Defilers

by Brian Lumley

  “They let you through customs with this stuff?” Manolis was surprised, but only momentarily.

  “We’re E-Branch,” said the precog. “The weapons were inside a diplomatic bag. No problem at our end, in London. And at this end—”

  “You’re tourists,” Manolis nodded. “No one checks tourists. Not when they’re coming into Greece. Tourists are money. These days, we only check for terrorism and drugs.”

  “That’s right,” said Goodly. “And Liz tells me that ten or more years ago she was a frequent visitor. She would come over with her parents, as tourists. They were never once checked.”

  Manolis could only shrug, perhaps apologetically. “Er, thee Greek peoples are too trusting,” he said. “Maybe. Or let’s just say that we have fewer red-tape restrictions, eh?”

  “Anyway, that’s our weapons dealt with,” said Goodly. “Now tell me about yours.”

  Manolis turned to David Chung. “You, my friend—my very good, my very old friend—you were there, and you understand, I’m sure.”

  The locator reached into a pocket of his lightweight jacket and slid a pair of single-headed spearheads of the type used in spearfishing onto the table. Hinged inch-long barbs flew open as they slithered to a halt, and the spearheads gleamed a dull silver where they lay. The metal was very slightly tarnished—or more properly tinted—with the bluish bloom of old coins.

  “Silver plated,” said Chung. “I’ve had them all this time. The first chance I get, I’ll be buying the very best speargun I can find.”

  “Exactly!” Manolis exclaimed, picking up one of the spearheads. “Thee other policeman who was with me in Kavála, I sent him back to Athens. He will go to my house—a certain drawer in my study—and mail me a parcel containing just such items. Meanwhile I, too, shall buy a speargun, and others for my men. We are in thee Krassos, a Greek island, and even thee children do thee spearfishing. Except with our guns, we will be looking for thee bigger fish, eh?” He looked at Goodly.

  “I see,” said the precog. “Not only silver but also stakes, of a sort … the sort that can’t easily be pulled out!”

  “I have three spearheads,” said Manolis. “With David’s two, that makes five. We will need five guns. And I know thee best, thee most powerful kind, to buy.”

  “We also have concentrated oil of garlic,” Goodly told him. “Not so much a weapon as a protection. It does sicken them, of course, and when injected can seriously incapacitate and kill. But in order to do that without a gun … you have to get much too close.”

  “And that’s our arsenal,” Chung shook his head. “Not a hell of a lot. As for doing any serious damage, any kind of scorched-earth, or rather ground-clearing policy that might be required; well, Ben Trask has already explained why we can’t expect much help.”

  “Not from thee authorities, no,” said Manolis, “but I might have a few ideas. We’ll talk about it later—here comes Ben and thee others now.”

  Trask was calmer now, also Lardis, but Liz was looking very concerned, as she had been ever since leaving E-Branch HQ. She had managed to get a minute or two on the phone after Trask was through, and had enquired after Jake Cutter. But HQ had heard nothing from him, and they had more to do right now than worry about Jake.

  All three sat down, and Trask said, “I’ve given HQ their orders. They’re to tighten their security wherever possible and remain on station. That is, they’re all to move into the hotel, into HQ accommodation. They’re pulling in staff from the various foreign embassies, cutting back on police work, keeping on their toes. But despite all that, still we’re overstretched. We have a team down under, making sure we didn’t overlook anything during our ‘visit’ down there. We have other people out looking for Luigi Castellano’s spy, this Alfonso Lefranc. And of course we have our terrorist squad on full alert, as always. The techs are having huge problems with all of this sunspot activity, and their gadgets aren’t worth shit right now. And the temperature isn’t letting up a damn, which means everyone’s feeling drained. So much for my calling for backup! If we strike lucky out here, then obviously I’ll have to find some extra help from somewhere. But until then—” Trask shrugged, looked from face to face, and finished off with, “We’ll just have to manage as best we can.”

  “Well,” said Goodly, “you did say you’d build us up slowly. Nothing’s changed, really—except that we now know we may have some problems back home. So, since there’s nothing else for it, I say we leave it at that and get on with what we came out here to do.”

