‘But aren't you from the Ministry?' Kyle was alarmed. ‘I mean, we have to get the job done!'
They had driven out early that morning to the spot where almost two decades ago Ilya Bodescu's body had been recovered from a tangle of undergrowth and densely grown firs on a steep south-facing slope of the cruciform hills. And when they had climbed higher, then they'd come across Thibor's mausoleum. There, where lichen-covered slabs had leaned like menhirs under the motionless trees, all three psychics — Kyle, Quint and Krakovitch alike — had felt the still extant menace of the place. They had left quickly.
Wasting no time, Irma had called up her team of civil engineers, a foreman and five men, based in Pitesti. Through Krakovitch, Kyle had put a question to the hardhat boss.
‘Are you and your men used to handling this stuff?'
‘Thermite? Oh, yes. Sometimes we blast, and sometimes we burn. I've worked for you Russians before, up north in Berezov. We used it all the time — to soften up the permafrost. Can't see the point of it here, though.
‘Plague,' said Krakovitch at once, by way of explanation. It was an invention of his own. ‘We've come across old records that tell of a mass burial of plague victims right here. Although it was three hundred years ago, the soil deep down is still likely to be infected. These hills have been redesignated arable land. Before we let any unsuspecting farmer start ploughing it up, or terracing the hillside, we want to make sure it's safe. Right down to the bedrock!'
Irma Dobresti had caught all of this. She had raised an eyebrow at Krakovitch but said nothing.
‘And how did you Soviets get involved?' the hardhat had wanted to know.
Krakovitch had anticipated that one. ‘We dealt with a similar case in Moscow just a year ago,' he had answered. Which was more or less the truth.
Still the hardhat had been curious. ‘And the British?' Now Irma stepped in. ‘Because they may have a similar problem in England,' she snapped. ‘And so they're here to see how we deal with it, right?'
The ganger hadn't minded facing up to Krakovitch, but he wasn't going to go against Irma Dobresti. ‘Where do you want your holes?' he'd asked. ‘And how deep?'
By just after midday the preparations were completed. All that remained was for the detonators to be wired up to a plunger, a ten minute job which for safety's sake could wait until tomorrow.
Carl Quint had suggested, ‘We could finish it now…ut Kyle had decided against it. ‘We don't really know what we're playing with here,' he'd answered. ‘Also, when the job's done, I don't want to hang about but get straight on with the next phase Faethor's castle in the Khorvaty. I imagine that after we've burned this hillside there'll be all kinds of people coming up here to see what we've been up to. So I'd prefer to be out of it the same day. This afternoon Felix has travel arrangements to see to, and I've a call to make to our friends in Devon. By the time that's done the light will be failing, and I'd prefer to work in daylight after a good night's sleep. So —‘
‘Sometime tomorrow?'
‘In the afternoon, while the sun's still slanting onto that hillside.'
Then he'd turned to Krakovitch. ‘Felix, are these men going back to Pitesti today?'
‘They will be,' Krakovitch answered, ‘if there is nothing else for them to do until tomorrow afternoon. Why are you asking this?'
Kyle had shrugged. ‘Just a feeling,' he said. ‘I would have liked them to be closer at hand. But —,
‘I, too, have had a feeling,' the Russian answered, frowning. ‘I am thinking, nerves — perhaps?'
‘That makes all three of us then,' Carl Quint had added. ‘So let's hope that it is just nerves and nothing else, right?'
All of that had been mid-morning, and everything had appeared to be going smoothly. And now suddenly there was this threat of outside interference. Between times Kyle had made his call to Devon, taking two hours to get through, and had arranged for the strike against Harkley House. ‘Damn it!' he snapped now. ‘It has to be tomorrow. Ministry or none, we've got to go ahead with this.'
‘We should have done it this morning,' said Quint, ‘when we were right on top of it.
Irma Dobresti stepped in. She narrowed her eyes and said, ‘Listen. These local bureaucrats are annoying me. Why don't you four just drive back to the site? Right now, I mean! See, I was perhaps alone when that call came in you men were all out there in the foothills, doing your job. I'll telephone Pitesti, get Chevenu and those rough men of his back up there to meet you at the site. You can do the job — I mean finish it — tonight.'
Kyle stared at her. ‘That's a good idea, Irma — but what about you? Won't you be setting yourself up? Won't they give you a hard time?'
‘What?' She looked surprised at the suggestion. ‘Is it my fault I was alone here when I took that telephone call?
Is it me for blaming that my taxi took a wrong turning and I couldn't find you to stop you from burning the hills? All these country tracks looking the same to me!'
Krakovitch, Kyle and Quint, all three grinned at each other. Sergei Gulharov was mainly out of it, but he sensed the excitement of the others and stood up, nodding his head as if in agreement. ‘Da, da!'
‘Right,' said Kyle, ‘let's do it!' And on impulse, he grabbed Irma Dobresti, pulled her close and kissed her soundly.
Monday night.
9.30 middle-European time, and in England 7.30 P.M.
There was fire and nightmare on the cruciform hills under the moon and stars and the looming Carpatii Meridionali, and the nightmare transferred itself westward across mountains and rivers and oceans to Yulian Bodescu where he tossed on his bed and sweated-the chill, rank sweat of fear in his garret room at Harkley House.
Exhausted by the unspecified fears of the day, he now suffered the telepathic torments of Thibor the Wallach, the vampire whose last physical vestiges were finally being consumed. There was no way back for the vampire now; but unlike Faethor, Thibor's spirit was unquiet, restless, malignant. And it ached for revenge!
Yuliaannn! Ah, my son, my one true son! See what is become of your father now.
‘What?' Yulian talked in his sleep, imagined a blistering heat, flames that crept ever closer. And in the heart of the fire, a figure beckoning. ‘Who… who are you?'
Ah, you know me, my son. We met but briefly, and you were still unborn at that meeting, but you can remember if you try.
‘Where am I?'
For the moment, with me. Ask not where you are, but where I am. These are the cruciform hills — where it started for you, and where it now ends for me. For you this is merely a dream, while for me it is reality.
‘You!' Now Yulian knew him. The voice that called in the night, unremembered until now. The Thing in the ground. The source. ‘You? My… father?'
Indeed! Oh, not through any lover's tryst with your mother. Not through the lust or love of a man for a woman. No, but your father nevertheless. Through blood, Yulian, through blood!
Yulian fought down his fear of the flames. He sensed that he only dreamed — however real and immediate the dream — and knew he would not be hurt. He advanced into the inferno of fire and drew close to the figure there. Black billowing smoke and crimson flames obscured his view and the heat was a furnace all around, but there were questions Yulian must ask, and the burning Thing was the only one who could answer them.
‘You have asked me to come and seek you out, and I will come. But why? What is it you want of me?'
Too late! Too late! the flame-wreathed apparition cried out in anguish. And Yulian knew that his pain was not horn of the consuming fire but bitter frustration. I would have been your teacher, my son. Yes, and you would have learned all the many secrets of the Wamphyri. In return