Harry gasped and opened his eyes, and shot bolt upright in the tumbled bed.
'It's all right, it's OK!' Penny said, grasping his wrists in the moment before she saw his eyes. Then: 'Oh!' she said, as her hand flew to her mouth.
Harry's mind whirled. What the hell was happening here? How had Penny got into the house? Where was Jordan? 'Oh?' he finally repeated her. 'Bloody oh!? Penny, you don't realize what you've done!'
He tossed back the covers and pulled on his clothes; naked, she came after him, drew him to a standstill and reached tremblingly to touch his redly illumined face in the darkness of the room.
'When I was dead,' she said in a whisper, 'they tried to tell me you were a monster. I wouldn't listen to them, because I didn't want to talk to dead people. But I remember they said there was life, and death, and a place between the two. People have existence in the first two places but not in the third, which is reserved for…'
'… For vampires,' Harry cut in, harshly. 'Yes, and for their victims, people they turn into vampires. And for foolish girls who through their thoughtless actions change themselves into vampires!'
She shook her head. 'But you didn't take my blood, Harry. You didn't even make me bleed!' She was defiant. 'I'm almost nineteen and anyway, I wasn't a virgin. I… I knew a man for a whole year, once.'
'Knew a man!' he snorted. 'You're a child!'
'And you're out of touch!' she hit back. 'It's 1989! Plenty of girls — British girls — get married at sixteen and seventeen these days. Yes, and plenty more prefer not to get married but simply live with their lovers. I'm no child. Are you saying my body felt like a child's?'
'Yes!' he snapped, then gritted his teeth, folded her in his arms and groaned, 'No. You felt — you feel — like a woman. But still a foolish one. Penny, you don't understand. I didn't need to make you bleed. You see, there's something of me in you now. It's not much but it doesn't need to be, for even a little is enough to change you.'
'Then let it, as long as I'm with you.' She clutched him to her. 'You brought me back, Harry, gave me my life. For what it's worth, I owe it to you. All of it. And I want you to have it.'
'You've run away from home?' He put her away from him, to arm's length.
'I've left home,' she sighed. 'Nineteen-eighty-nine, remember?'
He wanted to hit her and couldn't. He thought: Dear God, she's in thrall to me! And then thought, But she was even before this. Except we'd call it a 'crush'. Please don't let anything of me — of that — be in her!
His head cleared; sleep and all that had accompanied it receded; the implications came home to him, fully. 'What time is it?' He glanced at his watch. Only 10:30 p.m. 'How did you find me? More importantly, how did you get in?'
She sensed his urgency and reacted to it. 'What's wrong, Harry?' And now her eyes were frightened.
As he put on the lights and his face took on a more normal aspect, she said, 'When I was here before, I saw the address on some of your mail. I remembered it, remembered everything about you. In fact you haven't been out of my mind for a minute. And I knew I would have to come to you. No matter what.'
'And Trevor Jordan let you in? Without waking me?' Harry hurled open his bedroom door. 'Trevor!' he shouted. 'Will you come — the — hell — up here?!'
There was no answer, just Penny shaking her head.
Harry looked at her: long-legged, yellow-haired, blue-eyed. His gaze took in her firm breasts, thighs and backside, all of her beautiful young body. And the uneven slant of her mouth, which was quite unintentioned but still made her look sexy and somehow provocative. When he'd first seen her like this, naked, there had been ugly black holes in her flesh. But now she was whole again. Whole, but probably unholy.
'Better get dressed,' he said. And: 'Jordan?'
'Gone,' she said, slipping easily into her clothes. 'I told him I had to be with you, but not how I intended to be with you. He made me promise to look after you, and told me to tell you goodbye.'
That's all?'
'No, he also said I shouldn't stay. When he couldn't convince me, then he left. He said you'd understand. Oh, and I remember he said he hoped that — er, E-Branch? — that they would understand, too. For his sake.'
'E-Branch,' Harry echoed her. And then, remembering his dream, 'Darcy!'
'Who?' She was dressed. She stared at him.
'Go downstairs,' he said. 'Make some coffee. For yourself. There's red wine in the fridge for me. Pour me a glass.'
'Harry, I — '
'Do it now!'
She went.
And when he was alone, Harry sent out his deadspeak thoughts to search for Darcy Clarke, and prayed he wouldn't find him… but found him anyway. Found him blowing on the wind, drifting with the tides, flushed away like so much flotsam. Or maybe jetsam? Jetsam, yes: materials hurled from the deck of a ship in peril. Sacrificed for the greater good.
The Necroscope sat on the edge of his bed and shed several hot, slow tears. It was his humanity, amplified by the overpowering emotions of the Wamphyri. Even if he were only human he would have cried, except then his tears wouldn't burn like the overflow of the volcano rumbling within.
'Darcy,' he said, 'who was it?'
lt was you, Harry. Darcy's deadspeak was faint as the wind over the sea, heard in the whorl of a small shell.
'God, I know!' Harry felt stabbed to the heart. 'But who was it physically? Who took your life? And… how did you die? Not the old way?'
The stake, the sword, the fire? No, just a bullet. Well, two bullets. The fire wasn't until later.
'And your executioner?'
Why? So you can go after him? No, no, Harry. For after all he was only doing his job — and he obviously suspected that I was a deadly threat. Also… well, it's a fact my own actions could have been more prudent. So maybe it was as much my fault as it was yours. But on the other hand, maybe if I'd known I was no longer protected, then I would have been more careful.
'You won't tell me who killed you?'
I have told you. You did.
Then I'll have to find out some other time, from someone else.'
Why don't you just steal it out of my deadspeak mind?
'I don't just take. Not from my friends. If you won't tell me of your own free will, then I'll just have to find out some other way.'
But you did take — and not just information — and it most certainly was not of my own free will! So that now I'm a dead friend. Just one of the Great Majority.
A third party asked, 'Find out what some other way?' And Harry gave a small start. But it was only Penny, standing in the doorway with a glass of red wine in her hand. She'd heard the Necroscope apparently talking to himself.
Harry's concentration slipped; Darcy Clarke's deadspeak disintegrated; contact was lost. But Harry wasn't angry. Not with Penny. If he and Darcy had continued, then they probably would have parted on even worse terms. 'Let's go downstairs,' he said. 'Out into the garden. It's a warm night. Are the stars out? I'd like to look at the stars. And think.'
He would like to look at his stars, yes: the familiar constellations. For who could say, maybe it would be his last opportunity. And the stars over Starside were very different. And he would like to think. About what Penny had said, for one thing: did he really need to even the score with Johnny Found? And why the hell should he want to know who had killed Darcy Clarke? Darcy wasn't himself vengeful, was he?