Necroscope II: Wamphyri

Chapter Twelve

   

  Genoa is a city of contrasts. From the low-level poverty in the cobbled alleys and sleazy bars of its waterfront areas, to its high-rise luxury apartments looking down on the streets from broad windows and spacious sun-balconies; from the immaculate swimming pools of the rich to the dirty, oil-blackened beaches; from the shadowy, claustrophobic labyrinthine alleys down in the guts of the city to the airy, hugely proportioned stradas and piazzas - contrast is everywhere evident. Gracious gardens give way to chasms of concrete, the comparative silence of select residential suburbs is torn cityward by blasts of traffic noise which lessen not at all through the night, and the sweet air of the higher levels gives way to dust and blue exhaust fumes in the congested, sunless slums. Built on a mountainside, Genoa's levels are many and dizzying.

  British Intelligence's safe house there was an enormous top-floor flat in a towering block overlooking the Corso Aurelio Saffi. To the front, facing the ocean, the block rose five high-ceilinged storeys above the road; at the rear, because its foundations were sunk into the summit of a fang of rock, with the building perched on its rim, there was a second level three floors deeper. The aspect from the stubby, low-walled rear balconies was vertiginous, and especially so to Jason Cornwell, alias 'Mr Brown'.

  Genoa', Sunday, 9. 00 P. M. - but in Romania Harry Keogh was still talking to the vampire-hunters in their suite of rooms in lonesti, and would soon set off to follow his life-thread into the near future and in Devon, Yulian Bodescu continued to worry about the men who were watching him and worked out a plan to discover who they were and what their interest was. But here in Genoa Jason Cornwell sat thin-lipped and stiffly erect in his chair and watched Theo Dolgikh using a kitchen knife to pick the rotten mortar out of the stonework of the balcony's already dangerous wall. And the sweat on Cornwell's upper lip and in his armpits had little or nothing to do with Genoa's sticky, sultry Indian summer atmosphere.

  But it did have to do with the fact that Dolgikh had caught him out, trapped the British spider in his own web, right here in this safe house. Normally the flat would be occupied by a staff of two or three other secret service agents, but because Cornwell (or 'Brown') was busy with stuff beyond the scope of ordinary espionage - a specialist job, as it were - the regular occupiers had been 'called away' on other work, leaving the premises suitably empty and accessible to Brown alone.

  Brown had taken Dolgikh on Saturday, but only a little more than twenty-four hours later the Russian had managed to turn the tables. Feigning sleep, Dolgikh had waited until Sunday noon when Brown went out for a glass of beer and a sandwich, then had worked frenziedly to free himself from the ropes that bound him. When Brown returned fifty minutes later, Dolgikh had taken him completely by surprise. Later. . . Brown had come to with a start, mind and flesh simultaneously assaulted by smelling salts squirted into his nostrils and sharp kicks in his sensitive places. He'd found their positions reversed, for now he was tied in the chair while Dolgikh was the one with the smile. Except that the Russian's smile was that of a hyena.

  There had been one thing - really only one - that Dolgikh wanted to know: where were Krakovitch, Kyle and co now? It was quite obvious to the Russian that he'd been taken out of the game deliberately, which might possibly mean that it was being played for high stakes. Now it was his intention to get back in.

  'I don't know where they are,' Brown had told him. 'I'm just a minder. I mind people and I mind my own business. '

  Dolgikh, whose English was good however guttural, wasn't having any. If he couldn't find out where the espers were, that was the end of his mission. His next job would likely be in Siberia! 'How did they get on to me?'

  'I got on to you. Recognised your ugly face - details of which I've already passed on to London. As for them recognising you: without me they wouldn't have been able to spot you in a monkey-house at the zoo! Not that that would mean a lot. .

  'If you told them about me, they must have told you why they wanted me stopped. And they probably told you where they were going. Now you'll tell me. '

  'I can't do that. '

  At that Dolgikh had come very close, no longer smiling. 'Mr Secret Agent, minder, or whatever you are, you are in a lot of trouble. The trouble is this: that unless you co-operate I will surely kill you. Krakovitch and his soldier friend are traitors, for they must at least have knowledge of this. You told them I was here; they gave you your orders, or at least went along with those orders. I am a field agent outside my country, working against my country's enemies. I will not hesitate to kill you if you are obstinate, but things will get very unpleasant before you die. Do you understand me?'

  Brown had understood well enough. 'All this talk of killing,' he tut-tutted. 'I could have killed you many times over, but those weren't my instructions. I was to delay you, that's all. Why blow it up bigger than it is?'

  'Why are the British espers working with Krakovitch?

  What are they doing? The trouble with this psychic gang is this: both sides think they're bigger than the rest of us. They think mind should rule the world and not muscle. But you and me and the others like us, we know that's not the way it is. The strongest always wins. The great warrior triumphs while the great thinker is still thinking about it. Like you and me. You do what they tell you and I work from instinct. And I'm the one on top. '

  'Are you? Is that why you use the threat of death?'

  'Last chance, Mr Minder. Where are they?'

  Still Brown wasn't saying anything. He merely smiled and gritted his teeth.

  Dolgikh had no more time to waste. He was an expert in interrogation, which on this occasion meant torture. Basically, there are two types of torture: mental and physical. Just looking at Brown, Dolgikh guessed that pain alone wouldn't crack him. Not in the short term. Anyway, Dolgikh wasn't carrying the rather special tools he'd require. He could always improvise but. . . it wouldn't be the same. Also, he didn't wish to mark Brown; not initially, anyway. It must, therefore, be psychological - fear!

