Ahhh! came that gurgling, clotted mental voice in the two Harrys' minds. Is that you, Haarrryyy? Yesss, I see it is! Well, i'm coming for you, Haarrryyy — I'm coming.
for… you! -
The baby's scream of terror ripped his mother from her bed as if it were the hand of some cruel giant. She stumbled to his tiny room, shook herself awake as she entered and went to him. And how he cried, cried, cried when she took him in her arms, cried like she'd never heard before. But he wasn't wet, and no nappy pins were sticking in him. Was he hungry? No, it wasn't that either.
She rocked him in her arms, but still he sobbed, and his little eyes wide and wild and full of fear. A dream, maybe? ‘But you're too tiny, Harry,' she told him, kissing his hot little head. ‘Far too tiny and sweet and so very, very young to be dreaming naughty dreams! That's all it was, baby, a naughty dream.'
She carried him back to her own bed, thinking: Yes, and 1 must have been dreaming, too! She must have been, for the baby's scream when it woke her hadn't sounded like the scream of a child at all but that of a terrified man.
It was 3.30 in London, where Guy Roberts and Ken Layard, assisted by the telepaths Trevor Jordan and Mike Carson, had spent the last ninety minutes trying to ‘get through' to Carl Quint — without any success that they could measure.
They were working in Layard's private locations room, an office or study set by solely for his use. Wall racks carried maps and charts of the entire world, without which Layard's work for INTESP would be almost impossible. The map which had been spread on his desk for the last two hours was a blown-up aerial recce photograph of the Russo-Moldavian border, with Chernovtsy circled in red felt-tip.
The air was blue and acrid from Roberts's endless chain-smoking, and steam whistled from an electric kettle in one corner where Carson was making yet another cup of instant coffee. ‘I'm knackered,' Roberts admitted, stubbing out his half-smoked cigarette and lighting another. ‘We'll take a break, find somewhere quiet and try to snatch forty winks. Start up again in an hour's time.' He stood up, stretched, said to Carson, ‘Stow the coffee for me, Mike. One addiction's enough, thanks!'
Trevor Jordan pushed his chair away from the desk, went over to the room's small window and opened it as far as possible. He lowered himself into a chair beside it and hung his head out into the night.
Layard yawned, rolled up the map and pigeon-holed it in a rack behind him. In doing so he exposed the huge 1:625,000 scale map of England which they had worked on earlier. At ten miles to an inch the thing covered the desk. He glanced at it, at Birmingham's grey blot, let his talent reach out and touch that sleeping city — and.
‘Guy!' Layard's whisper stopped Roberts half-way out of the door.
He looked back. ‘Eh?'
Layard jerked stiffly to his feet, crouched over the map. His eyes searched frantically and he licked suddenly dry lips. ‘Guy,' he said again, ‘we thought he was down for the night, but he's not! He's off and running again — and for all we know he's been on the move for the last hour and a half!'
‘What the hell…?‘ Roberts's tired mind could barely grasp it. He came lurching back to the desk, Jordan too. ‘What are you talking about? Bodescu?'
‘Right,' said Layard, ‘that bloody thing! Bodescu! He's cleared off out of Birmingham!'
Grey as death, Roberts slumped down into his chair as before. He put a meaty hand over Birmingham on the map, closed his eyes, forced his talent into action. But no use, there was nothing: no mind-smog, no slightest suggestion that the vampire was there at all. ‘Oh, Christ? Roberts hissed through grating teeth.
Jordan looked across the room at Carson where he was stirring sugar into three cups of coffee. ‘Square one, Mike,' he said. ‘You'd better make it four after all.
It had been Harvey Newton's first choice to take the Al north, but in the end he'd settled for the motorway. What he lost in actual distance he'd get back in speed, comfort, three-lane running, and the Ml's ruler-straight road.
At Leicester Forest East he stopped for a coffee break, answered the call of nature, picked up a can of Coke and a wrapped sandwich. And breathing the cool, moist night air he turned up his coat collar and made his way back across the almost deserted car park to his car. He had left the door open but had taken his keys with him. The whole stop had taken no more than ten minutes. Now he'd top up with petrol and get on his way again.
