Trapped?'

'In his own mind, yes. Like some innocent, cringing, terrified victim lock ed in a dungeon.'

'A victim of what?' Darcy wanted to know, slack-jawed as he gaped at her trembling in Harry's arms.

'Oh G.o.d! Oh G.o.d!' she whispered, her trembling threatening to shake Harry , too, as her eyes went fearfully back to Trevor Jordan lolling there unconsc ious in his chair. And Darcy felt his blood stiffen to ice in the haunted lig ht of her eyes, as finally she answered: 'Of the monster who's in there with him! Of that Thing who's in there right now, talking to him, questioning him . . . about us!'

8.

Undead!

Night was already drawing in, the early-break tourists promenading in th eir evening finery, and the town's lights beginning to come on as the taxi s ped the three to their villa. But in the front of the car with the driver, M anolis Papastamos was very quiet. Darcy supposed that the Greek felt out of things and probably considered he'd been snubbed, and he wondered how best t o make up for it. There was still a lot Papastamos could do for them; indeed , without his co-operation they might find the going very difficult.

The villa stood in its own high-walled gardens of lemon, almond and oli ve trees, overlooking the sea on the Akti Canari promenade towards the airp ort. It was square and flat-roofed, had shuttered windows, squealing wrough t-iron gates and a pebbled path to the main door, where a dim lamp glowed u nder the roof of a pine porch. The lamp had already attracted a cloud of mo ths, and they in their turn had lured several small green geckoes, which scattered across the wall as Papastamos turned the key gratingly in the door.

And while the stubble-jawed, chain smoking taxi driver patiently waited, s o the Greek police-man showed his three very odd foreign visitors around th e place.

It wasn't the best but it was private and gave easy access to the town; there were cooking facilities but the three would be well advised to eat at any one of the half-dozen excellent tavernas which stood within a stone's th row; and there was a telephone, which came with a typed list of useful local numbers kept clean in a plastic folder. Downstairs were two bedrooms, both equipped with two single beds, bedside tables, reading lamps and built-in wa rdrobes. There was also a s.p.a.cious sitting- or reading-room, with gla.s.s door s to a patio under a striped, wind-down canvas awning. And lastly a small to ilet and bathroom; no bath as such but a tiled shower recess and all the res t of the amenities. Upstairs didn't matter.

When Papastamos was through he automatically a.s.sumed he wouldn't be ne eded any more that night; but when he went back out to the taxi Darcy foll owed him, saying, 'Manolis, we really don't know how to thank you. I mean, how do we pay for all of this? Oh, we can pay -of course we can - but you 'll have to tell us how, and how much, and . . . et cetera.'

The other shrugged. 'It's on the Greek government.'

'That's very kind,' Darcy said. 'We really would have been lost without y ou. Especially at a time like this, with so much on our minds. For Layard and Jordan, they really are - or were - two of our very closest friends.'

At last Papastamos turned to him. 'My friends, too!' he said, with a lot o f feeling. 'I only knew them for a day or two, but they were nice people! And I tell you, not everyone I meet is so nice!'

'Then you must understand how we feel,' Darcy answered, 'who knew them a long time.'

Papastamos was quiet a moment then shrugged again, perhaps apologeticall y, and nodded. 'Yes, of course I understand. Is there anything else I can do ?'.

'Oh, indeed there is!' Darcy knew it was all right between them now. 'Li ke I said, we'd be lost without you. And that still goes. We'd like you to e xert whatever pressure you can to get that autopsy over and done with, and t hen to have poor Ken Layard cremated as soon as possible. And that's just fo r starters. You'll also need to keep tabs on this gang of drug-smugglers, fo r right now you're the only one who knows anything about them. We will event ually have some more people flying out, and you'll also be required to brief them. And finally, if it's at all possible ... do you think you could arran ge a car for us?'

