by Brian Lumley
Starting awake in his austere, cell-like room, the Russian jerked upright in his bed and saw Harry sitting there, staring at him with eyes like clots of fluorescent blood in the room’s darkness. Then, remembering his dream, and panting his shock where he pressed himself to the bare steel wall, Luchov gasped, ‘Harry Keogh! It is you! You… you liar!’
Again Harry knew what he meant. But he shook his head. ‘I told you no lie, Viktor. I haven’t killed men for their blood, I’ve created no vampires, and I wasn’t myself infected that way.’
‘That’s as may be,’ the other gasped, ‘but you are a vampire!’
Harry smiled, however terribly. ‘Look at me,’ he said, his voice very soft, almost warm, even reasonable. ‘I mean, I can hardly deny it, can I?’ And he leaned himself a little closer to Luchov.
The Russian was as Harry remembered him; his skin might be a shade more sallow, his eyes more feverish, but basically he was the same man. Small and thin, he was badly scarred and the hair was absent from the left half of his face and yellow-veined skull. But however vulnerable Luchov might seem, Harry knew that in fact he was a survivor. He had survived the awful accident which created the Gate, survived all of the Things which subsequently came through it, even survived the final holocaust. Yes, survived everything. So far, anyway.
Luchov blanched under the Necroscope’s scrutiny and panted that much faster. He prayed that the steel wall would absorb him safely within itself, maybe to expel him in the cell next door, away from this… man? For Luchov had faced a vampire before, and even the thought of it was terrifying! Finally he forced out words. ‘Why are you here?’
Harry’s gaze was unwavering. He watched the yellow veins pulsing rapidly under the scar-tissue skin of Luchov’s seared skull, and answered, ‘Oh, you know why well enough, Viktor. I’m here because of what E-Branch told you or caused you to be told: that I’m obliged to abandon this world, and in order to do so must use the Perchorsk Gate. But no big deal. Why, I should have thought you’d all be glad to see the last of me!’
‘Oh, we would! We would!’ Luchov eagerly agreed, nodding until droplets of sweat flew. ‘It’s just that… that…’
Harry inclined his head a little on one side and smiled his awful smile again. ‘Go on.’
But Luchov had already said too much. ‘If what you say is true,’ he babbled, trying to change the subject, ‘that as yet you’ve… harmed no one… I mean…’
‘Are you asking me not to harm you?’ Harry deliberately yawned, politely hiding the indelicate gape behind his hand — but not before he’d let the Russian glimpse the length and serrated edges of his teeth, and not without displaying the hand’s talons. ‘What, for the sake of my reputation? Every esper in Europe and possibly even further afield baying for my blood, but I have to be a good boy? Fair’s fair, Viktor. Now, why don’t you just tell me what E-Branch told your lot, and what they’ve asked you to do? Oh yes, and what measure — what permanent solution — there could possibly be to this Frankenstein monster you’ve created here at Perchorsk?’
‘But I can’t… daren’t tell you any of those things,’ Luchov whined, cringing against the steel wall.
‘So despite all you’ve been through, you’re still a true, brainwashed son of Mother Russia, eh?’ Harry grimaced and gave a mocking snort.
‘No.’ Luchov shook his head. ‘Just a man, a member of the human race.’
‘But one who believes everything people tell him, right?’
‘What my eyes tell me, certainly.’
The Necroscope’s patience was at an end. He leaned closer still, grabbed Luchov’s wrist in a steel claw and hissed, ‘You argue well, Viktor. Perhaps you really should have been one of the Wamphyri!’
And at last the Projekt Direktor could see his worst nightmare taking shape before his eyes, the metamorphosis of a man into a potential plague, and knew that he might all too easily become the next carrier. But he still had a card left to play. ‘You… you defy every scientific principle,’ he babbled. ‘You come and go in that weird way of yours. But did you think I had forgotten? Did you think I wouldn’t remember and take precautions? Better go now, Harry, before they burst in through that door there and burn you to a crisp!’
‘What?’ Harry let go of him, jerked himself back away from him.
Luchov snatched back the covers of his bed and showed the Necroscope the button attached to the steel frame. The button which he had pressed — how long ago? — and whose tiny red light was flashing even now. And Harry knew that however unwittingly, still he’d been betrayed by his own vampire.
