Necroscope II: Wamphyri

Chapter Seven

   

  11. 00P. M. , the first Friday in September, 1977: in Genoa Alec Kyle and Carl Quint were hurrying through rain- slick cobbled alleys toward their rendezvous with Felix Krakovitch at a dive called Frankie's Franchise.

  But seven hundred miles away in Devon, England, the time was 10. 00 P. M. on a sultry Indian summer evening. At Harkley House, Yulian Bodescu lay naked on his back on the bed in his spacious garret room and considered the events of the last few days. In many ways they had been very satisfactory days, but they had been fraught with danger, too. He had not known the extent of his influence before, for the people at school and later Georgina had all been weak and hardly provided suitable yardsticks. The Lakes had been the true test, and Yulian had sailed through that with very little difficulty.

  George Lake had been the only real obstacle, but even that had been an accidental encounter, when Yulian wasn't quite ready for him. The youth smiled a slow smile and gently touched his shoulder. There was a dull ache there now, but that was all. And where was 'Uncle George' now? He was down in the vaults with his wife, Anne, that's where. Down where he belonged, with Viad standing guard on the door. Not that Yulian believed that to be absolutely necessary: it was a precaution, that's all. As for the Other: that had left its vat, gone into hiding in the earth where the cellars were darkest.

  Then there was Yulian's 'mother', Georgina. She was in her room, lost in self-pity, in her permanent state of terror. As she had been for the last year, since the time he did it to her. If she hadn't cut her hand that time it might never have happened. But she had, and then shown him the blood. Something had happened to him then - the same thing that happened every time he saw blood - but on this occasion it had been different. He had been unable to control it. When he had bandaged her hand, he'd deliberately let something. . . something of himself, get into the wound. Georgina hadn't seen it, but Yuiian had. He had made it.

  She had been ill for a long time, and when she recovered. . . well, she had never really recovered. Not fully. And Yulian had known that it had grown in her, and that he was its master. She had known it too, which was what terrified her.

  His 'mother', yes. Actually, Yulian had never considered her his mother at all. He had come out of her, he knew that, but he'd always felt that he was more the son of a father - but not a father in the ordinary sense of the word. The son of. . . of something else. Which was why this evening he had asked her (as he'd asked her a hundred times before) about Ilya Bodescu, and about the way he died, and where he died. And to make sure he got the entire story in every last detail, this time he'd hypnotised her into the deepest possible trance.

  And as Georgina had told him how it had been, so his mind had been lured east, across oceans and mountains and plains, over fields and cities and rivers, to a place which had always existed in the innermost eye of his mind; a place of hills and woods and. . . and yes, that was it! A place of low wooded hills in the shape of a cross. The cruciform hills. A place he would have to visit. Very soon. .

  He would have to, for that's where the answer lay. He was in thrall to that place as much as the rest of them in the house were in thrall to him, which was to say totally.

  And the strength of its seduction was just as great. It was a strength he had not realised until George had come back. Back from his grave in Blagdon cemetery, back from the dead. At first that had been a shock - then an all-consuming curiosity - finally a revelation! For it had told Yulian what he was. Not who he was but what. And certainly he was more than merely the son of Ilya and Georgina Bodescu.

  Yulian knew that he was not entirely human, that a large part of him was utterly inhuman, and the knowledge thrilled him. He could hypnotise people to do his will, whatever he desired. He could produce new life, of a sort, out of himself. He could change living beings, people, into creatures like himself. Oh, they did not have his strength, his weird talents, but that was all to the good. The change made them his slaves, made him their absolute master.

  More, he was a necromancer: he could open up dead bodies and learn the secrets of their lives. He knew how to prowl like a cat, swim like a fish, savage like a dog. The thought had occurred to him that given wings he might even fly - like a bat. Like a vampire bat!

  Beside him on a bedside table lay a hardback book titled The Vampire in Fact and Fiction. Now he reached out a slender hand to touch its cover, trace the figure of a bat in flight impressed into the black binding cloth. Absorbing, certainly - but the title was a lie, as were the contents. Much of the alleged fiction was fact (Yulian was the living proof), and some of the supposed fact was fiction.

  Sunlight, for instance. It didn't kill. It might, if he should ever be foolish enough to stretch himself out in a sheltered cove in midsummer for more than a minute or two. It must be some sort of chemical reaction, he thought. Photophobia was common enough even among ordinary men. Mushrooms grow best-under a covering of straw through foggy, late September nights. And he'd read somewhere that in Cyprus one can find the selfsame edible species, except they never break the surface. They push up the parched earth until cracks appear, which tell the locals where to find them. They didn't much care for sunlight, mushrooms, but it wouldn't kill them. No, Yulian was wary of the sun but not afraid of it. It was a question of being careful, that's all.

  As for sleeping through the day in a coffin full of native soil: sheer fallacy. He did occasionally sleep during the day, but that was because he often spent much of the night deep in thought, or prowling the estate. He preferred night, true, because then, in the darkness or in the moonlight, he felt closer to his source, closer to understanding the true nature of his being.

  Then there was the vampire's lust for blood: false, at least in Yulian's case. Oh, the sight of blood aroused him, did things to him internally, worked him into a passion; but drinking it from a victim's veins was hardly the delight described in the various fictions. He did like rare meat, however, and plenty of it, and had never been much of a one for greens. On the other hand, the thing Yulian had grown in the vat in the cellar, that had thrived on blood! On blood, flesh, anything animate or ex-animate. On flesh or the red juice of flesh, alive or dead! It didn't need to eat, Yulian knew, but it would if it could. It would have absorbed George, too, if he hadn't been there to stop it.

