Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

They got dressed as quickly as they could…

By mid-morning their plans were finalized, and by noon Manolis Papastamos had set them in action. Once he'd known what was to be done, he wasted little time doing it.

Harry Keogh was now the owner of a suitably worn and well-thumbed Greek passport, stamped with a visa for Romania. Ostensibly, its bearer was an 'international dealer in antiques' (a cover which had brought a wry smile to Harry's face), one 'Hari Kiokis', a name which shouldn't give him too much trouble. Sandra had been fixed up with a flight to Gatwick, London, leaving Rhodes at 9:10 that night, and Darcy would stay here and work with Manolis. E-Branch had been put as completely in the picture as possible, but for now Darcy hadn't called in any esper help. First he must ascertain the size of the problem, and after that he'd call on help as required and available directly through Sandra.

Harry's flight to Bucharest via Athens was at 2:30; with an hour to spare he and the others had lunch on the high balcony of a taverna overlooking Mandraki harbour. And it was there that one of the local policemen found them, with information for Papastamos.

The man was fat and sweaty, scarred and bow-legged; if he hadn't been a policeman then he would've had to be a brigand. He arrived in the road below their balcony on a tiny moped which his huge backside almost entirely obscured. 'Hey, Papastamos!' he shouted, waving a fat arm. 'Hey, Manolis!'

'Come on up,' Manolis called down to him. 'Have a beer. Cool down.'

'You won't feel so cool in a minute, Inspector!' the other called back, entering the taverna and panting his way upstairs.

When he arrived Manolis offered him a chair, said: 'What is it?'

The other got his breath back, and in wheezing Greek told his story. 'Down at the mortuary, at the hospital,' he began. 'We were recording statements about the missing corpse — ' He glanced at Manolis's company and quickly shrugged his apologies in the Greek fashion. 'I mean, about the circumstances in the case of your dead English friend. We took statements from everybody, like you said. There was this girl, a receptionist who was on duty the night you saved his life. She said in her statement that someone went to see him in the early hours of the morning. It was her description of this one that I found interesting. Here, read it yourself.'

He took a crumpled, sweat-stained official statement form from his shirt pocket and handed it over. Manolis quickly translated what he'd been told, then read the statement. He read it a second time, more thoroughly, and his forehead creased into a frown. And: 'Listen to this,' he said, reading aloud.

'It must have been about six-thirty in the morning when this man came in. He said he was a Captain and one of his crew had gone missing. He'd heard how someone had been rescued from the sea and wondered if it was his man. I took him to see Mr Layard in his room where he was sedated. The Captain said: 'Ah, no, this one is not mine. I have troubled you for nothing.' I began to turn away but he didn't follow me.

'When I looked back he was standing with his hand on the bump on Layard's head, and he said: 'This poor man! Such an ugly wound! Still, I am glad he is not one of mine.'

'I said he must not touch the patient and showed him out. It was strange: although he had said he was sorry for Layard, still he was smiling a very peculiar smile…'

Harry had slowly straightened up in his chair as he listened to this, and now he asked, 'And the description?'

Manolis read it out, and mused: 'A sea-Captain; very tall, slim, strange, and wearing dark glasses even in the dawn light. I think… I think I know this one.'

The fat policeman nodded. 'I think so, too,' he said. 'And when we were watching that fleapit the Dakaris, we saw him come out of there.'

'Hah!' Manolis thumped the table. 'The Dakaris? It's a spit away from where they found that poor whore!' And at once: 'I'm sorry, Sandra.'

'Who is he?' Harry demanded.

'Eh?' Manolis looked at him. 'Who? Oh, I'll do even better than that and show you where. There he is!' And he pointed out across the harbour.

The sleek white motor-cruiser was slicing her way out of the harbour through the deep-water channel, but the distance wasn't so great that Harry's keen eyes couldn't read her name. 'The Lazarus!' he breathed. 'And the name of the owner?'

