When Moradian and his companions returned to Ionesti and the inn, they found Carmen Olinescu pacing the floor of their suite, nervously massaging her long hands. Her relief when she saw them was obvious. Likewise her delight when they told her the operation had been a total success. They weren't eager, however, to detail much of what had transpired in the foothills; looking at their drawn faces, she was smart enough not to pry. They might tell her later, in their own good time.
"So," she said, after they'd had a drink, "the job is done here. We're not needing to stay any longer in Ionesti. It's ten-thirty-late, I know, but I am suggesting we go now. These red tape dolts will arrive soon. Is better if we are not here."
"Red tape?" Picardi looked shocked. "I didn't know you used that term, er, over here!"
"Oh yes," she answered, unsmiling. "Also 'Commie,' and 'Zurich Gnome,' and 'Capitalist dog!'"
"I agree with Carmen," said Moradian. "If we wait we'll only be obliged to brazen it out---or tell the truth. And the truth, while it's verifiable in the long term, isn't immediately believable. No, I can see all kinds of problems coming up if we stay here."
"All true." She nodded, sighing her relief that the Englishman was of a like mind. "Later, if they are determined to talk about this, they can contact me in Bucharest. There I am on my own ground, with the backing of my superiors. I am not for blaming. This was a matter of national security, a liaison of a scientific, preventative nature between three great countries, Romania, Russia, and Great Britain. I am secure. But right now, here in Ionesti, I do not feel secure."
"So let's get to it," said Picardi, with his usual efficiency.
Carmen showed her yellow teeth in one of her infrequent smiles. "No need for getting to it," she informed. "Nothing to get to. I took the liberty of packing your bags! Can we go now, please?"
Without much more ado, they paid the bill and left.
Morozov opted to drive, giving Eldar Polyakov a break. As they sped back towards Bucharest on the right roads, Polyakov on the night roads, Polyakov sat beside Carmen in the back of the car and calmly filled her in as best he could on the story of what had happened in the hills, the monstrous thing they had burned there.
When he was finished she just said, "Your faces told me it must have been like that. I am glad I am not seeing it.....
After his last painful visit, at about 10:00 P.M., Adam Shiveley, had slept like a log in his hotel bedroom for nearly three hours straight. When he woke up he felt fighting fit. All very mysterious; he'd never known an attack of gastroenteritis to come and go so quickly (not that he was sorry it'd gone) and he had no idea what he could've eaten to cause it. Whatever it'd been, the rest of the team had felt no ill effects. It was because he didn't want to let that team down that Shiveley dressed quickly and went to report himself fit for duty.
In the control room (the living area of their main suite of rooms), he found Robert Petley slumped in his swivel chair, head on his folded arms where he sprawled across his "desk": a dining table, cluttered with notes, a log book and a telephone. He was sound asleep with an ashtray piled full of dog-ends right under his nose. A tobacco addict, he probably wouldn't be able to sleep peacefully without it!
Hugh Mede snoozed in a deep armchair while Mike Baxter and Guy Greenway quietly played their own version of Oriental Patience at a small green-baize card table. Greenway, a prognosticator or augur of some talent, played badly, making too many mistakes. "Can't concentrate!" he growlingly complained. "I have this feeling of bad stuff coming---lots of it!"
"Stop making excuses!" said Baxter. "Hell, we know bad stuff's coming! And we know where from. We don't know when, that's all."
"No," Greenway frowned, tossed in his hand. "I mean not of our doing. When we go against Hartley and Matei, that'll be different. This thing I'm feeling is...." he shrugged uneasily, "something else."
"So maybe we should wake up the Fat Man there and tell him?" Baxter suggested.
Greenway shook his head. "I've been telling him for the last three days. It's not specific---it never is---but it's there. You could be right: I'm probably feeling the ding-dong coming up at Hartley House. If so, then trust me it's going to be a good one! Anyway, let old Petley rest. He's tired---and when he's awake the place stinks of bloody weed! I've seen him with three going at once! God, you need a respirator!"
Shiveley stepped around Petley's snoring form to check the roster. Petley had only mapped it out until the end of the afternoon shift. Estley was on now, to be relieved by York, a locator or finder, who in turn would watch Hartley until 8:00 A.M. Then it would be Greenway's turn at 2:00 A.M., followed by Robert Petley. The roster went no farther than that. Shively wondered if that was significant......
Maybe that was what Greenway was feeling: a ding-dong, as he had it, but a little closer than he thought.
York cocked his head to one side, looked at Shively where he studied the roster. "What's up, old son? Still got the runs? You can stop worrying about shift work at Hartley. Robert's pulled you off it."
"Hah-hah!" said Shively, his face blank. "Actually, I'm fine now. And I'm starving! Mike, you can go and jump in your bed if you want. I'll take the next shift. That'll adjust the roster back to normal."
"What a hero!" Baxter gave a soft whistle. "Great! Six hours in bed will suit me just fine." He stood up, stretched. "Did you say you were hungry? There are sandwiches under the plate on the table there. A bit curly by now, but still edible."
Shively started to munch on a sandwich, glancing at his watch. It was 1:15 p.m. "I'll have a quick shower and get on my way. When Petley wakes up, tell him I'm on, right?"
Greenway stood up, went to Shively and stared hard at him. "Adam, is there something on your mind?"
"No," Shively shook his head, then changed his mind. "Yes----I don't know! I just want to get out to Hartley, that's all. Do my part."
