He remembered a time when, on a lonely stretch of road, this bird had roared by in a little red sports job. He'd bombed after her and forced her off the road into a ditch, then told her he was sorry and it was an accident -but he would be glad to give her a lift to the nearest I garage. Oh, he'd given her a lift, all right, but not to a garage. And then it had been her turn to give him a lift, a really good one, a real high. Johnny had been in a weird mood that night: after killing her he'd chopped a channel up under her jaw and fucked her in the throat. She'd felt it, of course, and how the dead bitch had yelped! Oh, she'd had cock in her throat before, but not coming from that direction.
Thinking about it had got him worked up. He must have one tonight. But not from this place. Maybe he should move on.
And that was when he saw ... he saw... what the shit?
It wasn't possible but ... he had to fight with his eyes to keep them from looking in her direction again. She was just over there; she'd just slid her backside on to a seat in a booth close by; there was a blind guy there, too - or a guy in dark glasses, anyway - but he didn't seem to be with her. She had a coffee, just a coffee, and she was the same as last time. She was exactly the same. And for a moment Johnny's mind whirled, for he could swear he'd had this one before!
How can that be? he asked himself. How can it be? And the answer was simple: it couldn't be. Unless this girl was the other's twin sister ... or her double.'
And then he remembered reading something about that in the papers: how they thought the one he'd had in Edinburgh - Penny, that was her name - was someone else. But then she'd turned up alive: the spitting image of the one he'd screwed, murdered, and screwed again. Stranger still, the one who'd turned up had also been called Penny. Coincidence? Jesus, coincidence! But the biggest coincidence of them alclass="underline" here she was, right now, right here. That is, unless he'd started seeing fucking things.
Slowly Johnny looked up from his food, through the acid-etched, fern-patterned glass dividers which loaned the booths a little privacy, until her face was directly in his line of vision. Maybe for a moment he caught her eye, but just for a moment, and then she looked away. The half-blind guy - the guy with the eye problem, anyway, who shared her booth - had his back to Johnny; but he didn't look much anyway, slumped over his mug of coffee like that. Her father, maybe?
No, her lover, Harry Keogh answered, but silently, speaking only to himself. Her vampire lover, you scumbag.
He had been into Pound's mind from the moment he and Penny had entered the place, and the mental cesspool in there was as rank as anything he'd ever come up against. Together with the necromancer's recognition of Penny as a former victim, or that victim's double, it strengthened Harry's resolve, confirmed his commitment. But as yet Pound's recognition of her hadn't produced the reaction Harry had expected. Curiosity, yes, but not fear. In a way, perhaps that was understandable.
For after all Found knew that the other Penny was dead; he knew that this couldn't be the girl he had violated. Still, his shock had been short-lived and Harry was disappointed. Also, he knew now that he was dealing with a very cool customer. Whether Found would be able to stay cool when confronted with what was on the cards for him... that was something else entirely.
Leaving Johnny's mind, the Necroscope leaned across the table a little toward Penny and quietly said, 'I can see how badly shaken you are. I can feel it, too. I'm sorry, Penny, but just try to stay calm. It won't be long now; when Found leaves I'll go after him; you'll stay here and wait for me. OK?'
She nodded and said, 'You seem very... well, cold about all of this, Harry.'
He shook his head. 'Just determined. But you see, Found is cold, which might give him an advantage if I allowed myself to get too heated.'
As he spoke, Harry saw two men enter the diner from the car park. They seemed ordinary enough but there was something about them. As they moved along the self-service bar collecting cold drinks, their eyes scanned the room, found the Necroscope and Penny in their booth, moved on. Harry went on to probe their minds - and his telepathic probe at once came up against a wall of mental static!
He withdrew immediately. At least one of these men was an esper, which meant E-Branch was closing in ... on both Johnny Found and Harry Keogh! They probably wouldn't try anything in here - maybe not even in the darkness of the car park - but in any case Harry didn't want them on his trail. And they'd obviously figured out that if they followed Found they'd find the Necroscope, too. Now of all times he really couldn't afford this sort of complication.
Now, too, he remembered the car he'd seen tailing Pound's truck out of Darlington: an unmarked police car with... how many men aboard? Two or three? He'd thought they were all policemen but now knew better. Suddenly, coming from nowhere, he felt a growl rising in his throat. His Wamphyri side was reacting to the threat. Aware of Penny's gaze, he stifled the growl at once.
'Harry.' Her voice was concerned. 'You're very pale.'
Fury, my love. 'There's something I must do,' he told her. 'It will mean leaving you here - but only for a minute. You'll be OK?'
'In here, alone with him?' Her eyes were huge and round.
There are fifty people in here,' he answered. And two of them at least are pretty sharp characters. 'I promise I'll be right back.'
She touched his hand and nodded. Then I'll be OK.' But she avoided looking Pound's way.
Harry stood up, smiled a robot's smile at her and went out into the night.
At first, to anyone watching, it would appear that he'd been heading for the gents' toilets, but as he passed close to the swinging glass doors of the exit he turned sharply and pushed through them -
- And as soon as he was outside crouched down, breathed a mist and moved wraithlike between the cars ranked like soldiers on the hard-standing. His Wamphyri senses guiding him, he went straight to the unmarked police car and approached it from the rear. There was a driver, a plain-clothes policeman, with one elbow on the sill and a cigarette dangling from his lips where he sat silhouetted in a steel frame, looking out of his wound-down window into the darkness and breathing the mild night air.
Exuding fog, the Necroscope moved like a low-slung spider - performed a weirdly loping limbo - to draw silently alongside the car. And then he stood up.
The policeman's jaw fell open in a gasp of astonishment as a shadow, coming from nowhere, blocked out the stars and flowed over him; his cigarette flew as the Necroscope hit him once, hard enough to send him sprawling across the front passenger seat.
He was out like a light - or like his cigarette, which Harry ground under his heel. Then he reached inside the car and snapped the key in half in the ignition. So much for that: they wouldn't be following Johnny - or Harry -anywhere in this car. But to be doubly sure he took out Pound's steel-tube knife and drove it into the wall of a tyre until it hissed air and sagged down on to its rim. But as he began to straighten up he glanced into the back of the car and froze.
The Necroscope's eyes were attuned to the night, which was his element. He could see into the back of the car just as clearly as in broad daylight. And there on the back seat, a bulky, ugly, dark-snouted shape which Harry knew at once: a flamethrower. And on the floor back there, the blued-steel glitter of a pair of loaded crossbows. Loaded crossbows!
Harry hissed and crouched down into himself. They were ready for him, all of them. It must be coming soon. Perhaps sooner than he'd anticipated. Bastards! And he was the one who'd showed them how!