For this was a failure of his dark side. The Thing within him had wanted to be seen, to take ascendancy, to do this thing its own way and frighten the answers out of Luchov. Yes, and then possibly to kill him! If Harry had fought it down, then he might simply have plucked the answers right out of the scientist’s mind. But too late for that now.
Not too late to fight back, however, and drive the hidden Thing to ground, beat it back into subservience. He did so, and Luchov saw that he was just a man again. Sobbing, the Russian said, ‘I thought… I thought… that you would kill me!’
‘Not me,’ Harry answered, as running footsteps sounded from outside. ‘Not me — it! And yes, it just might have killed you. But damn you, you trusted me once, Viktor. And did I let you down? All right, so the flesh-and-blood me has changed; but the real me, I’m still the same.’
‘But it’s different now, Harry,’ Luchov answered, suddenly aware that he’d averted… whatever. ‘Surely you can see that? I’m not doing anything for myself any more. Not even for “Mother Russia”. It’s for the human race — for all of us.’
They were banging on the door now, voices shouting.
‘Listen.’ Harry’s face was as earnest and as human as the Russian had ever seen it; or it would be, but for those hellish eyes. ‘By now E-Branch — and your Russian organization, too, if they’re worth their salt — must know I only want out. So — why can’t — they — just — let — me — go!’
Shots sounded from the corridor, ten or more in rapid succession, hammer blows of hot lead that slammed into the lock on the steel-panelled door and shattered its works to scrap metal. ‘But… are you telling me you don’t know?’ Luchov saw only Harry now, only the man. ‘Are you saying you don’t understand?’
‘Maybe I do,’ Harry answered, ‘I’m not sure. But right now you’re the only one who can confirm it.’
And so Luchov confirmed it. ‘But they’re not worried about you going, Harry,’ he said, as the door was slammed back on its hinges and light flooded in. They’re only worried that one day you might come back, and about what you might try to bring with you!’
Scared men crowded the doorway; one cradled a flamethrower, its flickering muzzle pointing directly at Luchov. ‘Don’t!’ the Direktor screamed, ramming himself into the corner and covering his face with frail, fluttering hands. ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t! He’s gone! He’s gone!’
They stood there in the doorway, smokily silhouetted in cordite stench, looking round the stark cubicle. And finally one of them asked: ‘Who has gone, Direktor?’
And another said, ‘Has the Direktor been… dreaming?’
Luchov collapsed on his bed, sobbing. Oh, how he wished he’d only been dreaming. But no, he hadn’t. Not all of it, anyway. For he could still feel the pressure on his wrist where the Necroscope had gripped him, and he could still feel those terrible eyes burning on his face and in his mind.
Oh, yes, Harry Keogh had been here, and pretty soon he’d be back. But the Direktor also knew that unless he was hugely mistaken, Harry had learned only part of what he came to learn. The next time he came, the rest of it would be waiting for him.
But the next time could be any time as of right now!
‘Switch it on!’ he gasped.
‘Eh?’ A scientist pushed hastily, unceremoniously by the rest and squeezed himself into the gap beside Luchov’s bed. ‘The disc? Did you say we’re to
switch it on?’
‘Yes.’ Luchov grasped his arm. ‘And do it now, Dmitri. Do it right now!’ Then Luchov lay back gasping and clutched at his throat. ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t… breathe.’
‘Out!’ Dmitri Kolchov ordered at once, with a wave of his arm. ‘Out, all of you. Let’s have some air in here.’
But as the men filed out: ‘Wait!’ Luchov held out a clawlike hand after them. ‘You, with the flamethrower. Wait right outside. And you, with the shotgun. Is it loaded? Silver shot?’
‘Of course, Direktor.’ The man looked puzzled. What use to have it if it wasn’t loaded?
‘And is there a grenadier with you, with grenades?’ Luchov was quieter now, steadier.
‘Yes, Direktor,’ came the answer from outside.
Luchov nodded and his Adam’s apple wobbled a little as he gulped down air. ‘Then you three — all of you — wait for me outside. And from now on don’t let me out of your sight.’ He swung his legs wearily to the floor, then noticed Dmitri Kolchov standing there, staring at him.
