E-Branch - Invaders Part 40

A face. But just a face!

Jesus G.o.d!

Jesus- -G.o.d!'

Jake came "awake with a small cry and a ma.s.sive start, the sweat still dripping, and that mask of a face still printed on the darkness, but fading as he realized it was only that awful nightmare again, and that while the rest of it was all too horrifyingly real, the last part had never happened except in the dream. It always happened in the dream. Every time.

But then, while he sat there trembling, his heart hammering in his chest, utterly alone in the darkness of his cubicle, someone very close quite clearly said: Ahhhhh! What stuff you are made of, Jake! And what a host you would make! But together we'll make a very fine pair, you and I...

Jake recognized the voice at once - only this time he was awake, had been shocked awake - and the knowledge saw him fumbling for his bedside light switch with rubbery fingers, as the damp short hairs at the back of his neck stiffened into spikes.

But as the light came on, so that evil, chuckling deadspeak voice was already reced ing, was being driven away. Because acting instinctively - almost without knowing he had done it, and certainly without knowing how - Jake had erected mental shields against intruders, blocking them from his mind. For as well as Korath Mindsthrall, he had s ensed someone else there, and possibly many someones, listening to his thoughts.

Or was it all a bad dream? For now that they were gone, he couldn't even be sure that his intruders had ever been there in the first pla ce. And Jake flopped, panting, back onto his pillo w, wondering if perhaps it had only been a part of his dream after all. One of those dreams that crashes the barrier of consciousness, however momentarily, to cross over into the waking world.

He wondered about it, but was by no means certain ...

... While just a few feet away, trying desperately hard to keep still as a mouse, Liz Merrick crouched shivering and shuddering on her bed, in the farthest corner of her cubicle, with a sheet drawn up under her chin. She hung on tightly to that sheet, and even more so to her thoughts (so as to keep them to herself, but in any case as far away from Jake as possible), and tried to forget what she had seen. But much like Jake himself that night at Castellano's place, gripped by some kind of morbid fascination, voyeurism of a sort, she'd found herself unable to look away' ... until now.

d.a.m.n Ben Trask that he had ordered this surveillance! But it wasn't only Trask, for Liz, too, had 'had' to know.

Well, and now she knew. She had seen - she'd even 'experienced' Jake's pa.s.sion, his hatred, and the resultant nightmare - and knew how far he would go in his vendetta, and just exactly what he was capable of (literally anything), in his cravin g for justice. Or for a kind of justice, at least.

But such justice!

On the other hand, perhaps that was why Harry had chosen him: because an eye for an eye had always been the Necroscope's motto. The eye, yes: that most vital and vulnerable part of the body. An eye for an eye. Why, the thought itself was ho rrific! But now, as Liz was witness - and as it had been brought forcefully home to her - she realized that other parts of the body could be just as vulnerable, and their use or misuse even more horrific ...

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Jake hadn't thought he would sleep again, but after tossing and turning for an hour - and listening, though for what he wasn't quite sure - he did in fact sleep.

And as he relaxed his shields - a natural, necessary relaxation born of mental fatigue, from listening so intently for an unidentified something - so Korath Mindsthrall was alert and waiting for him. Jake felt the ex-vampire's gradual insinuation like a slimy, creeping mist, or a damp shroud settling over his mind. But at the same time he also sensed something of urgency, a d esire to speak, to communicate with him. And if for no other reason than his own curiosity , he allowed it.

'I know you're there,' Jake said, as the other's hesitancy, his too-cautious approach began to irritate him. 'So why do you hold back? If you've got something to say, get it said.'

For answer there came a sensed 'sigh' of relief, and: But I thought that you would shut me out, send me away. I thought you would reject me, Korath said.

'That didn't stop you the last time/ Jake said. 'When you spoke to me after my nightmare? You seemed to have enjoyed spying on me, as if you approved of what you had seen, of what I'd done. Or perhaps you got carried away and broke your silence in error, when I wasn't supposed to know you were there?'

