Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 24

And the one with the knife turned his head to look back a little at the one with the gravelly voice, as if he were waiting for him to make a decision. Which, a moment later, he did. You know,' he growled, 'but if we let you, you could waste an awful lot of time. So maybe we can afford the time - and maybe not But our patience has its limits. So let's simply take ... a shortcut? A short cut, yes. That sounds right. Now listen: 'When my friend here has finished with you, well go away and let you think it over. Then, when we come back, there'll be no more questions and answers. You will simply tell us all that you know in one long stream, one long gush, until everything is out. Because you'll know that if you don't... well, there are nine - or even nineteen? -more shortcuts.'

The whisperer stood up, stepped forward... and Anderson tried to cringe down into himself. The knife went down, down to his left side - sliced through the tape binding his hand to the leg of the chair. Then the whisperer took that hand and gave it a sudden jerk, drag ging it uprig ht, so that Anderson yelped his agony as his cramped elbow joint was forced through an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees. Finally the whisperer used more tape to bind his wrist again, this time to the chair's backrest alongside his shoulder, with the palm fac ing forward. And: 'No heckling, please,' his tormentor grinned, as he shoved a gag in Anderson's mouth and taped it in place, and showed him the knife again.

The blade was one of those special things. It was curved, almost hooked, shiny and sharp as a surgical tool.

Using it, a skilled man would be able to cut the most intricate shapes out of the toughest timber. A wood- carver's tool, yes - or maybe a surgeon's?

'A-a-about K-Keogh-' Anderson somehow managed to mumble, around the rag and the tape where it had come unstuck from his bottom lip. But: 'Ah, no.' The gravelly one's voice was deep now, and dark as a dungeon. 'Later, save it for later. You see, we have to be sure we get it all. And this way we know we'll get it all. For it's a small example of what's in store if we don't.'

With which the whispering one trapped Anderson's wriggling hand and smallest finger, applied the blade of his knife to it, and commenced to work on the smallest knuckle. He made his incision just half an inch back from the quick of the pink fingernail, at the permanent crease where the finger bends, and with appalling speed and dexterity worked through the thin layer of flesh and cartilage to the bone and around it, and between the interface of the ball-and- 236.Necroscope: The Lost Yean - Vol. II 237.

socket junction. So that as the fingertip came loose, the stump had only just commenced to spurt.

It was so quick that Anderson barely felt the pain, not at first; rather, he sensed it, through goggling eyes that barely believed what they were seeing. And as the whisperer - or butcher - took his spurting finger into his mouth and began sucking on it, like a baby on a finger of chocolate, the one with the gravel voice said: 'So there you go. Nineteen shortcuts left, or maybe even a few more? It all depends on your appet.i.te for pain.'

At which the actual pain, not to mention the true horror, finally came. Then, as Anderson fainted, the same man or monster took a thimble from his pocket, lined it with cotton wool, and taped it over the mutilated finger.

And his sibilant companion sucked a dribble of Anderson's blood from his lower lip and whispered, Was te not want not,' then popped the severed section, fing ernail and all, into his mouth.

'A tidbit,' the other nodded. 'But after he's told us all he knows, the main course is still to come.'

The Necroscope - the reluctant Necroscope - stayed in London for a further week. It seemed to him the ideal time and opportunity to work a few things out Bonnie Jean had said he should get out of the house in Bonnyrig for a while, so that was OK. But she had also said he shouldn't wander too far afield. Well, what was far afield to him? He could come and go as he wished, provided no o ne knew how he did it...

Couldn't he?

Coming to London, he'd taken the train because Darcy Clarke had known he was coming; he hadn't wanted to arrive too quickly - or weirdly - despite that Darcy knew him for what he was, and what he could do.

Oh yes, he could still do it, certainly- -But reluctantly.

Harry just didn't want to use the Mobius Continuum, that was all, not if he could avoid it. As for his other thing: he wouldn't even let himself think about that! For the Great Majority knew; all of them knew what he was and what he could do. It made no difference that they couldn't possibly tell anyone, that the Necroscope's secrets were absolutely safe with them, for the danger - whatever it was - lay in the fact that his talents weren't secret from them.

