Necroscope - Deadspeak Part 15

Harry had been Darcy's single anchor on Sanity and Being and Humanity; he couldn't see him for there was no light, but he could feel the pressure of his hand. And perhaps because Darcy was himself psychically endowed, he'

d felt he had some small understanding of the place. For instance: he knew it was real because he was here, and with Harry beside him he'd known he ne ed not fear it because his talent hadn't prevented him from coming here. An d so, even in the confusion of his near-panic, he'd been able to explore hi s feelings about it.

Lacking s.p.a.ce it was literally 'nowhere', but by the same token lackin g time it was every-where and -when. It was core and boundary both, interi or and exterior, where nothing ever changed except by force of will. But t here was no will, except it was brought here by someone like Harry Keogh.

Harry was only a man, and yet the things he could do through the Mobius Co ntinuum were . . . G.o.dlike? And what if G.o.d should come here?

And again Darcy had thought of The G.o.d, who wrought a Great Change out of a formless void and willed a universe. And then the thought had also o ccurred: We aren't meant to be here. This isn't our place.

'I understand how you feel,' Harry had told him then, 'for I've felt it, too.

But don't be afraid. Just let it happen and accept it. Can't you feel the magic of it? Doesn't it thrill you to your soul?'

And Darcy had had to admit it thrilled him - but it scared him witless, too !.

Then, so as not to prolong it, Harry had taken him to the threshold of a future-time door. Looking out, they'd seen a chaos of millions, no, billion s, of threads of pure blue light etched against an eternity of black velvet, like an incredible meteor shower, except the tracks didn't dim but remained printed on the sky - indeed, printed on Time! And the most awesome thing wa s this: that two of these twining, twisting streamers of blue light had issu ed from Darcy and Harry themselves, extruding from them and racing away into the future - The blue life-threads of humanity, of all Mankind, spreading out and awa y through s.p.a.ce and time . . . But then Harry had closed that door and opene d another, a door on the past.

The myriad neon life-threads had been there as before but this time, ins tead of expanding into a misted distance, they'd contracted and narrowed dow n, targeting on a faraway, dazzling blue core of origin. And in the main, that was what had most seared itself on Darcy's memory: the fact that he'd seen the very birthlight of Mankind . . .

'Anyway,' Harry's voice, decisive now, brought him back to the present , 'I'm coming with you^ To Rhodes, I mean. You might need my advice.'

Darcy gazed at him in astonishment. He hadn't seen or heard him so positi ve in ... how long? 'You're coming with - ?'

'They're my friends, too,' Harry blurted. 'Oh, maybe I don't know them l ike you do, but I trusted in them once and they trusted in me, in what I was doing. They were in on that Bodescu business. They have their talents, and they have invaluable experience of ... things. Also, well it seems to me the dead want me to go. And lastly, we really can't afford to have anything hap pen to people like those two. Not now.'

'We can't afford it? What "we", Harry?' And suddenly Darcy was very ten se, waiting for Harry's answer.

'You, me, the world.'

'Is it that bad?'

'It could be. So I'm coming with you.'

Sandra looked at them both and said: 'So am I.'

Darcy shook his head. 'Not if it's like he thinks it might be, you're not.'

'But I'm a telepath!' she protested. 'I might be able to help with Trevor Jordan. He and I used to be able to read each other like books. He's my friend , too, remember?'

Harry took her arm. 'Didn't you hear what Darcy said? Trevor's a madman . His mind has gone.'

She pulled a face and tut-tutted. 'What does that mean, Harry? Minds don'

t just "go", you of all people should know that. It hasn't "gone" anywhere - just gone wrong, that's all. I might be able to look in there and see what's wrong.'

'We're wasting time,' Darcy was growing anxious. 'OK, so it's decided: we 're all three going. How long will it take you to get ready?'

'I'm ready,' Harry answered at once. 'Five minutes to pack a few things.'

'I'll need to pick up my pa.s.sport on our way through Edinburgh,' Sandra sh rugged. 'That's all. Anything else I need I'll buy out there.'

'Right,' said Darcy. 'You phone a taxi, and I'll help Harry pack. If we hav e time I can always put HQ in the picture from the airport. So let's go.'

And in their graves the teeming dead relaxed a little -for the moment, any way. Harry, because he thought he'd heard their ma.s.sed sighing, gave a small s hudder. It wasn't terror or dread or anything like that. It was just the friss on of knowing. But of course his friends - his living friends - knew nothing a t all of that.