  And the Russian had discovered Brown's weakness at the very first pass. 'You'll notice,' he told the British agent conversationally, 'that while you are securely trussed, a far better job than you did on me, I have not in fact bound you to the chair. ' Then 'he had opened tall louvre doors leading out onto a shallow rear balcony. 'I assume you've been out here to admire the view?'

  Brown had gone pale in a moment.

  'Oh?' Dolgikh was onto him in a flash. 'Something about heights, my friend?' He had dragged Brown's chair out onto the balcony, then swung it sharply round so that Brown was thrown against the wall. Six inches of brick and mortar and a crumbling plaster finish saved him from space and gravity. And his face told the whole story.

  Dolgikh had left him there, hurried through the flat and checked out his suspicion. Sure enough, he found every window and balcony door shuttered, closing off not only the light but the height. Especially the height! Mr Brown suffered from vertigo.

  And after that it had been a different game entirely.

  The Russian had dragged Brown back inside and positioned him in his chair six feet from the balcony. Then he'd taken a kitchen knife and started to loosen the masonry of the wall, in plain view of the helpless agent. As he'd worked, so he'd explained what he was about.

  'Now we're going to start again and I will ask you certain questions. If you answer correctly - which is to say truthfully and without obstruction - then you stay right where you are. Better still, you stay alive. But every time you fail to answer or tell a lie I shall move you a little closer to the balcony and loosen more of the mortar. Naturally, I'll become frustrated if you don't play the game my way. Indeed, I shall probably lose my temper. In which case I may be tempted to throw you against the wall again. Except that the next time I do that, the wall will be so much weaker. .

  And so the game had begun.

  That had be
en about 7. 00 P. M. and now it was 9. 00 P. M. ; the face of the balcony wall, which had become the focus of Brown's entire being, was now thoroughly defaced and many of the bricks were visibly loose. Worse, Brown's chair now stood with its front legs on the balcony itself, no more than three feet from the wall. Beyond that wall the city's silhouette and the mountains behind it were sprinkled with twinkling lights.

  Dolgikh stood up from his handiwork, scuffed at the rubble with his feet, sadly shook his head. 'Well, Mr Minder, you have done quite well - but not quite well enough. Now, as I suspected might be the case, I am tired and a little frustrated. You have told me many things, some important and others unimportant, but you have not yet told me what I most want to know. My patience is at an end. '

  He moved to stand behind Brown, and pushed the chair gratingly forward, right up to the wall. Brown's chin came level with the top, which faced him only eighteen inches away. 'Do you want to live, Mr Minder?' Dolgikh's voice was soft and deadly.

  In fact the Russian fully intended to kill Brown, if only to pay him back for yesterday. From Brown's point of view, Dolgikh had no need to kill him; it would be a pointless exercise and could only queer it for Dolgikh with British Intelligence, who would doubtless place him on their 'long overdue' list. But from the Russian's viewpoint. . . he was already on several lists. And in any case, murder was something he enjoyed. Brown couldn't he absolutely sure of Dolgikh's intentions, however, and where there's life there's always hope.

  The trussed agent looked across the top of the wall at Genoa's myriad lights. 'London will know who did it if you - ' he started to say, then gave a small shriek as Dolgikh jerked the chair violently. Brown opened his eyes, drew breath raggedly, sat gulping, trembling, close to fainting. There was really only one thing in the world that he feared, and here it was right in front of him. The reason he'd become useless to the SAS. He could feel the emptiness underneath him as if he were already falling.

  'Well,' said the Russian, sighing, 'I can't say it was a Pleasure knowing you - but I'm sure it will be a great pleasure not knowing you! And so - '

  'Wait!' Brown gasped. 'Promise me you'll take me back inside if I tell you. '

  Dolgikh shrugged. 'I shall only kill you if you make me. Not answering will be more suicide than murder. '

  Brown licked his lips. Hell, it was his life! Kyle and the others had their head start. He'd done enough. 'Romania, Bucharest!' he blurted. 'They took a plane last night, to get into Bucharest around midnight. '

  Dolgikh stepped beside him, cocked his head on one side and looked down at his sweating, upturned face. 'You know that I only have to telephone the airport and check?'

  'Of course,' Brown sobbed. His tears were open and unashamed. His nerve had gone entirely. 'Now get me inside. '

  The Russian smiled. 'I shall be delighted. ' He stepped out of Brown's view. The agent felt him sawing with his knife at the ropes where they bound his wrists behind him. The ropes parted, and Brown groaned as he brought his arms round in front of him. Stiff with cramp, he could hardly move them. Dolgikh cut his feet free and collected up the short lengths of rope. Brown made an effort, started to rise unsteadily to his feet -

  - And without warning the Russian put both hands on his back and used all his strength to push him forward. Brown cried out, sprawled forward, went crashing over and through the wall into space. Fancy brickwork, fragments of plaster and mortar fell with him.

  Dolgikh hawked and spat after him, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. From far below there came a single heavy thud and the crashing of fallen masonry.

  Moments later the Russian put on Brown's lightweight overcoat, left the flat and wiped the doorknob behind him. He took the lift to the ground floor and left the building, walking unhurriedly. Fifty yards down the road he stopped a taxi and asked to be taken to the airport.

  On the way he wound down the window, tossed out a few short lengths of rope. The driver, busy with the traffic, didn't see him .

  By 11. 00 that night, Theo Dolgikh had been in touch with his immediate superior in Moscow and was already on his way to Bucharest. If Dolgikh hadn't been incapacitated for the past twenty-four hours - if he'd had the chance to contact his controller earlier - he would have discovered where Kyle, Krakovitch and the others had gone without killing Mr Brown for that information. Not that it mattered greatly, for he knew he would have killed him anyway.

