by Brian Lumley
“To hell and back, if necessary,” Trask growled.
“Huh!” The Old Lidesci grunted. “And that’s very possible, too. The hell bit, anyway…”
“And so we’re decided,” said Goodly. “That come what may we really are in this together, right to the end?”
“Put it this way,” Trask answered. “I may need blood or raw red meat to live—yes, and Millie, too—but it doesn’t have to be human. In another world, another time, there was this man called Turgo Zolte. Turgo refused to descend to that level. And so did Harry Keogh. They both went out fighting it, and so will we. You have nothing to fear from us. I intend to use what’s in me to destroy the creatures who brought it into our world. Them and no one else. Does that answer your question?”
“I didn’t ask that question,” said the precog.
But Trask only grinned, however humourlessly, and answered, “Oh, yes you did, my friend. Now tell me—have I ever doubted your talent? No? So why do you deny me mine?”
“Very well,” said Goodly, “but that’s only you two. There’s still Liz, if she’s managed to survive. And there’s also Jake.”
“He’s been okay up to now,” said Garvey. “But how can we be sure he’ll stay that way?”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Trask answered, glancing into his driving mirror to pierce the gloom at the rear of the minibus, where to him everything was as visible as in broad daylight. “But I’ve taken the same chance before, and as you’re aware there’s a hell of a lot of Harry Keogh in Jake Cutter.”
“And talking about Jake,” said Millie, “how’s he doing?”
“His wounds…are healing,” said Garvey. “The back of his thigh has formed a scab, and the split at the back of his scalp is sealing itself. And I have his blood all over my hands…”
“Likewise,” said the precog.
At which Lardis spoke up, however gloomily. “As long as it doesn’t get into your eyes, nose, or mouth, you should be pretty safe. Jake’s not that long a vampire. His sexual juices are one thing—they’re the essence of life, after all—but his blood shouldn’t be infec—er, infectious—not yet a while. Not on the outside of your flesh, anyway. On the other hand, if you’ve been wounded, picked up a cut here and there…” He paused and shrugged.
“I haven’t,” said Garvey.
“Nor I,” said the precog. “And in any case, I think that’s the least of our worries. But Jake…he always was an obstinate, occasionally perverse sort of fellow to deal with.”
“Which could be a good thing,” said Trask. “And as long as his obstinate side wins out over his perverse side, I’m all for it. As for healing powers—obviously, being a vampire isn’t all bad news.”
“You’re joking, of course,” said Millie.
But he didn’t answer at once, merely looked at her sideways through feral-gleaming eyes. Until finally—when she wouldn’t stop staring at him—he sighed and reminded her, “We’ve got a big fight coming, Millie. I don’t like being a vampire, no, but it doesn’t hurt knowing we won’t go down all that easily.”
“Actually,” said the precog, “when you’re more fully—er, developed?—you should be very powerful vampires indeed. That might take some time, but with your enhanced talents…”
“They’re already enhanced to a degree,” said Garvey. “What? The way Liz and Millie were able to track these creatures down? They were as good or better than David Chung! Long-range telepathy. My own skills are puny by comparison. And as for Jake: he is going to be…well, something else.”
And Lardis, feeling a little less withdrawn and morbid now, said, “Do you really think you can fight it and win? I mean, is it possible you’ll remain avengers, and go on to rid your world of others who aren’t as strong, who follow the darkness instead of the light? But if so, then what is it that’s different about you?”
Trask shrugged. “What was it about Turgo, and Harry?”
Lardis thought about it, and nodded. “They had always hated vampires,” he said eventually. “And what they did in life, they continued to do in undeath.”
“Something like that,” said Trask. “And we’re the same. All of our lives—or at least, it sometimes seems that way—we’ve been fighting evil, so why stop now? Lardis, you spoke of avengers. Well, and don’t we have enough to avenge? Look at all the poor people who have paid, and who are yet to pay, the price of what Malinari, Vavara, and especially Szwart have done. For all we know the world may still descend into chaos.”