Twenty-five minutes later he was on his way.....
Shortly before 2:00 A.M. Shively parked his car on the hard shoulder of the road maybe 1/4 of a mile from Hartley House and walked the rest of the way. The mist had thinned out and the night was starting to look fine. Stars lit his way, and the hedgerow had a nimbus of foxfire to sharpen their silhouettes.
Oddly enough, and for all his terrifying confrontation with Matei's dog, Shively felt no fear. He put it down to the fact that he carried a loaded gun, and that back there in the trunk of his car was a small but quite deadly metal crossbow. After he had seen Luke Estley off duty, he'd bring up his car and park it on Estley's spot.
On his way he met no one, but he heard a dog yapping across the fields, and another answering bark for bark, apparently from miles away. A handful of hazy lights shone softly on the hills, and just as he came in sight of Hartley's gates a distant church clock dutifully gonged out the hour.
2:00 and all's well, thought Shively---except he saw that it wasn't. There was no sign of Estley's unmistakable red Capri, for one thing. And for another there was no sign of Estley.
Shively scratched his head, scuffed the grass where Shively's car should be parked. The wet grass gave up a broken branch, and---no, it wasn't a branch. Shively stopped, picked up the snapped crossbow bolt in fingers that were suddenly tingling. Something was very, very wrong here!
He looked up, staring at Hartley House standing there like a squat sentient creature in the night. Its eyes were closed now, but what was hiding behind the lowered lids of its dark windows?
All of Shively's senses were operating at maximum efficiency: his ears picked up on the rustle of a mouse, his eyes glared to penetrate the darkness, he could taste, almost feel the evil in the night air, and---something stank. Literally. The stench of a slaughterhouse.
Shively took out a pencil-slim torch and flashed it on the grass---which was red, wet and sticky! The cuffs of his trousers were stained a dark crimson with blood. Someone (God, let it not be Luke Estley!) had spilled pints of the stuff right here. Shively's legs trembled and he felt faint, but he forced himself to follow a track, a bloody swath, to a spot behind the hedgerow, hidden from the road. And there it was much worse. Did one man have that much blood!
Shiveley wanted to be sick, but that would incapacitate him and right now he dare not be incapacitated. But the grass---it was strewn with clots of blood, shreds of skin and gobbets of----of meat! Human flesh! And under the narrow beam of his flashlight there was something else, something which might just be----God, a kidney!
Shiveley ran---or rather floated, fought, swam, drifted as in a dream or nightmare---back to his car, drove like a madman back to Paignton, hurled himself into INTESP's suite of rooms. He was in shock, remembered nothing of the drive, nothing at all except what he'd seen, which had seared itself into his mind. He fell into a chair and lolled there, gasping, trembling: his mouth, face, all of his limbs, even his mind, trembling.
Robert Petely had come half-awake when Shiveley rushed in. He saw him, the state of his trousers, the dead white slackness of his face, and was fully alert in an instant. He dragged Shiveley to his feet and slapped him twice, ringing blows that got the color back to Shiveley's cheeks---and blood to his previously blank eyes. Shiveley drew himself up and glared; he growled and showed his gritted teeth, when for Petely like a crazy man.
Mike Baxter and Guy Greenway dragged him off Petely, held him tight---and at last he broke down. Sobbing like a child, finally he told the whole story. The only thing he didn't tell was the one which musts be perfectly obvious: why it had affected him so very badly.
"Obvious, yes," said Petely to the others, cradling Shiveley's head and rocking him like a child. "You know what Adam's talent is, don't you? That's right: he's got this thing that looks after him. What? He could walk through a minefield and come out unharmed! So you see, Shiveley's blaming himself for what happened. He had the shits tonight and couldn't go on duty. But it wasn't anything he ate that queered his guts---it was his damned talent! Or else it would have been Shiveley himself minced out there and not Luke Estley...."
Tuesday, 6:00 A.M: Harry Moradian was shaken rudely awake by Alex Picardi. Morozov was with Picardi, both of them hollow-eyed through travel and lack of sleep. They had stayed overnight at the Dunarea, where they'd checked in just before 1:00 A.M. They had had maybe four hours' sleep; Morozov had been roused by night staff to answer a call from England on behalf of his English guests; Picardi, knowing by means of his talent that something was in the air, had been awake anyway.
"I've had the call transferred to my room," said Morozov to Moradian, who was still gathering his senses. "It is someone called Petely. He is wishing to speak to you. Most vital."
Moradian shook himself awake, glanced at Picardi.
"Something's up," Picardi said. "I've suspected it for a couple of hours. I tossed and turned, sleep all broken up---but too tired to properly respond."
All three in pajamas, they went quickly to Morozov's room. On the way the Russian inquired, "How do they know where you are, your people? It is them, yes? I mean, we had not planned to be here tonight."
Picardi raised an eyebrow in his fashion. "We're in the same business as you, Alik, remember?"
Morozov was impressed. "A finder? Very accurate!"
In Morozov's room Picardi took the call. "Robert? Harry here."
"Harry? We've got a big problem. It's bad, I'm afraid. Can we talk?"
"Can't it go through London?" Moradian was fully awake now.
"That'll take time," Petely answered, "and time's precious."
"Wait," said Moradian. He said to Morozov. "What are the odds of this being monitored?"
The Russian shrugged and shook his head. "None at all that I can see." He stepped to the window, opened the curtains. It would soon be dawn.
