Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

powerful vampire the world's ever seen. And to that end, if he can find some way to steal my skills from me — ' He let it tail off…

And immediately, in a lighter tone, continued:

' — Anyway, you two are going to have plenty on your own plates. So stop worrying about me and start worrying about yourselves. Manolis, how about those spearguns? And I'd also like you to book me a seat on the next plane for Athens — say sometime tomorrow morning? — with a Budapest connection. And Darcy — '

' — Whoa!' said Darcy. 'You changed the subject a bit fast there, Harry. And let's face it, there's really no comparison between what we'll be doing here in the islands and what you'll be going up against in the Carpathians. Also, Manolis and I, we have each other, and by tomorrow night there'll be a gang of us. But you'll be on your own all the way down the line.'

Harry looked at him with those totally honest, incredibly innocent eyes of his and said, 'On my own? Not really, Darcy. I have a great many friends in a great many places, and they've never once let me down.'

Darcy looked at him and thought: God, yes! It's just that I keep forgetting who — what — you are.

Manolis didn't know Harry so well, however. 'Friends?' the Greek said, having missed the point of the exchange. 'In Hungary, Romania?'

Harry looked at him. 'There, too,' he said, and shrugged. 'Wherever.' He stood up. 'I'm going to my room now. I have to try and contact some people…'

'Wherever?' Manolis repeated him, after he had gone.

Darcy nodded, and for all the drowsy Mediterranean heat he shivered. 'Harry's friends are legion,' he explained. 'Right across the world, the graveyards are full of them.'

Harry tried again to contact Mobius, with as little success as the teeming dead allies whom his Ma had recruited to that same task. He tried to speak with Faethor, too — to check on a certain piece of advice that the extinct vampire had given him, which now seemed highly suspect — and was likewise frustrated; it must be the scorching heat of the midday sun, shimmering in Romania just as it shimmered here, which deterred Faethor's Wamphyri spirit. Disappointed, finally Harry reached out with his thoughts to touch the Rhodes asylum, where Trevor Jordan now lay in the morgue, peaceful in the wake of his travails and well beyond the torments of the merely physical world. There, at last, he was successful.

Is that you, Harry? Jordan's dead voice was at first tinged with anxiety, then relief as he saw that he was correct. But of course it is, for who else could it be? And eagerly: Harry, I'm glad you've come. I want you to know that it wasn't me. I mean, that I could never have -

' — Of course you couldn't!' Harry cut him off, speaking out loud, as he was wont to do when time, circumstance and location permitted. 'I know that, Trevor. It's one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you: to put your mind at rest and let you know that we understand. It was Janos, using you to relay his thoughts — and that one godawful action — through to us. But,' (he was as frank as ever), 'it's a damned shame he had to murder you to be doubly sure I'd go after him!'

Harry, said Jordan, it's done now and 1 know it can't be reversed. Oh, I suppose it will get to me later, when it sinks in how much I've lost. I suppose they — I mean we — all have to go through that. But right now I'm only interested in revenge. And let's face it, I haven't fared as badly as some. God knows I'd rather be dead than undead, in thrall to that monster!

'Like poor Ken Layard.'

Yes, like Ken. And Harry felt the dead man's shudder.

'That's something else I have to try to put right,' the Necroscope sighed. 'Ken belongs to Janos now, his locator. But Trevor, Sandra is his, too…'

For a moment there was only a blank, horrified silence. Then: Oh, God, Harry… I'm so sorry!

Harry felt the other's commiserations, nodded, said nothing. And:

God, it seems impossible! Jordan finally said, speaking to himself as much as to Harry. We came out to Greece to find a few drugs — and look what we found. Death, destruction, and a one-man plague who can burst out any time he's ready. And powerful? It's like Yulian Bodescu was a pocket-torch compared to a laser beam. You know, I scanned him by mistake? I was like a tiny spider who fell in a bathful of water, and some bastard pulled the plug! There was no fighting him. Harry, his mind is a great black irresistible whirlpool. And little old me?… I dived right in there head-first!

'That's the other thing I want to talk to you about,' Harry told him. 'This control he had over you, even at a distance. I mean, how could such a thing come about? You were a powerful telepath in your own right.'

Therein lies a tale, Jordan answered, bitterly. And: Harry, we're all of us like radio stations: our minds, I mean. Most of us operate on very personal channels, our own. We only talk to ourselves. We think to ourselves. Most of us. Telepaths, on the other hand, have this knack of tuning in to other people's wavelengths. But Janos is a superior and far more sophisticated station. Only let someone pick up his wavelength and he jams their transmission, tracks the signal home and literally takes over! The stronger their beam, the faster he homes in on them. Yes, and the harder they fall. It's as simple as that.

'You mean he got to you because you're a telepath? Ordinary people would be safe, then?'

/ can't answer yes for a certainty, but I would think so. But one thing I am certain of: with a mind like that he has to be a powerful hypnotist, too. In fact he'll have all the usual — the unusual? — mental powers of the Wamphyri in spades!

'So I've been told,' Harry nodded, gloomily. 'It makes a nonsense of something Faethor said to me.'

Faethor? You've been talking to that black-hearted bastard again? Harry, he was Janos's father!

'I know that,' said Harry. 'But if you don't speak to them you can't know them. And that's my best weapon: knowing them.'

Well, I suppose you know best what you're doing. But Harry, never let him into your mind. Be sure to keep the bastard out of your mind. Because once he's in he's in for good!

Which was the opposite of the advice Faethor had given him. 'I'll keep that in mind,' said Harry, but artlessly, without humour. And: 'Trevor, is there anything I can do for you? Any messages?'

I've left a few friends behind. Given time I'll think of a couple of things to say. Not right now, though. Maybe you can get back to me. I hope so, anyway.

Trevor, you were a telepath in life. Well, it doesn't stop there. You won't be alone, ever. See if I'm not right. And there's one last thing.'

Yes?

'I… I want to make sure you're cremated. And then, if everything works out, I think I'd like to keep your ashes.'

Harry, said Jordan in a little while, did anyone ever tell you you're morbid? Then he actually laughed, however shakily. Hell, I don't care what happens to my ashes! Though I suppose I'd get to talk to you more often, right? I mean, from your mantelpiece?

Harry had to grin to keep from crying. 'I suppose you would,' he said.

By mid-afternoon things were starting to shape up. Harry still couldn't contact Mobius or Faethor, but Manolis and Darcy returned from an outing in the town with an armful of spearguns. They were the Italian 'Champion' models Manolis had recommended, with very powerful single rubber propulsion.

'I once saw a man accidentally shot in the thigh with one of these,' the Greek related. 'They had to open his leg up and cut the harpoon head right out of him! Our harpoons are being silvered right now. We pick them up tonight.'

'And my flight to Athens?' Harry's resolve was as strong as ever.

Manolis sighed. 'Same as last time. Tomorrow at 2:30. If there's no trouble with your connection, you'll be in Budapest by, oh, around 6:45. But we both wish you'd change your mind.'

'That's right,' Darcy agreed. 'Tomorrow night our people from E-Branch will be out here. And they're trying to contact Zek Foener and Jazz Simmons in Zakinthos to see if they'd like to be in on it. We'll have a hell of a good