MID-DECEMBER, 1976
Following one of the longest, hottest summers on record, now Nature was trying to even up the score. Already it promised to be a severe winter.
Vladimir Dragan and Sam Tabur were coming to England from a place far colder, however, and in any case climate had no part in their scheme of things. It wasn't a consideration. If anything the cold suited them: it matched exactly the emotionless iciness of their hearts, the sub-zero nature of their mission. Which was murder, pure and simple.
All through the flight, not too comfortable in the rather stiff, unyielding seats of the Aeroflot jet, Dragan had sat and thought morbid thoughts: some of them angry and some fearful or at best apprehensive, but all uniformly morbid. The angry thoughts had concerned Vladimir Dragan, for sending him on this mission in the first place, and the fearful ones were about Thago Benedek, the Thing in the ground.
Now lulled by the jet's subdued but all-pervading engine noise, and by the hiss of its air-conditioning, he sank down a little farther into his seat and again turned over in his mind the details of his final visit to the cruciform hills.
He thought of Thago's story: of the symbiotic or lamprey-like nature of the true vampire, and he thought of his agony and his panic-flight before merciful observation had claimed him halfway down the wooded slope. That was where he'd found himself upon regaining consciousness in the dawn light: sprawled under the trees at the edge of the overgrown firebreak. And yet again he'd cut short a visit to his homeland, returning at once to Moscow and putting himself directly into the hands of the best doctor he could find. It'd been a total waste of time; it appeared he was perfectly healthy.
X-ray photographs disclosed nothing; blood and urine samples were 100% normal; blood-pressure, pulse and respiration were just what they should be. Was there any condition that Dragan was aware of? There wasn't. Had he ever suffered from migraine or asthma? No. Then maybe it'd been the altitude. Had his sinuses been causing him any concern? No. Had he maybe been overworking himself? Hardly that! Did he himself have any idea as to the source of the problem? No.
Yes, but it wasn't worth thinking about and couldn't be mentioned under any circumstances.
The doctor had given him a painkilling prescription, against the possibility of a recurrence, and that had been that. Dragan should have been satisfied but he wasn't. Far from it......
He'd attempted to contact Thago at long range. Could the old demon know the answer? Hell, even a lie might contain some kind of clue; but----no joy. If Thago could hear him, he wasn't answering.
He'd gone over for the hundredth time the events leading up to his horrible pain, his flight, his collapse. Something had splashed on his neck from above. Rain? No: it'd been a fine night, dry as a bone. A leaf, a piece of bark? No, for it had felt wet. Some dirty bird's dropping, then? No, for his hand had come away clean.
Something had landed on the top of his spine, and moments later both spine and brain had been gripped and squeezed! By something unknown. But---what? Dragan thought he knew, and still hardly dared to give it conscious thought. Certainly it had invaded his sleep, bringing him endless nights filled with bad dreams---recurrent nightmares he could never remember in his waking moments, but which he knew where horrible when he dreamed them.
The whole thing had become a kind of obsession with him and there were times when he thought about nothing else. It had to do not only with what had happened, but also with what the vampire had been telling him when it happened. And it also had to do with certain changes he'd noticed in himself since it happened....
Physiological changes, inexplicable changes. Or if there was an explanation, still Dragan wasn't ready to own up to it.
"Dragan, old bean," Semnyonovich had told him not quite a week ago, "you're getting old before your time! Am I working you too much or something? Or, could it be that I'm not working you hard enough!? Yes, that's probably it: not enough to keep you occupied. When did you last bloody your oh-so delicate fingers, eh? A month ago, wasn't it? That French double-agent? But look at you, man! Your hair's receding---your gums, too, by their look! And with that pallid complexion of yours and your sunken cheeks, why, you could almost be anemic! Maybe this jaunt to England will do you some good...."
Semnyonovich had been trying to get a rise out of him, Dragan knew, but for once he hadn't dared rise to the bait. That would only serve to draw more attention to himself, which was the last thing he wanted. No, for in fact Semnyonovich was more nearly right than he could possibly know.
His hair did seem to be receding, true, but it wasn't. A little birthmark on Dragan's scalp, close the hairline, told him that much. Its position relative to his hair hadn't changed in ten years at least; ergo, his hair was not receding. The change was in the skull itself, which if anything seemed to have lengthened at the rear. The same was true of his gums: they were not receding, as Semnyon0vich had suggested, but his teeth were growing longer! Practically the incisors, top and bottom.
As for anemia: that was purely ridiculous. Pale he might be but not weak; indeed he felt stronger, more vital in himself, than ever before in his life. Physically, at least. His pallor probably resulted from a fast-developing photophobia, for now he literally shunned the daylight and would not go out even in dim light without wearing dark glasses.
Physically fit, yes---but his dreams, his nameless fears and obsessions---his neuroses.....
Quite simply, he was neurotic!
It shocked Dragan to have to admit it, even though he only admitted it to himself.
One thing at least was certain: no matter the outcome of this British mission, when it was finished Dragan intended to return to Romania at his earliest opportunity. There were matters, questions, which must be resolved. And the sooner the better. Thago Benedek had had things his way for far too long.
Beside Dragan in the cramped three-abreast seats, but with a dividing arm up to accommodate his girth, Sam Tabur chuckled. "Comrade Dragan," the squat little Mongol whispered, "I'm supposed to the one with the evil eye. Had you perhaps forgotten our roles?"
"Pardon me?" said Dragan, staring up in his seat as Tabur commenced speaking. He glared at his grinning companion. "I don't know what you mean."
"I don't know what you were thinking about just then, my friend, but I'm sure it bodes no good for someone," Tabur explained. "The look on your face was frightening."
"Oh!" said Dragan, relaxing a little. "Well, my thoughts are my own, Sam, and none of your business."