"OK, Robert," Moradian spoke into the phone. "Let's have it."
"Righto," said Petely. "IT's just about 4:00 A.M. here. Now go back two hours----" He told Moradian the entire story, then detailed the action he'd taken since Shiveley's hag-ridden drive back to the hotel in Paignton.
"I got Hugh Mede in on it. He was grate. He fixed Estley's location somewhere in the road between Larch Hanholme and Rowendon. Estley and his car, smashed up, burned out. I scried out Mede's fix and he was right, naturally; we were able to say quite definitely that Luke was----that he was dead.
"I contacted the police in Paignton, told them I was waiting for a friend who was a little overdue, gave them his name, description, a description of his car. They said there'd been an accident; he was being cut out of the car; they could tell me no more, but an ambulance was on the scene and the driver of the car would be taken to the emergency hospital in Torquay. For me that was a ten minute drive. I was there when he was brought in. I identified him...." He paused.
"Go on," said Moradian, knowing there must be worse to come.
"Harry, I feel responsible. We should have been tighter. The trouble with this game is that we rely on our talents too damned much! We've almost forgotten how to use simple technology. We should have had walkie-talkies, better contact. We should have given this damned monster more credit for mayhem! I mean, Christ, how could I let this happen? We're espers; we've got special talents; Matei is only one man and we're..."
"He's not just a man!" Moradian snapped. "And we don't have a monopoly on talent. He's got it, too. It's not your fault. Now please tell me the rest of it."
"He.....Luke was----hell, he didn't get those injuries in any car crash! He'd been opened up----gutted! Everything was exposed! His head was----God it was in two halves!"
Despite the horror conjured by Petely's description, Moradian tried to think dispassionately. He'd known Luke Estley well and liked him. But now he must put that aside and think only of the job. "Why the car crash? What did that bastard hope to get out of it?"
"The way I see it," Petely answered, "he was just covering up the murder, and what he'd done to Luke's poor body. The police said there was as strong petrol smell all around and inside the car. I reckon Matei drive Luke out there, put the car in top gear, pointed it downhill and let it roll. Being what he is, a few grazes and cuts wouldn't matter much when he jumped for it. And he probably splashed a lot of petrol around inside the car first, so as to burn the evidence. But the way he'd cut that poor lad up was----Jesus, it was horrible! I mean, why?! Luke must have been dead long before that ghoul was finished. If he was torturing him at least there'd be some sense to it. I mean, however horrible, at least I could understand it. But you can't learn anything from a dead man, now can you?"
Moradian almost dropped the telephone. "Oh, my God!" he whispered.
"Eh?"
Moradian said nothing, stood frozen in sudden shock.
"Harry?"
"Yes, you can," Moradian finally answered. "You can learn an awful lot from a dead man---everything, in fact---if you're a necromancer!"
Petely had had access to the Stewart file. Now it all came back to mind and he saw Moradian's meaning. "You mean like Dragan?"
"I mean exactly like Dragan!"
Picardi had caught most of this. "Good Lord!" He grabbed Moradian's elbows. "He knows all about us. He knows...."
"Everything!" Moradian said, to Picardi and to Petely. "He knows the lot. He dragged it out of Estley's guts, out of his brains, his blood, his poor ruined organs! Robert, now listen, this is important. Did Estley know when you plan to move on Hartley House?"
"No. I'm the only one who knows that. Those were your instructions."
"That's right. Good! Well, we can thank God we got that right, at least. Now listen: I'm coming home. Tonight---I mean today! On the first possible flight. Alex Picardi will stay out here and see this end sewn up, but I'm coming back. Don't wait for me if I can't get down to Devon in time. Go in as planned. Have you got that?"
"Yes." The other's voice was grim. "Oh, yes, I've got that! Christ, and I'm looking forward to it!"
Moradian's eyes narrowed, grew very bright and fierce. "Have Luke's body burned," he said, "just in case.....And then burn Matei. Burn all the blood-sucking bastards!"
Picardi gently took the phone from him and said, "Robert, Alex hear. Listen, this is priority one. Get two of our best men up to Gloudon A.S.A.P. Adam Shiveley especially. Do it now, even before you move on Hartley."
"Righto," Petely answered. "I'll do it." Then he got the point. His gasp was perfectly audible, even over the none-too-clear connection. "Hell, of course I'll do it---right now!"
Wide-eyed and pale, Moradian and Picardi stared at each other. There was no need to give voice to what was on their minds. Dragos Matei had learned almost all there was to learn about them. Estley had access, as had they all, to the Stewart file. A vampire's greatest fear is to be discovered for what he is. He will try to destroy anybody who even suspects him.
INTESP knew what he was, and the focus----the jinni loci----of INTESP was a girl named Molly Stewart......
Adam Shiveley had downed two double brandies in quick succession before insisting on going back on duty. That had been shortly before Petley's call to the Hotel Dunarea in Bucharest. Petely, at first dubious, had at last let Shiveley go back to Hartley, but with this warning: "Adam, stay in your car. Don't leave it, no matter what. I know you've got your juju working, but in this case it mightn't be enough. But we do need someone watching that hellhole, at least until we can get fully mobilized, and so if you're volunteering...."
Shiveley had driven carefully, coldly back to Hartley House and parked on the stiff black grass to where Estley's car had stood. He tried not to thimk about the ground where his car stood, or what had happened there. He as aware of it----would never forget it---but he kept it on the periphery of his consciousness, didn't let it interfere. And so with his gun and loaded crossbow beside him he'd sat there watching the house, never taking his eyes off it for a moment.