/ was in fact... well., speaking to myself, said the other, defensively. We might even say that you eavesdropped on me!

'Speaking to yourself?' Jake answered. 'Deadspeak? In which case you're as new to it as I am. For a thought is just as good as the spoken word, Korath, to such as you and I.'

And to all of the teeming dead, said the other. Which makes you the odd man out.

'But as for eavesdropping ...' Jake continued, 'it sometimes has its uses. What was it you said? That together we would make a very fine pair? What exactly did you mean by that? That we're alike in certain ways? No, I don't think so. Or did you perhaps mean that you'd like to team up with me?'

But that is precisely what I meant! Korath answered, just a little too eagerly. For after all, if you're intent on tracking down and destroying the treacherous Malinari, who could possibly be of greater a.s.sistance than one who was as close to him as Korath MindsthrallP 'So close that he killed you?' Jake's sarcasm dripped.

Exactly! And I know what you are thinking: that the Necroscope Harry Keogh found it peculiar that The Mind should murder his first lieutenant out of hand, as if it were nothing to him. But it was in fact... something.

'He had good reason? Is that what you're saying?'

Well, he thought he had! said Korath. He was concerned that one day I would usurp him, that I might have the means to usurp him!

'Yet when Harry questioned you, you said it was just Malinari's nature. You were there to be used, and so he used you.'

And so it was his evil nature, which caused him to so use and abuse his right-hand man, aye, Korath answered. But in addition, there was this other thing. Something of his own making, which given time he feared would turn on him. And it might yet.

'So why do you mention it to me - this thing, whatever it is - when you withheld it from Harry?'

Because it was my secret, said Korath. And even a dead man should have something he can call his own - something private? - which might even be of value to the living, and with which he might seek to bargain? Ah, but Harry Keogh is one thing, while you are something else entirely, Jake. And it was never my intention to keep anything secret from you. Not if you require it, and if it should prove ... useful to you? 'Something you have,' Jake mused, 'Which might benefit me, but not Harry ...'

And in a while, when Korath remained silent: 'So what's the difference? Why would you help me and not him?'

The difference? But isn't it obvious? The Necroscope Harry Keogh can do nothing for me. And even if he could he wouldn't - you have seen that for yourself! He is obstinate: despite that I never harmed him and he never knew me, still he hates me! But the greatest difference is this: that he is dead!

While you- 'While I'm alive,' said Jake.

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And you walk among the living. My only possible instrument of revenge again st him who put me here, and the others who have gone out into your world with him, aye.

'And that's all you'd expect out of it? All you'd want for yourself?'

All? But it is everything! said the other. Through you, I would live again - er, metaphorically, of course. Through you, I would strike back from beyond the grave - or in my case from this dank and dreary pipe, in the bowels of a strange place, in a foreign land far from Starside. What more could I, poor dead thing that I am, ask of you? And. what more could you give?

'What more, indeed/ said Jake, who hadn't forgotten Harry Keogh's warning, that even dead vampires are dangerous.

And: Well, and perhaps there is ... something, said Korath.

'And now we get to it,' said Jake.

Hear me out! said the other. Is it too much to ask that in return for my gift to you, you shall give me your companionship - albeit rarely, however infrequently - when little else intrudes upon your time?

'A word-game?' said Jake. 'Is that what this is? The devious nature of vampires? For here I find myself bargaining - all caught up in it, beginning to go with it - when as yet I don't even know what's on offer!'

Then let me tell you! Korath was eager, barely able to contain himself. But in the next moment he slowed down, paused and said, And yet... how best to explain? Now listen: Do you remember I told you, that in our Icelands banishment when food was short and Malinari thirsted, he supped on me?

But it was no mere sip! He drank deeply, so deep indeed that I was weakened nigh unto death. Aye, that was how much my master took from me. But in taking, he also gave!