‘Direktor, I — ‘ Kolchov started to speak.
‘Now!’ Luchov screamed at him. ‘Man, are you fucking deaf? Didn’t you hear me? I said switch on the disc right now. Then report to the Duty Room and get me Moscow on the hotline.’
‘Moscow?’ Pallid now and shrinking a little, Kolchov backed out of the small room.
‘Gorbachev,’ Luchov rasped. ‘Gorbachev and none other. For there’s no one else who can order what comes next!’
2 A Thing Alone — Starside — The Dweller
The Necroscope knew that there was very little time left and certainly none to waste. The Soviets had worked out some ‘final solution’ to the Perchorsk problem, which meant that he had to be through the Gate before they could put it into effect.
He went to Detroit and just after 6:20 p.m. found a bike garage and showroom on the point of closing. The last, tired employee was locking up; the next-to-last, a black forecourt attendant, had just this minute put away his broom, washed his hands, and was sauntering away from the garage down the evening street. Marvellous chrome-plated machines stood in a glittering chorus line behind the semi-reflective plate glass.
The Necroscope, right? said a deadspeak voice in Harry’s mind, after he’d used a Möbius door to get into the showroom. It surprised him, for the dead weren’t much for talking to him these days. I mean, you’d have to be the boogyman (whoever it was continued), ‘cos I kin hear you thinkin’!
‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ Harry answered, polite as ever, at the same time examining the chain which passed through the spoked front wheels of the parade of gleaming motorcycles, securing them.
I have your what? Oh, yeah! You don’t know me, right? Well, I was an Angel.
Deadspeak occasionally conveys more than is said. With regard to Angels: Harry would no longer be surprised to learn that there really were such creatures, and especially in the Möbius Continuum. But on this occasion he saw that the Angel in question wore no such halo. ‘A Hell’s Angel?’ Harry stood on the chain and hauled with both arms, exerting furious Wamphyri strength until a link came apart with a sound like a pistol shot. ‘But didn’t you have a name?’
Hey! Whoooah, man! And the Angel whistled appreciatively. Like, I bet you leap tall buildings, too, right? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Shit, no — it’s the ever-lovin’, chain-breakin’, dead-wakin’ Necroscope! He grew quieter. My name? It was Pete. Pretty shitty handle, right? Here, Petey, Petey, Petey! Sounds like a fuckin’ budgie! So I used my Chapter name: The Vampire! Er, but I see you have your own problems.
Harry took a Harley-Davidson off its stand and backed it out of the line of bikes, towards the rear of the showroom. But the last employee had heard the ‘gunshot’ of the snapped chain and was working his way back through a series of locked doors.
‘Pete seems a good enough name to me,’ said Harry. ‘So what are you doing here?’
It’s where I hung out, the Angel told him. I never could afford one of these really big babies. But I’d come down and look ‘em over all the time. This place was a shrine, a church, and these Harleys were its High-powered Priests.
‘How did you die?’ Harry turned the key in the ignition and the big bike thundered into life, each pulse of each fat piston almost individually audible.
One night, me and my Pillion Pussy had a fight, the Angel answered. Randy Mandy split. So later, me and the Machine… we were both full of high octane! The booze caught up with us about the same time as we clocked the big One, Zero, Zero. Ran out of road on a bend, piled into a filling station, crunched a pump. We burned, me and the bike both, in a white-hot geyser! What was left of my body blew away on the wind. But me, I gravitated here.
‘Pete,’ said Harry, ‘I always wanted to ride one of these things but never seemed to find the time.’
You don’t know how?
‘In one.’ Harry nodded. ‘I mean, I can learn the hard way, or take a little expert advice, right? So… fancy a ride?’
Me?
‘Who else?’
Hooo-haaa! And Harry could almost feel him right there in the saddle where it ass-hooked at the back; indeed, their minds were one as Harry revved her up and up and up, then let her rip in smoking tyres and shrieking gears straight at the wall of glass!
Meanwhile the duty lock-up, a clerk, had reopened the last door and entered the showroom, and was now backed up against the giant display windows right in Harry’s way. Spreadeagled, the man mouthed a silent gaping scream as the big bike snaked towards him. He knew he’d be cut to ribbons, him and this maniac rider both, and didn’t know which way to jump. Closing his eyes and saying his prayers, he slid down the glass even as the bellowing monster bore down on him…
… And passed through him, and was gone!
