Dragan had been "back to school" for over three months, brushing up on his English. Now it was the end of July and he had returned to Romania---or Wallachia, as he now constantly thought of his homeland. His reason for being there was simple: despite any threats he made when last he'd visited, still he was aware that a year had passed, and that the old Thing in the ground had warned him that a year was all the time allowed. What he had meant exactly was beyond Dragan to fathom, but of one thing he was sure: he mustn't let Thago Benedek expire through any oversight on his part. If such an expiry was imminent, then the vampire might now be more willing to share a few more secrets with Dragan in exchange for an extension on his undead life.
Because it'd been getting late in the day when he drove through Bucharest, Dragan had stopped at a village market to purchase a pair of live chickens in a wicker basket. These had gone under a light blanket on the floor in the back of his Volga. he'd found lodgings on a farm standing on the banks of the Oltul, and having tossed his things into his room had come out immediately into the twilight and driven to the wooded cruciform ridge.
Now, at last light, he stood once again on the perimeter of the circle of unhallowed ground beneath the gloomy pines and surveyed again the tumbled tomb cut into the hillside, and the dark earth where grotesquely twisted roots stood up like a writhing of frozen serpents.
Past Bucharest he had tried to contact Thago, to no avail; for all that he'd concentrated on raising the old demon's mind from his centuries' long slumber, there had been no answer. Maybe, after all, he was too late. How long might a vampire lie, undead in the earth, without attention? For all Dragan's many conversations with the creature, and for all that he had learned from Miron Savu, still he knew so little about the Wamphyri. That was restricted knowledge. Thago had told him, and must await the coming of Dragan into the fraternity. Oh? The necromancer would see about that!
"Thago, are you there?" he now whispered into the gloom, his eyes focused on the shadows and penetrating the dusty miasma of the place. "Thago, I've come back---and I bring gifts!" At his feet the chickens huddled in their basket, their feet trussed; but no unseen presence moved in the darkness now, no cobweb fingers brushed his hair, no eager invisible muzzles sniffed at his essence. The place was dry, desiccated and dead. Dangling twigs snapped loudly at a touch and dust swirled where Dragan placed his feet on the accumulated vegetable debris of centuries.
"Thago," he tried again. "You told me a year. The year is past, and I've returned. Am I too late? I've brought you blood, old dragon, to warm your old veins and give you strength again..."
Nothing.
Dragan got scared. Something was wrong. The old Thing in the ground was always here. He was genius loci. Without him the place was nothing, the cruciform hills were empty. And what about Dragan's dreams? Was that knowledge he had hoped to glean from the vampire gone forever?
For a moment he knew despair, anger, frustration, but then....
The trussed chickens in their basket stirred a little and one of them made a low, worried clucking sound. A breeze whirred eerily in the higher branches above Dragan's head. The sun dipped down behind the distant hills. And something watched the necromancer from behind the gloom and the dust and the old, brittle branches. There was nothing there, and yet he felt eyes upon him. Nothing was different, but it seemed now that the place breathed!
It breathed, true---but a tainted breath, which Dragan liked not at all. He felt threatened, felt more in danger here than ever before. He picked up the basket and took two paces back from the unhallowed circle until he brought up against the rough bark of a great tree almost as old as the glade. He felt safer there, more solidly based, with that tough old tree behind him. The sudden dryness went out of his throat and he swallowed hard before enquiring again.
"Thago, I know you're there. It's your loss, old demon, if you choose to ignore me."
Again the wind sighed in the high branches, and with it a whisper crept into the necromancer's mind.
Draaaaaggaaaannnnnnn? Is it you? Ahhhhh!
"It's me, yes," he eagerly answered. "I've come to bring you life, old demon---or rather, to renew your undeath."
Too late, Dragan, too late. My time is come and I must answer the call of the dark earth. Even I, Thago Benedek of the Wamphyri. My privations have been many and my spark has been allowed to burn too low. Now it only flickers. What can you do for me now, my son? Nothing, I fear. It is over....
"No, I can't believe that! I've brought life for you, fresh blood. Tomorrow there'll be more. In a few days you'll be strong again. Why didn't you tell me things were at such a pass? I was sure you cried wolf! How could you expect me to believe when all you've ever done is lie to me?"
.....Perhaps in that I was mistaken after all, the Thing in the ground answered in a little while. But when even my own father and brother hated me....why should I trust a son? And a son by proxy, at that. There is no real flesh between us, Dragan. Oh, we made promises, you and I, but too much to believe that anything could come of them. Still, you have prospered a little----through your knowledge of necromancy---and at least I tasted blood again, however. So let it be peace between us. I am too week to care....
Dragan took a step forward, said "No!" again. "There are still thing you can teach me, show me. Wamphyri secrets..." (Did the ground tremble just a little beneath his feet? Did the unseen presences creep closer?) He moved back against the tree.
