Liomata is a city of contrasts. From the low-level poverty in the cobbled alleyways and sleazy bars of its waterfront areas, to its high-rise luxury apartments looking down on the streets from broad windows and spacious sun-balconies; from the immaculate swimming pools of the rich to the dirty, oil-blackened beaches; from the shadowy, claustrophobic labyrinthine alleys down in the guts of the city to the airy, hugely proportioned stradas and piazzas---contrast is evident everywhere. Gracious gardens give way to concrete chasms, the comparative silence of select residential suburbs is torn cityward by blasts of traffic noise which lessen not at all through the night, and the sweet air of the higher levels gives way to dust and blue exhaust fumes in the congested sunless slums. Built on a mountainside, Liomata's levels are many and dizzying.351Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7yVSat9NEb
British Intelligence's safe house there was an enormous top-floor flat in a towering block overlooking the Corso Lotto Gonzaga. To the front, facing the ocean, the block rose five high-ceilinged storeys above the road; at the rear, because its foundations were sunk into the summit of a fang of rock, with the building perched on its rim, then was as second level three floors deeper. The aspect from the stubby, low-walled balconies was vertiginous, and especially so to Dexter Mendez, alias "Mr. Green."
Limoata, Sunday, 9:00 P.M.----but in Romania Molly Stewart was still talking to the vampire-hunters in their suite of rooms in Ionesti, and would soon set off to follow her life-thread into the near future; and in Devon, Dragos Matei continued to worry about the men who were watching him and worked out a plan to discover who they were and what their interest was. But here in Liomata Dexter Mendez sat thin-lipped and stiffly erect in his chair and watched Makar Alexeyeva using a kitchen knife to pick the rotten mortar out of the stonework of the balcony's already dangerous wall. And the sweat on Mendez's upper lip and his armpits had little or nothing to do with Liomata's sticky, sultry Indian summer atmosphere. 351Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeEC9az4g50
But it did have to do with the fact that Alexeyeva had caught him out, trapped the British spider in his own web, right here in this safe house. Normally the flat would be occupied by a staff of two or three other secret service agents, but because Mendez (or "Green") was busy with stuff beyond the scope of ordinary espionage---a specialist job, so to speak---the regular occupiers had been "called away" on other work, leaving the premises suitable empty and accessible to Green alone.
Green had taken Alexeyeva on Saturday, but only a little more than twenty-four hours later the Russian had managed to turn the tables. Faking sleep, Alexeyeva had waited until Sunday noon when Green went out for a glass of beer and a sandwich, then had worked frenziedly to free himself from the ropes that bound him. When Green returned fifty minutes later, Alexeyeva had taken him completely by surprise. Later---Green had come to with a start, mind and flesh simultaneously assaulted by smelling salts squirted into his nostrils and sharp kicks in his sensitive places. He'd found their positions reversed, for now he was tied in the chair while Alexeyeva was the one with the smile. Except that the Russian's smile was that of a hyena.
There had been one thing (really only one) that Alexeyeva wanted to know: where was Morozov, Moradian and co. now? It was quite obvious to the Russian that he'd been taken out of the game deliberately, which might possibly mean that it was being played for high stakes. Now it was his intention to get back in.
"I don't know where they are," Green had told him. "I'm just a minder. I mind people and I mind my own business."
Alexeyeva, whose English was good however guttural, wasn't having any. If he couldn't find out where the espers were, that was the end of his mission. His next job would likely be in Siberia! "How did they get on to me?"
"I got onto you. Recognized your ugly face---details of which I've already passed on to London. As for them recognizing you: without me they wouldn't have been able to spot you in a monkey-house at the zoo! Not that that would mean a lot...."
"If you told them about me, they must have told you why they wanted me stopped. And they probably told you where they were going. Now you'll tell me."
"I can't do that."
At that Alexeyeva had come very close, no longer smiling. "Mr. Secret Agent, minder, or whatever you are, you are in a lot of trouble. The trouble is this: that unless you cooperate I will surely kill you. Morozov and his solider friend are traitors, for they must at least have knowledge of this. You told them I was here; they gave you your orders, or at least went along with those orders. I am a field agent outside my country, working against my country's enemies. I will not hesitate to kill you if you are obstinate, but things will get very unpleasant before you die. Do you understand me?"
Green had understood well enough. "All this talk of killing," he tut-tutted. "I could've killed you many times over, but those weren't my orders. I was to delay you, nothing more. Why blow it up bigger than it is?"
"Why are the British espers working with Morozov? What are they doing? The trouble with this psychic gang is this: both sides think they're bigger than the rest of us. They think mind should rule the world and not muscle. But you and me and the others of our kind, we know that's not the way it works. The strongest always wins. The great warrior triumphs while the great thinker is still thinking it about. Like you and me. You do what they tell you and I work from instinct. And I'm the one on top."
"Are you? Is that why you use the threat of death?"
"Last chance, Mr. Minder. Where are they?"
Still Green wasn't saying anything. He just smiled and gritted his teeth.
Alexeyeva had no more time to waste. He was an expert in interrogation, which on this occasion meant torture. Basically, there are two kinds of torture: mental and physical. Just looking at Green, Alexeyeva guessed that pain alone wouldn't crack him. Not in the short term. Anyway, Alexeyeva wasn't carrying the rather special tools he'd need. He could always improvise but---it wouldn't be the same. Also, he didn't wish to mark Green; not initially at least. It must, therefore, be psychological---fear!