Fear had turned to hatred in Shiveley's heart; he was here as a duty, true, but it was beyond that. Matei might just come out, might just show his face, and if he did----Shiveley desperately needed to kill him.
In the house Dragps sat in darkness by his garret window. He, too, had known a little fear, something of panic. But now, like Estley, he was cold, calm and calculating. For now, with one very important exception, he knew all there was to know about the watchers. The one thing he didn't know was when. But surely it'd be soon.
He gazed out into the darkness and could sense the approaching dawn. Down there, beyond the gate, in a car in the field across the road someone else watched. Ah, but this one would be better prepared. Dragos sent his vampire senses reaching into the cold and misty pre-dawn gloom, touched lightly upon a mind. Hatred lashed out at him before the mind sealed itself up---but not before he recognized it. Dragos merely grinned.
He sent his telepathic thoughts down to the vaulted cellars: Vlad, an old friend of yours is keeping a vigil on the house. I want you to watch him. But don't let him see you, and don't try to hurt him. They are wary now, these watchers, and coiled like springs. If you are seen it may not go well for you. So just watch him, and let me know if he moves or does anything other than watch us! Now go....
A huge black shadow, slope-eared, feral-eyed, padded silently up the narrow steps in the little building standing towards the rear of the house. It came out into the grounds, turned toward the gates, kept to the darker areas of trees and shrubbery. Tongue lolling, Vlad hastened to obey......
Dragos called the women down into the main living room on the ground floor. It was totally dark in that room, but each present could see the others perfectly well. Like it or not, night was now their element. When they were assembled, Dragos seated himself beside Penelope on a couch, waited a moment to be sure he had the full attention of the women, then spoke.
"Ladies," he commence, mockingly, his voice low and sinister, "it will soon be dawn. I can't be sure but I rather fancy that it will be one of the final dawns you ever see. Men will come and they will try to kill you. That may not be easy, but they're determined and they'll try very hard."
"Dragos!" His mother at once stood up, her voice shocked, fearful. "What have you done?"
"Sit down!" he commanded, glaring at her. She obeyed, but reluctantly. And when she was perched again on the edge of her chair, he said. "I have done what I must do to defend myself. And you----all of you!----shall be obliged to do likewise, or die. Soon."
Penelope, simultaneously fascinated and terrified by Drago, her skin crawling with fear of him, timorously touched his arm. "I will do whatever you ask me to do, Dragos."
He thrust her way, almost hurled her from the couch. "Fight for yourself, bitch! That is all I ask. Not for me but for yourself----if you wish to live."
Penelope cringed away. "I only...."
"Only be quiet," he snarled. "You must fight for yourself, as I will not be here. I'm leaving with the dawn, when they'd least expect me to leave. But you three shall remain. While you are here they may be fooled into thinking that I am still here." He nodded and smiled.
"Dragos, look at you!" his mother suddenly hissed, her voice venomous. "You were always a monster inside, and now you're a monster outside, too! I don't want to die for you, for even this half-life is better than none, but I don't intend to fight for it. Nothing you can say or do shall make me kill to preserve what you've made of me!"
He shrugged. "Then you'll die very quickly." He turned his eyes on Zoe Williams. "And you, Auntie dear? Will you go to your maker so passively?"
Zoe was wild-eyed, disheveled. She looked mad. "John is dead!" she babbled, her hands flying to her hair. "And Cornelia is---changed. My life is over." She stopped fussing, leaning forward in her chair and glowered at Dragos. "I hate you!"
"Oh, I know that," he nodded. "But will you let them kill you?"
"I'd be better off dead," she answered.
"Ah, but such a death!" he said. "You saw John go, Auntie dear, and so you know how hard it was. The stake, the cleaver, and the fire."
She sprang to her feet, shook her head wildly. "They wouldn't! People----don't!"
"But these people do," he gazed at her wide-eyed, almost innocently, aping her expression. "They will, for they know what you are. They know that you're Wamphyri!"
"We can leave this place!" Zoe cried. "Come on, Cornelia, Penelope---we'll leave right now!"
"Yes, go!" Dragos snapped, as if done with them, utterly sick of tired of them. "Do go, all of you. Leave me---go now...."
They looked at him uncertainly, blinking their yellow eyes in unison. "I won't stop you," he told them with a shrug. He got to his feet, made to leave the room. "No, not I. But they will! They'll stop you dead! They're out there now, watching, waiting."
"Dragos, where are you going?" His mother stood up, looking as if she might even try to take hold of him, restrain him. He forced her back with nothing but a growl of warning, swept by her.
"I've got preparations to make," he said, "for my departure. I imagine that you, too, will have certain final things you want to do. Prayers to some non-existent god, perhaps? Cherished photographs to look at? Old friends and lovers to remember, while you may?" And sneering, he left them to their own devices......
Tuesday
8:40 A.M (middle European time)
Bucharest Airport
Harry Moradian's flight was due to leave in twenty-five minutes and the passengers had just been called forward. Moradian would be in Rome in 2 1/2 hours: given that there would be no problems with the connection, he'd be into Heathrow around 2:00 P.M. local time. With a bit of luck he'd reach his destination in Devon with half a hour to spare before Robert Petely and his team went in and "cleaned up" at Hartley House. Even if his timings were wrong, Petely should still be in situ at the house when finally he did arrive. The final stages of his journey would be by MOD helicopter from Heathrow down to Torquay, and on to Paignton in an air-sea rescue chopper courtesy of the Torquay coastguard.