The voice in his mind sighed. It was the sigh of one who wearies of all earthly things, of one impatient for oblivion. And Dragan forgot that it was the lying sigh of a vampire. Ah, Dragan! Dragan! ----you've learned nothing. Did I not tell you that the lore of the Wamphyri is forbidden to mortals? Did I not say that to become is to know and that there is no other way? Begone, my son, and leave me to my fate. What? And should I give you the power to rule a world, while I lie here and turn to dust? What is that for justice? Where is the fairness in that?
Dragan was desperate. "Then accept the blood I've brought you, the sweet meat. Grow strong again. I will accept your terms. If I must become one of the Wamphyri to learn all of their secrets---then so be it!" he lied. "But without you I cannot!"
The Thing in the ground was silent for long moments while Dragan breathlessly waited. He fancied that the earth had trembled again, however minutely, beneath his feet, but that could only be his imagination....the knowledge that something ancient and evil, rotten and undead lay buried here. Behind his back the tree stood seemingly solid as a rock, so that Dragan hardly suspected it was eaten away at its heart. But indeed it was hollow; and now something gradually eased its way up through the earth and into the dry, worm-eaten wood.
Maybe in another moment Dragan might have sensed movement, but in that precise instant of time Thago spoke to him again and his attention was distracted:
Did you say you had----a gift for me?
There was interest in the vampire's mental voice now, and Dragan saw a ray of hope. "Yes, yes! Here at me feet. Fresh meat, blood." He snatched up one of the birds and squeezed its throat so that its squawking ceased at once. And in another moment he had taken a sickle of bright steel from his pocket and sliced the chicken's gizzard. Red blood spurted and the carcass flopped a little where he tossed it, while feathers fluttered silently to the black earth.
The leaf-mould soaked up the bird's blood as a sponge soaks water---but behind Dragan's back a pseudopod of putrefaction slid swiftly up the hollow tree, its leprous white tip finding a knothole where a branch had decayed and poking through into view not eighteen inches above his head. The tip throbbed, glistening with a strange life of its own, filled with an alien fetal urgency.
Dragan took up the second bird by its neck, stepped two paces forward to the very rim of the "safe" area. "And there's more, Thago, right here in my hand. Only show a little trust, a little faith, and tell me somethin go the powers I'll command when I become as you."
I---I feel the red blood soaking into the ground, my son, and it is good. But still I think you came too late. Well, I will not blame you. We were at odds with each other----I was as much to blame as you----and so let the past be forgotten. Aye! I would not have it end without showing you at least a small measure of what I've come to feel for you, without sharing at least one small secret.
"I'm waiting," Dragan, "you're dying out as a race."
As individuals, we may only reproduce once in a lifespan, no matter the great length of that span....
"But you're so potent! I can't see that the fault lies with your males. Is it that your females are infertile....I mean, that they only have one opportunity to reproduce?"
Our "males" Dragan? said the voice in Dragan's brain, with a sardonically inquisitive edge that he didn't like. Our "females"...? And once again the necromancer stepped back against the tree.
"What are you saying?"
Males and females. Oh, no, Dragan. If Nature had saddled us with that problem then surely we were long extinct....
"But you are a male. I know you are!"
My human host was a male.
Dragan's eyes were now very wide in the dark. Something inside urged him to flee---but from what? He knew that the Thing in the ground could not----dared not----harm him. "Then---you're a female?"
I thought I had explained adequately. I am neither one nor the other....
Dragan wasn't familiar with the term. "Hermaphrodite?"
No.
"Then asexual? Agamic?"
A pearly droplet was forming on the pallid, pulsating tip of the leprous tentacle where it protruded from the hole in the tree above Dragan's head. As it grew it became pear-shaped, hung downward, began to quiver. Above it a crimson eye formed, gazed lidlessly, full of rapt intent.
"But what of your lust on the night we took the girl?"
"Your lust, Dragan!
"And all the women you had in your life?"
My energy, but my host's lust!
"But....."
AHHHHHHH! the voice in Dragan's mind suddenly gave a great groan. My son, my son---it is nearly complete! It is almost over!
Alarmed, the necromancer advanced yet again to the circle's edge. The voice was so weak, so despairing, so filled with pain. "What is it? What's wrong? Here, more food!" He cut the second bird's throat, threw its twitching corpse down. The red blood was sucked up by the earth. The Thing in the ground drank deep.
Dragan waited, and: Ahhhh!
But now the necromancer's scalp fairly tingled. For suddenly he sensed a great strength in the vampire---and even greater cunning. Quickly he stepped back---and in that same instant of time the pearly droplet overhead turned scarlet and fell!
It landed on the back of Dragan's neck just below the high-collar line. He felt it. It could have been a drop of moisture fallen from the tree, except it was totally dry here; or it could be a bird dropping, if he had ever seen a bird in this place. In any case, his hand automatically went to his neck to wipe it away---and found nothing. The vampire egg needed no ovipositor. Like quicksilver it had soaked straight through the skin. Now it explored the spinal column.
In the next moment Dragan felt the pain and bounded from the tree. He found himself within what he'd thought to be the danger zone---bounded again as the pain intensified. This time he was unable to direct himself; he ran from the circle, blindly colliding with the boles of trees where they stood in his path; he tripped and fell, rolling headlong. And always the pain in his skull, the pressure on his spine, the fire lancing through his veins like acid.
