by Brian Lumley
He made a note of her sizes, Möbius-tripped into Edinburgh and bought her clothes, waited while she frantically dressed herself. He had forgotten shoes: no matter, she’d go barefoot. She would go naked, if that were the only way!
He took her home — almost all the way, only breaking the jump for a final word of warning on the rolling moors — via the Möbius Continuum, which was something else for her not to believe in. And he cautioned her: ‘Penny, from now on things will be normal for you, and eventually you may even come to believe this story we’ve concocted for you. Better for you, me, everyone, if you do believe it. Most certainly better for me.’
‘But… I’ll see you again?’ (The realization of what she had found, and what she must lose. And for the first time the question: did she have the better of the bargain?)
He shook his head. ‘People will come and go, Penny, through all your life. It’s the way it is.’
‘And through death?’
‘You’ve promised me you’ll forget that. It isn’t part of our story, right?’
And then the rest of the jump, to a street corner she’d known all her life. ‘Goodbye, Penny.’
And when she looked around…
As a small child she’d followed the rerun adventures of the Lone Ranger. Who was that invisible man…?
Back at the house near Bonnyrig, Jordan was waiting. He was calmer now but still radiated awe and wonder, which made him look beautiful, fresh-scrubbed, newly returned from a holiday in the sun or a swim in a mountain stream. All of these things. ‘Harry, I’m ready any time you are. Just tell me what I must do.’
‘You, nothing. Just don’t shut me out, that’s all. I want to get into your mind, and learn from it.’
‘Like Janos did?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Unlike Janos. I didn’t bring you back to hurt you. I didn’t even bring you back for me. It’s still up to you. If you don’t like the idea of me going in there just say so. This has to be of your own free will.’ Very significant words.
Jordan looked at him. ‘You didn’t just save my life,’ he said, ‘but returned it to me! Anything you want, Harry.’
The Necroscope sent his developing Wamphyri thoughts directly into Jordan’s head, and the other cleared the way for him, drew him in. Harry found what he wanted: it was so like deadspeak that he knew it at once. The mechanism was easy, a part of the human psyche. Mental in action, it was purely physical in operation, a part of the mind people — most people — haven’t learned how to use. Identical twins sometimes have it, because they come from the same egg. But discovering it wasn’t the same as making it work.
Harry withdrew, said: ‘Your turn.’
For Jordan it was easy. He already was a telepath. He looked inside Harry’s mind and found the trigger which the Necroscope had pictured for him. It only required releasing. After that, like a switch, Harry could throw it any time it was required.
And: Try it,’ Jordan said, when he’d withdrawn.
Harry pictured Zek Föener, a powerful telepath in her own right, and reached out with his new talent.
He (no, she) was swimming in the blue warm waters of the Mediterranean, spear-fishing off Zakinthos where she lived with her husband Jazz Simmons. She was twenty feet down and had lined up a fish in her sights, a fine red mullet where it finned on the sandy bottom and ogled her.
Testing… testing… testing,’ said Harry, with more than a hint of dry humour.
She sucked in salt water down the tube of her snorkel, triggered off her spear and missed, dropped her gun and kicked frantically for the surface. And she trod water there, coughing and spluttering, staring wildly all about. Until suddenly it came to her that the words could only have been in her head. But the mental voice had been unmistakable.
Finally she had her breath back, and got her thoughts together. Ha — Ha — Harry?
And from his house in Bonnyrig, fifteen hundred miles away: The one and only,’ he answered.
Harry, you… you… a telepath? Her confusion was total.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you, Zek. Just wanted to find out how good I am.’
Well, you’re good! I might have… I might have drowned! A swimmer like Zek? There was no way she might have drowned. But suddenly she backed off, and the Necroscope knew that she’d sensed the other thing that was Harry Keogh. She tried to shut it out of her thoughts but he cut right through her confusion with:
‘It’s OK, Zek. I know that you know about me. I just think you should also know that it won’t be like that with me. I’m not staying here. Not for long, anyway. I have a job to do, and then I’ll be on my way.’
