She looked at them, then looked away. 'Well, I'll say one thing for it: at l east I won't have to worry about things like . . . like burning poor Ken!'

Darcy looked at Harry. 'How about it? How long do we have before . . . ?'

'It will only come to that - dealing with it ourselves - if the local autho rities don't get a move on,' Harry answered. 'But out here, because of the heat and such, I should think they're normally pretty smart off the mark.'

Darcy frowned. 'But is there no official deadline - G.o.d, what a pun! I mean , before things start to get ... problematic?'

'You mean: when does he get up and walk, right?' Harry shook his head.

'No, there's no official deadline. How long did it take George Lake, Yulian Bodescu's uncle?'

'Three days and nights,' Darcy answered at once. 'They had just enough t ime to bury him before he was digging his way out again.'

'Oh, don't!' said Sandra, her eyes bright with horror.

Harry looked at her, felt sorry for her, but had to continue anyway. 'Lak e was textbook,' he said. 'But I don't think there are any strict rules. None I'd trust, anyway.' He sat up straighter and looked around. 'But you know, I was just thinking: for tourists we must look pretty miserable! Anyway, this place is filling up now. I suggest we get back to the villa. Let's face it, I could be wrong about the value of crowds; we could be just as safe there as we are here. And whichever, we still have to make our plans - and make the vi lla secure.'

On their way back they were mainly silent. This far out from the centre of Rhodes, and this early in the season, things weren't so busy. There was p lenty of traffic on the roads, heading for the bright lights, but the sidewa lks were almost empty. With the sea flat and shining on their right, beyond the promenade, and the Milky Way strewn like the dust of diamonds across the sky, it might have been very romantic. In other circ.u.mstances. But as they walked the pebble path to their door, even the plaintive, repet.i.tive, molten silver calling of small Greek owls couldn't lift their mood.

As soon as they were inside Darcy went upstairs to check the windows, while Harry tended to the downstairs windows and back door. Both doors were solid, with strong locks and good bolts. All the windows were fitted with s hutters externally and thief locks internally.

'Couldn't be better,' said Darcy, as they got together again around a table in the sitting-room.

'Oh, it could be,' Harry contradicted him. 'Remind me tomorrow to buy so me garlic.'

'Of course,' Darcy nodded. 'You know, I'd forgotten that entirely? It's so m uch a part of the fiction that it slipped my mind it's also part of the fact!'

'Garlic,' Harry repeated, 'yes. On Sunside the Travellers call it "knebla sch". That's the root of its name in Earth's languages, too. It's the German "k.n.o.blauch" and the Gypsy "gnarblez".' He grinned tiredly and without humour.

'Another piece of useless information.'

'Useless?' said Sandra. 'I think it's as well if you give us all the useless i nformation you can!'

Harry shrugged. 'You can get a lot of it out of Darcy's "fiction". But i f that's what you want . . .' And he shrugged again, but warned: 'Except you must always remember, nothing is certain, not with a vampire. And no one - myself included - knows everything there is to know about them. What, everyt hing? I don't know a tenth of it! But I do know that the closer you get to t he source, to the original Wamphyri stock, the more effective the various po isons become. Garlic sickens them. Its stink offends as ordure offends us, e ven makes them ill. On Starside, Lardis Lidesci smears his weapons with oil of garlic. A vampire, struck with a weapon treated that way - arrow, knife o r sword, whatever - will suffer hideously! Often the infected member must be shed, and another grown in its place.'

Darcy and Sandra looked at each other aghast, but they said nothing.

'Then there's silver,' Harry continued, 'poison to them, like mercury or lead is to us. Which reminds me: we should be on the lookout for a couple o f these fancy Greek paperknives - in silver or silver-plate. Darcy, you saw those bolts I packed with my crossbow? They're of hardwood, rubbed with garl ic oil, tipped with silver. And please don't ask me if I'm serious. On Stars ide the Travellers swear by these things, and stay alive by them!'

Starside! Darcy thought, staring at Harry. The alien, parallel world of the vampires. He's seen it, been there and returned. He's had all that. And now he sits here, entirely human and vulnerable, and tries to explain these things to us. And somehow he doesn't get angry with us, and somehow he doesn 't crack up and rant and rave. And he never quits.

'Vampires,' said Sandra, and felt herself thrilling to the word, even kn owing she loathed it. 'Tell us about them, Harry. Oh, I know it's all in the files back at E-Branch HQ in London. But it's different coming from you. Yo u know so much about them, and yet you say you know so little.' 'I'll tell you the several sure things I know about them,' said Harry. 'T hey're devious beyond the imagination of human beings. They're liars each and every one, who on almost every occasion would rather lie than tell the truth - unless there's something of substantial value in it for them. They're expe rt in confusing any argument, adept at ambiguous and frustrating riddles, wor d-games, puzzles and paradoxes, false similes and parallels. They're insanely jealous, secretive, proud, possessive. And as for their grip on life - or un death - they are the most tenacious creatures in or out of Creation!