'No problem!' said the other, expansive as ever. 'It will be here tomorrow morning.' 'Then that's about it for now,' Darcy smiled. 'We'll just trust you to see to your end of this thing, for after all, that's what's most important. And you must trust us to do the things we have to do. We're all experts in our differe nt ways, Manolis.'

Papastamos scribbled a number on a sc.r.a.p of paper. 'You can get me here any time,' he said. 'Or if not, you'll get someone who knows where I am.'

Darcy thanked him again and said good night. And as the taxi drew away he went back in through the squeaking gates . . .

The three went out to eat, and to talk.

'But why out?' Darcy wanted to know, after they'd found a taverna frontin g on a quiet street, with small stairways to private tables on internal balco nies, out of earshot of other patrons. And when they were seated in just such privacy: 'I mean, wasn't the villa private enough?'

'It could have been too private,' Harry told him.

'Too private?' Sandra was still a little shaky from the brief mental cont act she'd made with something unthinkable in the mind of Trevor Jordan.

'There are people here,' Harry tried to explain something he wasn't hims elf sure of. 'Other minds, other thoughts. A background blanket of mental ac tivity. You two should understand that better than I do. I don't want us to be found out, that's all. You think you espers are clever? Well, and so you are - but the Wamphyri have powers, too.'

Wamphyri! It was a word Darcy Clarke couldn't hear without remembering the Yulian Bodescu affair. And he felt a familiar shiver down his spine as he asked: 'And you believe that's what we're up against, right? Another lik e Bodescu?'

'Worse than that,' Harry answered. 'Bodescu was an open book compared t o this. He didn't know what was happening to him. He wasn't an innocent him self - hadn't even been innocent from a time before he was born - but he wa s an innocent in the ways of the Wamphyri. He was a beginner, a child learn ing how to run before he could walk. And he made mistakes, kept falling dow n. Until one of his falls was fatal. But this one isn't like that.'

'Harry,' said Sandra, 'how do you know these things? How do you know wha t we're up against? Yes, I sensed a mind in there with Trevor's, a powerful, totally evil mind ... but couldn't it have been another telepath? They were on a drugs job, Ken and Trevor. What if the big-league criminals have set u p their own ESP-units? It could happen, couldn't it?'

'I doubt it,' Harry answered. 'From what I've seen of espers they don't wor k for other people.'

'What?' Darcy was surprised. 'But we all do. Ken, Trevor, Sandra, myself . And you, once upon a time.'

'Worked for a cause,' said Harry, 'for an idea, a country, for revenge.

Not for the gain of other people. Would you, if you were as powerful as the one Sandra sensed? Would you sell your talent to a gang of thugs who'd de stroy you the moment they began to fear you -which they would, eventually?'

'But what about Ivan Gerenko, who - ?'

'A madman, a megalomaniac!' Harry cut him off. 'No, even the necromanc er Dragosani was working for an ideal - the resurrection of old Wallachia.

At least until his vampire took control. Listen: how many people know you have your talent, Darcy? And Sandra, how many people know you're a telepa th? I've only known it myself for a few hours. You didn't go around advert ising it, did you? Take it from me, the ones who do tell all are the fakes . Mediums and spoon-benders, mystics and gurus - fakes every one!'

Darcy snorted his derision. 'So you're saying that all of us espers are good guys, right?'

'No such thing,' Harry shook his head. 'No, for there's plenty of wickedn ess in the world, even among "all you espers". But think about it: if you're evil and you've mastered a special talent, why would you want to sell it to s omeone else? Wouldn't you use it - in secret - to make yourself mighty?'

'The fact is,' said Darcy, 'I've often wondered why they don't! The people in E-Branch, I mean.'

'I've no doubt that some do,' said Harry. 'No, I'm not talking about E- Branch, but others, people we know nothing about. There must be many talent s loose in the world. How do we know that so-called "business ac.u.men" isn't just another talent? Did this man make a million because he has a "knack"

for wheeling and dealing, or was it because there's a special something gui ding his hand? Something which he himself might not even know about? Is the war hero really as brave as we believe him to be, or has he - like you, Da rcy, or even like Gerenko - got a guardian angel watching over him? Did you know that the casinos have a list of people they won't let in, professional gamblers who have the winning "knack", and that an awful lot of them are rich as Croesus?'

