower lip and sucked it inside her mouth.
  'Hurt?' he said, at once solicitous.
  'I bit my lip,' she lied. 'You?'
  He shook his head. 'What happened?'
  'I wasn't  paying  attention  to  my  driving,'  she  answered.  'I  suppose  I'm  just  a  bad  driver,  that's  all.'  A bad-tempered  driver,
  anyway.
  'Let's  get on to  the  Forest  of Atholl,  then,'  he said. 'I could use a cup  of tea now  - not  to  mention  a  leak!'  Which  set  her  off
  laughing again.
  A few minutes later, cresting the next wave of foothills, B.J. saw the rim of a full moon, so pale it was almost transparent, rising over a hazy, blue-pastelled
  horizon. Perhaps it explained something. She hoped so, anyway . . .
  They found a tea shop, sat outside under the trees,  relaxed a little.  And  as they  sat  there,  Bonnie Jean sighed and surrendered  her
  problems to fate. What would be, would be. And anyway, who could second-guess
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  the future? But this man, this Harry - oh, his attraction, his power over her was strong.  She knew it could be argued
  that hers over him was stronger, but hers was artificial. Some of it. How much was real, she wondered?
  She lay back in her chair, eyes closed behind the lenses  of her sunglasses,  and said, 'Harry, you know you haven't
  mentioned her in a long time.'
  When  he failed to answer, she opened  her eyes a crack to squint  at him. He was  frowning,  staring  at  a  long  low
  station-wagon where it had just pulled into the car park opposite the tea shop. She followed his gaze. 'Something?'
  
  Harry didn't answer, just sat there staring. But as  the  occupants  of  the  vehicle  got  out  and  headed  up  the  path
  under the trees to the tea house,  he averted his eyes, turning them on Bonnie Jean instead. And when the shuffling
  single-file of red-robed Asiatics had passed,  he said: 'I saw this bunch, or one like it, in London once. Other places,
  too.'
  'Hari Krishna types,' she said, shrugging. 'Pretty harmless, really. Do they bother you?'
  The tinkling of tiny golden bells faded and  died  away  as  the  group  went  into  the  cafe.  Harry  came  back  to  life,
  smiled and said: 'Bother me? Not much. They don't talk to you or look at you. There's no eye-contact. They just do
  their own thing.'
  But after that he couldn't seem to relax, and  by  the  time  the  red-robes  had  come  out  of  the  tea  shop  and  found
  themselves a table he was ready to move on. And B.J. noticed as they drove away how the frown was back  on  his
  face . . . how he kept staring into his rearview mirror long after the tea shop  sign had disappeared into the  distance
  behind them . . .
  The roads were good and traffic light to nonexistent, but after their near-accident B.J. was taking it easy. If there was
  even the suspicion of a scenic 'short-cut' she would take it. And the closer she got to her destination  the slower she
  went, stopping  off at the slightest  excuse -for the view, or a chance to  dabble  her  feet  in  cool  water  over  rounded
  pebbles - whatever. They even pulled off the road and slept for an hour, cuddled up on a patch of heather in the lee of
  tall rocks, where Harry had to fix a blanket over a couple of dead branches  for shade. He'd done  so  protesting  that
  there was hardly enough heat in the sun to bother with it, but B.J. was 'afraid of sunburn.'
  Finally, as they covered the last few miles to Inverdruie, the light began to fade, the mist crept up from the streams
  and  writhed  in  the  copses,  and  the  wooded  slopes  took  on  a  cloaked,  mystical  look  out  of  legend.  The  lights  of
  cottages clustering at junctions and crossroads twinkled like elf-fires, while the backdrop of the mountains, black
  against  an indigo V of starstrewn sky seen through  the pass,  might easily be the fac,ade  of  a  gigantic  set  on  some
  cosmic stage.
  The gloaming,' B.J. commented, as she pulled off the road and turned tightly behind Auld John's  cottage,  parking
  the hire car in the shadows of birch and rowan.
  'In which,' the Necroscope whisperingly answered, 'all the Jocks go a-roaming!'
  The wee lads and lassies, aye!' Laughing lightly, she got out of the car. (Ah, but if only her heart were as light as her
  laughter.)
  And what about his . . . ?
  Harry didn't quite know what to make of Auld John, but then he didn't quite know what to make of anything  right now.
  His heart seemed to spend most of its time in his mouth (which was why he made jokes whenever he could), and his
  nerves  were  stretched  to  breaking.  He  supposed  it  was  some  kind  of  paranoia,  the  latest  attack  of  this  ridiculous
  persecution complex.
  But Auld John was . . . something else. B.J. had told Harry that the old gillie used to work for her uncle - the one with
  the hunting lodge -and that while he was very respectful and trustworthy  he was also very proper. And maybe just a
  bit peculiar? Understatements on all counts, Harry thought.
  The old man didn't grovel but he came close. And not just to Bonnie Jean but also to the Necroscope. Bowing and
  scraping, he was very nearly obsequious - almost like a cringing dog who wants so badly to be petted  but  thinks  he  might  be
  kicked. But as for proper: no doubt about it!
  When Bonnie Jean went up to her tiny garret bedroom, the old man stayed  downstairs with Harry; in B.J.'s absence
  he referred to her as 'the wee mistress: a verah special lady!' Well,  and  so  she  might  have  been  once  upon  a  time,
  Harry supposed - when she'd used to stay at her uncle's lodge . . .
  After a while B.J. called Auld John upstairs  and for ten minutes or so  Harry  could  hear  them  talking  but  couldn't
  make out what was said. Then Auld John came down again and offered him a nightcap - 'A wee dram shid put ye away
  nicely,  aye!  A  guid  nicht's  sleep  cannae  hurt  a  man.'  Maybe  not,  but  the  Necroscope  refused  anyway.  If  he  was
  climbing tomorrow, he would need a clear head.
  And when Auld John took Harry upstairs, he made a point of showing him the toilet,  directly  opposite  the  Necroscope's  tiny
  room. 'Just so's ye cannae be mistaken . . .  ye ken?' Yes, he kenned well enough.  And the wee mistress's room was at
  the other end of the corridor, with all those  creaking floorboards in between. Wherever Auld John was in the house,
  he'd be sure to hear those boards.
  But in fact they didn't creak once. B.J. was far lighter on her feet than
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  Harry. And the way she was able to manoeuvre her way around a dark house was quite remarkable.
  So thought the Necroscope . . . while deep inside he didn't  find it remarkable at all. But  he was  glad she came anyway,  on this
  night of all nights.  It  seemed to  have meaning other  than  sex. Indeed it must  have, since they  didn't  make love but  were content
  enough simply to lie in each other's arms . . .
  The morning was  grey, overcast,  and  B.J.  seemed  pleased  and  in  fairly  good  spirits.  Pleased  with  the  weather,  anyway.  The
  Necroscope couldn't say how he felt: 'odd' might best describe it. They  breakfasted,  took  Auld  John's  car - B.J.  didn't  say  why  -
  
  and headed south-west along a road that  paralleled the  Spey  on their  right and the  Cairngorms on their  left.  It  was  early  and the
  roads through the valley were empty.