'Their source lies in the vampire swamps east and west of the central mou ntain range that divides Starside from Sunside. The legend is that at times t hey emerge as monstrous slugs or leeches to fasten on men and beasts. As to w hat degree of intelligence they possess at that stage: who can say? But their tenacity is there from square one. They live on the blood of the host and fo rm a horrific symbiosis with him. The host is changed, materially and mentall y. s.e.xless, the vampire "adopts" the s.e.x of its host, and it fosters in him - or in her - that l.u.s.t for blood which eventually will sustain both of them.

'I said that the host is altered materially. That's true: a vampire's fle sh is different from ours. It has within itself the power of regeneration. Lo se a finger, an arm or leg, and given time the vampire will replace them. Tha t's not as weird as it sounds. A starfish does it even better. Cut a starfish up and throw it back in the sea, each part will grow a whole new animal. Lik ewise a gecko losing its tail, or the segmented cestode or tapeworm of men. B ut a vampire is no cestode worm. Lesk the Glut, an insane Wamphyri Lord, lost an eye in battle - and caused another to grow on his shoulder!

'As the vampire matures within its host, so that host's strength and end urance increase enormously. Likewise his emotions. Except for love, whose co ncept is alien to the Wamphyri, all other pa.s.sions become a rage. Hate, l.u.s.t , the urge to war, to rape, to torture and destroy all peers or opponents. B ut such evils as these are tempered by the vampire's desire for secrecy, ano nymity. For he knows that if he is discovered, men won't rest until he's des troyed. That last applies specifically in this world, of course, for in thei r own they are, or were, the Lords. They were, until The Dweller and I broug ht their reign to ruin. But even before that there were certain Traveller tr ibes who would kill them if and when they could. My son and I ... we didn't destroy them all. Sometimes I wish we had.

'So ... when did they first come here, how, and where did they arrive?

The first of them, in this world? Who knows? There have been vampires in al l Man's legends. Where is far easier: in ancient Dacia, in Romani and Moldo va, in Wallachia. Which is all one and the same: Romania to you, on or clos e to the Danube. There's a Gate there, a tunnel between dimensions, but mer cifully inaccessible. Or very nearly so. I used it when I went to Starside, but that was before Harry Jnr stripped me of my talents.' Harry sat back and sighed. Time and its events were catching up with him . He looked very tired now, but nevertheless asked, 'What else?'

However morbid, Sandra couldn't resist the fascination of Harry's subject . 'What of their life-cycles, their longevity? When I read the E-Branch files , it all seemed so fantastic! And you say their origin is the swamps; but wha t about before that? How did they get there in the first place?'

'That's like asking what came first, the chicken or the egg,' said Harry . 'The swamps are their place, that's all. Why are there aborigines in Austr alia? How come we only find Komodo lizards in Komodo? As for their life-cycl es: 'They start in the swamps, as great leeches. That's how I understand it, anyway. They transfer to men or beasts, usually wolves. And incidentally, it'

s a theory of mine that the werewolf of myth is in fact a vampire. Why not? I t lives on raw, red flesh and its bite can create another werewolf, can't it?

Of course, for the bite is the pa.s.sing of the egg, which carries the codes o f both wolf and vampire.'

Suddenly Harry's haunted look became more haunted yet. 'My G.o.d!' he wh ispered, shaking his head in wonderment. 'And every time I think of that, I can't help thinking of my son. Where is he now? I wonder. Still on Stars ide, a vampire Lord? What is he now, that child of Brenda and me? For Harr y's vampire came from a wolf!'

For long moments his soulful eyes were fogged, distant, lost. But then he blinked, stirred himself, came back to the present point in s.p.a.ce and time.

And: "Their life-cycles,' he cleared his throat and continued. 'Very well. So f ar we've traced the cycle from a swamp-leech to a parasite in a human or anima l host. But I called the partnership a symbiosis, and as you'll appreciate tha t calls for give and take on both sides. Well, the parasite gets his keep, and learns from the mind of his host. And the host gets the vampire's healing pow ers, his protoflesh, his skills for survival and, of course, his longevity. Ev entually the vampire will weld itself to its host's interior; it will become p art of him, utterly inseparable. The two parts -even the brains - will slowly merge and become one. But in the early days the parasite retains a certain ind ividuality. If an immature vampire senses extreme, inescapable danger to its h ost, it may even attempt to flee him. Dragosani's vampire did just that when I destroyed him. But to no avail; I destroyed it, too . . .'

