7
After dropping Sandra off in Bonnyrig and during the short drive home, Harry stopped at a newsagent's and bought himself a pack of twenty cigarettes. He looked at his change but didn't try to check it. It wouldn't make any sense to him anyway. They could rip him off every time and he just wouldn't know it.
That was the other thing Harry Jnr had done to him: he was now innumerate. No way he could use the Möbius Continuum if he couldn't even calculate the change from a pack of cigarettes! Sandra saw to it that his bills were paid, or he'd probably get that wrong, too. What price his 'instinctive mathematics' now, eh? The Möbius equations? What the hell were they? What had they looked like?
And again Harry wondered: was it a dream? Was that all it had been? A fantasy? A figment of his own imagination? Oh, he remembered how it had been, all right; but as he'd tried to explain to Sandra, it was the way you remember a dream, or a book you read in childhood, fast fading now. Had he really, really, done all of those things? And if he had, did he really, really, want to be able to do them again? To talk to the teeming dead, and step through doors no one else guessed existed to travel swift as thought in the metaphysical Möbius Continuum?
Want it? Perhaps not, but what was there without it? What was he without it? Answer: Harry Keogh, nowhere man.
Back home he went into the garden and looked at the stones again:
KENL
TJOR
RH
They meant nothing to him. But still he fixed their meaningless legend in his mind. Then he brought the wheelbarrow, loaded it up and wheeled the stones back to the wall where ... he paused a moment and stood frowning, before wheeling them back up to the lawn again. And there he left them, in the wheelbarrow.
For if - just if - someone was trying to tell him something, well, why make things harder for them?
Indoors again, Harry climbed stairs and then ladders to the attic room which no one else suspected was there -that large, dusty room with its sloping rear window, naked light-bulb hanging from a roof timber, and its rows and rows of bookshelves - which was now a shrine to his obsession, if the word 'shrine' were at all applicable. And of course the books themselves. All the facts and the fictions were here, all the myths and legends, all the 'conclusive condemnations' and 'indisputable evidences' for or against, proving, disproving or standing in the middle ground of Harry's studies. The history, the lore, the very nature ... of the vampire.
Which was in itself a grim joke, for how could anyone ever fully understand the nature of the vampire? And yet if any man could, then it was Harry Keogh.
But he hadn't come here today to look again at his books or delve a little deeper into the miasma of times, lands and legends long past. No, for he believed that time itself was well past for those things, for study and vain attempts at understanding. His dreams of red threads among the blue were immediate things, 'now' things, and if he'd learned nothing else in his weird life it was to trust in his dreams.
The Wamphyri have powers, father!
An echo? A whisper? The scurry of mice? Or ... a memory?
How long before they seek you out and find you?
No, he wasn't here to look at his books this time. The time to study an enemy's tactics is before the onslaught. Too late if he's already come a-knocking at your door. Well, he hadn't, not yet. But Harry had dreamed things, and he trusted his dreams.
He took down a piece of modern weaponry (yes, modern, though its design hadn't changed much through sixteen centuries) from the wall and carried it to a table where he laid it down on newspapers preparatory to cleaning, oiling and generally servicing the thing. There was this, and in the corner there a sickle whose semicircular blade gleamed like a razor, and that was all.
Strange weapons, these, against a force for blight and plague and devastation potentially greater than any of Man's thermonuclear toys. But right now they were the only weapons Harry had.
Better tend to them...
The afternoon passed without incident; why shouldn't it? Years had passed without incident, within the parameters of the Harry Keogh mentality and identity. He spent most of the time considering his position (which was this: that he was no longer a Necroscope, that he no longer had access to the Möbius Continuum), and ways in which he might improve that position and recover his talents before they atrophied utterly.
It was possible - barely, Harry supposed, considering his innumeracy - that if he could speak to Möbius, then Möbius might be able to stabilize whatever mathematical gyro was now out of kilter in his head. Except first he must be able to speak to him, which was likewise out of the question. For of course Möbius had been dead for well over a hundred years, and Harry was forbidden to speak to the dead on penalty of mental agony.
He could not speak to the dead, but the dead might even now be looking at ways in which they could communicate with him. He suspected - no, he more than suspected, was sure - that he spoke to them in his dreams, even though he was forbidden to remember or act upon what they had told him. But still he was aware that warnings had been passed, even if he didn't know what those warnings were about.
One thing was certain, however: he knew that within himself and within every man, woman and child on the surface of the globe, a blue thread unwound from the past and was even now spinning into the future of humanity, and that he had dreamed - or been warned - of red threads amidst the blue.
And apart from that - this inescapable mood or sensation of something impending, something terrible - the rest of it was a Chinese puzzle with no solution, a maze with no exit, the square root of minus one, whose value may only be expressed in the abstract. Harry knew the latter for a fact, even if he no longer knew what it meant. And it was a puzzle he'd examined almost to distraction, a maze he'd explored to exhaustion, and an equation he hadn't even attempted because like all mathematical concepts it simply wouldn't read.
In the evening he sat and watched television, mainly for relaxation. He'd considered calling Sandra, and then hadn't. There was something on her mind, too, he knew; and anyway, what right had he to draw her into... whatever this was, or whatever it might turn out to be? None.
So it went; evening drew towards night; Harry prepared for bed, only to sit dozing in his chair. The dish in his garden collected signals and unscrambled their pictures onto his screen. He started awake at the sound of applause, and discovered an American chat-show host talking to a fat lady who had the most human, appealing eyes Harry could imagine. The show was called 'Interesting People' or some such and Harry had watched it before. Usually it was anything but interesting; but now he caught the word 'extrasensory' and sat up a little straighter. Naturally enough, he found ESP in all its forms entirely fascinating.
'So ... let's get this right,' the skeletally thin host said to the fat lady. 'You went deaf when you were eighteen months old, and so never learned how to speak, right?'
'That's right,' the fat lady answered, 'but I do have this incredible memory, and obviously I'd heard a great many human conversations before I went deaf. Anyway, speech never developed in me, so I wasn't only deaf but dumb, too. Then, three years ago, I got married. My husband is a technician in a recording studio. He took me in one day and I watched him working, and I suddenly made the connection between the oscillating sensors on his machinery and the voices and instrument sounds of the group he was recording.'
'Suddenly, you got the idea of sound, right?'
That's correct,' the fat lady smiled, and continued: 'Now, I had of course learned sign-language or dactylology - which in my mind I'd called dumbspeak - and I also knew that some deaf people could carry on perfectly normal conversations, which I termed 'deafspeak'. But I hadn't tried it myself simply because I hadn't understood sound! You see, my deafness was total. Absolute. Sound didn't exist - except in my memory!'
'And so you saw this hypnotist?'
'Indeed I did. It was hard but he was patient - and of course it mightn't have been possible at all except he was able to use dumbspeak. So he hypnotized me and brought back all the conversations I'd heard as a baby. And when I woke up -'
' - You could speak?'
'Exactly as you hear me now, yes!'
'The hell you say! Not only fully articulate but almost entirely without accent! Mrs Zdzienicki, that's a most fascinating story and you really are one of the most Interrrresting People we've ever had on this show!'
The camera stayed on his thin, smiling face and he nodded his head in frenetic affirmation. 'Yessiree! And now, let's move on to - '
But Harry had already moved, to switch off the set; and as the screen blinked out he saw how dark it had grown. Almost midnight, and the house temperature already falling as the timer cut power to the central heating system. It was time he was in bed ...
... Or, maybe he'd watch just one more interview with one of these Interrrrresting People! He didn't remember switching the set on again, but as its picture formed he was drawn in through the screen where he found Jack Garrulous or whatever his name was adrift in the Möbius Continuum.
'Welcome to the show, Harry!' said Jack. 'And we just know we're going to find you verrry interesting! Now, I've been sort of admiring this, er, place you've got here. What did you say it was called?' He held out his microphone for Harry to speak into.
'This is the Möbius Continuum, Jack,' said Harry, a little nervously, 'and I'm not really supposed to be here.'
'The hell you say! But on this show anything goes, Harry. You're on prime-time, son, so don't be shy!'
'Time?' Harry said. 'But all time is prime, Jack. Is time what you're interested in? Well, in that case, take a look in here.' And grabbing Garrulous by the elbow he guided him through a future-time door.
'Interrrresting!' the other approved, as side by side they shot into the future, towards that far faint haze of blue which was the expansion of humanity through the three mundane dimensions of the space-time universe. 'And what are these myriad blue threads, Harry?'
'The life-threads of the human race,' Harry explained. 'See over there? That one just this moment bursting into being, such a pure, shining blue that it's almost blinding? That's a newborn baby with a long, long way to go. And this one here, gradually fading and getting ready to blink out?' He lowered his voice in respect. 'Well, that's an old man about to die.'
'The hell - you - say!' said Jack Garrulous, awed. 'But of course, you'd know all about that, now wouldn't you, Harry? I mean, about death and such? For after all, aren't you the one they call a Necrowhatsit?'
'A Necroscope, yes,' Harry nodded. 'Or at least I was.'
'And how's that for a talent, folks?' Garrulous beamed with teeth like piano keys. 'For Harry Keogh's the man who talks to the dead! And he's the only one they'll talk back to - but in the nicest possible way! See, they kind of love him. So,' (he turned back to Harry), 'what do you call that sort of conversation, Harry? I mean, when you're talking to dead folks? See, a little while ago we were speaking to this Mrs Zdzienicki who told us all about dumbspeak and deafspeak and -'
'Deadspeak,' Harry cut him short.
'Deadspeak? Really? The hell ... you ... say! Well, if you haven't been one of the most Interrrr...' And he paused, squinting over Harry's shoulder.
'Um?' said Harry.
'One last question, son,' said Garrulous, urgently, his narrowing eyes fixed on something just outside Harry's sphere of vision. 'I mean, you told us about the blue life-threads sure enough, but what in all get-out's the meaning of a red one, eh?'
Harry's head snapped round; wide-eyed, he stared; and saw a scarlet thread, even now angling in towards him! And:
'Vampire? he yelled, rolling out of his armchair into the darkness of the room. And framed in the doorway leading back into the rest of the house, he saw the silhouette of what could only be one thing: that which he'd known was coming for him!
There was a small table beside his chair, which Harry had knocked flying. Groping in the darkness, his fingers found two things: a table-lamp thrown to the floor, and the weapon he'd worked on earlier in the day. The latter was loaded. Switching on the lamp, Harry went into a crouch behind his chair and brought up his gleaming metal crossbow into view - and saw that his worst nightmare had advanced into the room.
There was no denying the thing: the slate-grey colour of its flesh, its gaping jaws and what they contained, its pointed ears and the high-collared cape which gave its skull and menacing features definition. It was a vampire -of the comic-book variety! But even realizing that this wasn't the real thing (and he of all people should know), still Harry's finger had tightened on the trigger.
It was all reaction. This body he'd trained to a peak of perfection was working just as he'd programmed it to work in a hundred simulations of this very situation. And despite the fact that he'd come immediately awake - and that he knew this thing in his room with him was a fraud - still his adrenalin was flowing and his heart pounding, and his weapon's fifteen-inch hardwood bolt already in flight. It was only in the last split second that he'd tried to avert disaster by elevating the crossbow's tiller up towards the ceiling. But that had been enough, barely.
Wellesley, seeing the crossbow in Harry's hand, had blown froth through his plastic teeth in a gasp of terror and tried to back off. The bolt missed his right ear by a hair's breadth, struck through the collar of his costume cape and snatched him back against the wall. It buried itself deep in plaster and old brick and pinned him there.
He spat out his teeth and yelled: 'Jesus Christ, you idiot, it's me!' But this was as much for the benefit of Darcy Clarke, back there somewhere in the dark house, as for Harry Keogh. For even as he was shouting, Wellesley's right hand reached inside the coat under his cape and grasped the grip of his issue 9 mm Browning. This was his main chance. Keogh had attacked him, just as he'd hoped he would. It was self-defence, that's all.
Harry, taking no chances, had nocked his bow, snatched the auxiliary bolt from its clips under the tiller of his weapon and placed it in the breech. In a sort of slow-motion born of the speed of his own actions, he saw Wellesley's arm straightening and coming up into the firing position; but he couldn't believe the man would shoot him. Why? For what reason? Or perhaps Wellesley feared he was going to use the crossbow again. That must be it, yes. He dropped his weapon into the armchair's well and threw up his arms.
But now Wellesley's aim was unwavering, his eyes glinting, his knuckle turning white in the trigger-guard of the automatic. And he actually grinned as he shouted: 'Keogh, you madman - no! - nor
Then... three things, happening almost simultaneously:
One: Darcy Clarke's voice, which Harry recognized immediately, shouting, 'Wellesley, get out of there. Get the fuck out of there!' And his footsteps coming clattering down the corridor, and his cursing as he collided with a plant-pot and stand and knocked them over.
Two: Harry throwing himself over backwards behind the armchair as finally Wellesley's intention became clear, and hearing the angry whirrr of the bullet as the first shot went wide by an inch. And levering himself up to make a grab for the crossbow again, just in time to see the look on Wellesley's face turn from a mixture of incomprehensible rage and murderous intent to one of sheerest horror as his eyes were drawn to something behind Harry, which caused them to flash wide and disbelieving in a moment.
Three: the crash of shattering glass and snapping of thin wooden mullions inwards as something wet and heavy and clumsy came plunging through the locked patio doors into the room, something which drew Wellesley's fire from Harry to itself!
'Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!' the head of E-Branch screamed, emptying his gun over Harry's head, which he'd now turned towards the shattered glass door. And there, staggering from the impact of the shots but somehow managing to keep its feet, Harry saw something - indeed, someone, though who exactly it would be hard to tell -which he'd thought never to see again. And even though he didn't know this one, still he knew him or it for a friend. For in the old days, all of the dead had been Harry's friends!
This one was bloated, wet, intact, not long dead - but long enough to smell very badly. And behind it came a second corpse, dusty, withered, almost mummified, stepping through the frame of the shattered door. They were in their crumbling burial sheets and each of them carried a stone, advancing on Wellesley where he stood pinned to the wall, still yanking on the trigger of his empty gun.
And Harry could only crouch there watching, mouthing silent denials, as they drew close to the frenzied, maddened boss of E-Branch and began to raise their stones.
That was when the corridor light came on and Darcy Clarke stumbled into the room. His talent for survival -unfelt except by Darcy himself - was shrieking at him to get the hell out of here, almost physically driving him back. But somehow he fought it; and after all, the hostility of the dead wasn't directed at him but at his boss. 'Harry!' he yelled, when he saw what was happening in the room. 'For God's sake call them off!'
'I can't,' Harry yelled back. 'You know I can't!' But at least he could put himself between them. He did that now, jumped forward and somehow got between the dead things and Wellesley where he gibbered and frothed. And there they stood with their stones upraised, and the soggy one seeking to put Harry gently to one side.
He might have, too, but suddenly suicidal, Harry cried out: 'No! Go back where you belong! It's a mistake!' Or at least he tried to. But he only got as far as 'go back where - ' For he was forbidden to speak to the dead. But fortunately for Wellesley, the dead weren't forbidden to heed him.
As Harry clapped his hands to his head and cried out, jerking like a spastic puppet as he crumpled up, so the dead men let fall their stones and turned away, and went out again into the night.
Strangled until now, Wellesley found his voice again; but it was a deranged voice if ever Darcy Clarke heard one. 'Did you see? Did you see?' Wellesley gibbered. 'I didn't believe it, but now I've seen for myself. He called them up against me! He's a monster, by God, a monster! But it's the end of you, Harry Keogh'
He'd freed the spent magazine from his gun and dropped it to the carpeted floor, and was in the process of bringing a fully loaded one out of his pocket when Clarke hit him with all the force he could muster. Gun and magazine went flying, and Wellesley hung there in his makeup, suspended from the crossbow bolt.
Then there were more running footsteps, and in the next moment the two-man back-up team was there wondering what the hell was going on; and Darcy was down on the floor with Harry, holding him in his arms as the agonized man clutched at his head and gasped out his unbearable pain, and slid down into the deep, dark well of merciful oblivion...
A great deal occurred in the nine hours it took Harry to sleep it off. A security-screened doctor was called in to look at him, also to give Wellesley a shot that would keep him down a while; Clarke got in touch with Sandra because he reckoned she should be in on this, and should have been from the start; and as dawn came and went and both Harry and Wellesley were beginning to show signs of regaining consciousness, so a call came through from the Duty Officer at E-Branch HQ.
Darcy had of course already put HQ in the picture. He'd contacted the DO right after the excitement had died down to report everything that had happened and what he'd done, and at the same time to tender his resignation to the Minister Responsible. Also he'd suggested that someone might like to start thinking about a replacement for Wellesley, who was obviously several kinds of flake. And looking back on Wellesley's plan to scare Harry Keogh into using the Möbius Continuum -which he, Darcy Clarke, had gone along with - Darcy reckoned he might be just a little on the flaky side himself!
Sandra, when she'd arrived looking worried as hell and after he'd explained things to her, had said as much in no uncertain terms and probably would have said a lot more, except she could see that Darcy was taking it badly enough already. She didn't feel the need to blame him because he was so obviously blaming himself; so instead of ranting and raving and generally going to pieces, she'd simply sat with Harry through what was left of the night and into the morning. And just a few minutes ago, when everyone was into his third cup of coffee, that was when the telephone rang and it was HQ asking to speak to Darcy Clarke. He took the call, which was a long one, and when he was through had to sit down a minute and think about it.
They'd stretched Wellesley out on Harry's bed upstairs, with one of the men from E-Branch watching him; Harry himself had a leather couch downstairs in the study where everything had happened, and where they'd draped a blanket over the broken patio doors to keep out the night chill; Sandra, Darcy and the other E-Branch operative were all there with him, with nothing to do now except wait for him to wake up.
Except that now, following this telephone call, Darcy had quite a bit more to do, and the speed with which circumstances had changed had left him breathless. But Sandra had seen the full range of rapidly changing expressions on his face as he'd talked into the telephone; and now, catching a glimpse of the confusion in his mind - and the relief, and something of the shock, too? - she felt prompted to inquire:
'What was that all about?'
Darcy looked at her and his bleary eyes slowly focussed. Then he turned to the other agent and said, 'Eddy, go up and keep Joe company, eh? And when Wellesley wakes up, tell him he's under arrest!'
'What?' the other looked at him incredulously.
Darcy nodded. That was the DO on the blower, and he had our Minister right there with him. It seems our pal Norman Harold Wellesley has been fooling around a little with a suspicious character from the Russian Embassy! He's suspended forthwith, and we're to deliver him to MIS a.s.a.p. - which puts me right back in the chair. For now, anyway.'
As Eddy left to go upstairs, Darcy told Sandra: 'Yes, but that's just part of it. It never rains but it pours. We have a big problem.'
'We?' she said, shaking her head. 'No, for I'm out of it, whatever it is. And I thought you were, too. Well, your resignation may have been turned down, but not mine. I'm through with the Branch, as of now.'
'I understand that,' he said, 'and I meant I have a problem rather than we. It's not only business but personal, too. And I'm afraid I can't quit until it's sorted out. But you don't want to hear about it, right?'
'Hearing won't hurt,' she said.
'It's Ken Layard and Trevor Jordan,' he began to explain. 'They were out in the Aegean, Rhodes, keeping tabs on a load of drugs being run through the Med. And now it seems they've come unstuck. Badly.'
'How badly?' Sandra had met the two men - in fact Jordan, the telepath, had been her sponsor - and she knew something of their talents and outstanding reputations.
'Very badly,' Darcy shook his head. 'And... it's weird! Something I'm going to have to look into myself. These were two of my closest friends.'
'Weird?' she repeated him. 'Were?'
He nodded. 'Over the last few days Trevor's had a couple of minor problems. They thought it was overeating or drinking or something. Now apparently he's a raving madman ... or would be if he wasn't under sedation in a Rhodes asylum! And the night before last - no, the one before that; when I'm tired like this my body-clock goes out of whack - Ken Layard was fished out of the harbour half-full of water and with a bump on his head where he'd collided with something. Concussion, that's all. Except as yet there's no sign of a normal recovery. All of which smells very fishy to me.'
'What?' said Harry Keogh, fumbling the word out of a mouth that tasted highly toxic as he tried to sit up.
They sprang to his side, Darcy supporting him and Sandra hugging his head. 'Are you all right, Harry?' she stroked his hair, kissed his forehead.
He freed himself, licked his lips and said, 'Be a love and make me a cup of coffee.' And as she left the room he focussed on Darcy.
'Names,' he said.
'Eh?'
'You mentioned the names of some people,' Harry said again, seeming to find some difficulty in getting his tongue round the words. 'People I've heard of, and met, in E-Branch.' He pulled a face. 'God, my mouth tastes vile!' And then, suddenly remembering, his eyes went wide. 'That idiot was trying to shoot me! And then -' Abruptly, he struggled upright, his eyes searching every corner of the room.
'All that was last night, Harry,' Darcy told him, knowing what he was looking for. 'And... they've gone now. They went when you told them to.'
Some of the anxiety went out of Harry's face, replaced by the bitter look of a man betrayed. 'You were here,' he accused, 'with Wellesley.'
Darcy didn't deny it. 'Yes,' he said, 'I was, but for the last time. I was following orders, or trying to, but that's no excuse. I was here, and shouldn't have been. But from here on in ... I have one more job to do, and then I'm out of E-Branch for good. I don't think spying's my style, Harry. And I sure as hell know that shitting on my friends isn't! As for Wellesley: I don't think he'll be much trouble from now on.'
'What?' Harry went deathly pale in a moment. 'Don't tell me they - ?'
Darcy shook his head. 'No, they didn't hurt him. You told them to go and they went. And then you folded up.'
Sandra was back with Harry's coffee. 'What's this about names?' she said. -
Harry took a mouthful of hot coffee, gave his head a tentative shake and said, 'Ow! God, my head!'
She took pills from her bag and gave them to him. He accepted them and washed them down. And: 'Names, yes,' he said yet again. 'The names of people in E-Branch. You were talking about them as I came to?'
Darcy told him about Layard and Jordan, and as he talked so Harry's face grew drawn, even haggard. Finally, when Darcy was done, Harry glanced at Sandra. 'Well?'
She shrugged, looked mystified. 'What are you getting at, Harry?'
'Tell him about the stones,' Harry said, 'in the garden.'
And seeing his meaning at once, she gasped: 'Ken L! And T. Jor!'
Now it was Darcy's turn to look dumb. 'Do you want to let me in on it?' he said.
Harry stood up, swayed a little, then headed for the patio doors. He was still in his pyjamas. 'Be careful!' Darcy cautioned him. 'There's still a lot of glass there. We didn't do much of a job of tidying up, I'm afraid.'
Harry avoided the glass and took down the blanket, and they followed him into the garden. In his bare feet he crossed the lawn, pointed to a fresh series of stones where they'd been laid out on the grass. 'There,' he said. "That's what they were doing when Wellesley jumped me - which, incidentally, you might like to try explaining sometime when you've a week or two to spare!' This was directed at both of them.
'Harry,' Sandra was quick to protest, 'I had nothing to do with it.'
'But you do work for the Branch.'
'Not any more,' she said. And then, because she was afraid of losing him, she let it all out in a breathless rush. 'Try to understand, Harry. At first you were just a job, but different from any other they ever gave me. Also, what I was doing was for your benefit; that's what they told me. But they didn't plan - and I didn't plan - on my falling in love with you. That just happened, and now they can stuff their job.'