After that: Harry surfaced from his dreams slow and cold, so that the sweat was dry on him by the time he was fully awake and Darcy Clarke came knocking on his door mumbling about breakfast. By then, too, Harry believed he'd worked out how he was going to play the rest of it
At 8:15 Rhodes Town was only just awake, but already Harry was down on a pier in Mandraki harbour to see his friends off. Darcy and Manolis waved several times as their boat pulled out onto the incredible blue millpond of the Aegean, but he didn't wave back. He simply nodded and watched them out of sight, and silently wished them luck.
Then he drove over to the beach at Kritika and swam for an hour before returning to the hotel and showering. Even after furiously towelling himself dry, and despite the fact that it was at least seventy-five degrees out in the sun, he was still cold. The coldness he felt had nothing to do with the outside temperature. It came from inside.
Harry's bed had been freshly made; he lay on it with his hands behind his head and thought a while, slowly emptying his mind and letting himself drift…
… Then made a stab at Faethor!
And caught him there in his mind before he could wriggle down out of sight. Faethor, right there in his mind, and the time just a little after 10:30, and a scorching sun standing high in the sky. So much for the sun as a deterrent. Harry should have known: ghosts don't burn. It might give Faethor a few bad dreams but it couldn't physically hurt him because there was nothing physical left of him. Any of Harry's dead friends could have told him that much.
'You old devil!' he said, but coldly, for he wasn't name-calling, just stating a fact. 'You old bastard, you old liar. So just like Thibor fastened on Dragosani, you're thinking of latching on to me, eh?'
Thinking of it? Faethor came into the open, and Harry could feel him as close as if he stood right there at his bedside. Fait accompli, Harry. Get used to it.
Harry shook his head and grinned mirthlessly. 'I will be rid of you,' he said. 'Believe me, Faethor, I'll be rid of you, even if it means getting rid of myself.'
Suicide? Faethor tut-tutted. No, not you, Harry. Why, you are tenacious as the ones you hunt down and destroy! You will not kill yourself while there's still a chance to kill another one of them.
'Another one of you, you mean? But you could be wrong, Faethor. Me, I'm only human. I'd die pretty easily. A bullet through my brain, like Trevor Jordan… I wouldn't even know about it. Believe me, it's tempting.'
I see no real notion of suicide in your thoughts, Faethor shrugged, so why pretend? Do you think I feel threatened? How can you threaten me, Harry? I'm already dead!
'But in me you have life, right? Listen and I'll tell you something: you really don't know what's in my thoughts. I can hide them, even from you. It's deadspeak; that's how I learned to do it; by keeping back my thoughts from the dead. I did it then so as not to hurt them, but I can just as easily use it the other way.'
For a moment — the merest tick of the clock — Harry felt Faethor wavering. And he nodded knowingly. 'See? I know what's on your mind, old devil. But do you know what's on mine, if I hide it from you… so?'
Deep in the psyche of Harry, the Father of Vampires felt himself surrounded by nothing. It fell on him like a blanket, as if to smother him. It was as if he were back in the earth near Ploiesti, where his evil fats had been rendered down the night Ladislau Giresci took his life.
'You see,' Harry told him, letting the light of his thoughts shine in again, 'I can shut you out.'
Not out, Harry. You can only shut me off. But the moment you relax I'll be back.
'Always?'
For a moment Faethor was silent. Then: No, for we made a bargain. And so long as you hold to it, then so shall I. When Janos is no more, then you'll be rid of me.
'You swear it?'
Upon my soul! Faethor gurgled like a night-dark swamp, and smiled an immaterial smile.
It was the natural sarcasm of the vampire, but Harry only said: Til hold you to that.' And his mental voice was cold as the spaces between the stars. 'Just remember, Faethor, I'll hold you to it…'
Manolis handled the boat. It had a small cabin and a large engine, and left a wake like low white walls melting back into the blue. Always in sight of land, they had rounded Cape Koumbourno and outpaced the water-skiers off Kritika Beach before Harry had even hit the water there. By 9:00 a.m. they had passed Cape Minas, and with the mainland lying to port were heading for Alimnia. Darcy had thought he might have trouble with his stomach, but the sea was like glass and with the wind in his face… he might easily be enjoying an expensive holiday. That is, if he wasn't perfectly sure he was heading for horror.
Around 10:00 a pair of dolphins played chicken across the prow of the boat where it sliced the water; by which time they'd passed between the almost barren rocks of Alimnia and Makri, and Halki (which Manolis insisted should be 'Khalki', for the chalky shells it was named after) had swum into view.
Fifteen minutes later they were into the harbour and tied up, and Manolis was chatting with a pair of weathered fishermen where they mended their nets. While he made his apparently casual inquiries, Darcy bought a map from a tiny box of a shop right on the waterfront and studied what he could of the island's layout. There wasn't a great deal to study.
The island was a big rock something less than eight by four miles, with the long axis lying east to west. Looking west a mile or two, mountain crests stood wild and desolate where the island's one road of any description wandered apparently aimlessly. And Darcy knew that his and Manolis's destination lay way up there, in the heights at the end of that road. He didn't need the map to know it: his talent had been telling him ever since he stepped from the boat to dry land.
Eventually, done with talking to the fishermen, Manolis joined him. 'No transport,' he said. 'It is maybe two miles, then the climbing, and of course we will be carrying our — how do you say — picnic basket? It looks like a long hot walk, my friend, and all of it uphill.'
Darcy looked around. 'Well, what's that,' he said, 'if not transport?' A three-wheeled device, clattering like a steam-engine and pulling a four-wheel cart, came clanking out of a narrow street to park in the 'centre of town', that being the waterfront with its bars and tavernas.
The driver was a slim, small Greek of about forty-five; he got down from his driver's seat and went into a grocery store. Darcy and Manolis were waiting for him when he came out. His name was Nikos; he owned a taverna and rooms on a beach across the bottleneck of the promontory behind the town; business was slow right now and he could run them up to the end of the road for a small remuneration. When Manolis mentioned a sum of fifteen hundred drachmae his eyes lit up like lamps, and after he'd collected his fish, groceries, booze and other items for the taverna, then they were off.
Sitting in the back of the cart had to be better than walking — but not much better. On the way Nikos stopped to unload his purchases at the taverna, and to open a couple of bottles of beer for his passengers, and then the journey continued.
After a little while and when he'd adjusted his position against the jolting, Darcy took a swig of his beer and said: 'What did you find out?'
'There are two of them,' Manolis answered. 'They come down at evening to buy meat — red meat, no fish — and maybe drink a bottle of wine. They stay together, don't talk much, do their own cooking up at the site… if they cook!' He shrugged and looked narrow-eyed at Darcy. 'They work mainly at night; when the wind is in the right direction the villagers occasionally hear them blasting. Nothing big, just small charges to shift the rocks and the rubble. During the day… they are not seen to do too much. They laze around in the caves up there.'