That was why she had told him to go missing for a while: because of all the trouble that was brewing. Well, fine, except he was still missing! A week had gone by and Zahanine was sick to death of these seemingly interminable six-hour shifts spent watching his place. But it was one of only two places B.J. had known to look. The second was her wine-bar in town, where even now one of the other girls would be keeping watch for him.
Distracted by her own thought processes, bored by tedium, and no longer concentrating on the job, Zahanine almost failed to notice the flickering headlight beams sweeping briefly over the night’s faintly glowing horizon and painting the stonework of the old bridge across the river yellow. The bridge was half a mile down the road. And by the time she’d used her sleeve to clear a patch in the lightly misted windscreen, there was only a tell-tale splash of yellow on the far side of the water, rapidly fading to darkness. So that even now she wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that a vehicle had crossed the bridge. But at least it had served to waken her up a little.
Zahanine got out of her car and trained her glasses on the black silhouette of the old house. Was that a yellow glow over the rooftops—suddenly switched off—leaving the ridge and chimney even darker against the velvet sheen of the night? And now she felt a certain elation, that perhaps her vigil wasn’t in vain after all.
Seconds, then minutes ticked by, and a light came on downstairs. Then another, upstairs, in the bedroom. Harry was back!
Zahanine started up the car, drove a mile into Bonnyrig—a public telephone box—and calling B.J. told her what she’d seen. Then she suggested: “I could put a note in his letterbox, let him know where you are?”
“No, nothing like that!” B.J. cautioned. “No notes or letters. Nothing that might tell someone else where we are! First let me speak to him. Call me again in five minutes.”
And five minutes later Zahanine did just that. But on the other end of the line B.J. was furious. “His phone is off the hook!” she said. “Either he’s using it—or he’s still afraid of the damn thing! But time is wasting, so don’t ask me about that …” And after a moment’s thoughtful silence:
“Maybe he just doesn’t want to be disturbed, doesn’t want to have to identify himself,” she said. “It’s possible he went back to pick up a few things. I don’t know—but you can find out. Zahanine, he knows you. Go to the house and tell him where I am. No written messages, but a spoken one. After that he can make his own way here or come with you, whichever. But if he’s going to be in the house any length of time, tell him to be on his guard. And tell him to put the phone on the hook so I can speak to him. And you can give him my phone number—but make him remember it. Don’t write it down! Now tell me, did you get all that?”
“Yes,” Zahanine answered, breathlessly. “I’m to go to him, tell him where you are, give him your number—but in his head. I’m to tell him to be careful if he’s going to be in the house for a while. If he’s not, then he can come with me or make his own way to you. That’s it.”
“Good! Go now …”
Two or three minutes to get back to Harry’s place. There was a car parked on the rutted track behind the house. Zahanine parked a hundred yards away, approached as quietly as she could on foot. This was simply so as not to alarm Harry. Then she was up the path and knocking on the door. From inside, no response, utter silence—but the upstairs lights went out!
Zahanine waited a minute or so, then knocked again, calling softly, “Harry, it’s me, Zahanine, one of B.J.’s girls …”
And as the door oh-so-swiftly opened, an oddly-accented voice behind her said, “Why, so it is!” But it wasn’t Harry’s voice.
Zahanine was feral-eyed in the dark, night-sighted as all B.J.’s moon-children. The man in the doorway was medium height, had slightly tilted eyes—and was yellow. Asiatic! As for the one behind her: he’d be cut of much the same cloth. Drakuls!
Twisting her supple body, Zahanine let fly with a foot to the groin of the one before her, at the same time striking with the edge of her hand at the one behind. Her foot found its soft target, but the one behind leaned backwards out of range—and fired his silenced handgun from no more than four feet away. It made a sound like a big cat spitting.
The bullet hit her on the inside of her left breast, went deep, lodged beside her heart. And it was a silver bullet. The assassin had slow-healing sores on his fingers, cracked flesh, from filling his weapon’s magazine with silver bullets.