"You are a cold bastard, Comrade," said Tabur. "Both of us are cold bastards, I guess, but even I can feel your chill seeping right into me as I sit here." The grin slowly faded from his face. "Have I perhaps offended you?"
"Only with your chatter," Dragan grunted.
"That's as may be, the other shrugged, "but 'chatter' we must. You were supposed to brief me, tie up those loose ends which Katin Semnyonovich left dangling. It would be a good idea if you did it now. We are alone here---even the KGB have not yet bugged Aeroflot! Also, we have only one hour before we arrive in London. In the embassy, such a conversation might prove difficult."
"I suppose you're right," said Dragan grudgingly. "Very well, then, let me put the pieces together for you. It is maybe preferable that you're fully in the picture.
"Semnyonovich first conceived of E-Branch about twenty-five years ago. At that time a large Russian group of so-called 'fringe-scientists' were starting to take a real interest in parapsychology, still largely frowned upon in the Soviet Union. Semnyonovich was interested---had always been interested in ESP----despite his very much down-to-earth military background and otherwise mundane persuasions. Strangely talented people had always fascinated and attracted him: in fact he was himself a 'spotter' but hadn't realized it. When at last he did realize that he had his peculiar talent, he at once applied for a position as head of our ESPionage school. It was initially a school, you see, with no real application in the field. The KGB weren't interested: all brawn and bullet-proof vests, ESP was far too esoteric for them.
"Anyway, since his Army service was coming to a close, and because he had good connections---not to mention his own not inconsiderable talent---he got the job.
"A few years later he found another spotter, but in very peculiar circumstances. It came about this way:
"A female telepath, one of the few girls on Semnyonovich's team, whose talent was just beginning to blossom, was brutally murdered. Her boyfriend, a man called Sergei Lerner, was charged with the crime. His defense was that he'd believed the girl was possessed of devils. He could sense them in her. Of course, Semnyonovich was very much interested. He tested Lerner and discovered that he was a spotter. More than that, the ESP-aura of psychically endowed persons actually disturbed Lerner, unbalanced him and drove him to murderous acts----usually directed at the ESPer him or herself. On the one hand Lerner was drawn to ESPers, and on the other he was driven to destroy them.
"Semnyonovich saved Lerner from the salt mines---in much the same way he saved you, Sam----and took him under his wing. He thought he might exorcize the man's murderous tendencies but at the same time preserve his talent for spotting. In Lerner's case, brainwashing didn't work. If anything it only served to aggravate the problem. But Katin Semnyonovich hates waste. He looked for a way to use Lerner's aggression.
"At that time the Americans were also greatly interested in ESP as a weapon; more recently they've taken it up again, though not nearly to the extent that we have. In England, however, a rudimentary ESP-squad already existed, and the British were rather more inclined towards the serious study and exploitation of the paranormal. So Lerner was put through a long term of spy-school in Moscow and finally unleashed upon the British. His cover was that of a 'defector.'"
"He was sent over to kill British ESPers?" Tabur whispered.
"That was the idea. To find them, to report on their activities, and, when the psychic stress became too great for him, to kill them if and when he had to. But after he'd been in England only a few months, then Sergei Lerner really did defect!"
"To the British?"
"No, to the country of the British---to their political system---to safety! Lerner didn't give a damn for Mother Russia anyway, and now he had a new country, almost a new identity. He wasn't going to make the same mistake twice, do you see? In Russia he'd come close to life imprisonment for murder. Should he do the same thing in England? He could make a decent living there, a fresh start. He was a linguist, top-flight qualifications in Russian, German, English, and more than a smattering of half-a-dozen other languages. No, he didn't defect to anyone, he defected from the Soviet Union. He ran, escaped----to freedom!"
"You sound almost as if you approve of the British system," the Mongolian grinned.
"Don't worry about my loyalties, Sam," Dragan grated. "You won't find a man more loyal than I am." To Romania! To Wallachia!
"Well, that's good to know," the other nodded. "It would be nice if I could say the same. But I'm a Mongol and my loyalties are different. Actually, I'm only loyal to Sam Tabur."
"Then you probably resemble Lerner a great deal. I imagine that's how he felt. Anyway, gradually over the months his reporting fell off, and he finally dropped out of sight. It put Semnyonovich on the spot but there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Since Lerner was a 'defector' he'd been granted political asylum; Semnyonovich couldn't very well ask for him back! All he could do was keep tabs on him, see what he was up to."
"He feared he'd joined the British ESPers, eh?"
"Not really, no. Lerner was psychotic, remember. Anyway, Semnyonovich wasn't taking any chances, and eventually he tracked him down. Lerner's plan was simple: he'd got himself a job in Glasgow, bought a tiny fisherman's cottage in a place called Dumbarton, made official application for British citizenship. He kept himself to himself and settled down to leading a normal life. Or at least he tried to...."
"It didn't work out?" Tabur became interested.
"Yes, for a while. But then he married a girl of old Russian stock. She was a psychic medium---a genuine psychic medium----and naturally her talent was like a magnet to him. Maybe he tried to resist her, but to no avail. He married her, and he killed her. At least that's how Katin Semnyonovich sees it. After that----nothing."
"He got away with it?!"
"The verdict was accidental death. Drowning. Semnyonovich knows more about it than I do. Anyway, it's incidental. But Lener inherited his wife's money and house. He lives there still....."
"And now we are on our way to kill him...." Tabur mused. "Can you tell me why?"
Dragan nodded. "If he had simply continued to keep a low profile and stay out of our hair, that would have been okay. Oh, Semnyonovich would catch up with him eventually, but not immediately. But Lerner's fortunes have changed, Sam. He's short of cash, generally down and out. It's been the downfall of many another before him. So now, after all these years, finally he's turned blackmailer. He threatens Semnyonovich, E-Branch, the whole shooting match."