  “That’s the commonsense solution, yes,” Trask agreed. “And it’s the only solution. Except—”

  “Except now we’ll not only be worried for each other,” said Lardis, “but for our loved ones, too. In my case those at home, my real home, and also the one … in my new home.

  Trask looked at him and offered a grim nod. “Ironic the way things work out, isn’t it? Nathan brought you out of Sunside to keep you out of danger, and in the last month or so you’ve been up to your neck in it!”

  “And don’t you try to keep me out of it!” Lardis scowled.

  But Manolis sat up straight in his chair and said, “Ah! And now I am sure! Piece by piece I have put it together, and now I see it all. Thee only possible explanation—how any man could live so long without having discovered Metaxa!”

  It lightened the atmosphere at once, and Liz was unable to resist reaching out to touch Manolis’s mind. His wink confirmed what she’d suspected, that his seemingly untimely joke had been intended to do just that—to lighten the atmosphere, which had been far too serious. Likewise Trask and the others; they’d all needed to ease up, smile, relax a little. And Manolis had shown them the way.

  “Hub!” the Old Lidesci grunted, then grinned a wicked grin. “But talking about Metaxa, where’s that Yiannis got to?”

  And Liz, determined now to throw off all of her anxieties, said, “Manolis, I hold you personally responsible, in that you may have created a monster!”

  And Trask said, “Lardis, promise me you’ll go easy on that stuff? We still have a job to do.”

  For precisely on cue Yiannis had come back, and Trask let his people order a second round of drinks to take to Manolis’s accommodation, where he would begin to detail their individual tasks in private. Then, as they left The Shipwreck, he smiled however wryly, shrugged, and said, “What the heck … why not? Let’s eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow … ?”

  Pausing, he held back a little, took Ian Goodly’s arm and steered him out of earshot of the rest, and quietly asked him, “So how about it? How about tomorrow?”

  But the precog could only sigh in his funereal fashion and answer, “For the moment, it’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you, Ben. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die? Is that what you’re saying—or asking?” Then, when Trask made no answer, he sighed again, shook his head and said, “No, I don’t think so. Not tomorrow, anyway.”

  A little over an hour later, Andreas and Stavros returned with two four-wheel-drive cars. They were no sooner in than Manolis sent them out again, this time to buy some “suitable” clothing and to find—if such existed in the huddle of Skala Astris—a hardware store that stocked spearguns. Meanwhile, he’d been on the phone to a local police office about the rumoured fatal accident, and also to his office in Athens, checking to see if there had been any breakthrough in tracking down Jethro Manchester’s Greek “charity.” About the latter:

  “No,” he told Trask, after sending his subordinates off on their latest mission. “This is real money we are talking about. Thee only man with thee authority to release such informations is thee Governor of the Bank of Greece. He’s away and won’t be back till Monday, and his deputy is a coward who cannot accept thee responsibility! Anyway, today is Saturday and thee banks are officially closed now.”

  Trask nodded. “Stalled again,” he said. “The answer has to be right there in some bloody bank’s computer, and I can’t get at it because someone is away and it’s the week
end. Also, what with this weather and all, I couldn’t even have my chief tech, a man called Jimmy Harvey, hack into it if I wanted to, and if he knew which computer it was, because the gadgets at HQ are all acting up. It’s a hellish frustrating business, Manolis.”

  Trask was sitting inside the shade provided by the raffia awning over The Shipwreck’s entrance, watching David Chung and Liz fooling about in the warm, shallow water at the rim of the sea. Close by, keeping an eye on the pair, the Old Lidesci was seated on a slab of rock with his jeans rolled up and his feet dangling in the water. As for Ian Goodly: he was taking a nap, perhaps hoping to do a little precognitive dreaming.

  “They are having thee good time, eh?” said Manolis, indicating the people on the beach.