  Moreover, he could have learned something of what the espers were doing there in Romania, that in fact they were searching for. . . something in the ground? Dolgikh's controller hadn't wanted to be more specific than that. Treasure, maybe? Dolgikh couldn't imagine, and he wasn't really interested. He put the question out of his mind. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't good for Russia, and that was enough for him.

  Now, crammed in the tiny seat of the passenger aircraft as it sped across the northern Adriatic, he tilted himself backwards a little and relaxed, allowing his mind to drift with the hum of the engines .

  Romania. The region around lonesti. Something in the ground. It was all very strange.

  Strangest of all, Dolgikh's 'controller' was one of them

  - one of these damned psychic spies, whom Andropov so heartily detested! The KGB man closed his eyes and chuckled. What would Krakovitch's reaction be, he wondered, when he eventually discovered that the traitor in his precious E-Branch was his own Second in Command, a man called Ivan Gerenko?

  Yulian Bodescu had not spent a pleasant night. Even the presence of his beautiful cousin in his bed - her lovely body his to use in whichever way amused him - had not compensated for his nightmares and fantasies and frustrated half-memories out of a past not entirely his own.

  It was all down to the watchers, Yulian supposed, those damned busybodies whose spying (For what purpose? What did they know? What were they trying to find out?) over the last forty-eight hours had become an almost unbearable irritation. Oh, he no longer had any real cause to fear them - George Lake was fine ashes, and the three women would never dare go against Yulian - but still the men were there! Like an itch you can't scratch. Or one you aren't able to reach - for the moment. Yes, it was down to them.

  They had brought on Yulian's nightmares, his dreams of wooden stakes, steel swords and bright, searing flames. As for those other dreams: of low hills in the shape of a cross, tall dark trees, and of a Thing in the ground that called and called to him, beckoning with fingers that dripped blood. . . Yulian was not quite sure what he should make of them.

  For he had been there - actually there, on the cruciform hills - the night his father died. He had been a mere foetus in his mother's womb when it had happened, he knew that, but what else had happened that time? His roots were there, anyway, Yulian felt sure of that. But the fact remained that there was only one way he could ever be absolutely sure, and that would be to answer the call and go there. Indeed a trip to Romania might well be useful in solving two problems at once; for with the secret watchers out there in the fields and lanes around Harkley, now was probably as good a time as any to make himself scarce for a while.

  Except. . . first he would like to know what the real purpose of those watchers was. Were they merely suspicious, or did they actually know something? And if so, what did they intend to do about it? Yulian had already developed a plan to get those questions answered. It was just a matter of getting it right, that was all .

  The sky was cloudy and the morning dull that Monday when Yulian rose up from his bed. He told Helen to bathe, dress herself prettily, go about the house and grounds just as if her life were completely normal, unchanged. He dressed and went down to the cellars, where he gave the same instructions to Anne. Likewise his mother in her room. Just act naturally and let nothing appear suspicious; indeed, Helen could even drive him into Torquay for an hour or two.

  They were followed into Torquay but Yulian was not aware of it. He was distracted b
y the sun, which kept breaking through the clouds and reflecting off mirrors, windows and chrome. He still affected his broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses, but his hatred of the sun - and its effect on him - were much stronger now. The car's mirrors irritated him; his reflection in the windows and other bright surfaces disturbed him; his vampire 'awareness' was playing hell with his nerves. He felt closed in. Danger threatened and he knew it - but from which quarter? What sort of danger?

  While Helen waited in the car, three storeys up in a municipal car park, he went to a travel agency and made inquiries, then gave instructions. This took a little time, for the holiday he had chosen was outside the usual scope of the agency. He wanted to spend a week in Romania. Yulian might simply have phoned one of London's airports and made a booking, but he preferred to let an authorised agency advise him on restrictions, visas, etc. This way there would be no errors, no last minute hold-ups. Also, Yulian couldn't stay penned up in Harkley House forever; driving into town had at least given him a break from routine, from his watchers, and from the increasing pressures of being a creature alone. What was more, the drive had let him keep up appearances: Helen was his pretty cousin down from London, and he and she were simply out for a drive, enjoying what was left of the good weather. So it would appear.

  After making his travel arrangements (the agency would ring him within forty-eight hours and let him have all the details) Yulian took Helen for lunch. While she ate listlessly and tried desperately hard not to look fearful of him, he sipped a glass of red wine and smoked a cigarette. He might have tried a steak, rare, but food - ordinary food - no longer appealed. Instead he found himself watching Helen's throat. He was aware of the danger in that, however, and so concentrated his mind on the details of his plan for tonight instead. Certainly he did not intend to stay hungry for very long.

  By 1. 30 P. M. they had driven back to Harkley; and then, too, Yulian had briefly picked up the thoughts of another watcher. He'd tried to infiltrate the stranger's mind but it immediately shut him out. They were clever, these watchers! Furious, he raged inwardly through the afternoon and could scarcely contain himself until the fall of night.

  Peter Keen was a comparatively recent recruit to INTESP's team of parapsychologists. A sporadic telepath, (his talent, as yet untrained, came in uncontrolled, unannounced bursts, and was wont to depart just as quickly and mysteriously) he'd been recruited after tipping off the police on a murder-to-be. He had accidentally scanned the mind - the dark intention - of the would-be rapist and murderer. When it happened just as he'd said it would, a high-ranking policeman, a friend of the branch, had passed details on to INTESP. The job in Devon was Keen's first field assignment, for until now all of his time had been spent with his instructors.