And the Russian had discovered Green's weakness at the very first pass. "You'll notice," he told the British agent conversationally, "that while you are securely trussed, a far better job than you did on me, I have not in fact bound you to the chair." Then he had opened tall louvre doors leading out onto a shallow rear balcony. "I assume you've been out here to admire the view?"
Green had gone pale in a moment.
"Oh?" Alexeyeva was onto him in a flash. "Something about heights, my friend?" He had dragged Green's chair out onto the balcony, then swung it sharply round so that Green was thrown against the wall. Six inches of brick and mortar and a crumbling plaster finish saved him from space and gravity. And his face told the whole story.
Alexeyeva had left him there, hurried through the flat and checked out his suspicion. Sure enough, he found every window and balcony door shuttered, closing off not only the light but the height. Especially the height! Mr. Green suffered from vertigo!
And after that it'd been a different ball game entirely.
The Russian had dragged Green back inside and positioned him in his chair six feet from the balcony. Then he'd taken a kitchen knife and started to loosen the masonry of the wall, in plain view of the helpless agent. As he'd worked, so he'd explained what he was all about.
"Now we're going to start again and I will ask you certain questions. If you answer correctly---which is to say truthfully and without obstruction---then you stay right where you are. Better still, you stay alive. But every time you fail to answer or tell a lie I shall move you a little closer to the balcony and loosen more of the mortar. Naturally, I'll become frustrated if you don't play the game my way. Indeed, I shall probably lose my temper. In which case I may be tempted to throw you against the wall again. Except that the next time I do that, the wall will be so much weaker...."
And so the game had begun.
That had been about 7:00 p.m. and it was now 9:00 p.m.; the face of the balcony wall, which had become the focus of Green's whole being, was now thoroughly defaced and many of the bricks were visibly loose. Worse, Green's chair now stood with its front legs on the balcony itself, no more than three feet from the wall. Beyond that wall the city's silhouette and the mountains behind it were sprinkled with twinkling lights.
Alexeyeva stood up from his handiwork, scuffed at the rubble with his feet, sadly shook his head. "Well, Mr. Minder, you have done quite well---but not quite well enough. Now, as I suspected might be the case, I am tired and a little frustrated. You have told me many things, some important and others irrelevant, but you have not yet told me what I really want to know. My patience with you is ended."
He moved to stand behind Green, and pushed the chair gratingly forward, right up to the wall. Green's chin came level with the top, which faced him only eighteen inches away. "Do you want to live, Mr. Minder?" Alexeyeva's voice was soft and deadly.
In fact the Russian fully intended to kill Green, if only to pay him back for yesterday. From Green's point of view, Alexeyeva had no need to kill him; it would be a useless exercise and could only queer it for Alexeyeva with British Intelligence, who'd doubtless place him on their "long overdue" list. But from the Russian's viewpoint-----he was already on several lists. And in any case, murder was something he enjoyed. Green couldn't be totally sure of Alexeyeva's intentions, however, and where there's life there's always hope.
The trussed agent looked across the top of the wall at Liomata's myriad lights. "London will know who did it if you....." he started to say, then gave a little shriek as Alexeyeva jerked the chair violently. Green opened his eyes, drew breath raggedly, sat gulping, trembling, close to fainting. There was really one thing in the world that he feared, and here it was right in front of him. The reason he'd become useless in to the SAS. He could feel the emptiness underneath him as if he were already falling.
"Well," said the Russian, sighing, "I can't say it was a pleasure knowing you---but I'm sure it'll be a great pleasure not knowing you! And so..."
"Wait!" Green gasped. "Promise me you'll take me back inside if I tell you."
Alexeyeva shrugged. "I shall kill you if you make me. Not answering will be more suicide than murder."
Green licked his lip. Hell, it was his life! Moradian and the others had their head start. He'd done enough. "Romania, Bucharest!" he blurted. "They took a plane last night, to get into Bucharest around midnight."
Alexeyeva stepped beside him, cocked his head to one side and looked down at his sweating, upturned face. "You realize that I only have to telephone the airport and check?"
"Of course," Green sobbed. His tears were open and unashamed. His nerve had gone entirely. "Now get me inside."
The Russian smiled. "As you wish." He stepped out of Green's view. The agent felt him sawing with his knife at the ropes where they bound his wrists behind him. The ropes parted and
and Green groaned as he brought his arms around in front of him. Stiff with cramp, he could hardly move them. Alexeyeva cut his feet free and collected up the short lengths of rope. Green made an effort, started to rise unsteadily to his feet....
....And without warning the Russian put both hands on his back and used all his might to push him forward. Green cried out, sprawled forward, went crashing over and through the wall into space. Fancy brickwork, fragments of plaster and mortar fell with him.
Alexeyeva hawked and spat after him, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. From far below there came a single heavy thud and the crashing of fallen masonry.
Moments later the Russian put on Green's lightweight overcoat, left the flat and wiped the doorknob behind him. He took the lift to the ground floor and left the building, walking unhurriedly. Fifty yards down the road he stopped a taxi and asked to be taken to the airport. On the way he wound down the window, tossed out a few short lengths of rope. The driver, busy with the traffic, took no notice of him.
By 11:00 that night, Makar Alexeyeva had been in touch with his immediate superior in Moscow and was already en route to Bucharest. If Alexeyeva hadn't been incapacitated for the past twenty-four hours---if he'd had the chance to contact his handler earlier---he would have discovered where Moradian, Morozov and the others had gone without killing Mr. Green for that information. Not that it mattered greatly, for he knew he would have killed him anyway.
