by Brian Lumley
For the merest moment startled, Mike just as quickly recovered. But this time his instincts, reflexes, and especially his loathing, would not be denied. He was no sooner confronted than he grabbed the lapels of McGowan’s long black coat and drew him close.
McGowan turned his face from Mike’s foul breath and gasped: “Mike, Ah heard what ye whispered—and what ye were thinkin’! But here Ah stand, even as Ah telt ye Ah would. So then, have Ah no kept mah word?”
“Too late! Too late!” Mike gurgled, tightening his grip for all that certain of his twig fingers felt they might break off. “Are you blind? Can’t you see I’m—argh!—finished?”
“Never, never!” The little man cried. “By tomorrow’s sunup, then ye’d be done for, aye. But tonight there’s still time!”
“Which vials do I drink from? And how, in what order?” Mike coughed the words out. “There are three different colours.”
“Aye, so Ah’m informed—red, black, and yellow. But Mike, what o’ the job? The job’s no done, man!”
“The job?” Mike brought up phlegm, spitting it aside before continuing. “The—ach, argh!—fucking job? I’m fucking dying! The true death, you little—argh!—little bastard!” He pressed McGowan to the wall, breathed into his face. And the little man saw his wet mouth gaping, saw the pus gathering in his eyes and read his mind. But:
“If ye do that—” he cried, “—what ye’re thinkin’, then it really is over!”
Mike nodded, closed his awful mouth, and said: “For both of us, Angus. It’ll be over for both of us. Because even if I knew how to use the antidote, there’s not enough of it for two, only for one. And however it went I wouldn’t be giving any to you!”
“But there’s still time for ye, Ah swear it! Only let me go and Ah’ll help ye. Ah’ll see ye through it!”
Now Mike saw that he had the upper hand—at least for the moment. And so: “Job or no job,” he choked and gurgled, “you’ll tell me what I want to know right now or I’ll bite your fucking face—argh!—and feed slop into the wounds. And just to make sure, I’ll cough up some of this shit into your mouth, too! And in another week or so, maybe ten days, when you’ve been through what I’ve been through—then you’ll follow me down into hell!”
But at that, amazingly, Mike sensed McGowan’s resolve stiffening; and in confirmation of this notion the other gasped: “Ah cannae believe ye’d do it, no while there’s a chance ye’ll come out o’ this alive!”
Mike nodded, smiling however monstrously. “Oh, really? You think I won’t do it? Then tell me, you little shit, what have I got to lose? Oh, ha-ha-ha!” He uttered a harsh, mad laugh, then quickly sobered and said: “Well, that’s it. You can kiss all of this goodbye, Angus.” With which he opened his mouth more yet.
And finally McGowan broke. “Verra well, Ah’ll tell ye!” he gasped, averting his face once again from Mike’s gaping, frothing jaws. “Show me the vials. Quick now; for the sooner ye take it, the sooner it’ll work on ye.”
“It?” Mike gurgled, continuing to press McGowan to the wall and holding on to him with one hand while groping in his inside pocket with the other. “Don’t you mean them?”
“It or them: what’s the difference?” McGowan snapped, wriggling in Mike’s grip. “Ah mean the antidote! Dinnae quibble the noo, Mike! Just show me they bleddy vials.”
Easing the container out of his pocket, Mike used his thumbnail to free the catch. The lid opened slowly on lightly sprung hinges, revealing the three vials. And:
“Aye,” said McGowan, peering at the tiny glass bottles and nodding his head eagerly now, “that’s it sure enough—the red, black, and yellow.”
“Again with the ‘it,’” said Mike. “What’s going on, Angus?”
Nodding again, and avoiding the froth that flew from Mike’s foaming, belching mouth, the other said: “Ah’ll tell ye in just a second. But first—maybe ye’ll tell me how ye intend tae do it.”
“Eh? How I’ll do what?”
“Why, how ye’ll get intae the wee girl’s place, o’ course!”
“The girl?” Mike’s mind was drifting.
“The job, man!” McGowan snapped. “The bleddy job! For if ye dinnae finish it, what use tae live with the Francezcis huntin’ ye down tae the ends o’ the earth? And by now Ah’m certain sure ye ken there’s more and worse ways tae suffer the true death.”