And Millie gave a little shiver and said, “For all we know, we’re not even going to win the next one! For us, it could well be the last one.”
“But we are going to try,” said Trask grimly. “Myself, I’ve lost too many loved ones to vampires. Malinari and those others…they’re not going back to Starside if I can help it.”
“Damn right!” said the Old Lidesci. “Especially now that we know Nathan has won his war and my people are free. I won’t see them enslaved again.”
And Paul Garvey asked, “But what about the others? The ones in London—and all the other sites—who’ve been infected? I mean, can’t they be special, too? Can’t they all fight it?”
But Lardis shook his head. “No,” he said, “you’ll find that it doesn’t work that way. In Sunside, for everyone who tried to fight it there were three who surrendered at once. And remember—you knew what you were fighting!”
“Lardis is right,” said Trask. “The vast majority of people who get infected won’t have a clue what’s happening to them. We know, and that’s our strength. And then again there will always be a certain lunatic element—not to mention a criminal element—who might actually want to be vampires! I’m not a precog, but still I see a very dark future looming. I mean, think about it. Our Minister Responsible’s latest communiqué wasn’t exactly his usual phlegmatic response to a problem, now was it? No, the world is in dire straits, and once again we’ll be the ones at the forward edge of the battle area. So you see, what’s coming can best be likened to a skirmish—the first round of a fight to the finish—an opportunity to test our battle skills.”
And Garvey said, “Then let’s hope we’re all still standing when the bell sounds…”
But suddenly, as they approached a junction: “Take the next left!” said Millie. “They’re heading north now.”
Just moments before she’d spoken, the vehicle’s headlights had illuminated the legend on a motorway signpost. Straight on for Burgas on the coast, left for Ajtos, Varna, and…and an international symbol that couldn’t be misinterpreted. It was a white airplane on a blue disk, its nose pointed to the sky.
And as Trask cut across the oncoming lane, he knew exactly what was happening here. Reading his mind, so did Millie.
“So, they’re not going after a boat,” she said then.
And Trask’s voice rasped as he answered, “No, they’re definitely not! Twenty kilometres up this road there’s an airport. That’s where they’re headed, and I don’t think I need draw you any pictures. So fasten your safety belts, people, because I’m about to ask this beast for all she’s got!”
With which he floored the accelerator and the motor howled, and the minibus leaped forward in response…
But Trask was asking too much of the battered old vehicle, and as the airport signs got thicker on the ground, and the lights of an air-control tower appeared just three or four kilometres up the road, so the minibus began to steam and shake, the engine clunked, and the power was gone. And they covered the last few kilometres at a limp—little better than walking pace—so that long before they reached the airport slip road, police cars from Burgas and Pomorie on the coast were already passing them, converging on the place with wailing sirens and strobing blue lights.
“It seems there’s been some excitement,” said Garvey nervously, from the back of the vehicle.
“I’ll say there has,” Trask answered him. “And I’m betting it was bloody exciting at that!” And:
“Eh? What
?” Gustav Turchin came snorting awake. “My God, I was having this terrible dream…” But when Trask glanced back at him, he stiffened and fell silent.
And Garvey continued, “What do you reckon, Ben?”
“You’re the telepath,” said Trask, as he steered the minibus onto the slip road where she limped the last hundred yards or so to a dilapidated car park. “I’ll give you one guess. No, don’t guess, get over there where the action is and see if you can pick a mind or two.”
Millie made to get out of the vehicle, saying, “I’d better go with him.”
But putting a hand on her arm, Trask stopped her and said, “Not without a pair of dark glasses you won’t.”
And: “Oh!” said Millie.
In just a few minutes Garvey was back, breathless from running across the car park. “There’s all hell going on in there,” he said, when he’d got his breath back. “Three airport policemen are dead—torn to bits—and the pilot and copilot of a five-seater, privately owned VTOL Scimitar have been kidnapped and the plane stolen. It took off ten minutes ago and immediately vanished off the radar screens. It has to be flying way too low.”