Panic gripped him, the worst panic he'd ever known in his entire life. He felt that he was dying, that his seizure---whatever its cause---must surely kill him. It felt as if his internal organs were bursting, as if his brain were on fire!
Inside him, the vampire seed had found a resting place in his chest cavity. It ceased exploring, settled to sleep. Its initial fumblings had been the spastic kicking of the newborn, but now it was warm and safe, desiring only to rest.
The agony went out of Dragan in an instant, and so great was his relief that his system completely lost its balance. Drowning in the sheer pleasure of painlessness, he blacked out.
Molly Stewart lay sprawled upon her bed, sweat plastering her curly reddish-brown hair to her forehead, her limbs twitching fitfully now and then in response to a dream which was something more than a dream. In life her mother had been a psychic medium of some repute, and death had not changed her; if anything it had improved her talent. Often over the years she'd visited Molly in her sleep, even as she visited her now.
Molly dreamed that they stood in a summer garden together: the garden of the house in Clydebank, where beyond the fence the river swirled in its sluggish way between banks grown green with the hot sun and lush from the river's richness. It was a dream of sharp contrasts and vivid colors. She was young again, a mere girl, and she might well be her sister rather than her daughter. But in her dream their relationship was distinct, and as always she was worried for her.
"Molly, your plan is dangerous. It can't possibly work," she said. "Anyway, don't you realize what you'd be doing? If it does work it'll be murder, Molly! You'll be no better than----than him!" She turned her head of golden tresses and gazed fearfully at the house through eyes of blue crystal.
The house was a dark blot against a sky so blue that it hurt the eyes. It stood there like a blot of ink frozen against a celadon background, as if fresh spilled in a child's picturebook; and like a Black Hole of interstellar physics, no light shone out of it and nothing at all escaped its gaping, aching void. It was black because of what it housed, as black as the soul of the man who lived there.
Molly shook her head, dragging her own eyes from the house only with great effort of will. "Not murder," she said. "Justice! He's escaped that for almost sixteen years. I was little more than a baby, a mere infant, when he took you away from me. He's gotten away with it until now. But now I'm a woman. How much of a woman will I be if I let it go at that?"
"But don't you see, Molly?" she insisted. "Taking your revenge won't bring me back. Two wrongs do not make a right..." They sat down on the grass and she hugged her, stroking her hair. Molly had used to love that as a baby. She looked again at the inkblot house and shuddered, and quickly looked away.
"It's not just that I want revenge, Mother," she said, "I want to know why. Why did he kill you? You were beautiful, his young wife, a lady of property and talent. He should've adored you---and yet he murdered you. He held you under the ice, and when you were too weak to fight let you go with the river. He killed you as coldly as if you were an unwanted kitten, the runt of the litter. He tore you from life like a weed from this very garden, except he was the weed and you a rose. What made him do it, and why?"
She frowned and shook her golden head. "I don't know, Molly. I've never known."
"That's why I have to find out. I can't find out while he's alive, for I know he'll never admit it. So I'll have to find out when he's dead. The dead never refuse me anything. Which means----I have to kill him. And I'll do it my way."
"It's a very horrible way, Molly," it was her turn to shudder. "I know!"
She nodded, her eyes cold. "Yes, you do---and that's why it must be that way."
She was fearful again and clutched the other woman to her. "But what if something goes wrong? Just knowing you're all right, I can lie easy, Molly. But if anything should happen to you...."
"Nothing will happen. It'll be just the way I plan it." She kissed her mother's worried brow, but still she clung to her.
"He's a clever man, Molly. This Sergei Lerner. Clever---and evil! Sometimes I could sense it in him, and it fascinated me. What was I after all but a girl? And him---he was magnetic. The Russian in him, which was there in me, too; the brooding darkness of his mind, the magnetism and the evil. We were opposing magnetic poles, and we attracted. I know that I loved him at first, even though I sensed his black heart, but as for his reason for killing me...."
"Yes?"
Again she shook her head, her blue eyes cloudy with memory. "It was something----something in him. Some madness, some unspeakable thing he couldn't control. That much I know, but what exactly...." and once more she shook her head.
"It's what I have to find out," Molly repeated, "for then I won't rest easy either."
"Shhhh!" she suddenly gasped, clutched Molly hard. "Look!"
Molly looked. A smaller inkblot had detached itself from the great black mass of the house. Manlike, it came down the garden path, peering here and there, worriedly wringing its hands. In its black blot of a head twin silver ovals gleamed, eyes which led it towards the fence at the garden's bottom. Molly and her mother huddled together, but for the moment the Lerner apparition paid them no mind. He passed by, paused briefly and sniffed suspiciously----almost like a dog----then moved on. At the fence he stopped, leaned on the tope rail, for long moments peered at the river's slow swirl.
"I know what's on his mind," Molly whispered.
"Shhhh!" her mother repeated her warning. "He can sense things, Sergei Lerner. He always could...."
