Necroscope: Defilers

by Brian Lumley

  “Left,” said Fletcher. “I mean west … go west across the border into Hungary.” His face was very pale now, his eyes sunken and wrinkled up until they were almost closed. And his hand and finger trembled where they contacted the screen. “By God, I believe we’re almost there!”

  “Makes sense,” said Millie Cleary breathlessly. “Nationalistically, these people are Hungarians. Now that Vladi’s search for the ‘strange places’ is over for the time being, he’s heading home for a little R and R.”

  “Didn’t know you were in the armed forces.” Trask’s voice was hushed.

  “Wasn’t,” Millie answered. “But I had a boyfriend who was. Er, it was a long time ago …”

  “Not heading home,” Bernie shook his head, “but gone home! They’re there, and so are we!” Everyone’s gaze was now riveted to the screen, where the locator’s hand literally vibrated on a wooded area near the town of Szentes.

  And Lardis said, “Would you believe there was once a campsite in Sunside called Szente? It belonged to the Szgany Szente and their leader, Volpe—miserable old shad-thief that he was—and was hidden away in the forest southwest of Lidesci territory … that is, until the night the Wamphyri found it. Aye, and they found old Volpe, too, since when the Szgany Szente are no more. Huh! But just look at this map: all those woods, lakes, and rivers. They make for excellent hunting, gathering, fishing. Oh yes, Vladi and his people, they’ve gone home all right!”

  “How are we fixed with Hungary, diplomatically and so on?” Trask was on it in a flash.

  “Couldn’t be better,” said Millie Cleary. “They joined the European Union just three years ago; they’re using the old NATO standard weaponry, and our armed forces are training their junior officers at Sandhurst and the other academies; we kept them out of the fire financially when Russia and her oncesatellites went down the tube, and so they owe the West a heck of a lot.”

  Trask nodded. “Good. Excellent! More work for the Minister Responsible: to speak to his Hungarian counterpart and have old Vladi Ferengi taken into, er, ‘protective custody’ in Szeged or maybe even Szentes, depending on local public opinion. Lardis, you and I shall fly out there together, talk to Vladi, find out where he’d been immediately prior to that poor girl going down with … well, with whatever. But I’m beginning to think we can be pretty sure what was wrong with her.”

  “I’m ready whenever you are,” Lardis nodded. “Just say the word. And maybe this time we’ll actually get somewhere!”

  “Right,” said Trask, “and now it’s time to make a few man-power plans … but I’m leaving that and the other logistics to the techs.” He tapped Jimmy Harvey on the shoulder where he sat at the computer keyboard. “Jimmy, we’re talking hours, not days. A breakdown of all available manpower, travel arrangements, all the usual logistics, yes. An Australian skeleton crew, a backup or rear party here at the HQ., and the main task force … well, somewhere in Greece. They’ll probably be based somewhere on the Mediterranean coast close to Kavála. But they’ll be the last to get under way, which will be just as soon as Lardis and I finish up in Szentes. Then we’ll join up with them in—” he offered a shrug, “—wherever …”

  Trask looked from face to face. “Questions?”

  There were none.

  “Then think some up!” he said, “And find the answers—and then tell me about them!” He headed for the door but Jimmy Harvey stopped him, saying:

  “Maybe I should speak to GCHQ, the listening station? They have access to Brit and US spysats. Maybe they can confirm that the Szgany have gone home, actually get them on-screen in those Hungarian woods.”

  “No,” said Trask. “GCHQ will only want to know what we’re doing, why we need this information, and I would much prefer to keep this to ourselves. So we’ll simply take Bernie’s, David’s, and Lardis’s word for it, and work on that.” And at the door he turned and said:

  “David, I’ll have to speak to the Minister Responsible directly, I mean right now, so that he can fix things up for me in Hungary. Since I can’t be in two places at once, do me a favour and see if you can contact Manolis Papastamos, will you? Thanks. And Millie, and Liz: I’ll see you in my office in half an hour. Liz first. As for the rest of you: thanks, everyone. Well done. But it doesn’t stop here—this is only the start. So now it’s back to work, people, it’s back to work …”

  Trask had barely done talking to the Minister Responsible when Liz Merrick came knocking on his door. He’d wedged it open in the vain hope that some fresh air might come wafting through his office; wondered if in fact there was any fresh air left—anywhere! The air-conditioning? That was a laugh! The one system that hadn’t been updated in this place; and thirty years ago, long before anyone had begun to take note of weird El Niño weather patterns, even then the air-conditioning at E-Branch HQ had been inadequate.