Back there? She’d read it in his mind.
To begin with. But there may be other places. You of all people know I can’t stay here.’
Harry, she was quick, anxious to return, you know I won’t go up against you.
‘I know that, Zek.’
She was silent for a long time; then Harry had a thought. ‘Zek, if you’ll swim back to the beach, there’s someone here would like a word with you. But better if you have your feet firmly on the beach, because you won’t believe who it is and what he has to say. And this time you really might drown!’
And he was right, she didn’t believe it. Not for quite some time…
About the middle of the afternoon, when Jordan had finally accepted everything and the glow had gone off him a little, he said: ‘What about me, Harry. Can I just go home?’
‘I may have made a mistake,’ the Necroscope told him then. ‘Darcy Clarke knows I had that girl’s ashes. He might figure it out. If he does he’ll know I have a couple more talents now. Which will be confirmed — and how — if you show up! And anyway I have this feeling that everything is going to blow up, soon. You can go any time you like, Trevor, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stay here and out of sight a while longer.’
‘How long?’
Harry shrugged. ‘I have a job to do. That long. Not much more than four or five days, I should think.’
That’s OK, Harry,’ Jordan nodded. ‘I can stand that. Or four or five weeks if I have to!’
‘What will you do, anyway? Back to the Branch?’
‘It was a good living. It paid the bills. We got things done.’
Then it’s best that you leave it until I’ve gone. You have to know that they’ll be coming after me?’
‘After all you’ve done for us. For everybody?’
Again Harry’s shrug. ‘When an old, faithful dog savages your child, you have him put down. His services in the past don’t cut it. What’s more, if you knew for certain he was going to savage the child, you’d put him down first, right? And afterwards you might even feel sorry for the old guy and cry a little. But hell, if you also knew he had rabies, why, you wouldn’t even think twice! You’d do it for him as much as for anyone else.’
Jordan played it straight, face to face. ‘Does it really worry you that much? I mean, let’s face it, Harry: it won’t be an easy job, taking you out. Janos Ferenczy had a lot going for him, but he wasn’t in the same league as you are now!’
‘That’s why I have to go. If I don’t I’ll be forced to defend myself, which can only hasten things. And then there’d be a chance for this curse to go on for ever. I didn’t spend all that time doing all of that — Dragosani, Thibor, Janos, Faéthor, Yulian Bodescu — just to end up the same way they did.’
‘In that case… maybe I should go. I mean now.’
‘Oh?’
‘I can stay out of sight, keep an eye on them for you. They have Paxton watching you, but they won’t know that I’m watching them. They don’t even know I’m alive. I mean, they do know I’m dead!’
Harry was interested. ‘Go on.’
‘Darcy will be the man to watch, not in the office but when he’s home. I know where he lives, and I know how he thinks. You’ll be on his mind a lot, both ways: because of what you are, but also because he’s a good sort of bloke and he’ll just be, well, thinking about you. So
when everything looks set to go down I’ll know it, and then I’ll get back to you.’
‘You’d do that for me?’ Harry knew he would.
‘Don’t I owe you?’
Harry nodded, slowly. ‘It’s a good idea,’ he finally said. ‘OK, go after nightfall. I’ll drive you into Edinburgh, and then you’re on your own.’
And he did. And then the Necroscope was on his own, too. But not for long.
The next morning Paxton was back.
His presence turned Harry’s mood sour in a moment, but he promised himself that later he would turn the tables and take a look inside Paxton’s mind for a change. He relished the thought of that. But first he would go and see his Ma and find out if she had anything for him.
The sky was overcast and he stood on the bank of the river with his coat collar turned up against a thin but penetrating, persistent drizzle. ‘Any success, Ma?’
Harry? Is that you, son? Her deadspeak was so thin, so far-off sounding, that for a moment the Necroscope thought it was simply background ‘static’, the whispers of the teeming dead conversing in their graves.
‘It’s me, Ma, yes. But… you’re awfully faint.’