“In order to avoid detection,” said Gustav Turchin, feeling a little more sure of himself now.
Trask turned to him. “I don’t know if you were aleep in the back all this time or just faking it,” he said, “but we believe the Wamphyri are heading for Perchorsk in the Urals in order to escape back into Starside. Is it at all possible we can contact your E-Branch, alert your air force, and have them intercept and bring these monsters down?”
“It’s not my air force,” Turchin answered. “And in any case, it’s out of the question. I’ll let you into a secret: in Moscow the flight controllers haven’t been paid for months…the only reason they are still at their posts is that they’ll be shot if they leave them! And that’s Moscow. As for the rest of the airports—civilian and military alike—they’ve been getting paid in cans of pork-and-beans plundered from American relief aid to the breakaway so-called Dagestan Province! Electricity supplies are so bad that nine out of ten listening-station computers and radar posts are inoperative, and just six weeks ago a Hungarian youth landed his micro-jet in the middle of Red Square! So let’s face it, if these monsters are heading for Perchorsk—”
“—We can’t stop them,” said Trask.
“Maybe not,” said Jake, sitting up in the back of the vehicle, “but we can get there before them…”
26
Final preparations
EVERYONE GOT OUT OF THE MINIBUS, STRETCHED their legs, breathed the cool night air. The airport was a small one of its kind, and the weed-grown car park correspondingly tiny. Sooner or later—especially in the light of what had happened here—Trask’s party was bound to be noticed. And the last thing they needed was a squad of suspicious Bulgarian policemen crawling all over them.
“How long will it take that plane to reach Perchorsk?” said Trask to no one in particular.
“It’s maybe two thousand miles,” said Turchin with a shrug. “Two and a half to three hours? I think that’s about right. But where will they land?”
“It’s a VTOL,” Trask reminded him. “They can land any-damn-where they want to!”
“So then,” said the Necroscope thoughtfully, as he massaged his stiff right leg, “we don’t need to be there for at least an hour and a half, maybe two hours. Get there too soon, we could end up with Perchorsk’s caretakers, that gang of ex-cons, up in arms. And by arms I do mean the kind you fire bullets with! And anyway, it’s cold this time of year up there in the Urals.”
“It’s cold up there period,” said Trask, who had been there. “And that’s any time of year! So what’s on your mind?”
“Liz is on my mind,” said Jake. “Or she should be but isn’t. Which tells me one of two things. She’s either…either dead,” he almost choked on the word, “or she’s unconscious. If she was awake I’m sure she’d be talking to me by now and I’d be able to get a fix on her location.”
“And of course you’d use the Continuum and go to her, which might be the end of both of you,” said Trask grimly. “But there is an alternative to death and even unconsciousness. She’s with Vavara, Szwart, and Malinari; they could be masking her talent, interfering with her probes—which is something else you might want to consider: that they can use her as bait, and choose the best possible time to haul you into their net.”
“I know that,” said Jake, “and I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what they want. Why else have they taken her with them? But I’d risk it anyway. And yes, I know the Möbius Continuum can get me in trouble. But it can just as quickly get me out again.”
“Okay,” said Trask, “and I know I won’t be able to stop you if it happens. Only try to understand: Liz is on my mind, too—she’s on all of our minds—but it won’t help to keep brooding on it. So what’s next?”
“You’re asking me?” said Jake. “What, are my ears deceiving me? Ben Trask is asking me what next?”
“You’re the Necroscope,” Trask answered. “I can’t possibly do the things you do, no one can. So I’m delegating my responsibilities, that’s all.”
“Fine,” said Jake. “So let’s think about it. First, I reckon we should listen to what Premier Turchin has to say. If only as a means of last resort, it has a lot going for it.”
“Well, thank goodness someone thinks so!” said Turchin. And he quickly reiterated his plan to destroy the Perchorsk complex in a nuclear explosion.
“Including your enemies?” said Trask sourly.