The inkblot now returned, pausing every now and then, sniffing in the weird way. Close to the duo, the Lerner-thing seemed to stare right through them with its silver eyes. Then the eyes blinked and it moved on, back towards the house, wringing its house as before. As it merged with the house a door slammed echoingly.
The sound repeated in Molly's head, reverberating, metamorphosing from a slam to a knock, to series of knocks, repeating:
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!
"You'll have to leave now," said his mother. "Be careful, Molly. Poor little Molly...."
She jerked awake in her flat. From the slant of sunlight through the window, she knew that time turned towards evening. She'd slept for three hours at least; more than she'd intended. She started as the knock came again at the door.
Rat-tat-tat!
Who could it be? Brian? No, as he wasn't expecting him. Although it was a Saturday he was putting in some overtime, dolling up the hair of some of Harden's more "fashionable" ladies. Who, then?
Rat-tat-tat! Insistently.
Stifflyl, Molly swung her legs off the bed, stood up and went to the door. Her hair was tousled, her eyes full of sleep. Visitors were rare and he liked it that way. This was an intrusion, something to be dealt with swiftly and decisively. He zipped up his trousers, shrugged into a skirt----and the knock came yet again.
Outside the door, Sir Arthur Gerrard waited, knowing that Molly Stewart was in there. He had known it coming down the street, had felt it climbing the stairs. Stewart's ESP signature was written in the very air of the place as unmistakably as a fingerprint on clear glass. For like Katin Semnyonovich and Sergei Lerner, this was Gerrard's one great talent: he too was a "spotter," he instinctively "knew" when he stood in the presence of an ESPer, and Stewart's ESP-aura was more powerful than any he had ever sensed before, so that he felt he was close to some great generator as he stood there at the door on the landing of at the head of the stairs.
And now Molly Stewart herself opened the door.....
Gerrard had seen Stewart before, but never so close. Over the last three weeks while he'd been staying with Hugh Andrews, he'd seen her often. Gerrard and Andrews, following Stewart on occasion, had kept the young woman under close but discreet observation; likewise on the two occasions when Barry Cox had accompanied them. And Gerrard had not taken long to agree with both Andrews and Cox that indeed Stewart was something special. Quite obviously they were right about her; she did have the power of intelligent intercourse with the dead. Gerrard had given Stewart's strange talent a lot of thought over the past three weeks. It was one which he would dearly love to have under his control. Now he must somehow find a way to put that idea to Stewart.
Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Molly Stewart looked her visitor up and down. She had intended to be brusque no matter who it was, to deal with the problem and be done with it, but one look at Gerrard had told her this was something which wasn't going to go away. There was a quite air of unassuming but awesome intellect about this man, and coupled with his charming smile and demanding, outstretched hand, it formed a combination that was totally disarming.
"Molly Stewart?" said Gerrard, knowing of course that it was Stewart and insisting that the other take his hand by shoving it even further forward. "I'm Sir Arthur Gerrard. I doubt you've heard of me but I know quite a bit about you. In fact----why, I know just about everything about you!"
The landing was ill-lit and Molly couldn't quite make out the other's features, just indistinct impressions. Finally, briefly, she took Gerrard's hand, then stepped aside to admit him. The contact, however brief, had told her a lot. Gerrard's hand had been firm and yet resilient, cool but honest; it had promised nothing, but neither had it threatened. It was the hand of someone who could be a friend. But......
"You know everything about me?" Molly wasn't sure she liked the sound of that. "Well that won't come to much. There's not a lot to know."
"Oh, I disagree with you," said the other. "You're far too modest."
Now, in the brighter light from the windows, Stewart looked at her visitor more closely. His age could be anything between fifty and sixty, but probably at the top end; his green eyes were a little muddled and his skin full of tiny wrinkles; his well-groomed hair was gray on a large, high-domed head. About five-ten in height, his well-tailored jacket just failed to hide slightly rounded shoulders. Sir Arthur Gerrard had seen better days, but Molly Stewart would think he had a way to go yet.
"What do you I call you?" she said. It was the first time she'd spoken to a "Sir."
"Gerrard will do, as we're going to be friends."
"You're sure of that? That we're going to be friends, I mean? I must warn you that I don't make many."
"I don't think we have any choice," Gerrard smiled. "We have too much in common. Anyway, the way I hear it you have lots of friends."
"Then you've heard it wrong," Molly frowned, shook her head. "I can count my real friends on one hand."
Gerrard realized he might as well get to the bottom line right now. And anyway, he wanted to see Stewart's reaction if she was caught off-guard. It might just provide the final ounce of proof. "Those are the live ones," he quietly answered, easing the smile gradually off his face. "But I think the others are rather more numerous..."
It hit Molly like a grenade. She'd often wondered how she would feel if anyone would ever confront her like this, and now she knew. She felt ill.
She reeled, found a rickety easy chair, sank down into it. Pale as death she shivered, gulped, gazed at Gerrard through the eyes of a cornered animal . "What the hell are you......" she finally began to croak a denial, only to have Gerrard cut her off with:
"You know what I'm talking about, Molly! You're the 'Mollyscope,' the lady who speaks to the dead. And your probably the only one on God's green earth who can do it!"