Moradian had made these last-minute arrangements by telephone from the airport via Leonard Hewes in London as soon as he'd discovered that he couldn't get a flight until now. And mercifully, for once, he'd got the call through without too much trouble.
On hearing the call for embarkation, Alik Morozov stopped forward and took Moradian's hand. "Much has happened in a short time," the Russian psychic said. "But to know you has been---a privilege." They shook hands awkwardly but both mean meant it. Eldar Polyakov was much more open: he hugged Moradian close and kissed his cheeks. Moradian shrugged and grinned, he hoped not too sheepishly. He was only glad he'd said his farewells to Carmen Olinescu the previous night. Alex Picardi nodded and gave him a thumbs-up signal.
Morozov carried Moradian's hand luggage to the departure gate. From there Moradian went on alone, through the gates and out onto the asphalt, finding a space in the jostling line of passengers. He looked back once, waved, turned and hurried on.
Picardi, Morozov and Polyakkov watched him go, waiting until he rounded the corner of the massive air control tower and so out of sight. Then they quickly left the airport. Now they were ready to commence their own journey: up into old Moldavia, where they'd cross the Soviet border by car over the River Prut. Morozov had already made the needed arrangements....thorough his Second in Command, of course, at the Castillo Mikhailov.
Out on the airfield, Moradian approached his plane. Close to the foot of the mobile boarding stairway, uniformed aircrew saluted him and checked his boarding pass one last time. A smiling official stepped forward, glanced at Moradian's boarding pass. "Mr. Moradian? One moment please." His voice was bland, conveyed nothing. Nor did Moradian's inbuilt warning system. Why should it? There was nothing outside of nature here. On the contrary, what was coming was very down-to-earth---but terrifying for all that.
As the last of the passengers disappeared into the body of the aircraft, three men emerged from behind the stairs. They wore lightweight overcoats and dark gray felt hats. Though their clothes were intended to lend anonymity, they were almost a uniform in their own right, an unmistakable mode of identification. Even if Moradian hadn't known them, he would have recognized the cases one of them was carrying. His cases.
Two of the KGB men, unsmiling, restrained him while the third moved up very close, put down his suitcases and took his cabin luggage. Moradian felt a stab of fear, a moment of panic.
"Need I introduce myself?" The Soviet agent's eyes bored into Moradian's.
Moradian found his nerve, shook his head and managed a rueful smile. "I think not," he answered. "How are you this morning, Mr. Alexeyeva? Or should I just call you Makar?"
"Try 'Comrade,'" said Alexeyeva without humor. "That will suffice...."
Whatever Dragos Matei's intentions had been, he had not left Hartley House at dawn.
At 5:00 A.M. Mike Baxter and Guy Greenway arrived to relieve Adam Shiveley, who then returned to Paignton. At 6:00 A.M. Hugh Mede joined Greenway and Baxter; the three split up, formed points of triangulation. An hour later there were two more men, reinforcements Petely had earlier called down from London. All of these arrivals were dutifully reported by Vlad, until Dragos cautioned the huge dog and ordered him down to the cellars. It was broad daylight now and Vlad would be seen coming and going. The Alsatian was Dragos's rearguard and no harm must come to him just yet.
The enemy's numbers had penned Dragos in; but just as bad from his point of view was the fact that the day was cloudless, the risen sun bright and strong. The mists of the night had soon been steamed away, and the air was clear and smelled fresh. Behind the house, beyond the wall that marked the boundary of the grounds, woods rose to the top of a low hill. There was a track through the woods and one of the watchers had somehow managed to get his vehicle up there. He sat there now, watching the house through binoculars. Dragos could easily have seen him through one of the upper story rear windows, but he didn't need to. He sensed that he was there.
At the front of the house were two more watchers: one not far from the gate, standing beside his car, the other fifty yards away. Their weapons were not visible but Dragos knew they had crossbows. And he knew the agony a hardwood bolt would cause him. Two more men guarded the flanks, one at each side of the house, where they could look into the grounds across the walls.
Dragos was trapped---for the moment.
Fight? He couldn't even leave the house without them seeing him. And those crossbows of theirs would be deadly accurate. The day wore on through midday and into the afternoon, and Dragos began to sweat. At 3:00 P.M. a sixth man came on the scene---driving a truck. Dragos watched carefully from behind he curtains at his garret window.
The driver of the truck must be the leader of these damned psychic spies. The leader of this group, at least. He was fat, but in no way clumsy; his mind would be hard and clear, except he guarded his thoughts like gold. He began to distribute indeterminate items of heavy equipment in canvas containers, also jerrycans, food and drink, to the other men. He spent a little time with each of them, speaking to them, demonstrated with certain pieces of equipment, gave instructions. Dragos sweated more yet. He knew now it would be this evening. Traffic rolled as always on the autumn road; couples walked together in the sunshine hand in hand; birds sang in the woods. The world looked the same as it always looked----but those men out there had determined that this would be Dragos Matei's final day.
Using what cover he could find, the vampire risked his neck making excursions outside the house. He used a rear ground floor window where it was shrouded by shrubbery, also the, also the cellar exit through the out-building. Twice, if he'd been fully prepared, he might have made a break for it, when the watchers to the rear and at one side of the house went down to the road for their supplies; on both occasions they returned while he was still calculating the odds. Dragos grew still more nervous, his thinking becoming very erratic.
