But Duca was too quick and too strong. It dragged Terence up off the floor, and swung him around in a circle, so that he was standing between us. By the sputtering light of the flare, I could see that it was holding its knife across Terence’s throat. Terence was staring at me in panic.
“Now I am going to leave you,” said Duca, its voice hoarse with effort. “But in case you are thinking of showing me any more of your mirrors, or opening any more of your Bibles, I am going to take this fellow with me, for my security.”
“No! I’ll let you go, I promise you. You can walk out of here and take your wheel and I won’t do anything to stop you. Just don’t hurt him, OK?”
“Do you think I believe you? I know who you are. I know what you are.”
“I’m coming after you, Duca,” I warned it. “If you so much as scratch him, I’m going to make sure that you have the most agonizing death that any Screecher ever suffered, and that’s a promise.”
“Jim — ” choked Terence, but Duca pressed the blade of his knife right up against his Adam’s apple, so that he couldn’t say any more.
“Just stay calm, Terence,” I told him. “Do what Duca tells you, and you won’t get hurt.”
Duca smiled. “Who are you to make promises on my behalf? We shall see what happens to your friend when it happens.”
With that, it pulled Terence back toward the darkroom door and opened it. Then, with unbelievable speed, it dragged him off along the corridor toward the stairs. It was like watching a flickery old black-and-white horror movie.
I ran after them, but before I could even reach the head of the stairs I heard the front door slam, and I knew that they were gone.
Body Count
I clattered down the stairs and into the street, but there was no sign of them. I saw a black saloon pulling away from the curb on the opposite side of the road, with a puff of exhaust, but I couldn’t make out who was driving it.
I needed a man-trailing dog, and I needed it fast. But Terence had the keys to the car and without the keys I couldn’t get access to the radio-telephone to call for assistance. The counterintelligence corps had trained me how to fire a whole variety of weapons from crossbows to bazookas, and how to break down a reinforced door using explosives, but they had never taught me how to hot-wire a car.
I looked around. Only about thirty yards along the road, on the corner of Allenby Avenue, stood a lighted red phone booth. I panted my way up to it. Inside, chattering and laughing and smoking a cigarette, there was a plump-faced girl with a ponytail. She was wearing a pink skirt with so many net petticoats underneath it that it practically filled up the whole booth, and a white back-to-front cardigan, and pink popper beads. I rapped on the window and mouthed, “Are you going to be long, honey? I have an emergency!”
She opened the door and a cloud of smoke came out. “What’s the matter with you, mate? I’m talking to my boyfriend!”
“I have an emergency. I really need to use the phone.”
“I just put three bob in. Go and have your emergency somewhere else.”
I took out my wallet and pulled out a ten-shilling note. “There. You’ve made seven bob profit. Now can I use the phone?”
I called MI6 control. As it happened, Charles Frith was still in his office, and the operator put me directly through to him.
“Captain Falcon? You were lucky to catch me, old man. What’s the latest? Mission accomplished, I hope?”
I told him what had happened. He listened in silence. The only time he interrupted was when he said, “A flare?”
“Just because the strigoi come from a bloodline that’s over three thousand years old, that doesn’t mean they’re not technically sophisticated. Duca turned the tables on us completely. It blinded us, and at the same time it gave itself all the light it needed to see in the dark.”
“Well, look here, I’ll get in touch with Inspector Ruddock and get him to start looking for Mitchell right away. As for a dog, perhaps Miss Foxley has recovered sufficiently to help you out. She’s nearest, after all. If she’s still hors de combat, let me know right away, and I’ll arrange to have another dog handler sent down.”
“OK. I’ll call you when I get to Miss Foxley’s.”
“Good man. By the way, a Mrs. Rosemary Shulman has been trying to get in touch with you, from the Home Office. She rang two or three times, so far as I know. Daphne’s got her number.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Captain Falcon — ”
“Yes, sir?”
“You will keep a very low profile, won’t you? I’ve had the press hounding me all day. Sooner or later, one of the buggers is going to find out what we’re up to.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hung up. The girl with the petticoats said, “About bloody time, too. My boyfriend’s probably left me for somebody else by now.”
“A terrific-looking girl like you? He’d have to be nuts.”
“Oh,” she said, flattered, and giggled.
I went back into the South Croydon Observer building and collected up my Kit. The building was dark, and it echoed, and it smelled strongly of burned-out flare. I was reminded of World War Two, searching through bombed-out apartments for signs of Screechers.
When I had reassembled my Kit and shut the case, I went back outside to flag down a black taxi. I asked the cabbie to take me to Jill’s house in Purley, which was only about five minutes away.
“I’ll be glad when this bleedin’ ’eat lets up,” complained the cabbie, with a skinny cigarette dangling between his lips. “Makes me feet swell up like bleedin’ balloons.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“Then there’s all this Korean Flu going around. People dropping like bleedin’ flies. That’s all because of the ’eat, if you ask me, and they say that next year’s going to be even ’otter. Do you know what I was readin’? By the year nineteen-seventy-nine, the ’ole of England’s goin’ to be like the Sahara desert, and we’ll all be ridin’ around on bleedin’ camels.”
We reached the Foxleys’ house and I asked the cabbie to wait. The Foxleys were obviously at home, because the drapes were drawn and the living room lights were on, but the house seemed unusually quiet. I couldn’t even hear a TV.
After a few moments, however, Mr. Foxley opened the door, holding Bullet by his collar.
“Captain Falcon!” he blinked. “We weren’t expecting you, were we?”
“No, you weren’t. But we have a crisis on our hands, and I was wondering if Jill could maybe help us out.”
Without hesitation, Mr. Foxley shook his head. “I’m sorry, Captain, but Jill isn’t very well at all. She’s been in bed since yesterday, and we’ve had the doctor around twice.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with her?”
“She’s very feverish. The doctor thinks it might be Korean Flu. He’s given her something to keep her temperature down, but I don’t think she’s out of the woods yet.”
“I’m very sorry to hear it. The problem is, I desperately need a tracker dog.” I looked down at Bullet, who was straining so hard against his collar that he was wheezing. I thought: I’ve seen how Corporal Little handled Frank. I’ve seen how Jill handles Bullet. It can’t be too difficult to manage a man-trailer. They go running off on their own most of the time.
“Maybe I could take Bullet myself,” I suggested.
“Oh. I’m not so sure about that. I mean, Jill and Bullet, they’re tremendously close. I don’t know whether he’d take instructions from anybody else.”