  The Other. . . Yulian shuddered deliciously. It knew him for its master, but that was its sum total of knowledge. He had grown it from himself, and remembered how that had come аbout:

  Just after he'd been expelled from school, the first of what he had always supposed to be his adult teeth had come loose. It was a back tooth and painful. But he wouldn't see a dentist. Working and worrying at it, one -night he'd broken the thread. And he'd examined the tooth closely, finding it curious that this was part of himself which had been shed. White bone and a thread of gristle, the red root. He'd put it in a saucer on the window ledge of his bedroom. But in the morning he heard it clatter to the floor. The core had put out tiny white rootlets, and the tooth was dragging itself like a hermit crab out of the morning light.

  Yulian's teeth, except the back ones, had always been sharp as knives and chisel-tipped, but human teeth for all that. Certainly not animal teeth. The one which had pushed out the lost one was anything but human. It was a fang. Since then most of his teeth had been replaced, and the new ones were all fangs. Especially the eye-teeth. His jaws had changed too, to accommodate them.

  Sometimes he thought: perhaps I'm the cause of this change in myself. Maybe I'm making it happen. Willing it. Mind over matter. Because I'm evil.

  Georgina had used to say that to him sometimes, tell him he was evil. That was when he was small and she still had a measure of control over him, when he'd done things she didn't like. When he'd first started to experiment with his necromancy. Ah, but there'd been many things she hadn't liked since then!

  Georgina - 'mother' - terror stricken chicken penned with a
fox cub, watching him grow sleek and strong. For as Yulian had grown older, so the element of control had changed, passed into his hands. It was his eyes; he only had to look at her with those eyes of his and. . . and she was powerless. The teachers and pupils at his school, too. And with use, so he'd become expert in hypnotism. Practice makes perfect. To that extent, at least, the book was correct: the vampire is quite capable of mesmerising its prey.

  But what about mortality - or immortality, undeath? That was still a puzzle, a mystery - but it was one he'd soon resolve. Now that he had George there was very little he couldn't resolve. For George was still in large part a man. Returned from the grave, undead, yes, but his flesh was still a man's flesh. And that which was within him couldn't have grown very large in so short a time. Unlike the Other, which had had plenty of time.

  Yulian had, of course, experimented with the Other. His experiments had told him very little, but it was better than nothing. According to the fiction, vampires were supposed to succumb to the sharpened stake. The Other ignored the stake, seemed impervious to it. Trying to stake it was like trying to leave an imprint on water. The Other could be solid enough at times: it could form teeth, rudimentary hands, even eyes. But in the main its tissues were protoplasmic, gelatinous. And as for putting a stake through its 'heart' or cutting off its 'head' .

  And yet it wasn't indestructible, it wasn't immortal. It could die, could be killed. Yulian had burned part of it in an incinerator down there in the cellars. And by God - if there was a God, which Yulian doubted - it hadn't liked that! He was perfectly sure that he wouldn't have liked it either. And that was a thought which occasionally worried him: if ever he were discovered, if men found out what

  he was, would they try to burn him? He supposed they -would. But who could possibly find him out? And if

  someone did, who would believe it? The police weren't much likely to listen to a story about vampires, now were they? On the other hand, what with the local 'satanic cult', maybe they were!

  Again he smiled his awful smile. It was funny now, but it hadn't been at all funny when the police came knocking at the door the day after George came back. He had very nearly made a serious mistake then, had gone too quickly on his guard, on the defensive. But of course they'd put his nervousness down to the recent loss of his 'uncle'. If only they'd been able to know the truth, that in fact George Lake was right under their feet, whining and shivering in the cellars. And even so, what could they have done about it? It was hardly Yulian's fault that George wouldn't lie still, was it?

  And that was another part of the legend which was a fact: that when a vampire killed a victim in a certain way, then that victim would return as one of the undead. Three nights George had lain there, and on the fourth he'd clawed his way out. A mere man buried alive could never have done it, but the vampire in him had given George all the strength he needed and more. The vampire which had been part of the Other, which had put one of its pseudohands into him and stopped George's heart. The Other which had been part of Yulian, in fact Yulian's tooth.

  What a torn and bloodied state George had been in when Yulian opened the door to him that night. And how the house had rung to his demented sobbing and shrieking, until Yulian had grown angry with him, told him to be quiet and locked him in the cellar. And there he'd stayed.

  Yulian watched the silver light of the moon creeping through a crack in his curtains, channelled his thoughts anew. What had he been recounting? Ah, yes, the police.

  They had come to report a shocking crime, the illegal opening of George Lake's grave by person or persons unknown, and the theft of his corpse. Was Mrs Lake still residing at Harkley House?

  Why, yes she was, but she was still suffering from the shock of her husband's death. If it wasn't absolutely necessary that they see her, Yulian would prefer to break the news to her himself. But who could be responsible for so despicable a crime?

  Well, sir, we do believe we've got one of them there cults at work in these here parts, despoiling graveyards and the like and holding, er, sabbats? Druids or some such. Devil worshippers, you know? But this time they've gone too far! Don't you worry, sir, we'll get 'em in the end. But do break it easy to his missus, all right?

  Of course, of course. And thank you for bringing us this news, terrible though it is. I certainly don't envy you your job.

  All in a day's work, sir. Sorry we've nothing good to report, that's all. Good night to you .

  And that was that.

  But again he had strayed, and once more he was obliged to focus his thoughts back on the 'legend' of the vampire. Mirrors: vampires hated mirrors because they had no reflections. False - and yet in a way true. Yulian did have a reflection; but sometimes, looking in a glass, especially at night, he saw far more than others could see. For he knew what he was looking at, that it was something alien to man. And he had wondered: if others saw him like that, reflected in a glass, would they too see the real thing, the monster behind the man?

