She was bringing mewling warriors out of their vats when the warning arrived, and went straight to Harry where he stood wrapped in his thoughts on a balcony facing north. 'Stand there long enough, Necroscope,' she told him, 'and you'll be able to wave them a welcome! Nor will you have to wait too long.'
He barely glanced at her, acknowledged her presence with a nod. 'I know they're here,' he said. 'I've felt them coming like maggots chewing on the ends of my nerves. They're not so many, but they shake the ether like an army shakes the earth. It's time we went to the garden.'
'You go,' she told him, touching his arm as some of the sting went out of her voice. 'See if you can call down your son out of the hills. Maybe he'll bring his grey brotherhood with him, though what good they'll be is hard to say. But me, I've a trio of warriors to wean and instruct. They're built of fine, fierce stuff, right enough — good stuff, left behind by Menor Maimbite and Lesk the Glut, which I found intact under the ruins of their stacks — but when it comes to the fashioning… well, it's true I'm a novice compared to them.'
'Just make sure they'll own me as their master as well as yourself,' was Harry's reply. 'That way, even if they haven't the measure of Shaitan's creatures, still I might be able to come up with a trick or two.'
Then he turned and caught her up so swiftly in his arms that she gasped aloud. And: 'Karen,' he said, 'we've seen our futures: the red threads of our lives melting into golden fire, then fading to nothing. It didn't look too good for us, but at the same time it could mean anything. We simply don't understand it. And in any case, whatever it means, it has to be better than what we saw of our enemies' futures; for they didn't have any! No scarlet threads in Starside's tomorrows, Karen.'
'I remember,' she said, without freeing herself, pressing more firmly to him. 'And so I stay and fight. Whatever becomes of us, it's worth it to know that they die, too.'
Harry held her very close, very tightly, and his looks were even more those of a small boy. He found himself wishing it were all a fantastic dream, and that he'd wake up a schoolboy with all his future ahead of him, but retaining enough of the dream that he'd make no false moves. Ah, if only things worked that way! 'I wish I'd known you as some ordinary girl in my own world, when I was just a man,' he told her on impulse.
Karen wasn't so romantic. She had been an innocent in her time, until she was stolen. Now and then a blushing Traveller youth had wanted her, but in those days she'd kept herself (as she'd thought) for something better. Hah! 'We would be fumbling, giggling lovers for an hour.' Her answer was harsh. 'To hell with it… I prefer what we've had! Anyway, you are the Necroscope. What do you know of ordinary men?'
The fire in her was a catalyst; it burned outwards through her shell to illuminate her as she really was: Wamphyri! Harry could be like her, yes, but did he need to be? He'd gone up against Dragosani, Thibor, Yulian Bodescu and all the others as a man, albeit a man with powers. No, never an ordinary man, but neither had he been a monster. And now there were others to set himself against. But again, as a man, or as nearly as possible.
He released her. 'Is there a flyer ready?'
'In the launching bay, yes. But won't you use the Möbius route?'
He shook his head. 'My son and his grey brothers wouldn't see me. He might know, in his way, and he might not. Riding a flyer I'll be visible, a curiosity. Not many flyers in Starside's skies these days.'
At the launching bay, watching him take off in the saddle of the pulsing manta-shape which was his flyer, she saw that he was right: other than himself, the skies were empty. For now.
Feeling empty herself, Karen went back to her warriors…
Harry and Karen were together in the garden's desolation when Shaithis and Shaitan the Fallen came back into the old Wamphyri heartland. But contrary to expectations the invaders did not launch an immediate attack; instead they came gliding and squirting out of dark, aurora-flickering northern skies, and oh so warily circled the debris-littered plains where the tumbled stacks of extinct vampire Lords lay in shattered ruin. Eventually, ever cautious, they landed in the bays of Karen's aerie and explored its empty levels, finding nothing inimical, no hidden pitfalls, no hostile creatures waiting in the shadows. But neither did they find gas-beasts, siphoneers, servitors in any shape or form. No comforts whatsoever, except perhaps in the strength of the aerie's ancient walls. And even these weren't secure enough for Shaithis.
'I was witness to the destruction of greater stacks than this one,' he told Shaitan. 'My own included!'
Two of them.' The other chuckled, nodding his great black cowl. 'It took both Harry Keogh and The Dweller to control the power of the sun that time. Can't you see that? But there is no more Dweller — he's gone, shrivelled to a wolf. And as for his father: why, on his own this pale unblooded alien is less than a puling child!'
'Then why don't we attack, and without delay?'
'We do, but not until we've fuelled our beasts and filled our own bellies. Then, after we've rested our bones a little — and perhaps seen to other needs too long denied — that will be soon enough. For we've come a long, cold, weary way, Shaithis; and not merely to dispose of this hated enemy of yours, or to let you sate yourself on the flesh of a female who spurned and betrayed you. So calm yourself and be patient, and everything you most desire shall be.'
But for all Shaitan's apparent confidence, deep in his black heart he, too, was concerned about their opponent, the so-called hell-lander Harry Keogh, a vampire who had not yet tasted the blood of other men. Unknown to Shaithis, the great leech which was his ancestor had already employed his own superior, infinitely furtive vampire powers in a remote, partial examination of the Necroscope. Shaitan's telepathy was more advanced even than Karen's and Harry's (indeed, his was the maggot which had gnawed on Harry's nerve-endings); even so, what probes he'd attempted had been perfunctory. The reason was simple: only penetrate the outermost shell of the Necroscope's psychic aura — come within miles of the core of light, the unplumbed, emerging Centre of Power which he must never be allowed to become — and any sensitive being would feel it for himself. (As Shaithis might if he weren't such a dullard; but such a beautiful dullard, and all wasted… for now, anyway.) That pent energy which was so much greater than that of a mere man, possibly greater even than that of certain vampires. But energy of what, from where? These were the questions which caused Shaitan's concern; for until he knew what Harry Keogh was, or what he might become, he couldn't really be sure how to deal with him.
Far easier, when the time was right, to deal with Shaithis the self-considered Devious — Shaithis the very beautiful, very dull, would-be Great Traitor — who would soon prove himself to be Shaithis the Great Fool. That same Shaithis who kept such a tight guard on his mind, lest its vile and treacherous thoughts fly free. Except, why, Shaitan had long ago made himself privy to his descendant's thoughts, which were secret no longer!
But imprudent to fuss over all of that now; time enough when Starside's weird, alien defender was dead or otherwise disposed of. Or perhaps earlier, but only if Shaithis himself should bring it to a head.
These were Shaitan's thoughts, but all kept hidden from Shaithis, of course…
They left a lone warrior guarding the aerie and took the rest with them into Sunside, where soon they spied the fires of a Traveller settlement. Then for a little while the night air was filled with the screams of men, the bellowing of warriors and the sounds of their gluttony; also with the hot reek of the freshly dead, and with the shrieks of those taken alive. Of the latter: there were six, and they were all women.