  Yulian Bodescu was under full twenty-four hour surveillance now, and Keen had the mid-morning shift, 8. 00 A. M. till 2. 00 P. M. At 1. 30 when the girl had driven Bodescu back through Harkley's gates and up to the house, Keen had been only two hundred yards behind in his red Capri. Driving straight past Harkley, he'd stopped at the first telephone kiosk and phoned headquarters, passing on details of Bodescu's outing.

  At the hotel in Paignton, Darcy Clarke took Keen's call and passed the telephone to the man in charge of the operation, a jolly, fat, middle-aged chain-smoking 'scryer' called Guy Roberts. Normally Roberts would be in London, employing his scrying to track Russian submarines, terrorist bomb squads and the like, but now he was here as head of operations, keeping his mental eye on Yulian Bodescu.

  Roberts had found the task not at all to his liking and far from easy. The vampire is a solitary creature whose nature it is to be secretive. There is that in a vampire's mental makeup which shields him as effectively as the night screens his physical being. Roberts could see Harkley House only as a vague, shadowy place, as a scene viewed through dense, weaving mist. When Bodescu was there this mental miasma rolled that much more densely, making it difficult for Roberts to pinpoint any specific person or object.

  Practice makes perfect, however, and the longer Roberts stayed with it the clearer his pictures were coming. He could now state for certain, for instance, that Harkley House was occupied by only four people:

  Bodescu, his mother, his aunt and her daughter. But there was something else there, too. Two somethings, in fact. One of them was Bodescu's dog, but obscured by the same aura, which was very strange. And the other was - simply 'the Other'. Like Yulian himself, Roberts thought of it only that way. But whatever it was - in all likelihood the thing in the cellars which Alec Kyle had warned about - it was certainly there and it was alive .

  'Roberts here,' the scryer spoke into the telephone. 'What is it, Peter?'

  Keen passed his message.

  'Travel agency?' Roberts frowned. 'Yes, we'll get on to it at once. Your relief? He's on his way right now. Trevor Jordan, yes. See you later, Peter. ' Roberts put down the telephone and picked up a directory. Moments later he was phoning the travel agency in Torquay, whose name and address Keen had given him.

  When he got an answer, Roberts held a handkerchief to his mouth, contrived a young voice. 'Hello? Er, hello?'

  'Hello?' came back the answer. 'Sunsea Travel, here - who's calling, please?' It was a male voice, deep and smooth.

  'Seem to have a bad line,' Roberts replied, keeping his voice to a medium pitch. 'Can you hear me? I was in, oh, an hour ago. Mr Bodescu?'

  'Ah, yes, sir!' The booking agent raised his voice. 'Your Romanian inquiry. Bucharest, any time in the next two weeks. Right?' Roberts gave a start, made an effort to keep his muffled voice even. 'Er, Romania, yes, that's right. ' He thought fast - furiously fast. 'Er, look, I'm sorry to be a nuisance, but - '

  'Yes?'

  'Well, I've decided I can't make it after all. Maybe next year, eh?'

  'Ah!' There was some disappointment in the other's tone. 'Well, that's the way it goes. Thanks for

  calling, sir. So you're definitely cancelling, right?'

  'Yes. ' Roberts jiggled the phone a bit. 'I'm afraid I have to. . . Damn bad line, this! Anyway, something's come up, and - ,

  'Well, don't worry about it, Mr Bodescu,' the travel agent cut him off. 'It happens all the time. And anyway, I haven't yet found the time to make any real inquiries. So no harm done. But do let me know if you change your mind again, won't you?'

  'Oh, indeed! I will, I will. Most helpful of you. Sorry to have been such a nuisance. '

  'Not at all, sir. Bye now. '

  'Er, goodbye!' Roberts put the phone down.

  Darcy Clarke, who had been party to this exchange, said, 'Sheer genius! Well done, Chief!'

  Roberts looked up but didn't smile. 'Romania!' he repeated, ominously. 'Things are hotting up, Darcy. I'll be glad when Kyle gets his call through. He's two hours overdue. '

  At that very moment the phone rang again.

  Clarke inclined his head knowingly. 'Now that's what I call a talent. If it doesn't happen - make it!'

  Roberts pictured Romania in his mind's eye - his own interpretation, for he'd never been there - then superimposed an image of Alec Kyle over a rugged Romanian countryside. He closed his eyes and Kyle's picture came up in photographic - no, live - detail.

  'Roberts here. '

  'Guy?' Kyle's voice came back, crisp with static. 'Listen, I intended to route this through London, John Grieve, but I couldn't get him. ' Roberts knew what he meant: obviously he would have liked the call to be one hundred per cent secure.

  'I can't help you there,' he answered. 'There's no one that special around right now. Are there problems, then?'

  'Shouldn't think so. ' In the eye of Roberts's mind, Kyle was frowning. 'We lacked a bit of privacy in Genoa, but that cleared up. As for why I'm late: it's like contacting Mars getting through from here! Talk about antiquated systems. If I didn't have local help. . . anyway, have you got anything for me?
'

  'Can we talk straight?'

  'We'll have to. '

  Roberts quickly brought him up to date, finishing with Bodescu's thwarted trip to Romania. In his mind's eye he saw, as well as physically hearing, Kyle's gasp of horror. Then the head of INTESP got hold of his emotions; even if Bodescu's plans to come over here hadn't been foiled, still it would have been too late for him.

  'By the time we've finished over here,' he grimly told Roberts, 'there'll be nothing left for him anyway. And by the time you've finished over there. . . he won't be able to go anywhere. ' Then he told Roberts in detail exactly what he wanted done. It took him a good fifteen minutes to make sure he covered everything.

