The eyes in Jordan's head glared until they seemed about to leap from their orbits, and his hands trembled where they gripped the arms of the chair. But finally: 'It ... will ... be ... my ... my great pleasure to meet you again, Harry Keogh,' he said, grinding his teeth. 'But man to man, face to face.'

Harry was practised in the ways of the Wamphyri. He knew how to hurl weighty insults. 'Man to man?' he gave a snort of derision. 'You elevate yourself to ridiculous heights, Janos. And face to face? Why, there are cockroaches in this world who stand taller than you!'

Manolis got down on one knee beside Harry's chair, reached for his gun. 'Give it to me,' he said, 'and tell me what you want to know. And believe me, I will make him tell you!'

'I go now - ' Janos said, ' - but I go knowing that you will come to me.' He opened his mouth and laughed, and wriggled his tongue as frantically and obscenely as a madman. 'I know it as surely as I know that tonight - ah tonight. - sweet Sandra will writhe in my bed, lathered with the froth of our fornication!'

He laughed, a great shout of a laugh, and fell limp in his chair. His eyes closed, his head leaned to one side and his jaw fell open. Foam dribbled from one corner of his mouth, and his left arm and hand vibrated a little where they hung down the side of the chair.

Harry, Darcy and Manolis glanced at each other, and at last Harry half-released the Beretta into Manolis's hands - at which Jordan's eyes sprang open! He laughed again and leaped alert, and snatched the gun from between them. And: 'Ah, hah-hah!' he screamed. 'Children, mere children.'

And putting the gun to his right ear, he pulled the trigger.

Harry had drawn back, forcing his chair backwards away from the action, but Darcy and Manolis were sprayed with blood and brains as the left side of Jordan's head flew apart. Yelping their horror, they started upright and back.

Framed in the open doorway, a trio of Sisters of Mercy held their hands to their mouths and gasped. They had seen it all. Or the end of it, anyway. 'Oh, my G-G-God!' Darcy staggered from the room, leaving Harry and Manolis, mouths agape, staring at Jordan's bloody corpse...

Harry and Darcy left Manolis to hand over to the local police (the case was a 'suicide' pure and simple, with plenty of witnesses to prove it) and walked back to their hotel.

It wasn't yet 10:00 a.m. but already it was baking hot; the heat seemed to bounce off the cobbles in the narrow streets of the Old Town; Darcy dumped his bloodied jacket in the back of a refuse truck, and cleaned up as best he could in a drinking fountain along the way.

At the hotel they showered and Harry saw to his bruises, and then for the best part of an hour they sat and did nothing at all ...

A little before noon Manolis joined them. 'What now?' he wanted to know. 'Do we go ahead as planned?'

Harry had been thinking it over. 'Yes and no,' he answered. 'You two go ahead as planned: go to Halki, tomorrow, then Karpathos, and see what you can do. And you'll have the men from E-Branch to back you up from then on in. But I can't wait. I have to square it with that bastard. It was what he said at the end. I can't live with that. It has to be put right.'

'You'll go to Hungary?' Manolis looked washed out, exhausted.

'Yes,' Harry told him. 'See, I thought that after Sandra was taken it wouldn't matter: she'd simply be a vampire, beyond anyone's help. But I hadn't reckoned with how he might use her. Well, it could be that she herself is now past caring, but I'm not. So ... I have to go. Not even for her sake anymore but for mine. I may not any longer have what it takes to get him, but I can't let her go on like that.'

Darcy shook his head. 'Not a good idea, Harry,' he said. 'Look, Janos was goading you, challenging you to take part in a duel he doesn't think you can win. And you've fallen for it. You were right the first time: where Sandra is concerned what's done is done. Now's the time to steady up and start thinking ahead, the time for preparation and planning. But it isn't the time to go off half-cocked and get yourself killed! You know how difficult it's going to be just getting to Janos in the Carpathians; but you also know that if you simply leave him alone, then sooner or later he'll come looking for you where you can meet him on your terms. He'll have to, if he ever again wants to feel safe in the world.'

'Harry,' said Manolis, 'I think maybe Darcy is right. I still don't know why that maniac killed himself and not you, but what you're planning now... it's like putting your head right back in the noose!'

'Darcy probably is right,' Harry agreed, 'but I have to play it how I see it. As for Jordan killing himself: that was Janos, showing me how "powerful" he is! Yes, and hurting me at the same time. But kill me? No, for it's like he said: he wants me alive. I'm the Necroscope; I have strange talents; there are secrets locked up in my head that Janos wants to get at. Oh, he can talk to some of the dead - poor bastards - in that monstrous, necromantic way of his, but he can't command their respect as I do. He'd like to, though, for he's as vain as the rest of them, but he still doesn't feel that he's true Wamphyri. So ... he probably won't be satisfied until he's made himself the most powerful vampire the world's ever seen. And to that end, if he can find some way to steal my skills from me -' He let it tail off ...

And immediately, in a lighter tone, continued:

' - Anyway, you two are going to have plenty on your own plates. So stop worrying about me and start worrying about yourselves. Manolis, how about those spearguns? And I'd also like you to book me a seat on the next plane for Athens - say sometime tomorrow morning? - with a Budapest connection. And Darcy - '

' - Whoa!' said Darcy. 'You changed the subject a bit fast there, Harry. And let's face it, there's really no comparison between what we'll be doing here in the islands and what you'll be going up against in the Carpathians. Also, Manolis and I, we have each other, and by tomorrow night there'll be a gang of us. But you'll be on your own all the way down the line.'

Harry looked at him with those totally honest, incredibly innocent eyes of his and said, 'On my own? Not really, Darcy. I have a great many friends in a great many places, and they've never once let me down.'

Darcy looked at him and thought: God, yes! It's just that I keep forgetting who - what - you are.

Manolis didn't know Harry so well, however. 'Friends?' the Greek said, having missed the point of the exchange. 'In Hungary, Romania?'

Harry looked at him. 'There, too,' he said, and shrugged. 'Wherever.' He stood up. 'I'm going to my room now. I have to try and contact some people...'

'Wherever?' Manolis repeated him, after he had gone.

Darcy nodded, and for all the drowsy Mediterranean heat he shivered. 'Harry's friends are legion,' he explained. 'Right across the world, the graveyards are full of them.'

Harry tried again to contact Möbius, with as little success as the teeming dead allies whom his Ma had recruited to that same task. He tried to speak with Faethor, too - to check on a certain piece of advice that the extinct vampire had given him, which now seemed highly suspect - and was likewise frustrated; it must be the scorching heat of the midday sun, shimmering in Romania just as it shimmered here, which deterred Faethor's Wamphyri spirit. Disappointed, finally Harry reached out with his thoughts to touch the Rhodes asylum, where Trevor Jordan now lay in the morgue, peaceful in the wake of his travails and well beyond the torments of the merely physical world. There, at last, he was successful.

Is that you, Harry? Jordan's dead voice was at first tinged with anxiety, then relief as he saw that he was correct. But of course it is, for who else could it be? And eagerly: Harry, I'm glad you've come. I want you to know that it wasn't me. I mean, that I could never have -