Back in the house, whenever he crossed tracks with one of the women, he would lash out, shout, curse. His nervousness transferred itself to Vlad and the great dog prowled the empty cellars to and fro, to and fro.
Then, about 4:00 P.M., suddenly Dragos was aware of weird psychic stillness, the mental lull before the storm. He strained his vampire senses to their fullest extent and could detect----nothing! The watchers had screened their minds, so that not even a trace of their thoughts---their intentions---could escape. In doing so they gave away their final secret, they told Dragos the time they had planned for his death.
It was to be now, within the hour, and the light only just beginning to fade as the sun lowered itself towards the horizon.
Dragos put fear aside. He was Wamphyri! These men had powers, true, and they were strong. But he, too, had powers. And he might yet prove to be stronger.
He went down into the cellars and spoke to Vlad: You've been faithful to me as only a dog can be, he said, facing the great beast, their yellow eyes locked, but you are more than a dog. Those men out there might suspect that, and they might not. Whichever, when they come, you go out first to meet them. Give no quarter. If you survive, seek me out...
And then he "spoke" to the Other, that loathsome extrusion of himself. It was the implanting of suggestions in a blank space, the imprinting of an idea on a void, the burning of a brand into an animal's hide. Floor flags buckled in one dark corner, the ground underfoot shifted and dust fell in rills from the low vaulting. That was all. Maybe it had understood, and maybe not.....
Finally Dragos returned to his room. He changed his clothes, put on a neutral gray track-suit and shoved his wide-brimmed hat into the waistband. He neatly folded a suit of clothes into a small traveling case, along with a wallet containing a good deal of money in large notes. That was that; he needed nothing else.
Then, as the minutes ticked by, he sat down, closed his eyes and pitted his own dark nature against the great Mother Nature herself in one final test of his now mature vampire powers. He willed a mist, called up a wreathing white screen from the earth and the streams and the woods, a clinging fog down from the hillsides.
The watchers, tense now and taut as the strings of their crossbows, scarcely noticed the sun slipping behind the clouds and the ground mist creeping at their ankles; as a man, their attention was riveted on the house.
And time moved inexorably towards the appointed hour.....
Adam Shiveley drove furiously north. He had cursed aloud until his throat was raw and then silently until his cursing had come down to one four-letter word repeated over and over again in his fuming mind. What his fury amounted to was this: he wouldn't be in on the kill. He was out of the attack on Hartley. Now, instead, he was to be minder-in-chief to a----a tiny infant!
Shiveley was well aware of the importance of his new task and understood the purpose of it: with his talent it was unlikely that any harm would come to him. And so, if he was shielding the young Molly Stewart, the baby should likewise be safe. But to Adam's way of thinking, prevention was better than cure. Stop Matei dead at Hartley House, and you won't have to worry about the baby at all. And if he, Adam Shiveley, was at Hartley---if only he was there---then guarantee Matei would be stopped!
But he wasn't there, he was here, driving north for that godforsaken hellhole Glouden....
On the other hand, he knew that every single man of them back there was equally dedicated to Matei's destruction. Which helped a little.
Shiveley had got back to Paignton before 6:00 A.M. and Petley had ordered him straight into bed. Later, he said, he would have a big job for him and wanted him to get at least six hours' sleep. Finally Shiveley had dozed off, and though he'd feared the very worst dreams none had come. At noon Petley had shaken him awake, told him what his new job was. Since when Shiveley had been driving, and cursing.
He had joined the MI at Leicester, then picked up the A19 at Thirsk. He was now something less than one hour from his destination, and the time was (he glanced at the watch)---4:50 P.M.
Shiveley stopped cursing. God! What would it be like right now, down there?
"Where the hell did this mist spring from?" Hugh Mede shivered, turning up the collar of his coat. "Hell, it was a nice day, from the weather point of view, at least." for all his vehemence, Mede spoke in a whisper.313Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqtqJ4h3YJJ
All of the INTESP agents, at their various stations around Hartley House, had been speaking in whispers for the past twenty minutes. At 4:30, working for Petley's instructions, they'd formed pairs---which was just as well, as the mist had thickened up and started to threaten their individual security. It felt good to have someone really close to.
Mede's "buddy" in the system was Mike Baxter the locator. He was shivering, too, despite the fact that he carried seventy-eight pounds of Brissom Mark III flamethrower on his back. "I'm not sure," he finally answered Mede's question, "but I think it's from him." He nodded towards the house where it stood swathed in mist.
They were just inside the north wall, at a place where they'd found a gap in the stonework. Just one minute ago, at 4:50, they'd checked their watches and squeezed through, and Mede had helped Baxter into his asbestos leggings and jacket. Then they'd strapped the tank on his bank and he'd checked the valve on the hose and trigger mechanism. With the valve open, all he had to do was squeeze the trigger and he could conjure up an inferno. And he fully intended to.
"Him?" Mede frowned. he looked around at the mist. It crept everywhere. From here the rear wall up the hillside was invisible; likewise the wall fronting onto the road. Ralph Longton and Guy Greenway coming up the driveway from the gate. They would all converge on the house together, at 5:00 P.M. sharp. "Who do you mean 'him?' Matei?" Mede led the way through shrubbery towards the dimly looming mass of the house.313Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMFqRNVw8we
"Matei, yes," Baxter answered. "I'm a locator, remember? It's my scene."