Unbeknown to the three, Nikolai Zharov was at Edinburgh Airport to see them off. He had also been across the river with a pair of KGB-issue nite-lite binoculars when Wellesley broke into Harry's house in Bonnyrig. And he'

d seen what had left the garden to plod back to their riven plots in a ceme tery half a mile away. He'd seen and known what they were, and still looked haggard from knowing it.

But that didn't stop Zharov coding a message and phoning it through to the KGB cell at the emba.s.sy. So that in a very short time indeed the Soviet intelligence agencies knew that Harry Keogh was en route to the Mediterran ean.

It was 6:30 p.m. local time at Rhodes Airport when Manolis Papastamos me t them off their flight; during the taxi ride into the historic town, he tol d them in his frenetic fashion all he knew of what had transpired. But seein g no connection, he made no mention of Jianni Lazarides.

'What of Ken Layard now?' Darcy wanted to know.

Papastamos was small, slender, all sinew and suntan and shiny-black, wa vy hair. Handsome in a fashion, and usually full of zest, now he looked har a.s.sed and hagridden. 'I don't know what it is,' he gave a series of questio ning, desperate shrugs, held out his hands palms up. 'I don't know, and bla me myself because I don't know! But . . . they are not easy to understand, those two. Policemen? Strange policemen! They seemed to know so much - to b e so sure of certain things - but never explained to me how they knew.'

'They're very special,' Darcy agreed. 'But what about Ken?'

'He couldn't swim, had a b.u.mp on his head. I dragged him out of the harb our onto some rocks, got the salt water out of him, went for help. Jordan wa s no use to me: he just sat on the mole under the old windmills babbling to himself. He was suddenly . . . crazy! And he's stayed that way. But Layard, he was OK, I swear it! Just a b.u.mp on the head. And now . . .'

'Now?' said Harry.

'Now they say he may die!' Papastamos looked like he might cry. 'I did all I could, I swear it!'

'Don't blame yourself, Manolis,' Darcy told him. 'Whatever happened was n't your fault. But can we see him?'

'Of course, we go to the hospital now. You can see Trevor, too, if you wi sh it. But,' and again he shrugged, 'you won't get much out of that one. My G od, I am so sorry!'

The hospital was off Papalouca, one of the New Town's main roads. It was a big, sprawling place with a frontage all of a hundred yards long. 'One se ction - a ward, clinic and dispensary - is reserved mainly for the treatment of the tourists,' Papastamos explained as their taxi took them in through t he gates. 'It's not much in use now, but in July and August the work doesn't stop. The broken bones, bad sunburns, heatstroke, stings, cuts and bruises.

Ken Layard has a room of his own.'

He told their driver to wait, led the way into a side wing where a receptionist sat in her booth clipping her fingernails. As soon as she saw Papastam os she sprang to her feet and spoke to him in breathless, very much subdued G reek. Papastamos at once gasped and went pale. 'My friends, you are too late, ' he said. 'He is ... dead!' He looked at Sandra, Darcy and Harry in turn, an d shook his head. 'There is nothing I can say.'

They were too dumbstruck to answer for a moment, until Harry said: 'C an we see him anyway?'

Harry looked cool in a pale blue jacket, white shirt and slacks. He and the others had slept on the plane, catching up on a lot of lost sleep. And d espite his travails of the night before, he seemed to have come through it b etter than them. His face was calm, resigned; unlike Sandra's and Darcy's, P apastamos saw no sorrow in it. And the Greek thought: A cold-blooded one, th is Harry Keogh.

But he was wrong: it was simply that Harry had learned to view death di fferently. Ken Layard might be finished 'here' - finished physically, mater ially, in the corporeal world - but he wasn't all dead. Not all of him. Why , for all Harry knew Ken might be seeking him out right now, desperate to e ngage him in deadspeak. Except Harry was forbidden to hear him, and forbidd en to answer even if he did.

'See him?' Papastamos answered. 'Of course you can. But the girl tells m e that first the doctor wishes to see us. His office is this way.' And he le d them down a cool corridor where the light came slanting in through high, n arrow windows.

They found the doctor, a small bald man with thick-lensed spectacles per ched on the end of his hook of a nose, in his tiny office room signing and s tamping papers.

