Necroscope

'Mouthpiece!' Andrei suddenly croaked, turning away and stumbling blindly across the floor of the observation cell. 'My God, my God - the mouthpiece!'

Borowitz closed his eyes. Tough as he was he could not watch. He had seen it all before and remembered it only too well.

Moments passed: Mikhail in his corner, trembling -Andrei across the room, his back to the screen - and their superior with his eyes tightly shut, squeezed down in his chair. Then -

The scream that came over the speaker was one to shatter the strongest nerves, indeed a scream to raise the dead. It was full of horror, full of monstrous knowledge, full of ... outrage? Yes, outrage - the cry of a wounded carnivore, a vengeful beast. And hot on its heels - chaos!

As the scream subsided Borowitz's eyes shot open, his heavy eyebrows forming a peaked tent over them. For an instant he sat there, a startled owl, nerves jumping, fingers clawing at the arms of his chair. Then he gave a hoarse shout, threw up an arm before his face, hurled his heavy body backward. His chair crashed over, allowing him to roll clear, protected by the chair to the left, as the screen caved inward in a shower of glass and small, buckling strips of lead. A large hole had appeared in the screen, with the legs of the steel chair from the other room protruding half-way through. The chair was snatched back out of sight - and again driven forward, smashing out the rest of the small panes and sending fragments of glass flying everywhere.

'Swine!' Dragosani's shriek came from both the speaker and the shattered screen. 'Oh, you swine, Gregor Borow­ itz! You poisoned him - an agent to rot his brain - and now, you bastard, now I have tasted that same poison'

From behind the outraged, hate-filled voice came Dra gosani himself, to stand outlined for a moment in a frame of jagged, dangling glass teeth, before hurling himself across the table and tumbled chairs at Borowitz where he floundered on the floor. In his hand something glittered, silver against the grey of his flesh.

'No!' Borowitz boomed, his bullfrog voice loud with terror in the confines of the small room. 'No, Boris, you're mistaken. You're not poisoned, man!'

'Liar! I read it in his dead brain. I felt his pain as he died. And now that stuff is in me!' Dragosani leapt on to Borowitz where he fought to struggle to his feet, bore him down again, raised high the sickle shape of silver in his clenched fist.

The man called Mikhail had been flapping in the background like a wind-torn scarecrow, but now he came forward, his hand reaching inside his overcoat. He caught Dragosani's wrist just as it commenced its downward sweep. Expert with a cosh, Mikhail applied it at precisely the correct point, just hard enough to stun. The bright steel flew from Dragosani's nerveless fingers and he fell face down across Borowitz, who managed to roll half out of the way. Then Mikhail was helping the older man to his feet, while Borowitz cursed and raved, kicking once or twice at the naked man where he lay groaning. Up on his feet, he pushed his junior away and began to dust himself down - but in the next moment he saw the cosh in Mikhail's hand and understood what had happened. His eyes flew open in shock and sudden anxiety.

'What?' he said, his mouth falling open. 'You struck him? You used that on him? Fool!'

'But Comrade Borowitz, General, he - '

Borowitz cut him off with a snarl, pushed with both hands at Mikhail's chest and sent him staggering. 'Dolt! Idiot! Pray he is unharmed. If there's any god you believe in, just pray you haven't permanently damaged this man. Didn't I tell you he's unique?' He went down on one knee, grunting as he turned the stu

'Lights!' the old General snapped then. 'Let's have them up full. Andrei, don't just stand there like - ' he paused, stared about the room as Mikhail turned up the lights. Andrei was not to be seen and the door of the room stood ajar. 'Cowardly dog!' Borowitz growled.

'Perhaps he has gone for help,' Mikhail gulped. And continued: 'Comrade General, if I had not hit Dragosani he would have - '

'I know, I know,' Borowitz growled impatiently. 'Never mind that now. Help me get him into a chair.'

As they lifted Dragosani up and lowered him into a chair he shook his head, groaned loudly and opened his eyes. They focused on Borowitz's face, narrowing in accusation. 'You!' he hissed, trying to straighten up but failing.

, 'Take it easy,' said Borowitz. 'And don't be a fool, if you're not poisoned. Man, do you think I would so readily dispose of my most valuable asset?' 'But he was poisoned!' Dragosani rasped. 'Only four days ago. It burned his brain out and he died in agony, thinking his head was melting. And now the same stuff is tin me! I need to be sick, quickly! I have to be sick!' He struggled frantically to get up.

Borowitz nodded, held him down with a heavy hand, gri

Mikhail was staring, gaping like a man who hears something he can't believe. 'What is this?' he asked. 'How can he possibly know that we poisoned the Second in Command of the - '

'Be quietagain Borowitz rounded on him. 'That loose tongue of yours will choke you yet, Mikhail Gerkhov!'

'But -'

'Man, are you blind? Have you learned nothing?'

The other shrugged, fell silent. It was all beyond him, completely over his head. He had seen many strange things since he'd been transferred into the branch three years ago - seen and heard things he would never have believed possible - but this was so far removed from anything else he'd experienced that it defied reason.

Borowitz had turned back to Dragosani, had clasped his neck where it joined his shoulder. The naked man was merely pale now, neither leaden grey nor fleshy pink but pale. He shivered as Borowitz asked him: 'Boris, did you get his name? Think now, for it's very important.'

'His name?' Dragosani looked up, looked sick.

'You said he was close to me, the man who plotted my assassination with that gutted dog in there. Who is he, Boris? Who?'

Dragosani nodded, narrowed his eyes, said: 'Close to you, yes. His name is ... Ustinov!'

'Wha-?' Borowitz straightened up, realisation dawning.

'Ustinov?' Mikhail Gerkhov gasped. 'Andrei Ustinov? Is that possible?'

'Very possible,' said a familiar voice from the doorway. Ustinov stepped through it, his thin face lined and drawn, a submachine-gun cradled in his arms. He directed the weapon's muzzle ahead of him, carelessly aimed it at the other three. 'Definitely possible.'

'But why?' said Borowitz.

"But isn't that obvious, "Comrade General"? Wouldn't any man who'd been with you as long as I have, want to see you dead? Too many long years, Gregor, I've suffered your tantrums and rages, all your petty little intrigues and stupid bullying. Yes, and I served you loyally - until now. But you never liked me, never let me in on anything. What have I been - what am I even now but a cipher of J yourself, a despised appendage? Well, you'll be pleased to note that I am, after all, an apt pupil. But your deputy? No, I was never that. And I should step aside for this upstart?' he nodded sneeringly towards Gerkhov.