'The same, almost,' said Manolis. 'Jianni Lazarides.'

'Jianni?' Harry's face was suddenly drawn, lined, grey.

'Johnny,' Manolis shrugged.

'John,' Harry echoed him. And in the back of his mind another voice — or the memory of one — said, Janos!

'Ahhhr Harry clasped his head as pain lanced through his skull. It was sharp but short, nothing so bad as a full-scale attack, a mere warning. But it confirmed his worst suspicions. For Janos could only be a name he'd learned from the dead — perhaps from Faethor himself — with whom conversation had been forbidden. He unscrewed his eyes and let in the cruel sunlight and the concerned expressions of his friends. And: 'I know him,' he said, when he could speak. 'And now I know I'm right to go and see Faethor.'

'But why, if we already know our man?' Darcy asked.

'Because we don't know him well enough,' Harry told him, as the pain quickly subsided. 'And since Faethor spawned him, he's the one most likely to know how to deal with him.'

'Nothing has changed,' said Harry as they drove into the airport in the car Manolis had provided. 'Everything stands. I go to Ploiesti, to see if I can learn anything from Faethor. I'll spend the entire night there, even sleep in the ruins of his place if I have to. It's the only sure way I can think of to contact him. Sandra goes back home tonight — definitely! Now that this 'Lazarides', Janos Ferenczy, controls Ken Layard, he can locate anyone he wants to. Anyone associated with me will be in danger, and more especially so here in the vampire's own territory.' He paused and looked into each face in turn, then continued:

'Darcy, you stay here with Manolis, dig up everything you can on Lazarides, his crew, and the Lazarus. Go right back to the start of it, when they first appeared on the scene. Manolis can be of real assistance there; since Janos has chosen himself a Greek identity, it shouldn't be too hard for the Greek authorities to fill in his origins and background.'

'Ah!' said Manolis, looking at Harry in his driving mirror. 'One other thing. He has dual nationality, this one. Greek, yes — and Romanian!'

'Oh, my God!' Sandra gasped at once. And: 'Harry, he can travel freely where you may only go with extreme caution!'

Harry pursed his lips, thought about it for a moment, and said: 'Well, and maybe I should have expected as much. But that doesn't change anything either. By the time he knows I'm there, and if he tries to come after me, I'll be out again. Anyway, I've no choice.'

'God, I feel so helpless!' Manolis complained as he parked the car and they all climbed out. 'Inside, a voice says, 'arrest this monster aboard his ship!' But I know that this is impossible. I understand we must not alert him until we know all about him. Also, Ken is in his hands, and-'

'Save it, about Ken,' Harry cut in, heading for the departure lounge. 'There's nothing anyone can do for him.' He turned his haunted eyes on Manolis. 'Except destroy him, which would be a mercy. And even then don't expect him to thank you for it. Thank you? God, no! He'll have your heart out first!'

'Anyway,' Darcy told Manolis, 'you're absolutely right that we can't touch him yet. We've told you about Yulian Bodescu; he was an innocent, a child, by comparison with Lazarides. Harry thinks so, anyway. But once he knew we were onto him… we each of us lived in fear of hell until he was finally dead!'

'Is all academic,' Manolis shrugged. 'What? I should go to the government and say, 'send our gunboats to sink a vampire in his ship!' No, quite impossible. But when the Lazarus puts in to port again, I think I may be tempted to take out her crew one by one!'

'If you could isolate them, positively identify them as vampires, and had a good back-up team who knew what to do and weren't frightened to do it, yes,' said Harry. 'But again this might be to tip Lazarides's hand, which in turn might precipitate something you couldn't even hope to control.'

Guiding Harry and the others to the passenger control desk, Manolis answered: 'Don't worry about it. I do nothing until I get your go-ahead. Is frustrating, that's all…'

Harry had only fifteen minutes to wait before being called forward. At the last minute, Sandra said, 'If we'd