Byzarnov could understand that. 'But what do they want?'

'Are you blind?' Luchov started down the steps. 'Can't you see for yourself?'

And indeed Byzarnov could see for himself. The nine once-men had isolated the exorcet module; they were closing in on it, invading it. Three of the Major's technicians, together with a handful of Perchorsk's soldiers, were trying to hold them off. An impossible task. Dead men don't feel pain. Shoot at these magmass monsters all they would, the launcher's defenders couldn't kill them a second time.

'But... why?' Byzarnov came stumbling down the steps after Luchov. Behind them on the platform, the other technicians and Luchov's guards were reluctant to follow. 'What's their intention?'

To press the bloody button!' Luchov barked. They may be dead, warped, weird, but they're not stupid. We're the stupid ones.'

At the foot of the steps, the Major caught up and grasped Luchov's shoulder. Tress the button? Fire the missiles? But they mustn't!'

Luchov turned on him. 'But they must! Don't you see? Whatever brought them up knew more than we do. The dead don't walk for just anyone or anything. No, they need a damn good reason to put themselves to torture such as this!'

'Madman!' Byzarnov hissed. He was close to breaking. 'Oh, quite obviously this is some long-term, alien effect of this totally unnatural place, but these reanimated - things - can't have any real purpose. They're blind, insensate, dead!'

They want to launch those missiles,' Luchov shouted in the other's face, over the clamour of discharged weapons, 'and we have to help them!'

At which the Major knew that the Projekt Direktor really was mad. 'Help them?' He drew his pistol and pointed it at Luchov's chest. 'You poor, crazy bastard! Get the hell back away from there!'

Luchov turned from him, hurried along the rubber-floored safety perimeter towards the creature with the page-shedding manual for a hand. 'It's all right,' he was gasping. 'Let me pass. I'll do it for you.' And to Byzarnov's amazement, the thing shuffled aside for him.

'Like hell you will!' the Major shouted, and squeezed the trigger of his automatic. The bullet hit Luchov in the right shoulder and passed right through, punching out in a scarlet spray from a hole in his chest. He was thrown forward, face-down on the walkway, where he lay still for a moment. And Byzarnov came on, aiming at him a second time.

But the magmass things knew an ally when they saw one. The thing with the book hand got in Byzarnov's way, blocking his aim, while another whose limbs were cased in stony magmass welded to a trunk which was a jumble of fused bone, rubber and glass, came lurching to the Direktor's assistance. The Major fired at this one point-blank, time and again, to no avail. But as the thing loomed in front of him, finally a shot cracked the magmass casing of its left arm. The brittle sheath fragmented at once, and a black, vile soup - a decomposed mush of flesh - began leaking from inside.

Almost overwhelmed by the stench, the Major fell against the curving wall. Still the rotting hybrid came on. Byzarnov lifted his pistol and pulled the trigger, and the firing mechanism made a click! He had a spare magazine in his pocket. He reached for it ...

... And the magmass thing closed a bony hand on his windpipe. Byzarnov choked. He could see Luchov getting to his feet, staggering, moving towards the launching module, where most of the defenders had either fainted or stampeded in terror. Only one technician and one soldier remained there now: their weapons were empty and they danced, gibbered and clung together like children as decomposing nightmares closed in on them.

But Luchov: two of the magmass composites were helping him, supporting him where he lurched towards the firing console!

The Major made a final effort, drew the spare magazine from his pocket and tried to fit it into the housing in the pistol grip of his weapon. As he did so, the magmass sheath fell away completely from his assailant's left arm. Byzarnov opened his mouth to yell or throw up ... and the anomalous thing stuffed its skeletal arm and envelope of jellied, rotting flesh right down his throat!

The Major gagged and vibrated where the thing pinned him. His eyes stood out in his head and his heart stopped. He died there and then, but not before he'd seen Luchov at the firing console. Not before he'd seen him slump there and crumple to the rubber floor, even as the klaxons began bellowing their final warning.

On Starside, Harry Keogh burned. The rain was a drizzle which tried to but couldn't damp down the flames, and the Necroscope burned. He burned inside and out: fire on the outside, and a burning, consuming hatred within. For Shaithis, who even now took the Lady Karen by force, there in front of Harry's cross. She seemed completely exhausted, resisted not at all as he tore at her. And Harry thought: A beast, even a warrior, could do no worse. But he hoped he'd be dead before that was put to the test.

A moment ago, he had tried to conjure a Möbius door - the biggest door of all, right there in front of the Gate -which with any luck would implode massively and suck the vampires and their creatures and all into eternity. But the numbers wouldn't come, the computer screen of his mind had stayed blank. It was as if his skills had died with his wolf son, like a slate wiped clean. And indeed such was the case: after a lifetime of esoteric use, finally Harry's mind had given way, crumpled under the weight of one too many tragedies. Now he was a man again, just a man, and the vampire inside him was too immature even to flee his melting body.

'Come down, Necroscope,' Shaithis taunted. 'Should I leave some of this bitch for you?'

The flames were licking higher now, and black smoke belching. Shaitan had somehow got round the obstacle of Shaithis's warrior and stood observing all across a short distance. And for all that the Fallen One was alien, unmanlike, unreadable, still there was that in his poise -the way his eyes stared out from the darkness of his cowl - which spoke of an almost human uncertainty and apprehension. As if he'd seen all this before, and now waited for some awesome termination.

Harry's lower trunk was being eaten alive by fire. Now he must sleep and escape from the agonies of life forever. Except... instead of blacking out, suddenly he felt the pain laved away from him, deflected, turned outwards. And he knew that this was not simply an art of the Wamphyri. His body burned, but the pain was someone else's. Many someones were absorbing it: all the dead of Starside who, now that it was too late, only desired to comfort him.

No, he tried to tell them, trogs and Travellers alike. You have to let me die! But his deadspeak wasn't working.

'Where's your power now?' Shaithis laughed. 'If you're so strong, set yourself free. Call up the teeming dead. Curse me with Words of Power, Necroscope. Hah! Your words, like the dead themselves, are dust!'

And somehow, from somewhere, Harry found the strength to answer. 'Put yourself aside, Shaithis. The sight of you hurts worse than any fire. These flames are a blessing: they cleanse you from my sight!'

'Enough!' Shaithis raged, foaming over Karen like a scummy wave. 'One last kiss and she's gone, and you with her!' He fell on her; his jaws cracked open; he began to close his mouth over Karen's face, to crush her head -

- And her scarlet eyes opened into blazing life.

Perhaps she also opened her mind, to let Shaithis read his doom. At any rate, he tried to rear back from her. But no, her arms and legs were around him and their meta-morphic flesh was welded into one. And coughing up The Dweller's grenade into her throat, Karen pulled the pin with her forked tongue and buried her face in her tormentor's gaping jaws!