Deadspawn

The old mystic's thoughts were one huge, astonished question mark.

'But you know, among the dead are those mathematicians who could benefit greatly from your knowledge.'

What, mine? I am an infant!

'Not a bit of it. You stuck to pure number. Why, in two thousand and more years, by now you're a lightning calculator! May I test you?'

By all means - but please, a simple thing. Not the dizzy designs inscribed upon your secret mind.

'Then give me the sum of all the numbers between one and one hundred, inclusive.'

Five thousand and fifty, Pythagoras's answer had been instantaneous.

'A lightning calculator,' Harry had been right. 'Among the less practical mathematicians - the theoretical mathematicians - why, you'd be like a talking slide-rule! I think that for a dead man you've a great future, Pythagoras.'

But it was such a simple thing. The Greek had been flattered. And known by heart. Multiplication, division, addition and subtraction - aye, and trigonometry, too -I've done it all so often. There isn't an angle I can't calculate.

There you are.' Harry had smiled. And, however drily: 'Believe me, there aren't many today who know all the angles.'

And you, Harry? Are you a lightning calculator? Harry hadn't wished to shatter him. 'Ah, but with me it's different, intuitive.'

Between one and a million, then!

'500,000,500,000,' the Necroscope had answered almost in the same breath. 'Take ten and multiply it by itself as many times as you like, and it works every time. Half of ten is five; put the two halves together again: 55. Half of a hundred is fifty, put the halves together: 5,050. And so on. "Magic" to some, intuition to me.'

Pythagoras had been downcast. Why would they need me when they already have you?

'Because, as I've stated, I may not be here too long. It's like you said: the world is a small place. And it's hard to find a hiding place.'

On the outskirts of Tigani he'd found a small taverna and seated himself in its shade, and ordered ouzo with a dash of lemonade. English girls splashed in the warm, blue waters of a small, rocky bay. Their breasts were shiny and Harry could smell the oil of coconut from here. Pythagoras had picked the picture from Harry's mind and scowled at it. Perhaps it's as well I'm unbodied to stay, he'd commented, darkly. Like vampires, they deplete a man.

For a moment the Necroscope had been caught off guard, but then: 'Ah!' he'd answered. 'But there are vampires and there are vampires...'

4

Someone Dying

The Necroscope's vampire - as yet a mere tadpole of alien, parasitic contamination - was immature. As such it had no desire for conflict either internal or external but wished only to evolve and get on with the long process of its host's conversion; which was why its influence was mainly enervating. Keep Harry mentally and emotionally drained, and he'd be less likely to jeopardize himself. Which by definition meant that he'd be less likely to jeopardize his horrific tenant. Hence his flashes of Wamphyri-awareness (half-glimpsed knowledge of burgeoning, ungovernable Power) and the burning need to argue and cross-examine, even to engage his own mind in long spells of intense self-inquisition, despite the bouts of inwardly-directed anger and mental exhaustion which invariably resulted.

But quite apart from the Necroscope's mind, his blood was also aware that the invader was here; it seemed filled with a weird psychic fever which kept him jumpy and constantly on guard. He was a man with a volcano inside him, which for now merely simmered and let off a little steam. Not knowing when the volcano was set to go off, he couldn't relax but must hold the cap firmly in place, and listen with a rapt, horrified and yet curious intentness to the rumbling within.

On the one hand Harry would like to test out his Wamphyri talents to the full (for they were part of him even now, while yet the physical side of the thing was still embryonic) but on the other he knew that to do so would be to accelerate the process. For one thing was certain: however immature his symbiont might be, it was also fast-growing and fast-learning. No slow starter, this vampire.

But while the parasite like all its kind would be dogged, the Necroscope was no less tenacious in his own right. His son had managed to keep his vampire in order, hadn't he? Like son, like father: Harry would do his damnedest to follow suit.

Except that would be hard enough in itself without the current recalcitrance of the Great Majority... and the knowledge or at least strong suspicion that E-Branch was gearing itself for war... and the fact that despite all of this Harry had determined to bring a certain fiend to justice but first must find him.

Previously he would have been able to work out a logical system of approach, like writing down an order of priorities. But his mental confusion and the weariness it produced obfuscated, so that while he was aware of the passage of time and of forces mobilizing against him, still he felt incapable of rising above and proceeding beyond his personal miasma. Which in turn brought frustration, more anger, and the first gale warnings that his whirling, gusting emotions craved physical release.

Like an alien autism incapable of self-expression, Harry could feel his violence lying just beneath the surface. His violence, yes, for the vampire in him was neither violent nor emotional: it merely amplified these properties in its host.

Perhaps most frustrating of all, he knew that none of the things he was doing - or would do if he felt capable -was of the slightest importance to his own personal survival. Another in his position might seek to change his identity, find a safe place, extricate himself permanently from all dangerous sources and focuses.

Or would he? Would he even be able to? For as Harry had pointed out to Pythagoras, the world is a small place.

And by definition any other in Harry's position would likewise be Wamphyri and territorial. This was his world; this house not far from Edinburgh was his house; especially his thoughts and actions were his territory -most of them, most of the time - at least when others weren't snooping on them.

Yesterday he had gone to the ruins of the Castle Ferenczy and spoken to Bodrogk the Thracian. Bodrogk was too recent a friend to have known Harry before the start of his transition; he accepted him for what he was now. Also, Bodrogk was fearless and in any case could not possibly fear the Necroscope, nor for that matter any other living man. His dust, and the dust of his wife Sofia, was scattered to the winds and only their spirits remained in the Carpathians now. They were quite beyond earthly harm.

The subject of Harry's inquiry had been the composition and proportions of the chemical ingredients of Janos Ferenczy's necromantic potions. He would retrieve Trevor Jordan and Pe

And so today Harry had been ready to become a true necromancer in his own right, and would have proceeded... but at the last moment he'd felt that twinge, that covert tweaking at the corner of his mind, which had warned him that Geoffrey Paxton was close by and watching him. Knowing that Paxton was seeking to prove just such u