Zahanine was lifted from her feet and tossed back into the crouched, moaning form of the man in the doorway where he cradled his aching testicles. Her sudden weight knocked him off his feet, bowling him over in the narrow corridor. The pair of them went sprawling. The one outside looked back into the darkness—glanced this way and that furtively, and sniffed the air with a flattened nose—then pointed his gun straight ahead and moved inside. Closing the door, he dropped the catch on the security lock.
Zahanine was on her feet, her hands pressed to her chest. Wild, wolfish, she bared sharp white teeth, turned, and kicked again at the one crumpled on the floor as she stepped over him. Then she fled, stumbled, went bouncing from wall to wall along the corridor, and finally lurched headlong into Harry’s study. But the one with the gun was right behind her, and as she made for the patio doors he fired again.
The first bullet was a white-hot agony, as if someone had slid a poker into her chest. And it was a pain that would kill her, Zahanine knew, even without the second shot. But at least that one put an end to the pain.
Caught up again in the same massive fist, her spine shattered, she was driven through the patio doors in a tearing of glass and a splintering of narrow mullions.
Face down in the garden she lay, bloodied and dying. And her killer put his gun away, caught up her ankles, and yanked her backwards through broken glass into the room. Barely conscious, she didn’t even feel it …
When the killer’s companion was able to come from the corridor, he found him between her legs, tearing her flimsy underclothes away. And: “Eh?” he groaned in their own tongue. “What are you doing? Is the bitch dead?” He continued to gentle his sore testicles.
“She’s dying,” the other grunted. “And much too soon. But let’s face it, she wasn’t going to be taken alive.”
“You should take care,” the other cautioned. “She could be a lieutenant!”
“No,” the one on the floor gasped as he entered the girl, at the same time sucking at the scarlet hole in her breast. But he paused to explain, “If she was … right now there’d be hell to pay! We’d have to burn the house down. It would attract attention, and perhaps alert Mr. Kyle or his werewolf bitch! That is something we can’t—uh!—afford.”
“But what you’re doing … would Drakesh approve?”
The killer looked back over his shoulder, said, “I don’t know, and I can’t ask him. But compared to those docile, flat-chested cows in the walled city, this one is just ripe for it! And she’s a member of the pack. The last Drakul told us to get the job done, not how to do it. Myself, I’ve gone without long enough. And you—you’re putting me off. So go and search her car, find her handbag, anything. But let me get done—uh!—fucking her.”
His partner turned away, and over his shoulder said, “In that case you can fuck her for me, too!” And he went achingly back down the corridor.
Grinding away in the girl, the vampire on the floor felt her body begin to shudder, vibrate. Looking directly into her face, he saw her eyes open and blaze up yellow! He sensed her enormous effort; he felt the contraction of exhausted muscles, and gaped his disbelief as Zahanine’s arms bent at the elbows and her hands came off the floor. Her nails were long … and they were bleeding.
Bleeding, as they elongated from the quick and thickened into hooked claws. He felt their trembling—those shivering, shuddering claws—jerked back his face as they oh-so-gently touched him. A mere touch, that left five scarlet tracks down each side, from the orbits of his eyes to his quivering chin, as he
wrenched himself free!
Zahanine’s first—and final—attempt at metamorphism, the true lycanthropy.
But it was over. Her claws shrank back into fingers; her arms flopped to the floor; her eyes glazed and slowly closed, as she breathed a wolfs last breath. Breathed it out and out … until it was gone.
Her killer cursed, adjusted his clothing, headed for the kitchen to see if he could find a meat cleaver. And on Harry Keogh’s desk the telephone went purrrrrrrr where it had been lifted from its cradle …
Francesco Francezci had flown in from Sicily around midnight. Three of his own people—a youngish, good-looking lieutenant called Vincent Ragusa, a senior thrall, Guy Tanziano (or “Dancer”), and the Francezci pilot Luigi Manoza—had accompanied him. Staying at the airport hotel overnight, the four men had tidied up before meeting in Francesco’s suite.
