Dragosani and Batu heard. Batu said: 'A fortunate young man, this one — so far.'

'Oh?' Dragosani wasn't so sure fortune had anything to do with it. Shukshin had been unable to specify Keogh's talent: what if he was a telepath? He would have the power to pluck his stepfather's treacherous thoughts right out of his head. 'Myself, I think our blackmailer will find this more difficult than he thought.'

Shukshin had come to a halt now, standing still on the ice in a peculiar hunched stance and watching Keogh intently where he continued to skate. The Russian's shoulders and chest rose and fell spasmodically and his body visibly shook, as if he were in pain or suffering from great emotional stress. 'This way, Harry,' he called harshly. 'This way! You're too good for me, I'm afraid. Why, you could skate circles around me!'

Keogh came back, circled the other's hunched figure, and again. And with each sweep his skates went inches closer to disaster. Shukshin held out his arms and Keogh took his hands, spinning round the older man and turning him on his own axis.

'And now,' Max Batu whispered to Dragosani where they looked on, 'The coup de grace!'

Suddenly Shukshin stopped turning and appeared to stumble into Keogh. Keogh twisted his body to avoid him. Their hands were still locked. One of Keogh's skates dug in where it cut through a skim of powdery snow and into the groove of the channel hacked by Shukshin. He was jerked to a halt and only Shukshin's grip on his wrists kept him from falling on to the infirm disc of ice.

Shukshin laughed then, a crazed, baying laugh, and thrust Keogh away from him — thrust him towards death!

But Keogh held tight to the sleeves of Shukshin's coat and as he was pushed so he pulled. Caught off balance Shukshin jerked forward; Keogh bent to one side and threw him over his hip — but when he released Shukshin, still the Russian held fast to him! With a cry of outrage the older man fell inside his own circle, dragging Keogh after him.

Both of them crashed down in a tangle on ice which at once shifted beneath them. The circle made cracking sounds at its rim, like small gunshots; water spouted up in black jets as the disc tilted and broke in two halves; Shukshin gave a cry of horror — a strange, mad cry like a wounded beast — as the semicircle of ice supporting him and Keogh stood on end and tipped them into the freezing, gurgling water.

'Quick, Max!' Dragosani snapped. 'We can't afford to lose both of them.' He charged from behind the cover of the conifers with Batu close on his heels.

'Who would you prefer to save?' the Mongol rasped as they jumped down onto the ice.

'Keogh,' he answered at once, 'if it's possible. He'll know more about the British organisation than Shukshin. And he has this talent of his — whatever it is.'

Even as he spoke those words a fantastic idea had come to Dragosani, one he had never even considered before. If he could 'learn' necromancy from an undead

Thing and with it steal the thoughts and secrets of the dead, mightn't he also steal their talents? At the Chateau Bronnitsy the agents were all allies, working on the same side, towards the same end. But here in England the ESPers were enemies! Why not steal Keogh's as yet unknown talent itself — and use it to his own ends?

From the hole in the river where cakes of ice churned in dark, frenzied water, a great grunting and gasping sounded as Batu and Dragosani drew closer; but as they more cautiously approached the rim itself all sounds ceased and they were greeted only by the gurgle and slap of water moving under and against ice. For a moment a clutching hand shot dripping into view and clawed at the rim, but before they could make a move to grab it the hand was gone, sucked under.

'This way!' Dragosani gasped. 'Follow the course of the river.'

'You think there's a chance?' Batu obviously thought not.

'A very slim one,' said Dragosani.

They ran on the ice as best they could under a cold and silent moon.

Beneath the ice, tumbled and turned by the current, Harry Keogh somehow got his jacket off and let it go. Under his shirt he wore a rubber wet-suit vest, but still the cold was terrific. It must surely finish Shukshin, who was completely unprotected.

Harry started to swim, kept his head turned sideways with his face against the ice, actually found places where cold air was trapped in shallow pockets. He swam towards his mother, following her stream of troubled thoughts just as he had followed them unerringly two hours ago

with his eyes closed. Except then there had been plenty of air to breathe and he had been warm.

Panic gripped him momentarily but he put it out of mind. His Ma was over there — that way! He began to swim more strongly — and something grasped at his feet, his legs. Something fastened its grasp on him and clung to his trousers. Shukshin! The river was bobbing them along in tandem, like matches down a drain, gluing them together through sheer gravitational attraction.

Harry swam more desperately yet, with his arms, with one leg. He swam as never before, his lungs bursting, his heart a great gong clanging away in his chest. And Shukshin clawing his way up his body, his hands like the pincers of some great crab, snatching at Harry as if to pull him to pieces.

This was it; he could swim no more; the water was the black blood of some giant alien into whose veins Harry had been injected, where Shukshin was an alien antibody bent on his destruction.

'Ma! Ma! Help me!' Harry cried out with his mind as at last he was forced to draw breath, but drew only icy water which gushed into his straining jaws and nostrils.

'Harry!' she answered at once, loudly, close at hand, her own voice frantic in his head. 'Harry, you're here!'

He kicked backwards, lashed out with both feet at Shukshin, and thrust upward with his back and head, crashing himself against the ice cover — which immediately, mercifully, shattered into thin shards as his head and shoulders emerged into air!

And suddenly the water was still and his feet touched a muddy bottom five feet down, and even before his eyes had focused and his battered senses stopped spinning, Harry knew he had made it. Now he summoned his last reserves, threw out his hands and grasped at tough roots where they projected from the overhanging bank. And slowly he began to draw himself up and out.

Beside him the water swirled and gurgled as from some hidden commotion. Harry half-turned and terror drew his lips back from his teeth — as Shukshin's mad face came surging up alongside him, choking and gagging! The madman saw him, spewed water and a babbling scream of rage into his face, clutched at his throat with hands like steel grapples.

Harry brought his knee up into the maniac's groin. Bones broke but still Shukshin hung on. He dragged Harry inexorably back, slavered into his face. For a long moment Harry thought he meant to bite him, savage him like a rabid dog! He fought Shukshin, slammed his clenched fists again and again into his ghastly face, to no avail. The madman would win. Harry was about to go under…

He reached out again for the tough roots in the river bank, but Shukshin's hands at his throat were shutting off the air, shutting off life itself.

'Ma!' Harry silently cried. 'You were right, Ma. I should have listened. I'm sorry.'

'No!' came her denial of defeat. 'No!' Shukshin had killed her, but he must not be allowed to kill her son.

And again the bitter water gurgled and churned — but more blackly yet!

Dragosani skidded to a halt not fifteen feet away, grabbed at Batu and drew him also to a standstill. Panting, their breath forming fragile feathers of snow in the air, they looked — they saw — and their jaws fell open. Two men had gone down under the ice back there, had been washed downstream to this hole, and until a moment ago two figures had fought and torn at each other here in the still water beneath the river bank. But now there were three figures there in the water, and the third one was as terrible a thing as ever Dragosani had heard of or imagined or seen in his blackest nightmares!

It was… not alive, and yet it had the mobility of life, the authority of life. And it had purpose. It clung to Shukshin, wrapped itself about him, put its mud-and-bones arms around him and its algae and plastered-hair skull against his. Of eyes there were none, but a putrid glow shone out from empty sockets with a semblance of sight. And where before Shukshin had only howled and gibbered and laughed like a madman, now he quite literally went mad.

Shriek after shriek pealed out from him as he fought with the awful thing, the shrillest lunatic screeching that

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