by Brian Lumley
Harry told him about Shukshin, gave him a brief overview of things as he saw and understood them.
Gormley’s thoughts were wry indeed when he answered: “So you’ve been working for us for some time, it appears! What a pity I didn’t know all of this that time I came to see you. We could have done the job that much more quickly. Shukshin might have been important to you, Harry, but in reality he was very small fry. We might even have been able to use him.”
“I wanted him for myself,” said Harry viciously. “I wanted him used up! Anyway, I didn’t know there was any connection. I only found that out after I killed him. But that’s done with and now we have to get on. So … you want me to work on my own. But there’s the rub: see, I don’t have the foggiest idea of how to be an agent! I know what I want to do: I have to kill Dragosani, Batu, Borowitz. That is my priority—but I can’t even begin to think how to go about it.”
Gormley seemed to understand his problem. “That’s the difference between espionage and ESPionage, Harry. We all understand the first. All the cloak-and-daggery, the thud-and-blundering, the DTB—or Dirty Tricks Brigade—it’s all old hat. But none of us really knows a lot about the second. You do what your talent tells you to do. You find the best possible ways to use it. That’s all any of us can do. For some of us it’s easy: we don’t have sufficient talent to worry about, we can’t expand it. Myself, for example. I can spot another ESPer a mile away; but that’s it, end of story. In your case, however—”
Harry began to grow frustrated. His task seemed huge, impossible. He was one man, one mind, one barely mature talent. What could he do?
Gormley picked him up on that: “You weren’t listening, Harry. I said you have to find the best way to use your talent. Until now you haven’t been doing that. Let’s face it, what have you achieved?”
“I’ve talked to the dead!” Harry snapped. “That’s it, it’s what I do. I’m a Necroscope.”
Gormley was patient. “You’ve scratched the surface, Harry, that’s all. Look, you’ve written the stories a dead man couldn’t finish. You’ve used formulae that a mathematician never had time to develop in life. Dead men have taught you how to drive, how to speak Russian and German. They’ve improved your swimming and your fighting and one or two other things. But what do you personally reckon all of this amounts to?”
“Nothing!” Harry answered, after only a moment’s thought.
“Right, nothing. Because you’ve been talking to the wrong people. You’ve been letting your talent guide you, instead of you guiding your talent. Now I know these are probably bad examples, but you’re like a hypnotist who can only hypnotize himself, or a clairvoyant who forecasts his own death—for tomorrow! You have a ground-breaking talent, but you’re not breaking any ground. The problem is that you’re entirely self-taught. So in a way you’re ignorant: like a heathen at a banquet, stuffing yourself full of everything and savouring none of it. And not recognizing the good stuff because of the way it’s dressed up. But if I’m right you had the answer at your fingertips way back when you were a kid. Except your kid’s mind failed to see the possibilities. But you’re a man now and the possibilities should be starting to make themselves obvious. Not obvious to me but to you! After all, it’s your talent. You have to learn how best to use it, that’s all.…”
What Gormley said made sense and Harry knew it. “But where do I start?” He was desperate.
“I have what might be just a clue for you,” Gormley was careful not to be too optimistic. “The result of an ESP game I used to play with Alec Kyle, my second in command. I didn’t mention it before because there might not be anything in it, but if we have to have a starting point—”
“Go on,” said Harry.
And with his mind, Gormley drew him this mental picture:
“What the hell’s that?” Harry was nonplussed.
“It’s a Möbius strip,” said Gormley. “Named after its inventor, August Ferdinand Möbius, a German mathematician. Just take a thin strip of paper, give it a half-twist and join up the ends. It reduces a two-dimensional surface to only one. It has many implications, I’m told, but I wouldn’t know for I’m not a mathematician.”
Harry was still baffled, not by the principle but by its application. “And this is supposed to have something to do with me?”
“With your future—your immediate future—possibly,” Gormley was deliberately vague. “I told you there mightn’t be anything in it. Anyway, let me tell you what happened.” He told Harry about his and Kyle’s word-association game. “So I started with your name, Harry Keogh, and Kyle came back with ‘Möbius.’ I said, ‘Maths?’—and he answered, ‘Space-time’!”