“The girl,” Mike mumbled again, trying to focus his mind.
And McGowan said, “Ye cannae just ring her bell or knock on her door. And it’s likely that B.J.’s bleddy white knight is up there the noo, baby-sittin’ the wee bitch and waitin’ on ye!”
In Mike’s mind the facts of what was happening drifted back into focus. He felt his hand trembling, and in fear of dropping the container snapped it shut single-handed and slipped it into a side pocket. Then, while again using his body and both hands, as before, to restrain McGowan—and for all that he longed to savage, crush, and kill him—still Mike was able to recognize the awful truth and logic of the little man’s warning about the nature of Francezci revenge…
For which reason he struggled with himself, was able to put aside his own vengeful urges and answer McGowan’s earlier question:
“I don’t—arghhh!—I don’t fucking know how I’ll get in! Maybe…maybe I can break in?”
McGowan wriggled again, tried to shake himself loose, shook his head instead and said: “What, in yere condition? Oh, there’s still a thing or two that ye can do, for sure; but break doon a sturdy door? No way, laddie! Yet even now Ah tell ye there is a way in! Only look up there, where mah gaze directs ye.”
And turning his head and feral yellow eyes as far as Mike’s grip would allow, the little man stared some fifty yards up the alley’s dark canyon throat, focussing on a feature in an otherwise blank brick wall no more than ten or eleven feet above the arched-over lower entrance to Kate’s flatlet.
Blinking a mucous film from his eyes, Mike followed McGowan’s gaze to a lone window with a railed balcony that was little more than a ledge. And despite the poisons, the lethal diseases that had ripened in him, still in command of a vampire’s night-vision the ex-Mob thug could see well enough—even as McGowan had seen—that on this balmy summer night young Kate had left her window standing ajar. A lace curtain stirred and fluttered, letting in a cool night breeze…where in all likelihood, and very soon, the same window would let in something far more substantial than a breeze, though by no means as natural and harmless…
Glancing at McGowan, Mike’s look framed a question to which he already knew the answer. And:
“Aye,” said the little man, nodding a confirmation. “Now ye see it: yere way in. And if B.J.’s English lover is in there…then the job’s as good as done. What d’ye say tae that?”
“I say—” Mike gurgled, “tell me about the antidote—and consider yourself lucky to go on living! Maybe then I’ll get to the job.”
“Oh, ye stubborn bastard!” McGowan moaned. “But verra well, have it yere own way. Ah’ll tell ye—for it’s a fact that yere time is runnin’ out. Are ye ready with the vials, then?”
And holding McGowan with one hand, Mike once again took out the small metal case and opened it.
The little man nodded and said, “Go on then: first take the yellow yin and drink it tae the dregs, every wee drop.”
Mike faltered, blinked, gurgled and finally said: “The yellow one? Are you sure? What, and no ‘wee tricks,’ Angus?”
“None whatsayever,” McGowan shook his head. “For if ye fail ye’ll no be alone in yere troubles; they Francezcis dinnae tend tae look too kindly on anyone who fails them, and that includes their agent and so-called Watcher, aye!”
The little man’s words with their ring of sincerity sparked a fresh burst of hope in Mike; whatever the outcome, he felt he couldn’t afford any further delay.
Using his bulk to keep McGowan pinned to the wall, and both hands to remove the yellow vial, then close the case and slip it back into his pocket, he unsto
ppered the tiny bottle and tilted its contents into his eager throat. Then, trembling and jerking to the shock of the liquid going down—which, while it lasted only a second, was not unlike the eye-watering sting of an ice-cold beer, or maybe the burn of a fiery liquor—Mike gulped at the night air, blinked…and staggered a very little.
But a little was all the opportunity that McGowan needed!
He slid sideways away from Mike, then continued to slide up the wall! And facing outwards, flat against the wall—with the palms of his hands, his narrow shoulders, back and buttocks appearing to act like a gecko’s adhesive pads—McGowan slithered or climbed until he was well beyond Mike’s reach; where finally he paused to look down at him and grin.