  'How far?' Harry asked as they turned onto the main road. His voice and mood were very subdued.
  'Just three or four miles,' she told him . . . and then because she had been doing a lot  of thinking and dreaming during the  night,
  she abruptly changed the subject. 'Harry, would you mind telling me your thoughts about life?'
  'Life?' He was looking in his rearview mirror again.
  'Birth, life, death: the whole thing. I mean, how do you view it? You're still young - we are young  - but  we get old, we die, and
  it's all over.'
  Harry  knew  all  about  that  -  knew  how  wrong  she  was,  that  death  wasn't  the  end,  and  it  wasn't  'all  over'  -  but  that  was
  something he couldn't talk about. Right now, though, he could lie; because without consciously thinking about it, he was in control
  of himself. But maybe he didn't have to lie. That's a bit morbid, isn't it?' he said. 'What's brought this on?'
  'Oh, I don't  know,'  she answered,  trying  to  find a way  to  explain. 'It's  just  that  as  we  get  older,  we  seem  to  leave  so  much
  behind. Family, friends, even lovers - especially lovers. One partner is older, or gets old faster, and dies faster, and leaves the other
  to go on. It seems unfair, makes having someone to love seem pointless. Doesn't it?'
  'Is this us you're talking about? Are you worrying about the future?'
  She sighed and said, 'I ask a question, and you answer it with a question!' She could switch him on, of course,  and find out  how
  he felt that way. But in their situation that would be . . .  unfair? And what if she didn't like the way he felt? But:
  'Very well, if it's important to you,' he said. The  way  I see it,  life is some kind of learning process.  We are bom, and we don't
  know anything except we're hungry. We grow older, and we start to learn things. Eventually we're "educated";  we figure we know
  everything! Except life isn't like that. The older we get the more there is to
  understand, and less time to understand it. So that  by  the  time we die—' (which  was  something he knew  all about)  '—we're only
  just coming to the conclusion that we don't know any fucking thing!' And then we really wise up - except it's  too damn  late! For by
  then we can't tell anyone how clever we are . . .
  'But what if we didn't get old?' B.J. said. 'I mean, what  if we didn't  have to,  if there  was  a way  to  avoid it?' She knew  she was
  treading on thin ice. She must be careful not to bridge the gap between  Harry's  conscious  and unconscious  knowledge. It  wouldn't
  do to have the two start leaking into each other.
  She needn't have worried, for Harry wasn't listening. Suddenly  his knuckles  were white  where his fingers gripped  his arm rest,
  and his gaze was riveted to his rearview wing mirror.
  B.J. glanced in the central rearview mirror . . . and gave a start! 'What the.  . .?'
  The station-wagon  from yesterday,  with  at least  two  occupants  from the  red-robe  troupe,  was  bearing  down  on  them  like  a
  hawk stooping to its prey. And the way it was coming, it seemed aimed at their  car, at them!  So that  a thought  flashed unbidden
  through Harry's mind:
  Is this it? I saw their monastery. That was Kyle's talent, warning me about my future. Are these people the end of my future? A bunch of kamikaze monks trying
  to force us off the road? Is it as simple as that? And is that what's been bothering me, somehow knowing that this was creeping up on me?
  The car behind pulled out, looked like it would overtake. And B.J. gasped, 'Is that what they are - all they  are - roadhogs? What
  idiot issued a driving licence to this maniac!' She gave way and applied her brakes . . . which probably saved their lives.
  As  the  station-wagon  rocketed  forward  and  overtook  them,  it  swerved  violently  to  the  left,  cutting  in  on  their  vehicle.  The
  collision between  the  rear end of the  station-wagon  and the  front  of  Auld  John's  car  threw  the  latter  to  the  left.  The  road  ran
  parallel to a grass- and weed-grown ditch on that side, but  right at this  point  there  was  a rickety  wooden  bridge that  went  angling
  off over the ditch to a woodlands track. Just how B.J. managed to control the steering and turn onto the bridge, Harry  couldn't  say;
  it seemed more likely that the shock of the collision was responsible, that it had physically shifted the front of their  car to  the  left.
  In another  moment  the  bridge's boards  were rattling  and shuddering under BJ.'s  wheels,  and then  they  were into  the  woods  and
  slowing down.
  'Bad driving?' she gasped. That wasn't bad driving. That was fucking deliberate!'
  Harry was looking ahead. The track curves right, probably  back onto  the  road. Don't  stop  but  follow  it through  the  trees.  If it
  was deliberate they may be waiting for us.'
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  'So what good will that do?'
  He gritted his teeth and said, 'At least we'll know it was deliberate. We'll know to protect ourselves - and maybe to hit back.'
  'Hit back?' She stamped on the brakes, stopped and threw open her door. 'How? Harry, we're in the middle of nowhere and unarmed. Well, with one exception.'
  In the boot of the old car: her crossbow. She got it, came back to her driving seat, passed the weapon to Harry.
  He looked at it, and almost had to shout, 'What?' Because the ancient engine had decided to start racing.
  'You'll want to hit back, won't you?' she yelled. (For it had sunk in that they really might have to. She'd been expecting something like this for as long as she
  could remember; had known it must come eventually. But like this?)
  'Bonnie Jean, what the hell's going on?' he said, grating the words out. (Did it have to do with him - Alec Kyle's talent - or with her? And if with her, why? She
  was an innocent, wasn't she? But again, innocent of what?)
  'Oh, load the fucking thing!' she snapped.
  And as he made to do so:
  Honk! Hoooonk!
  
  They looked back. And there it was: the long, black, low-slung, now sinister-looking station-wagon. It was maybe ten to fifteen paces behind them, half-hidden
  in dangling foliage, its front doors open. And leaning on the doors, the driver and his front-seat passenger. Even as Harry and B.J. stared, the driver reached inside
  the car and honked again, then cocked his head on one side and smiled.
  Harry looked at their faces - eye-contact - and knew from that moment that whatever this was it was life-endangering serious. In the dappling of the trees, their
  eyes were feral, full of yellow, shifting light. And their grins were almost vacuous, like the grins of crocodiles or hyenas . . . filled with malice!
  Almost unnoticed, B.J. had taken the crossbow from him. He saw the grins slip from the faces of the red-robes as they fell into crouches behind their doors, saw
  their slanted eyes narrow, heard the vibrating, electric thrummm of the crossbow's string. And in the next split-second B.J.'s bolt slammed home into the panel of
  the driver's door, burying itself deep.
  The driver was inside the car now; straightening up behind the wheel, he called out to his passenger. That one had reached inside the car, come back out with
  ...  a machine-pistol? Almost of its own accord the Necroscope's Mobius math commenced evolving on the screen of his metaphysical mind. But before he could
  conjure a door—
  —B.J. had the car in gear, fishtailing as the rear wheels threw up a screen of dirt. Then they were round a bend, bumping through birch and rowan, and onto a
  bridge in worse repair than the first one! And
  finally back onto the road. Then as B.J. put her foot down, without saying a word Harry took up her crossbow and reloaded it.