But as he approached his car he slowed down, stopped. His footsteps, echoing back to him, seemed to pause just a moment too late. Something niggled at the back of Newton's mind. He turned, looked back towards the friendly lights of the all-night eater. For some reason he was holding his breath, and maybe it was a very good reason. He turned in a slow circle, took in the entire car park, the squat, hulking snail-shapes of parked cars. A heavy vehicle, turning off the motorway, lit him up in the glare of its thousand watt eyes. He was dazzled, and after the lorry angled away the night was that much darker.
Then he remembered the upright, forward-leaning dog-thing he thought he'd seen — no, which he had seen — at Harkley House, and that brought his mission back into focus. He shook off his nameless fears, got into his car and started the engine.
Something closed on Newton's brain like a clamp, a mind warped and powerful and growing ever more powerful! He knew it was reading him like a stolen book, reading his identity, divining his purpose. ‘Good evening,' said a voice like hot tar in Newton's ear. He gave a gasp of shock and terror combined, an inarticulate cry, and turning looked into the back of the car. Feral eyes fixed him in a glare far more penetrating, far worse than the lorry's lamps. Beneath them, the darkness was agleam with twin rows of white daggers.
‘Wha —!?‘ Newton started to say. But there was no need even to ask. He knew that his vendetta with the monster had run its course.
Yulian Bodescu lifted Newton's crossbow, aimed it directly into his gaping, gasping mouth — and pulled the trigger.
It had been Felix Krakovitch's plan to stay overnight in Chernovtsy; in the event, however, he had ordered Sergei Gulharov to drive straight on to Kolomyya. Since Ivan Gerenko had known that Krakovitch's party was scheduled to stop over in Chernovtsy, it had seemed a very good idea not to. Thus, after Theo Dolgikh got into Chernovtsy at about 5.00 A.M. it had taken him a futile and frustrating two hours simply to discover that the men he sought were not there. After another delay while he contacted the Chateau Bronnitsy, Gerenko had finally suggested that he go on to Kolomyya and try again.
Dolgikh had been flown from Moscow to a military airport in Skala-podolskaya where he'd been required to sign for a KGB Fiat. Now, in the somewhat battered but unobtrusive car, he drove to Kolomyya and arrived there just before 8.00 A.M. Discreetly checking out the hotels, it was a case of third time lucky — and also unlucky. They had put up at the Hotel Carpatii, but they had been up and on their way again by 7.30. He had missed them by half an hour. The proprietor was only able to tell him that before leaving they'd inquired the address of the town's library and museum.
Dolgikh obtained the same address and followed after them. At the museum he found the curator, a bustling, beaming little Russian in thick-lensed spectacles, in the act of opening the place up. Following him inside the old cupolaed building, where their footsteps echoed in musty air, Dolgikh said, ‘Might I enquire if you've had three men in to see you this morning? I was supposed to meet them here, but as you see I'm late.'
‘They were fortunate to find me working so early,' the other replied. ‘And luckier still that I let them in. The museum doesn't really open until 8.30, you see. But since they were obviously in a hurry…‘ He smiled and shrugged.
‘So I've missed them by… how much?' Dolgikh put on a disappointed expression.
The curator shrugged again. ‘Oh, ten minutes, maybe. But at least I can tell you where they went.'
‘I would be very grateful, Comrade,' Dolgikh told him, following him into his private rooms.
‘Comrade?' The curator glanced at him, his eyes bright and seeming to bulge behind the dense glass of his spectacles. ‘We don't hear that term too much down here on the border, so to speak. Might I inquire who you are?'
Dolgikh presented his KGB identification and said, ‘That makes it official. Now then, I've no more time to waste. So if you'll just tell me what they were looking for and where they went.
The curator no longer beamed, no longer seemed happy. ‘Are they wanted, those men?'
‘No, just under observation.'
‘A shame. They seemed pleasant enough.'
‘One can't be too careful these days,' said Dolgikh. ‘What did they want?'