  'When?' Roberts asked him when he was finished.

  Kyle was cautious. 'Are you part of the surveillance team? I mean, do you physically go out to the house and watch him?'

  'No. I co-ordinate. I'm always here at the HO. But I do want to be in on the kill. '

  'Very well, I'll tell you when it's to be,' said Kyle. 'But you're not to pass it on to the others! Not until as close as possible to zero hour itself. I don't want Bodescu picking it out of someone's mind. '

  'That makes sense. Wait - ' Roberts sent Clarke into the next room, out of earshot. 'OK, when?'

  'Tomorrow - in daylight. Let's settle for 5. 00 P. M. your time. By then we'll have done our bit, just an hour or so earlier. There are certain obvious reasons why daylight will be best, and on your side of the job one not so obvious reason. When Harkley goes up, it'll make a big blaze. You'll need to make sure local fire services don't get there too soon and put it out. If it was at night, the flames would be visible for miles. Anyway, that's for you to work on. But the last thing you want is outside interference, OK?'

  'Got it,' said Roberts.

  'That's it, then,' said Kyle. 'We probably won't be talking again until it's all finished. So good luck!'

  'Good luck,' Roberts answered, letting Kyle's face fade in his mind as he replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  Most of Monday found Harry Keogh trying without success to break the magnetic attraction of his son's psyche. There was no way. The child fought him, clung to both Harry and the waking world alike with an incredible tenacity, would not go to sleep. Brenda Keogh marked the baby's fever, thought to call a doctor, then changed her mind; but she determined that if the baby stayed as bad tempered through the night, and if in the morning his temperature was still on the high side, then she'd get advice.

  She couldn't know that Harry Jnr's fever resulted from the mental contest he waged with his father, a fight the infant was winning hands down. But Harry Snr knew it well enough. The baby's will - and his strength - both were enormous! The child's mind was a black hole whose gravity must surely pull Harry in entirely. And Harry had discovered something: that indeed a mind without a body can grow weary, and just like flesh be worn down. So that when he could no longer fight he gave in and retreated into himself, glad that for now his vain striving and struggling were over.

  Like a game fish on the end of a line, he allowed himself to be reeled in, close to the boat. But he knew he must fight again when he sensed the gaff poised to strike. Incorporeal, it would be Harry's last chance to retain an individual identity. That was why he would fight, for the continuation of his existence, but he couldn't help wondering: what did all of this mean to his son? Why did Harry jnr want him? Was it simply the terrific greed of any healthy infant, or was it something else entirely?

  As for the baby himself: he recognised his father's partial surrender, accepted the fact that for now the fight was over. And he had no means by which to tell this fantastic adult that it wasn't a fight at all, not really, but simply a desperate desire to know, to learn. Father and son, two minds in one small, fragile - defenceless? - body, both of them took the welcome opportunity to sleep.

  And at 5. 00 P. M. when Brenda Keogh looked in on her baby son, she was pleased to note that he lay still and at peace in his cot, and that his temperature was down again .

  About 4. 30 P. M. that same Monday afternoon, in lonesti:

  Irma Dobresti had just answered a telephone call from Bucharest. The telephone conversation had grown sufficiently heated to cause the rest of the party to listen in. Krakovitch's face had fallen, telling Kyle and Quint that something was amiss. When Irma was through and after she'd hurled the phone down, Krakovitch spoke up.

  'Despite the fact that all of this should have been cleared, now there is a problems from the Lands Ministry. Some idiot is questioning our authority. You are remembering, this Romania - not Russia! The land we want to burn is common land and has belonged to the people since time - how do you say? - immemorial. If it was just some farmer's property we could buy him off, but - , He shrugged helplessly.

  'This is correct,' Irma spoke up. 'Men from the Ministry, from Ploiesti, will be coming here to talk to us later tonight. I don't knowing how this leaked out, but this is officially their area and under their, er, jurisdiction? Yes. It could be big problems. Questions and answers. Not everyone believe in vampires!'

  'But aren't you from the Ministry?' Kyle was alarmed. 'I mean, we have to get the job done!'

  They had driven out early that morning to the spot where almost two decades ago Ilya Bodescu's body had been recovered from a tangle of undergrowth and densely grown firs on a steep south-facing slope of the cruciform hills. And when they had climbed higher, then they'd come across Thibor's mausoleum. There, where lichen-covered slabs had leaned like menhirs under the motionless trees, all three psychics - Kyle, Quint and Krakovitch alike - had felt the still extant menace of the place. They had left quickly.

  Wasting no time, Irma had called up her team of civil engineers, a foreman and five men, based in Pitesti. Through Krakovitch, Kyle had put a question to the hardhat boss.

  'Are you and your men used to handling this stuff?'

  'Thermite? Oh, yes. Sometimes we blast, and sometimes we burn. I've worked for you Russians before, up north in Berezov. We used it all the time - to soften up the permafrost. Can't see the point of it here, though . .

  'Plague,' said Krakovitch at once, by way of explanation. It was an invention of his own. 'We've come across old records that tell of a mass burial of plague victims right here. Although it was three hundred years ago, the soil deep down is still likely to be infected. These hills have been redesignated arable land. Before we let any unsuspecting farmer start ploughing it up, or terracing the hillside, we want to make sure it's safe. Right down to the bedrock!'

  Irma Dobresti had caught all of this. She had raised an eyebrow at Krakovitch but said nothing.

  'And how did you Soviets get involved?' the hard-hat had wanted to know.

