Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 44

Then they were back at Aviemore, where Francesco told the others, including Luigi Manoza: 'Now we wait for nightfall. We have a couple of hours yet. You three take it in turn to watch that one,' he aimed a thumb at the helicopter, 'and we can all relax and eat in the bar... that's if you're still hungry. If or when this Keogh wakes up -no matter what we get out of him or don't - we're taking him with us into the mountain. Up into the mountain, and down from it. Or more properly down from the chopper. He flew like a ghost into and out of Le Manse Madonie that time, so now he can fly again - into thin air! I'm going to enjoy watching that b.a.s.t.a.r.d step or get tossed into s.p.a.ce a couple of thousand feet up!'

Which the others found a very agreeable sentiment...

BJ. had hit Harry very hard, perhaps even too hard. But she'd wanted to be sure he wasn't going anywhere, that he was definitely out of the real trouble. It had never occurred to her that leaving him at John's house might place him in yet more jeopardy; surely, after the fighting there, and this close to Radu's rising, her enemies wouldn't go back there? They must know she would no longer be there. So she'd reckoned, but reckoned without the tenacity of the Wamphyri.

By now the Necroscope had been out for almost four hours, it was the twilight before true night, and a full moon was coming up over the Cairngorms. Wrapped in a blanket, Moreen's body had been transferred to the helicopter; her killers were aboard and Luigi Manoza was warming up the engine, waiting for Francesco's order to get aloft.

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The moon is on the roof of the mountains even now,' Francesco said.

'Are we all ready?... Then 111 tell you what you can expect By now there may well have been fighting up there, between Drakuls and Lykan thralls, and maybe including the dog-Lord Radu himself. It could be going on right now, and from the moment we touch down we could be in the thick of it. So what do we have against Radu, who is Wamphyri? First there's me, for I, too, am Wamphyri! I can be hurt -1 can be killed - but that's not an easy thing to do, and we have it on very good authority, advance information courtesy of Angelo, that we are on the winning side.

Then we have superior weapons. You've seen what the woman had: a shotgun? Hah! But on the other hand the Drakuls could be heavily armed, though not as heavily as us, I fancy. You've all got red armbands, and you can all see in the dark. There can be no errors: if it moves and it isn't wearing red, shoot it! And shoot to kill!

'Radu: the odds are he'll be weak physically. But if he's still the legendary wolf, we can tame him. Every third round in your magazines is a silver bullet. Deadly to all of us, I know, but even more so to him. If you see him, if you get him in your sights - don't f.u.c.k with him! Give him all you've got And when he's down get up close and keep hosing it to him. I want him in pieces, and then I want to burn each piece!'

He looked at the faces of McGowan and Tanziano, where they were seated with him in the pa.s.senger cabin, and at the back of Luigi Manoza's head at the controls. That's it, then. Now, are there any questions?'

There were none, and Francesco leaned forward to give Manoza a tap on the shoulder. 'Luigi? Can you put her down OK?'

'I got a good look at the place,' Manoza shouted over the rising clamour of the rotors. 'Most of it is fairly flat where 111 put down. The weather forecast gives us a clear night, no wind to mention and the temperature several degrees above zero. It couldn't be better. And then th ere's the dog-Lord's big silver friend in the sky.'

He meant the full moon. 'It'll be like daylight.'

Francesco nodded. "Yes, this time his silver mistress has really let him down. Very well, let's get on our way...'

Harry heard none of this , or if he did it was as a fuzzy background static to the gradual transition he was making from true unconsciousness to healing sleep. The sleeping bag tossed over him had kept him r elatively warm, and his good physical condition overall had guaranteed that apart from a headache he would come out of this intact - for however long or short a time.

He was aware, however dimly, dreamily, that someone else was with him. close to him; he could feel a cold marble thigh against his, and a cold arm across his body. But then again it could be part of his dream. Except he dreamed of flight... of motion through the air. It would be soothing - like rocking in a chair or drowsing in a hammock - except someone seemed to be trying to tip him out of the hammock. 'Whoever you are, please p.i.s.s off!' he tried to say. But if he said anything at all it was lost in the rumbling of the helicopter's rotors.