So he stayed in London a while, seven days, and tried to work a few things out Darcy Clarke was happy to have him stay at E-Branch HQ, less than happy with the fact that James Anderson had disappeared and the Branch's locators couldn't find him. In itself, their failure wasn't that odd: the hypnotist wasn't an operative - wasn't an esper as such - just someone they'd used from time to time. Therefore he wasn't much known to the rank and file, and his habits were very much unknown. He had left very little of an 'aura' with the locators, which meant they didn't have much to go on. It was that he'd vanished now that worried Darcy most And that he was probably the only one in the world who could switch Harry back onto the right track.

But having Harry here was a good thing, even if he wasn't seen too much in and around the HQ itself, and Darcy even dared hope that one day his presence might be permanent For the Necroscope was still the most powerful tool for good that E-Branch had ever known and used. Which was of course the problem: that they'd used him and then discarded him - but not without first making sure he'd be of no further use to anyone else. Not even to himself, apparently...

So the Necroscope wandered the streets of London, but in fact got very little sorted out. And semi-detached, as it were, from his own world of strange metaphysical powers, the more he looked out on the real world the less he felt a part of it or of any world. London, which had never seemed familiar, was totally alien to him now, utterly strange. He was a stranger here, adrift in a strange world, but he suspected he'd feel the same almost anywhere. Except perhaps in his own place in Edinburgh, or in the arms of BJ. Mirlu.

He was adrift, yes. Because his anchor had come loose.

Which was why he called the wine bar at least three times a day every day, only to get the same message from BJ.'s answering machine: 'Ah'm sorry, but due tae circ.u.mstances beyond mah control, the bar has been closed indefinitely.' Bonnie Jean's voice, her phony Edinburghian burr, but sounding oh-so-distant and seeming more dispa.s.sionate every time, as if she too were slipping away from him. That would be the real breaking point he knew. That would be when the world really fell apart If he were about to let it happen.

But he wasn't Harry's last night at E-Branch was a restless one. H e did sleep, but derived little benefit from it He was accommodated in his old room (or 'Harry's Room,' as it was now known) which opened directly into the main corridor; and about three in the morning his foggy but somehow desperate dreams finally crystalized into something that was more than a dream.

Awake, the Necroscope no longer had contact with the dead; he had all but shut them out of his life. Asleep... he was far more r eceptive.

A.

nd as for R.L. Stevenson Jamieson: well, he was very determined. And no way he was going to be ignored.

Harry? Necroscope? Man, you is hard to reach! What's with you, 239.

238.Harry? I mean, you gots to know I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't real important?

'RL? Is it you?' Harry mumbled and muttered, tossing in his bed. 'G.o.d, can't a man get any sleep around here?' At first irritated - which showed in his att.i.tude and apparent disinterest - still there had been that in the black man's dead Voice" which went several degrees beyond urgency; so that despite the barriers that the Necroscope was tempted to erect, he nevertheless felt inclined to pay attention. Sensing this, RL said: Necroscope, me and my obi has been lookin' out for you for a long time now. And J's tellin'you: man, you has enemies! You has enemies in London, and you has 'em in Scotland, too. They's been watchin'you, Harry!Just bidin'their time, watchin', and waitin'!

'Yellow men,' Harry answered, because in sleep the borders between the various levels of knowledge and being are far less clearly defined; also because 'yellow men' were on his mind in connection with the bomb.

Don't know what colour or creed they is, only that they's there, RL answered, and sighed his relief that the Necroscope was listening. Then, quickly continuing: Also, that maybe what they was waitin'for has come.

'Come? What are you talking about, RL.? Maybe you'd better come again!' But Harry's attention was fully centered now.

Not what but who, RL told him. Him, Necroscope: the one they was waitin'for And he's just 'bout the worst!

Not just a watcher but a... a doer. A boss. And he's here, close andgettin' closer all the time. He came quick, tonight, right out o' the blue. And I can feel him like a fog over a swamp, reachin' out for you.

Harry felt the alien cold in RL's dead voice, and said, 'Out of the blue?' He clung to that. 'He came by airplane?"

Is that what I said? RL thought about it. I suppose it be! Anyway, he's here, and the others is cl.u.s.tered to him. But like I said: they was watchers: kinda small fry, you know? And this one's a doer. What's more ... he knows where you is, Necroscope!

