by Brian Lumley
‘And that’s not the end of it. Hell, I’ve barely started! Sooner or later the world would find out that the Russians had actually made the Gate at Perchorsk, an experiment that didn’t work out. And the same world would demand that they destroy it. Too damned late, of course, but destroy it anyway. Oh, really? What, with Mikhail Suvorov’s henchmen in Moscow still waiting for it to pay off) They should shut down a potential goldmine just because the gold-greedy West couldn’t stand the competition? And can’t you just see the old Iron Curtain slamming shut again, and that old red flag flying as before?
‘Oh, they might get the message eventually — when nights turned to nightmares — and then they’d destroy it quick enough. But how? As they were ready to do it the last time around, with nukes? For just like the rest of us the Soviets have made “progress” in the last quarter-century, and I really don’t care to speculate about what they might do now… but I will, if only to make the point and get this over and done with:
‘Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; missiles with multiple warheads, launched through the Gate at Perchorsk. The total devastation of a world — Nathan’s world — and Nathan and all his people, all the Szgany, with it. Neutron bombs, yes, so that all life would die but the gold would still be there, with no one and nothing to deny its plundering, its massive, planetwide tomWooting! Which is fine, or not, except we don’t even know if neutron radiation will kill the Wamphyri. Only that it will kill everything else.
‘And meanwhile the vampires would be raging on this world.
Because if we killed a couple of thralls, the Lords would make more. Survival, people: the damned survival of the damned! And how long before total embargoes — in effect, sieges — were laid on entire islands, nations, continents, as the terror overtook them one by one? And how long then before the missiles and the neutron bombs were flying again, this time on our world? We’ve had “final solutions” before, but there are holocausts and holocausts.
‘I mentioned the Dark Ages, but I think we could probably go back, oh, a couple of centuries earlier than that…
‘… So, you see, we couldn’t tell anyone. It was our baby, and we’d just have to handle it ourselves. BUT… if we handled it our way — E-Branch’s way, the right way — then we might have a chance. And in fact there were several clues that indeed we had a chance. ‘It was a question of thinking it all through, then using our combined talents to check on our conclusions. Very well, so why had Vavara, Szwart, and Malinari left Starside to come venturing in our world? Where were the benefits for them? What was wrong with Sunside that they’d left it to their lieutenants and burgeoning vampire army in favour of Earth?
‘But they were known on Sunside, indeed they were figures from legend there, and the Szgany knew how to fight them; fight them with alien weapons and the incredible skills of the Necroscope, Nathan Keogh. Also, these vampires were ambitious beyond the bloodiest dreams of almost any other Lords or Ladies of the Wamphyri before them. Perhaps the world of Sunside/Starside was too limiting in its scope. But Earth…
‘They’d learned of Earth from Mikhail Suvorov and his ill-fated team of explorer-prospectors. They knew us: that without our weapons we were softer far than the Szgany of Sunside. And there were millions, indeed billions of us, spread out in many different nations across a world that was as wide as its horizons. Not merely a single strip of habitable woodlands between barrier mountains and burning deserts, but a huge and thriving termite’s nest of sprawling humanity! A land of milk and honey — and blood, of course — stretching out forever.
‘Better far, we didn’t believe in vampires! In our world a vampire was a fiction, a creature in a book, a myth out of our superstitious past. Even in Romania, Hungary, or the Greek Islands, you’d have trouble finding more than a handful who truly believe in vampires today. In E-Branch, however, we have known for a long time that they never were a myth, that indeed there were vampires in our world once before, and maybe more than once.
‘And Zek, she knew it, too, and knew it better than most. She had actually lived in the Lady Karen’s aerie, on Starside.’ So perhaps the mentalist Lord Malinari took something from her after all, the fact that earlier invaders had learned an important lesson: in this world longevity is synonymous with anonymity. But having faced — or having sent their thralls to face — Mikhail Suvorov’s firepower on Starside, maybe they’d known that before they set out.