A tremor had entered Harry's soft-spoken voice, and the gauntness was bac k in his face. It was a hag-ridden expression and hard to define, at least un til he continued: 'Or again, an immature vampire may be driven out from its host, if you know the way. But always with . . . with disastrous results to the host.' A nd now they knew he was talking about the Lady Karen and understood his mood.

He saw the looks on their faces and moved quickly on: 'Where was I? Oh yes: the life-cycle. Well, you might be tempted to think that the rest of it is the weirdest of all, but is it really? Have a look at the amphibia, the frogs and newts. Or moths and b.u.t.terflies. Or if you're ha ppy to stick with parasites, how about the liver fluke? There's a horror if e ver there was! But what makes the vampire worse is his evil intelligence, and the fact that in the end his will is ascendant, dominant, stronger than that of his host. So you see it isn't really give and take at all but total submi ssion. And then there's the egg. Faethor Ferenczy pa.s.sed on his egg to Thibor the Wallach by way of a kiss. He hooked the thing up out of his throat onto his forked tongue and thrust it down Thibor's throat! And from that moment fo rward, Thibor, warrior that he was, was doomed.

'Staked and chained and buried, undead for five hundred years, Thibor put forth a protoflesh tendril and dropped his egg on the back of Dragosan i's neck. The thing entered like quicksilver, pa.s.sed through Dragosani's f lesh and fastened to his spine without even leaving a mark. And so Dragosa ni, too, was doomed. Now, Faethor was Wamphyri. He gave Thibor his egg, an d so he became Wamphyri! Yes, and so would Dragosani be Wamphyri if I hadn 't put an end to him.

'The egg, then, carries the true Wamphyri strain. Only the egg. And it may be pa.s.sed on through a kiss, through intercourse, or simply hurled at its target host. So Dragosani was informed by Thibor Ferenczy himself, th e old Thing in the ground. Except Thibor, like all vampires, was a liar! W hy, the old devil barely touched the undeveloped foetus of Yulian Bodescu, and the child was corrupted and vampirized before he was even born! And h e had all the - stigmata? - of the Wamphyri. Every sign and symptom, yes, including the ultimate vampire skill of shape-changing. Yulian was Wamphyr i! But - ' - Would he have developed an egg of his own? I don't know. It's entirel y paradoxical, which is only what you'd expect of them.' And Harry fell silen t.

Sandra and Darcy had sat and listened in a sort of stupefaction to all o f this. But now, when it seemed Harry was done, Darcy took it up. 'Their var ieties are equally baffling,' he said. 'It seems Bodescu infected his mother with a small piece of himself. We don't know what sort of piece or how, but h.e.l.l, I can't say I'm sorry about that. He grew something monstrous in the cellars of Harkley House, an unbelievable Thing that murdered one of our esp ers. And he grew it from one of his own wisdom teeth! This mindless, protofl esh thing: he used it to infect his uncle, his aunt and cousin. It seems he vampirized all of them, in as many different ways. Even his d.a.m.ned dog!'

Harry nodded slowly and said, 'Yes, all of that, and it's still not the half of it. Darcy, the Wamphyri of Starside had skills which the vampires of E arth, our Earth, seem to have forgotten, thank G.o.d! They could take flesh -Tr aveller flesh, Trog flesh - and given time shape it to their will. I've talke d about or mentioned gas-beasts, which they breed for the methane they produc e; but they make warriors, too, which you wouldn't believe even if you saw on e!'

'I've seen one,' Darcy reminded him.

'On film,' said Harry, 'yes - but you haven't seen one falling towards y ou out of the sky, every inch of it armoured and lethally equipped! And you haven't seen the bony, cartilage creatures they design specifically for the skins, ligaments and skeletons with which they extend and provision their ae ries! And G.o.d, you've neither seen nor could imagine their siphoneers!'

Sandra closed her eyes, held up her hand and gasped, 'No!' She'd read a bout the things called siphoneers in the Keogh files, and this was somethin g she really didn't want to hear from Harry. She knew about the great placi d, flaccid things in the heights of the vampire towers: how their living ve ins hung down through hundreds of yards of hollow bone pipes, to siphon up water from the wells. And she knew, too, how all of these creatures and bea sts had once been human, before vampire metamorphosis. And, 'No!' she said again.

'Yes,' said Darcy, 'Sandra's right. And perhaps this was the wrong time t o go through all of this anyway. G.o.d knows I shan't sleep!'

