The Source

Harry Jnr came down. 'Believe it or not,' he said. 'It's the truth. Oh, I'm different, all right. My mind and will are too strong for it. I have mastery over it, I have it tamed. It takes me on now and then, but I'm always ready and I always win. Or have so far, anyway. So the vampire works for me, and not the other way around. I get its strength, its powers, its tenacity. It gets a host, and that's all. But there are disadvantages, too. For one, I have to stay here on Starside, or close to Starside. The sunlight -real sunlight - would hurt me. But the main reason I stay here is because this has become my place. My place, my territory. No other shall have it!'

He looked at them with his scarlet eyes, smiled mirthlessly. 'So there you have it. And now, if you're ready...?'

'Not me,' Harry shook his head. 'I'm staying, until this is over, anyway. I didn't look for you for eight years just to leave you now.'

Harry Jnr looked at Jazz and Zek. Jazz said: 'You already have our answer.'

Trogs came shuffling out of the twilight. Their spokesman said: 'We were Lesk's creatures, and we didn't like it. We liked working for you. Without you we have nothing. We stay and fight.'

Harry Jnr's face showed his despair. The trogs may be fast learners, but they weren't much good with his weapons. Then lanterns came bobbing, together with a familiar jingling, from the direction of the Traveller dwellings.

Jazz and Zek tried to count heads; pointless, there were as many as before. Maybe eighty of them. Not a man, woman or child had run out.

'So,' said Harry Snr, looking at them all where they regrouped themselves, 'it looks like we stand and fight!'

His son could only throw up his hands in amazement. And gladness, Harry thought...

An hour later at The Dweller's armoury, Jazz Simmons had finished handing out German-made pump-action shotguns and shells to the Travellers. The armoury was well-stocked and there were weapons for everyone. There were half-a-dozen flame-throwers, too, and Travellers who had been trained in their use. Harry Jnr was there to point out that the shells for the shotguns were probably the most expensive ammunition ever made; their shot was pure silver. Though most of the equipment had been stolen (Harry Jnr made no bones about it; he believed the manufacturers were well able to stand the loss), he'd been obliged to order and buy these shells. Jazz, ever practical, had asked how they'd been paid for. With Traveller gold, he'd been told, of which this world had an abundance. The Travellers considered it pretty, and of course it was very malleable; on the other hand it was much too heavy to carry around in large amounts, and far too soft for serious metalworking. It made nice baubles, which was about as much as could be said for it!

For himself, Jazz had chosen a heavy caliber machine-gun, a Russian job firing a mix of tracer and explosive shells. The weapon could be used with a tripod or carried in both arms; it took a strong man to handle it. Jazz knew the gun and had trained with it; it was capable of laying down a deadly and shattering barrage of fire.

'But still,' he told The Dweller, 'from what I've seen of Wamphyri warriors, I'd say these things are toys.'

Harry Jnr nodded, but: The flame-throwers are not toys,' he said. 'And I assure you the Wamphyri won't like this silver shot! Still, I take your meaning. One warrior - even a dozen - but forty? Ah, but you haven't seen all my weapons!' He showed Jazz a grenade.

Jazz weighed the thing in his hand. It was as large as an orange and very heavy. He shook his head. 'I don't know this one.'

'It's American,' The Dweller told him. 'For clearing pill-boxes and foxholes. A very grim weapon: it shivers into fragments of blazing metallic phosphorus!'

Meanwhile, Harry Snr had used the Mobius Continuum (for the first time in this world) to convey two very important Travellers to a nearby peak rearing high over most of the others. They knew their job and had practiced it on many previous occasions. In a hollowed-out depression at the peak's crest, literally an 'aerie' in its own right, great mirrors had been rigged on swivels to catch the dying sun's rays and hurl them down - or up - at any attackers. The Travellers also had shotguns and bandoliers of vampire-lethal shells.

As Harry dropped off his astonished charges and prepared to return to the garden, so his keen eyes spotted something approaching in the sky. As yet it was two or three miles east of the garden, but even at that distance its size and shape made it unmistakable. A flyer, like Shaithis's mount!

The Travellers had seen it too. 'Shall we try to burn it?' they cried, springing to their mirror-weapons.

'One flyer?' Harry frowned. Instinct cautioned him against abrupt action. 'Not unless it makes an attack on the garden.'

He went back there, looked for Harry Jnr. Instead he found Zek Foener, her eyes closed where she stood facing east and slightly north, one trembling hand to her brow. 'Is something wrong, Zek?' Harry asked.

'No, Harry,' she answered, without opening her eyes. 'something's right! The Lady Karen is coming to join us.

She wants to fight on our side. She has four fine warriors, but they're holding back until she calls to them. Now... she wants to know if it's safe for her to land.' 'She's not attacking us?'

'She's joining us!' Zek repeated. 'You don't know her like I do, Harry. She's different.'

Karen was closer now, a mile at the outside but still wary, still holding off. Everyone in the garden had seen her. Jazz Simmons came hurrying, a shining brass belt dangling from the ammo-housing of his gun. 'What is it?' he said.

At the same moment The Dweller had materialized. Zek spoke to both men, told them what she'd told Harry Snr. 'Harry,' The Dweller turned to his father. 'Go and tell the Travellers to hold their fire. Let's see if she's genuine.'

Before anything else, Harry detoured straight to the peak where the Travellers ma

Karen's flyer swept closer, swooped lower, swiftly grew larger in the sky. Far behind it, four dark shapes made spurting motions across the star-sprinkled indigo of the heavens. Tiny at this distance, still everyone knew how big they really were, knew what they really were. 'Here she comes,' Zek breathed.

The flyer, turning face-on to a low night wind that moaned from the west, dropped lower. It seemed to hover for a moment, like a kite, then dipped down and uncoiled its nest of springy worm 'legs' to the earth. It bumped gently down, lowered its wings for stability. The thing parked there, swaying and nodding hugely, gazing with vacuous disinterest first at the garden, then down the sweeping ramps of the mountains to the plain, then back to the garden. Karen dismounted, came to the wall. She was dressed - or undressed - to cause consternation, as was her wont.

The two Harrys, Jazz and Zek met her there. It was Zek's impulse to hug her, but she held back. She saw that Jazz was immediately shaken, stricken by Karen's looks. Harry Snr, too: awed by Karen's beauty. It was an unearthly beauty, of course, for it was the work of her vampire. But what it had given her in looks, shape and desirability, it had taken from her in the bloody fire of her eyes. She was unmistakably Wamphyri.

Only The Dweller seemed unmoved. 'You've come to join us in the coming battle?' His voice was unemotional.

'I've come to die with you,' she answered.

'Oh? And is it that certain?'

'Certain?' she repeated him. 'If you believe in miracles, pray for one! For myself, I don't care.' And she told them her dilemma, reinforcing what Zek Foener had already made known, how whichever way she jumped the Wamphyri meant to be rid of her. This way ... at least I'll take a few of them with me!'