Necroscope

And was it to be like that all over again? And himself the lusting, slavering beast?

Impossible! He couldn't!

He heard the creak of a stair down in the bowels of the guesthouse, flew to the window and stared wild-eyed out into the night. Another creak, closer, sent him flying to the light switch. She was out there, on the landing, coming to his door!

A gust of wind moaned into the room, billowing the curtains, striking at - into - Dragosani's heart. In a moment all fear, all uncertainty was gone. He stepped out of the moonlight into shadow and waited.

The door opened silently and she came in. Trapped in a shaft of moonlight the grey veil-like garment she wore was almost transparent. She closed the door behind her, moved towards the bed.

'Herr Dragosani?' she said, her voice trembling just a little.

'I'm here,' he answered from the shadows.

She heard but didn't look his way. 'So ... I was wrong about you,' she said, raising her arms and drawing off the gauzy shift. Her breasts and buttocks were marble where the moon caressed them.

'Yeesss,' he whispered, stepping forward.

'Well,' now she turned to him, 'here I am!'

She stood like a statue carved of milk, gazing at him with nothing at all of i

The night suited him. In the night his eyes were feral -like those of a great wolf. And as he bore her down on to the bed, only then did she feel the first niggling doubt in the back of her mind. His strength was - enormous!

'I was very, very wrong about you,' she said.

'Aahhh!' said Dragosani.

The following morning, Dragosani called for his breakfast early. He took it in his room, where Hzak Kinkovsi found him looking (and feeling) more fully alive than he had thought possible. The country air must really agree with him. Use, on the other hand, was not so fortunate.

Dragosani didn't need to enquire after her: her father was full of it, grumbling to himself as he served up a substantial breakfast on a tray. That woman,' he said, 'my Use, is a good strong girl - or should be. But ever since her operation - ' and he had shrugged.

'Her operation?' Dragosani had tried not to seem too interested.

'Yes, six years ago. Cancer. Very bad for a young girl. Her womb. So, they took it away. That's good, she lives. But this is farming country. A man wants a wife who'll give him children, you know? So, she'll be an old maid -maybe. Or perhaps she'll go and get a job in the city. Strong sons are not so important there.'

It explained something, possibly. 'I see,' Dragosani nodded; and, carefully: 'But this morning...?'

'Sometimes she doesn't feel too good, even now. Not often. But today she really isn't up to much. So, she stays in her room for a day or two. Curtains drawn, dark room, all wrapped up in her bed, shivering. Just like when she was a little girl and sick. She says she doesn't want a doctor, but - ' he shrugged again. ' - I worry about her.'

'Don't,' said Dragosani. 'I mean, don't worry about her.'

'Eh?' Kinkovsi looked surprised.

'She's a full-grown woman. She'll know what's best for her. Rest, quiet, a nice dark room. Those are the right things. They're all I need when I'm a bit down.'

'Hmm! Well, perhaps. But still it's worrying. And a lot of work to be done, too! The English come today.'

'Oh?' Dragosani was glad that the other had changed the subject. 'Maybe I'll meet them tonight.'

Kinkovsi nodded, looked gloomy. He gathered up the empty tray. 'Difficult. I don't know a lot of English. What I know I learned from tourists.'

'I know some English,' said Dragosani. 'I can get by.'

'Ah? Well, at least they'll be able to talk to someone. Anyway, they bring good money - and money talks, eh?' he managed a" chuckle. 'Enjoy your breakfast, Herr Dragosani.'

'I'm sure I will.'

Begi

By midday Dragosani had driven into Pitesti. He did not know why exactly, except that he remembered the town had a small but very comprehensive reference library. Whether or not he would have gone to the library - or what he would have done there - is academic. The question did not arise for he was not given the chance to go there; the local police found him first.

Alarmed at first and imagining all sorts of things (worst of all, that he had been watched and followed, and that his secret - concerning the old devil in the ground - had been discovered), he calmed down as soon as he found out what the trouble really was: that Gregor Borowitz had been trying to track him down since the day he left Moscow and finally had succeeded. It was a wonder Dragosani hadn't been stopped at the border where he'd crossed into Romania at Reni. The local law had tracked him to lonestasi, from there to Kinkovsi's, finally to Pitesti. In fact it was his Volga they'd tracked: there weren't many of those in Romania. Not with Moscow plates.

Finally the policeman in charge of the patrol vehicle which had stopped him apologised for any inconvenience and gave Dragosani a 'message' - which was simply Borowitz's Moscow telephone number, the secure line. Dragosani went with them at once to the police station and phoned from there.

On the other end of the line, Borowitz came right to the point: 'Boris, get back here a.s.a.p.'

'What is it?'

'A member of the staff at the American embassy has had an accident while touring. A fatal accident: wrecked his car and gutted himself. We haven't identified him yet - not officially, anyway - but we'll have to do it soon. Then the Americans will want his body. I want you to see him first - in your, er, specialist capacity...'

'Oh? What's so important about him?'

For some time now we've suspected him and one or two others of spying. CIA, probably. If he's one of a network, it's something we should know about. So get back quickly, will you?'

'I'm on my way.'

Back at Kinkovsi's Dragosani tossed his things into the car, paid what he owed and a little more, thanked Hzak and Maura and accepted sandwiches, a flask of coffee and a bottle of local wine. But for all that they gave him these parting gifts, it was obvious that Hzak had some misgivings about him.

'You told me you were a mortician,' he complained. 'The police laughed when I told them that! They said you're a big man in Moscow, an important man. It seems a great shame that an important man would want to make a fool out of a fellow countryman - an unimportant man!'

'I'm sorry about that, my friend,' said Dragosani. 'But I am an important man and my job is very special – and very tiring. When I come home I like to forget my work completely and just take it easy, and so I became a mortician. Please forgive me.'

That seemed to suffice; Hzak Kinkovsi gri

From behind her drawn curtains Use watched him drive away and breathed a sigh of relief. It was unlikely she'd ever meet another like him, and maybe that was as well, but...

Her bruises were blooming now but would soon fade, and anyway she could always say she had suffered a dizzy bout, tripped and fallen. The bruises would disappear, yes, but not the memory of how she had got them.

She sighed again... and shivered deliciously.

INTERVAL ONE:

On the top floor of a well-known London hotel, in a suite of private offices, Alec Kyle sat at the desk of his ex-boss and scribbled frantically in shorthand. The 'ghost' (he couldn't help thinking of it that way) which stood facing him across the desk had been speaking rapidly, in soft, well-modulated tones, for more than two and a half hours now. Kyle's wrist felt cramped; his head ached from the myriad weird pictures implanted there; he had no doubt at all but that the 'ghost' spoke the truth, the whole truth, and etc ...