When Papastamos introduced them to him, Dr Sakellarakis was at once the soul of concern, displaying his very genuine dismay at the loss of their f riend. Speaking half-decent English and shaking his head sadly, he told the m: "This b.u.mp on the Layard's head - I 'fraid is much more than the simple b.u.mp, gentlemen, lady. There is perhaps the damage inside? This is not certa in until the autopsy, naturally, but I thinks this one is causing the death.

The damage, the blood clot, something.' Again he shook his head, gave a sad shrug.

'Can we see him?' Harry asked again. And as the doctor led the way: 'Whe n is the autopsy?'

Again the Greek's shrug. 'One days, two - as soon as it can be arranged.

But soon. Until then I am having him removed to the morgue.'

'And when did he die - exactly?' Harry was relentless.

'Exactly? To the minute? Is not known. One hour, I thinks. About... ah, 1 800 hours?' 'Six o'clock local time,' said Sandra. 'We were on the plane.'

'Does there have to be an autopsy?' Harry hated the thought of it; he kn ew the effect necromancy had on the dead, how much they feared it. Dragosani had been a necromancer, and oh how the dead had loathed and feared him! Of course, this wouldn't be the same; Layard would feel nothing at the hands of a pathologist, whose skills would be those of the surgeon as opposed to the torturer, but still Harry didn't like it.

Sakellarakis held up his hands. 'It is the law.'

Layard's room was small, white, clean and pungently antiseptic. He lay f ull length on a trolley, covered head to toe by a sheet. The bed he'd used h ad been made up again, and the window closed to keep out flies. Darcy carefu lly laid back the sheet to show Layard's face and drew back at once, winci ng. Sandra, too. Layard's face wasn't in repose.

'Is the spasm,' Sakellarakis informed, nodding. 'The muscles, a contractio n. The mortician is putting this one right. Then Layard, he is doing the corre ct sleeping.'

Harry hadn't drawn back. Instead he stood over Layard, looking down at h im. The esper was grey, clay-cold, frozen in rigor mortis. But his face was fixed in something rather more than that. His jaws were open in a scream and his upper lip at the left had lifted up and away from the teeth, leaving th em visible and shining. His entire face seemed pulled to the left in a sort of rictus, as if he screamed his denial of something unbelievable, unbearable.

His eyes were closed, but in the eyelids under the brows Harry saw twin s lits in the membranous skin. They were fine but dark and plainly visible agai nst the overall pallor. 'He's been . . . cut?' Harry glanced at the Greek doc tor.

The spasm,' the other nodded. "The eyes come open. It can happen. I make the small cuts in the muscles . . . no problem.'

Harry licked his lips, frowned, peered intently at the large blue lump sh owing on Layard's forehead and continuing into his hair. The shiny skin was b roken in the centre, a small abrasion where flesh white as fishbelly showed t hrough. Harry looked at the lump, reached out a hand as if to touch it, then turned away. And: 'That look on his face,' he said, under his breath. 'No mus cular spasm that, but sheer terror!'

Darcy Clarke, for his part, had taken one look at Layard and drawn back first one pace, then another. But he hadn't stopped drawing back and was now out in the corridor. His face was drawn, eyes staring into the room at the figure on the trolley. Sandra joined him; Harry, too.

'Darcy, what is it?' Sandra's voice was hushed.

Darcy only shook his head. 'I don't know,' he gulped. 'But whatever it is, i t's not right!' It was his talent working, looking out for him.

Papastamos put back the sheet over Layard's face; he and Sakellarakis came out of the room into the corridor. 'Not the spasm, you say?' The doctor looked at Harry and c.o.c.ked his head on one side. 'You are knowing about th ese things?'

'I know some things about the dead, yes,' Harry nodded.

'Harry's ... an expert,' Darcy had himself under control now.

'Ah!' said Sakellarakis. 'A doctor!'

'Listen,' Harry took him by the arm, spoke earnestly to him. 'The autops y must be tonight. And then he must be burned!'

'Burned? You are meaning cremated?'

'Yes, cremated. Reduced to ashes. Tomorrow at the latest.'

'My G.o.d!' Manolis Papastamos burst out. 'And Ken Layard was your friend?

Such friends I don't need! I thought you were the cold one but. . . you are not merely cold, you are as dead as he is!'