"One man poses so great a threat?" Tabur raised his eyebrows.
Again Dragan's nod. "The British equivalent of our branch is now an effective force. How effective we're not sure, but they may even be better than we are. We know very little about them, which in itself is a bad sign. It could well be that they are clever enough to cover themselves entirely, gives themselves one hundred per cent ESP security. And if they're that clever...."
"Then how much do they know about us?"
"That's right," Dragan looked at his companion with a little more respect. "They might even know that we two are aboard this plane right now, and our mission! God forbid!"
Tabur smiled his moonish, ivory smile. "I don't believe in any god," he said. "Only in the devil. So the Comrade General fears that if Lerner isn't silenced he might after all talk to the British?"
"That's what Lerner has threatened him with, yes. He wants money or he'll tell British E-Branch all he knows. Mind you, that won't amount to much after all this time, but even a little knowledge about our E-Branch is far too much for Katin Semnyonovich's liking!"
Sam Tabur was thoughtful for a moment. "But if Lerner did talk, surely he would be giving himself away, too? Wouldn't he be admitting that he came to England in the first place as an ESP-agent of the Soviet Union?"
Dragan shook his head. "He doesn't have to give himself away. A letter is perfectly anonymous, Sam. Even a telephone call. And even though twenty years have gone by, still there are things he knows which Semnyonvich wants kept secret. Two things in particular, which might prove valuable beyond measure to the British ESPers. One: the location of the Castillo Mikhailov. Two: the fact that Comrade General Katin Semnyonovich himself is head of Russian ESPionage. That is the threat which Lerner poses, and that is why he will die."
"And yet his death is not our sole objective."
Dragan was silent for a moment, then said: "No, our sole objective is the death of someone else, someone far more important. He is Sir Arthur Gerrard, head of their ESPers. His death----and his knowledge----all of it---that is our prime objective. Semnyonovich wants both of them dead and stripped of their secrets. You will kill Gerrard---in your own special way----I shall examine him in mine. Before that we shall already have killed Sergei Lerner, who also shall have been examined. Actually, he should not present too much of a problem: his place is lonely, out of the wall. That's where we'll do it."
"And you can really empty them of secrets? After they are dead, I mean?" Tabur seemed to have doubts.
"Yes, I really can. More surely than any torturer could when they were alive. I shall steal their innermost thoughts right out of their blood, their marrow, their cold and lonely bones."
A dumpy stewardess appeared at the cabin end of the central aisle. "Fasten your seatbelts," she intoned like a robot; and the passengers, equally robotic, obeyed.
"What are your limitations?" Tabur asked. "Strictly out of morbid curiosity, of course."
"Limitations? How do you mean?"
"What if a man has been dead for a week, for example?"
Dragan shrugged. " It makes no difference."
"What if he's been dead a hundred years?"
"A dried-up mummy, you mean? Semnyonovich wondered the same thing. We experimented. It was all the same to me. The dead cannot keep their secrets from a necromancer."
"But a corpse, rotting," Tabur pressed. "Say someone dead for a month or two. That must be quite awful...."
"It is," said the other. "But I'm used to it. The mess doesn't bother me as much as the risk. The dead teem with disease, you know? I have to be very careful. It's not a healthy business."
"Yuk!" said Tabur, and Dragan actually saw him give a small shudder.
London's lights were gleaming in the dark distance on the curve of night's horizon. The city was a hazy glow beyond the small, circular windows. "And you?" said Dragan. "Does your talent have its 'limitations,' Sam?"
The Mongol shrugged. "It, too, has its dangers. It needs much energy; it saps my strength; it is debilitating. And as you know, it is only effective against the weak and infirm. There is supposed to be one other small handicap, too, but that is a matter of legend and I do not intend to put it to the test."
"Oh?"
"Yes. There is a story told in my country of a man with the evil eye. It's an ancient story, going back a thousand years. This man was very evil and used his power to terrorize the land. He would ride with his bandits into villages and rape and plunder, then ride out again unscathed. And no one dared to oppose him. But in one village there lived an old man who said he knew how to deal with him. When the robber band was seen riding that way, the villagers took all their corpses and gave them spears and propped them on the walls. The robbers came and in the dusk their leader saw that the village was protected. He cast his evil eye upon the watchers at the walls. But of course, the dead cannot die twice. The spell rebounded and struck him down. He was shriveled up no larger than a roasted piglet!"
Dragan liked the story. "And the moral?" he asked.
Tabur grunted and shrugged again. "Doesn't it speak for itself? One mustn't ever curse the dead, I suppose, for they have nothing to lose. In any argument, they must always win in the end...."
Dragan thought of Thago Benedek. And what of the undead? he wondered. Do they, too, always win? If so, then it's about time someone changed the rules.....362Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzz5gkdqn4a
362Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuuYFyjhp6o
They were met and whisked through Customs by "a man from the embassy," their baggage delivered as though by magic to a black Mercedes bearing diplomatic plates. As well as their cold-eyed escort there was also a silent, uniformed driver. On their way to the embassy their escort sat in the front passenger's seat, his body half-turned towards them, his arm draped casually along the back of the driver's seat. He made small-talk in a cold, robotic fashion, trying to assume an air of friendly interest. He didn't fool Dragan for a minute.
"Your first time in London, Comrades? You'll find it an interesting city, I'm sure. Decadent, of course, and full of fools, but interesting despite all that. I, uh, didn't have time to check on your business here. How long do you plan to stay?"
"Until we go back," said Dragan.
"Ah!" the other smiled, thinly, patiently. "Very good! You must excuse me, Comrade, but for some of us curiosity is---shall we say---a way of life? You understand?"
Dragan nodded. "Yes, I understand. You're KGB."