Moreover, he could have learned something of what the espers were doing there in Romania, that in fact they were searching for---something in the ground? Alexeyeva's handler hadn't waited to be more specific that that. Treasure, maybe? Alexeyeva couldn't imagine, and he wasn't really interested. He put the question out of his mind. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't for the good of the USSR, and that was enough for him.
Now, crammed in the tiny seat of the passenger plane as it sped across the northern Adriatic, he tilted himself backwards a little and relaxed, allowing his mind to drift with the hum of the engines.....
Romania. The region around Ionesti. Something in the ground. Very strange indeed.
Strangest of all, Alexeyeva's "handler" was one of them----one of these damned psychic spies, whom Andropov so heartily detested! The KGB m an closed his eyes and chuckled. What would Morozov's reaction be, he wondered, when he eventually discovered that the traitor in his precious E-Branch was his own Second in Command, a man called Mile Tkachovsky.
Dragos Matei had not spent a pleasant night. Even in the presence of his beautiful cousin in his bed---her lovely body to use in whichever way amused him----had not compensated for his nightmares and fantasies and frustrated half-memories out of a past not wholly his own.
It was all down to the watchers, Dragos supposed, those damned busybodies whose spying (For what purpose?) What did they know? What were they trying to find out?) over the last forty-eight hours had become an almost unbearable irritation. Oh, he no longer had any real cause to fear them----John Williams was fine ashes, and the three women would never dare go against Dragos----but still the men were there! Like an itch you cannot scratch. Or one you aren't able to reach---for the moment. Yes, it was down to them.
They had brought on Dragos's nightmares, his dreams of wooden stakes, steel swords and bright, searing flames. As for those other dreams: of low hills in the shape of a cross, tall dark trees, and of a Thing in the ground that called and called to him, beckoning with fingers that dripped blood----Dragos was not quite sure what to make of them.
For he had been there---really there, on the cruciform hills---the night his father died. He had been a mere fetus in his mother's womb when it had happened, he knew that, but what else had happened that time? His roots were there, anyway, Dragos felt sure of that. But the fact remained that there was but one way he could ever be absolutely sure, and that would be to answer the call and go there. Indeed a trip to Romania might well be useful in solving two problems at once; for with the secret watchers out there in the fields and lanes around Hartley, now was probably as good a time as any to make himself scarce for a while.
Except----first he would like to know what the real purpose of those watchers was. Were they must suspicious, or did they really know something? And if so, what did they intend to do about it? Dragos had already developed a plan to get those questions answered. It was just a matter of getting it right, that was all....
The sky was cloudy and the morning dull that Monday when Drago rose up from his bed. He told Penelope to bathe, dress herself prettily, go about the house and grounds just as if her life were completely normal and unchanged. He dressed and went
down to the cellars, where he gave the same instructions to Cornelia. Likewise his mother in her room. Just act naturally and let nothing appear suspicious; indeed, Penelope could even drive him into Torquay for an hour or so.
They were followed into Torquay but Dragos wasn't aware of it. He was distracted by the sun, which kept breaking through the clouds and reflecting off mirrors, windows and chrome. He still affected his broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses, but his hatred of the sun---and its effect on him---were much stronger now. The car's mirrors irritated him; his reflection in the windows and other bright surfaces disturbed him; his vampire "sense" was playing hell with his nerves. He felt closed in. Danger threatened and he knew it----but from which quarter? What kind of danger?
While Penelope waited in the car, three stories up in a municipal car park, he went to a travel agency and made inquires, then gave instructions. This took a little time, for the holiday he'd chosen was outside the usual scope of the agency. He wanted to spend a week in Romania. Dragos might simply have phoned one of London's airports and made a booking, but he preferred to let an authorized agency advise him on restrictions, visas, et. al. This way there'd be no errors, no last minute holdups. Also, Dragos couldn't stay penned up in Hartely House forever; driving into town had at least given him a break from routine, from his watchers, and from the increasing pressures of being a solitary creature. What was more, the drive had let him keep up appearances: Penelope was his pretty cousin down from London, and he and she were just out for a drive, enjoying what was left of the good weather. Or so it seemed.
After making his travel arrangements (the agency would call him within forty-eight hours and let him have all the details) Dragos took Penelope for lunch. While she ate listlessly and tried desperately hard not to look fearful of him, he sipped a glass of red wine and smoked a cigarette. He might have tried a steak, rare, but food---ordinary food---no longer appealed to him. Instead he found himself watching Penelope's throat. He was aware of the danger in that, however, and so concentrated his mind on the details of his plan for tonight instead. Certainly he did not intend to stay hungry for very long.
By 1:30 P.M. they had driven back to Hartley; and then, too, Dragos had briefly picked up the thoughts of another watcher. He'd tried to infiltrate the stranger's mind but it immediately shut him out. They were clever, these watchers! Furious, he raged inwardly through the afternoon and could barely contain himself until nightfall.
Luke Estney was a comparatively recent recruit to INTESP's team of parapsychologists. A sporadic telepath, (his talent, as yet untrained, came in uncontrolled, unaccounted bursts, and was wont to depart just as quickly and mysteriously) he'd been recruited after tipping off the police on a murder-to-be. He had accidentally scanned the mind---the dark intention---of the would-be rapist and murderer. When it happened just as he said it would, a high-ranking policeman, a friend of the branch, had passed details onto the INTESP. The job in Devon was Estney's first field assignment, for until now all of his time had been spent with his teachers.