The Necroscope's mental barriers were down; the disturbance he experienced wasn't anyone trying to tip him out of anything, but rather into something; in fact, into a response. It was Sir Keenan Gormley, who was insisting: Harry, for G.o.d's sake accept me, can't you? Listen to me! I thought we'd lost you. We all did-for suddenly you weren't there! Your light had gone out and there was nothing but darkness out there. But just a moment ago it flared up again, so I know you're still there. And Harry my boy, I must talk to you!

Keenan? (Harry dreamed on, but at least the dead man had got his attention). Can't it keep? I don 'tfeel too good, need to take it easy. It was a weak response - as weak as and weaker than Sir Keenan had ever had from the Necroscope - but knowing him of old, the ex-Head of E-Branch read him like a book. And: You've been hurt? Well, that doesn't surprise me. For without your full range of talents, without being able to use them to maximum effect, what are you but a man after all? But Harry, I can give them back to you!

Or if I can't, I know someone who can.

Now Sir Keenan had his full attention, even if it hurt, and Harry said. Give something back? What are we talking about?

The Mobius Continuum! Sir Keenan told him. Its unrestricted use! Harry, you've been robbed, and you don't even know it.

'I was robbed?' he spoke out loud - or rather in a croaky whisper, unheard over the throb of the helicopter's engine and the whup, whup, whup of rotors - as one of his legs jerked in a semi-conscious, reflex manner, striking against a naked figure lying beside him. Harry was waking up, and Francesco Francezci had noticed his twitching.

'Keogh moved,' he said to Angus McGowan and Dancer, seated opposite him. Tanziano at once reached down, flicked aside the blanket covering the girl's body. But when he went to yank the sleeping bag from the Necroscope's crumpled figure, Francesco stopped him. 'Let it be,' he said. 'I can't really talk to him here anyway, and who cares? He's a dead man; our mission is as good as accomplished; we have my father's guarantee that we're coming out on top. And if this one is, or was, as dangerous as Angelo thought he was - why keep him around any longer than we have to, eh?' He reached out, touched Manoza's shoulder. 'Luigi, let's have a little alt.i.tude. There's some one back here wants to go sky-diving.'418.

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ecroscope: The Lost Yean - Vol. II 419.

Meanwhile Sir Keenan Gormley had introduced Harry to a new Voice* in the metaphysical aether. But whoever it belonged to, he was so faint, distant, damaged that the connection was like a long-distance call to another planet We met once, Harry, the disembodied, dislocated voice told him. Maybe you'll remember? It wasn't long ago, at E-Branch HQ, in London. You, Darcy Clarke, and Ben Trash, you gave me a lift home one night. But I didn't make it. Since then... it's taken me a long time to get it together. And me... well, I don't suppose III ever get myself together! My name is-or was -James Anderson. I was a self- styled 'Doctor,' and my business... was hypnotism. I did the occasional work for E-Branch, and you- 'And I was one of your subjects?' Even half-asleep (and the Necroscope had never known the sleep or dreams of ordinary men) Harry's voice was hard. He caught on fast and tilings were dropping into place. And the more they dropped, the closer he came to waking.

Anderson told him everything and, however faintly, his message got through. And because intercourse with the dead is more akin to telepathy than physical speech, more an experience than a conversation, Harry absorbed it all in double-quick time. But when he knew how Anderson had died, and why he was so faint... then there was nothing for it but to accept his apology and forgive him. For Anderson hadn't known what it was all about, after all, only that he was doing a job for E- Branch. And: 'b.l.o.o.d.y E-Branch!' Harry said, disgustedly. They dropped you right in it, didn't they? Oh, they're good at that' Well, I don't know if this will help any, but I can tell you - or show you - what happened to the two who... who did it to you.' And he pictured again the explosion in the Mttbius Continuum, a fireball expanding, then shrinking, as the wreckage of the Mercedes sped on forever. And the death- shrieks of the men inside going on forever, too. Forever? Anderson queried, his voice even smaller.