The man's thin face went icy in a moment. "We don't use that term much outside the embassy."
"What term do you use?" smiled Sam Tabur, his voice a deceptive whisper. "Shitheads?"
"What?" the escort's face slowly turned white.
"My friend and I are here on business which is no concern of you or yours," said Dragan in a level tone. "We have the very highest authority. Let me take that clear: the Very Highest Authority. Any interference will be very bad for you. If we need your help we will ask for it. Apart from that you'll leave us alone and not bother us."
The escort pursed his lips, drew one long, slow breath. "People don't usually talk to me like that," he said, his words very precise."
"Of course if you persist in obstructing us," Dragan continued, without changing his tone of voice, "I can always break your arm. That should keep you out of the way for two or three weeks at least."
The other gasped. "You threaten me?"
"No, I make you a promise." But Dragan knew he wasn't getting anywhere. This was a typical KGB automaton. The necromancer sighed, said: "Look, if you have been tasked to us I'm sorry for you. Your job is impossible. Moreover it's dangerous. This much I'll tell you, and this much only. We're here to test a secret weapon. Now, ask no more questions."
"A secret weapon?" said the other, his eyes widening. "Ah!" He looked from Dragan to Tabur and back again. "What weapon?"
Dragan smiled grimly. Well, he had warned the fool. "Sam," he said, carefully turning his face away. "I think a small demonstration is in order....."
Shortly after that they arrived at the embassy. In the grounds of the place Dragan and Tabur stepped down from the car and took their luggage from the boot. They looked after their own cases.
The driver attended to their escort. The last they saw of him was as he staggered away, leaning on the driver's arm. He looked back at them only once---stared round eyed and fearfully at Sam Tabur---before stumbling disappearing inside the gloomily imposing building. And that was the last they saw of him.
After that no one bothered them again.362Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU8OP5WWkSI
THE SECOND WEDNESDAY AFTER NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1977
Sergei Lerner had known this feeling of encroaching doom for well over a fortnight now, a leaden psychic depression which had lifted only marginally upon the arrival of Katin Semnyonovich's fourth monthly letter containing one thousand pounds in large denomination notes. In fact it worried Lerner that Semnyonovich had surrendered so readily, that he had made no counter threats of his own.
Today had been especially bad: the skies were overcast and heavy with snow; the river was frozen over with thick gray eyes; the big house was cold and seemed invaded by icy draughts that followed Lerner everywhere. And for the first time in as long as he could remember----or at least the first time that he had noticed it----there was a strange and ominous quiet about everything, so that sounds seemed muffled as if by deep snow, though little had fallen as yet. The tickling of an old grandfather clock sounded heavy, dull---even the warped floorboards seemed to creak a little less volubly---and all in all it had put Lerner's nerves in a very bad way. It was as if the house held his breath and waited for something.
That "something" came at 2:30 P.M., just as Lerner poured himself a glass of iced vodka and sat down in his study before an electric fire, looking gloomily out through neglected, fly-specked windows on a garden frozen into white crystal. It came with the nerve-jangling clamor of his telephone.
Heart hammering, he put down the drink he'd almost spilled, snatched up the handset and said, "Lerner."
"Stepfather?" Molly Stewart's voice seemed very close. "It's Molly here. I'm in Glasgow staying with friends. How've you been keeping?"
Lerner choked back the anger which came on the instant, boiling to the surface. So that was it; this damned spawn of an ESPer was here, close at hand, sending out her psychic aura to crush Lerner's sensitive spirits! He bared his teeth, glared at the telephone in his hand, fought down the urge to curse and rage. "Molly! Is that you? In Glasgow, you say? How thoughtful of you to call me." You bitch! Your mutant aura is hurting me!
"But you sound so well!" the other sounded shocked. "When I saw you last you seemed so....."
"Yes, I know," Lerner tried not to snarl. "I hadn't been too well, Molly, but I'm fine now. Was there something you wanted?" I could eat your heart, you unholy little tart!
"Why, yes, I wondered if maybe I might come to see you. Maybe we could talk a little about my mother. Also, I've got my skates with me. If the river's frozen I could do some skating. I'm only up here for a few days more, you see, and I...."
"No!" Lerner snapped, and at once checked himself. Why not get it over with? Why not get this pest from the past out of the way once and for all? Whatever it was that Stewart knew or suspected---however she had come by Lerner's ring, which the Russian had thought lost in the river, and whatever the psychic link between this youth and her mother, which apparently bound them still---why not bring it to a close right here and now? Common sense stood no chance against the bloodthirst surging inside of Lerner now.
"Stepfather?"
"I meant only---Molly, my nerves still aren't up to much, I'm afraid. Living here all alone----you know, I'm not used to company. Of course I'd like to see you, and the river is perfect just now for skating, but I really couldn't do with a houseful of young people, Molly."
"Oh, no, Stepfather, I didn't intend bringing anyone with me. I wouldn't think of imposing on you to that extent. Why, my friends don't even know I have a relative up here! No, chiefly I'd just like to visit the house again and go on the river. I'd like to skate where my mother used to skate, that's all."
That again! The bitch did know something----or at least suspected something---definitely! So she wanted to skate, did she? On the river where her mother skated. Lerner's face twisted into a leer. "Well in that case....when can I expect you?"
"In about, oh, two hours?" came Molly's answer.
"All right," said Lerner. "About 4:30 to 5:00 P.M., then. I shall look forward to it, Molly."
And he put the phone down before an utterly animal growl of hatred could burst from his writhing mouth and betray his true feelings: Oh, how I shall look---forward----to---it!
Molly Stewart wasn't nearly so far away as Glasgow. In fact she was in the foyer of the hotel where she'd been staying the past few nights in Clydebank itself. After speaking to Lerner on the phone she shrugged into her fur coat and went out to her car, a battered old Morris she'd bought on the cheap especially for this trip. She had passed her driving test the first time around---or at least an ex-driving instructor in the cemetery in Woodbridge passed it for him.