  “Come in and … and droop!” Trask called out. “Better yet, come in and flog me with some twigs or something …”

  “Excuse me?” Looking not quite as wilted as Trask, Liz sat down opposite his desk.

  “Well, since it feels like I’m living in a sauna,” he told her, “I may as well act like I am!” Then, serious once more: “So what’s going on? All morning you’ve been looking worried. Something I should know about? Something with Jake, maybe—again?”

  Trask’s halfhearted attempt at humour was already a thing of the past, forgotten. And Liz found herself thinking: This is just business to him. No room for anything else. He isn’t going to understand.

  She looked down at the floor for a moment, then looked at Trask—looked straight at him—and set her jaw. And determined, but nevertheless stumbling over her words, she said, “I don’t think I … that is, I don’t want to … I mean, I won’t be spying on Jake anymore.”

  Trask raised an eyebrow, sighed, and said, “Oh? And that’s supposed to upset me, is it?”

  Liz bit her lip. “Not intentionally, no. But I—”

  “Well it does upset me!” He snapped, cutting her off. “It upsets me a great deal, because I’m now looking at the ruin of not just one potentially excellent esper but two. However, and before I chase you to hell out of here, out of the Branch, and out of a job, you’d better tell me why you’ve come to this … this stupid decision! And if you tell me it’s a matter of loyalty, then I’ll have to ask you just where are your loyalties, Liz? And which is more important: your job, E-Branch, the security of the world—or bloody Jake Cutter?”

  And now she was angry, too, which was all to the good, because that way she would tell the plain and simple truth … or the truth as she saw it. And Ben Trask and the truth had always been the best of friends.

  “My spying on him is getting in the way of … of Jake and me, of our relationship,” she said. “He knows what I’m doing—or if not knows, then he more than just suspects it—which is why we’re at an impasse. He can’t let me get too close for fear I’ll learn—well, everything. Including those things everyone has that really should be private, the things that—that—”

  “That rattle?” said Trask. “You mean like skeletons in our closets? Or is it something worse than that?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know. Yes.” And she looked down at the floor again.

  “But isn’t that just exactly what we’ve been trying to discover?” Trask said logically. “Don’t we want to help Jake, and so clear the way for him to start helping us? God, but he has—or he could have—the powers of a Necroscope! Think about it! What a weapon he would make! Think about what he’s already achieved out in Australia. But if there’s something very wrong in there, in the depths of his mind, and if he’s—”

  “If he’s been got at?” she cut in. “If he’s a plant, despite everything we’ve seen so far? But is that really feasible?”

  Trask shrugged, shook his head, then nodded however reluctantly. “Yes, it’s still possible. I don′t want it to be—it’s the last thing I want—but that’s the way it is. We must never underestimate the Wamphyri: the
ir capacity for evil, their lust for life or undeath, their tenacity. You weren’t here, Liz, but we, the rest of us, we won’t ever forget what happened to Harry Keogh. Harry had the will, the guts, the strength to fight it, yet still he lost the battle. But Jake—? That’s why I can’t let you quit—not just for E-Branch and all that we stand for, but for Jake, too—and for you, since you feel that way about him. Now think: if he’s in danger, shouldn’t you be doing something about it, or letting me do it? If he had cancer, wouldn’t you want us to cure it, cut it out?”