'So, there's danger everywhere,' Harry answered. 'In Edinburgh, and here too.' But the real nature of the threat continued to elude him. And RL dared not enlighten him.

In all three places, the dead man said, stepping a little outside the parameters of his mission.

'What?' Harry hadn't failed to notice a certain emphasis. 'Did you say three places? Where else, then?"

Buried, Harry. Buried deep. Buried... real... deep...

'What is?' The Necroscope was definitely interested now. But he was anxious, too, for he could sense the dead man slipping away from him, perhaps deliberately. "What's buried deep, RL?" Can't say no more, Harry. Believe me, I'd really like to, but it gots to break in its own sweet time. Or, might could be you 'd end up broken, too, right... along... with... it...

With which he was gone.

241.

Ill VICTIMS.

A few hours earlier, some three hundred and fifty miles away, in Scotland: Zahanine had been watching Harry Keogh's place for a week, which had to be the most frustrating, unrewarding job that Bonnie Jean had ever given her. And in this cold wet weather, the dreariest Keep an eye on Harry? Follow him? Oh, really?

That time a week ago, he had been in the house. She knew that for sure. Then - no longer in the house - gone! And she hadn't seen him go. Since when, never a sign of him. No smoke from the chimney, or lights of an evening; no answer when finally she'd lost patience and gone knocking at the door.

The man was some kind of ghost! A very attractive, mysterious ghost, but just as spooky as the rest of them.

Which, from someone like Zahanine, was a compliment But to be here in the third week in February, at midnight, on a night like this... she supposed she should consider herself lucky it wasn't snowing! Anyway, she would stick it out for another hour, and then she'd be out of here...

... But she knew she would have to be back again at seven in the morning. That was the routine Bonnie Jean had set until he was back. For Harry Keogh was very important to her. And to them, and to everything. And B J. had spared no effort in making her point 'He is everything,' she'd told the girls before they quit the wine-bar and went into hiding. "Without him there's no me, no you, no tomorrow. I mean that quite literally: let anything happen to him, if s all over, done, finished. He's the one and only one. In whatever sha pe or form, Harry Keogh is the future - mine, and yours.'

That was why she had told him to go missing for a while: because of all the trouble that was brewing. Well, fine, except he was still missing! A week had gone by and Zahanine was sick to death of these seemingly interminable six-hour shifts spent watching his place. But it was one of only two places BJ. had known to look. The second was her wine-bar in town, where even now one of the other girls would be keeping watch for him.

Distracted by her own thought processes, bored by tedium, and no longer concentrating on the job, Zahanine almost failed to notice the flickering headlight beams sweeping briefly over the night's faintly glowing horizon and painting the stonework of the old bridge across the river yellow. The bridge was half a mile down the road. And by the time she'd used her sleeve to clear a patch in the lightly misted windscreen, there was only a tell-tale splash of yellow on the far side of the water, rapidly fading to darkness. So that even now she wasn't one hundred per cent sure that a vehicle had crossed the bridge. But at least it had served to waken her up a little.

Zahanine got out of her car and trained her gla.s.ses on the black silhouette of the old house. Was that a yellow glow over the rooftops - suddenly switched off - leaving the ridge and chimney even darker against the velvet sheen of the night? And now she felt a certain elation, that perhaps her vigil wasn't in vain after all.

Seconds, then minutes ticked by, and a light came on downstairs. Then another, upstairs, in the bedroom.

Harry was back!

Zahanine started up the car, drove a mile into Bonnyrig - a public telephone box - and calling BJ. told her what she'd seen. Then she suggested: T could put a note in his letterbox, let him know where you are?'

'No, nothing like that!' BJ. cautioned. 'No notes or letters. Nothing that might tell someone else where we are! First let me speak to him. Call me again in five minutes.'

And five minutes later Zahanine did just that But on the other end of the line BJ. was furious. 'His phone is off the hook!' she said. 'Either he's using it - or he's still afraid of the d.a.m.n thing! But time is wasting, so don't ask me about that...' And after a moment's thoughtful silence: 'Maybe he just doesn't want to be disturbed, doesn't want to have to identify himself,' she said. 'It's possible he went back to pick up a few things. I don't know - but you can find out Zahanine, he knows you. Go to the house and tell him where I am. No written messages, but a spoken one. After that he can make his own way here or come with you, whichever. But if he's going to be in the house any length of time, tell him to be on his guard. And tell him to put the phone on the hook so I can speak to him. And you can give him my phone number - but make him remember it Don't write it down! Now tell me, did you get all that?'