  Krakovitch had anticipated that one. 'We dealt with a similar case in Moscow just a year ago,' he had answered. Which was more or less the truth.

  Still the hard-hat had been curious. 'And the British?' Now Irma stepped in. 'Because they may have a similar problem in England,' she snapped. 'And so they're here to see how we deal with it, right?'

  The ganger hadn't minded facing up to Krakovitch, but he wasn't going to go against Irma Dobresti. 'Where do you want your holes?' he'd asked. 'And how deep?'

  By just after midday the preparations were completed. All that remained was for the detonators to be wired up to a plunger, a ten minute job which for safety's sake could wait until tomorrow.

  Carl Quint had suggested, 'We could finish it now. . . ut Kyle had decided against it. 'We don't really know what we're playing with here,' he'd answered. 'Also, when the job's done, I don't want to hang about but get straight on with the next phase Faethor's castle in the Khorvaty. I imagine that after we've burned this hillside there'll be all kinds of people coming up here to see what we've been up to. So I'd prefer to be out of it the same day. This afternoon Felix has travel arrang
ements to see to, and I've a call to make to our friends in Devon. By the time that's done the light will be failing, and I'd prefer to work in daylight after a good night's sleep. So - '

  'Sometime tomorrow?'

  'In the afternoon, while the sun's still slanting onto that hillside. '

  Then he'd turned to Krakovitch. 'Felix, are these men going back to Pitesti today?'

  'They will be,' Krakovitch answered, 'if there is nothing else for them to do until tomorrow afternoon. Why are you asking this?'

  Kyle had shrugged. 'Just a feeling,' he said. 'I would have liked them to be closer at hand. But - ,

  'I, too, have had a feeling,' the Russian answered, frowning. 'I am thinking, nerves - perhaps?'

  'That makes all three of us then,' Carl Quint had added. 'So let's hope that it is just nerves and nothing else, right?'

  All of that had been mid-morning, and everything had appeared to be going smoothly. And now suddenly there was this threat of outside interference. Between times Kyle had made his call to Devon, taking two hours to get through, and had arranged for the strike against Harkley House. 'Damn it!' he snapped now. 'It has to be tomorrow. Ministry or none, we've got to go ahead with this. '

  'We should have done it this morning,' said Quint, 'when we were right on top of it. .

  Irma Dobresti stepped in. She narrowed her eyes and said, 'Listen. These local bureaucrats are annoying me. Why don't you four just drive back to the site? Right now, I mean! See, I was perhaps alone when that call came in you men were all out there in the foothills, doing your job. I'll telephone Pitesti, get Chevenu and those rough men of his back up there to meet you at the site. You can do the job - I mean finish it - tonight. '

  Kyle stared at her. 'That's a good idea, Irma - but what about you? Won't you be setting yourself up? Won't they give you a hard time?'

  'What?' She looked surprised at the suggestion. 'Is it my fault I was alone here when I took that telephone call?

  Is it me for blaming that my taxi took a wrong turning and I couldn't find you to stop you from burning the hills? All these country tracks looking the same to me!'

  Krakovitch, Kyle and Quint, all three grinned at each other. Sergei Gulharov was mainly out of it, but he sensed the excitement of the others and stood up, nodding his head as if in agreement. 'Da, da!'

  'Right,' said Kyle, 'let's do it!' And on impulse, he grabbed Irma Dobresti, pulled her close and kissed her soundly.

  Monday night.

  9. 30 middle-European time, and in England 7. 30 P. M.

  There was fire and nightmare on the cruciform hills under the moon and stars and the looming Carpatii Meridionali, and the nightmare transferred itself westward across mountains and rivers and oceans to Yulian Bodescu where he tossed on his bed and sweated-the chill, rank sweat of fear in his garret room at Harkley House.

  Exhausted by the unspecified fears of the day, he now suffered the telepathic torments of Thibor the Wallach, the vampire whose last physical vestiges were finally being consumed. There was no way back for the vampire now; but unlike Faethor, Thibor's spirit was unquiet, restless, malignant. And it ached for revenge!

  Yuliaannn! Ah, my son, my one true son! See what is become of your father now.

  'What?' Yulian talked in his sleep, imagined a blistering heat, flames that crept ever closer. And in the heart of the fire, a figure beckoning. 'Who. . . who are you?'

  Ah, you know me, my son. We met but briefly, and you were still unborn at that meeting, but you can remember if you try.

  'Where am I?'

  For the moment, with me. Ask not where you are, but where I am. These are the cruciform hills - where it started for you, and where it now ends for me. For you this is merely a dream, while for me it is reality.

  'You!' Now Yulian knew him. The voice that called in the night, unremembered until now. The Thing in the ground. The source. 'You? My. . . father?'

  Indeed! Oh, not through any lover's tryst with your mother. Not through the lust or love of a man for a woman. No, but your father nevertheless. Through blood, Yulian, through blood!

  Yulian fought down his fear of the flames. He sensed that he only dreamed - however real and immediate the dream - and knew he would not be hurt. He advanced into the inferno of fire and drew close to the figure there. Black billowing smoke and crimson flames obscured his view and the heat was a furnace all around, but there were questions Yulian must ask, and the burning Thing was the only one who could answer them.

  'You have asked me to come and seek you out, and I will come. But why? What is it you want of me?'

  Too late! Too late! the flame-wreathed apparition cried out in anguish. And Yulian knew that his pain was not horn of the consuming fire but bitter frustration. I would have been your teacher, my son. Yes, and you would have learned all the many secrets of the Wamphyri. In return

  -. . . can't deny that there would have been a reward in it for me. I would have walked again in the world of men, known again the unbearable pleasures of my youth! But too late. All dreams and schemes to no avail. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. .