  And lastly there was the vampire's lust, the way he sated himself on women. Now Yulian had tasted the blood - and more than the blood - of women, and had found it rich as deep red wine. It excited him as all blood did, but not so much that he'd glut himself on it. Georgina, Anne, Helen - he'd tried the blood of all three. And certainly, in good time, he would try the blood of many more.

  But his attitude towards taking blood puzzled him. If he were a true vampire, surely blood would be the driving force of his life. And yet it wasn't. Perhaps his metamorphosis wasn't yet complete. Perhaps, as the change waxed in him, so the human part would wane, disappear altogether. And then he'd become a vampire full-blown. Or full-blooded?

  Lust, yes. . . but there was more to lust than mere blood-lust. Much more. And little wonder the women in the fiction succumbed so readily to the vampire's charms. Especially after the first time. Hah! What woman had ever truly felt fulfilled in the arms of a man? Not one! They only thought they had because they didn't know better. What, 'fulfilled'? Filled full? By a mere man? Utterly impossible! But by a vampire .

  Yulian turned a little on to his side and gazed in the moon-pierced darkness of his room at the girl beside him. Cousin Helen. She was very beautiful and had been very innocent. Not quite pure, but very nearly. Who it was took her virginity. . . but what did that matter? In fact he had taken nothing, and he had given very little. They had been fumbling lovers for an hour.

  But now? Now she knew what it was to be 'fulfilled'. Indeed, she knew that if Yulian willed it he could fill her to bursting - literally!

  A chuckle rose in his throat, formed on his lips like a bubble of bile. Oh,yes, for the Other wasn't the only one who could put out pseudopod extensions of himself! Yulian held back the laughter he felt welling inside, reached out a hand and with a deceptive gentleness stroked Helen's cool, rounded flank.

  Even deeply asleep and dreaming the dreams of the damned, still she shuddered under the touch of his hand. Gooseflesh appeared and her breathing rapidly mounted to a moaning pant. She whined in her hypnotic sleep like a thin wind through a cracked board. Her hypnotic sleep, yes. The power of hypnotism, and that of telepathy which was its kin.

  Nowhere in the literature - except for the occasional hint in some of the better fictions - had Yulian discovered mention of the vampire's control of others by will and the reading of minds at a distance; and yet this, too, was one of his powers. It was very inchoate as yet, as were all his talents, but it was also very real. Once touched by Yulian, once invaded by him physically, then his victim was an open book to him, even at a distance. Even now, if he reached out his mind in a certain way. . . there! Those were the dull, vacuous 'thoughts' of the Other. No, not even that: he had merely touched upon the Other's instinctive sense of being, a sort of basic animal awareness. The Other was aware of himself - itself? - in much the same way as an amoeba is aware; and because it had been part of him, Yulian could sense that awareness
.

  Now that he had taken or used Helen, Anne, George and Georgina, why, he could sense all of them! He let his exterior thoughts leave the Other and wander, and

  and there was Anne, asleep in some cold, damp corner down there in the dark. And there, too, was George. Except that George was not asleep.

  George. Yulian knew he would soon have to do something about George. He wasn't behaving as he should. There was an obstinacy in him. Oh, he'd been completely under Yulian's control in the beginning, just like the women. But just recently .

  Yulian focused on George's mind, wormed his way silently into his thoughts and - a pit of black hatred shot with flashes of red rage! Lust, too - a bestial lust Yulian could scarce believe - and not only for blood but also. .

  revenge?

  Frowning, Yulian withdrew his mind before George could sense him. Obviously he would have to deal with his uncle sooner than he'd thought. He had already decided to make use of him - knew how he would use him - but now he must set a definite date on it. Like tomorrow. He left the unsuspecting undead creature raging and prowling the cellars, and - What was that?

  Hair prickling at the nape of his neck, Yulian swung his legs down to the floor and stood up. It hadn't been one of the women, and he'd only just left George, so who had it been? Someone close by was thinking thoughts about Harkley House, thoughts about Yulian himself! He went to the curtains, opened them six inches, stared anxiously out at the night.

  Out there, the estate. The old derelict buildings, gravel path, shrubbery and copse; the high perimeter wall and gate; the road beyond the gate, a ribbon of light under the moon, and beyond that a tall hedge. Yulian wrinkled his nose, sniffed suspiciously like a dog at a stranger. Oh, yes, a stranger - there! In the hedgerow, that glint of moonlight on glass, the dull red glow of a cigarette's tip. Someone in the shadow of the hedge, watching Harkley. Watching Yulian!

  Now, knowing where to aim, he redirected his thoughts

  - and met the mind of the stranger! But only for a moment, the merest instant of time. Then mental shutters came down like the jaws of a steel trap. The glint of spectacles or binoculars disappeared, the cigarette's glow was extinguished, and the man himself, the merest shadow, was gone.

  Vlad! Yulian commanded instinctively. Go, find him. Whoever he is, bring him to me!

  And down in the brambles and undergrowth near the door to the vaults, where he lay half asleep, VIad at once came alert, turned his sensitive ears towards the drive and the gate, sprang up and set off at a loping run. Deep in his throat, a growl not quite a dog's growl rumbled like dull thunder.

  Darcy Clarke was doing late shift on the Harkley place. He was a psychic sensitive with a high degree of telepathic potential. Also, he was big on self-preservation. A freakish automatic talent, over which he had no conscious control, was always on guard to keep him 'safe'; he was the opposite of accident prone and led a 'charmed' life. Which on this occasion was just as well.

  Clarke was young, only twenty-five, but what he lacked in years he more than made up for in zeal. He would have made a perfect soldier, for his duty was his all. It was that duty which had kept him here in the vicinity of Harkley House from 5. 00 till 11. 00 P. M. And it was exactly on the dot of 11. 00 P. M. that he saw the crack of the curtains widen a little in one of Harkley's dormer windows.