Now, Malinari is special even among the Wamphyri. His bite is virulent; well, so are they all, but his even more so. Under normal conditions a man is recruited, becomes infected, in the s.p.a.ce of a single Starside night - or two or three days of your time - following which he is his master's thrall, in thrall to whichever Lord or Lady seduced his blood. But when Malinari bit deep it was a matter of hours! He could turn a man in hours!

It was in his essence, his strong Wamphyri essence. And it was the same with the making.

'The making?' This was a new one on Jake. The making of creatures, Korath explained. Monsters! Why, things waxed in The Mind's vats of metamorphosis in days rather tha n weeks and months! I have seen flyers Jlop from their stone wombs in the s.p.a.ce of a single day and a night- a Starside day and night,you understand - and even an ugly warrior wax mewling in its vat, its armoured scales hardening to chitin in little more than four sunups. So efficacious is Malinari's essence of metamorphism! And all of his men and creatures alike stamped with something of The Mind himself, imbued of his arts, made in their master's likeness. Do you see?

'Imbued of his arts?' Jake repeated the other's words, and tried to fathom his meaning. 'Are you saying you got Malinari's skills?'

Something of them, aye, said Korath. And, after a moment's pause: And you will also recall the reason why my master found it so easy to talk to me: because as you have inherited the Necroscope Harry Keogh's mind&tild;shields, so I had inherited my b.e.s.t.i.a.l father's. Malinari found little to fault in my thinking because I was able to keep him out. Which suited both our purposes: The Mind's because while by nature he's suspicious, still he needed a strong first lieutenant; mine because even the most loyal and obedient of thralls may on occasion harbour this or that small grievance against his master ...

'Or, on occasion, a not-so-small grievance?' said Jake.

He sensed Korath's shrug. In my case, not so much a grievance as an ambition. That was it: I harboured an ambition, and looked for an opportunity. For that time in the Icelands, Malinari had gone too far. Oh, he had glutted on me ... but what he had given back - albeit involuntarily, for in his hunger he was made careless - would soon be much stronger than what he took! From which time forward I knew that I was different. I felt the germ of a leech growing in me, but daren't disclose it. I could not admit that soon I would be ... Wamphyyyrrriii!

The pain - the terrible longing - of Korath's cry shocked Jake to his very soul.

Like a shovel in cold ashes, or chalk on a new blackboard, it grated on his ne rve-endings, set his 456.

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scalp tingling . And it brought him a new awareness, the certain knowledge that what he was dealing with here was far from a simple, uncomplicated creature. Dead it was, yes, but it hadn't by any means accepted that fact; it resisted death with every fibre of its long-since sloughed-away body, and would cling to life - to any life, to his life - with that same tenacity! And: 'I think ... I think it's time you were out of here!' Jake said, his voice shuddering as the echoes of Korath's cry of anguish did a drum-roll in his near-metaphysical mind. 'You or me, but one of us has to go.'

Aye, go if you will, said the other. But best that you go bravely to your death, Jake, not whimpering as you whimper now. Go on, face Malinari the Mind, for you may be sure it is him in the mountains! Go against him with nothing but your puny human muscles, nothing but your puling, childlike mind - which even I can enter, as stealthy as a thief in the night. Oh? Oh really? And how do you think you'll fare against such as Malinari, eh? And. this woman who you keep in your mind, this Liz of whom you sometimes dream - what, a mentalist, you say? But how unfortunate! For how will she fare against such as him? As for Vavara ... ah, but she has her ways with pretty women, aye. Vavaaara! Oh, ha ha ha haaaaaaa!

Korath's deadspeak laugh reverberated into a throbbing silence, but Jake knew that he was there, waiting. And Korath knew that Jake was hooked. To a point, at least. And he was right.

'How can you be sure that it'

s Malinari in the mountains?' Jake said, in a little while. 'What can you know of that?'

Ah, no! Too late! the other cried. / was the fair one and told you a secret. Now you would have more. But what is my get out of all this?