“Space-time?” Harry was at once interested. “Now that might well fit in with this Möbius strip thing. It seems to me that the strip is only a diagram of warped space, and space and time are inextricably linked.”
“Oh?” said Gormley, and Harry pictured his surprised expression. “And is that an original thought, Harry, or do you have … outside help?”
This gave Harry an idea. “Wait,” he said, “I don’t know your Möbius, but I do know someone else.” He got in touch with James Gordon Hannant in the cemetery in Harden, showed him the strip.
“Sorry, can’t help you, Harry,” said Hannant, his thoughts clipped and precise as ever. “I’ve gone in an entirely different direction. I was never into curves anyway. By that I mean that my maths was—is—all very practical. Different but practical. But of course you know that. If it can be done on paper, I can probably do it; I’m more visual, if you like, than Möbius. A lot of his stuff was in the mind, abstract, theoretical. Now if only he and Einstein could have got together, then we really might have seen something!”
“But I have to know about this!” Harry was desperate. “Can’t you suggest anything?”
Hannant sensed Harry’s urgency, raised a mental eyebrow. In that emotionless, calculating fashion of his, he said: “But isn’t the answer obvious, Harry? Why don’t you ask him, Möbius himself? After all, you’re the only one who can.…”
Suddenly excited, Harry crossed back to Gormley. “Well,” he told him, “at least I have a place to start now. What else came out of this game of yours with Alec Kyle?”
“After he came up with ‘Space-time’ I tried him with ‘Necroscope,’” said Gormley. “He immediately came back with ‘necromancer.’”
Harry was silent for a moment, then said: “So it looks like he was reading your future as well as mine.…”
“I suppose so,” Gormley answered. “But then he said something that’s got me stumped even now. I mean—even assuming that all we’ve just mentioned is somehow connected—what on earth am I supposed to make of ‘vampire,’ eh?”
Cold fingers crept up Harry’s spine. What indeed? Finally he said:
“Keenan, can we stop there? I’ll get back to you as soon as possible, but right now there are one or two things I have to do. I want to give my wife a call, find a reference library, check some things out. And I want to go and see Möbius, so I’ll probably be booking a flight to Germany. Also, I’m hungry! And … I want to think about things. Alone, I mean.”
“I understand, Harry, and I’ll be ready when you want to start again. But by all means see to your own needs first. Let’s face it, they have to be greater than mine. So go ahead, son. You see to the living. The dead have plenty of time.”
“Also,” Harry told him, “there’s someone else I want to speak to—but that’s my secret for now.”
Gormley was suddenly worried for him. “Don’t do anything rash, Harry. I mean—”
“You said I should go it alone, do it my way,” Harry reminded him.
He sensed Gormley’s nod of acquiescence. “That’s right, son. Let’s just hope you do it right, that’s all.”
Which was one sentiment Harry could only agree with.
* * *
Late that same evening, at the Russian Embassy, Dragosani and Batu had finished their packing and wer
e looking forward to their morning flight out. Dragosani had not yet started to commit his knowledge to paper; this was the last place for that sort of undertaking. One might as well write a letter direct to Yuri Andropov himself!
The two Russian agents had rooms with a linking door and only one telephone, which was situated in Batu’s apartment. The necromancer had just stretched himself out on his bed, lost in his own strange, dark thoughts, when he heard the phone ring in Batu’s room. A moment later and the squat little Mongol knocked on the joining door. “It’s for you,” his muffled voice came through the stained, dingy oak panels. “The switchboard. Something about a call from outside.”
Dragosani got up, went through into Batu’s room. Sitting on the bed, Batu grinned at him. “Ho, Comrade! And do you have friends here in London? Someone seems to know you.”
Dragosani scowled at him, snatched up the telephone. “Switchboard? This is Dragosani. What’s all this about?”
“A call for you from outside, Comrade,” came the answer in a cold, nasal, female voice.
“I doubt it. You’ve made a mistake. I’m not known here.”
“He says you’ll want to speak to him,” said the operator. “His name is Harry Keogh.”