'That's all very well,' said Darcy, reasonably, 'but still you have no proof that this one is a vampire!'

'Proof, not yet,' Harry answered. 'But evidence, plenty. Circ.u.mstantial, but s till it's there.'

'Such as?' said Sandra.

Perhaps exasperated, he turned to her. 'Sandra, the closest you've been to a vampire is in reading my case file. I take it you have read it? It's a stan dard text in E-Branch, as a guard against "the next time". But I do know what I'm talking about, and so does Darcy. So while I don't want to be hurtful, sti ll I think you'd best just sit still and listen. Especially you, for we don't yet know that when you saw him - whoever he is - in Trevor's mind, he didn't s ee you!'

She gasped and sat up straighter, and Harry reached across to pat her hand. 'I'm sorry, but now maybe you can see what's worrying me. Some of it, an yway. Me? -I've been here before, or at least in a similar position. But you ? - G.o.d, I don't want anything to happen to you!'

Darcy said: 'But you did mention evidence.'

Before Harry could answer, a waiter came to take their order. Darcy orde red a full meal, Sandra a salad and sweet, but Harry only asked for a portio n of chicken and plenty of coffee. 'A full stomach always makes me sleepy,'

he explained, 'and alcohol is worse still. And I intend that you understand how deadly serious I am about this thing. But if you really want to drink th at brandy, just go ahead, Darcy.'

Darcy looked at his brandy gla.s.s and the large measure of golden liquid it contained, and put it aside.

'Evidence, then,' said Harry. 'For more than four years the dead haven'

t attempted to contact me. Or if they have, I haven't been aware of it. Oh, my mother may well have come to me in my dreams; in fact I'm sure she has, for that's her nature. And yet now, suddenly, they've placed me in jeopard y. All right, the fact of them attacking Wellesley was circ.u.mstantial: they just happened to be there when he'd planned to murder me. But they were th ere, delivering a message. And they were doing it, possibly (a) for my moth er, or (b) for themselves, out of their concern for me, or (c) for Ken and Trevor, who had been trying to reach me in my dreams.'

Darcy frowned. 'They'd been trying to reach you, telepathically? I didn't k now that.'

'Neither did I, until Ken Layard woke up and saw us, and spoke. A menta l voice sounds just like the real thing to me, Darcy, and back in Scotland I'd been dreaming that people were trying to reach me, but I didn't know wh o they were. As soon as I heard Ken's real voice, then I recognized it. As to how they did it: Ken's a locator, he found me. And Trevor's a telepath, he helped send the message. Why me? Because I'm the so-called "expert" on w hat they both knew they were dealing with. And so they should know, because they too were in on the Bodescu affair.'

Darcy nodded, licked his dry lips. He lifted his brandy and took the mere st sip, dampening his mouth with it. 'All right - what other evidence?'

'The evidence of my own senses,' said Harry, 'which, like yours, number m ore than five.'

'Not any longer,' Sandra pointed out - and at once bit her tongue, hoping he wouldn't take it the wrong way.

Harry didn't. Smiling, however wryly, he said: 'I don't have to be able to talk to the dead to know the difference between a corpse and a live man.'

Again Darcy frowned. 'So what does that mean?' he asked. 'The same goes for any one of us!'

'Have you ever walked down a silent, empty alley at night?' Harry asked him. 'And all of a sudden you're certain someone is there? And sure enough , you see the flare of a match in a dark corner where someone is lighting a cigarette? Have you ever played hide-and-seek where you're it, and when yo u're searching for the other kids you get this feeling right between the sh oulder blades that someone is watching you? And when you look round, again one of them is there? I mean, not the sixth sense which you already know yo u possess, but just a sort of gut feeling?'