  But as he slowly, carefully put it down again, he said:
  'I  thought  they  might  have  something  against  me,  but  now  I'm  not  sure. You were sure! You must have  been,  because
  "innocent" people don't go shooting at people for being bad drivers! So what's going on, B.J.? What do these men have against you?'
  She didn't answer but looked in her driving mirror - and saw at a glance that it was time to switch him on. Definitely, because the
  black station-wagon was coming at them again, and B.J. knew she couldn't handle this on her own. 'Harry, mah wee man!' she yelled
  as the rear window shattered, showering diced glass inwards, and something hot buzzed  and  spanged  inside  the  car.  'Are  you
  listening? Do you understand? You can talk normally.'
  'Listening, yes,' he mumbled dazedly as the moon blinked out, the wolf quit howling and the inner man surfaced. 'Understand,
  no.' His voice was like a child's: uncertain, afraid.
  'I told you the time might come when I would send you out after them, the Ferenczys and the—'
  '—Drakuls,' he cut her off.
  'Well, now they've come for us!'
  'Vampires!' Harry said. And as suddenly  as that, his voice had changed. This was the man she'd first seen in a dark garage in
  London -the one in the alley, after he had got her out of trouble - the one who had faced up to Big Jimmy in B.J. 's wine bar. Then
  for the first time in a long time she remembered just who he was supposed  to be: Radu's Mysterious  One! Maybe he was,
  at that! So it should come as no surprise that this Harry was a very hard, very cold one.
  Up ahead, the road narrowed to a single lane on the left. The right-hand lane was coned off for some forty or fifty
  feet where the surface was badly potholed; but it was a Sunday and no one was working. Also on the right, a wooden
  fence guarded the road from a steep  descent  to the river. If a car went over, it would keep right on going until it hit the
  water.
  Just as B.J. entered the defile, Harry reached his foot over and stamped on the brake. The car behind was almost on
  top of them. It skidded right, then sharp left; its nearside tyres skipped over the ditch, which was shallow here, and it ran nose first into a clump
  of springy saplings that bent over with its weight and finally stopped it. It would take a little while to untangle.
  But: 'Shit!' Harry said, as he released the brake and B.J. shot Auld John's car forward again.
  'What?' She was jubilant. 'But we stopped them!'
  'Only for a little while,' he said.
  Then they were round a slight left-hand bend and the road ran
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  straight ahead for maybe a mile or more. At the end of the mile, the road was cut into the hillside on the left at another left-hand bend, while on the right the drop
  was sheer to dense woodlands. 'Drop me here,' Harry said.
  'What?' She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
  'Drop me here!' he repeated, harshly.
  She gave a snort. 'What, and do you think you're the lone highwayman, or something?'
  'Or something,' he nodded.
  'You'll jump out and surprise them, will you?'
  'Drop me now, before they come round that bend back there and see us,' he said.
  She saw that he was serious. 'They'll kill you.'
  'No, they won't,' Harry shook his head. This is what I do, remember?' So she dropped him.
  But as the Necroscope headed for the trees at the side of the road, he called out, 'Now go like hell! That car of theirs is more powerful; if they're not back on your
  tail in a couple of miles you'll know I got them. Then you can come back for me. And if they are . . .' He left it at that, and watched from cover as B.J. drove away . . .
  Harry fixed the contours of the forested hillside ahead in his mind's eye and registered the co-ordinates. He would have liked to double-check them but didn't have
  the time. Then, conjuring a Mobius door, he made a jump to the attic of his house in Bonnyrig. It took only a moment or so to collect what he needed and make a
  return jump back into the trees at the side of the road.
  Speeding south-west, Auld John's car had almost reached the place where the road was cut into the hillside. But in the opposite direction -just coming into view
  and rocketing down the road - the black station-wagon! At the speed they were going, they'd catch her in about two minutes.
  
  Harry stepped back under the leafy cover of the trees and a moment later felt the blast of pressured air as the black car swept by. He had forty seconds . . . but
  needed only nine or ten. One: took him to a location on a bald bluff high over the road, midway between the two cars. Two: took him down again, to where the road
  bent under a rocky, wooded, almost overhanging granite formation. And three to ten saw him climbing just a few feet to a ledge where daisies sprouted in the
  cracks, where he was able to crouch down out of sight but yet keep an eye on the road.
  In that position, by reaching out a hand, he would be able to touch a passing car. But simply to 'touch' the station-wagon wasn't his purpose. He had just less
  than thirty seconds. B.J. was a half-mile farther down the road, and her pursuers were on their way. Harry peeked out around
  the rim of the rock and calculated time and distance.
  Twenty seconds . . . fifteen . . . ten. The Necroscope's calculations were almost perfect. He took a combination of deadly items from his pockets and armed them,
  then held them a little awkwardly both in one hand. And his time was up; no more than two or three seconds left when he leaned out and swung his arm towards
  the open car window, releasing the grenade and CS canister into the blurred interior.
  In the last moment the occupants of the station-wagon had seen him; the passenger - the red-robe with the machine-pistol - was on Harry's side. He had jerked
  the top half of his body back into the car as the Necroscope swung at his window - but he had seen what had flown inside! After that:
  The activity in the station-wagon became frantic, a blur of motion, all to no avail. In just a moment the car began to swerve left and right as its interior filled
  with yellow gas, and the red-robe with the gun reached out and grabbed hold of the roof-rack, trying to drag himself out through his window! Then—
  —The windows blew out and the roof blew off, taking the one with the machine-pistol with it! The vehicle had travelled maybe a hundred and fifty feet
  beyond Harry's position; but he threw up an arm to shield himself anyway, as the blast licked out and thunder shook the air, and the echoes started to come
  bouncing down from the valley walls. And when he looked . . .
  The car's top looked like it had been peeled or cut loose by a giant can-opener. It was floating in the air over the car, turning lazily like a leaf, and the red-robe
  had let go of his gun and was hanging onto the roof-rack, clinging to it for his life. But both the car and roof were still travelling at more than sixty miles an hour,
  and though the bend in the road was slight it certainly wasn't a straight line.
  The station-wagon went through the wooden safety fence as if it were balsa wood, then seemed to very gradually nose-dive into the canopy of trees; and the
  roof with its hanger-on went fluttering after. The Necroscope half-expected a second blast but it didn't come; just the sound of branches shattering, followed by
  the squeal of wrenched, twisting metal, several dull thuds, and silence . . .
  Harry found a way down to the wreckage. He could have used the Continuum but wasn't in too much of a hurry. Despite the blast, that red-robe who had been
  clinging to the roof as if it were a life-raft had still looked fairly agile. A vampire, it was possible he'd survived the fall. He would have come down on top of the
  car, however, which wouldn't have made for a happy landing.