"What's that got to do with the mist?" Mede's nerves were starting to jump. He was a telepath of unsure skill, but Petley had warned him not to try it on Matei---and surely not at this crucial stage of play.
"When I try to find him in my mind's eye," Baxter attempted to explain, "inside the house there, I can't zero in on him. It's as if he were part of the mist. That's why I think he's somehow behind it. I sense him as a huge amorphous cloud of fog!"
"Jesus!" Mede whispered, shivering again. In utter, eerie silence they moved towards the small outbuilding, whose open door led down to the cellars.....
* * *
Ralph Longton and Guy Greenway approached the house from the gently sloping field of shrubs at its rear. There wasn't too much cover so the mist was a boon to them. So they thought. Longton was a telepath, called down from London along with as reinforcements. Longton and Greenway weren't quite as au fait with the situation as the rest, which was why they'd been split up.
"What a team we make, eh?" said Greenway nervously as the ground leveled out and the mist billowed up more yet. "You with that great bloody torch on your back---and me with a crossbow? You know, if this stakeout is a bust, we're going to look awfully..."
"Go!" Longton cut him short, dropped to one knee and worked furiously at the valve on his hose.
"What?" He couldn't see anything, but he knew Greenway's talent lay in reading the future---especially the immediate future!
"It's coming!" Greenway no longer whispered. In fact, he was shouting. "It's coming---NOW!'
At the front of the house, where Hugh Mede and Mike Baxter pulled up in Petley's truck, Greenway's shouting wasn't heard over the throbbing of the vehicle's engine. But on the north-facing side of the house it was. Ralph Longton, hampered by his flame-thrower load, was slower off the mark.
Longton, stumbling through damp shrubbery, saw Mede's figure swallowed into a rolling bank of mist where he ran past the open door in the small outbuilding---then saw something erupt from that door in a snarling, slavering frenzy! Matei's great dog! Without pause the flame-eyed brut hurled itself into the mist after Mede.
"Hugh, behind you!" Longton yelled at the top of his voice. He yanked open the valve on his hose, jerked the trigger, prayed: God, please don't let me burn Hugh!
A roaring, gouting stream of yellow flame tore open the curtain of mist like a blowtorch through cobwebs. Mede was already around the corner of the house, but Vlad was still in view, bounding purposefully after him. The expanding, blistering "V" of heat reached after the dog, touched him, enveloped him----but briefly. Then he, too, was round the corner.
By now, at the front of the house, Hugh Mede and Mike Baxter were down from the truck were down from the truck. Mede heard shouting, the roar of a flame-thrower. It was still a minute or two to five but the attack had commenced---which probably meant that the other side had started it. Mede put a police whistle to his lips, gave one short blast. Now, whatever else was happening, all six INTESP agents would move on the house together.
Mede had the third flame-thrower; he headed straight for the main door of the house where it stood ajar in the shadow of a columned portico. Baxter followed. He was a human polygraph; his talent had no application here, but he was also young, fast-thinking and he knew how to take care of himself. As he made to follow Mede something caught his attention: a furtive movement glimpsed in the very corner of his eye.
Twenty-five yards away between billowing banks of mist, a flowing figure had passed swiftly and silently inside the shell of the old barn. Who or whatever had had gone in there, there would be nothing to stop it from clearing off out of the grounds once Mede and Baxter were inside the house. "Oh no you don't!" Baxter grunted. And raising his voice: "Hugh, in the barn there."
Mede, at the door of the house, turned to see Baxter running at a crouch towards the barn. Cursing under his breath, he strode after him.
At the back of Hartley House, Vlad came coughing and mewling out of the mist and attempted to spring at the three men he found there. The dog was a blackened silhouette sheathed in smoke and flame, burning even as he launched himself lopsidedly at Mede's back.
As Mede had come running round the corner of the building, Greenway had nearly triggered his flame-thrower, he'd recognized Mede only at the last possible moment. Ralph Longton, on the other hand, had actually drawn a bead on the misted figure and was in the act of firing his bolt when Greenway cried a warning and shouldered him aside. The bolt flashed harmlessly off at a tangent and vanished in mist and distance. Fortunately Mede had seen the two men---saw them apparently aiming at him----and thrown himself down. He hadn't seen what pursued him, however, which even now overshot his sprawled body and arced overhead in a cloud of sparks and smolder. Vlad landed awkwardly, gathered himself to spring at Baxter and Greenway, and discovered himself forging head-on into a jet of flame from Greenway's torch. The dog crumpled to earth, a blazing, crackling, screaming ball of flame that tried to run in all directions at once and ran nowhere.
Mede got to his feet and the three men stood panting, watching Vlad burn. Baxter had fumblingly reloaded his crossbow; he thought he saw something move in the mist and turned in that direction. What was that? A loping shape? Or---merely his imagination? The others didn't seem to have noticed; they were watching Vlad.
"Oh my God!" Mede gasped. Baxter saw the look on Mede's face, forgot the thing he'd thought he'd seen, turned to watch the death throes of the incandescent dog.
Vlad's blackened body throbbed and vibrated, burst open, put up a nest of tentacles that twined like alien fingers four or five feet into the air. Mouthing obscenities, eyes bulging, Greenway hosed the thing down with fire. The tentacles steamed, blistered and collapsed but the dog's body went on pulsating.