“Keogh?” Dragosani looked at Batu, raised an eyebrow. “Ah, yes! Yes, I do know of him. Put him through.”
“Very well. Remember, Comrade: speech is insecure.” There came a click and a buzzing, then:
“Dragosani, is that you?” The voice was young but strangely hard. It didn’t quite fit the gaunt, almost vacant face that Dragosani had seen staring at him from the frozen river bank in Scotland.
“This is Dragosani, yes. What do you want, Harry Keogh?”
“I want you, necromancer,” said the cold, hard voice. “I want you, and I’m going to get you.”
Dragosani’s lips drew back from his needle teeth in a silent snarl. This one was clever, daring, brash—dangerous! “I don’t know who you are,” he hissed, “but you’re obviously a madman! Explain yourself or get off the phone.”
“The explanation’s simple, ‘Comrade,’” the voice had grown harder still. “I know what you did to Sir Keenan Gormley. He was my friend. An eye for an eye, Dragosani, and a tooth for a tooth. That’s my way, as you’ve already seen. You’re a dead man.”
“Oh?” Dragosani laughed sardonically. “I’m a dead man, am I? And you, too, have ways with the dead, don’t you, Harry?”
“What you saw at Shukshin’s was nothing, ‘Comrade,’” said the icy voice. “You don’t know all of it. Not even Gormley knew all of it.”
“Bluff, Harry!” said Dragosani. “I’ve seen what you can do and it doesn’t frighten me. Death is my friend. He tells me everything.”
“That’s good,” said the voice, “for you’ll be speaking to him again soon—but face to face. So you know what I can do, do you? Well think about this: next time I’ll be doing it to you!”
“A challenge, Harry?” Dragosani’s voice was dangerously low, full of menace.
“A challenge,” the other agreed, “and the winner takes all.”
Dragosani’s Wallach blood was up; he was eager now: “But where? I’m already beyond your reach. And tomorrow there’ll be half a world between.”
“Oh, I know you’re running now,” said the other contemptuously. “But I’ll find you, and soon. You, and Batu, and Borowitz.…”
Again Dragosani’s lips drew back in a hiss. “Perhaps we should meet, Harry—but where, how?”
“You’ll know when it’s time,” said the voice. “And know this, too: it will be worse for you than it was for Gormley.”
Suddenly the ice in Keogh’s voice seemed to fill Dragosani’s veins. He shook himself, pulled himself together, said: “Very well, Harry Keogh. Whenever and wherever, I’ll be waiting for you.”
“And the winner takes all,” said the voice a second time. There came a faint click and the dead line began its intermittent, staccato purring.
For long moments Dragosani stared at the receiver in his hand, then hurled it down into its cradle. “Oh, I surely will!” he rasped then. “Be sure I’ll take everything, Harry Keogh!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Back at the Château Bronnitsy in the middle of the following afternoon, Dragosani found Borowitz absent. His secretary told him that Natasha Borowitz had died just two days ago; Gregor Borowitz was in mourning at their dacha, keeping her company for a day or two; he did not wish to be disturbed. Dragosani phoned him anyway.
“Ah, Boris,” the old man’s voice was soft for once, empty. “So you’re back.”
“Gregor, I’m sorry,” said Dragosani, observing a ritual he didn’t really understand. “But I thought you’d like to know I got what you wanted. More than you wanted. Shukshin is dead. Gormley too. And I know everything.”
“Good,” said the other without emotion. “But don’t talk to me now of death, Boris. Not now. I shall be here for another week. After that … it will be a while before I’m up to much. I loved this argumentative, tough old bitch. She had a tumour, they say, in her head. Suddenly it grew too big. Very peaceful at the end. I miss her a lot. She never knew what a secret was! That was nice.”
“I’m sorry,” Dragosani said again.
At that Borowitz seemed to snap out of it. “So take a break,” he said. “Get it all down on paper. Report to me in a week, ten days. And well done.”
Dragosani’s hand tightened on the telephone. “A break would be very welcome,” he said. “I may use it to look up an old friend of mine. Gregor, can I take Max Batu with me? He, too, has done his work well.”