Dragos Matei was under full twenty-four hour surveillance now, and Estney had the mid-morning shift, 8:00 A.M. till 2:00 P.M. At 1:30 when the girl had driven Matei back through Hartley's gates and up to the house, Estney had been only two hundred yards behind in his red Capri. Driving straight past Hartley, he'd stopped at the first telephone kiosk and phoned headquarters, passing on details of Matei's outing.
At the hotel in Paignton, Adam Shiveley took Estney's call and passed the telephone to the man in charge of the operation, a jolly, fat middle-aged chain-smoking "scryer" called Joyce Jordan. Normally Jordan would be in London, employing his scrying to track Russian submarines, terrorist bomb squads and the like, but now he was here as head of operations, keeping his mental eye on Dragos Matei.
Jordan had found the task not at all to his liking and far from easy. The vampire is a solitary being whose nature it is to be secretive. There is that in a vampire's mental makeup that shields him as effectively as the night screens his physical being. Jordan could see Hartley House only as a vague, shadowy place, as a scene viewed through dense, weaving mist. When Matei was there this mental quagmire rolled that much more densely, making it hard for Jordan to pinpoint any specific person or thing.
Practice makes perfect, however, and the longer Jordan stayed with it the clearer his pictures were coming. He could now say for sure, for example, that Hartley House was occupied by only four people: Matei, his mother, his aunt and her daughter. But there was something else there, too. Two somethings, in fact. One of them was Matei's dog, but obscured by the same aura, which was very strange. And the other was---simply "the Other." Like Dragos himself, Jordan thought of it only that way. But whatever it was---in all likelihood the thing in the cellars which Harry Moradian had warned about---it was certainly there and it was alive.....
"Roberts here," the scryer spoke into the telephone. "What is it, Luke?"
Estney passed his message.
"Travel agency?" Jordan frowned. "Yes, we'll get on to it at once. Your relief? He's on his way right now. Oliver Lond, yes. See you later, Luke." Jordan put down the telephone and picked up a directory. Moments later he was phoning the travel agency in Torquay, whose name and address Estney had given him.
When he got an answer, Jordan held a handkerchief to his mouth, contrived a young voice. "Hello? Er, hello?"
"Hello?" came back the answer. "Sunsea Travel, here...who's calling, please?" It was a male voice, deep and smooth.
"I seem to have a bad line," Jordan replied, keeping his voice to a medium pitch. "Can you hear me? I was in, oh, an hour ago. Mr. Matei?"
"Ah, yes, sir!" The booking agent raised his voice. "Your Romanian inquiry. Bucharest, any time in the next two weeks. Right?"
Jordan gave a start, made an effort to keep his muffled voice even. "Uh, Romania, yes, that's right." He thought fast---furiously fast. "Uh, look, I'm sorry to be a nuisance, but..."
"Yes?"
"Well, I've decided I can't make it after all. Maybe next year, eh?"
"Ah!" There was some disappointment in the other's tone. "Well, that's the way it goes. Thanks for calling, sir. So you're definitely canceling, right?"
"Yes," Jordan jiggled the phone a bit. "I'm afraid I have to.....Damn bad line, this! Anyway, something's come up, and...."
"Don't worry about it, Mr. Matei," the travel agent cut him off. "It happens all the time. And anyway, I haven't yet found the time to make any real inquiries. So no harm done. But do let me know if you change your mind again, won't you?"
"Oh, indeed! I will, I will. Most helpful of you. Sorry to have been such a nuisance."
"Not at all, sir. Bye now."
"Er, goodbye!"
Adam Shiveley, who'd been party to this exchange, said, "Sheer genius! Well done, Chief!"
Jordan looked up but didn't smile. "Romania!" he repeated, ominously. "Things are heating up, Adam. I'll be glad when Moradian gets his call through. He's two hours overdue."
At that very moment the phone rang again.
Shiveley inclined his head knowingly. "Now that's what I call a talent. If it doesn't happen---make it!"
Jordan pictured Romania in his mind's eye---his own interpretation, for he'd never been there---then superimposed an image of Harry Moradian over a rugged Romanian countryside. He closed his eyes and Moradian's picture came up in photographic---no, live---detail.
"Jordan here."
"Joyce?" Moradian's voice came back, alive with static. "Listen, I intended to route this through London, John Gifford, but I couldn't get him." Jordan knew who he meant: obviously he would have liked the call to be 100% secure.
"I can't help you there," he answered. "There's nobody that special around right now. Are there problems, then?"
"Shouldn't think so." In the eye of Jordan's mind, Moradian was frowning. "We lacked a bit of privacy in Liomata, but that cleared up. As for why I'm late; it's like contacting Mars getting through from here! Talk about overage systems! If I didn't have local help----anyway, have you got anything for me?"
"Can we talk straight?"
"We'll have to."
Jordan quickly brought him up to date, finishing with Matei's thwarted trip to Romania. In his mind's eye he saw, as well as physically hearing, Moradian's gasp of horror. Then the head of INTESP got himself under control; even if Matei's plans to come over here hadn't been foiled, still it would have been too late for him.
"By the time we're through over here," he grimly told Jordan, "there'll be nothing left for him anyway. And by the time you're finished over there----he won't be able to go anywhere." Then he told Jordan in detail exactly what he wanted done. It took him a good fifteen minutes to make sure he covered everything.