'I can't say,' Harry answered. 'I don't know. I don't want to think about it...' And a moment later, explosively: Tucking E-Branch!' he spat, as one of Nostradamus's quatrains leaped to mind: Six hundred north, and west unto the Zero, the men of magic are his friends, but chained. They may not help the one who is their hero, or tell him that which may not be explained...

Chained by their own rules, yes - by the Minister Responsible, bureaucracy, governmental 'expediency,' by the Department of Dirty Tricks - but mainly by their fear that someone else might try to recruit him after he'd quit! Harry sa w it all now. He'd always suspected that there was something Darcy desperately wanted to tell him but didn't know how to explain it E-Branch, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!

But Harry, Anderson told him, / can put it right. I'm the only one who can put it right! Why, It's as easy as this: (The snap of mental fingers - Anderson's oh-so-talented fingers - in Harry's mind, as he came a little more fuOy awake... then sprang fully awake, in knowledge at least.) And this time there was no conflict; Harry's various levels of conscious awareness, his several realities interfaced perfectly, because the man who had been responsible for creating the first of his mind-blocks was also the one who removed it And Dancer said: 'Francesco, this guy's talking to himself and starting to move. He's coming out of it'

But not quite, for the dead were still talking to the Necroscope, and they still had his attention. Indeed, they had his attention more fully than at any time since Anderson had placed his post-hypnotic manacles on Harry's mind and behaviour, constraints which were now lifted.

Harry? said a new voice, male, with a slight Scottish accent; a voice of once-authority, but shaky now and with nothing of its former confidence. I just wanted to warn you about who - or what -you're up against. Ex- Inspector George lanson paused to introduce himself, and then quickly told his story... which was as bad or worse than Anderson's. So, there you have it, he finished with a mental shudder. That little man, McGowan, a man I catted my friend, has to be the devil incarnate! And while he is alive, I... can never rest. Literally...

'One devil,' Harry answered. 'Just one of man y. So thanks for the wa rning but it really wasn't necessary. I know they've got to go. It's them or me, and I don't intend it to be me...'

/ was a man of law and justice, lanson told him, but there can be no sane or civilized trial'for such as them, just revenge - or maybe a 'just' revenge? I'm only one, Harry, but how many other victims have there been?

And his voice slowly faded into the background static of the grave - or in lanson's case, a place even darker than the grave.

The Necroscope's anger was making him restless now; it was a cold anger, that bit into his soul like an icy blast All the way down the line he had been everybody's fool, and he'd placed all of the blame on himself. He had actually believed himself a drunk, or an amnesiac, or a madman; hehad committed himself to an asylum! And only now, when it might well be too late, did he have the complete story; only now the missing pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place. And the bitter chill of realization, of knowledge, was eating deeper and deeper into him.

Harry? said a female voice from close, very close at hand. Can I-l mean, would you mind - if I talked to you, too? You are human, but

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you were our friend. My friend, briefly. But you should know: I can't, couldn't kelp what I was, and neither can B.J. It was in the blood, that's all. In her more t.i.tan in me or any of the girls. That's not an excuse, ifs simply a fact. And Harry, if you don't already know, then you should know that she really does love you.

The Necroscope knew the voice: it was Moreen, one of B J.'s girls. But dead?

By the Watcher's hand, McGowan's hand, yes, she said. But I won't go into details. Anyway, who ami to say what should or shouldn't be? What, with my background? But that policeman you were talking to... he's so right, Harry. For no matter what I was, that little man is the devil incarnate!

The helicopter rolled a little, and Moreen's arm flopped across Harry's face. He felt it there, and knew it for what it was. Then the icy blast hit him again, and not only in his soul but physically. A blast from the open door, and the whup, whup, whup! of the chopper's rotors finally getting through to him.