  The trees were dense and the way dark beneath them. Birds, mainly wood pigeons, were starting to settle in their branches, and cheep and
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  coo again after the initial shock. Maybe that was a good  sign. Looking back, Harry could just make  out  the  broken
  fence through  the  foliage  canopy;  and  looking  ahead  through  the  undergrowth  down  the  steep,  leaf-mould  slope
  under the trees, a flash of bright water caught in a stray sunbeam.
  When he stepped over the freshly fallen branch of a tree, its bark ripped back, he knew he must be close. The slope
  was very steep  here; lots of leafy debris had come down from above;  the Necroscope began skidding on his  heels,
  deliberately aimed himself at the bole of a huge tree - an oak, he thought, well over three feet in girth - to slow himself
  down. Above him the canopy  was dense, with patches  of daylight showing through  . . . and one unmistakable large
  patch of dangling, broken branches.
  Using the great gnarly roots of the oak as hand and footholds, Harry scrambled around the bole of the tree . . .  and
  was there. Directly overhead, trapped in a tangle of branches, the twisted,  dented  wreckage  of  the  station-wagon's
  roof lay horizontal on  a  platform  of  crushed  foliage,  like  a  metal  blanket  flung  carelessly  into  the  tree.  And  down
  below—
  —The vehicle was standing  on its nose, which had dug in, then crumpled as the soil compacted. Its rear end was
  trapped, compressed in a fork of mighty branches, else the impact might easily have caused the petrol tank to explode.
   Maybe better if it had, the Necroscope thought.
  Better for the driver, anyway.
  For the driver was still in the car, pinned like a fly on the column of his stripped steering wheel, where the blast of the grenade had
  thrown him. His face had come forward so that his chin was resting on the  frame  of  the  shattered  windscreen,  and
  crimson trails were seeping from his ears, nose, and mouth down the vertical, crumpled bonnet  and dripping into the
  dark soil. But his yellow, Asiatic face was mobile, drooling, grimacing, and even as Harry watched his eyes opened.
  Inverted but on a level with his own eyes, they looked straight at him, and he saw how red they were in their cores . . .
  Then the mouth blew red bubbles and made a noise, and a bloodied, broken hand twitched up onto the window sill
  of the sprung  door. It jerked and trembled there, making feeble beckoning motions.  And  those  awful  eyes  pleaded.
  The red-robe was asking for help.
  'Oh, sure!' the Necroscope said, and stepped back a pace. But even if this one had been human - or especially if he
  were human - there'd be no helping him. Several pulsating loops of lacerated intestine were dangling out from under
  the driver's door, dripping blood.
  Somewhere overhead, back through the tunnel of trees, the drone of a car's engine coughed  into silence, and in the
  next moment a shout came echoing on the suddenly still air. 'Harry! Where are you?'
  B.J. - she must have seen the broken fence and guessed something of what had happened.
  
  'Down here!' Harry called back - which startled the wood pigeons again, set them fluttering, and broke the awe-stricken  mood of
  the place. 'Be careful how you go. It's steep . . .' And the thought struck him: just like we were out rambling!  Except they  weren't
  out rambling, and there was monstrous danger here. What about the other red-robe?
  Then,  smelling a new but  no less lethal danger, he stepped  back another  two  paces  and began circling  the  suspended  vehicle.
  Along with the blood seeping into the soil there was a shimmering pool  of vaporizing  fuel in the  area of the  buried fender. A trail
  of petrol led back to the fractured tank . . .
  He became aware of B.J.'s sounds as she descended  towards  him through  the  trees.  But  suddenly  everything  felt  wrong. What
  about the vampire who had been clinging to the roof? Where was he? And just who was  it who was  coming down  the  slope  under
  the trees anyway?
  Thinking of the one who had been on the roof of the station-wagon had caused the  Necroscope  to  glance up  into  the  tree  again.
  At  which precise  moment  there  was  movement; the  twisted  blanket  of metal tilted  a little  . . .  and a  tattered,  blackened  sleeve,
  once red, came into view. But the hand projecting from the sleeve continued to hang on to the roof!
  The roof tilted more yet and the red-robe came fully into view. He was conscious, furious!  He saw  Harry  directly  beneath  him,
  and  snarled;  his  eye-teeth  were  fangs!  Then  he  let  go  his  hold,  slid  from  the  roof  face-down,  and  fell  directly  towards  the
  Necroscope!
  Harry hurled himself backwards, missed his footing, tried to conjure a door. The vampire  was  on all fours,  muscles bunching to
  spring. His robe was in tatters, limbs and body a mass of cuts and scratches. And his face was a mask out of hell!
  B.J. stepped over Harry, aimed her crossbow almost point-blank, squeezed the trigger. The bolt  sprang  free, buried itself  to  the
  flights in the  red-robe's  heart.  He had seen her at the  last  moment  and had started  to  come erect; her bolt  seemed to  knock  him
  backwards, limbs flailing as he collided with  the  door  of the  station-wagon  and slid to  a sitting  position.  Then  his mouth  spat  a
  stream of bloodied froth, his eyes closed and his head slumped onto his chest.
  And B.J. panted, 'Harry, your lighter . . .' She was shaken, yes, but there was a snarl in her voice, too.
  Harry collapsed the invisible door he had conjured a little  way  down  the  slope,  into  which he'd been about  to  hurl himself. He
  fumbled out a cheap cigarette lighter, flipped its top and struck  fire. He knew  what  B.J.  would  do; as they  scrambled away  from
  the car and its occupants, he did it for her:
  He tossed the lighter in a lazy arc into the pool of vaporizing fuel. It
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  hadn't even hit the ground before blue flames licked up, enveloped the car, making a whoosh! and a roar that threw
  out a wall of heat. B.J. and Harry kept going; they were into the trees, covered by the mossy boles of a clump of birch
  trees when the tank blew. And when they looked out the car was an inferno. The explosion hadn't shaken it loose, but
  already the foliage around was on fire, burning furiously. Nothing was going to get out of that hell alive, but still they
  kept watching.
  'Look and learn,' B.J. said, hoarsely. 'One of them must be a lieutenant. A job like this could never have been trusted
  entirely to mere thralls.' Harry knew she was right, and knew which one was the lieutenant.
  The driver,' he said, remembering how his eyes were crimson in their cores.
  She  glanced  at  him,  frowned  and  said,  'Oh?'  She  might  have  been  about  to  say  something  else,  but  a  sudden
  commotion in the blazing car stopped her. It was the driver. For while his passenger was content  to sit there and melt,
  and drip, he wasn't.
  Through  the envelope of blue-shimmering heat, the lieutenant's red-robed, blazing figure was plainly visible. Twitching and
  jerking, with all his limbs spastically threshing, he lifted his head from the window sill and seemed to look out through  the wall of fire.
  But his eyes were peeled white things with no sight in them.
  'Dead,' B.J. grated, 'but his metamorphic flesh won't accept it. It wants to go on, wants more.'
  Even  as  she  spoke,  the  chest  and  guts  of  the  thing  in  the  burning  vehicle  erupted,  putting  out  corpse-white
  tentacles  or  feelers  to  lash  in  the  super-heated  confines  of  the  car.  Bunching  together,  they  blossomed  outwards
  through the stripped roof and upward into the fiery slipstream, and floated there in the furnace updraft like the arms of
  some crippled anemone.