  “Yes, but don’t be mistaken,” Trask told him. “When there’s work to be done, they’ll do it. As for what’s left of today … it’s too late to do very much else. This late in the season, an hour or two more, and the sun will be setting. Then we’ll split up into two or three parties, have our evening meal at a decent taverna, get a good night’s sleep, and an early start tomorrow.” He looked down across the beach. “From then on we’re likely to be pretty busy, so my lot may as well get some enjoyment out of all this while they can.”

  “I am agreeing,” Manolis answered. “But personally, I have one more thing to do before tonight.”

  “Oh?” Trask looked up at him.

  Manolis nodded. “When my men return with thee colourful T-shirts and thee shorts, I shall have one of them drive me up to a village in thee foothills. This unfortunate, ‘suspicious accident’ that David mentioned? Well, thee burned body of a young man is lying in a coffin on a table in his poor mother’s house up there in thee hills, and I want to see it.”

  Trask stood up and said, “You think that maybe—?”

  Manolis gave a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t know. But after what happened to me on this Krassos, I have a problem with thee word ‘accident.’ I was in a car and barely survived. This other one was riding a motorcycle … and didn’t.”

  “Take Lardis with you,” Trask nodded. “If there’s anything to be known about the victims of vampirism, he knows it. And if this wasn’t just an accident, he might well know that, too.”

  “His special knowledge?”

  “Manolis,” said Trask, “one way or the other, that old man has killed more bloody vampires than you and I and E-Branch put together! Just take my word for it.”

  “Oh, I do,” said the other. “I have seen his machete, and I have counted thee notches in its grip.”

  “Exactly,” said Trask. “And one other thing before you go. By all means let this man’s mother know that you’re a policeman—I suppose you will have to do that—but don’t give her your real name, and don’t let her think that your investigations are in any way extraordinary. I don’t want any rumours getting back to our enemies.”

  “Ah, Ben, Ben!” said the other. “But you’re forgetting that I am thee policeman, and that when necessary I can be thee fox, too. Have a little faith in me, yes?”

  And waving to attract Lardis’s attention, he set off across the narrow strip of beach to speak to him …

  Manolis and Lardis were late getting back. The sun had set and a dusky evening was coming down when Stavros drove them back in through the gates of the Christos Studios.

  Then the party of eight split into three smaller groups and headed for the lights of the nearest taverna along a dirt track that paralleled the seafront. Since as yet there was little or no letup in the temperature, and no reason to hurry, they took it easy, assumed a casual “holiday” attitude, talked in lowered tones, and kept well within view of each other.

  A handful of holidaymakers were out and about, on their way to or returning from their evening meals; young Germans walking hand in hand in the smoky evening air, along with a few English couples, their heads were paired off in silhouettes against the darkening amethyst horizon, merging when they paused to whisper their lovers’ secrets. For a Greek island is a Greek island.

  That at least was as it should be …

  Feeling the heat—and only now beginning to feel the sunlight she’d absorbed radiating from her—Liz had changed into a light summer dress and sandals. Trask and his men had dressed in short-sleeved shirts and shorts, but Manolis and his two had chosen to wear lightweight trousers. As Manolis had explained: “On a night, we would be too conspicuous in shorts. Thee Greeks are more conservative, and since we are obviously Greeks …”

  He, Trask and Lardis formed the rearmost group, and as they walked Trask queried him about the motorcycle accident.

  “Myself,” said Manolis, “I can’t be absolutely sure—but please understand, I speak as a trained policeman. I mean I am sure, but without thee firm evidence—” He could only shrug.

  “Explain,” said Trask.

  “Well,” said Manolis, “this youth had apparently consumed a lot of ouzo. This is according to thee statements of friends he had been drinking with earlier—right here in Skala Astris, actually. When they left him he was drunk and his bike wouldn’t start. He was pushing it. Thee next morning, he and his machine were discovered in a dry riverbed. Maybe he’d tried to get his bike going on a downhill stretch of road—or it could be that he was freewheeling—I don’t know. But apparently he crashed.”

  “So what’s suspicious about that?” Trask queried.

