'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 you're searching for the other kids you get this feeling right between the shoulder 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 you 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 dead men. Which is why I can tell you definitely that Ken Layard isn't! Even if I could still speak to the dead, I couldn't have spoken to Ken. For he's not dead. Oh, he's not alive either, but something in between. He's undead, in 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, what 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. 'God, 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 seen those things.'

He reached out to clasp her hand across the table. 'They're not just things,' 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 order of things.'

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

'I suppose it does,' said Harry, turning his soulful eyes on him. 'But didn'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 hellish sceptical! I mean, isn't this what it's always been about? Gadgets and ghosts? The physical and the metaphysical? The 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 two, 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 jacked-up from right here. Maybe I'd better remind you: falling in harm's way isn'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 any more. Where talents are concerned, you no longer figure. And as you yourself 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 three 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 done. 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. Possibly of the old guard, but in any case not too far removed from the original strain, the Wamphyri themselves. And like I keep telling you, if only you'd listen, the Wamphyri have powers! Sandra, you looked in Jordan's head and there was this thing in there torturing him, questioning him - specifically 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 Bodescu, and... hell, anything he wants to know! But more especially he'll know about me. If not now, soon. And then he'll come for me. He can't afford not to, for he'll know his cover's blown. I'm Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, and I'm dangerous. I've killed vampires; I've caused vampire sources to be rooted out and destroyed; and locked away in my brain somewhere I have the secrets of dead speak and the Möbius Continuum. Of course he'll come for me. And for you two, if you're with me. Now Darcy... OK, you have your talent, which protects you. But you're still a man, flesh and blood. You were born and you can die. And remember, this thing knows about your talent! If there'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 bumbling 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, turning 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 Wamphryi they were children, and just as innocent. 'But can't you see, Darcy,' he tried 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 keep 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 that now Sandra, too, caught on.

'Oh, my God!' 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 terrific 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 cigarettes, 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 than you could think like a cockroach. 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.'