  That in itself was nothing. There were five people in that house and God-knows-what else, and no reason at all why it shouldn't show signs of life. With a grimace, Clarke quickly corrected himself: signs of undeath? Fully briefed, he knew that Harkley's inhabitants were something other than they seemed. But as he adjusted his nite-lite binoculars on the window, suddenly there was something else, a realisation that struck at Clarke like a bolt of lightning.

  He had known, of course, that someone in there, probably the youth, was psychically endowed. That had been obvious for the last four days, ever since Clarke and the others first clapped eyes on the place. To any half-talented sensitive the old house would reek of strangeness. And not just strangeness, evil! Tonight, as darkness fell, Clarke had sensed it growing stronger, the wash of dark emanations flowing from the house like mental sewage. Until now he'd simply let it flow right past him, without touching, but as that dark figure had come into view behind the crack in the curtains, and as he'd focussed his binoculars upon it - -

  - Something had been there in his head, touching on his mind. A talent at least as strong as his own, probing his thoughts! But it wasn't the talent that surprised him - that was a game he'd played before with his colleagues at INTESP, where they practised constantly to break in on each other's thoughts - it was the sheer unbridled animal animosity that caused him to gasp, draw back a little, slam shut the doors on his ESP-endowed consciousness. The gurgling black whirlpool bog of the invading mind.

  And because he had set up defences, so he failed to detect any hint of the physical threat, the orders Yulian had issued to his black Alsatian. He had failed, but his primary talent - the one no one as yet understood - was not failing him. It was 11. 00 P. M. and his instructions were quite clear: he'd go back now to his temporary surveillance HO at a hotel in Paignton and make his report. The watch on the house would begin again at 6. 00 A. M. tomorrow, when a colleague of Clarke's would take it up. He tossed his cigarette down, ground it out under his heel, pocketed his nite-lites.

  Clarke's car was parked in a layby where the hedge and fence were cut back twenty-five yards down the road. He was on the field side of the hedge. He put his hand on the top bar preparatory to climbing over to the road, then thought better of it. Though he didn't know it, that was his hidden talent coming into play. Instead of climbing the fence, he hurried through the long grass at the edge of the field towards his car. The grass was wet where it whipped his trousers, but he ignored it. It saved time this way and he was in a hurry now, eager to be away from the place. Only natural, he supposed, considering what he'd just learned. And he hardly gave it a thought that by the time he got to his car he was almost running.

  But it was then, as he fumbled the key into the lock and turned it, that he heard something else running: the faint scuff of padded feet slapping the road, the scrabble of claws as something heavy jumped the fence back there where he'd been standing. Then he was into the car, slamming the door behind him, eyes wide and heart thumping as he gazed back into the night.

  And two seconds later Viad hit the car!

  He hit so hard, with forepaws, shoulder and head, that the glass of the window in Clarke's door was starred into a cobweb pattern. The impact had sounded like a hammer blow, and Clarke knew that one more charge like that would shatter the glass to fragments and leave him totally unprotected. But he'd seen who, or what, his assailant was, and he had no intention of sitting here immobile and just waiting for it to happen.

  Clarke turned the key in the ignition, revved, reversed a skidding three feet to bring the bonnet free of overhanging branches. Vlad's second spring, aimed again at Clarke's window, sent the dog sprawling on the bonnet directly in front of the windscreen. And now the young esper saw just how fortunate his escape had been. Out in the open - there was little he could have done against that!

  Viad's face was a savage black mask of hatred, a contorted, snarling, saliva-flecked visage of madness! Yellow eyes spotted with crimson pupils glared through the glass at Clarke with such a burning intensity that he almost fancied he could feel their heat. Then he was into first gear and skidding out on to the road.

  As the car jerked and slewed forward, so the dog's feet were jolted from under him. He crashed over on to his side on the bonnet and was sent sprawling into the darkness of the hedgerow as Clarke straightened the car up and sent it careening along the road. In his rearview mirror, he saw the dog emerge from the hedge and shake itself, glaring after the speeding car. Then Clarke was round a bend and Vlad lost to sight.

  That wasn't something he felt sorry about. Indeed, he was still sha
king when he switched off the car's engine in the hotel car park in Paignton. Following which. . . he flopped back in his seat and wearily lit a cigarette, which he smoked right down to the cork tip before securing the car and going in to make his report Frankie's Franchise was wall to wall sleazy. It was a place for habitual wharf-rats, prostitutes and their pimps, pushers and Genoese low-life in general. And it was noisy. An old American juke-box, back in fashion, was blasting Little Richard's raw 'Tutti Frutti' across the main room like a gale force wind. There was no smallest corner of the place that escaped the music's blast, but in any one of the half-dozen arched alcoves you could at least hear yourself think. That was why Frankie's was so ideally suitable: you couldn't concentrate enough to hear anyone else think.

  Alec Kyle and Carl Quint, Felix Krakovitch and Sergei Gulharov, sat at a small square table with their backs to the protective alcove walls. East and West faced each other across their drinks. Curiously, on the one side Kyle and Quint drank vodka, and on the other Krakovitch and Gulharov sipped American beers.

  Identifying each other had been the easiest thing in the world: in Frankie's Franchise, no one else fitted the prescribed picture at all. But personal appearance wasn't the only yardstick; for of course, even in the hubbub, the three sensitives were able to detect each other's psychic auras. They had made their acknowledgement with nods of their heads, picked their way with their drinks from the bar to an empty alcove. Certain of the club's regulars had given them curious glances: the hard men a little wary, narrow-eyed, the prostitutes speculative. They had not returned them.