“This is how it is,” he told the others. “Tomorrow, first light, Vincent flies up to Edinburgh and joins up with a long-time ‘friend’ of ours, Angus McGowan. McGowan has been in Scotland—oh, just about forever! He knows his way around. Knows the country, the people and their customs—and he knows where Radu is. Close enough, anyway. Radu’s actual location, his den or lair—that won’t be known until the last minute. Unless we get lucky. But somewhere in a little village in the Spey Valley there’s a thrall, a moon-child: a man or maybe a woman with too much fucking wolf in him! And this thrall of the dog-Lord does know where Radu is, definitely.
“So that’s where you and Angus McGowan are going, Vincent: looking for Radu’s friend or friends in the Cairngorms. In the event you find them, McGowan knows what to do. You’ll take your orders from him. Remember, McGowan has been one of ours, a lieutenant, for a very long time—longer than you’ve lived. He’ll know you, and he’ll pick you up at Edinburgh airport. So those are the arrangements. Any questions?”
The others around the table were at ease; Vincent Ragusa, less so. Waiting for him to speak up, if he intended to, Tanziano and Manoza looked at him, then at Francesco or “the Francezci,” as they thought of him.
Wamphyri, Francesco was adaptable. In “high” Sicilian society he would be, and was, eminently acceptable. On a rainy day at Ascot in the Royal Enclosure, he would seem, and had seemed, perfectly at home. But when in Rome—or in London in the company of lieutenants and common thralls—he could just as easily do and say as they did. And think that way, too.
Ragusa was maybe five-nine, slender, and handsome with an Italian vampire’s good looks. Of old Mafiosi stock, he dressed expensively but tastelessly. Shrugging, and managing to look a little disappointed, he said, “You know, I was hoping to join up with Jimmy and Frank? They’re my boys. I mean, you and Anthony put me in charge of them, back at Le Manse Madonie.”
“Your boys, yes …” Francesco nodded understandingly—or perhaps not—and after a moment’s thought said: “The thing is, you’re all our boys. And this isn’t Le Manse Madonie. It’s England, and later Scotland. And we didn’t plan ahead for the fun of it, and we aren’t here for the fun of it. You and McGowan up in Scotland: two strong lieutenants looking out for each other, eh? And a little later Luigi, too? Three of you? That gives you real strength. And myself, Dancer, Jimmy and Frank down here in London? That makes us a strong team, too. Then, finally, we all join up, and we’re unbeatable … Now, have you got that?”
Ragusa nodded his understanding, but said, “It’s like—I don’t know—a lot of guys to waste just one lousy dog!”
Francesco sighed and narrowed his eyes. His jet-black nostrils gaped a little. But then he grinned—which would be fine except that his grin widened, and widened. Until finally: “Vincent,” he husked. “Your grandfather was a Don; he is dead. Your father was a Don; he’s dead, too. So who knows, maybe it’s something that runs in the family? All that power—and they still wind up dead! And now you. More power coming your way than your ancestors would ever believe. More to live for, a lot more. And longer, much longer to live and enjoy it. Yet now and then, the way you talk …” He shook his now terrible head. A bad sign.
“Hey, Francesco, I’m sorry,” Ragusa saw his error. “Like, no offence, right? I mean, I know this Radu is something big, but …”
Francesco stopped grinning, stuck his face forward across the small table where they sat, snarled, “Vincent, let me tell you something. This Radu could drive a hand through your navel, grab your liver and pick you up by it, and before you had time to start screaming bite your fucking face off!” His jaws gaped wide and his eyes were the colour of blood. “Yes, and for that matter—” he said, his voice dying to a hoarse whisper, “—so could I.”
“I … I didn’t mean … !” Ragusa’s face, always pale, was now white as chalk.
“You don’t mean fuck!” Francesco said. “So, that’s it—it’s dealt with.” He slapped his hands together in a slicing, dismissive motion. “You’ll do exactly as I tell you. But just to be absolutely sure: are there any more questions?”
“Nothing,” Ragusa shook his head, held up his hands placatingly, palms facing outwards. “No questions, no—nothing—uh-uh!”
Francesco scowled, sat back, and as if Vincent Ragusa no longer existed said: “Luigi, you know what your job is. What’s this problem with the, the … what are they called?”
