by Brian Lumley
“There was a certain element of chance in it, yes,” Harry answered. “But there were also things I couldn’t ignore. In the Möbius Continuum, down future time-streams, I’ve seen your blue life-thread crossed with the red of vampires where you’re going to meet up with them. But where some of them blink out, expire, your blue thread goes on. Déjà vu, Jake! I just couldn’t ignore it. I want to make sure that blue thread goes on and on, that’s all.”
Bewildered, Jake shook his head. “None of which makes any sense at all to me.”
“But it will, when you understand the Continuum. When you command it. And when you’re able to do … other things.”
“Command it? This … this going-places thing? You’re saying there’s some kind of order to it? I can control it? And as for doing other things: frankly, that worries me. You’re beginning to sound a lot like these E-Branch people.”
“How’s your math?” the other turned his back on the house, looked out over the star-shot river of ice.
“My math?” Jake’s bewilderment grew apace.
“Your numbers, your reckoning.”
“I don’t get short-changed, if that’s what you mean.”
“We should talk to Möbius,” said Harry. “Except we can’t, for he’s long gone. That’s a problem. So I suppose you’ll have to learn it parrot-fashion. From me. And that could be a problem in its own right, because what I do now is pretty much instinctive, intuitive.”
“And not very accurate,” said Jake. “And probably dangerous, too. What good’s all this jumping about if it doesn’t get you where you want to go?”
“But it does.”
“But not this time!” Jake waved a hand at the house. “You said so yourself.”
“Uh-uh,” Harry shook his head. “You’re all confused. You keep forgetting that this is only a dream—and your dream at that! I can guide these subconscious thoughts of yours, I can aim them, but I’m not flying you. I’m just the co-pilot. Deep inside you want to know about me, my times, places, and history. That’s what’s driving all of this, your need to know. So give me a little help to move on, won’t you? I can’t concentrate to best effect in this location. I’m not at all comfortable here.”
“You didn’t need help the first time,” Jake reminded him, “when you moved us from daylight to night, from the riverbank to this place, and—”
“—And when you didn’t expect it,” the other pointed out. “But it’s this mind of yours. It resists me—resists psychic or metaphysical interference—and its resistance grows stronger all the time. Maybe that’s another reason why I was drawn to you: because you were a rare one with a talent of your own, if not all your own, just waiting to be developed. In fact a great many people have one sort of ESP-ability or another; in most of them it’s usually stillborn, incapable of further development. But I suspect that as esper begets esper the powers of the mind will come more and more into their own. Evolution, Jake: that was how it happened to me, and also how it happened in Sunside. Szgany shields are powerful, too. They have to be, or the Szgany would be extinct. In you it was dormant, waiting for an opportunity to break out. But now that it has been awakened—perhaps by contact with me, my dart—or then again by E-Branch …”
“Your dart? That really was you, then?” Jake was managing to absorb some of this, at least.
“Part of me, something of me. Awareness, Jake, awareness! Do you know the easiest way to magnetize a piece of iron? You throw it in with a lot of big magnets, that’s how. And as for you—”
“I was thrown in at the deep end,” said Jake.
The other nodded. “Apparently. So now if you’ll only relax a little, we’ll move on.”
And Jake relaxed … .
To anyone else these time and location shifts might be unnerving: from a summer day on the river, to a moonlit winter night, to a night-light in a tiny garret room. Unnerving even if they worked as intended, but this time it seemed something had gone wrong. For in the little room where the dreamer now found himself he was on his own and there was no sign of his host, (his ghost?) But Jake—one of those rare types who can often distinguish between dreams and reatity—wasn’t too concerned. If anything he was pleased. Or rather he was glad on the one hand (for the dream had been getting out of hand) and a little disappointed on the other. Just when he’d thought he was getting somewhere, learning something …
But you still are, said Harry.
Startled, Jake looked all about. But he looked too quickly and saw nothing. And at the same time it dawned on him that he hadn’t so much heard Harry’s voice as felt it. “Telepathy?” he said. “Does that mean you didn’t make it? In which case, where the hell are you?”
I’m over here, said Harry. Sucked into the most innocent of places. Innocent for the time being, anyway.
