'A victim of what?' Darcy wanted to know, slack-jawed as he gaped at her trembling in Harry's arms.
'Oh God! Oh God!' she whispered, her trembling threatening to shake Harry, too, as her eyes went fearfully back to Trevor Jordan lolling there unconscious in his chair. And Darcy felt his blood stiffen to ice in the haunted light of her eyes, as finally she answered: 'Of the monster who's in there with him! Of that Thing who's in there right now, talking to him, questioning him… about us!'
8. Undead!
Night was already drawing in, the early-break tourists promenading in their evening finery, and the town's lights beginning to come on as the taxi sped the three to their villa. But in the front of the car with the driver, Manolis Papastamos was very quiet. Darcy supposed that the Greek felt out of things and probably considered he'd been snubbed, and he wondered how best to make up for it. There was still a lot Papastamos could do for them; indeed, without his co-operation they might find the going very difficult.
The villa stood in its own high-walled gardens of lemon, almond and olive trees, overlooking the sea on the Akti Canari promenade towards the airport. It was square and flat-roofed, had shuttered windows, squealing wrought-iron gates and a pebbled path to the main door, where a dim lamp glowed under the roof of a pine porch. The lamp had already attracted a cloud of moths, and they in their turn had lured several small green geckoes, which scattered across the wall as Papastamos turned the key gratingly in the door. And while the stubble-jawed, chain smoking taxi driver patiently waited, so the Greek police-man showed his three very odd foreign visitors around the place.
It wasn't the best but it was private and gave easy access to the town; there were cooking facilities but the three would be well advised to eat at any one of the half-dozen excellent tavernas which stood within a stone's throw; and there was a telephone, which came with a typed list of useful local numbers kept clean in a plastic folder. Downstairs were two bedrooms, both equipped with two single beds, bedside tables, reading lamps and built-in wardrobes. There was also a spacious sitting-or reading-room, with glass doors to a patio under a striped, wind-down canvas awning. And lastly a small toilet and bathroom; no bath as such but a tiled shower recess and all the rest of the amenities. Upstairs didn't matter.
When Papastamos was through he automatically assumed he wouldn't be needed any more that night; but when he went back out to the taxi Darcy followed him, saying, 'Manolis, we really don't know how to thank you. I mean, how do we pay for all of this? Oh, we can pay — of course we can — but you'll have to tell us how, and how much, and… et cetera.'
The other shrugged. 'It's on the Greek government.'
'That's very kind,' Darcy said. 'We really would have been lost without you. Especially at a time like this, with so much on our minds. For Layard and Jordan, they really are — or were — two of our very closest friends.'
At last Papastamos turned to him. 'My friends, too!' he said, with a lot of feeling. 'I only knew them for a day or two, but they were nice people! And I tell you, not everyone I meet is so nice!'
'Then you must understand how we feel,' Darcy answered, 'who knew them a long time.'
Papastamos was quiet a moment then shrugged again, perhaps apologetically, and nodded. 'Yes, of course I understand. Is there anything else I can do?'
'Oh, indeed there is!' Darcy knew it was all right between them now. 'Like I said, we'd be lost without you. And that still goes. We'd like you to exert whatever pressure you can to get that autopsy over and done with, and then to have poor Ken Layard cremated as soon as possible. And that's just for starters. You'll also need to keep tabs on this gang of drug-smugglers, for right now you're the only one who knows anything about them. We will eventually have some more people flying out, and you'll also be required to brief them. And finally, if it's at all possible… do you think you could arrange a car for us?'
'No problem!' said the other, expansive as ever. 'It will be here tomorrow morning.'
'Then that's about it for now,' Darcy smiled. 'We'll just trust you to see to your end of this thing, for after all, that's what's most important. And you must trust us to do the things we have to do. We're all experts in our different ways, Manolis.'
Papastamos scribbled a number on a scrap of paper. 'You can get me here any time,' he said. 'Or if not, you'll get someone who knows where I am.'
Darcy thanked him again and said good night. And as the taxi drew away he went back in through the squeaking gates…
The three went out to eat, and to talk.
'But why out?' Darcy wanted to know, after they'd found a taverna fronting on a quiet street, with small stairways to private tables on internal balconies, out of earshot of other patrons. And when they were seated in just such privacy: 'I mean, wasn't the villa private enough?'
'It could have been too private,' Harry told him.
'Too private?' Sandra was still a little shaky from the brief mental contact she'd made with something unthinkable in the mind of Trevor Jordan.
'There are people here,' Harry tried to explain something he wasn't himself sure of. 'Other minds, other thoughts. A background blanket of mental activity. You two should understand that better than I do. I don't want us to be found out, that's all. You think you espers are clever? Well, and so you are — but the Wamphyri have powers, too.'
Wamphyri! It was a word Darcy Clarke couldn't hear without remembering the Yulian Bodescu affair. And he felt a familiar shiver down his spine as he asked: 'And you believe that's what we're up against, right? Another like Bodescu?'
'Worse than that,' Harry answered. 'Bodescu was an open book compared to this. He didn't know what was happening to him. He wasn't an innocent himself — hadn't even been innocent from a time before he was born — but he was an innocent in the ways of the Wamphyri. He was a beginner, a child learning how to run before he could walk. And he made mistakes, kept falling down. Until one of his falls was fatal. But this one isn't like that.'
'Harry,' said Sandra, 'how do you know these things? How do you know what we're up against? Yes, I sensed a mind in there with Trevor's, a powerful, totally evil mind… but couldn't it have been another telepath? They were on a drugs job, Ken and Trevor. What if the big-league criminals have set up their own ESP-units? It could happen, couldn't it?'
'I doubt it,' Harry answered. 'From what I've seen of espers they don't work for other people.'
'What?' Darcy was surprised. 'But we all do. Ken, Trevor, Sandra, myself. And you, once upon a time.'
'Worked for a cause,' said Harry, 'for an idea, a country, for revenge. Not for the gain of other people. Would you, if you were as powerful as the one Sandra sensed? Would you sell your talent to a gang of thugs who'd destroy you the moment they began to fear you — which they would, eventually?'
'But what about Ivan Gerenko, who — ?'
'A madman, a megalomaniac!' Harry cut him off. 'No, even the necromancer Dragosani was working for an ideal — the resurrection of old Wallachia. At least until his vampire took control. Listen: how many people know you have your talent, Darcy? And Sandra, how many people know you're a telepath? I've only known it myself for a few hours. You didn't go around advertising it, did you? Take it from me, the ones who do tell all are the fakes. Mediums and spoon-benders, mystics and gurus — fakes every one!'
Darcy snorted his derision. 'So you're saying that all of us espers are good guys, right?'
'No such thing,' Harry shook his head. 'No, for there's plenty of wickedness in the world, even among "all you espers". But think about it: if you're evil and you've mastered a special talent, why would you want to sell it to someone else? Wouldn't you use it — in secret — to make yourself mighty?'