  Even saying these things, still Trask felt treacherous. It was his lie detector working in reverse, detecting his lie. Yes, he wanted to save Jake and keep him safe; for E-Branch, for the world, but least of all for Liz. Not until Jake had proved himself beyond all reasonable doubt, anyway. Yet still he went on:

  “Whatever it is that’s affecting him—and I can’t believe it’s ingratitude, stupidity, or just plain stubbornness—we’ve got to find and get rid of it. But if you have … feelings for him, well surely you can see that for yourself?” And before she could answer:

  “Okay, so tell me what’s brought this on. Oh, I know, it’s been coming for some time, ever since we got back home. But the last time we spoke I thought we’d cleared it all up, that there were no more barriers between us, except maybe ethical barriers that really have no meaning compared to what we’re dealing with. As for myself: it’s not easy, but I simply can’t afford ethics, Liz. Not anymore, and certainly not now. And as for the Wamphyri: they don’t have any ethics and never have had. So tell me, why have things changed? What happened that we’re right back to square one? Something last night, maybe?” For he had seen it in her eyes: that haunted look, and the sleeplessness, of course.

  And so she told him about it—most of it, as best she was able to remember—and he heard her out in silence, his talent sorting out the truths from the half-truths. But at least there were no blatant lies. Oh, the picture she painted was in Jake’s favour, but the colours she used were all true to life. And she finished by saying, “So you see, Jake is just as scared of this thing as you—or as we are—which is why he was fighting it. It isn’t something he’s in league with but something he’s doing battle with, constantly. It’s draining him, and if I keep doing what I’ve been doing it will drain me, too …”

  And finally Trask spoke. “On top of which, he continues to have his own agenda: this thing with Luigi Castellano.”

  “That too,” she said. “Plus the fact that he’s not au fait with the Branch and its systems; but how could he be, when he’s only been with us a few weeks? And he still doesn’t know all of the facts with regard to his … let’s call it his condition. I mean the condition we know about, that something of Harry Keogh is in him, as opposed to this other thing.”

  “So it’s that again,” Trask grunted. “The things I didn’t tell him yet, about Harry.”

  “Yes,” she answered, “it’s that again. With all due respect, it’s like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it. And he’s the one who’s paying for it. You asked him to work for us, to be a Necroscope, without letting him know what a full-blown Necroscope really is, without explaining his awesome potential, all the terrible things—the unthinkable things—he might be able to do. But far worse, you haven’t told him about the dangers, about what happened to the original Necroscope.”

  Trask thought about it and sighed. “What if I tell him and he can’t take it, turns us down flat, runs away from it?”

  “That’s a chance you have to take,” Liz answered, “if only for your own sake. And you can stop kidding yourself about your alleged lack of ‘ethics’—which is just another word for conscience. Do you really think you’re the only one who recognizes the truth when you see it? Well, you’re not.”

  “Never con a con man,” said Trask wryly.

  “Or a con woman,” Liz nodded. “Or a telepath. I know an injured conscience when I bump into one.”

  First Millie and now you, he thought. Is there no privacy anymore? “So, now I’m the bad guy in all this?”

  “No, I just think you’re too close to it,” she said. “What with Zek and all …” In that same moment she could have bitten her tongue off. But Trask ignored it and said:

  “So instead of trying to ‘cure’ Jake I should simply trust him, right?”

  “All the others seem to think so.”

  “You’ve spoken to them?”

  “I don’t have to. But I can tell you one thing: during our think-tank session, there were more than one or two minds wondering why Jake wasn’t there.”

  And after a moment: “Listen,” said Trask. “From what you told me just a few minutes ago, I could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps—just perhaps—Jake Cutter is carrying the seeds of a plague. He has the symptoms, not in his body but in his mind. Something’s in there, certainly. And as you yourself have admitted, you don’t think it’s something that Harry Keogh has dropped off for Jake’s safe-keeping. Now, if Jake is ‘just’ a man, albeit a man with a Necroscope’s powers, however undeveloped, that’s all to the good. We’ll help him develop and use them—yes, to our benefit, and to his own, but mainly to the world’s. But if he should prove to be more, or rather ‘other,’ than an ordinary man with extraordinary powers …”

  And she saw the rest of it in his mind—Jake Cutter, cut down, decapitated, burning! And she knew that Trask had wanted her to see it, that he’d deliberately focussed his concentration upon it.