"When?" Jordan asked him when he was finished.
Moradian was cautious. "Are you part of the surveillance team? I mean, do you physically go out to the house and watch him?"
"No. I coordinate. I'm always here at the HQ. But I do want to be in on the kill."
"Very well, I'll tell you when it's to be," said Moradian. "But you're not to pass it on to the others! Not until as close as possible to zero hour itself. I don't want Matei picking it out of someone's mind."
"That makes sense. Wait...." Jordan sent Shiveley into the next room, out of earshot, "OK, when?"
"Tomorrow---in daylight. Let's settle for 5:00 p.m. your time. By then we'll have done our bit, just one hour or so earlier. There are certain obvious reasons why daylight will be the best, and on your side of the job one not so obvious reason. When Hartley goes up, it'll make a big blaze. You'll need to make sure local fire services don't get there too soon and put it out. If it was at night, the flames would be visible for miles. Anyway, that's for you to work on. But the last thing you want is outside interference, OK?"
"Got it," said Jordan.
"That's it, then," said Moradian. "We probably won't be talking again until it's all finished. So good luck!"
"Good luck," Jordan answered, letting Moradian's face fade in his mind as he replaced the receiver in its cradle.....
Most of Monday found Molly Stewart trying without success to break the magnetic attraction of her namesake's psyche. There was no way. The child fought her, clung to both Molly and the waking world alike with an incredible tenacity, would not go to sleep. Kate Cowell marked the baby's fever, thought to call a doctor, then changed her mind; but she determined that if the baby stayed as bad tempered through the night, and if in the morning her temperature was still on the high side, then she'd seek advice.
She couldn't know that Molly Jr.'s fever resulted from the mental contest she waged with the original Molly Stewart, a fight the infant was winning hands down. But Molly Sr. knew it well enough. The baby's will---and her strength---both were enormous! The child's mind was a black hole whose gravity must surely pull Molly in entirely. And Molly had discovered something: that indeed a mind without a body can grow weary, and just like flesh be worn down. So that when she could no longer fight she gave in and retreated into herself, glad that for now his vain striving and struggling were over.
Like a game fish at the end of a line, she allowed herself to be reeled in, close to the boat. But she knew she must fight again when she sensed the gaff poised to strike. Incorporeal, it would be Molly's final chance to retain an individual identity. That was why she would fight, for the continuation of her existence, but she couldn't help wondering: what dies all of this mean to the baby? Why did Molly Jr. want her? Was it just the terrific greed of any healthy infant, or was it something else entirely?
As for the baby herself: she recognized the adult intruder's partial surrender, accepted the fact that for now the fight was over. And he had no means by which to tell this fantastic woman that it wasn't a fight at all, not really, but simply a desperate desire to know, to learn. A woman and a baby girl, two minds in one small, fragile---defenseless?---body, both of them took the welcome opportunity to sleep.
And at 5:00 P.M. when Kate Cowell looked in on her baby daughter, she was pleased to note that she lay still and at peace in her cot, and that her temperature was down again.....
About 4:30 p.m. that same Monday afternoon, in Ionesti: Carmen Olinsecu had just answered a telephone call from Bucharest. The telephone conversation had grown sufficiently heated to cause the rest of the party to listen in. Morozov's face had fallen, telling Moradian and Picardi that something was wrong. When Carmen was through and after she'd hurled the phone down, Morozov spoke up.
"Despite the fact that all of this should have been cleared, now there is a problem from the Lands Ministry. Some idiot is questioning our authority. You are remembering, this Romania---not Russia! The land we want to burn is common land and has belonged to the people since time---how do you say?----immemorial. If it was just some farmer's property we could buy him off, but...." He shrugged helplessly.
"This is correct," Carmen spoke up. "Men from the Ministry, from Ploiesti, will be coming here to talk to us later tonight. I don't knowing how this leaked out, but this is official their area and under their, er, jurisdiction? Yes. It could be big problems. Questions and answers. Not everyone believes in vampires!"
"But aren't you from the Ministry?" Moradian was alarmed. "I mean, we have to get the job done!"
They had driven out early that morning to the spot where almost two decades ago George Matei's body had been recovered from a tangle of undergrowth and densely grown firs on a steep south-facing slope of the cruciform hills. And when they had climbed higher, then they'd come across Thago's mausoleum. There, where the lichen-covered slabs had leaned like menhirs under the motionless trees, all three psychics---Moradian, Picardi and Morozov alike---had still felt the extant menace of the place. They had left quickly.
Wasting no time, Carmen had summoned her team of civil engineers, a foreman and five men, based in Pitesti. Through Morozov, Moradian had put a question to the hardhat boss.
"Are you and your men used to handling this stuff?"
"Thermite? Oh, yes. Sometimes we blast, and sometimes we burn. I've worked for you Russians before, up north in Berezov. We used it all the time---to soften up the permafrost. Can't see the point of it here, though...."
"Plague," said Morozov at once, by way of explanation. It was an invention of his own. "We've come across old records that tell of a mass burial of plague victims right there. Although it was three hundred years ago, the soil deep down is still likely to be infected. These hills have been redesignated arable land. Before we let any unsuspecting farmer start ploughing it up, or terracing the hillside, we want to make sure it's safe. Right down to the bedrock!"
Carmen Olinescu had caught all of this. She had raised an eyebrow at Morozov but said nothing.