  Seated for a few moments, finally Krakovitch had opened the discussion. 'I don't suppose you speaking my language,' he said, his voice heavily but not unpleasantly accented, 'but I speaking yours. But badly. This my friend Sergei. ' He tipped his head sideways a little to indicate his companion. 'He know a little, very little, English. He not have ESP. '

  Kyle and Quint glanced obediently at Gulharov. What they saw was a moderately handsome young man with close-cropped blond hair, grey eyes, hard-looking hands where they lay loosely crossed on the table, enclosing his drink. He seemed uneasy in his modern Western clothes, which weren't quite the right fit.

  'That's true enough. ' Quint narrowed his eyes, turning back to Krakovitch. 'He's not skilled that way, but I'm sure he has many other worthwhile talents. ' Krakovitch smiled thinly and nodded. He seemed a little sour.

  Kyle had been studying Krakovitch, committing him to memory. The Russian head of ESPionage was in his late thirties. He had thinning black hair, piercing green eyes and an almost gaunt, hollow face. He was of medium height, slimly built. A skinned rabbit, thought Kyle. But his thin, pale lips were firm, and the high dome of his head spoke of a rare intelligence.

  Krakovitch's impression of Kyle was much the same: a man just a few years younger than himself, intelligent, talented. It was only the physical side of Kyle that was different, which hardly mattered. Kyle's hair was brown and plentiful, naturally wavy. He was well fleshed, even a little overweight, but with his height that scarcely showed. His eyes were brown as his hair, his teeth even and white in a too-wide mouth that sloped a little from left to right. In another face that look might well be mistaken for cynicism, but not in Kyle, Krakovitch thought.

  Quint, on the other hand, was more aggressive, but he probably had superb self-control. He would reach conclusions quickly, right or wrong. And he would probably act on them. He would act, and hope he'd done the right thing. But he wouldn't feel guilty if it turned out wrong. Also, there wasn't much emotion in Quint. All of this showed in his face, his figure, and Krakovitch prided himself on reading character. Quint was lithe, built like a cat. In no way massive, but he had that coiled spring look about him. Not nervous tension, just a natural ability to think and act fast. He had eyes of disarming blue that took in everything, a thin, even nose, and a forehead creased from frowning. He too was in his mid-thirties, thin on top, dark featured. And he had a talent. Krakovitch could tell that Quint was extremely ESP-sensitive. He was a spotter.

  'Oh, Sergei Gulharov has been trained - , Krakovitch finally answered, ' - as my bodyguard. But not in your arts, or mine. He has not got that kind of mind. Indeed, of the four of us, I could argue that he is the only "normal" man present. Which is unfortunate,' - now he stared accusingly at Kyle - 'for you and I were supposed to meet as equals, without, er, backup?'

  At that moment the music went quiet, the rock'n'roll replaced by an Italian ballad.

  'Krakovitch,' said Kyle, hard-eyed now and keeping his voice low, 'we'd better be straight on this. You're right, our deal was that the two of us should meet. We could each bring along a second. But no telepaths. What we have to say to each other we'll just say, without someone picking our thoughts. Quint isn't a telepath, he's a spotter, that's all. So we weren't cheating. And as far as your man here - er, Gulharov? - is concerned: Quint says he's clean, so you aren't cheating either. Or you wouldn't appear to be - but your third man is something else!'

  'My third man?' Krakovitch sat up straight, seemed genuinely surprised. 'I have no -'

  'But you do,' Quint cut in. 'KGB. We've seen him. In fact, he's here in Frankie's Franchise right now.

  That was news to Kyle. He looked at Quint. 'You're certain?'

  Quint nodded. 'Don't look now, but he's sitting in the corner over there with a Genoese whore. He's changed his clothes, too, and looks like he's just off a ship. Not a bad cover - but I recognised him the moment we walked in here. '

  Out of the corner of his eye Krakovitch looked, then slowly shook his head. 'I do not know him,' he said. 'Not to be surprised. I do not know any of them. I dislike - strongly! But. . . you are sure? How can you be so sure?'

  Kyle would have been caught on the hop, but not Quint. 'We run the same sort of branch as the one you run, Comrade,' he stated flatly. 'Except we have the edge on you. We're better at it. He's KGB, all right. '

  Krakovitch's fury was obvious. Not against Quint but the position in which he now found himself. 'Intolerable!' he snapped. 'Why, the Party Leader himself has given me his - ' He half stood up, half turned towards the man indicated, a thick-set barrel of a man in rough and ready suit and open-necked shirt. His neck must be at least as thick as Krakovitch's thigh! Fortunately he was looking the other way, talking to the prostitute.

  Before Krakovitch could carry it any further, Kyle said, 'I believe you - that you don't know him. It was done behind your back. So sit down, act naturally. Anyway, it's obvious we can't talk here. Apart from the fact that we're being watched, it's too damned noisy. And Christ, for all we know there might even be someone listening in on us!'

  Krakovitch abruptly sat down. He looked startled, glanced nervously about. 'Bugged?' He remembered how his old boss, Borowitz, had had a thing about electronic surveillance.

  'We could be. ' Quint gave a sharp nod. 'This one either followed you here or he knew in advance where we were going to meet. '

  Krakovitch gave a snort. 'This getting out of hand. I no good at this. What now?'

  Kyle looked at Krakovitch and knew he wasn't faking it. He grinned. 'I'm no good at it either. Listen, I'm like you, Felix. I prognosticate. I don't know your word for it. I, er, foretell the future? I occasionally get fairly accurate pictures of how things are going to be. Do you understand?'

  'Of course,' said Krakovitch. 'My talent almost exactly. Except I usually get warnings. So?'

  'So I saw us getting along OK together. How about you?'