Now she drove on icy roads to a hilltop some quarter of a mile from the old house and overlooking it, where he parked and got out of the car. There was nobody about; the scene was bleak and bitter; shivering, Molly carried binoculars to a stand of trees rising starkly naked against the sky. From behind the bole of one of them, she trained the glasses on the house and waited---for no more than one minute, maybe more.
Lerner came out through the study's patio doors and hurried through his courtyard garden, finally emerging from a door in the wall facing the river. In her hand she carried a pickaxe.....
Molly drew breath sharply, let it out slowly to plume in the frosty air. Lerner scrambled through brittle shrubbery and brambles down to the river's rim. She let herself down carefully on the ice, tested it, sprang up and down at its very edge. Then she turned and looked all about. The place was quite deserted.
She walked to the center of the gray-shining expanse of ice and bounded again, and once more seemed satisfied. And now, Molly's eyes were riveted to the scene, that monochrome tableau which she almost felt she'd watched before, and the act which she was absolutely sure Lerner had performed before.
For the figure trapped and enlarged in the lenses of her binoculars now crouched down, took his pickaxe and swung it in a wide circle, scoring a boundary, a demarcation, in the crusty surface of the ice. And all around that etched circle he strode, hacking periodically with all the strength and passion of a madman, until spouts of water jetted up each time the point of the pick struck home; so that in a matter of minutes a great disc of ice nine (ten?) feet across floated free in a pool of its own. Then the final touch:
Once more pausing to peer all about, finally Lerner walked the perimeter of the circle, using his feet to brush icy debris from his assault back into the gap. The water would freeze over again, of course, but it wouldn't be safe for hours yet, certainly not before tomorrow morning. Lerner had set his trap---but he didn't know that the intended victim had watched him do it!
Molly could barely control her shivering now, the trembling in all her limbs which had little or nothing to do with the actual temperature. No, it had more to do with the mental condition of that hunched figure down there on the ice. The binoculars were not powerful enough to bring the figure really close, but still Molly was sure that she'd seen its face working hideously through all the hacking. The face of a madman, who for some reason lusted after Molly's life as once he had once lusted after----and taken---her mother's.
Molly wanted to know why, would not rest until she had the answer. And there was only one way to get it.
Feeling physically and mentally weary, and yet knowing that his work wasn't finished yet, Sergei Lerner returned to the house. Inside the walled courtyard, he dragged his pickaxe behind him across frosted flags, letting its half fall clattering from his fingers before he stepped through the open patio doors and into his study. Head down, arms dangling at his sides, he took two more paces into the room---and froze!
What? Was Stewart here already? The entire house felt filled with strange forces. It reeked of ESP-aura, its very atmosphere seeming to vibrate with alien energies.
Instantly inflamed, now Lerner sensed movement: the patio doors clicking shut behind him! He whirled, saw, and his jaw fell open. "Who....? What....." he choked.
Two men faced him, stood there in hos own study where they had waited for him, and one of them held a gun pointed straight at Lerner's heart. He recognized the weapon as Russian service issue, recognized the coldly emotionless looks of the two men, and felt Doom closing its fist on him. But in a way it was not entirely unexpected. He had thought there might be some kind of visit one day. But that it should be now, of all ill-omened moments.
"Sit down----Comrade," said the tall one, his voice harsh as a file on Lerner's ragged nerves.
Sam Tabur pushed a chair forward and Lerner very nearly collapsed into it. Tabur moved to stand behind him where he sat facing Dragan. The ESP-aura washed all about Lerner now, as if his mind swam in bile. Oh, yes, they were from the Castillo Mikhailov, these two!
The blackmailer's face was ravaged, eyes sunken deep in black sockets. Looking over his head at Dragan, finally Tabur's round face cracked into a grin. "Comrade Dragan," he said, "I had always thought you looked ill---until now!"
"ESPers!" Lerner spat the word out. "Semnyonovich's men! What do you want of me?"
"He has every reason to look ill, Sam," Dragan's voice was deep as a pit. "A traitor, a blackmailer, probably a killer....."
Lerner looked as if he might spring to his feet. Tabur placed heavy, stubby hands on his shoulders. "I asked," Lerner grated, "what you want of me?"
"Your life," said Dragan. He took a silencer from his pocket, screwed it tightly to the muzzle of his weapon, stepped forward and placed it against Lerner's forehead. "Only your life."
Lerner felt Sam Tabur step carefully to one side behind him. And he knew they were going to kill him.
"Wait!" he croaked. "You're making a mistake. Semnyonovich won't thank you for it. I know a lot---about the British side. I've been giving it to Semnyonovich bit by bit. But there's a lot he doesn't know yet. Also, I'm still working for you----in my way. Why, I'm on a job now! Yes, right now."
"What are you babbling about? What job?" said Dragan. It had not been his intention to shoot Lerner, just to frighten him. Sam's getting out of the line of fire had only been a natural reaction. Shooting was messy and made for bad necromancy. The way Dragan had planned Lerner's death was much more interesting:
When he had obtained all he could get this way, by simple questioning, then they would take Lerner to the bathroom and bind him. They would put him in a bath half full of cold water and Dragan would use one of his surgical sickles to slice his wrists. As he lay there in water rapidly turning red as his life leaked out, then Dragan would re-question him. The promise would be that if Lerner told all, his wounds would be bound and he'd be released. Dragan would show him bandages and surgical tape. But of course, Lerner would have only so much time to respond. All the time the water was darkening with his blood, until he lay in a cold, crimson soup. It would have been a warning, a promise that if Lerner continued to give them trouble, then Dragan and Tabur---or others like them---would be back to finish the job. That is what they would tell Lerner, but of course the job would be finished right there and then.