  The figure was slowly melting, its outline gradually changing, rendering down into itself.

  Yulian must know more, must see more clearly. He penetrated the very heart of the inferno, came close up to the burning Thing. 'I already know the secrets of the Wamphyri!' he cried above the roar and crackle of blazing trees and the hiss of molten earth. 'I learned them for myself!' -

  Can you put on the shapes of lesser creatures?

  'I can go on all fours like a great dog,' Yulian answered. 'And in the night, people would swear I was a dog!'

  Hah! A dog! A man who would be a dog! What is that for an ambition? It is nothing! Can you form wings, glide like a bat?

  'I. . . haven't tried. '

  You know nothing.

  'I can make others like myself!'

  Fool! That is the simplest of things. Not to make them is much harder! -

  'When harmful men are nearby, I sense their minds. .

  That is instinct, which you got from me. Indeed, everything you have you got from me! So you read minds, eh? But can you bend those minds to your will?

  'With my eyes, yes. '

  Beguilment, hypnotism, a stage magician's trick! You are an innocent.

  'Damn you!' Yulian's pride was hurt at last, his patience all used up. 'What are you anyway but a dead thing? I'll tell you what I've learned: I can take a dead creature and draw out its secrets, and know all that it knew in life!'

  Necromancy? Is it so? And no one to show you how? That is an achievement! There is hope for you yet.

  'I can heal my own wounds as though they never were, and I've the strength of any two men. I could lie with a woman and love her - to death, if I desired - and not even weary myself. And only anger me, dear father, and then I could kill, kill, kill! But not you, for you're already dead. Hope for me? I'll say there is. But what hope is there for you?'

  For a moment there was no answer from the melting Thing. Then - Ahhh! And indeed you are my son, Yuliaannn! Closer, come closer still.

  Yulian moved to less than arm's length from the Thing, facing it squarely. The stench of its burning was monstrous. Its blackened outer shell began to crumble, rapidly disintegrated and fell away. The flames immediately attacked the inner image, which Yulian now saw almost as a reflection of himself. It had the same features, the same bone structure, the same dark attraction. The face of a fallen angel. They could be peas from the same pod.

  'You. . . you are my father!' he gasped.

  I was, the other groaned. Now I am nothing. I am burning away, as you see. Not the real me but something I left behind. It was my last hope, and through it and with your help - I might have been a power in the world once again. But it's too late now.

  'Then why do you concern yourself with me?' Y
ulian tried to understand. 'Why have you come to me - or drawn me to you? If I can't help you, what's the point of this?'

  Revenge! The burning Thing's voice was suddenly sharp as a knife in Yulian's dreaming mind. Through you!

  'I should avenge you? Against whom?'

  Against the ones who found me here. The ones who even now destroy my last chance for a future. Against Harry Keogh and his pack of white magicians!

  'You're not making sense. ' Yulian shook his head, gazed in morbid fascination as the Thing continued to melt. He saw his own features liquefying, streaming away and falling from the burning creature in molten tatters. 'What white magicians? Harry Keogh? I don't know anyone of that name. '

  But he knows you! First me, Yulian, and then you!

  Harry Keogh knows us - and he knows the way: the stake, the sword, and the fire! You tell me you can sense the presence of enemies - and have you not sensed just such enemies close to you even now? They are one and the same. First me, and then you!

  Even dreaming, Yulian felt his scalp crawling. The secret watchers, of course! 'What must I do?'

  Avenge me, and save yourself. That, too, is one and the same. For they know what we are, Yulian, and they cannot abide us. You must kill them, for if you don't they'll surely kill you!

  The last scrap of human flesh fell from the nightmarish entity, revealing at last its true, inner reality. Yulian hissed his horror, drew back a little way, gazed upon the face of all evil. He saw Thibor's bat's snout, his convoluted ears, long jaws, crimson eyes. The vampire laughed at him - the bass booming of a great hound - and a split tongue flickered redly in a cave of teeth. Then, as if someone had applied a giant's bellows to the task, the flames roared up higher still and rushed in, and the image blackened at once and turned to glowing cinders.

  Trembling violently, running with sweat, Yulian came awake, sat bolt upright in his bed. And as from a million miles away he heard again, one last time, Thibor's far, faint voice: Avenge me, Yuliaannn.

  He stood up in the dark room, went shakily to the window, looked out on the night. Out there, a mind. A man. Watching. Waiting.

  Sweat quickly dried on Yulian and his flesh turned cold, but still he stood there. Panic receded, was replaced by rage, hatred. 'Avenge you, father?' he finally breathed. 'Oh, I will. I will!'

  In the window's luminous, night-dark pane his reflection was an echo from the dream. But Yulian was neither shocked nor surprised. It simply meant that his metamorphosis was now complete. He looked through the reflection at' the dark, furtive shadow there in the hedgerow

  and grinned.

  And his grin was like an invitation to step in through the gates of hell .

  At the foot of the cruciform hills, Kyle and Quint, Krakovitch and Gulharov waited close together in a small group. It wasn't cold but they stood together, as if for warmth.

  The fire was dying down now; the wind which had earlier sprung up out of nowhere had quickly blown itself out, like the dying breath of some unseen Gargantuan. Human figures, half hidden in the trees and the billowing black smoke, toiled above and to the east of the devastated area, containing the fire and beating it down. A grimy, coveralled hulk Of a man came stumbling from the trees at the foot of the slope towards the vampire hunters where they huddled. It was the Romanian ganger, Janni Chevenu.