“The CAA,” Manoza answered. “Civil Aviation Authority. I have to register with them, that’s all. They’ll issue a temporary licence. Anyway, we have a contact on their exec. I can buy him if we’re pushed for time. No problem.”
“Sort it out,” Francesco told him. “We’re going to need a chopper and soon. And it has to be able to carry more than our machine back in Sicily.
“Now listen everyone, I want you to remember our ‘reason’ for being here. We’re scouting a location for a movie. A climbing movie, probably in the Scottish Highlands. The British will stand to make lots of money from it—and the British authorities are worse than Americans when it comes to money. Likewise the Scots, and not only by reputation. So, if you want co-operation, try flashing some high-denomination dollars! It’ll work here like anywhere else.” Grinning a normal grin this time, he turned again to Manoza.
“When you’ve got a plane—and if I’m still in London—we’ll fly up to Scotland. The rest of us, that is. But first I have a little business here. It’s possible we have a real line on the intruder. We may finally find out who he is and why and how he hit our vault at Le Manse Madonie. And then I’ll make sure he can’t do it—can’t do anything—ever again.”
And lastly, to Guy Tanziano: “Dancer, you stay with me.”
Tanziano—bullet-headed, six foot tall and sixteen stone, yet light as a dancer on his feet—a common thrall with an uncommon appetite and reputation for brutality, merely nodded.
The meeting was over …
Darcy Clarke took Harry to King’s Cross in the greyest, ghostliest hours of morning when the ragged ones are out: discarded pages from yesterday’s newsprint, drifting aloft on the draughts from canyon street-junctions. Those ragged ones, and the other sort: the stumbling kind, with their bottles of nameless stuff in paper bags. Both sorts were thinning out, however, and disappearing wherever they disappear to. London was coming awake, however slowly, and the station already noisy, thronging with people. The Necroscope caught the first train north.
He had seemed irritable, and Darcy himself wasn’t entirely awake yet, or he might have simply dropped Harry at the station and returned to E-Branch HQ. Finally, on his way back, suddenly he realized what the problem had been—and felt like kicking himself. The Necroscope would have preferred to go home by his own route, maybe, but he hadn’t been able to because Darcy was in the way. Oh, well, too late now.
But in fact it wasn’t.
The train was barely fifteen minutes out of the station before Harry bought himself a paper cup of vile coffee in the buffet car. Then, swaying right on through the cramped buffet area into the first-class coach, he checked the passengers.
There were only a handfu
l of them, reading newspapers and magazines, all facing forward and away from him. And no one in the buffet car behind him. Perfect.
Without thinking about it (because he knew that if he did he wouldn’t), he conjured a Möbius door and stepped through it, and out again into his study in Edinburgh …
… Where he dropped his coffee from nerveless fingers! And before he was capable of rational thought, he thought: This has to be my punishment for using the Continuum!
His coffee had splashed the naked thigh of the black girl, the black and red girl, where he had stumbled over her. Zahanine! … One of B.J.’s girls! … Dead! … Here!
Still without thinking what he was doing, numb, he went to the kitchen and came back with paper towels, got down and wiped the cold coffee from her thigh—then slowly balled the towels, tossed them aside, and jerked spastically to his feet.
Coffee? Jesus God in heaven—coffee? A black bullet hole gaped in the girl’s left breast; her skirt was bunched up round her waist, and her blouse was stuck to the throw rug with dried blood! Indeed, the rug was drenched in blood! Worse, Zahanine’s head lay under Harry’s desk where it had been kicked, three or four feet from her body. A bloody meat cleaver lay there, too.
And this charnel house was his study.
The Necroscope stumbled back from the girl’s body—from everything—and fell into his chair; and sprang out of it at once as he heard a car pull up out front.
In the corridor, still not knowing what he was doing, but trying desperately hard to pull it all together, Harry went to the door and found it shut but unlocked. As he reached to engage the security catch, he heard footsteps that paused beyond the door, a double knock, and a breathless: “Harry?”
B.J.! He yanked open the door, fell back against the wall of the corridor. She stepped inside, took one look at him … and his expression must have said it all. Then: