Wamphyri

‘Not a ghost, Felix,' said Kyle as he took the Russian's arm. ‘It's something rather more than a ghost — but nothing to be afraid of, I assure you. Is Sergei all right?'

Gulharov's Adam's apple bobbed frantically; his hands shook and his eyes bulged; if he could have run he probably would have, but the strength had gone out of his legs. Krakovitch spoke to him sharply in Russian, told him to sit, that everything was in order. Sergei didn't believe him but he sat anyway, almost collapsing into his chair.

‘The floor's yours, Harry,' said Kyle.

‘For the sake of goodness!' said Krakovitch, feeling a growing hysteria, but trying to stay calm for Gulharov's sake. ‘Won't someone explain?'

Keogh looked at him, at Gulharov, too. You are Krakovitch, he said to the former. You have psychic awareness, which makes it easier. But your friend doesn't. I'm getting through to him, but it's an effort.

Krakovitch opened and closed his mouth like a fish, saying nothing, then thumped down into his chair beside Gulharov. He licked dry lips, glanced at Kyle. ‘Not .

not a ghost?'

No, I'm not, Harry answered. But 1 suppose it's an understandable mistake. Look, I haven't time to explain my circumstances. Now that you've seen me, maybe Kyle will do that for me? But later. Right now I'm short of time again, and what I have to say is rather important.

‘Felix,' said Kyle, ‘try to put your astonishment behind you. Just accept that this is happening and try to take in what he's saying. I'll tell you all about it just as soon as I have the chance.'

The Russian nodded, got a grip of himself, said, ‘Very well.'

Harry told all that he'd learned since the last time he and Kyle had spoken. His terms of expression were very abbreviated; he brought the INTESP men up to date in less than half an hour. Finally he was done, and looked to Kyle for his response. How are things in England?

‘I contact our people tomorrow at noon,' Kyle told him.

And the house in Devon?

‘I think the time has come to order them in.'

Keogh nodded. So do I. When do you make your move in the cruciform hills?

‘We finally get to see the place tomorrow,' Kyle answered. ‘After that... Tuesday, in daylight!'

Well, remember what I've told you. What Thibor left behind is — big!

‘But it lacks intelligence. And as I said, we'll be working in daylight.'

Again the Keogh apparition nodded. I suggest you move in on Harkley House and Bodescu at the same time. By now he has to be pretty sure what he is and he's probably explored his vampire powers, though from what we know of him he doesn't have Thibor' or Faethor's cunning or insularity. They guarded their Wamphyri identities — jealously! They didn't go around making more vampires unnecessarily. On the other hand Yulian Bodescu, perhaps because he's had no instruction, is a time-bomb! Frighten him, then make a mistake and let him go free, and he'll go like wildfire, a vile cancer in the guts of all humanity.

Kyle knew he was right. ‘I agree with you on the timing,' he said, ‘but are you sure you're not just worrying about Bodescu getting to Thibor before we can act against him?'

I might be, the apparition frowned. But as far as we know Bodescu isn't even aware of the cruciform hills and what's buried there. But put that aside for now. Tell me, do your men in England know what has to be done? It isn't every man who'd have the stomach for it. it's rough work. The old methods — the stake, decapitation, fire —there are no other ways. Nothing else will work. It can't be done with kid gloves. The fire at Harkley will have to be a big one. A bonfire! Because of the cellars.

‘Because we don't know what's down there? I agree. When I speak to my men tomorrow, I'll make sure they fully understand. They already do, I'm sure, but I'll make absolutely certain. The whole house has to go — from the cellars up! Yes, and maybe down a little, too.'

Good, said Keogh. For a moment he stood silent, a hologram of thin blue neon wires. He seemed a little uncertain, about something, like an actor needing a prompt. Then he said: Look, I've things to do. There are people — dead people — I need to thank properly for their help. And i've not yet worked out how to break my baby son's hold on me. That's becoming a problem. So if you'll excuse me.

Kyle stepped forward. There seemed some sort of air of finality about Harry Keogh. Kyle wanted to hold out his hand but knew there was nothing there. Nothing of any substance, anyway. ‘Harry,' he said. ‘Er, give them our thanks, too. Your friends, I mean.'

I will, said the other. He smiled a wan smile and disappeared in a rapidly dispersing burst of foxfire.

For long moments there was a breathless silence. Then Kyle turned the light up and Krakovitch drew a massive breath of air. Finally he expelled it, and said: ‘And now —now I hope you'll agree that you owe me something of an explanation!'

Which was something Kyle could only go along with . .

Harry Keogh had done all he could. The rest of it lay in the hands of the physically alive, or at least with people who still had hands to accept it.

In the Möbius continuum Harry felt a mental tugging; even sleeping, his baby son's attraction was still enormous. Harry Jnr was tightening his grip, and Harry Snr was sure that he had been right about the infant: he was drawing on his mind, leeching his knowledge, absorbing the substance of his id. Soon Harry must make a permanent break. But how? To where? What would be left of him, he wondered, if he were completely absorbed? Would there be anything left at all?

Or would he simply cease to be except as the future esoteric talent of his own son?

Using the Möbius continuum, Harry could always plumb the future to find the answers to these questions. He preferred not to know all of the answers, however, for the future seemed somehow inviolable. It wasn't that he would feel a cheat but rather that he doubted the wisdom of knowing the future.

For like the past, the future was fixed; if Harry saw something he didn't like, would he try to avoid it? Of course he would, even knowing it was unavoidable. Which could only complicate his weird existence more yet!

The one single glimpse he would allow himself would be to discover if indeed he had any future at all. Which for Harry Keogh was the very simplest of exercises.

Still fighting his son's attraction, he found a future door and opened it, gazed out upon the ever expanding future. Against the subtly shifting darkness of the fourth dimension, Earth's myriad human life-lines of neon blue shot away into a sapphire haze, defining the length of lives that were and lives still to come. Harry's line sped out from his own incorporeal being — from his mind, he supposed —and wound away apparently interminably. But he saw that just beyond the Möbius door it took on a course lying parallel to a second thread, like the twin strips of a motorway with a central verge or barrier. And this second life-line, Harry supposed, must belong to Harry Jnr.

He launched himself from the door and traversed future time, following his own and the infant Harry's threads. Faster than the life-lines themselves, he propelled himself into the near future. He witnessed and was saddened by the termination of many blue threads, which simply dimmed and went out, for he knew that these were deaths; and he saw others burst brightly into existence like stars, then extend themselves into brilliant neon filaments, and knew that these were births, new lives. And so he forged a little way forward. Time was briefly furrowed in his wake like the sea behind a forging ship, before closing in and sealing itself once more.

Suddenly, despite the fact that Harry was without body, he felt an icy blast blowing on him from the side. It could hardly be a physical chill and must therefore be of the psyche. Sure enough, away out across the panorama of speeding life-lines, he spied one that was as different as a shark in a school of tuna. For this one was scarlet — the mark of a vampire!