"And how did you Soviets get involved?" the hardhat wanted to know.
Morozov had anticipated that one. "We dealt with a similar case in Moscow just one year ago," he had answered. Which was (in some ways) the truth.
Still the hardhat had been curious. "And the British?"
Now Carmen stepped in. "Because they may have a similar problem in England," she snapped. "And so they're here to see how we deal with it, right?"
The ganger hadn't minded facing up to Morozov, but he wasn't going to go against Carmen Olinescu. "Where do you want your holes?" he'd asked. "And how deep?"
By just after midday the preparations were completed. All that remained was for the detonators to be wired up to a plunger, a ten minute job which for safety's sake could wait until tomorrow.
Alex Picardi had suggested. "We could finish it now....."
But Moradian had decided against it. "We don't really know what we're playing with here," he'd answered. "Also, when the job's done, I don't want to hang about but get straight on with Phase II----Thrulk's castle in the Khorvaty. I imagine that after we've burned this hillside there'll be all kinds of people coming up here to see what we've bene up to. So I'd prefer to be out of it the same day. This afternoon Alik has travel arrangements to see to, and I've a call to make to our friends in Devon. By the time that's done the light will be failing, and I'd prefer to work in daylight after a good night's sleep. So...."
"Sometime tomorrow?"
"In the afternoon, while the sun's still slanting onto that hillside."
Then he'd turned to Morozov. "Alik, are these men going back to Pitesti today?"
"They will be," Morozov answered, "if there is nothing else for them to do until tomorrow afternoon. Why are you asking me this?"
Moradian had shrugged. "Just a feeling," he said. "I would have liked them to be closer at hand. But...."
"I, too, have had a feeling," the Russian answered, frowning. "I am thinking, nerves---perhaps?"
"That makes all three of us then," Alex Picardi had added. "So let's hope that it is just nerves and nothing more, right?"
All of that had been mid-morning, and everything had appeared to be going smoothly. And now suddenly there was this threat of outside interference. Between times Moradian had made his call to Devon, taking two hours to get through, and had arranged for the strike against Hartley House. "Dammit!" he snapped now. "It has to be tomorrow. Ministry be damned, we've got to go ahead with this."
"We should have done it this morning," said Picardi, "when we were right on top of it...."
Carmen Olinescu stepped in. She narrowed her eyes and said, "Listen. These local bureaucrats are annoying me. Why don't you just drive back to the site? Right now, I mean! See, I was perhaps alone when that call came in----you men were all out there in the foothills, doing your job. I'll telephone Pitesti, get Tavitian and those tough men of his back up there to meet you at the site. You can do the job---I mean finish it---tonight."
Moradian stared at her. "That's a good idea, Carmen---but what about you? Won't you be setting yourself up? Won't they give you a hard time?"
"What?" She looked surprised at the suggestion. "Is it my fault I was alone here when I took that telephone call? Is it me for blaming that my taxi took a wrong turning and I couldn't find you to stop you from burning the hills? All these country tracks looking the same to me!"
Moradian, Morozov and Picardi, all three grinned at each other. Eldar Polyakov was mainly out of it, but he sensed the excitement of the others and stood up, nodding his head as if in agreement. "Da, da!"
"Right," said Moradian, "let's do it!" And on impulse, he grabbed Carmen Olinescue, pulled her close and kissed her soundly.....
Monday night
9:30 middle-Europe time
7:30 British time.
There was fire and nightmare on the cruciform hills under the moon and stars and the looming Carpatii Meridionali, and the nightmare transferred itself westward across mountains and rivers and oceans to Dragos Matei where he tossed on his bed and sweated the chill, rank sweat of fear in his garret room at Hartley House.
Exhausted by the unspecified fears of the day, he now suffered the telepathic torments of Thago the Wallach, the vampire whose last physical vestiges were finally being consumed. There was no way back for the vampire now, but unlike Thrulk, Thago's spirt was noisy, restless, malignant. And it lusted for revenge!
Dragosssssssss! Ah, my son, my one true son! See what is become of your father now....
"What?" Dragos talked in his sleep, imagined a blistering heat, flames that crept ever closer. And in the heart of the fire, a figure beckoning. "Who---who are you?"
You already know that, my son. We met briefly, and you were still unborn at the meeting, but you can remember if you try.
"Where am I?"
For the moment, with me. Ask not where you are, but where I am. These are the cruciform hills---where it started for you, and where it now ends for me. For you this is only a dream, while for me it is reality.
"You!" Now Dragos knew him. The voice that called in the night, unremembered until now. The Thing in the ground. The source. "You? My---father?"
Indeed! Oh, not through any lover's tryst with your mother. Not through the lust or love of a man for a woman. No, but your father nevertheless. Through blood, Dragos, through blood!
Dragos fought down his fear of the flames. He sensed that he only dreamed---however real and immediate the dream---and knew he would not be hurt. He advanced into the inferno of fire and drew close to the figure there. Black billowing smoke and crimson flames obscured his view and the heat was a furnace all around, but there were questions Dragos must ask, and the burning Thing was the only one who could answer them.
"You have asked me to come and seek you out, and I will come. But why? What is it you want of me?"
Too late! Too late! the flame-wreathed apparition cried out in anguish. And Dragos knew that his pain was not born of the consuming fire but bitter frustration. I would have been your teacher, my son. Yes, and you would have learned all the many secrets of the Wamphyri. In return----I can't deny that there would have been a reward in it for me. I would have walked again in the world of men, known again the unbearable pleasures of my youth! But too late. All dreams and schemes to no avail. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust....