  Krakovitch heaved a sigh of relief. 'I also,' he shrugged. 'At least, no bad warnings. ' Time was running out for the Russian and there were things he desperately needed to know, questions he must have answered. This Englishman might be the only one who could answer them. 'So what we do about it?'

  Quint said, 'Wait. ' He got up, crossed to the bar, ordered fresh drinks. He also spoke
to the bartender. Then he came back with drinks on a tray. 'When we get the nod from the bloke behind the bar we pile out of here fast,' he said.

  'Eh?' Kyle was puzzled.

  'Taxi,' said Quint, smiling tightly. 'I've ordered one. We'll go to. . . the airport! Why not? On the way we can talk. At the airport we find a warm, comfortable place in the arrivals lounge and carry on talking. Even if our pal over there manages to follow us he won't dare get too close. And if he does show up we'll take a taxi somewhere else. '

  'Good!' said Krakovitch.

  Five minutes later their taxi came and all four exited at speed. Kyle was last out. Looking back, he saw the KGB man come slowly to his feet, saw his face twisting in anger and frustration.

  In the taxi they talked, and at the airport. They started talking at about twenty minutes before midnight and finished at 2. 30 A. M. Kyle did most of it, aided by Quint, with Krakovitch listening intently and only breaking in here and there to confirm or ask for an explanation of something that had been said.

  Kyle started with these words:

  'Harry Keogh was our best. He had talents no one ever had before. A lot of them. He told me everything I'm going to tell you. If you believe what I tell you, we can help you with some big problems you've got in Russia and Romania. In helping you, we'll also be helping ourselves, for we'll learn by experience. Now then, do you want to know about Borowitz and how he died? About Max Batu and how he died? About the. . . the fossil men, who wrecked the Château Bronnitsy that night? I can tell you all of those things. More importantly, I can tell you about Dragosani. .

  And nearly three hours later he finished with these:

  'So, Dragosani was a vampire. And there are more of them. You have them, and we have them. We know where at least one of yours is. Or if not a vampire, something a vampire left behind. Which could be just as bad. Whichever, it has to be destroyed. We can help if you'll let us. Call it what you like - d??tente, while we deal with a mutual threat? But if you don't want our help, then you'll have to do the job yourself. But we'd like to help, because that way we might learn something. Face it, Felix, this is bigger than East-West political squabbling. We'd work together if it was plague, wouldn't we? Drug trafficking? Ships in trouble at sea? Of course we would. And I'm admitting right here and now, our own problem back in England might be bigger than we know. The more we learn from you, the better our chances. The better all of our chances. .

  Krakovitch had been silent for a long time. At last he said: 'You want to come to USSR with me and. . . and put this thing down?'

  'Not the USSR - ' said Quint. 'Romania. That's still your territory. '

  'The two of you? Both the leader, and a high-ranking member of your E-Branch? Is that not to be the big risks?'

  Kyle shook his head. 'Not from you. At least I don't think so. Anyway, we all have to start trusting someone somewhere. We've already started, so why not go all the way?'

  Krakovitch nodded. 'And afterwards, I perhaps come with you? See what kind problem you have?'

  'If you wish. '

  Krakovitch pondered it. 'You tell me a lot,' he said. 'And you solve some big problems for me, maybe. But you not say where exactly this thing in Romania. '

  'If you want to go it alone,' said Kyle, 'I will tell you. Not exactly, for I don't know exactly, but close enough that you'll be able to find it. Working together we might do it a lot faster, that's all. '

  'Also,' Krakovitch was still thinking it out, 'you not say how you knowing all of this. Hard to accept all I hear without I know how you know. '

  'Harry Keogh told me,' said Kyle.

  'Keogh is dead a long time now,' said Krakovitch.

  'Yes,' Quint cut in, 'but he told us everything right up to the time he died. '

  'Ah?' Krakovitch drew breath sharply. 'He was that good? Such talent in a telepath must be. . . very rare. '

  'Unique!' said Kyle.

  'And your lot killed him!' Quint accused.

  Krakovitch quickly turned to him. 'Dragosani killed him. And he killed Dragosani - almost. '

  It was Kyle's turn to gasp. 'Almost? Are you saying that - '

  Krakovitch held up a hand. 'I finish the job Keogh started,' he said. 'I tell you about that. But first: you say Keogh in contact right until the end?'

  Kyle wanted to say, he still is! But that was a secret best kept. 'Yes,' he answered.

  'Then you can describe what happen that night?'

  'In detail,' said Kyle. 'Would that satisfy you that the rest of what I've said is the truth?'

  Krakovitch slowly nodded.

  'They came out of the night and the falling snow,' Kyle began. 'Zombies, men dead for four hundred years, and Harry their leader. Bullets couldn't stop them, for they were already dead. Cut them down with machine-gun fire, and the bits kept right on coming. They got into your defensive positions, your pillboxes. They pulled the pins on grenades, fought with their old rusty weapons, their swords and axes. They were Tartars, fearless, and made more fearless by the fact that they couldn't die twice. Keogh wasn't just a telepath; amongst his other talents, he could also teleport! He did - right into Dragosani's control room. He took a couple of his Tartars with him. That was where he and Dragosani had it out, while in the rest of the Château - '

  ' - In the rest of the Château,' Krakovitch took up the story, his face deathly white, 'it was. . . hell! I was there.

  I lived through it. A few others with me. The rest died - horribly! Keogh was. . . some kind of monster. He could call up the dead!'

  'Not as big a monster as Dragosani,' said Kyle. 'But you were going to tell me what happened after Keogh died. How you finished off the job he started. What did you mean by that?'

  'Dragosani was a vampire,' Krakovitch nodded, almost to himself. 'Yes, you are right, of course. ' He got a grip of himself. 'Look, Sergei here was with me when we clean up what was left of Dragosani. Let me show you what happen when I remind him about that - and when I tell to him there are more of them. ' He turned to his silent companion, spoke to him rapidly in Russian.