"Jesus Christ!" Mede moaned his horror. "The bastard's changed the dog, too!" He unhooked a cleaver from his belt, moved forward, shielded his eyes against the blaze and severed Vlad's head from his body with one single clean stroke.
Mede backed off, shouted at Greenway: "You finish it---make sure you finish it! I heard Petley's whistle just now. Mike and I will go on in."
As Greenway went on burning the remnants of the dog-thing, Mede and Baxter went stumbling through smoke and reek to the rear wall of the house, where they found an open window. They looked at each other, then licked their lips nervously in unison. Both of them were breathing raggedly of the sodden, rotten air.
"C'mon," said Mede. "Cover me." He aimed his crossbow in front of him, swung his leg across the window sill....
In the barn Ralph Longton pulled up short, his square face alert, ears attentive to the silence. The silence said there was nobody here, but it was lying. Longton knew it as surely as if he sat behind a one-way window and listened in on an important interrogation by police of big-time criminals. The picture here was false, a lie.
Old farm implements were strewn everywhere. The mist, billowing in through the open ends of the building, had turned old steel slick with a kind of metallic sweat; chains and worn tires hung from hooks in the walls; a stack of tongue-and-groove board teetered uncertainly, as if recently disturbed. Then Longton saw the wooden steps ascending into gloom, and at the same time a single stem of straw where it came drifting down.
He drew air in a sharp gasp, turned his face and crossbow up towards the badly gapped boarding overhead---and was just in time to see a woman's insanely working face framed there, and hear her hiss of triumph as she launched a pitchfork at him! Longton had no time to aim, just pulled the trigger.
The pitchfork's sharp offside tine missed him but its twin scraped under his collar bone and passed through his right shoulder, driving him down and backwards. At the same time there came a mad, babbling shriek to end all shrieks, and Zoe Williams crashed through rotten boards in a cloud of dust and powdery straw. She landed flat on her back, with Longton's bolt sticking out of her chest dead center. The bolt alone should have done for her , and the fall surely, but she was no longer wholly human.
Longton lay against the side wall and tried to pull the pitchfork out of his shoulder. There was no strength in him; he couldn't do it; pain and shock had left him weak as a kitten. He could only watch and try to keep from blacking out as Dragos Matei's "auntie" crept towards him on all fours, grabbed the pitchfork and yanked it viciously free. And then Longton did black out.
Zoe Williams drew back the pitchfork, growling like a big cat as she aimed it at Longton's heart. Behind her, Guy Greenway grabbed the fork's wooden handle, hauled on it and threw her off-balance. She howled her frustration, fell on her back again, grasped the bolt in her chest with both hands and tried to draw it out. Greenway, impeded by the apparatus on his back, lumbered by her, took hold of Longton by the front of his jacket and somehow managed to drag him clear of the barn. Then he turned back, aimed his hose, and applied a firm and steady pressure to the trigger.
The barn was at once transformed into a gigantic oven; heat fire and smoke filled it floor to tiled roof, spilling out of its open ends. And in the center of it all something screamed and screamed, a wildly hissing, rising scream that at last shut itself off as the upper floor collapsed and tipped blazing hay down into the roaring inferno. And still Greenway kept his finger on the trigger, until he knew that nothing---nothing could have survived in there...
At the back of the house, Ralph Longton found Greenway burning Vlad. Mede had just stepped in through the open window and Baxter was about to follow him. "Hold it!" Baxter shouted. "You can't work two crossbows together!" He came forward. "I'll go in this way," he told Longton, "with Mede. You stick with Greenway and go round the front. Move it!"
As Baxter clambered awkwardly in through the window, Longton dragged Greenway away from the cindered, smoking thing that had once been Vlad and jerked his thumb towards the far corner of the house. "That thing's finished," he shouted, "so now get a hold of yourself! Come on---the others'll be inside by now."
They rapidly made their way through the mist-shrouded gardens on the south side of the house, and saw Petley turn away from the burning barn and drag Longton out of the danger zone. Petley saw them, yelled: "What the hell's going on?"
"Greenway burned the dog," Baxter yelled back. "Except it wasn't----wasn't a dog---not any more!"
Petley's lips drew back from his teeth in a half-snarl, half-grimace. "We got Zoe Williams," he said, as Longton and Greenway came closer. "And, of course, she wasn't all woman! Where're Mede and Baxter?"
"Inside," said Greenway. He was shaking, rivered in sweat. "And it's not over yet, Mike. Not yet. There's more to come!"
"I've tried scanning the house," Petley said. "Nothing! Just a fog in there. A mental fuckin' fog! Pointless trying, anyway. Too damned much going on!" He grabbed Greenway. "You OK?"
Greenway nodded. "I think so."
"Right. Now listen. Thermite bombs in the truck; plastic explosives, too, in haversacks. Dump 'em in the cellars. Spread 'em out. Try to take 'em all down in one go. And no torching while you're holding the stuff! In fact get out of that kit and take a crossbow like Baxter. The stuff's all set to go off from excessive heat or naked flame. Plant it and get out---and then stay out! Three of us in the house itself should be enough. If not---the fire will be."
"You're going in there?" Greenway looked at the house, licked his lips.
"Yes, I'm going in there," Petley nodded. There's still Matei, his mother and the girl to account for. And don't worry about me. Worry about yourself. The cellars could be far worse than the house." He headed for the open door under the columned portico....
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