The “over here” was a direction-finder as clear and clearer than any voice. And now that Jake looked again he saw what he’d missed the first time: a cot, standing on rockers in the corner of the small room, where the eaves came down low. And lowering his head a little, he stepped towards it.
Within the cot, an infant; the baby had kicked himself free of a soft woollen blanket, lay naked and chubby, exposed except for diapers. His face was angelic, and his eyes—
“You!” said Jake.
Different times, different Harry Keoghs, said the other.
“But a baby, you?”
Well I was once upon a time! But what you’re looking at … no, it isn’t me. On the other hand, I am in here. For this is a time when I was incorporeal, Jake, and my son’s mind was like a black bole. It sucked me in, saved me until I could become someone else.
“He … he has your eyes,” said Jake, because there was no other way to answer what he’d just heard. And yet it did ring a bell, for Ian Goodly had tried to tell him something similar.
He has my mind, too! Harry told him, gurgling happily—or unhappily?—in his cot. His and mine both. And unless I’m mistaken we’ve arrived at a very bad time.
“What, again?”
I was looking for innocence and found it. But if I’m right, that’s just about to end. You see, this is the time, almost to the moment, when Harry Jr. moves on, becomes The Dweller. Which in turn means—
A woman’s voice cried out from an adjacent room in the garret flat. A cry of uttermost terror! But:
Don’t panic, said Harry, despite that his own mental voice was filled with urgency now. That’s his mother, but things are well under control. And we’re almost out of here. Before that, though … Jake, I need the names of these invaders, the creatures I’ve seen crossing your life-thread in Möbius time. If you know who they are, I can probably trace their histories to discover their weaknesses, maybe work out some way for you to deal with them.
(Sounds of crashing furniture came from the other room, and a single shrill cry: “No!” Followed by a dull thud, a low moan, and silence … for a moment. Then a padding, and a hoarse, low panting. Sounds such as an animal might make. A large animal.)
Their names! cried Harry in Jake’s mind.
“Names?” Jake answered, his eyes on the door where it stood slightly ajar. “Lords Malinari and Szwart, and the Lady Vavara: Wamphyri out of Starside.” He might just as easily have uttered an invocation.
Almost wrenched from its hinges, the door crashed inwards, and in a moment Jake’s dream became a shrieking, hellish nightmare! “What … ?!” he gasped. And:
Yulian Bodescu! the Necroscope’s revenant sighed in Jake’s mind.
The thing framed in the doorway was or had been a man; it wore a man’s clothing and stood upright, however forward-leaning. Its arms were … long! And the hands at the ends of those arms were huge and clawlike, with projecting nails. The thing’s face was something unbelievable. It could have been the face of a wolf, but it was almost hairless and there were certain anomalies that suggested a batlike origin. The monster’s ears grew flat to the sides of its misshapen head; they too were batlike and projected higher t
han the rearward-sloping, elongated skull. Its nose—or rather its snout—was mobile, wrinkled, convoluted, with black and gaping nostrils. The thing’s skin was ridged, looked scaly; its yellow, crimson-pupilled eyes were deepsunken in black sockets. And as for its jaws, its teeth!
The creature—Yulian Bodescu?—ignored Jake, loped to the cot, and crouched over it. And the light in his or its eyes had the glow of molten sulphur, the fires of hell fuelled by eager anticipation! Taloned hands were already reaching for the helpless infant as Jake tried to snatch at a gun that was no longer there. Uttering a strangled curse, he leaped to the attack … or would have, except his limbs seemed locked in place.
A nice gesture, but useless, Harry told him. And anyway, in the waking world it would only serve to get you killed! This is a scene from my past, Jake. Obviously we survived it, myself and my son both, but I fancy your dream won’t. So one last word before we part: next time, try to be easier to reach … .
The scene warped, began to melt away even as Jake strove to move his body—a single muscle, a fingertip—and failed miserably. He stood poised, inert, desperate to go to the infant’s aid despite what the Necroscope had told him. He tried to shout a warning, managed a hoarse croak, a clotted gurgle, and all in vain. For everything was dissolving away. Terror, utter horror, can bring a man awake even when he knows he’s only dreaming.