  Other tentacles  uncoiled out of the door, opened  at their tips, and pissed  an orange fluid all around that steamed
  where it fell to earth. Then the thing gave in, withdrew its melting appendages, crumpled down into itself and began to
  slop out of the door around the shoulders of the blazing thrall. Body fats were on fire now and the stink of roasting flesh was sickening.
  It masked what was left of the CS smell, which B.J. had taken to be part of the natural stench of the accident.
  That one had been a vampire . . .  oh, for quite some time,' she said. 'If he wasn't Wamphyri, it was close. Now we
  have to go. It's over, and we don't want to be found here.'
  And Harry, who could still converse  normally, said, This was just two of them. There are four more that we know
  of.'
  'I know,' she said, taking the lead and heading back up the slope under the trees. 'Our trip is off. I have to talk to
  Auld John - but by telephone! They might have tracked us from his place! If they'd held back
  just a minute or two, they might even have followed us to . . .'
  '. . . To Radu in his lair?' Harry said.
  She heard the confusion in his voice, looked back and saw it in his face. And she believed that she understood. Right now  he was
  'switched on' to the reality of things; he knew that she was in thrall to Radu Lykan,  Wamphyri!  He knew  that  he was working for
  
  Radu's agent, Bonnie Jean, against those  of other  vampire  Lords.  The  'myth'  of their  mutual  affection  - the  bond he and B.J.  had
  established - might have been compromised; Harry might have begun to suspect that he was being used.
  Therefore . . . perhaps she would  be wise  to  erase this  entire  episode  from his mind. But  not  here. Indeed the  sooner  they  got
  away from this place the better. And so:
  'It's okay,' she told him over her shoulder.  Til explain things  in the  car. Then  anything  you  don't  understand  will seem . . .  oh,
  very much simpler.'
  And there might be one or two things she would like him to explain to her, too . . .
  . . . Like: 'How? How did you do it?' They were heading south for Dalwhinnie.
  Despite  that  Harry  was  still  under her spell,  he couldn't  answer  her. Anderson's  directive  came first:  that  he must  protect  his
  talents at all cost. Wherefore he must lie. Beginning to sweat, he said, 'I played the highwayman, as you suggested, left it to  the  last
  second and jumped out on them. If the driver had had a moment  to  think  . . .  he might have recognized me, run me down.  But  he
  didn't. He tried to avoid me, swerved, and never regained control.'
  'But. . .  are you crazy?' She gasped. 'You could as easily have died!'
  'If they'd kept coming, I was ready to jump back into the bushes. It was them or me - or you.'
  'You did it for . . . ?' But there she paused. For she really didn't want to know this: that Harry had done it for her. She
  preferred to believe he'd done it because  of her hypnotic  programming - didn't she? But in any case, his answer had
  thrown her completely off track. So that she didn't think to ask how he had covered the mile from the place where she'd
  dropped him to the spot where the station-wagon had gone over the edge.
  And she didn't even wonder why he'd been so quick off the mark with his cigarette lighter. But the Necroscope knew why:
  He hadn't wanted to give her time to notice the condition of the wrecked car's interior, the fact that he had bombed
  it. That would only have led to more questions, and he wasn't sure he'd have any satisfactory answers.
  But in any case there were no more questions, never could be in
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  connection with this episode. For long before they got to Dalwhinnie B.J. had already wiped it from the Necroscope's mind, told him it had been a nightmare to
  merge with all the others, and that he should simply forget it...
  Unnoticed by the pair as they had pulled away from the 'accident site,' another car parked on the grass verge three hundreds yards back from the bend had come to
  life, pulled out onto the road, rolled silently forward, and stopped where the fence was shattered and black smoke climbed in a column from the canopy of riverside
  trees to the blue-grey sky.
  The driver - a slight man dressed in a lightweight black raincoat buttoned to the neck, a huge white hat with a floppy brim, and side-shielded sunglasses - got out
  and made his way quickly down into the woods. Following B.J. 's and the Necroscope's tracks, and his nose, he was soon at the scene of fiery devastation.
  The fire was burning uphill through the tinderlike undergrowth, towards the road which would form a natural firebreak. Thus the blazing vehicle, clearly visible
  as the source of the fire, was approachable. Likewise visible were the two blackening corpses, one slumped behind the wheel and the other seated upright beside the
  sprung door.
  Keeping well back from the fire, the slight man swept the scene with eyes that were bird-bright, yellow in the shade of his hat. A glistening black, steaming
  object roughly the size and shape of a cucumber hissed and made crackling noises some distance from the inferno. It shuddered and lay still even as the slight man
  took up a dead branch to prod it. Between this object and the car, a trail of sticky slime suggested that it had made its own way to where it had died.
  It was dead, yes, but it couldn't be left lying there. Or sooner or later someone would be sure to examine it. And that wouldn't do at all. So using his branch, the
  man in the raincoat twitched the leech back into the inferno, into the furnace heat of the red-glowing car. That should do it.
  Then without further ado the little man made his way back to his own vehicle, and drove quickly away from the scene. It was time he made report to his Masters
  in Sicily . . .
  In Dalwhinnie, B.J. 'phoned Auld John and told him what had happened, told him to bring her car, where to leave it, and where he would find his own car. And
  when he'd got that straight she said, 'And now it's up to you, John. Are you up to it?'
  The weather's guid,' he answered, barely managing to contain his elation, 'and ah'll take the easy way up. Dinnae fret, mah Bonnie lass . . . Auld John'11 be just
  fine! Why, ah believe ah'm even lookin' forward tae it - tae see Him again!'
  'But the feeding, old friend, the feeding. You must promise me you'll be careful?'
  'No need tae bother ye're mind,' he told her. 'Ah ken well enough.  It's near His time and He'll be hungry. But ah'll be on mah
  guard.'
  'Good. And make sure - make absolutely sure - that you're not followed. They may be onto you as well, John!'
  B.J. could picture his wolfish grin as he answered, 'Aye, but ah'm no so an easy target. And mah old shotgun's loaded wi' silver shot, as well ye
  ken.'
  'Good luck, then. And talk to me when it's done.'
  'Be sure ah will.'
  'So be it,' said Bonnie Jean, and put the 'phone down . . .
  EPILOGUE
  It was still the early hours of the morning in Dalwhinnie, in Scotland; but some two hours  earlier in the Drakesh Monastery,  on the
  
  Tingri Plateau, it had already been midday . . .
  The white-robed initiate whom Harry Keogh had seen tramping the white waste to the face in the rock was at last ready. Ready to
  face (as he saw it) his final challenge, the last rite of 'purification,' and long-awaited acceptance into the Drakesh Sect.
  He had been cleansed of all earthly sins, all vices of the flesh, the mind and the soul. He had endured all the rigours
  of  life  in  the  monastery - its austerity, celibacy, secrecy; its lack of communication, which  was  forbidden  -  all  of  the  self-denial  of  the
  brotherhood without being a part of that brotherhood, without its acceptance. In short, for the two long years that he had lived
  here . . . he'd lived a lie.
