'But surely you knew my intention all along?'

Knowing what someone wants to do doesn't make them capable of doing it, the other answered. But now, after the dog...

Harry nodded. 'But a dog's a dog, and a man's a man. We still can't be sure until... we're sure.'

Do I have anything to lose?

'I suppose not.'

Harry, any time you're ready, then so am I. Boy, am I ready!

Trevor, just a second ago you said you can't help being what you are any more than I can. Did that mean more than it sounded? You must have read quite a lot, in my mind.'

And after a long pause: I won't lie to you, Harry. I know what's happened to you, what you're becoming. You don't know how sorry 1 am.

'Pretty soon,' said the Necroscope, 'the whole damn rat pack will be after me.'

I know. And I know what you'll do then, and where you'll go.

Again Harry's nod. 'But it's like my Ma told me,' he said. 'It's a strange and sinister place. Any help I can get, I'll probably need it.'

Is there something I can do? Not much, I reckon. Not from where I am right now.

'Actually, yes,' said Harry. 'We could do it right now. But I won't take that sort of advantage. If the thing works, that will be soon enough. And even then - especially then - the decision will still be yours.'

So ... when? (Again Jordan's breathlessness.)

Tomorrow.'

Jesus!

But: 'Don't!' the Necroscope cautioned him then. 'Curse all you want, but be careful who you name...'

After that they talked generally and remembered old times. A pity there wasn't anything good to remember. Oh, good had come out of it, but it had been evil as Hell at the time.

And after a lull in their deadspeak conversation: Harry, you know that Paxton's still watching you, don't you? It was Jordan who had first brought the mindspy to the Necroscope's attention. Harry remembered that with gratitude. But ever since the initial warning a week ago, it had been his own intuition which alerted him to the telepath's proximity.

His first instinctive reaction to the problem had been to invoke a talent he'd inherited from Harold Wellesley, an ex-boss of E-Branch who had suicided after being found out as a double-agent. Wellesley's talent had been a negative sort of thing: his mind had been better than the vaults of a bank, literally impregnable. But it had seemed to make him the ideal candidate for head of the British mindspy security organization. Had seemed to, anyway. By way of atonement, he'd passed on his talent to Harry.

But Wellesley's talent was sometimes a two-edged sword: if you bolt your doors against your enemies, your friends get locked out, too. Also, when you blow out the candle in a deep cave, everyone goes blind. Harry would prefer the light, prefer to know Paxton was there and what he was about.

And in any case it was draining to have to keep his guard up like that. Power, all power, has to be generated somewhere, and with the Necroscope's constantly increasing emotional stress his batteries were already sufficiently drained.

Now it was the business of Harry's intuition to keep tabs on the mindspy, his intuition and the expanding intelligence of the thing inside him, its waxing talents. Eventually these would develop into a sort of telepathy in their own right - into telepathy and other forms of ESP -but it could do no harm to have Jordan's brand of the art as an 'optional extra'.

Jordan heard that, too.

Harry, there's no sweat on that. I know you're different. Anything I can give you, take it. Now or after you ... try it out on me, it makes no difference. I'm not going to change my mind. You'll use it to protect yourself, of course you will, but not to hurt us, I'm sure.

'Us?'

People, Harry. I don't think you could hurt people.

'I wish I could be so sure. But the thing is, it won't be me. Or it will be, but I won't think the same any more.'

So all you have to do is stick to your plan. When you know it's coming - or when circumstances force you to take defensive or evasive action - that's when you get the hell out of it.

'Chased out of my own world!' the Necroscope growled.

That or let the genie out of its bottle, yes.

'You're a straight talker, Trevor.'

Isn't that what friends are for?

'But in a way you're a kind of genie in a bottle yourself, right?' Harry's contrary Wamphyri side was surfacing, his need to argue the point. Any point. Jordan hadn't sensed it yet, but in any case he was trying to keep the conversation light.

Maybe that's where those old Moslem legends spring from, eh? A man with the Power, who knows the magic words, calling up a powerful slave from dust in a bottle. What is your wish, O Master?

'My wish?' Harry's voice was gaunt as his face. 'Sometimes I wish to fuck I'd never been born!'

And now Jordan sensed it: Harry's duality - the strange tides in his blood, eroding the coastline of his will - the horror which challenged his human ascendancy even now, whose challenge was strengthening hour by hour, day by day.

You're tired, Harry. Maybe you should take it easy for a while. Get some sleep.

'At night?' The Necroscope chuckled, but drily, darkly. 'It's not my nature, Trevor.'

You have to fight it.

'I've been fighting it!' Harry's growl was deeper. 'All I do is fight it.'

Jordan was silent for a moment. Then: Maybe... Maybe we should give it a break now. His deadspeak was full of trembling. Harry could feel his fear, the terror of a dead man. And to his innermost self, where Jordan couldn't reach:

Oh, God! Even the dead are afraid of me now.

He stood up abruptly, starting to his feet so as almost to topple his chair. And lurching to the curtains he looked out through an inch of space where the drapes came together, across the river and into the night. At which precise moment, on the far river bank and under the trees there, someone struck a match to light a cigarette. Just for a second Harry saw the flare before it was cupped in the windshield of a hand. And then there was only a yellow glow, brightening when the watcher took a deep drag.

The bastard's out there right now,' Harry spoke, almost to himself.

It might as well be to himself, for Jordan was too frightened to answer...

5

The Resurrected

At midnight Harry was still seething.

He invoked Wellesley's talent, crept out into his garden and down the path to where the old gate in the wall sagged on its rusting hinges. The night was his friend and like a cat he became one with the shadows, until it would seem there was no one there at all. Looking through the gapped gate, across the river, his night-sensitive eyes could plainly see the motionless figure under the trees: the mind-flea, Paxton.

'Paxton...'

The word was like poison on Harry's lips and in his mind ... his mind, or that of the creature which was now a growing part of him. For Harry's vampire recognized the threat even as did the Necroscope himself, except it might deal with it differently. If he would let it.

'Paxton.' He breathed the name into the cool night air, and his breath was a mist that drifted to the path and swirled around his ankles. The dark essence of Wamphyri was strong in him now, almost overpowering. 'You can't hear me, you bastard, can you?' He breathed mist which flowed under the gate, across the overgrown river path, down among the brambles and on to the glassy water itself. 'You can't read me; you don't know I'm here at all, do you?'