The last thing Jake saw before he surfaced was the beast: on its knees beside the cot, mad with frustrated rage, tearing the bedclothes to shreds. But of the baby Harry himself, nothing at all … .
And Jake gave a small glad cry and woke up. For somehow in the moment before waking he knew—he’d been given to know—where the infant had gone.
Along the Möbius route to E-Branch, of course.
Where else?
PART THREE
THE START OF IT
17
SECOND THOUGHTS, AND OTHERS LESS MUNDANE
Noticing Jake’s Distress, Liz had scrambled from her gunner’s seat into the narrow cargo area, crouched down beside him, and was now hauling on the lapels of his jacket, roughing him up a little. “Jake! Jake, wake up!” Then—as his eyes snapped open, startling her, and lightning reflexes and hands worked in combination to slap her wrists aside, then grab them—“You were shouting,” she explained. “And now you’re hurting!”
He let go of her, dragged himself into an upright, seated position among the jumble of packs, and mumbled, “What? Shouting?” Of course he had been shouting, because he’d been nightmaring. But what about? Already the waking world, in the shape of Liz, was obliterating his dreams, consigning them to innermost recesses of subconscious mind. But realizing something of their importance, Jake was reluctant to let them go. “What was I shouting about?” he demanded harshly, but too late. For even as his head cleared the nightmare was retreating, shrinking to nothing.
Then he looked about—at the piled packs, the chopper’s interior, the faces of the men up front looking back at him—and remembered where he was. And as the fear went out of Jake’s eyes it was replaced by a worried frown. His face was damp with sweat, despite that it wasn’t any too warm in .. the aircraft? In the jet-copter, yes. His orientation was still a little off, making everything feel and sound unreal. Then it dawned on him that the hiss of the horizontal jets was absent, and the crisp chop! chop! chop! of rotors had taken over. They must be descending, into Alice Springs.
“I don’t know what you were shouting about,” Liz answered him. “Most of what you said was pure babble, until just before you woke up.” She went back to her seat and buckled herself in. “Then you mentioned Szwart, Malinari, and Vavara. But you were doing a lot of twitching, too. It was a nightmare, Jake. A killer of a nightmare, I’d say!”
A killer. Yes, she was right:
A grotesque thing—Wamphyri!—its taloned bands reaching to snuff the life from an innocent baby boy. And:
“Yulian Bodescu!” Jake gasped aloud, starting as if he’d been slapped in the face. “Does anyone know who … who Yulian Bodescu was?” But that final scene, too, was fading away, following the rest of the nightmare into limbo.
In their seats up front, however, Ben Trask and Ian Goodly exchanged secretive but mainly wondering glances and said nothing … not until they were on the ground and they’d stretched their legs, and made their way to the lounge and the airport’s watering hole … .
Jake and Lardis sat at the almost empty bar, chewing nuts and nursing large beers; Liz, Trask, and Goodly had a small table, smaller drinks, and ate from a plate of sandwiches. Huge overhead fans did their best to stir the sluggish air and keep the atmosphere bearable. But even the local Aussies were sweating. It was that kind of summer. El Niño, drying everything to kindling.
Lardis smacked his lips in appreciation, sighed, and told Jake: “This has to be one of the few true benefits of your entire world.” And then, noticing how the bartender was giving him curious looks, he added, “Er, of Australia, I mean. One of the true benefits of Australia. They certainly know how to brew a good beer, these Australians.”
The bartender looked Lardis up and down, and said, “I saw that movie, too, me old mate, way back when I was a little kid. But it didn’t influence me mode o’ dress!”
“Eh?” said Lardis.
“Crocodile bleedin’ Dundee!” The other shook his head and moved off along the bar. “Jesus, what is it with you tourists? Do yer think we all live in the bleedin’ outback?”
Lardis looked down at his clothes, lizard-skin belt, machete, shad-hide sandals, and scowled. “Have I been insulted?” he wondered out loud.
But Jake’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Lardis, tell me about Harry Keogh,” he said. “I mean, I’ve heard Trask talk about his compassion, warmth, and humility, which you have to admit makes him sound like a pacifist. But if he was so humble, how come he ended up as a—a what? A vampire-killer? And I gather it wasn’t only vampires he killed.”