  For unknown to him and two others just like him, they were the only ones  who had suffered the austerity, celibacy and silence.
  As  for the rest of the brothers: they had survived their initiations long ago. Now they  had their Master, Daham Drakesh, to  give
  them succour; now they bathed in the blood which is the life, the tainted blood of their own; now they had each other. Moreover,
  they had the women of the Drakesh Township: the produce of their farm and fields; the warmth of their cringing bodies (while yet
  they remained warm) in the dark of night; their blood, in however small a measure, to provide at least a taste of the feasts
  to come.
  Ah, for their Master provided for them in this monotonous  white wilderness no less than he would provide for them in the
  outside world, when at last it was his . . .  when it was theirs! And except that they must not impregnate the women - or drain them
  to death or undeath, or weaken them beyond their capacity to work - nothing  was forbidden to the brothers. But the only, the ultimate, the
  unforgivable sin would be
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  the denial of the vampire Lord Daham Drakesh himself. And its punishment . . .
  . . . But there were diverse ways in which sinners, or even innocent men -  such  as  initiates  -  might  serve  in  the  monastery  of
  Daham Drakesh.
  This initiate - that figure in white whom the Necroscope had seen marching with three priests in front and three behind - was
  ready for his final ordeal. In the preceding two years he had fasted for weeks at a time; at other times he had survived on
  yak's milk, coarse bread, and pale honey. For a month now his diet had been such that he'd lost ten pounds in weight and now weighed a
  little over one hundred and five pounds. And this was a young, previously healthy man of eighteen years.
  His  ordeals  had  been  fasting,  freezing,  loneliness,  celibacy  (which  scarcely  counted,  since  he'd  never  known  a
  woman in his life), self-denial, hard work - and fear. The last because there were . . . sounds in the monastery, and an aura . . .
  Work had been the first, when for months he must toil to dig his own cavelet from the solid rock, because  he was forbidden to
  have a bed until he had a place to put  the  bed.  The  rest  had  been  likewise  obligatory:  he  could  only  eat  what  the
  brothers  gave  him,  speak  if  or  when  spoken  to,  masturbate  at  his  own  peril.  The  sensitivity  of  the  brothers,  and
  especially of Daham Drakesh, was frightening. They could smell sex; they seemed to have the power to smell the very
  thought of it!
  But he had been cleansed of outside influences, his body reduced and refined, his mind numbed. And Daham Drakesh - who was skilled in the
  arts of seeing without being seen, of knowing without being known, and of  hearing  without  being  heard  -  found  him  pleasing.
  Drakesh took pleasure in purity and innocence, perhaps because he had never had any of his own. But he knew where to get it.
  The High Priest took his time arriving at the room of the rite. First he visited the cavern of the creatures: hybrid vampire things
  waxing in their vats. They would be warriors eventually, the first of many. Then, as it had been in Sunside/Starside, so it would be here. And
  every high place an aerie, each deadly day a time of curfew, and the nights ...  ah, the nights would belong to Daham Drakesh! In five, ten, fifteen
  years? A long time, aye, but what is time to the Wamphyri?
  The cavern of the creatures: no one was allowed down here but Daham Drakesh himself and a handful of his lieutenants. If any
  common thrall  should  enter  this  place,  he  would  be  fortunate  indeed  to  leave.  Drakesh  looked  down  into  a  vat,  its
  gelatinous surface surging with long, slow ripples. They waxed, his beasts;  they could be brought  on quickly, if need
  be. Or they could lie here another hundred years, waiting to be born.
  Then he looked at the trough-like conduits that serviced the vats, rust coloured runnels carved in the rock, umbilical sluices to
  feed the foetal abnormalities being bred here. That fool in Chungking, Colonel Tsi-Hong, would have Drakesh breed human warriors. Well, and
  so he would - so he was, as witness the brotherhood - but Tsi-Hong knew nothing of such as these.
  As the Lord of vampires inspected his vats, so there had commenced a familiar combination of whistling, cracking sounds from somewhere
  overhead;  the acoustical quality of the monastery's chambers was remarkable. And now it came, a trickle at first but gradually
  swelling: the red tide. The life-blood of the brothers, given of their own free will, gurgling down the sluices to the vats. Then, in the heart of every
  liquid womb, a sluggish stirring as vaguely outlined occupants sensed the flow of rich red food.
  Daham Drakesh smiled in his fashion and moved on; he had seen all of this before.
  He left the foetal vat-things to their gluttony, climbed stone stairs to the chamber of the trough, the long-accustomed scene  of silent, ritual
  flagellation, and from there took long, loping, forward-leaning strides to the room of the last rite of initiation. He was eager now; the sight of the
  crimson flow in the cavern of the creatures, and the blood-tinged mist over  the  trough  of  silent  agony,  had  set  vampire  juices
  working. Drakesh had his own needs no less than the waxing creatures in his vats  of metamorphic creation. Except his needs  were more
  selective.
  The initiate was waiting; clad in white, kneeling between a pair of red-robed acolytes (Drakesh's lieutenants), he elevated his
  eyes as the Master  entered  -  and  at  once  lowered  them.  The  room  was  small,  square,  high-ceilinged.  At  one  end,  a
  near-vertical, flue-like slot had been hewn into the solid rock wall. Six feet high from the floor, this chimney was sealed by a
  
  massive block of stone, stepped on one side like a dais. A pulley-system in the ceiling dangled long ropes of chains fitted with claw-like grapples.
  To one side, a cart was piled with blocks of ice that were slowly welding themselves together. A stairwell in the opposite wall went down into
  darkness.
  With the sinuous ease of the Wamphyri, Drakesh moved to a position in front of the initiate, placed a slender hand on his bowed
  head, and said: 'My son, are you sure? Are you prepared?' His voice was almost gentle, almost compassionate. 'Do you desire to exchange
  your white robe for the red robe of a brother?'
  'Indeed, Master.' The initiate's voice was no more than a squeak. His fear was such that he might almost have said no ...  but he would not
  give in now, especially not in the presence of Drakesh. In his sight, he would never dare to admit defeat.
  'Look at me,' the Master of the Monastery commanded.
  The face of the initiate was drawn; his eyes were hollow, his yellow
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  skin  pale  as  saffron  parchment,  with  fine  blue  veins  showing  through.  He  smelled  of  youth,  innocence,  and
  everything that Drakesh was not. And the vampire smiled—
  —And began to explain the test. The chimney will house you standing upright with your head bowed to your chest
  - as if you bore the weight of the world! But  nothing  so  great,  be  assured.  These  brothers  will  place  blocks  of  ice
  above you, two or three depending on your . . . fortitude? This room is not especially cold and the ice will melt soon
  enough. But the process will be greatly accelerated by the generation of heat from your own body. This, then, is your
  ordeal, my son: the weight of the ice; its slow cold drip; the confines of the chimney. All these  things  against  your
  determination, your force for life. Finally, when the last few shards of ice slip down around your feet and you climb out, it will be
  over and you . . . will be a brother!' he clapped his hands. 'No more explaining. Into the chimney!'