As the noise subsided he opened his eyes first a crack, then all the way. The Harley-Davidson and rider were no longer there. There were skidmarks, blue exhaust smoke, even the roar of the engine, slowly echoing into silence. But no bike and no rider. And the plate glass was still in one piece.
Haunted! The man thought, before he passed out. Christ, I’ve always known it! This place is haunted to hell!
He was right and he was wrong. The place had been haunted, but no longer. For Pete the Vampire Biker was now with Harry Keogh, and like Harry he wouldn’t be back…
Harry coasted through the Möbius Continuum to Zakinthos, conjured a door and blazed out through it at forty onto the uneven surface of a starlit Greek island ‘road’. An inexperienced rider, he might have come to grief right there and then, but Pete the biker was in his mind and his hands, and the huge machine stayed upright and steady on the potholed tarmac.
Zek met the Necroscope on the white steps which wound to her door, but she had spoken to him moments earlier: Penny’s awake. She’s been drinking coffee — a lot!
My fault, Harry had answered. We did a little celebrating. A moving-outparty. And he thought of his place near Bonnyrig, Edinburgh. House-warming with a difference, yes.
Wow! said the Vampire, seeing Zek mirrored in Harry’s mind. Is this your Pillion Pussy? But of course his exclamation and question were deadspeak and Zek couldn’t hear them or even know he was here at all.
No, it isn’t. Harry spoke only to Pete. She’s just a good friend. Anyway, mind your business — and your mouth!
Penny joined Zek and Harry even as they touched hands. She came ghosting to the door and smiled (however tiredly, however… eerily?) when she saw the Necroscope had returned. And there in the Greek night Zek saw the cores of Penny’s eyes glowing red as a moth’s where they reflected the light of the lamp over the door. As for Harry’s eyes: Zek avoided looking at them. In any case there was no need, and no need to say anything out loud, not when their minds were touching.
Zek, he said, I owe you.
We all owe you, she answered. Every one of us.
Not any more. You’ve squared it for the rest.
‘Goodbye, Harry.’
She leaned forward and kissed his lips; just a man’s lips for the moment, but cold.
He led Penny through the trees to the big bike, and mounting up looked back. Zek stood in lamplight and starlight and waved. The Harley-Davidson’s lights cut a swath under the trees, picking out the track back to the road.
Zek heard the roar of the engine pick up to a howl, saw the headlights cutting the night, held her breath. Then -
— The engine noise was only a receding echo doing a drum roll along the hills, and the headlight beam was gone as if it had never existed…
Are your eyes closed? Harry asked over his shoulder.
Yes. Her answering thought was a whisper.
Then keep them that way — tight-closed — until I tell you to open them.
Hurling the big bike through the Möbius Continuum, with Penny and Pete the Vampire riding pillion, Harry headed for the Perchorsk Gate. He knew exactly — indeed precisely — where the Gate was. Möbius equations flickered across the screens of his metaphysical mind, opening and closing an endless curve of doors as he went. But when the doors began to warp and waver he knew he was almost there. It was an effect of the Gate: to bend the Möbius Continuum as a black hole bends light. A moment later, Harry guided the bike through the last fluxing, disintegrating door, and hurtled out of the Möbius Continuum on to the perimeter of the steel disc surrounding the Gate.
And Viktor Luchov saw it all even as it happened.
At the very rim, where the plates of the disc were covered in rubber three inches thick, the Projekt Direktor was conversing with a group of scientists; the perimeter had been made safe, roped off with non-conductive, plastic-coated nylon; the disc not only carried a lethal voltage but was now linked to the sprinkler system. Fat white and blue sparks danced as Harry’s huge, powerful machine came roaring off the Möbius strip to erupt into this space-time.
The Screaming Eagle’s Dunlops were wide, heavy and of the very best rubber, but the sudden shock of the bike’s five hundred and seventy-plus pounds jarred fish-scale plates together in a crackle and hum of electrical discharge. Blue energies skittered across the disc like snakes of lightning, adding to the throaty chaos of snarling pistons in the cathedral acoustics of the spherical cavern. And overhead, the acid floodgates were opened!