Mike snarled, raising his hands as if to snatch at McGowan; but laughing softly and light as a feather the other climbed to an even higher elevation, from where he called down:
“Now think, Mike, think! Auld Angus isnae the one ye should be chasin’ after! And look here now: am Ah no showin’ ye one o’ they things Ah said ye could do? And so ye can, because ye’re a vampire no less than mahsel’—just a wee bit less experienced, that’s a’. But still Ah’m sure that if ye’ll only gi’ it a try, then ye’ll see just how right Ah am. Only don’t go wastin’ yere time thinkin’ tae chase after me. The wall ye should be climbin’ is a wee bit further up the alley.”
“But the antidote!” Mike choked, coughed, spat on the stone steps. What’s the—arghhh!—point without the antidote, you cheating little bastard!?”
“Oh, that,” said McGowan, with a careless shrug. “The antidote, is it? The red and the black, d’ye mean? Well, what are ye waitin’ for? Go on then: take ’em. Drain ’em tae the dregs!”
“What?” Mike gasped, afraid and bewildered. “Take them? But which one do I leave out? Which one will kill me?”
Again McGowan’s callous shrug and his look of total indifference. “Take both o’ them,” he said, “whichever way ye fancy!”
Mike had meanwhile taken out the case again. Opening it, he stared at the remaining vials as if hypnotized. And: “Take both of them.” He repeated the little man’s incomprehensible instructions. And again: “Both of them? But—”
“There’s no ‘but’ ye great fool!” McGowan cut him off. “The Chemist only telt ye what he was told tae tell ye! Aye, and mahsel’ likewise. Three colours for three sicknesses, and each one an antidote in its own right! But dinnae think tae ask me which is which for Ah dinnae ken! And anyway what odds? Just take ’em however ye like, and have done wi’ it.”
“Jesus Christ!” Mike spat the words out, along with a great blob of phlegm. “Why you cheating, black-hearted—ach! Argh!—little bastard!”
But then, since there was nothing else for it—and because he was almost past caring—he drained the tiny bottles “to the dregs,” first the red and then the black…
The liquids stung going down, at which he believed he could actually feel them working!
“O’ course ye can!” said McGowan, reading his mind. “Ye’ll feel light in both yere head and yere limbs; light as a bubble, as if ye were floatin’! That’s how it is for each and every one o’ us—o’ our kind, Ah mean—but more especially in times o’ danger, such as this. The closer tae death, the more the vampire in us fights back.”
That last would seem to be true enough, for as before Mike fancied himself buoyed up. He felt weightless yet potent—in a state of transition, of metamorphosis—enabled and capable, even of aerial flight! But:
“Ah no, not just yet!” said McGowan, chuckling. “Ye’ll no fly, Mike, but ye’ll climb like a wee spider, that’s for sure! So on ye go. Ye know…what…ye…have…tae…do.”
The little man’s voice slowly faded away in Mike’s ears; or perhaps in his mind? But he was no longer sure of anything! And suddenly dizzy, he started up the alley: at first loping, leaning into it, and then leaping, bounding, almost flying!
While high on the ridge of a sagging roof, the night-black silhouette that was Angus McGowan watched, guarded his thoughts and told himself: Aye, go tae it. Get it done just as quick as ye like, Mike. For with a’ that accelerant in ye—the red and the black and the yellow alike—yere time is verra nearly up. Perhaps six or seven minutes at best by mah reckonin’, before a decade’s decay descends upon ye…ye poor, dumb bastard! Aye, for they Francezcis allow but one warnin’, and that’s yere lot!
With which he merged with the night and was gone…
But Mike Milazzo neither saw nor heard any of that. He was there beneath Kate’s window; he reached up his bone-dry fingers and found purchase in the rotten brickwork where ancient mortar had fallen away from the curve of the arch. And from then on it was easy: He flowed or slid aloft, came to young Kate’s window, thrust the curtain aside and went in head foremost.
The room was Kate’s tiny bathroom. As Mike got to his feet a fresh wave of dizziness struck him; staggering, he flung out an arm and sent various toiletries clattering from a shelf!
Beyond the bathroom door Kate sat in a dressing-gown watching a late night show. On hearing the sound of falling objects from the bathroom she frowned, stood up from the couch, went to the bathroom door. The night breeze had obviously strengthened; now she would have to close the window.