Harry gave a single spastic kick, yelled out loud, jerked awake! He scrambled half-way to his feet, fell to his knees as whip-crack lightning flashes from the back of his head threatened to engulf him again.

McGowan and Dancer flanked him, grabbed bis arms, yanked him moaning upright In the red glow of the cabin lights, hanging onto a ceiling strap, Francesco Francezci grinned directly into his face and said, 'Hallo, whoever you f.u.c.king are - and goodbye!' He jerked his head to indicate the open door and the end of Harry's life.

Disoriented, the Necroscope let himself be dragged to the door. Then, seeing what had been planned for him, he might have fought, but it was too late. As they catapulted him into s.p.a.ce, McGowan leaned his devil's face out after him a little way and grinned from ear to ear - for a moment Then he stopped grinning, gave a wild shriek - and came tumbling after!

While in the aircraft, Francesco took the safety off the machine-pistol slung over his shoulder, cursed and brought die weapon up into the firing position, and let fly point-blank with a spray of bullets... directly into the naked back of an entirely dead Moreen! Dead, with her tongue and heart ripped out, her blood stolen, and her body ravaged, but 'alive' enough to have clawed herself up of f the floor and to have pushed Angus McGowan out into thin air! And Harry hadn't even asked.

Devastated by the spray of bullets - almost cut in half, hurled forward, projected out of the door - she was only a rag doll again fluttering in the down-blast And her last words to the Necroscope were: It seems I left it too long. Sorry, Harry...

But: Don't be, he told her, falling. And don't worry, you won't be alon e. The dead may take their time, but they'll talk to you e ventually. And so will I when I get the chance.

His first thought was to conjure a Mobius door, but then he saw McGowan angling towards him. The little man was falling like a genuine sky-diver, with arms and legs forming something of an aerofoil. And Harry remembered from what lanson had told him that this one had been a lieutenant for a long time. Even as he watched, McGowan's body was flattening, more surely gliding. And his arms were stretching, reaching.

Extending towards Harry!

And his face! His mad eyes blazing, triumphant! His jaws gaping, wider and wider! And his teeth elongating, curving up out of riven, bleeding gums. His hands were hooked into claws, and they were only inches away...

... When Harry mouthed, 'So you're the devil himself, are you? Well then, welcome to h.e.l.l, Watcher!'

And opening a door directly beneath his falling body, the Necroscope plunged through it But only McGowan's arms, sliced through above the elbows, went with him. Hot blood sprayed and Harry held up an arm to deflect its red jet Then it was over, and he was hanging there as limp as a rag, cold, damp, motionless, but safe now in the nothingness of the Mobius Continuum.

While in the universe he'd just left, McGowan howled his agony and his helplessness, waved his scarlet stumps, and went plummeting into a rocky gorge a thousand feet below.

If someone were cruel enough to hurl a garden snail onto a concrete slab, he would get much the same result George lanson could rest easier now, Moreen, too, and many another with them...

And in the helicopter: Shocked rigid, astonished, Guy Tanziano stood frozen beside the open door. And even more ashen than usual, Francesco slumped back into his seat and said, 'Shut the f.u.c.king thing!' And: 'Did you see that? Or am I going mad? That girl...'

*What happened?' At the controls, Luigi Manoza had caught very little of the action.

'She was alive,' Dancer mumbled stupidly, sliding the cabin door shut and turning the locking handle.

'No,' Francesco got a grip on himself, snarled low in his throat 'She was dead meat But... I don't know. He - they? - had seemed to be talking to each other!' And to himself: Didn't Angela tell us that he talks to dead pe ople?

'Maybe...' said Dancer. 'Er, maybe...'

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'Maybe what?' The Francezci spoke as if to himself; he was scarcely able to believe what had happened.

'Maybe she'd been a thrall, even a lieutenant, longer than we thought.'

