Deadspawn

Part One

1

Charnel Knowledge

'Harry.' Darcy Clarke's voice was twitchy on the 'phone, but he was trying hard to control it. 'There's a problem we could use some help with. Your kind of help.'

Harry Keogh, Necroscope, might or might not know what was bothering the head of British E-Branch, and it might or might not have to do with him directly. 'What is it, Darcy?' he said, speaking softly.

'It's murder,' the other answered, and now his twitchi-ness came on strong, shaking his voice. 'It's bloody awful murder, Harry! My God, I never saw anything like it!'

Darcy Clarke had seen a lot in his time and Harry Keogh knew it, so that this was a statement he found hard to believe. Unless of course Clarke was talking about... 'My kind of help, you said?' Harry's attention was suddenly riveted to the 'phone. 'Darcy, are you trying to tell me - that - ?'

'What?' The other didn't understand him at first, but then he did. 'No, no - Christ, no - it's not the work of a vampire, Harry! But some kind of monster, certainly. Oh, human enough - but a monster, too.'

Harry relaxed a little, but a very little.

He'd been expecting a call from E-Branch sooner or later. This could be it: some sort of clever trap. Except... Darcy had always been his friend; Harry didn't think he would act on something - not even something like that - without checking it out every which way first. And even then Harry couldn't see Darcy coming after him with a crossbow and hardwood bolt, a machete, a can of petrol. No, he'd have to talk to him first, get Harry's side of it. But in the end...

... The head of the Branch knew almost as much about vampires as Harry did, now. And he'd know, too, that there was no hope. They'd been friends, fighting on the same side, so Harry guessed it wouldn't be Darcy's finger on the trigger. But someone's, certainly.

'Harry?' Clarke was anxious. 'Are you still there?'

'Where are you, Darcy?' Harry inquired.

The Military Police duties room, in the Castle,' the other answered at once. They found her body under the walls. Just a kid, Harry. Eighteen or nineteen. They don't even know who she is yet. That alone would be a big help. But to know who did it would be the biggest bonus of all.'

If there was one man Harry Keogh could trust, it had to be Darcy Clarke. 'Give me fifteen minutes,' he said, 'and I'll be there.'

Clarke sighed. Thanks, Harry. We'd appreciate it.'

'We?' Harry snapped. He couldn't keep the suspicion out of his voice.

'Eh?' Clarke sounded startled, taken aback. 'Why, the police. And me.'

Murder. The police. Not a Branch job at all. So what was Clarke doing on it - If it was real? 'How did you get roped in?'

And suddenly the other was... caught on the hop? Cagey, anyway. 'I ... I was up here on a "duty run", visiting an old Scottish auntie. Something I do once in a blue moon. She's been on her last legs for ten years now but won't lie down, keeps on tottering around! I was scheduled to go back down to HQ today, but then this came up. It's something the Branch has been trying to help the police with, a set of - God! - gruesome serial murders, Harry.'

An old Scottish auntie? It was the first time Harry had heard of Darcy's old auntie. On the other hand, this had to be a good opportunity to find out if they knew anything about... about his problem. Harry knew he would have to be careful: he knew too much about E-Branch just to go walking right into something. Yes, and they knew too much about him. But maybe they didn't know everything. Not yet, anyway.

'Harry?' Clarke's voice came back again, ti

'On the esplanade, at the top of the Royal Mile,' the Necroscope growled. 'And Darcy...'

'Yes?'

'... Nothing. We'll talk later.' He replaced the telephone in its cradle and went back to his breakfast in the kitchen: an inch-thick steak, raw and bloody!

To look at, Darcy Clarke was possibly the world's most nondescript man. Nature had made up for this physical anonymity, however, by giving him an almost unique talent. Clarke was a deflector: he was the opposite of accident-prone. Only let him get close to danger and something, some parapsychological guardian angel, would intervene on his behalf. Which meant that if all of Clarke's similarly ESP-talented team of psychics were photographs, he'd be the only negative. He had no control over the thing; he was aware of it only on those occasions when he stared deliberately in the face of danger.

The talents of the others - telepathy, scrying, foretelling, oneiromancy, lie-detecting - were more pliable, obedient, applicable: but not Clarke's. It just did its own thing, which was to look after him. It had no other use. But because it ensured his longevity, it made him the right man for the job. The anomaly was this: that he himself didn't quite believe in it until he felt it working. He still switched off the current before he'd even change a light-bulb! But maybe that was just another example of the thing at work.

To look at him then, no one would suppose that Clarke could ever be the boss of anything, let alone head of the most secret branch of the British Secret Services. Middle-height, mousy-haired, with something of a slight stoop and a small paunch, and middle-aged to boot, he was middling in just about every way. He had sort of neutral-hazel eyes in a face not much given to laughter, and an intense mouth which you might remember if you remembered nothing else, but other than that there was a general facelessness about him which made him instantly forgettable. The rest of him, including the way he dressed, was... medium.

These were Harry Keogh's perfectly mundane thoughts in the few seconds which ticked by after he stepped out of the metaphysical Möbius Continuum on to the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, and saw Darcy Clarke standing there with his back to him, hands thrust deep in the pockets of his overcoat, reading the legend on a brass plaque above a seventeenth-century drinking trough.

The iron fountain, depicting two heads, one ugly and the other beatific, stood:

... Near the site on which

many witches were burned at the

stake. The wicked head and serene

head signify that some used exceptional

knowledge for evil purposes, while others

were misunderstood and wished their

kind nothing but good.

The bright May day would be warm but for the gusting wind; the esplanade was almost empty; two dozen or so tourists stood in small groups at the higher end of the broad, walled, tarmac plateau, looking down across the walls at the city, or taking photographs of the great grey fortress - the Castle on the Rock - behind its facade of battlements and courtyards. Harry had arrived in the moment after Clarke, vainly sca

A moment ago Clarke had been alone with his thoughts and no living person within fifty feet of him. But now a soft voice behind him said: 'Fire is an indiscriminate destroyer. Good or evil, everything burns when it's hot enough.'

Clarke's heart jumped into his throat. He gave a massive start and whirled about, the colour rushing from his face and leaving him pale in a moment. 'Ha-Ha-Harry!' he gasped. 'God, I didn't see you! Where did you spring - ?' But here he paused, for of course he knew where Harry had sprung from... because the Necroscope had taken him there once, into that every-where and -when place, that within and without, which was the Möbius Continuum.