I know, son, she answered from afar. Just like you, I don’t have a lot of time now. Not here, anyway. It’s all fading now, everything… Did you want something, Harry?
She seemed very weary and wandering. ‘Ma,’ (he was patient with her, just like in the old days), ‘since I’ve been having some difficulty with the dead, we’d decided that you would help me out and see if they’d be a bit more forthcoming with you… about those poor murdered girls, I mean. You said I should give you a little time, then come and see you again. So here I am. I still need that information, Ma.’
Murdered girls? She repeated him, however vaguely. But then Harry sensed the sudden focusing of her attention as her deadspeak sounded sharper in his unique mind. Of course, those poor murdered girls! Those innocents. Except… well, they weren’t all innocents, Harry.
‘In my book they were, Ma. For my purposes, they were. But tell me, what do you mean?’
Well, most of them wouldn’t speak to me, she answered. It seemed they’d been warned off, warned about you. When it comes to vampires, the dead aren’t very forgiving, Harry. The one who would speak to me, she’d been one of the first of his victims — whoever he is — but by no means an innocent. She was a prostitute, son, foul-mouthed and foul-minded. But she was willing to talk about it and said she wouldn’t mind talking to you. In fact, she said more than that.
‘Oh?’
Yes, she said that it would make a nice change to just… to just talk to a man! Harry’s Ma tut-tutted. And so young, so very young.
‘Ma,’ said Harry, ‘I’m going to go and see that one — soon. But you’re getting so faint that I don’t know if we’ll ever get to talk again. So I just thought I’d tell you right now that you’ve been the best mother anyone could ever have, and…’
— And you’ve been the best son, Harry, she cut him off. But listen, don’t you cry for me. And I promise I won’t cry for you. I lived a good life, son, and despite a cruel death I’ve not been too unhappy in my grave. You were responsible for what happiness I found, Harry, just as you’ve been for so much of what passes for happiness in this place. That the dead no longer trust you… well, that’s their loss.
He blew her a kiss. ‘I missed a lot when you were taken from me. But of course, you missed a lot more. I hope there is a place beyond death, Ma, and that you make it there.’
Harry, there’s something else. She was fading very quickly now, so that he must give her all of his attention or lose her deadspeak entirely. About August Ferdinand.
‘August Ferdi — ? About Möbius?’ Harry remembered his last conversation with the great mathematician. ‘Ah!’ He chewed his lip. ‘Well, it could be that I insulted Möbius, Ma… inadvertently, you understand? I mean, I wasn’t quite myself that time.’
He said you weren’t, son, and that he wouldn’t be speaking with you again.
‘Oh,’ said Harry, a little crestfallen. Möbius had been one of his very best and closest friends. ‘I see.’
No, you don’t see, Harry, his mother contradicted him. He won’t be speaking to you because he won’t be there… I mean here. He, too, has somewhere else to go, or believes he has. Anyway, he talked about a lot of things I didn’t much understand: space and time, space-time, the cone-shaped universes of light? I think that covers everything. And he said your argument left one big question unanswered.
‘Oh?’
Yes. The question of the… ius Continuum itself. He said… thinks… knows what it is. He said… was… mind… She was breaking up, her deadspeak scattering, for the last time, Harry knew.
‘Ma?’ He was anxious.
Möbius… said… was… The Mind, Harry…
‘The Mind? Ma, did you say The Mind?’
She tried to answer but couldn’t quite make it. All that came back was the faintest of all far-distant, fading whispers.
Haarrry… Haaarrrry…
Then silence.
Paxton had read the Necroscope’s case-files and knew quite a lot about him. Most of it would seem unbelievable, to people of entirely mundane persuasions. But of course Paxton wasn’t one of them. On the far bank of the river, he watched Harry through a pair of binoculars and thought: The strange sod’s talking to his mother, a woman dead for quarter of a century and long since turned to slop! Jesus! And they say telepathy is weird!