"You have to be crazy!" Molly gasped desperately. "Coming in here and accusing me of---of things. The Mollyscope? That's just a fantasy dreamed up by me. Nobody can talk to dead people. Everyone knows.....knows....." Trapped, she faltered to a halt.
"Knows what, Molly? Talk to dead people? But you can, can't you?"
Clammy sweat broke out on Molly's forehead. She gasped for air. She was caught and she knew it. Trapped like a ghoul with a dripping heart in her hands. It hadn't felt like a crime before----she'd never hurt anyone---but now.....
Gerrard stepped forward, took her shoulders, shook her where she sat. "Snap out of it, lady! You look like a grubby little girl caught masturbating. You're not sick, Molly---this thing you do isn't an illness---it's a talent!"
"It's a secret thing," she protested weakly, her face shining. "I---I don't hurt them, I wouldn't do that. Without me, who would they have to talk to? They're so lonely!" She was almost babbling now, convinced that she was in deep trouble and trying to talk her way out. The last thing Gerrard wanted to do was alienate her.
"It's okay, Molly, it's okay. Take it easy---nobody's accusing you of anything."
"But it's a secret thing!" Molly insisted, gritting her teeth, growing angry now. "Or at least it was. But now, if people know about it...."
"They won't get to know."
"You know!"
"It's my business to know these things. Molly, I keep telling you; you're not in trouble. Not with me."
He was so persuasive and quiet. Was he a friend, a real friend, or was he something else? Molly couldn't control her panic, the shock of knowing that someone else knew. Her head whirled. Could she trust this man? Dare she trust anybody? And if Gerrard meant the end of her as the Mollyscope, what of her revenge on Sergei Lerner? Nothing must interfere with that!
She reached out desperately with her mind, contacted a confidence trickster she knew in the cemetery in Blackfriars.
Gerrard felt the power that washed out from Molly at that moment, a raw alien energy like nothing he'd felt before, which set his scalp tingling and quickened his heart alarmingly. This was it! This was the Mollyscope's talent in action. Gerrard knew it as surely as he was born.
In her chair Molly had gradually squeezed herself into a more compact mass, hunching down. She had been the color of drifted snow, dripping sweat like a faulty tap. But now.....
She sat up, bared her teeth and grinned a wild grin, tossed back her head, sending beads of sweat flying. She uncoiled like a spring, all of the panic going out of her in a moment. Her hand hardly trembled at all as she brushed damp hair from her forehead. Color rapidly returned to her face. "That's it," she said, still grinning. "Interview's over."
"What?" Gerrard was amazed at the transformation.
"Certainly. That's what this is about, isn't it? You came here to find out about Molly Stewart, the author. Someone mentioned to you the theme of a new story I'm writing---which nobody's supposed to know about incidentally---and you just hit me with it to get my reaction. It's a horror story, and you've heard I always act out what I write. So when I act out the part of the Mollyscope---which is a word of my own coining, by the way---naturally I do it with gusto. I'm a good actress, see? Well, you've had your free show and I've had my fun, and now the interview's over." The grin fell abruptly from her face and left it sour, sneering. "You know where the door is, Gerrard....."
Gerrard shook his head. At first he'd been stunned, but now his instinct took over. And it was his instinct that told him what was happening here. "That's clever," he said, "but nowhere near clever enough. Who are you speaking to now, Molly? Or rather, who is it speaking through you?"
For a moment defiance continued to shine in Molly Stewart's eyes, but then Gerrard once more felt the flow of strange energies as the young woman broke the link with his clever, dead, unknown friend. Her face visibly change; sarcasm drained away and Molly was herself again; but at least she retained something of composure. Her panic had passed.
"What do you want to know?" she said in a flat and emotionless voice.
"Everything," Gerrard answered immediately.
"But you already know everything. At least you told me you did."
"But I want to hear it from you. I know you can't explain how you do it, and I surely don't want to know why; it's enough to say that you found yourself with a talent you could use to improve your own life. That's understandable. No, it's the fact I want. The extent of your talent, for example, and its limitations. Until a moment ago I didn't know you could use it at a distance----that kind of thing. I want to know what you talk about, what interests them. Do they see you as an intruder, or do they welcome you? Like I said: I want to know everything."
"And if I refuse to tell you?"
Gerrard shook his head. "That doesn't even come into it---not yet."
Molly gave a sour smile. "So we're to be 'friends,' are we?"
Gerrard drew up a chair and sat down facing her. "Molly, nobody else is going to know about you. I promise. And yes, we're going to be friends. That's because we need one another, and because we in turn are needed. Okay, you probably think you don't need me, that I'm the last thing you need! But that's only for now. You will need me, count on it!"
Molly looked at him through narrowed eyes. "And just why do you need me? I think, before I tell you anything---before I even admit anything---that there are one or two things you'd better tell me."
Gerrard had expected nothing less. He nodded, stared straight into the other's wary, questioning eyes, drew a deep breath. "Fair enough, I will. You know who I am, so now I'll tell you what I am and what I do for a living. More importantly, I'll tell you about the people I work with."