  “My God!” Her hand flew to her mouth.

  “What’s the problem?” Trask asked her—knowing full well what the problem was. That while it was easy for her to spy on him, it was much harder to do it to the one she was falling in love with. That was part of it; but it was also that the truth, the terrible, terrifying truth, had suddenly been brought home to her with as much force as he could muster.

  “But it’s Jake we’re talking about!” she cried.

  Trask nodded. “Yes, and it’s the difference between Bruce Trennier, or Jethro Manchester and his family, and someone you love. But Liz, I would far rather cure than kill. Which is why I’ve been so cautious. If he—if we—are in danger, I don’t want to perhaps accelerate this thing by telling him what happened to Harry and two of his sons, and what might be happening to him! I want to watch, hope and pray, and wait for indisputable proof one way or the other.”

  “But—”

  “But there is one other way,” he cut her off. “I can do as you ask and tell him—tell him the whole thing—and see how it affects him. Then, if he continues to fight it, if he fights all the harder, we’ll know he’s worth working on, worth saving. But if he gives in, submits … we’ll know that, too. And then it’ll be a case of watching him all that much more closely. And you, because of your relationship with him, will have to be the one doing the bulk of the watching. Which in turn means that if or when the time comes, you will be the one who has to turn him in to me, because there is no other way. So then, is it a deal? Are you up to it?”

  She thought about it. “You’ll tell him the whole thing if I’ll keep on spying on him?”

  “Not spying on him,” Trask shook his head. “Watching him. As we’d watch over a feverish child’s symptoms, hoping they’ll disappear or that he’ll be strong enough to throw them off.”

  “And that’s your best offer?”

  “In my position,” he answered, “it’s the only offer I can make. And believe me, it’s more than I’d offer anyone else …”

  At which moment there came an interruption.

  From the corridor, the sudden hustle and bustle of hurried motion, running footsteps and raised voices. Millie had arrived and was out there waiting to speak to Trask as he’d required of her. But so had David Chung arrived, and Trask had rarely heard him sounding so agitated:

  “Excuse me, Millie, but I’ve got to see him now. And I do mean now!”

  “But … what is it?” said Millie, anxious as she appeared momentarily in the open door
way, squeezing herself to one side, flattening to the wall as Chung hurried by without pause.

  And almost skidding to a halt before Trask’s desk, barely glancing at Liz, the Chinaman blurted:

  “Ben, it’s Manolis. He was on a case, got hurt, can’t say how bad. But he’s hospitalized.”

  “Hurt?” Trask started to his feet, his mouth falling open. “Manolis, in hospital ? Where?”

  “That’s just it,” Chung answered grimly. “He’s in Kavála, Greece, on the Mediterranean coast. And during his few moments of consciousness, before they had to sedate him, he was asking to speak to you! He wouldn’t say what it was about, but by all acounts he did say that it was desperately important, and that you would understand. So, do you want to take a guess at it? A ‘wild’ stab in the dark?”

  Trask closed his mouth, shook his head, and said, “Nothing wild about it! But I do want you to get everyone to drop everything and make sure they’re all in the Ops Room in the next ten minutes—or better still make that five.” And turning to Liz: “That includes you, and Jake Cutter, too, and no arguments. Better go find him, and do it now.”

  “Or?” she said.

  “Or I’ll take it you’ve turned me down. In which case you know where the elevator is situated.”

  But as she turned away and headed for the door, he called after her, “Well?”

  “Well,” she looked back. “I’m going to find him!”

  And Trask breathed a silent sigh of relief. His last for a long time to come …

  8

  JAKE’S AGENDA

  Liz didn’t find Jake Cutter, and when Trask was through bringing everyone up to date and issuing face-to-face instructions, he only had to look at her expression to know the truth.