The figure was slowly melting, its outline gradually changing, rendering down into itself.
Dragos must know more, must see more clearly. He penetrated the very heart of the inferno, came close up to the burning Thing. "I already know the secrets of the Wamphyri!" he cried above the crackle of blazing trees and the hiss of molten earth. "I learned them for myself!"
Can you put on the shapes of lesser creatures?
"I can go on all fours like a great dog," Dragos answered. "And in the night, people would swear I was a dog!"
Bah! A dog! A man who would be a dog! What is that for an ambition? It is nothing! Can you form wings, glide like a bat?
"I---don't know."
Of course not. You know nothing.
"I can make others like myself!"
Fool! That is the easiest of things. Not to make them is much harder!
"When harmful men are nearby, I sense their minds...."
That is instinct, which you got from me. Indeed, everything you have you got from me! So you read minds, do you? But can you bend those minds to your will?
"With my eyes, yes."
Beguilement, hypnotism, a stage magician's trick! You are an innocent.
"Damn you1" Dragos's pride was hurt at last, his patience exhausted. "What are you anyway but a corpse with a voice? I'll tell you what I've learned: I can take a dead creature and draw out its secrets, and know all that it knew in life!"
Necromancy? It is so? And no one to show you how? That is an achievement! There is hope for you yet.
"I can heal my own wounds as if they never were, and I've the strength of any two men. I could lie with a woman and love her---to death, if I desired---and even weary myself. And only anger me, dear father, and then I could kill, kill, kill! But not you, for you're already dead. Hope for me? I'll say there is. But what hope is there for you?"
For a moment there was no answer from the melting Thing. Then.....
Ahhhh! And indeed you are my son, Dragosssssss! Closer, come closer still.
Dragos moved to less than one arm's length from the Thing, facing it squarely. The stench of its burning was monstrous. Its blackened outer shell began to crumble, rapidly disintegrated and fell away. The flames immediately attacked the inner image, which Dragos now saw almost as a reflection of himself. It had the same features, the same bone structure, the same dark attraction. The face of a fallen angel. They could be peas from the same pod.
"You----you are my father!" he gasped.
I was, the other groaned. Now I am nothing. I am burning away, as you see. Not the real me but something I left behind. It was my final hope, and through it---and with your help---I might have been a power in the world once again. But it's too late now.
"Then why do you concern yourself with me?" Dragos tried to understand. "Why have you come to me---or drawn me to you? If I can't help you, what's the point of this?"
Vengeance! The burning Thing's voice was suddenly sharp as a dagger in Dragos's dreaming mind. Through you!
"I should avenge you? Against whom?"
Against the ones who found me here. The ones who even now destroy my last change for a future. Against Molly Stewart and her pack of white magicians!
"You're not making sense." Dragos shook his head, gazed in morbid fascination as the Thing continued to melt. He saw his own features liquefying, streaming away and falling from the burning creature in molten tatters. "What white magicians? Molly Stewart? I don't know anyone of that name."
But she knows you! First me, Dragos, and then you! Molly Stewart knows us-----and he knows the way: the stake, the sword, and the fire! You tell me you can sense the presence of enemies----and have you not sensed just such enemies close to you even now? They are one and the same. First me, and then you!
Even dreaming, Dragos felt his skin crawling. The secret watchers, of course! "What must I do?"
Avenge me, and save yourself. That, too, is one and the same. For they know what we are, Dragos, and they cannot abide us. You must kill them, for if you don't, they'll surely kill you!
The final scrap of human flesh fell from the nightmarish entity, revealing at last its true, inner reality. Dragos hissed his horror, drew back a little way, gazed upon the face of all evil. He saw Thago's bat snout, his convoluted ears, long jaws, crimson eyes. The vampire laughed at him---the bass booming of a great hound---and a split tongue flickered redly in a cave of teeth. Then, as if someone had applied a giant's bellows to the task, the flames roared up higher still and rushed in, and the image blackened at once and turned to glowing cinders.
Trembling violently, running with sweat, Dragos came awake, sat bolt upright in his bed. And as from a million miles away he heard again, one final time, Thagos's far, faint voice: Avenge me, Dragoosssssss....
He stood up in the dark room, when shakily to the window, looked out on the night. Out there, a mind. A man. Watching and waiting.
Sweat quickly dried on Dragos and his flesh turned cold, but still he stood there. Panic receded, was replaced by rage and hatred. "Avenge you, Father?" he finally breathed. "Oh, I will. I will!"
In the window's luminous, night-dark pane his reflection was an echo from the dream. But Dragos was neither shocked nor surprised. It just meant that his metamorphosis was now complete. He looked through the reflection at the dark, furtive shadow there in the hedgerow---and grinned.
And his grin was like an invitation to step in through the gates of hell!
At the foot of the cruciform hills, Moradian and Picardi, Morozov and Polyakov waited close together in a small group. It wasn't cold but they stood together, as if for warmth.
The fire was dying down now; the wind which had earlier sprung up out of nowhere had quickly blown itself out, like the dying breath of some unseen giant. Human figures, half concealed in the trees and the billowing black smoke, toiled above and to the east of the devastated area, containing the fire and beating it down. A grimy, coveralled hulk of a man came stumbling from the trees at the foot of the slope toward the vampire hunters where they huddled. It was the Romanian ganger, Razvan Tavitian.