He did. He told Molly about the British E-Branch, and what little he knew about the American, French, Russian and Chinese equivalents. He told her about telepaths who could speak to each other across the world without a telephone, with their brains alone; about precognition, the ability to pierce the future and prophesy events yet to come; about telekinesis and psychokinesis, and men who could move solid objects with their will alone and without resorting to simple physical strength. He spoke about "farseeing," and about a man he knew who could tell you what was happening anywhere in the world at this precise moment of time; about psychic healing and a "doctor" who could conjure the supreme power of Life into his bare hands, banishing diseases without the benefit of any form of conventional treatment; about the entire range of ESPers under his command, and how there was a place there, too, for Molly. And he told it all in such a way---with such understanding, clarity and conviction---that Molly knew he was telling the truth.
"So you see," Gerrard finally came to a close, "you're not a freak, Molly. Your talent may well be unique but you as an ESPer, are not. Your grandmother was one before you and passed it down to your mother. She in turn passed a large dose of it down to you. God only know what your children will be capable of, Molly Stewart!"
After a long while and as all he had been told sank in, Molly said: "And now you want me to work for you?"
"Yes."
"And if I tell you to piss off?"
"Molly, I found you. I'm a spotter; I have no real ESP talent myself but I can spot an ESPer a mile away. I suppose that in itself is a talent, but that's all I've got. The one thing I know for sure is that there are others like me. One of them is the boss of the Russian branch. Now I've come to you and put my cards on the table. I've told you things I wasn't even authorized to tell you. That's because I want you to trust me, and also because I think I can trust you. You've nothing to fear from me, Molly----but I can't promise the same from the other side!"
"You mean---they might find me, too?"
"They get cleverer all the time, Molly." Gerrard shrugged, "just like we do. They have at least one man in England. I've not met him, but I've sensed him close to me. I know he was looking at me, watching me. He's likely a spotter, himself. What I'm saying is this: I found you, so how long before they do? The difference is this: with them you'll not get a choice."
"Do I have a choice with you?"
"Certainly. It's entirely in your hands. You join us or you don't join us. That's your choice. So take your time, Molly, and think it over. But not for too long. Like I said, we need you. The sooner the better...."
Molly thought about Sergei Lerner. She couldn't know it, but Lerner was the man Gerrard had "sensed" watching her. "There are things I've got to do first," she said, "before making any final decision."
"Of course. I can understand that."
"It may take some time. Five months, maybe."
Gerrard nodded. "If it has to be."
"I think it has to be, yes." For the first time Molly smiled her natural, shy smile. "Hey, I'm dry! Would you like a coffee?"
"Very much," Gerrard smiled back. "And while we drink it, maybe you'd like to tell me about yourself, eh?"
Molly felt a great weight lifted from her shoulders. "Yes," she sighed. "I think maybe I would."
It was a fortnight later that Molly Stewart finished her novel and "went into training" for Sergei Lerner. An advance on the book gave her the financial stability she would need for the next five or six months, until the job was done.310Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzuGxoaUSsX
Her first step was to join a group of crazy, all-weather swimming enthusiasts who made a habit of bathing in the North Sea at least twice a week all the year round---including Christmas and New Year's Day! They had something of a reputation for breaking the ice on Harden's reservoir to do charity plunges for the British Cancer Foundation. Brain, a level-headed boy on any other subject except Molly herself, thought she was crazy, naturally.
"It's fine in the summer, Molly," she remembered him telling her one late August evening as they had lain naked in each other's arms in her flat, "but what about when it starts to get cold? I can't see you breaking the ice to go for a swim! What the hell is this swimming craze, anyway?"
"Just a way to stay fit and healthy," she had told him, stroking his penis. "Don't you like me that way?"
"Sometimes," he'd answered, turning more fully towards her as he grew hard in her hand, "I think you're far too healthy!"
In fact he'd been happier at any time in more than three years. Molly was much more open now, less given to brooding, more lively, exciting. Nor was her sudden interest in sports limited to swimming. She'd also taken up self-defense and joined a small Hartlepool Judo club. After only a week her coach there had been calling her a "natural" and telling her he expected big things of her. She hadn't known, of course, that Molly had another coach---a man who had once been the Judo champion of his regiment, who now had nothing better to do than pass on his expertise to Molly.
But as for Molly's swimming:
She'd always considered herself a fair swimmer; now it appeared that was all she'd been. At first the rest of the group were way ahead of her---at least until she found herself an ex-Olympic silver medalist who'd died in a car crash in 1961, a fact recorded on his headstone in the Dunstable County Cemetery. Molly was enthusiastically received (her plan with reservations) and her new friend joined in the fun and games with great aplomb.
Even with this kind of advantage, however, there was still the physical side to overcome. Molly might let the professional swimmer's mind guide her technique, but it couldn't help with her lack of muscle; only practice could do that. Nonetheless, her progress was rapid.