‘There’s evidence of that last, too. Suvorov’s party went through from Perchorsk, emerging into Starside through the surface Gate. But the Wamphyri chose the other route, the original or natural Gate into our world, probably because they knew that Perchorsk was once again a semi-military base and defended, and all of its weapons concentrated in one spot, the Perchorsk Gate itself. Hardly a good place to commence a covert infiltration.’
‘But the best evidence that Malinari and the others intended to keep their presence secret, at least for the time being, lay with those poor dead kids and murdered staff. For they had not been vampirized! No vampire essence — nothing of that sort — had been allowed to get into them. So plainly it wasn’t the intention of the Wamphyri to start a plague. Not yet, anyway.
‘But people had been killed, murdered by vampires, and the Old Lidesci wouldn’t be satisfied until the bodies were burned. While he had found no trace of infection in them — not even in the six who’d been used, drained — still he was insistent. And since no one in this world has Lardis’s experience in such matters, the experience of so many years, no one argued the point.
‘What was more, the… the cremation that Lardis insisted
upon fitted perfectly with a plan we were shaping, however gradually. For not only were we unable to bring the presence of the Wamphyri into the open, but we must actually disguise it, cover it up, assist them in their efforts to remain secret! Secret to the world in general, at least, but not to us, not to E-Branch. No, for we knew our enemy of old.
‘There was fuel oil, plenty of it, at the Refuge. Ben saw to it that the entire contents of a fifty-gallon drum went down the wrecked inspection ducts, then we punctured the rest of the drums and let the fuel leak through all the ground floor rooms. And finally we stood off while Nathan struck a match. That one match was all it took.
‘It could only be the act of a maniac or group of maniacs, some kind of crazed sect. Or perhaps sabotage, the work of some anti-British terrorist organization? Or maybe a band of utterly ruthless criminals, determined to cover up their crime. At any rate, that was how it would look…
‘Well, Romanian rescue services are notoriously slow, and where the Refuge stood across the Danube from Radujevac… it wasn’t the most populated or accessible region. The Danube itself was the most frequented route through the countryside. Fortunately for us there were no landing stages, wharves or docks on the Romanian side, and the nearest fire engine was all of a hundred miles away!
‘So we watched the Refuge burn, and eventually Nathan took us home again. But back in London we took our time before calling the authorities in Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest, to tell them we’d had an SOS, a Mayday, from the Refuge, that a gang of raiders was sacking the place. It took them a couple of days to get back to us with their condolences; their security forces would do all they could to bring the unknown marauders to justice, of course, but since the Refuge had been gutted there was precious little to go on…
‘And meanwhile, we were busy. was busy, bending all my efforts to scan the future as never before. But… the simple factp> is I can’t force what I do, can’t control it. I see what I see when I see it, and that’s it. And our locators were busy, none more so than David Chung. But where to look? There was no more mindsmog, and there were no borders in continental Europe. The three invaders, their lieutenants out of Starside and their “raw” recruits, they could be anywhere. They could have crossed the river west into Yugoslavia, gone east into Bulgaria, headed north into the Carpathians, or caught a boat up-river for Hungary. In daylight hours they’d g
o to earth, or to any dark, safe place. But at night… no one travels as fast as the Wamphyri.
‘Nathan suggested returning to Sunside for Anna-Marie English, but to what purpose? The invaders were leaving no “blight” behind them. As yet, they weren’t vampirizing anyone. Murders? But there are always murders, and there are always missing persons. No, we couldn’t hope to track them that way. In any case, Anna-Marie wouldn’t have come back; she has dedicated her life to the orphans of the bloodwars, and to her man in Sunside.
‘The mindsmog thing puzzled us a while: the lack of it. For where there are vampires, and especially Lords of the Wamphyri, there is usually mindsmog: a tainted, impenetrable cloud on the psychic aether… unless that was something else that Malinari had stolen from Zek’s mind? But of course it was! He had also been about to learn something of E-Branch from her — until she had deliberately shortened his interrogation by showing him his intended doom, which had precipitated and mercifully shortened her own.