'Yes,' Zahanine answered, breathlessly. Tin to go to him, tell him where you are, give him your number - but in his head. I'm to tell him to be careful if he's going to be in the house for a while. If he's not,242.

243.

then he can come with me or make his own way to you. That's it.'

'Good! Go now..."

Two or three minutes to get back to Harry's place. There was a car parked on the rutted track behind the house. Zahanine parked a hundred yards away, approached as quietly as she could on foot This was simply so as not to alarm Harry. Then she was up the path and knocking on the door. From inside, no response, utter silence - but the upstairs lights went out!

Zahanine waited a minute or so, then knocked again, calling softly, 'Harry, it's me, Zahanine, one of BJ.'s girls...'

And as the door oh-so-swiftly opened, an oddly-accented voice behind her said, 'Why, so it is!' But it wasn't Harry'

s voice.

Zahanine was feral-eyed in the dark, nig ht-sighted as all BJ.'s moon-children. The man in the doorway was medium height, had slightly tilted eyes - and was yellow. Asiatic! As for the one behind her: he'd be cut of much the same cloth. Drakuls!

Twisting her supple body, Zahanine let fly with a foot to the groin of the one before her, at the same time striking with the edge of her hand at the one behind. Her foot found its soft target, but the one behind leaned backwards out of range - and fired his silenced handgun from no more than four feet away. It made a sound like a big cat spitting.

The bullet hit her on the inside of her left breast, went deep, lodged beside her heart. And it was a silver bullet The a.s.sa.s.sin had slow-healing sores on his fingers, cracked flesh, from filling his weapon's magazine with silver bullets.

Zahanine was lifted from her feet and tossed back into the crouched, moaning form of the man in the doorway where he cradled his aching t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. Her sudden weight knocked him off his feet, bowling him over in the narrow corridor. The pair of them went sprawling. The one outside looked back into the darkness - glanced this way and that furtively, and sniffed the air with a flattened nose -then pointed his gun straight ahead and moved inside. Closing the door, he dropped the catch on the security lock.

Zahanine was on her feet, her hands pressed to her chest Wild, wolfish, she bar ed sharp white teeth, turned, and kicked again at the one c rumpled on the floor as she stepped over him. Then she fled, stumbled, went bouncing from wall to wall along the corridor, and finally lurched headlong into Harry's study. But the one with the gun was right behind her, and as she made for the patio doors he fired again.

The first bullet was a white-hot agony, as if someone had slid a poker into her chest. And it was a pain that would kill her, Zahanine knew, even without the second shot But at least that one put an end to the pain.

Caught up again in the same ma.s.sive fist, her spine shattered, she was driven through the patio doors in a tearing of gla.s.s and a splintering of narrow mullions.

Face down in the garden she lay, bloodied and dying. And her killer put his gun away, caught up her ankles, and yanked her backwards through broken gla.s.s into the room. Barely conscious, she didn't even feel it... When the killer's companion was able to come from the corridor, he found him between her legs, tearing her flimsy underclothes away. And: 'Eh?' he groaned in their own tongue. "What are you doing? Is the b.i.t.c.h dead?' He continued to gentle his sore t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es.

'She's dying,' the other grunted. 'And much too soon. But let's face it, she wasn't going to be taken alive.'

'You should take care,' the other cautioned. 'She could be a lieutenant!'

'No,' the one on the floor gasped as he entered the girl, at the same time sucking at the scarlet hole in her breast. But he paused to explain, 'If she was... right now there'd be h.e.l.l to pay! We'd have to burn the house down. It would attract attention, and perhaps alert Mr Kyle or his werewolf b.i.t.c.h! That is something we can't - uh!- afford.'

'But what you're doing... would Drakesh approve?'

The killer looked back over his shoulder, said, 'I don't know, and I can't ask him. But compared to those docile, flat-chested cows in the walled city, this one is just ripe for it! And she's a member of the pack. The last Drakul told us to get the job done, not how to do it. Myself, I've gone without long enough. And you - you're putting me off. So go and search her car, find her handbag, anything. But let me get done - uh! - f.u.c.king her.'