  The red-robed acolytes climbed the dais with the initiate  and  helped  him  down  into  the  chimney.  Drakesh  stood
  watching as they operated the pulleys, began loading blocks of ice onto the shoulders of the youth. But. . .
  'Master!' that one called out, the sound  of his voice muffled now. There are tiny holes in the floor. A great many
  . . . "
  'Certainly,' Drakesh called back. 'So that the water from the ice can flow out and the air can flow in. What, and should
  I let you drown, or suffocate?'
  More blocks of ice went into the shaft. Stacked on top of  each  other,  they  fitted  well;  and  because  the  chimney
  inclined back into the wall a little, they could not topple forward. All of their mass was focused on the youth, who now
  cried out:
  'Master, the weight!' His voice was strained, his words a series of panting grunts.
  'An ordeal is an ordeal,' Drakesh's answer was cold as the ice itself. 'Less than that, and it becomes a mockery.' But
  his very tone of voice was a mockery, while his feral-eyed acolytes grinned and plied the pulleys.
  The column of ice reached up eight feet above the hole in the wall now; its weight was that of five men. As another
  block was released from the grapples and slid into place, so the column settled an inch or two in its slot. And feeling
  the  sudden,  rapid  compression  of  his  body,  the  initiate  panted  so  much  faster  and  louder,  his  voice  becoming  a
  screech of protest:
  'I. . .  cannot!. . . Master, I'm being crushed!. . .  my knees are against the wall. . .  my back is breaking!'
  'Cry out, my son,' Drakesh called back. 'It will ease your pain. Pant and groan, even as your mother groaned when
  her body opened to spit you into the world. She gave you life - as you now give it to me!'
  And as the acolytes worked at the rattling pulleys, Daham Drakesh  descended  the  stairwell  into  the  room beneath this  room of
  torture. It was  cold, and as he disrobed  he shuddered  a very  little  . . .  but  not  from the  cold. It  was  an almost  sexual shudder  of
  anticipation.
  Against one wall of this lower chamber, the floor had been scooped out into a shallow basin. As Drakesh stepped  naked into  the
  basin, he looked up. In the ceiling directly overhead, contained in an area of some eighteen by eighteen inches, a hundred small holes
  had been drilled through to the base of the torture chimney. Through these holes -through  the  very  rock - he could hear the  frantic
  screams of his victim. And coming to him from the stairwell, the relentless rattling of chains.
  Finally  there  was  one last  recognizable word:  a throbbing  'M-m-mother!'  Followed  by  a shriek  to  end  all  shrieks  that  echoed
  quickly into silence, and a splintering sound that went on and on. And  all that  remained was  a slow  crunching and squelching: the
  compression  of flesh and bone into  jelly.  Then,  as the  rattling  of the  chains continued  unabated,  the  warm red rain  of  Drakesh's
  shower commenced to smoke down upon him.
  But a worse horror was yet to come. For as Drakesh opened his jaws  in a yawning  gape, turned  up  his face and threw  wide his
  spindly arms to the crimson spattering deluge, so his parasite leech took  over. And  all semblance of control,  of anything  remotely
  human, was surrendered now as the thing inside Drakesh revelled in this  its  life-source,  its  being, its  cursed  continuation  - revelled
  in the blood of an innocent!
  Drakesh's olive-marble skin took  on a mottled  life of its  own; his metamorphic  flesh rippled over the  bones  of his face, chest,
  body  and limbs; the  pores  of his skin opened  like small pouting  mouths  - like the  tiny  flowers  of  some  hybrid  cactus  in  a  rare
  desert  rainstorm  - lapping  with  their  own  tongues  at  the  juice  of  a  man  where  it  followed  the  contours  of  Drakesh's  writhing,
  tormented form.
  It went on for a long time . . .
  
  After the pulley chains had stopped rattling and the acolytes were gone in haste  from the  upper  chamber (for  they  would  venture
  nowhere  near their  Master  now,  not  in his passion);  then,  as Drakesh  recovered from his  awful  ecstasy  and  staggered  from  the
  basin, and the tiny mouths closed and his skin flowed back into a corpse-like but unblemished whole—
  —Pain! Such a burning agony!
  Drakesh hissed  his terror, fell back against the wall and gazed crimson-eyed on his burning flesh. What was this?
  Was  it possible he'd made a terrible mistake? Had the initiate been a leper, some kind of plague-bearer? But no,  this
  wasn't his parasite complaining. The pain wasn't his - it was in his mind!
  Mentalism. Telepathy. A sending from far, far away. But it was so
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  real - so immediate, so psychically in tune with him - that it could have only  one  possible  source.  Flesh  of  Drakesh's  flesh:  his
  bloodson and chief lieutenant, four and a half thousand miles away in Scotland!
  Drakesh opened  himself to it, accepted  part of the pain  in  order  to  enter the mind behind it. And he was right, it was his
  bloodson, sent out into a foreign land. And sent there to die, apparently:
  The flames melting away his body, his vampire flesh, cutting into the very heart of him, to the creature inside. And his injuries, so great as to
  be almost irrepairable; utterly irrepairable, in combination with the fire.
  Hoping to discover the cause of his son's funeral pyre - its perpetrators - Drakesh attempted deeper penetration of the tormented
  mind. But even vampire flesh can be weak in the face of the ultimate truth, the true death. It would not be easy to communicate with
  the terrified mentality behind the dying. But still Drakesh tried.
  Who? he sent. And how? If you would be avenged, you must try to tell me, my son. The how of it came at once, for it was there, fresh in the burning
  mind:
  The senses-numbing blast of heat and light  inside a speeding  vehicle . . . the crash through  a fragile fence, and headlong
  plunge into high  branches . . . the jarring cessation  of  an  illusory  slow-motion  falling, as the wrecked  car slammed down
  nose-first into earth. And at last it was time for the pain, for the knowledge of a devastated body to sink in and its agony to wash outwards.
  But before it could wash all the way to Drakesh, he sent:
  And now, who?
  The man, the woman, the answer came back from a mind even now boiling in its steaming skull.
  Show me!
  And Daham Drakesh looked out through a shimmering wall of blue fire at the faces and forms of his son's  destroyers.  The man
  in the London photographs, of course - this Alec Kyle? - and Radu Lykan's female thrall. Protectors of an ancient enemy . . . and
  one who must now be aware that His enemies were abroad in the world!
  The faces, the identities were there, and they were gone, liquefying along with the mind that sent  them. Last faint echoes  of pain
  receding . . .  the flames dying out. . .  the sending ending, along with the sender.
  Shocked, scarcely realizing the full gravity of the thing as yet, Daham Drakesh dressed himself. And his fingers trembled and he saw again the
  enigmatic face of the man in his bloodson's  sending, and in the Oxford Street  photographs:  that  oh-so-human  face  masking  its
  oh-so-weird intelligence. And again the Master of the monastery shuddered; not from anticipation this time but from the cold.