‘But just how much did he know? How much had he sapped from Zek’s mind, her memory, her knowledge in general and especially of the Branch? We had no way of knowing. But it must have been sufficient that he and the others felt the need to lie low and control their alien mental emissions. Or perhaps we were wrong and they were simply being cautious, biding their time.
‘Nathan stayed with us for five days, just long enough to look up a few old… well, acquaintances? But he was needed in Sunside
and dared not delay any longer. And remember, his problem was as great if not greater than ours: a small army of aspiring Lords lieutenants, thralls, and warrior creatures, left behind by our trio of Wamphyri invaders; an army which now inhabited the toppled ruins of Starside’s ancient aeries, from which they raided on the Szgany as before. No, we had no claim on Nathan; indeed, our long-term debt to him could never be repaid. And so we had to let him go, with our best wishes — and as many weapons as he could take with him — back along the Mobius route to rejoin the battle for his vampire world.
‘And through all of that time, that terrible, frantic week, the only one of us who wasn’t busy was Ben Trask. He had simply withdrawn from a world that would never be the same again, and I admit that I thought E-Branch had seen the last of him. Fortunately I was wrong, and when he returned he was stronger than ever — well, in some ways — but in his resolve, for sure.
‘And now I’ll tell you something that even he doesn’t know. I was Duty Officer that night at E-Branch HQ — that night when Nathan brought Lardis through from Sunside, and Ben nightmared about Zek — and the moment that Ben came in and I saw the state he was in, I… I knew about Zek. I mean, I knew!
‘Oh, I couldn’t tell him, but where he was uncertain and daren’t allow himself to be sure, I knew and hated myself for knowing. Just seeing him like that, Ben’s future was immediately apparent to me. In one way it was the clearest picture of anyone’s future that I’d even seen, yet in another it was the vaguest — which was how I knew.
‘For all I saw was how cold and lonely that future would be…’
Goodly’s delivery, the way he had told the story of the events of that night at E-Branch HQ from his own personal viewpoint — the obvious passion and compassion in this apparently reserved, indeed phlegmatic man — had brought him into far greater definition in Jake’s perception; or rather, it had brought him into focus as a three-dimensional character in his own right. Previously a shadow or a soft-voiced cipher, he had somehow filled out. And Jake understood now that the precog had been a major part of this scene for a very long time.
Now, too, and also for the first time, Goodly’s physical person had impressed itself upon the Branch’s most recent however hesitant recruit. lan Goodly: all of six feet four inches tall, skeletally thin and gangly, grey-haired and mainly gaunt-featured. His expression was usually grave; he rarely smiled; only his eyes
— warm, brown, and totally disarming — belied what invariably constituted an unfortunate first-impression appearance, that of a cadaverous mortician. Except, and as Jake was suddenly aware, you can’t always tell a book from its cover. He would have done better to take more notice of Goodly’s eyes than his outline.
Outside the Ops truck, he cornered the precog and drew him away from the others into the shade of a tree.
‘What is it?’ Goodly asked, though he believed he already knew well enough. For just like Trask and Lardis Lidesci before him, he’d left several blank pages in his telling of the story. Jake was still fishing for the bits that would bring the whole thing into focus.
‘Just you and me/ Jake answered. ‘Just the two of us, and no one else to confuse the issue. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions? I mean, right from square one I’ve had this feeling that you’re on my side, that you think I should be told the whole thing. The others are holding stuff back, but you’re reluctant to do so. Am I right?’
Goodly smiled a wry smile, sighed and said, Til tell you what I can. But even though you’re right about my being on your side
— or rather, about my talent being on your side — still I won’t be able to answer all of your questions. The Branch comes first, and Ben Trask is the Branch. What Ben says goes.’
‘Some of my questions, then,’ Jake pressed. And he quickly went on: ‘So you’re a precog, right? And this talent of yours, this precognition, it lets you see into the future?’