“The whole world’s enemies,” said Turchin. “No less so than your…your vampires?” With which he backed off a pace, averting his eyes from Trask’s, Millie’s, and Jake’s.
Jake nodded wryly, understandingly, and said, “Dark glasses, that’s our first requirement. I know a place in Marseilles that sells them—and designer labels, at that.”
“At this time of night?” said Garvey, without thinking.
“What’s the time got to do with anything?” said Jake, as he took a pace forward and disappeared.
In a count of ten he was back, dumping a tray of sunglasses onto the front seat of the minibus. And, “Be my guest,” he told Trask and Millie. “Take your pick. May as well look our best on what could be our last night. As for myself—since I appear to be just a little more luminous than you two—I think I’ll have to go with these Ray Charles shades.” He chose a pair with side panels.
Trask and Millie quickly chose suitable glasses, regardless of style, and surprisingly, so did Turchin. Then, when the rest of them looked at him wonderingly, enquiringly, he glanced from face to face and said, “Eh? What is it? I mean, don’t you agree that I’m rather high-profile?”
At which point the Old Lidesci, who had been keeping watch, said, “So are we. And it looks like we’ve got company.”
Three uniformed policemen were heading across the car park toward them, flashing their torches.
“All of you,” Jake snapped. “Get round to the other side of the vehicle, and quickly.”
When they were there he gathered Trask, Millie, and Turchin together and conjured a Möbius door. They clung to him—until he dumped them in the corridor of E-Branch HQ. Then he returned for the others and repeated the procedure.
And back in Bulgaria the three policemen looked at the minibus, then at the open field of scrub behind it, the slip road, and beyond that the motorway, and scratched their heads. No one was there, just the moon and the silver-gleaming emptiness, and a vehicle full of weapons and ammunition. But at least the minibus was a regular vehicle, not like that hearse they’d found on the other side of the airport, with its engine ticking over and its doors wide open like an invitation from the Grim Reaper!
It seemed a certainty that both vehicles had been the property of whichever terrorist group had hijacked the VTOL. But as for the terrorists themselves…
Within minutes of the team’s return, the HQ was buzzing like a hornet’s nest. Trask tol
d the Duty Officer to keep everyone the hell away from his group, and took them to the Ops Room.
“Even here we’re not safe,” he told them, when the door had closed behind them. “Especially here. These people have various talents. It won’t take them long to figure out what’s wrong. Or what they consider to be wrong. So we need to move fast.”
“We’ve lost most of our weapons,” said Goodly.
And Trask nodded. “Use the intercom. Get on to John Grieve. Tell him what we need. But leave out the garlic bombs, okay? As for silver bullets…well, we can’t do without them, so we’ll just have to risk burning our fingers.” Then he looked again—more closely—at the precog, Garvey, Turchin, and Lardis. And because of his dark glasses and the fact that Garvey was sticking to Branch protocols, they didn’t know what he was thinking. And:
“Listen, you four,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I want you to understand. You…you aren’t necessary. I mean, you’re excess to requirement. This time when we move out, I’m not asking for volunteers. And Lardis, my old friend, as for you, it’s right out of the question. You’ll stay here with Lissa. And all of the good people in E-Branch will look after you.” And throwing up his hands, he finished off by barking, “Well, that’s it! I’ve said what I wanted to say!”
And Paul Garvey, looking uncomfortable, answered, “But you will let us think about it, right?”
Trask’s enigmatic dark glasses fixed themselves on the telepath, and for a moment there was silence. Then he said, “I’ll tell you what to think about. Think about getting the Perchorsk schematics up on that big screen. I for one feel the need for a refresher. And Millie, you’ve never been there.”
“You’re letting me go, then?” Behind her glasses she raised her eyebrows.
“Do you want to?”
“Try and stop me!” she said.
“That’s what I thought,” said Trask. “And God knows we need you.”
“You need all of us,” said Ian Goodly. He had done speaking to John Grieve and the weapons were on their way. “And if I can get a word in edgewise here, aren’t you forgetting something?”