Harry nodded. 'I rarely sleep,' he answered, 'peacefully.'

And as if they had already agreed it, though in fact it hadn't been mentio ned, they carried three single beds out of the bedrooms into the large living- room and set them up there around the central table, and prepared to sleep in the same room together. It might not be entirely civilized, but it was safest.

Harry brought out his crossbow from a holdall, a.s.sembled it and fitted a bolt. He placed the loaded weapon between his and Darcy's bed, on the floor close to the table, where they weren't likely to step on it. Then, while th e others used the bathroom to prepare for bed in their turn, he stretched ou t in an armchair and drew a blanket up over himself. If he became uncomforta ble later, he could always stretch out on his bed then.

And in the darkness and quiet of the room, where only a haze of grey li ght came in through the louvres, Darcy yawned and asked, 'What plans for to morrow, Harry?'

'To see to Ken Layard,' Harry answered without hesitation, 'to get Sandra on a plane for home, and to see what can be done for Trevor Jordan. We shoul d try to get him out of here as soon as possible. To distance him from the va mpire should be to lessen the thing's influence. Again I suppose it's up to t he local authorities and what they say. But let's deal with all that in the morning. Right now I think I'll be happy just to make it through the night.'

'Oh, I'm sure we will,' said Darcy.

'You feel. . . easy, then?'

'Easy? Hardly that! But there doesn't seem to be anything bothering me esp ecially.'

'Good,' said Harry. And: 'You're a very handy man to have around, Darcy Clarke.'

Sandra said nothing. Already she was asleep . . .

Harry did in fact sleep; he caught brief, troubled s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep in a series of short naps, never more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time ... f or the first few hours, anyway. But in the wee small hours his exhaustion cau ght up with him and his sleep grew deeper; and now the dead, no longer able t o communicate with his conscious mind, could at least try to get through to h im.

The first was his mother, whose voice came to him from far away, faint a s a whisper in the winds of dream: Haaarry! Are you sleeping, son? Why don't you answer me, Harry?

'I ... I can't, Ma!' he gasped, expecting to feel his brain squeezed in a moment, and acid poured on the nerves of his mind. 'You know that. If I try to talk to you, he's going to hurt me. Not him, but what he did to me.'

But you are speaking to me, son! It's just that you've forgotten again, t hat's all. It's only when you're awake that we can't speak. But nothing to st op us when you're only dreaming. You've nothing to fear from me, Harry. You k now I'd never hurt you. Not deliberately.

'I... I remember now,' said Harry, still not quite sure. 'But what's the use anyway? I won't remember what you tell me when I wake up. I never do. I'm forbidden to.'

Ah, but I've found ways round that before, Harry, and I can try to do it again. I don't quite know how, for I sense you're a long way away from me, bu t I can always try. Or if not me, perhaps some of your other friends.

'Ma,' he was fearful now, 'you have to tell them to stop that. You've no idea the pain they can cause me, the trouble they can get me in! And I have enough problems right now without adding to them.'

Oh, I know you have, son, I know, she answered. But there are problems and there are problems, and the solution is sometimes different. We don't w ant you to go solving them in the wrong way, that's all. Do you understand?

But in his sleep he didn't understand; only that he was dreaming, and th at someone who loved him was trying her best to help him, however mistakenly , however misguided. 'Ma,' he said, suddenly angry with her, and with all of them, 'I really wish you'd try to understand. You have to get it through yo ur head that you're putting me in danger! You and the rest of the dead, all of you - it's like you were trying to kill me!'

Oh, Harry! she gasped. Harry I And he knew she was ashamed of him. Now how can you say a thing like that, son? Kill you? Heavens, no. We're tryi ng to keep you alive.

'Ma, I -'

Haaarry. She was fading away again, going back where she belonged, as f aint and distant as a forgotten name on the tip of your tongue, which won't shape itself no matter how hard you try. But then, in another moment, her deadspeak signal strengthened and he focussed on her again. And: You see, son, she said, we don't worry too much about you that way any m ore. It's no longer so painful to us to think that one day you might die. We know you will, for it comes to us all. And through you we've come to unders tand that death isn't really as black as it's painted. But between life and death there's another state, Harry, and we've been warned that you're strayi ng too close.

'Undeath!' it was his turn to gasp, as suddenly his dream turned sharp as reality. 'Warned? By whom?'

Oh, she answered, there are many talents among the dead, son. There are tho se you can speak to and trust, without fearing their words, and others you shou ld never, ever speak to! At times you've moved without caution, Harry, but this time . . . one . . . evil. . . lost to . . . dark as . . . forever!