Even so, still Lerner might hold something back. Something, maybe, which he didn't consider important, something forgotten----maybe something too damning to tell. Maybe, for instance, he was already working for the British....
But whatever he said it would make no difference. When he was dead they would flush his drained corpse with fresh water,, take him out of the bath, and then.....then Dragan would continue to question.
Now Dragan took the gun away from Lerner's forehead, sat down facing him. "I'm waiting," he said. "What job?"
Lerner gulped, tried to force his fear of these men---and his hatred of their strange ESP talents---to the back of his mind. It was there, it wouldn't go away, but for now he must try to ignore it. His life hung by a thread and he knew it. He must organize his thoughts, lie as he'd never done so before. Some of it would be the truth anyway, and of that much at least he could speak with absolute conviction:
"You know I'm a spotter."
"Of course, it's why Semnyonovich sent you here: to find them and kill them. You haven't been too successful, apparently." Dragan's sarcasm was acid.
Lerner ignored that, too. "When I came in here a moment ago---the moment I stepped into this room---I knew you were here. I could almost taste your presence. You're powerful ESPers, both of you. Especially you," he glared at Dragan. "There's a terrific, a monstrous talent in you. It----it hurts me!"
"Semnyonovich told me that," Dragan answered dryly. "But we know about other spotters, Lerner, so quit stalling and get on with it."
"I wasn't stalling. I was trying to explain about the woman I'm going to kill---today!"
Dragan and Tabur exchanged glances. Tabur looked down on the top of Lerner's head and said: "You were going to kill a British ESPer? Why And who is she?"
"It was my way of getting back into Semnyonovich's graces," Lerner lied. "The woman's name is Molly Stewart. She is my stepdaughter. She got her talent---whatever it is----from her mother. Sixteen years ago I killed her, too...." Lerner continued to glare at Dragan. "She fascinated me---and she infuriated me! Is she the one you meant when you said I was 'probably' a killer? No 'probably' about it. Oh, I killed her all right. Like all ESPers, she hurt me. Her talent drove me insane!"
"Never mind her," snapped Dragan. "What about this Stewart woman?"
"That's what I was trying to tell you. With you two, powerful as you are, still I had to actually enter the house to know you were here. But with Molly Stewart...."
"Yes?"
Lerner shook his head. "She's different. Her talent is----vast! I know it is. You see, the bigger it is, the more it hurts. So I'm not only killing her for Semnyonovich but also for myself."
Dragan was interested. He could always finish this thing were Lerner later; but if Molly Stewart was that powerful, he would like to know more about her. And in any case, if she was a member of the British E-Branch it would be like killing two birds with one stone. As his interest grew he forgot to ask Lerner the important question: was Stewart a member of the British E-Branch? And that was something the other wasn't going to volunteer.
"I think we might be able to accommodate you," Dragan said at last. "It's always good when you can reach an understanding with old friends." He put his gun away. "When, exactly, were you going to kill this woman, and how?"
And Lerner told him.
After Lerner had gone back into the house, Molly returned to her car and drove it to the foot of the hill in the direction of Clydebank. Down there she parked again, off the road, then made her way on foot across a field to the river. Frozen over, the area as unfamiliar and made more so by the first feathers of snow where they drifted down from the leaden skies. Everything began to take on the soft, misty aspect of a winter painting.
Molly began to make her way upriver. Her mother's grave was up there somewhere, she couldn't say where exactly. That was one of the reasons she'd come again to this place: to make sure she knew just where she was, that she could find her way under any and all circumstances. Walking on the frozen river, she reached out her mind:
"Mum, can you hear me?"
She was there at once! "Molly, is that you? So close!" And at once her apprehension, her agony of fear for her: "Molly! Is it---now?"
"It's now, Mum. But don't give me any more problems than I have already. I need your help, not your arguments. I don't need anything to trouble my mind."
"Oh, Molly! Molly! What can I say to you? How am I supposed to stop worrying about you? I'm your mother...."
"Then help me. Don't say anything, just be still. I want to see if I can find you, blind."362Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhulgpl4r7j
"Blind? What do you....?"
"Mum, please!"
Constance was silent, but her worry gnawed at Molly, in her head, like the pacing of a troubled loved one in a small room. She kept walking, opened her eyes. She stood in the curve of the overhanging bank, on the thick white ice which formed her mother's tombstone. Constance's marker, and her marker, too. Now she knew she could always find her.
"I'm here, Mum." She crouched down on the ice, scuffled away a thin layer of snow, looked at the heavy jack-handle in her gloved hand. That was the second reason she'd come.
As she began to batter at the ice, Constance said, "I see it all now, Molly. You've been lying to me, deceiving me," she reproached her. "You think there will be problems after all."
"No I don't, Mum. I'm much stronger now, in many ways. But if there is a problem----well, I'd be a fool not to cover all the possibilities."
Here, close to the bank, the ice was a little thicker. Molly began to perspire, but soon she'd made a hole almost three feet across. She cleared as much as she could of the broken ice fragments from the hole and straightened up. Down there, the water swirled blackly. And under the water, under the cold silt and mud....
All done, now Molly must go and quickly. No good to let her sweat grow cold on her. Also, it was starting to snow a little heavier. It started to get dark as the early winter dusk came with the snow. She had time now for a brandy at the hotel, and then, then it would be time for her showdown with Sergei Lerner.
"Molly," her mother called after her one last time as she hurried back across the field to her car. "Molly, I love you! Good luck, daughter....."