Darcy nodded, and Harry continued: 'Well, just as you sense the presence of living people, so I sense the dead. I know when I'm in the company of de ad men. Which is why I can tell you definitely that Ken Layard isn't! Even i f I could still speak to the dead, I couldn't have spoken to Ken. For he's n ot dead. Oh, he's not alive either, but something in between. He's undead, i n thrall to some other, and he'll rise up again as a vampire unless we make sure he's put down forever. That's what he was saying to me in my dream, wha t he was begging me to do: find him, finish him, put him down.'

Again Darcy nodded. 'And when he and Trevor couldn't get through to you , the real dead relayed their message, right?'

'Right,' said Harry. "They tried to spell it out for me, in stone, right there in my garden.'

Sandra shuddered. 'G.o.d, but I just might have defied Wellesley, Harry! I might have been there with you when he came after you. Also when They came after him!' She shook her head. 'I don't think I could bear it... to have se en those things.'

He reached out to clasp her hand across the table. 'They're not just thin gs,' he said. They were living people, once. And now they're dead people. Why , most of the soil and sand and sky and sea oh or covering this entire planet was alive one time or another! It's the nature of things, and life's a stage we go through. But the dead think enough of me to transcend the natural orde r of things.'

'And transcending the natural makes them . . . supernatural?' This from D arcy.

'I suppose it does,' said Harry, turning his soulful eyes on him. 'But d idn't we think of vampires as being supernatural, once upon a time?' And at last he allowed himself a genuine smile, however wan. 'You know, Darcy, for the head of E-Branch you're h.e.l.lish sceptical! I mean, isn't this what it's always been about? Gadgets and ghosts? The physical and the metaphysical? Th e natural and the supernatural?'

'I'm not sceptical,' said Darcy, 'for I've seen too much for that. It's just that I like things sorted out, that's all.'

'And have I sorted things out for you?'

'I suppose you have. So ... where do we go from here?'

'We go nowhere. We examine what we know, take a stab at what we don't know. And we try to prepare for what's coming. But frankly, if I were you tw o, I'd simply back right out of it.'

'What?' Darcy wondered if his hearing was all right.

'You and Sandra. You should climb right aboard the next flight for home , go back to E-Branch and utilize whatever powers are available to you from that end. We should play it like we played the Bodescu business: low-key, until we know what we're dealing with.'

Darcy shook his head. 'We're in it together. I can get the Branch jacke d-up from right here. Maybe I'd better remind you: falling in harm's way is n't a habit of mine. My guardian angel? And anyway, what can you do on your own? Sandra was right, Harry. You're an ex-Necroscope. You don't have it a ny more. Where talents are concerned, you no longer figure. And as you your self pointed out, what happened in Bonnyrig was entirely coincidental: the dead won't be there to help you out every time. So let's face it, of the th ree of us you're the weakest. It isn't that you don't need us, more that we don't need you.'

Harry stared at him. 'You need my expertise,' he said. 'And I've already stated the possible danger to Sandra. She really shouldn't be anywhere near me, and . . .' And abruptly, he paused. But too late, for the damage was do ne. He never had been much good at subterfuge.

'Near you?' she said. 'What does that mean, Harry?' It was her turn to trap his hand.

He sighed, looked away, finally said: 'Look, we have a vampire here. Po ssibly of the old guard, but in any case not too far removed from the origi nal strain, the Wamphyri themselves. And like I keep telling you, if only y ou'd listen, the Wamphyri have powers! Sandra, you looked in Jordan's head and there was this thing in there torturing him, questioning him - specific ally about us. By now he probably knows all there is to know about E-Branch , and how we dealt with what Thibor Ferenczy left behind, and Yulian Bodesc u, and . . . h.e.l.l, anything he wants to know! But more especially he'll kno w about me. If not now, soon. And then he'll come for me. He can't afford n ot to, for he'll know his cover's blown. I'm Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, a nd I'm dangerous. I've killed vampires; I've caused vampire sources to be r ooted out and destroyed; and locked away in my brain somewhere I have the s ecrets of dead speak and the Mobius Continuum. Of course he'll come for me.

