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He would get to his feet. Even broken, shattered, cut to ribbons, he would flee from the hell of it. But Pamela's dead friends fell or flopped on him and bore him down, and a hand that shed rotting flesh and maggots stoppered his mouth. Then she came to him and searched among his rags, until she found his new knife. And close up like that - badly gone into corruption though she was, even with the flesh begi
You remember that good time we had? she said. You didn't even say thanks, Joh
Harry turned away and shut out the sight; shut out Pound's silent, frenzied shrieking, too, from his mind. But to Pamela he said, 'Make sure you kill him.'
Except: Too late! She was weeping her frustration. Or rather, too soon! Damn the bastard, Harry, but he's already died on me!
Harry sighed his relief and thought, Just as well. She heard him and a moment later agreed:
Yes, I suppose it is. Shit, I didn't want to dirty my hands on this filth anyway!
And now Pound's deadspeak reached out to both of them, to Harry and to Pamela. What... is this? Where... am I? Who... is it out there?
Neither one of them answered him, but the sheer weight of Harry's presence impressed itself on Pound's mind like a light shining in through the stretched membrane of shuttered eyelids. He knew that Harry was there, and that he was special. It's you, right? he said. The guy with the dark glasses, with some kind of magic. You brought me here with your magic, right?
Harry knew that Pamela would probably never speak to Joh
Except... Harry had a less than merciful thing inside him, which now caused him to speak up.
You had the same magic, Joh
Found was quick to catch on. So now I'm one of them, right? I'm dead and you did it to me. But just answer me this: why?
Harry could have explained: that he'd needed to focus his Wamphyri passions on something - to have something to let them loose on - rather than people who were previously his friends; which was to say E-Branch and the world in general. He could have explained, but didn't. For his vampire wouldn't let him. Found had been the cold, cruel, uncaring one in life; death should be a cold, cruel place, too. And just as uncaring. An eye for an eye.
Why did I kill you? Harry shrugged, began to turn away.
Hey, fuckface! Found shouted after him, defiant, furious even in death. That doesn't cut it. You had your reasons, sure enough. Because of the dead? Shit! Who gives a fuck for the dead? So come on, tell me ... why?
And so - coldly, cruelly and uncaringly - Harry told him. You're right, he said. No one gives a fuck for the dead. And you, Joh
8
The Vampire Killers
Even though the Great Majority no longer trusted him, Harry had always respected them. He thanked Pamela and those of her friends who had assisted in bringing Joh
... An agonized voice - not deadspeak but telepathy, which even as he received it changed to deadspeak -reached out to him from a deserted stockyard not far from the mainline station in Darlington. It was Trevor Jordan: alive at first, then dead, turning to fused flesh, bubbling blood and charred, blackened bone as a squad of former E-Branch colleagues torched him to sticky, steaming cinders!
Trevor! Harry gasped, his own agony almost as great as the telepath's as he received the full, searing impact of his final seconds. Trevor, I'm coming - right now -just keep talking and I'll find -
No! Jordan cut him off, as all the pain of a life at its termination faded away and death's cool darkness crashed over him, laving him like an ocean wave. No, Harry, don't... don't come here. They're expecting you, and believe me they have the right gear. And anyway, you have no time. The girl, Harry, the girl!
The Necroscope understood. Of course: Pe
The Branch had been closing in on him; they had closed in on Jordan; they would close in on Pe
Trevor! Harry was torn - felt himself riven - two ways: a secondary agony, of frustration and indecision. But Jordan was right. No one should be put to such an agonizing death, and certainly not an i
You can't help me, Harry, Jordan told him, trying to make it easier for him. Not this time. You can only jeopardize your own safety - and Pe
In the Möbius Continuum, Harry still felt himself dragged apart, pulled two ways. He moaned his horror -and his anger - as he deliberately shut Jordan's deadspeak thoughts out of his mind. Later, maybe later, he'd have time to thank him for the warning. But as for now -
- Bo
He emerged along the river bank, well away from the house, emerged to a darkness shot with the crimson of his fury. Wamphyri fury! The thing within held sway; its awareness washed out from the Necroscope like human -like inhuman - radar, sca
Harry's telepathy was carried on his vampire probe. In the house, five people - five warm beings full of blood - five clever, thinking creatures, and four of them possessed of wild, weird talents. But nothing so weird as Harry's. His metaphysical mind touched upon their minds, but guardedly, so that they wouldn't suspect.
Pe
-Paxton!
Paxton the mind-flea, the previously unreachable itch, a vampire no less than Harry himself, who scorned the blood of others for the secret juices of their minds, their very thoughts. And indeed Paxton was something else: keen beyond the call of duty, zealous to a fault, vicious as the crossbow he even now held on Pe