By September the craze was underwater swimming: that is, seeing just how long she could stay underwater on one breath, and how far she could swim before surfacing. The first time she did two complete lengths of the pool submerged was a red-letter day for Molly; everyone in the place had stopped swimming to watch her. That was at the swimming baths at Chipping Catterdale, where afterwards an attendant had sidled up to ask him his secret. Molly had shrugged and answered:
"It's all in the mind. Willpower, you could call it....." Which was fair enough. What he did not say was that while it had surely been her willpower, it had not entirely been her mind....
By October's end Molly had let her Judo training fall off a little. Her progress had been too rapid and her instructors at the club were growing wary of her. Anyway, she was satisfied that she could now look after herself perfectly well, even without "Sergeant" Max Anderson's assistance. By that time, too, he had taken up ice skating, the final discipline in his itinerary.
Brian, herself quite capable on the ice, was shocked. He had often tried to get Molly to accompany him to the ice rink in Dusting, but she had always refused. That was hardly unnatural; he knew something of how her mother had died; it was just that he believed she could face up to her fear. He couldn't know that the fear wasn't entirely hers but her mother's. In the end, though, Constance Stewart was made to see the sense in Molly's preparations and finally came gladly to her aid.
At first she was scared----the ice, the memory, the sheer terror of her death lingered still----but in a very little while she was enjoying her skating again as much as ever she had in life. She enjoyed Molly, and in her turn she received the benefit of Constance's instruction; so that soon she was able to lead Brian a merry dance across the ice---much to his amazement!
"One thing I can definitely say about you, Molly Stewart," he had breathlessly told her as she expertly waltzed him round and round the rink while their breath plumed fatalistically in the cold air, "is that there's never a dull moment! Why, you're an athlete!"
And at the moment it'd dawned on Molly that she really could be---if there weren't other matters more urgent.
But then, in the first week in November as winter crept in, her mother had dropped something of a bomb......
Molly was feeling better than she had ever felt in her life before, capable of taking on the whole world, the night she had come to her in her dreams. In her waking hours she must always contact her if she wished to speak to her, but when she slept it was different. Then she had instant access. Normally she respected Molly's privacy, but on this occasion there was something she must talk over with her, something which couldn't wait.
"Molly?" she'd stolen into her dream, walking with her through a misty graveyard of great, looming tombstones standing as high as houses. "Molly, can we talk? Do you mind?"
"No, Mum, I don't mind," she'd answered. "What is it?"
She took her arm, held it tightly, and knowing now that she had firmly established rapport let her fears and her urgency spill out of her in a veritable torrent of words:
"Molly, I've been speaking to the others. They've told me there's terrible danger for you. Danger in Lerner, and if you should destroy him terrible danger beyond that! Oh, Molly, Molly----I'm so dreadfully worried about you!"
"Danger in my stepfather?" she held her close, tried to comfort her. "Of course there is. We've always known that. But danger beyond him? What 'others' have you been speaking to, Mum? I don't understand."
She drew back from her to arm's length, grew angry with her in a moment. "Yes, you do understand!" she accused. "Or would if you wished to. Where do you think you got your talent to begin with, Molly Stewart, if not from me? I was speaking to the dead long before you came along! Oh, not as well as you do it, no, but well enough. All I ever managed were vague impressions, echoes, memories that lingered over---while you actually speak to them, learn from them, invite them into yourself. But things are different now. I've had sixteen years to practice my at, Molly, and I'm much better at it now than when I was alive. I had to practice it, you see, for your sake. How else was I going to be able to watch over you?"
She drew her close again and wrapped her arms around her, staring deep into her anxious eyes. "Don't fight with me, Mum, there's no need. But tell me now, what others are you talking about?"
"Others like me, people who were mediums in life. Some, like me, are dead only recently in the scale of time, but others have been lying in the earth for a very long time indeed. In the old days they were called witches and wizards---and sometimes they were called worse than that. Many of them died for it. These are the ones I've been speaking to....."
Even dreaming Molly found the idea frightening: dead people communicating with other dead people between their graves, considering events in a waking, living world that they themselves were no longer a part of. She shuddered a little and hoped Constance didn't notice. "And what have they been saying to you, these others?"
"They know you, Molly," she answered. "At least, they know of you. You're the one who befriends the dead. Through you they have a future----some of us, at least. Through you there's a chance some of us can finish the things we never finished in life. They look to you as a heroine, Molly, and they worry for you. For without you there's nothing left for their hopes, can't you see that? They----they beg you to abandon this obsession, this vendetta."
Molly's mouth hardened. "You mean Lerner? No. No way! He put you were you are, Mum."
"Molly, it's not----not so bad here. I'm not lonely anymore, not now."
She shook her head and sighed. "That won't work, Mum. You're only saying that for my sake. It only makes me love and miss you all the more. Life's a precious gift and Lerner stole it from you. Look, I know it's not a healthy thing I'm going---but neither is it unjust. After this it'll be different. I have plans. You did give me a talent, yes, and when this is finished I'll put it to good us. I promise you."
"But this thing with Sergei comes first?"
"It must."
"I suppose that is final?"
"Yes."
She nodded sadly, freed herself and stepped away from her. "I told them that would be your answer. All right, Molly, I'll stop our conversation here. I'll just go now and let you do what you must. But you should know this: there will be warnings, two of them, and they will be unpleasant. One comes from the others, and you'll find it here in this dream. The other awaits you in the waking world. Two warnings, Molly, and if you do not heed them----it'll be on your head."