Her deadspeak was breaking up, fading, dissolving. But what she'd been s aying was important, he was sure. 'Ma?' he called after her, into the gather ing mists of dream. 'Ma?'

Haaaaarrry! Her answer was the faintest echo, diminishing and . . . gone.

Then- - Something touched Harry's face; he started and sat up a little in his a rmchair. And: 'Wha . . . ?' he gasped, as he came half-awake. Was that a flut tering just then? Had something disturbed the air of the room?

'Shhh!' Sandra mumbled from her bed somewhere in the darkness. 'You were dreaming. About your mother again.'

Harry remembered where he was and what he was doing here, and listened for a moment to the room's darkness and silence. And in a little while he asked, 'Are you awake?'

'No,' she answered. 'Do you want me to be?'

He shook his head before realizing she couldn't see him, then whispered, '

No. Go to sleep.'

And as he himself sank down again in dreams, once more he felt that fain t fanning of the air. But sleep had already claimed him and he ignored it.

This time the voice came from the heart of a fog which rolled up out of Harry's dreams as dank and clinging as any fog he'd known in the waking worl d. It was clear, that voice; however distant, its signal was fixed and true; but it was dark, too, and deep and grinding and sepulchral as the bells of h.e.l.l. It came out of the fog and seemed to surround Harry, pressing in on hi s Necroscope mind from all sides.

Ahhh! Beloved of the dead, it said, and Harry recognized it at once. And so I have found you, despite the misguided efforts of those who would prote ct you from a very old, very dead, very harmless thing.

'Faethor,' Harry answered. 'Faethor Ferenczy!'

And: Haaarry Keeooogh, crooned the other, his voice seething. But you do me honour, Harry, with this stress which you place upon my name! Is t his awe which I sense in you? Do you tremble before the Power I once repr esented? Or is it something else? Fear, perhaps? But how so? What, fear?

In one who was always so fearless? Now tell me: what has changed you, my son?

'No son of yours, Faethor,' Harry at once answered, with something of his o ld spirit. 'My name is clean. Don't try to taint it.'

Ahhh! smiled the gurgling, hissing, monstrous thing in his mind. But that'

s better. So much better to be on familiar termsss.

'What is it you want, Faethor?' Harry was suspicious, careful. 'Is it tha t you've heard the dead whispering of my fix and so you've come to taunt me?'

Your fix? Faethor feigned surprise, but not so much as to disguise his o ozing sarcasm. You are in a fix? But is it possible? With so many friends? W ith all the teeming dead to advise and guide you?

Even dreaming, Harry was well versed in the ways of vampires - even the 'harmless', expired variety. 'Faethor,' he said, 'I'm sure you know well e nough the problem. But since you've asked I'll state it anyway: I'm Necrosc ope no longer, except in my dreams. So enjoy my predicament all you can, fo r awake it's a pleasure you'll never know.'

Such bitterness! said Faethor. And there, I thought we were friends, you a nd I.

'Friends?' Harry felt inclined to laughter, but controlled it. Better not to antagonize one of these unduly, not even one as surely dead and gone fore ver as Faethor. 'In what way friends? The dead are my friends, as you've poin ted out, and to them you're an abomination!'

And so you deny me, said the other, and the c.o.c.k not yet crowed three tim es.

'That is a great blasphemy!' Harry cried.

And he sensed Faethor's vile, yawning grin. But of course it is. For I am a great blasphemy, Haaarry! In the eyes of some.

'In the eyes of all,' said Harry. 'In the eyes of sanity itself, Faethor.'

And with finality: 'Now leave me, if you've done with mocking. There must be be tter things to dream.'

Your memory is short! the other now snarled. When you sought advice you came to me. And did I turn you away? Who was it destroyed your enemy in the mountains of the Khorvaty?

'You aided me because to do so suited your own ends, and for no other r eason. You a.s.sisted me in order to strike at Thibor, and so avenge yourself a second time even from the grave! You tossed down Ivan Gerenko from the c liffs guarding your castle because he had caused it to be destroyed. You di d nothing for me. In fact and as I see it now, you used me more than I used you!'

So! Faethor snapped. Not quite the fool I thought! Little wonder you pre vailed, Harry Keogh! But even if what you say is true, still you must admit that the advantage was mutual?

And now Harry knew that the old vampire wasn't here simply to mock; n o, there was more to it than that. That much was made perfectly obvious b y Faethor's manner of expression, his use of the words 'mutual' and 'adva ntage'. And Harry wondered, would their conversation now prove mutually a dvantageous? What did the monster want, and perhaps more importantly, wha t was he willing to exchange for it? Only one way to find out.

'Out with it, Faethor,' said Harry. 'What is it you want from me?'