‘That’s the general idea,’ Goodly sighed again. ‘But only a very rough idea, for it’s not nearly as simple as that. Haven’t I made that plain?’ And now he was frowning.
‘Okay, fine,’ Jake placated him. ‘But you did tell me you’d seen some of my future, right? You did say that I’d be with you, with E-Branch, for quite some time to come.’
‘That’s true, yes,’ Goodly answered.
‘In what capacity?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Okay, then is it going to be that way simply because Trask won’t let me go off and do my own thing, or…?’
‘Possibly because he won’t let you go,’ the precog answered. ‘He has to see how you work out, which could take a while. That could be — it obviously is — part of the reason why I’ve foreseen your continuing presence, yes. But what is this, Jake? Are you still uncertain? I thought you’d decided to stay?’
‘… Or, is it mainly because he thinks I’m going to be useful to you?’ Jake ignored Goodly’s last.
‘Well, that too, we hope. But Jake, you’re talking in circles. And I don’t see—’
‘—I’m getting to it!’ Jake growled, his attitude intense now. And after a moment’s thought: ‘So tell me, is it me, Jake Cutter, who’ll be useful to you, or is it this Harry?’
‘Er, that was my meaning, yes,’ said the precog, ‘that the Necroscope would definitely be useful to us. But if you want me to pick and choose, I can’t do it. I would have to answer, both of you — you’ll both be extremely useful to us. I thought that had been made plain, too.’
‘He’s… what, contacting me, this Harry? Getting into my head to guide me, is that it?’ Jake was pushing it now. ‘Or is he simply using me?’
‘Using you? Personally, I would say he’s keeping you safe. Wouldn’t you?’
‘But in my head, like telepathy? A kind of telepathic control?’ Jake scowled.
‘Telepathy?’ Goodly seemed uncertain. ‘Something like telepathy, yes. But Harry had a different name for it.’
‘“Had”? Why is it that when we talk about this Harry everything has to be past tense?’ Then Jake gave a snort. ‘Huh! Dumb question — because he’s dead, of course! — which I can’t see at all. For if he’s dead, how can he do whatever it is he’s doing to me? See, I don’t believe in ghosts. They’re a concept I just can’t seem to wrap my head around. And as for Harry Keogh: he’s something I don’t want to wrap my head around, even though it’s apparent he’s already seen to that! But, since he’s obviously a disembodied voice out of the past, then it must be equally obvious that his talent was similar
to yours. I mean, Harry didn’t so much read the future as reach into it… is how it seems to me? But okay, fine, let’s keep it going: so if what he’s doing to me isn’t telepathy, then what did he call it?’
‘It wouldn’t help you to know, not at this stage.’ Goodly shook his head. ‘In fact it could easily become an obstruction, a deterrent to your acceptance of… of everything.’
Jake’s frustration was mounting again. ‘A deterrent to my acceptance?’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you think there are enough deterrents already? It’s nuts, all of it! I mean, what am I, some kind of psychic medium? If there was a reason, just one logical reason, why I should suddenly become this dead bloke’s target, his focus, his genius loci, then I might be willing to believe at least some of this… this whatever. See, I know that what I’ve actually seen and experienced so far is real, but I don’t know that a lot of what I’ve been told is real. I trust my own five senses, or used to, but I don’t understand how or why I’m involved. I’d even like to believe what I’ve heard, if only as an alternative to considering myself some kind of psycho, some kind of schizoid nutcase. But… but… but Harry is fucking dead!’
‘Well, in a way he’s dead,’ said the precog, just as serious as ever, as if their conversation was utterly mundane. ‘But you see, Harry didn’t view existence, life and death, as we do. There was a time when he really was two people. It was after he suffered
… well, an accident, that his mind temporarily manifested itself in the identity of his own infant son. And later, he underwent another singular change. Best to think of it as a kind of metempsychosis, or—’