Cold sweat was beading Harry's forehead now and he was beginning to look s ick. 'But that's just the point,' he said. 'I don't think he is dead!'

'You don't - ?' Dr Sakellarakis's jaw fell open. 'But I know this thing for sure! The gentleman, he is certain dead!'

'Undead!' Harry was swaying now.

Sandra's eyes flew wide. So this was really it. But Harry had been caught off guard; he was shocked, saying too much. 'It's ... an English expression!

' she quickly cut in. 'Undead: not dead but merely departed. Old friends simp ly . . . pa.s.s on. That's what he meant. Ken's not dead but in the hands of Go d.'

Or the devil! Harry thought. But he was steadier now and glad that she'd come to his rescue.

Darcy's mind was also working overtime. 'It's Layard's religion,' he said, 'which requires that he's burned -cremated - within a day of his dying. Harry only wants to be sure it will be the way he would want it.'

'Ah!' Manolis Papastamos still wasn't sure, but he thought that at least he was beginning to understand. Then I have to apologize. I am sorry, Harry.'

'That's OK,' said Harry. 'Can we see Trevor Jordan now?'

'We'll go right now,' Papastamos nodded. "The asylum is in the Old Town, inside the old Crusader walls. It's off Pythagoras Street. The nuns run it.'

They used the taxi again and reached their destination in a little over twenty minutes. By now the sun was setting and a cool breeze off the sea bro ught relief from the heat of the day. During the journey Darcy asked Papasta mos: 'Incidentally, can you fix us up with somewhere to stay? A decent hotel ?'.

'Better than that,' said the other. 'The tourist season is just starting; m any of the villas are still empty; I found you a place as soon as I knew you we re coming. After you have seen poor Trevor, then I take you there.'

At the asylum they had to wait until a Sister of Rhodos could be spared from her duties to take them to Jordan's cell. He was strait jacketed, seated in a deep, high-sided leather chair with his feet inches off the ground. In t his position he could do himself no harm, but in any case he seemed asleep. W ith Papastamos to translate, the Sister explained that they were administerin g a mild sedative at regular intervals. It wasn't that Jordan was violent, mo re that he seemed desperately afraid of something.

'Tell her she can leave us with him,' Harry told the Greek. 'We won't st ay long, and we know the way out.' And when Papastamos had complied and the Sister left: 'And you, too, Manolis, if you please.'

'Eh?'

Darcy laid a hand on his arm. 'Be a good fellow, Manolis, and wait for u s outside,' he told him. 'Believe me, we know what we're doing.'

The other shrugged, however sourly, and left.

Darcy and Harry looked at Sandra. 'Do you feel up to it?' Darcy said.

She was nervous, but: 'It should be easy,' she answered at last. 'We're t wo of a kind. I've had plenty of practice with Trevor and know the way in.' B ut it was as if she spoke more to convince herself than anyone else. And as s he took up a position behind Jordan, with her hands on the back of his chair, so the last rays of the sun began to fade in the tiny, high, recessed staine d-gla.s.s windows of the cell.

Sandra closed her eyes and the silence grew. Jordan sat locked in his cha ir; his chest rising and falling, his eyelids fluttering as he dreamed or tho ught whatever thoughts they were that troubled him; his left hand fluttering a little, too, where it was strapped down by his thigh. Harry and Darcy stood watching, aware now of the gathering dusk, the fading light . . .

And without warning Sandra was in!

She looked, saw, gave a strangled little cry and stumbled back away fro m Jordan's chair until she crashed into the wall. Jordan's eyes snapped ope n. They were terrified! His head swivelled left and right and he saw the tw o espers standing before him - and just for a moment, he knew them!

'Darcy! Harry!' he croaked.

And as simply and suddenly as that Harry knew who had come to him in h is dreams at Bonnyrig to beg his help!

But in the next moment Jordan's white face began to twitch and shake i n dreadful spasms of effort and agony. He tried to say something butwas de nied the chance. The shuddering stopped, his fevered eyes closed and his h ead lolled, and he slumped down again. But even as he returned to his mons trous dreams, so he managed one last word: 'Ha-Ha-Haarrryr They rushed to Sandra where she stood half-fainting against the wall. A nd when she stopped gasping for air and was able to hold them off: 'What was it?' Harry asked her. 'Did you see?' 'I saw,' she nodded, swallowing rapidly. 'He's not mad, Harry, just trapped .'.