One hour later Dragan and Tabur stood behind a clump of young conifers on the riverbank twenty-five or thirty yards upstream of Lerner's house. They'd been there for less than half an hour but already were beginning to feel the cold biting through their clothes. Tabur had commenced a rhythmic swinging of his arms across his chest and Dragan had just lit a cigarette when at last the yellow light above the door to Lerner's courtyard snapped into life----his signal to them that the scene was now set for homicide---and two figures came out into the evening.362Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiOa9cmmDSS
In real time it was not yet night, but the winter darkness was almost that of night and but for the stars and a rising moon, visibility would be poor. The clouds, so dense only 0ne hour ago, and no new snow had fallen; but to the east the sky was black with a heavy burden and what little wind there was came from that direction. It would yet snow tonight, and heavily. But for the moment the stars lit the scene with their cold, soft light and the rising moon made a silver ribbon of the winding river of ice.
As the figures from the house picked their way down to the river Dragan took a last drag on his cigarette behind cupped hands, threw it down and ground it out beneath his heel; Tabur stopped swinging his arms; they both stood like stone and watched the drama unfold.
At the river's rim the two figures shrugged out of their overcoats and placed them on the bank, then adopted kneeling positions as they put on their skates. There was a little conversation, but it was low and the wind was in the wrong direction. Only snatches of talk drifted back to the hidden watchers. Lerner's voice, dark and very deep, sounded openly aggressive to Dragan and wolfish---like the growling of a great dog---and he wondered why Stewart didn't take fright or at least show something of suspicion; but no, the young woman's voice was flat, even and almost carefree, as the two glided out onto the ice and started to skate.
At first they went to and fro, almost side by side, but then the slighter figure took the lead. And moving with some skill she rapidly picked up speed to come skimming upriver towards the spot where the watchers were hiding. Dragan and Tabur crouched down a little then, but at the final moment before she drew level with them Stewart turned in a wide loop which took in the entire breadth of the river and headed back the other way.
Behind her, Lerner had almost slowed to a halt as Stewart made her run. The older man was far less sure on the ice, seemed awkward, even clumsy, by comparison; but as Stewart sped back towards him she now turned to skate in the same direction, but in such a way as to impede the faster man. Stewart leaned over in a slalom at such an angle that her skates threw up a sheet of snow and ice as she missed the other by inches, then threw herself over the other way at a similar angle to bring herself back on the course. And a scant foot away, her skates carved ice on the very rim of the sabotaged circle where fresh-formed ice barely held the central disc in place.
And Lerner was so close on her heels that he, too, must swerve wildly, his arms windmilling, to avoid his own trap! "Careful, Stepfather!" Stewart called back over her shoulder as he sped away. "I almost collided with you then."
Dragan and Tabur heard. Tabur said: "A fortunate young lady, this one----so far."
"Oh?" Dragan wasn't so sure fortune had anything to do with it. Lerner had been unable to specify Stewart's talent: what if she was a telepath? She would have the power to pluck her stepfather's treacherous thoughts right out of his head. "Myself, I think our blackmailer will find this more difficult than he thought."
Lerner had come to a halt now, standing still on the ice in a peculiar hunched stance and watching Stewart intently where she continued to skate. The Russian's shoulders and chest rose and fell spasmodically and his body visibly shook, as if he were in pain or suffering from great emotional stress. "This way, Molly," he called harshly. "This way! You're too good for me, I'm afraid. Why, you could skate rings around me!"
Stewart came back, circled the other's hunched figure, and again. And with each sweep her skates went inches closer to disaster. Lerner held out his arms and Stewart took his hands, spinning round the older man and turning him on his own axis.
"And now," Sam Tabur whispered to Dragan when they looked on, "The coupe de glace!"
Suddenly Lerner stopped turning and appeared to stumble into Stewart. Stewart twisted her body to avoid him. There hands were still locked. One of Stewart's skates dug in where it cut through a skin of powdery snow and into the groove of the channel hacked by Lerner. She was jerked to a halt and only Lerner's grip on her wrists kept her from falling onto the infirm disk of ice.
Lerner laughed then, a crazed, baying laugh, and thrust Stewart away from him---thrust her towards death!
But Stewart held tight to the sleeves of Lerner's coat and as she was pushed so she pulled. Caught off balance Lerner jerked forward; Stewart bent to one side and threw him over her hip----but when she released Lerner, still the Russian held fast to her! With a cry of outrage the older man fell inside his own circle, dragging Stewart after him.
Both of them crashed down in a tangle of ice which at once shifted beneath them. The circle made cracking sounds at its rim, like little gunshots; water spouted up in black jets as the disk tilted then broke in two halves; Lerner gave a cry of horror----a strange, mad cry like a wounded beast---as the semicircle of ice supporting him and Stewart stood on end and tipped them into the freezing, gurgling water.
"Quick, Sam!" Dragan snapped. "We can't afford to lose both of them." He charged from behind the cover of the conifers with Tabur close on his heels.
"Who would you rather save?" the Mongol rasped as they jumped down onto the ice.
"Stewart," he answered immediately, "if that's possible. She'll know more about the British organization than Lerner. And she has this talent of hers---whatever it is."
Even as he spoke those words a fantastic idea had come to Dragan, one he'd never even considered before. If he could "learn" necromancy from an undead Thing and with it steal the thoughts and secrets of the dead, mightn't he also steal their talents? At the Castillo Mikhailov the agents were all allies, working on the same side, towards the same end. But here in England the ESPers were enemies! Why not steal Stewart's as yet unknown talent itself---and use it to his own ends?
From the hole in the river where cakes of ice churned in dark, chaotic water, a great grunting and gasping sounded as Tabur and Dragan drew closer, but as they more cautiously approached the rim itself all sounds ceased and they were greeted only by the gurgle and slap of water moving under and against the ice. For a moment a clutching hand shot dripping into view and clawed at the rim, but before they could make a move to grab it the hand was gone, sucked under.