  'You!' He grabbed Krakovitch's arm. 'Plague, you said! But did you see it? Did you see that. . . that thing before it burned? It had eyes, mouths! It lashed, writhed .

  it. . . . t. . . my God! My God!'

  Under the soot and sweat, Chevenu's face was chalk. Slowly his glazed eyes cleared. He looked from Krakovitch to the others. The gaunt faces that looked back seemed carved of the same raw emotion: a horror, no less than Chevenu's own. 'Plague, you said,' he dazedly repeated. 'But that wasn't any kind of plague I ever heard of. '

  Krakovitch shook himself loose. 'Oh yes it was, Janni,' he finally answered. 'It was the very worst kind. Just consider yourself lucky you were able to destroy it. We're in your debt. All of us. Everywhere. . . '

  Darcy Clarke should have had the 8. 00 P. M. - 2. 00 A. M. shift; instead he was bedded down at the hotel in Paignton something he'd eaten, apparently. Stomach cramps and violent diarrhoea.

  Peter Keen had taken the shift in Clarke's place, driving out to Harkley House and relieving Trevor Jordan of the job of keeping Bodescu under observation.

  'Nothing's happening up there,' Jordan had whispered, leaning in through the open window of his car, handing Keen a powerful crossbow with a hardwood bolt. 'There's a light on downstairs, but that's all. They're all in there, or if not then they didn't come out through the gate! The light did come on in Bodescu's attic room for a few minutes, then went out again. That was probably him getting his head down. Also, I felt that there just might be someone probing for my thoughts but that lasted for only a moment. Since when it's been quiet as the proverbial tomb. '

  Keen had grinned, however nervously. 'Except we know that not every tomb is quiet, eh?'

  Jordan hadn't found it funny. 'Peter, that's a really weird sense of humour you've got there. ' He nodded at the crossbow in Keen's hand. 'Do you know how to use that? Here, I'll load it for you. '

  'That's OK,' Keen nodded affably. 'I'll manage it all right. But if you want to do me a real favour, just make sure my relief's on time at two in the morning!'

  Jordan got into his car and started it, trying not to rev the engine. 'This makes twelve hours out of twenty-four for you, doesn't it? Son, you're a glutton for punishment. Keen by name, and all that. You should go far if you don't kill yourself first. Have a nice night!' And he'd pulled carefully away in his car, only turning on the lights when he was a hundred yards down the road.

  That had been only half an hour ago but already Keen was cursing himself for his big mouth. His old man had been a soldier. 'Peter,' he'd once told him, 'never volunteer. If they need volunteers, that's because nobody wants the job. ' And on a night like this it was easy to understand why.

  There was something of a ground mist and the air was laden with moisture. The atmosphere felt greasy, and heavy as a tangible weight on Keen's shoulders. He turned up his collar, lifted infra-red binoculars to his eyes. For the tenth time in thirty minutes he scanned the house. Nothing. The house was warm, which showed clearly enough, but nothing moved in there. Or the movement was too slight to detect.

  He scanned what could be seen of the grounds. Again, nothing - or rather, something! Keen's sweep had passed over a hazy blue blur of warmth, just a blob of body heat which his special nite-lites had picked up. It could be a fox, badger, dog - or a man? He tried to find it again, failed. So. . . had he seen something, or hadn't he?

  Something buzzed and tingled in Keen's head, like a sudden burst of electrical current, making him start .

  Slimy gibber-gobble spying babble-gabble bastard!

  Keen froze stiff as a board. What was that? What the hell was that?

  You're going to die, die, die! Ha, ha, ha! Gibber-jabber, gobble-gabble. . . And then some more of the electrical tingling. And silence.

  Jesus Christ! But Keen knew without further inquiry what it was: his unruly talent. For a moment then, just for a few seconds, he'd picked up another mind. A mind full of hate!

  'Who?' Keen said out loud, staring all about, ankledeep in swirling mist. 'What. . . ?' Suddenly the night was full of menace.

  He'd left the crossbow in his car, loaded and lying on the front seat. The red Capri was parked with-its nose in a field, about twenty-five yards away along the road. Keen was on the verge, his shoes, socks and feet already soaking from walking in the grass. He looked at Harkley House, standing sinister in its misty grounds, then started to back off towards the car. In the grounds of the old house, something loped towards the open gate. Keen saw it for a moment, then lost it in the shadows and the mist.

&nbsp
; A dog? A large dog? Darcy Clarke had had trouble with a dog, hadn't he?

  Keen backed faster, stumbled and almost fell. An owl hooted somewhere in the night. Other than that there was only silence. And a soft, deliberate padding - and a panting? - from beyond the gate just across the road. Keen backed faster yet, all his senses alert, his nerves starting to jump. Something was coming, he could feel it. And not just a dog.

  He slammed backwards into the side of his car, drew breath in an audible, grateful gasp. He half turned, reached in through the open window, groped with his hand on the front seat. He found something, drew it into view . The lignum vitae bolt - broken in two halves - hanging together by a mere splinter of wood! Keen shook his head in dumb disbelief, reached into the car again. This time he found the crossbow, unloaded, its tough metal wings bent back and twisted out of shape.

  Something tall and black flowed out of the shadows right up to him. It wore a cape which, at the last moment, it threw back. Keen looked into ,a face which wasn't nearly human. He tried to scream but his throat felt like sandpaper.

  The thing in black glared at Keen and its lips drew back. Its teeth were hooked together, meshing like the teeth of a shark. Keen tried to run, leap, move, but couldn't; his feet were rooted to the spot. The thing in black raised its arm in a swift movement and something gleamed a wet, silvery gleam in the night.

  A cleaver!