  And no ordinary cold, but that of the alien void behind the man's eyes.
  However briefly then, it was as if the vampire sensed the fall of a
  strange and threatening night, whose taloned shadows were reaching for him even now . . .
  Two days later, but again early in the morning, the Necroscope Harry Keogh came awake to the ringing of his telephone. He had slept late and dreamed strange
  dreams - of the Great Majority, talking about him but not to him - and as he focused his eyes on his travelling clock, so the time clicked over from 9:44 to 9:45. The
  telephone extension beside his bed continued to ring, and Harry reached out and picked it up. He had long since lost his .actual terror of the thing, despite that it
  still conjured fleeting, disturbing motifs. Now, as his dreams faded away and his waking mind sharpened, he grunted, 'Uh?'
  'Did I wake you?' For a moment Harry didn't identify the gravelly voice on the other end of the line, but then it registered and he said:
  'Ben? Ben Trask?' And he thought: E-Branch? Now what's up? But what could be up, except that they'd maybe heard something. And sharper now, giving it
  all of his attention, he said: 'Ben, is it about Brenda?'
  'Sorry, Harry,' Trask answered at once. 'But no, it isn't about Brenda. We're still on it, of course, but. . . nothing so far. It's just that it's been quite a while now and
  we thought it was time we spoke.'
  'We?'
  'Darcy and the rest of us ...  to find out how the world's treating you, you know?' It came hard for Trask to lie. A lie-detector in his own right, it went against the
  grain.
  Harry nodded, despite that the other couldn't see him. 'I'm okay, mainly. And you people?'
  'Routine,' (Harry sensed Trask's shrug). 'Not that anything ever is routine around here! And apparently there's some weird shit in your neck of the woods, too . .
  So, this was something other than a purely social call. The Necroscope made no attempt to disguise his sourness as he inquired: 'So what is it, Ben? Can we get
  to the point? And where's Darcy? Shouldn't he be making this call?' Or are you trying to get at the 'truth' of things, eh? And what would I have to lie
  about anyway?
  'An accident - well, an incident - up there in Jock territory,' Trask answered. 'Didn't you read about  it?' But he made
  no comment on Darcy Clarke's whereabouts.
  'I only get Sunday papers,' Harry told him. 'So what are we talking about here?' The Necroscope was curious now, and cautious. Whatever it
  was, why was E-Branch talking to him about it? Something he might have been involved in? He hadn't robbed any banks in Scotland, had he?
  
  'An incident,' Trask repeated. 'On the Spey, north of the Forest of Atholl, just a couple of days ago.'
  'On the river? What kind of incident?' Curiouser and curiouser! Harry
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  and Bonnie Jean had been up that way, until she'd cried off their climb. She hadn't felt up to it. . . or  perhaps  she'd
  thought he wasn't up to it.
  'Near the river,' Trask said. 'A car went off the road and burned out. Its occupants, too. Horrific! But the police found
  a weapon, evidence of a fire fight. There were two bodies, members of a Tibetan sect. The Home Office seems to think
  there's some kind of sectarian war going on. There were already a dozen of these  types  in England and another six on
  their way in. They work - carrying 'the word,' or whatever - in teams of six. The ones  on their way in have been turned
  back, six more in London have been told to leave the country. Which leaves four of these  people still unaccounted  for
  . . .'
  'And?' the Necroscope said, when it seemed Trask was done. 'What has all of this to do with me?'
  A slight pause, and: 'It's for information only, Harry. I mean, since you happen to be up that way . . . ?'
  'I'm not your eyes and ears in Scotland, Ben. I thought  it was understood?  Now I'm out of the Branch, I'm gone for
  good.'
  Trask's voice was cooler as he answered: 'We're not asking anything, Harry. Just passing something on, that's all.'
  'Well, thanks,' the Necroscope told him, just as tersely. 'And is that it?'
  That's it.'
  Take care of yourself,' said Harry, and without waiting for an answer put the 'phone down.
  At the London end, Trask looked at Darcy Clarke standing beside him and growled, 'I didn't much like that.'
  'I could see and hear,' the other nodded. 'I understand and totally agree. Now forget it and tell me what you think.'
  Trask shook his head. 'It's a funny one,' he said. 'I got the impression he thinks he's telling the truth.'
  Thinks?'
  'From his point of view,' Trask tried to explain, 'he was telling the truth - he wasn't involved in whatever it was that
  happened up there. And yet. . .  I can't swear. I've only rarely come across this complication before.'
  'A complication?'
  'Where I trust someone's word implicitly, and so must consider my own talent suspect!  Still, I agree with you: the
  whole thing up there, whatever it is, has Necroscope stamped all over it. And by the way: the same goes for you.'
  'What's that?' Darcy didn't understand.
  That complication I mentioned?' Trask stared hard at him.  'When  it  comes  to  Harry,  I  get  much  the  same  feeling
  about you. I mean, / trust you all the way, Darcy. But somehow I get this feeling that you . . . don't!'
  *    *    *
  After Trask left his office, Darcy sat at his desk and  thought  about  it,  and  sighed.  For  he  knew  that  Trask's  talent
  wasn't in question. The esper had been right: Darcy didn't trust himself. Or at least, he didn't trust the decision he had
  made that time more than three  years  ago.  His  loyalties  continued  to  be  divided  between  Branch  security  and  the
  well-being of a friend. And Harry was still under those post-hypnotic strictures imposed by Dr James Anderson.
  Just how they were affecting his life . . .  who could say? But on the whole, Darcy liked to believe that his decision
  had been the right one. This thing with these red-robed priests out of Tibet was a case in point. Okay, so Harry wasn't
  involved - but supposing  he had been? What if these  religious fanatics had known about  his  talents  and  had  been
  hunting him down for their own purposes? Surely it was better for all concerned that Harry had been neutralized in that
  respect? Of course it was—
  —Yet still Darcy felt guilty. Well, it was something he would just have to learn to live with.
  In his house outside  Bonnyrig, the Necroscope absent-mindedly heaped pillows and sat back against them, frowned
  at  the  telephone,  and  wondered  what  all  of  that  had  been  about.  Red-robed  Tibetan  monks?  Of  course  he  knew
  something about them . . . that in some way or other they or their monastery were tied up with his future. But that was
  all. Maybe in the not so distant future he would try to find out more. But as for the recent past:
  A couple of corpses in a burned-out car, and evidence of a sectarian war? Was there a connection?  If so, it wasn't
  even beginning to make itself apparent! For the moment at least, he must let it go at that.
  It was all he could do, for the fact was that the conscious, waking Harry Keogh really didn't know a thing about  it. It
  had been excerpted from his life like a page lost from a manuscript, and there was only one person who could rewrite it.
  Since she wasn't likely to, or wasn't ready to, for now it had become a part of the lost years . . .
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Necroscope/EXTRA/Novel/Necroscope the Lost Years/The Lost Years Volume 1 - Brian Lumley.pdf