And for you two, if you're with me. Now Darcy . . . OK, you have your tale nt, which protects you. But you're still a man, flesh and blood. You were b orn and you can die. And remember, this thing knows about your talent! If t here's a way to dispose of you - or even better, to use you - he'll find it.'

'But surely that's my big advantage?' Darcy argued. 'I already know how to kill him!'

'Oh?' said Harry. 'And how will you find him? And if and when you do, do you think he'll lie still for you to stake him out? Man, he won't wait for you to find him -he'll come looking for you! For us! Look, I'll say it again : compared to this, Yulian Bodescu was a b.u.mbling amateur.'

"Then I'll call in all the help I can get, from E-Branch. I can have ten of our best out here by tomorrow noon.'

'Call them in to be slaughtered?' Harry's frustration was growing, turnin g to anger. With people as special and intelligent as these two, still he had to explain these things as if they were children. For compared to the Wamphr yi they were children, and just as innocent. 'But can't you see, Darcy,' he t ried again, 'they don't know him. They don't know who or where he is.'

Sandra spoke up, displaying all of her innocence and lack of experience for anyone to see. 'Then it's a game of hide-and-seek,' she said. 'We'll kee p our heads down and let him make his play. Or close him in through a system of elimination. Or - '

'We can use our locators,' Darcy cut in, 'like we did with Bodescu, and - ' He paused abruptly and his scalp tingled. And: 'Jesus!' he said, giving a nervous start as something of the enormity of the problem - and something of its true horror - suddenly hit him. And: 'Our locators!' he said again. So th at now Sandra, too, caught on.

'Oh, my G.o.d!' she said.

Harry nodded and allowed himself to flop slowly back in his chair. 'I see we're starting to think,' he said, almost without sarcasm. 'Locators? A terr ific idea, Darcy -except our enemy has fixed it so he may soon have a locator of his own. Yes, and Ken Layard's one of the best there is!'

The food arrived; gloomy and thoughtful, Darcy and Sandra only toyed with theirs; Harry tucked his away in short order, lit one of his very rare cigar ettes, started on the coffee. Darcy, silent for some time, said: 'If it comes to it, we may have to burn Ken ourselves.'

Harry nodded. 'You can see why I was in a hurry.'

'I'm a fool!' Sandra said, suddenly. 'I feel such a fool! Some of the utterly stupid things I've said!'

'No, you're not a fool,' Harry shook his head. 'Don't put yourself down.

You're just loyal, brave, and human. You could no more think like a vampire t han you could think like a c.o.c.kroach. That's what it boils down to: being as devious as they are. But don't think that's a bonus. Believe me it isn't. You can make yourself sick, trying to think like they do.'

'Anyway,' said Darcy, 'I agree with you, Sandra has to get out of this.'

'Yes,' Harry nodded, 'and never should have been in, except there was n o way we could know until we got here.' He turned to her. 'You must be able to see, love, how hampered we'd be? Oh, Darcy will get by OK - he always h as - but I wouldn't even be able to think straight with you around. I'd be forever worrying about what you might b.u.mp into.' Sandra thought: It's the first time he's called me 'love' in . . . a day or two? It felt like a long time anyway. But the wait had been worth it. 'And wha t would I do?' she said. 'Sit around back home and hope for the best?'

Darcy shook his head. 'No, you'd co-ordinate E-Branch's efforts in my ab sence. With Wellesley out of the picture and me over here, things are bound to be tight. But you have first-hand knowledge of our situation, so you'll b e invaluable as our liaison man - or woman. Also, you'll be kept fully in th e picture, day to day, on what's happening. In fact you'll probably have so much on your plate that there won't be time to worry about Harry.'

And Harry said, 'He's right, you know.'