  They were sitting at a scruffy bar lit by flickering neon in the airport's almost deserted night arrivals lounge. The barman had gone off duty two hours earlier and their glasses had stood empty ever since. Gulharov's reaction to what Krakovitch told him was immediate and vehement. He went white and drew back from his boss, almost falling from his barstool. And as Krakovitch finished speaking, so he slammed his empty beer glass down on the bar.

  'Nyet, nyet!' he gasped his denial, his face working with a strange mixture of fury and loathing. And then, his voice gradually rising and growing shrill, he began a diatribe in Russian which would soon attract attention.

  Krakovitch gripped his arm and shook him, and Gulharov's jabbering faded into silence. 'Now I ask him if we accepting your help,' Krakovitch informed. He spoke to the younger man again, and this time Gulharov nodded twice, rapidly, and his colour began to return to normal.

  'Da, da!' he gasped emphatically. His throat made a dry rattle as he added something else, unintelligible to the two Englishmen.

  Krakovitch smiled humourlessly. 'He says we should accept all the help we can get,' he translated. 'Because we have to kill these things - finish them! And I agreeing with him. . . ' Then he told these strangest of allies all that had happened at the Château Bronnitsy after Harry Keogh's war.

  When he'd finished there was a long silence, broken at last by Quint. 'We're in agreement, then? That we'll act together on this?'

  Krakovitch nodded. He shrugged, said simply, 'No alternative. And no time to waste. '

  Quint turned to Kyle. 'But how do we go about it?'

  'As far as possible,' Kyle answered, 'we go the straightforward way. We get it all right up front, without any of the usual - , The airport tannoy broke in on him, echoing tinnily as so
me sleepy, unseen announcer requested in English that a Mr A. Kyle please take a telephone call at the reception desk.

  Krakovitch's face froze. Who would know that Kyle was here?

  Kyle stood up, shrugged apologetically. This was very embarrassing. It could only be 'Brown', and how to explain that to Krakovitch? Quint, on the other hand, was his usual ready-for-anything self. Calmly he said to Krakovitch, 'Well, you have your little bloodhound following you about. And now it would seem that we have one too. '

  Krakovitch gave a curt, sour nod. And with an edge of 'sarcasm, echoing Kyle, he said, 'Without any of the usual, eh? Did you know about this?'

  'it's none of our doing. ' Quint wasn't exactly truthful. We're in the same boat as you. '

  On Krakovitch's orders, Gulharov accompanied Kyle to the reception-cum-enquiries desk, leaving . Quint and Krakovitch alone together. 'Maybe this is all in our favour,' said Quint.

  'Eh?' Krakovitch had turned sour again. 'We are followed, spied upon, overheard, bugged, and you say is favourable?'

  'I meant you and Kyle both having shadows,' Quint explained. 'It evens things up. And maybe we can cancel out one with the other. '

  Krakovitch was alarmed. 'I not being party to violence! Anything happen to that KGB dog, is possible I get the troubles. '

  'But if we could arrange for him to be, er, detained for a day or two? I mean, unharmed, you understand - completely unharmed - just detained. .

  'I not know. .

  'To give you time to clear our route into Romania. You know, visas, etcetera? With a bit of luck we'll be finished there in just a day or two. '

  Krakovitch slowly nodded. 'Maybe - but positive guarantee, no dirty work. He is KGB - you say - but if true, then he's Russian too. And I am Russian. If he vanish . .

  Quint shook his head, grasped the other's thin elbow. 'They both vanish!' he said. 'But only for a few days. Then we'll be out of here and getting on with the job. '

  Again Krakovitch gave his slow nod. 'Maybe - if it can be arranged safely. '

  Kyle and Gulharov returned. Kyle was careful. 'That was somebody called Brown,' he said. 'He's been watching us, apparently. ' He looked at Krakovitch. 'He says your KGB tail has traced us and is on his way here. By the way, this KGB fellow is well known - his name is Theo Dolgikh. '

  Krakovitch shook his head, shrugged, looked mystified. 'I never heard of him. '

  'Did you get Brown's number?' Quint was eager. 'I mean can we contact him again?'

  Kyle raised his eyebrows. 'Actually, yes,' he nodded. He said that if things were getting sticky, he might be able to help. Why do you ask?'

  Quint grinned tightly, said to Krakovitch, 'Comrade, it might be a good idea if you were to listen carefully. Since you're a little concerned about this, you can start working on an alibi. For from this point forward you're hand in hand with the enemy. Your only consolation is that you'll be working against a greater enemy. ' The grin left his face, and deadly serious he said, 'OK, here's what I suggest. .

  On Saturday morning at 8. 30 Kyle phoned Krakovitch at his and Gulharov's hotel. The latter answered the call, grunted, fetched Krakovitch who came grumbling to the phone. He was just out of bed, could Kyle call later? While this brief show was going on, downstairs in the Genovese's lobby, Quint was talking to Brown. At 9. 15 Kyle phoned Krakovitch again and arranged a second meeting: they would meet outside Frankie's Franchise in an hour's time and go on from there.

  There was nothing new in this arrangement; it was part of the plan worked out the night before: Kyle suspected that the phone in his room was now bugged and he simply wanted to give Theo Dolgikh plenty of advance notice. If Kyle's phone wasn't bugged, then Krakovitch's surely was, which could only work out the same. Anyway, the psychic sixth senses of both Kyle and Quint were playing up a little, which told them that something was brewing.

  Sure enough, when they left the Geriovese just before 10. 00 A. M. and headed for the docks, they had a tail.