"This way!" Dragan gasped. "Follow the course of the river!"
"You think there's a chance?" Tabur obviously thought not.
"A very slim one," said Dragan.
They ran on the ice as best they could under a silent moon.
Beneath the ice, tumbled and turned by the current, Molly Stewart somehow got her jacket off and let it go. Under her shirt she wore a rubber wet-suit vest, but still the cold was tremendous. It must surely finish Lerner, who was totally unprotected.
Molly started to swim, kept her head turned sideways with her face against the ice, actually found places where cold air was trapped in shallow pockets. She swam towards her mother, following her stream of troubled thoughts just as she had followed them unerringly two hours ago with her eyes closed. Except then there had been plenty of air to breathe and she had been warm.
Panic gripped her momentarily but she put it out of her mind. Her Mum was over there---that way! She began to swim more strongly----and something grasped at her feet, her legs. Something fastened its grasp on her and clung to her trousers. Lerner! The river was bobbing them along in tandem, like matches down a drain, gluing them together through gravitational attraction.
Molly swam more desperately yet, with her arms, with one leg. She swam as never before, her lungs bursting, her heart a great gong clanging away in her chest. And Lerner clawing his way up her body, his hands like the pincers of a gigantic crab, snatching at Molly as if to pull her to pieces.
This was it; she could swim no more; the water was the black blood of some giant alien into whose veins Molly had been injected, where Lerner was an alien antibody bent on his destruction.
"Mum! Mum! Help me!" Molly cried out with her mind as at last she was forced to draw breath, but drew only icy water which gushed into his straining jaws and nostrils.
"Molly!" she answered at once, loudly, close at hand, her own frantic in her head. "Molly, you're here!"
She kicked backwards, lashed out with both feet at Lerner, and thrust upward with her back and head, crashing herself against the ice cover---which immediately, mercifully, shattered into thin shards as her head and shoulders emerged into air!
And suddenly the water was still and her feet touched a muddy bottom five feet down, and even before her eyes had focused and her battered senses stopped spinning, Molly knew she'd made it. Now she summoned her last reserved, threw out her hands and grasped at tough roots where they projected from the overhanging bank. And slowly she began to draw herself up and out.
Beside her the water swirled and gurgled as from some hidden commotion. Molly half-turned and terror drew her lips back from her teeth---as Lerner's mad face came surging up alongside her, choking and gagging! The madman saw her, spewed water and a babbling scream of rage into his face, clutched at her throat with hands like steel hooks.
Molly brought her knee up into the maniac's groin. Bones broke but still Lerner hung on. He dragged Molly inexorably back, slavered into her face. For a long moment Molly thought he meant to bite her, savage her like a rabid dog! She fought Lerner, slammed her clenched fists again and again into his ghastly face, to no avail. The madman would win. Molly was about to go under....
She reached out again for the tough roots in the riverbank, but Lerner's hands at her throat were shutting off the air, shutting off life itself.
"Mum!" Molly silently cried. "You were right, Mum. I should've listened. I'm sorry."
"No!" came Constance's denial of defeat. "No!" Lerner had killed her, but he must not be allowed to kill her daughter.
And again the bitter water gurgled and churned---but more blackly yet!
Dragan skidded to a halt not fifteen feet away, grabbed at Tabur and drew him also to a standstill. Panting, their breath forming fragile feathers of snow in the air, they looked---they saw---and their jaws fell open. A man and a woman had gone down under the ice back there, had been washed downstream to this hole, and until a moment ago two figures had fought and torn at each other here in the still water beneath the riverbank. But now there were three figures there in the water, and the third one was as terrible a thing as Dragan had ever heard of or imagined or seen in his darkest nightmares!
It was----not alive, and yet it had the mobility of life, the authority of life. And it had purpose. It clung to Lerner, wrapped itself about him, put its mud-and-bones arms around him and its algae and plastered-hair skull against his. Of eyes there were none, but a putrid glow shone out from empty sockets with a semblance of sight. And where before Lerner had only howled and gibbered and laughed like a madman, now he quite literally went mad.
Shriek after shriek pealed out from him as he fought with the awful thing, the shrillest lunatic screeching that Dragan and Tabur had ever thought to hear; and at the very end, just before the horror dragged him under, words which at last the petrified watchers could understand:
"Not you!" Lerner babbled. "Oh God, oh no, not you!"
Then he was gone, and the things of bones and mud and weeds and death with him.....
And Molly Stewart was left to scramble out onto the riverbank.
Tabur might perhaps have gone blindly, numbly after her but Dragan still clutched at his arm. He clutched it, almost for support. Tabur started to adopt his killing crouch but Dragan stopped that, too. "No, Sam," he hoarsely whispered, "we don't dare. We've seen something of what she can do, but what other talents does she possess?"
Tabur understood, relaxed, drew himself upright. On the bank above them Molly Stewart became aware of their presence for the first time. She turned her face towards them, found them, stared at them. Her eyes focused on them at last and she looked as if she might speak, but she said nothing. For long moments they just stared at each other, all three, and then Molly Stewart glanced back at the jagged patch of black water. "Thanks, Mum," she said, simply.
Dragan and Tabur watched as she turned, staggered, stumbled and then began to run weavingly back toward's Lerner's house. They watched her go, and made no attempt to follow. Not yet. When she was out of sight Tabur hissed:
"But that thing, Comrade Dragan? It wasn't---couldn't be----human. So what was it?"
Dragan shook his head. He believed he knew the answer but wouldn't commit himself now. "I'm not sure," he said. "It had been human once, though. One thing is certain: when Stewart needed help it came to her. That's her talent, Sam: the dead answer her call." And he turned to the other, his eyes darker still in sunken orbits.
"They answer her call, Sam. And there are a lot more of the dead than there are of the living!"
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