“As for Harry Dwellersire’s history in this world,” the Old Lidesci answered, having first made sure that the bartender was well out of earshot, “I don’t know the entire story. That’s why I was only able to talk about Sunside/ Starside. But from what I saw of him … well, I wouldn’t be too sure about Harry’s ‘humility,’ or his compassion either. After all, Nathan Kiklu was a humble one, too, upon a time. Anyway, I only met the Necroscope towards the end, which wasn’t a pretty end … .”
Then, abruptly, Lardis’s tone changed, and peering at Jake suspiciously he snapped, “Now do me a favour and stop trying to wheedle things out of me, okay? What am I anyway but ‘a bleedin’ tourist,’ eh?”
While at the table, also out of earshot, Goodly, Liz, and Trask were considering something else. “Yulian Bodescu?” Trask looked at Liz. “You’re sure he said Yulian Bodescu? We thought so, too, but we were too far away to be sure. Now tell me, how in hell did he come up with that name? If he’s read it or perhaps remembered it from something someone has said, why has it chosen to surface now, in a dream?”
Liz could only shrug and ask, “Is it really that strange? I mean, it’s hardly the most common of names, now is it? To be honest, it’s just exactly the kind of name that would stick in my mind.”
But Trask was out of sorts with himself, and it showed. “I put you in that gunner’s bucket seat, close to him, so that you could listen in on him,” he said. “In E-Branch we know how important dreams can be. But you say you got nothing?”
“To start with,” Liz’s voice hardened as she began to flare up, “I don’t—”
But the precog quickly cautioned her: “Shh! Keep it down.”
“Well, I don’t understand why we can’t tell Jake about the entire Bodescu affair!” she continued in a lowered but emphatic tone. “And what’s more,” (looking at Trask) “I didn’t much like what you asked me to do. To start with, it’s not E-Branch policy to spy on our colleagues, and—”
“Don’t go lecturing me about Branch policy—Miss!” Trask glared. “As for Jake Cutter: he w
on’t be a colleague until I’m one hundred percent sure he’s on our side. The man vacilliates, sits on the fence. I’m not even sure he won’t make a break for it the first chance he gets!”
“—And,” Liz continued, determined to be heard, “the last time I tried it he … he knew.”
“He what?” Goodly stared at her.
“Jake knew I was listening in on him,” Liz said, deflated now. “He was dreaming—something sexy, erotic, yes, and frightening, too—and when I broke in on him it woke him up. So how can I ask him to trust me when he thinks I’m constantly in his mind?”
“So you didn’t try?” Trask said.
“That’s not so,” she shook her head. “I did try, but I was blocked. I couldn’t get in. Or I could, but it was like walking through a fog, all dismal and distorted. I didn’t get one single clear picture.”
“Precisely what I didn’t want to hear,” Trask grunted. “So now I’ll tell you why I’m not ready to tell him the entire Yulian Bodescu story. You know that a vampire isn’t safe even when he’s dead and buried? If there was anything we learned from the Necroscope, it was that. Even as we burned the very earth where Thibor Ferenczy had been buried, still the bastard was instructing Yulian Bodescu, telling him about E-Branch. After that, the damage Yulian caused us, the deaths, the pain …” He paused and shook his head.
And Goodly said, “So even at this stage you’re not entirely certain that this is the Necroscope’s work? You think that Jake might be under the influence of someone or something else? Just as Thibor got at Yulian, so someone might be getting at Jake?”
“We have to remember what Harry was, and what he became at the end,” Trask answered. “And not only him but his lover Penny Sanderson, and what both The Dweller and Harry’s other son Nestor became.”
“Vampires,” Liz said, with a small shudder.
“Wamphyri!” said Trask. “All of them. The Necroscope died on Starside. And now something—three somethings—have come out of Starside to infest our world. And Jake is being influenced by a remnant, or revenant, of the Necroscope himself. Let’s not forget that just as Harry sired Nathan Kiklu, he also fathered Nestor. Two sides of the same coin, do you see? And do you wonder that I’m cautious? Why, of course I’m cautious! I should let something like that infiltrate E-Branch, get in amongst us, learn our secrets, use them against us? No, I don’t think so.”