'Speak of the devil,' the other growled low in his throat, his little pig-eyes full of hate where they stared through the condensation on the cabin window at the sleek white shape which even now came ghosting alongside, her reversed screws bringing her to a dead halt in the gently 1 lapping water.

The grey, mist-wreathed crew of the Lazarus tossed hawsers; the ships were hauled together, port to portside; ancient tyres festooning the Samothraki's strakes acted as buffers, keeping the hulls apart. All was achieved by the light of the deck lamps, in an eerie silence where even the squealing of the tyres as they were compressed and rubbed between the hulls seemed muted by the fog.

For all that the Lazarus was a modern steel-hull, as broad as the Samothraki but three metres longer, still she sat low in the water when her screws were dead or idling. The decks of the two ships were more or less level, and with little or no swell to mention transfer would be as simple as stepping from one ship to the next. And yet the crew of the white ship, all eight of them, simply lined the rail; while her master and his American companion stayed back a little, gaunt figures under the awnings of the foredeck. The cabin lights, blazing white through the fog, gave their obscure shapes silvery silhouettes.

At the port rail of the Samothraki, Themelis and his men grew uneasy. There was something very odd here, something other than this weird, unnatural fog. 'This Lazarides bastard,' Themelis's sidekick grunted under his breath, 'bothers me.'

Themelis offered a low snort of derision. 'Something of an understatement, that, Christos,' he said. 'But keep your balls out of his way and you should be OK!'

The other ignored the jibe. 'The mist clings to him,' he continued, shivering. 'It almost seems to issue from him!'

Lazarides and Armstrong had moved to the gate in the rail. They stood there, leaning forward, seeming to examine the Samothraki minutely. There was nothing to choose between them in height, Themelis thought, but plenty in bearing and style. The American shambled a little, like an ape, and wore a black eyepatch over his right eye; in his right hand he carried a smart black briefcase, hopefully full of money. And Lazarides beside him, straight as a ramrod in the night and the fog, affecting those dark glasses of his even now.

But silent? Why were they so silent? And what were they waiting for? 'So here we are then, Jianni!' Themelis shook off the black mood of depression which had so suddenly threatened to envelop him, opened his arms expansively, glanced around and nodded his satisfaction. 'Privacy at last, eh? In the heart of a bank of fog, of all bloody things! So ... welcome aboard the old Samothraki.'

And at last Lazarides smiled. 'You are inviting me aboard?'

'Eh?' said Themelis, taken aback. 'But certainly! How else may we get our business done?'

'How indeed?' said the other, with a grim nod. And as he crossed between ships, so he took off his dark glasses. Armstrong came with him, and the rest of his men, too, clambering over the rails. And the crew of the Samothraki backed stumblingly away from them, knowing now for a fact that something - almost everything - was most definitely wrong here. For the crew of the Lazarus were like flame-eyed zombies to a man, and their master... he was like no man they'd ever seen before!

Pavlos Themelis, seeing the transformation in the face of the man called Lazarides as he stepped aboard the Samothraki, thought his eyes must be playing him tricks. His First Mate saw it, too, and frantically yanked his gun from its under-arm holster.

Too late, for Armstrong towered over him. The American used his briefcase to bat the gun aside even as it was brought into view, then grabbed the man's gun-hand and wrestled the weapon round to point at its owner's head.

Bullet-head didn't stand a chance. Armstrong pointed the gun into his ear and said, 'Hahr And his victim, seeing the American's one eye burning like sulphur - and his forked, crimson tongue, flickering in the gape of his mouth - simply gave up the ghost.

'That one,' said Janos to Themelis, almost casually, 'was a fool!' Which was Armstrong's signal to pull the trigger.

As his head flew apart in crimson ruin, Christos was tossed like a rag doll over the rail. Sliding down between the hulls, his body was crushed and ground a little before being dumped into the mist lying soft on the sea. The hole he made in it quickly sealed itself; the echo of the shot which had killed him, caught by the fog and tossed back, was still ringing.

'Holy Mother of - /' Themelis breathed, helpless as his men were rounded up. But as Janos advanced on him he backed away and again, disbelievingly, observed the length of his head and jaws, the teeth in his monstrous mouth, the weird scarlet blaze of his terrible eyes. 'J-J-Jianni?' the Greek finally got his brain working. 'Jianni, I -'

'Show me this cocaine,' Janos took hold of his shoulder with a steel hand, his fingers biting deep. 'This oh so valuable white powder.'

'It - it's below...' Themelis's answer was a mere breath; he could not, daren't, take his eyes from the other's face.

'Then take me below,' said Janos. But first, to his men: 'You did well. Now do as you will. I know how hungry you are.'

Even below decks Themelis could hear the screams of his crew; and he thought: What, Christos Nixos a fool? Maybe, but at least he didn't know what hit him! And he wondered how long before his screams would be joining the rest...

Forty minutes later the Lazarus's diesels coughed into life and she drew slowly away from the now silent, wallowing Samothraki. The fog was lifting, stars beginning to show through, and soon the horizon would light with the first crack of a new day.

When the Lazarus was a quarter-mile away, the doomed Samothraki blew apart in a massive explosion and gouting fire. Bits of her spiralled or fluttered back to the foaming sea and were put out, leaving only their drifting smoke. She was no more. In a few days pieces of her planking might wash ashore, maybe a body or two, possibly even the bloated, fish-eaten corpse of Pavlos Themelis himself...

5

Harry Keogh Now: Ex-Necroscope

Harry woke up knowing that something was happening or about to happen. He was propped up in the huge old bed where he'd nodded off, his head against the headboard, a fat, black-bound book open in his slack hands. The Book of the Vampire: a so-called 'factual treatise' which examined the elemental evil of the vampire down through all the ages to modern times. It was light reading for the Necroscope, and many of its 'well-authenticated cases' little more than grotesque jokes; for no one in the world - with one possible exception - knew more about the legend, the source, the truth of vampirism than Harry Keogh. That one exception was his son, also called Harry, except that Harry Jnr didn't count because in fact he wasn't 'in' this world at all but... somewhere else.

Harry had been dreaming an old, troubled dream: one which mingled his life and loves of fifteen years gone by with those of the here and now, turning them into a surreal kaleidoscope of eroticism. He had dreamed of loving Helen, his first groping (mental as well as physical) sexual experience; and of Brenda, his first true love and the wife of his youth; so that however strange and overlapping, these had been sweet and familiar dreams, and tender. But he had also dreamed of the Lady Karen and her monstrous aerie in the world of the Wamphyri, and it seemed likely that this was the dreadful dream which had started him awake.