Harry ‘heard’ him and knew that he’d been eavesdropping on his conversation with his mother; on Harry’s part of it, anyway. And suddenly he was furious, but coldly furious, not like the other night. And again Faéthor’s words of advice sprang to memory: ‘He would enter your mind. Enter his!’
Paxton saw the Necroscope step behind a bush and waited for him to come out on the other side. But he didn’t. Taking a leak? the esper wondered.
‘Actually, no,’ said Harry softly, from directly behind him. ‘But when I do I’d like to think it’s in private.’
‘Who — ?’ The mindspy whirled about, stumbled, staggered on the very rim of the river. Harry reached out easily and caught the front of his jacket, steadied him, grinned an utterly mirthless grin at him. He looked him up and down: a small, thin, withered-looking stick of a man in his middle to late twenties, with the face and eyes of a weasel. His telepathy must be Old Ma Nature’s way of making up for several sorts of deficiency.
‘Paxton,’ Harry said, his voice still dangerously soft, a hot breath squeezed out of burning bellows lungs, ‘you’re a scum-sucking little mind-flea. I reckon that when your father made you the best part leaked from a ruptured rubber down your Ma’s leg onto the floor of the brothel. You’re a scumbag bastard who has invaded my territory, stepped on my toes and is making me itch. And I have every right to do something about you. Don’t you agree?’
Paxton flapped his mouth like a landed fish, finally got his breath and his nerve back. ‘I… I’m doing my job, that’s all,’ he gasped, trying to free himself from Harry’s grip. But the Necroscope just held him there at arm’s length — held him that much tighter — with no real expenditure of energy at all.
‘Doing your job?’ He repeated Paxton’s words. ‘Who for, scumbag?’
‘That’s none of your busin — ‘ Paxton started to say.
Harry shook him, glared at him, and for the first time the esper noticed a flush of red light colouring the Necroscope’s gaunt cheeks where it escaped from behind the thick lenses of his dark glasses. An angry red light — from his eyes!
‘For E-Branch?’ Harry’s voice was lower still, a rumble, almost a growl.
‘Yes — no!’ Paxton blurted the words out. Soft as jelly, all he wanted now was to get away from here; to that end he’d say anything at all, the first thing that came to mind. Harry knew it, could read it in his pale face and trembling lips; but where lips may lie the mind usually tells the truth. He went inside, scanned it all and mo
re, and got out again like squelching from the sucking quag of a sewer. Even through the acrid odour of Paxton’s fear, still he’d been able to smell the shit.
It was a relief to know that such minds were in the minority; otherwise the Necroscope might be tempted to declare war on the entire human race, right now!
But Paxton knew he’d been in: he’d felt Harry in there, like slivers of ice in his mind. He started imitating a fish again.
‘So now you know for sure,’ said Harry. ‘And now you’ll report to your boss. Well, you go and tell the Minister that his worst nightmare has come true, Paxton. Tell him that, and then quit. Get out and stay out. I know you don’t warn too easily, but this time take some good advice and run while you can. I won’t be warning you again.’
And while that sank in he released the other, released him violently, tossed him back and over the lip of the riverbank, and down into the gently swirling water.
It was only then that the Necroscope saw Paxton’s briefcase lying open on a tree stump close by. Several white junk-mail envelopes — and one large manila envelope — were like magnets to his eyes. They were addressed to Harry Keogh, No. 3 The Riverside, etc, etc.
Harry glared once more at the floundering esper where he gagged, gurgled and splashed in the cold river water beyond his reach — for the moment just out of harm’s way — then snatched up his mail and took it home with him.
Paxton could swim, which was as well. For the Necroscope didn’t much care one way or the other…
6 Red Alert!
Harry flipped quickly through the murder files, discovered the young prostitute’s name, home town and place of interment, and made his way at once to her graveside in a small cemetery on the northern outskirts of Newcastle. And the Necroscope had moved so quickly that as he seated himself in the shade of a tree close by Pamela Trotter’s simple headstone, so Paxton was still catching his breath where he’d dragged himself up on to the river bank a hundred miles away.