She began to drift away from her, between the towering headstones, the mist lapping at her ankles and calves. Molly tried to follow her but couldn't; invisible dream-stuff stood between; her feet seemed welded to the gravel chips forming the graveyard's pathways.
"Warnings? What kind of warnings?"
"Follow that path," she pointed. "You'll find one of them there. The other will come from someone you'd do well to trust. Both are indications of your future."
"The future's uncertain, Mum!" she called after Constance's mist-wreathed ghost. "Nobody sees it clearly! Nobody knows for sure!"
"Then call it your probable future," she answered. "Yours, and also the futures of two others. Someone you love, and someone who asked for your help."
Had Molly heard that right? "What?" she yelled at the top of her voice. "What's that, Mum?"
But her voice and figure and mind had already merged with the swirling mist of the dream and she was gone.
Molly looked the way she'd pointed.
The headstones marched like giant dominoes, towering markers whose tops were lost in billowing clouds of fog. There were ominous and brooding, and so was the path between them which Molly's mother had pointed out to her. As for her "warnings"; maybe it was better if she didn't know. Maybe she shouldn't walk that way at all. But she didn't have to walk; her dream was taking her that way anyway!
Molly drifted unresisting along the gravel pathway between ranks of mighty tombstones, drawn by some dream-force which she knew could/would not be denied. At the end of the avenue of headstones there was an empty space where the mist alone swirled and eddied, a cold and lonely place, and beyond that-----
Three more markers, but somehow more ominous than all the others assembled. Molly drifted across the empty space towards them, and as she approached them where they towered up out of the earth, so the dream-force gently set her down and gave her back her volition. She looked at the headstones and the mist which half-obscured them slowly lifted. And Molly read the warning her mother's "others" had left for him carved in deep, geometrically rigid characters in their surfaces.
The first tombstone said:
BRIAN COWELL310Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxnUfxMDiTJ
BORN 1958
HE LOVED AND WAS LOVED GREATLY
The second one said:
SIR ARTHUR GERRARD310Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjZFThptwgm
BORN 1915
SOON TO DIE IN AGONY
FIRST AND FOREMOST A PATRIOT
And the third one said:
MOLLY STEWART310Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEiFbqcwBDg
BORN 1957
SOON TO DIE IN CHILDBIRTH
THE DEAD SHALL MOURN HER
Molly opened her mouth and shouted her denial. "No! Childbirth?! No, I'm not ready......"
She stumbled back from the looming markers, tripped, threw wide her arms to break her fall...
.....And knocked over a tiny bedside table. For a long moment she lay there, shocked from sleep, her heart hammering against her ribs, then gave a second great start as her telephone rang!
It was Arthur Gerrard. Molly flopped shivering into a chair with the phone to her ear. "Oh," she said. "You."
"Am I that much of a disappointment, Molly?" the other asked, but with no trace of humor in his voice.
"No, but I was sleeping. You kind of shocked me awake."
"Oh. Well, I do apologize for that. But time is passing us by, and I..."
"Yes," said Molly, on impulse.
"Eh?" Gerrard sounded shocked. "Did you say yes?"
"I mean: yes I'll join you. At least, I'll come to see you. We'll talk some more about it." Molly had been considering Gerrard's proposal for some time, just as she'd promised she would; but in fact it was her dream, which of course had been more than just a dream, that finally decided her. Her mother had told her there was someone she'd do well to trust, someone who'd asked for her help. Who could that be but Gerrard? Until now her joining Gerrard's ESPers had been 50-50, she might and she might not. But now, if there was any way she could change what Constance Stewart had called her "probable" future, hers and Brian's and Gerrard's, then....."
"But that's wonderful, Molly!" Gerrard's excitement was obvious. "When will you come down? There are so many people you must meet. We've so much to show you---and so much to do!"
"But not just yet," Molly tried to put the brakes on. "I mean, I'll come down soon. When I can...."
"When you can?" now Gerrard sounded disappointed.
"Soon," Molly said again. "As soon as I've finished---all of the things I have to do."
"All right," said the other, a little deflated, "that will have to do. But Molly---don't leave it too long, will you?"
"I'll----try not to." She put the phone down.
The phone was no sooner in its cradle than it rang again, even before Molly could turn away. She picked it up.
"Molly?" It was Brian, his voice very small and quiet.
"Brian? Uh, what's....."
But Brian interrupted her before she could say anything else.
"Molly? Listen, love. I think----I mean, I would like---what I'm trying to say is----oh, hell! Let's get married!"
"Oh, Brian!" she sighed into her end, the sound and the feeling of her no doubt close and immediate in his ear. "I'm so glad that you said that before.....before...."
"Let's do it soon," he cut her short.
"That's why I'm glad you asked me." She tried hard not to choke on her words as once more she saw, in her mind's eye, the legend on her tombstone and Brian's as it had appeared to her in her dream. "You see Brian, I think I've got something we were going to have anyway......"
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