His partner turned away, and over his shoulder said, 'In that case you can f.u.c.k her for me, too!' And he went achingly back down the corridor.

Grinding away in the girl, the vampire on the floor felt her body begin to shudder, vibrate. Looking directly into her face, he saw her eyes open and blaze up yellow! He sensed her enormous effort; he felt the contraction of exhausted muscles, and gaped his disbelief as Zahanine's arms bent at the elbows and her hands came off the floor. Her nails were long... and they were bleeding.

Bleeding, as they elongated from the quick and thickened into hooked claws. He felt their trembling - those shivering, shuddering claws - jerked back his face as they oh-so-gently touched him. A mere touch, that left five scarlet tracks down each side, from the orbits of his eyes to his quivering chin, as he wrenched himself free!

Zahanine's first - and final - attempt at metamorphism, the true lycanthropy.

244.

Necroscope: The Lost Yean - Vol. II 245.But it was over. Her claws shrank back into fingers; her arms flopped to the floor; her eyes glazed and slowly closed, as she breathed a wolfs last breath. Breathed it out and out ... until it was gone.

Her killer cursed, adjusted his clothing, headed for the kitchen to see if he could find a meat cleaver. And on Harry Keogh's desk the telephone went purrrrrrrr where it had been lifted from its cradle...

Francesco Francezci had flown in from Sicily around midnight. Three of his own people - a youngish, good- looking lieutenant called Vincent Ragusa, a senior thrall, Guy Tanziano (or 'Dancer"), and the Francezci pilot Luigi Manoza - had accompanied him. Staying at the airport hotel overnight, the four men had tidied up before meeting in Francesco's suite.

This is how it is,' he told the others. Tomorrow, first light, Vincent flies up to Edinburgh and joins up with a long-time "friend" of ours, Angus McGowan. McGowan has been in Scotland - oh, just about forever! He knows his way around. Knows the country, the people and their customs - and he knows where Radu is.

Close enough, anyway. Radu's actual location, his den or lair - that won't be known until the last minute.

Unless we get lucky. But somewhere in a little village in the Spey Valley there's a thrall, a moon-child: a man or maybe a woman with too much f.u.c.king wolf in him! And this thrall of the dog-Lord does know where Radu is, definitely.

'So that's where you and Angus McGowan are going, Vincent: looking for Radu's friend or friends in the Cairngorms. In the event you find them, McGowan knows what to do. You'll take your orders from him.

Remember, McGowan has been one of ours, a lieutenant, for a very long time - longer than you've lived.

He'll know you, and he'll pick you up at Edinburgh airport. So those are the arrangements. Any questions?'

The others around the table were at ease; Vincent Ragusa, less so. Waiting for him to speak up, if he intended to, Tanziano and Manoza looked at him, then at Francesco or 'the Francezci,' as they thought of him.

Wamphyri, Francesco was adaptable. In 'high' Sicilian society he would be, and was, eminently acceptable. On a rainy day at Ascot in the Royal Enclosure, he would seem, and had seemed, perfectly at home. But when in Rome - or in London in the company of lieutenants and common thralls - he could just as easily do and say as they did. And think that way, too.

Ragusa was maybe five-nine, slender, and handsome with an Italian vampire's good looks. Of old Mafiosi stock, he dressed expensively but tastelessly. Shrugging, and managing to look a little disappointed, he said, 'You know, I was hoping to join up with Jimmy and Frank?

They're my boys. I mean, you and Anthony put me in charge of them, back at Le Manse Madonie.'

'Your boys, yes...' Francesco nodded understandingly - or perhaps not - and after a moment's thought said: The thing is, you're all our boys. And this isn't Le Manse Madonie. It's England, and later Scotland. And we didn't plan ahead for the fun of it, and we aren't here for the fun of it. You and McGowan up in Scotland: two strong lieutenants looking out for each other, eh? And a little later Luigi, too? Three of you? That gives you real strength. And myself, Dancer, Jimmy and Frank down here in London? That makes us a strong team, too. Then, finally, we all join up, and we're unbeatable... Now, have you got that?'

Ragusa nodded his understanding, but said, 'If s like -1 don't know - a lot of guys to waste just one lo usy dog!'