'What?' But suddenl y Francesco was seeing Dancer in a new light For 'mayb e' he was right at that! No maybe about it; he had to be right. The girl had been a fully-fledged vampire, and this had been her last shot at metamorphism. Nothing to do with life or intelligence, just the vampire stuff inside her hanging on to dear life. But no longer. By now she'd be so much slop.

"What? I mean, what?" Luigi Manoza's chubby white face was still staring back into the pa.s.senger cabin.

The Francezci looked at him and said, 'McGowan's gone. An accident. Now there are just the three of us...'

It had been the fastest climb of BJ.'s life, as if everything else she had done, every moment of practice on a hundred cliff faces, but especially on this one, had been trial runs for the one big effort. Like an athlete who holds him self in reserve for the big race, BJ. had held herself back for this one.

Even handicapped by climbing with Sandra - to whom, for the last thirteen years, B.J. had been teaching everything she knew - still she had outdone herself. For the last hour or so, however, Sandra had been flagging; BJ. had more or less dragged her through the final stages of the ascent. But where she had been Sandra's life-support system on the inhospitable, often vertical granite faces, Sandra would be hers when at last she stood face to face with her terrible Master -or her ex-Master, as she kept reminding herself.

For where BJ. was expert with her naked hands - as well as with the despised ropes and pitons of the climber - Sandra was a crack shot. And in her smal l pack she carried a pistol loaded with very sp ecial ammunition: silver bullets that B J. had never believed she would use except against her mortal or near- immortal enemies. But what the h.e.l.l... the dog-Lord was her enemy now, else he would surely have contacted her before this! But here the full moon lit their way and Radu's redoubt no more than a slight overhang and a narrow rocky ledge away, and still the psychic aether was as empty of living thoughts as a crumbling ruin.

Or perhaps not For every now and then - briefly, as a ripple on water, or a riffle through the pages of her mind - B J. would feel an observer where there could not possibly be one. But it wasn't Radu, no. For she would know his mind, his feral feel, his mental musk, anywhere.

If Radu was up - if Auld John and the others had had any success in raising him from the resin - then the dog-Lord was keeping very quiet about it. And so BJ. must be mistaken. It had to be the proximity of the redoubt, preying on her mind.

She took a small grapple from her belt, spr ang its tines and swung it up into the riven rock some twel ve feet overhead. It caught at once, and she tried her weight on it while still clinging tight to the cliff face. No problem; she'd done this a hundred times before. She braced her feet, climbed hand over hand to the overhang, reached across it and drew herself up on to the ledge. Eight feet overhead, the grapple was still firmly wedged. And: 'Sandra,' she called down softly. "You climb, I'll pull.'

The girl at once obeyed. And she was on the rope, bracin g her legs, leaning back into s.p.a.ce and looking up at B J . when it happened.

Sandra's eyes went wide; she saw beyond B J., and uttered a small gasp that had nothing at all to do with her exertions. BJ. rolled on her side and looked up. Above her ledge, a hole or cave in the honeycombed rock - it, too, must penetrate into the mountain, but on a slightly higher level. And looking down on her out of the mouth of the cave, over the rim of the rock, the vicious visage of an Asiatic - a Drakul! And: Revenge! Singra Singh Drakesh thought, directly into BJ.'s mind, as he sliced through the rope. Revenge for mine that your people broke on the rocks of this selfsame mountain!

BJ. had the rope in her hands, but Sandra had panicked. Now she dangled there, with all of her weight on the rope that slid ever faster through BJ.'s fingers. And she couldn't trap it! Blood spurted where the rope cut, lubricating its pa.s.sage, until the sliced end whipped between her fingers and was gone. And Sandra gone with it, a small frightened figure twirling in darkness, down to the black river where it frothed at the bottom of the gorge. As quick as that...

B J. stuck her legs deep into the narrow slit of the rubble-littered natural 'window' at the back of her ledge, looked up again, and panted: 'You, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d - you're a dead man!'