  “Thee driving mirror on his handlebars was broken,” Manolis went on, “presumably in thee crash. It seems he must have flown from thee bike, broke thee mirror in his flight … and cut his own throat. It seems so, anyway.”

  “Cut his throat?” Now Trask’s eyes had narrowed. He sensed the strangeness here—detected the quiet but as yet unproven conviction in Manolis’s voice—and suddenly the evening felt that much cooler.

  “Indeed,” Manolis continued. “Thee glass was still stuck in thee wound. Unconscious, he died where he had fallen.”

  “Ah!” Lardis came in. “But he didn’t ‘just’ die, did he? I mean, there was more to it than that, now wasn’t there?”

  “Burned,” Trask said, nodding his understanding. And then, to Manolis, “Didn’t you originally say that he was burned?”

  “Yes,” the other answered. “After it crashed, thee machine caught fire from thee petrol in thee tank. And since thee youth and thee machine landed in thee selfsame spot—”

  And again Lardis came in. “He flew from the bike, yet both lad and machine ended up in the same place? Hah!”

  “I see,” said Trask. And to Manolis, “Is that it?”

  “That’s it,” Manolis replied. “From me, at least. Anything else, you should ask Lardis here. For what remains lies more in his ‘province,’ yes?”

  “What remains?” Frowning, Trask turned to Lardis. “So what do you make of it?”

  Lardis’s normally rough voice was more grim and gravelly yet as he answered, “I understand that Manolis needs proof—that on this world ‘evidence’ is everything—but ! I can assure you it’s perfectly clear to me, here as it would be on Sunside. Except there these monsters have no need to cover up their evil deeds. But I tell you I could smell this thing, as I’ve smelled it fifty times before! There was a taint in the air—my flesh was clammy from it-and I knew what it meant. Someone or thing had caused this so-called accident. And the selfsame someone or thing had cut this poor lad’s throat with the broken mirror and set fire to him and his machine in order to conceal a foul murder. It’s as simple as that.”

  “But no positive proof,” said Manolis and Trask, almost in unison.

  “Oh, but there is!” said Lardis. “We saw the lad’s slashed throat, and then we visited the scene of the crash and saw the burned-out bike. Fortunately there’d been no dry brush in that riverbed, or the blaze might have spread. Instead it had only burned the bike—and the lad, of course. But he wasn’t burned up entirely, and what Manolis has so far failed to mention—”

  “Is thee blood,” said Manolis then, his vo
ice quieter yet. “Yes, Lardis is right. Thee big problem is thee blood.”

  “The blood?” Trask looked at each of them in turn.

  “The blood that is the life,” Lardis growled. “But you see, there wasn’t any blood, Ben! This lad had spilled his life out, yes, but not into the dust of that dry riverbed.”

  “Now you have it all,” said Manolis. “And to hell with thee lack of evidence! Frankly, until someone can explain to me thee absence of that young man’s blood, I have to agree with Lardis. Deep inside, I can only believe that this was thee work of thee vrykoulakas!”

  After that, it would have been very difficult for the three to present or maintain any sort of carefree holiday facade. There again, since they were older, more mature men, no one would be expecting them to act like kids out of school. And as for this most recent symptom of the island’s vampiric infestation: they agreed that for the moment they would say nothing to the other members of the team.

  They, at least, should be allowed to enjoy the pleasures of dining out in the Greek island atmosphere, and also of sleeping well in their beds tonight.

  Tomorrow would be soon enough to bring all of this to their attention and shatter any illusions of an idyllic Greek island. Not that a great many of those remained, anyway …

  At the Sunset Taverna, a clean but unremarkable little place at the western extreme of Skala Astris’s sea wall—a place nestling under a huge canvas canopy, with sky-blue plastic stacking chairs, and square white tables that refused to balance without three beermats under the offending or “short” tegs—the eight disparate colleagues took seats, remaining in their subgroups but positioning themselves to stay within earshot of each others’ tables. David Chung, Stavros, and Liz were at one table, Andreas and Goodly at a second, while Trask, Manolis, and Lardis occupied a third.