'But you still haven't told me what you want!' Jake answered. 'Not everything that you want. And un til you do, I'm not going t o be signing any blank cheques, Korath.'

And because deadspeak conveys more or other than is actually said, because it translates much as telepathy translates, Korath understood him well enough.

You are afraid that I would take advantage? But how may I take advantage? I'm only a dead thing drowned in a pipe!

Korath Mindsthrall is no more except he acts through you. Ah, but Jake ... the acts we can accomplish, and the things I have to offer!

'Such as?'

Everything I know about Malinari, Vavara, Szwart.

'You've already told me those things, both me and the Necroscope, Harry Keogh.'

But can you remember them? When you're awake? I think not.

For I have crept into your waking mind, too, Jake, and found it blank of all such knowledge, of everything I told you. Now tell me: who do you suppose it was reminded you of how Malinari came by his name? Did you really think you were so clever as to work it out all by yourself that the name Aristotle Milan was a disguise, a pseudonym?

'But it ... it was obvious,' said Jake, caught momentarily off guard.

As it must also be obvious that I was there with you! Korath pounced. Else how would I know it ever happened? And when we flew together, you and I, in that aerial machine, that helicopter with its twirling wings: did you once suspect that I was there with you? No, never, not f or a moment. But I was ...

Jake was shaken, but he was also Jake. 'So you're a sneaky b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

he said. 'What does that prove - except I can't trust you?'

It proves that I can help you - as I helped you with Mali nari's nam e. And then, grudgingly: Also, it proves that you are no slouch, no easy adversary, when it comes to word-games. More of the Necroscope's inheritance, I should think.

And Jake wondered, could Korath help him? What harm could it do to call on the vampire for advice in a tight spot? Surely it wouldn't be that much different from calling on Harry, whose help was uncertain anyway? And these thoughts, too - unguarded as they were - were deadspeak.

Exactly! said Korath. And at all times I would be on hand to ... to advise you, aye.

'Not at all times!' said Jake, hearing warning bells. 'For when we started this conversation you were happy with "rarely," or 458.

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"infrequently," when little else was "intruding on my time". So how come you now arrive at being on hand "at all times?'"

A figure of speech! Korath protested. / meant whenever you called for me, of course.

'And how would I do that? I mean, call for you?'

Why, by thinking of me, of my situation down there in that cruel conduit, and by calling for me by name, Korath.

But the dead vampire was getting ahead of himself; believing that he was winning Jake over, his deep Voice' had become semi-hypnotic, more phlegmy, glutinous and sly than ever. Jake gave himself a shake and 'woke up' to that fact.

'What, like rubbing a lamp to call out the genie?' he said. 'And what happenes whe n I've had my three wishes, eh?'

He sensed the sad shake of an incorporeal head. Jake, Jake!

Were you always this ungrateful, this misgiving?

'No,' Jake answered. 'Not misgiving, not yet. Just cautious. But let's get on. What else is on offer? For after all, you did say "things," in the plural.'

So, said the other, esoteric knowledge is not enough. It is too ethereal - too immundane -for a clod-hopper such as you.

You would have something more physical.

'No small feat/ said Jake, feeling stung and retaliating, 'for someone as far r emoved from physical things as you are.'

Hurtful! said the other. Hah! And you accuse me of taking advantage! But argument gets us nowhere, while what I'm proposing would be of mutual benefit. Very well, you ask what else is on offer, what other 'thing' I have in mind. And that is exactly where it is: in my mind. Now say, do you remember the Necroscope asking you about your numerical skills?

'In connection with the Mobius Continuum? Yes,' said Jake.

5o then. And how are your numbers, Jake?

'I'm not innumerate, if that's what you mean.'

Odd, said the other, for I was. In my world, Jake, mathematics went no further than the count of a man's thralls or the beasts in his pens. Numbers? I had no use for them, nor have I even now, though I may have shortly. But in Starside, addition was a recruitingforay into Sunside. And division was what happened to the spoils.

'What are you getting at?'