On his belly, Singra Singh looked down on her, and said, 'I think not.' His knife had been put away but now he dragged something else into view.

Seeing the blued-steel muzzle of an ugly machine-pistol, BJ. scrambled to turn her body out of the line of fire, draw herself under the lip of rock into the labyrinthine system of caves that she knew lay within. But her gear snagged on something, trapping her, and Singh's thin lips formed a grinning gash in his face where they drew back from needle teeth. Taking his time, he lined up his sights...

... And a growling voice in both of their minds, that yet spoke to Singra Singh, said: You are by far the lesser of two evils, true, but you are closer to hand. And by preference, I would kill a Drakul every time before a Lykan. Even a treacherous b.i.t.c.h like that one!424.

Then... something crunched. It crunched so loud and clear that B J. could almost feel it the snapping of bones. And the agonized, tortured look on Singra Singh's face said it all, as he dropped his weapon and flopped like a beached fish ... then began to slide backwards, dragged effortlessly into his cave!

B J. knew what had him, but had to see it for herself That monstrous paw that reached out over his head to catch it in the raking hooks of three-inch talons, and s.n.a.t.c.h it out of view. And the Drakul's death-cry rising up and up, 'Ah! Ah! Akkkr before it shuddered into an awful silence.

Then, galvanized by her terror, BJ. struggled free of the opening and into the redoubt And slipping into the darkness of mazy caverns and corridors that no other person had ever known so well, she took her crossbow from her belt, opened its wings and nocked it, slid a bolt into place on the tiller. 'With Sandra gone, the crossbow was her only weapon against all the pent-up horror and l.u.s.t of six centuries.

And her single advantage, for what it was worth, was that now she had only herself to worry about...

in IN RADU'S REDOUBT HARRY AND THE DOG-LORD.

That was our biggest fear. Sir Keenan told Harry, shortly after the Necroscope emerged from the MObius Continuum at Auld John's place. That the interface would cause a complete and final mental breakdown.

Thank G.o.d we were wrong!

But Harry had never been too sure about G.o.d, and so answered, 'I prefer to thank Nostradamus, and maybe Mesmer. I'm not sure what Mesmer did, but I think he eased the way for me. Nostradamus took a chance - and again I'm not too sure about a lot of the stuff he told me - but in making me work some of it out for myself he provided the cure. The way I see it it's easy to be scared of the unknown. But once you begin to understand what you are dealing with, then it gets easier.'

Your mother said as much. Sir Keenan told him.

And Harry nodded. 'If I had been hit with the whole thing, all at one time, I'm pretty sure I would have lost it totally. But bit by bit I could take it. And not only that but I'm mad as h.e.l.l! I mean, angry mad.'

And this time it was me who said as much. Sir Keenan said, worriedly. But not so mad that you'll start taking chances?

Til do what I have to,' Harry answered. 'And now I have to make myself useful. Please excuse me...'

He found his belt and munitions where B J. had tossed them under a bush close to the house, and re- equipped himself. Also, he looked for and pocketed the cigarette lighter dropped by the Ferenczy thrall when he had shot him. After that there was only one thing left to do, one place to go, and he believed he knew the exact location. For when BJ. had told him - or re-told him - about the Wamphyri, she had awakened certain memories, too.

One of them was about a dream he'd had, or a premonition; or, since it had been a long time, even years ago, when the Necroscope Necroscope: The Lost Yean - Vol . II 427.426.

had been new to Alec Kyle's body, maybe it had been one of Kyle's glimpses out of the future. Whichever, he had visited Radu's redoubt and stood by the dog-Lord's sarcophagus. And now he need only recall that specific scene to m ind and the co-ordinates were there, rock solid in his rene wed, repaired and even refreshed memory.

Climb to the lair? He had no doubt that he could, but that was for people who knew no other way. Harry's way was simply to go there.

And taking a deep breath, he prepared to do just that...