“Yes, yes—only don’t bother me any more now. Goodbye, Dragosani.”
And that was that.
* * *
Dragosani didn’t like Batu, but he did have plans for him. Anyway, the man made a decent travelling companion: he said very little, kept himself more or less to himself, and his needs were few. He did have a passion for slivovitz, but that didn’t present a problem. The little Mongol could drink the stuff until it came out of his ears, and still he would appear sober. Appearance was all that mattered.
It was the middle of the Russian winter and so they went by train, a much interrupted journey which didn’t see them into Galatz until a day and a half later. There Dragosani hired a car with snow chains, which gave him back something of the independence he so relished. Eventually, on the evening of that second day, in the rooms which Dragosani found for them in a tiny village near Valeni, finally the necromancer grew bored with Batu’s silence and asked him: “Max, don’t you wonder what we’re doing here? Aren’t you interested to find out why I brought you along?”
“No, not really,” answered the moon-faced Mongol. “I’ll find out when you’re ready, I suppose. Actually, it makes no difference. I think I quite like travelling. Perhaps the Comrade General will find more work for me in strange parts.”
Dragosani thought: No, Max, there’ll be no more work for you—except through me. But out loud he said only, “Perhaps.”
* * *
Night had fallen by the time they had eaten, and that was when Dragosani gave Batu the first hint of what was to come. “It’s a fine night tonight, Max,” he said. “Bright starlight and not a cloud in sight. That’s good, for we’re going for a drive. There’s someone I want to talk to.”
On their way to the cruciform hills they passed a field where sheep huddled together in a corner where straw had been put out for them. There was a thin layer of snow but the temperature was at a reasonable level. Dragosani stopped the car. “My friend will be thirsty,” he explained, “but he’s not much on slivovitz. Still, I think it’s only fair we should take him something to drink.”
They got out of the car and Dragosani went into the field, scattering the sheep. “That one, Max,” he said, as one of the animals strayed close to the Mongol where he leaned on the fence. “Don’t kill it. Merely stun it, if you can.”
Max could. He crouched, his face contorting where he
directed his gaze through the bars of the fence. Dragosani averted his face as the sheep, a fine ewe, gave a shrill cry of terror. He looked back in time to see the animal bound as if shot, and collapse in a shuddering heap of dense wool.
Together they bundled the animal into the boot and went on their way. After a little while Batu said: “Your friend must have the strangest appetite, Comrade.”
“He does, Max, he does.” And then Dragosani told the other something of what he could expect.
Batu thought about it for some minutes before he spoke again. “Comrade Dragosani, I know you are a strange man—indeed we are both strange men—but now I am tempted to believe you must be mad!”
Dragosani bayed like a hound, finally brought his booming laughter under control. “You mean you don’t believe in vampires, Max?”
“Oh, indeed I do!” said the other. “If you say so. I don’t mean that you’re mad to believe—but you are certainly mad to want to dig the thing up!”
“We shall see what we shall see,” Dragosani growled, more soberly now. “There’s just one thing, Max. Whatever you hear or see—no matter what may happen—you are not to interfere. I don’t want him to know you’re even here. Not yet, anyway. Do you understand what I’m saying? You’re to stay out of it. You’re to be so still and quiet that even I forget you’re there!”
“As you will,” the other shrugged. “But you say he reads your mind? Perhaps he already knows I’m with you.”
“No,” said Dragosani, “for I can sense when he’s trying to get at me and I know how to shut him out. Anyway, he’ll be very weak by now and not up to fighting with me, not even mentally. No, Thibor Ferenczy has no idea that I’m here, Max, and he’ll be so delighted when I speak to him that he won’t think to look for treachery.”
“If you say so,” and Batu shrugged again.
“Now,” said Dragosani, “you have said I must be mad. Far from it, Max. But you see this vampire has secrets that only the undead know. They are secrets I want. And one way or the other I intend to get them. Especially now that there’s this Harry Keogh to deal with. So far Thibor has frustrated me, but not this time. And if I have to raise him up to get at these secrets … then so be it!”