  Dolgikh was keeping well back, but it could only be him. Kyle and Quint had to admire his tenacity, for despite his rough night he was still very much the master-spy; now his attire was that of the shipyard worker, dark-blue coveralls and a heavy bag of tools, and the blue-black stubble of twenty-four hours' growth on his round, intense face.

  'He must have a hell of a wardrobe, this lad,' said Kyle as he and Quint approached the narrow, still slumbering streets of Genoa's dockland. 'I'd hate to have to carry his luggage!'

  Quint shook his head. 'No,' he answered, 'I shouldn't think so. They'll probably have a safe house here and there's bound to be one of their ships in the harbour. Whichever, when he requires a change of clothing, they'll be the ones who'll fix it for him. '

  Kyle squinted at him out of the corner of his eye. 'You know,' he said. 'I'm sure you'd have been better off in M15. You have a bent for it. '

  'It might make an interesting hobby. ' Quint grinned. 'Mundane spying, that is - but I'm happy where I am. The real talent's with INTESP. Now if our man Dolgikh were an esper, then we could be in real trouble. '

  Kyle gave his companion a sharp glance, then relaxed. 'But he isn't or we'd have spotted him without Brown's assistance. No, he's simply one of their surveillance types, and pretty good at his job. I've been thinking of him as something big, but this is probably the biggest assignment he's ever had. '

  'Which,' Quint grimly added, 'with any luck, is just about to terminate a mite ingloriously. But I wouldn't be too sure he's small fry, if I were you. After all, he was big enough to show up on Brown's firm's computer. '

  Carl Quint was right: Theo Dolgikh was not small fry, not in any sense of the word. Indeed, it was a measure of Yuri Andropov's 'respect' for the Soviet E-Branch that he'd put Dolgikh on the job. For Leonid Brezhnev would likely give Andropov a hard time if Krakovitch were to report to him that the KGB were interfering again.

  Dolgikh was in his early thirties, a native Siberian bred of a long line of Komsomol lumberjacks. He was the complete communist for whom little else existed but Party and State. He had trained, and later done some teaching, in Berlin, Bulgaria, Palestine and Libya. He was an expert in weapons (especially Western Bloc weapons), also in terrorism, sabotage, interrogation and surveillance; as well as Russian, he could speak a broken Italian, decent German and English. But his real forte - indeed his penchant - lay in the field of murder. For Theo Dolgikh was a cold-blooded killer.

  Because of his compressed build, Dolgikh might seem at a distance short and stubby. In fact he was five-ten and weighed in at almost sixteen stone. Heavy-boned, heavjowled under a moon face that supported a mop of uneven jet-black hair, Dolgikh was 'heavy' in all departments. His Japanese instructor at the KGB School of Martial Arts in Moscow used to say:

  'Comrade, you are too heavy for this game. Because of your bulk, you lack speed and agility. Sumo wrestling would be more your style. On the other hand, very little of your weight is fat, and muscle is most useful. Since teaching you the disciplines of self-defence is probably a great waste of time, I shall therefore concentrate my instruction on ways of killing, for which I am assured you are not only physically but mentally best suited. '

  Now, closing in on his quarry as they entered the winding, labyrinthine streets and alleys close to the docks, Dolgikh felt his blood rising and wished this were that sort of job. After last night's run-around he could happily murder this pair! And it would be so easy. They seemed utterly obsessed with this most seamy side of the city.

  Thirty yards ahead of him, Kyle and Quint made a sudden sharp turn into a cobbled alley where the buildings loomed high, shutting out the light. Dolgikh put on a little speed, arrived at the alley's entrance, passed from grey drizzle into a steamy gloom where the refuse of four or five days stood uncollected. In many places overhead the opposing buildings were arched over. Following a frantic Frida
y night, this district wasn't even awake yet. If Dolgikh had been after the lives of these two, this would have been the place to do it.

  Footsteps echoed back to him. The Russian agent narrowed small round eyes to gaze through the gloom of the alley at a pair of shadowy figures as they rounded a bend. He paused for a second, then started after them. But, sensing movement close by, a silent presence, he at once skidded to a halt.

  From the shadows of a recessed doorway a gravelly voice said, 'Hello, Theo. You don't know me, but I know you!'

  Dolgikh's Japanese instructor had been right: he wasn't fast enough. At times like this his bulk got in the way. Gritting his teeth in anticipation of the dull smack of the suspected cosh and its pain, or maybe the blue glint of a silencer on the end of a gun barrel, he whirled towards the voice in the darkness, hurled his heavy bag of tools. A tall, shadowy figure caught the bag full in the chest, grunted, and lobbed it aside to clatter on the cobbles. Dolgikh's eyes were getting used to the gloom. It was still dark, but he'd seen no sign of a weapon. This was just the way he liked it.

  Head down, like a human torpedo, he hurled himself into the doorway's shadows.

  'Mr Brown' hit him twice, two expertly delivered blows, not calculated to kill but simply stun. And to be doubly sure, before Dolgikh could fall, Brown slammed the Russian's head into the stout panels of the door, splintering one of them.

  A moment later he stepped out of the shadows into the alley, glanced this way and that, satisfied himself that all was well. Just the drip of rain and the stinking vapours from the garbage. And now there was this extra heap of garbage. Brown grinned hugely, toed Dolgikh's crumpled figure.

  That was always the way of it with big men: they tended to assume that they were the biggest, the toughest. But that wasn't always the case. Brown was about the same weight as Dolgikh, but he was three inches taller and five years younger. Ex-SAS, his training had been none too gentle. In fact, if he hadn't developed something of a kink in his mental make-up, he'd probably still be with the

  SAS.

  He grinned again, then hunched his shoulders and shrank down into his raincoat. Hands thrust deep into his pockets, he hurried to fetch his car.