"You!" He grabbed Morozov's arm. "Plague, you said! But did you see it? Did you see that---that thing before it burned? It had eyes, mouths! It lashed, writhed.....it....it....my God! My God!"
Under the soot and sweat, Tavitian's face was chalk. Slowly his glazed eyes cleared. he looked from Morozov to the others. The gaunt faces that looked back seemed carved of the same emotion: a horror, no less than Tavitian's own.
"Plague, you said," he dazedly repeated. "But that wasn't any kind of plague I ever heard of."
Morozov shook himself loose. "Oh yes it was, Razvan," he finally answered. "It was the very worst kind. Just consider yourself lucky that you were able to destroy it. We're in your debt. All of us. Everywhere....."
Adam Shiveley should've had the 8:00 p.m.--2:00 a.m shift; instead he was bedded down at the hotel in Paignton---something he'd eaten, apparently. Stomach cramps and violent diarrhea.
Luke Estley had taken the shift in Shiveley's place, driving out to Hartley House and relieving Oliver Cely of the job of keeping Matei under observation.
"Nothing's happening up there," Cely had whispered, leaning in through the open window of his car, handing Estley a powerful crossbow with a hardwood bolt. "There's a light on downstairs, but that's all. They're all in there, or if not then they didn't come out through the gate! The light did come on in Matei's attic room for a few minutes, then went out again. That was probably him getting his head down. Also, I felt that there just might be someone probing for my thoughts---but that lasted for only a moment. Since then it's quiet as the proverbial tomb."
Estley had grinned, however nervously. "Except we know that not every tomb is quiet, eh?"
Cely hadn't found it funny. "Luke, that's a really weird sense of humor you've got there." He nodded at the crossbow in Estley's hand. "Do you know how to use that? Here, I'll load it for you."
"That's OK," Estley nodded affably. "I'll manage it all right. But if you want to do me a real favor, just make sure my relief's on time at two in the morning!"
Cely got into his car and started it, trying not to rev the engine. "This makes twelve hours out of twenty-four for you doesn't it? Son, you're a glutton for punishment. You should go far---if you don't kill yourself first. Have a nice night!" And he'd pulled carefully away in his car, only turning on the lights when he was a hundred yards down the road.
That had been only half an hour ago but already Estley was cursing himself for his big mouth. His old man had been a soldier. "Luke," he'd told him once, "never volunteer. If they need volunteers, that's because nobody wants the job." And on a night light this it was easy to understand why.
There was something of a ground mist and the air was laden with moisture. The atmosphere felt greasy, and heavy as a tangible weight upon Estley's shoulders. He turned up his collar, lifted infra-red binoculars to his eyes. For the tenth time in thirty minutes he scanned the house. Nothing. The house was warm, which showed clearly enough, but nothing moved in there. Or the movement was too slight to detect.
He scanned what could be seen of the grounds. Again, nothing---or rather, something! Estley's sweep had passed over a hazy blue blur of warmth, just a blob of body heat which his special nite-lites had picked up. It could be a fox, badger, dog---or a man? He tried to find it again, failed. So---had he seen something, or hadn't he?
Something buzzed and tingled in Estley's head, like a sudden burst of electrical current, making him start.....Slimy gibber-gobble spying babble-gabble bastard!
Estley froze stiff as a board. What was that? What the hell was that?
You're going to die, die, die! Ha, ha, ha! Gibber-jabber, gobble-gabble.....And then some more of the electrical tingling. And silence.
Jesus Christ! But Estley knew without further inquiry what it was: his unruly talent. For a moment then, just for a few seconds, he'd picked up another mind. A mind full of hate!
"Who? Estley said aloud, staring all about, ankle-deep in swirling mist. "What....?" Suddenly the night was full of menace.
He'd left the crossbow in his car, loaded and lying on the front seat. The red Capri was parked with its nose in a field, about twenty-five yards away along the road. Estley was on the verge, his shoes, socks and feet already soaking from walking in the grass. He looked at Hartley House, standing sinister in its misty grounds, then began to back off towards the car. In the grounds of the old house, something loped towards the open gate. Estley saw it for a moment, then lost it in the shadows and the mist.
A dog? A large dog?
Estley backed faster, stumbled and almost fell. An owl hooted somewhere in the night. Other than that there was only silence. And a soft, deliberate padding---and a panting?---from beyond the gate just across the road. Estley backed faster yet, all his senses alert, his nerves beginning to jump. Something was coming, he could feel it. And not just a dog.
He slammed backwards into the side of his car, drew breath in an audible, grateful gasp. He half turned, reached in through the open window, groped with his hand on the front seat. He found something, drew it into view....
The lignum vitae bolt---broken in two halves---hanging together by a mere splinter of wood! Estley shook his head in dumb disbelief, reached into the car again. This time he found the crossbow, unloaded, its tough metal wings bent back and twisted out of shape.
Something tall and black flowed out of the shadows right up to him. It wore a cape which, at the final moment, it threw back. Estley looked into a face which wasn't nearly human. He tried to scream but his throat felt like sandpaper.
The thing in black glared at Estley and its lips drew back. Its teeth were hooked together, meshing like the teeth of a shark. Estley tried to run, leap, move, but couldn't; his feet were rooted to the spot. The thing in black raised its arm in a swift movement and something gleamed a wet, silvery gleam in the night.
A meat cleaver!
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