But as she reached the door it was hurled open on her. Kate was thrown backwards; she toppled, her head striking the corner of a table. And with the smallest cry she crumpled to the floor unconscious…
XII
Only minutes earlier:
In the metaphysical Möbius Continuum, the Necroscope Harry Keogh had passed through a future-time door and let himself be drawn along the time stream. There the almost angelic chorus—that orchestrated interminable Ahhhhhhhhhh!, which sounded only in Harry’s mind—somehow seemed reversed. He could only liken it to a red shift, perhaps that of time itself! Previously when he had fought against the past-time stream, the imaginary sound had been blue-shifted, higher pitched; while here in the future-time stream it was in the red, and would remain so until he had caught up with and was travelling as fast or faster than life.
Except that didn’t happen; because before Harry knew it—and paradoxically unexpectedly, for it was the reason he was here—a crimson life-thread, or maybe even two, had angled into view some small distance away on the perimeter of his arc of vision. Harry had been scanning the future in every possible direction, because of which his gaze had at first skipped this crimson intrusion much like a proofreader skipping past a misprint before it can make an impression upon his awareness…only to return to the error as soon as his brain has accepted the message. And now, as he scanned that region of the time stream again—
—Yes, there it was: the crimson thread! (But only one now, which left Harry wondering if perhaps he had experienced a momentary bout of double vision?) Putting that thought aside, however, he concentrated on the crimson thread where it sped parallel with the bright blue life-threads of humanity. For even in that briefest of brief moments of recognition and shock, so the vampire had angled closer, full of a hunter’s stealthy intent!
Up ahead along the time-line, young Kate’s pale pink thread raced blithely on, but the Necroscope was catching up—even as he caught up with future time! In another moment he sped parallel with Kate…but so did the crimson thread which was narrowing down the distance between: the real distance, in the real space-time continuum. And events were happening so quickly that even as Harry gazed in horror it seemed that the crimson thread was about to merge with the pink!
Harry’s immediate, instinctive reaction was to make an exit from the future-time stream…which was something he couldn’t do! He hadn’t discovered how to materialize himself in the real past or future; he wasn’t a time traveller in a physical sense; he didn’t even know if it was possible! The only place where he knew he could transfer from Möbius time to the Möbius Continuum was at the Now where he had entered, back then just a few minutes ago. Which was okay, because back then there had still been “time!”
Reversing his course, Harry “heard” the ethereal, monotone Ahhhhhhhhhh! change, blue-shifting as he struggled to fight his way back against the chronological current, finally arriving at the Now where he immediately exited first from the time stream, then from the Möbius Continuum, onto the landing outside Kate’s door…which was where he had been all along, if not at this point in time.
This return to young Kate’s landing was simply a measure of Harry’s discretion: his automatic caution where a friend’s life was concerned. He was checking that during his time in the Möbius Continuum he had not somehow strayed or been diverted from his location of preference and necessity, the landing where he had started out, to some other far less useful coordinate.
Now, having at least satisfied himself in that respect, he tried the door, found it locked, and found himself at a loss to understand how the owner of the crimson thread proposed to make his entry. Oh, Harry had seen the creature’s approach, its apparent proximity to young Kate’s pale pink life-thread. in Möbius time—but just how closely did what he had witnessed correspond to an actual event in the future of the physical space-time universe? And anyway could he trust what he had seen? Hadn’t it always been true that the future was a devious thing? Only time would tell—and very soon at that!—as that mysterious, misunderstood phenomenon known as “time” continued to narrow down. And with little of it left to spare, again the Necroscope conjured an amazing portal and returned to the Möbius Continuum.
There he sought out a future-time door, but this time held back from entering to position himself in the threshold, at the ever advancing Now; from where he could gaze into the widening, blue-streaming future and await the advent of the crimson life-thread…
IT WAS AS BEFORE.
It was exactly as before, because in other than a para-chronistic sense there was no before; this was the precise chronological moment when Harry had spied what he had imagined to be two crimson life-threads on the periphery of his vision. And now as “before,” this time as a result of his eagerness or anxiety, he once again skipped over and almost missed the initial sighting; only to recover from his lapse so very quickly that the crimson blur of the after-image was still fading on his retinas.